U.S. and China Cut a Deal on Carbon Emissions, Gruber Backpedals, Kim Kardashian's Naked Ass Challenges You to a Staring Contest: A.M. Links

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  U.S. and Chinese diplomats reached an agreement on curbing their respective countries' carbon emissions.

• Jonathan Gruber—the MIT professor and Obamacare supporter who thanked the stupidity of the American voter and lack of transparency in D.C. for creating the environment that allowed the Affordable Care Act to pass—is unsurprisingly trying to walk back those comments.
• The FCC is not on board with President Obama's Net Neutrality push.
• New York City metro fares could increase.
• Here is the best Hollaback! catcalling parody video yet: Princess Leia walks the streets of NYC.
• Paper magazine attempted to "break the internet" by publishing the results of a photo shoot that feature Kim Kardashian's naked butt on display for all to see. The picture is probably photoshopped, but you're not still reading these words, are you?

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Princess Leia walks the streets of NYC.

She just needs to stay clear of her brother.

[ColonelEngineer]

Teach Jedis not to mind control women into sleeping with them!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hello.

Soave broke the AM links with a Kardashian link.

[UnCivilServant]

How does someone get famous for being famous? I do not understand why this name and these atrocious people keep intruding into otherwise rational news sources.

[anomdebus]

Bored "reporters" with "celebrity" fixations?

[Atanarjuat]

Supply/demand of celebrities. There weren't enough people famous for doing something worthwhile, so the industry manufactured a few. If the viewing public continues to eat it up, the market will continue to supply it.

[straffinrun]

That Kardashian pic should have gone with the Gruber article.

[waffles]

That was beautiful. The parodies of this video give me hope for humanity.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Makes me wonder if the bozos who made the first one realize the joke is on them.

[Tonio]

No. SJW's are inherently humorless, just like SoCons.

[Citizen Nothing]

Oh oh. Now you'll have John and Bo both on your ass.

[Ted S.]

Tonio probably finds that kinky.

[ducking]

[Notorious G.K.C.]

My namesake disagrees with you.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

re socons

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Google "G. K. Chesterton humor"

[Joe Biden's liver]

No thanks.

[cavalier973]

? A liberated woman is one who rises up and says to her menfolk, 'I will not be dictated to,' and proceeds to become a stenographer.

? Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.

? Journalism consists largely in saying ''Lord James is dead'' to people who never knew Lord James was alive.

? Silence is the unbearable repartee.

[Entropy Void]

Joe Biden's liver

Does one still exist?

[Fist of Etiquette]

The FCC is not on board with President Obama's Net Neutrality push.

He doesn't get that we are the ones and zeros we've been waiting for.

[sarcasmic]

Harvard students sit the 1964 Louisiana Literacy Test that black voters had to pass before being allowed to go to the polls - and every single person FAILED

Group of Harvard students recently sat the notorious 1964 Louisiana Literacy Test
Just 50 years ago, states in the South issued similar test to voters who couldn't provide proof of a fifth grade education
Test was intended to disenfranchise African-Americans, who in order to pass had to correctly answer all 30 questions in 10 minutes
Despite their Ivy League pedigree, none of the students managed to pass the test or make sense of the vague questions

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

[SugarFree]

Can Harvard students even manage to get a driver's licence?

[sarcasmic]

Look at the test. They show it in the article.

[SugarFree]

I'm not saying the test is fair, I'm saying that Matty SadBeard graduated from Harvard.

[Citizen Nothing]

The Dem candidate for Ohio governor couldn't manage to get a driver's license. But he graduated tOSU, so had a good excuse.

[Tonio]

While Harvard students are frequently fodder for the laughs here, that test is total BS.

[Florida Man]

Yup. 10 minutes for 30 vague questions.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Place a line under the third letter of this sentence.

Too funny.

[some guy]

Write backwards, forwards, and upside down.

[UnCivilServant]

"I'm sorry, you very clearly printed. No vote for you."

[WTF]

So I guess these Harvard students would now agree that having to pass a test to exercise a constitutional right is wrong. Like to get a gun license or a carry permit.

[wareagle]

they're Harvard students. Why do expect them to engage in critical thinking?

[waffles]

I was going to say bullshit, but that test is, in fact, designed to be failed. Every question can be marked wrong by differing interpretation.

Disclaimer: I believe literacy is an important component of a free and functioning society.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Disclaimer: I believe literacy is an important component of a free and functioning society.

Societies can't be free and/or functioning if they can't read? I spent some time bouncing around with various hill tribes in Zomia, and in many ways they were more free than we are.

[waffles]

Hey, that's just like my opinion man. You can keep your free tribal society but I am forever corrupted by language and written word. And I like it that way.

[KDN]

Honest question: are these hill tribes governed by a literate class with codified, written laws? I would argue that the existence of the latter is a necessary precondition of waffles's statement.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Written, not necessarily. Codified, yes.

[CatoTheElder]

HM: There's even a book written about the freedom-loving people of Zomia.

The thesis of The Art of Not Being Governed by James C. Scott is that the histories and societies of Zomia were shaped by people who refused to submit to state's taxation, warlust, corvee labor, and religion.

Of course the hill "tribesmen" in Zomia are freer than Americans. Most Americans volunteer to pay their taxes (though grudgingly to some degree), celebrate their wars, recite pledges in adulation to their flag. Many make pilgrimages to government temples in Washington and state capitols. Many Americans even call for a return to corvee labor in the form of national service.

[Clich? Bandit]

best understood as runaway, fugitive, maroon communities who have, over the course of two millennia, been fleeing the oppressions of state-making projects in the valleys ? slavery, conscription, taxes, corv?e labor, epidemics, and warfare."

These sound like my kind of people.

[waffles]

But do they have roads?

[Clich? Bandit]

statist oppressor!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Bull shit test aside, they couldn't complete this test? Really? I zoomed through in five with maybe three mistakes. Boy, Harvard standards are low.

[UnCivilServant]

Three mistakes means you can't vote.

Sorry Rufus.

[Entropy Void]

Rufus can't voter here anyways ... he's a Canuckistani.

[sarcasmic]

One mistake is a fail.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Whatever. Still 90% which I'm cool with. Meh. I said I raced through it. And I said 'mistakes' because I didn't understand the vague wording.

The test is just plain awful.

[Heroic Mulatto]

And I said 'mistakes' because I didn't understand the vague wording.

That's the point. The people who designed the test wanted to make the simple questions vague and up to interpretation so that at first glance they could say the test was "easy" but they also wanted to use it as a way to filter out whom they wanted.

It's not as if they were interested in getting an unbiased accurate result.

[some guy]

It's hard enough to read and comprehend all those muddled questions in 10 minutes. Add to that there are several questions, like #25 that are designed to catch you out for reading quickly. Finally, there's question #20, which can be interpreted however the registrar wants. So no matter how you answer #20, the Registrar can mark you wrong if he doesn't like you.

Also... how do you know you only made 3 mistakes?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Guessing. I've been through enough tests in my life to know if I passed or not.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

And 20 was one in which I gave myself a 'mistake.' The question is totally up to the marker as you said.

[some guy]

So, you are no longer surprised that the Harvard students couldn't complete the test?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I'm guilty of ignoring the fact you had to get all the questions right. So, yes a retraction of sorts. The test is to interpretative to chastise them over.

[Joe Biden's liver]

No, I'm still surprised they couldn't complete it. We all completed it I presume. You're all hung up on getting the very subjective answers correct, but the Harvard kids claim they couldn't even finish.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

That was my original point before some guy confused me with his vagueness.

/narrows gaze.

[Homple]

I'll bet the Harvard students can figure out how to get a valid picture ID card, though.

[WTF]

I wouldn't bet on it.

[lap83]

The questions don't seem vague, just non-intuitive.

When I think of vague questions, I think of the average political poll

"Should schoolchildren be given breakfast?"

[lap83]

But I agree that the tests aren't fair.

[lap83]

*test questions

[some guy]

#20 is vague.

"Spell backwards, forwards."

That is as vague as a question can get.

[Clich? Bandit]

Especially since it is an imperative and not a question. Sneaky I say.

[lap83]

That doesn't seem vague to me. They want forwards spelled backwards. I say non-intuitive because it's not the usual way of phrasing it. But if you think about it, in terms of the placement of the comma, it becomes clear. Vague implies open-ended.

[lap83]

I think if they wanted backwards spelled forwards there wouldn't be a comma.

[UnCivilServant]

The comma is there specifically to confuse people. Because even with it, it's not asking for 'sdrawrof'.

[UnCivilServant]

You could also read it as wanting backwards spelled forwards without being objectively wrong.

[anomdebus]

Has anyone found any data regarding how many times the test was taken and the pass/fail rate broken out by race?
Considering modern claims about it, there doesn't seem to be any way that any blacks were able to vote in that state. Though, if that were the actual case, I think we would have heard about it..

[Notorious G.K.C.]

It's Jim Crow Louisiana. Yes they were disenfranchising as many black people as possible.

[anomdebus]

I don't disagree.
Part of the reason for my asking was to wait for hard numbers before coming to any conclusion beyond simply saying it was there to disenfranchise people with less power (overwhelmingly black, I am sure)

[Bobarian (Mr. Xtreme)]

you only had to take the test if you couldn't prove you completed 5th grade.

[some guy]

This particular test has been infamous for 5 decades. I guess the Daily Mail just found out about it now...

So, yeah, we have heard about this a lot.

[anomdebus]

To be clear, I said "any blacks", as in zero blacks being able to vote.
I am saying if that was the case, the story would have been "Louisiana prevented all blacks from voting".

[Rhywun]

Yes but neither Harvard students nor the Daily Fail can possibly pass up another chance to gloat about American racism, can they.

[CatoTheElder]

In the 1964 LA gubernatorial election, the Republican got 297,753 votes (versus the Democrat's 469,589.)

There is no way that Yankee immigrants and local, white integrationists could account for the Republican vote total.

According to VOTING RIGHTS IN LOUISIANA 1982-2006 by Debo P Adegbile, Associate Director of Litagation of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund:

From 1910 until 1948, less than one percent of Louisiana's voting age African-American population was able to register to vote. In 1948, that proportion rose to five percent, and from 1952 until 1964, even with concerted federal attention, the proportion rose only from 20 percent to 32 percent, reaching 32 percent only in October 1964.

http://www.protectcivilrights......anaVRA.pdf

It appears that at least 32% of African-Americans in Louisiana in 1964 were smarter than every single Harvard student to whom the test was administered.

[CatoTheElder]

Everybody knows that Democrats in the Deep South were reprehensible, not only for their usurpation of African-American voting rights, but for Jim Crow generally.

The real news in this story is how low the standards for Harvard students have fallen.

[Entropy Void]

I bet DWS don't know "that Democrats in the Deep South were reprehensible, not only for their usurpation of African-American voting rights, but for Jim Crow generally."

[Rhywun]

Or they were able to provide proof of a 5th grade education.

[anomdebus]

Cool!, thanks for the link.

I'd bet that some part of increase came from not being able to ignore the 5th grade qualification, because of the increased scrutiny. At least according to this site, having the required education didn't stop them from demanding the test to be taken. It also claims that whites passed the test by having sympathetic graders.

[Every Cop is a Criminal]

Group of Harvard students recently sat the notorious 1964 Louisiana Literacy Test Just 50 years ago

Just 50 years ago? That's a fucking half century ago. Harvard sure loves picking white-guilt scabs.

[UnCivilServant]

"In England, Fifty miles is a long distance, in the US, Fifty years is a long time" - some brit.

[Rhywun]

That's neat - and accurate.

[sarcasmic]

LIVE: Scientists face 'seven hours of terror' as they release probe to land on comet - with a faulty thruster

Philae probe has successfully separated from the Rosetta spacecraft
It is now preparing to land on comet 67P later today at 3.30pm GMT
'Flawless separation' of Philae probe was confirmed at 9.03am GMT
First image from lander heading towards the surface is due at 2pm
But a thruster problem could prevent Philae from landing on 67P
The cold gas thruster on top of the lander is not working properly
Without it, Philae will have to rely on its harpoons to attach to 67P
Rosetta has chased comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for 10 years
This will be the first time a spacecraft has ever landed on a comet

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci.....t-67P.html

[Fist of Etiquette]

They will make 800 feet.

[Lord Humungus]

Man the harpoons!

[Clich? Bandit]

Dude just said We are on the comet and did a Mic Drop!

AWESOME!

[Lord Humungus]

Chris Rock's poisonous legacy: How to get rich and exalted chastising "bad blacks"

Bill Cosby said it, Don Lemon keeps saying it, Jason Riley has a whole book about it. The greatest barrier to black success, according to this reasoning, is the host of bad black people who refuse to get their shit together and would rather bring every other black person down with them than to pick up a book. The language is more polite than when Chris Rock was calling them n?gers, but not by a significant margin.

It doesn't matter how much debunking is done, because this strain of respectability politics is easy to comprehend, fits neatly into our racist system, and has the potential to be lucrative. You won't go broke by taking up the chastisement of "bad blacks" as a career. You may lose your soul, but you can just go buy a new one with the cash from your book deal/radio show/TV pundit gig/speaking fees.

[UnCivilServant]

Why do you give salon links?

[Lord Humungus]

According to Bo, because I'm a closet Republican who doesn't give a fair shake to liberal ideas. Or something like that.

[WTF]

According to Bo, just about everyone here is a closet Republican who doesn't give a fair shake to liberal ideas, while failing to properly criticize the Soconz.

[Bill Dalasio]

And no Republican can ever have libertarian sympathies.

[Entropy Void]

Somebody better tel Rand Paul and Justin Amash about this ...

[Lord Humungus]

I will honestly admit that I fear lefties more... they do have a track record of mass killing that is second to none.

[Redmanfms]

I will honestly admit that I fear lefties more... they do have a track record of mass killing that is second to none.

As does any sane person who pays attention to things being said by the mainstream left. Bo-Bo has to delve into the fever swamps of nobodygivesashitsville to find anything even remotely close to the kind of downright terrifying rhetoric coming out of people on the Left who actually hold office.

Stormy is much the same.

To call them both dishonest is an insult to liars.

[Idle Hands]

Um what about all the jokes I make about white trash West Virginians.

[Idle Hands]

Also the produces of Cops must be demons.

[Doctor Whom]

It's not as though anyone ever said anything imperfectly adulatory of the European-American working class.

[Idle Hands]

Dumb pollocks.

[Bobarian (Mr. Xtreme)]

Drunken Irish
Greasy Wops
Snaggle-toothed Brits
Cheap Scots
Stinky French
Lazy Spaniards
Floppy-headed Canadians

[Entropy Void]

Und zee Germans?

[Ted S.]

They're a bunch of bitter clingers.

[gaijin]

How much of this intra-racial battle goes back to the tension between WEB DuBois (the originalist of 'priviledge') and Booker T Washington...the Harvard man vs. the self-made man?

[Heroic Mulatto]

A lot, imo. Though, I say that DuBois wasn't an "originalist" of anything, but just an Marxist missionary to African Americans. That is, he was a tool of the turn-of-the-century Progressives who wanted nothing more than to help him and Garvey lead them Black masses in "Go[ing] Back to Africa".

[SugarFree]

"I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda."

[Dweebston]

That's a terrible idea. Africans can't vote in America.(Eliding dumb joke about Africans winning American elections.)

Are American transplants to Africa American Africans?

[KDN]

Americo-Africans is my guess.

[Catatafish]

Excellent point.

[Atanarjuat]

Chris Rock also says a bunch of dumb, racist shit about whites ("if it's all white, it's all right" and "no poor white person would trade places with me, even though I'm rich and famous, because being white is that awesome" etc).

Maybe he was successful because he's fucking hilarious and entertaining, not because of the race stuff.

The left just wants to frame every narrative into victim, victimizer, and noble progressive savior.

[This Machine Slips It In]

You know who else thought that bad people within the race were destroying their culture?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Socrates?

[hamilton]

Maud' Dib?

[Anomalous]

Pastor James David Manning?

[Catatafish]

Princess Dejah Thoris?

[Zeb]

So where do I find this "debunking"?

[sarcasmic]

Jennifer Lawrence suffers a wardrobe malfunction as her plunging white dress opens in back of cab following Hunger Games premiere after party

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....party.html

[The DerpRider]

I don't think a bit of side boob should bother her considering the plethora of actual nudes floating about.

[Zeb]

They look really drunk.

[Lord Humungus]

her boobs?

[Zeb]

They do too, I guess.

[Redmanfms]

That girl really needs to get in the habit of wearing a bra, they're already starting to sag badly.

[robc]

Bras cause more sagging, not less.

[Entropy Void]

Cite, please?

[Fist of Etiquette]

New York City metro fares could increase.

Straphangers don't vote?

[Restoras]

Like that would make a difference.

[Injun, as in from India]

It wouldn't normally, but the Feds will take money from people living in far away places to subsidize the NYC Metro to artificially keep fares from rising further.

[sarcasmic]

Descending into the depths of Siberia's mystery crater: Experts explore 98ft-wide hole to learn more about its origins

When frozen, the accessible parts of the crater are around 54ft (16.5 metres) deep with a 98ft (30 metre) diameter
Scientists used climbing gear to reach a lake of frozen water that had formed at around 34ft (10.5 metres) deep
Is thought the crater was formed when heating from underground fissures released gas hydrates causing blowout
This is said to be the same phenomenon that may have led to the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic Ocean
Experts are now monitoring modern-day and archived satellite images to check for similar holes
A total of three craters have been found in the northern Russian region, but their origins are still unknown

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

[db]

As the scientists desceded, several reported hearing faint sounds as if a strange, piping music were being played in some inaccessible catacomb beneath.

[Zeb]

Bermuda triangle?

[Redmanfms]

Yeah, one of theories to "scientifically" explain the Bermuda Triangle is that melting gas hydrates released from the sea bottom causes areas of low water density (ships sink in bubbly water). It also explains the plane disappearances because as the gases dilute in the atmosphere above they reach explosive concentrations only looking for an ignition source, which a passing plane provides.

I think the "abnormal" number of disappearances probably has more to do with the area being one of the busiest shipping lanes on Earth, but whatever.

[UnCivilServant]

I think the "abnormal" number of disappearances probably has more to do with the area being one of the busiest shipping lanes on Earth, but whatever.

By ratio of vehicles lost to vehicles transiting the area per year, it is no more hazardous than any other span of ocean. It's just chock full of vehicles.

[Agammamon]

Except there are actually no abnormal disappearances to explain in the first place.

[The DerpRider]

The Descent. I enjoyed it for a fun read many years back.

[Zeb]

Oh, yeah. I wanted to read that. I thought Year Zero was a fun read as well.

[Catatafish]

Loved this book as well as Deeper. I never understood if the movie was loosely-based off the book (or was just a rip-off) but it was fantastic too. Particularly if you have a thing for ridiculously hot chicks from the UK.

[Agammamon]

This is said to be the same phenomenon that may have led to the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic Ocean

OK, this right here? This is where you know the article is just a bunch of bullshit. If any thing the author says in the article has any resemblence to reality, it'll be total blind luck.

There is no Bermuda Triangle.

[The Whole Truth]

God damn are you a boring stupid humorless fuck.

[Zeb]

Sure there is. It's just not interesting or remarkable.

[Lord Humungus]

Republican Dan Sullivan wins Senate race in Alaska

Republican Dan Sullivan won Alaska's U.S. Senate race, defeating first-term incumbent Democrat Mark Begich.

Sullivan led Begich by about 8,100 votes on Election Night last week and held a comparable edge after election workers had counted about 20,000 absentee, early-voted and questioned ballots late Tuesday. Thousands more ballots remained to be counted, but the results indicated that Begich could not overcome Sullivan's lead.

The Alaska seat was initially considered key to the Republicans' hopes of taking control of the U.S. Senate, but that goal was accomplished before the Alaska race was decided.

[Fist of Etiquette]

U.S. and Chinese diplomats reached an agreement on curbing their respective countries' carbon emissions.

Executive action ho!

[UnCivilServant]

"We will tell the gum chewing fool whatever he wants to hear, then ignore the agreement in actuality while all reports say we are meeting targets, just like our production numbers" - Chinese official.

[Drake]

Let me guess. Implementing the plan in the U.S will involve massive increases in energy costs. In China it will involve slowing the rate of emissions growth in a way nobody will notice.

[waffles]

Yup. Why did we agree to kneecap ourselves? Flagellation is still cool in the 21st century?

[Drake]

"we"?

I didn't agree.

[Ted S.]

Considering how wonky all their other economic statistics are....

[db]

Yeah, haha. Chinese environmental regulations are for foreigners who want to set up factories in China. Chinese businesses get a free pass.

[gaijin]

[gaijin]

...Gruber...is unsurprisingly trying to walk back those comments

Yeah, he's only sorry he got caught...

[Doctor Whom]

He's sorry you feel that way.

[some guy]

He's sorry he's right.

[Lord Humungus]

He got some things right:

In fairness to Gruber, American voters are not the only people whose intelligence he questions; elsewhere in the discussion, he describes New York Sen. Chuck Schumer (D.) as someone who "as far as I can tell, doesn't understand economics" and calls a staffer for Sen. Olympia Snowe (R., Maine)?presumably William Pewen?an "idiot."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/th.....r=yahootix

[Clich? Bandit]

C'mon his name is HANS GRUBER!!!!

Get McClane!

Asian Dawn my ass.

[sarcasmic]

Mom tells how she was 'beaten black and blue by cops as her horrified son, 8, watched'

Lana Sinclair said police were called to her Winnipeg, Canada, home on Halloween amid reports of screams
She claims she was getting her son ready for trick-or-treating
Sinclair said the attending officer started poking her as she sat
She stood up and said he didn't need to touch her
Claims the officer then cuffed her and assaulted her
Sinclair said the officer kicked her legs out and her son witnessed it
She has filed a complaint with the Law Enforcement Review Agency (LERA)

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

However LERA commissioner Max Churler said of the hundreds of complaints that are filed each year, most of which are for excessive force, only about four to six make it to a hearing.

Most are abandoned.

[BardMetal]

Ugh.. don't read the comments.

[sarcasmic]

I already did. It's enough to make you abandon hope for humanity.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

The comments aren't that bad. Cop stories always have your apologists for police brutality. Other than that, the dirty reality is that Canada - particularly out West - has always had a huge racism problem with police towards Natives. Here in Quebec, there's flat out mistrust between Natives and Quebec nationalists and police.

[sarcasmic]

The book of rude little stick men that has everyone in stitches: Cartoon filled tome is being hailed as the 'best book ever' (but beware, it's a little bit naughty)

Cult cartoonists and animators Modern Toss launch new book, A Decade in S***house
Work of cartoonists Jon Link and Mick Bunnage
Book is crowdfunding project to celebrate 10th anniversary

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

[Lord Humungus]

I like big butts...

Businesses cash in as women chase bigger butts

Gym classes that promise a plump posterior are in high demand. A surgery that pumps fat into the buttocks is gaining popularity. And padded panties that give the appearance of a rounder rump are selling out.

The U.S. booty business is getting a big bump. Companies are cashing in on growing demand from women seeking the more curvaceous figures of their favorite stars, who flaunt their fuller rear ends.

Nicki Minaj, for instance, raps about her "big fat" butt in "Anaconda." Reality star Kim Kardashian posts photos of hers on Instagram. And in the music video for "Booty," Jennifer Lopez and Iggy Azalea, wearing leotards, spend four minutes rubbing their curvy bottoms together. At one point, they slap each other on the booty.

[Auric Demonocles]

I don't get the big butt craze.

[Restoras]

Is it 'Big' or just 'Bigger'?

[UnCivilServant]

I don't either.

[Injun, as in from India]

Some other brothers can deny.

[gaijin]

Even white boys gots to shout

[Heroic Mulatto]

Auric Demonocles and UnCivilServant wanna play that hard role
And tell you that the butt ain't gold
So they toss it and leave it
And I pull up quick to retrieve it

[db]

I'll just leave this here.

[The DerpRider]

Athletic butts. So chicks that squat. That's what's hot.

[Lord Humungus]

+1 Girl's Volleyball

[Florida Man]

+ however many girls are on a volleyball team

[Restoras]

Yes, this this this

[Catatafish]

Can't second this motion enough.

[Florida Man]

I sympathize. I love big butts but don't get big boobs.

[UnCivilServant]

It all needs to be properly proportional to the frame they're attached to.

[Heroic Mulatto]

So UnCivilServant says you're fat
Well I ain't down with that
'cause your waste is small and your curves are kickin
And I'm thinkin bout stickin

[UnCivilServant]

Don't twist my words, man.

[Heroic Mulatto]

How am I supposed to conduct this entire exchange using Sir-Mix-a-Lot lyrics if you do that?

It was like a chain letter, and you broke it!

[This Machine Slips It In]

'cause your waste is small

Eh, not really what turns me on, but I won't judge another man for his preferences.

[Heroic Mulatto]

There are two types of scheisse fetishists.

[Agammamon]

See, and here I was just thinking you were digging her commitment ot sustainability through recycly and then you have to go and bring the schiesse.

[Zeb]

Yeah, I'm not really one way or the other on big butts or big boobs. All the parts should work well together and that's the important thing.

[Anomalous]

Just as long as that one important part is not big, it's all good.

[Clown Hunter]

The mouth, right? You don't like with a woman with a big mouth?

[Auric Demonocles]

New York City metro fares could increase.

Seems like a strange morning link to me. Not sure why, as there are often ones with little non-regional appeal.

[Zeb]

Seems like a pretty lazy morning links selection with that and Kim Kardashian's butt.

[Rhywun]

I can add a relevant angle here, having been through this ritual nearly every year of the last decade or so. The people will bitch and moan about how "unaffordable" the fare increase is - and then they will go to the voting booth and re-elect the same commie assholes who shower the transit union layabouts with money and benefits that they (the voters, at least the non-pubsec ones) are unlikely to experience in their lives. Rinse and repeat.

[NebulousFocus]

Video games, and GamerGate in particular, have bucked the trend, showing that with politeness and persistence bogus feminist critiques can be rebuffed and self-obsessed attention-seekers can be subjected to the same degree of scrutiny they set out to shine on others... with occasionally gruesome results.

The authoritarian Left was on course to win the culture wars then along came #GamerGate

[UnCivilServant]

Your link is kinda wonky.

[Ted S.]

Interesting link.

[NebulousFocus]

SF'ed. Here

[Idle Hands]

meh. society is a pendulum.

[Lord Humungus]

Democratic Party Favorable Rating Falls to Record Low

After the midterm elections that saw the Democratic Party suffer significant losses in Congress, a record-low 36% of Americans say they have a favorable opinion of the party, down six percentage points from before the elections. The Republican Party's favorable rating, at 42%, is essentially unchanged from 40%. This marks the first time since September 2011 that the Republican Party has had a higher favorability rating than the Democratic Party.

[Lord Humungus]

related: Poll: Americans Want GOP Congress, Not Obama, to Set National Agenda

"Who do you want to have more influence over the direction the nation takes in the next year?Barack Obama or the Republicans in Congress?" Gallup asked 828 U.S. adults.

Fifty-three percent of those surveyed said they wanted Republicans in Congress to have the greater influence, 36 percent said Obama, and 8 percent, well, didn't seem to care, answering "same/neither."

[gaijin]

Yes, but Obama has a silent majority....you can't find them in polls...unless you ask questions about gun control.

[kbolino]

unless you ask nebulous questions about gun control

FTFY

Most of the polls about gun control show overwhelming support for ... the status quo. When you start getting specific, the support falls off dramatically.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Obama will not play ball. He'll push and force down his agenda. Question is, does this dare the GOP into impeaching him?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Fricken people voting against their own interests?

[Lord Humungus]

John Yoo: Why Rand Paul Is Wrong about the ISIS War Being Illegal ? and Shouldn't Be President

The op-ed shows why Senator Paul should stay right where he is ? in the Senate. We should never put someone in the Oval Office who thinks that the United States can only use force when it is actually attacked, as he argues. That is the mindset that led the United States to ignore events in Europe as they spiraled out of control 100 years ago and to withdraw from the continent in the interwar years, leaving it to fascists who ultimately drew the U.S. back into another destructive war. It is a point of view that would have led to defeat in the Cold War and would handcuff the United States' ability to protect itself by intervening against security threats before they arrive on our shores. It is a point of view that no serious candidate for president should hold and that no great president in our history has ever held.

[Injun, as in from India]

I'm resigned to the idea of a reasonable foreign policy and a restrained executive branch.

[ColonelEngineer]

That passage scares the shit out of me.

Literally.

Mud monkey...on the ground...under my chair.

I'm not a Rand fan, but credit where credit is due, ditching the warhawk mentality typical of the right is refreshing.

[gaijin]

SO John Yoo favors pre-emptive war. Got it.

...that led the United States to ignore events in Europe as they spiraled out of control 100 years ago..in the interwar years...leaving it to fascists who ultimately drew the U.S. back into another destructive war.

I guess we should ahve had war in the interwar years to avoid the war in the war years?

[Tonio]

Of course he favors pre-emptive war, but even scarier is that he favors torture and warrantless spying to "protect us from facism."

[WTF]

I guess Yoo thinks the US intervention into WWI actually made things better.

[BardMetal]

100 years ago, as in World War 1? Is he actually arguing that the central powers were ever in anyway a threat to the United States?

What a dumbass.

[Lord Humungus]

What, you want the Kaiser to come into your house and start pushing you around?

[BardMetal]

Blackadder : George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganiki. I hardly think that we can be entirely absolved of blame on the imperialistic front.

[Agammamon]

Oh... Oh no, sir! Absolutely not! [mutters] Mad as a bicycle!

[SugarFree]

So America is to blame for Hitler, but nothing going on the Middle East has anything to do our actions in the region?

Cool story, Yoo-bro.

[BardMetal]

Besides I wouldn't consider America exactly anti-fascist during the interwar years. The early progressives loved Mussolini before that whole world war 2 thing.

[SugarFree]

And Hitler had his admirers. Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh come to mind.

[kbolino]

Look, the US is responsible for everything that happens when we didn't act, but completely blameless for anything that happens as a consequence of acting.

It's a corollary to the "do something!" philosophy of foreign policy and warmongering.

[WTF]

As sarcasmic notes, the philosophy of any politician is "We must do something! This is something, so we must do it!"

[OldMexican]

Why John Yoo shouldn't be a teacher of history

That is the mindset that led the United States to ignore events in Europe as they spiraled out of control 100 years ago

Actually, there's a big difference between ignoring facts and not wanting to intervene. John Yoo doesn't seem to remember that Wilson campaigned on a non-interventionist foreign policy to win his reelection in 1916. He also doesn't seem to remember that Wilson asked the US Congress for a formal declaration of war against the German Empire and the Central Powers, which is the point made by Senator Paul: that in order to legitimize the war against ISIS, the president has to ask the US Congress for an authorization to go to war.

[The Laconic]

Sure, we should have jumped into WWI sooner and harder, but that's just Monday morning quarterbacking.

[LOLWUT]

[Bill Dalasio]

I'm genuinely surprised Yoo would publish something like this. My impression has always been that, while I thought he was wildly wrong, he was a reasonably intelligent guy. But, this is just stupid. It completely ignores Paul's basis for questioning the legality of the war and replaces it with something he didn't say. I understand guys like Yoo agree with guys like Gruber that the public is stupid. But, didn't he at least figure someone with an IQ in the triple digits would run across this crap?

[Rhywun]

It's NR - warmongers gonna warmonger.

[Bill Dalasio]

Yeah, but still.

I think back to Buckley. Doubt he'd have let this weak an argument slip through, even as a warmonger himself.

[Injun, as in from India]

U.S. and Chinese diplomats reached an agreement on curbing their respective countries' carbon emissions.

Do I hear the venerable Thomas Friedman fapping away?

[Lord Humungus]

Unlicensed masseuse ordered to stop services

The Unlicensed Practice Program notified Yao of its intent to issue a cease-and-desist order. Yao is not a certified massage practitioner or reflexologist.

The state claims he told two Department of Health investigators that he performed massages. The state says a different investigator visited Magic Foot Massage, and a woman told the investigator that both she and Yao gave massages.

[Steve G]

My MIL, a reflexology believer/practitioner, is eternally proud for having shut down unlicensed masseuses in her small town in rural KY.

[Agammamon]

Yao is not a certified . . . or reflexologist.

Now you have to get certified to be a quack? The government just has to regulate *everything*.

Next you'll be telling me that homeopaths and chiropractors have college programs.

[Clich? Bandit]

uhh chiropractors aren't quacks.

[UnCivilServant]

There are two types of services being shilled under the title of 'Chiropractice'. One is done by medical doctors. They other by quacks without medical training. They don't compare in terms of outcome.

[Clich? Bandit]

You are right MDs take on average almost 400 hours less than DCs.

The Parker College study reported that on average, chiropractic college involves 372 more classroom hours than medical school. Chiropractic students also have more hours of training in anatomy, physiology, diagnosis, and orthopedics (the musculoskeletal system).

[kbolino]

You should change your name to Cliche Peddler.

"More education means more better!"

[Clich? Bandit]

I never said that. And if you knew me you would be certain I am no credentialist. But the above education is an indicator of level of quackery. I find it hard to believe that after that much exposure to medical ideas that a chiropractor is not acting out of a scientific principle especially since the MDs (who have demonstrated a scientific approach to medicine) take the exact same course but fewer. I have no need of a chiropractor with 150 hours of gynecological training.

[Redmanfms]

Dude, chiropractics is fucking baloney equivalent to humorism. That they spent more hours learning bullshit "subluxation theory" doesn't magically make it not bullshit.

[Agammamon]

. . . Traditional chiropractic assumes that a vertebral subluxation or spinal joint dysfunction interferes with the body's function and its innate intelligence

Quackery.

[Clich? Bandit]

That aint what DCs learn.

Seriously.

They take MD courses, all of them, but with a specialization in ortho and physiology.

[Clich? Bandit]

Chiropractic vs Medical
456 Anatomy/Embryology. 215
243 Physiology 174
296 Pathology 507
161 Chemistry/Biochemistry 100
145 Microbiology 145
408 Diagnosis 113
149 Neurology 171
56 Psychology/Psychiatry 323
66 Obstetrics & Gynec. 284
271 X-ray 13
168 Orthopedics 2
2,419 Total Hours for Degree 2,047

[Clich? Bandit]

looks like an MD to me but with a specialty in bones.

[Atlas Slugged]

Not this tired meme again. I noticed you've stopped counting at med school graduation and not including residency hours. Those hours are typically 3+ years at about 80 hours/week x 50 weeks. So yeah, 99% of the time, I want a trained MD or DO doing my spinal manipulation. Even better, I'd rather have a Physical Therapist do it: PTs are going to crush chiropractors in the next 30 years,.

[Lord Humungus]

'Battleship' Sinks Utah Man Tracked by Cellphone GPS

A Utah man was being held in lieu of $10,000 bail after sheriff's deputies tracked the GPS data of a series of 911 calls to find him drunk and pointing a rifle at a teenage girl during an argument over the board game "Battleship," authorities said Monday.

John Richard Valenzuela, 68, was in the Utah County jail on charges of unlawful detention involving domestic violence, aggravated assault involving domestic violence, criminal mischief involving domestic violence, damaging or interrupting electronic communications and intoxication, according to jail records.

but she sunk my battleship!

[Doghouse Riley Jr.]

damaging or interrupting electronic communications

Huh? How?

and intoxication

It's against the law to be drunk at home?

[cavalier973]

Can't he just flip the board in the air, like normal people?

[Lord Humungus]

Few Signs of Construction at Yujiapu, China's Manhattan Replica

China's $50-billion knock-off of the Big Apple sits on a river bend ? much like its namesake ? near the port city of Tianjin, some 120 miles from Beijing. Complete with its own Rockefeller Center and Twin Towers, it's been billed as the world's largest financial center in the making. But this Manhattan still has a long way to go.

A recent visit shows that construction that began in 2008 on the back of a massive credit boom unleashed in China after the global financial crisis appears to have ground to a halt. While the stunted version of "Rockefeller Center" and its Twin Towers appeared to be complete ? both were empty and fenced off.

piss away that money...

[UnCivilServant]

China has a lot of these "build empty buildings" programs to artificially inflate it's construction sector for reporting purposes (so they can pretend to have more growth than they really do). It leaves behind a raft of interesting ghost towns that will never be used.

[antisocial-ist]

Stimurus!

[Elspeth Flashman]

So it's like the opposite of breaking all the windows in a city, but accomplishes much the same thing.

[Lord Humungus]

bonus: sets for zombie/post-apocalypse movies

[Lord Humungus]

The coming climate onslaught
President Obama readies a sweeping list of executive actions.

The Obama administration is set to roll out a series of climate and pollution measures that rivals any president's environmental actions of the past quarter-century ? a reality check for Republicans who think last week's election gave them a mandate to end what they call the White House's "War on Coal."

Tied to court-ordered deadlines, legal mandates and international climate talks, the efforts scheduled for the next two months show that President Barack Obama is prepared to spend the remainder of his term unleashing sweeping executive actions to combat global warming. And incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will have few options for stopping the onslaught, though Republicans may be able to slow pieces of it.

The thing about executive actions, there is no weight of law behind them. Is he depending on the EPA to keep this going once he is out of office?

[John]

The idea is to cash in from the Greens when he leaves office. The other point is to motivate the Greens to dump huge money into the 2016 Democratic Presidential campaign because if the next President is a Republican, these laws are done.

It is stupid and short sighted. These policies are dead political losers. And no amount of half wit billionaires are going to change that.

[db]

He saw just how much Al Gore was able to bank after leaving office and is on the same business plan.

[John]

Yup. It is always and forever about Obama. The country and even the Democratic Party can get bent if their needs don't align with Obama's.

[OldMexican]

The Obama administration is set to roll out a series of climate and pollution measures that rivals any president's environmental actions of the past quarter-century ? a reality check for Republicans who think last week's election gave them a mandate to end what they call the White House's "War on Coal."

And that is why I never read Politico or any of those lefty mags. It's not the inanity, it is the lack of logic in their statements.

For instance, consider the paragraph above from Politico. President Obama is going full speed ahead with his Climate Change policy, and that is supposed to be a "reality check" for Republicans who just won a huge victory this election cycle and think they have a mandate. WHAT REALITY CHECK? A reality check is the realization that your notion is inconsistent with actual events. The author seems to think that whatever the president wants to do is inevitable, but his notions are not reality yet. President Obama can perfectly continue with his anti-coal policy and the Republicans can perfectly think they have a mandate to stop him, and THAT is the reality - there's NO OTHER reality to check!

[OldMexican]

And incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will have few options for stopping the onslaught

The author is on drugs. Mitch McConnell only has to convince a few of his Democrat colleagues that are not happy with the president to vote with him to stop these EPA mandates and make their bills veto-proof.

[UnCivilServant]

About six of them are in red states and face re-election in 2016.

[DEG]

Texas teacher suspended over Ferguson tweet.

[Rich]

Vinita Hegwood, a high school English teacher at Duncanville High School near Dallas, allegedly sent ... "You exhibit nigga behavior, I'm a call you a nigga. You acting crackerish, I'm a call you a cracker." Hegwood is African-American.

Emphasis added. *** facepalm ***

[Lord Humungus]

something, something Eubonics?

[Injun, as in from India]

Exactly my reaction. A high school English teacher. UGH.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Pretty much the only way a teacher can get fired.

[Lord Humungus]

Why do female orgasms exist? The reason may be more complicated than you think

It's a question that few women would think to ask: Why does the female orgasm exist? More likely is, "Where is my female orgasm?" ? or, for the easily orgasmic, "More, please?" But it's a query that has nonetheless plagued sex researchers for decades, and a new study has proposed an answer: that the female orgasm helps women choose better partners. More specifically ? and perhaps unflatteringly to women ? researchers found that "how often a woman experienced orgasm as a result of sexual intercourse was related to their partner's family income." They also found that "his self-confidence" and "how attractive he was" also factored in.

[gaijin]

Why do male orgasms exist? To keep men wanting to do something that assists in procreation of the species? So why would it presume to be any different for women?

[Idle Hands]

because girls are from venus.

[some guy]

Maybe because for most of history (and presumably for most of pre-history) women have not had much say in who their partner will be.

[Zeb]

Well, the fact that difficulty achieving orgasm is much more common among women would seem to suggest that that maybe there is more to it than just making breeding fun.

[Restoras]

Maybe the difficulty of it is what keeps them having sex...in other words, it feels good and is tantalizing close to amazing, maybe I need a different partner to put me over the edge....

[Zeb]

That's sort of what I was thinking. Maybe it encourages women to seek a mate who is willing to take the time or has the stamina or whatever desirable traits might be in a breeding partner.

[OldMexican]

Why do female orgasms exist?

So women can blame us men for not having them, on top of everything else they lay on us poor bastards.

[lap83]

"But it's a query that has nonetheless plagued sex researchers for decade"

This is why there are no female sex researchers.

[lap83]

"They also found that "his self-confidence" and "how attractive he was" also factored in."

How intriguing!

[Bobarian (Mr. Xtreme)]

Why do female orgasms exist?

To sell vibrating showerheads?

[Steve G]

PSA: If you have att.net email (formerly att.worldnet) and have been paying to keep your email address, it's been free for 2 years. AT&T just did a poor job of telling me you. I You should be pissed. The correct number to call to square away: 800-288-2020

http://www.nj.com/business/ind.....wrong.html

[Clich? Bandit]

i have no sympathy for you. I canceled my Prodigy service two decades ago for crying out loud.

But good on ya sharin' the digits for others in your boat.

[Bobarian (Mr. Xtreme)]

Maybe I should switch over from AOL?

[Clich? Bandit]

I am stunned into silence.

[Steve G]

Hey, it's a 15+ yr old email account. Kinda difficult to dump when EVERYTHING is tied to it whether I remember the login or not; paying to keep was sorta worth it. But now I'm just pissed that they deliberately misled folks including me...

[Lord Humungus]

Obama's advisers go too easy on him

Among modern administrations, Obama's second-term decision-making sounds, ominously, most like Jimmy Carter's. Carter essentially served as his own chief of staff and surrounded himself with loyalists while top aide Hamilton Jordan enjoyed unlimited access to Carter and the ability to choose his issues. That's not unlike what Carol Felsenthal, author of the Politico article, said of Jarrett: "Her undefined role combined with what by all accounts has been almost unlimited proximity to the Obamas has proved a bad mix. She seems to isolate the president from people who might help him or teach him something."

But yet we don't have magazine covers with the president inside of a bubble...

[Ted S.]

I'm getting this image of Obama as the fetus at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[Ted S.]

Paper magazine attempted to "break the internet" by publishing the results of a photo shoot that feature Kim Kardashian's naked butt on display for all to see.

How diseased is it?

[Lord Humungus]

Woman Sprays Man with Mace During AFI Screening

According to an eyewitness account, the man repeatedly told the woman to turn off her cell phone five minutes into the movie. After she refused, the man then reached over the seat and tapped her on the shoulder ("You need to turn off your phone!" he said), causing the woman to stand up, and after a brief exchange, she sprayed him in the face with the self-defense chemical.

"Everyone in the audience was watching in disbelief," the eyewitness said.

The man and his girlfriend quickly left the theater. It's unknown how many other moviegoers also left the festival screening.

[John]

Was her phone making any noise? If not, the guy was an asshole. Regardless, the women committed criminal battery and should have been arrested.

[some guy]

Phones can be bright without being noisy. And if a bright thing is in your line of sight in a dark theatre it can be annoying.

[John]

Okay. If she had some giant android phone and refused to even dim it, than she is the asshole. Regardless, she committed a crime by macing him. But I guess women are now free to assault men whenever they feel like doing so without fear of arrest.

[Matrix]

But I guess women are now free to assault men whenever they feel like doing so without fear of arrest.

If you disagree with their right to assault men, then you're a sexist pig, and you need to check your privilege. /Femderp

[Restoras]

If you click through and read the comments, there is a comment from someone that claimed to be there and yes, indeed, the woman was being a total psycho while the man asking her to turn off her phone was being reasonable.

[Clown Hunter]

If you are texting away during a movie, you are being the asshole and are distracting the other patrons.

I've never been maced, but if I wasn't too incapacitated to break the bitch's nose, I would.

[John]

http://thefederalist.com/2014/.....ge-regret/

More evidence on the perils of sex change operations. These things don't help people and seem to do a lot of harm. People of course should be free to have them. Society and the culture however is making an enormous mistake and engaging in real cruelty by assuming that they are some kind of appropriate cure for people suffering from gender and identity confusion.

[waffles]

If I want to be a sexed-up trollop in the form of a pansexual hedgedemon spawn through genital mutilative surgeries then why shouldn't I? Of course, you should be under no obligation to pay for my transformative proclivities.

[Idle Hands]

Of course, you should be under no obligation to pay for my transformative proclivities.

of course by not paying for your choices I am oppressing your lifestyle and by default a terrible bigot.

[John]

If you are a doctor who looks at the results and says "hey maybe we are not helping these people", you are also a bigot.

[Bobarian (Mr. Xtreme)]

pansexual hedgedemon

Are there pictures? Can I subscribe to the website?

[The DerpRider]

If an adult wants to do it and freaks out, it's on them, and I could give two shits. Seeing the stories about parents doing this to children is sickening.

[John]

I agree. The children part is just evil. And I guarantee you the parents who do it are fucked up Prog parents looking for the attention and street creed of "having a transgendered child". They are just that fucked up.

But, I think the psychologists who recommend these operations are fucking quacks and should be called as much. If people want to do it, I wish them luck. The problem is the "professionals" who are encouraging them and practicing junk science.

[Zeb]

I really don't know much about how people go about deciding to have sex change surgery, but from what I can gather it seems like a lot of psychologists aren't so much recommending the surgery as making sure that people who say they want it really mean it.
I suppose that might still be bad practice for psychologists.

[cavalier973]

It's not really "sex change surgery", unless the doctors are able to somehow change chromosomes. It's "sex organ removal and/or addition" operations.

[Rhywun]

And I guarantee you the parents who do it are fucked up Prog parents looking for the attention and street creed of "having a transgendered child".

Does that really happen outside of an Absolutely Fabulous episode?

[John]

It appears to. How else do you explain such parents?

[Zeb]

Unlike sexual orientation, it is probably appropriate to consider trangenderism, or gender-dysphoria or whatever the clinical term is a disorder. It seems like it would be more appropriate to try to change the mind than the body. Maybe that just doesn't work. People are a lot better at plastic surgery than at psychology.

[cavalier973]

Why are you such a bigot?

[Rhywun]

That's why they have huge amounts of therapy pre-op. If that doesn't help, well what can you do.

[John]

http://nypost.com/2014/11/10/f.....ncy-grace/

Yes, Nancy Grace is the worst person in the known universe not currently a dictator or in prison for killing children.

DENVER ? A man who was quickly branded a "selfie stalker" after his picture turned up on a crime victim's cellphone is suing television commentator Nancy Grace for defamation, saying she refused to stop airing his photo even after authorities had cleared him of any wrongdoing.

I have a friend who is a defense attorney. He was the attorney in one of the cases Grace took an interest in. They asked her to be on her show but refused to do the interview live or promise to air her comments in their entirety. It was just another Daily Show were guests' comments were to be edited to make them look bad.

[Injun, as in from India]

Here's more:

Woman who killed her baby and was dubbed 'Vodka mom' by Nancy Grace dies after setting herself on fire

[some guy]

Can you imagine if she had the power of a Stalin or Mao?

[Catatafish]

Have you seen Gone Girl, yet? Scathing parody of her.

[John]

No. I didn't realize that. She is utterly horrible. The fact that CNN keeps her on the air removes any claim they have at being committed to anything other than making money by any means necessary.

[Catatafish]

The casting is perfect. She (and the mass media generally and the public that laps it up) is completely pilloried in the movie.

It's not for the squeamish but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[John]

http://www.politico.com/story/.....12792.html

Obama is going to go full retard on global warming. I think the GOP needs to shut down the government over this. Stick a rider on the budget stopping this from happening and let Obama shut down the government. This shit is not and never has been popular with the country. The country doesn't care about global warming. Make the Democrats stand up and own this shit by refusing to override the veto. Make this the Obamacare shutdown all over again. Sure the media will spin it as the "evil Republicans shutting down the government". But so what? That didn't hurt the Republicans last time. And this policy is even more harmful and less popular than Obamacare. And do it in the middle of what looks to be a brutally cold winter. If they win, they prevent a lot of harm. But even if they lose and have to back down, they make the Democrats own a total political loser of a policy that they would like to have but blame on Obama. And it would make the 16 Dem nominee choose between nitwit green billionaires' campaign money and defending an extremely unpopular and damaging policy.

[Rich]

The coming rollout includes ? the costliest federal regulation of all time

John, you must admit that would add nicely to O's set of accomplishments.

[John]

I am sure it will. Obama doesn't care. And the Democrats figure that by the time 2016 rolls around the public will forget about the regulations and they will not affect the election.

I think they are delusional. People forget about laws that do harm in hidden ways through their second order effects or do harm that is spread so wide over society no one notices them. These regulations are going to do real harm in ways that can't be hidden or ignored. People notice their electric bills going up. Just like Obamacare, people are not going to forget this in 2016. The Dem nominee is going to be stuck defending them and at a huge handicap in every state outside of California.

[Idle Hands]

They'll be lucky if nobody dies as a direct result of the EPA's recent mandates.

[John]

I would think it is a certainty people will die. Cold kills many more people than heat. And people won't be able to pay their heating bills and there will be many more blackouts during blizzards and ice storms. That will kill a lot of people.

But this is what socialists do; murder people in the name of the collective good. That old person in Chicago who freezes to death for lack of heat can die happy knowing their death makes Tom Steyer feel good. Evil fucking retarded assholes. I really hate these people and the greens the most. They are sick demented people who hate humanity and would happily kill off half the people on earth to build their Utopia.

[Addie Lyn]

If only Republicans had the ability to do something about this when they controlled both elected branches of the federal government. It's not like they could have passed a one sentence bill establishing that the CAA did not cover CO2. Oh wait, they could have done that easily maybe instead of the new Medicare entitlement, NCLB, or the Patriot Act.

They could have stopped this and even done something about regulatory overreach in general, but they didn't and we got Mass. v. EPA and the foreseeable, horrible results.

[John]

They should have done that. That said, the Democrats would have likely undid it when they took back over in 2009.

[Atanarjuat]

Not only does Obama not care about implementing the costliest regulation of all time, I'm sure he sees it as a good thing. Gotta make those seas recede, after all. And sure, it will screw over the D nominee in 2016, but Obama already hates Hillary.

[John]

You are right. He doesn't care. If he leaves office with the Democrats completely out of power, it won't bother him a bit. The threat of that happening won't change or moderate his behavior one bit.

I fear for the country and the harm he is going to do. But I can't help but laugh at the justice that is going to be served to the idiots who foisted this asshole on the country.

[Idle Hands]

It's to late John. The coal plants are being phased and there really isn't anything in the pipe to replace their output. They better hope global warming is real because the price to heat your house will increase dramatically in the next couple of years.

[John]

And the lights are going to go out because the grid is going to get really unreliable and unstable.

And it is not too late. People are not going to tolerate living in the cold so billionaires in California can feel good about themselves. Those coal plants were built once they can be built again.

People in this country are not going to tolerate rolling blackouts and not being able to afford heating their homes. Let this shit go through and you will see the Democrats losing in places they never dreamed they would lose and you will see on environmental law after another be repealed in the resulting chaos.

[Idle Hands]

I is too late in that it takes years to get a power plant online, and they are just knocking plants off the grid left and right. A fix is not going to be able done overnight regardless of how many policies are changed tomorrow.

[John]

But a fix will happen. The socialists think that people will just get used to being poor and cold. They are wrong. People will not tolerate that. They have only tolerated the socialists because the socialists haven't done any real noticeable damage. This will change that.

Think of it this way. The old eastern block was what these assholes want to create here. The electrical grid was horrible and all but the party elite had the ability to heat their homes to any degree of comfort. Once communism fell, that changed. It is the same here. These people will be kicked out of power and regulations repealed and the demand for heat and electricity will cause the utilities to fix the grid. It is not like the electric companies don't want to sell electricity and won't do so if the government will let them.

[Idle Hands]

I'm not saying it won't just the reality of producing a fully functional power plant.

[John]

Yes. They are fucking this country up such that it will take years to fix. My only hope is that Tony is one of the people who freezes to death. The thought of that pig ignorant fucker freezing to death during a blackout on a biter Oklahoma night is quite pleasant even though I know it shouldn't be.

[waffles]

Or in the case of nuclear, a decade to get online, if you're lucky.

[John]

It only takes a decade because the Communist Greens tie it up in Court. The government can fix that.

[Catatafish]

It's not just online but properly taking nukes OFFline. The California Coastal Commission won't even let contractors rebuild the barge necessary to properly decommission San Onofre.

[waffles]

the lights are going to go out

With LEDS I don't see this happening. However, heating is another issue. Miss the old bulbs for that, they were super efficient heaters.

[Auric Demonocles]

Perhaps it's just living in Boston, but people absolutely bought the spin that it was the Republicans shutting down the government, and not the people who refused to pass any bills that funded part of it.

[Auric Demonocles]

Though I don't think those people had any chance of ever voting for a Republican anyway.

[John]

Let them no longer be able to afford to heat their homes or no longer be able to rely on the electrical grid during bad weather, I bet they will change their tune. They only support this shit because they are stupid and think it won't harm them. Let them feel the harm and they will wise up real quick.

[OldMexican]

"28% Reduction of emissions by 2025"

Oh, come on, Mr. president! Michael Douglas promised he would reduce carbon emissions by only 25%! He did it after shagging an environmentalist attorney in The American President. What did they do to you to raise with another 3%?

[Mainer2]

He also said assault weapons and handguns are a national security threat. I love the end of that movie...it's orgasmically derptastic.

[cavalier973]

Bill Clinton: "The American President? What a great movie! There was this guy, who was President...like me! And his wife was dead, and he could go on dates...What a great movie!"

[Lord Humungus]

Driver survives crash into second floor bedroom of Del. home

Cherrington reportedly lost control of his Mitsubishi sedan as he traveled around a bend in the road. He hit three parked cars, launching the sedan into the air upon impact around 6 p.m. on Sunday.

"He went airborne and end-over-end, because he went backwards into the second floor bedroom," homeowner Linda Brizendine explains to 6 ABC Actions News, about the damage to her renovated barn home.

[Elspeth Flashman]

You think?

It's unethical for prosecutors to lend out letterhead to debt collectors, ABA opinion says

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

[OldMexican]

Wait, so it's unethical?

I'll be right back...

[Runs out the door in a hurry]

[John]

The ABA is just a professional organization. They are not the same as the state bars. It is the state bars and only the state bars who can actually do something about this. Sadly, they are unlikely to do anything. Unless and until you start disbarring DAs who do this, it won't matter. Hell, DAs who put innocent people in jail for decades by suppressing exculpatory evidence don't lose their bar licenses.

[Elspeth Flashman]

You're right but this ABA opinion will matter to some people (though it should matter to more).

[UnCivilServant]

Huh.

Our 'Letterhead' is a template stored in the printer that data gets fed into at print time. There's no physical paper for us to loan out anymore.

[Zeb]

That would make it even easier to "lend out", I'd think.

[CatoTheElder]

The NYT website publishes an example of such a letter:

http://www.nytimes.com/interac.....f=business

It's really no sleazier than the asset forfeiture scam, larding up charges to coerce a guilty plea, or fabricating evident.

In other words, it's just what we've come to expect from the US "justice" system.

[OldMexican]

Jonathan Gruber?the MIT professor and Obamacare supporter who thanked the stupidity of the American voter and lack of transparency in D.C. for creating the environment that allowed the Affordable Care Act to pass?is unsurprisingly trying to walk back those comments.

And the little red Marxian pundits and Demo-rats on Cable News Tee Vee are, unsurprisingly, trying their best at misdirection and obfuscation with a very similar argument: "But look! Look at all the lovely benefits it gave us!"

[Injun, as in from India]

It was merely a Noble Lie, comrade!

[Catatafish]

I piss on your means, just look at the ends!

[Catatafish]

On second thought, don't look to hard at the ends either...

[straffinrun]

Damn, I already clicked on the Kardashian link.

[Ken Shultz]

"U.S. and Chinese diplomats reached an agreement on curbing their respective countries' carbon emissions.

...

As part of the agreement, Mr. Obama announced that the United States would emit 26 percent to 28 percent less carbon in 2025 than it did in 2005. That is double the pace of reduction it targeted for the period from 2005 to 2020."

I'll look forward to seeing that in the Senate.

The Chinese must think Obama is an idiot. I wonder what he promised them in exchange?

[John]

How could they not know he is an idiot? Obama is by any measure the most foolish and stupid person to hold the White House in a very long time. There hasn't been a single thing he hasn't completely fucked up and not a single dealing with another world leader where that leader hasn't played him for the stupid chump he is.

[Ken Shultz]

But the Chinese aren't stupid. You don't give Obama something like that without getting something in return.

So what did he give them? What did he promise them?

[John]

God only knows. And it is also a completely empty promise. IF the Chinese don't do anything to meet it, what are the repercussions?

I have no doubt however that Obama is so narcissistic and stupid he thinks the Chinese are somehow really bound to this and would never lie to him. He is just pathetic.

[Sevo]

"So what did he give them? What did he promise them?"

Hours and hours of laugh-filled merriment!

[straffinrun]

Maybe Obama's been reading Zerohedge. More of a prediction than a promise.

[Lord Humungus]

I've been reading No Man's Land: 1918, the Last Year of the Great War by John Toland. It goes in-depth of the political infighting and the military battles. Lots of detail about how the Allies almost got broken by the Gertmans Michael offensive. Good first person accounts - on both sides - of the WW1 battle.

[John]

The US infusion of manpower saved their asses. The US was putting divisions into battle that had 20,000 men. It canceled out the German advantage from ending the war in the East.

The other thing is the Germans really got their shit together in 1918 and started to figure out combined arms and how to properly attack a trench line. The German storm troopers of the Michael offensive were nothing but the rifle squads of World War II.

In retrospect, you have to wonder if the wrong side won. Had the US not gotten involved or better yet Britain never gotten involved, the result would have been France being finished as a world power, which they were anyway, and perhaps Russia suffering a quick defeat rather than a long painful one so that maybe the Communists wouldn't have been able to take over. And Britain and the US would have emerged untouched as the dominant world powers serving as a counter weight to a nasty but not evil Germany. That seems like a better result than what we got.

[UnCivilServant]

You didn't address the Austrians and the Ottomans - the breakup of those empires had some pretty nasty knock-on effects (moreso the Ottomans)

[John]

You are right. We wouldn't have the idiotic map of the middle east we have today. Had the British never gotten involved, likely the Turks would have stayed out of it. It would have been a regional war where Germany, Russia and France settled who was going to be the dominant power on the continent. Still a disaster but nothing like the world catastrophe it actually was.

[UnCivilServant]

I don't think the Ottoman Empire had long to live anyway, but it would have fractured along more relevent lines when it did.

[KDN]

I'm curious to know what would have happened to Austria. My bet is a confederation under a single crown with multiple parliaments, kind of like a condensed version of the British Commonwealth. Either way, there's no way it stays completely unified, it was ready to burst apart 50 years before the war began.

[John]

Worst case some nasty ethnic civil wars resulting from its eventual breakup like what happened in post communist Yugoslavia. Again bad but not as bad as what happened.

[Free Society]

I'm curious to know what would have happened to Austria. My bet is a confederation under a single crown with multiple parliaments, kind of like a condensed version of the British Commonwealth. Either way, there's no way it stays completely unified, it was ready to burst apart 50 years before the war began.

Crown Prince Ferdinand, before his assassination carried a faction of the nobility that supported a 'federated' Austrian Empire with each 'nation' enjoying it's own autonomy. As a matter of fact there was a move to turn Austria into a federation, resisted by the Emperor, but embraced by the younger generation of would-be rulers.

[The Laconic]

Tell that to John Yoo.

[Lord Humungus]

When you have a chance, check out Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History" podcast. I'm listening to "Blueprint for Armageddon" where he argues that Gavrilo Princip - a complete unknown - had a greater impact on the past century than anyone else. Long but detailed.
http://www.dancarlin.com/produ.....ageddon-i/

[WTF]

He did have a vast impact, but Europe was a powder keg waiting to go off anyway. If Princip didn't light the fuse, something else would have.

[CatoTheElder]

Carlin's podcasts are very entertaining for a long drive. The guy has a knack for recounting history like a story-teller.

[WTF]

Sure, if there's no US intervention, then no decisive defeat of Germany, no Treaty of Versailles, no punitive war reparations, no Nazis, no Hitler, etc. etc.

[Clown Hunter]

I don't think the American entry into the war had any effect on the Russian front and their surrender, so I think the Commies taking over was baked in regardless.

What would Western Europe have looked like? I really don't have a clue.

[CatoTheElder]

If by "Commies" you include all Social Democrat factions, you're probably right. But the success of the Bolsheviks in particular was by no means certain. The effects of the Great War in its final stages contributed to Lenin's seizure and consolidation of power.

[Free Society]

In fact the German Kaiser facilitated Lenin's rise with financial and technological support to his little army. The Great War didn't just contribute to his seizure of power, it could not have been possible without it.

[Agammamon]

Hmm, gee. A couple of days ago I was lambasted for saying that the US' entry into WWI (and support for fascism and interference during the inter-war years) laid the groundwork for WWII.

Becaause something something and free will and all.

[Mike M.]

South and East: Get ready for the icebox.

Arctic air will plunge toward the South and East on Wednesday and Thursday, after as much as 2 feet of record-breaking snow buried portions of the upper Midwest.

Temperatures only made it into the single digits, teens and 20s Tuesday across much of the north-central U.S. ? 20 to 40 degrees below average for many areas, the National Weather Service said.

Wind chills were as cold as minus 20 in parts of western Montana. By Wednesday morning, wind chills could drop to minus 35 in some spots ? low enough to cause frostbite in 10 minutes.

Weather service meteorologist Paul Kocin said the cold air will reach the Appalachians to mid-South by Wednesday morning and then hit the East Coast by Thursday morning. The East Coast will see cooler temperatures but be spared from the dramatic lows in the middle of the country, Kocin said.

Freezing temperatures are still possible in parts of the South and East, AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said.

The heaviest snow fell across Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Ishpeming in northern Michigan picked up 24.5 inches of snow as of late Tuesday afternoon, the highest total from the storm so far, according to the weather service.

Two feet of snow on Veterans Day?? Man, that "global warming" is really something.

[Restoras]

I hope that means a great ski season in VT.

[Elspeth Flashman]

I have some relatives that are north of Ispheming. So I assume they were treated to the same or worse (Keewenaw peninsula- that tiny finger of the UP that extends into Lake Superior).

[The DerpRider]

My kids saw the snow and were terribly excited. I started shopping for a new snowthrower. Luckily only flurries in the thumb.

[Pope Jimbo]

Posted to the wiki page for this yesterday, but here is a cool video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QccI2GeLvk

The Armistice Day Blizzard in 1940 killed 150 people or so. Day started out nice and by nightfall had turned to snow and dumped a foot or more of snow.

[Rhywun]

The picture is probably photoshopped, but you're not still reading these words, are you?

No, I'm throwing up in my mouth.

[The Laconic]

It's really not very good, even photoshopped to hell.

[Idle Hands]

Zits or dingle-berries?

[Redmanfms]

Disgusting cottage cheese ass, they didn't fully photoshop out the lumpy "90 pounds of chewed bubblegum" look her ass has.

Apparently black guys love cellulite.

[Clown Hunter]

Zits with dingleberries.

DO NOT CLICK.

[John]

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014.....tic-party/

An African American lawmaker ? a Democrat ? is charging the Ohio Democratic Party and chairman Chris Redfern with racism and defamation in a lawsuit filed this week, telling reporters there is a "plantation mentality" in the party that treats black lawmakers as a monolithic voting bloc.

White liberals are some of the worst racists there are. The worst conservative racist might not want to marry or live next to a black person but they are at worst ambivalent about how black people do in society. White liberals' entire world view and sense of identity in contrast depends upon blacks remaining poor and unsuccessful

[sarcasmic]

If you want to see blacks succeed on their own, then you are racist for denying the fact that blacks are inferior and unable to succeed without a helping white hand! Duh!

[Zeb]

That's pretty awesome.

[lap83]

Liberals tend to just hate everyone.

[Sevo]

"Paper magazine attempted to "break the internet" "

Leave it to Obo; he'll manage.

[Lord Humungus]

U.S. states' pot legalization not in line with international law: U.N. agency

"I don't see how (the new laws) can be compatible with existing conventions," Yury Fedotov, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told reporters.

Asked whether there was anything the UNODC could do about it, Fedotov said he would raise the problem next week with the U.S. State Department and other U.N. agencies.

[The_Millenial]

I'm assuming that the United States likely played a big role in designing these international rules/conventions in the first place.

[Doghouse Riley Jr.]

Yes, the US was the main driving force to make the UN anti-cannabis.

[Free Society]

It's no coincidence that world-wide cannabis illegality coincides largely with American cannabis illegality. The US federal government is an enemy of freedom everywhere.

[Clown Hunter]

I can hardly wait to see the usual tranzis who are generally all "International Law uber alles!" but also support legal pot square this circle.

[Idle Hands]

hahaha. We are the UN.

[Zeb]

Seems like a treaty that requires states to have particular criminal laws is pretty suspect constitutionally.

[Juice]

Nope. Treaties are, in conjunction with the Constitution, the supreme law of the land.

[WTF]

"I don't see how (the new laws) can be compatible with existing conventions," Yury Fedotov,...told reporters.

How many divisions does he have?

[Notorious G.K.C.]

We can denounce (unratify) the treaty, like (Bolivia?) did - perfectly legal.

[Bobarian (Mr. Xtreme)]

If we unratify it, consider it fully unratified.

[Lord Humungus]

Now this is the work of a true master negotiator like Obama:

The big headline coming out of the second summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama is a climate agreement the two sides reached about cutting carbon emissions in the coming decades. News stories have used sweeping language like the "historic climate change agreement" to describe the deal.

This seems to greatly exaggerate the significance of the deal, at least from the perspective of China. In fact, in the agreement Beijing simply reiterates commitments it had previously announced.

http://thediplomat.com/2014/11.....mate-deal/

[cavalier973]

Well; this has been a most entertaining and informative Morning Links.

[Free Society]

"I don't see how (the new laws) can be compatible with existing conventions,"

I don't see how the existing conventions can be compatible with human freedom and all the naturally valid laws that protect it.

[Juice]

Freedom gets to say FYTW for once.