Healthcare.gov Plagued by Security Vulnerabilities, More Silk Road Indictments, Island Off Coast of Japan Growing: P.M. Links
-
The Obamacare website continues to be plagued by security vulnerabilities nearly three months after its launch.
- The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general says his office found no evidence of widespread sexual misconduct at the Secret Service.
- The transit authority in Atlanta has installed urine detectors to alert police when someone is micturating in public.
- Three more people have been indicted in relation to the federal government's case against Silk Road.
- S&P downgraded the European Union's credit rating to AA+.
- President Obama formally nominated Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) as the next US ambassador to China.
- Prostitutes in the Netherlands want the same retirement tax benefits professional soccer players get because theirs is also "hard physical work."
- North Korea sent a threatening fax to South Korea in response to anti-Kim protests in that country.
- An island off the coast of Japan created by volcanic activity is growing and may survive for several years.
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Prostitutes in the Netherlands want the same retirement tax benefits professional soccer players get because theirs is also “hard physical work.”
And less flopping and faking it.
That’s the downside of legalized prostitution, before you know it, the hookers are forming unions and making demands
Unionized prostitution, that’s just . . . the thrill of life didn’t survive the epoch turning did it?
They have this in the Amsterdam red light district. One of the union stipulations was that the prostitutes all had to charge the exact same price (was 50 euros, probably higher now). Needless to say, the policy does not help the less attractive girls drum up business.
But they get hit by balls more often.
To be fair, the Dutch team plays pretty hardnosed football.
Its the damn Mediterranean countries that are constantly flopping and faking injury. Every Italian, Spaniard, and Portugese person is an unmitigated pussy.
Something about possessing tiny little penises makes guys unnaturally angry. I’ll give the Northern Europeans that.
They are lousy players but it goes to the heart of the problem, they are just exploiting the rule structure, professional level soccer is a poorly designed game.
God, more hypoborean drivel. Not to say nothing, but Italians play damn hard nosed soccer too.
The Dutch can dive with the best of them and can be just as dirty as any country. Or are you deliberately ignoring their antics the last couple of Euros and World Cups? And you may want to add Brazil and Argentina to your quip since they’re far worse.
Man, didn’t we just go over this not too long ago?
And when they’re not diving (ahem, Robben), they’re self-destructing with hot-headed pussy in-fighting.
There.
Other than that, awesome players. Seedorf was the man.
Now go win a World Cup.
And when they’re not diving (ahem, Robben), they’re self-destructing with hot-headed pussy in-fighting.
I’m a Bayern Munich fan, and even I dislike Robben.
(I think you’re the person who asked several days ago: yes, my grandparents emigrated from Bavaria. I still have a ton of relatives in the old country.)
To be fair, the Dutch team plays pretty hardnosed football.
See Nigel de Jong’s kick on Xabi Alonso in the last World Cup final for an example.
Tell me more how your father fucks you in your ass with his micro penis, filho da puta.
Professional soccer players get retirement tax benefits ordinary citizens don’t? WTF is that?
The transit authority in Atlanta has installed urine detectors to alert police when someone is micturating in public.
The bus station really tied the city together did it not?
Sorry, but I think they’re bluffing about the detectors.
Good thing electronics were primitive way back when. I was the sort of kid who would wandered around with ammonia water in a spray bottle and squirted it where I thought detectors were.
Yeah, I am thinking about how I used to tell kids not to pee in the pool because I put an indicator in it to turn the water red if someone pees. Then I watch to see who furtively looks around in the water when they think no one notices.
Trained, vicious dogs!
Did I urinate on your bus stop?
You got your bus stop in my urine!
Hmm. That might make a memorable ad campaign…
I will just leave this here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKUXDedYDbc
That is outstanding!
Urinary arrogance. I love it.
I learned that word from the Big Lebowski already
Three more people have been indicted in relation to the federal government’s case against Silk Road.
One of them was Fist when he became so infuriated at missing out on the first in P.M. Links that he tried to order a hit.
Watch out Serious Man…. its about to get serious.
My goal is get the last First of 2013.
There was a week when I beat him every single day in getting firsties on the PM links. It was glorious.
Woman wanted you, men wanted to be you.
Ever since I installed Reasonable I’ve actually found it easier to be first. Maybe that was the secret all along.
The derp, it hurts.
An island off the coast of Japan created by volcanic activity is growing and may survive for several years.
I’ve always wanted a secret volcano lair.
Butbutbut… It isn’t a secret volcano.
The lair is secret, not the volcano.
An island off the coast of Japan created by volcanic activity is growing and may survive for several years.
That’s no island…
Godzirra!
….it’s a waste station!
If only we could find those Koch funded wreckers who keep braking into the site.
I wonder how the media will spin the coming breach. I assume that there won’t be enough audit trails or other controls to be able to verify that healthcare.gov was conclusively breached, so I imagine that claiming the the site was breached will be seen as an extremist tea party thing.
Really? C’mon, that’s easy. It will be declared to be the work of operatives in the pay of those on their enemies list.
They’ll say it’s no big deal because the government has created a new federal agency to help guide people through the mountains of paperwork the government will want you to fill out to report an identity theft.
And not the enemies themselves, of course, because that would conflict with the narrative that their enemies are all neck-bearded knuckle-draggers. But shadowy cyber-mercenaries, thus giving another boost to the need for stronger government policing of the internet.
Evil Russian mobsters. They seem to be the all purpose Hollywood villain these days.
Nothing NCIS LA can’t handle.
few things are more amusing than the ever-changing nature of these enemy forces – one day they’re toothless inbreds, the next they are criminal masterminds able to crack the toughest firewall, the one after that, who knows.
^This.
Hey there’s no rule that says you can’t be a toothless inbred criminal mastermind all at the same time.
Mutual exclusivity?
I assume that there won’t be enough audit trails or other controls to be able to verify
Oh, you can count on it, John. They’ll have no idea exactly what happened. Obama will request that every American sign up for credit monitoring, in support of his healthcare program.
The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general says his office found no evidence of widespread sexual misconduct at the Secret Service.
He’s from the government; that’s good enough for me!
Wide spread. Hehehehe.
Because those investigated remained tight-lipped on the subject.
I presume it’s because they’re all busy looking at everyone else’s sexts.
President Obama formally nominated Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) as the next US ambassador to China.
I guess China is about as far away from the disaster that bastard created as you can get.
Long ago I dated a girl who couldn’t bring herself to use the word “vagina” so instead would refer to it as her “China”.
For some reason I’m reminded of that today, thinking about what it would be like to be an Ambassador to a “China”.
Thread hijack for the win!
Did she call it that because it was heavily populated?
+1.351 billion
North Korea sent a threatening fax to South Korea in response to anti-Kim protests in that country.
Communicating with the very latest in North Korean technology.
God damn you, Fisty! 🙂
North Korea sent a threatening fax to South Korea in response to anti-Kim protests in that country.
They still use faxes in Korea?
Not only that but their browsers refresh much more slowly than ours.
Then again, we still use checks for banking in the US.
Our own governments still uses faxes. Not 6 months I had a MD DOT official suggest I fax a form to her. I almost responded with snark but then I remembered that she had temporary, arbitrary authority over me and I needed her cooperation.
That’s OK, Virginia’s air pollution regulations claim one of the acceptable methods of response is by telegram.
I attempted to communicate with the DMV by clay tablet once.
Well, I say tablet, but it was more of a brick.
And it was concrete.
I think they got the message though.
his office found no evidence of widespread sexual misconduct at the Secret Service
Because the SS comprises mostly *men*, DUH!
Men can sexually harass each other.
Right, Jesse?
*Fist* got it.
And, yes, this is why there are no ….
There’s no sugarcoating it, reporters in Obama’s presser did not literally hold him to the fire to get him to answer.
Now please just get on the plane and go to Hawaii already so we don’t have to see or hear you for the next two weeks, Mr. President.
Except for shots of the First Family deplaning, presumably getting lei’d, etc.
I wonder if Obama is having a reunion of the Choom gang . . .
The reporters only ask the questions because they want to look like they aren’t state worshipers. They think Obama is doing a hell of a job, but the teabaggers back in Peoria don’t, so they just want Obama to have a chance to prove it to those troglodytes.
He just needs another chance to get the messaging correct.
Everyone is gonna love Obama care! They just need it explained so that it doesn’t go over their bitterly clinging heads.
Here in the Bay Area it’s hard to meet someone who isn’t really positive about Obamacare. It’s finally going to make everybody’s life so much better, and why did it take so long?
I don’t even think they’ve even noticed any of the national problems. As is so often pointed out on HnR, the Left only cares about feelings, and damn Obamacare feels like the correct thing to do for them.
You know at least Pravda and TASS knew they were government mouthpieces…
See that’s why the Serious media is so much more dangerous. They honestly think that they are talking truth to power. They aren’t just a bunch of apparatchiks in some room drunkenly putting out garbage, they are hard fighting crusaders talking truth to power. There is nothing more dangerous than someone trying to save the world.
Can’t expect the media to be watchdogs if their problem with the government is that TOP MEN who need more power aren’t in charge.
Denis Rodman in North Korea: “It’s all love here”
Puffing on a cigar and clad in a pastel pink shirt, Dennis Rodman watched as about two dozen North Korean basketball players practiced their moves on an indoor Pyongyang court. He also took to the court himself to take a few demonstration shots and challenge young athletes to dribble the ball around him.
The scene, reported by the Associated Press (the only American news agency that has a Pyongyang bureau) was the world’s first glance of Mr. Rodman’s activities in North Korea since he touched down in Pyongyang on Thursday. The visit comes shortly after a brutal internal crackdown by the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and several recent episodes of international saber-rattling, though Rodman insists that his visit is entirely apolitical.
This is Rodman’s third trip to the hermit state, after he struck up a friendship with Mr. Kim during his first visit last February. Like the previous two times, he is accompanied by television crews and an Irish online betting company is sponsoring his visit, the New York Times reports.
Rodman’s plan is to organize an exhibition game between NBA veterans and North Korean players on Kim’s birthday next month.
You are worthress Denis Lodman!
Denis Rodman in North Korea: “It’s all love here”
Is that the love between a man and a woman, or the love of a man for a fine cigar?
man and a woman
What are you, a So-Con?
didn’t Bill Clinton manage to join the two, a woman and a cigar?
When I first heard that story I sent President Clinton a cherry and cedar Churchill 125 humidor. Got a nice thank you note too.
Kalr Love?
Scoreless at Tennis?
Potemkin Love.
It’s the kind of love that can only be expressed through famine and firing squads.
Why is Rodman still relevant?
What if by some miracle this causes Nork Glasnost? Anything could happen up there…
http://www.jammiewf.com/2013/r…..an-whites/
Democratic federal-level campaigns are paying minority staffers significantly less than their white counterparts, according to a study from the New Organizing Institute (NOI).
“African American staffers on Democratic federal-level campaigns are paid 70 cents on the dollar compared to their white counterparts; Hispanics are paid 68 cents on the dollar,” writes Ethan Roeder, executive director of NOI.
The study finds that although Republican campaign staffs hire a disproportionately high number of white men, the income disparities between racial groups are not nearly as pronounced as on Democratic campaigns.
Maybe some day Democrats will get beyond their racist white supremacist roots.
But the Teabaggers are the racists! MSNBC told me so!
They should do an analysis of MSNBC, CNN, TNR, Slate, NY Times, etc. I am sure that they would all show the same numbers. After all, only intentions matter.
Such a study would still find a way to blame the Republicans.
Exactly. This is why Oberlin is somehow both bleach white, and a diversity hub.
“Hey buck, where you goin’?”
“To get paid. Ten dollar’ a lot o’ money.”
I wonder – do these people no t understand that the private sector doesn’t simply put a price on a job description and that’s it? That there’s actually negotiation between employee and employer for how much compensation will be paid? That this negotiation happens with *every* employee and some are able to command higher wages than others?
Plus, given the way people screw with statistics (male-female pay gap, for example) it wouldn’t surprise me that they’re comparing the paychecks between non-comparable jobs to get the numbers they want.
Good point – and further more some positions may be “equal” though the work done not… one corp I once worked for had 5 divisions.
1 grossed about 5 billion, one about 500 million, the other 3 combined gross of 2 billion or so.
Each person who heads any of these divisions though is a “division President” – but I assume logically their pay gap between them is likely fairly high given one division is responsible for more than 70% of gross income and includes a ton more employees than all other divisions.
Same with manager – take two managers, with the same level/title, but one has 60 direct reports another has 3.
I wonder if those scenarios result in numbers showing a pay gap? Or do they mitigate these discrepancies somehow within the data(which I think would be possible, but ultimately likely not done since almost all of these studies were done to prove something specific – not done to “see what’s there”)?
Australia extending deadliness to microorganisms: Compound could be novel class of antibiotics
“In a sense the bacteria unwittingly chooses a compound that will stop its growth and assembles it ? like building a weapon and using it against itself. We’ve gone a step further to specifically engineer the enzyme so that it builds the best and most potent weapon.”
Last chance to sign up for College Bowl Pick ‘Em:
Link: http://y.ahoo.it/OoiW3Ns0
Password: reason
Typing while trying to feed a newborn sucks balls.
Lot of suck there.
Have her suck on Sloopy’s nipples. 🙂
Depends on how you’re feeding her I’d think.
Watching ESPN’s Outside the Lines. They are going apeshit over the fact that the PGA is tax exempt as a non-profit.
The funniest part was when the anchor did the math on the whiteboard and determined that the PGA represents $20 million in lost tax revenue–over the last 20 years
Yeah, the government really would have spent that money wisely.
In other words, about eight seconds worth of spending per year. The horror, the horror.
So is the NFL.
Krauthammer: Story of the year
Obamacare is a full-scale federal takeover [and] a fraud from the very beginning. … It gets worse.
Worth a quick read.
Liberal blogger Matt Yglesias likes to call his political opponents “dishonest,” but in a revealing exchange on the website Twitter Friday he advocated lying for political purposes.
“Fighting dishonesty with dishonesty is sometimes the right thing for advocates to do, yes,” said Yglesias.
The exchange, with Washington Examiner writer Mark Hemingway, came on the heels of a debate between the two on transportation policy.
Yglesias pressed his point with another conservative writer, saying, “Do you really think deception is immoral in all circumstances?”
In an interview, Yglesias said he was not referring to his own conduct as a blogger for the nonpartisan think tank, the Center for American Progress, in advocating dishonesty.
Asked who he meant by “advocates,” Yglesias said, “Politicians, things like that.” Not bloggers? “Not me. No I don’t think that’s conducive to what I do. I’m trying to inform people, so I try to present them with accurate information,” Yglesias said.
“What I write on my blog is honest,” Yglesias said.
http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/…..-lying-ok/
Yes Sad Beard we know, you genuinely are that stupid.
Why does he have a job as a oped writer? What value does his ramblings bring? Why would anyone pay for it?
Because he has the “right” opinions? (At least, in the sense that they’re the opinions his paymaster wants.)
I am pretty sure everyone who has ever read any of his writing wonders the same thing. I understand that Slate exist to reassure nervous liberals that everything is right with the hive. But being a lying hack for a pay check is not that hard and there are a lot of people willing to do it. Why Slate hasn’t been able to find one who can write a proper sentence and doesn’t have an extra chromosome is really a mystery.
Well, you might have hit on part of it with that lying hack part. Sad beard may write gibberish, but to crib Mel Brooks, it’s authentic gibberish. That makes it that much more believable.
I guess it takes an extra chromosome to write shit that stupid with a straight face.
He’s like cheap wine that turns to vinegar in a hurry.
Well, Yglesias is *right* in that it is wrong to lie to get the discount.
Of course he can’t just say its wrong because – he’s got to try to justify it with some left-wing bullshit.
referring to his own conduct as a blogger for the nonpartisan think tank, the Center for American Progress, in advocating dishonesty.
The dishonesty right there is blinding.
“Fighting dishonesty with dishonesty is sometimes the right thing for advocates to do, yes,” said Yglesias.
So I guess Matt also is partial to agreeing with arguments like “we should torture terrorists – serves them right as they cut off the head’s of our people”?
Why didn’t we listen to the warnings about gay marriage?: Sodium and Chloride getting together in freaky new ways
“We found crazy compounds that violate textbook rules ? NaCl3, NaCl7, Na3Cl2, Na2Cl, and Na3Cl,” said lead author Dr Weiwei Zhang of Stony Brook University.
“These compounds are thermodynamically stable and, once made, remain indefinitely; nothing will make them fall apart. Classical chemistry forbids their very existence. Classical chemistry also says atoms try to fulfill the octet rule ? elements gain or lose electrons to attain an electron configuration of the nearest noble gas, with complete outer electron shells that make them very stable. Well, here that rule is not satisfied.”
Can’t RTA right now but are they really sure that’s what they observed? Like, x-ray crystallography sure?
FTA: “The scientists first used new computational methods and structure-prediction algorithms to identify an array of possible stable structural outcomes from compressing rock salt (sodium chloride, NaCl).
They then attempted to verify these predictions, using a diamond anvil to put salt mixed with molecular chlorine or metallic sodium under high pressure.”
So, it’s not something that happens at STP.
Also FTA:
For example, NaCl7, NaCl3, Na3Cl2, and Na2Cl are metals (that explains the apparent violation of electroneutrality since charge balance rules are inapplicable to metals), and only one semiconducting phase of NaCl3 is stable in the pressure range between 250 and 480 thousand atmospheres.
“Na3Cl has a fascinating structure. It is comprised of layers of NaCl and layers of pure sodium. The NaCl layers act as insulators; the pure sodium layers conduct electricity. Systems with two-dimensional electrical conductivity have attracted a lot of interest,” Prof Oganov said.
I seem to remember dimly from my high school chemistry class that elements could be ionized at charges other than their expected charge; eg. Cl with 7 electrons in its last shell ought to be -1, but it can be other charges too.
Take a look at electrides and alkalides discovered by James Dye. Alkalides are alkali metals with a negative charge, like Na- and K-.
Interesting!
Classical chemistry also says main group atoms try to fulfill the octet rule
fixed
Waiting for the courts to strike due the TSA, NSA, IRS, Obamacare, the CIA, the FBI, drones etc as violations of due process, equal protection and the right to privacy…Oh wait!
USAF General in charge of nukes sacked after not holding liquor, trying to hold honeypots
Maj Gen Michael Carey appeared drunk at an airport layover as he loudly said he “saves the world from war every day”, the report said
The general in charge of the US Air Force’s long-range nuclear missiles was sacked for conduct “unbecoming of a gentleman” during a work trip to Russia in July, a report says.
The newly declassified document says Maj Gen Michael Carey drank too much and met “suspect” foreign women.
He could not recall significant events or was “untruthful”, the report says
The better question is how is the Air Force promotion system so broke that a black out drunk makes major general? Maybe promoting your drinking buddies and yes men isn’t a good way to run an air force.
Maybe there’s a Peter Principle for drinking as well.
It’s been about 20 years but when I was in the promotion was indeed screwed up because the point system made it basically impossible to get promotions based on anything except time in service (there were a few specialty fields where they have chronic manpower shortages which were different).
As a result anyone with any brains and talent got the hell out of there as fast as possible and the ones who stayed were those with the least individuality and intelligence and best suited to navigating a bureaucracy. This applied to both the enlisted and officer ranks.
This is especially true for medical officers…an O-5 or above was very likely an imminent malpractice suit if he should ever enter civilian practice.
Just more proof about how broken the classification system (especially with regards to anything nuclear) is.
“Shit, what *is* that code? I think it has a zero in it ….”
Didn’t it come out like a month ago that the nuclear launch code was 12345 or “password” or something like that?
12345?!?
Shit! That’s the code to my luggage!
It was 00000 for the longest time.
“Code zero zero zero. Destruct. Zero.”
I don’t know… Obama seems to be purging the military these days.
How is that behavior “unbecoming” in Russia?
The Dear Prudence Letter of the Year
(March 14th)
Dear Prudence,
In the summer of 2011 my wife and I purchased a top-of-the-line Jopen vibrator. We used it a few times and were just beginning to really integrate it into our sex lives when my wife died suddenly of a heart attack. (The vibrator had nothing to do with that.) Now, more than a year later, I’ve begun to date again. I’ve met a woman with an open mind, and I’m thinking she might be interested in using the vibrator. But I’m not sure how, or whether, to suggest it. Is it creepy to offer a dead woman’s vibrator to someone else? And if so what else can I do with it? Sell it on Craigslist? It’s an expensive piece of equipment, barely used, and it should be employed (and loved) once again. All of my wife’s other major possessions found wonderful new homes with dear friends of hers. But then again, a vibrator’s got a different?well, vibe about it. Sell it, toss it, or share it?
?Oscillating
If the wife had life insurance surely money couldn’t be an issue. Why should the poor be left out from sex toys? I say donate it!
May as well keep it in the family and let any daughters inherit it.
I would think you would want to throw that sort of stuff away or donate it after your wife died.
Does he plan on this woman wearing his wife’s lingerie as well? I mean if it fits, why let it go to waste?
Surely you’ve seen the scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca in which Mrs. Danvers shows Joan Fontaine the first wife’s underwear?
(If not, it’s going to be on TCM Sunday the 29th.)
Yes. Joan was babe.
One of the women I dated told a hysterically funny story:
Her uncle and aunt lived in a nice suburban home. Uncle died from cancer. After his death, aunt decided to sell the house and move in with a relative. She boxed up everything, triaging stuff that was going into storage, charity and to her new place.
Naturally all the young strapping lads in the family are put to work carrying the boxes into the various trucks and vans. And it came to pass that my date’s youngest brother goes into her bedroom and picks up a box that’s going to the new home. As he was going down the stairs he stumbled and the box slammed into the banister. And then an electric motor started buzzing.
So he carries the box into the kitchen where aunt and various relatives of all ages are gathered, packing stuff, and before she can say anything says, “I think I messed something up. I’ll fix it for you” and opens the box and pulls the buzzing thing out and holds it in the light looking for the off switch….
Apparently it created quite the sensation, with much outrage, mortification, and gut-shaking laughter.
About two or three times a year Purdence will get a letter from someone whose parents recently died and them and a sibling found the video tape and looked at it to their horror.
How hard is it to figure out that after your parents die and you find a video tape they never mentioned to you in their things, DON’T LOOK AND SEE WHAT IS ON IT!!
I like to shop in thrift stores. I never touch the donated “massagers”.
Once, in a gay-charity thrift shop in SF, I saw that they were trying to sell a used anal vibrator. Sorry, no thanks!
Dude, it’s much cheaper than a fecal transplant at a hospital!
Is it creepy to offer a dead woman’s vibrator to someone else?
Is it creepy to offer a dead woman’s toothbrush to someone else?
Do like the lesbians do. Sex toys are unique to one pairing – when you break up and then hookup with someone else you get new toys.
Personally, *I* wouldn’t want to have anything to do with his dead wife’s old vibrators, even if it had never been taken out of the box.
By a new one cheapskate.
Duck Dynasty proves that there are two Americas: And one is better
There are two Americas, one of which is better than the other. And it’s instructive who’s sticking up for the worse America.
The conservative politicians who are complaining that Phil Robertson’s firing flies in the face of “free speech” are generally smart enough to understand that Robertson doesn’t actually have a legal right to be on A&E. When Sarah Palin and her cohorts talk about the importance of “free speech,” they mean something much more specific: That the sorts of things that Robertson said are not the sorts of things a private employer should want to fire someone for saying. That they are, or ought to be, within the bounds of social acceptability.
But they’re wrong. The other America?the America I live in?has this one right. Racist and anti-gay comments and comments disparaging of religious minorities are rude and unacceptable and might cost you your job. It’s not OK to say that gay people are “full of murder.”
Don’t sprain your wrist patting yourself on the back guy.
g. The other America?the America I live in?has this one right. Racist and anti-gay comments and comments disparaging of religious minorities are rude and unacceptable and might cost you your job.
I love how he said “religious minorities” rather than “religious beliefs”. So it is totally okay to be a complete bigoted asshole as long as you are bigoted towards a “religious majority”.
And as far as which is the “better America”, I will take the America that makes the trains run on time over the America that smells each other’s farts and fucks up everything they touch any day.
I love how he said “religious minorities” rather than “religious beliefs”. So it is totally okay to be a complete bigoted asshole as long as you are bigoted towards a “religious majority”.
Doesn’t that make Islamophobia okay?
Isn’t “tolerance” or at least what is considered to be “tolerant” today a bit of a contradiction? We have to be intolerant of people if they are intolerant.
And minority views should be tolerated unless they are Bad.
disparaging of religious minorities are rude
What if those religious minorities hate gays?
Then it’s all good!
And google this guy. He was a real estate investor for Wells Fargo. He would be one of the actual people who brought you the 2008 financial collapse. But he makes up for it by being a fascist asshole
Elitist technocrats are also the ones making you buy pasteurized milk and buy cars with seat belts.
? Josh Barro (@jbarro) October 29, 2013
Vast swathes of policy are based on the correct presumption that people don’t know what’s best for them. Nothing new. http://t.co/RmKSaIPP3p
? Josh Barro (@jbarro) October 29, 2013
http://crayfisher.wordpress.co…..-than-you/
Ladies and Gentleman, The Better America.
I thought I recognized the name. He’s the one who most heavily promoted the idea of the trillion dollar coin that bounced around last spring. Goes to show how far we have gone down the rabbit hole that that didn’t destroy his career. They’ll let anyone be a courtier these days.
It is getting harder and harder to find people so devoid of integrity they are willing to do it.
Oh! I didn’t realize it was Barro!
Man, his father must be so disappointed in him. Josh Barro is such a self-righteous narcissist that it’s utterly incredibly. I’ve never seen him write anything that wasn’t borderline authoritarian government worship.
He’s a young, gay David Brooks.
“I speak with authority here, because I was openly gay before the ‘Stonewall rebellion,’ when it cost you something to be so. And I personally feel as a libertarian that people have the right to free thought and free speech.”
“In a democratic country, people have the right to be homophobic as well as they have the right to support homosexuality ? as I one hundred percent do. If people are basing their views against gays on the Bible, again they have a right of religious freedom there.”
“To express yourself in a magazine in an interview ? this is the level of punitive PC, utterly fascist, utterly Stalinist, OK, that my liberal colleagues in the Democratic Party and on college campuses have supported and promoted over the last several decades. This is the whole legacy of free speech 1960’s that have been lost by my own party.”
“I think that this intolerance by gay activists toward the full spectrum of human beliefs is a sign of immaturity, juvenility. This is not the mark of a true intellectual life.”
-Camille Paglia
My personal kudos to Ms. Paglia, a REAL classic liberal. She gets it, and the guys like Barro aren’t anywhere near as smart as they think they are.
Paglia is a bit of a nut. But she is a smart and interesting nut who is fearless in her opinions and has integrity. That is good enough for me.
She also refers to herself as a libertarian.
This is why there are no heterosexual female libertarians …
Phil Robertson’s firing
What strikes me (as an atheist who has watched maybe 10 minutes of one episode) is that A&E by in essence cancelling the highest-ever-rated cable TV show, is bleeding themselves rather than seeing what their audience thinks.
is bleeding themselves rather than seeing what their audience thinks.
yup.
President Obama formally nominated Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) as the next US ambassador to China.
Will Max resign from the Senate in order to allow the left wing authoritarian governor of Montana (a Democrat) to install a carefully selected successor in an egregiously transparent attempt to lock that seat down for TEAM BLUE?
I thought Max left last year? And if he didn’t, of course he will. I doubt putting in a stunt Democrat to tell you yocals out there “well I would have never supported that damned Obamacare” will do much good come next year. But I doubt Max has a very high opinion of Montana voters’ intelligence and probably thinks it will work.
I think it is fine, in fact preferable, to appoint someone of the same party as the person leaving the seat (if appointment is the method they have to use).
The seat is up for election next year, I believe. And I think Baucus had already announced his intention to retire.
John, regarding our discussion earlier about equal protection, it looks like this is actually simpler than even I thought.
“Here’s Secretary Sebelius’s explanation for the move, which she included in a response to a letter from Senator Mark Warner:
I very much appreciate your asking for a clarification on whether [the hardship] exemption applies to those with canceled plans who might be having difficulty of paying for an existing bronze, silver, or gold plan. I agree with you that those consumers should qualify for this temporary hardship exemption, and I can assure you that the exemption will be available to them. As a result, in addition to their existing options these individuals will also be able to buy a catastrophic plan to smooth their transition to coverage through the Marketplace.
The Secretary is right that the ACA exempts those who suffer from a hardship from the individual mandate.
But is she right that the people whose plans have been canceled are eligible for the hardship exemption? Per the ACA, the exemption covers anyone who “is determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services under section 1311(d)(4)(H) to have suffered a hardship with respect to the capability to obtain coverage under a qualified health plan.””
http://theincidentaleconomist……led-plans/
And those who didn’t have insurance but also can’t afford such a plan, should not get an exemption why? There is no rational reason why everyone who can’t afford it shouldn’t get a waiver, not just those who had insurance.
Because the hardship is not as great on them since they had longer to prepare to get a (for them) new insurance.
Because the hardship is not as great on them since they had longer to prepare to get a (for them) new insurance.
No. It is exactly the same. They both have the exact same legal obligation. Not having insurance in the first place doesn’t make it easier to buy new insurance or the burden of paying the fine any less onerous.
At this point your are just making assertions and pretending that are true.
They are exactly not the same, and it is obvious.
One group knew they had to get insurance all year. The other just found out a few months ago. If you want to read around, shop your options, etc., more time is important.
One group knew they had to get insurance all year.
And they were promised they could buy it at the exchange that doesn’t work. They both are in the same boat, unless you can explain to me why the people who didn’t have insurance should have known that Obama was lying. But I don’t think “they should have known we were lying” is going to hold much water in court.
Sorry but “they are different” means you have to show a significant difference, not one you pull out of your ass and pretend is significant.
Just give it up.
What’s funny is Obama could get major kudos for working out a deal with Boehner, Pelosi and Reid to delay the mandate by a year. It would neuter the tea party. It would look bipartisan. It would literally be a win/win for the establishment.
But instead he pulls this bush-league stunt to relieve the pressure for a few more days.
It’s pathetic.
tarran, do not mistake my opinion that what Obama is doing is perfectly, and easily legal (I got the above analysis from Volokh Conspiracy’s Jonathan Adler, no friend of the ACA and lead man for several lawsuits against it in other areas) for approval of what he is doing or not recognizing that this is yet another sign of the utter impracticability and inane-ness of the ACA. With years to prepare for these initial steps he has had to backpedal and issue waiver after modification after waiver. It is a disaster.
They are objectively not in the same boat. One clearly had more time to know they had to get new insurance. One group knew all year long they had to buy new insurance by next year, the other found out with a few months left in the year.
It would be like saying that someone who had to find a new home in a year and someone who had to find one in two months were in the exact same position.
But look, if your partisanship is preventing you from seeing something this obvious, then I propose a little test. There is nothing like reality for these matters. Since there are clearly going to be motivated interest groups who would love to win a legal victory over anything ACA, then, if this is so obviously as you say, there should be lawsuits and victories at the district level in the coming months, no? How about we both bookmark this discussion and check back in six months, and if you were right and these lawsuits happen and pan out I will loudly proclaim I was wrong and you were right, but if not you do that. What do you say?
Actually, they are all in the same boat. The cancellation notices went out about the time the website when live.
Nor is it like using the exchanges requires six months to “purchase” a plan. In theory it could take a few days.
It’s fucking risible.
“The cancellation notices went out about the time the website when live.”
Even if they went out, say, a week later they are not objectively in the same boat, and a rational person could think that makes a difference, thus satisfying the rational basis test.
But I think it is even better for the administration, because you could have done all kinds of preparation and shopping and planning BEFORE the websites went up, and this is something those who suffered cancellation would not have done because they assumed (with every right) they had insurance and not going to have to get new coverage.
you could have done all kinds of preparation and shopping and planning BEFORE the websites went up
No, you couldn’t, because you wouldn’t have had any way of telling what insurance would actually cost you until the exchange worked.
See my answer to Nikki infra for at least one answer to that.
And there are others. The Obama ‘navigators’ were out counseling people before the exchanges opened. A recently cancelled person would in theory have had no reason to meet with them while the uninsured would not.
I’m sorry Bo, but your argument is patently retarded. There is no way the people are in “different boats” seeing as how no one knew what insurance was going to be offered nor what the rates, let alone the subsidies, etc. were going to be until the website went live.
And suppose you did all of your homework before the websites went up only to find that the costs were so prohibitive you HAVE to take a subsidy or not get insurance at all. How are those people on different standing then someone who get their cancellation letter the first week of October?
They are objectively not in the same boat. One clearly had more time to know they had to get new insurance. One group knew all year long they had to buy new insurance by next year, the other found out with a few months left in the year.
That’s true. But if the people who knew all along they needed to buy insurance had tried to do so before the exchanges were live, they wouldn’t have had accurate pricing info and potentially would have gotten into plans that didn’t meet ACA requirements and/or were themselves cancelled. Everyone was stuck using the same exchanges.
At least you concede there was some difference, and all that is necessary under the law is that a rational person could imagine that that difference would put one group in a different position than the other.
But further I think more can be said in the administration’s favor. Remember that one way to avoid having to go to the exchanges is to get insurance that bureaucratic elites will deem satisfactory. Well, if you had no insurance at the beginning of the year you have had all year to do that. That is not so for the recently cancelled person.
If you draw a Venn diagram, they’re a lot alike.
We were both told the insurance would be affordable. It isn’t.
We were both told that it would be possible to shop and purchase insurance on the Healthcare.gov website. It isn’t … in my case, 107 attempts at the website and numerous contacts by chat, phone, and USPS and still no insurance.
The system sucks. It simply does not work. And anybody who says otherwise either doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
On January 1, my wife, and kids, and I join the ranks of the uninsured.
Thanks, ObamaCare!
“they’re a lot alike”
A lot a like is not the same, and all a court needs is any rational distinction to approve the different treatment.
“The system sucks. It simply does not work. And anybody who says otherwise either doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”
I wholly agree, my opinion that the administration’s actions are legal here does not mean I endorse the immoral and incompetent ACA.
The hardship is the same. RE: They both can’t get insurance through the marketplace.
That some people may have had a couple months more than others doesn’t seem like a rational basis for denying standing to me.
But then, I’m not a judge.
“An island off the coast of Japan created by volcanic activity is growing and may survive for several years.”
So’s Hawaii’s big island and there’s lots of folks planning on it surviving for more than a couple of years.
So’s Iwo Jima, and prolly no one cares if it disappears.
Etc
Most volcanic islands are eroded faster than they’re built up. A new one with staying power is a little unusual.
Krakatua stays for a while…
Krugabe attacks austerity….again
In 2010, most of the world’s wealthy nations, although still deeply depressed in the wake of the financial crisis, turned to fiscal austerity: slashing spending and, in some cases, raising taxes in an effort to reduce budget deficits that had surged as their economies collapsed. Basic economics said that austerity in an already depressed economy would deepen the depression. But the “austerians,” as many of us began calling them, insisted that spending cuts would lead to economic expansion, because they would improve business confidence.
The result came as close to a controlled experiment as one ever gets in macroeconomics. Three years went by, and the confidence fairy never made an appearance. In Europe, where the austerian ideology took hold most firmly, the nascent economic recovery soon turned into a double-dip recession.
It’s true that the human cost has been nothing like what happened in the 1930s. But that’s thanks to government policies like employment protection and a strong social safety net ? the very policies austerians insisted must be dismantled in the name of “structural reform.”
Was it really austerity that did the damage? Well, the correlation is very clear: the harsher the austerity, the worse the growth performance.
In a nutshell: When times are tough, you must spend. On the other hand, when times are good, there’s lots of money around and there are still needy people, so you must spend.
Between Obama and Krugman, the Nobel prize ain’t worth shit anymore.
Physiology / Medicine seems to do okay
Peace is the worst, Literature next. The rest are usually OK.
And of course, Economics isn’t a “real” Nobel
But the “austerians,” as many of us began calling them, insisted that spending cuts would lead to economic expansion, because they would improve business confidence.
What a mendacious asshole. No, you slimy, emasculated turd, what the “austerians” were arguing was that countries had played “extend and pretend” with funny money for too long, and that countries would need to go through some pain to bring their ledgers back into balance.
I’d love to live in the fantasy world Krugman inhabits, where debts and deficits never have any social or economic impact whatsoever.
And where people are evil morons for making arguments that Krugman was himself making 10 years ago.
Krugman is a total political hack.
“as many of us began calling them”
WTF is ‘us’?
Krugman got a turd in his pocket?
More SJW rationalization about how the duck dynasty comments were actually “hateful bigotry”
I do not think you have to be a Social Justice Warrior to think lumping consensual homosexuality in with bestiality and pedophilia to be indicative of hateful bigotry towards homosexuals.
I don’t think you have to have a reading comprehension beyond the 2nd grade to realize that Roberson never said that homosexuality is the same as bestiality. He said they were both sins.
If saying that is lumping it in, then my saying “speeding and rape of a child are both crimes” is me lumping speeding in with child rape. But don’t let that stop you from pretending otherwise. The facts always have to fit the narrative.
But his comments were not in the context of “speeding and child rape are both crimes.” He was lumping in a bunch of the Biblically same type of crimes (sexual crimes). It was not like he said ‘eating shrimp, murder and homosexuality are all sins.’
Eating a shrimp isn’t a sin. He was talking about the various sexual acts that are sins. And yes, bestiality, homosexuality, adultery are all sexual sins according to Christianity. They are all part of that set of things.
Just because they are all “sins” and “wrong” doesn’t mean or imply that they are equivalent.
The bottom line is the guy objects to homosexuality. The question is can anyone voice an objection to homosexuality and still be allowed on network television. GLAAD’s answer is no, that any time someone says homosexuality is wrong, they immediately forfeit any position they hold in entertainment.
I disagree. If we are going to have a free country, people should be able to object to pretty much anything without having to worry about the mob coming to throw them out of polite society.
Eating a shrimp is condemned in the Bible (Leviticus 11:9-12) John, just as homosexuality is.
I do not think you can necessarily say his listing means they are equivalent, he just means they are the same category of wrongs and I said that (lumping together). Things share the same category because of a shared quality, though yes the severity can be different.
I think that by thinking that homosexuality is wrong for the same reasons as pedophilia or bestiality (though perhaps not to the same degree) then yes, he is saying something stupidly offensive, because as a libertarian consensual acts between adults are different than nonconsensual acts on children or animals.
Having said that, I would not personally fire someone for holding that view and I do not think A&E should have. It is a view that so many people were raised in and is only currently being widely discredited. But they are of course in their rights to do so.
It’s more complicated than that…
Leviticus forbids a whole bunch of shit, including cohabiting with a menstruating woman and mandates sacrificing various animals at very specific times.
Now, Jesus deprecated that covenant and established Covenant 2.0. Besides having a cleaner user interface, and being more platform agnostic, it did retain a few elements. In several sections of the New Testament, homosexual acts are alluded to as being immoral.
Some Christians do follow the rules of Leviticus as a way of going the extra mile. Most don’t. Actually most Christians pick and choose which bits of the New Testament to follow as well. Denouncing homosexual acts in no way means one is deciding to live according to Leviticus when it really is part of Paul’s message to the faithful.
Of course lots of disagreements exist as to which Biblical condemnations are still objectionable sins. But some do think eating shrimp is, because the Bible denounces them both (and Jesus did say, perhaps contra Paul, that he did not come to undo the law).
I was not saying Robertson had to object to shrimp and homosexuals anyways. John brought up the argument that he was just listing sins, small and large, and my counter was that it was not as if he were listing widely varying sins randomly. He was ‘lumping in’ sexual sins* which share certain qualities.
*per Nikki, if he included ‘drunkeness’ then we can call the category ‘sins of the flesh’
Eating a shrimp is condemned in the Bible (Leviticus 11:9-12) John, just as homosexuality is.
It is not all the same bible you twit. Christianity doesn’t follow the dietary rules of the Old Testament. So, no in Robertson’s view it is not a sin.
I think that by thinking that homosexuality is wrong for the same reasons as pedophilia or bestiality (though perhaps not to the same degree) then yes, he is saying something stupidly offensive,
You only think that because you are offensively stupid and dense. They are all sins in Robertson’s view because God declared them sins. Saying that they are sins for the same reason doesn’t mean they are comparable. It just means they are all of the same set of “things Robertson thinks God says are wrong”. Just because God says both things are wrong, doesn’t mean they are equally harmful. The government says speeding and rape are wrong. But that doesn’t mean they are the same.
You are either the most mendacious person on earth or utterly lack the ability to think rationally or make any sort of rational distinction. I can’t figure out which and it really doesn’t matter. My God, you give me a fucking headache .
“Just because God says both things are wrong, doesn’t mean they are equally harmful.”
It is a bit interesting that someone like you who so quickly and rudely insults someone’s intelligence when you argue with them can miss their basic points over and over. I addressed everything you say above in the post you are replying to.
Eating a shrimp isn’t a sin.
It is to some people.
Jesus Christ, all he was doing was quoting the fucking Bible. Don’t judge and accept Christ since there’s still hope for salvation. That sort of stuff.
I’ve heard far worse even from the left.
1) Robertson implied that homosexuality will lead to all these evils and lumped them in with thieves and the like.
2) His comments about blacks in the pre-civil rights South were pretty suspect.
3) ‘Just quoting the Bible’ is not a defense.
Fuck Robertson and his shitty beliefs and the crybaby Kultr Cons that keep sticking up for him.
How about “fuck the reality star guy because if you hate someone for their sexual orientation you’re an asshole. Fuck people who are intolerant of other people having opinions that differ from you, because they make you an asshole. In fact, fuck everyone who decided to be an asshole around Christmas. A and E? You’re cool. It’s your fucking channel, do whatever you fucking feel like since you pay the bills”.
Done.
Now somebody come over here with a bottle of scotch and explain to me exactly what the fuck this “Duck Dynasty” shit is supposed to be about anyways.
He was lumping in a bunch of the Biblically same type of crimes (sexual crimes).
So you missed the part about drunkards then?
So what Nikki? They are all “sins” just like speeding and rape are both “crimes”.
Robertson is entitled to his opinion. And I think it is a pretty short sighted and stupid thing to run him off the air over it. Both sides can play that game. Do we really want to have a society where your ability to work is based on the general public’s approval of your opinions? I don’t.
Robertson is entitled to his opinion.
And I’m entitled to call him out as an asshole and his defenders as whiners.
And I think it is a pretty short sighted and stupid thing to run him off the air over it.
A&E can’t say no to 14 million viewers he’s not going anywhere.
And I’m entitled to call him out as an asshole and his defenders as whiners.
Sure and I am free to call you a fascist fuck and a coward who will only defend the freedom of people you like.
You are worse than the Lefties. At least they admit they are authoritarians. That is bad but not as bad as pretending to be for freedom of thought right up until defending it requires defending someone you don’t like.
Sure and I am free to call you a fascist fuck and a coward who will only defend the freedom of people you like.
Way to react exactly like every dipshit Kultr Kon spaz in the world. Robertson’s freedom is doing just fine the government isn’t censoring him.
I can’t until Kultr Kons just die off. They are like disco: dead but never gone.
Way to react exactly like every dipshit Kultr Kon spaz in the world. Robertson’s freedom is doing just fine the government isn’t censoring him.
Sure Cytoxic, nothing says “freedom” like letting the mob destroy someone.
Here is a hint for you, just because the government isn’t doing it, doesn’t make it right or you any less of a coward and a fake for standing around saying nothing or worse yet cheering it on.
There is more to having a free society than just not having a government fucking people.
nothing says “freedom” like letting the mob destroy someone.
Oh give me a fuckin’ break John. This guy has a pile of money and legions of zealous spaz defenders. I think he’s gonna be fine.
Conservatism is going to die. Everytime I have this kind of conversation, my vindication on that point deepens. And it makes me so glad.
John, can you not have a disagreement with another human being without the use of so much invective against them? I seem to recall you were pontificating on how all liberals were angry, hate-projecting people the other day. Perhaps you should check your eye for a beam there fellow.
Sure and I am free to call you a fascist fuck and a coward…
Because you have no idea what words mean.
Or another network will want them.
John, you are so worked up I think you missed Nikki is agreeing with you!
John, I’m quoting and criticizing Bo. He’s claiming Robertson only talked about sexual sins, when he clearly did not.
I disagree with Robertson on more levels than I can count but I have to say he seemed to have a much better than average understanding of sin than you usually hear in shit like this. He was very clearly talking about sin. And he wasn’t limiting himself to the sexy stuff.
He was talking about general sins. And what yours or my opinion of his opinions are irrelevant. The question is, is it right to try and run him off the air for having them.
Saying yes to that makes you a pretty narrow minded and intolerant person.
“Saying yes to that makes you a pretty narrow minded and intolerant person.”
Again, I answered this in the negative far above in our discussion. Do you even read the responses people make to you before launching into your replies?
No, but that is not what he said.
Yeah, he mentioned drunkards and bestiality.
So apparently he was comparing drinking to bestiality.
Or maybe… your desire to be on what you percieve as the “correct side” of this has made you once again ignore a very good point which opposes your beliefs?
Disclaimer: I, like most libertarians, agree with right to work. IE – A&E is a private company and should be able to fire these people (or any others) for any reason they see fit and doing so for this reason, or a better reason, or a much worse reason, does not negatively impact freedom in general.
Because Phi and the rest of them – don’t have any fundamental rights to have A&E employ them as they were never owed jobs to begin with.
Having said that – as A&E doesn’t really know if their viewers care as much as they do – if I were an investor and the show really is a number one rated show – I would question their business decisions.
A large institutional investor could even argue such a decision by A&E’s management is dereliction of fiduciary responsibility.
But again – in the end – losing a private job isn’t an affront to liberty.
From a libertarian perspective, there is no difference between consensual buggery and bestiality. The only difference is the popularity of the practice. These SJWs make up distinctions as they go. I wonder if the chicken that made his up his KFC value meal gave consent?
That is a good point. What about bestiality? I thought we were being all tolerant.
Beyond that, from a libertarian perspective, as long as you don’t advocate violence or legal coercion, someone is free to publicly object to anything they want. And that is all Robertson did.
… the chicken probably did give consent.
The problem is that chickens don’t read EULA’s and when one picks them up by the feet, they assume they are being moved to a pen with less poop and more seed.
It’s a terrible shame to see them trustingly slide their necks into the steel cone. WHY WON’T THEY READ IT?!?
“From a libertarian perspective, there is no difference between consensual buggery and bestiality.”
That is certainly not true if you assume that animals, like children, are incapable of such consent. Libertarians usually accept different exceptions for those incapable of consent.
Your car and children are both incapable of consent.
So why do you think a libertarian would be ok with you molesting the first but not the second?
There is your answer I suspect.
I think you think you’re Socrates here. You ain’t. That’s my schtict. Finish the thought and you’ll see why yours is a specious argument.
Sorry, I call your bluff. If my argument is specious demonstrate it, if not I will assume you have nothing.
As I said, I will assume you had nothing then (if it such a simple point, why would you ‘hide it under a bushel?’).
Consent is a meaningless concept to anyone but a person. If you don’t realize this, then I suspect you’re very badly brain damaged.
I knew that is what you were getting at, but it is wrong.
Libertarians agree that adults can voluntarily agree to having their rights violated or themselves harmed. But we do not think one can molest children, even with their consent, because they have rights and/or can be harmed, and their consent is not effective to authorize that. Further, even if the child consents and is not harmed, but seems to agree with the experience, we think they are simply unable to ever authorize that behavior, and any consent is not present, thus making it essentially assault.
If animals have rights or can be harmed similarly to children, then there you go. Their consent can not authorize the violation of their rights or authorize the harm.
So two adult men can have sex with each other because their consent authorizes it. They can do this even if one harms the other.
But consent is assumed never given for children and animals because they are assumed to not be able to give effective consent, so any such actions with them would be assault (touching without consent).
Your point about the car was silly because the car is an inanimate object which can not be harmed in the same way that an animal can be. Animals are demonstrably different than cars, and our legal system has actually recognized this for coming up on two centuries now.
And notice the ‘or.’ Animals need not have rights to make harming them against their consent immoral, and, like children, we can assume that regardless of an animals actions it has not (indeed can not) give effective consent.
I only point out our longstanding legal recognition that animals are not the same as cars to demonstrate that it is a widely and long recognized point. I think the point rather obvious, but if you want to argue how they are the same, let it fly.
“Consent is all about rights. It is a meaningless (moral) concept without them.”
Perhaps animals have rights, that was partly my point. But of course, they need not to think doing some things to them harms them in a way that is wrong, and that they consent to it is no help because we can, like children, assume their consent is ineffective.
Because they are living, sentient, cognizant things.
What do you think gives, say, a severally retarded child rights but not a very bright dog?
Of course, as I have repeatedly said, prohibitions on harming animals need not rest on a claim they have rights.
And unless you’re a vegan, and hold animal court for people’s dogs when they kill a bird, then you already agree with me.
Um, no, that’s a dishonest argument.
Children have less rights, and less symmetrical rights than adults for a reason. Also, thus, animals.
Also, as is often put forth here, even by me, one does not have to be pure in oneself to make a pure argument. Thus: Mussolini, trains running on time, not inherently fascist.
Wow, who is acting the Retardocrates now? If you do not want others playing games, but rather want people to plainly state their point, then do so yourself.
I have done so numerous times. Animals are not people, thus consent is a meaningless concept. All i get in return for stating this is question-begging sophistry.
And to repeat myself: animals share with children an assumption that they can not consent to certain things with humans. Prohibitions on harming them can be based in the idea they have rights which are violate thusly OR in the idea that it is wrong to harm living things. Having sex with someone without their consent is normally seen as harming them. Since animals can not consent then sex with them is ipso facto harm.
And to repeat myself, unlike cars animals are living, sentient, cognizant things.
Before we talk of microbes and autonomous robots, can you answer my question about what gives rights (or just moral consideration) to a severely retarded child?
“So animals only have rights that apply to humans, not other animals?”
You act like this is novel. Traditionally small children, who have rights, were not held responsible for their actions harming others (it was called the defense of infancy).
“And why is an animals “right” not to have sex more important than their “right” not to be eaten, surgically mutilated, or imprisoned?”
It probably is not, as I have said.
Bo – things that can’t consent is not one single class. There are multiple groups within that set and we accord different privileges and protections to those different groups.
Inanimate objects – basically no privileges or protections.
Animals – a very limited set of privileges and protections. And not with a single consistent set of principles. That’s why its *legal* to kill an animal but its *illegal* to use one for sex.
Children – Limited set of privileges but a very expansive set of protections, including protections against pretty much *any* possible harm. That’s why you can neither kill nor bugger little kids.
I agree with all your points. Curious, did you think I did not? It is Coeus who equates cars and animals, not me.
“The point I’m making is that there is no reason for granting animals any privileges and protections. ”
Disembowel a collie on your front lawn in broad daylight and see if there is a reason animals are to be protected. People like animals.
Didn’t read the whole comment, did ya?
It’s legislation from disgust, not from logic. If we decide that legislation from disgust is valid, then we might as well throw out our principles entirely and just go with whatever feels right. Good thing for “gay rights” that we don’t, since there are more people who feel “icky” about homosexual acts than there are those who don’t.
Perhaps I was too subtle. All laws are arbitrary, man-made constructs. One can try to apply principles, but at some point a judgment has to be made.
Murder vs manslaughter – depends on circumstances.
Abortion – when does the fetus become a person with protections?
Etc, etc as infinitum
Law is not science.
Actually the question is not whether animals are capable of consent but whether it is required from them.
What level of rights do animals have, are they mere property or do they have at least close to human rights. If you argue that consent is required then how can you justify eating meat as killing is far more of a violation than raping. how cn you justify spay/neuter programs, those animals certainly don’t consent.
Finally there is one class of beastiality that this lack of consent issue always overlooks. It presumes it is a male human penetrating the animal, but female humans being orally pleasured and sometimes penetrated by animals is at the least very close in frequency (no clue what the stats are but I doubt it is past a 60/40 split) and those animals can almost always be shown to be consenting.
“If you argue that consent is required then how can you justify eating meat as killing is far more of a violation than raping.”
Perhaps if we are consistent we have to condemn them both from a libertarian perspective! The question becomes, would animals, like children, be covered by the NAP? We put a especial ‘ick’ factor onto non-consented bestiality but think killing and eating them is fine, but if the former is barred by the NAP then yes, the latter would be too. Some libertarians have become vegetarians for this reason (Nozick comes to mind if I recall correctly).
“those animals can almost always be shown to be consenting.”
That is no more true for the animal than it would be for a child who is in the same situation, no?
No, animals should not be covered by the NAP, insomuch as they belong to you and not someone else.
That strikes me as question begging at best DesigNate.
“No, animals should not be covered by the NAP, insomuch as they belong to you and not someone else.”
DesigNate, carve up your kitten in front of the local grammar school and you’ll find that animals are covered by the NAP under some circumstances.
Having once known a professional dominatrix who was “really fond” of her rotwielers, no it is not the same situation I know a little about this.
Most women who are into that sort of thing like big dogs (for the obvious reasons), there is no way you can dominate a large dog like that into doing your bidding against it’s wishes while simultaneously placing yourself into such a subservient position, attempting to do so is a good way to get your face torn off.
“doing your bidding against it’s wishes”
What I meant is, that the dog seems to be acting with its wishes, but so could an underage kid who ‘performs’ with an adult. But in the latter case we would dismiss the seeming receptiveness of the child as irrelevant and rightly condemn the action because we assume the child can not meaningfully consent to authorize the encounter. The same can be said of the dog, right?
and what I mean is a 12 year old can’t rip your throat out if you attack it
That is certainly not true if you assume that animals, like children, are incapable of such consent.
Dude shut up. Unless you want to free all the chickens which are soon to be made into chicken nuggets your argument has no barring.
Furthermore his argument had nothing to do with consent. He thinks fucking animals is a sin regardless if the animal gives consent or not.
So. When will the ACLU go to bat for Phil Robertson?
/ducks tomatoes.
What would be the legal basis? If there were one I bet they would defend him. They have defended Nazis after all.
I’m pretty sure they’ve done so without such basis.
But Phil is different.
He’s a fundamentalist red neck!
They have defended many an anti-gay fundamentalist. They defended Fred Phelps quite recently for Pete’s sake.
They have defended many an anti-gay fundamentalist.
Is Phil technically anti-gay?
In the article it seems he closed with live and let live statement on the matter.
“So. When will the ACLU go to bat for Phil Robertson?”
There is no govt action to defend Robertson against.
Robertson is free to say what he likes. We are free to ridicule him. A&E is free to fire him. People are free to boycott A&E.
…at least for the moment.
Coates weighs in as well
Tha fuck? I wonder if he feels the same way about progessive principles used by bigots for cover?
I read this to say that it is very easy, indeed likely, that starting out hating the sin leads to hating the sinner. That does not seem far fetched to me.
Every philosophical and religious idea in history has been used by bigots to give them cover for bigotry. Look, I’m an atheist. Atheism hasn’t traditionally been kind to homosexuals either. Religion is just an excuse used.
Homosexuals were often treated horribly in communist countries.
The bigger issue is that objecting to someone is not oppressing them. Robertson didn’t advocate gays be jailed or harmed. He just said he objected to what they are doing.
Since when does the world owe you acceptance?
Since when does the world owe you acceptance?
Oh wow the irony.
I don’t think that term means what you think it does.
Let me give you a hint, thinking that anyone who voices an opinion you don’t like should be run out of society, is demanding the world accept you. And that is what you want Cyotoxic.
John, Cryotoxic has rightly pegged the irony in your statement.
What you are ultimately arguing for is that the Phil Robersons of the world be accepted. See the irony now?
Why so many misspellings of my handle?
Pretty sure Phil will be watched if he was on a different channel.
A&E has profited from Phil and his family then broke a contract excluding Phil from the show while holding the rest of the family to the 5 year contract which prohibits them from moving to a different channel.
Enslaving people because of their beliefs is far worse then anything Phil advocated in the GQ article.
But when Robertson says gays are all going to burn in hell, he’s totally not denying them acceptance.
Keep crying. Those tears taste good.
I do not think the person you quote is focusing on ‘hate the sin’ in the religious sense. I took him to merely be saying that often when one starts condemning something a group does that often leads to condemning the group itself. And that does not strike me as far fetched.
I took him to merely be saying that often when one starts condemning something a group does that often leads to condemning the group itself.
And if they do? People are free not to like each other and you shouldn’t be run out of your job if you don’t like one group or another.
If you are concerned about bigotry spreading then it seems pretty relevant, right?
What response is appropriate to bigotry is of course another question, one which I have long ago already agreed with you on.
Coeus, in fact any Mormon could tell you about quite a bit of violence done to Mormons in large part because people condemned their polygamous ways.
When was the last lynching of a polygamist?
I am not sure your point here since the fellow in the article was talking about the process he alleges as a historical matter.
“Actual history shows that humans are not so discriminating.”
See? His point is that history shows that often when people condemn ‘the sin’ they take the next step to condemning ‘the sinners.’ So the fact that people that condemned polygamy and then condemned (and mistreated) polygamists supports his contention, and the fact that it happened historically rather than currently does not seem to me to lessen it.
He says that denouncement (specifically religious denouncement) leads to violence. And he worries that it will again. So I ask you, why is that despite the fact that more Americans look down on polygamy than homosexual relationships, there is no violence nor public fretting about violence towards polygamists? Could it possibly be that religion is a red-herring here? And people are going to be violent bigots regardless of where they get the excuse?
He says ‘actual history shows this.’
And even in the example you pulled up, it does. People definitely went from condemning polygamy to violence against polygamists. It is historical fact.
As to why there is not violence against polygamists today there is likely a very easy answer: the state does that violence against polygamists now.
And yet, that doesn’t happen RIGHT NOW. So maybe religion, and the people so pissed off about it, isn’t the actual cause of the violence, but the skirt the fucking assholes that perpetrate it hide behind.
It does happen right now: the state uses force against polygamists because people think polygamy is wrong.
And again, I do not read the excerpt as talking about sin in the exclusively religious sense, but rather playing with the phrase ‘hate the sin but not the sinner.’ I do not take it to be saying ‘when religious people condemn things as sin they soon take a further step to condemning the people doing it,’ rather I think it is saying ‘when people condemn practices of people they often take the further step of condemning the people themselves.’
It talks about ‘Grand Arbiters’ to be sure, but the key to the argument applies equally well to any system of moral condemnation, religious or not.
Huh? This:
If swindlers, goat-fuckers, and gay men are really all the same?disinherited from the kingdom of God?why not treat them the same?
Is stupid – as stealing, not respecting your parents, and murder are all sins too, but we don’t treat the same nor does anyone suggest we should.
In fact – in many ways going against parents is considered normal and necessary for growth, whereas killing people (outside of being allowed to by the government) is generally frowned upon and results in peoples actively being denied their freedoms while they sit in prison.
Analogy fail.
And we must have the intellectual courage and moral strength to follow the myth through. If swindlers, goat-fuckers, and gay men are really all the same?disinherited from the kingdom of God?why not treat them the same?
Because that’s not the myth. As Phil Robertson said quite explicitly, the judging/treating part is God’s bailiwick. But people are allowed to have opinions about it.
But people are allowed to have opinions about it.
Not if Coates objects too those opinions they are not.
In an interview, Yglesias said he was not referring to his own conduct as a blogger for the nonpartisan think tank, the Center for American Progress, in advocating dishonesty.
And, in my head, Karl the Waiter, from Casablanca, says,
“HONEST? Honest as the day is long!“
This is a real problem. I listen to NPR a lot for my news and they often refer to left wing think tanks as ‘nonpartisan’ and right wing ones as ‘conservative think tank.’
That’s a standard media practice. Also, in partisan scandals, make sure “Republican” is in the headline or first sentence, but bury “Democrat” down below or skip it entirely.
I thought Max left last year?
He said he wouldn’t run for re-election in ’14.
In theory, you beat me to the punch. In practice, this is what you get for not using threaded comments. :-p
Salon: Democrats need to defend public education
Right now, there’s ample consensus that Elizabeth Warren expresses “the kind of clear, compelling, accessible messaging on the core economic issues that matter to low and middle-income Americans”
Bahahahahaha.
On education, so far Warren isn’t so clear. The little that has come out about her views was in the context of her run for the Senate seat when school choice proponents unearthed a quote from her book that could lead one to believe she backs school voucher programs.
School vouchers that enable families to redirect public funds to private schools and privately operated charters are not something in any way progressive ? and not just because they don’t appear to do anything to improve academic achievement.
Right. Private and profit are evil, evil words
Leonie Haimson, executive Ddirector of the grass-roots parent group Class Size Matters, explained in an email, “I don’t know what her current position is, but I’d hope that Eliz. Warren now realizes that instituting vouchers would lead to a radical expansion of privatization and a weakening of governmental oversight and regulation over education ? similar to what happened in the financial industry that triggered the onset of the great recession.”
Well.
First prize, Overwrought Analogy of the Week.
The percentage of children in government schools is just as high as the percentage of PCs using Windows ever was. But only the non-government entity was a wicked monopoly.
The little that has come out about her views was in the context of her run for the Senate seat when school choice proponents unearthed a quote from her book that could lead one to believe she backs school voucher programs.
Good thing Progs are not intolerant of dissent or anything. She may have once written a quote that could possibly be considered outside of the dogma.
Have they scheduled fauxchonus’ self criticism session yet?
Salon vs Slate: what is the difference?
Two letters.
FU
Also TY
School vouchers that enable families to redirect public funds to private schools and privately operated charters are not something in any way progressive
This was the whole point of the stupid article. Slip in the agenda a priori. There are plenty of people on the liberal side who advocate charters and reform. Whoever this is wants them cast out.
What he meant…
I don’t honestly know how the party which claims to ‘care about the people’ can continue to argue that any competition to the current educational system is immoral, but forcing kids to stay in failing schools isn’t immoral.
If there’s any justice – some day in the future – people will reread these stupid arguments and laugh at them just as we do when we read arguments about how race X is superior to race Y because of _____.
IMHO – for all those who actively work to prevent children from having an alternative to a failed/failing school are reprehensible and repulsive creatures who are willing to damage millions of children’s lives, so long as they can continue to maintain a monopoly.
If you disagree, contemplate – what would you call it if they watched someone beat a child without calling the cops or intervening?
Creative advertising: Sales pitch for “Social Media Striptease” [NSFW-ish]
For every share on Facebook or Twitter, this lingerie model will remove part of her clothes.
These people are just so moronic
Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland
Protesters, fascist mob..
The top comment on HN covers it pretty well:
That nails it. This is why these assholes are communists. In a communist system they could keep those lofts provided they were of the right political class, which of course they assume they are.
The truly sad thing is that more people (at least in California) would agree with the protesters than this person.
The current top comment in the SF rag:
“It isn’t about taking cars off of the road. What Google and the other tech firms are doing with their buses is taking the cream of the transportation sector leaving muni with the less profitable business. If these tech people really were clued in and cared about the community they lived in they would have met with local transportation people and used our existing transportation infrastructure to transport their employees.”
It’s uh, about, uh well, I don’t like it and something, something!
WTF is the “cream of the transportation sector”?
Medical Physics Guy|12.20.13 @ 5:54PM|#
“WTF is the “cream of the transportation sector”?”
Maybe that idjit figures the Googlies will tip the muni drive?
Beat my pair of jacks.
The kulaks are buying all the good buses and the proletariat are being forced to ride in their cast-offs.
Now, these people should be happy with google. Instead of the transit agency having to waste equipment on empty return runs from rich suburban areas, google allows the transit agencies to keep equipment in areas where the poor are.
Yes, because Google really wants its employees taking an hour to travel seven miles on a bus that stops every 300 feet.
It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t fit your needs, you have accept a higher cost in time or money or both in order for them to have a chance at getting value out of the system.
And it doesn’t matter to them if it’s use-value or patronage-value. Well, maybe patronage-value is rated a little higher….
—-
It’s the same argument they use for Ocare and every other thing they’ve collectivized. The Post Office, roads, education, whatever.
Your opting out is not healthy for the collective, therefore it is disallowed.
Your specific wants and needs are not taken into account when making the plan, therefore they are ignored.
Try anyway and they will use violence to intimidate you and propaganda to smear you.
You are merely a means to their ends.
It’s the exact same thing they condemn capitalism for. Of course, ignoring that under capitalism you have a chance at good lifestyle without having to be part of, or loyally subservient to, a ruling elite.
Shorter version:
You’re not allowed to do better than what they can provide for you.
It’s more line you’re not allowed to do any better that what they think you should be allowed to do.
a kind young man, homeless and unemployed, boarded the bus with the employees.
The kind young man left the bus
What the fuck? Why is this guy even in the story?
There weren’t any woman or minorities around?
Wow, just wow.
Will this be the new Google bus?
I thought Oakland was intolerable when I left there two years ago but it just keeps getting worse. These assholes prefer the place to be totally unlivable, it seems.
Lena Dunham attacks ‘sexual predator’ R. Kelly, Michelle Malkin points out Dunham has taken sexualized pictures with predatory photographer
Lena Dunham has been labeled hypocritical after she condemned R Kelly for his ‘predatory behavior’ a mere year after being photographed herself by Terry Richardson.
The Girls actress and director, 27, took to Twitter on Monday to express her disgust at the public endorsement of R Kelly, whose alleged sexual misconduct with underage girls has recently resurfaced.
In response, journalist and Fox News Channel contributor Michelle Malkin pointed out that Miss Dunham has been photographed ‘naked from the waist down’ by Terry Richardson, who has also been accused of sexually exploiting young women.
‘You took your panties off for a long-accused predator/perv,’ she wrote on Twitter. ‘Of course feminists should question u [sic].’
The war of words kicked off when Miss Dunham tweeted, no doubt addressing R Kelly’s numerous female fans: ‘There’s still a sense that being down with the predatory behavior of guys makes you chill, a girl with a sense of humor, a girl who can hang.’
Hard not to enjoy someone so judgmental having hypocrisy shoved back in her face.
In fairness to Lena, who other than the worst sicko, would volunteer to be in the same room with her naked much less take pictures of it? Her choice of photographers was necessarily limited to the real closet cases.
How is this hypocrisy, unless urinating on an underage girl=sexual harassment of an adult model?
Did you read her Tweet? She said:
‘Any man who takes advantage of any woman sickens me. That’s all and that’s always. No debate,’
Terry Richardson fits that description just as well as R. Kelly. So yeah, Bo, that is hypocrisy on her part and she needs to stop being so judgmental just because her inexplicably popular show and privileged background has given her a soapbox.
“Terry Richardson fits that description just as well as R. Kelly.”
Is sexual harassment ‘taking advantage of any woman’ like urinating on an underage girl is?
Is sexual harassment ‘taking advantage of any woman’ like urinating on an underage girl is?
Irrelevant since Lena didn’t make that statement and those calling her out for hypocrisy didn’t conflate the two things you are conflating now.
So no, it’s not the same – but also the fact they are different is completely meaningless to what took place.
How is this not “punching up”?
I always thought that mystical elves were above hobbits on the social ladder.
I hate to be the joke police but for the fuck of shit is that a bad rape joke. Rape jokes are like the triple axels of comedy ? a person who has trained for years (like Louis CK or Sarah Silverman) can pull them off if they’re perfectly executed.
So Jezabel is ok with rape jokes and does not think they are sexist…so long as they are “good” rape jokes….
Any of you degenerates sitting at Jet Rock at Philly airport? I’m sitting next to someone who is giving me a strong Hit and Runner vibe.
Stop staring at me, creep!
Perhaps we should develop a secret Hit and Run coded hand signal.
When in the exact same scenario Reddit came up with “What time does the narwhal bacon?”
I hope we can do better…
Maybe we should really start wearing monocles. Gold-rimmed, orphan polished, and highlighted with conflict diamonds.
Start?
I wear glasses so a monocle would be in the way.
Of course I could have one and in dramatic moments take my glasses of dramatically and then place the monocle and then let it fall from it’s place.
One monocle and one contact.
Double monocle.
Reasonoid 1: “How many Welch’s does it take to fire a Lucy?”
Reasonoid 2: “The jacket is ascendant.”
Not bad, though I think a non-verbal/passive indicator would be superior.
I like it.
If a stranger starts giving you a handjob against your will, while mumbling something about NAP, AND he’s wearing a monocle, then don’t be alarmed. It’s merely how we greet each other in public. Unless it’s Warty. Then it just gets really weird, really fast.
I’m sort of afraid to ask what this vibe consists of.
What sort of pizza is the person eating?
Tap your feet loudly on the ground. That way you’ll know if he’s a cop or not.
Good news! All insurance in Colorado will now cover sex changes!!!
Bending the cost curve down!
Over, the word is over
Perhaps we should develop a secret Hit and Run coded hand signal.
The universal sign language pew-pew-pew finger gun, directed toward the nearest authority figure.
All insurance in Colorado will now include sex changes!!!
For pets and barnyard animals, too, or it doesn’t count.
Bo Cara apparently believes himself to be the Grand Inquisitor of a libertarian political theology extant solely in his own fevered imagination. A complex, highly structured and demanding theology of which he, and he alone possesses the Sacred Scrolls.
But I’m the Objectivist!
Oh, spare us the melodrama P Brooks.
Libertarians are famous for long debates over what, to outsiders, seem like arcane points. I am no arbiter of such matters.
But there are some things that seem common to nearly all forms of coherent libertarian philosophy, and one of them is that children can not grant effective consent. If you think that is so idiosyncratic to libertarianism then tell us about it. I for one would be interested to hear it.
?
Still waiting on that definition of racism that includes (only white) people using facepaint with their halloween costumes.
Mmm, a lot of people here believe that about themselves, Brooksie. Not you, of course, but, Mssrs *cough*, *splutter* and *mumble*…
P Brooks theology of libertarianism is admittedly simple and easy to understand: a libertarian is one that watches hours of MSNBC in anger, and does not criticize conservatives.
At least that is what I can garner from his comments.
a libertarian is one that..does not criticize conservatives.
You shouldn’t say things you know nothing about. Luckily you can check archives on reason from when Bush was President and put this idiocy to rest very quickly. Check out the pre-Iraq war threads specifically if you so desire.
But maybe, right now, the current people in charge are fairly liberal, and since they’re in charge, libertarians prefer to debate that which is current… versus continuing to debate Bush’s disaster in several key areas like NCLB, Part B, Tarp, etc, etc, etc.
You know – because it’s already been done and Bush isn’t in charge anymore.
I know – you think it’s odd.
Know though that the rational should correctly see anti-Obama sentiment not as explicit consent for conservative policies, but instead see it as an obvious consequence to the current political reality.
But if you’re really interested – search Reason archives and prove it to yourself.
If you’re not interested enough to look – then stop arguing it because ample evidence exists to refute your contention and any unwillingness on your part to seek it out and see if your opinions should change, means you’re not really arguing in good faith anyway.
What’s the matter, Perry Mason? Did you run out of witnesses to badger?
So you have no answer.
Imagine that.
Oh, no, not the “ANSWER THE QUESTION!” gambit.
You bore me, you tedious little twerp.
Your lack of answering the question demonstrates the same with your initial point.
Why do you people engage Blue Tulpa? This whole thread reeks of law student earnestness now…
P Brooks theology of libertarianism is admittedly simple and easy to understand: a libertarian is one that watches hours of MSNBC in anger, and does not criticize conservatives.
At least that is what I can garner from his comments.
Here’s a hint, you noxious little asshole. I don’t owe you anything.
Fuck off, slaver.
Do not worry Brooks, I do not confuse ‘can not give’ with ‘owe.’
Bo –
Maybe he’s not answering because a google search on Bush with settings such as site:reason.com will prove the idiocy of your statement that being libertarian means never criticizing conservatives.
Maybe he’s not answering you because I’m unlikely the first person telling you this & even though the information is easily found – you don’t care to seek out facts to even see if your beliefs confirm with reality.
Maybe he’s not answering you because he just wants to be a dick.
In the end – he lack of an answer to your question – doesn’t make your question meaningful or accurate.
Reuters has front page article about China-US collaboration on thorium nuclear reactors.
A Japanese island is getting bigger?
How that can be?
I mean after all even a growing volcanic island couldn’t possible outrun the massive rise in sea levels that the global warming true believers assure us is happening.
The island itself is causing sea levels to rise.