A.M. Links: Drone Strike Against Pakistan Taliban Leader Killed Peace Process Says Interior Minister, European Agencies Cooperated on Mass Surveillance, Toronto Mayor Wants Cops to Release Alleged Crack Video

screen cap via the Toronto Star

• Pakistan's interior minister says the killing of the leader of the Pakistani Taliban has effectively ended the attempt at a peace process in the country. Meanwhile, according to a new book on the Obama Administration, President Obama bragged to aides that he was "really good at killing people".
• The intelligence services of France, Germany, Spain and Sweden have reportedly been working together with the United Kingdom's GCHQ on developing methods to conduct mass surveillance of Internet and telephone communications. GCHQ and the NSA have been criticized for those practices in part by some of the political leaders in the European countries whose intelligence services they have been cooperating with.
• The White House and top lawmakers in Congress continue to reject calls for clemency for Edward Snowden, whose disclosures have revealed the breadth of the NSA's mass surveillance programs.
• John Kerry went to Egypt to tell Egyptians that democracy brings stability, which brings jobs, as part of his call for the violence in the country to stop. Meanwhile, the former president, Mohammed Morsi, claimed in front of the court where he is on trial that the case against him was illegitimate as he remained the country's legitimate president.
• The White House denies Barack Obama considered dumping Joe Biden as his running mate for the 2012 election.
• Rep. Mike Michaud, who is running for governor of Maine in 2014, has come out as gay.
• Paul Ciancia has been charged with the murder of a TSA agent in last week's shooting at the Los Angeles International Airport.
• An attorney for the mayor of Toronto has called on the city's police department to release a video alleged to show Mayor Bob Ford smoking crack. His attorney says it shows no such thing.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

The White House and top lawmakers in Congress continue to reject calls for clemency for Edward Snowden...

They're too busy drafting up their own blanket pardon papers, should the unlikely need arise from a future Department of Justice.

[William of Purple]

Morning Joe on MSNBC today "Canadians always have to one up us...we had Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, they have Rob Ford.

[Ted S.]

Ahem. The US had Marion Berry.

[Rich]

"Re-Elect Marion Barry -- He Got Drugs Off The Streets!"

[Fist of Etiquette]

"Hoser set me up!"

[expat]

+2 Barry x Bob & Doug

[Medical Physics Guy]

Barry x (Bob & Doug)

[Ted S.]

"Hoser set me up, eh?"

FIFY.

[Bee Tagger]

The White House denies Barack Obama considered dumping Joe Biden as his running mate for the 2012 election.

In fact, he just learned that was an option when watching CNN the other day.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I mean, if the alternative is Joe Biden, this is going to make you look a whole lot better.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Based on the inverse relationship of what that clown says to how things really are, it's a miracle Biden is even still alive, let alone VP.

[DJF]

Instead they just locked Biden up in the White House basement.

[Slammer]

If you like your VP you can keep him.

[Rich]

Only if he meets the administration's high standards.

[wareagle]

if Biden meets the standards, can they really be described as "high?"

[Swiss Servator, Burn a B??gg]

Choom!

[CE]

I don't know. Check with the mayor of Toronto.

[waffles]

I always though Biden was there for assassination insurance.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Kind of a "operation human shield" thing?

[CE]

It's worked so far. Gore, Quayle, Cheney, Biden... the goal seems to be to pick a running mate who is just marginally qualified to perform the official duties of the Vice President (breaking tie votes, cutting ribbons), far below what is expected of an actual President, and scary enough to the other side's base that not even the lone wackos will pull the trigger.

[Lord Humungus]

Troll Alert

Noun 1. Coventry - the state of being banished or ostracized (excluded from society by general consent)Coventry - the state of being banished or ostracized (excluded from society by general consent); "the association should get rid of its elderly members trolls --not by euthanasia, of course, but by Coventry"

Please join me. Pay no attention to the trolls. Do not respond. They are now non-entities.

[Swiss Servator, Burn a B??gg]

Agreed. I'll try.

[waffles]

Is it me or John Kerry a terrible Secretary of State?

He's either bombastically calling for military response or pleading to end the violence but nowhere is he actually being listened to or being effective.

[DJF]

Screw a couple of bolts into his neck, put a scars on his face and then they will listen, nobody ignores Frankenstein's monster.

[Chinny Chin Chin]

Well, he DID do away with Syria's chemical weapons program with a single sarcastic quip.

[CE]

Compared to who? Hillary? Condoleeza?

[Restoras]

But Great Ruler of the Wastes, they are so cute with their illogical, moronic stupidity and their mindless derp. Can't we feed them sometimes? Just to amuse ourselves?

[Lord Humungus]

this is a free society - well it was before the registration - so have at it.

[db]

Some of us don't think ignoring trolls is a new thing at all.

[CE]

What if we're actually trolls ourselves?

[Fist of Etiquette]

...Mohammed Morsi, claimed in front of the court where he is on trial that the case against him was illegitimate as he remained the country's legitimate president.

Yes, we here in the states have found out presidents can't be brought to court for anything.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

You Also Can't Keep Your Doctor
...My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31.

My choice is to get coverage through the government health exchange and lose access to my cancer doctors, or pay much more for insurance outside the exchange (the quotes average 40% to 50% more) for the privilege of starting over with an unfamiliar insurance company and impaired benefits. ...

...Since March 2007 United Healthcare has paid $1.2 million to help keep me alive, and it has never once questioned any treatment or procedure recommended by my medical team. The company pays a fair price to the doctors and hospitals, on time, and is responsive to the emergency treatment requirements of late-stage cancer. Its caring people in the claims office have been readily available to talk to me and my providers.

But in January, United Healthcare sent me a letter announcing that they were pulling out of the individual California market. The company suggested I look to Covered California starting in October....

[Longtorso, Johnny]

...Before the Affordable Care Act, health-insurance policies could not be sold across state lines; now policies sold on the Affordable Care Act exchanges may not be offered across county lines.

What happened to the president's promise, "You can keep your health plan"? Or to the promise that "You can keep your doctor"? Thanks to the law, I have been forced to give up a world-class health plan. The exchange would force me to give up a world-class physician....

[Auric Demonocles]

Duh, this guy didn't like his plan.

[VG Zaytsev]

He's obviously a moron that doesn't realize his cancelled plan was crappy.

[Medical Physics Guy]

Or he's one of them "middle class" types. Everyone's benefitting except those pesky middle class folks. Why can't they shut up. /sarc

[CatoTheElder]

Three more years of Obama, and there won't be a middle class to worry about.

Hope'n'Change? means that we will all be equal with a worthy elite to guide us Forward?. The function of the progressive elite is to see that we are all equally poor and equally oppressed.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

First case of rationing courtesy of the Democrat party of the United States?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Death Panel?

[Elspeth Flashman]

I remember before this piece of crap legislation was passed, the "but doctors would become indentured servants to the government" argument was dismissed as so much right-wing claptrap. But it doesn't sound too far fetched now.

[Enough About Palin]

A doctor in the WSJ wrote, "Nancy Pelosi said they had to pass it to see what's in it. That's also the definition of a stool sample."

[Ted S.]

...Since March 2007 United Healthcare has paid $1.2 million to help keep me alive,

Somehow I doubt this. That's the sum of the bills, but the insurance company is getting a discout rate is my guess.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Fucking evil capitalist insurance company.

[Brett L]

Well sure, but even if they actually paid $240k without a quibble, the point stands.

[R C Dean]

Over 6 years, for serious cancer, I would say that's their actual expense. Not unusual for a cancer case to run well north of $200K in a year.

[DontShootMe]

Silly man, you had a "junk policy." You should thank your lucky stars that you now have the privilege for paying for a quality policy. Think of all the uses you will have for free birth controls and paid maternity care.

[R C Dean]

I don't understand why United didn't cancel his policy and save their millions as soon as they found out he had cancer.

I mean, isn't that the way it worked before OCare passed (two years after his diagnosis)? That's what I kept hearing during and after OCare passed. I haz a confuse.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Is The Tea Party Really All About Alger Hiss?
...But Professor Sunstein does have a point. The Hiss case was not a cause of the Tea Party, or even of the anti-intellectual tradition in American politics that Richard Hofstader analyzed in the early 1960s. It was, however, a prominent manifestation of the class snobbery and intolerance that so often shapes elite liberal responses to political events and that so frequently fills so many Americans with loathing and disgust.

For a generation after Alger Hiss was convicted on two counts of perjury, American liberals went on to defend him as a plumed knight and a martyr. They slimed his accusers as knuckle dragging know-nothings and McCarthyite enemies of freedom. They never forgave Richard Nixon for helping Whittaker Chambers. As the evidence against Hiss mounted, they fought a long rear-guard defense. ...

...After decades of vicious invective and bile-spewing, liberals find the whole Hiss subject dull and don't want to think about the case anymore?but they just hate it when other people don't appreciate their selfless dedication to the public good....

[Ted S.]

Didn't the Venona cable pretty much reveal that Whittaker Chambers was right?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Chambers wasn't "right", he was just in line with mere facts.

[CatoTheElder]

There's no sugarcoating it: Alger Hiss did communicate with the Soviets.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I only have three years of experience in University to make the following comment but it was pretty obvious during that time frame that the most intolerant, vicious and aggressive debaters generally tended to be progressives in class. The vitriol and rolling of the eyes was rampant. Meanwhile, the rest of the class was silenced for fear of being targeted. It's, ironically (given Hofstader's position), in University I began to distrust progressives. They just weren't the sort of folk I shared any values with.

And they could be assholes too. They couldn't understand why a person not in their flock would get higher grades than they did. I know because I was on the receiving end of that a couple of times.

Clowns.

[John]

The Progressives have spent the last 80 years acting like fanatical assholes causally libeling anyone who disgreed with them as crazy, stupid or evil. Now Cass Sunstein just can't understand why the Tea Party has the nerve to say bad things about them.

Sunstein like some kind of museum exhibit for someone who has a high IQ but has let his arrogance make him effectively stupid by depriving him of the ability to understand the other side. If you think everyone who disagrees with you does so because they are crazy or stupid, you are likely to have pretty sloppy and stupid views no matter how smart you are.

[Restoras]

Don't you think that this is also a function of not having to operate in the base, mean world of actually working for a living as opposed to the "working" in the Ivory Tower?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

What I find interesting progressives act the exact same way in Canada as they do in the USA and even in Europe.

[John]

Some of it. But that is not a total excuse. Sunstein thinks of himself as a smart person and more importantly as an intellectually curious person. Being curious means making an effort to look outside your bubble and consider other points of view. A big part of intellectual maturity is going from thinking "that is wrong and here is why" to "that is wrong but if you have this perspective or these assumptions, it starts to make sense why someone thinks that way" or more importantly "I disagree with the position but it has some valid criticisms of my own that I need to remember". Someone like Sunstein never matured intellectually beyond the level of an earnest college freshman.

[VG Zaytsev]

Progressives are religious zealots and zealots, definitionally, never question the object of their idolatry.

[John]

Sure they are. And that makes them intellectually sloppy and prone to believe foolish things. But the hallmark of a zealot is that they don't know they are a zealot. I am sure Sunstein wakes up every day with the absolute certainty that he is an example of the highest intellectual integrity and is an absolutely reasonable person.

[wareagle]

they have never had to venture from the bubble or echo chamber, take your pick of terms, so their belief systems has never had to face challenge or be justified. When everyone around you believes exactly as you do, anyone outside the hive has to be treated as evil or stupid.

[Pompey]

The idea that so-called intellectuals should be beyond reproach or criticism is incredibly fucking dangerous. It's not about anti-intellectualism per se , it's about the flavour.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...President Obama bragged to aides that he was "really good at killing people".

And on the 8th day God created predator and reaper drones...

[Certified Public Asskicker]

If only there was audio and/or video of him saying this.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Still wouldn't be quite as outrage-inducing as "I am the decider" of course.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

What if the full quote is, "I am really good at killing people, I am the best decider ever!"

[Root Boy]

And he's also probably a better doctor than your docter

[Rich]

Is this close enough?

"I want to put the fear of God in all of you."

Bonus facepalmer:

"Nothing makes me more nervous than when my supporters start feeling too confident."

[Certified Public Asskicker]

He misspoke, he was referring to himself, not God.

[Brett L]

Much like David Koresh wanted to put a little bit of God in all those women in Waco?

[Root Boy]

Obama is a stone-cold badass. Killed Bin Laden as well, with his bare hands.

Bill Maher should be happy since he always wanted Obama to act like a street thug, right?

[Lord Humungus]

Planet of the Apes? It's an OCTOPUS UPRISING we need to worry about: Intelligent eight-tentacled animals could evolve to become even smarter

The researchers dropped a bait cage into the waters of False Bay, Cape Town, as part of a survey of creatures living off the coast of South Africa.

What they didn't count on was the invertebrate sneaking along and not only stealing the food, but also taking the entire cage itself.

I, for one, welcome our new Octopi overlords.

[Auric Demonocles]

Suckers are pretty screwed without access to fire.

[hamilton]

"We'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys."

[Swiss Servator, Burn a B??gg]

That is fun stuff.

How does one salute an octolord?

[SugarFree]

Once with each of your eight penises.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

I smell a Warty story on the way....

[Elspeth Flashman]

Isn't that another way to experience a Warty story? by smell?

[SugarFree]

My dream is to eventually be able to assault all your senses simultaneously.

Warty Hugeman's smell is best described as electrocuted bacon smoldering on a vast field of fresh cotton sheets.

[Swiss Servator, Burn a B??gg]

I...you just...it...

*walks away muttering "smell-o-vision"*

[Elspeth Flashman]

I'm sure Estee Lauder could come up with a marketing plan for that unique essence.

[SugarFree]

Cold steel. Blood. Industrial disinfectant. Latex.

Abortion: a new scent by Warty Hugeman, Parfumeur.

[Bee Tagger]

They weren't smart enough to poison the octopus sushi I ate the other day.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

No animal we eat will ever be a threat. We'll just tell the WalMart welfare crowd the invading army is free food. The resulting riot will fix the problem with acceptable losses.

[Rich]

It's so easy to join!

[mr simple]

Fry: Far out! So there's an infinite number of parallel universes?

Farnsworth: No, just the two.

Fry: Oh, well, I'm sure that's enough.

[Ted S.]

Oh no! The octopodes are going to take over!

How are they going to do on dry land?

[Bee Tagger]

First law: no more dry land.

[CE]

AGW is actually an octupi-led master plan to flood the worthless arid regions of the globe.

[alittlesense]

No no no no no...the OctoMOM is gonna take over.

[Chinny Chin Chin]

It's already started! (SFW video clip.)

[Fist of Etiquette]

Nostradamus invented hentai, you know. True story.

[SugarFree]

"The Dream Of the Fisherman's Wife" (1814)

[Fatty Bolger]

Squidward's Best Day Ever.

[KMA Too]

Ehh....you'd think he could pick someone without so much muff fuzz.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hey, I've heard of this.

http://www.octopusproject.eu/about.html

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Media skip disclosure of paid Obamacare shill
MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, who had a closed-door meeting with President Obama in Boston last week to discuss Obamacare, has resurfaced to defend the Affordable Care Act; but neither he nor the media that have given him a platform disclosed the $400,000 he was paid by the Department of Health & Human Services in 2009.

Gruber, who was on CNN, MSNBC, FOX News and was the subject of an article in the New Yorker this past week, has emerged as the go-to-voice for reporters looking for an academic view on Obamacare in recent years.

None of these news organizations disclosed Gruber's ties to HHS.

Gruber's HHS contract was not incidental to once paid for "technical assistance in evaluating options for national healthcare reform," according to a copy of his contract from the General Services Administration. The government paid Gruber a cool $297,600 in that contract, and he made $95,000 from another HHS contract that same year....

[Numeromancer]

?Ce?i n'est pas un scandale.?

/Pale Butthead

[Lord Humungus]

Obama 'Matrix' -- a world of deniability

It's obvious that Obama regards himself as "the one" ? a presidential "Neo", a pure leader harassed by the emotionalism, incompetence and malevolence of others. In Obama's Matrix, the Republicans constitute "Agent Smith" -- arrogant malcontents driven by an inexorable anger. The American people are the cocooned humans -- requiring "liberation" from their ideological slumber. Valerie Jarrett is "the Oracle" -- the fountain of hard and necessary understanding. Everyone else? They're "the machine" -- the system that constricts Obama's positive intention.

By plugging himself into this Matrix of certainties, Obama has found a self-sustaining moral cause -- the belief that he's responsible for all that's politically favorable and nothing that's politically toxic. Festooned by adoring supporters and fortified behind unquestioning staff, Obama has always presumed a kind of Moses-esque self-awareness. These are the springs from which the presidential Matrix flows.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

I'm thinking more Ted than Neo.

[Protagoronus]

+1 non, non, non heinous

[Longtorso, Johnny]

If by you mean that the first one had the fanboys in a lather, but the sequel was an unholy mess, you may have a point.

[mr simple]

Bogus Journey is a better movie than Excellent Adventure. There, I said it.

[VG Zaytsev]

It's cute the way that progressives try to cast themselves as rebels and revolutionaries instead of the cogs in the machine that they are.

[sarcasmic]

Woman claims police officer tasered her because she refused to show him her breasts

Officer chased woman through work before shooting her with the gun, a Federal Court heard
Ashlea Bennett suing City of Haskell Arkansas and officer Brandon Carter
She says it was not the first time officer had acted inappropriately to her

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

She believes the City of Haskell's police department ignored her previous complaints about Carter.

Well, duh.

The woman is now seeking compensation and punitive damages over the incident which include civil rights violations, assault, failure to train and supervise and negligent supervision.

Good luck with that.

[Swiss Servator, Burn a B??gg]

She could end up punishing....the taxpayers, when they fund the settlement or damages. The cops? Nah.

[Kid Xenocles]

Taxpayers shoulda sprung for better training.

[Troy muy grande boner]

AGain, good, I hope she causes their local taxes to double. Maybe when people have some skin in the game, they'll start paying attention to what these fucking pigs do.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Expert: At least 129 million will 'not be able to keep' health care plan if Obamacare fully implemented
If Obamacare is fully implemented, 68 percent of Americans with private health insurance will not be able to keep their plan, according to health care economist Christopher Conover.

Conover is a research scholar in the Center for Health Policy & Inequalities Research at Duke University and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. In an interview with The Daily Caller, he laid out what he estimates the consequences of Obamacare's implementation will ultimately be.

"Bottom line: of the 189 million Americans with private health insurance coverage, I estimate that if Obamacare is fully implemented, at least 129 million (68 percent) will not be able to keep their previous health care plan either because they already have lost or will lose that coverage by the end of 2014," he said in an email. "But of these, 'only' the 18 to 50 million will literally lose coverage, i.e., have their plans entirely taken away. This includes 9.2-15.4 million in the non-group market and 9-35 million in the employer-based market. The rest will retain their old plans but have to pay higher rates for Obamacare-mandated bells and whistles."...

[Brett L]

Well, shit. Who knew that 70% of us hated our insurance.

[Swiss Servator, Burn a B??gg]

And you think I should have known better - working for an insurance company and all. Huh.

[Brett L]

Was talking to another friend who has had individual insurance for about a decade and got cancelled. Here we were, young, healthy men in our late 20s to early 30s, planning to have essentially zero healthcare costs unless we got hit by a bus or caught antibiotic resistant syphilis. How dare we try to balance our cost against our risk by taking out low upfront cost plans that only covered us from bankruptable illness. How silly of us not to have maternity care and mammograms written on our policy.

[#]

"Well, shit. Who knew that 70% of us hated our insurance."

We just all work for Home Depot?

[GILMORE]

"Conover is a research scholar in the Center for Health Policy & Inequalities Research at Duke University and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a RACIST""

[Root Boy]

TM

[Bee Tagger]

The White House and top lawmakers in Congress continue to reject calls for clemency for Edward Snowden

I'm thinking it's because they now know those calls will be recorded.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The intelligence services of France, Germany, Spain and Sweden have reportedly been working together with the United Kingdom's GCHQ on developing methods to conduct mass surveillance of Internet and telephone communications.

So the outrage was a little outrageous then.

[Bee Tagger]

I'm just worried about all of the duplicate audio files being stored on our world's servers.

[Lord Humungus]

Chain Saw Massacre Averted At Nevada County Bar When Man's Weapon Stalls

Not surprisingly, nobody in the bar was eager to step up to stop the suspect wielding his weapon.

But before Burton could do any damage to his victim, witnesses say his chain saw stalled, and cut out.

That's when patrons jumped in and grabbed the chain saw. Burton took off, but he left his credit card at the bar.

[Steve G]

Nobody needs a 30 inch bar saw

[Brett L]

What about men who put on women's clothing and hang around in bars?

[Steve G]

an argument over inappropriately touching another man's chest

Is there ever an appropriate time?

[William of Purple]

111 things Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has done besides smoking crack in a video

[William of Purple]

113

[Derpetologist]

Random topic: Abiogenic petroleum

The conventional wisdom is that fossil fuels like natural gas were formed from living things. But the main component of natural gas, methane, is abundant on Jupiter. That methane most likely did not come from living things. I realize the conditions are very different, but if methane could form on Jupiter without life, couldn't it have happened on Earth? Couldn't coal and oil have formed without life as well?

[John]

There is some thought that the conventional wisdom may be wrong. A few years ago some very old pumped out oil fields off of the Louisiana coast suddenly started producing again. No one really knows why. But it raises the possibility that oil is produced by some means other than the way we thought.

[BardMetal]

The thought of renewable oil will cause the enviromentalists a fear induced heart attack.

[Lord Humungus]

the blood of mother Gaia!

[Protagoronus]

right, and fossils are just fingerpaintings from god

[John]

http://www.rense.com/general63/refil.htm

No shithead. This is actually happening. And geologists have no clue why. The theory that oil is created by living matter can't account for it. It is therefore a problem. It is not some myth people tell themselves. It is a data point that current thinking cannot account for.

Can you try a little better than assuming any fact that calls into question any part of current scientific thinking is some evil SOCON plot? I know a lot of Libertarians are passionate single issue culture warriors. But amazingly enough, not everything goes back to the culture war.

[Protagoronus]

Uh, actually the article you cited treats living matter as the only possible explanation for the extra oil they did not predict. Read more, write less.

[John]

Sure they do. But they can't explain it, which means the theory is incomplete, which calls it into question.

Think more, write less man. Just let the culture war go. There is a whole big world out there of interesting things and thoughts to be had.

[Protagoronus]

There is no plausible explaination for the oil or gas coming from something other than living matter. This has nothing to do with a culture war. If you had some way to explain how hydrocarbons are getting created, then concentrated underground. Any plausible theory. Any at all. That would be a really interesting discussion. Otherwise you are just insinuating this disproves our knowledge of geology, when there is no logical thread to say that is true. Bacterial generation of new methane is pretty interesting. Throwing up your arms and saying it has to be abiogenesis because you did not expect it is stupid.

[John]

There is no plausible explaination for the oil or gas coming from something other than living matter.

But the theory can't account for what is going on. Becuase we haven't thought of another plausible explanation doesn't mean one doesn't exist. It may mean that we know a hell of a lot less about how the deep earth actually works than we think. Indeed, most geologists would admit that. Man has never even drilled a hole past the crust of the earth. We have no direct observation of what goes on down there.

There very well may be other processes that create oil that we don't know about. To think that we have anything approaching a clear picture of such process and thus because we don't have another plausible explanation that is some kind of authoritative statement of anything beyond our ignorance is stupid.

It is very interesting that this is happening. And raises the possibility that oil might not be as simple of a product as we think or the amount of it as certain as we think.

[VG Zaytsev]

No, he's presenting a data point that doesn't completely fit the established theory.

Your screeching that the science is settled is as retarded in this context as it is when the AGW hysterics do it.

[Fluffy]

There is an outsider theory that holds that hydrocarbons are volatiles outgassing from the mantle that reach geologic structures that cap them in place until they can accumulate.

I think it's bunk. But people thought plate tectonics and ice age glaciations were bunk once, too.

[robc]

And relativity.

There is a reason that Einstein won his nobel for the photoelectric effect.

Not that that didnt deserve one too.

[R C Dean]

I seem to recall that there are fossil imprints found in (some?) coal. So there's that.

But I'm not sure why it is impossible for hydrocarbons to form without a biological feed stock on earth, when hydrocarbons exist in some abundance in space.

[db]

There is another theory that carbonate minerals generated by CO2 absorption in the oceans, precipitated to the ocean floor, and subsumed eventually back into the earth's crust by plate movements can then be reduced (in the chemical sense) to carbon and hydrocarbons with an attendant release of oxygen via high temperatures and pressures in the lower crust and mantle. This would require a reducing agent stronger than carbon, but as the makeup and chemistry of the mantle is so unknown, it is not beyond the realm of possibility.

The ossified opinions of the "science is settled" crowd aside, there is much to be learned. Indeed, that's what science is supposed to be about--a systematic search for the physical truths of the universe. Too many nowadays treat it like a faith structure.

[CE]

There is no plausible explaination for the oil or gas coming from something other than living matter.

So Saturn's moon Titan, now covered with seas of liquid methane and ethane, was once covered in verdant green forests?

[Brett L]

There is credible discussion by petroleum engineers about whether or not the standard model of biomass broken down outside the presence of oxygen and then turned to hydrocarbons of differing lengths and shapes by the local temperature and pressure adequately explains all of the hydrocarbon formations we have. I think a quick run through Google Scholar will put you on that track. My own perusal convinced me that it was worth studying, but I'm not sold. Or rather, I think that the biomass is so obviously true that I'm not sure abiogenic sources are substantial.

[Zeb]

How does the methane form on Jupiter? Is there some known mechanism by which methane can be converted to the very long hydrocarbons found in coal and petroleum?

I'm not sure of the answers, but those seem like important questions to ask. I think that the methane on other planets exists largely because there is lots of molecular hydrogen there, and that really isn't the case anywhere on earth. But I'm not a chemist and I might be missing something.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

It is more to do with carbon than "life". Life forms are carbon based here on earth so plant/animal remains provide high carbon sources for coal/oil to form over time.

[alittlesense]

It seems to me the more importnat question is, why are there clouds of frozen methane surrounding Uranus?

[Tonio]

Methane can and does form by processes other than decay of buried permian swamps. However, this is not Jupiter. We are fairly certain that the overwhelming majority of gas, oil and coal on earth was formed from decay of once-living matter. Permian era fossils are commonly found in coal seams.

And dude, if you go all creationist on us you're totally earned your name.

[Brett L]

As John points out, one can point out that there are holes at the edges of the theory without doubting the essential rightness of the theory. Einstein was no creationist for attempting to explain why some observations didn't quite fit Newtonian calculations.

[BardMetal]

Exactly. There is big difference between saying "evolution is bullshit" and saying "Hey this Piltdown man fossil doesn't look quite right"

[John]

I don't understand how the issue of how oil was created has anything to do with creationism. If there is some other geological way that oil is produced, that doesn't say anything about evolution or much of anything other than how things work on the inside of the earth.

It is amazing how people here a buzzword like "fossil" and immediately start fighting the culture war and talking about creationism. It is almost Palovian. Two different people on this thread started screaming about creationism. I can't imagine going through life thinking like that. Am I the crazy one for looking at this issue as kind of a cool possibility and thinking of it completely in terms of geology and not religion or culture or creation or evolution or anything else?

[BardMetal]

I think some people treat science like a belief, and not as a tool.

In other words they have a bunch of scientific beliefs but they don't know, or are not open-minded enough to approach a problem using the scientific method.

Basically it's like a religion to some people.

[Brett L]

Well, yes. Feynman, as usual, captured it best and most completely with his "cargo cult science" description. I was lucky to have a professor who happened to be graduating from CalTech in 1974 and took those remarks to heart. And then beat them into all of his students. Science's job is to describe the universe as it is. Some parts of that, where the data are hard to come by, noisy, or needing more than the few short centuries of observation we have, are incomplete and messy. Its okay that we don't know the whole causation chain. Even better to admit it.

And no science is "settled". If dropped objects near the surface of the Earth start accelerating at significantly different rates than 9.8 m/s^2, We either have to figure out why the mass of the Earth changed significantly, or toss of Newtonian gravitation. I don't expect that to happen, but as one devoted to science, that is what I would do.

[cavalier973]

Other kinds of errors are more characteristic of poor science. When
I was at Cornell, I often talked to the people in the psychology
department. One of the students told me she wanted to do an
experiment that went something like this--it had been found by
others that under certain circumstances, X, rats did something, A.
She was curious as to whether, if she changed the circumstances to
Y, they would still do A. So her proposal was to do the experiment
under circumstances Y and see if they still did A.

I explained to her that it was necessary first to repeat in her
laboratory the experiment of the other person--to do it under
condition X to see if she could also get result A, and then change
to Y and see if A changed. Then she would know that the real
difference was the thing she thought she had under control.

She was very delighted with this new idea, and went to her
professor. And his reply was, no, you cannot do that, because the
experiment has already been done and you would be wasting time.
This was in about 1947 or so, and it seems to have been the general
policy then to not try to repeat psychological experiments, but
only to change the conditions and see what happens.

[db]

Look up Thomas Gold. Former (deceased) Professor of Physics at Cornell.

[Lord Humungus]

Ghanaian women with big buttocks will live longer - Research

However, research in England by scientists at the University of Oxford has uncovered evidence that women with big butts are not only the most intelligent, but also the most resistant to chronic illnesses.

The study examined the fat accumulated in different parts of a woman's body, and found that women with fat buttocks are less likely to get diabetes, since they are more likely to produce hormones to metabolize sugar.

It's further stated that women with big booties tend to have lower levels of cholesterol and fewer heart problems, according to the study.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

+1 Sir Mix a Lot

[Hillary's Clitdong]

Dial 1-900-Mix-Alot for further information.

[Ted S.]

Unfortunately, there's no link to this alleged "University of Oxford" research.

[Swiss Servator, Burn a B??gg]

So you do not like big butts, and you DO deny?

[Zeb]

Fat bottomed girls make the rockin' world go round.

[sarcasmic]

Deputy who shot and killed boy, 13, carrying toy gun had 'pulled gun on a driver at traffic stop two months earlier'

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

Warning. The video starts automatically. I hate it when they do that.

Anyway, the jumpy cop pulled his gun on a guy for failure to use his blinker. Dude was just itching to kill someone.

[BardMetal]

Anyone notice the picture of the protester with a "support the dream act" sign?

What the hell does a cop murdering a 13-year old have to do with the dream act or immigration? It's like thread trolling in real life.

[sarcasmic]

Maybe because the kid's last name was Lopez?

[BardMetal]

So any event involving a person with a Spanish sounding name automatically involves immigration?

[Swiss Servator, Burn a B??gg]

To that protestor it does.

[Ted S.]

Warning. The video starts automatically. I hate it when they do that.

I posted a link to a Youtube Budd Dwyer video somewhere else last night, and apparently it started automatically for other posters. When one of them complained, I suggested that next time I'd post Two Girls, One Cup. 🙂

[Aloysious]

You heartless monster.

[Lord Humungus]

Drunk man 'saved by beer' after being stranded at sea

Coastguards were called into action to rescue two men that had stripped off and leapt into the sea late one night.

One man was brought in with a life ring but the other had lost consciousness as he floated out with the tide.

Paramedics were led to believe that the amount of beer the man had drunk "probably kept him alive".

[Snark Plissken]

The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

It's the reason I get up every afternoon.

[db]

Maybe...someday
Saved by Beer-o

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Obama's health-care promise that people can keep their insurance comes back to haunt him
...Rather than straightforwardly acknowledging that the regulations will help drive coal plants out of business ? and arguing that the damage to the industry will be outweighed by environmental and public health benefits ? administration officials have insisted that these are achievable standards that will maintain the nation's diverse energy mix.

Obama's reassuring sales pitch on health care represented an effort to avoid the political pitfalls that others encountered when trying to overhaul the system in the past.

In 1994, for instance, the Clinton administration's effort to insure the 15 percent of the population lacking coverage foundered because of the fear that the proposal generated in the 85 percent who had insurance.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Obama "was sort of overlearning the lessons of Hillary Clinton's time on health care. What destroyed Hillary Clinton's plan was that people became convinced they were going to lose their health care," said Elaine Kamarck, who was a White House aide at the time and now heads the Brookings Institution's Center for Effective Public Management.

"The one lesson that was learned about messaging was that you had to guarantee people that nothing will change," she said....

[Hillary's Clitdong]

Thus securing the coveted title of "Less Honest Than Bill Clinton".

[Bam!]

"The one lesson that was learned about messaging was that you had to guarantee people that nothing will change," she said....

So, lie to them.

[Lord Humungus]

Why can't Obama run the government as smoothly as his campaign?

A year after his reelection triumph, President Obama is facing an awkward question from friends and foes alike: Why can't he run the government as well as he ran his campaign?

What with the IRS targeting of tea party groups; the poor security at the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya; the eavesdropping on close allies; and the botched rollout of the landmark healthcare law, Obama increasingly seems to be battling top-level management failures as much as policy or political problems.

On each of these controversies, Obama has claimed ignorance before the fact and outrage afterward, leaving even some Democrats to see him as asleep at the wheel.

[Bee Tagger]

leaving even some Democrats to see him as asleep at the wheel.

Is this same car that was in the ditch?

[Snark Plissken]

It's car metaphors all the way down.

[CatoTheElder]

off the fucking cliff is more like it.

[Fist of Etiquette]

During the campaign everyone one is blindly working toward a single goal: keep a Democrat in power. But once that's accomplished, some start to slip into their agenda (even journalists!).

[John]

More than that, there are no competing goals in a campaign. Everything is judged by the single standard of "does it help the candidate". Sure that can be hard because the answer to that is not always clear. But, no matter what, there is always one goal and one standard.

Government in contrast has a thousand different goals. Not only do you have to judge how an action achieves a goal, you have to decide which goals are more important than others. That is a completely different problem.

Worse still campaigns are dictatorships. Rules are made and changed and orders effectively taken. Government is not. You can't just write a rule, you have to have the authority from Congress and even then there is a whole regulatory process for doing that. Government is run by process and consensus not by dictate like campaigns are.

When you think about it, it is no surprise Obama has relied on executive orders for so much. It is not all that he is a tyrant. It is more that he has no experience in government or the management of a large organization other than a campaign and thus EOs are all he knows how to do.

[SugarFree]

What with the IRS targeting of tea party groups; the poor security at the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya; the eavesdropping on close allies; and the botched rollout of the landmark healthcare law

FAKE SKANDULLS!

[CatoTheElder]

"Why can't Obama run the government as smoothly as his campaign?"

Because the skill set he acquired as a community organizer was directly applicable to his role as a campaigner, but is useless to the role of an executive.

A community organizer has to be talented in agitating ostensibly aggrieved factions to shakedown a privileged group. A person who is highly skilled at rabblerousing, fairly intelligent, and utterly dishonest is a natural as a political political campaigner. However, this combination of characteristics isn't much good when it comes time to lead others in accomplishing something productive.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

A year after his reelection triumph, President Obama is facing an awkward question from friends and foes alike: Why can't he run the government as well as he ran his campaign?

Gee, it's like there's a difference between promising people what's going to happen and actually accomplishing it.

On each of these controversies, Obama has claimed ignorance before the fact and outrage afterward, leaving even some Democrats to see him as asleep at the wheel.

And the funny thing is, he very well could have been ignorant of all these things before he found out about them in the press. The executive branch has gotten so huge that the President basically has to put the major policy decisions in the hands of the cabinet and hope that they don't at the very least make things worse. If your lieutenants are shit, they're going to make you look like an ass when they screw up.

It's been this way since at least Reagan--the idea of having plausible deniability works out fine as long as the mistakes aren't too big. But Obama's situation is unique in that his entire presidency has been one long string of "I didn't know anything about that until the reporters told me." He's a great example of both the government being far too large for one man to keep under control, as well as thoroughly incurious leadership, enabled by political courtiers.

[Auric Demonocles]

Rep. Mike Michaud, who is running for governor of Maine in 2014, has come out as gay.

And what if you were hit by a bus?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

You'd be impregnated by a gay man.

[Auric Demonocles]

Exactly. Now you see why I've won this argument.

[Lord Humungus]

'Allie' the alligator startles officials at O'Hare

Police whisked 2-foot long "Allie'' the alligator into a box after it was spotted it under an escalator at O'Hare Airport Friday morning.

A maintenance worker made the bizarre discovery in the lower level of Terminal 3, Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro said. The unexpected trespasser was later transferred into the care of the Chicago Herpetological Society.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Health Consumers Finding Out They Were Sold a Lemon
...U.S. cost-sharing is actually low, by international standards; just 23 percent of our private health spending comes from out-of-pocket expenditures by the consumers of health care. We like being insulated from costs, and we're rich enough to demand it. Assuming that the Cadillac tax goes into effect (though I'm still sort of skeptical), a whole lot of those in the 80 percent category are going to lose a plan they liked because the government made it too expensive for companies to keep delivering it. Yes, of course, companies already cancel plans quite frequently. But these cancellations are going to happen all at once, because the law demanded it. ...

...In this, read the future of U.S. policy-making. Not just because Obamacare means that we can now join the rest of the "civilized" world in spending most of our political energy quarreling about the health-care system, ...

[Lord Humungus]

Projecting Obamacare's Early Enrollment Numbers

The bottom line is this: If the national exchanges were functioning as well as the best-functioning state exchange -- and encountering the same demand -- we'd probably be on the low end of the administration's acceptable enrollment range. If the middle state were representative of the country as a whole, we'd be below it, but not by an overwhelming amount. That's not much, but it's probably the best news supporters of the law have received in a while.

[R C Dean]

So, the best "news" for OCare is that it might barely work in an alternate universe?

[Lord Humungus]

Just one of those days:

Egg salad sandwich, cat and dog caused monkey attack

Ricky Strong said the ordeal started when he gave one of the monkeys an egg salad sandwich and began guiding it back to the shed.

Strong said he about to the leave the shed when a cat showed up. When the monkey spotted the cat, the animal picked up a toolbox and tossed it at the feline.

Strong said that commotion prompted a dog to come out onto a deck and start barking. That's when all four monkeys jumped on Strong.

[SugarFree]

Sounds like a word problem in the SAT.

[Swiss Servator, Burn a B??gg]

Simian Attack Test?

[Brett L]

If four monkeys attack a man while a dog is barking, how close does the toolbox come to the cat?

[CE]

SPOILER ALERT: The planet of the apes was Earth. This is how it started.

[Lord Humungus]

President was told healthcare website would work, official says

President Obama was assured that the healthcare insurance website was ready to launch on Oct. 1, even as private contractors and some administration officials knew the site had failed in early testing, a senior White House advisor said Sunday.

Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer said the president repeatedly asked about the healthcare.gov website, a key piece of his 2010 healthcare overhaul legislation, and was told it would meet his expectations.

Along with the president, Pfeiffer hyped the website in the weeks before the troubled launch, promising it would "be a consumer experience unmatched by anything in government, but also in the private sector."

[Jordan]

President NotMyFault lives in a cocoon? *Shocked face*

[Rich]

For all you Jackie Mason fans.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The president tried to heal the website by putting his hand on the monitor, but to no avail. House Republicans are suspected of disconnecting the monitor.

[Brett L]

I don't know if anyone else read the WaPo timeline Sunday, but this is incredible to me. According to the WaPo, he had a meeting every week where his closing statement was something to the effect of, "all of this is well and good, but it doesn't matter if the website doesn't work". So nobody was telling the boss at the weekly meeting that his number one priority was in critical danger? I have worked for some extremely dysfunctional companies, but nowhere where everybody lied to the boss for six months straight.

[John]

I have seen it in the military a few times. And at some point it starts to say a lot more about the boss than it does about the lying employees. Some people are just dishonest and will willingly lie to their boss. But most people won't unless the boss has created an atmosphere where they feel like they don't have any choice.

So Obama either hired an entire staff of compulsively dishonest people or he created such a toxic management environment that everyone, honest and dishonest alike, felt compelled to lie. Neither of those things reflects well on him.

[tarran]

There's a third option...

He was corrupted by the Koch brothers to discredit liberalism.

Remember, back in the early 90's he was too broke to rent a car...

[Brett L]

I guess its possible. I know people tell stories about it. I can see it happening in the military, but everywhere else, I think: "why didn't you just leave?" Of course, I think that every time some idiot gets shot by a spouse who was obviously going to injure or kill them.

[John]

It happens in the military a lot because the people can't quit. In the private sector, such bosses don't last long because their employees just quit.

[flye]

I've seen this in the corporate world. Big boss makes it known he doesn't like bad news, so his organization becomes a filter where unpleasant facts are downplayed or outright ignored the higher up they are presented.

[UCrawford]

While I suspect the more likely story is that Obama is lying about how he ended his meetings (because pretty much everything he says is a blatant lie these days), it's definitely a story that reflects poorly on him as a leader.

He's either surrounded himself with people who tell him what he wants to hear, or he's surrounded himself with people who are terrified to tell him what he doesn't want to hear, or he's surrounded himself with incompetents who have no idea what's going on with his key policies, or he just lies about what they tell him.

Or he's just lying about having meetings at all. That wouldn't shock me either. He's never demonstrated much of a work ethic in his professional life.

[UCrawford]

If a person like that were in charge of any private sector company, the shareholders would all have bailed by now, the company would have gone under, or he'd have been fired.

[CatoTheElder]

The bankers would have quit rolling over the loans and cancelled the line of credit as well.

[John]

Yes. It is certainly plausible if not likely that this is all a complete lie and he knew everything and just didn't have the integrity to put it off until it was fixed.

But true or not, neither explanation reflects well on Obama.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

At this point, I think it's more obvious that actually happened is that the contractors told him it wasn't ready to go, but he'd painted himself into a corner over the Reps' demands to delay Obamacare and decided the short-term fight with them was more important. He likely decided that he and his team could spin any Obamacare-related shortfalls later, and they might even get lucky and the website would work out fine.

But you're right, no matter how it actually went down, it reflects poorly on him as a leader. There's literally no situation here where he and his team come out looking good on this.

[Hillary's Clitdong]

Pfeiffer hyped the website in the weeks before the troubled launch, promising it would "be a consumer experience unmatched by anything in government, but also in the private sector."

Well, he wasn't lying. I don't think the website has even been matched in its sheer level of fuckupiness.

[CatoTheElder]

^ THIS ... squared.

[R C Dean]

President Obama was assured that the healthcare insurance website was ready to launch on Oct. 1,

By who, exactly? Who stepped into the communication loop and broke it? C'mon, man, names or it didn't happen.

[Lord Humungus]

Chris Christie Is About To Win A Landslide, And He Wants Every Republican To Understand Why

But despair is one of the few things that unites today's fractured GOP. Republicans much more conservative than Romney share his basic diagnosis from the 47% speech. It's an open question whether the juxtaposition of Christie's landslide and Cuccinelli's burial will be enough to convince Republicans that broad popularity is possible and worth compromising for.

Christie has been making that case explicitly, telling voters they need to stop expecting so much purity and look for politicians who will make compromises to move the country forward. Speaking to supporters Saturday at Toms River High School South in Ocean County, a Republican stronghold on the Jersey Shore, Christie railed against ideological purity tests:

[waffles]

Against ideological purity usually is a stand in for supporting big government programs. He's basically saying we need to be Democrats to beat Democrats. He might not be wrong in Jersey at least but it still sickens me to think of this chucklehead spearheading the Republican party to grandiose future of statism-lite.

[BardMetal]

Didn't the GOP try beating the Democrats by being Democrats in the last two presidential elections?

Democrat-lite failed miserably, yet the evil uncompromising tea party managed to win big in 2010, and so naturally the GOP concludes that we need more democrat-lite.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Why? Because it's New Jerksey.

[Brett L]

Democrat Lite plays well in Jersey?

[KDN]

Not really. Democrat lite on the heels of incredible Democrat incompetence plays well in NJ. Absent the latter Chris Christie does no better than Ted Cruz, and once Christie is out we will immediately elect the next candidate the Dem machine spits out and be awed by their incompetence corruption. I doubt thiscycle will ever end.

[John]

If I were a Republican in New Jersey and just wanted to win, I would want to hear what Tubby has to say. But I fail to see why anyone outside of the Northeast can learn from this other than that the Northeast is really liberal and loves big spending, gun hating, fat, obnoxious governors.

[CE]

Are you going to Iowa's fair? Christie, Paul, Santorum and Cruz?

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Christie has been making that case explicitly, telling voters they need to stop expecting so much purity and look for politicians who will make compromises to move the country forward.

What if you don't want the country to move in the direction these compromises always lead, fuckwit?

[John]

Few people outside of the Northeast and California feel that way. And more importantly, there is only one level of voting. I can't half vote for someone. Maybe all of these people voting for Christie is an endorsement of his compromises. Or maybe some or a good number of those the voters don't like the compromises at all and just vote for Christie because the alternative is so awful.

Fatty is such an egotistical ass it never occurs to him that he might just be the lesser of two evils.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Well, he's talking to people outside of just the Northeast and California, right?

[Not an Economist]

Well, if you only take one step off the cliff instead of two you will do fine.

[Protagoronus]

Crackdown on moving money in Europe:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.....216133.cms

[Steve G]

"Ciancia strode into Terminal 3, pulled a Smith & Wesson .223-caliber assault rifle from his duffel bag and fired repeatedly at point-blank range at a TSA officer. The officer was checking IDs and boarding passes at the base of an escalator leading to the main screening area."

The solution is obvious, expand the screening area. Duh!

[Rich]

It's screening areas all the way down!

[Ted S.]

Ciancia must be a far-right homophobe.

[thom]

Seriously though, the solution is obvious: get rid of the screening areas. The screening areas are an obvious target, because they are crowded, relatively easy to access, and filled with government employees. Passive screening would work much better - invest in technology that can passively screen people while they're in the airport without any involvement from the travelers themselves.

[CE]

I volunteer to test out the x-ray vision goggles.

[Rich]

Swisscom is building a "Swiss Cloud" that could loosen the grip of U.S. technology giants and attract foreign companies looking for a way to shield sensitive data from the prying eyes of foreign intelligence services.

"But if legal requirements are there and we are asked by the judge to obtain or deliver certain information then we would obviously have to comply with it."

Oh, well.

[Lord Humungus]

Warning Signs Flash as Stock Market Soars to Records
Some Analysts See a Replay of the Go-Go Market of the Late 1990s

Third-quarter earnings have not been spectacular. The U.S. isn't expected to grow at anything close to breakneck speed next year. And there are few industries experiencing huge profit expansions.

Despite all that, a number of high-profile?mostly technology?stocks are soaring. The heady advances are making shareholders of these companies big money, but they're also raising serious questions among some analysts about whether the unusual trading is a troublesome sign for the overall market.

[BakedPenguin]

P/E ratios are starting to creep up. The current P/E for the Russell 2000 is 87.4.

[Lord Humungus]

A picture of my unfinished tube amplifier - still waiting on the power transformer to finish the wiring
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pGXn.....00/amp.jpg

[sarcasmic]

Where's the gain? The treble, mid, and bass? What are those cables for? Where's the quarter inch input?

Oh. Not that kind of tube amplifier.

What's it for?

[Jordan]

It amplifies the internets, duh.

[Lord Humungus]

music reproduction of the geekiest sort.

[sarcasmic]

This is what my tube amp looks like.
http://www.scottymoore.net/images/peaveybk.jpg

[GILMORE]

THIS IS WHAT MY TUBE AMP LOOK LIKE

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi.....Slayer.jpg

[Zeb]

Audiophile weirdos with $3000 turntables.

[Lord Humungus]

Audiophiles luring youngsters into boring conversations

14-year-old Tom Logan said: "I was looking at an old Fleetwood Mac record, when this bald man kind of crept up beside me.

"He asked me what kind of equipment I had at home, then before I could reply started describing his turntable which was 'belt drive' with a 'low noise bearing'.

"I was trying to make my excuses but he launched into this long ramble about his 'listening room' and 'tonearm setup'.

"It was so tedious that I began to feel woozy. Also I remember his breath smelled of stale cake and he had short grey stubble all over his head.

[John]

Audiophiles are worse than comic book people. If you don't read comic books, the comic book geeks leave you alone. But pretty much everyone has some kind of stereo equipment and thus are at risk of having the experience this kid did.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Is this like a penis pump?

[Lord Humungus]

yes, but no friction burns.

[Enough About Palin]

President Obama bragged to aides that he was "really good at killing people".

I've heard that karma's a bitch.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Kendall Jenner is 18 and those porn offers are rolling in.

[mr simple]

Because Ew

They're always so professional at HuffPo.

[The Late P Brooks]

President Obama was assured that the healthcare insurance website was ready to launch on Oct. 1, even as private contractors and some administration officials knew the site had failed in early testing, a senior White House advisor said Sunday.

"OF COURSE it will work, you sissy. Just count to three and open the unmbrella. Now, get up there on the roof and jump."

[The Late P Brooks]

telling voters they need to stop expecting so much purity and look for politicians who will make compromises to move the country forward.

"Now drop them pants, and LEAN FORWARD."

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

It's forward all the way down.

[Rich]

"OK, we'll compromise: Just the tip."

[John]

Justin Hadley logged on to HealthCare.gov to evaluate his insurance options after his health plan was canceled. What he discovered was an apparent security flaw that disclosed eligibility letters addressed to individuals from another state.

"I was in complete shock," said Hadley, who contacted Heritage after becoming alarmed at the breach of privacy.

Hadley, a North Carolina father, buys his insurance on the individual market. His insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, directed him to HealthCare.gov in a cancellation letter he received in September.

After multiple attempts to access the problem-plagued website, Hadley finally made it past the registration page Thursday. That's when he was greeted with downloadable letters about eligibility ? for two people in South Carolina. (Screenshot below.)

Wow

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/.....ium=social

[Ted S.]

Wait until they charge him with violating the CFAA.

[Brett L]

Surely this is the end, right? Giving out other people's health information?

[Rich]

"We never claimed it was a *perfect* system!"

[db]

"The end" as in a goal?

[VG Zaytsev]

The A-Teams have been making progress.

[Lord Humungus]

Yesterday was Charles Bronson's birthday
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bronson

Bronson was the first member of his family to graduate from high school.[2] As a young child, Bronson did not initially know how to speak English and only learned the language while in his teens.[3] When Bronson was 10 years old, his father died. Young Charles went to work in the coal mines, first in the mining office and then in the mine itself.[2] He earned one dollar for each ton of coal that he mined. He worked in the mine until he entered military service during World War II.[2] His family was so poor that, at one time, he reportedly had to wear his sister's dress to school because of his lack of clothing.[12][13]

In 1943, Bronson enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces and served as an aerial gunner in the 760th Flexible Gunnery Training Squadron, and in 1945 as a Boeing B-29 Superfortress crewman with the 39th Bombardment Group based on Guam. He was awarded a Purple Heart for wounds received during his service.

[John]

Great American. And had a babe of a wife who tragically died young of cancer.

[John]

Think about the part he played in The Dirty Dozen or The Great Escape. He wasn't really acting. Those parts were pretty much who he was.

[Troy muy grande boner]

My favorite is Once Upon a Time in the West.

Frank: Morton once told me I could never be like him. Now I understand why. Wouldn't have bothered him, knowing you were around somewhere alive.
Harmonica: So, you found out you're not a businessman after all.
Frank: Just a man.
Harmonica: An ancient race. Other Mortons will be along, and they'll kill it off.
Frank: The future don't matter to us. Nothing matters now - not the land, not the money, not the woman. I came here to see you. 'Cause I know that now, you'll tell me what you're after.
Harmonica: ...Only at the point of dyin'.
Frank: I know.

[VG Zaytsev]

Welch just made reference to Rand plagiarizing wikipedia in speeches on MSNBC.

Fucking Cosmo bitch is so happy to be invited to the rodeo that he willing smears Rand.

[John]

How do you "plagiarizer" a crowd sourced document?

[VG Zaytsev]

That's been the left's attempt to smear Rand for the last week or so. Stated with MadCow - then bloggers picked it up. Stepho pushed the narrative on This Week yesterday, HuffPO and other sites had it as front page new yesterday.

And Welch just piled on.

The whole thing is fucking idiotic.

[BakedPenguin]

If something is true, then it's true, and it's better to know about something than to ignore it. However, if the book had the vast majority of citations correct, then overlooking some should be irrelevant.

And yes, it is idiotic for Madcow and the left to try to make this big news, but their agenda is obvious to anyone with a brain.

[Zeb]

That's easy, you take the text and present it as your own words. It would be plagiarism if a student copied a Wikipedia article and turned it in as a term paper.

The real question is so fucking what? It was a cheap line in a speech. At worst it means he has a lazy speech writer.

[BakedPenguin]

It was in his book, and the studies were in the end notes.

The left loves the "fake scandal" bullshit. An ambassador dies, a couple government agencies violating the rights of Americans, and giving guns to violent gangs are fake scandals, but using end notes instead of page notes is totally cause for impeachment.

[John]

Exactly. Lets not talk about what Paul is saying about the size of government or how he is shaming the left on the NSA and drones. Lets talk about whether he plagiarized wikipedia.

Shame on Welch for playing that game.

[SugarFree]

Venezuelan President Claims Ghost of Hugo Chavez Appeared in Wall

Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, claims that his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, has appeared on the wall of an underground construction site.

"My hair stands on end just telling you about it," Maduro told Venezuelans on Wednesday, while holding up the photo. "Who is that face? That gaze is the gaze of the fatherland that is everywhere around us, including in inexplicable phenomena."

Construction workers were digging a new subway line in Caracas in the middle of the night when they came across the eerie apparition. Since his death in March, Chavez has taken on a mystical role within the mythology of the country's ruling socialist party. Maduro claims he has seen the spirit of his predecessor multiple times, including in the shape of a bird.

[Rhywun]

I heard Chavez shot 100 holes-in-one in a row.

[Sevo]

No, that was the Yung-Un.

[Swiss Servator, Burn a B??gg]

"Maduro claims he has seen the spirit of his predecessor multiple times, including in the shape of a bird."

Vulture.

[The Late P Brooks]

Phony scandal is PHONY!

The media have covered these complaints with gusto, as if the cancelations are a genuine crisis and indication of a failure of Obama's health care law. The ACA was designed specifically to prevent insurance companies from peddling lousy insurance plans and to force these firms to replace these subpar products with affordable plans providing better and effective coverage.

Mother (Jones) knows best.

Lie back, and think of being Just Like England.

[John]

The ACA was designed specifically to prevent insurance companies from peddling lousy insurance plans and to force these firms to replace these subpar products with affordable plans providing better and effective coverage.

John's affordable automobile act is specifically designed to prevent automakers from peddling lousy new cars like the Honda Civic and other cheap, small and subpar products with affordable new cars with things like large, powerful V8 engines, heated seats, high end stereos, 7 speed automatic transmissions, spacious rear seating and 20 inch chrome wheels and high end tires providing more effective automobile transport. And most importantly, everyone who owns a subpar car will be by law forced to get it off the road and buy one of my mandated cars.

How could the world not love such a plan?

[CatoTheElder]

John's affordable automobile act should also mandate 4-wheel drive, child seats, and the towing package even for drivers who would never need such things.

And, of course, subsidies.

[John]

Of course. Look Cato, I know you are happy with that 2005 Accord you own. But that is just a bad car. You are just too dumb to know it. You are going to be so much happier after you by the Mercedes S Class my plan is offering. Don't worry I will give you subsidies so you won't pay for the entire cost.

Sure your Honda is paid off and you now have a car payment you probably can't afford even with the subsidy. But you are getting this great car. You should be thanking me you ungrateful tea bagger.

[Rhywun]

I don't own or want a car. Penaltax me.

[The Late P Brooks]

I heard Chavez shot 100 holes-in-one in a row.

The hole with the windmill can be pretty tricky.

[John]

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/20.....-equality/

Black pastors come out against gay marriage and threaten to primary any politician that supports it.

[OldMexican]

They're all racist christfags!

Oh, wait...

[John]

People always talk about the mythical "socially liberal but fiscally conservative voter" and can never actually point to any examples. In contrast the entire black community is a living breathing example of the "socially conservative and fiscally liberal voter". People just don't realize it because they vote so uniformly Democrat. At some point the disagreements blacks have with white liberals over social issues are going to bubble over. When it does it is going to be delicious watching white liberals whose entire political world view is shaped by the conviction that only liberals are not racist get into it with the black community.

[Sevo]

..."At some point the disagreements blacks have with white liberals over social issues are going to bubble over."...

John, believe me, when they do, they will both find a way to blame it on the rethuglicans or those horrible insurance companies selling sub-par policies.

[John]

LOL Blaming insurance companies for gay marriage and such is going to be a good trick. Having spent years in the military, I have known and been friends with a lot of black people from pretty much every sort of back ground from growing up in the worst imaginable inner city ghetto to middle class to growing up on a farm and everything in between. And black people are for most part culturally pretty conservative, really more culturally conservative as a whole than white people. I always laugh when I hear some white liberal who has lived in upper class white neighborhoods, schools and jobs their entire life assuming the only socially conservative people in this country are white trash red necks handling snakes somewhere in Arkansas.

[R C Dean]

John, that's because the "liberal" half of _________ liberal/__________ conservative always trumps the "conservative" half.

Socially liberal voters always support higher spending, even when they also claim to be fiscally conservative. Fiscally liberal voters will choose high spending/socially liberal candidates every time.

My working assumption is that anybody who claims to be _________ liberal/___________ conservative is, by their revealed preferences, a liberal/statist.

[John]

That is just it. You can only vote once and your vote goes 100% to one candidate. So what is the most important issue? The answer to that is what defines who you are as a voter. Everything else just says what you would like not what you are actually willing to live with.

If you think of yourself as say "fiscally conservative", but when it comes down to it, will vote for a fiscally liberal candidate because their opponent is on the other side from you in the culture war, then your "fiscal conservatism" doesn't mean anything beyond making you feel good.

[Enough About Palin]

Forrest Gump was on TV this weekend. I have never seen it and it won six Academy Awards, so I thought why not watch it? Could watch for more than about 20 minutes. Yech!

[John]

I don't get the Forrest Gump hate. It is an entertaining movie that makes an interesting point about wisdom versus cleverness. It shouldn't have won best picture. But I don' see how you could find it unwatchable. It is not like its Driving Miss Daisy or something.

[Brett L]

I would give half my intelligence to sleep with the early 90s Robin Wright, too.

[John]

I always liked her too. But I would want my knowledge that she eventually would marry Sean Penn to be a part of the half of my intelligence I was giving up.

[Brett L]

Agreed. I'd want to be there first.

[some guy]

What's not to like? It's funny and endearing.

[Eduard van Haalen]

"Looks like Obama didn't 'win' the government shutdown after all

"It turns out that nobody stood to gain more from the delay of Obamacare than Barack Obama

"By Jonah Goldberg

"If Mr. Obama were a chess master -- or even a fairly adept checkers novice -- he would have known that when you're not ready to do something incredibly important, it's best to buy time. He could have traded a delay (Three months? Six months?) for some major budget concessions, maybe even lifting the sequester. Perhaps his base wouldn't have liked it, but he could have easily spun the compromise as a necessity given how irrational and "extreme" the GOP was being.

"Publicly he'd say he was paying a ransom to "kidnappers" and "hostage takers." He'd denounce Republicans for delaying precious insurance coverage for sick kids and frail oldsters just to score partisan and ideological points.

"But privately, ah privately, the master strategist would be stroking his proverbial white cat -- or, in reality, his hypoallergenic black dog -- while breathing a sigh of relief that he bought himself some time to fix his woefully mangled health care reform."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/ne.....9775.story

[some guy]

He could have traded a delay (Three months? Six months?) for some major budget concessions, maybe even lifting the sequester

That would require Obama to have been aware that PPACA wasn't ready to go forward. There's plenty of evidence saying he wasn't even competent enough to know the status of his signature program.

[Eduard van Haalen]

"Academics Endorse Euthanasia of People Who are "Weary of Life"

"The authors ? including bioethicists Julian Savulescu and Jukka Varelius ? suggest that euthanasia is ultimately justified by existential suffering ? a despair in life ? and not some kind of physical illness. As existential suffering can come in many forms, be it a 'diagnosable' illness or non-medical despair, it should be permitted for those who, though not ill, have lost hope and have no prospect of regaining meaning in their lives."

http://www.lifenews.com/2013/1.....y-of-life/

[db]

I think there's a concept that already encompasses that-/self ownership and suicide. Why do we need "bioethicists" to ruminate on this?

[db]

To elaborate, I often think that people who are looking to euthanasia to end their suffering (especially non-physical suffering) are either 1. Looking for someone to validate theit feelings and enable their quest for self desteuction or 2. looking for someone to "care" and talk them out of it.

It's one thing to not want to inconvenience your loved ones by leaving a bloody mess for them to clean up (and that is very traumatic and done many times as a big middle finger to the family), and quite another to get someone else to finish you off because you don't have the courage to pull the trigger or overdose yourself.

[Troy muy grande boner]

I have an announcement: the Chiefs are still 9-0.

Sincerly

Someone who only marginally gives a shit about football.

[CE]

Paul Ciancia has been charged with the murder of a TSA agent in last week's shooting at the Los Angeles International Airport.

Not a mere murder charge, as would be filed if he murdered a civilian. He is charged with the murder of a federal officer:

Federal prosecutors filed charges of first-degree murder of a federal officer and committing violence at an international airport. The charges could qualify him for the death penalty.