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Immigrants Have Mixed Feelings Over Obama's Announcement, Everybody Sues the President, Plague Is the Disease of the Week: P.M. Links

J.D. Tuccille | 11.21.2014 4:30 PM

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Large image on homepages | Maricopa County Sheriff's Office
(Maricopa County Sheriff's Office)
  • Sheriff Joe Arpaio
    Maricopa County Sheriff's Office

    Many immigrants are happy about the president's announcement of temporary amnesty for some, but the limited nature of what the guy can do on his own leaves them wishing for more.

  • House Republicans filed suit against President Obama, alleging he overstepped his executive authority in implementing the Affordable Care Act. Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio filed suit against President Obama, alleging he overstepped his executive authority by extending temporary amnesty to some illegal immigrants. Can't a man take some unilateral action without getting his chops busted?
  • Darren Wilson, the police officer under grand jury investigation for shooting Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, is reportedly negotiating his resignation with city officials. And, probably, planning to move very far away. Polling says black and white Americans view the case very differently.
  • Britain's UKIP picked up another seat in Parliament, putting a bit of a crimp in the major parties' plans. The Euroskeptic party looks forward to even bigger gains.
  • The Aereo videostreaming service filed for bankruptcy—a not unexpected development just months after the company got thumped in a Supreme Court decision.
  • From Madagascar comes word of an outbreak of…bubonic plague? Cinematically horrifying diseases please take a number and wait until you're called.

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

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  1. Fist of Etiquette   11 years ago

    …but the limited nature of what the guy can do on his own leaves them wishing for more.

    Collectivists. Maybe they ARE all Democrats!

    1. Riesen   11 years ago

      Damn you, Fist! I thought for sure I’d beat you.

      1. Medical Physics Guy   11 years ago

        In the Reason comments it’s always UFC 1, and Fist is Royce Gracie.

      2. Mickey Rat   11 years ago

        And that is why you fail.

    2. Rufus J. Firefly   11 years ago

      “Polling says black and white Americans view the case very differently.”

      So racist.

      Hello.

      1. Fist of Etiquette   11 years ago

        At thirty-one past the hour? I don’t think so.

        1. The_Millenial   11 years ago

          And that is why they call you Double Fist

          1. Fist of Etiquette   11 years ago

            Glitch in the Matrix. Firefly’s hop-on wasn’t there when I replied.

            1. The_Millenial   11 years ago

              Double Fist, whatever you say

              1. Fist of Etiquette   11 years ago

                Watch it. Two fists = no waiting.

                1. The_Millenial   11 years ago

                  Matt Welch and The Independents will protect me.

                  1. Fist of Etiquette   11 years ago

                    Good luck with that. Tonight’s is a PRETAPE.

                    1. The_Millenial   11 years ago

                      They’re always on duty.

        2. Rufus J. Firefly   11 years ago

          Civility has NO STATUES OF LIMITATION.

          1. T   11 years ago

            Aren’t statues, by nature, pretty limited? At least mobility-wise.

            1. HeteroPatriarch   11 years ago

              The ones in Zelda had those badass eye lasers to compensate for it.

      2. Injun, as in from India   11 years ago

        Yeah. No one gives a hoot about how the brown or yellow ones view the case.

  2. Riesen   11 years ago

    Polling says black and white Americans view the case very differently.

    They said it was for the black man,
    They said it was for the Mexican,
    And not for the white man,
    But if you look at the street,
    It wasn’t about [Michael Brown],
    It’s this fucked up situation and these fucked up police.
    It’s about coming up, and stayin’ on top,
    And screamin’ 1-8-7 on a mother fuckin’ cop…

    1. Zeb   11 years ago

      Word. It wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t so many people convinced that it is about Michael Brown.
      Anger toward the police is quite understandable, but for heaven’s sake, pick a more sympathetic poster boy.

      1. SERENITY NOW!   11 years ago

        poster boy

        RACIST!

      2. Idle Hands   11 years ago

        I’m pretty cynical about this whole thing. I think they pick the poster boys to be thugs on purpose to further identity politics and further divide us. as shown by how they could literally find a million different black victims that everybody could sympathize with instead they pick the Trayvon Martins, Michael Browns, and Rodney Kings of the world, scumbags all.

        1. Root Boy   11 years ago

          Maybe Al Sharpton should be the poster boy.

        2. Zeb   11 years ago

          I’ve tried to resist thinking that way about things, because I am a nice guy or something and don’t like to assume the worst about people.

          But more and more I start to suspect that you are right.

  3. Fist of Etiquette   11 years ago

    Can’t a man take some unilateral action without getting his chops busted?

    You know who else was a decider?

    1. Notorious G.K.C.   11 years ago

      Two-face, after flipping his coin?

    2. Warren's Strapon   11 years ago

      Jim Webb?

    3. Idle Hands   11 years ago

      The Terminator?

    4. HeteroPatriarch   11 years ago

      George W. Bush?

  4. SERENITY NOW!   11 years ago

    Now e-cigarettes can give you malware

    Better for your lungs, worse for your hard drives, e-cigarettes can potentially infect a computer if plugged in to charge

    http://www.theguardian.com/tec…..-computers

    1. Ted S.   11 years ago

      The moral panic over e-cigs would be hilarious if these people weren’t actively trying to empower the state.

      1. Medical Physics Guy   11 years ago

        The UK is just freaking out, banning it everywhere. Even though some health officials have spoken up to say the population would be a lot healthier if all smokers switched to vaping

        1. paranoid android   11 years ago

          It’s strange, there seems to be broad public support for treating vaping is the equivalent of smoking (i.e. ban it everywhere) but whenever I ask specific people about it they always seem to agree that the rationale makes no sense.

          There doesn’t seem to be any logic behind it at all other than “smokers are icky and things that remind me that they exist should be removed from my sight so as not to offend my delicate sensibilities”.

          Then again there was a lady vaping quite openly on the train this morning and nobody so much as batted an eyelash.

          1. Medical Physics Guy   11 years ago

            It doesn’t bother anyone. I remember people vaping at the airport gate, waiting in the EasyJet line, in the earlist days before the busybodies started sinking their hooks in.

            1. paranoid android   11 years ago

              But where does the support/political drive for these types of bans come from? I mean, the public health crusaders are the logical suspect, but as you said, most health officials are probably intelligent enough to realize that going after a safe and easy alternative to smoking hurts rather than helps their aims.

              Someone’s gotta have a financial stake in outlawing vaping…could it trace back to the tobacco companies themselves?

              1. HeteroPatriarch   11 years ago

                Someone’s gotta have a financial stake in outlawing vaping…

                NIH, CDC, HHS…

        2. Cytotoxic   11 years ago

          How easy or hard is it to incognito vape? Surely they should design an easily hidden e-cig.

          1. Zeb   11 years ago

            I know of at least one company who made a version without the light on the end at the request of someone who was in the Army in Iraq. That’s a start.

            What they should really so is make one that looks like a coffee cup or something else that you might frequently make mouth contact with.

          2. SERENITY NOW!   11 years ago

            Google “stealth vaporizer”

            1. Jerryskids   11 years ago

              I would suggest an asthma inhaler, but how long before somebody with an asthma inhaler gets taken out by a SWAT team over-reacting to the threat of a deadly e-cigarette?

      2. PapayaSF   11 years ago

        It reminds me of how, decades ago, some maker of alcohol thought: “Hey, since one reason alcohol is bad for you is that it depletes vitamins, we’ll add those vitamins to our products, and make them healthier!” Sorry, Charlie, but the federal position is that drinking is bad, and so anything that makes drinking less bad is also bad, because it detracts from the message that drinking is bad.

        That, and the attitude toward e-cigs, is the logical equivalent of arguing against condoms because sex can transmit disease, and condoms send the message that sex is safe, and so should not be promoted.

        1. Zeb   11 years ago

          Yeah, you see a lot of that. You also can’t advertise the fact that some tobacco products are less harmful than others, even though it’s true.

          There is a neat kind of oral tobacco preparation common in Sweden called snus which apparently doesn’t cause cancer (and doesn’t make you drool excessively, so it’s far less gross than normal chewing tobacco).

          1. HeteroPatriarch   11 years ago

            They sell Snus here too. They’re awesome for hunting and fishing.

            1. jesse.in.mb   11 years ago

              Non-smokers should not make out with someone who is currently snus-ing.

              That’s a lesson learned the hard way.

    2. Zeb   11 years ago

      Is someone making smart e-cigs that use something other than the 5 V on a USB port?

      1. Medical Physics Guy   11 years ago

        I only vape HDMI

      2. Stormy Dragon   11 years ago

        It’s a flaw in the firmware for most USB controller chips that makes any USB device a potential malware vector, even a cable:

        BadUSB: Big, bad USB security problems ahead:

        Nohl and Lell have discovered that USB controller chips’ firmware offer no protection from reprogramming. Using a set of proof-of-concept tools they call BadUSB, they claim that an ordinary USB device, even a thumb drive, can be used to compromise computers in the following ways:
        ?A device can emulate a keyboard and issue commands on behalf of the logged-in user, for example to exfiltrate files or install malware. Such malware, in turn, can infect the controller chips of other USB devices connected to the computer.
        ?The device can also spoof a network card and change the computer’s DNS setting to redirect traffic.
        ?A modified thumb drive or external hard disk can ? when it detects that the computer is starting up ? boot a small virus, which infects the computer’s operating system prior to boot.

        1. Carl ?s the level   11 years ago

          No, the original report never specifies that it’s BadUSB, nor is there any reason to believe it is.

          The Guardian piece doesn’t suggest it is, either; it refers to it as “Even more concerning”.

        2. Zeb   11 years ago

          Oh yeah, I did hear about that.

          But for a device to give you malware would need to have some intelligence built in to the e-cig or cable that gives you the malware.

          1. Stormy Dragon   11 years ago

            If the device can power itself from any USB port, then it still requries a controller chip to negotiate with the hub:

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Power

            There is a USB charging spec that allows for a completely dumb charging port, but such devices would only work with HUBS that specifically offer a charging port.

            1. Zeb   11 years ago

              Hmm. I thought the power was just on. Maybe that’s just the strangely implemented USB ports I’ve been working with lately.

              Better use one of those phone charger wall warts with the USB plug to charge your e-cig then.

              1. Stormy Dragon   11 years ago

                The problem is that the USB hub itself may be unpowered, so if a USB device could just start sucking as much power as it wanted without warning, it could cause other devices on the same hub to be underpowered. So outside a dedicated charging port, the USB device initially only gets 100 mA and ask the hub for more if it wants more current.

  5. Virginian   11 years ago

    Can someone catch me up on all the inside jokes and stuff I’ve missed?

    1. Rich   11 years ago

      Oh, hi, Virginian!

      Here ya go.

    2. The Laconic   11 years ago

      STEVE SMITH
      8%
      gamboling

      Now you’re all caught up.

      1. SERENITY NOW!   11 years ago

        Weed, Mexicans and Buttsex.

    3. The Laconic   11 years ago

      STEVE SMITH
      8%
      Officer am I free to gambol?
      This is why Virginia Postrel hates us.

      There you go.

    4. Injun, as in from India   11 years ago

      President Obama’s insides are made of the stuff of jokes.

    5. The Laconic   11 years ago

      What difference, at this point, does it make?

    6. Ted S.   11 years ago

      I never noticed you were away.

  6. Slammer   11 years ago

    NYPD rookie fatally shoots unarmed man

    Peter Liang and his partner, Shaun Landau, also a rookie, entered at the eighth floor at the Pink Houses at 2724 Linden Blvd. about 11:15 p.m. when 28-year-old victim Akai Gurley entered from the seventh floor with his girlfriend ? startling the cops, police sources said.
    Liang fired one shot into Gurley’s chest from about 10 to 12 feet away, sending him tumbling down to the fifth floor, where he collapsed, sources said. He later told other cops it was an “accidental shooting,” sources said.

    During a press conference Friday, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton described the incident as an “accident” that was the result of a “pitch black” stairway.
    “As the officers were entering the eighth-floor landing, the lights were not operable,” he said. “Everything points to accidental discharge.”

    The officers had traveled to the eighth floor on the elevator and were about to make their way to the roof when they noticed the lights were out, resulting in Liang drawing his gun

    We leave that decision to the officers based on what they are encountering or what they may encounter,” Bratton said. “But as in all cases, an officer would have to justify the reasoning for unholstering his firearm.”

    Bratton explained that Gurley had lost his life because of an unfortunate “coincidence.”

    1. The DerpRider   11 years ago

      WTF??? Does he pull his gun ever time he turns off a light when he leaves a room?

      1. Virginian   11 years ago

        The muzzle flash can be used to illuminate.

        1. PapayaSF   11 years ago

          I laughed.

    2. Jerry on the sea   11 years ago

      Needs more adjectives.

    3. LynchPin1477   11 years ago

      Maybe people who are afraid of the dark shouldn’t become cops?

    4. Ted S.   11 years ago

      Peter Liang and his partner, Shaun Landau, also a rookie, entered at the eighth floor at the Pink Houses at 2724 Linden Blvd.

      Ain’t that America, something to see?

      1. mauricegirodias   11 years ago

        +1 for you and me.

    5. Anonymous Coward   11 years ago

      “Most Cops Never Fire Their Guns!” And Other Bullshit Sold to the Public.

      1. Ted S.   11 years ago

        The guns go off by themselves.

    6. LynchPin1477   11 years ago

      Both officers were treated for tinnitus at Jamaica Hospital, authorities said.

      Get them some disability pay, stat!

    7. Rufus J. Firefly   11 years ago

      Great now there are cops afraid of dogs and the dark. What’s next? Their own shadows?

      1. Injun, as in from India   11 years ago

        Tell them there is an alien sitting on their hypothalamus that needs to be shot, and that the easiest bullet trajectory would be through their mouth.

      2. HeteroPatriarch   11 years ago

        Shadows are awfully dark.

    8. SERENITY NOW!   11 years ago

      The officers had traveled to the eighth floor on the elevator and were about to make their way to the roof when they noticed the lights were out, resulting in Liang drawing his gun

      I seem to recall cops having flashlights.

      1. paranoid android   11 years ago

        Apparently all cops get the same training the guy from Doom 3 did.

    9. Notorious G.K.C.   11 years ago

      Holy crap, this sounds like Uncle Duke in Doonesbury, softening up a room with his gun before he enters.

      1. Notorious G.K.C.   11 years ago

        And how come this incident involves apparently the only two non-Irish cops in the NYPD?

    10. The Laconic   11 years ago

      Huh. I could have sworn the term for this was “negligent discharge”.

      1. Andrew S.   11 years ago

        For a non-officer, the term, at the very least, would be “involuntary manslaughter”.

    11. GILMORE   11 years ago

      “they noticed the lights were out, resulting in Liang drawing his gun”

      (FACEPALM)

      scared of the dark? Join the NYPD! we’ll give you a gun, and that way the boogeyman won’t eat you.

    12. Root Boy   11 years ago

      NYPD still use Glocks with the crappy trigger job?

      Either way, hope the douche rookie has a shitty life.

    13. Frank Frankelson   11 years ago

      This cannot be, I have it on good authority that the excitable rookie cop is always paired with a grizzled veteran cop.[1]

      [1] Every cop movie from circa 1980-1995.

      1. Mickey Rat   11 years ago

        Danny Glover is too old for that shit,

    14. Whahappan?   11 years ago

      Procedures were followed, totality of circs, full and open investigation to follow, blue collar heroes, bigoratti, case law, hth.

      Smooches!

      Oh, and he got what he deserved! Ha ha!

  7. Pl?ya Manhattan.   11 years ago

    Question: Did Obama actually DO anything other than give a speech?

    1. John   11 years ago

      He signed a memo, which is something similiar to an exectutive order. Meanwhile, apparently illegal immigrants rather than thanking him are not happy with his benovolence.

      Being father to the nation is forever a thankless job I guess.

      1. Rich   11 years ago

        A “memo”? To whom?

        1. John   11 years ago

          DHS and DOJ ordering them to do this.

          1. Rich   11 years ago

            Linky?

            1. John   11 years ago

              Google it.

        2. The Laconic   11 years ago

          To everybody. It was about the TPS reports.

          1. HeteroPatriarch   11 years ago

            We’ll get you another copy of the memo.

      2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   11 years ago

        A memo is beneath an EO isn’t it?

        1. John   11 years ago

          Yes

          1. Jerry on the sea   11 years ago

            Obama is just trolling Holder to see him off with one last Congressional testimony gone awry.

      3. MJGreen   11 years ago

        Obama just hasn’t explained himself well enough to the ignorant immigrants. If only they understood the good he’s done.

    2. Rufus J. Firefly   11 years ago

      He juggled some balls.

    3. Cytotoxic   11 years ago

      Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing

  8. paranoid android   11 years ago

    From Madagascar comes word of an outbreak of…bubonic plague? Cinematically horrifying diseases please take a number and wait until you’re called.

    This would never have happened if President Madagascar was still in charge there!

    1. Ted S.   11 years ago

      It wouldn’t have happened either if they had put up a border fence.

    2. Medical Physics Guy   11 years ago

      Or if Chris Rock as a zebra was still living there?

  9. PapayaSF   11 years ago

    Help Me, I’m a Mom Who Became Trapped in Trending Headlines and Then It Changed the Way I Thought of Life

    I Thought I Was Just Reading an Article About Cats and Now This Person Exists in a Nightmare of Headlines. 5 Ways This Curse of Headlines Made Me Rethink Reading Articles on the Internet. Now I Am Stuck Here in Headline Hell. My Reaction Will Bring Tears to This Cop’s Eyes.

    Please, Help Me, This is Not a Joke is What One Mom Thought Going In. But This Trans Teen Taught Her a New Way to Think About Her Body Existing As an Idea In a Headline. 6 Ways These Headlines Will Drive You Slowly Insane. They’re Not The Ways You Were Told in School.

    1. Ted S.   11 years ago

      LOL!

    2. Mickey Rat   11 years ago

      No “weird trick”?

      1. PapayaSF   11 years ago

        I noticed that, too. An odd omission.

  10. Fist of Etiquette   11 years ago

    Polling says black and white Americans view the case very differently.

    But it is black and white, right?

    1. Root Boy   11 years ago

      They forgot to poll the grey Americans

    2. MJGreen   11 years ago

      All I know is my gut says maybe.

      1. seguin   11 years ago

        With enemies you know where they stand but with Neutrals, who knows? It sickens me.

  11. flye   11 years ago

    These PM Links look suspiciously like a rehash of already posted stories.

    1. SIV   11 years ago

      You can’t hire good editors these days.

    2. Warren's Strapon   11 years ago

      They look a lot like the headlines I saw on Google News.

  12. Rich   11 years ago

    In a Gallup survey last year, nearly one-fourth of black men in the 18 to 34 age range said they had been treated unfairly by police in the past month.

    But “the police” includes NSA, right?

  13. Slammer   11 years ago

    Bandits in Guinea steal blood samples believed to be infected with Ebola

    It was a highway robbery but the bandits got more than they bargained for when they stopped a taxi in Guinea and made off with blood samples that are believed to be infected with the deadly Ebola virus.

    Authorities publicly appealed on national radio Friday to the unidentified robbers to hand over the samples that were stolen from the taxi during its 265-kilometre (165-mile) trek on winding rural roads from the central Kankan prefecture to a test site in southern Gueckedou.

    1. The DerpRider   11 years ago

      Well, we haven’t heard from Spectre lately…

      1. Winston   11 years ago

        1983 is a long time…

    2. paranoid android   11 years ago

      The samples, stored in tightly wrapped vials tucked into a cooler bag, were in the care of a Red Cross courier who was among nine passengers sharing a taxi when three bandits on a motorbike led the attack near the town of Kissidougou, a local Red Cross official said.

      I’m trying very hard to restrain myself from diminishing the seriousness of this situation with jokes about how incredibly farcical this situation sounds.

    3. Injun, as in from India   11 years ago

      This is going to parallel those idiots in Brazil who stole radioactive waste from a hospital.

      1. Root Boy   11 years ago

        Same thought I had – they broke open the heavily shielded container from a radiation machine and spread the insides all over some village – lots of dead and dying.

        I would say Africa wins again, but that would be in poor taste.

  14. Fist of Etiquette   11 years ago

    The Aereo videostreaming service filed for bankruptcy?a not unexpected development just months after the company got thumped in a Supreme Court decision.

    Entrepreneurship is no match for ATTORNEYS!

  15. Palin's Buttplug   11 years ago

    GOP idiots introduce bill to “defund” Obama’s plan to do nothing about deportations:

    Reps. Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Diane Black (R-Tenn.) have introduced legislation to prohibit funding to implement President Obama’s executive action on immigration.

    Their bill, titled The Separation of Powers Act, would block the use of funds for deferring deportations of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally or providing work permits.

    ….

    However, it is unclear if congressional Republicans can actually defund the executive action, given that the agency that processes work permits, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, is funded through application fees and not subject to the appropriations process.

    http://thehill.com/blogs/floor…..tt.twitter

    1. Andrew S.   11 years ago

      You guys know that “herp derp” extension for YouTube comments, where it changes all YouTube comments to “herp derp”?

      Can whoever programs Reasonable write something like that for Shreek’s comments?

      1. HeteroPatriarch   11 years ago

        What would it change?

        1. seguin   11 years ago

          Shorter comment load time.

    2. Jerry on the sea   11 years ago

      It’s a good thing they can only apply to the President’s Fairy Green Card.

  16. Anonymous Coward   11 years ago

    HuffPaint Writes About Libertarians and Immigration with Minimal Derp

    It’s becoming clear to political observers that libertarians are emerging as a key swing vote, if not an official party. Republicans may have won a number of close races by appealing to these libertarians, so their views on policy cannot be ignored.

    Figuring out those libertarian views on immigration are therefore very important in the wake of President Barack Obama’s primetime speech announcing his executive order on immigration.

    So I contacted Alex Nowrasteh for that policy perspective. He’s the immigration policy analyst for the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. We met at the Association for Private Enterprise Education annual meeting in Las Vegas in the Spring of 2014.

    Q. What is your reaction to the executive order. Is it a good plan?
    A. Viewed narrowly from the policy perspective only, the President’s executive order improves policy, will lead to wage and economic growth, and decreases the humanitarian harm done by our restrictive immigration policy.

    No mention of insidious KOCHTOPUS plots to turn Guatemalans into Soylent Green? Improvement.

    1. John   11 years ago

      When it comes to immigration, Libertarians get let into the party as long as they don’t say anything and leave before ten o’clock using the BACK DOOR.

      The Reason staff lead tough lives.

      1. The_Millenial   11 years ago

        John, I commented on this yesterday, but wasn’t able to get your input. Sometimes, I get a strange feeling that you would like to hate fuck Obama using the BACK DOOR.

        1. John   11 years ago

          No thanks. I prefer my catchers to be less dorky.

          1. The_Millenial   11 years ago

            So Joe Biden is more up your alley? Looking for the cool older guy.

            1. Idle Hands   11 years ago

              How could anybody hate fuck Biden? He’s like that lovable goofy stoner that people keep around in high school because he’s funny in group settings but definitely not tolerable one on one.

              1. The_Millenial   11 years ago

                Hey, it would take a lot, but the hate for the Obama Administration is strong in John. It needs to be released somehow. How about Josh Earnest?

            2. John Titor   11 years ago

              Hell, I don’t think anyone actually hates Joe Biden anymore. Sure, back in the day he was a real sonofabitch, but nowadays he’s just a wacky guy with brain damage and a big mouth.

      2. Zeb   11 years ago

        Cocktail party, woo!

        I’m going to go all purist, no-true-Scotsman here for a minute:

        The libertarian position on immigration is open borders.

        I’m not saying that the people here who argue against that are bad people or bigots or anything. But the arguments against are not libertarian at all. They are utilitarian. I will call them “meta-libertarian”, meaning unlibertarian policies which are proposed to help bring about a more libertarian government in one country.

        1. grrizzly   11 years ago

          Or, perhaps, some libertarians because they lived or traveled abroad are aware that people in general are not very libertarian. The relative prominence of libertarian sentiment in the US is rather an exception and not a universal rule.

          1. paranoid android   11 years ago

            Or, perhaps, some libertarians because they lived or traveled abroad are aware that people in general are not very libertarian. The relative prominence of libertarian sentiment in the US is rather an exception and not a universal rule

            You’re just proving Zeb’s point. If more immigration is bad for liberty because Mexicans aren’t libertarians, the implication is that there would be no opposition to looser immigration policy if Mexico was famous as an anarcho-capitalist enclave.

            The argument is then not rooted in a principled stance on the right of individuals to move and seek employment as they choose, but a utilitarian calculation about what best advances libertarian-esque policies on one side of the border.

            In other words, exactly what Zeb said.

            1. grrizzly   11 years ago

              I never claimed to be a doctrinaire libertarian. I’d rather call myself a freedom-loving person. Being na?ve and idealistic is not something I aspire to be. But it’s okay when you’re young.

              1. Zeb   11 years ago

                All I’m saying is don’t claim that restricting immigration is a libertarian policy.

                I also happen to think that more open immigration is a more beneficial policy for the country as a whole, but that is a practical matter of fact which can’t be settled until we actually try a different policy and see what happens. And I’d say I’m more cynical (in the original sense) and idealistic than naif and idealistic.

                1. grrizzly   11 years ago

                  I do not support restricting immigration. However, I don’t think that overturning the rule of law is necessarily justified whenever some perceive that it advances a libertarian policy. I could just as well stay in my home country, had I believed that laws promulgated unilaterally by the National Leader were totally all right as long as the goals were good.

          2. Zeb   11 years ago

            That’s exactly what I am talking about. You might well think that keeping people out is the only way to make the country more libertarian. You may well be right. But it’s still an unlibertarian policy. It uses force to prevent people from free movement and commerce. It is justified only by its practical effects. Hence my invention of meta-libertarian.

            My point here is to try to describe and explain the huge divergence of views you find among libertarians on the subject, not to beat anyone up.

            1. flye   11 years ago

              Objectivist Anarchist Total-Isolationist Humanist Progressive?

        2. Root Boy   11 years ago

          You rang? Sorry, too utilitarian on this I am.

          I think I personally worry about importing poverty more than anything and the impact it has on poor Blacks ability to raise themselves up.

          I like my Michoacan in the neighborhood.

          1. Zeb   11 years ago

            That’s fine. I’m not trying to dig at anti-immigration folks here. If I’m honest, purist libertarianism is not a very practical political philosophy. I’m going to stick with the principled argument, but that doesn’t mean I think you are a bad person.

            I’m sort of trying to construct a way of agreeing to disagree.

            1. Zeb   11 years ago

              And please modify or change “anti-immigration” as appropriate.

              1. Root Boy   11 years ago

                Thanks and yeah, I’d say I’m anti-illegal. Still think immigration should have restrictions and the current favoritism towards families leaves out a lot of people (Euros, Indians, Asians) in favor of Central/South Americans which as I said, is only bad in that they are mostly poor and have low skills. I’d increase legal immigration.

    2. LynchPin1477   11 years ago

      They’ll play nice right up to the point we stop being useful.

      1. John   11 years ago

        Come on LychPin. They like you. They really do. I mean they said you don’t sweat much for a fat chick and they let you buy them beer and drive them around for a while. What else do you want?

    3. Injun, as in from India   11 years ago

      When the Kochs are for immigration, you can’t mention it because they really are against it but they want to curry favor with the left. Same things applies to their charitable donations to hospitals, art museums, PBS shows, etc. They are always one step ahead.

      1. Anonymous Coward   11 years ago

        An acquaintance, who is otherwise a smart man, insisted that the Koch Bros. had some nefarious scheme because they donated $10,000 to a group that does pro bono criminal defense.

        Then again, he also watches MSNBC.

        1. Root Boy   11 years ago

          Keep those types at arms length

  17. jesse.in.mb   11 years ago

    From Madagascar comes word of an outbreak of…bubonic plague? Cinematically horrifying diseases please take a number and wait until you’re called.

    I’m not dead yet, I think I’ll go for a Walk.

    1. Slammer   11 years ago

      *Looks for swiss to narrow his eyes at you*

      1. jesse.in.mb   11 years ago

        Anything but eye-narrowing!

        1. Slammer   11 years ago

          Anything?

          1. jesse.in.mb   11 years ago

            Are…are you propositioning me?

    2. NotAnotherSkippy   11 years ago

      A little more intimidating than an outbreak of Strep. Plague is pretty easily treated with various antibiotics.

  18. Fist of Etiquette   11 years ago

    From Madagascar comes word of an outbreak of…bubonic plague?

    Buboes are nothing compared to bleeding out of everything you have.

    1. Andrew S.   11 years ago

      Besides, we can actually treat plague nowadays if it’s caught early enough.

  19. Fist of Etiquette   11 years ago

    The Euroskeptic party looks forward to even bigger gains.

    And POWER!

    1. Rufus J. Firefly   11 years ago

      Someone should start a Eurocynic party. Or better yet a Eurotits party – just because. For its own sake.

      1. Jerry on the sea   11 years ago

        The Eurodance Party. With party leader Captain Jack and secretary Scooter.

      2. T   11 years ago

        Too bad Cicciolina’s a little worn out now. She’d be the obvious choice.

  20. Slammer   11 years ago

    Libertopias under the sea!

    1. Andrew S.   11 years ago

      Slammer, that’s your solution to everything: to move under the sea. It’s not going to happen!

      1. The Laconic   11 years ago

        There’ll be no accusations
        Just friendly crustaceans
        Under the sea

        1. Mickey Rat   11 years ago

          Will the crustaceans remsin friendly when Koe’s Crab Shack and Red Lobster open under the sea?

      2. Rufus J. Firefly   11 years ago

        He lives in an Octopus’s Garden.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QboA41mP7qg

    2. The Laconic   11 years ago

      I think they already did this. It was called “Rapture”, and look how that turned out.

      1. flye   11 years ago

        Damnit.

    3. flye   11 years ago

      I am Andrew Ryan, and I am here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?

      ‘No,’ says the man in Washington, ‘it belongs to the poor.’

      ‘No,’ says the man in the Vatican, ‘it belongs to God.’

      ‘No,’ says the man in Moscow, ‘it belongs to everyone.’

      I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose… Rapture.

    4. grrizzly   11 years ago

      Why did I think about penguins?

    5. PapayaSF   11 years ago

      When I was young, I just loved that sort of thing. Now, though, I tend to get annoyed at grand and totally impractical visions by designers who are trying to impress other designers, and ignore all practical and economic considerations. Nine miles deep? Give me a break.

      1. Cytotoxic   11 years ago

        Maybe a little out there, but not that crazy.

        http://www.maritime-executive……2014-10-23

        1. PapayaSF   11 years ago

          That make more sense.

      2. NotAnotherSkippy   11 years ago

        You have a problem with:

        P=rho*g*h, where h=15000?

    6. Cytotoxic   11 years ago

      YES. I always that thought it was dumb to Seastead on the surface! That’s where all the weather is.

    7. John Titor   11 years ago

      Isn’t Shimizu the same corporation that wants to turn the moon into a giant solar panel (Project Luna Ring)?

      1. John Titor   11 years ago

        Edit: Yep, it’s them, mentioned the ring at the end of the article.

        1. Medical Physics Guy   11 years ago

          This is starting to sound like Lyndon LaRouche stuff.

  21. The Late P Brooks   11 years ago

    Another person with a gun has been discovered in the near vicinity of the White House. Surprisingly (to the commenters at WaPo, anyway), she did not actually discharge the weapon. Police across the nation are baffled.

    1. flye   11 years ago

      Jerkov’s gun?

  22. Cytotoxic   11 years ago

    Why the hell isn’t Arpaio and his posse in a jail cell/multiple cells? This administration does NOTHING right.

    1. The_Millenial   11 years ago

      What about Cheney and Bush?

      1. Cytotoxic   11 years ago

        Sure them too. Arpaio just seems so obvious and easy.

        1. Root Boy   11 years ago

          They are busy writing up a writ for Sharyl Atkinsson.

    2. Jerryskids   11 years ago

      Yeah, it irritates me that I gotta root for Obama when Sheriff Joe criticizes him.

      If you were locked in a room with Obama and Sheriff Joe and you had a gun with only one bullet, would you shoot yourself in the mouth or in the temple?

      1. Wasteland Wanderer   11 years ago

        A gun can be used as a club, you know. Shoot Sheriff Joe (he might be able to put up a fight).

  23. SusanM   11 years ago

    OT: You can have my eclair when you pry it from my cold, dead hands (from ThunderPussy)

    http://thinkprogress.org/healt…..ness-test/

    During a check-up in her physical education class, Ireland Hobert-Hochtold told her teacher that she didn’t want to take part in the FitnessGram program, a fitness measurement tool her school has used for at least four years.

    Ireland’s decision landed her in the principal’s office.

    “I don’t feel like it’s [the school’s] business,” Ireland told the Des Moines Register. “I feel like it’s my doctor and my mom and my own business ? or maybe not even my own, because I don’t need to know that right now.”

    1. Virginian   11 years ago

      Knowledge is scary! Protect me from it!

      1. Carl ?s the level   11 years ago

        Err, obviously Think Progress is endorsing it for the wrong reasons, but she is correct; it’s none of the state’s fucking business.

        1. Virginian   11 years ago

          or maybe not even my own, because I don’t need to know that right now.”

          I was talking more about that little bit of insanity.

          1. HeteroPatriarch   11 years ago

            Yeah, that’s a real fucked-up level of stupid there.

    2. Brett L   11 years ago

      This young lady is far to smart to go to the prison of public school.

    3. Mickey Rat   11 years ago

      “Ireland”, not “Erin”, but “Ireland”. Sigh

  24. Cytotoxic   11 years ago

    Guatemala May Legalize Marijuana in 2015

    http://www.telesurtv.net/engli…..-0026.html

    And Uruguay looks set to elect a man that will preserve that country’s flawed legalization efforts. Down go the dominoes.

    1. Medical Physics Guy   11 years ago

      Legalising any other drug seems to still be outside the Overton Window however.

      1. Cytotoxic   11 years ago

        I’m afraid to ask what the poll numbers are on the others. We’ll get there. MJ is just a gateway.

        1. Zeb   11 years ago

          It’s going to be quite the slog to get to other drugs. Even people who buy the personal autonomy argument on pot lose their minds if you bring up meth or heroin.

          At this point I’d bet that the best I’ll see in my lifetime is some decriminalization of “hard” drug possession, coupled with forced “treatment”.

        2. HeteroPatriarch   11 years ago

          MJ is just a gateway.

          Somewhere, Patrick Kennedy is mumbling to his teddy, “I KNEW IT!”

  25. Palin's Buttplug   11 years ago

    Fuck it. I am tired of waiting on the Ferguson hijinks. I will check in with you Peanuts later!

    1. Slammer   11 years ago

      Don’t ever come back!

    2. Mike M.   11 years ago

      Drink very heavily and mix your depression medications with it.

  26. Anonymous Coward   11 years ago

    FBI Sends 100 Agents to Ferguson Ahead of Grand Jury Decision

    The FBI has sent about 100 agents to the St. Louis area to help deal with any problems that could arise from the grand jury decision in the police shooting of Ferguson teenager Michael Brown.

    In addition to the FBI, other federal agencies have also mobilized staffers to get to St. Louis today, sources told ABC News.

    The FBI declined to comment.

    1. PapayaSF   11 years ago

      Since they’re under Eric Holder, does this mean they’ll helping to riot?

  27. Anonymous Coward   11 years ago

    Feminists Are Outraged, Day 91,624: Scientists Invent Probiotic to Make Vaginas Smell Like Peaches

    Two science startup dudes introduced a new product idea this week: a probiotic supplement that will make women’s vaginas smell like peaches.

    Austin Heinz and Gilad Gome, the founders of biotech startups Cambrian Genomics and Personalized Probiotics respectively, previewed their plans for a line of customer-specific probiotics, including the “Sweet Peach,” at the Nov. 19 DEMO conference. The probiotic is designed to prevent yeast infections and UTIs, but will also make women’s genitals smell like ripe fruit.

    Initial reactions to “Sweet Peach,” which the pair hope to crowdfund using Tilt, have been negative. Nitasha Tiku at ValleyWag called the proposal a “waste of science,” Selena Larson at Daily Dot found it “completely outrageous,” and Maria Aspan wrote in a piece for Inc., “can they please keep their peachy bullshit far, far away from my uterus?”

    In a phone interview with The Huffington Post, Heinz said that the idea was inspired by their friends’ and girlfriends’ recurring issues with UTIs and yeast infections.

    So two men create a product to help women, and they get vilified for it because…get away from my vagina, you patriarch?

    1. Idle Hands   11 years ago

      Heinz 58?

      1. paranoid android   11 years ago

        “Georgia O’Queef”

    2. jesse.in.mb   11 years ago

      get away from my vagina, you patriarch?

      I think it’s more the idea that men would expect vaginoplastied, peach scented vag from every woman regardless of need for the medication.

      Is the peach scent a necessary part of the probiotic reaction? Or was it a value-added thing?

      1. Brett L   11 years ago

        Jesse, how many dudes care about vaginoplasty? Once you’re at that level of intimacy, most guys don’t give a shit if they drag on the bed enough to get rugburn during coitus. Same thing with the smell. This is not about what men want. This is about how women think other women expect them to behave. Just like the “vacation breasts”, which will be most popular for other women’s weddings and school reunions.

        1. jesse.in.mb   11 years ago

          No clue, and it may just be an issue of women exerting social pressure on each other, but just below you, Root Boy is talking about “suzy rotten crotch types”. At what point does taking the pill to make your vag smell less like vag and more like ripe peaches become a mandatory part of personal hygiene like shaving ones armpits and pubes?

          1. paranoid android   11 years ago

            At what point does taking the pill to make your vag smell less like vag and more like ripe peaches become a mandatory part of personal hygiene like shaving ones armpits and pubes?

            Based on an unscientific sampling of women I’ve known in my adult life, you are stretching the word “mandatory” further than the waistband on a Jezebel editor’s sweatpants.

            1. jesse.in.mb   11 years ago

              Expected then?

          2. Brett L   11 years ago

            I only ask that my wife trim her areas as often as I trim my beard. Given the length of my neckbeard, she could go full hippie right now.

            1. jesse.in.mb   11 years ago

              I didn’t trim for about a month due to traveling and then traveling burnout. I was looking pretty homeless last weekend when I finally took care of it.

              A HS friend of mine stopped shaving her pits after we got back from an 18 day backpacking trip senior year. Her dad saw it at the dinner table a week or so later and flipped the fuck out and made her shave before she came back for dinner.

        2. Warty   11 years ago

          Exactly. This is no different than women carrying $2000 purses or men spending 12 hours a week in the gym to get perfect abz. Social signaling to the same sex.

          1. Virginian   11 years ago

            spending 12 hours a week in the gym to get perfect abz

            Doing curls in the squat rack?

      2. Root Boy   11 years ago

        I think it’s more the ugly, suzy rotten crotch types don’t want to compete with chicks who shave their armpits and pubs.

        1. kibby   11 years ago

          I’ve never shaved a pub before, but it seems like a time-consuming task.

          1. Root Boy   11 years ago

            I’m sure it’s no fun for women, but I am happy my wife trims things down there. Easier to get to the good parts.

            And no, I don’t need peach aroma, just not nasty smelling.

      3. flye   11 years ago

        If there’s a choice, I’d prefer New Car fragrance.

        1. Mike M.   11 years ago

          +1 Peyton Manning.

    3. NotAnotherSkippy   11 years ago

      The FDA should require this to be blended with all birth control. We don’t want junk health insurance plans, do we?

    4. Jerry on the sea   11 years ago

      “I was valleywagging my GF yesterday, and boy did she smell like peaches.”

    5. Libertarian   11 years ago

      Some people call me “Maurice…”

      1. Rufus J. Firefly   11 years ago

        Are we supposed to finish that?

    6. SusanM   11 years ago

      Almost, but not quite, a prescient essay:

      http://www.authenticforum.com/…..chool.html

      My Prize Question therefore should be: ‘To discover some drug, holesome and not disagreeable, to be mixed with our common Food or Sauces, that shall render the Natural Discharges, of Wind from our Bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreeable as Perfumes.’ That this is not a chimerical Project, and altogether impossible, may appear from these considerations. That we already have some Knowledge of Means capable of Varying that Smell. He that dines on stale Flesh, especially with much Addition of Onions, shall be able to afford a Stink that no Company can tolerate: While he that has lived some Time on Vegetables only, shall have that Breath so pure as to be insensible to the most delicate Noses; – Ben Franklin

      1. HeteroPatriarch   11 years ago

        Apparently Ben Franklin never actually met a vegetarian. Nightmarishly bad gas.

      2. PapayaSF   11 years ago

        Ben wanted Beano.

    7. HeteroPatriarch   11 years ago

      I can’t say I mind the smell, but I can’t say peach wouldn’t be more pleasant, either. The freakout is fucking ridiculous.

    8. Mickey Rat   11 years ago

      Peaches come from a can
      They were put there by a man
      In a factory downtown

    9. BuSab Agent   11 years ago

      Look, if your coochee smells nasty it means something aint right medically, so go see a gynecologist stupid feminazis and leave the damn researchers alone. I would personally very much like a probiotic that banishes yeast. Peach smell isn’t bad either.

  28. Stormy Dragon   11 years ago

    After a two year investigation, the House Intelligence Committee releases its report on Benghazi:

    House intel panel debunks many Benghazi theories

  29. ashbusuttiloac   11 years ago

    my co-worker’s step-sister makes $69 hourly on the internet . She has been out of work for nine months but last month her pay check was $13181 just working on the internet for a few hours. Go Here this site….

    ????? http://www.netjob70.com

  30. Arizona_Guy   11 years ago

    Obama loses SNL

    Of course it’s safe to mock him now that he is lame duck.

  31. flye   11 years ago

    It’s a fair cop.

  32. Tonio   11 years ago

    That would actually cause global warming.

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