Rahm Emanuel Wins Second Term as Chicago Mayor, S.C. Cop Charged With Murder, Germany Calls Greek Call for WW2 Reparations 'Dumb': A.M. Links

Ed Krayewski | 4.8.2015 9:00 AM

(ok.ru)

ok.ru

The White House is launching a campaign on the health effects of climate change—President Obama linked his daughter's asthma to the issue.
Rahm Emanuel wins a second term as Chicago mayor.
A cop in South Carolina was charged with murder after video showed him fatally shooting a man in the back, contradicting his version of events.
Gov. Sam Brownback (R) signed a bill into law making Kansas the first state to ban second-trimester abortions.
Iraqi forensic teams are exhuming mass graves of soldiers killed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria last year when it controlled Tikrit.
Germany called Greece's call for $306 billion in World War II reparations "dumb."
New details on the Drug Enforcement Administration's massive decades-long metadata collection program.

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Fist of Etiquette 9 years ago

I say we boycott Reason until they start covering the Paul candidacy. WHO’S WITH ME?
1. Longtorso, Johnny 9 years ago
  
  I am. I’m not posting today in protest.
  1. RBS 9 years ago
    
    Just for you…
2. some guy 9 years ago
  
  What about Peter and Mary?
  1. Libertarian 9 years ago
    
    The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind.
3. entropy_factor 9 years ago
  
  I, for one, look forward to the first joke about the hair not being real.
  *looks at Carol Paul’s hair*
  yup
4. hamilton 9 years ago
  
  Wait, is Ron Paul running again or something? Or Paul Wellstone? Or Pope Paul IV? I AM OUT OF THE LOOP!
5. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
  
  Hello.
  “Germany called Greece’s call for $306 billion in World War II reparations “dumb.””
  Let it go already, Greece. Deal with your OWN shit.
  1. Suthenboy 9 years ago
    
    I really feel sorry for the Krauts. I mean, who could have seen this coming? Its almost like after you get married to someone and they completely change.
    1. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
      
      I don’t feel for the Krauts. They’re not angels.
      But this thing with Greece is getting tiresome.
      You almost want to say ‘you take more than you give now shove off’. Sorta like Quebec in Canada.
      But you can’t. Because decorum or something.
      1. Pro Libertate 9 years ago
        
        No, they aren’t, but they also aren’t the parasite here.
        
        Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
        
        No doubt.
      2. Pathogen 9 years ago
        
        How many generations of Krauts should answer for the sins of their fathers great grandfathers?
        Greece:Well, you are still sending reparations to Israel, soooo..all of them, I suppose. Send us more money now!!1! Because.. repuashunz!
        
        Pro Libertate 9 years ago
        
        Stabbed in the back!
        
        Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
        
        They’re just pandering to politics. They feel jaded for being spurned.
        It’s not reported here in North America, but they’re also taking their frustration out on Italy who didn’t back the bail out.
        
        Pathogen 9 years ago
        
        Right on.
        Reper-Rations?: rent seeking by other name is still the same. Even the Norks only punish dissident families for 3 generations.. Sing for your supper Greece.
        
        MarkLastname 9 years ago
        
        Especially ironic since Greece is now in talks with Russia, the world’s premier fascist power at the moment. At this point Greece should be kicked out of the Euro and out of the EU just on principle.
  2. Pro Libertate 9 years ago
    
    I guess they really want to go it alone.
    1. Swiss Servator... Switzy! 9 years ago
      
      How do you say “Juche” in Greek?
Fist of Etiquette 9 years ago

Rahm Emanuel wins a second term as Chicago mayor.
Chicagoans picked the level of graft that affects them the most/least?
1. some guy 9 years ago
  
  They chose the slow, deliberate descent into insolvency over the rapid, chaotic one.
2. Pro Libertate 9 years ago
  
  Rahmming speed!
  1. Pope Jimbo 9 years ago
    
    Fuck, how do I get to Rahmming speed?
    /prog kid who can only drive an automatic and not an Emmanuel transmission
    1. Pro Libertate 9 years ago
      
      First, decorate your car to make it look like a giant cake.
Fist of Etiquette 9 years ago

…President Obama linked his daughter’s asthma to the issue.
Crisitunity!
1. gaijin 9 years ago
  
  The White House is launching a campaign on the health effects of climate change?President Obama linked his daughter’s asthma to the issue.
  And he gives a speech at Howard University on the topic accompanied by two helicopters, 24 SUVs and a dozen cars. Ron Bailey, I’ll believe in anthropogenic climate change when the people shrieking about it start to act like it’s a crisis.
  1. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
    
    You can link anything and everything to everything and anything now.
    I have IBS because of global warming I say!
    1. RBS 9 years ago
      
      I was late to work because of global warming.
      1. Citizen Nothing 9 years ago
        
        Global warming ate my homework.
        
        Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
        
        Global warming ate my homework AND my dog.
        
        Sevo 9 years ago
        
        Was that was after the cops shot it?
        
        Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
        
        The cops shot it after. It was still a threat.
2. Atanarjuat 9 years ago
  
  This list will never be complete. Well, at least not until they switch back to threats of global cooling.
  1. Drake 9 years ago
    
    Add this – ships caught in Lake Superior ice – in April.
    http://www.mlive.com/business/…..rt_gallery
    1. Suthenboy 9 years ago
      
      Nonsense. I read yesterday that global warming is up, especially in the northern hemisphere. Those ships aren’t stuck. They are just being denialists.
    2. Ivan Pike 9 years ago
      
      After reaching its seasonal maximum on February 25, the beginning of the melt season was interrupted by late-season periods of ice growth, largely in the Bering Sea, Davis Strait and around Labrador. Near the end of March, extent rose to within about 83,000 square kilometers (32,000 square miles) of the February 25 value.
      
      http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
      I would gladly take Lake Superior’s ice.
3. Certified Public Asskicker 9 years ago
  
  Climate change, or Chicago smog?
4. Mickey Rat 9 years ago
  
  Take no notice of his earlier smoking habit having anyhing possibly to do with his child’s asthma!
  1. Marshall Gill 9 years ago
    
    Take no notice of his earlier smoking habit
    Earlier? He still smokes. If he had actually quit, do you not think that his “courage” would have been broadcast nightly? “President Obama courageously continued to not smoke in spite of the stress he suffers at the hands of the racist Rethuglicans”?The media is simply ignoring it because it taints the Chosen One.
5. wadair 9 years ago
  
  Crisitunity!
  Exactly. I can see pollution linked to asthma, but CO2 and a few hundredths of a degree of temperature increase?!
  This has gone beyond the pale. These asshats will tell the most obvious lies to push their agenda. Soon they’ll be telling us that substance abuse and inner city decay are symptoms of CAGW.
6. Pro Libertate 9 years ago
  
  Ye gods. He’s bullshit to the core.
7. Chinny Chin Chin 9 years ago
  
  I’ll give you asthma!
  /Judge Smails
Longtorso, Johnny 9 years ago

SlashDerp: Why CSI: Cyber Matters
…Members of the Army Cyber Institute at West Point discuss the upside of CSI: Cyber in an article in the Cyber Defense Review. “Children all over the country have been inspired to be law enforcement agents by shows like Criminal Minds, NCIS, Bones, and CSI.” …
1. Swiss Servator... Switzy! 9 years ago
  
  Gah!!!!
  1. Bobarian (sexbot hand model) 9 years ago
    
    “Children all over the country have been inspired to be law enforcement agents by shows like Criminal Minds, NCIS, Bones, and CSI.” …
    Shows that have absolutely nothing to do with reality? Just about as realistic as Star Trek.
    “Children all over the country have been inspired to be womanizing space pirates by James T Kirk and Mal Reynolds”
    1. Rhywun 9 years ago
      
      “Kif, I have made it with a woman. Inform the men.”
      1. This Machine 9 years ago
        
        “Fatso says you’re free to go.”
    2. BiMonSciFiCon 9 years ago
      
      Mal wasn’t much of a womanizer.
      1. Rasilio 9 years ago
        
        And the record of Star Trek fans with the ladies is not so good
        
        Bobarian (sexbot hand model) 9 years ago
        
        Well, for the record, CSI fans will not have very good records as LEOs.
    3. MarkLastname 9 years ago
      
      I guess that’ll help mitigating all the kids who started cooking meth and shaking down management companies after watching Breaking Bad and the Sopranos?
      See, this here, people basing their careers on TV shows, is the moral case for abolishing minimum wage: some people simply do not deserve to male $7 an hour.
2. Fist of Etiquette 9 years ago
  
  “We have to keep inventing new crimes just to give all of them things to do!”
3. Scruffy Nerfherder 9 years ago
  
  At least the comments recognize the bullshit. Of course, if it were about net neutrality….
4. Brett L 9 years ago
  
  Slashdot became ureadable after Cmdr Taco stepped down.
  1. robc 9 years ago
    
    It was questionable even before that.
    1. Brett L 9 years ago
      
      Agreed. I used to read it as a go-to source in 2002. By 2012, I had quit going at all.
      1. mauricegirodias 9 years ago
        
        Slashdot’s become a lot like reason. You only go back there for the comments.
Just a thought not a sermon 9 years ago

39) Geez, the progressives are really, truly scared of Rand Paul. Slate has no fewer than four diatribes against Paul today. He can’t possibly get the youth vote! There’s no way he can unite the various Republican factions! His campaign is just ripping off Obama’s “hope and change” campaign! And, umm, he held summer jobs [click here] when he was a teen and thought they were fun!?I thought that last one was tongue in cheek at first, but nope, I think it’s serious.
1. entropy_factor 9 years ago
  
  oh wow
2. some guy 9 years ago
  
  From the last one:
  I always thought money was the reward invovled in that situation. Is Rand Paul a damn communist?
  It’s got to be tongue-in-cheek. Even a Slate blogger couldn’t be that mendacious… could they?
  1. LynchPin1477 9 years ago
    
    I’m pretty sure the last line was a sort-of-joke. But I think the overall article is genuine.
  2. robc 9 years ago
    
    The summer jobs I had were generally horrible but the people I worked with were a lot of fun.
    Plus, summer job I worked during college involved some road trips. Group of college kids hitting the hotel pool at 4 AM when we got off work leads to good times.
    1. Pope Jimbo 9 years ago
      
      This.
      I look back and laugh at the stupid shit I did as a min wage monkey working in high school. I thought my boss back then was such a dick, but in hindsight he was pretty patient with my buddies and I.
      Man we had fun screwing around though.
    2. R C Dean 9 years ago
      
      My summer jobs were a very mixed bag:
      Lifeguarding? Kinda boring, but the scenery, oh my (especially to a teenage male of the species).
      Driving a tractor? Brutal. The crew was . . . educational, though.
      Construction? Also brutal, but the crew was even more educational. More than a few Vietnam vet bikers.
      And then . . . law school and poshy summer associate gigs. $700/week! Air conditioning! Luxury.
      1. Pope Jimbo 9 years ago
        
        Everyone should have some real shitty jobs starting out in their career so they appreciate it when they get a decent job that they like.
        The worse one physically for me was a temp job working for a screen printer for 2 weeks for some extra cash during a school break. It was in a glorified storage unit and I was pulling concert T’s off a heat dryer in Memphis. 1 bazillion degrees. When I was leaving the owner told me I was the only temp who ever came back after the lunch break.
        The worse mentally was working at a plastics factory. I had to make piles of 25 plastic drinking cups and put them in a plastic sleeve. I would constantly fall behind because it was so mind numbingly boring. I finished the shift and never went back.
        
        mauricegirodias 9 years ago
        
        Hard to say which job was shittiest. I did the cannery thing for two summers in AK. Never got on a boat. One of my stints involved feeder-filling. The salmon came off a conveyor belt, and you manually set the fish just so on the line so it wouldn’t get messed up when it got crunched into the cans. One guy fed you the fish from a big stack, you’d fill it onto another conveyor. However, the guy I worked with, Toa, was a Samoan, and he couldn’t fill, just went into a daze that made them shut down the line for a bit ‘cuz the cans got overstuffed, so we didn’t switch it up every 30 minutes.
        I also worked unload, where you jumped into the hold of a boat and scooped the fish into a net that was taken off by crane. Thought that one would lead to a job as a deckhand, but the guys pulled into port, got their check, went to a bar.
        Good times.
  3. Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns 9 years ago
    
    These two comments are brilliant:
    “JS 14 hours ago
    Mathis-Lilley suggests, disturbingly, that he doesn’t like to work. I wonder if his editor read this.”
    “JBC 14 hours ago
    @JS You assume facts not in evidence. Slate couldn’t possibly have editors.”
  4. Matrix 9 years ago
    
    If there’s an end to their mendaciousness, I don’t think anyone’s found it.
3. LynchPin1477 9 years ago
  
  OK, that last one is just gold. Even Slate commenters are ripping it. That’s how you know when you went too far.
4. Atanarjuat 9 years ago
  
  Probably the most delicious hysteria is wherein they start slandering his supporters as “stoners”, because they’re willing to drop any pretense of support for marijuana decrim and even piss off the presumably sizeable number of their fellow travelers who are friendly to it, just to say something nasty about Rando.
  1. Brett L 9 years ago
    
    “Stay on the Plantation! The world outside is big and scary!”
Longtorso, Johnny 9 years ago

‘Gun Letter’ Informs Pawn And Gun Shop Owner His Bank Accounts Are Being Closed
…”Oh, you got one of the gun letters,” the employee said, explaining to Champion that gun stores across the country are receiving the same correspondence.
SunTrust was in the news last year for a similar crackdown on a South Carolina pawn and gun shop owner….
…Last year, Mark Cohen, the owner of Powderhorn Outfitters, a gun retailer in Hyannis, Mass., said that an executive at his bank, TD Bank, told him directly that it would not extend a line of credit “because you sell guns.”
And in November, Mike Shuetz, the owner of Hawkins Guns in Wisconsin, recorded a conversation he had with an executive at Heritage Credit Union after he was told that his bank accounts would be closed. The executive explained that federal regulators had recently inspected the credit union and targeted Shuetz’s business because he sells guns. …
1. WTF 9 years ago
  
  federal regulators had recently inspected the credit union and targeted Shuetz’s business because he sells guns. …
  “Shall not be infringed”, how the fuck does it work?
  1. Catatafish 9 years ago
    
    Commerc – I’m sorry, FYTW Clause.
    1. Trouser-Pod 9 years ago
      
      Does anyone here think that Operation Chokehold could possibly lead to a Bitcoin/virtual currency revolution?
      By that, I mean that, if gun sellers end up not being able to have bank accounts, and they started accepting payments like Bitcoin, might it lead to more and more individuals using that kind of currency? I’ve never used it, but damn well would if it was the best way to get my next gun.
2. entropy_factor 9 years ago
  
  I don’t see future generations being very free. teach your children 3 things:
  how to shoot
  to never talk to police
  obtain a useful, universal skill
  1. Pathogen 9 years ago
    
    And also, to read and comprehend the wasteland survival guide. The wasteland wanderer suffered tremendously to bring that to us… gain from that experience.
  2. MarkLastname 9 years ago
    
    And speak Spanish.
3. Suthenboy 9 years ago
  
  Central government commands banks to drop certain customers that engage in perfectly legal but arbitrarily unapproved business. I guess turdpolisher is going to show up again and tell us that Obumbles is the most libertarian POTUS evah and totally not a fascist.
Lord Humungus 9 years ago

Bobcat catches shark on Florida beach
Local 10 viewer John Bailey sent in the photo he snapped Monday evening while walking in Sebastian Inlet State Park Monday in Vero Beach.

The photographer said he noticed the bobcat staring at a shark in the water that was feeding on a smaller fish. The bobcat then leaped into the ocean, caught the shark and dragged it onto the beach.

“Initially, it was pretty quick,” Bailey said. “Spotted it, pulled it up (and) the shark floundered for a while.”

Once the bobcat saw the beachgoer, it dropped the four-foot shark and ran into the nearby woods.
1. some guy 9 years ago
  
  I thought the natural progression started with gorilla eats banana, shark eats gorilla.
  1. Ted S. 9 years ago
    
    The gorillas freeze to death when the first frost comes.
Fist of Etiquette 9 years ago

A cop in South Carolina was charged with murder after video showed him fatally shooting a man in the back…
A man’s back can do a lot of damage to you if you’re not careful.
1. Catatafish 9 years ago
  
  The. Anger. Is. Building.
2. some guy 9 years ago
  
  “His back was to me!”
  1. hamilton 9 years ago
    
    Well, to be fair, the guy was running right at him, just the long way around. Another 25,000 miles and he’d be right on top of him.
    1. some guy 9 years ago
      
      I was quoting a movie….
3. d3x / dt3 9 years ago
  
  The video was horrifying.
  The mayor’s comments at his press conference, though, seemed like a bad idea. He talked about it like the cop was already convicted. Didn’t he just give the cop’s defense attorneys a big gift, though, by doing that?
  1. Fist of Etiquette 9 years ago
    
    Unlawful command influence?
    1. d3x / dt3 9 years ago
      
      I realise that it’s not the military, but I would think you could easily run with a “poisoning the jury pool” thing.
      And if I were the mayor, I’d watch out for busted tail-lights!
      1. R C Dean 9 years ago
        
        Compared to the video, the Mayor’s comments were background noise.
  2. Ted S. 9 years ago
    
    Cops do it to regular arrestees all the time.
    But sure there’s no double standard.
    1. d3x / dt3 9 years ago
      
      I completely agree.
      I just think the mayor could have let things speak for themselves.
4. Suthenboy 9 years ago
  
  “A man’s back can do a lot of damage to you if you’re not careful.”
  No shit. Especially when it is moving rapidly away from you. I bet that cop has ptsd, poor guy.
  1. d3x / dt3 9 years ago
    
    Didn’t you see that dude’s picture? He could have been a ninja!
5. Warty 9 years ago
  
  I wonder if even Tulpa is scum enough to defend the pig in this one.
  1. Pathogen 9 years ago
    
    Never fear, Dunphy will help us make sense of all of this anti-police demagoguery, and ease our collective fears of summary executions by lazy pigs that don’t have the time nor will to chase you perceived police excesses and abuse..
  2. some guy 9 years ago
    
    Nah, he’d just say this is one of those 1 in a million bad cops giving the other cops a bad name. Besides, this cop got charged so what’s everyone complaining about? The courts will sort it out just like libertarians always want.
    1. Pathogen 9 years ago
      
      You forgot…
      *Smootches*
      And
      hth
      Come on man, get with it..
6. Anomalous 9 years ago
  
  “Don’t you turn your back on me!”
Slammer 9 years ago

Germany called Greece’s call for $306 billion in World War II reparations “dumb.”
Nuts!
1. Swiss Servator... Switzy! 9 years ago
  
  You mean “N?sse!”
  1. Ted S. 9 years ago
    
    It’s been done.
invisible furry hand 9 years ago

Figure 1, the app physicians use to share anatomical wonders
1. Scruffy Nerfherder 9 years ago
  
  And here I thought that was what http://reddit.com/r/wtf was for.
  The Norwegian scabies is downright horrifying.
2. Rich 9 years ago
  
  *Awesome* jackstone!
  1. SugarFree 9 years ago
    
    Epi had a jackstone removed. Turns out is was really just a callous.
    1. Bobarian (sexbot hand model) 9 years ago
      
      They weren’t part of his retractable penis spines?
      1. SugarFree 9 years ago
        
        You are thinking of Warty. Epi has ambiguous genitalia, as in “Dear fucking Christ, what the fuck is that?!?”
        
        Bobarian (sexbot hand model) 9 years ago
        
        Penis, clitoris, cloaca, whatever… it still has spines.
3. Lord Humungus 9 years ago
  
  Jackstone
  *wipes vomit from mouth*
Rich 9 years ago

21 Days: Treasury Says Debt Has Been Frozen at $18,112,975,000,000
Oh, FFS!
1. gaijin 9 years ago
  
  Need some global warming to unfreeze that debt and kickstart the economy! Get to work Mr Weather.
2. R C Dean 9 years ago
  
  So where they getting the money?
invisible furry hand 9 years ago

‘The last thing you want is a donkey ending up in the front seat of your car’
1. Just a thought not a sermon 9 years ago
  
  Hey, the donkey’s gotta drive better than my wife, amirite?
2. Brett L 9 years ago
  
  Please. I drive surrounded by jackasses every day. Although, Houstonians who can afford to drive on the toll roads seem to have discovered safe following distance while I was away. Or maybe Northside is the only place where NASCAR-style drafting was common practice.
3. Pope Jimbo 9 years ago
  
  Guy builds a fort for his kids out of cardboard boxes. City issues citation telling him to take it down.
  http://www.standard.net/Local/…..ed-as-Junk
  And of course it has a FB page.
  https://www.facebook.com/events/433688343457171/
widget 9 years ago

Trolling Stone:
http://www.rollingstone.com/cu…..n-20150407
He is every over-entitled, Izod-clad jerk I’ve ever come across in a bar, and I want him to spill his celebratory sparking cider.
1. Drake 9 years ago
  
  He probably does his homework and basis his opinions on logic and facts rather than emotions. Truly a monster.
  1. Bobarian (sexbot hand model) 9 years ago
    
    It’s good to see that RS is truly embracing their race away from any form of journalism.
2. Swiss Servator... Switzy! 9 years ago
  
  Just accuse of him of campus rape.
3. Catatafish 9 years ago
  
  Much like the “I Hate Christian Laettner” special the other night, that article could be summed up with “Jealousy, with a strong dash of racism and resentment for work ethic.”
  1. Enough About Palin 9 years ago
    
    Christian Laettner is an asshole. Shane Battier said that he almost turned down Duke because Laettner had once been on the team.
4. Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns 9 years ago
  
  “–yeah, they just hand those jobs to whoever has an important dad at the country club. Elites are elite because they work really hard. Some exceptions do apply, but the kid graduated at the top of his class, do you suppose he will be night manager at a ghetto McDonalds? Should he be? Do you presume Morgan Stanley hires on class alone? Do you even economics?
  Just as you are a snide, bitter, worthless writer for a has been rag because that reflects your fundamental character, so a spot on a top basketball team at an academically elite university is reflective of your subjects character….presumably, I don’t know the kid, but considering you smear him I feel inclined to stick up for him. Not very class conscious of me.
  #Ibelieveinhavenmonahan”
  This guy dropped the hammer.
  1. RG 9 years ago
    
    It’s amazing to me that writers nowadays have no problem admitting they are petulant children masquerading as adults who will project all kinds of nasty stuff on young adults solely because of the uniform they wear and their name.
    Of course, ignore all the hard work the guy had to have put in to graduate with honors AND be a top athlete, and just call him entitled.
5. Suthenboy 9 years ago
  
  Bunch of fuckin’ commie hippy pieces of shit.
  When you appeal to the worst in human nature to gain supporters the way the left does, you get the worst kinds of people. There it is on spectacular display. Borderline Personality Disorder.
  The guy takes one look at a person and where that person went to school and begins spewing pure hate, when in fact he knows nothing at all about them.
6. Notorious G.K.C. 9 years ago
  
  Rolling Stone says Duke won?
  Better double and triple-check the facts.
7. d3x / dt3 9 years ago
  
  “Considering this is Rolling Stone, can we even believe there is such a person as Grayson Allen?”
  I loved that comment.
8. bodenlosen Schweinerei 9 years ago
  
  So which Reason commenter is Dingus Rattenberg?
  Dingus Rattenberg ? 6 hours ago
  “He remembers every moment of the next three hours of agony, during which, he says, five men took turns dribbling, rebounding, and scoring, while several more ? bench players and key reserves ? gave instruction and encouragement. He remembers how the spectators swigged beers, and how they called each other nicknames like Deebo and Big J. He remembers the men’s heft and their sour reek of gatorade mixed with the pungency of sweat. Most of all, Michael Weinreb remembers the pain and the pounding that went on and on.
  
  “As the last man headed for the basket, Weinreb was startled to recognize him: He attended a Christian high school in Florida. He looked like he was going to cry or puke as he told the crowd he couldn’t get his shot up. “P***y!” the other men jeered. “What, Wisconsin’s too good for you?” Then they egged him on: “Don’t you want to be a Blue Devil?” “We all had to do it, so you do, too.” Someone handed him a basketball. Weinreb stared at the young man, silently begging him not to go through with it. And as he shoved the ball into the basket, Weinreb fell into a stupor, mentally untethering from the brutal tableau, his mind leaving behind his doughy body under assault on the floor.”
Longtorso, Johnny 9 years ago

The Left’s new love of corporate speech
Big corporations like Walmart, Apple, Salesforce.com and General Electric and their executives have done the right thing by calling on officials in Indiana and Arkansas to reject “religious freedom” laws designed to give businesses and religious groups legal cover should they deny service to gay couples. But the business response to these laws raises a larger issue about the role companies play in the political process. If corporate leaders are serious in opposing discrimination, they should refuse to finance the campaigns of lawmakers who want to deny civil rights to gays and other minority groups….
…Another thing businesses can do is to make clear that they want lawmakers in all states to pass anti-discrimination protections for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people. More than three dozen chief executives of technology companies did just that in a statement released on Wednesday….
1. Ted S. 9 years ago
  
  H&R covered this late last week.
2. R C Dean 9 years ago
  
  It triggered the Bo. [shudders]
Just a thought not a sermon 9 years ago

“The White House is launching a campaign on the health effects of climate change?President Obama linked his daughter’s asthma to the issue.”
And it has nothing to do with living in DC, a large, polluted city in a region notorious for its high counts of pollen and other allergens?
1. Drake 9 years ago
  
  After living in Chicago…
2. straffinrun 9 years ago
  
  And tapeworms
3. The DerpRider 9 years ago
  
  In a house with a smoker…
4. Bobarian (sexbot hand model) 9 years ago
  
  Before Global Warming?, DC was a paradise on the potomac.
Lord Humungus 9 years ago

Rand Paul Looks to Tea Party As He Prepares For War With Jeb and Hillary
Neither that breach or any other policy moves Paul has made will shake his libertarian base, though, according to Summers who was wearing a t-shirt in support of Bevin. “There’s a few strays here and there who will hold that against him, but overall, I don’t think he’s going to lose his base, not at all,” he says. That could allow Paul to introduce a dynamic into the 2016 presidential race that was absent in the 2012 election cycle, when Mitt Romney was the only candidate who had a floor of support that sustained him through a lengthy path to the nomination. Jeb Bush will have the money to compete deep into the primary season, but Paul might have the organization to keep pace.
invisible furry hand 9 years ago

Wiping is OK but water is better, says Directorate of Religious Affairs for Turkey
1. Longtorso, Johnny 9 years ago
  
  So my toilet seat bidet makes me a good Muslim?
  1. Certified Public Asskicker 9 years ago
    
    I’m really asking…do you really have one?
    1. Pathogen 9 years ago
      
      Everybody out there should have a water fountain for their ass, are you actually suggesting asses should drink from cups like simpletons and savages? Questioning whether or nor Mr. Longtorso, Johnny has one or not casts reasonable suspicion on you as well, comrade..
      /*narrows gaze*
      1. Bobarian (sexbot hand model) 9 years ago
        
        In Longtorso’s case it isn’t really a water fountain… it’s a beer tap for butt-chugging.
        Which makes him a not so good muslim.
        
        pan fried wylie 9 years ago
        
        Does the koran forbid “drinking” or “consumption”? If the former, then, BUTTCHUG LOOPHOLE!
    2. Longtorso, Johnny 9 years ago
      
      Yes. Connects to the water line for pressure. No electricity
      1. pan fried wylie 9 years ago
        
        Then you have to plumb your toilet with hot water, right?
        
        bodenlosen Schweinerei 9 years ago
        
        Not if you’re a real man.
2. Rich 9 years ago
  
  Use of … three stones was also permissible.
  What about seashells?
  1. Drake 9 years ago
    
    Snowballs are the best of both worlds.
    1. Rich 9 years ago
      
      But is hail halal?
3. Suthenboy 9 years ago
  
  Dictating and ritualizing every aspect of life, including how to wipe your ass, is a hallmark of savagery.
  1. Pathogen 9 years ago
    
    Except for the military.. They cater to all sorts..
Fist of Etiquette 9 years ago

Germany called Greece’s call for $306 billion in World War II reparations “dumb.”
Dummkopfs, that’s too hellenic an amount!
1. Pro Libertate 9 years ago
  
  I don’t Argive a shit.
sarcasmic 9 years ago

Bad news for arachnophobes: Scientists reveal how the whitebanded crab spider can change its COLOUR when hunting
Female of the species use their colour-changing ability to ambush prey
Study found yellow spiders found it more difficult to change their colour
Morphing from white to yellow may be less physiologically damaging
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci…..nting.html
I see those spiders fairly regularly. They’re pretty cool.
1. Notorious G.K.C. 9 years ago
  
  The Michael Jackson spider!
sarcasmic 9 years ago

EXCLUSIVE: Revealed, the terminally ill man set to be first to undergo the world’s first full HEAD transplant pioneered by doctor branded ‘nuts’
Valery Spiridonov says he is ready to put his trust in Dr Sergio Canavero
30-year-old computer scientist was born with Werdnig-Hoffman disease
Genetic muscle-wasting disorder has left him seriously disabled since birth
New body of city of Vladimir native would be taken from braindead donor
But 2016 target for operation is ‘pure fantasy’, say Dr Canavero’s critics
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..avero.html
1. Brett L 9 years ago
  
  First of all, its a body transplant. Second of all, is the organization performing this named NICE?
  1. This Machine 9 years ago
    
    Second of all, is the organization performing this named NICE?
    +1 fat, Italian eunuch
2. Atanarjuat 9 years ago
  
  If his new body is female, which bathroom should he use?
sarcasmic 9 years ago

Utah inmate dies three weeks before scheduled release after kidney dialysis provider failed to show up TWICE
Ramon C. Estrada, 62, was set to be paroled in less than three weeks when he died Sunday at the prison in Draper, Utah
Estrada was scheduled to have dialysis Friday at the prison’s treatment center, but a technician did not show up on Friday or Saturday
Adams said six other inmates had been waiting for dialysis treatment and were taken to a hospital for evaluation
Estrada was serving time for a 2005 rape conviction
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..lysis.html
And nothing else happened.
sarcasmic 9 years ago

No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die: How 007 would have been killed just seven minutes into the plot of Skyfall if movie was real
Action heroes would almost certainly die if they were worked in real life
Medical experts have assessed several action heroes and their wounds
James Bond risked death several times during Skyfall and even cancer
Bond’s DIY bullet removal left him at great risk of infection of paralysis
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..-life.html
That’s why it’s call fiction. Duh.
1. SugarFree 9 years ago
  
  infection of paralysis
  That sounds serious.
  1. Rich 9 years ago
    
    But paralysis of infection would be a miracle cure.
2. Drake 9 years ago
  
  You just don’t get it Scott.
3. Pro Libertate 9 years ago
  
  Just jumping through a window can be fatal. The glass part, not the fall that would almost certainly hobble you at best.
4. Notorious G.K.C. 9 years ago
  
  “That’s why it’s call fiction. Duh.”
  Exactly – after a tough week, you don’t want to sit down and watch some “realistic” spy spending his day watching intercepted communications, then going to the gym to make up for his sedentary lifestyle.
5. Bobarian (sexbot hand model) 9 years ago
  
  the radioactive qualities of the ammunition would have increased his risk of cancer.
  False. Depleted uranium is as radioactive as sunlight. What would have likely killed him is toxic heavy metal poisoning.
SugarFree 9 years ago

New Maya Angelou stamp features a quote not written by Maya Angelou.
You had one job, USPS…
1. Fist of Etiquette 9 years ago
  
  Also, they put Morgan Freeman’s face on it.
  1. Rich 9 years ago
    
    LOL
2. Drake 9 years ago
  
  Skim taxpayers?
3. invisible furry hand 9 years ago
  
  If the USPS was going to pick a quote not by Maya Angelou, it should have picked something funnier, eg
  “Ordinary fucking people, I hate ’em”
4. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
  
  I have one for USPS: Maya Angeloo.Toot-eee-doo.
Longtorso, Johnny 9 years ago

Private Emails Reveal Ex-Clinton Aide’s Secret Spy Network
Starting weeks before Islamic militants attacked the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, longtime Clinton family confidante Sidney Blumenthal supplied intelligence to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gathered by a secret network that included a former CIA clandestine service officer, according to hacked emails from Blumenthal’s account.
The emails, which were posted on the internet in 2013, also show that Blumenthal and another close Clinton associate discussed contracting with a retired Army special operations commander to put operatives on the ground near the Libya-Tunisia border while Libya’s civil war raged in 2011.
Blumenthal’s emails to Clinton, which were directed to her private email account, include at least a dozen detailed reports on events on the deteriorating political and security climate in Libya as well as events in other nations. They came to light after a hacker broke into Blumenthal’s account and have taken on new significance in light of the disclosure that she conducted State Department and personal business exclusively over an email server that she controlled and kept secret from State Department officials and which only recently was discovered by congressional investigators….
1. entropy_factor 9 years ago
  
  could be huge.
  1. Ted S. 9 years ago
    
    FAKE SCANDAL!!!111!!!
2. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
  
  The links today are frightening from Greece’s stale shtick to Obama’s derp to this.
3. The Other Kevin 9 years ago
  
  Just thought of this. Why can’t they subpoena all the emails FROM Hillary Clinton, off her staff’s computers? They didn’t use a private server, only she did. So, if there are emails from Clinton, that she did not report, there’s your proof that she didn’t hand over everything.
  1. Ivan Pike 9 years ago
    
    Just thought of this. Why can’t they subpoena all the emails FROM Hillary Clinton, off her staff’s computers?
    You could just go to the DOS mail server and get them. I am assuming of course that State has a central mail server. The issue isn’t what emails she sent to regular DOS staffers, Secretaries normally don’t email GS’s, but what emails she sent to other governments, etc.
  2. R C Dean 9 years ago
    
    Yeah, it wouldn’t get you the best stuff – the purely darknet stuff.
    But, it would certainly blow a hole in her claim to have given over all the non-private emails, I have no doubt.
4. Suthenboy 9 years ago
  
  How can anyone seriously consider this woman as potential POTUS material is beyond me. She is definitely the stinkiest turd.
sarcasmic 9 years ago

Did the Romans give us TB? Strains of tuberculosis found on Hungarian mummies originated from a single Roman ancestor
More than 200 mummified bodies were found in a hidden crypt of the Dominican church in the city of V?c in Hungary during restoration work
Geneticists led by scientists at the University of Warwick studied samples from 26 of the bodies and found that eight of them had died of tuberculosis
They discovered DNA of 14 different strains of TB bacteria in the mummies
Analysis showed the strains all descended from a single strain that begun causing infections during the late Roman empire between 396CE-470CE
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci…..estor.html
sarcasmic 9 years ago

Could this $300 billion ‘space mushroom’ replace the ISS? Giant rotating station would create artificial gravity for astronauts
Washington DC company United Space Structures wants to create a new space station
It rotates six times a minute to create artificial gravity – with the ‘stem’ and ‘dome spinning in opposite directions
It would be 1,300ft (400 metres) long, cost ?200 billion ($300 billion) and take 30 years to build
‘We believe artificial gravity is required to support long term living in space,’ Bill Kemp from USS told MailOnline
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci…..nauts.html
1. Drake 9 years ago
  
  Somebody just watched 2001: A Space Odyssey and told a reporter?
  1. Fist of Etiquette 9 years ago
    
    Dave’s not here, man.
    1. Pro Libertate 9 years ago
      
      2001: Up in Smoke.
  2. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
    
    That movie ensured I could never name my son Hal – or Dave for that matter.
    I ended up with a daughter. So.
    /shrugs one shoulder.
    1. straffinrun 9 years ago
      
      Mme Firefly?
    2. Pro Libertate 9 years ago
      
      Dave would be a profoundly excellent name for a son.
      Son: “Dad, I’d like a car.”
      Dad: “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
      1. invisible furry hand 9 years ago
        
        As we are a day ahead of you, we have already been there, done that
      2. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
        
        I laughed.
      3. B.P. 9 years ago
        
        I went ahead and named my new malamute dog Dave. But he doesn’t understand when I quote movies.
Lord Humungus 9 years ago

China peeved as Hillary Clinton denounces women’s detention
China called on other countries on Tuesday to respect its judicial sovereignty after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced as “inexcusable” the detention of five women activists.

China has previously rejected calls from Britain and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to release the women activists, who had planned to demonstrate against sexual harassment on public transport.

The five young women had made signs and stickers bearing slogans like “stop sexual harassment” and calling for police to arrest molesters, photographs circulated by rights groups showed.
Medical Physics Guy 9 years ago

There is no more delicious breakfast for a STEM academic than salty humanities tears.
1. Medical Physics Guy 9 years ago
  
  link bad, try here: http://www.theguardian.com/edu…..are_btn_fb
2. SugarFree 9 years ago
  
  Too bad a creative writing major is pointing out your lack of basic HTML skills.
  1. Brett L 9 years ago
    
    At least Creative Writing featured actual criticism of your work — at least it did in the late 90s. These people could use more peers telling them how poor their writing is.
    1. SugarFree 9 years ago
      
      Can’t I just make a mean joke? You people refuse to let me be me!
      1. Medical Physics Guy 9 years ago
        
        Seemed fair enough really
        
        SugarFree 9 years ago
        
        Besides, I’m with you on the subject of humanities majors. Too many of them stumble out of college barely able to think.
Fist of Etiquette 9 years ago

New details on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s massive decades-long metadata collection program.
Is there any war the United States can wage without its details leaking??? Sometimes I think you want the drugs to win.
1. bodenlosen Schweinerei 9 years ago
  
  Drugs won on day one of Tricky Dick’s crusade. It’s the civilians who lost.
sarcasmic 9 years ago

Terrifying arsenal of weapons and ammunition ? including heavy MACHINE GUN ? seized from home of school bus drivers in Michigan militia
Steven and Sarah Nick are facing a combined total of 15 felony charges
Accused of embezzling more than $50,000 to stockpile arsenal of weapons
Said to include 50-caliber machine gun and sniper rifle with suppressor
Police claim weapons were legally owned but were bought using money stolen
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..litia.html
1. Drake 9 years ago
  
  I love these stories with the junk on the bunk photos. Other than the MG, nothing too exciting. A flintlock and a bunch of WWII rifles, a semi-auto shotgun. Maybe some kind assault type rifles in the bottom right of the crappy picture.
  1. sarcasmic 9 years ago
    
    It’s a British tabloid. They see a pellet gun and shit their pants.
    1. Rich 9 years ago
      
      I’m too lazy to Google it, but remember the lockdown when someone found a .22 cartridge?
sarcasmic 9 years ago

Twenty-six stone woman earns $1,500 a month by gorging on junk food while men pay to watch… and has even branched out into ‘squashing’ clients
New Yorker Sarah Reign, 26, is a security guard by day but earns extra money by eating fast food and sugary treats while men watch
Weighs 400lbs and has gained 84lbs since she started eating on camera
Has branched out to sitting on male clients who enjoy being smothered
Admits she finds eating for paying customers ‘an ego boost’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem…..ients.html
Her new career has also led her to the world of ‘squashing’, where men pay her to sit on them when she meets them in person.
She says of her first squashing experience: ‘It was awkward but I got really into it.’
Miss Reign says that she won’t sit on anyone naked though, always keeping her underwear on.
‘I won’t do nude squashing,’ she vowed. ‘I just wear a vest top and tiny shorts.’
Paging all you chubby chasers! You know who you are!
1. Longtorso, Johnny 9 years ago
  
  At least she’s working
  1. Slammer 9 years ago
    
    That’s just horrible.
  2. invisible furry hand 9 years ago
    
    They’re Scots, which goes some way to explain it. How a fearless, tough-minded nation turned into a pack of wheezing mendicant blobs is one of the great tragedies of our time
    1. Medical Physics Guy 9 years ago
      
      That’s only Glasgow. The rest of the country is pretty healthy but Glasgow is the most unhealthy city in Western (and probably Eastern) Europe.
      1. invisible furry hand 9 years ago
        
        40% of the Scottish population lives in Glasgow
    2. Brett L 9 years ago
      
      Between emigration, transportation, and being at the head of far too many infantry charges for the last two centuries, their remaining stock are diminished.
    3. Atanarjuat 9 years ago
      
      wheezing mendicant blobs
      Gawd, that’s wonderful.
    4. SugarFree 9 years ago
      
      They have fry shops all over the place that will batter a deep fry anything you bring them: candy bars, pizza slice, heroin… anything.
2. This Machine 9 years ago
  
  The horror… the horror…
3. Rich 9 years ago
  
  ‘I just wear a vest top and tiny shorts.’
  ‘But you can’t *see* them nudge-nudge-wink-wink!’
4. Catatafish 9 years ago
  
  What, exactly, does she “guard?” The steel-reinforced concrete plinth upon which she sprawls immobile?
Lord Humungus 9 years ago

Wall Street sanguine as it heads into worst earnings season in six years
Wall Street is greeting what is expected to be the worst earnings season since 2009 with a gigantic shrug.

Though there has been some selling in recent weeks, there’s been no panic dumping of stocks, even though forecasts for S&P 500 first-quarter earnings have tumbled since Jan. 1, thanks to the surging dollar, falling oil prices and another severe winter. The earnings season unofficially kicks off Wednesday with results from aluminum company Alcoa (AA.N).

Among some key early results, JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N) is due to report next week along with other banks and General Electric (GE.N).
something peanuts something booming
1. Palin's Buttplug 9 years ago
  
  thanks to the surging dollar, falling oil prices and another severe winter.
  THAT FUCKING OBUMBLES!
  1. Atanarjuat 9 years ago
    
    B
    U
    T
    T
    P
    L
    U
    G
    /Xeones
  2. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
    
    You do realize he supports climate change theories, right? In doing so, he threatens our economy and well-being. You get that right?
    He’s no different than your run of the mill, irrational and shrill prog and yet you support him as a self-described ‘classical liberal’ or ‘rational secularist’ blah, blah.
Bee Tagger 9 years ago

Germany called Greece’s call for $306 billion in World War II reparations “dumb.”
A silent b at the end of a word? Now who’s dumb?
Bee Tagger 9 years ago

The White House is launching a campaign on the health effects of climate change
I already have a case of the eyerolls!
Lord Humungus 9 years ago

Check Before You Hit Send
Drexel University is investigating a law professor who thought she was sending her class a link to an article on writing legal briefs, but who actually sent a link to a pornography site’s video of a woman using anal beads.

“Drexel has been made aware of the email that a professor sent to her class of law students that erroneously included a link to inappropriate material,” said a statement the university released on Saturday. “The university takes all matters of this nature seriously and investigates them in accordance with our standard policies and procedures.”
Ted S. 9 years ago

Luka’s revenge:
Female chimpanzee dies after horrific attack at Hamilton Zoo
A female chimpanzee died after a horrific two-minute attack by the dominant male at Hamilton Zoo.

Chima, 20, had only just moved to the zoo as part of a regional breeding programme. But in a tragic turn of events, she was attacked and badly bitten after being introduced to dominant male Luka.

Zoo staff worked around the clock to try and save Chima, with several staff members sleeping next to her enclosure after the attack. Despite their efforts, Chima died on Saturday.

[…]

Mr Standley said a key part of the plan was to give Chima social opportunities as soon as possible, and she was successfully integrated with two females, Sally and Sanda, without incident.

The altercation with Luka lasted only two minutes and the chimpanzees were separated by keepers, he said.

Chima suffered severe bite wounds to her neck, legs and bottom and these were stitched under general anaesthetic.

She was given around the clock care over the next five days and some of the zoo team slept in the chimp house during this time.

“Sadly Chima passed away just after midnight on Saturday, and the post-mortem indicates probable cause of death was brain trauma sustained in the original attack,” Mr Standley said.
1. Slammer 9 years ago
  
  The zoo teams should have a program where they teach male chimps not to do that.
2. Rasilio 9 years ago
  
  This is why we need the violence against women act
Lord Humungus 9 years ago

Naked jogger allegedly high on ‘$5 insanity’ runs down busy Fort Lauderdale streets, tries to evade cops
A man who created a sensation by jogging naked though traffic-choked Fort Lauderdale streets claimed he was running for his life, but cops said he was simply high on the synthetic drug flakka.

Matthew Kenney, 34, was hospitalized for psychiatric evaluation Saturday after Fort Lauderdale police chased and finally subdued him, WSVN reported.

Florida has reportedly been overrun by flakka, a street drug dubbed “$5 insanity” and called more potent than bath salts or meth.
1. This Machine 9 years ago
  
  So, uh, where can a guy get some? Asking for a friend.
  1. Bobarian (sexbot hand model) 9 years ago
    
    I’ll pass on anything that makes me want to jog, naked or otherwise.
2. Rhywun 9 years ago
  
  Calling BS. Florida man does not need drugs – even made up ones – to jog naked through the streets.
Bee Tagger 9 years ago

New details on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s massive decades-long metadata collection program.
Stoners are usually blown away by things that are meta so this should be a huge deal.
Lord Humungus 9 years ago

Sarah Palin 2.0
Carly Fiorina is conservatives’ new Queen Bee. Will she crater too?
Five years later, it seems the GOP has finally found a new Queen: Carly Fiorina. In 1999, Fiorina became a household name?at least in a certain kind of household?when she was named CEO of Hewlett-Packard, making her the first female head of a Fortune 20 company. (She was fired in 2005 after a series of scandalous leaks.) In 2008, Fiorina was one of McCain’s chief economic advisors, and Palin and Fiorina supported one another over the years: Fiorina defended Palin against “sexist attacks” in 2008; later, in 2010, Palin endorsed Fiorina’s campaign for Barbara Boxer’s California Senate seat.

Fiorina has sought to distance herself from Palin and from other Tea Party conservatives of late, though, including during her California Senate run. As 2016 looms, the GOP, too, has begun to shift: In their quest to find more politically viable candidates to put forward, it’s no wonder Fiorina has recently become a household name. (Again, in a certain kind of household.)
1. Brett L 9 years ago
  
  Imagine for a moment the outrage if this article was about Elizabeth Warren being the Democrats new “queen bee” and was titled “Hillary 2.0.
2. John 9 years ago
  
  Fiorina is very smart and utterly fearless. Moreover, she was the CEO of a huge tech company. Though the Democrats and media will try, I can’t see them painting her as some kind of evil suburban other the way the did Palin. Fiorina is an enormous problem for them.
3. tarran 9 years ago
  
  Carly Fiorina is a poster child for the phenomenon described in Dogbert book on management where people who fail at things get promoted above people who succeed.
  1. John 9 years ago
    
    She was good enough at AT&T to get hired by HP. Moreover, her tenure at HP was in many ways vindicated. Her purchase of Compac turned out to be the right move even though it was always held up as the worst example of her leadership.
    More importantly, even if she was a terrible CEO at HP, that doesn’t mean she is a bad politician or would make a bad president. Maybe she learned from the experience or maybe her style would work better in government than it did at a really insular and engineer driven culture at HP? You need to give her a chance rather than just bitch and moan about how you didn’t like her as a CEO.
    1. Cdr Lytton 9 years ago
      
      If by good enough for AT&T, you mean she used her skirt to rise up the ranks and bailed from Lucent just before their sales house of cards fell apart, then yes.
      The Compaq acquisition wasn’t her worst decision at HP but it wasn’t a great one either and is increasingly irrelevant. The arrogance she displayed when she tore up HP’s culture, the real crown jewels of that company, is exactly how she approaches politics. Look at me, I should be the top dog. No desire to start at an entry level political position. No interest in policy or principal. No connection to voters. She’s never going to get another chance in the corporate world so politics is her only option for staying in the limelight. That she ran as a Republican is likely due to being able to waltz into the Senate race because the California Republican party is a shell of what it was and has almost no viable candidate pipeline.
      1. John 9 years ago
        
        That doesn’t make her message any less true. All I am saying is judge her by what she says. And what she says is mostly very good and full of things that need to be said.
    2. oobins 9 years ago
      
      Carly Fiorina is the worst of the merit-baby class. Her “style” is nothing to promote, encourage, emulate or applaud. Unless you’re running a class on scamming others with symbols and images, like –oh, I don’t know– a game of 3-card monte?
Slammer 9 years ago

Radio France strike
No-one can remember a strike at Radio France lasting this long, because no strike ever has.
There is a reason for that.
For decades Radio France has enjoyed the status of a cosseted state asset.

From 2004 to 2013, expenditure at Radio France went up 27.5% – with no increase in audience.
Salary costs went up by 47% because at a time of growing pressure on jobs everywhere else Radio France took on 20% more staff.
Because of the layers of accumulated privileges (often negotiated with unions after previous strikes), the 5,000 workers enjoy up to 68 working days off a year – more than 13 weeks.
There are 388 staff members who are paid union representatives – a whopping 8% of the workforce.
Renovation of Radio France’s landmark Seine-side headquarters was supposed to cost 262m euros (?191m, $285m). Instead it is costing 575m euros.

Radio France’s new president Mathieu Gallet is handsome, young, energetic – and right-wing.
1. Medical Physics Guy 9 years ago
  
  Also, these guys have a little less leverage for their stupid strikes than truckers who can shut down much of the nation’s transport infrastructure on a day’s notice.
2. invisible furry hand 9 years ago
  
  And listening figures went up
3. UnCivilServant 9 years ago
  
  the 5,000 workers enjoy up to 68 working days off a year
  I get half that and I regard it as excessive leave time.
  1. Medical Physics Guy 9 years ago
    
    And do you have to decide which Vivaldi sonata is played at 2:16pm on Radio France 8 tomorrow? You don’t know what it’s like to work under that sort of pressure.
4. Notorious G.K.C. 9 years ago
  
  “Strike? Mon Dieu, we’re not on strike, we’re just lazy. It kind of looks the same.”
Lord Humungus 9 years ago

Krauthammer’s Take: Rand Paul Is the GOP Presidential Candidate Closest to Obama on Foreign Policy
“Whatever name you want to put on Paul’s position, isolationist or non-interventionist, he is without a doubt the one Republican who will be running who is closest to Obama in his view of foreign policy,” Krauthammer said on Special Report. “Arguably, he’s to the left of Obama on NSA, on surveillance, on the use of drones; essentially on the war on terror.”

Krauthammer added that America’s objective on foreign policy must always be national security, not to choose between peace and war as Paul surmises.
1. Copernicus 9 years ago
  
  “Arguably, he’s to the left of Obama on NSA, on surveillance, on the use of drones; essentially on the war on terror.”
  “Left” and “Right” don’t apply here K-hammer.
  1. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
    
    I don’t know but isn’t the name ‘Krauthammer’ racist on some level?
    It’s like saying Wopsaw or Chinkdriver or Mickpick.
    /shakes pepto-bismal.
    1. Suthenboy 9 years ago
      
      I love the name Krauthammer. I should carve it into the stock of my Garand.
    2. Swiss Servator... Switzy! 9 years ago
      
      *shrugs, begins polite applause*
2. Free Society 9 years ago
  
  Krauthammer added that America’s objective on foreign policy must always be national security, not to choose between peace and war as Paul surmises.
  So the objective is always war, there is no choice. Fucking neocons are just amazing
  1. Pro Libertate 9 years ago
    
    Even if Rand were an isolationist, which he clearly is not, he sounds like he has some strategic view of foreign policy with some principles to boot. Obama has none of the above.
  2. oobins 9 years ago
    
    Krauthammer sees everything through the lens of Yahweh, who demands retribution in the form of this:
    “You insulted me? Then you, and your family, and your friends and relatives all must be exterminated. Otherwise, you may try to wipe me off the map.”
    Not coincidentally, this is the view of B Netanyahu & Co in the middle east’s supposed beacon of democratic progress.
3. Catatafish 9 years ago
  
  I enjoy Krauthammer discussing many things but describing being against mass domestic surveillance and drone-killing of American citizens as “left” issues makes me wonder if he’s ever heard of the 4th Amendment or Due Process. You know, pesky things “conservatives” should care about.
Lord Humungus 9 years ago

Marion Barry’s wife sues her husband’s kidney donor
The widow of former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry is suing the woman who donated a kidney to her late husband in 2009.

Cora Masters Barry has filed a lawsuit against the donor, Kim Dickens, for using her husband’s “celebrity identity” to raise money for a charity she founded called the Barry Dickens Kidney Foundation.

The organization’s website claims Marion Barry helped Dickens found the group, which promotes organ donation, but Barry’s widow denies it. Her lawsuit says Barry’s estate will not allow Dickens use of Barry’s name following the former mayor’s death in November 2014.
1. Ted S. 9 years ago
  
  Bitch set Cora up!
2. Suthenboy 9 years ago
  
  Sounds like Cora sucked her bank account up her nose and is hard up for cash.
gaijin 9 years ago

Sad news…the creepy Rob Lowe DirecTV ads are history. TO be replaced by a swimsuit model and a talking horse.
DirecTV to replace creepy Rob Lowe ads
1. gaijin 9 years ago
  
  oh fer f’s sake. link:
  DirectTV to replace creepy rob lowe ads
  1. This Machine 9 years ago
    
    Once more, with feeling!
    1. gaijin 9 years ago
      
      just f me
      http://www.charlotteobserver.com/ente…..23389.html
2. R C Dean 9 years ago
  
  Yeah, those were really funny.
  But the new ads are easy on the eyes.
Lord Humungus 9 years ago

U.S. Dot-Com Bubble Was Nothing Compared to Today’s China Prices
The industry is leading gains in China’s $6.9 trillion stock market, sending valuations to an average 220 times reported profits, the most expensive level among global peers. When the Nasdaq Composite Index peaked in March 2000, technology companies in the U.S. had a mean price-to-earnings ratio of 156.

Like the rise of the Internet two decades ago, China’s technology shares are being fueled by a compelling story: the ruling Communist Party is promoting the industry to wean Asia’s biggest economy from its reliance on heavy manufacturing and property development. In an echo of the late 1990s, Chinese stocks are also gaining support from lower interest rates, a boom in initial public offerings and an influx of money from novice investors.
1. Jordan 9 years ago
  
  Chinese central bank: “Mission accomplished!”
Rich 9 years ago

Could your online porn habits be publicly released?
if you are viewing porn online in 2015, your viewing history could be publicly released and attached to your name.
“If you have nothing to hide ?.”
1. Atanarjuat 9 years ago
  
  Let’s just say I have something to hide, and leave it at that.
2. I'm Mr Meeseeks 9 years ago
  
  So I watch Donkey Bukkake Porn. Why should I hide that from the public?
  1. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
    
    Da heck is dat?
    1. Rich 9 years ago
      
      Ask your mother.
      *** bites lip ***
      1. invisible furry hand 9 years ago
        
        Mom, if you were in a Donkey Bukkake Porn video, you’d tell me… right?
3. Rich 9 years ago
  
  “I was just doing research.”
  /Pete Townsend
  1. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
    
    Research on tween-age wasteland?
Jordan 9 years ago

The White House is launching a campaign on the health effects of climate change?President Obama linked his daughter’s asthma to the issue.
The “Party of Science”, ladies and gents.
Lord Humungus 9 years ago

Criminalizing Black teachers
Our educational system stacks the deck against Black children — now we’re throwing their teachers in jail
Last week, an Atlanta jury convicted 11 teachers and school administrators of racketeering in a system-wide cheating scandal. Yes, you read that correctly. Teachers and administrators inflating student scores on standardized tests is now considered “organized crime” in this country, and is punishable by more 20 years in prison, in these cases.

I am an educator. I am a Black woman who may someday mother a Black child. I have taught other Black mothers’ children. Much of my educational success in elementary school is directly attributable to high performance on standardized tests that caused my white teachers to notice me and intervene on my behalf to get me “tracked” into higher-achieving classrooms. I believe all children deserve access to a good, high-quality, public education.

Therefore, I don’t have to condone cheating in any form (and I don’t) to assert that what has happened in Atlanta to these teachers is a travesty. The pictures that emerged last week of handcuffed Black schoolteachers being led out of Southern courtrooms in one of the country’s largest urban Black school systems were absolutely heartbreaking.
1. Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns 9 years ago
  
  It’s Salon, so I’m guessing it’s Britteny Cooper without reading it.
  1. Lord Humungus 9 years ago
    
    And Irish wins a ceegar!
  2. Free Society 9 years ago
    
    The schools did fail her. She can’t even spell her first name.
2. Rich 9 years ago
  
  Given that public schools are largely funded through property taxes and that Black children are overwhelming reared by Black single mothers, the failure to vigorously prosecute the financial institutions and lenders that gutted Black neighborhoods means that the system co-signed corporate acts of institutional violence against Black mothers and children, and against neighborhood schools in Black communities.
  Emphasis added. So it’s Holder’s fault?
3. Slammer 9 years ago
  
  Our educational system stacks the deck against Black children
  
  Much of my educational success in elementary school is directly attributable to high performance on standardized tests that caused my white teachers to notice me and intervene on my behalf
  Those two ideas don’t match up.
  And why do you participate in the public education system if it’s so racist and messed up?
  1. Free Society 9 years ago
    
    Because of the de facto monopoly and compulsory attendance laws that she undoubtedly supports. She’s just bitter that the reality of black culture is what it is.
  2. BardMetal 9 years ago
    
    I still don’t understand how a test could be racist. Unless she thinks something in black DNA gives them a different knowledge of history, and an inability to understand math & science, or that evil Germanic language English. Which to me sounds pretty racist.
  3. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
    
    Of course it is. Or else the world would miss this:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmO-ziHU_D8
    And what’s with the blonde lady fawning over this? Go do porn, you’d respect yourself more in the morning. Sheesh.
    1. Free Society 9 years ago
      
      I saw this a while back. Be careful with this video, it may make unwitting viewers more racist than they were before they saw this. I for one, just acquired a lower opinion of black culture and leftist academia than I did before. I also saw just how badly leftist academia subsidizes degenerate intellectualism within black culture. They couldn’t be harming blacks worse even if they were actively trying.
      Here is the head of the Cross Examination Debate Association, who came under fire for this travesty of “debate”, calling everyone racist who thinks these aren’t the best collegiate debaters in the country.
      1. Suthenboy 9 years ago
        
        It sounds like you think they are not actively trying.
        
        Free Society 9 years ago
        
        To be fair, they think constantly lowering the bar for blacks is helping them.
      2. greasonable (was sthgrau) 9 years ago
        
        Ironic that a debate organization has disabled comments on their videos?
4. SugarFree 9 years ago
  
  Brittney Copper, The Shame that is Rutgers’.
5. Swiss Servator... Switzy! 9 years ago
  
  Needz moar “Black”
6. Matrix 9 years ago
  
  Perhaps a 20 year prison sentence is unjust. I will agree. But they should be fired and barred from ever teaching in public schools again.
7. DrZaius 9 years ago
  
  Give me a fucking break. Atlanta has been been under black Democrat control since the early 80’s . And the Fulton County DA is black. So a bunch of black “educators” were prosecuted in a city with all black leadership (with a very sympathetic white population) by a black district attorney. If there’s one group that can’t be blamed it’s white Republicans because they don’t exist in any relevant way in the city Atlanta.
8. Catatafish 9 years ago
  
  When a group of people conspire together to perpetrate a fraud that results in millions of dollars of taxpayer money being directed to their school district and their own pockets in the form of bonuses, I fail to see how this does not constitute a criminal enterprise. Set the race issue aside. If ANY group of people were found to have, say, falsified their income reporting such that they could reap thousands of dollars of food stamp assistance or falsified their figures on the provision of medical services to inflate Medicaid reimbursement, wouldn’t the exact same kind of prosecution take place?
  This gash is just sore over the fact that it’s a sacred racial group committing fraud in the most sacred social program.
Jordan 9 years ago

Ben Bernanke has started his own blog at the Brookings Institute, whining about how the poor old Fed is so badly maligned. Pater Tenebrarum deivered an excellent smackdown:
What can we say, except: wrong on all counts! The first sentence we have highlighted above is an example of circular reasoning; the Fed, or rather its members, may well feel they have “no choice” but to overrule markets, but that presupposes that the institution as such is not surplus to requirements. What Bernanke is implying in this sentence is that the existence of a central planning institution that manipulates the size of the money supply and the price of credit should simply be accepted as a given. Apparently he thinks no further debate on this point is required.

However, if one accepts this premise, then why shouldn’t the government control the price of eggs, or the price of cars as well? If government bureaucrats are wise enough to plan and control the most important price ratio in the economy, then why wouldn’t it be best if they controlled all prices? Similar to most economists, Bernanke would probably agree that it wouldn’t be a good thing if government bureaucrats were indeed controlling all prices. So why exactly should the price of credit be an exception to this rule?
1. Jordan 9 years ago
  
  Even Bernanke essentially admits that it is impossible for the Fed to “obtain the necessary and relevant information” to set the interest rate at the “correct” level. His excuse essentially boils down to: “We have little idea what we are doing, but we must do something; besides, we’re trying to do our best”. So the economy is so-to-speak planned on a best effort basis. We’d rather see no such planning at all.
  
  Given that the Fed per experience tends to err on the side of easy money, we experience asset price bubbles and distortions in relative prices that cause malinvestment and capital consumption (as they make capital investment in long-lived projects in the higher stages of the production structure appear to be feasible although they are not). Thus the central bank is directly responsible for the boom-bust cycle. If what Bernanke writes were actually true, we couldn’t possibly have suffered any boom-bust cycles on the Fed’s watch ? but we most assuredly have. Since there exist no tenable non-monetary explanations of the business cycle, where else are we supposed to look for its cause?
  1. Brett L 9 years ago
    
    Wait, you mean currwncy is just another markwt commodity and the Knowledge Problem affects it, too? What would the logical consequence of this be? Probably not a small cabal in each country attempting to set the relative prices based on the whims of politicians and large financial interests.
Lord Humungus 9 years ago

Rand Paul goes full mansplainer on Today: “That would be a better way to approach an interview”
The GOP presidential candidate got snippy with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie on Wednesday morning when she began a question by citing several examples of his shifting opinions on foreign policy.

“Why don’t you let me explain instead of talking over me,” replied Paul, before repeatedly accusing Guthrie of “editorializing.”

Then he gave her some free journalism advice: “Before we go through a litany of things you say I’ve changed on, why don’t you ask me a question, ‘Have I changed my opinion?’ That would be better way to approach an interview.”
1. Palin's Buttplug 9 years ago
  
  FUCKING LIBRUL MEDIA! ALWAYS ASKING GOTCHA QUESTIONS!
2. Grand Moff Serious Man 9 years ago
  
  I actually sort of agree, it’s not a good look to act all defensive and snippy. Rand needs to work on that, especially if he’s on fluff-tastic ‘Good Morning America’ or whatever network national talk show that was.
  1. John 9 years ago
    
    Maybe. On the other hand a lot of people hate the media and are tired of them playing gotcha with every Republican while throwing softballs to every Democrat. One of the best things any GOP candidate can do is stand up to the media. The GOP voters love that and loath Republicans who roll over to the media.
    1. Free Society 9 years ago
      
      Yeah when the general election rolls around, sure Rand should play their little game. But in the primaries he would do well with GOP voters to verbally beat a journalist to death like that fat guy did with John King during the last electoral circus.
    2. Emmerson Biggins 9 years ago
      
      +this
  2. oobins 9 years ago
    
    Huh? People are tired of obsequious pols who play friendly when someone insults them. “Take the high road” can be seen as “be a doormat”.
Rich 9 years ago

A mysterious ‘ring of fire’ has been spotted in space thanks to Albert Einstein’s theory of relatively.
Well, the writer certainly fell into that one.
1. Slammer 9 years ago
  
  Chipotle?
2. invisible furry hand 9 years ago
  
  And the flames went higher
  1. Lord Humungus 9 years ago
    
    +1 Man In Black
Lord Humungus 9 years ago

Paris’ bold plan for solving its air pollution woes: Start a biking revolution
The City of Lights is spending $160 million to become “the cycling capital of the world”
But a new plan relies less on disincentivizing cars and instead on making a clean, healthy form of transportation more appealing. That’s right: Paris wants to become a bike city.

Actually, it’s aiming to become “world capital of cycling.” And the city’s proposing a ?150 million ($164.5 million) plan to make it happen by 2020.

The plan, which will go before the city council next week, is definitely bold: it aims to double Paris’ current bike lanes and create 80 kilometers (50 miles) of brand-new routes; create five, barrier-protected bike highways; cut vehicle speed limits down to 30 kilometers (18 miles) per hour; provide financial incentives for purchasing electric bikes; and add 10,000 new bike parking spots, with the ultimate goal of tripling the share of bike trips, from 5 to 15 percent.
1. Jax Teller 9 years ago
  
  “Sons of Monarchy”
2. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
  
  The best cycling nations:
  http://www.cyclingranking.com/…..erall.aspx
  1. Free Society 9 years ago
    
    How the Netherlands and Denmark aren’t hands down the best cycling countries is beyond me. Italy actually got the top spot, despite the crowded streets shared by bicycles and lawless mopeds and miniature fuck cars that drive anywhere they want.
    1. Brett L 9 years ago
      
      For the Danes, it mght be the eight months of winter keeping their ratings down.
      1. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
        
        Bah.
        I think two things are at work. One is, historically, cycling (motor racing) was bigger than soccer in Italy until, say, maybe the 1960s. They have rabid fans in all three. They still hold huge spots on the sports landscape there. Two, Italy’s terrain is more mountainous, rugged and sunny than those countries.
        The Dutch, nonetheless, have had great cyclists. But the Belgians are awesome.
        Italy, by the way, is the second or third ranked skiing team in history – if you can believe that!
      2. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
        
        By the way, shoulda mentioned, that the Dutch (for example) have many commuters that ride on bikes doesn’t necessarily translate into pro champions. I don’t think one has that much to do with the other.
        Canada probably has more adept skiers than most countries but hasn’t produced as many champions as it might ought to.
        
        Rhywun 9 years ago
        
        the Dutch (for example) have many commuters that ride on bikes doesn’t necessarily translate
        It also doesn’t translate to huge cities like Paris or New York.
        
        oobins 9 years ago
        
        Canada probably has more adept skiers than most countries but hasn’t produced as many champions as it might ought to.
        As a national culture, Canada resembles Barney the Purple Dinosaur. Competition bad, cooperation good. This is great for getting people together and minimizing social friction, not so great for aspiration or friendly contests that enable one to test one’s self against others.
Mike M. 9 years ago

Here come the first California water restrictions in state history; most communities will be forced to cut usage between 25 and 35%.
1. Ted S. 9 years ago
  
  How much usage would the farmers have to cut to allow the rest of the state not to have to cut any water?
  (Of course, the real solution is to price water properly.)
2. Protagoronus 9 years ago
  
  Will governments ever stop trying to snip parts of the middle of the demand curve? This shit always reduces the value of the economy from ideal. Always.
  1. Mike M. 9 years ago
    
    The most tragic part of it is that this drought is largely man-made, created by the insane policies of the whacky environmentalists who control the state. They haven’t built a single new reservoir in something like forty years, while the population of the state has doubled.
Copernicus 9 years ago

This is going to sound a bit callous, but I’m glad a shit ton of Iraqi soldiers have been slaughtered by Isis.
Some time in the future, Isis is going to be utterly crushed. And I hope the Iraqi people get the true story of what complete gonadless, cowardly pussies their Iraqi leaders, soldiers, and men in general are.
1. Swiss Servator... Switzy! 9 years ago
  
  So you cheer the deaths of the poor riflemen at the end of a chain of politically appointed officers, corrupt and inefficient logistics chain and clueless political leaders?
  Might want to rethink that.
  In 2008, when they were not so hollowed out, I advised an Iraqi Army Division (the 14th) near Basra, and they did a good job cleaning out the Jaish al-Mahdi and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. I find you wishing for some of the Iraqis I served with being killed contemptible and worth nothing but scorn.
SugarFree 9 years ago

Democratic aide rapes two women, before sentencing he’s attacked with acid, and ends up with no jail time. Huh? Oh, that’s right… “Democratic aide.”
1. John 9 years ago
  
  It was the summer of 2010, and she had just arrived in Washington as a student intern. When they met, she believed Donny Ray Williams Jr., the longtime aide and former staff director for a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee, could help her find a job with Congress. But instead, she later told authorities, Williams drugged and assaulted her.
  “He gave me a random dose of drugs and risked my life,” the woman wrote in a letter read during the D.C. Superior Court hearing last week. “After the assault, I moved away, and he continued to harass me and threatened me to drop the charges. This crime has caused me fear, pain and a financial burden.”
  There are of course people doing decades in prison for the crime of possessing drugs or looking at child porn and this guy isn’t going to do a day in jail. I am so sure the prosecutors in those cases would have cared so much if the person was sick or had been the victim of another crime. The thing is that those DAs are no doubt utter and complete assholes in other cases yet manage to let this guy walk. What sociopath pieces of shit.
  1. tarran 9 years ago
    
    Is it possible that they don’t want to deal with a prisoner with his medical issues?
    1. John 9 years ago
      
      Sure but not likely. I don’t see anyone else getting off for those reasons. Moreover, this guy is a real threat. He victimized two different women. Keeping people like him locked up is why we pay taxes to build prisons. Paying for his medical care is a small price to pay to keep him out of society.
      1. bodenlosen Schweinerei 9 years ago
        
        And the acid attack was unrelated?
        “Williams said he thinks his attacker was the jealous ex-boyfriend of a woman he was dating.”
        I thought Larry Williams had the dick that went ’round the clock.
2. Rufus J. Firefly 9 years ago
  
  Democrats are civil. THAT’S why.
Jordan 9 years ago

Here is a very detailed post about why Chicago is even more fucked than anybody realizes.
Shockingly Bad Fiscal Health of Chicago (and the Financial Engineering Chicago Uses to Hide that Fact)
Dating back to at least 2003, however, Chicago has been issuing long-term tax-exempt and taxable bonds to:

(1) Roll over short-term debt used as working capital;

(2) Pay for maintenance activities that would otherwise be paid from the Corporate Fund;

(3) Pay for judgments and settlements that would otherwise be paid from the Corporate Fund, including wage increases and retroactive pension contributions for its employees; and

(4) Provide discretionary funds to each of the city’s 50 aldermen to pay for activities in their own districts.
Much, much more at the link.
1. John 9 years ago
  
  They are in the same death spiral that Detroit is in. They are just further up from the bottom. The city can’t afford to pay for its bloated payrolls and pensions and raises taxes and cuts services to do so. This causes more productive people to leave lowering tax revenue starting the process again.
  1. BardMetal 9 years ago
    
    Has Chicago also started coming up with new traffic laws & regulations in order to try to make up their budget shortfalls through ticketing, even though it only speeds up their death spiral by driving even more people away?
    1. John 9 years ago
      
      Yes. Chicago pioneered the red light camera and shortened yellow light time scam.
      1. BardMetal 9 years ago
        
        Isn’t it funny how a city run by Democrats have created the most regressive tax system ever? Is there anything that disproportionately effects the poor more then the enforcement of petty traffic violations? Well besides cigarette taxes, and beer taxes.
        
        John 9 years ago
        
        All of the revenue producing bullshit Democrats love are nothing but penalties for being poor. Yet, they claim with a straight face no one but them cares about the poor. You see bard, it is people like you and I who would do away with things like car registrations and large traffic fines who hate the poor. It is only the people who support making those things as draconian as possible who care.
        
        oobins 9 years ago
        
        The easiest way for one to deny one’s most detestable urges and actions is to find a scapegoat other, and project those urges and actions onto the other.
        *Progressive Playbook, chapter 3, paragraph 14. (Note the source found within, attribution to Leo Strauss)
  2. robc 9 years ago
    
    The premise of Chuck Marohn at strongtowns.org is that almost every city/town is in that death spiral. Its just a matter of how early or late in the cycle they are.
    His theory is that private:public investment ratios for infrastructure (basically property value to public infrastructure value) should be somewhere between 20:1 and 40:1. Instead many cities are 1:2 or even worse. Im not sure his target number is correct, I think 10:1 or so is probably survivable (although I like his thinking on making it even lower) but his point still stands.
    A $200k household cant support $400k in infrastructure.
    1. John 9 years ago
      
      You can tell they are because basic services that you would expect from a city, like roads and jails are all appalling despite high taxes. The money is going for graft and corruption not for what it was intended. Go to any big American city and the roads are close to third world.
      1. Peachy rex 9 years ago
        
        I go down streets here every day that would disgrace a third world slum – and I *grew up* in the third world.
    2. oobins 9 years ago
      
      You’d think Marohn could see past infrastructure as fulcrum.
      Hollow economy, “growth” in manipulated figures and gamed niches for profiteering, that’s why things are tanking.
      –What do I make? Oh, I make personal brands. I tell people how to sell themselves.
      –And what does that net you, per year?
      –Last year, $175k.
      on and on. But we should be grateful, Personal Brand Guy has a lot of disposable income in that $175k, and he spends it gleefully on fashion both wearable and edible, so we’ve got lots of fancy trinket shops and eateries in the region, and that’s glorious!
2. bodenlosen Schweinerei 9 years ago
  
  I don’t wish to seem a persnickety child . . .
Free Society 9 years ago

The White House is launching a campaign on the health effects of climate change?President Obama linked his daughter’s asthma to the issue.
from the article;

A Gallup poll last month showed that 55 percent of Americans believe that increases in the Earth’s temperature are because of pollution as a result of human activities and 77 percent say they understand global warming either very well or fairly well.

77% percent of the general public claims to understand global warming “very well” or “fairly well”. Forgive me for doubting the credibility of the Great Consensus.
1. Rich 9 years ago
  
  ELITIST!
John 9 years ago

It is not telling them it is not okay to stone homosexuals to death or murder anyone who in any way makes fun of Muhammad, but it is a start.
Religious authorities now say it is okay for Muslims to use toilet paper.
http://www.breitbart.com/natio…..let-paper/
1. tarran 9 years ago
  
  When I was a kid in Turkey a lot of people viewed the use of toilet paper to wipe rather than their left hand and water (there’s a faucet in the toilet) as really unclean and barbaric.
  One of our guests even tried to clean up after herself in the sink (and yes, it was as gross as it sounds).
2. BardMetal 9 years ago
  
  Stories like this make me miss good ol’ fashion western colonialism.
  1. Free Society 9 years ago
    
    The people in developing countries bitch about evil western colonialism on their cell phone while driving down the paved road in their car on the way to McDonalds.
Warty 9 years ago

Shitty local newspaper: polar bear hunting is bad, ok? I’m glad they’re decrying obvious racial assaults, but I thought the narrative was still that the knockout game doesn’t exist.
Bonus: delightfully bad Rand Paul cartoon.
1. Mike M. 9 years ago
  
  Yep, the official line from the Weigelian scum is that they’re fake stories. Never mind that these incidents have been going on for years and that it became such a problem in Philadelphia a year or two ago that the black mayor had to make a public statement saying they would aggressively go after anyone playing this “game”.
  It is good to see that there are some in the media who are rational and aren’t willing to sink that low into the JournoList gutter though.
2. Ivan Pike 9 years ago
  
  Warty, I am glad I went to the link, because I was about to say that Polar Bear hunting is AWESOME. But they were talking about some assault game instead.
Rich 9 years ago

an American soldier was killed in a shooting incident in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad in which at least two other U.S. troops were wounded when an Afghan soldier opened fire
So much training and they still can’t get it right.
Seriously, GTFO.
Mazakon 9 years ago

The White House is launching a campaign on the health effects of climate change?President Obama linked his daughter’s asthma to the issue.
Hmm, asthma caused by approximately 20(?) years of an ever-goalpost-moving issue or is it possible that he and Michelle might be carriers?
Grand Moff Serious Man 9 years ago

Disney to release entire Star Wars saga on digital platforms
1. BardMetal 9 years ago
  
  Can we get the original Star Wars movies before Lucas took a big steaming dump on his own creation?
  1. Pro Libertate 9 years ago
    
    These aren’t the movies you’re looking for.
2. Rich 9 years ago
  
  “Experience R2-D2 as never before!”
3. Brett L 9 years ago
  
  This is my complaint with current IP laws. I already bought the right to own a copy of the Star Wars movies. (Eps IV-VI). If I were to obtain a copy of the digital version for free, it would still be piracy, even if I destroyed the other format. Fuck the Mouse and George Lucas.
Grand Moff Serious Man 9 years ago

Jon Stewart with admittedly funny segment on Paul campaign launch
1. Atanarjuat 9 years ago
  
  That was pretty funny. “Oh, you’re 26…and still libertarian…”
Rhywun 9 years ago

Look, it’s a Democrat grooming himself for higher office by going full-on authoritarian:
“Applebee’s isn’t exactly a food destination that attracts people from all over the region,” Mr. Fulop said. He added: “We don’t want every retail space to become a Gap, TGI Fridays or a Starbucks.”
I find this somewhat amusing because my job was recently shipped from Wall Street to this area and the food and shopping choices suck ass. The waterfront is wall-to-wall empty storefronts that haven’t recovered from Sandy.
1. Andrew S. 9 years ago
  
  Gawker had an article fawning over this and talking about how wonderful it would be.
  I say let them do it, and then laugh when they claim to be shocked about lower wages/higher prices in the city.
  1. Rhywun 9 years ago
    
    Their hatred for the choices that the common people make is so telling.
    1. oobins 9 years ago
      
      Don’t know the latest foodie fads? Die in a fire!
      Don’t know which skinny jeans to buy at $175? Die in a fire!
      Not Absolutely Fabulous in your shopping tastes? DIE IN A FIRE RIGHT NOW!
2. Pope Jimbo 9 years ago
  
  I grew up in a small town and we had very limited choices when it came to buying local.
  Shitty selection and higher prices. If we drove 45 miles to the big city of Fargo/Moorhead we could get much better stuff for much cheaper.
  All these people who bitch about big box stores have never had to live without those stores at least keeping the local stores honest via competition.
3. oobins 9 years ago
  
  and the food and shopping choices suck ass.
  It really must suck to be denied a panoply of shopping boutiques and fancy dining establishments. You might be mistaken for a coarse breeder if you don’t shop and dine at distinctive spots well worthy of tweeting about and taking selfies within. Such a burden to bear, being denied upscale consumerism. Why, that’s an infringement on your liberty to be a yuppie!
Grand Moff Serious Man 9 years ago

Pew Poll Shows Millenials are actually most supportive of NSA
1. invisible furry hand 9 years ago
  
  Children are idiots, eh?
2. Rich 9 years ago
  
  I blame it on the frisbees NSA passes out at job fairs.
3. BardMetal 9 years ago
  
  How is that possible? The generation that was raised on the internet, and have discovered more porn sites dedicated to more bizarre fetishes then I can count, are ok with the NSA seeing their browser history?
  1. Andrew S. 9 years ago
    
    Because government is good. They’d be against a KKKORPORASHUN doing the same thing the NSA does, though.
  2. greasonable (was sthgrau) 9 years ago
    
    They might just not care that other people, in general, see their browser history. Perhaps because they are openly accepting of worse (on average)
4. Pro Libertate 9 years ago
  
  They’re just covering their asses, in case the NSA is collecting poll results.
  Paul should win on his vow to shut down domestic spying alone. No one else will fucking do it.
Lord Humungus 9 years ago

Robots for Humans: Addressing the Engineering Challenges
It has been estimated that by 2045 robots will be able to perform every job that humans can. But does this mean humans should worry about being replaced by machines? Many experts believe the future actually lies in a more advanced and seamless collaboration between humans and robots.

Where most robots, particularly industrial and manufacturing settings, have historically been too dangerous for humans to work closely with, advances in technology have made it possible to develop robots that are safer, more cost-effective and flexible enough to work side by side with people.
Every job? Like integrating two separate software packages running on different databases? Good luck with that.
I would like a robot that can fix my BMW – the engine compartment is a byzantine labyrinth of hoses that only my orphan slave’s hand can reach without taking out half of the accessories.
1. Protagoronus 9 years ago
  
  Robots will be cool, but it is also likely that we will seamlessly integrate new abilities into ourselves with technology. By 2045 the power of your smartphone will fit into the size of a red blood cell and cost much less than a cent if trends continue. You will need to be upgraded to even contemplate the implications of that.
2. Matrix 9 years ago
  
  Will I be able to have a robot that will assist me in burglary?
SugarFree 9 years ago

“If you show me one couple that conceived a child through anal ? through anal intercourse ? just show me one in all the world, and I will say, ‘I agree with you and you are right.’ Show me one,” he said. “It is unnatural, I’m sorry.”
Pat Robertson thinks about anal sex way too much…
1. Notorious G.K.C. 9 years ago
  
  ACTIVISTS: “Same-sex marriage is the most important civil-rights issue of our time! We must redefine marriage to let gay people marry each other! And we must force private businesses to recognize these new marriages!”
  OPPONENT: “I don’t agree.”
  ACTIVISTS: “Why are you so *obsessed* with gay people?”
  1. SugarFree 9 years ago
    
    Cool story, bro.
2. Brett L 9 years ago
  
  I’m not up on Pat’s views. Does he only advocate for “natural” sex during the week that a woman is in aestrus? What about post-menopausal sex? And what about women who can’t become pregnant? Because otherwise this is just special pleading.
  1. Brett L 9 years ago
    
    And furthermore, should men who are shooting blanks also avoid sex altogether?
3. John 9 years ago
  
  SOCONS can’t come to grips with the availability of birth control. The funny thing about that statement is not that he thinks sodomy is unnatural. It is that he thinks sex is natural because it produces children. Okay, Pat, that is a reasonable idea. In fact there is this entire organization that goes to great lengths to embrace the idea that sex is for the purpose of creating children. It is known as THE CATHOLIC CHURCH and they think birth control is immoral. Last I looked, Protestants like Robertson don’t. If anal sex is unnatural because it won’t produce children, so is any other sex done when using birth control.
4. Pope Jimbo 9 years ago
  
  Hmmm…..
  How does he think Mary kept her virginity AND kept Joseph hanging around?
Enough About Palin 9 years ago

Worth reposting:
http://www.ethiospot.com/photo…..e=activity
She should be our Reason queen.
1. Pope Jimbo 9 years ago
  
  Friggering warning!
  It is interesting to see all the beautiful Somali women running around Minneapolis and then see the dorky/ugly Somali guys. How does that happen?
  1. Enough About Palin 9 years ago
    
    It is weird.
2. MJGreen 9 years ago
  
  …Whoa.
adolphowisner 9 years ago

Google pay 97$ per hour my last pay check was $8500 working 1o hours a week online. My younger brother friend has been averaging 12k for months now and he works about 22 hours a week. I cant believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
This is what- I do…… ?????? http://www.jobsfish.com
oobins 9 years ago

So now that AIPAC and the Leo Strauss gang run Chicago again, will we be seeing the goyim put in cattle cars and shipped out to Winnetka for “concentration” and the like?
Or are they needed in town, since, y’know, ya gotta have cattle if you’re a bunch of vampires.
oobins 9 years ago

Iraqi forensic teams are exhuming mass graves of soldiers killed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria last year when it controlled Tikrit.
Krayewski and Gillespie, you guys should just come out of the closet and admit you are full-on AIPAC sympathetics, willing to believe any spookery as long as it demonizes Judaism’s eternal enemy (Islam).
Rich 9 years ago

Zing!
This Machine 9 years ago

Hear, hear.
BardMetal 9 years ago

How is that the guy who is always on mushrooms sometimes makes the most sense out of everyone here on HnR?
Free Society 9 years ago

People who keep laws smart and scarce are worthy of a vote of confidence no matter what their personal moral stances are.
Well that rules out legislatures and states as a source of law.
Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns 9 years ago

Someone here said he was going to print off Cyborg’s posts, bind them together, and start a religion.
This Machine 9 years ago

FWIW, he’s not always on mind-altering chemicals, that’s just when he does his most artistic posting.
BardMetal 9 years ago

That might actually work. Tax exempt status anyone? We should all join.
This Machine 9 years ago

This is genius. I’d join the Church of the Swift Cybernetics in a heartbeat.
Lord Humungus 9 years ago

Or at least a beatnik poetry book
Citizen Nothing 9 years ago

Amen.
Pope Jimbo 9 years ago

Time to park the bus Tundra….
Enough About Palin 9 years ago

Never agreed with his politics, never voted for him, but Paul Wellstone was a stand-up guy and a great American and his death was truly a tragedy.
Pope Jimbo 9 years ago

Same, but I have a friend who had a kid wrestling at the same time as Wellstone’s kid and he said Paul was quite a tool watching his kid wrestle.
Of course that makes him about the same as 75% of the other asshole parents I run into when watching my kid (who is a superstar and the coach should base the whole offense around his mad skillz).
Pope Jimbo 9 years ago

I should also point out, that I have much more of a problem with the Wellstone supporters than I ever did with him.
I’m like you EAP, I didn’t agree with him at all and thought he had a lot of bad ideas, but in fairness to him he was a principled guy.

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