Mitt Romney to Fight Evander Holyfield, Batgirl Variant Cover Pulled, Rings Around Chiron: A.M. Links

• 

  DC Comics/Rafael Albuquerque

  The White House has deleted the FOIA regulations for its Office of Administration, saying courts have ruled the office doesn't have to respond to FOIA requests.

• Israelis headed to the polls for parliamentary elections today. In a last ditch effort, Benjamin Netanyahu said there wouldn't be a Palestinian state if he were re-elected prime minister.
• Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will box former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield for charity in May.
• At the request of the artist, DC Comics has pulled a variant cover for Batgirl #41 (pictured right) over which the company said it had received threats of violence and harassment.
• A judge dropped murder charges against rapper Tiny Doo that were based entirely on his song lyrics.
• A British Airways flight headed for Dubai had to return to London less than an hour after taking off because of someone's particularly putrid bowel movement.
• Researchers say they've found rings around Chiron, a minor planet orbiting between Saturn and Uranus.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Researchers say they've found rings around Chiron, a minor planet orbiting between Saturn and Uranus.

Someone's making an honest planet out of her.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hello.

Let the derp games begin.

[Zeb]

St. Patrick's day?

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

*golf clap*

[MJGreen]

I second the clap. Well done.

I'll also throw in a narrowed gaze, as I imagine Swiss has to start rationing them out.

[Slammer]

Chiron needs Wisk.

[Almanian!]

I was going to recommend Ancient Chinese Secret!

[Slammer]

No tickee no raundry!

[WTF]

Lacist!

[Charles Easterly]

My neighbor's brother's ex-girlfriend Ilene had a wooden leg with a kickstand, but he called her Irene.

[kilroy]

But what about the rings around Uranus?

[Dilligaf]

Mitt Romney to fight Evander Holyfield?.. So St. Paddys is the new April Fools?

[Just a thought not a sermon]

33) I sometimes have this idea that seems to make sense but I'm not too sure about: I think for most people, racism probably is not that bad a thing. OK, if you're a hiring manager at a large firm, it's best for society if you're not racist. But if you're just a regular person, and you happen to not care for blacks or whites or Asians or whatever, who cares? Does it really hurt anybody if there are just groups of people somebody doesn't want to be friends with? I've noticed that old comedy routines and movies often have fairly racist content, and I've sometimes heard racist sentiments from older people that must have been fairly common in the immediate post-war era. But you know, the 1940s and 50s were actually a time of great racial progress?arguably more so than now. Maybe a reason for that is because people were more relaxed about racial attitudes. Maybe it's actually easier to integrate groups of people into society if individuals are allowed to harbor and express contrary opinions. Maybe?a little racism doesn't actually hurt anything?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Racism will always exist. Shunning it into private thoughts is not necessarily a good thing either. I prefer it out in the open to the extent people are willing to express it.

And for the record, it's total and utter bull shit blacks can't be racist. They are and they can be just as intolerant - if not more so - when it comes to, for instance, gay rights and marriages.

The sooner that's accepted the sooner we can all get on with whatever we do in our miserable existence.

Just my middling thoughts.

[BigT]

And for the record, it's total and utter bull shit blacks can't be racist.

What you say? You mean 93% of blacks didn't support Obama because he was such an effective IL and US Senator?

[Free Society]

Black culture doesn't have any problems you racists.

[kilroy]

gay rights and marriages

When did 'gay' become a race?

[gaijin]

1st task: Defining racism in a functional manner. Otherwise, it's all in the eye of the beholder.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

That's bigotry. It annoys me that the term racism is thrown about for every last little personal preference.

[Elspeth Flashman]

People just don't understand the difference between the two (racism & bigotry).

[Zeb]

I see what you are saying and think it is a good distinction to make. But I also don't think that including bigotry based on race in the definition of racism is terribly far off from how the word is used. And usage determines meaning.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Usage does determine meaning. Unfortunately we have thoughtcrime laws that depend on the meaning of the words. When the definition of racism is watered down to include personal preference for skin tone or hair color or disdain for particular cultural practice, it includes so much as to become meaningless.

Of course, the intent is to make everyone, by definition, a racist.

[Zeb]

Well, with the laws you get a whole different problem of judges deciding what words mean. Though I don't know that there are any laws that use the word "racism", nor any laws that would punish someone simply for bigotry (for example, I think refusing to serve black people in your restaurant would count as racism and not just bigotry).

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

There are plenty of hate crime modifiers in existence.

[Zeb]

This is true. And I am not a fan. But I think it is worth distinguishing that from pure thoughtcrime. If someone commits an actual criminal act, it is not terribly unreasonable to look at their state of mind and motivations when considering punishments.

Here's another case where definitions of words matter. And I wouldn't call hate crime "thoughtcrime" as long as there has to be an underlying criminal act and the punishment for the hate part isn't hugely disproportionate to the underlying crime. "Thoughtcrime" should refer to punishing people purely for saying or thinking the wrong thing. And I think that for the most part the first amendment has saved us from that.

[bodenlosen Schweinerei]

If someone commits an actual criminal act, it is not terribly unreasonable to look at their state of mind and motivations when considering punishments.

Really? Why is saying 'Stitch this, you son of a bitch!" whilst beating six shades of brown stuff out of someone in any way a lesser offense than saying "Stitch this, faggot!", whilst beating six shades of brown stuff out of someone?

[Zeb]

I agree at least to a point. I don't think that casual, personal racism really hurts anyone (except maybe the racist). As long as you aren't actively discriminating against anyone or agitation for the return of Jim Crow, who cares?
I certainly think a society without racism is desirable, but there is no need or real benefit to rooting out every little bit of racism that remains in society. At a certain point it becomes counterproductive.

[Suthenboy]

"I think for most people, racism probably is not that bad a thing."

To the extent you are talking about it doesn't hurt other people, but it hurts you. By grouping people together based on something so arbitrary as race and then not associating with them you deny yourself the opportunity to have quality individuals in your life.

[Free Society]

I don't hang out with many Somali women. Don't intend to. I'm neither bothered or hurt by this.

[CatoTheElder]

Having lived six years in the Middle East, I'd extend that to not hanging out with religious Muslim women ... because I value my life. Also, because hanging out with them would threaten theirs as well.

You think that's bigoted? Well, then go to Saudi Arabia and try to chat up the young ladies and tell me how that works out for you.

[Free Society]

Basically what you're telling me is what I already know. Don't associate with the real kool-aid drinking muslims or people from their culture who are anything but apostates.

[Zeb]

Your reasons for that aren't arbitrary or solely based on race.

[Free Society]

Most racism isn't simply arbitrary. Misplaced perhaps but not arbitrary. How many people have a negative opinion of all blacks because of what they see from black culture?

How many people avoid Arabs because of how people, particularly men, in their culture behave? Sure a hatred of all Arabs may not be warranted, but I don't know that I've ever met a racist whose antipathy toward groups X, Y or Z was arbitrary.

[Free Society]

by many I mean any

[Fist of Etiquette]

A judge dropped murder charges against rapper Tiny Doo that were based entirely on his song lyrics.

Soft on crime, yo.

[gaijin]

If he'd been a Big Doo, he may not have emerged with as soft a result.

[alittlesense]

He would have been on that plane headed for Dubai.

[Charles Easterly]

That was the line/morning link I intended to quote and respond to, since I was very glad to read that decision. It seems that all is not lost.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Low bar if something so ridiculous not completely playing out means we're not lost.

[Charles Easterly]

Yes.

[Ted S.]

Is Tiny Doo as shitty as Scrappy Doo?

[Rhywun]

Not possible.

[Redmanfms]

Ugh, mtrueman is truly a fucktarded shitheel.

[Ted S.]

Why do you say this?

[Redmanfms]

This.

Well, really every single thread he's ever popped up in, but especially being a troofer.

I don't think I've met (for real or on the 'tubes) any person who simultaneously manages to believe everything in my "three hated beliefs" list.

1. Communist apologist.
2. Jew-hater.
3. Troofer.

[ZR]

No list like that is complete without population control believer. More of them then you'd think.

[Lord Humungus]

The snake with a thirst for beer serves as a warning to South Australians

A deadly Eastern Brown snake has been found in a backyard in Adelaide's northern suburbs with its head stuck in a beer can.

Mawson Lakes resident Lauren Lehman said she walked outside to find the four foot snake in her yard.

...snip...

Mr Renton's son Corey was filmed carrying out the delicate operation to free the trapped snake.

"I'm now going to try and cut his head free and hopefully I can do this without getting bitten," he said in the video.

[Redmanfms]

A deadly Eastern Brown snake

Are any snakes in Australia not deadly?

[Almanian!]

I think plumbers' snakes are relatively harmless. Unless they were used on certain British Airways flights....

[Andrew S.]

Australia has to be the scariest place to live. Nature is continuously trying to kill you there.

[Raven Nation]

Not as scary as D.C.

[Almanian!]

...the government tries to kill you there

[Charles Easterly]

You beat me to it while I was typing.

[Charles Easterly]

But D.C. is unnatural.

[Cdr Lytton]

It's ok, once you tie the kangeroos down.

[Raven Nation]

More recent Rolf Harris:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-28163593

[Notorious G.K.C.]

When a snake gets drunk, does it see hallucinatory humans?

[BigT]

Alligators like then a little human flesh.

[John]

I have a soft spot for the Aussies and sometimes think it would be nice to escape America and runaway to Australia. Then I read things like that and realize even the America gulag might still be better. Holy shit their fauna is insane.

[Redmanfms]

I have a soft spot for the Aussies and sometimes think it would be nice to escape America and runaway to Australia.

Why?

You might as well run away to Europe. The women are better looking, the food is better, the booze is better, there is historical shit, and they are just as asstardedly leftist as Aussies.

Then I read things like that and realize even the America gulag might still be better.

You (and many others on this board for that matter) lack perspective.

America is most certainly going in the wrong direction, but it is still (and what a truly fucking sad commentary this is) the shining city of Freedom relative to everywhere else on Earth.

[John]

First, like many people on this board, you are too fucking earnest and seem incapable of understanding hyperbole as a rhetorical device. I didn't mean that literally.

Second, while Australia is infected with socialists like everywhere it seems, they do seem decidedly less leftist and at least less fascist than Europe. Third, I am under no allusions about the nature of the US. In many ways it is very free. But in other ways it is not what we like to think it is.

[Auric Demonocles]

Also in favor of (parts of) Australia, even if everyone around you is a full on socialist, if they're all 50 miles away it doesn't matter much.

[DEG]

I skimmed over parts of Heinlein's Tramp Royale, and I vaguely remember him comparing Australia and New Zealand. It's a bit dated comparison, from before the New Zealand government scaled back a lot of regulation.

He said, if I remember correctly, that neither county is like America, but that Americans will find themselves much more comfortable in Australia as Australia is much more like America than New Zealand.

I like Australia, and have considered moving there. They have lots of problems though. Be careful about getting an Aussie going about guns, unless it's this guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TC2xTCb_GU

[Free Society]

"That's not a gun..."

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I agree. You should see the looks of disbelief I get whenever I tell Canadians my wife and I would move there if circumstances permitted.

Despite all the crap - and I have to admit your cop and war on drugs garbage does worry me - it's still miles and kilometers above many - if all - countries in the world.

[John]

It is also the war on everything else. Go on a file sharing server and download the wrong file and you could be facing years in federal prison and a lifetime as a registered sex offender in this country. Get cross ways with the IRS or buy stock on the wrong tip and you could be facing prison as well. You don't have to be a criminal to face years in prison in this country. It is really scary when you think about it.

[Redmanfms]

It is also the war on everything else. Go on a file sharing server and download the wrong file and you could be facing years in federal prison and a lifetime as a registered sex offender in this country. Get cross ways with the IRS or buy stock on the wrong tip and you could be facing prison as well. You don't have to be a criminal to face years in prison in this country. It is really scary when you think about it.

John, again, you lack perspective.

Nearly all of this is true of the rest of the Western world. Child porn is illegal everywhere, and other Western nations (particularly Britain and France) have engaged in baiting operations. Cross the taxman anywhere and you'll face prison and dispossession.

I do have a tendency to seem "rah-rah 'Murica motherfuckers" but that's because I've actually lived and worked in other countries. Despite America's problems it is still a better and freer place to live than almost everywhere else.

[John]

Child porn is illegal but doesn't produce anywhere near the consiquences it does here. I defy you to come up with another western nation that puts mere possessors of such stuff in prison for the terms we do or forces them to register in the same way actual offenders do.

And our insider trading laws and tax laws are much more criminalized and much harsher than anything in the civilized world. To give an example, I have a friend whose cousin did a year in federal prison because she bought stock based on insider information she got while working as a secretary at a brokerage house. No way would someone in Europe guilty of a similar offense have gotten anything but a fine. They wouldn't have even been given a criminal record. Only in the US would a secretary making a few thousand dollars on the side get a felony conviction and a year in prison.

Our justice system is exponentially worse and harsher than any other one in the civilized world.

[Redmanfms]

Sigh, sure John, whatever you say.

[John]

Redmanfms,

If I am wrong, show me where? The average child porn possession sentence in federal court is in the years and is often higher than actual molesters get. Same with insider trading and tax evasion. You can use google too. You show me people in Europe getting the kinds of sentences or even convictions that Americans routinely get.

Give me examples and I will happily concede the point. if you can't provide those examples, then admit I might have a pont and stop doing a Bo imitation and just sighing smugly.

[Redmanfms]

You didn't provide examples. You provided an anecdote.

British sentencing guidelines for possession of child porn.

then admit I might have a pont and stop doing a Bo imitation and just sighing smugly.

Fuck you John.

[John]

Read your link Redmanfms. First, there is no minimum mandatory there. The max is five years. That is a lot, but the minimum mandatory in the US is five years. You start at five years here while in the UK that is the max.

Second, the registration requirements are dependent on the age of the subject, the indecency of the photo and the sentence imposed. In other words, judges and juries have the freedom to impose registration as justice demands. In the US, there is no such freedom. You register the same whether you had five pictures of a few teenagers standing naked or something truly vile.

I am sorry, the US has an incredibly harsh criminal law system. People get sentences in this country every day that would be unthinkable in the rest of the civilized world.

And if you don't like me calling you Bo, don't say smug "sigh whatever". I didn't do anything but argue my point or anything to justify that.

[Redmanfms]

Read your link Redmanfms. First, there is no minimum mandatory there. The max is five years. That is a lot, but the minimum mandatory in the US is five years. You start at five years here while in the UK that is the max.

Read the link again John.

And if you don't like me calling you Bo, don't say smug "sigh whatever". I didn't do anything but argue my point or anything to justify that.

And arguing with you is clearly pointless because you will A. make claims without backing them up and, B. expect proof from others. That is Bo-Bo bullshit John, not simply disagreeing and walking away.

So you know what, believe whatever you want dickhead.

[John]

Statutory Limitations & Maximum Penalty:

S160 CJA on Indictment - 5 years
S1 PCCA - On Indictment 10 years
Summary Conviction - 6 months imprisonment and/or statutory maximum fine

What am I missing? Those are the maximums. There doesn't seem to be a minimum. Also, there is no option of a "summary conviction" in the US, whatever that is. I honestly don't know UK law to tell you.

[Xeones]

Australia is where God put all the animals we're not supposed to mess with.

[gaijin]

'Beer' is that Austrlian for Bear?

[Ted S.]

Get it to OD on Foster's.

[Azathoth!!]

Mr Renton's son Corey was filmed carrying out the delicate operation to free the trapped snake.

"I'm now going to try and cut his head free and hopefully I can do this without getting bitten," he said in the video.

Free it? Cut it's head off, not free.

A superdeadly snake in your backyard? Why, get it's head free so it's fangs are useful once more.

retards.

[Mock-star]

If Im not mistaken, killing one, no matter how deadly, is against the law. They have to release them back into the wild, so they can immediately return.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The White House has deleted the FOIA regulations for its Office of Administration, saying courts have ruled the office doesn't have to respond to FOIA requests.

Only the most transparent administration in history could get away with that.

[Injun, as in from India]

I so want to troll my leftist Derpbook circle with this. Hope, change, progress, forward, etc.

But then, past experience says that it is easier to bash my head against a brick wall than trying to reason with a progtard.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Never hurts to hit and run. Just put it out there and then don't engage.

[Auric Demonocles]

I think that should be a drink.

[Dweebston]

I think it literally should be drink. Equal parts spirit of your choice and bleach, for dealing with those hard-to-reach statists.

[Pope Jimbo]

Sheesh! They weren't deleted. They were just made transparent. So transparent you can't see them. That is exactly what they meant by the most transparent administration ever.

[Lord Humungus]

Doomcock... doomcock...

Japan holds 24-hour festival to celebrate the penis

[Steve G]

Less than 5.16 people plan on attending

[Steve G]

*reduces glaze*

[Bobarian (sexbot hand model)]

Are you making doughnuts?

[Free Society]

So that's where the hole in the doughnut comes from.... The More You Know

[Free Society]

So that's where the hole in the doughnut comes from.... The More You Know

[Ted S.]

Do they build a statue out of wicker, too?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

And even priests enjoy the penis party ? performing "purification rituals" to release the full load of good luck

[gaijin]

I see what was done there.

[Ted S.]

Theme song for the festival

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

A British Airways flight headed for Dubai had to return to London less than an hour after taking off because of someone's particularly putrid bowel movement.

STEVE SMITH DEMAND REFUND FOR TICKET!

[Old Man With Candy]

This one has Riven's name all over it.

[Riven]

My bad...

[BigT]

Since I hadn't seen that anyone set up an NCAA pool, I set one up.

name: ReasonHnR
pw: freeminds

[gaijin]

Cool thanks...I'm in.

[Bee Tagger]

Researchers say they've found rings around Chiron, a minor planet orbiting between Saturn and Uranus.

Yeah, I could say the same thing about some of my older dress shirts but you don't hear me bragging about it. In fact, I'm a little embarrassed.

[Lord Humungus]

Yes, Culture Helped Kill the Two-Parent Family. And Liberals Shouldn't Be Afraid to Admit It.

The 1970s, and their aftermath, were different. As steady, union-wage jobs along the assembly lines became scarce, traditional family life began to fray among the working class?so that, now, "three-fourths of young mothers who have no bachelor's degree have had at least one child outside of marriage." The difference was culture. The country lost its hangups about premarital sex, and it slowly became normal to raise a kid outside of marriage. Where accidental pregnancies had once regularly led to shotgun weddings, it became more common for couples to simply move in together (or keep living together, for that matter). Were those relationships as stable as marriages, nobody would be worried about it today. But unfortunately, cohabitating couples with children tend to break up, and the kids suffer for it.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

The hoisting of one single parenting as a choice on a pedestal isn't a good thing. If you fell into it through no fault of your own (death to a spouse, abusive spouse etc.) that's another matter but it shouldn't be a means to an end accompanied with a 'I don't need no man in my life and neither do my three kids' stance.

Then they wonder why they're poor or can't make ends meet. I get annoyed at having to read one of those 'woe is me' economic stories only to discover more often than not people put themselves in that position through (bad) choice or decisions.

Same with homelessness. How many people live out on the streets by choice?

Rufus is surly today.

[Almanian!]

Yeah, funny - my dad died when I was 12. My mom never remarried, so my brothers, sister and I were raised for much of our lives by a "single mother". Difference was - family, church, friends (IT TAKES A VILLAGE!!). We never lived anything other than a very average, middle-class life. (my dad was smart about insurance) While far from rich, we were certainly never poor.

And, no, we weren't "lucky" - we were fortunate that my parents planned for shit to go wrong and took steps to mitigate it. Just like my wife and I did (30 years of married....something less than "bliss" this June 1!!)

But, yeah, "culture" doesn't matter.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Thus proving it's possible. My cousin just died at 43 years old leaving behind two young boys. The wife is a star managing. I'm really impressed by her attitude. It's tough but she does have a lot of support. Whenever she's in a bind and is in need of some extra cash we just hire her to give music classes at the daycare.

About losing a parent at a young age, recently saw a report on E:60 on Travis Hamonic of the Islanders who meets with kids who lost one after games. It was really something.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

It goes something like this:

Liberal hippie sister: Angela is going through a rough spill. Can we hire her for a couple of months?

Rufus (counting money bags): But the cost structure! The integrity of margins just don't maintain itself.

Sister stares down Rufus.

Rufus: Fine. But it's coming out of your salary!

[Pope Jimbo]

Unpossible, Rufus!

There is no way that a person can be helped out by their extended family. Only the govt is capable of doling out money to people.

Next you will have us believing that if Social Security payments went away, children would help their parents voluntarily out of the goodness of their own hearts.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

When I went to get (read: BEG) for my daycare permit (I've told this story here before but worth mentioning again) the bureaucrat noticed me bristling (as I sat next to my consultant who knew the process well thus expediting everything) at all the paper work they required. She said, and I'm not joking, (and I paraphrase because it's been a few years): "I know it's a lot but we do these things to ensure quality. Or else it would be like Africa."

They honestly believe they're the last line of defense against chaos.

I wanted to tell her if I remove you from this insidious process civilization would still advance. Now go take your 65k a year and shove it up your ass.

[Illocust]

Eh, I don't think choice is the issue. The real issue in my eyes is not that people thinks its a choice, but because people think it is an unavoidable accident. The person who spent their twenties saving and planning to have a kid on their own is not the same as the person who had a one night stand and decided to not adopt the kid out.

[Ted S.]

When isn't Rufus surly? :-p

Then again, it's not as if I'm one to talk.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

/THROWS TIMBIT AT SCREEN.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

*dives to save Timbit*

Don't worry little delicious friend, I will save you!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

It's still good! It's still good!

[Pope Jimbo]

Rufus,

We were done when Jesse Ventura got roasted by the press after he told a single mom who was bitching about his budget that she should get a job and it wasn't govt's job to fix everyone's mistakes.

http://tinyurl.com/mbqbe2w

I didn't know anyone locally who disagreed with Ventura, but the press he got was overwhelmingly negative. Maybe it would be different now with more media outlets.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

That's my point.

Single parenthood will happen and that in of itself is not a bad thing.

What's bad is enabling all sorts of bad choices that may unnecessarily lead to it.

My cousin's wife got off her (lovely) ass and went to get TWO jobs. She forged ahead like a mother should.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Yes, our culture is to blame (really).

What is the conservative remedy? A libertarian would not have one since the state has no business social engineering.

[Bill Dalasio]

Actually, the libertarian remedy is to stop subsidizing the entire process.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

This. A point artfully avoided in that article.

[Almanian!]

Yeah, this exactly. Stop subsidizing and actively encouraging psychotic behavior with money you stole from me. LEt's start there...

[CatoTheElder]

When the State indemnifies people for the consequences of fucked-up decisions, people make more fucked-up decisions.

Careless decisions leading to single motherhood is but one example. Other examples of fucked-up decisions that are indemnified or subsidized by government include taking on excessive mortgage debt, deferring growing up to get a masters degree in puppetry, depositing funds at underwater banks to get an additional 0.1% interest.

[Restoras, Comptroller-at-Large]

Be vigilant. Teh Weigel progbot is cunningly altering its responses to make people believe it is a breathing, thinking, rational actor. Do not take the bait.

[WTF]

Dreams are a great thing, but you know something? They take a lot of energy. But that's OK. There's a job waiting for you down the block from your house that doesn't require a thought in your head or a hope in your heart. So come on down and work for the artificial flower factory. Why fight it? OK? Thank you.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Sociologist Andrew Cherlin makes a similar point in Labor's Love Lost, his recent exploration of "the rise and fall of the working class family in America." It is virtually impossible to disentangle the many social and economic changes that may have led to the rise of single-motherhood, the Johns Hopkins professor argues. The pill, the sexual revolution, and the advent of no-fault divorce were followed shortly by declining manufacturing employment, and no amount of econometric modeling is going to realistically apportion blame to one cause or the other.

No mention of the rise of the welfare state?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Instead of pining for the past, we could could be doing far, far more as a country to reduce material need for low-income families.

Oh I see, we need more of what we've been doing for the past 50 years.

[kinnath]

Women decided they'd rather be married to the state than any single man.

[Bill Dalasio]

Liberals shouldn't shy away from acknowledging any of this. Instead, it's our job to ask: What next?

It's Salon. So, of course it involves picking my pocket to pay for the little rugrats.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Slate.

[John]

Shorter Slate, sure we fucked it up and did profound harm to both society and millions of innocent children, so we are just the ones to try and fix it.

It is amazing the utter lack of shame these assholes have. He is admitting that liberals thanks to their fucking utopian dreams and arrogance inflicted as much harm on society as anything since slavery. And rather than repudiate the ideology or hold himself and the rest of his ilk in any way accountable, his answer is of course "we just need more power". These people are fucking evil.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Gee, why the fuck don't you Team Red assholes actually propose legislation to kill the welfare state when you are in power?

do you do it? Hell no. Reagan expanded the EITC and healthcare burdens, Bush expanded Medicare and home ownership paid by taxpayers.

Why does your Team do that?

[WTF]

Welcome to Retardation: A Celebration. Now, hopefully with this book, I'm gonna dispel a few myths, a few rumors. First off, the retarded don't rule the night. They don't rule it. Nobody does. And they don't run in packs. And while they may not be as strong as apes, don't lock eyes with 'em, don't do it. Puts 'em on edge. They might go into berzerker mode; come at you like a whirling dervish, all fists and elbows. You might be screaming "No, no, no" and all they hear is "Who wants cake?" Let me tell you something: They all do. They all want cake.

[John]

What Shreek shows more than anything is how false the Special Olympics myth about how friendly and cuddly retards are really is. If we were going to have a retard for a regular poster, and this is the age of diversity so we probably should, why couldn't it have been a friendly retard who posted about cake and stuff? Instead we got the nasty retard who tortures cats and sets fires.

[straffinrun]

Seriously guys. I get it's just a joke but the "retard" "aspy" insults ... 3,4 times a week I do volunteer work at special needs schools and throwing those terms out as insults makes cringe.

[Restoras, Comptroller-at-Large]

A thicker skin, you need.

[Bill Dalasio]

Point taken. We probably shouldn't insult special needs kids by comparing the likes of Shriek or Bo to them.

[straffinrun]

That's exactly what I mean, BD. Just my .02. People who are truly struggling in this world due to the hand nature dealt them shouldn't be lumped in with dirtbags like PB who are fools but actually made that choice from free will.

[CatoTheElder]

^ THIS!

There is a profound difference between a FOOL and a retarded person.

[WTF]

They are actually just quotes from a TV show to mock him without actually engaging him. We are not seriously using the term "retard".

[tarran]

Heh, the kids at my son's school were told they couldn't use the word "retard" because it is insulting and never appropriate.

My son's response, "What if we are learning to land a plane?"

I love my boy.

[CatoTheElder]

The idiot foolish teacher obviously does not know that "retard" is a perfectly good word when used as a verb.

[Lord Humungus]

I'm with straffinrun - having to deal with special needs kids myself. I've used the term Aspy to describe myself and some members with less-than-normal social skills.

[Lord Humungus]

*admittedly used

[Old Man With Candy]

In some cases, no, it's not a joke (I think of Bo, particularly). It's an appeal to other posters to stop flinging poo and encourage the Asperger victim to get professional help instead of living with the abuse.

[CatoTheElder]

straffinrun: My wife does similar volunteer work, and a local residential facility/program for retarded adults is my choice for checkbook philanthropy.

It really is unfair to compare PB to retarded adults like the ones my wife and I sponsor. These men and women get up in the morning, work hard, and endeavor to be upright. Sure, they are as dumb as a bag of hammers, but they earn a living and pay taxes, and they don't leech off other taxpayers (well, except ordinary Social Security old-age benefits and SSI for a couple of dire cases that no sentient person would object to.) I manage the financial affairs for one of the guys (my brother-in-law), so I know his situation well. This guy worked 35 years at as an orderly in a hospital. He got up at 5 a.m., took the bus to work because he cannot drive, and reported for duty with an exemplary attendance record. With his own earnings, he bought his "condo" in the residential facility, saved money in an IRA, and earned a pension benefit. After 35 years of good decisions, largely due to early coaching from the Catholic sisters who started the initial training program there, this guy is well set for his retirement. Not rich, of course, but he's never been a welfare leech and his retirement won't change that.

So, yeah, it really is a disservice to the retarded to call PB retarded. PB is not retarded, which really makes his commentary here more loathsome.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Does this guy even read his own article? He admits that in the Depression, people put off both marriage *and* children, presumably because of an outdated cultural prejudice linking the two, so that if you avoid one you're expected to avoid the other.

Now that culture has changed, but, in a burst of creativity, the author suggests that trying to change it back would simply be to try and restore the world of Leave it to Beaver (what is is about that show which pisses off progs so much?).

Nowadays, unmarried women, "still want to have children," yet the answer is to "educate working-class women about how to safely and effectively use contraception," as if they're going to say, "wow, *that's* why I kept having all those children, thanks, benevolent liberal educator!"

Oh, and encourage them to put off children until a bit later in life." Of course, that would require changing the culture, which the author just ruled out.

The article is just a warning to fellow liberals to admit the cultural causes of the problem, just so they won't embarrass themselves, but then to do nothing in particular to follow up on their acknowledgement of reality.

[John]

You have to remember he is a feminized Prog. So, he must deny the reality that women would naturally want to have children. He of course also must deny that poor people have their own volition and can and often do things that Progs find objectionable or fuck up Prog dreams. So it can't be that these women are having children because they want to and there is thanks to welfare and the Prog changes in culture no reason to have a husband to do that. No, they are only having children because the poor dears can't understand how to use birth control.

What an arrogant piece of shit. That asshole actually thinks that women don't understand birth control. I think he needs to check his privilege.

[Restoras, Comptroller-at-Large]

Teh Weigel is none of these things. It is a mindless progBOT that only generates comments in order to create replies. It's programming has become a bit more cunningly nuanced but it remains an unsentient entity. Ignore it.

[Almanian!]

The White House has deleted the FOIA regulations for its Office of Administration, saying courts have ruled the office doesn't have to respond to FOIA requests.

All together now:

"MOST TRANSPARENTEST ADMINISTRATION EVARRRRR!!!"

[Mike M.]

State Department still dodging requests for Hillary Clinton's OF-109 Separation form, required by law to be signed by all outgoing department members. In fact, they won't even admit whether they actually have one or not.

According to Reason's own Judge Napolitano (one of the best we have here), Hillary likely broke the law whether she signed the form or not. If she didn't, she's guilty of stealing government documents, and if she did, she committed perjury.

[WTF]

If she didn't, she's guilty of stealing government documents, and if she did, she committed perjury.

Which of course is why they won't answer one way or the other.

[Mike M.]

And if they refuse to respond to a very simple and legitimate FOIA request (they still have about ten more days I think), then of course they're breaking yet another law.

[WTF]

What difference at this point does it make?

They know they will never be held accountable for their law breaking any way.

[Injun, as in from India]

they're breaking yet another law.

Laws are for little people.

The whole "nation ruled by laws" thing is just cheesy historical rhetoric at this point.

[Free Society]

That's what happens when you get your law from statutes.

[Bee Tagger]

At the request of the artist, DC Comics has pulled a variant cover for Batgirl #41 (pictured right) over which the company said it had received threats of violence and harassment.

Unwittingly influenced by the cover, no doubt.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

I am trying to grasp this one...so people see a comic cover and they harass or threaten the publishing company?! WTF'ing F?!?!?!

[Illocust]

It's probably just the normal bitching done by all comic book fans but done by SJWs. DC is probably just trying on the language to see if it will actually convince the crazies to go back to their hovel.
I could see why they would try it. Comic book fans will bitch and threaten but unless you go to where they are they won't come after you (even then the worst you are going to get is a cup of vomit thrown in your face. Disgusting but harmless). SJWs on the other hand will organize harassment campaigns and swat you if you aren't careful.

[Batgirl]

My fans!

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Until Pluto gets reinstated to full planet status, I don't want to hear one goddamn word about fucking Chiron. Got that, science?!?

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

ANGRILY SECONDED!

[Andrew S.]

My daughter has a book called "Boy, were we wrong about the solar system". It basically goes through all of the things we used to think about the earth and sun and stars, and how wrong we were.

There's a page about Pluto, and its discovery, and its demotion to a dwarf planet. It says "boy, were we wrong about Pluto!". After that page she told me she still thinks Pluto is a planet. I was so proud.

[Auric Demonocles]

I always like to say that calling it a dwarf planet still means it's a planet.

[Rhywun]

You could also explain that by their own definition, Earth and several other planets in our solar system are also "dwarf planets".

I sometimes think they came up with this nonsense just so they could pull a "gotcha!" on folks they look down on.

[Pro Libertate]

Residents of mass-challenged worlds can move up to full planet status by simply paying for mass to be moved from somewhere else to their world.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Oh, and I bet you know just the outfit that can help them with that, eh?

[Pro Libertate]

Indeed. And for a small fee, we can slow down the mass as it approaches your world. Aiming it and launching it your way is totally free!

[gaijin]

'Boy were we wrong' statements as a hook...really mean 'Boy, were you wrong'. Also, why not 'Girl'? 😉

[Ted S.]

Anybody else having trouble with Photobucket? All of the direct photo links, such as http://i262.photobucket.com/al.....ecrazy.jpg, are getting redirected to something like http://s262.photobucket.com/us.....y.jpg.html, which is completely borking image embedding.

[Lord Humungus]

no not that!

Tax Cuts Still Don't Pay for Themselves

The models that get conservatives excited about dynamic scoring often cause such excitement because their aggressive assumptions lead to implausibly rosy results. In 2011, the Heritage Foundation put out a report finding that Paul Ryan's budget plan, which called for sharp cuts in taxes and spending, would have caused unemployment to stabilize below 3 percent. After various observers pointed out this was implausible, Heritage revised its model to call for a higher unemployment rate ? without changing its strongly positive findings about other economic indicators, such as G.D.P., that should be affected by unemployment.
Continue reading the main story

In the case of the Tax Foundation, the optimistic results come mostly from assumptions about business investment being wildly responsive to tax policy. Its report found Rubio-Lee would add nearly 50 percent to the business capital stock inside a decade, over and above how much it would have grown absent any change in tax cuts.

[John]

But any macro economic model that shows spending other people's money is the way to get rich is the absolute Gospel Truth and anyone who says otherwise is just a racist science denier.

It is the same fucking models and techniques in both cases. The difference is that at least the ones concerning tax cuts are based on the common sense notion that if you let people keep more of what they earn they will work and invest more. Yet, liberals won't believe that and will instead believe utterly counter intuitive and idiotic things about spending.

[Bill Dalasio]

But any macro economic model that shows spending other people's money is the way to get rich is the absolute Gospel Truth and anyone who says otherwise is just a racist science denier.

Yup, ignorant rednecks like John Taylor (http://web.stanford.edu/~johntayl/). His research showed the stimulus produced roughly $0.67 growth for every dollar spent.

[Raston Bot]

So, a contraction of $0.33?

[Bill Dalasio]

Well, proponents would argue no. They'd contend the expansion is just less than you're spending. Of course, they ignore the fact that you eventually have to pay that dollar back.

[Rasilio]

Well, the headline is probably mostly true but likely not for the reason they think.

There are basically 2 reasons why Tax cuts don't pay for themselves...

1) The macro effects of tax cuts are marginal because government spending is what drives the macro economy. It matters very little whether the government extracts money from the economy via taxation, borrowing, or inflation the intermediate term effects on the economy are the same. So if you cut taxes but don't correspondingly cut spending at best you'll get a small time shift in the impact of the spending and no net GDP growth will result.

2) The converse is also true, tax increases do not increase revenue. Not that they can't just in the post world war 2 era there is simply no correlation between government revenues and changes in the tax code in either direction. If you cut taxes, increase taxes, or do nothing with taxes it does not matter revenues are equally likely to grow or shrink.

[bodenlosen Schweinerei]

Short answer: taxes pay for spending, not for themselves. The conclusion from this is simple to draw, except if you believe in SCIENCE!, which tells us the problem of elected knobs misspending other peoples' money is to, wait for it, give the knobs more of other peoples' money.

[Free Society]

After various observers pointed out this was implausible, Heritage revised its model to call for a higher unemployment rate ? without changing its strongly positive findings about other economic indicators, such as G.D.P

Progs love GDP as an economic indicator because it's such a poor economic indicator.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...DC Comics has pulled a variant cover for Batgirl #41...over which the company said it had received threats of violence and harassment.

And Reason pulled the link over the threat of context?

[The DerpRider]

FFS. Is everything just going to be white with the label GENERIC on it from now on?

[Charles Easterly]

Keep your white privilege in your head, Racist.

/sarcasm

[WTF]

Why so serious?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

DC is afraid of a bunch of Tumblristas? For shame.

[Andrew S.]

I wonder if they'd be able to get away with The Killing Joke if it came out today, given what happens to Batgirl in it.

[Lord Humungus]

Woman unharmed after strangling a rabid raccoon that was attacking her

The Henrico County, Va., woman was walking alone looking at birds at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens, where she volunteers. She suddenly noticed what appeared to be a rabid raccoon in front of her. It lunged at the inside of her left leg, puncturing her skin and latching onto her pants.

She had to think fast. She said she figured she could physically throw the raccoon off of her, but feared that if she did it would chase and "shred" her.

So Overton, who meditates and has practiced and taught Tai Chi for more than 40 years, pinned the raccoon to the ground and strangled it. It took about five minutes for the raccoon to stop moving.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkhAI3VE1AM

[Bobarian (sexbot hand model)]

Not for nothing, but stomping the motherfucker would have worked, too.

And wouldn't take 5 minutes.

[Raston Bot]

Does she have a trapper's license? Because DGIF would like a word with her.

[Rich]

A British Airways flight headed for Dubai had to return to London less than an hour after taking off because of someone's particularly putrid bowel movement.

This is why they have oxygen masks on planes, DUH!

[Lord Humungus]

ISIS kidnaps 20 medical workers in Libya

A group of more than 30 gunmen from the Islamic State attacked the hospital while a bus was waiting to take the workers, who are not Libyan, to the capital of Tripoli.

Most of the abductees are from the Philippines. Others are from Ukraine, India and Serbia, said the hospital official. The official believes the ISIS gunmen didn't want the staff to leave the city because they are the only medical team there if they needed them for the group's wounded and injured.

[Injun, as in from India]

Oh right. Allah says it is good to have infidel slave labor. So killing those dirty infidels is a lower priority.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

When did doctors and nurses become imperialists?

[Injun, as in from India]

The day they were born as infidels and failed to convert to Islam?

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

BLOWBACK FOR MEDICAL IMPERIALISM!!!

/Richman

[Notorious G.K.C.]

So let's test their medical capacity - wound and injure some ISIS fighters!

[Don Mynack]

How badly would you need a job to work in Sirte, Libya, in the hospital that was left a burned out wreck from the last civil war in Libya?

[Free Society]

Any predominantly Muslim country is a place I want no part of. If even half of 1% of the population would be interested in personally sacrificing me to their god, I can be safely assured that there's at least another 20% who would support that outcome. No thanks.

[Fist of Etiquette]

A British Airways flight headed for Dubai had to return to London less than an hour after taking off because of someone's particularly putrid bowel movement.

"I haven't felt this awful since we saw that Ronald Reagan film."

[The DerpRider]

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

[Charles Easterly]

Nice, Fist.

[Lord Humungus]

Japan Urges China Not to Fixate on Past as War of Words Heats Up

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga was responding to a comment by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang who said yesterday that Japan should use this year's 70th anniversary of the end of WWII to improve "difficult" relations with China by facing up to its historical responsibilities for the conflict.

"It's not constructive for Sino-Japan ties to focus too much only on history," Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters in Tokyo. "China and Japan are the world's second- and third-largest economies, and it's important to develop a forward-looking co-operative relationship in response to the shared problems faced by international society."

You know who else was fixated on past history?

[WTF]

Tacitus?

[Charles Easterly]

Nanking?

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Diodorus Siculus?

[Pro Libertate]

Edward Gibbon.

[bodenlosen Schweinerei]

As is their wont, the Chinese go straight to the pimp slap.

[Rich]

"That is a critical office, especially if you want to know, for example, how the White House is dealing with e-mail."

Nice.

[Lord Humungus]

The year-long open marriage experiment: What this woman learned could save your sex life

Despite this exceptional sex life, though, she felt at the age of 44 that something was missing ? maybe it was a lack of passion, maybe it was that she had slept with only a few men before marriage or maybe it was that her husband had squashed her hopes of having a child by getting a vasectomy. In her new book, "The Wild Oats Project: One Woman's Midlife Quest for Passion at Any Cost," she writes, "I refuse to go to my grave with no children and only four lovers. If I can't have one, I must have the other."

Perhaps this seems an odd rationale, in which case, read on, but this is what inspires her year-long experiment with an open marriage. Rinaldi, at the time an editor at San Francisco's 7?7 magazine, is so committed to the project that she rents a bachelorette pad to stay in during the week, returning to her husband on the weekends. Eventually, she takes things even further, moving into the now-infamous One Taste commune devoted to orgasmic meditation.

[SugarFree]

And then she divorces her husband. Couldn't she just have done that in the first place rather than cuckhold him for a year as an "experiment"?

She undercuts her entire premise.

[WTF]

Well he's an idiot for even entertaining it in the first place.

[SugarFree]

She probably forced him into it. Or made him think it was his idea. She blew up her marriage in order to fuck a bunch of randos. He's better off without her.

[Redmanfms]

He'll still get the male privilege of paying for her new found free love lifestyle.

[bodenlosen Schweinerei]

In the story, it seems she spent the weekdays on the sex search, and ran back to hubby every weekend. Something about cakes and eating them also (Schroedinger Sex?)?

[bodenlosen Schweinerei]

And she also said that memories of her sexcapades were her death bed replacement for the kids and grandkids she would never have (hubby didn't want them).

[John]

I have more respect for true polygamous people or swingers than I do for idiots like this. I wouldn't advise bringing a second husband or wife into a marriage. But if you want to try it, it at leas makes internal sense. Its the same with swingers. Most people can't separate attachment from sex very well and thus swinging doesn't work. If you can, however, or want to try, doing it again at least makes internal sense. You are just saying sex isn't marriage and sex is just fun so why not have it?

The question I have is what the fuck was this woman doing other than just leaving her husband and refusing to admit it? She wasn't going poly since she had no intention of bringing a third person into her marriage. She didn't want to be a swinger because she clearly hasn't separated emotion from sex. She wanted more than just sex. She wanted "passion" and clearly some kind of a new relationship that didn't involve her husband. That is not being poly or swinging. That is just leaving your husband.

I try and refrain from judging other people who try different lifestyles or forms of marriage. I, however, can obvious self deception and dishonesty. This women didn't want an "open marriage". She moved out from her husband. She wasn't looking for a little fun to supplement her marriage. She wanted to leave her husband and wasn't honest enough to admit it.

[lap83]

"I have more respect for true polygamous people or swingers than I do for idiots like this"

Me too, but from what I've heard those relationships don't tend to work out so well either.

[Auric Demonocles]

Is that true if they're polygamous from the start, or just if they decide to try it out after a couple of years?

[lap83]

marriages in polygamous cultures probably fare better, but they have their own negative side effects

[John]

I think there are probably more people who "swing" and stay married than is thought. A good number of people do it very discretely and only occasionally. There are probalby a lot of couples out there who have done the Craigslist add threesome or something like that on vacation than we will ever know. The ones who seem to make their entire marriage about it, however, nearly always fail as you point out.

And polygamy almost never works. It is hard enough to get two people to be able to get along in a relationship. Doing it with three is like picking the perfect NCAA bracket. Sure, someone somewhere does it once in a while, but not very often.

[lap83]

Was it you that pointed out once on here that polygamous societies don't let women have as many rights? There's also the unfortunate glut of young low-status single men leading to higher crime, which is I think the worst part about it.

[John]

Exactly that. No party male or female is going to voluntarily share their partner with someone else. And since very few people are bi or homosexual, that is always what it turns into. It is one guy or gal having all of the fun and the others getting whatever the head party decides. Usually it is the male in charge and several women sharing him but it wouldn't necessarily have to be that way. Regardless, few people are signing up for that. So, in reality polygamy ends up being young women forced by society to marry old men.

The polygamous Moron cults out west are fucking disgusting. They literally kick the boys out on the streets leaving them as homeless runaways once they hit puberty and start competing for the affections of the young girls. Play polygamy which is just hedonism disguised as a relationship, is self destructive but relatively harmless as long as there are not children involved. Real polygamy is pure evil.

[Rhywun]

Polygamy is like one of those nature shows where the alpha male beats the shit out of every other male in sight and walks off with all the females, leaving the beta males turn on each other.

[Rasilio]

"I think there are probably more people who "swing" and stay married than is thought. "

It is also pretty common in long marriages for one or both members to get to the don't ask don't tell point. Where they intellectually know their spouse is cheating on them but they'd rather stay married than get divorced and so as long as they can both retain plausible deniability they tolerate it.

[Rasilio]

They work about as well as monogamous ones do.

My wife and I have been together for more about 13 years and it has been an open marriage for about the last 8. Sex with other people has not been an issue in it. The things which threaten to break our marriage apart are the exact same ones that they would be for a couple in a closed marriage. Primarily money problems and child rearing problems.

Hell assuming we found someone with high enough levels of compatibility adding a 3rd full time member to the marriage would go a LONG way to solving what problems we do have as they mostly revolve around not having enough money (a 3rd income would solve that) or time to do all the tasks that need to be done and still have a life (a 3rd person to spread that work around to would solve that)

[John]

There is a difference between an open marriage and full on poly. It is one thing for you each to have your things on the side but still live with only each other and have only each other as your primary relationship. That kind of thing has been going on for centuries. Back when people got stuck with arranged marriages or where divorce was impossible, people worked out such arrangements. In fact, I think those arrangements are better if there are children involved than our culture of divorce. It drives me crazy how it is totally okay in this society to leave your spouse and force your children to suffer a broken for the most selfish reasons but any kind of infidelity no matter what the justification is somehow the worst thing imaginable.

That being said, that is a whole different ball of wax than more than two people living as a unit in one home with that as their primary relationship. That, I would argue is an inherently unstable arrangement and not one that would make very many people happy/.

[Lord Humungus]

My best friend in HS is married - and in an open relationship. She has a boyfriend... he has a girlfriend. They consider it a break from the strains of marriage and a vacation from the drag of every day living.

I've tried to get into this same situation but my "game" is in an advanced state of decay.

[John]

LH,

I don't consider that to be true poly. To me poly means everyone is married to each other and views the relationship as their primary one.

[Rasilio]

John, as somone who has been in Poly relationships for more than 20 years and hanging out in the Poly culture for close to 30 let me tell you, no that it not "true poly".

The most accepted definition of "true poly" among it's practitioners would be any relationship where multiple romantic or sexual relationships are pursued in an open and honest manner with the consent of all involved.

like libertarianism this is a very broad tent that encompasses a very wide array of relationship styles but they are all "true poly".

The term you are looking for is Polyfidelity which is the specific subset of Polyamory where the partners are either married or have marriage like agreements of commitment between themselves

[John]

RAsillio,

I am using the term. I can use it in the sense I choose. Having a mistress is not Poly in my view because it doesn't implicate the kinds of harms and instability associated with full on multiple living arrangements.

[lap83]

"They work about as well as monogamous ones do."

It's true that monogamous relationships don't work that well either, but it seems like at the very least that statistics would indicate that if you're compounding the number of people you're with then you're just increasing your odds that something isn't going to go well.

[Rasilio]

Actually the strength of Polyamorous relationships is that they CAN end and that their ends can be productive.

The biggest failing of Monogamous relationships is not when they end but when they result in a couple who doesn't even like forget love each other anymore staying together because they are afraid of being alone or because divorce is socially unacceptable.

The reality is marriage for life stopped making sense when the majority of people left the farms for cities and life expediencies grew past 65. Til death do us part works when you've only got a 50 - 50 shot of both of you making it to your 25th anniversary and your entire social circle is only a few hundred people.

Today however it is nearly a guarantee that you'll both be alive after 25 years and more than likely you'll both be looking towards at least another 25 years of marriage and in that time you're going to have thousands of people pass through your social circle increasing the odds that you will meet other people you are more compatible with than you are with your spouse at that moment.

[Auric Demonocles]

She probably just wanted the safety net of being able to go back to him if it wasn't as great as she thought.

Or maybe there were some kind of financial implications to the divorce this way.

[Free Society]

And then she divorces her husband. Couldn't she just have done that in the first place rather than cuckhold him for a year as an "experiment"?

Listen asshole, she was exploring her deep femininity. A mission to find her feminine energy or some shit.

[WTF]

Why would any sane man want to be married to a loon like this woman?

[Restoras, Comptroller-at-Large]

Why would any sane man want to be married to a loon like this woman?

Considering how men get totally hosed in a divorce, this is really the question.

[Ted S.]

moving into the now-infamous One Taste commune devoted to orgasmic meditation.

Infamous means more than famous?

[Warty]

You see, there is good reason for the book's subtitle, which bears the words "passion at any cost.

Passion means suffering. It pisses me off to no end that it's come to mean getting a boner.

[Ted S.]

It probably pisses you off too that "decimate" has come to mean getting rid of most of something, rather than just 10%. 😉

[Warty]

Well, it really only annoys me in situation like this, where some idiot is writing about how their passion caused them to suffer. DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHY THE WORD PASSION WAS USED TO TALK ABOUT SEX YOU FUCKING MORON RETARDSHIT FUCKFACE

[gaijin]

^haha, this. "If it gets hard, will you hold it against me?"

[lap83]

"It pisses me off to no end that it's come to mean getting a boner."

Yeah but do you have to take it out on the world with your violent sexual galavanting?

[Bobarian (sexbot hand model)]

It's called "sharing his passion".

[Warty]

You mention at the beginning of the book that it might be a bit of a manifesto. What is the intended call to arms?

It had to do with listening to your body. That doesn't necessarily mean go out and have a bunch of sex with strange men. That's what my body wanted to do. Your body might want to be celibate. Your body might want to divorce your husband or marry the guy you've been with and give him an ultimatum or your body might be sick of men and want to become a lesbian. Your body might want another kid or it might want to get its tubes tied. It might want to move to another city. I don't want to tell women what to do, I want them to do what they want to do. I want to live in a world where women are in touch with the fierce, unafraid, feminine core of themselves and where they talk about what it's like in their bodies, what it's like in their skin, truthfully, without fear of judgment from wherever ? from other men, from other women, from patriarchs, from feminists. I'm a die-hard feminist, but I don't even want the feminist in me to silence this more primal energy that I'm talking about.

"Sisters! Rise up against the tyranny of consequences!"

[gaijin]

I don't want to tell women what to do, I want them to do what they want to do.

I don;t want women to think I am telling them what to do while I tell them what to do.

[Bobarian (sexbot hand model)]

My body doesn't 'want' to do anything. That is what my brain is for. This is just excuse making for bad decisions. I got myself a fuck-pad and cuckholded my husband for a year before ultimately leaving him, because my body wanted this.

Fuck her, I hope she dies, sad and alone.

[Warty]

OK, I read the whole thing. This dumb cunt wanted a bunch of strange cock, so she bullied her husband into letting her, got divorced, and then wrote a bullshit pseudointellectual post-hoc rationalization in the form of a bullshit self-help book. Do I have that about right? What a fucking idiot.

[Auric Demonocles]

This dumb cunt wanted a bunch of strange cock, so she bullied her husband into letting her, got divorced

I'd be okay with it if she did that the other way around.

[Lord Humungus]

America's white fragility complex: Why white people get so defensive about their privilege

Last year, a white male Princeton undergraduate was asked by a classmate to "check his privilege." Offended by this suggestion, he shot off a 1,300-word essay to the Tory, a right-wing campus newspaper. In it, he wrote about his grandfather who fled the Nazis to Siberia, his grandmother who survived a concentration camp in Germany, about the humble wicker basket business they started in America. He railed against his classmates for "diminishing everything [he'd] accomplished, all the hard work [he'd] done."

His missive was reprinted by Time. He was interviewed by the New York Times and appeared on Fox News. He became a darling of white conservatives across the country.

What he did not do, at any point, was consider whether being white and male might have given him?if not his ancestors?some advantage in achieving incredible success in America. He did not, in other words, check his privilege.

[Lord Humungus]

cont:

To Robin DiAngelo, professor of multicutural education at Westfield State University and author of What Does it Mean to Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy, Tal Fortgang's essay?indignant, defensive, beside-the-point, somehow both self-pitying and self-aggrandizing?followed a familiar script. As an anti-racist educator for more than two decades, DiAngelo has heard versions of it recited hundreds of times by white men and women in her workshops.

She's heard it so many times, in fact, that she came up with a term for it: "white fragility," which she defined in a 2011 journal article as "a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include outward display of emotions such as anger, fear and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence and leaving the stress-inducing situation."

woosh...

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

professor of multicutural education

I'm going to skip right on by anger and go straight to apathy.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I took note of that, and also

Westfield State University

[John]

Russia 1917 Why the bourgeois gets so defensive about its privilege and history of exploitation of the proletariat.

Germany 1933 Why the Jews get so defensive about their privilege.

It is all the same. It is all just collective guilt and scapegoating. They can't go after the bourgeois anymore and there are not enough Jews to matter. So now they go after the "whites". And if we are not careful it will end the same way too.

[Warty]

People aren't people to this kind of scum, people are members of groups. This can't be emphasized enough.

[$park?'s head exploded]

That's the problem. And if you try to ungroup people you are a racist bigot because people WANT to be in groups.

[John]

Up is down. They are truly evil.

[WTF]

Except "whites" in this country are still 70% of the population and fairly well-armed.

[John]

The bourgeois were a large part of the Russian population. How did that work out? Hell most of the Russian population were peasants who hated the communists. It didn't help much.

[WTF]

Don't underestimate the "well armed" part of the equation. Which of course is why gun control is so important to the proglodytes.

[John]

I don't and that is why the 2nd Amendment is just about the last thing that stands between us and full on fascism. It is why Progs hate it so much. It is the only thing that keeps their mob tactics and terror from working.

[$park?'s head exploded]

At first you start to chuckle, then, as you realize the full depth of their unawareness, you can become truly horrified.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

"As an anti-racist educator for more than two decades, DiAngelo has heard versions of it recited hundreds of times by white men and women in her workshops....She's heard it so many times, in fact, that she came up with a term for it...These moves include outward display of emotions such as anger, fear and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence and leaving the stress-inducing situation"

If what you say causes hundreds of arguments over two decades, maybe the problem is not those other people?

[WTF]

What she is saying is that any disagreement with her premise is an indication of racist cognitive dysfunction. She really is that narcissistic and unaware.

[Bill Dalasio]

Robin DiAngelo is a child molester. And any act of denial of this on her part is just defensiveness about her child molestation.

When she can explain to me how this argument is any different from hers, maybe we'll talk.

[WTF]

As an anti-racist educator

I do not think that means what you think it means...

[Charles Easterly]

What is irony again?

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

It is after manganesey and before cobalty.

[Bobarian (sexbot hand model)]

I thought it was to stop clothes from being wrinkly?

[Charles Easterly]

Whao, it's so elemental yet I missed it.

Enough about my failings.

That Robin DiAngelo seems like a person who likes to meddle.

[Illocust]

Wow, so she essentially ignores everyone's point that you can't tell privilege just by looking at someone's skin color. She does not that makes her a by the book definition of racist.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

It's impossible to beat people who have drunk the "check your privilege" kool-aid at their own game. If you attempt to point something out like "maybe somebody who's had to work their way through college has less privilege than somebody who's managed to get past postgrad and into the ivory tower without ever having to sully their hands with labor" or the million other examples, nope, doesn't count, because skin color, gender, sexual identity... I laugh because it's reached the point in the Oppression Olympics where many openly state that white gay men have almost as much privilege as the rest of the hated class enemies so they should shut up.

Incidentally, I notice that Robin DiAngelo seems to be as colorful racially-speaking as Elizabeth Warren.

[Free Society]

To Robin DiAngelo, professor of multicutural education at Westfield State University and author of What Does it Mean to Be White?

Something tells me he that he may be uniquely unqualified to write that book.

[MJGreen]

Hmm... a Princeton student or the professor of multicultural education at Westfield State University? Who is more worthy of consideration?

These moves include ... behaviors such as argumentation, silence and leaving the stress-inducing situation.

That sounds like the entire range of options, except for active acceptance. I thought we're always told to "shut up and listen," but now even silence is proof of our guilt!

[Auric Demonocles]

"Why do people get defensive when I insult them and call them bad people?" But remember, it's not being "defensive" when you claim that blacks can't be racist or women can't be sexist.

[Free Society]

What he did not do, at any point, was consider whether being white and male might have given him?if not his ancestors?some advantage in achieving incredible success in America. He did not, in other words, check his privilege.

What the fuck? Do these people think that the universe handed white people stuff because they're white? For fuck sake the modern world was built by European cultures and yes, that means white people. They built a civilization so fucking tolerant that it's the only time and place in human history that tolerates (if not promotes) minority groups, up to and including paying black one-legged lesbian transgender single moms just to exist. They have a problem with the hand that feeds them the civilization that they benefit from.

[Tonio]

^This. I'm slowly warming to you, FS.

[Free Society]

I'm very cuddly when there's no derp in sight to bitch about.

[bodenlosen Schweinerei]

I checked my privilege, and it's a bit low. Can anybody spare some privilege?

It doesn't have to be "white male", I could get by with some "self-loathing college professor who's made a career out of projecting the hole in her soul."

[Rich]

Residents in a Charlotte neighborhood say they are fed up with a neighbor they say stands at the front door of his home naked, but police say he's not doing anything illegal.

We tried talking to the man, but he ran away from the camera covering his face.

Haw!

[Just a thought not a sermon]

So why do they have to look at him?

[Slammer]

Spain believes they've found the tomb of Cervantes

"Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians" sounds cool.

[Rich]

This cool?

[John]

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundi.....ing-crisis

Here comes a new housing bust. Good thing the Chocolate Jesus fixed that and saved the economy and everything.

[Lord Humungus]

Defying U.S., European allies say they'll join China-led bank

The AIIB was launched in Beijing last year to spur investment in Asia in transportation, energy, telecommunications and other infrastructure. It was seen as a rival to the Western-dominated World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

Washington has questioned whether it will have high standards of governance and environmental and social safeguards.

It is seen as a key vector to spread Chinese "soft power" in the region, possibly at the expense of the United States. The World Bank is traditionally run by a U.S. nominee and Washington also has the most influence at the IMF.

[WTF]

Smart. Diplomacy.

[Raston Bot]

high standards of governance and environmental and social safeguards

Funny. The first precludes the last two.

[Rich]

NC man accused of cuffing boy with dead chicken around his neck

Harper tied the dead chicken around the boy's neck as punishment for killing one of the chickens on the 5-acre farm where they lived.

A more imaginative punishment would have used a *live* chicken.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

*Someone* was reading the Ryme of the Ancient Mariner.

[John]

On the farms I grew up around, killing a chicken was a death sentence for a dog and an unbelievable ass whipping for a child. I am not going to defend this guy as a parent. That said, there is a real harm associated with the state going in and criminalizing parental discipline. That harm has to be weighed with the harm of the objectionable behavior. Where the line between "that is stupid but not criminal" and "undeniable criminal abuse" is debatable. Depending on the kid's age, I am not sure that crosses it.

[Raston Bot]

Only because once a dog tastes chicken, he'll keep killing.

[Injun, as in from India]

This, comrades, is why we should do away with democracy and have experts rule over us using science.

Cornell prof's 1910 prediction: After 2015, U.S. will import all babies from France

Before you start snickering, however, it bears mentioning that Willcox was an accomplished polymath who held the presidency of the American Statistical Association and of the American Economic Association.

...Cornell's website also notes that Willcox was known as the "Father of American Demography," was co-Director of the 1900 U.S. census and was appointed as a lecturer in Cornell's Philosophy Department before becoming an economics professor.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

France? That natalist paradise?

[Injun, as in from India]

Well, they get paid maternity leave, so I guess that makes them a natalist paradise.

[Auric Demonocles]

Does it count as "leave" if you never have to come back?

[Injun, as in from India]

Well, it's France we're talking about. You get paid whether you work or don't work.

So the exact meaning of "leave" might as well be irrelevant.

[Apple]

But why? The article mentions his prediction but nothing about his reasoning. I want to know why he came to that conclusion in the first place.

[Lord Humungus]

Could Obama Bypass the Supreme Court?

While the administration may well prevail (jn King v. Burwell), it has expressed remarkable pessimism about its options if it does lose. The secretary of health and human services, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, wrote to Congress last month about the administration's lack of a contingency plan: "We know of no administrative actions that could, and therefore we have no plans that would, undo the massive damage to our health care system that would be caused by an adverse decision."

But luckily the Constitution supplies a contingency plan, even if the administration doesn't know it yet: If the administration loses in King, it can announce that it is complying with the Supreme Court's judgment ? but only with respect to the four plaintiffs who brought the suit.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Clever idea. Of course, if a conservative suggested something like that, he'd be a neo-Confederate.

"We know of no administrative actions that could, and therefore we have no plans that would, undo the massive damage to our health care system that would be caused by an adverse decision."

Playing chicken with the Supreme Court - let's see how that works.

[John]

The incredible irony of the case being called "King". And that would not be as simple as the Times makes it out. The problem would be that there would be a final court decision that says the law does not appropriate funds for providing subsidies in states that did not set up an exchange. That means any appropriation made to someone in that position would be contrary to law and in violation of the anti-deficiency act. He wouldn't be acting in defiance of the court. He would be acting in defiance of the Congress and the Constitutional principle that all funds drawn from the treasury must be authorized by Congress.

[WTF]

He has paid no price yet for his defiance. Why go right to a Jacksonian "He's made his decision, now let him enforce it" move?

[John]

I am not saying he wouldn't get away with it. He might. Understand that spending money in defiance of both the Congress and the Supreme Court's interpretation of the law would be one hell of a Rubicon to cross. The English spent a couple of civil wars and several hundred years taking the unilateral power to spend and borrow away from the King. Obama would be taking that back.

The Times is being unsurprisingly completely disingenuous here. They are pretending that Obama doing that would only be him using a technicality to get around a court decision while technically complying with it. That is not what would be happening at all. He would still be defying the Supreme Court's ruling on what the law says and thus spending money in violation of the law. So that would mean he would either be saying he not the court gets the final say on what the law says or the court does but he is free to spend money as he pleases counter to it.

[WTF]

I really don't think most people understand what a dangerous road we are really on here. They just see it as a dispute between Obama and his critics, and want Obama to 'win'. They don't really understand the implications of the President being able to get away with defying both the SCOTUS and congress and acting as he pleases and spending money as he pleases whether congress approves it or not.

[John]

They don't. And the reason they don't is that they see it exactly as you put it and they see it that way because the media is so vile that is how it is portrayed. This is incredibly dangerous stuff. Worse, it is up to the Democrats to stop him. The Republicans can't override his vetoes and thus can't assert the power of Congress alone. He is the Democrats' problem and they are going to have to stop him. Until the Democrats start working with the Republicans in Congress to override his vetoes and put a stop to the shit he is doing, there will be no stopping him. Yeah, that is a bit of a long shot but it is the only shot.

[WTF]

Any restraint on the Presidency died when the parties decided they would never hold one of their own accountable. The only reason Nixon had to leave office was because the Republicans were willing to hold him accountable for his actions. That could never happen today.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Well, when every lamestream and left-wing media source frames scandal after scandal as "Republicans use X issue to attack the President"... ugh.

I'm going to have a laugh when a Republican takes office again and suddenly dissent is once again patriotic and the antiwar movement reemerges like it never went away, complete with nonstop media coverage.

[Injun, as in from India]

But luckily the Constitution supplies a contingency plan, even if the administration doesn't know it yet: If the administration loses in King, it can announce that it is complying with the Supreme Court's judgment ? but only with respect to the four plaintiffs who brought the suit.

Only a gaping progressive a$$hole could call this a "contingency plan" and use a word like "luckily".

[WTF]

The "contingency plan" the Constitution supplies for cases such as this is called "impeachment".

[Injun, as in from India]

I thought the contingency plan was the 2nd amendment. 🙂

But then, we might as well try impeachment first.

[Ted S.]

How many divisions does the Supreme Court have?

[Bill Dalasio]

So, let me guess, when the screw turns and a different president decides to arrest the staff of the Times for sedition, the editorial page will applaud the "contingency plan" around any constitutional protections they may have.

[Pro Libertate]

Yeah, that's a good way to get impeached and removed.

[Lord Humungus]

Boehner's New Strategy: Enlist Democrats First, Not Last
On the "doc fix," the speaker isn't bothering to negotiate with his right flank before veering to the middle.

The House's hard-core conservatives have gotten used to losing at the end of a long legislative fight. But for the first time in the 114th Congress, Speaker John Boehner is cutting them loose from the get go.

Boehner and his top chairmen will pitch a permanent "doc-fix" deal to Republicans Tuesday morning that would have been unheard of in the GOP-led House of the last few years: an entitlement change that adds tens of billions of dollars to the 10-year deficit and that they know fiscal hawks will vote against. What's more, Boehner and his team negotiated the deal with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats first.

[John]

That has to be his strategy. Anything passed on a party line vote will be vetoed by the President and branded as Republican extremism by the media. If a bill is in any way bi partisan, the media can't brand it extremist or call the Republicans obstructionists who hate the Chocolate Nixon for passing it.

I know that sucks and will no doubt produce some lousy bills. It is, however, the way things are. I have said this before but it bears repeating; there are four factions in Washington, the President, the majority and minority parties in Congress, and the media. To overcome the President, you need two of the other three. The Republicans are not getting the media. So, that means they have to get some Democratic baking or we can expect Obama to rule as an effective dictator for the next two years as he more and more boldly ignores the law and destroys what is left of the Republic.

I would at this point, take a bad bill that gets enacted over Obama's veto and slaps his sorry ass down and shows that Congress is actually in charge than nothing. We are reaching the point where the assertion of power by Congress is so important that even asserting it to do something stupid would still overall be a good thing.

[Bill Dalasio]

If a bill is in any way bi partisan, the media can't brand it extremist or call the Republicans obstructionists who hate the Chocolate Nixon for passing it.

Sorry, John. I'm not buying this for a second. All this does is give the Congressional Democrats the ability to hold any legislation hostage before it gets sent to the White House. Essentially, if you're right, Boehner is signing up to be Pelosi's cabana boy.

[John]

That sucks. But you tell me the alternative? The only alternative I see is donig nothing and ceding all of the power to the President.

Also, I don't think it is quite that simple. The Democrats are starting to get tired of losing for Obama. It looks like there is a good chance that they will vote to override his veto on a bill that would undercut his Iran deal. The Democrats are split themselves. Not all of them want to die in 2016 for the prog cause. Moreover, if a group of them are willing to defy Pelosi and reach out, they will be very powerful and important people. At some point that power is going to get too tempting for them to resist.

[Bill Dalasio]

Your argument works if there's a breakaway band of Democrats willing to swing against the President and Pelosi. Otherwise, what's the point? The price of "getting things done" is going to be getting a lot of shit you don't want done done and none of the shit you do want to do. Honestly, that strikes me as a hell of a worse bargain than doing what you can to stop the administration and making the administration stop you from doing things people want.

So, that leaves us with the $64K question - are there these Democratic defectors? It doesn't strike me that there are. The last few elections have done a number on the Democratic representation in the House. But, that means the Democrats remaining are from very Democratic districts (I'm sure you know the phenomenon). I don't see the political calculus favoring them "selling out to the Republicans".

[John]

If no such Democrats exist, my argument still works and is true. It just won't come to fruition in any kind of good way. If the Democrats are committed to enabling Obama to be a tyrant and destroy the Republic, we are fucked. I have never denied that. My argument is that the only hope of stopping that lies with the Democrats being willing to cooperate with the Republicans. The fact that they won't do that doesn't make my argument invalid. In fact it makes it valid. I just means we get to see the negative case not the positive. one.

[Bill Dalasio]

Okay, "Your argument doesn't lead to completely, utterly, disastrous result if there's a breakaway band of Democrats willing to swing against the President and Pelosi"

Better?

It doesn't make your suggestion that seeking Democratic support would be an optimal course any wiser.

[Bobarian (sexbot hand model)]

Absolutely! WTF is Boner thinking? What he needed to do was pass a lot of popular legislation, like the pipeline bill, that BO would then veto. Even if they can't get an override, they would get public pressure swinging the other way.

The Stupid Party!

[John]

He is thinking "we want to look like we can get things done". I am not going to defend his intelligence here. I don't think he understands the stakes. That being said, Congress has got to somehow someway reassert itself over this asshole. At this point, I would take a dumb law if it did that. I just want to see Obama's veto overridden and Congress finally informing his sorry ass that they not he are in charge.

[Pro Libertate]

The GOP does that, and they lose the WE'RE HERE TO UNDO THIS MESS argument. If they were to pass a law that Democrats would agree to, then we'll be stuck with that law, which would obviously suck.

We all have to decide whether it's possible to compromise with a party that's as statist and as socialist as the Democratic party has become. Sure, there are some areas where that can still be done, but not on major matters like healthcare. Compromise then is just another word for another hash mark in the losing column.

[Bobarian (sexbot hand model)]

They need to get BO and the evil party on record stopping good popular things because "eww, republicans!"

The democrats in congress would start feeling pressure, and some overrides would follow.

[Rich]

Coca-Cola is working with fitness and nutrition experts who suggest its soda as a treat

Coca-Cola said it wants to "help people make decisions that are right for them"

"Them" being ...?

[lap83]

That reminds me of "part of this nutritious breakfast" cereal commercials, where they show chocolate covered sugar bombs next to bananas and orange juice.

[Lord Humungus]

Sugar X3

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Robert Reich: Why Europe is better than America even when their economies are in the shitter

The typical American worker puts in more hours than Canadians and Europeans, and gets little or no paid vacation or paid family leave. In Europe, the norm is five weeks paid vacation per year and more than three months paid family leave.

And because of the overwhelming clout of American firms on U.S. politics, Americans don't get nearly as good a deal from their governments as do Canadians and Europeans.

Governments there impose higher taxes on the wealthy and redistribute more of it to middle and lower income households. Most of their citizens receive essentially free health care and more generous unemployment benefits than do Americans.

So it shouldn't be surprising that even though U.S. economy is doing better, most Americans are not.

The U.S. middle class is no longer the world's richest. After considering taxes and transfer payments, middle-class incomes in Canada and much of Western Europe are higher than in U.S. The poor in Western Europe earn more than do poor Americans.

Finally, when at global negotiating tables ? such as the secretive process devising the "Trans Pacific Partnership" trade deal ? American corporations don't represent the interests of Americans.

I call bullshit on the claim that Europeans are richer than Americans.

[Andrew S.]

Well, they don't make much money, they pay outrageous tax rates, and they pay incredibly high prices for everything, but they *do* get more free shit from the government than we do. And that's what matters, right?

[$park?'s head exploded]

Your wealth is the sum of what the government allows you to keep and how much free stuff the government gives you.

[WTF]

Yet he sees no link between the European system and European economies in the shitter? And he counts government hand outs as 'earnings'? Why would anyone take this shithead seriously?

[John]

They are not by any reasonable measure. I guess you could say they are if you pretend that their state funded pensions have any hope of being paid out and count as real wealth today. It is like saying that everyone in America is really a millionaire since they will some day collect social security.

[Mike M.]

I've actually been to much of western Europe, and while they're wonderful countries to visit, frankly I would never even consider living there.

Almost nobody in Europe owns an honest-to-goodness house; the overwhelming majority of the population lives in a flat that isn't much better than a college freshman's dormitory.

Also, air conditioning is still considered a luxury in most of Europe if you can believe it; it basically doesn't even exist in many places.

[John]

I lived in Europe and I would only live there as an employee of the American government where I am immune from their taxes and user fees. Living there as a native absolutely sucks unless you are very wealthy.

[Zeb]

Living there as a native absolutely sucks unless you are very wealthy.

I don't know about "sucks". It's still a pretty comfortable place to live for the most part. I'm sure an American who moved there would be surprised at the middle class standard of living. It's been a while since I have spent any time in Europe, so maybe with the extended shitty economic situation it is a less happy place than I remember.

[Free Society]

The entirety of my wife's family is Dutch and in the Netherlands. They have a pretty comfortable living. The most unbearable aspect of their taxed existence isn't necessarily the 65% effective income tax rate, it's the VAT tax. My father in law bought a used Jeep Grand Cherokee that might cost 25,000 in the US and over there ran $150,000. Generally food products. The VAT tax and the muslims, those are the downers 😀

[Zeb]

Not sure about Netherlands, but I have family in Spain and some good friends in Belgium and tax avoidance seems to be a major pastime over there. Tons of people work for cash, keep as many transactions as possible off the books and save receipts for everything that could at all plausibly be written off on taxes.

Of course, as I said, I haven't been over there for some time. It may well be crappier than I remember.

[Free Society]

and some good friends in Belgium and tax avoidance seems to be a major pastime over there.

Absolutely. My in-laws go to see the taxman, they take the bus, wear their shabbiest clothing, no jewelry and try to sound and speak like an ignoramus that couldn't possibly earn more than the petty amount they've declared.

[Mike M.]

Reich wouldn't leave the United States for anywhere in western Europe if you gave him ten million bucks, and with good reason.

[gaijin]

^This. Much like the AGW brigade, I'll take them mroe seriously when their actions support their words

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Earning more when you're paying the equivalent of $11 USD for a beer and having 50%~ income tax taken out plus 25% VAT, etc., etc., etc... tends to more than cancel out.

[Redmanfms]

After considering taxes and transfer payments, middle-class incomes in Canada and much of Western Europe are higher than in U.S.

But you know what'll fix that? Higher taxes.

The poor in Western Europe earn more than do poor Americans.

1. Bullshit.
2. They pay far more for energy, housing (sorry, couldn't find a direct Europe/US comparison), and food than Americans.

(The OECD "housing" link also backs up #1.)

[Pro Libertate]

They're also quite subsidized by the U.S. Most obviously in defense.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

No fucking way they're richer. To remotely suggest this is absurd.

[CatoTheElder]

Of course they are! How else does one explain the waves of US immigration to Europe?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Damn posted these posts in the wrong thread:

Get a load of this (from ESPN I lost the link):

"Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been told to leave France by the nation's far-right Front National leader Marine Le Pen following his comments after Paris Saint-Germain's 3-2 loss to Bordeaux on Sunday."

"...As he walked off the field, the Sweden captain was filmed seemingly making derogatory comments about referee Lionel Jaffredo and France as a country."

Nothing like a Frenchman scorned.

[bodenlosen Schweinerei]

"Fucking France!"

So the French hate the truth too, eh?

Slightly OT: I couldn't find the link, but I read Zlatan has a silver throne in his Swedish mansion which he uses when he plays Xbox. I wonder if he wears a monocle too?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Someone posted this in the PM links yesterday:

http://consumerist.com/2015/03.....ower-dies/

Two things. One, Schumer introduced it so you can bet possible unintended consequences probably weren't considered given he's as derpy as they come in politics.

Two, this legislation brings you closer to debt forgiveness. Not only that, it's an enabling mechanism for people to keep taking out bad loans.

I don't think they understand what debt means.

Another thing. If an adult co-signs for something they implicitly accept that should the person they co-sign for default they're in a position to cover them.

People who co-sign something and then complain they have to pay are just as irresponsible as the borrower.

"WHAT? You mean, I have to pay? I thought it was a formality!"

[Ted S.]

I don't think it was just "someone" who posted that.

I think that it technically wasn't Schmuer who introduced the legislation. He was at a press conference for the parents of a murdered girl, but the proposed law had a man's name attached, if I heard the news report correctly.

As I said yesterday, imagine suggesting that tax liens should be forgiven at death. People would look at you as though you're some sort of freak.

[sarcasmic]

The beer that brings us most cheer: Map shows each nation's most popular brew

Bud Light is most popular beer in US, while Budweiser is tops in Canada
England prefers Carling over anything else, while Ireland opts for Guinness
Australians go for Victoria Bitter while Lion Red is the top dog in New Zealand
The most popular beer for each country was determined by its market share

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....-brew.html

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Too funny. Canadians always babble about how bad American beer is yet it's not even Molson they go for; it's Bud.

Typical.

[Ted S.]

Ice hockey is Canada's #1 national sport; Canada's #2 national sport is America-bashing.

[Pro Libertate]

Sure, national sport. Provided that the cup stays in the U.S. with the superior Canadians and Russians.

[WTF]

Oddly enough, when I was in Ireland with a group of friends for a week, whenever we were in a pub we Americans were all drinking Guinness and Smithwicks, while the Irish seemed to generally be drinking Bud.

[sarcasmic]

Oregon man commits no crime, but held in jail for 900 days

http://www.oregonlive.com/port.....me_bu.html

[Pro Libertate]

Due process of what? I think contempt powers have to have some limits, don't you?

[Injun, as in from India]

Meanwhile in Greater Vermont...

More than 52,000 Canadians travelled abroad for health care last year, study finds

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I tried to get into the medical tourism business.

It's huge.

[John]

I am with you on that. I wonder if a US doctor who only treats visiting Canadians would be subject to US regulation? Probably.

Here is my idea. You go down to some "if you got the money we have got the time" Carribean nation like St. Lucia and you build a resort and staff it with dentist and doctors and you fly Canadians and sadly Americans out on a vacation/healthcare package. Sell common non emergency medical procedures like lasix and major dental work and joint replacements and such at a flat fee. And incorporate on the island and ensure you get very favorable tort treatment to keep insurance costs down.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

It's doable - and a growing business. We saw the potential but the guys I was with were disappointing in their drive.

Look. When people are afflicted with a disease that can't be treated they will go to where there is a service. Usually, that means going to the USA. I also read Americans go to places like India because of the high cost of surgery in the U.S..

[Pro Libertate]

That's like half the population!

[Batgirl]

At the request of the artist, DC Comics has pulled a variant cover for Batgirl #41 (pictured right) over which the company said it had received threats of violence and harassment.

My fans?

[DEG]

Your tax dollars at work: Social Security fuck-up edtion.

[DEG]

House Democrats introduce legislation to ban M855.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Who is the Stupid Party now?

[WTF]

Gun control for the dems is like abortion for the repubs, they just can't help but go there, even though they know they will get burned.

[Bobarian (sexbot hand model)]

The article is a soupy mess of anti-gun derp, the commentors are generally savaging it.

[Redmanfms]

Ugh.

he bill applies specifically to M855, a type of ammunition used in assault rifles, which are referred to as modern sporting rifles by the gun industry because they can be used in hunting.

They are also fucking wrong (or lying):

President Ronald Reagan exempted them, in 1986, from a ban on armor piercing ammo that has been in effect since 1968.

The law that banned AP handgun ammo was LEOPA '86.

"The ATF's decision to cave to the gun lobby and allow life threatening armor piercing bullets to remain on the streets is not only reckless, but cowardly," Israel said in a statement on Monday. "This legislation is an important step to protect law enforcement from ammunition that may penetrate body armor."

To bad:

1. M855 is NOT actually AP either by military designation, or by LEOPA '86 rules.
2. ALL rifle ammunition will penetrate soft body armor.

[Suthenboy]

Pure idiocy.

No one will manufacture M855 anymore, they will just manufacture something essentially identical and call it something else.

See: Black Talon / Golden Sabre.

[CatoTheElder]

I wonder how many cops have been killed by a M855 round fired from a handgun?

I think the answer is precisely zero.

[Derpetologist]

Meet the Al Qaida agent who infiltrated the CIA and Army Special Forces:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Mohamed

[DEG]

Is Greece running out of money?

Remember, they have no printing presses to run. Someone else has to run the printing press for them.

Data published by the Greek central bank shows just how desperate the situation has become.

Greece's budget surplus -- before debt repayments -- fell to 503 million euros at the end of February, down from 1.7 billion a year ago.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Meh. Call me when it runs out of tzaziki.

[DEG]

Mmm... tzaziki.

[Gilbert Martin]

"The White House has deleted the FOIA regulations for its Office of Administration, saying courts have ruled the office doesn't have to respond to FOIA requests."

Yet another manifestation of the MOST TRANSPARENT ADMINISTRATION EVER!!!!!!!!!!!

[DEG]

Plus size models sell more lingerie than other models.

[Auric Demonocles]

Because there are more plus sized customers?

[DEG]

Yep.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Bingo. It doesn't have anything to do with the models. It has to do with the market size.

[Injun, as in from India]

It has to do with the market size.

Size does matter, doesn't it?

[Bobarian (sexbot hand model)]

That, and plus size women need to wear a bra, where as, skinny model builds do not.

/Bobarian approves of ths message

[Free Society]

Let's just call them fat. "Plus size" is a term more apt for describing my cock.

[lap83]

I had a business idea a few years ago to start a lingerie store that used relatively average-sized women models. I didn't make it because of the stifling regulations in the town where I lived at the time, but I still think it would have made a killing.

[John]

I think that is a great idea. Victoria Secret was brilliant because it filled a niche. Before Victoria Secret women had to either buy lingerie from some old lady at a big department store or from sleazy outfit like Frederick's of Hollywood. VS gave average women a way to buy sexy stuff without buying it from their grandmother or feel like they were going to a dirty video store.

The problem VS has now is that their models are so thin and idealized many women are intimidated from buying there. A store that had attractive but less idealized models would get women to think "she looks good in that maybe i could". The truth is VS seems to market more to men than women. I can see that business model and it clearly works. I think it leaves open a niche for a store that really marketed just to women. And the way to do that is with less intimidating models.

[Bobarian (sexbot hand model)]

Not for nothing, but VS advertising and marketing strategy is to intimidate women that won't look good in their products.

You can even see it in how they set up their stores. The skinny aisles and open views limit their clientele. It keeps their buying base small, but also dedicated.

This is along the same line as the USMC marketing strategy. "The few, the proud". The USMC is a small service, they can afford to turn people away from joining.

[lap83]

I don't entirely agree, VS lingerie doesn't really look that different from other brands. I'd say their marketing is more geared toward very young women, especially in recent years.

[Bobarian (sexbot hand model)]

I didn't say anything about their product, just their marketing.

Young women look good in VS gear, so they are part of their market.

[John]

lap,

I think you are right. Young women have disposable income and are willing to spend it on things like fancy lingerie. VS doesn't market to women over 25. Again, it creates a niche for the kind of shop you describe.

[lap83]

Thanks. I do live in a better business environment now, so maybe I'll revisit the plan.

[Auric Demonocles]

Too bad I missed the South Boston Parade thread. My sister actually marched (she's not gay, but she is a vet and works as a social worker with vets, including the group OutVets).

[DEG]

I had beer with breakfast at the Tilted Kilt. Now I'm work. No more St. Patrick's festivities for me.

[Sevo]

Lefty supervisor wants the 16YO vote:
"Voting at 16 in S.F.? Supervisor says the time has come"
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/.....137855.php

The jokes write themselves.

[Injun, as in from India]

They're losing the 18+ voting bloc. So it's time to find a new market for your sh1tty leftist ideas.

16-year olds are still gullible enough and will make a great new voting bloc.

[Auric Demonocles]

Too bad they'll vote in even fewer numbers...

[GILMORE]

"I give to you, the next President of the United States.... NICKELBACK!"

[Zeb]

How many of the people who want 16 year olds to vote want the smoking age raised to 21?

How about one age of majority for everything? 18 seems about right if you have to pick one number. 16 year olds are probably less well prepared to vote than they ever have been at this point.

[lap83]

"How many of the people who want 16 year olds to vote want the smoking age raised to 21?"

It shows what they think of the people who are likely to vote for them.

[GILMORE]

"16 year olds are probably less well prepared to vote than they ever have been at this point."

Are you kidding? they're experts!!! They've mastered the one and only reason for anything in government = FYTW

I DONT HAVE TO DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!!

[Injun, as in from India]

How about one age of majority for everything? 18 seems about right if you have to pick one number.

Given that "kids" can now stay on their parents' insurance until 25, I think the new age of majority should be 26.

[Zeb]

Well, that's not very fair to people who can't get insurance from their parents.

Actually if anything, the voting age should be raised and put everything else at 18. A lot. Maybe 35. Or only allow people to vote for offices that they are old enough to serve in. That would be kind of awesome.

[Pro Libertate]

Jesus. The left has become a joke of almost biblical proportions, with probably the same destructive force.

[GILMORE]

"The White House has deleted the FOIA regulations for its Office of Administration, saying courts have ruled the office doesn't have to respond to FOIA requests"

"'The office handles, among other things, White House record-keeping duties like the archiving of e-mails.""

lol, uh, yeah right. See, cause BOOOOOSH.....

next issue!

[GILMORE]

"""But the timing of the move raised eyebrows among transparency advocates, coming on National Freedom of Information Day and during a national debate over the preservation of Obama administration records. It's also Sunshine Week, an effort by news organizations and watchdog groups to highlight issues of government transparency.""

freedom day of sunshine week of..... MOST TRANSPARENT YEAR EVER

[Pro Libertate]

No, they are transparent in their actions. I can see right through them.

[Bobarian (sexbot hand model)]

raised eyebrows among transparency advocates

Their eyebrows should be so high already, they're part of their hairline.

[PCOBorys]

I think we have found an administration that thrives...

Puts sunglasses on.

where the sun don't shine.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

[Sevo]

I didn't see anything. Did you see anything? Nothing here to see.

[Warty]

It reminds me of the smell in my grandma's house

[Charles Easterly]

Ah, Garfunkel and Oates.

[John]

Is that very funny? The homely chick that was Raj's deeply strange girlfriend on the Big Bang Theory seems to have some talent.

[Bobarian (sexbot hand model)]

Did you watch it? I thought it was one of their better pieces, and funny.

[Free Society]

She's a purebred progressive. She wrote a lovely song about how evil and backwards hunters are, as I recall.

[Rebel Scum]

The White House has deleted the FOIA regulations for its Office of Administration, saying courts have ruled the office doesn't have to respond to FOIA requests.

Anything is possible if you have the right letter next to your name.

[gracejhom]

my neighbor's mother makes $86 /hour on the internet . She has been fired from work for 8 months but last month her check was $12427 just working on the internet for a few hours. see it here..............

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

[[e-mail]]

Why, just why would DC do THAT Batgirl cover? Yeah the Killing Joke ultimately lead to Oracle (insert nerd rant about why Oracle is cooler than Batgirl), but it really was a Women in Refrigerators moment that doesn't need to be brought up again. I can't complain about the outrage given the nature of the cover.

[Charles Easterly]

Don't mansplain to us, you patriarch.