Calif. Can Seize Guns if Families Ask, ISIS Bombing Already Cost Nearly $1B, Rand Paul Cool With 'Plan B' Contraception: A.M. Links

• 

  robertnelson/Flickr

  So America totally didn't need that extra $930 million we've already spent killing civilians and birthing new terrrorists bombing ISIS, did we?

• In the wake of banning plastic bags yesterday, California Gov. Jerry Brown also signed a bill allowing for family members and cops to petition judges to seize firearms from individuals deemed dangerous.
• Maryland has now become the 17th state to decriminalize marijuana. 
• Firechat, which allows smartphone users to communicate without an Internet connection, was downloaded by more than 100,000 people in Hong Kong in the past day. 
• Rand Paul tells South Carolina students that he is not opposed to emergency contraception.
• The University of California aims to set the "gold standard" on gender-neutral bathrooms.  
• AC/DC guitarist Malcolm Young has dementia. 

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

The University of California aims to set the "gold standard" on gender-neutral bathrooms.

You know who else had gold bathroom fixtures?

[UnCivilServant]

There was a jeweler in Hong Kong who made a 100% gold bathroom.

I have no idea why.

[Pope Jimbo]

Duh. Because he was into golden showers.

[AlmightyJB]

Probably for a goverment building.

[mashed potatoes]

I believe it had to do with Lenins hatred of gold as money and statement that gold was only useful as toilets bc of its antimicrobial properties. If it's the same rich ex-commie Chinese guy I'm thinking about.

[WTF]

Goldfinger?

[Elspeth Flashman]

Mr. Whipple?

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

Saddam?

[Aloysious]

The Pentagon?

[Steve G]

No, but the urinal dividers have bar codes on them. I shit (or piss) you not.

[UnCivilServant]

They're 'Furniture' and thus inventoried.

[Agammamon]

Or, likely they're new and no one has gotten around to scrubbing the sticker off.

Steve G next time check - do the bar codes say 'Minor Property'?

[Steve G]

No, def added after installation. I just used '4A10M-URINAL-5'. Probably for workorders and such...

[gaijin]

Goldmember?

[hamilton]

Richie Rich?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3xArWRKRCs

[Injun, as in from India]

Romanian Supreme Being Ceaucescu?

[Fist of Etiquette]

That's the one.

[Entropy Void]

"University of California President Janet Napolitano directed the system's 10 campuses on Monday to create more gender-neutral restrooms and to allow students to update their records with a preferred name that does not necessarily match their legal name."

"I don't care if it is spelled Raymond Luxury-Yacht, you will pronounce it Throat Warbler Mangrove!"

[Whahappan?]

Oprah?

[Fist of Etiquette]

...California Gov. Jerry Brown also signed a bill allowing for family members and cops to petition judges to seize firearms from individuals deemed dangerous.

Moonbeam's got it handled.

[WTF]

Because a bill totally trumps the second amendment and legal due process. Because FYTW.

[Jerryskids]

I can see where this is headed - if you live in California and have a family member the cops want disarmed, be prepared to be busted on some bullshit charge and offered a plea deal that includes you cooperating with the cops in petitioning a judge to seize the guns of your family member.

[Tonio]

^This.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Family members who snitch on one another by involving the state without taking care of business themselves are the worst kind of humans.

[Lord Humungus]

Not so sure how this could survive a 2A challenge.

[UnCivilServant]

Given the shit that has survived such challenges... I'm not optimistic.

[WTF]

Yeah, just look at the Drake decision in New Jersey, where the appellate court held that prohibiting the bearing of arms does not burden the right to bear arms.

[John C. Randolph]

So, if a gun owner has one gun-grabbing tumblrina cousin who freaks out over the idea of anyone owning a weapon for self defense, all she has to do now is clutch her pearls, call the cops, and the innocent citizen gets disarmed?

Fuck you, Jerry Brown, and every asshole in the assembly who voted for this obviously unconstitutional statute.

-jcr

[Cdr Lytton]

For family member, read pissed off spouse in a domestic.

[Lord Humungus]

IRS erased key records in lawsuit, NetJets says

In the midst of a lawsuit with the federal government over tax payments, NetJets claims that the Internal Revenue Service destroyed documents important to the case.

The Columbus-based private-jet company, in a motion filed with U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr., said the IRS "wiped clean a number of computer hard drives containing emails and other electronic documents that the Government was required to produce."

[WTF]

Those darn hard drive crashes! What can you do?

[Rich]

It *must* be all those solar flares!

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

This must be that "culture of corruption" Nancy Pelosi promised to deal with!

[Ted S.]

When she said "deal with", I think she meant "build up".

[UnCivilServant]

Or "get kickbacks from", "make agreements with", etc...

[db]

Yeah, I think the meaning of "dealing with" she intended the public to understand she meant is slightly different than what she actually meant.

[db]

This is going to generate some interesting (extra) cognitive dissonance from Shreek.

[Aloysious]

boosh?

[db]

NetJets is owned by Berkshire Hathaway.

[Ted S.]

FAKE SCANDAL!!!111!!!

[An Innocent Man]

I am actually shocked that NetJets would even fight the IRS. Why wouldn't Mr. Buffet just pay whatever the IRS says he owes? Something seems fishy...

[The Last American Hero]

I'm pretty sure Mr. Buffet doesn't take the standard deduction either.

[PBR Streetgang]

Its almost like a pattern or something.

[Iucundus (ex Damned Fool)]

Rand Paul tells South Caraolina students that he is not opposed to emergency contraception.

51st state! I hope they have a lot of electoral votes.

[UnCivilServant]

Not as much as the 52nd state though. We're wondering who gets to be lucky number 58!

[Mock-star]

Im hoping its Pennsyltucky!

[The Last American Hero]

Don't give hope to the Yoopers.

[Lord Humungus]

How Climate Change Helped ISIS

While ISIS threatens brutal violence against all who dissent from its harsh ideology, climate change menaces communities (less maliciously) with increasingly extreme weather. Most of us perceive these threats as unrelated. We recycle water bottles and buy local produce to keep the earth livable for our children -- not to ward off terrorists. Yet environmental stressors and political violence are connected in surprising ways, sparking questions about collective behavior. If more Americans knew how glacial melt contributes to catastrophic weather in Afghanistan -- potentially strengthening the Taliban and imperiling Afghan girls who want to attend school -- would we drive more hybrids and use millions fewer plastic bags? How would elections and legislation be influenced?

[UnCivilServant]

How Climate Change Helped ISIS

It was used as a canard by their appologists to gain power and undermine the groups that might otherwise have acted against them during their embryonic phase.

[WTF]

Climate change - is there nothing it can't do?

[UnCivilServant]

Silence the greens?

[NebulousFocus]

We've Lost So Much Antarctic Ice It's Causing A Dip In Earth's Gravity

[UnCivilServant]

That headline is just plain stupid.

Unless they went and chucked the ice into space, the planet hasn't lost any mass regardless of the state of the ice.

[Ted S.]

You forgot the possibility of converting that mass into energy. 🙂

[some guy]

You forgot the possibility of converting that mass into energy. 🙂

Technically that's the same as chucking (radiating) it into space... 🙂

[some guy]

Maybe they mean "specific gravity"? No... ice has a lower specific gravity than water, so it should be rising, not dipping. I'm stumped. I can't think of a way to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[Atanarjuat]

I'm not clicking on that link, for the sake of my few remaining brain cells, but ice sheets melting can cause *local* changes, via isostasy. Continental plates will "rebound" when all that weight is removed.

[Agammamon]

The article is written by someone who only has a vague idea what the people she copied from are talking about.

There are variations in the intensity of the Earth's gravity field at different locations because of uneven mass distribution throughout the planet.

*If* this is true (and the increase in the ice coverage of Antarctica would suggest, at a minimum, that this water is simply moving to the coast and then refreezing) then the large mass of ice is decreasing - reducing the strength of the gravitational field over that area.

[Ted S.]

I don't know what you're linking to, but the idea of that much mass being converted into energy and changing the earth's center of gravity is hilarious.

[UnCivilServant]

If mass were converting to energy, we'd be seeing nuclear-scale explosions given how much energy there is in matter.

[mad.casual]

Adding this effect to the models, the Earth's climate is expected to rise some 2,300 degrees in the next 100 yrs.

This would still be only a small fraction of the effect that mankind has had on the warming of the planet.

[Andrew S.]

2,300 degrees? Damn. Must start investing in air conditioning manufacturers.

[Brian.bs]

I think what they are suggesting is that the relocation of that much mass from one point on the earth's surface to another (ice melts into the oceans) is what changes the "wobble" of the earth. Or not....

[Pope Jimbo]

There is this howler too.

Of course, the fluctuation is noticeable only via satellite, not on the ground.

Some interesting field effect going on there.

[Agammamon]

Its not really a howler - if this is happening then the change in earth's gravitational field *over that area* is still going to be infinitesimal.

We're talking a shift of only a few Gtn of water per year - that's so small it would be lost in the rounding error for determining the Earth's mass.

[Pope Jimbo]

Let's suppose that the mass shifts some. That results in the change in the gravitational force over that area.

The howler part is that it could be detected from a satellite, but not at the ground. If you use Newton's formula for determining the force of gravity (F = (m1 * m2)/r^2) the change would be more pronounced at ground level. Because you divide by distance squared between the earth and the measurement device, the farther away you are the smaller the change in the gravitational force.

Which makes sense. If you take them at their word (the higher up you go, the greater the effect), then it would be even more pronounced at Pluto which makes no sense.

Of course, I might just be misunderstanding the point the author is trying to make. Wouldn't be the first time I turned out to be the comedic dumbass relief in a story.

[Zeb]

Yeah, stupid headline. The distribution of mass changed a bit if anything. Which will change the local strength of gravity.

All this really shows is that people can measure really small changes in mass distribution of the planet. I read something years ago about how because of all the dams and reservoirs in the northern hemisphere temperate zone, the rotation of the earth has slowed in a tiny but measurable way.

[Injun, as in from India]

A (Not Quite) Complete List Of Things Supposedly
Caused By Global Warming

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

There is a broken link, somewhere in the middle, that referred to the extinction of 'logic'.

The link points to cato.

[Injun, as in from India]

Here is the archived version:

http://goo.gl/cy46R0

It looks like the 1st page I posted got it wrong.

[tarran]

If more Americans knew how glacial melt contributes to catastrophic weather in Afghanistan -- potentially strengthening the Taliban and imperiling Afghan girls who want to attend school -- would we drive more hybrids and use millions fewer plastic bags?

Since the number of hybrids on the road, and the number of plastic bags in circulation have fuck all to do with droughts anywhere, I hope not!

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Toyota's next ad:

Drive a Prius, and send an Afghani girl to school.

[Juice]

*Afghan

[Andrew S.]

It's this type of shit that makes me regret having purchased a hybrid.

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

So, you're not doing your part in the war effort?

Fighting the Taliban thru shitty weather?

Or is this climate? I get cornfused.

[gaijin]

Most of us perceive these threats as unrelated.

and most of us are correct.

[WTF]

Because most of us are not shrieking lunatics.

[Riven]

Speak for yourself, sir!

[Certified Public Asskicker]

And wow, even the Huffpo commenters are not buying it.

[Tim]

Climate change turned me into a newt!

...
I got better.

[waffles]

In the wake of banning plastic bags yesterday

They finally did it. The worst thing about the California madness is that the present of CA seems to end up the future of everywhere else.

[db]

I totally want.to.set up a climate rally that features a big bonfire of plastic bags, Styrofoam cups, and conservative books.

[UnCivilServant]

Only if you put the rally people on the pyre too.

[BardMetal]

I wonder how many hippies would be dumb enough to support such a rally? Symbolism over substance.

[UnCivilServant]

"Unleash the Anathematic Chlorofluorocarbons"?

[FUQ]

I'm bringing used tires to add to the like.

OT.. I am already regretting commenting here. The endless refreshes as the page loads its endless ads and scripts is driving me insane.

[FUQ]

*pile not like

And no edit button.
/end rant

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Welcome to the party, pal.

[NebulousFocus]

AdBlock and Ghostery can be your friends.

[FUQ]

Ipad laying bed

/sad face

[Tonio]

Firefox with Adblock and NoScript seems to yield the best results.

[Agammamon]

I'd love to try to get one group of idiots to do that as a protest move. Then, simultaneously, agitate another group of idiots to counter protest.

I am the man who was Thursday.

[The DerpRider]

So we're back to not caring about trees? I can't keep up.

[Rhywun]

Just feel the guilt for whatever you're doing because whatever it is it's wrong.

[Lord Humungus]

of course...

Holder Says Apple's iPhone Encryption Will Thwart Child Abuse Investigations

Attorney General Eric Holder ripped technology companies Tuesday that he said are "thwarting" the federal government's ability to stop child abuse, just days after Apple and Google announced new security measures that would prevent the companies from giving authorities data on users.

"We would hope that technology companies would be willing to work with us to ensure that law enforcement retains the ability, with court-authorization, to lawfully obtain information in the course of an investigation, such as catching kidnappers and sexual predators," Holder said at a Washington conference of the Global Alliance Conference Against Child Abuse Online.

[UnCivilServant]

Unperson Holder has nothing to say that I care about.

[Doctor Whom]

How many more children will suffer just because we don't live in Zamyatin's glass apartment buildings?

[thom]

Hell - why not put cameras in our houses? If they're only going to lawfully obtain information with court authorization, it shouldn't be a problem.

[Rhywun]

catching kidnappers and sexual predators

Oh come on... Apple causes rape too, right?

[ant1sthenes]

And by "child abuse investigations", he means the internet's ability to look at hacked photos of teenage actresses' sex lives.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Rand Paul tells South Caraolina[sic] students that he is not opposed to emergency contraception.

This RINO's on a rampage!

[Rich]

You call *that* a "rampage"? These are rampages!

[Lord Humungus]

School bus rear-ended by big rig; 10 hurt
Witnesses: Truck driver never hit brakes; Female passenger was naked

According to Sheriff Gordon Smith, the woman in the semi was not wearing any clothes. She was given a towel from troopers to cover up in front of the children.

Witnesses said the semi was going about 60 mph when it struck the bus, which investigators said had its crossing arms out and lights flashing.

The crash happened on U.S. 301 near North West 183rd Street, just south of Lawtey, at about 2:45 p.m. As the school bus was slowing to a stop, it was rear-ended by the big rig, which is owned and operated by Mo's Trucking out of Palatka.

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

"distracted driving"

[gaijin]

driver must have been sexting

[Jerryskids]

"hands-free"

[Agammamon]

You joke - a friend of a friend was featured on Reason a while back.

He's the guy driving a semi who rear-ended (and killed) a cop pulled over on the shoulder (giving a ticket).

All because he was surfing porn instead of watching where he was going.

[Pope Jimbo]

"rear-ended" indeed!

[Cdr Lytton]

In fairness, the school bus manufacturers are making the situation worse. They've gone from the standard alternating blinking red lights which are instantly recognizable at a distance as a stopped school bus to blinding LED flashers that look just like a cop car or tow truck, which can be passed (safely, of course).

[Fist of Etiquette]

Firechat, which allows smartphone users to communicate without an Internet connection, was downloaded by more than 100,000 people in Hong Kong in the past day.

So you're saying Firechat set this whole thing up to drum up business.

[Iucundus (ex Damned Fool)]

That will be the plot of the next super patriotic Chinese spy film. The brave citizen vs. the evil mega corp out to destabilize China.

[Agammamon]

Somewhere in Silicon Valley are the two guys who made this app trying *desperately* to figure out how to monetize this.

[Lord Humungus]

Swiss researchers: Banner year for 'giant's penis'

Researchers at a Swiss university said this year's "giant's penis" blossom is the largest the plant has bloomed since it started flowering in 2011.

Scientists at the University of Basel's botanical garden announced Sunday the "giant's penis" blossom, an exotic plant native to the Sumatra equatorial rainforest in Indonesia, bloomed to a height of 100.4 inches, besting its previous blooms of 90.6 inches in 2012 and 80 inches in 2011.

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

*beams in pride*

[Ted S.]

Shouldn't you be narrowing your gaze or something?

[UnCivilServant]

Maybe he finally got new glasses and no longer needs to squint to read the text.

[Rich]

[it] emits strong odour, wilts & dies after 2 days

It should have consulted a doctor after 4 hours.

[DontShootMe]

It takes longer than 4 hours to find an in network doctor on your Bronze plan.

[Ted S.]

the "giant's penis" blossom, an exotic plant native to the Sumatra equatorial rainforest in Indonesia, bloomed to a height of 100.4 inches,

100.4 inches isn't very big for a penis.

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

How tall are you?

[Ted S.]

About 5'8".

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

68 inches isn't very big for a penis.

[Rhywun]

bloomed to a height of 100.4 inches

Pics or it didn't happen.

[Iucundus (ex Damned Fool)]

Combining the prurient interest with science!

http://www.plasticsurgery.org/.....reast.html

http://journals.lww.com/plasre.....__A.8.aspx

I worry about the sample size and would definitely like a larger sample but if the results are true it would fly in the face of the idea that standards of beauty are entirely cultural constructs. Also NSFW unless you happen to be in plastic surgery.

[WTF]

I doubt that anyone really believes that standards of beauty are entirely cultural constructs. That position is just a political tool.

[Iucundus (ex Damned Fool)]

Eh, I know too many intersectionalist feminists to let that idea go unresponded too.

[WTF]

Okay, there are obviously some mindless dupes who believe it, but the perpetrators of the idea know it's bullshit.

[Atanarjuat]

Women with attractive figures have more fit offspring. The influence of the patriarchy is insidious!

Using data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, William Lassek at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and Steven Gaulin of the University of California, Santa Barbara, found a child's performance in cognitive tests correlated to their mother's waist-hip ratio, a proxy for how much fat she stores on her hips.[18]

Children whose mothers had wide hips and a low waist-hip ratio scored highest, leading Lassek and Gaulin to suggest that fetuses benefit from hip fat, which contains long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, critical for the development of the fetus's brain.[18] In addition, evidence suggests that children of low-WHR teens were protected from the cognitive deficits often associated with teen birth.

[The Last American Hero]

Did they control for economic factors or is this baby Einstein all over again?

[Zeb]

Certainly not entirely cultural constructs. There do seem to be certain things that are considered beautiful or attractive across different cultures. But there is clearly a large cultural aspect to it as well. The most obvious example is probably thinness. In many other cultures and in the past the ideal body shape has been quite a bit more plump than the contemporary mainstream American ideal.

[Agammamon]

Don't think about about it as simply plump/thin - its about *wealth*.

When everyone is starving, plump is rich, rich is attractive.

When everyone is fat, thin is rich (because the rich can afford to exercise), rich is attractive.

[Zeb]

Assuming that is the case, it would seem likely that if there is any innate, evolutionary programming for what people find attractive, it would favor a bit more fat. Which probably explains why big tits and hips remain popular in spite of the preference for thinner figures.

[Rhywun]

its about *wealth*

It usually is.

Look at suntanned people in China vs the US. In China, only poor people have tans - guess which skin tone is favored.

[ant1sthenes]

In times of plenty, moderate thinness tends to indicate healthy diet and exercise. In times of want, moderate thinness tends to indicate malnutrition.

Men are attracted to health and youth. Excessive belly, waist, hip, etc. fat is almost never culturally desired, because it is correlated with age. Similarly, looking like a leathery prune is never going to be hot.

[kinnath]

Someone did a study a year or two ago. They captured hundreds of photos of Page 3 girls and asked a lot of people to judge them. They used this information to identify the most attractive (size and shape) breast. They got pretty much the same result as this study.

[FUQ]

Didn't they decide the more symmectrical a face was the higher people scored it? This was common across all cultures from what I remember.

Too lazy to google while on ipad

[kinnath]

I have seen studies like you suggest.

But the study I was referring to was specifically related to the preferred size and shape of of the breasts of the topless girls on Page 3 of the British newspapers.

[Aloysious]

You have my full attention.

[Lord Humungus]

a no-hand salute?

[Aloysious]

That made me chuckle.

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

He just crashed into a school bus.

[Atanarjuat]

And impregnated a bunch of high school students?

/Tony

[a better weapon]

HA! I had forgotten about that gem. We need to reference that more often. It fell by the wayside because of the 8% joke.

[Iucundus (ex Damned Fool)]

But they don't have the waist-hip ratio!

[db]

How do they justify the gun seizure thing? Is it like an involuntary commitment of inanimate objects? If the person is considered dangerous enough to take away some class of weapon from them, maybe they should be considered dangerous enough to, say, be prohibited from handling a kitchen knife, or drive a car?

Plus, there is absolutely no.way that "family members" would.never abuse this law in the heat.of a dispute over, say, custody of a child, or maybe an heated estate disagreement, right?

[Iucundus (ex Damned Fool)]

They'll probably try the same path as asset forfeiture. Sue the property, not the person.

And don't you know that asserting any concern over effects on family law makes you just like [bitchy Isla Vista kid whose name I already forgot]?

[Ted S.]

[bitchy Isla Vista kid whose name I already forgot]

White Asian.

[BardMetal]

Abuse is a feature not a bug. The purpose is to disarm as many people as possible. Who cares about due process, justice, or the constitution, they mean nothing if nobody believes in them, or enforce them anymore.

[Tonio]

Srsly? It's like you just got here, database. First, proggies don't actually believe in the validity of the Second Amendment. They believe that the right of others to feel safe trumps any icky gun "rights" that you bag-ratting fuck-tears believe in.

[WTF]

The right to 'free' birth control, however, is inviolate.

[Fist of Etiquette]

So America totally didn't need that extra $930 million we've already spent killing civilians and birthing new terrrorists bombing ISIS, did we?

But imagine how many windows need to be replaced over there.

[UnCivilServant]

Not many - they were short on windows to begin with. Something about a few centuries of decay.

[db]

But think of how many tanners can be employed making skins to.stretch over the holes?l!

[UnCivilServant]

"How did you decide where to put the windows?"

"We just put them where the shells came through the wall."

[Agammamon]

Not to mention any that they had we knocked out.

Then came back and knocked out any we missed the first time around.

[Griffin3]

4100 free rides to Harvard

[Lord Humungus]

Woman Hid Heroin In Buttocks Prosthesis, Police Said

A subsequent search of Ms. Roy revealed a hard prosthetic in her underwear that she told police that she wore to make her derriere more attractive. Police said that they found heroin inside the prosthetic. The police said they also discovered marijuana in the Jetta.

The police charged Ms. Roy with possession of heroin, a Class A drug, and possession of heroin with intent to distribute; possession of Class B, D and E drugs, and possession of Class B, D and E drugs with intent to distribute; and violating marked lanes.

[UnCivilServant]

Well, the backside is a traditional transport location for drug mules...

[SusanM]

Fighting temptation to make a "crack" joke.

[Tonio]

Or to crack a joke...

[WTF]

"Crack!? Where!?"
-Crackhead Tyrone

[Steve G]

violating marked lanes

BOOM! That'll get her. 'It's not sexy, but it's got teeth'

[Johnny Bravo]

and violating marked lanes.

I am sure this is the one she is most worried about.

[Don Mynack]

"marijuana in the Jetta"

Band name now claimed. Back off.

[Whahappan?]

Boy, talk about junk in the trunk!

[Lord Humungus]

John Lennon's nearly-forgotten 1974 Broadway flop

From the surviving evidence of the show, it looked like it was totally insane. TIME magazine hated it, their review was titled "Contagious Vulgarity" and it went out of its way to excoriate O'Horgan's style of musical theater. Other reviewers were much kinder and even enthusiastic, but the show which opened on November 17, 1974 was still closed by late January.

Ted Neeley, the actor long synonymous with the title role in Jesus Christ Superstar here played the Candide-like "Billy Shears." The sexy siren "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was played by Alaina Reed ("Olivia" from Sesame Street), while the role of "Sgt. Pepper" went to David Patrick Kelly an actor best known for uttering the immortal line "Warriors?come out to play-ee-ay!!"

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Anything Lennon touched in 1974 would be a beautiful train wreck. He was broken up with Yoko. Drugs, alcohol, and more drugs. He was surprisingly productive during "the blackout". But the creative product was based on self-destruction. This show would happen pretty much when he hit rock bottom.

[Lord Humungus]

Only 36 percent of Democratic candidates have expressed support for Obamacare

According to an extensive new research paper from the Brookings Institution's Elaine C. Kamarck and Alexander R. Podkul, only 36 percent of Democrats running for Congress this year have expressed a position in support of Obamacare.

Another quarter (25.5 percent) of Democrats have offered a nuanced position that wasn't clearly in support of the law or against it, while 1 percent outright opposed it and 37 percent have offered no opinion.

[UnCivilServant]

Not 8%?

[Rich]

60 Percent of Voters Want Obamacare to Be Repealed

[gaijin]

But 75% want to keep subsidies for whatever medical treatments they need?

[FUQ]

This is why we lose.

"Take free stuff from those guys but leave my free stuff alone"
/American voter

[Lord Humungus]

Advanced iOS virus targeting Hong Kong protestors -security firm

The malicious software, known as Xsser, is capable of stealing text messages, photos, call logs, passwords and other data from Apple mobile devices, researchers with Lacoon Mobile Security said on Tuesday.

They uncovered the spyware while investigating similar malware for Google Inc's Android operating system last week that also targeted Hong Kong protesters. Anonymous attackers spread the Android spyware via WhatsApp, sending malicious links to download the program, according to Lacoon.

It is unclear how iOS devices get infected with Xsser, which is not disguised as an app.

[Ted S.]

NSA is already asking the PRC security services for advice.

[Agammamon]

They're contracting with them now. Chinese security services can spy on Americans without those pesky warrants and there's no law saying they can't pass the info on to the NSA after.

[Lord Humungus]

Mosquito Virus That Walloped Caribbean Spreads in U.S.

The virus is called Chikungunya, an African name meaning "to become contorted." While the illness, first identified in Tanzania in 1952, has long bedeviled Africa and Asia, the only recorded cases in the U.S. before July involved patients who contracted the virus abroad.

Now, 11 cases have been confirmed as originating in Florida, spurring concern this may be the beginning of the type of explosive growth seen elsewhere from a disease that has no vaccine or cure. Medical and environmental experts are debating how best to quell the outbreak before it takes off.

[UnCivilServant]

Live in a swamp - catch mosquito borne disease. I have no sympathy.

[Tonio]

So, you expect all those people to just pick up and move? Srsly?

[UnCivilServant]

No, I expect a quarantine zone around the region.

[Lord Humungus]

with liberal spraying of DDT. /ideally

[Brett L]

This would be my Breaking Bad misuse of my Chemical Engineering degree. As long as there's no flourine chemistry in the synthesis. Who's the organic chemist on the web who says, "anyone who asks you to work with flourine chemistry is trying to get you dead."

[Agammamon]

Have you seen this?

http://pipeline.corante.com/ar.....uoride.php

[Shirley Knott]

You'll need an Environmental Impact Assessment -- this will mess with the migratory routes of the far-too-common Northeastern Snowbird.

[UnCivilServant]

As a disease vector, I'm afraid we have to cull the Northeastern Snowbird for the sake of everyone else.

[Ted S.]

You're a disease vector?

[UnCivilServant]

HAIL NURGLE!

[seguin]

Papa Nurgle's a pretty good guy.

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

Burn their northern nesting grounds, to be sure?

[Rich]

Maryland's decriminalization law took effect, replacing criminal charges, in most cases, with a civil citation and a fine

Emphasis added. Good thing MJ is getting "legal", huh?

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Yeah, the radio had someone from the Marijuana Policy Project on while I was driving in.

You can't smoke it, or use it. If you are caught with it, they take it and fine you.

Hooray?

[SusanM]

It's better than doing 20 for a dimebag.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Sure I guess, but:

State troopers will use their best judgment in guessing the weight of marijuana, Shipley said, since "the troopers won't be carrying scales." If it looks like less than 10 grams, troopers will issue a civil citation. If it looks like more than that, troopers will make an arrest and head to a station for an official weighing. If the trooper guessed wrong, the arrested individual will be released and issued a civil citation.

Still a lot of leeway for the cops to fuck with you.

[Tonio]

Incrementalism, dude. Don't fall into the ideological purity trap that catches so many here. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

[Rich]

I'll try to be more patient; but this stuff is like teasing a dog with a biscuit to get it to do tricks.

[Zeb]

Yeah, decriminalization is highly flawed in many ways, particularly in how it keeps the supply side of things completely illegal. But it's better than automatic arrest for any amount of weed. Just getting a ticket rather than being arrested, even if the result would just be a small fine is a good thing. Getting arrested at all can really fuck up your life.

[Juice]

And it's not really decriminalization. They still treat it like a crime, ie breaking a law. If it's not a crime to possess then they have no right to confiscate it and punish you with a fine. The term is a total misnomer.

[Lord Humungus]

500 pounds of squash stolen from Pittsfield church

Members of a Pittsfield church say they're heartbroken by the theft of 500 pounds of squash grown in a church garden that was going to be donated to the needy.

The acorn and butternut squash from the Pittsfield Church of Christ's "Giving Garden" occurred overnight Wednesday.

Pastor Russell Moody saw some boxes apparently left behind by the thieves marked "Farm Fresh Local Produce," and at first thought someone had left the boxes for the church to use. Then he saw that the garden had been stripped.

[Agammamon]

Sounds like somebody should start checking local ag commodity prices before leaving his harvest unattended.

[Lord Humungus]

My feminist dilemma at the peep show
I've been vocal about how porn and strip clubs objectify women. But as a sex addict, I'm powerfully drawn to them

"Yes, the peep show." I sigh. I've just been belting out Bon Jovi and Johnny Cash songs at a nearby karaoke bar with co-workers, in the type of place that provides a whole stage for you to stagger through broken song lyrics at various pitches in full view. And now I'm dizzy and horny and have no interest in explaining to the man that even a young, healthy woman dressed in corporate attire like myself can get off on paying a woman to strip for me.

"Um." He scratches his head ? literally ? as if the stimulation of dead follicles should somehow make sense of this situation. He must be new at this job. Any seasoned peep show bodyguard wouldn't be fazed by its variety of customers.

Even though I'm tipsy and on a mission, I feel bad. Judged. Flawed. If I had a penis, the man wouldn't have that look on his face. The look that says, "You are in the wrong place, lady. Something's wrong with you."

[Doctor Whom]

At least she talks about hypocrisy and about taking responsibility for her own life. Many people in the puritanical branch of feminism steadfastly pretend that those concepts don't exist.

[Mongo]

Ahh -- she's Catholic. Pretty much every Catholic - practicing or lapsed - is fucked-up in the head in regards to teh sex.

[Agile Cyborg]

Are you an unsympathetic twister of screwdrivers or merely oblivious to the fact that Reason is where I occasionally escape so as to avoid gargantuan crazies like this who are allowed to pen drivel about their ratty brain processes?

[Lord Humungus]

Just walk away and there will be an end to the horror.

[Doghouse Riley Jr.]

Oh, that's what you always say.

I wonder if SNL or anybody else has ever done a skit: Lord Humungus's talk show. You'd have characters revealing their horrible relationships and Lord H would always tell them the same thing. I don't know if it would be funnier if Lord H had his traditional attire or if you just had the mask and wore a nice sweater and slacks.

[Ted S.]

She should make her own damn porn.

[John]

I've been vocal about how porn and strip clubs objectify women. But as a sex addict, I'm powerfully drawn to them

I love how "addiction" has become the all purpose moral car wash. If strip clubs are wrong because they objectify women, whatever that means, than it is wrong for you to go to them. Your "sex addiction" doesn't excuse you from moral responsibility anymore than it would excuse a man for raping or assaulting a woman.

[RBS]

Also from Salon: Are lesbian vaginas somehow different from straight ones?

[Agile Cyborg]

What is this thread of Reasonoids torturing their fellow readers with the acidic gaping maw that is Salon?

[UnCivilServant]

Tradition.

It builds up cerebral scar tissue that can later be used to absorb shocks which might otherwise be lethal.

[NebulousFocus]

Probably a tradition that should die, no? Salon is nothing like it was 10 years ago.

[Rhywun]

It was actually tolerable at the beginning. Either that or ten years ago I was a raging control-freak leftoid with projection issues.

[Lord Humungus]

8 disturbing ways the Kochs have amassed their fortune
The billionaire industrialists are living proof that oligarchs aren't exclusive to developing nations

1. Stealing oil from Native Americans.
2. Covering up faulty pipelines
3. Treating the Mississippi River like a toilet.
4. Treating the air we breath like an ashtray.
5. Profits over public safety.
6. Pulling strings in the White House.
7. Doing business with Iran when U.S. companies weren't supposed to.
8. Their father did business with Stalin.

more nitty gritty in this hard-hitting expose.

[db]

Holy Fuck, Koch Industries is one of the biggest suppliers of industrial pollution control equipment in the world, and they're being accused of polluting the.world for profit? LOL.

[Ted S.]

If they weren't polluting the world, there would be no market for their pollution control equipment.

It really is that simple. 😉

[db]

OK guys, how about "8 Disturbing Ways the Kennedy Family Has Amassed Their Fortune"?

[Andrew S.]

Yeah, was thinking that, especially at #8. Joe Kennedy and Hitler?

[DontShootMe]

Slight OT, but any chance to mock Ted Kennedy and Greenpeace at one time.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Personally, I think Soros. He's a currency pirate who profits off the misery of entire nations.

But THAT'S okay.

[Doctor Whom]

Salon is proof that neither Peak Derp nor Peak Lie is reachable.

[The Other Kevin]

I was in an office the other day and saw an article on the cover of Rolling Stone about how the Koch's were "buying" elections. One of the highlighted quotes was about how they discovered they can make a fortune selling "dirty oil". It looked like something one of us would have written as a joke.

[John]

"Stealing oil from Native Americans"? I am pretty sure all Indian land is held in trust by the Department of Interior. If anyone is stealing any oil from them its the DOI.

"Doing business with Stalin"? First, so did every other World War II defense contractor. Second, the intellectual forefathers of the clowns at Salon spent their lives hailing Stalin as a hero who saved the West from Hitler.

Salon is straight up fascist. This is nothing but calling the Kochs Goldstein.

[UnCivilServant]

No, they actually go around to reservations and drain the motor oil from residents' cars and resell it to Mummified Party Secretary Josef!

[SusanM]

To be fair, the time frame in question is way before WWII started.

There's no indication, though, that Pater Koch was any sort of rabid free-enterprise advocate making the issue irrelevant.

[John]

And the American Left spent the 30s idolizing Stalin. No one even bothered to question him until the 1937 show trials and even then the people who did were kicked out of the movement.

For a leftist rag like Salon to throw stones about doing business with Stalin in the 1930s is really rich indeed. So, does Salon plan to run some articles on Alger Hiss and the various Stalin sympathizers in the Roosevelt Administration anytime soon?

[SusanM]

I'm getting the irony here 🙂 It's like a RWNJ criticizing muslims for homophobia.

[John]

Pretty much.

[ant1sthenes]

"Salon is straight up fascist. This is nothing but calling the Kochs Goldstein."

You're just now realizing that? But if you think Salon is bad, try reading Alternet. It's the Stormfront of progressivism.

[Pope Jimbo]

A former chairman on the Democratic party owns an environmental PR firm. He offered to do PR work for the local Koch refinery in Minnesoda. The refinery had just won some awards for various green initiatives and the flack said they should get the word out. For a mere $1.2M he could do that.

Koch passed on his bid.

Recently the flack wrote a scathing op-ed about what evil dirty polluters the Kochs are.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/a.....-books.php

[John]

The Kochs just need to pay up. It is always about money with these people. Hire the right leftist PR and media hacks for the right amount of money and they will suddenly not be so bad anymore.

[Pope Jimbo]

No, John. I think they'd take your money and still shit on you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjU03P_6nbQ

[Elspeth Flashman]

I was recently watching network news - it was on the TV where I was waiting for work to get done - and saw a campaign ad for a (R) candidate for senator, and it painted her with the "receiving money from the Koch brothers." I think the screen even went red when it wrote that headline in the ad. But remember: scare tactics are only a ploy of the right! The left wants to inform you and treat you good.

[John]

The point of attacking the Kochs is not to destroy them, though that would be a nice bonus for the Left. It is to deter anyone else on the right from getting involved in politics. It is nothing but fascism.

[tarran]

John, over the past few days I've been thinking about the question of how to respond to political violence that you've raised in your comments.

And I really can't come up with any good way to suppress it that doesn't just make the political violence a permanent fixture or hands the fascists a victory. Yet the defusing or supressing of violent movements has happened in the past.

It seems to me that typically a more powerful movement determined to impose order suppresses the fascists, and eventually everyone accepts that the order is unassailable and gives up. Sometimes the hatchet is genuinely buried and nobody bothers to dig it up again, and sometimes the moment the powerful order falters, the hatchets are dug up from their well-marked hiding places.

To me the preferable method would be one that defuses the violent movement rather than responds with suppressive violence (I see that as the path that ends up with right wing and left wing death squads terrorizing people).

I'm curious as to what your thoughts are on this.

[John]

Once you break a Republic, it is very hard to fix it again. To take a different but analogous example, in an ideal world the Democrats would lose in 2016 and the Republican President would completely repudiate the lawlessness of the Obama administration, return to obeying the law and set the standard going forward. The problem is that it wouldn't work like that. All that would do is set the standard of "only Republican Presidents are bound by the law". The progs who cheered Obama on would learn nothing except "our side and only our side can get away with it". So part of me would want that President to do everything Obama did and shove the lawlessness up the Progs asses. As you point out, however, that would do nothing but encourage the next Dem President to do even worse things and enshrine all of Obama's abuses as "bipartisan" practice.

The same as true of violence. If you never respond, the side that does it views it as a risk free way to accomplish their goals. If you do respond, you end up with a vicious cycle of political violence and destroy the whole country.

It is a huge problem and there is no easy way to solve it. The only good thing is that right now we have a lawlessness problem not a violence problem. So it could be worse and sometimes lawlessness can be solved before it does too much damage. Violence almost never is solved before it causes a tragedy. This is why I hope more than anything else nothing happens to Obama while he is in office.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

They're mobsters with a degree.

But it's all acceptable to the left since to them, the world is run by Randolph and Mortimer Duke.

[thom]

When I was a kid that refinery had a sign at the entrance that said "Koch Industries". I drove by it last week and noticed that at some point the sign has been removed. I just thought that was interesting.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Re #8: So what? Stalin was a communist, and as any leftie apologist knows, the reason communism fails is b/c no one has implemented it properly. So Stalin was a failed hero, for trying to implement it, so Koch senior should get a pass for doing business with him, since he was _trying_ to help.

[Rich]

'It'll be kind of hard to smile': Friends mourn death of 'Creeky the Clown' at 98

Contest: *Now* who is "the world's oldest working clown"?

I'll start with ... Dianne Feinstein.

[Lord Humungus]

Clowns are raining down;
Hear the scream of the grease paint!
Danger! Clown puddles.

/Tom Servo

[Ted S.]

It's raining clowns,
Hallelujah!
It's raining clowns,
Amen!

[DontShootMe]

Nancy Pelosi, she certainly *looks* older.

[Rhywun]

I've looked at clowns from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's clown illusions I recall
I really don't know clowns at all...

[Brian D]

In the wake of banning plastic bags yesterday, California Gov. Jerry Brown also signed a bill allowing for family members and cops to petition judges to seize firearms from individuals deemed dangerous.

Can I petition a judge to stop my statist relatives from voting?

[UnCivilServant]

IF you get them jailed for a felony, they won't be able to vote anymore so... yes

[Brian D]

I don't want to have to wait for them to commit a crime, I just don't want them voting. Their voting histories are in indicator of mental instability, so them having access to a voting booth is terribly frightening.

[UnCivilServant]

Most people commit three felonies a day, they've already done something.

[Lord Humungus]

I first read that "commit three furries a day" which has a certain ring to it.

[The Late P Brooks]

The nodders on Morning Joke were in full-throated panic mode over the Secret Service, this morning. A security guard with a gun was in the same elevator as His Magnificence! Unfathomably, the guy did not shoot the President. But he took a selfie, which may have stolen a little piece of the Presidential soul; we'll never know for certain.

Seriously, how do these fucking retards justify their outright beatification of a government bureaucrat?

Also- Josh Earnest is a shit gobbling little weasel who probably has never told the truth in his life.

[Rich]

Josh Earnest is a shit gobbling little weasel who probably has never told the truth in his life.

I *still* can't believe that's his real name.

[John]

Neither can I. I know the job requires the ability to lie with a straight face. It still amazes me, however, how much worse each one of these guys is from the last one. You start out with Tony Snow who was the kind of "hey this is my job" professional liar and spin guy you would expect. Then you move on to Dana Perino who got the job based on her tits. From there you go to Robert Gibbs, who was a clown but still had the oily used car salesman sense of "hey guys I am in the joke too" charm about him. Then you go to Carney who was a douche bag frat boy 80s teen movie villain right out of central casting. And now, Earnest, a guy who is just pure shit weasel. You can't even make any jokes about him like you could Carney.

[Zeb]

Dana Perino was definitely the most well reasoned choice, I'd say.

[John]

Yes. She wasn't bad. She got the job because of her looks. But she was competent and not particularly slimy.

[Pro Libertate]

They'd make Obama into a martyr extraordinaire if anything happened to him while in office, having the Kennedy experience to drawn upon. So he should be sealed into a nuclear-proof vault and protected at all costs until he's forced to resign due to the discovery that he bets on elections.

[John]

The liberal in the media who are not old enough to remember the Kennedy assassination have this weird nostalgia for it and envy of the people who lived through it. You bet you boots they are at least subconsciously hoping something happens to Obama allowing them to make a martyr out of him rather than face up to the responsibility of their support for him.

That is a sick and twisted way to look at things I know. I think they are just that narcissistic and twisted to believe it.

[Pro Libertate]

It's crazy, but it's occurred to me that some extreme leftists would want exactly that, especially given the disaster this presidency has proven to be.

Kennedy was a fairly shitty president, too, though hardly anyone dares to say that post-assassination. Not shitty like Obama, of course.

[John]

And Kennedy was not particularly liberal. He made little effort to do much about civil rights and he had surprisingly sane economic policies and was a first rate cold warrior. Kennedy was pretty close to what Romney would have been as President. The left never mentions that.

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, sure. By today's standards, he was a Republican.

[Iucundus (ex Damned Fool)]

In the wake of banning plastic bags yesterday, California Gov. Jerry Brown also signed a bill allowing for family members and cops to petition judges to seize firearms from individuals deemed dangerous.

Idea: let's try phrasing 2nd Amendment challenges as abortion rights challenges. Specifically the right to postnatal abortions. The courts protect those better than the actual BoR.

[John]

The logic applies equally. Women often suffer depression and long term psychological damage from having an abortion. Why shouldn't a family of a severely depressed woman be able to petition a judge to keep her from having an abortion? If they can petition to confiscate her guns to keep her from harming herself, why can't they petition to keep her from having an abortion to keep her from harming herself?

[Rich]

Idea: let's do a pilot test allowing for family members and cops to petition judges to seize CARS from individuals deemed dangerous.

[ant1sthenes]

In Enviroprog CA? Sounds like it would backfire. Well, since I don't live there, backfire hilariously.

[Tonio]

NPR did a fairly good report last on recent shootings by the Albuquerque PD. However, they also included an interview with the POS police union; had to turn that off. I'm glad that mainstream liberals are finally waking up to this, late to the party though they are.

[John]

It is a real shame they were not successful in getting the Albuquerque mayor recalled over the shootings. That would have sent a chill through every cop hack mayor in America.

[Andrew S.]

They're woken up to it, but they generally only care when it happens in red states. They're far more quiet about abuses in places like Washington state, California, and Chicago

[John]

Last night was a great night for baseball. Not because the Royals won but because of how they won and the way the play baseball. The Royals do everything the Sabre metric geeks say you shouldn't do. They swing away such that they draw the fewest walks in baseball. They rarely hit homeruns. They steal bases with abandon and have a lineup full of athletic contact hitters rather than fat guys who walk a lot. And last night they beat the Oakland Money Ball As and their GM his Sabre Metric Holy Billy Bean.

Whatever you think of the money ball way of playing baseball, it produces a boring game. It is no fun to watch a guy walk after a 13 pitch at bat. It is fun to see people steal bases and put the ball in play. Last night was baseball beats Dorkball.

[Andrew S.]

The bunting was still stupid. Just because it worked in the 9th doesn't make it any less stupid.

[John]

That is how they roll. They don't have the raw talent other teams have so they have to go against the percentages and take their chances. That is what makes them exciting.
Pulling Sheilds was by any measure utterly idiotic. Ned Yost is a serious nut.

[Pro Libertate]

After 88 pitches? For any pitcher, that's early, but for James "NINE INNINGS MEANS NINE" Shields? He's famous for pitching deep into games--I saw him do it in Tampa a whole bunch of times.

[John]

That is not even the worst part. The Royals have three top flight relievers. Instead of pulling him for one of them, Yost pulled him for this hot shot rookie with a big arm but who had only pitched in relief once in his career. He stuck to the poor kid out there with two men on, a one run lead, and no outs in a win or go home game. Of course the poor kid melted down and immediately gave up a three run homerun. It was insanity.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

The Royals won in spite of Yost.

The Angels and Sciosia are gonna sweep the Royals if they play and manage like they did against the A's.

Seriously, the A's pitching let them down.

[John]

It is a crazy year. I bet the Royals beat them and it is the O's Orioles in the ALCS. Crazy Ned versus Buck will be a very entertaining series. I like Buck but as Yankees fan I will never forgive him for leaving David Cone out there to pitch until his arm fell off against Seattle in the 1995 Division Series. The Yankees could have won it all that year had Buck not gone insane and forgot he had a great bull pen in that game.

[Idle Hands]

The Angels have the bats though. The royals just don't have the horses to keep up with that team. And they are handicapped by Ned Yost.

[Idle Hands]

Pulling Sheilds was an okay decision. pulling Sheilds and putting in Ventura who had only pitched in relief once and pitched 80 pitches on sunday in that kind of situation was absolutely unforgivable.

[Idle Hands]

Especially with all the other options that were available.

[db]

The base stealing last night absolutely won them the game. It was great to watch them just march around the field. I couldn't watch past the 10th inning buy the comeback was amazing.

[Pro Libertate]

No, no, stealing is dead. Don't you read the papers?

[Ted S.]

I don't care which way you play baseball; you're not getting me to watch it.

(Now if Fox Sports would just give is a real selection of teams to watch in the Champions League....)

[John]

Because nothing says excitement like 120+ minutes of game play that ends in a nil nil tie.

How people can appreciate a game like soccer where endless minutes of dull play is punctuated by a few moments of terror and excitement cannot appreciate baseball is beyond me. No matter what soccer fans claim, the ball being passed back and forth by mid fielders is not constant action or any more exciting than a pitcher scratching himself. Both games are based on pace and timing punctuated by short bursts of excitement.

[db]

You want excitement from soccer, make the field smaller, allow physical contact, and put it on ice. Wait...I may have something here...

[John]

They have done that. It is called indoor soccer and it is pretty exciting. Or you can play it on ice and put everyone on skates and call it hockey, which is pretty exciting too.

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, yes, hockey is lovely, but what I envision is a new game. Soccer. . .with bats!

[UnCivilServant]

So... Lacrosse?

[Pro Libertate]

No, don't be absurd. Players running around with baseball bats, whacking a soccer ball.

[The Last American Hero]

Quidditch?

[Pro Libertate]

Possibly the dumbest of fictional games. If Rowling had been smart, she's have used Calvinball instead.

[John]

I remember when I saw an article a few years ago about college students playing Quidditch and running around with brooms between their legs.

I felt like Cartman in the episode where everyone became High School Musical fans. Man, if this is what passes for cool now days, I don't think I want to be cool anymore. The whole thing is just one "wow". These kids can't even be proper nerds anymore. Can't they just play paper and dice Dungeons and Dragons or something?

[tarran]

I was pretty appalled too. Because if they lose the brooms, and fiddle with the ball sizes and weights, quidditch could be the basis of a fun game to play.

Instead the players are dorking it up.

[Pro Libertate]

You could use drones in place of that little flying ball thingee.

[Pro Libertate]

Or you could use that flying ball with the spikes from Phantasm.

[Johnny Bravo]

You want excitement from soccer, make the field smaller, allow physical contact, and put it on ice. Wait...I may have something here..

Lacrosse? Without the ice of course.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Lacrosse is also pretty boring to watch.

[Andrew S.]

YOU TAKE THAT BACK.

[Pro Libertate]

Since it's an Indian game, it's racist to criticize it.

[Andrew S.]

Lacrosse is the greatest sport in the world.

(The greatest lacrosse player of all time is also the greatest football player of all time, Jim Brown. Can you imagine Jim Brown running full speed at you with a huge stick in his hands? Have a feeling there were some soiled uniforms back in the day.)

[Pro Libertate]

You know, with all of the numbers posted by a good number of backs over the years, certain players really stand out. Brown and Earl Campbell for instance. Or Walker in college.

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

Can you imagine Jim Brown running full speed at you with a huge stick in his hands?

Sounds like something that happened in the locker room, after the game.

[Pro Libertate]

Everyone knows that Jim Brown doesn't run around with sticks. He runs around with a bag of hand grenades.

[John]

Jim Brown is one of the two or three greatest athletes of the 20th Century. Forget Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali. Those guys were just great at one sport. The debate about greatest athlete begins and ends with Jim Brown and Jim Thorpe and maybe one or two others I can't think of right now.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Look, my punishment is I have to live in MD where everybody plays except for me and my indoor soccer team.

[Auric Demonocles]

When people talk about how action packed soccer is compared to other sports, I can't understand why they don't just watch marathons. That's got 2 straight hours of nonstop running.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Still on that? Watch it online like I do. I've given up.

For example, to me, the best match up of the day is Atletico-Juve but you won't find it anywhere. Two tough as nails sides with great traditions going at it.

[Andrew S.]

The England-based teams are most popular in the US, so that's what you're going to get.

Unfortunately I can't get to the pub to watch Liverpool-Basel today. Stupid work getting in the way.

[Mike M.]

Even though they technically made the "playoffs", I still say that Oakland's late season performance should go down as one of the epic collapses in the history of the game.

On August 9, they were 72-44 with a mind-blowing +173 run differential, and leading the division by four games.

From that point on, they went 16-30 with a -16 differential and nearly missed the playoffs completely. I find that incredible, because things like that just aren't supposed to happen.

[John]

Its up there with some of the great collapses in baseball history. If you believe in such a thing as the "baseball Gods", they intervened on KC's behalf last night in the name of justice. No team who played that badly over the second half deserves to be advancing in the playoffs.

[Hyperion]

So America totally didn't need that extra $930 million we've already spent killing civilians and birthing new terrrorists bombing ISIS, did we

But it's going to work this time! We've totally got it together, nothing can possibly go wrong!

Ooops!

Ooops!

[John]

Take the issue of preventive attack out of it. Suppose they do attack us. What would you propose doing? Bomb them? Wouldn't bombing them after they attack us be subject to the same "they will just hate us more and it will produce more terrorists" objections it raises now? Invade?

If your bet is that doing nothing will result in them deciding not to attack us and concentrate on settling local scores, that is a fair enough bet. But what happens if you lose the bet? What then? If military action is futile and counter productive, should we just absorb the attack and do nothing? If not, then why would attacking then be any more effective than attacking now? More importantly, if it is effective then, why wouldn't it be effective now?

The point that they haven't attacked us yet certainly is relevant to the morality of our bombing them. I do not, however see how it has anything to do with the effectiveness or lack thereof of that bombing.

[Auric Demonocles]

I wouldn't really support limited bombing strikes if they did attack us. I'd support wiping them off the face of the earth. None of this half-measure crap.

Plus doing this from the moral high ground is going to piss off fewer people, so it does limit (though not eliminate) the producing more terrorist objections.

[John]

I would as well. I think limited bombing strikes are the worst thing we can do. Either go all in or do nothing.

It really is true that fate or God or whatever you want to call it has a sense of humor. Obama is doing in Iraq and Syria right now exactly what Johnson did in Vietnam. He is going in in a haphazard way hoping to win by showing the enemy "this time we mean business". The irony of the New Left's first President doing exactly the same thing that Johnson did that enable the rise of the New Left is staggering.

[FUQ]

This has been my argument with family for years.

[creech]

What's with all the hysteria this morning on Fox about the Iraq army not fighting and the IS being only a mile or two from Baghdad? Shit, if the Iraqi army isn't fighting then what is preventing IS troops from walking into Baghdad in about 15 minutes or so? Has anyone asked U.S. troops why the Iraqis couldn't form an army in eight years with $$billions in our training and weapons? Buncha U.S. amateurs stood up to each other pretty good at Antietam only a year and a half after mustering in.

[John]

Yeah. Clearly someone is still fighting or they would be putting heads on sticks in Baghdad right now.

[OldMexican]

The University of California aims to set the "gold standard" on gender-neutral bathrooms.

It will be required that all men pee sitting down. That's a "gender neutral" restroom.

[John]

I can speak with complete confidence that my former 19 year old self would have been all for gender neutral dorm bathrooms and showers. I, however, doubt many of my female friends would have thought much of the idea.

What is funny is that the same people who are obsessed with rape and the rape culture are now insisting that men and women effectively shower together.

The campus Progs are completely insane. They are in their own way more insane that the worst radical Muslim. The Muslim may beleive crazy things and not live up to his ideology. His beliefs, while evil, at least have some internal logic to them. Radical Muslims believe that women are unclean and a temptation to sin, so they insist on complete separation of women and men. Campus Progs believe effectively the same thing, only about men instead of women. Yet, they still insist on mixing the sexes in the name of helping the Trannies feel excepted.

And oh by the way, gender is a social construct unless you are a transvestite in which case you are born with a gender. Apparently gender is only genetic if you are born with the wrong gender or something.

[Auric Demonocles]

I'm pretty sure they're trying to stop the trannies from feeling excepted...

[John]

Yes. And that is in total conflict every other thing they say about gender and gender relations. They are just fucking nuts. Their beliefs have stopped even having any internal logic.

[Andrew S.]

Further to the left you have the TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) who fit that way of thinking. MtF transgenders are evil misogynists who are trying to infiltrate the world of wom(y)n and bring it down, and FtM transgenders are gender-traitors with internalized misogyny .

[John]

What a bunch of circus animals. It just goes to show that no victim group is ever safe putting its faith in the Left. The left will eventually turn on you. Let Muslims become more valuable to the coalition and more of a preferred minority group and the left will turn on the gays like they did the free love types like Hugh Hefner. You watch. In the 1960s Heff was a counter culture and liberal icon. Down with all those bourgeois oppressive sexual mores. Then along came the second and third wave feminists and Hugh is now the number one purveyor of the rape culture. The same thing will happen to the gays eventually, you watch.

[Zeb]

I had non-gender specific bathrooms in college. Probably mostly because not many people wanted to live in single sex dorms and there was only one bathroom per hallway. I don't think there were any problems at all. Girls didn't want people to use the urinals, which people mostly went along with except when there was a lot of drinking going on.

[OldMexican]

Cosmopolitan and little red marxians go completely mad after Jessa Duggar made pro-life comments after visiting Holocaust museum

Called her "deranged":

Cosmopolitan: Jessa Duggar posts extremely controversial Instagram ? compares the Holocaust to abortion

What she said did not specifically mention abortion, by the way. It only implied it.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

SF'd

[Andrew S.]

She is a nutjob of the highest order (as is the rest of her family), but the frothing outrage over what she said is a bit much.

[OldMexican]

Rand Paul tells South Carolina students that he is not opposed to emergency contraception.

And he does not mean jumping up and down so the little bastards don't swim up to the prize...

[Sevo]

The guy Musk ran out of Tesla seems to know how that tech should be applied:

"Tesla co-founder Ian Wright snags FedEx for new hybrid engines"
[...]
..."essentially, the engine and the transmission ? that can be "dropped in" to existing trucks. The powertrain includes a big battery pack, plus a range-extending turbine that can be fueled with gasoline, diesel or natural gas.
[...]
"We designed the system so that we're not expecting the drivers to drive any differently, and they'll still save a lot of fuel," he said."
http://www.sfgate.com/business.....792082.php

[John]

Good for him. Its almost like companies want to save money on fuel and don't need the government mandating how much they do it via CAFE standards or something.

[Sevo]

I also don't see any gov't money involved, but it's hard to believe it's not there somewhere.
Regardless, this is what make Tesla such a rotten piece of engineering; squeeze a short-range power system into a freeway cruiser? Why not just give an IC car a 5-gal tank and an eye-dropper to fuel it?

[John]

There is a serious proposal floating around the EPA and DOT and has been for several decades to apply CAFE standards to commercial trucks. Think about that for a minute. They actually think commercial trucking firms, whose largest cost is by far and away fuel, need to government to mandate fuel efficiency standards. It just boggles the mind how stupid these people are.

[Matrix]

That crazy talk! The only reason evil corporations want to do anything "good" is because the government mandates it!

Stupid anarchist! You need to be reeducated!

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

Very interesting. A gas turbine engine is wholly suited for hybrid applications, because they don't handle stop and go as well as a piston engine, but are extremely more efficient when operating in a specific range.

The Army put turbines in M1 tanks, and they're significantly more efficient than a diesel when moving, but lose all their efficiency gains when idling.

The one real problem, from an engineering stand-point is safety. A small turbine can spin from 40-100K at operating speed. In a wreck, this has the potential to become a shrapnel bomb. I wonder how they address this concern? A large truck would be able to contain a more significant housing to safeguard the engine from damage??

[Sevo]

Since the ads aren't shown in the e-version, I can't link this.
But in the dead-tree version, there is a full-page ad regarding the Presidio Trust (a national park, in effect) paid for by the park as far as I can tell, with thanks to donors, volunteers and:
"To Democratic Leader and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi" (with a mug shot at least 30 years old)

Isn't it nice to use taxpayer money (not all of which comes from those registered as D) to give that hag a political ad?
Wonder what the RNC would have to say about that?

[SugarFree]

So Rand Paul is for abortion? I wish he'd make up his mind.

[John]

Or just shut the hell up about it. I would give a lot to him or some other national candidate say that it is a state issue and not something that should be considered in a Presidential election.

[SugarFree]

That's his father's position. He thinks there should be a Federal law banning abortions.

[John]

Ron Paul is a very serious evangelical. People often forget that.

This is why I think Rand has a better shot at the nomination than people think. Rand knows how to talk to the evangelicals and will get some of their votes.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

The bottom line is he wants to protect the unborn.

I don't know the technical details of Plan B. If it's an abortifacient, then if I could press a button to magically ban it, I would.

But short of that, I would be happy with a candidate who would allow Plan B but ban abortion in almost all other situations.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

And evangelicals don't have a monopoly on opposing* abortion.

Even some secular people like Nat Hentoff are against* it.

*I mean *opposing* and *against* in the real-world sense, not "gosh, I'm against abortion, I just want it to be legal!"

[Pro Libertate]

His indecision reflects America's.

[Andrew S.]

Abortions for some, tiny American flags for others?

[DEATFBIRSECIA]

"AC/DC guitarist Malcolm Young has dementia."

I'm on thu HIIIIIII WAY to, uhm, where was I going again?

[John]

That is horrible. Other than ALS, I can't think of a more horrible disease to get.

[Zeb]

It is the worst. Though I can't decide if it is more horrible for the person suffering from the disease or their family.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, Alzheimer's is worse. Dementia victims usually remember who they are and hold on to a decent amount of past memories. The real hit is often short-term memory.

Alzheimer's victims forget just about everything, including stuff like how to open a door. I had grandmothers with each, and the dementia, while bad and sad to deal with was nowhere near the horror of Alzheimer's.

[Zeb]

Dementia is more of a symptom than a specific disorder, isn't it? Alzheimer's is a cause of dementia. And it usually starts with short term memory loss and progresses through loss of deeper memories and abilities to nearly complete incapacitation.
I had two grandparents go through that. I hope I take after my mother's side of the family in old age.

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

This^^

Dementia is a symptom of Alzheimer's.

It's also a symptom of stroke, Parkinson's, Huntington's, and circulation problems.

Alzheimer's seems to progress faster than the other causes.

[John]

It depends on the nature of the dementia. My grandmother for example had a series of mini strokes that gave her dementia. She could remember things alright. The problem was she also forgot things like the fact that her husband had died or that she didn't live at home with her parents anymore. So she would suddenly want to know here her husband is or why she couldn't go home. It was just horrible. There are worse things than forgetting.

[DEATFBIRSECIA]

The good news, in Malcolm's case, is that he has simply forgotten the transition from E to B minor, so they should probably be able to play everything besides "Whole Lotta Rosie." I mean I like that song, but it could certainly be worse, the transition from D to A for example, which would've wiped out roughly 80% of their live catalog.

[GILMORE]

Truth is Cruel

[Pro Libertate]

Wanna tell you a story
'bout a woman I know.
When it comes to lovin',
Oh, she steals the show.
She ain't exactly pretty,
Ain't exactly small.
Forty-two, thirty-nine, fifty-six
You could say she's got it all.

[John]

If you have a formula that works, stick with it. ACDC is the best example ever of a good band knowing its limitations. They never tried to be anything other than what they are or stop doing what makes them great in the name of being a "more serious band".

[DEATFBIRSECIA]

My third-favorite band, right after Rush and Led Zeppelin.

In all seriousness, Malcolm, I hope that some medical solution to this arises before you or your sentience depart our company. You have been one of the most uncompromising entertainers in rock history, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the great rocking times you have given me and my ungrateful friends.

Good Luck.

[Dr. Fronkensteen]

My dad has the same thing. mini-stroke induced dementia. My mom still lets him handle the investments. Yes this scares me. The crazy part is I got a hold of his statments and went over his investments last month and they were pretty sound.

[Pro Libertate]

That sucks. All that money, and there's nothing much he can do about it.