Obama Delays Meeting With Congressional Leaders, Al-Libi Arrives in the US, Rouhani Calls For Academic Freedom: P.M. Links

Credit: The Official White House Photostream/wikimedia

• President Obama delayed a meeting on the current fiscal stalemate with Congressional leaders today in order to give Senators time to reach a deal. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said earlier today that the bipartisan group of Senators who met to discuss the government shutdown and the debt ceiling was making progress. Despite what you might have heard, the U.S. has defaulted before, once in 1812 and again in 1979.
• Abu Anas al-Libi, the Al Qaeda suspect captured by U.S. Special Forces in Libya on Oct. 5, arrived in the United States today after being held on a U.S. Navy ship in the Mediterranean.
• Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called for easing restrictions on academic freedom.
• Colorado's Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper has told national gun control groups to back off.
• A Florida police department will no longer be taking part in operations aimed at luring people into buying cocaine from undercover police.
• Two men, believed to be cousins, have been arrested for allegedly shooting five people at a Hmong New Year celebration in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday night. None of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

President Obama delayed a meeting on the current fiscal stalemate with Congressional leaders today in order to give Senators time to reach a deal.

And for him to reach the back nine.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

A Florida police department will no longer be taking part in operations aimed at luring people into buying cocaine from undercover police.

Florida Man has a sad.

[Fist of Etiquette]

How many assets are going to go unforfeited thanks to the 1st Amendment?

[CE]

Florida Man finds a mate:

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc.....ories.html

[PapayaSF]

What a maroon.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called for easing restrictions on academic freedom.

So no fat chicks.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said earlier today that the bipartisan group of Senators who met to discuss the government shutdown and the debt ceiling was making progress.

Collins is involved? By the end of this the ceiling will be obliterated, the 2nd Amendment will be repealed and Obamacare will be advanced to single payer.

[Brett L]

Yeah. This is a guaranteed victory for statism.

[Pro Libertate]

That victory was never in doubt.

[Brett L]

I had this fantasy where the Democrats cut the military by half out of spite and a spiral of spite cuts shrunk the budget to about $1.6T including debt service. Susan Collins was no part of that.

[Pro Libertate]

Good luck with that. Nothing will be cut, nothing will be done about ACA, nothing, nothing, nothing.

[Brett L]

Yeah, this just gets me through my sober hours.

[Pro Libertate]

See, that's where your problem lies, in having sober hours.

[AlmightyJB]

I tried sobriety once. Worst 5 minutes of my life.

[John]

The Dems are so crazy, even Collins is some kind of libertarian by contrast.

[trshmnstr]

I'm more than a little surprised that you didn't burst into flames after typing that.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

With this 46-million-year-old blood I can live ? forever!

[Suthenboy]

So no dinosaur or mammoth clones, but what about some horrific, bizzaro disease that could burn through us like wildfire? Hmmmmm. Walking dead scenario....

[Brandon]

Don't diseases have DNA too? DNA breaks down even in fossils.

[Ted S.]

Prions don't have DNA, do they?

[Brett L]

Prions are fragments, many viruses only carry RNA.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

'Diamond rain' falls on Saturn and Jupiter

[Brandon]

I blame global warming.

[Restoras]

Imagine the damage that would do to your car.

[Corning]

It says they fall into a molten ocean then melt.

Stop driving your car into gas giant's molten oceans Restoras.

[Ted S.]

Is that any worse than a golden shower?

[Zakalwe]

The biggest diamonds would likely be about a centimetre in diameter - "big enough to put on a ring, although of course they would be uncut," says Dr Kevin Baines, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

You know what else was uncut and could put on a ring?

[Restoras]

Prince Albert?

[R C Dean]

So much win.

[Juice]

Um. Diamonds require high temps and high pressures to form. So it's not like this is happening in what we would consider a gaseous atmosphere, so calling it "rain" is kinda not accurate.

[PapayaSF]

Why not? Aren't they numerous, small, solid objects falling out of a gas? Saying they "rain" down doesn't seem like much of a stretch.

[Corning]

I am suspicious that the gas deep down in a gas giant can be considered a "gas" as we know it. Is a gas really a gas if it is under pressure 100s of times greater then the bottom of our ocean?

Anyway stuff would fall out of solutions in my chem labs and it was called a precipitate. And rain is precipitation....of course snow is as well.

Perhaps they should say "snows diamonds"...which actually sounds better.

[Heroic Mulatto]

To be fair, in the article, the scientists make the analogy to hailstones.

[wheelock]

Not so sure. They use this method to generate diamonds in a lab:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki.....deposition

[Fist of Etiquette]

Colorado's Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper has told national gun control groups to back off.

Does Colorado come to your state and slap the dicks out of your mouths?

[Brett L]

Colorado's Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper has told national gun control groups to back off.

Hickenlooper: "You want to help us? Lassiez vous faire, mon amis. Your help is fucking killing us out here."

[PapayaSF]

Today's schadenfreude.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

NERDS

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

Fake penis runner

[Ted S.]

It's been done before.

[PD Scott]

Doesn't the White House realize showing shoe soles is offensive to Arabs?

For the sake of international relations, Mr. President, get your feet off the desk!

[Jordan]

showing shoe soles

What about selling seashells?

[Lady Bertrum]

I read it as 'showing shoe sales'. So when Nordstrom's has their annual sale the Arabs go berserk?

[Restoras]

I thought they were always in Berserker mode?

[Lady Bertrum]

According to the guy from We Are All Perverts video via Reason, it's because not enough sex - nothing to do with shoes.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Uh oh: 46 million year old fossilized mosquito found with blood intact!

In a steamy tropical forest 46 million years ago, a prehistoric mosquito bit a critter, drew blood and was blown into a lake in what is now northwestern Montana. Belly full, she died and sank.

Flash forward to the present. Researchers found the minuscule female insect fossilized in a paper-thin piece of shale ? which had sat in someone's basement for 25 to 30 years with other rocks? and concluded it still contains its last supper. A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science reports a first for biology: a blood meal found intact in a fossil.

Unfortunately for would-be dinosaur cloners, the mosquito flew long after dinosaurs went extinct, and its meal was probably blood from a dino descendant, a bird. And an even bigger blow to the "Jurassic Park" scenario is that scientists have long known that DNA from other critters couldn't survive in insect fossils, said study lead author Dale Greenwalt, a retired biochemist who collects and analyzes insect fossils from Montana for the Smithsonian Institution.

Life--and profit-seeking corporations--will find a way.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

beat you.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

But my post is more substantial and has a Jurassic Park joke.

[Corning]

Life--and profit-seeking corporations--will find a way.

Birds evolved from dinosaurs and Dinosaurs evolved from reptiles...

So....can't we just use the DNA in living birds and reptiles?

It probably won't be exact...but how hard would it be to make a giant bird with teeth?

[Winston]

I was just thinking but haven't the Baby Boomers raised their kids the way they wanted to be raised? I mean no wonder the Millenials are the way they are!

[Brandon]

Watch that millenials shit, old-ass.

[Winston]

So all you have is ad hom? Are you a progressive?

[Generic Stranger]

You just committed a broad-brush fallacy and now you're complaining about someone's ad hom in response? Really?

[Heroic Mulatto]

And it wasn't even argumentum ad hominem, it was argumentum ad baculum

[Winston]

You do know that is another fallacy right?

Of course this subthread from a few hours ago was not criticized in that fashion:

http://reason.com/archives/201.....nt_4064734

[Brandon]

I'm a millenial, one of the victims of your generation's decades of profligacy and generational theft.

[Winston]

I'm a millennial. And you missed that I was attacking the Boomers too?

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

I think I want to believe.
Another XFiles movie?

[Brett L]

She looks really good still.

[Jordan]

Too bad she's a lunatic proglodyte.

[Brett L]

What, I want to make conversation? Hell no. I want to rent her in character to check off some adolescent goals.

[C. Anacreon]

Her hair keeps getting more yellow. I remember when it was red. What color is it really supposed to be?

[Brett L]

Well, it went from strawberry blonde to some form of bottle red over the course of the X-Files. I presume it is blonde (although maybe not that color blonde) naturally.

[Winston]

Too bad she's a lunatic proglodyte.

So water is wet after all?

[Mad Scientist]

I was sorely disappointed in the last one. Where were the predators and aliens?

[Ted S.]

The truth is not out there.

[Thane of Steelport]

Inane moral panic over teh internets, pt 120984091238:

Kids have always been interested in sex, of course; but there have never been more ways for them to express that to one another, at any moment of the day, no matter where they are. They don't even have to be together, and often they are not. "You can be sitting in class getting a boner 'cause some girl is texting you that she wants to suck your dick," said a boy in L.A. "It's kind of distracting."

Sounds terrible

There's sexting, and there's Snapchat, where teenagers share pictures of their bodies or body parts; on Skype, sometimes they strip for each other or masturbate together. On Omegle, they can talk to strangers, and sometimes the talk turns sexual. A boy in L.A. told me about a boy he knew who had a PayPal account where he accepted payment for being sexual online with "random guys . . . Two hundred bucks." And then there is Tinder, where kids can meet each other on their phones. "It's like Grindr used to be for gay guys, but now kids are doing it," said a girl in L.A. "No one cares about anything but how you look."

And so on. It's five fucking pages; I've only read the first.

Some of the comments eviscerate the piece, as well they should.

[Thane of Steelport]

They arranged to rendezvous at a shopping mall in Los Angeles not far from the neighborhood where they lived. "Of course it was going to be a public place. And if it turned out he was really some gross old man, I'd just run away." But there he was, standing by his car, looking almost like his picture. . . . Almost. There was something different about his face?it was "squishier. Like, he was almost fat." But now here they were, and she didn't know quite how to get out of it.

He smiled and kissed her on the cheek. He smelled of Axe Body Spray. She was sorry she'd spent so much time getting ready for this. "I even waxed," she said. He wanted her to get in his car, but she knew she shouldn't. They started walking around the mall, "talking about nothing, nothing. It was awkward, totally weird." He asked if she wanted to sit down, but there was nowhere to sit except in restaurants, so they wound up going inside a Pottery Barn and making out on a couch. Later she posted something on her Tumblr blog about the difficulty of finding love.

Teenage guys trying to have sex with insecure girls? OMFG!!!!!!

[jesse.in.mb]

He smelled of Axe Body Spray.

As my roommate likes to say "Not everyone who wears Axe is a date rapist, but all date rapists wear Axe."

[Brett L]

I guess SF's gonna have to stay at his day job.

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and WH Smith are taking a radical response to last week's "news" that they sell boundary-pushing adult content in their ebookstores. They are now deleting not just the questionable erotica but are also removing any ebooks that might even hint at violating cultural norms.

[Ted S.]

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and WH Smith are taking a radical response to last week's "news" that they sell boundary-pushing adult content in their ebookstores.

That's no way to refer to teen vampire romance novels.

[SugarFree]

Dammit.

[db]

How the hell is Henry Waxman going to get his nostril-fucking porn now?

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Iran to launch another monkey into space

Can we really stand back and let Islamic theocratic monkeys conquer space?

[Coeus]

Latest feminist outrage:

See if you can parse the actual incident. Took me awhile.

[Winston]

Their logo features a child with a gun! Or is children with guns only acceptable when they are rounding up kulaks, wreckers and saboteurs?

[Root Boy]

As long as those kids are wearing helmets and safety gear while rounding us up.

[Winston]

Posts consisting mostly of gifs should be banned. I will allow libertarian heterodoxy in this point.

[Thane of Steelport]

I'm done with @sciam.

1. I'm sure they'll miss you (I though science don't realz?).

2. WHY THE FUCK CAN'T YOU TYPE "SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN"?

[Mad Scientist]

Scientific American has been in the bag for the environmental left for a loooong time. But if a blogger insults someone, they'll hastily be cast aside because words count and actions do not.

[Pro Libertate]

I dropped my subscription some years ago because of the magazine's heavy political biases. Which make no fucking sense in a magazine about science.

[Warty]

I did the same thing with Science. It just got intolerable.

[Pro Libertate]

Makes me sad. I like science and technology. Why can't I read about it without hearing someone's bizarre political views? What does politics have to do with science? What's next, Lysenko?

[Warty]

That and the endless bitching about science funding. These fucks desperately wanted science to be run by the government, what did they think would happen?

[Mad Scientist]

They thought they'd get Eureka.

[Zakalwe]

Here's some good science:

https://twitter.com/HardSciFiMovies

[Pro Libertate]

Saw that last week.

Here's one: "A scientist is trapped on an alien mothership with nothing but his Apple Powerbook. He is unable to connect to the alien computer system."

[Bobarian]

In the post-apocalyptic future, a lone US Postal Carrier continues his rounds. He is arrested for breaching furlough.

[Pro Libertate]

In the alternative universe closest to ours but with a limited government and mostly free markets, they have fusion, and Scientific American has its own TV network.

[Marc F Cheney]

I did the same thing with New Scientist. And, long before that, Scientific American.

[Pro Libertate]

I still get Popular Mechanics. That's it.

[playa manhattan]

And Reason, right?

[Pro Libertate]

It's online for free. But I send donations now and then.

[Warty]

That was a tremendous amount of incredibly boring gifs. No kittens, no tits, no explosions.

[RBS]

A female scientist of color? Everything must be labeled!

[Thane of Steelport]

Brett L, you still owe us a story (which may or may not involve banging MILFs).

[Brett L]

No. Sadly that was not the pool party with the MILF lesbian scene and sloppy drunken sex for many. I just drank too much and the pool noodle which had degenerated from smooth to rough due to exposure to sea water scratched the shit out of me.

[Clich? Bandit]

I went to the GABF Members session and got plowed...no milfs though...just thought I would share.

[Clich? Bandit]

I went to the GABF Members session and got plowed...no milfs though...just thought I would share.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Congressman Peter King: Savior of America

This is why a recent announcement by Representative Peter King is genuinely important. He is the first Republican to threaten publicly to buck the leadership and join the effort to force a vote: "If we have to do a discharge petition, ultimately, we will, but this is going to come [to the floor]."

Though King is from New York, he should not be mistaken for an old-fashioned moderate Republican. He is a full-blooded Reaganite, but he is realistic enough to recognize that his party is engaged in a suicide mission -- and that extreme measures are required to save both his party and the country from very serious harm.
[...]
This is the moment when King's threat will make a difference. Speaker Boehner is now on notice that he cannot continue to buckle to the hard right without retribution from the realist center. If he refuses to allow the full House to vote approval of the Senate measure, his anti-majoritarian action will force enough Republicans to join King and create a majority for the discharge petition -- leading to his humiliation on October 28, when the rules once again make an up-or-down vote the order of the day.

Amazing how the most loathsome of Republicans become popular among liberals.

[Winston]

Um how is what he is saying different from most people on this site?

[robc]

Very few people on this site are saying that.

Only those that are employees and a small number of posters.

[Winston]

Well he thinks the shutdown is suicidal which Welch, Suderman and many posters agree with?

[robc]

Also, Boehner's worry isnt from the establishment, its from the tea party. If he caves, he wont be speaker for long.

[Brett L]

Exactly. People seem to think that 51% of voters is more important than the 30% of primary voters who might swing.

[CE]

Hey, what they do in their personal lives is no concern of yours.

[C. Anacreon]

So many news outlets now describe the tea party as the "far right" or the "hard right", a title which some even include libertarians in these days. What exactly is the "extreme right" and who would be considered a moderate by comparison? I always thought the Republican part of both the tea partiers and libertarians was about small government, fiscal responsibility and lower taxes -- and if those ideas are considered extreme, we are all fucked.

[Pro Libertate]

Dude, capitalism is considered extreme today. As is limited government.

[PapayaSF]

Yes, those Tea Party ideas of sticking to the Constitution and not spending more money than you have are now considered dangerously extreme concepts.

[Pro Libertate]

And, in fact, they are. To them. Parasites don't like hosts that get vaccines or cures, strangely.

[Mad Scientist]

It's just another tactic to dehumanize your enemy. An extremist is not someone who simply has differing political views. An extremist is dangerous and should be locked up and by no means should you ever ever listen to what they have to say.

[Root Boy]

Lot of that going around among the lefties. Kind of like that is the only response to very, very limited efforts to slow big government.

[Emmerson Biggins]

"Far Right" = any republican the statist quo media doesn't like. That's all there is to it really.

[CE]

Easy: a moderate is a Democrat, or a Republican who agrees that some tax increases are necessary.

[robc]

Terrorist sympathizer.

Never forget.

[Brett L]

Yeah. I think I'll just mention this at every opportunity to my Republican friends as 2016 draws closer.

[robc]

Democrats too, as they seem to love him.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Well, it's something King has in common with the Kennedy's and Tip O'Neil.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Don't ask me why that extra apostrophe is there.

[PD Scott]

Climate change?

[robc]

Not just a sympathizer either, he fucking funded terrorists.

[Brett L]

Terrorist Fundraiser, Peter King

[Winston]

Well the former Bradley Manning received a award named after a former IRA Chief of Staff. Is King jealous or mad?

[Juice]

Just go look up the MEK and all the US pols that have lined up to support them and fund them.

[Brett L]

Methyl-Ethyl-Ketone has a terrorist designation now? I thought that was only for California.

[wingnutx]

Pour some on your car and you'll find out the real meaning of the word "terror".

[kinnath]

kinnath's grandfather's grandfather was born in what became Northern Ireland.

I have no love of the behavior of the English authorities, but the IRA, for the majority of my life, have been nothing but fucking criminals.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

non-artisanal mayo recipes.

[CE]

Just put 'em in a fancy jar with some paprika, and voila!

[playa manhattan]

I didn't not bookmark that page

[Caleb Turberville]

http://blog.al.com/tuscaloosa/.....ncart_2box

UA, goddamnit!

[Coeus]

Krugman finds a way to resond to Nial Ferguson's criticism without actually addressing his arguments.

Do You Know Who I Am?
One of the odd things about the debates we've been having over economic policy since the financial crisis is how many people on one side of these debates ? the side I'm not on, as it happens ? believe that they can win arguments by pulling rank. Critics are dismissed as just bloggers, which supposedly disqualifies them from pointing out errors and untrue statements; ideas are dismissed (wrongly, as it happens) as not part of what anyone has taught graduate students , as if this removes any possibility that the ideas might nonetheless be right.

[Brett L]

Wow. Irony much?

[Certified Public Asskicker]

The post that preceded the one you link to:

Obamacare Success

This morning I talked to someone who successfully signed up for Obamacare ? with great difficulty, but she did succeed in the end. Since New Jersey is one of the states that defaulted to a fed-run exchange, this shows that people are starting to trickle through. I know, one example ? but the plural of anecdote is data.

Oh, and she was very happy with the low cost.

Obviously they messed up the programming big time, which is kind of a shock. But this will get fixed, and Republicans believing that they're going to be able to run against the program a year from now are going to do about as well as they did in believing that they could use a shutdown to defund the program.

[Pro Libertate]

Wait, I thought anecdotes were bad.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Add 'em all up (and subtract the bad stories) and you've got yourself some data!

[Brett L]

The plural of anecdote is NOT data. Self-reported data is totally suspect. Always has been. Ask any doctor who has asked a patient to keep a weight diary before self-reporting scales.

[Marc F Cheney]

The plural of anecdote is NOT data.

*facepalm* No kidding. THAT'S WHY WE HAVE THAT SAYING, KRUGS.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

This morning I talked to someone who successfully signed up for Obamacare ? with great difficulty, but she did succeed in the end. Since New Jersey is one of the states that defaulted to a fed-run exchange, this shows that people are starting to trickle through. I know, one example ? but the plural of anecdote is data.

The Howard Zinn-progressive version of argumentation--the fallacy of the lonely fact.

[R C Dean]

the plural of anecdote is data

OK, fine.

What does the data tell us about how many people have signed up for an actual insurance policy through the OCare site?

Oh, the data says its an incredibly small number? I'll go with that. The only question is, why won't you?

[Juice]

Oh, and she was very happy with the low cost.

Unless she was a cancer patient or something, bull fucking shit.

[Brett L]

How much was it, exactly, Paul? Did you verify that such a plan existed with the company that is to insure her? No? Why not?

Because you don't want data. You want feelings.

[Brandon]

Do I pull rank the same way? I'm sure that if you go over my writings with a fine-toothed comb, you'll find some examples. But I try not to.

So if you bring up examples of the thousands of times Krugman has supported arguments with nothing more than 'Because I said so,' you're just "going over (his) writings with a fine-toothed comb" and being a big mean poopyhead. And then he proceeds to ignore even that minor admission...

And let me add that believing that you can pull rank in this wide-open modern age is itself a demonstration of incompetence. Who, exactly, do you think cares? Not the readers, that's for sure.

True, it's now a rough world for people who do sloppy work, and are counting on their credentials to shield them from criticism. Somehow, though, I can't seem to muster any sympathy.

The lack of any self-awareness is just...amazing.

[Bobarian]

"Somehow, though, I can't seem to muster any sympathy."

Because then I'd just be feeling sorry for myself.

[Anonymous Coward]

Today in civil political discourse:

Sen. Barbara Boxer Compares TEAM Red to Domestic Abusers.

"It's a self-inflicted wound. I never questioned, never questioned the fact that Republicans, Democrats, and independents love this country. Love this country. I never questioned it. But I have to say, when you start acting like you're committing domestic abuse, you've got a problem. 'I love you dear, but you know, I'm shutting down your entire government. I love you dear, but I'm going to default and you're going to be weak.' Something is dreadfully wrong.

Remember, not letting your wife run up $500,000 in credit card debt is the same thing as throwing her down the stairs.

Truth.

[Pro Libertate]

And, of course, loving this country has nothing to do with loving this government. In fact, I don't think you can love both at the same time.

[C. Anacreon]

How anyone can respect her with the idiotic drivel that comes out of her mouth is completely beyond me.

[Coeus]

Remember, not letting your wife run up $500,000 in credit card debt is the same thing as throwing her down the stairs.

Feminists believe that it is.

[Calidissident]

Eh, Coeus, the examples in that link (while definitely not as bad as physically abusing your wife) are a bit different from "not letting your wife run up $500,000 in credit card date." Most of things are legitimate examples of (non-physical) abusive behavior.

[Virginian]

Some are, some aren't. Some are so vague they are meaningless. Some people are really lousy with money. Lots of couples have one of the adults manage the finances because the other is lousy at money.

Friend of mine is in marriage counseling. His wife is fucking retarded, one of her main complaints is that he "buys himself stuff all the time and never splurges on me". He has a contracting business. In her mind, he likes building stuff, so therefore the thousands he spends on tools and supplies for the work he does should be matched by similar amounts spent on the things she wants to buy for fun.

[CE]

Can we just have two governments already? Let voters join one or the other, and pay the taxes and get the benefits accordingly. Better yet, 3 or 4 governments, so libertarians and greens have an option too.

[Virginian]

Perhaps we could have a bunch of smaller governments with broad latitude, with one national government that only does the few things everyone agrees are necessary.

Oh, and all the governments will right down what exactly they have the authority to do, so people can read up and move to the place that best fits them.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Sounds familiar...

Less tongue in cheek, I've always thought that if we could get free cities to be the fundamental unit of governance we could fix quite a lot of what is wrong with our system as it stands today. A nation of Hong Kongs from sea to shining sea... what's not to love?

[Caleb Turberville]

http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/1.....rt_m-rpt-2

Apparently, "the South" is to blame for the government shutdown.

[Pro Libertate]

Wait, what?

[Caleb Turberville]

My thoughts exactly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpX0DqlEdrM

[Root Boy]

Watch out, I heard confederates have invaded the Mall with their flags.....er, at least one.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Reich: Obama must push towards Final Victory over the Tea Party

Now is the time to lance the boil of Republican extremism once and for all.

Since Barack Obama became president, the extremists who have taken over the Republican Party have escalated their demands every time he's caved, using the entire government of the United States as their bargaining chit.

In 2010 he agreed to extend all of the Bush tax cuts through the end of 2012. Were they satisfied? Of course not.
[...]
The government is shuttered and the nation is on the verge of defaulting on its debts. But public opinion has turned sharply against the Republican Party. And the GOP's corporate and Wall Street backers are threatening to de-fund it.

Suddenly the Republicans are acting like the school-yard bully who terrorized the playground but finally got punched in the face. They're in shock. They're humiliated. They're trying to come up with ways of saving face.
[...]
But keeping the government running and paying the nation's bills should never have been bargaining chits in the first place, and the President and Democrats shouldn't begin to negotiate over future budgets until they're taken off the table.

The question is how thoroughly President Obama has learned that extortionist demands escalate if you give in to them.

[Pro Libertate]

Ah, some sort of Final Solution for Republicans, eh?

What's dumb is that while the House could take some political hits for doing this, if they wanted to, they could continue not funding anything indefinitely. Who holds the cards here? That's why, incidentally, Obama broke down from his WILL NOT NEGOTIATE stance almost immediately.

[Ted S.]

This is of course the strategy the gun banners use.

[VG Zaytsev]

Did he end his column with

One Country
ONE PEOPLE
ONE LEADER?

[Zakalwe]

Abu Anas al-Libi, the Al Qaeda suspect captured by U.S. Special Forces in Libya on Oct. 5, arrived in the United States today after being held on a U.S. Navy ship in the Mediterranean.

He wanted to see Captain Philipps.

[Brett L]

Scott Adams: Fuck your goals and your passion. get a system

Throughout my career I've had my antennae up, looking for examples of people who use systems as opposed to goals. In most cases, as far as I can tell, the people who use systems do better. The systems-driven people have found a way to look at the familiar in new and more useful ways.

To put it bluntly, goals are for losers. That's literally true most of the time. For example, if your goal is to lose 10 pounds, you will spend every moment until you reach the goal?if you reach it at all?feeling as if you were short of your goal. In other words, goal-oriented people exist in a state of nearly continuous failure that they hope will be temporary.

If you achieve your goal, you celebrate and feel terrific, but only until you realize that you just lost the thing that gave you purpose and direction. Your options are to feel empty and useless, perhaps enjoying the spoils of your success until they bore you, or to set new goals and re-enter the cycle of permanent presuccess failure.

[John]

It is true. Anyone can diet and lose weight. But you will gain it back as soon as you quit the diet, and you will. If you change your lifestyle, you will lose weight and stay thin.

[Pro Libertate]

I tell my kids this all the time. Changing behavior is about changing daily habits.

[BakedPenguin]

I am a pretty big screw-up. But I have a professional job that takes me about 15 hours a week to do, because I revamped the process. In addition to speed, the quality of my work is much improved, since I "engineered" quality into my system.

So my company knows I'm a drunken idiot, but they are still glad to pay me because I do what they want done with few mistakes and (usually) on time.

[Pro Libertate]

So you're efficient about being efficient.

[BakedPenguin]

How else am I going to be able to spend 40 hours a week fucking off at H&R?

[Pro Libertate]

Good question. I just comment between clauses. Otherwise, I'd go quite insane. You ever read a contract?

[BakedPenguin]

Ha ha, hell no. I just sign whatever they put in front of me. Of course, I make sure to call the dicks first.

[BakedPenguin]

"...call them dicks first."

Damn it, I hate it when a typo spoils the joke.

[BakedPenguin]

At least your life has been made a little easier by find and replace, so you can now globally change "EST" to "ET" without having to hunt every single instance down.

[Pro Libertate]

True. Except when I get some document that was scanned. Then, I do not forgive.

[Mickey Rat]

Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.

[Heroic Mulatto]

So, systems thinking 101. But, hey, if it takes Dilbert for people to listen, who am I to argue?

[Zakalwe]

Two men, believed to be cousins, have been arrested for allegedly shooting five people at a Hmong New Year celebration in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday night. None of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries.

If they really wanted to be dangerous they would have driven through the celebration.

[R C Dean]

For some reason, trigger control and Hmong do not go together.

There was a sizable Hmong community in WI. When they were at the range sighting in for deer season, you wanted to be somewhere far away.

And God help you if they went squirrel hunting while you were in the woods. Bullets everywhere.

[BakedPenguin]

Hey, if you'd ever lived under the Vietnamese or Laotian governments, you might be trigger happy, too.

[Don Mynack]

This Hmong seemed to line up his targets well:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2.....-massacre/

[VG Zaytsev]

IOW They're natural born cops.

[font_of_stupidity]

Hey - who, Hmong us, hasn't ever done something wrong?

/horrible pun

[CE]

Does the penalty go up if they do in fact turn out to be cousins?

[jesse.in.mb]

Gizmodo:
Make Way For the Olympics: The Paramilitary Clearance of Rio's Slums

Radley Balko, a journalist whose book, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces, offers a libertarian look at the proliferation of SWAT and other paramilitary operations in the United States, pointed out the disparity between "precision" police action during protests and the frequently violent outcome. "There's a general trend toward more aggressive, confrontational responses to protest [...], particularly protests at big events like the WTO, the G8, and etc.," he explained to Gizmodo over email. "Unfortunately, that sort of response, which is often depicted as being extra cautious, actually tends to make violence more likely."

[Thane of Steelport]

offers a libertarian look

I'm sure there are some super-derpy comments about this, but I don't quite feel like wading in.

[jesse.in.mb]

I apparently ticked a setting in noscript and I don't see comments at gawker network sites anymore. Suck it Buddha I've found the way to enlightenment by accident.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

I apparently ticked a setting in noscript and I don't see comments at gawker network sites anymore.

Sometimes life skips the lemons and just gives you the lemonade.

[Thane of Steelport]

Things Girls Do That'd Be Creepy If A Guy Did Them

[Brett L]

Stalking? Calling someone every 20 minutes for a week?

[Juice]

I know this is going to sounds weird, but most "seduction" done by women comes across as creepy to me too. Maybe not creepy all the time, sometimes only cheesy and stupid. I just roll with it and think to myself, "Well, it's what they do. Just go with it. At least she wants you (nor not)."

[R C Dean]

but most "seduction" done by women people comes across as creepy to me too. Maybe not creepy all the time, sometimes only cheesy and stupid

[Suthenboy]

I am not usually a TV watcher, but last week and this weekend I watched the entire Walking Dead series. Interesting.

I noticed some very anti-left scenes, which my wife did also. Anti-gun control and anti-collectivism. She went off on her usual rant; If those fucking hollywood types make all these movies about fighting for freedom and liberty and such, why do they walk off the set and start screeching for socialism?

They are actors and artists, many of them are brilliant at what they do, but they feel, they dont think.

[Jordan]

It's funny, but I think Hollywood has done more to promote gun culture in this country than any other single institution - aside from family.

Both of my parents were indifferent to guns and just kept a .38 collecting dust in the closet, so Hollywood was my only exposure to guns. Hollywood convinced me that guns are fucking awesome.

[Lady Bertrum]

Also - crossbow culture. They've done quite a bit to promote crossbow culture. 😉

[Heroic Mulatto]

I've been down with the crossbow since the William Tell Overture.

It's really obscure, so I'm sure you've never heard of it.

[CE]

Hills' star Lauren Conrad apparently responded positively to William Tell's overtures:

http://www.nydailynews.com/ent.....-1.1484187

[Winston]

They also promoted the rape culture.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Hoo boy howdy, the English major has excreted another column... and I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, this one's bad, folks. Strap in:

Right up there with bad faith arguments and deflection, right wingers tend to engage in projection as a favorite form of rhetoric. They take everything bad about themselves and claim their enemies do it, and of course, take everything good about their liberal enemies and claim to embody it. It's everywhere, from characterizing affirmative action as "real" racism?or, lately, a lot of them have decided the word "racist" means "pointing out racial discrimination" instead of engaging in it[...]

It's just that after decades of Republicans posturing about how they'd rather not have a federal government (rarely stated but understood subtext: if they have to share it with You People) at all, no one is buying the crocodile tears shed during protests and the display of "the vets", as if that made any sense.

There are about four different columns struggling to burst out of two columns' worth of excerpt.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

That's one of the rally speakers, Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch, saying, "I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come out with his hands up."[...] Klayman and his fellows may hope that gathering some vets on camera could create the illusion of an impending military coup, but the fact that they're almost all over 50 kind of makes that a hard sell. [Bolding not in original text]

Damn those conservatives, always creating the illusion of threatening non-violent military coups!

[Warty]

Right up there with bad faith arguments and deflection, right wingers tend to engage in projection as a favorite form of rhetoric

Projection about projection! Proprojection?

[Pro Libertate]

Metaproprojection?

[Mad Scientist]

I don't think it's meta unless she knows she's doing it, and, clearly, she does not.

[Pro Libertate]

Antimetaproprojection?

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Projectionception

[Pro Libertate]

Procoptodon?

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Bob Costas declares the Redskins name to be an insult and a slur

Bob Costas of NBC Sports waded into the controversy over the Washington Redskins nickname Sunday night, devoting a commentary to the topic at halftime of the nationally televised game between the Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys.

"Think for a moment about the term 'Redskins' and how it truly differs from [other team nicknames based on Native American images]," Costas said. "Ask yourself what the equivalent would be, if directed [at] African-Americans. Hispanics. Asians. Or members of any other ethnic group. When considered that way, 'Redskins' can't possibly honor a heritage, or a noble character trait, nor can it possibly be considered a neutral term.

"It is an insult, a slur, no matter now benign the present-day intent," Costas continued.

The Redskins were playing for the first time since President Barack Obama told the Associated Press in an interview last weekend that he would "think about" changing the name if he owned the team. Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, who has previously vowed never to change the name, responded by sending a letter to season ticket holders claiming that the name was "never a label. It was, and continues to be, a badge of honor."

Why is this issue suddenly getting more attention?

[Brett L]

Who cares what Bob Costas and his hair think?

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Remember when he weighed in on gun control?

Fuck him.

[Caleb Turberville]

My take on the Redskins:

1) Despite the original intent of the nickname, fans, players, and the organization in general have since taken the name on a show of respect and honor.

2) If you want to take a principled stand against the use of all racial slurs, that's fine. But to attack the Redskins and leave the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Boston Celtic, or...hey, the Atlanta "BRAVES!" (anyone?) alone reeks of cynicism and opportunism.

By the way, I Googled to see if anyone had come up with a reasonable defense of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish nickname, and the best people seem to have come with is that "Irish-Americans" themselves came up with the nickname and accept it, whereas "Native Americans" see the Redskins nickname as a derogatory slur.

But, when you start saying "Irish-Americans" accept this or "Native Americans" denounce that, are you engaging in the kind of monolithic thinking at the very heart of racism.

"Irish-Americans" can no more accept the Fighting Irish nickname than "Native Americans" can denounce the Redskins nickname. We are all individuals, and we all have our own individuals take on such matters.

[PapayaSF]

Except that people name their sports teams after people they admire. (With the rare exception of some smart-ass college students, e.g. the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs.)

But they can change it to the Washington Multiculturals if they want.

[Reverend Mayhem]

"Native Americans" see the Redskins nickname as a derogatory slur.

Well, I'm sure SOME do. I wasn't aware that "Native Americans" were monolithic on the issue.

[BakedPenguin]

90% of Native Americans do not find the term offensive. And since 10% of people are perpetually butthurt over everything, they can be safely ignored.

[califernian]

and even if ALL native americans are offended honestly I don't understand why anyone should care.

I'm offended by statists and communists does anyone care?

[PapayaSF]

Race, gender, or sexual orientation offensiveness are special categories these days, sorry.

[CE]

If you want to take a principled stand against the use of all racial slurs, that's fine. But to attack the Redskins and leave the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Boston Celtic, or...hey, the Atlanta "BRAVES!" (anyone?) alone reeks of cynicism and opportunism.

No it doesn't. The terms are fundamentally different. One is a racial insult and a slur and the others aren't.

[Boisfeuras]

1) Despite the original intent of the nickname, fans, players, and the organization in general have since taken the name on a show of respect and honor.

This is not true. The franchise changed its name from the Braves to Redskins in 1933 in honor of player Lone Star Dietz, who had attended Indian schools (there is debate over he was actually Indian or not). The original intent of the nickname was not derogatory.

[Restoras]

No idea but I now despise Costas and wish he would just STFU.

[Brandon]

I cringe every time Costas starts talking about anything other than sports. You just know it's going to be long, unoriginal and sanctimonious.

[Bobarian]

I cringe whenever he talks about anything besides baseball; the dick knows about as much about football as my wife...

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Why is this issue suddenly getting more attention?

A bunch of SWPL jock-sniffers are looking for the next issue to feel sanctimonious about.

[PapayaSF]

I suspect Obama brought it up as an indirect way of reminding people that all opposition to him is racist.

[SugarFree]

Change the name to D.C. Babyfuckers and be done with it.

[Pro Libertate]

Frankly, I don't care what they call the team or whether the name offends anyone. I mean, it's the name of a football team. A private team. If they want to deal with the rather limited outcry by changing the name, fine. If not, fine.

That said, I could come up with a shitload of good names for the team based in our nation's cesspool. Is "Scum-Sucking Parasites" taken?

[CE]

So, Bob Costas is right for once.

[Warty]

The rags-to-riches fairytale of success through hard work

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

YOU DIDN'T BUILD THAT!!!

[CatoTheElder]

The US has defaulted three additional times in the last century if one defines default to mean a failure to fulfill an debt obligation.

#1 1933 Gold confiscation - US defaulted on its promise to redeem gold certificates in gold.

#2 1968 Silver redemption discontinued - US defaulted on its promise to redeem silver certificates in silver.

#3 1971 Executive Order 11615 - This emergency order temporarily discontinued redemption of overseas holdings of dollars in gold. It has never been rescinded, of course.

[PapayaSF]

#2 wasn't really a default. IIRC, they announced the end of it at a certain date, and allowed people to exchange silver certificates for real silver up until that date.

[R C Dean]

Still sounds like a default to me.

"Hey, see this open-ended promise of unlimited duration that I made you? Turns out it expires next week. But I gave you advance notice, so its not a default!"

[Thane of Steelport]

Top 10 "Geekiest" Schools 2013

The students at these fantastically geeky schools don't need extra credit?but they do it anyway, because they can't resist an unsolved problem set! Not only are the students at these colleges among the smartest in the nation, they have an intense nerd culture that would put your childhood Pok?mon card-trading club to shame.

[Warty]

OMG! Totes LOL!

[Root Boy]

I am going to murder somebody if I ever hear them say totes in real life.

[font_of_stupidity]

And I will vote to acquit if I'm on that jury.

[Bobarian]

Read original headline as "gReekiest"?

Visions of butt-sex and riots over having to pay tuition sprang to mind.

[PD Scott]

Italian sheep object to marijuana raid.

The Italian media reports that when police from the L'Aquila drug squad descended on the sheep-owner's land and started to remove the marijuana plants, the sheep became agitated. They followed the police officers carrying the large plants away and attempted to eat them ? down to the last leaf.

[Brett L]

Tomacco!

[Jordan]

Oh, I thought you meant the figurative sheep.

[paranoid android]

Da-aa-aa-ve's not here, ma-aa-aa-aan.

[Coeus]

Proggies keep lying about "stand your ground" laws, now think they apply to police.

A North Carolina homicide case could test the state's "stand your ground" law.

A Charlotte police officer was charged with voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of 24-year-old Jonathan Ferrell after the former college football player was involved in a serious single-car crash last month.

Ferrell had crashed into a tree early Sept. 14 and sought help from the nearest house, but the woman who came to the door called 911 to report a possible break-in.

[PD Scott]

Two suspected burglars killed when blow torch ignites fireworks stored in safe.

"...were using an oxy-acetylene blow torch to try and cut into a large safe inside a workshop at New Yard Landscaping on Farrington Corner Road. That safe contained a large amount of commercial-grade fireworks, which exploded."

For gopher control?

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Feminist complains about nude body art work, records 10 anti-feminist Facebook comments

When I let the images linger a bit, I started to feel uneasy about the use of milk in the photographs because (1) do we really need more images of scantly clad-to-nude women covered in white liquid circulating? I'm sure using white was a practical aesthetic choice?the result is striking. But?really? (2) I'm not very cool with how we extract milk from female cows. In fact, I think the oppression of non-human animals and the oppression of women (and others) are linked. Not everyone agrees with me, and that's totally ok. I'm cool with that, just think it's worth discussing. In fact, there are a healthy and growing number of feminists who do think that part of being a feminist means to at least think critically about how we consume bodies and their products. Sharing these particular feelings, for whatever reason, garnered all 10 of the pre-packaged responses to feminists I've been warned about, ultimately reminding me that I am (1) crazy (2) a witch (3) over-thinking things. Thanks, Facebook.

Gives you an idea of what kind of person this is, but you can read the Facebook comments she takes issue with yourself.

[Warty]

No. Not only am I not going to read that, but I'm going to leer at some chicks instead.

[Brett L]

Thank you.

[Warty]

I mean, nothing against the serious man, but pleasant women are more pleasant than unpleasant women.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Yes, Warty is a hero. A hero can be anyone. Even someone who does something as simple and reassuring as linking to pictures of naked women to let people who read Marcotte and that link I posted know that the world hadn't ended.

[Suthenboy]

Two words come to mind; Personality Disorder.

[Paul.]

Do tell, what else "don't we need"?

[PD Scott]

But if you don't have an ongoing aid program properly managed by bureaucrats, what will people with sociology degrees do for a living? Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash Are Surprisingly Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

The data showed that after four years, most of those who received a cash grant were practicing a skilled trade, their income was up nearly 40 percent on average, and business assets increased 57 percent. "Astonishing numbers," Blattman said.
...
Grant recipients became carpenters, metal workers, tailors and hair stylists. Some of the money?about 10 to 20 percent?went for training, either at an institute or as an apprentice to a local artisan, but most of it was used to purchase tools and raw materials. Some of those small businesses grew large enough to hire paid employees, improving the economic situation in an entire village.

[Brandon]

But, but but...Top? Men?

[califernian]

Can't just let these people make their own decisions with cash. It would be the end of civilized society dontcha know. What are you some kind of Somalian?

[Coeus]

Rawstory has a sexual harassment story about a Democrat politician. commenters go on autopilot.

mahogma ? an hour ago ?
Republican rules of the universe / #31: Republicans are always always ALWAYS the victims, because...well, just because.
2 ?Reply?Share ?

WJM51 ? 3 hours ago ?
Sorry, but as a man, I just CAN'T buy these asshole men's stories. I just don't buy them for a heart beat. Yeah, women I know ALWAYS sit around telling everyone within earshot about their sex lives. NOT. Men do that all day long, but NOT women. At least not around men.

If these two assholes are anything like every OTHER republican out there, I expect that there is far more going on that these women HAVEN'T told about. Screw these arrogant pricks. They clearly have far more influence than they can handle, and they need to be sent HOME.

And some justification as well:

jokr8790 ? 2 hours ago ?
It's Kentucky where with very few exceptions the Democrats behave like Rethuglicans. They should be ashamed of themselves but no one really expects much of the elected reps in that state anymore.
5 ?Reply?Share ?

[C. Anacreon]

Yeah, women I know ALWAYS sit around telling everyone within earshot about their sex lives. NOT. Men do that all day long, but NOT women.

I've heard the saw about how men supposedly talk about their sex lives all the time, but I'm getting pretty old and have yet to hear it, and I've been on sports teams, was in a fraternity, and have been to plenty of bachelor parties. Sure, guys talk about how hot a specific woman is, or occasionally might report (without details) if they've had some sort of hook-up with someone, but with rare exceptions, I've never heard a guy discuss details of his "sex life." What does that mean you even say - "you know, Sheila and I did doggie-style last night, then stopped and watched Letterman, then we did 69 and missionary style before going to sleep."

But some women seem to assume that's all men talk about? If you've ever seen the chick show "Weeds", which my wife likes, all the men on the show discuss their penis lengths with each other (not in boastful jokes, but serious conversation!), compare masturbation techniques, and other such never-happens male-bonding nonsense.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Crew of MV Alabama dispute Tom Hanks' heroic portrayal of Captain Phillips

Crew members of the Maersk Alabama, which suffered the raid off the coast of lawless Somalia in April 2009, told the New York Post the titular hero played by Tom Hanks in Paul Greengrass's critically acclaimed film was far from heroic. The sailors, who are suing their employers Maersk Line and the Waterman Steamship Corp for $50m, said Richard Phillips was a sullen, self-righteous man: their suit claims the captain's wilful disregard for his crew's safety contributed to the attack.

"Phillips wasn't the big leader like he is in the movie," said one crew member who worked closely with the captain, speaking anonymously for legal reasons. "No one wants to sail with him," he told the Post.

The crew member said Phillips, who went on to meet Barack Obama and write a memoir, refused to cut power and lock himself and the crew below deck in line with anti-pirate protocol. "He didn't want anything to do with it, because it wasn't his plan," said the crew member. "He was real arrogant."

[Brandon]

A movie differs from reality? Well, I never!

[C. Anacreon]

I've heard another complaint about the movie is that the hero is white and the bad guys are black, "reinforcing racial stereotypes."

[PapayaSF]

So they should have made the Somali pirates into white South African neo-Nazis?

[Bobarian]

Diplomatic immunity!

[Pro Libertate]

That said, he could still be a hero and a dick. I mean, Captain Kirk is a god-hero and kind of a dick.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

They call him self-righteous, so he sounds more like Picard.

[Pro Libertate]

Same response, though Picard was more demigod-hero. And a dick. I mean, he was French. Will be. Whatever.

[PapayaSF]

But the crew is saying he was a dick and not really a hero.

[Pro Libertate]

Of course they are. Because he was a dick.

I mean, maybe it's true, but if he really were a hero and a dick, wouldn't they deny the former because of the latter?

[Mickey Rat]

Which makes him Archer.

[Guy LaGuy]

HEROIC TEABAGGERS!

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Wait, so there's no trash on the Mall even though the government is shutdown?

I thought the whole point of closing off access to the monuments was because without those heroic government employees trash and vandalism would ruin the place.

[Lady Bertrum]

Needs more CAPS.

[VG Zaytsev]

They're stealing union jerbs!!!1

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Classic sentences of the left, Yglesias edition:

The entire disagreement is about how and when to push this agenda of more money for the rich and less for the struggling. The question of whether this is the right agenda isn't really on the table.

[Mad Scientist]

I know of a sure fire way to keep Republicans from stealing from the poor and giving to the rich, however, the Democrats will never go for it because the same mechanism will also keep Democrats from stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.

[Root Boy]

yeah, does Yglesias bitch about the FED QE making Wall Streeters and Hedgies richer than God.

[Pro Libertate]

Um, I'm upper middle class or whatever. You guys can stop sending me money, if that was some new idea rather than continuing the practice of taking tens of thousands of dollars of mine throughout the year.

[John]

In Sad Beard's world any time the government takes less of your money, it is just like it gave it to you. These people live in a stew of non sequiters. It would never occur to a moron like him that there is any difference between a welfare check and a tax cut. They are utterly vile.

[Pro Libertate]

But. . .but, I shop at Whole Foods! And Trader Joe's!

[Mad Scientist]

Then you have too much money, you evil richie baby killing polluting privileged jerk!

[Pro Libertate]

I may accidentally buy fair trade stuff! And really enlightened people also shop there!

[Paul.]

Abu Anas al-Libi, the Al Qaeda suspect captured by U.S. Special Forces in Libya on Oct. 5, arrived in the United States today after being held on a U.S. Navy ship in the Mediterranean.

Al-Libi to interrogators: I've got a rock-solid Al-Libi!

[Anomalous]

Anus Alibi?

[Guy LaGuy]

CNN tally shows approx 144K people created #Obamacare accounts.

That's the number of the elect!

[Lady Bertrum]

Be more coherent.

[Palin's Buttplug]

In the Book of Revelation 144,000 is the number of Christians that are "saved".

[Sevo]

Guy LaGuy|10.14.13 @ 5:17PM|#
"CNN tally shows approx 144K people created #Obamacare accounts."

Supposedly 35M people without insurance, O'care exchanges open for two weeks, and we got 144K?
If it was a business, the NSE would de-list it.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Which plan did they choose? Or did they simply set up their profile?

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

I'm sick of the Alice Munro hype.

[John]

Alice who? Won what?

[Winston]

Canadian author who won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

If there is a living writer that most deserves a Nobel Prize in Literature it's Cormac McCarthy.

[Winston]

George R.R. Martin wuz robbed!

[Pro Libertate]

I think he's got another book being made into a movie. I saw some preview about a Ridley Scott movie before watching Gravity this weekend, and I think it was one of his.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

It's not a book, it's a screenplay he wrote called 'The Counselor'.

Considering how awesome 'No Country for Old Men' was and the stellar cast, I'm excited for that one.

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, okay. I just remembered his name being mentioned and Scott saying something or other.

[BakedPenguin]

The directors also played a part in that, no disrespect to McCarthy.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Yes, that was a Coen Brothers film through and through, but it was remarkably faithful to the source material in terms of dialogue and how the story played out.

[BakedPenguin]

One big difference between that movie and the other they've made (that I've seen) - no real humor. Even in Fargo, which had some really dark stuff, they had a lot of goofy (but well done) humor. No Country lacked that.

I suspect that's because they are more about making really good films than "putting their stamp" on things. They found excellent source material, and were wise enough not to mess with it.

[Pro Libertate]

Pretty much the same with True Grit, though I think that wasn't the same caliber as No Country.

[Tejicano]

When my wife was pregnant with our first born I would read passages from McCarthy's "Crossings" to him every evening. I did my best to keep the dialog in proper accents - both English and Spanish.

I used to drive, hike, hunt, and camp all over the part of the US in that story and whenever he mentioned the name of any terrain feature I could see in my mind exactly where the character was.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Rand Paul: Sequester cuts are the law of land too

Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday "the one thing" he could not accept as part of a deal to end the government shutdown is an increase in the sequestration caps.

"It's funny," the Kentucky Republican said of Democrats. "They're all about Obamacare being the law of the land, but so's the sequester. If we exceed that, it's real big step in the wrong direction."

"I can't imagine you're going to get Senate Republicans to vote for something that exceeds the sequester caps," he said on CNN's "State of the Union." I think it's a huge mistake for the country." The No. 1 concern for the country is its debt, he said.

"Compromise is in the eyes of the beholder," he said.

Excellent point from the junior Senator.

[PD Scott]

As if a junior Senator knows ANYTHING about running the federal government!

[Eduard van Haalen]

I wonder if some comedy show will do ambush interviews about "how do you feel about Rand Paul getting into national politics when he's only an inexperienced junior Senator?" See how many Obama voters will catch on before saying something dumb.

[Pro Libertate]

It's actually a fair point, as I was pretty vocal about the foolishness of voting in a cipher without any real experience. Not because political experience is a good in itself--in fact, it's usually the opposite--but because we don't know what they guy will do without it.

With Rand, I'm willing to take a chance, because there aren't experienced alternatives who sound remotely libertarian.

[Pro Libertate]

Man, Rand really is good at this.

[C. Anacreon]

And yet just about everyone I know in the Bay Area is convinced he is a "wack job," which must have been what NPR told them to think.

[Pro Libertate]

What's great is that I don't think the bulk of people see him that way.

[BakedPenguin]

He is shrewd as hell.

[CE]

The debt limit law is also the law of the land.

[Pro Libertate]

The House controlling the power of the purse? Also the law of the land.

[Juice]

And the employer mandate.

[Pro Libertate]

Ouch.

[Eduard van Haalen]

"Earlier this month, the National Organization for Marriage-- an organization whose purpose is to protect traditional marriage and the faith organizations that support it-- announced that it has filed suit against the Internal Revenue Service over the alleged illegal release of its 2008 confidential tax return to ideological opponents. The complaint in National Organization For Marriage, Inc. v. U.S. Internal Revenue Service, (ED VA, filed 10/3/2013) alleges:

""In March 2012, individuals employed by the IRS ... disclosed NOM's confidential ... 2008 IRS Fonn 990, Schedule B, which contains the names, home addresses, and contribution amounts of NOM's 2008 donors, to one or more third parties, including NOM's ideological opponent, the Human Rights Campaign.... On information and belief, the individuals from the IRS chose to make this disclosure ... specifically intending that those third parties would widely publish the information.... NOM's confidential return information was subsequently published on the Internet by third parties, including HRC and the Huffington Post ... making it available to millions of people. These disclosures are part of a deliberate attempt to chill the First Amendment activity of NOM, its donors, and others who associate with NOM.

"The complaint seeks damages and injunctive relief."

http://religionclause.blogspot.....s-irs.html

[Pro Libertate]

Good. The IRS should be attacked on every possible front for this.

[paranoid android]

This is probably the worst side effect of the whole IRS scandal--thanks the government's sliminess, pettiness, and fecklessness, taxpayer dollars will have to go to funding settlements with assholes like NOM.

[Winston]

So what do y'all think of the upcoming 12 Years a Slave? Is it the ultimate White Guilt movie? How many reviews will compare the slaves to Obama and the slave owners to the Tea Party?

[Eduard van Haalen]

A search reveals this:

"A world famous Texas cinema chain with a zero tolerance policy towards anti-social filmgoers has "banned" Madonna from all its screens after she was reportedly caught texting during a screening of 12 Years A Slave at the New York film festival.

"The singer is reported to have spent much of the premiere, at the Walter Reade Theater in New York's Lincoln Center, for Steve McQueen's Oscar-tipped tale of a free black man sold into slavery in the antebellum south tapping away on her Blackberry, much to the annoyance of other filmgoers. When one woman tapped her on the shoulder and requested the singer stop, Madonna is reported to have remarked: "It's for business ? enslaver!" and continued texting away.

"Now the Alamo Drafthouse, which is known for its strict policy towards unruly customers, has taken the largely symbolic step of banning the singer from all its premises. "Until she apologizes to movie fans, Madonna is banned from watching movies," tweeted co-founder and CEO Tim League."

http://www.theguardian.com/fil.....rs-a-slave

[Eduard van Haalen]

Wait - I got a joke: Madonna *not* in chains - because it's a chain of movie houses, ha ha!

[Apatheist ?_??]

Alamo Drafthouse is the shit and their zero tolerance policy for disruptions is one of the main reasons why after the plentiful booze served to you at your seat.

[Root Boy]

Looks like a good movie. There was another movies I saw on....Netflix or somewhere with a similar story. Free Black girl in Canada marries a white guy from NY who brings her down to SC or VA and sells her into slavery. Dad finds her and pulls a Bruce Willis to rescue her.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Wait - New York? You mean South Carolina, don't you?

[Root Boy]

Slaver was from NY and used to go whoring and trading in SC. Took his wife to the south and sold her there.

[Pro Libertate]

This sounds oddly like a song called "Brown Sugar."

[Root Boy]

Found it. Captive Heart: James Mink Story. A TV movie, so not as popular as a big Hollywood deal. But it does have Lou Gossett, Jr.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115826/

[Eduard van Haalen]

And I bet every Anti-American Canadian has this in his spank bank.

[Eduard van Haalen]

I've heard of the book this is based on, and I vaguely recall seeing a movie in school about a black guy kidnapped in the North and sent into slavery in the South - don't know if it was based on the same book.

I certainly like historical dramas, though it's important how you do it. You can do it straight, or you can try to distill a Social Message, but in the latter case hopefully you'll get more sophisticated than "OMG, we used to have *slavery* guys, how horrible!"

[Root Boy]

I'm sure HnR has discussed Dallas Buyers Club before, but I missed it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs1kpGNSRVk

Seems like a good Libertarian movie, of course, I suspect it will be talked about as a lesson about the Evil Ronnie Raygun.

MM is the new DeNiro in my mind.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

On Saturday I tended bar at a local music hall to make a couple extra bucks (I really want to get out of school debt). One woman came up to me at the bar, ordered a (very expensive) drink and whipped out what I think* was an EBT card to pay her bill.

Fortunately, my bar did not have an electronic card reader, and I told her we only accepted cash. I am not sure what I would have done if we had a card reader. The more I think about it, the more infuriated I get. Beers cost $9 each, and mixed drinks (what I think she ordered) were $10.50 each. And here was this woman (in her 20s, seemingly perfectly healthy) attempting to spend her welfare dollars on expensive liquor (and she was apparently able to afford a ticket which was at least $35.00).

*I say "I think" because I can't remember exactly what the card said. She had it in her hand. Has anyone else had experiences like this? Can people use these cards at bars and restaurants?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

My daughter works as a waitress at a local Italian restaurant, and she has a few stories of people trying to use EBT cards to pay for their meals.

[Pro Libertate]

Federal welfare is becoming increasingly long-term to permanent and is used by a lot of people, probably a majority under retirement age, to supplement incomes that are adequate for the basics. In other words, we're more funding smartphones, cars, and nice apartments than we are food, healthcare, and the usual stuff we hear to justify a massive welfare system.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

It is troubling how many people I know who casually apply to and use welfare program. Used to be, most people of all income levels would be ashamed of being supported by welfare, and get off it as soon as possible if they were on the dole.

[Pro Libertate]

The shame is gone. I've told this anecdote probably too many times here, but my wife knows a lot of homeschool moms who regularly talk about being on welfare. And, to all appearances, these stay-at-home, not-working moms are living a middle-class lifestyle.

I thought welfare was about preventing poverty, not giving people stuff they don't want to work hard for.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I homeschool my kids and have had a similar experience.

It is a very odd dichotomization: the people who are genuinely in need are a small portion of those being helped, and are generally served poorly by the program. Yet, the programs work very well for those who don't seek to work whilst having a lower middle-class lifestyle subsidized by the rest of the US.

[Pro Libertate]

My wife told me that one of them lives in Section 8 housing that looks like a regular, nice apartment.

It's not that I don't have sympathy for people, but why should I be working hard to subsidize these things? It just doesn't work, between the rampant fraud and the government trying to buy votes with largess it doesn't fucking have to give.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

The shame is totally gone. I think it was the USDA that ran ads mocking people who rejected welfare because they wanted to be self-sufficient. Not only are people not ashamed, our government is actively discouraging people from being self-sufficient. It's embarrassing.

[Pro Libertate]

I don't want to beat people up about being on welfare, but it's a really bad sign that people aren't embarrassed by it.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I know a couple of people who were on welfare on account of genuinely hard times. They lived frugally and got off within 6 months once they got jobs. I won't blame a person for taking advantage when times are tough when they have kids to feed.

It's when it becomes a lifestyle and an expectation that it truly becomes a problem, and that's where it is going.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

I agree. This might make me score lower than PB on the libertarian purity test, but I am not against having a means-tested welfare system for people who actually need it.

The problem is (1) that's not what we have now and (2) it's hard to keep an "ideal" welfare system from becoming what we have now.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

That's where I'm at right now. I don't see that there is a good limiting principle or practical way to stop a welfare system from morphing into what it is now.

[trshmnstr]

This is why people and organizations need to step in and fill the void. There is a need for charitable giving to the poor and the temporarily unfortunate, but it's hard to even imagine a society where neighbors, churches, non-profits, and community pitch in to help out. Our society is so addicted to government welfare that it's foreign to think about it being a voluntary system.

[Sevo]

..."In other words, we're more funding smartphones, cars, and nice apartments than we are food, healthcare, and the usual stuff we hear to justify a massive welfare system."

We are due a great big "thanks!" from Apple.

[Pro Libertate]

I do wonder how many iPhones, iPads, and competing products were bought with government money. Because they are necessities, you see.

[trshmnstr]

This gets into a parallel issue with the whole Planned Parenthood thing. If taxpayers fund one portion of a person/group's expenses, it frees up the funds they would have otherwise used for that portion to be used for other things. How many iPhones have been paid for by somebody's paycheck simply because they didn't have to buy food for themselves?

[PapayaSF]

Fast-food restaurants in San Francisco have had signs in the windows for a few years, advertising that they take EBT cards.

[grrizzly]

It's the same in LA.

[paranoid android]

Why, I wonder? That sounds like something California's do-gooder paternalists would be all over trying to stop. They'd get to claim they were improving the health of poor people and sticking it to fat cat corporations in one move!

[PapayaSF]

I suspect California's do-gooder paternalists bowed to the demands of their, um, diverse urban allies.

[Medical Physics Guy]

I saw more discussion the other day of this Reasonable app for Reason comments? Can anyone link me to the (presumably) plugin? Or do I need to give someone on this list a foot massage first?

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

http://chrome.google.com/webst.....cndj?hl=en

[Mad Scientist]

Here it is, but it only works with Chrome.

[Clich? Bandit]

New around these here parts arnt ya?

[OldMexican]

Yasser Arafat Was Poisoned With Polonium, Experts Said

At least, that is what the Russians are saying.

The international investigation of causes of death of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has come to an end.

Experts confirmed that he died as a result of polonium poisoning.

The results of the investigation were handed over to the widow of the Palestinian leader, Suha Arafat. She will then decide what to do with this information and whether it is subject to official publication.

[PapayaSF]

I prefer the AIDS explanation.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Yeah, the Russians *would* blame the Poles.

[Banjos]

33 weeks pregnant, I have a nasty cold, a husband as equally sick, and a teething baby and yet with the government still shutdown, Obamacare being an abysmal failure, and record amounts of people having disdain for the Federal government, it's hard to be nothing but sunshine and lollipops.

[Root Boy]

Don't ever let anybody tell you you say the glass is half empty.

[Pro Libertate]

Perhaps this child will restore freedom and free markets to this otherwise totally fucked nation! Keep that in mind.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Avatar: The Last Free Marketeer?

[Clich? Bandit]

Where is the bidding? And the current leader?

[Juice]

Does she live in Nebraska?

http://www.theonion.com/articl.....wha,27406/

[Bobarian]

Blood Simple had one part that made me laugh out loud.

They bury the body in the field and the next morning has the shot with the tire tracks going up to the obviously dug hole.