A.M. Links: Same Contractor Vetted Snowden and Navy Yard Shooter, Al Qaeda-Linked Rebels in Syria Shifting Focus, Rand Paul Says Filibuster May Not Stop Budget With Obamacare Funding

Credit: CSPAN

• USIS, a contractor currently being investigated by the feds for possible criminal violations relating to its oversight of background checks, vetted NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis.   
• The Western-backed Syrian opposition group the Syrian National Coalition has said that rebels with links to Al Qaeda are shifting their focus from fighting the Assad regime to controlling rebel territories.
• Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has questioned whether a filibuster could stop Obamacare funding. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said that he will filibuster any budget that includes funding for Obamacare.
• The Israeli prime minister's office has released a statement urging the world not to be fooled by Iran's "charm offensive." In a recent interview for NBC Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran was not seeking a nuclear weapon.
• Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), who according to the Center for Responsive Politics is worth between $3 million and $7.6 million as of 2011, complained about his $172,000 salary during a meeting with congressional Republicans on the treatment of lawmakers and their staff under Obamacare.
• The House has voted to cut about $4 billion a year from the food stamp program.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), who according to the Center for Responsive Politics is worth between $3 million and $7.6 million as of 2011, complained about his $172,000 salary...

He doesn't get paid enough to hang around with his type all day, three days a week, for some of the year.

[Snark Plissken]

Have you seen housing prices in DC lately? Like gag me with a spoon.

[CatoTheElder]

Boo effin' hoo.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I make well less than 1/2 that and I manage to live in a reasonable safe neighborhood with a decent amount of space. But lemme guess - this Gingrey douche wants to live in Georgetown. Feels it's his due.

[Killazontherun]

I once got mooned on the streets of Georgetown by a pretty little drunken thing.

[Brett L]

I'm pretty sure they get a pretty generous travel and housing allowance atop the salary.

[Jon Lester]

Gingrey is often prone to say foolish things, and to misspeak when he has a valid point, the latter of which is the case here, I think. Comedy is all in the delivery, you know.

He's right that some staffers end up at K Street in a few years. As for the ones who are fresh out of college and "only" making ~$20k? Big deal. The rest of us have had to do what we could at various times in our lives. No one's forcing these kids to make the same lifestyle choices as their peers.

[Marc F Cheney]

In all seriousness: if he doesn't think he gets paid enough, he should quit, just like a regular human being.

[Azathoth!!]

Talk about selective editing- from NRO--

Then Representative Phil Gingrey spoke up. Gingrey has led the charge in the House to end the subsidy, introducing the "No Special Treatment for Congress Act" and joining Vitter on a letter to OPM questioning whether its ruling is legal.

The Georgia Republican, whose latest personal financial-disclosure forms show his net worth is at least $3 million, had little sympathy for lawmakers and even less for staff.

Capitol Hill aides, he said "may be 33 years old now and not making a lot of money. But in a few years they can just go to K Street," the Washington, D.C., vernacular for becoming a lobbyist, "and make $500,000 a year. Meanwhile I'm stuck here making $172,000 a year."

The comment incensed some of the GOP aides in the room, two of whom relayed Gingrey's comments to me. One person noted that many lower-rung congressional aides make relatively low wages and have no real expectation of a future cash-out.

In a phone interview, Gingrey said he does not remember exactly what he said, but his point was that "it is completely unfair for members of Congress and Hill staffers to get this special treatment that the general public are not getting."

Far from being an elitist ass--he's going after elitist asses.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The House has voted to cut about $4 billion a year from the food stamp program.

Well, we are in the summer of recovery.

[Rich]

Oh, SNAP!

[Swiss Servator, Spare a Franc?]

What you did there, I saw it.

[sarcasmic]

Infamous pro-gun cop fired over 'F**k all the Libtards' Youtube video

Mark Kessler posted foul-mouthed Youtube videos ranting about gun rights
He was suspended for 30 days by Gilberton Borough Council in July
Now the council has voted to fire him for his role in the community
Kessler was backed by pro-gun supporters at the meeting yesterday

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....video.html
Cops kill innocent people and keep their jobs. Cop supports the 2A and disses on liberals... fired.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Several Kessler supporters showed up at the hearing yesterday, most were members of his 'Constitution Security Force' - his pro-gun group. One member got into an argument with an opponent, according to the news service.

See, the gun nut got into an argument with the gun control advocate, because it couldn't possibly have been the other way around.

[Raven Nation]

Good catch. I would have missed that. It's amazing how the narrative informs everything.

[sarcasmic]

You don't understand. Tolerant people do not have to tolerate intolerance. Gun nuts are intolerant. So by starting an argument with the gun nut, the gun controller was being tolerant. See? The more intolerant of intolerance (anyone who disagrees with them) a tolerant person is, the more tolerant they are!

[Zeb]

I think getting into an argument really has to be a mutual thing, no? I think maybe you are reading a bit too much into that.

[Killazontherun]

He doesn't sound like a good fit for the 'new professionalism', anyway.

[sarcasmic]

Coca-Cola apologises after customer finds 'YOU RETARD' printed inside bottle cap
Blake Loates, from Alberta, Canada, was shocked to read the insulting profanity as she drank from the low-calorie fruit drink
She has two half sisters born premature who suffer varying disabilities
Her father wrote to Coca-Cola underlining how offensive it was to the family
Coca-Cola apologised, blamed a contest which prints French and English words on the bottom of some lids of the drink

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....e-cap.html
Ha ha!

[Jordan]

"Profanity"

Really? What a pussy.

[mr simple]

the "R" word

I had to sit through a talk once in a public speaking course where a girl told us about how terrible it is to say retarded. She actually compared it to the "n word" and said it was not acceptable in any form (noun, verb, etc.). I really wanted to ask her if she preferred we use the clinical terms of idiot, imbecile, and moron, among other things, but we didn't get a Q&A period after speeches. And to compare it to a racial slur that has never had any other connotation is just retarded.

[Stormy Dragon]

A better comparison would be the word "negro"; a word that was once the preferred term, but is not considered extremely inappropriate.

[Killazontherun]

And to compare it to a racial slur that has never had any other connotation is just retarded.

Well, that's not really true. 'Nigger' is just Dutch for black. It developed as a pejorative as their culture became more steeped in the slave trade. To say it only has meaning as a racial slur is a bit imperious given it is commonly used between blacks to designate fraternity. For correct modern usage I suggest viewing Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. He is a first rate observer of cultural norms and changes in them. Note his character asks about the dead nigger, but he doesn't call Jackson's character a nigger, not only would that have been suicidal, but more importantly, a social faux pas, as he is not a member of the club.

[sgs]

"Well, that's not really true. 'Nigger' is just Dutch for black"

Neither is that.

[Killazontherun]

It's never too late to correct a miscorrection --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger

In the Colonial America of 1619, John Rolfe used negars in describing the African slaves shipped to the Virginia colony.[2] Later American English spellings, neger and neggar, prevailed in a northern colony, New York under the Dutch, and in metropolitan Philadelphia's Moravian and Pennsylvania Dutch communities; the African Burial Ground in New York City originally was known by the Dutch name "Begraafplaats van de Neger" (Cemetery of the Negro); an early US occurrence of neger in Rhode Island, dates from 1625.[3]

[Zeb]

Well, they are Canadian.

[Brett L]

So calling people "slow" is better?

[sarcasmic]

Challenged! They're challenged!

[gaijin]

Trans-abled

[Marshall Gill]

Special

[Rich]

Cis-special

[CatoTheElder]

How insensitive!

They are special.

[Citizen Nothing]

Differently special

[Swiss Servator, Spare a Franc?]

Differentially abled.

[Zeb]

So calling people "slow" is better?

Well it is pretty much synonymous with "retarded".

I can see why using "retard" would bother people with mental hadicaps. Especially since it has become such a common word to call people who you think are stupid. When a word is used as a general insult, you can't really expect people to just accept its use with the original, non-insulting meaning. But maybe disabled people and their advocates should just stop thinking that it always refers to them, since it is almost always used to call non-disabled people stupid nowadays.

[sgs]

"I can see why using "retard" would bother people with mental hadicaps."

From up close I'm sure.

[R C Dean]

I prefer "management material".

[Fist of Etiquette]

She's not slow, she's just Canadian.

[Ted S.]

Dammit! I was going to post that story. Unfortunately, H&R pushes so much anti-social networking shit down the pipe that it takes the page forever to load on my end.

Frankly, if I got a bottle cap like that, I'd laugh.

[sarcasmic]

Firefox with Adblock Plus

[robc]

Adblock, scriptsafe, whatever. Plenty of tools to do the job.

[Jordan]

Shh. You'll spoil his "GET OFF MY LAWN" routine.

[Ted S.]

I already tried Ghostery and that slowed down the browser even worse.

I installed Adblock Plus about 20 minutes ago, and after posting a comment elsewhere in the thread, the browser froze for four minutes trying to download something from Facebook. I mashed and mashed on the Escape key, and since then, H&R has been trying to push shit from oauth.googleusercontent.com and accounts.google.com at me.

Doesn't seem to be working. 🙁

[mr simple]

Then you're doing something wrong. I'm using ghostery and ABP on a chrome clone (cool-novo) and my pages load instantly. Have you tried something better than a dial-up connection or having more than 1GB of RAM in your computer?

[Jordan]

This is how I envision Ted's browser.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I LOLed

[UnCivilServant]

My combination of AdBlock and NoScript does wonders for letting me keep those intrusive anti-social media pages out of my browsing. I out an allow on reason and a forbid on them, and they don't try anything anymore.

[mauricegirodias]

Ya also need Do Not Track. Then H&R is smooth.

[Jon Lester]

I'd auction it on eBay with a high reserve.

[Bee Tagger]

Coca-Cola apologised, blamed a contest which prints French and English words on the bottom of some lids of the drink

Yeah, they meant to call some frog a retard.

[mr simple]

"I moved here from Canada and they think I'm slow, eh?"

[RightofCenter]

This likely won't get read since the AM links are old news now, but I have one. A retarded kid, I mean. He's retarded in the clinical sense, although due to the sensibilities mentioned above everyone replaces "retarded" with "delayed." My wife and I both freely used retarded before we had him, and we still use it now. The funny thing is, just about no mention of retarded, retard, etc. goes by without either of us thinking of him. Not that we get offended, it's just that the two are inextricably linked.

I only recently noticed that RETARD has been part of my professional vocab for years. Only there we don't say ree-tard like the insult, we use the verb reh-tard' WRT throttles. (hard to type pronunciation when you don't know how to make a schwa symbol).

Anyway none of this matters a hill of beans to anyone. I just woke up after a late work night and tragically read not only a WaPo editorial supporting big O and his signature achievement, but I read some comments too. I needed to come here right away to rinse out my brain.

[sarcasmic]

Ads urge college students to 'opt out' of Obamacare with 'Creepy Uncle Sam' performing pelvic exam, prostate check

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....-exam.html
Liberals are pissed.

[gaijin]

'These are the same extreme Koch-funded political groups who have tried to pass transvaginal ultrasound laws and other laws allowing politicians to interfere with people's personal medical decisions'

Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes!

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

The Kocktopus looms!

[Isaac Bartram]

What makes that funny is that David Koch is pro-choice.

[Brett L]

I've seen some ranting by some mid-30s female friends (who almost certainly have HPV vaccinations) about their female docs telling them they could go multiple years between pap smears. They seem offended that the inevitable result of making insurance more expensive is fewer examinations.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I'd like to examine her too.

[mr simple]

Yeah. Providing 30 million uninsured with health insurance, doing away with pre-existing conditions insurance bans, no more lifetime caps, lower prescription drugs costs for seniors, expansion of Medicaid, longer coverage options for young adults who go to college, and more funds for community health centers. Oh and I forgot substantial savings to our federal treasury. You're right. The horror of all of that! What rational person would want?
- Lee Martin , Lexington, United States, 20/9/2013 07:53

Wow, these people just bought into this thing hook, line and sinker, without any evidence to back it up.

[sarcasmic]

Government can create value out of thin air! It's magic!

[Raven Nation]

Yeah, I never really got that. I would say to my pro-Obamacare friends: OK, put aside an philosophical argument about whether or not government should be involved in healthcare. What we're being told is that we are going to offer more coverage to more people, remove the pre-existing condition clause AND spend less money on health care. How does that happen. Answers ranged from "government doesn't have to make excess profit" through "cutting waste" to crickets.

[sarcasmic]

That whole profit things reveals the willful ignorance of basic economics that liberals wear like a badge of honor. They really don't understand that profit motive results in reduced costs, and that government with no profit motive is the most wasteful way to accomplish anything.

[#]

Nor do they understand how small of a percent of sales profits for most firms are. Cause you known, competition drives profits down.

Liberals somehow think most of the price of something is some company's profits.

[sarcasmic]

They look at total profits, not margins. And they don't care either. They know what they feel, and no amount of facts, logic or reason will change it.

So what if the government makes more off a gallon of gas than the oil companies? The oil companies are making billions of dollars and it's not fair! So what if those billions of dollars come from pennies a gallon? It's not fair! It's a waste! So what if the government makes something like fifty to eighty cents per gallon while the oil company makes like five cents or something? They're making billions! It's not fair!

[mr simple]

I actually heard some "pundit" on CNBC claim that medical insurance companies were making 200% profit. The host chided her saying they don't make that much and she responded with something like, "well, 100% then, it's still enormous." Apparently no one knew enough to correct her to say the best health insurance companies are making 2-6% profit. They're able to make up facts to make these outrageous claims and no one calls them on it so people just believe this nonsense.

[Tybus]

I've also heard the "duplication of services" argument that says competing insurance companies have to pay expenses which in turn increases prices.
Stupidity has no limit.

[wwhorton]

Well, the dirty quasi-secret was that, for the plan to work, it relies on younger, healthier people paying for insurance they won't use, thereby paying for older, less healthy people. Sound like another famously efficient and not about to collapse like a flan in a cupboard social program?

Anyway, the fun part is that now it turns out everything the Obamacare supporters and the administration were trying to sell about cost savings

***SPOILER ALERT***

was complete and utter bullshit. First, because of mandatory coverage requirements, policy premiums are higher, double in many cases. Second, the EXPECTATION (all caps for shock value) is that the demographic who will be paying twice their old premiums, who, remember, are supposedly paying for the health care costs of the older and less healthy, will have to rely on subsidies from the government to afford the new premiums. And finally, best of all, it appears that those companies which were offering group insurance to employees will stop doing so because of cost increases, as UPS and others have already done, meaning that these employees will have to purchase insurance individually, which means they'll be paying yet higher costs. Which will probably be subsidized.

So, the "Affordable Care Act" will, in fact, make it dramatically more expensive in the short term, and in the long term, cost EVERYONE more as those subsidies will I'm sure not come out of the Defense budget, if you see what I mean.

[Snark Plissken]

Microsoft second largest employer of anthropologists behind US Government.

Technology groups descended on anthropology in order to understand the diverse markets they operated in. "Tech giants were really multi-local corporations," explains Mr Liebow. "They realised that if they didn't grasp the local culture they wouldn't be competitive."

Must be why everyone wants an iPhone here in Czechia, Apple's strong grasp of local culture.

[Troy muy grande boner]

Yet they didnt know that windows 8 was going to suck because no one knew how to get to their programs? Read: Killing the start button.

BTW, Windows 8 sucks.

[Snark Plissken]

I think this is conclusive evidence that cultural anthropology is a pseudo-science.

[gaijin]

cultural anthropology is a pseudo-science.

haha. If they used math, they could call it economics!

[Swiss Servator, Spare a Franc?]

Sorry, "The Dismal Science" was already taken.

[CatoTheElder]

Any field of study that denies a hypothesis solely because it does not fit an ideological presumption is a pseudo-science. Mainstream anthropology is such because it denies that the distribution of intelligence can vary among various human groups. Nobody wants to be called a racist, especially in academia, so any such hypothesis is suppressed.

[UnCivilServant]

Intelligence has a hereditary component, and if your people got the short end of the migrant lottery way back during the paleolithic, you might not be beating the median.

[robc]

It sucked for many reasons, but lack of a start button isnt really one of them.

Plenty of OSes dont have a start button.

[gaijin]

Plenty of OSes dont have a start button.

I think the difference here is that they took away something that the user base had grown accustomed to as a fundamental interface component.

[Snark Plissken]

Yup. And for no apparent reason other than FYTW.

[BakedPenguin]

This. Also, their standard trick of changing Office programs without adding much. Fuck you, Microsoft.

[Snark Plissken]

And then not making them backwards compatible.

[General Butt Naked]

Oh man, does that ever piss me off. Why move the fucking buttons and menus around for no good goddamn reason.

[Nephilium]

I think the most epic example of this was with OneNote. Microsoft released a demo of a newer version (2012 IIRC), and if you installed it on a machine that had a previous version, it would convert your OneNote files to the new version. After your 30 day trial ended, people got to learn that there was no way to roll back the conversion of the OneNote files, and the demo was no longer functional. Which meant they lost all of their notes unless they either backed up the file first, or bought the new version of OneNote.

[Bobarian]

That sounds like a shrewd marketing ploy.

[Troy muy grande boner]

But I don't have 18 years of history using those. I've had a start button since 1995. How do I get the god damn control panel? How do I turn this thing off? How the fuck do I get rid of tiles representing deleted programs? No.... this thing is a piece of shit.

[C. Anacreon]

Damn right. Hard to see how taking one of the best and easiest things Windows had going for them -- the start button -- and getting rid of it is "progress." I do everything with a mouse, and I have no interest in becoming more like a kindergartner finger-painting -- "ooh, you can just touch the screen and drag things around, oh boy!"

You'd have thought they'd be smart enough to set it up so you could still use it like it's always worked, by clicking a "fuck tiles permanently" button or something like that. There's a reason I don't have Apple products. Quit trying to be more like them!

[wwhorton]

True, but:

1. I don't use plenty of OSes, I use Windows. And sometimes Kubuntu.

2. Take the start menu away, fine. But leave me some way to find a list of installed applications without having to use a search dialog. Such as, I don't know, a Start menu.

[KDN]

I never had this problem; the first time I got to the start screen, I hit right click and noticed that it said "All Programs" at the bottom of my screen. After reading reviews on the internet, I realized that I'm some sort of prodigy.

I don't get the W8 hate; I was on a W7 machine at work for a year and a half before upgrading from late Vista on my home PC and found everything to function exactly the same as it does at work. Yeah, I'd prefer a start button, but it's not a huge loss. I'm told the start menu funtionality is a pain in the ass when using a laptop touchpad, but I would never know since I a)own a desktop and b)refuse to use the pad even if I'm on a laptop.

[Troy muy grande boner]

I realized that I'm some sort of prodigy.

Great so since you can use it, that makes it OK. My first computer was a TRS-80 color computer with 16K of RAM. I've figured out how to add a CD-Rom in DOS. Windows 3.1, Window 95, Window XP (awesome), Window vista (shit), so it isn't like I''m some kind of amateur. I'm used to modifying my experience the way I want it, and now I can't.

And that All apps screen. I have fucking redundant duplicative tiles. Tiles of deleted programs, and I have no idea how to add tiles of shit that should be there that isn't.

[Troy muy grande boner]

Oh yeah, and you can't get from that stupid fucking start up screen to the desktop unless you pick a program. What if I don't want to pick a fucking program, i just want the desktop?

[KDN]

Oh yeah, and you can't get from that stupid fucking start up screen to the desktop unless you pick a program.

Wait, seriously? There's no desktop tile on yours? Jesus, that's just, I mean, wow. Now I get why you're pissed, that's gotta be fucking annoying.

[Michael]

Oh yeah, and you can't get from that stupid fucking start up screen to the desktop unless you pick a program. What if I don't want to pick a fucking program, i just want the desktop?

Holy shit, do you not own a keyboard or a mouse featuring more than one button?

Windows key + D = desktop.

[sgs]

Look at Michael missing the point totally.

[UnCivilServant]

And that All apps screen. I have fucking redundant duplicative tiles. Tiles of deleted programs,

And I don't want tiles of any kind. They waste screen real estate and are hard for my eyes to sort through.

[KDN]

Great so since you can use it, that makes it OK.

No, it's just that the hate is overblown. It's a slight downgrade from W7.

I'm from the same day as you, my first PC was a 486 with DOS, and I'm used to customizing my experience as well. I had no issues with W8, but it could very well be because I spend a lot of time in W7 since they're very similar. Your right mouse button is your friend, use it and you should be able to figure it out. Or just stick with the desktop since, start button excepted, it's the same thing Windows has been doing since like W95.

[Ted S.]

I'm told the start menu funtionality is a pain in the ass when using a laptop touchpad, but I would never know since I a)own a desktop and b)refuse to use the pad even if I'm on a laptop.

It seems to me as though more and more sites (and OSes) are optimizing themselves for people who use fondle-screen technology. Photo galleries, for example, increasingly seem to be designe to navigate through by swiping one's finger.

[UnCivilServant]

How am I supposed to see anything on a tiny touchscreen? If I'm looking at pictures, they're on my desktop monitor, large enough to make out details.

Plus, all those fingerprints on the display make touchscreens hard to work with. (I once had it picking up my presses an inch away because of the layer of conductive skin-oils)

[wwhorton]

I work in IT, and when I'm not at work, I'm either playing video games or programming at home. Either way, I've got either a large, widescreen monitor, or a two monitor setup. I don't need 2-inch-square icons, and if a finger comes within three inches of my monitor I'm breaking it. Taking an entire screen away for navigation is a huge leap backwards in accessibility and productivity.

Besides, if I wanted a tablet I'd shoot myself.

[Rabban]

XP was the best. They should just make an anniversary edition and be done with it.

[Marc F Cheney]

I've upgraded three different applications lately, and every time something got screwed up that worked perfectly well before.

Today I'm pissed off about iOS 7 in particular.

My point is that Windows 8 sucks because upgrades suck.

[KDN]

My point is that Windows 8 sucks because upgrades suck.

Fine, I'll get off your lawn.

But yeah, I generally agree. New functionality always leads to new bugs.

[UnCivilServant]

"New Functionality" is only justified when it actually adds something. So far all I've seen is reduced usability (in both W8 and Newer Office products)

[tarran]

The latest version of Visual Studio clearly put a guy with Aspergers in charge of implementing the Metro UX guidelines.

It makes Office 2013 look positively user friendly. The ribbon taps are IN ALL CAPS IN A HARSH FONT BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT PEOPLE WANT IN THEIR PERIPHERAL VISION WHILE THEY ARE CODING!

[UnCivilServant]

Each year I am ever more glad that I work on UNIX environments.

[UnCivilServant]

*In my official capacity at work as a Government IT guy.

At home I still have my windows box for gaming purposes. I'm not a *nix snob, it's just what I work on.

[tarran]

I use Linux at home and am baffled why people shell out so much money for Windows.

I am so much more productive on a Linux machine. For the enterprise environment, they are far more configurable, far more reliable, provide a much better security model (although OpenVMS was even better at that), and there are scads of free software to handle almost everything you want to do in the office.

I once tried to cost out how much it would cost to set up a windows machine using the proprietary variants of software I normally use in the course of a week, and it came out to something like $5K I'm saving by using Linux.

My big compromise at work is using Cygwin on all my windows machines. At least I get the UNIX text tools.

[UnCivilServant]

The key thing in my statement was "for gaming" Most of my library won't run under linux. That's pretty much the whole of it.

[tarran]

I don't have that problem. Dosbox runs Yeager's Combat Flight Sim just fine, and every flight simulator sold since has been as step backward... 🙂

[Brett L]

Ooh. I'm totally getting Yeager's Flight Sim.

[wwhorton]

When Windows works, it works really well. And there are a lot of things it does as well if not better than *nix, IMHO. It's just that when it fails, it fails miserably, and it doesn't trust the user enough to allow you to customize your way out of it.

Also games, although that's less of an argument these days.

Not hating on Linux, btw, I use Ubuntu off and on and CentOS when I was working in a LAMP shop.

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

Imagine buying a new car only to find that in the current design they swapped the signal and wiper levers with each other, or maybe the gas and the brake. Also, they moved the ignition to the back seat.

You complain about it and someone tells you to fuck off and read the manual.

[UnCivilServant]

And to turn on the headlights you need to use an unfamiliar combination of radio controls.

[KDN]

Except that's far more drastic than what they did. The equivalent is swapping out a keyed ignition for a pushbutton (and yes, sticking it somewhere stupid) and installing iDrive to handle the secondary systems instead of the buttons and switches you're used to.

I get why people don't like it, but it's really not a big deal. It's also ironic that I'm the guy defending the new version of Windows when my default position in life is "change is bad, go away."

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

It's not that different. You spend fifteen years doing something a certain way and you expect it to continue. If I've been using Windows machines for as long as that I shouldn't need to dig through a manual or experiment a lot to do the basic operations.

It's bad design to change things up for no good reason.

I used to know the ins and outs of DOS but I fell out of that whole mentality so I've been on both sides of this. Telling someone "learn this keyboard shortcut" doesn't address the issue. The problem is that there was no good (for the user) reason to make the change. It didn't lower my cost, it doesn't save me time, and it doesn't improve performance.

[Bobarian]

The fucking touch-pad on my Wife's laptop with W8 is enough to make me want to hunt down some random MS engineer and violently give him the STEVE SMITH experience.

Trying to move the pointer from one side of the screen to another causes the active program to change. Getting it back involves going back to the 'Tiles' abortion and returning to the desktop or clicking the appropriate tile. I find that there are some things that I can't get to from the desktop. It is Windows ME all over again.

[SIV]

Are they counting the B.A.s who work in the cafeteria and clean the offices?

[gaijin]

USIS, a contractor currently being investigated by the feds for possible criminal violations relating to its oversight of background checks...

Who will check the backgrounds of the background checkers?

[Rich]

spokesman Ray Howell [said] "We are contractually prohibited from retaining case information gathered as part of the background checks we conduct for OPM and therefore are unable to comment further"

Sheesh, Ray, just ask NSA to help you out.

[DJF]

It does no good checking backgrounds if the cops/courts/Navy don't put anything on record that can be used. If you don't charge someone with shooting, or with disciplinary problems or hearing voices then there is nothing for the background check to find

This whole story has been a government failure all along. They papered over or even worse did not generate any paper at all concerning the problems this guy was creating. But instead of fixing the problem inside government they will blame the contractors and at the same time reduce the freedoms of the public

[Longtorso, Johnny]

This whole story has been a government failure all along.

Like the existence of evil despite God being good due to individual sin, there is no such thing as govt failure. There is only individual failure. The individuals involved failed to document the problem. Govt, and God, can only do good. Only individuals fail and do evil.

[Raven Nation]

Plus, this is a contractor. So it will be another argument that "privatizing" services fails.

[UnCivilServant]

Every contractor fail is a failure of the process for vetting contractors and contracts, thus a government failure.

Given the process we have to go through for the little agreements (non-security cnsultants because we can't hire the less expensive permanant staff we need*) I'm inclined to blame the process which is designed to believe that the inherent motive of those putting in a request is to defraud the agency (projection on the part of the policy writers)

* - Yes, the permanat staff would cost fewer tax dollars because A: we need the people more or less indefinately for the workload, and B, counting all benefits and contributions to pension fund, I cost the state less than the "dipshits you don't want to hire" bottom grade of consultants under the current process. Most of that money doesn't even go to the person who fills the seat.

[Raven Nation]

I don't disagree. I'm just saying it will be spun as a failure of the private sector.

[DJF]

But as you know the contractor was not the police/courts who failed to prosecute this guy for shooting a gun twice. Nor was the contractor the Navy who had this guy and failed to document his problems so that he would not get a security clearance , etc etc

When making a background check you can't find things in the official record unless officials put it there and officials are not contractors they are government employees.

[BigT]

The income of the typical D.C. household rose 23.3% between 2000 and 2012 to an inflation-adjusted $66,583, according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, its most comprehensive snapshot of America's demographic, social and economic trends. During this period, median household incomes for the nation as a whole dropped 6.6% ? from $55,030 to $51,371.

Because FUTW!

[DJF]

The government increases taxes or creates money out of thin air and then gives it to the government and surprise the governments capitol becomes richer.

[sarcasmic]

Ex-NFL star Brian Holloway may be sued by parents of teens who allegedly trashed his upstate NY home

http://www.nydailynews.com/spo.....-1.1462008

"Parents have threatened me," Holloway, a three-time Pro Bowler and Super Bowl XX veteran, told ABC News. "Your kids are in my house breaking and stealing my stuff and you are mad at me because I posted pictures that they took and posted themselves of them partying and tearing things up?"

Wow.

[Brett L]

Apparently, these parents are unclear on how suing him would be an admission that their little snowflakes were responsible for criminal mischief. I'll bet their lawyer will explain it all to them.

[sarcasmic]

Good point.

[DontShootMe]

I hope he can counter sue, maybe reap himself some new homes...

[Rich]

Next week's news: Ex-NFL star Brian Holloway may be sued by parents of parents of teens who allegedly trashed his upstate NY home who allegedly threatened to sue ex-NFL star Brian Holloway

[ConHugeCo]

+1 lawsuit

[Eduard van Haalen]

What a class act this guy is! Even after his house is trashed, he worries about these kids' futures, invites them over to clean up, isn't sure if he wants to sue - though the perps posted info about their activities publicly.

But, yeah, let's focus on how he humiliated these vulnerable young children by re-posting their confessions and calling on them to redeem themselves!

[WTF]

And the reaction of the parents tells you all you need to know about why their kids are such fuck-ups.

[sarcasmic]

That's what I was thinking.

[a better weapon]

How do people come up with lawsuits like this? Does a lawyer happen to see Brian Halloway's viral campaign for justice and call up the parents, or do the parents just sniff out Halloway's money and make it up themselves?

[wwhorton]

I thought that upstate was supposed to be the nice, non-Jersey Shore part of NY, where people are mostly polite, rational, and don't spawn hordes of ingrates.

Well, at least that'll simplify the question of who I spare when I lead my Righteous Horde of Vengeance into the northeast.

[jb4479]

So where does one appply to this Horde?

[Fist of Etiquette]

...vetted NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis.

How dare you group Alexis in with that traitorous dog!

[Snark Plissken]

Biometrics might let the Fed bypass 5A restrictions on divulging passwords.

Biometric authentication may make it easier for normal, everyday users to protect the data on their phones. But as wonderful as technological innovation is, it sometimes creates unintended consequences ? including legal ones. If Apple's move leads us to abandon knowledge-based authentication altogether, we risk inadvertently undermining the legal rights we currently enjoy under the Fifth Amendment.

Here's an easy fix: give users the option to unlock their phones with a fingerprint plus something the user knows.

[Ted S.]

Your fingerprint on your own device isn't an effect?

[Snark Plissken]

Fingerprints not being covered under the umbrella of knowledge you hold in your brain that could be used to incriminate yourself.

[Metazoan]

Ask Tulpa.

[WTF]

Pretty sure your fingerprint is part of your 'person', which you have a right to be secure in.

[some guy]

According to SCOTUS fingerprints are public because you leave them everywhere and therefore have no expectation of keeping them private.

Yet another reason to only use a very secure password on any of your devices.

[Cdr Lytton]

What 5A restriction on divulging passwords?

http://reason.com/24-7/2013/07.....-decryptio

[R C Dean]

The other thing about this fingerprint scanner is that the NSA will be scraping your fingerprints along with everything else.

No thanks.

[sarcasmic]

What climate change? Fewer people than EVER believe the world is really warming up

http://www.express.co.uk/news/.....warming-up

The U.S. also urged the authors to include the "leading hypothesis" that the reduction in warming is linked to more heat being transferred to the deep ocean.

Because, like, cold rises and heat sinks and stuff, you know?

[some guy]

In related news, the EPA is proposing new rules limiting CO2 "pollution" by power plants.

[mr simple]

Germany called for the reference to the slowdown to be deleted, saying a time span of 10-15 years was misleading in the context of climate change, which is measured over decades and centuries.

Also to be excluded: various ice ages and warming periods. They've got evidence going back to the 1970s, dammit!

[R C Dean]

climate change, which is measured over decades and centuries.

Funny how this wasn't an issue for the famous "hockey stick".

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Bill Clinton's ex-lover: Hillary is bisexual

[sarcasmic]

Like that's a surprise.

[Snark Plissken]

Women and farmyard animals?

[Troy muy grande boner]

Picture Hillary with a strap-on. You're Welcome.

[Snark Plissken]

I have trouble picturing her without one.

[sarcasmic]

"Is that a strap-on under your pantsuit or are you just happy to see me?"

[Snark Plissken]

Obligatory.

[SugarFree]

With a big set of mud-spattered TruckNutz hanging off of the dildo.

[gaijin]

Someone around here has a handle that evokes similar imagery.

[Eduard van Haalen]

No, she claims Bill Clinton *said* Hillary was bisexual.

Even if Billy-boy said that, do you think he's a credible source?

[gaijin]

what is the meaning of the words 'is bisexual'?

[R C Dean]

Whether I believe anything a Clinton said depends entirely on whether lying or telling the truth would advance their interests.

I'm not sure why he would lie about this, unless he wants to bolster her cred with the LBGT crew.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

...and has a penis.

[Eduard van Haalen]

This is basically a single-sourced allegation - and the source is Bill Clinton. I wouldn't exactly call it an airtight case.

[WTF]

Longtime Hillary Clinton adviser Huma Abedin disagrees.

[sarcasmic]

When I worked in Kennebunk Port in the late 90s, secret service guys assigned to the Bush family would come in and get drinks sometimes. They had some funny stories about Hillary and her perfume parties. Though they never said she was bisexual. They said she was a full-blown dyke.

[mr simple]

It's also second-hand, coming from Gennifer Flowers, who I'm sure has no reason to want to become famous and make money. That doesn't mean it's not true, of course.

[sarcasmic]

Commie canine: you've heard of the cat who looks like Hitler, now meet the dog that looks like President Putin
One Ukrainian spotted the similarity between these two images
Comparison is just the latest bizarre photo involving the premier and animals

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

[Ted S.]

Putin looks more like Norman Lloyd's bad guy in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur.

[BakedPenguin]

Poochin?

[Swiss Servator, Spare a Franc?]

*groan*

[2ndClassProle]

not as good as these

clint eastwoof and samuel l. catson

[Fist of Etiquette]

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has questioned whether a filibuster could stop Obamacare funding.

Looks like he doesn't want anyone stealing his schtick.

[#]

There are some things due to senate rules that you can't fillibuster. Budget resolutions are one of them. I'm not sure if that applies to continuing resolutions for appropriations.

[SugarFree]

Calm down, everyone. That isn't a rape scene in GTAV, it's merely naked cannibalism.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Bath salts.

[Snark Plissken]

Speaking of which.

[Adam.]

can you even find bath salts anymore? seemed like they disappeared from the internet

[sarcasmic]

Trying out a new diet? Makeup-free Kirstie Alley sports fuller figure as she parks outside vegan bakery

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....akery.html
John pron!

Seriously though, view at your own risk.

[Snark Plissken]

The cankles, my God, the cankles.

[alittlesense]

She be large and in charge.......

[anon]

Obviously you're just gay for not liking full figure women.

/john

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Hateful prof says NRA members' children should be next to die in mass shooting
In the wake of the Navy Yard shooting, a journalism professor at the University of Kansas is calling for children of NRA members to be the next people killed in a mass shooting.

David Guth, an associate professor at UK's journalism school, took to Twitter to lay the blame for the Navy Yard shooting on the shoulders of NRA members. If anyone has to die in a mass shooting, it should be their children, he said.

#NavyYardShooting The blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you.

? David Guth (@DWGuth) September 16, 2013

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Link

[Longtorso, Johnny]

His Tweets suggest that any attack on NRA members and their families would in fact be divine retribution.

@Flidais68 God's justice takes many forms.

? David Guth (@DWGuth) September 16, 2013

[Bardas Phocas]

So it would be in their interest to procure more gunz?
We'll get right on Guth.

[wwhorton]

Hmm...one might even take that to represent some sort of terrorist threat. I wonder if the DHS knows.

[gaijin]

May God damn you.

Wait, he's a professor and he believes in a God?

[SugarFree]

Only for the purposes of wishing ill on his political opponents,

[some guy]

He's a professor in Kansas.

[Auric Demonocles]

Well, this is someone who I would not feel sympathy for if he got fired for making statements he made outside of work.

[Rich]

13 people, including 3-year-old boy, shot at South Side park

Hey, Dave, is NRA responsible for *this* mass shooting?

[robc]

The attack took place about 10:15 p.m.

Why was a 3 year old playing in a park at 10:15?

[gaijin]

warming up for midnight basketball?

[some guy]

Why was a 3 year old playing in a park at 10:15?

Because Chicago.

[Swiss Servator, Spare a Franc?]

Unfortunately....^this^

[wwhorton]

The Navy Yard shooter used a shotgun of the type recommended by Joe Biden for home defense. I wonder if the asst Prof has any words regarding Mr. Biden's family.

[robc]

University of Kansas goes by KU, not UK.

I dont know why either.

UK refers to either University of Kentucky or Britain+.

[Rich]

I dont know why either.

KUTW

[Swiss Servator, Spare a Franc?]

*opera applause*

[CatoTheElder]

This reveals the heart of the American progressive.

If endowed with sufficient authority, it is a very short distance from the sentiment expressed in this tweet to gulags and killing fields.

[WTF]

Since he obviously believes in collective guilt, I would assume he also condemns all muslims for the deaths of those killed in muslim terrorist attacks.

[Rasilio]

No, that's NRA members fault too

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Nuke academia today.

[R C Dean]

From orbit. For the certainty.

[sarcasmic]

From an Eiffel Tower in London to a pyramid shaped Lincoln Memorial: Historic drawings reveal the landmarks that never were
One of the most unusual is a pyramid proposal for the Lincoln Memorial
Three failed designs for Tower Bridge by Sir Joseph Bazalgette are revealed
There is also a catalogue of 68 drawings for a structure in London to rival the Eiffel Tower in Paris

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci.....orial.html
Cool stuff.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...rebels with links to Al Qaeda are shifting their focus from fighting the Assad regime to controlling rebel territories.

WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED?

[Eduard van Haalen]

If Assad is Hitler, then these rival resistance forces would be Tito and Mihailovich, right?

[Whahappan?]

And, true to form, we'll back Tito.

[Swiss Servator, Spare a Franc?]

Chetnik!

[Ted S.]

Baby killed in freak airport conveyor belt accident

Apparently, the conveyor belt started moving after the mother put her baby on it to take care of her other child.

Admit it: if this had happened in a cartoon you'd be laughing.

[sgs]

I'm laughing at her now.

[wwhorton]

I don't know, this might be past even my threshold. Just seems horrible.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Did the Navy Yard shooter try to buy an AR-15?
...Emily Miller of the Washington Times dispensed with law-enforcement sources and spoke directly to the store that sold Alexis the shotgun. She found that the shooter passed two background checks and bought a shotgun with a small amount of ammunition, but never attempted to purchase an AR-15, or any kind of rifle or pistol either:..

...Furthermore, contra the Paper of Record, no such law in Virginia would have prevented the sale of an AR-15 to an out-of-state purchaser that passes those background checks:..

[Bee Tagger]

urging the world not to be fooled by Iran's "charm offensive."

The mixtape oddly has a number of riot grrl songs on it.

[SugarFree]

Even more cannibalism, no reports on states of undress.

Two teenage boys have been arrested in a bizarre sword attack on one teen's mother that reportedly included a discussion of killing the woman and eating her liver, a Spokane County sheriff's spokesman said Wednesday.

Spokane Valley deputies responding to an assault call early Tuesday found the bloody woman on her bed; next to her were two knives and a sword with a bent handle. The woman was hospitalized Wednesday in stable condition, Deputy Craig Chamberlin said. She was not identified.

"It doesn't sound like she remembered the attack," Chamberlin said in a phone interview. The woman told deputies the sword handle wasn't previously bent. It wasn't clear who called for help.

With no signs of forced entry into the apartment, deputies went looking for the victim's 13-year-old son and a 14-year-old friend.

...

The injured woman's 13-year-old son told deputies that his 14-year-old friend tried to kill the mother with a sword, Chamberlin said. The younger boy said he talked his friend into trying to kill his mother because he had taken "blue pills." The spokesman said it was unclear what the blue pills were.

[gaijin]

he had taken "blue pills."

If they had taken the red pills, she would have been dead....from a gunshot wound.

[Jordan]

This just proves that we should ban AR-15s.

/Derpgressive

[Fist of Etiquette]

When I was that age you couldn't pay me to eat liver.

[Ted S.]

Does eating human liver lead to Hypervitaminosis A the way that husky liver does?

[Jordan]

Ask Steve Smith.

[STEVE SMITH]

STEVE SMITH NOT CANNIBAL! RAPE, NOT EAT!

[Snark Plissken]

You probably weren't into Chianti either.

[R C Dean]

Wow, if your sword handle is bent after a failed murder attempt, you are definitely doing something wrong, probably starting with buying cheap-ass swords.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Democrats leave committee hearing on Benghazi before victims' families testify

[Fist of Etiquette]

They had to go meet with the Newtown families' handlers.

[Rich]

WDATPDIM

[CatoTheElder]

WDATPDIM?

needs a question mark

[AuH20]

Men with "intact" penises are ruining the circumcision debate, according to feminists

It's not that intactivists are wrong about everything. There should be a debate about circumcision, and there is something to be said for the position that it's ethically wrong to remove a piece of an infant's body where not necessary to preserve that infant's life or health. It's an interesting and important bodily autonomy question. On the one hand, from the strictest perspective, it seems wrong to circumcise a child without his understanding and consent. Yes, circumcision may have some disease-prevention benefits, but it comes with risks as well. On the other hand, parents do things all the time that violate their children's bodily autonomy; they regularly don't get their children's consent on issues that impact that child's person, and they even directly override their children's desires. That's part of being a good parent. Your kid may not want to get a vaccine, but you should probably vaccinate your kid. Your kid doesn't want disinfectant on that cut, but the cut should get disinfected. Your kid wants to only eat hot dogs every day for the rest of his life, but your kid should probably eat some vegetables.

[Auric Demonocles]

intactivists

This is a word that someone used unironically?

[Restoras]

Don't women like circumsised penises better?

[AuH20]

I think it depends on the chick.

The thing I found really funny about the article is that it comes from feminists, who love to yell and scream about how men can't comment on, say, abortion, because it isn't there bodies.

Yet they feel it is perfectly within there rights to comment on circumcising kids... which, being ladies, they really lack the parts and the experience to know shit about.

[Auric Demonocles]

And to make it even more funny, there is a pretty decent argument that men as a whole are directly affected by abortion, since about half of aborted fetuses are male. There are approximately zero women who are directly affected by circumcision in an equally relevant manner.

[Whahappan?]

Don't forget men are the fathers of the aborted fetuses, too. So they may want the child the women aborts, or may not want the child the woman carries to term, but are on the hook for decades, all with no say in the matter. But men should shut up about abortion.

[#]

Another line or irony is that she is saying that parents get to make choices regarding bodily integrety when its circumcision.

How much you want to bet the author doesn't approve of parental concent laws for minors getting abortions? What? That's not "good parenting"?

[Certified Public Asskicker]

New Reason discussion:

Do women really like penis, or just tolerate it?

Discuss

[Auric Demonocles]

I am under the impression that generally they don't like the appearance, but sometimes like the touch.

[Tejicano]

So, you're saying you have met some who didn't like it?

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Well what Auric said. I've never had a woman who couldn't wait to whip it out and look at it. They want it to bang and buy them dinner.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

But also, I thought the presence of foreskin felt better in the vag.

[AuH20]

At the end of the day, if you know what you're doing, I think the lady is going to enjoy it either way.

Here's what I don't get, though: Jews who follow none of the Jewish laws (keeping kosher, going to temple, etc.) insisting that they get their sons cut. Like, if they're willing to see the prohibition on eating shellfish as something that made sense with the hygienic standards of the 4th century BC, but no longer applies to today... why is circumcision different? Like, if made sense when bathing was uncommon and condoms didn't exist, but the health benefits from it now seem negligible in most Western countries.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I go for speed. Is that not what women want?

[Steve G]

I like to bring up circumcision whenever someone makes a passive-aggressive comment about my doberman's ears and then watch their fuze blow.

[UnCivilServant]

You have one messed up dog.

[Rich]

Tunisian women 'waging sex jihad in Syria'

"They have sexual relations with 20, 30, 100" militants .... "After the sexual liaisons they have there in the name of 'jihad al-nikah' -- (sexual holy war, in Arabic) -- they come home pregnant."

All?hu Akbar!

[Ted S.]

These women got their 72 virgins.

[gaijin]

^excellent!

[Snark Plissken]

Very nice.

[DontShootMe]

Is that article supposed to make sense?

[anon]

sexual holy war

somehow I'm ok with this.

[Troy muy grande boner]

I can't wait to be drafted for this war. Brings a whole new meaning of carpet bombing.

[Swiss Servator, Spare a Franc?]

*narrows gaze*

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Have the people spoken?
I guess this is where I'm supposed to fall in line and do what every other American sports writer is doing. I'm supposed to swear I won't ever write the words "Washington Redskins" anymore because it's racist and offensive and a slap in the face to all Native Americans who ever lived. Maybe it is.

I just don't quite know how to tell my father-in-law, a Blackfeet Indian. He owns a steak restaurant on the reservation near Browning, Mont. He has a hard time seeing the slap-in-the-face part....

[Longtorso, Johnny]

...And I definitely don't know how I'll tell the athletes at Wellpinit (Wash.) High School -- where the student body is 91.2 percent Native American -- that the "Redskins" name they wear proudly across their chests is insulting them. Because they have no idea.

"I've talked to our students, our parents and our community about this and nobody finds any offense at all in it," says Tim Ames, the superintendent of Wellpinit schools. "'Redskins' is not an insult to our kids. 'Wagon burners' is an insult. 'Prairie n-----s' is an insult. Those are very upsetting to our kids. But 'Redskins' is an honorable name we wear with pride. ? In fact, I'd like to see somebody come up here and try to change it."

Boy, you try to help some people ?

And it's not going to be easy telling the Kingston (Okla.) High School (57.7 percent Native American) Redskins that the name they've worn on their uniforms for 104 years has been a joke on them this whole time. Because they wear it with honor...

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Too late. White America has spoken. You aren't offended, so we'll be offended for you.

Same story with the Red Mesa (Ariz.) High School Redskins. They wear the name with fierce pride. They absolutely don't see it as an insult. But what do they know? The student body is only 99.3 percent Native American.

And even though an Annenberg Public Policy Center poll found that 90 percent of Native Americans were not offended by the Redskins name, and even though linguists say the "redskins" word was first used by Native Americans themselves, and even though nobody on the Blackfeet side of my wife's family has ever had someone insult them with the word "redskin," it doesn't matter. There's no stopping a wave of PC-ness when it gets rolling.

I mean, when media stars like USA Today's Christine Brennan, a white woman from Ohio, and Peter King, a white man from Massachusetts, have jumped on a people's cause, there's no going back.

[Auric Demonocles]

I've gotten into arguments with people who claim that even if it's only 10% of Native Americans who get offended, that's enough to change it. When I point out that a larger percentage of Americans believe the moon landing is fake, they usually try to argue that isn't relevant.

[sarcasmic]

It's a pointless argument. They're coming from emotion. No amount of facts, logic or reason can sway emotion. They know what they feel, and nothing will change it.

[Auric Demonocles]

Yeah, I know. It just amazes me that some people think a group which is literally more fringe than people who think the moon landing was a hoax should be the basis for society.

[sarcasmic]

That's because they don't think. They feel.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Besides, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said last week that if "even one person is offended" on this issue, we need to "listen."

One person?

[Auric Demonocles]

As an American, I'm offended by the name of New York's AFC team.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I know you joke (I think) but it is surprising that there isn't a bigger fuss over their team name.

[Auric Demonocles]

And every 4 years they play a team named after skyscrapers!

[Auric Demonocles]

And twice a year a team named after Americans!

[Restoras]

NY has an AFC team?

[sarcasmic]

One of the high schools I went to had Redskins as their mascot. Bleeding heart liberals complained. Now they're the Spartans.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Now they're the Spartans.

THIS! IS! AN! ETHNIC SLUR!!!!!!!!

[Jordan]

Glorifying a nation of warmongering slavers is better than offending progressive sensibilities. Makes sense.

[Restoras]

They are Spartans, not Athenians.

[Jordan]

Meh. Not much difference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helots

[UnCivilServant]

Yeah, most Greeks fell into the category of warmongering slavers until the fall of Constantinople (unless they were slaves).

[Restoras]

Yep. Sparta was a better place to live if you were a woman though. You could own property. In Athens you were property.

[Cyto]

city-state. not nation.

/pedant

[UnCivilServant]

City-states are merely a type of nation.

[robc]

My HS is now the Red Hawks.

We were the only High School licensed by Al Capp to use Lonesome Polecat as our mascot.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

The Press and the IRS
...Washington Post columnists accused Tea Party groups of "smolder[ing] with anger" [Colbert King] and practicing a brand of patriotism reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan [Courtland Milloy]. Another Post columnist opined in late March 2010 that Tea Party rhetoric "is calibrated not to inform but to incite" [Eugene Robinson]. In April 2010, Reuters tied the Tea Party movement to "America's season of rage and fear."...

...The potential for media attention continued to be a concern for IRS officials once Washington received additional sample cases in late March 2010. Upon receiving the cases in Washington, an IRS employee reviewing the application reiterated that "[t]he concern is potential for media attention." Around the same time that the Washington Post was running columns critical of the Tea Party, she added that "[t]he Tea Party movement is covered in the Post almost daily. I expect to see more applications."...

[Longtorso, Johnny]

...In March 2012, a line attorney in the IRS Chief Counsel's office circulated a New York Times editorial entitled "The I.R.S. Does Its Job" to three colleagues. The first sentence of the editorial read: "Taxpayers should be encouraged by complaints from Tea Party chapters applying for nonprofit tax status at being asked by the Internal Revenue Service to prove they are 'social welfare' organizations and not the political activities they so obviously are."...

...Note that Obama did not even attempt to conceal the partisan and ideological nature of his concern. His worry was about substance, not process--about "ads against Democratic candidates" and in support of industries he chose to demonize....

[AuH20]

What is this I don't even...?

We are committed to recognizing and respecting the complex construction of sexual/gender identity;to recognizing trans* women as women and including them in all women's spaces;to recognizing trans* men as men and rejecting accounts of manhood that exclude them; to recognizing the existence of genderqueer, non-binary identifying people and accepting their humanity; to rigorous, thoughtful, nuanced research and analysis of gender, sex, and sexuality that accept trans* people as authorities on their own experiences and understands that the legitimacy of their lives is not up for debate; and to fighting the twin ideologies of transphobia and patriarchy in all their guises.

Cont...

[AuH20]

Transphobic feminism ignores the identification of many trans* and genderqueer people as feminists or womanists and many cis feminists/womanists with their trans* sisters, brothers,friends, and lovers; it is feminism that has too often rejected them,and not the reverse. It ignores the historical pressures placed by the medical profession on trans* people to conform to rigid gender stereotypes in order to be "gifted" the medical aid to which they as human beings are entitled. By positing "woman" as a coherent, stable identity whose boundaries they are authorized to police, transphobic feminists reject the insights of intersectional analysis, subordinating all other identities to womanhood and all other oppressions to patriarchy. They are refusing to acknowledge their own power and privilege.

[Snip]

When feminists exclude trans* women from women's shelters, trans* women are left vulnerable to the worst kinds of violent, abusive misogyny, whether in men's shelters, on the streets, or in abusive homes. When feminists demand that trans* women be excluded from women's bathrooms and that genderqueer people choose a binary-marked bathroom, they make participation in the public sphere near-impossible, collaborate with a rigidity of gender identities that feminism has historically fought against, and erect yet another barrier to employment. When feminists teach transphobia, they drive trans* students away from education and the opportunities it provides.

[Brett L]

Look, I'm glad we live in a society so rich that people can afford to find the exact non-binary niche that scratches the itch in their loins, hearts, and minds. But some people are going to believe that the presence or absence of a Y chromosome is the primary factor that determines gender.

[Metazoan]

Though that is a bit naive, since there are exceptions, such as XYs with certain genes mutated (they'll come out looking like women), or XXs with aberrant transfer of Y-chromosomal genes to an X (they'll come out as men).

Of course, it's not that common, and I'm being a little pedantic, but...well, hell, I guess I'm just being pedantic. It's fun.

[Brett L]

Its no crazier or less consistent than any other definition. That said, I know at least one post-op from each gender and I find them to be at least as polite and interesting in social situations as the average person. But my basic philosophy is to accept people as they are as long as their flavor of crazy doesn't splash back on my life. In which case, if I am not contractually obligated to deal with them, I will just give them a good leaving alone for a while and see what happens.

[Troy muy grande boner]

http://notyourfeminazi.wordpre.....e-penises/

Apparently you've never heard of gender fluidity you misogynist asshole.

If you like categories and labels for yourself, that's okay! You have every right to classify yourself how you wish. If you hate labels, don't use them! It's okay to be more than a word.

And I like to burn puppies and strangle kittens and I call that "good," "acceptable," and "normal" because I don't have to deal with the negative connotation of those fucking patriarchal labels you want to impose on me.

[Apatheist ?_??]

They say that sex and gender are different things, which I have no problem with. As Metazoan points out even sex can get a bit messy. They've shown that trans people can have the brains of the opposite sex. With all crazy shit that can happen to our brains and with how little we truly understand how the brain works I just don't see this as much of a stretch.

The fun part of this debate is to sit back and watch the trans-positive (or whatever) feminists fight it out with the radfems who hate transmen.

[Auric Demonocles]

They've shown that trans people can have the brains of the opposite sex.

I still fail to see how that proves anything, beyond the fact their delusion stems from a specific brain defect.

[Calidissident]

I'm not really sure how it's a delusion (for most trans people). It's not like the average trans person is under the delusion that they actually have a penis (transmen) or a vagina (pre-op transwomen) or were born with XX or XY chromosomes (again, obviously depending on whether they're transmen or transwomen).

[sgs]

I think it's interesting that you obviously exclude from your list what they think they are, but aren't.

It answers the question of "how it's a delusion"

[Metazoan]

what the actual fuck is a womanist?

[Rich]

When feminists demand that trans* women be excluded from women's bathrooms ..., they make participation in the public sphere near-impossible

"Participation in the public sphere"? WTF?

Also, where is the *footnote?

[Eduard van Haalen]

*I am just yanking your chain with a bunch of jargon and unbelievably ridiculous demands like letting men get into women's bathrooms by claiming they're women.

[#]

How can one write so many words without saying pretty much anything?

[jb4479]

Politicains do it all the time.

[jb4479]

*politicians (can't type WTB new fingers)

[Brett L]

Can I just say how much I enjoyed seeing the Chiefs grind the Eagles to a loss last night? At one point, late in the first, the commentators pointed out that KC had simply removed the bubble screen and it had more or less shut down the Eagles passing game. Granted, Mike Vick looked like he was doing his RGIII impression, but still... I can't stand the faddishness of the ESPN bunch. I hope last night finally made them spit Chip Kelly's cock.

(That said, I think Kelly can probably be a fine pro coach if he will adapt to the realities of everyone being talented at every position.)

[Auric Demonocles]

And learn to manage the clock.

I only watched the first half because I had a gym class this morning, but I liked what I saw. (Also I got a pick right which went about 50/50 in our pool, so that's a bonus)

[John]

Kelly going for two in the first half was a move so idiotic Andy Reid laughed at it. When you get out coached and out thought on game day by Andy Reid, you might not be ready for the NFL.

[Auric Demonocles]

I could kind of see if you just decided that you were pretty much always going to go for 2, because you thought your chances to complete were high enough to average slightly more than you would by taking the PAT every time. But it doesn't even seem like that's what they have been doing this year. So they just randomly choose to go for it this one time, which makes no sense.

[John]

And the play call was stupid. They did that swinging gate play. But the Chiefs had more defenders down there than Philadelphia had blockers. It was the classic example of a play that might have worked in college but will never work in the NFL. In the NFL, the unblocked outside guys are always going to be fast enough to make a play. You can't leave people who are anywhere close to the ball unblocked in the NFL.

[robc]

You can't leave people who are anywhere close to the ball unblocked in the NFL.

Which is why no option play has ever worked in NFL history.

[insert hard eye roll here]

[John]

The point of an option is to option the unblocked defender out of the play, which is effectively a block.

I only say this because you inserted a smug eyeroll. But you don't know shit about football or how its played. At the very least, you don't understand the principles of an option. Hint, it is not to leave people unblocked and out run them.

[robc]

I know exactly how option football works.

You said: "You can't leave people who are anywhere close to the ball unblocked in the NFL."

Option football does this all the time, by reading them.

You made an absolute statement, you didnt limit it to "attempt to outrun them".

[Emmerson Biggins]

To me it looked like they baited them into it, but knew exactly what to do when the bait was accepted. "You are going to make us practice against the swinging gate, OK, we'll practice". Good coaching IMO.

[hamilton]

A gym class? Like what, dodge ball?

[Auric Demonocles]

This particular one is one of those "boot camp" group fitness ones. While I doubt it's very much like an actual boot camp, it is a pretty good workout.

Plus it gets me to work early enough to avoid the traffic and this session a 23 year old redhead joined.

[hamilton]

A redhead in yoga pants could trivially bring down my entire career. It's like my Kryptonite.

[Auric Demonocles]

She also was a dancer until a year or so ago.

[John]

How bad of a coach is Romeo Crennel? Remember, he is supposed to be a defensive guy. And most of that Chief's defense was there last year. Now they have what through two weeks appears to be one of the top five defenses in the league. All they did was ad a safety and change coaching staffs.

Alex Smith is better than people give him credit for. The Chiefs have tightends they signed off the street last week and an offensive line that has some real issues with protection. Yet, without a tightend as a safety valve and often having to roll out or run for his life due to protection issues, Smith keeps not turning the ball over and moving the chains. The throw he had last night on the 3rd and 11 from the 5 late in the game was a big time play. So were several of the throws to the speed receiver where he caught him in perfect stride.

The AFC is wide open. Denver appears to be the best, but they just lost their left tackle for the season, an all-pro and one of the main reasons Manning chose to come there. A backup left tackle with a 35 year old immobile quarterback with a surgically repaired neck seems to be a bit of a precarious base to build your team around.

[Auric Demonocles]

Aren't they on like their 3rd center, too?

[John]

I think so. And their guards keep getting hurt. I think Smith is doing an admirable job when you look at what personnel they have. The tight end is a huge part of the West Coast offense. And the Chiefs due to injuries don't have one.

[Auric Demonocles]

Sorry, I actually meant the Broncos being on their 3rd center.

[Brett L]

I think this is one of the games that illustrates that in a 16 game season, ball control and creating turnovers separate the teams going to the playoffs from the teams staying home. If Connor Barwin (who I think the Texans should have tried harder to keep) comes down with the ball that hit him in the hands in the 2nd quarter, the whole game turns around.

Also, Kelly needs a better blocking scheme. The O-line was getting destroyed. Vick did what he could, be KC was rampaging around the backfield all night on dropbacks.

[John]

In fairness KC has a hell of a front seven. Even though they had a series of coaches too stupid to use them properly, four of the Chiefs front seven were first round picks. That is a lot of physical talent and size.

[Auric Demonocles]

One of my biggest annoyances when having a discussion that involves comparing offensive players (in this case most often QBs), is how severely most people seem to undervalue limiting turnovers. Oddly, the same people often seem to value defensive players who can create turnovers very highly.

[Brett L]

Auric,

I agree that Smith basically won the game for KC by making fewer mistakes. Vick threw two really bad interceptions, but KC defenders also caught the ball when it hit their hands.

[Auric Demonocles]

Not quite every time though. Berry had that second one he should have caught.

[KDN]

how severely most people seem to undervalue limiting turnovers.

Note: this is the one above average skill Tim Tebow had as an NFL QB, and it got Denver to the playoffs two years ago.

Related: Mark Sanchez completely lacks it and that kept the Jets out the same year. If you have a good defense, all you need to do is not give the ball away and you can win 8+ games pretty easily. The rules make it too tempting to just sling the ball with abandon, though.

[Auric Demonocles]

As much as I think Tebow sucks, I will give him crediting for throwing very few picks. And you're right, doing that is what let the Denver defense carry them to the playoffs that year.

[robc]

it got Denver to the playoffs two years ago.

Second round of the playoffs, as my belly and Baked Penguin's wallet can attest to.

[robc]

They didnt do much with their rampaging. 431 yards. 6.8 ypp.

Do people even pay attention to what is actually happening? That is pathetic defense other than the turnovers.

9.3 yards per rush. Repeat, 9.3 yards per rush.

[John]

Jesus rob. Stats don't always mean what they say. The Eagles had 9.3 YPR because Vick and McCoy broke a couple of big plays. That average doesn't mean anything, when you spend the rest of the game getting stuffed.

And those yards are no good if you turn the ball over or get stopped in the red zone without getting a TD. Total yards can often be the most deceiving statistic in football.

[KDN]

Total yards can often be the most deceiving statistic in football.

While this is true, if you cut out the longs from Vick and McCoy it's still 6.07 YPC. That's not good (though I didn't watch so I have no idea if it was more than one from each).

I'd like to know if it was tactical or a systemic problem, though. With how much the Chiefs were pressuring Vick and how badly they got slashed in the run game it seems like they just didn't care about the run.

[robc]

Total yards can often be the most deceiving statistic in football.

True.

YPP is a very good indicator, however.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Those numbers are kind of a new normal though, with the rules being what they are. Even good defenses are going to get shredded with pretty much everyone running no-huddle spreads now, so it really does come down in most cases to winning the turnover battle.

[robc]

9.3 is nowhere near the new normal.

Philly is leading the league at 6.5.

[Rasilio]

Smith is MUCh better than people give him credit for.

Sure he's not ever going to be in the Brees, Brady, Manning League of drop back passers and he's not as mobile as Rogers, Wilson, Kapernick, and Griffin but he pretty easily slots into that 8th - 12th best QB in the league area and given his ability to not make stupid mistakes is better than a lot of guys who get far more press than him (Eli, Romo, Rothlisburger, Rivers, Newton, etc.)

[hamilton]

I was shocked. But I do really appreciate how quickly a good NFL-level coach can find/exploit weaknesses in the fad-of-the-month.

[robc]

What weakness did they exploit?

Holding the run game under 10 yards per rush?

[Brett L]

Stopping the screen game, getting consistent pressure on obvious passsing downs. If you're not going to watch the game, don't be a dick about the line. How many times did the Eagles rush? How many of those were scrambles by Vick? The denominator is important too.

[hamilton]

Gee, that's a great point rob. I honestly can't even remember a time when a powerful and speedy fluid passing attack was defeated by ignoring the rush, bringing pressure and effectively allowing their running back to gain over 100 yards. It's not like that strategy was ever used in, say, a Super Bowl or anything.

[Auric Demonocles]

Yeah, but the Super Bowl is NFL so he probably didn't watch it.

[robc]

No, thats 1 of my 3 games or so each year.

[robc]

If the Eagles had a powerful and speedy fluid passing attack, I might agree with your point.

[robc]

Eagles 431 yards.
Chefs 395 yards.

I didnt watch the game, because NFL, but it looks like it was all about turnovers to me.

It doesnt matter what offense you run, turn it over 5 times vs 0 and you are going to get beat.

[John]

That is not enough of a dependency to say one way or another. Yeah, the turnovers kill you though.

[Auric Demonocles]

When you turn the ball over you tend to rack up more yards than your opponent anyway because:

1) They have short fields to work with, meaning they get fewer yards per drive.

2) You are probably playing from behind.

[robc]

1 makes sense, 2 doesnt.

However, it wasnt the yardage difference I was highlighting. I guess there was no point to me putting up the Chiefs numbers.

431 yards.

That is a poor defensive effort, period.

[Auric Demonocles]

Number 2 totally makes sense. It's why teams who are behind always rack up a bunch of yards at the end: They are taking bigger risks, which leads to more yards (until you throw a pick 50 yards later), and the defense is letting them bleed the clock with short midfield plays.

[robc]

Then the 4th quarter wouldnt have been their 3rd highest yardage quarter.

The stunk up the 2nd, but the 4th wasnt much better. They got their yards in 1st and 3rd quarters. Not in come from behind mode. They were behind in 3rd, but not in crazy throw it around the field mode.

[Auric Demonocles]

So you're completely ignoring the fact that I was talking generally anyway, and still talking about a game you didn't even watch?

[robc]

What is says is the game should have been close and not one sided. A team can win a game with a 36 yard negative difference with key plays.

But 5 turnovers turns it one-sided.

The point is, the Chefs didnt stop the Eagles offense. Especially as 3 of the TOs were fumbles, which is not something that defenses can consistently cause (unlike INTs) but our generally offensive fuck ups.

[robc]

*are*

[John]

No, the Eagle offense just failed to execute and was incompetent. But I don't think that means what you think it means.

And further, with the rule stacked against defense the way they are, giving up a lot of yards between the twenties and forcing turnovers and field goals is what good defense in the NFL looks like these days. You are basically telling me the Chiefs have a good defense.

[robc]

You are basically telling me the Chiefs have a good defense.

No. Good defenses dont give up 9.3 yards per rush.

And the rule changes havent affected the run game much.

[John]

No. Good defenses dont give up 9.3 yards per rush.

They do when they give up a couple of big plays. That statistic doesn't mean what you think it does. This big plays didn't do the Eagles any good because they didn't translate to points and on most plays they were not successful. One 50 yard run does not make up for six or seven failed plays. It doesn't work that way.

Do you watch the game? If you do, pay more attention and stop worshiping the stats.

[robc]

Do you watch the game?

1. No NFL network.

2. I watch about 3 NFL games per year. But football is football.

In the long run, stats matter, when properly interpreted. And the big stat from that game was a 5 turnover difference.

You watched the game, if the Eagles had recovered the 3 fumbles and the Chiefs had dropped the 2 INTs, what would the final score have been?

I know teams play differently and etc, but Im guessing the Eagles win by 3-7.

[John]

I watched the game Rob. And yes, the turnovers were huge. But the Eagles hardly dominated the game. They were 3 out of ten on third down conversions. None of the turnovers were deep in Kansas City territory.

Had their been no turnovers, it would have been a close game. Hard to say who would win. If there is a bitch about the Chiefs, it is with their offense. The defense played well. But the offense should have scored more points off of the turnovers. That game should have been a blowout in the first half. The fact that it wasn't, was because the Chiefs offense didn't convert the turnovers into points.

[robc]

But the Eagles hardly dominated the game.

Duh. I dont think Ive said otherwise.

Had their been no turnovers, it would have been a close game.

Thats my point. Maybe the Chiefs still win. But they didnt do any fancy shutting down of the Eagles offense.

People tend to think the Chiefs are going to be good this year. I dont think anyone thinks the Eagles will be special. And barring turnovers, the Eagles hung with the Chiefs.

Ignoring the TOs is a very big BUT IF, but its still there.

[Auric Demonocles]

If you actually watched the game you were trying to talk about, you'd realize that's entirely because of 3 big plays, 2 of which were actually scrambles from the league's fastest quarterback.

[robc]

Chiefs were 1 of 6 in the red zone. Looks like they were the team moving the ball between the 20s and then ineffective.

1 TD and 4 FGs in 6 red zone trips gets you beat most games. 5 turnovers helps a good bit.

[John]

Rob, the Eagles scored two TDS last night. Their two TD drives were

3 plays for 87 yards and
5 plays for 78 yards

That is where your big average per play is coming from. The Eagles had two drives with really huge plays and did nothing other than that. Their sustained drive was 10 plays for 70 yards, but it ended in a field goal.

This game is exactly the kind of game where people can read too much into the stats. The game didn't look like the stat sheet said it did.

And yes, the Chiefs offense is the issue not the defense. The Chiefs should have put that game out of reach by half time.

[robc]

THATS HOW A BIG PLAY OFFENSE WORKS.

Look at Oregon numbers. They are annually one of the leaders in the NCAA in big plays. Same for my team. People think of Johnson's offense as 3 yards and a cloud of dust, and we can grind it out when necessary (more so than Kelly's offense can), but the offense is clicking when we are hitting on big plays. The breakaways are what make these types of offenses work.

They key is holding onto the ball until the big play breaks.

Its the football equivalent of Earl Weaver playing for the 3 run homer.

Philadelphia gave up five chances at breaking the big play.

[John]

THATS HOW A BIG PLAY OFFENSE WORKS

That won't cut it in the NFL. You can't have an offense that doesn't do shit for three quarters and then gets hot for one or two drives a game. The other teams are too good and big plays are too hard to come by. In college you can depend on the big play. The players are not as fast and are more likely to make a big mistake. In the NFL, they are faster and don't generally totally fuck up.

You can't win in the NFL if you depend on just big plays. You need big plays. But you have to be able to translate the threat of big plays into sustained drives and effective offense when the big plays are not happening.

You just made the case that Chip Kelly is going to fail in the NFL.

[robc]

You need big plays. But you have to be able to translate the threat of big plays into sustained drives and effective offense when the big plays are not happening.

That is where not turning the ball over comes into play.

You just made the case that Chip Kelly is going to fail in the NFL.

Could be. Ive never said otherwise. But the Chiefs last night werent any evidence of it. Once teams start holding them under 300 yards, let me know.

6 teams in the NFL are currently averaging under 300 ypg, 7 are over 400, guess which group Philly is in?

[Brett L]

6 teams in the NFL are currently averaging under 300 ypg, 7 are over 400, guess which group Philly is in?

The 1-2 group?

[Auric Demonocles]

The Chiefs offensive red zone production has nothing to do with your argument that the Chiefs defense played poorly.

[robc]

The Chiefs offensive red zone production has nothing to do with your argument that the Chiefs defense played poorly.

Agreed. But just pointing it out as the type of thing John said the Eagles were doing.

[Biden's Scroteplugs]

No. Good defenses dont give up 9.3 yards per rush.

good defenses do hold opponents to less than 17 points per game and the Chiefs have given up 11.3 per game.

the Eagles offense won't hold up over the season. it will be a miracle if slightly built guys like Vick, Jackson, and McCoy don't see injury time.

[Brett L]

The Eagles would run off a 25 yard play from their own 20 and then stall at mid-field. It was far worse than that. The Eagles ran off 430 yards in 20 minutes of possession. And left their defense on the field for 40 minutes. Nobody cares how many times you go from your own 20 to the other guy's 45.

[robc]

5 turnovers. Im assuming they get further than the 45 if they hold onto the ball.

[Brett L]

They got beat by Philip Rivers last week, with a new head coach also, and no turnovers. The Eagles are a mediocre team, whatever their stats say to you.

[robc]

The Eagles are a mediocre team

Duh.

Its like people have no clue what Im saying here. Can people read my posts without adding in their own interpretations?

Im saying the Chefs defense was, at best, mediocre, yesterday. Thats it, nothing else. They didnt solve anything. They got turnovers, some of which they caused, some of which fell into their lap. Without the turnovers, the Eagles moved the ball on them.

[John]

Sacks and turnovers is how you play defense in the NFL now rob. Your understanding of football is very dated. You can't totally dominate a good offense anymore. The rules are too slanted. So, you play for sacks and turnovers. And beyond that, the Chiefs got stops when they needed them in the second half. The majority of the turnovers were in the first half.

[robc]

Time on the field doesnt matter, its the # of plays run against you that matters. Standing around between plays isnt what wears guys out, its the effort during plays.

63 vs 77.

Thats a negative for the Eagles, but, one again, duh 5 turnovers.

77 isnt a huge number for the defense to have to play, unless there were long 15+ play drives.

[John]

Time on the field doesnt matter, its the # of plays run against you that matters.

[John]

Fucking squirrels ate half the post. You are nuts rob. Time of possession absolutely can mean a lot. It didn't matter how many plays the Chiefs ran on their last drive. It mattered that they killed the clock and left the Eagles no time left to come back. And total plays can matter but doesn't have to. It is like total yards. If you don't convert those plays into points, it doesn't mean anything. And if a team is getting big plays, its play total will be low, But so what?

[robc]

I was responding to the concept that the Eagles got tired. Thats what he meant by "left the defense on the field". Yes, eating clock is important from a game control POV, but Im talking about wearing out a defense.

Plays is what matters, not time.

[John]

The "defense getting tired" is a total myth made by people who never played football. To the extent it was true, it is no longer true in the day and age of specialists. Few players play ever down on defense anymore. So defenses don't get tired anymore than offenses do.

[robc]

John,

Agreed, which is another reason TOP doesnt matter from that perspective.

Clock matters from a tactical point of view. But plays run determines who controlled the ball.

And Chiefs won that by 14. The 40 v 20 on the clock doesnt measure that as well.

[Rasilio]

"The "defense getting tired" is a total myth made by people who never played football. To the extent it was true, it is no longer true in the day and age of specialists. Few players play ever down on defense anymore. So defenses don't get tired anymore than offenses do."

Incorrect given that actual defensive football players have all admitted it was true including Mike Golic relating a story where the defense was getting burned out of breath and needed a break so they agreed for someone to fake and injury but forgot to designate who would fake it and 3 players doing so as a result.

Further if the offense wants to it can prevent the defense from making substitutions by simply going no huddle. They don't even need to run an uptempo offense either, just skip the huddle, line up over the ball, and stand there for 25 seconds. It won't be enough time for the defenders to catch their breath and prevents them from substituting

[Steve G]

I know I'm just one man, but I'm offended at the name "Chiefs". I demand a conversation...

[AuH20]

Republicans, Supreme Court, prevent Obamacare from reaching GREAT RACIAL JUSTICE!

Whatever the legal rationale, the blunt fact is that the court's opinion and the ensuing political free-for-all leaves the growth of Medicaid in a lurch and places fundamental issues of fairness at the heart of Obamacare's implementation. The program's importance to communities of color is hard to overstate. As the Kaiser Family Foundation points out, "Medicaid enables Blacks and Hispanic Americans to access health care." This statement is not an exaggeration: one out of three African Americans and Latinos receive healthcare through Medicaid.

By ruling that governors and state legislatures can opt out of Obamacare's Medicaid expansion, the court opened the door for conservative-led states to head for the exits. They have done just that. Only 24 states will broaden access to the program on Oct. 1. According to Kaiser, this will mean up to six out of 10 people who are eligible for Medicaid will remain excluded.

The racial justice implication of Medicaid's hobbled growth is stark. Nine out of the 13 Southern states, a region where more than half of all blacks reside, will not expand Medicaid. Texas, with the second largest population of Latinos in the country, is counted amongst them.

[AuH20]

Fuckin' A. Not everyone's death is freaking Emmett Till

Veronique Pozner, the mother of 6-year-old Noah, who was killed in Newtown, took her cue from the mother of Emmett Till by allowing an open casket at her son's wake. She was intent on showing how guns kill and the true horror of what that looks like. "His jaw was blown away," she said in an interview. "I just want people to know the ugliness of it so we don't talk about it abstractly, like these little angels just went to heaven. No. They were butchered. They were brutalized. And that is what haunts me at night."

It seems that the carnage of gun violence has become so normative and commonplace that Americans are desensitized to its true nature. This allows the kind of complacency and callous disregard we see among the political and chattering classes in Washington. They offer prayers and empathetic gestures in place of policy and bold moral leadership.

So will this latest mass shooting change anything? It's unlikely. The Republican Party appears committed to stalemate and obstruction as long as the first African-American president resides in the White House. That means that even commonsense measures on gun control are politicized. Debates about Second Amendment rights, the need to respect "law-abiding" gun owners and ramped-up fears of a national gun registry provide smokescreens for those who would rather see the status quo remain unchanged.

[AuH20]

From earlier in the same article...

Last year, after the slaughter of 20 first-graders in Newtown, Conn., it seemed that the political winds had changed. President Barack Obama called for Congress to pass stricter gun control legislation in response to what was universally condemned as an unconscionable act of domestic terror. Reasonable minds on both the left and right of the political spectrum agreed that the proliferation of guns -- and semi-automatic weapons in particular -- had become a metastasizing disease rapidly deteriorating the country's social fabric and undermining its social contract.

For what is the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness if the right to destroy life is equally protected?

The cognitive dissonance inherent in these facts is what drives so many gun control advocates to cry foul on a Congress seemingly held hostage by the National Rifle Association and gun-manufacturing lobby. It simply makes no sense.

[Snip}

Reasonable gun control measures, like those President Obama proposed after the Newtown massacre, might have helped prevent this kind of incident. Yet even with a 54-46 bipartisan vote in the U.S. Senate in April, a watered-down background-check bill failed to meet the filibuster-proof 60-vote threshold. Even if it had, the measure was all but dead on arrival in the House of Representatives, which remains beholden to the radical, far-right wing of the Republican Party.

[John]

Maybe if the gun grabbers hadn't been so mendacious and nasty for the last 30 years, gun owners might trust them enough to compromise. Poisoning the well of public discourse is great if you win. It is not so great if you lose and would then like some kind of compromise.

[The Late P Brooks]

Reasonable minds on both the left and right of the political spectrum agreed that the proliferation of guns -- and semi-automatic weapons in particular -- had become a metastasizing disease rapidly deteriorating the country's social fabric and undermining its social contract.

Ummm, yeah.

[Rich]

It is a little confusing. Pretty sure the writer meant to say "undermining the country's social fabric and deteriorating its social contract."

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

Undermining its social contract.

I'm still waiting for my copy of this social contract everyone seems to have signed on to.

[Troy muy grande boner]

I'm gonna sue for anticipatory breach

[Rasilio]

Well anyone who didn't agree with that was obviously unreasonable right?

[John]

I posted this last night. But I will post it again. This Tom Delay decision is amazing. The apellete court didn't over turn the conviction so much as they ruled a conviction should have never happened. It is not that Delay was denied the ability to put evidence in front of the jury and gets a new trial. It is that the court found that the evidence that was put in front of a jury was so weak and in fact proved Delay's innocence to such a degree that no reasonable juror could have found him innocent. I don't know that I have ever seen an appellate court give a what amounts to a directed verdict of innocence like this. I am sure they have but it is very rare. And when it does happen it would almost certainly be in a complex area of the law where the appellate court is saying that the law isn't want the judge thought it was and when the evidence is looked at in that light, the person is innocent. I have never seen them say "you got the law right, you admitted the right evidence, but that evidence is so weak there is no way the person should have been convicted". And that is what happened here.

Basically, a dirty political DA managed to get a jury of liberal sheep to convict an obviously innocent man. I don't care what kind of crap weasel Delay was as a politician, that is outrageous and ought to scare the hell out of you.

[Auric Demonocles]

I didn't even realize that it was possible to overturn a conviction in this manner.

[AuH20]

It is if you're a former politician. I mean, Delay got railroaded, but if he hadn't been a former TOP MAN, I doubt he would have gotten such good treatment.

[Stormy Dragon]

Indeed, I bet a lot of the people butthurt about Tom Delay getting railroaded where the same people who were applauding when Rick Perry was laughing about Cameron Todd Willingham getting executed during the 2012 election cycle.

[John]

Why don't go post on a board where those people post Stormy. Because on here everyone takes due process and the justice pretty seriously.

That is everyone accept for you. You don't seem to give a shit. All you can say is "well Rick Perry is worse" as if that someone makes a difference.

If you want to be known as anything but a concern troll, try not being one and being angry about a miscarriage of justice that involves someone you don't like. It will do wonders.

[Stormy Dragon]

Tom Delay routinely voted for laws reducing checks on prosecutorial power, so I see this as Delay getting attacked by his own Frankenstein's monster, which puts him pretty far down on my list of people I feel sorry for.

[John]

That makes you a fascist Stormy. Either you believe in due process for everyone or you don't believe in due process.

You clearly don't. You don't like Delay. I don't either. But that doesn't matter to me. What matters is that an innocent man was convicted with no evidence by a politically motivated jury. If you are unbothered by that, you are either a straight up fascists or just not a serious person.

[Redmanfms]

Non sequitur

And:

PROG BULLSHIT.

Plus Stomry-poo, it makes you exactly like the people applauding Rick Perry.

[John]

It is. It is just very rare The appellate court has to decide that the jury was so wrong that their decision to convict lacked any reasonable basis. Even if you believe every witness and make every possible inference in favor of the government, you still can't convict.

[Brett L]

DeLay got hozed on that. The DA shopped that case to 3 grand juries before he found one to bite. That alone makes me think he had no case.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Basically, a dirty political DA managed to get a jury of liberal sheep to convict an obviously innocent man. I don't care what kind of crap weasel Delay was as a politician, that is outrageous and ought to scare the hell out of you.

Nah, the whole point of politics is to use govt to get people you've been told to hate. It's not just a distraction from govt growth and incompetence, but makes you like increased govt power because it can give you more tools to use against people you hate.

The fact that people you hate can use those tools against you is just more reason to hate them, and no reason to, say, eliminate those tools.

Evangelicals afraid of the gay Muslim terrorist under their bed, who want to assrape them in the smoldering embers of their destroyed Baptist churches, or feminists afraid Evangelicals want to put all women, including their own wives and daughters, in rape camps to be forced to birth child after child - either is a reliable proponent of this sort of shit as long as they think it can be used against their enemies.

[Rasilio]

Wasn't there a fatwa that said it wasn't gay if they were assraping you in the name of Jihad?

[The Late P Brooks]

Reasonable gun control measures, like those President Obama proposed after the Newtown massacre, might have helped prevent this kind of incident.

Also, if you rub pickle juice on your dick, it might get bigger.

[Auric Demonocles]

"Reasonable" car control measures would have prevented about 60k deaths last year. Why aren't we up in arms about that?

[Dr. Frankenstien]

Who needs 8 cylinders?

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

I was having a conversation with a young lady last night about gun laws. This was in Canada, bare in mind. I told her my beliefs (I should not have to get a license to own a fire arm), she disagreed. She started to go into a whole hypothetical situation where I'm dating a girl who is a little nuts, she comes under the impression that I am cheating on her, she buys a gun and shoots me. Apparently this was supposed to be some argument for gun restrictions, I couldn't see where. Ignoring the typical gun grabber move of setting up their argument based on an isolated incident hypothetical, I just shot back with a "so you would or wouldn't want to be carrying if a 200 lb. man pushed you into an ally with intent to rape you?"

It is great to see them squirm when given a scenario that a gun would most definitely be wanted in.

[EdWuncler]

A lot of the gun control advocates really have no idea what they are talking about and use emotions and hypothetical situations to try and prove their points. Some guy tried to do that in a Facebook thread and he immediately got destroyed by my gun owning friends. It was hilarious to see him use strawmans and appeals to emotion.

[Zeb]

And the pathetic attempt to make it personal. Do they really think that saying "well what if someone wanted to use a gun on you?" is going to change my mind? As if I had never considered that possibility when forming my views on the subject?

[AuH20]

It's why I find it hilarious that all the feminists sites (Jezebel, Slate's Double X, Feministe and Feministing, etc.) march in lock step on the gun control agenda and devote a ton of time to arguing how guns actually lead to MORE violence against women, and rape has NOTHING to do with the physical differences between men and women, but rather PATRIARCHY!

They really find reality inconvenient.

[Whahappan?]

Unless this hypothetical girl was a convicted felon or certifiably insane, how would anything short of a complete, foolproof ban on private gun ownership have prevented her scenario?

[Zeb]

Well, it might make it more difficult for her to get the gun.
I'm not saying that it's not a stupid argument. But I try not to engage that kind of argument much at all. It kind of accepts their position that if it could be effective a gun ban might be a good idea. But I guess it is good to use what you can to convince people.

[Isaac Bartram]

The commenter wrote that "This was in Canada, bare in mind."

While Canada's gun control laws are nether complete nor foolproof the time it takes to get a firearms permit, together with the possibility of rejection, are for all practical purposes a ban on private gun ownership, for handguns anyway.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Mornin', assfaces. Trying to get back into the swing of my so-called life. My Ma died a little less than two weeks ago. I will say that she did beat the fuckin' odds pretty damn well. The average survival for metastatic bladder cancer is 18 months and she lived 5 very good years after her diagnosis.

[John]

I am very sorry. That is exactly what my mother died of and she made it 13 months, although she had survived what should have been fatal cervical cancer 32 years earlier. So we got her for 32 years we really shouldn't have had her.

It just sucks.

[Auric Demonocles]

Sorry to hear that Kristen. It's good to see that you are holding up well enough to remain your usual polite self.

(But seriously, that sucks)

[Brett L]

Glad you're back. I hope her passing was as pain-free as possible and everyone got to say their good-byes. Sounds like a good woman to have known.

[hamilton]

So sorry to hear Kristen, I knew you mentioned that the waiting was also taking a toll on you and yours. My deepest sympathies.

[Jon Lester]

I don't think anyone's ever really ready for that, no matter how or when it happens.

[AuH20]

I will pour out an IPA in honor of your Ma. I'd pour out a good beer, but I think any woman who raised you would hate to see a waste of good alcohol.

Seriously, though, that suck, and hope you're holding up okay. Also hope that your squeeze, as you call him, helped you get through it.

[Eduard van Haalen]

I'm very sorry to hear this.

[tarran]

I'm so sorry Kristin. It's good she managed to hold off the disease as long as she did.

[EdWuncler]

hugs

[Tejicano]

Please add my condolences as well. Very sorry to hear that.

[Gbob]

That hurts. On the other hand, telling death to fuck off and that it's just going to have to wait a few years while you got shit to do is a grand thing. We should all be so lucky.

[gaijin]

sorry to hear. never easy and I hope good memories are there to help.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Thanks all. My work has been more than generous - I basically teleworked for 2 and 1/2 weeks from North Carolina and they've told me if I need to skeedaddle if I "can't handle" being in the office, that would be OK too. But that just means there's no way I'm skeedaddling. Gotta be a badass at all times, at least professionally.

[BakedPenguin]

Condolences, Kristen.

[Tonio]

Condolences, KK. And welcome back.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Apologies for your loss, Kristen.

[The Late P Brooks]

Trying to get back into the swing of my so-called life.

Don't let the bastards get you down.

[Spoonman.]

PBS NewsHour (yeah, SLD, but it's less ridiculous than most and I can fast-forward through the poetry crap) had a feature on Richmond, CA's plan to eminent-domain underwater mortgages last night.

Their human interest part of the story was focused on a couple who bought a house for 100-ish, then refinanced at 400-ish to make "improvements" and now are sad that they have to pay it because it's worth 100-ish again.

At no point was there anything about them losing a job or anything else...so what changed? If it's not worth it to pay off the loan, why not just walk away? Otherwise, if you decided to pay it, do so.

[John]

And at no point did they mention that had that couple sold their house at the height of the boom and moved to a cheaper state, they would have kept their 300K. When home owners win, they get to tell me how stupid I am for not owning. When they lose, they get to come and take my money to make up for their loss because it would be cruel to see someone lose their home.

[Auric Demonocles]

I'm really annoyed that the housing market hasn't been allowed to drop as much as it should have. I should be able to reap the benefits of having rented up to this point by being able to get a good deal now.

[UnCivilServant]

Seconded.

[John]

Me too. They have totally fucked the next generation of home owners.

[Auric Demonocles]

Nah man, it's great that I have to buy at a price that's basically the same as the height of the bubble, to make sure that some people who were trying to flip don't lose money on their bet.

[Brett L]

My home is valued by Zillow at 64% of what I paid for it at the top of the bubble, and honestly I think that's about right. But Tallahassee has been blessed in that FL froze state employee salaries for 6 years (they got a raise this year), so there was no way to re-inflate the bubble. The last foreclosure in my neighborhood is on the market at about 58% of what I paid for the same house (I have a corner lot, they have a garage). If you look at our market, you can draw a linear fit from 1993 prices to today that is a good fit except between 2003-2011. But if you had expected a 3%/year increase in home prices, you'd be right on target if you bought before 2003 or after 2011, you'd be in good shape.

[Emmerson Biggins]

Hell, I own a house, and I'd be glad (If prices went down) just for the property tax reduction. That's because I didn't buy it as an speculative investment, I bought it to live in.

[General Butt Naked]

Dude, I watched the same exact thing last night and was confused as hell.

Didn't they make it seem like the fact that the loan was more than the value of the house was the sole reason they were having a tough time paying it back? Wouldn't you budget for a payback scheme regardless of what the house is said to be worth? How would a higher assessment make their payments more affordable?

The only two explanations that I can think of are:

1. They planned to pay a bit down, then refi on the increased value of the improved house

2. They were dumb enough to get an ARM and are now getting hammered (not that the assessed value of the house would affect their payments)

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Spiked: Let's shine a light on these shady family courts
...Munby is right. The powers of the family courts are truly draconian. The court has a broad range of powers to break up allegedly 'troubled' families, often under Kafkaesque conditions. Applications can be made without families being present, judgements can be passed in secret, and injunctions placed on reporting some or all of the court's proceedings. Munby's remarks follow a series of judgments this year in which less senior judges in the family courts have been similarly scathing of the veil of secrecy under which they are able to function. ...

...Sadly, the Lib-Con coalition government has chosen a different focus in its reforms of the family courts: speeding up the proceedings for taking children into care. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Justice declared its intention to shorten the average time taken for care cases to be concluded from 56 weeks to 26 weeks. This echoed calls from the children's charity Barnardo's, which in 2010 criticised delays in having children taken into care and called for a limit of 30 weeks for the length of proceedings. Rather than seriously rewriting the statute book to create a more open family-court system, the government seems more interested in making it easier to chuck allegedly 'damaged' kids into care....

[Gbob]

They're pretty bad in the US as well. I can't think of any other position as powerful as a family court judge. A friend of mine is going through a divorce that makes mine look like a vacation, and he was unlucky enough to get a bitch of a judge who is pretty much fucking his life over.

Sometimes I find myself hoping that my son is gay and adopts instead of having to be at the mercy of family court in a divorce case.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Gay marriage = no man/woman pair w/ a clear person to fuck over. Who will the govt screw if two men or two women divorce?

[UnCivilServant]

They pair sets so that the guys get screwed and have to give their assets to cover the pairs of women separating.

[John]

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2.....ofile.html

Profile of a frankly bizarre office culture at some fashion design firm. Althouse quotes this really good comment though

Actually, "women supporting other women" often just acts as a new iteration of the classic "gossipy office clique." It's why I prefer to work in mostly male environments. The men are happy if everyone does their job and goes home. The women want to make it all about supportive relationships and bonding and over-analyzing every social interaction.

So, if you're an introverted woman who just wants to do a good job and who has a life outside of work... these circles of 'leaning in' are positively Dante-esque.

That is so true. The women I have worked with fall into two camps. The first type are histrionic pains in the ass who spend their entire lives manipulating men and torturing other women and ultimately themselves. The second type are women who come to work and go home and separate their private lives from their work lives. It would seem to me that if feminism were anything but a vehicle for leftist policy and the psycho dramas of its adherents, it would be encouraging women to be the second type. But it seems to, though its cult of victimhood, encourage only the first type.

[hamilton]

MSNBC columnist is delighted that the libertarians have finally caught up with the progressives on this whole unjust sentencing / ,andatory minimum thing.

Now if only we'd catch up on gay marriage, free speech, and other important causes we might not be so neanderthal.

[John]

Libertarians were just so busy trying to get slavery made legal again, they didn't get around to it.

[Troy muy grande boner]

....um.... so this won't impact me using the tears of children to polish my monocle?

[UnCivilServant]

Depends, do you farm the chilren or buy the tears on the open market?

[Rasilio]

Caught up to? As in we've been sitting here all along right?

[Zeb]

Holy shit. What the fuck do people think libertarians are? What libertarian has ever been in favor of mandatory minimums, or any sentences at all for drugs?

If there is one thing that libertarians agree on it's probably opposition to drug prohibition.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Gender abortions: Cameron voices concerns about failure to prosecute doctors
The Prime Minister said he "shared the concern" of an MP who warned that the failure to prosecute meant that Britain's abortion laws are at risk of becoming "obsolete". He said it was "absolutely right" that the doctors could still be subject to disciplinary action.

The two doctors were exposed after The Daily Telegraph mounted an investigation and published its results in February last year.

Acting on specific information, undercover reporters accompanied pregnant women to nine clinics in different parts of the country.

In two cases doctors were filmed offering to arrange terminations after being told the mother-to-be did not want to go ahead with the pregnancy because of the sex of the unborn child.

Mr Cameron praised The Daily Telegraph for highlighting "this important case" and said it was "absolutely right" that the doctors could face "professional" consequences. ...

..."And do you agree with me, prime minister, that this is very uncomfortable, the fact the 57 Act is now almost obsolete and puts our abortion policy on a par with India and China and a female foetus in the womb today is more vulnerable than she was last week?" ...

[Jordan]

Dumb dumb dumb. How are they going to distinguish between a "sex-selective" abortion and a good-old fashioned wholesome abortion?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

When you abort males, it's wholesome.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

You can't be pro-choice only when you like the choice
Imagine this: a newspaper, with an editorial policy opposing abortion, sends a pregnant woman to see a number of doctors intending to expose that doctors break the abortion law. A reporter sets up video footage of a woman saying she wants an abortion on the grounds she has been raped. The doctor agrees. Our paper, The Yellagraph, triumphantly publishes the footage as evidence that 'the law has been broken' because rape is not a legal ground for abortion.

Can you imagine the secretary of state for health ordering inspections of every single abortion clinic in England to investigate whether doctors are approving abortion for rape? Can you imagine it taking the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) more than 18 months to decide whether or not to prosecute the doctor who agreed to the abortion? Can you imagine the shadow attorney general, a Labour MP with a pro-choice reputation, harrying the CPS to prosecute rape-abortion doctors?...

...That's why the Daily Telegraph entrapment of sex-selection abortions has been almost universally praised, even by the prime minister, David Cameron, while our imagined Daily Yellagraph entrapment of doctors for rape abortions would seem ludicrous....

[John]

You can't. And since when is "abortion on demand" not mean "for whatever the hell reason the woman decides to have one"?

If people don't like this, they need to reconsider their support of abortion on demand. I don't see how a single woman getting an abortion because she doesn't want a kid is any better or worse than an Indian couple getting one because they don't want a daughter.

[#]

Because progressivism is about forcing society to comply with the sensabilities of wealthy gentry liberals.

Wealthy gentry liberals like having the piece of mind that when they fuck they don't have to worry about having a kid they don't want. But Indian cultural norms are icky and must be stopped.

It's got little to do with any higher principle.

[John]

^^THIS^^

I am dying to hear them explain how abortion is a private medical matter and not taking a life, but we have an urgent need to make sure Indian couples don't kill their daughters.

[Eduard van Haalen]

I heard about this - the UK prosecutors refused to prosecute even when evidence of the doctors' guilt was dumped in their laps. The line is that the medical board will do it's own investigation. But a medical board can't put you in prison (or so I would assume, but one never knows), and the law contemplates *prison* as a penalty for gender-specific abortions.

I guess UK prosecutors are too busy charging people for their facebook posts and their racially-insensitive jokes to enforce other, less important laws.

And notice how, in enlightened progressive Europe, prime ministers at least have to *pretend* they want to prosecute rogue abortionists, which by American standards would make them right-wing fundamentalists waging a War on Women (TM).

[hamilton]

NSA sends out letter to family of its employees offering sympathy, reassuring that their loved ones are the good guys.

"It has been discouraging to see how our Agency frequently has been portrayed in the news as more of a rogue element than a national treasure....We have weathered storms before and we will weather this one together, as well."

[UnCivilServant]

If you have to send propaganda to try to stake a claim to higher moral ground, you're not the good guys.

[John]

The NSA needs to die. Give its functions to the other members of the IC and kill off the headquarters. That would send a message to the entire IC that would be felt for decades. Even if all of the current NSA employees just moved to the CIA, it wouldn't matter. They would become bureaucrats without a home. They careers would turn into largely dead ends there because CIA people are never going to promote former NSA people over their people.

And the remaining IC agencies would stand in awe and fear over the sight of an agency actually going away. It would terrify them in a way nothing else, not even the threat of prison would.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

'Soft' sentences for knife crime despite Chris Grayling pledge
Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary, has expressed his concern about knife criminals being handed cautions and other non-custodial punishments, but new figures published on Thursday showed repeat offenders are still avoiding jail.

Out of 1,331 offenders convicted of possessing a knife in the year to the end of March - who had at least two previous convictions for the same offence - only 703 went straight to prison.

The rest were handed community sentences or even a "slap on the wrist", with 25 receiving a caution, 35 an absolute or conditional discharge from court and 29 getting a fine. ...

[UnCivilServant]

Unless you tried (or succeeded) to put that knife through someone else's property and/or person, I'm having a hard time figuring out what would constitute a "knife crime".

Of course this is the UK where they've stamped out guns so effectively that gun crime went up.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Things like this come naturally when you live life with principles. Plus, I had to post something nice because all this gun grabber shit is gettin' me down.

You know what would be awesome? A government shutdown. I'd be back in VT in a NY minute.

[Kaptious Kristen]

P.S. My Lake Champlain vacation was fucking awesome.

Srsly.

[Auric Demonocles]

I really like Champlain. Were you up by the Swanton area, or am I confusing your vacation with someone else's?

[Kaptious Kristen]

West Bridport, just south of the bridge. Near Goodies Snack Bar, which is way better than Joe's Snack Bar.

But the real revelation was downtown Bristol. I don't think I'd ever been through there before. It's awesome and I want to live there now.

[Auric Demonocles]

Is the bridge back up?

Yeah, Bristol is really nice.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Yep, brand spankin' new bridge.

[Kaptious Kristen]

No comment about that awesome bass?!?!?!

[Swiss Servator, Spare a Franc?]

You are making some of us feel....inadequate.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

I was actually interested in moving to VT for the countryside to work at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, but now that Entergy is shutting her down, there is no employment their for myself. It is a real shame, that was a very well run plant.

[Auric Demonocles]

Didn't you hear, it was a horrible disaster just waiting to happen and was polluting the entire state and Vermont is much better off just buying all their power from other states or running thousands of wind farms.

[BakedPenguin]

Northern Pass!

[BakedPenguin]

Oops, sorry, that's just NH.

[Kaptious Kristen]

VT is about to have an alarming unemployment problem with Yankee shutting and IBM laying off a crapload. Which means even more depressed salaries on top of the low, low wages companies are already offering for technical jobs like web developers.

Winning the lottery seems to be the only option to move to VT and live in any sort of comfort.

[Auric Demonocles]

I would have stayed around if there was anything remotely resembling a job worth my degree.

[John]

Retire there maybe.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I wold like to move there while I still have ski legs, though. There is a very teeny, tiny chance that my company will make my position "off site", in which case I'd be in VT faster than a bass strikes a nightcrawler.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Researching the "Rape Culture" of America
...He noticed, for example, that Koss and her colleagues counted as victims of rape any respondent who answered "yes" to the question "Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs?" That opened the door wide to regarding as a rape victim anyone who regretted her liaison of the previous night. ...

...Koss also found that 42 percent of those she counted as rape victims went on to have sex with their attackers on a later occasion. For victims of attempted rape, the figure for subsequent sex with reported assailants was 35 percent. Koss is quick to point out that "it is not known if [the subsequent sex] was forced or voluntary" and that most of the relationships "did eventually break up subsequent to the victimization."[24] ...Since most of those Koss counts as rape victims did not regard themselves as having been raped, why not take this fact and the fact that so many went back to their partners as reasonable indications that they had not been raped to begin with?...

[Longtorso, Johnny]

...There is, however, one flaw that affects the significance of Kilpatrick's findings. An affirmative answer to any one of the first three questions does reasonably put one in the category of rape victim. The fourth is problematic, for it includes cases in which a boy penetrated a girl with his finger, against her will, in a heavy petting situation. Certainly the boy behaved badly. But is he a rapist? Probably neither he nor his date would say so. Yet, the survey classifies him as a rapist and her as a rape victim.

I called Dr. Kilpatrick and asked him about the fourth question. "Well," he said, "if a woman is forcibly penetrated by an object such as a broomstick, we would call that rape."

"So would I," I said. "But isn't there a big difference between being violated by a broomstick and being violated by a finger?" Dr. Kilpatrick acknowledged this: "We should have split out fingers versus objects," he said. Still, he assured me that the question did not significantly affect the outcome. But I wondered. The study had found an epidemic of rape among teenagers-just the age group most likely to get into situations like the one I have described.

[John]

The very same people who are convinced there is a "rape culture" would scream racist if anyone mentioned that hip hop music glorifying violence might create a violent culture among young black men.

"Culture" is just their code word for "we want to slander groups we don't like".

[Calidissident]

"would scream racist if anyone mentioned that hip hop music glorifying violence might create a violent culture among young black men."

I wouldn't call it racist, but it is bullshit. Rap music is a product of a violent culture, not the other way around. Violent crime rates today are lower than they were in the 70s and early 80s, before the rise of gangsta rap.

[Gbob]

I have a feeling that "the girl who cried rape" may be the modern version of "the boy who called wolf". Both would carry with them the same cautionary message. By defining rape down, women run the real danger of men simply ignoring rape in the future.

Already I find myself less ready to vote to convict a rapist than I would have been even ten years ago.

[John]

Yes they do. Fluffy made a great point a while back about that and the other unintended effect of the feminist obsession with rape. By lying and exaggerating the number of rapes, feminists actually encourage rape. If you are the person who would rape a woman and listen to feminists, you have to think your chances of getting away with it are really good. All these statistics about how most rapes are never reported is just telling rapists "go ahead and give it a shot, chances are she won't even report it". It is a bit of a perverse message when you think about it.

[sarcasmic]

What kind of rape are we talking about here?

Are we talking about 'catch a woman in the parking lot' rape, or 'drunken hookup that she later regretted' rape?

[John]

That is just it, the feminists are lying. Rapes are reported and they generally are prosecuted. But you wouldn't know that by listening to feminists.

If your concern is to stop rape, the message you want to send to the public is "rapes are reported and if you try it we are going to nail you". You know, try to deter people from doing them by telling them they can't get away with it. Instead, feminists do everything they can to send the opposite message.

[sarcasmic]

That is just it, the feminists are lying.

You mean leftists are disingenuous and intellectually dishonest as they argue in bad faith? You mean they will lie, cheat and steal in order to achieve their goals? I'm shocked, John! Shocked!

[tarran]

For me, college was a big shock. Every year, some acquaintance of mine would either be assaulted or be accused of assault.

All but one of the accusations were clearly false, and the one that wasn't clearly false is one I can't say for certain whether it did or didn't happen.

The one girl who did get attacked was afraid to say anything, because it would be her word against a adjunct faculty guy and seeing as there hadn't been any physical contact (he chased her around the desk a few times before she got the door open and rushed out), and because she just wanted to get her degree and go on with her life, merely dropped the course, told the dean (nothing came of it) and went on with her life.

What stunned me most were the incidents where the investigator acknowledged the charge was bullshit, but still passed on a report recommending discipline/prosecution.

[John]

That is the inherent result of colleges dealing with a serious crime. Only the guilty and the mendacious benefit. If you are innocent, you are at risk of having your life ruined by a false claim. If you are the creep who likes the feel up women, the system is great because the stakes are so low. In the real world assaulting a woman sends you to prison. In college it might get you fired. Makes your risk calculus a whole lot different. And since the system is set up to "protect the victim" and stacked against the accused, if you are a nut who likes to use rape allegations as a way of revenge, it is great.

The only people who don't benefit from such a system are innocent accused and actual victims.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Meet the new boss. Not quite the same as the old boss, who was a dark-haired Hillary clone, right down to the Maoist pantsuits. Hopefully he won't be able to do too much damage in the 2.5 years he'll be here. He looks like everything I dislike about Young DC and the Obama Administration. And his name. For fuck's sake. Whatever happened to naming your kids "George" or "Jason" or "Joe"?

[tarran]

Actually, this guy is one of the big heavy hitters left on Obama's bench.

IIRC he was involved in putting together the reelection campaigns communications/volunteer management suite. They're the guys who squeezed out every ounce of turnout in the general election and turned what should have been Obama's collapse into a respectable win.

Of course, it won't have much impact, I think, because Obama's problems aren't an inability to get a message out so much as people not really liking what he is saying as much.

[Brett L]

Please. Nobody can save John Kerry from himself. Even turning off the Internet and stopping all communication couldn't save John Kerry from being stupid.

[Kaptious Kristen]

They're putting him in an awfully obscure place for such a heavy hitter. Not a single Big Name has been through this agency in my 6 and 1/2 years here. Mostly it's been career foreign service and favor appointments for mid-level donors and acquaintances.

[Damned Fool]

http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies/#/page/1

CDC makes stupid comic of them thwarting the zombie apocalypse, forgets to include depictions of people doing anything useful like shooting them.

[UnCivilServant]

What! No pre-necrotic anthropophagy? There was nothing differentiating those "Zombies" from celebrity deragned tweens!.

[Sevo]

"Global warming slows - but scientists not reassured"
No, it's not that is "slows", it's that your models are wildly incorrect, you idiot!

"Leaked documents show there are deep concerns among governments about how to address the issue ahead of next week's meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Climate skeptics have used the lull in surface warming since 1998 to cast doubt on the scientific consensus that humans are cooking the planet by burning fossil fuels and cutting down CO2-absorbing forests."
So the problem here is to massage the data and the 'story' to fit the theory; never let the data drive it.
http://www.sfgate.com/science/.....828479.php

[KDN]

Oh, Barch. You're the worthlessest.

I agree on the no tuck rule. I get Jagr's last hurrah and he's not even gonna look like a pale imitation of Jagr. Further evidence that the entire league exists as one giant fuck you to the New Jersey Devils and their fans.

[John]

What is the point of the no tuck rule?

[John]

If you just have to play, why not play in some lesser European league. You get to play and since the competition is less, you won't embarrass yourself.

Isn't this sadly typical in hockey? Didn't Gordy Howe play until he was 60 or something? My only memory of Guy Lafleur is him dottering around for the old Nordiques.

[John]

If you are on a sheet of ice with really large elite athletes flying around on skates carrying sticks looking to take your head off, I am not seeing how tucking your shirt in makes you safer.

[BakedPenguin]

Yeah, a lot of soccer players know this. Pretty soon, the MLS is going to be the near-retirement league for former Euro league stars. Huge market, glitzy cities, and high (if not European level) salaries.

There's a reason Pele played for the Cosmos for a few years.

[The DerpRider]

I can't fucking skate without part of my jersey tucked into my right side. Retirement here I come.