A.M. Links: Issa Apologizes to Cummings, Obama Calls Putin, NSA Apparently Cares About Civil Liberties

Credit: The White House/wikimedia

• Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif) has apologized to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) for his behavior at a recent hearing on alleged IRS abuses. Issa cut off Cummings' mic while the Maryland lawmaker tried to make a statement.
• President Obama has urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to seek a diplomatic solution to the Crimea crisis.
• The Massachusetts Legislature passed a bill banning "upskirting" shortly after the state's Supreme Judicial Court ruled that an anti-criminal voyeurism law does not apply to snapping photos up women's skirts.
• Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has said that legally required cuts to the defense budget pose "tough, tough choices."
• The NSA's privacy and civil liberties officer said that civil liberties are a top concern for the intelligence agency. No, she really did.
• Turkey's prime minister has threatened to ban Facebook and Youtube in order to stop political opponents from posting audio recordings that expose corruption in his inner circle.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif) has apologized to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) ...

"Sorry for getting between you and a camera."

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hello.

"Turkey's prime minister has threatened to ban Facebook and Youtube in order to stop political opponents from posting audio recordings that expose corruption in his inner circle."

Obama (to staff): Why don't you guys come up with ideas like that!

[Doctor Whom]

Namaste.

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that they were working on a way to do so in a neutral-seeming fashion under the guise of regulating a common carrier or some such.

[Auric Demonocles]

Hiya.

[Slammer]

Howdy.

[VG Zaytsev]

Any sane organization would expel anyone that pulled the kind of stunt that Cummings did.

But he's a precious millionaire member of a permanent aggrieved class so we have to celebrate his tantrums.

Fuck him.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Still, though, it's just better to let him ramble.

[carol]

I'm sick to death of people apologizing. You said it, you did it, you tweeted it, whatever-own it. Issa was right to cut Cummings' mic off but now he's punking out. Are ballectomies a requirement for politicians?

[Rich]

"Boy, your shenanigans are going to cost me this election!"

[american socialist]

Maybe taxpayers in issa's district should cut off his mic by ending his open-check 17 million dollar IrSBenghazifastandfurious catch all fishing expedition

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

You need to go back to your own side of town, brother.

[american socialist]

Your the one that wants to spend taxpayer money on this. I'm sure you supported Congressional investigations of the Bush administration in 2006, right?

[Kaptious Kristen]

It's Mary, dude. Just let it be.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

I just realized. Thanks 🙂

[Swiss Servator, alles klar?]

I ran this through Google Translate...

"STOP LOOKING AT THE LIGHTWORKER'S CORRUPTION!!!!"

[american socialist]

Nah... Wrong translation. It's TAKING THE 5TH MEANS YOUR GUILTY!

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Or, GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRATS NEVER HAVE ANYTHING TO HIDE AND ARE ALWAYS HONEST!

[american socialist]

Wrong again... Are you using the mt.gox translator or something.
CONGRESS IS SO GREAT AND NEVER LAUNCH POLITICALLY EXPEDIENT INVESTIGATIONS into BenghaziNSAIRSgate.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Says the dumbass who thought retirees were counted as part of the labor force.

[Marshall Gill]

I ran this through Google Translate...

What language did you translate? "idiot" or "imbecile" or "socialist"? Oh, they all come out the same.

[Swiss Servator, alles klar?]

"Derpian"

Though some argue that it is a mere dialect of "socialist", I think it is more like Flemish is to Dutch.

[american socialist]

It's funny how many of you libertarians, fightin' fer my freedom, managed to take federal pay checks while you played soldier in Afghanistan.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

The media was FREAKING out at Issa's rudeness.

Man, when journalists are soft, you've lost the plot.

[sarcasmic]

Two women 'who earned hundreds of thousands of dollars a year as high-class escorts had so much cash they hid it in air vents and under carpets'

Jennifer Richmond, 22, arrested for racketeering 'for her part in Orlando prostitution ring that earned her $500,000 a year'
Fellow suspected prostitute, Christina Lynn Davis, 'said she earned as much as $80,000 in one month' - but she has fled Orlando
Their 'boss', Abdullah Hamid, has also fled
They 'worked for upscale escort agency charging $400 per hour and enjoyed life of cash, luxury cars and high-end hotels'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....rpets.html
I'm not seeing it.

[gaijin]

that earned her $500,000 a year'...charging $400 per hour

that's 1250 hours of work...not even a full time job! I wonder if she would be counted among the underemployed? Does she have an employer sponsored pension or IRA? most importantly, who pays for her birth control?

[UnCivilServant]

most importantly, who pays for her birth control?

It's a tax deductable business expense.

[Snark Plissken]

Hard to judge from that shitty mug shot.

[Apple]

Yeah, almost everyone looks awful in a mugshot. I'll reserve judgement until I see her in makeup and a tight dress.

[GotOutOfCali]

She probably has but'erbutt.

So why again is this illegal?

[Raven Nation]

Well, the story does so the arrest was for racketeering and the other two people were not arrested.

Not that that is much better since racketeering seems to be like conspiracy i.e. "we don't like what you're doing but since it's not illegal we'll arrest you for something vague."

[GotOutOfCali]

Exxxactly.

[DJF]

Maybe she catered to blind customers? Or she one of those who clean up real well when not in jail.

[Floridian]

Not bad for a mug shot. Once she cleans up, puts makeup on and is willing to go Greek, I but she is irresistible.

[Zeb]

I bet she cleans up pretty well. Mugshots are never very flattering.

[John]

Men don't go to hookers for their looks. They go to hookers for the emotional affirmation of a woman doing any sex act that is asked of them. The guys who paid these chicks probably have hotter wives. But they have wives who won't put out in bed or when they do put out on their terms only.

Hookers generally are not paid for "sex". They get paid for providing men the emotional satisfaction of a woman saying "anything for you dear" those men's wives won't give them. So, the looks are really incidental.

[sarcasmic]

"I don't pay them for sex. I pay them to leave."
-Charlie Sheen

[Steve G]

yeah, but 'high-end escorts' do a certain amount of arm candy and entourage duty where looking the part is important.

[mad libertarian guy]

They go to hookers for the emotional affirmation of a woman doing any sex act that is asked of them. The guys who paid these chicks probably have hotter wives. But they have wives who won't put out in bed or when they do put out on their terms only.

It's okay to be blunt here, John.

Guys go to hookers because they will go anal and give a blowjob.

[sarcasmic]

In that order? Ew.

[SugarFree]

The heart wants what the heart wants.

[Tim]

Johnson wants some stuff too.

[mad libertarian guy]

Ass to mouth is the new hot thing in porn.

Personally that's just fucking nasty, but it is what it is.

[John]

Yes MLG, those and a few other things.

[Snark Plissken]

So, the looks are really incidental.

Which is why so many high-class escorts look like Nancy Pelosi.

[wareagle]

talk about the anti-Viagra.

[Zeb]

And she's hardly bad looking. Just not someone who you would think was remarkable if you saw her picture in a magazine or something.

[Bee Tagger]

had so much cash they hid it in air vents and under carpets

When everyone is using bitcoin, what will the equivalent of hiding money under the mattress? Burning your money to a cdr?

[sarcasmic]

Sticking a thumb drive up your ass.

[SugarFree]

Tattooing the access key on your untertaint.

[Doctor Whom]

Such horrible oppression those womyn suffered. [/radfemderp]

[mad libertarian guy]

Such horrible oppression those womyn suffered. [/radfemderp]

They were sex trafficked!

[Fist of Etiquette]

President Obama has urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to seek a diplomatic solution to the Crimea crisis.

If not, he's going to drive some journalists to some place called Civil Liberties on the back of a tank and have his way with them.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Putin: Or else you're gonna do what, Mr. Blame Others boy?

/finger snaps Obama's ear.

[Pro Libertate]

Putin: You're right. We'll let the Crimea decide to secede and join Russia. Problem solved!

[Jerryskids]

Like Putin hadn't thought of that.

Of course Putin would prefer a diplomatic solution - as long as he gets what he wants. A mugger would prefer that you nicely hand over your wallet rather than making him rudely put a gun to your head, too. And Obama would prefer Congress just do what he wants rather than forcing him to violate the Constitution, but that doesn't stop him from violating the Constitution does it?

[sarcasmic]

'One cigarette every once in a while's not going to kill you': Cameron Diaz is 'deluding herself' after voicing views on smoking and diet drinks

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....rinks.html

'If I had nothing else to do, I would be like, 'Three bean-and-cheese burritos and give me some nachos with extra cheese sauce!' I would so kill that s***,' she told Self magazine in January.
'But what I've learned is that just 'cause you can chew it and swallow it and poop it out doesn't mean it's food.'

Now there's a class act.

[Obamaphone]

Ring***Ring***

Let me be clear, you have a point, Cameron.

-click-

[Ted S.]

'But what I've learned is that just 'cause you can chew it and swallow it and poop it out doesn't mean it's food.'

She was talking about deep-dish, I presume.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

I'm not seeing the problem.

[Zeb]

Well, as every right thinking person knows, one whiff of second hand smoke will definitely kill you, so smoking a cigarette occasionally is pretty much like playing in traffic.

[sarcasmic]

Thank you for your concern.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

you can't even post good DailyFail links any more. That's...really sad.

[sarcasmic]

Thank you for your concern.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Me either. I think my respect for her just went up.

Of course there's always the memories of her in The Mask. Good god she was hot.

[gaijin]

Now there's a class act.

Using the word 'poop' seals the deal

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Just because a school is public doesn't mean it's good.

[UnCivilServant]

More often, it means it's far from good.

Oh, and India is trying to destroy private schools which are embarassing their public system:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-26333713

[Rhywun]

Geez, when you lost the BBC...

[Rhywun]

've

[Snark Plissken]

President Obama has urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to seek a diplomatic solution to the Crimea crisis.

Or he's going to right a letter to Putin telling Putin how angry he is.

[Obamaphone]

Ring***Ring***

Hello, Rufus.

What's your favorite Canadian scary movie?

-click-

[Ted S.]

Does The Manitou count as Canadian?

How about a hagiography of Pierre Trudeau? That would be scary.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Error message.

I don't know.

Nightmare on NDP Street?

Scanners?

[Marshall Gill]

Rufus, did you know that your government regulates the porn industry to insure a certain level of Canadian materiel? I kid you not.

http://www.steynonline.com/614.....ns-wont-do

[anomdebus]

Leave Rufus alone!
He's already been hounded with this story to do others slash porn and he's not going to do yours either!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Anom, so tired. I'm so tired. Spent.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

MG. You don't know the half of it.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The NSA's privacy and civil liberties officer said that civil liberties are a top concern for the intelligence agency.

It concerns them that so many targets are making a stink about theirs.

[BigT]

The Massachusetts Legislature passed a bill banning "upskirting" shortly after the state's Supreme Judicial Court ruled that an anti-criminal voyeurism law does not apply to snapping photos up women's skirts.

Down-shirting still OK!

[GotOutOfCali]

Joke's on you, ladies. I'm not wearing any underwear!

[Ted S.]

Is side-boob still OK?

[Fist of Etiquette]

"Here's to looking up your old address!"

[sarcasmic]

'I'm not being exploited, I love what I'm doing and I'm safe': Duke women's studies major says she started filming porn to pay $47,000 tuition but now finds work 'empowering'

A Duke freshman was recently outed as a porn star by a fellow student
The women's studies major, who goes by the stage name Belle Knox, first started taking porn work to pay for her $47,000 tuition bill
Revealed that she makes $1,200 a scene
In an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan, Knox says she's not ashamed of her work despite receiving 'hostility' from some of her peers
She says her one regret is not telling her parents when she first started in the adult-film industry
Found inspiration for stage name from Beauty and the Beast princess, TV show Secret Diary of a Call Girl, and Amanda Knox

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....ering.html
Women's studies major. That explains a lot.

[Andrew S.]

Good for her. I really, really have failed to understand why anyone would give a shit.

[Auric Demonocles]

The guy in her dorm room who has had a crush on her for the past month probably does, but it seems like he should like this development.

[gaijin]

In an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan

Wait, he's still on?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I really, really have failed to understand why anyone would give a shit.

She breaks their conceptions of a porn star. That and all the frat bros are wondering why they haven't gotten any.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Found inspiration for stage name from Beauty and the Beast princess

Yeah, that Belle was a whore.

[Pope Jimbo]

So Duke really does suck?

[Brett L]

And swallow if you're paying enough.

[invisible furry hand]

Not enough Canadian porn on TV, says regulator. Oh, and sort that closed captioning out too

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/ent.....-regulator

[GotOutOfCali]

No Quebecois subtitles?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I loathe the CRTC with all my heart.

Maybe CRTC spokesperson Patricia Valladao can volunteer to increase Canadian content?

Come on, baby. Will you stand on guard for thee?

[Ted S.]

Ho Canada!

[Marshall Gill]

Damn, a whole hour late!

[Don Mynack]

I once made a nice chunk of change doing a rush job on posting web pages for a major oil company that did business in Canada. Seems the gov't required both French and English versions of every page that was accessed by Canadians. I had to post translated versions of the English stuff into French.

Long story short - I also had access to the traffic logs for the site. After a year, the French-language pages had 2 unique visitors.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Not surprising.

[The Late P Brooks]

"I'm sorry you're such a thin-skinned bitch."

[sarcasmic]

$100m treasure of legendary 'Ship of Gold' to be raised after 157 years: Salvage firm to raise sunken bounty from vessel that sank with 421 passengers

'Ship of Gold' went down off the coast of North Carolina in 1857 taking 425 souls and a cargo of 21 tons of gold
Loss of the ship led to 'Panic of 1857' - the first world-wide financial crisis
At the time, it's cargo was worth $2 million - today it is worth close to $100m
Tommy Thompson found the SS Central America in 1988
Florida firm can begin working to recover gold bars and coins from the wreck of the SS Central America next month

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....-gold.html

[Ted S.]

I presume the US is still a jurisdiction where the salvagers get to keep what they salvage?

[BigT]

IN the book they describe a process where they had to get a piece of the ship and take it to the local gendarmes to 'arrest' it. The book focused on the race to find the wreckage - if someone got a piece before them they were f'd.

[SIV]

Not in the state waters of Texas and Maine.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Massachusetts Legislature passed a bill banning "upskirting" shortly after the state's Supreme Judicial Court ruled that an anti-criminal voyeurism law does not apply to snapping photos up women's skirts.

Someone check this. They've probably just accidentally banned all cooch shots.

[Auric Demonocles]

Similar minds think alike.

[Fist of Etiquette]

What about kilts? Won't somebody please think of the Scotsmen?

[Auric Demonocles]

No true Scotman would have a problem with someone upskirting them.

[Steve G]

No one needs a 15MP pen camera

[DJF]

Just a story in a small newspaper, but I bet it goes on all over the US and the world.

""""Prospect Point Improvement Plan Includes Use of Overpriced Granite """

Just put in the job specs a requirement to use a certain color granite which then is claimed to come from just one quarry which just happens to have ties to the guy writing the job specs.

In one case requiring the use of $100 a square foot granite when much cheaper granite is indistinguishable.

http://www.niagarafallsreporte...../pros.html

[Rhywun]

It [i.e. rampant corruption] is not unique to the Niagara Falls State Park project.

Nice understatement.

[Auric Demonocles]

The Massachusetts Legislature passed a bill banning "upskirting" shortly after the state's Supreme Judicial Court ruled that an anti-criminal voyeurism law does not apply to snapping photos up women's skirts.

This seems pretty reasonable to me. But it also seems like it was super fast, so I'm guessing they messed up the language in some way that will bite someone in the ass in another year or two.

[Rich]

"Transgender 'upskirting' case to be heard by Supreme Court"

[BigT]

bite someone in the ass

So that is still OK? Just no photos?

[Rasilio]

No that would not be ok in Massachusetts.

Thanks to a nice little quirk of Mass law all crimes are crimes against the state and you cannot consent to being assaulted. Therefore all BDSM activities are technically assault and yes people have been arrested and convicted for consensual rough sex.

Biting someone would also qualify as assault even if they begged you to do it, sure you're not very likely to get caught and even if you did the cops would be highly unlikely to waste their time arresting you for it but technically it would be illegal.

[Auric Demonocles]

I did not know this. Turns out I committing assault for several hours just last night.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

#humblebrag

[Rasilio]

yeah, it is not something you are likely to get busted for but it can happen. Especially if you leave marks which are later seen by a medical professional or the neighbors hear you and think it is a domestic dispute at which point it will come down to how open minded the cop/DA who lands your case are.

If charges are filed however the MA courts have ruled quite explicitly on numerous occasions that consent is not a valid defense for assault charges

[Auric Demonocles]

People in my gym class did notice my bruises a couple of weeks ago...

[Bones]

You shouldn't be surprised they noticed. The unique shape of mushrooms make them more noticeable than normal bruises that could come from anything.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

The New England Patriots and all of their opponents will be very surprised by the fact that they can't consent to assault.

[Rasilio]

There are apparently exceptions in the law for medical and athletic purposes but rough sex is legally just considered domestic violence

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Am I the only one who has found 'Louie' slightly disappointing?

'True Detective' on the other hand. Woo, nelly! Hot stuff!

[waffles]

Yeah, the HBO, long episode format is where the best stories are being told today.

[Rich]

Damn. Check out that NSA article. The snark just writes itself.

[DJF]

They have to spy on everyone in order to protect peoples from losing their civil liberties.

[Rich]

My favorite: "A lot of my job will be translating from NSA-speak to public-speak."

[sarcasmic]

Jessica Alba shows off her taut stomach as she strips to her underwear in Sin City: A Dame To Kill For trailer

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....ailer.html
That was a decent movie. I wonder how bad the sequel will be.

[UnCivilServant]

If it parallels Frank Miller's career, it will be a steady descent into batshit insanity.

[sarcasmic]

EXCLUSIVE: 'Spoiled' cheerleader suing her parents got so drunk on vodka at home of millionaire attorney paying her fees that she 'threw up in a sidewalk garbage can'

Rachel Canning's court fight against her parents is being funded by Jon Inglesino, an attorney whose two daughters are friends with Rachel
Rachel is suing her parents claiming they 'abandoned' her because they demanded she stop drinking so much and split with her boyfriend
Rachel's parents, Sean and Elizabeth, have claimed in court papers that their daughter had her first drink at Inglesino's house
Further claim she was sick all over the sidewalk after a party at the 'lenient' Inglesino home - where Rachel is currently living

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....m-dad.html

[UnCivilServant]

So she's suing her parents for being parental? Why hasn't the court bitch-slapped her to the curb?

[Rasilio]

Anyone want to place odds that Rachel has found a "non monetary" way to compensate Mr Inglesino?

[sarcasmic]

That was my thought.

[Brett L]

This young lady has "escort" written all over her. Amoral little princess who wants what she wants? We'll be reading about her stuffing money under the carpet in 3 years.

[Pro Libertate]

Of course. It also explains why he took such a stupid case.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Stupid? It's colorable. You've been IN HOUSE TOO LONG OLD MAN; you've gone soft!

[Pro Libertate]

Getting notoriety for taking a case the whole country thinks is moronic is not good for the career. It's different than taking cases for obviously guilty criminals, because that's an advertisement to other criminals. Especially if you win.

[Swiss Servator, alles klar?]

^this^

[Red Rocks Rockin]

The lawyer father that's funding her lawsuit is part of one of Fat Boy's task forces--imagine that, a government employee wasting taxpayer dollars!

[Idle Hands]

Is there any precedent for disbarring an attorney for a frivolous lawsuit? Because this guy is pushing it. How did this even get to court?

[Rasilio]

They are essentially making allegations that the parents are abusive, while on the surface the claims do not seem to hold water (Even CPS ruled them groundless) the courts cannot simply ignore them

[Rufus J. Firefly]

For boxing fans. The Gatti-Ward documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UViOdXG7eGc

[Auric Demonocles]

How did Cory, Shawn, or anybody else annoy Mr. Feeney? I've got some alt-text debts to collect.

[Cdr Lytton]

By hitting on his hot Soviet niece.

[Injun Joe]

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has said that legally required cuts to the defense budget pose "tough, tough choices."

The choice between A bitter pill and suppository, I suppose.

[Andrew S.]

More like "Now I won't have enough money to give enough crony contracts to all the defense contractors I need to appease!"

[Rasilio]

Ariel Stryker is not pleased

[Bee Tagger]

The NSA's privacy and civil liberties officer said that civil liberties are a top concern for the intelligence agency. No, she really did.

To the extent that any civil liberties make it difficult for the NSA to do the job they want to do, I imagine that would be very concerning to the NSA.

[gaijin]

^righton,righton

[Pro Libertate]

"[A] top concern?" Actually, they should be the top concern of everyone in office.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Question: How do you guys handle whenever people use NASA as an example of government success in technology and innovation?

[BigT]

Flamethrowers were an example of government success in technology and innovation - but you wouldn't want them used on crowds in your town.

[UnCivilServant]

I don't know, theree are some crowds in my town I'd want purged by flame...

Mind you, I live and work in Albany County.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

I'll just stipulate to it because NASA's budget is 1/2 of 1 percent of the total budget. But even if someone tries to use that as the "thin edge of the wedge", bring up crowding out / private space travel.

[Auric Demonocles]

Point out the fact that NASA sucks balls and hasn't done shit with human spaceflight for my entire lifetime (and then some) while spending billions and billions of dollars on it. If they were not going to have humans leave LEO they might as well have stuck solely to robots and we'd have way more science completed with the same budget.

[Auric Demonocles]

Oh, though most people around here probably know this, I will point out that my master's is in aerospace engineering.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Didn't know.

Cool.

Yet. Everytime I see Quebecois cheddar curls I think of you now.

[Auric Demonocles]

If I ever achieve my dream of running a brewery in space, we will serve space poutine.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Dream on!

Just don't take a subsidy to achieve that dream!

[Auric Demonocles]

I don't plan on it. All the sweet, sweet profits from "Space Beer", and our flagship "Low Gravity Ale" will be mine. The marketing writes itself!

Though I did once have a hypothetical conversation with a fellow grad student (in biology) about whether we could successfully get a grant for "Studying the Effects of a Low Gravity Environment on the Flocculation of Yeast Strains".

[american socialist]

Yeah man Yuri Gagarin and Apollo 11 sucked balls. Has SpaceX reached Jupiter yet. Let me know when that happens.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

oh hi tulpa.

[american socialist]

Maybe you should go work on your website. It sucks.

[sarcasmic]

Ha!

[gaijin]

Yuri Gagarin and Apollo 11
Stuck in the 60s you are...how appropriate.

[Swiss Servator, alles klar?]

Well, it is a socialist...

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Shouldn't they be stuck in the 10s?

[PRX]

they wish. the 10's look good from the 8's.

[Auric Demonocles]

Let me get this straight. Your rebuttal to "[NASA] hasn't done shit with human spaceflight in my entire lifetime" is to talk about things that either:

1) The Russians did while my dad was in diapers

2) NASA did while he was in elementary school

[Pro Libertate]

I daresay that SpaceX is more likely to send tourists to Jupiter than NASA is to send anyone, unless NASA charters a SpaceX or other private company's spacecraft.

One thing, though. If you're going to Jupiter, don't go in hibernation.

[Auric Demonocles]

If you're going to Jupiter, cover your lips before you talk.

[Pro Libertate]

Nah, I'm just going to go sit in the pod.

[Bones]

I went to high school in Jupiter, and was known for falling asleep in English class. Does that count?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.....igh_School

[american socialist]

You mean the time when we had politicians that didn't demonize government work as theft and had a public sector that did more pay social security benefits and launch cockamamie wars?

What's NASA's budget in real terms in the years 1964 and 2014?

[kbolino]

when we had politicians that didn't demonize government work as theft

Barry Goldwater is a figment of my imagination, apparently...

had a public sector that did more pay social security benefits

As is the Social Security Amendments Act of 1965...

and launch cockamamie wars

And the Vietnam War.

Also, when did socialists start complaining about welfare?

[Pro Libertate]

Of course government can hire out private contractors to do things. After all, the one thing the government has is money to spend.

The question is, does top-down management of an industry work, is it more efficient than a market approach, and can it function without being totally taken over for political reasons absolutely unconnected to its stated mission?

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

I just want to point out that arguing about NASA is just a waste of time. I'm a bit more concerned about Defense and entitlements than .5 of the budget.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

oops, .5%

[Pro Libertate]

Sure, there are bigger fish, but NASA has no business in directing or "owning" manned spaceflight. It should buy seats and cargo space like the rest of us.

[Rasilio]

Top down can work better over the short term to reach a single defined goal to the exclusion of all else

Otherwise bottom up market based approaches are superior.

For example, without NASA it is very likely that we would still not have reached the moon and we probably would not have put a man in orbit until sometime in the early 80's however what we would have today is a cheap robust system of getting things into LEO that costs under $2000 a pound and is about as reliable as airliners were in the 60's. We'd also have multiple permanent manned orbital platforms in LEO with a total population in space at any given time pushing 200

[Pro Libertate]

I agree completely. We gained in the short term, but we lost big time in the long term.

[gaijin]

I like to point out that Government success in technology and innovation is a twice a century occurrence (NASA/Internet)...like stuck a clock being right twice a day. And that none of that "success" means anything without non-government actors making it useful to the rest of us (like Tang and Amazon).

[anomdebus]

A slow clock isn't right even twice a day...

[DJF]

Just talk to them about the Webb Space Telescope which is way over budget and schedule

Or the Space Launch System and Orion Capsule which is also way over budget and schedule that cost so much that NASA does not have money to actually send it on a mission

Or the Space Station which was built to conduct research but has done very little research since most of the work involved just keeping it operating

[BardMetal]

The space station was a product of stupid cold war era thinking "The russians have a space station so we need one too."

We could have the space shuttle to perform the same type of experiments that we do on the space station, and for a fraction of the the cost. Instead we built the International Space Station that eats up more then half of NASA's budget.

If NASA wanted to blow a bunch of money then couldn't they at least of one uped the Russians by building a base on the Moon?

[sarcasmic]

I point out this cartoon.

[Ted S.]

I point out that it's interesting that "successful" government R&D almost always seems to be defense-related, since the people who live government R&D tend to be people who hate defense spending. Consider Darpanet and GPS.

[Pavlov's Cat]

I point out that it's interesting that "successful" government R&D almost always seems to be defense-related, since the people who live government R&D tend to be people who hate defense spending. Consider Darpanet and GPS.

U.S. military spending nearly equals the rest of the world's. That's one expensive GPS.

[Zeb]

There is no reason why government can't succeed in some sense in creating innovative new technologies. Brute force is an effective, if inefficient, way to solve a lot of problems. The military certainly does a lot. The problem is the assumption that goes along with that for many people that the private sector wouldn't be able to do the same or even better in a more efficient way if government agencies got out of the way.

[Raven Nation]

One way I've done it is to side-step the content argument & kind of go logical fallacy on them. I just point out that there is no way to know that: just b/c NASA did it, doesn't mean that a private company wouldn't have done it better. There is just no way to know. Further, since NASA became the hub for all American space activity it also decided on single paths to goals which meant eliminating alternative approaches which competition might have created.

Admittedly this works more on people who claim we HAVE to have NASA because no private company would have done what NASA did in the 1960s.

[Rasilio]

There was a very brief roughly 10 year window (roughly from 58 through 68) where NASA was a very effective driver of technology and innovation and while they were in no manner efficient they did clearly accelerate human access to space and drive significant technological innovation in other areas far faster than private investment would have.

However since then NASA has been at best an inefficient government service and more often than not actually retarded the growth of space travel and space technology development.

Even NASA's crowning technological achievement, the Apollo program was basically a misguided overpriced stunt. Yeah great, we went to the moon. Then what? The program was never sustainable and left us with no realistic platform from which to build a sustainable program of cheap reliable access to space. We would have been much better off using those resources to drive development of a line of reliable low cost reusable orbital launchers and LEO space habitats from which we could have then constructed efficient space tugs that could have easily accessed anywhere in the solar system. Sure we might not have gotten to the moon until the mid 80's that way but once we did get there it wouldn't have been a 1 time stunt it would have been a permanent presence.

[Don Mynack]

Also, remember that NASA was also riding the wave of western aeronautic innovation - a good deal of the best minds on the first half of the 20th century were working in the aircraft industry - and they were essentially drafted into the government for WW2 and the Cold War. NASA brought many of those kind of people into the fold - it really was a perfect storm of mind power and effort being channeled into a single purpose by big gov't dollars and an encouraging bureaucracy. It lasted as long as it could before it became just another gov't jobs factory.

[SugarFree]

I break into their car and poop in the glovebox.

[sarcasmic]

You do that anyway.

[SugarFree]

Yes, but it is nice to leave a little card to explain why.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I heard this a lot in the engineering profession.

I remind them that NASA would have assassinated Clinton for an iPhone in '93.

The government is decent at underwriting basic science and concepts, but it's a shotgun process. They miss way more than they hit, and it gets funded out of your pocket. Industry is far more motivated to deliver on what you want, not what the government thinks you need.

[american socialist]

Yeah right. Tell that to the thousands of biotech companies who spend billions of dollars on failed clinical trials. Private companies are no more efficient in spending money than their public counterparts.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

You're an idiot AS. That you can't differentiate between tax and private dollars only points to how ignorant the left is when it comes to business.

[BigT]

Private companies are no more efficient in spending money than their public counterparts

Precisely!! That's why they all went out of business!!

Oh wait...

[Tonio]

Late to the discussion, but here's my USD 0.02: The success of the Apollo program is unquestionable; to do so only makes you look shrill and small. Redirect the question to why is it NOW necessary to have NASA in charge of space exploration. Don't get dragged into the sticky trap of whether NASA should have done Apollo - what's done is done. Focus on the here and now, and more importantly the future.

[invisible furry hand]

Italian scientists complete successful launch of replica pastry into the stratosphere

http://www.3news.co.nz/Boldly-.....fault.aspx

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Well. It was Catherine de Medici's court (L'Italienne) who taught the French how to make pastries.

So...it's only natural they do this.

/bites into sfogliatelle.

[Bee Tagger]

President Obama has urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to seek a diplomatic solution to the Crimea crisis.

A general rule of thumb: a man wearing a shirt is rarely ever to convince a shirtless man of anything.

[Rich]

Maybe Vlad will scare Barack shirtless.

[Obamaphone]

Ring***Ring***

Change isn't easy, but I can take my shirt off too, if that's what it takes. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, it will be a teachable moment. Ladies?

-click-

[Ted S.]

Oh dear, you're giving me flashbacks to the beginning of the Obama administration when that "candid" photo of him and Michelle on the beach came out. The breathless commentary is retch-inducing.

[Zeb]

IT would be pretty awesome if Putin started showing up to high level negotiations shirtless and covered in bear grease.

As much of a dictatorial tyrant as he is, I have to give Putin credit for style. That guy knows how to be a dictator.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

He'd sit at the table all serious as if nothing's abnormal.

Now I'm thinking Groundskeeper Willy.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Hugo Chavez was the same way--"Hell, if I'm going to act like a caricature from Tropico, I might as well take it all the way!"

[Zeb]

Sort of. Chavez had style, but lacked the competence that Putin shows.

Maybe I should just give up on caring about moral principles and shit and simply judge political figures on how interesting they would be as fictional characters.

[Lord Humungus]

I've got nothing today... just a bunch of work stress. It's weird how I went months and months with very little to do... and then *bam* the projects fell down like rain. Since I'm already a burned out shell of a man, I'm not used to this level.

Also, it's not the work itself, but the people who want constant updates.

So Happy Friday!

[Andrew S.]

I'm in the "Projects falling like rain" phase currently. Which means I have so much on my plate at once I'm saying 'fuck it' for 30 minutes and browsing H&R.

[gaijin]

Likewise. AM links are my refuge from the daily project storm.

[Ivan Pike Trolle]

Also, it's not the work itself, but the people who want constant updates.

Just tell them you can either work on the project or give updates, their choice.

[Pope Jimbo]

No, no, no. Everyone knows that the best way to get projects back on track is to schedule a LOT of meetings to discuss why projects are behind schedule.

Remember to keep a straight face when looking at the workers and demanding to know why they are behind in their actual work and also why the resisted coming to your 3 hour meeting.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

You're just lazy like those deadbeats who vote for Obama.

[The DerpRider]

I hear you. I'm one year into negotiations for a new software system for my company and my procurement liaison just sent me an email that today is her last day with our company and good luck...

[Bee Tagger]

Turkey's prime minister has threatened to ban Facebook and Youtube in order to stop political opponents from posting audio recordings that expose corruption in his inner circle.

Just wait until someone tells him about audio tags in html5.

[invisible furry hand]

A woman has admitted to forging her estranged husband's signature so she could use a stored embryo to get pregnant.

http://www.perthnow.com.au/new.....6848144025

[DJF]

Don't worry, he will still have to pay child support.

[Slammer]

Pussy Riot members attacked, pelted with garbage and green paint

[Steve G]

Is it too much to hope this was actually at a concert where they were, you know, like making music and stuff??

OTOH, still can't get over the tall one's DSLs.

[BardMetal]

They're a punk band so shouldn't music be in quotation marks?

[Zeb]

Bad music is still music.

[Jon Lester]

I like punk as much as anyone, but it's probably no accident that very little of PR's music is actually out, and even among the punk scene, they're not very articulate in any language.

[Apple]

DSL? Is that a broadband pun?

[SugarFree]

Warty Hugeman and The Doomcock of Doom

Chapter Two

Warty was almost finally drunk when The Parade of Curiosities began.

Sven was in the second hour of recounting his sexual exploits through time to the various creatures sitting at their table. Highlights so far included urinating in the cavernous vagina of Pope Joan and titty-fucking General Kei-Ong before her defeat at The Groomsbridge Massacre.

The Forstock Twins huddled together in a single chair, passing a glass of something that looked like curdled red wine back and forth. An enormous gengineered panda absently stripped narcotic bamboo as it listened, nodding at Sven's litany of famous names he had sexed up on throughout history. There was even a amorphous blob of glitter with them that claimed to be a post-real intelligence from "otherways in time." Warty suspected it was just some asshole with a holoprojecter taking the piss, but it was happy to gamble poorly with credit chips it claimed to be willing into existence, so Warty didn't run a backscatter defense protocol through his suit's countermeasure suite.

[SugarFree]

Sven broke off when the first exhibit of The Parade got close.

"Hoogemoan, what is this thing?"

Warty turned in his chair to see a disembodied brain on a floating platter, crackling vines of electricity running through the folds and channels of its surface.

"The Pretender Brainiarch of 2458, a corrupted clone of a renegade Brainarch that it sent back to blah blah blah. Stealing a planet or something," Warty told him.

"Not much of a capture," the panda said, its voice deep and melodic. "I've heard it's not much smarter than an Aquaculture Technician Grade 2."

The Forstock Twins tittered at this. Warty could never tell the weird little bald fuckers apart and he was far too drunk to remember the panda's name. It had a number in it. Maybe.

"How does it have sex?" Sven wondered.

"Who cares, Sven? It's got to shit out of something... won't that be good enough for you?" Warty said. Sven's roar of laughter spit beer all over The Forstock Twins.

Continue reading

[Andrew S.]

You scare me, SF. Really. I'm sure if you asked, the H&R commentariat would chip in to give you the help you so desperately need.

[gaijin]

He dodged a merwolfman being wheeled around in a grandly appointed aquarium, sidestepped a stampede of modular AI components all shouting in binary at one another, and shoved aside the gleaming chrome skeleton of a tripedal whale that was chatting up a smoothly gorgeous strain of Herpes Simplex 798--lovely in an evening gown the way only a sentient dick sore can be.

You are either using some sort of Turing algorithm to generate this or you are a Turing machine. Either way, genius!

[hamilton]

1. I like the mention of the no-slip bathroom floor moments after a character slips on a floor. It's really the little things that make this a masterpiece.

2. On the other hand, I am beginning to worry that you're writing a furry. Which would be banal.

[SugarFree]

A furry?!? How dare you!

[hamilton]

I'm just stating a concern. Out of concern for you,really. We all have your best interests at heart. You don't want to risk this oeuvre being perceived as mainstream proletariat mind candy.

[invisible furry hand]

A furry?!? How dare you!

I am not taking this personally

[SugarFree]

Nor should you, my fine antipodean lass. I have made a no yiffing agreement and plan on sticking to it.

[Tonio]

+1 antipodean

[tarran]

Dinosaur hunts only interested him if they were bare-handed and afforded him ample opportunity to trample as many butterflies as possible.

HA! HA! HA! Nice shout out to Ray Bradbury!

[Fist of Etiquette]

I think I've been reading these out of order.

[Slammer]

I don't think it matters.

[Zeb]

I think it's one of those non-linear narrative thingies. Or something.

[SugarFree]

The Story So Far...

[Zeb]

Huh. I imagined there would be a lot more.

When is it coming out as an e-book?

[SugarFree]

"So far..."

There are 8 more chapters.

[hamilton]

"Plucky Reginald Vas Deferens is a nuclear scientist in love with mafia boss Enrico Marx, who is himself married to Conchito Macbeth, a lively belly-dancer at the Belgian disco whose manager, Burly Ivan Crapp, has a naked daughter Janice engaged to J.J. Spinman, New York private detective, employed by elegant Laura Herron to trace the missing million-pound bidet that Hitler gave to Eva Brown as a bar mitzvah present during a state visit to Crufts, and which remained hidden until a World Cup referee, Horse Jenkenson, was found
hanged in a New Jersey tenement with the plans of a Russian secret weapon partially tatooed on his elbow...."

[Tonio]

+1 Monty Python

[JW]

"Somehow, SugarFree has managed to capture the worst parts of Lovecraft and merged them into the unholy depravities of Larry Flynt and Al Goldstein, leaving the reader helpless, as their own body abandons them to the unending march of of unstoppable bowel movements and other rank fluid leakage.

Four stars."

[SugarFree]

"The written equivalent of The Brown Note."

[Rich]

Diner Attacked After Refusing Seattle Man's Demand For A Bite Of His Burrito

Abdi, who is locked up in lieu of $10,000 bail, has been arrested more than a dozen times in the last year (for trespass, theft, assault, and robbery).

Sheesh, just give that man a burrito already!

[Steve G]

Marijuana-fueled rage strikes Seattle Diner

/Drudge headline

[The Late P Brooks]

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has said that legally required cuts to the defense budget pose "tough, tough choices."

That's like a fate worse than death for a politician.

"What do you mean, I can't fool all the people, all of the time?"

[Lord Humungus]

I've just started watching "The World at War" with Laurence Olivier doing the narration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_War

anyway, picking up a bunch of little facts about WW2 that I didn't know - for example when Chamberlain was getting kicked out of office, Lord Halifax was considered the more sensible replacement, not Churchill. I wonder how the war would have ended for the Brits if Winston hadn't been made PM.

[invisible furry hand]

Churchill was (like many of his family) considered very unsound, and it is rather odd that he got the gig as war leader - a job he was born to do, indeed probably the only thing he did very well in politics.

[Lord Humungus]

There was an interview with Chamberlain's secretary - he said that Churchill - especially after the fiasco of Gallipoli - was considered a bit of an "adventurer", someone not considered the safe choice during such a dangerous time.

Churchill was also behind the (then recent) failed invasion of Norway where the Germans maintained control of the air... bombing the British troops who weren't even given proper equipment for winter war.

[John]

I love that series. I have it on DVD. The only thing I don't like about it is that it depresses me to see how dumbed down documentaries today are when compared to it.

That series is a masterpiece. And it was made when the events were still within living memory. I think the more time goes the more people will appreciate it. Can you imagine having the equivalent of that made about the Civil war made in the 1890s when many of the people involved were still alive?

What would you pay to watch that? Thanks to the BBC, our grandchildren will have such a film about World War II.

[Pro Libertate]

Silly, that's not what's going to survive. Our descendants will watch Kelly's Heroes and get their entire view of WWII from that.

[John]

There are worse things they could watch. Better that than Saving Private Ryan.

[Pro Libertate]

They'll attribute America's economic boom after WWII to the stolen gold, they'll credit Oddjob for the beatnik and hippie movements, and they'll believe that Clint Eastwood is a real person in all of his movies, which are documentaries.

[John]

and they'll believe that Clint Eastwood is a real person in all of his movies, which are documentaries.

But that part is true.

[Pro Libertate]

That's why they'll believe it!

[kilroy]

they'll credit Oddjob for the beatnik and hippie movements

It's Oddball.

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, crap, you're right. Stupid James Bond crossover moment.

Apologies, Mr. Sutherland.

[BigT]

ProL - Our descendants will watch not Kelly's Heroes, but Hogan's Heroes, and understand WW2 from that.

Fun fact: Werner Klemperer (Col Klink) was the son of a famous conductor, Otto Klemperer, who converted from Judaism to Catholicism in Hitler's Germany, then fled in 35, and ended up fighting for the US.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement
...You must take a deus ex machina where you find one, and in the case of the crumbs and jelly on the counter tops, the deus ex machina turned out to be the forces of global capitalism. With the arrival of a cheap, easily exploited army of poor and luckless women?fleeing famine, war, the worst kind of poverty, leaving behind their children to do it, facing the possibility of rape or death on the expensive and secret journey?one of the noblest tenets of second-wave feminism collapsed like a house of cards. The new immigrants were met at the docks not by a highly organized and politically powerful group of American women intent on bettering the lot of their sex but, rather, by an equally large army of educated professional-class women with booming careers who needed their children looked after and their houses cleaned. Any supposed equivocations about the moral justness of white women's employing dark-skinned women to do their shit work simply evaporated. ...

[John]

Notice how feminists never talk about who is supposed to work in these "free daycare centers" they claim the government should provide anyone.

[UnCivilServant]

Well, that's because all men are assumed to be child molesters and women are too important to do that kind of work, so... robots I guess.

[John]

White women and dark women with the right degrees are too important to do that kind of work. A good white feminist is always happy to let a brown serf do the distasteful task of raising her children and cleaning the house.

[Spoonman.]

Serfdom?

WORDS HAVE MEANING! FUCK!

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Not according to the Duke English department

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

What good are definitions when you have a whole class of people to infantalize?

[Spoonman.]

Serfdom is a heritable form of bondage, where the serf provided labor in exchange for protection.

It has nothing to do with mutually consensual, at-will employment in domestic tasks.

In fact, it's far more similar to citizenship in a modern nation-state.

[RBS]

I'm not reading anymore than that blurb. Holy shit.

[RBS]

Any supposed equivocations about the moral justness of white women's employing dark-skinned women to do their shit work simply evaporated. .

How painful must it be to go through life thinking about every transaction like this?

[Spoonman.]

They are mental flagellants.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Yet in Massatwoshits it's stil illegal to record cops.

[John]

Sugar Free once astutely described Uggs as an attractive woman's way of telling the world "I am on the rag and my feet are cold so hit on me some other day". Emma Watson has her Uggs moment in the Daily Mail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....scars.html

[SugarFree]

At least the tighter fitting black variety are a bit better looking. The loose brown ones give you elephant legs.

[John]

True. My wife tells me that are incredibly comfortable and warm. You really nailed what they are.

[Zeb]

I'm sure they are great to wear. But it really is the footwear equivalent of going out wearing sweatpants.

[UnCivilServant]

Soo... uncomfortable, saggy and awkward?

[Zeb]

I can't recall ever wearing sweatpants, so I wouldn't know. I assumed people wore them because they are comfortable.

[UnCivilServant]

People claim they are, but they fell comepletely wrong to me, so I no longer own any.

[UnCivilServant]

*Feel.

Damn typoes.

But they also have no provision for proper belting, and a low-friction interior, so falling isn't out of the question.

[Raven Nation]

I wear 'em around the apartment during the winter. Warmer & more comfortable for lounging than jeans. But wear them in public (apart from car-to-gym-and back)? Nope. Always amazed at adult men who wear sweatpants when they eat out.

[Lord Humungus]

but at a local college campus, Uggs with Yoga pants... what were we talking about again?

[UnCivilServant]

The aerodynamic properties of the common raven when fired from a chicken gun.

[Floridian]

Is there nothing that can't be blame on "Teh Drugz!"? Also Cali isn't the sunshine state.

http://www.foxnews.com/science.....alifornia/

[Longtorso, Johnny]

I missed the gay wedding thread yesterday. Did anyone answer why a show on A&E isn't a constitutional right so they could suspend the Duck Dynasty guy, but wedding photogs and cakes are, so that's illegal discrimination?

[Steve G]

As they say in the old bud light commercials, "here we go.."

[Auric Demonocles]

According to "Tony logic" because you can't discriminate based on the way someone is born. And liking to have sex with other guys (and actually doing so) is something innate that you are born with. Disliking guys who like to have sex with other guys is a choice, apparently.

[Palin's Buttplug]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. household net worth jumped to a new high at the end of last year, as the value of real estate and shareholdings rose and bank accounts swelled.

The Federal Reserve said on Thursday net worth increased $2.95 trillion to $80.66 trillion in the fourth quarter, eclipsing a previous record high.

The value of households' property, consumer goods, bank deposits and stocks all increased in the quarter.

The Fed said household net worth rose 14 percent in the full year, driven by a $5.6 trillion rise in the value of shares and a $2.3 trillion increase in the value of real estate.

[Rich]

Quick! Implement a surtax no one will feel and pay off the National Debt!

[gaijin]

mandatory myRA contributions coming up!

[Auric Demonocles]

8% should do it.

[Injun Joe]

Money supply goes up, assets get chased, assets appreciate.

[Palin's Buttplug]

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M2

Graph says the money supply rise is consistent with the past.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

You didn't exactly refute his point, you dumbass:

http://dshort.com/inflation/CP.....e-2000.gif

[CampingInYourPark]

He reads graphs as well as he reads polls

[Lord Humungus]

about 8% comprehension?

[Rasilio]

Do you actually know how to read a graph?

That pretty clearly shows slow linear growth from 1980 - 1990, no growth from 1990 - 1995, then an exponential growth curve from 1995 onward.

Even if it had just stayed on that same linear growth path as it was on from 80 - 90 the M2 would be a little under $8 trillion instead of the more than $11 trillion it is today

[The Other Kevin]

This is great news! Guess we can stop talking about raising the minimum wage and redistributing wealth now.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Fine with me. Tony isn't here and he is the only one who supports such.

[american socialist]

You plebes should be happy with the $2/hr you get from corporations running record profits and paying their idiot CEOs 8 digit bonuses.

[PRX]

$2 an hour beats being a land whale in Texas by about $2 an hour.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

Start your own company and run it as you see fit.

[C. Indica]

Socialist, it looks like you misspelled KKKorporation. And yes, everyone on this forum thinks that we are all wholly owned serfs of these evil entities.

[BigT]

as the value of real estate and shareholdings rose

That's NOTHING at all like the last bubble the Fed created, NOTHING.

[and most goes to the 1%ers, of course]

[Floridian]

Not the 8%ers?

[Red Rocks Rockin]

How about that--combining the last two asset bubbles into one super-bubble hasn't led to an improvement in employment.

[The Late P Brooks]

Also, it's not the work itself, but the people who want constant updates.

"IT'LL NEVER BE DONE IF YOU DON'T STOP PESTERING ME!"

[Slammer]

Coming Soon: A Barbie with Normal Proportions

Pron.

[Rich]

Lammily is a butterface.

[Palin's Buttplug]

When is tatted-out skank Barbie coming out?

[Lord Humungus]

so... fat?

[Auric Demonocles]

Slammer mistyped "John Porn".

[Notorious G.K.C.]

The Obama administration likes to stomp on the religious liberty of nuns, craft stores and homeschoolers, but makes up for it by second-guessing businesses' workplace dress and grooming policies:

http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/publi.....ooming.cfm

[John]

So the entire Steve MaQueen movie Le Mons is on Youtube in pretty close to HD. Not feeling well and home alone, I watched it last night.

P Brooks and others on here claimed in response to my praise of Rush that it is the greatest racing movie ever. I hadn't watched it since I was a kid.

It still isn't much of a movie in terms of plot and dialog. It is basically auto porn, and I mean that as the highest compliment. They did an incredible job filming the 1970 Le Mans race. I doubt anyone will ever do that again, since CGI is so much cheaper. And it is an incredible time capsule. Without traction control, it is amazing how tail happy those cars were. Every one of them throws the back end out coming out of corners. There is one scene where they have this great shot of two Porsche 917s and a Ferrari 512 coming straight at the camera while decelerating from the Mulsanne straight. You can see all three cars fish tailing a bit as they slow down. Those cars were decelerating from 230+ mph and fishtailing. I can't imagine how terrifying they must have been to drive.

[John]

Most of all the movie has engine sounds. That is the real porn. The sound of a Porsche flat 12 is just seductively evil. It has this high pitched whine about it that reminds me of an artillery shell coming through the air. The sounds were real in that movie. You can tell the difference between that and the sound of the V12s in the Ferraris, which sound a little less evil but are even more seductive.

Yeah, miminumal dialog and plot with lots of gorgeous things to luck it with really seductive sounds, that is porn and good porn at that.

[Slammer]

John, have you ever seen Monte Hellman's Two Lane Blacktop?
It has James Taylor and Dennis Wilson racing Warren Oates cross country in a 55 Chevy. The engine sounds in that flick are just great.

[John]

I watched that movie as a kid. I heard they re-released it on DVD a couple of years ago. I need to check that out.

[Ted S.]

There's no music in the famous chase scene in Bullitt, just the ambient sound of the cars.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Which is awesome.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Ronan (sp?) also had an excellent chase scene.

[Pro Libertate]

Ronin. I just watched that a few months ago for the first time and wondered whether that was De Niro's last decent movie.

Note for the record that Sean Bean does not die in this film.

[UnCivilServant]

Note for the record that Sean Bean does not die in this film

Only because he's not in it when the action scenes roll around.

[UnCivilServant]

I must have screwed up the blockquote tags, sorry.

[Pro Libertate]

Look, nitpick all you want, he doesn't die.

What's interesting to me about his career is that he actually is quite good as a heroic character--he was great in the Sharpe series.

[invisible furry hand]

"Take my advice, Harris. When you get home, write a bloody good book with loads of shooting in it. You'll die a rich man."

[tarran]

Only because he's not in it when the action scenes roll around.

What's the gunfight with the arms dealers under the bridge?

Chopped liver?

[Pro Libertate]

Not dead. I think Bean dies enough that he should get credit when he doesn't. Off the top of my head (talking movies only here), I can recall him living twice: Ronin and Troy.

[Slammer]

I agree Bullitt has one of the best car chases obviously, but it's completely inaccurate in that it jumps all over the place in SF geography, badly.

[invisible furry hand]

It is basically auto porn

Cue sarcasmic to say real auto porn would be quieter in 5, 4, 3...

[The Other Kevin]

I am now reading Steve McQueen's biography. Haven't gotten to this movie yet. But wow, he lived a life. Drugs and sex with any co-star or fan he could get his hands on. Like the Charlie Sheen of his day, without the crazy or the bad press.

[John]

He was supposed to have been at the dinner party where the Manson Family killed Sharon Tate. The only reason he didn't go was he was out on his motorcycle on the Sunset strip and met some girl and went home with her and skipped the dinner party.

The experience of being that close to being murdered really freaked him out. That and his nearly going broke making the LeMans movie ended his first marriage.

He was a no shit high end driver though. He was better than Paul Newman ever dreamed of being. Finished second at the 12 hours of Sebring, barely losing to Mario Freaking Adretti, who said afterwards he drove one of the best races of his life to win because he wasn't going to lose to a movie star.

[Lord Humungus]

I watched that a few weeks ago - it's not really, as you say, a film - but a docu-drama-movie.

If you haven't seen Grand Prix, it really captures the SPEED of the cars really well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9f1mfyEZGs

[John]

I will watch that. That is the James Garner movie right?

[Lord Humungus]

yep.. a story about an aging racer... a side plot about a japanese racing company... and this 'n' that. But the 1966 era cars and the shots of the racing are worth it.

[John]

Those cars were killers. They were just bombs on wheels. They could hit 200 mph but no ABS, skinny little tires, and no traction control or any of the safety features they have now.

I saw an interview with Nikki Lauda where he was asked if his famous crash at the Nurburgring surprised him. He said no. It didn't surprise him at all since he knew it was inevitable that he would die or be severely injured if he kept driving. That is a guy who was skilled enough to win three world championships and even he knew it didn't matter. I still can't believe those drivers drove like they did.

[SIV]

Watch Grand Prix

It has the auto porn, incredible cinematography, cameos from racing legends and good plot and dialog.

[The Late P Brooks]

The Fed said household net worth rose 14 percent in the full year, driven by a $5.6 trillion rise in the value of shares and a $2.3 trillion increase in the value of real estate.

There was a song about this, wasn't there"

"I'm forever blowing bubbles...."

[Rich]

The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation reminded people to alert the city after finding decapitated rooster or goat heads.

What about backpack meth labs?

[John]

Voodoo or Satan Worshipers?

[Rich]

You seem to have, um, esoteric knowledge, John. Hope the NYCDPR doesn't monitor H&R.

[Ted S.]

"Headless body in topless bar"

[mad libertarian guy]

Someone had a great fucking idea . . .

Let's use taxpayer money so that we can get parents directly involved in the drug war and have them fight it for us.

A southwestern Kentucky police department is giving free drug-testing kits to parents who suspect their children of using illegal drugs.

That's bad enough, but here's the money shot:

The department is getting the tests from the Pennyrile Narcotics Task Force. The test kits come with full instructions on how to administer them and allows parents to test their children without worrying whether there will be law enforcement follow-up, arrest or prosecution.

Grace said the test results might not be 100 percent accurate because of several factors including time or the use of over-the-counter medication.

How long until cops start doing "mandatory followups", visiting homes which have gotten these "free" drug testing kits? You know, just to make sure they don't have any questions and to see if they need any help. And let's not start with the accuracy of field drug testing. Their lucky if these tests are accurate at a rate of 50%.

[Rich]

having parents test their children is preferable to guessing what the child is doing when it comes to drugs.

Exactly. No parent would want to guess what the child is doing when it comes to performance in school, would they?

[Steve G]

"honey, this drug testing app requires access to the internet. Should I just hit 'accept'??" "yes, dear"

[John]

I and am sure other people on here can tell horror stories about childhood friends who were sent off to nightmare rehabs because their parents were "convinced they were addicts".

Now a kid doesn't even have to drink or try drugs. They can just take the wrong kind of cold medicine to be sent off to starve and die of heat exaustion in the Utah desert or be locked up in what amounts to a mental institution until they admit their "problem".

You would really have to be a sick, crazy fuck to want to drug test your kid unless they were just some kind of total degenerate junkie who left you no good options. What is wrong with people?

[Floridian]

My sister starts rehab next week. I think it is bullshit she can't have contact for the first month but hopefully she can get the help she needs.

[John]

I have a sister who we can't get to go to rehab. I think rehab is good for some people. There are some people who need some kind of help to stop being so self destructive. The problem is never the drugs or the alcohol. Those are just the means. The problem is the incredibly self destructive nature. Rehab can help fix that or at least rechannel some of the urges.

But there is nothing worse than being someone who doesn't have a problem, other than being a typical teenager, and is sent to rehab. That happened to a couple of childhood friends. Every time they tried to explain "but I just tried pot a few times and my parents freaked out", they were told they were just in denial.

[mad libertarian guy]

Every time they tried to explain "but I just tried pot a few times and my parents freaked out", they were told they were just in denial.

I went to rehab at 19, though I wasn't mandated to go, because it was recommended that I do so. I had a bad depression problem and I quit the prescription meds and started self medicating with pot which worked much better and didn't have any of the horrible side effects of your average anti-depressant. And this is exactly the shit I was told on a daily basis. The idea was that ANY use of a drug was abuse because only an addict would willingly break the law. The pathology of that kind of mindset is fucking sick, and statist to the core.

[John]

It is nothing but a money racket. They lock kids up and torture them telling them they are addicts right up until the day the insurance money runs out. Then, the kids are magically cured of their addiction and sent home.

I really hate the rehab industry. I know a lot of people have been helped by rehab. But a lot of other people, especially kids, have been really harmed by it.

[invisible furry hand]

Sorry you had to go through this.

One of the most disturbing things* I've ever read was Kurt Cobain's biography. The guy was clearly very depressed and self-medicating, but the hysteria over drug use effectively meant he didn't get possibly life-saving mental health care - even after he tries to kill himself all he gets is a lecture about the smack.

* apart from Warty Hugeman, of course

[Floridian]

I'm hopeful for her. I think she will do well. She has an education and is a hard worker she just needs to deal with what I am guessing is depression. If she can learn some coping skills and healthy ways to deal with her issues I think she still has a bright future.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I hope you all have plans for Al Anon. I never thought I had any part to play with my ex's being a drunk. I thought I was doing everything right.

Boy, was I wrong. I was an extraordinary enabler.

[John]

I know the feeling Kristen. But it is pretty hard not to be an enabler. It takes a lot of conviction to just say no. Easy to say you will do it but a lot different actually doing it with someone you love.

[Kaptious Kristen]

That's why I asked if they had plans for Al Anon (or something similar). It helped me realize what I had done wrong and steps to correct it. It pretty much gave me my sanity back.

[Kaptious Kristen]

And addicts have a much lower chance of success if friends and family keep doing the same shit they were doing before the addict went to rehab. Everyone involved with an addict needs to change their behavior.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

i don't want to belittle your experience here, but I've never bought into that AA "enabler" BS.

[Kaptious Kristen]

You don't have to. You weren't living my life. Sounds like you haven't had much experience around drunks or junkies.

[Tonio]

You weren't living my life.

Says the person who also blythely wrote: Everyone involved with an addict needs to change their behavior.

Sorry, KK, but you aren't living my life.

When you define your audience's needs you've lost the conversation.

[tarran]

It's definitely not bullshit; I've lived it.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

It's bad science and that's been well documented at this point.

[John]

If "enabling" is bad science, then so is welfare dependency, because that is all enabling is; welfare dependency on the micro scale.

[Tonio]

It's bad science mystical bullshit and that's been well documented at this point.

[John]

Look at it this way kochtopus, people who are addicts are masters at lying to themselves and to others. So what happens is they always tell themselves that there is no reason to be responsible since their friends and family will always give them another chance. Meanwhile, since they are master liars, they lie to their family and friends and tell them "if you just help me this one more time, I will do better, promise".

The family and friends want to be good people and help them. Meanwhile the addict blows the money or help figuring if he needs help again, he can always go and get it. Thus the cycle starts again.

For a lot of people, they will only quit and start being responsible after they realize there will never again be help forthcoming. Being an "enabler" is just when someone keeps them from facing that moment.

When you think of it that way, it makes sense.

[Floridian]

My sister was using IV dilaudid, so hopefully I wasn't enabling her. Although when she last came for a visit I did mix her some drinks, but nothing extreme. 3 over a day.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Like I said, I hope you all have plans to attend at least a few Al Anon meetings.

[Floridian]

Ill go if nothing else to show I care.

[Zeb]

If you can't tell that your kid is using drugs, it's either not a problem or you are in denial. The parents who are convinced that any drug use is an emergency requiring drastic intervention are far more likely to mess up a kids life than improve it.

[John]

Exactly zeb. Kids will experiment and do stupid things. That doesn't mean they have a problem or are addicts.

[RBS]

I'm convinced this is what happened to one of my cousins. He was basically snatched up in the middle of the night when we were in middle school. He was already far more rebellious than most teens and he was so pissed off after this he became much worse.

[SugarFree]

I barely avoided being sent to military school and the threat of it did nothing to improve my attitude. If I had been sent to rehab, I would have bided my time until I turned 18 and my parents would never have seen me again.

[RBS]

That was pretty much the end result.

[mad libertarian guy]

The drug testing part isn't terrible. Kids shouldn't be all fucked up, and if parents want to test their kids it's none of my business (even if it does make you a control freak of a parent).

But if you want to drug test your little snowflake, do it on your own fucking dime, not mine.

[John]

I totally support the parents right to do it. I just think it is really stupid.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

But waiting until the kid is a total degenerate junkie to try to sort out what's going wrong would be good parenting?

I somewhat doubt there's a single answer that applies to all kids and all parents and all situations, but I can conceive of situations between "straight A student who's mostly happy" and "total degenerate junkie" where it might be useful to know whether drugs are involved.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Obama is the first woman President (caution: sarcasm)

"Strong women have surrounded Obama since childhood...

"Throughout his presidency Obama has displayed sensitivity to women's issues, women's concerns, women's priorities...

"... His foreign policy abjures the stereotypically male, the reflexively violent, the stubbornly confrontational, and the unthinkingly gruff. He is not afraid to be called a wimp...

"...Barack Obama has as much of a claim as the next girl to being the first woman president. Do not "other" him. Love him. Celebrate him. Open your mind, as I have. And Hillary: Take note. We already have a woman in the White House."

http://freebeacon.com/the-first-woman-president/

[John]

"Strong women have surrounded Obama since childhood...

I guess the Reverend Wright is chopped liver.

Beyond that, to the extent it is true, those women have nearly always been a bad influence on him. If you read his book, the one really good influence on Obama was his Indonesian step dad. But his mother left and took Obama to Hawaii and dumped him on his communist grandparents lest the step father infect her son with any non leftist ideas.

[invisible furry hand]

To disagree would be to indulge in cis-woman privilege

[Pro Libertate]

If we accept this reasoning, then Obama is the second black president, not the first.

[The Late P Brooks]

Most of all the movie has engine sounds. That is the real porn.

Formula One began its long downhill slide when they abandoned the naturally aspirated three liter engine rule in the
80s.

I went to Long Beach three or four times for the F1 race, and the sound of those motors made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Plus, CAR CONTROL!

[John]

Yeah, you watch the in car films on Youtube from back in the 1970s and those cars just sound evil. They rev so high but at the same time have a lower end tone about them that just cuts through you.

It is not an F1 car, but look on Youtube and there are films of the old Ford GT40 Lemans cars racing at vintage events. The V8s on those things sound incredible.

[Lord Humungus]

I always loved the sound of my roller-cammed 355 with long tube headers with no H-pipe. Crack open the secondaries and it sounded like the gates of hell just opened up.

[John]

There is something about the rumble of a low compression Detroit V8. Even a small black with just stock grandma exhaust sounds good.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Was a fan of Grand Prix racing back in the 80s when it was less Euro-trash hype.

Now it's too insufferable - despite the technology gains.

[John]

I am thinking sports car racing might be watchable again. Porsche is finally getting back into the prototype class again. So it won't just be an Audi intramural tournament anymore.

When I first heard about the new rules mandating all the prototypes be hybrids and limiting their fuel consumption I thought "oh God, they just ruined racing to please the Ghaia worshipers". But when I read about what they are actually doing, I think it will make endurance racing worth watching again.

The problem with racing is that cars got so fast by the early 70s, you had to limit them by speed to keep it even remotely safe. So all of the cars tend to be the same kind of engine and do exactly the same things. Now, rather than limit speed, they are limiting fuel consumption. There will be no cylinder or horsepower restriction. The rule is you get so many gallons of fuel per lap and you have to use some kind of hybrid tech. You can even run a diesel if you want.

That actually sounds very cool and should make the cars different and more interesting rather than the carbon copies you get in F1.

[JW]

I wish I had been then, but I just wasn't exposed to it. There was lots of good racing then.

I'll be the philistine and say that I love the 18,000 RPM scream of the 09-13 V8s.

[John]

JW,

In terms of road cars, we live in a golden age today. Don't let anyone tell you differently. The cars from 74 (when they really clamped down on emissions) to about 2000 were horrible. The way they met the emission standards was to detune the engines so instead of getting close to one horsepower per cubic inch of engine, you were lucky to get a half.

But even the cars from the glory days of the 1960s are not all they were cracked up to be. They had points, which made starting them on a cold morning a real dark art, and they were enormous gas eaters. Now you can buy a car that will leave those cars for dead on the track and get 25 mpg doing it.

I have a bad feeling the asshole nannies are going to put an end to things soon. If they do, people will look back on the early 21st Century as a golden age for horsepower.

[JW]

John, I'm old enough that my fist cars were big-block V8s. My very first car was a 69 Impala, 396 *2-barrel*. Big boat of a car, but I was a broke idiot and drove it into the ground in short order. The car after that was a 70 Cutlass with a 350, which I still love today and regret selling it. I'd buy another if I could, but they're selling restored in the $10s and $20K now. Out of my reach.

I could have had a cherry 70 Olds 88 convertible as my first car, owned by a mechanic I knew, but he raised the price on me at the last minute and I refused to pay beyond what we agreed to. A friend of mine then bought it and it became *the* car that everyone hung out in. He was an amateur mechanic, so he could fix it after he hosed it on the latest engine and transmission destroying outing.

I agree that the cars we're getting today, in terms of dollar-to-performance ratio is nuts and yes, they equal or exceed 60's muscle cars in many respects, but there is nothing like the push-you-back-in-the-seat feeling that you would get from those torquey V8s. Just fucking, monsters, some of them.

[Brett L]

Cute little penguins wearing sweaters.

And funny Baby-Boomer memes.

[Steve G]

Saw a lot of my MIL in the latter. Good material for later, hehe...

[Nephilium]

The libertarian moment is now!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

They couldn't have picked a more appealing picture.

[Ted S.]

Meh. Charles Coburn was doing it back in the 40s.

[mad libertarian guy]

Fretting over the loss of funds in the local school system. It's standard pearl clutching about the loss of "Important Programs" and "necessary teachers."

At a forum Thursday night to discuss a proposed multimillion-dollar budget cut to Fayette County Public Schools, teachers, parents and students expressed fears, ideas and solutions about the loss of funding.

[. . .]

A chief concern was that the loss of programs and quality teachers would hurt student development. Others expressed concern about spending money wisely and proposed that cuts be made gradually. Several people said that a lack of communication about the cuts caused worry and "needless anxiety."

[. . .]

"You get a lot of fear mongering when it comes to education," Allen said. "There were teachers that said 'we cut 10 teachers,' or 'band and orchestra will get cut' ... Part of the problem was that teachers and administrators and people in the community were saying this was going to happen, and it wasn't."

At least the students are honest about the fear mongering, unlike their teachers.

[mad libertarian guy]

And then hidden deep in the article is this gem:

Eighty-nine percent of the school district's budget is devoted to salaries and benefits for the district's 5,815 employees.

[. . .]

The district serves 41,000 students in 66 schools and special programs.

A 1:7 student:district employee ratio? My son's very exclusive private school isn't that high, and their results much better.

[Steve G]

Doesn't make your point any less valid, buuut you got the ratio backwards...

[mad libertarian guy]

Yes. Yes. I did.

[UnCivilServant]

Though I'm sure the one thing the administrators want to do is get rid of the kids (if they can keep the funding).

"We have the best run facility in the state!"

"But no pupils."

"That just means we have a failure rate of zero - everyone who comes here graduates!"

[BigT]

A 1:7 student:district employee ratio

That's not too far in the future if the NEA has its way.

[Griffin3]

$433 million / 41,000 students = $10561 /student/year. In Kentucky, which does not have massive land or utility costs like ... anywhere on the East Coast. And they are crying about a 5% spending cut.

Someone should be beaten with a stick.

[The Late P Brooks]

I always loved the sound of my roller-cammed 355 with long tube headers with no H-pipe. Crack open the secondaries and it sounded like the gates of hell just opened up.

Ooh, snappy.

There was a 289 GT40 at Elkhart lake one time when I was there for the vintage wingding. It had 180 degree headers, and was one of the best-sounding cars there. Sweet Howling Jeezis.

[John]

There is a place in Philadelphia called the Simione Auto museum.. If you are ever in Phily, go see it. They have an amazing collection, that includes one of the original "Hippie Car" 917s and the GT 40 that finished third at Le Mans. Two Saturdays a month they do demonstrations in their parking lot where they fire up three or four cars from their collection.

[The Late P Brooks]

There's no music in the famous chase scene in Bullitt, just the ambient sound of the cars.

Yeah, and where can I get me one of those 58-speed Mustang gearboxes?

[John]

And the engine that never overrevs when you downshift at a corner.

LeMans is the only movie I have ever seen where the sounds don't include fake shifting and the engines rev higher and even backfire a bit when the car downshifts in a corner.

The difference between that and canned sound put in later is quite striking.

[Snark Plissken]

My favorite use of the 58-speed Mustang gearbox was in The Graduate. I didn't realize Alfa Romeo Spiders used to come with stock V8s.

[John]

In fairness, if it had been a stock Alpha, it would have never made it from LA to Berkley without breaking down. So, the sound in that case kind of adds to the realism.

[Snark Plissken]

Were they really that bad in the 60s? Wasn't that more the 70s?

I had an 82 Alfa GTV6 and it was was a pretty damned reliable car, for a high end sports car.

[John]

They were I think more quirky and Italian than anything. There are so many of those old Spiders still on the road, they couldn't have been that bad. You can pick up a good one for seven or eight thousand and sell it in a few years for exactly what you paid for it.

Also, I think they were really sensitive to maintenance. People didn't maintain them properly and were shocked when they didn't stand up to the abuse like Hondas.

[Snark Plissken]

Well, I also had a '76 Triumph TR7, which I think pretty much was the definition of quirky, especially the dual Zenith Stromberg carbs. It was basically a dog, but I loved it anyway.

[John]

I love British two seat sports cars. You have to be a nut or really like fiddling with cars to own one. But they are just cool. I don't care how much they leak oil or break down.

There is a guy who lives on the route I walk my dog that has an Austin Healey 3000. It is green with the white side panels. The car is a work of art.

[CampingInYourPark]

My first car was a '69 Austin Healey Sprite. Except for having to count on doing some engine repair on literally every journey, I loved that car.

[mad libertarian guy]

At least the test developers fully admit their motives for dumbing down "democratizing" the SAT.

Across more than eight decades, the SAT's backers have held it out as a yardstick, albeit an imperfect one, for academic merit, but notions of what defines merit have changed profoundly.

The test began in the 1920s supposedly as a gauge of intelligence, but in recent years has moved toward measuring whether high school students have learned what they should. The latest changes give the SAT a hard shove further in that direction, [. . .] in redefining merit as less about cleverness, and more about curriculum mastery.

David Coleman, president of the College Board, says he wants to democratize higher education ? lowering barriers to admission and helping more people go to college.

[. . .]

"[The person responsible for popularizing the SAT] specifically didn't want a test of mastery of the high school curriculum ? he wanted a test to tell you how smart the person was," Mr. Lemann said. "He was haunted by the idea of a brilliant student ending up walking behind a mule and a plow because nobody knew how to find him."

But the goal was not democratic. Conant's aim was to identify a new elite based on brains rather than heredity, not to expand access to higher education.

Wow.

[RBS]

more about curriculum mastery.

Garbage in, Garbage out.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

We're going to start prepping this summer so the daughters will be ready to dominate the old SAT during the first semester of 10th grade and maybe not even take the new one. Better the shitshow you know than the one you don't.

[RBS]

Good plan. That's what I did, got the score I needed to get into the toughest school I wanted to apply to and never looked back.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I'm stumped. I have to answer this question for a survey but unsure how libertarians view this. Thoughts?

Background: During Quebec's past election campaigns, public opinion polls were sometimes conducted and results were published right up until two days before the actual vote. The poll results showed voters' preference throughout the campaign. Some suggest legislation should prevent the release of poll results within seven days of an election.

Supporters say:

Polls unfairly influence election outcomes, as undecided voters tend to vote with the majority;
Polls discourage voter participation, because some may feel their vote will not make a difference.

Opponents say:

It is relevant to know how public opinion evolves in light of the events of the election campaign;
Voters have a right to access all information required to cast their vote including the vote intentions of the population.

[tarran]

Freedom of speech, baby!

I have a right to ask you what you are thinking, and you have a right to tell me, and I have a right to publish the results of my conversations.

[Auric Demonocles]

Exactly. The results don't matter, just the acts themselves.

[Auric Demonocles]

Also the people who don't want polls released have the right to convince (perhaps via money) the poll companies not to conduct polls right before an election.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

This is the only correct answer.

[RBS]

I think the more information a voter has the better. I also don't think any amount information actually matters to a large majority of voters.

[Zeb]

I can't think of any justification to forbid publishing anything at any time, so the right answer is pretty clear to me.

[SugarFree]

Using polls to gauge consent of the governed is incredibly imprecise, because the stated preference on a single subject rarely matches the revealed preference of a cast vote.

If the government was smaller and less powerful, polls and voting and the interaction of the two would be much less important.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Thanks all. You came through. Like family.

[Swiss Servator, alles klar?]

That poorly?!

*Shame*

[asadjan]

my buddy's aunt makes $74 an hour on the computer . She has been out of a job for six months but last month her check was $12405 just working on the computer for a few hours. visit homepage............. http://www.mumjob.com

[CampingInYourPark]

Good to see anonbot back after being stymied by the Harshest Winter Evar

[mad libertarian guy]

Your experience is invalid. Just ask CLYMITT SYENTISTS!!

[Sevo]

Noted media-whore Marc Benioff to cure poverty for $100M!

"Marc Benioff challenges Bay Area's tech leaders to give more"
Actually, no. He got ink for a PR stunt that even he admits:
""We don't want to be the industry that looks like 'The Wolf of Wall Street,' " he told The Chronicle."
So it's one more lefty 'won't go, chrome it'
http://www.sfgate.com/politics.....296188.php

[John]

We can cure poverty if only we spend a lot of money. Bernioff is amazing. Why hasn't someone thought of that before?

[Sevo]

John|3.7.14 @ 10:12AM|#
"We can cure poverty if only we spend a lot of money. Bernioff is amazing. Why hasn't someone thought of that before?"

And he's a piker.
He gets the reporter licking his boots for nothing other than a proposal that other people contribute to a total of $100M.
That'll go down the rat hole without so much as a whisper.

[John]

There is a lot of money to be made in "giving to the less fortunate".

[Kaptious Kristen]

Benioff got his product pushed into lots of government agencies at the beginning of the Obama Administration. Like, pushed at really high levels. I always wondered who his cronies in the USG were.

Anyway, fuck him.

[John]

It amazes me what ignorant assholes these guys are. Rich people have been throwing money at poverty since the dawn of time. Yet each generation is convinced that they are special and different and have this new idea of giving their money away to fix the world's problems.

Good for this guy if he wants to give his money away. It is his money. He can do what he likes with it. But fuck him for having the pretension that he is going to accomplish a damned thing other than making himself feel good.

[mad libertarian guy]

Very few people come to that realization, John.

The one major surprise I had was when Bono finally came to the conclusion that while philanthropy might help in the very beginning, the key is to help the poor get a foot in fucking capitalism, and that trade was the only thing that could help these people get out of intergenerational poverty.

[John]

I really respect Bono for that. Amazing a rich celebrity like him figured that out.

But in fairness, he was always a lefty doo gooder, but he was never a communist. I Bono has always been clear about what a scourge communism is. He was never a commie apologist. That alone puts him ahead of 90% of the leftists out there.

[Pro Libertate]

If you care about permanently improving the lives of people, then handing out cash that often gets wasted or outright stolen is obviously not the solution. Rule of law, respect for personal property, free(er) markets, and governments that don't wreck everything with corruption, militarism, theft, or regulatory madness are key.

If you only care about appearing to care, which I think describes a great many so-called philanthropists, then, by all means, send a check to Idi Amin.

[Sevo]

"Rule of law, respect for personal property, free(er) markets, and governments that don't wreck everything with corruption, militarism, theft, or regulatory madness are key."

None of which applies to Benioff.
He had the 'Occupiers' tossed from the park in front of his headquarters; didn't want his workers disturbed.
As for the rest, he's a rent-seeking lefty.

[Zeb]

I think there is always a place for aid when some sort of acute disaster is happening, but it will never get people out of poverty.

[Sevo]

Kaptious Kristen|3.7.14 @ 10:26AM|#
"Benioff got his product pushed into lots of government agencies at the beginning of the Obama Administration"

He is a BIG Dem fundraiser in the bay area; not surprising he got paid back.

[netizen]

From the article - "In recent years, Benioff and his wife, Lynne, have donated $100 million toward the UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, more than $1.5 million to help homeless families and $2.7 million for public middle schools."
So he's not just spouting off.

[CampingInYourPark]

"Forecasters see El Nino warming of Pacific Ocean"

Halpert, however, says El Ninos can be beneficial, and that the one being forecast is "a perfect case."

After years of dryness and low reservoirs, an El Nino's wet weather would be welcome in places like California, Halpert said.

"If they get too much rain, I think they'd rather have that situation rather than another year of drought," Halpert said. "Sometimes you have to pick your poison."

No, Halpert, rainfall is not a choice.

[mad libertarian guy]

Yale done fucked up:

On the campus of Yale University, Edward Bouchet has long been a venerated name. Hailed as the first African-American to graduate from Yale College, in 1874, he went on to be the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. (and only the sixth person nationwide to earn one in physics).

In recognition of the path he forged, Yale has convened seminars and lecture series in his name, bestowed the Bouchet Leadership Awards in Minority Graduate Education and hung an oil painting of him ? a young man in formal attire, looking off with an expression of dignified purpose ? in a prominent spot at the main library.

Mr. Bouchet's accomplishments still inspire many young students. But it seems one of his distinctions actually belongs to someone else.

Newly uncovered records suggest that Yale awarded a bachelor's degree to another African-American man almost two decades before Mr. Bouchet received his diploma.

That man, according to an article being published on Saturday by the Yale Alumni Magazine, was Richard Henry Green. Born in 1833 to a local bootmaker who helped found St. Luke's Episcopal Church in New Haven, he sat for the entrance examination and was admitted in 1853.

[mad libertarian guy]

Linky

[Entropy Void]

Proud to live in the Gunshine State.

http://www.reuters.com/article.....JV20140306

[sarcasmic]

Did you know she made the cover of Sports Illustrated?
http://nursemyra.files.wordpre.....d-1665.jpg
Me neither.

[Jerryskids]

I ain't clicking that link until I know whether 'she' is the hooker, Pelosi, or Thatcher.

[Cdr Lytton]

You gotta look good when you're snatching milk.

[sarcasmic]

It's a young Thatcher in a swimsuit.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Can't wait to watch it in its entirety myself.

[Jerryskids]

That reminds me - I saw where O'Reilly was arguing that Clinton shouldn't be President because the rest of the world just won't respect a woman President as much as they would a manly man (like Putin, I suppose). I'm wondering if O'Reilly seriously believes he has bigger balls than either Thatcher or Hillary. Thatcher metaphorically, of course.

[RBS]

I saw it when it came out, it is very good. Ya'll won't be disappointed.