Government Shutdown Standoff Maybe Thawing, France Continues Fracking Ban, Snowden Had a History: P.M. Links

• 

  Credit: gkrew / Foter / CC BY

  There will be more talking and stuff about the debt limit and government shutdown. Is our long, national nightmare of figuring out how to survive on our own almost over?

• In a piece heavily reliant on anonymous sources, the New York Times says CIA officials warned about Edward Snowden's behavior and possible efforts to access files he shouldn't have access to in 2009 in a report in his personnel file.
• France has some of the largest shale deposits in Europe, but will nevertheless keep a fracking ban.
• Pakistani teen Taliban-assassination-attempt survivor Malala Yousafzai says she wants to be prime minister someday, despite what happened to Benazir Bhutto.
• Research shows elephants understand  human body language, and this helps them develop bonds with us. Unfortunately, this information is not helpful to a zookeeper in Missouri, who was killed when an elephant became aggressive.
• An ally of Ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was sentenced to 21 years in prison for his role in the mayor's corruption and kickback schemes. Kilpatrick was sentenced to 28 years yesterday.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Pakistani teen Taliban-assassination-attempt survivor Malala Yousafzai says she wants to be prime minister someday...

Well then she better learn to start playing ball.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Pakistani teen Taliban-assassination-attempt survivor Malala Yousafzai says she wants to be prime minister someday, despite what happened to Benazir Bhutto.

Getting shot in the head and living might lessen your fear of death.

[Fist of Etiquette]

An ally of Ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was sentenced to 21 years in prison for his role in the mayor's corruption and kickback schemes

Bright side, he no longer has to live in Detriot.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Research shows elephants understand human body language, and this helps them develop bonds with us. Unfortunately, this information is not helpful to a zookeeper in Missouri, who was killed when an elephant became aggressive.

So it begins. I, for one, welcome are new elephant overlords.

[Tim]

Republican extremist!

[paranoid android]

Marge: (Talking about Stampy) Gosh, I thought he'd be happier in his true habitat.
Warden: Oh, I think he is.
Marge: Then why is he attacking all those other elephants?
Warden: Well, animals are not like people, Mrs. Simpson. Some of them act badly because they've had a hard life, or have been mistreated. But, like people, some of them are just jerks--Stop that, Mr. Simpson.
(The camera pans to show Homer repeatedly head butting the warden.)

[Almanian!]

elephants understand human body language

So it totally knew the kill move she was going to make, and - anticipating it - acted to kill her first.

I dub that elephant "The Punisher".

[PD Scott]

Will the howdah be banned as a symbol of oppression?

[Fist of Etiquette]

France has some of the largest shale deposits in Europe, but will nevertheless keep a fracking ban.

Reasonable energy costs are so bourgeoisie.

[Tim]

Fromage!

[Pro Libertate]

How much does France benefit from all of those nuke plants? Are they too fucked up otherwise to have generally cheaper energy costs?

[PD Scott]

One step closer to a holodeck: using ultrasound to create tactile sensations in midair

Researchers at Bristol University are developing a system known as UltraHaptics that uses ultrasonic force fields to project the tactile sensations of objects in midair. Currently used for a haptic computer interface, the system might eventually enable touchable holograms.

[Pro Libertate]

"Touchable." Ha! We know what kind of touching those researchers are exploring.

[Almanian!]

Your comments are...touching.

[Fist of Etiquette]

"Oh, Krieger-san, I never judge you."

[jesse.in.mb]

*stocks in Tele-Dildonics plunge at the news*

Rats! Who knew we'd skip sex bots and head directly to ultrasonic sex forcefields!?

[gaijin]

It's ok jesse. Now, on this doll, show me where the mean force field touched you.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

So what is the Betamax/HD-DVD competitor to this new fangled technology?

[Bobarian]

Prostitution?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Is our long, national nightmare of figuring out how to survive on our own almost over?

Our training begins again this weekend on AMC.

[a better weapon]

I look forward to Herschel's sage wisdom.

[rts]

No, there was no fusion breakthrough

NIF's laser input of 1.8 MJ is roughly the same as the kinetic energy of a 2-tonne truck traveling at 160 km/h (100 miles/h). The output of the reaction?14 kJ?is equivalent to the kinetic energy of a baseball traveling at half that speed. Numerically speaking, the gain is 0.0077. The experiment "is a good and necessary step, but there is a long way to go before you have energy for mankind," Campbell says.

Bonus blame for the gov't shutdown:

One unintended effect of the U.S. federal shutdown is that helpful press officers at government labs are not available to provide a reality check to some of the wilder stories that can catch fire on the Internet.

*sigh*

[Mad Scientist]

Yeah, journalists always get things right when they have a government appointed editor.

[Pro Libertate]

What I read when this first broke made it sound like it was a decent milestone, not a major breakthrough.

[rts]

Gizmodo

Now, though, researchers have apparently tipped that balance [using more energy than is created], making fusion a real possibility.

[gaijin]

Didn't President 0 already do this with the multiplier effect in his first term?

[Sevo]

"Bonus blame for the gov't shutdown:"

Hey, what about 'Global Warming'?!

[Killazontherun]

Without the political office the boat is inoperable.

Funnier in the original Russian.

[Killazontherun]

political officer

[Ted S.]

And Voyager didn't leave the solar system, either.

[jesse.in.mb]

France has some of the largest shale deposits in Europe, but will nevertheless keep a fracking ban.

Clever frogs, they'll let everyone else use up all the oil and then they'll lift the ban and live like kings! Unless Germany rolls them again in the interim of course.

[PD Scott]

IIRC, the French haven't succumbed to anti-nuclear nimrodery like German has, so maybe they don't have the demand for natural gas that other places do?

Like, they have to give their green idiots *something*, you know.

[creech]

Once the U.S. is energy independent and no longer has to involve itself in the ME, then the French can decide if their fils' blood is worth ME oil or if fracking might not be a better choice.

[MJGreen]

They'll be rich, rich as Nazis!

[PD Scott]

Virtually tour the Lamborghini museum.

Those interested in doing an intimate tour of the Museo Lamborghini car museum would have traditionally had to trot to Lamborghini's headquarters in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy. Now, they no longer have to worry about the high costs of travel. Leveraging Google Street View technology, Lamborghini has launched a 360-degree tour of the two-story museum. Computer and mobile device users can now experience 50 years of Lamborghini from the comfort of home.

[gaijin]

was sentenced to 21 years in prison...was sentenced to 28 years yesterday.

So is it 21 or 28?

[gaijin]

oh, reading comprehension fail on my part.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Slate advocates for Obama to destroy the separation of powers

It's true that debt issued by the White House would be less clearly kosher than normal debt sanctioned by Congress, simply because it's new and different, and so less proven. People who oppose the president's action on constitutional grounds or who might gain from default (like owners of credit default swaps) would bring suit, whereas no one would sue if Congress lifts the debt ceiling.
But lawsuits that challenge the president's authority to issue debt would almost certainly go nowhere. Most plaintiffs would not be able to show a personal injury from the issuing of new debt. Lacking legal standing, their cases would be dismissed. Those who got beyond this stage would be blocked by the political question doctrine: Courts would dismiss the suit on the grounds that the controversy over the debt is an inter-branch conflict between the president and Congress that is not for judges to resolve.

[Pro Libertate]

They aren't going to be happy until we end up with Hitler, are they?

[Mickey Rat]

Well, an Imperator, of some form.

[Pro Libertate]

Does it matter? We'll start with a Mussolini, then move down from there. God help us and this planet if the U.S., with its huge military, goes totalitarian.

[Mickey Rat]

It only does as to what form the oppression will take, and who the scapegoats are.

[Pro Libertate]

Choose the form of the Oppressor!

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Shorter Slate column - Declaring something to be essential to the health of the State allows the Executive to do as it pleases.

By that argument, they should be dissolving Congress and the Courts and turning it all over to the bureaucrats in the Executive department.

[Pro Libertate]

It's so dumb. I mean, do they really think everything would be all wonderful and light with a dictatorship? When has that ever happened?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Yes they do.

[Pro Libertate]

I have really bad news for them if they think they're going to be in the oppressing elite. They'll be in camps just like us.

[trshmnstr]

To them dictatorships are wonderful. They just turn a blind eye to the atrocities that are executed to create the "wonderful" results, and it's utopia.

[Mickey Rat]

if the right person is dictator, yes. As long as the get the results they want, they do not care about means. They are completely unprincipled and lawless.

[Pro Libertate]

That shit never works. Even if you luck out and the the first guy is a benevolent dictator, it won't last. Can you imagine the power of the U.S. in the hands of a truly unrestricted tyrant? I mean, shit is bad enough with what we have now.

[Mickey Rat]

Of course it does not, but they are only thinking in the moment what will get them what they want, right now. Tommorrow can wait.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Yeah, I've had a progtard blatantly tell me that we'd be better off with an "enlightened dictator" like Pericles or Marcus Aurelius.

These people absolutely worship power in the service of the state.

[Pro Libertate]

First of all, Pericles wasn't all that enlightened. The Athenians were actually pretty bad, especially from the perspective of the people living in the cities in their empire.

Second, what happened after Marcus Aurelius' reign? Commodus, who was horrific, then maybe a decent emperor who was too tough and got killed, then a succession of bad emperors. Even emperors who were successful after that were brutal as fuck.

[Heroic Mulatto]

And yet, if you asked them who the city of Cincinnati was named after, you'd just get blank stares and fart noises as a response.

[Pro Libertate]

It's interesting that you mention him, because he came up in a lecture series on Rome I was watching last night.

What I either missed all of these years or just forgot was that Cincinnatus not only took up the dictatorship for a couple of weeks, won the war, then went back to his farm, he was wrongfully exiled by Rome to that farm in the first place, and, in winning the war, he was bailing out the consul who screwed him over. Whoa.

Long way from our own Cincinnatus, George Washington, to today, huh?

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Exactly, that's the point. I had to stop after he made that comment because there's no way you can penetrate stupidity and ignorance of that magnitude.

[Pro Libertate]

That kind of stupidity is what passes for intellect these days. The Enlightenment is over.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Someone once asked me who in the Roman Empire designed the sewer system. I answered, "Commodus, of course!"

[Mickey Rat]

And after Marcus Aurelius you get Commodus, in fact you are much ore likely to get Commodus than Marcus Aurelius.

[Pro Libertate]

Yes. If you go through the list of emperors, only a tiny number were generally viewed as "good," and even those weren't all necessarily good to live under.

[Brandon]

Lord of the Rings?

[Pro Libertate]

Look, if you have agents of God using magic to ensure justice and tranquility, then maybe a monarchy could work. But when it's just people, no fucking way.

Same for benevolent superaliens, assuming they aren't trying to trick you into letting them eat you.

[Mickey Rat]

Even that did not work. The Akallabeth tells how crappy the rule of Aragorn's ancestors could get. They got their Kingdom sunk out of hubris, Gondor was a do-over.

[Thane of Steelport]

By Emily Bazelon and Eric Posner

What a team those two make

[Irish]

By Emily Bazelon and Eric Posner

Eric Posner? Where have I heard that name before?

Americans need to learn that the rest of the world?and not just Muslims?see no sense in the First Amendment. Even other Western nations take a more circumspect position on freedom of expression than we do, realizing that often free speech must yield to other values and the need for order. Our own history suggests that they might have a point.

Truly he is an intellectual for our time.

[Hillary's Clitdong]

And wouldn't the American political system be better off if presidents in future can remove this gun from their own heads?

We wouldn't want any restraints on El Jefe, would we? Unilateral one-man rule is fully Constitutional.

[Killazontherun]

It's true that debt issued by the White House would be less clearly kosher than normal debt sanctioned by Congress, simply because it's new and different, and so less proven.

New and different is one way of putting it. Laughed out of every boardroom considering the purchasing of debt because it is a stupid hippie shit college dorm dope smoking idea that with no real world value is another. Where does Slate get this stellar line up of fuckheads?

Remember the lesson Clinton learned in his first year that bond holders call the shots? This administration and its enablers are at war with that fundamental reality. Good luck with that, bitches.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Dumbest fucker in Congress describes John McCain as Al Qaeda supporter.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) described Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) as a guy that supported al Qaeda.

Gohmert's description came Friday during a panel discussion of Republican lawmakers at the Values Voter Summit. Gohmert mentioned McCain as he discussed the government shutdown.

"I heard just before I came, some senator from Arizona, a guy that liked Gaddafi before he wanted to bomb him," Gohmert said. "A guy that's been to Syria and supported al Qaeda and the rebels. But he was saying today the shutdown has been a fools' errand. And I agree with him, the president and Harry Reid should not have shut this government down."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/l.....f-al-qaeda

[T]

I take exception to your description of Louis Gohmert. Hell, he's not even the dumbest congresscritter from Texas. Sheila Jackson-Lee is easily dumber than him.

[Sevo]

Palin's Buttplug|10.11.13 @ 4:37PM|#
"Dumbest fucker in Congress"

Nope. Boxer or that hag Pelosi. Dirt is smarter.

[Palin's Buttplug]

I accept that challenge. And I do so knowing full well SJL is as dumb as a stump.

Here is #1. Louis on a pipeline vote as he justified that vote based on caribou sex.

When [the caribou] want to go on a date, they invite each other to head over to the pipeline. ... if oil stops running through the pipeline ... do we need a study to see how adversely the caribou would be affected if that warm oil ever quit flowing?"

[Cytotoxic]

I think it's a joke you fucking idiot.

[Thane of Steelport]

He's too busy making millions with his HP calculator to notice such things.

[Fatty Bolger]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sarcasm

[Ted S.]

What about Hank Johnson?

[Palin's Buttplug]

Hank's one dumb comment is no match for Louie's body of work.

[VG Zaytsev]

"I heard just before I came, some senator from Arizona, a guy that liked Gaddafi before he wanted to bomb him," Gohmert said. "A guy that's been to Syria and supported al Qaeda and the rebels. But he was saying today the shutdown has been a fools' errand. And I agree with him, the president and Harry Reid should not have shut this government down."

Everything he in that quote is objectively true.

I guess that makes you (shriek) the dumbest motherfucker in the country.

[Rich]

"It slipped through the cracks," one veteran law enforcement official said of the [Snowden] report.

Yet another phrase that should go away.

"I fucked up" is much more honest.

[Mad Scientist]

Hey now. Official A is only accountable for this little thing over here. And Official B is only accountable for that little thing over there. Anything in between them is a crack, through which things could slip. Therefore, more Officials must be hired to spackle that crack.

[Warrren]

Spackle crack!

[Bobarian]

You should always fill the crack with caulk...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiPkYt09awo

[lafe.long]

spackle that crack

If that's not a porn title, it should be.

[The Last American Hero]

Way to take responsibility. That sneaky, wily little report hiding in those cracks.

[sloopyinca]

LAPD officer claims he "smelled the products used to make meth" near an area home. A warrant for a dynamic entry raid is issued (instead of any surveillance whatsoever). Ensuing raid results in fatal shooting of an 80-year old man.

The money-quote: "Age does not preclude somebody from being aggressive toward deputies," Whitmore said. "The lesson here is? don't pull a gun on a deputy."

Fuckers.

[Calidissident]

This was LA Sherrifs, not LAPD, but the point stands. Some infuriating quotes in that article, especially the last one.

[Eduard van Haalen]

""There was a drug operation that was certainly going on in this house," Whitmore said."

They're claiming to have found marijuana.

1) I suppose it's *possible* that this old guy went 80 years without pointing a gun at a cop, holding his murderous impulses in check until one day, some cops breaking into his house gave him the excuse he needed to kill him some pigs, and that only the quick response of the hero deputies prevented this guy from killing anyone.

2) It's possible that he was shooting at some home invaders whose identity he didn't know.

3) Or it's possible that his widow was right and he wasn't trying to kill anyone.

Rank these scenarios in order of likelihood. Scenario #1, the story promoted by the oh-so-credible guys who said there was a meth lab in the house, strikes me as the least plausible.

[Juice]

Right In Da Nutz

[Fist of Etiquette]

...CIA officials warned about Edward Snowden's behavior and possible efforts to access files he shouldn't have access to in 2009 in a report in his personnel file.

Hey, at least he didn't go in and shoot up the place armed with an AR-15 assault rifle, an AR-15 assault shotgun and an AR-15 assault pistol.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

California has officially banned lead hunting bullets

Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday signed 11 gun control bills including a ban on the use of lead bullets by hunters, but vetoed seven measures restricting firearms that were introduced in response to the massacre last year at a Connecticut elementary school.

Brown rejected a proposal to ban the sale of semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines, and bills that would have expanded the list of crimes that would bar the offender from firearms possession. He signed bills requiring more safety training for gun owners and better tracking of guns that are lost or stolen.

The ban on lead bullets was proposed by Assemblyman Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) because the substance is toxic and can poison those who eat animals shot with the ammunition.
"We are thrilled that Governor Brown has made AB 711 the law of the land," Rendon said in a statement. "There is simply no reason to continue using lead ammunition in hunting when it poses a significant risk to human health and the environment."

It says something about how extreme the California Democrats are when Jerry Brown is a moderating voice on gun control.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

And how many people have been sickened from lead poisoning as a result of eating an animal that was shot with a lead bullet? Anyone?

[Thane of Steelport]

Really it seems like they would want hunters to die of lead poisoning.

[Mad Scientist]

I received an email from assemblyman Das Williams the other day, encouraging me to write or call the guv and "urge [the governor] to sign Senate Bill (SB) 567, SB 755, Assembly Bill 9AB) 48, and AB 1131." All of them are gun control bullshit. But I see the guv was capable of restricting people's rights without my input. I loved it that the honorable Das Williams' letter began with "I am a strong believe in the Second Amendment, however...."

[sloopyinca]

Never, ever, ever trust a politician whose opening sentence of a letter has the word however in it.

[Warrren]

I don't know how much the state makes off of hunters but I'm sure that now it's only going to go up!

[John]

They have basically banned hunting. I wish them luck with that.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

That's okay--the gangbangers will continue hunting the most dangerous game of all.

[Warrren]

Boggle?

[Warrren]

It's okay the rural areas are doing fine they can easily shrug off the loss of money this will cause.

[Dr. Frankenstien]

Grammer nitpick in your headline. The bullets do not hunt lead.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Pittsburgh Steelers ban fun.

[PD Scott]

The beatings will continue.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

As a Ravens fan, I hope so.

[Warty]

Fuck you.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

The Cleveland fucking Browns still exist. Get over it.

[Warty]

FUCK. YOU.

[sloopyinca]

They may have banned fun, but at least they've learned how to keep their facility free from staph infection.

What's going on down there, Pro L?

[Pro Libertate]

I dunno, voodoo curse? Shit's getting hairy.

[sloopyinca]

You could be right. Perhaps someone performed a voodoo ritual over a recently deceased Cleveland Browns supporter and the team sent their staph issues from a few years ago to Florida.

[Pro Libertate]

What's odd is that they have a new and very state-of-the-art facility. You'd think they could zap it to get rid of the bug somehow.

[sloopyinca]

I think the problem is not that it's staph, but that it's Florida Staph. Allowing the MRSA bacterium to commingle with the other nasties in that state, it's no surprise that a super-strain has emerged.

Next up in Florida: super-cancer.

[Brandon]

They could, but Schiano says that's too easy and that at Rutgers he beat MRSA staph this one time by playing all the way through the end of the game.

[sloopyinca]

They could, but Schiano says that's too easy and that at Rutgers he beat MRSA staph this one time by playing all the way through the end of the game.

Best laugh I've had in a while. Thank you.

[Warrren]

Schiano is the infection.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

MRSA doesn't go away easy. And with multiple infected players, it will keep getting introduced.

[Pro Libertate]

That's about the Bucs speed this season. Next up, the team is quarantined from the rest of the league and not allowed to play.

[sloopyinca]

They end up with another case or two and the NIH is gonna shut their facility down and probably their season as well. The NFLPA dude was on a few minutes ago trying to reassure people that that won't happen. But in my experience, he wouldn't be doing that if the possibility hadn't been brought up by somebody in the loop.

[Pro Libertate]

What NIH?

[sloopyinca]

Oh, yeah. Sooooooooo the outbreak is the teabaggerz fault then?

[Warrren]

The facility I could see, but the season? Why?

[sloopyinca]

Because the players are the ones infected and contact can possibly spread it. And there's also no reassurance that it was transmitted at their training facility and not at the stadium facilities.

I'd be willing to bet those remaining players are not looking forward to going to work at either location right now.

[Warrren]

That would be unprecedented. Do you have a link to what the union guy was saying?

[sloopyinca]

Holy shit. They said it wouldn't happen in an earlier statement, but now the NFLPA might call for a postponement of this weekend's game.

[sloopyinca]

What do you do when an 8-year old throws a temper tantrum and threatens to harm herself? Why, you taze the fuck out of them, that's what you do.

FTA: Police Chief Bob Grandpre said three officers responded Friday night to a report of a suicidal 8-year-old girl who had stabbed herself in the leg. She was holding a 4 ?-inch knife to her chest when officers arrived and refused to put it down, he said.
-and-
That's when an officer deployed his Taser, with prongs hitting her chest and stomach. Emergency medical personnel soon arrived and checked the child, he said, who was taken to a hospital and placed on a 24-hour hold. The child had no stab wounds on her leg, he said.

That child sure is a quick healer.

[sloopyinca]

More gold FTA: The chief is reviewing the incident, but the officer ? whose name was not released ? still is on the job. Grandpre said the Taser was the least forceful way to get the child under control.

"He quite possibly saved the juvenile's life that night," he said.

The chief added that the officer has children and feels terrible about the incident, but "we can't control if the threat is eight or 80."

Um, yeah you can, fuckhead. That's exactly what you're paid to do.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Not to mention that is was a fucking paring knife and I doubt an 8 year old has enough strength to plunge any knife so far into his or her sternum as to reach the heart.

[Cytotoxic]

Okay you're new Balko. Just stop. My nuts are just dust.

[Eduard van Haalen]

"we can't control if the threat is eight or 80"

They must have heard about the 80-year-old meth-dealing cop-killer above.

[Flat Fifth]

The comments for the article are about 70% pro cop. My favorite was this one:

Suing isn't going to fix anything. It also won't teach the child anything either. Except to sue when you don't like how things are done.

Indeed. What kind of monster would teach their child to hold the authorities accountable? That's just madness!

[Thane of Steelport]

School newspapers are really fucking stupid

I don't know what it was about the following summer. Maybe that first couple of threesomes really set the mood or something, but nearly all the sex I had in the following months was in groups of three or more. The starts of such romps were sometimes awkward, sometimes not, but they had one theme in common: their focus on casual good times. None of my experiences materialized as the lustful throng of body parts that I had previously stereotyped orgies to be ? my partners and I just wanted a playful romp.

I understand the idea behind sex advice columns, but I really don't get the HEY EVERYBODY LOOK WHAT I DID type.

[Almanian!]

I'm sure the other students appreciate the warning so they can avoid the goofy bitch.

[Pro Libertate]

Does she also demand that the public fund her contraception?

[Killazontherun]

I just assume.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

*Zips pants back up*

What was wrong with it?

[Hillary's Clitdong]

This will look great on the resume!

[jesse.in.mb]

Joseph Homer ? UC Berkeley
I wish I were cool and had threesomes all the time. Go Vi!

I'm confused. What's getting in the way? If you want threesomes go have threesomes.

[Mad Scientist]

No kidding. If you use BOTH hands it's certainly a threesome.

[Killazontherun]

Threesomes are an affront to my sexual professionalism. It's like asking a batter to take his eye off the ball when he is about to hit a home run.

[Mickey Rat]

Uncool guy?

[jesse.in.mb]

He has to have one friend he doesn't mind seeing naked, no? Then just start picking up skanks at a bar. Epi can email you his comprehensive guide to skankology. Everyone loves a little Wobbly H action. Threesome accomplished.

Also an ex tells me that "it's totally not gay as long as [you're] high fiving 'cause [you're] bros and this is awesome"*

*no seriously, this conversation was had.

[Thane of Steelport]

I think he wants to have the good kind.

[jesse.in.mb]

Oh I thought the problem was he was having a hard time finding women to participate in a threeway. If he wants the good kind all he has to do is pop on to Grindr and say he's looking for a couple to come over and spit-roast him. He's really pathetic if he can't work out the good kind of threeway.

[Warty]

Epi can email you his comprehensive guide to skankology.

Ah, the E.P.I.S.I.A.R.C.H. Method. It has served me well.

E: Evaluate target
P: Provide cocaine

And then I forget the rest, until

H: Hide body

[Elphie]

I have a pretty good guess what the R stands for.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

...racquetball?

It's racquetball, right?

[Thane of Steelport]

Impress her with your rapier wit

[Warrren]

Lube her up with rapeseed oil.

[jesse.in.mb]

Reassess your life choices up to this point?

[Killazontherun]

Warty, best post ever.

[sloopyinca]

R: Rape the shit out of them at the Number Six Dance.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Hate to stereotype, but is the the same Asian-American California student who wrote about having sex in the library?

[Thane of Steelport]

Same column, different Asian

The other one was Korean IIRC and a bit better looking.

And it's not stereotyping; it's Berkeley FFS.

[Eduard van Haalen]

No, that was a different student:

http://www.dailycal.org/2012/1.....y-edition/

It's so hard to keep track of all the Asian-American coeds who write about their sex lives in the college paper!

At least they've shattered stereotypes and made their families proud!

[Thane of Steelport]

That's who I was talking about. Different author, same column ("Sex on Tuesday")

[Eduard van Haalen]

I missed your comment until my own was posted, sorry.

[sloopyinca]

That's not stereotyping. Stereotyping would be saying that every Asian woman is a horrible driver. Or that Korean women should be banned from golf courses because of slow play and horrible etiquette. Those are stereotypes. Accurate, mind you, but stereotypes nonetheless.

You just confused one writer with another.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Barton, being a conservative, thought she could lie her way out of what happened next. Which is that people said, "Man, that is fucked up comparing the President to Hitler, and not just because it's a violation of Godwin's law, but also because you're a white person and the President is one of the people that the actual Hitler said belonged to an inferior race."

Race-baiting while furrowing your brow at an internet Godwin -- well-played Ms Marcotte, well played.

[Calidissident]

Is it offensive to compare, say, Idi Amin to Hitler? Or to compare the Hutus who perpetrated the Rwandan genocide with Nazis?

[Calidissident]

*Note: Not that Obama is as bad as any of those people, as much as he sucks

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Don't be silly. Only white people can be racist or Nazis.

[Killazontherun]

Playing the race card on a Godwin, she's innovative.

[Irish]

Which is that people said, "Man, that is fucked up comparing the President to Hitler, and not just because it's a violation of Godwin's law, but also because you're a white person and the President is one of the people that the actual Hitler said belonged to an inferior race."

By my count, this is a 50 word incomplete sentence.

Amanda Marcotte keeps finding new and magical ways to butcher the English language.

[Flat Fifth]

Grammar is a tool of the patriarchy.

[Sevo]

Hey, moonbeam can read the political news with the best of 'em:
"Brown vetoes bill banning semi-automatic rifles"
But it's not like he actually read or understands A-2
http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/.....888523.php

[sloopyinca]

Fucking Moonbeam. That prick also vetoed the bill that would have allowed drivers with no passengers to use the carpool lane (HOV Lane to you guys back east) in non-rush hour time periods in SoCal.

Now I'll have to get creative when I need to get into the city by myself.

[Thane of Steelport]

Sources: Cash-Strapped FreedomWorks In State Of Financial Disarray

Note the background of the photo *sigh*

Sources describe a culture where fiscal conservatism is ostensibly prized, but staff dine out at fancy restaurants on the company's dollar and a microbrew bar in the office with four kegs (Kibbe is a craft beer aficionado) is paid for with FreedomWorks money.

Hmm, a false equivalence, I smell

[Thane of Steelport]

I admit it, I laughed

[Jordan]

How many kingdoms (thanedoms?) do you have? This one I understand, but what was with the "Thane can punch all your buns" name? I must know.

[Thane of Steelport]

It's an Adventure Time reference.

Or the remix, if you prefer

[Warty]

Kitty!

I laughed too.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

RationalWiki on capitalism:

[Capitalism] entails, in theory, that one does not have to work except on terms acceptable to him/her. However, this also means that employers do not have to provide work except on terms acceptable to them, so people are not free to set the terms of their employment and both parties must arrange a compromise that they both find acceptable. This concept of mutual benefit is an important idea in capitalist theory ? the idea that no exchange will take place unless both parties benefit, barring fraud. However, this assumes that both parties to a contract have comparable amounts of social, political, and economic power. This balance of power is inherently unstable ? even small imbalances are self-reinforcing and lead to a concentration of power in the hands of those who already have it ? so this doesn't really pan out the way Friedman promised[...]

Would it be impolitic to point out that everything following from "however" has no bearing on the topic being addressed? Then again, it wouldn't be RationalWiki if it were tangentially interested in facts and good argumentation.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Cue the invocation of privilege.

[Thane of Steelport]

RationalWiki makes me want to vomit.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Capitalism has trucked along, exploiting peasants and increasing standards of living into the present. There may have been a few people who disagreed along the way, but their country imploded so almost everybody has written off the idea of a complete alternative. Capitalism is also well known for inspiring such stoic and moral attitudes in the people who benefit from its fruits.

The "cite" for the bolded section is a link to a Youtubed XBox 360 freakout -- no, really.

This RationalWiki article is like every criticism of libertarianism your snotty 20-something nephew has ever made, all in one convenient source.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Where is your god free market now, libertarians?!?!

United States of America: The United States has long been viewed as one of the freest economies in the world. Despite some not-insignificant increases in government size since the more laissez-faire 19th century, the US still ranks highly in economic freedom. The United States is (for now) the largest economy in the world, producing roughly 23% of world GDP.[7] Most economists believe it is the relative freedom to start a business, secure property rights and stable political environment that allow for this growth. Other commentators believe this success is due to aggressive imperialism in which the US government bullies, bombs, and intimidates other nations into giving up resources. Yet others point to the tremendous natural resources available on US territory as the reason for this wealth.

Singapore: This tiny city-state is rated one of the economically freest countries in the world, and it has obtained considerable wealth despite its lack of natural resources. However, the state (also known as "Disneyland with the Death Penalty") has draconian social laws that run contrary to the theory of free-market capitalism, restraining (for example) free trade in chewing gum. Singapore is also considered state-capitalist, which is but a hair away from the dreaded s-word.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

And for the coup de grace:

Although there is a strong tradition of religious involvement in centrist or left-wing politics (e.g., the early Christian church vs. the Roman Empire, Liberation theology, Christian democracy), in the United States most politicians who make religion an explicit part of their political identity are right-wingers and adhere to a form of Christianity that fits these beliefs.
This is ironic, because most of the particular policies that set the Religious Right apart from the secular right are contrary to the principles of free-market capitalism; however, knowing so would require reading and that's difficult[...] Another layer of irony is added when you consider that Christ spoke out, in no uncertain terms, against what is considered today to be the extreme of capitalist doctrine. It took an act of staggering cognitive dissonance ? helped along by the fact that, due to the influence of Marxism, anti-capitalist politics in the 20th century had become firmly associated with atheism ? for Jesus to be portrayed as a long-haired version of Ronald Reagan. Seriously, anybody who has not had the joy of asking a wealthy fundamentalist to explain Matthew 19:1:24 to them should get down to their nearest Baptist Church immediately and start asking around. It's the most awkward fifteen seconds of half-remembered excuses.

I am appalled that they didn't mention Somalia in all of this -- almost had my libertarian Bingo card filled out.

[Cytotoxic]

This is a wiki? This writing style is used in a wiki?

[Thane of Steelport]

A lot of wikis have a more conversational tone.

[Cytotoxic]

Guess I'm used to The One Wikipedia.

Seriously, more Libertarians need to sign up and make changes to it. Re global warming etc. It would be worth a clandestine effort with a little money.

[Thane of Steelport]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

[Palin's Buttplug]

Ayn Rand said things along a similar vein. She despised the Reagan philosophy due to its underpinning in Christianity instead of capitalism.

[Cytotoxic]

Ayn Rand said intelligent things which this is not. Not that I'd expect you to know the difference.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Ayn Rand's critique was significantly more sophisticated than CHRISTIANZ BAD HUR HUR, you syphilitic chimpanzee.

[Cytotoxic]

*Ahem* Chimpanzees cannot syphilis...99% sure. They can get AIDS however-from SIV.

[Thane of Steelport]

Yeah, he would fuck chimps.

[Palin's Buttplug]

I know what she wrote, you dumbass. Nor did I attempt to paraphrase her.

[Cytotoxic]

No you just didn't understand her. Or anything else.

[MJGreen]

Hey, a YouTube video is a legit, serious response to something like Deirdre's McCloskey's multi-volume work on values and capitalism.

[Irish]

This RationalWiki article is like every criticism of libertarianism your snotty 20-something nephew has ever made, all in one convenient source.

Rational Wiki's article on libertarianism actually tries to pull the Somalia card. I laughed so hard when I saw that. I used to think that you guys were joking when people would bring up progressives claiming that libertarianism would be like Somalia, but that was before Rational Wiki opened my eyes.

[Thane of Steelport]

What really bugs me about RatWiki is they have (or at least had, last time I checked) decent entries on logical fallacies, which rank fairly high on Google.

So you go there, and think it looks promising, and then... oh wait this is a steaming pile of shit.

Or worse, you're politically unsophisticated and have no way of knowing it's total bullshit.

And if anybody calls them out, they just retort "don't take everything so seriously, this site is just a riff on Conservapedia". Which is bullshit, of course.

[Heroic Mulatto]

And if anybody calls them out, they just retort "don't take everything so seriously, this site is just a riff on Conservapedia".

AKA: The Jon Stewart Fallacy.

[Cytotoxic]

It's not even a fallacy it's a duck.

[General Butt Naked]

If it quacks like a partisan idiot...

[sloopyinca]

Apparently, the Tulare County Sheriff's Department didn't get all the things they wanted in their last contract negotiation.

Oh well, the contract is being renegotiated again in 2014. He can hope..

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Rand Paul's restrained foreign policy is tainted by Islamophobia

Paul's speech (which greatly resembles one he gave to an evangelical audience last June) hit nearly every toxic fixation and delusion of the evangelical Right. He generously indulged the persecution fantasy that fuels so much of the modern conservative movement, claiming that "there's a worldwide war on Christianity," waged largely by Islam, but also by "liberal elites." It is "a war that the mainstream media is ignoring," he said. Mainstream media liberals are too scared and too PC to say it, but Paul wasn't: We must blame Muslims more or less as a homogeneous undifferentiated mass.

Ever since 9/11, commentators have tried to avoid pointing fingers at Islam, which is somewhat fair. It is fair to point out that most Muslims are not committed to violence against Christians, but it's not the whole truth. The whole truth is ? and we shouldn't let political correctness stand in the way of this truth ? the whole truth is that there is a minority of Muslims who condone killing of Christians, but, unfortunately, that minority number is in the tens of millions.

So in other words, how dare he make accurate statements?

[John]

It is just a fantasy that the Christian population of the middle east is disappearing. Remember serious man, when you get tired of liberals owning the entire culture, you just have a persecution complex.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Someone in the comments pointed out that Christians are persecuted in many Islamic countries, to which some idiot said that Christians don't complain about the persecution of Muslims in America.

These people are irredeemably stupid. Apparently in that person's mind, the burning of Coptic churches in Egypt is no different than some bigoted asshole making anti-Islamic remarks online.

[John]

They really are. What I hate about them most is that they are total intolerant assholes. But when anyone points that out, they are dismissed as having an oppression complex. God that is infuriating.

[Calidissident]

Wait, so explicitly stating that Muslims are not a homogenous undifferentiated mass means that "we must blame Muslims more or less as a homogeneous undifferentiated mass?"

And I guess saying slightly un-PC things about Islam is worse than bombing weddings and killing innocent Muslim children, right? Words, not actions, and all that.

[Cytotoxic]

Ding ding ding +1

[Somalian Road Corporation]

They don't call it narrative "framing" for nothing, hyuk hyuk.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Rand Paul has gone full Fundie Nut. He will start examining chicken entrails for economic signs next.

[Cytotoxic]

Stating reality = nuts

He will start examining chicken entrails for economic signs next.

It would be awesome if he would examine your entrails.

[Palin's Buttplug]

I despise Islam. But it is the companion religion to Christianity.

Rand Paul lamenting a "war on Christianity" while calling out Islam is the height of being unaware.

[Cytotoxic]

Unaware of what exactly? False equivalence supported by your useless contention that Islam is a 'companion to Christianity'?

[Palin's Buttplug]

Islam, Xtianity, and Judaism sprang from the same seed about the time of Abraham. They diverged several centuries A.D.

[Cytotoxic]

ISLAM IS HUNDREDS OF YEARS YOUNGER

Not that this fucking matters given that contemporary Islam is violent while contemporary Christian really isn't.

[John]

Islam came about in the 8th century retard. That is a full 2000 years after Abraham.

You are just so fucking stupid people would feel sorry for you if you were not such a nasty embarrassment to humanity.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Besides that, I'm not quite sure what a common origin for the Abrahamic faiths has to do with Copts having the holy hell oppressed out of them by Egypt's majority-Islam population, or how moral opprobrium for such a thing amounts to "full-on Fundie Nut".

[Eduard van Haalen]

Here's RP's speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol7MabJkb9g

I saw part of the speech - he talked about the days when the Muslim world was all about science and learning.

As he said, there's a minority of Muslims that condones the killing of Christians - adding up to millions.

[Eduard van Haalen]

His punch lines involved, not bombing other countries, but cutting off aid to oppressive Islamic regimes and Islamist rebels.

"not one dime...not one penny..." etc.

[Eduard van Haalen]

And they applauded the "it's what makes us different from them" line.

[sloopyinca]

The story is horrible but the comments are even worse.

LAPD officer is charged with assault after a woman she kicked nine times dies. And all the people on PoliceOne are up in arms about how the PD there doesn't protect cops and is out to get officers. It's almost as if their paranoia is boundless and their memory for events like the seemingly endless number of "justified" assaults and murders by officers is non-existent.

[Calidissident]

"And all the people on PoliceOne are up in arms about how the PD there doesn't protect cops and is out to get officers"

As someone who lives in LA, this is laughable

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Minnesota teenager, former cheerleader getse 3 years for attempting to run a prostitution ring

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ? Montia Parker seemed loaded with promise as she was finishing high school this spring: an honor roll student already accumulating college credit, a frequent volunteer and cheerleading captain at her suburban Minneapolis school.

Months later, Parker is off to prison after being sentenced Friday to three years for prostituting a younger member of the cheer squad and keeping the money for herself.

"Tragically ? for many ? her high school years ended in criminal activity. She was the leader of an attempted high school prostitution ring," Hennepin County District Court Judge William Koch said when issuing the sentence. "It is, in many ways, inexplicable."

Parker admitted she told a 16-year-old fellow cheerleader at Hopkins High School last March the girl could earn money through prostitution. The younger girl agreed, so Parker placed an ad online and took her to an apartment where the girl was paid to perform oral sex. The girl gave Parker $60, which the judge said went toward "a pair of sneakers."

[sloopyinca]

Wait, I thought prostitutes were always "working their way through college". It turns out they're actually working their way through high school?

Nice.

[Mad Scientist]

Strippers are working their way through college. Prostitutes start earlier.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

I think that's strippers, prostitutes often want their next fix, unless they're Julia Roberts.

Oh, and it was a pleasure meeting you, Kara, and baby Reason last night.

[sloopyinca]

That's right. I had my sex workers mixed up again, dammit.

Yeah, it was my pleasure as well. Now we just have to cross our fingers the Dodgers and Sox are playing each other in a couple of weeks.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Hell yeah. You seemed sober when you made that offer so if you can follow through I have no objections.

[sloopyinca]

It's a go as far as I'm concerned. I need you in the car for the free parking anyway.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Sounds like a promising start to a career in politics.

[PD Scott]

Another entrepreneur shut down by government!

[sloopyinca]

Remember that 15 year old high school kid that got caught streaking at a football game? Well, the principal called for expulsion and criminal charges hat could have landed the harmless and popular kid on the sex offender registry. And now, the kid has apparently killed himself.

Now that's bullying, parents.

[Ted S.]

Not only did H&R cover this, but I commented a minute before you. :-p

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Dispatches from the War on Women: The Disney conspiracy

Let's see how Disney diminishes female power in 4 easy steps.

(1) Change the title. Once called The Snow Queen, the movie is now called Frozen. Using the same tactic as when Disney switched the title of Rapunzel to Tangled to hide the female star, it's become extremely rare for a female to be referenced in the title of an animated movie for children.

(2) Change the story. In the original story, the girl rescues her brother. Now, she rescues her sister, keeping the trope of a damsel in distress and preventing a girl from saving a boy.

(3) Create a male co-star. Just as Flynn Ryder's role was expanded to equal Rapunzel's in Tangled, Disney invented Kristoff, a mountain man, to share the screen with the heroine.
[...]
You know what really creeps me out? Thousands of years ago, conquering armies smashed the idols of their victims and stole their stories, an extremely effective tactic to destroy a community and steal its power. Christians did this to pagans, but of course, this act is all over history. Just like the goddess morphed into the Virgin, girls are going missing under the guise of celebration. Right now, in 2013, Disney is stealing and sanitizing stories. It's an annihilation. How long before we all forget the original story? Will our children ever hear it?

[Pro Libertate]

They hid the female star in Tangled? WTF? Even I fucking know it's about a chick with long hair. Holy crap.

[PD Scott]

Thank Goddess hissy fits don't diminish female power.
hide the female star
I must have imagined Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid, Pocahontas and Mulan.

[Thane of Steelport]

Hey, PD, would you email me, por favor?

[PD Scott]

...Any reason? Should I consult an attorney first?

[Thane of Steelport]

To exchange dick pics.

I just have a couple questions.

[jesse.in.mb]

Oh NOW you're on top of getting to the goods.

[Thane of Steelport]

You should have held out longer.

[jesse.in.mb]

I get that a lot
🙁

[PD Scott]

I NEED AN ADULT!

[Warrren]

Why hello!

[jesse.in.mb]

If Warrren is showing up your cry for help has gone very very wrong PD.

[Thane of Steelport]

Hey, it could be worse. It could be STEVE SMITH.

...or Warty.

...or Epi.

...or Sug.

AHG, WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO!

[Warrren]

Why hello!

[jesse.in.mb]

AHG, WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO!

You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of inappropriate touching. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of Warty's imagination. That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop: the Rape Zone!

[Warrren]

Why hello dimension sailor!

[sloopyinca]

That sounds like a Penn State youth outreach program.

[Warrren]

The S.S. Sandusky is full of seamen and waiting for you!

[Warrren]

I think Mulan has the highest body count of any Disney hero, male or female.

How many Mongols died on that mountain when she dropped the avalanche on them?

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

I forget, does she kill the main Mongol guy herself?

If so, that's very rare for a Disney female lead.

[Warrren]

Her dragon helped but she set it up. A rocket-ridin' one way trip into a room full of fireworks.

Everybody applauded the resultant display of pyrotechnics but really they would have been dodging body parts and wiping viscera off of themselves.

[jesse.in.mb]

Mushu and the cricket launch a firework at him at her direction and she traps him on the roof with his sword so that he cannot escape it. She's directly responsible, but does not deliver a killing blow.

[Warrren]

Oh, I forgot about the cricket. He was one noisy cricket.

[Cytotoxic]

He wasn't a Mongol pretty sure he was a Hun. The bad guy as a bad-ass in that movie.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Oh that's right.

Let's get down to business/To defeat the Huns!

I don't think that's historically accurate, but whatever.

Unless by Huns they meant Germans and this was some bizzaro alternate WWII.

[Heroic Mulatto]

The difference between the Xiongnu and the early Mongols is academic.

[Warrren]

Mongol, Hun? What's the difference?

[Cytotoxic]

Big difference! Attila was an evil sadistic psycho. Genghis Khan gets a bad rap but he was really interested in trade. Not such a bad guy.

[Warrren]

I would love to read about that take on him. Got a link?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Here's a quote from the non-academic but generally solid Howstuffworks:

Genghis Khan (whose adopted name means "Universal Ruler" in Altaic, his native tongue) was something of a populist conqueror. He generally followed a self-imposed rule that those who surrendered to him were allowed to live. Common folk were often spared?, while their rulers usually were put to death. The same fate met anyone else who dared resist.

Genghis Khan was a brilliant warmonger, but he was also an incredibly accomplished diplomat, uniting not only his own disparate peoples but also many, many other arrangements with other states. He was also a lawmaker, establishing a unified, meritocratic codex of law which allowed many religious, cultural, and economic freedoms. (This is not to be confused with a program for classical liberalism, but it was a remarkable codex of laws nonetheless.)

His reputation as a sadistic beast was something more or less invented by one of his descendants, Timur the Lame to justify his own brutal conquests and approach to winning the peace.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I can recommend a book but I am far from an expert; perhaps someone like Heroic Mulatto would be more versed in the subject and recommend something better?

[Warrren]

Interesting. You are a good T.I.T. one of the best T.I.T.s in fact.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I'm firm, yet supple to the touch.

[Gbob]

Not such a bad guy.

Sixty million people killed in China alone might disagree with you. Perhaps, however, you're talking about his ability to spread the love....and by love I mean rape. There's a reason why 8% of the Asian population can be traced back to Khan and his family.

[Cytotoxic]

I didn't even think about that. Holy shit she's a mass killer.

[Thane of Steelport]

Yeah but "we'll make a man out of you" blah blah. So it's sexist.

[jesse.in.mb]

Someone needs to turn that training montage into a real exercise program. One small success based on cleverness and she had the confidence to outcompete all of her male peers in purely physical strength challenges!? AMAZING RESULTS.

[Thane of Steelport]

I dunno. The song is really all I remember.

That and the binding around her breasts, which utterly confused me (I was pretty young at the time; I thought maybe they had cut them off and it was a bandage).

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

That movie had some pretty subtle humor for the adults that was funny.

Like when she finally gains the acceptance of the other guys in the army they do introductions and when one offers his hand for a handshake she sticks her hand out as if she was expecting him to kiss it.

[Warrren]

Yeah, it's one of the few movies where Disney openly acknowledged the existence of tits. Sure their always there on every princess but her's became a plot point.

Also the bathing scene where the men were gallivanting about in the nude and Mulan had to hide herself while being exposed to cocks. Has there ever been another Disney princess that saw a penis before the movie ended?

Sure, Cinderella and Belle and others got married and caught a face full of dick but that was after the movie.

[Thane of Steelport]

Sure, Cinderella and Belle and others got married and caught a face full of dick but that was after the movie.

Nobody wants to hear about your porn habits.

[Warrren]

It's my TV and if I want to rub something on it while a movie plays that is my right.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

I was always struck by how the sexualized Princess Jasmine from Aladdin. Is there any reason for her to wear a midriff-baring, cleavage-rific top?

I guess it reinforces the idea that Aladdin was the first Disney Renaissance picture intended for boys.

[Warrren]

A lad in Jasmine.

[jesse.in.mb]

It was an intentional move so that the movies would appeal to all kids instead of boys or girls.

Disney is stealing and sanitizing stories. It's an annihilation. How long before we all forget the original story?

Umm, weren't they stealing and sanitizing stories back when they made EVERY OTHER DISNEY PRINCESS MOVIE EVER?

[The Little Mermaid] fixed her eyes on the prince, who whispered the name of his bride in his dreams. She was in his thoughts, and the knife trembled in the hand of the little mermaid: then she flung it far away from her into the waves; the water turned red where it fell, and the drops that spurted up looked like blood. She cast one more lingering, half-fainting glance at the prince, and then threw herself from the ship into the sea, and thought her body was dissolving into foam. The sun rose above the waves, and his warm rays fell on the cold foam of the little mermaid, who did not feel as if she were dying.

Instead of killing the man she loved who loved another woman the little mermaid knowingly dies. STOP STEALING OUR STORIES DISNEY.

[Rasilio]

"How long before we all forget the original story?"

Um, I am a very avid reader of folk tales and even I never heard of this story until my wife (who reads even more) introduced me to it when she heard about the movie.

It is a fairly safe bet that less than 1/10th of 1% of Americans have ever heard of this story

Further it is relatively rare for any animated movie to reference a character of either gender, a quick glance over the last few years worth of American Animation movies and I saw maybe 30% of them had the name of the character with an identifiable gender in the title and those were split about 70/30 male to female

[Mickey Rat]

Except for Snow White, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Mulan...

[Mickey Rat]

"...Disney is stealing and sanitizing stories."

Calling it "stealing" might be overly judgmental, but that is what Disney does, that's what it has always done!

[Winston]

Can you "steal" stories that are public domain or that you have bought the rights to? I suppose the closest they have to "theft" would be the Lion King but it still is pretty much Hamlet with lions.

And while the earliest Disney films can be quite dark the so-called "Disneyfication" is quite old.

[Brandon]

I haven't seen a Disney movie more recent than Cars, but wasn't Brave entirely about a chick?

[Fatty Bolger]

Yes, and it's not even mentioned in the article, probably because it destroys her entire point.

Tangled, Brave, Frozen. That's three major GIRLLLL POWER! movies from Disney in three years, but I guess that's not enough, huh? WE MUST MANUFACTURE A GRIEVANCE!

[Rasilio]

So has anyone seen the new Verizon Commercial?

The with with the Black family trick or treating in Star Wars Costumes.

Guess which member of the family is dressed as Chewbacca?

So is this a case of marketing people being culturally isolated and being unaware of conservative internet memes, or is it evidence of a conservative/libertarian working in stealth at an ad agency.

[Thane of Steelport]

http://youtu.be/C1aBsDc-ck0

I didn't know about the Wookie meme until seeing it mentioned repeatedly here. And I still don't quite get it.

[Calidissident]

Yeah, I don't really get it either. Is the meme saying black women look like Wookies or is it purely aimed at Michelle Obama? Either way, I don't really see it. And while I agree that Michelle is certainly no supermodel, I don't think she's particularly unattractive compared to most women her age.

[Heroic Mulatto]

AND NONE OF THEM SAW IT FIT TO BE LANDO!!!!

That is true racism, you ol' pirate.

[Killazontherun]

I always thought Michelle looked more like a Klingon with the incredible concern rolls her forehead does when she is affecting empathy for one cause or another.

[sloopyinca]

There's two "e"s on the end of wookiee, you ignorant fucking heathen!

[Thane of Steelport]

Whatever, dork. I haven't read 50 of the books like you.

Only around 15 or 20.

[sloopyinca]

I resent that, Jar Jar. I probably only read 10 books. And I haven't read on in at least 15 years.

[Thane of Steelport]

I don't really remember much. They were mostly pretty forgettable.

I got laughed out of a room onetime when somebody asked "What the hell is a 'Bothan spy' anyway?" and I knew the answer.

[sloopyinca]

What person between 35 and 55 doesn't know what a fucking 'Bothan spy' is? And if they don't why would you want to associate with them anyway? People like that need to be taken out to the Dune Sea and cast into the Pit of Carkoon

[Thane of Steelport]

1. They weren't within that age range.

2. They knew the context (that they stole the Death Star plans) but not what a "Bothan" actually was (as it's never shown in the movie).

[sloopyinca]

1. Don't care.

2. Don't care.

To the pit with them. Sarlacc is hungry.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Well they wouldn't be very good spies if you could see them, now would they?

[Thane of Steelport]

Also, the X-Wing kid is wearing a Galaxy Gear. Yeah, um, OK. People totally do that.

[Brandon]

Always some white boy gotta invoke the holy trilogy. Oh, wait...

[Cytotoxic]

An article about experimentation on North Korean prisoners. It's pretty hard to read.

"An officer ordered me to select 50 healthy female prisoners. One of the guards handed me a basket full of soaked cabbage, told me not to eat it but to give it to the 50 women. I gave them out and heard a scream. They were all screaming and vomiting blood. All who ate the cabbage leaves started violently vomiting blood and screaming with pain. It was hell. In less than 20 minutes, they were dead."

[trshmnstr]

These types of monsters lurk in every society and culture, just waiting for enough power and control to engage in their sadism without repercussions. I dunno what attraction totalitarians have to human experimentation, but it seems that a lot of them do it.

[T]

Read about the Japanese experiments on POWs during WW2 sometime. Horrifying stuff.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Just awful: Woman who died of complications from C-section accidentally rolled over and smothered her newborn.

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

PSA: Please don't have your babies sleep in the bed with you. The risks are a lot greater than a lack of sleep from having to rock them and put them back in the crib.

[Warrren]

We did fine.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Game of Bones: A SFW look at the Westeros porn parody

We've got a long wait until Game of Thrones returns next March... but fear not! Episodes of Game of Bones, the porn parody from director Lee Roy Myers, will start appearing on the Web in just a couple of weeks. (Including a female Joffrey!) We've got the first exclusive teaser and cast photos, plus an interview with Myers.

Scroll down to see cast photos for Game of Bones: Winter is Cumming, which debuts its first episode on WoodRocket.com on Oct. 25. Not pictured, according to Myers, are "pornified" versions of Varys, Tyrion Lannister, Jorah Mormont, and King Joffrey, "played by a legal-aged female."

Is there that much difference between GoT and soft-core porn?

[PD Scott]

Less blood?

[jesse.in.mb]

Speaking of Game of Thrones and sex:

The new Ser Gregor

Haf??r "Thor" Bj?rnsson
6'9" 419lb

Would not kick out of bed for eating crackers. Well to be fair, I'd be incapable of doing so.

[Warty]

He looks about right, although GRRM describes Ser Gregor as being almost 8 feet tall. Which would make him, what, at least half a ton? GRRM's tenuous grasp of weight vs. height is irritating.

[Heroic Mulatto]

GRRM's tenuous grasp of weight vs. height is irritating.

Well, look at the dude.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Yeah, one thing that kind of stuck out to me when reading the books is that like 95% of the characters, even the women, are extremely tall. I can understand wanting to make (literally) larger-than-life characters, but when everyone is, it removes the impact.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Joffrey is kind of a bitch, so making him a chick won't be too much of a stretch.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, there's probably more plot in GoT and maybe a little more pointless sex.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

I hope the director realizes that the parody of the material has to be well-done and funny, otherwise we're just watching a girl significantly less attractive than Emilia Clark do slightly more explicit sex-scenes and there is just no point in watching.

[Mickey Rat]

" Not pictured, according to Myers, are "pornified" versions of Varys,..."

Varys? The eunuch? That would seem to be targeting some very...specialized tastes.

[Palin's Buttplug]

'TRUCKERS FOR THE CONSTITUTION' rally to circle DC draws only 30 trucks - not the thousands predicted.

Dozens, not thousands, show up for DC trucker protest

http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....latestnews

[Brandon]

Diesel is fucking expensive.

[Outlaw]

http://www.guns.com/2013/10/11.....niversary/

This seems kind of tasteless and is an idiotic PR move.

[Cytotoxic]

This kind of thing wins the culture war.

[Calidissident]

Not really

[Cytotoxic]

Yes really. The NRA did similar things. Pretty sure they followed up a shooting with a rally with then-leader Heston who did the whole 'from my cold hands' thing.

[Outlaw]

Are you sure it happened that way?

I think that was something Michael fatfuck Moore claimed happened in Bowling for Columbine but actually didn't.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Trying to appease people who think that wanting to own a gun is ipso facto evidence of mental illness is not a fruitful endeavor.

[Calidissident]

That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying picking some other day to do this would have been more appropriate

[Cytotoxic]

That's the appeasement right there.

[Calidissident]

Why does a pro-gun rally have to be done on the anniversary of Newtown? I'm not saying I'm personally offended, just that it's not a smart PR move

[Heroic Mulatto]

More tasteless than Gabby sitting upon a throne built from the rotting, putrid corpses of dead children?

[Outlaw]

Definitely not.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

As an AZ resident all the intellectually dishonest "eliminationist rhetoric" and "civility" concern trolling afterwards drove me nuts and I couldn't get away from it.

And then subsequent years of screaming about "Teahadist hostage-taking suicide-bomber terrorists who want to hold a gun against the head of the American people" and all that jazz... icing on the cake.

[Sidd Finch]

Siberian woman 'in love with Gaddafi' sparks mob to attack Russian embassy in Libya

Apprehended by Libyan police, she now faces a charge of murder and is held under close guard in detention. Ustiuzhaninova disappeared from Siberia, where she studied at Novosibirsk State University, about two years ago.

Many of her friends believed she had returned to Vladivostok where her parents lived. In fact, it is now she believed she went on a personal mission to revenge Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi's death in 2011.

[John]

http://meinmyplace.com/

Me and my Place is doing a thing on some red head sci fi comic con chick named Meg Turney. Never heard of her but considering this board's love of red heads and sci fi. I imagine she is popular

NSFW

[Warty]

Look up Krysten Ritter's Me in My Place spread. FUUUUUUUCK.

[John]

That site can be hit and miss. Sometimes they have chicks that have way too many tats and are a bit skanky. But other times it is wow. I like it that they will get just really hot 20 somethings with great bodies and look natural no silicon.

[Warty]

Speaking of, I recently learned that Playboy has switched from featuring plastic-surgeried silicone bimbos to this sort of woman. I guess Hef is out of the loop then? Either way, it's fantastic news.

[John]

Damn. I hope so. Women in that magazine have been getting less and less attractive for decades now.

[John]

There is one chick on me in my place named Jillian. She has three or four different spreads. She is just spectacular. The perfect all American brunette.

[Warty]

She'll do.

THIS IS WHY THERE ARE NO LIBERTARIAN WOMEN

[John]

That is the one. But if there were Libertarian women, I would want them to be her.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

I think it's funny how there are so many guys here who don't like chicks with tats. More for me, I guess.

I will admit that the crazy quotient is substantially higher, but, hey, just don't promise crazy a baby--and keep in mind the just-as-important corollary, don't take crazy's word for it about birth control.

[John]

I think tats on a beautiful woman is like painting graffiti on the side of a Ferrari.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

^This.

[Thane of Steelport]

They can be OK. But they certainly never make anybody look better.

My biggest issue is that they often mess up symmetry.

[Troy muy grande boner]

She is fap worthy

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Yglesias is still kind of a moron...

I've carried this Fergusonian view over into peacetime. What matters for national prosperity is a) the availability and distribution of real resouces and b) the capacity to mobilize those real resources. Public finance?the joint conduct of fiscal and monetary policy?is best seen as a tool of mobilization, rather than something to sweat in its own right.

[Cytotoxic]

Public finance requires no resources!

[The Immaculate Trouser]

One policy ramification of Yglesias' conclusion would be that governments should not tax at all and instead rely entirely on debt to fund itself in perpetuity. One wonders why governments worldwide haven't leapt to do such a thing.

[Pro Libertate]

You know what? I think one way to end all of this love of fascism is to convince these people that they're not going to be the ones wearing the boots. Because, in fact, they aren't. They'll be getting their faces crushed like the rest of us.

Fucking idiots.

[Cytotoxic]

That won't work. They'll be fine with that at least for a long time. They love AUTHORITAH for itself.

[Warty]

Speak for yourself. I just started on my Master's degree in Camp Management Sciences at the University of Phoenix. I'll be good to go.

[Pro Libertate]

You know, how does that work? I mean, the Germans didn't have people trained in designing camps and all the nastiness inside. At least, not to begin with.

[John]

I used to think that. But now I am think people like Yglesias are so steeped in self loathing and victim mentality, they want that. They want for someone to crush their face.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, fuck, we can do that for them. We'll have libertopia for us, and special elective camps for suffering for them.

[Winston]

But they'll still think that with the Right Top Man there would a worker's paradise without any of the nasty gulags or secret police.

[Pro Libertate]

Never ever happened even once.

[Warrren]

If it had, we would never here the end of it. Wall-to-wall movies, documentaries and TV shows.

[Warrren]

You can't be an EconGuru unless you speak babble.

[Calidissident]

Ready for a huge nut punch?

Adrian Peterson's 2 year-old son dies after being assaulted by his mother's boyfriend.

What the fuck is wrong with some people?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/.....n/2966015/

[John]

I knew a sergeant in Iraq whose own mother killed her 18 month old child while she was in Iraq.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Ugh. There's nothing redeemable about this story.

[Brandon]

That's unbelievably shitty. Peterson should get 10 minutes alone in a windowless room with that guy.

[Eduard van Haalen]

No, but if the guy is guilty as adjudicated by a court, he shouldn't see the sun again.

[sloopyinca]

How about the NJ Senate race? I'm sure Booker will win, but Lonegan might have gotten the best zinger of this political season.

http://politicalticker.blogs.c.....licy-talk/

FTA: One of the most heated exchanges began when Lonegan told the audience he would be in favor of abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency. Booker countered Lonegan, saying his Newark constituents wouldn't be able to swim in the Passaic River without the EPA's help.

Lonegan provided a different reason for why Newark residents may not be able to go for a dip.

"You may not be able to swim in that river, but I think it's because of all the bodies floating around of shooting victims," Lonegan said.

Awesome.

[nipplemancer]

I grew up on the Passaic, no one's wanted to swim in that river for decades and I don't foresee people doing it anytime soon. The EPA hasn't done shit to fix it either. Fuck Booker (also Fuck Lonegan, but for entirely different reasons).

[Eduard van Haalen]

Georgetown University turns its head on its neck, vomits pea soup, and taunts Exorcist author William Blatty that his well-documented petition to the Vatican to enforce Georgetown's Catholic identity will never succeed.

Blatty wants Georgetown to actually *be* Catholic (eg, not invite Kathleen Sebelius as a speaker) or to drop any claim to Catholic identity.

http://www.ncregister.com/dail.....om-the-ch/

[Coeus]

Libertarians Are the New Communists

Most people would consider radical libertarianism and communism polar opposites: The first glorifies personal freedom. The second would obliterate it. Yet the ideologies are simply mirror images. Both attempt to answer the same questions, and fail to do so in similar ways. Where communism was adopted, the result was misery, poverty and tyranny. If extremist libertarians ever translated their beliefs into policy, it would lead to the same kinds of catastrophe.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

That's true in a sense: both are highly ideological and academically disciplined movements which distill their respective ideological camps' tendencies and beliefs about human nature into a consistent intellectual framework with certain teleological implications.

The difference is that libertarianism is, on the whole, based on sound ideological approximations regarding human nature and political reality, whereas communism is not. That doesn't mean that libertarianism is the apotheosis of all thought in the classical liberal world (depends on how useful/applicable you see abstract reasoning and deduction as being in the creation and maintenance of political order and values), but it is a great intellectual achievement along the lines of Marxism in its own camp.

[Coeus]

That's true in a sense: both are highly ideological and academically disciplined movements which distill their respective ideological camps' tendencies and beliefs about human nature into a consistent intellectual framework with certain teleological implications.

That right there was about 10,000% better than the case the authors made.

[sloopyinca]

He also left out an important component of either system working well: are they voluntarily entered into and are people free to leave at will?

There are plenty of communes out there that have been around for quite some time. They are entered into and left freely by their members, so there is a vested interest in the success of the group by its individual members.

Of course, libertarianism, by its very nature, is voluntary. And since it's never really been tried in a pure sense in a contemporary society, it's impossible to equate in any way, shape or form, with a system that was tried and failed miserably.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

That's one of the impulses of the classically liberal camp that libertarianism tries to distill and formalize -- the idea that an association voluntarily entered is one that has merit. It's also a good example of why libertarianism works -- fundamentally, this is a better, more straightforward, and more successful view of association than the more Rousseauian notion that we are too compromised by our past and society's urgings to competently decide what is or is not an association that is good for us.

Colloquially, the views embraced by libertarianism are straightforward and "time-tested" in a way that those embraced by Marxists are not. The modern left, while rejecting Marxism, tends not to understand the implications of Marxism's worldview and thus its failure.

[sloopyinca]

Quibble: isn't Marxism, distilled to its essence, also supposed to be a voluntary association?* I always believed the truest of true Marxists were fine with people not joining and being free to leave the "commune" if they did not want to be a part of it.

Soviet communinsm cast off a lot of Marxist ideology (and purity) in order to enslave the workers necessary to create their caste system. It was hardly Marxist.

*I may be way off-base here.

[Warrren]

This is what idiots I've debated with claim. It's always that the USSR screwed everything up.

The next time a small cadre of individuals are given unlimited power to reshape society it will turn out fine.

[sloopyinca]

OK, wel I'm not making that argument, per se. I'm just stating what I perceived to be the difference in Marxism and Soviet Communism.

[Eduard van Haalen]

No, they envisioned, IIRC, a several-step process:

1) People's Revolution

2) Socialism, of the non-voluntary kind

3) ???

4) Withering away of the state, communist utopia

5) profit! No, just kidding about that part.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

No. The final, idealized state was supposed to be an anarchic -- but that was only after forcible revolution, wherein all property would be taken from industrialists and the bourgeois to be administered by either the proletariat or the vanguard and wherein any sort of violence exercised in service of these aims up to and including mass murder were justified as a form of collective self-defense against exploitation.

The workers don't leave the factory to form a commune, the factory owner is deprived of the factory and made to live in the manner that the workers see fit.

Quite a lot of this idea of association is derived from Rousseau's idea that you can't be truly "free" until general social conditions X, Y, and Z are implemented/no longer present and that any choice made in the absence of that perfect system can be considered to be coerced.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

The idea is that the final state of Marxism will be so pure of thought and ideal, that even though anyone is free to leave it they won't want to.

Basically, it's heaven for the type of people disposed to killing the people who believe in heaven. Pretty horrific stuff.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

One other thing I forgot: revolution was supposed to be a worldwide phenomena, meaning that all of those great anarcho-communal societies wouldn't have some capitalist neighbor or something even in the "ideal" state, and presumably any attempt at returning to the capitalistic state would be dealt with severely (Marx didn't really discuss that possibility).

[Eduard van Haalen]

"The woman sounded desperate. Her marriage had deteriorated, her husband decided he did not want children and he refused to grant her a divorce.

"The rabbi had a plan.

""We take an electric cattle prod," he told her, according to a surveillance recording. "If it can get a bull that weighs five tons to move ... You put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy will know ... "

"In a bizarre plot sounding more like a scene out of The Sopranos than the affairs of an ultra-religious community, two Orthodox rabbis and eight others were charged in New Jersey Thursday in a torture-for-hire operation involving threats of kidnapping, beatings and the use of such implements as handcuffs, knives and stun guns ? all aimed at convincing recalcitrant husbands to grant their wives religious divorces.

"Most of those arrested were taken into custody at a Middlesex County warehouse Wednesday night ? some wearing Halloween masks and one in a Metallica T-shirt ? as they waited to grab a supposed victim for a rough lesson in divorce law. It was all a set-up: The woman was an FBI undercover agent, there was no husband and the conversations were all recorded."

http://www.nj.com/news/index.s.....vorce.html

[Warrren]

Shhh, I'm going rabbi hunting!

[Eduard van Haalen]

When they do the movie, they should include these quotes:

"Consider this a divahce!"

"Shalom, muthafucka!"

"I'm the mohel, and I'm here to get some stuff I missed the first time..."

"Jail? No, I said I'm going to Jael you" (Judges 4:16-22)

[Warrren]

Torah! Torah! Torah!

[Eduard van Haalen]

Still better than family court.