Stop-and-Frisk Architect Sworn in as NYC's Police Commissioner, Clay Aiken Reportedly Considering Running For Congress, Nearly 1 Million Displaced in CAR: P.M. Links

Credit: Flickr user mystuff1 via Wikimedia

• The Chinese icebreaker that helped rescue passengers of a ship that got stuck in Antarctic ice is now itself trapped.
• The architect of New York City's stop-and-frisk program has been sworn in again as New York City's police commissioner.
• Former American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken is reportedly considering running for Congress in North Carolina.
• The recent winter storm that hit the northeast U.S. is being blamed for the deaths of at least 11 people.  
• According to Ethiopia's foreign minister, talks between representatives from the South Sudanese government and rebels have been "fruitful."
• The United Nations says that nearly 1 million people have fled their homes in the Central African Republic amid ongoing violence.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

The recent winter storm that hit the northeast U.S. is being blamed for the deaths of at least 11 people.

This may sound harsh, but God does not want the Northeast to live.

[Auric Demonocles]

That must be why he is denying us alt-text, even in the Links.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

3 days into 2014 and Feeney has already gone back to his old ways of only occasionally doing alt-text. This is why no one believes in resolutions.

[Mike M.]

It's the fourth warmest year in history (derp).

[Fist of Etiquette]

THAT WAS LAST YEAR.

[SugarFree]

Weather derp isn't climate hurr.

[Mickey Rat]

A 65 degree day in Minnesota in January is climate , a -20 degree day is weather. Get it right.

[Corning]

Every 7.5 years on average will be the 4th warmest year.

SCIENCE!!!

[Juice]

huh?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Ban storms!

[Zeb]

Well, if that's all that God has to throw at us, He can get fucked. You call that a storm?

[Raven Nation]

I know this makes me a dick, but these weather-related death counts piss me off. Following the link I can see one death for sure attributable to the storm and maybe a second. But, if you're killed in a road accident in the storm then it's either you or the other driver that is at fault, not the weather.

It's like blaming floodwaters for killing people who try to drive across flooded rivers.

[PD Scott]

Exactly, clearly it's river sirens luring them to their doom.

[Mickey Rat]

Die Lorelei?

"Ich Weiss nicht was soll es bedeutet dass ich so traurig bin..."

[Rhywun]

Well, if any of them were smoking at least they could blame it on that.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Chinese icebreaker that helped rescue passengers of a ship that got stuck in Antarctic ice is now itself trapped.

You know what the Chinese could use to burrow through the ice? Some kind of fire drill.

[C. Anacreon]

This might be one of your most clever lines ever.
Look what the holidays have done for you!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Or most racist. Happy New Year!

[Ayn Random Variation]

My Chinese icebreaker is "How much for a half and half"?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Now that's racist.

[fish_remote]

You two are my heros!

[Entropy Void]

Denigrating Asiatic Peoples by othering the Actual Chinese New Year and insisting on your Gregorian Calendar Privilege is the epitome of LACIST.

There I said it.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

The Chinese icebreaker that helped rescue passengers of a ship that got stuck in Antarctic ice is now itself trapped.

Womp womp womp.

[Fluffy]

Maybe they should put all their power into one short burst of the engines, and then power everything down and maneuver with two thrusters only.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The ice is mined with ancient, energy-sapping devices?

[Fluffy]

Yes. And no one will think of a solution until a very, very cute ship designer asks a lot of Socratic questions.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Correct: Facsimile of a very, very cute ship designer.

OUTNERDED.

[PD Scott]

"Do simulacra ship designers dream of electric Geordis?"

[Fist of Etiquette]

Outnerded.

[Entropy Void]

Impulse Power!

[Francisco d Anconia]

I'd use a reverse polarity Tachyon burst from the main deflector array to melt the entire polar region.

[Pro Libertate]

I'd phase modulate everything.

[JW]

You fool, you hyper-attenuate the Heisenberg Compensator.

[Pro Libertate]

Only after I make everything out of phase, using force fields.

[JW]

That's exactly the kind of thinking that got Wesley into losing his cherry to the Traveler.

[Episiarch]

Does it bother anyone else that pedophilia was a major factor in TNG? I mean seriously, dude, what the fuck?

[Fluffy]

I thought Wesley lost his cherry to that girl who helped him defeat the evil addictive headset game with the really bad graphics.

[SugarFree]

Wesley wishes he got with Ashley Judd before her face started sliding off.

[PD Scott]

That girl was Ashley Judd! One wonders if she got her dumb political ideas from the Federation.

[Episiarch]

No, Wesley got busy with the chick who had the transmogrifying monster babysitter thing. At least, that's what I wanted to do.

[SugarFree]

When the monster goes into its "companion" mode it turns into an 18-year-old Madchen Amick.

[Episiarch]

I only wish it did. Fuck, Amick is hot as hell.

[Fluffy]

To be fair, in this case the problem is solved using actual physics.

Inertia. Gravity.

They did everything but have Picard improvise a chemical explosive out of some stuff he found while a giant lizard dude was chasing him.

[Episiarch]

Ah, I see Fluffy has watched John Dies at the End.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Spoiler alert.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, I'm on record saying that Kirk should've used a diamond-tipped spear, rather than gamble on some bamboo cannon working.

[Enough About Palin]

I've got to have 30 minutes!

[SugarFree]

If hours seemed like minutes we could get this job done in no time.

[Pro Libertate]

I like how when Scotty says that the laws of physics say the engines can't be restarted in less than thirty minutes, Kirk and Spock come up with a time-traveling alternative. I mean, there's a cross-departmental "Fuck you."

[Fist of Etiquette]

That's why his office is in the basement.

[Pro Libertate]

I bet there was a stern memo afterwards, criticizing Scotty for his limited thinking.

[JW]

Now I understand all the drinking.

[Mickey Rat]

Scotty ends up curled on his cabin floor around a bottle of green liquor muttering "Physics isna supp'sed tae work that way! Me poor bairns!"

[Fist of Etiquette]

Do any of you idiots remember when they couldn't beam up Sulu from an ice planet because the transporters created Evil Kirk and Evil Chihuahua? And then there was a secondary problem that Scotty had to find on his own, which was a big hole Evil Kirk had blown into the conduit when Spock gave him the pinch? A hole about which no one bothered to inform the engineer? Management ain't always on the stick, either.

[Pro Libertate]

I'm still trying to figure out why one of the Kirks or even someone else didn't just send a shuttlecraft down for Sulu.

And people wonder why there's a Takei-Shatner feud. I figure it's because the script called for a shuttlecraft to come get Sulu, but Shatner ab-libbed it out.

[Fist of Etiquette]

It was an early episode and they hadn't built the model yet. Er, I mean, the energy field put off by that radioactive dust contaminate in the atmosphere negatively affected the shuttlecraft's inertial dampers.

[Pro Libertate]

I'd be fine with even a bullshit explanation. Instead, fuck you, Mr. Sulu.

The memo discussion above gives me an idea for yet another Star Trek series. This one is about the office politics of a Federation cruiser. Like The Office, but funnier, and in space.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Instead of "talking head" segments they can use personal logs. I like it.

[Pro Libertate]

I'd set it in the TOS time, because I think the bureaucracy of TNG would be a snooze fest.

[JW]

I think they did that with Quark, back in the 70's.

[Pro Libertate]

Loved that show, but not really what I was thinking about.

[JW]

Look, it was what you were thinking about, so stop disagreeing with me over it.

[Pro Libertate]

Was not. In fact, it's fresh in my head, because I watched the series on DVD just last year. I still think it's funny.

[wwhorton]

Can the third rescue ship please be named the USS Irony?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Hopefully the United States Navy knows to stay clear of this mess.

[Pro Libertate]

I'd send in rescue drones.

[CE]

That ship would have never gotten stuck if Tom Hanks were the captain.

[Bobarian]

To turn the ice into burning wreckage?

Along with some slight collateral damage to a Chinese ice-breaker?

[Drake]

Keep sending oil-burning rescue ships until there really is global warming.

[db]

Crew them up with militant misanthropic PETA members and you have a deal, good sir!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Former American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken is reportedly considering running for Congress in North Carolina.

At least he has experience losing.

[playa manhattan]

Not a fan of his, but he deserved to win. Rueben sucked then and he sucks now.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

I'm running on a platform of putting Claymates in concentration camps.

[Fluffy]

How bad could Aiken be?

[Episiarch]

He could be like a rhino turd?

[SugarFree]

Clay came in like a rhino turd
He never hit so soft a butt
All he wanted was to break your walls
All you ever did was lick him
Yeah, he, he wrecked Epi

[Episiarch]

NutraSweet, you're the worst singer ever.

[playa manhattan]

"Former American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken is reportedly considering running for Congress in North Carolina."

Well, he's got my spinster aunt's vote (if she lived in North Carolina).

[Killaz]

Nice fellow from what I hear from people twice removed from others who may actually know him personally, but he is an ex-public school teacher. His politics are likely as horrible as what you would expect.

[Francisco d Anconia]

And his daughter, with that whole twerking thing.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Wrong guy. This is the dude who played Sheriff Lobo.

[C. Anacreon]

Lobo....Lobo....bring back Sheriff Lobo.....

[BiMonSciFiCon]

+1 Bobo.

[Francisco d Anconia]

All those country singers look the same to me.

[db]

It's the rouge on their necks--draws the eyes away from distinguishing features.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

The Chinese icebreaker that helped rescue passengers of a ship that got stuck in Antarctic ice is now itself trapped.

The purpose of the trip was to 'document' the loss of ice due to global warming. The abundance of ice is, of course, no disproof of global warming.

[playa manhattan]

Now they have some more data to massage.

[Fist of Etiquette]

And free time to massage it.

[Entropy Void]

I was thinking about getting a data massage ... does it come with a "Happy Ending"?

[Raven Nation]

I was half listening to a story on Radio New Zealand (long story) where they were interviewing a climate scientist (an American who works at an Australian university). They were asking him about some error that had been made in data & led into a softball question about how climate change skeptics jumped on such errors.

He responded, without a HINT of irony, that weather was very complicated and difficult to model since there were so many variables that we don't understand and this was why errors were made.

BUT, the lesson that was learned was that when we don't fully understand things, we need to understand that this probably means the climate projections are much WORSE than what we thought originally.

I mean, you're a scientist dude! How about some humility and acknowledgment that just maybe, you might be wrong.

[Ted S.]

Unfortunately the RNZ podcasts are still on their summer break. But that's how I get the oddball stories from Kiwiland that I post to the AM links from time to time.

As for a different, but similarly infuriating state broadcaster vs. scientific study story, the CBC's morning news today had one story about somebody claiming "obesity" in the developing world is at record levels; this story was presented taking the researcher's word as gospel. The next story was of a researcher positing that transporting oil by train as opposed to by pipeline leads to more accidents. This time, they brought in somebody from Greenpeace to ask puffball questions about how we shouldn't be transporting this oil at all.

[Raven Nation]

I just downloaded "The Week in Review" this morning. That's the one that pulls stories from a bunch of their other programs.

[BakedPenguin]

Calling all in transit,
Calling all in transit,
Radio New Zealand
Radio New Zealand

[Isaac Bartram]

I was half listening to a story on Radio New Zealand (long story) where they were interviewing a climate scientist (an American who works at an Australian university).

I've often said (only half-jokingly) that Australia and Canada wouldn't be anywhere near as leftwing if it hadn't been for all the American Academics that went there from the 50s thru the 70s.

[PD Scott]

Obviously the ice is frightened by the rising temperatures in the antarctic and is fleeing.

I know it's going where it is warmer, nobody ever said ice was smart.

[Sevo]

Well, that WAS the purpose. Now the purpose is:
..."recreating Australian explorer Douglas Mawson's 1911 to 1913 voyage to Antarctica."
http://www.sfgate.com/news/sci.....107123.php
You can't change the future, but you can change the past...

[Heedless]

Looks like they got Shackleton's voyage instead.

[Marshall Gill]

If only it could end the same way.

[C. Anacreon]

The purpose of the trip was to 'document' the loss of ice due to global warming.

A local talk radio guy was discussing this today. He said he checked and found that 40 of the 41 online news stories he found from major media outlets on this story "failed to mention" that these were climate scientists on a global warming research expedition.

You are absolutely right that the ship getting bogged down in ice doesn't mean a damn thing about the presence or absence of AGW. But the fact that all the media felt they had to hide the reason the ship was there speaks volumes.

[Zeb]

I think that the story is that climate change changes currents in the southern ocean leading to more ice around Antarctica. I suspect that someone pulled that out of their ass, but for all I know it's true.

[BigT]

According to the maps, Antarctica was extra warm this past year. Maybe that melted the ice that has now surprisingly re-frozen.

...Oh, wait, it's summer there. Nevermind.

[db]

If it weren't for climate change the ice.never.wouod have broken free and ambbushed them like that.

[Boisfeuras]

The purpose of the trip was to 'document' the loss of ice due to global warming. The abundance of ice is, of course, no disproof of global warming.

Not global warming, climate change:

Abnormally cold temperatures are evidence of climate change;

Abnormally hot temperatures are evidence of climate change;

Normal temperatures are just weather and not indicative of anything.

It's science.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Did Inequality Make Dasani Homeless?
Chanel, Dasani's mother and herself the daughter of a welfare-dependent drug addict in Brooklyn, has six children by three different men, a long history of debilitating drug use, an explosive temper, and numerous arrests. Her husband, Supreme, has brought his own drug addiction and two more children by a deceased wife into the mix...

[PapayaSF]

Who could ever have predicted that the family life of people named Chanel and Supreme would not have worked out well?

[Drake]

Why is bottled water, a perfume, and a brand of beer homeless? This story isn't making sense.

[Entropy Void]

What about their cousin, Aqua Fina?

[The Last American Hero]

It's like some deranged version of the Brady Bunch.

[db]

This is the story
Of a homeless lady
Who was bringing up three very homeless girls
Each one had needle tracks
Just like their mother
And necklaces of pearls

This is the story
Of a man named Supreme
Who was saddled with three twerps of his own
Bad decisions followed him ev'rywhere
And denied him a home.

Then the one day, the lady met this fellow
And they knew that it was ordained to be
An family so far outside the mainstream
Even for reality TV

[Nooge.]

That was fucking awesome.

[db]

Thank you. Even though the last stanza should have read:

Then the one day, the lady met this fellow
And they knew that it was ordained to be
A family too far outside the mainstream
Even for reality TV

[Fist of Etiquette]

I was singing the thing to the tune of Gilligan's Island for some reason.

[Andrew S.]

You just posted this so we could cringe at the names, didn't you?

[Andrew S.]

You just posted this so we could cringe at the names, didn't you?

[Andrew S.]

The squirrels are REALLY out to get me today, apparently.

[Ted S.]

Cringe? I'm laughing uncontrollably.

[Fluffy]

Here is my rule of thumb:

If I write a place off as a possible place to live because of the expense of living there, I don't want to hear sob stories about inequality and homelessness there.

Fuck you. Move.

[Auric Demonocles]

Everyone should be able to afford $2000 for a studio apartment!

[Ted S.]

and two more children by a deceased wife

How do you knock up a dead woman? 😉

[Coeus]

Ask Peter Jackson

[Episiarch]

Jackson only filmed that scene because he had money left over, and it ended up being the funniest part of the film. Damn that's a good movie.

[db]

Shit, man, now I have to see that.

[R C Dean]

I'm guessing they got hit by a bus.

Which he was driving.

[Rich]

As President Obama might say, "A corpseman could do it."

[Enough About Palin]

Perhaps she was just brain-dead.

[Nooge.]

With a zombie dick.

[Pro Libertate]

Is Dasani a real name, or is it derived from the Coca-Cola product?

[SugarFree]

Yes.

[Pro Libertate]

Aquafina is also a girl's name, then?

[C. Anacreon]

Sure. Just like Sandy Pellegrino.

[Enough About Palin]

We had a kid in the ghetto whose father named him Nizzel. Of course by the age of five he was shot dead.

The one-year anniversary of Nizzel George shooting death

[Zeb]

Really? Like as in "for shizzle, my ..."?

[Enough About Palin]

Yes. Pretty fucked up.

[Drake]

If they had moved to the suburbs, that kid would have been a rockstar with the wiggers.

[db]

Wow, that's sad.

[wwhorton]

Did inequality? Depends. Did inequality arise from naming her after bottled water? Because in that case, it might have. Otherwise, I'd go with the rampant drug use, repeated births, and general not-having-her-shit-together on the part of the mother.

[Zeb]

No. Being poor and having a fucked up family did. The relative wealth of other people probably had very little to do with anything. How would anything be made better by other people around being poorer?

[Mad Scientist]

Then they wouldn't feel quite as bad. Isn't that what really matters?

[Root Boy]

With names like that, they could compete with Honey Boo Boo for a reality show and make buku bucks.

Problem solved.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The architect of New York City's stop-and-frisk program has been sworn in again as New York City's police commissioner.

Thank GAWD the tough-on-crime Republican was kept out of office.

[PapayaSF]

It's different when Democrats do it, silly. See also: Gitmo, the NSA, Afghanistan, IRS abuses, sexual harassment, executive orders, Medicare cuts, cronyism, etc., etc....

[Andrew S.]

I thought that Gitmo, Afghanistan, sexual harassment, executive orders, Medicare cuts, and cronyism were all the fault of Republicans, so they continue to be bad.

[R C Dean]

When was the last time anybody carped about Gitmo?

Haven't you heard, Afghanistan is the "good war".

Sexual harassment was perfectly OK when it was done by a Democrat President.

Medicare was cut by OCare.

Etc. So, yeah, its different when Dems do it.

[Root Boy]

Come on now, Obama just released the last Uighurs from Gitmo and now they are enjoying the good life in Albania or somewhere like that.

[Eduard van Haalen]

I thought the Uighurs lived in New Jersey.

[Root Boy]

Sure you aren't thinking of those guidos and their reality show....can't tell if I'm being punked.

[BSubversive.com]

Republicans are filled with hate, Democrats, however, are filled with love for the people they murder. They don't want to kill them, they feel badly about it, but in the end, the people are still dead.

[Killaz]

Yes, but his son didn't have super cool rad hip hair, nor does his daughter flange* about a stage in epileptic like seizures, so what possible chance did he have of winning that race?

If I ever run for mayor of New York, I'm adopting a funk band. No, no. The Roots. They can do just about any style of music I would need to press a message.

* the word doesn't mean what I'm using it for in that sentence, but it should.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Bulldozer driver killed by World War II bomb in Germany

A bulldozer driver was killed and 13 others were injured in a western German town Friday after a World War II bomb or mine exploded, police said.

The explosion happened in an industrial area of Euskirchen, near Bonn, at a property used by a construction firm to sort and dispose of rubble. It wasn't immediately clear whether the explosives had long been buried in the ground or had inadvertently been brought to the site in a delivery of demolition waste.

The bulldozer driver was fatally injured after his vehicle hit the device and two people who were close by suffered serious injuries. Another 11 people who were in the area were lightly injured.

Windows, roofs and doors as far as 400 yards away were damaged in the blast, police said. Explosives experts were working to determine exactly what the device was.

Unexploded World War II-era bombs are still discovered frequently in Germany, though it is rare for those finds to result in death or injury.

And my great-uncle Rabs gets another posthumous kill.

[playa manhattan]

For which side?

*Narrows Eyes*

[PapayaSF]

It's hard to imagine how something that large and volatile would have made it there in demolition waste.

[Boisfeuras]

It's plausible. GP bombs are not that large. These are 250-lb bombs.

[PapayaSF]

Even if they didn't see it while making and moving the demolition waste, you'd think all that would have blown it up.

[Killaz]

Just supposing none of his other bombs resulted in deaths. He leads an exemplary life after the war, gets his eternal reward and while he is standing around in Heaven strumming a harp, he get's the bad news.

'I'm afraid we're going to have to send you to Hell, now. You killed someone today.'

Man would that suck for him.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Well that ship sailed along time ago: he died in 1944 when his B-17 Flying Fortress was shot down over Germany.

[Killaz]

I assumed Rabs was a nick name for Rudolf.

I had a cousin who survived as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam who later died when his vehicle exploded off the coast of Miami. The impact of hitting the water, nor the explosion killed him. A heart attack did him in.

He once told me of doing a patrol over some rice fields, and he decided to circle back, saw a guy running his ass off in the other direction. He unloads the front mounted machine gun, and the guy's body is cut in two, with the legs dashing forward for several more yards.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

I assumed Rabs was a nick name for Rudolf.

Pretty much, his first name was Rudolfo. 20 years old when he died, the son of a coal minder from Springer, New Mexico.

He once told me of doing a patrol over some rice fields, and he decided to circle back, saw a guy running his ass off in the other direction. He unloads the front mounted machine gun, and the guy's body is cut in two, with the legs dashing forward for several more yards.

I guess the benefit of being a bombardier was not seeing the damage you did and the people you killed.

[Killaz]

I had a great uncle on the maternal side by that name too. Born in Virginia at the turn of the last century, but he still had family in Germany. It's a part of the family tree I only know about from the yummy schnitzel mom cooked once every few weeks while I was growing up.

[db]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUPsI941j-w

[Corning]

he is standing around in Heaven

No one goes to Heaven until after the rapture.

[Killaz]

That's the New Creation which often gets mistaken for Heaven where the angels currently reside.

[Entropy Void]

What does Lady Di think about this???

[Longtorso, Johnny]

NYC's new mayor to replace Central Park horse carriages with EVs.

UPDATE: From the comments at the linked post: "Why do journalist continue to ignore the money? You forgot to mention that one of the largest donations for his candidacy came from Steve Nislick and he has been eyeing the property where the stables are for years. Is this really about the animals or to pay off a donor?"

[PapayaSF]

It's a twofer.

[Winston]

Huh so de Blasio might very well be paying back his donors? Thank Goodness we have Democrats who believe in government in power in order to avoid Republican corporatism and cronyism.

[Winston]

I'm nostalgic for back in the days of BOOOSH when Lew Rockwell thought that Democrats would be better than the Republicans since they Believe in Government so they won't act like crooks.

[Killaz]

He once staffed for a Democratic congresscritter. This doesn't quite make him a liberaltarian though because this was an old school Southern democrat, the kind that the current party denied ever existed even as they buried Robert Byrd.

[wwhorton]

That's some sweet, sweet graft right there. The paint's still wet on his office door and he's already paying off cronies. What did NYC do collectively to deserve the rogue's gallery of politicians it spawns?

[Entropy Void]

They voted for them.

[R C Dean]

And lets not overlook the fella who just happens to have a faux-antique EV vehicle ready to go into production at $450K a pop.

[Francisco d Anconia]

The Epidemic That Wasn't

But now researchers are systematically following children who were exposed to cocaine before birth, and their findings suggest that the encouraging stories of Ms. H.'s daughters are anything but unusual. So far, these scientists say, the long-term effects of such exposure on children's brain development and behavior appear relatively small.

"Are there differences? Yes," said Barry M. Lester, a professor of psychiatry at Brown University who directs the Maternal Lifestyle Study, a large federally financed study of children exposed to cocaine in the womb. "Are they reliable and persistent? Yes. Are they big? No."

"The argument is not that it's O.K. to use cocaine in pregnancy, any more than it's O.K. to smoke cigarettes in pregnancy," said Dr. Deborah A. Frank, a pediatrician at Boston University. "Neither drug is good for anybody."

But cocaine use in pregnancy has been treated as a moral issue rather than a health problem, Dr. Frank said. Pregnant women who use illegal drugs commonly lose custody of their children, and during the 1990s many were prosecuted and jailed.

[playa manhattan]

I thought that they've know that for awhile now. Alcohol during the 1st trimester is much worse than coke or nicotine....

[PD Scott]

It's not a real crack baby unless it smoked rock in the uterus.

There really is nothing better than moral panic inspired legislation.

[Ted S.]

You mean a moral panic turns out not to be true?

[lap83]

But if we don't find excuses to put kids in foster care, they won't have such high rates of felony and homelessness and they'll be less likely to vote Democrat!

[Suthenboy]

"The Chinese icebreaker that helped rescue passengers of a ship that got stuck in Antarctic ice is now itself trapped."

* head in hands *

Even I get tired of making jokes about global warming. I just keep thinking of the hysterical screeching about doom from those people and how' we must do something now before it is too late!'. Something, of course, meant giving them our money.

[Suthenboy]

As I recall, some of that panicked blather was about the antarctic ice sheet melting away. Isnt it supposed to be gone by now?

[wwhorton]

Oh, no, it's global climate change, which means that it's getting warmer OR it's getting colder OR it's staying the same but maybe a little windier, based on the data and whether or not it agrees with the agenda hypothesis.

[Francisco d Anconia]

it's global climate change, which means that it's getting warmer OR it's getting colder OR it's staying the same but maybe a little windier

Well, no matter what it does, I think we can all agree, it's going to be a disaster of biblical proportions IF WE DON'T DO SOMETHING!!!

[CatoTheElder]

Oh, no, it's global climate change, which means that it's getting warmer OR it's getting colder OR it's staying the same but maybe a little windier, based on the data and whether or not it agrees with the agenda hypothesis settled science.

[JW]

I have to wonder what the media coverage would be like if a ship full of AGW skeptics was swamped by a "global warming-fueled super storm." I'm sure it would be exactly like the coverage this got, which almost always labeled the trapped AGW activists as "tourists."

[Pro Libertate]

They sure want to believe, don't they? I mean, why? Why the desperation? I can't think of any reason other than a desire to use this to force the rest of us to behave in certain ways.

I was open to the possibility of AGW being a real thing to be concerned about, but the shenanigans are too much. God help us if it actually is a problem at some point, because all of the wolf-crying will make us ignore it.

[JW]

It's all a massive conspiracy to make us look like conspiracy nuts.

I only half keed, of course, but seriously, WTF? I read an AP story on it this morning that didn't mention the purpose of the ship being there or the who the people on the ship were, at all.

[Pro Libertate]

Come on, they know all the skeptics will laugh their heads off if they read about the mission, so they naturally don't want that. If there's anything serious people hate, it's mockery. Especially when they know that people are starting to see through their bullshit.

[Boisfeuras]

"The fourth rule carries within it the fifth rule: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage."
? Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

[Plopper]

Just because I know it's going to cause a bunch of people to get angry and totally unreasonable as soon as I bring up the subject.

But... I find it interesting Irish complains in another thread that some feminist thinks 100% of the time hetero sex is rape. Yet he seems to believe that any sort of sexual activity between a person over the AoC with someone below it must 100% of the time be rape... And if you dare question this view expect to be gangbanged and bullied by his online buddies.

[Episiarch]

I'm kind of confused. What are you on about?

[tarran]

What a difference a day makes.

[Episiarch]

Fuck, dude, if you're going to watch puppets, at least make it about sodomy.

[tarran]

That show has plenty of sodomy.

And the eating of one's own children.

[Ted S.]

"Show me on the puppet where Warty touched you"?

[Ted S.]

What a difference a day makes

[playa manhattan]

Let's see how this plays out. It could go either way.

[Nikki just says no]

This

[Episiarch]

Links are too much work. I need you to explain it to me. I'm not the brightest light in the Lite-Brite.

[playa manhattan]

IT'S ALL THE SAME LIGHT!!!!

[Nikki just says no]

You should follow that link, and then follow the one from Irish's post to the craziest blog post ever, so crazy I almost feel guilty about having read it, because it would be a trip for you to analyze.

[Warty]

This is a developed recap from what I've been saying in various comments here and there in the last two years or so. as a radfem I've always said PIV is rape and I remember being disappointed to discover that so few radical feminists stated it clearly. How can you possibly see it otherwise? Intercourse is the very means through which men oppress us, from which we are not allowed to escape, yet some instances of or PIV and intercourse may be chosen and free? That makes no sense at all.

I'm confused. Is she saying rape is OK then? Cause in that case, I have plans tonight.

[Clich? Bandit]

WHAT THE FUCK IS PIV?!?!?!?!

seriously

[Ted S.]

Since you're obviously too lazy to use a search engine, and since I had to look it up myself, it's "Penis in Vagina", or vaginal sex.

[Episiarch]

So...normal sex? It needs a term now? Is it like what I do with your mom? I just said that because Hugh hates it, much like he hates me.

[Auric Demonocles]

Why don't they just call it cissex?

[Entropy Void]

Because "cissex" is a female pair of scissors.

[Clich? Bandit]

Ok, then why would this be necessary:

yet some instances of or PIV and intercourse may be

cause that means they are the same thing...FUCK THESE PEOPLE!

[Coeus]

Penis in vagina. Sound it out mister ford.

/nerl

[Fluffy]

Intercourse is the very means through which men oppress us, from which we are not allowed to escape

Women can't escape intercourse?

Man, I have GOT to find a way to live the 90's over again.

[wwhorton]

Wow. I don't even have the words. That poor woman is in a place I will never be so unfortunate as to be able to imagine.

[Nikki just says no]

There's so much more...

[Episiarch]

It's so satisfying when you NutraSweet a link, nicole.

[Warty]

More from her.

Back to the topic of sexual pleasure in intercourse that so many women claim to have and which is often the only reason that keeps us into it. As radfems, we always say that whether or not we take pleasure in intercourse, it's irrelevant to the point that PIV is inherently harmful: but that's partly incorrect, because the pleasure is part of the intended harm too. Here's why:

#1. The pleasure we experience during intercourse isn't natural, but groomed. Men teach us how to instantaneously associate the fear, pain and/or invasion of the penetration to clitoral stimulation, so we dissociate from it ? cut it off ? and think it's pleasurable. Clitoral stimulation may function in the exact same way as dissociation in a situation of sexual violence because it sends dissociative drugs to the brain. Dissociation is a drug, so this reaction to PIV may become an addiction, a rush we crave for like cocaine.

[Warty]

#2. This groomed chemical response to intercourse is harmful because it deliberately diminishes our capacity to identify rape/PIV as violence and get away from it. It confuses us into thinking we wanted it and enjoyed it. In BDSM for instance, it is very common for men to ask women to rub their clitoris during the acts. They know it will confuse their victim, letting her believe she likes being raped and humiliated and that she is a slut after all, exactly what he told her. It will make her feel more ashamed. It's intentional. The best way for a man to obtain long term sexual subordination from a woman is for him to get her to believe she likes it and wants it, as he would do for pimping, marriage and any form of sexual slavery. It reduces his efforts in having to control her while maximising his use of her.

#3. So this so-called sexual arousal isn't about pleasure at all and was never intended to be: it's about power-over and domination, it's a way for men to obtain obedience.

This poor, poor fat woman. I wonder what happened to her to make her this way.

[Coeus]

This poor, poor fat woman. I wonder what happened to her to make her this way.

Obviously, someone addicted her to cock.

[Episiarch]

It's like she can read my mind. This is exactly what I groom my women to like.

[Pro Libertate]

She simply has to be one of your victims. I'm impressed, to be honest.

[Entropy Void]

Um ... just how does one groom them to like blowjobs?

[C. Anacreon]

Clitoral stimulation may function in the exact same way as dissociation in a situation of sexual violence because it sends dissociative drugs to the brain.

Amazing, I've been involved with neurophysiology and psychopharmacology for 25 years and this is the first I've heard of "dissociative drugs." This author is just making stuff up as she goes along. No doubt a full tenured professor of Womyn's Studies?

[Nikki just says no]

Oh f me in the a.

[Warty]

Ok, fine, if you want. Just don't rub your clit. It'll confuse you and make you think you like it.

[Irish]

Oh f me in the a.

Don't say that, Nicole. Men use anal sex to inculcate you into a false consciousness from which there can be no escape.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Don't say that, Nicole. Men use anal sex to inculcate you into a false consciousness from which there can be no escape.

Can someone teach me how to do that?

[Warty]

My forthcoming PUA manual has a chapter on just that. Only $79.95, available out of the back of my van and at all other fine retailers.

[Episiarch]

When I was stoned and drunk last night, I realized that the secret to getting chicks was treating them like shit. I then went and wrote an entire website about it. You should follow all my suggestions. It works like a charm. Also, I wrote a treatise on why it's totally ok to hate and look down upon the entire gender I want to have sex with. It's some of my best work.

[Coeus]

I realized that the secret to getting chicks was treating them like shit.

Say what you will, it does get them interested. You can be nice once they're paying attention.

[Episiarch]

Say what you will, it does get them interested

If you need to treat a woman like shit to get her interested, you're already working from a significant disadvantage.

[Coeus]

you're already working from a significant disadvantage.

Of that I'm well aware. Would you mock me for needing a wheelchair as well?

[Episiarch]

I guess I'm just arrogant because I'm good looking and women like me. What am I going to do?

[SugarFree]

Maybe they are attracted to your humility.

[Episiarch]

That's doubtful.

[Coeus]

I guess I'm just arrogant because I'm good looking and women like me. What am I going to do?

Post less, bang more.

[Irish]

This isn't a good forum, Serious. We know for a fact there is at least one woman reading and I don't want to give up our secrets.

I'll tell you at the next International Meeting of the Male Conspiracy.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

True. There's Kaptious and Faceless Commenter, and Lady B. and Mellow Kitty and Dagny T. and um, well that's enough.

[Coeus]

Can someone teach me how to do that?

Lesson one, buy a buttplug where the narrow part is halfway in size between your johnson and your thumb.

That's all you get today. No giving away trade secrets willy-nilly.

[Nikki just says no]

What I most wanted to know after reading all of that earlier was how she somehow escaped the bubble. How do radfems know any of this is happening if they have been colonized and shit?

[Coeus]

It's like when sleeping beauty wakes up in the disney movie. Only it's not a prince, and the tongue wasn't in her mouth.

[Auric Demonocles]

He appears to be trying to get everyone to gang up on a regular commenter by whining about the result of another thread in the popular PM Links.

So basically he's being a petty whiner.

[Nikki just says no]

Actually, he's whining about something that didn't even happen in another thread.

[Irish]

Like two months ago he showed up and started talking about statutory rape laws. I disagreed with him. HM called him a pedophile, which may have been unfair.

He won't let it go and brings it up every couple of weeks. I don't know what to do.

[Warty]

Have you tried raping him?

[Nikki just says no]

Well next time you can tell him your best female libertarian friend is all about kid lib, so he should leave you alone.

Also, this is retarded.

[Episiarch]

There are no female libertarians, nicole. You of all people should know that.

[Auric Demonocles]

Don't be stupid Epi. She's a female. She can't know anything.

[JW]

She can't know anything.

She'd best know how to fetch a pot pie.

[Nikki just says no]

Now that I can do.

[Auric Demonocles]

That's more of an instinct than knowledge, wouldn't you say?

[SugarFree]

Ignore him. A two month grudge means something is wrong with his brain.

[JW]

A two month grudge means something is wrong with his brain.

It's nothing that a prolonged Internet argument can't cure.

[SugarFree]

And he's whining about statutory rape being illegal. Won't someone think of the kiddie-diddlers?!?

[Coeus]

Won't someone think of the kiddie-diddlers?!?

I know I am.

[Coeus]

Ditto. Most of us realize that arbitrary line is arbitrary.

[Plopper]

(disclaimer: I like Irish, and I even use some of his comments as copypasta to progtards)

But I'm still butthurt about how people who are genuinely trying to make an argument supported by the NAP get ganged up on, shat on, and accused of various things on here.

[playa manhattan]

Let me guess... You like 'em young.

[Episiarch]

Seriously, what did you get shat on for? Liking young chicks? I'm certainly guilty of that. You have to understand that Irish is a total cougar hound. It effects all his thought patterns.

[Nikki just says no]

Dude, if you followed my link you would know he's full of shit completely and no one even responded to his comment.

[Episiarch]

I'm kind of disappointed that you're not respecting my laziness, nicole. You really are the worst.

[Nikki just says no]

Look, I was gone for a while and I have to get back in practice and make up for lost time and shit, okay?

[Episiarch]

I really have zero patience for excuses, dude.

[playa manhattan]

"If it's wrong to be attracted to young girls, then why do they look so good?!? Explain that!"

[Rich]

"If we're not supposed to eat animals, why are they are out of *meat*?!"

[Pro Libertate]

You should start not finishing sentences with fairly obvious endings, pressuring other commenters to do so for you.

[Auric Demonocles]

This subthread might be more fun than the post about the Klingon.

[Pro Libertate]

Klingons are such losers.

[Auric Demonocles]

Think about it: when was the last time you saw Worf, this supposed big badass warrior, win a fight against the random alien of the week? He even lost in the Jem Hadar tournament and just got off because the opponent declined to kill him.

[Pro Libertate]

I felt bad for his character, because he was always shown getting beat up. Always. Did he ever win a fight? I remember him killing a Klingon, that's about it.

Here's another one--what happened to Vulcans in the TNG time period? They were as strong as fuck in the TOS days. Certainly strong enough to beat up Klingons, Borg, whatever.

[Auric Demonocles]

I'm sure he won at some point, but he certainly lost a lot...

They kicked the DS9's crew at baseball. The writers suddenly remembered the Vulcans are supposed to have heightened physical abilities then.

[Pro Libertate]

Seriously, the contempt that series had for any continuity is amazing, especially knowing that the core fanbase would have a cow every time they messed up.

I distinctly recall episodes where they made Vulcans look wimpy. Maybe it was one of the handful of Voyager shows I saw.

[Auric Demonocles]

I found one where he wins (even if it's mostly by deceit)! It's even kind of noble and stuff. It only took him about 10 years of character development!

[Irish]

You have to understand that Irish is a total cougar hound. It effects all his thought patterns.

Guilty.

[Episiarch]

Would you stop trying to be worse than nicole? Fuck, what's become of this place when she has competition?

[playa manhattan]

Dude, if you ever come to LA, I hereby invite you to come with me to pick up my son from kindergarten.

(I'm assuming you like soccer moms who drive Range Rovers and wear tennis skirts or yoga pants all day.)

[Warty]

PICS YOU IDIOT

[playa manhattan]

Ummmm, here?

[Auric Demonocles]

That seems acceptable.

[Warty]

That will do. I will store it in my sac for later digestion.

[Auric Demonocles]

I think there's a pretty decent chance I'm going to hook up with a girl approximately* 12 years older than me this weekend. I have had the feeling that she's been into me the past couple of months and we did end up making out briefly about 6 hours into the new year. So go Irish go (though this is not a habit for me).

*I don't know her exact age but that is how much earlier she finished undergrad than I did

[JW]

Excellent, grasshopper. When I was 23, this nice 33-year old wanted a boy-toy after her marriage crashed. Let's just say that she had techniques that the women my age, lacked.

[Episiarch]

There's not a thing wrong with banging older chicks. However, you aren't a man unless you are guilty of statutory rape. Which I am so, so fucking guilty of, many times over.

[Nikki just says no]

You're only as guilty as you feel, Epi.

[Auric Demonocles]

Unfortunately I am not guilty of statuary rape thanks to Vermont and it's stupid reasonable age of consent.

[playa manhattan]

How old are you? This could be awesome or gross, depending...

[Episiarch]

Are you asking me? My statutory days are from when I was younger. It wasn't quite as awesome as it would be now.

[playa manhattan]

No, you are only slightly older than me, so it would be awesome. If Auric is in his 50's and going 12 years older, he ain't getting a high five from me....

[Auric Demonocles]

Ah, I'm 25.

[playa manhattan]

Good for you. That's penthouse letters material.

[JW]

Epi was one of the character models for the old dudes in Hardbodies.

[Auric Demonocles]

That is the most 80s thing I have ever seen.

[JW]

You really owe it to yourself to watch the full movie.

[Irish]

(disclaimer: I like Irish, and I even use some of his comments as copypasta to progtards)

This is weird and I don't like it.

[Plopper]

Why not? The one where you went on about how progs are totally disconnected from their theocrat roots and have no principles as a result is great fun to paste to progs.

[Nikki just says no]

Plopper, I seriously doubt Irish thinks that, and I didn't see you being bullied over it by his online buddies...so...wtf are you talking about?

[Irish]

Holy cow, I missed that part! I don't have online buddies. I don't know the real name of anyone here and sure as hell didn't have my real life friends hounding this guy.

This is surreal.

[Ted S.]

Holy cow, I missed that part! I don't have online buddies.

You don't have real-life buddies either, do you? :-p

[Irish]

They're intimidated by my beauty.

[Plopper]

I'm a surreal person because I was utterly destroyed in my adolescence not so much by the consequences of my own actions, but because of the consequences of the actions various adults who "knew better" forced onto me.

But to tell that story would take about 3 comments worth of text and I am planning on going out tonight and need to start getting ready.

[SIV]

Headed out to the roller rink?

[playa manhattan]

The mall.

[Redmanfms]

He was molested by a teenage girl when he was 5 (or 6) now he thinks pedophiles are A-OK because his personal experience taught him that the overreaction of his parents was actually worse than having his peepee touched.

He spent much of a thread about a year ago commiserating with a no-shit pedo.

He may not himself be a kiddie-raper, but he sure is sympathetic to them.

[Plopper]

Nice strawman, and that's not even what I was talking about above.

[Marshall Gill]

I don't know the real name of anyone here

Of course you do.

[Plopper]

Plopper, I seriously doubt Irish thinks that, and I didn't see you being bullied over it by his online buddies...so...wtf are you talking about?

Stuff from months ago, but it's something I see happening to other people on here too. People who are making genuine arguments for the NAP against SoCons and get hated on for it.

[Redmanfms]

Stuff from months ago, but it's something I see happening to other people on here too. People who are making genuine arguments for the NAP against SoCons and get hated on for it.

Being a proponent of child rape to the point of even denying that children don't yet have the knowledge with which to make an informed decision about sex is not "making genuine arguments for the NAP against SoCons" you disingenuous cunt.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Slate writer fumes: The Rich Think They Are Better Than Us!

The income distribution in the United States provides a good example. In 2012 the top 0.01 percent of households earned an average of $10.25 million, while the mean household income for the country overall was $51,000. Are top earners 200 times as smart as the rest of the field? Doubtful. Do they have the capacity to work 200 times more hours in the week? Even more doubtful. Many forces out of their control, including sheer luck, are at play.

But say you're in that top 0.01 percent?or even the top 50 percent. Would you want to admit happenstance as a benefactor? Wouldn't you rather believe that you earned your wealth, that you truly deserve it? Wouldn't you like to think that any resources you inherited are rightfully yours, as the descendant of fundamentally exceptional people? Of course you would. New research indicates that in order to justify your lifestyle, you might even adjust your ideas about the power of genes. The lower classes are not merely unfortunate, according to the upper classes; they are genetically inferior.

Of course. Only those enlightened to accept progressive dogma as fact are superior.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

Supply and demand: how does it work?

[tarran]

Of course you would.

But remember, he isn't engaging in projection.... at all.

[kinnath]

You made it one paragraph farther than I did.

[Andrew S.]

I may be reading that wrong, but in that first paragraph, are they making an argument that all work is worth the same amount of money per hour?

[BiMonSciFiCon]

Are they also arguing that your wages should be directly tied to IQ? Because that's really really stupid.

[R C Dean]

Which would mean that people arguing that their wages should be tied to IQ aren't going to get paid much.

Interesting . . . .

[BiMonSciFiCon]

Perhaps that's why this individual writes for Slate.

[wwhorton]

Do I detect the good ol' "Labor Theory of Value?"

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Of course. Only those enlightened to accept progressive dogma as fact are superior.

So liberal celebs think everyone else is inferior, because we aren't getting paid millions of $$ to be on TV?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

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

I caught my wife intensely watching this video. It was worse than catching her banging the neighbor.

I have no idea how to deprogram her assuming there's damage.

[Suthenboy]

How long have you been married? Do you have children together?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

11 years. Nine year-old daughter. I'm stuck.

[R C Dean]

That banging the neighbor thing . . . that was hypothetical, I hope?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I
don't

know.

[JW]

Look, I'll bang your wife, if that will give you some needed perspective on the situation. What's your address?

[playa manhattan]

Canada.

[JW]

Do I make a left or a right at Detroit?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Right.

[JW]

Got it. I'll be by later. Does she speak any English?

[Not an Economist]

Maybe she is trying to increase her tolerance for gross stupidity?

[Coeus]

Show her the difference adjusting for single parent families.

[Entropy Void]

Nuke her from orbit ... it's the only way to be sure.

[Suthenboy]

"...in order to justify your lifestyle..."

Justify? Do I have to submit a list of my reasons for doing what I do to this douche in order to have permission to do what I do?

I had a girlfriend once who complained about sex in movies, certain dating rituals and other such fun things by saying "Those are just excuses for people to have sex!".

My reply: "What? I like to fuck. I dont need an excuse or permission. I like to is the only reason I need."

We didnt last.

[Mickey Rat]

I think you are supposed to have permission from at least one person in order to fuck. At least, if you are being friendly about it.

[Fluffy]

Would you want to admit happenstance as a benefactor? Wouldn't you rather believe that you earned your wealth, that you truly deserve it?

These aren't opposites.

If someone gets really genetically lucky, and then is raised by people who experience a lot of coincidental good luck when he is a child (say they win the lottery) and then is fortunate to have good teachers who foster in him a love of biology, and then he goes to medical school just because some girl he randomly meets in college talks him into it, and then at the end of all that he becomes a great surgeon, there's a lot of happenstance there.

But if he performs surgery on me that saves my life and I pay him, he fucking EARNED that money. Because all the rest of that shit doesn't matter - he showed up, and performed the surgery, and that means the value arising from that act belongs to HIM. The marginal value he added by showing up instead of dicking off and going to the beach that day is ALL of the value, with no social residue left over.

[Ted S.]

If 10 million people want to buy my books, why shouldn't I make a much bigger income than the average person?

[Pro Libertate]

Because you're stealing their labor, namely the effort they put into reading your book.

[SugarFree]

New research indicates that in order to justify your lifestyle, you might even adjust your ideas about the power of genes.

This is really going to piss of the fat acceptance crowd.

[Jordan]

Wouldn't you rather believe that you earned your wealth, that you truly deserve it?

If it was obtained through voluntary trade, then it was earned. Period.

[Corning]

Many forces out of their control, including sheer luck, are at play.

So?

The people who control the resources in a free market are either really good at conserving those resources or they will lose them. Does not matter how they got it only so much as there is a flow that can weed out incompetence and reward competence.

[Drake]

I learned that watching MTV Cribs.

[The Other Kevin]

Somewhere Napoleon Hill is rolling over in his grave.

[Mickey Rat]

"Many forces out of their control, including sheer luck, are at play."

Apparently, just as a spoonful of sewage in a barrelful of wine makes sewage, a spoonful of luck in barrelful of competence creates unearned wealth. It is a tiresome bit rhetoric that does not prove anything.

[Coeus]

10(-ish) People Who Kicked Ass in 2013

SJW edition. Pick your favorite.

[Clich? Bandit]

sooo...no Snowden? I know it is a chick mag or something but he did kick some ass.

[Coeus]

No, but look who did make the list:

6. Suey Park

Park followed in Mikki Kendall's footsteps when she launched the hashtag #NotYourAsianSidekick, inspiring a flurry of fascinating and often depressing tales of racism and sexism directed at Asian American women.

[Corning]

#NotYourAsianSidekick

Having Asian friends is racist.

Apparently Suey does not understand everyone regardless of race sees their friends as sidekicks.

[Coeus]

Not everyone. A few of my friends know they're sidekicks (working on the rest).

[Auric Demonocles]

I played a drinking game in college where we watched Braveheart and took a shot of scotch every time Wallace kicked ass. We were freshmen and we still had a stricter definition of "kicked ass" than that.

For the record, the early part of the movie is fairly slow, so we counted "beating his friend at rock throwing" as kicking ass. Things speed up significantly once his wife got attacked.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

NOW vs the Nuns

Shame on Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor for allowing the Little Sisters of the Poor to continue denying birth control coverage to their employees while the Court considers whether bosses should be able to restrict their women workers' access to contraception. The common-sense answer is: Bosses have a lot of power over their workers, but they shouldn't have that kind of power.

Contraception is basic reproductive health care for women. Basic -- as in life-saving. Unintended pregnancy is a well-known driver of maternal and infant mortality. Women who are able to control the number and spacing of their pregnancies are healthier and, when and if they decide to bear children, so are their kids. Such women are not just physically better off, but psychically as well.

I don't doubt that the individuals who control the Little Sisters of the Poor are entitled to religious freedom. I wish they could recognize that their First Amendment right to practice their own religion doesn't trump women's basic rights. Don't women have a First Amendment right not to have another's religious belief forced on them? What about women's right of privacy, to determine whether and when to use contraception or terminate a pregnancy? What about a woman's right to be free from workplace discrimination?

Yeah I don't think you understand how rights work.

[PD Scott]

whether bosses should be able to restrict their women workers' access to contraception

I had no idea that Planned Parenthood, for instance, required a signed note from your boss.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Basic -- as in life-saving.

Bwahahahahahahaha!

[BiMonSciFiCon]

This is an oft-repeated theme here, but progressives don't understand rights, they only have feelings. And you can't reason with them. If you challenge them on why someone should be forced to pay for another person's birth control (or whatever the issue is), they'll move the goalposts and say something like "well it's really cheap, boo fucking woo if you have to pay for it." Then if you ask them if it's so cheap, why can't the individual pay for their own birth control, they move the goalposts again.

They know they are right because they feel like they are right. And they will never change their minds.

[Suthenboy]

They feel good about what they say. That is different than knowing they are right. It is even different than feeling they are right. It just feels good which they mistake for being right.

Their seething hatred for the likes of Rand and Palin is triggered by knowing right when they hear it and hating that someone is threatening to take that good feeling away.

[Mad Scientist]

The reason they're arguing in bad faith is because their arguments are just a front for their actual goal, which they prefer no one know about. The whole Obamacare birth control fury is because feminists enjoy punishing men, and they believe men's bank accounts are one of the most sensative places to do that. They believe they have an opportunity to stick the knife in, and they're really angry anyone would argue against it.

[Coeus]

See all the "man tax" feminist proposals.

[Drake]

I don't want to win the argument, I just want to hurt their feelings and make them concede that they are illogical. After that, I float away in a cloud endorphins.

[Nikki just says no]

Yeah I don't think you understand how rights work.

I must say, I never expected the free-birth-control thing to be so big I would actually think it moved the needle (in a bad way) on negative/positive rights issues, but I do. Scary/depressing.

[robc]

NOTHING IS AS IMPORTANT AS THE PILL.

Notice that free condoms arent a big deal.

[Irish]

Shame on Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor for allowing the Little Sisters of the Poor to continue denying birth control coverage to their employees while the Court considers whether bosses should be able to restrict their women workers' access to contraception. The common-sense answer is: Bosses have a lot of power over their workers, but they shouldn't have that kind of power.

What power? The boss isn't stopping you from getting birth control, they're just not giving it to you for free.

So what power shouldn't your boss have? The power to not give you everything you want?

[Ayn Random Variation]

"What power? The boss isn't stopping you from getting birth control, they're just not giving it to you for free."

You might as well have that fake sign language guy sign this in Cantonese to these people; it would make just as much sense to these people. I was subjected to an NPR segment on this at work earlier this week - about evil bosses preventing women from getting birth control.

[JW]

So what power shouldn't your boss have? The power to not give you everything you want?

Bingo. Team FREE SHIT have really gone chugging around the bend of incoherence. They can't even imagine a world, any longer, where everything isn't provided to you free of charge, just by the extra special event of you existing.

And if you don't provide it to them, then you need to be forced to provide it. And just so you know, this force involves no violent coercion at all. None. It just happens, like how your mom got you a bowl of cereal when you were 8.

[C. Anacreon]

It sucks that we live in a country where there is absolutely no way to get contraception except paid for by your employer.

[wwhorton]

Hell, I didn't even know there were doctors in real life until the government told me I had to have health insurance!

[Ayn Random Variation]

As I get older I'm much better at keeping my mouth shut, but a few weeks ago I came across a woman in a bar bleating about free birth control and I couldn't help myself. I went with the "well if I have to pay for your pill then I ought to be able to get a taste".
It did not end well.

[BigT]

You must let me dip my beak!

[Francisco d Anconia]

What about a woman's right to buy her own birth control and shut the fuck up?

[Suthenboy]

"... while the Court considers whether bosses should be able to restrict their women workers' access to contraception. "

"...right not to have another's religious belief forced on them."

I could get on board with feminists in a big way. Everyone should be equal in the eyes of the law and a person's value as a human is not determined by gender. In every relationship I have been in I treated the woman as an equal.

I cant stomach them because they fucking lie. Lie through their fucking teeth. No such thing, from the quotes above, is taking place. None of it. It is a deliberate misconstruction designed to inflame emotion and deceive. Worse, most of their mendacity seems aimed at furthering lefty political goals than actually helping women.

Are they raging about how many women in the world in so many cultures are treated like chattel? Nope, barely a peep about that. Conservative men are the devil cuz they dont want to pay for someone elses BC. Who goes to work for a freakin' nunnery and expects the nuns to pay for their abortions?

The left never, ever argues in good faith.

[wwhorton]

So, if I work for Narcotics Anonymous in California, do they have to pay for the medical ganja I'm prescribed?

[Auric Demonocles]

If you work for Jezebel they have to pay for your Viagra and brothel bills.

[Michael Ejercito]

Who goes to work for a freakin' nunnery and expects the nuns to pay for their abortions?

That is like expecting Richard Dawkins to perform exorcisms.

[Entropy Void]

Just when was it, exactly, that the scales fell from your eyes?

[lap83]

The weirdest thing to me about the idea that employers/taxpayers need to pay for a woman's birth control is the fact that They Are Not Having Sex With You. It strikes me as really passive aggressive to not expect your SO to help you not get pregnant, even though they benefit, and then to lash out at innocent bystanders who have nothing to do with your decision.

[Irish]

Not only that, but if you require an employer to pay your contraception bills, then that's coming out of the pockets of consumers or other employees. If you force a college to pay for contraception, it's coming out of the tuition of every other student.

What feminists need to explain to me is why the fuck some 60 year old woman in HR should pay for the contraception of some 27 year old, entitled princess.

[R C Dean]

Unintended pregnancy is a well-known driver of maternal and infant mortality.

If only there were some way to keep from getting pregnant . . . .

[Irish]

There's also the fact that the trendline for unmarried pregnancies has gone up pretty much continuously since the 1950's and is now at an absolutely absurd level.

If all of these left-wing policies about easy access to birth control are supposed to result in fewer unwed pregnancies, then why has the number actually gotten worse since these various policies were implemented?

[Nikki just says no]

What's the relationship between unwed and unwanted?

[Irish]

I assume pretty high. I don't know how you can actually prove the number though.

[Episiarch]

TRIGGER ALERT

[MP]

The whole concept of "out of wedlock" is rather archaic. A chart describing "single parent households" is much more relevant in today's culture.

[OldMexican]

Contraception is basic reproductive health care for women. Basic -- as in life-saving.

Before contraception, women were condemned to die while looking out for their children - you know, like octopi.

Unintended pregnancy is a well-known driver of maternal and infant mortality.

Because unwanted pregnancies are biologically different from wanted pregnancies. You heard it here first, folks.

I wish they could recognize that their First Amendment right to practice their own religion doesn't trump women's basic rights.

Because not paying for someone else's shit is the same as "trampling over that someone's rights."

This is the mentality of thieves, folks. No need to beat around the bush.

[Michael Ejercito]

Shame on Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor for allowing the Little Sisters of the Poor to continue denying birth control coverage to their employees while the Court considers whether bosses should be able to restrict their women workers' access to contraception. The common-sense answer is: Bosses have a lot of power over their workers, but they shouldn't have that kind of power.

The common sense answer is that refusing to provide contraceptive coverage does as much to restrict women workers' access to contraception as refusing to offer wine vouchers restricts women workers' access to wine.

[PapayaSF]

A while back I bought a food dehydrator at a Salvation Army store for $4, and have been making beef jerky. It's been fun, if a little tricky. Some lessons learned: make the strips an even thickness, or the thin parts get overdried before the thick parts are ready. A two-overnight marinade might make for slightly stronger flavor, but not much more than just overnight. If you use a lot of soy sauce, use low-sodium or the result will be too salty. A 50/50 low-sodium soy sauce/Worcestershire sauce works well, especially with some chili powder. When it's done, let the jerky cool down for a while before packaging it up, because it will still give off moisture for a while.

I'm trying to find or invent some sort of Mexican/Southwest marinade to test, but don't have anything so far.

[PD Scott]

Run salsa through a blender?

[PapayaSF]

Hmmm, might be worth a try.

[playa manhattan]

I have the RonCo food dehydrator. I have had some pretty good results.

My best so far it a teriyaki blend. I used USDA choice skirt, put it in the freezer for an hour, and thin sliced it. Marinated in 60 percent teriyaki (Mr. Yoshida's Gourmet Sauce) and 40 percent clover honey.

I use honey in almost all of my batches because it keeps the meat from drying out too much, and has antibacterial properties...

[PapayaSF]

Sounds good, but that's a heck of a lot of honey. So far I've resisted adding any sweeteners to any marinades, because I'm trying for an Atkins/paleo snack. And teriyaki sauce is already pretty sweet.

[playa manhattan]

It is a little dessert like, but it is always the first one to run out when I make a variety batch...

[Enough About Palin]

mole

[PapayaSF]

Interesting idea.

[playa manhattan]

I don't use exact measurements, but my best southwest is garlic, cumin, oregano, powdered guajillo, liquid mesquite, and salt/soy sauce...

[Root Boy]

Add in some chipotle powder there California boy.

[SugarFree]

Rehydrate dried chiles in beef stock, blend, strain and reduce the liquid. Add a little apple cider vinegar and salt. Chipotles would be an obvious choice due to the fact they are smoked. Avoid canned ones though, the oil in the sauce will keep the meat from drying evenly.

[playa manhattan]

That's good advice re: the oil that I hadn't thought of. I just checked the pantry, and my Embassa Chitpotles en Adobo had veggie oil as the 4th ingredient...

[PapayaSF]

Instead of rehydrating dried peppers, would fresh ones work? I have access to some great produce around here: a few months ago, at one store, I counted 30 varieties of fresh mushrooms.

[Suthenboy]

Uh, I just soak mine in Tabasco, making sure it is completely covered overnight and dry it. Yum.

I think I will have some now. Thanks Papaya

[PapayaSF]

I thought of that, but feared it might come out too spicy. But it works, eh? That's a lot of Tabasco, though. I've been making about 2.5 pounds of beef (bottom round) at a time, and that seems to call for about two cups of marinade. Maybe I'll try some cheaper, off-brand equivalent on a half batch.

[playa manhattan]

Maybe try Cholula. More pepper flavor and less heat.

[Suthenboy]

SugarFree's recipe sounds pretty good.

*I buy Tabasco by the gallon.

[SugarFree]

At Sam's (if you swing that way) you can get Frank's pretty cheap by the gallon, and it is less hot and salty than Tabasco.

Making a paste out of homemade chili powder might work well. I usually make the Alton Brown recipe.

[Coeus]

My favorite is thinly sliced buffalo meat, 50/50 blend of soy and worchestershire, onion and garlic powder, a small amount of teriyaki sauce and a much smaller amount of sariachi.

[PapayaSF]

Thanks for all the feedback, folks!

[JPyrate]

Start with fresh squeezed lime juice as your base. Mix with a little brown sugar, salt, cumin, ground oregano, and chipotle pepper. You could go with a Mol'e if you are feeling adventurous. Another trick I have learned while making jerky is that you need to grind the salt and sugar very fine if that's all you are using. =)

[PapayaSF]

Sounds good!

[Ayn Random Variation]

My daily NPR palm-to-face:

Paraphrased:

Washington Post Obama felater: "The ACA will provide 6 million Americans with Healthcare for the first time!"

Interviewer: "Won't this influx of newly insured people make it more difficult for people to get in to see a doctor?"

Felater: 6 million people is only 2% of the population, so it's not like people will be waiting in lines around the block to see a doctor. It's just a small increase"

Me: Sadly shaking head.

[The Late P Brooks]

Contraception is basic reproductive health care for women. Basic -- as in life-saving. Unintended pregnancy is a well-known driver of maternal and infant mortality. Women who are able to control the number and spacing of their pregnancies are healthier and, when and if they decide to bear children, so are their kids. Such women are not just physically better off, but psychically as well.

I don't doubt that the individuals who control the Little Sisters of the Poor are entitled to religious freedom. I wish they could recognize that their First Amendment right to practice their own religion doesn't trump women's basic rights. Don't women have a First Amendment right not to have another's religious belief forced on them? What about women's right of privacy, to determine whether and when to use contraception or terminate a pregnancy? What about a woman's right to be free from workplace discrimination?

Blah blah blah. This is all so fucking boring and tiresome. It's like listening to dogs barking.

[Winston]

Garduain on Climate Change and Antarctic Ice

http://www.theguardian.com/wor.....ate-change

Sea ice extent has a large natural variability in both polar regions because of the amplifying effect of interactions between the atmosphere, ocean and sea ice. In the Arctic there is now increasing evidence that rising greenhouse gas emissions are playing a significant part in the loss of sea ice. However, in the Antarctic the increase in annual mean sea ice extent is only just over 1% per decade, making it impossible at present to separate natural variability from any human influence.

So how is the "science settled" when you don't understand everything?

Honest Question: What evidence is there that "rising greenhouse gas emissions" are responsible for warming? Is there actual evidence that greenhouse gases are causing increases in temperatures or is it just confirmation bias since greenhouse gasses have gone up and temperatures apparently (haven't temperatures been stable since the late 1990s?)have gone up?

[Winston]

Fuck I thought I block quoted it.

Sea ice extent has a large natural variability in both polar regions because of the amplifying effect of interactions between the atmosphere, ocean and sea ice. In the Arctic there is now increasing evidence that rising greenhouse gas emissions are playing a significant part in the loss of sea ice. However, in the Antarctic the increase in annual mean sea ice extent is only just over 1% per decade, making it impossible at present to separate natural variability from any human influence.

[Suthenboy]

That is from The Gaurdian? The same Gaurdian that published a computer generated image of the earth to show how sea ice was disappearing and claimed it was a satellite photo?

[PapayaSF]

I think it's all mathematical modeling, because there are too many natural variables to directly measure CO2 vs. temperature.

[Coeus]

Why I'm against daddy days.

Apparently, it's because it's not for women. I'm not even kidding here.

So rather than hear about the stigma men feel in terms of taking care of kids, I'd like for men to think more about the stigma that women feel when they're trying to build a career and a family. And then measure whatever angst they're feeling against the real systemic forces that devalue the labor of women. I think that's what's at the root of much of this: When some people do certain work we cheer. When others do it we yawn.

This is obviously not a case against parental leave, so much as its a beef with the idea of "paternity leave."

What the hell happened to coates? Dude has lost his damn mind.

[Bam!]

"So rather than hear about the stigma men feel in terms of taking care of kids, I'd like for men to think more about the stigma that women feel when they're trying to build a career and a family."

What stigma? Women are pressured to build a career and treated as lesser women when they want a family.

[Winston]

What the hell happened to coates? Dude has lost his damn mind.

He's at the Atlantic.

[R C Dean]

Ya know, one of those "systemic" forces that devalues the labor of women is the fact that the system entitles them to take big chunks of time off when they have a kid.

An employee who can do that is worth less. Don't act all shocked if they get paid less.

[Ted S.]

In Sweden, they're making the father (or presumably the other partner in non-traditional families) take part of the leave or lose it.

[Coeus]

That's what he's against. His logic leaves something to be desired.

[Fluffy]

Bezos to Ezra Klein:

Go fuck yourself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01......html?_r=0

GOLF CLAP FOR BEZOS.

So first he blesses us with Amazon, and now he laughs at Klein's estimate of his own value?

Nobel Prize. Now. Right fucking now.

[playa manhattan]

Klein wanted an "8 figure" investment for a website? Jesus.

[Pro Libertate]

What's he building, a government healthcare site?

[Irish]

An 8 figure investment from a news conglomerate that's already losing tens of millions a year.

[Fluffy]

On Klein's last day, when he cleans out his desk and security escorts him out, we should totally stand outside the Post and heckle him when he leaves.

[SugarFree]

He still gets to go home to his disproportionally hot wife.

[Coeus]

**blinks twice**

damn. White guilt pays dividends. He gets to watch her have sex. Probably even on a weekly basis.

[Juice]

She's not doing it for me. Must be the nose or something. Also too much make up.

[Coeus]

She's like a white rashida jones. I'm digging it.

[Irish]

Several other journalists who had seen their brands grow at big media organizations have left to expand on their own. Nate Silver, widely lauded for the data analysis that led to his accurate prediction of the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, left The Times in 2013 to build his own site, backed by ESPN. Walter S. Mossberg and Kara Swisher, who first came to prominence at The Wall Street Journal with their technology reporting and then built the AllThingsD technology news site and conference business, announced in the fall they were striking out on their own. They secured minority investment, renamed their site ReCode, and left Dow Jones officially this week.

Except that Nate Silver is about 7000X better than Ezra Klein at everything. Also, technology reporting takes more skill than Ezra Klein's incessant repeating of Democratic party talking points.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Liberals in a free-market leads to egos in free-fall.

[R C Dean]

So why is decreasing Arctic sea ice clearly the result of CO2, but increasing Antarctic sea ice is just natural variability, with no reason to believe human influence plays a role?

[R C Dean]

It gets better:

While increases of @ 1% a year are just natural causes, decreases of (wait for it) @ 1% a year are clearly the result of CO2.

Satellite data show that since the late 1970s, September Arctic sea ice extent has decreased by about 12% per decade.

http://www.wunderground.com/climate/SeaIce.asp

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Do you live in the Houston area, need a new car, and have an attractive wife? Then listen up!

2011 jeep grand Cherokee 4wd - $9000 (Huntsville)
I have a 4wd Jeep Cherokee. Its is dully loaded and has a which attached to front ranch hand bumper and grill gaurd. It is on a 4 in suspension lift and a 6 inch body lift has 35 mud grip tires(1200) witch has only been on it for two months. The truck only has 48,000 miles on it. i am looking to trade it but I looking for certain things only. I don't need it but its paid for so O don't have to sell it. Now here is what I am looking for. A lady( preferable married to how wants the jeep) she mist be 18 to 50 and fit. I give you the jeep and you leave your wife with me for a week. When you come pick her up she have the signed title to the jeep. So if interested send me several photo of the wife and I get right back to you. The photo need to be nude after all she will be for a week.

[OldMexican]

That sounds like a serious offer.

[playa manhattan]

18-50? That's a pretty wide net.

[R C Dean]

What's he gonna do when the little woman comes in, shows him her pistol, and tells him that if he gets out of line she'll leave him face down in a ditch?

[Eduard van Haalen]

Isn't there a legal term for this?

[Entropy Void]

Spellcheck.
How the fuck does it work?

[The Late P Brooks]

Would you want to admit happenstance as a benefactor? Wouldn't you rather believe that you earned your wealth, that you truly deserve it? Wouldn't you like to think that any resources you inherited are rightfully yours, as the descendant of fundamentally exceptional people?

You know what? I, as observer, believe the inheritance rightfully belongs to whomever it has been bequeathed to. I further believe that inheritor has every right to spend that money in any way he or she deems fit, be it drinking himself to death on the beach in some island paradise, accumulating a collection of shoes which would make Imelda Marcos weep with envy and despair, fund global warming research, or go into private equity.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Gawker says: Stop hating on Chicago, conservative gun nuts!

Chicago has a crime problem. Dense urban polities generally do. And dense urban polities generally do lean blue, politically speaking. This, to the right wing of the right wing, is a self-contained syllogistic proof: Democrats and lefty policies cause crime problems. Yes, it's logically fallacious. But when you can scare whitey with anecdotes and statistics?500 murders!?logic seems quaint. Bludgeons are easier to wield than scalpels.

The problem is that the statistics aren't a compelling bludgeon. Even at the height of the gun-murder hysteria about Chicago at the end of 2012, FBI stats showed the city actually had a lower per-capita murder rate than 12 other cities, among them Memphis, New Orleans, Atlanta, Cleveland, Kansas City, and St. Louis?denizens of red or purple states, none of which are renowned for gun-banning.

And then there was 2013. Chicago saw 415 murders, according to the city's police department. That's 88 fewer than in the previous year. That's fewer than there have been since L.B.J. was president and Malcolm X got shot. That's a far cry from the recent high points in the city's kill tally, the early '90s and the post-9/11 recessions, as this ThinkProgress chart shows.

So Chicago has, in spite of Team Blue leadership, followed the rest of the country in a lower violent crime rate.

[Irish]

And it's far higher than any city of similar size in the rest of the country.

He is right though. If conservatives want to pick on anyone, it should be Massachusetts. Since adopting strong gun laws in 1998, they're the only state in the country with a murder rate that's actually gone up.

Total coincidence, I'm sure.

[OldMexican]

This, to the right wing of the right wing, is a self-contained syllogistic proof: Democrats and lefty policies cause crime problems.

No, bad people cause crime problems. What stops good people from defending themselves is gun ownership prohibitions.

Houston has a similar population distribution than Chicago with half the murder rate thanks to the fact that we can blow off the heads of perps before they have a chance to turn around to run away.

[Frosty]

Houston and Fort Worth compared to Dallas? Here on the "West Side" of dALLAS, we do not have a similar distribution. Nor do we appreciate being associated with those folks who are "Worth-more-than-you-can-ever-earn" folks (They can't even say the word "Folks".

OM: We still say please and thank you, and open doors for women.

[R C Dean]

Even at the height of the gun-murder hysteria about Chicago at the end of 2012, FBI stats showed the city actually had a lower per-capita murder rate than 12 other cities,

I'd like to get a better feel for just what metro areas are included. If "Chicago" includes swathes of its suburbs, and those other cities don't, well, you've got an apples-and-oranges problem.

[Irish]

What's happened in Chicago is that the wealthy white areas have murder rates vastly smaller than they were in 1992 whereas many black areas are much more violent.

Cite.

Citywide, as the crack epidemic eased, the murder rate dropped by nearly half, to 17 per 100,000 residents in the latter period from 30 in the former, Mr. Hertz reports. But the differences varied dramatically: Almost every neighborhood north of Hyde Park (except for Austin) saw a decline, but many areas south and west of there suffered an even higher number of murders.

As a result, almost all of the North Side and much of the Northwest Side now have murder rates of 3.3 per 100,000 people ? on par with Toronto, and better than New York, where rates have plummeted. But not in Austin and much of the South Side, where annual murder rates of 40 per 100,000 are not uncommon.

In other words, the people suffering are black people who have seen their neighborhoods get even worse since the early '90s. Since Gawker readers are the type of dweebs who only hang out in gentrified white bread neighborhoods, it's unsurprising that they don't care about all the black people dying for their noble experiment.

[Coeus]

They picked two years and highlighted first per capita then total. Cherry picking is assured.

[BigT]

FBI stats showed the city actually had a lower per-capita murder rate than 12 other cities, among them Memphis, New Orleans, Atlanta, Cleveland, Kansas City, and St. Louis?denizens of red or purple states

Maybe red/purple states, but not those cities. Those are deep blue.

[Auric Demonocles]

There were fewer murders in 2013 than the year before? I wonder if there were any changes to the gun controls laws of the state/city over that timeframe or the previous couple of years. I further wonder which direction these changes were in.

[Cdr Lytton]

Even at the height of the gun-murder hysteria about Chicago at the end of 2012

Let's remember just who was stoking the gun hysteria. Hint to Gawker, it wasn't right wingers.

[OldMexican]

The Chinese icebreaker that helped rescue passengers of a ship that got stuck in Antarctic ice is now itself trapped.

Must be because of all this global warming everybody has been bitching about for years.

[Max Power]

Customs agents destroy musician's wooden flutes at JFK Airport.

[Coeus]

"skeptical" progtards mentally masturbating over the ligitbulb ban.

Why the new lightbulbs matter.

[PD Scott]

Squirrels have changed your link.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Scientists take to the internet to

Scientists have undertaken what they say is the most serious search for signs of time travelers at work on the Internet. They came up with no hard evidence ? but does that rule out time travel completely?

"In my mind, it makes it less likely that it's possible," Robert Nemiroff, a physicist at Michigan Technological University, told NBC News.

However, he and MTU graduate student Teresa Wilson acknowledge there are lots of reasons why they might miss the hints of information flowing backward in time ? ranging from a simple oversight to the influence of a cosmic Chronology Protection Agency.

Nemiroff and Wilson lay out their Internet-based experiment in a paper that's been submitted to the ArXiv scientific preprint server, as well as a poster to be presented next week at the American Astronomical Society's winter meeting in Washington.

An experiment 'just for fun'
Nemiroff said the idea of looking for time travelers arose during one of the poker games he organizes for his students at the university. "My summer students and I said, 'Why don't we start looking for this, just for fun?'"

This is heavy duty, Doc.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Whoops, link:

http://www.nbcnews.com/science.....2D11840962

[paranoid android]

Of course, if there were going to be time travelers on the Internet, they'd already will have destroyed the evidence they would have already left before and after they will have going to arrived!

[Juice]

Aiken is in South Carolina. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiken,_South_Carolina

[Calidissident]

Was browsing Reddit yesterday when I came across a thread that asked people to give examples of people from history who get credit they don't deserve. Here's a gem from that thread:

"Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. They ruined mine (and many other people's lives). They took all the positive values we had in the world, flushed them down the toilet and built metaphorical crap on the wasteland that was left."

When someone asked him/her to elaborate, here's their response:

"If you are interested take a look at the politics around the time, the values before, both social, economic, political, environmental and then compare them to the period of Reagan and Thatcher.
I can mention a few examples:
Reagan and Thatcher introduced self-interest instead of consideration for others; they introduced the idea of money coming first and people a poor second; greed took over from generosity; conflict and competition became the norm rather than co-operation and a common purpose. Any claim to a moral high ground was squandered.
I could go on but I am sure they are easily recognisable changes for the worse.
Rather than being brought up and educated in a progressive, forward thinking environment where a person's skills are developed rather than an individual being told which skills would be developed according to what economics dictated; results in demotivation, disillusionment and alienation. A negative working environment is one which is aimed to exploit rather than enhance ...

[Calidissident]

... Education becomes an exploitation in itself where lessons learnt make no reference to the individual but are laid down in a national curriculum. Children are told to do additional work at home and are psychologically tormented annually through examinations to make sure they know the lessons they are taught rather than the lessons they want to learn."

And as a bonus, here's another comment from a different person:

"Guy Fawkes. He was basically an anti-government Tea Partier who wanted to instill a theocracy under the guise of "government bad."
He was not a privacy crusader or a symbol of progressive resistance."

[EdWuncler]

The Progressives hate Thatcher because she actually proved their bullshit philosophy is nothing then bullshit. Before she took over in 1979, the British experienced stagflation, being bailed out by the ECC, the labor unions having unprecident power, and the government intruding into every facet of British life. Before her time in office the UK was a Progressive paradise but yet had all of these issues explained above. When she was booted out of office by her own party memebers the UK within a decade became a much better country.

Basically, she proved that the leftist sort of government was a disasater and for that, she has their eternal hatred.

[Irish]

She also was in office at the same time that France was run by Socialists. France went from having 6% unemployment in 1980 to having double digit unemployment a decade later. They have not had unemployment under 7.8% in twenty five years.

Thatcher bought Great Britain another 30 years of economic growth. Prior to Thatcher, Great Britain had a per capita GDP lower than Italy. Think about that and then tell me how bad Thatcher was.

[Drake]

She mocked them with logic - they must hate her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okHGCz6xxiw

[Irish]

I love that video.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Yeah she was one of a kind.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

The comments.

They hurt.

"Luckily for the capitalists, you never run out of other people's labour.?"

I could swear the people's labour is compensated for in the form of wages.

[JW]

You never look Youtube comments in the eye, because it's the Devil's much stupider cousin looking right back.

[Irish]

All the Thatcher videos got swarmed by dipshit socialists in the wake of her death.

My primary goal is to have parasites dance on my grave when I die. That will be evidence of a life well lived.

[Juice]

Wait, what?

Reagan and Thatcher introduced self-interest instead of consideration for others...

and then

Education becomes an exploitation in itself where lessons learnt make no reference to the individual but are laid down in a national curriculum.

So they sucked because they emphasized self-interest. They also sucked because through them education did not emphasize self-interest over national interest.

Do I have that right?

[Killaz]

Incredible, but you parsed through that muddle with better finesse than the creators of Watson could ever hope to achieve.

[GILMORE]

""Rather than being brought up and educated in a progressive, forward thinking environment where a person's skills are developed rather than an individual being told which skills would be developed according to what economics dictated"

"skills", like writing coherent sentences.

which a Forward-Thinking Environment would not need.

Because, economics. Which are something. And they are bad. QED.

[Whahappan?]

"Education becomes an exploitation in itself where lessons learnt make no reference to the individual but are laid down in a national curriculum. Children are told to do additional work at home and are psychologically tormented annually through examinations to make sure they know the lessons they are taught rather than the lessons they want to learn."

Who the fuck do these dipshits think are running education? It sure ain't conservatives.

[Mad Scientist]

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. They ruined mine (and many other people's lives).

The cult of personality knows no bounds.

[Irish]

These people are crazy morons. That entire screed does not have a single statistic, fact, or citation. There isn't even an argument. It's an amalgam of base assertions, strawmen, and feelings.

I also love that he says things like this:

Reagan and Thatcher introduced self-interest instead of consideration for others; they introduced the idea of money coming first and people a poor second; greed took over from generosity; conflict and competition became the norm rather than co-operation and a common purpose. Any claim to a moral high ground was squandered.

Every argument in this paragraph is based on nebulous and internal emotions not on anything that is objectively provable. He also continues the long tradition of left-wing attacks on Reagan and Thatcher totally ignoring how bad the economy was in 1978.

Tell me, was 1988 better or worse than 1978? No liberal can answer this question, because they haven't bothered doing the research.

[Calidissident]

Yeah, I don't even like Reagan or Thatcher (I think they're overrated by conservatives, although not nearly as bad as leftists make them out to be, and overall probably better than the average US or UK politician), but those posts are grade A batshit crazy.

[Calidissident]

Although honestly, the other person's Guy Fawkes comment is probably even crazier

[Irish]

Reagan and Thatcher are overrated because they weren't small government enough.

They arrested the behemoth and gave us the benefits for a few decades, but they didn't scale government back enough. Therefore, when the progs got back in power, they picked up right where they left off.

[Calidissident]

Yeah, I definitely agree with that, sorry if I implied otherwise. I'm not as familiar with Thatcher, but I would qualify that Reagan only scaled back government in some areas (like taxes). Spending drastically increased (not 100% his fault, but he's definitely not blameless), and that's not even accounting for other issues besides fiscal and economic matters.

[Drake]

In 1980 I would have guessed that the task of reversing what seemed the inevitable growth of government was absolutely impossible. What Reagan and Thatcher did was amazing.

And I would agree that the big defense build up they sponsored was necessary and paid off a decade later when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Unfortunately, both were succeeded by moderate idiots who began reversing their reforms in small ways then losing elections to the people who wanted to undue them in big ways.

[Killaz]

Reagan would have been the first to credit the Soviet Union and its internal contradictions for its collapse, and not directly his own policies. He talked about it a lot, and the establishment, in the political system, media and the academy ridiculed him for doing so. They believed it to be wishful thinking. They believed anachronistic anti-communist cowboys like Reagan were making the world a more dangerous place by promoting the fantasy that communism didn't work. That was the world Reagan was up against in 1981.

Also, he wasn't really responsible for the defense build up. There wasn't any substantial changes from the last year of Carter and the incoming administration in the defense budget. The Russian invasion of Afghanistan was a PR and lobbying boon for the defense contractor industry. Even if Reagan was prone to cutting defense spending, it wasn't going to happen in that atmosphere anymore than it would have in the years right after 9-11.

[Drake]

Yes, Carter started the build-up and it was Congress that budgeted it - but it was real.

[PapayaSF]

It was more than the defense buildup, though. True, Carter began that in reaction to Afghanistan, but Reagan really believed the USSR could be defeated, and acted on it. One thing he did was talk the Saudis into pumping more oil, which dropped prices, which starved the USSR (an oil exporter) of foreign exchange, just when they needed it most.

[Winston]

They arrested the behemoth and gave us the benefits for a few decades, but they didn't scale government back enough.

Of course to progs the fact that they did that is what makes them horrible.

It doesn't help that the progs end up creating some mythical non-existent 1970s where everything was perfect until Reagan and Thatcher along.

[paranoid android]

Reagan and Thatcher introduced self-interest instead of consideration for others;

Regardless of how you actually feel about the concept of "self-interest instead of consideration for others" and regardless of whether you feel that Reagan and Thatcher advocated such a philosophy, how unbelievably insane do you have to be to think that such a concept never existed before the 1980s?

[Winston]

The same people who think the 1980s and 2000s were ages of greed as if 1970s and 1990s were not? Or the People who act as if Big Government was totally fine from 1933-1981 ignoring the whole 1950s, Watergate and Vietnam?

[GILMORE]

"how unbelievably insane do you have to be to think that such a concept never existed before the 1980s?"

Let's call it, 'I'm a millennial and got a public high school education in the 1990s'-type-insane.

[Winston]

The notion that 1970s was some utopia is insane. The cognitive dissonance to assert that is stunning.

[JW]

If 1970's Britain wasn't Heaven, with it's Fabianism Gone Wild, particularly in the British car industry, then I want to go to Hell.

[The Knarf Yenrab]

Was browsing Reddit yesterday

Gonewild has changed for the worse.

[Calidissident]

Is that a joke that I found this on Gonewild, or are you actually lamenting as a side comment about the decline in quality of GW (I only recently started reading Reddit, I've checked out GW a few times, if you're being serious, how was it better in the past?)? Sorry, my sarc meter isn't working today.

[The Knarf Yenrab]

Joke was that Reddit is nothing but Gonewild, the rest of it being pious, snide college sophomores calling each other names with the occasional pious, snide graduate student throwing in his sage opinion to improve the quality of the debate.

That and r/libertarian is full of image memes, while serious posts on Rothbard and Rand and Sowell are usually ignored.

[Calidissident]

Yeah, Reddit is a really bad place to go for any sort of intelligent debate. I go there occasionally for funny stories and memes (although there are a lot of unfunny ones as well), random threads like this one (some answers are actually interesting, other ones like these are funny because of how stupid they are), and occasionally Gonewild.

[Auric Demonocles]

I use it for the sports subs mostly.

[Auric Demonocles]

Every sub which doesn't use super strict moderation is just full of image memes.

[Winston]

Reagan and Thatcher introduced self-interest instead of consideration for others; they introduced the idea of money coming first and people a poor second; greed took over from generosity; conflict and competition became the norm rather than co-operation and a common purpose. Any claim to a moral high ground was squandered.
I could go on but I am sure they are easily recognisable changes for the worse.
Rather than being brought up and educated in a progressive, forward thinking environment where a person's skills are developed rather than an individual being told which skills would be developed according to what economics dictated; results in demotivation, disillusionment and alienation. A negative working environment is one which is aimed to exploit rather than enhance ...

I'm sure Peter King, Tony Benn and Archibald Cox would agree that 1970s Britain and America were utopias were everyone was United and acted for the Common Good of the People and greed was abolished.

[Coeus]

Charity not from the government. Burn the heretic.

An Iowa businessman named Jonnie Wright decided it was time to check "giving back" off his bucket list, so he came up with the perfect scheme. He dressed up "like a homeless person," stood on a street corner in the snow, and then handed out envelopes of cash to anyone kind enough to stop and donate. In other words, like the world's most pointless Robin Hood, he "gave back" by giving money away...to other people who already have money.

[Calidissident]

Because of course anyone who has ever given money to a homeless person is a millionaire who couldn't possibly have any financial issues. And rewarding people for generosity is just evil.

[Juice]

"I was blown away," said Rob Taylor, of West Des Moines, who opened his envelope later that day. "As a matter of fact, the first thing that I did was call my wife on the phone and I could hardly talk to her on the phone. I said, 'You wouldn't believe what just happened to me.'"

Jesus, how much money was he giving people?

[Irish]

Rewarding people for their generosity is evil. I'm also going to guess that most people wandering down the street and giving money to a homeless man are of average income and could be helped out greatly by a millionaire providing them with money.

[paranoid android]

Hey, he could have given that money to actual homeless people and made a lot of liquor store owners and crack dealers very happy...

[The Knarf Yenrab]

I don't know who Lindy West is, but she is in the running for 2014's worst article of the year. One, Robin Hood didn't give away his own money. And two, rewarding generous and sympathetic people for their charity is probably not "pointless." Lindy is the sort of person who, upon hearing that a local business leader contributed $10,000 to an animal shelter, becomes incensed that he didn't give it to a better charity of her choosing.

And I should've known where that link would send me.

[Killaz]

Of course Jezebel would hate a guy that awesome. Thank you, Jonnie for making the world a better place.

[Coeus]

These guys continue to prove MRA's correct.

For a publication who claims that they're the world's greatest monsters, you'd think they'd quit doing exactly what the MRA's claim they do.

[Calidissident]

I read the article, but am not familiar with either of the people discussed, so could you elaborate on what exactly you're saying?

[Coeus]

Guy kicked out of college on accusation, feminists say that never happens. Guy continues to be hounded in the press for just the accusation, feminists say that never happens. These are common points of MRA's. The feminist line is that all rape accusations are true, and when they're not, nothing bad ever really happens anyway.

[Coeus]

you're not allowed to be mad when I hit you with my enormous ass because it might not be my fault.

Seriously. Schrodinger fatass.

I'm sure some fat people are fat by their own hand, without any underlying medical conditions, but a lot of other fat people are fat because they're sick or disabled. And unless you're checking every human being's bloodwork before they pull up Kayak.com, you do not know which fat people are which. Which means, inevitably, if you think fat people are "the problem" (and not, say, airlines hoping to squeeze out an extra $200 million a year in revenue, or consumers who want cheap airline tickets without sacrificing amenities), you are penalizing a significant number of human beings emotionally and financially for a disease or disability that already complicates their lives. To me, ethically, that's fucked up.

[Coeus]

That guy next to me didn't call me fat to my face. I don't even know if that's what was bothering him, although I know the way he looked at my body (my body, not my face, not once, not ever). I can't be sure why that guy was mad at me, but I know why people are mad at me on planes. I know that he disliked me instantly, he invented a reason to be a dick to me, and then he executed it. At 7 am. In a flying fart-can. When I HAD A HANGOVER.

She was also late to board.

[Pro Libertate]

I rather doubt that a significant number of morbidly obese people are that fat solely because of some underlying health problem. Some percentage, sure, but most? No way.

[JW]

Genes and diet are probably #1 in why some people are fat, like why many of the latino women around here could be rolled like a barrel down the sidewalk.

But, the why really isn't important. If your ass is talking up 2 seats, it needs its own ticket. Full stop. The frightening level of self-importance and "it's not my fault!" West displays should get her laughed out of polite society as any kind of serious person. If only society hadn't barking fucking nuts.

[db]

I'm sorry, fatties. You need to pay for your extra space and weight. I have flown on many hundreds of commercial flights, and the discomfort you cause to other passengers is real.

[Coeus]

I'm gonna have to need two pretty soon as well. Many seats do seem smaller, as my shoulders now go into both seats beside me. I compensate by getting an aisle and leaning into it. Which means I get bruised by the drink cart several times per flight if I happen to fall asleep. The difference is that I don't see this as some kind of monumental injustice.

[db]

I'm an average-sized guy with rather wide shoulders, so I understand. I generally feel bad about encroaching on others' space, but I have sat next to some folks who have absolutely no compunction about flowing into my seat.

[The Knarf Yenrab]

Given the number of Jezzy links he's thrown up, Coeus is either a bot or possesses the strongest libertarian constitution of them all.

[paranoid android]

To me, ethically, that's fucked up.

But ain't nothing ethically fucked up about demanding that businesses, fellow humans, and so on bend over backwards and make all sorts of sacrifices so that YOU DON'T HAVE TO GET ON A GOD DAMN TREADMILL, huh Lindy?

[Auric Demonocles]

As opposed to fat consumers who want extra amenities without increasing price?

[lap83]

Fat people often have an attitude like "My body belongs here more than yours", whether or not they intend it. They stand in front of doorways that are centimeters wider than them and don't move until you yell at them. They walk slowly down the sidewalk, side by side with their equally fat friends. They bump into you with their 70" hips and don't notice or care.

I don't know if they are unaware of their size or if they consider their body mass to be representative of their self-worth.

[Mad Scientist]

We're fat!
We're proud!
We don't want any more bears!

[Jayburd]

Didn't see this coming- http://dailycurrant.com/2014/0.....alization/

[Jayburd]

"Colorado is reconsidering its decision to legalize recreational pot following the deaths of dozens due to marijuana overdoses.
According to a report in the Rocky Mountain News, 37 peopleColorado is reconsidering its decision to legalize recreational pot following the deaths of dozens due to marijuana overdoses.
According to a report in the Rocky Mountain News, 37 people were killed across the state on Jan. 1, the first day the drug became legal for all adults to purchase. Several more are clinging onto life in local emergency rooms and are not expected to survive.
"It's complete chaos here," says Dr. Jack Shepard, chief of surgery at St. Luke's Medical Center in Denver. "I've put five college students in body bags since breakfast and more are arriving every minute.
"We are seeing cardiac arrests, hypospadias, acquired trimethylaminuria and multiple organ failures. By next week the death toll could go as high as 200, maybe 300. Someone needs to step in and stop this madness. My god, why did we legalize marijuana? What were we thinking?" were killed across the state on Jan. 1, the first day the drug became legal for all adults to purchase. Several more are clinging onto life in local emergency rooms and are not expected to survive.

[Coeus]

One of the those victims was 29-year-old Jesse Bruce Pinkman, a former methamphetamine dealer from Albuquerque who had recently moved to Boulder to establish a legal marijuana dispensary.
Pinkman was partying with friends when he suffered several seizures and a massive heart attack which ultimately proved to be fatal. Toxicology reports revealed that marijuana was the only drug present in his system.
"This is just a terrible tragedy," says his friend Peter. "Jesse was trying to go legit and now this happens? I guess drugs really are as dangerous as they say."

[JW]

Um, it's a "humor" site.

[Drake]

Aren't they all?

[JW]

Not intentionally.

[Coeus]

Yeah, I figured the pinkman part would sum that up. I don't think he got that far down before he posted though. Or maybe he's just one of those heathens who doesn't watch breaking bad.

[RishJoMo]

I think I like the way thast is gonna sound.

http://www.GetzDatAnon.tk