A.M. Links: Obama To Campaign For Minimum Wage Hike, Russia Vows To Keep Troops in Ukraine, Former IRS Official To Testify Before House Committee

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(E. Arrott/wikimedia)
Credit: E. Arrott/wikimedia
  • President Obama is to campaign for raising the minimum wage this week.
  • Russia has vowed to keep its troops in Ukraine. The Russian foreign minister says "ultra-nationalists" in Ukraine threaten the interests of Russians and Russian speakers.
  • Gravity won seven Academy Awards last night, including best director. Best picture went to 12 Years a Slave, Matthew McConaughey won best actor for his performance in Dallas Buyers Club, and Cate Blanchett won best actress for her performance in Blue Jasmine.
  • Afghan President Hamid Karzai has criticized the U.S., saying that the war in his country has been "for the U.S. security and for the Western interests."
  • Former Internal Revenue Service Director of Tax-Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner will testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform this week. Lerner invoked the Fifth Amendment in a May 2013 hearing on the IRS' targeting of conservative groups.
  • Conservatives are frustrated by the Republican Party's compromises and lack of leadership.

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NEXT: Ellen DeGeneres, the Oscars, and the Selfie That Broke Twitter

Matthew Feeney is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute.

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  1. Russia has vowed to keep its troops in Ukraine.

    Hopefully you didn’t throw out those old CCCP flags.

    1. Rufus J. Firefly

      Hello.

      Let the festivities begin.

      1. Slammer

        Howdy.

      2. Kalimera.

        1. wareagle

          Ellinas?

        2. CE

          No thanks. I don’t like squid.

      3. EDG reppin' LBC

        Good morning.

      4. UnCivilServant

        NAK.

  2. Gravity won seven Academy Awards last night, including best director.

    I liked Gravity better the first time I saw it, when it was Armageddon.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      #willissavestheworld

    2. Auric Demonocles

      Before they digitally remastered it to remove all the cool explosions?

    3. Rufus J. Firefly

      For what it’s worth, never watched an Oscar in my life. Don’t care what a bunch of people whom I’ve never met think about a movie. I choose my own shit.

      Award ceremonies and the need for recognition is an activity that irritates me.

      1. What’s even worse is hearing people yammer on and on about it the next day.

        I’d almost rather listen to some dipshit drone on about the big game, or whatever, they watched last night.

      2. In the early days, an Oscar really indicated which movies were worth watching. Usually, anyway. It happened One Night is one of my favorites.

        1. Funny that you’d mention 1934, since Bette Davis wasn’t nominated for her performance in Of Human Bondage, which a lot of people consider to be one of the Academy’s great oversights.

          1. Rufus J. Firefly

            Interesting. I saw that movie (and read the book. She was very good in it come to think of it.

            1. And one of her great rants, where she floridly wipes her mouth to taunt Leslie Howard.

              I also like how the establishing shot of Paris shows the Eiffel Tower when it had the Citro?n ad on it.

      3. JW

        How can you *not* want to watch a self-congratulatory circle-jerk of narcissists?

        1. Rufus J. Firefly

          I hate anything that’s judged and is followed with a bull shit ceremony. I would never want to be a judge in sports or the arts.

          My daughter entered a writing contest. Her story was weird and surreal with an incoherent plot I admit but it was ORIGINAL. Her mind went somewhere most kids don’t go. It was a classic case of a child using their imagination with a twist.

          She didn’t win. My wife (a teacher) and I looked over the winning stories. All shared the same trait: Safe.

          Not that they were bad or anything. Good for the kids who won. It’s just that I wonder how many true original thinkers and writers get overlooked in life and in history.

          1. Rufus J. Firefly

            Incoherent may be strong – messy might be a better word.

          2. CE

            And the school psychiatrist called you, no doubt.

      4. Zeb

        Award shows are the worst and stupidest things on TV. And that’s saying a lot.

    4. I haven’t seen it yet, but I understand the action in Gravity is at odds with what’s physically possible.

    5. CE

      We all know Rush was really the best picture of 2014.

      1. CE

        er, 2013…

  3. Meanwhile in Wartyville:

    Smell of rotting whale on truck ‘unbelievable’

    Motorists were left sickened after seeing a 50ft rotting whale being driven along a busy dual carriageway.

    The giant sperm whale died when it became stranded on the Kent coast near Seasalter more than a week ago.

    Its decomposing body was left there for five days until it was removed and loaded on to the back of a lorry to be taken to a landfill site.

    1. Jordan

      “lorry” “dual carriageway”

      English, motherfucker, Do you speak it?!

      1. GILMORE

        (Golf Clap)

    2. Porn for John?

    3. Shirley Knott

      Hey, at least they didn’t repeat Oregon’s mistake (which involved dynamite and a rain of rotted flesh).

      1. UnCivilServant

        But… That was fun.

        just because hundred pound slabs of rotting blubber crushed cars and threatened to kill spectators we can’t explode any more whales (and the fact that the carcass failed to go away when they blew it up)

        1. Cdr Lytton

          “..the blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds..”

          http://youtu.be/uD5sPgV61bw

          1. UnCivilServant

            An alliteration that wouldn’t repeat root words would be “the bomb blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds” But hindsight is an easy thing.

  4. Lerner invoked the Fifth Amendment in a May 2013 hearing on the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups.

    More of less.

  5. Spoonman.

    Afghan President Hamid Karzai has criticized the U.S., saying that the war in his country has been “for the U.S. security and for the Western interests.”

    If only that were true.

  6. Rufus J. Firefly

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv5imxGZRRE

    Don Lemon a, erm, lemon?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shB87dAAMU8

    Thoughts ALWAYS welcomed – nay – demanded!

    1. ~Knarf Yenrab~

      Who is it who’s always saying that the more incompetent he turns out to be, the blacker Obama will become? After Nov. 2014, we can look forward to two years of portraits of Obama as a latter-day Frederick Douglass.

  7. Bee Tagger

    Conservatives are frustrated by the Republican Party’s compromises and lack of leadership.

    Sounds like they might want a maverick to run for President.

    1. The 2016 presidential election is Jeb Bush’s now-or-never-moment.

      As other potential GOP standard-bearers have been hit by scandal or seen their luster fade, many Republicans desperately want the former Florida governor to get in the race.

      His allies say he is considering it more seriously than ever before.

      They believe he could be their Goldilocks candidate: Not too conservative, not too centrist; not too dull, not too unpredictable; not too inexperienced, and not too marred by scandal. In fact, just right.

      http://thehill.com/blogs/ballo…..ng-for-jeb

      1. Bo Cara Esq.

        If it is Bush v. Clinton then we really are a banana republic led by various dynastical cults of personality.

        1. Joe M

          People like that.

        2. And people will still try to tell us that our model of democracy is better than Russia’s.

          1. Because it is. False equivalence FTL.

            1. If you doubt the fairness of Russian elections, just take a good look at who’s in the Duma.

              I will agree that voters are ultimately to blame if our choices in 2016 are Hillary and Jeb, especially if the people don’t learn from recent events that Sec. Clinton didn’t do a thing to curtail neoconservative influence at State.

      2. Shirley Knott

        If being a Bush doesn’t count as a fatal defect then there is no hope. Not that there’s much left to lose.

      3. Ol’ Jeb would rather you go without a power generator after a hurricane than suffer the insult of someone selling a generator at current market prices.

        1. carol

          We got hit with four hurricanes during the 2004 season and Jeb did a good job. That said, being a good governor doesn’t necessarily translate into being a good president. I’m certainly not pining away for a Jeb presidency.

      4. sasob

        According to a poll taken at the end of January, among Republicans Sarah Palin out-polled Bush and all the other prospective GOP candidates for president, with Bush and Huck close behind. And she isn’t even running. Maybe the GOP ought to get its act together.

      5. CE

        I’m guessing “never”.

  8. Sex game ends in hospital visit

    Doctors on Sunday removed a hard-boiled egg from a woman’s vagina after a lovers’ sex game went sour, officials from the Shanghai No. 411 Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army said yesterday.

    The woman’s husband said he inserted the peeled egg into his wife’s vagina because he wanted to try something different during sex. But soon after, the woman complained of an unusual sensation in her lower abdomen and the pair decided they should seek help.

    The couple, both in their 20s, said they had tried to remove the egg using chopsticks and a spoon. When that failed, the woman tried to free it by jumping up and down.

    1. Which came first?

      1. Certified Public Asskicker

        The rooster, obviously.

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      John Woo approves

      1. boo…

      2. Those pikers have nothing on Paul Newman.

        1. Rufus J. Firefly

          Cool movie.

          Excuse the pun?

          1. If I don’t excuse the pun, does that count as a failure to communicate?

            1. sasob

              Hm, possibly – but on the other hand, maybe not.

    3. gaijin

      Next time, try the egg in vitro.

    4. Joe M

      The woman’s husband said he inserted the peeled egg into his wife’s vagina because he wanted to try something different during sex.

      Because nothing says sexy like sulfur.

      1. Zeb

        There is someone who is into anything you can think of.

  9. wareagle

    it’s not what Obama should actually do, it’s that he could give a shit about foreign policy. There is no opportunity to blame Repubs so he’s not interested. The approach has been ad hoc the entire time. For as simplistic as “with us or against us” was, at least you knew where Bush stood. Obama wings, often doing diametrically opposed things in response to parallel events (see: uprising in Iran vs that in Egypt).

  10. …Lois Lerner will testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform this week.

    Superman will just reverse Earth’s rotation and save her again.

  11. sarcasmic

    Moment off-duty cop shot dead unarmed firefighter who had got married just hours earlier is revealed, as he is cleared of charges

    Kansas City firefighter Anthony Bruno, 26, was shot dead by police officer Donald Hubbard, 42, following his wedding
    Bruno was resisting arrest after Hubbard apprehended him following an altercation with a cab driver
    Hubbard said he feared for his life when Bruno began to punch him in the head
    Fired two shots at the firefighter after suffering a broken cheekbone and facial cuts
    Was cleared by a grand jury of any criminal wrongdoing

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..erges.html

    Looks like the cop is about to cuff the guy, when the cop starts kneeing the guy in the face because he can. At that point dude starts fighting back and winning. That’s when the cop kills him.

    Cops are always justified if they say they “feared for their life.” What happens when a peasant fears for their life from a cop? Oh yeah, they die. And nothing else happens.

    1. Jordan

      What the fuck is wrong with all of these grand juries?

      1. Bones

        What is the standard for a grand jury to indict someone? Half or more of the jurists? Different by jurisdiction? I honestly don’t know what is required for the grand jury to say, “um, we might think this guy is guilty.”

        1. hamilton

          Popehat’s article from last week on the Grand Jury process is apropos as regards how the grand jury regards the arguments of authority figures.

          1. Jordan

            Damn, that’s a hell of a nutpunch.

        2. db

          What’s wrong is that only the.prosecution gets to present.in front of a grand jury. So when the accused.is.little people, they’re hosed. When the.accused.is a.cop, the prosecution doesn’t try very hard or.actively.can sabotage their.own “case” against him.

          One of the.many problems of.having the prosecution and the.police working for the same org.

          1. sarcasmic

            Then when it’s a little people and they are indicted, all of their assets are stolen. Now all they get for a defense is a public pretender, who works on the same team as the cops, prosecution, and judge.

          2. Agreed. Grand juries are typically under the complete control of the prosecution. They have the power to not do that, but few take up the challenge.

      2. sasob

        What the fuck is wrong with all of these grand juries?

        Check out who they choose to serve on juries sometime. They are nearly always people who have some connection to and vested interest in the “system”. They’re nearly always people who vote regularly, own property, and/or have family members who work in government of one kind or another.

    2. Zeb

      Looks like a couple of violent assholes found each other. Too bad the didn’t both die.

  12. Rufus J. Firefly

    http://daniel-venezuela.blogsp…..t-you.html

    Jimmy Carter not too popular in Venezuela these days.

    1. Red Rocks Rockin

      One of the commenters had a good point–it would be easy for the US to destroy the Bolivarian socialists just by not accepting the country’s crude for refinement. I suspect the only reason we continue to do so is because we don’t want to risk a complete meltdown in the northern tier of South America.

      1. Rufus J. Firefly

        It’s interesting because the U.S. government has to fear instability in many places. Mexico, South America, Quebec and of course, its own secessionist movements and impulses.

      2. Rasilio

        Crude Oil is fungible. If we stopped buying Venezuelan Crude and got the same volume from someone else then whoever used to get that crude would get theirs from Venezuela.

        1. califernian

          Thank you. Who doesn’t fucking understand this? Trade embargoes are moronic.

        2. Root Boy

          It’s because the only refineries setup to process VZ heavy crude is in TX or LA. I don’t think even Canada has one for tar sands, which is why Keystone XL goes to TX.

          Obama will never cut off Chavistas because they are simpatico

          1. Red Rocks Rockin

            It’s because the only refineries setup to process VZ heavy crude is in TX or LA

            Bingo. Fungibility doesn’t mean shit if there’s nowhere to actually refine it.

  13. Slammer

    Australian pythons eating crocodiles.

    1. DontShootMe

      Austrailia, where everything is trying to kill everything else. It’s like a bad SyFy movie. (oops, sorry for being redundant).

  14. President Obama is to campaign for raising the minimum wage this week.

    All he has to do is raise the minimum wage and make it illegal to fire anyone because you can no longer afford them.

    1. Rufus J. Firefly

      Don Lemon agrees!

    2. Bo Cara Esq.

      He will just give companies a waiver if they say did not fire anyone because of it.

    3. Auric Demonocles

      I’m confused. I thought trying to change an existing law was treason?

    4. I had a wonderful idea yesterday. Raise the minimum wage, and institute a penaltax to make businesses hire more minimum-wage workers. I can haz gig writing for The New York Times?

      1. Jordan

        Hell, you can be Chief Justice.

      2. Rufus J. Firefly

        Doc, I thought about the same thing.

        If minimum wage fails, what’s to stop the government to force things on the other side of the coin? Namely. by bullying businesses into hiring.

  15. Bo Cara Esq.

    SoCon Catholic Priest is a Jerk

    “The Cub Scouts of Pack 683 in Fairfax did a brisk business selling popcorn in August and September. Peddling boxes outside grocery stores and on neighbors’ doorsteps, they raised about $2,800 for medals, camping and other expenses.

    The vast majority of the boys will never benefit from the funds they collected. The Roman Catholic priest at the church that sponsored the pack kept the money when he canceled the pack’s charter in response to the national Boy Scout organization’s decision to admit openly gay youths.

    Father John De Celles of St. Raymond of Pe?afort in Springfield decided that the popcorn money, together with an additional $1,200 that Pack 683 had taken in previously, will go instead to support a new boys group that the church is sponsoring.

    That’s a unit of Trail Life USA, created to offer a scoutlike experience that calls itself ‘Christ-centered’ and bars boys who publicly identify as homosexual.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..9&hpid=z20“

    1. waffles

      Why would a Catholic priest publicly denounce the BSA for being anti-gay. Does the Church openly accept gay worshippers? Priests? What’s going on!?

      This seems vindictive. Oh, a new boys group that the church is sponsoring. I suspect grooming going on.

      1. Bo Cara Esq.

        The Priest denounced the BSA when they decided to accept gay kids and started a different gay-excluding group. That is fine, of course, but the jerk move was in keeping the money the former, dissolved group of kids had raised.

        1. waffles

          Oh I was confused. Well, carry on then.

        2. Notorious G.K.C.

          “De Celles was within his rights because of national Boy Scout policy. It says that St. Raymond, as the chartering organization, always owned the pack’s money and equipment, regardless of how the assets were obtained….

          “There wasn’t much money at stake, because the Boy Scouts’ funds were low before their spring mulch sale. Camping equipment, however, is to be divided proportionally between the Trail Life unit and a new Scout troop, according to an adult leader working with both groups.”

          1. Zeb

            It may be legal, but it’s still pretty jerky to keep the money that the kids probably worked pretty hard to raise.

            1. Notorious G.K.C.

              I don’t know how jerky it was, but they had both the benefits and obligations associated with church sponsorship. And church leaders should be careful about alienating Church property. Anyway, it’s a consideration which the initial excerpt didn’t mention.

              1. Notorious G.K.C.

                And in an earlier article, the columnist noted this, believing that he was citing a damning fact:

                Fr. De Celles “warned a year ago that St. Raymond would sever its relationship with the Boy Scouts if it changed the policy.”

                The troop was on notice about the terms of the relationship.

              2. Bo Cara Esq.

                The kid’s raised it but it is church property. Legally, maybe, morally, yes. Now if only there were an organization that professed to have higher moral standards than what was legal…

                1. Notorious G.K.C.

                  You mean like being careful before alienating Church property? Morality doesn’t automatically require giving Church property to organizations that contradict Church teaching. Though I don’t know the specifics of this case.

                  1. Zeb

                    They are fucking Cub Scouts selling popcorn. Some decision that was completely out of their control led to the church taking their money and half of their gear. That’s a jerk move.

    2. Mickey Rat

      There you go again, complaining that your opponents in the culture wars have the temerity to fight back.

      1. Bo Cara Esq.

        Keeping the money the kids who were disbanded raised=fighting back!

        1. Mickey Rat

          The money apparently belonged to the parish’s youth program, not to the scouts.

  16. all signs point to yes:

    Ukraine: Is Britain now a bystander on the world stage?

    Mr Cameron picked up the theme when he publicly backed Georgia against the Russians during that brief war. But since then, and in particular in the past year, London has been much more accommodating to Mr Putin, prompting some to suspect that the Government’s policy of seeking foreign cash to invest in the UK is leading it, as with China, to look the other way when it comes to dealing with dictators. It remains telling, however eloquent Mr Hague is today, that Britain is largely absent from this crisis. The US, France and Germany have been more active. Ukraine is ominous, but even more troubling is the impression that Britain is increasingly a bystander on the world stage. Expect that question to be asked with ever greater frequency.

    1. Rufus J. Firefly

      If Britain is a bystander then what does that make France?

      The projection of power by any European country is only as strong as it’s backed by the United States.

      Cold, hard truth.

      1. BardMetal

        Anyone else tired of paying for the defense of a bunch of G8 members that are more then wealthy enough to look to their own defenses?

        The United States has to be the only country in history that wastes money garrisoning it’s wealthiest allies, instead of a bunch of colonial possessions.

        1. Rufus J. Firefly

          I’m tired of it…and I’m Canadian!

      2. Just this morning, listening to news about Ukraine, it occurred to me that something like this could have meant the beginning of a big war, if Europe still had its own military. I suppose it still could if the U.S. directly intervened for some reason, but that seems incredibly unlikely.

    2. wareagle

      just how “more active” has the US been? Oh sure, TOTUS talked about consequences but no one believes that.

  17. Warty

    So how many socks was Tulpa running all these years? I bet the number is shockingly large.

    1. Would you be so kind as to expound?

      1. SugarFree

        The Incident

        1. This makes me wonder what the ratio of reality to sock is.

          I, for one, am real. Just ask me.

          1. I’m real, and I’m spectacular.

          2. waffles

            I’m a sockpuppet. But the handle I’m a sock for stopped posting 4 years ago.

          3. Auric Demonocles

            I’m real. Just ask tarran or Butts or hamilton.

            1. hamilton

              He’s real. Although, to be fair:

              a. He might be Tulpa.
              b. I am not yet certain any of you are real or are just robots placed here to test me a la Dwayne Hoover.

              1. I can confirm that Auric and Butts are real.

                I’m not sure about hamilton, though; he failed to kick Nick Gillespie in the balls, claiming to have forgotten to do it until it was too late, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT A HOLOGRAM WOULD DO TO AVOID GIVING ITSELF AWAY.

                1. hamilton

                  aaahhh: but I handed Nick my copy of his book to sign, which he did, and then he handed it back. So I must have a physical entity OR ELSE NICK IS IN ON IT.

                  1. So you say. But *I* didn’t see Nick sign your book. You could have created an image of a signed book to deceive us all!

                  2. UnCivilServant

                    No, it just means you’re made of hard light, or encased in a similarly resistant external containment field.

                    1. So, I went on the web looking for a funny Red Dwarf video.

                      I found something much more bizarre and funny.

                      The TV show, Red Dwarf, showed Hologram people. This man has a big H on his forehead to indicate he is a hologram. How did they get this hologram idea in the UK back in 1988? I think it is possible people knew in 1988 that holograms would become a reality some day.

                      We as a people have become quite skillful at making illusions and works of art.

                      Computer animations, CGI, costumes, and make-up can deceive many. Be careful what you believe.

            2. I was there at Auric’s christening, so I can vouch for him. If you’re ever unsure, just tell him that you just heard that Voyager had left the solar system ten minutes ago.

          4. Elspeth Flashman

            I, too am real. Just ask Lord H.

          5. UnCivilServant

            I was eventually aquitted of the accusation of sockpuppetdom.

            I think.

            I’m not one, but I had an unfortunate timing incident when I started posting.

            1. Auric Demonocles

              A couple of days ago we mentioned that you’ve got to be careful when you stop lurking or you’ll get those accusations.

          6. I originally posted under the nom de hit and run “capitol l”, but when they changed the comments section I couldn’t take that name. It said it was reserved, but I couldn’t use it. I guess that shows how much they loved me as a commenter.

            My present handle was the one I used to use for the Stossel liveblogging events so I just started using that’n after the change over.

            1. my handle started when I was a lurker, replying to some thread about the Road Warrior movie. I’ve been thinking of changing it… but it is what it is.

              1. Auric Demonocles

                I was stuck under “Vermont Gun Owner” for years and years because I finally stopped lurking under a thread about gun laws.

                1. Notorious G.K.C.

                  I am a sock for EvH, whose name I took during a thread about dope in the Netherlands. It wasn’t as funny as I thought, since my namesake was in fact of Dutch origin.

                  1. Warty

                    It wasn’t as funny as I thought

                    Think carefully about that.

                    1. SugarFree

                      This a nickname my brother-in-law gave me.

              2. You’d just walk away from that handle?

            2. WTF

              Heh – my handle started many years ago when I was finally motivated to stop lurking by a particularly idiotic and dishonest post by ‘Tony’ that I felt compelled to respond to, and the foremost though in my head was “What the fuck?” so I just went with it.

              1. UnCivilServant

                a particularly idiotic and dishonest post by ‘Tony’ that I felt compelled to respond to, and the foremost though in my head was “What the fuck?”

                That is a perfectly understandable reaction.

              2. particularly idiotic and dishonest post by ‘Tony’

                You’re going to have to narrow that down.

            3. I exist to serve this Swiss Corporation, so I row well… and live.

          7. I am real.

            You just can’t hide fabulous.

        2. SIV

          Now who will save us from the MARKET FAILURE of underrepresented viewpoints?

        3. db

          When did Playa add the accent mark to his.handle? Or.have I.missed it all along?

          1. SugarFree

            Yesterday, after the Brunch Heard ‘Round The World.

        4. db

          So this sort of explains part of why it is so hard to get Pirttsburgh reasoners to meet up. If Tulpa did, in fact, ever live in Pittsburgh.

          1. waffles

            I believe he did. Who would lie about something like that? No one pretends to live in Pittsburgh.

            1. db

              So I guess either Pittsburgh reasonoids are super awesome people too busy to meet up, terribly antisocial, or yinz have heard about my legendary halitosis.

              1. I’m up for a meet-up when it gets nicer out.

                I’ve been working as many shifts as possible to make the winter go faster and’ll need a break when spring finally gets here.

                I think we should do a group range trip and then food/beer.

                1. db

                  I would be up for that. Need to find a range that allows full auto. I have one up in New Castle but we have to pick the right day. If only Greater Pitt Gun Club were.still open.

                2. waffles

                  Sounds good. I have a bunch of bricks of .22lr that I don’t want to lug around when I move. And I like beer.

        5. I just wish The Incident were available on DVD.

          1. Mainer2

            My fraternity brothers and I sat up late one night getting high and watching that movie. It’s so intense and so of its time. If you were going to make a gritty crime drama parody set in that era,, who but Tony Musante ?

        6. Zeb

          Holy crap, what a dork.

        7. Tim

          Double plus good

      2. Jordan

        On a weekend thread, some douche named “Rollo” showed up. Later, Episiarch and Tulpa were arguing and Tulpa posted a response under the “Rollo” name by accident.

        1. ROFL!!!!

          What a pathetic little dweeb Tulpa is!

          See! This is why people should refuse to acknowledge his existence. He’s like freeze dried concentrate of peevishness cut with a huge helping of disingenuousness.

        2. SugarFree

          Ahem.

          1. SIV

            You’re just Episiarch’s sock, right?

            1. SugarFree

              Or he is mine. We’ve never really worked it all out.

              1. Auric Demonocles

                You two are a sock eating it’s own toes.

                1. A sockoboros?

                  1. db

                    Omigod you have.invented.the.next Snuggie!

                    1. this is one Snuggie that will consume the soul… once the flesh has been stripped.

                    2. JW

                      It’s the Snuggie that constantly fingers your asshole.

            2. Zeb

              You’re just Episiarch’s sock, right?

              Episiarch’s pink sock.

        3. Cdr Lytton

          The best is yet to come. Someone is going to comb through Rollo’s postings and come up with some comedy gold. I did a quick google and there’s some choice material to repost now that Tulpa (LOL-CP) is attached to it.

    2. JW

      He’s the Man of One Thousand Faces.

      Unfortunately, all of them are losers.

      1. Auric Demonocles

        Has anyone prayed for him to receive the gift?

    3. Auric Demonocles

      It’s only sockpuppeting if you are posting things you agree with under your real name.

      I was just trying to give voice to an underrepresented viewpoint here at H+R.

      Wait, what?

      1. SugarFree

        Translation: “I was trolling under a different handle and I got caught… but I’m not honest enough to just admit it.”

        How many other handles does he post under? Is he posting on this thread under one?

        1. I doubt it. Tulpa can’t help but hector people. I’ll bet you they are starting to hate him at his new job too.

        2. JW

          While I too doubt his entire persona at this point, I do believe him when he says that he drives a little shitbox Toyota Echo, by choice. That fits him so perfectly.

          1. SugarFree

            The raw power of a 1 liter inline four-cylinder!

            1. JW

              How else are you going to hold up an entire road-worth of people, by going exactly the speed limit in the left lane, with no one in front of you?

              1. SugarFree

                The law is the law, JW. It keeps him from having to think for himself.

                1. JW

                  Those housing development convents against children joyously playing in the courtyard aren’t going to enforce themselves, you know.

                  1. JW

                    Stupid spell check. covenants

      2. He is still on that thread pouting furiously.

        1. SugarFree

          Don’t miss the comment where he compares himself to Paris Hilton.

          1. UnCivilServant

            Vacuous, vapid and superfluous?

            1. SugarFree

              And famous because of a nightvision sex tape.

        2. I think he’s replying to himself as well.

          Fucking sad, if you ask me.

    4. I always thought that a lot of the throwaway handles’ comments that were attributed to Mary Stack sounded a bit like Tulpa.

      Mary in her uncrazy comments has a similar style as tulpa. I guess we’ll never know who’s who.

      1. Perhaps they’re one and the same. Has anybody ever seen the two of them in a room together?

  18. Rufus J. Firefly

    http://www.latimes.com/busines…..z2ujva7r7C

    Stimulus worked!

    Other sources seem to confirm private sector jobs have increased but what’s unclear is if it’s related to stimulus.

    1. WTF

      Anything good is due to Obama. Anything bad is the fault of BOOOSH!!11!!!!

      1. JW

        “Their identical economic prescriptions are precisely the reason that Bush plunged us into depression, while Obama pulled us out!”

        1. I’m reminded of the scene in I, Mudd, in which Spock says to a pair of identical androids, “I love you” to one, and “I hate you” to the other.

    2. KPres

      The problem is that when the bill was passed doesn’t matter, what matters is when the money was actually spent. When you look at when the money was actually spent, you can see that the economy was already recovering before that. How did the stimulus go back in time to promote job growth?

      But more damning than that, he claims that “austerity” killed the recovery, but stimulus money was still kicking years after the job-growth flatlined in Q1 2010. If the stimulus caused the recovery, why did it stop working for no apparent reason?

      More likely, the bailouts probably helped employment for a short time, while the stimulus made it worse.

      1. KPres

        Shit, forgot the link:

        http://www.intellectualtakeout…..r ARRA.JPG

        1. KPres

          grr…if this doesn’t work just google it yourself.

          http://www.intellectualtakeout…..after-arra

          1. Rufus J. Firefly

            Efforts aside, nothing more recent?

  19. Apple’s Tim Cook: Business isn’t just about making a profit

    He leads a company that some would consider the epitome of ruthless global capitalism. But Apple chief executive Tim Cook has shocked some in the US with an impassioned attack on the single-minded pursuit of profit ? and a direct appeal to climate-change deniers not to buy shares in his firm.

    Eyewitnesses said Cook, who succeeded Steve Jobs as boss of the technology giant in 2011, was visibly angry as he took on a group of right-wing investors during a question-and-answer session at a shareholders’ meeting.

    Responding to calls from the National Centre for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), a conservative think tank and investor, for Apple to refrain from putting money in green energy projects that were not profitable, he shot back that Apple did “a lot of things for reasons besides profit motive”. The chief executive added: “We want to leave the world better than we found it.”

    1. Spoonman.

      Yes it is. If you want to use your copious money to do good, do so, but don’t mix it with a business.

    2. gaijin

      So the investors will put their money where their mouth is right?

    3. wareagle

      nothing says conviction quite like putting other people’s money where your mouth is.

    4. Since taking the helm at Apple in 2011, Cook has made notable improvements to the company’s use of renewable energy, increasing the use of solar, wind and geothermal resources used to power Apple’s offices from around a quarter of its total energy use to more than 75 per cent.

      75%?

      But I am told by the Peanuts that green energy doesn’t work.

      1. WTF

        Don’t lock eyes with ’em, don’t do it. Puts ’em on edge. They might go into berzerker mode; come at you like a whirling dervish, all fists and elbows. You might be screaming “No, no, no” and all they hear is “Who wants cake?” Let me tell you something: They all do. They all want cake.

        1. Mike M.

          Nationally, I doubt we’re even up to 8% yet.

      2. Jordan

        Gee, a company that’s flush with cash can afford to be profligate? Amazing!

        1. KPres

          30% profit margins (aka surplus value extracted from workers)?

          $150 billion cash on hand, killing aggregate demand and putting people out of work?

          Overpriced products that lure in innocent people with massive ad campains?

          Ships jobs overseas?

          Screw all that, they have windmills!

          1. Rufus J. Firefly

            I bought a MacBook. I like it but damn it’s overpriced.

            1. lap83

              Apple isn’t just about profit. It’s about a SHIT TON of profit. There’s a difference.

              1. lap83

                Oh and also they’re about patent lawsuits.

            2. GILMORE

              What model year?

      3. So…he’s mooching off the taxpayers by using energy sources that are only financially viable if they are subsidized by the government–and usually not even then.

    5. JW

      I hope that the Board is sitting there, quietly patting a vote that would remove him as CEO.

      1. Al Gore is on the board, as is Obama’s former EPA head, who quit rather than face the scandal from her attempts to evade FOIA laws.

        My guess is that Apple is going to flame out spectacularly over the next 10 years. Jobs had the force of will to keep the whackjobs in line. His successor likely does not.

        1. Mike M.

          I haven’t been too impressed with them recently. Lately, their innovations seem to mostly consist of getting Siri to answer more stupid questions like “What does the fox say”.

          1. UnCivilServant

            Apple flounders whenever Jobs isn’t at the helm. Now that he’s ineligable for reanimation (Californians are horrible subjects for that), the company will slowly degrade as it burns through the old goodwill and bank account.

            1. It’s floundered with him at the helm, too.

        2. JW

          I forgot about that tidbit. If that board isn’t the strongest argument for “eat the rich,” I don’t know what is, then.

    6. Anyone who had a problem with that? They should sell their Apple shares. .”Get out of the stock,” Cook suggested. Danhof’s proposal was voted down by shareholders.

      That is ballsy. Telling a big shareholder to fuck off.

      http://mashable.com/2014/02/28…..dwbHpjaSJ9

    7. Fluffy

      Here’s what I don’t understand:

      Does every shareholder now have a cause of action against Cook and the current board?

      He admitted up front that he’s doing stuff that he doesn’t think will make money.

      Usually, when corporate boards undertake charity, they come up with some cockamamie justification for how it will make more money in the end. They HAVE TO do this, because they have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders.

      Rather than make the cursory effort to justify his green boondoggle and bury it in Apple’s tidal wave of cash, Cook got annoyed and blurted out an admission that he’s deliberately losing money for the shareholders because he feels like it.

      How are there not already five class action filings?

      1. UnCivilServant

        When Henry Ford tried to run the company like a charity, his shareholders sued to make him run it profitably instead. So there is precedent for that sort of thing.

      2. db

        If Cook wants to.run Apple like a nonprofit, he should do a 100% share repurchasr and then restructure as a legal nonprofit.

        Otherwise, “Keep makin’ me money, Kid.”

    8. It’s a scheme to drive the stock price down to levels where the board can buy controlling interest of the company.

      Tim Cook is a puppet, a proxy, a pawn. Sure, sure, some jerk we can really push around.

      1. Fluffy

        I’d stake my Pulitzer on it!

        1. ;D

      2. *shows picture of rectangle*

        You know, for the kids. It’s called an eye…pod!

    9. As long as he has the support of the majority, and can fight off minority stockholder lawsuits, he’s not wrong.

    10. Sounds like he’s trying a new way to justify Apple’s high profit margin for increasingly flimsy products. Not that those people who line up overnight at the Apple store deserve any protection from themselves, of course.

    11. Zeb

      If you want to leave the world better and less polluted, stop trying to get all of your customers to buy a new piece of iCrap every 6 months.

  20. U.S. pushing Israel to stop assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists

    At least five Iranian scientists were murdered, most of them by bombs planted on their cars as they drove to work in the morning. Remarkably, the Israeli assassins were never caught – obviously having long-established safe houses inside Iran – although several Iranians who may have helped the Mossad were arrested and executed.

    In addition to strong signals from the Obama Administration that the U.S. did not want Israel to continue the assassinations, Mossad officials concluded that the campaign had gotten too dangerous. They did not want their best combatants – Israel’s term for its most talented and experienced spies – captured and hanged.

    President Obama – much to the discomfort of Israeli officials – is pursuing negotiations with Iran. The United States is one of the P5+1 nations, continuing to talk with the Iranians about rolling back some of their nuclear potential.

  21. Slammer

    President Obama is to campaign for raising the minimum wage this week

    Campaign? Doesn’t he have a pen and a phone?

    1. Tim

      He has an Obamaphone.

  22. Auric Demonocles

    And the Academy Award for best alt-text goes to….

    1. Certified Public Asskicker

      Well, not Feeney.

      But if we were giving one away, who does everyone like?

      1. Auric Demonocles

        I’d say Pete’s the most consistent, but Nick gets the best ones.

        1. Certified Public Asskicker

          Suderman can be guilty of duplicating alt-text too. He also really loves using the same photo over and over again.

        2. mr simple

          Don’t overlook Jesse in this category.

  23. Tim

    I am grateful to Barrack Obama. If McCain had won in 2008 we’d be neck deep in our occupation of Syria by now and that would be a real bummer given what would be our massive bombing campaign over the Crimea. So really things aren’t that bad.

    1. BigT

      In several senses the Obama victory has been preferable. It has exposed the donkey party for the criminal enterprise it is. But it has also enslaved us with Obamacare which is likely to take generations to undo or accelerate our slide into fascism. We have probably been in fewer armed conflicts, but also with loss of influence around the world.

      Giant douche or turd sandwich? What difference, at this point, does it make?

      1. gaijin

        +1 Hilarity Clinton!

      2. But it has also enslaved us with Obamacare which is likely to take generations to undo or accelerate our slide into fascism.

        Vote for me, and I promise to give a Presidential pardon to anyone convicted of not buying Obamacare insurance. I’ll also hand out pardons for anyone convicted of tax evasion, possession of narcotics, or believing that Caddyshack is a funny movie.

  24. Cold War Ghosts Haunt East Europe in Moves for Crimea

    Alzbeta Ehrnhofer was a 13-year-old Slovak schoolgirl when the Soviet Army poured into Czechoslovakia to “restore order” in 1968.

    The unfolding crisis in Crimea took her back to the day almost 46 years ago when tanks rumbled past her house in the southern Slovak town of Fikalovo as neighbors hid from the Russian-led invaders.

    “It’s just like it was here in 1968,” she said today about the upheaval in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic undergoing its second revolution as an independent nation. “Nothing’s changed. Even the tanks look the same.”

    1. Tim

      “Like a good neighbor, State military power is there.”

      1. *narrows gaze*

      2. State Harm?

    2. BardMetal

      “Even the tanks look the same.”

      Well knowing the current state of the Russian military they probably are the same.

      1. UnCivilServant

        No, they’re probably on the T-72, which aesthetically looks like the earlier T- models that had rolled into Czechoslovakia, but weren’t released until the 70s.

  25. Bo Cara Esq.

    Catholic SoCon Explains Why He Opposes Republican Who Proposed Making Birth Control Over the Counter

    “To this riposte, my friend shifted ground a third time, and began arguing that contraception is less serious than abortion. He wanted me to agree with him that there is nothing worse than abortion, because abortion kills and contraception doesn’t.

    Wrong again.

    In its own way, contraception is an even greater tragedy than abortion. Why? Because it involves the deliberate rejection of God’s creative power, a spurning of His gift of life. Remember that the only creating that God has done since Genesis is the creation of each individual, spiritual soul. And He requires our cooperation.

    Those couples who contracept, according to the soon-to-be Saint John Paul in his Discourse of Sept. 17, 1983, ‘claim a power which belongs solely to God, the power to decide, in a final analysis, the coming into existence of a human person.'”

    http://www.crisismagazine.com/…..aception-2

    1. Brian D

      Ladies, having a headache is a rejection of God’s creative power!

    2. Auric Demonocles

      Even assuming that’s correct, it still fails to show that it’s worse than abortion.

      1. Bo Cara Esq.

        From the article: “The souls of aborted babies are with the Father, the Blessed John Paul taught us. The souls contracepted out of existence are?nowhere.”

        1. wareagle

          sorta kills the claim of life beginning at birth then.

          1. wareagle

            err..beginning at conception

          2. Bo Cara Esq.

            Yes, I thought only Mormons believed in souls pre-existing conception.

            1. Auric Demonocles

              That quote agrees with the idea of the soul only coming into existence at conception.

              1. Bo Cara Esq.

                It does? I do not get how you can talk about ‘souls contracepted out of existence’ if the souls did not exist prior to being ‘contracepted.’

                1. Auric Demonocles

                  They are “nowhere”, precisely because they never got created (when they “should” have). It’s like you’re more concerned with attacking Catholics than being honest.

                  1. Bo Cara Esq.

                    How is asking a question about that attacking Catholics? Again, the most natural reading of something being put ‘out of existence’ is that they were ‘in existence’ prior, not that they were never in existence but ‘should’ have been.

                    1. Bo Cara Esq.

                      I mean, do you think saying that they might share a view similar to Mormons on something is ‘attacking’ them? What do you have against Mormons?

                    2. Fluffy

                      I have to agree with Bo.

                      It’s an absurd whinge.

                      By that standard, because I don’t spend 24 hours a day, 365 days a year fucking fertile women as many times as you can stimulate me to erection, I am denying souls their rightful existence.

                      Think of all the souls who have not come to be while I am sitting here talking to you guys instead of constantly fucking bareback!

                    3. Auric Demonocles

                      It’s certainly absurd to worry about potential lives. But that’s not what Bo’s complaining about. He’s making some retarded reading of a quote to try to complain about some supposed hypocrisy that doesn’t exist at all. If Bo was actually saying what you said in your post it’d be valid.

                    4. Bo Cara Esq.

                      You have noticeably made no attempt to address the point I made about how the passage reads.

                    5. Auric Demonocles

                      I made no attempt to address a retarded intentional misreading? What damning evidence!

                      Yes, I’m sure that the immortal soul which can survive even death does not exist for a potential life that never happened because it got destroyed, not because it never got created. I don’t need to address it again when I already have twice, pointing out what the only reasonable reading of it is.

                    6. Why do Catholic Priests get to not create souls, while at the same time heaping scorn on others who decide not to create souls?

                    7. Overt

                      “Why do Catholic Priests get to not create souls,”

                      I love people like Bo and Cavie who think they are so clever as they put words into other peoples’ mouths.

                      Look, whether you believe it or not, the Catholics believe that God has a plan. He put people on earth in a partnership to bring more souls into his kingdom. As a part of that plan, some Catholics are “called” by God to become priests. The rest are called to help conceive more children.

                      The priests “get” to not create souls, because that’s what their Sky God told them to do. There is nothing inconsistent in that.

    3. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Thou shalt not pull out early.

    4. Tell me again about Divine omnipotence.

      1. gaijin

        Divine omnipotence.

        Isn;t there is a drug that can eliminate this?

        1. wareagle

          divine impotence, the anti-Viagra.

    5. KPres

      Ironically, proscriptions against abortion and birth control help spread religion…but only because of evolution and natural selection. INOW, if you’re on the pill or have an abortion, you get selected out of the gene pool, while the religious people reproduce.

      1. That’s an example of natural selection, sure.

    6. Fr?ulein Nikki

      Those couples who contracept, according to the soon-to-be Saint John Paul in his Discourse of Sept. 17, 1983, ‘claim a power which belongs solely to God, the power to decide, in a final analysis, the coming into existence of a human person.'”

      As do those couples which choose to have sex without contraception. Or couples who simply don’t have sex. Or, you know, fucking anyone, anytime, because we just know now how to decide when to have babies.

    7. …soon-to-be Saint John Paul…

      Do they just make everyone a saint nowadays?

      Shouldn’t you have to do something other than being pope?

      Also, if his logic holds, my furiously masturbatory teenage years make me a greater monster than hitler or stalin could ever dream about. All that human potential coldbloodedly snuffed out in a jergens soaked sock of sadism!

      1. WTF

        Well he did have three miracles, although two of them were card tricks.
        /Father Guido Sarducci

    8. Some people have no soul, but this doesn’t become evident until adulthood.

    9. lap83

      “In its own way, contraception is an even greater tragedy than abortion.”

      It’s a bit disingenuous to label this guy as just another socon. Sure, many or most Catholics are against contraception. But I’ve never heard of any of them say it’s worse than abortion. That is a radical viewpoint.

      1. Emmerson Biggins

        ya. but even us yokeltarians should be able to agree this guy is a dick weasel.

  26. Take that! Wyoming woman arrested for felony assault after stabbing teddy bear

    A young mother was arrested by Wyoming police after she tussled with her on-again, off-again lover and then stabbed a teddy bear he had given her.

    “I wish this was you!” she shouted.

    Marra, who has a 16-month-old child with Jordan Alexander, was charged with aggravated assault and battery and possession of marijuana. She was released earlier this week on $5,000 bond.

    Fucking Teddy Ruxpin…

    1. UnCivilServant

      Threats fall under assault. So it’s a matter for the jury.

      1. That doesn’t sound like much of a threat. “This is going to be you…” Threat. “I wish this is you…” seems to be a safe way of venting her anger to not cause physical harm to an actual human person.

        1. UnCivilServant

          Then the jury can acquit. I’m not saying she’s deserving of a jail sentence, I just don’t know enough about the facts leading up to the most recent incident. It sounds like the players have a history.

          1. Fair enough. Too much crazy for my taste, but everyone should determine his or her own line.

  27. Jordan

    We may not be getting the whole story from the Ukraine:

    There is a “reign of terror” in Kiev and some other areas right now.

    Offices and even private homes associated with the former ruling party and its communist allies have been ransacked or burned by militias even though Yanukovich’s mansion has been left alone.

    An independent member of parliament who critiqued certain positions of the main nationalist party was assaulted and had to go to hospital with a concussion. Also, some public officials in the central/western regions have been detained and beaten-up.

    Other pro-Russia citizens have been rounded up and taken away by militias, with no warrant. We have no idea if, how, or where they are being held.

    More at the link.

    DISCLAIMER: That’s from a letter sent to the linked blog, so it may just be bullshit.

    1. There seems to be a substantial group of people who show up to comment threads to reflexively defend Putin and Rusian predations against its neighbors.

      1. Jordan

        I’m assuming that was directed at the letter writer, but just to be clear, I’m certainly not defending Russia here.

  28. SugarFree

    Warty Hugeman and The Doomcock of Doom: A Warty Hugeman Time Travel Adventure

    Chapter One

    Warty Hugeman strode into the vast Main Hall wearing the finest fashions looted from 50,000 years of human vanity. His shirt was woven from the softest nipple hairs of the giant echidnas that obliterated Africa in the 35th century, genetic abominations from yet another failed attempt to reterraform Earth. His pants were cuttleshark leather, the still-active chromatophores rippling with colors painfully beautiful to the human eye. His boots were each carved from a single piece of butter-soft mimetic mastodon ivory. A cape of the blackest megasilk was tied with an elaborate knot at his throat and it billowed out behind him like a sail lost to a fierce storm. His weapons were simple and elegant: a sword pried from the hand a tyrant dying on a long-ago battlefield, a handgun that could destroy a city with a single pull of the trigger.

    He felt thousands of eyes slither over him, oozing jealousy and fear.

    Continue reading

    1. SugarFree

      Sorry about the jump, but with the character limits this would have been 10 or so posts.

      1. SugarFree

        Also, comments are moderated at the site. A certain someone kept griefing the fuck out of it. She gets so angry when we are trying to have fun.

        1. Auric Demonocles

          I blame P Brooks.

    2. Tim

      Is this another shill for Obamacare?

      1. SugarFree

        Of course it is.

    3. hamilton

      Let the record show the apocalypse began as scheduled, on the third of March in the Fifth year of Our Lord.

    4. db

      How much bigger is the Future Wart(+?)? Sounds…huge.

      1. GILMORE

        How limited is your imagination?

        1. db

          Limited enough that I expected

          [SPOILER ALERT]

          a story titled “Warty Hugeman and the Doomcock of Doom” to contain mention of.said Doomcock.

          Good read, however.

          1. SugarFree

            This is but the first of 10 chapters.

            1. db

              Awesome.

              1. db

                But still, you don’t tease the Doomcock. Or with the Doomcock.

                1. SugarFree

                  You’ll get all the doom your cock can handle soon enough.

    5. JW

      “Please insert 4 quarters for Part 2.”

    6. jesse.in.mb

      Now there’s a way to start my week. Even if I had to come to the AM Links to get it.

    7. GILMORE

      My god…

      …I THOUGHT YOU WERE JOKING?

      1. SugarFree

        I never joke.

    8. GILMORE

      +1 for “Aztechnocrats” and “the wet firecracker sounds of rapidly breaking bone.”

      I am reminded of the “Satan’s Great Ball”-chapter from Master & Margarita, and things like Cities of the Red Night / Place of Dead Roads / The Wild Boys, etc. era W.S. Burroughs.

  29. Auric Demonocles

    Last night instead of watching the Academy Awards I watched The Usual Suspects. Apparently I missed a big deal about some dumb selfie, but I’m okay with that tradeoff.

    1. Jordan

      I don’t understand how people can watch awards shows. Old people, I might understand. But even some of my friends watch them. It mystifies me.

      1. Auric Demonocles

        The fact that people do is a big reason my friends and I get our asses kicked at trivia every time we go.

        1. I do know something about Oscar winners pre-late 80s, because I managed a video store for a year. I used to do really obscure “Manager’s Specials” back then, sometimes without identifying what the common theme was. Often it was some tertiary award they all won (Best Rewrite of a Screenplay that Wasn’t Based on an English Play).

          I remember a Father’s Day promotion that included At Close Range, with the tagline: “Like father. Like son. Like hell.”

      2. GILMORE

        ”
        Jordan|3.3.14 @ 9:16AM|#

        I don’t understand how people can watch awards shows. Old people, I might understand. But even some of my friends watch them. It mystifies me.”

        THEY HAVE WIVES

        It is called “paying it forward” for the forthcoming NCAA Basketball Tournament

  30. High school student scores pro Houston Texans cheerleader as prom date via Twitter

    His message soon went viral, and he secured the required number of re-posts in just under 24 hours.

    And incredibly, once he’d reached the magic number and asked Caitlyn if still wanted to be his partner to the dance, she replied: “Of course I will.”

    Ramirez, who is newly single, said he couldn’t think of any other girl he wanted to take to the May prom – and so decided to ask Caitlyn.

    1. Certified Public Asskicker

      Come back this afternoon for PM links, where there will be plenty of feminist links discussing the story.

    2. Don Mynack

      So dude pays for dinner, limo, tux, etc., with an absolute certainty he is not getting anything more than hand holding and a picture. What a moron.

      1. And the undying jealousy between now and then of a shit-ton of high school girls who would just love to show up at prom knowing they had totally made out with some dude who landed a professional cheerleader.

  31. Rufus J. Firefly

    The love force. They admire it. They crave it. They suck the cock of authoritarians because they’re pathetic fools. This is Progressivestan.

    http://archive.mises.org/18257…..ism-again/

    Notice the paragraph where the New York Times talks up Mussolini.

    I thank Palin for leading me to this link after one of his (many) hopeless attempts at being classically liberal.

    1. Rufus J. Firefly

      I guess ‘cock’ should be plural.

      Meh.

      1. Naw. There’s only one with a real cock, and we all know what his name is.

  32. Betty White is older than sliced bread.

    1. Rufus J. Firefly

      How pathetic are the Cubs?

      Seriously, they couldn’t even fluke a World Series?

      1. Hell, the White Sox have bought the Series a couple of times since then.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    President Obama is to campaign for raising the minimum wage this week.

    The Minimum Wage President.

    1. Tim

      He ain’t smarter than Putin: maybe he can change the subject.

  34. White House Counsel Robert Bauer: Architect of IRS Abuse?
    …Robert Bauer had the motive to direct IRS policy against Tea Party groups. He is a longtime opponent of First Amendment freedoms and an advocate of government-speech regulation. He also can’t stand the work the Tea Party is conducting to monitor and eradicate voter fraud, work the Republican Party and national campaigns have utterly failed to perform.

    During the 2008 election, while representing the Obama campaign, Bauer sent a threatening letter to the Justice Department demanding criminal investigations of people who had the audacity to speak about voter fraud. Bauer even singled out Sarah Palin in the letter. Anyone who “developed or disseminated” information about voter fraud, to Bauer, deserved the heavy boot of a criminal investigation. Read the letter; it reveals a nasty, thuggish, and lawless attitude toward political opposition….

    1. WTF

      Fake scandal! Bushpigs!!11!!CHRISTFAGS!!1!!!
      /Shreek

    2. See that question mark?

      “Architect of IRS Abuse?”

      Hell, we don’t know! But he could be! Let’s keep this fake scandal going! Make up shit!

      1. WTF

        Right on cue.

      2. Don Mynack

        Why did Lerner plead the 5th? I agree that this is hardly the human tragedy conservatives are making it out to be, but if it were nothing, than Lerner would have said so, wouldn’t she?

    3. Mike M.

      Yep, he’s almost certainly the guy.

      The good news is that Lois Lerner is apparently ready to waive her Fifth Amendment rights and finally testify. If she testifies truthfully, we might finally learn some good info.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Sorry about the jump

    Don’t be.

    1. It kept the horror contained…

      Unfortunately, I failed my saving throw vs Literature, and will continue reading the entire work as it comes out.

      1. WTF

        Yes, I eagerly look forward to Warty Hugeman installments. Sugarfree is the Dickens of our time.

        1. SugarFree

          Sugarfree is the Dickens of our time.

          FTFY

          1. WTF

            Wait, I thought Warty Hugeman was the Dick of all times? Assuming the Doomcock of Doom counts as a ‘dick’.

            1. SugarFree

              An adult like you should know the difference between and Dick and a Cock by now.

  36. Slammer

    Oscar 2014: Security guards protest academy’s use of non-union firm

    SIS provides security for companies such as Apple, Twitter, EBay and Google. According to the company’s website, the average wage for hourly SIS security officers in Silicon Valley is $19.77 per hour. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the average wage of a security officer in California is $13.33 per hour.

    “SIS is an irresponsible security firm that falls short of the high standards the Academy has traditionally set for the Oscars,” the Service Employees International Union wrote in the letter.
    According to the letter, SIS has been the subject of numerous lawsuits by current and former officers “who have accused the company of engaging in wage theft, racial and gender discrimination and worker spying and intimidating.”

    1. UnCivilServant

      Security? For a bunch of overhyped prostitutes? Call their pimp instead of contracting out.

  37. The Biggest All-Time Donors in American Politics Are . . .
    …The top donor overall donor that gave a majority of its donations to Republican candidates, parties, Leadership PACs and other committees from 1989 to 2014 is . . .

    You’re not going to believe this. Really, you won’t.

    The United Parcel Service….

    1. KPres

      Boxtopus!!!

      1. Nice.

  38. Why are British women flocking to marry Syria jihadis?
    … The American computational neuroscientists, Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, in the 2011 book A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the Internet Tells Us About Sexual Relationships, noted: “It turns out that killing people is an effective way to elicit the attention of many women: virtually every serial killer, including Ted Bundy, Charles Manson and David Berkowitz, have received love letters from large numbers of female fans.”

    While such examples are clearly extreme, when it comes down to it, this is perhaps little more than an extension of that hackneyed but most maddeningly inescapable of truths: some women just love a bad boy.

    I myself am by no means immune to the charms (or the curse) of the bad boy. From the nightclub manager with a raging drug problem to the serial womaniser who insisted “I was different” (spoiler alert: I wasn’t), the landscape of my love life is littered with the men my mother warned me about. I’ve never personally ventured into the criminal or terrorist underworld in search of a date, but it doesn’t take too much mental manoeuvring to see that it’s essentially the same phenomenon, writ large. …

    1. Rufus J. Firefly

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB1Pij54gTw

      George knew this.

    2. UnCivilServant

      It turns out that killing people is an effective way to elicit the attention of many women

      Another reason Genghis Khan has so many descendants?

  39. Marginalized Fathers and Demonized Mothers: A Feminist Look at the Reproductive Freedom of Unmarried Men
    …Although not the subject of the Utah lawsuit, at the other end of the spectrum, many are surprised to learn that the law also permits a nonmarital mother to force fatherhood on men who never even consented to the sexual act that produced the child. Male victims of statutory rape, for example, in every case to consider the issue, have been ordered to pay child support for children that were a product of the rape. Likewise, adult men who are victims of sexual assault as well as men whose sperm was taken without their consent (and subsequently used to artificially inseminate a female) have also been consistently ordered to pay child support for the resulting child. In all of these cases, the mother’s wrongdoing has been ruled irrelevant….

    1. Matrix

      You need to think of THE CHILDREN (TM). Doesn’t matter if the man was a victim or not. The CHILD’S needs come infinitely more than his.

    2. Marshall Gill

      men whose sperm was taken without their consent (and subsequently used to artificially inseminate a female) have also been consistently ordered to pay child support for the resulting child.

      How does this happen?

      1. UnCivilServant

        Improper disposal of used prophylactics?

      2. Jarl ? the booty

        By neither swallowing nor spitting?

        In all seriousness, I would assume the most common way would be to take a soiled condom. I don’t know how long sperm “keeps”, though.

  40. Strassel: All the President’s IRS Agents
    …About a month after the IRS inspector general released his bombshell report about IRS targeting of conservative groups last May, Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel unveiled a “plan of action” for correcting the mess. One highlight was that targeted groups would be offered a new optional “expedited” process for getting 501(c)(4) status.

    The deal, which received little public attention, boiled down to this: We’ll do our job, the IRS said, if you give up your rights. Those taking part in the “expedited” process had to agree to limit to 40% the amount of spending and time (calculated by employee and volunteers hours) they spend on political activity. Current 501(c)(4) rules allow political spending up to 49%, and have no “time” component. The clear point of the “deal” was to use the lure of 501(c)(4) approval to significantly reduce the political activity of targeted conservative groups going forward. …

  41. So total is the Left’s cultural ascendancy that no one likes to mention the socialist roots of fascism
    ‘I am a Socialist,’ Hitler told Otto Strasser in 1930, ‘and a very different kind of Socialist from your rich friend, Count Reventlow’. …

    1. BardMetal

      I always tell a leftist guy I work with that the only difference between fascists, communists, and progressives, is that the fascists are better dressers.

      1. Aloysious

        I’m stealing that. Beautiful.

      2. UnCivilServant

        +1 Hugo Boss

    2. Jonah Goldberg also touched on this discussion:

      http://www.nationalreview.com/…..h-goldberg

      I actually agree with Stanley that corporatism is the better term for Nazi economics. Here’s the problem: that’s also true of most socialist systems.

      Yet in these historical debates, the term is only dusted off for Nazis and Italian fascists. “Oh, the Nazis weren’t socialists, they were ‘corporatists'” is a fine argument to make, if you’re willing to acknowledge that corporatism is actually a more accurate word for the socialisms of Sweden, France, South America, etc. In other words, the “they were corporatists!” line is usually an attempt to absolve socialism of any association with Nazism and fascism rather than an attempt to get the terms right.

      1. Hitler banned labor unions – he was a fascist/corporatist (right wing disease) all the way.

        In right wing dogma the state/religionrace is the highest authority. Same here in the USA.

        1. THIS IS A WHITE CHRISTIAN COUNTRY BOYS! VOTE GOP!

          1. touch a nerve there?

            1. Since it is non-sentient, everything it types is a response to a nerve being touched. All it knows is stimulus and response.

        2. I should have scrolled down before posting my comment.

        3. Mickey Rat

          So did the communists. When the leftist “Worker’s” Parties are in control they consider labor unions redundancies.

    3. I’ve taken to calling fascism and commuismn varying flavors of totalitarian collectivism, with one being deemd evil because it’s perceived as coming from the right, with the other being something we’re supposed to make excuses for because it’s perceived as coming from the left. Either way, they’re both totalitarian and evil.

      1. Communism (the left wing disease) is by definition the worst of all the totalitarian systems.

      2. Rufus J. Firefly

        They all moved in to fill in the vacuum left by the death of classical liberalism.

        Mussolini was a socialist as was his father. Hitler was a collectivist.

        They all fall on the left side of the socialist spectrum. Don’t know why this is even in dispute – except for buffoons.

        1. You’re the buffoon then. Traditionally fascism is considered right-wing.

          Yes, I know how Jonah Goldberg and others are trying to change the definition taught for decades now.

          Just like the right is trying to depict our founders as “Christian” when they were not.

          (our = USA)

          1. WTF

            Traditionally fascism is considered right-wing.

            Only by dishonest fuckstains of the left like you.

            1. “Appeal to Tradition” – add it to his scorecard.

          2. Dances-with-Trolls

            Traditionally fascism is considered right-wing

            Hmmm. Wonder how that idea got started?

          3. Derp. Get specific to his article or else you are just throwing a hissy fit.

          4. Fluffy

            The stated purpose of the NSDAP at its founding was to provide an alternative to socialism that stripped out the internationalism.

            That was it.

            The militarism and the anti-Semitism were seen as necessary prerequisites to the establishment of a post-class, post-capitalist socialist society based on the Volk. They were means. Socialism was the end.

          5. Rufus J. Firefly

            ‘Traditionally?’ By who?

            The left?

            Fuck off.

  42. Matrix

    EVERYONE, FREAK THE FUCK OUT!!!
    Dad criticized for photo of 6 month old holding rifle
    GUNZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    1. BardMetal

      Oh my God!! That gun could come to life at any minute and eat that poor baby!!

      Plus it has black plastic on it so it must be a fully automatic assault bolt-action rifle, with high capacity murder ammunition. It might even have the barrel thingy that goes up!!!

    2. waffles

      Does that father have a license for that baby?

      1. Res Publica Americana

        He’s clearly a redneck. He probably had it with his cousin.

        1. waffles

          I was talking about the gun, sheesh.

    3. Epi’s description of them as Animists is too spot on.

    4. Bryanna Wingate of New Haven told the station what Duffy did was too much.

      “After everything that happened in Connecticut with Sandy Hook and everything that’s going on with the gun laws, why would you have your baby holding a gun?a big gun?” said Wingate.

      Why not do it? Unless your an animist and the gun is especially evil and animate. Would you freak out of a picture with a kid handling a model car after a maniac had previously ran over a bunch of people?

      1. UnCivilServant

        My only concern is accidentally dropping the gun and hitting the baby with a chunk of metal. Babies tend to break. But beyond that, normal gun safety rules apply. Nothing to really get worked up over.

  43. Res Publica Americana

    http://www.examiner.com/articl…..ed-victims

    China train station knife attack illustrates helplessness of unarmed victims

    China Photos/Getty Images
    David CodreaGun Rights Examiner

    Subscribe

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    March 1, 2014

    27 people are dead and another 109 are wounded following an attack by “a group of knife-wielding men” at a southwestern China train station, the Associated Press reported Saturday, referencing “the official Xinhua News Agency.”

    The attack, “one of the deadliest … in China in recent years,” resulted in several attackers, reportedly wearing uniforms, being shot by police, but not until after they’d managed to kill and injure so many defenseless people at the station.

    “China has seen a number of mass stabbings and other attacks,” the report continues, making fair the question of why it is evidently so easy for assailants armed with knives to rack up body and injury counts rivaling and exceeding many shootings that have happened in the U.S.

    A plausible explanation is that all of China, like the sites of domestic mass killings, are government-mandated “gun free zones.”

    1. Res Publica Americana

      Why hasn’t Mayors Against Illegal Knives been founded yet? Doesn’t Micky Bloomberg care about our children?

      1. Matrix

        Doesn’t the UK have laws banning long knives? So don’t joke about it. They’ll go after those too if they ever get our guns.

        1. Res Publica Americana

          Carrying any sharp object outside your trade on the job is illegal in Britain. If I buy a knife and accidentally leave it in my backpack, that’s years in prison.

          1. The Scots I worked with in Iraq were happy that when they got home, they were given “the liberty of the city” in their town – that meant they could carry a knife… FREEDOM!

            1. ~Knarf Yenrab~

              that meant they could carry a knife

              There’s a reason why empires have always been loath to invade Scotland.

              1. UnCivilServant

                Poor strategic location, bad terrain and ornery natives?

                1. And no strategic resources unless bow-legged sheep and whisky are on your list.

                  1. ~Knarf Yenrab~

                    Those and a vermin-infested shack constitute the entirety of my list.

      2. BardMetal

        Mayor Bloomberg hates Chinese people!!!

        Wow arguing like a leftist sure is easy, I don’t need logic or reason. I just have to scream racist and bigot.

    2. Matrix

      Well, getting killed by a knife is not as bad as being killed by a gun. Being killed by a gun means you’re double dead, and we can’t have that!

      /libderp

      1. BardMetal

        Yes the gun not only kills your physical body, but also your immortal soul.

      2. Res Publica Americana

        It’s because Rethuglicans and libertardy libertards like guns, so guns are uber-bad. BAN THEM.

  44. Woke up this morning to -8F temps. At least the sun is out, blinding me through the frost-covered windshield. Also when I turned the wipers on, the blade broke off. Yay, Michigan!

    1. I think I was 18 the one time I tried using the wiper fluid before the car heated up fully.

    2. Mike M.

      Will the depredations brought upon us by global warming never end?

  45. Bo Cara Esq.

    Girl Named First Female Football Player of the Year in One of the Largest Youth Football Leagues in Country

    “Yes, Karlie Harman won the regional Punt, Pass and Kick competition for 12-year-olds, outdistanced all the boys, and finished eighth in the nation. But at 13, when the Aldie girl signed up for 130-pound tackle football with the boys in the Fairfax County Youth Football League last summer, she had never played a down of organized ball. Never seen a playbook. Didn’t know what a wide receiver was.

    That all changed quickly. Her coach made her the quarterback. And the free safety. And the place kicker. And the punter. And then she became the first girl ever to lead a team to the county title game, where she had her biggest highlight for the Dulles South Thunder on defense, Coach Bob Thomas said.

    The Thunder lost the game, but Harman was later named Player of the Year from Dulles South Youth Sports, the first female quarterback ever to win that honor in the Fairfax County league, one of the largest independent youth football leagues in the country, covering Arlington, Alexandria, Loudoun and Prince William.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..l?hpid=z10

    1. Jordan

      Do they call her ‘Icebox’? Let’s see if any fellow Reasonoids get the reference. And no, it’s not sexual, you pervs.

      1. Certified Public Asskicker

        Damn, she’s 32 now.

        But looking pretty good in google images.

    2. Wait until female football players start getting injured at higher rates than their male counterparts.

    3. Rasilio

      Not that surprising girls bodies mature faster than boys so if she is just slightly advanced maturing for a girl she could be very close to her full adult muscle development at 13 where the overwhelming majority of the boys would not have even gone through the first bout of puberty induced muscle development.

      If she really works at it she could easily remain the best player on the team for the next 2 years, then an average player for 2 more, then finish out a high school career as an end of the roster special teamer

  46. Res Publica Americana

    CT: Official CT State Police spokesman says that state police would participate in door to door gun confiscations

    http://topconservativenews.com…..iscations/

    The State of Connecticut says that all citizens must register rifles and high capacity magazines, or be charged will a felony. As many as 100,000 people could face heavily armed police smashing down their doors and be charged with a felony.

    The legislature of CT says that a registration is needed so they can know where the guns are. Yet at the same time, they are sending threatening letters to gun owners. So they already have records of who has purchased certain guns. The fact is, that the CT legislature fully intends to confiscate hundreds of thousands of firearms anyway. The registration process will simply make it easier to confiscate, because you acknowledge that you still own a firearm that the state already suspects that you own.

    CT State Police Spokesman Lt. Vance says that state police would comply with an order from the state to conduct door to door gun confiscations.

    1. Res Publica Americana

      Experts claim that as many as 350,000 people are in violation of the law, and over 100,000 of those people could face felony charges. That means over 3.6% of the entire adult population of Connecticut has been transformed into a felon by the new registration law. Roughly one in twenty Connecticut homes could have their doors smashed in by heavily armed law enforcement seeking to confiscate firearms.

      1. Jordan

        Think of all the prison union jobs and prison construction jobs! Economic stimulus!

        1. Matrix

          Broken windows for everyone!

        2. Res Publica Americana

          Think of all the CSP corpses.

          1. Jordan

            Think of all the funeral home, casket manufacturing, and gravestone manufacturing jobs! Economic stimulus!

            1. Res Publica Americana

              CT Democrats are geniuses!

      2. Matrix

        Well, when they come for your guns, give them your ammo first!

        1. Res Publica Americana

          When not a single confiscator returns to work the next day, I’ll laugh.

    2. db

      I guess the real question is whether the CT National Guard will back the CT State Police.

    3. If I was (god forbid) a copper, that’s the one job I would just love to have – trying to confiscate assault rifles from owners. Yep, no danger there.

    4. Steve G

      Hmmm, wonder where The Oathkeepers are???

    5. Mercutio

      CT State Police Spokesman Lt. Vance says that state police would comply with an order from the state to conduct door to door gun confiscations.

      Befehl is Befehl.

      1. Mercutio

        Befehl *ist* Befehl.

  47. Raven Nation

    Colorado weed ruining Nebraska!

    As someone who lives in Nebraska but regularly drives to Colorado, I figured this was going to happen, just not quite this fast:

    http://www.omaha.com/article/2…..le-budgets

    I am, however, pleasantly surprised by the number of comments criticizing the cops.

    1. waffles

      The marijuana issue is really interesting because marijuana abuse has no physical punishment like alcohol abuse does. So as abusers start to come into the open as alcoholics are we are going to see a steady tide shift. I laugh at these doomsayers worried we are creating a stoner underclass of completely baked losers. Those burnouts were always around, you can just see them now.

  48. db

    “That’s a lie! On Tau Ceti e* there was life! There was a chance!”

    “THIS is Tau Ceti e*!!!”

  49. Bo Cara Esq.

    SC to Ban Lying About Military Service?

    “The South Carolina General Assembly is considering a bill that would make it a crime for a person to lie about his or her military service or receive a medal in order to gain a tangible benefit.

    The S.C. Military Service Integrity and Preservation Act would make misrepresenting military service for personal gain a misdemeanor with fines of up to $500 or 30 days in jail.

    Most often, a person fakes military service to boost a resume and is caught during the interview process, Goldfinch said. Other times people claim to be active duty military to slow or halt foreclosures. Some use it to build goodwill for their businesses or professional services.

    ‘Evidently, it’s an epidemic,’ Goldfinch said. ‘Other House members and senators have run into the same problem. It’s a shame and a serious problem.'”

    http://www.thestate.com/2014/0…..rylink=cpy

  50. Res Publica Americana

    The battle for control of the U.S. Senate is a tossup

    http://news.yahoo.com/battle-c…..00662.html

    1. Republicans are successfully using ObamaCare to drag down vulnerable Senate Democrats: Already, at least two current Democratic seats (West Virginia and South Dakota) look to be firmly in the GOP column. If that holds up, Republicans would need only four more seats to retake the Senate. And they’re dragging out the ObamaCare playbook on vulnerable Democratic incumbents such as Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Kay Hagan of North Carolina. Those two senators have actually seen their approval plummet since the time of the government shutdown. Jensen noted that Republicans have put out ads trying to tie those Democrats to ObamaCare as early as possible: “I think that’s the biggest reason we’ve seen these races shift in the Republican direction over the last two months, and it’s the most savvy strategy.” Indeed, polling shows that those two senators’ approval ratings and ObamaCare approval numbers in those two states are almost the same.

  51. Certified Public Asskicker

    ProL’s new Sunday attire:

    http://www.uni-watch.com/

    Yep, they’ve ruined their uniforms.

    1. Like hell. I’m not even clicking on the link, because I’ve already seen the new XFL-style uniforms. Perhaps they are more fitting for pro flag football, which is on its way.

      1. Auric Demonocles

        I think more arena ball when I see it, but I can’t argue too much with XFL.

        1. The NFL is getting stupider each year.

  52. Res Publica Americana

    What slightly irritates me is how quick people are to just reflexively tie everything Putin and his quasi-neo-Soviet horeshit to being Russia/Russian. People seem to have not a clue that millions of Russians not only despise Putin and his administration with the intensity of a billion suns, many are rabidly pro-American, many more are rabidly pro-Western in a broader sense, and more still are capitalistic and even abstractly libertarian in attitude despite simultaneously being very deeply Russian in cultural terms.

    Russians have the same problem we have, only a trillion times worse — the good ones are too few to do anything about it, and people are just pussies, I guess.

    1. Res Publica Americana

      *everything Putin does and his

  53. The Late P Brooks

    I want to see Putin sit directly across a table from Obama and say, “We will bury you.”

    1. Res Publica Americana

      Moments after, Obama would stand up, and begin carefully removing his face and skin — revealing himself to be Ronald Reagan, at which point Putin would instantaneously shit his pants, drop to his knees, and beg for mercy.

      1. Like in Mission Impossible?

    2. needs more shoe pounding on the table.

    3. It should be noted that in Russian that “I will bury you” is an idiom similar to the English phrase “it’s your funeral”. It suggests the speaker thinks the listener is about to do something stupid and doesn’t cary the treatening tones the literal translation suggests.

  54. SIV

    History of socks

    1. SugarFree

      What a shitshow those threads were. White Indian even managed to slip in at the end.

  55. Kudlow vs. Bitcoin

    We can probably expect a robust, competitive market in private currencies to develop, and Bitcoin may or may not be a part of the long-term picture. It may turn out to be the Packard of private currencies. We’ll know the market has arrived when people have as many choices of currency provider as they do of cell-phone provider. And that will be a critical moment in the shifting balance of power between politics and markets, another way for us to stop asking permission to engage in commerce.

    This is in part why I object to Larry’s repetition of the Wall Street Journal’s characterization of the natural theater for bitcoin use as “the black market.” A better phrase for “the black market” is “the market.”

  56. Matrix

    People can be allergic to the cold

    One of the cases involves a 12 year old boy who lives in Minnesota… Yeah, it probably doesn’t do well to be allergic to the cold and live in frickin’ Minnesota!

    1. B.P.

      My wife has this. She skis anyway. She must stay bundled up and can’t get the hives over more than a certain percentage of her body or something bad happens like shock. She still gets about 20 days a season in on the mountain. Her hand will swell up if she’s holding a can of Coke.

  57. The Late P Brooks

    Not a fan, apparently

    But like all Kennedys down through the ages, she couldn’t pass the field sobriety test. And of course the traditional thick-Irish-brogue priest appeared as a character witness. Somewhere, Msgr. Jeremiah P. O’Mahoney of St. Edward’s Church in Palm Beach must be smiling.

    And naturally the family’s bloody shirt was waved. Her father, “Daddy,” was murdered when she was 8 years old. “He was running for president.”

    Her uncle, JFK, was the president who famously said, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

    Her other uncle, Teddy, never became president, because he famously found out that a rising tide does not lift all Oldsmobiles.

    1. sarcasmic

      Howie is most definitely not a fan.

    2. ~Knarf Yenrab~

      Her lawyers described her as a “devout Catholic,” which by Kennedy standards, she may well be.

      Nice.

    3. db

      Nice.

      1. ~Knarf Yenrab~

        For the record, neither db nor I is an alt-handle of Red Bo.

        1. db

          Like there’s any question of my non-sockitude.

          I am, along with a few others, the HyR equivalent of an O.G.

          Plus, would anyone invent a sockpuppet as obnoxious.as.I?

          1. wareagle

            seriously…you’re the will.i.am of posters.

            1. GILMORE

              That’s mean. Don’t ever compare people to the Black Eyed Peas.

  58. Sevo

    “President Obama is to campaign for raising the minimum wage this week.”

    Anything to divert attention from the O-care disaster. And the media will be more than happy to oblige.

    1. db

      Maybe he should.ask Putin to raise the Crimean minimum wage as a gesture of international cooperation.

      1. UnCivilServant

        “Two Rubles per day, that is my final offer”

    2. Campaigning and golf the only two things O has in his very small repertoire.

    3. sarcasmic

      Raising the price of hiring young and unskilled workers won’t cause employers to buy less of it because, uh, um, because Ayn Rand and Teabaggers are racist!

    4. creech

      I wonder how much of anything OGL would buy if the price soared 40% overnight? Yet, “hundreds of esteemed economists” seem to think the price of labor is inelastic. Talk about voodoo economics.

      1. sarcasmic

        Unlike when it was first enacted, minimum wage isn’t intended to put people out of work!

        The intentions have changed, so must the results!

        And if not, well that’s just because rich business owners are greedy!

      2. ~Knarf Yenrab~

        Sticky wages! Menu prices! And 1920-1 never happened.

        1. ~Knarf Yenrab~

          I had a hard time understanding economics when I first picked up a couple of popular intro textbooks with an eye toward getting the standard college education, autodidact style. So much of what I read seemed like absolute conjecture (Mankiw begins his intro text by talking about how economics is the study of how “society” allocates its resources–and he’s supposed to be some conservative whackadoo according to the Stiglitz/Krugman alternative neoclassical school).

          It finally came to me a while back that what I was reading was anthropology gussied up with statistics and metrics, all of which are necessarily formulated and applied arbitrarily and/or politically. William James and Skinner split the atom compared to what methodological empiricists have been doing in economics for going on a century now. And the field is so envious of the legitimate inductive strength of experimental science that it invented its own Nobel (memorial) Prize without the backing or permission of the Nobel family, blatantly stealing the prestige of the name under the auspices of “honoring” Alfred. I’d read Hayek’s speech before, but I never really internalized what he meant (the speech being basically an elegant, Hayekian middle finger to the whole establishment) until then.

          Kind of funny to see an entire academic discipline fall apart before your eyes in the span of a half hour or so.

          1. BigT

            Hayek:

            I do not yet feel equally reassured concerning my second cause of apprehension.

            It is that the Nobel Prize confers on an individual an authority which in economics no man ought to possess.

            This does not matter in the natural sciences. Here the influence exercised by an individual is chiefly an influence on his fellow experts; and they will soon cut him down to size if he exceeds his competence.

            But the influence of the economist that mainly matters is an influence over laymen: politicians, journalists, civil servants and the public generally.

            There is no reason why a man who has made a distinctive contribution to economic science should be omnicompetent on all problems of society – as the press tends to treat him till in the end he may himself be persuaded to believe.

            One is even made to feel it a public duty to pronounce on problems to which one may not have devoted special attention.

            Calling Krugnuts.

  59. The Late P Brooks

    What’s the minimum wage in Cyprus?

    1. SugarFree

      They pay you in loving butt touches.

      1. sarcasmic

        Why did you ever leave?

        1. SugarFree

          I had to work in payroll. šŸ™

          1. Stavros is here for his “pay”, SF…

  60. The Late P Brooks

    I just hope you get the court-mandated help you need before it’s too late, Sugarfree.

    1. wareagle

      hang on a second and Tulpa’s altar puppet, Rollo, will be along to offer s state-approved service.

      1. SugarFree

        That’s how he makes his imaginary money.

      2. GILMORE

        “Rollo……….
        ……….Tomasi”

  61. The Late P Brooks

    help re-education

  62. wareagle

    a rising tide does not lift all Oldsmobiles.
    ———

    you gotta admit, that’s a good line.

  63. db

    So, anyone self-identifying as a Pittsburgh Reasonoid: we can’t let all of those Left Coast, mimosa-drinkin’, nice-weather-havin’, SoCal hardbodies have all the fun.

    So far we have three on board for a range day/bar session in the spring (whenever that comes around). Anyone else?

    1. Roger the Shrubber

      I would be interested despite my lowly lurker status and inadequate firearms collection.

      1. Roger the Shrubber

        PS – I am not Tulpa/Rollo, though I used to post under another name until it was embarrassingly pointed out to me that it was misspelled.

      2. db

        Maybe we could just do the beer part the first time.

  64. Mainer2

    There are lots of chewy Rollos in a roll for you
    If you’re choosy ’bout what you chew
    Real milk chocolate and caramel, too.
    To chew-chew, chew-chew, chew-chew chew.

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