Verizon Phoned to Save Obamacare Site, Rand Paul Introduces Constitutional Amendment, Winning Too Much Is Bullying: P.M. Links

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  Screengrab

  Verizon has reportedly been tapped (pun probably not intended) to try to fix HealthCare.gov, the federal Obamacare exchange site. Federal officials knew the site couldn't handle the traffic but plowed forward anyway.

• Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has introduced a constitutional amendment that prohibits Congress from exempting itself from the laws it passes.
• Because of Washington, D.C.'s strict rules for participation (only four illnesses qualify for treatment), not to mention to fear of federal response, given the location, only 59 patients have entered the district's medical marijuana program.
• The coaching staff of a Texas high school football team has been accused of bullying because their team scored way too many points.
• Oregon has a launched a new pilot program to try to tax drivers based on how many miles they drive, not how much fuel they consume, because people are using less fuel, and so they're going to get less money. While there are privacy concerns, I'm more fascinated by the twisted incentives that they clearly haven't thought through. And people accuse libertarians and conservatives of being in the pockets of big oil.
• New Yorkers say dumping the unconstitutional stop-and-frisk program is not as important as keeping crime low, in case anybody doubted how Michael Bloomberg got elected.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has introduced a constitutional amendment that prohibits Congress from exempting itself from the laws it passes.

"I would like to attach a rider to that amendment: complete repeal of the other amendments, and also this one. All in favor?"

[trshmnstr]

It's one thing to get firsted by fist, but when fist firsts me with the same idea, it's just insulting.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I'm in your head before you even think your thoughts.

[Ted S.]

Better than the parts of the body Warty's in.

[Bobarian]

Sometimes, Warty's in your head.

[Pro Libertate]

It's mind-boggling how much the Constitution has been illegally "amended" in recent decades. That's why hardly anyone, other than constitutionalists like Rand, propose amendments to the federal Constitution anymore.

[PapayaSF]

Yes. it's much easier to find some judges who are willing to "discover" something new in words that everyone understood for the previous century or two.

(Did you read that the lawyers arguing against Michigan's ban on affirmative action are claiming that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment does NOT apply to white people? That's leftist constitutional scholarship for you these days.)

[Suthenboy]

The equal protection for everyone clause doesnt apply to everyone.

Got it.

[Mickey Rat]

They seem to have come under the impression that "Orwellian" is a compliment.

[PapayaSF]

Yup.

Shanta Driver of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action said the 14th Amendment was intended only to "protect minority rights against a white majority."

[Protagoronus]

If only someone could pass an amendment with some teeth: "The ability to regulate interstate commerce mentioned in Article 2 shal only confer the ability of the Federal government to ensure no artificial interstate barriers to trade exist. No other power shall be inferred."

[Pro Libertate]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of commerce, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

[Boisfeuras]

"How can we get bad legislators to pass a law which shall hinder bad legislators from passing a bad law?"
? William Graham Sumner

[Tonio]

I believe that it's illegal to arrest or interfere with a congressman while he is travelling to a session of congress. That's reasonable. But other than that, no special perks.

[Brett L]

You monster, you only want them to have the exemptions specifically carved out in the Constitution?!

[califernian]

why wouldn't it also be illegal to arrest or interfere with ANYONE on their way to work?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Like your job is so important that if you didn't show up Post Offices would go unnamed.

[Redmanfms]

why wouldn't it also be illegal to arrest or interfere with ANYONE on their way to work?

Seriously?

[Pro Libertate]

They have extra speech rights, too. I think they can say pretty much anything on the floor under the Speech and Debate Clause.

[Bobarian]

The Nancy Pelosi effect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Rand Paul know that Congress needs to be protected from the laws it enacts?

They must be free from the constraints of the peasantry, so that they may contemplate how best to rule over us.

[CE]

Seems like this Amendment should have been introduced a long time ago. The Founders probably never thought it would be necessary in the first place.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...only 59 patients have entered the district's medical marijuana program.

Fifty-nine more people are now on police radar.

[PapayaSF]

only four illnesses qualify for treatment

So "I need to get high" isn't one of them?

[Pro Libertate]

Look, as robc can attest, it's not too many points until it exceeds 222.

[BakedPenguin]

Who was it who said "I'll stop scoring if they stop trying to come back."

[GILMORE]

Me, in reference to "Sluts"

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Hell, Baylor will probably put at least that much on Texas as phase one of Briles' job interview.

[Brett L]

That is going to be a sad and ugly day for this Texas Ex.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Consider it the necessary last dose of chemo to rid the body of the cancer.

[Brett L]

Running up the score is dickish, but you can't tell the six retarded kids who literally have never played a down not to score because the other team are a pack of useless idjits. I mean, I assume he fielded his 2nd, 3rd, and Band strings in the 3rd and 4th quarters.

[Bill Dalasio]

"Running up the score is dickish,..."

I never played competitive sports in my youth, so maybe you can tell me why? It just strikes me I'd be more insulted if the other team said "Meh, we'll take it easy on 'em." I mean, isn't striving for excellence what sport is supposed to be about?

[Brett L]

I meant to add in the caveat, leaving in your starters AND running up the score is dickish. If for no other reason than the fact that you have a lot of kids on your football team who can use the minutes to improve who aren't first teamers. Also, you keep the clock running. Like this coach, he let the clock run continuously after half-time, called fair catches rather than return kicks. Continuing to throw passes when you are up by three or four scores (clock stops on an incompletion) is also not good.

At some point, you've won the contest. Yes, you can't tell your kids to not play hard, but usually your 3rd string guy is on par with even a poor 1st string guy on the other team. If not... sometimes you just take a whipping.

[CE]

My basketball team was on the receiving end of a 100-something to 30-something beatdown once. The other team got bumped up a league, and we got bumped down a league. We survived, and I don't recall feeling bullied, just like we needed to practice more.

I was on the dishing out side of a 100-plus point game on two other occasions, in a league where the average score was in the 50s. When you get to about 85 with several minutes left, no way do you back off until you hit 100.

[gaijin]

strikes me I'd be more insulted if the other team said "Meh, we'll take it easy on 'em."

Yes. In one of the youth soccer leagues, if you were down 6 goals they would let you put another kid on the field. The kids I observed were never happy about getting to put another person on the field...well except for the extra kid who got to go in.

[Ted S.]

Running up the score is dickish

In some soccer leagues, goal differential is the first tiebreak. Running up the score is in that case not dickish at all.

[BakedPenguin]

I assume he fielded his 2nd, 3rd, and Band strings in the 3rd and 4th quarters.

"for Chrissakes, Johnson, take off the tuba before going out there."

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

Once (it didn't happen often) in little league we were doing really well and the other team's coach pulled my dad (who was our coach) aside and asked him to have us let up on his team. My dad offered to do it on the condition that the other team forfeit right then.

In general I think that it's the bigger insult to let up on the other team as if you could beat them with one hand behind your back. If they're literally in your league you should treat them as if they were figuratively in your league. The competitors always know where they stand anyway; letting up won't make them feel any better. For my part I'd rather earn being routed than have a near defeat handed to me.

[Generic Stranger]

When I was in little-league football, they instituted a rule that any team that scored over 30 points more than their opponent automatically forfeited, in an attempt to stop teams from running up the score.

This was a problem for our team (and I'm pretty sure that they instituted that rule specifically because of us; we were a small-town team that was trouncing all of the teams from the bigger towns, and as a result a lot of people in the league didn't like us). We had few substitute players, and even the ones we did have were still pretty good, so we couldn't help but to move the ball forward anytime we had possession, regardless of who we subbed out. So we were stuck between a rock and a hard place; either we couldn't play to our fullest, and had to obviously dick around, or we lost for being too good. It sucked.

One game, we were up by 28 and were approaching the end zone again. Couldn't score, because it would cause us to lose. So we purposely threw an interception. The other team's coach went ballistic. He thought it was bad sportsmanship, blah blah blah, because we wouldn't lose due to a rule he no doubt supported.

[Mad Scientist]

Wait, wait, wait. If you score greater than 30 points more then your opponent, your opponent wins?

[Generic Stranger]

Yup.

[CE]

Did they call it the Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Rule?

[Generic Stranger]

I don't recall, but that sounds familiar, so maybe...

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

QB kneel in the end zone.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

One game, we were up by 28 and were approaching the end zone again. Couldn't score, because it would cause us to lose. So we purposely threw an interception. The other team's coach went ballistic.

The quarterback should have run back into his own end zone for a safety and really pissed the guy off.

[hotsy totsy]

Even if they're getting their asses kicked, playing against a superior opponent is great training. It's how you get better.

Kinda of like resistance training for muscles.

[Bill Dalasio]

Personally, I was inclined to say his line should have made a go at the opposing coach. If you're going to be called bad sports anyway...

[Bill Dalasio]

This opposing coach, his name wouldn't have been Obama or Krugman, would it?

Seriously, though, what an evil message to be sending kids - don't excel, aim for mediocrity, do everything you can to hide your talents and abilities, and if the mask slips and you show you're not a complete rotter, we'll punish you for that, as well. I mean, what sort of moral degenerate would want their kids to look in the mirror and claim a "win" because they proved themselves wildly inferior to the other team?

[robc]

At half time, apparently Heisman told the players to not let up because they can still come back on us.

[robc]

Also, Im fine with us putting up 223 on uga.

[Pro Libertate]

That's simple justice.

[injanear]

Jackets may get em' this year. There's a lot of quit in the meatheads this year.

[Biden's Scroteplugs]

Fuck Cumberland That's Why

[trshmnstr]

Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has introduced a constitutional amendment that prohibits Congress from exempting itself from the laws it passes.

Can we expand this amendment to some ungodly size, include a repeal of the 16th and 17th amendments, and pass it before we read it?

[gaijin]

The coaching staff of a Texas high school football team has been accused of bullying because their team scored way too many points.

I'm guessing someone's mom is way to invested in their son's loss.

[PD Scott]

You know what that is, gaijin? That's LOSER talk, gaijin! Now get out there and get that ball in the end zone! And none of this 'the game is over, Coach, it's time to go home' bullshit!

[Fist of Etiquette]

New Yorkers say dumping the unconstitutional stop-and-frisk program is not as important as keeping crime low...

Setting aside the false choice, holy hell.

[Ska]

I've had multiple colleagues say they're totally fine with stop-and-frisk. As white people from Long Island they're totally fine with it.

*facepalm*

[PD Scott]

I can't read this without thinking about Denis Leary's bit about how brave and tough New Yorkers are.

Sure, Denis, sure.

[Banjos]

"Before you advertise how tough you are you might want to go into a bathroom and douche Bloomerberg's cock smell out of your asshole."

God bless you Doug Stanhope.

[BakedPenguin]

He's got panache!

[Bobarian]

On Keynesian Theory

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT1AHDjzcsQ

[BigT]

Uncertainty more certain than ever.

An international team of scientists has provided proof of a key feature of quantum physics ? Heisenberg's error-disturbance relation ? more than 80 years after it was first suggested.

One of the basic concepts in the world of quantum mechanics is that it is impossible to observe physical objects without affecting them in a significant way; there can be no measurement without disturbance.

In a paper in 1927, Werner Heisenberg, one of the architects of the fundamental theories of modern physics, claimed that this fact could be expressed as an uncertainty relation, describing a reciprocal relation between the accuracy in position and the disturbance in momentum. However, he did not supply any evidence for the theory which was largely based on intuition.

Now Prof. Paul Busch of the Univ. of York, Prof. Pekka Lahti of the Univ. of Turku, Finland and Prof. Reinhard Werner of Leibniz Universit?t Hannover, Germany have finally provided a precise formulation and proof of the error-disturbance relation in an article published today in the journal Physical Review Letters.

[Pro Libertate]

Ha! I just use my trusty tachyon microscope. Faster than light and noninteractive with normal matter.

[gaijin]

a precise formulation and proof

SO congress is quantum....you can't read legislation before voting on it or you will change what's in it.

[SugarFree]

An international team of scientists has provided proof of a key feature of quantum physics

Are they certain of that?

[Rich]

Probably.

[Tonio]

You know who else was into Heisenberg?

[PD Scott]

Well, his cat was and wasn't into him?

[gaijin]

Wasn't that Schroedinger?

[CatoTheElder]

It was Schroedinger's cat, but Heisenberg was responsible for the box.

[PD Scott]

I'm not sure...

[PD Scott]

But yes, you are correct, I got my German physicists mixed up.

My head hangs in shame.

[Brett L]

Frank Herbert?

[Max Power]

Hank Schrader?

[BiMonSciFiCon]

"The coaching staff of a Texas high school football team has been accused of bullying because their team scored way too many points."

They really should have been known better than to run up the score against a team quarterbacked by Blaine Gabbert.

[Hyperion]

Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has introduced a constitutional amendment that prohibits Congress from exempting itself from the laws it passes.

Isn't there already something in place that is supposed to prevent that?

[PapayaSF]

That was part of the Contract With America back in '94, but I'm not sure if it stuck.

[Rich]

The Senate Sergeant at Arms?

[BigT]

It was a plank in the Contract With America

[Fist of Etiquette]

You can't have Congress subject to the laws they pass. Do you realize the perverse negative incentive that would provide for not passing bad laws out of pure self interest???

[PD Scott]

It's too bad only US citizens can become congresscritters. Imagine how much we could save if we outsourced Congress. Hell, they'd probably care more about America's interests than the people there now.

[Emmerson Biggins]

Ya, why doesn't the equal protection clause already cover this?

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

FYTW.

[Bobarian]

Some pigs are more equal than others?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Bad Feminist Blogging: Salsa Edition

The Drudge Report's front page, as you all are no doubt aware, is basic [sic] an exercise in inducing a panic state in paranoid white people, mostly men, by painting a picture in SCREAMING PANIC NOW HEADLINES about whatever culture war hobbyhorse is up Matt Drudge's ass today.

I wasn't aware that Drudge derived his popularity from focusing readers' attentions on the horses lodged in his posterior ? though that would explain Catherine the Great's enthusiastic subscription?

If salsa bowls start disappearing from the tables of more conservative parts of Texas, I fear that my excursions there could send me spiraling into a depressive state. I really like salsa. While a ketchup bottle will languish unused in my fridge for years, I eat my weight in salsa like every month, often pairing it with hot sauce to prevent the dreaded possibility that my food isn't spicy enough. Salsa is one of those things that Texas natives from both sides of the aisle can agree on. Traveling to the Midwest is hard enough for me, my friends.

Meanwhile, Amanduh's relatives have found themselves a new way to avoid hosting the English Major for the holidays?

[Cont.]

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Even the most loyal wingnuts who are willing to hop to every time you ask them to prove how white they are will probably balk at this.

Maybe we could get Amanda to start proving how white she is by having her exhibit proper punctuation, grammar, and syntax.

[SugarFree]

I'd like to make her diagram that sentence at gun-point.

[Brett L]

Please do it in full Life of Brian centurion regalia.

[PapayaSF]

Amanda greatly prefers left-wing news sites, which never have SCREAMING PANIC NOW HEADLINES.

[GILMORE]

oh, BTW - THE KOCHS ARE GOING TO MAKE $100BN FROM THE KEYSTONE PIPELINE@!@!!

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/2.....singleton/

[PapayaSF]

The linked PDF doesn't seem to include an explanation of how they arrived at that figure....

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

I thought that post was a fine example of Amanduh's penchant for erecting strawmen and knocking them down.

Note that Matt Drudge didn't actually say anything approaching, "now Matt Drudge expects you to give up salsa in favor of ketchup". he didn't even imply it. It was a headline.

Amanduh has a seriously bad habit of stuffing 99.9% of the words she's mad about into her opponents' mouth. It's almost like she has to invent stuff to be aggrieved about.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Whenever you get confused by reality or logic, remember that it's always about Amanda and the Angry White Males.

[Brett L]

Remember 25 years ago when nobody outside of the Texas-California corridor knew what salsa was? Who want to go back to that?

[Night Elf Mohawk]

If the stupid bitch needs to put hot sauce in her salsa, she's making it incorrectly.

[Brett L]

I think she's probably putting onions and bell peppers in ketchup. But yeah, what the fuck? More cilantro, more jalapenos, and if you really want to burn your mouth instead of taste the flavors, switch up to habaneros.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

My ratio is generally 3 habaneros per large tomato.

[Brett L]

I'm a cilantro/onion/jalapeno guy, but I wasn't born in TX and didn't get there until 12, so admittedly a bit of a pussy about spicy. I like it when its just hot enough to make my nose run, but not so hot I'm physically uncomfortable.

[BakedPenguin]

+10,000 Scoville units

[Enough About Palin]

We've had salsa in Minneapolis for far more than 25 years.

[PapayaSF]

And salsa surpassed ketchup in US sales maybe 15 years ago.

[hotsy totsy]

I still think of it as a style of music.

[Hyperion]

How many people even know that Ketchup is Asian in origin? I bet not many know that it's not Murikan. Although I think that the original form did not contain tomatoes or sugar.

[PD Scott]

It was fish sauce, made from fermented fish, IIRC.

[PD Scott]

From Straight Dope.

[Corning]

Tomatoes come from North America...

So what are you saying...that we call a tomato sauce by a Chinese name for Fish sauce?

[VG Zaytsev]

How many people even know that Ketchup is Asian in origin?

Probably more people than know that Thai Chilis are American in origin.

[Root Boy]

Her and sad beard need to get together. They can talk Salsa and Taco Bell together.

[John]

New Yorkers say dumping the unconstitutional stop-and-frisk program is not as important as keeping crime low, in case anybody doubted how Michael Bloomberg got elected.

No one is going to personally put themselves in danger to keep a bunch of black kids from being stopped and frisked. That is just reality. People better figure out a way to explain how these types of things don't reduce crime and don't make people safer because the "but its wrong" dog is blind and deaf and won't hunt.

The good news is that these programs don't reduce crime so the argument is there to be made.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Even Kumar was for it.

[SugarFree]

Important definitional question:

Is evil asshole Ken Layne masturbating over the idea of America having a violent devolution or is he giving himself a handjob over the idea of America having a violent devolution?

Either way, the glee he is having at the thought a millions of dead Americans is not bothering Gawker commenters much at all...

[SugarFree]

Bonus question: How high is Ken Layne to think that lazy, OWS dipshits are going to win such a conflict?

Please phrase your answer in Snoop Dogg Standard Marijuana Units (SDSMU).

[waffles]

What is that anyway? 81 blunts?

[gaijin]

Ken Layne has ta be mad under tha influence ta be thinkin dat playas whoz ass only have signs would stand a cold-ass lil chizzle against playas wit guns.

[John]

I don't even understand what he is saying. That article is too stupid and incoherent to even be offensive.

[SugarFree]

Mrs. BeetonUKen Layne21L
You know what sucks? States. God, I fucking hate states. Can we eliminate states? Today 3:26pm

meritxell: an erotic lifeUMrs. Beeton11L
I would be cool with this, actually. We can have the federal government and municipal governments and states can go suck a fuck.

Behold his followers!

[RBS]

So, get rid of the 50 state governments and replace them with thousands of smaller ones!

[Marshall Gill]

Federalism at the County level? I can get behind that.

[Marshall Gill]

Not sure how you will fit over a thousand stars on a flag but...it could work!

[John]

And you know who else eliminated states and ended his country's hundreds year old system of federalism?

You really can't call it Godwin with these people. They actually are fascists.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Does this moron think it will be easier for the federal government to enforce its out-of-touch mandates on the People without States?

[PD Scott]

Fear will keep the local systems in line?

[Marshall Gill]

Funny how I am their polar opposite. I was thinking that if you eliminated the States you would have to give individual counties Sovereign status. They think of it as just another opportunity to expand the behemoth.

[BakedPenguin]

5 a : a politically organized body of people usually occupying a definite territory; especially : one that is sovereign
b : the political organization of such a body of people
c : a government or politically organized society having a particular character (a police state) (the welfare state)
6 : the operations or concerns of the government of a country
7 a : one of the constituent units of a nation having a federal government (the fifty states)

I don't know, if it's 5b, 5c, and / or 6, I might be able to get on board with getting rid of it.

[GILMORE]

""We can have the federal government and municipal governments and states can go suck a fuck.""

This theory is, I believe, included somewhere in the Federalist Papers.

[Pro Libertate]

Of course not. Look, we're one good major crisis or one slow economic collapse away from openly totalitarian government, applauded by a substantial minority of citizens. Get used to it, and leave a space on your arm for your tattoo.

[Lady Bertrum]

The folks least enthusiastic about our coming totalitarian state (Obamastan) are, not coincidentally, heavily armed.

[Pro Libertate]

Not with military grade weapons they aren't. Though I concede a possible civil war if things do end up going that direction.

[T]

There's not a whole lot of difference between any of my AR-15s and an M4. Full auto ain't all that useful.

[Pro Libertate]

Call me when you have drones and nukes.

What also protects us, of course, is the fact that there are likely limits to what the government could get the military to do domestically. For now, anyway.

[Tejicano]

Full auto can be useful in the right format. That's why I have a registered 1919-A4 with the tripod and a couple thousand rounds on belts. That, plus a few years in the Marine infantry to know how to use it correctly, can make a real difference.

Kumbaya my ass.

[Azathoth!!]

Why does everyone just assume the military would go with them?

The military, against the perceptions of many, is more likely to be against them.

The gun toting force they'll have will be police.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

In the past 25 years, a third of the world went from Soviet-style communism to various forms of capitalism, social democracy and even pure fascism. China went from an ostensibly communist state to state-run super capitalism. India and most of South America went far to the left. Mexico went from a century of one-party rule to a libertarian paradise of drug cartel narco-states alongside the more polished forms of globalized capitalism.

This shrub should be thanking god that Yglesias exists, else this sentence would be the stupidest thing I've read all day.

[Tonio]

What's super capitalism?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

It's when Walmart has a half-off sale on its blood diamonds.

[Hyperion]

It's when Walmart has a half-off sale on its blood diamonds.

It's not officially a super capitalism sale unless it's combined with a 75% off all textile products made in Chinese sweatshops by low wage workers being tormented by libertarian overlords.

[Marshall Gill]

No, no. Super-capitalism is when the EBT system breaks down at Walmart.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Apparently it is the state run kind, you know, socialism.

[Apatheist ?_??]

"state-run super capitalism"

God that is so fucking dumb.

[SugarFree]

Never has a man been so in need of a dictionary.

[Warty]

You mean, hit in the face with an unabridged dictionary?

[Pro Libertate]

Only you have the strength to wield the unabridged OED, my friend.

[Pro Libertate]

Seriously. Read Adam Smith. The whole point of The Wealth of Nations was to attack mercantilism (which, of course, was government-controlled) and to explain why free markets are so much better.

[Brett L]

I keep trying to explain that indicting The Wealth of Nations is ilke indicting On the Origin of Species. While the details may not be exact, it is essentially the "good enough" text on how scarce resources that have multiple uses will be most efficiently allocated. Dislike whatever part of that you want, but understand that as long as not enough resources exist to sate everyone's every desire, and a resource can be used to sate more than one desire, the most efficient way to allocate that resource is by letting a market set the price.

And obviously, the most efficient allocation means the largest usable amount of resources, even if unequally distributed.

[Pro Libertate]

Barring godlike superbeings coming to Earth with perfect knowledge, no command-and-control system can ever hope to come remotely close to the efficiency of the market. Leaving aside the incredible corruption of any centralized system.

I agree, what Smith did was identify something true. Railing against it is meaningless.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

I...I...cannot fathom why any site would give any sort of play to a gibbering lunatic. Do these sites have zero pride anymore?

[SugarFree]

Any organization that publishes both Ken Layne and Lindy West has no shame whatsoever.

Also, Lindy West has horrible boobs, therefore boobs aren't important. (And she has a dishwasher! OMG!)

[Warty]

"Oh, I hope nothing happens to my boobs! They're ALL I HAVE."

Fat girls cling to their boobs like a drowning man clings to a life preserver.

and I don't want to live a life of singleminded obsession and self-hatred.

Oh. Lindy. Now I'm sad.

[T]

Personally, I'm cool with a lifetime of obsession and hatred.

Ohhhh, self-hatred. Well, at least in her case it's justified.

[Brett L]

Actually, I think she's stumbled into a fact. There was a new paper about cell age via methylation of some proteins, and breast cells were usually a couple of years older than other cells by that marker by age 30.

[Warty]

Don't miss his muckraking multi-part expose on fracking! It's...not that good, actually.

[Warty]

while the fracking corporations will seize as much of the interior as they can.

What?

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Duh, Warty, out here in flyover country, there's a fracking outpost in every backyard!

[Irish]

China went from an ostensibly communist state to state-run super capitalism. India and most of South America went far to the left. Mexico went from a century of one-party rule to a libertarian paradise of drug cartel narco-states alongside the more polished forms of globalized capitalism.

Well...at least the South America part is true.

Everything else is a lie.

[Juice]

India isn't far left?

[gaijin]

yes?

I loved this: Obama...an inept bungler who can't seem to turn an overwhelming mandate into success.

[PD Scott]

I love how barely more than half is an overwhelming mandate.

[gaijin]

exactly! A mandate of the one percent 😉

[Pro Libertate]

It's not even remotely close to that much, considering how few actually voted for either side.

[RBS]

That rich white people were expected to do their lobbying and governing from a poor black city with no government representation was always a cosmic prank, and few will mourn the end of the "federal city." But what's next?

I really had no idea that DC was specifically designed to be poor and black...

[Rich]

"Check your privilege."

[Irish]

You'd probably know that if you read the constitution.

Unfortunately, the Constitution is very hard to read as it is 17,000 years old, written in a language only known to a lost prophet, and inked in the invisible blood of a dead god.

[Juice]

Sounds like the premise to a good sci fi story. 17,000 years into the future. The constitution on parchment still exists, but no one knows what it says. No one remembers. And then one day some one figures it out. And maybe misunderstands a few things.

[Warty]

ARP2ULucid0ne41L
I picked the western Europe socialism lite as my choice, but I honestly think we'll eventually descend into a mix of corportatism-libertarian-fascism. Today 2:20pm

One of these things is not like the others.

[Lady Bertrum]

They're just using the newest boogieman phrase. They don't even know what 'libertarian means' (obviously). I knew libertarians would be the new target when Harry Reid started calling people anarchists on the floor of the Senate.

Anarchists/libertarians = scary, scary people who want to do really bad things because trust me I know.

[C. Anacreon]

Get ready for this -- and we've seen examples of this already in recent days, even on 60 Minutes the other night. Remember being able to tell your friends you are libertarian and they might say something like "oh, cool," and not really know what you are talking about, or be bothered. Some you could explain more about it to, and they would be intrigued, though not necessarily enough to join you. And some might even say "that's kind of like me -- social liberal and fiscal conservative!"

But not any more. After complaining in every op-ed piece in the world last November that the Republican party has to change or go extinct, the Left is now worried that might actually happen. And so they are suddenly discovering libertarianism and how a lot of people like it, especially students. And it is scaring them to death.

So their response, already started, is to paint libertarians as the most extreme, out-of-control, lunatic point-of-view possible. They are making straw man arguments along the lines of "Somalia!" (see last night's HnR). And they will conflate fascism and corporatism with libertarian thoughts, as above.

I have colleagues who always listen to NPR and they are starting to say some bizarre stuff about libertarianism, so the official Left talking points must already have been disseminated.

[Brett L]

I've been enjoying it, because my friends already know I'm well to their left on many "social justice" issues.

[Warty]

Then maybe you can provide a definition of what "social justice" means to these people. My working definition, "nagging white men until they're ashamed of being white men", seems correct but incomplete.

[Brett L]

Yeah, well it pisses them off that I support the position that the single best thing we could do for blacks and Hispanics in FL is legalize drugs and issue blanket pardons. Especially when I use my white kid upbringing in which about half-a-dozen friends were arrested with felony amounts of drugs and walked with, at worse, adjudication deferred because their parents could afford a lawyer.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I really enjoy it. Most of the people I supervise and/or come into contact with at my job are SWPL young professionals who are getting fucked by ObamaCare, and popping those kids' bubbles never fails to entertain me.

So far my favorite moment of libertarian nastiness at work has been harassing some bimbo at my work who came up to me to condescendingly "apologize" for her white privilege. She asked how she might improve. Being the mean libertarian that I am, I set her to work fetching me coffee and piling on more and more menial tasks as "recompense" for her Caucasian heritage until she finally got fed up and stopped doing them. The next day, I printed her up a Walter Williams Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon.

Not entirely sure if she got the point, but it sure as hell amused me and the other crusty old conservative at my workplace.

[Marshall Gill]

There is something very wrong with the world in which Reason carries syndicated columnist Steven Chapman and not Walter Williams.

[Thane of Steelport]

Wait, TIT, you're not white?

WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I'm just here for the free booze and the endless tantric sex with horny young women I was promised when I joined the Kochspiracy.

Libertarianism is attractive to horny young women, is it not?

[Brett L]

Libertarianism is attractive to horny young women, is it not?

No, mate, you wanted Libertinism. Next door down on the left.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

DAMMIT!!

[Brett L]

You mean we're not Black?!

[Warty]

"These boys is not white! These boys is not white! Hell, they ain't even old timey!"

[BakedPenguin]

"Constant sorrow, all my days..."

[Lady Bertrum]

And so they are suddenly discovering libertarianism and how a lot of people like it, especially students. And it is scaring them to death.

This is really it. The left is making a real effort to marginalize (further) and vilify (further) libertarianism because they fear its appeal. They're also afraid the right might actual form a coherent libertarian block that will gain in political strength and popularity.

It's not enough to vilify the Teathuglicans any more; They need to strangle the libertarians in the cradle.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

One of the biggest changes I've noticed is that I used to be able to link Reason articles to people and have them usually be read. Now I get quite a lot of "OMG KOCHTOPUS!" utter refusals, because ThinkProgress and Soros have done some serious smearing and well-poisoning.

[Tejicano]

The progtards have the MSM on their side but we have reality and (hopefully) the internet.

Libertarianism is pretty much what liberals of the early 1970's were looking for when they sold out and got on the Blue Team bus. Deep down inside some of them want to get off the bus but they've tied too much of their identity to it and can't make the change.

[Tejicano]

The progtards have the MSM on their side but we have reality and (hopefully) the internet.

Libertarianism is pretty much what liberals of the early 1970's were looking for when they sold out and got on the Blue Team bus. Deep down inside some of them want to get off the bus but they've tied too much of their identity to it and can't make the change.

[CE]

once more and it will sink in.

[Corning]

What is even stranger is thinking he will not be one of those dead Americans.

Does he not understand that his side does not own or know how to use guns?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Federal officials knew the site couldn't handle the traffic but plowed forward anyway.

Politics trumps everything.

[Rich]

There is no sugarcoating it -- this is another so-called "scandal".

[CatoTheElder]

I blame Harry and Louise. If they hadn't stopped Bill Clinton's initiative, HHS would have had that website running by now.

[Generic Stranger]

I blame Thelma and Louise. They made flooring it over a cliff cool.

[paranoid android]

I blame Harry and Sally. If you're going to spend the rest of your term doing damage control over the spectacular failure of your signature policy, you want the rest of your term to start as soon as possible!

[CatoTheElder]

The website was not ready for testing, so testing would be a useless waste of time and money. Since they were running out of time, they decided to take the Nancy Pelosi approach: They had to put the website online to see whether it would work.

Launched by faith-based legislation and implemented by faith-based engineering, Healthcare.gov represents the audacity of hope, brought to you by Hope'n'Change?.

Faith, hope and charity abide, but they don't work so well with ObamaCare and Healthcare.gov.

[Marshall Gill]

Hmm, Obamacarousel brought down because of separation of Church and State?

[PapayaSF]

Oregon has a launched a new pilot program to try to tax drivers based on how many miles they drive, not how much fuel they consume

And so the people in this pilot program will be exempt from fuel taxes? Haha, just kidding.

[gaijin]

I suspect we'll also be reading about hefty new taxes on unfavored vehicles (the kind that use lots of gas) after they realize the incentives they've created with the tax on miles.

[Mad Scientist]

Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has introduced a constitutional amendment that prohibits Congress from exempting itself from the laws it passes.

With congressional approval numbers in the toilet, this is both wonderful trolling and a decent way to score points with the public come the next presidential election.

[[e-mail]]

In Arkansas HS football, they'd call the game after a 50-point lead developed to avoid exactly this sort of embarrassing running-up-the-score scenario. I'm surprised TX doesn't have that, though I could be misremembering the exact rule (I was in the marching band, not the team).

[John]

Yeah. A lot of states do that. They coaches should have called the game.

[RBS]

Or let the scrubs get some PT.

[Brett L]

TX plays by NCAA rules in HS. So all they can do (which they did) is let the clock run continuously. The coach did put in his backups, did stop returning kicks. I think he did what he could. But your 3rd string guys aren't going to run 2 yards and fall down. They've waited a while to get into a game.

[Pro Libertate]

There's also a belief in football, which I largely share, that playing half-speed is a great way to get injured.

[GILMORE]

(I was in the marching band, not the team)

NELSON MUNTZ= Ha hah!

[Coeus]

Feminism at it's finest:

To recap, a man expresses interest in a woman based entirely upon her body. A woman expresses interest in a man based entirely upon his car. One of these things is not okay. Why? Because women are bitches, obviously.

The commenter doesn't seem at all upset or disappointed that his comment makes no sense at all. First, there's the problem of elevating biology over economics for no apparent reason; second, there's the problem of a person's attractiveness being based more on economics and other factors than on biology.

Let's completely brush over the fact that he was honest about his sexual attraction, and she decided that she was willing to fake it for a night on the town.

[Thane of Steelport]

First, there's the problem of elevating biology over economics for no apparent reason

I don't know about Watson in particular, but the "skeptic community" often insists that economics don't realz.

With that out of the way:

1. the outcome of the prank was totally unremarkable and the entire thing is not worth talking about

2. PUA is not based on biology in any meaningful sense

[Coeus]

PUA is not based on biology in any meaningful sense

Might be, might not be. It depends on what the observable factors that it's based on are based on themselves. Culture or biology? Probably a mix of both.

[lap83]

"he was honest about his sexual attraction"

There is no difference between a gold digger and a guy who only goes out with a girl because she's hot. Both are shallow. But it's easier to get righteous about a form of shallowness that's different from yours. That applies to the feminist too.

[Coeus]

Really? He made it obvious that he wanted to have sex. She obviously wasn't attracted to him. The presence of the car didn't suddenly make him hotter. It just means that she was willing to pretend that he was until she got a few expensive dates out of him. She didn't want to bang him.

[lap83]

All I was doing was pointing out that what one person thinks is a given in terms of attractiveness is offensive to another person who thinks differently, and you're continuing to prove my point.

[hotsy totsy]

"The presence of the car didn't suddenly make him hotter."

Uhmmm, yes it did.

[Coeus]

You're telling me that a nice car can actually change your mind about the sexual attractiveness of a guy? Not just make it worth your while to spend time with him while he spends money on you, but actually cause vaginal secretions in a previously bone dry pelvis?

Cause I have a nice car (for the last 3 years), and I used to drive a beater. While I've definitely noticed an increase in dates, I have noticed no increase in actual sex resulting from those dates. My average sexual partners per year has remained relatively constant. What you're saying contradicts my own direct, observable experience.

[Enough About Palin]

So I'm only supposed to date ugly chicks? If that's so, aren't I discriminating against the hot babes?

[lap83]

Yes, because I think it is shallow to date someone just because they're hot means that you are only allowed to date ugly chicks. Exactly.

[califernian]

Neither are shallow. Both standards are a short-cut to determining fitness. There's more to the package with mate selection but as a first pass, going for hot women if you are a guy, or going for financially successful men if you are a woman, is not shallow in the least.

[lap83]

Short-cuts in relationships are shallow and honestly, I don't care. Everyone does it. People are shallow. I just think it's funny when they don't acknowledge it.

[lap83]

Btw, I do think that it's possible for people to NOT be shallow. But only to a degree and it's hard work. Being shallow is easy and comes naturally. Even babies prefer good looking people.

[hotsy totsy]

Any woman wants her partner to think she is HOT! Even the not-so-pretty ones. Who the hell wants to be married to a guy who thinks you're intelligent but not attractive?

An intimate partnership is not platonic. You can be best of friends as well, but if you're ONLY friends, you don't have a worthwhile relationship.

That's not shallow, that's reality.

[Jordan]

Oregon has a launched a new pilot program to try to tax drivers based on how many miles they drive, not how much fuel they consume

Just how retarded are these people? Are there any progressives who are capable of thinking beyond first-order effects? Time to trade in the Prius for an F-350!

Not that I give a shit about people reducing gasoline consumption.

[John]

They taxed the living shit out of gas and are now shocked that people responded by buying more efficient cars. And don't forget, one of the prog holy grails is taxing gas to the point that it is unaffordable to most people. And if they finally ever do that, they will be totally shocked that gas tax revenues fall through the floor.

[BakedPenguin]

But you know, the Laffer curve is total bullshit.

[PD Scott]

Speaking of big-ass pickups, check out this report from WSB-TV. What a schmuck!

[Enough About Palin]

I lived in Atlanta (N. Druid Hills) and that's just a typical daily commute.

[Raven Nation]

Although there is/was this:

"Although gasoline taxes have long been the main source of funding for building, maintaining, and operating America's network of highways, roads, and streets, the tax is at best an imperfect user fee. As such, Congress and the states should take action to transition from gas taxes to more efficient vehicle-mile fees.

Executive Summary to Cato Policy Report #695 by Randall O'Toole.

Full report here:

http://www.cato.org/publicatio.....g-highways

[Cdr Lytton]

Reason's Bob Poole is in love with them too. Nevermind the obvious privacy tracking issue.

[Don Mynack]

Also from the summary:
"To fix these and other problems with gas taxes, this paper proposes an affordable vehicle-mile fee system that preserves traveler privacy, eliminates nearly all traffic congestion, adequately funds all federal, state, and local roads, and does so in a revenue-neutral manner after eliminating gas taxes and local road subsidies. In fact, in the long run the proposal may even reduce total road costs and fees because it would give road agencies incentives to operate more efficiently."

It sounds too boring to read. Can someone summarize the paper and/or tell us O'Toole's ideas?

[Thane of Steelport]

Is Wikipedia for Sale?

Short answer: yes

[John]

Could the Kochs buy it? Please? The butthurt would be epic.

[Greg83]

Did we read the same article? It goes into detail about how this PR company makes promises it can't keep, with many of their clients having their non-notable pages deleted or massively pared down. Seems to me it shows the system working.

[Thane of Steelport]

Well, yes and no. I have read a couple other articles on the subject

http://arstechnica.com/tech-po.....-accounts/

and comments on the articles

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6580333

[Thane of Steelport]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6587481

I've kinda fused all those together in my head; should have provided more context, sorry

[Greg83]

I don't really pay Wikipedia much credence anyway, since I assume it's largely edited by the same progtards that make up Reddit and most of the rest of the web.

[Thane of Steelport]

I have done a dozen or two edits; most of them are just fixing typos but a few are more significant alterations to pages I care about.

Which highlights one of the big issues with Wikipedia -- to get the best quality content, you need editors who:
* care about the topic
* are knowledgeable about the topic
* can write comprehensibly
* can keep a relatively neutral POV
* are willing to put up with the byzantine rules and the occasional power-drunk admin
* have the time to work at it

That seems to be a pretty tough combination to find. What we seem to have now is the result of people who generally have around four of those six attributes.

[Generic Stranger]

I edit some of the firearms articles; even created a couple. WP:GUNS is pretty good, because they're almost all gun enthusiasts. It's not very active, though.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I'm not going to sugarcoat it: Matthew Yglesias' argument in defense of ObamaCare's rollout is not as logically compelling as it could be

First, it's just obviously not the case that "the government" lacks the competence to build a good website. We have several state exchanges that work fine! FRED is great! NASA has a great website! NASA also sends robots to explore Mars!

Things that have nothing to do with web design = proof that government can do web design? not quite as airtight as the Marcottian "cats exist, therefore abortion for all" argument, but the boy is clearly learning.

it's not like the underlying idea of bringing a Bismarkian [sic] health insurance system to the United States depends in some conceptual way on the website. Bismark [sic] did it in 1883! They've added a prominent "apply by phone" tab to HealthCare.gov for just this reason.

Yes, I too remember reading in the steampunk histories about how Bismarck appended an "apply by phone, telegraph, or dirigible" tab to the Health Insurance Bill of 1883's webpage.

Good organizations should build good websites, and there's no excuse for having failed to do so. But the implications for the larger project of welfare state liberalism are nonexistent.

True. After all, NASA sent astronauts into space with Tang.

[John]

And remember, requiring someone to have a photo ID to vote is disenfranchising them. But requiring them to navigate a complicated website to buy legally mandated insurance is totally okay. Poor people can't be expected to have a simple photo ID. But there is nothing classist and discriminatory about setting up a website as the single way you can comply with the law.

[Rich]

John, the President said yesterday that you can comply over the phone or in person. And there are lots of Navigators ready to help you!

[John]

By giving you the web address.

[RBS]

In person huh? How are they supposed to get there Rich?

[CE]

Comply, citizen! Let me show you the ways.

[CatoTheElder]

Hell, I had to send a photo ID via USPS to get information about ObamaCare.

Seriously.

[John]

Think about it. They are going to penalize people for not buying insurance that is available only on an English only website. But remember they really care about immigrants and the poor.

[Ayn Random Variation]

I have to mail/fax a copy of my ID to collect $ for fantasy sports leagues.

There's no way to sugar coat this; I am being disenfranchised.

[CE]

Which makes it interstate commerce? Don't forget to file your winnings on your taxes.

[Tonio]

The stench of their fear is unmistakable.

[PapayaSF]

Cripes, neither Yglesias nor Slate editors know how to spell Bismarck?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

It shoked my sensibilities as well. It is true that Bismark roked the European world, and but that cok Yglesias should not be moked for such a simple spelling mistake.

[PapayaSF]

But the implications for the larger project of welfare state liberalism are nonexistent.

False, in part because healthcare.gov isn't "just a website": it's an interdepartmental, multi-company, subsidy-calculating machine.

[John]

And remember it is not like he was saying this in July or anything

You have to understand that the media, for non-ideological reasons, is just massively biased toward negativity about this kind of thing. . . . You add in the fact that Republicans have a vested interest in making hay about problems plus the fact that liberals have never been all that enthusiastic about the Affordable Care Act's reliance on private insurers, and a lot of negative coverage is baked into the cake. But fundamentally a lot of this criticism comes in the form of comparing the reality of the ACA to an abstract idealized system rather than comparing it to the status quo.

That mongoloid spent four years selling this piece of crap. And in less than a month is reduced to claiming that "well it doesn't discredit liberalism or anything".

[MattXIV]

So, you're a Slate blogger who is grossly under qualified to write about software project management but since you are going to do it anyway, various people recommend that you read The Mythical Man-Month. What do you do?

A : Read whole actual book, which isn't that long.
B : Read the essay in the book titled "The Mythical Man-Month", which is only around 15 pages.
C : Read the subsection of the wikipedia article on the book dealing with the essay, which is only 3 paragraphs.
D : Guess what the essay is about and write a blog post about it.

The answer will probably not surprise you.

[Coeus]

I had several blogs listing the Ohio University student incident as proof that rape victims aren't taken seriously, and that it's an example of rape culture at it's finest. All pages have been changed to remove references.

I suspect that it's because this pic came out.

No matter. It will still be added to the "rapists who are never prosecuted" statistic.

[Mad Scientist]

Don't stick that finger in your ear! You don't know where that finger's been!

[PapayaSF]

She is now the poster girl for "I had consensual sex but it became embarrassing so I falsely cried 'rape.'"

[Killazontherun]

I consider sluts to be angels in human forms except for those whose falsely accuse their companions of rape. They are sucubi who should banished from the primal plane.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

That smile is not consent Coeus!

[Killazontherun]

Fear of a Libertarian Planet

http://nymag.com/daily/intelli.....nists.html

Silicon Valley's Secessionist Movement Is Growing

Last week, I wrote about one Silicon Valley investor's excited response to the government shutdown, a response sparked by his belief that "stasis in the government is actually good for all of us." It was an extraordinary statement, it seemed to me, not only because it ignored the very real damage the government's gridlock was doing to normal, non-wealthy people all over the country, but because it revealed a broader ideological shift among certain members of the technological elite, from political apathy to active anti-government hostility.
But this weekend, at a Y Combinator start-up school, one tech entrepreneur outdid that investor by not just cheerleading dysfunction in Washington, but calling for Silicon Valley to literally secede from the United States.

. . .

"The best part is this, the people who think this is weird, the people who sneer at the frontier, who hate technology, won't follow you there," he said. "We need to run the experiment, to show what a society run by Silicon Valley looks like without affecting anyone who wants to live under the Paper Belt," he added, using the term "paper belt" to refer to the environments currently governed by pre-existing systems like the US government

[PapayaSF]

I'll bet they don't want to take East Palo Alto with them.

[John]

That sounds great and all. But then when you look at what these clowns actually believe and the kind of politicians they actually vote for in California, and you quickly realize their state wouldn't be so libertarian. Hell, given these idiots' superstitions regarding the environment, I would be surprised if it had running water and electricity.

[Killazontherun]

From our perspective, yes, I expect it to be highly compromised with silly self imposed regulations on things like GMOs, but from the hoard of state worshipers this is an abomination. For them, nothing can be accomplished except through the imposition and force of a state ran bureaucracy. However, I'm all for voluntary associations, even communist ones.

[John]

Me too, except that I suspect their little association would quickly cease to be voluntary. They would be lucky if it didn't turn into a geek Jonestown.

[Root Boy]

I think this article from Forbes (by Joel Kotkin) is relevant:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jo.....y-of-jobs/

[John]

Interesting article. I think Tyler Cowen is an idiot who doesn't understand his own argument. He is arguing that this tech revolution will be like no other revolution in history in that this time the displaced workers won't find anything new to do. He offers no evidence why that is true or why he is right when we know now everyone else who predicted this about the previous revolutions were wrong.

Moreover, even if he is right, what he is doing is predicting the end of scarcity. If these people don't move on to knew things it will be because the world has gotten so productive there will be no need for them to produce anything, in other words the end of scarcity. But he never contemplates what that would actually mean.

[Root Boy]

I've only read a few things by Cowen and don't get him at all. I assume you clicked on through the links Kotkin had?

Hey, I'm on my second tech startup, but I think SV gets way too much attention, especially the social network geeks - and those dickhead SV investors who want to shut down real wealth creation are criminals in my mind. I'm thinking of the Keystone guy.

[John]

I agree with you about that. SV is a money machine and not much else. And without the wealth created by producing other things, it wouldn't be that.

[SugarFree]

Just in case you haven't heard, Gawker set up a whole blog just to monitor the dangerous libertarians of Silicon Valley.

[Killazontherun]

From their headlines:

How to Turn Your Kid into a Little Asshole

'cause if you don't think what we think and feel what we feel, you're an asshole!

So much stupid on that page it might accidentally spark the information singularity described in Blood Music.

[Killazontherun]

The Most bad ass video you're going to watch this week, and I'm even an anti-fan of this series:

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/.....blade.aspx

[Jordan]

Serious question: is a blade like that even legal? It damn well should be, but I'd be shocked if it was.

[Killazontherun]

Hmm, I don't think my state has any bans on knives except for switch blades (dumb law). One with a thrust mechanism like that one likely falls out of that parameter as I recall the law describing the switch blade as a knife being one with a small handle under so many inches and designed to be compact.

When I was a kid, there was a guy who brought his favorite knives for show and tell.

[Generic Stranger]

Depends on the state. I believe it would count as a switchblade, so it would be illegal in the many states that ban those. It's also a dagger, which is illegal to carry in many states.

[Damned Fool]

Question for you Reasonoids: Recently a liberal friend who knows I'm a libertarian asked me if I believe in voting. I responded that I didn't know, because on the one hand voting for a specific person could be seen as a positive statement that I was fine with this particular person in a position of authority over me (implicitly excluding all others), but on the other hand, one could say that by voting I agreed to respect the power of the winner of the contest.

So, other frustrated libertarians, should I vote in elections?

[rts]

I wouldn't recommend it.

[John]

I think it is up to you. Your vote individually doesn't mean a lot. I don't think it is irrational to go either way.

[Warty]

Vote if you like voting, don't vote if you don't like voting. You don't owe anybody anything.

[Bill Dalasio]

Well said.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Yes. You did not construct the system, and are forced to live by its verdict. Using the system against itself is in no way an endorsement of the system, any more than fighting for your life in a gladiatorial arena is support for that barbaric practice.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Of course this merely a moral case for why one might vote -- if you don't feel inclined to vote for practical or aesthetic reasons, that is your choice.

[Virginian]

What about a consensual gladiatorial arena? Would that be barbaric?

[Tonio]

Many here will tell you that idividual votes are meaningless, and that no single vote wins an election. Sure, it's impossible to say which vote tipped a tight election, but elections are won. No individual raindrop is responsible for the flood, yet floods happen.

You can either get hung up on ideological purity, and have no input into how our society is run; or you can vote for the best choice and know that you are doing your part to make things better even if it's a very slow process.

[C. Anacreon]

I once voted in an election over a small-town issue where my vote made the difference. The final tally was a win for what I wanted to happen, by two votes. If I had voted the other way it would have been a tie and a re-vote.

Really, after the Bush-Gore debacle, do people really believe that their votes are meaningless?

[OldMexican]

Re: Damned fool,

Recently a liberal friend who knows I'm a libertarian asked me if I believe in voting. I responded that I didn't know.

Why, you should call yourself a damned fool!

Oh, you already did. Sorry!

You should've told your liberal friend that you believe in voting as long as it is not a vote to elect you for Volcano God sacrifice or to take your property.

[PD Scott]

Qualified yes. For national/state level elections your vote probably doesn't matter, but for local matters (depending on how big the "local" is) like tax hikes, etc. a few votes either way can sometimes decide an election.

[Damned Fool]

That's a fair point. This was mostly a philosophical question, since my vote means little in large elections, but in smaller ones the practicality aspect does enter in.

[Ted S.]

Spoil your ballot.

Cast write-in votes for "None of the above".

[Anonymous Coward]

Not unless you agree with the candidate for which you intend to vote.

Voting for the sake of voting is just asinine. By voting, you, as the source of power in a constitutional republic which derives its power from the consent of the governed, grant legitimacy to those who claim to rule over you because you participated in the process.

[PD Scott]

Yes, but politicians and the media don't seem to take not voting as a, well, vote of no confidence.

[CatoTheElder]

It is clearly irrational to vote. The probability that your vote will decide an election is infinitesimally small. The probability that your candidate will be the determining vote on anything you care about is also fairly small. Multiply those two small numbers by each other and you have a value that approaches zero. It's far, far more likely that you'd be struck by lightening on cloudless day on the way to polls.

On the other hand, if you enjoy voting, it might be worthwhile. It's really up to you.

Personally, I enjoy voting Libertarian as long as the line is short. I'm never disappointed with the experience because I am always voting against the incumbent, and my candidate never wins and I have no such expectations.

[Bill Dalasio]

I think the genuine answer is that it's a personal choice. If you want to play some infinitesimal role in selecting a candidate (or deselecting a candidate), then that's certainly your prerogative. On the other hand, you really have no moral obligation to do so. Ultimately, the problem is that all too much is becoming effected by voting. Whichever candidate won would ideally respect your right to your life, liberty and property. So, voting would be purely a formality or a matter of personal preference. Unfortunately, we're moving to a system where whether your rights or the rights of people who are different from you get violated.

[Emmerson Biggins]

but on the other hand, one could say that by voting I agreed to respect the power of the winner of the contest

One would be full or horseshit if one were to say that. Kindly or formally requesting that somebody not steal you stuff doesn't mean you have consented to theft later just because they took you ideas into consideration before deciding to go ahead and steal anyways.

[Juice]

You can vote "defensively."

[CE]

Voting is a defensive measure, like shooting back at armed intruders trying to rob you. Vote without apology.

[The Bearded Hobbit]

If, ultimately, you don't agree with any of the major candidates then the third party folks could probably use your vote. You know that they have not got the slightest chance of winning but often ballot access is based upon the number of votes cast. It's a small deal to the individual person but it's a big deal to the minor parties trying to get ballot access.

... Hobbit

[Certified Public Asskicker]

The IRS taketh, and giveth too much back:

http://news.yahoo.com/irs-paid.....itics.html

[Ted S.]

I'm surprised that this story made the national press, but the student is at a school not far from me:

High-school student brings pot-laced brownies on field trip, shares them with classmates. Gets arrested for distributing drugs to minors -- even though he's the same age as them.

A 17-year-old Saugerties High School student is facing a felony drug charge after allegedly distributing marijuana-laced brownies to classmates, five of whom required hospitalization, while on a field trip to Salem, Mass., police in Salem said on Monday.

[...]

Prosniewski said the youth will be charged with distribution of a Class D substance, marijuana, to a minor, which is a felony in Massachusetts. The teen will be summoned to the First District Court of Essex County's juvenile division, probably in mid- to late November, he said.

[...]

The lieutenant said a couple of bus loads of students from Saugerties High School went on a class trip to Salem on Friday. Some of the students "ingested brownies with marijuana, and several young people began throwing up," Prosniewski said.

[...]

He said the boy who admitted to baking and giving out the brownies was among the students who became ill.

You'd think he learned his lesson.

[Warty]

What does "ill" mean here? I'd bet a dollar that they they just get stupendously, ludicrously high because they ate too many special brownies.

[Greg83]

He probably screwed up and baked the pot directly into the brownies instead of sauteing it into the butter and tossing the used up bud like you're supposed to.

[Ted S.]

The things you learn from the H&R potheads. 🙂

[Brett L]

A cheese cloth is ideal for extracting the used bud. A coffee filter will work, though.

[C. Anacreon]

The things you learn from the H&R potheads. 🙂

Is this proof that libertarians are just Republicans who smoke pot?

[Coeus]

That won't make you sick, it's just not as potent.

[Andrew S.]

If you don't have experience with pot (and even sometimes if you do), edibles can really work you over. I don't doubt that some of the kids felt messed up for a while afterwards.

[Ted S.]

If you had read the parts that I quoted, you'd see that

"several young people began throwing up," Prosniewski said.

[Warty]

If you wanted me to read that part, you would have bolded it. It's not my fault.

[Ted S.]

Everything that I write is interesting and worth reading.

[Mad Scientist]

Needs more caps.

[Ted S.]

EVERYTHING THAT I WRITE IS INTERESTING AND WORTH READING!!!111!!!

Is that better?

[Marshall Gill]

Even when you repost?

[Killazontherun]

People can throw up when they are simply nervous, or see others doing it. It can be purely placebo. Clerks II, best moment, not involving Rosario Dawson's feet on the screen. Not even a fetishist for that, but she moved them around all sexy like.

[Killazontherun]

Wow, did that train get upended with thoughts of Rosario Dawson. Don't even remember where I was going with it.

[Killazontherun]

I'm always a little claustrophobic when I smoke and want to be outdoors. You know, not consciously intentional, but I don't believe I've had a puff since Obama has been president.

[Rich]

Some of the students "ingested brownies with marijuana, and several young people began throwing up,"

Probably salmonella that made it through due to the shutdown.

[mr simple]

five of whom required hospitalization

Unless they got hit by a car because of slow reaction times, I doubt any of them required hospitalization.

[Root Boy]

Reviled Rich Girl calls critics Idiots:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/.....58594.html

Didn't read her original whine, but I can imagine her and her critics are all douchebags. Victimology being what it is, I'm sure most of the upper middle class and above hate admitting that they are rich compared to 95% of Americans, much less the world. Nothing wrong with admitting you are well off, and you are more of a douche in my mind if you pretend you aren't.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

We interrupt our regularly scheduled feminist-bashing to bring you writing so lazy and ineffectual that it has already been awarded two no-bid government contracts by the Obama administration. Take it away, Matty!

Ezra Klein did a column this week making the provocative suggestion that Democrats should surrender on taxes. Just admit that Republicans will never agree to tax hikes and ask them for a grand bargain that's about something else.

Sentence fragments are. Great, aren't they?

Walkable neighborhoods are appealing to many people, but auto-oriented suburban neighborhoods are also appealing to many people.

Peanut butter is appealing to many people, but jelly is also appealing to many people. Punching Matty in the face is appealing to every people.

[Cont.]

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Into the breach step Emily Washington and Eli Douardo who use Walk Score data to create a proper fixed-effects model across all metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas in the United States and conclude on a preliminary basis that a one-point improvement in Walk Score is worth about $850 in extra willingness to pay for a house.

I sure wish that I had been smart enough to go to Harvard where if I'd gone to Harvard I would have learned to write elegant, well-structured prose instead of long, awkward run-on sentences that seem to go nowhere and sometimes come across as some kind of stream-of-consciousness experimental writing but more often than not end up sounding like something slapped together really quick and not at all well-thought out or proofread so that I can get out the door and maybe buy a frozen burrito before the sun comes out and then I can eat the burrito alone and indoors.

[John]

This is why I hate these people so much. How could someone with writing skills that poor even get into Harvard much less graduate? Was this guy a legacy? Did his parents build a library or something? He is not a minority. Did he pay someone to write his application essay?

Remember, he is not knocking this off in between conference calls. This is what he does for a living. He sat down, thought about it, wrote that column and concluded that it was a good idea to put his name on it. He is not being sloppy. He is that stupid. He actually doesn't know any better. I am embarrassed for him.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I really don't get it -- why the hell do I know the names "Matthew Yglesias" and "Ezra Klein"? More to the point, who the hell thought hiring 20-something lazy morons with no discernable talents or experiences would make for good copy? At least Amanduh got her audience the old-fashioned way; Yglesias has been supported by leftist think tanks and journalistic enterprises in spite of a complete lack of talent.

[John]

It is very puzzling. I get it that they want lefty hacks. But they can't find a lefty hack who knows how to write? And Amanda for all of her faults, expresses a certain point of view. She has her fans. But who the hell are Yglesias' fans? Who thinks he can write? I want to know.

[Lady Bertrum]

It's because the left has no one else. The really talented, really smart people don't go into journalism (writers at Reason are the exception).

[The Immaculate Trouser]

writers at Reason are the exception

Not really. The one really, really fantastic writer and investigative journalist at Reason was Balko. The rest range from good-to-adequate, but there aren't any great investigative journalists at Reason (Suderman's coverage of OCare was good) and most of their opinion columns are good-to-middling, as well.

What's nice about Reason is that they don't pretend to have an "impartial" viewpoint -- readers are rightly aware of the angle of their reporting -- and they are regular and timely. Honestly, I find the commentariat far more fascinating than the staff at Reason.

[Lady Bertrum]

I was being polite to our hosts. 😉

[John]

There are some good writers out there Lady Bertrum. But I guess they wouldn't be as willing to degrade themselves the way people like Yglesias do.

[Killazontherun]

Sentence fragments are. Great, aren't they?

They have their legitimate place.

[Killazontherun]

Walkable neighborhoods are appealing to many people, but auto-oriented suburban neighborhoods are also appealing to many people.

But that is just a tin ear. Much worse crime then beginning or ending a sentence with grammatically incorrect practices.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Agreed. If you notice, I arranged the excerpts by "best" to "worst". That second sentence is just irritatingly banal.

[Killazontherun]

Sometimes, I'll use fragments as a means to minimize self reference. A way to come across as less narcissistic than I actually am.

[Derpetologist]

Old news, but worth a second glance:

Oh, imagine swallowing the Presidential cum."

-Erica Jong, author and self-described feminist on the Lewinsky scandal

I did a little research for shiggles about feminist reactions to Lubricated William's peccadilloes. Here was a guy who embodied all the behaviors feminists claim to hate. He cheated on his wife multiple times and used his power tempt and coerce his subordinates for sexual favors. And when he got caught, these self-appointed defenders of womanfolk defended him!

What an absolute fraud of a movement!

[BakedPenguin]

To be fair, Erica Jong was never a sex hating feminist.

[Thane of Steelport]

Girls on Grindr

I don't really have much of an opinion on this, just posting it.

[Hyperion]

You don't even need to be gay to be best girl friended by women. All you need to do is have them be attracted to you, be totally uninterested, and be too nice for your own good. Then they will start to treat you like their bestest girl frinz. Be warned, if you don't like listening to the details of all their date frustrations, don't answer the fucking phone.

[Hyperion]

Oh, and fortunately for me, my wife only lets me keep the bestest girl frinz that she likes. The others ran away for fear of having their eyeballs clawed from their heads.

[Mad Scientist]

That sounds like a fate worse than hell. Why would anyone WANT to listen to that stream of "Then Joey said... then I was like... then he goes... Then Kirsty was like..." I think I'd rather listen to Tony and Shrike.

[Hyperion]

To be honest, women are actually better than most men for someone to just talk to if you are bored. If any one of them were ever nearly as annoying as Tony or ButtHead, I just wouldn't answer the phone next time, or ever.

I've always had a lot of women friends, even though I don't shy away from picking on them, they are fair game just like any man. They want equal rights? I am totally for that, but they need to get on their big girl pants and not expect special treatment because they learned to cry when they don't get their way.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I've always had lots of women friends and that has been my experience, as well. Oh, and anyone who tells you that having lots of women friends is a ticket to virginity is straight up lying to you -- so long as you aren't a complete coward or bore, it's easy to find yourself in a target-rich environment, and you get a hell of a lot better at picking up women outside that context as well.

[Hyperion]

Oh, and anyone who tells you that having lots of women friends is a ticket to virginity

Lol. Well it could be, and it could also be what you hinted at. For me, I always knew I could sleep with half of them if I tried. But again, that's not why I was friends with them, I just find women more interesting to have a conversation with, most of the time. I'll take that back in regards to the more intellectual guys that I talk to, but for the most part, women are just more interesting conversationalist.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I just find women more interesting to have a conversation with, most of the time.

Same here, but I was also a horndog when I was younger (who isn't?) so even though I didn't have an ulterior motive in talking to women it was natural to one thing lead to the next. My wife was a bit neurotic about that when we were first married, though to be fair she had good reason to be; my definition of fidelity was, ah, flexible before she married me.

[Hyperion]

Yeah, same with my wife. She is now good friends with a couple of my 'bestest girlfriends', but it took a while.

[AuH20]

Yeah. I honestly don't get why women do this? Validation that they're attractive to the opposite sex, without the need to actually have sex with a guy is my going theory.

[Root Boy]

One of the good looking ones was looking for bi guys, so not all fit your theory

[Juice]

I know this chick who is obsessed with gay dudes. So she takes me and my gf to a gay club and I look around and there are all sorts of straight women there. What's that all about? I mean, almost half the place was straight women. Yes, they were straight.

[Redmanfms]

I know this chick who is obsessed with gay dudes. So she takes me and my gf to a gay club and I look around and there are all sorts of straight women there. What's that all about? I mean, almost half the place was straight women. Yes, they were straight.

Don't know. I used to frequent the Pantheon in Charleston, SC when I was a baby nuke because of the sheer quantity of College of Charleston pussy that used to be in there on any given night, plus drag shows are just damned fun and entertaining.

I had it explained to me that girls went to the gay clubs so they could have a night out with their friends without guys "bothering them." Which is patent bullshit. I'm not a great-looking dude, nor am I strong on social graces (being an Aspie makes social situations challenging), but I had to be either uninterested in trying or falling down drunk not to end up in some pretty co-ed's dorm room.

My theory has long been that girls do this because they secretly wish to confirm the magnitude of their hotness by "fixing" a gay dude. This theory is buoyed by the fact that one of my friends uses this game to get women, and it works. It certainly doesn't hurt that a lot of gay men put as much time into their appearance as some girls do.

[AuH20]

Guess which innocuous subject produced this racist, feminist fever swamp. Read the link if you're having trouble

And it is the absolute absurdity of racism, the way it defies logic, that made me laugh at these photos. They are absurd in the most real way possible. They are Miley Cyrus tryin to twerk absurd. They are Robin Thicke tryin to approximate Black male swag absurd. They are GOP Obstructionists trying to play like they ain't racists absurd.

Endia Beal hoped, I think, to cultivate a sense of white empathy and cross-cultural understanding, by facilitating opportunities for her white colleagues to experience Black hair.

These days I'm wholly uninterested in facilitating the racial understanding of any white people, other than the ones I'm paid to teach. At the same time, I recognize that there are some Black women who are more generous than I, who still see the value in breaking down racial barriers on an individual level, who recognize that racism works by facilitating white cultural ignorance of Black difference in such a way that Black difference becomes objectionable.

That we still live in a world where making Blackness less objectionable to White people is a part of anti-racist work should make clear how much we are not past or post race.

[GILMORE]

cultivate...empathy ...cross-cultural understanding.... facilitating.... opportunities...to experience Black hair.

I propose that Vocabulary has come to replace Coherent Thought in modern public education.

Discuss.

[PD Scott]

When I was a little boy my father would take me to an old fashioned barber shop. I basically always had a crew cut. The little black girls who would sit behind me in class loved to run their fingers from the miniscule length hairs at the nape of my neck up the back of my head. If only I'd known then how they were exploiting me and my white hair...

[Jordan]

What about opportunities to experience black bush? And I don't mean Obama.

[GILMORE]

"My son plays for western hills football team on friday night we all witnessed bullying firsthand, it is not a pretty sight. Picking up my son from the field house after the game and taking him home was tough, I did not know what to say on the ride home to explain the behavior of the aledo coach for not easing up when the game was in hand. After thinking about my ride home, I thought how tough it must have been for the parents of the aledo football players to explain what happened o their sons on the ride home. During the game the aledo players showed respect to my son and I thank them for their good sportsmanship. I wish the aledo players good luck this season and hope they have a successful school year.I wish their parents don't have to explain this ride home again.""

You know why your son's team scored zero points there, dad? I'll give you a hint.

HE WAS RAISED BY A FUCKING MORON

[Certified Public Asskicker]

During the game the aledo players showed respect to my son and I thank them for their good sportsmanship.

That is the worst bullying ever. Those heartless, fucking bastards.

[Thane of Steelport]

Powerful Ads Use Real Google Searches to Show the Scope of Sexism Worldwide

Here's a simple and powerful campaign idea from UN Women using real suggested search terms from Google's autocomplete feature. Campaign creator Christopher Hunt, head of art for Ogilvy & Mather Dubai, offers this summary: "This campaign uses the world's most popular search engine (Google) to show how gender inequality is a worldwide problem. The adverts show the results of genuine searches, highlighting popular opinions across the world wide web."

A lot of people are reporting that they're getting different results, including me. For "women need to " yields "grow up", "shut up", "be wanted", and "feel safe".

Seeing as Google's results are personalized, it shouldn't be surprising that a lot of people are getting different results.

To their credit, these ads are addressing legit issues in a clever manner. But they're built on a rather tendentious basis.

In other search-suggestion news, I find it funny that even in private browsing mode, Google's second suggest for "why is" is "why is ziva leaving ncis"

[AuH20]

The time has come to stop looking at the Tea Party as a political movement and understand it as a psychological, sociological, and religious phenomenon.

It's true that this phenomenon is the latest iteration of a pattern we've seen before, whether it was the Birchers during the Johnson years or the militia movement under Clinton. Some portion of American conservatives comes to believe that the country has been infected with the most diabolical of viruses, and the normal democratic means are no longer sufficient to confront the evil within our borders. But by now we have to conclude that it's been worse this time, and not only because the Tea Party's forebears never got a fraction of the influence within the GOP that it now has. The threat of modernity that Sullivan points to is, for these people, all too real. The world is leaving them behind. And that cosmopolitan, multiracial man in the White House became the embodiment of everything they fear. There is no telling them to wait for a more opportune moment to strike, or that the battle of the moment is one they cannot win. To lose is to lose everything.

So when does the Tea Party end? In the simplest terms, it ends whenever the next Republican president takes office. When that happens, there will be no more government shutdowns, no more cries of Washington tyranny, no more debt ceiling standoffs, no more Republican obsession with deficits.

[John]

I have said this before, but it is worth saying again. The same people who haven't had a new idea in over a hundred years and who pine for a return to a mythical economy of the 1950s of big labor, big government and big corporations, claim it is their opponents who fear change. If it wasn't so dangerous and sad, it would be funny.

[Warty]

The US could get away with high labor costs in the 50s because we were the only country whose industrial base survived the war. How many of these idiots do you suppose have thought about that fact and its implications?

[John]

And don't forget women didn't work, the borders were closed, and blacks and minorities were totally shut out of large sections of the economy. Gee when you artificially restrict the labor supply, wages increase.

[BakedPenguin]

It's fucking amazing. They are the ONLY ones ever mentioning race, yet it's the only thing they get on about. It's almost like they are totally projecting or something.

I mean, ALL of the scandals are phony, right? Otherwise, how could anyone object to Obama's totally perfect record of not making a mistake, ever?

[John]

They pine for a time when America really was racist. They want to go back to that but they want to replace clasism with racism. Poor whites are the new blacks. They want them shut out and doing the coolie work so gentry liberals can feel secure.

[John]

When that happens, there will be no more government shutdowns, no more cries of Washington tyranny, no more debt ceiling standoffs, no more Republican obsession with deficits.

Just like there were no more complaints about NSA spying and the wars in the Middle East when a Democrat took office. They are always about projection. Where is Jung when you need him?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that cosmopolitan, multiracial man in the White House became the embodiment of everything they fear.

Obama might be one of the most viciously parochial, partisan Presidents in history. In what sense is he cosmopolitan? That he flies all over the world and spends money? Retirees and tourists do that. Barack tried to mount a new foreign adventure and the only country he could get to go along with him was France. Not even Saudi Arabia, who has quietly supported the Syrian rebels/terrorists would commit any forces to the enterprise. Where would Obama fit in that isn't America? He's as lily-white as any other pretentious Ivy League knob who read about poor people and foreigners and "feels their pain."

And multiracial? So the fuck what? A black man fucked a white women and out comes ol' Jugears. I see "multiracial" children and adults all the time. Surprisingly enough, they seem to carry on their business without delivering speeches that waste time and convince no one.

[John]

You would think liberals of all people would understand there is more to race than genes. Obama is in many ways the whitest President ever. He is a total expression of gentry liberal white culture right down to the fact that he is multi-racial. Gentry white liberals hate the fact that they are white and would if they could be multiracial. The only think he lacks is being gay. These people only think he is cosmopolitan because to admit he is not is to admit that they themselves are in fact anything but and "viciously parochial" as you describe them.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

The only think he lacks is being gay.

How great would it be if, in response to terrible ObamaCare numbers, Obama tried salvaging his legacy by coming out as gay?

The fallout from that would be brilliant.

[John]

It would be fucking awesome. A million SOCONS would be screaming "I knew it!!" Feminists' heads would explode as they tried to decide if defending the first black gay president or sympathizing with Michelle's humiliation was the thing to do.

[Bill Dalasio]

I think they mean cosmopolitan in the sense any here use it pejoratively - bobo.

[Irish]

That's hilarious considering that progressivism literally grew out of hyper-protestant evangelicalism.

Today it maintains all of the religious beliefs when applied to the policies, but has simply jettisoned the Jesus talk. This is why modern progressivism makes no sense and is completely internally inconsistent. It was founded on the pillars of control, coercion, and Jesus and without the Jesus part the whole edifice crumbles.

[AuH20]

Damn you other stuff! I had my posts near ready at 1:40 PST. Then I got distracted with this stupid work and life stuff

[Hyperion]

Not sure why more people are not applauding Rands call for an amendment to disallow congressmen to exempt themselves from laws. For me, the most outrageous part of Obamacare, is that though they are not exempted from it, they are getting very large subsidies which no one else at their income level can qualify for. So I think that amendment needs to clarify that they are also NOT eligible for tax payer subsidies for any benefit(besides salary). And IMHO, they should receive only the national medium income in salary.

[Jordan]

They should also be prohibited from participating in the stock market.

[Hyperion]

They should also be prohibited from participating in the stock market.

Let's just disallow cronyism, period. And let's make it a felony offense, which would disallow ever serving in a public office again. Then, we are getting somewhere.

[Pro Libertate]

It's absurd that there are insider trading laws that don't apply to people who have, in a sense, greater knowledge about nonpublic information than actual insiders. Not to mention that bribery through inside information can be a very real thing.

[Greg83]

Don't they have to put their assets in a blind trust or is that just the president?

[AuH20]

Because he's Rand Paul, and he's icky and Republican and stuff. He doesn't even have the decency to oppose civil liberties and warmonger like a good Republican, which would reveal how truly deep down evil he really is!

[Eduard van Haalen]

Well, there's the guy who told me that Rand was a Republican, and therefore a warmonger.

[Bill Dalasio]

I think it's just a matter of elevated expectations. We're getting used to Randall being one of the token non-douches in D.C.

[Anonymous Coward]

Federal judge suddenly green-lights lawsuit that could stop Obamacare in its tracks

A federal judge on Tuesday refused to dismiss a case that could fatally cripple the Obamacare health insurance law.

The Affordable Care Act forbids the federal government from enforcing the law in any state that opted out of setting up its own health care exchange, according to a group of small businesses whose lawsuit got a key hearing Monday in federal court.
The Obama administration, according to their lawsuit, has ignored that language in the law, enforcing all of its provisions even in states where the federal government is operating the insurance marketplaces on the error-plagued Healthcare.gov website.

Thirty-six states chose not to set up their exchanges, a move that effectively froze Washington, D.C. out of the authority to pay subsidies and other pot-sweeteners to convince citizens in those states to buy medical insurance.
But the IRS overstepped its authority by paying subsidies in those states anyway, say the businesses and their lawyers.

[John]

I don't see how they have a leg to stand on. The law says they can only pay in states where there are federal exchanges, they can only do that. You would have to rule that provision unconstitutional. Some hack might do that. But no honest judge will.

[Brett L]

Not to worry, John Roberts will save Obamacare again.

[Stormy Dragon]

Even though I agree with the business owner's legal argument, I don't see how they're directly being harmed by the government's failure to obey the law, so I don't see how they argue standing to bring the lawsuit to begin with.

[Hyperion]

that could fatally cripple the Obamacare health insurance law.

It's already fatally crippled, and it can't get up.

[AuH20]

The new Guiness ad with the guys playing wheel chair basketball for their disabled buddy may be one of the best ads I've ever seen:

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

It's like Brian's Song for beer!

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Young people in Japan have given up on sex

Japan's under-40s appear to be losing interest in conventional relationships. Millions aren't even dating, and increasing numbers can't be bothered with sex. For their government, "celibacy syndrome" is part of a looming national catastrophe. Japan already has one of the world's lowest birth rates. Its population of 126 million, which has been shrinking for the past decade, is projected to plunge a further one-third by 2060. Aoyama believes the country is experiencing "a flight from human intimacy" ? and it's partly the government's fault.
[...]
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.

No wonder the suicide rate is so high.

[John]

What the hell is going on over there? Really. Birth rates are one thing. But stop having sex?

[AuH20]

Jezebel has some thoughts, with some hilarious historical unawareness

So what if Japan and, eventually, all the industrialized countries around the world are doomed to stop fucking? Deciding to have children or not have children, marry or not marry, fuck or not fuck should be personal decisions, not obligations to the state (I mean, unless you're a fascist, in which case, 1932 called, and it wants its fuzzy Mussolini hat back (it's vintage)).

It's no government/demagogue/insidious bio-engineering corporation's business to preserve certain kinds of humans, because people aren't butterflies to be collected, curated, and bred so posterity has something familiar to look at. "Declining" or "decadent" civilizations are the exclusive preoccupation of panicked moralists terrified that lion-tailed macaques might be better Earth-stewards than humans. Besides, people will never just stop having sex because once we swing really far in the no-sex direction real sex will be retro and cool, like listening to vinyl or something.

[Thane of Steelport]

It's no government/demagogue/insidious bio-engineering corporation's business to preserve certain kinds of humans, because people aren't butterflies to be collected, curated, and bred so posterity has something familiar to look at. "Declining" or "decadent" civilizations are the exclusive preoccupation of panicked moralists terrified that lion-tailed macaques might be better Earth-stewards than humans.

Well, I can actually agree with that.

[Eduard van Haalen]

"1932 called"

Yeah, and it wants its Margaret Sanger back. From her 1932 "peace" plan describing the agenda of a proposed Population Conference:

"f) to give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization.

"g) to apportion farm lands and homesteads for these segregated persons where they would be taught to work under competent instructors for the period of their entire lives."

[Eduard van Haalen]

http://www.issues4life.org/pdf.....sanger.pdf

[The Immaculate Trouser]

No matter how much banality I predict from that particular corner of the internet, no one does stupid quite like Jezebel.

[PapayaSF]

"Declining" or "decadent" civilizations are the exclusive preoccupation of panicked moralists

Well, and those knowledgable about economics who point out that you can't support your favorite Social Security and other Ponzi-like pension and welfare schemes with a declining population.

[Thane of Steelport]

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.

It's a shame those numbers aren't reversed. I could have a field day.

[Mad Scientist]

I find that more than a little suspect. There didn't get to be 126 million Japanese without plenty of interest in sex. It's a biological imperative, and that's not going to be bred out in a single generation. It's much more likely that a bunch of horny Japanese are just not interested in saying they're interested.

[Thane of Steelport]

I have read some comments on this elsewhere and you're not the only one to be suspicious.

[AuH20]

I mean, it is the nation of host/hostess clubs and dating simulators. I think its possible that the real thing doesn't live up to the fantasy version.

[C. Anacreon]

I'm surprised no comments yet about the size of Japanese men's penises and what part that might play in the women's lack of interest.....

[Hyperion]

Don't worry. The Japanese will not disappoint and if they do, their Korean cousins shall surely fill in for them, when they finally release the first FemBot 3000 fully programmable sex companion.

Yeah, if you don't think this is going to happen, you have the brain cell count of a feminist posting on Jezebel.

[Pro Libertate]

It's robots. They have perfected the sexbot and have decided to keep them a secret.

[Brian D]

Haven't they seen the video about that?

[Bill Dalasio]

And that event will mark the end of feminism. What male the hell is going to be in the least bit interested in listening to their BS when FemBot is their competition?

[Hyperion]

Isso, amigo, isso, exatamente.

[Bill Dalasio]

Let me stipulate, this isn't anti-woman. It's anti-feminist. Individualist women would generally beat FemBot 3000. Their attracted challenge is...fun. Someone who fundamentally hates me morally, though, isn't going to really do a whole lot for little billy.

[Pro Libertate]

Wasn't there a Neil Diamond song about this?

Turn on your sexbot
In the middle of a young boy's dream.
Don't wake me up too soon,
Gonna take a ride across the room,
Her and me.

[Bill Dalasio]

So, you're suggesting I turn on my hardlight?

[Tejicano]

Preface this with the fact that I have been in Japan for most of the past 35 years :

In general Japanese are not good at making friends with strangers. They stay within their groups from school, work, or other activities which are often arranged by some established organization. So, while there has been a trend in the past 20 years to some small percentage of "Nampa" artists (Japanized PUA) most Japanese just don't get outside their group.

Another broad generalization ? Japanese women usually put out when they figured the guy would be interested in marriage. Sex was somewhat held back as a "deal maker".

So as Japanese women are both 1) marrying later in life and 2) choosing to not marry at all I can see how sex might, on the average, become less frequent.

I've never quite figured young Japanese guys out. I have been in bars (in Tokyo) where there was a girl or small group of girls who were obviously out for a good time and guys simply would not "give it a go" the way I would expect in the US or Mexico. On one way they are too shy but on some other way I can see that they don't want to get involved on any level.

[Juice]

I don't think I could live in Japan for one year much less 35. It seems like such a stifling, anal culture.

[Tejicano]

As a foreigner I don't always have to play - often I'm just a spectator. It has been and continues to be a fun ride since I have more lattitude.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Does Slate have a policy of hiring idiots and losers?

Goldberg's website? Full Screen Mario, where he's re-created, brick by brick, the seminal 8-bit video game Super Mario Bros.
[...]
But Google didn't invent Pac-Man?T?ru Iwatani and his co-designers at Namco did?and Mr. Goldberg, though you've received adulation in the gaming press for Full Screen Mario, starting with the write-up in BoingBoing that made your site famous, take it from the president: You didn't build that.
[...]
I understand if Goldberg felt no pang of guilt when placing Koji Kondo's instantly recognizable theme into Full Screen Mario, or even when rendering the "? 1985 NINTENDO" from Mario's title screen onto his version. After all, he didn't know his exercise would be so successful. "Back in October when I started on it, I didn't care because I didn't think it would be a big project," he told the Post's Lee. But now that it is, "I honestly don't know what to do in this situation."

I do: Shut it down. It's not yours. Giving away the keys to the (mushroom) kingdom doesn't mean you own it.

I like how he resents the kid for getting hits with Mario and then links the site in his article. I've been playing Mario since yesterday, it's a lot of fun.

[John]

Does Slate have a policy of hiring idiots and losers?

Do you really need an answer to that question?

[Warty]

Holy shit, does it feel weird playing Mario on a keyboard.

[Brett L]

Did Bill Young's widow's kick directly to Charlie Crist's balls get posted here?

Charlie: This e-mail is to officially advise you that your presence at my husband's memorial services will be unacceptable. I have watched over the years, as Bill had, your transparent attempts to manipulate the political arena. I don't want my husband's memorial service to be another opportunity for that and I will not tolerate anyone turning this into a platform for political gain. Please honor my families request. Sincerely, Beverly Young Widow of Congressman Bill Young -

[John]

You go girl!!

[BakedPenguin]

YES!

[Pro Libertate]

For the People.

[Brett L]

Well, F the People, anyhow.

[Pro Libertate]

Ah, I see you know Mr. Morgan.

[Brett L]

Our favorite liberaltarian quotes Peggy Noonan, who voted for Obama at least once, giving the Tea Party advice to "be less gullible". Cosmotarians unite!

[John]

Because every Tea Partier is a ditto head or some old person ready to be taken in by a Social Security scam. I have stopped being angry at him. He really has no idea what an elitist douche he is. He lives in such a bubble it would never occur to him that Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh are perhaps not representative of the Tea Party or that the people who listen to either do so for entertainment and take such with a grain of salt. I guess since he is a journalist, it never occurs to him most people really don't take to heart much of what media figures have to say.

[Pro Libertate]

So many bogeymen, so little time.

[John]

And I think we may have hit peak irony with Noonan, a two time Obama voter,calling anyone gullible.

[Pro Libertate]

Look, you have to have faith in Obama to see all of his good acts. Those without faith can't even perceive him.

[Brett L]

I don't know if he doesn't understand that Peggy Noonan is exactly the sort of Republican that made Boehner Speaker, and that Democrat-lite is no longer acceptable or if he's just trolling for pageviews. It could be that his annual review is coming up and he's trying to get his numbers up. I mean, I doubt it, but maybe. Either that or PDS is virulent and he caught it from Andrew Sullivan.

[Pro Libertate]

If nothing else comes of the election next year, I hope there's a nice purge by voters of these Republicans Who Really Love the Democrats. They serve no good purpose that I can see. Plenty of bad purposes, yes.

[Bill Dalasio]

"...it would never occur to him that Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh are perhaps not representative of the Tea Party or that the people who listen to either do so for entertainment and take such with a grain of salt."

Well, speaking personally, I take either about as seriously as I take Conor Friedersdorf.

[Coeus]

Will women ever have the freedom to be ugly?

But make no mistake: This is a form of progress. This is one aspect of what it means to have autonomy. And yes, the cost of the risk of noncompliance is still potentially very high: it limits earnings, opportunities, and the number of partners to choose from, and as always, more women with power gives us all more options.

I love how they think that that's exclusive to women.

[Bill Dalasio]

Freedom from what? Judgement? That's not freedom. Jizzabel ignores one basic reality. Many women don't earn their way. Period. More often than not, women get by on the fact they're pretty or they get by on the feminist guilt trip.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

ipad or kindle?

go

[Brett L]

I'm an ipad guy, but the new Kindle looks pretty, too. I guess for me I'm totally on the iOS ecosystem.

[Pro Libertate]

Unlike Brett, I am not in the cult, either. I think the iPhone is quite inferior to several of the Android alternatives, for instance.

[Pro Libertate]

I have both, though to be fair, I have the original Kindle Fire, not the latest version. My iPad is an iPad 2.

That said, between the two, I prefer the iPad overall, mostly because it has a much better battery. There are some advantages to each, though none as important as the battery life. One thing I like about the Kindle is that it works better as a delivery system for my Amazon content (like Instant Video) and plays Flash.

I imagine the distinction now is less than it was in these earlier generation models. Incidentally, I'm perfectly fine with the iPad 2 and don't yearn for the newer versions or pine for the fjords.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

I'm going to check out the ipad air.

[Pro Libertate]

Is that the thin one? I find the iPad manageable enough for my purposes (even with an Otter Box), but if you're someone who will want a lighter version, by all means procure one.

I think what you need really depends on what you'll use it for. In my house, it's used for web browsing, games, and video. That's almost 100% of the use. And we really only use it around the house and sometimes on vacation, so wifi is fine.

[Coeus]

Nexus 7

[PapayaSF]

I take it yours is not one of the many with various issues.

[Coeus]

Nope. Not a one. Didn't get the screen lift or the crappy sound on the first one either.

[PapayaSF]

If all you want is an ebook reader: Kindle. If you want something closer to a full-functioning computer, with lots of apps: iPad.

[Juice]

I shit you not, the Surface is superior to both of them.

[Coeus]

The surface is a desktop replacement. Too expensive to use as primarily as an e-reader. Of course, so is the Ipad.

[Brett L]

I've heard this from several people. That the Surface RT is the best thing they've ever used as far as true tablet computing. I just... maybe one more generation. Just to be sure.

[Thane of Steelport]

Nexus 7 (2013). I haven't had any issues with it either (though you may want to buy it from a place with a pretty good return policy just-in-case).

If you must pick between the iPad and Kindle, choose the new version of the latter if someone figures out how to get the Play Store on it (which is likely).

Of course I am quite biased on the matter.

[PapayaSF]

Just posted today: iPad Mini 2 vs Nexus 7 vs Kindle Fire HDX

[B.P.]

Ugh....

http://blogs.denverpost.com/he.....-topic-bar

[Tonio]

Play the damn game as hard as you can. Sometimes you just suck.

The most valuable lesson which athletics can teach.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I am really excited to get my son into sports (assuming he wants to play of course) and while I would be interested in coaching, I dread the thought at the same time because of the parents I will have to deal with.

[TeamBarstool]

Years ago, I played in a major Blind Draw dart tournament in Houston. My 1st round draw was ranked something like 7th in the world. It was the most incredible ass whooping I ever took in a dart match. I watched in awe as he destroyed me. I enjoyed every minute of it.

[gaijin]

^agree with all this and similar experience. Coaching your kid is a blast. As he gets into middle school you may wish someone else was coaching him 🙂

[Certified Public Asskicker]

My dad coached me growing up. It was great spending time with him and of course, he gave me a lot of playing time.

Hopefully my son will remember it in the same way.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

I am not a parent and won't be for some years (hopefully), but this thought has crossed my mind: what if my kid sucks? There was nothing worse growing up playing sports when a dad would play his kid despite his kid's clear lack of ability.

I don't know what I would do in that situation. Maybe I could choose not to coach in the first place, but that, too, is a crappy situation to be in.

[PBR Streetgang]

My son is not athletic, possibly due to ASD, and I chose not to coach. In retrospect, this was a mistake, so I would say even if your kid isn't good at whatever sport, coach him/her anyway, but minimize the charity playing time.

[hotsy totsy]

Playing the damn game as hard as you can is how you learn to NOT suck.

[Don Mynack]

Do what a friend of mine did - only draft kids with hot moms. Worked like a charm.