A.M. Links: Oregon Governor Under Increased Pressure to Resign, Al Franken Concerned About Smart TV Voice Recognition, NASA Does Star Wars Themed Photo

• 

  NASA

  The Democratic leaders of the Oregon state legislature are calling on fellow Democrat Gov. John Kitzhaber to resign amid a scandal involving influence peddling and his fiancée, a green energy consultant. Kitzhaber had apparently decided to resign earlier this week but changed his mind while his replacement was flying back to the state.

• The local government in Kensington, Calif., wants an independent investigation into how the police chief investigated a cop who had his gun stolen by a prostitute in Nevada. The cop wasn't put on leave during the eight-month long investigation and still hasn't served his suspension. Police first found out about the stolen gun when the prostitute's pimp shot himself in the leg during an argument at a pawn shop.
• Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) sent a letter to Samsung and LG requesting details on the voice-recognition technology used by their smart televisions and how they ensure voice data privacy.
• Two Al-Jazeera journalists who were arrested in Egypt more than a year ago on charges of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and spreading false news have been released on bail.
• New York Times media columnist David Carr is dead, aged 58.
• NASA's jumped the shark.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

NASA's jumped the shark.

That's no space agency.

[Auric Demonocles]

These aren't the o-rings you're looking for...

[RBS]

I may or may not know of some people who dressed up as the crew of the Challenger for a Halloween party.

[Raston Bot]

pre- or post-launch?

[RBS]

Post

[Rich]

Now, just hold on.

Those could be *Muslim* garments.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hello.

"NASA's jumped the shark."

ONLY ONE MAN HAS EVER JUMPED A SHARK!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4ZGKI8vpcg

Even if he sells reverse mortgages now.

[BigT]

Ron Howard's finest moment.

[Zeb]

Yeah. Star Wars? Star Trek would have made a lot more sense as Star Fleet is the natural descendant of NASA.

[Fist of Etiquette]

After what J.J. Abrams did to it? Better to go with Star Wars.

Oh, wait...

[Doghouse Riley Jr.]

He still has Lost in Space, Space: 1999 and Buck Rogers to ruinboot.

[DontShootMe]

He could ruinboot Battlestar Galactica, as well.

ruinboot, I like it. Can I use it?

[Rasilio]

At least he can't get his hands on Babylon 5.

Course I still can't quite see how JMS is going to be able to pull off rebooting that as a movie franchise but we'll apparently see in 2016 or 2017

[Fist of Etiquette]

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) sent a letter to Samsung and LG requesting details on the voice-recognition technology used by their smart televisions...

"If you don't know how to use your television, Senator, please call our help desk."

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

I could actually see that taking place.

[Ted S.]

"Nobody's forcing people to use Samsung or LG's voice-recognition technology, Senator. What are you forcing people to use?"

[Florida Man]

Delicious!

[Rich]

Seconded.

[Doctor Whom]

That argument goes right over the heads of many statists. Don't ask me how I know; I just do.

[Injun, as in from India]

he wants the NSA in on the action, if they aren't already.

[Doctor Whom]

My thought was that the government hates competition.

[Lord Humungus]

Big condoms partly to blame for Thai teen STI spike: ministry

BANGKOK (AFP) -

Thai health officials Thursday said teenagers who are too embarrassed to choose condoms that fit are partly to blame for a recent spike in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among their peers.

In a statement ahead of Valentine's Day -- a time when Thai officials often issue a flurry of warnings about the potential pitfalls of young love -- the kingdom's Ministry of Public Health warned that STIs among 10-19 year olds had increased almost five times in the last ten years.

"It is due to the fact that only 43 percent (of teenagers) use condoms -- and also because they choose condoms that are too big for their actual sizes and they are afraid they will be mocked for being too small," the statement said.

[Ted S.]

One night in Bangkok and the tough guys crumble;
Not much between despair and ecstasy....

[Doghouse Riley Jr.]

I can feel the Trojan sliding off of me...

[Juice]

golf clap

[AdamJ]

This was in Freakonomics, but about India.

[The Last American Hero]

Based on the headline, I thought Subaru sales were up in Thailand.

[Old Man With Candy]

Haven't these kids learned about the utility of rubber bands?

[Entropy Void]

How tiny is the condom for a 10yo Thai ladyboy?

[Libertarian]

Cronyism is getting ballsier:
http://www.nationalreview.com/.....ue-de-rugy
Last summer, I mentioned that the public dataset about the Export-Import Bank that I'd been using to conduct analyses and visualizations of its activities for the Mercatus Center had been removed from Data.gov, the federal government's information site. Thankfully, we had downloaded a clean copy of the full data before they were removed, so I can still use them to debunk the misleading claims made by Ex-Im defenders. Data.gov still listed a few other files with application data and other pdfs that could still be accessed, but the data were gone.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

*Ahem*

http://reason.com/blog/2015/02.....issing-exp

[Monty Crisco]

NR beat Reason by SIX DAYS!! REASON SCOOPED AGAIN!!!

That was your point, right Swiss?

[Libertarian]

Perhaps his point was directed at me. In which case, point taken. I missed that one.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Reason covered it yesterday...and, yes, it was A BIT LATE!

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

And don't get me started on the Rotherham article...

[Monty Crisco]

Preach it. They didn't cover Gosnell, either...

[Restoras]

Cowards, the lot of 'em. the Reason staff has declined precipitously in my book.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Democratic leaders of the Oregon state legislature are calling on fellow Democrat Gov. John Kitzhaber to resign amid a scandal involving influence peddling and his fianc?e, a green energy consultant.

Democrats can abide everything but getting caught.

[Injun, as in from India]

And yet again, they will delude themselves into thinking that giving more power to the government and finding the right TOP MAN is the solution.

[Lord Humungus]

Mathematicians Discover How Many Licks It Takes to Get to the Center of a Tootsie Pop

Mathematicians at New York University conducted a very important experiment to find out exactly how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. Drum roll, please.

One thousand.

For those patient enough to not take a bite, graduate student Jinzi Mac Huang determined it would take 1,000 licks to make it through one centimeter of candy, which is approximately half the length of one Tootsie Pop. The study was done to explore the effects of dissolving materials within a fluid flow, such as rocks in geological environments and pills for pharmaceutical applications. The lollipop angle was just a fun side effect.

bullshit.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Its 3.

[hamilton]

"The world may never know"

[Scarecrow Repair]

I bet the women love you. Not!

[Rich]

"We started to test it, and it's hard. Resisting the temptation to just bite into one is tough."

Math is HARD!

/Lollipop Barbie

[Zeb]

It's a dumb question anyway. Even if you don't bite it, no one licks a lolly pop. You suck on it.

[Auric Demonocles]

How many sucks will it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

[UnCivilServant]

None, you don't do that either. You use a butane torch to turn the shell into candy napalm and fling it at your enemies.

[Auric Demonocles]

How many sucks will it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

[Auric Demonocles]

The squirrels may never know...

[Bee Tagger]

NASA's jumped the shark.

The national association for shark ascension has finally met it's lofty goal.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

*opera applause*

[Fist of Etiquette]

This would mean NASA successfully launched and landed.

[Ted S.]

North American Man-Bullhead Love Association

[Lord Humungus]

Alibaba's Jack Ma seeks to reassure employees over U.S. lawsuits

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd Executive Chairman Jack Ma urged employees to relax about U.S. lawsuits against the firm over possible failure to disclose information to investors, in a letter to staff posted on his official microblog on Friday.

A series of lawsuits have been filed in the United States after an unusually public fracas with a Chinese regulator last month over the issue of fakes being sold on Alibaba's websites.

"As for the lawsuits that came about from recent events, I ask that Alibaba employees be at ease," Ma said in his annual letter, sent out before Lunar New Year.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

"All is well. Remain calm."

[Jordan]

The company is almost certainly propped up by the CCP, so he is right to reassure them.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Gawker: Obama Secretly Partied With Bill Ayers Last Summer
...While the fact that Obama was literally partying with former advocates of violent struggle against the U.S. government will no doubt be taken by his critics as further evidence that he hates America, the most interesting thing about the wedding is the shocking proof it offers that?at long last!?Obama truly no longer gives a fuck about keeping up political appearances. It's unthinkable that the Obama of the 2008 or 2012 campaigns would have been permitted to go anywhere near Ayers or Dohrn, for fear of fueling the unhinged right-wing narrative that he is a radical leftist....

Volokh: 'Obama secretly partied with Bill Ayers last Summer'
Shorter Volokh: Forgive Ayers, and don't ask if I'd be equally forgiving of someone who committed acts of neo-Nazi violence in his past.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

"Its working , Bill!"

[Mike M.]

You're not kidding. Boy, is it ever.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Is it me or has the comments community of Volokh changed? Back in the day it was mostly lawyers with strong legal language debating with a good mixture of of general debaters. I don't see that now. Mind you, I don't read it as much as I used to.

[Ted S.]

That's because they moved to the Washington Post.

[Cyto]

They equally managed to kill off Balko's Agitator community. (well, Ok, HuffPo mostly did the damage - but the point stands) Moving a small, successful blog to a larger community is not necessarily a guarantor of success.

[WTF]

Obama could rape puppies on the Capitol steps and his supporters would still defend him.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Somehow that made me think of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FafVtHWn4X8

[Zeb]

Of course he doesn't care. He's not running for anything.

But unless he spent the whole day in deep conversation with Ayers or something like that, this seems like a big nothing. Obama was invited to a party that Ayers also happened to be invited to.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

"he is just this guy in the neighborhood"

[Zeb]

Mostly I just think that little supposed scandals like this are a pointless distraction from the disaster that is the Obama presidency. There is plenty to focus on there.

[Heedless]

The Ayers Connection (not to mention Wright) is as much a condemnation of Chicago politics as of Obama. It seems to have been impossible to join the Cook county ruling class without rubbing shoulders with the Ayers. Of course, a man of moral principle would consider that association to high a price to pay, but then a man of moral principle wouldn't be involved in Chicago politics to begin with.

My other fear is the Wright actually represents Obama doing his best. That Wright is as close as you can get to a deep thinker among the politically connected Black ministers of Chicago.

[Zeb]

Yeah, the real question is how did anyone think electing a politician from Chicago was a good idea.

[Heedless]

I'll cop to this. And I'm someone who lives in Chicago, so I really should have known better. What made Obama appear to be an attractive candidate was largely mood affiliation. He talked (at least early in the campaign) the way I wanted the president to talk, and I mistook that for evidence that he would govern (at least in the realm of civil liberties and foreign policy) as I wanted the president to govern. I expected his economics to be awful, but hoped to get something in return.

I could point to work he did on police interrogation, to his Iraq war vote, a few advisors I approved of, but really I liked Obama because he sounded good. In my defense, I came to my senses long before the democratic primary was over, but I can understand how people got swept up, particularly liberals who didn't have so many glaringly obvious points of disagreement.

[Emmerson Biggins]

I'll sort of cop to the same thing. I mean I didn't vote him, and I've never lived in Chicago .. but still, I thought there was going to be some good and some bad. I didn't think he was going to go full retard. And I didn't think he was going to make George W look like such a good president in retrospect.

[Tonio]

Obama was invited to a party that Ayers also happened to be invited to.

One doesn't just happen to be invited to a party which POTUS attends. If POTUS is attending I guaran-fucking-tee you that the guest list if vetted by both Secret Service and political handlers.

Ima guessing this is part of the rehabilitation of Ayers.

[Auric Demonocles]

or fear of fueling the unhinged right-wing narrative that he is a radical leftist....

[wareagle]

who could possibly think that if you hang out with radical left-wingers that you may have something in common with them? Certainly not the progtards who were so quick to ignore Congressman Scalise's attendance appearance before a not-so-cool group.

[Zeb]

I hang out with some radical left wingers and I'm OK. Obama is clearly not OK, but I don't think he has enough of an ideology at all to be called radical anything. Except maybe "fuckup".

I don't like guilt by association. There are plenty of real, solid reasons to loathe Obama without grasping at straws like this.

[Virginian]

I hang out with some radical left wingers and I'm OK.

Are any of them violent terrorists?

[Zeb]

Not that I know of.

But I really don't give a fuck who the president hangs out with. Obama is a terrible president. And that fact has nothing to do with any association with Bill Ayers. The president can be best butt buddies with Charlie Manson for all I care if he is a good president.

[Virginian]

I hear you, but considering that if Obama was applying for a security clearance he wouldn't get one, I think it's a slightly different situation.

I mean, he wouldn't be allowed to be an FBI agent. A guy the government wouldn't trust with a sidearm has his finger on the nuclear button.

Ain't democracy grand?

[Fist of Etiquette]

The cop wasn't put on leave during the eight-month long investigation and still hasn't served his suspension. Police first found out about the stolen gun when the prostitute's pimp shot himself in the leg during an argument at a pawn shop.

Operation Gun Street Walker.

[WTF]

I look forward to seeing that episode of Pawn Stars.

[Ted S.]

Cops are the only ones who know safe gun handling, which is why they're the only ones who should have guns!

[Lord Humungus]

Winter Snow Weighs on First-Quarter GDP

The forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers on Thursday said heavy snowfall pounding the Northeast and parts of the Midwest will subtract 0.4 percentage point from gross domestic product growth in the first quarter. Last year was much worse, with a barrage of bad weather across a wider swath of the country taking an estimated 1.4 percentage point off growth in GDP, the broadest measure of economic output.

"The major snowstorms that hit the Chicago and Boston areas earlier this month yielded larger contributions to the snowfall index than did any snowfall totals in any county last February," the firm said in a note to clients. "But outside of these areas, every other county's contribution in the top 100 is lower this February than last February?at least given our assumptions for the balance of the month."

[Auric Demonocles]

The major snowstorms that hit the Chicago and Boston areas earlier this month

This should really read "continuously for the past month". 12+ more inches on Sunday, too!

[Ted S.]

I can't remember whether I mentioned it here, but one of my sisters lives between Boston and Woostah, and the other lives just outside Dallas, TX. When the first blizzard hit the week leading up to the Super Bowl, my sister in MA got 34 inches of snow, took photos of clearing out the driveway and emailed them to my sister in Texas.

Texas sister responded by emailing a photo of a bank thermometer to Mass. sister: 79 degrees.

[Auric Demonocles]

The city seems to have just given up on plowing the even side of my street. The only time there has been any parking available on that side is when I shoveled out 1 spot a few days after Juno. It lasted like 2 days before we got another couple of feet. Now we've just got a 5 foot tall snowbank down that entire side of the street.

[Auric Demonocles]

So that parking ban has proven super useful...

[hamilton]

We have plenty of room up here in the sticks in northern Mass, but I too am pretty damn tired of all of this snow.

[Auric Demonocles]

That's the big problem. It's not that they can't plow the snow out of the way, it's that they ran out of space to plow it into. Unfortunately my street is pretty far down the on the take it away with dumptrucks priority list, and they can't make it more than halfway through it before they have to start all over again.

[Rasilio]

There isn't any onstreet parking where I live in the North Shore area anyway but my Dog Run is fenced in with a 5'6" stockade fence, there is about 1 foot of fence left sticking above the snow and they are calling for 12 - 24 inches from this weekends storm in our area.

I have no idea where I am going to put the snow I have to shovel off my 100 yard long driveway, I've already got 4'walls of snow lining it and the piles at the end of the driveway are pushing 9 foot high

[Elspeth Flashman]

We haven't gotten all that much snow this year. But I love to drive past the snowed in cars. They're blocking up the roads, and no one can dig them out since the ice has formed over the snow, so it takes picks and such to get them out.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Dynamite.

[BakedPenguin]

I moved back to Florida in December. I'm thinking that was a good call.

[UnCivilServant]

Texas sister responded by emailing a photo of a bank thermometer to Mass. sister: 79 degrees.

Gimme the snow any day over lethal heat like that.

[prolefeed]

That is a cool day by Texas summer standards.

[Emmerson Biggins]

That just the High, it probably plunged down into the 40's at night, so you know, you still gotta keep that parka in the car.

[Bee Tagger]

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) sent a letter to Samsung and LG requesting details on the voice-recognition technology used by their smart televisions and how they ensure voice data privacy.

That information totally couldn't be used to compromise said technologies!

[UnCivilServant]

It's probably already in the patent application anyway.

[Libertarian]

"Police first found out about the stolen gun when the prostitute's pimp shot himself in the leg during an argument at a pawn shop."

Hey Ed, are you really finding these things in the news, or are you just reviewing old Reno 911 scripts?

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Why not both?

[Lord Humungus]

Baby dies in ambulance as hospitals are full

Baby Nicole died in an ambulance en route to a hospital in Ragusa, south-east Sicily, hours after being born in Catania where three emergency rooms allegedly refused to admit the sick newborn.

She was born with breathing problems in a private clinic in Catania, leading staff to phone nearby paediatric intensive care units. All three said there was no space for the baby, La Stampa reported.

Medics at the clinic then decided to drive Nicole to Ragusa, a journey of around 100km, but the baby's condition worsened and she died on the way to hospital.

[WTF]

That's unpossible! Italy is one of those 'civilized' countries with a National Health system!

[Jordan]

Price controls would never lead to rationing!

[Ted S.]

Single-payer for the win!

[invisible furry hand]

Oh, good God...

I am a member of the USPS "underclass" that was created to help pave the way so deals such as Amazon Sunday delivery could be reached.

[Brian D]

CCAs weren't always considered a low-wage workforce. Before the reclassification we were called Transitional Employees (TE) and made a respectable $23.52 hourly rate, only several dollars per hour less than what the average career employee made. But with the USPS management's financial woes and the recently concocted, yet unused, Negotiated Service Agreements plan?discussed in the next section? a low-wage workforce was needed to help entice big business into choosing the postal service to partner up with. City Carrier Assistants now perform the same work they did when they were called a TE, but now they get to do that work for 31 percent less pay ?TE's who were reclassified as CCAs now make $16.68 per hour. What's worse is that newly hired CCAs will make even less ?starting at $15 per hour.

$15-$16/hr is 'low-wage'?

[UnCivilServant]

It was more than I made when I was paid by the hour. ($12.32)

[KDN]

Depends. $30k per year ain't shit where I live.

[Virginian]

Assuming 40 hour workweeks, that's above 30,000 a year.

[Illocust]

In his defense, dropping from 23 to 16 an hour is going to make you all sorts of screwed. We have built in costs that assume our wages aren't going to drop drastically.

[robc]

Then get a new or second job. Like everyone else in the universe does.

[Ted S.]

It's better than the $0/hr they'd get if the Postal Service went belly-up.

[Zeb]

I thought $15/hour made everything OK.

As someone else said, the drop in pay is the big deal. But $16 isn't terrible. Worse than driving for UPS, but comparable or a bit better than FedEx.

[Juice]

I would consider it quite low wage.

[Ted S.]

Meanwhile, New Zealand is cuting urban mail delivery back to three days a week.

[wadair]

It's tough having a job. USPS workers shouldn't be expected to work for their paycheck. That's just way too capitalistic!

[MJGreen]

A "labor travesty." People are being paid to deliver packages on Sunday. The travesty! Human rights abuse!

[Lord Humungus]

U.S. Is Escalating a Secretive War in Afghanistan
Data From Seized Computer Fuels a Surge in U.S. Raids on Al Qaeda

In the months since, the trove of intelligence has helped fuel a significant increase in night raids by American Special Operations forces and Afghan intelligence commandos, Afghan and American officials said.

The spike in raids is at odds with policy declarations in Washington, where the Obama administration has deemed the American role in the war essentially over. But the increase reflects the reality in Afghanistan, where fierce fighting in the past year killed record numbers of Afghan soldiers, police officers and civilians.

American and Afghan officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing operations that are largely classified, said that American forces were playing direct combat roles in many of the raids and were not simply going along as advisers.

[invisible furry hand]

Gosh, the ?650k Mercedes-Benz G63 really is a big load of fuck off and die

[Rich]

Does one park one's G-Wagon in a G-spot?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Two Al-Jazeera journalists who were arrested in Egypt more than a year ago on charges of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and spreading false news have been released on bail.

Egypt's Attack Watch weeps.

[Auric Demonocles]

New York Times media columnist David Carr is dead, aged 58.

I could have sworn the Houston Texans killed him in his mid-twenties.

[NebulousFocus]

Zing!

[wareagle]

they certainly aged him.

[Rich]

Rand Paul: Scrap the tax code

"Look for my tax plan later this spring."

Let the good times roll.

[Jordan]

Oh hell yes.

[Injun, as in from India]

Democrat criticisms of Rand wanting to subsidize the rich by cutting their taxes begin in... 3... 2... 1...

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Tony is off at that O! fanfic site, I tells ya!

[a better weapon]

"But what are the specifics?" They find one and harangue him over it for a week, then find another, rinse/repeat...

They play this game every time. Hell, remember when Romney had that 57 or 59 page tax reform plan and every single interview from them on out said, yes, but "what are the specifics?" 2012 taught me that this media maneuver just can't be avoided.

Meanwhile, President Obama has a three point plant that took all of 8 seconds to recite and that was as clear as it needed to be for them.

Not sure how Rand or anyone overcomes it.

[Tonio]

But knowing the press as he does, I'd suspect he'd have specifics ready.

[a better weapon]

I'm sure he does, but Romney had a 50 something page, detailed tax plan and he still got hammered for not being specific, which allowed them to say "what is he lying to the voters about?" and speculate endlessly about how evil he is.

Ignoring it feeds that beast, but so does addressing it. Romney never called them on it (or if he did, not aggressively) and he certainly didn't point it to Obama who only had his little soundbite. Maybe that's how Rand should play it, but its an effective weapon for the media to use on him like they have others.

Hopefully he's deft enough to get past it.

[Lord Humungus]

What Turned Fury at North Carolina Muslim Neighbors to Murder

Without the gun, there would have been no triple funeral on Thursday for 23-year-old Deah Shaddy Barakat and 21-year-old Yusor Mohammad and 19-year-old Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha.

And the exact nature of Craig Hicks's fury toward these three magnificent human beings would be of no great consequence.

He would have just kept fuming.

The weapon that changed everything was almost certainly the one that Hicks was licensed to carry thanks to the prevailing reading of the Second Amendment.

[Doctor Whom]

And that, you silly Merkins, is why things like that never happen in France.

[Rich]

When Hicks was booked for murder, he had also been fingerprinted not so long ago.

That was when he applied for a permit to carry a pistol.

Sends chills up your spine, doesn't it?

Please, let it come out that one of the victims owned a gun.

[Injun, as in from India]

If they aren't green card holders or US citizens, they can't own a gun afaik.

I learned that I could own a gun when I got a little brochure along with my green card in the mail.

[Ted S.]

Not legally, at least.

[Zeb]

What about tourists who come to hunt? I'm pretty sure that's allowed.

I'd read the 2nd amendment as saying that there can't be restrictions based on citizenship. But I read "the people" to mean all of the people. I suppose some might interpret it to mean US citizens.

[Clich? Bandit]

This is not accurate. No green card nor Citizenship is needed to legally purchase a gun in the US. Unless it has changed in the last several years, all you need to is pass the state's restriction in which you are purchaseing. I have several friends, who without anything more than visas, purchased handguns and rifles. No problem.

[Tonio]

Might be different for pistol permits.

[Monty Crisco]

At least the author JUST ABOUT comes right out and says that he wants to ban handguns. Good for him. Go ahead and try.
And watch Civil War 2.0 break out.

[Scarecrow Repair]

I think if there were some effort to actually implement a real gun ban, there would be enough politicians to pass a new constitutional amendment reverting it right quick. I mean such as the Supreme Court reversing Heller, deciding that the 2nd Amendment only confers a right on government militias, or the ATF refusing to authorize any NICS approvals, something of that sort.

[Injun, as in from India]

Add Operation Chokepoint to your list above.

[Scarecrow Repair]

No, that's not serious enough yet. It would have to be an abrupt and complete ban to provoke an immediate amendment reaction.

[Auric Demonocles]

Without the gun, there would have been no triple funeral on Thursday for 23-year-old Deah Shaddy Barakat and 21-year-old Yusor Mohammad and 19-year-old Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha.

1: Citation needed.

2: Even if it's true, the crime that guy committed has nothing to do with what I'm doing with a gun.

[Zeb]

If we just banned cars, thousands of people would be alive today who aren't. So let's ban them too.

[invisible furry hand]

Talk about stinkin' thinkin'... ban death!

[Cyto]

And pressure cookers. Don't forget that.

[Rasilio]

Yeah, if you banned cars they wouldn't have had to fight over a parking space

[Scarecrow Repair]

Even if someone could wave their Hairy Potter and vanish all guns and gunpowder and knowledge of them, it would revert society back to might makes right and the leisure class having time to practice sword play, with the weak and working having no self-defense. Sam Colt really did make men equal, and I wish the hoplophobes would remember that.

[Monty Crisco]

All HAIL GORTHAN!!!

[RBS]

I like how he cites the guys previous history of run ins with other people over parking spaces as evidence that it was only the gun that made him snap.

[Injun, as in from India]

Without the gun, there would have been no triple funeral

three victims brutally stabbed to death with a knife

OR

three victims bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat

OR

three victims (and possibly a whole lot of neighbors) burned to death in an act of arson

OR

three victims killed with home-made ricin delivered in their mail

OR

(insert something else here)

[Ted S.]

When I was in college, a couple of Ethiopian graduate students got into some sort of dispute that wound up with one of them being axe-murdered.

And if I'm not mistaken, other than 9/11 which involved airplanes, the two biggset mass-killing events in US history used a fertilizer-based bomb (OK City) and gasoline (hte Happy Land fire) as the murder weapons. Not guns.

[UnCivilServant]

You skipped "Three victims run over by a car"

This was a parking dispute after all.

[Zeb]

Or maybe it wouldn't have happened without the gun. That is a real possibility too.

The thing (well, a thing) that really bugs me about the calls for more gun control after a shooting is that they always act as if there is something new to be learned about the dangers of guns. Anyone with a brain can figure out that if people own guns, a few people will do bad things with them. If you support gun rights, you have to acknowledge and accept that some people will abuse the right. People with brains also know that bans don't make things go away and that you just aren't going to eliminate all violence.

[Monty Crisco]

The thing that really strikes me about this ( that no lefty media will talk about at all) is the fact that this dude had a CCW. That REALLY puts him in the minority for committing a crime. CCW holders almost NEVER get arrested.

[John]

The weapon that changed everything was almost certainly the one that Hicks was licensed to carry thanks to the prevailing reading of the Second Amendment.

I guess that is why no one ever murders people for religious regions in a place like France that has no Second Amendment.

[Zeb]

While gun bans obviously don't stop terrorists from getting assault rifles, they probably do keep the number of hot-headed assholes who aren't full time criminals or terrorists from carrying guns low. But it is very rare for such a person to actually murder some people like this and in any case, it doesn't justify restricting the rights of others to defend themselves.

What I find particularly idiotic is the people who seem to believe that a license to carry is what actually enables people to carry a gun. License or no, it's pretty easy to conceal a gun on your person and, unless you are a young dark-skinned person in a city you will almost certainly get away with it. Of course, these people would like to ban handguns entirely, but they always throw in the license to carry thing.

[Injun, as in from India]

I think this guys argument is more like saying that if we got rid of the First Amendment and no one was allowed to practice any religion, there would be no murders because of religion.

[Steve G]

He was clearly mentally ill and fell through the cracks. We need to shore them up!!

[invisible furry hand]

It's Obama fan fic!

"When Mitt saw Barack standing there in his elegant silk evening suit, his heart pounding, and his head started spinning," the piece begins. "'Wow,' he thought. 'This is what it must feel like to meet Nixon.' Mitt was in love."

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Paging SugarFree. Please pick up the red courtesy phone. No, the red one.

[Doctor Whom]

Obama fanfic, a/k/a about half of my Facebook feed.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Well, that should see Shriek and Tony go missing for the rest of the day...

[SugarFree]

So they wrote at whole articles about what I do without mentioning me. Cockless dogsuckers.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

They let me down again:

The Cleveland Browns are having a nightmare offseason ? and now their GM is being investigated for texting coaches during games

[Rufus J. Firefly]

The incompetence is chronic looks like, eh?

[sarcasmic]

Dakota Johnson adds a touch of rock chic to her plunging dress with a leather jacket for Fifty Shades premiere afterparty in London

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....ondon.html
She's 25?

[Auric Demonocles]

Maybe it's some kind of weird metric year?

[Lord Humungus]

dog years?

[Auric Demonocles]

That'd make her like 3.5 real years old, which is the opposite of her problem.

[Lord Humungus]

fine... space warp time reversal super mega podunk dog years.

[Rich]

S&M is a hard way of life.

[Timon 19]

Seems about as plausible as Lorde being 18.

[WTF]

Everyone knows that Lorde is Stan's dad.

[RBS]

Maybe she paid some makeup artist a lot of money for the rode hard put away wet look.

[sarcasmic]

Pretty in pink! Bella Thorne glows in trendy pastel ensemble at The DUFF's Los Angeles premiere

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....miere.html
Youth continues to be wasted on the young.

[Auric Demonocles]

Her face looks like it should be on a much chunkier girl.

[sarcasmic]

Alabama Cop who paralyzed Indian granddad with body slam after his new suburban neighbors reported a 'suspicious' person is fired
Officer Eric Parker will be fired over the incident, Madison Police said
Sureshbhai Patel, 57 was slammed onto sidewalk in Madison, Alabama
Footage shows him being lifted, thrown down, then unable to stand
Cops say they approached him and he said to them 'No English'
They started a search but he 'pulled away' - prompting them to use force
Mr Patel is partially paralyzed despite two operations on his vertebrae
Had been in the United States for two weeks, his family fear he may not leave the hospital

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....stand.html
Will anything else happen?

[Brian D]

Yes, he will quietly be rehired by some other police department.

[Ted S.]

I wsa going to say his union would appeal and get him reinstated.

[a better weapon]

He was charged with assault, at least. Doubt anything comes from it, but I'll take the chance and get my hopes on this one.

[Monty Crisco]

Well, at LEAST he was fired. Another department will hire him, though....

[WTF]

If there was no video, nothing at all would have happened. I'll still believe they will charge him when it actually happens.

[Libertarian]

Is it my imagination, or is it easier to find decent news stories like this in the Guardian than it is in U.S. papers?

[Libertarian]

Daily mail, Guardian............you know what I mean.

[sarcasmic]

You mean you're more likely to find news of American cops behaving badly in foreign news than domestic news? Yes. It's not your imagination.

[Injun, as in from India]

When sh1t like happens, I find myself wishing that another pig would do the same thing to this pig's father. See what happens then.

But then again, we know that Kelly Thomas' father was a retired cop, and nothing really happened to the pigs who killed Kelly Thomas.

[Steve G]

Thomas's father showed incredible restraint, but then again... the whole thin blue line must have made him conflicted.

[Virginian]

Or maybe revenge will be a dish served cold.

[Steve G]

They'd never find the bodies if it were my kid.

[Injun, as in from India]

It broke my heart listening to Kelly Thomas screaming "Dad! Dad!" in the recording of his beating. I've stopped watching videos of pig brutality since then.

[Raston Bot]

he face planted a 57-year old man who had his hands behind his back. he put an old man into a vulnerable position, then took advantage of his vulnerability.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Dalrock: 50 SoG movie panned as too tame.

[Coeus]

No whites allowed.

Props to Goldsmiths Students' Union, for taking the 'safe space' concept to absurd new levels. Last week, one faction of the union hosted a screening of the film Dear White People and advertised it as being 'for BME students'. For those not au fait with this lingo, BME stands for 'black and minority ethnic' ? and the poster specifies that this screening is for students of 'African, Caribbean, Arab, Asian and South American ethnic origin'. The union's welfare and diversity officer and education officer both reiterated this message on Facebook and Twitter, then stated that before the screening, there was a BME ONLY social happening at Cafe Natura.

[Doctor Whom]

But don't tell me; let me guess: They're anti-discrimination fundamentalists otherwise. I think you've found the British equivalent of the TERF movement.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

No wonder they don't deal with home made Muslim terrorists.

Mind you, France isn't as PC-retarded and they haven't done much either.

Frightening times.

[Rich]

'African, Caribbean, Arab, Asian and South American ethnic origin'

or those who so *self-identify*. Right, fuckers?

[WTF]

"I was born a poor black sharecropper."

[Coeus]

+1 Jerk

[UnCivilServant]

What about the child of Rhodesians who got driven from the country when Mugabe came to power? They're Africans...

[Ted S.]

I'm reminded of the movie Mississippi Masala, where the ethnic Indian woman expelled from Uganda as a child tells her black boyfriend's family she's originally from Uganda and they, of course, having no clue about Ugandan history, are flummoxed by the idea of a non-black person from Uganda.

[Ted S.]

The union's welfare and diversity officer

One of the lesser-mentioned reasons why the cost of education rises so spectacularly.

[Steve G]

DAFUQ?

/Joo

[Lord Humungus]

Brian Williams may be prepping a grand apology tour to redeem himself

Now Williams is spending long hours with close friends and advisors who are helping him devise a strategy to emerge from the current suspension.

His advisors have told Williams that if further misstatements or exaggerations emerge from the newscast, his chances for coming back are slim. But if other errors amount to embellishing on late night talk shows, he may have a path at redemption with public apologies and seeking professional help to get to the heart of why he inserted himself into a life-threatening situation where he was not present.

Among the venues where he might apologize would be "60 Minutes," or on a daytime talk show or even on Fox's Bill O'Reilly, one insider suggested.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Forgive me if I sound stubborn but I'm not going to buy it.

Here is a guy who KNOWINGLY knew was in a privileged position of great power (to the extent providing information to people is) and still KNOWINGLY LIED to the camera.

To me, this cuts right to the character of an individual. He's damaged goods and true self came out. Just like we're seeing with Obama.

Just a 'dicey' take on my part.

[Rich]

Admit it, Rufus. You just hate Williams and Obama because of their race.

[Ted S.]

What are Janet Cooke and Stephen Glass up to these days?

[Cyto]

You emphasize the 'knowingly' part. I don't think so. I'd be willing to bet that after several retellings he has truly conflated the story of the other helicopter with his own experience and as such he remembers it actually happening to him.

Memory is not a video tape. A little exaggeration early on and a number of repeated tellings would easily allow a lie to become the truth.

There is a reason that the "big lie told often" strategy works. Human psychology is a complex and malleable thing.

[invisible furry hand]

My penis is too big and looks like a football

[Fist of Etiquette]

And Lucy keeps pulling it away at the last second.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Don't talk about Lucy!!!!!

[UnCivilServant]

That was posted yesterday.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Its yesterday in Australia right now!

[UnCivilServant]

I thought it was tomorrow in Australia.

[Elspeth Flashman]

No, it's tomorrow in America. Wait, morning in America. Something something.

[NebulousFocus]

Or....tomorrow.

[Coeus]

Another athiest using the murders to blame those who don't believe in critical justice.

If we are, as we purport to be, rational people who are above the knee-jerk tribalism of our religious brethren, then we should be open, without any defensiveness, to an open and honest discussion about how the rhetoric of some of the big names in atheism?Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Bill Maher?treads past the ordinary criticisms of faith and turns into ugly and demonstrably silly arguments about how Islam is somehow uniquely poisonous as a religion. While claiming to oppose Christianity, these men have allowed themselves to be useful idiots for the cause of the Christian right, giving them an "even the atheists agree!" cover for their desire to stoke religious animosity and drumming up support for even more unnecessary wars in the Middle East.

Bolded irony continues below:

[Irish]

Islam is uniquely poisonous. Consider the fact that Indonesia (which is always held up as a 'moderate' Muslim country) sentences people to prison for blasphemy, threw an American in jail for pulling out the plug of a loud speaker that was playing parts of the Koran, and there have been a large number of mob attacks on Christian churches and minority Muslim sects.

The reason social justice atheists deny this evidence is because most Muslims are non-white and it's therefore unacceptable to point out that Islam appears to lend itself more readily to oppressive theocracies than other faiths.

[sarcasmic]

You don't have to do much research on Islam to see that it's not simply a religion. It's a system law and government as well. Anyone who denies that either hasn't done their homework or is lying.

[Coeus]

Agreed on all counts.

[John]

Here is the difference between Christianity and Islam. Europe started out under Rome and later the various tribes that toppled Rome utterly barbaric by modern standards. Yet, over time Christianity made them less barbaric than they were when they started. People in places like Arabia and Afghanistan started out barbaric and Islam did nothing to change them.

It is true that a lot of the crazy shit that goes on in Islamic countries was going on before Islam ever got there. The problem is Islam didn't do anything to make the place any better.

I can't think of a single place that was ever made less barbaric by the introduction of Islam. At best places like Iran or Turkey or Egypt that were reasonably civilized to begin with stayed that way in spite of Islam. But they didn't get any better because of Islam the way Europe did. Islam just froze them where they were. At the same time Islam has made a few places like India or Indonesia or the Caucuses worse.

[Restoras]

I do find it interesting that Christianity, or at least nominally Christian countries, somehow fostered the Enlightenment despite the religious restrictions of the time. I should read up on that.

[sarcasmic]

Christian texts do not spell out a system of law and government. Islam does. In Islam, faith, law, and government are one. That right there is a really big difference.

[John Titor]

Islam details pretty much everything about the power structure it wants in society. Legal systems, social hierarchy based on faith, even inheritance laws. I can't remember who said it, but someone said that the Koran is like if the Bible just ended after Moses lays down all the laws for his theocratic society and all its wacky laws about things like scapegoats and menstruating women.

[Juice]

It took a loooooooong time for Europe to be less barbaric though. All the way up until the Enlightenment or thereabouts.

[Zeb]

At this point, aren't most Christians non-white too?

I'm sure it is partly that Muslims tend to be more brown in complexion. But I think a lot of it is also that most of the SJW atheists come from places where Christianity is the dominant religion and a big part of the culture.

[Tonio]

At this point, aren't most Christians non-white too?

Probably so, but I bet that's been the case since the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of South America. Not to mention all the Christians in Africa, Philippines, etc.

[Lord Humungus]

Russian city wakes up to find it is covered in BLUE snow: Bizarre weather strikes remote area that was hit by a meteorite in 2013

Residents in a Russian city that was hit by a meteorite in 2013 were startled to wake up to find the streets covered in blue snow.

The bizarre weather phenomenon hit Chelyabinsk, in the Russian Urals, sparking fears the snow was contaminated with toxic materials.

Some locals complained of having sore throats after coming into contact with the snow in an industrial area on the outskirts of the town.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

I guess we know where a future "X-Files" reboot episode will be centered on...

[UnCivilServant]

It turns out someone fed a bunch of smurfs to a jet engine to prevent them from installing engineered communist puppets in key positions

[Coeus]

Who's the useful idiot, again?

But it's another kettle of fish entirely to use the Chapel Hill murders as an opportunity to take a bunch of potshots at atheists that appear to be rooted in a resentment that has little to do with legitimate concerns about fanaticism, which is what Christian writer Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig did at the New Republic, using this murder to grind the hell out of an anti-atheist ax.

Using what arguments, I wonder?

Because it is more critical of religion than introspective about its own moral commitments, it assumes there is broad agreement about what constitutes decency, common sense, and reason. Yet in doing so, New Atheism tends to simply baptize the opinions of young, educated white men as the obviously rational approach to complicated socio-political problems. Thus prejudice in its own ranks goes unnoticed.

Gee, where have I heard that before?

[NebulousFocus]

JFC...

[Irish]

Elizabeth Stoke Bruenig is my new favorite writer to hate read. She's everything I despise - a hard-left, borderling Communist Christian theocrat.

The New Republic is now staffed by total morons. They've got a literal Communist liberation theologist on staff and they published an article the other day about how white people making jokes about white people is racist because it co-opts something black people like to do.

[invisible furry hand]

Check this Irish - I get TNR's automated emails. Today's had a special message from a sponsor: "The Ultimate Resource for the Libertarian Movement Just Got Better?". Yes, The New Republic took Cato coin, the whores. NTTAWWT.

[Coeus]

Jesus, you weren't kidding.

I love making fun of white people. I do it every day. It garners laughs, which, as a humorist, is what I want most in this world. (The thing I want second most? For white people to stop trying to pass off casseroles as real food.)

This is how the party ends?with white people wanting in on the joke so badly that they create a separate category of "cool" white people who mock their own whiteness in an effort at solidarity. "White people be like 'white people be like,' but they be the white people that white people be like!!!!" as one Tumblr post neatly summarized.

I'm not trying to bar white people from being self-deprecating?far from it. But when a source of solace for people of color is co-opted this way, does it lose all its power? Is it funny anymore? And if it is, is it still OK to laugh?

If white people would just stop telling jokes, acting in movies, making music, and running for office, the world would be a better place.

When do we start treating this shit like the stormfront bullshit it is? Is it time yet?

[Coeus]

Here's the one about music. Kanye agrees with this one wholeheartedly.

[MJGreen]

I love making fun of white people. I do it every day. It garners laughs, which, as a humorist, is what I want most in this world. (The thing I want second most? For white people to stop trying to pass off casseroles as real food.)

Oh dear.

[Suthenboy]

A source of solace. Wow. That is one hell of an admittance there.

[invisible furry hand]

Chelsea Manning will get hormone treatment in jail

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Never have I been more proud to be an American!

[Crusty Juggler]

USA USA USA USA!

[UnCivilServant]

Is it hormone treatment to correct his thoughts of being a woman, or hormone treatments to induce gynocomastia?

[Coeus]

If my tax dollars are gonna be spent, better to make titties than hire more homeland security.

[Rich]

It's the price we pay for feminization.

[BigT]

Chelsea, Peyton, or Eli - who is the best Manning?

[Coeus]

Depends on how big Chelsea's new titties get.

[invisible furry hand]

Carmen Dell'Orefice cordially invites you to kiss her 83 year old arse

[invisible furry hand]

Her uterus is paper-thin and she thinks she got pregnant from a tablet

Court approves forced sterilisation of mum with low IQ

[Jordan]

+3 generations of imbeciles

[Illocust]

Yeah, sorry, if childbirth and abortion aren't any different than any other medical condition, then the progs are going to have to accept them being treated the same way.

[Zeb]

if childbirth and abortion aren't any different than any other medical condition

Aren't all medical conditions different from any other medical condition?

How is that relevant here? Are people usually forced to undergo procedures against their will when they have other medical conditions? I honestly have no idea what you are trying to say here.

Anyway, forced sterilization is Progressivism 101.

[John]

Yes Zeb they are, if they are minors or considered mentally incompetent. If someone who is mentally incompetent refuses needed medical care, a court can order it done over their objection assuming it finds the person incompetent.

So if childbirth and pregnancy is just another medical procedure, a court can order a person it considers incompetent to be sterilized or have an abortion just like it can order them to take cancer treatment or get an appendectomy.

Indeed, courts sometimes will intervene over the objection of parents to force children to receive medical treatment. It is just a matter of time before courts in Europe and perhaps here start ordering minors to have abortions over the objections of their parents. After that will come forced abortions for anyone not deemed a fit parent and infanticide after that.

This is where the slippery slope leads.

[Zeb]

Well, the problem there is forced medical procedures at all. For adults anyway. I could probably be convinced that courts should be able to overrule parents in extreme cases where the parent wants to prevent something that would clearly save the child's life.

[sarcasmic]

Ginsburg: 'I Wasn't 100 Percent Sober' For State Of The Union Address

http://washington.cbslocal.com.....n-address/

Ginsburg said that Justice Anthony Kennedy was the culprit, bringing wine to dinner.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"And I'm not completely sober when I write my judicial opinions, either."

[Rich]

"I just *love* marching in solemn procession!"

[Lord Humungus]

Kennedy was obviously trying to rape get some GILF action.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

*gags*

If SugarFree writes this up, I will hate you for it.

[NebulousFocus]

She would be unable to consent. Kennedy would be expelled.

[Elspeth Flashman]

I lol'd.

[Zeb]

I don't see how anyone could be.

[sarcasmic]

Tweeting for Treatment in Venezuela

http://www.ozy.com/fast-forwar.....n=02132015

[Lord Humungus]

Look no further than the shelves in Jaimes' two pharmacies, which are almost empty. There's no vitamin C, no folic acid, not even acetaminophen, which is sought after to treat the symptoms of chikungunya, a mosquito-transmitted virus that causes severe joint pain and infected almost 35,000 people last year. And while Jaimes searches for the drug his niece needs, he ? and many other business owners ? are also struggling to keep their pharmacies afloat. "You must keep the pharmacy open eight hours a day, every day, whether you have anything to sell or not," he says. "If we close, we lose our licenses."

[Cyto]

It sounds like they urgently need an expansion of complementary and alternative medicine in Venezuela. Homeopathic remedies could fill those shelves in no time.

[Rich]

"Taking away a person's ability to have a child is truly draconian," Ms Schiller said.

With all due respect, so is using barbecue tongs as forceps.

It's a mess.

[Rich]

@ ifh's 9:17.

[Idle Hands]

Did williams lie about Seal Team Six?

EW YORK -- In the wake of "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams' suspension for lying about being on a helicopter that took fire in Iraq in 2003, questions are emerging over another of his Iraq exploits. Among other things, these questions involve war memorabilia the anchor claims to have received as gifts, including a Navy SEAL's knife and a piece of the helicopter from the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Starting in 2011, Williams began talking about a 2003 experience with SEAL Team 6, the elite team that killed bin Laden inside Pakistan on May 1, 2011. But at least one SEAL and comments from the U.S. Special Operations Command cast doubt on that tale.

So he's a pathological liar.

[invisible furry hand]

What if it's genetic? WHAT IF THAT WASN'T REALLY ALLISON WILLIAMS' ARSE?

[Idle Hands]

What if Allison Williams really did want to grow up?

[John]

I know she is the complete beneficiary of having a famous father, but damn Allison Williams is hot.

[Idle Hands]

She is incredibly hot.

[Virginian]

I would beautifully pierce her tail rotor with my RPG.

[Monty Crisco]

Best comment on the thread...

[Cdr Lytton]

Kitzhaber had apparently decided to resign earlier this week but changed his mind while his replacement was flying back to the state.

I hope he stays. It's the best thing that could happen to the state. The Democrats control the legislature and this is the only thing keeping them from implementing this year's version of California-lite. As long as he's there, the idiotic alternative energy plan supported by Kitz's girlfriend won't get much traction and that's logjamming more tax increases, regulations, gun control, and whatever else the new supermajority can wet its pants over.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

For real. Cool.