A.M. Links: Ebola Screenings at U.S. Airports, White House Linked to Secret Service Prostitution Scandal, Black Teen Fatally Shot by Police in St. Louis

• 

  Credit: Wikimedia Commons

  The U.S. will soon begin to conduct Ebola screenings for passengers arriving from West Africa at five major U.S. airports, including New York's John F. Kennedy and Washington, D.C.'s Dulles.

• Spanish officials have euthanized the pet dog of Ebola-stricken nurse Teresa Romero Ramos.

• What did the Obama administration know about the Secret Service prostitution scandal, and when did it know it?

• Protesters took to the streets in St. Louis last night after a black teenager was shot and killed by an off-duty white police officer.

• French writer Patrick Modiano has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

• NBC News reportedly tried to hire comedian Jon Stewart to host its flagship Sunday news program Meet the Press.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

What did the Obama administration know about the Secret Service prostitution scandal, and when did it know it?

How could Obama have known before everyone else? It wasn't in the newspapers yet.

[Auric Demonocles]

You're making a mistake of thinking that Obama is involved in the Obama administration.

[Rich]

Let's see ol' Valerie pleading the Fifth in front of Congress.

[Pro Libertate]

Megaplausible deniability.

[Bam!]

Me thinks some emails are about to get lost.

[Restoras]

And hard drives erased.

[CatoTheElder]

For once, we finally have a genuinely phony scandal.

[Restoras]

You still suck, Root.

[Tonio]

This, kids, is why commas matter.

[Lord Humungus]

lulz

[Restoras]

You still suck Root - is better? Instead of directing an epitaph I am...suggesting that someone is still sucking on a tuber?

[a better weapon]

Are you saying Restoras is incorrectly using the comma or are you validating his use of it? It is correct, no?

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

Validating.

[trshmnster the terrible]

*significantly reduces viewing aperture of eyes*

[hamilton]

I've been busy and haven't had time to stop by all that often, did Root do something irritating or are we just being crusty? I'm good either way though.

[Roger the Shrubber]

AM Links at 9:30 yesterday. A most unforgivable sin.

[Lord Humungus]

Why Florida's record-setting hurricane drought portends danger

Florida has gone 3,270 days without a hurricane ? nearly nine years and, by far, the longest stretch on record (the next longest streak is 5 seasons from 1980-1984, in records dating back to 1851). Meanwhile, the Sunshine state's population and development have boomed.

Florida is long overdue for a destructive hurricane and has never had so many people and so much property in the way. This dangerous state of affairs is compounded by the potential for complacency and lack of recent experience. When hurricanes don't strike over such a long period of time, some people may be lulled into a false sense of security and/or forget how horrible hurricanes can be.

[Brett L]

OH man, I'm going to kill and eat my neighbors just to stay in practice!

[Ted S.]

Which gets more blame: Global warming, or BOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!111!!!?

[Restoras]

Same things?

[Mike M.]

Didn't the global warming, oops I mean "climate change" con artists say for years that it would lead to an increase in hurricane numbers and strength?

Add that to their big and ever-growing list of predictions that turned out to be completely wrong.

[Ted S.]

They'll claim it's leading to an increase in tropical storms in other parts of the world.

[Redmanfms]

Which is also, umm, "factually challenged."

[Poppa Kilo]

No, "differently factual."

[WTF]

It may not be factually correct, but it is politically correct.

[gaijin]

It's like Mother Nature has turned everything the AGW cult says into an opposite reality...just to spite them 🙂

[WTF]

That's just how pissed Gaia really is.

[BuSab Agent]

That's how the weather Gods roll. they are really quite petty. *ducks under copper roof*

[Bardas Phocas]

They got it wrong. It's all happening in the Pacific and the Atlantic is drying up (so to speak).
Just a littl glitch in the Model (pbuh).

[MP]

And unsurprisingly, Global Warming was not given credit for this quiet spell.

[MJGreen]

Was Obama given credit?

He's saved Florida from hurricanes!

[waffles]

So hurricanes are bad and not having hurricanes is bad.

[Almanian!]

Everything is bad, mmkay?

[Rhywun]

You'd think maybe insurance companies would be allowed to correctly price the risk of living there but no, can't have that.

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

+1 Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (FHCF)
Emergency Assessment - 2005 Hurricanes
The Florida legislature created the FHCF in order to provide capacity to the personal and commercial residential property
insurance market. In accordance with Florida law, deficits of the FHCF are funded through emergency assessments on
direct premiums for certain property and casualty lines of business in the state of Florida.
The current FHCF emergency assessment is for the purpose of financing the FHCF's shortfall from the 2005 hurricane
season. In order to fund this deficit, policies effective on or after January 1, 2011 are subject to an emergency assessment
of 1.30% of premium for the following lines of business:
Fire, Allied Lines, Multi-Peril Crop, Farmowners Multi-Peril, Homeowners Multi-Peril, Commercial Multi-Peril (liability
and non-liability), Mortgage Guaranty, Ocean Marine, Inland Marine, Financial Guaranty, Earthquake, Other
Liability, Products Liability, Private Passenger Auto No-Fault, Other Private Passenger Auto Liability, Commercial
Auto No-Fault, Other Commercial Auto Liability, Private Passenger Auto Physical Damage, Commercial Auto
Physical Damage, Aircraft, Fidelity, Surety, Burglary and Theft, Boiler and Machinery, Credit, Warranty, and
Aggregate Write Ins for Other Lines of Insurance.
The FHCF emergency assessment applicable to this policy is not subject to premium taxes, fees, or commissions.

[Bryan C]

Even worse, think of all those intact windows NOT getting broken by hurricanes. No wonder the economy is so poor.

I hear that the damage from thermobaric explosives can be similar to that of a hurricane. All we'd need are a couple bombs, and maybe some guys with chainsaws and meathooks to provide practice patients for the local hospitals.

[Ted S.]

Bomb Chicago to smithereens (sorry, Nicole). Instant stimulus!

[Ted S.]

And wasn't there a hurricane that hit the Keys around the time of the 2012 Republican convention? I remember they had to cancel the first day in Tampa because the hurricane brushed the city on the way through the Gulf.

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

They panicked Hurricane Issac was a comin' to drownify them all...but by the time it showed up, twas merely Tropical Storm Issac.

[Stormy Dragon]

Florida is long overdue for a destructive hurricane and has never had so many people and so much property in the way.

THAT IS NOT HOW STATISTICS WORKS!!!

[Entropy Void]

Mebbe for the rest of us, but that is how Progtard Statistics work.

See any article in Salon.

[thom]

Oh yeah, then why do casinos put up the last 20 results from the roulette wheel?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Protesters took to the streets in St. Louis last night after a black teenager was shot and killed by an off-duty white police officer.

They're learning - perhaps - that there will be blowback from all the sketchy thuggery that will bleed into - perhaps - legit shootings.

[KDN]

I'll say. And judging by the Yahoo article, this appears to be a good shoot.

The man then turned and fired three rounds at the officer before his gun jammed, Dotson said.

The officer, who was not injured, returned fire, shooting 17 times and fatally wounding the man, Dotson said.

What's the O/U on shots that actually hit the kid? 2.5?

[All-Seeing Monocle]

1.1

[The DerpRider]

One ricochet off the street.

[Drake]

What's the O/U that the kid was holding the gun sideways when it jammed? I knew some State Cops who used to find dead bodies in Trenton - next to pistols with stovepipe jams. Some autos don't eject straight up very well - a real bummer if you are in the middle of a gunfight.

[KDN]

There's no O/U on that; it's a money line bet.

[perlhaqr]

Tap, rack, bang, motherfuckers.

[Juice]

Clean and oil your guns people.

[FUQ]

It's almost like the old fable most of us where taught as kids had some real world meaning. If you lie and make shit up then no one believes you when tell the truth

[WTF]

The boy pig who cried wolf gun.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Keep it classy, Cardinals fans!

[New Normal]

The protesters are assholes in this situation.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Undoubtedly. Still, I usually don't react to assholes of a darker complexion by chanting "Africa, Africa!"; or, in other words, I'm not a Red Sox fan.

[Lord Humungus]

Au Revoir to France's Welfare Model as Socialists Cut Spending

he country's Socialist government led by Prime Minister Manuel Valls is chipping away at a system that dispenses 52 billion euros ($66 billion) annually just in family benefits, and is among the most generous in the world. A hemorrhaging public deficit and debt on track to reach about 100 percent of gross domestic product within two years have left the government with little choice but to attack what in France has been a way of life for almost a century.

A politically sensitive issue that few governments have dared to touch, efforts to wean the French off some state benefits may turn into a major test for Valls, both within his party and among voters. The government sought to defend the move, saying it's not dismantling the French model, but rather making it more efficient and less wasteful.

[MP]

Change = ATTACK

[Mike M.]

Bad news for the Krugscummians who like to point to France as their model state.

[Doctor Whom]

They'll find another one until their new idol shows its feet of clay, too. Lather; rinse; repeat.

[SusanM]

Have the riots started yet?

[All-Seeing Monocle]

what in France has been a way of life for almost a century.

i.e., living off the dole.

[Lord Humungus]

*Gallic shrug*

[sarcasmic]

High school student, 18, dead after off-duty St Louis police officer shot at him 17 times - just 10 miles from where Michael Brown was killed
An off-duty officer, who has not been identified, shot and killed high school student Vonderrick Myers Jr. last night in Shaw, Missouri
Myers and two other men had fled when they saw the officer approach them and a chase and a scuffle ensued, police said
Myers shot at the officer three times before the cop pulled out his own gun and shot at the teenager 17 times - killing him, police said
But his family members insist the teenager was unarmed and said: 'It's like Michael Brown all over again'

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

Police recovered a 9mm Ruger at the scene, he said.

The cop remembered to bring his drop gun.

[TwB]

Firing 17 rounds at a suspect is pretty excessive. However, because the teen shot at the cop, what did he expect was going to happen? A peace offering and then everybody goes home?

[sarcasmic]

At this point, unless it's on video, I assume that whatever a cop says is a lie.

[TwB]

Valid point.

[Restoras]

Yup.

[Restoras]

Do we know the cops was actually shot at by the person in question?

[Bardas Phocas]

They have admitted that 20 shots were fired. Let's not get bogged down in who shot how many.

[thom]

Only two parties in this incident were shooters, the dead kid and the police officer's gun.

[gaijin]

Myers shot at the officer three times before the cop pulled out his own gun

Sorry, but if this is true I'm not seeing the case for outrage

[WTF]

It also says the cop was off-duty working as private security, so what was he doing even initiating contact with three guys in the street?

[FUQ]

If this is true I agree however I don't believe a fucking word the cop said.

[sarcasmic]

Shocking moment NYPD officer knocked out teen and left him brain-damaged after stopping him for smoking a cigarette
Marcel Hamer of Brooklyn, New York, was walking home from school this past June when an officer stopped him believing he was smoking marijuana
It is not clear what happened next, but video shows the cop ultimately asking Hamer if he wanted to get 'f***ed up' and then knocking him out
Now, the 17-year-old and his family have filed a civil suit against the New York Police Department

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

The video opens with Hamer laying on the ground and pleading with the officer that it was 'just a cigarette,' as the cop screams at the teen, 'Do you wanna get f***ed up?'
The officer then goes even further, letting the boy's friends he is fine with them filming the incident, seeming to imply he does not believe he is doing anything wrong.
'Yeah, get it on film,' he tells the high school students.
The sound of Hamer being hit is heard soon after and then the boy's entire body goes limp.

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

Hamer time?

[gaijin]

thank you for the earwig...NOT!

[NebulousFocus]

Fuck...

[Hyperion]

This is proof that smoking causes brain damage.

[FUQ]

These daily nut punches are leaving me with a bruised and swollen sack. Not to mention the urge to hide inside 24/7

[Juice]

The cop is black so it's ok.

[Fist of Etiquette]

NBC News reportedly tried to hire comedian Jon Stewart to host its flagship Sunday news program Meet the Press.

Why not.

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

They found a cheaper comedian?

[UnCivilServant]

Since when was Stewart funny? He was always just kinda sad.

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

So they found a cheaper and funnier guy?

[Poppa Kilo]

Like, anybody?

[Ted S.]

I think there are people less funny than Jon Stewart. Amanda Marcotte, for one.

[Mock-star]

I used to like the Daily Show when Craig Kilborn hosted it. I loved "5 questions".

[Bill Dalasio]

Meh. I'd say Marcotte is less funny intentionally. I don't think you're counting all the times you get to laugh at her.

[trshmnster the terrible]

He's a smug prick with good delivery... Everything every progressive wants to be.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

with good delivery

Is that the goofy staring that he does?

[RBS]

He used to at least. He's probably been mailing it in since W's second term though. I think even he realizes that the sheep in his audience will laugh at the right jokes no matter how they are dleivered.

[Doctor Whom]

Since when are big-name comedians supposed to be funny? They seem to be a subset of those who are famous for being famous.

[Ted S.]

They started off funny and became less funny over time.

Bob Hope, for example.

[Injun, as in from India]

He will probably decline or has already declined, because he will have to stop being a leftist attack dog hiding behind comedy, and do "real" journalism (or whatever passes for it these days).

[Fist of Etiquette]

He apparently did decline.

[BigT]

Hide the decline!

[Pro Libertate]

It shows how low journalism has fallen that they want some guy who isn't a serious news person--literally--and has an open and clear political bias. Not even the slightest concern about pretending to be neutral and objective.

[Mike M.]

It's kind of tough for serious news organizations to hire guys who use a fake name to sound less Jewish and maintain their credibility.

[Ted S.]

+1 Myron Wallace

[Bill Dalasio]

That this was even anywhere near the table is telling. Despite their claims of objectivity, they don't even see the need for the pretense of impartiality.

[Lord Humungus]

TN school board head steps down over controversial 'Buttleopener' invention

Gregory's elevation to chairman heated a up a long simmering dispute over his position on the board in light of his role in helping create the 'ButtleOpener,' a bottle opener located inside a life-sized female-shaped posterior.

Parents and other board members have been critical of Gregory since he launched the "Buttleopener' in 2012, and protests increased with his elevation to chairman.

Gregory, who stated that he has no longer had any involvement with the company marketing the novelty bottle opener, apologized earlier this week, but pressure for him to step aside failed to subside.

[Ted S.]

Private school, or government school?

[SusanM]

Who knew Spencer's gifts was still around?

[All-Seeing Monocle]

Zing!

[Roger the Shrubber]

Are the shapes of male and female posteriors that different? If it had a harry taint, would there be less outrage?

[Atanarjuat]

Are the shapes of male and female posteriors that different?

Yes.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The U.S. will soon begin to conduct Ebola screenings for passengers arriving from West Africa at five major U.S. airport...

So if you're carrying Ebola in your balls, they're gonna find it.

[Rich]

Even if you carry it to, say, France before showing up in the US?

[FUQ]

I see the number of anal probes going up.

[Pro Libertate]

Screener: Next. Ebola?

Passenger: Yes.

Screener: Good. Out of the door. Line on the left. One cell each. Next. Ebola?

[Auric Demonocles]

Did Ebola kill the alt-text?

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

Curse you for getting in with that first!

[UnCivilServant]

No, but it was quarantined.

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

We will get to see it in 21 days?

[UnCivilServant]

Only if it doesn't show symptoms.

[Elspeth Flashman]

It has that tendency, didn't you know?

[Lord Humungus]

Did Wal-Mart just move us closer to single-payer health care?

Wal-Mart's premium increases met with understandable frustration among employees, who earn an average $11.81 an hour. Its decision to end coverage for part-timers, on the other hand, may actually be a good thing for those particular workers. As Vox's Sarah Kliff explains, many part-time workers can't even afford their employers' insurance plans, and Obamacare's insurance subsidies will offer part-timers significantly greater financial assistance than the company itself would provide.

Moreover, a shift away from employer-provided coverage could help achieve a single-payer insurance model, a goal long sought by many progressives. At the very least, as more individuals move onto Obamacare's health care exchanges, it's not inconceivable that health care consumers will demand greater competition and lower costs ? which could then revive the push for a public option. Wal-Mart may not have had that in mind when the company made its announcement yesterday, but it may have helped nudge the country a little closer in that direction.

[TwB]

Again, if the American public wants an idea of what single payer health care looks like, take a gander at the VA healthcare system. Why, it works just fine, doesn't it?

[Doctor Whom]

It's not as though people in countries with single payer ever looked for private insurance or other escape hatches.

[TwB]

Of course not. And it's not like rich people in England fly to India for surgery. Oh wait...

[CatoTheElder]

The UK has National Health, socialized medicine. It also has private health care alternatives.

Rich people in the UK buy insurance and use the private alternative.

Canada has single payer, which is even worse. There are few private health care alternatives since the law only allows for a single payer. I think Canucks are more likely to travel abroad for healthcare than Brits.

[Pro Libertate]

An ex-girlfriend of mine who relocated to Vancouver kept getting her major medical services in the U.S. after talking to some Canadian colleagues when she moved there.

[John]

We have an example of single payer healthcare in the US; the VA. And I have never met a single person who would go to the VA as anything other than a last resort.

[waffles]

Yay!

[Injun, as in from India]

Here it comes... creeping socialism. It follows a constant cycle of:

Blame Free Market -] Regulate and add more government -] Blame Free Market -] Regulate and add more government -] .... ad nauseam.

[thom]

Eventually they stop. I can't count how many progressives I've had to endure praising Venezuela for finally taking the 'free market' head on.

[gaijin]

health care consumers will demand greater competition and lower costs

No. They will demand that .Gov pay for more.

[KDN]

it's not inconceivable that health care consumers will demand greater competition and lower costs ? which could then revive the push for a public option.

"We want more competition, so implement a system that takes away all competition!"

[WTF]

consumers will demand greater competition and lower costs ? which could then revive the push for a public option

How the fuck is a government monopoly 'greater competition'?

[Rev-Match]

it's not inconceivable that health care consumers will demand greater competition and lower costs ? which could then revive the push for a public option.

This person does not know what words mean.

[ant1sthenes]

No, the slaughter of meaning is a premeditated crime.

[sarcasmic]

Inside America's atomic bomb programme: Never-before-seen photos reveal preparations for attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Previously unseen pictures reveal preparations in hours before the attacks
US nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki conducted during the end of World War Two
A uranium gun-type atomic bomb, code-named 'Little Boy', was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945
This was followed by a plutonium implosion-type bomb, called 'Fat Man' on the city of Nagasaki on August 9
To this day, the bombings remain history's only acts of nuclear warfare

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

[John]

Way cool.

[Lord Humungus]

Paul Ryan on 'The Way Forward' and the Catholic Faith

I really enjoyed Ayn Rand's novels when I was young, and they triggered an interest in economics and in capitalism and free markets. I studied Milton Friedman and the Chicago school of economics. That led me into public service.

But I wasn't drawn to her philosophy of objectivism. As a person using reason and faith, I disagree with objectivism because it reduces human interactions to mere contracts and is incongruent with human reality and human bonding.

Everyone in public life has an urban legend, and I have mine ? Ayn Rand.

[Tonio]

"As a person using reason and faith..."

Those things are mutually exclusive.

[Restoras]

Always? Any reasonable person should have no faith in their fellow man, and yet people still seem to.

[Poppa Kilo]

Can you prove that, or do we have to take it on faith?

Is that reasonable?

[perlhaqr]

Isn't it sort of inextricably tied to the definition of the word "faith", at least as it's used in Christianity?

It is my understanding (which may be incorrect, I'm hardly a theological scholar) that faith is explicitly "the belief in something despite the lack of evidence for it".

As in, the reason God doesn't just show up and say "Hi!" on the evening news is because that would transform "faith" into "knowledge", and that's... bad for some reason I don't really understand.

Since "reason" is supposed to be the process by which known facts are correlated and extended, it seems that would be directly counter to "faith" as a concept.

*shrug*

[lap83]

You could be right, but we're all human and none of us operates on reason 100% of the time. (except maybe the squirrels)

[Pro Libertate]

Well, it's not like any of us don't operate on core assumptions that aren't necessarily demonstrated correct by evidence. Some of the greatest thinkers in history were religious people, after all.

It's probably safer to say that one should be careful not to let one's biases cloud one's reasoning, regardless of what those biases may be.

[wadair]

No, they aren't, they are complementary. Besides, faith is the most dominant way of human knowing--even for rationalists and scientists. Check out Thomas Kuhn's classic book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" for a description of how faith works in science.

Faith is trust in one's worldview or paradigm. It can be blind, and it can be wrong--but it is essentially human.

Humans are just not nearly as reasonable as some people think themselves to be. And that is a good thing. Emotion is absolutely essential to sympathy and empathy. Without these one is psychopathic. Intuition is necessary for creativity and potentiality. A totally reasonable person would rarely do anything new or risky--hardly a recipe for human advancement.

[thom]

Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. In fact, for better understanding we take the facts of science and apply them.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

White House Drool Report: Michelle Obama Spotted In Spandex
Despite what Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) once loudly described as Michelle Obama's "large posterior" in a lounge at Reagan National Airport, the first lady was spotted in "dark spandex" over the weekend.

(Sensenbrenner, who obviously has a big butt too, made the comment in 2011. This being Washington, where you never know who's around, he was overheard talking on his cell phone, saying, "She lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself.")...

[John]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmfi3UbDPnQ

[Lord Humungus]

the horror, the horror. *shadowy helicopter flies over*

[John]

Again LH, which part of this do you not get?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmfi3UbDPnQ

[Ted S.]

They actually call it the "Drool Report"?

Disgusting (and not because the subject of the report is Michelle Obama).

[John]

So Jennifer Lawrence is in Vanity Fair whinning about how someone hacking her Icloud is apparently a grave matter of national security. I wish some grand dame actor like Helen Mirren or Shirley McClain would come out publicly and tell Lawrence to get over it. Yeah it sucks and it is a crime but ultimately all that happened is people saw her naked. Big fucking deal. Its not like anyone cares or thinks worse of your for it or the pictures revealed some dark secret or anything other than she is what everyone thought she was, a young beautiful Hollywood starlet. She is doing more damage to her image with the whining than the pictures ever could have done.

[sarcasmic]

Shorter John: fapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfap...

[Restoras]

If you don't want anyone seeing pics of you naked, don't take any. It's very simple.

[John]

Pictures can never be hacked if they are never taken. The only one of the victims of this who seems to have handled it with any perspective is Kristen Dunst. She put out one tweet to the effect of "thanks a lot you piece of shit" and then never said another word from what I have seen.

[Restoras]

Or at least if you do, print a few hard copies to give to your boyfriend and delete it from your phone or hard drive. Storing anything on a server you have no control over is idiotic.

[John]

Pretty much. But even if they get out, if they are just naked pics and not a full on sex tape, I don't see the big deal. Lawrence is a grown woman. She is acting like a 12 year old girl whose creepy cousin walked in on her in the shower.

[tarran]

The problem with the iCloud hack was that Apple was holding onto pictures that *had* been deleted by the user.

Cloud storage backup is a very stupid idea if you have any data you want to truly keep private.

[John]

YEs Tarran. And I think she has a legit beef with Apple. It is not that I don't think she has a right to be angry. It is that this isn't nearly as harmful or big of a deal as she is making it out to be.

[Free Society]

Well, some of it was pretty porny. I was one of the legions of young fappers who violated the sanctity of her nudity. Some of those photos are of her with a face covered in jizz. Which might be a bit more embarrassing than a nudie photo.

[Redmanfms]

Some of those photos are of her with a face covered in jizz.

I'm pretty sure those were determined to be fakes.

Even so, link?

[Free Society]

google "Jennifer lawrence jizz face" and the interwebs will take care of the rest. I hadn't heard they were fakes and I see them posted up right alongside her others just about everywhere that the photos are to be found. they certainly look real...

[tarran]

I think she has a legit beef with Apple. ... It is that this isn't nearly as harmful or big of a deal as she is making it out to be.

D'accord

[Pro Libertate]

J'accuse!

[BigT]

Cloud storage backup is a very stupid idea

Since you can get a 2Tb hard drive for $100, why would anyone use the clod...er cloud?

[Ted S.]

Don't people still have scanners?

[BakedPenguin]

The movie where people's heads blow up? I think I have it on VHS somewhere.

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

*narrows gaze*

[Pro Libertate]

They had heads blowing up in The Fury, didn't they? And, of course, explosive collars in The Running Man.

[Restoras]

That movie is making the rounds on cable lately. Is a remake in the offing? Or a sequel?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

That's like saying if you don't want people to steal your stuff don't have any stuff.

[John]

Yes. Think of it this way, if you don't want to be bitten by a gaboon viper, don't own one as a pet. If you don't want naked pictures of yourself ending up on the internet, don't take them. In the same way owning a poisonous viper creates the inherent risk of it some day biting you, taking naked digital pictures of yourself creates the inherent risk that someone may steal them and make them public.

[Restoras]

That's brilliant Bo. Nicely done.

[trshmnster the terrible]

This is not and never was about the theft... Theft is wrong, no matter the article.

It's the righteous indignation and outright shock about people seeing them naked that is out of proportion. Especially when she's naked in the cover photo. Yes, she was wronged. No, it's not a national scandal of Nixonian proportions.

[Pro Libertate]

Not really the same thing. The point is that the risk of digital material getting out is really pretty high, over time. If you're a public figure, you probably should use excess caution. . .unless you're okay with stuff getting out.

I'm not saying they can't do what the heck they want to do, but they have to be aware of the fact that people are going to want to get precisely this kind of dirt on celebrities. And now that the possibility has been exposed so dramatically, it will happen more often.

[Bill Dalasio]

And if Ms. Lawrence's complaints were limited to theft, I'd say "Hear hear!". But, they're not. She's claiming it's a sex crime. So, people accessing pictures she willingly took is tantamount to a sexual violation against her. That makes sense how?

[Brett L]

I disagree, John. As best I can tell, Lawrence's primary demographic are twenty-something women from whom nobody wants to steal naked pictures. It generates the perfect combination of envy and sympathy that these girls will be watching her for the next decade no matter what quality of work she puts out. At least, this is the vibe I am getting from my wife's friends who have major girl-crushes on her. Like Taylor Swift's churning through boyfriends it seems like a bad idea from the outside, but watching their primary demographic rally in cash to support their girl, its really genius.

[John]

That is a valid point. The other thing is that her biggest fans probably secretly hope someone would ever want to steal their naked selfies.

[Brett L]

Sure, its something they can relate to: "I take naked pictures of myself, too." And titillating: "Oooh, imagine if someone saw those pictures of me. What if everyone saw those pictures of me?" And it plays to the image Jennifer Lawrence has cultivated as the super-strong-brave-everygirl. If her publicist didn't leak them, she should fire the firm.

[invisible furry hand]

The truth is, if you don't want your gonads appearing on public display, and don't want anyone to know that you've taken snaps of your own gonads, then don't take the snaps in the first place. Privacy is a compromised commodity these days. If you wish to retain your job, or maintain a squeaky clean image, then behave in private with the same sense of decorum as you would behave in public.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/fea.....-it-seems/

[Brett L]

Charlene is angry at the newspaper ? perhaps for very good moral reasons, or possibly, at the back of her mind, there is pique at having been used only for the torso shot and she fears that the Sunday Mirror journalist considers her a 'Bobfoc'. That's a term from Viz magazine meaning 'Body off Baywatch, face off Crimewatch.'

I saw the ultimate "Bobfoc" this weekend. We went to a wedding and from the back I'd be intrigued and then she'd turn around and I'd be like "oh, right". My brain couldn't associate the face with that body. Poor girl. At least she honestly knew what her qualities were and dressed so as to emphasize them.

[Lord Humungus]

Last weekend I was at the bar and saw a woman sitting with her back to me. She was fit and had a low-backed black dress that showed a lovely amount of white flesh. I was intrigued enough that I walked to the other side of the tables to get a look at her face.

Yikes!

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Butter face.

[John]

Except that she will hit 30 and there will be a new 20 year old every girl to take her place. I give better than even odds she is doing TV within ten years. It is just how Hollywood works for women. Zoe Dachenell used to be an every girl. Tei Leoni used to quite a package, still is really. And look where they are.

[TwB]

Right on. Young starlets in Hollywood live the high life for a few years, then the hit 40 or 50 and if they don't have serious acting chops, bye bye. It's sad but true.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I thought the strangest part of the Vanity Fair article was...SHE'S NAKED AGAIN!

Talk about mixed signals.

[John]

No kidding? That was the other thing about it. A good number of the victims had already shown the goods on film. So that makes it even less of a big deal.

[Elspeth Flashman]

If she consented to its being published then that's totally different.

[Elspeth Flashman]

/should have put that in "sarc" quotes, oops. You're right, it's totally mixed signals.

[lap83]

Yeah, but she didn't get paid for the hacked photo.

[RBS]

I think you might be on to something...

[lap83]

I never feel sorry for famous people who whine about the downsides of fame.

You're a young, attractive, famous woman who naked pics and stored them on the Cloud. If you didn't realize you were taking a risk then you're an idiot.

[lap83]

*who took

[John]

Exactly. That body has made her millions. One of the downsides of that is that people will go to great lengths to see it. If Lawrence doesn't like that, then she should have not gone into acting and remained just another pretty girl.

[sarcasmic]

You can't get STDs from 'biblically correct sex', claims Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem.....ermon.html

[John]

He is right. If you never have sex before marriage and neither one of you ever cheats, you will never get an STD. The only flaw in what he is saying is that it assumes your spouse does the same thing.

[sarcasmic]

Wanting to remain disease free is a good incentive not to cheat.

[John]

Yes it is, especially when you consider the decreasing effectiveness of antibiotics.

[Free Society]

I think if you can't find someone to cheat with who is disease free, then you probably shouldn't be cheating. Generally I shoot out of my league and I've never used a condom. On a long enough time line, that might have become a problem but my plumbing works great and never once did I contract a disease.

[John]

I have never cheated because my theory has always been if I am ever going to cheat, I will do it with someone better looking than my wife. Otherwise what is the point? And no one who ever met that description has ever shown any interest. So its never been an issue.

[sarcasmic]

I've never cheated on my wife. I always figured that it doesn't matter how good looking she is, if I bring home a disease my marriage is over.

[sarcasmic]

By "she" I meant the potential fuck, not my wife.

[RBS]

I wouldn't cheat for several reasons, one of the biggest being that the type of girl who would knowingly get involved with a guy with a wife and kids it's probably not the type of girl I should be involved with anyway.

[lap83]

I'd never cheat because I'd feel horribly sad and guilty, even if I didn't get an STD. But that's just me.

[John]

lap83,

You are just one of those do gooders. 😉

[Auric Demonocles]

lap, I too have never needed to consider STDs as a reason to avoid cheating.

[sarcasmic]

Empathy has never been my strong suit.

[Free Society]

Well I've not cheated on my wife. She's like 50 levels higher than me on the attractiveness scale. There's really no good reason for her to be my property, but she is all the same. I'm just saying that back when I was still banging strange, a condom never came into play.

[Tonio]

And while he is definitionally correct (assuming no sex outside of marriage), HPV can be transmitted by skin/skin contact such as during sports. Which, of course, makes it not an STD but it is commonly held to be a venereal disease even among people who should know better.

[Injun, as in from India]

Blood transfusions. Also, kissing can spread Herpes.

[John]

Not the genital kind.

[Auric Demonocles]

And you can get some stuff like HIV from your mother.

[Lord Humungus]

I'm the welfare mom with a Coach purse
I know you're judging me, asking: How can you own a fancy purse when you can't afford your baby? Let me explain

I don't expect sympathy or pity or any of those things, nor do I want them. What I do want is understanding. Compassion. You assume I'm buying luxury accessories on someone else's dime because I don't fit your stereotype of what needy looks like. You don't know how hard it is to swipe that EBT card in the grocery line, how relieved I am to punch my pin and see the bill go down. You don't know what brought me here or when you might find yourself in need of someone, all of us, to catch you. No matter how much you think you're doing it right, it doesn't take much to go wrong.

Our baby was breech, and my Coach bag has absolutely nothing to do with that.

[John]

No lady we don't. But spending the other people in line's money ought not to be that pleasant of an experience, lest you get too used to it.

[Free Society]

Spending other people's money is fine. If the people didn't like how she was spending it, they'd stop giving it. Buyt that' not what she's doing. She's spending other people's money that was taken from them at gunpoint. I think her Coach purse is plenty relevant.

[gaijin]

Someone should take her coach purse from her at gunpoint...I wonder how she would react?

[trshmnster the terrible]

Evidently this woman doesn't realize that she could get grocery money from SELLING THE FUCKING PURSE!!

I'm reminded why I don't click links here very often. I get enraged and start using all caps.

[John]

What makes it so appalling is the nature of the item. It would be one thing if she had a nice car that was paid off at the time she ran into trouble. You need a reliable car to be able to work and get out of whatever bad situation you are in. So it really wouldn't make a lot of sense for that person to sell even a nice car if it was reliable and paid off. So, I don't think its fair to say she should sell every nice thing she has.

But a fucking hand bag? I think she could sell that on ebay and get buy with a cheap one from target until she gets back on her feet. But that is just me.

[trshmnster the terrible]

I conditionally disagree. There is a line in the sand somewhere around $12k where the value of your current car isn't high enough to warrant selling it, because you're not going to make much money and get a reliable car for cheaper. Generally the floor for a reliable car is around $5-7k. If you have a $35k paid off prius in your foreclosed-on garage, sell the damn car and get a 3 year old civic. If you have a 3 year old paid off kia worth $11k, dont bother selling it, it's not worth your time.

Financing obviously throws a wrench into the discussion.

[John]

Yes, if you had a car that you could get a lot of money for, then yes sell it and buy something cheaper and also reliable. But it would have to be a pretty nice car to justify doing that. Remember you are stuck paying the 8% or more in some places sales and registration tax on the new car. And any time you buy a used car you are taking a risk that it isn't as reliable as you think it is going to be. It would take my having an awfully valuable car to get me to sell a known reliable car and replace it with one of unknown reliability if I were in that situation.

[John]

Also, if the nice car is still under warranty, I would probably keep it no matter what. Pretty hard to justify a car that doesn't have a risk of breaking down and costing you money.

[Injun, as in from India]

What I do want is understanding. Compassion.

Sorry, is it other people's money that you want, or is it their compassion and understanding?

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, please. You know what welfare has largely become? A subsidy for people with okay incomes to buy shit beyond their means. Or to do things like stay home and homeschool or any number of luxuries that people who earn greater incomes can afford.

[All-Seeing Monocle]

The details of the article support your thesis very well.

[trshmnster the terrible]

Homeschooling can be neutral where the at home parent actually invests in decreasing costs around the house. If you homeschooling by plopping the kid in front of a computer screen and watching Oprah all day, you're doing it wrong.

[All-Seeing Monocle]

My husband and I are graduate students. We don't make much, but we have some savings. In the months leading up to our wedding, we plan to buy a house.

I'm thinking the Coach bag (which turns out to be a gift from her parents) isn't the fucking problem.

[John]

I work basically two jobs and my wife works as well. Her parents paid for our wedding and still really can't afford a house within anything but long commuting distance from our jobs. We pay all our bills and do our best to fill our 401Ks and build up our savings.

This bitch is on welfare and is planning her wedding and buying a house and carrying a coach bag, something my wife would love to have but refuses to buy for herself or let me buy for her on the grounds that it is poor use of money.

Fuck her is not strong enough of a sentiment.

[RBS]

This, fuck these people. I have people like this come into my office on a weekly basis with their bullshit sob stories about how they need an attorney but just can't pay the retainer because they don't have a job and their fucking welfare hasn't come in yet. Well, contrary to whatever fantasy land you live in, you do not have a right to my services and if you can't pay me then you can get the fuck out of my office.

[RBS]

Also, my wife and I both have part time jobs at my step dad's restaurant, because paying off student loans and raising a child is expensive.

[John]

I did legal aid for the Army when I first joined. It was in many ways a rewarding job. Met a lot of really interesting retirees and did their wills for them and such. Got to help a lot of nice people.

One of the things the experience taught me was that the people who are the most willing to ask for your help or for you to bend the rules for them are invariably the ones who are most likely to squander that help or be totally ungrateful for the help you provide them. Every single time a client went bitching about me to my bosses, it was a client who gave me some kind of sob story and got me to do something that had I listened to my better judgement should have refused to do. It never seemed to fail.

The late basketball coach John Wooden had a saying "never do something for someone else that they can and should be doing for themselves". Never were truer words spoken.

[Lord Humungus]

My poor lawyer wife gets this too - people basically wanting her services for free because... uh, they deserve it.

[John]

LH,

I have gotten so cynical about helping people. There have been several very important people to me that I have been hugely generous in trying to help. And my help seems to have not done a damn bit of good beyond making me feel better about myself for having done it.

I don't resent that I gave the help. I would do it again, if I thought it would do any good. I just don't feel my efforts made a dime's worth of difference.

[trshmnster the terrible]

Same here, I work a full time job, a part time job, and take 11 credits of law school each semester, and my wife works a job and takes small side jobs anywhere she can. This is all so that we can afford to live in a decent house, cash flow law school, and pay the mortgage down at a 15 year rate.

To have this princess complain about people judging her is a slap in the face to couples like us who pay a third of our income to funding these programs. If we paid a 15% tax rate, I'd be driving back a car that wasn't built when I was in middle school, we'd be saving for retirement, and giving to the community more than we do now (we can only afford to do the minimum 10% these days).

[perlhaqr]

"If we paid a 15% tax rate, I'd be driving back a car that wasn't built when I was in middle school"

Yep. My car is older than I am.

[Heroic Mulatto]

She is a Ph.D. candidate in creative writing and her husband is a "poet", natch.

[KDN]

My husband and I are graduate students. We don't make much, but we have some savings. In the months leading up to our wedding, we plan to buy a house.

Well, that's certainly a creative idea. Apparently she is going to invent time travel to buy a house before the wedding she already had.

[Heroic Mulatto]

You assume I'm buying luxury accessories on someone else's dime because I don't fit your stereotype of what needy looks like.

No, I assume you're buying luxury accessories on someone else's dime because you're buying luxury accessories on someone else's dime.

[Lord Humungus]

Exploding 'pot pop' removed from three marijuana shops

They sold ten bottles of legal sparkling pomegranate soda made by Mirth Provisions of Longview on the first day.

But when employees opened up shop the following day, they found a sticky mess of broken bottles and shards of glass throughout the store. During the night, the bottles began to self destruct. The employees didn't think anything was dangerous until they heard and saw bottles randomly explode.

"It sounded like a shotgun going off," said Top Shelf Cannabis manager Zach Henifin. "You can actually feel it, it was that explosive".

[UnCivilServant]

You know, Dr. Pepper has an explosive warning label on it. I always just sort of laughed. But back when glass was the norm, a catastrophic failure under pressure meant real shrapnel.

[The Late P Brooks]

NBC News reportedly tried to hire comedian Jon Stewart to host its flagship Sunday news program Meet the Press.

But the White House said no. They wanted Chuck Todd, because he has no gag reflex.

[NebulousFocus]

Awesome.

[Aloysious]

Succinct. Nice.

+1

[Rich]

MH17 crash: Dutch minister says passenger 'wore oxygen mask'

"See?! We *told* you we didn't shoot it down!!"

[NebulousFocus]

Shit, that's just sad.

[Lord Humungus]

The Pedophile Phone?
Encryption is challenging the ability of both cops and robbers to snoop on private communications.

Technology, from encryption to 3D printing, is challenging at a very basic level government's ability to regulate what we do, for better and for worse. If you have $1,200 to spend, you can mill your own metal AR-style rifles at home, by the score if you're so inclined, with no special expertise required. By and large, criminal enterprises such as prostitution and the distribution of marijuana have been rendered almost unpoliceable, the former business being transacted quite publicly with the help of the people who used to publish the Village Voice. If government at the federal, state, or local level wants our cooperation, it must regain our trust. And demands for unrestricted access to our private data coming from the same gang behind the warrantless surveillance program, or from Eric Holder's politicized DOJ, or from John J. Escalante's corrupt and ineffective Chicago PD, are not helping to build that trust.

[John]

You know if Jennifer Lawrence had an encrypted Iphone... Just saying. But I guess its different if cops jerk off to your wife's naked selfies.

[Bam!]

Schneier had a good write up on this.

[Lord Humungus]

Bipolar U.S. Stocks See Biggest Mood Swing in Three Years

After plunging 1.5 percent on Oct. 7, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index (SPX) rallied almost 1.8 percent yesterday, the biggest turnaround in almost three years. As investors weigh the prospect of slower economic growth overseas against the benefit of U.S. interest rates staying near zero, a measure of 10-day volatility has risen to the highest level since April, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Yesterday's rebound in the S&P 500 came after minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting suggested monetary policy may remain accommodative if the global economy falters. The measure is still 2.1 percent away from its all-time closing high of 2,011.36 reached Sept. 18 as investors assess concerns ranging from valuations to oil prices and growth in Europe.

[Restoras]

It used to be that that kind of frothiness was a sign of a top. I guess we'll see.

[TwB]

QE for the foreseeable future! And for those of you who would like to see interest rates rise so your savings accounts can actually do something, go fuck yourselves!-The Fed

[Stormy Dragon]

"Now, my caddie's chauffeur informs me that a bank is a place where people put money that isn't properly invested."

[Lord Humungus]

There is a social network that allows strangers to control each other's sex toys from afar

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I find cybersex's leap from the AOL chatrooms of my youth to the camera-tipped vibrators and Bluetooth enabled sex toys of today pretty astounding. But there is one new development, I think, that embodies near-perfectly just how far cybersex has come (pun intended,, I guess): LovePalz Club, a Taiwanese social network that allows complete strangers around the world to control each other's sex toys from afar. It works like Tinder, except without the same potential for IRL intercourse.

"We expect all kinds of users," LovePalz spokesperson Viv Lu told the Daily Dot. "LovePalz Club is a platform for people who get tired of old-fashioned social networks and [are] looking for stimulation."

[Elspeth Flashman]

? does IRL mean "in real life?"

[UnCivilServant]

Supposedly.

[Brett L]

Teledildonics. I've told you knuckle-draggers this is the future.

[db]

Absolutely. The virtual brothel cometh.

[Lord Humungus]

Any other predictions, Criswell?

[Brett L]

Short Treasury bonds in 2016.

[Pro Libertate]

Full-immersion VR with haptic interfaces: Distance fornication.

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

Cleaning that thing has got to be a job.

[Pro Libertate]

It's why we need robots.

[UnCivilServant]

French writer Patrick Modiano has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

And here I thought it was a toss-up between me and Lord H.

[invisible furry hand]

Only over SugarFree's corpse

[UnCivilServant]

I can make that happen if need be.

[SugarFree]

Yeah, beating a cripple to death is really hard.

[Lord Humungus]

ha.

[Lord Humungus]

I'm out of the game.

[gaijin]

Nice article by V Postrel on optmism and technological progress...what's changed in 'our' perception of the future and what influences that.

Peter Thiel is Wrong About the Future

"When a report about how ground-penetrating radar has mapped huge undiscovered areas of Stonehenge immediately provokes a comment wondering whether the radar endangers the landscape, something has gone seriously wrong with our sense of wonder. "There's an automatic perception ... that everything's dangerous,"

[BakedPenguin]

Bloomberg View is so much better when Postrel is there.

[db]

Nice formatting! Now *EVERY COMMENT* is a morning link.

[db]

Weird...on my prior reload of the page, every single comment had a bullet point in front of it, similarly to the main link post formatting.

[UnCivilServant]

you didn't fully load the StyleSheet that said "comment styles begin now"

[db]

Honestly, I would welcome a return to mid-to-late 1990s web design.

[KDN]

Not a fan of optimizing all sites for tablet viewing?

I'm certainly not. The WSJ is the latest victim of this terrible craze.

[db]

I visit this site mainly.from my phone. If I use the mobile version, all the text be ones uncomfortably small to read and cannot be zoomed in on. Add to that moat web sites being punctuated with ads every.other sentence, and.it makes it devilishly hard to read any content of substance.

[trshmnster the terrible]

I have to do desktop mode from my phone because the page resets to the top if I try to comment in mobile mode.

That still doesn't excuse the shifting page in desktop mode. I end up clicking on random crap all the time because the page shifts every time an element loads.

[trshmnster the terrible]

I really wish I had my grease monkey script for Firefox. It got rid of all the BS, and just had the article text, the image with alt-text in the caption, and a fully functioning comments section. Loaded like a dream, looked ugly as fuck, but it was super functional.

[Rhywun]

I do something similar with 'Stylish' for Chrome. I basically block everything but the DIV element that has the posts and comments. And it looks good too.

[Rabban]

Chrome, on a desktop, with Ad Blocker and Ghostery, set yourself free.

[Pro Libertate]

It's amazing how much less functionality websites have when they try to make it all mobile friendly.

[Rich]

Oversized body causes fire at crematory

Manager Jerry L. Hendrix Sr. said Wednesday afternoon that he's received a go-ahead to resume cremating an 800-pound cadaver that created excessive heat and oil during a cremation.

*** rising intonation ***

I think I see a solution to our energy problems ....

[db]

Did it have Ebola?

[UnCivilServant]

I think I see a solution to our energy problems ....

A return to whale oil?

[Elspeth Flashman]

Last night I was reading "Best Top 10 Lists" and one of them was "10 weird truths about death." So apparently, bodies that have a high fat content can make soap of the corpse once you are decaying.

So maybe instead of soap, make candles of the bodies of the dead obese. Energy problem solved, and obesity epidemic not a problem anymore either, really.

[Bam!]

Anyone who has seen Fight Club knows the body-soap thing.

[UnCivilServant]

Or anyone who'se heard of Aidpocere, first named as such in 1658 and the process analyzed in the following years.

[Ted S.]

But there goes our solution to the world hunger problem.

[Roger the Shrubber]

Energy is...people!

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Puppy Justice?

Former Baltimore police officer charged with beating and choking a puppy to death, sentenced to 1 year in jail

[Atanarjuat]

Victim-class status in 2014 America: white women [greater than symbol] cute dogs [several greater than symbols] black males

[db]

Anyone else headed to Louisville this weekend for the Knob Creek shoot?

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

I live about 15 miles away, and never know when they are happening.

I might make it, now.

[db]

You may see me wandering around in a reason t-shirt.

[invisible furry hand]

With or without pants?

[Rich]

EPA can't find top official's text messages

"EPA is not aware of any evidence that federal records have been unlawfully destroyed," said Liz Purchia, the EPA spokeswoman.

"Of course," she continued, "that's because the germane hard-drive has been recycled."

[TwB]

Fake scandal, yawn, whatever. Does this shit ever end for the Obama administration? It seems like every month another batch of emails are lost and then a hard drive is destroyed. It's like they're trying to hide something. Hmmm...

[Rich]

I understand global warming wreaks havoc on hard drives.

[Free Society]

The U.S. will soon begin to conduct Ebola screenings for passengers arriving from West Africa at five major U.S. airports, including New York's John F. Kennedy and Washington, D.C.'s Dulles.

Great. TSA agent / Dr. Laqueesha stands between me an ebola. Now I feel safe.

[UnCivilServant]

Or rather, the TSA becomes a disease vector by spreading it to everyone else they grope.

[Rich]

Awesome. OBL'll be rubbing his hands together in hell.

[sarcasmic]

http://reason.com/blog/2014/10.....nt_4820317

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Our beloved Reason writer ENB is feuding with this douche on Twitter.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Er, this guy

https://twitter.com/cmclymer

http://mic.com/profiles/33013/charles-clymer

Charles Clymer is an Army Vet and proud feminist. He writes for The Huffington Post and PolicyMic. He lives with his two cats in D.C. and can play three chords on guitar, two of them moderately well.

[Atanarjuat]

Feminists, no matter the gender, live alone with cats.

Also, they have douchey faces.

I have a cousin who seems to have it all in life. Cute, mid-20s, naturally blond, step-dad paid for her art-history degree to an Ivy League school. Yet judging by her Facebook posts (she links daily to Jezebel and other shit you guys read, but with a straight/outraged face), she is well on her way to being a bitter old maid.

I used to think the step-dad was generous, paying for the education of a whelp that wasn't biologically his. Now I realize he unknowingly cursed her with an indoctrination that will make her unhappy for life.

[trshmnster the terrible]

There are three groups of people who live alone with cats

-feminists
-slightly insane older women (grown up feminists)
-computer programmers

[invisible furry hand]

I believe libertarian former Marine Andy Levy lives alone with cats. He's probably just doing it to fuck with us

[Redmanfms]

Former soldier (Army, believe he was an 31-Kilo, checking, yup).

Any Marine will tell you there is no such thing as a "former Marine."

[invisible furry hand]

i could not recall the preferred nomenclature for a Marine no longer on active service. Care to enlighten me?

[Redmanfms]

Marine.

They're really weird about that shit.

[perlhaqr]

No no. "Former Marine" is fine. It's "Ex Marine" they get really bent out of shape about.

[Lord Humungus]

I've got two cats. *hangs his head in shame*

(but I don't live alone)

[trshmnster the terrible]

I've got 2 cats and 2 dogs. My wife brought the dogs.

In my defense, I was a computer engineer.

[Rhywun]

I live alone with two cats... And yes I am a computer programmer.

[Heroic Mulatto]

"I've heard people say @cmclymer is the new @hugoschwyzer and man, that is just really unfair to Hugo."

ENB went nuclear with that one. Hilarious!

[invisible furry hand]

SF'd the link, damn you

[invisible furry hand]

And then corrected yourself before I rebuked you. DAMN YOU TO HELL!

[John]

ENB is a bit too abortion focused. But who doesn't love a pretty girl? Tell the douche to go fuck himself.

[db]

Why Do You Hate The Troops, John?

[Certified Public Asskicker]

He's a "feminist" who says things like:

Republican Feminist #CircusFreaks2014

Folks, you can't be a member of the Republican Party in its current form and claim you support feminism. Makes no damn sense.

I know great libertarians, and then, I observe many who use the label to hide their asinine, bigoted views. Pathetic. Go back to Reddit.

[Rhywun]

Makes no damn sense.

No it doesn't, because the word "feminism" doesn't contain any meaning anymore.

[UnCivilServant]

I deliberately don't know what anyone on this site looks like. I only have their words to judge them by.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Would you like to know what I am wearing at least?

[gaijin]

I deliberately don't know what anyone on this site looks like. I only have their words to judge them by.

I understand that Warty is quite attractive. In his own way.

[John]

He has a certain feral attractiveness. Or at least that is what Sugar Free claims.

[SugarFree]

Only if you like gigantically tall power lifters with the piercing gaze of a horny Rasputin.

[John]

If there is one thing the internet proves, some nut somewhere is into it no matter what it is.

[Rhywun]

Go on...

[Rhywun]

Go on...

Stupid threading. That was for SF.

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

SF'd the link.

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

Dang, I was way too slow...

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I know ok, I KNOW!

[DontShootMe]

Now your Caps Lock key is stuck.

[Idle Hands]

All I got from that is how incredibly stupid and smug twitter is.

[Lord Humungus]

Feminists: Remove WWII Sailor Statue Because It's 'Sexual Assault'
Statue in Normandy depicts famous photograph from New York's V-J Day.

But the French feminist group Osez Le F?minisme has claimed that what the statue actually portrays is the sexual assault of a woman who did not give verbal consent before being kissed, and the group is petitioning to have it removed immediately.

Alfred Eisenstaedt, who took the original photograph, has said that George Mendonsa, the sailor depicted in the image, had been haphazardly kissing any woman who came close to him, without taking the time to explicitly ask for verbal consent.

Osez Le F?minisme maintains that the statue is clearly nothing more than the disgusting depiction of a sexual assault in progress.

[tarran]

They kind of remind me of the Taliban blowing up the Buddhist statues because they were unimportant idols.

[John]

It isn't kind of like that. It is exactly like that. Remember, feminists say American SOCONs are just like the Taliban. They really don't make a single accusation ever that isn't complete projection.

[JW]

We saved their sorry cheese-eating-surrender-monkey asses without their consent, too. the least they can do is show a sailor a good time.

[trshmnster the terrible]

The next French Revolution can't come fast enough

[Restoras]

You really don't want that to happen.

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

The next one will likely result in Sharia law being instituted

[perlhaqr]

I don't live in France...

[invisible furry hand]

It's presumptuous to assume that the woman in the photo is being sexually assaulted - maybe she was OK with it. To be fair, it's equally presumptuous to assume you can grab a stranger and kiss them.

But most importantly, the utter triviality of this action shows the basic intellectual bankruptcy of so much western feminism. You want to combat rape culture, do something practical to help Indian women who get raped going to communal toilets by springing for some better plumbing

[Injun, as in from India]

This is one solution being talked about in India. Good luck getting US feminists to support it:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.....607959.cms

[invisible furry hand]

In a state where government offers arms licences as incentive to achieve wheat procurement and immunization targets

Holy fuck! I got all my jabs and I was lucky to get a lollypop

[Monty Crisco]

"There is nothing they can do to a woman with a gun that they cannot to one without," says Shalini Seth, a medical executive touring on most of the week days. "In rape, the threat is not so much to life and a weapon may not be helpful once a tormentor has prevailed on his prey," she says."

Just like I used to say in the Army: There are no victims, only volunteers.
Holy fuck, the sheep are well-trained in India....

[WTF]

"There is nothing they can do to a woman with a gun that they cannot to one without,"

Pretty hard for an assailant to do anything to a woman if the assailant has a gaping chest wound.

[John]

IFB,

In the same way the the left's purported concern about "racism" has nothing to do with helping black people and everything to do with using the charge as a club against the left's political enemies, leftist feminism has nothing to do with helping women and everything to do with using the charge of "sexism" as a political weapon.

Helping Indian women doesn't allow Western feminists to punish their political enemies. So doing it is of no interest or use to them.

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

IFB?

Invisible Furry B-word?

Way to other, John!

the rest of you could learn something.

[John]

It was a typeo. Promise.

[SugarFree]

Actually, she has said that she didn't consent to the kiss or even know the guy. He just grabbed her and laid one on her.

[WTF]

And shockingly, her life didn't end and went on just fine afterwards.

[trshmnster the terrible]

RAPE APOLOGIST!!! !!!, 111111ONEONEONE!!

[lap83]

This.

[Stormy Dragon]

Most robbery victims lives didn't end and went on just fine afterwards. That doesn't make it okay.

[The Laconic]

She was not OK with it. I think a statue is in poor taste.

I also think there are more important things to get upset about.

[BakedPenguin]

Pretty much where I'm at.

[Azathoth!!]

So when you say she wasn't okay with it do you mean this--

According to museum director St?phane Grimaldi, the woman is a nurse named Edith Shain, who stated she had not been assaulted in any way.

or this--

The feminist group, however, said that the woman is actually an Austrian named Greta Zimmer Friedman.

Friedman has been quoted as saying: "I wasn't kissing him. He was kissing me." But she sharply rejected the assault claim after a 2012 blog post picked up on that quote to say the photo was an example of "The Selective Blindness of Rape Culture."

"I can't think of anybody who considered that as an assault," Friedman told Navy Times, adding that she and Mendonsa ? who were strangers at the time ? stayed in touch over the years. "It was a happy event."

Because neither supports your assertion.

[lap83]

"To be fair, it's equally presumptuous to assume you can grab a stranger and kiss them."

True, but the context of that photo was pretty exceptional. A Great War doesn't come to a triumphant end everyday. I think she likely forgave him given the circumstances.

[trshmnster the terrible]

Yep. If there are consent issues, shouldn't it be the victim who lodges the complaint? If the victim doesn't care, I don't care.

[The DerpRider]

Not the Onion?

[Lord Humungus]

Barack Obama: the end of a love affair
Six years after offering hope and change, polls show the American public has fallen out of love with their president ? so where did it all go wrong?

For much of the Obama presidency, voters have tended to draw a distinction between the man and the problems faced by the nation ? many of which, like high deficits, wars and unemployment, were blamed either on the George W Bush era or global factors beyond the president's control.

It was that buffer that explained how Mr Obama broke all historical precedent and won re-election with unemployment running at nearly 8pc. While some of his policies were unpopular, a strong majority still found the president to be an "honest and trustworthy" leader.

Now those ratings too are under water, and Mr Obama is identified as part of the problem, with only 27 per cent of Americans believing that "things in the United States are heading in the right direction" according to a CBS/New York Times poll this week.

[invisible furry hand]

A love affair? Hardly. It's not like you can two-time him with a better President.

[SusanM]

"I'm sorry, Barry. I thought I was over Ronnie but you and I have drifted apart and Ron was still a part of my heart. I hope we can still be friends, Barry."

[Injun, as in from India]

Love affair? I've thought of it more as the relationship between a Divine Entity and His measly devotees.

[SugarFree]

This article is pure projection.

[On The Road To Mandalay.]

Hail Mary,
Mother of God,
Lady in Blue,
I love you!

Hail Mary,
Mother of God,
Mary is my mother, too!

[The Late P Brooks]

Short Treasury bonds in 2016.

I have been saying "short Treasuries" for five or six years. Lucky for me, I'm too chicken to put my money here my mouth is, or I would have lost my shirt. I am completely baffled by the strength in the bond market.

"Don't fight the Fed," is still good advice, I guess.

[Injun, as in from India]

The market Fed can stay irrational far longer than you can stay solvent.

[Lord Humungus]

Silver is pretty cheap right now. I've been buying a few ounces here 'n' there. Not to make money but more of a system collapse backstop.

[trshmnster the terrible]

I struggle with the debate in my head over buying precious metals. In an economic meltdown contained primarily to the market, precious metals would be the best bet. However, in a societal meltdown predicated by economic collapse, precious metals are just as useless as fiat paper. Either way, I've got a little bit of paper gold for diversity purposes.

[tarran]

I have a non standard terminology I use when considering this sort of thing. Precious metals (and commodities in general) are not investments in my mind. They are speculations.

To me an investment is something that has productive capacity - eg purchasing a plot of land to put a fruit orchard so that you can sell apples would be.

A speculation, on the other hand is when you acquire something not for its productive capacity but for the chance to sell it for more later - eg buying the same plot of land, but not so you can build an orchard, but so you can sell it to the railroad that you think will be built through it in five years time for more money.

Because this distinction is based on intent, the same item can be classed either way, worse, some items can serve both purposes - eg I'll build an orchard now, and sell it to the railroad later.

Precious metals, though, are pretty much speculations; unless you are using them as raw material to make things, you will be selling the same thing you bought down the road.

In the long run, something bought as an investment will generally show much greater return than something bought for speculation.

One counterfactual to the above: many stocks do not pay dividends because of the way they are taxed. As a result, under my rubric, the guys buying those stocks are speculating rather than investing, because the only return they will get will be realized when they sell the stock at some point in the future.

[Lord Humungus]

precious metals are just as useless as fiat paper

It would depend on the degree of the societal meltdown. Precious metals will always be worth something to someone. It isn't like gold or silver became worthless when the fill-in-the-blank (Roman, etc) government collapsed.

But in a full meltdown, Road Warrior post-apocalypse, I can see your point.

[tarran]

Copper will always be useful. 😉

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

This is why you diversify...

Invest in Gold and Lead.

[Stormy Dragon]

Unfortunately, you can't make money shorting something just because you know it's eventually going to go down. You have to know exactly when it's going to go down too.

[Spoonman.]

Market timing is for suckers. I just moved to a cheaper house and allocated the difference across stocks and bonds, because that money is for decades from now. If I needed it in five years I would have been more conservative.

[Pro Libertate]

I have a relevant movie line for you: "Don't you do it! Don't! You. . .I got nowhere else to go! I got nowhere else to g--. I got nothin' else."

[Stormy Dragon]

Meanwhile in the fever swamps:

The Ebola Effect: Blood From Stone

It's no secret the one-percent who rule the world want the global population reduced. It's also no secret big pharma makes big money off pandemics. And apparently Big Academia can make money too. How convenient Dallas Patient Zero wound up in Texas where Texas A & M says it can serve as a potential mass-production center for ZMapp Ebola Drug. And big government can use Ebola as a ripe excuse to start using those FEMA camps.

[tarran]

Admit it Stormy!

Every link you post on Hit and Run makes the Reason Foundation MORE MONEY!!!!!

[John]

And big government can use Ebola as a ripe excuse to start using those FEMA camps.

If only big government were that efficient or rational albeit evil. The Rockwell types really don't understand what they are up against. They attribute rationality to our government and the leftists who run it where none exists.

The rational thing to do would be to quarantine and take all of the traditional steps to stop this. The rationally evil thing would be to use that as an excuse to set up an authoritarian government. Neither the left nor the government is rational however. So what they will do is let Ebola do its worst, whatever that ends up being, because trying to stop it would be racist and unfair and require othering people infected with the disease.

[OldMexican]

Re: John,

If only big government were that efficient or rational albeit evil.

Starting wars against imaginary threats is not evil enough for you, John?

The rational thing to do would be to quarantine and take all of the traditional steps to stop this.

It is necessary to point out that until this season, all Ebola outbreaks were more or less contained thanks to the combined efforts of volunteer doctors and traditional tribal quarantine practiced by the locals for generations. It was when inefficient and stoopid government started to pour money into the problem that you see NGO's starting to invent outbreaks where none existed and practiced the very worst containment protocols you would only see in an SNL sketch, like not cleaning up messes, having people in beds but not feeding them, or giving them food just to see them disappear into the country, you name it.

[John]

So you are telling me the government is irrational. Yeah, I kind of already knew that and said as much.

[OldMexican]

Re: John,

So you are telling me the government is irrational.

Not irrational, John. That would actually excuse their actions.

Just evil.

[The Laconic]

It's no secret the one-percent who rule the world want the global population reduced.

Who's been talking, damn it?!

[OldMexican]

Rich intellectuals, politicians and business people who don't like the "undesirables".

Those are the ones always touting alarmist propaganda on TV during Climate Change meetings.

[The Late P Brooks]

It's no secret the one-percent who rule the world want the global population reduced.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Other than Tom Steyer, how many of the hard core watermelon environmentalists are part of the "one per cent"?

[Paul.]

Wasn't Tim Russert, the Meet the Press host last time I paid attention kind of conservative?

[Restoras]

If by conservative you mean slightly right of your average beltway progtard then yes.

[OldMexican]

Re: Paul,

Wasn't Tim Russert, the Meet the Press host last time I paid attention kind of conservative?

TIm "We Would Still Have Slavery!" Russert?

[The Late P Brooks]

It's nice to see the Bloombergers fawning all over Elon Kardashian, this morning. They hang on that attention whore's every word like a bunch of Teen Beat groupies.

[John]

The man made a $100,000 golf cart Brooks. Don't you see how special that is and how special that makes him? Don't you know he is the 21st Century Henry Ford? You stupid racist bastard.

[Pro Libertate]

Are we talking about Musk? Because I'm a fan of what he's doing with SpaceX, regardless of the rest of it.

[John]

Yes. I share Brooks' utter disdain for Tesla and battery powered cars in general.

[Pro Libertate]

In theory, I'm okay with electric cars, but they aren't efficient enough yet, and we lack the supporting infrastructure. And there's the environmental hit of the batteries, ironically enough.

The nice advantage of electrics if they were the dominant vehicle is that the source of electricity can vary.

[Paul.]

I'm 100% fine with an electric car that has the same or greater range and power as a standard infernal combustion, and can be fully charged in the same time it takes me to fill up at the pump.

[Pro Libertate]

Obviously, we're not there yet. And the politics of it all means that the actually capabilities of current electrics are often exaggerated. Range and charging time are still a big problem.

[perlhaqr]

and can be fully charged in the same time it takes me to fill up at the pump.

That's the sticky one for me. I don't think that's ever going to happen short of a standardised swappable battery pack, though. And that's more of a workaround, since it's not like you're actually recharging the packs that fast, you're just getting the car moving again.

Might be one way to help combat unemployment, though, if "service station attendant" became a thing again.

[Auric Demonocles]

I do wish he would get off the government teat a bit more, but at least it's not like Tesla.

[Pro Libertate]

If I were running SpaceX now, I'd be looking high and low for non-governmental clients. I get that NASA and other countries are the ones willing to pay through the nose for space access, but they're also unreliable customers because of the politics of procurement.

My prediction is that once Dragon is established as a safe and reliable manned spacecraft, assuming the launch costs keep coming down, that the big splash will be when Dragon/Falcon is used to delivery equipment and personnel to operate Bigelow space hotels. . .followed by tourists.

[Paul.]

My prediction is that once Dragon is established as a safe and reliable manned spacecraft, assuming the launch costs keep coming down

I thought costs universally went up until the government got involved?

[Pro Libertate]

Launch costs would probably already be considerably lower than they are if the government would get the fuck out of the way.

[The Late P Brooks]

Are we talking about Musk?

Yes. He has unquestionably done worthwhile things, but he seems to have descended into a caricature of self-promotion. How much longer will it be until he shows up on Jon Stewart's show in a suit of titanium armor?

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, sure, he's a piece of work. But I forgive him all for SpaceX. Maybe it's successful despite him, but it's the beginning of something good--a private space exploration industry.

[Auric Demonocles]

I do have a large concern that he might corner the market in the asteroid insurance business before I can get in.

[Pro Libertate]

That's why SpaceSex has to remain a secret company.

[Paul.]

Do SpaceX's rockets run on battery power?

[Pro Libertate]

No. They're saving that for the space elevator.

[Auric Demonocles]

There's actually a decent amount of energy to regained during the space elevator decent.

[Pro Libertate]

I just had an idea for a TV show. The Love Elevator. Just like The Love Boat, only set on a space elevator.

[The Late P Brooks]

I guess the thing I find irksome about the Musk coverage is the change of emphasis from what he has done to who he is. And there is no evidence I can see of any effort on his part to discourage it; hence the new appellation, Elon Kardashian.

[Pro Libertate]

One major flaw in American coverage of industrialists and executives is to make them into celebrities. Most of them found and/or run businesses that are successful for many reasons, many often not really attributable to the celebutive that the media fawns over.

I'm a little more tolerant of that with founding owners, who started the whole thing, but they do it with hired gun executives, which is silly. They're rarely the reason for a company's success or failure and are dramatically inflated in importance. I think the media likes to anthropomorphize companies in the form of the current CEO, to make reporting easier and coverage of business more "personal."

[Paul.]

I'm a little more tolerant of that with founding owners, who started the whole thing, but they do it with hired gun executives, which is silly. They're rarely the reason for a company's success or failure and are dramatically inflated in importance. I think the media likes to anthropomorphize companies in the form of the current CEO, to make reporting easier and coverage of business more "personal."

Hats off. This is an excellent analysis of our corporate/media relationships.

I don't care what Episiarch says about you.

[Auric Demonocles]

I read a competitive study of successful and average businesses, and the biggest disconnect between what people expected a successful company to have and what successful companies had to have is a charismatic, larger than life leader.

[Pro Libertate]

All that's usually good for is bolstering public and investor relations efforts. That's nontrivial, but it's also not GENERAL OF COMMERCE. At least, it's often not.

There are cases where a leader with a strong vision and good administrative skills is the difference maker, but that's the exception, not the rule. Many companies are successful because they've reached a plateau of success and are making incremental changes to achieve growth, etc. (though growth can often come strictly from external factors that aren't at all within the control of the company itself).

Really, most CEOs and senior executives are grossly overcompensated. That's the market, yes, but the market is inflated by the media's devotion to the F?hrerprinzip and by the fact that the law, in attempting to justify limited liability, has gone too far in separating shareholders from control of their business.

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

Iteresting article in this months Car and Driver

Big Brother is watching you!