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Former Virginia Governor Is a Man of Convictions, Brits and Rand Paul Get Hawkish, Cops on the Defensive Over Military Gear: P.M. Links

J.D. Tuccille | 9.4.2014 4:30 PM

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  • Bob McDonnell
    Gage Skidmore

    Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife were found guilty of multiple counts of public corruption. Hey all the cool officials were doing it.

  • Well, somebody has a strategy. Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron, says he needs no permission from Syria's government to strike ISIL within that country's borders.
  • And Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) agrees that ISIL needs more of a whupping than President Obama has been willing to hand out, though only with congressional authorization.
  • You may not have heard this yet, but Joan Rivers is dead. The after-market parts are likely to be with us for a while, however.
  • The White House has another shot at keeping alive tax subsidies for health plans purchased on the federal Obamacare exchange, as the the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit grants a rehearing on the case.
  • Putin may insist that everybody has it wrong, but Ukrainian and Russian troops tell of battling each other in bloody combat.
  • At least some local police departments are getting defensive about all of those military toys they've accumulated.

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NEXT: 'I Am Not an Isolationist,' Says Rand Paul

J.D. Tuccille is a contributing editor at Reason.

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  1. Fist of Etiquette   11 years ago

    Hey all the cool officials were doing it.

    It's a shame this doesn't happen to all the political leaders who deserve it.

    1. Rufus J. Firefly   11 years ago

      Hello.

      Isis a bad man!

      Seriously. Why don't Russia, Israel and Team America Fuck Yeah form an alliance and wipe out this annoying vermin ISIL? Then they can all go back to playing their respective games.

      Connect Four!

      1. Restoras   11 years ago

        ISIS isn't bad, just misunderstood. If we could all sit down and play Connect Four together all this not-evil stuff would go away.

      2. Tonio   11 years ago

        Uh, you are kidding, right? Israel invading a Muslim country would create more Jihaddis. Not a good idea.

        1. Root Boy   11 years ago

          I kind of like the chaos and violence being neatly spread out across the globe. All we need now is a nice Sino-Japanese conflict over some rocks to really get CNN ratings to take off and maybe give Obama a chance to go on vacation again.

        2. Rufus J. Firefly   11 years ago

          If you're gonna wipe the assholes out you're gonna need cooperation from those countries and possibly Egypt.

          1. Root Boy   11 years ago

            Egypt and UAE recently bombed targets in Libya (Jihadi's I assume) so they are willing.

            It would be funny to see Egyptian and Israeli F-16s doing bombing runs together.

            1. Rufus J. Firefly   11 years ago

              I wouldn't rule it out if the Arabs conclude ISIS is dangerous even to their security.

              Then the world will end.

  2. Snark Plissken   11 years ago

    You may not have heard this yet, but Joan Rivers is dead. The after-market parts are likely to be with us for a while, however.

    And a thousand plastic surgeons wept bitter tears...

    1. PD Scott   11 years ago

      I expect the Joan Rangers to go out, find someone hideously dressed and make fun of them mercilessly.

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder   11 years ago

      Obligatory

    3. Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)   11 years ago

      This just in, Melissa Rivers is looking for employment.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder   11 years ago

        This just in, Melissa Rivers is looking for employment unemployable.

    4. Root Boy   11 years ago

      I keep confusing her with Phyllis Diller, she's dead as well, right?

    5. Francisco d'Anconia   11 years ago

      Can we talk?

      1. PD Scott   11 years ago

        Only with a Ouija board.

  3. Fist of Etiquette   11 years ago

    The White House has another shot at keeping alive tax subsidies for health plans purchased on the federal Obamacare exchange...

    They want to give the courts a chance to let us down one last time.

  4. Smilin' Joe Fission   11 years ago

    Matrix trilogy on AMC starting at 8.. However, I consider every film after the first to be some form of aborted Kung-Fu thing.

    1. Ted S.   11 years ago

      Interrupted by way too many commercials.

      1. PD Scott   11 years ago

        I remember the way AMC used to be, and it makes me sad.

        1. PapayaSF   11 years ago

          Oh God, yes.

    2. PD Scott   11 years ago

      Since I won't be around tomorrow, TCM is running a pre-code (and nit-pickers, yes, technically the production code was in place but wasn't enforced) marathon Friday. At 8 PM EDT enjoy the Barbara Stanwyck classic Baby Face, surely one of the very few movies ever released wherein the protagonist is exhorted to read Nietzsche and exercise her will to power.

      1. Ted S.   11 years ago

        Ah, yes, Alphonse Ethier telling her to "Use men to get the tings you want!"

        She then proceeds to sleep her way to the top, quite literally, as the camera pans further up the building with each conquest. (One of the conquests is a young John Wayne.)

        1. PD Scott   11 years ago

          "Do you have any experience?"
          "Plenty!"

      2. Ted S.   11 years ago

        And tomorrow at 5:30 PM is Night Nurse, which has Stanwyck as a private nurse to two girls who comes to believe the people in the house (led by Clark Gable) are deliberately trying to starve the girls to get at the trust fund money, all the while keeping the mother drunk/doped up downstairs!

        Wild stuff.

    3. Juice   11 years ago

      The first one was good but is now way dated and cliche. The two sequels were terrible.

      1. thom   11 years ago

        The first one was good but is now way dated and cliche.

        A cliche of itself?

        1. robc   11 years ago

          Thats like saying The Godfather is cliched.

        2. Juice   11 years ago

          Yes. It was so popular it has become cliche.

          1. Coeus   11 years ago

            "It insists upon itself."

          2. Brandon   11 years ago

            You're a fucking idiot.

    4. Mike Laursen   11 years ago

      As was the first one.

  5. Slammer   11 years ago

    I heard Joan Rivers plastic surgeon is going to be one of her pallbearers.

    1. Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)   11 years ago

      Let her down one last time?

      1. Francisco d'Anconia   11 years ago

        In their defense, there's only so much one can do.

        1. Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)   11 years ago

          But they never even thought of stopping there.

    2. Tonio   11 years ago

      I suspect she's used enough different plastic surgeons to have an all-MD pallbearer squad.

      1. C. Anacreon   11 years ago

        The word about her demise I keep hearing as "she suffered a heart attack while in a medical procedure in an outpatient clinic." Given what we know about her, this most likely means she was getting another plastic surgery procedure when she had the heart attack. I'm surprised they keep saying the vague "outpatient clinic" instead of better defining it as "plastic surgery" up till now, wonder when that will change.

        Bonus points if the plastic surgery center is also a spa and massage place -- these combos are quite common in the Bay Area, I'm guessing they may be in SoCal as well?

        1. Not an Economist   11 years ago

          She was getting some work done on the inside of her throat. Her voice has changed over the years because of these issues and she was getting them taken care of when all this happened.

        2. PapayaSF   11 years ago

          Would someone get plastic surgery at a place called "Yorkville Endoscopy"? Unless they do plastic surgery in unusual places....

          Not an Economist: Plastic surgery on the face can cause throat issues...?

          1. C. Anacreon   11 years ago

            First I'd heard the name given, all I had heard up till now was a generic "outpatient clinic".

            I wonder if she had a bad reaction to the anesthesia.

          2. Not an Economist   11 years ago

            The impression I got from the radio was no, she has been having these problems for years (not uncommon for people who make their living with their voice).

        3. ant1sthenes   11 years ago

          Rumor has it she needed her arms re-attached after a mysterious incident with what some witnesses described as a man in womens' clothing.

          1. gimmeasammich   11 years ago

            So Michelle O. finally got a hold of her?

            1. SusanM   11 years ago

              +1

  6. Coeus   11 years ago

    About that less than $2 a day facebook meme that's going around.

    Part of the reason Shaefer and Edin's headline number was so startlingly high?they calculated that the extreme poverty rate among households with children was a chilling 4.3 percent?could be attributed to a very narrow definition of income that ignored all noncash safety net benefits. Today, most of the government's poverty-fighting efforts don't involve straightforward cash. Food stamps? Housing vouchers? Tax credits? None were included. Once they accounted for those programs, only 613,000 families were living below the $2-a-day mark in 2011?still up by about half since the Clinton years.

    1 Footnote: Interestingly, they also find that if you use the exact same methods researchers use to estimate developing world poverty, then the number of Americans living on $2 per day also falls to zero.

    1. Smilin' Joe Fission   11 years ago

      So you're a racist 1%er?

      /prog

    2. Rufus J. Firefly   11 years ago

      From comments:

      "Perhaps the households living on less than $2 a day are rich people living off their wealth. No job, no income. That would explain the discrepancy between income and consumption. Does the income metric include capital gains?

      (I should add that I'm not trying to downplay poverty in the U.S.; but when you get such wildly divergent numbers, some explanation is needed.)"

      Jesus. Just. Jesus.

      These people shouldn't be allowed to handle money.

      1. PD Scott   11 years ago

        A fool and their money can't be parted fast enough.

      2. Tonio   11 years ago

        HTML tags, Rufe. Please use when quoting anything longer than a single line.

        1. Rufus J. Firefly   11 years ago

          The quotes are not enough?

          1. robc   11 years ago

            No.

            Better than using -, but not good enough.

          2. Raven Nation   11 years ago

            Codes are pretty easy when you have a cheat sheet such as this:

            http://www.simplehtmlguide.com/cheatsheet.php

            which a kindly H'n'Rer sent to me to save myself further embarrassment (not saying you should be embarrassed).

          3. Tonio   11 years ago

            The quotes are not enough?

            Quotation marks are the bare minimum for clear expression, but it does cover you.

            Use of blockquote or italics is a great courtesy to everyone else and does avoid unnecessary conflict caused by honest misreadings of what you wrote. Those tags really do make the text stand out as a quote.

            Also, Rufe, on a personal note I'm old and I do those tags by hand. I understand that there are any number of tools you can use to make it easier.

        2. Jerryskids   11 years ago

          Tonio|9.4.14 @ 4:47PM|#

          HTML tags, Rufe. Please use when quoting anything longer than a single line.

          What the hell? We got us a schoolmarm dedicated to scolding the commentariat here but they do't do jack shit about the squirrels?

          1. Tonio   11 years ago

            Nope. See above, particularly the part where I focus on readability rather than style for the sake of style. It's not scolding when you ask politely.

  7. Fist of Etiquette   11 years ago

    At least some local police departments are getting defensive about all of those military toys they've accumulated.

    So they're not going to use them offensively anymore?

  8. Juice   11 years ago

    http://blog.seattlepi.com/seat.....acon-hill/

    Dogs attack people in Seattle and cops respond. Guess what happens.
    Surprise!

    Seattle police officers detained two dogs Wednesday morning after a woman suffered serious injuries in a Beacon Hill dog attack, police and fire authorities say.

    1. Slammer   11 years ago

      The Onion?

      1. LarryA   11 years ago

        In the Onion they would turn the detained mutts and set up a sting for the alpha male and his bitch.

    2. Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)   11 years ago

      They jumped out of the window of the K9 unit?

    3. Jordan   11 years ago

      So they have no problem killing harmless dogs, but they'll go to the trouble of detaining dangerous ones. What the hell?

    4. Episiarch   11 years ago

      Beacon Hill is where poor people live, so dogs are probably higher status to the cops.

  9. Coeus   11 years ago

    Only by turning the tables on sexual aggression can we see how bad it is
    The disbelief of the men in my film mirrors the disbelief we should all feel when acts of everyday sexism happen to women

    They were shocked they were about to get some. I don't know how she made that movie and came away with the impression that these guys were bothered. (the construction guys were, but that's cause they thought she was calling them lazy).

    Answering the second area of criticism will help to illustrate this. "None of these men are even offended, they just think she's crazy! So, that disproves the point" was the gist of many a comment. I won't bother to address the responses implying that, because the men in the video didn't run away screaming, women shouldn't make a fuss about sexual harassment.

    Nice strawman. The strangest part is all the links I've seen to this video with stuff like "watch as men are horrified by a woman turning the tables street harassment".

    1. Root Boy   11 years ago

      Guardian and Leah Green can go fuck themselves. UK paper - maybe they should write about Rotherham or maybe she should do the same film in Falluja, hmm?

      Bunch of privileged London assholes.

    2. MJGreen   11 years ago

      I tested out real sexist situations on men. I took tweets from @EverdaySexism, where women (and men) recount sexist incidents

      OK.

      1. Coeus   11 years ago

        My favorite thing about the everyday sexism project is how they remove all references to the race of the harassers.

        I can't remember the exact quote, but the reasoning was that the person might be wrong about the race and just remembering it wrong.

        Always believe the victim. Unless it's about race.

        1. PapayaSF   11 years ago

          It is noticeable how often somewhat dweeby white college boys and gamers seem to be the focus of feminist rage, which somehow seems to skip over very macho behavior by black and Hispanic men.

          1. Coeus   11 years ago

            There is no greater disgust in a feminist heart than for weak males. They are the enemy, and there presence in the world disturbs the feminists to their very core.

            Witness the extreme vilification of the "nice guy" for nothing more than the sin of attempting to use the female method of mate attraction.

            1. PapayaSF   11 years ago

              That is at least one of the core paradoxes of feminism: "We want men to be strong and do exactly what we say all the time." I also think of all the mature women on Match.com etc. who are liberal or leftist and won't go out with a man who makes less than $100,000 or even $150,000 a year.

            2. MJGreen   11 years ago

              I imagine the hate for nice guys is a lot simpler (but equally damning) reason: these are all upper-middle class women who only interact with other upper-middle class people. Their only experience with "misogyny" is the dweeby guy whose impotent whining vaguely sounds like he thinks women are property.

              I think a lot of them would be put off by what goes on in more macho subcultures, but they're not a member there (or they don't want to be), so they don't experience it or think much about it. They still need to feel victimized, though.

              So, my answer to Papaya: it's all just in-group squabbling.

              1. Coeus   11 years ago

                I imagine the hate for nice guys is a lot simpler (but equally damning) reason: these are all upper-middle class women who only interact with other upper-middle class people. Their only experience with "misogyny" is the dweeby guy whose impotent whining vaguely sounds like he thinks women are property.

                I disagree. The macho culture is secretly venerated by them. Most of the theories they have boil down to only men having agency. quoting myself downthread:

                Also, there's the way they are constantly using "neck bearded virgin" and "can't get a date" as insults, thereby making sex with a woman the sole measure of a man's worth.

              2. MegaloMonocle   11 years ago

                Put off by machismo?

                Or turned on?

          2. Corning   11 years ago

            I think much of today's feminism can be boiled down to young white women bitching about their crappy dates/ex-BFs/one-night-stands.

    3. Doctor Whom   11 years ago

      Shorter Leah Green: "I won't bother to address the responses that cast doubt on my desired result."

    4. Juice   11 years ago

      This was on the imgur front page. Thought it was fitting.

      http://i.imgur.com/uFW3dn8.jpg

      1. MJGreen   11 years ago

        Hehehe, makes sense.

        I think it says so much that feminists think "male tears" is a great smackdown. Unless they really think they've made men cry - and I doubt that has ever happened - they're just insulting their targets by calling them effeminate. "Haha, I made you cry like woman!"

        1. Coeus   11 years ago

          Also, there's the way they are constantly using "neck bearded virgin" and "can't get a date" as insults, thereby making sex with a woman the sole measure of a man's worth.

          That's an attitude they claim perpetuates "rape culture".

      2. C. Anacreon   11 years ago

        Every one of those women with the coffee cups looks like they have Borderline Personality Disorder, there's something in their eyes. And that affliction, with its inability to see shades of grey (instead everything in the world is either good/bad black/white hot/cold), seems perfectly aligned with the sentiment they are trying to espouse.

  10. BiMonSciFiCon   11 years ago

    Want to read an unscientific, totalitarian-loving article on obesidy?

    You know you do.

    Say what you will about the Chinese, but they know how to make wholesale changes, and sometimes those changes are inarguably for the good. As noted in an editorial in The Lancet last week, the life span of the average person in China in 1950 was 40 years; by 2011 it was around 76. (The average life span in the United States in 2011 was 79.)

    Gee, I can't think of anything that would have contributed to short life span in China around 1950. Or any developments more economic freedom from 1976 on that would have contributed to better quality of life. Nope, must have been the big government.

    Articles like this are why I hate progressives. Ignorant, unscientific, yet certain that totalitarianism is the answer.

    P.S.- I wonder what the average life span was in China circa 1963.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder   11 years ago

      Gee, I can't think of anything that would have contributed to short life span in China around 1950.

      Lots of lead poisoning

      1. Restoras   11 years ago

        And not from paint.

      2. Raven Nation   11 years ago

        Well, most of them starved to death, right?

    2. AuH20   11 years ago

      The sheer amount of mass murder that occurred in China between 1955 and 1976 is insane.

      Mao is probably the most evil human being to ever exist.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder   11 years ago

        Pol Pot only differs in scale

        1. AlexInCT   11 years ago

          When looking at who did the most murdering as a percentage of their country's population, nobody can beat old Pol. He wiped out over 1/3 of his countrymen in that agrarian revolution of his. Mao beats him in sheer numbers, though.

      2. Restoras   11 years ago

        Evil, or just misunderstood?

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder   11 years ago

          Anita Dunn votes for misunderstood.

          1. Root Boy   11 years ago

            So does Thomas Friedman - he loves the new airports.

            Ah, I see this is Bittman. He should go to a Chinese Gulag for a month and review the food they serve.

            1. Dr. Fronkensteen   11 years ago

              Chinese prison food? You'll feel hungry an hour after eating it.

              1. Root Boy   11 years ago

                You are such a card, but good one.

      3. BiMonSciFiCon   11 years ago

        Yeah, but at least he got stuff done. Which is truly what counts.

        from the comments:

        Not many Americans would be willing to give up their basic freedoms for an efficiently run but notably intolerant government, though there are times...

        How generous of you, willing to give up my freedoms like that.

        1. MJGreen   11 years ago

          Yes, China: efficiently run.

      4. John   11 years ago

        He is. Stalin killed like 30 million people. Mao murdered over a hundred million. It is just incomprehensible what went on there. American Progs who casually wish we were like China really are evil.

    3. Jerry on the sea   11 years ago

      the life span of the average person in China in 1950 was 40 years

      Child mortality, how does it work.

    4. Ted S.   11 years ago

      Tom Friedman is getting a hard-on.

    5. Doctor Whom   11 years ago

      That looks vaguely familiar somehow.

    6. Rhywun   11 years ago

      I couldn't finish the article, I wanted to punch my fist through the monitor so bad. These people won't stop until every last fucking shred of enjoyment is ripped out of people's lives all in the name of "public health".

    7. LarryA   11 years ago

      As noted in an editorial in The Lancet last week, the life span of the average person in China in 1950 was 40 years; by 2011 it was around 76.

      And we can utterly trust the Chinese government to record and publish accurate statistics.

  11. AuH20   11 years ago

    Hey, so:

    Reason Meet Up- LA

    Sunday, the 7th. 11 AM.

    Rush Street in Culver City.

    Please come. I made a reservation and everything.

    1. Restoras   11 years ago

      This makes me want to a try a NYC one again. If LA can, we can.

    2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   11 years ago

      Did Jesse get a final count?

    3. PapayaSF   11 years ago

      We should do another SF one as well.

      1. C. Anacreon   11 years ago

        Yes, let's.

  12. Slammer   11 years ago

    Australian school bans unsupervised cartwheels and handstands

  13. Coeus   11 years ago

    Breaking news!!!

    Babysitters and burgerfippers join forces to demand higher wages.

    Honestly, they should be demanding computer literacy classes.

    "I got two words for that. Learn to fucking type."

    1. Root Boy   11 years ago

      Does it say how many people actually are on strike? I love how the media plays up protests and you find out there are 20 people there in a top ten metro area.

    2. The Other Kevin   11 years ago

      My oldest recently got a job at Dairy Queen. I love the kid, but there is no way in hell her experience and skills at fast food prep are worth twice what she's making now.

  14. Bee Tagger   11 years ago

    RIP Joan Rivers:

    "Comedy is to make everybody laugh at everything and deal with things, you idiot," she shouted from the stage.

    from here: http://www.npr.org/2014/09/04/.....ccess-dies

  15. This Machine Kills 40s   11 years ago

    I know someone mentioned the fast food restaurant worker strikes, etc. earlier today, and the following discussion continued on a bit about using robots to replace fast-food labor. Well, as it turns out, we're closer than you might think. And it is awesome. Can't wait to start seeing these babies pop up in local franchises.

    1. Certified Public Asskicker   11 years ago

      Momentum Machines cofounder Alexandros Vardakostas told Xconomy his "device isn't meant to make employees more efficient. It's meant to completely obviate them."

      Excellent!

    2. thom   11 years ago

      Reminds me of when I toured a Ford plant in Detroit and saw a robot installing windshields, and a unionized laborer sitting there watching it, making sure it was working...

  16. Warty   11 years ago

    How can we get science to prove our biases?

    Globalization limits the ability of the United States to intervene effectively on behalf of its most needy. Action taken to shield domestic labor from foreign competition threatens to place constraints on economic growth; protectionist trade policies, in turn, drive up consumer costs.

    The emergence of a rough ideological consensus on the causes of poverty and inequality would increase the likelihood of, but by no means guarantee, agreement on such initiatives as raising the minimum wage, increasing and expanding the scope of the earned-income tax credit, programs promoting marriage and paternal involvement, as well as stronger efforts to improve the quality of education, especially in poor neighborhoods.

    1. Warty   11 years ago

      Russell Oakland Yesterday
      How do we know that liberals' 'good intentions' have not worked? Is what we have today the worst possible outcome? Probably not and that may well be the result of liberals' good intentions.

      In Reply to Charles Reply 63Recommend

      1. Jordan   11 years ago

        Unfalsifiable hypotheses are totally scientific, yo.

        1. Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)   11 years ago

          Null Hypothesis

          Fiscally Conservative 'good intentions' = Worst Possible Outcome

          should be readily falsifiable and would be completely over any of these ass-hat's heads.

        2. Root Boy   11 years ago

          Russell does not understand that we're living on the borrowed efforts of our ancestors who gave us rule of law, free markets and freedom -- Liber..., I mean Progs, are eating into the feed corn now with a lot of help from Republicans.

          1. Alton Knutson   11 years ago

            Feed corn or seed corn?

            1. Root Boy   11 years ago

              Dooh! Seed corn.

    2. Sevo   11 years ago

      "Globalization limits the ability of the United States to intervene effectively on behalf of its most needy"

      Cuba hasn't gotten the memo.

  17. Coeus   11 years ago

    Tha fuck?

    Feministing Jamz loves us some Junglepussy, so it was with baited breath that we were waiting for the release of her new video for "Nah." It does not disappoint!

    I'd just like to point out that she is LITERALLY SITTING ON A WHITE GIRL AND SUBVERTING BASIC ASS SHIT WHILE EATING ASPARAGUS, NBD.

    Pero like?BRB I'm gonna go die now.

    1. Tonio   11 years ago

      Sounds like someone went off her meds...

    2. Max Power   11 years ago

      Why do people write like this? I had to read that 3 times before I understood it (sort of) and I'm not even old.

      1. MJGreen   11 years ago

        That's what I always ask. There are many things about my generation that I dislike but can ignore; this awful, awful style of writing that so many practice is insufferable. I guess it's trying to be conversational, but it's Internet/"meme" conversation. Which is STUPID.

        I feel like strangling something when I read, "What in the actual fuck?" or, "Because reasons."

    3. Trouser-Pod   11 years ago

      And, apparently, no one is going to call out the whyte grrrl for appropriating Ebonics.

  18. Scruffy Nerfherder   11 years ago

    a rough ideological consensus

    Yeah, we've had those

    1. Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)   11 years ago

      Ummm...

      Nazis are bad.

      That's like the last time, right?

  19. Jaybirdmojo   11 years ago

    I assumed that Bob McDonnell was a Democrat since his party wasn't mentioned.

    The Google tells me otherwise.

    I'm confused!

    1. PapayaSF   11 years ago

      Not being part of the mainstream media, Reason does not follow the rule regarding party IDs in scandals (GOP = mentioned in headline or first sentence, Democrat = mentioned late in the piece, if at all).

  20. Coeus   11 years ago

    Men Are Harassed More Than Women Online

    The issue of Internet misogyny has received a great deal of attention in recent weeks, ...videogame critic Anita Sarkeesian having to leave her home after a series of Twitter threats that included her home address(faked by herself). There is a common assumption that the targets of such vile behavior are overwhelmingly women who are abused because they are women?to the point where "women aren't welcome on the Internet," as Amanda Hess argued in a widely discussed article in Pacific Standard magazine this year. Reviewing women's online tribulations in the last month in The Daily Beast, Samantha Allen asks, "Will the Internet ever be safe for women?"

    1. Coeus   11 years ago

      At the same time, there was little reaction to a report contradicting the narrative that male public figures get considerably less Twitter abuse than their female counterparts. While the study, conducted by the British think tank Demos, was limited to a fairly small sample of British celebrities, journalists and politicians whose Twitter timelines were tracked over a two-week period, its findings are nonetheless interesting. On the whole, 2.5 percent of the tweets sent to the men but fewer than 1 percent of those sent to women were classified as abusive. Male politicians fared especially badly, receiving more than six times as much abuse as female politicians.

    2. BiMonSciFiCon   11 years ago

      Do we know that it was really faked by her?

      1. Coeus   11 years ago

        Check the evidence for yourself

        I saw the jpeg the other day, but this post came up on google. easier to read than the jpeg.

        1. Ted S.   11 years ago

          Fuck Disqus.

    3. MJGreen   11 years ago

      Women are fragile creatures who need the Internet to be made "safe" for them.

  21. Sevo   11 years ago

    Nothing about the 'fight to debase the currency'?

    "Fast-food protesters cuffed at higher-pay rallies"
    [...]
    "Hundreds of workers from McDonald's, Taco Bell, Wendy's and other fast-food chains are expected to walk off their jobs Thursday,"...
    http://www.sfgate.com/news/art.....ationworld

    That's 'hundreds' nationwide. Assuming SEIU isn't just blowing smoke (which is not a good bet) that means something like .0001% or so of the total: http://www.statista.com/statis.....ince-2002/
    Real mass movement, there!

    1. Sevo   11 years ago

      Nothing about the 'fight to debase the currency'?
      Ooops; yes there is.

  22. Coeus   11 years ago

    Krugman keeps pretending that we're in an unprecedented era of small government and low spending.

    . Anyway, this seems relevant to Brad DeLong's flashback to 2009, when I was lamenting bad ideas from freshwater economists and Justin Fox was dismissing them as having no influence on policy.

    As Brad says, it turned out that the bad ideas mattered a lot; Henry Farrell and John Quiggin (pdf) explain why. The reality was that the Keynesian policy consensus of early 2009, such as it was ? and it wasn't much, even then ? was fragile. Key actors with real power ? Republicans in the US, Germany, and the Trichet-era ECB ? were strongly anti-Keynesian by instinct. They were temporarily bowled over by the vocal Keynesian consensus among economists who had strong public platforms, but were ready to grab hold of seemingly credentialed people willing to offer justifications for austerity and hard money.

    1. Coeus   11 years ago

      And a quorum of economists obliged. Alesina-Ardagna expansionary austerity never got a lot of traction among policy-oriented macroeconomists, but the Harvard connection meant that it was good enough to give the austerians an intellectual fig leaf; the same for Reinhart-Rogoff and the 90 percent of doom. Having John Cochrane insist that Keynesian economics had been proved wrong and nobody was teaching it helped the austerian case even though it was completely untrue; so did having Robert Lucas accuse Christy Romer of being intellectually corrupt. Bad economic ideas didn't really drive bad policy, but they acted as enablers for bad policy instincts.

      And the people who promulgated these bad ideas therefore have a lot to answer for.

      1. Tony   11 years ago

        So how much does austerity policy have to fail relative to Keynesian policy before it starts working better?

        1. Coeus   11 years ago

          Please define austerity policy.

          1. PapayaSF   11 years ago

            To a leftist, it's "Spending more than last year, but not as much more as we would like."

            1. Coeus   11 years ago

              I think raising taxes is in there also. Who told them that increasing spending and raising taxes was the opposite of Keynesianism?

              And who told them that it's what the austrians want?

          2. Root Boy   11 years ago

            http://www.bloombergview.com/a.....-is-a-myth

            1. Coeus   11 years ago

              I don't like percent of GDP as a measure. Conflating tax policies with spending policies is only useful for obfuscation purposes. Real dollars controlled for inflation is the only metric you can't play with to reach a predetermined result.

        2. Suthenboy   11 years ago

          Tony the comedian. Well, except that he isn't funny.

          You need to work on your act Bub.

        3. Coeus   11 years ago

          Still waiting on that definition.

          1. Sevo   11 years ago

            Coeus|9.4.14 @ 6:32PM|#
            "Still waiting on that definition."

            Well, medical care isn't yet provided free to everyone, so austerity!

    2. Corning   11 years ago

      How do you get $800 billion in stimulas when the real power were strong anti-keynesians?

      Also in what world were Republican's a real power in 2009?

      1. Root Boy   11 years ago

        Krugabe now says the stimulus should have been about 2T!

        Back then, he said 800B was golden and would lead to keynesian nirvana.

  23. Reek   11 years ago

    Jesus, Rand needs to just STFU. He has been talking way too much about this ISIS shit, and contradicting himself at every turn. He's a bit of a flip-flopper on foreign policy, and we know how that goes in elections. Seriously, calling Clinton a "warhawk" one week (which I applauded) and then proposing a massive new war (which is what it would take to destroy ISIS) the next week?

    1. Coeus   11 years ago

      It was always gonna be this way, and it's only gonna get more infuriating. This is the way the game is played and, unlike his father, he has decided to play it. Take a deep breath and look at his voting record. It's all that matters.

      1. Reek   11 years ago

        I know, I just hate how soars from highs to lows. I was so happy in June when he blamed the neocons for bringing about the rise of ISIS, and refused to jump on the "Obama's to blame for leaving Iraq!" bandwagon.

      2. Reek   11 years ago

        But even if he is playing the game, he should do so in a way that doesnt open him up to the attack of flip-flopping. It's like he is unaware of his own statements from a month or even a week ago

        1. Coeus   11 years ago

          There was no literal flip-flopping. Someone's keeping his exact statements in mind and using weasel words to follow popular opinion.

          He's in it to win it.

          1. Reek   11 years ago

            "literal" doesn't matter. If it seems like flip-flopping to me, a supporter, what will it looks like to an undecided?

            1. Coeus   11 years ago

              Hopefully that he holds the same opinion that they do (that's why they're following popular opinion).

              Did it mess up Romney? Sure. But Romney flipped his voting record and bill support as well. Paul's just matching rhetoric to bring in the low information voter. And I agree, it ain't pretty.

              But as long as his voting record reflects one of the most libertarian in the fedgov, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Doesn't mean that reason should. Or that even the commenters should. Hell, it might be good for him if the libertarians turn against him. You've seen the way policy prescriptions are attacked as soon as a libertarian says them. Witness Kruggie's flipflop on a minimum income just because a libertarian floated it.

  24. Raven Nation   11 years ago

    YAY! The Affordable Care Act is working:

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....121927.htm

    The level of, I don't know, ignorance, stupidity, blindness is profound.

    1. Max Power   11 years ago

      I don't get how it's a success when you say you'll fine someone if they don't do something and then they do it. It didn't make insurance affordable or anything, all it did was make people spend money they'd rather spend elsewhere.

      1. Raven Nation   11 years ago

        Exactly. What is remarkable is that they're still a long way from full insurance.

      2. LarryA   11 years ago

        If people pay for health insurance the government has to use most of it to provide minimal health care.

        If people refuse to pay for insurance and instead pay a fine, the government gets the money directly and can spend it however the hell they want.

    2. Raven Nation   11 years ago

      And the hits keep coming:

      http://www.nationalreview.com/.....y-melchior

    3. Juice   11 years ago

      How is collecting government statistics and fudging the fuck out of them doing science?

      1. Tonio   11 years ago

        It's not. But it sounds all science-y and stuff which is good enough because most of the prog base doesn't give a shit about validity, only The Narrative(tm).

  25. userve32   11 years ago

    Dude jsut looks corrupt as the day is long lol.

    http://www.Crypt-Anon.tk

  26. Mock-star   11 years ago

    UK police raid home of Sam Taylor-Johnson because a neighbor saw a babby killing salt rifle with 30 caliber bullet clips through a basement window. The rifle was demilled and was donated to her by a gun control group to be made into artwork.

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

  27. Coeus   11 years ago

    Someone from slate wrote that article. He's probably already fired.

  28. Scruffy Nerfherder   11 years ago

    Good one

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