Vice Embeds with Islamic State, Congress Offers No Resistance to Strikes, Medicaid Enrollments Top 7 Million: P.M. Links
Vice News
reporter Medyan Dairieh managed to get embedded within the Islamic State (the guys we're bombing in Iraq) for three weeks to document their operations. The first chapter is about their actions in Syria.- Meanwhile, members of Congress are verbally offering support for the air strikes and humanitarian efforts, though of course, some feel as though he's not going far enough. Whether Obama's actions were a legal expression of his executive authority does not seem to be much of a concern to Congress.
- Airlines are also cancelling flights to and from the area and some are avoiding flying over Iraq entirely.
- Everybody directly involved in the gay marriage recognition battles in several states seems to want the Supreme Court to rule on the matter.
- New Medicaid enrollments have topped seven million since Obamacare launched.
- A church in Florida cancelled funeral services for a man there once they discovered he was gay and married to another man.
- Anthony Weiner plans to open a restaurant in Queens. Don't worry—the menus won't have any pictures.
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A church in Florida cancelled funeral services for a man there once they discovered he was gay and married to another man.
Did they revive him?
…Hello.
Wait – you’re not Rufus!
Rufus isn’t around, I guess, and someone needs to say it. Or else I’ll go crazy.
CNN puts Hong Kong in Brazil.
Hong Kong migrates N-NW ford the winter..
As long as nobody puts baby in a corner.
But seriously, CNN has a Hong Kong broadcast bureau. How did no one in the graphics department catch that?
Someone needs to add in Meme text into that image that says “I have no idea what I’m doing”
Everybody directly involved in the gay marriage recognition battles in several states seems to want the Supreme Court to rule on the matter.
SCOTUS says your marriage license is a tax.
SCOTUS says your marriage license is a tax.
They missed it by one word.
SCOTUS says your marriage is a penalty
Two words?
One. Penaltax.
It’s taxing.
J-Sub check in – Leaving for several weeks to Russia. I leave you in Warty’s capable hands.
Umm, “capable” of what?
Anything?
Traitor?
Say hello to Snowden.
they would never let me back in. I am concerned about it enough as is. I will be in a remote part of Siberia for a week too.
Look out for the holes!
I hope you are going fishing.
Fishing AND mushroom hunting hopefully
Fly fishing?
sadly no…likely net
Regardless, I’ll want a full report.
And, hopefully, Groovus.
The last reasonoid who went there was disappeared.
He uses his hands? Or is that a pseudo-biblical euphemism?
The reports I am seeing say that the strikes involved two planes. How is that supposed to make any real difference?
If the U.S. is going to bomb them, at least make it worth the effort.
This chippy little a-bomb-here, a-bomb-there is the worst possible approach.
Our military should only be used to fight wars.
We should only fight wars to win.
If we had stuck to these principles since WWII, we would be in a different and better place today.
Yes, killing people and destroying stuff, strangely, pisses off the people in the place where you’re using lethal force. So, if you’re going to do it, have an excellent reason that more than justifies the repercussions. Casual use of lethal force is a foolish and, frankly, evil occupation.
Everywhere a-bomb?
I think that’s supposed to be Everywhere a-bomb bomb
Those two planes? Bockscar and Enola Gay.
+1 Mushroom cloud
Whether Obama’s actions were a legal expression of his executive authority does not seem to be much of a concern to Congress.
“If Obama doesn’t have to follow the Constitution, neither do we!”
That didn’t work for me.
Anthony Weiner plans to open a restaurant in Queens. Don’t worry?the menus won’t have any pictures.
A hot dog stand isn’t a restaurant.
Based on his photo predilections, I’d say “Hot Dog Stand” is the perfect name for his business.
Carlos Danger’s Big Weiner!
Liquor in the front, and get hot dog in the rear!
We serve food, too!
I don’t know what comprises the “Sydney Special, but I’m pretty sure it’s greasy.
Don’t get the Pittsburgh platter, and definitely don’t get the Cleveland steamer.
“Ladies, text us for a free bonus!”
There’s always money in the banana stand!
+1 Bluth Special
They plan to serve ‘locally sourced food’.
In Far Rockaway
So, ‘Free-range, crack-fed, sewer rat sushi’, then.
Can’t you gamers just stick to calling each other names? Gamers’ resort to SWATting each other, fortunately no one hurt.
Dozens of Cobb County SWAT officers, along with fire and rescue teams, were called out to a small Marietta neighborhood after receiving a 911 call that someone in a home had “shot his mother and would shoot himself.”
Police surrounded the home, yelled at those inside using a bullhorn and made the seven people come out of the house one-by-one with their hands up and walking backward.
Turns out those in the home were “professional gamers” and had an online challenge or dispute with other online gamers, who then called 911 in retaliation.
Police said they are trying to track down the people who made the fake 911 call. There is no word on if anyone will be charged in this incident.
Considering how many times LEO’s shoot and kill innocent people, shouldn’t “SWATting” be considered attempted murder?
Indeed.
Funny that when faced with a “known shooter” our heros in blue suddenly don’t seem so keen to kick in doors, and play Dynamic Entryman*
*Not to be confused with Warty’s housekeeper.
See VA Tech shooter. And Sandy Hook.
They’re heroes the instant the shooter’s been dead for 10 or 15 mins.
And Columbine, etc., etc.
10 or 15 mins? Try 3 or 4 hours. Time and time again the police prove themselves to be cowards if there is even the slightest indication of any danger.
They’ll go in guns blazing if it is some hippie growing herbs in his basement though.
Anthony Weiner plans to open a restaurant in Queens.
McDongalds.
LOL WUT
This Guy Just Changed The Way We See Lord Of The Rings. Mind Blown.
The Eagle plot-hole
A better ending would have been to cut the eagles from the book and let Frodo die on Mount Doom.
I’ve got a better explanation: Tolkien was more concerned with crafting a compelling narrative and engaging mythology than he was with making an iron clad plot that would withstand the scrutiny of obsessed fans 60 years down the road.
This guy’s attempt to shoehorn his theory into the events of the novel/movie makes less sense than the original plot hole.
It’s actually not that much of a hole, anyway. The eagles only flew into Mordor when Sauron was no longer paying any attention. I imagine he had his own defenses against airborne assaults.
As I recall, he had a squadron of dragons flown by some bad-ass fighter pilots.
Yes, flak towers, surplus 88mm anti-air guns, a few Stinger missiles, a couple of Soviet Strelas.
I really think it’s a bullshit hole. Sauron has the Nazg?l flying around on specially bred, well, whatevers, and I’m sure he could deal with eagles as needed.
If you only have nine Nazgul, and they get sent on special hunting missions, why would they be put on air patrol? There looked to be hundreds of miles of perimeter around Mordor that needed to be patrolled, and with only a few Nazgul, that’s be an impossible sentry job.
What, it’s just insanely out of the realm of possibility that Sauron employed other evil flying creatures? Or, for that matter, other methods of shooting stuff out of the sky? I mean, magic, right?
Not if you’re only interested in defending Mt Doom. But it doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult to breed more flying things and mount orcs on them.
Orcs. . .in. . .space!
Really, someone should do a Lord of the Rings musical, but with the story told strictly from Sauron’s side.
The First Law series Joe Abercrombie doesn’t take Sauron’s side but it does make a compelling case that Gandalf was no better.
Plus the sword fights are way better written then LotR.
That’s just revisionist history.
I don’t think Sauron was thinking that anyone would be heading to Mt. Doom. I mean, it’s hardly a tourist destination, and if it had even slightly occurred to him that sort hairy-footed midget could have the will to toss the Ring in (with some help by another hairy-footed midget). . .well, the story would’ve gone a little differently.
So I’m thinking more general Mordor defense.
Sauron had to know the only way the ring could be destroyed was in the fires from whence it was forged. He should have anticipated such an attempt.
But, Gandalf was betting Sauron thought no one would make such a foolhardy attempt. After all, one does not simply walk into Mordor. … The very air you breathe is a poisonous gas.
So if a sneak ground assault worked, a surprise Eagle attack might also have worked and saved a lot of effort.
Airpower is almost always superior to ground assault, unless you need to subsequently hold territory.
I could swear there was something about Sauron not conceiving that anyone could muster the will to destroy the thing. He was expecting the opposition to use it against him.
Yeah, I think Gandalf actually said just that, didn’t he?
er…fume
So Sauron’s only air-defense needs would be to protect Mordor in general, since he wouldn’t be worried about the Ring getting destroyed.
Well yeah, but if he had foreseen an attempt to destroy the ring, he’d have pulled those defenses (or a portion thereof) back to the mountain.
Point being, he already had the defenses needed to contend with ring dropping Eagles had he anticipated such an operation.
The Eye sees all. This was stated several times.
Good point. The early warning system was already in place, wasn’t it.
Maybe. Though an airborne Legolas could have shot them out of the sky, if that was the only defense.
In the mythology, it seems that every good thing had some evil version of it. So evil predator birds of death might be all you need, though in very large quantities. Which Sauron seemed to have no problem with.
Airborne Movie Legolas. Not Airborne Book Legolas.
Most of the winged dragons were dead at that point. In fact, I think most of them were killed shortly after Morgoth unleashed them in the War of Wrath (by Manwe’s eagles). As far as super weapons go, they were actually pretty shitty.
Also, I saw the word “Nazgul” and immediately assumed it was a thread about SCOTUS.
Before Aragorn distracted all the armies camped inside Mordor, they were camped throughout the interior.
Most of the orcs seemed to be decent shots with a bow and arrows, I’m sure they could have taken down the eagles in the time it took them to fly from the border to Mount Doom. I mean, they’re orcs, not stormtroopers.
Also, I hate the Eagles.
“Get out of my fucking cab!!!”
I saw a comic once (can’t search for it at work) that closed the plot hole with the fact that the eagles were actually pretty rapey. The less time spent with them the better.
The bigger thing is the Eagles didnt care about all this shit. Ring, no ring, whatever, didnt effect them.
Sort of like Tom Bombadil.
Gandalf could get them do some stuff on occasion.
There is no plot hole.
Is everyone forgetting the “Evil Eye” that was like a radar, constantly combing the countryside? Several times folks had to duck to be seen.
The idea was to get to Mt. Doom under the radar. Flying in with the eagles would have set off every defensive measure that Sauron had. Recall that the eagles only came into Mordor when the ring had been destroyed.
Trust me on this one.
… Hobbit
Well, there goes the rapey raptor theory (angrily deletes slashfic word doc).
Anthony Weiner plans to open a restaurant in Queens.
“Weiner Attempts Big Queens Opening”
“Weiner Tries To Penetrate Queens Market”
“Weiner Tries To Penetrate Queens Market”
In The Papers: Cash For Clunkers, Affirmative Action, Oil And Water
[emphasis mine]
Unexpectedly, I bet.
Whoda thunk?
Plus, it shafted poorer people by raising the costs of the remaining used cars.
As well as decimating the used car parts market, since all those ‘clunkers’ were crushed instead of disassembled and sold for parts.
I’m sure some of them were crushed, but if I’m not mistaken only the engines were required to be ruined by pouring something (I can’t remember what) into them.
Repost:
This Man’s Formula Tells Us The Exact Mix Of Hot And Crazy You’d Want In A Wife (Video)
I’m not seeing a lot to argue with, on either his “Hot/Crazy Matrix” or is “Cute/Money Matrix”.
this is a repost of a repost of something someone else linked before twice
I find it funny mostly because it seems the few people here who know who james yeager is seem to dislike the guy.
I dig him enough to subscribe to his channel.
Here, he talks about libertarianism
Libertarianism for the average Joe. That sort of approach has the potential to be readily consumable for those who don’t care to think too hard about all this.
I’d be happy in a world where people simply demanded to be left alone, even if they can’t explain why they should be.
I liked his tagline.
Thanks for posting this link, I’ve already passed it along.
… Hobbit
This is very funny. Thumbs up.
Leaving work now. See you Boston area folks soon!
Don’t do it, Auric, it’s a trap!
Top that, squirrels:
The Delhi Caller Reports: Monkeys In India Are Stealing Booze, Getting Drunk, Killing Lawmakers
More lawmakers? Or just the guy they pushed off the balcony?
We’d end up with a Planet of the Apes movie after they did enough damage to be of value.
Elect them. The Monkey Party would have an unbeatable platform of getting drunk and attacking human congresscritters.
Nothing in the Constitution explicitly says only humans can run for office. The monkeys just have to be old enough.
Obligatory.
And just think of how the poo flinging will elevate political discourse when they go on The Daily Show.
I am quite fond of the idea of a monkey turd up Stewart’s nose.
I’m not going to dignify that comment with a response.
Over/under on # years until Jenkins is caught doing something, or someone, he shouldn’t?
2022 – 2:1 on Underage girl.
With his obsession with Teh Ghey, just as likely to be an underage boy.
I don’t subscribe to that theory, it sounds like too convenient a way to try to shut people up.
I suspect he was knuckling to the congregation. These are Baptists, after all.
New Hope’s
It’s a Jedi church?
They missed the hole about 1/3 of the way up the door that he usually gives interviews through.
You mean principles like “Judge not, lest ye be judged?” or “Say not to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the mote from your eye’ when you have not taken the beam from thine own?”
THE GOSPEL IS NOT A SUICIDE PACT.
“Get your dang beam out of my dang eye! I don’t roll that way!”
By god, we will find something to satisfy our victimology complex in this case even if we have to stretch like a yoga master.
There’s a Black Twitter?
#whut
Hey, that’s “Black Twitta” to you. Only they’re allowed to call it “Black Twitter”.
Twitta please!
“Federal appeals court: health law doesn’t violate rights”
[?]
“The 2010 law regulates only people’s “economic interests””
http://www.sfgate.com/nation/a…..hc-bayarea
It’s the 9th, so stupid judgements are expected.
Well, it can’t violate a right that the Court no longer finds to be “fundamental”.
I mean….Come ON!!
For your enjoyment:
Ads from a different age
Those are really creepy babies, I can see why they were put in plastic wrap.
Shoulda used foil for that. Or a heavily tinted wrap.
I’ve always wanted my very own tapeworm.
Are you sure this on isn’t from the 80’s?
http://static.ijreview.com/wp-…..gif?edef5f
Hmmm…I remember a “Cocaine tongue”, but not a cocaine toothache.
So I learned today that apparently Israel has a military doctrine called “The Hannibal Doctrine” where if they suspect one of their soldiers is getting kidnapped, they basically flatten the area and kill him themselves because they’d rather kill their own soldiers than give Hamas a PR win:
Israeli Procedure Reignites Old Debate
That’s kind of psychotic.
Not really.
First, the odd of getting the soldier back alive are low, anyway.
Second, this response minimizes any incentive for Hamas to try to kidnap Israeli soldiers.
Third, I have the feeling the soldiers themselves, by and large, would prefer a quick clean death to whatever Hamas has in mind for them.
Israelis know they’re in a fight to the death. Palestinians know they’re in a fight to the death. The world pretends not to notice and gets the vapors every time they act like they’re in a fight to the death.
Maybe we’re going about this all wrong. We could just go to the region with everything we’ve got and forcibly convert all of them to, I dunno, Unitarianism? No, I have it, Quakerism.
Fuck, it mostly worked for Islam, even though they only mostly did that with “pagans.”
If we could only have a Quaker President, like Nixon.
Look, I didn’t say it was the perfect solution. Want to forcibly convert them to Buddhism? Fine by me.
“A compelling history of the contradictory, often militaristic, role of Zen Buddhism, this book meticulously documents the close and previously unknown support of a supposedly peaceful religion for Japanese militarism throughout World War II. Drawing on the writings and speeches of leading Zen masters and scholars, Brian Victoria shows that Zen served as a powerful foundation for the fanatical and suicidal spirit displayed by the imperial Japanese military. At the same time, the author recounts the dramatic and tragic stories of the handful of Buddhist organizations and individuals that dared to oppose Japan’s march to war.”
http://www.amazon.com/Zen-at-W…..r+ii+japan
What is the sound of one hand raping?
I’m not catholic about which religion to impose, so long as one is imposed. . .that isn’t Judaism or Islam, I guess. Zoroastrianism? That’s at least roughly from the area, sort of. Nearby, anyway.
Possibly unreliable information on Zoroastrians today:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z…..#Adherents
I actually knew a really, no kidding Zoroastrian in college. He was Indian and was utterly shocked that I knew anything about his religion (at the time, I knew about it mostly from some history and from a Gore Vidal novel).
The Creation?
Just plain Creation–yes. Loved that book, along with his other ancient history period novel, Julian. This doesn’t mean I don’t think he was nuts, because he was.
I took a class at UCLA called Zoroastrianism: History and Practice. There’s a large expat Iranian community in Westwood that fled the revolution in 1979, and there’s a large, legit Zoroastrain presence in Westwood because of that.
Anyway, they offered the class at night, as well, to people as part of their extension program, and so half the class was made up of Zoroastrians, who were interested to see what the academic community said about them.
Academics talking to Zoroastrians about their history was like anthropologists teaching evolution to Southern Baptists. It was the most openly hostile class I’ve ever been in. At one point, I was really concerned about the professor’s safety–and the professor seemed oblivious.
When they were already riled up, he went into a whole lecture about next-of-kin marriages..
http://www.iranicaonline.org/a…..ext-of-kin
Have you ever been in a class where a professor systematically proved that half the class was the product of generation after generation of inbreeding?
They were so mad, I thought they were going to lynch him.
P.S. This tribe everyone’s talking about–they aren’t Zoroastrians; they’ve just been heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism among Manichaeism and other things. It didn’t help that Mani used the names of the Zoroastrian “gods” in his religion.
Have you ever been in a class where a professor systematically proved that half the class was the product of generation after generation of inbreeding?
Pretty much any Genetics professor does that for the whole human race if you pay attention to what he/she is saying.
So, it wasn’t boring?
I worked with a Zoroastrian back in the aughts, I tried to quiz her about it a little out of curiosity but learned more about it from Wikipedia.
I watched catholic injuns in Bolivia send their priest out of town so that they could have their condor worship during the spring. They had the priest perform easter mass and then threw his ass in a cab and sent him packing. Then they all dressed up like bulls, condors, donkeys etc and spent a week having their nature worship.
People don’t convert.
People convert. Peoples dont.
Its an individual thing.
“forcibly convert all of them to, I dunno, Unitarianism?”
Muslims are Unitarians.
Couldn’t we just give the Jews Diego Garcia?
You know who wanted to ‘give them’ Madagascar…
Why?
Seems pretty contained to me. Let them kill each other for the next 1000 years just like they have been doing for the last 4000 years.
Actually, in Hebrew history, there’s a precedent for killing your own to steal the victory away from your enemies: Masada
Defense of their own honor, I think.
There was a made for TV movie based on this.
Afghanistan adopts the Kenyan Solution: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-28705950
When neither side concedes defeat and insists the other is guilty of massive electoral fraud – just share power.
Sometimes Vice tries to hard, but sometimes they’re fuckin’ nuts!
The Liberia “Cannibal Warlords” episode was pretty good.
Spaniards inspired by the Loyalists (commies) of the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s are in Ukraine, fighting for the separatists.
“(Reuters) – Angel Davilla-Rivas, a Spaniard who came to east Ukraine to fight alongside pro-Russian rebels, proudly shows off two big monochrome portraits of Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, tattooed on the right and left side of his torso.”
http://www.reuters.com/article…..VX20140808
The only Spaniard that I trust is Inigo Montoya.
And now I miss Rufus even more
*sniff*
A church in Florida cancelled funeral services for a man there once they discovered he was gay and married to another man.
I guess they could have held the funeral, and talked about how the man was burning in Hell right now. I know of a church that did that with a guy who committed suicide.
Listen up men. You will stay in that sexless marriage and you will shut up about it!
Sounds like some crazy smack dude.
You spelled ddue wrong.
And what does this say about other men?
Most divorces are initiated by women..like 80% or something crazy.
So none of this really says anything about men.
Sounds like some crazy smack dude.
http://www.AnonGalaxy.tk
Twitter is hilarious.
What, exactly, is a “TERF”?
Also, how would anyone know that someone using the women’s restroom is a transwoman? Don’t they have privacy doors in the womens’ restrooms, or is it a sort of “group effort” facility?
trans exclusive radical feminist.
Tha fuck?
Shit, I’m still dealing with your last link.
What the…I don’t even…HUH?
lolz
This weekend needs an 11 minute remix of “Don’t You Forget About Me”.
How about some Dire Straits singing about Elvis?
If your balls aren’t already throbbing in pain, better cover up before clicking:
KC Firefighter shot and killed on his wedding day by off-duty KC Police officer is a disaster of unfollowed procedures and bad decisions.
What could have been handled as a citation for drunken disorderliness ended with a guy asking for kindness from a cop who wouldn’t back down, then getting two shots in the chest for fighting back. It’s incredibly sad, but kudos to our alternative newsweekly for digging further into the story.
Nothing else will happen.