A.M. Links: Obama To Declare Obamacare Glitches "Unacceptable," First Gay Marriages in New Jersey, Feinstein Defends NSA While France Demands Answers

Credit: NSA/wikimedia

• At a White House event this morning, President Obama is expected to declare the glitches in the heathcare exchange websites to be "unacceptable."
• Some gay couples in New Jersey seized the opportunity early today to be among the first married in the state, where a court ruling just made it the 14th state to recognize same-sex marriage.
• Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) defended the NSA's call-records program, stating that there is "extensive" oversight and that the program "is not surveillance."
• French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is demanding answers from the US ambassador following a French newspaper's claim that the NSA spied on millions of phone calls in the country.
• Some Californian landowners are left in a frustrated limbo as their state pushes forward with plans for a bullet train. California has been weighing different possible routes and the necessary stretches of land for the infrastructure to occupy.
• Jeb Bush suggested that Republican lawmakers demonstrate some restraint and find a new approach to repealing Obamacare.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

At a White House event this morning, President Obama is expected to declare the glitches in the heathcare exchange websites to be "unacceptable."

In the same way the IRS scandal was "unacceptable."

[Lord Humungus]

Obama trying to get ahead of the curve

[BigT]

An awful lot about his own Administration is unacceptable. You'd think he would kick the ass of the guy in charge!!

[Doctor Whom]

Obama has no power over the branch of government that he heads (although he still gets the credit for everything).

[CatoTheElder]

I know that Obama gets credit for boldly deciding to go after Osama bin Laden and for singlehandedly killing him in an oh-dark-thirty raid in Abbottabad.

Other than that bold, heroic act, what else is worth giving him credit for?

[PM]

He only saved the entire global economy. Plus, well, how many Nobel Peace Prizes do you have, mister smarty pants?

[VG Zaytsev]

Obama is going to say that it is unacceptable that republicans have sabotaged his perfect plan.

[Justin S]

He's holding people responsible, and fixing problems as they occur. What a contrast with old-"doing a great job Brownie"-Bush.

[Redmanfms]

He's holding people responsible, and fixing problems as they occur. What a contrast with old-"doing a great job Brownie"-Bush.

But BOOOOSSSSHHHH!!!!!

Also, bullshit. So far he's held nobody accountable. Besides, it was his decision to hold off on building the exchanges until after the 2012 election (because the truth would be fucking devastating).

[CatoTheElder]

I think Justin S was being sarcastic.

Either sarcastic, or delusional.

[WTF]

Delusional. He's a new troll.

[PM]

He's a new troll sockpuppet.

We haven't had a new troll in ages. They just change names.

[Hillary's Clitdong]

Which is Kathleen Sebelius has been fired and CGI Federal has been banned from contracting for the government.

[wareagle]

who? Who is being held responsible? Doubtful that it is any of the 47 firms with contracts on O-care, or anyone on his staff. But keep blowing him.

[Elspeth Flashman]

You crack me up. Seriously.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

And yet we have to accept them.

[Ted S.]

You mean the phony, ginned-up, Republican-talking-points IRS scandal? 🙂

[Fist of Etiquette]

I mean likely to continue unabated.

[Rich]

According to the WH website, Obama has No public schedule today.

Must be a glitch.

[Gbob]

As soon as he can find a way to blame it on Bush, he'll be right on it.

[WTF]

Bush drove the exchanges onto a ditch!!11!!!

[Enough About Palin]

You're unacceptable! You're unacceptable! The whole trial is unacceptable! They're unacceptable! That man, that sick, crazy, depraved man, raped and beat that citizenry there, and he'd like to do it again! He *told* me so! It's just a show! It's a show! It's "Let's Make A Deal"! "Let's Make A Deal"! Hey Frank, you wanna "Make A Deal"? I got an insane president who likes to beat the shit out of citizens! Whaddya wanna gimme Frank, 3 weeks probation?

[DontShootMe]

Since it is unacceptable, that means the US Govt doesn't have to pay the contractors, right? Surely there are performance clauses in the contrac..

HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I knew I'd never be able to do that with a straight face.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) defended the NSA's call-records program, stating that there is "extensive" oversight...

Oversight that apparently included obfuscations to both Congress and the courts lazily overseeing the program.

[DJF]

Lazy oversight would be a vast improvement over what they have now. The "court" has no power to investigate and must rely on what the NSA tells them and there is no one in the court to take up the side of the people so we have a system where only the NSA gets a voice..

[BigT]

Our fellow citizens love freedom so much they want an Orwellian police state on the Nazi German model. No shit!

[DJF]

Do we at least get to wear cool looking Nazi uniforms?

[Swiss Servator, Zurichmania!]

Gah, I hate feldgrau!

[creech]

That was Wehrmacht. Just think how black SS uniforms were slimming. That alone may solve the whole obesity epidemic. And once we throw the fat cat libertarian billionaires in concentration camps to starve just think how the average weight of Americans will plummet.

[Swiss Servator, Zurichmania!]

Hmmm....maybe with a monocle and dueling scar I could pull it off.

[Lord Humungus]

Just another day in Australia:

Broome police charge woman after allegedly catching her driving with man dressed in dinosaur onesie on bonnet

Police allege the vehicle was travelling at approximately 60km/h with an adult male lying on the bonnet, facing the driver.

Officers stopped the vehicle and located the man still lying on the bonnet, smoking a cigarette, dressed in a dinosaur onesie and wearing a snorkel.

The 23-year-old female driver has been charged with excess 0.05% and reckless driving.

The vehicle was seized under hoon legislation.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

with an adult male lying on the bonnet

SPEAK ENGLISH

[Shirley Knott]

You mean 'speak American' -- this is perfectly good English.

[Snark Plissken]

You're a right cheeky bird, aren't you?

[Lady Bertrum]

sod-off

[KMA Too]

What he said...

[Ted S.]

Why do they need broom police, anyhow?

[trshmnstr]

It's those dangerous assault brooms. Those with more than 7 bristles.

[Reverend Mayhem]

The vehicle was seized under hoon legislation.

Shannon Hoon has a law?

[Steve G]

What kind of a name is Hoon anyway?

[Reverend Mayhem]

+1 Fletch

[KMA Too]

Er, +1 Comanche.

[SIV]

The pair are French nationals, believed to be backpackers living in the vehicle.

[Elspeth Flashman]

That's chargeable as alcohol related ?!? .05 ?!

[WTF]

The 23-year-old female driver has been charged with excess 0.05%

Isn't that no more than a single drink? Or maybe even less for a woman?

[Elspeth Flashman]

It could be, depending on what else is eaten/drank. Nation of wussies.

[Swiss Servator, Zurichmania!]

Say, has ifh been around lately?!

[sarcasmic]

Walmart gives good Samaritan job back after firing him for helping woman being assaulted in the parking lot

Retail giant reversed course after public outcry for firing good Samaritan
Kristopher Oswald has not accepted the offer to be rehired yet and previously said he might not want to go back to work for Walmart

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

[Ted S.]

He should have been fired just for being a Kristopher with a K. And all those Jons without and H ought to be fired, too. 🙂

[a better weapon]

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) defended the NSA's call-records program, stating that there is "extensive" oversight and that the program "is not surveillance."

Too bad her definition of guns isn't nearly as nuanced.

[Lord Humungus]

Sheep Revolt When Police Uproot Marijuana Plants Where Flock Grazed

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.

Later, the police released photographs and a video of the operation. The police expressed their surprise that the sheep had become nervous and agitated by the removal of the marijuana plants.

[Ted S.]

Those sheep had the munchies.

[Hillary's Clitdong]

BAAAAAAZKILL

[Snark Plissken]

One of the sheep was quoted as saying, "Dude, legal marijuana could fix the entire economy and save the world from global warming."

[sarcasmic]

University students banned from pole dance fitness classes because they are 'inextricable linked to sex industry'

Keep-fit classes were a big hit with the women at Swansea University
Students' Union chiefs said pole dancing 'inextricably linked to sex industry'
Society president said it was 'highly offensive' to suggest class was sexual

http://reason.com/blog/2013/10.....nt_4077796

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Hmm, the link works, so you didn't SF it...what is this situation called?

[sarcasmic]

Better?

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I suppose. The best part was this quote:

Lap dancing occurs in gentleman's clubs. Pole fitness is strictly for fitness.

I lol'd.

[DJF]

Monday morning and just the time to look at pictures of hot co-eds pole dancing and you give a bad link!!!!

[Ted S.]

Somehow I don't think that's the correct link.

[Brett L]

first of all it should be "inextricably". These fucks might want to get through basic English conjugation successfully before moving on to hard subjects like social justice.

[Hillary's Clitdong]

Some young women are engaging in sexual dancing? My God, Percy, have the servants fetch me my fainting couch.

[Rich]

Feinstein (D-Calif.) defended the NSA's call-records program, stating that ... the program "is not surveillance."

Tell it to the French, Dianne.

[Ted S.]

Tell it to the French, Dianne.

"Cette programme n'est pas surveillance!"

[Rich]

May *we*?

/The French

[Fist of Etiquette]

Some Californian landowners are left in a frustrated limbo as their state pushes forward with plans for a bullet train.

That's what landowners get for renting government land in the People's Republic of California. You're subject to whims.

[The Late P Brooks]

Problems with Cbamacare?

We don't know whose fault it was, but we know whose fault it wasn't.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

BOOOOOOSSSSSHHHHHH!!!!!

Comment from CNet:

It would've helped if they hadn't put their faith in one of the companies Bush had been using during his administration, which used cutting edge programming from ten years ago.

[wareagle]

so Bush forced Team Obama to use that company? And what of the 46 others?

[Bardas Phocas]

That seems to be a dominant talking point this weekend - Bush did it by proxy. The other is that a Stuxnet-like virus was inserted into the system by highly skilled Republican dirty trick/ninjas (stop laughing).

I'm pushing for a purge of the IT professionals in the federal government. Snowden showed us that they are infested with libertarians and saboteurs. This should do for Fed IT sector what it did for the Soviet Red Army.

Of course the Germans will invade (the Internet) shortly afterward. Brace for the scheisse porn.

[Ted S.]

The other is that a Stuxnet-like virus was inserted into the system by highly skilled Republican dirty trick/ninjas (stop laughing).

That would imply the Republicans have at least a frisson of intelligence.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Is a frisson more or less than a soup?on?

[Lord Humungus]

Bill Ayers Bombs: Appearance Cancelled Due to Lack of Interest

Former Weather Underground terrorist and Obama associate Bill Ayers is having trouble with his book tour, it seems. Local news sources in Wisconsin report that his latest public appearance has been canceled due to a lack of public interest.

The Madison Public Library, which had organized the hour-long event, said they "didn't have the kind of interest" they had anticipated.

Ayers has been touring the country in support of his new book, Public Enemy: Confessions of an American Dissident.

[Snark Plissken]

Bill, better stick to ghostwriting tendentious, boring books.

[Lady Bertrum]

they "didn't have the kind of interest" they had anticipated

Good news. Exactly the response I'd hope for this jackass. (chirping crickets are the best revenge).

[sarcasmic]

The $7billion warship to rule the waves: US Navy's largest destroyer ever built gets ready to set sail

USS Zumwalt will have cost $7billion when finally completed
Warship features deadly arsenal, radar and stealthy silhouette
Fearsome ship can fire rocket-propelled warheads upto 100 miles
Engine produces 78 megawatts - enough to power 78,000 homes
Ship is designed to maintain US naval supremacy for decades

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....-sail.html

[DJF]

Except that they are only building three and have cancelled the rest because of the costs and because they are not sure if the ship will work.

And even worse they restarted production of the earlier Burke class ddg but they waited just long enough that production lines were shut down and the new Burkes cost lots more then the old ones.

[Steve G]

We should buy more to get the unit cost down... /derp

[Brett L]

If we can't throw VW sized shells over the horizon with an accuracy measured in feet, its a step back. Fuck Tomahawks, I want an upgrade to the 16" gun turret systems of the old Iowa class battleships.

[DJF]

They chose 155mm gun because they thought they could use cheaper Army 155mm ammo for shorter range shooting and save the expensive longer range ammo for when they needed it.

However nobody bother to check and they soon found that they needed different rifling for the long range ammo and so the cheap Army ammo was abandoned. But not before they had locked themselves in on 155mm ammo.

[Brett L]

This is why things shouldn't be designed by committee. Also, do all flag officers have to have their forebrains removed, or is it just strongly encouraged?

[Swiss Servator, Zurichmania!]

US military procurement is so jacked up it makes the Easter Bunny defecate in rage.

I would have the heads of everyone involved piled up in a pyramid outside my office door, were I SecDef.

[Brett L]

"What's the worst command we have?"

[some jerkwater station]

"Nope, not good enough. Make his command the officer in charge of personally certifying that field deployed chemical toilets are sanitary enough to eat off of. By personal example. No staff. "

[Drake]

For $7 Billion they could probably have retro fitted all the existing Iowa class Battleships with nuclear plants and new electronics. But fixing up old equipment doesn't pay for campaign contributions or get Admirals VP jobs at defense contractors.

[sarcasmic]

It is pretty slick how high ranking officers retire into executive spots in companies that they bought billions of dollars worth of stuff from with our money. No conflict of interest or anything.

[Brett L]

Yeah. Like the B-52, the platform is fine. So what if you have mechanical linkages to the control surfaces? Just upgrade the parts that can benefit from mechanical to electronic control (and like you say, the power plant in the Iowa-class case) and admit that the platform is excellent at what it does.

[Restoras]

But B-52s and Iowa-class ships aren't new and shiny!

[WTF]

And Iowa-class ships are heavily armored so they can't be easily sunk. By a couple guys with a bomb in a motor boat.

[Drake]

Takes more than that to scratch the paint.

[Pro Libertate]

For that kind of money, we could outfit a hundred thousand triremes with guys carrying rocket launchers on the deck. Might be equally effective.

[Restoras]

Sure but where you gonna get the slaves to do the rowing?

[VG Zaytsev]

Obamacare resisters.

[Restoras]

What the eff is wrong with the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers? How about just retrofitting them?

[Virginian]

They're not new and shiny enough! Also not as stealthy. Which is really really really important, even though in the history of the US Navy, only one ship has ever been hit by an antiship missile.

[Restoras]

Why do we need really stealthy warships? Relative to airplanes they are slow anyway so can't slip in under the radar, take out a target, and get out before getting shot at.

You want to make a stealthy PT boat that's fine, but all this stealthy surface ship stuff is crap.

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

I only "know" enough to spitball a devil's advocate case, so here goes:

1) Most anti-ship weapons are radar-guided today, especially the new PRC ballistic anti-carrier missile (radar homing in the terminal phase), so a small enough cross-section might thwart a lot of conventional attacks.

2) With air (and possibly space) superiority such as we have today land-based radar (especially over-the-horizon radar) becomes the primary means of detecting and locating our ships in order to use those weapons. I'm assuming here that PRC is the main adversary in mind for these features. If we want to maintain an effective naval presence in the western Pacific (SLD applies here) it would be nice to minimize their ability to aim their shore-based weapons at us.

[Snark Plissken]

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is demanding answers from the US ambassador following a French newspaper's claim that the NSA spied on millions of phone calls in the country.

But the US ambassador kept repeating his the name, Laurent Fabius, and giggling.

[Fist of Etiquette]

It's culturally insensitive to joke about a Frog's name.

[Rich]

You, you ... *minkey*!

[Snark Plissken]

Le jazz hands, I sometimes forget how brilliant I can be.

[WTF]

But the US ambassador kept repeating his the name, Laurent Fabius, and giggling.

Wait until he hears about his wife, Incontinentia Buttocks.

[The Late P Brooks]

C?

WTF

[waffles]

What is the picture? Is that the NSA deathstar? I'm not sure what it does, but it sure is an ominous thing.

[waffles]

No, too many trees to be Utah. I'm just paranoid. Maybe my new health plan from Obama will be able to help me with that.

[Brett L]

That's Ft. Meade, so yeah. Their HQ, not the data-center. Coruscant, not the Death Star.

[waffles]

Thanks. It really is a terrific analogy.

[Lord Humungus]

Interpol open to abuse by 'criminal states'

In January last year, Eerik Kross, an Estonian politician and a former director of Estonia's intelligence service, also became a wanted man after Interpol issued a "red notice" on Moscow's say-so.

Kross is a known adversary of the Kremlin.

He was a leading proponent of Estonia's Nato membership. In the 2008 Georgia-Russia war, he helped Georgia to fight off Russian cyber attacks.

But Russia used the long arm of Interpol to reach out for him on different grounds.

It filed the notice saying Kross masterminded the hijack of a Russian ship, the Arctic Sea, off the coast of Sweden in 2009, a claim which Kross calls "idiotic." It did so on grounds that a witness in an Arctic Sea trial had mentioned his name.

[Redmanfms]

This is nothing new for Interpol. The Soviets and Soviet satellite states did this shit during the Cold War.

The Saudis have also used Red Notices to get apostates.

[sarcasmic]

Americans Sign Petition to Support "Nazi-Style Orwellian Police State"

To keep everybody safe

http://www.infowars.com/americ.....ice-state/

[Ted S.]

Posted above -- directly, and not to Infowars. :-p

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Chevron's landmark lawsuit exposes 'greenmail'

Chevron takes shakedown lawyers to court in RICO trial

[Fist of Etiquette]

Some gay couples in New Jersey seized the opportunity early today to be among the first married in the state...

Wedding your true love in the state of New Jerksey is cheapening the blessed sanctity of a marriage license.

[DJF]

Yeah, more government licenses for people doing things that they should not need a government license.

[sarcasmic]

But it's not real unless the government recognizes it. Government is god.

[PM]

Way to ruin a perfectly good dig at New Jersey. I am disappoint. In both of you.

[sarcasmic]

Q) Know why New Yorkers are always pissed off?

A) The light at the end of the tunnel is New Jersey.

[sarcasmic]

As parliamentary polls get under way in the Czech Republic this week, artist David Cerny has floated a huge purple statue of an extended middle finger down the River Vltava in Prague.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24607870
I wonder if you could get away with that in the freest country in the world. Probably not.

[Brett L]

Hmm. I wonder how much it would cost to get it to the Potomac?

[DontShootMe]

It'd be fun watching the Hellfire missile hit that thing on the Potomac. (Obama would have to drone it, for the children).

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Apocalyptic Daze
...One consequence of this certainty is that we begin to suspect that the numberless Cassandras who prophesy all around us do not intend to warn us so much as to condemn us. In classical Judaism, the prophet sought to give new life to God's cause against kings and the powerful. In Christianity, millenarian movements embodied a hope for justice against a Church wallowing in luxury and vice. But in a secular society, a prophet has no function other than indignation. So it happens that he becomes intoxicated with his own words and claims a legitimacy with no basis, calling down the destruction that he pretends to warn against. You'll get what you've got coming!?that is the death wish that our misanthropes address to us. These are not great souls who alert us to troubles but tiny minds who wish us suffering if we have the presumption to refuse to listen to them. Catastrophe is not their fear but their joy. It is a short distance from lucidity to bitterness, from prediction to anathema....

[Longtorso, Johnny]

The Wannabe Oppressed
What do America's college students want? They want to be oppressed. More precisely, a surprising number of students at America's finest colleges and universities wish to appear as victims ? to themselves, as well as to others ? without the discomfort of actually experiencing victimization. Here is where global warming comes in. The secret appeal of campus climate activism lies in its ability to turn otherwise happy, healthy, and prosperous young people into an oppressed class, at least in their own imaginings. Climate activists say to the world, "I'll save you." Yet deep down they're thinking, "Oppress me."...

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

With great victimhood, comes great irresponsibility.

[Mr. Soul]

thanks scruffy. Im gonna borry me that one.

[Drax the Destroyer]

Oh, they'll feel pretty oppressed (and depressed) when that student loan bill comes due.

[KPres]

Why? It's not like they have to pay it back. Just pay interest for 20 years and let taxpayers pick up the tab.

[Frodo Teabaggins]

Obama will continue to roll onto victory. The ACA is about making the relatively wealthy people who get their insurance through their jobs feel good because now the poors have (theoretically) access.

This is the exact argument I hear over and over again at my job, where the employees are mostly very intelligent elites (right family, right school, etc. The dems have won, at least until its time to institute single payer.

[Lady Bertrum]

The Dems won because elites you work worth approve of OC? Yeah, okay. It's a theory, anyways. A crappy, not very insightful theory, though.

You know, there is a very large voting public who aren't "elite", right?

[PM]

You know, there is a very large voting public who aren't "elite", right?

Everybody I know voted for McGovern!

[Brett L]

I thought you lived in Yokelopolis, the intolerant Teathuglican city that is so intolerant they went and elected a known lesbian mayor, let teh gaiz roam the streets of Montrose actually gaying the whole time, and is far more racially integrated than Boston, NYC, or Baltimore.

Do you work in the re-education camps for liberals?

[Lady Bertrum]

+1

There are the gaiz in the Shire?

[Brett L]

Frodo revealed himself to be a Houstonian last week.

[Restoras]

Do you work in the re-education camps for liberals?

Public schools?

[Lord Humungus]

Stanley Druckenmiller: How Washington Really Redistributes Income
The renowned money manager goes back to school to explain how entitlements are helping the Baby Boomers rip off future generations.

When the former money manager visited Stanford University, the audience included older folks as well as students. Some of the oldsters questioned why many of his dire forecasts assume that federal tax collections will stay at their traditional 18.5% of GDP. They asked why taxes should not rise to fulfill the promises already made.

Mr. Druckenmiller's response: "Oh, so you've paid 18.5% for your 40 years and now you want the next generation of workers to pay 30% to finance your largess?" He added that if 18.5% was "so immoral, why don't you give back some of your ill-gotten gains of the last 40 years?"

He has a similar argument for those on the left who say entitlements can be fixed with an eventual increase in payroll taxes. "Oh, I see," he says. "So I get to pay a 12% payroll tax now until I'm 65 and then I don't pay. But the next generation?instead of me paying 15% or having my benefits slightly reduced?they're going to pay 17% in 2033. That's why we're waiting?so we can shift even more to the future than to now?"

[Certified Public Asskicker]

As an added bonus, wiping out the corporate tax eliminates myriad opportunities for crony capitalism and corporate welfare. "How do the lobbying groups and the special interests work in Washington? Through the tax code. There's no more building plants in Puerto Rico or Ireland and double-leasebacks and all this stuff. If you take corporate tax rates to zero, that's gone. But in terms of the fairness argument, you are taxing the shareholder. So you eliminate double taxation. To me it could be very, very good for growth, which is a huge part of the solution to the debt problem long-term. You can't do it without growth."

Sorry Stanley, your suggestions are too sensible to be taken seriously in Washington.

[CatoTheElder]

Well, of course. That's how a Ponzi scheme has to work.

The payroll tax rate for Boomers had to go up to pay for the Greatest Generation.

Now it must go up for Gen Y and Millenials to pay for the Boomers.

You whippersnappers don't like it? Then why did you come out in droves to elect Obama? When he spoke of Hope 'n' Change, he was talking about expanding the Ponzi Scheme State, not contracting it.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

British NHS May Soon No Longer Offer Free Care
"Coinciding with challenges in the rollout of the U.S. Affordable Care Act are challenges for NHS. The Independent reports, 'A National Health Service free at the point of use will soon be "unsustainable," if the political parties do not come forward with radical plans for change before the 2015 election, top health officials have warned. Stagnant health spending combined with ever rising costs and demand mean the NHS is facing "the most challenging period in its 65-year existence," the NHS Confederation said ... In a frank assessment of the dangers faced by the health service, senior officials at the confederation say that the two years following the next general election will be pivotal in deciding whether the NHS can continue to provide free health care for all patients. "Treasury funding for the service will be at best level in real terms," they write. "Given that demand continues to rise, drugs cost more, and NHS inflation is higher than general inflation, the NHS is facing a funding gap estimated at up to ?30bn by 2020."' From The Guardian: 'Our rose-tinted view of the NHS has to change.' ...

[Drax the Destroyer]

So a monolithic bureaucracy allegedly fueled by altruism but really fueled by threats, guns, and subsequent theft is actually an incompetent monster incapable of accomplishing the one thing people believe it actually does? Say it ain't so!

[PM]

Well, not really. If you read the article, you'll see that it's all due to the miserly austerity government leaving health spending flat.

[Drax the Destroyer]

If that austerity puts the Brits in the black, while the Murrican's sink into third world socialist apriah status, all the more power to austerity.

[sarcasmic]

Revealed: The Top 30 Secrets & Scandals Gwyneth Paltrow Doesn't Want You ? Or 'Vanity Fair' To Know About

http://radaronline.com/photos/.....to/585153/

11. Paltrow reportedly feuded with Kate Moss in May 2012, when she told the model that she worked out so she wouldn't look like her when she got old. In response, the Brit allegedly threw a handful of french fries at Paltrow and screamed, "Eat some f*****g carbs!"

[Ted S.]

That doesn't sound plausible to me. At least, the "Eat some fucking carbs!" line.

[Brett L]

Kate might not be that bright. Eating carbs might be the most imaginative insult she could come up with.

[sarcasmic]

21. The diet queen has been criticized for practically starving her children after she admitted that her strict no-carb and no-wheat diet sometimes leaves her kids "with that specific hunger."

[Ted S.]

That's not a hunger; it's a craving.

[mr simple]

More propaganda from the cereal lobby.

[mr simple]

I've never understood the Gwyneth hate. Her releasing cookbooks and her own lines of whatever-the-fuck never seemed any more hateful or crazy than any other celebrity. The commenters on that site are off the rails, though. What did she do to these people's mothers?

[Lord Humungus]

North Korea: Hey we're fun too!

The totalitarian state opened a brand new water park this week in an apparent attempt to convince the world, along with its own citizens, that life in a nation without enough food, electricity or respect for human rights is actually pretty great.

In stereotypical North Korean style, the new water park in east Pyongyang was unveiled with a full military parade.

[waffles]

That park is pretty sweet. I really need to visit Asia and enjoy some of their tacky amusements. I'll stick to the free-er part, but it's good to know that the military can buy themselves some amusement while the peasants starve.

Absent an actual market amusement parks make absolutely no sense. Without an incentive to draw customers in this place will be an eerie ghost town in less than a decade.

[Swiss Servator, Zurichmania!]

I dunno...if men with guns show up and "invite" the proles to use the place, I suspect as good little Norks, they would go.

[waffles]

It's the maintenance. All those amusements were purchased outside NK, there is no one to perform all the upkeep necessary and eventually (for lack of parts) these slides and rides will just go fallow. They'll get a few years of fun times but without a paying public parks like this are unsustainable at best and usually just profligate waste.

[Swiss Servator, Zurichmania!]

"Slide!"

"But there is no water!"

BLAMBLAMBLAM

"Next!"

[waffles]

That park is pretty sweet. I really need to visit Asia and enjoy some of their tacky amusements. I'll stick to the free-er part, but it's good to know that the military can buy themselves some amusement while the peasants starve.

Absent an actual market amusement parks make absolutely no sense. Without an incentive to draw customers in this place will be an eerie ghost town in less than a decade.

[a better weapon]

North Waffles Comment is best Waffles Comment!

[Ted S.]

I dunno...if men with guns show up and "invite" the proles to use the place, I suspect as good little Norks, they would go.

[Swiss Servator, Zurichmania!]

Dang, deja vu!

[Ted S.]

You really should have copied and posted waffles' response to you instead. 🙂

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Well-Heeled in the Windy City
Rahm Emanuel inherited a tough challenge when he became mayor of Chicago in 2011: the city faced hundreds of millions of dollars in budget shortfalls and crippling unfunded pension liabilities. Yet Barack Obama's former chief of staff managed to make things worse by pursuing a policy of elite-oriented urbanism, or what Joel Kotkin and Fred Siegel have dubbed "gentry liberalism": increased spending on amenities and subsidies targeted at the elite, accompanied by painful cuts in basic public services for the poor and middle class. In 2012, for instance, Chicago slashed its library budget by $8 million?nearly 10 percent?forcing reductions in hours and staffing levels. The city also closed half of its mental health clinics.

These cuts could perhaps be justified for budgetary reasons if the pain were spread evenly. But Emanuel?relying heavily on tax-increment financing (TIF) subsidies greatly expanded under his predecessor, Richard M. Daley?has doled out a nearly limitless stream of money for upper-tier benefits....

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Stanley Druckenmiller: How Washington Really Redistributes Income
Stan Druckenmiller makes an unlikely class warrior. He's a member of the 1%?make that the 0.001%?one of the most successful money managers of all time, and 60 years old to boot. But lately he has been touring college campuses promoting a message of income redistribution you don't hear out of Washington. It's how federal entitlements like Medicare and Social Security are letting Mr. Druckenmiller's generation rip off all those doting Barack Obama voters in Generation X, Y and Z.

...Which brings him back to his thieving generation. For three decades until 2010, Mr. Druckenmiller ran the hedge fund he founded, Duquesne Capital. Now retired from managing other people's money, he looks after his own assets, which Forbes magazine recently estimated at $2.9 billion. And he wonders why in five years the massively indebted U.S. government will begin sending him a Social Security check for $3,500 each month. Because he earned it?...

[CatoTheElder]

"We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program"
-FDR

What part of legal, moral, and political right does Druckenmiller not understand? FDR said it, so it must be so.

Is Obama going to become FDR's "damn politician"?

[Auric Demonocles]

Well, the SC has already ruled that their is no legal right.

[CatoTheElder]

Yeah, but only when Congress deprives a class of beneficiary under a bill of attainder. I'm sure that the USSC could create some new legal theory to usurp Congress' "power of the purse" if they wanted to.

Heck, we already have some who equate exercise of such authority to treason.

[sarcasmic]

Worth showing off! Julianne Hough lifts her tank to reveal the results of dedicated exercise on her taut tummy

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....tummy.html
I'll be in my bunk.

[Reverend Mayhem]

Nummy num num.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

Low-dose radiation can be beneficial, scientist says

"People ask me, 'Since radiation damages cells, how can it be beneficial?' The answer is that low radiation damage 'turns on' many genes that boost powerful, adaptive protection systems that prevent, repair and remove or replace naturally occurring damage in cells, tissues and organisms? So the net benefit is very important."

Low exposures are protection systems in our bodies, curing infections, extending life and reducing the incidences of cancer and congenital malformations, he said in an interview.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

One word - Radon

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

And?....

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I can't think of the researcher at the moment, but there is empirical evidence that low exposures to radon correlated with lower incidences of lung cancer. This was in direct opposition to the current standards that have been derived from linear approximations of risk based on data from miners exposed to very high concentrations of radon.

[Brett L]

Like every other environmental variable with which you can interact, the dose makes the poison.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

I was about to link to a paper citing what you said. I thought you were going to insist that Radon refutes the quote I posted above.

Here is a paper showing what you state.

Results from application of several models that allow for a hormetic-type dose response implicated a possible 2-fold increase in lung cancer risk for residing in a radon-free home as compared to the current level of radon for up to 250 Bq/cubic meter. Depending on the model used, the increase in lung cancer risk with radon elimination could be 3 fold. Radon levels significantly 250 Bq/cubic meter were implicated as increasing lung cancer risk. Smoking was strongly associated with lung cancer. Only 15 out of 200
lung cancer cases in the study were never smokers.

[Rich]

Whew.

/TSA

[waffles]

Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too.

[robc]

We live in a low-dose radiation background, of course its good for us.

But yeah, this is old news, all the charts from my undergrad days back in late 80s/early 90s showed a small benefit from low doses and the a quick ramping up of harm.

And then the linear model being assumed and ignoring the benefit.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

That is the problem. The linear model is used for low dose measurements without any backing data. There is far more data supporting hormesis up to at least 100 mSv/year. It is old news to people who look at scientific data and make objective conclusions, yet linear no-threshold theory (LNT) is still the king of the castle when it comes to regulatory decisions.

This assumption of LNT for low-dose radiation has resulted in regulations for nuclear power that do nothing to increase safety but massively increasing operational/capital costs (for example through the ALARA doctrine). The continued evacuation around Fukushima to avoid low-dose radiation levels is another result of relying on linear no-threshold theory. It is awful that people have been forced to evacuate their homes for 2+ years over radiation levels lower than background levels in some cities in the U.S.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Obamacare seeks to segregate patients, doctors by race
...Obamacare's spectacular flop of a rollout distracts from its crude calculus that encourages the allocation of healthcare resources along racial lines and a doctor-patient system splintered into ethnicities.

While the 2010 Patient Protecion and Affordable Care Act's language on diversity sounds innocuous, a review of the frankly separatist thinking of the law's ardent supporters indicates Obamacare is aiming for a health care system that puts political correctness above the struggle against illness and death....

[John]

Lets just let black doctors work on black people and whites on whites. That will work out well for blacks.

[Lord Humungus]

33-Year-Old Man Spends Nearly $100,000 for Plastic Surgery to Look Like Justin Bieber

Also, if you're going to spend your life's savings on a ridiculous goal, at least make sure you obtain that goal! Instead, dude looks like the cover star of the pamphlets cops bring to elementary school presentations to speak on the dangers of getting into vans with strangers. He could also be an IRL stunt-double for Team America's version of Matt Damon.

If you can get over the societal fuckery of celebrity culture that this bizarre incident is a very intense microcosm of, then please dissect what is happening and leave your thoughts in the comments. Otherwise, don't look at this guy's face for too long unless you want to give yourself nightmares and/or potentially punch your computer screen out of rage.

[Brett L]

Seems like a long and expensive route to going to prison for getting fucked by a 14 year old.

[Lady Bertrum]

I flight to Bangkok would've been cheaper.

[Restoras]

I prefer the Train to Bangkok...

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Some Historical Perspective
...I'm looking at the temperature record as read from this central Greenland ice core. It gives us about as close as we can come to a direct, experimental measurement of temperature at that one spot for the past 50,000 years. As far as I know, the data are not adjusted according to any fancy computer climate model or anything else like that....

...Well, no ? over the period of recorded history, the average temperature was about equal to the height of the MWP. Rises not only as high, but as rapid, as the current hockey stick blade have been the rule, not the exception.

In fact for the entire Holocene ? the period over which, by some odd coincidence, humanity developed agriculture and civilization ? the temperature has been higher than now, and the trend over the past 4000 years is a marked decline. From this perspective, it's the LIA that was unusual, and the current warming trend simply represents a return to the mean. If it lasts....

[kinnath]

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 5th, 2009

Definitely historical.

[The Late P Brooks]

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) defended the NSA's call-records program, stating that there is "extensive" oversight and that the program "is not surveillance."

Whew. What a relief.

[Andrew S.]

So I'm sure she wouldn't mind publishing her call records publicly, right? After all, it's not surveillance, and surely she has nothing to hide, right?

[Lord Humungus]

BDS movement distilled ? when Israeli soldiers not raping Arab women is racist

The claims go beyond being absurd ? in one case, a professor asked me if I knew how many Palestinians have been raped by IDF forces. I answered that as far as I knew, none. She triumphantly responded that I was right, because, she said, "You IDF soldiers don't rape Palestinians because Israelis are so racist and disgusted by them that you won't touch them."

[Night Elf Mohawk]

If they did rape them it would be because of a racist motivation to degrade the women.

[PM]

Get ready to be called a Zionist AIPAC shill. That statement probably isn't remotely controversial around these parts. Libertarians tend to hate them some zionists.

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

Not so much anymore. There are lots of libertarian types who subscribe to the Lew Rockwell Blame the Jews Club, but more and more I see these lunatics being shouted down by fellow libertarians on sites like this one. The venom and irrationality of the pro-Pali position, coupled with daily doses of insane Arab savagery, has turned the tide, I think.

[Virginian]

Foreign policy is rather tricky for libertarians as it relates overseas.

The libertarian foreign policy works for America because our only real issue is the Mexican border, and that's an issue because of our Drug War. With oceans and Canada on the other sides, it's real easy to maintain a nightwatchmen level military.

[Emmerson Biggins]

I subscribe the Lew Rockwell "let them pay for their own damn defense" Club. And I don't think Lord Humungus is a Zionist AIPAC shill for pointing out an obviously ridiculous statement.

[CatoTheElder]

I'm neither Zionist nor anti-Zionist.

Just quit giving out free military goods and services to all sides and other foreign aid. Sell arms at market prices, and may the best man win.

I rather like Israel, so I'd still hope for a peacefully negotiated settlement of some sort. A libertarian State Department could facilitate such negotiations, but neither side has much confidence in the real State Department as an honest broker.

Of course, this sort of sentiment gets one branded a closet anti-Semite in some circles.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Obamacare, Failing Ahead of Schedule
...When The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn, the most rigorous defender of the entire reform project, wrote up his "five Obamacare anxieties" in May, the first one was structural: The system's sustainability depends on getting enough healthy people to sign up, he pointed out, and if they don't then insurers "will have to raise everyone's premiums," which "could create what actuaries call a 'death spiral': Rising premiums prompt people to drop out, causing premiums to increase even more." ...

... But if the fix-it effort moves too slowly, it's possible to envision a worst-case scenario unfolding. If the Web site doesn't work soon, even liberals concede that the mandate would have to be delayed, because you can't very well fine people for failing to buy a product they can't access. And that combination ? a hard-to-navigate online portal and no penalty for staying uninsured ? could effectively discourage all but the most desperate customers from shopping, which in turn would create an unsustainably expensive insurance pool, driving prices up and driving people away, and potentially wrecking the entire individual insurance market in short order....

[Steve G]

*rubs hands together* Can't wait for the death spiral!

[Juice]

you can't very well fine people for failing to buy a product they can't access

says who?

[Rich]

Turkey's first online Islamic sex shop opens

"Oral sex according to Islam"

Ha! Suck on *that*, Christianity!

[Enough About Palin]

I seem to recall Imam Sistani saying that anal sex (male/female) is okay if the woman is consenting.

[#]

I know why the WH keeps using the term, but could we please stop calling these glitches?

A glitch is a way to describe a small problem or bug - not a way to describe a system who's architecture fundamentally does not work.

[Rich]

Meta-glitch?

[PM]

Kinetic glitchenary action.

[Drax the Destroyer]

Features?

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

Easter eggs?

[Lord Humungus]

I blame Warty.

Why have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

The number of single people has reached a record high. A survey in 2011 found that 61% of unmarried men and 49% of women aged 18-34 were not in any kind of romantic relationship, a rise of almost 10% from five years earlier. Another study found that a third of people under 30 had never dated at all. (There are no figures for same-sex relationships.) Although there has long been a pragmatic separation of love and sex in Japan ? a country mostly free of religious morals ? sex fares no better. A survey earlier this year by the Japan Family Planning Association (JFPA) found that 45% of women aged 16-24 "were not interested in or despised sexual contact". More than a quarter of men felt the same way.

[waffles]

I blame pornographic video games and the hikikomori.

[Andrew S.]

I doubt that H-games are the cause. Now tentacle porn? Maybe.

[Swiss Servator, Zurichmania!]

So, eventually Japan will end up populated by 37 people and 100,000,000 robots?

[np]

If it's just about sex, instead of relationship surveys by the JFPA, they need to include hard statistics on places like soaplands (nsfw) or special bathhouses, which are all over, Tokyo to Osaka

.. as well love hotels, host clubs (for the gals), hostess clubs (for the guys), the sex toy industry, "health services", escort services, compensated dating, and so on.

[Calidissident]

But American assures me that Japan is a paradise of traditional lifestyles and that the only possible explanation for low birth rates among whites in America is because they're afraid that their children will be savagely murdered by blacks and Hispanics.*

*I'm not kidding. He actually made that argument.

[Lord Humungus]

Obamacare, Failing Ahead of Schedule

If this happens, there will be a lot of schadenfreude on the right at the spectacle of technocratic failure. But the wreck of the exchanges may actually be worse for conservative policy objectives than a more successful rollout would have been.

That's because while conservatives think the Obamacare exchanges are overregulated and oversubsidized, they are actually closer to the right-of-center vision for health care reform than the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, which is happening no matter what transpires with Healthcare.gov. So if the exchanges fail and the Medicaid expansion takes effect (and, inevitably, becomes difficult to roll back), we'll be left with an individual market that's completely dysfunctional and a more socialized system over all.

In that scenario, the Democratic Party would probably end up pushing, not for the pipe dream of true single payer, but for a further bottom-up/top-down socialization, in which Medicare is offered to 55- to 65-year-olds and Medicaid is eventually expanded even more.

[Eduard van Haalen]

The beatings will continue until health care improves.

[Lord Humungus]

Best dressed chicken in town: hens go hi-vis
Chicken owners are dressing their animals in hi visibility jackets to help them cross the road safely

After public officials, cyclists and schoolchildren, the nation's pet chickens have become the latest group to succumb to Britain's "high visibility" culture.

Owners are dressing their domestic flocks in new fluorescent bibs, which have been specially designed to keep the creatures seen in the autumn evenings.

The bibs are meant for the growing numbers of people who keep chickens as pets, especially in urban and suburban areas, to protect the birds from motorists.

[Eduard van Haalen]

The old joke comes to life!

Why did the flourescent chicken cross the road?

Sorry, that's the best I could do.

[The Late P Brooks]

USS Zumwalt will have cost $7billion when finally completed
Warship features deadly arsenal, radar and stealthy silhouette
Fearsome ship can fire rocket-propelled warheads upto 100 miles
Engine produces 78 megawatts - enough to power 78,000 homes
Ship is designed to maintain US naval supremacy for decades

It will probably be sunk by three shirtless men in a canoe.

[Brian D]

A butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker?

[sarcasmic]

Thing has no armor at all. None. It assumes that stealth and long range weapons will keep it safe. Well, and those R2D2 looking Phalanx system.

[DJF]

Not only does it not have armor but its build to destroyer standards and has no double hull over most of the ships length. There is less then half an inch of steel between the sea and important compartments on the ship.

[sarcasmic]

When I saw some of those sections hanging in the air I was blown away at how thin the steel is.

[John]

In the age of asymmetric warfare, the complete lack of armor does seem odd. I kind of think that we should go back to 18 inch steel plate battleships.

[Virginian]

Yeah I seem to remember the last time a US ship got really heavily damaged it was a small boat packed with explosives that did it, not an anti ship missile.

[Redmanfms]

The Burke-class ships didn't have armor either, neither did the Kidd and Spruance-class ships the Burkes replaced. The era of the armored ship is over.

Zumwalt won't be using CIWS.

[sarcasmic]

Isn't that like building a fighter jet without a gun?

[Redmanfms]

No.

[sarcasmic]

I mean the CIWS, not the armor.

[Redmanfms]

It's my understanding that the Mk 110s are supposed to fulfill the role of close-in defense as they are dual-purpose. We'll see. I believe the argument for not having CIWS is the radar cross section the mounts and the weapons themselves have.

This project is/was a colossal fuck up from the get go.

[Virginian]

This project is/was a colossal fuck up from the get go.

What the hell are you talking about? 7 billion has been doled out to contractors and consultants. The project was a great success.

[sarcasmic]

It got Susan Collins reelected.

[DontShootMe]

+1 McNamara

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

The best part of all this is that as CNO Zumwalt advocated the opposite approach to shipbuilding that we have today. He favored building a huge fleet of small cheap ships that were expendable individually rather than one composed of superships that put all of the navy's power in a few baskets.

[Rich]

Brooklyn group of black youths blocks white couple's car, bloody victims in racial attack

Russo was dragged to the ground. Then he was punched and kicked in the head. He felt more blows all over his body, investigators said. He suffered a fractured nose, a broken septum, a blood clot and abrasions

I submit that each convicted perp should be dragged to the ground, punched, kicked in the head, feel more blows all over his/her body, and suffer a fractured nose, a broken septum, a blood clot and abrasions.

This sentence would be carried out by a Black man to avoid any hate-crime confusion.

[John]

Funny how those sorts of things seem to only happen in places where owning a gun much less carrying one is difficult to impossible.

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

^Yes!

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

No hate crime here. Just a redress of past grievances, like slavery, Jim Crow, and criticizing Barack Obama.

[Drake]

Uh, have the never heard of Reginald Denny? When "Youths" start blocking intersections, stop lights become purely optional for my 3-ton battering ram.

[John]

No kidding. No way am I getting out of the car and anyone trying to get in my car is eating my front bumper.

[Lord Humungus]

On Saturday, near the "Northern Compound", I went to a great Halloween party. It was set on 20 acres of land owned by an ex-farm team pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. The first 10 acres is grass with two gazebos and a large creek-fed swimming hole. The last 10 acres is all woods with trails and bridges throughout. Just a beautiful bit of property.

[Brett L]

Sounds like the place to go when society collapses.

[robc]

Did the gazebos attack and eat anyone?

[SugarFree]

Warty Hugeman and The Bar Somewhat Near the Beginning of the Universe (former): A Warty Hugeman Time Travel Adventure

"Bring me more of this swill!" the neoAustralian bellowed, banging his empty mug on the table. The chitinous plates making up his carapace rubbed together as he inhaled to yell again, sounding like a dozen paperbacks being ripped apart.

"Calm your being," Simon said. "The weight of your [empty drinking vessel] on table will trigger automatic refresh/refill/reload of contents."

"I was drinking here before your transport womb shat you out, Simon. I wanted the waitress to come over. I fucked her back when I had external genitalia and I wanted Hugeman to get a look at her." He scratched under the edge of a plate on his shoulder and flicked away a wriggling parasite.

Warty Hugeman was very drunk. He had no idea how long he had been at the sleaziest bar on Time Station Alpha-Prime-One. He stirred briefly at his name.

"Wake up, Hugeman, you depressing fuck," the neoAustralian said. When he touched Warty on the arm with a claw, the automatic defenses of the timesuit growled.

"I want more," Warty muttered.

[SugarFree]

"There is in front of your person, Warty Hugeman, a drink presently," Simon said. He spoke a rapid pidgin of machine code and the timesuit struggled to translate it. Vat-grown and gengineered to computational perfection to serve The Rainbow Podiarchs, Simon lived as a slave. Warty grabbed him after impregnating The Violet Queenarch with a powerful bomb and jumped them both to a faraway peak so they could watch the shockwave howling out of her vagina bring the entire arcology down. Warty had no idea how long either of them had been sitting with him.

Warty grabbed at his glass and brought the homeopathic screwdriver to his mouth with a practiced lethargy. The molecules of pure ethanol in the glass contained the memory of an orange and went down smooth. Warty had a sore-headed determination to drink as many glasses as years he had with her. He was reasonably sure that would kill him.

"Hugeman," the neoAustralian said. "I'll cheer you up. I got a new anus installed. That's six now. Any dumbass that tries to sneak up on me is getting hit with a shotgun of shit. You wanna see it? Excretory armaments are your favorite, Hugeman. You're always sayin."

"Leave him (designate Warty Hugeman in current frame of reference) alone. Designate Warty is experiencing emotional syndrome sadness/grief." Simon grinned at Warty in simulated sympathy. The effect was grotesque.

[Hillary's Clitdong]

homeopathic screwdriver

YOU MONSTER

[SugarFree]

An alarm screamed through the receiver clamped to his left mastoid process. "Time incursion," the suit said over the alarm. "Level 5. Maximum emergency protocol." Warty pawed frantically as the wrist controls to stop the protocol, but it was too late. A powerful cocktail of ethanol antagonists, force oxygenators and meta-amphetamines flooded his bloodstream. After three agonizing seconds Warty was completely, horribly, and mercilessly sober. His enormous fist shattered the smartglass table when he slammed it down. The meta-amphetamines let him see every shard moving away at a snail's pace, backdropped by the vomitus spiral of the time incursion opening.

The neoAustralian spun on its multitudes of legs, readying his assal fusillade, and Simon let out a high pitched scream of metal tearing that Warty heard translated as "Approach forth breakers of the primate mother/female progenitor/eggbearer incest taboo!"

"We have to close the incursion! It will swallow the entire station!" Warty yelled over the wailing of the station's evacuation order.

Something like a human figure began to form in the center of the incursion, it was reaching toward them, pleading with vague fingers. Warty fired a micro-torpedo, but it stopped millimeters from the surface of the shrieking wound in reality and then settled to floor as a fine dust.

The neoAustralian shivered with a sharp crackling. He moaned, "It's times like this that wish I still had my penis."

THE END

[waffles]

Man, fusillade is such a good word.

[Lord Humungus]

so just another Saturday night?

[SugarFree]

and I ain't got nobody. I got some money, cause I just got paid.

[Rich]

homeopathic screwdriver

Nice band name, but "homophobic screwdriver" might be better.

Seriously, good work, SF. You really *should* be publishing to a larger readership.

[sarcasmic]

larger readership

Are you trying to imply that libertarians have small penises?

[Rich]

*This* is why there are no female libertarians!

[SugarFree]

That's not a good idea. Most don't have the constitution for it.

[Swiss Servator, Zurichmania!]

That sounds like an excellent jacket blurb

"I read Warty Hugeman and cried blood!"

[Andrew S.]

http://www.newsobserver.com/20.....oyees.html

North Carolina SBI to man who spent 17 years in prison after they didn't reveal negative test for blood: We didn't have to reveal the negative test!

Prosector about same man: Even though the test was negative for blood, I know the guy still did it, and I still think it was blood!

Bonus in comments: Self-professed former SBI employee says it was good for the guy because he got off drugs while in prison. Could've been a troll, but a click over to their linked facebook page makes it look legit.

[John]

The jury that sent Taylor to prison in 1993 had been told one thing was for sure: There was blood on the fender of Taylor's SUV.

"I do not believe so because I do not believe it's exculpatory information," Keaton said in a deposition. "I don't think it proves anything."

Interesting definition of exculpatory evidence that guy has. Disproving the prosecutions case is apparently not exculpatory. Exculpatory evidence apparently has to affirmatively prove the defense case or it is okay not to turn over.

That is pure fucking evil.

[Brett L]

It doesn't even have to actually be exculpatory, just potentially. If it would be relevant to the defense, they should have revealed it. With relevant being "something the defense would bring up if they knew about it". These assholes are playing fast and loose with definitions to cover their asses.

[Andrew S.]

And I remember learning that in law school, early in my Criminal Procedure class. Every prosecutor in the country knows it.

But if you're going to be an evil, soulless prosecutor, and you know that there is absolutely zero chance you will ever be punished for Brady violations...

[John]

It is potentially exculpatory. That guy's reading of Brady is frightening. And bonus butt hurt for him saying the guy is guilty. Well maybe he is. And now thanks to you being a crooked jackass, he got out.

[Andrew S.]

And of course, this is just representative of the whole BS that went on in the North Carolina SBI (I know Reason covered it when it first broke back in 2010). The only people punished for all this BS were the taxpayers.

[Ted S.]

I have this image in my head of Marisa Tomei telling the defense attorney that the prosecutors have to give him such exculpatory evidence.

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

In your image is Marisa Tomei naked? Yeah, me too.

[John]

How could it not be. Wasn't her showing up naked in movies, still looking fabulous despite being over 40, one of the more pleasant surprises in movies over the last 10 years? That was totally out of left field and quite wonderful.

[Mainer2]

Naked yes, but also with her own torque wrench, helping me rebuild the engine in my car.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Thanks, shared.

[John]

http://calwatchdog.com/2013/10/20/51553/

California has the nation's highest poverty rate. Funny, none of the douche bags journolosts ever mention that in their on going series of "California is coming back thanks to finally getting rid of the Republicans" stories.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

According to a 2012 Census report, once the cost of living is factored in, nearly one in four state residents ? 23.5 percent ? live below the poverty line.

So not Texas then?

[John]

Not even close. And worse, California has areas like Palo Alto that are richer than any area in Texas. If you want to see one a society built for the 1% at the expense of everyone else looks like, go to Jerry Brown's California.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

When Rick Perry had commercials playing in Maryland, the establishment here responded with "But Texas has a lot of poor people!"

I didn't take the time, nor really care to look it up, but I was curious what stats were being thrown around and what would happen if you adjusted for COL.

[John]

I don't know either. But I defy you to find any sane person who wouldn't rather live in Dallas, San Antonio, or Austin than Baltimore. Pretty rich for a state that has Baltimore as its largest city to look down on another state for having poverty. And this despite getting that endless fountain of federal money from the DC burbs and Fort Meade.

[Spoonman.]

Houston has the highest income in the country when adjusted for cost of living

[Lady Bertrum]

Texas has better educational outcomes for poor students. Poor, mostly black and Hispanic, students do better on standardized tests than do similar students in California. Actually, the state with the worst educational outcomes for black and Hispanic students is Wisconsin.

[robc]

Yeah, Ive seen the Wisconsin vs Texas comparison as a shining example of the mix problem.

Texas has better test scores than Wisconsin for Whites, Black and Hispanics* but Wisconsin is better overall because of the mix.

*IIRC, it was a tie with hispanics

[Spoonman.]

It probably isn't terribly meaningful. States that are targets for poor immigrants will have a lot of inequality.

[John]

But states like Arizona and Texas are targets too. Texas gets as many or more poor immigrants than California. And Texas doesn't have the natural resources California does. Should California have a higher rate than some low population low immigration northern state like Vermont? Sure. But no way should it be the highest.

[Spoonman.]

Texas has a very high rate of inequality as well.

[John]

Sure. But they also have a higher rate of mobility. And last I heard leftists were all claiming Texas was some kind of Victorian hell of the haves and the have nots. But oddly, California fits that description better.

[Spoonman.]

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Texas fan.

[Mainer2]

So leftists are not just wrong but 180 degrees wrong. They do that alot.

[CatoTheElder]

Well, they're only 170 degrees wrong. They're right only because CA really does have better weather than TX.

[Emmerson Biggins]

not if you count the smugstorms.

[Virginian]

I have a hunch CA and TX attract different kind of immigrants. The ones who want to work hard and build a future head to TX. The ones who want live on the dole go to CA.

[robc]

Seems like an easy problem to fix.

[Virginian]

Yep. A few nukes in the San Andreas Fault should split Cali off quite nicely. Then the huge tracts of land in Nevada I've surreptitiously purchased will skyrocket in value.

[CatoTheElder]

Wendy Davis aims to fix it when she becomes governor.

[Calidissident]

Not to defend CA's government, but that's bullshit. The immigrants here work their asses off for the most part. Going on the dole isn't quite that easy for immigrants (depending on their legal status, length of residency, etc.) and studies indicate that even among immigrant households who receive some form of welfare, the vast majority also have at least one worker in the household.

[SugarFree]

Is STEVE SMITH a robot? Disturbing new evidence emerges...

[Swiss Servator, Zurichmania!]

Was the RAPE setting at 11?

[Rich]

Cool photo of Saturn

[John]

Way cool.

[DontShootMe]

It's gonna suck when global warming melts those rings.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Never put a ring on it.