A.M. Links: Judge Rules Arbitrary Searches of Gadgets at Border Legal, Government Official in Charge of Botched Obamacare Website to Retire, Dolphins Caught on Tape Getting High

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  YouTube

  A federal judge ruled government agents near the border can search electronic devices such as laptops or smartphones for any reason they wish.

• Justice Sonia Sotomayor has ordered two Catholic charities to be temporarily exempt from the Obamacare contraception mandate.  The exemption will last at least until Friday, by which time the government is required to make a legal response.
• The chief operating officer of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the government official who was tasked with the botched Obamacare website roll out, will be retiring. Heckuva job!
• Legal marijuana sales began in Colorado yesterday.
• The US Ambassador to India says she regrets the way the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York City was handled, but that the charges against her won't be dropped.
• Former Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi will face trial later this month for allegedly breaking out of jail with other leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2011, the first of three cases against him.
• Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who has been in a coma since 2006, is in critical condition.
• Global warming activists on a boat trapped in Antarctic ice have been rescued by helicopter; the crew is expected to remain until the ship is freed.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

...the government official who was tasked with the botched Obamacare website roll out, will be retiring.

The escaping rats aren't usually the ones who sank the ship.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Also, HI EVERYBODY!

[a better weapon]

HI DR. NICK!!!

[some guy]

I'll bet his pension alone will be way over the median income. Add in a little part time work as a lobbyist for the health insurance industry and he won't have to alter his lifestyle at all.

[Rich]

SEXIST!

Women are perfectly capable of fucking things up too, you know!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Merry New Year!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpqknwKbvDE

[Lord Humungus]

Obama Dolphin sez INTERCEPTION!

Dolphins 'deliberately get high' on puffer fish nerve toxins by carefully chewing and passing them around

In extraordinary scenes filmed for a new documentary, young dolphins were seen carefully manipulating a certain kind of puffer fish which, if provoked, releases a nerve toxin.

Though large doses of the toxin can be deadly, in small amounts it is known to produce a narcotic effect, and the dolphins appeared to have worked out how to make the fish release just the right amount.

Carefully chewing on the puffer and passing it between one another, the marine mammals then enter what seems to be a trance-like state.

[DontShootMe]

Bloomberg is working on banning puffer fish chewing.

[wareagle]

dolphin bath saltz!!11!

[Swiss Servator, Pikes Forward!]

wareagle wins.

[Slammer]

Ban Dolphinsz!!

[PD Scott]

"Flipper's not here, man."

[Raven Nation]

*golf clap*

[Fist of Etiquette]

The US Ambassador to India says she regrets the way the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York City was handled, but that the charges against her won't be dropped.

Wait until she returns with her dragons.

[Steve G]

The linked article doesn't mention what the original charges were. Anyone know?

[db]

She was charged with not paying her domestic staff what she promised them, (and below minimum wage) at least, IIRC.

[Steve G]

ahh, thx. Seems more lawsuit worthy vice an arrestable offense...

[Drake]

Unless you really want to fuck up relations and lose credibility with a friendly country in a strategic area. Then it makes sense.

[Rasilio]

From what I've read about it had she been anyone else she'd have been charged with slavery or human trafficking charges

[PRX]

it's been revoked.

[Steve G]

I'm too old for this shit

[Lord Humungus]

Ruthus Marcus: Edward Snowden, the insufferable whistleblower

ime has not deflated Edward Snowden's messianic sense of self-importance. Nor has living in an actual police state given the National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower any greater appreciation of the actual freedoms that Americans enjoy.

Insufferable is the first adjective evoked by Snowden's recent interview with Barton Gellman in The Post, but it has numerous cousins: smug, self-righteous, egotistical, disingenuous, megalomaniacal, overwrought.

The Snowden of Gellman's interview is seized with infuriating certitude about the righteousness of his cause. Not for Snowden any anxiety about the implications for national security of his theft of government secrets, any regrets about his violations of a duty of secrecy.

[John]

Because if Snowden is in any way a bad person or not someone Ruth Marcus would want her daughter to date, that totally makes it okay for the NSA to spy on Americans.

[Doctor Whom]

Statists love ad hominems.

[John]

It is all they have. It is not like they can argue results.

[Doctor Whom]

On behavior, if Snowden is such a believer in the Constitution, why didn't he stick around to test the system the Constitution created and deal with the consequences of his actions?

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's the point, going waaaaaay, over Ruth Marcus's head.

[R C Dean]

why didn't he stick around to test the system the Constitution created

How, exactly, do you test a system that doesn't exist anymore?

[Live Free or Diet]

The poor Constitution looks like it was hit with a brick of .22LR, and then left stapled up in the rain.

[Rasilio]

Uh because he knew just how little regard the powers that be held for that Constitution?

That's kinda the whole thing he was blowing a whistle about.

[Fluffy]

She hates Snowden for the same reason the left hates Rand: because he's absolutely certain he's right.

They hate that certainty, because their entire system runs on a million little tiny corruptions and compromises with what's right. If you're in Snowden's position before his defection and you're not absolutely sure you're right, you say to yourself, "Who am I to think I'm right? Sure, what my superiors are doing looks horrible, but it would be arrogant for me to take upon myself the right to judge them. Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut and collect my 200k salary and fuck my hot girlfriend. I'm sure it will all be OK in the end."

That's what they NEED everyone to say.

Who's 'they'?

The ubiquitous 'they'.

Anyone who steps out of line and says, "Fuck you, I'm right and you're wrong!" is 1000x harder to buy or to frighten or to wear down.

[John]

That is a good point. Right or wrong, Snowden came to the conclusion that his view of the morality of the situation took precedence over the government's view. For people like Marcus, it doesn't matter how good or bad the actions Snowden revealed were. What matters is that he had the nerve to think his judgement was superior to the governments.

It is also worth noting that Marcus is really even worse than you portray her. If she had a total commitment to government, she would at least be principled and consistent. But you and I both know that if the other side was in charge, she would love Snowden for going after the government. The government is only sacred when the right people run it.

[SugarFree]

For people like Marcus, it doesn't matter how good or bad the actions Snowden revealed were.

I'm not so sure about that. If Showden had done the exact same thing in 2006, Marcus wouldn't have written this about him. He'd be a hero.

[John]

That is what I say in the last paragraph. She only believes in government if her people are in charge.

[SugarFree]

I see that now. I may still be hungover from NYE.

[Enough About Palin]

You got drunk at the Nyeri Airport?

[SugarFree]

Yes, and it was expensive.

[Brett L]

But the heretics ran the priesthood back then!

[NoVAHockey]

The think that really struck me about that column was how poorly it was written. The Post editorial page has just been phoning it in for awhile now.

[John]

I am always struck by the poor quality of the writing in the MSM. Even though I couldn't stand papers like the Post and the Times back in the 1980s and 1990s, the technical quality of the writing was always outstanding. They had writers who wrote beautiful prose and wonderfully clear sentences and ideas, even if those ideas were wrong headed. Now they don't even do that. They have put such a premium on being a party hack that they apparently no longer care if the hack can even write a proper sentence. Matthew Yglesias is by standards of proper journalism functionally illiterate. Yet, he gets paid to write for the web arm of the Post.

[kinnath]

This is the end result of mainstreaming.

[NoVAHockey]

everyone needs a editor, and it seems that they just publish whatever anymore.

[John]

I think the collapse of the business model for newspapers and magazines is the root cause of it. They just can't afford to hire editors anymore. They also can't afford to pay very much so the quality of people entering the field is much lower than it once was and many of their best writers moved to other fields for better money.

Thirty years ago someone like Yglesias would have been hired writing obituaries and had an editor torture him such that he either improved his writing or got fired. Now they set him straight to writing editorials with no adult supervision. Forty years ago someone with his limited ability would have never been hired in the first place. But the talent pool of people coming out of college willing to go into journalism is just that shallow.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

The think that really struck me about that column was how poorly it was written. The Post editorial page has just been phoning it in for awhile now.

Ruth Marcus has always been a token in the pundit profession. Her columns are better than Dowd's, but that's damning by faint praise--if Dowd is the equivalent of reading a middle school girl's Twitter feed, Marcus is her bored, resentful housewife mother gossiping with the neighbors.

[Raston Bot]

Bezos obviously can't get rid of all the statists at once.

[John]

When Bezos bought the Post I imagined what I would do if I owned it, after I fired nearly every writer there. I came up with a list of people I would want and they were all conservatives or libertarians or at most really contrarian liberals like Camille Paglia. And that bugged me because I wouldn't want people to accuse me of making the Post into just a mirror image on the right of what it is today. The problem is that I couldn't think of a single mainstream liberal writer who I didn't consider either a hack, utterly stupid, or both. You tell me what liberal writer Bezos could hire who isn't embarrassingly dishonest or stupid.

[tarran]

Glenn Greenwald... if one can figure out a way to keep him from using sock-puppets...

[John]

Only if you limited him to writing on civil liberties and government overreach issues and didn't allow him to write about Israel or anything that even remotely concerns economics.

[Brett L]

In Glenn's defense, both he and the Internet were young back then. And he seems to have drawn exactly the right lesson... Use a different computer for your sockpuppets.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Former Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi will face trial later this month for allegedly breaking out of jail...

Sco-FIELD!!!

[Bee Tagger]

I sure hope Morsi has scant knowledge of his parents' secret lives as world manipulators and even has been lead to believe at least one of them is dead.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

David Brooks will teach a course at Yale called 'Humility'
New York Times columnist David Brooks is a somewhat prominent intellectual of our time, which is a really sad, scathing indictment of our time. This spring, the generally vacuous talking head will take his shallow, self-important brand of alleged conservatism to Yale University to teach an undergraduate course entitled "Humility."

The Daily Caller is not making this up (and could not possibly make this up).

According to The Yale Herald's Bullblog, which first noticed this deliciously ironic happening, Brooks has bloviated on the topic of humility in the Times and at the Aspen Ideas Festival, a weeklong series of discussions and seminars held annually at a fancypants ski resort full of mega-millionaires....

[John]

This actually fits quite well for Brooks. Brooks is famous for saying that great leaders need great followers who respect authority. Brooks is just trying to get college kids to be humble and follow the orders of their top men.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

No one is more qualified than me, to teach a course on humility!

-D. Brooks

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

You can't make this shit up.

[Steve G]

Reminds me of an old wing commander of mine who had a briefing on leadership whose theme was "leadership is not about you". ...Meanwhile he'd drive around the base on the weekends in civilian clothes to see who could recognize him by his face and pay the proper respects.

[Slammer]

Thomas Friedman must be excited! Chinese tycoon might buy New York Times

[Brett L]

Will he take the real estate and force the NYT co to keep the paper?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

National Review: Reconsider Wilson
From my most recent NRO article, on the lessons of Woodrow Wilson for foreign policy: "He was the first person to inspire the masses of the world with the vision of enduring peace and with the elevation of international law to a serious level of international deference and enforcement. Of course, it didn't work, Wilson was a tragedy, and his presidency ended in disaster, failure, and premature incapacitation; but his achievement was durable, even if it required the horrors of World War II and the atrocities of Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, and some other countries to sell aspects of the Wilsonian message to Americans and many other peoples."...

[John]

He inspired the world so much that in just 21 years the world embarked on the greatest killing spree in human history.

[some guy]

You mean his "War to End All Wars" didn't really end all war?

[Rich]

It *started* the end. Sheesh, give it a little time!

[DJF]

""""vision of enduring peace""'

Skipping over the whole jumping into WW1 thing.

[a better weapon]

but his achievement was durable, even if it required the horrors of World War II and the atrocities of Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, and some other countries to sell aspects of the Wilsonian message to Americans and many other peoples."...

What the hell? I can't tell if this is tongue-in-cheek or serious. Considering how NR has been full steam ahead in its statism the last few years, I'm guessing they really are asking the reader to adopt the most tortured of world views in order to find the silver linings of the Wilson presidency.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

It makes sense to them

[Red Rocks Rockin]

"Reconsider Wilson"

Or, just consider that he was a product of his era that allowed a toxic mix of Marxist class warfare, political and ethnic tribalism, Rooseveltian muscular Americanism, and a fetish for social engineering to become the current dysfunctional society we have today.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

NYT: Oh, by the way, we had a reporter on the scene during the Benghazi attack

[wareagle]

film reviewer, amirite?

[Slammer]

Well done.

[John]

Let me guess, like that video of Obama palling around with the Islamic radicals that the LA times has but won't release, the NYT has a video of the whole thing but can't release it because it would violate the privacy of those involved.

[Suthenboy]

Holy shit! wut?

It is one thing to put a spin on things, even to the point of making it look like something it isnt, but to just make up bald faced lies?

Let me see the video or stfu.

[GILMORE]

NYT: "We hired people who participated in the attacks, and dutifully wrote down the pile of bullshit they fed us. Judith Miller helped edit."

[Fist of Etiquette]

Global warming activists on a boat trapped in Antarctic ice have been rescued by helicopter...

I hope that chopper didn't burn too much fossil fuel in the rescue.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Like the people on the boat care...if they need something, mother Gaia be damned! Now, if anybody else needed something that required a large expenditure of fossil fuels, well....

[DJF]

Don't worry it runs on renewable whale oil.

[Swiss Servator, Pikes Forward!]

*applause*

[Lord Humungus]

First Sex Doll Launched Into Space And Floats Until She Blows.. Up

Cosmic ray radiation was around 100 times its earthly strength, and the atmospheric pressure was less than one percent of the earth's atmosphere. Missy still held together without bursting... with pleasure.

In the video description CNV owner, Dave Levine, says, "We modified the air plug on the back so that it equalized with outside pressure throughout the flight. The doll was just filled with air, but enough was allowed to vent during the course of the flight so as to prevent explosion."

It wasn't until Missy's helium balloon (cherry) popped at 102,000 that she began to fall to earth, and be ripped to shreds by the atmosphere somewhere over the Nevada desert. We guess she found her G... force.

[John]

Once private companies regularly start putting people into to space, having sex and putting it on the internet will be maybe what, the second thing they do? Once the view gets a bit old, I think sex tape is probably next on the agenda.

[Pro Libertate]

I wonder if there's been any space sex yet? NASA says no, but it's not like the astronauts on the ISS are going to announce it to Mission Control: "Houston, we have a condom."

[John]

I wonder that too. They have put people up there for a very long time.

[RBS]

At the very least there has been some space masturbation.

[Pro Libertate]

That's not even debatable. The only question is how early it happened. I'd say as early as the space monkeys, but I believe they were pretty well covered in straps and equipment. Yuri? Alan? Maybe later? Seems more likely in the solo shots or on the shuttle or space stations.

[John]

You know the monkeys did. The problem with the later missions was that you had no privacy because they went up in pairs starting with Gemini.

My guess would be one of the command module pilots during the Apollo missions. They were up there alone while the other two were on the moon with not a lot to do.

[tarran]

Yeah, but they were wired to a medical monitoring system that tracked their heart rate etc.

It would take a real exhibitionist to jerk off while a Nasa flight surgeon is watching your respiration and pulse..

[Lord Humungus]

solo shots /Beavis laugh

[R C Dean]

I believe they were pretty well covered in straps and equipment.

Which is no hindrance, and may even be an aid, to masturbation.

Err, at least that's what the internet told me.

[Pro Libertate]

So, another first in space for monkeys.

[Enough About Palin]

"That on small step for man, one giant load for mankind.

[tarran]

Sex in space would be pretty difficult; in free fall, the participants would have to expend significant effort to keep from pushing off of each other and drifting apart.

James Oberg's book on space exploration actually devotes an entire chapter to the subject. It's not online; which is a pity since it is earnest and utterly nerdy and thus very funny.

[Kaptious Kristen]

That's when a love of bondage comes in handy....

[Pro Libertate]

It strikes me that any physical limits in this regard are a total and absolute non sequitur.

[Rasilio]

On the plus side, there is no limits to the positions you can assume. On the downside you pretty much need to velcro your hips together.

Pretty much a guarantee that one of the first inventions to go on a space hotel will be a sex harness that allows for different positions to be achieved while preventing the bodies from flying apart

[Suthenboy]

What was the point of this?

(Please dont try to provide an answer)

[Lord Humungus]

The adventures of Warty in space?

[SugarFree]

Basic science is its own reward.

[sarcasmic]

It's bikini day at the Daily Mail!

[sarcasmic]

I'm Sexy And I Know It: AnnaLynne McCord displays amazing body confidence in a racy bondage style bikini

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....ikini.html

[Rich]

More like "baffling body confidence".

[RBS]

Yeah, her body is kind of weird looking.

[sarcasmic]

Genetics at its best! Model Olga Kent enjoys Bond girl moment as she emerges from the sea in red thong bikini

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....ikini.html

[SugarFree]

There is no doubting Olga Kent is genetically blessed

Or she exercises, doesn't eat garbage and cares for her appearance. Nah. I'm sure it's all genes and glands.

[sarcasmic]

Personal responsibility? *phppt*

[SugarFree]

Just like the recent tantrum over Dave Ramsey.

[John]

I read an interesting article a while back by a fashion model describing what her life is actually like. It wasn't just about exercising and staying thin. She couldn't even drink for fear of the resulting dehydration affecting her skin tone. The entire regimen was similar to that of an elite athlete. Kobe Bryant has nothing on the typical model's training regime, especially ones that are over 20, when it starts getting harder and harder to look perfect.

[JW]

Mark Webber, who is 37, pretty much said the same thing when he retired from F1 this year. "I haven't eaten anything in the past 5 years."

[John]

Really F1 drivers are like jockeys. Think about the amount of engineering it would take to take off say 30 lbs off of an F1 car. But even an average sized person could easily lose that with a disciplined enough diet.

[Suthenboy]

I dont get it Sarc. Why the fascination with celebs?

You can go to the redneck riviera any summer and lay any number of girls as good looking or better than these.

[sarcasmic]

It's not my fascination. It's the DM's. I just work with what they give me.

Though I must say that here in Maine there is a dearth of good looking women. Ever see a Stephen King movie with a lot of hot Maine women? I didn't think so. There is a reason for that. That's why I married a pretty lady from Massachusetts.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Where are you in Maine? Anywhere near, say, Freeport?

[sarcasmic]

L/A area.

[Bee Tagger]

A federal judge ruled government agents near the border can search electronic devices such as laptops or smartphones for any reason they wish.

Which amounts to "they can search electronic devices for no reason at all"

[some guy]

This is just to save them the hassle of having to lie about why they are searching you. Rights violations are one of the few areas where government is actually capable of improving effeciency.

Password protect everything, people!

[Fist of Etiquette]

You're never getting that laptop back.

[some guy]

I can undo a stolen laptop. I can't undo a privacy invasion.

Backup everything, people!

[Suthenboy]

One word: CLOUD

[JW]

Yep. I would save everything in a hosted server and buy a cheap laptop when I got here.

[Rasilio]

Right, make it that much easier for the NSA to rifle through your files.

[R C Dean]

One word: CLOUD

That way, they can get all your data without having to touch your hardware, or even bothering you with the knowledge that they are rifling through your "papers and effects."

[JW]

I'm thinking an encrypted USB drive via mule at this point.

[Rasilio]

Somebody needs to invent a program that splits data across multiple drives, the reintegrates them later.

This way you can hide each drive in different places and they can only recover the data if they find them all

[some guy]

You can do that with RAID software. Maybe you were already aware of that. Sometimes it's hard to tell on this forum.

[tarran]

Actually, this already exists... sort of.

It's called RAID, and is used to improve reliability, a system can suffer a hard drive failure and still keep operating.

At one of the steel mills I worked at, we used Raid 5, which distributes the data accross multiple drives, reserving one drive to store a parity bit - allowing a bad drive to be replaced on the fly without the system having to shut down.

[Rasilio]

No, I know about RAID but it doesn't work like I am envisioning because the data is still useful if you don't have all of the drives. Basically in a RAID array you split entire pieces of data across multiple drives so if one is down you only loose access to the data on that drive.

What I am talking about is say with 4 drives each byte would have 2 bits written to a seperate drive so that you could not tell what the actual value of the byte was without all 4 drives and the data would be useless without all of the drives in place.

[kbolino]

It's called Secret sharing.

The simplest way to achieve what you're describing is to use repeated iterations of the one-time pad. For N drives, you create N-1 keys of the same size as the data. Drive 1 stores key 1; drive 2 stores key 2 encrypted with key 1; and so on. Finally, drive N stores the data encrypted with key N-1.

That still leaves brute force, though, if someone can figure out they have the data drive. So you could borrow the striping idea from RAID, splitting the data and keys into N stripes each. Then each drive has only one piece of the encrypted data and one piece of each key, so you need all the pieces to reconstruct any key or to brute force the data.

There are, of course, more mathematically sophisticated ways of doing the same thing, but they afford no better security than what I described AFAIK.

[Rich]

Alarmingly, the government contends the Fourth-Amendment-Free Zone stretches 100 miles inland from the nation's actual border.

The judge said it "would be foolish, if not irresponsible" to store sensitive information on electronic devices while traveling internationally.

Moreover, what's magic about "electronic devices"?

We are so screwed.

[mad libertarian guy]

Alarmingly, the government contends the Fourth-Amendment-Free Zone stretches 100 miles inland from the nation's actual border.

That exempts the entire state of Florida as not one spot therein is more than 100 miles from the border.

[Auric Demonocles]

Additionally, all of Michigan, all of New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Connecticut, Island, New Jersey, and Delaware.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Rhode Connecticut Island...heh heh (might as well be).

[Rich]

"Rocky Roco ... Road."

[Auric Demonocles]

Damn it.

[mad libertarian guy]

A full 20% of states have no spot within 100 miles from an international border, and most of the dense population areas (NYC, Chicago, LA, etc) are also within 100 miles of the border. So effectively the majority of the US population is subject to have their shit confiscated and searched by border patrol. How long until border patrol picks up on this and starts doing drug searches sans warrant in Brooklyn or Houston?

Land of the free.

[Spoonman.]

What about navigable waters? Technically somebody could navigate a smuggler submarine up the Mississippi or Missouri quite far inland.

Missouri: The new border state.

[Auric Demonocles]

Even easier: space is clearly considered outside of the US, and that's only 62 miles above sea level. Therefore, all of the US is within 100 miles of the space border.

[Rich]

BWAHAHAHAA!!

[Pro Libertate]

Okay, so the space whoretels will have to be geosynchronous.

[Auric Demonocles]

Don't half-ass it. Make it a whorbital ring connected to the planet by multiple space elevators.

[Pro Libertate]

A Screw-Ringworld?

[Auric Demonocles]

Yes, except connected to the Earth. More like the one from Clark's 3001.

[Pro Libertate]

I envision the space elevators being statues of people we like. Made of carbon nanotubes with insane tensile strength and marble like appearance.

[Auric Demonocles]

What if we made them into space elevawhores and were statues of hot slutty women instead of just people we like?

[Pro Libertate]

Well, if the marketing people say that's the best approach, okay.

[Cdr Lytton]

Don't forget to clear customs!

http://t.co/0d5hYXRhWj

[sarcasmic]

That exempts the entire state of Florida as not one spot therein is more than 100 miles from the border.

Same with Maine.

[Nikki just says no]

The judge said it "would be foolish, if not irresponsible" to store sensitive information on electronic devices while traveling internationally.

What? Oh give me a fucking break. Although I mean, I guess she's right. It would also be foolish to store it while traveling domestically. Or while staying at home and having the NSA watch everything you do online. Etc.

[Pro Libertate]

It's funny, but I never used to think of my home as a border town, since all we border is the ocean.

[John]

Yes. This is a great example of the law not keeping up with technology. The general rule that the government doesn't need probable cause to search at the border made sense back when border search issues related strictly to goods and contraband. I don't think a coast guard cutter needs probable cause to board a cargo ship to ensure that it has paid the duties on the goods it is carrying.

But that general rule never contemplated the rise of computers and smart phones. It sure as hell was never intended to allows some GS5 to look and see if the couple coming through the border has any fun pictures of the hot wife.

[Auric Demonocles]

It also makes a lot more sense when it's actually applied at border crossings, and not just "near" (read: within a zone so big that entire states, and all of New England except for a tiny sliver of southwestern Vermont, fall within) it.

[Suthenboy]

"A federal judge ruled government agents near the border can search electronic devices such as laptops or smartphones for any reason they wish."

Shouldnt that read " U.S. District Judge Edward Korman failed to uphold his oath of office by giving agents of the state permission to break the law." ?

[Rich]

We'll *deem* his oath to have been upheld.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Here is a [female] college cheerleader's ass

You're welcome.

[sarcasmic]

'My year was mostly summer!' Bar Refaeli shares her favourite bikini shots on the beach in montage video

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....video.html

[some guy]

The NYT editorial board tries to break the record for stupidity density in regards to minimum wage policy.

Seriously, they managed to cram damn near every fallacious argument I've ever heard on the subject into 500 words.

[Rich]

It's smart politics. More than three-quarters of Americans support a wage higher than the current $7.25 an hour, and Republicans will be hard-pressed to explain why they oppose it.

Good Lord, it gets *worse*. 8-(

[Rufus J. Firefly]

They will be hard pressed because 75% of people approve it?

So.

If 75% think they should kick out all the niggars and spicks, will the GOP be hard pressed to prevent this?

[Kaptious Kristen]

Republicans will be hard-pressed to explain why they oppose it.

More like average Derpmericans will be hard-pressed to understand it.

[John]

In fairness, Republicans might be hard pressed to do that. But that is only because they are the stupid party not because it isn't easy to explain.

[Kaptious Kristen]

That's what I just said - it's not hard to explain the economic effects of minimum wage. In fact, it's ridiculously easy. It's just that John Q. Voter doesn't want to understand it, and he's susceptible to emotional arguments rather than logic.

[John]

I think more people do than you think. Most people other than just hardcore progs who will vote D anyway get it that it is a bad idea. And even the ones that don't, don't care enough about the issue to vote based on it.

All this is is Democrats desperately trying to get liberal middle and upper middle class voters to forget how badly they are being screwed by Obamacare. I don't think it is going to work.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I find your faith in the voting public disturbing... 😉

[John]

I don't have a lot of faith in them. But I do know that saying "I think X is a good idea" is not the same as deciding your vote based on that issue.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

And democrats are hard-pressed to explain why not a $50/hour minimum wage if it is so good.

[sarcasmic]

How can raising the minimum wage put young and low-skilled workers out of work when those are the people it is intended to help?

Do you question the good intentions of those who want to raise the minimum wage?

Why do you hate young and low-skilled workers?

[some guy]

Because there is an ideal minimum wage that should be determined by trained professionals based on economic indicators. Duh! This would be so much easier and fairer than letting the market handle things.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

We just need one of these and anything is possible:

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

I still have images of Krugabe sitting in one of those chairs stroking his cat.

[sarcasmic]

How your favorite drink speaks volumes about your personal politics: The chart that measures voters in terms of vodka, whiskey and wine

Consumer data gathered over two years from over 50,000 interviews has attempted to realize voting choices according to drink choices
Results varied, but summary findings concluded that Democrats tend to go for clear liquors, such as vodka and gin, while Republicans are more likely to opt for something darker, such as whiskey

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

[John]

That is funny. I can tolerate vodka in a drink and I loath gin. I do however love a good bourbon or scotch. I guess some stereotypes are real.

[a better weapon]

I haven't had scotch or bourbon since we starting trying to have a family (wife is gluten intolerant and wheat allergic; not one of those fad posers) so I've been sipping the dark rums on ice as a substitute.

Boy do I miss it.

[John]

Dark rums are good. I always had a bad view of rum because I had only had cheap crap. But a good dark rum is totally different than some cheap bottle of Bacardi.

You should try Cognac. It is just a wonderful sipping drink.

[SugarFree]

Armagnac or pure Applejack is good for the wheat allergic household. It can be sipped or used in a number of drinks.

Also, an Applejack / Hard Cider boilermaker (Applebomb) is a fun summer drink.

[SugarFree]

And instead of Armagnac, I meant Calvados. I think I broke my brain.

[Rich]

Good grief, SF. Take the day off already!

[SugarFree]

Back at work. The lonely howls of a deserted campus drive me here for solace and camaraderie.

[John]

You know what is great? The new cinnamon bourbons in hot chocolate. It tastes like a chocolate cinnamon candy. Great after dinner drink.

[SugarFree]

I'm not a fan of how much sugar the dump in Fireball or Chicken Cock. I've got an experimental batch of cinnamon Devil's Cut mascerating at the house.

[sarcasmic]

I'm not a huge cinnamon fan, but I do like some Rumplemintz now and again.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Gognac or Brandy.

[Kaptious Kristen]

So many fucking hipster pictures in that article...

[DontShootMe]

I like how the drink that predicts high democratic skew and high turnout is "Smoking Loon"

Fits

[a better weapon]

The absence of "home brewed beers" shows me that nobody from H&R was interviewed.

[db]

I have not bought anything from Northern Brewer since they bought into the whole "White House homebrew recipe" and started selling a kit for it. God, why do they have to politicize everything down to the beer I drink? And seriously? Who the fuck is stupid enough to believe that Obama actually has a favorite homebrewed beer? That whole fucking thing is is just focus-group bullshit.

[a better weapon]

LOL! I had not heard about this kit or that a WH recipe exists.

The president watches a plethora of TV shows, goes golfing, and home brews now, apparently. No wonder the guy never knows anything.

[sarcasmic]

It was several years ago when the White House chef started brewing, supposedly per Obama's suggestion.

[db]

I maintain the whole thing was a managed image stunt.

[sarcasmic]

I don't do kits, I don't buy from Northern Brewer, and I don't give a shit either way.

[Pro Libertate]

I just saw part of some Kennedy Center tribute to Led Zeppelin, and it looked like the president was into the music. This bothers me for reasons I can't explain.

[RBS]

"Man, I remember intercepting that joint during Moby Dick."

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, something like that. I just don't like this image of Obama being a rocker.

[db]

Well, most everyone likes music and people expect musicians to have publicly stated political views anymore. Having politics rammed into the world of.brewing is an unwelcome development.

[RBS]

What is the WH beer?

[db]

It's an ESBD--Extra Special Bitter Disappointment.

[expat]

Its an excellent pairing with brussels sprouts or brocolli!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Legal marijuana sales began in Colorado yesterday.

The Mayans were wrong. Yesterday was the end of the world.

[Lord Humungus]

Fiat shares jump on Chrysler merger deal but worries remain

Fiat shares jumped on Thursday after it struck a $4.35 billion deal to gain full control of Chrysler Group LLC, but doubts remained over whether the Italian carmaker can use the merger to cut losses in Europe.

..snip..

Fiat will buy the stake in the profitable U.S. group from a retiree healthcare trust affiliated to the United Auto Workers union. The trust will receive $3.65 billion in cash for the stake, $1.9 billion of which will come from Chrysler and $1.75 billion from Fiat.

After the deal closes, Chrysler has committed to giving the UAW trust another $700 million over three years.

[Lord Humungus]

related:

The Great Italian Auto Bailout ? Courtesy of U.S. Taxpayers

In the 2009 deal overseen by the Obama administration's auto task force, Fiat paid no money to acquire its initial 20 percent stake in Chrysler ? only contributing some of its intellectual property, instead. Fiat would later pay $2.2 billion to raise its stake in the company to 58.5 percent.

Continuing the bailout shell game, Fiat will now pay fellow bailout recipient UAW $4.4 billion for its stake in Chrysler. All the while, the U.S. government has pitched in more than $12 billion in taxpayer infusions.

[db]

Bet you can't wait until they start paying everyone in the Detroit area in lira.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

The Lira is looongg gone.

[Lord Humungus]

Are the U.S. media as transparent as the U.S. government?

After iron-clad refutation surfaced, CBS News relented. It apologized. It commissioned an internal review of the incident. It released the results of that review. It published statements about the episode. It arranged leaves of absence for two critical staffers in the report, correspondent Lara Logan and producer Max McClellan.

Is that a model of journalistic transparency? Or a model of journalistic transparency at the point of a gun? Perhaps the best way to answer the question would be to pose a hypothetical: Just how would the media treat a White House that refused to answer questions about an alleged scandal, then denied the scandal, only to acknowledge it in the face of overwhelming evidence? You don't need to be a third-rate Beltway pundit to answer that question.

[sarcasmic]

Dad kills son, 13, with an ax because he believed he was a demon and was going to eat him

Gary Sherrill, 51, admitted to cops he killed his 13-year-old son
Police had been to his home multiple times in the last week alone
His behavior had alarmed neighbors - one of whom he jumped out at from behind a bush
He shouted about war as he was led away in handcuffs

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....t-him.html

[Slammer]

Wasn't there a Bill Paxton movie about that?

[Outlaw]

Frailty.

Good movie, btw.

[John]

But we totally need CPS. We created CPS to stop this kind of stuff. Instead, this stuff still happens just as much as it always did but now we have CPS workers out terrorizing innocent parents.

Think about it, if you are some CPS worker, whose case are you going to concentrate on, harassing some nice family that let their kids out to play alone or some raving lunatic convinced his son is possessed by the devil? Which case makes for a more pleasant and safe day?

[Rasilio]

Having been harassed for allowing my children to play outside unsupervised in a nice upper middle class subdivision I can verify that it is the first.

[Lord Humungus]

The sequel just doesn't hold up...

Snake in a couch: Grand Rapids woman finds boa in curbside sofa

Two months after she moved a second hand couch into her bedroom, a Grand Rapids woman discovered a boa constrictor was living under the cushions.

Holly Wright says she doesn't know where the snake came from; she found the couch on the curb outside a house in Heritage Hill.

Wright, along with her boyfriend, videotaped the discovery. "It's been living in the couch for like two months in my bedroom and I had no idea and it looks pretty big."

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Insert obligatory Samuel Jackson quote....

[The Late P Brooks]

Morning Joke drive-by featured a lot of breathless excited speculation about de Blasio's progressivization of NYC. He'll make housing affordable by waving his magic sceptre, apparently.

Nobody brought up rent control, or the multitude of structural impediments whose effects are to restrict supply and increase construction costs.

Also, why would wealthy people worry about a new mayor who used them as a rhetorical whippingboy throughout the campaign?

[John]

If you make such that everyone who makes any money moves out of the city, housing will get cheaper. So they do have a point, I guess.

[Suthenboy]

How long before we have photos of NY landmarks rotting to the ground and abandoned neighborhoods infested with wild dogs like the ones from Detroit?

Dont bother appealing to the wall street money because you can bet your ass de Blasio has his eye on that as well.

[John]

Give it two years. It will take a while, but it will happen. DiBlasio has figured out that they can't stop policing the city like they did in the 70s. So the rot will take a bit to set in. But it will set in as people with money move out to the burbs.

Long term New York's reliance on the financial industry makes it very vaunerable. With computers the way they are, you don't need to be in any particular spot to work in that industry. You can be in Charlotte or Dubai just as easily as New York. Between DiBlasio and SARBOX, there is less and less reason to operate in New York.

This will end in complete disaster for the city. In four years they will elect someone a bit more sane to try and clean it up. Meanwhile, Progs will lament how capitalism has made it impossible for New York to work.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I wouldn't be so quick to assume the financial guys can move because of tech. As it stands right now, they're fighting for millisecond advantages in trading speeds. Proximity to the exchanges impacts that heavily.

[John]

Really? Wow I didn't know that. That is very interesting to hear. Thanks.

[Rich]

Yep. I keep hoping Wall Street gets flooded with liquid nitrogen.

[Drake]

How long before the exchanges are in Delaware or somewhere else sane? Or, it's just the traders in NYC while the portfolio managers and investment bankers (who have not already moved overseas) all live in Florida or somewhere?

[R C Dean]

As it stands right now, they're fighting for millisecond advantages in trading speeds.

Well, they've already got a grossly illegal but nonetheless OK-with-the-SEC trading system that runs slightly in advance of the one the "public" gets to use.

[Rasilio]

That just means you need to locate the trade server in NYC. The guy who decides at what price point to execute trades could be located almost anywhere

[Spoonman.]

One of the major trading entities, BATS (one of this silly HFT places), is located in fucking Kansas. Imagine how much that kills New Yorkers.

Also, I wish I'd bought real estate in Pike and Monroe Counties, PA when DeBlasio was going to be elected. Going to be some very rich people suddenly becoming Pennsylvanians...

[John]

It is funny to think that all of the wonderful mass transit liberals love is going to allow people to vote with their feet and tell DiBlasio to fuck off by moving to Pennsylvania and commuting.

[Suthenboy]

"In four years they will elect someone a bit more sane to try and clean it up."

I am gonna say you are wrong there. Proggie policies usually only fail because they did not hit it hard enough.

" Meanwhile, Progs will lament how capitalism has made it impossible for New York to work."

Or because they were tripped up by wreckers.

My guess is that de Blasio's successor will be worse.

[John]

No. When shit really hits the fan, they learn. The thing about New York is that it is not Detroit. Rich people will always want to live there and a lot of people are totally wedded to living in the city. So the city does self correct once in a while. It did after Dinkins and it will after DiBlasio. They all love voting for this stupid shit right up until they have to start living with the consequences.

[Drake]

I used to say the same about California. After Pat Brown it was Reagan, then Jerry Brown, etc... They would swing back and forth with their Governors and Legislature. Then they stopped.

Does anyone think California is going to elect a Republican legislature and governor again? It's over. It might be over in New York.

[John]

New York is smaller than California and the rich are less insulated than they are in California.

But yes, I bet they do in the next ten years. The Dems are going to fuck up so badly even the Mexicans will stop voting for them.

[DJF]

""""two Catholic charities to be temporarily exempt from the Obamacare contraception mandate. ""'

My belief says that I should not be paying for other peoples contraception unless I get to have sex with them, am I getting an exemption too?

[DontShootMe]

Go ahead, have sex with Sandra Fluke. You can have my turn.

[Drake]

Apparently the exception that Obama is peddling allows exempted charities to not pay for mandated contraception, but still requires insurance companies to cover it. Because the Constitution allows the President to force a private company to provide a service for free, or something.

[Lord Humungus]

Nonhazardous white substance evacuates homes on Uranus Terrace in Palm Beach Gardens

A white substance that evacuated a Palm Beach Gardens neighborhood Tuesday morning has been deemed not hazardous, according to officials with the Palm Beach County Fire Rescue.

A Palm Beach County deputy came across the material around 9:15 a.m. outside a home on Uranus Terrace south of Constellation Boulevard. Two families were evacuated from their homes.

[Rich]

"White Substance Evacuates Uranus"

[Lord Humungus]

Japan's population falls by a record 244,000 in 2013

Japan's population fell by a record 244,000 in 2013, according to health ministry estimates released on Wednesday, highlighting concerns over an ever-dwindling workforce supporting a growing number of pensioners.

An estimated 1,031,000 babies were born in 2013, down about 6,000 from a year earlier, the ministry said.

On the other hand, around 1,275,000 people died ? up about 19,000 from the previous year, the highest annual rise since World War II.

[John]

Japan is a really nice place. Maybe they can turn it into some kind of vacation land or retirement community when it finally empties out of Japanese.

[Spoonman.]

This is one of the biggest disconnects with the proglodytes - they want to steal from the productive young in order to provide extensive benefits, yet they also don't want anybody making any more young people.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Japan has a 10 percent greater revenue to GDP ratio than we do, yet only brings in enough taxes to pay for their social security program and debt service.

That's it. They've managed to hold off the reckoning for a long time due to the fact that there was an extremely high rate of savings in the older population, but now that the oldsters are dying off, the ponzi nature of their socialist system will get exposed. I'm guessing within 10-15 years if current population trends keep up.

[The Late P Brooks]

The US Ambassador to India says she regrets the way the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York City was handled, but that the charges against her won't be dropped.

Did she also ask the State Dept for a larger security detail?

[Lord Humungus]

Analysis: Scarred U.S. consumers a hard sell for traditional retail

Some improvement in the U.S. economy and declines in the jobless rate, plus gains in stock and home prices, are failing to resonate with many Americans whose incomes are struggling to catch up to where they were before the financial crisis.

But to many retail experts and economists there are other less cyclical factors at play. Consumers are spending more. Government figures show monthly personal consumption has risen for seven straight months, with November's outlay marking the fastest increase in five months. But they just are not spending in the shopping malls like they used to.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

America lived off of a shopping mall economic model for decades, going back to the mid-late 70s when the mall boom began. That model was predicated on people being willing to rack up large credit card debts as long as cumulative inflation negated the effects of that debt over time.

There's always a limit, though, and with online retailers often providing large discounts over the brick and mortar stores, we're seeing what people are really willing to pay for consumer goods. What online retailing has really exposed is how much the currency has been debased by financialization instruments over the last 35 years.

[Kaptious Kristen]

What does "near the border" mean? They could say Omaha is "near" the border, relative to the entire circumference of the Earth. I probably shouldn't give them any ideas.

[John]

Pretty much. And with air travel, any international airport is effectively a border. Look for them to claim that anyone within a hundred miles of an international terminal is "near the border".

[Rich]

What does "near the border" mean?

This seems strangely appropriate.

[Steve G]

I think it pertains to that whole 100 mile buffer zone crap that is usually thrown out.

[RBS]

I always forget that I live in a bordertown. On the coast of SC.

[Rich]

If you're a novice driver, dialing a phone is more dangerous than retrieving text messages, and reaching for an object while driving is more likely to produce an accident than eating behind the wheel.

Those are some of the findings from a newly-released [National Institute of Child Health and Human Development] study

Nothing to cut.

[a better weapon]

I had never heard of the NIDHHD until now. Doesn't they DoT release 'studies' like this all the time anyways?

[Steve G]

So it's settled then

Good thing there's no politics and/or money tied up in global warming, otherwise I wouldn't what to believe.

[John]

It is warming even faster than we thought. Just ignore these brutally cold winters and the huge expansion of sea ice. That is just weather.

[Auric Demonocles]

And the fact that the average temperate has flatlined since about 1999.

[Suthenboy]

Compulsive liars just dont give up.

[Suthenboy]

Here is the huffpuff repeating the same claptrap.

They really are just starting from scratch and recycling the whole discredited speal.

[Rich]

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt is challenging the federal government's ability to subsidize insurance premiums for people who buy insurance on federally run exchanges. The law only explicitly provides subsidies for insurance bought on state-run exchanges, but the administration has interpreted the law to provide subsidies to people who buy insurance on the exchanges run by the federal government as well. The federal government is running exchanges in 36 states. If the lawsuit succeeds, millions of people would not receive financial help to buy insurance.

Emphasis added. Happy New Year!

[Lord Humungus]

I'm sure someone else already pointed this out, but Obama & Co. are essentially setting up ACA to fail for the future. By not following "the letter of the law" and using loose, on the fly interpretations, the next administration can easily modify the damn thing as they please.

[Rich]

"It's a living document!"

[Auric Demonocles]

No, that will be treason.

[R C Dean]

They're burying the lede on that story.

If this was only about people getting subsidies, nobody would be filing a lawsuit.

But, that's not what its really about. The trick is that employers aren't on the hook for their penalties unless an employee of theirs gets insurance on a (state) exchange. So this is about insulating in-state employers from penalties.

Not sure if the individual penaltax is tied to having a state exchange.

[John]

http://newsok.com/officials-wo.....le/3919442

Officials in Oklahoma are worried that Colorado legalizing the devil weed will cause it to be more available in Oklahoma. I think they are right to worry. But what that says is that federalism, if allowed to run its course will quickly result in de facto national legalization.

Pot prohibition will quickly go the way of things like 3.2 beer and requiring you to be a member of a "private club" to drink at a bar. If you can just drive to the next state to get a product, your state is pissing in the wind trying to ban it.

[NoVAHockey]

way of things like 3.2 beer

I had to google that. never heard of it.

[kinnath]

I'll be you never heard of the 3 2 flu either.

[John]

A lot of midwestern states worried that real beer was just too strong for their citizens to handle.

[BardMetal]

I wonder how they would react to a russian imperial stout, or IPA?

[robc]

Wisconsin was not one of these states.

[Marshall Gill]

John, we still have 3.2 beer here in OK. You can not buy stronger beer except warm, from a liquor store.

[Fist of Etiquette]

They're already pissing in the wind trying to ban things. A black market for just about anything has be around since the idea of banning things. It hasn't stopped government from aiming its dick in the wrong direction and getting all wet.

[John]

But when the state next door legalizes it, it gets even harder. A lot of people, myself included, don't touch pot because even being around the black market is so risky. But if you can drive a few hours and buy it from a safe and legal store, that calculus changes completely.

[kinnath]

My sister lives in Denver. I never had the urge to visit her (she always comes home at Xmas) until 1 Jan 2014.

[Auric Demonocles]

Prepare for convenient speed traps just across the state border.

[kinnath]

The real problem is that even a little flake of weed is enough for a life-altering interaction with a LEO. So weed tourism is still a high-risk hobby.

[Raven Nation]

My girlfriend lives in CO and I live in a neighboring state. Sometimes (like this year) I drive out for the holidays. I suspect there will be quite a number of speed traps & DUI checkpoints on the interstates going home.

As the girlfriend pointed out, what about rental cars? If someone has weed in a rental then you happen to rent the same vehicle & drive it interstate, that may be enough to set off the drug dogs.

[Fist of Etiquette]

You live in a neighboring state? This isn't a catfish situation, is it?

[Raven Nation]

Don't think so: we've been in the same place about 15(?) times in the two years we've been seeing each other. And, this past summer, I spent 6 weeks up here so I think I'm pretty safe.

[Steve G]

*Ahem*

/Utah

[John]

Utah is surrounded by big empty states and doesn't have much of anything near its borders. It is a geographic exception to the rule.

[Steve G]

Oh, yeah, wasn't disputing your argument. just pointing out to those who think 3.2 beer is extinct, that it's mind-bogglingly still around.

[The Late P Brooks]

Somebody linked to it last night, I just read Michael Moore's (you know- the world renowned economist specializing in health care services market issues) NYT op-ed.

tl;dr version:

"Now that we have driven a stake through the heart of the private insurance industry, and possibly the medical profession itself, we need to go full-on socialized medicine."

FORWARD, IMBECILES!

[Suthenboy]

So, now the best and brightest will be flocking to the medical field?

[db]

SO glad I didn't take my grandmother's advice when.I was little and become a doctor.

[Rasilio]

I love people who make that call.

What they never seem to be able to explain is how they are going to get all of those doctors who have spent their careers building a valuable private practice to simply roll over and hand the keys to it over to the government without recieving a dime in compensation. Then continue working at the now government clinic for an hourly wage which is probably a 3rd what they were earning before while having to answer to bureaucrats with no medical knowledge

[Rich]

Obama pollster: Reporters should stop covering polls in 2014

Emily -- this does *not* apply to you.

[Suthenboy]

They actually believe that people buy what they read in the news over what they see with their own lying eyes. They seem to think that their spin actually shapes reality.

If we stop telling people how hated obamacare is then they wont notice that their coverage is shit, if they have it at all, and that their bank accounts are getting raped to death.

Is the wicked witch of the west still claiming that the 2014 elections will be a sweep for the Dems?

[John]

The current crop of Dems really are just Latin American leftists. In Latin America the same plot plays out in every country where leftists take power. First, they lie and bullshit their way into power. Second all of their policies fail and the country grows to hate them. Third, since leftists can never admit fault with their policies, they think that country only hates them because they just don't understand and they need better marketing. When the marketing fails, they resort to fixing elections. Once they get their fangs into the elections the result is either a military coup that throws them out of power like Chile or the place turning into Cuba.

[Suthenboy]

You are dead on the money. I had not thought of it like that. I am stealing that.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Me too.

[Spoonman.]

When I was in college and standing at the College Libertarians' table on the annual Club Day, a bunch of smelly people came in halfway through and stood around the Young Republicans' table chanting "Si Se Puede".

It was surreal.

[R C Dean]

a bunch of smelly people came in halfway through and stood around the Young Republicans' table

Mental note: take an x-large container of Axe body spray to next Club Day to use on smelly "protesters."

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Polls are a poor substitute for reasoning.

[Kaptious Kristen]

The ATC situation at KBOS today is gonna get very inneresting.

[db]

They are only calling for 3-5v upthere. NY is.only.supposed.to get 4-8. People need to take a pill on this.one.

(Watch the whole northeast collapse under 30" just to spite me)

[Kaptious Kristen]

Last I heard Boston was expecting 12-16"

[Kaptious Kristen]

Plus blizzard conditions.

[db]

Oh you are right. I was only.looking at today's forecast.

[Kaptious Kristen]

They already have intermittent RVRs as low as 1800 and 22kt winds.

[db]

Looks like the takeoff minimums for KBOS are 300-1 up to 500-3 depending on the runway.

[RightofCenter]

Depends on the operator. 1200 RVR with operable centerline lighting and a departure alternate here, baby! Of course, these days I fly all over the world, and at the end of the day I'm still in Arkansas when the door opens on the back of the box 😐

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Boston?

Come to Montreal and see how much we've been hit. Currently, -29c and been so for over a week.

Brutal.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Unfortunately, your airport, while busy, is nowhere near as busy as KBOS.

[Auric Demonocles]

My office is surprisingly empty today. These flatlanders need to just buy some winter tires and stop being babies.

[tarran]

Why?

My kids are home from school, I have VPN and Remote Desktop.

I'm better off working from home and making sure that they don't burn the house down.

[Auric Demonocles]

Because it's a couple of inches of snow and everyone is acting like it's the end of the world. That commute home two weeks ago was brutal because of people with no idea how to drive in the snow.

[tarran]

.... yes, and I am avoiding that commute by VPN'ing from home. 😉

[Mike M.]

Degenerate Baltimore mother goes gambling at Maryland Live casino, leaves four year old daughter alone in car unchecked for eight hours.

[Rich]

Yet another reason for online gambling.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Close the casino! For TEH CHILDRUNZ!!!

(That casino is only 30 minutes form me...so far I have resisted the temptation because one day I went to the Bass Pro Shops that is next door and the line of cars going into the casino parking garage was scary for an anti-social introvert like myself)

[RBS]

Yet you made it to Bass Pro. We took our son to get his picture made with Santa at the Bass Pro here and after 5 mins I felt like I was going die.

[Kaptious Kristen]

It was a Sunday morning - not very crowded at all. Except for the gun counter. They had a "take a number" system going, despite the fact that the display cases were practically empty (it is MD, after all).

[RBS]

Was yours filled with Duck Dynasty look-a-likes?

[Kaptious Kristen]

Nope - just run-of-the-mill suburban MD rednecks. They all look like Larry the Cable Guy.

[JW]

Last year, I mistakenly (and stupidly) went to Arundel Mills on Saturday afternoon to return something.

It took me 45 minutes to get out of the parking lot without ever finding a space. Fuck that place.

[Steve G]

I dread trips to that bass pro. I spend more time looking for a parking spot than in the actual store and I'm one of those types who doesn't mind parking in BFE and walking 15 mins. There's 1500 cars fighting over 1000 spots..

[Wandering Texan]

It was worse a couple months ago, while half the lot in front of Bass-Pro was being re-paved.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Apparently we picked the right time to go, then. We got parking maybe 5 spots away from the front doors.

[John]

My mother worked in bars before she met my father. She saw that more than a few times with people coming into drink. Just disgraceful.

[SugarFree]

Only universal daycare pre-K will solve this!

[lap83]

At least the kid wasn't adopted by the Romneys, imagine how much more she'd be suffering /prog "comedian"

[The Late P Brooks]

FAIRNESS

Aided by a vast flow of corporate and right-wing money, Republicans have spent years persuading the public that the deficit is the nation's biggest financial problem and that austerity is the answer to it.

--------

It's smart politics. More than three-quarters of Americans support a wage higher than the current $7.25 an hour, and Republicans will be hard-pressed to explain why they oppose it. The issue might bring people to the polls who would otherwise be indifferent to midterm Congressional elections.

But more important, it's good economics, and it would benefit tens of millions of people. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2016, as the current Democratic bill would do, would directly or indirectly increase the take-home pay of 27.8 million workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute, adding $35 billion in greater wages through 2016. The resulting increase in gross domestic product would create 85,000 new jobs.

Surprise! Americans "spend" other people's money differently than they spend their own.

Also, if you plug a bunch of the "right" formulas into a model, it will spit out whatever results you're looking for.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

The resulting increase in gross domestic product would create 85,000 new jobs.

Citation (other than Krugman) needed.

[lafe.long]

adding $35 billion in greater wages through 2016.

Of course, that's magical money that comes from nowhere.

[Boisfeuras]

More than three-quarters of Americans support a wage higher than the current $7.25 an hour, and Republicans will be hard-pressed to explain why they oppose it. The issue might bring people to the polls who would otherwise be indifferent to midterm Congressional elections.

No, it won't. People can give any stupid opinion in a poll at no opportunity cost. A majority might think a higher minimum wage sounds like an okay idea, but not care strongly about it. The NYT conflates percentage with strength of opinion.

[R C Dean]

How does moving money from the business's checking account to an employee's checking account, in exchange for the exact same work, increase the GDP, again?

[Sevo]

OK, I live in SF and think I have some knowledge of SF's political whackos, but someone else is going to have to explain this:
"Liberals find comfort level in 'NPR of gun clubs'"
""If I walk into a gun store with an Obama T-shirt - which I wouldn't wear, because he's too conservative - I don't fit," joked Eric Wooten, a longtime California Democratic Party activist and member of the Liberal Gun Club"
They only want to lick liberal boot polish? They'll turn over their guns if a lefty says so? Beats my pair of jacks...
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/.....107330.php

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

They're the most aggravating type of liberal. The ones that are so close to realizing that the state is the problem in almost all issues, but just can't get past their preconceived notions about economics.

[Rich]

there are many politically liberal folks in California who are eager to shoot, learn marksmanship, buy and collect guns - or even own guns for self-protection - except "they think gun people are people they want nothing to do with."

You can't fool *me*, Sevo -- That's from The Onion!

[Auric Demonocles]

Liberals want nothing to do with people who have different political views than them, so they assume that everyone else feels the same.

[BardMetal]

I think it's more because they constantly demonize anyone who disagrees with them.

Would you want to hang out with someone you honestly believed was a wife beating, racist, redneck, with an IQ barely above 70?

[lap83]

"wife beating, racist, redneck, with an IQ barely above 70?"

Well, not if they're poor, country, and vote Republican, obviously. If they're rich, cosmopolitan, and vote Democrat, that's a different story.

[Sevo]

Yes, since the gay is so pacifist!
"30% of LGBT couples experience domestic violence"
http://lesbianlife.about.com/o.....yths_2.htm

[BardMetal]

You really need to stay off those kind of porn sites.

[Nikki just says no]

Yeah. This.

[Sevo]

"You can't fool *me*, Sevo -- That's from The Onion!"

I wish, but people around here read that rag as a NEWSPAPER!
For instance, today's edi-catoon has an elephant looking at a headline 'FEW SIGN UP FOR HEALTHCARE', saying 'it's a failure!'. Next panel changes the headline to 'A MILLION SIGN UP', same elephant comment.
See, everything's just ducky, 'cept those rethuglicans!

[Outlaw]

They can fuck right off.

You can tell just by looking at them they're the type of snooty jerkoffs who like guns and think they should be able to own them, but wouldn't mind if all those bitter clingers were disarmed.

[Boisfeuras]

"We make ourselves a special place where we don't have to hear about the 'Kenyan Muslim socialist' in the White House," said Hoeber, a biotech equipment mechanic who says she's politically "somewhere around Emma Goldman," the turn-of-the-20th century anarchist.

Remember, it's Jethro down the holler whose gun ownership should scare you, not the people who idolize a woman who was quite literally a communist terrorist.

[Lord Humungus]

Winnipeg deep freeze as cold as uninhabited planet
Manitoba Museum reports Winnipeg's temperature as cold as surface of Mars

The Manitoba Museum is reporting Winnipeg's temperatures on Tuesday were actually as cold as the surface of Mars.

According to the Curiosity Rover, Mars reached a maximum temperature of -29 C on Tuesday, a temperature Winnipeg only reached shortly before 3 p.m.

The deep freeze over much of Southern Manitoba prompted extreme wind chill warnings in the area and most of the north.

btw, it's -11C here (or 12F for us civilized folks.)

[kinnath]

The local news is predicting -20F for tonight.

[Lord Humungus]

1F tonight. Paradise.

[Auric Demonocles]

There was an entire week when I was in high school that the temperature did not break 0F, and I still think that that's gonna be fucking cold.

[kinnath]

I remember a stretch of about 10 straight days without breaking 0F. And the girls still wore miniskirts to schools. The 70s weren't all bad 😉

[Mike M.]

I hate Winnipeg.

[JW]

I
Hate
Winnipeg

[Suthenboy]

Y'all are full of shit. I have it on good authority that global warming is happening faster than we expected.

What you are seeing out the window is an illusion. We are headed for a meltdown.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Winnipeg winters are absolutely insane.

Like I wrote above, we're getting buried in snow here in Montreal with an average temp of -24c (up to -34c with windchill).

I used to go play shinny in this weather.

Now? I eat bacon.

[JW]

I used to go play shinny in this weather.

Runs it through the DeCanuckimangler....

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hockey.

In ear muffs.

DeCanuckimangler. Beautiful.

[R C Dean]

High of 71, low of 48 here in Tucson.

[The Late P Brooks]

The resulting increase in gross domestic product would create 85,000 new jobs.

Citation (other than Krugman) needed.

Look, it's obvious; those minimum wage poor people will rush out and spend their wage windfall on malt liquor, cigarettes, and lottery tickets, all of which are heavily taxed (lottery tickets are, themselves, a tax- on poor and stupid people). This new influx of tax revenues will enable government at all levels to increase head count, and THOSE ARE GOOD UNIONIZED MIDDLE CLASS JOBS!

WINZ!!!!

[Lord Humungus]

Ah... getting Agalloch's latest album on vinyl. And Les Discrets. This stuff ain't cheap.

[The Late P Brooks]

This stuff ain't cheap.

You sick bastard. If you paid your fair share of taxes, some poor welfare mother could afford a babysitter for her kids, instead of leaving them in the car out there in the casino parking lot.

I hope you're happy.

[Lord Humungus]

Very.

[The Late P Brooks]

There was an entire week when I was in high school that the temperature did not break 0F

It did that here a few weeks ago. 30s - 40s feels balmy.

[The Late P Brooks]

Also, many many moons ago, I skied at Steamboat for a few days. Morning temp (not wind chill) was -40 F. It warmed up during the day to -15 or so. That was pretty cold.

[Pro Libertate]

The coldest I've ever experienced was true -20?F. And I lived through a week where the temperature never got above 0?F. Both in balmy Minnesota.

[John]

When I was a kid in Kansas City we had a night were the temp went to -20 and the windchill was like -72. Me and several of my friends rushed outside to experience it.

[Drake]

Saw -26?F with a 40mph wind coming off Moosehead Lake in northern Maine once. Took forever to get my damn car started. I didn't stop until I hit Portland.

[John]

It is a wonder it did. That kind of cold will freeze a block or make your oil so thick it gums up your engine.

[Drake]

I had it hooked up to a charger and was banging the starter with a hammer.

[Auric Demonocles]

You lived in Minnesota? I thought you were native to Florida, but now I'm finding out you just moved there once you got old.

[Pro Libertate]

I lived there for a while as an adult. And in some other entirely too cold northern cities. I grew up in Florida, though.

[Pro Libertate]

And am, of course, a native of the South.

[Auric Demonocles]

Well, it was probably cold in the south during your youth anyway. Did the glaciers make it that far?

[RBS]

The coldest I've ever been was riding one of lifts at Jackson Hole.

[JW]

"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

[Kaptious Kristen]

Speaking of, when is this UT inversion gonna end? (I know you're not in UT, but fuckit). The snow conditions in VT are looking a lot better than Park City at this point in the season. This is what I get for listening to all those people saying "you need to ski out west!!!"

[Auric Demonocles]

I went to Jay while visiting my parents' for Christmas. It was still a bit granular from the ice storm a couple days before, but overall pretty good. It also started snowing near the end of the day, so I bet it got enough powder to improve it significantly by the next day.

[John]

Did you hear about Micheal Shumacher? It really makes me think that I don't want to take up skiing. I have never done it having grown up hundreds of miles away from mountains. I have always thought I would like to try it sometimes. Now I am thinking that it really is more dangerous than people think and not really worth the risk and expense for someone my age to take up from scratch.

[RBS]

It's only as dangerous as you make it.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Other than the 4 celebs I know of that have had serious injuries/death from leisure skiing, I have never heard of anybody having anything more than a broken knee. I know 100's of skiers. And I gotta imagine Schumacher, that Kennedy dude, and Sonny Bono were all skiing fairly aggressively. Natasha RIchardson, I'm not sure. Could just be the way she fell.

[Pro Libertate]

My wife just had surgery on her knee--busted while skiing.

[John]

First, those broken knees are pretty nasty. I know two people who have totally screwed up knees and can't do things like run or walk a lot of stairs thanks to skiing injuries. That is better than dying but still pretty lousy.

Yes, I think the people who die are skiing a lot more aggressively than I ever would. Richardson died because she hit her head and didn't seek medical attention and went to sleep right after the accident. She was a victim of the old mother's adage of don't let your kid go to sleep after they have hit their head.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Two ACL surgeries here. It pretty much grounded my sports activities including cross-coutnry skiing. I have no interest in injuring my knees anymore.

Pro, surgery for what on her knee?

[Pro Libertate]

ACL. We can rebuilt it. We have the technology.

[Pro Libertate]

Rebuild, I mean. Sorry Col. Austin.

[Auric Demonocles]

At this point Gronk is more machine than man.

[John]

And I always thought Richardson was a Goddess. Depriving the world of her beauty is a reason to hate skiing.

[db]

It's a function of.skill, fitness, risk tolerance, and luck. I am a very skilled skier, but.not.so fit anymore. Hence I have adjusted my risk tolerance downward. People get themselves.into trouble when they overestimate their ability or their.fitness. it is easy to damage a knee if your leg strength is.too low. Likewise, if you.don't have the stamina to.be skillful throughout a run, you can get hurt near the end.

[Kaptious Kristen]

That's why I only ski greens and intermediate groomed cruisers. I just like the feeling of gliding down the mountain - I don't need bumps and glades to satisfy my hunger.

[John]

I am in good shape and have long since moved passed any desire to prove my manhood by doing stupid shit. My skill lever would be very low, but I would like the think my intelligence and fitness would be at least above average.

I would probably be alright. But it is still expensive and cold. I am not sure I will ever do it.

[Kaptious Kristen]

This is the run I plan to ski the most at PCMR. The guy in the dark blue jacket is pretty much at my level. You can see there's very little physical risk here.

If you don't like cold, though, then I would say try water skiing instead. I just adore cold and snow and a warm fire at the end of the day, so skiing is pretty much my favorite thing in life.

[Raven Nation]

"I have never heard of anybody having anything more than a broken knee"

Am up in the Aspen area right now & there was a story in a local paper about a woman who died in a skiing accident. She was waiting at the bottom of a run and inadvertently stepped in front of someone coming down the mountain. Hit her head weird and died the next day.

And, I certainly put this under the heading of "exception not the rule" but there are the occasional ski deaths. I was watching people hit the bottom of one of the runs & I can totally see how collisions like that could happen.

[sarcasmic]

The one snow day I had in high school wasn't because of the three feet of snow. The -30 temperatures were too much for the engine block warmers to handle, and the school buses wouldn't start.

[sarcasmic]

This was in the Colorado Rockies.

[db]

We once had several days off school because a pipeline from the water authority failed and the entire service area was without water in very subfreezing conditions. Something happened right at the discharge of the WTP. They excavated the line to find the break. Then the exposed line froze. I remember having to go.out and break the.ice.on the swimming pool to fill buckets of water to flush the toilet.

[Warty]

We had a week of sub -10 temperatures in Ohio when I was a kid. I learned that -25 hurts to breathe, so I will not be moving to Siberia to become a sable trapper, no matter how attractive Happy People made it seem.

[Snark Plissken]

So I was re-wathching John Carpenter's The Thing for the first time in many years, and I decided Carpenter is pretty fucking awful at building suspense.

[Pro Libertate]

You've been replaced by the Thing, haven't you?

[John]

I agree. I don't get why that movie is considered such a classic. The original Alien movie was a hundred times more suspenseful and interesting.

[Pro Libertate]

I'm boycotting you both. Next you'll say that Big Trouble in Little China sucks, which would piss me off to no end.

[Auric Demonocles]

I have never seen The Thing.

[Pro Libertate]

You need a Carpenter night. May I recommend, sir, a pairing of Escape from New York with The Thing? Perhaps with an aperitif of Big Trouble in Little China?

[Auric Demonocles]

Maybe. I could probably get these off of Netflix.

[Pro Libertate]

Go and immerse yourself in Carpenter.

[JW]

I don't understand these anti-Carpenter "people."

Where's Donald Sutherland when you need him?

[Pro Libertate]

He's screeching at the White House right now. I learned that you could pay him to do that, so I did.

[Rasilio]

Well he's really doing it so he can observe Obama closer and perfect the role of President Snow

[The Late P Brooks]

Speaking of skiing, and risk tolerance... I have my bindings backed off to the lowest release setting. I'd rather put my ski back on than ride in that fucking toboggan. I still ski fast, on groomed trails; I stay the fuck away from rocks and trees.

And I refuse to wear a helmet.

[John]

But you are a good skier who has been doing it a long time no doubt. If I had been skiing since I was a kid and were good at it, no way would I give it up. I am just not sure it is worth taking up as an adult.

[Warty]

I went skiing once. I learned how not to fall down after a few days, and I even worked up to doing the black diamond trails on my shitty rented skis. It was fun. I have a wrist with noticeably loose ligaments now because of it, so I'm not in a hurry to ever ski again.

[Pro Libertate]

Did you see the anti-Carpenter comments above? I can't abide such things.

[Warty]

Ignore the heathens. They're worse art critics than the Vandals.

[Pro Libertate]

This is my position as well. I skied for the first time last year, but I have no intention of doing it again. Fun, yes, but I'm old enough that I'm 100% sure I'll end up with an injury.

I was surprised at how much better I was than the other beginners. I jumped on the intermediate slope pretty quickly. Fun, learnable, even as an adult, but not worth the damage at this point in my life.

[robc]

I used to ski back in late 80s and early 90s, but its been about 20 years since I did it.

I enjoyed it, but I think its a thing of my past. No real want to do it again.

[The Late P Brooks]

I was re-wathching John Carpenter's The Thing for the first time in many years, and I decided Carpenter is pretty fucking awful at building suspense.

Those guys were shooting at the dog for a reason?

[GozWa]

They were Antarctica 5-0