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Paul Speaks Out against PATRIOT Act, Nebraska May End Death Penalty, Video Shows More of Freddie Gray Arrest: P.M. Links

Scott Shackford | 5.20.2015 4:30 PM

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    Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has begun a "filibuster" today (there's a time limit to his comments, thus the scare quotes) to stop the reauthorization of parts of the PATRIOT Act. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has informed Congress that the National Security Agency will have to start winding down bulk collection of Americans' phone records if they don't act.

  • Nebraska appears poised to end the use of the death penalty in the state. Legislators have enough votes to override a veto from the governor.
  • A new video has surfaced showing officers putting Freddie Gray in leg shackles and handcuffs in being loaded into the back of a police van on that fateful day in Baltimore.
  • It turns out the data on a study showing that gay people having one-on-one conversations with other people could change their minds to support gay marriage has been faked. On the bright side, that means I don't have to take my own failures there personally.
  • It turns out Osama bin Laden's library at the time that he was killed was full of books on conspiracy theories. Of course, this drew the attention of Reason's Jesse Walker.
  • The U.S. military built a lavish, $25 million headquarters building in Afghanistan that nobody actually needed and was never used.

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NEXT: What Did U-M Coach Jim Harbaugh Say to Offended Students? I Was Kicked Out of the Meeting.

Scott Shackford is a policy research editor at Reason Foundation.

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  1. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

    Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has begun a "filibuster" today (there's a time limit to his comments, thus the scare quotes) to stop the reauthorization of parts of the PATRIOT Act.

    Rand Paul is in the pocket of Big Warrant.

    1. db   10 years ago

      http://www.warrantrocks.com/

    2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

      Hello, Slut!

      1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

        Might I suggest. . .Bonjour, salope?

    3. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

      Hello.

      My, it's taking time to load Reason today.

      Is Reason being so reasonable to the point of over loading its servers?

      1. Raven Nation   10 years ago

        Football spoiler...

        Sunderland safe

        1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

          Slutty Sunderland safe.

          1. Ted S.   10 years ago

            I'm more amazed that Leicester Shitty avoided the drop. (My sister used to live in Leicester, MA; and Kasey Keller used to play for Leicester the previous time they were in the Premier League, so if I root for a team in England, it's Leicester.)

        2. Andrew S.   10 years ago

          Fucking A. I was hoping that Newcastle and Villa would go down this year. Maybe next year. Everton too. Becaue fuck Everton.

          1. Ted S.   10 years ago

            My hope is that Tottenham miss out on the Europa League. (I've got a friend on another forum who's a Tottenham fan, so I always tease him about his crappy team. Plus, they ruined a Monty Python skit by losing the Cup final to Coventry.)

            1. Los Doyers   10 years ago

              I'm still mad at your team for allowing Bar?a to advance.

        3. Suthenboy   10 years ago

          What is all this jabber-blabber about fake football?

          1. Timon 19   10 years ago

            Someone's talking about the NFL?

      2. Tonio   10 years ago

        It's all the sluts.

      3. Crusty Juggler   10 years ago

        I just blame the Cosmotarians, as always.

    4. Andrew S.   10 years ago

      Rand Paul isn't too far away
      Closer to it every day
      No matter what your friends might say
      I know we're gonna find a way

      1. PBR Streetgang   10 years ago

        Jani Lane thanks you

  2. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

    The U.S. military built a lavish, $25 million headquarters building in Afghanistan that nobody actually needed and was never used.

    Well, let's at least use it to stimulate some local economy. Break its windows.

    1. BiMonSciFiCon   10 years ago

      stage a fake alien invasion out of it.

      1. fish   10 years ago

        You could make it the "Paul Krugman Center for Economic Science" and murderdrone it down to bedrock once he shows up to cut the ribbon!

    2. Pathogen   10 years ago

      It will be used as the set to fake our Martian colony in 2035...

      1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

        Which will happen right after it turns out that Jim Brown murdered O.J.'s ex-wife and boyfriend, and O.J. covered for him to protect the NFL.

        1. Pathogen   10 years ago

          Fool! Be careful who you say that to! Jim Browns agents are everywhere... Watch your back, you might of said too much already.

          1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

            It's okay, I got an exemption from Lee Marvin.

            1. Crusty Juggler   10 years ago

              We all come out like it's Halloween.

  3. BiMonSciFiCon   10 years ago

    Nebraska appears poised to end the use of the death penalty in the state. Legislators have enough votes to override a veto from the governor.

    "Yes let's ban the death penalty! Aye!"

    "Wait... you meant the NCAA death penalty, right?"

  4. Caleb Turberville   10 years ago

    http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0601043

    So, it turns out that you can't build a reasonably successful graviton detector without it collapsing under its own mass to form a black hole.

    1. Tonio   10 years ago

      Damn, so that's what kept happening.

    2. tarran   10 years ago

      ... and the universe stomps once more on Dr Weber.

    3. mr lizard   10 years ago

      Steve Smith is not concerned with such limitations

    4. Scruffy Nerfherder   10 years ago

      The Avengers are so screwed

    5. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

      Let's detect gravity waves before we worry about individual gravitons, shall we?

      1. Paul.   10 years ago

        Jump off your roof. If gravity is there, you'll know it momentarily.

        1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

          No, no, no, I don't need prove of relativistic gravity. I want some quantum gravity. Do you have any, bub?

  5. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

    Just FYI:
    Soave has more than redeemed himself. He can come to my cocktail party.

    Disclosure: I only serve whiskey and IPAs.

    1. Warty   10 years ago

      Shut up, slut.

      1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

        Oh, and the cocktail party will have tons of sluts.

        1. Slammer   10 years ago

          Sluts, or slut-sluts?

        2. Fabi   10 years ago

          Cocktail sluts?

        3. Andrew S.   10 years ago

          I'm going to have my own cocktail party! With blackjack! And hookers!

          In fact, forget the party and the blackjack!

          (oh, screw the whole thing)

          1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

            Slutty hookers?

          2. JW   10 years ago

            And fire trucks!

          3. JW   10 years ago

            And fire trucks!

          4. Slammer   10 years ago

            And squirrelz!

            1. Los Doyers   10 years ago

              Those aren't squirrels, JW is just drunk and getting confused on the internet.

    2. Tonio   10 years ago

      Then not an actual cocktail party, since no cocktails.

      1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

        Whiskey in a martini glass counts, right?

        1. Brett L   10 years ago

          Drop a fruit rind in it and call it a cocktail

          1. Tonio   10 years ago

            I don't think garnishes count.

            1. Crusty Juggler   10 years ago

              I can't have my wages garnish-ied.

            2. Bobarian (sexbot hand model)   10 years ago

              One of those paper unbrellas?

              1. Tonio   10 years ago

                Garnishes are definitionally edible, at least in foodserv; IANA mixologist. I think those are decorations.

        2. Tonio   10 years ago

          No. I think you need at least one syrup/mixer, ie Gin and Tonic.

          1. Los Doyers   10 years ago

            So, whiskey and maple syrup? Got it.

            1. Pathogen   10 years ago

              I've.. I've.. tried that. but with rum.

              *hangs head in shame*

          2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

            I think the last cocktail I had was on vacation. I'll allow pineapple in my booze if I'm somewhere warm.

            1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

              Scratch that. I've had mimosas since, if that counts. It's a good way to drink a whole bottle of champagne without feeling bad about it.

            2. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

              The beach absolves you of cocktail girlishness, provided that you slam them like a man. Like a MAN, damn you!

              1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

                Butt chugging?

                1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

                  Not that kind of man.

                  1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

                    Asking for a friend.

                    1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

                      We're arresting people for beach fucking already down here. I think that may be below beach fucking on the Florida scale.

                    2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

                      On the city council agenda here: $10K worth of night vision equipment for the police department to combat beach fucking. They're going to have to review hours and hours of footage.

          3. CatoTheElder   10 years ago

            G&T is a highball.

            A proper cocktail requires at least three ingredients, and one of those should be a bitters, one should be either sugar or a sweet juice or liqueur, and one must be a distilled spirits.

            Some think that highballs are cocktails, but I prefer to make the distinction.

            1. Heroic Mulatto   10 years ago

              I agree. The Ur-cocktail is bitters, spirits and sugar. Like the fire triangle, remove one and you no longer have a cocktail.

              1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

                No, the ur-cocktail is rock used to beat you into a state of deliriousness.

                1. jesse.in.mb   10 years ago

                  No, the ur-cocktail is rock used to beat you into a state of deliriousness.

                  Tell us more about the before times, oh ancient one!

                  1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

                    Sure thing. But first, buy a rock on Amazon and bang your head with it.

                2. Marshall Gill   10 years ago

                  I thought that the Ur-cocktail was the drink Abraham drank when he left his homeland.

                  1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

                    You're thinking of the urgarita.

            2. Tonio   10 years ago

              Thanks for the clarification, Cato. I'll remember that.

      2. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

        I took that to mean it was going to be a sausagefest.

        1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

          Our LA reason meet ups average about 33% gay, so that's a feature to some.

          1. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

            Who are the other two? HA! Boom. I just nailed you with a gay joke.

            1. Sudden   10 years ago

              I just nailed you with a gay joke.

              What you did there, I see it.

              1. jesse.in.mb   10 years ago

                Speaking of nailing people, when are we going to do another meetup?

                1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

                  You're the secretary.

            2. Agammamon   10 years ago

              Only three people show up to a party - sounds like you hit him with a standard libertarian joke.

          2. Florida Man   10 years ago

            That's HAWT!

            1. jesse.in.mb   10 years ago

              Right?

      3. Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns   10 years ago

        We believe in descriptivist grammar rather than prescriptivist grammar around these parts and, as the good folks at Everyday Feminism have assured me, fully understand that proper English language usage is a vestige of cishet white colonialism.

        Consider yourself educated, shitlord.

        1. Hey Nikki!   10 years ago

          If I hadn't clicked on that link, I never would have found out about "The Everyday Self-Love Course." This is just what I've been searching for!

          In this self-paced online course with lifetime access, you'll learn how to build a daily practice of:

          Being resilient to toxic messages within yourself and from others
          Honoring and communicating your needs and wants
          Accepting your internal experiences with compassion, not judgment
          Finding validation within yourself and prioritizing your own truth

          Wait, which part involves a seaweed face mask?

          1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

            "Being resilient to toxic messages within yourself and from others"

            Slut, slut, slut. Stop being such a slut, slut! SLUT!

          2. RBS   10 years ago

            JERRY: We have to do it. It's part of our lifestyle. It's like, uh.. shaving.

            ELAINE: Oh, that is such bologna. I shave my legs.

            KRAMER: Not everyday.

          3. Brett L   10 years ago

            I was on an everyday self-love program from about age 13 until I started getting laid regularly.

            1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

              13? Late bloomer.

              1. HeteroPatriarch   10 years ago

                I shared a room until then, so I don't think I started until about 13, either. Also, no internet until about 12.

                1. Scruffy Nerfherder   10 years ago

                  Internet? I suffered thru with crinkled pages torn out of Oui.

            2. Florida Man   10 years ago

              I was on an everyday self-love program from about age 13 until I started getting laid regularly.

              I read this as you getting laid regularly at 13 and I thought " Damn Brett you are a MAN, damn you!"

              1. Los Doyers   10 years ago

                Well those slutty teachers are gonna fuck themselves!

            3. Sudden   10 years ago

              Getting laid regularly actually increases my own self-love. It's when I'm on a dry stretch that I find myself having to go a week without in order to motivate me to get laid again.

          4. Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns   10 years ago

            That's the saddest website in the world. Half the posts are like 'don't listen to all the people who tell you that you suck!' and the other half are about how it's okay to be super obese.

            1. Hey Nikki!   10 years ago

              I'm so, so tempted to take the course.

            2. RBS   10 years ago

              Holy shit, check out the "parenting" section.

              1. Brett L   10 years ago

                I assume parenting is all about how to induce neuroses into your children and calling that caring?

                1. Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns   10 years ago

                  No Brett - it's all about how the white man who raised you should feel guilty because he doesn't have enough melanin.

                  "I have always known you were white, Dad, at least on a descriptive level. I did not see you as a "white heterosexual male" with all the privilege this historically and institutionally connotes until your whiteness started hurting me.

                  In fifth grade, Josh Michaelson told me that he only liked white girls. Dad, I wanted to ask you if you left Mom because she was black. According to Josh Michaelson, white men did not think black women were beautiful. I watched you date white woman after white woman, marry a white woman and have a white baby."

                  DAD, WHY DIDN'T YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS HORRIBLE THING I WAS FEELING WHEN I NEVER TOLD YOU ABOUT IT

                  1. Pathogen   10 years ago

                    Equal distribution of melanin NOW!
                    End the dermiarchy!

              2. Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns   10 years ago

                Good God.

                "An Open Letter to the White Fathers of Black Daughters"

                There's no way this is going to go in a dark, horribly racist direction.

                "I am your problem, Dad. You are the white father of a black daughter. You are accountable to a life that is squarely outside of the jurisdiction of the whiteness that swaddles you. I should be the problem that won't let you come home white and blissfully unaware, but somehow this is not the case.

                Somehow, you feel like a white man first and my dad second. You asymmetrically toggle between the two, coming into focus as one only to obscure the other."

                This is the worst daughter in the history of the human species. And that includes Lizzy Borden.

                1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

                  'Kelsey Henry is a senior at Wesleyan University, an abortion doula, disability justice advocate, and burlesque dancer. She is writing a thesis about growing old as a queer time and cannot decide if she wants to be a midwife or a professor when she grows up. In the meantime, she wants to read more Zadie Smith, love well, and build a chair with her bare hands.'

                  Jesus. Christ.

                  Saddest article I've read to date. These people are beyond hope. They're just...pathetic. If there was no internet they'd just sit in a Waffle House or coffee shop stewing in their...pathetic wallowing lost and invisible to a sensible and honorable world.

                  1. Scruffy Nerfherder   10 years ago

                    So she's an abortion doula and wants to be a midwife. And she's a college senior who's talking about what she wants to be when she grows up.

                    Mental issues

                    1. Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns   10 years ago

                      She also is writing about 'growing old as a queer time' which is a phrase that makes absolutely no sense to me.

                      Shit. There I go engaging in my prescriptivist grammar rather than acknowledging the valid descriptivist grammar of non-white peoples.

                    2. Trigger Warning   10 years ago

                      If this twat gazes any more intensely at her navel, she's going to incinerate it.

                  2. Crusty Juggler   10 years ago

                    Showing photos of these people is always important.

                    1. Trouser-Pod   10 years ago

                      Showing photos of these people is always important.

                      C'mon, CJ..."Punchable Face Alert" on that, if you please.

                    2. lap83   10 years ago

                      "Is this how normal people smile, am I doing it right? Tell me when it's over"

                2. Brett L   10 years ago

                  "Fuck you, Dad'"

                  Yeah. I made the mistake of assuming they might think of someone other than themselves.

                3. Scruffy Nerfherder   10 years ago

                  That's fucking horrible.

                4. Heroic Mulatto   10 years ago

                  Tragic mulattas/mulattoes really piss me off.

                  As if you couldn't tell.

                  1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

                    If only this one had some Jew in her, amirite?

                5. lap83   10 years ago

                  "Somehow, you feel like a black person first and my daughter second. "

                  I'm sure the writer wouldn't find that racist at all.

            3. PapayaSF   10 years ago

              Ah, feminism: women are just as good and capable as men, except when it comes criticism and weight control.

          5. Ted S.   10 years ago

            The greatest sex of all
            Is easy to achieve
            I found the greatest
            Sex of all inside of me

          6. Agammamon   10 years ago

            Nikki, you understand the meaning of 'self-love' even more poorly than the people giving the course do.

            I can only imagine how many men saw that and thought 'hell, I can teach a graduate level course in self-love right now!'

    3. Crusty Juggler   10 years ago

      So I would have to bring my own peach schnapps and orange juice?

    4. db   10 years ago

      I thought it was an *cocktail* party?!

      1. db   10 years ago

        *oxtail*

        Doddammit, Autocorrect.

        1. db   10 years ago

          *

        2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

          Well, if Warty comes, I fully expect him to have a 60 quart stockpot of beef stew under one arm. He has to snack throughout the day.

          1. db   10 years ago

            If Warty comes, there will be a 60 quart stockpot of *something*, anyway.

          2. Warty   10 years ago

            You know full well it'll be donuts.

            1. Los Doyers   10 years ago

              THEY'LL FUCK UP YOUR BENCH

              1. Warty   10 years ago

                Shows what you know. Donuts are the key to a big bench, brah.

                1. Los Doyers   10 years ago

                  That chub is definitely on the fat/strong section of the matrix.

                2. Atanarjuat   10 years ago

                  If they ever make a live-action Shrek movie and don't call that guy...

            2. Sudden   10 years ago

              We setting cop traps again?

              1. db   10 years ago

                Hunting over bait is unsportsmanlike.

    5. Ted S.   10 years ago

      He's not going to be invited to the UM Muslim Students' cocktail parties, however.

    6. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

      Slut party!

      I have a ton of Newfie jokes I want to unload on you all.

      1. Pan Zagloba   10 years ago

        Go on...

        1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

          THEY'RE FOR THE SLUT PARTY.

          Which two Reasonoids are most likely to tag team on a slut?

          1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

            Crusty will go solo.

            1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

              Why? Because he has two dicks?

              1. Crusty Juggler   10 years ago

                Well, two people were just uninvited from my Wank and Schnapps party.

          2. Ted S.   10 years ago

            Epi and Warty.

            1. lap83   10 years ago

              I thought Epi was the slut

          3. Los Doyers   10 years ago

            I'm more interested in who ends up as Lucky Pierre.

            *looks around for Jesse*

            1. jesse.in.mb   10 years ago

              *looks around for Jesse*

              You rang?

          4. Florida Man   10 years ago

            Rasillio and Riven.

            1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

              Riven is currently in a committed relationship, but she'd definitely let us watch.

              1. Florida Man   10 years ago

                Niceeeee.

          5. Scruffy Nerfherder   10 years ago

            Bo and shriek

    7. HeteroPatriarch   10 years ago

      IPA's are terrible. The most overrated beer on the planet.

      1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

        You're terrible.

        1. Stormy Dragon   10 years ago

          Hops is the easy button for beer. Just throw in enough and eventually no one will be able to taste how pathetic your brew is.

          1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

            You're terrible too.

          2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

            It's genetic, you know. You have an aversion to bitter tastes. So you're missing out. Same with people who have the cilantro gene.

            I love bitter things. Asprin, unsweetened 100% Cacao, black coffee, beer, etc etc.

            1. Pathogen   10 years ago

              It stems from your hopeless addiction to hookers and blow..

              1. Sudden   10 years ago

                Hookers and blow addiction is a disease and as a sufferer of this condition, I would greatly respect if you treated me with respect and dignity while I do another line off the sweet mocha ass of a 20 year old mulatto Wesleyan student with daddy issues.

                1. Crusty Juggler   10 years ago

                  Pics?

                2. Pathogen   10 years ago

                  I respect your courage. You give other "survivors" hope..

            2. Stormy Dragon   10 years ago

              I love bitter things to. But I also love nuance; bitter flavors should mix with the other flavors to enhance the whole.

              Pouring in tons of hops in until it overpowers everything else is the zythological equivalent of pouring A1 all over a really good steak.

              1. Pathogen   10 years ago

                That's because you lack sudden's courage, and strength of conviction... Let him be an example to you.

              2. Sudden   10 years ago

                If pouring mountains of cocaine all over the supple bosom of a struggling single mother with poorly thought-out tattoos, body glitter, and that weird fruity smelling shit that all women wear makes that bosom immenselt better, I see no reason why pouring copious amounts of hops into a brew kettle with an otherwise imperfectly brewed ale wouldn't do the same.

                1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

                  I do not drink skank beer, Sudden.

                  High end hooker beer, maybe. I need to think about it. Off to the beer aisle.

                  1. Sudden   10 years ago

                    I'm pretty open when beer is concerned. I have an affinity for a well-crafted munich helles lager, love a super-hopped bitterbomb from time to time, and will indulge the rich chocolatey goodness of a stout.

                    But give ma a well crafted sour and I'll conquer the world. I have 6 new sours awaiting pickup at the Bruery when I head down to OC on memorial day to watch the Hawks beat the ducks.

                  2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

                    Verdict: Double Barrel IPA

              3. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

                A1 has no place in my kitchen. Ever.

                The best beers are at least moderately hoppy. Pliny, Sculpin, etc.

                1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

                  Not to mention calorie/alcohol ratios. I can drink 12 lagers, or 4 IPAs. I choose the latter because I'm not a fatty.

                2. Stormy Dragon   10 years ago

                  A1 has no place in my kitchen. Ever.

                  But... what do you put on meatloaf then?

                  1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

                    Heinz Ketchup.

                    If I ate meatloaf. But I don't eat beef in loaf form.

                    1. Stormy Dragon   10 years ago

                      Can't you see what your crazy hops addiction has done to you? Now you're funding Democrat presidential campaigns, putting ketchup on your meat, and spurning meatloaf!

              4. Tonio   10 years ago

                Of course you like bitter things, Storms, why else would you be here? TFIBHAW

                1. Stormy Dragon   10 years ago

                  TFIBHAW?

                  1. Sudden   10 years ago

                    *Thank Folks, I'll Be Here All Week,

  6. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

    It turns out the data on a study showing that gay people having one-on-one conversations with other people could change their minds to support gay marriage has been faked.

    It's the forced cake-baking that changes their minds.

    1. Bobarian (sexbot hand model)   10 years ago

      Its the one on one conversations with other people that turn them gay that everyone is really interested in.

      1. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

        "Is it true that someone is better working with equipment if they have the same equipment themselves?"

    2. PapayaSF   10 years ago

      +1

    3. Pathogen   10 years ago

      Forced entry is the bone of contention..

  7. Matrix   10 years ago

    Texas Biker gang member is a retired San Antonio Police detective.

    He's the darkest skinned white person I've ever seen.

    1. PapayaSF   10 years ago

      And did you see my post of last night? Some are saying that all of the dead bikers were shot by police, not by other bikers.

      1. Pathogen   10 years ago

        That might explain this..

        1. PapayaSF   10 years ago

          Maybe. But if they were all killed by cops, it rather undercuts the proggy meme of "Oh, so here we have dangerous white gangsters!"

    2. Agammamon   10 years ago

      He's an Uncle Ruckus. The other bikers just don't have the heart to tell him the truth.

  8. Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns   10 years ago

    Britain's brilliant free speech protections strike again!

    "Rhodes' memoir details the very serious assaults he suffered as a young boy and the way in which music has helped him to deal with the trauma. However, his ex-wife sought to prevent publication of key passages, arguing that they would have too distressing an impact on their 12-year-old son."

    Thankfully, the court decided on the right side of this and argued he should be able to publish the book, but it's astonishing that his wife actually managed to get a temporary injunction preventing publishing because in theory it might upset their son.

    1. Andrew S.   10 years ago

      This is the passage that caused the drama, apparently.

      Abuse. What a word. Rape is better. Abuse is when you tell a traffic warden to fuck off. It isn't abuse when a 40-year-old man forces his cock inside a six-year-old boy's ass. That doesn't even come close to abuse. That is aggressive rape. It leads to multiple surgeries, scars (inside and out), tics, OCD, depression, suicidal ideation, vigorous self-harm, alcoholism, drug addiction, the most fucked-up of sexual hang-ups, gender confusion ('you look like a girl, are you sure you're not a little girl?'), sexuality confusion, paranoia, mistrust, compulsive lying, eating disorders, PTSD, DID (the shinier name for multiple personality disorder) and so on and on and on.

      That has a distressing impact on anyone who would read it. But anyways, I'm shocked that even the UK courts would have given a restraining order against publishing.

    2. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

      Her son is, in fact, a slut.

  9. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

    On the bright side, that means I don't have to take my own failures there personally.

    Thanks for forgetting to put the word "recognition" in there, Shackford. You used to be my boy on this.

  10. Slammer   10 years ago

    How death metal cured my hatred for yoga

    1. Warty   10 years ago

      Then the electric guitars started to blare: "Tormenter" by W.A.S.P.

      NOPE

      1. Slammer   10 years ago

        W.A.S.P. fucking rules, though

    2. Brett L   10 years ago

      Huh. Yoga pants cured my hatred of yoga. That and having decent hamstring flexibility for the first time ever.

      1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

        Whaaa? You actually go inside?

        Women wear yoga pants everywhere now.

        1. Slammer   10 years ago

          Yoga pants are a privilege, not a right

        2. Brett L   10 years ago

          They didn't when I started loving yoga!

      2. Sunmonocle Backwards Tophat   10 years ago

        Do your knee caps feel any different?

        1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

          His penis did.

  11. BiMonSciFiCon   10 years ago

    A new video has surfaced showing officers putting Freddie Gray in leg shackles and handcuffs in being loaded into the back of a police van on that fateful day in Baltimore.

    "Local prosecutor brings posthumous charges for assaulting Officers Shackle and Cuff."

  12. Derpetologist   10 years ago

    Sowell nails it again:

    Most people who want to redistribute wealth don't want to talk about how that wealth was produced in the first place. They just want "the rich" to pay their undefined "fair share" of taxes. This "fair share" must remain undefined because all it really means is "more."

    http://jewishworldreview.com/c.....51915.php3

    1. Slammer   10 years ago

      It's defined by "the amount they stole from The People!"

  13. Derpetologist   10 years ago

    Spot the Not: Bill O'Reilly books

    1. Pinheads and Patriots

    2. A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity

    3. Hollywood Hoodlums

    4. Culture Warrior

    5. Those Who Trespass

    6. The O'Reilly Factor for Kids

    1. Fabi   10 years ago

      3

    2. Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns   10 years ago

      2

    3. Ted S.   10 years ago

      6?

    4. Raven Nation   10 years ago

      2

    5. Slammer   10 years ago

      3

    6. HeteroPatriarch   10 years ago

      God I hope it's 6.

    7. lap83   10 years ago

      Those are great titles. It almost makes me wish I liked him.

      I'll guess 2

    8. Derpetologist   10 years ago

      3 is the Not.

    9. gaoxiaen   10 years ago

      6.

      1. Derpetologist   10 years ago

        Gaze upon the derpy and despair

  14. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

    It turns out Osama bin Laden's library at the time that he was killed was full of books on conspiracy theories.

    OBL was the original truther.

    1. Brett L   10 years ago

      He wanted to know who really did it and how the Jews knew to stay home.

      1. Dr. Fronkensteen   10 years ago

        Actually, He wanted to know how the Jews made him do it.

        1. Pathogen   10 years ago

          A Mc-Rib? sandwich...

    2. Slammer   10 years ago

      They found the Sheldon Richman stash?

    3. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

      'How The Jews Stole The World - And Christmas' by Rufus J. Firely was his favorite book I hear.

    4. Invisible Finger   10 years ago

      Who's telling you what is in OBL's library? The government? And you believe it?

      1. lap83   10 years ago

        +1 sheeple

    5. Scruffy Nerfherder   10 years ago

      Everybody needs a good laugh

    6. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

      So no Foundation, no Dune? Another crackpot theory or two destroyed.

      1. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

        Botany Bay? BOTANY BAY!

        1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

          Dune Trek! Captain Leto Atreides. To boldly fold space where no man has folded space before!

  15. Palin's Buttplug   10 years ago

    Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said Wednesday the odds are "50-50" that he will enter the 2016 presidential race.

    "I'm certainly not ruling it out," King said during an appearance on CNN's "Wolf." "Right now I'm sort of 50-50."

    King said he intended to make his decision by the end of June.

    The hawkish Republican also said he would be undeterred by a potential bid from fellow New Yorker George Pataki, the former GOP governor, who is also weighing a run.

    The Hill

    1. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

      I can give him solid odds on him coming anywhere near the presidency if that would help his decision.

    2. Andrew S.   10 years ago

      At this point, can they just report on who isn't running for the Republican nomination?

      Also, fuck Peter King.

      1. HeteroPatriarch   10 years ago

        I have not officially declared my candidacy for the Republican nomination yet.

    3. Ted S.   10 years ago

      Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) (R -- IRA)

      Fixed it for you.

  16. Derpetologist   10 years ago

    Spot the Not: Mike Huckabee books

    1. With Christ in the Voting Booth

    2. God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy

    3. Kids Who Kill

    4. Living Beyond Your Lifetime

    5. Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork

    6. Do the Right Thing

    1. BiMonSciFiCon   10 years ago

      5. Not sure he'd be the best salesman for that book...

      1. gaoxiaen   10 years ago

        Agree.

    2. Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns   10 years ago

      " Do the Right Thing"

      There is no way on Earth Mike Huckabee has a book with the same title as a Spike Lee movie.

      1. Derpetologist   10 years ago

        Ahem: http://intothebook.net/reviews.....-thing.jpg

    3. BigT   10 years ago

      6 I don't think Spike Lee would make a movie of the Huckster's book

      1. Pan Zagloba   10 years ago

        I agree with 6, but I also would watch the shit out of Spike Lee adaptation of Huckabee book. As long as we're not talking Starship Troopers scenario.

        1. BigT   10 years ago

          Let's get Agile to draft the script.

    4. HeteroPatriarch   10 years ago

      I've only heard of 2.

    5. Krokko   10 years ago

      Derpetologist, thank you for coming up with these tests. They're a great source of interesting tidbits.

      1. Derpetologist   10 years ago

        Derp is my passion and profession. You see, a derp's love is very different from that of a square...

    6. Derpetologist   10 years ago

      1 is the Not, although Huckabee did write the foreword.

      1. HeteroPatriarch   10 years ago

        I didn't think Huck would have read 5 books, let alone written that many.

    7. Derpetologist   10 years ago

      #6 is easily explained since it is extremely unlikely Huckabee knows of that movie or even of Spike Lee.

  17. RBS   10 years ago

    Women have a weird relationship with food.

    1. HeteroPatriarch   10 years ago

      I'm not clicking that at work.

      1. Crusty Juggler   10 years ago

        Women are sluts for food, too.

        1. HeteroPatriarch   10 years ago

          TIWTANFL.

      2. Crusty Juggler   10 years ago

        Women are sluts for food, too.

        1. HeteroPatriarch   10 years ago

          TIWTANFL.

    2. Bobarian (sexbot hand model)   10 years ago

      Vegetable Porn?

      1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

        And for my next act watch me fuck this egg plant!

        1. Florida Man   10 years ago

          That's HAWT!

        2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

          *unzip*

      2. iCarl   10 years ago

        Ugh. A while back I was on a tube site and saw a thumbnail of a hot chick. It started out nice, then *BAM*, vegetables up the hoo-hah.

        1. Crusty Juggler   10 years ago

          Uhhhhh link?

        2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

          I don't see the problem.

      3. Suthenboy   10 years ago

        Who needs vegetable porn? All you have to do is stand patiently and inconspicuously on the produce aisle and watch women choose cucumbers. It won't take long and you will see one choosing them not for salad.

    3. lap83   10 years ago

      That woman has a weird relationship with food. Seriously, I think she might have an eating disorder.

      "9. When you stand in the kitchen, eating in the dark, because you're too tired to turn on the lights but too hungry to go back to sleep without eating something."

      That's not sane.

  18. Pepperjack   10 years ago

    Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has informed Congress that the National Security Agency will have to start winding down bulk collection of Americans' phone records stop breaking the law if they don't act make it legal retroactively.

    Fixed that for you.

    1. Andrew S.   10 years ago

      Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has informed Congress that the National Security Agency will have to start winding down bulk collection of Americans' phone records if they don't act keep doing exactly what they're doing no matter what Congress says or does

      Fixed once again.

  19. Cytotoxic   10 years ago

    Firing Roman Candles from a drone: http://news.nationalpost.com/n.....-fireworks

    1. Los Doyers   10 years ago

      Well that was excessively boring.

  20. Bam!   10 years ago

    It turns out Osama bin Laden's library at the time that he was killed was full of books on conspiracy theories.

    He evaded capture all those years by ordering all his pizzas using the name "Rusty Shackleford."

    1. Palin's Buttplug   10 years ago

      He sounds more and more like Glenn Beck.

      1. Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns   10 years ago

        Given that one of his books was by Noam Chomsky, that seems to me unlikely.

    2. Florida Man   10 years ago

      I thought rusty had died, but really he just moved.

  21. BiMonSciFiCon   10 years ago

    It turns out the data on a study showing that gay people having one-on-one conversations with other people could change their minds to support gay marriage has been faked. On the bright side, that means I don't have to take my own failures there personally.

    A social psychology experiment found to be BS? I never...

  22. Derpetologist   10 years ago

    Spot the Not: euphemisms

    1. individual shared responsibility payment

    2. revenue enhancement

    3. committee for public safety

    4. oral malfunction

    5. special attack squadron

    6. temporary assistance to needy families

    1. Raven Nation   10 years ago

      I'm going to say 5. If that's an acronym I think it is Special Air Service.

    2. Tonio   10 years ago

      #6 is a real thing.

    3. HeteroPatriarch   10 years ago

      I have heard all but 5. Though 4 is a particularly stupid one.

    4. Derpetologist   10 years ago

      4 is the Not. 5 was the official name for the kamikaze squadrons.

  23. Caleb Turberville   10 years ago

    http://news.discovery.com/spac.....150203.htm

    "The Higgs Boson May Disintegrate into Dark Matter"

    Now Petersson's team has suggested that, if supersymmetry is real, the Higgs boson may have another mode of decay, disintegrating into photons and dark matter particles. And the LHC's ATLAS and CMS experiments are on the look-out for this theorized decay mechanism.

    1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

      So.

      No sluts?

    2. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

      "Dark matter particles?" What, pray tell, are those?

  24. Atanarjuat   10 years ago

    Reddit CEO: We Are Not a 'Completely Free-speech Platform'

    1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

      However, we're a SLUT PLATFORM!

    2. thom   10 years ago

      Reddit Sucks. These days it's all made-up memes and Bernie Sanders fellating.

      1. Andrew S.   10 years ago

        Reddit is what you make of it. Stay away from the political subreddits (including the libertarian and AnCap ones, given that they make American look like Tony) and the defaults, and it can be a good experience.

      2. Warty   10 years ago

        memes

        IMAGE MACROS GODDAMMIT

      3. JW   10 years ago

        /gonewild.

        Nothing else matters there.

    3. Paul.   10 years ago

      A few kind people explained Twitter to me yesterday.

      I'm afraid I may need an explanation as to what Reddit is now.

      1. HeteroPatriarch   10 years ago

        Don't. Save yourself.

        1. Paul.   10 years ago

          From what I've seen it seems like the old 'ALT.[subject-title]' discussion groups of the early internet. But with a web front end.

          And people probably call it 'groundbreaking'.

          1. iCarl   10 years ago

            Slashdot divided up into user-created subforums.

            Is that good enough for you, old man?

            1. Paul.   10 years ago

              I belong to a shit ton (too many) internet forums with user-created content. Most of these are run by people in their basement. Serious question, what makes Reddit a go-to destination worthy of having a CEO?

              1. iCarl   10 years ago

                I dunno. Nowadays I only visit two subreddits frequently, and have only commented in one of them, twice.

                I was an "early adopter" (~2006?) as a Digg refugee but I got annoyed by the politics pretty quickly and never got into the culture (OMG BACON! SECRET NARWHAL CODEZ!) and left after a year or two.

                I think what differentiates it from your typical VBulletin, PhpBB, IPB (and so on) board is that reddit (a) has a voting system (which I view as a bad thing, but a lot of people really, really like) and (b) you can move frictionlessly from one hyper-specific subreddit to another without needing a new account. That causes people to see it as a one-stop shop, including people who might have just started out browsing or posting on just a single subreddit.

          2. Heroic Mulatto   10 years ago

            This most important thing to know is that its CEO was able to turn a gay man straight.

            1. Dark Lord of the Cis   10 years ago

              Pics?

            2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

              That's gonna be illegal soon.

  25. Bam!   10 years ago

    The U.S. military built a lavish, $25 million headquarters building in Afghanistan that nobody actually needed and was never used.

    Pffft. Small potatoes. They spent half a billion on cargo planes, never used them, then scraped them for 6 cents a pound. They spent $20 million to renovate a Soviet era prison and never finished it. And so much more.

    1. HeteroPatriarch   10 years ago

      Small potatoes? Literally half of your examples are for smaller amounts than the $25 million.

    2. Invisible Finger   10 years ago

      Government is getting better. They used to just dump the stuff in the ocean.

  26. OldMexican   10 years ago

    The U.S. military built a lavish, $25 million headquarters building in Afghanistan that nobody actually needed and was never used.

    Apparently, the contractor needed it. Just like other contractors need infrastructure projects.

  27. Cytotoxic   10 years ago

    I was bored at work and ended up reading Alexei Navalny's twitter feed. I skimmed it until....this.

    Part of me wants to know the translation, more of me doesn't.

    1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

      Is that pony giving him head?

      Slut.

      1. HeteroPatriarch   10 years ago

        The pony?

        1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

          Whatever.

    2. PapayaSF   10 years ago

      Google Translate: "Here is the photo document from the case has become a decisive argument in favor of a conditional. He proves everything."

      1. grrizzly   10 years ago

        The "conditional" refers to a deferred sentence. Also, "It proves everything."

        1. PapayaSF   10 years ago

          I think the English translation is something like "Your argument is invalid."

          1. grrizzly   10 years ago

            There's obviously an inside joke here. I don't follow Navalny and care less and less about Russian news, so cannot figure out exactly what it is.

  28. GILMORE   10 years ago

    "It turns out the data on a study showing that gay people having one-on-one conversations with other people could change their minds to support gay marriage has been faked"

    ..."As revealed Tuesday by scientists trying to replicate it"

    Fucking what? 'scientists'?

    They got a few gays and said, "Go forth and convince"?

    "The problems came to light after three other researchers tried, and failed, to replicate the study. David Broockman, of Stanford, Joshua Kalla, of the University of California, Berkeley, and Peter Aronow of Yale found eight statistical irregularities in the data set. No one of these would by itself be proof of wrongdoing, they wrote, but all of them collectively suggest that "the data were not collected as described." "

    For the love of assfucking christ.... not only does Bullshit Study With No Purpose exist... but it is being *replicated*, as though 'changing minds about Gay Marriage' was the cold fusion of our generation.

    1. tarran   10 years ago

      Replication is good. We need more of it.

      1. Cytotoxic   10 years ago

        THIS

        1. Heroic Mulatto   10 years ago

          I was going to say, replication is how you know if something is bullshit.

          Secondly, just because the original study chose "gay marriage", if their findings are validated, then that doesn't mean its not generalizable to other contexts and populations. I mean, political campaign organizers are one group who would like to know how to convince people of supporting something or someone they might not have supported before.

          1. GILMORE   10 years ago

            Fair enough= i've participated in enough social-science surveys/experiments, and done enough surveying myself to appreciate how the point is often less the 'subject' and more the method.

            my thinking is that - whether or not the data was faked.... it still *says* nothing. That they all are spinning their wheels for what is ultimately just a political talking point.

            Even if there was a larger point to the study re: "Methodology on how to change minds", its only proving something every salesperson knows = YOU CLOSE THE DEAL FACE TO FACE. Its fucking easy to get people to agree with you about something when you have the social-engagement process activated. If you fail to follow it up with a phone call and remind them to *do what we agreed*, then you're dead.

            And it seems that was the "problem" that lead to the study's failure, and subseuqent fakery - they DID actually send 1000 people out to do face to face interviews, and got about 9,000 'interactions'.... it seems the problem of the idiots in charge of the study is that they didn't actually get the kind of follow-up from the face time with people actually doing the 'online Q&A' part. Duh. So they faked the survey data.

      2. Bobarian (sexbot hand model)   10 years ago

        Isn't one of the arguments against gay marriage that it doesn't lead to replication?

      3. Invisible Finger   10 years ago

        +1, unironically.

    2. Paul.   10 years ago

      as though 'changing minds about Gay Marriage' was the cold fusion of our generation.

      It... kind of is!

      *shrugs*

    3. Fist of Etiquette   10 years ago

      Not everyone can be curing cancer.

      1. Pathogen   10 years ago

        I did...

    4. Suthenboy   10 years ago

      What do you want to bet these same fuckers are warmistas?

      1. Pathogen   10 years ago

        Social Justice Scientists can multi-task!... Top. men.

        1. Suthenboy   10 years ago

          I was alluding to the fact that they discount one study that can't be replicated but latch onto another.

  29. Paul.   10 years ago

    A new video has surfaced showing officers putting Freddie Gray in leg shackles and handcuffs in being loaded into the back of a police van on that fateful day in Baltimore.

    It makes it very hard to be a police officer when "new video" keeps showing up.

  30. Paul.   10 years ago

    It turns out the data on a study showing that gay people having one-on-one conversations with other people could change their minds to support gay marriage has been faked. On the bright side, that means I don't have to take my own failures there personally.

    What about a gang-bang conversation?

    1. Pathogen   10 years ago

      Studies have shown conclusively that it breeds sluts..

  31. Medical Physics Guy   10 years ago

    Footage shows Portuguese police beat man in front of his children

    I thought the po-po were supposed to be more chilled out on this continent. Especially Portugal, nice people there.

    1. HeteroPatriarch   10 years ago

      Europe just doesn't have nominally free press, so shit doesn't get reported as much. But generally, more government = worse police.

      1. Cytotoxic   10 years ago

        German police still fire way fewer bullets.

        1. Paul.   10 years ago

          I think probably most cops across Western Europe probably fire way fewer bullets.

        2. HeteroPatriarch   10 years ago

          That's because nightsticks and elbow grease are renewable resources.

        3. Invisible Finger   10 years ago

          According to the officials

    2. Paul.   10 years ago

      In the famed, fabled and much linked-to video series "Don't talk to the cops", the cop who was invited to speak said that in Europe, the police showed far more restraint and, I'll never forget this quote, "In Europe, the interview with the suspect almost always starts physically".

      This was an American cop-- being calmly shocked at how Europe treated its suspects.

      1. Pathogen   10 years ago

        Candy-ass...

  32. Enough About Palin   10 years ago

    It turns out the data on a study showing that gay people having one-on-one conversations with other people could change their minds to support gay marriage has been faked.

    GAYS LIED!
    MARRIAGE DIED!
    GAYS LIED!
    MARRIAGE DIED!
    GAYS LIED!
    MARRIAGE DIED!

  33. BigT   10 years ago

    45 - Mike Lee

  34. Cytotoxic   10 years ago

    Based on advice from Warty, I have decided to (eventually) learn to write computer code as a secondary skills set. What is the best way to go about this? I do not want to go back to university. Would that really be necessary? Can I just take an online course? I know my friends at H&R have my best interests at heart and I can't wait to hear their helpful advice.

    1. Andrew S.   10 years ago

      Wait, you're taking advice from Warty?

    2. Brett L   10 years ago

      I would do the intro to programming course on MIT OCW. I think it's Python-based. I did it about 10 years ago to learn Python, but it takes you through the basics well.

      1. mad.casual   10 years ago

        Second!

        This course is fantastic on a number of levels. Several of the others aren't too shabby either.

    3. Palin's Buttplug   10 years ago

      Khan Academy.

    4. Paul.   10 years ago

      You first need to decide what language you're going to learn.

      I got out of the coding business around the time that .NET came about. My understanding is that C# has become a very well respected mainstream language. Borrowed the best of several languages-- from my perusing of the syntax, a combination of C++ and Pascal.

      I still believe the old fashioned way is best. Decide what language you want to learn (I believe Microsoft's Visual Studio Basic is FREE to download and use) and then buy a good book that takes you through the beginning-- and it needs to be the kind of book that presumes you don't have much if any code-writing experience.

      1. Unreconstructed   10 years ago

        MS has gotten better about this lately. The Community Edition of VS 2013 is totally free.

        I wouldn't buy a book though - most of the better resources for learning are online these days.

        1. Paul.   10 years ago

          I never found one that was comprehensive. I suppose it's gotten better in the last 10-15 years though.

          I know back in the day you could find forums and reference sites, but nothing that took you by the hand.

      2. Warty   10 years ago

        I'm partial to having beginners learn C. The syntax is more or less universally adopted now, and there's something about pointers that serves as an efficient gating mechanism. If you can't fathom pointer arithmetic, you need to find a new career.

        1. Paul.   10 years ago

          Oh my god you're as old as I am.

          1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

            Don't be mean.

        2. Invisible Finger   10 years ago

          I find C to be a total PITA. BUT it's the closest thing to Assembler and it really helps to know how the object code actually works. I just don't recommend it as a person's first language.

          C/Assembler were the weed-out courses in college. But it would have weeded me out if I took it first. Some people really need to start thinking algorithmically first before they know if they like programming, if they do like it then they find C/Assembler to be helpful (even if impractical).

          1. Unreconstructed   10 years ago

            One of the better books I have on the subject is 'Algorithmics'. Great introduction to what algorithms are, and how to generate them, and how that matters in programming.

            1. Invisible Finger   10 years ago

              Really it's just writing instructions, with no assumptions or shortcuts. A lot of people don't want to organize their thoughts and explain things to a novice. Which is what a computer sort of is - your program has to tell the computer everything or the end result is not what you want. So you have to be detail-oriented and process-oriented or you are in the wrong line of work. Same is true of systems analysis - you have to ask the user the specific things they want and they usually get pissed at having to answer questions. So you eventually need to learn people skills or all you're going to do is write code instead of build systems.

              Incidentally, this is why government is such a useless tool. Obamacare is an idea cooked up by people who want NOTHING to do with ANY details. Nancy Pelosi et al like to think of themselves as great systems analysts but they have zero interest in detail of any kind. You don't need to be a programmer to be a manager, but there is still a certain level of detail you have to get to to manage anything properly. It's somewhat amazing that the country was founded by people with enough interest in detail to actually want to sit in design meetings and hammer out something like the US Constitution that actual has decent detail in it compared to the half-assed Constitutions of most countries. But Washington is now 100% filled by people who have no interest in that sort of thing whatsoever.

              1. Unreconstructed   10 years ago

                That's how the book starts - one of the early examples (perhaps the first) is "write an algorithm for tying your shoes". That's a tough one for most people, because breaking it down to computer-level instructions takes a lot of thought.

                I hadn't taken the thought process into why government sucks, but I think you nailed it.

          2. Warty   10 years ago

            C/Assembler were the weed-out courses in college.

            My little sister went to a place that had either Common Lisp or Scheme, I forget which, as the language in its intro to programming class. Talk about your weed-out courses.

            1. iCarl   10 years ago

              Probably Scheme. There's a book called Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) that a few places use(d), and it's based around Scheme.

        3. Unreconstructed   10 years ago

          What's really fun is telling the younguns that C# (and Java) variables are just pointers with some syntactic sugar on 'em, and watching as their brains try to comprehend. And don't get me started on 'interface' vs. 'class', or multiple inheritance and why it shouldn't be banned by OO languages...

          Should I throw in a 'get off my lawn' too?

          1. Invisible Finger   10 years ago

            My brother, pharmacy major in the 70's with shitloads of chemistry and math, tried a programming class in the 80's. He was so pissed off at X = X +1 that he dropped the class. I still give him shit mercilessly.

            1. Unreconstructed   10 years ago

              I can see how a mathematician would have issues with that statement. Luckily, I didn't come from such a rigid background.

              1. Warty   10 years ago

                I've always disliked the assignment operator being = and the comparison operator being ==. Something like

                1. Warty   10 years ago

                  Oh, for fuck's sake.

                  Something like (left angle bracket)- and = would make more sense, except that the keystrikes are awkward.

                  1. Invisible Finger   10 years ago

                    You can always write COBOL.

                  2. Unreconstructed   10 years ago

                    Careful - start talking about == and I'll start having flashbacks to PHP and its === operator. *shudders*

              2. Tonio   10 years ago

                And that was actually more of a character-set limitation, ie the preferred left-arrow assignment operator character was not on the keyboard. They later tried to make it better by using "==" as the comparison operator and leaving "=" as the assignment operator, but that still didn't pacify the notation fetishists.

    5. iCarl   10 years ago

      Don't go back to school and don't pay any money.

      I've heard good things about HarvardX CS50 (free to take "unverified"). There is plenty of other stuff elsewhere on EdX, Coursera, Udacity, Khan Academy, and Codeacademy.

      Since you are in (want to be in?) the sciences, the language you will want to focus most on is Python, though skills in any imperative language translate relatively easily.

      1. Paul.   10 years ago

        Since you are in (want to be in?) the sciences, the language you will want to focus most on is Python

        That's a good point, I suppose we should ask him what he wants to accomplish.

      2. Warty   10 years ago

        the language you will want to focus most on is Python

        Any programmer worth hiring can pick up a language in two weeks. Python is a decent enough general-purpose language, though.

        1. iCarl   10 years ago

          though skills in any imperative language translate relatively easily

          1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

            Don't be a slut.

        2. Tonio   10 years ago

          ^This.

    6. PapayaSF   10 years ago

      First, decide what you want to do. A specific application (or set of them) related to your work? Desktop apps? Mobile apps? Websites? That will narrow it down.

      Then, is this intended to make you money at some point? If so, look at trends in languages, and what's in demand. E.g. if you want to do mobile, it might be a good idea to learn Swift. There's a lot of money in iPhone apps.

      1. Sunmonocle Backwards Tophat   10 years ago

        Yep.

        And if you don't have a project in mind, then I'd say web-based, front-end stuff would be an easy entry, since it's visual and easy to pick up while slowly integrating elements of programming depending on complexity. HTML/CSS/Javascript/JQuery would make a good foundation for building a website.

    7. Warty   10 years ago

      Some sort of online course is definitely the way to go. The MIT course that Brett mentioned looks quite good. I've heard good things about Harvard's as well.

      See if you can get some friends to take it with you. Partners are invaluable for this kind of thing.

      1. iCarl   10 years ago

        I've heard good things about Harvard's as well.

        YEAH I WONDER WHERE

        1. Warty   10 years ago

          I don't believe in IP.

          1. Cytotoxic   10 years ago

            But then you don't believe in private property.

            1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

              Go to his house uninvited.

            2. Warty   10 years ago

              I do. And that was a joke. And we're trying to help you out here.

              1. Cytotoxic   10 years ago

                I know and thank you. I'm just following my anal-pedantic programming.

          2. Tonio   10 years ago

            No, he's saying he doesn't believe in [TCP/]IP. He's an old-school IPX/SPX guy.

      2. Greg   10 years ago

        I had no idea that 6.001 is no longer a class (and apparently hasnt been for a while) until I clicked on that. I guess I should read my alumni notes from time to time.

    8. Warty   10 years ago

      You'll also want to pick up the basics of computational theory, data structures, and algorithm design. Programmers are a dime a dozen, but good programmers are extremely valuable.

      1. iCarl   10 years ago

        Nah. What's important is having 5+ years experience in 3 different Javascript frameworks that have been out for 6 months.

        1. Warty   10 years ago

          This guy has 20 years experience in the field, but he hasn't used version 8.5.23 of this particular API? He's worthless.

          1. Paul.   10 years ago

            Welcome to the modern world, Warty.

          2. iCarl   10 years ago

            "Do you know the 'Rails' language?"

      2. Paul.   10 years ago

        You'll also want to pick up the basics of computational theory, data structures, and algorithm design. Programmers are a dime a dozen, but good programmers are extremely valuable.

        The company I worked for that bought us out in 2000 didn't get this. They went out of business in 18 months because their flagship product didn't fucking work.

        I sat in a meeting with the CEO who was courting another smaller company's product. The owner of the other company didn't feel like his product was being appreciated.

        The CEO (who was proudly relaying this story to us) smugly said that software was like soda. We're selling water, sugar and syrup... they're selling water, sugar and syrup... why are we going to pay a premium for your water, sugar and syrup?

        I was within a millimeter of saying "Because your fucking cans keep blowing up every time someone tries to open one".

        I then came up with another analogy:

        What's a bridge? Iron, steel, rivets. Why do I care how this bunch of iron, steel and rivets are designed vs that one?

        1. Invisible Finger   10 years ago

          Lots of ego in this racket, for sure. Or as we call it "NotInventedHere-itis".

        2. Warty   10 years ago

          And then the guy was appointed as the Secretary of Transportation, right?

          1. Paul.   10 years ago

            Went on to oversee construction of the original Narrows Bridge.

    9. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

      How old are you, and what field are you currently in?

      This shit matters, you know.

    10. Medical Physics Guy   10 years ago

      I'm a Coursera evangelist, but if you want to learn programming it's not the optimal way to go. It's good if you want CS background you never got in college (the Sedgwick and Roughgarden courses particularly). But there are better formats for learning to program, interactive tutorials like: http://www.learnpython.org/ .

      There's a good essay out there on how learning to code is not as much like learning math as like learning French, and why don't CS departments understand this. It's a great essay, but I can't look it up at the moment.

    11. Sunmonocle Backwards Tophat   10 years ago

      If you're starting from scratch and want something easy and superficial, the Codecademy stuff is a nice beginner. For web-based programming, I think FreeCodeCamp has a nice map of lectures and projects. I think the important thing is to continually ask yourself "How do I build something using what I'm learning?" The temptation with courses is to just get through them. Learning programming as a language is easier than as a tool for solving problems, but it's the latter that's important.

      1. Invisible Finger   10 years ago

        well put

    12. Cytotoxic   10 years ago

      Great feedback. I'll answer some questions. I basically want to learn a secondary skillset to use it program drones to target terrorism have a fallback if when there are no jobs in my field of biological sciences. At mid-late 20s I consider myself quite old but I can't quite retire, and anyone in my age cohort really needs to be able to adapt to change. It would be a MASSIVE boon to my science career if I could write my own bioinformatics algorithms ex parse the sequence data for this match etc.

      1. Unreconstructed   10 years ago

        Bioinformatics - so lots of statistical stuff? Python or R would be good then. John D. Cook's blog might be particularly interesting to you.

        1. iCarl   10 years ago

          I vote Python. It is general-purpose, has plenty of good learning resources, and isn't gross like R.

      2. Pan Zagloba   10 years ago

        Yup, Python is the way to go. It's human-readable (for a programming language), does almost as good a job as Perl in parsing text and such, and lots of scientists are using it.
        Also, if you want to become a Valuable Science Person, get some database knowledge under your belt. Being able to write even simple queries and put your sequence info into a database, with properly linked metadata, will get you way ahead of the pack.

      3. Sunmonocle Backwards Tophat   10 years ago

        The bioinformatics researchers I work with mostly use Python and Perl. Some use Java. And bioinformatics software tends to be open source, so there's a pretty active public community for those.

      4. mad.casual   10 years ago

        I typed this twice and it keeps coming out to more than 1500 words.

        Graduated '01 with a degree in Biochemistry and '04 with a Masters. Worked ~10 yrs. in the biological sciences (paid and published as an undergrad) and 7 in IT.

        In no particular order:
        1. Linux- C/Assembly teaches you computers are machines the way forging your own pistons and keeping track of timing and fuel mixtures manually reminds you your car is a machine. Linux is like deciding to buy a manual transmission.

        2. Python- This, for better or for worse, is *very* much like saying 'If you want to interface with humans, learn English.'

        3. HTML- Not a 'complete' language per se, but, if you don't know it, you probably should.

        4. SQL- Same as HTML, not exactly 'complete' per se.

        A decent matrix to judge where you want to target your competency.

        Barring you making a break with biology and saying "I want to be a Sr. Engineer, DBA, Sysadmin, Web Dev." specific recommendations get hard to suggest except to say that as a biologist you should find a project that strikes your fancy and use the tools associated with it (most likely Python).

        1. GILMORE   10 years ago

          "This, for better or for worse, is *very* much like saying 'If you want to interface with humans, learn English.''

          Because who needs the Chinese anyway.

          I looked at that matrix, i understand it about halfway. 🙂 I know nothing about programming.

          This was funny =

          " Anders Pearson April 8, 2015 at 14:46

          Can I suggest that under defensive coding, you change "Has his own library to help with defensive coding, writes unit tests that simulate faults" to "Has their own library ?" It looks like you've tried to avoid gender specific language elsewhere, so I assume that's an oversight.
          "

          Encoded Patriarchy!

          1. mad.casual   10 years ago

            I looked at that matrix, i understand it about halfway. 🙂 I know nothing about programming.

            It's not the Bible, but it has width and depth and makes clear distinctions where neophytes (or crusty COBOL programmers who've been locked in a dungeon) might blur lines.

            I also like that it covers more competencies rather than more trivial 'which language should I learn' type of stuff?

            Because who needs the Chinese anyway.

            That's kinda what I meant, there are way more C/C++ and Java positions out there than there are Python positions, but as a life scientist, he's over/differently qualified and probably won't jump right in to one of those positions. Mostly because he doesn't know the overhead that comes with those languages. And, if his intent is to remain a biologist, he may never need to know it. Not saying he can't or shouldn't learn it, but he should familiarize himself with general skills first and then decide to incur that overhead.

            If you want to be a translator or linguist who speaks to as many humans as possible, Chinese would probably be a better option.

    13. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

      I advise training yourself to code in machine language. Screw all this intermediary shit.

    14. Tonio   10 years ago

      You don't know how to do that already? Not even in something remedial like BASIC? Srsly?

      1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

        01001100 01100101 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110011 01110000 01100101 01100001 01101011 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00101110.

        1. Tonio   10 years ago

          Don't start with me, ProL, we all know how I get.

          FWIW, I recently learned trinary to see if I was Malbolge material. I might have been that guy twenty years ago, but not anymore.

          1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

            01000100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 00101100 00100000 01010100 01101111 01101110 01101001 01101111.

        2. Tonio   10 years ago

          Oh, and my response was to Cyto's original question, not your machine language response.

          1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

            01001111 01101000 00101100 00100000 01101111 01101011 01100001 01111001.

    15. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

      Wow, there's a lot of fucking nerds here.

    16. The Bearded Hobbit   10 years ago

      I have some nifty FORTRAN IV tricks, if you're interested.

      ... Hobbit

  35. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

    Mattress Girl has unleashed Ugly Rufus.

    1. Pan Zagloba   10 years ago

      I think that was genetics, but whatever gets you through the day...

      1. Rufus J. Firefly   10 years ago

        I'm trying to fight the demons however I can.

        1. Sudden   10 years ago

          Hookers and blow. That is always the answer.

          1. Pathogen   10 years ago

            There is wisdom in your words..

            1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

              It's sad that governments are chiefed by the double tongues. There is irony in your words of blow for all commenters to see, and so there is irony in your words of hookers. No signed paper can hold the irony. It must come from men. The words of Sudden carry the same irony of hookers and blow. It is good that commenters such as we meet in the struggle of hookers or blow. It shall be both.

              1. Pathogen   10 years ago

                +10 bears

                1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

                  Hmmm, perhaps a porn film based on The Outlaw Josey Wales?

                  1. Pathogen   10 years ago

                    "The Outlaw Karl Hungus"?

                    1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

                      The Outlaw Tokyo Sexwale?

  36. Palin's Buttplug   10 years ago

    16 theories for why crime plummeted in the US:

    http://www.vox.com/2015/2/13/8032231/crime-drop

    1. Paul.   10 years ago

      Abortion.

      What do I win?

      1. Palin's Buttplug   10 years ago

        Nothing.

        The bottom line: Probably some effect in the 1990s. Like many of these theories, there's empirical support that abortion reduced crime to some extent in the 1990s. (Because there isn't detailed-enough data on abortions, the Brennan Center couldn't quantify exactly how much.) But crime continued to decline in the 2000s, after the Roe v. Wade generation was out of prime criminal age ? making it unlikely that abortion explains why crime continued to drop through the first 15 years of the 21st century.

        #15

        1. Paul.   10 years ago

          Huh, I'm pleasantly surprised.

          Because man that argument got heated here on Hit & Run after Freakanomics was published.

          1. Bobarian (sexbot hand model)   10 years ago

            Don't interact with it...

            It's a vox link that seems to have only 1 definitive conclusion -- Freer gun laws did not have anything to do with it.

            1. Pathogen   10 years ago

              Arming fetuses was the culprit... all the long..

        2. PapayaSF   10 years ago

          How does that logically follow? The argument is that abortion cuts crime, and abortion didn't end "after the Roe v. Wade generation was out of prime criminal age." Abortion continued, so why wouldn't the effect continue?

          1. Paul.   10 years ago

            My best guess is that crime would level once the 'abortion effect' sets in for a generation.

            1. Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns   10 years ago

              That assumes that abortion rates remained constant. If abortion rates increased, you'd expect a greater impact over time.

              1. Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns   10 years ago

                Assuming the argument about abortion is even accurate to begin with and obviously you can argue it's not, etc. etc.

              2. Paul.   10 years ago

                The whole Freakonomics abortion argument was highly question-begging to begin with. Even the dude that wrote the book had to do some revising on his statistics when obvious problems were pointed out, but he maintained his overall thesis.

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

                  And if you start by omitting abortion statistics from the homicide rates, you're just begging the question.

    2. OldMexican   10 years ago

      The case against: Lott's paper is very influential, but it's also become increasingly suspect. Two later papers looking at Lott's data but adding more, or slightly tweaking the model he used in his analysis, have found that it's really hard to say that guns have had as much of an effect on crime as Lott suggests. And Lott's done a terrible job of defending his integrity [???] ? at one point, when scholars started asking about a survey Lott had supposedly conducted but lost the data for, Lott created a sock-puppet persona named Mary Rosh to attack his critics online.

      Learn your lesson very well, my children, that a case against an argument shall contain two named-only references to rebuttal studies with no links or footnotes and a very obvious ad hominem.

      Meanwhile, other research has suggested that, if anything, having more permissive gun laws ? or increasing gun ownership, more generally ? might increase crime levels.

      The "other research" comes from studies that correlate deaths by guns with gun ownership, which means it skews the data by including suicides, which are not crimes.

      1. Pan Zagloba   10 years ago

        And Lott's done a terrible job of defending his integrity [???] ? at one point, when scholars started asking about a survey Lott had supposedly conducted but lost the data for, Lott created a sock-puppet persona named Mary Rosh to attack his critics online.

        Something, something, East Anglia, something stick.

    3. Stormy Dragon   10 years ago

      How about the lead removal hypothesis?

      1. Paul.   10 years ago

        Removing lead out of guns through the barrel?

        1. Stormy Dragon   10 years ago

          No, removing lead from gasoline.

          1. Pathogen   10 years ago

            With guns?

            1. Stormy Dragon   10 years ago

              With not adding it during refining.

              1. Pathogen   10 years ago

                SIG-Hammerli is a refined gun, Stormy. What more do you want? There's just no pleasing you! Christ-almighty...

            2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

              BULLET CANCER

  37. Notorious G.K.C.   10 years ago

    "The tainted [gay-marriage] study was some of the strongest evidence to date for the 60-year-old "contact hypothesis," which says that the best way to reduce prejudice against individuals in a minority group is to boost interactions between them and the majority.

    ""It's pretty clear that what you think about the world, policy issues, can be shaped by who you come into contact with," Ryan Enos, an assistant professor of government at Harvard, told BuzzFeed News."

    I can say this much - most of the gay people I met acted so friendly that I concluded that most gay people must be very nice and easygoing, regardless of politics.

    The militant gay *activists* I've encountered - not so much. They have certainly shaped my views. I previously thought that gay activists were honest but mistaken.

    Now my personal experience leads me to believe that many of these activists are willing to invent whatever data they think will boost their case.

    Also, my personal experience leads me to believe that many of these activists, aware at least on some level of the weakness of their case, wish to preempt any rational discussion of their political ideas by throwing around insults and accusations, not to mention employing blackmail and intimidation. And now, apparently, fabricated studies which can fool even the editors of *Science* magazine.

    1. OldMexican   10 years ago

      Re: Notorious G.K.C.,

      Now my personal experience leads me to believe that many of these [gay] activists are willing to invent whatever data they think will boost their case.

      That's because they're not activists working to improve the social status and civil rights of gays, but little Marxians profiting from the grievance industry. It will get to the point where the most minuscule of all victim groups will become even louder, more obnoxious and with a penchant for making shit up than the rest. This will never end until someone or something turns off the cash spigot.

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

        There are simply no consequences for cluelessness or lying. They can throw spaghetti at the wall, while it sticks it's confirmation of their thesis, if it doesn't stick no harm, no foul, further BS from the same source will still be treated with respect as if the previous "mistakes" never happened.

        Remember the assurances that the Massachusetts ERA wouldn't require gay marriage, that there was no need for a DOMA because no state was going to adopt gay marriage, that the *Lawrence* decision didn't affect marriage policy, children raised in gay households won't experience negative effects, and of course the "how does my marriage affect you" question?

        After these have all proved to be BS, the same people who said this shit are still given respect when they push new, equally implausible tales.

        Yet it's the people who call out this BS who are targeted - I suspect that many of the politicians who have "evolved" on SSM are simply adulterers or sheepfuckers who face explicit or implicit threats of exposure unless they support "gay rights."

        1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

          You are a caring man and I am interested in your many sentences here.

          I like how you call out hypocrites at the end of your screed because hypocrites lack intellect but why shouldn't butt-fuckers and cunt-lickers of the same sex marry peacefully anywhere?

          I'm assuming you are a man though I'm not convinced because your 'care' theme seems hyper-strong but why the aversion to your neighbor ladies getting married?

          I'm all for gays fucking up all their marriages like the fucking straights. Marriage is a decrepit old-school social wasteland of human ownership under the flying flags of perky nipples and love demons.

          Let them get hitched. Who cares?

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

            Who's stopping them? Not I.

            I've commented (perhaps sarcastically, no?) that there should be a general pardon of all those gay-married people and gay-marrying ministers languishing in prison.

            Of course, they're not, they're as free as you and I.

            But some states stubbornly insist on rejecting their fantasy that their relationships are the same as real marriage.

            There are even some people who think that business owners - whether of wedding chapels, bakeries, T-shirt printers, tour companies, photography studios, etc. - should be able to decide for themselves whether and to what extent to recognize same-sex relationships.

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

              "Marriage is a decrepit old-school social wasteland of human ownership under the flying flags of perky nipples and love demons."

              Well, we may need to agree to disagree on that point.

              But, yes, people who believe as you do are far more likely to be on the SSM side as to be on the regular-marriage side. Why is that, do you think?

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

                Answer: The SSM movement is a not-so-thinly-veiled attack on the institution of marriage, whose activists often hold views very much like yours.

                1. Tonio   10 years ago

                  Oh, he's descended into delusions of persecutions. Predictable. And tiresome.

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

                    "Oh, he's descended into delusions of persecutions. Predictable. And tiresome."

                    I'm not being persecuted. As an unmarried person, I would benefit in the short term from policies which treat marriage as simply another lifestyle choice, which unfairly tax families with children who in turn grow up to pay taxes to support me in my old age, etc.

                    I suppose the test of a politically principled person is whether they are willing to let their short-term sexual self-interest define their politics.

                2. Cytotoxic   10 years ago

                  The SSM movement is a not-so-thinly-veiled attack on the institution of marriage

                  Lies.

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

                    "Lies."

                    You're right, it's not veiled at all.

                    "Guardian columnist Julie Bindel has claimed that all marriage should be abolished and replaced with civil partnerships.

                    "The controversial feminist writer made the comments in an interview with new crowdfunded journalism platform, Byline.

                    "When asked what she thought of same sex marriage, she said: "Exactly the way I feel about marriage in general. Abolish it.

                    ""Give everybody the right to civil partnership if you need legal protection, have a party whenever you want. Feminists used to say that marriage was really bad for women.

                    ""I would argue that it has changed ? I think it's less bad now for sure. But I just think it's a complete nonsense.""

                    http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015.....tnerships/

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

                      "Lesbian Activist's Surprisingly Candid Speech: Gay Marriage Fight Is a 'Lie' to Destroy Marriage...

                      ""Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we're going to do with marriage once we get there...""

                      http://www.theblaze.com/storie.....-marriage/

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

                      (with audio)

              2. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

                You married, love?

                1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

                  NGKC.

                  Married to a woman for how long, love?

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

                    "Married to a woman for how long, love?"

                    Ah, yes, thank you for bolstering my claim.

                    I'm not married - neither real-married to a woman nor fake-married to another man.

                    If I were married to a woman, you'd be here saying I was selfishly trying to monopolize marital privileges to myself, blah blah.

                    I support policies (child tax credits for married couples, preference for man/woman married couples in adoption cases, etc.) which "privilege" married (man/woman) people over non-married people (and among unmarried people I include people who claim their same-sex relationships are marriages).

                    One would think that these policies are against my own immediate selfish self-interest would be a point in my favor.

                    But since the gay-marriage position is unfalsifiable, it follows that neither single nor married people, neither straight nor gay people, have a right to criticize it.

                    Those who try to make their position unfalsifiable, and hence immune to rational argument, are not exactly inspiring confidence in the merits of their position.

                    1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

                      You have a right to an opinion on marriage. But. Love. You haven't even married a human in a world where marrying humans isn't riddled with bullets or strange concussions.

                      How old are you? You are either a genius talker home-schooled boy or girl at 13 or a college boy or girl at 22 or a disenfranchised man or woman at 32 or.... just fuck me.... after that I give up.

                      C'mon NGKC..... I am upfront about everything about this dude... I do drugs, I use shrooms and lsd, I get hammered all the time. I love the ohio woods. Married to the first and only woman for 21 years. We swing. I have two amazing kids who love this fucking place and build computers and have an invention and do all sorts of art and designs....

                      What do I know about you, Mr save all the dudes getting fucked up on booze, drugs, and gays?

                      You aren't married. AGE? I'm 41. Muscular, big dude with a nice cock. What's up?

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

                      OK, let's stipulate that I'm a convicted car thief posting from Sing Sing.

                      Now that we've gotten past that part, let's see you justify your views on marriage, including of course your views on swinging, on their own merits.

                    3. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

                      Um, no. You aren't married but have a powerful opinion.on.marriage.

                      If you aren't married.are.you.evangelical? Which equals no sex.

                      If you aren't married.are.you.young?Which equals creepy.

                      If you aren't married.are.you.older? Which equals hmmmmm....

                      If you aren't married.are.open.minded? Which equals... the math not matching

                      If you aren't married.are.you.in.college? Which equals... college.kid.with.an.opinion... but let's get real, bro. Live life.

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

                      The mere fact that I'm the only one of this 40% to venture into the hive of scum and villainy that is H&R doesn't mean that nobody else agrees with me.

                      You're facing at least 40% (perhaps more) of the population of the United States who believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman and that public policy should reflect this meaning.

                      So how do you propose to persuade this 40%? Or are you simply going to go one by one through this list of millions of people, and find a reason to dismiss each of them without engaging with their arguments?

            2. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

              Gay fucks shouldn't be treated differently than anyone married similarly but no law should force anyone to do business with anyone- including whites. I once got pissed because years ago I did a lot of business with a black dude who liked me so much he referred me to his Detroit niggas who wasted my fucking week wining and dining them and they ultimately chose a lesser talented local black company. Fuck it.

              Humans are jiggety fuckers and law fixes few of these issues. However, I've been married 21 years to same and original female who I am slightly addicted to and even we have sex partners that breaks the fucking original function of socially-proper marriage.

              Fuck, gay marriage is more socially acceptable than mature sexy swingers. I'll bet no fucking Christian or Muslim pizza house would cater my sex party for married couples sharing goddamn partners either. Life is a bullstar.

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

                "I'll bet no fucking Christian or Muslim pizza house would cater my sex party for married couples sharing goddamn partners either."

                To be fair, the strict logic of the SSM position would indeed mean forcing those businesses to cater you, ah, ceremony.

                1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

                  Do you fuck pussy or dick, then? Do you fuck?

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

                    Sure did. I don't mention this because I'm proud of it (quite the contrary), but because it answers your question.

                    1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

                      You fuck pussy, NGKC?

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

                      I sure did.

          2. Tonio   10 years ago

            Agile, Notorious G.K.C. originally posted here under the name Eduard van Haalen and continued doing so for many years. He claimed that was his actual name and that he changed handles because he was tired of all the jokes about the band Van Halen.

            1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

              But, I like both of you lovely people. Absurd at times and like rivulets of dreams crashing on crystal rocks like this motherfucker but I have to accept the range of your personal beliefs and love what is. And state my introspection. Gays should love freely like can Haalen grafiti GKC loves his lover. And tonio should love his lover and I love my love and her cute manboy lover from Chicago with the tight butt and awesome pecs and when his dick enters her pussy I enter her pussy with my fat cock and the star smudge the galaxy with star cum.

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

              " He claimed that was his actual name"

              You got a cite for that, boyo?

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

                So...you *don't* have a cite?

    2. Tonio   10 years ago

      Eddie, you're in no position to lecture anyone about rational anything until you renounce the weeping statues and other primitive superstitions. Which is not to defend that study, but rather to point out that you do not have any credibility on this topic.

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

        And you'll say the same to anyone who criticizes your political ideas.

        Then when those ideas mysteriously crash and burn, you'll ask why nobody warned you.

        1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

          Wait, man, do you fuck?

  38. iCarl   10 years ago

    Hamster and Jesse, did you complete your assignments?

    1. jesse.in.mb   10 years ago

      I told you I wouldn't be able to get around to it last night.

      1. iCarl   10 years ago

        SKANK

        1. jesse.in.mb   10 years ago

          SKANK

          You know Webster's definition of skank is "woman that Episiarch would sleep with, or has already slept with" right?

          1. Bobarian (sexbot hand model)   10 years ago

            All women are skanks? That is mighty misogynistic.

            Or did you mean "woman that would sleep with Epi?"

          2. Pathogen   10 years ago

            Epi never mastered the spork, but he wasn't bitter about it. Opposing digits just weren't enough. His chipper demeanor masks the pain. Don't blame him... this world just isn't good enough for him, Jesse.

  39. Sevo   10 years ago

    "The U.S. military built a lavish, $25 million headquarters building in Afghanistan that nobody actually needed and was never used."

    It's just there to help out if ISIS makes it over the hill.

  40. A Self-Identified $park?   10 years ago

    Climate change is real, we just need a big enough computer to prove it.

    It is perhaps the most daunting challenge facing experts in both the fields of climate and computer science ? creating a supercomputer that can accurately model the future of the planet in a set of equations and how the forces of climate change will affect it. It is a task that would require running an immense set of calculations for several weeks and then recalculating them hundreds of times with different variables.

    Such machines will need to be more than 100 times faster than today's most powerful supercomputers, and ironically, such an effort to better understand the threat of climate change could actually contribute to global warming. If such a computer were built using today's technologies, a so-called exascale computer would consume electricity equivalent to 200,000 homes and might cost $20 million or more annually to operate.

    Also...

    His low-power crusade has recently attracted followers among some climate scientists. "Scientific calculations like weather and climate modeling are generally, inherently inexact," Dr. Palem said. "We've shown that using inexact computation techniques need not degrade the quality of the weather-climate simulation."

    1. paranoid android   10 years ago

      I read this Asimov story, turns out the computer is God, right?

      1. Crusty Juggler   10 years ago

        Lemmy is God.

        1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

          Lemmy is an aging collision of lost worlds, man, and the Crusty Juggler is on the back of this quantum orgasmic star mess whipping the fucktrain out of the space wolves dragging this entire big-banging contraption through multiplied universes. Fucking dragging comets and shit all over the goddamn dark matter fields and places.

          1. Crusty Juggler   10 years ago

            cut and pasting to Mom! She will be thrilled I was finally successful.

          2. Crusty Juggler   10 years ago

            cut and pasting to Mom! She will be thrilled I was finally successful.

      2. Pan Zagloba   10 years ago

        +1 Let There Be Light

      3. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

        Not for a while yet.

      4. Agammamon   10 years ago

        Ship is God.

        We must learn to worShip.

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder   10 years ago

      It's carbon all the way down

      1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

        I wish carbon was ever so slightly translucent. I tripped last week and while I wandered my small forest in search of purple gnomes surfaces everywhere seemed to allow light to penetrate ever so abnormally deeply. So, if you are driving on a surface in your slightly transparent VW in this conceptual fantasy all the billions of planes that construct your reality have a nominal visibility depth based on carbon's slight translucency in conjunction with light triangulation and how many angels and demons are group-orgasming in the general vicinity. So dirt is like a murky oceanic thing. So is the road you drive upon. So is the girlfriend or boyfriend you fuck. Life becomes semi-transparent and fucking interesting. At least to me.

        1. Crusty Juggler   10 years ago

          pics?

          1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

            Crusty, you crazy juggling fucker, trips are impossible to capture on film. However, when we can post brain journeys on braintinder.com life will get interesting very quick.

            The drug war will likely end quickly when the social dictators realize that the next vistas on the curvature of civilization lies on the horizons of brains surmounting and journeying altered places.

            The future is dreams.

        2. Tonio   10 years ago

          Agile, are you a fan of the late Terence McKenna? If so, we should talk.

          1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

            I love McKenna.

  41. A Self-Identified $park?   10 years ago

    So I was reading last night and I happened across a passage that I got a kick out of. Especially knowing that this book was published in 1886.

    The lofty independent spirituality, the will to stand alone, and even the cogent reason, are felt to be dangers, everything that elevates the individual above the herd, and is a source of fear to the neighbor, is henceforth called EVIL, the tolerant, unassuming, self-adapting, self-equalizing disposition, the mediocrity of desires, attains to moral distinction and honour ... If one could do away with danger, the cause of fear, one would have done away with this morality at the same time, it would be no longer necessary, it would not cosider itself any longer necessary! -- Whoever examines the conscience of the present-day European, will always elicit the same imperative from its thousand moral folds and hidden recesses, the imperative of the timidity of the herd "we wish that some time or other there may be nothing more to fear!" Some time or other -- the will and the way thereto is nowadays called "progress" all over Europe.

    --Fred N

    1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

      Nietzsche... Adapted from Beyond Good and Evil. The author of which I ready weekly- but I am not entirely convinced Nietzsche ever really gave a fuck about individualism when you read all his works which I have. Though I consider Nietzsche brilliant and ridiculously mad.

      1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

        Best to have untreated syphilis when you read him. That, or be an ape.

        1. A Self-Identified $park?   10 years ago

          Don't call me stupid.

          1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

            Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I've known sheep that could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?

        2. Sudden   10 years ago

          Again, another ringing endorsement of the hookers and blow diet!

          1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

            Got me there. I think Socrates did that, too. It wasn't hemlock that killed him.

          2. Pathogen   10 years ago

            You stand vindicated...

      2. A Self-Identified $park?   10 years ago

        Ole Fred is able to pack so much win into such short passages. He's definitely my favorite and I'm working my way through his stuff. It seems to me that he acknowledges that it takes the will of strong individuals to bring all of humanity to ubermensch status.

        1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

          Lovely naked Fred should also read The Will to Power which is a tornado of alternatives and fucking lonely homeless man craziness but emanating lights projecting hues of absolute greatness.

          At least Nietzsche is not a goddamn Hegel- which defines the modern American political system: The state is god and its agents small gods.

        2. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

          He's interesting, but AC is right--he's crazy.

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

            Wow, when even AC thinks you're nuts...

          2. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

            Nietzsche is very good for the brain, love. Like reading a tonal Bach symphony. Some of Bach's shit is weary and draining- other parts are like surfing sky waves driving rolling spears into deep brain. If you drive on this shit and get deep brain red lights look green lights and stop signs don't exist so be careful, my ghetto bunnies.

            1. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

              And I agree. I mean, I think I agree.

          3. A Self-Identified $park?   10 years ago

            Oh, no doubt he's crazy. But that's clearly what it took to come up with most of the off-the-wall brilliant stuff. Normal people just don't think that way on purpose.

            1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

              This is why I read Nietzsche constantly. His fucking bust was in Hitler's office for a reason. Brain trails flux bomb. Hitler was a lucky shyster who learned to write and preach. Once he preached he made writers hack the German collective. And history is rife with Hitler's massive murders. I respect a crazed lover of mind trails like Nietzsche and many of the crazy fucks on this site- I cannot respect a lover of mind trails that tunneled into empty and killing despair like Hitler.

              Hitler was a Fish on steroids.

  42. db   10 years ago

    Nebraska appears poised to end the use of the death penalty in the state.

    Because what could possibly be worse than being sentenced to life in Nabraska?

    1. db   10 years ago

      Holy fuck, Autocorrect.

    2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

      A1 Steak Sauce.

      1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

        Wait, what? If god could exist for a goddamn moment in a sliver of time and zap a single fucking human with god seed whereupon this human would shit god turds and those turds would grow up to be big turd sons of the human that doesn't appreciate a good steak fucking sauce I would hope god would choose your fucking face to zap, love. A1 is decent sauce. Man, let us not appropriate a decent sauce for threadgasms.

        1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

          Steaks speak for themselves. NO SAUCE.

          1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

            Well, a red wine pan sauce would be OK.

            Chimmichurri too.

            1. jesse.in.mb   10 years ago

              Oooh, now I want to go to LaLa's

            2. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

              Well, plied Man, I was thinking more like A-1 for hamburgers.... not steak. A-1 sucks for goddamn steaks. FUCKING horrible for steaks. And yeah, no sauce and blackened rubs, and cunt juices from my fav girlfriend, and chimneys and fukya red wine... perfect... and all that... so i guess we agree... I eat A-1 STEAK sauce ONLY on svelte burgers... never on a steak... man shit just got super fucking confusing... and I think the fucking Manhattan playa won but i don't care.... cuz, yea i LOVE a-1 Sauce but not on my expensive steaks.... burgers with provolone, yes....

              1. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

                Oh, sure. You can put anything on a burger. Bacon, BBQ Sauce, mushroom, cheeses, avocado, onion rings, and yes, steak sauce.

                If you go into a steakhouse and see A1 on the table, don't make eye contact, and back away slowly.

            3. Pro Libertate   10 years ago

              We found a new Peruvian restaurant in Tampa that is very good, and not expensive at all. Happy Fish.

              1. jesse.in.mb   10 years ago

                I have a ton of Peruvian in the area. The food is consistently simple and delicious and almost always cheap.

                1. Pathogen   10 years ago

                  It's not always about *YOU*, Jesse!

                  1. jesse.in.mb   10 years ago

                    It's not always about *YOU*, Jesse!

                    That's hurtful, Pathogen. Especially because it is always about me.

              2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

                I'm having Lomo Saltado tonight at my Dad's birthday dinner. My expectations are low.

                Lomo Saltado is one of the dishes I cooked obsessively until I got it perfect, and then never cooked it again.

          2. iCarl   10 years ago

            Steak? meh

            1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

              Love, I hated steaks for years... until you meet your melting red million vaginas called the perfect steak. Once that happens.... steak isn't meh its a palatial big bang. Paired with good booze, a pretty face or faces on top of shimmery silky dressage, soft potatoes, the green babies of your choice, lovely music, and oak walls the steak becomes the symbol of living temporal reality.

            2. Pl?ya Manhattan.   10 years ago

              You can't say "Steak? meh" and expect to not get mocked. Consider this charity.

    3. Warty   10 years ago

      Little Bill Daggett: It's been a long time, Bob. You run out of Chinamen?
      English Bob: Little Bill, well I thought you was, well I thought that you were dead. I see you've shaved your chin whiskers off.
      Little Bill Daggett: I was tasting the soup two hours after I ate it.
      English Bob: Well, actually, what I heard was that you fell off your horse, drunk of course, and that you broke your bloody neck.
      Little Bill Daggett: I heard that one myself, Bob. Hell, I even thought I was dead 'til I found out it was just that I was in Nebraska.

      1. A Self-Identified $park?   10 years ago

        Little Bill Daggett: That you here, Bob, on the cover? "The Duck of Death?"
        W.W. Beauchamp: Duke. It's the Duke. "Duke of Death."

  43. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

    When you go to the work programs on tomorrow imagine roads rolling like ribbons, bros. Think that the globe is inverted and the sky is tiny for all the humans inside a ball. The sky is the core, man. And then your throat starts to restrict weirdly and you don't even have to be on Klonopin for years because you did coke or heroin for 10 previously. You can actually do this drug-free as a young chemical free child. Just drive and imagine the roads are INSIDE the earth. And the sky is the core....and that blue up there is a center and your road is on the edge of space. If you hit a pothole your shit will be sucked into goddamn death moons, bro.

  44. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

    Fuck this reason thread amalgamation.

    Here's your note NGKC.

    Do you fuck pussy, NGKC?

    Or, do you fuck dick, NGKC?

    No matter what I, personally, will always love you but very few are as transparent with their weakness in this special world than I.

    So what's up?

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

      Yes, indeed, Agile, I did indeed fuck pussy. Yet it would have been better if I hadn't.

      Now, if you would, elaborate a little bit on your swinging lifestyle. You didn't give a lot of specifics.

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

        Wow, this is a first...I scared AC away!

      2. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

        "Yet it would have been better if I hadn't."

        Pussy is always good to fuck.... what does this mean?

        OK, on my swinging livingstyles...

        My hot blonde wife loves dick in her ass while my dick penetrates her face, bro.... man, we play some wine lightning and the hot ass wife in my vector future slicks her body with lingerie and cock juice and ufo's land in this hot mess of jizz and cunt shotguns.... man, you don't even fuckin know, nigga. Bitch, my baby fucked our boy in chicago last month and came home and pulled my hard dick to the edge of the bed and her muscular temples of woman thighs said I want to crash your dick party like I crashed my chicago boy and her lips were outline on the red carpet and her tits glanced and bobbed in the candles light and her lines of silk arched and attacked my motherfucking cock like a goddamn ninja pussy from hell and she rode my hard cock on the twilights of magika and the sweat screamed and torrented like a floods of pain as this amazing fucking lip genius fucked my hard cock into blowing a billion sperm into pink, fleshy god castle and the god of this castle slathered that fucking billions of dying screams of protein into her skin from clit to neck she scrammed that poured loved all over her body while she rode this motherfucker like a godly Indian Angelcycle....

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

          OK, thank you for the elaboration 🙂

          1. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

            NGKC is a fucking bull in the fucking lightning world but I'm used to this creature whom I love.

  45. Agile Cyborg   10 years ago

    If planes of the love were jet streamings and your atoms glanced like fist grips on the dicks of gods would you fly into the sun from the top of your building in your city?

    I tried to fly a place into the fields of the various knick knacks and I fell on my face a million miles from like nowhere but I did have my fucking pencil and my godam pad and i drew like these grass stems spiraling into samurai warrior blobs smashing each other into green splish spash mogo on the various lights under the same moon, bros.

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