A.M. Links: Obama Says He's Willing To Use Executive Power, Snowden Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize, Pot Activists To Put Up Billboard Ads Near Super Bowl Stadium

Credit: Russ Allison Loar / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

• In last night's State of the Union address President Obama said that he wants to work with Congress but is willing to use executive power.
• The Supreme Court has granted a temporary stay of execution for Missouri inmate Herbert Smulls. Missouri has not said which compounding pharmacy the execution drugs come from. Read Reason Foundation's Lauren Galik's article on Smulls here.
• Ukraine's first post-independence president has said that Ukraine is on the "brink of civil war."
• NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has been nominated for the 2014 Nobel peace prize.
• Marijuana activists are planning to put up billboard ads near the stadium where the Super Bowl is being held. The ads will say that marijuana is safer than alcohol.
• The head of Britain's spy agency GCHQ, which like the NSA has been criticized following the Snowden revelations, is stepping down. The Foreign Office claims the move has nothing to do with reporting on Snowden's leaks.

Comments

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

Putin's getting a little "hot" under the collar it seems:

ITAR-TASS news agency quoted Putin as saying that "in Russia's energy mix, the share of nuclear power is not big, just 16 per cent. Our goal is to reach 25 per cent. This speaks of the fact that by 2030 we must build 28 more large power units. This is nearly the same as the number of units made and commissioned over the entire Soviet period."

He also said that Rostaom had in addition received orders for to build 22 nuclear power units abroad.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hello.

We have a new leader.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Morning.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

A Canadian has taken AM Links first. Bask in the glory with me, Rufus.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Oh, I am.

/wipes keyboard.

[Elspeth Flashman]

That's not how you bask.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Sez you.

It's OUR time, bitch.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

STEP AWFFFF

[The Last American Hero]

But these are just the winter links. They don't do so well in the summer links when the Australians take a disproportionate number of firsts.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

WHAT??? My first first on AM Links?? I've finally made it to the H&R Executive Club. I'll be awaiting the onslaught of Libertarian fan women in my private quarters at Reason HQ.

[gaijin]

Nice. YOu must have applied your knowledge of quantum physics to precede he who must not be named in mockery.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

I even previewed the comment. I'm worried about he who must not be named in mockery.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I have everyone else blocked by Reasonable so my comment appears to be first.

[gaijin]

So you used your psychic powers to respond to comments that you did not see? You are impressive sir! But you probably knew we all thought that...without us having to post it, oh reader of minds.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Yes.

[Auric Demonocles]

It doesn't count if you point it out.

[SugarFree]

the onslaught of Libertarian fan women

It's really just Warty in yoga pants.

[Brett L]

All those squats... he really fills out the back of them, you know?

[gaijin]

Warty got back!

[SugarFree]

Warty's got an LA face with an Oakland booty.

[hamilton]

Oh dear god. Where is the bleach?

[Lady Bertrum]

Lululemon yoga pants, no less.

http://www.today.com/style/lul.....8C11547236

[SugarFree]

Warty don't go around in some cheap Wal-Mart shit.

My wife has a ton of Lululemon clothes. It's like being married to a very flexible superheroine.

[Lady Bertrum]

I prefer Athleta. http://www.athleta.com/?tid=at.....&adpos=1t1

Flexibility is good.

[SugarFree]

She has some Athleta, but she finds that Lulu works better for her since she uses it for both yoga, power ballet and running.

She's going stir crazy with all the cold weather. I think she's been lightly smothering me with a pillow during the night.

[hamilton]

"Power ballet"?

[SugarFree]

Ballet with weight training and cardio elements.

[Restoras]

MHP?

[Elspeth Flashman]

"sheer" yoga pants on a man. Hm. Probably not something I want to see in my lifetime.

[Clich? Bandit]

Holy crap! Relevant, blockquote, AND a link. Fuckin Canukistan is invading, ARE WE JUST GOING TO TAKE IT?!?!?!?

(likely yes)

[Brett L]

"Mr. President... we cannot afford a reactor gap!"

Also, since the utilities in the state of FL have been charging their customers a literally hidden fee for building another nuke plant while having a moratorium on building nuke plants, we should get the fuck to work on one here locally.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

If a plant isn't built, that should be grounds for rate payers to sue Duke.

[Brett L]

What can Duke do? The legislature mandates that they not build plants and that they charge a fee for safely building a new plant. Its... beautiful is the wrong word, but a bit of genius. Until the moratorium lifts and they don't have the $20B or so they charged in fees to capitalize.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

Very true, the license moratorium is not Dukes fault. Honestly, it is hard to say what is right here because the money has been transferred and the government is fucking it all up. But the question is, who gets screwed here? The rate payers or Duke. Obviously the government that has caused this in the first place won't.

It is disgusting.

[Dead or In Jail]

When will the US revive its Integral Fast Reactor program?

When will we start reprocessing?

When will we make it our national mission to catch the French and produce 80% of electricity from nuclear?

I wish we could give the whole country over to Areva to be run smoothly and carbon-free...

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

The only way any of that has any chance of happening is with a complete restructuring of the NRC. And it wouldn't even be *hard. Just go back to the AEC (the NRC's predecessor).

*Politically very difficult, but actually restructuring would be somewhat simple.

[robc]

Technically, there area bunch of carbon emissions from the mining of uranium.

Reprocessing helps out, but its not really carbon-free.

Better than burning a fuck ton of rocky carbon, but still.

[So very tired]

"First" was silly 20 years ago and it's silly now.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...President Obama said that he wants to work with Congress but is willing to use executive power.

I didn't watch. Did Congressional Dems applaud this vigorously?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Perhaps not 'vigorously' but yes.

Disturbing nevertheless.

[gaijin]

Did Congressional Dems applaud this vigorously?

You only saw the hands of those who were clapping. The others in the audience had their hands below the camera's gaze...their arms were moving slightly but I don;t think they were texting.

[Rich]

Yep. It was, um, bizarre.

[Suthenboy]

Why yes, yes they did.

I did not watch either, but heard some recaps this morning, most of which amounted to his highness making claim after claim that he will bypass the legislature to lots of applause.

I nearly kicked in the tv.

[Atanarjuat]

Shorter Obama: "Give me what I want, or I'll just take it." Reminds me of an obviously spoiled kid from back home who told his parents, "either you buy me a motorcycle, or I'll buy one myself!". So they bought him one.

[waffles]

But Obama will buy it with our money. We are the government after all.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"A President of our party said something! And it involves relieving us of political responsibility! Yay!"

[Fist of Etiquette]

We'll just see about that this November.

[Rich]

Every incumbent will be voted out, eh?

[Aloysious]

God, I hope so.

[Elspeth Flashman]

You got to have a dream, cause if you don't have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Ukraine's first post-independence president has said that Ukraine is on the "brink of civil war."

Teetering on the brink of destruction...

[Fist of Etiquette]

NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has been nominated for the 2014 Nobel peace prize.

I suspect this was Snowden's plan all along, to get that million dollar prize. (And also to spy for Mother Russia, of course.)

[Floridian]

In soviet Russia, mother spies on YOU.

[Atanarjuat]

If the Nobel people have any capability for introspection Snowden will win it as a sort of apology for Obama's peace prize.

[Auric Demonocles]

They should just transfer Obama's to him.

[DontShootMe]

^This^

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

Is it just me, or is it ironic that they are potentially going to give the peace prize to someone for revealing all of the awful things a former peace price winner has been doing to US citizens?

[Zeb]

One might say that the Peace Prize is nearly always given ironically.

[Elspeth Flashman]

It's not just you.

[hamilton]

As Greenwald tweeted: now all he (Snowden) has to do is bomb a few weddings and he'll be the frontrunner.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

*retweet + favorite*

[Rufus J. Firefly]

All he has to do is bomb 'four weddings and a funeral.'

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

Bomb the funeral of someone from a previous wedding he bombed. It's the double tap for a new generation.

[hamilton]

That should've bombed all by itself.

[sarcasmic]

Video: Man Crashes Car Into Fried Chicken Restaurant, Strips Naked, Masturbates in Intersection

http://www.breitbart.com/Insta.....tersection
Let's see who fails to make comments today...

[gaijin]

It's the sequence of events that is quite strange.

[Roger the Shrubber]

What sequence would make the events lass strange? 3!=6 and I've yet to discover a combination that is any less strange.

[gaijin]

3!=6. Think outside the box man!

He could masturbate in the restaurant, strip naked in the intersection and then crash his car. That's how I did, er, would have done it.

[Roger the Shrubber]

My apologies. THAT makes perfect sense.

[Rich]

The operator was identified as 34 year old ######### from Pennsauken, New Jersey.

Quite the ID.

[Atanarjuat]

Here's video of him getting that ID.

[NoVAHockey]

Wait, I thought we all had drivers.

[SugarFree]

We all know it was Epi. That's why he's not on the Morning Links.

[SweatingGin]

Wasn't me.

[Pelosi's Rabbit]

Present.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I can do two things.

[Clich? Bandit]

1. Chew Bubble Gum.
2. Kick Ass.

Question: How much bubble gum do you currently possess?

[Fist of Etiquette]

I'm all out.

[Elspeth Flashman]

If he'd stripped, jerked off, and then crashed into the restaurant, that would've made more sense.

[hamilton]

Women just don't understand us.

He might REALLY like crashing into restaurants. Or Fried chicken.

"It's finger lickin' good!"

[Elspeth Flashman]

Thanks for that perspective, I never considered this.

[UnCivilServant]

I didn't want that perspective, now I have to get the bleach again.

[sarcasmic]

What would have made more sense was his ordering fried chicken before doing any of this. Then his greasy hands would have made the masturbation more pleasurable, while also providing an excuse for the crash.

[sarcasmic]

Where's John?

[Max Power]

I work in Pennsauken, but that doesn't look like anyone I know.

[sarcasmic]

Iraq and Iran plot oil revolution in challenge to Saudi Arabia
Iraq's goal of pumping 9m barrels a day of crude could be a game changer for oil prices and British companies

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fin.....rabia.html
Cheaper gas? Works for me.

[Matrix]

but... but... TEH POLAR BEARZ!!!!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I always laugh at people who think polar bears are sooo cute and cuddly; even cubs and get mauled by one.

Polar bears are vicious.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I should expand. There was a news report or video (I forget) a few years back where a vet of some sort was feeding a baby polar bear milk or something. Suddenly, the bear - maybe 4 or 5 ft tall, attacked the person without warning or reason.

Everyone was 'shocked' going as far as trying to tell viewers 'Cutey' (or whatever the fuck they named it) was usually calm.

Retards. It's a FUCKING POLAR BEAR. It did what polar bears do - they attack; they smash. Like Hulk. They smash through thick layers of ice and grab little fucking seals ripping their heads off in the process. They flip school buses, they run and jump from ice caps to ice caps like Lawrence Taylor bearing - excuse the bad pun - on a helpless about to yelp QB.

[Zeb]

And it's funny because most people do seem to know that they will actively hunt people, males kill cubs, they eat cute baby seals. Yet they still are surprised when a captive one mauls someone.

I, for one, hope that Polar Bears do continue to exist exactly because they are vicious, bloodthirsty monsters. And I think they will. The Arctic ice doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry to disappear and I'm pretty sure they have always regularly swum through miles of open water to get to better hunting grounds.

[Zeb]

I'm sure polar bears like cheap gas too.

[mr simple]

Of course. As goes the gas price, so goes the price of their Coca-Cola.

[sarcasmic]

Flatulent cows start fire at German dairy farm - police

http://news.yahoo.com/flatulen.....59601.html

[gaijin]

again?

[Fist of Etiquette]

There's a picture.

[gaijin]

hah! Self grilling meat

[UnCivilServant]

Too rare for me, some of it is still mooing.

[Clich? Bandit]

"Wipe its ass, knock its horns off, I'll carve off what I want and RIDE the rest home!"

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has been nominated for the 2014 Nobel peace prize.

He's not a real contender until he's drone bombed a few weddings.

[Matrix]

Using Gun-banner logic: Let's ban stairs!

20 min youtube video.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Same thing for cars. And if motorcycles were suddenly just developed, they'd be banned before they went into general production.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

"America has already been conquered. By the greedy rich folks.
They did so by disarming individuals of critical thinking.?"

Even progs try to be smart, they're stupid.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

even 'when' progs...

[UnCivilServant]

I ahve had more unfortunate and injurious encounter with stairs than with guns. I support common-sense stair control.

[gaijin]

NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has been nominated for the 2014 Nobel peace prize.

Nobel Peace Prize? I thought he was getting the prize in literature.

[sarcasmic]

North Dakota Cow Thief Is First American Arrested, Jailed With Drone's Help

http://betabeat.com/2014/01/no.....ones-help/

[sarcasmic]

New devastating hollow R.I.P bullet which promises to 'take out all vital organs' is released and aimed at women 'to protect their homes'
New bullet unveiled at Las Vegas gun show this month that is designed to cause as much internal damage as possible to its victim
The Radically Invasive Projectile or R.I.P is produced by Georgia based G2 Research
It has been dubbed the 'last round you will ever need'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....homes.html
Comments are derpaliscious.

[SugarFree]

Frangible Black Talon rounds. Neat.

This is pretty funny, though:

Mondays Child, Jakarta, Indonesia, moments ago
Thank you DM, If I ever get attacked by a pumpkin, watermelon or stuffed turkey I will know exactly what ammunition to use.

[Suthenboy]

Ugh. Marketing bullshit. For the last 150 years every conceivable magic bullet has been tried. I am sure someone has even tried shooting kewpie dolls out of a gun at some point.

None of them can do anything that is more effective than a good, heavy cast bullet.

[Zeb]

But frangible bullets have some advantage in places where a stray bullet might go through a wall and damage someone not involved.

[Outlaw]

Frangible bullets are typically not as lethal as full metal jacket or hollow point bullets. And just about all bullets worth a damn will go through interior walls. It's a risk you have to accept. Remember what's behind your target.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot1.htm

[Zeb]

That was very interesting (and now I want to do that). Not surprised at all that almost everything goes right through sheetrock. But I don't think they tested any frangible bullets.

And of course, know what's behind your target. But sometimes when you are getting murdered or something shit happens.

[Brett L]

Also, how much energy the fragments are carrying AFTER they go through two layers of sheetrock is really important, and bullet fragments will be carrying less.

[Rich]

However, despite its power, the bullet is not capable of penetrating level 3A body armor - which is what law enforcement officials wear.

At last -- a bullet that is NOT a "cop killer".

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Wasn't that panic started by the movie Lethal Weapon 3?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

'Another baby.'

[gaijin]

aimed at women

A weapon of war!

[Elspeth Flashman]

It's the war on wimmens again.

[Fist of Etiquette]

You probably shouldn't be shooting someone you don't intend to kill.

[General Butt Naked]

I linked to this article about the ammo yesterday by some anti-gun army guy in esquire.

This meathead with a history degree proves through the magic of physics that these bullets are both harmless and cop-killers.

OK, this is simple. Any round which sheds most of its mass upon initial impact is not going to penetrate much more than, well, heavy winter clothing. Remember, Force = Mass x Acceleration, a simplistic equamass is reduced by, say 75%, then force is not what they claim for penetration.

Then...

Why would you need a bullet marketed as being able to penetrate walls and car windows, if you did not want to shoot at American police?

I challenge the author to a contest...

He'll stand in front of a panel of sheetrock in "heavy winter clothing" and I'll fire this ammo at him. If he lives he can write anything he wants about me in his next column. If he dies, his wife goes to Warty and Episiarch gets to write the inscription on his tombstone.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The ads will say that marijuana is safer than alcohol.

Someone put DEA head Leonhart on suicide watch.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Environmentalists cringe as Obama touts oil and gas

WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama celebrated "booming" U.S. oil and gas production during his fifth formal State of the Union address Tuesday night, delivering a blow to environmentalists worried the president isn't doing enough to combat climate change.

From his podium in the House of Representatives, Obama held steadfast to his pledge of an "all-of-the-above energy strategy" that he claimed was bringing America "closer to energy independence than we've been in decades."

And he touted the potential of natural gas to help the U.S. pare its emissions of heat-trapping gases while making the transition to cleaner energy sources, such as wind and solar.

"If extracted safely," Obama said, natural gas is "the bridge fuel that can power our economy with less of the carbon pollution that causes climate change."

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2014/0.....s-oil-gas/

GILMORE was disputing this yesterday while showing his true inner wingnut (he said Obama was opposed to natgas). Obama has always supported natural gas as a cleaner bridge fuel.

[wareagle]

Obama is taking credit for things he had no hand in; what boom is occurring is on private land. At best, he's been AWOL; at worst, he's been an impediment. But here you are, and calling other folks wingnuts.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

When the Jacobins reigned terror upon France, they needed derpy douchebergs to sell their murderous rampage to under the guise of liberty. People, like you know, Palin.

[Palin's Buttplug]

There you go making shit up again. If you would stick to facts you could say BUT HE WANTS TO BANKRUPT THE COAL COMPANIES!

Coal is filthy. The coal ash is a hazard and MTR is a disgrace. Gas is cool now.

[wareagle]

what's made up? That the boom has occurred on private land? No, that's a cold but inconvenient fact. Deal with it.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Obama has supported the gas boom. Even with accelerated depreciation on drilling/production equipment.

[Restoras]

I suppose if you mean he has supported it on private land by not being able to ban it then yes you are right. Fucking loser.

[Restoras]

Housing starts for the win.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

Ahh yes, the glory of government regulation...

(From the comment section)

Rod Adams
January 28, 2014 at 3:57 PM
[...]
The Environmental Protection Agency Office of Radiation and Air/Office of Radiation and Indoor Air/Radiation Protection Division is responsible for the budget line that has funded most of the government's studies on radiation risk for the past several decades. That office also plays a major role in selecting the members of the BEIR [Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation].

The office had a pair of senior bureaucrats that were the points of contact for radiation risk and also the people who controlled how the budget for the Life Span Study (LSS) of atomic bomb victims was spent. One retired about 6 years ago, the other continues to serve. A friend of mine served in that office.

He told me about cafeteria conversations during which those two bureaucrats asserted that the LNT would remain in place as long as they remained as government employees; it was their ticket to a comfortable career.

[Ted S.]

Government science that calls for more government is of course objective.

[gaijin]

Government science that calls for more government is of course objective.

Agreed. I'd be willing to accept the conclusion as honest if it wasn't the same conclusion almost 100% of the time.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

The guys in charge of decisions are the guys who will be directly effected by any change in policy. Absolutely no conflict of interest there.

And so we continue to write regulations based on old, faulty assumptions that have been shown to be incorrect time and time again. The end result: nuclear power is regulated until it is uneconomical to build a new plant.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Foreign Office claims the move has nothing to do with reporting on Snowden's leaks.

Lying to the last. They just can't help themselves.

[Ted S.]

Apps like "Angry Birds" may be used for spying

"May be"? And one wonders what the NSA is going to get from all those yentas playing Farmville.

[NoVAHockey]

How else are they going to know if you've grown too much wheat?

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Government of Denmark realizes it is futile to try and block BitTorrent sites, concedes defeat by lifting ban on Pirate Bay

Two ISPs in The Netherlands have overturned a court order that forced them to block access to BitTorrent search engine the Pirate Bay.

Internet providers in the Euro nation were told by a district judge in 2012 to seal off the website from their customers, at the request of anti-piracy campaigners.

Two ISPs Ziggo and XS4All took the case to the Court of Appeals in The Hague ? which yesterday ruled in their favor and reversed the banning order.

Crucially, the appeal judges said blocking the Pirate Bay had not deterred punters from using the BitTorrent network to illegally download copyrighted material. The ruling (in Dutch) noted that torrent and magnet link traffic for copyrighted stuff had increased since the Pirate Bay blockade was put in place as users sought out alternative search engines.

"The service providers' subscribers in any case mainly use proxies or resort to other torrent sites," the appeals court said. "The blockade is therefore ineffective."

Anti-piracy group BREIN, which applied for the Pirate Bay banning order back in 2012, yesterday criticized the appeals court ? and claimed Dutch internet traffic to the Pirate Bay was down despite the overall increase in torrenting of copyrighted videos and music.

A rare occurrence indeed.

[Ted S.]

I didn't read the entire article. What does Denmark have to do with this?

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

*Netherlands. I think I misread Dutch as Dane. I'm not normally awake this early!

[Tim]

I say give Snowden the Nobel, he and Obama can yuck it up at the annual reunions.

[The Late P Brooks]

NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has been nominated for the 2014 Nobel peace prize.

Will Obama go to Stockholm to hand him the medal?

[Ted S.]

Considering that the Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, it would be fun to see Obama go to Stockholm to try to hand it to Snowden.

[hamilton]

I assume the order has gone out to the CIA / NSA to stake out Oslo already and identify useful buildings to shoot from.

[Auric Demonocles]

I beat those Congressional lapdogs would even clap if Obama said he wasn't going to give them alt-text.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Hurr Durr Derp: Drinking to the State of the Union for Women

Can anyone make sense of this?

At first glance you might wonder why terms like "minimum wage" pertain to women more than men. Simple. Adult women are the majority of minimum wage workers. Student loans? Female college students have to borrow more, and thanks to that ever-present wage gap, take longer to pay loans off after graduation. And while men own the majority of guns, women are the overwhelming majority of those murdered with firearms in domestic violence and stalking cases.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Sounds sexist to me.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I refer you to your handle.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Booya!

[Auric Demonocles]

Apparently she thinks that women don't have access to far, far more scholarship opportunities than men.

[sarcasmic]

Don't think. Emote. Then it will make sense.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Adult women are the majority of minimum wage workers. Student loans? Female college students have to borrow more, and thanks to that ever-present wage gap, take longer to pay loans off after graduation

Really? I thought Title IX ensured women had access to lots of scholarships.

Is it the Patriarchy's fault if that Women's Studies and Sociology double major doesn't land a girl a well-paying HR job?

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Yes, because we have guns.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

War on Womynz

[wareagle]

Female college students have to borrow more

a citation might be nice. Last I checked, tuition did not vary based on gender.

[Atanarjuat]

From my anecdotal front-line observations, female college students are more likely to pay $12 for a bagel thing for breakfast, spend more on clothes/hair/shoes, drink Starbucks coffee, drink $8 smoothies, live in more expensive housing with fewer roommates, etc., and pay for it all with loans (to be fair their fathers and boyfriends sometimes pay for these things). So for those reasons, they "have to" borrow more.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I am still trying to figure out the gun connection.

Does all of this occur under gun point?

[waffles]

Is a vagina a gun? I'm a confuse.

[Auric Demonocles]

My student loans tried to get me to take another $20k a year for cost of living. Instead, I took $0 for cost of living, got an internship for the summer/winter breaks and a TA position for the school year and lived off of about $12k for the year (posttax).

[Ted S.]

And after the boyfriend pays off the last loan, the women file for divorce.

[BakedPenguin]

Then run for governor.

[waffles]

Fuck yeah! Smear it on my titties!

[lap83]

Yeah but the women you are referring to usually go to college to find a husband. Financially, they will be pretty well off after graduation.

[lap83]

To be fair, poor financial management with tuition is a problem for all students, not just women.

[Brett L]

The MRS degree is a time-hallowed tradition at Southern universities since co-education was implemented.

[Drake]

Don't women borrow more for college because there are more of them actually attending college?

[wareagle]

so each pays more because the total of women is more than that of men? Come on.

[Drake]

The language used in the speech is vague enough to question whether he is speaking about individual debt or the gross debt of female students.

[Auric Demonocles]

Regarding this list of things you should know about Vermont, I can't help but notice that #5 doesn't appear to have been applied to Obama's exact same violations of the Constitution.

[Slammer]

No zombie bees on the list?

[Ted S.]

Written by Kaptious Kristance?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Also, 25% of its residents claim French-Canadian heritage.

Vermont is a paradox. It's the agrarian poor, with a fierce independent spirit but wholly in bed with statism. Still can't figure the state out. I may have been to Vermont, what, 30 times in my life? It's an interesting place to say the least.

[Auric Demonocles]

Vermont is a paradox. It's the agrarian poor, with a fierce independent spirit but wholly in bed with statism.

Thanks, 60s immigrants from New York or Boston.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

I have always wondered about Vermont too. I was looking at working at Yankee there and couldn't figure out how it was such a Blue state with what I knew of the people there.

Good thing I never followed up on employment there though, Yankee has been condemned due to the very expensive "Fukushima safety upgrades" (totally a 9.0 earthquake and massive tsunami could hit Vermont Yankee any day now) that the NRC is forcing on the plant and it being uneconomical when competing with heavily subsidized wind turbines.

[BakedPenguin]

Come to NH. Seabrook isn't going to close anytime soon, and there's the FSP here.

[Restoras]

And the Sig shooting school.

[Auric Demonocles]

Don't forget all the greennuts constantly fighting against it in the state legislature.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Lotsa anti-nukes in VT.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I watch VT political debates.

Very weird. There's always a candidate that comes from the woods. Not unlike Larry and the Darryls.

[Auric Demonocles]

Good ol' Fred Tuttle.

[sarcasmic]

'I write this story with tears in my eyes': Heartbreaking letter police officer penned as final farewell to K-9 partner he was forced to put down

Massachusetts Trooper Christopher Coscia posted his farewell to friend and partner Dante to Facebook on Tuesday
One Last Ride: Coscia writes of his 2,300 rides with Dante and penned the letter with the dog still in the car

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....-down.html
Fuckers who kill dogs as standard procedure when invading homes get no sympathy from me when their dogs die.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Archaeologists find 300,000 year old hearth in Israel

It is believed that humans discovered fire over a million years ago.

And now a team of Israeli archaeologists have uncovered the site of a large hearth dating to around 300,000 years ago.
The discovery of repeated fire building over a continuous period was made in Qesem Cave, an archaeological site near present-day Rosh Ha'ayin in Israel.

Historians have long questioned when humans began to control fire in order to use heat to suit their daily needs and this find hints that prehistoric humans already had a highly advanced social structures and intellectual capacity.
[...]
Dr Shahack-Gross said: 'These findings help us to fix an important turning point in the development of human culture ? that in which humans first began to regularly use fire both for cooking meat and as a focal point ? a sort of campfire for social gatherings.'

'They also tell us something about the impressive levels of social and cognitive development of humans living some 300,000 years ago.'
The researchers think that these findings are signs of substantial changes in human behaviour and biology that began with the appearance of new forms of culture and a new human species in the region some 400,000 years ago.

[Ted S.]

I guess that whole region belongs to those pagans, then, and not the Jews or Muslims.

[Auric Demonocles]

I'm interested that it is in Israel.

[Auric Demonocles]

By which I mean, that long ago I would have assumed it would be in Africa.

[Zeb]

Well, Israel is one of the first places people would have gotten to after migrating from Africa. The article isn't too clear, but it seems like the residents there were Neanderthal or something like that.

[Suthenboy]

Conversation with neighbor about snakes, which he has an irrational fear of;

Him- "We'll Suthen, you have been down on the Brushy, are the snakes and skeeters bad?"

Me- " the skeeters are bad but there are no snakes this year."

Him- " what? How do you know?

Me- " cuz I haven't seen any."

Him- *squints at me, unable to decide how to respond*

[UnCivilServant]

Outside of the venonmous snakes, I have more issue with the mosquitoes than the snakes. I can get along with the non-venomous snakes that live in North America. The mosquitoes, not so much.

[Suthenboy]

Heheh. I was making a joke about people assuming that what they see is all there is.

That is the oldest hearth we have found thus far, so it must be the first one.

[lap83]

Hey! When archaeologists do it it's science

[Slammer]

States consider reviving old fashioned executions

[Rich]

Now if only they'd revive the stocks.

[gaijin]

PB assures me stocks are quite revived.

[Drake]

Wasn't there a guy in UT who chose firing squad? That would be my choice rather than being unitized like a dog.

[Drake]

Euthanized

Spell check fail.

[Ted S.]

I swear this comment wasn't here when I started typing mine!

[Ted S.]

Gary Gilmore, I believe.

(And what does it mean to unitize a dog? ;-))

[SugarFree]

He gets to collective bargain on the length and route of walksies.

[John]

I think another guy in Utah choose death by firing squad a few years ago. I mean if you got to go, that seems to me to be the way you do it. And it has the added bonus of being able to yell "Shoot straight you bastards" as your last words.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

My favorite pre-shooting last words are "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."

http://www.phrases.org.uk/quot.....gwick.html

[John]

Yeah. It is almost like the guys who actually were getting shot at on a daily basis knew something the general didn't.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Well, maybe he was BSing to keep up his men's morale.

The Civil War had more generals getting shot than modern American wars. An improvement?

[John]

He was totally BSing to keep up men's moral. The men were all lying flat and he was trying to get them up and moving. In fairness he had to have known the danger he was in. He like nearly all of them was just brave.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

I've watched some great civil war docs.. The bravery those guys had was wild. I mean anyone in a fire-fight who stands up and fights is brave as hell, but the civil war was a bloodbath.

[John]

I think it was because they were in units that were all from the same town. If you were a coward, you basically couldn't go home. The people in your unit who survive are going to go back and tell everyone what a coward you were. In a world where most people never moved more than 20 miles from where they were born, that creates a lot of motivation.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Some officers were local notables who recruited units from their neighbors. If you come home known as a coward, you'll lose that prewar influence. Better to risk death.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Some of the officers were lawyers in civilian life. Good luck having your former soldiers hire you again if they've lost their respect for you.

[Brett L]

Breaker Morant is a great movie.

[John]

Yes it is.

[Restoras]

What John said.

Rule .303!

[Atanarjuat]

Imagine how happy the cops would be when they find they get to brag to their buddies about shooting someone.

[John]

I am pretty sure they load a couple of blanks into the rifles so that no one knows who fired a live round and who fired a blank.

[Outlaw]

I think the actual shooter would probably know if they were competent enough to hit where they're aiming.

Plus, the recoil is different when you're firing blanks.

[John]

That is a good point. I am not sure where I read that. But when you think about it, it has to be an urban myth for the reasons you give.

[Outlaw]

It might be, I don't really know. The reasons given for that never really made sense to me.

I think it would be better if they gave the entire firing squad live bullets and had them all shoot in the same spot at the same time. That way they probably wouldn't know whose bullet actually killed the condemned without doing some high speed camera analysis.

Yes, you all shot a murderer but that isn't so bad.

Anyway, these days I'm sure they could find some psychopathic trigger happy cop who would be happy to put a bullet in someone's dome without any consequences and avoid the whole PTSD thing completely.

[Clich? Bandit]

Lon Horiuchui?

[Atanarjuat]

I think I'd much prefer firing squad or hanging to lethal injection or electric chair. You're going to die, that's a given. So why not go out in a hail of bullets?

If it has to be electric chair, then Ride the Lightning should be playing at full volume.

[Jordan]

I'd prefer firing squad if and only if they aimed for the head. Otherwise, carbon monoxide or morphine (seriously, how can the government even screw this up?)

And I would definitely prefer death to life in prison. Not that I trust the state with such power, of course.

[Ted S.]

(seriously, how can the government even screw this up?)

The government screws everything up!

[Jordan]

Killing people was the one task I thought government was competent at, given the body count of the 20th century.

[John]

It just shows how far down we have fallen. Our government is no longer even competent enough to be effectively evil.

[gaijin]

Firing squad. No hanging...unless they can guarantee that my head would pop off.

[Brett L]

The US Navy has very extensive tables on number of twists, rope weight, body weight, and drop that can nearly guarantee that the noose breaks the neck but the head remains connected. Like, more sure than instant death from a headshot. Seems like they could share this information around and do some extremely humane killings much cheaper and faster.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Old fashioned, eh?

Italy isn't using the Tarpeian Tock any more; send it to Texas.

Thatvshould do untilnthe FDA approves hemlock.

[Rich]

To be hurled off the Tarpeian Rock was, in some sense, a fate worse than death, because it carried with it a stigma of shame.

[VG Zaytsev]

The fall didn't kill em, the shame did.

[hamilton]

Well, that and the abrupt landing.

[Fist of Etiquette]

It's called "Going Che".

[Zeb]

If there are going to be executions, I'm all for this. Lethal injection is too clinical (not to mention done in a stupid way, why not just use what they do on animals which works and uses drugs that are not hard to get). It makes it too easy for people to ignore what is really going on: cold blooded killing. I say make it as bloody as possible while still being as painless as possible. I think crushing the head with a very heavy object must be the most humane. If you brain is completely turned to goo in a second you can't be feeling much.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Yeah, but then the medical researchers couldn't use the brain. And Igor couldn't steal it.

[Clich? Bandit]

late 18th century France for the win.

[Steve G]

Is it immoral to watch any sport then?

Stuff like this makes me weep for the human race as we increasingly pussify ourselves.

[Drake]

Fucking cry baby.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Just so we're clear on this: I still love football.

Then shut the fuck up.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

The big picture is that concussions are a small part of the equation. Football players live longer and get paid waayyy better than they ever had.

[John]

You could make the case that it is immoral to watch something like horse racing because the horses don't get a vote on whether they participate. But everyone who plays in the NFL knows the risks. The idea that we didn't know how dangerous it was until just this century is ludicrous. My uncle was a star college football player in the 1960s and was drafted into the NFL. He did not pursue the opportunity becuase the money for someone like him (he probably would have made it but probably at best only been an average player at that level) wasn't that great and more importantly both his college coaches and a former teammate who was playing in the NFL told him that playing in the NFL will significantly shorten your lifespan. This was in 1962.

These guys know the risks and are well compensated for taking them. The author of these piece can go fuck himself.

[Clich? Bandit]

I would like to point out that horses (especially racehorses) absolutely LOVE running. Anyone who has owned horses knows that some like to run and others don't. The sport is self selecting.

[robc]

playing in the NFL will significantly shorten your lifespan.

recent longitudinal studies have suggested this might not be true, but I dont think proper pairings have been done.

At the very least it appears than NFL players live longer than equivalent MLB players.

[Clich? Bandit]

I would like to point out that football players (especially NFL players) absolutely LOVE playing football. Anyone who has seen football players knows that some like to play and others not so much. The sport is self selecting.

[robc]

Are you saying the NFL players are a breed of horse?

[Steve G]

I felt like (and probably am) a moralizing jerk.

Yep, nailed it. Shut up and enjoy the game. Life is risk and none of the players have a gun to their heads.

[John]

If you feel like you are a moralizing jerk, why don't you stop doing it?

[Steve G]

He apparently needs his friend...and all the readers of the NY Times to validate the statement first.

[Slammer]

If anything can lead to brain damage it's the NY fucking Times

[Certified Public Asskicker]

This. And only a few of us know the risks.

[mr simple]

The N.F.L. juggernaut rolled on, solidifying its place atop America's Athletic Industrial Complex.

What the fuck is that phrase even supposed to mean? Some sort of dog whistle for proggies?

[SugarFree]

Do not interrupt Jim Cantore.

[gaijin]

haha! Extreme weatherman

[John]

I was driving to work this morning and the Weather Channel is running radio ads for a website they have set up to show people how they can switch from Direct TV and what kinds of great deals they can get for doing so. The Weather Channel Direct TV feud has gotten bitter. How long before Direct TV hires someone to kneecap Stephanie Abrams?

[Ted S.]

I live in the Catskill Mountains of New York. It's always seemed as though the Weather Channel ingored New York north of about Yonkers. But heaven knows interior Pennsylvania gets a lot of coverage any time there's a line of thunderstorms going through.

I don't miss Weather Channel one bit.

[John]

I only miss the gazing at the figures of a couple of their women anchors. Beyond that, I get my weather from the internet.

And they pay attention to PA because a few people who matter and work in NYC and Phily might live there.

[Ted S.]

I only miss the gazing at the figures of a couple of their women anchors.

"I watch Weather Channel looking for a reason to masturbate!!!" :-p

The last time I complained about it, it was pointed out to me that Accuweather is headquartered in State College, PA.

[John]

You have to watch something in the morning. Might as well be a decent looking woman. What is the alternative? The Today Show?

[Zeb]

I miss the weather channel as it was 15-20 years ago when all they did was report the weather and they played the weird Weather Channel jazz for the local reports.

[John]

It used to be the CSPAN of weather. The women left a bit to be desired. But it was more serious. But everything seems to get dumbed down as time goes on.

[Steve G]

weather.com has gotten pathetically content- and click-oriented. Makes gawker and buzzfeed look distinguised in comparison.

[Ted S.]

One of the things that really turned me against it was seeing them do a report several years back on the evil of bottled water.

Fuck the envirotard shit and just give me the weather forecast.

[Zeb]

Yeah, and becoming the global warming channel. Just report the damn weather.

[John]

It changed much for the worse when NBC bought it. They used to talk about the weather. When NBC bought it, the global warming propaganda came on hard.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Agreed.

[Rich]

Ukraine's first post-independence president has said that Ukraine is on the "brink of civil war."

But will it become "full-fledged" or "full-blown" civil war?

[hamilton]

Any word from Doc Groovus? Is he still over there?

[Rich]

Haven't heard anything for a long time.

He is conspicuous by his absence at H&R.

[The Late P Brooks]

This morning, on Bloomberg, they had some New York State banking(?) regulator on. He was huffing and puffing about the dire, desperate need to regulate bitcoin, because moneylaundering. As usual, the interviewers nodded, furrowed their brows, and clucked their tongues in unison. They did not, however, ask him to take thirty seconds out of his busy day to provide a succinct definition of the term, or provide an explanation of the mechanics of this dread scourge, particularly as related to bitcoin transactions. Moneylaundering just another incantation against the forces of darkness; you know, people who want to steal from the government.

One of the girls actually made a point about innovation, and he said (more or less) "We're all in favor of innovation, as long as we can retain control over everything."

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

as long as we can retain control over everything

Is there anything else that matters to these Statist fucks?

[John]

No. They are totally terrified of things happening without their control. The pathological fear of uncontrolled change is what drives most of them. It is why they always end up being so reactionary in power.

[Zeb]

Most people like that would like to get rid of cash so that every transaction can be recorded and tracked. Of course cash that sort of automatically launders itself is going to terrify them.

[John]

And the ability of the government to erase their entire bank account and saving at the push of a button ought to scare them more than cash.

[Zeb]

DO they just lack imagination, or do they really trust the people with that sort of power that much?

[John]

Both I think. Remember, they are generally completely ignorant of history. The amazing thing to me is that the little they do know about history involves some cartoon version of America being evil slaving Indian killers. Yet even thinking that, they don't think the US government would ever harm them. The cognitive dissonance is just astounding.

[The Late P Brooks]

Considering that the Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo

D'OH!

[a better weapon]

My favorite FB quote from the SOTU.

It's sad we are left to root for a president to take singular action due to Congressional gridlock and inaction. None of this is how democracy works.

The cognitive dissonance is strong in this one. If it's not how democracy (I'm letting him get away with using that work in place of 'a republic' assuming that's what he really means), and that is a bad thing to you, then why are you rooting for it?

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"Why do you make me do this, Tina?"

[Clich? Bandit]

"I can make a hat, or a boat, or a broach."

[John]

Democracy only works if my side gets its way. Anything else is tyranny and dysfunction.

[Auric Demonocles]

It's literally impossible that the result of democracy is that sometimes people disagree on stuff!

[a better weapon]

What's funny is that this guy routinely goes apoplectic if he thinks someone has labeled an example of socialism incorrectly. Seriously, go outside his narrow rails of what defines true socialism and you'll have 5 notifications the next time you refresh.

[a better weapon]

Or if someone uses the incorrect pronoun with a transgender. Ha, its always a riot when that happens!

[Auric Demonocles]

My guess is that he in fact insists on using the incorrect pronoun.

[John]

A few hundred million people being murdered in the name of your ideology will make you a bit defensive.

[Jordan]

That is some supreme-level derp.

This was a good quote from Twitter:

"I'm watching The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. That's how committed I am to NOT watching the SOTU."

[John]

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

In a way, the entire Obama administration has been that movie set in politics.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I didn't get any derp from FB.

I don't know whether to be sad or happy.

[Zeb]

Happy. You can always find derp when you want it.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Well, gridlock actually is part of how this system works, it's written into it. We're supposed to have gridlock, whether it's party versus party, or branch of gov't versus branch of gov't.

[a better weapon]

I wrestled over how to define the model of our government, the separation of powers, and why a republic is beneficial in the long run but then I remembered Facebook is sort of like appeasing fans at a WWE match. They bore easily. So I just stuck with the zinger.

"And to the democracy, for which it stands..."

[Elspeth Flashman]

But did anyone get it?

[Ted S.]

As a libertarian, I find that people don't like it when I argue from principles instead of TEAM RED/BLUE!!!111!!!

[mr simple]

They do hate it when you go off script. How are they supposed to respond to what they haven't rehearsed for?

[VG Zaytsev]

Democracy means a strong leader working his will with no impediments from political opponents.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Melissa Harris Perry: Not very well liked by her Princeton colleagues

The consensus among her fellow professors was that Sister Citizen, which is about stereotypes used to describe black women, was not sufficiently scholarly by Princeton standards. Her colleagues considered it a work of popular sociology that synthesized concepts that were already well known in African-American feminist thought. Beyond that was an unease that Harris-Perry was somehow rewriting the rules of what it means to be a public intellectual. West and, say, Bell Hooks, count as public intellectuals because they are scholars first, and emerge from academia once in a while to make pronouncements (West more than Hooks). But, to her Ivy League colleagues, Harris-Perry was some other breed (one dismissed her as a "pundit intellectual"), someone they felt was using academic credentials but playing to a different audience. But whether you see it as a betrayal of academia or an embrace of public discourse, playing to a different audience?a wider audience?is exactly what Harris-Perry is good at.

If the people at the African-American studies department at Princeton think you are a bullshit artist...

[John]

Every decade we seem to get worse. There was a time when someone like Cornel West was by the standards you would expect of an Ivy League professor, a bullshit con artist. Now we have Melissa Harris Perry who makes West look like Tolkien.

Princeton is the school that hired Albert Einstein and built the Institute for Advanced Studies. It is where Richard Feynman got his PHD. And now it employs Harris Perry as a full on prof.

DOOM!!

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Well no, they actually denied her a full-professorship which is why she left to go to Tulane and focus on being a TV pundit.

But other parts of the article suggest to me that she was a pain in the ass to work with. Rosin, who is fawning over MHP, says the picture she got from interviewing other professors was that her ego had gotten pretty swollen once she started appearing on MSNBC, arguing with them over everything.

[John]

You have to be an epic prick, I mean like Episiarch level prick, to be a black woman who doesn't get tenure. And remember, they probably are glossing over the full ugly truth for fear of being called racist.

[MJGreen]

It's MSNBC. How much wider is the audience, exactly?

[SugarFree]

Hanna Rosin goes down on Melissa Harris-Perry and finds the secret of joy deep in the rubyfruit jungle.

How did such a brainiac land her own cable news show? Harris-Perry doesn't just get away with saying the word "intersectionality" on TV, using #nerdland as her show's hashtag, and publishing an online "syllabus" with each episode?she's beloved for it. When MSNBC gave Harris-Perry her own show in 2012, progressives reacted a little like they did when Obama first won election: Can this really be happening? At that point she was already a tenured professor in African-American studies and politics at Tulane, a columnist at The Nation and a frequent guest and sometime sub on the Rachel Maddow Show. What stood out about Harris-Perry was not just her liberal views, or that she was an African-American woman?MSNBC has other black female anchors?but her ability to talk about "the complexities at the intersections of race, gender and politics," as Anna Holmes put it.

El sue?o de la raz?n produce monstruos.

[John]

How did such a brainiac land her own cable news show?

Which is worse, that Rosin is so stupid that she thinks Perry is smart or that Perry is so stupid her only fan is Rosin?

[Zeb]

Brainiac, eh? Now I haven't seen mcuh of this woman. But the one segment I have seen of her show really did not give me that impression.

[UnCivilServant]

I will not stand for having one of the great DC villains slandered by association with Harris-Perry.

Poor Brainiac.

[Auric Demonocles]

Marijuana activists are planning to put up billboard ads near the stadium where the Super Bowl is being held. The ads will say that marijuana is safer than alcohol.

Coincidentally the two teams playing in it are from pot-friendly Colorado and Washington state.

[SugarFree]

Melissa Harris-Perry writes 1,800 word essay about her hair. And Slate publishes it.

[John]

How did such a brainiac ever get into the media?

[SugarFree]

I'm sensing a meme.

[NoVAHockey]

every day I get up for my lobbying job, I thank God I opted not to pursue journalism after college.

[John]

Me too. I have one friend who managed to make himself into a travel writer whose job I would like to have. The other journalists I know trudge through life going from one low paying gig to the next. And sadly, all of them are smart, good writers who can actually report. But no one wants that anymore. You must be an idiot hack willing to say anything to the faithful or forget it.

[NoVAHockey]

I have to believe there will always be a market for solid writing. It's just that you might have to look for it.

[John]

Yeah. They all make a living and land on their feet. It is just not easy like it used to be.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

'Because black hair is a big deal.'

Does she mean black hair or black people's hair? Never mind.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

So the blonde says, "help me, I've locked my keys in the car, it's about to rain, and I left the top down!"

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Of course, this joke isn't targeted at white women, it could apply to blondes of any race.

[a better weapon]

People always talk about the white mom and the interracial child whose hair is not groomed in the way it would have been groomed with a black parent, but my mother understood how important it was, and she learned how to take care of my hair. She always made sure I had African-American women as child care providers, and she took the time to learn from them how to cornrow my hair, how to part it, braid it, and put beads on the end. I have great photos of myself in the third grade with extremely intricate braided styles that my mom did for me. I was always proud of my hair as a kid.

So she's happy that her mom raised her in a way that helped her flaunt the traits of her absent father and mute those of her own? Make her feel more inadequate why don't you.

[Auric Demonocles]

She seems to be happy that her mom is a racist.

[Rich]

It was the first time I lived with other black women?14 to be exact?in a house centered on black women's identity.

Emphathith added. Get a life.

[UnCivilServant]

It sounds like she's declaring "I have no identity as an individual - feel free to ignore me as a drone statistic". That may not ahve been her intent, but that is the message that came across.

[Juice]

White folks are still so baffled by the black experience, they are constantly trying to read the signs and symbols to figure out if we plan to do them harm or start a revolution or something. So hair becomes one of the ways they identify good and bad Negroes.

Wow.

[The Late P Brooks]

It's sad we are left to root for a president to take singular action due to Congressional gridlock and inaction. None of this is how democracy works.

These people have never advanced their understanding of "democracy" beyond the fourth grade MAJORITY RULES stage. "We voted, 7-6, for pepperoni on our pizza; pepperoni it is!" And, of course, they are by definition part of the wise and benevolent majority.

[Auric Demonocles]

B-but with 13 people, can't we just get two types of pizza?

[a better weapon]

I dunno, let's put it to a vote!

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Joan Walsh: Obama gave a great speech that looks even better because Republicans are stupid!

In the end, the president did mention income inequality while stressing "ladders of opportunity," but the preliminary hype made me more sensitive to his disappointing storytelling: Obama blamed the decline of opportunity and the rise of inequality on "massive shifts in technology and global competition," but left out the deliberate shift of wealth and power from the majority to the top 1 percent, and the deliberate dismantling of "ladders of opportunity" that began under Ronald Reagan and continue through today.

Remember, she and her readers think they are intelligent.

Rand Paul avoided craziness about Monica Lewinsky but he advanced warmed-over enterprise rhetoric from the 1980s in his straight-to-YouTube extravaganza. Its highlight was a bizarre tribute to Star Parker, who by her own account went from welfare fraud to Republican stardom. "I want Star Parker's story to be the rule, not the exception," Paul said bizarrely. Also "Federal Reserve," "Milton Friedman" and "Solyndra."

I'm assuming Joan only views the Federal Reserve and Friedman quote as bizarre because she's too stupid to understand what they mean.

[John]

You have to read people like Walsh like Sovietologists used to read Pravda. Every word she writes is either an outright lie or a deception written to shield some unpleasant truth.

So when she says Obama left out "this started under Reagan" she is really saying "Obama meant exactly this". When she says that what Paul said about Lewinsky is "crazy" that means what Paul said touched a nerve and threatens to do real damage to Hillary. And when she says Star Parker's story is "bizzare", it tells me that Parker's story is really compelling and makes a great case against welfare. I can say that without even knowing who Parker is. I don't have to trust Paul or even look it up. I can trust Joan Walsh's mendacity and know for sure.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Joan is the kind of woman who thinks it is sexist to investigate Wendy Davis' claims about self-reliance and success but would happily tear down Star Parker if she became a rallying point for the right.

But again, Joan Walsh is a petty race hustler. She calls Rand Paul dim and divisive but that precisely summarizes her writing and what she does for the proggie devotees that read her.

You can't expect her to understanding anything regarding Federal Reserve policy like Paul does or the concept of why government isn't good at picking winners and losers. She simply lacks the intelligence.

[John]

Rand Paul is an MD. I would be surprised if Walsh could get a C in an introductory college chem class.

I watched the Youtube of Paul on Meet the Press last Sunday. What was most striking about it is how small and mediocre Paul made David Gregory look. Taking my biases out of it and trying to look at it as someone who doesn't agree with either, you are still left with Paul looking really smart and distinguished and Gregory looking like the mediocre hack he is.

I don't see how anyone can have any respect for people like Walsh or Gregory. They are morons

[VG Zaytsev]

And when she says Star Parker's story is "bizzare", it tells me that Parker's story is really compelling and makes a great case against welfare. I can say that without even knowing who Parker is.

She is a former welfare mother that got out of the trap and became a republican along the way.

It's telling that Walsh considers someone doing that bizarre.

[John]

She doesn't think it is "bizarre". She knows that it damages the ideology and therefore must be dismissed out of hand.

[Snark Plissken]

but he advanced warmed-over enterprise rhetoric from the 1980s

Trickle-down economics!

[Roger the Shrubber]

but he advanced warmed-over enterprise rhetoric from the 1980s

I would think that the political philosophies of Rand Paul and Kirk would be quite divergent.

[The Late P Brooks]

How did such a brainiac land her own cable news show?

I had no idea "brainiac" was synonymous with petulant smarmy juvenile ninny.

[The Late P Brooks]

She always made sure I had African-American women as child care providers

I'll bet she did.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Strom Thurmond's parents did the same.

/rimshot

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I mean, seriously - "my white mother was *so* enlightened-she even hired black nannies for me!"

[John]

I was waited on hand and foot by black women so that I would know of my superiority even though I was a half breed.

[Christophe]

http://www.insidehighered.com/.....-sanctions

The US seems to forget how they won the cold war. This is surprisingly retarded, and my expectations were low already.

[mad libertarian guy]

I'm not sure which is better: the band name or the album title.

try not to destroy everything you love by An Autumn for Crippled Children

[Warty]

"I was in Agnostic Priest, Gangogar Aldilio, Gognogmug, Alugdug, Fuckface Academy, Sausage Assassin, Financially Raped, Smugly Dismissed...I was in pretty much every band."

[SRVolunteer]

Had a Search and Rescue training course yesterday. The instructor was a former police officer turned EMT turned search and rescue volunteer. A lot of the class was stories of idiocy... dumb people getting lost, dumb rescue workers making mistakes during searchers, and witnesses being surprisingly police-savvy. Or maybe not. We always say here to never call police, but that's who you have to call if you want most rescue units to respond. (Our unit, for instance, does not report until requested by the sheriff or fire marshal, that's just how the system is set up)

So when the instructor expresses incredulity that anyone would search all day only to call for help 30 minutes before dark, I can kind of see both sides: Involving the police is kind of a 'nuclear option', who knows how they'll treat your 25-year-old stepson who's off his meds and wandering around in the woods. On the other hand, it's very frustrating for us (search & rescue) to get the call at sunset when friends & family decide they can't handle the search, and be told 'He disappeared around lunchtime and we've been searching for him all day'. Now we've got to tromp around in the woods at night while your kid is in danger of developing hypothermia because he was only wearing a jacket at lunch and now it's 20 degrees and dropping?

[SRVolunteer]

We also had a couple of stories about folks who went missing armed, where the witnesses who called for help didn't tell the searchers that the lost persons had weapons. That seems like a recipe for disaster, and the instructor was clear on his belief that the searchers should always know whether the lost person is armed, but I'm still not sure if someone I cared about was missing, I would tell searchers about it, especially if the police were running the rescue, as is often the case. Unfortunately, many search efforts turn out to be for murder victims whose bodies got dumped or abused family members who ran away from their abuser, and the police apparently treat it as such until they learn differently.

Anyway, I learned the search & rescue material and kept my mouth shut regarding the dangers of approaching the police if they've been told that you're off your meds and armed, or the wisdom of telling search and rescue workers that your runaway teenager is armed. It still seems like a hard problem to me, if someone I knew went missing.

[John]

I hadn't thought about the issue of being missing while armed. You go out deer hunting or whatever and don't come back at dark. So now your family faces the choice of calling the cops and telling them you have a gun and raising the level of tension and potential violence by a factor of ten or having the cops be surprised by the gun and risking one of them killing your loved one in a panic.

[SRVolunteer]

Two of the examples were a husband who didn't tell the search and rescue teams about the unloaded (no clip even) pistol his wife carried in her purse, and a runaway who took a non-functional antique weapon. Both of those seem like no-brainers but I can see other scenarios where the decision would be more difficult.

[NoVAHockey]

"should always know whether the lost person is armed"

I assume every patient I treat (EMT volunteer) is armed until I know otherwise.

[John]

My brother was an EMT for a few years. He said small dogs were his biggest concern going into a house. The big dogs you could see and could tell right away if they were dangerous. The small ones would sometimes hide and would seem friendly right up until they nailed you. And a small dog can inflict a surprisingly nasty bite.

[John]

I think it depends on the circumstances. If it is dangerously cold and time is of the essence, then yeah you chance it and call the cops. If not, you search a long time before you call.

The other complicating factor is that the cops are so stupid they will often think the family is just covering up a murder and will spend their efforts grilling them rather than searching. This is especially true of a husband with a missing wife. If your wife goes missing, you are in a hell of a bind as a husband. As soon as you call the cops, it will go from "missing person" case to "suspected domestic violence and murder" case. So not only will you be going crazy trying to find your wife, expect to spend hours in a room being interrogated by some retarded baboon convinced you have murdered your wife.

[robc]

I had a roommate in college who taught caving courses...he did a lot of vertical caving, going into a cave and then repelling.

He had safety reports of the annual caving incidents and the resolution and errors that were made. One of the points made is to call the local caving group FIRST then call police/EMS whatever.

That was the lesson from the dumbass EMS's who dropped the injured guy back into the cave because they didnt know how to tie proper rope knots for the situation.

[Hawk Spitui]

Whites Only Laundry