Exiled Nazis Get Social Security Checks, Jay Leno Gets Humor Prize, Millennials Love Nashville & Baltimore: A.M. Links

x-ray delta one/Flickr

• Dozens of Nazi war criminals and concentration-camp guards were forced out of America yet still collected—or collect, present-tense—U.S. Social Security checks. 
• Anti-democracy critics in Hong Kong are convinced the U.S. is puppeteering the #OccupyCentral protest movement there. 
• Ebola watch is over for the 48 people who had contact with the first Dallas patient.
• Secretary of State John Kerry is trying to cheerlead more Asian countries into joining our ISIS war efforts. 
• Jay Leno received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center in D.C. Sunday night.
• HuffPost CliffNotes: 5 takeaways from Doug Henwood's Harper's takedown of Hillary Clinton.
• A new report finds the cities currently attracting the most college-educated millennials include Houston, Nashville, Denver, Austin, Portland, D.C., Buffalo, Baltimore, and Los Angeles.

Comments

[Restoras]

This will come as a surprise to no one, but on Friday Tony miraculously re-appeared on the Ebola thread well after it had gone quiet, and well after being thrashed by Fluffy, to post his 'haha I got the last-word' comments to Fluffy and others.

In response to Fluffy?

Tony|10.17.14 @ 8:01PM|#
You can't get to "it's okay to use collective (government) force to rectify this situation" from your premise of human agency being all-important. It still takes taxes and coercion to enable the services that react to problems caused by humans. If it's never okay to tax and coerce, it's never okay to tax and coerce. If it's sometimes okay to tax and coerce, then whether the problem being addressed involves human agency or environment is not relevant except with respect to moral judgment and specific practical concerns. Anarchy is consistent (if insane); minarchy must explain each and every time why this collective action is good but that one is bad.

In response to sarcasmic?

Tony|10.17.14 @ 8:03PM|#
I understand that you slap the label "reason" on all the infantile bullshit you believe. I could do that too if I were as dumb as you.

[Restoras]

And in response to?not sure, probably the voices inside his head.

Tony
|10.18.14 @ 12:00AM|#
I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
It's a simple point, and it eludes you because it undermines what you think is a coherent worldview that you hold dear. You cannot justify not having a policy because government doing stuff is bad if you also think that government doing stuff is good for other purposes. Just defend or reject a policy on its merits. Stop telling democratic polities that they don't have a choice but to reject specifically those things you don't like and must accept those things you do. Taxation doesn't become legitimate only for the programs you like.

Tony|10.18.14 @ 12:05AM|#
So perhaps you can point me to some credible person or persons who support the travel ban as good ebola prevention policy. I've asked a lot, and nobody has done anything. I only want the best policy. If you can provide some reason this is it beyond your own simplistic knee-jerk common sense, I am all ears.
I'll just go along with the apparent reality that you've abandoned all attachment to the idea that brute government force is a bad thing.

[sarcasmic]

The retard is physically incapable of abstract thinking.

[WTF]

And in addition to "Tony's" other attributes he likes to corpse-fuck dead threads just to childishly get in the last word. What a giant douche.

[Mainer2]

Tony wants attention and alot of people here give it to him. Now we hear about his nonsense, AND HE'S NOT ON THIS THREAD. Puppets gotta dance, I guess.

[Restoras]

Indeed. That's what is so comforting to him about mindlessy adhering to his progtard worldview. It alleviates the responsibility to think.

Interestingly, Senegal has eradicated Ebola, in part by implementing a travel ban.

[WTF]

Senegal has eradicated Ebola, in part by implementing a travel ban.

That's unpossible, travel bans make it spread worse! All the experts said so!

[Gray Ghost]

And they actually have a land border with one of the three affected countries (the least affected, but still.). How have they not been overrun with all of the people that we were told could easily go around a travel ban?

Ivory Coast is going to be interesting, if the situation in Liberia is as dire as WHO thinks it is.

[Restoras]

Boom.

The president sent a similar signal when he said "I don't have a philosophical objection necessarily to a travel ban if that is the thing that is going to keep the American people safe." That is the sound of a politician retreating, laying the groundwork for another reversal.

http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....ravel-ban/

[Seamus]

This just proves that the Senegalese are racist.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hello.

They're out there. People who believe this line of thinking:

http://blogcritics.org/democratic-disappointment/

[gaijin]

her primary beat is primetime television. But Barbara writes on an everything from film to politics to technology to all things pop culture and spirituality.

So basically just another loud mouth with an a$$hole...and an opinion.

[Fluffy]

If it's sometimes okay to tax and coerce, then whether the problem being addressed involves human agency or environment is not relevant except with respect to moral judgment and specific practical concerns.

He reaches this conclusion because he doesn't realize that to me the power to coerce possessed by government is a delegated power.

I, personally, delegate my personal moral authority to engage in coercion to the state.

Therefore, if I would individually possess the moral authority to use violence against a person, I can delegate that power to the state. Taxation is the "salary" I am paying the state to exercise that delegated power.

That's why he can't see why "moral judgment" is important or why I keep circling back to it. Because he doesn't see this as a delegated power.

I can possess the moral authority to use violence against an individual to force them to stop harming me. I can therefore delegate that power to the state. I cannot possess the moral authority to use violence against an individual to force them to solve a problem that I have created for myself, or that is being created by "the environment" without that other individual's involvement. Since I don't possess that latter moral authority, I can't delegate it to the state.

As I told him, I can understand how someone might not share this view of the source of the moral authority of state action - but you can't call it inconsistent, because it's just not.

[Restoras]

Eloquently stated, Fluffy.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Dozens of Nazi war criminals and concentration-camp guards were forced out of America...

You know who else was a Nazi?

[Fist of Etiquette]

...yet still collected?or collect, present-tense?U.S. Social Security checks.

You know who else collects checks from the government?

[Almanian!]

The United States Postal Service?

[waffles]

Do you know who else responds to their own comments?

[UnCivilServant]

Me - usually to correct or expound upon something.

[UnCivilServant]

Well, not the US government, but my paycheck does come from a government.

[Jerryskids]

Dozens of Nazi war criminals and concentration-camp guards were forced out of America yet still collected?or collect, present-tense?U.S. Social Security checks.

Not to mention the ones collecting checks from the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office.

[Almanian!]

Those dudes who showed up at our local courthouse steps a couple years ago and ranted to an empty lawn?

[Ted S.]

When will they force the ex-communists out of America?

[Almanian!]

Gotta get rid of the "current Communists" first.

[Ted S.]

Nicole?

[Cdr Lytton]

Al Yeganeh?

[Gray Ghost]

+0 Soup.

[JW]

I hate social security Nazis.

[OldMexican]

No checks for you!

[antisocial-ist]

scheisse!! They signed up for the wrong SS.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Ebola watch is over for the 48 people who had contact with the first Dallas patient.

The Summer of Recovery has begun.

[Almanian!]

excellent

[straffinrun]

Put them on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

[Bee Tagger]

A new report finds the cities currently attracting the most college-educated millennials include Houston, Nashville, Denver, Austin, Portland, D.C., Buffalo, Baltimore, and Los Angeles.

Points closest to or furthest away from Reason-Rupe call centers?

[invisible furry hand]

Sweet ride:

Edward Smith, a 63-year-old man from Yelm, Thurston County, Washington, told a live morning TV show that he had made love to over 700 vehicles, including Mustangs, luxury Jaguars and even an attack helicopter.

http://dangerousminds.net/comm.....qus_thread

[Ted S.]

I thought you were 16 hours ahead of us.

[Dweebston]

Auto-eroticism.

Autonanism.

[Slammer]

Consent? One honk means no, two means yes.

[Elspeth Flashman]

OK, I lol'd/ snorted some tea out my nose.

[Cdr Lytton]

Coming soon to a showroom near you, the 2015 model Christopher Pike!

[An Innocent Man]

No means yes, yes means vinyl.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Secretary of State John Kerry is trying to cheerlead more Asian countries into joining our ISIS war efforts.

So, yeah, picture Kerry with pompoms.

[DontShootMe]

Gaaaaah. Where is the brain bleach?

[SugarFree]

He fit both handles up in there and kept yelling "I'm a pretty peacock! I'm a pretty peacock!"

[Marshall Gill]

He fit both handles up in there and kept yelling "I'm a pretty peacock! I'm a pretty peacock!"

I am expecting at least 500 words on this by evening links. I really need some of your "fiction" because yesterday I felt a shred of hope for humanity. I need your writing to keep hope dead.

[Lord Humungus]

Why red-state conservatives are the biggest porn hounds

Red-state conservatives may insist that the rest of us should keep aspirin between our knees and be forced to bear Divine Justice Babies if we don't. They may refuse to provide cake or flowers for gay weddings, or even to attend. They may pretend that teens won't do it if we just don't tell them how. They may adopt the Church Lady posture if anyone mentions sex that doesn't involve one man, one woman, the missionary position and a pulsing desire for more offspring.

But online search traffic from behind closed doors in Jesusland suggests that the bad, nasty, sexual impulses righteous believers are trying so hard to shut down may be their own. And if Google search patterns mean anything, they're not succeeding too well: studies consistently demonstrate that people in conservative religious states search for adult materials online far more often than people in blue states.

Ever since Freud first started publishing his theories, psychologists have had a fascination with what he called "defense mechanisms":

[lap83]

"Why red-state conservatives are the biggest porn hounds"
Because they need more than just a picture of Obama to get aroused?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Who searches porn through Google?

[Lord Humungus]

ah, I see you're another user of the Warty Search Engine

[trshmnster the terrible]

I can't tell if the entire argument rises to a non sequitur, but it sure seems like it to me. I can be ardently anti-extramarital sex, and anti-porn, and violate my anti-porn stance without affecting my anti-extramarital sex stance. (depending on whether I'm one of those people who sees porn as adultery or not)

Second, red-state v. blue-state is a really awful measuring stick.

Third, porn consumption habits are probably very class-oriented. It would not be a surprise if the urban and rural poor of the South are disproportionate consumers of porn.

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

First off, who uses google to look for porn? Answer: Someone who isn't already looking at porn.

Secondly, there seems to be no control for who is actually doing the searching. The diffence between 'Red' and 'Blue' is often about a +-5% of swing voters.

The rest of the article seems to be projection on what someone who's never left NYC thinks the totalitarian gulags known as "Red States" are like.

Perfect Salon article.

[Apple]

One thing people like this always seem to forget about the south (or never realize in the first place) is just how big a chunk of the population is black. It's increasingly Hispanic and Asian too. It's much more diverse than people who never have a reason to leave NY can imagine.

[mauricegirodias]

Pretty sure the porn shops near me in St. Pete all make their money from video rooms, some with glory holes. I don't recall those up north as much, but then, there's less heating cost down here even in winter, so having drafty walls may be more of an acceptable business model.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Anti-democracy critics in Hong Kong are convinced the U.S. is puppeteering the #OccupyCentral protest movement there.

If it's inept then yes, probably.

[Bee Tagger]

The ineptness comes from the hashtagging.

[Bee Tagger]

Secretary of State John Kerry is trying to cheerlead more Asian countries into joining our ISIS war efforts.

Hope they like waffles.

[waffles]

Who wouldn't?

[Lord Humungus]

Dammit I overdrew my account:

A Poop Bank in Massachusetts Will Pay You $40 Every Day

Are you under 50 years old, willing to make daily trips to Medford, and have regular bowel movements? You, my friend, could be earning $40 a day?just for pooping.

All you have to do is visit OpenBiome, launched in 2012 as the only independent nonprofit stool bank in the country. The brainchild of MIT postdoctoral associate Mark Smith, OpenBiome collects, tests, and provides fecal samples to 122 hospitals in 33 states for one of the most interesting medical treatment innovations today: fecal microbiota transplantation.

[Almanian!]

Wow - just like being a bum without having to wash windshields and live under the viaduct!

[Mike M.]

Amazing that we need a welfare state, isn't it?

[Auric Demonocles]

I wonder if I could get a per-poop rate instead. I can walk to Medford (actually I did just yesterday for lunch), and due to my surgery from a few years ago I could probably retire from my job and just live on poop money.

[Lord Humungus]

wouldn't that be dirty money?

[invisible furry hand]

My personal Scott Walker travesty: Why I can't make ends meet in Wisconsin
I'm a personal care worker in Wisconsin who can't pay my water bill -- and here's what my governor thinks about it

[Ted S.]

Thank you Linda Tirado.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I'm a Wisconsin resident who works hard at a demanding job, seven days a week. I save taxpayers money, bring comfort and dignity to a person with a severe disability, and, yet, my family and I are living in poverty. Something needs to be fixed.

Find a better job?

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Wait, what!

or nearly five years, I have been a personal care worker, hired by a profit-making company paid by the state. In my case, my client is my mother

She gets paid to take care of her mom, and is bitching about it??

[Drake]

She gets paid by the state to take care of her mom, and is bitching about it??

[WTF]

And:

But I am the sole supporter of my family

So she is also apparently a single mother. Maybe 'make better choices' is on order, here.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Yes

[VG Zaytsev]

For nearly five years, I have been a personal care worker, hired by a profit-making company paid by the state.

Maybe that's the cause of your poverty.

In my case, my client is my mother, who had a leg amputated 21 years ago and is confined to a wheelchair.

Because why would you care for an incapacitated parent unless the state pays you do so.

And that's your only job.

[WTF]

Because people in wheelchairs require 24/7 care and supervision, apparently. I wonder how the people in wheelchairs I see out and about living their lives do that? Must be magic, or maybe they're faking it.

[VG Zaytsev]

She also says that she's saving the state money by taking care of her mom instead of being institutionalized.

In that case, I'm saving the state hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by supporting my own kids. I mean otherwise they'd be in state orphanages and we all know how much that costs - so pay up cheap muthafuckas.

[Moon W. Trash]

Fuck that, how much do I deserve for not having any kids in the first place? I'm saving these thieving bastards millions, and they treat me like a leper because I'm not spilling my genetic debris everywhere.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Exactly. We take care of my father collectively - look socialism without the coercion! - without getting paid because, you know, he's our father

[trshmnster the terrible]

It's funny, the progs jump on the "evul profut motyve", but if they're expected to do anything above and beyond simply existing, they're first in line to bitch about not getting enough money.

Taking care of family is a thing that normal people do. Sometimes you take a little cash from the family member to make up for the hassle, but generally it's a labor of love. Not to a prog, though. To them, it's work they're not being adequately compensated for, and they're ready to sic their "real daddy" gubmint on their evil parents for the gall to expect trivial end of life care from the family.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Taking care of family is a thing that normal people do. Sometimes you take a little cash from the family member to make up for the hassle, but generally it's a labor of love. Not to a prog, though.

Hence, where the "this is how much an hour a housewife should be paid" meme. Not because it's, you know, what homemakers have done for centuries as part of the social contract--their husbands were simply too cheap to pay them a living wage!

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Not to mention, while my wife stays home, I still am known to wash some dishes, make breakfast on the weekend, and do every outside chore.

She should be paying me too!

[lap83]

Why would you WANT it to make it into a job? Isn't it better to care for someone close to you than to care for a client with dollar signs in your eyes? And free market advocates are the cold ones?

[lap83]

Personally, I always thought I was motivated by love when I did things for my family. Maybe that's the Kochtopus brainwashing speaking though.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

It totally is. My family has the nerve to go outside and play in the grass after a fresh mow, without even paying me a nickel.

[trshmnster the terrible]

This also completely misses the true reason behind homemaking. Back when women and girls were taught true homemaking skills, they could save an ass load of money! The man made an income, the woman made the income last over the month. Standard disclaimer: the gender of the roles doesn't matter, I'm just going off the stereotypical gender roles.

These days, you're lucky to have a semester of home ec in middle school, because learning to sew and iron is sexist.

[lap83]

"Because why would you care for an incapacitated parent unless the state pays you do so."

This. The worst part is that this mentality is becoming more and more common. People don't want to be responsible or care for their own family, other people need to fix it.

[Fluffy]

You know what else is funny about this?

PCA workers who are caring for family members almost always are defrauding the state regarding the number of hours of work they claim.

You're not supposed to include any time spending on "incidental activities of daily living" that you would have had to do anyway...but almost all of them do.

They also tend to claim time that they aren't actually providing care (like when she's caring for her child, or socializing, or something similar) because it's not like her mother is going to turn her in, right?

SLD innocent until proven guilty and all that...but before I would take your bitching seriously I would want to run your timesheets through some fraud detection algorithms first.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Good God. Did you read the comments?

[Fluffy]

Also:

The PCA compensation rates aren't unilaterally set by the state.

They are negotiated with CMS. Because the Feds pay at least half, and up to 80%, of each PCA claim.

Who has been running CMS for the last five years? There's someone at the top of the org chart over the CMS director.

NAME HIM.

[gaoxiaen]

Not interesting, but it looks like Salon is getting on the anti-police militarization bandwagon if you scroll down past the suck-ass article from the link.

[sarcasmic]

The REAL face of King Tut: Pharaoh had girlish hips, a club foot and buck teeth according to 'virtual autopsy' that also revealed his parents were brother and sister

'Virtual autopsy' composed of more than 2,000 computer scans carried out
Genetic analysis of Tutankhamun's family showed his parents were brother and sister
Family history could also have led to his premature death in his late teens
Various myths have him murdered or dying in chariot race
Club foot would have made it impossible to take part in chariot racing

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci.....topsy.html

[gaijin]

In the reconstruction image of his full body, wouldn't he hold the walking stick on the same side as his club foot? Details details details

[WTF]

I like how they decided to give him man-boobs.

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

King Shumerkhamun?

[Zeb]

You generally hold a cane on the opposite side from the bad leg.

[FUQ]

I never could understand that. I was using a cane for years on the same side as my bad leg. Every dr told me to use the other side but I couldn't make it work to help me walk. Leg went dead and I fell down. 🙂

[Rufus J. Firefly]

What's next? Cleopatra looked like Whoopi or Michelle?

[Lord Humungus]

thanks for ruining the dream.

[WTF]

Well sure, we all know that's what ancient Macedonians looked like.

[sarcasmic]

Damning video catches police laughing and letting speeding officers doing 86mph in a 60mph zone off the hook... because they were late for a conference

Blogger recorded police cars zooming past and overhead radio chat
Officers around Wenatchee, Washington, pointed out speeding cars
But took no action when they found out they were other officers
One patrol car was not apprehended despite driving at 86mph
State Patrol officers joked about how everyone was late for a conference

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

[Ted S.]

Procedures were followed; nothing else happened.

[sarcasmic]

Professional courtesy.

[sarcasmic]

Penniless, starving and at the mercy of marauding armed gangs: Appalling fate of Yemen and Somalia's khat addicts revealed

Khat is a narcotic leaf that induces mild euphoria popular in Somalia, Yemen and Ethiopia among others
Drug was reclassified as Class C in the UK and banned in a ruling that came into effect last June
There are an estimated 20 million khat addicts across the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula
Mental illnesses, mouth and heart disease and gang violence are all problems linked to khat use

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

[waffles]

I'm fairly certain a purified version of the cathione in khat is what most "bath salts" were.

[sarcasmic]

Interesting.

[Zeb]

It's a synthetic version of cathinones called mephedrone as far as I can figure out. It's related to what is in khat sort of like how methamphetamine is related to ephedrine.

[Steve G]

Seen these druggies in person in Djibouti and instantly understood what Bowden was writing about in Blackhawk Down.
You know the thing about a Khat addict, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'

[Zeb]

Khat is a narcotic leaf

No, it's a stimulant. Who decided that all illicit drugs should be called "narcotics" anyway?

[sarcasmic]

The law bans narcotics, so every drug must be defined as a narcotic so it can be banned.

[Seamus]

Ever since the DEA's predecessor agency was named the Bureau of Narcotics.

[Bee Tagger]

HuffPost CliffNotes: 5 takeaways from Doug Henwood's Harper's takedown of Hillary Clinton.

I hope one is that it's good for his pocketbook that we aren't closer to an election.

[sarcasmic]

Mall rats! The teens, staff, and shoppers of America's shopping centers in the 1980s

The photo series called 'Mall Series' were taken by Massachusetts-based photographer Stephen DiRado
His project begun in 1984, shortly after he got a job teaching at nearby Clark university
He took pictures of people who used to spend hours at the mall, enjoy hanging out and meeting friends
He photographed everyone from a boy with a boom box to an older lady dressed in a fur coat

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....1980s.html

[Almanian!]

Woulda been nice if he'd photographed some attractive people.

[sarcasmic]

It was the 80s.

[waffles]

It was Massachusetts in the 80s.

[Drake]

Oh shit - it's the long closed Worcester Centa! My Mom used to buy my shoes there. I only cooperated because Orange Julius was next door.

[Restoras]

Count your blessings the pics aren't in color.

[Slammer]

How about Brooke Burke and her early nudes?

[Ted S.]

Did attractive people hang out at the mall all day?

[Lord Humungus]

Based on my local mall: no.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I love the gay rent-a-cops. Those 'staches are bangin'.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Like the one with the cop smoking. They also look like they were up to no good.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Those are great.

[sarcasmic]

Standing in shock as medics work to stem bleeding, Chinese boy, 9, who had his armed ripped off by bear he tried to pat

Pictures show medics treating boy, 9, moments after arm ripped off by bear
Blood streams down Zhang Chien's shirt minutes after savage attack
Shocked witnesses look in horror at bone protruding from his shoulder
His severed limb can still be seen on the ground of the bear's enclosure
Child had reached through the bars to try and pat the caged animal
The bear grappled with the boy for 10 minutes until his arm was ripped free
Zhang's distraught parents have blamed the zoo for 'ruining their family'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....e-zoo.html

[Jordan]

Zhang's distraught parents have blamed the zoo for 'ruining their family'

Looks like China is becoming more like America everyday.

[UnCivilServant]

While that is a tad extreme I'm wondering why the enclosure was just bars without either say, a concrete trench or a armored glass partition to avoid direct contact between visitors and animals capable of rending them to shreds.

[Jerryskids]

They did have an attack bear guarding the cage and that didn't stop the boy from reaching in, did it? What the hell more do you want?

[Steve G]

OMG, those pics are pretty crazy. The kid just standing there getting treated like he got a scratch. Not, 'hey, why don't you lay down', treat for shock, etc.

[Mike M.]

Crowd walks out on Block Yomomma in Maryland.

Damn, one of the most democrat friendly areas of the entire country, and he's that unpopular? Doesn't bode too well for the democrats' chances in fifteen days.

[Doctor Whom]

He's even unpopular in PG County? Hell's bells.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Obama's help, or lack thereof, may not matter much to Brown, who is 11 points ahead of Republican opponent Larry Hogan, according to an average of polls by RealClearPolitics.

This still sucks though.

For me at least.

[Idle Hands]

Did you watch the debate this weekend? Brown was like let's not talk about the past lets focus on the future. I really don't get Maryland voters. Business's and wealth are fleeing in droves and they are going to double down.

[Ted S.]

Business's and wealth are fleeing in droves

Business' what is fleeing in droves?

At any rate, I hope they're all fleeing in Mayflower moving vans in the middle of the night.

[Seamus]

Is this a reference to how the Baltimore Colts became the Indianapolis Colts?

[Dweebston]

You don't simply give up on left-wing policies until you've destroyed generations of accumulated wealth and murdered countless dissidents.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I don't bother, it would depress me too much.

[JW]

Brown could read from the Fredicktown phone book and the MD's drooling voter pool would still overwhelmingly elect him.

[jmomls]

*I really don't get Maryland voters. *

What is there to "get"? MD is just super rich liberals and welfare bums.

[JW]

He's even unpopular in PG County? Hell's bells.

That won't stop them from electing the $200,000,000 man.

[Ted S.]

There's a reason he's not campaigning in purple states.

[db]

Well, to be fair, anyone who.is bothering.g to go to a political rally is almost 100% likely to vote for the party hosting said rally.

[Steve G]

This. I'm always amazed that they actually get people to show up to these things. Even if I was in love with the party and the candidate, I'd STILL be like, yeah there's literally a thousand things I'd rather be doing right now.

[db]

I think there must be some sick class of people who.need so.badly to feel like part of something "bigger than themselves" that they have to take part in these group activities to believe their lives have any meaning.

[Zeb]

It's probably about the same thing as supporting a sports team, with an extra feeling of moral superiority. I am similarly puzzled by people who refer to their favorite sports team in the first person. Unfortunately in election campaigning it's not just a game.

[Steve G]

probably about the same thing as supporting a sports team

Yeah, the analogy holds if the rally occurs the night of the election, but something like this is like a sports fan (or many) showing up to the team practice...and cheering during the scrimmage.

[Zeb]

Nothing is a perfect analogy. But there are plenty of die hard sports fans who would happily come and cheer at practices. Or think of the election as the final and debates and other events as less important regular season games.

[Raven Nation]

Plenty of college football fans go to spring games and plenty turn up for midnight madness

[Lord Humungus]

(Oregon) Driver cards stir voter passions
Critics say the cards reward illegal immigrants; backers say it's a safety issue

Critics fear the cards will intensify the flood of illegal immigrants into the state.

Supporters see the cards as a way to help illegal immigrants who are already here and financially struggling.

But neither side has been able to mount much of a campaign, due to lack of money. The pro-measure Yes on Oregon Safe Roads political action committee has raised about $421,000, a relatively small amount for a statewide campaign. Meanwhile, the main opposition group has raised just over $37,000.

Despite the lop-sided fundraising, recent polling suggests the ballot measure will lose, heavily. Sixty percent of likely voters polled by Oregon Public Broadcasting earlier this month said they firmly or tentatively opposed a driver card. Only 31 percent firmly or tentatively supported the measure, OPB said. The margin of error was 4.3 percentage points.

[gaijin]

backers say it's a safety issue

"I used to be a crappy driver, but then I got this card and now I can drive like a pro!"

[DJF]

I use to have no licence, now I have one under a fake name and address.

[VG Zaytsev]

And they auto registered me to vote when I got it too.

[Steve G]

Critics fear the cards will intensify the flood of illegal immigrants into the state

Why yes, of all the welfare state's many gifts, a fucking drivers license is what really pulls them in

[invisible furry hand]

Cara Delevingne's releasing a record wot she done with Pharrell

http://www.factmag.com/2014/10.....-pharrell/

[SugarFree]

And the OD clock gets moved one minute closer to midnight.

[Ted S.]

I hope you're happy, IFH.

[invisible furry hand]

Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

That girl has ZERO muscle tone.

[The Late P Brooks]

Jay Leno received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center in D.C. Sunday night.

American humor ain't what it used to be, I reckon.

[Slammer]

The funniest things are the forbidden.

Mark Twain

[Lord Humungus]

Does the end of history result in political decay?

Despite his broad historical sweep, Fukuyama's diagnosis of decay seems over-focused on the minutiae of current American political battles. Much recent gridlock comes from President Obama's disinclination or inability to negotiate. His two predecessors did better.

Nor, as he acknowledges, do parliamentary systems operate much differently these days. Some governments have managed to scale back unsustainable welfare state commitments. Others, like ours, haven't.

The bottom line is that good things (stable government, lack of defeat in war or major economic collapse) tend to produce bad things (decay of bureaucratic institutions, capture of regulators by the regulated, protracted litigation over needed projects and changes). And conservatives' lament that a government that tries to do too many things ends up doing none of them well rings true.

[invisible furry hand]

Big increase in surgery to mend 'flesh tunnel' earlobes

The price of fashion: ?1,800 to rebuild ears stretched by fashion

[db]

Yeah, totally predictable.

[Slammer]

Airbnb, knock it off!

"Airbnb, knock it off!" Audrey Smaltz says in the TV ad paid for by the ShareBetter Coalition, a group backed by the hotel industry.
Smaltz has lived in the same 700-square-foot, rent-stabilized Midtown apartment for 38 years. But she says the apartment complex has become like a hotel filled with transients and strangers.

"This building has 37 apartments, of which eight are inhabited by regular tenants who are rent-stabilized," Smaltz says in the ad, referring to the building at 15-19 Fifth Ave., near Central Park. "The entire fourth floor [has become] rentals, short-term rentals. The third floor, being done over, short-term rentals. And apartments on the eighth floor [as well]," she says.
"They don't like us because we're rent-stabilized," she says of landlords.

She complains that transients have keys to the building.
"You don't feel comfortable. You don't feel safe. It's not home anymore," Smaltz says.
It not clear how much rent Smaltz pays, but she's no humble pensioner. She's the CEO of a successful fashion-industry company called Ground Crew, which coordinates the backstage operations at fashion shows. Her clients include Donna Karan and Oscar de la Renta.

[Warty]

Wow. What's Yiddish for chutzpah?

[Almanian!]

heh!

[Restoras]

Funny, I bet those who are renting their places via AirBnB are doing so to help defray the exorbitant cost of living in Manhattan, driven in part by rent-stabilized apartments.

[Ted S.]

Audrey ought to be thanking all those other tenants for subsidizing her rent.

Greedy bitch.

[Dweebston]

"Other tenants" don't subsidize her rent. The divine paragons of virtue and social justice running the city council and housing bureaucracy subsidize her rent using money retrieved from other tenants. And now they'll swoop in and put a stop to this AirBnB nonsense.

[JW]

"If it wasn't for the laws mandating my money-losing apartment, there wouldn't be anything affordable in Manhattan!"

[JW]

Smaltz the Schmutz.

[Warty]

Don't be so schmaltzy.

[UnCivilServant]

Sounds like my apartment complex - only those short-termers are obnoxious college brats. There is no 'rent stabilization' (my rent goes up every time the lease is up for renewal) and only two other apartments in my building have had the same tenants year in and year out.

[Lord Humungus]

I cannot live in an apartment complex - heck, most houses are too sucky for my tender sensibilities. I've lucked into a good rental house for now - no neighbors to the right of me and old people to the left of me, along with a huge backyard gives just enough buffer space from humanity. I know it's not going to last...

[trshmnster the terrible]

Even on an acre and with cool neighbors, I find myself having to quell my urges to plant windbreak trees around the entire perimeter of my property.

Apartment living sucks for an introvert. I hated every second of it.

[Lord Humungus]

'They probably had the munchies' Sheep get stoned on ?4,000 worth of dumped marijuana

They were found stumbling and uneasy on their feet after munching seven bags worth of cannabis plants thrown on to Fanny's Farm in Merstham, Surrey.

Farm shop manager Nellie Budd said she had no idea who had dumped the marijuana.

"My sheep weren't quite on their backs with legs in the air but they probably had the munchies" she joked.

"They haven't had any other side effects but I'll tell you about the meat next week."

[Spoonman.]

"Nellie Budd"

Nice.

[straffinrun]

Officers confiscated the drugs, which will now be incinerated

First the sheep, then the pigs.

[Lord Humungus]

Meet the terrifying 'Devil Man' with black eyeballs and horn implants embedded in forehead

But this is no Halloween costume or a clever make-up trick, it's a way of life for Colombian born Caim Mortis.

The 42-year-old has spent 11 years modifying his body including having his eyeballs tattooed completely black, horn-like dermal implants put into his forehead and forearms and a horn piercing.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Tattooed eyeballs? What the hell?

[UnCivilServant]

What's worse is I don't think they can undo eyeball tattoos. If they can, it probably has the same insane risk of leaving you blind as getting them in the first place does.

[Ted S.]

Here comes the devil person
With evil on his mind
Here comes the devil person
He's gonna get you

[JW]

Stop othering the transmammaled!

[Zeb]

Why are these extreme body modification people always in South America?

[Jordan]

Kate Beckinsale is filming a movie across the street from my office this morning. I ought to see if she's free for lunch.

[Slammer]

Ask her if she'd like to go for a piece of apple pie with a slice of American Cheese.

[Lord Humungus]

Local man arrested for stalking

[Red Rocks Rockin]

"Mrs. Wiseman just don't know!"

[Lord Humungus]

Is the oil price fall more than just a coincidence?

The recent drop in oil prices could be due to more than just lower demand, according to some analysts, who have suggested that the U.S. could be deliberately manipulating the market to hurt Russia at a time of geopolitical stress.

Patrick Legland, the global head of research at Societe Generale, conceded that he had no in depth knowledge of the situation but claimed that it was an "interesting coincidence" that the two events were happening at the same time.

"Is it lower demand or is it the U.S. clearly maneuvering?," he told CNBC Monday.

[waffles]

I thought the Saudis already claimed they were deliberately producing more oil to hurt the US exploration and expansion. If Venezuela and Russia are damaged by this it's a side effect.

[An Innocent Man]

Yea, I thought the Saudis were pretty upfront about this last week, saying they wouldn't mind seeing prices below even 80 a barrel, cause Long Game.

[Zeb]

I thought they wanted to hurt Russia. Seems like it will probably hurt the Canadian oil industry more than anyone.

[Almanian!]

"....and we'd have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids!" - teh Koch Brothers

[Jerryskids]

Lower gas prices are a government conspiracy against Russia? I didn't realize Russia was holding elections at the same time as we are. Exactly which Russian candidates will get the electoral advantage of markedly lower gas prices in the US?

[Lord Humungus]

Rove Agonistes
Karl Rove's metamorphosis into legend is now complete.

What has been peculiar in the years since then is Rove's transformation from left-wing hate totem to right-wing hate totem, an all-purpose villain whose name is used liberally by tea-party groups and conservative populists raising funds for races in which he has no involvement. On and on they go: "Don't let Karl Rove squish Allen West!" "Gingrich: We can't let Karl Rove and a bunch of billionaires handpick GOP candidates for Senate."

That's a whole lot of hate for the last guy to manage a winning Republican presidential campaign.

[VG Zaytsev]

I hope Williamson got paid big bucks for writing that crap.

[cavalier973]

Rove pays well, if you please him.

[Doctor Whom]

A new report finds the cities currently attracting the most college-educated millennials include Houston, Nashville, Denver, Austin, Portland, D.C., Buffalo, Baltimore, and Los Angeles.

Except that a large percent change from a small baseline doesn't necessarily mean "attracting the most."

[JW]

They only move to Bal'mer to ironically drink Natty Bo.

[Lord Humungus]

The Berlin Wall's great human experiment
Want to know exactly how ideology and economics shape society? Split a nation in half. Twenty-five years later, what we're still learning

Alesina and Fuchs-Schundeln used data from a German survey administered in 1997, and split the respondents into two groups based on where they had lived before reunification. What they found was that, at that point, people from the East still tended to believe in the social-service model. They were also more likely to support a robust government program to help the unemployed, and significantly more inclined to believe that social conditions, rather than individual will, determined a person's lot in life.

"We tend to think of preferences as a fundamental thing that economists cannot explain," said Alesina. "[Our paper] says, 'Look...living under a communist regime changes people's political preferences.'"

[Auric Demonocles]

"We tend to think of preferences as a fundamental thing that economists cannot explain," said Alesina. "[Our paper] says, 'Look...living under a communist regime changes people's political preferences.'"

So you're idiots that couldn't see the obvious?

[Zeb]

Well, they are social scientists.

[Atanarjuat]

For the masochists out there, some state level politics. What kind of person is Charlie Crist?

Not only is he a "sociopathic, narcissistic backstabber", he's also breathtakingly incompetent, according to this article. And you guys were right about people who run for student government:

In the eighth grade at Riviera Junior High, Crist ran for student council president, and on speech day, in the gym that doubled as an auditorium, in front of the whole school, he had an idea about what to say.

Crist, 13 years old, preppily dressed with jet black hair, started his remarks with a request, he would recount later in his autobiography.

"Stand up," he said.

The rest of the students thought it was odd. They looked around at each other. But they stood up.

"Now please sit down," Crist said.

They did what they were told.

"Look how much power I have over you," Crist said, grinning, "and I haven't even won yet."

This is no endorsement of Republican Rick Snot. Luckily there is a big L, Adrian Wyllie in this race.

[Almanian!]

"God lova ya...." - Biden

[An Innocent Man]

Now that's funny, right there.

[OldMexican]

"Look how much power I have over you," Crist said, grinning, "and I haven't even won yet."

Do you know who also had power over people without even being elected?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

God?

[Idle Hands]

My mom?

[Lord Humungus]

This is not a democracy. /my mother

[Ted S.]

Michelle Obama?

[cavalier973]

I'm currently reading "A Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England", and it's made pretty clear in the first couple of chapters that Elizabeth was a power-hungry Machiavellian. At least she didn't just execute political opponents, like her ol' da.

[Pro Libertate]

Anyone who votes for Crist is a fucking moron. Well, unless they stand to benefit personally, like some plaintiffs' attorneys hope to do.

[Brett L]

And my wife because she bet me $100 about a year and a half ago that Rick Scott would lose to the Democrat. I'm conflicted, but voting for Wyllie because winning a $100 bet isn't worth voting for Rick Scott.

[Pro Libertate]

I'd be okay with Scott if he'd continued to stonewall the exchanges and fuck with the teachers' union. Instead, he caved, which makes him useless.

[Brett L]

Well, that's one of his personas. I don't think there's actually a person under there.

[Pro Libertate]

It's a artificial construct originally created to compete with George Hamilton.

[Lord Humungus]

The federal government lost its war against Cliven Bundy
Six months after the standoff in Nevada, officials have failed to issue either an arrest or an indictment

As the Southern Poverty Law Center reported this summer, the government's slow response and apparent reluctance or inability to hold Bundy accountable led to more potentially violent, antigovernment confrontations in Utah, Texas, Idaho, New Mexico and elsewhere.

And, in a July report, the Department of Homeland Security described a recent spike in antigovernment violence and noted that the "perceived success" of militias at the Bundy ranch "likely will embolden other militia extremists and like-minded lone offenders to attempt to replicate these confrontational tactics and force future armed standoffs."

The truth of the matter is that until there is action holding those who broke the law accountable, it is likely that the current wave of antigovernment extremism will only continue to pick up speed.

[OldMexican]

The federal government lost its war against Cliven Bundy

Aw, shoot!

The truth of the matter is that until there is action holding those who broke the law accountable, it is likely that the current wave of antigovernment extremism will only continue to pick up speed.

Like the wave of anti-government extremism we saw at Ferguson, perhaps? Or are we talking a wave of anti-government extremism the likes of which not even God has seen?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

+1 Kwisatz Haderach

[Jerryskids]

Like the wave of anti-government sentiment we saw in Philadelphia in 1776?

[Lord Humungus]

The Odds of a GOP Wave Are Increasing

Still, there's plenty of race-by-race evidence to suggest that most contests are trending in a Republican direction. Over the past several months, the Iowa and Colorado Senate races have turned from long shots to promising Republican pickup opportunities. In Iowa, Republican nominee Joni Ernst is running evenly with Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley in the Real Clear Politics polling average, a marked shift over the last two months. And in Colorado, Democratic Sen. Mark Udall only holds a 1-point average lead over GOP Rep. Cory Gardner, according to RCP, in a race that's shaping up to be a barn burner.

And there isn't much evidence that red-state Democrats have gained ground in recent months, either. In Arkansas, reliable public polling has been sparse, but GOP Rep. Tom Cotton has led Sen. Mark Pryor (D) in three straight public polls, along with the GOP campaign's last two internals. Pryor didn't release any polling of his own to counter. An April NYT/Upshot survey showing a double-digit Pryor lead, which shaped public perception of the race, is now looking more like an outlier.

[Old Man With Candy]

Pray for gridlock, it's the best we can practically do.

[Injun, as in from India]

^THIS. Single party control = government binges, whether it is Democrips or the Rebloodlicans.

[Lord Humungus]

NJ man accused of eating raccoons

Authorities say a Monmouth County man illegally trapped and ate raccoons and squirrels.

Police have charged Aleksandr Borykan, 30 of Ocean Township with animal cruelty. The state also charged him with illegal use of a leg hold trap, hunting without a license and hunting out of season.

[SugarFree]

As one of the few people on this board who has skinned a raccoon, I say "yuck."

[Almanian!]

You don't eat them with the fur on?

Cosmo!

[SugarFree]

My friend was just after the skin. The raw meat smelled horrible.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Too oily and gamey

[Brett L]

Barbecue or some other method of slow cooking in lots of spice is the way to go.

[Pope Jimbo]

The ones I had to skin were always fat as fuck too. Yeah, not big on my list of fun things to do.

[invisible furry hand]

How do you cook them and what do they taste like?

[Citizen Nothing]

When I was 14 I ran a trap line. I skinned many a raccoon for the sweet, sweet $5 I got for each pelt.

[Citizen Nothing]

And yeah. You don't want to eat raccoon.

[waffles]

Five whole dollars? The boy in Where the Red Fern Grows was getting screwed.

[Citizen Nothing]

Five whole dollars?

That was back when everybody thought were approaching peak raccoon.

[SugarFree]

I had no idea you grew up in a Flannery O'Connor story.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Peak raccoon can never be reached.

[Citizen Nothing]

I kept telling everyone we could just substitute 'possum, but no. They had to listen to Ehrlich.

[SugarFree]

Skinning one was enough for me. We let the thing get too cold before we started. The head popped off from all the tugging.

[waffles]

I like this comment sans context.

[Lord Humungus]

+1 overworked appendage

[Restoras]

Yeah, we are totally done with phrasing.

[Drake]

Nothing wrong with squirrel meat. I didn't know it was illegal. Many people in my neck of NJ will shoot or trap squirrels when they start getting home invady.

[Pope Jimbo]

The boys and I just got back from a hunting trip that included squirrel hunting. We had a big meal of squirrels and it was great.

I'd say that not only is there nothing wrong with squirrel, but it is one of my favorites to eat.

[Raston Bot]

+ .17

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I'm dying to try one of these

[Pope Jimbo]

We use .22's to hunt squirrels. We have a souped up .177 pellet gun that we use at our house in town to thin the crow population (and garden rabbits), but the squirrels don't come into our back yard.

An acquaintance from my son's football team was just telling me that they kill all sorts of squirrels in their back yard and just throw them out. I told her to put them in the freezer and I'd come over and take them off her hands.

[gaoxiaen]

Plus they look like roast fetuses.

[Ted S.]

He should have eaten the server squirrels.

[trshmnster the terrible]

I had a cat that was prolific at catching server squirrels. Eventually they got smart and sicced the mourning Lynx on her.

[The Late P Brooks]

Club foot would have made it impossible to take part in chariot racing

He wasn't the one pulling the fucking chariot, you fools.

[Old Man With Candy]

A new report finds the cities currently attracting the most college-educated millennials include Houston, Nashville, Denver, Austin, Portland, D.C., Buffalo, Baltimore, and Los Angeles.

In order: weather that makes you long for the cool breezes of Hell, an overly slick and commercialized Austin, weed!, music and weed!, dumbest hipsters on earth, hostile GS-14 Negroes, bad weather and bad football, hostile unemployed Negroes, Mencken was right and it will soon be in the sea so fuck 'em.

[Spoonman.]

...

[Injun, as in from India]

WTF?

[SugarFree]

The Giant Butt Plug Of Paris has been vandalized!

[OldMexican]

Oh my Gawd! What's wrong with these people?

[Idle Hands]

What I got from the article, is that if you don't like looking at a buttplug everyday you are a prude.

[SugarFree]

It's Gawker, bro. It's just the sort of stupid they roll.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

shriek hardest hit

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

Yeah, I shouldn't have tried to put the entire thing in.

[Lord Humungus]

Obama Doesn't Want to Be Supreme Court Justice: 'Too Monastic For Me'
Admits he lives in a "bubble."

President Obama does not want to be a Supreme Court justice. He calls it "too monastic" for his own personality. Besides, in an interview with the New Yorker, President Obama acknowledges that he needs to get out of the "bubble" after what will be eight years as president of the United States.

"I love the law, intellectually," the president tell the New Yorker, which says he sounds "tempted" at the idea of being on the Court. "I love nutting out these problems, wrestling with these arguments. I love teaching. I miss the classroom and engaging with students. But I think being a Justice is a little bit too monastic for me. Particularly after having spent six years and what will be eight years in this bubble, I think I need to get outside a little bit more."

[Elspeth Flashman]

"I love the law, intellectually."

Amended to read "I love the law, intellectually. Ummm, except when I actually have to faithfully execute it."

[Auric Demonocles]

Obamacare is THE LAW*.

*unless it's a Democrat that wants to delay it

[Injun, as in from India]

When Obama says "faithfully execute the law", he means killing the law like you would kill a person.

[tarran]

That part had me laughing out loud. Obama isn't an intellectual. Yes, he went to Harvard. That means he occasionally talked with a few intellectuals... maybe.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I love the law, in theory. Practically is another matter.

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

"I love the law, intellectually."

"I love bending it... over a desk and fucking it until it cries.

I love ignoring it and 'negging' it until it comes back for more.

That's intellectual, right?"

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

An admitted utilitarian

[JW]

"I love the law, intellectually erotically."

[Auric Demonocles]

Plus then he might have to occasionally read the Constitution.

[lap83]

He's such a narcissist. He doesn't believe a word of that, just likes the way it makes him sound.

[Drake]

They other Justices would expect him to pay attention and generate actual work. Never gonna happen.

[Injun, as in from India]

He will try to use his "community organizing" skills to get the other justices to do his work for him, and they won't like that.

[Ted S.]

The clerks do all the work.

[Auric Demonocles]

But he'd have to tell them what he wanted their work to say. When was the last time we seen even that level of leadership from him?

[Ted S.]

It's OK, Barack; the feeling is mutual.

[Elspeth Flashman]

A bicyclist who took his baby along for a short trip to Trader Joe's claims in a lawsuit that San Francisco police choked him unconscious and confiscated his infant son after he questioned the need to outfit the baby in a helmet.

http://www.abajournal.com/news.....and_forcib

[invisible furry hand]

Hat tip to @RadleyBalko.

Wherever a nut needs punching, Balko will be there

[sarcasmic]

This is a great example of how power is not authority.
The cops have the power to choke someone and steal their child, but not the authority.
Just as a man who beats his wife has the power to rape her, but not the authority.

And just like a wife beating rapist, cops who pull shit like that deserve to be shot in the face.

[Citizen Nothing]

cops who pull shit like that ...

You have the authority, but not the power.

[Injun, as in from India]

Was Chairman Mao thinking of cops when he said that power flows from the barrel of a gun?

[Zeb]

Pretty much. All the armed agents of the state.

[JW]

According to the Chronicle, California law requires children to wear bike helmets and to be restrained in their own seat or in a trailer towed by a bike.

I love it when authoritarian hobby horses collide.

[Auric Demonocles]

A new report finds the cities currently attracting the most college-educated millennials include Houston, Nashville, Denver, Austin, Portland, D.C., Buffalo, Baltimore, and Los Angeles.

I'm currently considering moving to LA, but the only other ones on this list that I'd think about are Houston and Austin. DC, really? What the hell is wrong with people my age?

[Idle Hands]

Are you kidding me? they are flushing millions down the toilet here.

[Idle Hands]

There are plenty of nonprofits to join, you know the corporations that are just like charities.

[Idle Hands]

*trillions.

[Cdr Lytton]

They know which side of the bread is buttered?

[Old Man With Candy]

See my comments re: Houston and Austin above.

[Spoonman.]

Houston's weather is fine 9 months out of the year. It's no less tolerable than New York.

[Gray Ghost]

I like Houston. The weather is shit, however. From what Spoonman is saying, it sounds like the weather in NYC is shit too.

Anyway, it's nice here from mid-October to late March/early April, and there's practically no snow or ice. I hope you like humidity though. You know the way water beads up on the outside of a glass of a soft drink? I've seen that on windows here.

I've no idea how they settled this place pre-air conditioning.

[KDN]

From what Spoonman is saying, it sounds like the weather in NYC is shit too.

There are really only two seasons in NY/NJ. Spring and autumn last for about a month each.

[Old Man With Candy]

It's fine if you long for Kuwait.

[Auric Demonocles]

I do hate the heat, but so I stay inside all summer. Well, I pretty much stay inside all winter now anyway.

[Restoras]

So, you're Gollum? Hiding in your cave, stroking your Precious...

[Auric Demonocles]

Yes, staying inside a building with heat when it's 10 degrees out is insane.

[Gray Ghost]

They like jobs, Auric. D.C.'s got a bunch of them.

Buffalo's the one that really surprises me. As well as B'more.

[Restoras]

B'more is cheaper than DC? Buffalo is cheaper than everything?

[JW]

Come for the funemployment, stay for the cheap heroin.

[Elspeth Flashman]

A pregnant unwed mother can't use Facebook alone to notify the father about the baby before putting the child up for adoption, Oklahoma's highest civil court has ruled.

The case was the latest to test the legal weight of communication through Facebook and other social media. Previously, for instance, courts have debated whether a plaintiff in a lawsuit could use Facebook to serve legal papers ? such as summonses or hearing notices ? on a defendant.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/.....-pregnant/

[OldMexican]

And So It Begins:

Officials From Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Tell Pastors To Perform Same-Sex Wedding Or Go To Jail.

Ministers face a 180-day jail term and $1,000 fine for each day they decline to celebrate the same-sex wedding.

The Idaho case involves Donald and Evelyn Knapp, both ordained ministers, who run Hitching Post Wedding Chapel. Officials from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, told the couple that because the city has a non-discrimination statute that includes sexual orientation and gender identity, and because the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Idaho's constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman, the couple would have to officiate at same-sex weddings in their own chapel.

"Just what is it about We Own You don't you understand?" - Da State.

Well, don't say later you didn't see this coming.

[sarcasmic]

Gay marriage isn't about using government force on people who disagree! It's about equality under the law! It will never be used to sue religious people who disagree! That's all lies coming from bigots! Lies! It's all lies!

[Cdr Lytton]

Wait til the lawsuits start for doing a shitty job on the cake or wedding vows.

[Idle Hands]

I'm surprised it took this long. I though they would at least wait until they had all 50 states. Me thinks they are playing their hand to early.

[lap83]

What freedom of religion?

[Every Cop is a Criminal]

John predicted this.

[OldMexican]

I mentioned something on those lines during the Prop 8 debate, that the reason for defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman was precisely to stop loony folks from using the power of the state to punish their favorite religions, like Catholicism and Mormonism. I didn't say that Prop 8 was the right course of action because government just makes things worse, but that there was a case for protecting churches and people from the very same type of harassing actions by those who use the ACA law or CRA laws to punish unbelievers.

[antisocial-ist]

I'm sure Reason will cover this story as aggressively as they did the push for more state marriage, and with equal outrage.

[OldMexican]

Re: antisocial-ist,

I'm sure Reason will cover this story as aggressively as they did the push for more state marriage, and with equal outrage.

I think they will at one point and then obfuscate by pointing out the chapel is not a church but a business and thus subject to the state's anti-discrimination laws and so not the same thing and can you have every sort of bigot hide behind religious freedom-protection laws and blah, blah, blah.

[straffinrun]

In Minnesota, I believe, a bar got around the smoking ban by claiming the entire bar a performance area. Evidently actors were allowed to smoke for the "art" of it. I see an out for this Chapel somewhere along those lines.

[Injun, as in from India]

This will get knocked down on 1st Amendment grounds.

[An Innocent Man]

Volokh is covering this too.

[Injun, as in from India]

It will be interesting to see where the ACLU stands on this. They keep their mouths shut on the 2nd Amendment, but the 1st Amendment is something that they can't avoid taking a stand on.

[SusanM]

Another perspective (just sayin')

http://www.goodasyou.org/good_.....-case.html

Now here's where it gets interesting. In order to make this case of supposed religious persecution, someone has gone into the very website that I used as basis for my spring commentary and changed the text so that all the mentions of civil weddings no longer appear. Here is how the very same screens that I showed you above look today:

*UPDATE: The revisionist history is recent, too. According to Google Cache, the "civil wedding" option was still very much intact on October 9:

[OldMexican]

Re: SusanM,

Another perspective (just sayin')

What I like is the triumphalism exuded by the author of the piece: caught ya far rights latest marriage victim edited website to make more solid legal case

Actually, their case is VERY solid: you CAN'T compel a person to perform a marriage. Doesn't matter if they performed civil weddings at the chapel - who the hell cares? Only the far left latest marriage authoritarian.

[SusanM]

The point he's making is that up until this all happened it was a public business rather than a private church.

If you want to criticize restrictive licensing regimes and anti-discrimination laws that led to this, then fine, but this is not, as your source implies, any sort of religious persecution. The issue in this case is a service offered - no different than cakes or t-shirts.

[OldMexican]

Re: SusanM,

The point he's making is that up until this all happened it was a public business rather than a private church.

There's no such thing as a "public" business.

"Public" means owned by everyone, like "public" park or "public" road.

. The issue in this case is a service offered - no different than cakes or t-shirts.

Susan, if you're going to defend a point on economic grounds or ethical grounds, you would do better to get your concepts straight.

First: A service is labor. A cake or a T-Shirt is a product.

Second: You can't compel a person to trade with you. He or she is NOT your slave.

[SusanM]

OM, I'm not disagreeing, just pointing out the way they see this. Call bullshit as much as you like on anti-discrimination laws and their philosophical foundations as much as you like and I won't say a word.

If the business in question were a church there would be exemptions protecting it, as there are in most AD laws. Whatever this situation is, it is not teh evul gaystopo coming after The God Squad.

[Fluffy]

The evidence he offers isn't relevant.

I'm a militant atheist who routinely spends time here in raging flame wars with believers.

TOMORROW, I could decide that I have "found religion" and now don't want to officiate gay marriages. My post history wouldn't matter at all.

Unless you want the state to be able to define that anyone who changes their religious affiliation isn't entitled to first amendment protection.

And I say this as one of the loudest advocates for gay marriage on this board.

The right to gay marriage is the right to get the license. It isn't the right to the cooperation of any other individual or group to actually effectuate the marriage. Get some friend of yours to get an officiant's license and go to town.

[WTF]

It's almost as if the gay rights movement really wants to turn the general public against themselves.

[OldMexican]

Re: WTF,

It's almost as if the gay rights movement really wants to turn the general public against themselves.

That's the issue here. The great difference between the CRA and this is that there existed systematic discrimination by the governments of different states against a whole group of people merely because of the color of their skin. There were laws that imposed severe restrictions on people's actions that affected not only the people of that color but also business owners who had to accommodate their businesses to those ordinances.

Here, instead, you have a few douchebags who feel entitled, using the coercive actions of the state to squelch dissent. This is culture war, not civil rights. This is NOT appealing and is counterproductive, and the faster principles homosexuals work to stop this insanity, the better for their cause which is already well on its way to win.

[OldMexican]

principled. Sorry.

[Free Society]

Legitimized slavery.

[Lord Humungus]

forced out of America yet still collected?or collect, present-tense?U.S. Social Security checks.

Doing the jobs that Americans don't want to do...

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Reminds me of Flemming v. Nestor

[db]

Ebola watch is over for the 48 people who had contact with the first Dallas patient.

Guys, I have about 30 cases of N95 respirators, plastic ponchos, and duct tape, and they all have to go at LOW LOW PRICES!

[OldMexican]

Write me down for a pair!

[Andrew S.]

People are still scared and stupid. Sell them at airports to people like that guy at Dulles last week. You'll make a fortune.

[The Late P Brooks]

"I love the law, intellectually," the president tell the New Yorker, which says he sounds "tempted" at the idea of being on the Court. "I love nutting out these problems, wrestling with these arguments.

Yes, he obviously loves neutering the law, in favor of Rule of Man.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

"Douchebag": The White Racial Slur We've All Been Waiting For

This may sound like shallow, even flip advice. But it's a hard-won and well-tested insight using the multicultural classroom as laboratory. It came to me a few years back, at the end of the standard exercise in class.

"What about douchebag?" I asked the students, experimentally.

"Have any of you ever called some one black or brown or Asian a douchebag?... How 'bout women or gay folks?" The students had no recognizable response to the initial suggestion. But with each refining question?"Ever call a poor person a douchebag?"?their widening eyes became knowing nods, nods became spoken agreement, and the scattered "yes" gathered into a room of collectively blown minds. Including mine. Yes, it turns out, only rich, white heterosexist men are douchebags.

[BardMetal]

The writer sounds like a real douchebag

[Lord Humungus]

In my book everyone is a douchebag - it's just a matter of degrees.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

We would have been the only two in that classroom apparently to say, "Are you all fucking kidding? You're all douchebags."

[Bobarian (dinosaur hunter)]

I thought the choice was douche bag or turd sandwich?

[Idle Hands]

Wow what an exercise in stupidity.

[Warty]

Who the fuck hasn't called a poor person a douchebag? What a fucking idiot.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I don't get the gay exclusion either.

Are gay men exclusively not white?

[Warty]

I know. Jesse's a gigantic douchebag, for one.

[Brett L]

Hipsters aren't poor! They just work shitty jobs they love for low pay.

[Ted S.]

What about ofay and buckra?

[lap83]

Anyone who thinks that douchebaggery is exclusive to men has obviously never heard of crossfit.

[Restoras]

Went to a intro crossfit session on Saturday. Not sure I care for the cultishness of it. That said, I am royally sick of the gym I go to and want to try something else.

[Lord Humungus]

Build a gym at home - weight bench / squat rack - and you'll never need to leave again.

[Warty]

DON'T LISTEN TO HIM

[Warty]

Try Crossfit and do a ton of those ridiculous flailing fake pullups. Your friendly neighborhood orthopedic surgeon will thank you.

[Steve G]

It's flipped IMHO. To me, racial slurs have always been just race-customized versions of "douchebag" and/or "asshole". But then I'm one of those crazy people who feels like the use of a slur does not make one automatically racist.

[db]

Most women drive.like.douchebags. I call all sorts of people douchebags.

[waffles]

I prefer jagoff, especially in reference to driving.

[WTF]

Yeah, I call all kinds of people douchebags. Because they're douchebags.

[Mainer2]

I was in the CVS pharmacy the other day, and you know what I found ? There really is a thing called a douchebag !

[HazelMeade]

Ebola-related:

Has Emory University released any statements about Amber Vinson's health status?

We know Nina Pham got a blood transfusion from Kent Bradley, and is in fair condition, but I haven't heard shit about Amber Vinson. What the fuck?

[db]

I'm sure some SJWs will be long to explain this.phenomenon.

[HazelMeade]

At this point, coverage of Vinson has sucked so hard that they might be right.

Everyone's bitching about how she flew to Ohio, and nobody gives a shit if she's dying of Ebola as we speak.
Heartless.

[db]

I agree, it is heartless.

[Spoonman.]

I have been wondering that too. But the Spanish nurse is now cured, so that's good news.

[Spoonman.]

Here is a story on her, which is mostly her family being angry at the Feds for acting like she acted badly when she explicitly checked with them if she should fly.

But it does say she is in "stable" condition so hopefully she'll pull through as well.

[Gray Ghost]

From these two nurses, plus the case in Spain, and the docs who're already cured, it seems like Ebola is a lot less lethal than 50-70% if treatment begins early. Which is good to hear.

Liberia's still going to have to get a lot worse before it'll get better, but at least treating Ebola patients in the States doesn't have to be a coin flip with Death.

[OldMexican]

Spectators Walk Out During A Speech Given By President Obama

UPPER MARLBORO Md. (Reuters) - President Barack Obama made a rare appearance on the campaign trail on Sunday with a rally to support the Democratic candidate for governor in Maryland, but early departures of crowd members while he spoke underscored his continuing unpopularity.

And NO, they weren't white southerners; they were mostly black.

In a related news, liberals angry with Yahoo.com for marking that news story are reporting it as spam even though it really happened.

[Injun, as in from India]

You can't keep repeating "hope" and "change" like a broken record, and act surprised when people tune you out. Especially after you've proven yourself to be an unparalleled turd.

[Andrew S.]

It's sad how all of those people have such internalized racism that they'd disrespect our first black President like that.

[Warty]

Ginger Greeks. Ew.

[Auric Demonocles]

I am disappointed.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I thought the Turks fixed that.

[Palin's Buttplug]

New Politico poll - Obama approval 47%, 58% like Obamacare as is or slight fix, Dems will lose Senate.

http://images.politico.com/glo.....rmark.html

[Restoras]

Wassup Weigel? How's the ProActive regimen going?

[Palin's Buttplug]

Why aren't you screaming about Ebola? Get with the Team Red fear-mongering, man!

[Restoras]

I guess since you are trying to change the subject ProActive isn't working for you? That sucks, dude.
You know, I bet if you shed more Tears of Sorrow down your cheeks as you write to WaPo begging them to take you back it might help.

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

I just got back from Paris late last night. Sorry about that giant buttplug.

[tarran]

Restoras,

Leaving sugar about like this doesn't repel cockroaches; it attracts them. Please stop doing it.

[Palin's Buttplug]

You are no match for me, you lightweight. All you can do is ignore my superior intellect.

Actually, I can't blame you for that.

[OldMexican]

Re: Peter Caca,

New Politico poll - Obama approval 47%, 58% like Obamacare as is or slight fix, Dems will lose Senate.

Don't you find it interesting that the very same people who like Obamacare are not the same people who will defend it against the coming GOP juggernaut?

Seems like there's a disconnect there - like people don't mean it when they say they like the law, not when it hasn't affected them yet.

[Palin's Buttplug]

"True progressives" hate Obamacare I will remind you. The little pussies are hurt that they did not get single-payer but instead got a private care model.

That is the interesting aspect and why very few want to defend it. Heritage and Mitt Romney are the natural allies of the ACA.

[OldMexican]

I have to hand it to you: you gave a coherent and smart response.

I will have to go check my pulse...

[KDN]

I'll take outliers for $200, Alex.

On the Politico poll: 37% strong disapprove vs. 12% strong approve. Whatever love Obama is getting is very, very soft.

Also, a whopping 82% want O-Care changed. I wonder why that is?

Under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, do you think the amount of money you pay personally will increase, decrease or stay about the same?
Increase: 57%
Decrease: 7%
About the same: 34%

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Question 24...booosh!

[Palin's Buttplug]

TEAM RED is loyal if nothing else. Economic collapse and the Iraq War disaster have been forgotten.

[Warty]

Libertarians ruin everything

In Hassan's statement, issued Sunday evening, she said she was "very grateful that there weren't more injuries, and we must be vigilant as a state to review and learn from the sad destruction that escalated in Keene."

[DEG]

http://reason.com/reasontv/201.....nt_4841989

[Warty]

I always enjoy comment sections where Normals are told that carbs are why they're fat.

RobOrthman10/20/14 08:56 AM
It's very misleading to insinuate it's unhealthy to eat fruit. Yes, fruit has sugar but the sugar in an apple is not the same as the processed sugar in a cookie, for example. Cutting bad carbs is absolutely a good idea. But cutting all carbs is not. The focus of people's diets should be a lot of vegetables, some fruit, and whole grains. Supplement with some lean protein in the form you choose. The idea that diets high in saturated fat are healthy is false and dangerous for people's hearts.

BecknBuv10/20/14 08:53 AM
Harry is right (!) The back and forth on sugar vs. fat is hype for selling books. A calorie is a calorie. The best way to avoid extra pounds is to cook at home so you know what you're eating. Prepared and restaurant foods are full of both fat and sugar to make them taste "better". But if you're used to the taste of real food, you won't need or want the extra calories.

Enjoy being fat, you dumb fucks.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

My one friend always counters with "everything in moderation."

I may one day end up punching him in the face.

[Warty]

I started keto-ing a few days ago because I miss my abz. My body is just now at the "What the fuck? WHERE ARE MY CARBS, YOU FUCK???" stage. It's tremendously annoying.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

yeah, I have stopped minding carb intake and quickly gained 6 pounds recently.

Damn you fall beers!

[Restoras]

Damn you fall beers!

Can't wait to see what you have to say about winter beers!

[KDN]

They're not nearly as delicious and are consequently easier to avoid?

[Restoras]

They're not nearly as delicious and are consequently easier to avoid?

The hell you say!

[KDN]

The hell you say!

Too sweet, too many spices. They're not for me.

I'm a sucker for anything labeled "Octoberfest" or "Oktoberfest."

Me too. My local bar just started stocking a whole mess of them on draught. Consequently, football Sunday this week was quite a bit more expensive than I anticipated.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I'm a sucker for anything labeled "Octoberfest" or "Oktoberfest."

My money quickly leaves my wallet and my gut expands.

[Gray Ghost]

I'm a sucker for anything labeled "Octoberfest" or "Oktoberfest."

My money quickly leaves my wallet and my gut expands.

+1 Kaiser

[Zeb]

"Everything in moderation" is probably a good way to go if you can't be bothered to untangle all of the contradictory dietary advice out there or to dramatically change your diet.

[gaoxiaen]

Just half of a bottle of tequila per day?

[Lord Humungus]

*garrrhhh*

some fruit, and whole grain

so sugar...

[Steve G]

Oh jesus, and it's apparently still not conceivable to these people that heart disease and obesity might just share the same underlying cause and it's not a choice between being fat or having a heart attack.
Taubes has made himself an expert in this subject for the past 10 years, but every layman in the world has to chime in about "moderation" and "calories in/calories out". How hard is it to say, just match your carb intake to your activity level.
As you say, enjoy being fat idiots