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Ross Ulbricht

A.M. Links: British Pols Suggest 'Political Surge' Against ISIS, 'Dread Pirate Roberts' Convicted, Senior Aides Leaving White House

Ed Krayewski | 2.5.2015 9:00 AM

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  • White House

    A parliamentary committee has found the United Kingdom has no plan to deal with ISIS outside of following the U.S.-backed coalition, and suggests a surge of political experts to deal with the problem. A  new report from the United Nations finds ISIS systematically torturing and killing children in Iraq, as well as using boys as young as ten as child soldiers and girls as sex slaves.

  • Ross Ulbricht was convicted on seven charges related to the government's claim he operated Silk Road as "Dread Pirate Roberts." He faces between thirty years and life in prison.
  • The health insurance company Anthem says it's been the target of a "sophisticated" hack attack. Tens of millions of customers could be affected but the company insists medical and financial details were not compromised.
  • Two senior aides to President Obama announced they would be leaving the White House in the coming months.
  • The president of Argentina sent out a tweet replacing r's with l's while meeting with the president of China, which some people found offensive. Tweets, incidentally, are going to start showing up in Google results soon.
  • A sulfur-cycling micro-organism found off the coast of Australia hasn't evolved in more than two billion years and has survived five mass extinction events.

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NEXT: Jon Utley on the Obama Administration's Attempts to Shut Down Alaska

Ed Krayewski is a former associate editor at Reason.

Ross Ulbricht
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  1. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

    Two senior aides to President Obama announced they would be leaving the White House in the coming months.

    Rats. Ship.

    1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

      I thought I gave you the day off!

      1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

        Hello.

        1. UnCivilServant   10 years ago

          Mornin'

          *except for those rearworlders.

    2. Raven Nation   10 years ago

      Maybe:

      http://www.wbtv.com/story/2802.....hite-house

      The White House reshuffle also reflects the gradual merging of Obama's team with Clinton's as the former first lady lays the groundwork for a widely expected campaign in 2016.

      Maybe not:

      http://www.politico.com/story/.....12129.html

      The possible moves are largely part of the natural post-election inflection point, and the exits that come six years into any presidency.

      1. wareagle   10 years ago

        and the media wonders why the public has lost faith in it.

  2. UnCivilServant   10 years ago

    A sulfur-cycling micro-organism found off the coast of Australia hasn't evolved in more than two billion years and has survived five mass extinction events.

    That's because nobody else wants their job, and eating them is an equally unpleasant prospect.

    1. Atanarjuat   10 years ago

      Well, their DNA wasn't sequenced. It sounded like the fossils just look a lot like the present-day organism. "Hasn't evolved" implies the DNA is identical, and every enzyme in their cells has kept the exact same sequence of amino acids for 2 billion years, which is...unlikely.

      1. robc   10 years ago

        I was going to make a Douglas Adams reference about them having heard about natural selection but wasnt having any of it.

        1. Charles Easterly   10 years ago

          So long and thanks for all the sulfur?

          1. Zeb   10 years ago

            Vogons.

      2. Zeb   10 years ago

        "Hasn't evolved" implies the DNA is identical

        Maybe not identical. DNA always changes. If it has a very stable ecological niche, then random mutations might not lead to significant change of the overall population's genetics since there is little advantage to change.

    2. Rhywun   10 years ago

      Maybe it's afraid of crawling on to land - it is Australia, after all.

      1. Swiss Servator, ... Switzy!   10 years ago

        Just shows good sense.

  3. Lord Humungus   10 years ago

    Cub Scout nature hike goes through San Diego-area nude beach

    A group of Cub Scouts on a nature hike came upon nude sunbathers at a San Diego County beach, but their leaders say proper protocol was followed to minimize their exposure.

    The San Diego-Imperial Council of the Boy Scouts of America issued a statement saying the boys' leaders quickly "rerouted to protect the youth."

    1. Just a thought not a sermon   10 years ago

      Protect them? Knowing that people are naked under their clothes?

      1. The Last American Hero   10 years ago

        Rerouted to protect BSA from legal action.

      2. tarran   10 years ago

        Knowing that people are naked under their clothes?

        +1 Sam the Eagle

    2. Ted S.   10 years ago

      Did the kids get their anatomy merit badge?

      1. UnCivilServant   10 years ago

        They didn't perform an autopsy, so, no.

  4. Just a thought not a sermon   10 years ago

    23) This is going to sound harsh, but is it worth keeping ISIS around as an examples? Now that ISIS has finally pissed off one of its neighbors enough to really get some heat, this time not a half-destroyed country like Iraq or Syria, but Jordan, with US equipment and US-trained troops that can probably really wipe ISIS out. But should it? Let's say Jordan defeats ISIS militarily, should it maybe let ISIS continue existing as an example to all the citizens of the region of what Islamic fundamentalism really leads to?
    In the same way, Venezuela is finally falling apart, as it's been obvious it would for fifteen years, since Chavez was elected. (I only regret Chavez didn't live to see how his Bolivarian revolution completely impoverish his country, knowing it was his fault.) Well, the people there voted for it. But maybe it's worth having a country around that has really gone from prosperity to penury in one generation due to communism. By this point in time, Cuba and NK have been communist too long for people to remember they were once in far better shape than they are now. Is it wrong to wish Venezuela should stay in its current condition for a long time, so that others can see the true wages of communism?

    1. gaijin   10 years ago

      let ISIS continue existing as an example to all the citizens of the region of what Islamic fundamentalism really leads to?

      No. that's what history books are for.

      1. Just a thought not a sermon   10 years ago

        History books cover things that took place over a hundred years ago, like our constitution and stuff.

        A living example would be a far better warning to the type of people who don't read history.

        1. gaijin   10 years ago

          So by living example, you mean we should establish a quota of ISIS-perpetrated beheadings to serve as a "living" reminder to the rest of us just what Islamic craziness is? Like, the holocaust would be so much more real if the nazis had been allowed to keep a few operational concentration camps set up in Deutschland?

        2. Scarecrow Repair   10 years ago

          Right, so when does that one hundred year clock start ticking? Once it's been gone for one hundred years?

      2. KDN   10 years ago

        Oh please. If anyone read those we wouldn't have to beat off a new push for socialism every 20 years.

        1. Zeb   10 years ago

          Yeah, because there are no socialist historians.

    2. UnCivilServant   10 years ago

      Examples don't work that way, espeically socio-political examples.

      Besides, it's pretty darn evil to willfully condemn one set of people to have to deal with these horrors 'as an example'.

      1. lap83   10 years ago

        OK maybe some innocent people will have to die, but at least they'll know who the bad guys are! /sarcasm

    3. Matrix   10 years ago

      People don't accept the lessons of the past. Communism lead to so much genocide in the 20th Cenutry. People around the world STILL push for communism in their countries.

      Evil wins because people are too stupid.

      1. Just a thought not a sermon   10 years ago

        Well, that's what I'm saying. People don't remember. But if there's a living, breathing example in the world, might that prevent citizens in other countries from going down the same path? Something anybody can point to and say just one word: "ISIS", and people will know exactly what it means?

        1. sarcasmic   10 years ago

          might that prevent citizens in other countries from going down the same path?

          Nope. Because they'll say that the failures were a result of having the wrong people in charge. They'll get it right this time.

          1. Catatafish   10 years ago

            Exactly. There are enough fucktards in this world at any given time that we don't need to keep any particular group of fucktards in an "in emergency of mass forgetfulness or dissembling of political atrocities, break glass" box.

        2. wareagle   10 years ago

          you do realize that your living, breathing example consigns a good many innocent people to death. People who by now have no clue what ISIS is do not want to know. They just want free shit.

          1. Old Man With Candy   10 years ago

            Here's a crazy notion: how about WE DON'T DO A DAMN THING, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER?

            1. Drax the Destroyer   10 years ago

              I certainly won't. Other than pay my goddamned extortionist taxes which might partially fund the government doing something about it. Emphasis on might. It's more likely that most of my tax money will be used to pay the interest on the debt.

            2. creech   10 years ago

              Hey, Old Man with Candy, Bill O'Reilly would like a word with you.

              1. Old Man With Candy   10 years ago

                He'll give me The Last Word, interrupt me, make his idiot "point," then sign off.

              2. Charles Easterly   10 years ago

                I doubt he'd allow Old Man With Candy to speak.

                1. Charles Easterly   10 years ago

                  Dang it - I was still typying.

    4. sarcasmic   10 years ago

      Maybe we should have propped up the Soviet Union to show the world how communism is a total failure. I mean, look around. The lessons of the failure that was the Soviet Union are all but lost. Yeah, we definitely should have prevented the Soviet Union from falling. Totally.

      1. Just a thought not a sermon   10 years ago

        I didn't propose "propping up" Venezuela or ISIS. I proposed letting them stew in what they've made of themselves.

        1. sarcasmic   10 years ago

          I'm just carrying your idea to its logical conclusion.

        2. Scarecrow Repair   10 years ago

          They only stew other people. Or barbeque them. Are you volunteering? Your proposal is certainly flame-worthy.

        3. Zeb   10 years ago

          Problem is that the areas controlled by ISIS are full of people who aren't evil fuckers and don't deserve to stew in what has been imposed on them.

    5. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

      "Is it wrong to wish Venezuela should stay in its current condition for a long time, so that others can see the true wages of communism?"

      Not really. We have ample evidence through the Soviet Union, Cuba and North Korea - not to mention 'socialist-dictatorships' or 'socialist-democracies' - and people still believe or choose to not accept the cold hard fact of its financial and human waste.

    6. Atanarjuat   10 years ago

      Gotta break a few 10-year-old Yazidi eggs to make an example omelet.

    7. Zeb   10 years ago

      No. Innocent people are suffering at the hands of ISIS and the others you mention. I don't think anyone is obliged to rescue people from their shitty governments, but it would be positively wicked to encourage such institutions to continue.

      Also, the cautionary examples don't seem to be very effective. There are plenty of people who think that ISIS and Venezuela are just nifty.

    8. CatoTheElder   10 years ago

      it's worth having a country around that has really gone from prosperity to penury in one generation due to communism

      The Bolivarian Socialist Revolution never claimed to be genuine communist movement, at least not in the Marxist/Leninist sense of the word.

      Prior to the Bolivarian Revolution, Venezuela was not uniformly prosperous. Many of its residents lived in penury. Chavez' main objective was to redress social disparities. Now the entire country lives in penury. Chavez and Maduro have achieved the highest value of progressives: equality.

  5. gaijin   10 years ago

    The health insurance company Anthem says it's been the target of a "sophisticated" hack attack.

    Clearly, the government must regulate the internet to protect us from these criminal attacks.

    /FCC

    1. AlmightyJB   10 years ago

      Yes I received my emails this morning. Uhg.

      1. Apple   10 years ago

        Me too. Glad I spent the time to come up with a strong password.

        1. derpules   10 years ago

          Passwords do not protect your data.

  6. sarcasmic   10 years ago

    Will King of Jordan lead airstrikes on ISIS HIMSELF? Reports say trained pilot plans to take part in attack after quoting Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven to Congressmen
    Jordan's King Abdullah II quoted film character saying 'I'm not only going to kill him, I'm going to kill his wife and all his friends and burn his damn house down'
    Abdullah told members of Congress how his only problem would be running out of fuel and bullets
    'He said there is going to be retribution like ISIS hasn't seen,' one congressman said
    The king was in Washington for meetings with members of Congress
    When video emerged showing the brutal execution of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kassasbeh, he was brought to the White House for a last-minute meeting
    Obama administration has announced a new $1 billion aid package to Jordan
    Trained pilot may personally take part in airstrikes on ISIS targets, according to reports

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....lling.html
    Bad. Ass.

    1. Pope Jimbo   10 years ago

      He's just ripping off Independence Day.

      1. DontShootMe   10 years ago

        He's going to attack them with Randy Quaid?

        1. Ska   10 years ago

          Sounds more fun than taking Bill Pullman.

          1. The Laconic   10 years ago

            Or Bill Paxton. Same thing, really.

            1. Idle Hands   10 years ago

              Game over man!

        2. RBS   10 years ago

          So he's going to crop dust bomb the wrong people first?

    2. Aloysious   10 years ago

      fta:Hunter told the Examiner that no one in the king's meeting on Tuesday with members of the House Armed Services Committee made any mention of President Obama, who is seen by some anti-ISIS coalition partners as a weak and indecisive actor.

      Go figure.

    3. Steve G   10 years ago

      Please tell me he'll land, jump out, and walk up to a podium with a Mission Accomplished sign in the background

  7. sarcasmic   10 years ago

    Little House On The Prairie author's true story of domestic abuse and doomed love triangles takes the book world by storm
    Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography is original version of author Laura Ingalls Wilder's memoir
    The not-safe-for-children book includes gritty tales about Midwest in 19th century, including one about a man who lit himself on fire while drunk
    Initial print-run of 15,000 copies was sold out within a few weeks, followed by orders for 60,000 more books
    Wilder is best known for a series of beloved Little House books that were adapted for TV in the 1970s

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....sh-US.html

    1. Just a thought not a sermon   10 years ago

      If you'll consult your catechism, you'll see that I already addressed this in Thought Not Sermon #15.

      1. sarcasmic   10 years ago

        Nobody cares.

        1. Steve G   10 years ago

          I lol'd.
          *consults binder full of JATNAS sermons*

    2. Pope Jimbo   10 years ago

      I grew up on the edge of the ND prairie and I don't know how any of those old timers made it through a winter living in a sod house with no TV, radio or internet.

      It isn't surprising to me that there may have been a few incidents of violence during winter shut ins. Fuck there are guys who I won't fish with because they annoy the fuck out me in my fish house in a mere couple hours. I'd kill them if I was cooped up for months in the winter.

      1. Mike Laursen   10 years ago

        My dad, who grew up in the panhandle of Nebraska, claimed that every winter, they would always have one dude who got cabin fever and offed his family with a shotgun.

        1. Stormy Dragon   10 years ago

          You'd think after the second or third time he slaughtered his whole family, women would have stopped marrying him.

          1. PBR Streetgang   10 years ago

            I lol'd

      2. Juice   10 years ago

        That's why they had 12 children I suspect.

      3. Stormy Dragon   10 years ago

        I grew up on the edge of the ND prairie and I don't know how any of those old timers made it through a winter living in a sod house with no TV, radio or internet.

        There's a reason a lot of people back then could quote huge passages of the Bible from memory.

    3. Notorious G.K.C.   10 years ago

      This is a sequel to Little Crack House on the Prairie.

      1. sarcasmic   10 years ago

        nice

  8. sarcasmic   10 years ago

    Norway planning to JAIL people who offer food, money or shelter to homeless people with new laws that also make begging illegal
    Proposed law in Norway would make begging in the streets illegal
    If approved, it would also make it illegal to help homeless who beg
    Begging would be punishable with a prison sentence of up to one year

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....legal.html
    Hooray for socialism!

    1. Rich   10 years ago

      I beg to differ!

      Let go of me.......................

    2. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

      It's like a pop corn trail in the forest this path to tyranny and servitude to the state.

      They leave all kinds for us and all we do is eat it rather than leave it on the ground.

    3. Rhywun   10 years ago

      "Justice minister Vidar Brein-Karlsen, said the law was needed to outlaw those running begging networks as an organised business."

      I saw this and thought WTF are they talking about and then I realized the word they're afraid to use is gypsies.

      1. sarcasmic   10 years ago

        Ah ha! That makes sense!

      2. Juice   10 years ago

        Will I be jailed for begging for their tears?

    4. seguin   10 years ago

      Does this include begging the question?

  9. sarcasmic   10 years ago

    Stars who have married their sisters! (or at least women who look VERY like them)

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem.....-them.html
    That's just fucking creepy.

    1. Rich   10 years ago

      "Hey, Mister! How's your sister?"

    2. UnCivilServant   10 years ago

      So... they're greeks?

    3. Drax the Destroyer   10 years ago

      Eh, it's still a far cry from Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his 12 year old cousin. Great balls of incest.

      1. Drax the Destroyer   10 years ago

        Oh shit, sorry. She was 13. He was 22.

        1. sarcasmic   10 years ago

          Old enough to bleed....

        2. AlmightyJB   10 years ago

          So she was an old maid then?

    4. tarran   10 years ago

      You know what? I'm not buying it!

      They get pictures of two people with regular features captured in the same poses and say they look alike.

      I guess since I am dating a girl with the same eye color as my brother who has hair, one nose with two nostrils and a mouth with a full complement of teeth, I must secretly want to marry him too, right?

      1. Timon 19   10 years ago

        Most of those were not very convincing. A couple were.

      2. SugarFree   10 years ago

        I'm with tarran.

        1. Most of them are just the same sort of weird-looking that most British people are.

        2. Shirley McClaine and Annette Bening looked nothing alike when they were younger, that's mostly plastic surgery. Which factors into most of the women pics.

        3. There is some fucked up ratio skewing in a lot of those images.

    5. lap83   10 years ago

      Makes sense if you consider that research shows we're attracted to people who look like us

  10. sarcasmic   10 years ago

    Bikini model makes history as the first plus size woman to feature in Sports Illustrated ? and will make her debut in annual Swimsuit Issue
    Ashley Graham, 26, from Lincoln, Nebraska, features in a new ad for plus size swimwear brand Swimsuits For All
    Ashley's newly-released campaign image features in the upcoming issue of the magazine's iconic annual Swimsuit Issue, due out on February 9
    The print campaign is accompanied by a risque video

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem.....rated.html
    John pron!

    1. VG Zaytsev   10 years ago

      Real women look like pre-pubescent boys.

      / sarc

    2. Swiss Servator, ... Switzy!   10 years ago

      Is she a large girl? Roomy...big through the hips?

      1. sarcasmic   10 years ago

        Lots of cushion for the pushin.

      2. Idle Hands   10 years ago

        IT PUTS THE LOTION IN THE BASKET!!!

        1. Charles Easterly   10 years ago

          Silence! The Musical: Put the @#$%!Lotion in the Basket (Lego Cover)
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPnQ77a1UVk

          Enjoy.

    3. Colonel Slanders   10 years ago

      If this is the news story I saw this morning.... this chick is a good 25 - 30 lbs overweight (like a lot of "regular" people) and not particularly attractive in a bikini. Why the fuck they feel the need to shove their fat arses into an issue of SI Swimsuit is ridiculous tho.

      1. sarcasmic   10 years ago

        There are a lot of chubby-chasers out there. I guess people are no longer ashamed to be seen tooling around on a moped.

        1. Colonel Slanders   10 years ago

          Ya know and that's fine, everyone's got their own taste. But jeez just don't go around telling me how great they look when they just don't! The general public doesn't exist to soothe their self-esteem issues.

  11. Lord Humungus   10 years ago

    Pot Kettle...

    12-year-olds are fair game: Michelle Malkin and the right's ugly new smear strategy

    These kinds of harassment campaigns aren't just immoral, but illogical. For one, the targets seem to be chosen almost at random. Plenty of people agree with Sarkeesian about video games, but she gets exponentially more abuse for it than most of her comrades. The malice conservatives aim at their targets would suggest that they think by eliminating the person, they can somehow take out the ideas the person promotes, but there's no reason to believe that. Climate science will still be around if Mann retires tomorrow. Sarkeesian's feminist videos are good, but if she quit making them, there are plenty of other smart women critiquing sexism in video games. No matter how successful Malkin may be at publicly humiliating a sixth-grader, she can't change the fact that millions of children get necessary healthcare coverage through SCHIP.

    1. Ted S.   10 years ago

      What was the group that put a bunch of ~10-year-old girls in an "I'm gonna get raped" campaign?

      1. Jordan   10 years ago

        Or who booed a little girl on national TV for saying she liked Romney better than Obama?

        1. Ted S.   10 years ago

          Or who bullied an Olympic gold medallist over the gold medallist's food choices?

          1. CatoTheElder   10 years ago

            Or who booed boy scouts during a flag presentation at the Democrat National Convention.

        2. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

          I'm sure there's plenty of hypocrisy, but two wrongs still tend not to make a right.

          1. Marshall Gill   10 years ago

            Science, Bo, can't even get that quote without some equivocation?

            Two wrongs do not make a right.

            "Still tend"? As if you are uncertain that there are times when two wrongs DO make a right?

            1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

              I was thinking of cases like when a car cuts in front of me to speed ahead, and then later they go into the right lane to try to get ahead of someone and I speed up just a little bit to keep them from getting back over.

              1. Drax the Destroyer   10 years ago

                I love that move. Fuck those assholes.

          2. robc   10 years ago

            I think they are pointing out the hypocrisy, not claiming that makes it okay.

          3. Irish   10 years ago

            The problem is, half the things the Salon article is attacking aren't even wrong.

            For example, they claim that right-wingers are 'smearing' Graeme Frost, a kid who claimed he got healthcare through the S-chip program. What conservatives did is look the kid up and they found that he attends a private school that costs $20,000 per child. Furthermore, his father owns his own business and therefore it's the father's own fault if they didn't have health insurance through the company he owns.

            That's not 'attacking' Graeme Frost, unless you think fact checking a story being used by your political opponents constitutes an attack. Or can you just have children lie on your behalf without worrying that your opponents will ever fact check his claims?

            1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

              Fair enough, if they're just pointing out that kind of thing that doesn't seem to be smearing to me. I'm just noting that there is smearing it would be bad despite the side that does it.

    2. UnCivilServant   10 years ago

      Clearly written by someone who did not take a look at the content and do an objective analysis of what Anita actually says and does.

      Also, from what I've seen of the 'harassment' there are three types, people calling out her bullshit, false flag attacks by allies and a few of your general internet nutcases that anyone with a recognized name attracts who've been blown out of proportion.

      1. Irish   10 years ago

        It's Amanda Marcotte. A feminist could personally murder a small child and she were criticized, Marcotte would declare her critics to be misogynists.

    3. SugarFree   10 years ago

      Mandy had to reach back to 2007 to satisfy the rule of threes.

  12. Rich   10 years ago

    Tens of millions of customers could be affected but the company insists medical and financial details were not compromised.

    O-kaaay.......

    1. Ted S.   10 years ago

      Of course, there won't be any liability when hackers breach government health databases, because single-payer is just so virtuous.

  13. Aloysious   10 years ago

    ...suggests a surge of political experts to deal with the problem

    Yeah. That'll help.

    1. Shirley Knott   10 years ago

      Well, they could be dropped from a great height, en masse, and do some damage.
      Or they could be formed up into brigades and marched across the land like locusts. Lord knows there's enough of them to at least keep the troops occupied while the pros cleaned up from other directions.
      Can't think of any better use for them, really.

      1. Pope Jimbo   10 years ago

        "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys political experts could fly."

        --Jordan's King Abdullah II

      2. tarran   10 years ago

        +1 Nazi & communist mine-clearing techniques.

    2. Rich   10 years ago

      a surge of political experts

      Like a exultation of larks?

      1. Rich   10 years ago

        *an*

  14. Florida Man   10 years ago

    as well as using boys as young as ten as child soldiers

    Where were these guys when I was ten. I would have traded my red Ryder for an AK in a heartbeat.

    1. The Last American Hero   10 years ago

      You'd probably still have both your eyes today as well.

  15. KDN   10 years ago

    Washington Conquers the Internet
    Tom Wheeler bids to become the Frank Underwood of the Web

    Even if the FCC forbears from most of the ancient rules, the Chairman's plan explicitly gives the commission authority to decide which business terms are "just and reasonable" and which practices are "unjust and unreasonable." The FCC chairman will then become the Frank Underwood of the Web. And as with the "House of Cards" character, the communications and media companies that want something done in D.C. will have to go through him.

    This is, of course, nonsense. Why, I've been told on these very boards that policies are neither made nor proposed with usurpation of power as the end goal.

    1. some guy   10 years ago

      Why aren't people talking about this more? Is Reason even covering this in detail?

      1. KDN   10 years ago

        Why aren't people talking about this more?

        A) Fuck Comcast (Seriously, that's about as in-depth as most people can handle on this issue).

        B) The NetNeut aspies tend to dominate any discussion on the subject by simply shouting over everyone else, desperately clinging to the idea that Net Neutrality means never having your torrents throttled.

        Is Reason even covering this in detail?

        They've done a passable job covering the lead up (this has been telegraphed for months, if not years), and had a post on it yesterday. I think it deserves a bigger focus, but if they paid me to generate website hits they'd have even less traffic than they do now.

        1. Timon 19   10 years ago

          I really can't get over how popular NN is in tech circles. It's like 3/4 of everyone in the business completely takes leave of their senses when it comes to understanding scarcity (network capacity).

          1. KDN   10 years ago

            Having spent my career on the periphery of IT, it doesn't surprise me in the least. They're generally not great at second-order thinking or politics, office and otherwise. Half of my CIO's time is spent beating these traits into his underlings, and getting his underlings to beat them into theirs.

            1. some guy   10 years ago

              This. Engineers know engineering plus anything else they consider interesting enough to be a hobby. Politics is rarely one of those things.

              1. Timon 19   10 years ago

                I guess that's pretty true.

      2. Ted S.   10 years ago

        You really haven't scrolled down H&R's main page in the past few days?

        1. Charles Easterly   10 years ago

          I took it as sarcasm.

        2. some guy   10 years ago

          Actually, I guess I haven't. Or maybe I've just somehow missed any articles about it...

    2. some guy   10 years ago

      When it comes to gaining power, government victories are permanent. So the old lesson applies: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Eventually your opposition will falter and you will obtain the power forever.

    3. Drax the Destroyer   10 years ago

      There is a reason it's called "House of Cards." ((PROBABLE SPOILER)) Frank gets the ring of power, fucks up royally by starting a bullshit war, and then gets assassinated by his wife and head of security. At least, that will happen if they keep following the British show.

      If Frank lives in the end, however realistic, the whole show would have been another pointless exercise in misanthropy only rivaled by my own attitude towards my fellow man.

  16. db   10 years ago

    A sulfur-cycling micro-organism found off the coast of Australia hasn't evolved in more than two billion years and has survived five mass extinction events.

    Finally we have found the missing link in the evolution of politicians and bureaucrats.

    1. Marshall Gill   10 years ago

      Sulfur in the atmosphere from burning coal will last foreeevvveeerrr! ACID RAIN!!!!!!!!!

  17. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

    A parliamentary committee has found the United Kingdom has no plan to deal with ISIS outside of following the U.S.-backed coalition...

    They know to hitch their wagon to a thoroughbred.

    1. UnCivilServant   10 years ago

      Thoroughbreds are actually a very poor choice for pulling wagons, their frail leg bones mean they can't haul as much weight. You want a draft horse, not a race horse.

      1. Scarecrow Repair   10 years ago

        Fuck the draft, you racist!

  18. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

    'A new report from the United Nations finds ISIS systematically torturing and killing children in Iraq, as well as using boys as young as ten as child soldiers and girls as sex slaves.'

    My knowledge of insurrection and military matters is perhaps one for a layman, but how do Arabs tolerate this? Moreover, I don't think it would cause too much of an international ruckus if the U.S. puts together and leads a coalition to wipe the fuckers right off the map.

    1. The Last American Hero   10 years ago

      They are a tribal people, and if it's the other tribe getting fucked, it's not your headache.

      1. WTF   10 years ago

        All humans are tribal people, which is why "principals, not principles" is generally the order of the day for most people.

    2. Pope Jimbo   10 years ago

      I don't know about the Arabs, but how long until we read something from the Jezzies about how horrible it is that ISIS is engaging in blatant sexual stereotyping?

      Why the fuck does ISIS think they can get away with selling the girls into sexual slavery? Don't they realize that those girls could be just as effective as child soldiers as the boys?

      1. UnCivilServant   10 years ago

        I had a very cynical response lined up about "funding and morale", but if you do a study of the use of children in modern warfare, the abuse was generally separated in the same fashion elsewhere.

  19. Bee Tagger   10 years ago

    A sulfur-cycling micro-organism found off the coast of Australia

    Always waiting for that next nasty wave, I imagine.

  20. Lord Humungus   10 years ago

    Mummified 200-year-old monk 'NOT dead' but in 'very deep meditation'

    Ganhugiyn Purevbata, who is the founder and professor of the Mongolian Institute of Buddhist Art at Ulaanbaatar Buddhist University, said: "Lama is sitting in the lotus position vajra, the left hand is opened, and the right hand symbolizes of the preaching Sutra.

    "This is a sign that the Lama is not dead, but is in a very deep meditation according to the ancient tradition of Buddhist lamas."

    1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

      Ha, ha.

    2. Notorious G.K.C.   10 years ago

      So you could say he's just resting?

      1. WTF   10 years ago

        He's pining for the fjords.

    3. The Other Kevin   10 years ago

      He's getting better!

      1. tarran   10 years ago

        He's just tired after a long squack!

  21. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

    The president of Argentina sent out a tweet replacing r's with l's while meeting with the president of China...

    So sorry?

  22. SugarFree   10 years ago

    A steaming hot mug of socialist derp: "Art should be, like, free, man."

    Hamilton "Beefcake" Nolan

    1. Andrew S.   10 years ago

      I'm going to continue to do this until something gets done:

      Gawker links should have trigger warnings.

      1. Ted S.   10 years ago

        Hover over the link, see that it says "gawker" in the URL, and decide for yourself whether to click.

        1. Andrew S.   10 years ago

          I'm on mobile right now. Check your hovertext privilege.

          1. UnCivilServant   10 years ago

            You're the one who chose the inferior browsing interface.

    2. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

      An article about intellectual property?

    3. Old Man With Candy   10 years ago

      Hamilton "Beefcake" Nolan

      Oh man, looking at him, I'm ready to hand over my handle.

      1. Certified Public Asskicker   10 years ago

        You should read his articles on exercise with that picture in your mind. It will be very amusing.

        1. Certified Public Asskicker   10 years ago

          Like this one:

          http://deadspin.com/5988408/th.....ually-need

        2. Old Man With Candy   10 years ago

          Holy. Fuck.

    4. lap83   10 years ago

      Art should be free, and yet artists should also have the right to make a living at it.

  23. Bee Tagger   10 years ago

    Tweets, incidentally, are going to start showing up in Google results soon.

    What's this I've been hearing about google becoming unusable soon?

    1. Andrew S.   10 years ago

      http://www.duckduckgo.com

      Better search engine, plus they don't turn over your searches to marketers and the NSA.

      1. Timon 19   10 years ago

        I need to make the switch full time.

        More importantly, I need to train the wife-unit to do so.

  24. Lord Humungus   10 years ago

    Even cockroaches have different personalities, scientists find

    Researchers studying the behaviour of the insects have discovered that far from simply being a homogenous mass they have individual character traits.

    The discovery is unlikely to change perceptions of them from skittering vermin to desirable beasts but it could go some way to explaining their evolutionary success.

    Scientists observed the character traits as they studied the way the "gregarious insect" seeks shelter when they come out into the open.

    1. Notorious G.K.C.   10 years ago

      "Hello, diverse group of quirky individualists, my shoe would like to have a word with you."

  25. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

    A new report from the United Nations finds ISIS systematically torturing and killing children in Iraq, as well as using boys as young as ten as child soldiers and girls as sex slaves.

    It's going to be awkward when we're arming them in a few years to fight off a worse threat.

  26. Jordan   10 years ago

    The president of Argentina sent out a tweet replacing r's with l's while meeting with the president of China, which some people found offensive. Tweets, incidentally, are going to start showing up in Google results soon.

    He can't even keep his Asians straight. It's the Japanese who have trouble with r's and l's. I guess they all look alike.

    1. Rich   10 years ago

      A little nostalgia for the old folks: "Not 'Craw'. CRAWWWWW!"

      1. Old Man With Candy   10 years ago

        +99

    2. SugarFree   10 years ago

      She. The murderous leftist dictator of Argentina is female.

      1. Jordan   10 years ago

        I apologize for my microaggression.

        1. SugarFree   10 years ago

          This is the face of true gender equality.

        2. John   10 years ago

          Jordan,

          Why are you so sexist and think being a murderous leftist dictator is a job only a man can do?

          1. Jordan   10 years ago

            Hey, I grew up in a different era!

            1. John   10 years ago

              And women never had the chance to be Mao or Pol Pot or Stalin in the past. Now they do.

              1. Scarecrow Repair   10 years ago

                Catherine the Great?

                Lizzie the first?

                Delilah?

                1. John   10 years ago

                  Catherine was not a mass murderer. She was just a German chick who had to whack her husband and take over Russia because if she didn't he was going to kill her or send her to a nunnery. And you try ruling 18th Century Russia with a velvet glove sometime. Catherine wasn't bad. And she was by all accounts pretty hot and didn't let her morals stand in the way of a good time. What is not to love?

                  1. Charles Easterly   10 years ago

                    Additionally John, the rumors about "death by horse" were just vicious rumors which probably originated amongst French nobility.

                    1. John   10 years ago

                      Yes Charles. She really wasn't even that promiscuous. She just never could marry for political reasons and liked having lovers like any other normal person.

                      The big thing is that she was a friend of the enlightenment until it resulted in the French Revolution. Then she turned on it and the French in particular never forgave her. I mean, how can she get so angry over a little mass murder in the name of progress? They slandered her in the worst possible ways.

                  2. John Titor   10 years ago

                    Catherine was not a mass murderer.

                    Ask the Poles and Ukrainians about that.

                    1. John   10 years ago

                      Ask the Poles and Ukrainians about that.

                      It sucked to be on the ass end of a war back then. And they would have done the same thing to the Russians if they could have.

    3. Andrew S.   10 years ago

      It's not that they have trouble with l's and r's, it's that there's no "l" sound in the language. So when words from other languages are put into Japanese, the "l" is replaced with "r".

      Anyways, doesn't the President of Argentina have better things to do than tweet, like have more prosecutors murdered so she won't be indicted for murder herself?

      1. UnCivilServant   10 years ago

        She's scouting exile countries.

      2. John Thacker   10 years ago

        The don't have an "r" either. They have a alveolar flap that sounds somewhat between an "l" and a "r," and depending on the person and the context, sounds more like one or the other.

        1. KDN   10 years ago

          I'm told by a couple of friends that lived and taught English there that it always sounds like an "r," especially amongst beginners.

          I also noticed in my brief time there that all of the loanwords written in Latin had their l's replaced by r's ("tequira" was my favorite: you get the qu and miss the l? Huh?).

          1. UnCivilServant   10 years ago

            ("tequira" was my favorite: you get the qu and miss the l? Huh?).

            It's all about the sounds used in the first language, not what you think is more complex.

          2. Scarecrow Repair   10 years ago

            The Japanese R is some kind of cross among the Spanish trilled R, D, T, and yes even L. I can do it ok in the middle of words (arigato) but have the devil of a time at the beginning of words (ryokan).

            Their F is half H. It gives me fits too, but not as much.

            1. KDN   10 years ago

              This is fascinating stuff to me. It's a shame that I really can't wrap my head around linguistics.

      3. Jordan   10 years ago

        Well, yes. But I was being succinct.

  27. Lord Humungus   10 years ago

    No 'unpredictable erections' on SA's first legal nude beach

    If you plan to go skinny-dipping at South Africa's first legal nude beach, make sure you cover up any "unpredictable erections".

    You will also have to ensure that you don't "dance provocatively", take photographs without permission, stare at other beachgoers or sit naked on someone else's beach chair.

    These are some of the rules being put in place at Trafalgar beach on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast.

    1. Rich   10 years ago

      "Well, Officer, it was entirely predictable."

      /Captain Obvious

      1. gaijin   10 years ago

        lol!

  28. Steve G   10 years ago

    Political Surge

    As opposed to our throbbing approach.

  29. Atanarjuat   10 years ago

    Derek Jeter's girlfriend is on the cover of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. I guess the "price" of fame is hot chicks fucking you so they can be famous, too.

    1. Rich   10 years ago

      That's just sick, man.

      1. Certified Public Asskicker   10 years ago

        I feel so cheated.

    2. WTF   10 years ago

      Is it even possible to have a better life than Derek Jeter?

      1. Steve G   10 years ago

        Arnold Schwarzenegger. Discuss...

        1. Dr. Fronkensteen   10 years ago

          Hugh Hefner, outside of some run ins with the Feds.

    3. John   10 years ago

      Your link goes to the picture of the creepy dude with "Obama Cares" written on his hands. Is that some kind of cruel joke or did you just SF the link that badly?

      1. Atanarjuat   10 years ago

        Cruel joke. I will think of something more creatively evil for the next one.

        1. John   10 years ago

          That was pretty evil.

  30. Lord Humungus   10 years ago

    Welcome to SubTropolis: The Massive Business Complex Buried Under Kansas City

    The underground industrial park known as SubTroplis opened for business in 1964 in an excavated mine below Kansas City, Mo., attracting tenants with the lure of lower energy costs and cheap rents. The walls, carved out of 270-million-year-old limestone deposits, help keep humidity low and temperatures at a constant 68 degrees, eliminating the need for air conditioning or heating. Tenants have reported saving as much as 70 percent on their energy bills, says Ora Reynolds, president of SubTropolis landlord Hunt Midwest. Rents run about $2.25 per square foot, about half the going rate on the surface. "It's also a question of sustainability," says Joe Paris, vice president at Paris Brothers, a specialty foods packager that employs about 200 workers underground. In addition to Paris Brothers, 51 tenants have rented nearly 6 million square feet of space. Others include LightEdge Solutions, a cloud computing company that uses the mild climate to help cool servers, and an underground archive that contains the original film reels to Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz.

    1. WTF   10 years ago

      Morloks?

      1. The Laconic   10 years ago

        Nope, CHUDs. Morlocks are fictional.

  31. Rich   10 years ago

    California lawmakers seek to end 'personal belief' vaccine exemptions

    "Oh, did I say 'personal belief'? I meant '*religious* belief'."

    1. John   10 years ago

      Because saying religious might run afoul with the 1st Amendment. The free exercise clause doesn't cover "the prophet RFK Jr. told me that vaccines were the work of evil BIGPHARM."

  32. Lord Humungus   10 years ago

    Cat survives being shot with 2 dozen BBs in central NY

    Animal protection groups hope to track down the person who shot a cat with nearly two dozen BBs in a suburban Syracuse yard.

    The Animal Alliance of Greater Syracuse says in a Facebook post that the calico cat, named Callie, was found bleeding about a week ago by her owner, Amy Jenkins of Liverpool.

    1. Jordan   10 years ago

      I hope somebody beats the living shit out of that fuck.

      1. sarcasmic   10 years ago

        Or shoots him with a few dozen BBs.

        1. Andrew S.   10 years ago

          Put him in the middle of the basketball court at the Carrier Dome on "everyone gets a BB gun" night?

        2. Drax the Destroyer   10 years ago

          You have to scale up for weight. I think that works out to something like 400 BBs.

          1. Restoras   10 years ago

            wouldn't it be better to scale up for caliber?

          2. DontShootMe   10 years ago

            How many BBs in a shotgun shell?

            1. WTF   10 years ago

              There you go, blast the idiot with some birdshot.

              1. some guy   10 years ago

                Someone get Dick Cheney on the line.

      2. John   10 years ago

        Me too.

    2. Steve G   10 years ago

      I found a lead pellet in the hide of the 2nd to last deer I got. Ignorant on so many levels...

  33. SugarFree   10 years ago

    Gawker's hard-hitting look at the Brian Williams' scandal (in which they have deleted every reference in the comments of Hilary Clinton doing the exact same thing.)

    1. Pope Jimbo   10 years ago

      Did they point out that when Brian Williams corrected the record by saying he was in the chopper behind the one that got hit, he meant "an hour behind"?

      http://www.truthrevolt.org/new.....ng-viewers

      I'm not feeling like Williams is being as repentant as he should be when he fails to include the fact that he was an hour behind the chopper.

      1. John   10 years ago

        It is bad enough that he lied, but Williams also bragged about it and lorded it over other reporters for years. Initially the helicopter crew, who knew it was a lie, didn't say anything. They figured it wasn't worth making a stink over and let the reporter have some glory. It was only after years of Williams bragging and being smug that it finally became too much for them and they ratted him out.

        It would be one thing if in a moment of weakness Williams made up the story but didn't tell it much out of shame that it was a lie. Williams, however, kept telling it over and over again. That takes a real liar, not just someone who in a moment of weakness said something they shouldn't have.

        1. gaijin   10 years ago

          Thanks goodness he is just a newsreader...it's not like if this were a managing editor at a major network being a socialpathic liar...oh wait...

          1. gaijin   10 years ago

            *sociopathic

          2. SugarFree   10 years ago

            People are overusing the "sociopath" label. Williams is just an asshole and a braggart.

            1. John   10 years ago

              Yeah. He is not a sociopath. He just has an enormous ego. He figures the rules don't apply to him so it is okay to lie when it suits him.

        2. Lord Humungus   10 years ago

          I once had a friend - no longer - who was just a BSer. He would tell outlandish stories.

          For example one time he claimed being mugged while visiting Chicago. Gun held on him and robbed. Two weeks later he tells the same story, but told it differently - that is happened to another friend of his... same parking lot... same hotel. I believe this second version was the real story.

          When I called him out on the BS - he got super pissed and refused to tell the truth.

          The problem with lying all the time is keeping your story straight.

          1. John   10 years ago

            Everyone lies sometimes. You can't help it. The difference is that people who are not liars, realize when they are lying, know its wrong and generally don't repeat it. They just try and make it go away. Real liars, however, don't think it is wrong and I think some of them convince themselves that the lie is the truth. People like your friend keep lying and lying. Williams seems to be that kind of person.

          2. gaijin   10 years ago

            I have heard that an excellent technique to spotting a liar is to ask questions that force the story backward...like what were you doing in chicago? Why were you in the parking lot? that kind of thing.

            1. John   10 years ago

              That is clever gaijin. The thing about real liars is that they do it so naturally they don't put a lot of thought into their lies and would likely fail your test. Most people try to spot liars by testing their sincerity. That of course is useless when dealing with a real liar. The old George Costanza line about "its not a lie if you believe it" really is true. Liars for the most part convince themselves their lies are true and will usually seem to be the most sincere people.

              1. Rhywun   10 years ago

                Liars for the most part convince themselves their lies are true and will usually seem to be the most sincere people.

                That is where it begins to overlap with sociopathy.

            2. Swiss Servator, ... Switzy!   10 years ago

              I was visiting my girlfriend... Morgan Fairchild!

            3. lap83   10 years ago

              That sounds like a good technique. But the pathological liars I've known make it obvious to everyone that they lie eventually without much outside help. I found out one former coworker was one within just a few days of knowing her.

      2. Lord Humungus   10 years ago

        That's like claiming you were in a car accident because you were driving down the highway and saw the aftermath of a collision.

  34. Lord Humungus   10 years ago

    Senate GOP Works to Influence Court on Obamacare
    A working group mulls a short-term Obamacare patch for a long-term Obamacare defeat.

    Those solutions might surprise conservative activists, at least in the short term. Although a win in the Supreme Court could cripple the implementation of Obamacare, Senate Republicans worry that it could be a pyrrhic victory. If Republican governors buckle under to pressure from constituents who lose access to the subsidies, and set up state-based exchanges, Obamacare could emerge from the legal defeat more entrenched than ever. To avoid that scenario, a Senate working group may offer a bill that provides the subsidies, at least temporarily.

    "Everybody understands there's folks who are on medical therapy receiving subsidies, and that if King v. Burwell goes against the administration, there'd have to be something to address their need," says one senator in the working group.

    1. WTF   10 years ago

      The Stupid Party gets right to work living up to its name.

  35. Coeus   10 years ago

    Harvard's Humanist of the Year Award goes to...

    A 2nd wave feminist Jack Thompson with hoop earrings.

    1. UnCivilServant   10 years ago

      A living caricature? Seriously?

      I guess that's why you should never take anything seriously if it comes from someone who came from Harvard.

  36. Lord Humungus   10 years ago

    China: Heavy smog caused over 250,000 premature deaths in 2013: report

    Heavy air pollution in 31 provincial capitals and municipalities in the Chinese mainland could have caused some 257,000 premature deaths in 2013, according to a report released on Wednesday.

    The report on the health effects of PM2.5 in urban China, jointly released by Peking University and environmental group Greenpeace, found that an average of 90 out of every 100,000 people living in the 31 cities may have died prematurely from long-term exposure to the high levels of pollution in 2013.

    Shijiazhuang in Hebei Province saw the highest rate of 134 premature deaths per 100,000, while Hebei is considered the most polluted province in the country.

    1. John   10 years ago

      A friend from high school is with the State Department in Bejing. He says it is unimaginable there. The air pollution is much worse than even Mexico City.

      1. tarran   10 years ago

        I have permanent respiratory problems from breathing the air in Ankara in the 1970's.

        I roomed with a state-department brat in college for a semester, and he told me that Cairo was even worse than Ankara.

        1. John   10 years ago

          Cairo is the dirtiest, most insane city in the world I think. I have been there once and it is just indescribable. People talk about New York having energy. New York is a sleepy Mississippi delta town compared to Cairo. You either loath it as the little piece of human hell it is or you are a bit nuts like I am and find it compelling and seductive.

          1. Timon 19   10 years ago

            Istanbul is insane, and I never thought Ankara would be as congested as it is.

          2. Idle Hands   10 years ago

            Cairo is the most disgusting backwards fucking dirty places I've ever been to and I was there when Mubarak was in charge can't even imagine how awful and stinky it's become. It's insane how people can literally travel a mile and be in the desert and yet just throw their trash right on the fucking ground and live in the filth like that.

            1. John   10 years ago

              It's insane how people can literally travel a mile and be in the desert and yet just throw their trash right on the fucking ground and live in the filth like that.

              That is the entire Middle East sans Israel and Kurdistan. I guess because the Arabs are former nomads they are culturally incapable of using a trash can. I hate that more than anything about the middle east. The Arabs just throw their trash into the street and never clean anything up. It is disgusting.

              1. Timon 19   10 years ago

                Yes and no. Abu Dhabi is actually pretty clean for a big city, and where there is random garbage laying about, it's actually in the Filippino and Bangladeshi neighborhoods. That changes in Dubai (partly because it's WIDE OPEN to the rest of the desert - you wouldn't believe the shit that blows in during a sandstorm) and at various settlements near Liwa. Parts of Al Ain are filthy - others are clean.

                Now northern Oman...northern Oman is freakin' immaculate, and poorer than dirt (go figure).

          3. Idle Hands   10 years ago

            You either loath it as the little piece of human hell it is or you are a bit nuts like I am and find it compelling and seductive.

            Do you write for J. Peterman? Lol.

        2. Timon 19   10 years ago

          Ankara seems to be pretty bad still. I never noticed it until I was invited to play some soccer a couple of evenings after work with some Turkish engineers (in the shadow of the CREEPIEST Soviet-looking railroad ministry building - almost looked like City 17).

          Holy hell, did my lungs burn from all the diesel smoke from all the vehicles on the roads nearby. It was freakin' awful. The air had that sweet, acrid odor. I then realized why they played a much slower game.

        3. Timon 19   10 years ago

          tarran, when were you last in Ankara?

          I can tell you that now, that place is spread-out like a motherfucker. No idea what it was back in the day, but it's like urban sprawl, Mediterranean-style (despite it being nowhere near the sea): pockets of dense mini-cities where the only residential accommodation is tiny, pastel apartment blocks separated by miles of nothing much (except very thin commercial districts running only right along the major roads).

          At least that's the way it is to the west, where most of the development has been. The downtown area is very much east-of-center.

          Traffic on Eski?ehir Road is horrendous in the evening.

          1. tarran   10 years ago

            1978.

            We used to live on the eastern rim of the valley overlooking the downtown. I remember the smog was so thick that sometimes it looked like a brown river running over the buildings.

            Yech.

            1. Timon 19   10 years ago

              I tried like hell to avoid any further east than Konya Road except when going to and from the airport. WAY too congested. That's a pretty area, though. One time we went drinking downtown pretty late at night and even with Turkish guides, it was an ordeal getting in and out.

              I imagine things have changed a great deal from 1978, and my snapshot of a half-dozen visits over the course of a couple of years probably can't possibly give you an idea of how much.

              1. Timon 19   10 years ago

                We did have to venture east a few times on our way to and from ?orum/Merzifon because our flights were out of Esenbo?a and we pretty much had to stay overnight in town because of flight schedules, but that was relatively easy.

      2. Rhywun   10 years ago

        I had a tour guide in China try to pass off the smog as heavy fog. We were wise to it after the first couple days.

  37. Rich   10 years ago

    Suit: Man held 20 hours after asking to file TSA complaint

    The TSA said it was concerned about the gear in his bag: what turned out to be the watch and the power bars, wrapped in a small PVC pipe for protection. Electronics and "organic mass" can be used to make bombs, TSA Supervisor Charles Kieser testified

    "Organic mass", indeed. Like TSA Supervisor Charles Kiese.

    1. Coeus   10 years ago

      Posted this yesterday. You left out the best part:

      Malone doesn't challenge the TSA's effort to investigate the items in the carry-on but says airport security footage contradicts Kieser's testimony.
      Kieser testified an agitated Vanderklok raised his hands and repeatedly pointed a finger at his face.
      "The passenger made a bomb threat to me," Kieser testified, according to a transcript. "(He said) I'll bring a bomb through here any day that I want ... and you'll never find it."
      Vanderklok insists he said nothing about a bomb. The security video shows him standing calmly with his arms in front of him holding a laptop, his lawsuit says.

      1. sarcasmic   10 years ago

        Obviously the footage is wrong. A government employee would never lie.

      2. Rich   10 years ago

        "(He said) I'll bring a bomb through here any day that I want ... and you'll never find it."

        "Then he went "BWAHAHAHAAA!!"

        Seriously, if Keiser is found to have lied about this, he should do prison time.

        1. The Laconic   10 years ago

          He did lie about it. I just don't think they can prove it.

          Besides, he's not the one on trial here. /sarc

    2. Aloysious   10 years ago

      Some organic masses are more equal than other organic masses.

  38. Lord Humungus   10 years ago

    The Return of Evil

    After the burning alive of a captured Jordanian pilot by ISIL, who would object to Kyle, or any other American sniper, shooting down these murderous fanatics if he could get access to them? And who would quibble with Kyle's characterization of these people as "savages," even "damn savages"?

    Perhaps NBC News correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin would still denounce Kyle for his "racist tendencies" and "killing sprees," as he did on air the other day, but most everyone else would welcome the late Navy SEAL bringing his cold-eyed professionalism to bear on ISIL.

    Part of what the left finds objectionable about Kyle is the unshakable moral certainty he brought to his fight. In light of ISIL's spectacular advertisements of its own cruelty, though, Kyle's point of view holds up very well. It is becoming practically an international norm.

    1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

      Unshakable moral certainty can be a troubling thing. Javert had it, for example.

      1. John   10 years ago

        No evil is a horrible thing. The problem is not moral certainty. The problem is doing evil. Moreover, without moral certainty, how do you even know what evil is much less fight it?

        1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

          I think you have to always be on the alert that you could be wrong. Most great evils that exist in the world involve moral certainty on the side of the evil...

          1. Notorious G.K.C.   10 years ago

            The best lack all conviction, and the worst
            Are full of passionate intensity.
            -William Butler Yeats

            But Yeats thought this was a *bad* thing.

          2. John   10 years ago

            Sure. But at some level you have to make a decision and take a stand or evil will always win. It is really hard. If it wasn't, there would be a lot less evil in the world.

            1. lap83   10 years ago

              Yes, identifying evil is hard. But it's not as hard as moral relativists would have you believe.

          3. Mike M.   10 years ago

            Anyone who's still morally confused about the Islamonazis after the events of the last couple of years is simply too far gone to be helped by all the psychiatrists on earth.

            1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

              Of course, who is more full of unshakable moral certainty than this Islamonazis?

              1. tarran   10 years ago

                I'm tolt that IslamoNazis are even worse than CommieNazis and I thought the CommieNazis were bad!

                1. Scarecrow Repair   10 years ago

                  Is that someone who complains about Oxford commas?

      2. Notorious G.K.C.   10 years ago

        Try asking a lefty who complains about the other side's moral certainty to give their opinion on climate change, the Tea Party, income inequality, etc.

        1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

          Many progressives are the biggest moral scolds out there.

          1. Notorious G.K.C.   10 years ago

            But you see, when they do it it's not rigid moral certitude, it's passionate commitment to social justice!

    2. SugarFree   10 years ago

      Someone insulted Rich Lowry's mancrush and he's having none of it!

  39. The Late P Brooks   10 years ago

    Senate Republicans worry that it could be a pyrrhic victory. If Republican governors buckle under to pressure from constituents who lose access to the subsidies

    "It's not FREE, you fucking dummies," would be my preferred response.

    1. Andrew S.   10 years ago

      It would be. But we all know they'd buckle, don't we?

  40. Coeus   10 years ago

    Twitter goes full censorship

    You know that I've written about the spectre of Twitter censorship here many times. We've seen users banned unfairly, WAM subterfuge, and blocklists. But we hadn't seen anyone from Twitter itself go on the record with pro-censorship policies. That's changed in the last few hours. Twitter's CEO has made several what I consider to be shocking statements in favor of a ban first, ask questions later, pro-SJW mentality. Hopefully I'm wrong on that, but I certainly didn't like what I read. And of course, the corrupt cesspool known as Kotaku has decided to back this bullshit without batting an eyelash.

    1. Ted S.   10 years ago

      Is this Ralph Retort guy one of those men's rights acrivists or somehting?

      1. Coeus   10 years ago

        Anything but. Proggie who got fed up with the SJWs. That's how far they've gone. They're alienating proggies now.

    2. Rhywun   10 years ago

      The fuck cares? Twitter can censor all they want - it's their party.

      1. Coeus   10 years ago

        Absolutely, and we can call them out when the lie about why they did it.

        1. Rhywun   10 years ago

          What are they lying about? I read the link I don't get it. They say they want to kick off trolls - is that a lie?

          1. Coeus   10 years ago

            No, but they label people with disagreeing viewpoints from the SJWs, including people just trying to defend themselves from lies, as harassers. It's the whole point of the WAM partnership.

            1. Rhywun   10 years ago

              Then I would consider it a badge of honor to get banned by Twitter.

              1. Coeus   10 years ago

                It's getting people tarred in the media. Needs calling out, just like any other media bullshit.

  41. The Late P Brooks   10 years ago

    Part of what the left finds objectionable about Kyle is the unshakable moral certainty he brought to his fight.

    You know who else brings unshakable moral certainty to their fight?

    1. SugarFree   10 years ago

      We are good and they are evil, so we have to be right.

    2. Aloysious   10 years ago

      Warty and STEVE SMITH?

      1. Swiss Servator, ... Switzy!   10 years ago

        STEVE SMITH BRING UNSHAKABLE SCHLONG TO RAPE!

    3. Lord Humungus   10 years ago

      Jesus H. Christ?

      1. straffinrun   10 years ago

        I do. Wait, no I don't. Sometimes I do.

    4. Rich   10 years ago

      Well, it's not James Bond.

    5. AlmightyJB   10 years ago

      My wife?

      1. straffinrun   10 years ago

        She still work at Rolling Stone?

  42. Andrew S.   10 years ago

    In today's giant shocker, a year after the Winter Olympics, Sochi is a giant clusterfuck and the Russian government is on the hook for billions.

    Why would any place want to host the Olympics again? To have the opportunity to pay bribes and go into massive debt?

    1. robc   10 years ago

      The only recent olympics to do it right, Atlanta, caused the OOC to change their standards so that it cant be done that way again.

      1. Ted S.   10 years ago

        I'd think that in theory, most major US college town could do it, as long as the football stadium is big enough for the track and field events.

        But of course the IOC doesn't want it that way.

    2. Jordan   10 years ago

      Why would any place want to host the Olympics again? To have the opportunity to pay bribes and go into massive debt?

      Because politicians.

      1. UnCivilServant   10 years ago

        Used to be, back in Roman times, the politicians had to pay for the games out of their own pocket, and the lavishness was a sign of their generosity. Woe be the change where they got to pay for it out of our pockets.

        1. UnCivilServant   10 years ago

          *(Yes, I know Gladitorial Contests were not the olympics, bear with me on this)

  43. John   10 years ago

    You know who else brings unshakable moral certainty to their fight?

    Everyone who has ever won a fight. That is who.

    The left can't handle commitment and moral certainty whether it be good, evil or in between. They can't comprehend that ISIS really could be this evil and committed to their goals. To the left that just can't be true. They must be victims lashing out or in some way reasonable such that they can be bargained with. The idea that ISIS is committed to any end, let alone an evil and insane one, such that they are not interested in bargaining or being appeased is incomprehensible to the Left. Kyle is the flip side of that. They can't comprehend that someone could decide that killing someone is justified, do it, and then not worry about it without that person being some kind of a monster. They assume Kyle is a monster not so much because they don't like his cause, they don't, but because they can't fathom how someone could make a moral decision to do something and then live with it. Contrast how they react to Kyle with how they react to John Kerry. Kerry admitted to or claimed to have done much worse things in Vietnam than Kyle ever did in Iraq. But Kerry made himself into a victim and played the "what have I done" card. Kyle didn't. And the left loves victims and hates anyone taking responsibility for their actions and standing by them.

    1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

      You can win a fight without 'unshakable moral certainty' John. Like I said above, 'unshakable moral certainty' seems more often associated with evil and atrocities.

      1. Restoras   10 years ago

        So, if someone is morally certain that freedom is better than tyranny, and is willing to lay down his/her life for that belief, that someone is evil?

        1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

          Well, I did say 'more often.'

          But I see a devotion to freedom as kind of inherently striking out against unshakable moral certainty, and allowing people to do their own thing, even if I personally don't approve, as much as possible, largely with the realization that I have some not small chance of being wrong.

      2. lap83   10 years ago

        "Like I said above, 'unshakable moral certainty' seems more often associated with evil and atrocities."

        Yes, and Hitler was a vegetarian who liked animals. So what?

        1. lap83   10 years ago

          More to the point, there's a difference between "certainty" and "murdering innocents". Just like there's a difference between "vegetarian" and "gassing Jews"

    2. tarran   10 years ago

      They can't comprehend that someone could decide that killing someone is justified, do it, and then not worry about it without that person being some kind of a monster.

      Unless the people being killed are kulaks and wreckers and they are the ones doing the killing....

    3. AlmightyJB   10 years ago

      But see when you see your buddys being blown to bits by IEDs your not supposed to admit how that makes you feel about them. You are supposed to profess empathy for the enemy just like the left does with anyone who disagrees with them.

      1. John   10 years ago

        There is that too.Leftists reporters are morons who have no understanding of how violence and conflict really work. Occasionally there really are sociopaths who join the military and go to war. Those people don't hate the enemy, they hate everyone. And they usually end up victimizing everyone around them not just the enemy. And even if they are smart sociopaths with good impulse control and don't do this, they don't develop any particular hate for the enemy. They don't need to.

        It is only normal people with a conscience and a sense of morality that end up hating the enemy. They do so because it is a natural reaction to the enemy trying to kill them and their friends and because it is necessary to be able to kill and survive. What they don't do is bring that hatred back home. If Kyle had come home and taken up terrorizing Muslims as a hobby, he would have been a monster. He didn't do that however.

      2. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

        I do think it's silly for people to criticize Kyle for hating the people he fought, for precisely these reasons and some others. My only point is that unshakable moral certainty can be a troubling thing rather than a virtue.

  44. The Late P Brooks   10 years ago

    In order to commit truly evil and monstrous acts, one first must believe one is Doing Good.

    1. Lord Humungus   10 years ago

      +1 Lord Acton

    2. John   10 years ago

      This is true. And the greater the good one thinks they are doing, the greater the evil they will commit trying to accomplish it.

      That, however, doesn't mean there is no good or that you should never stand up and fight for what you think is right and against evil. It just means life is really hard and no matter how hard we try not to, we will end up doing evil at some point in our lives. We just can't help ourselves.

      That is what original sin is. It is not that people are born bad people meaning to do evil. It is that the nature of life is such that everyone will do evil at some point no matter how hard they try not to do so.

      1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

        This idea of 'well, no one's perfect' can too easily be used to provide some kind of absolution to people who recklessly do bad things. To err is human, yes, but the moral thing is to really worry about whether what you are doing in any instance is the right thing.

        1. John   10 years ago

          It is not absolution it is a fact of life. Not everyone who has done bad things did so recklessly. The leaders of the Vichy France thought they were doing the right thing and saving the French from the Germans. They ended up doing a lot of evil as a result. But they did intend good.

          There are two types of evil. The first can best be described as impulse evil. This is when someone just refuses to control their impulses and base desires and does evil in pursuing them. These are your base and vulgar crimes like rape or murder. The second and really more insidious form of evil is when well meaning people either by well meaning mistake or reckless self delusions manage to rationalize how doing evil is really doing good.

          1. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

            But people use it as such. They do something with the attitude of 'well, I think I'm right and not harming anyone, but there's always a chance I'm wrong, but well, that's just life.'

    3. Jordan   10 years ago

      "Doin' right aint got no end".

    4. Jordan   10 years ago

      "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

      - C.S. Lewis

    5. sarcasmic   10 years ago

      "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.'"
      Will Smith got a lot of shit for that one. Mostly because he's right.

      1. John   10 years ago

        He is. Hitler really thought the Germans were the superior race, the world would be better if they ruled it and the inferior races were standing in the way of that and needed to be killed or subjugated as a result. The problem wasn't that he meant to do evil. The problem was his idea of "good" was insane and twisted.

  45. Ted S.   10 years ago

    Yesterday, I mentioned the Letroy Guion arrest in a drug bust.

    As you'll see, the Google search has all the police propaganda (scroll down to see the ESPN photo of the cash laid out in very tiny piles so that it runs to several tables' worth).

    Now it's being reported that the gun wasn't loaded, Guion had a permit, and had proof of where the money came from.

    Cops immediately release all the info whan a non-cop is arrested, and release nothing when one of their own is under investigation. And still they say there's no double standard.

    1. John   10 years ago

      But Ted, Letroy is a big scary black man and he had a gun. Don't you understand how the thought of an armed black man makes every white sports reporter pee their pants in terror? He is black and had a gun. He must be a dangerous thug.

      1. KDN   10 years ago

        Black people with guns and white people talking about church are the two things that unavoidably cause absolute chaos in the ESPN bullpen and heart palpitations amongst sports talking heads everywhere.

        1. John   10 years ago

          Yes it does. There are a ton of redneck rural white guys in the NFL, baseball and the NHL. All of them no doubt own guns and hunt. You don't think Bret Farve doesn't own a few shotguns living out his retirement in rural Mississippi? Or some Canadian NHL guy who grew up and still lives in nowheresville Manitoba in the off season doesn't own guns? Of course and that never matters. But let a black athlete own a gun and my God he must be a member of the Cripps or something. It is just disgraceful.

  46. The Late P Brooks   10 years ago

    The left can't handle commitment and moral certainty whether it be good, evil or in between.

    Lucy Van Pelt wants you to stop horning in on her turf.

    1. straffinrun   10 years ago

      Shroeder ever get any of Lucy Van's Pelt?

  47. Auric Demonocles   10 years ago

    This was my worst commute in 4 years of working at this company. What the fuck? It wasn't even snowing until about 25 minutes after I left home.

    1. sarcasmic   10 years ago

      Same here. I was forty minutes late, and that's after leaving twenty minutes early.

    2. tarran   10 years ago

      Waze made the commute amazing; it had me going down back-roads in Newton that were only wide enough for one car - easily shaved 20 minutes off my commute.

    3. Lord Humungus   10 years ago

      Last winter was much much worse... but at least back then I had a beater 4X4 truck.

      I'm glad that I live less than 15 minutes away and I can get to work via side streets.

  48. The Late P Brooks   10 years ago

    I'm tolt that IslamoNazis are even worse than CommieNazis and I thought the CommieNazis were bad!

    Oh, piffle! Those guys are like a pile of fluffy kittens, compared to the dreaded PEACENAZI.

  49. The Late P Brooks   10 years ago

    Waze made the commute amazing; it had me going down back-roads in Newton that were only wide enough for one car - easily shaved 20 minutes off my commute.

    That includes stopping to assassinate a couple of traffic cops, I hope.

    1. tarran   10 years ago

      I didn't get the chance! The cops were all on the major streets that were gridlocked.

      Maybe we should require the cops to use Waze to make them more easily accessed by assasins.

  50. Coeus   10 years ago

    Hoisted on their own petard

    But here's the kicker! The Court actually found that, if Ames had, indeed, been fired over her needing to breastfeed, that wouldn't constitute pregnancy-related discrimination. Want to know why? Because you don't have to be pregnant to lactate. Nor do you have to be a woman. As the Court wrote in its decision, "It is a scientific fact that even men have milk ducts and the hormones responsible for milk production."

    Now, this may sound like a progressive inclusive point. But let's not kid ourselves. This is about refusing to recognize blatant discrimination, not about challenging the gender binary. As the ACLU's Galen Sherwin wrote on Monday,

    It's certainly important to acknowledge that some men (including some trans men) can and do lactate. But it should also be self-evident that firing someone because they are breastfeeding is still a form of sex discrimination, and one that is all-too-frequently experienced by new mothers.

    You made this bed...

    1. Marshall Gill   10 years ago

      I think you meant to say Hoisted on their own retard.

    2. John   10 years ago

      If your gender has nothing to do with your anatomy, then how can anyone make a claim of gender discrimination? You can't have gender discrimination unless you have a gender and your boss knows what it is. Well, given what the left is now saying about gender, that it has nothing to do with your anatomy, how do we know that?

      A woman claims I fired her because she was a woman. My response is "I thought she was a man, so I couldn't have fired her for being a woman". How do you say I am wrong?

      1. SugarFree   10 years ago

        That's why they are asserting it is sex discrimination. Sex is biological; gender is a construct blah blah blah.

        You can't out-think doublethink, John.

      2. Bo Cara Esq.   10 years ago

        Aren't most of these laws still 'sex' discrimination laws?

        1. John   10 years ago

          Sure they are. But if the definition of "sex" changes, that doesn't mean the same thing. Further, they say "sex" but they mean gender or if not the left want them to. If someone wakes up tomorrow and decides they are really a woman, I am pretty sure that the left is going to be on board with that person being able to avail themselves of the sex discrimination laws as a woman.

          1. Zeb   10 years ago

            Not a terribly serious proposal, but I have often thought that a good way to both reduce actual discrimination and to defang the laws that force private employers to act a certain way would be to just let everyone legally change their sex, race and age. Then no one will know who to discriminate against.

            1. John   10 years ago

              That time is probably not that far away Zeb. If you can't get your skin darkened or bleached right now, it won't be long.

              What happens when a white person decides they are going to be black? The progs' heads will explode. They already can't account for intermarriage and mixed race.

              As the number of mixed race people rises, more and more "white" people are going to be able to pass as minorities. If you are white but have a bit of a dark complexion, why wouldn't you claim to be "black" to get the benefits of affirmative action? How would they ever stop you even if they figured it out?

              If people ever start doing that, the whole thing falls apart.

    3. Zeb   10 years ago

      Who made what bed? Is there some connection between women who want to breastfeed at work and transgender activists that I don't know about?

      It's a shame that they used that reasoning and not the reasoning that employers shouldn't have to pay people to not work and that if you want to have children, you are going to have to sacrifice other things in your life.

      1. Coeus   10 years ago

        The ACLU for one.

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