A.M. Links: White House Wants to Open Interstates to Tolls, Minimum Wage Bill to Die in Senate, MIT to Give Students Bitcoin for Study

• 

  "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"/FX

  The latest transportation bill from the White House proposes allowing states to collect tolls on interstate highways.

• The Democrats' minimum wage bill is expected to die in the Senate today after a party line vote.
• Oklahoma death row inmate Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack after his execution was botched.
• China's economy will surpass the United States' economy in size this year, according to estimates by the World Bank.
• Al Qaeda linked militants in northern Syria are reportedly crucifying rebel fighters.
• Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will each receive $100 worth of Bitcoins for a spending study.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

The latest transportation bill from the White House proposes allowing states to collect toll on interstate highways.

Gathering tolls and license plate numbers.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hello.

Ted, to answer your question in the other thread.

Paraprofessional = Real.
Paraamateur = Bayern.

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

[Ted S.]

As I said in the PM Links yesterday to see how far down the thread you'd read, at least we don't have to worry about AC Milan polluting the Champions League by their presence next season. :-p

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Heh.

I haven't been as around these past few days so I missed it.

[Andrew S.]

Bayern's problem is that the Bundesliga sucks outside of them. So they're not facing any real competition until they get to the knockout stages of the CL.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Not sure about that, Andrew - although my Dutch friend would agree with you. Historically, it may not be as strong as the other 'Big Three' but it's been pretty competitive last few years.

Personally, I think Serie A and Liga are the toughest leagues by far from top to bottom to play in. Even Serie A falling to 4th in coefficients still is tough as hell.

They used to say if you score 20 goals in any league you weren't a true 20 goal scorer if you couldn't do it in Serie A.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Bayern dominance notwithstanding mind you. And it's true, on the balance, Bundesliga doesn't win as many trophies.

I just notice an uptick in competitive balance among the teams. I could be wrong.

[Ted S.]

That's because the Bundesliga doesn't have rich owners having the team as a vanity item the way several teams in other European leagues are.

This BBC article from last year's CL final is fairly informative.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

When you look at how many teams have PARTICIPATED in tournaments since 1955, the Bundesliga has the most followed by England, Italy and Spain in that order.

In terms of total victories and games played Germany is actually ahead of England, Italy and Spain.

However, where the latter two pull away is number of teams in QF onwards.

[Ted S.]

And Dortmund reached the CL final last year.

That having been said, Bayern were decidedly weak after wrapping up the Bundesliga title with seven games to spare.

And I feared disaster after they blew the lead against Man City.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Bayern is one of my favorite beers.

[DJF]

If the Federal Government did not siphon off gas tax money to pay for mass transit and bike trails there would be plenty of money to fix Interstate roads.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Yes, and that too.

[anon]

And sooo much less goddamn congestion cause by fucking buses and bicycles.

[Swiss Servator ...nichts]

Odd, there sure seem to be a hell of a lot of tolls already being collected in IL on I-90 and I-88 and I 294....

[Root Boy]

Hmm. On I90 in NY as well. It's a mystery.

[LiveFreeOrDiet]

There used to be on I-95 around Richmond and Petersburg. The tolls didn't go away until a study showed that just the money from Philip Morris employees had paid for that stretch three times over.

[Austrian Anarchy]

How about I-95 north of DC? it is obvious these idiots who proposed this idea don't travel north of DC in their own cars.

[anon]

Delaware - NY is fucking expensive.

[PBR Streetgang]

Wow, rarely does my hometown of Petersburg get mentioned in H&R. Jarred me awake just seeing it.

[I can't trust my fans]

Well, you're no Chesterfield but you guys are okay, too. I guess.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Will all the Californios please note, if any of you are up, that Root Boy said he's on I90 and not THE I90.

[anon]

The northeasters do the same shit. "Get on the 240 to shitburg..."

[Auric Demonocles]

I have never heard that after 25 years in New England.

[Zeb]

Nor have I in 35 years.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

No.

They don't. In fact, I never heard that shit ANYWHERE until I visited the goofy state.

[Sudden]

And it's only Southern Californians that do that. Those pinche nortenos don't know how to talk right.

[Root Boy]

I learn something new everyday about our great country and it's regional piccadillos.

As Ted S. said, it's really the Thruway in NY, but of course I am not a native NewYorker (unlike my wife).

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I took the 405 to the 105 to the 110 this morning.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

To get to THE work?

[Auric Demonocles]

He works at The Ohio State.

[Ted S.]

The Thruway was built without Federal money, if I understand correctly. That allowed for it to be a toll road.

[Root Boy]

And the tolls (supposedly) were only supposed to be there until the bonds were paid back. Yet they are still there.

[Mercutio]

Yes, the Thruway was built before the Interstate System was created.

[Auric Demonocles]

I just paid a couple of bucks to get to work on I90 in Massachusetts as well.

[hamilton]

There is no I90 in Mass. It's The Pike. Fricking out-of-state drivers.

[Zeb]

It is possible for a road to have both a route number and a name. Happens quite a lot, in fact.

[Swiss Servator ...etwas]

That is how Chicagoans look at suburbanites - do you call it the Eisenhower or I-290?

[gimmeasammich]

Since I'm not from Chicago, I call it 290. I hate those stupid names. It's so God damn confusing.

[Auric Demonocles]

They wouldn't have known what I was talking about if I said the Pike, or why it was relevant.

[Rasilio]

Yeah they would have thought "driving the Pike" was some kind of wierd Game of Thrones inspired fettish

[Fr?ulein Nikki]

Odd, there sure seem to be a hell of a lot of tolls already being collected in IL on I-90 and I-88 and I 294....

Yeah, I was a bit confused by this as well. CT has no tolls, and hasn't during my lifetime, so basically everywhere else just sucks in this respect.

[Stilgar]

You are obviously a very young whippersnapper. I-95 in CT was a toll smorgasbord.

[Fr?ulein Nikki]

Not that young. It was a while ago now, though my parents do remember it like it was yesterday.

[Stormy Dragon]

The interstates that currently collect tolls are all highways that the states had built themselves prior to the Interstate Highway System. They've been assigned Interstate numbers, but they still belong to the states in question. Banning tolls on them would be prohibitively expensive for Fifth amendment reasons.

This bill would presumably extend the tolls to the later roads built by the federal government.

[John Thacker]

Exactly right. All the ones that currently collect tolls are grandfathered in for precisely this reason.

[Zeb]

States don't already collect tolls on Interstates?

[Austrian Anarchy]

Those jerks collect a "toll" for that monstrosity every time I get gas.

Also it is apparent that nobody associated with this stupid bill has driven I-95 north of Baltimore. THEY ALREADY HAVE INTERSTATE TOLL BOOTHS!

[Injun, as in from India]

Aren't the inefficient, incompetent crooks collecting enough money in taxes? The thievery continues and increases, ALWAYS.

[Zeb]

The fuel tax shouldn't be spent on things other than roads. Other than that, gas tax and tolls seem like about the most libertarian friendly forms of taxation.

[Jerryskids]

The problem is that new sorts of taxes are new sorts of taxes. If they need more M&O money, why not just raise the federal and state gas tax? Oh, they will raise the gas tax, but they're wanting new toll dollars as well. There's absolutely zero chance that all the new money raised to maintain the roads will actually be spent only on maintaining roads.

Here in Atlanta, 400 was built as a toll road with the promise that as soon as enough toll money was raised to pay off the construction bonds, the tolls would be dropped. Guess what happened when the bonds were paid off? (Under the threat of a lawsuit, the governor did symbolically drop the tolls for 24 hours, then they were re-instituted and who knows what all the money is being spent on.)

New tax dollars to pay for infrastructure upkeep sounds like a good idea we can all support, until you realize that politicians can justify defining free blowjobs for handicapped aardvarks as infrastructure upkeep and that's where your money will actually be going. And then they'll whine about needing more money for maintaining the roads.

[Zeb]

Gas tax rise is probably a better way to go, I guess. Tolls are a pain in the ass and require new infrastructure and employees and stuff.
In NH where I live, they seem to do a good job keeping the gas tax money just in the highway fund. They are debating raising the tax right now. As much as I don't want to pay .04 more per gallon, it's probably overdue. The federal tax is probably hopeless and should just go as it will inevitably be used for other things and as a transfer program.

[Ivan Pike]

Gas tax rise is probably a better way to go, I guess. Tolls are a pain in the ass and require new infrastructure and employees and stuff.

I wonder if this has anything to do with hybrids and plugins. Lower or no gas tax from them, so gotta make up the revenue somewhere else.

[JurisCani]

This, and due to the rising price of gas, fewer miles are being driven, reducing gas consumption, reducing fuel tax revenues.

[gimmeasammich]

Do you know what it's being spent on? The toll workers and all of the overhead to keep them "working." Why do you hate toll workers?

[Billy Boogers]

+1 Social Security Lockbox...

[Brett L]

We are all Connecticut now?

[Steve G]

Anyone check EZPass's stock today??

[Injun, as in from India]

+1 Robber Baron

[Swiss Servator ...etwas]

+1 Robber, no Baron needed.

[Snark Plissken]

China's economy will surpass the United States' in size this year, according to estimates by the World Bank.

Top Men! Thomas Friedman vindicated! Communism works!

[Swiss Servator ...nichts]

I totally trust Chinese figures, as reported.... of course, one could say that about the US too. Who knows?

[Austrian Anarchy]

That is one of the perils in letting governments count things. Somehow people actually believe the bureaucrats know how to count to begin with, and they also believe them to be honest about it.

[Injun, as in from India]

The sad thing is that something like this will be used to call for more concentrated government power so that the government can "DO SOMETHING". Whether it was Iraq's nonexistent WMDs or the so-called financial WMDs that caused the 2008 crisis, it's always a pathetic solution to a trumped-up problem.

[Root Boy]

USA is barreling ahead...soon we'll be bigger than Burma!

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/.....30436.html

Of course this cold weather is slowing us down a little.

[Rich]

Dammit, Root Boy, how many times do I have to tell you?

It's "the nation formerly known as Burma"!

[Zeb]

I always say Burma.

[hamilton]

"Why'd you say Burma?"
"I panicked."

[Austrian Anarchy]

And per person that works out to about what, half of Mexico's per capita economic activity?

[Stormy Dragon]

China has like five times the population of the US. The question ought to be why they're only just now catching up to us; if they had even a mediocre economy they ought to be two or three times our size.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Al Qaeda linked militants in northern Syria are reportedly crucifying rebel fighters.

When your'e chewing on life's gristle, don't grumble, give a whistle!

[Restoras]

I laughed out loud, I needed it, and I thank you.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Oklahoma death row inmate Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack after his execution was botched.

Congratulations on a job... done.

[hamilton]

It does appear like the "execution" part of the execution actually was reasonably successful.

[gaijin]

Good enough for government work?

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

Thank God he died of natural causes and not a government execution!

Didn't his victim, Stephanie Neiman, also die of a heart attack?

Oh, wait. She was buried alive by Lockett after he raped her. My mistake.

[Ted S.]

I'm opposed to the death penalty since I don't want the state to have that kind of power, but the chattering classes' wailing over its use in the US, while largely ignoring its use elsewhere in the world, is something I find quite grating.

[Zeb]

Yeah, among the countries that have the death penalty and really use it, the US is pretty restrained and careful, relatively speaking.

[Roger the Shrubber]

Oddly, Ted, I don't recall your opinion on the use of capital punishment in the other countries of the world, other than your blanket statement that you're against the state having the power. Do you really think that those trying to effect change in their own country have an obligation to make it a world-wide issue? I am sure that the 'chattering class' is opposed to it's use in all countries but choose to focus their efforts where they may have some results.

[robc]

Hasnt stopped sean penn from spending time in haiti.

[Ted S.]

Actually, I'm thinking of foreign broadcasters, of which I listen to quite a few. I download a CBC news podcast three or four days a week, and this was the second story this morning following Donald Sterling. US executions get bigger reporting by various European broadcasters, too.

[Zeb]

That is definitely a thing. Bash the US as much as possible.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

I'm not really opposed to it. It is a legitimate government function. My issue is government fucking it up, as they do with most things, and killing an innocent person.

I think there should be a higher standard than reasonable doubt to execute someone. No doubt, perhaps. When there are lots of witnesses or it's caught on tape...fry the fucker.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do people we fry together.

[JW]

I'm sure all those people executed under prosecutorial malfeasance will thank you for your concern.

Killing people is a legitimate state function?

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Killing people is a legitimate state function?

Absolutely.

The only legitimate function of government is to protect the rights of the individual.

That means military, courts, a justice system...

You infringe upon the rights of others, you receive retribution, in kind, IAW the NAP. I have absolutely NO problem with that. What I do insist upon, however, is ensuring the responsible party is punished.

[JW]

So, you have complete faith in the state, the most bloodthisty, corrupt and violent organization in the history of mankind, which is well documented here, meting out terminal justice without malice or error?

That may actually qualify you as fucking nuts.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

So, you have complete faith in the state

English, mutherfucker, do you read it?

My issue is government fucking it up, as they do with most things, and killing an innocent person.

I think there should be a higher standard than reasonable doubt to execute someone. No doubt, perhaps. When there are lots of witnesses or it's caught on tape...fry the fucker.

[JW]

Do you grok English, motherfucker?

So, when a prosecutor lies or the police lie or the state medical examiner lies and all the evidence is above reproach, you know, because they're fucking lying, the person in sentenced to death, tough shit for them, eh?

We have to grease those wheels of justice to satisfy the mob's bloodlust.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ON THE FUCKING CROSS...CAN YOU FUCKING READ?

I think there should be a higher standard than reasonable doubt to execute someone. No doubt, perhaps. When there are lots of witnesses or it's caught on tape...fry the fucker.

[JW]

Let me speak more slowly: The state should have the power to kill someone as retribution for a crime BECAUSE THEY CAN'T FUCKING BE TRUSTED.

They can't be trusted to do it competently. They can't be trusted to do it honestly. Full fucking stop. Why you're having a problem processing that escapes me.

[JW]

should=shouldn't

[Francisco d'Anconia]

And I'll speak slower still.

You are right. They can't be trusted, and that's why I said there should be a higher standard for the death penalty. "No doubt".

In what universe could the word of the police, a prosecutor or a medical examiner rise to the level of "no doubt?"

Is there any doubt that Nidal Hasan shot all those people at Fort Hood? You think a shitbag like that doesn't deserve to die for his crime?

[Warty]

Of course that guy deserves to die. But if you give the state the moral permission to kill him, you're also giving it to the state to kill others whose guilt is not nearly so clear. The state is too dangerous to be trusted. Ever.

[Warty]

Mentally edit that sentence so it's readable. Fuck.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Who then?

[JW]

In what universe could the word of the police, a prosecutor or a medical examiner rise to the level of "no doubt?"

Hier. Learn something.

[JW]

You are right. They can't be trusted, and that's why I said there should be a higher standard for the death penalty. "No doubt".

Do you even read the articles on H&R? They will never adhere to their own standard.

Is there any doubt that Nidal Hasan shot all those people at Fort Hood? You think a shitbag like that doesn't deserve to die for his crime?

So, since you have to satisfy your bloodlust, we have to condemn hundreds more people to die in the future?

[Omni]

Totally agree w Anconia here. I have the same views. I have no problem with the death penalty in principle. I also think there should be a much higher standard for those cases, similar to the "No Doubt" he's talking about. We can argue (and should) about the methods of execution though and ensure they are as humane as possible.

[DJF]

Maybe they need to outsource the job to China?

[Zeb]

They just shoot people, don't they? Why complicate things?
I don't like the death penalty, but if we are going to do it, it should be simple, fast and somewhat gruesome so people can be reminded of what is actually happening.

[Andrew S.]

Agreed. I don't agree with the death penalty, but if we're going to have it , the firing squad is the way to go.

[Rich]

GUN CULTURE!!

[Almanian!]

TRIGGER WORDS!!!11!!

[Billy Boogers]

I dunno about that, I think a game show approach is a better idea. Turn the Executeee's loose on an island, then the state runs a lottery to see who gets to go drone their asses with some hellfires.

[Injun, as in from India]

They actually have execution buses that travel around where people need to be executed.

[Rich]

Do they charge the families for the mileage?

[gaijin]

Speaking of China's economy passing the US...

The US Economy is reaching escape velocity!

Q1 GDP stalls at 0.1% on consensus expectations of 1.1%

Coming soon to an economy near you...QE n+1---Infini Printer...or war?

[expat]

...but.. but... CONSENSUS. It was a consensus. When "experts" agree, they are ALWAYS right!!

[Jordan]

Consensus, you say? From Keynesian and Monetarist clownconomists, maybe.

[Ted S.]

The stalling was, of course, unexpected.

[Root Boy]

God damned global warming slowed us down!

Kyoto 2 coming soon.

[anon]

The stalling was, of course, unexpected.

ahahahahahahhaha

If I don't laugh, I'll cry.

[Restoras]

That's quite...bad. I am sure it will be blamed on weather. Q2 will be epic!

If you back out G financed by debt, what would Q1 GDP be, -3%?

[robc]

Why just the part backed by debt? I would back out all of G.

[gaijin]

Looking at the breakdown, the only component that was positive was Consumer Spending...all the other components for investment, exports, etc., were negative (which says it wasn't the weather to me), so you are probably right about it being driven by debt fuel.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

If you back out G financed by debt, what would Q1 GDP be, -3%?

According to the BEA, total GDP went up $60 billion during Q1. The national debt went up $227 billion in that time frame. So -2%, if my math is correct.

[sarcasmic]

Footlosers: NYPD Arrests Nearly 100 Subway Break Dancers
No dancing, no churros, no fun!

http://observer.com/2014/04/fo.....k-dancers/

[Injun, as in from India]

So break dancing is what... Disorderly Conduct?

[Lord Humungus]

Celebrity Musicians Can't Feed the World
The trouble with Live Aid, Live 8, and pop star condescension.

nsulting stereotypes of Africans are at the heart of why celebrity famine relief gets the whole problem so badly wrong, not only in 1984 but still today. The celebrities promote a worldview in which "they," Africans, are unable to help themselves in preventing famine, and so passively await rescue from "we" Western famine experts, a category that apparently includes rock stars. The big question is: Why are Africans so unable to help themselves? The old view that Africans were just racially inferior is thankfully no longer acceptable, but there seems to still be plenty of less explicit condescension toward Africans behind the whole enterprise.

There is an alternative view, that famine in Africa tends to happen in places where the victims are oppressed by local dictators. As Amartya Sen famously pointed out, democracies don't have famines.

[WTF]

African Child

[DJF]

Doesn't help that the population of Ethiopia has doubled since the 1980 famine.

[Swiss Servator ...etwas]

Maybe they moved to where the food is?

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Someone sent them luggage.

[SRVolunteer]

The 1980 famine in Ethiopia was caused when the communists in charge of the country moved their enemies into the desert where the food wasn't.

[Andrew S.]

We are the worlllld....

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

We are the childreeeeeennnnn......

[Rasilio]

Then get back into my monocle polishing factory before I have you whipped

[Swiss Servator ...etwas]

Whipped? I go with shock collars m'self. Saves on barriers too, as I use the "Invisible Fence".

[sarcasmic]

Ralph Nader's America: Impeach Obama, decriminalize drugs, libertarians & progressives unite!

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/po.....18813.html

[Snark Plissken]

Oklahoma death row inmate Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack after his execution was botched.

A 'botched' execution that ends in death? Oh dear!

[Rasilio]

Maybe they shoulda just used a drone on him?

Hey that's an idea, make it a new reality show.

You release a group of prisoners sentenced to die onto a remote island or in a desert somewhere while remotely piloted drones fly around and try to kill them. The last survivor gets his sentence commuted. Funds raised by the show go to charity or something (of course all but a token amount or the revenues will be consumed by "licensing fees" paid to me"). I mean what could possibly go wrong.

[Swiss Servator ...etwas]

Coming this Fall...Disposition Matrix Island

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Slashderp. Progtard hordes ramble in to defend the USPS as:

a. not a govt agency
b. proof of the wonderfulness of govt

How the USPS Killed Digital Mail
...The founders were summoned to a meeting with the Postmaster General, who told them. 'We have a misunderstanding. You disrupt my service and we will never work with you. You mentioned making the service better for our customers; but the American citizens aren't our customers?about 400 junk mailers are our customers. Your service hurts our ability to serve those customers.' ..

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

slashdot has become a repository of idiocy over the past few years. There must have been an influx of script kiddies.

[Steve G]

And yet the USPS hasn't figured out that perhaps a slight increase in rates for bulk mail just might put them in the black.

[trshmnster the terrible]

slashdot has become a repository of idiocy over the past few years since its inception. There must have been an influx of It's always blamed on the script kiddies, but it's the site's culture as a whole.

FIFY

[The Late P Brooks]

Apropos oif nothing whatsoever, I want one of these.

[Rasilio]

Wow a real flying car

[sarcasmic]

Architect ordered to TEAR DOWN his ultra modern $500,000 dream home after claims it's ruining historic neighborhood

Louis Cherry had building permit revoked six months after design was approved
Historic Development Commission changed its ruling on project after neighbor complained

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....rhood.html

[Ted S.]

Isn't the attempt to keep Venice in a historic stasis actually sinking the city?

[Zeb]

I think it is more failing to do anything about the sinking that has always happened there.

[Ted S.]

I thought back in the old days they just built on top of the old stuff as it sank into the depths, much in the same way at any archeological dig there will be strata with newer stuff on top and older stuff on the bottom.

[Zeb]

Yeah, that's what I meant. They also used to raise whole buildings a lot.

The whole thing about preserving cities like that is weird. For hundreds or thousands of years people have been rebuilding, replacing and renewing these cities. But now we need to freeze it in the late 19th century for some reason.

I like old buildings and stuff as much as anyone, but if you want a city to be more than just a museum, you need to keep building it.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Well, this raised my blood pressure this morning.

Fuck these people. I hope their old historic homes collapse around them.

[Root Boy]

And it's not exactly ultra-modern. Pretty mild design. Dipshits who run zoning boards are out of control if they let him build it and now changed their minds.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I despise the historic commissions. Half of the time they're run by little old ladies who have no concept of construction methods or techniques, yet feel they should be telling you how to build a house.

[Brett L]

I had a friend who ran for and won a seat on a historic district commission specifically so he could exempt his property from the historic district.

[SugarFree]

The only weapon against them is refusing to buy a house in the overlay area to kill the housing values, but it's a slow weapon. My wife and I refused to even look at a house with an overlay in our recent bout of house-hunting.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Just wait till the feds institute a historic building preservation act that covers 90% of available land.

[SRVolunteer]

I took a tour of a local cemetery last week for kidling's field trip. The tour guide, standing by the grave of a historic local dead guy, mentioned that he had painted his house yellow to make a point about how wonderful his favorite cow was at making milk for butter. His house is still standing, and she seemed extremely annoyed when she told us that the current owners refused to repaint the house the historically correct color, leaving it white instead.

[cavalier973]

In the historic district of Savannah, GA, some people painted their house some hideous color. The local community complained that it hurt the historic feel of the area. The owners proved that the color they chose had actually been the orginal color of the house.

[KDN]

May favorite part is the pictures showing his direct neighbors; the street seems to be filled with regular suburban houses you can find in any postwar neighborhood on the east coast. Are they gonna make all of them move now?

I think this ultra modern house is ugly, but to each his own.

[Zeb]

It's not to my taste either. But it is hardly an eye sore.

[JW]

Were this my house, I would be employing a scorched earth policy.

Flames sometimes get out of hand. Sorry.

[Juice]

Sounds like a taking to me. They need to sue for the full amount.

[Lord Humungus]

Democratic Congressman Makes Shocking Racial Comments About Republicans, Clarence Thomas, Mitch McConnell

A Mississippi Democratic Congressman says Clarence Thomas is an "Uncle Tom," Mitch McConnell is a "racist," and that Republicans are only anti-big government and anti-Obamacare because President Obama is black. Rep. Bennie Thompson made the comments over the weekend while appearing on a New Nation of Islam radio program.

"I've been in Washington. I saw three presidents now. I never saw George Bush treated like this. I never saw Bill Clinton treated like this with such disrespect," Thompson said. "That Mitch McConnell would have the audacity to tell the president of the United States ? not the chief executive, but the commander-in-chief ? that 'I don't care what you come up with we're going to be against it.' Now if that's not a racist statement I don't know what is."

[hamilton]

The commentariat on Buzzfeed is already explaining how this is different, because it's TRUE!

[Steve G]

"never saw George Bush treated like this"?? WTF. If Obama was lampooned like Bush, we'd have riots in the streets...

And just so we're clear: "I diagree with you" now = racism. Got it, thx

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I fully expect an Obama head on a pike in GOT next week,

[Mokers]

No spoilers!

[Auric Demonocles]

With the way the last couple of episodes have gone off-book, I don't know valid any future spoilers are going to be.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

From comments:

"Seems self-evident that much of the opposition to Obama is race based from abroad. The ACA is a market based programme from the heritage foundation and implemented first by a Republican governed who won the Republican presidential nomination after doing so.

Is there any plausible argument that much of the opposition wasn't race based? "

It's a doozy.

[flye]

It's a fair cop. We had a good run pretending to hate his policies but they're onto us. Damn kids.

[Auric Demonocles]

Nothing like that Republican proposal that zero Republicans voted for.

[anon]

SHOCKING!

[Red Rocks Rockin]

I never saw Bill Clinton treated like this with such disrespect

So, does this mean Obama's going to be impeached this term?

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Oklahoma death row inmate Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack after his execution was botched.

So how was he supposed to die? And what is so friggin' complicated about using nitrogen gas asphyxiation? That's guaranteed to be painless.

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

But don't you see? We need the constantly-messed-with, legally challenged, cocktail to provide writhing black men for the anti-death penalty people to become enraged about.

I'm against the death penalty but if the government is going to have them, they should be quick and easy, like a firing squad (or nitrogen gas asphyxiation!)

[hamilton]

BTW, Boston Reasonoids, I am happy to note that I arrived safely home yesterday without being ambushed or having my car booby-trapped. So there's that.

[Swiss Servator ...nichts]

Or shot at by the BPD?

[hamilton]

Their shots-to-hits ratio is not necessarily all that high, as it happens.

[Steve G]

#strong

[DEG]

That's good. Sometimes I'm not sure which I should worry more about: Boston area drivers or cops.

I realize that non-cops are more likely to go to jail and are easier to get compensation from, but there are a shit-ton more shitty drivers on Boston area roads than there are cops in the area.

[hamilton]

This was actually more of a rogue-banned-commenter concern than a traffic one. I grew up in MA, so I'm one of those asshole drivers (we call ourselves "non-idiots").

Got your email, btw, will copy you on the next assemblage.

[DEG]

Thanks!

"non-idiots"? Hmmm.. your dictionary has some very strange entries. 😉

[Auric Demonocles]

I have also survived any assassination attempts by "Todd".

[tarran]

Todd turned me into a newt!

[Auric Demonocles]

Is that why you were late? At least you got better.

[SugarFree]

As the memory of this place, I demand details. Afford me no mercy when describing the hideous visage of hamilton.

[db]

Yeah, we need the dirt!

[Auric Demonocles]

He's bald, has a beard (which turns white near the sideburn area), and he really likes booze and redheads. Also, he's somehow both a libertarian and not white.

[SugarFree]

Also, he's somehow both a libertarian and not white.

Impossible. Unless he's one of those self-hating types.

I'm German-Irish and I occasionally don't feel white enough to be a libertarian.

🙁

[Auric Demonocles]

I'm worried that my freckled parts aren't white enough.

[hamilton]

To be fair, various Indian-born IT professionals in my employ have occasionally referred to me as a "coconut", the etymology of which I shall leave as an exercise to the reader.

Auric also failed to describe my boyish charm and commanding presence.

[Auric Demonocles]

If we really want everything, I should add that your voice doesn't seem to match your body.

[hamilton]

That's just the 10-second tape delay.

[Rasilio]

As some who works in IT with Indians all the time it is somewhat odd talking to Hamilton. His apperance says he should have an Indian accent but he quite clearly is a Masshole by birth

[hamilton]

Can't I be both?

Actually I do a really shitty indian accent. I don't have a Boston accent but I can fake that much better than the Indian one.

[Rasilio]

That's because contrary to what television shows want to say there really isn't a Boston Accent. There are 5 or 6 of them and no one outside of the 128 belt (that'd be I 95 for the rest of you) really uses them.

What you do have is that vaguely northeastern yankee accent (some similarities to Boston in that you still drop some R's and extend some A's but not all of them) however you make heavy use of Masshole idioms

[DontShootMe]

Fortunately, we also didn't have to have 3 or 4 towns completely locked down for the duration.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Democrats' minimum wage bill is expected to die in the Senate today after a party line vote.

Yeah, I doubt playing this thing out will be enough to save the Dems in November.

[Injun, as in from India]

I, for one, call for a minimum IQ bill for Congress.

[The Late P Brooks]

i

[Rich]

Cool!

[DEG]

Day of the Commentators returning?

[hamilton]

Well then I'd better see some radical animated GIFs, is all I'm saying.

[Pro Libertate]

You don't know the power of the blink tag.

[hamilton]

So powerful, the Lords of Reason wisely protect us from its ravages. I presume it's kept in a vault along with Lucy and the spare Jacket.

[Swiss Servator ...etwas]

DON'T TALK ABOUT LUCY!

[Auric Demonocles]

Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle tag!

[hamilton]

Holy shit ProLib you've gone and spooked them. Now they took away our hyperlinks.

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, good. We used to have nice toys here, like unordered lists, underlines, what have you. Now we can't link? Why not just mail in our comments?

[Auric Demonocles]

My response will be posted here in 5-6 business days.

[WTF]

I think the hyperlinks are still there, they're just not highlighted. Just some more problems with the comments.

[Pro Libertate]

Test link.

[Pro Libertate]

You are correct.

[Auric Demonocles]

Maybe this will somehow at least make the mobile site not suck as much?

[db]

No, the.mobile site is now inescapable on mobile devices. It actually is possible to post using the mobile version now (I could never post using mobile on my Android devices (several generations of Android, in fact).

[Auric Demonocles]

It seems to be better on my mobile site. Also using Droid, and at least I was able to post without requesting the desktop version.

[Auric Demonocles]

I think it's time to upgrade to HTML5.

[DEG]

Feds bust a Swiss banker. The Swiss banker is accues of helping clients hide their money from the government.

[DEG]

Accused not accues.

[BakedPenguin]

J'accuse!

[DEG]

Nein! Ich habe nichts gemacht!

[Bam!]

What I'm asking, you Swiss dick, is are you going to fuck me over?

[Swiss Servator ...nichts]

*slight sweat breaks out, looks around room*

I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS! I AM NOT IN BANKING!

[Injun, as in from India]

The one thing that can turn people against the government is abolishing automatic deduction of taxes from paychecks, and having ol' fashioned tax collectors going around collecting taxes.

The automatic deduction process really fools people and hides the real cost if government.

[DontShootMe]

^This

[gimmeasammich]

But how are people supposed to get that fat check every year? The fact that it was their own money that was loaned to the government at 0% interest just passes right over their head, because VACATION/FLAT SCREEN TV/etc.

[Rich]

Kathleen Sebelius is now refusing to testify before the Senate

Sheesh, at least Lois Lerner has the decency to plead the Fifth.

[DEG]

I wonder what she claimed as justification. I don't see anything in the article about why she thinks she doesn't have to testify. "Fuck you that's why!" perhaps?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Kathleen and Lois should make a sequel to Thelma and Louise.

[Swiss Servator ...nichts]

Same ending, plz.

[Rich]

+66 Thunderbird

[BakedPenguin]

Just what I was thinking.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Higher cliff.

[Jordan]

Progressives in Illinois hope to soak all those fat cats making more than $12,500 a year:

Under Illinois law, the individual income tax rate will be 3.75% in 2015. Under the progressive tax-hike plan introduced by Sen. Harmon ? and endorsed by A Better Illinois ? a higher 4.9% applies to income earned after $12,500.

[gaijin]

Meanwhile, another Illinois governor gets investigated for criminal misconduct...

Criminal probe of Quinn anti-violence plan rocks governor's race

[Ted S.]

Does his plan combat the violence of SFing links? 😉

[gaijin]

wtf?! It was working in preview...I swear!

Anyway, here is the link again

Criminal probe of Quinn anti-violence plan rocks governor's race

[Swiss Servator ...etwas]

A Squirrel EMP!

[Certified Public Asskicker]

It's a good idea. The people who can afford to leave, will. Therefore, we need to tax the suckers who are unable to.

[gimmeasammich]

Was I not just talking with several people in the P.M. links last night about moving to Texas? Gotta get outta here...

[Lord Humungus]

Female bikers banned from selling cupcakes at shooting range

The Devil Dolls Motorcycle Club had planned to sell gourmet cupcakes to raise money for charity Sunday while celebrating their group's 15th anniversary.

But instead, they were at the Pacific Rod and Gun Club picketing.

The female bikers had reserved space at the shooting range back in December, but a week before Sunday's event, they got a cancellation notice but little explanation as to why.

[Auric Demonocles]

Too lazy to RTFA, but if they didn't get an explanation why it was canceled, why are they picketing?

[Lord Humungus]

The bikers were told the city, which leases the Lake Merced site to the gun club, wouldn't allow motorcycle clubs to use the club.

The manager "was apologetic," said Theresa Foglio, president of the Devil Dolls. "He was pressured by the city and county. They just freaked him out."

[Lord Humungus]

Dr. Seuss book Hop on Pop does not encourage 'violence against fathers,' libary says in rejecting ban request

Despite a demand to ban the Dr. Seuss book Hop on Pop because it "encourages children to use violence against their fathers," the Toronto Public Library rejected the request after careful consideration.

"The children are actually told not to hop on pop," reads a recently released report by the library's Materials Review Committee.

As such, the committee rejected the complainant's request to remove the book and "issue an apology to fathers in the GTA and pay for damages resulting from the book."

[Ted S.]

That's not a story from The Onion?

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

I was once a children's librarian. You cannot parody this shit. I remember a 45 minute conversation with a parent who was trying to convince me that Scooby Do leads children to the occult. Yep.

[Rich]

And it would have, too, if it hadn't been for that meddling parent!

[Pro Libertate]

Scooby personally, or the whole gang?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

You're probably lucky they didn't accuse you of being a pedo satanist.

[Snark Plissken]

Red Riding Hood promotes child alcoholism, you know.

[DontShootMe]

There's a lot of things about raising children that promotes alcoholism.

[Restoras]

There's a lot of things about raising children that promotes alcoholism

I think this is more accurate...

[DEG]

Janet Napolitano comments on the recent Supreme Court decision about university admissions.

[Lord Humungus]

isn't that already a punishment?

Man punished for playing Celine Dion too loudly

A man has had sound equipment worth ?3000 confiscated by the council after a neighbour complained about him blaring Celine Dion's power ballads.

Gareth Davies, a former window salesman from Kent, claims he is being victimised simply for listening to guilty pleasures. Not only does My Heart Will Go On appear to be one of his favourites, but Boom Shack-A-Lak by Apache Indian and You've Got A Friend In Me, the theme song from Toy Story, are also believed to be at the top of the 47-year-old's most played list.

It felt like it was a witch hunt,' said Davies, who also had his iPod, speakers, 3D TV and PlayStation3 removed by Medway Council.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

This tests my principles.

[Snark Plissken]

But Whitney's talent is restored with the overwhelming "The Greatest Love of All," one of the best, most powerful songs ever written about self preservation and dignity. From the first line (Michael Masser and Linda Creed are credited as the writers) to the last, it's a state of the art ballad about believing in yourself. It's a powerful statement and one that Whitney sings with a grandeur that approaches the sublime. Its universal message crosses all boundaries and instills one with the hope that it's not too late for us to better ourselves, to act kinder. Since it's impossible in the world we live in to empathize with others, we can always empathize with ourselves. It's an important message, crucial really, and it's beautifully stated on this album.

[Injun, as in from India]

Here us an idea for the guys running Guantanamo. Play Celine Dione until the inmates spill the beans!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Of course, Shaq mocking a retard is perfectly okay.

http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=233841

Athlete's shooting people and beating their wives and girlfriend okay too.

Shit, even Ray Lewis is on TV for fuck sakes.

But Sterling...howls.

[flye]

Like black people using the n-word, Shaq is allowed to mock the mentally challenged.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

+ 70 IQ

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Oh my: Americans want US to pull back from world stage

Americans in large numbers want the U.S. to reduce its role in world affairs even as a showdown with Russia over Ukraine preoccupies Washington, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.

In a marked change from past decades, nearly half of those surveyed want the U.S. to be less active on the global stage, with fewer than one-fifth calling for more active engagement?an anti-interventionist current that sweeps across party lines.

The findings come as the Obama administration said Tuesday that Russia continues to meddle in Ukraine in defiance of U.S. and European sanctions. Pro-Russian militants took over more government buildings in eastern Ukraine, while officials at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said satellite imagery showed no sign that Russia had withdrawn tens of thousands of troops massed near the border.

The poll showed that approval of President Barack Obama's handling of foreign policy sank to the lowest level of his presidency, with 38% approving, at a time when his overall job performance drew better marks than in recent months.

But remember, Rand Paul is crazy and out of touch with the American people on foreign policy.

[Lord Humungus]

Highway shut down because of unruly river of excrement

On Monday, a CBS News affiliate reported that a Kentuckiana Concrete Walls tri-axle dump truck "lost part of its load" when taking the ramp.

The accident resulted in the road being sealed off by authorities for several hours, maybe more, as a city crew is forced to mop the volcanic resin of a fecal explosion.

Traffic alternatives have been provided. Just avoid the 265 East ramp on I-64 for awhile.

In Indiana who could tell the difference?

[Swiss Servator ...nichts]

"the volcanic resin of a fecal explosion."

How long did it take the author to come up with that line, and will he be sued for plagiarism by SF?

[SugarFree]

Prose is not a lost art, at least.

[Rich]

unruly river of excrement

Nice band name.

[Zeb]

volcanic resin of a fecal explosion.

What?

[Rich]

Assume the fecal position.

[Aloysious]

Now what?

[gaijin]

haha! a classic

[Tim]

How are we going to redeploy our nuclear bombers to Interstates if they get covered in toll booths.

[The Late P Brooks]

China's economy will surpass the United States' economy in size this year

Magic Eight Ball says, "Anticipate a new calculation for GDP soon."

[Tim]

Shit. One day they might start sanctioning us.

[Rich]

You can count on it.

[Restoras]

Wait till they stop buying our debt. That will be fun.

[KDN]

Even better, a whole new measurement. Though I think China may look even better here.

Gross output will correct the fallacy fostered by GDP that consumer spending drives the economy.

Starting April 25, the Bureau of Economic Analysis will release a new way to measure the economy each quarter. It's called gross output, and it's the first significant macroeconomic tool to come into regular use since gross domestic product was developed in the 1940s.
...
In particular, it has led to the misguided Keynesian notion that consumer and government spending drive the economy rather than saving, business investment, technology and entrepreneurship. GDP data at the end of 2013 put consumer spending first in importance (68% of GDP), followed by government expenditures (18%), and business investment third (16%). Net exports (-2%) makes up the difference.

[KDN]

Although consumer spending accounts for about 70% of GDP, if you use gross output as a broader measure of total sales or spending, it represents less than 40% of the economy. The reality is that business outlays?adding capital investment and all business spending in intermediate stages of the supply chain?are substantially larger than consumer spending in the economy. They make up more than 50% of economic activity. The 2012 data are gross output $28,693 billion, and GDP $16,420 billion.

The critical importance of business activity is clear when you look at employment statistics and leading economic indicators. Employees in the consumer side of the economy (retail outlets and leisure businesses) account for about 20% of the labor force, and another 15% work for various levels of government. Yet the vast majority of employees, 65%, work in mining, manufacturing and the service industries.

[Jordan]

Have Keynesian clowns started wailing about this yet?

[Zeb]

Still only 1/4 of the US per capita, though.

[KDN]

Yeah, and there's likely a decent amount of fudging going on, as per the norm in China.

[Lord Humungus]

McJobs!

Obama's low-wage jobs recovery

? Lower-wage industries constituted 22 percent of recession losses, but 44 percent of recovery growth.

? Mid-wage industries constituted 37 percent of recession losses, but only 26 percent of recovery growth.

? Higher-wage industries constituted 41 percent of recession losses, and 30 percent of recovery growth.

Today, there are nearly two million fewer jobs in mid-and higher-wage industries than there were before the recession took hold, while there are 1.85 million more jobs in lower-wage industries.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

This reminds me of some good FB derp I saw the other day:

Mc Donald's is not a high skill's demanding job...but it is a high consumer demand job. They get a lot of business and the only person earning money in the CEO. As the rest slip into the depths of depression due to poverty. Structurally it is the same thing as Dave's comment. He makes his boss $500,000 and he gets screwed. (His boss probably did not have to pay taxes on that, where Dave...but that is another story)His boss does not pay him an extra $220,000 a year because his boss is greedy, just like McDonalds. We all should have high aspirations to hone our skills, take pride in our jobs and help our fellow man. The great sociologist Max Weber would agree. But some people like not working hard, take no pride in their job and selling you highly addictive drugs like McDonalds, or crack dealers.

I am against depression (not just in the people I know) and against poverty. The streets of America are hungry and depression is rampant.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created ...."

[Zeb]

Wow. Marxist bullshit and no idea how actual businesses work. Yeah, only the CEO makes any money. Franchise owners and managers just do it because they hate themselves, I guess. Or they're too depressed to find another job.

[Swiss Servator ...etwas]

I volunteer to be the I-am-sure-they-are-lowly-and-unpaid Risk Officer for the Golden Arches.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Sad news: English actor Bob Hoskins dies at age 71

British actor Bob Hoskins, whose varied career ranged from noir drama "Mona Lisa" to animated fantasy "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" has died aged 71.

A family statement released Wednesday by agent Clair Dobbs said Hoskins died in a hospital after a bout of pneumonia.

A versatile character actor capable of menace, quiet poignancy and Cockney charm, London-raised Hoskins appeared in some of the most acclaimed British films of the past few decades, including gangster classic "The Long Good Friday."

He specialized in tough guys with a soft center, including the ex-con who chaperones Cathy Tyson's escort in Neil Jordan's 1986 film "Mona Lisa." Hoskins was nominated for a best-actor Academy Award for the role.

His Hollywood breakthrough came as a detective investigating cartoon crime in the part-animated 1988 hit "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." He also played the pirate Smee in Steven Spielberg's 1991 Peter Pan movie "Hook."

In 2012 Hoskins announced that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and was retiring from acting.

Weird, I randomly looked at his Wikipedia page yesterday.

[Lord Humungus]

damn. I loved him in The Long Good Friday.

[Snark Plissken]

The Yanks love snobbery. They really feel they've arrived in England if the upper class treats 'em like shit.

[Lord Humungus]

"The mafia? I shit them!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVVrZJaN1IU

[Jordan]

Too bad he tarnished his career by appearing in that godawful Mario Bros. movie.

[Restoras]

Meh, I wonder what his paycheck was for it.

[Swiss Servator ...nichts]

PLUMBERS!

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

He would have told you the same thing:

Bob Hoskins has spoken critically of Super Mario Bros., saying that it was "the worst thing I ever did" and that "the whole experience was a nightmare" in a 2007 interview with The Guardian.[16] In another interview with The Guardian, Hoskins answered Super Mario Bros. to three of the questions he was asked, "What is the worst job you've done," "What has been your biggest disappointment," and "If you could edit your past, what would you change?"[17]

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, that sucks. I've always liked him. I just saw one of his movies--Hollywoodland

[waffles]

Today at work I am going to try to use the word boondoggle as many times as possible. I think I'll even put it in as an Easter egg in some CAD I need to archive.

[Swiss Servator ...nichts]

Government contract work? Bad idea from on high?

[waffles]

Yes. I used to lament my employment situation, but now I just look at it as an education in how large organizations operate (or fail to operate).

[Lord Humungus]

'Actuarial nightmare' as health insurers scramble to calculate 2015 rates

The official 2014 enrollment period closed at the end of March for most consumers. But carriers selling medical plans on healthcare.gov must file initial 2015 rate requests with federal regulators in late May or June ? even though they have little idea about the health and potential costs of their newly enrolled members. Deadlines also loom for state-run exchange filings.

WellPoint, the biggest player in the online exchanges, is already talking about double-digit rate hikes for 2015. Such increases would give ammunition to Republican critics of Obamacare before the November elections.

Analysts' expectations vary, but nobody is predicting decreases.

"We'll see rate increases in the marketplaces, but I think it's anyone's guess" about what the precise changes will be, said Sabrina Corlette, project director at the Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms. "It's like nailing Jell-O to a wall."

[Ted S.]

The rates aren't going to go up at all, no sirree.

[Swiss Servator ...nichts]

Bending the cost curve down!

[gaijin]

but...Subsidies!

[Juice]

That cost curve is starting to take on more of a spiral shape.

[trshmnster the terrible]

I'm looking at switching jobs to one that doesn't have insurance (they changed the position to no insurance this year), and it's downright scary what the premiums would be on the marketplace. My wife and I are currently paying ~$50-75/month for our current insurance through our current jobs, but if we both switch jobs and have to go to the O-care website, it's an order of magnitude more expensive for shitty, high deductible insurance. However, it's all good, my sister-in-law get's great rates on her insurance! She decided to quit her job on a whim and go on a month long vacation in west Asia with her boyfriend (who just quit his job on a whim as well)!

[Jerryskids]

Such increases would give ammunition to Republican critics of Obamacare Democratic critics of the eeeevil insurance companies trying to destroy Obamacare before the November elections.

It's like some people don't know there's a script to be followed.

[Rich]

Just stumbled onto the UNEDITED Cliven Bundy interview.

Granted, the geezer uses non-PC terminology; but he doesn't come across as particularly racist. Indeed, he appears to appreciate "people of color" more than do many of his detractors.

[Restoras]

Does. Not. Matter.

All that matters is an old white guy in fly-over country that likes freedom said something that can be twisted into racist meanings by moronic proggies on the left coasts.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I love that many of the same people that get apoplectic when I say that a black man calling another black man, like Clarence Thomas, Uncle Tom is likely not racist bend themselves into knots defending Bundy or Sterling's comments as not racist and/or not a big deal. Could there be stronger evidence it is just a partisan thing?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Who is defending Sterling's comments as not racist and/or bigoted?

[Rich]

Um, did you watch the video?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

"Who is defending Sterling's comments as not racist and/or bigoted?"

Check out the thread when the news came out a few days ago. Several people said 'not really racist, more of an old guy worried about what people think' or 'old guy worried about his virility'

[Emmerson Biggins]

Sterling != Bundy

I think what Sterling said is objectively racist.

Bundy, ya, just un-PC.

Now, a black guy Uncle Tom-ing somebody? What is he saying? He is saying that, morally speaking, a certain person should have a certain view merely because of his melanin levels. Is that racist? Actually I don't think so. It's damn close, but I think I agree that it also just belongs in the un-PC bucket. Although it is close enough that somebody with a different definition of racism than me could reasonbly call it racism.

[VG Zaytsev]

It's amazing how many people think that the news is some kind of reflection of reality instead of the fiction that it actually is.

[KDN]

Shriek gets a shout-out in today's Journal:

The Obamacare 8%
A new survey from the Journal and NBC News shows that the President's signature health care law remains deeply unpopular.

[T]he latest edition of the WSJ/NBC poll suggests just how few Americans agree with that statement. A mere 8% of respondents in the new survey say that the Affordable Care Act "is working well the way it is."

There are differences of opinion on how to respond to the mess Washington has created, but few Americans think it's time to shut down the debate over the health law. A full 49% say that the law should either be scrapped entirely or given "a major overhaul," while 40% say the law needs "minor modifications to improve it."

[Lord Humungus]

woot!

[Rich]

40% say the law needs "minor modifications to improve it."

If you asked most of these folks for a single specific modification you'd be met with a blank stare.

[Lord Humungus]

Harvard Poll: Millennials' Trust in Government Sinks To All-Time Lows

"Compared to one year ago, the level of trust that young Americans between 18- and 29- years old have in most American institutions tested in our survey has dissipated compared even to last year's historically low numbers," the findings state.

Over the last year, trust in the president has dropped from 39 percent to 32 percent, faith in the U.S. military has declined from 54 percent to 47 percent ? the first time below a majority ? and confidence in the Supreme Court sank from 40 to 36 percent, the poll finds.

It's obvious that more laws are needed.

[waffles]

I think it will be difficult to overstate the damage Obama did to the Democratic Big Gov brand. It's been so polarizing. The majority have become disaffected and sometimes disgusted by gov while true believers clutch on harder than ever. It's just my opinion but my experience bears this out.

[hamilton]

Hilary's fate in the election will be evidence (or not) of that, I think.

[waffles]

I guess you can never underestimate team allegiance and the willingness to be fooled again.

[Restoras]

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

[Injun, as in from India]

Personally, I think the Snowden revelations did a ton of damage for trust in government.

Still, I have seen resistance from sworn progtards when I have brought up NSA spying during conversations. These very people would have cried "fascism" if Bush was in power.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

HuffPo writer marvels at how non-discriminatory capitalism is after Mississippi passes new law

Of course the law passed, and the Republican governor signed it. Some of the most anti-gay bigots in the country were invited to a private signing. Business owners in the state decided to start a campaign where they place a sticker in their window that says: "We don't discriminate. If you're buying, we're selling." What an immensely capitalist thing to say! But, capitalism does tend to encourage social change and is anything but conservative in that sense.

Hundreds of businesses put the stickers in their windows.

Of course, that private businesses say they won't discriminate has fundamentalists in a dither. The American Family Association, at their OneNewsNow site, is very upset. Charlie Butts, appropriately named, reports AFA says this is "not really a buying campaign, but it's a bully campaign... carried out by radical homosexual activists who intend to trample the freedom of Christians to live according to the dictates of scripture."

Got that? Telling people your business will sell to anyone bullies Christians and indicates intent to "trample" on their freedom. Please remember this because this is the sort of thing the religious right means when speaking of gays bullying them. Capitalists, selling goods to anyone, is a bully tactic to them.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Actually, this is pretty good. Wonder how the average prog will react:

In his Political Arithmetic, written in 1670 but published years later, Sir William Petty said "for the advancement of trade... indulgence must be granted in matters of opinion." Even opponents of trade recognized this as true, and used it to oppose trade. Samuel Parker's A Discourse on Ecclesiastical Politie [1669], said "tis notorious that there is not any sort of people so inclinable to seditious practices as the trading part of a nation." The chaplain to the Earl of Berkeley warned, "that the great outcry for liberty of trade is near of kin to that of liberty of conscience."

Of course, bigots in Mississippi are still free to discriminate, but they do at a disadvantage to competitors who don't. Profit-seeking businesses were willing to serve the LGBT community long before politicians found it expedient to do so. It is no accident that major businesses in virtually every state recognize gay relationships of their employees, while most states, counties and cities do not. Profit is a great motivator for tolerance.

Yes. Free markets are not conducive to intolerance. That's not a very progressive thing to concede.

[Jerryskids]

There are those who make a similar common-sense argument against the idea that Jim Crow laws proved how racist the south was. Laws generally stop you from doing things you would otherwise do or compel you to do things you would otherwise not do - laws requiring discrimination would seem to make a prima facie case that people would otherwise not discriminate.

(Which is not to say that I'm sure there were plenty of racist business owners that supported the laws on the grounds that they would prefer to discriminate but only if their competitors were unable to gain an advantage thereby. Kinda like how businesses will support regulatory schemes that harm them as long as it harms their competitors as much or more.)

[Damned Fool]

This article was very well-written. I may send it to some proggy friends of mine, but one has to wonder how he snuck this past the huffpo gatekeepers.

[Damned Fool]

This article was very well-written. I may send it to some proggy friends of mine, but one has to wonder how he snuck this past the huffpo gatekeepers.

[Rich]

Price Tag for Healthcare.gov Repairs Jumps to $121 Million; 'Back End' Still a Mess

My favorite snippet: Accenture ... "will continue to evaluate and assess additional opportunities to deliver further improvements to the customer experience."

There's no sugarcoating it.

[The Late P Brooks]

Louis Cherry had building permit revoked six months after design was approved
Historic Development Commission changed its ruling on project after neighbor complained

Democracy at work.

[Palin's Buttplug]

? Gov. Rick Scott visited a senior center Tuesday to warn about cuts he said Obamacare is forcing in a popular version of the Medicare health program and to collect their horror stories.

What he found was a satisfied group with few complaints.

The 20 seniors assembled for a roundtable with Scott at the Volen Center were largely content with their Medicare coverage and didn't have negative stories to recount.

And some praised Obamacare ? a program that Scott frequently criticizes.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ne.....1325.story

Scott, who got rich defrauding Medicare, can't bamboozle a bunch of old folk in his home state.

"I'm completely satisfied," Harvey Eisen, 92, a West Boca resident, told Scott.

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

Well, if 20 old coots who are spending my money on their healthcare are satisfied with Obamacare, then who am I to criticize?

Just out of curiosity, how do these old farts feel about the war on drugs and cops shooting dogs just because they bark?

I may have to change my view on those issues as well.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Get off my lawn!

Unless you are giving me government health care!

[Don Mynack]

Or, you could pick this quote: "A man who said he was in the insurance business said he's found health coverage under Obamacare is too expensive. And a woman who said she lost her job and is living with her mother to take care of her said she can't afford Obamacare."

But, of course, the writer buried those quotes, and the headline was a stretch, to say the least.

[Lord Humungus]

Boehner: No 'secret conspiracy' to jam through immigration overhaul

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday told a private Republican Party meeting that there is no "secret conspiracy" to jam through an immigration overhaul, according to one member in the room.

Boehner used the meeting to walk back his comments last week, which were seen as mocking his own members for lacking the courage to tackle immigration reform that he has advocated but that many conservative in the House Republican conference continue to resist.

[Lord Humungus]

related:

Sen. Chuck Schumer: Amnesty Legislation by 'June or July'

[DJF]

He's right, its not a secret.

[DJF]

What is a secret is what is in the bill. I guess we will have to pass it to find out.

[waffles]

Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will each receive $100 worth of Bitcoins for a spending study

I wonder if this will lead to MIT becoming a bastion of hitmen, drugs, and hookers?

[Swiss Servator ...nichts]

God willing, it will.

[hamilton]

Damn it! A quarter century too late!

[Auric Demonocles]

You can always go back.

[Jerryskids]

I was going to guess that this spending study was funded by the DEA and they are going to be getting the NSA to help them track where exactly those Bitcoins are going to go. Here's hoping the kids at MIT are wise enough and clever enough to make sure this study concludes that Bitcoins just mysteriously vanish in an untraceable manner.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Anyone watch 'Deadliest Catch' about the government shutdown?

Fucked up. The government is evil.

[sarcasmic]

Yep. Freedom means asking permission and obeying orders. May we fish now please? Yes Mister Coast Guard, whatever you say.

[Swiss Servator ...nichts]

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

[Ted S.]

No. Most "reality" TV is decidedly phony.

[sarcasmic]

Do you normally pass judgement on something you admit to not watching? That's dumb.

[The Late P Brooks]

Yet the vast majority of employees, 65%, work in mining, manufacturing and the service industries.

That can't be right. It seems as if somebody tells me, "WE DON'T MAKE ANYTHING IN THIS COUNTRY ANYMORE!" just about every fucking day.

[Swiss Servator ...nichts]

So you have spoken with my father in law then?

[Snark Plissken]

Uhm, how about stripping out service industries?

[BakedPenguin]

The US manufactures a lot as measured by value, but employs a lot fewer people than it used to.

[Rich]

Rotting dead whale washes up in Canadian town

Awesome bloat!

Can any of the Canadian commentariat provide status updates?

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Christian conservative blogger, Matt Walsh, writes about Sterling.

I'll highlight this part though, which isn't about Sterling:

All you need to know about Barack Obama the man, and Barack Obama the President, can be summed up by the fact that he immediately and forcefully commented when a black Harvard professor was arrested by a white cop; he immediately and forcefully commented when a black teenager was killed by a Hispanic neighborhood watchman; and he immediately and forcefully commented when a white NBA owner allegedly made some insulting comments about black people ? but when an abortionist was allowed to murder black infants for thirty years in the middle of an American city, he said nothing.

[Swiss Servator ...nichts]

SOCONZ!!!!!!!

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Won't somebody think of the babies?!?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I'm not a socon and I'm pro-choice and I don't get your sarcasm. Is it inappropriate to show concern over those least capable of defending themselves? Or does it just make you feel too uncomfortable?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I'm sure you feel the same about 'but what about the children' laments from various sources.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I'm also intelligent enough to discern between actual outrages and crimes against living beings and demagoguery.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

It's totally different when they do it, I get it.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Get what? What is your point here? Gosnell was a monster. Certainly he deserved some disdain or public disparagement as much as that dipshit Sterling. I see no intellectual problem with pointing that out even if it does mean you have to agree with a social conservative whom you probably don't agree with much else on.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I think it is a particularly cheap shot to take on anyone to do this routine of: he has denounced this and this, but no record of denouncing this, so he must be ok with the last one! And to tack on Babiez! to that makes it worse.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

It's not a cheap shot when the POTUS has made a habit of commenting on even the most trivial of situations (like Sterling). In fact, it's not so much a criticism as an observation from which you can draw certain conclusions. Namely, that if it suits and furthers his obvious political agenda of emphasizing racism and bigotry you can be guaranteed that he's going to milk it for points. If it doesn't, even if it is something horrible, then he won't touch it with a ten foot pole, even when asked.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

"Namely, that if it suits and furthers his obvious political agenda of emphasizing racism and bigotry you can be guaranteed that he's going to milk it for points"

By that logic he should have been falling over himself to comment on Gosnell, right, because BLACK BABIEZ!

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

he should have been falling over himself to comment on Gosnell

Perhaps he would have been if Gosnell were white or if the whole situation didn't cast a bad light on abortion practices.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Actually, it appears he said this when directly asked to comment on it: "if an individual carrying out an abortion, operating a clinic, is violating medical ethics, violating the law, then they should be prosecuted."

[Snark Plissken]

Bo is the most objective commenter on this board. If he thinks you're SoCon, you're SoCon damnit. His SoCondar is impeccable and unassailable.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Lots of projection here, I said nothing about anyone being a SoCon.

[Snark Plissken]

Who said anything about you calling Scruffy a SoCon?

I said 'if'.

Words mean something, Bo, they mean something.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Projection + hurt feelings=a particularly whiny Snark today.

[Snark Plissken]

Yes little Bo, mocking you is projection and hurt feelings. Truly original and insightful comeback.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

We will sell no whine before Snark's time.

[Lord Humungus]

The Witchfinder General has spoken - and it was so.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Ha ha, leave no trope behind.

[Lord Humungus]

I wish we could lead your bloated body behind.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Whats better, wishing a stranger dead because he disagreed with you on a political discussion board, or having a misspelled word in such a wish?

[Snark Plissken]

Bo is the most objective commenter on this board. If he thinks you're SoCon, you're SoCon damnit. His SoCondar is impeccable and unassailable.

Lots of projection here, I said nothing about anyone being a SoCon.

You keep using that word. Perhaps you'd like to explain what I was supposed to be projecting?

Be careful, Bo, words mater. They matter.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

You are projecting your need to call out what you see as my bias as me being biased.

And whining, likely because we have disagreed at some past point.

[Snark Plissken]

Let me get this straight. My mocking your tendentiousness and highly sensitive, unassailable SoCondar is projection because of...my need to call you out?

This is the logical house of cards you are trying to place your misuse of the word projection on?

Need I remind you that words matter, Bo? Yes, i think I do.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

More whine, sir?

[Snark Plissken]

I see you conceded the point of trying to defend your misuse of logic and proper use of words.
-
A gentleman would've have conceded the point or at least walked away. You, sir, are no gentleman.
-
But then we knew that already.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Yes, I imagine in your understanding of logic that was a concession.

And the gentleman quote, my goodness, did you just get out of a time machine from the 19th century?

[Snark Plissken]

If you want to explain your misuse of projection I am all ears little Bo.
-
Or are you simply trying to get the last word in now?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

"Or are you simply trying to get the last word in now?"

Projection

[Lord Humungus]

He always tries to get in the last word... no matter how idiotic.

[Lord Humungus]

see?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Projection

[Snark Plissken]

I have a valid point I've asked to be addressed, you are welcome to do so.
-
Oh the joy of watching you twist on your own petard.
-
Words matter, little Bo. They matter.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Or are you simply trying to get the last word in now?

Or, projection.

[Snark Plissken]

I'm having fun watching you double down little Bo.
-
I'm also waiting for you to try and answer my point and explain your misuse of words.
-
It's actually different than simply trying to get in the last word.
-
Keep on twisting.

[BakedPenguin]

Snark, Bo is a troll. Don't get sucked in.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

How am I a troll? If pointing out that people who reflect Red State partisanship up to and including adopting the Republican line on issues like immigration on a libertarian website is considered 'trolling' that says volumes about the commentariat here, not me.

[Snark Plissken]

Snark, Bo is a troll. Don't get sucked in.
-
All I am doing is asking for a simple explanation of how this, "Bo is the most objective commenter on this board. If he thinks you're SoCon, you're SoCon damnit. His SoCondar is impeccable and unassailable." is projection. I don't think it's a big thing to ask, so I will continue to ask it.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I answered that @ 10:18, you've just been, well, trolling since.

[Snark Plissken]

I answered that @ 10:18, you've just been, well, trolling since.
-
What is the argument? Could you try and present it in a clear manner?
-
I'm all ears.
-
I don't see how pointing out your misuse of projection makes me into a troll. That *does* seem like projection.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Again, I answered it at 10:18, you could try responding to what I said there. That is, if you were not trolling.

[Snark Plissken]

Again, I answered it at 10:18, you could try responding to what I said there. That is, if you were not trolling.
-
You are saying that the point is on such firm logical and definitional ground that you can't restate it with clarity?
-
You'd rather post endless empty retorts about whining and such than simply addressing my point?
-
I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here, I simply don't understand your argument.

[Restoras]

The Arbiter Hath Spoken! Let no mere mortal cast a shadow of doubt on His Genius or Sincerity!

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Restoras|12.3.13 @ 1:00PM|#

To the extent that local voters wish to bar certain activities (providing they don't infringe on the Bill of Rights) it is their community and they should be allowed to organize it as they see fit.

[Snark Plissken]

You are projecting your need to call out what you see as my bias as me being biased.

If I understand correctly. I am projecting because my mocking your SoCondar is biased because I see you as biased so I am being biased but you are not biased so I am projecting.

Is that the logic trap you've so cleverly spun in a nutshell?

You do realize that words matter, don't you?

[Restoras]

The Arbiter has you now Snark! You are in its Clutches but you will soon see the error of your ways!

EVERYONE KNOWS THAT WHEN YOU MOCK SOMEONE IT IS AN IMPLICIT ENDORSEMENT OF THE MOCKERS MOCKERY!

[Restoras]

YES! YES! Purge my Impure and Heretical Thoughts and Fill me with Your Libertarian Truth!!

Rejoice! The Arbiter has Graced us mere mortals with his Pure Libertarian Existence!!

[VG Zaytsev]

Bo doesn't see any problem with the mass murder of black infants.

In fact, he supports it.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Because Sterling was worse!

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Babiez! + race card, almost a hat trick there.

[VG Zaytsev]

Gosnel literally murdered babies that were born alive. An inconvenient reality for pro choicers like you, but what the hell they were just poor blacks and likely would have grown up to be criminals so who gives a fuck. Right?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Double down!

[Auric Demonocles]

Bo's kind of giving the impression that he would be against punishing someone for smothering their month old infant for crying too much because he'd snarkily say "WHY DOESN"T SOMEONE CARE ABOUT THE CHILDREN!?!" He should really rethink his messaging here.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Yes, because not joining the outrage over a public figure not denouncing something while denouncing other, unrelated things certainly indicates support for infanticide. Tight logic.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Why denounce one and not the other then?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

It strikes me he has also never denounced killing of Trotsky with an icepick either, so he must approve of icepick murders or is too cowardly to call it out.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Why is this so hard for you?

I don't know if he was ever asked a question on your above situation. He was asked about Gosnell, which he replied "I can't comment."

Seems pretty cowardly, and yes, he should be called out on it.

[VG Zaytsev]

Are you referring to yourself or Obama here?

If the former, it would have been extremely easy for you to have denounced Gosnell's infanticide, which I'll point out that you still have not done.

If the latter, it should be noted that Obama has voted for infanticide, supports the radical abortionist agenda and has appointed a number of people to his administration that are blatantly sympathetic to the practice.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Actually, when asked directly about he said he can't comment on an active trial but he went on to say ""if an individual is carrying out an abortion, operating a clinic, is violating medical ethics, violating the law, then they should be prosecuted."

But the larger point is how silly it is to criticize someone because they denounced something but not others. There are literally daily awful things happening in the news that you could pick out this or that person and say 'omg, I have not heard them denounce that one yet, they must be cowards or agree with it!' Tacking an emotive 'he must not care about babiez ' or doubling down by adding the race card 'he must not care about black babiez' adds to how silly it is.

Obama is a terrible President who has enacted some of the worst laws in our history (the ACA foremost). It is a waste of time to engage in silly sniping over what he has not denounce forcefully enough when the man is daily and openly doing things that are literally trampling freedom and people's well being.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

But the larger point is how silly it is to criticize someone because they denounced something but not others.

It's an observation of the man's relative priorities and as such can be used to discern character traits. Is it the most important thing about his presidency, no, but does it lend clues to how he thinks and operates, yes.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Shorter Bo Cara: It's OK for him to use relativism about what his beliefs are, because he is here to argue against us (or the argument constructs he has interpreted us to have) to show us why that is OK.

But it's not OK for others to be relativistic about what their beliefs are when it comes to libertarianism, because he is here to show is why that is wrong.

In other words he can always have his cake and eat it too, so in other words he's a bizzarro clone of Palin's BP.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Shorter Elspeth: How dare Bo Cara criticize my, er, flexible libertarianism! People with my right wing slant on libertarianism need this place to hang out and stroke one another's partisanship!

[Elspeth Flashman]

yikes! I forgot I am impure. Please educate me, and then educate me some more. Where should I go confess my sin?

[Restoras]

yikes! I forgot I am impure. Please educate me, and then educate me some more. Where should I go confess my sin?

Bo is the Hammer of Libertarian Impurity and his Strokes will make us the Purest Libertarians!

We are the Libertarians that Bo Hath Made! Rejoice!!

[Bo Cara Esq.]

When the guy who started the trope after I got him to admit that he would support a community restricting purely consensual voluntary activity if that is what the majority of the community wanted joins in, what more need be said about that trope?

[Elspeth Flashman]

Let me tell you something, they all want cake.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Switch tropes!

[Restoras]

Rejoice! Rejoice!

The Wise and Mighty Arbiter is here to Purge our Heretical Libertarian Thoughts and Fill our Souls with The One True Libertarian Way!!

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Restoras|12.3.13 @ 1:38PM|#

Do I support it? If you are asking if I lived in that particular locality and had a say, how would I vote? I would vote in favor.

I also support the power of a local community to organize itself
as it sees fit.

[Restoras]

YES! YES! Purge my Impure and Heretical Thoughts and Fill me with Your Libertarian Truth!!

Rejoice! The Arbiter has Graced us mere mortals with his Pure Libertarian Existence!!

[Lord Humungus]

ha, she got you there, Bo. But please tell us more about your absolute purity.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Stop breaking up our party, the comment board at Red.state isn't as user friendly!

[Lord Humungus]

great point there, counselor. Please go on.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Talk about projection, have you ever made a substantive point when talking with or about me? It's all just parroting some trope someone like Restoras came up with, and considering the origin of that trope, it says a lot that it stuck so much with you.

[trshmnster the terrible]

There are literally daily awful things happening in the news that you could pick out this or that person and say 'omg, I have not heard them denounce that one yet, they must be cowards or agree with it!'

That's the ENTIRE FUCKING POINT! Perhaps President Obama shouldn't be sticking his nose into small "daily awful things" for political gain, because it makes him look like a hypocritical ass when he doesn't stick his nose into even worse "daily awful things." Has he denounced Larry Johnson yet? The shit he tweeted was racist, just as much as the crap LJ responded to. Oh wait, LJ is black, who am I kidding?

I now get why everybody trots out the Blue Tulpa line. Man, if there's a story about gays or abortions, Bo goes all Troll-Hulk, turning blue and tearing his shirt!

[Bo Cara Esq.]

"I now get why everybody trots out the Blue Tulpa line"

Oh like you are not one of those 'everyboy's.

[trshmnster the terrible]

Oh like you are not one of those 'everyboy's.

I defended you in the past, because i think you have legitimate points and don't let your emotions cloud your responses in economic and other non-culture war topics. Then I hardly commented for two months, and I've really only started posting regularly again yesterday.

I honestly had a hard time understanding why people were lumping you in with PB and Tulpa, and I just played the SnoCones meme because you were being pedantic and emotional. I never thought you were really being a troll until reading the links today.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

'Oh like you are not one of those 'everyboy's.

I defended you in the past, because i think you have legitimate points and don't let your emotions cloud your responses in economic and other non-culture war topics.

and I just played the SnoCones meme because you were being pedantic and emotional."

Sheesh, try not to undercut your play stance in the very same comment next time.

[trshmnster the terrible]

Sheesh, try not to undercut your play stance in the very same comment next time.

There is a difference between playing out a meme with a point (to avoid playing into your pedantry and rampant emotionalism) and declaring you a troll. At the time, I sure as hell didn't think you were a troll, just an emotional person with an annoyingly pedantic argument style. Now, I've changed my mind.

Besides, you never answered the bulk of my first post, choosing to go off on the whole "Blue Tulpa" tangent. Does Barack Obama get a pass on Larry Johnson's comments?

[Swiss Servator ...etwas]

He has been resorting to "I know you are, but what am I?" style of argumentation lately.

I shall resume scrolling past the 500+ comment thread death spirals...

[Auric Demonocles]

You aren't "tacking on" something when the topic is literally killing babies.

[BakedPenguin]

He's a troll, doing what trolls do - clogging up threads by getting people to respond to him. Don't give him the satisfaction.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Virtually every comment I have made here has been a reply to one referring to or addressing me. Like a lot of people on the internet you are using 'troll' to mean 'person I disagree with.'

[Auric Demonocles]

No, you are a troll. You're taking stupid positions just to get a rise out of people.

You're just a fun one (for now).

[Bo Cara Esq.]

So what, you think I do not believe what I said?

Look, the original line is one that would fit perfectly, perfectly, at a Team Red discussion site. #Obama can denounce racist owner but not murder of black babiez! If you think that the only way someone might say 'oh, please' to that is because they are trying to 'get a rise' out of people then you really need to meet and talk (and listen) with more people of different ideological persuasions. That such is considered 'trolling' on this website says more about how oddly Team Red the commentariat skews here at Reason than anything else.

[Auric Demonocles]

You're equating people objecting to the literal murder of literal babies to people who want to outlaw porn for adults based on the idea that it might at some point emotionally scar some 8 year old.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Where in the world do I make that equation?

Oh wait a minute, you are saying that because I criticize SoCons when they violate the NAP, on a libertarian website, I am, what, endorsing baby murder?

I mean, it is logic like that that makes me sure that something odd is going on with this commentariat, not me. I mean, does that sound like something any of the Reason writers would say? Who is more out of step with this website, me or this chunk of fellows saying things like you just said? I submit the answer is pretty clear. And if I and my views are closer to the writers and editors here, then who is trolling here and who is not?

[Auric Demonocles]

See, your entire post is too dumb for me to believe you actually believe it. Your entire thread has been about exactly equating the two, from the start.

[Restoras]

Yeah Auric! Take that! The Pure Wisdom and Intellectual Singularity that is OUr Great Arbiter showed you!! Burn!!

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Yes, it's great to have a leader who trips and stumbles to get to a microphone so he can say about Sterling, "The United States continues to wrestle with a legacy of race and slavery and segregation that's still there ? the vestiges of discrimination."

But when he is offered a chance to comment on Gosnell, he says, "I can't comment."

[Certified Public Asskicker]

All that formatting, ruined by the new system.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Hey guys, did you hear how Thomas Picketty disproved libertarianism once and for all?

The reason a person like the fictional John Galt would be able to rise from humble beginnings in the 1950s is because the Gilded Age rentiers lost large chunks of their wealth through the shocks the Great Depression and the deliberate government policies that came in its wake, thus loosening their stranglehold on the economy and society. Galt is able to make his fortune precisely because he lives in a society that isn't dominated by extreme concentrated wealth and dynasties. Yet the logical outcome of an economy in which there is no attempt made to limit the size of fortunes and promote greater equality is a place in which the most likely way John Galt can make a fortune is to marry an heiress. So it was in the Gilded Age. So it may be very soon in America.

Which brings us back to Friedman's view that people naturally get what they deserve, that reward is based on talent. Well, clearly in the case of inherited property, reward is not based on talent, but membership in the Lucky Sperm Club. That made Uncle Milty a little bit uncomfortable, but he just huffed that life is not fair, and we shouldn't think it any more unjust that one person is born with mathematical genius as the other is born with a fortune. What's the difference?

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

I don't know how you people can stand to read Salon. I'm in envy of your bravery (or capacity for self-destruction). NYT? NPR? HuffPo? I can stomach an occasional serving of that shite.

But reading Salon is like when someone pulls something of the back of the fridge that is brown, crusty, and smells like a rotting corpse and then says, "taste this and see if it has gone bad."

[Elspeth Flashman]

It's the small tastes of poison that strengthen you for the big ones. Or something.

But I agree, I can't visit any of those sites. It's too nauseating.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

If it ain't Redstate.com it ain't stomachable, amiright Elspeth? Wink, wink.

[Swiss Servator ...etwas]

And you wonder why most here think you are a troll or part time troll...

[MJGreen]

This is shriek-level commenting.

[Snark Plissken]

No, no, no. Bo just assured me that *I'm* a troll for questioning his use of the word projection.

Bo never projects or acts trollish because he isn't *biased*.

I'm surprised you can't see the difference.

[John]

They are utterly incapable of comprehending the difference between the macro and the micro levels. At the micro level there is no guarantee any individual will "get what they deserve" whatever that is. At the macro level, enough people will be rewarded for hard work and talent that the prospect of such will cause people to work hard and create things.

Their position boils down to the childish rant "If I am not guaranteed to get what I deserve no should get it."

[Brett L]

Deserve's a silly word to use for this whole thing. Deserve's got nothing to do with it. Rand's thesis was that the government was actively preventing and sometimes destroying the value that individuals and groups create. When those people found that society valued their creations less than the people valued their free time, they stopped creating. And, in the case of FdA, found more value in working to prevent others from exploiting stolen goods. It wasn't about what the individuals deserved. It was about not giving a fair value exchange, and the individual's basic right to determine what they value their own work at.

[BakedPenguin]

She also had some very undeserving heirs as characters.

[Auric Demonocles]

They haven't exactly hidden the fact that they can't stand any kind of risk.

[Lord Humungus]

"The world ends when you're dead. Until then you have more punishment in store."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2Q7YRDL90E

[Aloysious]

I love Al.

[VG Zaytsev]

Galt is able to make his fortune precisely because he lives in a society that isn't dominated by extreme concentrated wealth and dynasties.

Except that in the novel,Galt didn't become wealthy - choosing a life of honest poverty over financial success that required compromising with the crony-fascist government.

[Don Mynack]

Andrew Carnegie was born into poverty. William Rockefeller's father was a con man and spent time in jail. Jay Gould started out keeping books for a blacksmith. Yes, the only way they became the business titans of their era were through marriage.
Picketty is an idiot.

[MJGreen]

Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Hill: all married heiresses. How else could they make their fortunes?

[Lord Humungus]

Immigration Exaggeration
Immigrants are not a "secret weapon" to slow down population aging or revive the economy.

In a highly technical but seminal article in Demography in 1992, the leading academic journal in the field, economist Carl Schmertmann explored the impact of immigrants on population aging: "Constant inflows of immigrants, even at relatively young ages, do not necessarily rejuvenate low-fertility populations. In fact, immigration may even contribute to population aging." As the Census Bureau concluded in 2000, in the long run, immigration is a "highly inefficient" means for increasing the percentage of the population that is of working age.

The newest Census Bureau population projections, released in May of last year, show the same thing. The "high-immigration" projections show that if net immigration totals 67 million by 2060, 57 percent of the U.S. population will be of working age (18 to 64). The "low-immigration" projection (33 million fewer) show 56 percent will be of working age in 2060. Roughly doubling immigration changes the working-age share by about 1 percentage point.

[John]

Since everyone gets old, importing young people just delays the problem. Europe has massive immigration in the 70s. That hasn't stopped their demographic problems in the 21st Century.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I guess it is a good thing that libertarian proponents of immigration focus more on the fundamental right of freedom of movement and association than such utilitarian arguments.

[John]

That is right. It is the natives' job to become poorer in the name of freedom.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

We kind of like freedom in the libertarian movement John, so the secret is out for you now.

[DJF]

Movement is not free. Land is owned and people who own the land will not allow others to use it without some limits. If you allow unlimited use of your land then you lose effective ownership.

Only with our socialist road system do we have the appearance of free movement.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

What a ridiculous argument, immigration involves people moving to voluntarily associate with others who want to do the same.

Your argument is like someone saying 'perhaps people should be free to buy and sell drugs, but they should not be able to use those socialist roads to travel to make the transactions!'

[DJF]

No, I am saying that you don't get automatic permission to sell drugs on your neighbors property nor transport those drugs across other peoples property. There is no free movement of drugs.

Anyone who claims ownership of a property must put some restrictions on its use or soon they will lose effective ownership of that property.

[Jordan]

So you don't understand what freedom of movement actually means. Got it.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

No one is arguing that you should have to let migrants squat on your property, they are saying you should not be able to prevent them from squatting on the property to which they are invited.

Unless you are making some goofy collective argument about how 'we' own 'America' and have to put restrictions on 'it.'

[DJF]

But reality means that to get to other properties you need to pass over other peoples property. Unless you have a Star Treck transporter, movement means that it effects others who have the power to restrict that movement.

So there is no freedom of movement.

[Jordan]

So how do you leave your house without trespassing?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

He has a jetpack which only touches down on privately owned land with which he has made prior arrangements, duh.

Look, it is not going to make sense because he is trying to have his libertarian cake while eating his conservative pie too. Immigration is great for distinguishing such folks.

[DJF]

Jetpacks have a very short range and so you better have a lot of arrangements made, and the owners of that land will want something in return and place restrictions on its use so there is still no freedom of movement

[Jordan]

Then I hope you're posting from your home, otherwise you're trespassing.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Zeno's paradox as political philosophy.

[Jordan]

Jesus christ. How many times does it have to be explained that freedom of movement is not trespassing?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

To cafeteria libertarians? Seventy times seven.

[Lord Humungus]

Only Bo is pure. All hail our new overlord.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Yes, pointing out that restricting freedom of movement and association are kind of unlibertarian is certainly out of bounds at Reason.com

[DJF]

How can you move without being on someones property?

[Restoras]

Stop! Stop! The Logic...it burns...it challenges the Purity of the Arbiter...I'm melting, melting...

[Ted S.]

It was 20 years ago today

Just because he wasn't as famous doesn't mean he should be overshadowed.

[John]

What a cursed weekend. Oddly, there hasn't been a death since.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I remember that day back when I followed racing.

[The Late P Brooks]

the level of trust that young Americans between 18- and 29- years old have in most American institutions tested in our survey has dissipated compared even to last year's historically low numbers," the findings state.

Is it possible the yoots have finally realized they are inheriting a pile of rubble where once a great nation stood?

[John]

No. Any nation that has gay marriage and ruthlessly punishes anyone who says something out of turn has to be great in their eyes.

[Lord Humungus]

Reports: Scorpions drummer jailed in Dubai

Newspapers in the United Arab Emirates are reporting that the American drummer for the rock band Scorpions has been sentenced to one month in jail after being convicted of offensive behavior in Dubai.

The government-backed National newspaper reported Tuesday that James Kottak was convicted of insulting Islam, raising his middle finger and being under the influence of alcohol while in transit at Dubai airport.

[Ted S.]

Some asshole posted that in the PM Links yesterday. 😉

[Lord Humungus]

damn assholes!

[anon]

Ya'll missed the point on toll roadz on teh interstates.

It's to dissuade people from inter-state travel, thereby encouraging them to live with whatever shitty state laws their legislature may have enacted.

Basically power boner x2.

[Aloysious]

And as a bonus it will squeeze more money out of over the road shipping. Like those truckers/companies need to pay out more money. Here come the surcharges.

[Brett L]

The Teamsters put the Jones Act through. Anything that raises the cost of road shipping, they bought themselves.

[Aloysious]

True.

My point, poorly made, was that the cost will of course be shifted to the consumer.

[Swiss Servator ...etwas]

And patronage... IL Tollway Authority for example.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Other than that more locals use the interstate highways than do interstate travelers, that's a keen insight.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Some schools will suspend you for having a knife in your car in the parking lot.

At Valley Catholic School in Oregon, if you're in Phil McQueen's class, you can re-enact the Civil War by lining up and firing guns on campus (shooting blanks, but you can't have everything).

http://www.oregonlive.com/beav....._fire.html

[Notorious G.K.C.]

This page has Phil McQueen's contact info, in case the Independents want to interview someone who seems cooler than *certain* guests.

http://www.nwcwc.org/confederate.html

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

So this is terribly confusing: Iowa college finds student guilty of 'non-consensual sex', lets him choose his own punishment

A graduating senior at Central College who was found responsible for "non-consensual sex" with a fellow student was given a choice: be expelled a month before graduation or stay in school with the conditions that he not walk in the ceremony and allow the college to notify a future employer and other schools that he'd violated the code of conduct.

The decision this month, and what happened during the school's investigation, shocked the 20-year-old woman who reported being raped.

"I wouldn't want anyone to go through their process," she said. "I'm the one who has been treated like a criminal."

The controversial choice offered by school administrators comes amid Sexual Assault Awareness month and during a year in which colleges around the country have been scrambling to better deal with sex crimes.

Uh, why isn't he facing criminal charges? Isn't it problematic that you can accuse someone of a crime and then go through an entirely separate process rather than a court of law?

[John]

If the alleged victim thinks this kangaroo court is tough, it is a good thing she didn't report it to the proper authorities. Life just sucks when you are expected to actually prove your assertions.

[gaijin]

Exactly..which is why this was an interesting line in the article:

Going to police seemed too big a step, the young woman said.

[John]

If going to the police is too hard, she either needs some serious therapy herself or she is lying.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Central College is a private institution which should be able to choose who and on what terms it associates with.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

I don't think that should apply to criminal misconduct like allegedly raping a woman. That's what we have a justice system for.

[John]

Sure they can, provided that they didn't make any promises of fair treatment as an inducement to get people to attend that.

Beyond that, you consistently seem to not understand the distinction between something one "can legally do" and something that is "wrong". There are lots of wrong things that are perfectly legal. That doesn't make them right or the people who do them immune from criticism.

Yes they are a private institution and can do this legally. That has little relevance to the rightness or fairness of them doing it.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Most workplaces offer very little 'due process' when deciding whether to keep people or let them go. If the boss thinks you stole something from the workplace they let you go, no court proceedings or call to the police needed.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Highly dependent on the State in which your business is located.

[John]

Actually most large work places do. It is a bit hard to attract top talent by telling them they can be fired at the whim of their supervisor.

Beyond that, you again just cannot grasp the difference between "legal" and "right". What exactly goes through your mind that would cause you to think that "but private employers often unfairly fire employees" is a cogent response to the point that "just because the college can do this doesn't make it right" is really beyond me.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I grasp the difference, I just wonder if your outrage ever is directed towards these much more common examples of associations that show people the door without extensive due process, or is it just those liberal colleges you focus on?

[John]

If you can find a place where I think it is good for people to be unfairly fired, I would like to see it. Further there is a serious problem in this country with colleges running kangaroo courts and unfairly punishing men in these cases without any due process. The fact that "well other people do bad things too" has nothing to do with that. You only act like it does because someone pointed out a fact you don't like but can't refute. Rather than saying nothing or just admitting the truth, you troll the board and throw up an irrelevant fact in hopes the fact you don't like is obscured.

You got four posts on here to cover up the uncomfortable fact. So, your job is done. Go troll somewhere else and stop pretending we are too stupid to see what you are doing.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

"Further there is a serious problem in this country with colleges running kangaroo courts and unfairly punishing men in these cases without any due process."

See, there I have you, because that goes on in much worse fashion at most other workplaces and associations, but you are focused on colleges because they are liberalz and you are a hopeless partisan. Most workplaces have LESS than kangaroo courts for unfairly 'punishing' employees they think have done wrong, they just terminate them. But you are boo-hooing about the colleges.

[John]

See, there I have you, because that goes on in much worse fashion at most other workplaces and associations, but you are focused on colleges

No. You don't have me at all. You just proved my point. You have this strange idea that because this isn't the only or even the worst problem in the world that is somehow isn't worth saying something or trying to do something about it.

Children are dying of malaria in Africa. North Korea is a nightmare prison state. Cuba shoots anyone who tries to leave. Those are really bad things too. Their or any other problem's existence or severity has no relevance to other problems.

You are just making the argument "well because there might be something worse, we shouldn't worry about this" which is just profoundly idiotic. So idiotic even you wouldn't seriously think that. You are just trolling and trying to distract from a fact you don't like but can't refute.

[Rasilio]

"See, there I have you, because that goes on in much worse fashion at most other workplaces and associations, but you are focused on colleges because they are liberalz and you are a hopeless partisan. Most workplaces have LESS than kangaroo courts for unfairly 'punishing' employees they think have done wrong, they just terminate them."

Have you ever worked for a corporation? Not some little start up or small business but an actual for real corporation? Especially a publicly traded one?

Do you have any idea how hard it is for a manager to fire someone? The number of steps and hoops they have to go through to get someone even on a PIP (personal improvement plan, the last step before they can actually think about maybe firing you)

Further, there is no company in the world which would start disciplinary proceedings over an accusation related to something which happened outside of company time.

If a girl showed up at your or my employers door and said you had inappropriate sex with her your boss would say "that sounds horrible but you should go to the police with that" and that would be the end of it.

Employers only start disciplinary proceedings over things that directly impact their business, these college rape tribunals however are quite clearly nothing more than feminist activists finding an alternate way to make all rape accusations be considered real even when there is no evidence and turn as many men into rapists as possible.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

But again: who gets raped and then decides to go through an arbitrary private review process rather than file a criminal complaint where the stakes for the accused are much lower?

She was always going to be treated with skepticism because that's how due process is supposed to work.

[John]

Exactly. Either the state and or DOJ needs to be down there investigating the local police and finding out why they are telling rape victims who happen to be college students no our problem, or this woman must not think what happened to her is a very big deal.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Acts that would constitute crimes happen all the time in workplaces and other private associations and are the basis for expulsion or termination without the police being called.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Petty theft and harassment is not the same thing as rape.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Sure, but all kinds of things that could be serious criminal charges are the grounds for showing an employee the door. Heck, think of prominent athletes and coaches who are terminated or suspended just for allegations against them. Colleges may have 'kangaroo courts' but they likely offer more process than the average workplace or association. People just focus on them for reasons partisan, not principled.

[Rasilio]

Incorrect, in those handful of cases they are very highly compensated and public representatives of a company (the team) and as such have very personalized contracts which spell out in minute detail what conditions the person can be terminated under, one of them is almost always a morals clause.

If the team tried to "fire" a random office clerk the same way they'd be facing a wrongful termination suite so fast their heads would spin.

[Rich]

Pill to switch off hunger possible as 'anti-appetite' molecule discovered

"Chew a little acetate and you'll lose a lotta weight!"

[anon]

I thought they already had this drug: We called it cocaine.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Special Religious Exemption Case For Eddie

"Are religious prisoners specially entitled to conjugal visits?
the claim in Thomas was that a prison's no-conjugal-visits policy substantially burdened prisoner Gregory Thomas's religious practice:
Thomas avers that his religion requires him to marry and, in fact, to have multiple wives. Thomas avers that DOC's policy concerning visits from spouses precludes him from enjoying conjugal visits with his wives. Thomas avers that this policy has a detrimental effect on the status of his marriages, because his wives are threatening to divorce him under Islamic religious rules if they are unable to have intercourse with him."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....al-visits/

[Notorious G.K.C.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OAB3kpb2YM

[Zeb]

My religion forbids me from serving prison time.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Looking for weekend reading? Here's an online mini-book called "zombie simpsons: how the best show ever became the broadcasting undead." It traces why The Simpsons used to be good and how it was replaced with a mediocre show with the same title.

http://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/

[Brett L]

In Florida, An Act Relating to the Zombie Apocalypse.

In reality, its just Dems trying to kill a bill that allows people being evacuated by the state to possess their firearms on their person whether or not they have a CCW.

[gaijin]

And this just in: Obamacare saved the economy!

Without Obamacare Spending Q1 GDP would have been negative 1%

[John]

The funny thing is what do you want to bet any number of Progs will read that and actually think that is evidencd of the Act's success?

[anon]

I love how these dipshits assume no other actions may have been taken with that money.

[John]

In fairness, I am pretty sure the guy writing at that zero hedge link is being sarcastic and understands why this doesn't say anything good about the ACA or the economy.

[anon]

Oh, I'm sure the guy at zero hedge stated it sarcastically. The Government didn't, though.

[sarcasmic]

Well, yeah! Come on, enlighten us! Who would have used that money and for what? Be specific! You can't! That means you can't prove that it would have been used for something better! That means you're wrong! And racist! Why do you hate our black president?

[anon]

If these people played just one board game in their entire lives, they might understand the concept of limited resources/etc.

[Brett L]

It's the "Scrooge's Money Bin" theory of capital.

[Lord Humungus]

*mumbles* broken windows

[Lord Humungus]

I'm halfway through the uber-long documentary "The World at War". The makers certainly don't pull many punches. This is not a series about the glories of WWII - but a sobering chronicle of misery and death. Recommended for anyone wanting to watch the real fruits of war.

[anon]

But BROKEN WINDOWZ!

[Swiss Servator ...etwas]

Already saw that, and had the live instructional course too.

Brrrr....

[Restoras]

Yep. It is a great documentary.

[John]

The only bad thing about the documentary is that it is so well done and so intelligent that it depresses you to think about how lousy the documentaries they make now are in comparison.

[SugarFree]

Surprise! Dashcam video shows just enough to make cop's story impossible.

She in the white car at the beginning and she edges past him. There's no way that she aimed the ca at him and tried to run him over.

Just like shouting "Stop resisting!" give them license to death you to death, jumping on your car hood means you tried to run them over.

He she shot her 4 times. For underage drinking.

[sarcasmic]

He didn't shoot her for drinking. He shot her for failure to obey.

[SugarFree]

You say potato, I say headshot.

[gaijin]

He she shot her 4 times. For underage drinking.

I have always heard drinking and driving can be dead;y

[anon]

Yeah, you might encounter a cop!

[John]

No link. Is that the case down in C'Ville, VA?

[SugarFree]

The 2nd sentence is a link. The style sheet is haywire. (Doesn't excuse my typos, WTF fingers?)

It's in Kentucky! Woo! Bluegrass 4ever!

[sarcasmic]

My wife wants us to move to Kentucky.

[SugarFree]

Parts of it are nice.

[John]

I have always like Louisville and Lexington the times I have visited.

[Jerryskids]

Parts of it are Appalachia - unless you and your wife have kinfolk there, everybody is going to be all "You ain't from around here, are you, boy?" on your ass. I mean, I live in an All-American area (red neck, white trash, blue collar) where you've still got klan rallys and snake-handling churches off on the piney-woods dirt roads, and I get nervous going up to see my sister up around Corbin. The banjo music that starts playing in my head once I get off the interstate doesn't help.

[John]

Thanks. It just infuriates me the Daily Mail is the only paper that will cover this kind of stuff. Our major media is just loathsome. Cops kill innocent people damn near every day in this country and the Washington Post and the NYT cannot be bothered. They have important things to cover like the next Clinton baby and how some old man in Nevada said something racist.

[Zeb]

The DM is pretty loathsome too. But they do like to cover fucked up stuff from the US a lot without giving a pass when it is cops doing it.

[John]

The DM is a loathsome tabloid. I respect them more than our media for the simple reason that while they have no morals or sense of propriety, they are not ideological. They will cover any story they think will sell papers. You should never read the DM for the absolute truth. You should however respect them for being in their own way quite fearless in their reporting.

[Jordan]

Did the Reason stylesheet just change for anyone else?

[Bam!]

Yes.

[Auric Demonocles]

Yup.

[sarcasmic]

Yeah. For the better.

[Jordan]

Not really. Now links are indistinguishable from plain-text.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

This.

[sarcasmic]

I didn't notice that. Weird.

[hamilton]

The Day of the Commenters reference must've scared them.

[DEG]

I couldn't help myself. I was lurking back in those days and missed all the fun. So naturally I had to go find the reference to it on urkobold. More animated gifs of Shay Laren please.

[anon]

Libertarian Moment has arrived?

[Restoras]

Not until Bo says so!!

[Rich]

It stripped out commenter links. That's not good.

[anon]

and here I thought that playing with my font size fucked it up.

[Rich]

You broke the Internet!

[hamilton]

Wow. What the fuck?

[Snark Plissken]

Yes, and it borked my link.

[Aloysious]

Mine still works. Using gOOgle Chrome and Reasonable.

[Snark Plissken]

Apparently it's just the colors make the links look like normal text.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Bring me the intern's head!

[DEG]

Yep.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Oh brave new Reason that has such squirrels in it.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

They did it during AM links hoping we wouldn't notice.

[Ted S.]

Why do I have the feeling they're trying to make it more friendly for those using fondle-screen technology?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Anything would be an improvement in that case.

[Auric Demonocles]

I'm actually sort of impressed how awful they manage to make the mobile site.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Yes. Freaking me out. Somehow lots of white space. Almost too legible, if that's possible to someone with eyesight as bad as mine.

[Auric Demonocles]

Waaaay too much wasted white space.

[The Late P Brooks]

What the fuck just happened?

Nice going, skwerlz. The page has formatted itself in a completely unusable manner.

[Lord Humungus]

I thought it was just me - hyperlinks also seem to be messed up.

[Pro Libertate]

Yet we still have threaded comments. Why couldn't they die, too?

[Auric Demonocles]

Do we

[Auric Demonocles]

at least

[Auric Demonocles]

get more

[Auric Demonocles]

posts before

[Auric Demonocles]

we run

[Auric Demonocles]

splat

[db]

*thud*

[db]

Oh, for the halcyon days of linear commenting! (Of course I would comment a whole lot less if I had to quote people to whom I'm responding.

[db]

It's entirely useless on my Android tablet with Chrome. Stock android browser just as bad there. My phone reads it but not well. Ever hear of multiplatform testing, skwerlz?

[Lord Humungus]

speaking of execution: I recently watched "Citizen X", a 1995 HBO movie (with Donald Sutherland!) about Andrei Chikatilo who confessed to killing ~56 boys & girls.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Chikatilo

He was executed in prison with one bullet behind the ear. At least from a cost point it is helluva lot cheaper than many other methods.

[John]

I have seen that too. That guy was something else. The thing that stuck me about that was how the Russians don't give the guy any warning. They just come in and shoot him one morning.

[Lord Humungus]

Random question of the day: If you were facing a death penalty, would you want to know when it was going to happen? I'm not sure I would.

[John]

I think no. I say this because at least for me the dread of something is nearly always worse than the actual experience. I said when I got back from going overseas that the dread and uncertainty of going made the week before I went more miserable than any week after I left. I think I would rather not know so I didn't have the dread.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"Toronto library asked to shelve Dr. Seuss' 'Hop on Pop' because it promotes violence

"Toronto Public Library was asked to pull the book because it "encouraged children to use violence against their fathers."...

"In addition to apologizing to fathers in the Toronto area, the complainant also asked that the library "pay for damages resulting from the book.""

http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/20.....z30NQemvVt

[Bam!]

Fits in with last nights wacky British anti-free-speech laws.

[sarcasmic]

Anyone who says those things has never actually read the book.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Next complaint, Fox in Sox for animal cruelty.

[Tim]

I'M FREAKING OUT MAN!

[SugarFree]

I told you not to take the brown acid. Don't look into a mirror, man.

[Rich]

Maintain, man.

[Tim]

I'm going up to the roof to fly home.

[Brett L]

Goddamnit! Do ducks have to get up on a roof before they fly? No. Take off from the ground if you can fly.

[The Late P Brooks]

Did reason just bring a site designer from Gawker?

Hint: I will not be switching operating systems or browsers to accommodate somebody's idea of what a "modern" website should look like, or how it should work.

[Jordan]

At least they haven't brought over Gawker's godawful Kinja commenting system.

[Pro Libertate]

I just had a horrible vision of the Reason Foundation being acquired somehow by Gawker.

[Fist of Etiquette]

'ello, what's all this then?

[Snark Plissken]

A mere side effect of making the first comment slot more equitably available.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Men of daring such as myself welcome new challenges.

[Snark Plissken]

A new dawn of equality is opening up, FoE. Your false confidence shall soon be swept aside by the torrent of historical inevitability.

[Lord Humungus]

A thruppence for your thoughts, guvernor?

[db]

What was that stuff up above about a threatening commenter named Todd and a Boston meetup? What did I miss?

[tarran]

We were menaced by the great Todd Spango, I think.

[db]

I had to look that up and it still makes no sense.

[Auric Demonocles]

One of Mary Stack's fake names. She used that fake name, got the location where we were meeting and said she'd bring by "her friend Mary. She's always wanted to meet you guys". tarran recognized the fake name when he saw it later.

[db]

Wow.

[Auric Demonocles]

Fortunately we all seem to have made it home alive.

[Sevo]

"The Democrats' minimum wage bill is expected to die in the Senate today after a party line vote."

Well, the GOP is worth *something* after all.

[db]

What in the living fuck? A new mobile version that I cannot get out of and a "menu" that just spews text all down the left hand side of the screen, obliterating what's under it?

I go to Europe for a couple days and this place falls to shit.

[Sevo]

Link test:
"A footnote in the program for Berkeley Rep's "Tribes" warns audiences that "Two tobacco- and nicotine-free herbal cigarettes will be smoked during Act II. ... Patrons with concerns may watch Act II on a video screen in the bar."
http://www.sfgate.com/entertai.....439582.php

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Go to the bar and complain about those unhealthy cigarettes!

[RishJoMo]

That dude looks really cool man.

http://www.GoGoAnon.tk

[db]

...and then he woke up. It had all been a horrible dream.

The End?

[Auric Demonocles]

A long, communal nightmare.

[db]

The strange geometries unfolded around us, whirling in gibbering frenzy, until suddenly, as if an eldritch tear in the aether had opened at once, it ceased, leaving only small eddies of dust settling back to the cold and unholy ground.

[Auric Demonocles]

Why is PubMed crashing so much during the last week before my Comps Exam is due. This is what happens when we don't adequately fund science. Looking at you Republicans. Ass-hats.

Well, that's one less FB friend I need to follow.

[hamilton]

Wait, don't unfriend her if she's a ginger.

[Auric Demonocles]

It's a brunette. And also a dude.

[Rasilio]

Is she Jake from State Farm?

[ElevenOnly]

Hey guys! Did you know that apparently Animal Farm was about how capitalism is evil?

Click here to see doublethink in action

[Juice]

facepalm