U.S. Captures Alleged Benghazi Ringleader, GM Recalls All the Cars, Lost Ayn Rand Novel to Be Published: P.M. Links

• 

  Credit: tingley / photo on flickr

  The United States has captured the alleged ringleader of the violent attack that killed four at the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The guy's name is Ahmed Abu Khatallah, and U.S. forces and law enforcement personnel snatched him on Sunday on the outskirts of Benghazi. He is being transported to the United States.

• The militant group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has targeted the Iraqi city of Baguba, which is less than 40 miles north of Baghdad.
• Joe Biden talked with Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff about reports that the United States had spied on her. He says he "reassured" her that the government had made "real changes" to its surveillance rules, which will come as a surprise to anybody who has actually been paying attention, what with it not really being all that true.
• Today is the 20th anniversary of the infamous O.J. Simpson white Bronco chase, when authorities tried to get the former football player to surrender to charges that he murdered his ex-wife and a friend.
• General Motors has recalled millions more cars. Are there any GM cars left out there that haven't been recalled yet? Is it too soon to start recalling the 2015 models?
• A lost Ayn Rand novel, titled Ideal and written in 1934, is going to be published next summer by Penguin Random House.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

The United States has captured the alleged ringleader of the violent attack that killed four at the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Did they seize his YouTube account?

[John]

What difference does it make?

[Number 2]

Darn. Not quick enough.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

"The United States has captured the alleged ringleader."

What difference does it make at this point?

In any event, I thought they caught the guy who did it. You know, that, um, movie and such the.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Yes, yes they did. The branch of our military known as the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department caught him.

[Sudden]

Our military can only look with envy at the armaments that the elite LASD squad gets. They get Seal Team 6 level support.

[hamilton]

Now if they could just trade him to the Taliban for an ex-IRS agent who could run the VA, that'd tie everything up quite nicely.

[AlmightyJB]

If they don't lose him first

[R C Dean]

Now what? Send him to Gitmo? Treat him like a civilian criminal?

Is it possible to be under US court and criminal law jurisdiction when you do something in Libya? If this guy broke US law in Libya, wouldn't that mean that everyone in Libya is committing three felonies a day, since apparently it is subject to US law?

[db]

Possibly of interest to SugarFree.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

RISKY click

[SugarFree]

My robot pancreas went sentient 9:37 AM EST, October 2nd, 2017. My docotrs panicked and tried to pull the plug, but the insulin shots were already being delivered by blood drone. The human race creased to be the dominant species on the Planet Earth within 24 hours.

[Fist of Etiquette]

If you can process this Twix bar, you are the resistance.

[Injun, as in from India]

A lost Ayn Rand novel, titled Ideal and written in 1934, is going to be published next summer by Penguin Random House.

But... But... She took social security checks and used Medicare! /prog

[Libertymike]

Yes, she was not immune to playing the role of parasite. After all, objectivism is not exactly on the same moral level as anarchy.

[Brandybuck]

Don't paint anarchists with such a rosy brush. I know quite a few that utilize government roads on a daily basis.

[Libertymike]

Rumor has it that some of them have actually paid for using such roads.

[R C Dean]

Not under a voluntary contract, they haven't.

[Libertymike]

That be true.

[VicRattlehead]

As opposed to the road we are allowed to maintain by ourselves?
Its not like we can form a community in the hills and live freely without interference. If they allowed us this they wouldn't hear from me again but since they seem to love murdering American citizens that live OTG by burning them alive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege and don't find it necessary to criminally prosecute the murderers or the master of babykillers Janet Reno i somehow doubt that if we had a successful anarchist compound that they would leave us alone

[Azathoth!!]

You steal my money every time I get paid, I AM NOT being a parasite if I cash the checks when you dribble a bit of it back to me.

[VicRattlehead]

No, but it is validating them and that is worse for liberty than letting them steal your money

[C. Anacreon]

I would think if an Objectivist receives a check in the mail, he or she would cash it. What good would it be to send it back? You can be against the social security system but still cash their checks, I fail to see the hypocrisy. Forest/trees.

I'm against the high taxes in California but I still pay them -- shouldn't California refuse to accept my tax money, as if they do they are hypocrites?

[Fluffy]

She made all her money in the days of 80% marginal income tax rates.

I'd be interested in seeing an analysis of whether she ever went federal debit / credit negative overall.

That's not just a dodge, either, since she wrote a character who endorsed the use of open violence to retrieve income tax payments.

[Libertymike]

Yes, just like a libertarian who denounces crony capitalism is not a hypocrite to support his local city's effort to invoke eminent domain in order to take the prime real estate of his neighbors in furtherance of his plans to build, at the expense of city and county tax slaves, an indoor sports / multiple use arena to house the basketball team of which he possesses the controlling interest.

[Fluffy]

Dude, you're just wrong.

Even argued from the perspective of your anarchist position you're wrong.

If in anarchist analysis the tax money previously taken from me is always and without exception to be considered "stolen", then I am morally entitled to use any means, up to and including violence, to get that stolen property back from the state.

If I would be entitled to fight my way into Fort Knox, machine-gun everyone, and TAKE my money back, surely I am entitled to let them GIVE me some of my money back.

[Libertymike]

First, how about the hypothetical I posed above? Is that libertarian a hypocrite?

Second, you may not remember, but when you have commented upon this issue in the past, I have expressed my own hypocrisy and inconsistencies about it and ultimately agreed with you that the concept / strategy of hyper-enjoyment of the welfare state - even by anarchists and libertarians - may very well expedite the end of Leviathan.

Third, not all anarchists endorse the notion that one would be justified in shooting IRS agents in order to effect a replevin of the property confiscated by the government via taxation.

In fact, wouldn't you agree that most anarchists fully support the NAP?.

[VicRattlehead]

Killing people will not effect the electronic world our currency exists in, no matter how many tax collectors you slay.
but yes if the government sent ARMED agents to your door to steal your possessions you have the right and moral obligation to your countrymen to shoot them before they have the chance to murder you or otherwise strip you of your freedom, and that is most definitely in keeping with the NAP since the Govt initiated force and theft

[VicRattlehead]

No that fucker is a hypocrite, and just as bad as any big government type. this is why eminent domain should be repealed permanently.
If its inconveniencing someone too fucking bad that's life, and eminent domain is THEFT

[lap83]

If only we could all be as logically pure and consistent as every progressive ever. Bless them for showing us such perfection is possible. If we would just believe.

[hamilton]

General Motors has recalled millions more cars.

To be fair, it's not like they made them with their own money.

[Andrew S.]

Plus they know that if recalling all these cars puts them into economic turmoil, they have nothing to worry about.

[Injun, as in from India]

+1 Volt

[Restoras]

And the repairs just creates more jobs.

[Libertymike]

For bureaucrats, both "private" and public.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The militant group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has targeted the Iraqi city of Baguba...

Wait. I had something for this.

[Restoras]

Immigrants. Cramming their low riders full of free healthcare and... snow.

[VicRattlehead]

Shooting up the jobs

[expat]

When did Archer go to Iraq? Did I miss a season?

[Libertymike]

Ann?

[expat]

Nope

[hamilton]

No, Jonathan. You missed the episode where the Enterprise drone strikes Ramadi?

[Protagoronus]

And that's how you get ants!

[JW]

Do you want insurgents? Because THAT's how you get insurgents!

[Slumbrew]

+1 Yuuuup.

[JW]

What? I was thinking of 72 Virgins Island.

[John]

Joe Biden talked with Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff about reports that the United States had spied on her. He says he "reassured" her that the government had made "real changes" to its surveillance rules, which will come as a surprise to anybody who has actually been paying attention, what with it not really being all that true.

Joe assured her that only agents with a Q clearance were allowed to sniff her panties.

[PapayaSF]

He also told he she should have a doctor look at that mole on her left buttock.

[Rich]

+1 hairy ass mole

[Palin's Buttplug]

One of you wingnuts should give ol' Joe credit for his prescient call to partition the Iraq nuthouse into three sectarian areas back in 2005.

[John]

BUSHPIG!!

And people give Joe lots of credit. Hell most people are working hard to ensure he becomes President in the next year or so.

[Pro Libertate]

I'll address this point. Partitions have been largely disfavored for quite some time now, mostly because of what happened after some partitioning after the First World War.

I actually do think we should support--diplomatically, I mean--an independent Kurdistan. They've been getting screwed for a long time, and the Turks have been asses lately. So fuck it.

[Restoras]

Well what is going to end up happening is Iran will grab southern Iraq, Syria will grab northwestern Iraq, and Turkey will grab the kurdish area.

It won't be trhee independent states out of what is currently the borders of iraq - just a carve up of the carcass.

[Juice]

Iran would be stupid to "grab" southern Iraq. The Arabs, despite being Shiite, would not take too kindly to being ruled by Iranians.

[Restoras]

Maybe - but who is going to stop them if that's what they want to do?

[Pro Libertate]

Okay, like Poland. That, too, ended well.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

The partitioning after WW1 was a complete act of arrogance with no regard for existing tribes that led almost directly to the current situation.

[Restoras]

Yuuup. It was all about granting 'colonies' to the victors.

[Homple]

See David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace for a good history of the carve up.

[Restoras]

I actually think this might be the only tenable solution long-term. That entire part of the middle-east was created/imposed on the region by the Allies after WW1 and the demise of ths Sick-Man of Europe.

Of course, what I really want to hear about is how the IRS scandal is totally Fake. Come on, Liar, tell us how fake it is.

[ChrisO]

If the Iraqis want to split apart from each other, that's their business, not ours.

For the record, I agreed with Biden on this back then. However, it was always a non-starter because the Turks were never going to go for an independent Kurdistan, and a Shiite Arab state would have become an Iranian satellite (which I suppose is what the current Iraq is, anyway).

[Juice]

It wasn't Joe's original idea, but why do you have to troll? Can't you just bring up a topic without calling people names? Anyway, how are you going to partition Iraq without seriously fucking the Sunnis? The oil is almost entirely in the Kurdish and Shiite regions. The Sunni region is mostly desert and not much else. And will there be mass migrations? Refugees? Ethnic cleansing? More war?

[C. Anacreon]

The way to remember this is:

It's always Sunni in the desert.

[Homple]

Keep on the Sunni side
Always on the Sunni side
Keep on the Sunni side of strife

by The (other, musical) Carter Family

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

You're not. Nor is it really our problem at this point. Keep them together and they will kill each other, separate them and they will kill each other.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Has this been linked yet?
Michelle Obama: Even with Harvard degree, I didn't know how to feed my kids.

[Pro Libertate]

Tens of thousands of years of Homo sapiens success down the tubes.

[hamilton]

What the actual fuck? How fucking hard is "meats and fresh vegetables and maybe stay away from too much of that sugary shit"?

[Restoras]

Not government approved.

Proggies are like the average Russkie - won't take a dump without a plan.

[Agammamon]

Like submariners - can't take a dump without an approved SOP and a checklist.

[VicRattlehead]

AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA Nailed it
+1000 Navy Vet

[grrizzly]

"I thought to myself, if a Princeton and Harvard-educated professional woman doesn't know how to adequately feed her kids, then what are other parents going through who don't have access to the information I have?" she recalled.

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, let's dig deeper into that statement. Just what information do you have, you unelected, unappointed spokesperson for, what, exactly? NSA?

[Brandon]

" then what are other parents going through who don't have access to the informationcredentials I have?

Credentialed, not educated. This woman is a fuckwit.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Her senior thesis at Princeton would agree with you.

[grrizzly]

How come the lesser people don't have access to this information? I thought everyone has seen the food pyramid. Oh, wait...

[Episiarch]

"If a demigod such as myself can't do it, what chance do the peasant scum have?"

[Auric Demonocles]

Let them eat cake!

[Pro Libertate]

Are you a food god?

[Protagoronus]

Rey, when the First Lady asks if you are a food god, you say Yes!

[Episiarch]

Yes.

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, okay. Maybe you should advise Ms. Obama on her food choices and commandments.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Don't talk about food until you've tried the rice!!!!

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, there you are. I did, and it's very yummy. We'll be buying more of that.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

So, I'm not getting kicked?

[Pro Libertate]

No, it is worthy of human consumption. As I told you before, we have a Peruvian restaurant nearby, so we already like the cuisine.

Love TJ's--always some new discovery to be made. My wife is now addicted to the blood orange soda.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I was drinking a bottle of that a day, and had to stop. French Berry Lemonade too.

[Pro Libertate]

Parking is a bitch there, but I'm ever so glad they've graced my town with their presence.

[Brett L]

My wife has decided we like Trader Joe's now. I'm uncertain. They have a pretty limited selection of fresh veg and meat, but what they do have is cheap as hell.

[Pro Libertate]

We don't do our primary shopping there. That's Publix. So we go there for stuff we either can only get at TJ's or for some of their surprisingly cheap private label brands.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

A demi-god in a mushroom demi-glace.

[JW]

That was translated from Wookie, right?

[wareagle]

still battling that self-esteem issue, I see.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Good God Almighty. Did she rally just call every parent in America that's not her stupid and helpless?

[Fr?ulein Nikki]

Especially the ones who are less educated than she is.

[jesse.in.mb]

Umm, I could prepare a basic, balanced and filling meal at age 8. I hadn't even finished elementary school yet. I don't even understand why she's making a connection between a diploma and kitchen schools unless she minored in Home Ec and still came out clueless.

[Fr?ulein Nikki]

People think I'm the worst? Well, here's what my boyfriend and BFF said when I shared this quote with them:
Him: "Do they teach home ec at Harvard?"
Her: "That's what Radcliffe is for, isn't it?"

[AlmightyJB]

It says here that you're pre-law. What law school are you going to go to?
I hadn't really thought about that. After I graduate, I plan on getting married.
And then?
And then... I'll be married.

[Auric Demonocles]

I notice that you didn't come up with either great quote.

[Raven Nation]

Nikki @ 5:07pm

That's awesome.

[jesse.in.mb]

Your worstness is so great that it's developed its own worst microclimate!

[Mad Scientist]

You only think you prepared a balanced meal. How could you possibly know for sure without credentialed TOP MEN to tell you!?!?

[jesse.in.mb]

Actually, in hindsight it was way more in line with the food pyramid than what I would feed myself now.

No wonder I was a chubby little kid!

[Corning]

Umm, I could prepare a basic, balanced and filling meal at age 8.

Pop Tarts, Spaghetti Os and Pizza rolls for the win!!!

[AlmightyJB]

Yes. yes she did. That's for sure worth a smack in the head with a shovel. This is everything that is wrong about progressives.

[Restoras]

Of course. Since she is barely smart enough to do it even with a Harvard degree, how can the average American be expected to do it without lots of 'help' from the government - in fact the government should just be in charge of it all, right?

[Zeb]

I think she called herself stupid and helpless too. Well not helpless anymore, I guess, since she has a private chef and the whole Whitehouse staff to help her.

[110 Lean]

I think she unwittingly just admitted that she was an Affirmative Action beneficiary that likely didn't deserve either one of her degrees.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I thought that went without saying.

Ditto her $314,000/yr job as vp of "community outreach" at the hospital.

[The Last American Hero]

Nonsense. Her hospital position ensured the hospital wouldn't get hit too hard on Medicare or Medicaid audit findings.

[Zeb]

And yet she appears to have two healthy children. Maybe it's not that fucking hard to feed your kids.
I'm convinced that any problem there is with childhood obesity is entirely because kids in general are less active than they used to be.

[Pathogen]

+1 Xbox

[Mad Scientist]

Fortunately for Sasha and Malia, every nutritional need can be met with a roasted, boiled, or baked arm once it's been freshly removed from its socket.

[MJGreen]

So she inadvertently confirmed the adage that intellectuals are some of the dumbest people around.

[Ted S.]

I'm sorry you're so stupid, Michelle.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Yes, I believe it was.

I established it was part of the three P's of progressivism but Ted made it four:

Paternalism, puritanism, projection and presumptuousness.

What a dolt she is. Didn't realize having a Harvard degree was linked to eating well. My mother doesn't have one and she mastered the art of cooking.

[Zeb]

It seems like in a lot of cases a fancy degree from a fancy college has an inverse relationship to ability to make food. With privilege often comes cluelessness about the basics.

[Dweebston]

Then I have no choice but to defer to Michelle's wisdom and conclude that your mother is better educated than she.

[Pathogen]

She's trying to open up and empathize with urban, and middle America through patronizing condescension. Can't you just let her into your heart? It's okay that you're too fucking stupid to make basic responsible choices about how to feed your children, don't feel bad. Even the mighty, and educated Michelle? had struggled (for about 5 minutes on the way home from a fundraiser one time, she didn't want to cook, and the nanny was on vacation, but McDonalds was pure shit) with responsible nutrition choices. After warming seats for several years in two different ivy league collages, and struggling that one time... what chance do a bunch of rubes and slack-jawed simpletons have, with their inferior intellect, and lack of impulse control?

[Apatheist ?_??]

The projection is getting pretty blatant.

[Rich]

RACIST!

[Injun, as in from India]

Joe Biden talked with Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff about reports that the United States had spied on her. He says he "reassured" her that the government had made "real changes" to its surveillance rules...

Hope and change, Dilma. Hope and freaking change.

[Pro Libertate]

So, is Ahmed Abu Khatallah in the Director's Guild?

[Tonio]

Good one.

[VicRattlehead]

Pending approval after we view the contents of his Youtube account

[Fist of Etiquette]

Joe Biden talked with Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff about reports that the United States had spied on her.

Anyone the administration has Biden talking to isn't important enough to spy on in the first place.

[some guy]

"You're the Grand What of Where? Oh yeah, don't worry. We'll guard your privacy with the same standards we use for our own citizens. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear! Amiright?"

[JW]

"I mean, for the right price, we can lose your records. We can fuck up just about anything that we set our minds to.

We lost 2 years of emails from our old IRS director. Can you believe that!? Yeah, nobody else does either."

[Tonio]

A lost Ayn Rand novel, titled Ideal and written in 1934, is going to be published next summer by Penguin Random House.

Meh. She really was a dreadful writer. However, she had some good ideas and this will surely piss off the proggies and drive them into a frothy rage, thus driving her ideas into the public debate.

[Cytotoxic]

Bitch shut up! All of her book prior to AS were good. If you don't like it long, everything before FountainHead. Anthem is better than Brave New World. We The Living is a great look into life in early Soviet Russia.

[Restoras]

I really did like We The Living a lot.

[Tonio]

Anthem is almost as awkward and clumsy as BNW.

[Cytotoxic]

Whatever. It's world was far more believable and its character actions far more interesting than BNW. It wasn't 'awkward', the pacing was just deliberate.

[Fluffy]

In retrospect, We the Living is pretty much the definitive Lenin-era novel about the Soviet Union.

The parts of it that were considered unrealistic at the time are now considered true to life by everyone.

[Rich]

Diiiiiiiilmaaaaaaa!

[db]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/17/.....e-dropped/

I had no.idea Edie Brickell was married to Paul Simon.. I saw her last year on tour with Steve Martin and she still has the cutest freaking voice ever. She's absolutely adorable, physically and vocally.

[John]

She is adorable. And Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars is still one of the best debut albums anyone has ever done. That record doesn't have a bad song on it. Sadly, she seems to have exhausted her supply of good songs in that one shot.

[Rhywun]

That is one of those albums I thought I liked when it came out - and haven't listened to in 20 years.

[Ted S.]

Is she still what she is or what?

[hamilton]

nice.

[Episiarch]

She's so dirty hippie though.

[Restoras]

Good dirty, or not good dirty?

[Episiarch]

Not good. See how I paired it with hippie? That was the tipoff.

[VicRattlehead]

"How do you hide money from a hippie?"

RIP Dave Brockie :.(

[C. Anacreon]

Her band was a Grateful Dead cover band before they started doing their own stuff. You can hear the Garcia influence on all their guitar solos.

[AlmightyJB]

Just no.

[db]

I was in the formative years of my adolescence during the height.of.her.popularity and so.I.still get a bit.of a sentimental boner when.I.hear her.voice.

[AlmightyJB]

Valid

[Fist of Etiquette]

General Motors has recalled millions more cars.

Unplanned obsolescence.

[some guy]

Releasing products for beta testing does not work in all industries.

[AlmightyJB]

I'm more upset I clicked on a link that gave Bloomberg a fraction of a cent

[Palin's Buttplug]

Conservatives Quickly Label Latest Benghazi News A Distraction

The news that U.S. Special Forces captured a Libyan militant accused of leading the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi in 2012 was clearly meant to distract from the real scandal at hand, whatever that is.

Almost immediately following the reports that Ahmed Abu Khattala was in U.S. custody, conservatives furthered their distraction meme, questioning the motives and timing behind Khattala's capture.

Fox News' Kennedy suggested that the the news was timed to boost Hillary Clinton's book tour and distract from her role in the administration's response to the Benghazi attack.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/l.....i-khattala

BENGHAZZIII!! BENGHAZI!! BLOOP! BLOOP! DERP!

[Andrew S.]

Is there an e-mail address we can contact? Like [e-mail]? I think the bot needs to be rebooted. It's performance lately has been sub-Reason commenting system.

[Palin's Buttplug]

I am disappointed in Trey Gowdy. I thought he would have had the crazy cranked up to '10' by now.

[Restoras]

Tell us how the IRS is a FAKE SCANDAL, liar.

[Game of Thrones fan]

Can't have a fake scandal without a fake computer crash. It is known.

[VicRattlehead]

"The news that U.S. Special Forces captured a Libyan militant accused of leading the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi in 2012 was clearly meant to distract from the real scandal at hand, whatever that is."
The IRS one?
The NSA one?
The DEA one?
The DOJ one?
The Iraq one?
he only has like a hundred scandals to pick from how is that serious journalism at all?

[Francisco d'Anconia]

An open letter from George R.R. Martin addressing 'Game of Thrones' fans' deepest fear.

I want to die. Dearly, truly, monomaniacally, I want to be mulch. If I could shuffle off right now, I would, in less than a heartbeat. God knows I've tried.

But HBO won't let me.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

all quoted...sorry

[Auric Demonocles]

I caught up with the finale last night. Considering the changes made, I'm not sure if HBO cares whether Martin tells his own story or not.

[Episiarch]

I actually think that might be the entire freaking point of their deviations. No more reliance on him.

[some guy]

Yep. They always knew they would catch up with the books and would have no choice but to write their own ending. Might as well write their own middle too.

[robc]

Except he has said that he has given them the plot outlines for the rest of the books already.

[Auric Demonocles]

I'm going to post GOT Season 4/ASOIF Book 5 Spoilers concerning the changes from the finale:

.

.

Now whoever is down here, suck it up. I warned you not to scroll. Removing the Tyrion/Jaime fight really fucks up both of their development/motivation for the rest of the series. That one conversation was supposed to 1) give Tyrion the final push to kill Tywin 2) give Tyrion the final push to depression and alcoholism 3) give Jaime tons of doubts about whether releasing Tyrion was the right thing to do 4) sabotage Jaime's relationship with Cersei to the point that he abandons her during a trial by combat.

[MJGreen]

I don't know, all of that can still be justified with what they've set up. Is Tyrion's depression a big plot point in the grand scheme of things, or just some business for him until he gets to where he's going?

[Ted S.]

Ah, the joys of not giving a shit about Game of Thrones.

I just hope the guy doesn't have any fans like Kathy Bates in Misery.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Go ahead. Wallow in ignorance.

[Juice]

I too am one that just shrugs ignorantly when all the people are buzzing about some show like GOT or Breaking Bad or Walking Dead. I have no idea what's going on in any of them and I don't care.

[Ted S.]

I've never been one for the "latest great TV show" buzz. I remember in college wondering what the hell the big deal was about Twin Peaks.

[db]

Yeah, same here. I wait until the.buzz dies down, and watch it on DVD if it looks good.

[Juice]

I thought it was boring when it came out. I appreciate it more now. It's still kind of boring though.

[Slumbrew]

http://www.theonion.com/articl.....a-tel,429/

[Rhywun]

Man, I hate that guy.

[Juice]

I own a TV and watch probably too much of it, but for some reason I'm just not that into these huge blockbuster shows that everyone watches talks about online because of great online marketing. I tried watching Walking Dead and it sucks. Tried watching GOT, but I just couldn't get into it, even with boobies. Now, Boardwalk Empire, that's a great show. And I'm not proud of it, but through my gf's influence I have watched every episode of True Blood and it's not bad.

[Corning]

I'm just not that into these huge blockbuster shows

You do realize something like 20x more people watched Giligan's Isle then have watched GoT and the walking dead and breaking bad combined right?

These shows really are not huge block busters.

[Pro Libertate]

They'd be afraid he might die under stress, so he's safe.

[Rhywun]

I really liked season 1 but for some reason I lost all interest and haven't watched since. I've read (most of) the books - it's not like I shouldn't like it. It's just... I wanted to spend my time on other things. Plus I didn't want to pay for HBO any more.

[Auric Demonocles]

Today is the 20th anniversary of the infamous O.J. Simpson white Bronco chase, when authorities tried to get the former football player to surrender to charges that he murdered his ex-wife and a friend.

The first news story I remember happening is OJ's trial.

[PapayaSF]

Whippersnapper. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[Ted S.]

I'd guess the Iran hostage crisis for me.

[grrizzly]

I followed the 1982 World Cup much more closely than the current one.

[Ted S.]

I only got to see the final, since we didn't have cable and friends of my parents were from northern Germany. Fucking Italians.

I was much more interested in the tournament four years later, and stayed up until 11:30 to watch the final on tape-delay. Fucking Argentina.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Jesse and I were trying to figure out how old you are. Sudden thinks you are in your '20s.

[jesse.in.mb]

Be fair, Sudden said late 20s/early 30s, I said mid- to late 30s.

[grrizzly]

Jesse is right, but Sudden is not the only one who made the same guess.

[jesse.in.mb]

Jesse is right

Three words I will never tire of.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Three words I will never tire of.

You might if you heard them more often.

[jesse.in.mb]

You might if you heard them more often.

You wound me. I wouldn't want people to think me a glutton for praise.

[Ted S.]

Me or grrizzly? I'm exactly 11 years to the day younger than Boy George.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Grrizzly. He has a youthful look to him. He could pass for a college student or a 40 year old, depending on how he is dressed.

[Riven]

Clinton's hearings. I was in first grade.

[110 Lean]

The Goldwater campaign here.

[Restoras]

Iran Hostage Crisis for me as well.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Reagan getting shot.

[Almanian!]

...my freshman year in college.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

That's one thing I don't remember.

[PBR Streetgang]

Iran Hostage here as well

[SusanM]

My first was the death of John Lennon

[Pro Libertate]

Whoa. Before my time. Maybe one of the Moon landings? I remember some Vietnam stuff, too, though that might've been a little later.

[AlmightyJB]

Mom made my stay up for the moon walk. Can't say I really remember all that much. First big stories I remember significantly cutting into my TV time was Munich Olympics Hostage situation and Watergate.

[Pro Libertate]

Most of what I remember clearly at all is early 70s stuff. All the later Moon landings/attempts, LBJ's death, dead people coming back from Vietnam, Watergate, stuff like that.

[AlmightyJB]

I never knew the Vietnam war was going on. My worrisome mother feared the news coverage too violent for her delicate children. I would hear it mentioned and thought it was something that had happened a long time ago.

[Pro Libertate]

I have a vague recollection of them showing coffins coming back on the 11:00 news (when I was up that late).

[Swiss Servator, CH yeah!]

Most of that... and the 1973 Arab-Israeli War on the news.

[Jerryskids]

My mother wouldn't allow a TV in the house because she thought it rotted your brain - she was batshit insane - but she did buy a little 14" B/W TV for the moon landing.

Nixon recognizing Red China was the big news that I first remember not just hearing about but wanting to know more about. Older brother in Vietnam made that news more personal.

[robc]

1972 Summer Olympics or the last of the moon landings. I guess the olympics were first.

[Almanian!]

My memory of '72 is the Israeli athletes getting killed, and the US basketball team being absolutely ROBBED by the Rooskies.

Dark days...

[Libertymike]

Every time I see Doug Collins, the robbing by the rooskies comes to mind.

[C. Anacreon]

Not far from the Cuban Missile Crisis. The first news story I remember was the JFK assasination. It happened a week before I turned 3.

[PapayaSF]

They let us out of elementary school when that happened, so we were all thrilled. But when I got home home and told Mom why, she gave an incredible gasp and ran to turn on the TV. Only then did I realize that it was something serious.

[The Bearded Hobbit]

I was home for lunch in fifth grade when I heard about JFK. That's probably the first news story I recall. I simply had not paid one bit of attention to anything that was going on outside of the Weekly Reader.

... Hobbit

[PapayaSF]

Thank heavens I am not the oldest guy around here!

But good memory, dude. I don't remember anything from that age.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Apollo 13

[Andrew S.]

First one I remember is Regan being shot. Somewhere in either my mom's house or my dad's house there's a letter signed by Reagan (or his automatic signing pen) after 5-year-old me had written him a get well soon card.

[Andrew S.]

REAGAN! My Kingdom for an edit button.

[Ted S.]

I was going to ask if you remembered Goneril and Cordelia getting shot.

I was a few months shy of 9 when Reagan was shot. Dad hadn't heard about it at work, and when Mom told him Reagan had been shot, Dad replied, "What's the punchline?"

[Cdr Lytton]

I was going with Donald Regan and shot as some sort of synonym for being fired.

[Pro Libertate]

I remember quite clearly when they shot Buckwheat.

[db]

Doctor, have you seen the tape?

[Marquis of Fantailler]

First I can actually remember is Challenger explosion, I think we watched the lift-off in daycare, and when it exploded the person in charge ran over and turned off the tv reeeaaaaly quick.

[some guy]

I remember the first invastion of Iraq. The worst consequence of the Gulf War was CNN.

[Pro Libertate]

At the time, CNN was pretty badass, or so it seemed. Of course, that was back when Ted was involved.

[Ted S.]

I remember CNN being big over the San Francisco earthquake of 1989.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I saw my first pair of boobs that day. (well, only one, actually). I was in seventh grade, and my girlfriend's parents were out of town. I'm lucky I don't get wood every time I see a bronco.

[Auric Demonocles]

Seventh grade? Are you sure you didn't just see a section of chest where a boob would one day appear?

[Restoras]

Dude, he's a 'playa'...

[Zeb]

As I recall, you got a real mixed bag in 7th grade as far as boobs went.

[Ted S.]

He was 18 in seventh grade, so he was with somebody several grades ahead of him.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

It would have made more sense if I mentioned that she's really fat now. The rest of her body caught up.

[kibby]

Hey, some of us were fairly well-endowed by the seventh grade!

[Brett L]

1994, I think I was in Dallas for a World Cup game.

[db]

Mine was the 1980 presidential campaign. I was a Reagan fan at 5 1/2. I remember the Iranian hostage crisis vaguely.

[C. Anacreon]

I thought most 5 1/2 year olds during the 1980 Presidential campaign were backing John Anderson.

[Almanian!]

No, that was 18 year old me. I had an Anderson sticker in the window of my 71 CAMARO.

/badass

[Juice]

The first news thing I remember? Maybe the Iran Hostage Crisis?

[jesse.in.mb]

I was in middle school for the OJ trial. We watched the verdict in Social Studies on a tiny tube TV with rabbit ears.

[jesse.in.mb]

The first thing I remember is the Challenger explosion, vaguely. I remember being really confused by the movie a year or two later and wondering why they kept sending people up if they were just going to explode.

[Pro Libertate]

That sucks, growing up during the shuttle era. Us Apollo kids figured 2001 was a documentary for the year 2001.

[Mad Scientist]

My mom used to let me stay home from school just watch Apollo launches on TV.

[Pro Libertate]

Epic stuff for a little kid. My dad worked on Apollo, so I had the bug even more than most kids. Never saw a launch in person, though, which sucks.

[Mad Scientist]

I've seen a shuttle launch in person. The noise is just absolutely indescribably amazing.

[Pro Libertate]

I've seen satellite launches from the Cape, and I've also seen a number of shuttle launches from Tampa on a clear day. Regret not seeing a Saturn V, though, which was on a different scale.

We've been trying to catch a Falcon launch, but they keep scrubbing launches we plan to attend.

[Ted S.]

I was actually home that day, since our junior high school had some state-mandated exams with each grade being a different day or something. CBS cut in to The Price is Right for a few seconds and then went back to the game show for a minute or so before the special report took over the airwaves. I remember being irritated by the first interruption. Mom, being chronically ill-tempered, practically had a screaming fit at the news (not at the game show being interrupted).

Yeah, I always liked game shows growing up. I had a warped childhood.

[Pro Libertate]

Not unusual. My brother and I watched The Price is Right and Match Game, as well as some of the other shows back then. Those stand out, though.

[Auric Demonocles]

I also watched The Price is Right growing up. Man that show's been on forever.

Game shows for kids make sense: there's not a lot of plot to follow. They're slightly more interactive. They air in the middle of weekdays.

[Pro Libertate]

I distinctly recall guessing the price in the showcase showdown within $100 once. My brother freaked out.

We watched that show all the way back to when it was only a half hour long, which switched in the early 70s, I think. Fuck, that was forever ago.

[Libertymike]

Boy, did Bob Barker really know how to pick the Showcase babes or what?

[Auric Demonocles]

My second grade class watched it on a tiny antenna TV as well.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Earliest news event I remember was Princess Diana's funeral.

[Auric Demonocles]

Whoa. I didn't realize you were that young.

[kibby]

Yeah, it's depressing.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

I'm still a serious MAN. What was your earliest news memory? The US invading Iraq the first time?

[kibby]

Zero memories of much of anything.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

What are you, a replicant?

[kibby]

Probably.

[jesse.in.mb]

Damn it. My Voight-Kampff machine is busted.

The world may never know...

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about your mother.

[kibby]

My mother? Let me tell you about my mother...

[Mad Scientist]

My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I didn't pick up on that until he asked what beer he should get for his 21st birthday.

[Auric Demonocles]

Oh, I forgot that thread. That was Grand Moff?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

'Twas.

[AuH20]

I remember being vaguely aware of the Clinton impeachment, but I guess Columbine would have to be my first big news story.

I mean, how are we defining this? 9/11 turned me into a news junkie and I followed that minute by minute.

Columbine I sort of knew what had happened, but I didn't really "get" what was going on until a bit later.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

I remember asking my mom why so many people were upset over the death of just one person.

9/11 I remember very vividly since I saw the south tower collapse on live TV while waiting for my mom to drive me to school. At school they had us cut red, white and blue construction paper into patriotic flags since they weren't sure what to tell us.

[Auric Demonocles]

My school actually didn't tell us anything. At all. The entire day.

They locked us down, we sat around in that room for about 6 hours without even having class, and we found out what the freakout had been about when we turned on the TV after school.

[AuH20]

Same here Auric.

Why some schools did that, I have no idea. I mean, I grew up in a bedroom community of New York, so I knew people who lost parents on 9/11.

[Auric Demonocles]

I can somewhat see why you'd do that for the really young kids, but this was junior high. It's not like we weren't capable of handling it.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

At the end of the school day they let the individual teachers explain things as best they could to us.

I actually don't remember much of what my fourth grade teacher said, but it was something to the effect that this was not going to start a war and that the people who did it were criminals.

She just told us to go home and watch the news for an hour and write down our impressions.

[trshmnster the terrible]

We got an announcement in the morning (it happened during state standardized testing), and we had to play 20 questions with the cool teachers during breaks to figure out what was going on.

We had 2 Jr. Highs in our district, and the other allowed the kids to watch the news while it happened. We were hopelessly locked down and had to catch up when we got home.

I remember us freaking out later that afternoon when 2 Air National Guard F-16s flew right over our neighborhood. We knew all the planes had been grounded, but also that not all of the planes had landed yet. We had no clue what was going on until one did a barrel roll and they both passed overhead at supersonic speeds.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Perhaps because the initial media coverage was highly unreliable -

http://www.amazon.com/Columbin.....=columbine

The shooters were basically Leopold and Loeb with a higher body count - high self-esteem, contempt for other people they deemed "lesser."

The initial coverage indicated they were bullying victims, thus making the lives of such victims much more interesting as they were profiled as potential assassins.

[Brandon]

I remember Waco and the LA riots, but the first news story I actively followed was Jesse Spano showing her tits. I think that was a couple years after OJ.

[BigT]

First thing I remember clearly was the 1958 NFL championship when the Colts beat the Giants in OT.

[Corning]

I remember SkyLab crashing to earth.

and also somehow confused the number of days Hostages had been held in Iran with how many days Space Battleship Yamato had to retrieve the Cosmo DNA of life in order to save all life on earth.

I also thought the Good Morning America anchor was President Jimmy Carter.

[Homple]

Inchon landing for me.

[PD Scott]

Cocaine meth is a helluva drug: naked woman charged with vandalizing home.

Gordon County deputy sheriffs were dispatched to a private residence on Nelson Lake Road in unincorporated Gordon County in response to a report of a naked woman having vandalized the home. Deputies arrived at the residence within minutes and met with the home owner who told the officers she'd arrived there to find the interior of her house vandalized and a naked woman inside. The deputies went inside and searched the house until they found Suzanne Hussain, age 34, of Calhoun, hiding inside a closet.

Ms. Hussain was in fact nude, and was acting abnormally, but was taken into custody without further incident. The house was extensively damaged, including having been flooded.

Investigating detectives do not have a motive for this event.

[Palin's Buttplug]

These Georgia women are like that.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

She doesn't look "meth" thin in the picture. Plenty of crazy, though.

[C. Anacreon]

I actually see several very similar stories to this one each day in the ER. Meth is like nothing else.

[Rich]

... that the U.S. government has made "real changes" in the way it handles electronic surveillance and that the Internet is "not a government tool of repression."

In particular, he confided, the surveillance is now *double* secret and we are working on the repression tool.

[Homple]

That complex near Bluffdale, Utah is really going to be the world's most thoroughly air conditioned outlet mall.

[Rich]

Of no concern to the West Coasters:

Military Blimps Will Float In Aberdeen [Maryland], Tracking Potential Threats

"We are not going to be hovering around our neighbors around Aberdeen Proving Grounds seeing what they are doing in their backyards."

[Ted S.]

Or so they claim.

[Matrix]

HAIL HYDRA!

[C. Anacreon]

If they put "Goodyear" on the side of the blimps no one would care.

[John]

The United States has captured the alleged ringleader of the violent attack that killed four at the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Unfortunately, Lois Lerner's hard drive was destroyed during the capture.

[AuH20]

Gawker knows that the Bowe Bergdahl thing looks bad for the Obama administration. Luckily, they've gotten to the bottom of it.

Bergdahl may have 'Gone Galt'.

SEE?! All this time, he was a secret kochtopus liberterrorist tea bagger planted to make his Holiness, Barrack Obama I, look bad! IT WAS A TRAP ALL ALONG!

[Andrew S.]

Gawker: "Hm. We keep seeing Salon and Slate make complete fools of themselves with nonsensical articles about libertarians. How can we get in on this?"

[Episiarch]

They have to close the idiocy gap to retain their market share.

[AuH20]

Epi, France just elected a Socialist president.

Greece may soon be run by Neo-Nazis!

And Venezuela replaced Chavez with Marudo!

Our nation can not afford an idiocy gap. Gawker is doing God's work.

[db]

General Motors has recalled millions more cars. Are there any GM cars left out there that haven't been recalled yet? Is it too soon to start recalling the 2015 models?

I read somewhere that they have recalled.more cars.this year than they sold in 2012 and 2013 combined. Of course, it's possible that some individual cars are.subject.to.multiple recalls and.so.The.numbers may not be comparable.

[Rich]

Sure they are. This is *Government* Motors we're talking here!

[Whahappan?]

The recalls go back to 2006 or something.

[Caleb Turberville]

I'll defend Ayn Rand against the hacks who tend to build straw-man versions of Objectivism. But, Atlas Shrugged is a prime example of the dangers of overly didactic writing.

The Fountainhead was her better long-form novel.

[SugarFree]

There is no more damaging an indictment of Objectivism than spending time with 99.99% of its adherents.

[Episiarch]

Careful now, NutraSweet. Any Objectivist who sees this will just attack you and prove you 100% correct, and we can't have that. You being correct is just horrible.

[RBS]

Speaking of, where is NLK?

[Fr?ulein Nikki]

He's been busy.

[SugarFree]

Did he knock up his woman again?

[Fr?ulein Nikki]

Not yet, that I know of.

[SugarFree]

I think to think of him as fecund. It comforts me in the long night.

[SugarFree]

Don't you think I am also frightened when I'm right? You fucks only see a little bit of it; I have to live with my mind all goddamn day long.

[Rich]

"Wherever you go, there you are!"

[robc]

Atlas Shrugged is much better than The Fountainhead.

There, I said it.

And her villians in AS have turned out to be amazingly real to life, as it turns out that real life villians are 2D characatures.

[Pro Libertate]

I'd like to edit Atlas Shrugged. Can anyone get me the rights to issue an abridged version? Say, that's a long speech. So's that one.

[cavalier973]

The Abridged Atlas Shrugged.

[cavalier973]

An excerpt:

"Yes Dagny, you silly silly woman, I may seem a slacker to you, but after ten pages of explanation you will know that it is you who slack and it is I who serve a higher cause which will not be explained for another seven hundred pages. Remember, I am a d'Anconia which goes without saying that I know what I am doing," he mocked. He was so perfect at mocking. No man mocked like Francisco. How she wanted to be back in his arms. Were it not for... no! He was a slacker! The very embodiment of slack yet... yet he slacked with purpose. Even that was perfect. No man slacked like Francisco.

[cavalier973]

"What in capitalism's name is going on here," Hank yelled with bursting anger from the bottom of his manly lungs as he lunged through the door. It wasn't as perfect as Francisco's mockery, no man could touch that, but it was with the kind of power only a capitalist could muster. Dagny fluttered with lust.

"What the hell are you all doing in my office," Jim demanded weekly, the only way a socialist could demand.

[Fluffy]

The key to analyzing The Fountainhead is to decide it's not about Howard Roark.

Roark is just a force of nature, destroying every other character. Keating and Wynand and Toohey are the protagonists. And those characters are incredibly well drawn.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Finally, a left-wing media outlet addresses the IRS email fiasco. Salon sez: but BOOooOOOssSSSsshhHHhhHhhh!

The right has been praying for a Democratic Watergate for years and they keep coming up short. It must be intensely frustrating that it always seems just out of their reach. But it's highly unlikely that anyone in that position will ever be crude enough to write something like that down.

It's also interesting how soon these conservative commentators forget a more recent "missing email" scandal. Remember that time when the Bush White House couldn't provide years worth of emails from the office of the President and Vice President involving Scooter Libby and kept it secret for years until it was finally forced to admit that the emails were destroyed and they hadn't kept a back-up? Apparently Krauthamer and company forgot about that. (You'd think his colleague at Fox would remind him ? she was the presidential press secretary at the time and the official who finally admitted publicly that they didn't have the missing emails.) They also forgot about that time when the Bush administration couldn't turn over emails in the US Attorney scandal because they had failed to follow the law and conduct government business on government email servers and had instead used private RNC email addresses.

[hamilton]

They also forgot about that time...

Apparently Salon forgot about what the reaction from Democrats was to these specific incidents, also. Because they couldn't possibly be just engaging in childish he-did-it-too bullshit. After all they are journalists, you know.

[Fluffy]

Great, let's charge any Bush-era staff where the statute of limitations hasn't run out.

Charge 'em all.

Set up a gallows in front of the Lincoln Memorial. I'm up for it.

[PD Scott]

Only 10%?: Australian police say 10% of firearms seized are homemade.

"With illegal handguns costing $15,000 and more on the black market, desperate criminals have even resorted to converting ear-piercing instruments and spear guns into makeshift pistols.

Supt Plotecki said there was anecdotal evidence the outlaw motorcycle gangs were targeting people who have the skills to make weapons.

Earlier this year a Hells Angel prospect was caught with a homemade Uzi that police believe was a prototype he was showing his prospective employers to impress them."

[Wasteland Wanderer]

At $15,000 a pop, you'd think they'd be able to afford some decent CNC machinery...

[RBS]

Help! Technology stole my son!

[Apatheist ?_??]

Our three children (6, 4, and 3 months)

Hell if her children are entrepreneurial enough to afford an iPad at those ages they are doing just fine.

[Rich]

Help! Technology Slender Man stole my son!

FTFY

[Caleb Turberville]

I was 4 years , 1 month old when OJ went on his car chase. It isn't that I'm too young to remember it. I remember Speed and The Lion King, and both of those movies had their 20th anniversaries this week.

However, I only really remember the OJ Trial. It was less bewildering than the coverage of Princess Di's death. At the time, I wondered why my parents cared so much about the affairs of these people.

[RBS]

I remember watching the car chase, I paid very little attention to the trial. Of course, I was about 12-13 so I had better things to do.

[robc]

I watched the car chase. I was 24 at the time.

I didnt follow the trial, but was sitting in a Wendy's parking lot when the verdict was announced and was stunned.

[Libertymike]

Do you remember what you ordered that day?

[robc]

Not for sure, but probably a double with cheese and pickle only.

Standard Wendy's order.

[Caleb Turberville]

Actually, I remember now why I don't remember watching the OJ chase.

Today is also the 20th anniversary of when my family moved into our new house. We probably didn't even have our TVs plugged up at the time.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

So did I. See above.

[Libertymike]

So, you remember an event that took place when you were only FIVE?

Damn, I don't recall a freakin' thing about the cops brutalizing the students who were protesting / rioting at the 1968 Democrat convention in Chicago.

[Caleb Turberville]

It was a nightly thing in my house.

I actually remember asking my mother what the word "murder" meant after overhearing one of the lawyers use the word.

[Libertymike]

The first time I went to a football game in Foxboro, the Juice was held to 74 yards by the Patriots on November 3, 1974. The Bills won, 29-28.

[Caleb Turberville]

John Hannah, the best o-lineman ever and fellow Bama grad.

[Libertymike]

Yeah, didn't the NFL Network in their 100 greatest players of all time presentation have ole #73 way up there, perhaps at 28 or 29?

Love me some Hog Hannah. My son-in-law to be is also a Bama grad.

[Pro Libertate]

I have memories back until late 3.

[Auric Demonocles]

So that's roughly the formation of the Milky Way?

I can remember a few things from the house I originally lived in, which puts it sometime before 4.5.

[Pro Libertate]

We lived in a different city until I was four, and I have quite a few memories from that period. My earliest, which is more a snapshot in my head than a memory is me being held in some kitchen by my mom while some bald guy was talking to us. Mom thinks that was a realtor showing the house we lived in, which was purchased when I was two.

With my kids, it's fascinating to see how they have this line they cross when they start having long-term memories.

[Auric Demonocles]

I've got a lot of memories that could be from either before or after the move. We moved literally next door, and it was to the house/farm my grandparents were moving out of. I was over there literally every day before we moved anyway. The only ones that I can be sure of being prior to the move are when I'm inside the the old house, but there's a lot playing on the farm or in the new house's backyard that could be from either period.

[Pro Libertate]

I wish I had better recall of what I was thinking then. It's mostly just visual and auditory memories, with some emotions thrown in.

[Auric Demonocles]

I do remember being scared shitless by some shadows in the middle of the night. I was standing in a crib in my old room, so I was really young in that one.

I also remember thinking on one instance, when I decided to stop biting my nails. Spoiler: it's 21+ years later and I didn't stop.

[Pro Libertate]

Simply will yourself to stop.

[Whahappan?]

Shit I'm 45 and I still bite my nails.

[Auric Demonocles]

Above, I was very careful with my phrasing. The OJ trial is the first news story I remember. Maybe it had to do with the trial involving ice cream, but in any case, I have pretty much perfect agreement with you.

Something is wrong with libertymike's memory if he doesn't remember anything from when he was 5.

[Libertymike]

The Bilderbergers or some branch of the Illuminati must have erased it.

[Juice]

I remember watching shitloads of TV. Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Dukes of Hazzard, The Hulk, The 6 Million Dollar Man, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island etc. etc. Lots of great classic TV from around 1979-80.

[Caleb Turberville]

I didn't always watch age appropriate TV when I was 5. My standard TV schedule at the time:

1. Nickelodeon
2. Cartoon Network
3. The Simpsons
4. Star Trek: DS9
5. The X-Files/Roseanne/Home Improvement

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, I was thinking about what I watched versus what my kids watch. I mean, TOS was creepy at times for a 4 year-old. Mom says I crawled away in horror from the salt monster episode. Got over that pretty fast, though Dark Shadows scared the fuck out of me for a while. The music is what I remember.

[Auric Demonocles]

I loved watching Unsolved Mysteries, but there were a few episodes which ended up keeping me up at night.

[Pro Libertate]

At least you didn't grow up with Night Gallery. Holy sweet fuck, earwigs can do what?

[Juice]

Oooh, do you remember Tales from the Darkside and Monsters?

[Slumbrew]

This scared the shit out of me as a kid - might have only been a Tri-State area thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux3laLkueZk

[Raven Nation]

Night Stalker

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, yeah. That was popular with all of us kids--very freaky.

[Slumbrew]

Maybe I suppressed my memories but I can't remember shit from when I was 5. Looking at Wikipedia, I think I was watching The Six Million Dollar Man and maybe some Good Times, but those could have been repeats years later, for all I know.

[Pro Libertate]

Gunsmoke and Captain Kangaroo.

[Auric Demonocles]

Slumbrew! I haven't seen you around in forever. You didn't do the Reason Happy Hour a few months ago, did you?

[Slumbrew]

I did not. I've been stupid-busy at work - even now, I should be doing other things; I don't know how you people have the time to spend here to keep current. I'm JUST NOW finding out that Nikki is, in fact, the worst.

[Ska]

I remember watching the Dukes of Hazzard as a kid, and Yankees baseball followed by the Odd Couple and the Honeymooners. I remember Fox Drive-in movie Sundays, Creature Feature, and the annual airing of Yellow Submarine. I don't really remember much in the way of news stories.

[Slumbrew]

Let us bow our heads in respect for Kung Fu Theater on Saturdays.

[Ska]

Seriously. Imagine being able to watch Master of the Flying Guillotine or the Five Deadly Venoms on network television, instead of whatever the fuck passes as Saturday afternoon TV.

[Slumbrew]

So great. I have Five Deadly Venoms on DVD - it's instant nostalgia. Shaw Brothers, fuck yeah!

[Pro Libertate]

We had Creature Feature. Hosted by Dr. Paul Bearer.

[Pathogen]

+1 WTOG 44

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

I think I can remember watching Dodger games with my dad back when I was 3. Mostly because Tommy Lasorda was still manager of the team and my dad would always laugh when he had to run out of the dugout since he could really only waddle due to his girth.

[Auric Demonocles]

My earliest baseball memories involve Pedro on the Expos, so that's already mid 90s. I remember football a bit earlier. Specifically one of the Cowboys-Bills Super Bowls.

[Pro Libertate]

It's not my earliest, but I do recall watching the Braves and seeing 715. It was the live broadcast on the black-and-white TV I had in my room--just happened to turn it on.

[Jerryskids]

Oh man. Ernie Harwell announcing the Tigers games. Mickey Lolich and Denny Mclain, Bill Freehan, Norm Cash, Willie Horton, Jim Northrup, Al Kaline, Don Wert, Mickey Stanley, Dick McAuliff. Good times. (Although Frank Howard was always my favorite player - the Senators sucked so hard but he played so well for such a crappy team.)

[lap83]

Interesting, I was the same age for my first news story memory. For me it was the Berlin Wall coming down.

[Homple]

You folks are so damn young, I was a few days short of 14 when the wall went UP.

[PD Scott]

FTA: Gun control! Australia hasn't gone far enough!

WESTERN Sydney is taking up arms, with licensed handgun owners occupying five of the top 10 postcodes.

Gun control lobbyists say the relatively high number of firearm owners in places like Mt Druitt, Campbelltown and Westmead is likely the result of residents arming themselves against drive-by shootings and violent crime.

"There may be a concern that these communities are feeling particularly threatened," Gun Control Australia spokeswoman Sam Lee said yesterday.

"Although there are laws in NSW that say you are not allowed to own a ?firearm for self-defence, the way those laws operate doesn't really prevent ?someone from accumulating firearms for that reason."

Ms Lee questioned the need for military-style ?semiautomatic handguns when rapid-firing semiautomatic rifles were ?outlawed long ago. "All ??semiautomatic firearms should be banned ? they are military-style weapons and there is no need for civilians to have them," she said.

"The long arms are banned because they are too dangerous but the handguns got left out and they are the same gun, just smaller. And they're the preferred guns for drive-by shootings because they are smaller."

[PD Scott]

Meant to reply to the 10% homemade guns article.

[John]

At the Aussie gun grabbers are honest and are upfront about the purpose of gun control being to deprive people of the means to defend themselves.

[Libertymike]

[least]

Just finished editing a 48 page letter which I have been writing for the last several weeks. Can't help it.

[Coeus]

This should be required reading for any gun grabber.

It's a shame they never will.

[PapayaSF]

What do you expect from someone named "Mauser"?

[Stormy Dragon]

What we really need is for Kira Peikoff to get around to a series of poorly written Atlas Shrugged sequels. What good is being heir to Rand's estate if you're not going to shamelessly monetize it?

[Pro Libertate]

No, I'd have Brian Herbert do it. He's more experienced.

[Juice]

At least he's a better fiction writer than Ayn Rand.

[Pro Libertate]

Sadly, that may be true. I read one of his fifty Dune books, then, sadly accepted Frank Herbert's death.

[Juice]

I read about a dozen prequels and offshoots and I wasn't disappointed. Sure, he's not his dad, but sometimes his dad wasn't either. Later Dune books kinda suck and non-Dune books ain't that great either. Dune was a fluke, I think.

[Pro Libertate]

Shall we say lasguns at dawn, then?

[Slumbrew]

I'll bring the shields.

[Pro Libertate]

And I'll bring a sandworm.

[Brett L]

If you want it to suck, hire Kevin J. Anderson

[robc]

I will keep Timmy Howard, but the Mexican GK was amazing today.

[Ted S.]

My friend who's originally from Ghana is also a Tottenham fan, so I got to tease him about Vertonghen giving up a penalty. 😉

[Apatheist ?_??]

He played a blinder. And that was a good example of how a 0-0 draw can still be exciting. The Iran-Nigeria game was the only boring one so far, such a great cup.

[Sudden]

Obviously Howard has been pretty darn good for a long stretch. But Ochoa's game today was nothing short of superb. Finest keeping in this Cup so far.

[Brett L]

Its nice when you can use your huge balls as a 5th appendage.

[Raven Nation]

Agreed. But, I couldn't tell - was his save on Jo's header brilliant or was it headed straight at him?

[robc]

A bit of both. With a good header, he has zero chance. It was close enough to give him a chance to make a reflex save.

The earlier header was an insane save. That ball was placed perfectly and with force. Not sure how he got there.

[Sudden]

Shades of the English keeper from 1970

[Raven Nation]

Thanks. And, for nostalgia's sake:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNLam4RAbg8

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Belle Knox loses her financial aid; demands government stop inflating tuition costs with easy money

Weeks gets Controversial and calls for students who Should Not Be Going To College (students who couldn't get into Duke, for example) to stop it, and for the government to let private industry control who gets student loans so that elite schools are forced to lower tuition.

Government must stop the flow of money to schools in order to get tuition rates under control again. That means being honest about the fact that not every child should go to college. Only 59% of full-time, first-time undergraduate students who began their pursuit of a bachelor's degree at a 4-year degree-granting institution graduate in four years. That also means making students who can't afford tuition out of pocket find funding in the private market, where lenders are too judicious to lend someone $150,000 to get a BA in underwater basketweaving.

It's a pretty thought, driving down the price of college tuition so people whose parents make some money, but not enough to pay for college, can actually hope to pay their loans off by 30. But judging by the capitalist pantsing Chicago residents are enduring after the city let a large corporate entity take over its previously publicly held parking meters, I can't say I trust private industry to lower the cost of anything.

[hamilton]

That also means making students who can't afford tuition out of pocket find funding in the private market

On the plus side, that should result in an improvement in, um, quality over Belle Knox. No offense, just economic reality of competition and all.

[Pro Libertate]

Yeah, that free market in education, driving up prices without any government interference whatsoever.

[Fr?ulein Nikki]

the capitalist pantsing Chicago residents are enduring after the city let a large corporate entity take over its previously publicly held parking meters

OH MY FUCKING GOD IT'S CHICAGO HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE DALEYS MOTHERFUCKERS

[Pro Libertate]

Chicago is so steeped in free markets run amok. Why, you can't hardly perceive any government there.

[Fr?ulein Nikki]

I can't decide what I hate more, the parking meters or the retarded stories about "privatizing" the parking meters.

[Pro Libertate]

When it comes to government in Chicago, there's so much hate to give.

[Brett L]

Oh, like they "privatized" red light ticketing? Motherfuckers.

[Apatheist ?_??]

But judging by the capitalist pantsing Chicago residents are enduring after the city let a large corporate entity take over its previously publicly held parking meters, I can't say I trust private industry to lower the cost of anything.

Yeah a government granted monopoly sure is a great example of the free market.

[Ted S.]

If your dog goes missing, it's not news.

If the popo's dog goes missing, it'll be the top story on the local FM station's news update.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Washington police say they have nabbed an Eliot Rodger copycat

Keshav Bhide, 23, used YouTube and Google+ to praise Rodger, saying in one message that "everything Elliot did is perfectly justified."
Rodger killed seven people and wounded another 13 during a May 23 rampage in Isla Vista, California.

Seattle police were alerted to Bhide's comments online and involved the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Agents tracked his screen name to an apartment at 1128 N.E. 41st Street, near the University of Washington.
Court documents show Bhide is a UW student. He was expected to graduate this year, and was arrested Saturday afternoon.

Earlier this month, anonymous threats were made to UW sororities referencing the shootings in California. Chalk outlines were also left outside some UW sororities. It is not clear if Bhide was connected to those incidents.

In his online messages, Bhide ranted against women saying he would make sure he would kill only them. Another commenter told him to "please just call an escort service," and gave details for how he could avoid losing his life or going to jail.

Bhide responded that he would "execute the same thing" as Elliot Rodger and that he had "no option," according to court documents. Police said he used the screen name "Foss Dark."

Can we stop giving these losers attention?

[SugarFree]

Chalk outlines were also left outside some UW sororities.

"Does this chalk outline make me look fat?"

[Libertymike]

In the words of Kenny Mayne, "HOME RUN"!

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

We need more chalk to circle the problem areas.

[paranoid android]

Seattle police were alerted to Bhide's comments online and involved the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Agents tracked his screen name to an apartment at 1128 N.E. 41st Street, near the University of Washington.

I have nothing substantive to add to a conversation about some random crazy, but I used to live, like, half a block from there, a couple years ago.

[Libertymike]

Did you ever cross paths with Bhide? How about Epi? Did you ever see the two of them together?

[paranoid android]

Epi, for all his depravity, would probably never use or associate with anyone who would use a handle as stupid as "Foss Dark"

[SugarFree]

I wouldn't make him out to be so picky. Isn't "Episiarch" Turkish street slang for "anal gland"?

[Sudden]

Guillermo Ochoa. Wow.

[Apatheist ?_??]

You're really in good hands with himTM.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Can you not do superscript on here?

[jesse.in.mb]

do: ampersand hashtag 8482; but use the characters, not the words and don't use spaces.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Squirrels won't let it post, oh well.

[jesse.in.mb]

Rage?

Did it work?

[Apatheist ?_??]

Ah, I forgot the semicolon?

[jesse.in.mb]

Only people who fly the ? flag would forget a semicolon!

Are you some kind of ??

I'm wondering if squirrels will eat this or not.

?Squirrels beware this post is radioactive?

[PD Scott]

I agree, I wish I hadn't seen it either: The new menswear trend we wish we'd never seen.

"Swimwear", may be somewhat unsafe for work.

[Restoras]

"menswear" is a bit of a stretch too..

[trshmnster the terrible]

I'm not clicking, but is it the wraparound dick sling? That thing is all sorts of fucked up.

[Slumbrew]

Yes, yes it is. At that point just go naked and show the world your hideous turkey neck.

[Coeus]

VW trooper shoots teen who claimed harassment for months.

There's some odd stuff here:

Gillespie said he awoke to find three men tampering with his personal vehicle and state-issued cruiser parked in the driveway.

He went outside dressed in his uniform and got into the cruiser to look for the men, who he found walking about a quarter mile away from his home.

Crews said Friday during a television interview that he had started walking back up the hill when he saw Gillespie stand up.

"I figured everything was under control, and then I heard two gunshots," Crews said.

But he said Sunday that Gillespie never got Hill under control, and he said the younger man reached toward the trooper's belt.

[Stormy Dragon]

You know who else had Volkswagon troopers shoot people?

[Swiss Servator, CH yeah!]

Lil' Transformers?

[GILMORE]

"The United States has captured the alleged ringleader of the violent attack that killed four at the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Dear Reason Magazine -

There was no 'consulate' in Benghazi, Libya

Please see the Washington Post's fact-checker debunking some key points that were actually already known to be false in 2012, yet which are still endlessly repeated.

e.g. "Let's examine the evidence for a bureaucratic explanation.

First, some important context: Although the ambassador was killed, the Benghazi "consulate" was not a consulate at all but basically a secret CIA operation which included an effort to round up shoulder-launched missiles. In fact, only seven of the 30 Americans evacuated from Benghazi had any connection to the State Department; the rest were affiliated with the CIA."

This is not a minor quibble = Diane Feinstein herself went out of her way to correct others who called the facility 'a consulate' because it had no offical State Dept role at all. The term she preferred was "mission", but this was also disavowed later because that also implies a 'temporary state dept project' which did not exist.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Rick Perry said to be mulling move to California after leaving office

"Perry told me that he loves California, vacations in San Diego annually, visits the state about six times a year and might even move here in January when he's done with his 14-year stint running Texas," writer Mark Leibovich says in the article, which was based on comments the governor made while visiting Los Angeles.

Perry isn't seeking re-election in November...In April, he scored a major political victory when Toyota announced it was moving its U.S. headquarters from California to Texas.

Asked about the possibility that Perry could be mulling the opposite move, spokesman Travis Considine noted his comment to the magazine came after Perry was asked where he would live if he could live in any state other than Texas.

"I would live in California if I could afford it," Perry said according to a partial transcript of the interview with Leibovich, which Considine provided Tuesday. "Why wouldn't you want to live out here? Seriously?"

Considine added that Perry "posed a rhetorical question, which he has answered many times by noting how California's high cost-of-living is a contributing factor to why people move away from such a beautiful state."

I'd like to see that.

[Apatheist ?_??]

California should hire him as their official rain preacher to help out with the drought.

[Sudden]

Yet further proof that anyone who choses to leave the low-tax mecca of Texas for California is functionally retarded.

[John]

No. Perry has the money to afford the taxes. He apparently wants to spend his retirement as a professional troll, trolling California liberals. Wouldn't be my choice of a retirement lifestyle. But if it works for him..

[Auric Demonocles]

Plus with being retired already he can avoid taxes from income/running a business.

[GILMORE]

"He apparently wants to spend his retirement as a professional troll, trolling California liberals"

Its like fishing, only they don't eat as good.

[The Last American Hero]

Does he know they have teh-gays there?

[cavalier973]

"There's three things I'm going to do when I get to California: See the San Diego Zoo, go to Disneyland, and...and...uh....oops!"

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

New York Met cancels opera transmission out of fear it could stoke global antisemitism

New York's Metropolitan Opera announced on Tuesday that it has canceled its plans for a live transmission of the opera "The Death of Klinghoffer" in movie theaters because of concerns that it could fan global anti-Semitism.

The opera house made the move after an outpouring of concern about the John Adams opera about the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship by Palestinian militants in 1985 and the killing of disabled, elderly American Jewish passenger Leon Klinghoffer.

"I'm convinced that the opera is not anti-Semitic," Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager, said in a statement. "But I've also become convinced that there is genuine concern in the international Jewish community that the live transmission of 'The Death of Klinghoffer' would be inappropriate at this time of rising anti-Semitism, particularly in Europe."

The transmission of the opera, which premiered in 1991, had been scheduled for Nov. 15. It is part of the Met's "Live in HD" series that shows performances in movie theaters in the United States as well as countries in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia.

Yeah, would be a shame if any more consulates were assaulted because of an online video.

[GILMORE]

Not a consulate!

[Coeus]

4chan started two joke SJW tags on twitter. Many actual SJWs rallied to the cause.

end fathersday

and

whitescantberaped

[GILMORE]

special forces have undermined your links

[Coeus]

endfathersday

whitescantberaped

How's that?

[Paul.]

Well this is upsetting. #EndFathersDay was a 4chan effort, men posing as feminists of color on Twitter in order to defame their efforts.

Not sure if I'd call it 'upsetting', but ok.

"We are woman, hear us roar!"

"We are men, hear us laugh!"

[Paul.]

This is why #hashtagtivism is so damned funny. It practically begs for trolling.

[GILMORE]

All i know is that this sort of stuff is Sad. Really, really sad. #MatronizingFTW!

[AuH20]

Yeah, I enjoy how upset they are now, and how they are using that it was a troll to excuse the idiots.

"Okay, maybe I said horribly offensive things... but I only did it because evil MRAs made a hash tag to make me look bad!"

Also, the fact that so many people believed it would, you think, lead to some introspection. But instead it's just caused a rally-round-the-flag moment, as they all pat themselves on the back about how enlightened they are and how these hash tags just prove the misogyny in the system that they as noble feminists must fight against.

[R C Dean]

OT:

IRS doubles down on the stupid, and announces that it "lost" email from six more targets of the investigation. Garsh, their computers just crashed. Sucks, but waddayagonnado?

http://www.nationalreview.com/.....na-johnson

[Pro Libertate]

Lie a little more each day, just to see what you can get away with.

You know, until these e-mails all started vanishing, I thought there was no way this stuff (and everything else) would end in an Obama impeachment. Now I'm thinking the shit may get so bad and so blatant that even that could happen, despite the media and despite the race card.

[Paul.]

Lie a little more each day, just to see what you can get away with.

Considering I predicted where the linked story would come from (within several possibilities, including Washington Times) before my eyes got through Robert's post, I'd say they'll be getting away with it for a long, long time.

FAKE SCANDAL!

[Pro Libertate]

All politics aside, and looking at this as dispassionately as I can, I don't see how this isn't worse than Watergate. There's no smoking gun connecting this to the president, but I don't know why they'd delete the e-mails if it didn't connect to him somehow.

[Paul.]

Who knew that all that stood between the citizenry and accountability for our public servants was a "computer glitch".

I mean, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

The only thing between my corpse with four bullets in my back and justified use of force of a police officer is the 'off' button on a dashcam.

Ain't technology grand?

[Jesus H. Christ]

There is no way Congress will impeach the first black president. It simply will.not.happen.

They figure it's better to ride out the rest of his 8 year crime-spree than instigate mass race riots and looting that would come from impeachment.

[BigT]

WWJD?

[Jesus H. Christ]

You know, I would not be surprised at all if the top dawgs in congress, both houses, both parties, have already got together and discussed it. Completely off the record, ie. the meeting never took place. Reid, Boehner, Cantor et al, agreed that impeaching the president would do more harm (ie. bring more scrutiny and public disillusionment) than good, figuring it would be the LA riots ala Rodney King only on a national scale.

[paranoid android]

Even if I were the most gullible idiot in the world, and accepted everything the IRS is saying about these lost emails completely at face value, wouldn't incompetent management on such a scale be a major scandal in and of itself? If this is really the story they're going with, why isn't Obama out there crucifying the IRS managers for allowing such an enormous lapse of IT security, which I'm to understand may amount to violations of federal law?

[Pro Libertate]

If this were all something the president were innocent of, he'd have fired the lot of the leadership and would have had all of their servers and other documents seized by the FBI.

Incidentally, a similar non-barking dog is the lack of, well, anything happening as a result of one contractor walking away with an entire NSA database. The reasons for that nothingness are less clear, but something weird is going on.

[Paul.]

If this were all something the president were innocent of, he'd have fired the lot of the leadership and would have had all of their servers and other documents seized by the FBI.

Fun parlor game:

Describe a situation where the Koch brothers are being investigated for campaign finance violations. During the course of that investigation, the Kochs claim that emails from the time in question were lost because of a computer glitch...

[Pro Libertate]

"I see. Well, off you go then. No, there's nothing we can do, clearly."

[Restoras]

It's all a FAKE SCANDAL.

[Pro Libertate]

It's a fake fucking government. Seriously, where's the legitimacy? This is an illegal government doing whatever the heck it wants. And that's not just the administration, either.

[Matrix]

Judge Orders Justina Pelletier to be returned to her family

So when are all the state workers involved in her abduction from her family going to be imprisoned, along with the judge who signed off on it?

[cavalier973]

They will be bitch-slapped by St. Peter and consigned to a cell with a demon named "Bubba".

[Paul.]

Huh, I thought they already had the perpetrator of the Benghazi attack. Or is he making more YouTube videos?

[GILMORE]

Last I heard of that guy he confessed he worked for Goldstein and that we'd always been at war with East Asia and then he vanished.

[GILMORE]

I asked a question in the 'insider trading' thing which no one addressed =

When they're talking 'insider trading', are they talking only about Form-4 disclosures (i.e. *Trading by Insiders*, which is disclosed); or are people arguing that 'trading on inside information'? ... i even watched the KMW segment and it wasn't clear where they were drawing lines...

and 2 - this - a case study on 'how insider information' (and the appearance of it) is used, and why restrictions on trading around it actually exist; None of the points there were addressed.

[Fluffy]

The paper in question is hopelessly flawed.

They count every unusual options transaction as likely the result of insider trading, when really it would only be the first couple of trades in any unusual sequence that might be the result of inside information.

Why? Because the rest of the options market reacts to the first few trades by piling on. "Those guys behind the big orders that just printed must know something! Buy!" is not insider trading.

[GILMORE]

"They count every unusual options transaction as likely the result of insider trading"

What?

because, what, *day trading doesn't exist*?

If they are *extremely large* options transactions, and they aren't tracked to an institution but an individual, then *maybe* they'd have a point.

But the case I was making was that the predominant impact of 'inside information' is not "trading by insiders"...

(which is the distinction I was asking about which no one answered)

... but rather, outsiders flogging information that "may or may not be actual inside dope", in hopes to manipulate prices.

I gave an actual example of how this works, how it creates real harm, and why institutions SHOULD be restricted from acting on this information, but no one actually bit on the subject.

[Fluffy]

I read your example.

Your problem is that you believe you have a right to trade stocks without me saying anything mean about the company you own stock in.

You have no right to be protected from mean old shorts. Don't think you have enough information to buy and hold a stock? Don't buy it. If you can be scared out of your stock by a rumor, you shouldn't have bought it.

Ultimately you have bought into the utilitarian argument that it's good to restrict what people say about stocks and when they buy and sell stocks because it "creates trust" and "leads to more money entering the market". But I say: who cares? I didn't promise you a low-friction securities marketplace where people with no knowledge or expertise can easily invest. Maybe somebody else did, but I didn't.

[GILMORE]

"Your problem is that you believe you have a right to trade stocks without me saying anything mean about the company you own stock in."

really? that's what I said?

and the 'utilitarian argument' i bought into? This is all you fighting straw men. Quote what i said.

I didn't suggest shorts were 'mean'. I suggested that the fact that Institutional Investors are restricted from trading on non-public material information makes sense in the example I gave. I made no boo-hoo argument about how individual investors get suckered.

Do you think institutions should be forced to disclose short-holdings?

[Fluffy]

I made no boo-hoo argument about how individual investors get suckered.

Bullshit, you did too.

Poor small investors selling their shares and shorts making money on both legs of the price move was the entire substance of the negative scenario you described.

What DID you think the problem was, if not that?

[GILMORE]

No, you didn't understand the point of my post

I dont care about small investors in either direction.

My point was that institutions are barred from acting on material non-public information, and should be.

The question i raised was, 'what was the objection to that'?

another question i raised is below, which is = would you accept Insiders (*privileged people) being able to conduct *both* disclosed and non-disclosed trades?

make a case for either.

The thing you are reacting to is nothing to do with my original comment = its either a misunderstanding on your part, or you just don't want to address the original point.

[GILMORE]

Fluffy

Another one =

Say you take a job that will specifically expose you to 'material non public information', and *conditional to having that job* is the requirement that you not trade on any information you receive as part of that job (*or pass on for compensation etc). Any trades you make must be notified *30 days in advance* to the institution.

Would you argue that a person could take the job, use the info- violating the contractual agreement of employment - and still be completely 'in the right' in every way?

[GILMORE]

Also, still no answer on why no one seems to think there's a difference between 'insider trading' and 'insider information'.

[Paul.]

Also, still no answer on why no one seems to think there's a difference between 'insider trading' and 'insider information'.

Aren't the two inexorably linked? You're an insider, therefore you must possess information not available to the general public?

[Pro Libertate]

I don't like to own stock in my company for that very reason. It's very difficult to trade when you're a corporate officer. Not impossible, but it's fuzzy enough to get uncomfortable.

[Andrew S.]

Me (or somebody else who represents the company in a securities capacity) will send e-mails to directors and officers of companies I (help) represent when they're allowed to trade, and then I file whatever Forms 4 are needed. The rules are a pain in the ass to figure out, even as someone about as knowledgable about securities law as one can be.

[Pro Libertate]

It's a little scary, to be honest, and you can't avoid it just by not buying stock, since there's always options.

[GILMORE]

Yes.

This should really be happening back in that thread, so the relevant info is all in one place... but my point was =

This is insider trading =
http://finviz.com/insidertrading.ashx

it is disclosed in Form 4 filings. it is all legal and perfectly above board.

Information about what insiders are doing are useful market signals. No one thinks there's anything wrong with this.

*Inside information* is when 'material non-public information' is used (by insiders, or others) in trades that are *not disclosed as insider trades*

If an 'insider' chooses to suddenly execute a bunch of trades 'off the books' *specifically such that no one will ever know about it*...

the libertarian argument is "that's a Good Thing!"?

The real question is how 'material non-public info' is treated and used. The issue about 'insider trading' is misleading because it assumes its about 'insiders' (aka people who own 10% or are officers or board members)... when that's not what they're talking about, really

[Paul.]

The real question is how 'material non-public info' is treated and used.

Gilmore, I'm hitchhiking on your conversation, so I'm about to bow out, because I confess I'm not sure where you're ultimately going and I may just be dicking up the thread.

But anyhoo, my understanding is that if I'm an insider in a company, and I call my dad and say, "We're about to merge with X corporation, not public knowledge so that's just for you" and my dad puts in a trade with Shrike for 1000 shares of Technigen Corporation, not only can I go to jail, but so can dear old dad.

Is that what you're asking?

[Fluffy]

I have no problem with people trading on material non-public information because the whole point of investing should be to try to acquire material, non-public information.

In any other context where I'd be investing money - say I'm deciding whether to open an LLC to undertake some business activity - I'd do my best to acquire all the information I needed to decide whether to proceed, and I wouldn't worry at all whether that was information you also possessed.

And you'd think that was perfectly normal.

Say I'm part of a group of guys starting a company that makes a new piece of software. We know the software works, but no one else does. "Aw, man, if we knew your software worked we would have come and invested with you!" Um...tough shit?

The distinction between my hypothetical software LLC and a so-called "publicly traded company" is an entirely false one, invented out of whole cloth in order to empower a federal regulatory regime. There should be no difference between buying a share in my LLC and buying a share in Microsoft. You're obsessed with establishing "fairness" in a process that should not exist - trading in privileged and regulated "listed markets".

[Paul.]

Everything Fluffy says is correct.

However, just playing a little devil's advocate, in our current system, legislators are privy to information the public isn't, because they have the power to regulate the very industries in which they may be investing.

Does a legislator have a right to sell short an industry they're about to regulate out of existence?

[Pro Libertate]

Insider trading laws have historically not applied to members of Congress. Because of their inherent goodness. The recent law restricting that was repealed, I believe.

[Paul.]

Insider trading laws have historically not applied to members of Congress. Because of their inherent goodness.

I thought that most members of congress kept their investments in blind trusts.

[PapayaSF]

No.

[Pro Libertate]

No, it wasn't, or no, you're not talking to me?

[PapayaSF]

Sorry, I was responding to the statement by Paul.:

Does a legislator have a right to sell short an industry they're about to regulate out of existence?

[GILMORE]

"Does a legislator have a right to sell short an industry they're about to regulate out of existence?"

why not?

[GILMORE]

"'You're obsessed with establishing "fairness" in a process that should not exist - trading in privileged and regulated "listed markets"."'

Where did I say this? Quote me.

You continue to argue against straw men, and raise 'counter scenarios' rather than simply deal with the point i made.

[Libertymike]

What Fluffy articulated.

[GILMORE]

Fluffy -
1
"would you now make it 'legal' for institutional investors to move money on undisclosed, so-called 'inside' info rather than official disclosures?

(*currently they are restricted as fiduciaries)

2 -Do you think it is acceptable for hedgies to spread all sorts of bullshit info while maintaining undisclosed short positions?

Please address. Thanks

[Fluffy]

I am mystified why you think I haven't directly answered both of those questions.

1. Of course (directly answered in my 6:12 post)

2. Of course (directly answered in my 5:49 post)

[GILMORE]

No, neither were 'directly' answered as they weren't either directed to those specific questions, and "of course" presumes those answers fully explain why these positive answers are somehow for the best of all operating marketplaces.

but whatever. You still didn't answer the newer question as to your opinion on how one should treat 'privledged' access.

- this "Say you take a job that will specifically expose you to 'material non public information', and *conditional to having that job* is the requirement that you not trade on any information you receive as part of that job (*or pass on for compensation etc). Any trades you make must be notified *30 days in advance* to the institution.

Would you argue that a person could take the job, use the info- violating the contractual agreement of employment - and still be completely 'in the right' in every way?"

[Fluffy]

That person would be in the wrong vis-a-vis his agreement with his employer.

But not vis-a-vis he person who bought or sold stock with him.

somehow for the best of all operating marketplaces.

I have not promised you, nor am I seeking to achieve, the "best of all operating marketplaces".

Because that has historically been defined as "the marketplace that encourages the most dumb capital possible to participate, by allowing people with no information to feel like they are participating in trade on an equal basis.

As I explained to you above, I don't care if you achieve that or not. In fact, if the way you propose to achieve it is by making it illegal for me to make money off the fact that I know more than another market participant, I actively don't want you to achieve it. Because we wouldn't accept that in any other context.

[GILMORE]

In what other contexts do institutions take a fiduciary duty?

[GILMORE]

Your
5:49 answer is "you have no right to be protected from 'mean old shorts"

Note = i never said anything negative about short selling. I think short selling is a wonderful thing.

I asked how actively attempting to engineer short effects on false information should be treated. Your case is basically 'all is to the good'?, regardless.?

[Fluffy]

I asked how actively attempting to engineer short effects on false information should be treated.

If I make false statements to you about a stock in order to induce you to sell it to me, you might have a case for fraud.

But if I open a short position and THEN start talking smack about the stock, I don't see how you have any case. There's no nexus.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"Muslim Who Converted To Christianity Sues Tulsa Church After Torture In Syria...

"The plaintiff says he agreed to be baptized on December 30, 2012 only after being assured by the defendants that his baptism would be kept private. He was scheduled to fly to Syria that same day and claims in his lawsuit that the defendants knew that....

"The plaintiff says he was in Damascus, Syria in mid-January of 2013 when he was confronted by radical Muslims who told him they'd read about his conversion to Christianity on the internet. Even though he denied it, the accusers tied and blindfolded him and told him they were going to carry out the death sentence....

"The suit contends the plaintiff is now wanted for murder in Syria for killing his uncle during his escape. It also says he lost several teeth in the beatings and that he has had several surgeries to address nerve damage in his arms and shoulders caused by having his hands tightly bound for days on end. He says he suffered a gunshot wound and was stabbed multiple times."

http://www.newson6.com/story/2.....e-in-syria

[Notorious G.K.C.]

The complaint:

http://ftpcontent2.worldnow.co.....awsuit.pdf

(link provided by Religion Clause blog)

[Raven Nation]

Re: free enterprise upthread.

Here's a good example of actual private sector work:

http://www.space.com/26255-pri.....-2020.html

FTA:

Morse, who has more than a decade of experience in space exploration, including a position as director of astrophysics in NASA's Science Mission Directorate, discussed his plans to do amazing space science missions at lower cost and at a faster pace than government oversight allows.

That includes taking advantage not only of private funding, crowdsourcing, and encouraging scientists to contribute, but also other outside-the-box ideas.

[Jesus H. Christ]

If he can prove that there was a verbal agreement to keep it quiet, I would think he had a case. Then again, I'm no lawyer.

On a related note, I'll take modern Christianity over modern Islam any day of the week.

[Jesus H. Christ]

"U.S. Captures Alleged Benghazi Ringleader". I'm so cynical now that when I see this I think: midterm elections coming up and Dem hopes are in the toilet. Now is an interesting time to "capture" the alleged ringleader. Who knows, it could be any America-hating jihadist fool wannabe.

It gives me a sad to be so knee-jerk distrustful.

[Raven Nation]

Perhaps this is your Garden of Gesthemane moment?

[Pro Libertate]

Look, whatever your religious or political views, Jesus has legitimate grievances against the Roman and local Judean governments.

[Raven Nation]

+1 Life of Brian resistance groups

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

I look at the movie 'Miracle on 34th Street' a lot differently since coming to the realization that the trial of Kris Kringle is very similar to the trial of Jesus, just with a happier ending.

[Pro Libertate]

I'm surprised that one of the remakes didn't end with New York crucifying Santa Claus.

[Jesus H. Christ]

The kid would have definitely ended up raped and beaten in a foster home. AFTER release from the mental ward where he/she was also raped and beaten.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

They probably would. Did Santa get permission from the city to fly on rooftops and hand out gifts? Are the gifts fair-trade and the product of an OSHA-approved union shop?

And what's the deal with his meritocratic system of giving presents based on whether the child has been naughty or nice? Mayor de Blasio won't stand for such blatant disregard for equality and social justice.

[Jesus H. Christ]

Sometimes it doesn't pay to fight city hall. Those penalties can be a bitch.

[Coeus]

More on that California consent bill

The bill, which was co-authored by Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, passed the state Senate 27-9 on May 29 and was moved to the Assembly.

When asked how an innocent person is to prove he or she indeed received consent, Lowenthal said, "Your guess is as good as mine. I think it's a legal issue. Like any legal issue, that goes to court."

[Jesus H. Christ]

I want the capital of CA to move to LA.

Then I want LA to fall into the ocean when the legislature is in session.

[Stormy Dragon]

It seems to me much of what is covered by insider trading laws would be much better handled via other laws.

If you hire someone as an agent, such as a corporate executive, and they withhold material information to enrich themselves at your expense, that's embezzlement not insider trading.

If you materially misrepresent an asset in order to get someone to purchase it, that's fraud not insider trading.

[Fluffy]

If you materially misrepresent an asset in order to get someone to purchase it, that's fraud not insider trading.

The problem for this approach is that if you make no statement at all about an asset, you can't materially misrepresent it.

"What are you selling me?"

"100 shares of Microsoft."

"Know anything about it I should know?"

"I'm not answering that question. Buy the shares or hit the fucking bricks."

See? No material misrepresentation. Even if I know Microsoft is about to go belly up Enron-style.

The impulse behind the insider trading laws is to attempt to establish a marketplace where there's no need for individual sellers to make representations of any kind about the securities or assets they're selling - a market where it is just assumed we all know what the securities represent. And fundamentally that can't be done. I don't even think it should be done.

[Stormy Dragon]

And in the above exchange, I don't think the seller should be liable for anything. If "insider information" just means knowing more than other people, it should be a crime. The only time I consider it a problem is when someone uses that insider information to defraud someone.