Unions May Get Obamacare Subsidies, Another Man Anally Probed By Police, Silk Road Back Online: P.M. Links

Credit: davidsonscott15 / Foter.com / CC BY

• It turns out unions might get Obamacare subsidies after all.
• Israeli President Shimon Peres has asked Secretary of State John Kerry not to screw-up Israel-Palestine peace negotiations.
• Two Los Angeles lawmakers want to ease restrictions on street vendors.
• Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has claimed responsibility for the killing of two French journalists in Mali.
• Silk Road is reportedly back online.
• Another man was anally probed by police after a traffic stop.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

It turns out unions might get Obamacare subsidies after all.

We are a nation of men, not laws, after all. And with mid-terms coming up, men need campaign contributions.

[Pro Libertate]

Look for
The Union label
When you are running
For office.

[The Bearded Hobbit]

I swear there was a SNL skit back in the first or second season that did the "Look For the Union Label" parody about pot growers, but I can't seem to come up with anything. I must have been stoned back then.

... Hobbit

[Certified Public Asskicker]

But remember, there was that Huffpo commenter from this morning that said:

Also, people who give money to right wing politicians expect to make money from the donation and usually do, so their money comes back to them. People who donate to left wing parties are not as interested in making a cash return and usually don't, so that money usually just disappears, so that's why the right can usually mobilize more financial resources than the left.

[wareagle]

even if it was HuffPo, what a derptastic comment. It's like this guy has no idea of the bankrolls behind the Sierra Club, Emily's List, the Soros groups, etc.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I'm sure even if he did, something, something, the "right" intentions.

[Pro Libertate]

I wish I had a truth ray that made the truth totally clear to the target and that I could shoot at people like this.

[AlmightyJB]

I think his head would probably explode.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, I can't help it if he can't handle the truth ray.

[GamerFromJump]

Somebody call Daniel Jackson and tell him we need to borrow the Ark of Truth.

[Zeb]

Yep. Nobody from the financial industry or the "green" tech industries or unions or anything gives money to Democrats expecting something in return. It's all single moms and sweet old ladies giving their last $20 to them because it's the right thing to do. What an absurd idea.

[Pro Libertate]

It's the opposite of true. I'd say, if anything, money buys more from the Dems than it does from the GOP, and that's saying a lot, because they're all fucking for sale.

[Zeb]

I agree completely. And it is incredibly obvious, especially in the financial and green tech industries. People just don't want to know what's true. They want a good guy and a bad guy.

[Pro Libertate]

They have that already. The good guys are some of those not in government, and the bad guys are all of those in political or appointed office and their friends. Sure, there are other bad guys, but few are so conveniently grouped together for hating purposes.

[playa manhattan]

See Macauliffe, Terry
Reference: entire career

[GILMORE]

""that's why the right can usually mobilize more financial resources than the left.""

http://www.timesdispatch.com/n.....39902.html

Short of it =

GOP raises ~$2m from the governor's association. Basically, pooled campaign resources.

Dems raise $6m = 75% of it from a private org dedicated to getting government kickbacks to Green Energy.

And the same guy is doing it all over the country

http://washingtonfocus.net/why.....ton-state/

"Steyer said, was that the advanced-energy sector could pack a much bigger punch in state politics if it were better organized politically and more deliberate about pushing the message that green policies can translate into jobs"

i.e. How to sell kickbacks as Good For You!

[GILMORE]

profile of the Left's Crony Billionaire Election-Fixer =

http://freebeacon.com/tom-stey.....aying-off/

[wheelock]

People who donate to left wing parties are not as interested in making a cash return and usually don't, so that money usually just disappears

The money just disappears huh? Just... What?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Another man was anally probed by police after a traffic stop.

Po-po wanna see your pooper.

[Brett L]

"I just needs to check inside ya asshole."

[KDN]

You can't use the actions of one rogue K9 to paint smears on the working class heroes that go to war every day for us.

[AlmightyJB]

Should do a South Park with Mr. Slave moving to New Mexico. Keep looking. Keep looking. I know somethings in there. They eventually find Lemmiwinks.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

It turns out unions might get Obamacare subsidies after all.

Paid in full.

[jesse.in.mb]

Mexican Coke Is Ditching Cane Sugar For High-Fructose Corn Syrup

Executives at Coca-Cola in Latin America decided to make the switch after the Mexican government approved a tax of one peso on every liter of soda sold. To be fair, the tax is in place to help curb obesity in a country where more than 70 percent of people are overweight. But to maintain profits and avoid having to raise the price on a can of soda, Coke execs decided this devastating change was in order.

If we start doing soda taxes will they switch us to diabetic-piss-sweetened Coke?

Update: Coca-Cola released a statement right around the time this post went up clarifying that this tragic change only applies to Coke distributed in Mexico. Our precious stateside Mexican Coke will continue to be sweetened with 100 percent cane sugar. Crisis averted.

Crisis averted indeed.

[Pro Libertate]

I do not understand why Coke doesn't just sell Sugar Coke as a premium brand and be done with it. Not everyone gets the idea about "Mexican Coke."

[playa manhattan]

Mexican Pepsi is better anyhow.

[Pro Libertate]

Please, only serious comments about this important topic.

[playa manhattan]

Here's a serious observation: As a loyal Mountain Dew drinker for the past 18 years, I feel like the Mexican soda market is missing out on people like me...

[Pro Libertate]

True story: Mountain Dew is made with urine.

[Agammamon]

The urine of diabetic Mexicans.

[jesse.in.mb]

The urine of diabetic Mexicans.

That shouldn't be too hard to find.

[a better weapon]

False, Mountain Dew is the serendipitous result of alchemy expirements with gold and unicorn tears of joy.

I don't care much for soda, but Mountain Dew is one of the most delicious drinks on the market. There, I said it and damn proud of it too!

[Matrix]

You disgust me...

[Juice]

I'm a fan of the Throwback Mt. Dew made with orange juice, plus your years supply of sugar and caffeine.

[Rhywun]

I tried that once, it was... weird. In fact every real sugar soda I've tried tastes way too sweet to me.

[Rasilio]

Dude, Mountain Dew Throwback

Sweetened with pure cane sugar and tastes way better than the regular stuff

[Atlas Slugged]

yuck. give me the crab juice.

[pmains]

Is Mexican Pepsi anything like Irish Coffee?

[playa manhattan]

No, it's just the most delicious Mexican soda. American Coke is better than American Pepsi, Mexican Pepsi is better than Mexican Coke.

[Zeb]

It's brown. And has caffeine.

[Bam!]

Creation of premium Coke would diminish the marketability of regular Coke.

[Pro Libertate]

Why? Charge more, just like they do with Mexican Coke. That's the premium part. It's a niche thing, anyway, just like other alternatives, like Diet Coke.

[Bam!]

Diet Coke is distinct from Coke. It is not claiming to be better, just different.

A premium Coke implies that regular Coke is "lesser" or "inferior" -- which it is.

I suppose with the right marketing it could work but it would have to be handled well.

[Pro Libertate]

Just call it Sugar Coke and market it as Coke for old people who miss sugar.

[Bam!]

I prefer the way Mexican Coke is handled. Glass bottle, enamel label. Premium within the Coke brand without diminishing normal Coke.

[jesse.in.mb]

Paint it up like a grenade and we could use it to defend ourselves against SugarFree.

[Juice]

Pepsi already did this with their Throwback line. All Coke has to do is call it Coke Classic or something.

[GILMORE]

"'I suppose with the right marketing it could work but it would have to be handled well.""

I GOT IT!

Call it NEW COKE

[Pro Libertate]

No, no, no. What's interesting is that the change from Sugar Coke to Corn Coke happened before that. I've always wondered whether the New Coke debacle was an intentional misdirection.

[jesse.in.mb]

Didn't we have someone (maybe Tulpa) go ballistic about seasonal Jew Coke made with cane sugar instead of corn sugar?

[PD Scott]

IIRC, he did maintain that it was false advertising since no one bothered to explain to him what the yellow cap (as opposed to the red) meant.

[playa manhattan]

Well, the ingredients are still listed in english, if that makes any difference...

[playa manhattan]

It was a brickbat. They don't have it in CA anymore because the caramel color in Joo Coke required the standard CA cancer warning.

[jesse.in.mb]

That's right, the CA branch of the commentariat was pissed that it wasn't available and Tulpa was angry that it was on the shelves where regular Coke was supposed to be.

There's no accounting for, uh, taste I suppose.

[playa manhattan]

I was sure pissed. I used to get a dozen or so 2 liters every spring...

[jesse.in.mb]

I think I have a few rakes and pitchforks in my garage, if you have some torches (or pitch, rotting wooden deck furniture and rags) we can march on Sac-town and fix this problem.

[playa manhattan]

If you have so many rakes, why don't you try using them on your lawn first?

[jesse.in.mb]

My front lawn is dead, not especially covered in fall detritus. By tradition my roommate is in charge of the front lawn and I'm in charge of the back (which is beautiful) I've been trying to water the front more but it's oddly shaped and I end up having to do it manually

Also STOP JUDGING ME!

[Corning]

Jew Coke made with cane sugar instead of corn sugar

Wait...

Jews can't drink corn sugar?

How the fuck would they even know corn sugar existed when writing the food rules in the bible?

They are god's chosen people. =O

[jesse.in.mb]

Rabbis say it falls in the same category as beans, which are not Kosher in the extra strict version used for holidays.

[SugarFree]

It thought it was considered a grain, and therefore eschewed under the premise that it could be leavened.

[jesse.in.mb]

We get to both be right, but you're closer to the source of being right and I'm a bit downstream.

Kitniyot, (Hebrew: ??????????? ,????????, qit'niyyot) (legumes) is a category of foods that may not be eaten during Passover by Jews following traditional Ashkenazi laws and customs.

The Torah (Exodus 13:3) prohibits Jews from eating chametz during Passover. Chametz is only leaven made from the "five grains": wheat, spelt, barley, shibbolet shu'al (two-rowed barley, according to Maimonides; oats according to Rashi) or rye.

Among Ashkenazi Jews, the custom (Minhag) during Passover is to refrain from not only products of the five grains but also other grains and legumes. Traditions of what is considered kitniyot vary from community to community but generally include maize (North American corn), as well as rice, peas, lentils, and beans. Many also include other legumes, such as peanuts and soy, in this prohibition.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Judaism is a dumb religion, and as a Jew, I can say that without any fear of reprisal. Unless underzog is here.

[SugarFree]

There is one aspect of keeping kosher that I like, namely the prohibition on eating milk and meat together. It was banned because a lamb boiled in milk was a favorite dish of the Babylonians after the deportation of Jews and destruction of the First Temple (Babylonian Captivity.)

Current Jewish kids can't have a cheeseburger because their religion still hates these guys from 2,500 years ago. I really respect that level of commitment to a grudge.

[Apatheist ?_??]

I'll have the milk steak, boiled over hard.

[Eduard van Haalen]

"Jewish kids"

You can't eat kids that have been boiled in their mother's milk.

[AlmightyJB]

Damn. Now I want a lamb boiled in milk.

[SugarFree]

We were both technically right. The best kind of right.

[Corning]

Damn.

I was kind of hoping a "Thou shall not eat corn or processed corn products" was in the bible for like 2000 years before the first Jew even came into contact with it.

[SugarFree]

Meh. Religious restrictions are like the rules to boardgames for me. If you don't like the rules, quit playing instead of continually whining about them. I have as little respect for cafeteria Catholics as Eddie probably does.

(And, yes, I realize I just made the Pope out to be a Dungeon Master.)

[Eduard van Haalen]

Cafeteria Catholics are very nice people. When you get right down to it, most Catholics come into this category, because there's probably some stuff we're ignoring or forgetting or defying.

[playa manhattan]

Chametz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chametz

[Matrix]

It's only during Passover and only those who follow Ashkenazi tradition.

[kinnath]

Pepsi Throwback for the win!

[Zeb]

The flavoring is a bit different too, I think.

I don't know if Coke does it, but all the PepsiCo products have the "throwback" versions with cane sugar.

[Sudden]

I generally prefer Columbian Coke.

[playa manhattan]

HFCS is supposed to help the obesity epidemic?

[Bobarian]

No an extra peso for a coke is supposed to make you eat right and exercise.

HFCS is an 'unintended consequence'.

[MJGreen]

Coca-Cola released a statement right around the time this post went up clarifying that this tragic change only applies to Coke distributed in Mexico. Our precious stateside Mexican Coke will continue to be sweetened with 100 percent cane sugar. Crisis averted.

What an asshole.

[CE]

I don't understand how any can blame Coca-Cola in any way for the obesity "epidemic" of the past 30 years, when Coke has been around for 100 years.

[Pro Libertate]

Maybe they should go back to putting coke in Coke. For anti-obesity purposes.

[Zeb]

That's what they should do. Cocaine is just a better drug than caffeine. And in small doses, I am quite convinced that it is no more harmful.

[SForza]

That would be so fantastic.

[Zeb]

Even if it was a brand new product, I'd blame the people who drink 10 cans a day and don't exercise, not the company.

[PD Scott]

Those people are victims of kkkapitalist marketing! They can't help themselves!

/proggie

[GILMORE]

In added irony = the reason they'd used sugar for so long was "The government subsidized domestic sugar use"

[rts]

Doctors say Venezuela's health care in collapse

Money quote:

Gonzalez says she adored Chavez for his anti-poverty programs, always voted for him and constantly applied for government benefits, though she never received any.

She has a good chance of survival if she gets the right care, Gutierrez said.

But that's not happening.

[Brian D]

Liberals are waging a war on women to prevent them from getting lifesaving surgery!!!

[Red Rocks Rockin]

My glee feels especially German after reading that.

[AlmightyJB]

+1

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Another man was anally probed by police after a traffic stop.

Land of the Free.

[Brett L]

If you have nothing to hide, you'll let someone stick their fingers up your ass.

[jesse.in.mb]

*takes out notepad, adds to list of pickup lines.*

[BuSab Agent]

Jesse, do you really want to go to bed with a guy who falls for that line?

[jesse.in.mb]

That's going to depend very heavily on my BAC and how long its been since I've last gotten laid.

At this moment, no I would not.

[Zeb]

I guess it's a little early yet on the west coast.

[Zeb]

And three enemas and a garden hose and some dude's head.

[Rich]

I'm thinking these are space-alien incidents.

People are *abducted* in conjunction with the probes, right?

[CatoTheElder]

Make me proud to be American,
where at least I know I'm free!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Silk Road is reportedly back online.

Being hosted at Quantico.

[playa manhattan]

Yup. The entire operation was thoroughly compromised.

[playa manhattan]

Here is the criminal complaint against Ulbricht:

http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/.....plaint.pdf

The FBI left out a few "sources and methods".

[Paul.]

Hey legal types... answer me this. If you're the defense attorney, can you not get all of the FBIs methods of how they caught Ulbricht through disclosure rules?

[playa manhattan]

There is a lot of "paralleling" that they aren't going to admit to.
He left his personal email address which contained his full name on a bitcoin forum a few years ago. It was only a matter of time.
They also recently caught him receiving fake IDs at his home address (which they claim were detected through "random screening" by Canadian customs).

They are going to avoid introducing evidence that would have required a warrant (as if there is going to be a trial at all)...

[Tonio]

I believe what the playa is referring to is the practice of developing evidence by illegal methods (regular police) or by secret methods they don't want to reveal (security agencies). Then the dirty evidence is laundered, ie re-created using legal/known methods. The story presented in court is that the agency received a conveniently-timed tip-off and then used legal/known methods to obtain warrants, etc.

[Paul.]

Thanks, Playa and Tonio.

If I were the defense attorney for Ulbricht, I'd be fuck all over the methods the FBI used to indict my client.

[waffles]

For what purpose? To arrest all the drug dealers? All the drug users? Stop the supply into the country? All of the above?

It's been really effective so far...maybe they will just give in and run the damn thing.

[Agammamon]

Same reason the ATF ran guns into Mexico. Because . . . uh, well it sounded good in the brainstorming session.

[Tonio]

Control, waffles, always control.

[rts]

Vigilantes Give Mexico Gov't Chance to Oust Cartel

Luis Antonio Torres Gonzalez, leader of a vigilante group in the town of Buenavista, said he was willing to give the government a week to make good on promises to curb the cartel.

"But if they (the Knights Templar) continue their extortions, their robberies, and their kidnappings, we will abandon the agreement we made," Torres Gonzalez said.

Since rising up in February against systematic extortion by the Knights Templar, residents of a half dozen towns that formed self-defense patrols have lived without access to Apatzingan, a commercial and road hub that is home to their region's main hospital and markets.

[John]

Next thing you will tell me an armed populace keeps the peace.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

The Knights Templar? What?

[Tonio]

Meh, just a name. Many groups have claimed to be the institutional or ideological successors to the Knights Templars over the years.

FWIW, I believe the Masons claim to be one of these and induct members of certain level as KT's.

[PD Scott]

No wonder I never see Shriners raising money for children's hospitals - the Masons are taking over the Mexican drug trade!

[Matrix]

Time to send the Assassins! al Tair! Ezio! We need your help!

[Rich]

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the panel's senior Republican, was harsher [on Sebelius today].

"While I am glad that you are accepting responsibility for this disastrous rollout, I would have preferred that you and the rest of the administration were honest with us to begin with had literally fallen on your swords."

[Brett L]

"Or at least have alave stab you if you weren't stoic enough."

[Pro Libertate]

Resign or be remov-ed.

[Slammer]

+1 C-Span Seppaku

[Tonio]

I like the cut of your jib.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

Star Wars fails new feminist rating in equality-minded Sweden

[Pro Libertate]

What, they've got a princess and stuff.

[Zeb]

And she's not even in pink and trapped in a tower.

[Pro Libertate]

Exactly. She's a leader in a rebellion, tells men to stuff it, and doesn't quite get around to fucking her brother, we think. Maybe.

[Fist of Etiquette]

They didn't have too many space blacks a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, either.

[Pro Libertate]

Sure they did. All of those stormtroopers were black inside.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

Uh, Lando? HELLO!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Double-crosser.

[SweatingGin]

The one they did have stole Han Solo's clothes.

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, what was that about? Even as a kid, I was thinking, "Hey, doesn't Lando have his own clothes?"

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Millennium Falcon has a uniform. What of it?

[Brett L]

The Millenium Falcon can only be flown by those wearing the right clothes.

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, so it's like a power ring, but with clothes?

[Brett L]

No, really Chewie just isn't that bright. If someone not wearing that outfit sits in the pilot's chair, he rips their arms off.

[jesse.in.mb]

Benedict Cumberbatch does a Chewbacca Impression

Skip to 1:05 for impression + confused Harrison Ford, who has NOT AGED WELL AT ALL.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Yeah, Harrison Ford has looked old and tired as shit since at least Crystal Skull. Even before that trainwreck was released I remember being surprised at just how bad he looked in promotional pieces.

[PD Scott]

"One vest to fly them all..."

[Pro Libertate]

Suddenly, it all makes sense to me.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Did we see him pack anything before fleeing Cloud City?

Obviously he didn't, so he borrowed his friend's clothes.

[Pro Libertate]

You know, I don't think they're the same size.

[Fist of Etiquette]

You do realize the Falcon was Lando's first. Maybe Han stole his clothes.

[Pro Libertate]

I concede the possibility.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I WIN.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

According to Google Harrison Ford is 6'1 while Billy Dee Williams is 6 even.

[Pro Libertate]

Busted. I just threw that out, hoping I was right.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Well congratulations, you just made a stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf-herder of yourself.

[Tejicano]

Yeah, I never really thought about it but somehow had this feeling that Han Solo and Lando must have shopped at the same K-Mart in a galaxy far, far away.

[Mad Scientist]

No, no. That outfit was a haptic interface with the ship. Explains everything.

[MJGreen]

But they made them count. Lando Calrissian is black enough for a few star systems.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

There was that A-Wing pilot that had one line "She's gonna blow!" before being shot done at the Battle of Endor.

[Pro Libertate]

Space whales? Was there a Moby-Dick subplot in ROTJ, too?

[BuSab Agent]

Wasn't Admiral Akbar black-ish in a fishy sort of way?

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

He seemed more like a Native American to me, in a fishy sort of way.

[gaijin]

all of space is black, duh!

[PapayaSF]

You're all missing it. The Death Star is a giant sphere, like a woman's egg, and it's destroyed by tiny, swiftly-moving X-Wing fighters, which are like sperm. WAR ON WOMEN!!

[PD Scott]

Only one successfully penetrates it, etc.

[PapayaSF]

IT ALL FITS!!

[Agammamon]

Well to be fair - there's only, like *one* woman in the Star Wars universe, to go along with the *one* black guy, so its not like she can talk to another woman about something other than men.

Overall though, this is bullshit. Leia is a badarse from the start and holds her own (even dominates) with the men surrounding her. She stared down Vader FFS.

[PD Scott]

You're forgetting the "Many Bothans died" lady's bit part.

[Thane of Steelport]

"Many Bothans died" lady

That's Mon Mothma to you

[Agammamon]

She wasn't in Star Wars, she was in Jedi.

[AuH20]

Oh, it's that retarded Bechedel Test, which feminists love as the absolute be all, end all test of whether a work is suitably "feminist" enough.

[Eduard van Haalen]

"To get an "A" rating, a movie must pass the so-called Bechdel test, which means it must have at least two named female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man."

Pshaw, that's easy!

Betty: "Wanna make out?"

Veronica: "OK!"

[AlmightyJB]

Not sure how I didn't see this before posting but.

[AlmightyJB]

"To get an "A" rating, a movie must pass the so-called Bechdel test, which means it must have at least two named female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man."

So all of the porn I watch would get an A rating. Although there isn't a lot of talking.

[The Last American Hero]

It doesn't pass the old test where it has to have 2 women have at least one meaningful conversation that doesn't involve men/dating/relationships. The number of movies that can't pass this test is staggering. However, most women seem to want to watch movies about relationships, so it's a bad test.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Houston Livestock and Rodeo fails to get free $200mil of extra space paid for by yet more govt debt, Houston voters failed us

[Apatheist ?_??]

So glad one of my votes won. The arguments people have for keeping the dome are odd. It's not the fucking coliseum.

[Brett L]

Besides, you're Americans. Texans, no less. They'd dynamite the Capitol building to build a bigger, shinier new one. Especially if those fuckers in DC made their dome taller.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

It will be if we keep paying half a mil per year upkeep for another two thousand years, you short sighted idiot.

The Dome situation went down like this:

You have a couple of weeks or so to get ideas to us.
Your idea has to have funding.
We rejected all ideas but the one requiring govt funding, and that idea "had funding".
$200 mil handout to the HLS&R or we blow it up.

How much would the "keep the frame, Eiffel Tower like" have cost?

[Apatheist ?_??]

They should have blown it up as they were building Reliant.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

The Rodeo needed a building while Reliant was being built.

Lots of prog butthurt about the Dome today, since it was a govt monument and more potential govt spending.

[Pro Libertate]

"Reliant is supposed to be at our disposal, not vice versa."

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Astrodome fate still uncertain after bond proposal gets red light
...The Harris County Sports & Convention Corp. plans to regroup and develop a new idea to propose to the court, Chairman Edgardo Col?n said.
Previous reports show the county still owed close to $30 million on the property, but Emmett announced there is no outstanding debt on the stadium to date.
The county currently spends more than $2 million a year to insure and maintain the Dome and updated county figures estimate that it would cost closer to $20 million to demolish it completely....

[Pro Libertate]

You know, instead of stadiums, we should build giant pits in the ground, making seats in the earth itself. With proper drainage, I think it would work. Provided fans brought towels to sit on.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Funnily enough the filling in of the giant pit removing the Astrodome will leave is supposed to be the most expensive part of demolition. One of the proposals out there is to just leave it as a giant drainage pool.

[Mad Scientist]

Why can't they just convert it into a decent orgy pit, like any respectable city?

[Tonio]

Drop the insurance and cut their losses?

[Pro Libertate]

The nice thing about the Pit of Viewing is that it could be filled in with water for Olympic events.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Or an execution chamber. We can chain up everybody on death row at the bottom whenever a hurricane is on the way.

[Pro Libertate]

You could also throw money in it to stimulate the economy.

[Apatheist ?_??]

That's what we just voted to reject.

[Pro Libertate]

Look, do you want a boom economy or not? Throw some money in a hole.

[Coeus]

So glad one of my votes won.

ditto

[John]

It is a Houston thing. The Astrodome is like a religious shrine to those people. It is like asking the Italians to tear down St. Peters'.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Only some of us, we did defeat the bond proposal after all. The butthurt has been pretty amusing.

[Brett L]

I believe that the Lastros curse will be lifted only after the Astrodome is destroyed.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Today is Feel-Good Wednesday, where I post stories which improve your faith in humanity.

First off - remember how some of you wondered if conservatives would stick up for the Jehovah's Witness kid in Florida who was punished for not saluting the flag? Well, a conservative site, the *Daily Caller,* has run the story and one of the tags is "bad teachers."

http://dailycaller.com/2013/11.....n-sept-11/

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

Don't mess with my Kraft Dinner!!!

[jesse.in.mb]

Look Pantsfan, we'll have none of this Canadian talk here. We speak American here and that's "Mac N Cheese."

[playa manhattan]

The yellow dye is how I know if I've added enough milk and margarine.

Is this the work of "concerned moms"?

[Zeb]

I love how Canadian cuisine consists of Poutine and Kraft Dinner. And moose cock.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Two Los Angeles lawmakers want to ease restrictions on street vendors.

Sounds like someone's brother-in-law wants to sell hot dogs from a cart.

[rts]

B.C.'s natural gas reserves double previous estimates

The new estimate is based on analysis of the Montney Formation, which spans northeast B.C. south of Fort Nelson into the Fort St. John area and across the border into Alberta.

B.C.'s total natural gas reserves are estimated at 2,933 trillion cubic feet ? enough to support development and LNG export operations for more than 150 years, according to a statement issued by the Minister of Natural Gas Development Rich Coleman.

Cue the environmentalist wailing...

[John]

We are going to be rich if we just don't let the Progs fuck it up.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

Yasser Arafat 'may have been poisoned with polonium'

[Enough About Palin]

Good.

[PapayaSF]

I prefer the theory that he died of AIDS.

[Eduard van Haalen]

He was injected with the polonium, then he went bear-hunting but saw the sign saying "Bear Left" and went home!

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

The MPAA: Agent of the Patriarchy

The MPAA's NC-17 rating, specifically designed to "protect children," reveals the association's sexist and patriarchal view of what content is allowable and what is "objectionable." The MPAA fails completely to take into account sexism and content that objectifies girls and women, turns them into commodities, employs them as props, represents them as property and prizes, and makes them the target of sexualized and domestic violence as a plot device to demonstrate the hyper-masculinity of male protagonists. And most protagonists are male. As NPR's Linda Holmes described this summer, "Of 617 showings [in nearby multiplexes], 561 of them ? 90 percent ? are stories about men or groups of men, where women play supporting roles or fill out ensembles primarily focused on men." There were, as she pointed out, "nearly six times as many showings of 'Man Of Steel' alone as there [were] of all the films about women put together."

Nor is the problematic depiction of girls and women limited to films for adults. It starts in children's programming, where women rarely have jobs or a real purpose and where female characters are either hyper-traditional (Madonna) or hyper-sexual (whore). Portrayals of women in American film have degenerated over time, not improved.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Yes, the problem with the MPAA is that they aren't puritanical and censoring enough.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Look, we all know that MAN of Steel is a movie that propagates sexism by having a male superhero.

In a world of social justice the studios would have been 'encouraged' to make the film conform to gender-equality while the theaters would have been required to show an equal number of feminist movies.

And I think we'd all agree government has the power to tax people into going to see these feminist movies.

[Brett L]

Wrong puritans in charge.

[paranoid android]

Interesting how they don't examine the gender ratios of the number of films being released, just the number of showings of said films, which are of course a function of the popularity of the film.

So is there a worldwide male conspiracy to keep women out of the movies, or are guy movies just more popular?

[JEP]

I can't remember the name, but there's a test that feminists like to administer to movies. If a female character has a meaningful conversation with another female character that's not about a guy in the movie for 2+ minutes, then the movie passes the test.

[MJGreen]

Bechdel test. It's pretty stupid and limiting, and was meant as a joke, but it is fun to spot stories that seem determined to fail it.

[paranoid android]

I was thinking about it the other night while watching The Walking Dead (just started season 3, no spoilers please). I estimate that Laurie spends 70% of her screen time talking to Rick, and the other 30% talking to someone else about whatever Rick is about to do.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

in post-apocalyptic society, that's pretty dang accurate, though. It's civilization that makes women able to act as equals.

[Enough About Palin]

"films about women put together"

Like any red-blooded American male, I like a woman to be well put together, but would't a film about that be sexist too?

[MJGreen]

Wh... what? Are they supposed to rate films according to how feminist they are too? At that point, the MPAA ratings may as well be their own take on whether a film is worth seeing or not.

[paranoid android]

Oh, they should start a blog where they rate movies on how overtly feminist they are! It would be great fun to see how their rankings dovetail with those Christian sites that rate movies based on how much they think Jesus would like them or whatever.

[Eduard van Haalen]

In line with todays theme of uplift, I bring great news. The greatest feminist film of all time has earned h&r's most coveted honor, a morally offensive rating from the usccb \ cns movie reviewers, the closest thing catholics have nowadays to the old index librorum prohibitorum. The movie is, of course , thelma and louise, and no feminist can criticize it without forfeiting her union card. The morally offendive rating is due to the vigilante murder, the glorification of robbefy and defying the law, and of coutse the adultery.

And youll never guess what ratings the feminist classics the color purple and kill bill ( parts 1 and 2) earned!

[jesse.in.mb]

I wonder if the old American Family Association movie reviews are still around. Those were occasionally delightfully unhinged.

[PapayaSF]

I suggest a zero to four vagina rating system.

[Pro Libertate]

I find it highly unlikely that the Kzinti are running movie ratings.

[Zeb]

The MPAA's NC-17 rating, specifically designed to "protect children,"

Bullshit. It's designed to keep movies that have too much sexual nudity or super-gory violence from making any money. R ratings are sufficient to protect the children (if you suppose it accomplishes anything in an age where most movies are watched online.)

[jesse.in.mb]

I remember reading someplace that it was used as a protectionist racket to keep foreign films out of the American market.

[Pro Libertate]

I thought it was all about protecting men from having to see other men's penises.

[jesse.in.mb]

Why would men want to be protected from seeing other men's penises?

I iz confuzed.

[Pro Libertate]

It's time you learned that the majority oppresses the minority in this country. Though, of course, you'd think women would align with you on this.

[Zeb]

It's not about what they want. They need it so they don't catch the gay. That's why all French men are gay. Every French movie has to have some dude's erection in it. Even when there aren't any tits.

[Pro Libertate]

Frankly, I think seeing them more in film would make one more, not less, heterosexual.

[jesse.in.mb]

Every French movie has to have some dude's erection in it.

I've gone through some heavy French cinema phases (currently I'm in a "subtitles are too efforty" phase) and I don't remember a whole lot of erection. Brits have a lot of soft peen, 90% of it Ewan McGregor, but I remember the French having a lot of man ass and quick flashes of Mr. Softee.

[Zeb]

Yeah, I'm really just making shit up. I'm not all that familiar with French cinema. There are just a few examples I have seen where some guy's dong was featured, but no other nudity.

[Apatheist ?_??]

The scene in This Film is Not Yet Rated where they should gay and straight sex scenes side by side that are nearly identical and the former is NC-17.

[Apatheist ?_??]

"is pretty instructive" should have been at the end of that sentence.

[Coeus]

I thought it was all about protecting men from having to see other men's penises.

Men don't usually claim to be traumatized by the sight of peen.

I believe you're looking for the "eek, a penis!!!" phenomena.

[SugarFree]

NC-17 was a compromise to handle movies too extreme for R to cover by replacing the X rating. Having only R and X (and X only meaning outright porn) left a gap in smut enforcement. The TOP MEN couldn't anticipate all the aspects of the market. It's almost like they had some sort of knowledge problem...

[Fist of Etiquette]

The rating system is voluntary, so just make up your own and cajole theater owners to adhere to it.

[Pro Libertate]

Just wait until theaters are purely a boutique, social experience, when everyone has full-immersion film experiences in their own homes. Well, most everybody.

[PapayaSF]

Whoa, whoa! People are being used as commodities and props in movies?? When did this start?

[AuH20]

GAHHH!

I've really come to hate the word "problematic". Feminists use it WAY too damn much.

[Pro Libertate]

It should be problamematic for them.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

See also: "not OK"

[Tejicano]

So... chick flix are a niche. Meh...

[Eduard van Haalen]

Husband and wife in Waterton ME run against each other for minor office, and they use the publicity they get to solicit funds for a food pantry they run.

"When the Johnsons received the call Tuesday night telling them Jennifer had won, David looked over and told her he was happy he voted for the winner."

http://www.politico.com/story/.....99478.html

[PD Scott]

Well, he lies like a politician...

[SweatingGin]

AWwwwww...

I think I'm going to vomit saccharin all over the thread.

[rts]

Playground touching ban defended by school principal

A B.C. principal is defending her school's new no-touching policy for kindergarten students, saying it's about teaching kids how to be safe and play well together.

Henceforth any activities involving touching in the playground were banned for kindergarten students, include tag, holding hands and any sort of fighting games such as "Star Wars games."

[Certified Public Asskicker]

We will have a zero-tolerance policy with regards to hands-on play, resulting in the missing of playtime and trips to the office for those who are unable to follow the rules.

Brilliant!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Good luck forcing the violators to the office without touching them.

[JEP]

They'll use those nooses at the end of a long pole. Just like dog catchers.

[Slammer]

Don't they just shoot dogs now?

[Certified Public Asskicker]

When playtime turns into standing around staring at each other, touching someone's hand to get the teacher to chase after you sounds like fun.

[Bobarian]

"Mrs. Johnson, can I still touch myself?"

[Rich]

"We wanted to teach them how to make contact in a positive way. Not to grab someone's hand and drag them along, but to hold their hand in a positive way."

You mean, using that finger-wiggle-on-the-palm thingie?

[Agammamon]

"any sort of fighting games such as "Star Wars games."

Good. Kids these days have no fucking idea what Star Wars *is* man. They think its all lightsabers and bad dialogue and crappy CGI now.

[Pro Libertate]

Han shot first, little bitches!

[Paul.]

It turns out unions might get Obamacare subsidies after all.

Well fucking DUH!

[Caleb Turberville]

Yeah, so people are saying Blockbuster's demise is an example of "karma" after it helped to bring about the demise of the mom and pop rental stores. And then there are some who are saying the same thing about Netflix's influence on Blockbuster.

Is bailout mentality just a side-effect of resentful nostalgia?

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Mom and pop rental stores sucked, Blockbuster sucked, expensive time-limited physical rentals sucked in general. There are some perks to living in the distant future of the 21st century.

[Slammer]

They were still open?

[Caleb Turberville]

Liquidation sales galore across the country. Time to stock up on those old Ernest goes to... DVDs and tapes.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

It wasn't an orgy, it was an amateur costume production with a historic Germanic military theme

[Agammamon]

For a brief moment I was reading that as 'Moss' and was going to do a little googling. Luckily I reread the title before I found the pictures.

[Eduard van Haalen]

And in gross/uplifting Feel-Good Wednesday news, Pope Francis kisses a man who is covered in boils:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/d.....ith-boils/

[Juice]

If he had any balls he would have licked the boils.

[Rich]

Google Says Its Mystery Barges May Be Used As Interactive Space Where People Can Learn About Its Technology

Emphasis added.

[Bam!]

Whore houses.

[Mad Scientist]

The Google Barge soon will be making another run
The Google Barge promises something for everyone

[Pro Libertate]

Search Boat soon will be making another run.
The Search Boat promises nookie for everyone.
Get a whore for adventure,
Your mind on a new romance.

[SweatingGin]

They're totally going to float them to south asia, pick up people, and get a religion going on there with a bit of brainwashing thrown in.

Then it floats through the Bering straight, then back down the coast, offloads hoards of Pakistani brick makers, and floats back around to south Asia for another trip.

[Brett L]

What? No, they're flying Pakistani programmers into SFO on visitor visas and shipping them out into Inatl waters to avoid the H1B restrictions.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

New species of Tyrannosaurus found

A newly discovered "King of Gore" tyrannosaur pushes back the origins of T. rex's terrifying family tree to at least 80 million years ago, report paleontologists.

Lythronax argestes (which literally means "Gore King from the Southwest") once stalked the shores of western North America in search of prey. It sported the same short snout, broad teeth, front-facing eye, and unimpressive forearms as Tyrannosaurus rex, which lived around 68 million years ago.

At 24 feet (7.3 meters) long and weighing about 2.5 tons, the 80-million-year-old Lythronax (pronounced LYE-thro-nax) lacked the even-more-massive size of T. rex, says the University of Utah's Mark Loewen, who headed the team reporting the dinosaur's discovery in PLOS One.

In comparison, T. rex was about 40 feet (12 meters) long and about 15 to 20 feet (4.6 to 6 meters) tall.

I want one.

[Caleb Turberville]

L. argestes was the evolutionary ancestor of the Seattle-Portland bohemian hipster scene?

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

more pron for John

[Slammer]

Alright, which one of you assholes is this?

[Paul.]

*looks around nervously*

[PD Scott]

Not sure if this was noted on HnR: Newnan GA Police Officer guilty of burglary (against the daycare where his wife worked) committed while on shift in uniform.

Activate nut-punch!:

"Coweta Superior Court Judge Dennis Blackmon sentenced Anderson to eight years of probation after he pleaded guilty Monday with a blind plea, meaning no plea bargain was reached with prosecutors, Doyle said. In addition, Anderson has been sentenced to undergo psychological evaluation.

As for the indictment of a violation of oath by a public officer, Anderson was found not guilty of this charge on Monday."

[PD Scott]

If you want a local TV news story about it.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Bob Cesca: Obamacare is just like Project Mercury or the Civil War

Okay, I get it. The Healthcare.gov website is still glitchy; there are evidently people who are losing their current health insurance plans; premiums continue to rise; and the Republicans along with irresponsible members of the press are blowing it entirely out proportion.

Enough! In the blitz of strategic outrage and gratuitous piling-on, it's time to inject some serious and much-needed perspective into this thing.

First, here are several examples of major government endeavors that launched on shaky ground but which eventually became historically monumental achievements. You might remember hearing about the status of the American space program just nine years before NASA went on to successfully land a man on the moon.

Do I need to mention how the United States and President Lincoln were this close to losing the Civil War after a succession of blundering, incompetent generals and a series of crippling military losses, not to mention record-shattering casualties?

So, yeah, go ahead and complain to me again about a (temporarily) glitchy website. Fact: many historic American achievements have been preceded by mistakes far more harrowing than a flummoxed website.

LEAVE GOVERNMENT ALONE! YOU'RE LUCK IT DOES ANYTHING FOR YOUR BASTARDS!

[John]

They really are savages. They cannot comprehend that a program requires proper design to accomplish what it claims. Calling it a few magic words doesn't cut it.

[PapayaSF]

Half of government IT projects fail. Healthcare.gov is hugely complicated and ambitious, so it's more likely to fail than not.

But the main problems with Obamacare are its flawed conceptual underpinnings, so it can never be "fixed."

[John]

Exactly. But they don't realize that because to them any government program just magically succeeds if you throw enough resources at it. The reality that success requires competence rather than just appearances is totally beyond them.

They are savages.

[Mad Scientist]

Success to progressives means having good intentions and making other people pay for them. It doesn't matter in the least if the program does what they promised it would do.

[John]

Yes. It is a cargo cult.

[OldMexican]

Bob Sesca: First, here are several examples of major government endeavors that launched on shaky ground but which eventually became historically monumental achievements.

It's a fucking website for crying out loud, you statist moron! It's not the Apollo project.

[John]

It is worse than that. He thinks that because Apollo eventually worked, this will too. Think about that for a moment.

[Corning]

When was the last time we sent a man to the moon?

Are you sure Apollo worked?

[John]

Yes. It purpose was to go to the moon, which it did, not convince America to fund space flight forever.

[Pro Libertate]

It worked in getting men on the Moon, but it also worked in in deeply wounding and greatly slowing a sustained manned spaceflight industry.

[Fatty Bolger]

I think it's more like the Challenger.

Too soon?

[Eduard van Haalen]

Did someone mention the Civil War?

Good thing it's Feel-Good Wednesday.

[Tonio]

I like that civil war analogy. Anaesthesia was primitive, surgical techniques crude, germ theory unknown. I seem to recall that a significant portion of the US population died unnecessarily in that war. Do go on Mr. Cesca, do go on.

[Eduard van Haalen]

And the President was a dicta-never mind, positive thoughts!

[Rich]

"So a convicted felon could be a navigator and acquire sensitive personal information?" Cornyn asked. "That is possible," Sebelius acknowledged.

It's part of the outreach feature of Democratcare.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

The Sheen gene.

"With a heavy heart," Richards lays out the painful story of how the boys came to find refuge with her and daughters Sam, Lola, and Eloise, and how recent contact with their mum Mueller has transformed them from "kind and loving" young boys to "zombie-like" boys who exhibit "extreme violent mood swings" and "violent behaviour."

[Jerry on the boat]

Sheen should buy his boys a tiger blood t-shirt.

[Coeus]

Women Rock at History, Men Steal Credit

Academia often considers itself above personal biases, but lo and behold, new information is showing that academics are just as susceptible to cultural biases as everyone else. New analyses of art found in caves in Spain and France suggest that the people who created the art were probably women, not men. Dean Snow, the archaeologist who researched this, said, "There has been a male bias in the literature for a long time. People have made a lot of unwarranted assumptions about who made these things, and why."

[Coeus]

Those new analyses she's talking about?

Snow ran the numbers through an algorithm that he had created based on a reference set of hands from people of European descent who lived near his university. Using several measurements?such as the length of the fingers, the length of the hand, the ratio of ring to index finger, and the ratio of index finger to little finger?the algorithm could predict whether a given handprint was male or female. Because there is a lot of overlap between men and women, however, the algorithm wasn't especially precise: It predicted the sex of Snow's modern sample with about 60 percent accuracy.

Luckily for Snow, that wasn't a problem for the analysis of the prehistoric handprints. As it turned out?much to his surprise?the hands in the caves were much more sexually dimorphic than modern hands, meaning that there was little overlap in the various hand measurements.

"They fall at the extreme ends, and even beyond the extreme ends," Snow said. "Twenty thousand years ago, men were men and women were women."

Holy crap, guys. This chick must be a misogynist. After all, isn't this the blog which continually states that EvoPsyche is a fake science used only by evil woman haters?

[Brett L]

Wait, what? They just assumed that the nand prints of the cave-painters were whichever one the algorithm guessed? is that what I'm reading? How... Never mind. Cargo cult.

[Apatheist ?_??]

I was about to question how the fuck they could tell one way or the other. That's pretty interesting. Not sure what that has to do with EvoPsche rather than just plain evolution. I mean they are talking about physical traits.

[Coeus]

Stolen from the comments:

Dean is an old friend, and was an adviser in college to the extent that I went to college.

There is of course a Great Irony here. The research suggesting that this work was done by women is based on a postulated relationship between hormones and in utero development that produces male and female hands that are different (on average, as populations). That same research relates to other work, uses the same assumptions,methods, and overlapping data sets, that is central to a subset of Evolutionary Psychology.

[Juice]

Ugh. That's Greg Laden. I can't think of a more fatuous turd of a blogger.

[Corning]

Ugg: "You boy. You no paint cave wall. Only girl paint wall."

Ott: "You don't know me!! You are repressing me and my gender you stupid Matriarchal neanderthal!!!"

...

One thing that seems to be missing here...isn't that fact that the paintings are all probably done by women a tell tail sign that our prehistory ancestors did segregate gender roles?

Why is a feminist celebrating gender segregation? And how is she missing the fact that because this happened long before the modern patriarchy of today that it hints that gender rolls are in fact innate and an evolved phenomena?

[Coeus]

Why is a feminist celebrating gender segregation? And how is she missing the fact that because this happened long before the modern patriarchy of today that it hints that gender rolls are in fact innate and an evolved phenomena?

I know it's a rhetorical question, but I just have to state for the record that you answered your own question.

[lap83]

My thoughts on sexist assumptions in history, society, etc basically boil down to this: Men tend to be sexist, but women tend to be sexist too. So complaining that someone is sexist is a very unremarkable observation. Niceness is more remarkable. So be nice.

[PapayaSF]

What they don't realize is that while they were handprints of women, they were actually made by men who cut off the women's hands to make them.

[Corning]

Men Steal Credit

So men today are stealing credit for stuff made 20,000 years ago for the male gender?

When the fuck did gender become "Legion" that includes people who died 20 millennia ago?

[jesse.in.mb]

Deadly Spiders Found On Supermarket Bananas Force British Family To Flee Home

A British family was forced to flee their home in Hampton this week after finding Brazilian wandering spiders on bananas purchased at nearby Sainsbury's store. According to local reports, Consi Taylor was halfway through eating one of the fruits when she discovered the deadly spiders on the supermarket bananas.

The 29-year-old mother first noticed an unusual white blotch on her snack. Upon closer inspection, Taylor realized the spot was actually some sort of cocoon holding dozens of spiders.

"I had a closer look and was horrified to see they were spiders. They were hatching out on the table, scurrying around on my carpet," she told The Sun.

The Taylors enlisted a local pest control firm to identify the spiders. It was then that they learned the tiny creatures were Brazilian wandering spiders -- widely believed to be the deadliest type of spider in the world.

FUUUUUCCKKKK

[Coeus]

Time to call in John.

[Brett L]

That batch was supposed to go to Australia.

[Pro Libertate]

Bred in Australia. Fucking smartest move the Japanese made in WWII was deciding not to invade Australia.

[Fatty Bolger]

Woman loses bet on Packers game, takes stun gun shot from her husband

Nicole Grant agreed that if the Packers lost, she'd let her husband use a Taser on her. Well, absent one Aaron Rodgers, the Packers did indeed lose, and John Grant carried through on his side of the bet. As a local news report put it, "The wife said that while the two were smoking cigarettes outside of Sidelines, Grant had used the stun gun twice on her butt and once on her thigh."
...
Anyway, somewhere along the way, Mrs. Grant either forgot she made the bet or decided she didn't much care for a good butt-shocking, so she called the police and told them exactly what happened. The problem for Mrs. Grant was that before the Tasering, she'd sent a text message to her sons informing them of the bet, and that a cell phone video of the Tasering appeared to show Mrs. Grant laughing while the shocks took place.
...
The problem for Mr. Grant is that possession of a Taser is illegal in Wisconsin, which meant John Grant spent Tuesday in Dodge County Circuit Court. If convicted, he could spend six years in prison.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

I'm a Packer fan, but I don't think I'd get along with the people of Wisconsin.

[paranoid android]

There's a lesson here...but I sure as hell don't know what it is.

[Coeus]

Don't get married.

[Bobarian]

Don't bet on the Packers?

[Agammamon]

Wisconsin is really, really boring.

[PD Scott]

I've never understood why stun guns are illegal for us common folk to own in places where they are outlawed. Is the idea that some miscreant will come up behind a nubile young white woman (or underage child of either gender), shock her and drag her into his van?

[cavalier973]

Oxygenating our wombspace

[rts]

Washington city votes to raise minimum wage to $15

The SeaTac initiative will raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour for hospitality and transportation workers in and near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The current minimum wage in Washington State is $9.19.

[Tim]

$595 per night night for a non smoking double occupancy room isn't so bad. People will enjoy paying that. It's not like travelers can pick a different town to stay in.

[paranoid android]

I think SeaTac will do fine. They'd only really be in trouble if there was some bigger, much nicer city up the road that people could reach by car or train in just a couple minutes--oh.

[Brian D]

The article says 'in and near' the airport. I predict a barren, Detroit-esque circle of abandoned businesses around the airport.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

It's a good day for low-wage workers in New Jersey and the city of SeaTac, Wash., after residents on Tuesday favored ballot measures that will raise the minimum wage.

It's a good day when you are priced out of the job market?

[Apatheist ?_??]

I thought that city name must be fake.

[Fatty Bolger]

"Our good intentions lead to bad results" in 10... 9... 8...

[Mad Scientist]

But only because of the wreckers and kulaks, who need to be purged. THEN it will be utopia.

[Tim]

Used to be when your car stopped late at night and flashing lights surrounded you it was UFO's...

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

NRA Loses in Virginia, gun-control is popular!

"The story line we were told by so many pundits after the Colorado recall was that gun control is dead, that no candidate in his right mind would campaign on gun control," says Ladd Everitt of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

McAuliffe's victory counters the view that gun control supporters can't win in hotly contested purple states with lots of guns. Virginia, typically a battleground state, boasts a population of over 2 million gun owners. And it's also the home base of the NRA, whose headquarters is located in Fairfax. That's partially why the NRA fought hard to see to it that McAuliffe didn't win. The gun rights group spent half a million dollars on ads to defeat him. The money, it turns out, was not well spent.

This was not an election where gun control was under the radar. In fact, in what many people saw as a risky move, McAuliffe boldly proclaimed his support for new gun control laws and made them a centerpiece of his agenda, especially in the last few weeks of the campaign. Instead of shying away from the hot-button issue, McAuliffe announced, "I don't care what grade I got from the NRA," McAuliffe said. "I never want to see another Newtown or Aurora or Virginia Tech ever again."

Yes, idiots. Go all in on gun control for 2014.

[John]

There will be upsides to McAuliffe winning. I have to laugh at Ekins thinking that the Dems are not going to start paying attention to Libertarians because a majority of Sarvis voters said they would have voted for McAuliffe.

No Emily, you are cute and all but you are on crack. They are going to go full retard and claim this is a mandate for every kind of vile leftism they can dream up. That is their move.

[jesse.in.mb]

Since Brett mentioned Australia up above:

Australian Authorities Seize Katy Perry's New Album, Deemed Biohazard

Well, to be more specific, the album artwork is made of seedpaper, and comes with instructions to "spread the light" by planting it. Customs authorities, however, fear that this could introduce an invasive species of plant to the continent, violating Australia's strict quarantine controls. While domestic versions of the album include harmless seeds for the Swan River daisy, plenty of international versions are making their way into stores?and landscapes?further afield. Australian biosecurity officers are thus quarantining the international versions and evaluating their invasive potential.

I love that the Australian continent is so adamant about killing people, but can't fend off the occasional invasive species.

[Brett L]

They are worried the seeds may not be murderous enough.

[Pro Libertate]

No, no, no, Australian fauna welcome only those species which kill or otherwise seriously harm the beast called man.

Harry Harrison wrote a book about Australia called Deathworld.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Speaking of Katy Perry, the local radio show was debating on air this morning, who would you rather bang, Katy Perry or Nicki Minaj?

I was surprised that it wasn't the blowout I thought it would be.

[Pro Libertate]

Callers are like commenters. It's half snark.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

This was a serious question ProL, I highly doubt people would call in and lie about their fantasy bang with a celebrity.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, I saw the pictures of the one who wasn't Katy Perry, and I have to question their seriousness.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

The host who was going for Minaj basically reasoned he thought she would abuse him in the bedroom, which is what he would want under such a scenario. Oh, and the larger ass.

To each his own I suppose.

[Bobarian]

If they're like commenters, it's probably 95%

[Pi Guy]

Hmmmm... Another Baltimore metro area libertarian. What - are there like 5 of us now?

[Pi Guy]

Oh. And Katy Perry, btw.

[PapayaSF]

Oh yeah.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Um, me, you, Hyperion...Raven Nation maybe?

[Pi Guy]

Ok, 4 then.

I was a physics major. Numbers are hard.

[Coeus]

That study from yesterday? As predicted, feminists are on it.

Study Says That Fewer Men Are Paying for Sex. Study Should Talk to Female Sex Workers.

[Thane of Steelport]

The interviewee actually makes a lot of good points.

[Coeus]

Agreed. But people yesterday were wondering what the feminist response would be. So I found it.

[PD Scott]

Fewer men could be paying for more, couldn't they?

[Zeb]

Unless the sex workers are keeping much better records than I would imagine, I don't know how that would help.

[Ayn Random Variation]

It turns out unions might get Obamacare subsidies after all.

Ha, so the dumb ass Obama loving hipsters (the ones lucky enough to find a job) are going to have to help pay for the healthcare for people who make $40 hour for installing light bulbs.

I love it.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Child rapist busted after bragging to girlfriend that he likes to rape children; threatened to rape hers

Convicted following a jury trial in King County Superior Court, Ryan D. Firoved was undone after bragging to his girlfriend about having sex with other children.

Firoved, a 37-year-old married father and convicted child rapist, arrived at a Kirkland motel room expecting to rape his girlfriend's child. Instead, Firoved was greeted by police alerted by the woman.

According to court papers, the girl's mother contacted Kirkland police in late June 2012 and reported her concerns about messages and comments from Firoved, whom she was dating at the time.

The woman told police Firoved told her three months before that he'd raped a 12-year-old girl while on a trip. In the months that followed, Firoved made graphic sexual comments and claims about several other young girls.

When the woman disapproved, Firoved attempted to explain himself.

"I guess you could say I'm a pedophile, but at least I'm not a predator," Firoved said, according to the woman's account. "People come to me and I make it consensual."

According to charging documents, the woman went to police when Firoved suggested he should "make it consensual" with her young daughter.

Some people...

[cavalier973]

"I guess you could say I'm a pedophile, but at least I'm not a predator," Firoved said, according to the woman's account. "People come to me and I make it consensual."

Maybe his prison roommate will have the same philosophy.

[Sevo]

"It turns out unions might get Obamacare subsidies after all."

Hey, cost/vote, this is probably one of the cheapest bribes going!

[OldMexican]

Another man was anally probed by police after a traffic stop.

Either this particular guy's name is Cartman or these motorists have this je ne sais quoi that makes them the target of these probes...

[jesse.in.mb]

God, Gizmodo was so much better when Virginia Postrel was there.

Wait, what?

Virginia Postrel's new book, The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion, looks at glamour as a powerful force in our culture. I talked with Postrel, who writes a regular column for Bloomberg, about the role that glamour has played in shaping our expectations for the future?from the Futurama exhibit of the 1939 World's Fair to the Jet Age dreams of the 1960s.

Interesting interview. Only two comments, both of which are positive so far.

[Pro Libertate]

Wade into the comments and note that she's a libertarian.

[jesse.in.mb]

Goldzmit

Fascinating. I've always loved Virginia Postrel's work, going back to the late 90s when I first became aware of her. Her definition of glamour is spot on, IMO.

One of us?

I will not be signing up for Gawker commenting. I have great blood pressure right now and I have no interest in changing that.

[Pro Libertate]

Let someone else do it then after a few more praising comments.

[hamilton]

Fuck it, it's been a long day so I am saying we can drink to this one.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

High school Kentucky runner drops out of race rather than be number 666

When Whitley County High School girls' cross country coach Gina Croley opened the bib number ? "666" ? for junior runner Codie Thacker before Saturday's regional meet, she had just one thought.

"Whoa," Croley said. "She will not wear that number."

Croley was correct, and Thacker dropped out of the Class 3-A, Region Seven meet in Monticello, Ky., because of it.

Croley said because of Thacker's religious beliefs, she did not want to wear the "666" number. Croley said Thacker approached Kentucky High School Athletic Association officials at the meet in attempt to get a new number but was told she couldn't.

"She told the official she was assigned No. 666 and that it was against her religion," Croley said. "She told them it was the mark of the beast in the Bible. ? The official curtly said 'No,' and walked away."

Croley said she was proud of Thacker for standing behind her beliefs.

"I didn't want to risk my relationship with God and try to take that number," Thacker told Lexington TV station WLEX-TV. "I told them to mark out my name because it makes me sick just thinking that my name is associated with that number."

It's just a number.

[John]

Why couldn't they have just given her another number? What a bunch of assholes. Flip it over and make her 999.

[Zeb]

Maybe the organizers' religious beliefs required that they not change people's numbers once they are assigned. (Sorry, couldn't help myself. Don't bother to respond.)

[Juice]

Then she would look like a Herman Cain supporter.

[JEP]

Are we still talking about this?

[Eduard van Haalen]

As long as we are, I'll just note this about the girl's coach: "Croley said she was proud of Thacker for standing behind her beliefs."

And the earlier link said the athletic officials indicated that they'd been accomodating in the past and might have been if they'd gotten more notice.

[JEP]

This reminds of a quote from Mark Rippetoe:

Guy 1: I was just wondering, are all the copies of [Starting Strength] missing pages 206-207, or is it just my copy?

Rip: Page numbers 206-207 were offensive to us, for numerological reasons we'd not care to discuss, so we omitted them and indexed around them. No material is missing, just the 2 most horrible, sickening, disgusting, revolting, baby-killing, maggot-infested, sorry, rotten, substandard numbers in all of mathematics. And good riddance, I say. Fuck 206 and 207, both of them.

[Coeus]

Marcotte has a really short memory:

I suspect some cops have started to get mad at you if you don't produce the drugs they were hoping to find on you. The logic of the War on Drugs has created a system where police are so desperate to catch a certain number of offenders that not only will they break the law to do it, they start to eyeball certain people and hope that they're breaking the law. They want you to be breaking the law. They need it. And if you're not breaking the law, well, you're going to be humiliated for disappointing them. In this case, by being forced to rap on command.

At a certain point, they're just punishing you for not having drugs when they wanted you to have drugs. They see the suspect's lack of drugs as an attempt to frustrate their desire to get praise and promotions at work.

Isn't that the kind of rhetoric that leads to violence?

[John]

That is the first intelligent or even cogent thing I have ever seen her write. Has hell frozen over?

[Zeb]

Pretty remarkable. I think that probably pretty well describes the thinking that leads to the anal probings we've read about lately.

[John]

The police are so bad they have me agreeing with Marcotte. That is exactly the mentality.

[Fatty Bolger]

That's what I thought when I first heard about it, too. Though his lawyer says it may be racially motivated.

[Corning]

No reason it could not be both

And a good lawyer would see the racial angle would get more points....it is not as if our laws are very protective of individuals against bureaucrats reaching for the ring even when they think that ring is up your ass.

[Mad Scientist]

It turns out unions might get Obamacare subsidies after all.

I guess that means they really liked their plans.

[paranoid android]

"I didn't want to risk my relationship with God and try to take that number," Thacker told Lexington TV station WLEX-TV.

Yeah, that'd make things real awkward with St. Peter, huh?

"Let's see, you went to church every Sunday, were faithful to your husband of forty-five years, and gave every spare dollar you had to the poor, that's all well and good--oh, but here it says you once were randomly assigned the number 666 at a high school track meet, and that just won't do at all..."

[PD Scott]

What would crazy Christians do without the Revelation of St John the Divine?

[Zeb]

And who decided that St John's psychedelic journey should be part of the Bible anyway?

[Tonio]

A bunch of dead men, some if whom were bona fide patriarchs.

[waffles]

My god is a capricious and cruel master, he is.

[OldMexican]

It turns out unions might get Obamacare subsidies after all.

And in return, the unions promised to finally reveal the resting place of Jimmy Hoffa.

[Generic Stranger]

Didn't they find him recently? Or was that another wild-goose chase?

[The Late P Brooks]

"I didn't want to risk my relationship with God and try to take that number," Thacker told Lexington TV station WLEX-TV. "I told them to mark out my name because it makes me sick just thinking that my name is associated with that number."

I expect the ACLU to defend her decision to the death.

[Brett L]

If they need money for it, I'm pretty sure some commentors here would pitch in. It appears that my coaching philosophy would get me burned at the stake for disrespecting numerology.

[Eduard van Haalen]

If it weren't the day for upbeat news stories, I'd post this article about a teachers' union president suggesting that a Jewish dad was a "neo-Nazi." Apparently he thought that a homework assignment about the govt shutdown, featuring a NY times article, was biased.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion.....um=twitter

But instead of this depressing story, I'll just link to this one of a hyper bird playing with a sleepy cat:

https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox

[Eduard van Haalen]

(video basically ends at 1:15 mark)

[Agammamon]

Thank you, but I already have a GMail account.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Merde!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFyI1cjsuGU

[Juice]

"It's going to be very difficult to intimidate me," he said. "I'm not going to submit to their bullying tactics."

Bullying? In school?

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Leftist in government position uses bogus racism smears in an attempt to deflect criticism? I'm shocked, shocked.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Baby and puppy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JWXF-Pud4

[Almanian!]

So - hunter and hunted

[Generic Stranger]

Yes, but which is which?

[Eduard van Haalen]

Two babies having a cute-off:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UfFY6PSVu0

[Fatty Bolger]

Study: Only manly chores get you laid

Men who do domestic chores get laid more often, according to a study published in the American Sociological Review.

However, it comes with a strangely sexist caveat: only doing "manly" chores leads to more bedroom action.

The study, "Egalitarianism, Housework and Sexual Frequency in Marriage," found men who do so-called "traditionally female labor" like washing dishes and doing laundry got less nookie than those who do more allegedly masculine chores.

[Almanian!]

And all these years, I thought washing the dishes was getting me pussy. SHIT!

*throws dish towel down and walks out of kitchen*

[Eduard van Haalen]

"strangely sexist"

Yeah, a total surprise.

[Coeus]

Why does everyone pretend that "sexist" actions aren't a direct result of being rewarded by nookie? Don't feminists love Lysistrata? Did they somehow miss the moral?

[Eduard van Haalen]

Sunset over DC:

http://bit.ly/1887PFq

[Almanian!]

You're tripping, aren't you?

[Eduard van Haalen]

Just trying to spread the love.

[Generic Stranger]

I bet Hell has interesting sunsets, too.

[Coeus]

Stewart is back to towing the lion:

Stewart also took aim at the argument that the law's requirement that health care plans provide 10 standard benefits is like forcing taxpayers to buy "fully-loaded Cadillacs" instead of more affordable models by pointing out that automobiles are already required to carry 50 items, no matter the kind of car.

"My guess is, you're gonna be able to find some people who do not benefit from this law and some people who are actually burdened by this law," Stewart said. "But don't pretend that the old system was Cocoon."

[cavalier973]

Another break-down of the VA Guvnuh's race.

[Coeus]

Feminists really don't understand the difference between private business and government.

I always thought it was a willful blindness, but it appears that they (at least some of them) really have no clue.

OH MY GOD, SWEDEN. Staaaaaaahhp!!! Fresh on the heels of codifying their new gender-neutral pronoun, those plucky Swedes are getting even more proactive in their attempts to turn mommies into people. Unafraid to incorporate feminist thought (i.e. basic fucking equality) into official policy?can you imagine!??some Swedish movie theaters are introducing a new rating system based on feminist theory's beloved Bechdel Test.

[paranoid android]

$5 says that the primary upshot of this is that male viewership tanks for movies that are feminist-approved.

[Paul.]

One could only hope.

[Eduard van Haalen]

We come from the land of the ice and snow
Where the pronouns are neutral and the jargon flows

[Paul.]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhahhhhh!

[Coeus]

I mean, the damn contradiction is in the same fucking sentence.

[Coeus]

Daily KOS celebrates the triumph of the boogyman strategy over rationality:

Even residents who agree with Americans for Prosperity's core argument ? that the city's debt is out of control ? question the group's motives for wading into the race. That has forced the candidates who share the group's beliefs to keep the organization at a distance.
Chris Turner, a first-time candidate for the City Council who has spoken out against the debt, said that although he disagreed with Americans for Prosperity on most issues, he could not seem to catch a break because his campaign platform aligns with the organization.

"Every time I go to a debate or anything, I've tried talking about the budget, and then they just go, 'Koch brothers, Koch brothers, Koch brothers,' " he said of his critics, adding that he wished Americans for Prosperity "would just go away."

[Coeus]

Too bad you're not a guy:

DogzillasMamaUcorgis_for_PM121L
My sister lost 145 pounds. Diet and exercise. She's the Zumba queen now and eats like a vegetarian ? extremely healthy. No surgery, no weight loss clubs or gimmicks or special diets (low carb, Flex Foods, whatever). She did this with pure, hard core, hard work and willpower ? more than two years ago.

Now the trouble is she has about 75 pounds of excess skin folds literally just hanging off her body. Her insurance won't pay to have it removed, despite it limiting her mobility (which is surely beyond annoying to her), and of course she doesn't have the money to get the surgery and never will have it.

It bums me out because if I had a spare $50K laying around, I'd give it to her for that surgery. She set up a blog page where people can make donations, and even did a Zumbathon to raise money for herself. She's only raised a few hundred dollars. :

[JidaKida]

Will the new Silk Road have the FBI logos on it? lol.

http://www.PrivacyRoad.tk

[Locke]

Gilbert, AZ has voted down an override that would dump more money into schools. A friend from high school is now a music teacher. His thoughts on the matter?
So if we left this state for elsewhere due to crappy job prospects for music teachers, where should we go? Of course, but I don't want to go from one crappy situation to another. Arizona is not the only land of tea party idiots"

Me: "Are there no private sector jobs for a man of your talents?"

Him: "Not in the field I teach. There are occasionally part time jobs and general music music jobs, but when it comes to band, those are extremely rare in the private school arena"

Me: "Hmmm... it might be time for a lateral career shift then"

His Friend: "Well, if public schools get destroyed the way those signs want the voters to - we may have private sector charter school jobs where teachers get paid less on average compared to our already crappy government wage."

Thoughts?

[Locke]

I was wanting to say "So the private sector has basically deemed that your job as a music teacher really isn't worth fuckall?"