Obama Not Dealing With Entitlement Spending in Budget, FCC Backs Off Newsroom Study, For Now, Utah and Colorado Looking to Raise Minimum Smoking Age: P.M. Links

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Kamila Gornia/flickr President Obama will be dropping any attempt at controlling the growth of entitlement spending from his proposed 2015 budget.
- The Federal Communications Commission is temporarily suspending a planned newsroom study, so it can be "corrected" to alleviate concerns.
- Ted Nugent said he was apologizing for calling President Obama a "sub-human mongrel," but not to the president but "on behalf of much better men than" himself.
- Detroit's filed a debt restructuring plan that includes cuts to what it owes to pensioners and creditors.
- Utah and Colorado are moving forward on proposals to raise the smoking age to 21.
- The Ukrainian parliament approved a new constitution, part of a deal struck between the government and opposition to end months-long street demonstrations.
- Venezuela sent paratroopers into the border town of San Cristobal to crack down on protesters and "restore order."
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I don't know if anyone here is a Rye fan, but I just opened a bottle of Angel's Envy Rye and it is fantastic!
Whiskey for the first!
Honorable mention, but not First!
Any mention of booze is within the rules.
A true First! mist reference one of the actual PM links, or failing that a link to something topical. Suki-style hellos and other personal matters don't qualify.
Tonio... so mentioning alcohol doesn't tie into the raising of the smoking age to 21?
I will take honorable mention. I was shocked when I got my post in first and then saw FOE was not only at the same time but with an on topic post and comment. Truly impressive.
I am suspicious that FoE is on the staff at Reason, the poster of the links who posts the links and his comment simultaneously.
He's not on the staff. He gets his posts in so quickly because he is the devil. It's simple, really.
Why can't it be both things?
Not the devil, just sold his soul for a bizarrely limited superpower.
Alcohol is always topical.
ALWAYS.
Its generally only topical when you have a cut that needs disinfecting.
Oh, good one, Delay.
I was tossing a softball, if someone hadnt hit it, I would have been pissed.
This is doubly hurtful since it's known I have a renal deficiency.
Now that's a compelling argument, robc.
Its not an argument, it is an axiom.
I, sir, am a rye fan and appreciate your message. Though I have been drinking the High West stuff.
High west? Not familiar, I'll have to keep an eye out for it.
Hamilton are you drinking the double rye or the 16 year old? I just checked their website and saw they had two.
Mostly the double rye, which is a nudge cheaper but I like it just fine. I've tried the 16 and it's pretty good.
All their stuff is neat, really shows an admiration for American whiskey.
I'll try it when I finish my current stock.
I'll note I probably split 70-30 between drinking rye in cocktails and straight, so modulate your interpretation of my opinions accordingly.
I drink mine straight but enjoy trying new things. Even if I don't like it, it was an experience.
My new winter cocktail: the Suburban
3:1:1 Rye : Dark Rum : Port, plus dashes of orange and Angostura bitters.
Breaks the one-liquor-per cocktail rule but focuses on the rye better than a Manhattan in my opinion, because it doesn't have the sickly sweetness of the vermouth.
I like rye, rum and port so I don't see a reason not to try it. I have Dow port on hand. What port do you like, ruby or tawny?
Ruby for this one works better for me...
I'll try this as soon as I can get some rye and some rum. Also the port. I have the angostura bitters at least.
Bulleit rye is droooooooooooolllllllll...
That is sitting right next to my angel's. It is my usual daily drink at 1/3 the price but if you want try something different and don't spending the money try the angels. It is finished in Caribbean rum cask, that give it a spice and sweetness that is just heavenly.
Alright, I'm sold. If I can find it.
I don't if you have total wine where you are but that is where I got my bottle.
Jesus, there should be a know in there, but like I said I am already drinking.
I'm a huge fan of their Kentucky Straight Bourbon. I would not be surprised that their Rye is equally amazing. Angel's Envy is one of those brands you pay more for, but after tasting it you are glad you did.
I didn't buy the Rye at first bc it was more than their bourbon, but I really enjoyed the bourbon so I gave it a shot. Best 75 bucks I ever spent.
Hello.
Late. Was cutting fennel and making an avocado salad.
I know all those words but that sentence makes no sense.
Was. Making. Salad.
Sheesh, did Canada beat you in hockey or something?
Whoa, look at the Canadian talking smack!
Canada's #1 national sport is ice hockey.
Canada's #2 national sport is America bashing.
Lacrosse #2.
Yankee bashing #3.
Fixed.
Being fat boring socialist dipshits #4? Or does that come after incest?
I like the bourbon but not the rye. Thomas Handy is my go-to rye. It's also barrel-proof.
Bulleit 95 Rye is quite ok for about $25, give or take.
Utah and Colorado are moving forward on proposals to raise the smoking age to 21.
I don't understand why they're stopping at 21.
Second!
No, First! because Floridian's post was not a comment on a link, or a new on-topic link.
Alcohol is always on topic.
And he's back on top.
The Federal Communications Commission is temporarily suspending a planned newsroom study, so it can be "corrected" to alleviate concerns.
Terrible. When news directors have to run everything past their zampolit, only then the public will be getting the correct version of the day's events.
What, pray tell, is the stated legitimate reason for this "survey?"
To make sure Jimmy Fallon sticks to the script.
Yeah.
I saw about 45 seconds worth of Fallon fellating Chewbacca and was pretty sickened. It's like he was angling on how best to approach her about giving her a rim job.
You guys really need to stop using that analogy for her, because I read that thinking you meant, literally, Chewbacca.
Yeah, same here, I was wondering how it took a full 45 seconds for him to be disgusted, I figured the first 40 or so were foreplay.
Was this going to be a mandatory survey? If not, news outlets (at least those not governed by FCC) should just drop into circular file. That's the policy I followed in my business career whenever Census Bureau or other busybodies sought non-mandatory answers. And I probably wasn't too careful with accuracy on those that were mandatory!
I was assuming it was just those under the FCC's jurisdiction. What news organization it its right mind would willingly allow that foot in their door??
News organizations that would like access to lawmakers and administration officials for their stories, one would assume...
President Obama will be dropping any attempt at controlling the growth of entitlement spending from his proposed 2015 budget.
He's got a midterm to buy.
Yeah, but he's not motivated. I mean, he can't buy anything for himself, so he doesn't care very much.
He should build a giant statue to himself right smack in the middle of the Mall. Using the Washington Monument as a leg.
How about the O elevated transit system, shaped like a giant letter O surrounding DC with parts of Maryland and Virginia thrown in, big enough to be seen easily from orbit, guaranteed to provide green, shovel-ready jobs to the disadvantaged?
I like it, provided that it glows in the dark, like Obama's aura glows around us all.
Turning the election into a debate on the wellbeing of the 99% or 47% or whatever. What a cynical scumbag.
The Federal Communications Commission is temporarily suspending a planned newsroom study, so it can be "corrected" to alleviate concerns.
A study? Is that them back-tracking, because calling it a 'study' sounds much less intrusive and 1st amendment shredding than "newsroom observers" or whatever they were originally calling them.
Not all feelers they put out are going to work on the first try. A little retooling on the terminology and they'll try again.
Ted Nugent said he was apologizing for calling President Obama a "sub-human mongrel," but not to the president but "on behalf of much better men than" himself.
Don't let it be said that the Nuge isn't gracious.
The big question is, which "better men"? And does the "himself" refer to Nugent or Obama?
All I know is they'd better be Top Men. I don't care for two-bit bourgeois apologies.
Another step forward for cyborgian kind: Bionic pancreas could be approved by 2017.
"The device comprises a sensor inserted under the skin that relays hormone level data to a monitoring device, which in turn sends the information wirelessly to an app on the user's smartphone. Based on the data, which is provided every five minutes, the app calculates required dosages of insulin or glucagon to maintain optimal blood sugar levels and communicates the information to two corresponding hormone infusion pumps worn by the patient."
Somebody let NutraSweet know. Fine, I will.
Paging Mr. Free, Mr. Su-gar Free, please pick up the pancreas-colored courtesy phone, Mr. Free...
Srsly, dude, hope this holds some hope for you.
I hope it makes that Six Million Dollar Man sound everytime it creates bile or adrenaline or whatever pancreases do.
Did you ever see The Fly? Cronenberg's version? Remember when Goldblum vomited on his food to eat it?
That's what pancreases do? If so, I don't want mine anymore.
That's what these robotic ones will do. Which is why SF craves one.
You heard him, folks. Epi, get the ice. KK, sharpen the knives...
(loads syringe, injects self, loads another, gets ready for FoE)
I'm ready! Whoa, I'm dizzy...
"Can we have your liver, then?"
I never said you could "have" anything. Get out your wallets.
President Obama will be dropping any attempt at controlling the growth of entitlement spending from his proposed 2015 budget.
In previous years the GOP ignored this same offer.
Yes, and you read about it HERE, where the free-spending Bush was raked over the coals for not having a clue as to how free markets and spending cuts can stimulate an economy. Remember that the next time you imply that this place is just a hangout for GOP shills.
Why doesn't Boehner call his hand?
"OK, POTUS, you want to cut SS's future growth? We'll send you and the Senate a clean bill. So sign it already."
But the GOP is not interested in that kind of entitlement cut. I am not sure they are interested in any kind of cut.
With few exceptions, you're right, they're not, and everyone here knows it and dislikes the Republicans for that reason.
+1 Borrowed Dollar
de Balsio caught jaywalking a day after announcing draconian pedestrian safety initiative.
Pardon, let me see if I have this straight: New York City is trying to crack down on jaywalking?
Have...have the people who think this is a good idea ever been to New York?
My best friend is from New York, and we're both friends with many other New Yorkers at our school (he's on scholarship here with about 10 other people, plus about the same number for the two classes below us) and they're all shocked at how less common jaywalking is here in LA than it is in NY. I'm interested to see how they'll react if NYC cracks down on it.
His detail got caught speeding and running a stop sign too...
De Blasio's caravan caught speeding, violating traffic laws
I'm pretty sure the rules, draconian or otherwise, were never going to be meant to be applied to decision makers.
Good thing he wasn't in Austin.
Good thing Too bad he wasn't in Austin.
If the Post is already on his ass--considering they are statist to the core--that's not great news for de Blasio. Not that he cares that much.
I thought the Post was just a tabloid that loved a good picture/hed combination.
Oh, they do. But they're still a statist rag.
How could you possibly forget this one?
If this were Austin, Texas they would've handcuffed him and taken away his earbuds (assuming de Blasio is young, white, and female, that is).
I heard about some kind of ice hockey match today. Does anyone know about this??
"Another classic playoff performance by Dan Bylsma."
You mean crafting your breakout strategy around stretch passes isn't the best way to win a game against a faster, stronger team? Who would have guessed?
It was 1-0. A fluke.
Has anybody posted Project Tango yet? I didn't see it in the AM links.
So...that cell phone sonar thing from The Dark Knight, basically?
SpaceX going to try to soft-land the next Falcon 9's first stage. (Note: They tried this in a previous launch and the g-forces of the spinning rocket fouled the engines.)
SpaceX is expected to take another leap towards the full reusability of their Falcon 9 launch vehicle next month, when the rocket's first stage will be commanded back to Earth for a soft touchdown on water. The CRS-3/SpX-3 Falcon 9 v1.1 will also debut landing legs on its aft for the first time, according to SpaceX Co-Founder Tom Mueller.
Hope it works. Anything to get launch costs down, down, down. That's the whole secret to success and to blowing open the solar system.
Baby Liberty sporting the greatest onesie ever made.
Baby Reason sporting the second greatest.
Awww.
Glad you didn't red-shirt little Ms. Reason. Cuties.
I swear this comment wasn't here when I started typing mine!
I wish the guy sockpuppeting us would get his shit straight. We do this all the time.
I move to formally put this in the PM Links.
Second.
Very Cute!
At least you didn't put Reason in a red onesie. 😉
That word 'onesie' is like an icepick jamming into my skull.
The worst word - in sound and context - of the Engrish language.
Worse than, say, phlegm? I think not.
Precious and nerdy at the same time.
Beautiful babies!!
Is there something inside Baby Reason's?
A birth defect that will be fixed via surgery in a year or two.
You mean "The next leap forward in human evolution, which will be hidden to avoid jealousy in all the other babies?"
I can't give away too much, but let's just say that genetically engineered human Care Bear is a possibility.
Well done, Banjos, well done.
Banjos is alive...but where is sloopy...sniff sniff, you smell something?
Those aren't work-appropriate clothes!
I'm so sorry that they look like sloopy. Damn shame.
SPENDARAMA!
Utah and Colorado are moving forward on proposals to raise the smoking age to 21.
If they were to trade it with lowering the drinking age to 18, I'd allow it and call it a win.
Oh, and they have to go back in time and 10 years and institute it.
Reposted from the previous thread: I wish this guy had subbed for my teachers when I was in school.
"The ISI is funded indirectly by the CIA so, whether they knew it or not, they were funding the terrorists," he explains. Then: "One of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta, he was not a Muslim extremist because, (a) He'd been living here for years. He had an American girlfriend. He was supposedly addicted to cocaine."
Glicker argues that Atta was "not a Muslim extremist" because "if you're a Muslim fundamentalist, you know, you would stick to, you know, the laws of Islam."
Next, a confused student asks why the September 11 terrorists killed themselves?
"That's where it gets weird," the physics sub cheerfully responds. "That's where I think it's somewhere along the lines of something like MKUltra where they're, like, brainwashing these people."
We read The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad in high school, which led to my English teacher spouting bizarre 9/11 conspiracy theories.
That's one Conrad book I actually liked. Because it had spies. And explosions.
You don't like Conrad? Boo, hiss.
Explosions are the way to my heart.
Well, I suppose you could just write the words, "and then it exploded" in the margins at various points. "Mistah Kurtz--he dead [and then he exploded]."
Wow, that just enhanced my literary experience a lot! Thank you so much!
I'm going to take my pen an read Jane Eyre!
it has been too long!!
What. No PM link for Canada taking out the USA?
All your pucks are belong to us.
When I was taking the company mail out to the mailbox yesterday some Canada Geese started following me. I shouted at them "You've won the medal, leave me alone!" but they still trod on, slowly, relentlessly.
Release The Eagle
We will haunt your dreams AND nightmares.
Malevolent Maple Leafs and singing beavers, decapitated caribou impaled on pikes and Celine Dion fondling herself with a mini-hockey stick...
We. Will. Haunt.
With a bunch of players that live in and are paid exclusively by American companies. If Canada is so great, where's the Stanley Cup?
Erm, eight teams are based in Canada owned by Canadians. How do you figure?
And who cares 'where' it is? 68% of players are Canadian.
SUBSIDIZED BY AMERICA.
Well, I don't know about that per se, but I do agree we're pretty much a branch plant economy. 88% trade is with the USA.
Which is why nationalist rhetoric here is a joke.
Of course, I love Canada. They're our most special and bestest friends.
If Canada is so great, where's the Stanley Cup?
In Chicago?
And where is Chicago?
Does anybody know of a Chrome extension that would filter out spoilers about the US-Canada game that are sure to appear here. My DVR awaits and I am as of yet unspoiled.
There was no game.
The game is a lie.
HAH I installed on in time and added filters to reasonable. So many potential spoilers hidden away on this page.
Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley's Intro To Computer Science Course
There is a good comment about it on HN:
Depends on how many of these women are actually being skewed from medicine, instead of gender studies, etc.
It's not exactly a zero sum game. I'm currently reading a book on research methodology that was written by a dude who got his B.A. in History and his Ph.D. in Brain and Cognitive Science.
True, I'm not trying to denigrate anyone who isn't STEM (which wouldn't make sense, considering I'm not a STEM major), just pointing out that women switching to computer science from majors that don't pay as well is a greater "net benefit" to women's earning potential than women switching to CS from things like medicine.
Ah, I see.
A friend of mine who is an emergency room physician probably earns over twice the average software developers salary with fewer hours and very flexible shifts...
Get out of the Valley, dude. If the ER docs are working less and more flexibly than you, you're doing it wrong.
Right-wing Nut Job and Birther Jerome Corsi's new book:
The Great Oil Conspiracy: How the U.S. Government Hid the Nazi Discovery of Abiotic Oil from the American People
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Oi.....rome+corsi
Yeah, that makes sense.
Don't buy the book. That would make more sense.
If Yglesius wrote something that stupid you Peanuts would be yucking it up and slapping each other like meth-addled monkeys.
If that were true, Reason would have to have a daily Yglesias-bashing column.
Yglesias writes something that stupid hourly. Keeping track of it all would be a full-time job.
I don't advocate buying Yglesias's books, either, and I don't think anyone else here does. Is there some kind of point...?
Sure there is; it's on the top of his head.
Former Southern Baptist Leader Equates Gay Parenting with Child Abuse
"Land said there is 'a thriving business now in gay surrogacy' for homosexual couples who want to have a baby.
'They don't just want a marriage license,' he said. 'They want to have a baby. So they're hiring, they're renting wombs, and they're buying eggs, and they're having the eggs fertilized and implanted in the rented wombs.' '
'There are many businesses that are thriving providing this kind of commodification of human flesh so that they can follow the trend and have two men try to raise a baby,' Land said. 'What a travesty. What a collective sense of child abuse it is.'
http://www.abpnews.com/culture.....wfG02eYZhh
But I thought they just wanted to be left alone?
Aren't straight couples doing the same things? I would bet in greater numbers too.
Surrogacy and IVF are difficult issues for SoCons. On the one hand you can find much ado about ending 'anonymous fatherhood' and concern over the embryo's created for the procedures, but on the other hand there seems to be a reluctance to explicitly denounce it too much, probably because it is hard to wave pictures of mothers and babies at people who are desperate to be mothers and have babies.
Everything is a difficult issue for SoCons.
They are pushing abiotic oil CT now because a 6000 old Young Earth absolutely must generate oil spontaneously. The idea of fossil fuels is just too sciency for the SoCon retards.
Actually, I think one of the biggest problem with SoCons is so much is not a difficult issue for them.
It's much more nuanced and complicated to put an "=" bumper sticker on your car and chant "keep your rosaries off my ovaries." That's the Party of Science right there.
Did he claim that Progs are different?
"there seems to be a reluctance to explicitly denounce it too much, probably because it is hard to wave pictures of mothers and babies at people who are desperate to be mothers and have babies."
I don't even know what that means.
But I'm glad that, by the use of scare quotes around "anonymous fatherhood," you refuted and claims that there's some sort of crisis of absent fathers in the U.S.
It means what it says: one of the favorite tactics of the religious pro-life is to talk about babies and mothers, babies and mothers, babies and mothers. Appeals to emotion: don't abort because, here is a picture of a baby you expectant mother! It is hard to do that to people engaging in surrogacy and IVF treatments, so the pro-life community writes a little about it generally lamenting it, but politically, meh.
Jonathan Haidt was right: Conservatives and moderates are better able to understand liberals than liberals are able to understand conservatives and moderates.
Eddie, my family and the community and church I grew up in had many pro-life activists in them. You are being disingenuous if you are saying that pro-life activists do not talk a great, great deal about innocent babies and the joys/virtues of motherhood when they are debating abortion.
Well then, go back to your old church and community and ask if you've represented their views correctly!
Eddie it is one thing to talk about what people's 'views' are and another to talk about how they express or argue them. Again, if say you have not seen lots of talk about innocent babies and the joys of motherhood at pro-life events you are being flatly dishonest.
See my reply to apatheist infra about what I think religious pro-life people think, as opposed to what is a common tactic they use when arguing against abortion (especially when arguing with some young woman or couple about whether to have an abortion). The entire idea behind the mandatory ultrasound is that people will see the innocent baby and be dissuaded from aborting them, for example. Religious pro-life people, especially the women, think that baby imagery is a pretty mean arrow in their quiver.
All very interesting, but if you look above, you'll see I was criticizing this remark of yours:
"there seems to be a reluctance to explicitly denounce [IVF] too much, probably because it is hard to wave pictures of mothers and babies at people who are desperate to be mothers and have babies."
I've seen plenty of SoCon criticism of IVF, thought I admit it's generally in the form of large blocks of boring text, not pictures.
"Again, if say you have not seen lots of talk about innocent babies [etc., etc.]"
The key word is "if." As in, "if you aunt had testicles, she would be my uncle."
You also remarked, "the pro-life community writes a little about [IVF] generally lamenting it, but politically, meh."
I know you've looked in the First Things Web site before - see how "little" they write on IVF.
You know, someone should send Land a large batch of thong underwear and encourage him to wear them exclusively; that way he'd have a harder time getting his panties in a bunch.
What a moron.
Someone here ordered some soft porn?
what no weightless Kate Upton?
Are you complaining you ungrateful jerk?!?
I'm writing from the future. After Kate Upton gave in to her inner fat girl and ballooned up to 250 pounds, everyone kind of agreed to pretend that she never existed.
Kate Upton strikes me as the spiritual successor to Anna Nicole Smith, at least modeling-wise.
Doesn't your timesuit have some kind of anti-fat ray or something?
You two stop harshing on Kate. There's no ruining people's fantasy lives on this blog, gentlemen. She is sweet and not so smart and totally coming over to my house some time soon.
Why do I keep breaking these guitar picks?
I wonder how much the make-up guy paid to get to paint her.
good lord I love body paint.
I'm surprised you haven't posted that Tumblr I sent you.
In good time. These boobs are better.
Don't look at it at work, don't look at it at work...
*Starts sweating profusely*
You really have to appreciate the composition of those shots, the lighting, the incredible setting and the titties.
Lucie material, if you ask me.
My favorite part of ladies is the boobies.
Her body is slammin', but the camera has to held at jst the right angle for her face to be anything but a butter face.
YOU SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH.
Does your family know that you're a gibbering lunatic?
Three guesses as to the author
True, owning a gun = definitely will shoot someone. And of course, we all know that any situation which could be handled with a gun in your hand can be handled much better by disinterested cops 20 minutes away.
Yeah cops never shoot anyone for no good reason, are never paranoid, and are never racist. Genius logic here.
I'm guessing Yglesias btw
Damn, guessed wrong
It was a good guess however.
Marcotte?
This game is generally 50/50, so if its not Yglesias, it has to be Marcotte.
Don't forget Reich and America's Funniest Woman.
Good guess, but there is another...
Yglesias?
Because calling the cops never ends with someone ending up dead...
Smug arrogance, poor grammar, incoherent logic.
I *knew* it had to be Amanduh.
Now here's a man who knows his bad feminist writing...
Of course, the major flaw in this fantasy is that gun nuts are actually more, not less, likely to have to deal with the police.
I'd like to think there was a time when even the hackiest of hacks would have recoiled from dropping such an over-broad, utterly basis assertion without any supporting evidence whatsoever...
It's Amanduh for you. Closed minded, prejudiced. 75 years ago, she would have been sewing uniforms for the Klan and repairing the damaged cloth when they came back from beating up Catholics.
Amanduh?
Kept forgetting to post this, saw it on CBS Sunday Morning. Good tie in with the recent Reason articles about personalized medicine in the 21st century. Are fruit flies the key in the fight against cancer?
Susan Spencer of "48 Hours" reports on an exciting new treatment in which doctors are using fruit flies to develop a personalized cocktail of drugs tailor-made for each individual patient's cancer.
Not to worry, the FDA will get around to allowing human trials in another 100k or so cancer deaths.
You're missing a few zeroes.
Ah, Drosophila melanogaster. Why aren't I surprised that the one bug I know the scientific name for is going to save us all? It's been about the fruit fly from the beginning.
Hardly news:
CA legislator busted for corruption:
"California senator indicted on public corruption charges"
[...]
"The allegations, if proven, carry a maximum of 400 years in prison."
So he'll get probation, and, uh, well....
And since he is a D, that wasn't mentioned until well down below the fold.
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05el.....n-charges/
California has Republican state senators?
They're endangered, but the EPA has yet to file.
Well, they just had, what, eight years of a Republican governor recently.
"Well, they just had, what, eight years of a Republican governor recently."
State-wide elections are harder to gerrymander.
More From Baptist Leader
"'Why would we expect otherwise?' Land said. 'We've been practicing child sacrifice for the last 41 years.'
Land said since the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion on demand, the most dangerous place in America is the womb.
'For the last 41 years there's been a 30 percent death rate between conception and birth," Land said. 'We didn't have a 30 percent death rate at Gettysburg, if you count the deaths on both sides.'
'The most dangerous place an American has ever been is in his or her own mother's womb for the last 41 years,' he said."
I hope no one tells Mr. Land about the spontaneous abortion rates.
That would only make the numbers stronger for his contention though.
It would not help his idea about God's judgment much I should think.
???
See below. Murder is different than natural deaths regardless of age.
robc, meet 'the problem of theodicy,' 'problem of theodicy, meet robc.'
Ummm...yeah, I think that is the point me and Virginian are trying to get across.
And what is the "problem"?
How can you condemn America for the '30% death rate between conception and birth' without condemning God for designing, causing or not stopping a rate about equally as high?
How can I condemn a gang banger for killing teens, when teens already die naturally every day?
Its the exact seem fucking argument. Literally, exactly the same.
As Ive said multiple times in this thread, murder cannot be compared to natural deaths.
You are clearly not getting it, as if often the case you go off the rails when you think it is 'literally the same.'
See, the problem of theodicy is that God is, well, kind of the Designer of the natural world which causes the spontaneous abortion and the teens natural death.
Bo, who gives a shit about god or gods right now? I'm thinking that is still a problem for the religious given the existence of diseases which kill millions and so forth.
Not sure what you are getting at here, IT.
I'm saying that the problem of a decayed natural universe exists regardless of the rate of natural spontaneous abortion, as evidenced by diseases with an even higher morbidity rate than 25%.
OK. Well, yes, diseases are a pretty fundamental discussion point in theodicy debates. That just puts God in hotter and deeper water, right?
Yes, which means that your focus on the spontaneous abortion rate and the pastor's comments on abortion is a more general point, rather than the sick burn about the stooopid pro-lifers that you thought it was.
I mean, how dare a minister talk about civil rights for blacks or against murder or communism when god is the biggest communist/slave owner/etc?!?!?!
PWNED PWNED PWNED PWNED
I am not sure what to even make of your 'God is the biggest communist/slave owner' thing.
My point was about as specific as it could be, limited to Land's specific concern: if mother's wombs are dangerous places that is as true because of how God designed them as it is about current abortion policy.
See, the problem of theodicy is that God is, well, kind of the Designer of the natural world which causes the spontaneous abortion and the teens natural death.
Im still failing to see the "problem".
It depends on death itself being a bad thing, which is a premise Im not willing to accept. I will accept the premise that murder is evil, but not death.
So you do not think miscarriages are bad things?
I am betting Richard Land does.
So you do not think miscarriages are bad things?
I think they are sad events, but not evil (in general, there may be specific miscarriages that cross a line). I think he probably agrees.
"Bad" was probably a poor choice of words, as I meant "evil". No wait, maybe not, in many cases (and it only takes 1 to defeat an absolute statement anyway) death is a good thing. So, yeah, death itself is not a bad thing.
I think they are bad because they are sad, in other words, they cause real pain and suffering. For you to say they are not bad is really just to elide the entire theodicy debate, probably by some implicit assumption that it all has to be that way or is for the greater good.
Anyone who believes in both a perfectly good God and that he has total control over natural events has to come up with something there to explain why he allowed or caused that suffering.
they cause real pain and suffering
And maybe that is good for us?
Its possible we need pain and suffering to strengthen our souls. **shrug** I probably would have got kicked out of theology school for that answer. Especially the shrug part. But thats as much though as Im willing to put into it.
Maybe Im avoiding the theodicy debate, or maybe it seems so lame and obvious that it needs to be avoided.
Hell, "Can God make a burrito so hot that it burns the top of his mouth?" is almost more interesting.
"Its possible we need pain and suffering to strengthen our souls."
Actually, that's a pretty popular answer.
I do not think the debate is a silly one. If there is a God and he is Good and In Control then the amount of suffering in the world is quite the philosophical dilemma.
Of course, I was raising the point in a much more narrow way: I saw Land's hyperbole about a mother's womb being a dangerous place and thought, gee, to some extent that is because He made it that way!
What you're forgetting is that in the Abrahamic religious tradition there is the long-held belief that painful childbirth, death during childbirth, stillbirth, and the like are all due to the curse God placed upon Chevah due to her disobedience.
Hey, if Richard Land wants to run with that, then let him run free and long.
What you're forgetting is that in the Abrahamic religious tradition there is the long-held belief that painful childbirth, death during childbirth, stillbirth, and the like are all due to the curse God placed upon Chevah due to her disobedience.
Exhibit #685 that God is a total asshole...
As is Serpentor.
So the question, much grappled with by theologians, is how can God (or humans in the name of God) condemn human behavior when He Himself seems to be causing, allowing or designing the same thing?
See, it is not about making the abortion OK because there are spontaneous abortions, it is about applying the God commanded ethics to God Himself.
Have you ever considered arguing in good faith on anything BCE? Has it crossed your mind?
Now I'm no theologian, but I'm pretty sure that religious people have this general belief that things happen as part of God's plan, even if us mortals can't discern why.
And Im not sure how natural death in the womb is different than natural death at age 94.
Both are equally hard to explain away as part of God's plan.
Cause and effect on a moral scale is what is called karma. There is no one being in charge of everything that happens.
For most of us if life ends at 90 it's a pretty GOOD thing. Would you really want to live to 200? Especially if you can be reborn in a nice new body (or not so nice if you made bad causes instead of good) and continue your life, even if you don't remember your last one.
Yeah but then God's plan could be that all those non-natural abortions happened for a reason too.
Best to stick to secular arguments.
I don't see the words God or judgment anywhere in your post.
'The most dangerous place an American has ever been is in his or her own mother's womb for the last 41 years,' he said.
41 years is a mightly long pregnancy.
(Muffled)"Dammit Mom, birth me already!"
It makes that SNL skit where a woman births Will Ferrell make more sense.
Wow, that's some delicious, spittle-flecked ranting. Good find, Bo.
But do consider learning some HTML tags.
According to Bo, he's too busy studying to become a lawyer to learn something as arcane and complicated as fucking HTML.
*rolls eyes*
I'm in favor of abortion remaining legal for a few reasons, but the idiocy of this argument is astounding. The fact that a fetus can die from natural causes doesn't mean abortion is totally fine. Otherwise you could legalize murder because people die from natural causes all the time.
There are good reasons to keep abortion legal, that's not even close to being one of them.
Virginian, I did not make the comment to make that argument, but to make a point about Land's 'God's judgment is on this nation because we have a 30% death rate between conception and birth.' It seems God designed us to have that death rate in that area naturally.
By that logic, it should be legal to murder people who are 80 years old and older because they also have a naturally high death rate.
With respect, you missed the entire point of my response to Virginian.
No, I didn't Bo.
OK, I will repeat: I am not making the argument "the fact that a fetus can die of natural causes makes it OK to intentionally abort it."
I am making the argument "how can you talk about God's judgment being on America because of its intentional abortion rate when the natural spontaneous abortion rate is about that high, and God is the Designer of the Natural Universe and the processes that lead to the spontaneous abortion."
Because you are saying that it is silly to say that God is judging us based off our high murder rate because God kills people naturally all the time.
Yes, that is the problem of theodicy in a nutshell, but can you see how that is different than the point you accused me of making?
It's still an idiotic point, Bo. Christians follow the 10 commandments where they were told by God not to murder and an assortment of other laws they need to follow.
What Christians do and what is intellectually consistent might be different things, there is nothing idiotic in me pointing out where there seems to be some space there.
As the spontaneous abortion rate is lower than the spontaneous abortion rate + intentional abortion rate, then no, that isnt the design.
Unless you accept Apatheist's argument above.
However, I dont accept his argument because of this.
So 'God causes a 25% spontaneous abortion rate, but man, is he teed off about you guy's additional 30% intentional abortion rate' sounds reasonable to you?
Ted Bundy was just doing what naturally occurs every day, as college girls die naturally all the time.
^^^This is what Bo actually believes^^^
Sigh.
Didn't you go to a religious school? They never talked about theodicy there?
Didn't you go to a religious school?
Nope. State school from 1-grad school.
I went to a private Kindergarten, but Im not sure it was religiously affiliated. In fact, Im pretty sure it wasnt.
They never talked about theodicy there?
Im completely aware of it, its just not a very interesting topic, as it just is.
Lots of religious arguments really annoy me. Free Will vs Predestination, yawn. Dispensationalism vs Covenant Theory, double yawn.
I could have sworn you told me you attended a religious college. Sorry if I misremembered.
I think it is a pretty fundamental problem for religion. If God is in charge of the universe, then kids dying of cancer is something that has to be thought of quite seriously for those who think he is unequivocally good.
I could have sworn you told me you attended a religious college.
If have swore I said many things I didnt see. Yet another time you are wrong doesnt surprise me.
Oh wait, I did take two classes at Bellarmine University, which is a catholic school. One was calculus, which was taught at my public high school, but got credit from Bellarmine, which I then transferred to Georgia Tech. The other was an accounting class I took between my junior and senior years of HS, because Bellarmine was trying to recruit me, and I got to take it for free.
Im pretty sure I never mentioned that to you though. But I dont count Bellarmine as a school I attended.
s/If/you/
I dont know what I originally tried to type there.
I doubt the Catholics corrupted me too much in that accounting class.
And as the calculus was taught by a teacher at my HS, they didnt have any influence other than giving me something to transfer.
I think it is a pretty fundamental problem for religion.
I dont. Funny how the world works.
I think most theologians would lean towards my side.
99% of climatologists agree with robc, so there.
I do not think most theologians agree with my position on theodicy (in fact I have not even offered it), I think they would lean towards my view that it is a pretty important issue for any faith.
I think most theologians would lean towards my side.
Probably.
It might be why Im not a theologian. As I said somewhere in this thread, there are plenty of details that theologians argue about that either bore or annoy me.
I like to piss them off by believing in both free will and predestination. I dont see them as contradictory.
Milton sure as hell did.
Read Paradise Lost and you'll see all of the arguments in favor of predestination both intellectually and spiritually destroyed.
I realize that religious people varying positions on free will and god's plans, etc.
Still whenever pro-lifers use religious arguments I cringe. Many of them need to take a good apologetics course focused on secular arguments.
^This
Though TBH (and speaking as a religious person myself), I have never found the religious arguments against abortion particularly strong.
To be fair to religious arguments, they usually are pretty intertwined with secular ones in this area. Few pro-lifers of a religious bent stop at 'abortion is wrong because God commands it not to be done.' They think God condemns it because it is the murder of an innocent person, much like I imagine non-religious pro-lifers think.
It's not their personal religious inspiration for their views I'm discussing but their public debating tactics. Many prolifers and prochoicers use incredibly shitty arguments. Because God says so is just as worthless as screaming about "clumps of cells."
In my experience religious pro-lifers only use the 'it is wrong because God condemns it' when they think they are talking to someone who is religious and perhaps likely to be persuaded by the idea that they are defying God out of their own volition only (Land talks about this in the article I originally linked to).
In my experience as a secular pro-lifer who has in the past participated in the pro-life cause with mostly religious people that is not the case with too many. And those people who are actually active are among the more educated on the topic.
Nobody expects the feminist inquisition... unless they've been reading any feminist articles on domestic violence/rape allegations
He thinks that some folks charged of domestic violence are innocent -- and notes that domestic violence laws include as crimes things which no rational person believes are domestic abuse? Burn the witch!
Much how victims of rape shouldn't have to prove they were victims. Which is often extended to mean that the man they accuse should be automatically found guilty. And God help you if you offer links of where false rape accusations happened.
Those are the eggs we must break to make a tasty omelette.
I wonder if these same hysterics watch Maury Povitch say....."You are NOT the father!!!"
Women never lie?
From the comments:
Ogg smash!
Why is her head cocked to the side in her picture? Is she an owl or a confused dog?
The last one, definitely.
/sexist.
Lloyd Olivier is your typical statist scumbag. He runs every year and changes parties in whatever way he thinks will get him on the ballot for the general. No need to waste any breath defending him.
Oh, I don't know/care about Lloyd one way or another -- just found it funny that the charges against him are that -- gasp! -- he had the nerve to defend someone accused of DV in court! And that he thinks that some of the DV laws are overkill!
Even if DV laws go overboard (and obviously being a defense attorney is no argument either) I've always found his views on DV and marriage to be pretty repulsive. He's just a terrible standard bearer for reforming those laws.
Gotcha, thanks for the info.
Oh shit. Nothing pisses off a feminist like the truth, does it?
Fatwa issued for musulmans traveling to Mars:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1793.....g-to-mars/
Interesting. I suppose the Catholic Church could declare the same thing, that it's tantamount to suicide. Though I think the "one-way" part isn't necessary intended to be go and die. I mean, supplies could be sent there and, eventually, a return vessel.
But it's not suicide... the people making the trip don't intend to die. They are merely engaging in a very risky enterprise.
One could make the argument that God's command to be fruitful and multiply and take dominion of the world - uttered in a book that is viewed as holy write in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is a commandment to tame Mars and bring it under human dominion.
Farming is dangerous... does that mean a man who takes up farming is committing a sin?
My guess is that some other clerics will put out a competing fatwa saying colonizing is OK.
Of course, suicide bombing is suicidal. And some combat is likely more dangerous than going to Mars.
Well, based on the story of Qayin and Hevel...yeah.
Or God just really, really loves the taste of lamb.
Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids;
In fact it's cold as hell.
"In fact it's cold as hell."
HELLFIRE!!
(guitar solo! banging head!)
I fail to see a downside to this. The Muslim zealots can run around humping each other and suicide bombing each other on Earth, while the rest of start colonizing space.
Did nobody tell them that that episode of Doctor Who was fiction?
Michael Dunn was so much better than Kenneth Branagh.
You mean the actor who played the dwarf Alexander on "Plato's Stepchildren?" I thought he did a fine job, but Branagh is pretty danged good.
I hope no one tells Mr. Land about the spontaneous abortion rates.
Im not sure how that changes anything. Everything he said, in this post of yours (not the other) is clearly true [well, I dont know the numbers, Im assuming those are right].
Two thoughts:
1. Spontaneous abortion + intentional abortion spontaneous abortion.
2. I think he is aware that people, of all ages, die natural deaths. He is concerned about murder. Conflating murders with natural deaths is some very weird apples/orangutans thing. Whether or not your or I consider it murder, he does.
There was a greater than sign in #1, fuck you squirrels.
GT aka right angle-bracket is not allowed since that was an html tag.
As much as it pains me to say so, BCE's comment on spontaneous abortion was poorly considered.
Bo said something dumb and pointlessly argumentative in order to stir up shit? No. Not Bo.
I know why it isnt allowed. However, as there was no opening LT sign, there was no need to assume the GT sign was a closing tag and not the symbol.
Context. And plenty of programming/scripting/etc languages can figure out that and other similar contexts.
They don't even allow the "& gt ;" workaround anymore.
Reason's comment sanitizer/XSS filter is horrible. And there's virtually no reason they should be using a homegrown one in the first place.
What strikes me as the most likely reason that the greater-than sign is filtered but not the less-than is filtered out, and out-of-context to boot, is in case the comment text is placed within an attribute -- such as the value attribute of a textarea -- a malicious commenter can't prematurely close the tag by typing a quotation mark and then a greater-than-sign.
That is, of course, the wrong way to go about it.
They are possibly using a homegrown one as a reaction to whatever griefing was going on before registration/upgrade. The griefer(s) were trying every trick in the book to fuck the site.
OK, virtually no good reason.
I just want my goddamn blink tags.
And in-line video.
They were using a homegrown one before the registration/upgrade too.
During that time frame, I pointed them to some very good options that exist elsewhere that would work well with the amount of commenting on this site.
They thanked me and then ignored me.
Sometimes I wish the Reason backend could be turned into a community project, but I can see how that could turn it into a clusterfuck, and I'm not sure if they actually own the rights to it.
There is one pro-choice argument that cannot be defeated:
Suppose YOU (not just anyone) woke up to find yourself in a hospital with blood transfusion lines running to another person.
"Sorry, robc, you have a rare blood type and your hospital roommate needs that blood to live. You will be attached for only nine months."
If you walk out is that murder?
Of course not.
I didn't realize women got pregnant spontaneously.
So the sex act carries a state enforced mandate to complete the reproduction cycle?
I am only interested in the state and its role in the reproduction cycle. Why should the state intervene at all?
After conception reproduction has already occurred, from then on it is development.
My point, fuck face, is your analogy fails miserable. Unless they are raped, women play a role in getting knocked up.
Personal responsibility is Proggie kryptonite.
And an authoritarian moralist police state is a conservative trait.
And an authoritarian moralist police state is a conservative trait.
Not that I expect this argument to make any difference to you, obviously set in your prejudices as you are, but broadly speaking, the pro-life position is that intentionally terminating a pregnancy is tantamount, in a moral sense, to murdering a fully developed human.
Hypothetically, if that were true, then the argument could be made that the state would be justified in using its resources to prevent such action, for the same underlying reasons that justify the current state's prosecution and imprisonment of murderers, reasons which virtually anyone who accepts a justification for the existence of some kind of state would agree are valid.
Obviously, this falls apart if that first moral argument is not true, but it seems quite tortured to morph that position into endorsement of a "moralist police state".
I think you explain well the pro-life position, but I think you, and many others here, are missing PB's point, which is about this: even if the fetus is a human person with moral rights, is it wrong to force someone to 'carry' it to term? His analogy shows a case where an undisputed human life is dependent on the choice of another human life who would have to sacrifice of her body and time to see the person through. It is interesting that so many people react so harshly to PB's analogy here given that it is essentially (or at least close to) Ayn Rand's position on this matter.
which is about this: even if the fetus is a human person with moral rights, is it wrong to force someone to 'carry' it to term? His analogy shows a case where an undisputed human life is dependent on the choice of another human life who would have to sacrifice of her body and time to see the person through.
Yes, I would say simply that there is much more complexity in that question than either side of the debate, at least in their most publicly visible forms, is willing to admit. Granted, I understand that "it's complicated" probably sounds like a conceited attempt to seem above-it-all without actually taking a position, but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that assessment of the state of the debate.
More to the point, I think calling pro-lifers fascists and proponents of a police state is nothing more than the inverse of calling pro-choicers genocidaires: an utterly worthless rhetorical bomb-throwing.
My point, fuck face, is your analogy fails miserable. Unless they are raped, women play a role in getting knocked up.
Why should the police state intervene to mandate the completion of the reproductive cycle?
or
Is it murder?
You fail to answer basic questions and instead just trivialize the woman's role in getting "knocked up".
Again, when abortions occur the reproductive cycle is long since complete. An abortion is an interruption of human development, it just so happens to be the prenatal portion of development. This is true whether it is murder or not.
I am not trying to be cute here Apatheist, but is the reproduction cycle of, say, a reptile complete with the laying of the egg or when the baby reptile cracks out of the shell? Would it be scientifically incorrect to say the latter?
Yes, it would be scientifically incorrect. And it is also irrelevant to the moral and political debate on abortion. I'm just correcting him. People who want to ban the pill or condoms are interfering in reproductive "rights" (really more fundamental rights) but abortion is a completely different discussion.
Only you and Bo can be this dense. Willingly participating in an act that could land you pregnant is nothing like waking up in a hospital and finding out that you are hooked up to someone else who you are keeping alive.
A more apt analogy would be if you willingly put your name in a lottery to be the person transfusing blood to someone else. But that analogy would be less sympathetic as it actually points out that women knowingly engage in an activity that can cause pregnancy and it doesn't just randomly happen to women as your retarded analogy tries to imply. Or are you under the same theory that Tony has that women get pregnant by being hit by a bus?
Banjos, you are missing the point again. See my comment at 6:26 supra.
No you are missing the point. In his analogy the robc has been put in the situation without his consent. Shreek left out whether the person he is hooked up to consented. In most abortions the mother is in the situation by consent while the child is not. When rape is involved neither party is there by consent.
The analogy fails completely for the former.
This is only if something other than the fact that a human person's life is at stake is dispositive. For many pro-lifers (I wonder what percent?) rape abortions are as surely murder as any other.
Let's put it this way: would you attach any culpability to robc if he just walked out and the fellow died?
No I wouldn't.
Though this highlights the problem with the analogy even in the case of rape. Abortions are merely removing life support, they are a targeted killing. I would hold robc accountable if he shot the guy in the head on the way out.
"aren't merely"
Also, this has been a more pleasant argument than 90% of abortion arguments but I'm off to enjoy my evening far more.
Unless you believe we are spirits looking around for someone to be our parent and somehow latch onto the zygote in the womb, then really the child is NEVER there by consent. Not even if she gives birth.
You never heard a teenager scream "I didn't ask to be born!" ?
I am not sure his analogy fails there though, unless, as you are arguing what PB says.
As most pro-lifers will tell you, there really is no pro-life argument that would differentiate fetuses that are the product of choice and those that are the product of rape.
I differentiate the two for the exact same reason this analogy fails. That's not the end of the discussion but the analogy fails for 99%+ of abortions.
Again, I am not sure it fails. If embryos and fetuses are deserving of full human rights then surely those can not be abrogated because of the circumstances of their conception.
In the case of pregnancy by rape, the mother's rights are in conflict with the child's rights, it's a different argument about how to solve that conflict when neither were put in that situation by consent. In all other pregnancies the mother is their by choice while the child isn't.
So the idea is that you can compel a person to donate their body and time to see a life they have brought into the world to birth but perhaps not a life that was forced upon them? OK, I kind of see what you are saying.
Let me tweak PB's analogy. You're driving down the road a bit recklessly, and you hit someone. The someone now needs a 9 month long blood transfusion, and you are the only one with the blood type in the jurisdiction. Would it be OK to sentence you to 9 months of blood transfusion for your victim? (I understand the rape scenario would now be something like you were driving carefully down the road and some thug pushed someone in front of you, everything else the same).
Mind you I think expectant mothers who did not intend to get pregnant but who were not raped are somewhere between PB's person waking up in the hospital and my reckless hit and runner.
Yes, in the former they chose to procreate, in the latter they didn't. In neither did the child consent. This whole argument is with the presumption that the fetus has rights though (or has rights at the point of decision making, most people fall somewhere in between conception and birth). If the fetus has no rights this secondary argument is irrelevant.
That's an argument for having a rape exception for abortion, not for consensual pregnancies.
Is it an argument at all?
It's a mediocre (at best) analogy. It is a variation of the same analogy I've see millions of times though. Shreek isn't the first.
Quite possibly, especially if what landed the other guy in the hospital was robc's doing.
"There is one pro-choice argument that cannot be defeated:"
Once again, I laugh. Are you 12?
"Click here to learn One Weird Trick a Single Mom used to defeat pro-lifers and get ObamaCare to Pay for her Contraceptives!"
Yeah, plug, your "Undefeatable argument" was pretty much destroyed in 7 words. Back to the drawing board echo chamber.
Actually, if you're pregnant you can walk around, eat, play, work, have sex...just about anything you can do when you're not pregnant.
Your belly gets bigger, your moods may change, but you're not strapped down anywhere to anyone.
I can understand why a woman would not want to go through with a pregnancy because she is not prepared to have and raise a child. But very seldom is it because pregnancy is such an ordeal.
It wasn't for me though. I thoroughly enjoyed being pregnant with my two daughters, and thoroughly enjoyed raising them. Good karma, I guess, at least in that part of my life.
Boys in blue, keeping us safe:
Woman Arrested for jogging jaywalking
The UK Daily *Mail* was able to find out her name, but the Austin *Daily Texan* didn't.
Deep Thoughts From the Worthless Communist Jesse Myerson Or, Try to Identify the Economic Fallacies!
Dear Business Owners,
Could you please stop being so mean to crackheads and the serially incompetent, and spend infinite dollars so that they can (maybe) get to the point where they can start working a minimum wage job for you without fucking it up? K Thx
Sincerely,
The Economic Illiterates Of America
Yeah, fuck those usurious KKKorporations, like Sallie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae!
Was that tweeted by joe?
DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED.
You've got to admit that the guy is doing pretty well for himself with this provocative horse's ass shtick. He's like the Fred Phelps of neo-communists.
Yeah, and if you had seen him on The Independents, you can see by the unbelievably self-satisfied expression on his face that for him this is a combination of trolling, smugness, and a wildly, wildly inflated sense of his own intelligence. It was pretty clear it's mostly a game for him.
Just like a lot of western bourgeois commies ("OH ST. ZINN, INTERCEDE FOR ME!!"), he appears to be making a decent living off of the system he continuously decries.
Heh, true. It was also amusing to see leftists' spittle-flecked denunciation of anyone criticizing that Myerson article as communist -- right before Myerson came out as a communist. Sample article: Yglesias' "Defining Communism Down".
Though his writing is purely Pravda-level:
While Myerson can "sneeringly imply" that his critics are idiots, a tone can't "sneeringly imply" anything, because tones don't do things sneeringly. I hate sloppy, word-barrage, post-Marxist "writers" like this, and the fact that he's such a poor economic thinker (those who create wealth by using capital efficiently to meet consumer needs have an obligation to give jobs to "labor"? What?) makes it even more obnoxious that he's getting any attention from the world outside of a regular dose of thorazine.
Your five minutes are up in Yenrabistan, Myerson. To the Tony-pit with you.
It's a nice moment of instruction, for those who choose to learn. The left defended this guy's original article when it came out and the suggestions therein, and bashed anyone (even those ostensibly on their side) who accurately pointed out that the ideas are communist and tyrannical in nature. I'm OK with the left being saddled with him for the rest of his natural existence -- he is part and parcel a part of them and they a part of him (he was an Occupy 'leader'), and for all their protestations to the contrary people should be reminded that their ideas and governing impulses have manifested themselves most completely and authentically in absolutely horrible countries.
More brilliant analysis from the Hot Topic Communist:
Myerson's Twitter feed is to stupidity as the Congo is to blood diamonds.
OK, he's obviously just trolling now, if he's going to sit there and try to tell me about the "terrific" economic policies that resulted in people being unable to procure fucking toilet paper.
I saw the Maduro one today and had intended to post it. Former reasonoid Michael Moynihan responded to the Maduro tweet with the following: "Ladies and gentlemen, the dumbest person on the internet"
It's a brutal competition but he may be right.
That one was pretty bad.
The "well intentioned students amidst fascists" tweet could have come from Khrushchev during the Hungarian uprising.
"You have a lot of attention on a foolish sport like American football and you waste a lot of talent, athletic talent, on a sport that is meant to kill each other, to injure each other. ... You're so narrow-minded, and then you want to compete against the world [in other sports] when you waste a lot of time, good talent on a sport that sucks," he said."
So. Counter a narrow view with a narrow view?
The Dutch are special. It's funny, the Dutch national soccer team is notorious for infighting.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101431838
I will add, their 21 medals in ONE sport is sick. Impressive.
So if the U.S. somehow magically diverted all of the talent and effort that goes into American football into more sophisticated European sports like ribbon dancing and chain smoking, what, we'd win all of the medals, instead of only most of them?
I think Jeremy Clarkson made some very interesting points about the Dutch in his review of the Spyker aileron C8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzwXmPuSFNc
Another video I can't find right now by a young dutch political aspirant basically said, "We Dutch are fundamentally weird people." Something to do with being a dense country, but quasi-geographically isolated. Hence = eels, sesame sauce on fries, porn.
Yes. If the US's best athletes weren't concentrating on sports that made them money, we'd get more medals at the stupidass Olympics. Genius. No one has ever made that point before.
Because going in circles on a frozen pool is like, more socially something derp.
I have this vague memory of the U.S. winning some gold in speedskating in past Olympics. Did we enjoy football less then or something?
Yeah.
A sport that generates multiple billions of dollars every year is a waste, while Speed Skating is a noble pursuit. Of course there are 1696 players in the NFL that make a minimum of ~$500k per annum plus another 256 players on their respective practice squads. I'm sure that they all see it as a waste, especially when people only really give a shit about speed skating 2 weeks every 4 fucking years.
What an elitist dick.
He's just pissed off because his sport doesn't garner much, if any, attention. He's an attention whore denied an audience by his chosen field.
"Who would build the roads? Frustrated man fills in potholes himself
"Frustrated by all the potholes in his neighborhood, a Long Island man has started filling them up himself....
"While Fitzgerald's pothole vigilantism has earned him the ire of authorities, his neighbors are grateful. "He's definitely going to heaven" one told CBS New York."
http://thelibertarianrepublic......z2tnxrvhhO
But but Somalia!
The unions are not going to be happy about this.
And don't even ask about Jack Frappity Frap - he won't like it at all, man!
Lucy Steigerwald: Bad cops, bad cops, whatcha gonna do?
One of the cases she noticed:
"On Thursday, 27-year-old Kayla Finley went to the police department of Pickens, South Carolina, to make a report. But she soon found herself jailed for the night over the late fees she owed for a nine-years-overdue Jennifer Lopez movie. Finley says she never received the letters that told her to return the movie, nor the follow-up that specified there was now a warrant out for her arrest. The video store she rented it from, by the way, is no longer in business, probably because they failed to collect late fees." (according to the article, the movie was Monster in Law)
http://www.vice.com/read/what-.....other-cops
My god the video store rented her a Jennifer Lopez movie? This woman should sue the video store for damages.
Glitch in the matrix. RUN!
LUCY!!!!!
Potty training a near 3 year old sucks.
That is all.
Have you considered a taser?
Remember to yell "stop resisting" while you're doing it.
A taser would lock him up. I need him to relax and just let it go.
getting a 3 year old to do anything sucks. Terrible twos my ass.
My wife and I aren't sure why they call them the terrible twos, being that 3 is even worse. We call them the tyrannical threes.
Well guess I'll have to limit the snowboarding trips to Montana now. Fuck UT and CO.
Really? Fuck CO, snowboarder? Really?