Sandy Hook 911 Tapes Released, Obama Worries About Income Gap, Detroit's Art Could Bring in Millions: P.M. Links

• 

  Voice of America

  After losing a fight with the media, officials have released the 911 tapes from the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. Dispatchers can be heard taking information from adults on scene at the school and urging them to take cover.

• Now that health care is fixed forever, President Barack Obama is pivoting to lecturing America about the "income gap," thinking the government is the solution and not often the cause.
• Forget NORAD and their fighter jets. Google is releasing its own app to track Santa. And it has games!
• The National Transportation Safety Board has booted the rail union from involvement in the investigation of the deadly weekend train derailment in New York for violating confidentiality. One passenger on the train has already announced plans to sue.
• If bankrupt Detroit sold all its art, it could raise between $452 and $866 million, according to experts. Too bad its debt is about 20 times that amount.
• There's a big bureaucratic backlog in Colorado to actually license legal medical marijuana dispensaries that stretches back three years.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

...President Barack Obama is pivoting to lecturing America about the "income gap," thinking the government is the solution and not often the cause.

Is he talking about the income gap between DC and the rest of the country?

[Austrian Anarchy]

Not anything so lofty. It is the family photo album comparing his life to his brother in Kenya.

[Bobarian]

What the fuck do you mean, 'often', the word you're looking for is 'always'!

[PapayaSF]

I love it when lefties complain about income inequality. They're all in favor of single motherhood, dysfunctional public schools, welfare dependency, and massive amounts of immigration from the Third World, and then they wonder why there are all these poor people around....

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Absolutely.

[PapayaSF]

It's all a failure of capitalism!

[Andrew S.]

Guess it could be worse for Detroit. They could've had all that art for a Wild West museum.

[Pro Libertate]

How much for the Robocop statue?

[Bobarian]

I'd buy that for a dollar!

[Caleb Turberville]

http://www.avclub.com/article/.....oma-106195

It turns out that Wonder Woman was a former Israeli commando.

[Episiarch]

She looked great in the Fast & Furious movies. Of course, with Paul Walker dead, she must have an opening in her schedule.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Beautiful, but too skinny. Shouldn't Wonder Woman look intimidating?

[Pelosi's Rabbit]

Which is why Gina Carano would have worked.

[Redmanfms]

It turns out that Wonder Woman was a former Israeli commando.

Except she wasn't.

She was a "sports trainer" for two-year mandatory stint.

[Caleb Turberville]

Israel has a "sports training" squad to counter the efforts of anti-Zionistic Islamic Jihad?

[hamilton]

Is her bikini bottom gonna be covered with six-pointed stars now?

[Corning]

Can Jews play Greek gods?

[Heroic Mulatto]

If Wonder Woman is in it, THEN WHY THE FUCK ISN'T THE MOVIE CALLED "THE JUSTICE LEAGUE"?!?!?!?!?!?

[BiMonSciFiCon]

I think it's because Batman and Superman are going to be enemies? Could be wrong though.

[hamilton]

Duh, no Aquaman. Clearly he was the glue that held it all together.

[The Last American Hero]

He didn't seem to do anything else, so you're probably right.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Forget NORAD and their fighter jets. Google is releasing its own app to track Santa.

Google plans to snitch the DoJ and NSA Santa's route same as NORAD.

[PD Scott]

"Rudolph! Evasive maneuvers!"

[Episiarch]

Santa is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I'll chase him round the Pole of North, and round Shackford's chimney, and round the menorah's flames before I give him up!

[BiMonSciFiCon]

CLAAAAUUUUUUUUSSS!!!

[trshmnstr]

Revenge is a dish best served cold. It is very cold in the north pole!

[Live Free or Diet]

Who else thinks this is a violation of Santa's 4th Amendment rights?

[Episiarch]

President Barack Obama is pivoting to lecturing America about the "income gap," thinking the government is the solution and not often the cause.

Don't worry, the incompetent fuck will be back on health care soon enough, since the exchange problem isn't going away.

[Nikki just says no]

I hope you're right, because I prefer yummy tears to more of that insanely boring bullshit.

[Episiarch]

The one positive thing out of all of this shit is that I think more yummy tears are pretty much a guarantee. That's not great, but I'll take what I can get. Frankly, if the exchanges stay in 100% clusterfuck mode (which I think they mostly will), there will be many yummy tears to be had.

[Mad Scientist]

Just give it a few more weeks and there will be a whole bunch of people who thought they had health insurance January 1st.

[Nikki just says no]

Yep, those are the yummy tears I'm really waiting for. Oh-ho will they be sweet!

[Episiarch]

This year, nicole, Xmas comes twice.

[Pompey]

Xmas in July? ???

[Agammamon]

Then, Jan1 2015, all those people who thought they had coverage from their employer.

*Then* APR15 2015 when all the people who *thought* they had purchased coverage from the exchanges in 2013, found out that it didn't go through, find out that they still have to pay the penaltax.

[hamilton]

B...bbut you can't be right! Consumer Reports said the website was terrific!

[hamilton]

...of course, their article yesterday was on how to unstick your healthcare.gov application.

[MJGreen]

2013 has already been one long libertarian Christmas. I'm confident it will continue into 2014.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Seriously. That guy can do some serious permanent damage trying to "narrow" such a gap.

[Gozer the Gozerian]

Dr. Strangelove damage, in fact.

Incoming quote in 3, 2, 1...

[waffles]

Now that health care is fixed forever, President Barack Obama is pivoting to lecturing America about the "income gap," thinking the government is the solution and not often the cause.

And they say libertarians are cynical. Obama is an excellent leader who is finally offering us a path out of the darkness. Also dripping in sarcasm doesn't look good on you. Wipe your chin.

[Suthenboy]

Heh Heh Heh. I really cant tell if this is sarcasm or not.

[Dead or In Jail]

When will the watchdogs and gadflies in the media begin writing essays decrying the "lunacy" of the 22nd amendment and demanding the repeal of this anti-democratic abomination?

(And yeah, I saw that first WaPo guest editorial; I'm waiting for people on staff to start actively advocating for tyranny.)

[Episiarch]

Hey! I've been saying that they're going to start doing this for quite some time now. Don't steal my thunder!

In actuality, I'm starting to think that these calls won't come. it made sense when they were still in love with a guy that they could pretend wasn't a colossal fuckup. At this point, I think they are just going to want him to go the fuck away, especially depending on how much of a debacle Obamacare is for the Dems in the 2014 and 2016 elections.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Yeah that never made sense.

[Episiarch]

You never make sense!

[Matrix]

They'll still vote for him over anyone Team Red puts on the ballot.

[General Butt Naked]

If it's Christie, like I suspect it will be, I'd be tempted to also.

[Fist of Etiquette]

IT WILL NOT BE CHRISTIE. YOU SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH.

[General Butt Naked]

After McCain and Romney it has to be Christie.

Or some other "moderate", "electable" blue-stooge.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I'm hearing whispers Elizabeth 'Little High Cheek Bones' Warren should run in 2016.

If true, buckle up because ivory-tower progressivism ain't seen nothin' yet!

[Pro Libertate]

You know, I hope that happens. Because we're not that insane, and it would really highlight how totally fucked up the left has become in the U.S. Wouldn't think we'd need that much proof at this point, but we've gotten extra dense in recent years.

[Boisfeuras]

I thought that before they elected Obama. And then they re-elected him. Never underestimate the insanity and stupidity of the American electorate.

[Pro Libertate]

Obama was and is horrific, but the first time around, some of that was hidden from view. Not so with Warren.

Though I agree, what's happened to date has shown the U.S. to be appallingly dumb.

[Gray Ghost]

First woman president, doesn't have the baggage of the Hildebeast, 'speaks truth to power' and bullshit like that: I think a lot of the usual suspects in the media and populace would totally go for a Warren campaign. After Obama got re-elected despite an economy that Bush I would have laughed at as completely fucktarded, I don't have the "we're not that insane" idea anymore.

And I'm not sure an Obama 3rd term would be any worse than one of hers, God help us all.

[Rasilio]

Has he mentioned the Fed's role in funneling money to the rich yet?

[Citizen Nothing]

Those estimates on the DIA art are way, way low.
I'd love a Van Gogh, myself. Maybe they ought to do a raffle.

[Pro Libertate]

Chicago has some of those. Perhaps you should wait until it files.

[Citizen Nothing]

See, Detroit needs to act now before Chicago floods the art market.

[Pro Libertate]

All the cool cities will be filing for bankruptcy protection.

[PD Scott]

As long as they keep the world class orchestras they'll be okay, right?

[Pro Libertate]

Technically, I don't think they can sell the orchestras themselves, so they'll keep them. But will sell the naming rights.

[Pi Guy]

If you like your orchestra, you can keep it. Period.

[PD Scott]

The musicians should also wear NASCAR like suits with the sponsor's name emblazoned on them. Tuxedos are for solvent organizations.

[Pro Libertate]

Exactly. There's no room for turning down any source of income. For instance, if the local strip club can pay up, then the orchestra needs to play.

[Citizen Nothing]

My suggestion is that Les Wexner just write Detroit a check, and then we jack up the whole DIA and haul it down U.S. 23 to C'bus. We already own Michigan's football team. Why not their art?

[Pro Libertate]

You do not own their team, as most of the country is laughing at your entire conference these days. The team that owns Michigan and will beat them in UM's home opener next year is Appalachian State.

[The Last American Hero]

I can't stand UM, but they're botching a play call on the extra point hardly qualifies as owning them. By the way, let's hold back on the smack talk since MSU's gonna rain on your National Championship dreams.

[Nikki just says no]

Whatchyou talkin' 'bout, the Art Institute? That's not public, is it?

[Citizen Nothing]

Apparently the building belongs to a nonprofit but all of the works of art belong to the city.
How that happened, I don't know.

"He left River City the library building
"But he left all the books to her!

[Citizen Nothing]

Detroit Institute of Art. Not Chicago Art Institute -- which I think is private.

[Pro Libertate]

Probably. In school, I used to go to all of those museums on their various free days. The Art Institute is really nice and has lots of cool art.

[Medical Physics Guy]

+1 shipoopi

[Tonio]

Even if it won't pay off the entire debt, those pieces should be sold. The yummy, yummy tears will be delicious. Particularly delicious if one of the pieces ends up in private hands.

[Gbob]

I would make sure that I was driving a foreign car when I drove away with my purchase.

[Boisfeuras]

"Hey, und dummkopf, vatch out for ze CD changer in mein trunk, huh? Idiot."

[Invisible Finger]

Then we can watch the union membership try to destroy the art. Same shit happened in Iraq when Dubya sent troops in and chaos ensued.

[Robert S]

The Koch brothers should buy it all.

[Caleb Turberville]

http://www.timesdaily.com/news.....f6eda.html Moulton, Alabama drug task force concludes a 6 month investigation with the arrest of two dopers.

[Caleb Turberville]

Two pistols also were found.

Meaning what exactly? Were they going to smoke the pistols too?

[PD Scott]

"Tonight at six, it's called 'gunning' and your teen may already be trying this dangerous, deadly new drug."

[PD Scott]

"My friends and I passed a .22 around, it was like nothing I'd ever done before, in a couple weeks I was turning tricks to support my .45 habit. When I was sucking [expletive] for a Desert Eagle and the john only gave me a Saturday Night Special, kicked me and walked away, I knew I'd hit rock bottom."

[Caleb Turberville]

"It's called bearing arms. But behind closed doors at Moulton Elementary it also has a street name. Hoochie, wombat juice, tigger yum yum."

[Matrix]

MONEY WELL SPENT!!!

/drug warrior

[Spartacus]

That's probably half the population of Moulton.

[BakedPenguin]

Hasn't the "income gap" widened under Obama?

[Pro Libertate]

Look, the president can't stop the Republicans from making the rich richer and the poor poorer unless you stop asking such questions. Just close your eyes and believe.

[waffles]

Yeah it has. The monetary policy under Obama coupled with persistent unemployment has caused those with assets to do much better since 2009. The health care catastrophe just burdens the already burdened and scares employers from hiring. Obama has found a way to exacerbate every problem he supposedly wants to fix.

[Pro Libertate]

The joke this administration has been isn't funny.

[Episiarch]

That's because the joke's on you, ProL. And the rest of us.

[Pro Libertate]

So we're collectively Dick Van Dyke, and Obama is the ottoman we trip over?

[Episiarch]

More like we're Dick van Dyke and Obama is the drone that blows Chitty Chitty Bang Bang out of the sky.

[Pro Libertate]

I see. So who is the creepy child hunter and who is Benny Hill in this analogy?

[Boisfeuras]

The "rich" also benefit (relatively speaking) from inflationary monetary policy because they receive the new dollars before their effects are felt.

[Raven Nation]

Probably has, but Obama isn't perceived as being responsible for much going wrong in the country. He won election when a majority of voters thought the country was heading in the wrong direction. That's one of the reasons the ACA fiasco is such a big deal: harder to separate Obama from something named after him.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

He first had to go Nuclear to get things done. The GOP were simply getting in the way. So, income gapping it is!

[PD Scott]

Truck carrying "extremely dangerous" radioactive material stolen in Mexico.

One law enforcement official says the radioactive material the truck was carrying is a thumb-sized amount of cobalt-60, used in medical treatments.

But U.S. officials emphasize that there's no indication that the material was stolen for any criminal or terrorist purpose.

[jesse.in.mb]

At the time the truck was stolen, the source was properly shielded. However, the source could be extremely dangerous to a person if removed from the shielding, or if it was damaged.

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter.....ource.html

Is it bad that I hope they remove it from its shielding?

[Tonio]

Yeah, because they might end up irradiating someone who had nothing to do with that.

[Agammamon]

Unfortunately yes, because they'll probably toss it in the trash.

Hopefully these are some of those 'good' criminals you hear about every once in a while who'll hear the news story and call in the location of the truck for safe disposal.

[Mickey Rat]

"Our respect for other life forms requires that we give you this... warning. There is one critical item of information that has never been incorporated into the memory banks of any Earth ship. Since the early years of space exploration, Earth vessels have had incorporated into them a substance known as... cobalt-60. It is a material and a device which prevents attack on us. If any destructive energy touches our vessel, a reverse reaction of equal strength is created, destroying the attacker. It may interest you to know that since the initial use of cobalt-60 more than two of our centuries ago, no attacking vessel has survived the attempt. Death has... little meaning to us. If it has none to you then attack us now. We grow annoyed at your foolishness."

[Pro Libertate]

You know, that didn't really work. Clint Howard was just fucking with Kirk all along.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Whatever happened to his web series?

[Pro Libertate]

Who, Clint Howard? I didn't know he had one.

[Episiarch]

Come, sit and have some tranya with me.

[Pro Libertate]

Ever notice how no one in any Trek ever since mentions the First Federation, despite it's obviously awesome technology and scope? It's because of tranya addiction.

[Mickey Rat]

What is that? Battery acid?

[Pro Libertate]

This is tranya. I hope you relish it as much as I.

[PD Scott]

As good a place as any to post this Federation anti-VD poster.

[Gray Ghost]

Not their first problem with junked radiation sources. FTL:

Unlike most nuclear accidents, in which a handful of people are exposed to brief bursts of high radiation, the Juarez incident involved thousands of people exposed to low levels of radiation over an extended period. Even so, the 200 or so residents in the immediate area received the largest radiation doses on public record. Measured in terms of the total number of people exposed, the Juarez incident fell somewhere between the partial meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island reactor in 1979 and the 1986 accident at the former Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear plant.

Cobalt-60 sources have bit more than a few people on the ass. It's interesting how the Juarez case was found out. A truck carrying rebar that had been made with scrap contaminated from the Juarez radiation source, drove past a radiation detector on, IIRC, I-40 by Pantex. The detector's job was to try and stop anyone leaving the site with radioactive material (like the bomb parts they work with). Eventually the truck was tracked down, but not before a lot of the rebar had been installed in buildings throughout the southwest. I forget how many of them had to be torn down.

[Corning]

Best comic ever!!!

http://www.heavymetalmagazinef.....alt60l.jpg

[jesse.in.mb]

They seem to ban hotlinking. It just goes to a 10x10 blank gif.

[AuH20]

So, that Minnesota community college professor who got a reprimand for making 3 white students uncomfortable has caused a shit fit on the left. Slate believes the problem is that we want to treat [white, male] students like customers.

But hurt feelings can be bad for business. And a lot of powerful people think colleges should act more like businesses. When they do, students act more like customers. And our likely customers might not be amicable to discussions about structural racism. If the customer is always right, then the majority share of customers is more right than the minority. While blacks and Hispanics have increased their college participation?and they are projected to continue to do so?61 percent of all college students are still white. A survey from researchers at Tufts and Harvard found that "whites believe that they have replaced blacks as the primary victims of racial discrimination in contemporary America." A sizable number of male voters seem to believe that men are still more naturally suited to be president of the United States. Young people think racist and sexist slurs are wrong, but "they don't take much personal offense."

Cont...

[Coeus]

Dammit

[AuH20]

Edna: Well, well, if it isn't Marge Simpson and her gangland cronies.

Maude: Your goon squads certainly gave you the edge in the mobile snack business. But I'm afraid we've outdone you once again. Hiroshi, Yukio...[steps aside to reveal a group of armed Japanese mobsters] Perhaps you've heard of the Yakuza: the Poison Fists of the Pacific Rim, the Japanese mafia.

Agnes: They'll kill ya five times before you hit the ground!

[AuH20]

Edna: Well, well, if it isn't Marge Simpson and her gangland cronies.

Maude: Your goon squads certainly gave you the edge in the mobile snack business. But I'm afraid we've outdone you once again. Hiroshi, Yukio...[steps aside to reveal a group of armed Japanese mobsters] Perhaps you've heard of the Yakuza: the Poison Fists of the Pacific Rim, the Japanese mafia.

Agnes: They'll kill ya five times before you hit the ground!

[AuH20]

Edna: Well, well, if it isn't Marge Simpson and her gangland cronies.

Maude: Your goon squads certainly gave you the edge in the mobile snack business. But I'm afraid we've outdone you once again. Hiroshi, Yukio...[steps aside to reveal a group of armed Japanese mobsters] Perhaps you've heard of the Yakuza: the Poison Fists of the Pacific Rim, the Japanese mafia.

Agnes: They'll kill ya five times before you hit the ground!

[AuH20]

Edna: Well, well, if it isn't Marge Simpson and her gangland cronies.

Maude: Your goon squads certainly gave you the edge in the mobile snack business. But I'm afraid we've outdone you once again. Hiroshi, Yukio...[steps aside to reveal a group of armed Japanese mobsters] Perhaps you've heard of the Yakuza: the Poison Fists of the Pacific Rim, the Japanese mafia.

Agnes: They'll kill ya five times before you hit the ground!

[AuH20]

Squirrels love kindles!

[Andrew S.]

You see, the squirrels, they have been most vocal on the subject of the pretzel monies. "Where's the money?" "When are you going to get the money?" "Why aren't you getting the money now?" And so on.

[Agammamon]

They'll post 4 times before you hit the ground!

[AuH20]

If I want to piss off the majority of higher education's customers, then defying the natural superiority of men by being a female authority figure, countering white oppression beliefs by appealing to structural racism, and making young people feel the emotions of being offended would seem like a good way to go. If, like Gibney, I were a professor hired to teach diaspora studies, doing so would be my job.

Learning is?should often be?uncomfortable for individuals. When universities have a mission to serve the public good, they balance the needs of individuals with benefits to society and the power of the majority against the humanity of the minority. Calls to "unbundle" the university never talk about what happens to that mission when we only learn what makes us comfortable?what it means for minority students and professors or the counternarratives they produce. The promise of market models of higher education like massive open online courses is that student-customers can build their own degree from a buffet of choices. But the buffet is heavy on science and math classes, and light on courses like humanities and social science where structural racism, sexism, and classism are taught.

[Some call me Tim?]

tl;dr--"boo hoo, online education will mean less exposure for my Marxist philosophy."

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, I rather suspect that Internet-based education won't be as captured by the nutjobs as university-based education has been, at least in certain fields.

[Episiarch]

Or, "boo hoo, I won't have captive students forced to take my class to fulfill an elective requirement, because if that requirement didn't exist I'd have a about three students take my class and one would drop it after one class".

[Nikki just says no]

Seriously. God I can't wait until education is fully unbundled so the poor saps who need to pay for credentials can at least stop funding the pet reading hobbies of the ivory tower.

[Pro Libertate]

I like scholarship and people who dive into topics with an obsessiveness beyond understanding. I mean, I watched a guy on TV last night who spent eight years chipping away at some limestone to expose a very ancient early human skull. That's great, and I'm glad we have people like that.

What's not good is these people in various disciplines who, rather than adding anything useful to human knowledge, just engage in bullshit politics and polemics. Nothing new, nothing useful, nothing good, just a form of masturbation. What's worse, is that they are polluting their disciplines themselves, which are often quite legitimate, with all of this crap.

[Medical Physics Guy]

when we only learn what makes us comfortable

As if the modern liberal arts faculty was anything other than a dwindling bubble of people repeating the same comfortable fantasies over and over to themselves and anyone foolish enough to listen.

And if they think MRI physics is a comfortable subject, they can come sit my lectures! We'll see how comfortable they are.

[MJGreen]

courses like humanities and social science where structural racism, sexism, and classism are taught.

The PHRASING! implies that structural racism, sexism, and classism are the subjects that the students are taught to engage in.

[Mad Scientist]

That's why I signed up!

[Andrew S.]

One thing I've been wondering since I first heard about this a few days ago: In what possible context were they discussing race and privilege in an Intro to Mass Communications 101 course?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Actually I could see how a (sane) discussion of race would be appropriate for a class on Mass Media (racial depictions being the subject I guess).

[Virginian]

Implying Mass Com 101 is anything more then an utter bullshit gimme credit.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I do not know, I think it would be interesting to have a sane discussion about how certain negative (or positive) racial depictions have been found historically in mass media.

[Virginian]

Implying a sane discussion can be had on those topics.

It's just ritual dick beating, every single fucking time. And you know what else? It's insufferable bullshit because it boils down to a bunch of 18-21 year olds pontificating about shit. Look, I'm 24 and I know for a fact how little I know. So you take that lack of knowledge, multiply it by 20 or 25 or 30 and then add in a mouth breathing fuckstick who's never had a real job in his whole life facilitating the discussion? Oh wow. Yeah. Great.

Intro level courses in bullshit fields can be replaced in their entirety with a subreddit.

[Pro Libertate]

I fucking hated know-nothing kids back when I was one. What a bunch of pompous idiots.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I had a class (it was not a Communication Class, but it was not a required one either) where we spent a week talking about how the film Birth of a Nation influenced a resurgence in the Ku Klux Klan and public conceptions of the Reconstruction Era that I thought was very interesting. In the same class we later talked about the role and influence of imagery in national news coverage during the Civil Rights protest era.

I thought it was interesting and rather liked it.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I should add that this class was taught in a 'lecture' style, most of us 18-24 year olds did not say peep.

[Virginian]

I should add that this class was taught in a 'lecture' style, most of us 18-24 year olds did not say peep.

Precisely. Particularly when it comes discrimination and racism, the current generation (of which I am a part, reminder) has essentially zero to offer. Bring in a bunch of old black people who got beat up by cops for voting or spent two years walking around Birmingham instead of driving the bus. Or find someone who was born in Manzanar or Gila River. Or someone who got thrown in jail or fined for sodomy.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Agreed. Some of my most tedious classes were ones where we got into a circle and had teacher-prodded 'discussions' about things most knew nothing about.

[Pro Libertate]

I'm fine with actual history on issues like racism or whatever, but when it gets into political axe grinding, which it so often does these days, it's worse than useless.

[jesse.in.mb]

it's worse than useless.

How did this become a discussion of Epi's mom?

[Pro Libertate]

Why are you posting when you're supposed to be conducting surveys of gay Nazi prostitutes?

[jesse.in.mb]

Why are you posting when you're supposed to be conducting surveys of gay Nazi prostitutes?

In due time, Pro L. I don't leave for Berlin until the 28th.

[Pro Libertate]

Science delayed is science denied.

[jesse.in.mb]

I suppose I could see if any Lufthansa flight attendants are staying at the Marriott across the street and get a head start on this project.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

http://instantrimshot.com/

Whoever linked to this in a previous thread - fuck you. I'm addicted to it. It's driving my wife and daughter insane as I click on it after every possible sentence.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I would guess my professor was left of center, but I thought the class was relatively untainted by that. Like I said we spent time looking at how mass media was used to inspire racial intolerance and tolerance. In fact it did not really venture into 'this was the imagery, but this is the fact' it just examined the use of the imagery and its effects.

[Pro Libertate]

I've had perfectly fine classes with lefty professors. Not all of them are about indoctrination, thankfully.

[BakedPenguin]

I remember a class I took with a complete leftist professor (I think she was an actual communist). She mentioned to a marine buddy of mine who did a tour of Korea about taking a trip to China (early 80's) where she had some stringy met to eat. My friend rather gleefully informed her she'd eaten dog. He was amused by the color she turned.

[Pro Libertate]

I had a Marxist professor for a Political Philosophy class I took my freshman year. It was at that time that I realized that I couldn't major in that kind of crap. I mean, like one class in. Even so, he wasn't as bad as you'd think, because back then, they tried to at least pretend to be objective about some things.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

-Young people think racist and sexist slurs are wrong, but "they don't take much personal offense."

I guess we should invent an offense-o-meter and have the appropriate level fixed by a Congressionally created agency, followed by education classes to help us reach those levels then.

Sheesh.

[Tonio]

That wasn't Myers, was it?

[Juice]

I'm guessing that she didn't just say "there exists structural racism," but went a step further and somehow personally accused the white kids in her class of being part of it.

[MJGreen]

The title (I don't give Slate/Salon page views) says, "Reprimanded for talking about racism." But the accusation is that she talked about racism again... and again... and again, right?

[Coeus]

Finally some pushback.

. More recently, when Gibney led a discussion on structural racism in her mass communication class, three white students filed a discrimination complaint because it made them feel uncomfortable. This time, MCTC reprimanded Gibney under their anti-discrimination policy.

She told them that if they had a problem, go file a discrimination complaint. So they did.

And this insanely biased article has this gem:

Learning is?should often be?uncomfortable for individuals. When universities have a mission to serve the public good, they balance the needs of individuals with benefits to society and the power of the majority against the humanity of the minority. Calls to "unbundle" the university never talk about what happens to that mission when we only learn what makes us comfortable?what it means for minority students and professors or the counternarratives they produce. The promise of market models of higher education like massive open online courses is that student-customers can build their own degree from a buffet of choices. But the buffet is heavy on science and math classes, and light on courses like humanities and social science where structural racism, sexism, and classism are taught

[AuH20]

Aww its okay. You can do the salon article

[PapayaSF]

Learning is?should often be?uncomfortable for individuals.

What they mean is: uncomfortable for white, male, and/or Christian individuals.

[MJGreen]

Seriously, wouldn't these same people go into a frothing rage if a black or trans or what-have-you student said they were made "uncomfortable" in class? Isn't that a big part of the origin of "microaggressions"?

[PapayaSF]

Exactly. A professor talking about (e.g.) the "culture of crime" in inner cities would never be able to get away with saying: "Oh, I don't mean you personally, Kwanisha! Besides, learning can be uncomfortable."

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Martin Bashir resigns from MSNBC

10s of people disappointed.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

-10s of people disappointed

Bashir's extended family?

[PD Scott]

People he owes money to.

[Bobarian]

Well... he might have to spend more time at the house, so wouldn't you be disappointed?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Utah Anti-Immigration Group Opposes Guest Worker Proposals

-S.744 expands existing guest worker programs such as the H-1B program, increasing the base cap from 65,000 to 110,000. Over time the program can be increased to admit as many as 180,000 workers/year. There go your skilled jobs, perhaps even yours, and especially if you are a college student planning on a STEM job. It seems to me that if there were fewer unemployed Americans that these wages, which have been stagnant for about four years would go up and more American students would get the education needed for these jobs.

S.744 creates new agriculture guest worker program that admits up to 112,000 farm workers annually. There are hundreds of thousands of young men and women that would love to work in agriculture, but they can't because wages are so low that they can't make a living for their American family. This is bad legislation for rural areas. The elite that are pushing S.744 believe that farm, dairy, and ranching type of work, is work that Americans are too lazy or unwilling to do. They assume that this type of work is below the dignity of the American workers, a false assumption.

https://sites.google.com/site/ufirenow/Home

[jesse.in.mb]

How real men jumpstart cars.

[PapayaSF]

Sending electricity through something with bullets in it seems like a bad idea.

[Agammamon]

The good old AK. Nothing it can't do - except shoot straight.

[Rasilio]

So how long till my brothers new company gets audited/shut down...

http://www.americandedicatedlo.....outUs.html

Market Strategy
Currently the trend throughout the delivery industry is towards outsourcing. Many companies are trying to find ways to circumvent cumbersome government regulations and employment law that make delivery drivers too expensive. These companies still desire to maintain control over their delivery operation. Dedicated services offers them an answer where they can maintain daily control over the movement of their product while avoiding having to hire employees.

Business Model
Ultimately, American Dedicated Logistics is a contract management and logistics support company. We will offer dedicated contract drivers to any industry that has a regular local delivery need. We will back up those drivers with management and logistics support. Our primary task will be to:

Identify the customers need.
Solve any operational issues.
Seek out the right contractors to solve that need and get them under contract so that we can offer their services to our customer.
Offer continual operational follow up and support to both the customer and the contractor.

[PD Scott]

So, they're a temp agency for truck drivers?

[Rasilio]

Kinda halfway between that and a marketplace matching up independent contractors with people who need work done.

The business model is not all that unusual from the drivers side, lots of drivers work as independent contractors, it is just that they usually they get all their work from 1 company and the IRS regs make it questionable as to whether they would really be independent in that model.

What is unique here is the way his company works with the business clients, actually pairing them up with and letting them choose which drivers they work with rather than assigning the driver based on the shipping companies needs. That and his blatent marketing targeting the cost of employee regulations and benefits.

[Invisible Finger]

The reason a lot of drivers work as independent contractors (for one company) is that those drivers used to run independent companies themselves until federal regulations put them out of business because the compliance costs were too high for a one-driver operation to cover.

[jesse.in.mb]

Canada is making a play for the North Pole. We should consider nuking them now.*

Canada's deadline is Friday to apply to a United Nations commission for exclusive rights to what is likely to be another 1.7 million square kilometres of Arctic seafloor. The application under the Convention on the Law of the Sea will be the culmination of a decade of work and more than $200 million in public money.

*of course after evacuating hot Quebecois men, poutine, ketchup chips and our beloved Canadian commenters.

[PD Scott]

It'll be them or the Russians. The Norwegians don't have the power. So, why not Canada?

[Nikki just says no]

You just totally sent me into a two-minute reverie about strip clubs and late-night food...

[jesse.in.mb]

Go on...

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Go Canada Go!

Problem for Canada has always been exacting sovereignty through a police/military presence. At the moment all we have are 5000 rangers covering 1.4 sq million miles.

It's always been my contention that one day some sort of entente will be made with the USA as the need for resources increases.

[The Last American Hero]

It hasn't already? I thought Canada was just French for the State of North Montana.

[The Bearded Hobbit]

North North Dakota.

... Hobbit

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Hubble telescope detects water on five alien worlds

The five exoplanets with hints of water are all scorching-hot, Jupiter-size worlds that are unlikely to host life as we know it. But finding water in their atmospheres still marks a step forward in the search for distant planets that may be capable of supporting alien life, researchers said.
[...]
The two research teams used Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 to analyze starlight passing through the atmospheres of the five "hot Jupiter" planets, which are known as WASP-17b, HD209458b, WASP-12b, WASP-19b and XO-1b.

"To actually detect the atmosphere of an exoplanet is extraordinarily difficult. But we were able to pull out a very clear signal, and it is water," Drake Deming of the University of Maryland, lead author of the other recent study, said in a statement.

Water is thought to be a common constituent of exoplanet atmospheres and has been found in the air of several other distant worlds to date. But the new work marks the first time scientists have measured and compared profiles of the substance in detail across multiple alien worlds, researchers said.

[jesse.in.mb]

WASP

RACIST!

[Medical Physics Guy]

way to disrupt the privileged narrative

[PD Scott]

So, water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink?

[The DerpRider]

But has it left the solar system?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

-Fox News Warns of Muslim Swim Classes

-Fox News anchor Heather Nauert announced on Monday that a YMCA swim class that respected the religious traditions of Muslim girls was proof that "Sharia law is now changing everything."

The Minneapolis StarTribune reported last week that the downtown St. Paul YMCA had teamed up with the St. Paul police department to teach a group of Somali-American girls to swim. To respect the religious traditions and modesty of the girls ? ages 5 to 17 ? men were not allowed in the pool area during the one-hour class.

But for the Fox News host, this was a sign that Sharia law was creeping in "towns across the Midwest."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/201.....verything/

[Virginian]

Orthodox Jews are the same way. I used to work private pool parties, and one was an Orthodox kids bar mitzvah.

Saddest pool party of all time.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Yes, I heard of pools in heavily Jewish areas that do a similar accommodation for Orthodox Jews. But I doubt Fox will do a story about how halacha is 'changing everything.'

[PapayaSF]

Could it be because Orthodox Jews aren't associated with a worldwide terrorist movement that's killed scores of thousands, and their religion doesn't claim its destiny is to rule the world one day?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I think Orthodox Judaism does in fact believe that eventually all nations will acknowledge God as the God of Israel, does it not?

[PapayaSF]

I don't think it's anything even close to what the Koran says about Islam ruling the world.

[trshmnstr]

This is the similar to the Christian argument of pre-mil v. post-mil. Sharia adherent Muslims are the equivalent of post-mil Christians (man establishes the kingdom of God on Earth before the 2nd coming), whereas Orthodox Jews are roughly equivalent to pre-mils (2nd coming and then kingdom on Earth).

Post-mils are who drove progressivism in the 19th century (before progs became primarily atheist). Pre-mils were the classical liberals of the time.

[robc]

Its clearly stupid as Sharia Law implies Law and a private org should be able to do this.

But then again, the police participated too. WTF? Why are the police teaching swimming classes?

[PD Scott]

To escape from rabid dogs when you've fired your last round at it's rabid pack mates.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

-Why are the police teaching swimming classes?

Community outreach (without a baton in their hands this time)?

[Medical Physics Guy]

Ach, teach kids to swim FFS. I'd rather not with the PC bullcrap, but if I'm paying taxes, I'd rather see it going to making sure kids can swim than a whole lotta other things.

[Invisible Finger]

What about the security cameras?

[Azathoth!!]

So, according to the article, the muslims who demand that paying customers of the Y be forbidden from using the facilities they pay aren't actually paying to close the pool to male swimmers.

Apparently that's too expensive for them.

So they use the power of the state--because that is what the police are, no?--to secure a sharia compliant swimming space.

Oh, this can be spun nicely and made to appear innocuous--but it is, in the end, the cops securing a sharia compliant pool at the expense of those who actually pay for the privilege of using that pool.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Progressive caucus supports rule by decree

The White House has offered "no response" to a months-old call from congressional Democrats to bypass Congress and use executive action to raise workers' wages, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus told Salon Tuesday afternoon.

"It wasn't responded to," said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz. "I mean, the response would have been, 'We're working on it, we're looking into it,' 'We feel it's a good idea,' or, 'No, we're not going to do it.' Any of those is a response. We received none of that." Grijalva pledged that, starting with a Thursday rally at the National Air and Space Museum, congressional progressives would become "much more public and much more insistent" in pressing the president to act.

Grijalva and 49 House Democrats wrote to Obama in September to urge he use executive authority to require better labor standards for workers employed through federal government contracts with private companies. That letter followed a prior July letter by Grijalva and others, and a handful of one-day strikes since May by cleaning and concessions workers in D.C. federal buildings. A report by the progressive think tank Demos estimated that about 2 million workers with taxpayer-funded jobs make $12 an hour or less.

[SusanM]

surprising because...

[Dead or In Jail]

Didn't Grijalva almost lose his seat recently?

[TeamBarstool]

I'm in his district. Unfortunately,the district lines are drawn so he has a seat for life.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Obama has the same shitty communistic ideas the shitty little socialists in Quebec have.

The result? Shitty, anemic, unimaginative but overly regulated markets in an anti-business atmosphere.

[AuH20]

Gawker writes an elegy for the white male student

You passed on long before anyone informed you?
A majority minority, clinging to your faith in the good old order,
Until that Intro to Mass Communications lady spoiled it all!

"Structural racism,""cultural studies,""critical theory" ?
This is not why you came to college, to get "critical theories,"
Especially not if they're critical of you.

"Why do we have to talk about this in every class?"
"Yeah, I don't get this either.It's like people are trying to say
That white men are always the villains, the bad guys."

How beautifully you sang it,brother!
You never owned slaves!You never held anyone back,
Or down,
At least no one that never asked for it.Amirite?!

It is absolutely appropriate that you marched down to the office
Of Minneapolis Community and Technical College
(Hail!Alma mater!)
And filed a racial harassment complaint,
Because that is what the rules are there for.
Justice should be blind...but not to the male white's plight.

This was not the way college was supposed to be.
You sought not education or enlightenment, but training
And a job to get your parents off your shamrock-and-cross-tattooed back.

Primarily,you came for the college football pool
And to find your drinking bros.
Who else would support you in your academic isolation?

[Andrew S.]

Oh no. You are not going to get me to click a Gawker link. I'm in a semi-good mood right now.

(Though you've more or less ruined it with the copy and paste. Damn you.)

[AuH20]

Cont..

Where was your scholarship for being a straight unhyphenated dude
Your student council-approved club?

No bro is an island.
(Unless the government wants to take your guns or shove health care up your butt,
All gay-like, or make your Silverado more fuel-efficient,
In which case you are totally an island,
But full of beaches like from that Corona ad with the "Crushed It" dude.)

When you used "fag" in class ironically
Then blanched after the professor demanded that you define "irony";

When you tried to explain to your final project classmates
That where you come from,
"Riceburner" is a totally valid means
Of referring to foreign sportbikes,

Only your bros were there to salve your deepest wounds.
What killed you?
Was it the crazy chick instructors with their chick theories about words hurting?
Was it that tweedy English prof trashing free enterprise,
Prattling on about "culture industry" and "poststructuralism"?
(I'll show you my superstructure.)

Young white man,
Rest now.
Here is a safe space for your kind.
I know your pain.

I was you,
Until I realized that The Fountainhead was an awful book.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I wonder if the author even knows that the Fountainhead was written by a woman (and an immigrant to America to boot).

[Episiarch]

I wonder if the writer of that garbage understands how clearly and obviously it exposes their seething hatred, envy, irrationalism, and plain old nastiness. I assume they don't, but...it's obvious to the rest of us. Sorry, dude or dudette. Your attempt at humor just scrawled "hateful collectivist scumbag" all over your low forehead.

[Coeus]

Is it weird that I find the part before cont. to be completely accurate?

[jesse.in.mb]

Japs want to build a giant solar panel ring around moon. Send energy to earth using microwaves.

If there's anything I've learned from SimCity it's that if you don't disable disasters you'll end up microwaving part of your city when you do this.

[SusanM]

Oh, please let the company doing this be Luthorcorp Japan llc.

[Mad Scientist]

Actually, depending on which version you played, the disasters for things like power stations were almost unheard of if you spent enough money on power systems and maintenance. The disasters always came when the system was underfunded and straining to keep up, i.e., the worst possible moment.

[Andrew S.]

But disasters were half the fun of SimCity! Who didn't enjoy saving their game and then unleashing hell upon the poor inhabitants of their city?

(Of course, I haven't played since SimCity 3000)

[PD Scott]

Solar power satellites are an idea that should be looked at again. Lunar environmentalists will never let them build their solar ring there.

[Bobarian]

But what are lunar environmentalists gonna do about it?

[trshmnstr]

They'll get the entire damn moon declared a "global conservatory." What are we conserving? Moondust and a few aging footprints. Why do we need to? Mumble, mumble.... corporationZ!!!!

[Rasilio]

What a dumbass idea.

Why the hell would you want to put your solar collector array on a body not in geosynchronous orbit 250,000 miles away when you could put it in a nice stable spot right above the area where it's antenna array was located a mere 24,000 miles away?

I mean yes, it would be slightly more expensive to construct a solar array of any given size in geosynchronous orbit than on the surface of the moon you would not need anywhere near total mirror area because half the moon is always in darkness and you wouldn't have to worry about the 12 hours a day when the moon is on the opposite side of the earth from the receiving antenna's were located.

I mean space based Solar power is the best source for our future power needs outside of a breakthrough in fusion or some other more exotic source but this particular plan is just stupid

[Libertarius]

"Space based solar power is the best source for our future power needs"

LOL! This is your brain on rationalism!

It's called 4th generation nuclear reactor technology, bub. It's already here, and it's not a rationalistic pipe dream to boot!

[Clich? Bandit]

In order to make type two though we need to harness stars. It would help if we were already type 1...can we skip a level?

[Corning]

You are both wrong. Gas oil and coal is cheaper and safer and will probably remain so long after we are dead.

[Agammamon]

To have 24 hour coverage to any particular ground station you're going to have to place relay satellites anyway.

So why not send your satellites into *solar* orbit inside the orbit of Mercury) and then beam it to relays in Earth orbit.

[Rasilio]

Uh, no.

Geosynchronous means always orbiting over roughly the same point, there is some drift but not enough to matter for these purposes since any 1 satellite would only be beaming to power sations a few thousand KM apart

[The Bearded Hobbit]

half the moon is always in darkness

Nope.

According to Pink Floyd, "There is no dark side of the moon. As a matter of fact, it's all dark."

And according to orbital dynamics you're still wrong.

... Hobbit

[Agammamon]

Why would you do that rather than put a series of satellites in *Earth* orbit to beam the energy down?

I mean its a hell of a lot further to ship your construction materials to the Moon than it is to loft them into high orbit.

[jesse.in.mb]

Not necessarily. The moon has a ton of silica, iron, magnesium and aluminum. We might not need to send all that much.

[Agammamon]

You'd still have to send the machinery to mine, process the ores, and manufacture everything.

I mean, *maybe*, if you want to have your first solar panels coming online 20 years from now and the initial investment paid off a hundred years after that.

[The Late P Brooks]

The National Transportation Safety Board has booted the rail union from involvement in the investigation of the deadly weekend train derailment in New York for violating confidentiality.

The neverending oppression of the Working Man continues.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

I'm not sure how I missed this retraction, but it seems applicable today.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....72006.html

You mean to tell me they lied and fudged the numbers? Say it ain't so.

Seriously, the average McDonalds store gives over 1/3 of it's gross income to employees. And they're the greedy ones? That's not 1/3 of profits, that's 1/3 of income.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Dammit, used the quote button instead of the link button. Not really an SF... what would this be?

[itsnotmeitsyou]

I'm going home now. It's been a long day.

[jesse.in.mb]

Old story, but it's new to me:

Real Detroit police rob people as "fake" police:

DETROIT - A Good Samaritan snapped photos of what appeared to be two men impersonating police officers involved in a pistol-whipping and robbery outside a Citgo gas station on Detroit's east side on July 21.

Once Fox 2 aired those photos, an even more disturbing picture developed.

"Several unidentified police officers were working this particular robbery case, recognized one of the suspects in the photographs as being a member of the Detroit Police Department," Chief James Craig said Monday.

Now under arrest are two police sergeants, a 47-year-old officer and 20-year veteran of the Detroit Police Department and his 42-year-old buddy from the police academy, who is a former DPD cop and 17-year veteran of the St. Clair Shores Police Department. The later recently received a distinguished service award.

"In fact, they were police officers, just not working on-duty at the time," Craig said.

[Andrew S.]

Their mistake was not doing it while in uniform and on duty, of course.

[MattJ]

OT: Girlfriend's daughter (age 8) comes home from school yesterday with the following story:

During gym class, vice principal grabs her and 4 other 'good' kids and hauls them into the principal's office. Initially the kids are scared, but principal and VP tell the kids that they're not in trouble. What is required is that the kids write down anything you can think of that the teacher has done in class that you think a teacher shouldn't do. The kids are prompted to think of things like yelling, slamming doors, slamming down books, etc. The kids are given candy and an 'award' for helping, and told that the administration will call their parents that evening to tell us what good girls and boys they are. The kids were instructed not to tell their teacher this happened at all.

That night, the VP calls my girlfriend, as promised (this is the first I had heard of it). She tells her what happened, and assures her that they did it because they want what's best for the kids.

It's well known that the folks running that school want this teacher out, mostly because she bucks the system somewhat. She's not a big fan of common core. The other teachers in the school consistently (again this year) vote her as the best teacher in the school.

(continued...)

[MattJ]

Any ideas of how to react to this? I wrote a nasty email to the principal (haven't sent it yet because the girlfriend thinks it's too aggressive and she doesn't want her daughter (either of them, she has another 2 years older in the same school) targeted by the administration.

Is it lawyer time? I hate it that adults the girl is supposed to trust are turning her into a snitch, and using her this way.

[Citizen Nothing]

Take it to the local press and embarrass the shit out of the administration.

[Andrew S.]

This. Play up the "Teacher of the Year" thing as much as possible.

[Episiarch]

Yeah, fuck their plans up as best you can. Teach them a lesson about trying to use somebody's kids as snitches in their internal power plays. Fuck that shit.

[AuH20]

Forward the emails to the teacher. This is nice grounds for a lawsuit. Also, record the kid on tape and get it to the teacher.

The school would definitely choose settlement over a jury hearing that

[Rich]

As long as your daughter is being used, get her to let it slip to the principal that the teacher is having kids do the same thing with regard to the principal.

[MattJ]

Thanks, all.

Just talked to the girlfriend. The current plan is to first talk to the other parents (one father apparently went to the school first thing this morning to demand the principal no longer involve his daughter in this nonsense and that the school return to him whatever it is that his daughter wrote) The principal would not see him. He called the school superintendent next, and was told to see the principal first.

According to the little girl, none of the kids in the class wanted to go to gym today, because they were afraid the principal was coming for them. (Apparently they were told yesterday that they were all eventually going to go to the principal's office)

I hope the school administration is as scared about this as I am angry.

[PaIin's Buttplug]

So, not your kid or your wife, I suggest you mind your own business.

She could be banging some other dude this time next year, get some perspective.

[trshmnstr]

To be fair, when you're a buttplug, you get a pretty jaded view of human relationships. The complete lack of empathy part? Yeah, that's DSM worthy.

[Heroic Mulatto]

How do you know it's not his kid? It is biologically possible to have children out of wedlock, you know.

[Agammamon]

Yeah, completely ignoring and refusing to help your partner raise their kids is a good way to *ensure* that she'll be sleeping with some other dude this time next year.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Spoken by someone whose closest female relationship was the blow-up doll your daddy got you for Christfagmas.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Ah, man. I'm not sure what I would do but I think I'd lace into him behind closed doors and that if he ever used my kid as a pawn in a bull shit political game I'd do the same to him or her.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Costco has issues labeling books

"I think the Bible is fiction," Sjoberg told me. But she was incensed that the store had the nerve to apply the fiction label to Solomon Northup's memoir "12 Years a Slave," which she bought for her son who is studying slavery and the Civil War. That literary work, of course, is the true tale of a free black man who was sold into slavery
[...]
Not that it really matters, but it appears Costco, or its book distributor, simply doesn't grasp the distinction between fact and fiction.

Take "Lit," the bestselling alcoholism memoir by the amazing (and sober) Mary Karr, whose extraordinary first memoir, "The Liars' Club" plumbed her chaotic Texas childhood. At Costco -- and I presume this is not a value judgment -- "Lit" is labeled "fiction." What an insult to an accomplished memoirist like Karr.

On the other hand, I can't totally blame Costco for mislabeling "Ron Burgundy: Let Me Off at the Top: My Classy Life & Other Musings."

The cover of this book sports a picture of a mega-mustachioed Will Ferrell, in character as San Diego's fictional TV anchorman. If you aren't a reader, don't know anything about popular culture and perhaps haven't been to the movies in a decade, it's perfectly understandable that you might slap a "nonfiction" label on this faux memoir.

[PD Scott]

Costco really just needs a "Books" section. Customers can decide for themselves what category the book falls into.

[Gray Ghost]

There are labels in Costco? Not just a giant stack of books on a table?

[Agammamon]

There were - because of this Costo will remove them.

[Enough About Palin]

Was going to leave this on the Michigan Libertarian Professor thread, but am leaving it here instead:

I have an old cell phone I don't use that has about 120 pictures and 40 video clips on it (mostly of my now deceased dog). It's so old that it can't connect to a PC (you have to email them to the PC. Are you saying that if I took this phone to the right person that they could transfer the stuff to a flashdrive? And if so, who would that be?

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Not exactly. I was talking about modern phones with SD cards and a computer connection.

It's possible that the stuff could be removed from the phone's memory. Take it to Radio Shack. They have something called a Cellbrite machine that has attachments and software to read pretty much any phone and transfer it to either a flash drive or another phone. As long as the phone powers on and menus can be accessed, it shouldn't be a problem

[Enough About Palin]

Thanks! Phone works fine, so I will give that a try. Any chance that they's actually delete them instead?

[trshmnstr]

They'd have to be pretty careless to do that

[jesse.in.mb]

That sounds like every RadioShack employee I've ever encountered.

[jesse.in.mb]

Oh my, some company is sending people door to door in my office building flogging Covered California.

[Agammamon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2ce-zC_n8E

[Raven Nation]

Apologies if posted this morning. One of the "Band of Brothers" passes away:

http://townhall.com/news/us/20.....s-n1756757

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Barack Obama gets economic advice from the underpants Gnomes

[Corning]

How the fuck does increasing the min wage create jobs?

[trshmnstr]

Companies now have to create jobs at the new minimum wage, because the old jobs below minimum wage are illegal.

/progmoron

[Griffin3]

If you like your job you can keep it. Period.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

There's no way like the Chicago way

Former Chicago Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Al Sanchez, convicted on federal charges of rigging hiring to benefit political foot soldiers, filed Monday to run for the Cook County Board seat previously held by William Beavers ? who is headed for prison.

Sanchez was among the last-day filers on the deadline for submitting candidacy petitions for the March 18 primary ballot. More than 130 candidates filed for Cook County offices.

At the state level, more than 500 candidates filed for federal and state government offices and judgeships during a shortened weeklong filing period interrupted by the Thanksgiving holiday. The last-day filers included Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth of Hoffman Estates.

For some Cook County voters, the Democratic primary could become known as the election of second chances. Another convicted felon, former Chicago Ald. Issac "Ike" Carothers, also filed for a primary bid for the County Board.

Sanchez, the former head of the Streets and Sanitation Department under Mayor Richard M. Daley, also formerly headed the once-powerful pro-Daley Hispanic Democratic Organization. He was the highest-ranking Daley appointee sent to prison following a lengthy federal investigation into hiring at City Hall. He was convicted in a scheme to steer city jobs and promotions to HDO members.

I blame Nicole.

[jesse.in.mb]

Florida killing whales

Dozens of pilot whales are stranded in the shallow waters of remote area in Everglades National Park. Floridian marine life experts are on a mission Wednesday to return these majestic mammals back to the Gulf of Mexico before their luck dries up.
[...]
At least 30 whales swam into the isolated area near Highland Beach because there likely appeared to be enough water during high tide, officials suggested.

[Virginian]

The pilot whale is actually a member of the dolphin family and displays intelligence on par with bottlenose dolphins, the American Cetacean Society said.

Not too bright then huh?

Whatever happened to natural selection?

[Episiarch]

Most whale beachings are for unknown reasons, and usually, if you put the whales/porpoises/dolphins back in the water, they just beach again.

So, good luck with that, "marine life experts".

[jesse.in.mb]

Cetaceans are so intelligent, but they lack opposable thumbs. This leads to an intense level of ennui and mass suicide.

I demand an honorary degree from a prestigious university.

[Episiarch]

(hands jesse a doctor of letters degree from Wossamotta U)

[jesse.in.mb]

Squee! Now all I need is a wife and my parents will be so proud of me!

[Mad Scientist]

Due to their lack of opposable thumbs they are not able to construct suicide chambers, so they beach themselves instead. It's all spelled out in A Taste of Armageddon.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Is Godwining inapplicable if the current administration begins to actually emulate a certain central European regime?

http://dailycaller.com/2013/12.....-is-doing/

[SusanM]

A tad bit of a stretch, Red.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

I realize that Godwining wouldn't apply anymore if Obama actually started throwing people in ovens--I just hope it doesn't get that far.

Irrespective of the comparisons, it's fucking creepy and sad that the White House panders to the youth demographic as much as it does. It speaks to the overall childishness of the administration in general.

[Mad Scientist]

it's fucking creepy and sad that the White House panders to the youth demographic as much as it does.

The youth demographic hasn't really picked a side yet. Pandering to them for votes has the possibility of bringing them onto TEAM BLUE for life. Pandering to any other demographic will only sway those voters for a single election. This is a rare example of TEAM BLUE thinking long term.

[Corning]

Why is it always about the holocaust?

Hitler did some other shitty things also you know...and they were shitty enough to be noted as shitty all on their own.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Including starting a war that killed at least 60-85 million more people on top of the holocaust victims. The Soviet Union lost roughly 15% of their entire population. Some people tend to act as if they don't matter as much, unfortunately.

[Caleb Turberville]

http://www.warren.senate.gov/f.....nts/Letter from Elizabeth Warren 12-4-2013.pdf

Elizabeth Warren wants to know to which "think tanks" Wall Street CEOs have been contributing.

[Caleb Turberville]

http://tinyurl.com/lruoph4

Oops. See if this will work.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

White House won't say who was standing behind Obama during his ACA speech

There were 18 other people standing with Weeks and the president on stage. Obama began his remarks by saying, "Thanks to Monica, thanks to everybody standing behind me." A little later, criticizing Republicans who have pronounced Obamacare a failure, the president said, "I would advise them to check with the people who are here today and the people that they represent all across the country whose lives have been changed for the better by the Affordable Care Act."

But Obama never said who those people were, and, unlike other events, the White House did not release their names or biographies. A spokesman later said the White House would not provide the information. A pool report called the group "19 individuals whom the White House said benefited from health care reform." Beyond that, their connection to Obamacare remains unknown.

An Obamacare Potemkin Village.

[Episiarch]

They're not even trying any more. Which just adds to the hilarity!

[SusanM]

http://thinkprogress.org/econo.....-deficits/

Anyone wanna join the trolling fun?

[BakedPenguin]

Deficit of opportunity is right, they just refuse to admit they're the actual problem.

[Caleb Turberville]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html

Speaking of Elizabeth Warren:

Unlike Obama, she exudes passion and conviction. She wants to rein in Wall Street, narrow the obscene gap between rich and poor and restore middle-class vitality. Nothing wrong with any of that.

In contrast, the presumed front?runner for the nomination, Clinton, remains enveloped in a fog of murkiness. She'd be the first woman president. But so would Warren. Clinton has had a varied career ? she's even been a senator, remember? ? but she still needs to define herself. She traveled precisely 956,733 miles as secretary of state but never got close to an essential achievement.

The boomlet for Warren shows a yearning for a revival of muscular liberalism. But the Obamacare mess has even some liberals ? the editor of the aforementioned New Republic, for instance ? wondering if this advance in liberalism hasn't in fact set the movement back. To the Democratic left, Warren's heat is the remedy for Obama's cool. To the rest of the country, she might look like Obama all over again.

[Andrew S.]

Scarily enough, I'd take Obama for another term before I'd take Warren.

[Caleb Turberville]

Obama's 2016 re-election strategy?

[PapayaSF]

Come on, wouldn't it be a refreshing change to go from being a racist to being a sexist?

[Pro Libertate]

Fuck, why not Stalinism?

[Agammamon]

Stalin wasn't a monster, he was just ahead of the curve.

[Jordan]

To the Democratic left, Warren's heat is the remedy for Obama's cool. To the rest of the country, she might look like Obama all over again.

Fauxcahontas's outright Marxism is the remedy for Obama's evenhanded Fascism.

[Gray Ghost]

"Muscular liberalism?" Fuck, they really do want to bring back the guillotines. Or what ProL said.

Do they have any idea what sort of Pandora's box these shitheads are trying to open? One nice thing about this country vice Europe is that we generally didn't have the sort of political violence that characterized your run of the mill 50s French election. Sounds like they want to change that.

So what will the new SA look like?

[Pro Libertate]

Well, much less brown.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

She traveled precisely 956,733 miles as secretary of state but never got close to an essential achievement.

And WTF has Warren accomplished, other than rubbing the same feelz for the left that Obama did starting in 2004?

How pathetic is it that the left has resorted to personality-culting over empty suits? Christ, at least Billy Jeff had some executive experience before becoming President and was an actual Rhodes scholar. Warren, like Obama, is an affirmative action case with no discernable ability to do anything other than rabble-rouse and make really shitty analogies.

[Pro Libertate]

It's funny, but I thought they could produce a bigger joke than Obama, but they're trying. Hey, why not Charlie Crist?

[Episiarch]

But that's what TEAM BLUE loves! Remember, TEAM BLUE loves words, and cares nothing for actions or consequences. Who is better at spilling empty words than people like Obama or Warren? They're the perfect, ultimate candidates for TEAM BLUE. Completely and utterly empty suits who say the right words so that the TEAM BLUE sheep can project whatever they want on them. It's the ultimate example of when you're stupid, divorced from reality, and only care about words (and then, only about the ones you want to hear).

Warren and Obama have figured out that if you just keep saying the same phrases to the TEAM BLUE sheep, they will vote for you. And they are entirely correct. Even if they become disillusioned with one of them, the next merely steps up, says the exact same shit, and not they are the darling.

It's really quite an amazing phenomenon from the perspective of someone who isn't retarded and divorced from reality.

[Pro Libertate]

One difference is that Obama ran both times as somewhat moderate. I don't know how he got away with that last time, but the first time, what indications there were that he was a radical leftist were buried, and he ran on vagueness and moderate-sounding puffery.

With Warren, that ship has sailed. I don't think they could possibly get someone like her past the number of people they'd need to get her into office. In fact, with Obama imploding so effectively, I'm not sure they could nominate someone like her.

Then again, the stupidity of this country has confounded me before, so who the fuck knows?

[Episiarch]

Obama ran as moderate, and then--even though the media endlessly tried to portray him as such--proceeded to push a ton of very socialist-lite policies, really hard. His language has gotten increasingly left-baiting over time since he won the second term too. TEAM BLUE has had several years of their guy in charge and they have gotten a number of things they wanted, Obamacare being foremost among them (enjoy, bitches! HAHAHAHAHAHA!). They've gotten used to being able to call for their more retarded desires without censure, because their guy is at the top right now. So, being idiots, they will overreach with the next thing (just like they did with Newtown and climbing on the bodies of dead children: because they thought it was a lock; of course, they were wrong...oops!), in this case being the next candidate. Warren is the candidate they want. Even if it will kill them politically for a while. Because they really are that stupid.

Hey, sounds sort of like TEAM RED. Time to nominate Christie!

They're all fucking morons. And there are way more of them than there are of us.

[Pro Libertate]

That's ultimately why we're doomed, at least for the time being.

Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

They're gonna fundamentally change America for real.

[John]

Obama ran as a moderate and most low information voters thought he was right up until about the 1st of October of this year.

[General Butt Naked]

She'd be the first woman president.

Because that's the important thing. Filling in all the aggrieved groups, one by one until everybody gets a shot at fucking this country up.

[Pro Libertate]

Like it solved dick in electing the magical black president. Whatever racism we had, we probably have slightly more because of this dishonest, evil fuck we have in office now.

[Mad Scientist]

I can hardly wait to be called a sexist, instead of a racist, when I disagree with the president.

[Pro Libertate]

They need a more generic term, like unmutualist.

[trshmnstr]

+1 doubleplusbad

[John]

The boomlet for Warren shows a yearning for a revival of muscular liberalism.

Because there is no retard like full retard.

[The Late P Brooks]

Elizabeth Warren wants to know to which "think tanks" Wall Street CEOs have been contributing.

Fucking freedom of association- how does it work?

[Caleb Turberville]

They skip the constitutional and civil liberties courses when you declare the liberalism track at Harvard.

[Medical Physics Guy]

I thought they waived it if you were an oppressed minority such as Cherokee.

[Bobarian]

fuckin refresh...

[Bobarian]

They don't make the native-American students take those courses.

[Sidd Finch]

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/.....ncaaf.html

The Florida state attorney will announce tomorrow whether Jameis Winston will be charged. How unusual is that? And that has to mean he's giving an explanation of why he's not being charged, right? Because otherwise, that would be the most grandstandingest shit ever.

[Pro Libertate]

The Decision. On ESPN.

I have no idea whether Winston is guilty of anything, but this is looking really bad for the local cops and prosecutors, who look to the world like they're protecting a star player and a possible national title run.

[Virginian]

I thought this case had been not closed but basically quiet for a year, then reopened recently.

[Pro Libertate]

It's hard to tell what's happening with all of the noise. The victim is claiming that the cops basically told her to shut the hell up, because Tallahassee is a football town. And there's some question about whether the investigation was delayed for similar reasons. Heck if I know. She could be a psycho, too.

[Virginian]

Yeah apparently she had a rape kit done that night at the hospital, which makes this different from a he said she said case. Because a year ago he was not a famous well known guy, ripe for a scam. Which makes me think she could be telling the truth.

And it seems to me if the authorities wanted to cover it up quietly they would have stonewalled this fall with a "procedures were followed" line. They reactivated the investigation before she claimed she was pressured to drop charges by the detective. Which makes me wonder.

[Sidd Finch]

As I understand it Winston's defense has always been that it was consensual. If there wasn't physical trauma, I don't see what good the rape kit does for the prosecution. If there was, I have to think the state attorney would've charged him already.

[Pro Libertate]

Obviously, we have no real idea at this point, and maybe never will. But that's naturally his defense, regardless of what happened.

What I think is fishy and disturbing is that it sounds very likely that the cops tried to bury this for the obvious reasons. Not that they necessarily thought he was guilty or innocent, just that they wanted to protect the team.

[Sidd Finch]

But the case itself is also fishy -- why did she go to the apartment if not for sex? It could be that she's a psycho and the cops were trying to tell her that she has no case. Maybe she found out he had a girlfriend and claimed she was raped, and that was pretty obvious to the cops.

I'm just generally skeptical of claims of multiple grown men covering up rapes. That's one crime nearly everybody takes very seriously.

[Apatheist ?_??]

The rape kit makes her claim a bit more believable because she had it done that night immediately afterwards.

[Sidd Finch]

But if there's semen and no trauma it's not evidence of anything at all. It was a one night thing, so if she was going to make up a story it would have been that night.

[Rasilio]

What it looks like happened is the cops put the case away and hoped the girl would just go away. The DA was never informed, officially at least and so either has plausible deniability or was simply not involved.

Then when the results of the rape kit came out someone leaked that fact that it did implicate Winston to TMZ. They called the Tallahassee cops to inquire about the case and within 24 hours the case file miraculously showed up at the DA's office for review.

So yeah, it looks like the cops were protecting Winston trying to bury the case and then when the media got their hands on it the whole thing blew up.

Even if Winston eventually turns out to be innocent it is pretty damn bad for the cops.

[Sidd Finch]

From what I understand the state attorney, Willie Meggs, has a history of going after athletes.

It seems like this case was either a laugher and he's grandstanding or the locals did some dirty shit.

[Caleb Turberville]

Winston is suspended for the ACC Championship Game, leading to the Duke upset victory. After that, it's not such a stretch to imagine that Ohio State falls to Michigan State, Auburn falls to Missouri, and Oklahoma State falls to Oklahoma. I imagine that by 11:00 pm ET the BCS computers will begin launch procedures against predetermined Russian targets.

[Pro Libertate]

Nuclear Armageddon rather than a playoff system. Sounds about right.

[Caleb Turberville]

"The missiles are flying!"

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Well, suspending Winston might enable Ohio State to lose to FSU by only a few touchdowns, so there is some good that could come out of it.

[Pro Libertate]

How so? You think maybe the first team would sit out in some sort of protest? I can't see how OSU could score within four touchdowns, otherwise.

[Virginian]

Hell I think tOSU might lose to Sparty.

[Pro Libertate]

Truly, one of the worst undefeated teams in a long while.

[Sidd Finch]

I've got a feeling that "what the hell were we doing talking about an undefeated B1G team over a one loss SEC champ" will be the media narrative starting some time in the 3rd quarter.

[Pro Libertate]

You mean like when everyone said Notre Dame could play Alabama? That could've been twice as bad as it was. Notre Dame wasn't even a top twenty team.

[Sidd Finch]

This current fit of amnesia has nothing on last year's national insanity.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Quebec has a $10.15 minimum wage.

Quebec is also a pathetic economy with persistently high unemployment, higher poverty rates and debt than wealthy provinces. We have low high school graduation rates and productivity and, oh, smoke the most. but we have all these luxurious wealthy programs!

Go ahead, Obama. Fuck around with your bull shit. All you're gonna do is marginalize low-skilled or inexperienced people who want to work like we do here. And we're cheap as hell. Quebec brings the saying "know the cost of everything but the value of nothing" to its supreme height.

Fuck all you leftists who turn people's inspiration to fucking mush.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Sorry forgot to add in my rant: The province also has a retardedly regressive view on language and how it fits in the modern economy.

They literally DENY business permits for businesses with names that are "too English."

Xenophobic jerkoffs nationalists are.

[The Bearded Hobbit]

A when a major street in Albuquerque was named "Los Angeles Blvd" there was an uproar. "Los Angeles" (The Angels in Spanish) was deemed "too white". After much bruhaha, the road was finally renamed "Paseo del Norte", lack of appropriate diacritics an obvious White Privilege reaction.

... Hobbit

[benji]

Herein lies a characteristic feature of all Marxist theory and Marxist policy: moral passions are masked as scientific laws which, by defining a historic necessity, sanction the machinery of violence which fulfills the necessity. Engels said that Marxism had transformed socialism from a utopia into a science. But actually, Marxism still relies on the emotional force of its utopian aspirations and merely disguises them as scientific predictions.

It is important to understand this peculiar structure. The scientific disguise provided by Marxism not only protects its moral aspirations from being discredited as mere utopianism but actually enables these aspirations to dominate from inside the pronouncements of Marxist theory and thus todirect its political machinery. Marxism establishes thereby a coupling between moral motives and political action, which is the exact opposite of that usually described as rationalization. There is no question here of concealing greed behind moral pretenses. Quite the contrary: genuine moral motives are given a chance to operate by concealing them within a scientifically respectable machinery of acquisitive violence.

Michael Polanyi

[RishJoMo]

Dude seems to know what is going on over there. WOw.

http://www.true-anon.tk