Obama Won't Talk Immigration Plan, Pentagon Has Spent $560 Million in Iraq, Ukraine Wants to Join NATO: P.M. Links

• The White House today refused to give a date by which President Obama intends to take executive action on immigration reform, and will likely delay until after the midterm election. Obama himself will be scarce from battleground states until after the election.

• The Pentagon says it's spending about $7.5 million a day in Iraq, and we've spent $560 million so far. The U.K. raised its terror threat level to "severe." Someone found ISIL's "laptop of doom," which contains all kinds of instructions on nasty things like weaponizing the bubonic plague. Nadal Hasan, the Fort Hood Shooter, wrote a letter to the leader of ISIL asking for citizenship from the Islamic State.
• Ukraine announced today it wants to become a member of NATO … for obvious reasons. Russian forces captured a strategic town on the Azov Sea. Nearly 3,000 people have been killed since Russia began its war in Ukraine, says the U.N. Putin warned the world "It's best not to mess with us," presumably while stroking a nuclear warhead.
• Israeli forces are in Golan Heights trying to find 44 U.N. peacekeepers captured by Al Qaeda-linked militants in Syria. 
• The NFL is toughening its domestic violence policy following outcry over Ray Rice's two-game suspension for allegedly beating his then-fiancée. How about lightening up on drug penalties while they're in the mood for change?
• After 11 years on the air, So You Think You Can Dance featured its first same-sex couple.  

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

After 11 years on the air, Dancing With the Stars featured its first same-sex couple.

I find myself still yawning at such shows.

[Bam!]

How do they determine which one leads and which one follows?

[Ted S.]

Whichever one is taller leads.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Have you no shame?

[Ted S.]

Enough not to watch Dancing With the Stars.

[Zeb]

Same way they determine who pitches and who catches (which I don’t know either).

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hello.

FOE…RACIST!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Yeah, that same-sex couple better not be mixed race.

[Furburguesa]

The mixed race couple I sit next to at the football games really hates the same sex couple across the aisle. It’s a real head scratcher.

[Zeb]

Maybe they are just assholes.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Which couple?

[Zeb]

Well, either, I guess. I was thinking of the same sex couple when I wrote the comment.

[Zeb]

What I’d like to see is same sex couple figure skating. I bet two men could do some really cool stuff.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Then have I got a movie for you.

[Obama's Buttplug]

I’m looking forward to Dancing with the Stars Naked.

[Sevo]

Fracking is scary, ’cause profits!

“Fracking may endanger groundwater in California
http://www.sfgate.com/business…..719880.php

And if you waste time reading it, you’ll find it also may not endanger anything, but it hasn’t been proven to be 100% safe!

[Ted S.]

The Precautionary Prinicple should be applied to proposed government regulations.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Ukraine announced today it wants to become a member of NATO…

All those years after the CCCP went tits up, NATO is finally making a comeback, baby.

[Mike M.]

The way this presidency is going, we’ll be lucky if the Berlin Wall isn’t back up in another year or two.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Obama himself will be scarce from battleground states until after the election.

His dulcet tones causing too many potential voters to faint before hitting the polls?

[Sevo]

SEIU ‘activists’ claim to speak for those who don’t seem to have a gripe!

“Cops cuff 12 protesting low security guard wages at SF Apple store”
http://blog.sfgate.com/techchr…..hc-bustech

Oh, and security guards suffer from “lack of access to high-end tech jobs, and lack of adequate wages in contracted service jobs”. Yep, those nasty companies just won’t hire security workers for high-tech jobs!

But wait, there’s more! “Kayla Gordon, 24, a former SIS security guard who now works as an organizer for SEIU, said that while she made $15-an-hour when she worked for SIS, she only worked a few hours a week and had few benefits.”
So the SEIU should hire all of them; problem solved.

[Tonio]

iSIS?

[Swiss Servator, Bern baby Bern]

*narrows gaze, but slow claps anyway*

[C. Anacreon]

High-end tech jobs should be fairly distributed to individuals regardless of education, experience, or ability to perform the job. That’s the only way to make things fair.

[Obama's Buttplug]

I say we just push everyone on to farms. No doubt it would work.

[Juice]

“Security officers deserve respect!” in the same twit as pictures of the protesters making life hard for the security guards.

[Zeb]

lack of access to high-end tech jobs

Access is getting to be a very abused word. I think that security guards have the same access that most people who do well in tech do. Get a cheap computer and learn how to do stuff with it.

[Max Power]

No no, that’s not right. If you don’t know how to do something, you don’t really have access.
Just like if you can’t afford something, you don’t really have access to it.

That’s what I’ve been told, anyway.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

The NFL is toughening its domestic violence policy following outcry over Ray Rice’s two-game suspension for allegedly beating his then-fianc?e. How about lightening up on drug penalties while they’re in the mood for change?

Especially since it’s legal in 2 states with NFL teams.

[Ted S.]

I can’t wait to see what happens the next time a sportswriter gets accused of domestic assault.

[Marshall Gill]

Yessss!

[Juice]

That were in the Superbowl last season.

[Jordan]

Up first in the Keynesian Klown Kronicles, Japanese Household Spending Slumps 5.9%

Japanese household spending fell much more than expected and factory output remained weak in July after plunging in June, government data showed, suggesting that soft exports and a sales tax hike in April may drag on the economy longer than expected.

Here’s the money quote, with pure distilled Keynesian idiocy:

But inflation is now both too high and too low: too high because wages have not kept pace with price rises, making the average worker worse off; but also too low, because the BoJ believes even larger price rises are needed to keep Japan out of deflation for good.

And here Mish gives the clowns a good kicking:

Got that? Spending was supposed to pick up due to inflation. Instead it went south because of a decline in purchasing power, exactly the opposite of what Keynesian theory suggests.

The standard, Keynesian answer … “more stimulus is needed” to raise prices to even more unaffordable levels.

Oh yeah! That will get everyone spending money they do not have to buy things they do not need.

And to top it off, Abe wants still more consumer tax hikes to rein in debt.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

Look, the math is all very beautiful and it was really hard to learn in grad school so, like, shut up and just listen to your Keynesian betters already.

[Sudden]

SF’d the link

[Jordan]

Argh.

[Ted S.]

Keynes stated that you were only supposed to up government spending during economic downturns. Once the economy picked up, you were supposed to stop.

[Invisible Finger]

Look, there is always someone somewhere in this country having an economic downturn. So govt. spending can never be cut.

[Zeb]

Yeah, Keynes was much more sensible than most contemporary Keynesians. His problem was that he thought that governments would ever cut spending after increasing it.

[ace_m82]

Well, that and he thought that government spending actually helped anything, ever. I’ve yet to see evidence of this.

[Zeb]

True. But if the government followed what Keynes would have actually suggested, we’d be a lot better off now.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Israeli forces are in Golan Heights trying to find 44 U.N. peacekeepers captured by Al Qaeda-linked militants in Syria.

I thought their helmets were blue so they’d be easy to spot.

[Jordan]

Up next in the Keynesian Klown Kronicles, Trapped in Venezuela: Looking to Get Out? Good Luck!

With the cash-strapped government holding back on releasing $3.8 billion in airline-ticket revenue because of strict currency controls, carriers have slashed service to Venezuela by half since January, adding another layer of frustration to daily life here.

The lack of flights is complicating family vacations, business trips and the evacuation plans of Venezuelans who want to leave the country, which is whipsawed by 60% inflation, crime, food shortages and diminishing job prospects. Steve H. Hanke, a Johns Hopkins University economics professor, says Venezuela tops his so-called “misery index,” which takes into account inflation, unemployment, economic stagnation and other factors in 89 countries.

[Jordan]

Fixed link…

[Jordan]

And for our final stop in the Keynesian Klown Kronicles, U.S. Consumer Spending Falls for First Time in Six Months

Consumer spending in the U.S. unexpectedly dropped in July for the first time in six months, a sign households are lagging behind as wages fail to accelerate.

Household purchases decreased 0.1 percent after increasing 0.4 percent in June, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. None of the 79 economists in a Bloomberg survey projected a decrease.

[Ted S.]

Unexpectedly, I presume.

[Jordan]

Fixed link…

[Tonio]

Three in a row, Jord. That’s SF-level link-munging.

[Jordan]

I blame Bush.

[Brandon]

None of the 79 economists in a Bloomberg survey projected a decrease.

Well then the observations must be wrong.

[Tonio]

Those wreckers and Kulaks must be hoarding their cash! Punish them!

[Invisible Finger]

Lower oil prices.

[Corning]

first time in six months?

So why did the economy drop 2.9% in the first quarter?

[Max Power]

Where’s GILMORE? I need a fashion review of this.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I’m not Gilmore but…

Ridiculous. All he’s missing is a tin foil hat and shnotts hanging from his nose.

You don’t mix a square pattern with cross-patterned (diagonal) ties while adding a shirt with more squares. With a suit like that a solid colored shirt (white, light pink etc.) or striped lightly, with a dotted tie or one with simple indiscreet patterns is more appropriate.

As it stands, there’s no contrast but more importantly it’s retarded…wait…never mind. It’s perfect for him.

[Max Power]

Also it looks like he has jeans on. I’ve already looked at this picture for way too long trying to figure out what is wrong with him.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

“Honey. Max! Come on. We’re gonna be late for the marriage counselor!”

“Yea…”

/stares back at screen.

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

I think Matt Welch wore this on TI last week.

[Sevo]

Renters in cheap housing may not be able to afford it once the landlord pays a ton to fix earthquake damage; lefty writer shocked!

“Blue-collar workers forced from red-tagged homes by Napa quake”
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/…..719693.php

[Tonio]

Shouldn’t the insurance pay for that? Or is this one of those deals where it’s not the actual repair cost, but the cost of bringing the housing up to current code standards?

[Solomon Grundy]

Normal insurance doesn’t cover earthquakes, and earthquake insurance is mad expensive.

[Sevo]

You’ll love this:
At one time, you could buy quake insurance from most any insurer. After (I think) the Loma Prieta quake, the insurers wanted to raise the premiums, the state commissioner said no, the companies bailed and the state set up its own insurance. With rates higher than the proposed rates and worse coverage.
Oh, and it’s 15% deductable, so given the CA building codes (and the building will be brought up to code) and the labor rates, and…
You get the picture…

[Jordan]

Sounds like a rousing success, by government standards!

[Jordan]

Coming to a health insurance market near you!

[Swiss Servator, Bern baby Bern]

*gets slightly smug look oh his face, nodding*

[C. Anacreon]

Also, the earthquake insurance now has to be “fair” across the board, regardless of your house or land. In those pre-Loma Prieta days, because our house was solidly anchored into hundreds of feet of bedrock, we paid very, very little (and the chances of an earthquake damaging us was also very small). But nowadays people whose houses are on top of sand or landfill — which can “liquefy” during a quake, those are the sites for the major damage — cannot be forced to pay more than people on bedrock. So insurance costs went up exponentially for everyone to cover the high-risk pool.

So of course we go without the insurance now, which if we had it would cost a fortune along with a $25,000 deductible. What’s the point?

[DJF]

Another example of turning insurance into welfare and wrecking the use of pricing of insurance to encourage people to build in less dangerious areas

[The Late P Brooks]

Spending was supposed to pick up due to inflation. Instead it went south because of a decline in purchasing power

No Shit?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Anon Bot’s High School yearbook photo

[Trouser-Pod]

“Most Likely to Graph Effectively”?

[Bam!]

Putin warned the world “It’s best not to mess with us,” presumably while stroking a nuclear warhead.

Hillary certainly did reset US-Russia relations, all the way back to the 1960s.

[C. Anacreon]

Putin warned the world “It’s best not to mess with us,” presumably while stroking a nuclear warhead.

Shouldn’t that be “while stroking a long-haired white cat?” I thought Putin was Number One of SPECTRE.

[jmomls]

No, Putin would have been in SMERSH.

[The Bearded Hobbit]

+007

… Hobbit

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Dalrock: Denying that marriage has moral meaning is the new virtue.

[Tonio]

Rotherham, UK Child Abuse Scandal

Basically authorities ignored widespread, organized child abuse in the ethnic Pakistani community there because authorities afraid of being labelled “racist,” or more accurately “anti-muslim”.

[Heroic Mulatto]

By “authorities”, one means “morally-crippled, Guardian-reading, middle-class, left-wing pricks.”

[Jordan]

In other words, residents of the UK.

[Zeb]

No, just the ruling class. There are plenty in the UK who would happily insult the hell out of the Pakistanis and send them back where they came from.

[grrizzly]

I think in Britain they are even worse than here at (mis)using the word “racist” when they talk about the followers of one religion.

[Ted S.]

When will Dancing With the Stars feature its first threesome?

[Fist of Etiquette]

When will you stop conflating Dancing with the Stars with So You Think You Can Dance?

[Ted S.]

I don’t watch either show. (I have good taste.)

[Riven]

What about the first polygamist dancers?

[Pro Libertate]

Polygamous dancing is inevitable.

[Zeb]

Next thing you know people will be dancing with their dogs and their sisters.

[Pro Libertate]

And dancebots.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Alpha Game: Affirmative Consent

[Ted S.]

I never gave affirmative consent to the so-called “social contract”.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Consent to be thrown in jail and raped is implied. Consent to sex cannot be and is thus rape. FYTW.

[C. Anacreon]

On-target quote from the comment section:

“Even if applied, It wouldnt be long before feminists complain that the consent contract is an oppressive tool of the patriarchy.”

[Apatheist ?_??]

Do you alpha guys all sniff each other’s buttholes?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Only with written consent first.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Do you mount each other to establish dominance?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

No, we do that for fun.

[Zeb]

Well, how else would you prove who is the most alphaest besides forcefully sodomizing each other?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

By forcefully sodomizing Epi’s mom.

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

Nobody can do anything ‘forcefully’ to Epi’s Mom.

She does it forcefully to you.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Nadal Hasan, the Fort Hood Shooter, wrote a letter to the leader of ISIL asking for citizenship from the Islamic State.

They’re more tolerant of workplace violence.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

HuffPo: Why Great Husbands Are Being Abandoned
…Fifty percent of marriages are still ending in divorce, and women continue to be the gender that initiates those endings. In the past, their reasons for leaving most often had to do with infidelity, neglect, or abuse. Now they’re dumping men who are faithful, attentive, and respectful, the very men they said they have always wanted. Why would women who have accomplished the female dream suddenly not be satisfied with it? Why are they leaving these ideal guys, and for what reasons?

I am currently dealing with several of these great husbands. They are, across the board, respectful, quality, caring, devoted, cherishing, authentic, and supportive guys whose wives have left them for a different kind of man. These once-beloved men make a living, love their kids, help with chores, support aging parents, and support their mate’s desires and interests. They believe they’ve done everything right. They are devastated, confused, disoriented, and heartsick. In a tragic way, they startlingly resemble the disheartened women of the past who were left behind by men who “just wanted something new.”….

[Longtorso, Johnny]

…You may think that these women are ruthless and inconsiderate. Those I know are far from that. More often, they still love their husbands as much as they ever did, but in a different way. They tell me how wonderful their men are and how much they respect them. They just don’t want to be married to them anymore….

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Rational Male: Back to Basics
…The popular message, the socially acceptable one, is that what makes a man an ideal long term partner will necessarily make him a tingle inducing sexual prospect. It sounds right, and it lifts women on whole up to a more idealized, humanist, higher-self.

Prior to the push for a more open hypergamy, what woman wanted to cop to love fucking the bad boys and “best sex ever” short term partners? No dutiful Beta wants to hear that truth, so the praises of the “respectful, quality, caring, devoted, cherishing, authentic, and supportive” guys are sung.

It may sell books and increase click-thru traffic, but ultimately hypergamy doesn’t care about higher-self aspirations or the conditioned delusions of men who believe that what makes men an attractive prospect for Beta Bucks will necessarily turn women on for Alpha Fucks. Your proof is in the DeadBedrooms subred….

[Apatheist ?_??]

Do you alpha guys sniff each other’s buttholes?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Do you always post the same thing twice?

[Apatheist ?_??]

No but you frequently post the same garbage.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Cutting a bit close to home, Apatheist? Come here and let me forcibly mount you to assert dominance.

[Corning]

Beta

You are an idiot.

Anyway it sounds like these men probably make a lot of cash (i know if i had the energy to be respectful, quality, caring, devoted, cherishing, authentic, and supportive i would be filthy rich) and like all people their wives are greedy shits.

Nothing has changed it is the same divorce laws that worked in the 60s and 70s giving the lesser spouse half and therefore every intensive in the world to leave.

[Corning]

Nothing has changed

Well I guess something has changed. The wives don’t call their husbands cheating beating rapists any more and instead talk nice about them while they steal half their shit.

Might be considered an improvement really.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

That’s because all women want some bad ass in their man. They don’t want some pencil-headed sweet guy 24/7.

They want him to pull their hair and scream (or whisper) in their ear ‘I’m marking you as my property, whore’.

Or not. I could be wrong. Like usual.

/bites apple.

[Ted S.]

You’re beginning to sound like Sudden.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Suddenly?

[Ted S.]

Suddenly.

[Corning]

I think I really like Olivia’s voice….

Though not the songs she sang.

I do like this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWeJ9p42ufg

[Swiss Servator, Bern baby Bern]

They just don’t want to be married to them anymore….

Just the recipient of 50-80% of their income?

[C. Anacreon]

They are, across the board, respectful, quality, caring, devoted, cherishing, authentic, and supportive guys whose wives have left them for a different kind of man.

This is exactly my little sister’s situation — she just left her husband of 14 years for a much different type of guy, really out of the blue. Her husband couldn’t have been better to her. She just says that now she feels like she can truly “be herself”. Her two kids, ages 9 and 7, though, don’t seem too thrilled.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

“Idiot govt policy encourages bad behavior and damages society” isn’t exactly an unheard of position around here. Saying leftist social policy and the current state of family law means the above applies to women isn’t too much of a stretch.

[The Late P Brooks]

It may sell books and increase click-thru traffic, but ultimately hypergamy doesn’t care about higher-self aspirations or the conditioned delusions of men who believe that what makes men an attractive prospect for Beta Bucks will necessarily turn women on for Alpha Fucks. Your proof is in the DeadBedrooms subred….

What the fuck is that even supposed to mean?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Ask Epi’s mom.

[Bam!]

That you need to start beating your wife.

[Warty]

Losers have created a cult of woman-hatred that centers around simplistic behavioral algorithms intended to help losers bang stupid girls. This is the kind of writing the indoctrinated produce.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Not everyone has a fully stocked rape dungeon, Warty.

[Warty]

Write some more Suki stories, weirdo.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Can’t – I killed Suki.

[Episiarch]

Then kill yourself and make everyone happy.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

But your mom would miss me.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Here’s the thing. Assuming that humans actually work that way…wouldn’t Alphas be getting the bucks? Confidence, aggressiveness, lessened risk aversion etc. are all positively correlated to success in business. That’s why the evo psych/PUA model of women settling with safe betas and looking for alpha adultery seems unintuitive to me.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

If there are only so many ‘alphas’ (by definition the top X% is a definite number of men smaller than 100% of all women), then getting some nice guy to pay your bills while you share the ‘alpha’ w/ a few other women on the side makes a biological sense.

Combine that w/ violent losers being seen as ‘alpha’ because they can theoretically protect you from the wildebeests despite not being able to hold down corporate cubicle jobs, and there you go.

[Apatheist ?_??]

BIOTRUTHS!!!!!!!!!

[Heroic Mulatto]

Combine that w/ violent losers being seen as ‘alpha’

Maybe this is because I’m thinking too literarly but many violent loser behaviors are incorrectly labeled “alpha” by popular culture when in fact, with a zoologist’s eye they are actually “beta”. In pack societies, beta males are very violent as they have to compete amongst themselves. The alpha male only has to put the smack down on that one top beta who challenges him, but most of the time he’s pretty chill. The utterly submissive are more correctly labeled as “gamma” or “omega”.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Fair enough. Point being, a woman settling on a “nice guy” to pay the bills while she gets DNA from a guy at the top of the heap makes as much biological sense as a man who can get away with it spreading it around to father as many children as possible. We see the latter happening and nobody complains about someone saying so. The former happens too.

[Heroic Mulatto]

a woman settling on a “nice guy” to pay the bills while she gets DNA from a guy at the top of the heap

Really, how many cuckolded dudes you know who would stay around to raise someone else’s kid? Even with our fucked up divorce laws, that’s a get out of marriage free card.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

They aren’t supposed to know it isn’t their kid.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Well, Maury Povich put an end to that problem.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

The number of positives Maury finds only proves my point.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Really, how many cuckolded dudes you know who would stay around to raise someone else’s kid?

Every man who marries a single mother.

[Apatheist ?_??]

With our population well over 7 Billion, being biologically successful isn’t exactly difficult.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

NY Times: Is There Anything Good About Men? And Other Tricky Questions
…Citing recent DNA research, Dr. Baumeister explained that today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men. Maybe 80 percent of women reproduced, whereas only 40 percent of men did….

[Warty]

PUAs have no idea what the metaphors they’re using mean? This is my shocked face.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Violent chimp betas competing with each other and not necessarily the alphas doesn’t disprove anything. Garage band idiots aren’t competing with George Clooney.

[ant1sthenes]

Of course, as applied to human males, most aren’t alpha, beta, gamma, or omega, as those are all classes of wolf, and they are sheep. And not (or not only) in the pejorative sense; I mean they’re not predatory.

[Corning]

A zoologist’s eyes sees alpha as the dad and beta are all sons of the dad…then they grow up and move away.

If they stick around and try to fuck their sisters and mom then dad gets pissed.

Longtorso is trying to apply essentially wolf family dynamics to human society and failing to get either of them right.

Also male wolves who breed are all considered alpha…and are all monogamous and pretty damn loyal to their mates and offspring.

In longtorso’s self inflicted mind fuck human alpha males are the exact opposite.

[Warty]

Losers have to make up stories about why their failures aren’t their fault. There’s no great mystery here.

[Episiarch]

It’s hilarious how the pathetic fucks who become PUAs don’t realize that their new “philosophy” is even more pathetic than when they were normally pathetic. It’s actually quite entertaining.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Fake it until you make it. Pretend to have confidence until you build some. Demystify the people you deal with instead of putting them on pedestals. Women are as much driven by instincts as the men who want to get in their pants are.

Why is that such a problem?

[Corning]

Women are as much driven by instincts as the men who want to get in their pants are.

pretty sure that is immeasurable.

And if it was the differences would be far smaller between the genders then between individuals and flux would be confined between 99.99 and 99.98% driven by instinct.

“I am driven by 99.987 while you are 99.988!!! I am alpha and you are beta or a woman!!

Hear my whining screed of irrelevance!!!”

[Max Power]

If this is what these pick-up people think of women, no wonder they don’t have much success.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

“If this is what Democrats think of women, no wonder they don’t have much success”, except that they do.

[Corning]

pick-up people think

You don’t have to think. It is a numbers game.

Ask 100 women and at least one will say yes.

I think this says Women are better then Men. Ask 100 men and dozens will say yes.

It also puts Longtorso’s claims that Women are less rational then men to shame.

[Solomon Grundy]

1. Men who get high paying tech jobs tend to have been non-alpha during their teenage years and probably forever will be for that reason.

2. Lessened risk aversion doesn’t really help with success, it just makes bigger successes possible, along with bigger failures. The point is that women don’t want a husband who cycles between high income and zero income every 5 years.

[Juice]

If Ron Paul were president right now (let’s say he won in 2012) and the ISIS shit started, what do you think he would do? My guess is that he would want to send someone to fight them, whether it was the military (after asking Congress to formally declare war) or through private contractors (using Letters of Marque and Reprisal). I don’t think he’d non-intervene here.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Ask Congress to relax the Neutrality Act to allow Americans to fight ISIS, sell surplus arms to the Kurds once they’ve upped their game and stopped losing battles, grant immigrant visas to the victims of ISIS persecution, grant letters of Marque and Reprisal (though this refers only to capture at sea, IMHO), pull a Putin by allowing U.S. soldiers to become anti-ISIS “volunteers.”

[Juice]

sell surplus arms to the Kurds once they’ve upped their game and stopped losing battles

I was under the impression that the US was arming the shit out of the Kurds. Hmm, I guess not.

But that’s intervention.

grant immigrant visas to the victims of ISIS persecution

I don’t know how a bunch of Yazidi dirt farmers are going to get their asses to the US and what they would do once they got here, but OK.

pull a Putin by allowing U.S. soldiers to become anti-ISIS “volunteers.”

That’s kinds cringeworthy only because it’s disingenuous, especially if these “volunteers” were being directed in any way my the US military, which of course means that it’s intervention.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Hey, this is the brainstorming phase, you’re not supposed to judge our contributions!

[Juice]

Oh, sorry.

[Sevo]

Well, hypotheticals are wonderful!
If he were prez, maybe all the Muslim groups would be having drum circles!

[Jordan]

Really? Why exactly do you think so (genuinely curious)?

[Juice]

I’m just basing it on what I’ve surmised by listening to what he’s said in the past, but I’m not a mind reader, so I was just asking others to help me guess.

[Solomon Grundy]

No way.

He would say that if your conscience troubles you, grab some rifles and some friends and board the next flight for Baghdad.

[Pro Libertate]

I have a more interesting question. If Paul truly believes in a noninterventionist policy, would he accept a declaration of war in a war he didn’t approve of? There’s an open legal question about whether a president can veto a declaration of war (probably can), and, of course, a reluctant commander-in-chief could drag his feet in conducting the war.

[Juice]

I don’t really know about any point in history where this happened, but I would guess that the CIC has a butt-ton of discretion here. War is declared and the CIC decides how the war should be fought, so I suppose he could drag his feet for a long time. A declaration of war just means that a formal “state of war” exists, not necessarily that there is actual fighting going on.

[Pro Libertate]

The veto has never happened. I figure presidents like war, because it gives them more power.

[Juice]

Oh, I know the veto has never happened. I wonder if the foot dragging thing ever happened. I don’t think so. It’s presidents that are usually asking for war, even presidents that said they didn’t want war.

[Pro Libertate]

Historically, wars have been good for elections, too, I believe. Strange how killing people and destroying things benefits people.

[Solomon Grundy]

The US declared war five times in its history (1812, Mexican, Spanish-American, WW1, WW2), and every time the president was pushing Congress to do it.

[Pro Libertate]

Yeppers.

[Warty]

I think you’re correct. That’s an interesting situation that we will never see, since anyone psychotic enough to be elected president loves him some war.

[Pro Libertate]

Paul was the one chance in recent years. Maybe Son of Paul, too, though less likely.

[jmomls]

*Israeli forces are in Golan Heights trying to find 44 U.N. peacekeepers captured by Al Qaeda-linked militants in Syria. *

How can you “keep the peace”, if you can’t even keep your own freedom?

[Sevo]

I think it’s “Piece-keeping”, as in slang.

[Juice]

Do they keep fingers like our brave boys in Afghanistan?

[The Late P Brooks]

At one time, you could buy quake insurance from most any insurer. After (I think) the Loma Prieta quake, the insurers wanted to raise the premiums, the state commissioner said no, the companies bailed and the state set up its own insurance. With rates higher than the proposed rates and worse coverage.

Isn’t this pretty much what happened in Florida, with hurricane insurance?

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, and I strongly advise against doing this. Our rates are absurd.

[Libertarian]

So THIS is why the EU was created. Better vacuum cleaners!

On 1 September 2014, vacuum cleaners in the EU will have to abide by a new set of minimum requirements. They cover:
Power
Performance (ability to pick up dust)
Energy efficiency
Dust re-emission in the exhaust air (particularly important for people with asthma)
Noise level
Durability (no early failure of the hose or the motor)

One additional measure helping to tackle climate change

The new rules will save 19 terawatt-hour per year by 2020, which is the electricity produced by more than 4 power plants or consumed by 5.5 million households.

Of course, measures on vacuum cleaners alone will not tackle climate change. However, if we consider all products together for which minimum efficiency requirements exist in the EU, the overall savings achieve up to a third of the EU’s energy saving target for 2020.

[Corning]

Would not be surprised if these regs outlaw iRobot and nanotechnology.

“Your nano dusting paint does not have an adequate hose”

“Its a nano structure to keep off dust…it has no hose”

“exactly…you are in violation of climate change regulations and are being shut down.

[Corning]

Ukraine announced today it wants to become a member of NATO

FUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuu……