A.M. Links: FBI Quietly Changes Primary Function, Senate Democrats To Focus on Middle Class, Angela Merkel Fractures Pelvis

Center for American Progress

• The FBI has quietly replaced "law enforcement" with "national security" as its declared primary function.
• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D- Nev.) said Sunday that Democrats will focus on the middle class in 2014 and attempt to extend emergency unemployment benefits.
• The Senate is poised to confirm Janet Yellen as the next Federal Reserve chair, making her one of the most powerful figures in world economic circles.
• Citing health concerns in her family, Liz Cheney is ending her campaign for Senate in Wyoming.
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel fractured her pelvis while skiing, forcing her to cancel meetings for the next three weeks.
• A senior Iranian military official offered limited military aid to Iraq in order to battle Al Qaeda fighters in the neighboring country.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

The FBI has quietly replaced "law enforcement" with "national security" as its declared primary function.

Which do we need more, America? More cops or more domestic spies?

[Clich? Bandit]

I hate you.

[Clich? Bandit]

A deep seated, Italicized hatred...

with block quotes

[Fist of Etiquette]

Here's what you do. Put your computer on an external time source, put a clock widget on your desktop and make sure it shows a second hand. Then f5 the page just as that second hand hits the top of the hour. Boom, Bob's your uncle, you have first comment. And then everybody loves you.

[waffles]

I actually kinda hate you. But goddamn do I respect you.

[Clich? Bandit]

see...I did that (well, something similar), but I had to read a ML, then changed my mind cause my creative juices not flow so good this early, then I typo'd my italics tag, and finally i came in last. I still hate you.

And I don't even like my comment.

[Fist of Etiquette]

See? It's not as easy as it looks. (Start reading the links from the bottom; then it looks to people paying attention that you read through them all and got to the bottom and still posted first. Tee hee.)

[Clich? Bandit]

i did that too but could not get a pithy comment on the bottom one.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Well then you're hopeless. Only going for quality comments. Ridiculous.

[Ted S.]

Needs more block quoting.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Nice! America finally has an internal intelligence agency. Just what we need!

[Suthenboy]

I am pretty sure that is the point. Just gives you a warm fuzzy feeling, doesnt it?

[VG Zaytsev]

Whats NSA and DHS, chopped livers?

[Swiss Servator, KALT!]

NKVD precursors?

[Ted S.]

Why can't we have both?

[Drake]

Or neither?

[kibby]

WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?

[Clich? Bandit]

And technically National Security is what a Federal Government Agency should be about (SLD). Law enforcement is specifically reserved for States. Silly constitution.

[Heroic Mulatto]

A Chekist is a breed. ... A good KGB FBI heritage?a father or grandfather, say, who worked for the service?is highly valued by today's siloviki public sector. Marriages between siloviki public sector clans are also encouraged.

[Auric Demonocles]

More alt-text.

[DJF]

Something had to be done to deal with the rising numbers of idiots trying to blow things up with FBI supplied fake bombs

This is obviously more important then dealing with the thousands of murders, rapists and other violent criminals who are actually dangerous.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Wow. Come late to the party and miss all the beer.

Hello.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I said good day sir.

[Lord Humungus]

2-year-old in Colorado tests positive for pot

A toddler from Longmont, Colo., has tested positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, just days after the drug became legal in the state.

The mother of 2-year-old Evelyn, Aida Hernandez, thinks that her daughter may have eaten part of a pot cookie she stumbled across in the grass outside of their apartment.

"It was brown, like a chocolate chip cookie," Hernandez said.

[WTF]

You know what else is brown that you find in the grass outside?

[db]

That toddler will probably test positive for worms soon, too.

[Suthenboy]

What my Grandfather said whenever he saw someone letting a dog lick their face:

"You know what they've been eatin' if they been out where they can get it!"

I guess that goes for kids too.

[mad libertarian guy]

Sounds like a crock of shit to me.

It's just too fucking convenient, especially when there are only marginally more people consuming pot now than there were just a few days ago (if there are any more at all).

[thom]

I bet it's more than you think. I haven't smoked for years, but if they legalized pot in my state I would start smoking, and I know plenty of others who are in the same boat.

[waffles]

A search for the missing cookie came up empty.

[Steve G]

My favorite was when it was linked on Drudge with the hyperlinked lead-in: "IT BEGINS..."

OH NOES!11

[Suthenboy]

That is right, cuz this never would have happened before MJ was legal!

[pan fried wylie]

Two is a bit young to be out in the yard unsupervised long enough (read: at all) to eat something off the ground.

This kid will most likely grow up to have a drug habit, but it won't be because she ate a pot brownie when she was two.

[lap83]

You haven't known many two year olds have you? They are masters at getting into things at the speed of light.

[Brett L]

Yeah, her parents might have been lazy enough to turn their head and wave to a neighbor or evaluate whether the driver of an oncoming car is texting instead of watching for potential two year olds in the road.

[VG Zaytsev]

Well we better ban backyard tomato plants then since their leaves will kill a two year old that eats em.

[Invisible Finger]

If only I knew this 10 years ago...

[Rufus J. Firefly]

See? People can't be trusted.

[Zeb]

It would have been a whole lot worse and more dangerous to the kid if she had found several aspirin tablets or any number of other things that have always been legal and are actually toxic.

[JW]

Why the in fucking fuck are they testing a 2-year old for pot?

[mad libertarian guy]

Why the in fucking fuck are they testing a 2-year old for pot?

This was my initial thought too. There couldn't be a reason for it. The effects of pot wouldn't last long enough to make any parent, even an attentive one, think that there might be something wrong such that they decide a fucking drug test is in order.

I'd say that this story is all but completely fabricated.

[A wild THANE appeared!]

The mother saw her eating the cookie and then took her to the hospital to be tested for it.

[mad libertarian guy]

The last thing I think when see my son eating a cookie is "I need to take him to the hospital to have him tested for drugs."

This story is a crock of shit.

[Brett L]

I'm sure being able to sue the government's deep pockets for their part in creating an attractive nuisance has nothing to do with anything.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...Democrats will focus on the middle class in 2014 and attempt to extend emergency unemployment benefits.

You really can't put a price on mid-term votes when spending other people's money.

[Clich? Bandit]

German Chancelor's pelvis broken. How do you do that on slopes where you cant even hit the ground from all the people.

[Ted S.]

I hope she's doing better than Michael Schumacher. 🙁

[sarcasmic]

Anything Arnie can do... Action hero Steven Seagal ponders running for Governor of Arizona

Steven Seagal stars along with Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio in the new reality show called 'Steven Seagal -- Lawman: Maricopa County'
He has expressed his desire to run in comments about his new show
If appointed Governor he says he would strengthen border control

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

[Brett L]

At this point, Arizona is on my list for worse than California in its own sorry way.

[mad libertarian guy]

Yeah.

I'm not sure which is worse: Regulatory hell, or Law and Order Conservative paradise.

[Swiss Servator, KALT!]

Way to light the Tulpa Beacon...

[a better weapon]

Citing health concerns in her family, Liz Cheney is ending her campaign for Senate in Wyoming.

If you think this is because of Dick's health, you'd be wrong. That man has proven he plans on living forever.

[Marshall Gill]

Man? Pretty sure that Cheney is a cyborg at this point.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Obi-Wan: He's more machine now than man. His mind is twisted and evil

[PD Scott]

But does he post here with us? Noooooo.

[Fist of Etiquette]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel fractured her pelvis while skiing...

You know who else got hurt moving across Europe in winter?

[WTF]

Napoleon?

[a better weapon]

Michael Schumacher?

[WTF]

Winner

[Rufus J. Firefly]

A Speedo salesman?

[Lord Humungus]

King Tut's Mummified Erect Penis May Point to Ancient Religious Struggle

The mummified erect penis and other burial anomalies were not accidents during embalming, Ikram suggests, but rather deliberate attempts to make the king appear as Osiris, the god of the underworld, in as literal a way as possible. The erect penis evokes Osiris' regenerative powers; the black liquid made Tutankhamun's skin color resemble that of Osiris; and the lost heart recalled the story of the god being cut to pieces by his brother Seth and his heart buried.

Making the king appear as Osiris may have helped to undo a religious revolution brought about by Akhenaten, a pharaoh widely believed to be Tutankhamun's father, Ikram said.

[SugarFree]

Or, you know, someone had a sense of humor at the embalming shop.

Go dig up something new rather than bullshit about stuff you already have.

[sarcasmic]

Abbey-lutely fabulous! Ms Clancy shows off her toned bikini body in a tiny off-white two-piece as she works on her tan in Dubai

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....Dubai.html
No idea who she is, but I'll be in my bunk anyway.

[Timon 19]

Believe it or not, she's the wife of this guy (who is a very successful footballer):
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-i.....ch-006.jpg

[SugarFree]

Money: The only true superpower.

[sarcasmic]

Aye.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....riend.html

[Lord Humungus]

Administration urges Supreme Court not to block contraceptive mandate

"A signed certification form by the employer-applicants will exempt those applicants from the requirement to furnish or pay for contraceptive coverage, and shield them from any tax liability for not doing so, and the employees of the nursing homes they operate will not receive such coverage," Verrilli wrote.

..snip..

The religious groups further contend signing the certification form would put them at risk for violating their religious principles. "Unfortunately, the federal government has started the new year the same way that it ended the old one, trying to bully nuns into violating their religious beliefs," declared Mark Rienzi, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

[db]

They want to force individual organizations to apply for exemptions so they can be publicly called out for shaming.

Just like how Schumer wants Snowden to come back to the U.S.--when he gets hit with the hammer, Schumer can say it was someone else doing the swinging while reaping the benefits of his rhetoric.

[John]

And the article doesn't mention that to get the exemption, the nuns have to agree to stop giving aid to the general public, which is the point of their existence.

The exemption says you can get out of it if you remove yourself from the public square. Sure, you can live by your conscience, provided you stay with your own kind. The exemption actually is more sinister than a blanket rule. The whole point of the exemption is to stigmatize and marginalize religious organizations. These people are evil.

[db]

Hey, Nun-provided care is outside the ACA, therefore outside the State, therefore unacceptable.

[VG Zaytsev]

Sure, you can live by your conscience, provided you stay with your own kind.

The donks embracing segregation again - shocking.

[Zeb]

The exemptions are horrible. Either the mandate is legal and constitutional or it isn't. If a rule violates one person's freedom of religion, it violates everyone's freedom of religion.

[Lord Humungus]

Gold Analysts Get Most Bullish in a Year After Rout: Commodities

Gold analysts are the most bullish in a year on speculation that investors are reducing near-record bearish bets after the biggest plunge in prices since 1981.

Fifteen analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News expect gold to rise this week, two are bearish and four neutral, the highest proportion of bulls since December 2012. Short positions held by hedge funds and other large speculators jumped almost fourfold from October to Dec. 24 as the bear market deepened, the latest U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Prices rebounded as much as 5.4 percent since slumping to a six-month low on Dec. 31.

[Lord Humungus]

Many Spanish Speakers Left Behind In First Wave Of Obamacare

According to the latest data released by the state, less than 5 percent of California's roughly 110,000 signups in October and November were completed in Spanish.

Spanish-speaking operators at Covered California call centers, as well as navigators who can walk people through enrollment, are in short supply. The section on the Spanish version of Covered California for requesting help with enrollment still links to an English website.

In other parts of the country, Spanish speakers are worse off.

[WTF]

But what about Mandarin speakers?

[Brett L]

Como se dice: "Obama sez, 'you're fucked'?"

[Rufus J. Firefly]

"Would you like some Obamacare?"

"No mas! No mas!"

[sarcasmic]

'S and I GOT MARRIED!': Charlie Sheen reveals surprise wedding to porn star Brett Rossi during Icelandic vacation

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....ation.html
What could possibly go wrong?

[Lord Humungus]

Pressure mounts on French comic in racism row

The mayor of Paris has joined France's interior minister in calling for comedian Dieudonne, whose vitriolic brand of humour targeting Jews has caused outrage, to be banned from the stage.

Anti-racist groups also threatened legal action against a provocative arm gesture Dieudonne makes which has been described as an upside-down Nazi salute.

Dieudonne has been part of France's comedy scene for years, but while he started out with a Jewish comedian in sketches that mocked racism, he gradually veered to the far-right and alienated some fans with anti-Jewish comments -- one of his latest being a joke about gas chambers.

[waffles]

Look, everyone knows France is racist. Racism is as French as wine, cheese, or socialism. It's just unfortunate that the French deny this part of their national identity.

[mad libertarian guy]

How can they be socialist and racist at the same time. It is unpossible. American Progressives told me that European socialism is what we should strive towards.

How dare you upset my view of utopia?

[Lord Humungus]

Fake cop flashes buttocks, wants free IHOP meal

The server began to call 911, and Skytta threatened to beat up the employee.

When the server began to walk away, Skytta shouted, "Hey buddy!"

The server turned around to look at Skytta, who then dropped his pants and exposed himself to the server and customers, the report said.

[a better weapon]

And we're certain he's not a real cop?

[UnCivilServant]

Too polite.

[WhatAboutBob]

No dogs were shot!

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Moons Over My Hammy.

[Fist of Etiquette]

A senior Iranian military official offered limited military aid to Iraq in order to battle Al Qaeda fighters in the neighboring country.

They'll be sending everything in a large, hollow horse.

[Lord Humungus]

Nobody Expects a Defense of the Inquisition

I don't know of any historians who will defend the terrible things done under the umbrella of the Inquisition. But you will find a great many historians who will tell you that the Inquisition(s) were not nearly so terrible as the popular imagination or conventional wisdom would have it. In many instances, the Inquisition was a force of decency deployed against the barbarisms of the mob or the state or ? quite often ? both. During the witch panics, the Inquisition was more likely to stop a local lord and his mob from burning an alleged witch than it was to light a match. In the 16th century, areas under Church control were far less likely to burn witches than areas under secular or Protestant control.

[db]

The Inquisition: The Original Statists

[John]

The "inquisition" horror is mostly propaganda written by Protestants. When people think Inquisition, what country immediately comes to mind? Spain. Maybe the fact that one of Spain's historic enemies was England, Europe's most influential Protestant country and the source of most of the European History we read, might have something to do with that?

[Heroic Mulatto]

*sigh*

Yes, John. The Inquisition didn't lead to a whole caste of crypto-Jews who lived in constant fear of torture or death. The pages upon pages of primary documents in Spanish, Latin, Ladino, Turkish, etc. are all British forgeries.

C'mon, son!

[John]

Sigh,

Because saying the British lied about and exaggerated it for political purposes totally means that nothing happened.

And wow, they were killing Jews in Europe? I mean that is totally shocking. My God, no one in Europe ever did that. Seriously? That Inquisition was really something new and unique.

[Heroic Mulatto]

The "inquisition" horror is mostly propaganda written by Protestants.

Is very different than

saying the British lied about and exaggerated it for political purposes

Say what you mean, and mean what you say.

[John]

Mostly doesn't mean "all". I mean exactly what I say. You just don't like it.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Really, dude? Whether you like it or not the term "mostly propaganda" had the implication that the speaker is attempting to minimize the claim being made. If that was not your intention, then say so, but sticking to your guns on this is just showing your ignorance of the many primary sources that weren't written by Protestants.

[VG Zaytsev]

How many people were killed in the Spanish Inquisition during its entire run?

[VG Zaytsev]

Garc?a C?rcel estimates that the total number processed by the Inquisition throughout its history was approximately 150,000; applying the percentages of executions that appeared in the trials of 1560?1700?about 2%?the approximate total would be about 3,000 put to death. Nevertheless, it is likely that the toll was much higher, keeping in mind the data provided by Dedieu and Garc?a C?rcel for the tribunals of Toledo and Valencia, respectively. It is likely that between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed. (For comparative purposes, the number of people executed for "witchcraft" in Europe during about the same time span as the Inquisition is estimated to total 60,000.).[81]

[VG Zaytsev]

Modern historians have begun to study the documentary records of the Inquisition. The archives of the Suprema, today held by the National Historical Archive of Spain (Archivo Hist?rico Nacional), conserves the annual relations of all processes between 1540 and 1700. This material provides information on about 44,674 judgements, the latter studied by Gustav Henningsen and Jaime Contreras. These 44,674 cases include 826 executions in persona and 778 in effigie. This material, however, is far from being complete?for example, the tribunal of Cuenca is entirely omitted, because no relaciones de causas from this tribunal have been found, and significant gaps concern some other tribunals (e.g. Valladolid). Many more cases not reported to the Suprema are known from the other sources (e.g. no relaciones de causas from Cuenca have been found, but its original records have been preserved), but were not included in Contreras-Henningsen's statistics for the methodological reasons.[82] William Monter estimates 1000 executions between 1530?1630 and 250 between 1630?1730.[83]

[Marshall Gill]

It also places all of the religious violence at the hands of the Catholic Church instead of spreading it around. Yes, Catholics did torture and kill people for being heretics, but Protestants did not refrain from doing the same to Papists, when given the opportunity.

[Marshall Gill]

And come on, HM, pretty sure BOTH sides had no trouble when it came to killing the ultimate heretics, the Jews.

[tarran]

To hate all but the right folks is an old-established rule.

[Heroic Mulatto]

If you're looking at all of history, of course. However, at the time of the Spanish Inquisition, Protestant lands, such as the Netherlands, were a lot more "tolerant" of Jews than Catholic lands. But that's not even the point I was making, the horrors of the Inquisition were well-documented by many sources, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim, to state that they were "mostly propaganda" is well...revisionist, to put it lightly.

[VG Zaytsev]

The main difference between the inquisition and European pogroms was that the form was exquisitely documented by the church's bureaucracy while the latter was the frequent result of mob actions. Leaving moderns to give the inquisition greater weight than it deserves because of that documentation while pogroms and general political violence at the same time is all but forgotten, even though it was several orders of magnitude more destructive.

[Heroic Mulatto]

That's true, but that's not at all what John was getting at.

[Invisible Finger]

It is EXACTLY what John was getting at. Protestant mob actions are historically ignored while similar Catholic actions though smaller in number are mentioned ad infinitum..

That pretty much defines propaganda.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I agree with that assessment, VG.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I agree to a certain extent "Protestant-anglo" writers and historians have maligned Latin history - Italy in particular - for some reason. Harry Hearder was a fine British historian who attempted to cut through this.

It's true progroms took place across Europe and to single out the Inquisition might be much but it still was a significant event.

[VG Zaytsev]

Sure, it helped to destroy Spain as a significant country and impoverish people living there.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Might makes sense about Spain but why fragmented Italy?

[Kid Xenocles]

Sometimes the winners deserve to write history.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Explain "deserve."

Just curious is all.

[Lord Humungus]

Man's blood alcohol content too high for police to measure

Mr. Carter told police he had drank two Bud Lights. Two. He failed an eye test and was unable to complete any other field sobriety tests. When they administered the breathalyzer test, the Press Citizen writes he, "?provided a weak breath into a preliminary breath test and the last reading was .467 before the PBT just read 'HI.'" Geez. I don't think you will be surprised to find out he was arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

[robc]

A friend of mine got pulled over by cops, they asked him if he had been drinking...he told them he had had 1 beer (he had two, actually). Cops makes him do the breathalizer...looks at result...and says "You are the first person who said 'I had just one' who has ever told me the truth. Go on, but slow it down."

Two Guinness over a two hour period reads a .02 or something.

[UnCivilServant]

The first is metabolized by the time you get to the second at that rate.

[robc]

Exactly. The point is, cops here "I only had X" and know its a lie, because even my friend lied, although he was doing it slow enough to make it true in the end.

[SugarFree]

I admitted to having "a beer" three hours before getting pulled over. They gave me five breathlyzers with three different machines before they let me go.

[robc]

Were you having a diabetic fit or something?

[SugarFree]

No, the state police were just pissed at me. They couldn't pop me for DUI, so they charged me for "eluding" because I turned into a driveway when they stopped me, instead of stopping the nonexistent shoulder of a busy two-lane. Four cruisers eventually showed up. I wasn't even being an asshole, I swear.

The judge threw it all out except the original speeding fine (and I was doing 76 in a 55, so I wasn't complaining about that.)

[Cyto]

I've been in a similar situation. The local Octoberfest festival had gone well and heading home I knew the highway patrol would be set up on the on ramp leaving the beer-fest, so I set my cruise control on the way down the ramp.

They pulled me over, saying I was doing 80 in a 65. Now, to be honest, this may have been the one and only time in my life that I was not doing 80 on that stretch. I don't think anyone is ever doing less than 75 there. Still, I was annoyed at the false accusation.

Since I hadn't had anything to drink for 3 hours I knew I was OK - but my wife was still pretty hammered. They pulled her out of the car and repeatedly questioned her about me - asking if she was OK. To her credit she said "yes, I have been drinking. That's why I am not driving."

I think they just pulled the wrong car - I was driving a black 4-door, not exactly an uncommon body style, at night, in the rain. But boy, were they pissed that I dared question them. After about 15-20 minutes of harassing us and asking to search the vehicle (denied), they eventually let me go with a warning. You'd think they had John Dillinger on their hands with all the gun grabbing going on.

Still, I'll give them full props for the final result. They made a mistake but nobody got beaten, nobody got arrested and no citations were issued. It sure could have gone worse.

[db]

In ChE304 (solution thermodynamics) one of our in-class example problems was to calculate, for given body masses, transport rates, and metabolic factors, how long you had after.chugging a beer.before you would blow.over the limit, and how long.it.would take to.drop below.the.limit again. I bet I.still have those notes somewhere.

[Brett L]

That's cool. We figured out in transport one time how long those paper masks work to keep a surgeon's mouth germs from infecting the OR. It was a decent amount of time, about 3-4 hours IIRC. After that, you're just pushing the same stuff that's inside you through the mask.

[thom]

The correct answer is "not enough to be legally intoxicated, go and fetch your breathalyzer."

[Kid Xenocles]

Whenever I see stories like this I'm amazed the person in question was even conscious, let alone able to drive with any sort of skill whatsoever.

I thought the 0.24 I blew in the hospital that one time was a lot (and it probably was). At least that's what they tell me, I don't remember.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Economist Richard Vedder: Federal student loans 'fuel academic arms race'
As combined student loan debts balloon to over $1 trillion, one economist believes enough is enough ? the "tremendously explosive" student loan programs offered by the federal government need to go.

Ohio University economist and chair of Center for College Affordability and Productive Richard Vedder recommends that President Barack Obama and Congress work together to dismantle or greatly shrink the student loan programs that let young Americans rack up debt.

"I would go so far as to say that I think the federal government is more the problem rather than the solution," Vedder told the Carolina Journal Radio during a Friday interview. "A lot of our problems? come from these tremendously explosive student loan programs and grant programs that the federal government provides." (RELATED: Federal student sharks prey on cancer patients filing for bankruptcy)

Giving 18-year-olds fresh from high school with no financial skills free reign to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars may not be the best course forward, Vedder said. Colleges flush with easy money spend it on administrative pay and luxury fitness centers, increasing tuition all the while....

[John]

It shows that RC's law that if you subsidize something you get more of it, isn't really a law but a mostly valid observation. Here, they subsidized college education and in fact got less of it as the colleges were relieved on the need to provide a better product in return for higher revenues.

[Auric Demonocles]

There is more college education, as basically everyone goes to college now. It's just that it's not as good.

[John]

There are more "degrees" but there is less education.

[Kid Xenocles]

Degrees are what's being subsidized, so doesn't that uphold the Iron Law?

[VG Zaytsev]

They subsidies college tuition and got more (higher) tuition. The continuing separation education for obtaining a degree is a related but separate issue.

[waffles]

Curiously with the higher and higher tuitions, they're not really subsidizing higher education but rather all the trappings of higher education, minus the education. It's the "college experience" but all fluff, no substance.

[robc]

Considering the borderline students are probably there for the experience and not the substance, I think you just proved John wrong.

[SugarFree]

You should see the fancy new dorms we are building. LEEP certified, private rooms, no community showers, festooned with elevators despite being only three stories high.

[robc]

GT did the same in the early 90s.

But they were olympic village "dorms", so they had incentive to do it.

[db]

That is shameful.

[Heroic Mulatto]

The latest dorm built on my campus has a fucking movie theater. It's rather small, but its still a fucking movie theater.

[db]

Jesus, we didn't even have a TV lounge.

[Brett L]

NOTHIHNG LEFT TO CUT!!

[Red Rocks Rockin]

The other racket they run is mandating that all first-year students have to live in the dorms. That adds another $5-10K on top of the tuition cost for housing.

[VG Zaytsev]

Considering the borderline students are probably there for the experience and not the substance

Most students are there for the experience and college administrators know it. Enhancing the 'experience' is where the money is being spent.

[Ted S.]

For fuck's sake, I knew this close to a quarter century ago when I first had to fill out a financial aid form. The college determined how much money the family would be able to pay toward tuition/room and board/expenses, and would come up with a combination of scholarships/loans for the rest.

I very quickly realized that if there were more aid available, the college would be able to increase tuition pay for it with the increased aid, and leave me to pay the same amount.

[Invisible Finger]

That is exactly why my father told me he was not going to give me a dime for college, he said nobody is entitled to his financial records (IRS not included). So I got a job (and then another one), paid my own way, and when I was nearly done the old man THEN gave me the money for the last two semesters even though I could afford them myself.

The best education I ever got was the education about not borrowing money.

[John]

Be the first kid on your block to sign up for the NSA clash action suit.

So we thought what better way to illustrate the point than having hundreds of thousands of Americans sign up for a class action suit. Six months ago, we began this call. We now have several hundred thousand people who want to be part of this suit to say to the government and to the NSA 'you can't have our records without our permission or without a warrant specific to an individual.' So, it's kind of an unusual class action suit in that we think everybody in America who has a cell phone would be eligible for this class action suit. If any of your viewers have a cell a phone, they just have to go to my Facebook tonight and they can sign up to be part of the lawsuit. We want to overwhelm the government and we want to show publicly that hundreds of thousands of people object to the government looking at our records without our permission.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-G.....bama-s-NSA

[db]

So when this lawsuit fails on a technicality, the list of plaintiffs will not possibly be used to identify targets for special scrutiny, right?

[John]

Thanks to Snowden, pretty much everyone who owns a cell phone has standing.

And if you are afraid of "special scrutiny", then the country is already lost anyway. Seriously, people in Cuba face the prospect of torture, death or spending their life locked in a windowless cell so small they can't lay down in. American's can't face the prospect of an IRS audit?

[WTF]

I think it boils down to most people in the US lead pretty cushy lives, so they have a lot to lose, while most Cubans lead pretty shitty lives, and so are more motivated.

[db]

This.

[Lord Humungus]

Ore. suspect in bizarre spree found fully clad in hot tub with machete: cops

A suspect in a bizarre Salem, Ore., rampage that included a house fire, a robbery and stealing elk meat was arrested while hiding fully clothed in a hot tub with a machete, authorities said.

Cops caught up with William Alva Riley Jr., 41, early Monday after he allegedly crashed a U-Haul truck, torched a home, robbed another and stole packs of frozen elk meat.

Riley offered no explanation for his alleged antics in a Tuesday court appearance.

[robc]

Crime scavenger hunt?

[db]

There is a movie in that idea.

[robc]

It will be poorly written and not as funny as it should be.

[db]

Yes, it would get dumbed down so as not to include any "offensive" crimes and it would still beslammed by concern trolling critics.

[db]

Explanation? Seriously?

[Ted S.]

Bath salts.

[Homple]

So "Florida Man" may have some real competition.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Funny money: How student loan profits make Obamacare look good
..."The change in student loans was part of Obamacare ? and why was it part of Obamacare?" McCluskey said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller. "So that the profit they were supposedly making from the student loans could then be plugged into how much money would come from Obamacare, so it didn't look like it cost as much."

In the last days of Obamacare's formulation, the projections had student loans folded into them to make them not seem so expensive.

"At the last minute, they said, 'Look, let's take what was then called the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, make it part of healthcare and then we can make the budget numbers come out right? [W]e will take these projected profits from the student loans, and we will say that's part of Obamacare.'"...

[Drake]

Was everyone involved with the writing Obamacare drunk and high? They just wrote random crazy shit into the bill as fast as possible. Senators voted on it without a clue what it contained and it was deemed approved in the House. What a cluster-fuck.

[Ted S.]

No; just evil.

[Lord Humungus]

Finnish town offering baby bonus logs record births

Mayor Esko Ahonen said a record 14 newborns arrived during 2013, and the parents will receive $1,360.50 per year for 10 years. Ahonen said the bonus was likely not the sole reason for the baby boom, as the municipality also put effort into offering first-rate education and child health services.

[waffles]

That seems like less than a child is worth if you are a single person in the United States. At least the cash value.

[Ted S.]

I'd presume it's a bonus above and beyond what Finnish parents already get in terms of social welfare.

[robc]

The Finnish baby boxes are nice.

It was the carrot they used to get mothers to see doctors during pregnancy.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Maybe the entire country got to fucking in celebration of their gold medal at the World Junior tournament? Especially considering they beat Canada in the semis and their arch-rivals Sweden in the final?

[The Late P Brooks]

Citing health concerns in her family, Liz Cheney is ending her campaign for Senate in Wyoming.

Boo fucking hoo.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Prosecutor Corrupt or Foolish? Defends Transcript Fabrication as a Joke
A Kern County judge has thrown out all child molestation charges against a defendant who was facing 16 years in prison because the prosecutor in the case added sentences to a transcript that indicated the defendant had admitted guilt when he hadn't.

Deputy District Attorney Robert Murray has been placed on paid administrative leave since the Kern County Public Defender's Office brought attention to the fact that he made changes to a transcript he sent to defense counsel in the case of Efrain Velasco-Palacios. Velasco-Palacios was charged with five counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years....

[John]

Perjury before the court gets you a paid vacation. Nice.

[Moe19]

Bill Clinton says hi.

[Ted S.]

Every defense lawyer in the county ought to use this as precedent.

[Griffin3]

FFFFFFUUUUUUUU-----

[PD Scott]

Is it really that hard to convince a jury that someone is a kiddy-diddler?

[Jordan]

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D- Nev.) said Sunday that Democrats will focus on the middle class in 2014

Well, of course. That's where all the money is, and they can't evade taxes like those eeeeevul richers.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

DeBlasio's Horse-Drawn Carriage Ban: Is It Really About Campaign Cash?
...The bad guy in this drama, according to the carriage drivers, is Steve Nislick, chief executive officer of a New Jersey-based real-estate development company, Edison Properties. The company "employs legions of lobbyists to influence city decisions on real estate and zoning in its favor," journalist Michael Gross reported in 2009, pointing out that two of Edison's businesses "have multiple locations in the same Far West Midtown neighborhood as the stables where the Central Park horses are housed." An anti-carriage pamphlet Nislick circulated in 2008 made this interesting observation: "Currently, the stables consist of 64,000 square feet of valuable real estate on lots that could accomodate up to 150,000 square feet of development. These lots could be sold for new development."

Gross asked the obvious question: "What are the odds that good neighbor Nislick, the out-of-state real estate developer, simply covets those valuable, underdeveloped New York lots -- and has teamed up with ambitious pols to use the emotions of animal rights activists as fuel for their own agendas?" Nislick founded a 501(c)4 group called New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets (NYCLASS) that spent big money to elect de Blasio mayor, as Chris Bragg of Crain's New York Business reported in October:...

[mad libertarian guy]

"What are the odds that good neighbor Nislick, the out-of-state real estate developer, simply covets those valuable, underdeveloped New York lots -- and has teamed up with ambitious pols to use the emotions of animal rights activists as fuel for their own agendas?"

Pretty fucking likely, I'd say.

[DontShootMe]

When "they" talk about giving 110%, I think it's situations like this they are referring to.

[Calvin Coolidge]

"Democrats will focus on the middle class in 2014"

Did anyone else feel a chill and the hand of the grim spectre of death brush their shoulder when they read that?

[Lord Humungus]

yes.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

I don't want to be a part of any group the democrats (or any politician for that matter) want to focus on.

[mad libertarian guy]

Democrats will focus on the middle class in 2014

I don't fucking want Democrats to "focus" on me. They have done enough goddamn damage without fucking focusing on me, thankyouverymuch.

Dear Pols: Leave. Me. The. Fuck. Alone. I don't want y9our attention. I don't want you fucking focus. I want you to get the fuck out of the way and allow my family to earn a goddamn living without you dipping your hand in my fucking bank account as the sole means of supporting your ridiculous agenda. Back the fuck off.

[General Butt Naked]

If I were a billionaire I'd pay for an ad campaign of Sam Elliot saying these exact words over a montage of eagles flying, fireworks, and the american flag.

[Homple]

Kickstarter campaign?

[Zeb]

Isn't the good thing about being middle class supposed to be that you have the means to take care of yourself with a bit left over for fun stuff and don't need any "help" from the government or charity?

[Lord Humungus]

ZOMG: we got hit by Snowmaggedon! Everything is shut down! Jeff Bridges got publicly kicked in the nuts!

...and I still had to drive into work...

[Ted S.]

Heavy rain here; I'm worried about it freezing up tonight when the temperature goes down. 🙁

[Rufus J. Firefly]

It's wreaking havoc at my daycare. Frozen pipes and now the temp is at 5c. from -35 to plus 5. I have to go and manually try to thaw the pipe.

Retarded.

[Lord Humungus]

don't burn the place down with the hairdryer

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

I posted this last night, I thought it was quite neat. Through statistical analysis, a fellow nuclear engineer of mine (and staunch libertarian) has found that income distribution follows the second law of thermodynamics.

Second law of thermodynamics:

The entropy of any isolated system not in thermal equilibrium almost always increases. Closed systems spontaneously evolve towards thermal equilibrium?the state of maximum entropy of the system?in a process known as "thermalization".

From Study:

When we examine transfer/redistributive taxation, the tax code is specifically tailored to affect the distribution of income. In doing so, the tax code affects the system's entropy. If the system was already at a state of maximal entropy for a given average income, then any redistribution lowers the society's entropy and destroys wealth. Progressive taxation, compresses our society destroying entropy (liberty) and free energy (wealth). This inhibits the overall action that we can achieve. It also induces for lack of a better word social stress. Here the stress is in the society being pushed away from its natural state into some entirely arbitrary configuration. It is difficult to envision this as success as more are made worse off than those being made better off.

[mad libertarian guy]

You do know that thermodynamics is racist, right?

Racist.

[waffles]

Like the French.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I remember it from yesterday. Would you be willing to explain to me, as a layman, how this is different, if at all, from information theory?

[db]

Good question. I hope that the original work doesn't commit some of the errors I have seen before, namely, confusing information "entropy" with the actual physical concept. Entropy means a lot more than simply "disorder," as many laypeople mistake it. I hope this is.not the case with this.work and will reserve further.comment until I have read.it.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

We choose to focus on the maximum entropy point of the system for several reasons: it assumes the least amount of information compared to other hypothesis, it is the most probable configuration given the information, distributions of lower entropy are atypical, that they have greater "disorder", or that they are "smoother".[5] I do not prefer to use "disorder" because of the connotations associated with it of a lack of structure. This is quite the contrary; a system at maximum entropy based on its constraints has a very clearly defined structure. The entropy is a measure then of how capable the systems components are "free" to explore the allowed configurations. In this sense, entropy provides a measure of "freedom" or "liberty".

[Heroic Mulatto]

I see.

And now I have to think.

[mad libertarian guy]

And now I have to think.

Be careful. The NSA is probably listening and is looking for that guy engaging in thoughtcrime. You're probably him.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Fortunately, I only post behind 7 proxies.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

I am not too familiar with information theory so I will have to review it to answer your question.

The premise of this paper is that Log-Normal relationships are found in income distributions and so seeks to apply the relationship to policy analysis. What the paper finds is that the entropy of a system (liberty or freedom of a society) tends away from the maximum when external forces (taxes, wealth redistribution policies, labour laws, etc.) are applied to a system. In his policy analysis he focuses more on taxation and wealth re-distribution as factors that only help destroy the wealth (free energy) of a society rather than what the intentions are of such legislation.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

When we examine the Log-Normal distribution in closer detail, we find that we garner valuable information from the results. Perhaps the most important consequence of all of this exposition is that we cannot avoid the second law of thermodynamics. This is an iron law, and one that cannot be violated. Stated another way. Good intentions are not good enough to achieve favorable outcomes.

We can only hope to achieve favorable outcomes if we examine the change in distribution of the things that we measure. The information content of the distribution, entropy, and its trend is as important as the average value and more important than any other metric. As entropy is purely a statistical metric, it exists for anything that we observe. Thermodynamics is formally a study of how the distribution of particles in phase space change. It is perhaps the most powerful mathematical framework we have for any quantitative analysis.

[db]

I saw your link and haven't had time to read the whole thing. I will, and if it is good, I'll pass it on to Dr. Girlfriend for further review of the statistics parts. Dr. Father-in-law, Ph.D. will get a crack at it too.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

I would love to hear her review of the paper. I am quite rusty on my statistical knowledge so review by someone with expertise on the subject would be great.

[db]

She is typically brutal in her reviews of studies and papers that do bad statistics, regardless of politics. It is quite funny at times.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

Good. Bias for political reasons does not help anyone.

If she finds error I will forward her comments to the author and see what his response is.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Is your girlfriend's name Lileth by any chance?

[db]

No...why?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Lileth from Cheers.

Dr. Girlfriend.

Smart women.

Bad joke reference to Cheers.

Sigh.

[db]

Blast from the past. She and Frazier were actually my two least favorite.characters.on that show.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I could swear I heard or read something along these lines in a science book somewhere.

In any event, cool.

I've always found it interesting the gulf between how we teach our kids to handle money (savings (to build credit), living within means, save for a rainy day theory etc), runs EXACTLY contrary to how the government manages money.

[Invisible Finger]

Who's "we"? Public schools teach kids to handle money EXACTLY like public schools handle money - always ask for more and throw a fit if you don't get it.

[The Late P Brooks]

Democrats will focus on the middle class in 2014 and attempt to extend emergency unemployment benefits.

The middle class is defined by welfare benefits?

I can't wait for my enhanced chocolate ration!

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

If the democrats focus long enough, every class outside of the ruling class will be defined by their welfare ration.

[robc]

I have trouble calling anyone unemployed "middle class". Pretty much while unemployed, you tend to be in the lowest quintile of earners.

[mad libertarian guy]

It isn't what you earn that determines your class, it's your level of credentialism.

A garbage man busting his ass 40+ hour a week and earning a decent living enough to own a house along with his wife who works at the Waffle House is part of the working class, while a liberal arts Ph D educated part time adjunct who makes dick is part of the middle class.

See?

[waffles]

So we're becoming more like Europe? That sucks.

[mad libertarian guy]

Is that not obvious?

A very good friend of mine has proclaimed to me that Obamacare has done the middle class well because it helped him, a liberal arts educated adjunct at small rural community college extensions, to be able to procure health insurance (even though it's no cheaper than if he had purchased it off the shelf just a few months ago).

He makes somewhere in the neighborhood of $20k per, yet claims himself part of the middle class because of his education.

[UnCivilServant]

Screw that. I make 70K, but because of debt maintenence and credit score, I can't sustain a middle-class lifestile, so I'm at best lower middle (Until I correct those first two issues). Some 20K cranial rectal intrusion (person with head up their ass) is *gasp* - poor, because they made poor economic decisions regarding their career.

[Invisible Finger]

Yep, a caste system American-style.

[Auric Demonocles]

Well, I'm not surprised at that, since the great recovery Obama supposedly saw us through, to avoid the "biggest disaster since the Great Depression", means that 99 weeks of unemployment wasn't enough.

[Zeb]

If you've been unemployed for over 2 years, you just might not be middle class anymore.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Why are you homos not discussing/masturbating to Jen Selter?

[Jordan]

Only because she never poses nude. Still:

DAT ASS!

[Heroic Mulatto]

Only because she never poses nude

This should be a X Prize for hackers, cuz you just know all that shit is on her smartphone.

[JW]

Is the guy who peepholed Erin Andrews out of jail yet?

[A wild THANE appeared!]

DAT ASS!

...is too big!

[Homple]

Disproportionate, anyway.

[Calidissident]

Nonsense

[John]

I came upon and interesting graph this weekend. Sorry but it was not on the web that I can find. The graph showed defense spending in 2013 dollars from 1960 until now. The interesting part of the graph was that the highest defense spending under the Reagan build up was $563 billion in 1986. In FY 2013, they spent between $700 and $800. Remember, in 1986, we had an army of 18 active divisions, a 500 ship Navy and a much larger air force. We got all of that for two hundred billion dollars less than what we are paying for our much smaller force today. And the WOT doesn't explain all of that difference. We were only fighting one major conflict in FY 2013 and had 1/5th the number of people in it that we had in Europe in 1986.

Thanks mostly I think to the Clinton and George W. Bush Administration's love of eliminating soldier positions to pay off crony contractors, DOD has become a bloated mess. Sadly, the Democrats will happily cut DOD's budget but will do so by further reducing capability and allowing the bloat and theft to continue because bloat and theft is what they do. The Republicans are so brain dead and corrupt and so quick to salute the flag they are incapable of subjecting DOD to actual oversight. We are destroying our military and paying hundreds of billions of dollars for the privilege.

[sarcasmic]

The toys are a lot more expensive to purchase and maintain than they were in the 80s.

[John]

Not that much more. And we buy fewer of them than we did. That justification for the cost of an F22 is that they are so good you need fewer of them than you would need if you stuck with the F16 and thus save money overall even though each plane costs more. The more expensive toys are supposed to save money. And indeed, I bet they mostly do. The cost of making all of those F15s and F16s we had in 1986 I bet was a lot higher than the cost of making the F22s we have now.

So that is not it.

[sarcasmic]

Google "F22 maintenance cost." It's insane.

[John]

The maintenance on those F15s wasn't cheap either. But, why is the maintenance so high? The fact that instead of having an Air Force Tech SGT working on the plane, we have a contractor from Lockhead has something to do with that.

[sarcasmic]

Yeah. There's no difference between 80s technology and today's. The only difference is the cost of who is doing the work. Sure, John. Whatever you say.

[John]

Sure Bo. There is no bloat at DOD. None at all. And clearly they were working on P51 with Rolls Royce engines in 1986. There is nothing difficult or technical about any of that stuff.

[sarcasmic]

There is no bloat at DOD. None at all.

Great rebuttal to an argument I never made! Bravo, Tulpa! You're on a roll!

[John]

It wasn't a rebuttal you half wit. It was a sarcastic cometary on how hard headed you are.

If you agree that there is huge bloat at DOD, then you agree with my point. Given that, why did you say

The toys are a lot more expensive to purchase and maintain than they were in the 80s.

with no qualifiers? What is that supposed to mean other than you think I am wrong and the cause of the increased cost is bloat?

This is why you act like Bo sometimes. You start arguments for no apparent reason and by the end of some pointless back and forth end up conceding the point and scream TULPA and STRAWMAN at everyone. Just stop it.

[sarcasmic]

What is that supposed to mean other than you think I am wrong and the cause of the increased cost is bloat?

There was no hidden meaning, John. The words simply meant what they said.

Aren't you the guy who said that the increased cost of health care is in part because technological innovations are expensive?

Maybe, possibly, the increased cost of military equipment is also (HERE IS YOUR QUALIFIER YOU PEDANTIC CHILD) in part because technological innovations are expensive.

[John]

Maybe, possibly, the increased cost of military equipment is also (HERE IS YOUR QUALIFIER YOU PEDANTIC CHILD) in part because technological innovations are expensive.

Not when you have a much smaller military overall it doesn't. If we had just as many planes and ships, sure that would explain it. But we don't. It is possible that these things are so much more expensive that even our smaller numbers are more expensive. But that seems very unlikely given the dramatic drop in size and the fact that the systems we had in 1986 were for their time very expensive and very technologically advanced.

I don't think your observation is true or explains this at all. And further, one of the reasons why these systems are so expensive is that there is even less oversight now than there was in the 1980s. I don't see any way you can say that we are getting the same amount of defense per dollar now than we were 30 years ago. And that is a problem.

Now, please scream strawman and TULPA and RED Tony in all caps and completely ignore what I just wrote, because that is your move.

[sarcasmic]

I didn't say it was the sole explanation nor did I argue against DOD bloat. You're reading things that aren't there. Whatever. Keep arguing with yourself. It's what you do best.

[John]

I didn't say it was the sole explanation nor did I argue against DOD bloat.

Then you really didn't say anything. If your observation doesn't imply that, then it isn't relevant to the discussion.

[sarcasmic]

Oh golly, John. I didn't realize you were the arbiter of all things relevant. Please give me your personal email so I can run all my comments past you before posting anything on this public forum. Thank you in advance for all of your wisdom.

[tarran]

I agree with John.

My dad did a bunch of work on R&D for the DOD, and the older weapons systems were just as pie in the sky as the modern ones. The type of engineering that produced the B-2 wasn't too different than the engineering to produce the F-22; the materials required were just as exotic; the new technologies that had to be invented requires similar resources etc. If anything the modern era should be cheaper, because computer drafting and analysis reduces the amount of highly trained and specialized manpower required to generate a working design.

The major creep is that
a) Requirements are more complex (must be environmentally sustainable, using american sourced parts, manufactured by a woman/minority owned business etc).

b) The bureaucracies has grown to the limit of the resources the govt is throwing at them.

I only have one data point as far as the JSF, goes; when I was in the Navy, a bunch of contractors were sent out to my ship to gather data to be used to make the JSF a carrier compatible aircraft. To me their visit made no sense (Navsea has plenty of people ashore who can tell you exactly what you need, including some air bases that have the catapults and arresting gear). They behaved like they were on a junket, walking around pressing little lapel pins with a model of the fighter into every officer's hand.

If they weren't an outlier, but an example of business as usual, I can see how costs would be very, very bloated.

[John]

Tarran,

Read John Warner's book about his time as Sec Navy under Reagan. The US has always opted for the high tech, high firepower value, low number solution. Every weapon system we have bought since WWII has been the top shelf new next gen pie in the sky solution. And it costs a lot more to do that today than it did then.

[tarran]

I think I did read it (it was a long time ago).

And that is an accurate assertion. One thing to bear in mind, in World War II, the U.S. Navy started out technologically way behind the Japanese. Adm Winslow's The Fleet the Gods Forgot (which I cannot recommend strongly enough! Anybody interested in naval history should read it) covers it very well. American torpedos didn't work. The U.S. were bad at gunnery. American fighters though better armored, were inferior in every other respect to Japanese fighters.

In the battle of Midway, entire squadrons were annihilated, sacrificed in suicide missions in order to blunt the sword that was the IJN.

When I joined the Navy in the early 90's, the horror of those years and a desire not to repeat them were largely gone, but not completely. The guys who survived the war and the first generation they trained really wanted to avoid such a horror of fighting with inferior weapons.

When I joined the Navy in the early 90's, that

[Invisible Finger]

If they weren't an outlier, but an example of business as usual, I can see how costs would be very, very bloated.

This is what pisses me off about Rumsfeld - he identified all kinds of DoD bloat except the obvious bloat in scope-creep.

You guys keep looking at the exotic programs as the source of bloat when the boring reality is the everyday mundane shit is responsible for most of it. I'd bet the cost bloat in something like uniforms is in the area of 800%.

[Ted S.]

So now you're just going to claim that anybody who disagrees with you is Bo?

[waffles]

Mea Tulpa.

[Drake]

He knows.

[John]

Ted,

How about someone make a cogent point? "We just have so much more technology" is not an adequate explanation for the statistics I cite.

It is a simple observation that has been made about a million times here and other places; DOD contractors are robbing the country blind. Now, you have a reason to think that observation is not true, give it. But if you do think it is true, either don't say anything or say as much. But please refrain from doing what sarcasmic does and just drop some random observation you have pulled out of your ass that implies you disagree with the observation when in fact you do. That is just annoying and pointless.

[sarcasmic]

But please refrain from doing what sarcasmic does and just drop some random observation you have pulled out of your ass that implies you disagree with the observation when in fact you do.

The implication was only in your mind. Grow up.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Pick sides! I will use Tony.

I'm already selecting socks.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Yeah. There's no difference between 80s technology and today's. The only difference is the cost of who is doing the work. Sure, John. Whatever you say

No, John's got a point. Yes, the technology is more sophisticated today, even in the legacy aircraft, because they've installed and updated modern avionics systems over the years. Is it cheaper to hire contractors? Well, that's the argument, but I'd love to see an apples-to-apples comparison of what it costs a wing to pay one wrench-monkey from L3 who retired in the mid-90s as opposed to an E-5 with four-ten years of experience. Because it's my experience that contractors make up a huge portion of the annual spending budget. It's why there's an increasing emphasis on simulators--the flying hour cost isn't just fuel and parts, it's paying the wrench-turners to put them back together.

[Timon 19]

Umm...John, I'm not really sure you know what you're talking about.

[sarcasmic]

Umm...John, I'm not really sure you know what you're talking about.

In other news, water is wet.

[John]

Yeah,

Sarcasmic, you and a few other people are often not bright enough to follow the discussion. I will give you credit for admitting that.

[sarcasmic]

I write

"The toys are a lot more expensive to purchase and maintain than they were in the 80s."

You read

"There's no bloat in the DOD! Contractors are not overpaid! You're wrong, John! You're wrong! It's only the price of equipment and that's it! Only the equipment and nothing else! No bloat! Only equipment! That's it! Nothing else! NOTHING ELSE AT ALL! NO BLOAT! DOD IS FINE! AAAUUUGGGHHH! IT'S JUST THE COST OF EQUIPMENT! AH! AUUUGGHHH!"

And I'm the one who isn't bright enough to follow a discussion.

Sure, Tulpa. Whatever you say.

[Ted S.]

Wouldn't inflation make that $563B something like $1.2T today?

[John]

That is in 2013 dollars. So the figures are adjusted for inflation and thus comparable.

[DJF]

And while at the same time as the US military has less forces, the US politicians are running around the world finding more places to expand commitments of that military. And nobody at the Pentagon objects, nether civilian or military.

Expanding the number of NATO countries and greatly expanding where it operates around the world

Africa Command

"Pivot to the Pacific" to confront China

[Redmanfms]

And nobody at the Pentagon objects, nether civilian or military.

Probably because they aren't allowed to you fucking moron.

Civilians are appointed by those very same politicians and the active-duty military leadership knows enough to keep its mouth shut and do what it is told.

[Enough About Palin]

-22 at the bus stop this morning. FUCK! On the plus side, it's supposed to warm up to -18 today, so it's all good.

[db]

Hey, at least you can look forward to being crammed into a spam can with 40-50 other hot, smelly people for.warmth.

[Pope Jimbo]

It was -21 when I woke up. The employer had given the green light to let us work from home today if applicable and I decided to take them up on it.

Now that kids are up and running around like monkeys, I may go into the office for the peace and quiet.

[Invisible Finger]

Don't bother. Guy at the office went to start his car every couple hours and drive it for 5-10 minutes. Last time he came back 60 minutes later with a smashed up car and a court summons to nail the licenseless driver that hit him.

Some work of mine gets accomplished better at home, some better at the office. The stuff that's better accomplished at the office can wait a day. My car starts just fine and will probably be OK after sitting in -20 for 4 hours, but why be on the road when the percentage of idiots is higher than usual?

[A wild THANE appeared!]

Why aren't you riding a sleigh pulled by crying orphans?

[John]

The enormous butthurt on the Weather Channel over the cold winter is enormously entertaining to watch. Normally they sing the AGW song every day all of the time. The butthurt is just palpable as they stand out in -20 in Minneapolis talking about the "extreme weather".

[sarcasmic]

When it's cold it's just weather. When it's warm it's climate OMG.

[Auric Demonocles]

It's like 50 today in Boston. Expect to hear about how "abnormally" high it is, ignoring how cold it was about 4 days.

[Drake]

It's 55 right now in NJ, but is supposed to be 0 tonight. Hope the road doesn't become a skating rink before I get home tonight.

[BSubversive.com]

Last evening when I lugged the garbage to the curb it was in the 40s then the wind kicked up and it's been snowing since early morning. Since I'm in bitter clinger country, it's a coming your way NJ.

[CampingInYourPark]

While scanning through channels yesterday I heard one of the PGA commentators exclaim how climate change was responsible for the bunkers on a hole not being in play on some golf course in Hawaii.

[CampingInYourPark]

Why Kapalua climate change could affect your fantasy picks this week (and beyond)

http://www.golfdigest.com/golf.....z2pd3T3bcW

[General Butt Naked]

You're gloating over Weather Channel butthurt?

C'mon man, I though you better than that.

[John]

I have a weather babe fetish.

[JW]

Dear, Zod, pleae tell me it's not Mrs. Ed in the morning with Al Roker.

[John]

Yea all women are ugly and look like horses in Reason land.

[JW]

Stop looking at her tits and gaze upon her equine beauty!

She's the 5 of the Weather Channel. MILF Maria Loroso can spank her on any day.

[BakedPenguin]

Maria Loroso can spank her...

If this had a good chance of happening, I bet ratings would improve.

[John]

Maria is a lot hotter and a serious MILF. But I wouldn't kick the other one out of bed either.

[Pope Jimbo]

Us real folk in Sunny Minnesota are bitching about how the worthless kids are getting the day off from school. Pussies.

When we were kids we went to school at any temp. It took at least a foot of snow and blowing winds to break us out.

OK. I remember getting out of school once in 84 or 85 because it was -30 or so. With the windchill it was down in the -60's. But we were called pussies by our elders back then too.

[tarran]

You guys just don't get what it means to be Boston Strong.

[Auric Demonocles]

People here in Boston are pretty weak about winter. They act like 6 inches of snow is a big deal, or 10 degrees is cold.

[Invisible Finger]

It is invariably the teacher's union that insisted the schools be closed. Bitch about the pussified teachers, not the students.

[Mike M.]

Every year is the fourth warmest year in history.

[Invisible Finger]

I like how they go outside and tell you its too dangerous to be outside. Why would I trust any person that stupid to give me any useful information or even be able to identify facts?

[The Late P Brooks]

Speaking of Liz Cheney, the intellectual giants on Morning Joke were reporting on her withdrawal with surprising restraint. I would have thought they would be dancing on the tables in jubilation over the defeat of an evul gay-hating neocon wunderkind. But, of course she is part of the Washington Insider Class nomenklatura, and deserving of the utmost collegial respect.

"One of us! One of us!"

[General Butt Naked]

Posted this yesterday, but am posting it again because you free market nut jobs need to have reality drilled into your heads.

Not that you'll be able to refute the awesomeness of public institutions, but you may learn something.

[waffles]

I'm confused.

Only the hype of the free-market media keeps much of America believing that "winner-take-all" is preferable to working together as a community

Is this website a symptom if this hype? Are you all just trying to trick me into the every man for himself rat race? I think I'm about to have a solipsistic existential crisis here. How can any of you prove you're real?

[General Butt Naked]

I knew you loserdopians wouldn't get it. Maybe try reading it again, but slower and with Rush turned down.

[sarcasmic]

Profits! OMG! Profits! Greed! Profits!

[UnCivilServant]

Whoever scribbled that clearly never worked in the mid-levels of a bureaucracy as anything but a 'chosen one'. All of my anti-government bile comes from being a government employee. The more I see of it, the less I like it.

[sarcasmic]

I never realized how wasteful government is until my work took me into the bowels of the federal bureaucracy.

After seeing it in action with my own eyes, there is no way I could be convinced that they can do anything efficiently.

[mr simple]

Why would you offer them page hits?

[Calvin Coolidge]

Six reasons:

1 - The Profit Motive Moves Most of the Money to the Top

Relies on the example of "Medicare, which is largely without the profit motive and is efficiently run". When the author holds up Medicare as an example of the government doing something well, they have already lost the argument.

2 - "Privatization Serves People with Money, the Public Sector Serves Everyone"

Uses the Post Office, which is going bankrupt and cutting service, and the Public Education system as positive examples. Makes me start to wonder if this is one of those The Onion parodies.

3. Privatization Turns Essential Human Needs into Products

Horrors! Food, a product? Clothing, a product? Much better for them to be, not products, but entitlements - doled out by the state to those with sufficient influence to go to the front of the line.

(cont.)

[Lord Humungus]

3. Privatization Turns Essential Human Needs into Products

Please form a line to receive your yearly ration of coveralls. If this item of clothing is lost or damaged in any way, Form 12X322B-104-33AX will have to be filled out in triplicate. A replacement will take 4-6 months.

[Invisible Finger]

Those would be small pox infested coveralls, right?

[Calvin Coolidge]

4. Public Systems Promote a Strong Middle Class

The author can't even decide what they are arguing here. They want to say "public employees get more generous wage and benefit packages", but are at least conscious enough to know that this won't go over too well, so they settle for claiming they are paid the same as the private sector.

5. The Private Sector Has Incentive To Fail, or No Incentive At All

This is just completely ridiculous. It goes 180 degrees away from the truth, which is that government fails upwards but in the private sector, where your own money is involved, there is an incentive not to fail and lose it.

6. With Public Systems, We Don't Have to Listen To "Individual Initiative" Rantings

Another one of those "We are all just helpless victims of fate, with no control over our lives" rants. Funny how people who believe this usually end up failing. It is the excuse of the lazy, the stupid, and the venal. Does chance play a role in life? Yes. Does the accident of birth? Yes. Is there much the indiviudual can do to overcome these? Yes. Is there political advantage if the Left convinces us we are all just helpless children who need a strong daddy to take care of us? Yes

[John]

I guess the Marxist tactical retreat to academia has produced results. 24 years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall, Progs are publicly going full commie again.

Leftists remember everything and learn nothing.

[Calvin Coolidge]

The Bush years, followed by Obama's election, have made them insane. They no longer hide their agenda behind lip service to capitalism or individual freedom. They are perfectly willing to advocate "massive, debt-financed government spending" as a means for economic growth (Larry Summers), or to admit that they feel people are too stupid to make their own decisions ("Yes, you lost your policy, but it was Junk Insurance, you were just too ignorant to realize it.")

If only there was a valid alternative party that wasn't shackled to the losing side of the 19th century's intellectual debates, I might have hope that Progressivism would eat itself.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

But that's exactly what they are: Losers.

Not to pick on my brother without him being here but he's always ranting about capitalism, Wal-Mart and all the prog talking points.

This from a mooch who never paid a bill in his life or held a serious job for any amount of time. What's both pathetic and maddening is he's intelligent, good looking, well-read, cultured, from an upper-middle class background and healthy! He has no excuse for his thinking and lot at the moment.

[General Butt Naked]

This from a mooch who never paid a bill in his life...

How the fuck does he live then?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

He lives in a duplex owned by his mother-in-law. His business is rent-free courtesy of my parents.

He's not even taking advantage of the situation having racked up debt we had to bail him out of.

But you know, Wal-Mart.

[JW]

But you know, Wal-Mart.

I hold the elderly greeters at Wal-Mart in higher regard than your bum kin.

[John]

What is both sinister and comical about that article is that the writer either lies or somehow has managed to convince himself not to think of or believe the implications of his argument.

If the public sector is better than the private sector in the ways he mentions, then there should be no private sector. That means two things. First, the government should do everything and provide every service. Second, to accomplish that it should be illegal for anyone except the government to provide any good or service. That means when someone grows tomatoes in their backyard and sells them, they need to be thrown in prison.

He is advocating full on totalitarian communism. But I wouldn't be surprised that he is so stupid he doesn't even realize that. Certainly most of his readers don't.

[Calvin Coolidge]

Plus, there is the usual Lefty schizophrenia about the public schools and the roads. First of all, they represent Government at is finest, doing what only government could do and making it possible for us to earn a living. On the other hand, the schools are always underfunded and ineffective, and the roads are always an embarassment and completely falling apart.

"Politics" is used to square this circle. "They would work fine, except for politics!". Blaming politics for the failure of government is like saying you would support prostitution as long as there was no sex involved. Politics is a feature of government, not a bug.

[BakedPenguin]

If the public sector is better than the private sector in the ways he mentions, then there should be no private sector.

Exactly. If all of their "public multiplier" bullshit were true, communism would have worked. North Korea, Cuba would be working.

[sarcasmic]

Those places are working. There are no rich people to envy and everyone is equal. It's paradise.

[JW]

He is advocating full on totalitarian communism. But I wouldn't be surprised that he is so stupid he doesn't even realize that. Certainly most of his readers don't.

It can't be just a coincidence that multiple articles have come out recently, saying mostly the same thing.

[Lurker Jack]

I believe you are correct. And this is frightening.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Molyneux rebutted.

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

[General Butt Naked]

That's actually where I got the link. Molyneux absolutely destroyed that little philistine's "argument".

[The Late P Brooks]

All of my anti-government bile comes from being a government employee. The more I see of it, the less I like it.

Are you not of the Body, Friend?

[Lord Humungus]

50 Years Later, War on Poverty Is a Mixed Bag

Still, a broad range of researchers interviewed by The New York Times stressed the improvement in the lives of low-income Americans since Mr. Johnson started his crusade. Infant mortality has dropped, college completion rates have soared, millions of women have entered the work force, malnutrition has all but disappeared. After all, when Mr. Johnson announced his campaign, parts of Appalachia lacked electricity and indoor plumbing.

Many economists argue that the official poverty rate grossly understates the impact of government programs. The headline poverty rate counts only cash income, not the value of in-kind benefits like food stamps. A fuller accounting suggests the poverty rate has dropped to 16 percent today, from 26 percent in the late 1960s, economists say.

derp.

[John]

If the Times is willing to concede any liberal program is anything but a full on success, the program is disaster of such proportions that even their brain dead readers can't help but notice it.

[Drake]

Crusade = bad when Christians resist Muslims.

Crusade = good when slimy politicians buy votes.

[a better weapon]

After all, when Mr. Johnson announced his campaign, parts of Appalachia lacked electricity and indoor plumbing.

Why don't we just go ahead and put the technological certitude of easily accessible electricity in the win column for Big Government, whattaya say?

[Brett L]

So did apartment complexes in NYC. Some still do. Wasn't there a story about a hipster who was living in a walkup who had to use a chamber pot?

[Invisible Finger]

Chamber pots remind of me of Al Swearengen.

It's all the hipster douches that don't flush in the public bathroom that make it smell like a bad bar. If you don't want to flush, fine, then go out and piss in the bushes; pissing indoors is unnatural enough which is why we flush the fucking toilets!

[mad libertarian guy]

Many economists argue that the official poverty rate grossly understates the impact of government programs. The headline poverty rate counts only cash income, not the value of in-kind benefits like food stamps.

If a single woman with children has no job but gets a welfare check, food stamps, housing assistance, free lunch for her children, and whatever other welfare programs one can imagine, she shouldn't be considered poor.

Yeah.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

[Lord Humungus]

Weather Is Not Climate
Antarctic ice doesn't discredit the warmists, but they should dial down the death-cult drama.

Clearly, the fundamental theory behind global warming is sound: Basic physical chemistry dictates that if you change the makeup of the atmosphere, other things will change, too. The trouble is that, whatever they say, nobody really knows what or on what scale. And they certainly don't know enough to warn that the end times are nigh. Nevertheless, that hasn't stopped a diverse cast of prognosticators from trying ? safe in the knowledge that being a climate scientist, to paraphrase a 1970s romantic movie that Al Gore claimed he inspired, means never having to say you're sorry.

Progressives understandably hate it when they are mocked in simple language for complex predictions. Often they have a point. But the remedy is squarely within their hands. With a bit more "we're not sure" and a bit less "and when he had opened the second seal," they might well find that fewer people are looking out of the window and saying, soberly, "Well, this wasn't supposed to happen today."

[db]

I don't think "Physical Chemistry" means what they think it.means.

[Brett L]

Come now, I'm sure quantum theory has something to do with climate change. Absorption spectra and whatnot.

[Juice]

?? What do you think it means?

[db]

The context of the usage shows their understanding of the term does not mesh with what is actually studied in p-chem.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I noticed they've shifted from atmospheric global warming to focusing on the ocean. I could be wrong.

[Brett L]

Its logical in a way. They assume that the inbound energy and outbound energy at the atmospheric boundary is constant, or nearly so (see their arm waving about the Maunder Minimum not being applicable to the current solar sunspot minimum). Basic conservation of energy dictates that if the temperature is not warming, and the inbound energy is greater than the outbound energy (due, in their theory to reflection of UV as IR back into the lower atmosphere by CO2 and other AGW gases) then it must have gone into the only place that we don't have good energy profiles for -- the deep ocean.

Like I say, if you assume that OUT < IN as an unchanging truth (which is not how most systems would work. even with greenhouse effects, eventually an equilibrium is reached. It doesn't keep getting warmer every second the sun is out in a greenhouse.) and the air temperature isn't changing, there's only one logical answer.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

This is my Homer "Mr. Thompson" blank stare.

Will have to reread that.

[Brett L]

Don't know how serious you are, but the short version of the laws of thermodynamics and energy conservation say that Energy In must equal Energy Out plus the Change in Energy in a system. In this case, Earth. The Greenhouse Effect by which certain molecules absorb UV light and emit IR (heat) has been observed for over a century. The AGW basis is that CO2 caused the energy balance that would normally result in stable temperatures to change. So that more energy has coming into the atmosphere than leaving since some time during industrialization -- probably the mid 70s or early 80s depending on how long the time lag is between the effect and observation.

The energy in the system increases, and this is reflected by the average air temperature as the gas is going to absorb almost all of the energy. Thus rising average temperatures of climate change.

But, about 1998-99, the average global temperature really leveled off, indicating a new equilibrium. But where did the energy go? Because CO2 and other greenhouse gases were still increasing in concentration in the atmosphere. The energy can't be retained in the atmosphere because the temperature isn't changing. It is either leaving the atmosphere into space at the same rate it is coming in, or it is being absorbed by the ocean. They would prefer it be absorbed into the ocean, because if a new equilibrium can be reached with the atmosphere/space boundary, the problem is not that bad.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I'm always not semi-serious.

Thanks for taking the time. Makes sense and do understand and see what you're saying.

[db]

My big.concern is if sea ice were truly declining, that phase change represents a huge amount of latent heat. If the oceans were to lose that massive buffer, the climate could theoretically become.more.unstable. but the sea ice.measurements seem to be either.unreliable or not actually indicating such a decline.

[Brett L]

As best I can tell from interested by casual perusal, net sea ice has been pretty stable, with loss in the northern hemisphere being offset by gain in the southern hemisphere.

Also, and this has nothing to do with db's comment, I did not mean any of my above comments to say that I do not think that the ocean and its currents don't have complex effect on the Earth and its climates, or even on the average tropospheric temperature. The PDMO, for example, obviously affects temperatures and rainfall on at least the American continents.

[Invisible Finger]

Sounds more like geomagnetic reversal than man-made effects on climate.

[Entropy Void]

Feh.

extending unemployment benefits makes good economic sense?

http://www.linkedin.com/today/.....MabZ0cfS41

[db]

Anyone proposing longer unemployment.benefits.on.linkedin deserves what they get.

[General Butt Naked]

Good point.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I heard Reich say something about that this morning. The argument went along the lines of "You need to be looking for work in order to collect unemployment benefits, so if you end unemployment benefits, a significant percentage of people will stop looking."

That has got to be some of the most strained logic I have ever heard from a public figure.

[BakedPenguin]

Yeah, but it's working so well.

[tarran]

So they are only looking for work while they get paid to look for work, but magically cease desiring money when they are no longer paid to look for work?

Reich's spinning so hard he's lost his event horizon and has become a naked singularity of derpiness.

[db]

"...if you end unemployment benefits, a significant percentage of people will stop looking [for work, and resign themselves to homelessness and a slow death by exposure and starvation.]"

Yes, that is totally plausible.

[Drake]

They are religious zealots. The same types who marched off to the Children's Crusade 800 years ago. Hardly the first or last time they do something laughably stupid based on faith.

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2.....ncrofttrip

[mr simple]

"They were experiencing temperatures that weren't expected with global warming," Atwood said. "But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability."

It's all proof of what we believe!

[Gilbert Martin]

How many of the MSM stories about the Autstralian ship stuck in the Antartic ice mentioned the fact that the reason for it being there was global warming "research"?

Not a single one that I saw or heard.

[SugarFree]

Newbusters said they found 1 out of 41 stories mentioned the reason of the mission.

[Sevo]

SF, it changed. First it was to document warming, now it's to recreate some explorer's trip!

[SugarFree]

The chocolate ration went up! Woo!

[Brett L]

Didn't that explorer die in the Antarctic?

[Mike M.]

I'll also bet that hardly any of them mentioned that it's summer in Antarctica and the sun is shining like 22 hours a day down there right now.

[JW]

Look at all this ice! It proves everything that we weren't saying before!

[Sevo]

Yep, it's totally outside the predicted window, so that means our predictions are correct!

[Warty]

Even worse, since the Children's Crusade didn't even happen.

[Swiss Servator, KALT!]

Ancient Libertarians scooped them all up before they could get started...

[Brett L]

I just think of these guys like the rattlesnake sects of Pentecostals. Sure, a certain number will die for their faith, but that just means that Gaia didn't love them.

[mr simple]

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

Sounds like dolphins need a stronger central government to curb this activity.

[Auric Demonocles]

Cleveland Browns deliberately use puffer fish as downers.

[Gilbert Martin]

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D- Nev.) said Sunday that Democrats will focus on the middle class in 2014"

Anything to change the subject from Obamacare.

Government had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with creating the middle class and it won't be goverment that "saves" it.

In fact, the biggest impediment for people in the middle class to stay there or move up within it is government itself.

[A wild THANE appeared!]

Pun of the day:

So fucking inbred he is a sandwich.

[Sevo]

CA gov't is a mess, and that's obvious even to Ds. There is so much to focus on; regulations, taxes, benefit costs, schools, etc. So what do what passes for 'conservative' pols pick?
"California's right pins hopes on transgender issue"
http://www.sfgate.com/politics.....116557.php

Yes, the burning issue of our time is 'which bathroom can Johnny pee in?' If this is the best the Rs can come up with, they deserve to be ignored.

[Eduard van Haalen]

It seems the article found some conservatives hope the issue will bring otherwise apathetic conservatives to the polls, where they'll vote for candisates who oppose the job-killing laws, etc. But tha author doesn't cite evidence of the Reps as a whole relying on this one issue. These are typical initiative sponsors who care about an issue, not GOP leaders. Initiatives are single-issueby definition, they have to be confined to one subject.

I doubt the "mainstream" Rep leaders are out in front on this.

[Entropy Void]

LG reveals the future for its WebOS smart TVs

"You'll also be able to control your LG WebOS TV through voice and hand gestures. The new TVs are slated to reach Korea early this year, followed by the US, Europe, and other global markets."

If you flip you new LG the finger, it will show a marathon of Il Douche's speeches.

Read more: http://www.cnet.com/8301-35303.....z2pdVOdirf

[UnCivilServant]

An old frau has used up all her durability.

[Zeb]

Norther Europeans take their cross country skiing pretty seriously. Sure, it's not typically nearly as fast as downhill, but a crash going downhill can be hairy.