Hillary's New Book, Boehner Cries at Taco Bell Event, Hank Aaron Says GOP Is Like KKK: P.M. Links

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  Mr. Fotoshop CC BY

  Hillary Clinton is going to publish a new book about her experience as secretary of state. No word on the Benghazi chapter. 

• House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) "choked back tears" while praising the Boys & Girls Clubs of America at a Taco Bell–hosted event. And he didn't even try the food.
• The Obama administration declared that Iran's pick of a former student revolutionary as a United Nations ambassador is "not viable," and the Senate has voted to block him from entering the U.S. Now that's diplomacy!
• The Tennessee State Senate passed a bill blocking the U.N. from sending election monitors to the state.
• Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron compared Republicans who oppose President Obama to the Ku Klux Klan.
• Pro wrestler James "The Ultimate Warrior" Hellwig died yesterday, less than a day after giving a speech reflecting on his mortality.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Tennessee State Senate passed a bill blocking the U.N. from sending election monitors to the state.

Jimmy Carter is persona nongrata as well.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hello.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

is it me you’re looking for?

[Injun, as in from India]

No, please. No!!!

[BakedPenguin]

Here, listen to this version.

[Injun, as in from India]

That was an earnest effort at rescue, but an awful song is an awful song is an awful song!

[gimmeasammich]

DAMMIT

[db]

JANET

[Warren's Strapon]

Great Scott!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron compared Republicans who oppose President Obama to the Ku Klux Klan.

Is there any hero left who isn’t an asshole?

[Brett L]

In Hank’s defense, he’s been an asshole longer than he’s been a hero.

[Episiarch]

Captain Kirk?

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

James Tiberius Kirk was all about banging hot alien women, freedom, and the Constitution.

He’s anathema to the left.

[Episiarch]

Kirk only put his phaser on stun when he was looking for sex.

[hamilton]

James Tiberius Kirk was all about banging hot alien women, freedom, and the Constitution.

That’s the “E Plebnista” you poseur.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Not E Plebnista!

[Pro Libertate]

That is a worship word. Yang worship. You will not speak it again.

[Pro Libertate]

This is correct. I’ll fucking Vulcan Death Grip anyone who says otherwise.

[John]

I went to a talk he gave about his new book a few months ago. The talk was great. He seemed to be a great guy. Thank God he wasn’t there to talk about politics I guess.

[RBS]

I think that is probably the case with most people.

[Pro Libertate]

To be sure, Aaron took some serious abuse when he was about to break Ruth’s record. May have left some scars.

[John]

His book is about his childhood. He grew up one of nine in a three room house his father built by hand. He joked that growing up him and his siblings “were vegetarian before it was cool”.

He didn’t seem at all angry about it or one of these “I had it so hard” types. He was happy he had a family and parents that loved him. Like I said, he seemed like a great guy.

[Pro Libertate]

I saw him hit 715 on live TV. Epic.

[John]

He is not that big of a man. He is only about six feet tall. Even in his 80s he still looks fit but he doesn’t look anything like the guys now.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

It’s epic on reruns I can just imagine live.

Can anyone remember Bonds marker that moved him ahead of Aaron?

[John]

Pissed me off when the hippies ran out on the field. It was his moment. Get the fuck off the field you dirty Hippie.

[Pro Libertate]

Was that guy a hippie? I figured he was just a typical 70s dude. Things were weird then, especially in grooming and dress.

[Bobarian]

I saw him set the new record live (one of the 41 times he did it) in the year he first broke the record. Like 721 or there abouts.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

so about that Chmapions League.

/no spoiler

[Rufus J. Firefly]

You take the fun out of everything.

[Apatheist ?_??]

I have both recorded, if I only have time for one, which should I watch?

[Brett L]

while praising the Boys & Girls Clubs of America at a Taco Bell?hosted event.

Where is John Spartan when we need him?

[gimmeasammich]

FUCK YOU*. I was just about to type out a Demolition Man reference.

*Gimmeasammich, you are fined one credit for a violation of the Verbal Morality Statute.

[Brett L]

You gotta be quick when they hang one over the plate like that.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I stand by my belief ‘Demolition Man’ is the most prescient movie ever made.

[gimmeasammich]

+3 shells

[Stormy Dragon]

Brazil:1984::Demolition Man:Brave New World

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Brazil:1984::Demolition Man:Brave New World

I think that’s actually intentional, since Sandra Bullock’s character is surnamed Huxley.

“You mean..fluid transfer?!!?!”

[Stormy Dragon]

Also John Spartan vs. John “the Savage”

[Tonio]

From hier:

Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) is a national organization of local chapters which provide after-school programs for young people. The organization, which holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code…is tax-exempt and partially funded by the federal government.

The Club’s former president, Roxanne Spillett, received a base salary in 2011 of $455,829 with an additional $116,000 bonus and $1.2 million in deferred compensation and retirement making her one of the highest paid executives for a charitable organization in the United States.

[gimmeasammich]

It’s really no surprise that “charity organization” really just means “we still make money, but don’t pay taxes.”

[Episiarch]

And none of the usual suspects will whine about her “outrageously inflated CEO salary”. Because “non-profit”.

[Tonio]

Good point, Epi. I hadn’t got past the outrage over the congressional charter and taxpayer funding.

[robc]

The worst abuse, IMO, is the bowl committees. Chairmen making 6 figure salaries for organizing a few days of activities.

And lots of golf trips.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Hillary Clinton is going to publish a new book about her experience as secretary of state. No word on the Benghazi chapter.

Under Fire, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying Because What Difference, At This Point, Does It Make?

[RBS]

Redacted

[Pro Libertate]

It Takes Some Pillage.

[R C Dean]

Bill has the rights to It Takes Some Spillage.

[Bobarian]

That’s one of them big coffee table books, with lots of pictures, and a pop-up in the center

[Injun, as in from India]

Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron compared Republicans who oppose President Obama to the Ku Klux Klan.

And Democrats who oppose Republicans are…? Enter below please!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Man, guys like Aaron and Brown are angry.

I can just imagine what they went through – all that racial abuse – but to carry that kind of baggage must be heavy on their souls.

[Injun, as in from India]

The caricaturing of their opposition is really ridiculous.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Republicans are like the armed wing of the Democratic Party in the Reconstruction era?

[Palin's Buttplug]

A great line from the Huckster:

Huckabee: Men Hunt Together, Women Go To The Restroom Together

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/l…..m-together

Of course it does nothing to help the GOP with the chicks.

[Injun, as in from India]

Birds of a feather flock together?

[RBS]

Men hunt, women nest.

[Bam!]

Something abut a bunch of guys alone together in the woods… seems kinda gay.

[Injun, as in from India]

+1 Brokeback Mountain

[Zeb]

Simpsons, Brokeback Mountain, whatever.

[Corning]

Well. Now a days.

Back in the way back men went out hunting so they could rape the women of neighboring tribes.

[lap83]

We don’t need you to stand up for us. Go fuck yourself. 🙂

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Obama administration declared that Iran’s pick of a former student revolutionary as a United Nations ambassador is “not viable,” and the Senate has voted to block him from entering the U.S.

[in thick Austrian accent] Diplomatic immunity: revoked.

[R C Dean]

If he gets to the UN building, say, by boat, can he just stay there and do his ambassadoring as long as he doesn’t leave UN property?

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

Larry King
?@kingsthings
Al Sharpton spying for the FBI? Wouldn’t have suspected. Complex man.

[Sidd Finch]

Hasn’t this been known since the 80’s?

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron compared Republicans who oppose President Obama to the Ku Klux Klan.

Then Dodgers’ outfielder Bill Buckner, who nearly went over the wall trying to rob Aaron of home run 715, was clearly motivated by racial hatred.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Pro wrestler James “The Ultimate Warrior” Hellwig died yesterday, less than a day after giving a speech reflecting on his mortality.

Better late than never, I suppose.

[Caleb Turberville]

He actually legally changed his name to just “Warrior.”

[Zeb]

So Teller wasn’t the only guy with just one name on his passport?

[Lady Bertrum]

Mclovin.

[PD Scott]

Ten facts you might not know about the Golden Girls: strangely, turning an entire generation gay isn’t one of them.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

You had to learn that here.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

What’s with you guys and GG? My mother used to watch it for fucksakes.

Quick. Show of hands. Would you do Maude?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like Bea?

[110 Lean]

+1 enlarged prostate

[Bobarian]

Your Mom was gay?

[Ahem']

Are you kidding? Maude would do you…..sits on hands.

[db]

The Obama administration declared that Iran’s pick of a former student revolutionary as a United Nations ambassador is “not viable,” and the Senate has voted to block him from entering the U.S. Now that’s diplomacy!

Bill Ayers could not be reached for comment.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Argentina braces for major nationwide strikes in protest of rampant inflation and misery

Argentina braced Wednesday for a major strike in a fresh challenge to President Cristina Kirchner amid growing public discontent over high inflation and crime.

Three of the country’s five unions are expected to participate in Thursday’s labor action, which takes aim at Kirchner’s attempt to cap salary increases in an increasingly troubled economy.

“Enough! That’s what the workers are telling the government,” said Hugo Moyano, a truck driver, who heads the CGT union.

The 24-hour strike is expected to largely cripple the country’s public transportation system, turning commutes into nightmares.

“Everyone has the right to strike and that’s good,” Kirchner, who took office in 2007 and is in her second term, said Tuesday.

Kirchner’s government is being blamed for an annual inflation rate of over 30 percent.

“I’m never in favor of the strikes but living with this level of inflation is impossible,” said Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri of the opposition PRO party.

Argentina clearly needs a Thatcher. This could be their Winter of Discontent.

[John]

Argentina has needed a Thatcher for about a hundred years. In 1900 Argentina had virtually the same per capita GNP as the US. It really was that wealthy for the time. After socialism got its fangs into it, however, things changed.

[Pro Libertate]

What you’re saying is that Maggie should’ve kept the tanks rolling, metaphorically.

[John]

Argentina couldn’t have done any worse if she had.

[Pro Libertate]

And that would have put the “empire” back into British Empire. Fuck it, this nonimperial, noncolonial age sucks, too. Might as well go back to taking shit openly.

[Calidissident]

At the time, Argentina was ruled by a right-wing military junta.

A pretty common theme in Latin America; a cycle of corrupt oppresive left-wing socialist regimes mixed in with corrupt oppressive right-wing “crony capitalist” regimes and/or military juntas

[R C Dean]

Why, that sounds positively American!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

They play good basketball and soccer though.

[Calidissident]

I went to Argentina in 2012, and I recall being told that it was in the top 3 or 4 in GDP per capita as late as 1930.

Although I think they need someone a lot better than Thatcher. She did some good things, but even from a purely economic POV, all you have to do is take a look at the current state of the UK to see that it wasn’t sufficient for a long-term fix.

[Cytotoxic]

When America elected FDR, Argentina elected Peron. America repealed a great deal of FDR’s nonsense. Argentina replaced Peron but kept his nonsense. That was the divergence point and it just goes to show that election and therefore votes can and do matter, nihilists aside. Argentina could be our future.

[John]

Argentina could be our future.

America is too rich and too big to ever turn into Venezuela. I have always considered Argentina to be the worst and sadly increasingly likely case for the US.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I always get puzzled looks when I tell people this, but it really is eerie how close our trajectory is to Argentina’s — not a good thing, given that our military and economy are that much larger than Argentina’s.

[Cytotoxic]

One important difference is geography. Argentina is cursed with bad geography. The capital, Buenas Aires, not only has a huge chunk of the population but it is situated such that it can control the rest of the country’s trade with the world. BA is a parasite like Rome of the Roman Empire was and a hive of Peronism. Argentina must be rent apart and BA dumped like Singapore was. They need civil war.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

That’s not bad geography — it’s good geography! One of the things Argentina was best at in the liberal period was trading in resources, agriculture and beef, and the central location of BA was also ideal for Argentina’s industrialization. Centralized hubs for commerce can be a blessing or a curse (Japan and England have made a lot of their own central trade hubs), but are almost always bad in that they can quickly facilitate centralized control of the economy.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Argentina *had* a Thatcher in 1982.

[Sevo]

“Argentina clearly needs a Thatcher.”

Betcha they get a Chavez instead!

[Warty]

No it doesn’t, you idiot. Argentina has the man it needs already.

[110 Lean]

Great TV show or GREATEST TV SHOW EVER!

[gimmeasammich]

+1 James Lipton

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Ay Caramba!

[Corning]

Argentina braces

By brace they mean send out the guys with guns to randomly shoot into crowds from rooftops.

[gimmeasammich]

Yes. “Sig” brace.

http://www.sigsauer.com/Catalo…..brace.aspx

[grrizzly]

I returned from Buenos Aires the other day. The city is so beautiful and good restaurants are so cheap.

[Sevo]

“Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron compared Republicans who oppose President Obama to the Ku Klux Klan.”

Ball players are not paid or otherwise rewarded for their expertise in government policy.
Ditto those who spend their lives pretending to be other people.

[Invisible Finger]

They shouldn’t be. But they are.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

IRS under fire: Vote for Obama stickers, campaign cheerleading commonplace

[Sevo]

False scandal!

[Mad Scientist]

You don’t generally take a job at the IRS unless you have no qualms with violating people’s rights.

[Pro Libertate]

I wish I could believe that the GOP Congress in 2015 will wreak havoc upon the IRS, but you just know they’ll do the least possible investigating.

[Dances-with-Trolls]

I wish I could believe that the GOP Congress in 2015 will wreak havoc upon the IRS

Thanks, ProL, I needed a laugh today.

[Pro Libertate]

It’s not totally outside the realm of possibility, but the problem is, even if they toss out some people and maybe get a few of them prosecuted, nothing much will change. The political abuse will just be a little less overt, like it was before the Obama administration introduced transparency to our government.

[Dances-with-Trolls]

The only way to cleanse any of these three letter fiefdoms is with fire. The infestation of political activism, careerism, and empire building is just too widespread for limited congressional oversight to do anything but squash the bugs that wander into plain sight, if they even have the will to do that.

There needs to be a fundamental restructuring of government agencies and how they are overseen. Anything less at this point is cosmetic.

[Pro Libertate]

To actually fix our broken system will require a least a partial reset. Definitely, the frankly illegal delegation of power by Congress to administrative agencies has to be undone.

[R C Dean]

Yeppers. We need to get back to “It isn’t law unless and until Congress has voted it through and the President has signed it, or had his veto overridden.”

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Illiberal Liberalism
…The liberal disdain for ordinary Americans has been around for a long time. Beneath the populist rhetoric and concern for the middle class that lace the campaign speeches of most liberal politicians, there lurks a palpable disgust, and often contempt, for the denizens of “flyover country,” that land of God, guns, religion, and traditional beliefs….

…Wells’s 1901 Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought laid out the argument for a quasi-aristocratic elite of technocrats free of traditional values such as “monogamy, faith in God & respectability,” all of which Wells’s book “was designed to undermine and destroy,” as he frankly admitted. Applying Darwinism to social, political, and economic life, Wells envisioned, as Siegel explains, “scientist-poets and engineers” who would “seize the reins in the Darwinian struggle,” so that instead of “descending into savagery, we would follow their lead toward new and higher ground.” In Wells’s work we see the melding of attacks on traditional authority and middle-class morality, with the scientistic faith in technocratic elites that still characterizes modern liberalism….

[Tonio]

Are you filling-in for Eddie this afternoon, Johnny?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

+1 Thank you Mr. Eddie’s Father.

[Caleb Turberville]

So, equal pay for equal work is a Labor Theory of Value fallacy?

I’ve always wondered why economists don’t shame LTV proponents the way heliocentrists shame geocentrists? They’re ideological equivalents.

[PapayaSF]

When I first heard of the Labor Theory of Value, it took me about 10 seconds to see it was nonsense. I have no idea how it could ever have been taken seriously.

[BakedPenguin]

It was first proposed in a largely agrarian, extractive economy. It makes a lot more sense when physical labor constitutes 95+% of the economy.

Anyone who serious adheres to it today is an idiot.

[Caleb Turberville]

Yeah, empirical evidence in the wake of the Industrial Revolution (with its massive dividing of labor) doesn’t support the LTV. Labor intensive occupations don’t generate a lot of wealth.

[PapayaSF]

It still makes no sense. If I pick up a gold nugget from a creek bed, my labor is nil. If spend years building something stupid and useless, it’s going to be less valuable than the nugget. The amount of labor that goes into something doesn’t necessarily correlate with its value.

[BakedPenguin]

When it was first proposed, all the nuggets lying around creeks had already been scooped up long ago (in Europe, anyway). Also, the number of people who could afford to spend a significant portion of their lives building something useless was much, much smaller than today, when we subsidize Women’s Studies PhD’s.

I understand what you’re saying, but also remember, LTV was basically the first (or one of the first) economic theories of value. Cut Smith some slack, he was right about most other things.

[PD Scott]

When farmers get arrested for foodborne illnesses.
“The CDC estimates that each year 1 in 6 Americans will get sick because of foodborne illness and 3,000 people will die. Yet, even if the government decides a case is worth pursuing in court, it’s still rare that anyone does more than pay a fine for these charges.”
Hmm, let’s ask a progressive professor what she thinks.
“Rena Steinzor, professor of law at the University of Maryland and president of the Center for Progressive Reform, doesn’t believe our current regulatory system and its lax punishments have the ability to keep us safe. “The FDA is an agency that is very important and we need to enable it to do its job,” she said. “Short of that, when people kill people through their negligence we should put them in jail.” She thinks that the criminal penalties seen in the Jensen case are a positive step to making farmers hyper-vigilant about food safety.”

[PD Scott]

“The trouble is that the FDA and USDA simply don’t have enough inspectors, time, or money to ensure that even domestically produced food is safe for consumption. In 2011, the FDA only inspected 11 percent of all facilities under its jurisdiction and an even smaller percent of food imports. Updates to the original food safety legislation ? the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act or the broader 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act ? sound good on paper but stretch an already thin agency even further.”

[gimmeasammich]

Sounds like a good excuse to get rid of the FDA to me.

[Zeb]

Food is really safe. Can’t people just be happy about that?

[PD Scott]

If only.

Am I wrong in my understanding that if we employed widespread irradiating of produce that it would massively reduce the incidents of these infections?

I don’t expect it to happen, of course, just wondering if it would.

[Tonio]

Yes, but the hippies and their enablers would freak the fuck out and generate enough hysteria that it would never happen.

[LynchPin1477]

doesn’t believe our current regulatory system and its lax punishments have the ability to keep us safe

By the CDSs own estimates, which I don’t entirely trust, 0.001% of the population dies from foodborne illness. So actually I’d say we’re pretty safe.

[Carl ?s his privilege]

Seriously. This kind of stuff pisses me off. There isn’t even a substantial hypothetical benefit for making food regs stricter, much less one that’s likely to actually play out.

[LynchPin1477]

And their 1/6 getting sick number almost certainly includes people like me, when a few weeks ago I had an upset stomach after probably eating some bad salad dressing. And you know what my solution was? I didn’t eat at that restaurant again. Whoa, that was hard.

[paranoid android]

“Rena Steinzor, professor of law at the University of Maryland and president of the Center for Progressive Reform, doesn’t believe our current regulatory system and its lax punishments have the ability to keep us safe. “The FDA is an agency that is very important and we need to enable it to do its job,” she said. “Short of that, when people kill people through their negligence we should put them in jail.” She thinks that the criminal penalties seen in the Jensen case are a positive step to making farmers hyper-vigilant about food safety.”

And when people go hungry as a result of the accompanying spike in food prices, who should we hold accountable for that, Professor Steinzor?

[LynchPin1477]

The profit motive, duh.

[PD Scott]

I’m sure that Prof. Steinzor knows you can feed a whole village delicious soup with just a stone and some other trivial things.

[gimmeasammich]

Maybe she is a breatharian like the human Barbie doll.

[Zeb]

Doesn’t Boehner cry at pretty much every public appearance he makes?

[Game of Thrones fan]

“Dude, your balls are made of pussy.”

– Pam Poovey

[Episiarch]

He’s sad that his Oompa Loompa brothers are still in bondage at Wonka’s factory. It makes him weepy, like NutraSweet after sex.

[SugarFree]

Those were tears of contempt!

[LynchPin1477]

I met Warrior in college (just a handshake and a photo) when he gave a YAF talk. At least at that talk, he struck a liberty-minded tone, and he was actually a decent speaker.

First the Undertaker loses at Wrestlemania, and now the Ultimate Warrior dies. Even though Ultimate Warrior predated me, it’s still a rough week for my childhood nostalgia.

[Matrix]

and it’s not over, yet!

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Rolling Stone puts naked Julia Louis-Dreyfuss on cover with Constitution tattoo, makes glaring historical error

The front page of the storied rock magazine’s latest issue features a naked Julia Louis-Dreyfus with a faulty U.S. Constitution inked on her back.

Just above her derriere sits the signature of one of the nation’s most prominent founding fathers, John Hancock.

There’s only one problem, however: John Hancock didn’t sign the U.S. Constitution.

John Hancock’s signature, seen here, is famous for its style and size ? on the Declaration of Independence, not the U.S. Constitution.

Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress, actually signed the Declaration of Independence.

Not surprising from the magazine that gives a soapbox to people like Myerson.

[gimmeasammich]

JOHN Hancock? Everyone knows it’s HERBIE Hancock.

[John]

I am friends with some fairly highly educated and successful liberals. I am always amazed at how little history they actually know. Maybe my sample is skewed in some way, but every person I know who knows anything at all about history or is in any way interested in history is either conservative or libertarian.

And I don’t know how much that was photoshopped, but Dryfus is nearly 50. She looks very good in that photo.

[gimmeasammich]

Highly educated != smart. But you already knew that.

[Bam!]

Schooling != Education

[Caleb Turberville]

The buttcrack is the selling point.

[John]

And what a lovely selling point it is.

[John]

The ass dimples are a selling point too.

[kinnath]

She looks very good in that photo.

Yes. She. Does.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

My experience as well, John. Conservatives (don’t meet too many libertarians but let’s just say those who sway this way) I’ve met over the years have a solid understanding of history. Liberals less so. They know the trends and modern-speak but they mostly assume things are the way they are because wisdom and experience brought us to this point and questioning it is just extremism.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

And yes, I’d knock Elaine.

[PapayaSF]

Oh yeah.

[BakedPenguin]

Dr[e]yfus is nearly 50. She looks very good in that photo.

Agreed. Hopefully it wasn’t too ‘shopped.

[110 Lean]

If they needed photo shop to make a woman half her age look good…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem…..shing.html

[Jordan]

Nothing could make Lena Dunham look good.

[Bobarian]

“The new Queen of Comedy”?

WTF???

[Zeb]

She’s 53.

[Auric Demonocles]

That’s the type of woman that all the cougar stuff is about.

[R C Dean]

I don’t know how much that was photoshopped,

If its a magazine cover, you can be sure it was photoshopped as hell.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

Who really knows what it said. It’s like 1000 years old anyway, isn’t it?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

The classic standard liberal retort ‘yeah but those were different times. Things are more ‘complex’ now.’

I can but just face palm when I hear that.

[Invisible Finger]

Maybe it’s product placement.

[Pro Libertate]

That’s funny you say that, because I saw that picture and briefly got confused about what the tattoo was. Even so, it’s better than most tramp stamps. Even if it is just photoshopped on.

[gimmeasammich]

I was at the gym earlier and TMZ or one of those other channels was on one of the TVs. It looked like they actually had a tattoo artist draw it on her back. Not that it makes much different than a Photoshop job, just thought I’d mention it.

[Pro Libertate]

I accept any explanation, including that she got the whole thing actually tattooed on her back.

[Juice]

Yeah, she doesn’t look photoshopped at all. I’m sure she still has the body of a slim, athletic 25 year old.

[Mickey Rat]

Just wait for the Hilary! campaign version.

[PD Scott]

Corn! Seen from space!
Sadly Modern Farmer doesn’t make the connection “crops have frequent access to nutrients and irrigation, which has made it difficult for scientists to estimate their impact on the global carbon cycle in the past… the pink blotches in NASA’s imagery means U.S. crops are taking more greenhouses gases from the atmosphere than previously thought” could mean that, you know, the climate change models are wrong.

[John]

Every new observation is just an explanation of how the model didn’t predict the results even though it is correct. No observation, no matter how counter to the model’s prediction can ever bring the accuracy of the model itself into question.

Its the new science.

[Corning]

New space equipment can measure Co2 atmospheric content pretty accurately.

Two things they found when this equipment was put into orbit. CO2 did not mix as well as they thought. regions have higher or lower concentrations then others. And they are ever changing. ie the atmosphere is a lumpy mixture not a homogenous solution

The second was that there is no correlation between temp and CO2 content with these varying regions. ie regions with high CO2 content were not statistically hotter then low CO2 regions.

[110 Lean]

Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron compared Republicans who oppose President Obama to the Ku Klux Klan.

Did anyone else notice that Hank Aaron sounds a lot like Robert Mugabe?

[Tonio]

But does he sport a leopardskin pillbox hat?

[Pro Libertate]

Mugabe can’t hit like Aaron.

[Invisible Finger]

Are you kidding? The Zimbabwe stock market went up like 715,000% one year.

[Pro Libertate]

That’s a different kind of hit. One our current government would apparently like to attempt as well.

[PD Scott]

Mugabe was clearly juicing.

[Carl ?s his privilege]

And he didn’t even try the food.

DON’T TALK SHIT ABOUT THE BELL.

[Corning]

A few days ago he was talking shit about McDonald’s.

Zenon is now reason’s official food Nazi.

[Carl ?s his privilege]

Meh, McDonald’s is edible but I definitely prefer Wendy’s. Burger King is somewhere in between the two, IMO.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Cinemax producers sue actress for refusing to do nude sex scene

From the department of “Only in Hollywood” comes the bizarre tale of an actress who is now facing legal claims for at least $85,000 in damages for objecting to doing lovemaking scenes in the nude.

[snip]

True Crime says that prior to the auditions, she received a link to the show’s “sizzle reel” — a preview video used to promote the show, which unmistakably revealed that Femme Fatales was an erotic, adult-targeted anthology whose principal castmembers appeared partially nude and engaged in acts of simulated sex. Further, Greene and her agent are said to have gotten casting breakdowns for roles that would “require partial nudity,” defined as “chest” and “behind.”

Greene allegedly expressed no reservations. In her own lawsuit, she said she never would have agreed to the job if she knew it involved “soft-core porn.”

The actress didn’t get those initial roles, but in November 2011, she auditioned for the lead role in an episode entitled “Jailbreak.” The cross-complaint says that by this time, 13 episodes of the show had already aired. Greene accepted an offer to play the part of Kendra. She signed an employment agreement along with a personal release and nudity rider.

She must have known. It is called Skin-a-max for a reason.

[John]

She signed a contract to be in a show on Cinemax with a female protagonist called “Jailbreak”. Even if you can excuse her from reading the nudie rider, you can’t say that any reasonable person could sign such a contract and not know it involved getting her kit off.

She signed the contract. If she found Jesus and got modest later, well that is just too bad.

[KDN]

Femme Fatales is one of the worst softcore series they ever produced. It’s all (terrible) story and like 30 secs of boob. What a waste of an after dark timeslot.

[John]

When you can’t even rely on Cinemax for decent softcore porn, what can you rely on?

[Jerry on the sea]

RIP Zalman King.

[RBS]

I liked Play Time, it came out at pretty much the perfect time for a man my age.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

The soft-core conundrum: either the story gets in the way of the sex or the sex gets in the way of the story.

[gimmeasammich]

Unless you are female, who gives a shit about the story? BOOBIES FTW.

[Carl ?s his privilege]

If you’re going to have a story at all it should at least be bearable. Every now and then some (hardcore) porn ends up kinda turning me off because the story is just so retarded, or because it’s super racist.

[PapayaSF]

I’ve never understood the appeal of softcore porn. It’s all the bad writing and acting of real porn, without any payoff. If you’re gonna go there, go all the way.

(This is not to criticize real films that contain some eroticism.)

[Juice]

I remember back in the 80s all they showed were European soft core. Those were much much better because of their campyness and poor film quality. It just made them kitchier. And the girls all had real tits.

[paranoid android]

Damn it! They stole the idea for my screenplay, Emanuelle Goes to Court.

[Invisible Finger]

I’d settle for Emanualle Goes To McDonald’s

[Mickey Rat]

“So how does a woman become allegedly contractually obligated to disrobe and simulate sex with a man?”

By signing an acting contract?

[Carl ?s his privilege]

Comic Neue

[Winston]

Did Warrior load the Spaceship with the Rocket Fuel? And I guess his destrucity gave way due to his inability to foke his jet-jack?

Also didn’t he say that “queering doesn’t make the world work.” Obviously he needs to be boycotted.

[Sidd Finch]

http://blog.chron.com/ultimate…..tv-rating/

Monday’s game is the second time, according to Nielsen, that the Astros have played a game on CSN Houston that no one watched.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Stop sucking and we might watch.

[John]

The greater Houston area has like 5 million people. There are baseball fans who will watch anything. No one watched it? That is just staggering. You would have thought fans of the other team would have watched even if no one is an Astros fan.

[Sidd Finch]

None of the ~600 people with Nielsen boxes watched.

[Invisible Finger]

No one in the 65 monitored households watched it.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

None of the 20 Nielsen families who also get CSN Houston (Comcast only, no UVerse, Dish, or DirectTV) watched.

[Invisible Finger]

It’s pretty amazing how some of these Comcast local sports outfits are run so well and others are run like Detroit City Council.

[Apatheist ?_??]

None of the other providers are willing to pay the extortionate fees that Comcast, the Astros, and the Rockets (they are all coowners) want for the channel, so only Comcast subscribers have access. CSNHouston is currently going through bankruptcy.

[The Late P Brooks]

Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron compared Republicans who oppose President Obama to the Ku Klux Klan.

Now he tells me.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Follow up on topless woman who rampaged through a McDonald’s in Florida

PPPD identified the woman as Sandra Suarez, 41. Officers say the tirade came after a McDonald’s employee turned down Suarez’s offer of oral sex in the parking lot.

Suarez was taken to Northside Hospital as a precaution, but police said doctors determined she wasn’t under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

She was charged with criminal mischief and resisting arrest, then was released on $7,000 bond.

Reached by FOX 13’s Steve Nichols on Tuesday, the mother of two blamed the tirade on bipolar disorder and she does not remember much of it.

Meanwhile, the McDonald’s employees who posted the video to the internet have been fired, according to a statement from Juan Illas, the restaurant’s owner and operator.

“The situation leading to this woman’s arrest was, at the time, surprising to all involved,” he wrote. “However, the posting of the video was without authorization and inconsistent with my values and how we operate our restaurant. The individuals involved are no longer employed with my organization. Any further comments on the situation would be inappropriate given that this is a police matter.”

Gee, must have been tempting.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I feel like going all like Douglas in ‘Falling Down’ and this girl whenever I miss breakfast service by one minute.

[PapayaSF]

Immigration for the win! (She’s from Columbia and “might have to go back.”)

[Calidissident]

Damn, you never miss a chance to shoehorn your hobbyhorse into every discussion?

We all know a white native born American woman would never go on a rampage at McDonald’s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g-xB_n1RHw

[PapayaSF]

You mad bro?

[Calidissident]

Nah, just laughing. Why would I be mad? I’m not the one perpetually shitting my pants about the hordes of “peasants” crossing the border, not to mention the Muslims that all must be under ongoing government surveillance. If I were, I would imagine that I’d be mad pretty often.

[Tonio]

She’s from Columbia

You mean, like District of…?

[Jerry on the sea]

Sign Up for the Modern Farmer Newsletter!

For your daily dose of corn.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

S’more of that progressive love and tolerance in action:

Accept that there’s mountains of real world reasons to believe sexism exists and is supported full-throatedly by the Republicans. Admit that you support Republicans because you are sexist yourself and honestly believe that our economic and health care policies should be shaped with the goal of punishing women for stepping outside of Victorian era gender norms.

One of these days progressive feminists are going to decide whether we are priggish moralists, or rapacious sex-crazed monsters looking to imprison strong, empowered womyn like themselves in the Republican breeder camps.

[robc]

Way OT:

The other day is some thread that I saw after it was dead, you called me a fundamentalist. Thems fightin’ words.

Evangelical, sure. Fundamentalist, no. I havent even read The Fundamentals.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I meant it in a descriptive, not pejorative, sense. I am not a Christian fundamentalist (my doctrinal views are probably closer to John’s in that they take after the quasi-Platonic Alexandrian school of Christianity), but there’s a lot to respect about that take on Christianity IMO — but if I was wrong about that, it’s my bad.

[robc]

Im saying in a descriptive way, Im not a fundamentalist.

[Carl ?s his privilege]

Amazon marketers asked themselves “Who should promote Fire TV?”

Apparently, the did a lot of drugs before coming up with an answer, as they settled on Gary Fucking Busey.

[OldMexican]

Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron compared Republicans who oppose President Obama to the Ku Klux Klan.

I’m still waiting for Shriek to tell me why it was wrong of so-called “right-wing” blogs and news pages to post this as news.

[paranoid android]

It’d only be news if he did something really, truly dispicable, like, you know, donating to an anti-gay marriage campaign or something.

[Palin's Buttplug]

I replied in the AM links.

I never said it was “wrong”. I posted the link so we could all marvel at how quickly the wingnut community all blogged it.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Because an American hero explicitly compared political disagreements with a Democrat to a terrorist organization that lynched people.

Why isn’t that newsworthy and why shouldn’t they take umbrage at that?

[Carl ?s his privilege]

I, for one, although I recognized his name, had to look up Hank Aaron to find out why he’s “an American hero”.

Does not knowing about a famous black baseball player make me racist, or un-American?

[Invisible Finger]

There’s a difference?

[Palin's Buttplug]

Why isn’t that newsworthy and why shouldn’t they take umbrage at that?

Maybe it is. I have no issue with their response at all.

Sometimes a link is Just a link, man!

[OldMexican]

Re: Peter Caca,

I replied in the AM links.

Yes, and I asked you for a cogent explanation. You know, that makes actual sense.

I’m still waiting…

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Email: Lois Lerner Was Interested in Job at Organizing for America

True The Vote Totally Wasn’t Politically Targeted, No Sirree Bob. PS, Ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings’ Staff Requested, and Received, True the Vote’s 990 Forms from the IRS

[Sidd Finch]

http://blog.unwatch.org/index……els-fault/

The analysis made by the Special Rapporteur on violence against women in 2005 remains valid. She found that the combination of decades of Israeli occupation, the use of force against Palestinians by Israel, the different forms of resistance used by Palestinians against such use of force and the patriarchy prevailing in Palestinian society expose women to a continuum of violence in all spheres of life.

[paranoid android]

“Things got out of hand…it’s just this war and that lying son of a bitch Netanyahu!“

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Beat me to it.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I mean, not *literally* beat, I mean told the joke before I could.

[John]

Jonathan Chait in the New Yorker actually admits that Democrats unfairly tar Republicans with racism charges for making legitimate criticisms of Obama. Chait makes up for this rare moment of honesty and sentience by citing as absolute proof of Republican racism a study that found that the higher the percentage of slave ownership in the antebellum South, the higher the percentage of Republicans today in a given county. So, since slave owners supported small government, and their decedents support small government today, those decedents must be racist.

That is what passes for rational argument at New York Magazine. Oh, and Chait also tells us how it is the Republicans who are obsessed with race since they insist on always proving they are not racist. He tells us this right after spending a page explaining how liberals often unfairly tar people with racism. So because Republicans spend a lot of time defending themselves from charges of racism that Chait admits are often unfair, Republicans are just obsessed with race and just can’t get over it.

http://nymag.com/news/features…..ndex3.html

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Chait makes up for this rare moment of honesty and sentience by citing as absolute proof of Republican racism a study that found that the higher the percentage of slave ownership in the antebellum South, the higher the percentage of Republicans today in a given county.

No one could possibly be that asinine.

[John]

Oh yes they can.

And the truth is almost too brutal to be acknowledged. A few months ago, three University of Rochester political scientists?Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen?published an astonishing study. They discovered that a strong link exists between the proportion of slaves residing in a southern county in 1860 and the racial conservatism (and voting habits) of its white residents today. The more slave-intensive a southern county was 150 years ago, the more conservative and Republican its contemporary white residents. The authors tested their findings against every plausible control factor?for instance, whether the results could be explained simply by population density?but the correlation held. Higher levels of slave ownership in 1860 made white Southerners more opposed to affirmative action, score higher on the anti-black-affect scale, and more hostile to Democrats.

[Dances-with-Trolls]

higher on the anti-black-affect scale,

Do I even want to know what this means?

[Warty]

They attach an accelerometer to your dong and show you pictures of black people.

[Sidd Finch]

The authors tested their findings against every plausible control factor?for instance, whether the results could be explained simply by population density?but the correlation held.

The obvious control would be the black percentage today. That’s not something that would lead to “the correlation held” since it must be strongly correlated with “slave-intensive” in 1860.

[Pro Libertate]

People are fucking stupid. Stupid to say such things, but even more stupid to believe them.

[John]

People are fucking stupid. Stupid to say such things, but even more stupid to believe them.

And Jonathan Chait is out there every day writing in some of America’s biggest publications proving it.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

The fact that Wisconsin (a hotbed for socialism in the early 1900s and a state which elected a bonafide socialist mayor) voted for Walker proves the nascent socialism of the Tea Party movement, by that same logic.

[Invisible Finger]

Some one should explain to Chait that the Republicans moved in there AFTER slavery ended to prevent the racist Democrats from holding office.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

The comments.

They hurt.

[paranoid android]

You know, back when the talk about racism and dog-whistles reached its absolutely peak during the 2012 campaign, around the time when Gingrich made that ridiculous “food stamp President” remark in that debate and pundits spent days talking about how it was obviously racist code language, a thought occurred to me.

The theory of “dog whistles” supposes that a candidate will talk about an issue in phrasing that seems innocuous to moderates but indicates something more nefarious to people of the right political persuasion. So–according to this theory–when Gingrich was talking about how it was such a bad thing that X number of people had been added to the food stamp rolls since Obama became President, moderates would supposedly think he was talking about fiscal responsibility, while those “in the know” knew he really meant he was going to stick it to all those lazy black people. He couldn’t just say he wanted to stick it to black people because then moderates would be repulsed.

But how could this be enforced among the supporters who are hearing the “dog whistle”? If it’s true that all the people who applauded Gingrich’s line were doing so because they wanted him to stick it to black people, shouldn’t it have been a trivial matter to get a quote from an audience member to that effect? Or does the theory hold that all the voters are in on it and are hiding their collective prejudices in a coordinated fashion until the moment they seize power?

[PapayaSF]

There is no “theory.” It’s just a lazy trope for accusing people of racism with no evidence. And note that “dog whistles” never appear on the other side: no Democrat is ever accused (by anyone in the mainstream) of sending subtle and nefarious messages about Communism or whatever.

[Episiarch]

You really don’t want to attempt to apply logic or reason to this kind of political bullshit. It doesn’t contain any; it’s solely to make one’s TEAM nod their heads and shame the other TEAM. It can be cognitively dissonant, it can contradict itself from one sentence to the next, it doesn’t matter. The people who consume this shit aren’t operating from logic or reason, and they don’t care if there is any. They want to be able to slap their TEAM on the back and call the other TEAM evil. That’s about as far as their tiny minds go on this.

[Mad Scientist]

It’s cheer leading, no different from the t-shirt the Onion sells: The team from my area is superior to the team from your area.

[EdWuncler]

I remember when Romney during one of the Presidential debates said the reason why violence is so high in the inner cities is because of the break down of the family unit. The progressives went apeshit over that comment and called Romney a racist even though he was making a valid point.

[Warty]

Does Chait still have a hardon for this place? I remember him being incredibly tiresome about it.

[Invisible Finger]

Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron compared Republicans who oppose President Obama to the Ku Klux Klan.

The KK was all Democrats. So Hammerin’ Hank is comparing Republicans who oppose President Obama to Democrats.

More like Hammered Hank.

[Palin's Buttplug]

They WERE. Past tense.

That was before Nixon and Reagan recruited the racists to the GOP.

[OldMexican]

Re: Peter Caca,

That was before Nixon and Reagan recruited the racists [sic] to the GOP.

Uh, I think I will just give up on waiting for that cogent explanation from you, Caca.

You need help.

[Palin's Buttplug]

I don’t have one! I just posted a link and make one comment about the efficacy of the right-bloggers.

[OldMexican]

“The efficacy”…

Compared to the inefficacy of the left-wing bloggers, I presume?

[PapayaSF]

Right around the time the Communists joined the Democratic Party.

[Pro Libertate]

You know, it just occurred to me that, as awful as the Klan is, it has killed far fewer people than communists have.

[Invisible Finger]

Probably why a lot of progressives quit the Klan and joined the communists.

[Tonio]

Apologies for that organization are never acceptable. And in all fairness they never controlled the government of a nation state, unlike the commies who have controlled several (many?) nation states for extended periods of time and therefore have an exponentially higher body count.

[Cytotoxic]

These guys have been working on a way to deccentralize and secure the internet for 8 years. Their system is called MaidSafe. When it gets running, you will get paid in SafeCoins for devoting resources to the MaidSafe network. A cryptocurrency backed by a network and its resources-better than a gold standard?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ka…..-internet/

[OldMexican]

Hypocrites Use Caring As Their Favorite Veil

The Care Bears vs. McCarthy

Now Reason is getting in on the act, proposing a libertarianism beyond the (actually sort of incredibly stupid and childish) non-aggression principle: It’s also about caring, maaaan. The article, replete with scare images of men in Klan robes ? the necessary result of a libertarian society unconcerned with “tolerance” or whatever the term is these days ? goes through a lot of tired old left-libertarian tropes.[…]

I’m not really sure what “inclusion” has to do with libertarianism. On the contrary, I side with Hoppe: Private property is, by its very nature, discriminatory.[…]

But let’s talk for a second about the 900-pound gorilla in the room: I have never heard of anyone being fired for being too politically correct. A recent article (that I will most certainly not link to) calling for jailing anthropocentric global warming skeptics did not, so far as I can tell, result in any lost wages. Calling for the destruction of the white race doesn’t get you fired ? it gets you tenure. If Brendan Eich had been donating money to Howard Dean instead of Pat Buchanan, he’d still have a job.

[Warty]

For what it’s worth, Reason is sort of a ground zero for this type of “progressive libertarianism,” with its deep concerns for “income inequality” and “privilege” and “Bob” knows what else.

What?

[OldMexican]

Yeah, I read that too and thought that the author was exaggerating a bit there.

He does make a point that is relevant for this discussion and that is that loudmouth race-baiters and leftist zealots don’t have to worry about losing their jobs for advocating for really awful and sadistic things: “A recent article (that I will most certainly not link to) calling for jailing anthropocentric global warming skeptics did not, so far as I can tell, result in any lost wages. Calling for the destruction of the white race doesn’t get you fired ? it gets you tenure.”

[Sidd Finch]

http://slatestarcodex.com/2013…..-nutshell/

But it seems like we have an advantage they don’t. Speak out against the Chinese Empire and you lose your head. Speak out against the King of Spain and you face the Inquisition. Speak out against Comrade Stalin and you get sent to Siberia. The great thing about western liberal democracy is that it has a free marketplace of ideas. Everybody criticizes some aspect of our society. Noam Chomsky made a career of criticizing our society and became rich and famous and got a cushy professorship. So our advantage is that we admit our society’s imperfections, reward those who point them out, and so keep inching closer and closer to this ideal of perfect government.

Okay, back up. Suppose you went back to Stalinist Russia and you said “You know, people just don’t respect Comrade Stalin enough. There isn’t enough Stalinism in this country! I say we need two Stalins! No, fifty Stalins!”

Congratulations. You have found a way to criticize the government in Stalinist Russia and totally get away with it. Who knows, you might even get that cushy professorship.

[OldMexican]

The great thing about western liberal democracy is that it has a free marketplace of ideas.

For instance, speak out against gay marriage, and you’re labeled a bigot. Speak in favor of castrating males so none rape women again, you get a professorship.

Hmm. Something’s wrong with this picture…

[Sidd Finch]

If you “criticize” society by telling it to keep doing exactly what it’s doing only much much more so, society recognizes you as an ally and rewards you for being a “bold iconoclast” or “having brave and revolutionary new ideas” or whatever. It’s only when you tell them something they actually don’t want to hear that you get in trouble.

Western society has been moving gradually further to the left for the past several hundred years at least. It went from divine right of kings to constutitional monarchy to libertarian democracy to federal democracy to New Deal democracy through the civil rights movement to social democracy to ???. If you catch up to society as it’s pushing leftward and say “Hey guys, I think we should go leftward even faster! Two times faster! No, fifty times faster!”, society will call you a bold revolutionary iconoclast and give you a professorship.

If you start suggesting maybe it should switch directions and move the direction opposite the one the engine is pointed, then you might have a bad time.

[Invisible Finger]

Maybe speaking out in favor of gay non-marriage is the way to go.

I hoping this gay marriage thing gets mainstreamed really fast because I want to experience the next phase of married homosexuals bashing non-married homosexuals as betraying the cause or being unfaithful or hedonistic or some other such dark-ages bullshit that non-married heterosexuals have been hearing for centuries.

[paranoid android]

no reason, you are the progressives

and then reason was a proggie

[Doghouse Reilly]

TEH END?

[SusanM]

This guy should read Rand a little more…

Today, racism is regarded as a crime if practiced by a majority?but as an inalienable right if practiced by a minority. The notion that one’s culture is superior to all others solely because it represents the traditions of one’s ancestors, is regarded as chauvinism if claimed by a majority?but as “ethnic” pride if claimed by a minority. Resistance to change and progress is regarded as reactionary if demonstrated by a majority?but retrogression to a Balkan village, to an Indian tepee or to the jungle is hailed if demonstrated by a minority.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

[insert your own John Hancock joke here]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/…..86585.html

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Oops, see above.

[Winston]

Re:AM links on “anarchists”

Did you know that mere months before Red October Lenin was calling for the abolition of the police, army and bureaucracy and stating that his goal was to abolish the State?

That’s the big problem with most “anarchists.” We Need TOP. MEN. who will smash capitalism, redistribute land and wealth and create Factories and Communes run by councils. Once that happens the State will wither away and anarchotopia will result.

[Some call me Tim?]

70 years later the USSR was still waiting for the worker’s paradise to emerge.

[Auric Demonocles]

tarran,

I could do the 20th (assuming that the Bruins playoffs I have don’t get scheduled for that day), though if you were trying to suggest something specific to 4/20 I don’t partake. (Also, I think it’s Easter, though I personally won’t be busy for that this year)

[EdWuncler]

http://www.newstatesman.com/la…..h-and-poor

The question of whether rampant social inequality is changing San Francisco is a straightforward one, and the answer to it is yes. Yes, tech money is driving the freaks, the queers, the broke artists and ordinary working-class families out of the city, helped along by 30 years of backward housing policies, greedy landlords and inefficient social care. That much is obvious.”

Maybe perhaps, it’s your city and state’s policies that are fucking things up. I am in finance and no place could ever pay me enough to live in San Francisco. And I am saying that as a Chicagoan.

[SusanM]

The homeless should start calling themselves “Artisanal Campers”. Maybe they’ll get left alone.

[Mad Scientist]

The left already like the homeless (so long as they stay in someone else’s alley), and the right doesn’t give a damn about artisinal anything.

[SusanM]

Yes, but it might win points with the trendy techies. If slapping “Artisanal” on a cuppa joe makes it worth $20 anythings possible.

TBH, I’m two minds about this gentrification stuff. Hey, things change and it’s a fool’s errand (if nothing else) to try to force things to stay the same. At the same time, a point comes where government gets involved. Usually when the newcomers start pushing for ordinances which place heavy burdens on the remaining lower income residents or the city gets hooked on all the sweet new tax revenue and wants to keep the part going.

[Invisible Finger]

That sounds like only one mind. Grassroots economic improvement will eventually be squashed by government action. Either government will try to kill it on purpose or it will exploit it to death.

[PapayaSF]

inefficient social care

San Francisco spends about $200 million a year on the homeless.

[Pro Libertate]

You’re shitting me. That’s insane money.

[R C Dean]

Forget it, Pro L. Its Proggie Town.

[PapayaSF]

That’s the figure that gets quoted, and was correct when I checked on it a few years ago. A more current article says $165.7 million.

[jamesrk]

if this is true, and this article is correct:
http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanf…..id=2477218

thats 30,000 per person, they could live comfortably in a place with lower cost of living.

[Invisible Finger]

Seems like they’re trying to ATTRACT the homeless.

[R C Dean]

You mean:

You get more of what you reward?

[PapayaSF]

There’s an old story about a peacock that escaped from a zoo. It was missing for days, and then a woman called the zoo and said: “It’s in my yard. I keep feeding it and feeding it, but it won’t go away!”

That’s the story of homelessness in Berkeley and San Francisco.

[Wags]

Fuck you Hank Aaron.