A.M. Links: New NSA Leak 'Imminent' from Snowden, V.A. Scandal Grows, Iraq Falls Apart

• 

  Credit: Wikimedia Commons

  Glenn Greenwald says a new NSA leak from Edward Snowden is "very imminent."

• IRS chief John Koskinen faced sharp questioning on Capitol Hill yesterday over the Lois Lerner email scandal. "We have a problem with you and you have a problem with credibility," declared House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

• ISIS fighters claim to have seized control of Iraq's largest oil refinery.

• According to a whistle-blower, Veterans Affairs officials in Phoenix conspired to cover up the deaths of at least seven veterans who died before receiving care. "My hands were tied. I tried to scream, and did the best with what I had. But the vets who were upset and deceased—I can't shake that feeling," V.A. scheduling clerk Pauline DeWenter told The Arizona Republic.

• The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's "impact on reducing the uninsured so far is very disappointing."

• A new Gallup poll finds Barack Obama to have the lowest approval rating among living U.S. presidents.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Glenn Greenwald says a new NSA leak from Edward Snowden is "very imminent."

Pulling a Julian.

[Protagoronus]

The NSA wishes they could julienne him

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Millionaire Chelsea Clinton can't bring herself to care about money

[db]

Millionaire skwerlz can't bring themselves to.care about comments.

[Florida Man]

Money, sex, air: Things that don't matter until you don't have them.

[NebulousFocus]

Common people.

[db]

I posted that the other day in response to a link about the Obamas wanting their daughters to learn about earning money.

[Raston Bot]

Why is she so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father.

[Trouser-Pod]

Gives new meaning to the phrase, "I shot a man in Reno..."

[Xeones]

Oh god dude that is so wrong

[DEG]

Joke time.

Hillary Clinton was tired of Bill coming on to her. She heard that Janet Reno was the only woman in the Clinton Administration that Bill hadn't had sex with.

Hillary asked Janet what she did to thwart Bill's advances.

Janet told her, "When Bill comes on to me, I just fart really loudly."

Hillary lay in bed one night, and when Bill got into bed and started touching her, she decided to try Janet's advice.

She farted loudly.

"Janet?" Bill said, "Is that you?"

[110 Lean]

How on earth did she earn that much money?

[Fist of Etiquette]

"We have a problem with you and you have a problem with credibility," declared House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

It doesn't help the IRS and Dems that Koskinen comes across as both smug and weaselly.

[Rich]

It doesn't help Reason that the squirrels come across as both smug and weaselly.

[Phoenix SEO]

I would have to agree with you there.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Greenpeace executive flies 250 miles to work
One of Greenpeace's most senior executives commutes 250 miles to work by plane, despite the environmental group's campaign to curb air travel, it has emerged.

Pascal Husting, Greenpeace International's international programme director, said he began "commuting between Luxembourg and Amsterdam" when he took the job in 2012 and currently made the round trip about twice a month.

The flights, at 250 euros for a round trip, are funded by Greenpeace, despite its campaign to curb "the growth in aviation", which it says "is ruining our chances of stopping dangerous climate change"....

[Certified Public Asskicker]

But Mr Husting defended the arrangement, telling the Telegraph that while he would "rather not take" the journey it was necessary as it would otherwise be "a twelve hour round trip by train".

Or you could fucking move?

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Of course, Luxembourg taxes < Netherlands taxes

[Swiss Servator, CH yeah!]

Take a train?!! Are you mad? There are common folk on those things!

[BigT]

Obama ignored by patrons at Chipotle.

[NebulousFocus]

SFed

[BigT]

Skwerlz

[Steve G]

What the fuck should I have for dinner

[Swiss Servator, CH yeah!]

Rotisserie Squirrel.

[Fist of Etiquette]

According to a whistle-blower, Veterans Affairs officials in Phoenix conspired to cover up the deaths of at least seven veterans who died before receiving care.

Friendly fire accidents are a part of any war on benefits seekers.

[Brett L]

Shocking list of college's easiest majors.

[KDN]

Communications, Media & Public Relations

Communications!? Oh, dear Lord!

I know! Is phony major. Lubchenko learn nothing. Nothing!

[Rasilio]

This is my shocked face 8-()

[Idle Hands]

I didn't find accounting "laid back" but every business class besides my core was pretty much a breeze. I also tend to think that these things are also pretty dependent on the type of people who go into each type of major.

[KDN]

I thought it was silly to lump finance in with management/marketing. Totally different level of rigor involved there, and you get a completely different type of student.

Accounting and econ are pretty binary in my experience; people either get the core concept or they don't and those that don't generally can't figure it out no matter how much time they put into it.

[BakedPenguin]

For some reason, financial accounting was quite simple for me, and cost accounting was nearly impossible.

[Idle Hands]

yea cost is widely considered far easier.

[db]

WTF is wrong with me? I chose ChE because it was considered difficult.

[Brett L]

Me too. After I dropped out because English was obviously too easy to be valuable. (Not that it can't be made challenging, but writing workshops were not particularly taxing because I didn't give a fuck about the feedback.)

[robc]

The look when I tell other engineers I was a NukE major is always interesting. "Fuck, thats a lot of math and physics" is an interesting comment to get from an engineer.

[Brett L]

I think that about the EE guys. "That math is hard."

[Warty]

EE is much too much math, and systems and control too. No thank you. "Thinking gives you wrinkles!"

[JEP]

If you can wrap your mind around complex numbers, that certainly helps.

I had a lot of fun because even towards you senior year in undergrad, you start talking about concepts in the abstract - what is information?, what's a signal?, what's a magnetic field?, etc.

It might be one of the only fields where epistemology and some other philosophical concepts can actually be demonstrated. You can look at an aliased signal and say "Look, there's Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in action."

[Warty]

I can wrap my head around j, I just never liked doing it. I've never thought about Shannon's theorem being an example of the Uncertaintly Principle. It makes sense, but it seems like a bit of a stretch.

[JEP]

The way it was taught to me was that time/frequency was another Heisenberg duality - like position and momentum. The more you know about one domain, the less you know about the other. Likewise, in order to completely capture an analog signal you can't sample it for an infinite amount of time, thus measuring the lowest frequencies down to DC. And you can't sample at infinitesimally small increments, measuring the highest frequencies.

On top of that, once you observe the signal, ie. sample it. You've changed the signal (similar to whole electron thing). In the frequency domain, the spectrum of a sampled analog signal is periodic even if the analog signal wasn't - the sampled spectrum repeats itself at the sampling period. Aliasing happens when the spectrum repeats too often and the spectrum starts overlapping, so the way you "observed" the electrons is affecting the measurement.

[Warty]

Yeah, I get what you're saying, but it's a stretch. Artifacts in a measurement due to the method of taking measurement aren't really the same thing as wave function collapse. I think. I guess. I dunno, it's been a while since I was smart.

[JEP]

Here's a really cool book, for free, that explains a lot of DSP theory using very little math. It's a good read.

http://www.dspguide.com/pdfbook.htm

This was my focus in undergrad, so I'm a huge nerd about it.

[Brett L]

Nope. I think I'm pretty smart, but everything descending from Quantum Theory, my brain rejects in self-defense. Three dimensional fluid dynamics? No problem. "Basic" electronics? Oh fuck no. I can barely compute how a battery stack works, and kiss my ass on semiconductor theory.

[Terr]

I'm a MechE and basic circuits was the best I could do in that field. If I can't see the electrons then they don't exist, damnit!

[gimmeasammich]

I'm a MechE and basic circuits was the best I could do in that field. If I can't see the electrons then they don't exist, damnit!

That's actually what kept me going in EE. It was specifically *because* I couldn't see them that I wanted to learn more and more.

[Terr]

I just worked on racecars and was a machine shop monkey.

[JEP]

I might be the other way around. My NukE, ChE, and ME friends always said that fluid dynamics and thermo were some of the hardest classes they had to take.

Apparently, their homework problems were centered around making the write assumptions to eliminate the right variables in the equations so they could actually reach an answer.

[Brett L]

You guys don't have that problem in EE? The "correct" answer is some insoluble Shroedinger equation, but assuming a,b, and c you can get some double or triple integral with a good enough approximation for any problem where there are enough particles that look like the local average to essentially describe the system?

[carol]

My degree is in economics. By no means strenuous but I wouldn't call it a total cakewalk either.

[thom]

My Econ degree essentially trained me to do what I do at my job: build models, analyze data, summarize results.

[Warty]

Major Group #5: Education

5???

[Brett L]

They aren't as bright, so they have to try harder even though the subject matter is less intellectual.

[Lord Humungus]

FREEDOM!

Cuyahoga Falls Man Just Wants to Fly his Kite Naked

A Cuyahoga Falls man was cited for disorderly conduct last week after he was discovered flying a kite, clad only in his birthday best.

Authorities report they received several calls from passersby who said they had spotted an elderly man rediscovering the joys of youth at the Summit County Fairgrounds.

By the time police arrived to the scene, the 82-year-old man had apparently put on a pair of shorts, and initially denied all charges of prancing around in the nude.

[db]

The WSJ's decision to basically put everything on its opinion page behind its paywall is counterproductive. Original articles, I can see. The opinion page and columns used to be (and should be) free as a teaser. Of course, they are free to do as they will, but I think they'll hurt themselves more than they get in new subscriptions.

[BigT]

Krugnuts goes off the deep end. Or, dog bites man.

Emissions taxes are the Economics 101 solution to pollution problems; every economist I know would start cheering wildly if Congress voted in a clean, across-the-board carbon tax.

[Suthenboy]

Key phrase - 'every economist he knows'.

[Zeb]

Also "economics 101".

[Brett L]

Paging robc, robc to the Coase phone.

[robc]

Im here.

You would have thought they would have met at the Nobel dinners or something.

[Free Society]

There's no tax that any self-respecting economist should claim is a net positive. And forget the self-respecting, not even an economist who pays hookers to spit in his mouth should stoop so low.

[robc]

Single Land Tax is the only tax that theoretically is without a deadweight loss.

[Free Society]

That's assuming the market can't possibly validate property rights as well as a government monopoly.

[Free Society]

If it's a coercive seizure of wealth, it's a loss.

[robc]

Nothing coercive about it. If you want a deed, you agree to it up front.

Convince me of a natural law justification for land property rights and I will agree with you. But no one has been able to do it yet.

Im with Mises and George when it comes to land. Not that they were in agreement.

[robc]

No, has nothing to do with that.

Property still generates rents, even if you ended up paying for them at the beginning.

If you paid for them up front, that means the previous owner collected all your rents.

[R C Dean]

The fundamental deadweight loss of taxes is that the money is diverted from economically more productive use to economically less productive use. I don't see how the Single Land Tax is exempt from that.

Other losses arise from distortion of markets by artificially increasing the cost of what is taxed. I also don't see how a Single Land Tax somehow doesn't distort allocation of capital as between real estate and other, non-taxed uses.

[robc]

IF (and this is the big IF), the SLT is priced to only take rents, then there is no deadweight loss. Rents are unearned, they are generated from the mere act of possessing the property. Its why the SLT only applies to land, not to improvements to the land.

The only distortion would be upon implementation. But that is true of any tax change.

[robc]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.....Efficiency

The example of Harrisburg is very funny. And not helping my case any.

[R C Dean]

Rents are unearned, they are generated from the mere act of possessing the property.

In that way, how are rents different from any return on capital? I get the interest of my bonds merely by possessing them. I get the dividends from my stock merely by possessing them.

Etc.

The SLT taxes some capital assets, but not others. Its inherently distorting, and not just when implemented.

The SLT is a partial (and hence distorting) implementation of the labor theory of value, it seems to me. And I thought the labor theory of value was pretty much a fallacy.

[Injun, as in from India]

Krugnuts would cheer ANY tax that congress passes.

[Raston Bot]

this guy was awarded a nobel in econ? wow. just wow.

[Juice]

Well, it worked so fucking well in Australia. Gun bans and carbon taxes; it's paradise.

[lafe.long]

I'll post this again since the skwerlz made off with it the other day:

Man loses job after fending off robber with gun

TRIGGER WARNING: Triggers

[Brett L]

Too many comments? How much do I have to give at the next webathon to get the unlimited comments package?

[WTF]

Another commenter suggested we reduce our webathon donations every time the skwerlz run wild, as an incentive to actually fix the problem.

[waffles]

I guess I could go back to my annual pledge of 0 dollars and cancellation of all subscriptions. Plus I got severe email spam which is kind of like Reason-herpes.

[Lord Humungus]

X-ray of a 900 pound man

I eat meh beans with a pitchfork.

[Warty]

Fake. Much too clean to be a real X-ray.

[Free Society]

A new Gallup poll finds Barack Obama to have the lowest approval rating among living U.S. presidents.

Well that's just racist.

[Suthenboy]

I am usually pretty forgiving about the squirrels, but goddamn. First a blank page, then a bad gateway, then I get a warning that I have made too many comments and should fuck off for a while.

Get your shit together Reason.

[Lord Humungus]

Ban new smokers, call from BMA conference

Delegates at the British Medical Association (BMA) annual conference voted in favour of a motion to prohibit smoking to anyone born after 2000.

The BMA is now expected to start lobbying government to agree to the move.

Doctors argued tough action was needed because most smokers became hooked at a young age.

Public health doctor Dr Tim Crocker-Buque said it was essential to protect the young as 80% of smokers took up the habit when they were teenagers and "almost all" had taken up the habit by the time they were in their early 20s.

[Mike M.]

IRS chief John Koskinen faced sharp questioning on Capitol Hill yesterday over the Lois Lerner email scandal. "We have a problem with you and you have a problem with credibility," declared House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)

Either charge some of these SOBs with crimes, impeach them, or just shut up and stop wasting everyone's time with this dog and pony show already.

[Rich]

This. Subpoena the shit out of some underlings already.

[db]

"Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie? Or are you gonna bite?"

[widget]

Dr Tim Crocker-Buque

I thought only girls used hyphenated last names. Is this a new thing for boys?

skwerlz are evil.

[Trials and Trippelations]

Children of hyphenators whether male or female have hyphenated names if the parents decide to pass along the hyphens

[db]

The thing I can't understand is hyphenated first names. Make up your fucking mind, or have another kid, people.

[Steve G]

whaaa? first names? Thankfully I have not encountered such

[Injun, as in from India]

Ta-Nehisi ?

[lap83]

I don't understand hyphenated last names either. If it was the norm, each person would have to drop a name when they got married to avoid chaos. But which name do you drop? The person you like the least? At least the patriarchal tradition takes the drama out of it.

[thom]

Don't most Spanish speaking countries already do this? It's the first surname of the father and the second surname of the mother, or something like that?

[BakedPenguin]

My (female) boss married a Mexican, who fathered her child. She has kept her name, and added his, the modern American way. What amuses me is that if her son follows Mexican fashion, she would be Smith-Fernandez, while her kid will be Fernandez-Smith.

[BakedPenguin]

(note: not their real names)

[Steve G]

yeah, for whipped boys. The really whipped boys fly below the radar since they just take their wife's last name

[Steve G]

but seriously, half the kids at my son's grade school have hyphenated names...then again they're all of latin/south american descent. I never realized this was a latin thing.

Also, I knew a guy who was adopted, therefore not really beholden to his birth name who took his wife's name. Seemed like a decent move.

[Brett L]

My wife's maiden name is Lovingood. I seriously considered it. Either way, nobody would have had to change their initials.

[db]

That's porn star name territory, there.

[Rasilio]

Before you married her you should have changed your last name to "Enhard"

Then you could hyphenate and be Brett Lovingood-Enhard

[Zeb]

They probably added the hyphens so they don't confuse non-Hispanic Americans. The traditional Spanish way to do names is to add your mother's maiden name at the end. Your surname is still your fathers name, but you attach your mothers name as well. I think that is a nice way to do it.

[robc]

Better than the icelandic way.

[Warty]

These poor idiots

For Alexis and S., that has meant making peace with rarely having sex more than once a month, and cherishing the fact that they are extremely affectionate.

[Warty]

Why is this a reply? Fucking squirrels.

[waffles]

Conventional wisdom dictates that since sex frequency goes down after marriage a sexless relationship prior to matrimony is fucking doomed.

[robc]

The couples who have waited until marriage thruout history wonder what you are talking about.

[waffles]

Who?

[Lord Humungus]

Mr. Piketty's Big Book of Marxiness

Even more troubling, Piketty places enormous emphasis on the role of the world wars as a great leveler of inequality and the primary driver of the postwar "golden age." But ask yourself a question: If you were a remotely sane human in 1900 and you were given the choice of

(a) getting richer, though at a slower rate than the very wealthiest, so that in 1950 there was a lot of economic inequality but you and your kids were still much better off; or

(b) facing two horrendous and cataclysmic global wars in which whole societies were razed and a hundred million people died violently and you (along with the rich) were made poorer for it, and would die at a younger age,

What would you have chosen? It appears Piketty finds Option B awfully tempting. And that is madness.

[Rasilio]

Not to mention the fact that on a global scale the 2 world wars was the biggest driver of inequality of all.

The US had been an economic power for quite a while and would likely have always been so but it was far from a dominant in the global economy prior to World War 2. Then after WW2 we were the only industrialized country left with a functioning economy which gave us a 30 year head start on everyone else and that was the primary reason why US Incomes were so much higher than incomes everywhere else till the 1980's and later.

[sarcasmic]

It is better to be equally poor than unequally rich.

[WTF]

And the tress were all kept equal
By hatchet axe, and saw

[WTF]

"trees"
Fuck!

[Zeb]

The idea that inequality is by itself a bad thing is terrible and leads to this sort of thinking.
I think inequality can be an indicator of bad things, but in and of itself really isn't anything.

[sarcasmic]

There's no thinking involved. That's your mistake. You give them credit for thinking. They're not thinking. They're emoting. Inequality feels icky. It's not fair. Everything that follows is simply justification for how they feel. If you try to understand through thinking, you'll never understand.

[Zeb]

When you are talking about someone like Pickety, there is some thinking involved. But when you start from purely emotive premises, you still get the same ridiculous conclusions.

[sarcasmic]

They start with emotive conclusions, then work backwards to justify them.

[Zeb]

Yeah, that might be more accurate in a lot of cases.

[Injun, as in from India]

I grew up in one of those "equal" socialist countries, alright? We were equal in misery, poverty, unemployment, and hopelessness.

[Ken Shultz]

"A new Gallup poll finds Barack Obama to have the lowest approval rating among living U.S. presidents."

I didn't realize Obama had higher unfavorable ratings than George W. Bush. Obama beats out Bush in that category by 8%!

That doesn't auger well for the Democrats in the midterms.

I wonder why more Democrats aren't distancing themselves from Obama, given those ratings. I suspect the reason has to do with bias in the media--much of the national media sees Obama himself as the only issue that matters, and support for him confers good guy status while opposition makes you the bad guy.

So, I suspect individual Democrats get more mileage in the media by playing coy on Obama--but someday that dam's gonna burst. It took a long time for people to accept that the media had duped them in the run up to the Iraq War, too, but once they did...

[Lord Humungus]

Louisiana man gets bitten on hand after trying to move 11-foot alligator blocking road

A Louisiana man is lucky to be alive after he was bitten while drunkenly trying to move an alligator out of the road.

Dramatic footage shows Glen Bonin and pals throwing their shirts over the gator's eyes and attempting to drag the blinded beast away by its tail.

But the 11-foot animal leaps up in anger, snapping its jaws shut on Bonin's hand in defence.

[Brett L]

"Goddam! That looked easier on TV!"

[Suthenboy]

"I've always been the kind of guy who learns the hard way,"

Shorter Glen Bonin - "I am a dumbass".

[Lord Humungus]

Naked disco dancer shines laser beam out of her bottom

They don't call Matilde Casanova Arredondo The Green Lantern for nothing.

The 23-year-old performs her routine at the Pacha disco with a green laser beam shooting out of her backside, showering the admiring audience in green rays.

Her unique selling point has immortalised her across the internet where she is now a colossal hit.

Matilde boasts: "It is not at all painful to insert and powerful batteries ensure that it can stay on for hours at a time.

[Brett L]

I'm frankly surprised this is only happening now.

[Zeb]

Green lasers aren't very eye safe, are they?

[Trouser-Pod]

Ummm...DUH! They're Green!!

Report to Environmental re-education camp immediately.

[Suthenboy]

"The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's "impact on reducing the uninsured so far is very disappointing."

Who could have seen that coming? The article claims only a 4M increase in the insured. I thought it was 7M+? What do you want to bet that number is a lie also? I would not be surprised if the number is lower than before Obumblecare.

[WTF]

Why, it's almost as if they lied about the number of uninsured when they were scheming to pass this thing!

[Swiss Servator, CH yeah!]

40 millyunz uninsured, dying in the streetz!

[DesigNate]

Isn't it awesome that they're able to just continually adjust the numbers down for everything without being called on their bullshit?

[R C Dean]

The article claims only a 4M increase in the insured.

And even that number, which at least takes failure to pay premiums and having been insured previously into account, is too high.

Because it doesn't net out the number who lost insurance due to OCare. Last estimated at @ 5mm, if memory serves.

So, to run the numbers:

3.4 mm of the 6.8mm HIE enrollees are "newly insured.

That means 3.4mm were previously insured. Lets assume they were all people who lost coverage due to OCare. That OCare has reduced the ranks of insured by 1.6mm people.

Subtract that from the newly insured, and you get a net increase of $1.8mm.

All this. For a net of 1.8mm. And we still haven't hit the big bolus of people losing their coverage, when OCare is fully enforced on big employer plans.

[Lord Humungus]

insert pudding and/or gravy joke here

Huge Mashed Potato Spill Blocks A64 In North Yorkshire

Drivers in North Yorkshire had to keep their eyes peeled to avoid a smash after a lorry shed its load of mashed potato on the A64.

The lorry shed around a quarter of its contents onto the carriageway near Malton at Crambeck junction, at around 3.25pm.

The lorry was travelling westbound towards York, before the road becomes a duel carriageway.

Firemen had to use freezing chemicals to help remove it.

[Brett L]

before the road becomes a duel carriageway.

So the lorry lost that duel?

[db]

No spoilers!

[Lord Humungus]

nah...

Kerry urges Kurds to save Iraq from collapse

Kerry flew to the Kurdish region after a day in Baghdad on an emergency trip through the Middle East to rescue Iraq after a lightning advance by Sunni fighters led by an al Qaeda offshoot, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. U.S. officials believe that persuading the Kurds to stick with the political process in Baghdad is vital to keeping Iraq from splitting apart.

"If they decide to withdraw from the Baghdad political process it will accelerate a lot of the negative trends," said a senior State Department official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

Kurdish leaders have made clear that the settlement keeping Iraq together as a state is now in jeopardy.

[waffles]

Why do the Kurds live in Iraq and not in Kurdistan?

[Flatulent Monkey]

See Don's comment below. Turks throw a conniption fit at the mere mention of a Kurdish state.

[waffles]

Thank you.

[Don Mynack]

Of course, he didn't consult our far more important ally Turkey about this, as usual.

[Flatulent Monkey]

The Kurds are unlikely to get involved. They have been pretty much self-governing Iraq from Irbil north since the early 90's. They have very little patience for Arab non-sense. The Peshmerga do not mess around, during OIF (and probably before), Arabs that came north to get their Jiahad on were rapidly disappeared.

[sarcasmic]

test

[Flatulent Monkey]

Mandatory.

[Lord Humungus]

Gay Activists Target Campus Building Named After Polish Anti-Communist Hero

Following comments last year by Poland's former president about homosexual members of Parliament, some students at Northeastern Illinois University are pressuring the school to rename a building that bears his name.

The public university in Chicago renamed an academic building "Lech Walesa Hall" in 2009 to honor the former Polish leader for his role in the downfall of communism. The press release from the event touted the university's connection to the Polish community, including its student exchange programs with universities in Poland.

In an interview in March 2013, a reporter asked Walesa where gay members of Parliament should sit. He replied, "No minority should climb all over the majority. Homosexuals should even sit behind a wall, and not somewhere at the front."

[db]

You know who else said that minorities shouldn't be allowed to have views that upset the majority?

[Brett L]

Athenians?

[Sevo]

SF decides it can lock up weird people; gov't gets to decide who is weird:

"Laura's Law appears headed for adoption in S.F."
[...]
"The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will almost certainly adopt Laura's Law to compel mentally ill people into treatment"...
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/.....hc-bayarea

Can't see any problems there, right?

[Ken Shultz]

They've been blaming Ronald Reagan for the homeless since 1967.

Just further evidence (as if we needed any) that the modern left's solutions can generally be characterized as authoritarian.

I remember when ObamaCare was supposed to help the working poor afford health insurance--somehow the left morphed that into siccing the IRS on the poor if they don't pay up.

Now they're going to solve the homeless problem by locking the homeless up?

God save the poor and downtrodden from the solutions of California's left.

[Ken Shultz]

Okay, the squirrels didn't like my link to the Lanterman?Petris?Short Act.

[Suthenboy]

All they have to do is wall off the city. My apologies to the sane people in SF....both of them.

[Trouser-Pod]

Won't they just use this as a way to blame 2A supporters?

"Well, if you hadn't insisted on your guns, we wouldn't have to do this! Are you really so against public safety?!?"

[sarcasmic]

Landscape gardener dies after falling into wood chipper in horrific accident
The death is considered an accident
The scene was so disturbing grief counselors had to meet with the responding officers

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....ipper.html
Some of the comments are pretty good.

[Lord Humungus]

Shut Up, Have a Cheeseburger

But . . . if we look at federal programs by budget share, almost nothing that Washington does requires a national policy. There's national defense, of course, at around 20 percent of spending; you may believe, as I do, that that number is probably too high, but national defense is a legitimate national endeavor. But most federal spending is on various entitlement programs ? Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and various other welfare benefits. There is not much reason for any of these programs to exist at all ? government is a criminally inept pension planner and a thoroughly incompetent insurance company ? and there is very little reason for any of them to exist as uniform, one-size-fits-all national programs. Start digging into that non-defense discretionary spending and you end up with very little more than a catalog of crony payoffs and political favoritism.

[Evan from Evansville]

So I spent the day getting admitted to the hospital here in Daejeon, Korea. I'm having my left hip replaced tomorrow morning (the fun starts at 6am!) after having my right replaced in 2012. (It's idiopathic. Unclear why my femurs started to break down but probably had something to do with my penchant for alcohol and the other fun substances.

In the States where I got my right hip done I was walking (slowly) the next day and was out of the hospital in 2. They want me to stay here for two weeks. And to make things even more fun, they want me to wait until after that to start phys. therapy.

So I'm going to be bed-ridden for the next two weeks in Korea. This is going to be incredibly shitty. Hopefully I'm so zonked out that I won't remember the first couple of days. Boy howdy!

[db]

Do they offer a happy ending?

[Steve G]

they want me to wait until after that to start phys. therapy

Goes against all the latest advice I've heard lately which is basically 'get up and moving as quickly as possible' whether it's a knee or hip.

[db]

Yeah, that is what I have heard too.

[Evan from Evansville]

Yeeeeeeeeep. Maybe they'll back down a bit. Not sure. Might seriously have psych. problems if they actually keep me immobile.

[Injun, as in from India]

Sorry to hear, dude. I hope they have attractive nurses.

[SugarFree]

Damn, that sucks Evan. Hopefully you'll have hot nurses and free-flowing meds.

[Lady Bertrum]

Gary Oldman says he's a libertarian:

OLDMAN: I would say that I'm probably a libertarian if I had to put myself in any category. But you don't come out and talk about these things, for obvious reasons.

http://www.playboy.com/playgro.....iew?page=5

[Lady Bertrum]

More:

PLAYBOY: Fine. We'll give you one. What would America look like under President Hillary Clinton?

OLDMAN: What can I say? I feel we need some real leadership, and it's nowhere in sight. Look at what's happening right now. John Kerry going off to China to talk about North Korea? What's that going to do? The ludicrousness of it. What a waste of money. You're going to go to the puppeteer and say, "Can you help me with the puppet?" As far as Hillary, I guess I feel like my character in The Contender, Shelly Runyon. He doesn't want Joan Allen to become president; he just believes she isn't the right person for the job. It's nothing to do with the fact that she's a woman, but he uses a bit of dirt on her to bring her down.

[Trials and Trippelations]

So what I hear Oldman saying is he wants Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to be his last movie

[Lady Bertrum]

Awwww. I hope not. I really liked him in the remake of Tinker, Tailor.

[Lady Bertrum]

But, yeah. This interview makes his "retirement" effective immediately.

[Trials and Trippelations]

I didn't understand that movie, but I do like him. I hope for a scenario in which only Matt Damon and Ben Affleck types blacklist him, but that the rest of Hollywood finds him to good to ostracize.

[Lady Bertrum]

The plot really isn't that complex. It's Cold War era spy stuff. MI6 has a Russian spy at the highest level and Smiley is tasked with finding out who it is. He does.

[thom]

I watched 40 or so minutes of that movie before I turned it off. Neither my wife or I had any idea what was going on, and we've always summarized it as "the movie with the old British men talking".

[Stormy Dragon]

It's a mystery. Figuring out "what was going on" is the whole point of the movie.

[MJGreen]

He was so good in TTSS. But I imagine he's too good to be ostracized. He's now a legacy British actor.

Though there's a reason he says "you don't come out and talk about these things."

[KDN]

It's not like he hasn't been through it before.

[AuH20]

Eh, Clint Eastwood would still cast him.

Which, holy shit, would be amazing.

[sarcasmic]

EXCLUSIVE: Maria Sharapova: 'I would like to play tennis for as long as I enjoy it, but family is really important for me,' Star opens up as she stars in new music video

Maria, 27, is star of Rizzle Kicks' new music video, Tell Her
Just won French Open and is playing at Wimbledon today
Says she prefers the natural beauty look but fashion is her 'guilty pleasure'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem.....video.html
Tennis chicks are hot.

[SugarFree]

I will help her have giant children.

[Lord Humungus]

Current Salon "top stories" honestly looks like a parody.

It's racism all the way down.

[Suthenboy]

All the time or just today? I think I know the answer to that.

[Brett L]

They did discover SWAT raids don't always get the bad guys, today.

For the last three weeks, my husband and I have been sleeping at the hospital. We tell our son that we love him and we'll never leave him behind. His car seat is still in the minivan, right where it's always been, and we whisper to him that soon we'll be taking him home with us.

I would be spending my time figuring out exactly how I was going to hunt and kill each person who put him there.

[Seamus]

That sounds like a terrorist threat, Comrade.

[NebulousFocus]

New Mastodon album out today.

[gaijin]

xclnt! Sounds great...love the haters in the comments calling it pop. haha!

[db]

So, on Mastodon: what's the usual ratio of clear vocals vs scream/growl? Because I love metal but I cannot get.my head around growling.

[NebulousFocus]

Lots of screaming/growling in their earlier work, but they've moved away from that in the last 4 albums. The song above and High Road are pretty representative.

[db]

Thanks. I really want to add bands to my library, but I have a mental block about growls. Really puts me off.

[Warty]

Oh good.

[sarcasmic]

I heart you no more: Melanie Griffith 'demanded her Antonio love tattoo be Photoshopped from new shoot... and plans to have it lasered off'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....d-off.html
Holy crap she's aged terribly.

[Lord Humungus]

she was good in Body Double - one of the films that I love but my wife hates with a passion.

[NebulousFocus]

Unpossible.

[Steve G]

By all means Melanie, light up another smoke, that'll turn back the clock..

[Steve G]

59 comments at 10:12. Way to go reason, the sqrlz fucked up the 'golden hour'. This AM links is lost..

[Lord Humungus]

see Charles Bronson in the Japanese Mandom ads.

58sec mark for the ladies and certain gentlemen.

[Ken Shultz]

I can have post comment?

[db]

Wow

Such post

So comment

Very Shultz

[MJGreen]

I can't even

Or can I?

[Ken Shultz]

It was a test comment!

It was supposed to be a take on "I can has cheeseburger?"

Google it.

See? "I can has post comment?" It's a funny test comment. ...or at least it was.

[gaijin]

Commissioner Reason, I would like to thank you for your servers.

[Brett L]

Serious question: Dude steals a car with a baby in the back. Leaves the baby safely in the carseat in a residential area where she is likely to found quickly. Do you want to hang a felony kidnapping rap on him, or would you rather say, "hey, poor decision, you're already going down on the GTA felony, but since you didn't hurt the kid (and took active steps to keep her from being hurt in a police chase), we'll give you a pass on the kidnap."

[sarcasmic]

If someone stole my car with my kid in the back, I'd shoot the fucker.

[Brett L]

Okay, but once they've safely put your kid somewhere she won't encounter a stray cop bullet because of their bad decisions...

[sarcasmic]

I'd still shoot the fucker.

[Zeb]

That will do your kid a lot of good when you are in prison.

[sarcasmic]

No I wouldn't. I'd figure out a way to do it without leaving evidence, and then I'd never speak of it. People get busted more often because they blab than because the police are good at detective work. It's amazing what you can get away with if you know how to shut up.

[db]

So, he.left the.kid strapped.into a car seat in the bushes? What, that's like, coyote brunch right there.

[waffles]

I think they still hit him with the unwarranted kidnap. It may be kind of dumb, but our system gives disincentives to acts of decency performed during criminal activities.

[lap83]

Who leaves their baby in a car unattended?
I still don't have sympathy for the carjacker, but that's a crappy parent.

[sarcasmic]

Who leaves their baby in a car unattended?

Someone who is paying for gas.

[Ken Shultz]

I don't the squirrels like replies. None of my replies seem to be getting through.

It's like squirrels don't like threaded commenting.

It's like P Brooks revenge!

[Lord Humungus]

Man Dies in Wood Chipper Accident

A worker landscaping all day near Southwest 57th Street and Pine Island Drive in Davie fell into the teeth of his wood chipper. His whole body was pulled in through the wood chipper, and the aftermath took a toll on residents and law enforcement.

...snip...

The man was dead when rescue workers arrived, and Davie Police had to delicately clean the scene and collect the victim's remains.

no shit?

[db]

One should never operate a wood chipper without a partner. They can stop it if you only lose an arm, and get it going again if you're more than halfway in.

[Rich]

Oh, it was in there. Just a little hard to distinguish.

[Warty]

Wood chippers are the #2 scariest tool. Only planers freak me out more, which I realize doesn't make any sense. Oddly enough, I have no problem whatsoever which chainsaws, which is just stupid.

[Zeb]

Planers aren't so bad. Jointers are much scarier.

[Warty]

My dad lost the tip of a finger to a jointer, so they scare me shitless too. But at least they don't grab you and pull you in.

[db]

There was a girl who went to my high school in the early 1980s who got sucked into a table saw by her hair and killed. Anything with exposed rotating blades is worthy of queasy respect.

[Warty]

And the old radial arm saws without protective sleeves. A buddy of mine was using one with his dad out in the snow. The dad made a cut, turned the saw off, turned around, slipped on the ice, flailed to regain his balance, and put his hand into the still-spinning blade. Ugh.

[Suthenboy]

I worked in a hardware store when I was in high school. All of the old woodworkers who came in for tools and parts had less than 10 fingers. All of them.

[Warty]

Yes. I grew up woorking with wood, I'm competent with it and it's fun, but holy shit the tools scare me. I doubt I'll ever do too much with it.

Of course, I'm also cursed with my dad's cheapness, so I'll probably end up making my own furniture like him and losing fingers. Fingers matter less than money, right?

[R C Dean]

Depends. Which do you have more of? Fingers, or money?

[Zeb]

I can't stand table saw blade guards, but guards on radial arm and chop saws seem like a really good idea.

[Rhywun]

Yah? Yaaahh!

[Warty]

Let's try putting this in the right place. These poor idiots

For Alexis and S., that has meant making peace with rarely having sex more than once a month, and cherishing the fact that they are extremely affectionate.

[Brett L]

Soo... which one got ugly?

[WTF]

Since they guy is the one who wants less sex, I'm gonna guess the girl got fat.

[Warty]

It sounds like the dude cares more about cuddling than sex. Low testosterone is a terrible curse.

[Brett L]

Maybe he should squat more.

[Warty]

Yes. If he did some squats and some Anadrol his girlfriend would be much happier.

[DEG]

Seattle franchise owners fighting back against the city's $15/hr minimum wage.

http://www.money.cnn.com/2014/.....?iid=HP_LN

[DEG]

Earlier today the story on franchise owners fighting Seattle's 4!5/hr minimum wage was the lead at CNN/Money. Now this article is the lead:

http://www.money.cnn.com/2014/.....l?iid=Lead

I'm not at all surprised.

[WTF]

"The cost of everything is going to go up," said Selena Bevers, a convenience store clerk in downtown Seattle. "You're still going to be where you are now."

It looks like the convenience store clerk has a better understanding of economics than the PhD in economics from North Carolina State University.

Shocking, I know.

[Suthenboy]

Sawant - "She says she was radicalized politically by the gaping inequality she observed upon arriving in the world's richest country."

Right. That must have been shocking to her after growing up in India.

[WTF]

Yeah, she was radicalized by the plight of the 'poor' people in the US - with housing, flat screen TVs, smart phones, X Boxes, and so much access to food they are actually fat.

Much worse than the poor in India.

[Injun, as in from India]

The constitution of India declares it a socialist republic. The ensuing suffering from 1947-1991 still can't open the eyes of dipsh**s like her. Then they emigrate to prosperous capitalist countries like America and espouse the same failed nonsense without thinking twice about it.

[Injun, as in from India]

This reinforces one other thing in my mind. Do NOT trust a Ph.D. credential. EVER. Real life experience in the private sector is worth far more than 4-5 years of mental masturbation in an academic setting.

[Injun, as in from India]

What irks me the most about this is that an Indian immigrant and stupid socialist b**** Kshama Sawant was partly behind this. People like her are so incredibly moronic, and there are so many morons who voted for her. WTF.

[Warty]

The US has gone something 80 years since overt socialism was respectable, right? It was due for a resurgence at some point. Hopefully it will only ruin a few cities before people remember why it failed the first time.

[WTF]

This time it will work. Because Top. Men.

[The Late P Brooks]

Seattle franchise owners fighting back against the city's $15/hr minimum wage.

There was a home care franchisee in the story who could probably drop the franchise and continue doing business. What is the likelihood those franchise owners will get sued by Corporate if they attempt to drop their affiliation and continue in the same line of work?

[Warty]

Here's the new Mastodon record. Enjoy until the label takes it down.

[Seamus]

A new Gallup poll finds Barack Obama to have the lowest approval rating among living U.S. presidents.

IOW, he's less popular than Dubya, but he has a way to go before he's loathed as much as Truman or Nixon.

[Flatulent Monkey]

I wonder if, in the future, you will be able to find anyone who voted for Obama? (Try and find someone who was of the age of majority in '72 who voted for Nixon)

[BigT]

In these Kansas towns, driving a car makes you a potential criminal