Video Shows Calif. Cops Killing Unarmed Man, Catholic Employers Lose at Court, Should Libertarians Be Drowned?: A.M. Links

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  The Little Sisters of the Poor Oregon-Ohio/Facebook

  Newly released video shows California police fatally shooting an unarmed man. A judge ordered the footage unsealed after the city settled a lawsuit over the shooting for $4.7 million. 

• Deciding to do something worthwhile and non-statist for a welcome change, President Obama is urging Congress to  lessen or eliminate federal mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent offenders.
• Are libertarians crazy cultists who should be drowned? Playboy investigates!
• Records of disciplinary measures taken against cops are considered part of their "personnel files" and therefore exempt from FOIA requests, ruled a Maryland appeals court. 
• Meanwhile, Catholic employers who object to the Obama administration's accommodation on covering birth control in insurance plans were dealt a blow by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday. 
• Millennials will outgrow the "sharing economy," says Time writer Bobbi Rebell, as if Uber and AirBnB are like slap-bracelets and saying "bae" rather than immensely convenient and cost-effective services used by people of all ages. 
• Florida state Rep. Carlos Curbelo "has taken to Spanish-language media to suggest that Trump's campaign could be a Democratic scheme to hurt the Republican Party."

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Are libertarians crazy cultists who should be drowned? Playboy investigates!

I only read it for the tits.

[Lord Humungus]

airbrushed tits at that.

[Rich]

#FreeTheNipple

[gaijin]

#bringbackourgirls ?

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Fake blondes, with fake lips and fake basketball tits. Hugh has awful taste in women.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

Yeah he really does, but apparently a lot of people share his taste.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Seriously.

The girls in PB are often meh.

Give me 50+ and divorced any day.

[Certified Public Asshat]

Let’s not get carried away.

[Crusty Juggler]

Different strokes.

[Lord Humungus]

What You Did. I Did See.

[Jerryskids]

Give me 50+ and divorced any day.
.
So you’re hoping to see Hef himself as the centerfold? Eeeewww.

[pan fried wylie]

Pendulums gonna swang, baby.

[Warty]

Hugh Hefner hasn’t been doing the magazine for a while, and whoever does it now has much better taste than him.

[Clich? Bandit]

his 50+ divorced daughter is doing it i believe.

[R C Dean]

Doing what?

I DEMAND PIX!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hello.

More ammo for Canadians to act smug towards everyone. Canada tops reputation list.

I try to class this place up but the flock want none of it.

http://yhoo.it/1GlJBY0

[fleshy wavefunction]

All this despite Trailer Park Boys?

[Pan Zagloba]

You say nothing bad about Trailer Park Boys! They are the best that Canada has.

I seriously love that show for being so un-stereotypically Canadian. Foul mouthed, pot-smoking, welfare-refusing low-level criminals who pack heat is exactly how Canadians don’t see themselves, yet the show is 100% Canadian.

[Mike M.]

I may move up there some day if America continues down the road of insanity.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Splendid mediocrity has its merits.

[Jerryskids]

Saskatchewan has some marvelously scenic mountain views. Jutting up into the sky all purple and majestic. (I might be thinking of a postcard I saw or something.)

[Rufus J. Firefly]

It’s also fun to say ‘Saskatchewan’.

Over and over and…

[Citizen X]

Expose Yourself to Nova Scotia

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

You know what else juts up in the sky, all purple and majestic?

[Lord Humungus]

*answers timidly* my penis?

[Trshmnstr doesn't recycle]

You should probably get that checked out.

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

Hitler?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Interestingly enough, the pet name for LH’s penis.

[Krokko]

Saskatchewan is also a rectangle, nature’s most perfect shape!

[Pro Libertate]

Might I recommend Nunavut? Barely any roads, yet there’s still a Tim Horton’s.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Sounds like Somalia? Only worse.

[Igor]

Only outdone by the tiny central European principality of Nikkisylvania the absolute worst worst.

[Pro Libertate]

Except for all of the people on public assistance, yes. Land is cheap up there, anyway. Or so I assume.

[Mickey Rat]

Obviously, they have not met Canada.

[widget]

It’s about investing in precious metals.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Our currency should be backed by tasteful spreads. That’s right, I’m proposing we go on the centerfold standard.

[Fist of Etiquette]

A judge ordered the footage unsealed after the city settled a lawsuit over the shooting for $4.7 million.

They should have made the video part of the cop’s personnel records.

[Lord Humungus]

Star Of Viral Catcalling Video Is Reportedly Suing For Compensation

Shoshana Roberts, the woman who appeared in a viral video that showed her being subjected to incessant catcalls over the course of 10 hours walking around New York City, is reportedly suing both anti-street-harassment group Hollaback! and video director Rob Bliss, on the grounds that both parties used her likeness to “promote their agenda.”

“10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman” has received more than 40 million views to date. Reached by e-mail, a spokeswoman for Hollaback! said that while Bliss published the video on a personal YouTube channel, he “asked if he could put a call to donate to Hollaback! at the end of the video to raise awareness about street harassment.”

[gaijin]

so, translated “I am down with your social justice narrative…so long as you cut me in on the cash”?

[GILMORE, Haiku Pornographer]

(Loud vigorous applause)

You Go Girl!

[Igor]

Clapping is privileged cis-shitlord behavior. Your encomia shall be henceforth be expressed with Jazz Hands, you rapist!

[thrakkorzog]

Should have never taken her to see The Wiz.

[Igor]

NOBODY should ever have been taken to see The Wiz.

[Mickey Rat]

Did she or did she not receive whatever compensation she agreed to?

[Illocust]

Yes, but see those filmmakers forgot to ask for her consent at each stage of the shooting. Just because she signed a contract and didn’t object during the proceedings doesn’t mean it was consensual. Consent can be withdrawn at any time and it is the responsibility of the filmmakers to get her enthusiastic verbal assent at every step or it’s ra….of wait, wrong topic.

[Old Man With Candy]

What is this shit? I DEMAND CONSISTENCY.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

A problem in the bathroom this morning?

[Mike M.]

Man saves life of orphaned bear cub, faces possible government fine.

Nice. No good deed goes unpunished.

[Jerryskids]

I remember years back a story about a moose calf getting stuck after falling halfway through a hole in the ice on a river and the Park Service responding to people calling about the calf with a “we just let nature take its course” until enough people called them heartless douchebags that they went out and rescued the calf. If you’ve got a Park Service, it’s a little late to be saying you just let Nature take its course.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

CHAIN OF COMMAND.

PROPER AUTHORITIES.

People still don’t get it.

[Old Man With Candy]

A possible solution for Greece.

[Rich]

Another possible solution for Greece.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

All these solutions one after another. Don’t worry I hear Germany is coming up with a final solution for Greece. Or at least thats how the Greek media will portray it.

[Restor-woodchipper-as]

Probably just demand that Greece become the dedicated Six Flags for German citizens.

[Mr. Paulbotto]

So let’s see, the Roman and Byzantine vexillia, the Ottoman flag, the Nazi flag, the current EU flag and the current Greek flag?

The Nazi flag=the Confederate flag in American six flags, natch…

[Igor]

Anyone decided that fasces are … um … fascist yet?

Much of DC’s statuary will have to be re-engineered.

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

Not for this current Administration.

[R C Dean]

Why? The Powers-That-Be are fascist.

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

Oh, I agree, they are.

Unfortunately my comment was contextually ambiguous.

Should have quoted the “Much of DC’s statuary will have to be re-engineered.” relative to:
Not for this current Administration.

Imperator Barack the Mendacious is the very definition of Fascist: obsession with trains, control of Government Motors, control of the fawning media, Gestapo/Stasi/NSA, progtardian hero worship of a narcissist, etc.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

They’re gonna build a fence around Greece?

[UnCivilServant]

Well, it doesn’t have to be a tall one, the greeks are too lazy to climb. Any willing to put in the effort to escape should be able to find gainful employment.

[Igor]

The real kicker would be that the funds to build it would come from the Western end of the EU, and they could get construction workers from the Eastern EU to provide the personnel.

[Pan Zagloba]

They may need to. Greece can start blackmailing EU by getting in on migration scheme. Say, charging migrants 1000 euros for travel papers, allowing them to travel to Western Europe.

[Pro Libertate]

The best solution is free enterprise zone in the islands. The second best solution is Disneyopolis.

[CatoTheChipper]

” all these other b****** get to print money, so I can too”

As ineloquent as it is, the counterfeiter’s statement contains a normative truth. Nobody should be allowed to counterfeit, but every sovereign government — every single one of those bitches — does so.

[Warty]

QUIT HORSIN AROUND

[Rich]

“Perversion has reached a new level,” Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said in a statement.

Such innocence is rather charming, especially in a sheriff.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Joe’s just pissed he can’t blame this on Mexicans.

[IndyEleven]

+1 Catherine The Great

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I was expecting a Bojack story.

[Warty]

TWO MORE DAYS

[invisible furry hand]

It was the eighth arrest for bestiality made by sheriff’s deputies in the past five years, his office said.

There’s an Untouchables-style taskforce, presumably

[Warty]

I want you to get this fuck where he breathes! I want you to find this nancy-boy Joe Arpaio, I want him DEAD! I want his family DEAD! I want his house burned to the GROUND! I wanna go there in the middle of the night and I wanna PISS ON HIS ASHES!

[Fist of Etiquette]

RECORDS: SUBPOENAED

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

There’s an Untouchables-style taskforce, presumably

I wouldn’t want to touch em.

[Certified Public Asshat]

Lots of horse sex stories recently

[Fist of Etiquette]

Just mousing over and reading the url, I see that the police tased the horse three times as it tried to flee.

[ant1sthenes]

Fuckin’ bronies.

[Homple]

Time was when guys would walk a mile for a camel, now they cross the country for a horse.

[gaijin]

Are libertarians crazy cultists who should be drowned?

Drowne? hah! They should be fed through a woodchipper of course

[hamilton]

Wait, this could be a new way to execute the libertarian purity test! If you float in water, then you’re made of wood. Hence, Cosmotarian. Or something.

Or maybe we could just use squassation.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

JUST GIVE TO STEVE SMITH! STEVE SMITH RAPE – IF LIVE… LIBERTARIAN!

[IndyEleven]

Who are you that is so wise in the ways of science?

[Lord Humungus]

N.J. homeowners sue after discovering house was once a sex club

Brian and Lauren Gehm moved into their new home in Sussex County last summer. Soon after, a contractor installing satellite TV in their Sparta home found several issues with the electrical wiring.

The faulty wiring led to a surprising discovery: Several webcams were hidden in the basement and connected to a closed circuit television system, according to the complaint, first reported by Courthouse News. The couple located additional cameras throughout the house, according to the report.

The Gehms, worried the hidden cameras had recorded their every move, resorted to basic detective work. It didn’t take them long to learn their abode was once used as “a disco and/or ‘sex club’,” according to the Courthouse News account.

Three months after moving in, the Gehms packed up and moved out.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

Just imagine their horror if they used a black light in there.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

*shudders*

[Crusty Juggler]

I assume the house is on the market?

[Elspeth Flashman]

To some, a bug – to others, a feature.

[Rhywun]

Three months after moving in, the Gehms packed up and moved out.

“They’re heeeeeere.”

[Galactic Chipper Cdr Lytton]

The Gehms must be Eddie Murphy fans.

[Fist of Etiquette]

…President Obama is urging Congress to lessen or eliminate federal mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent offenders.

Urging by pen or by phone?

[The DerpRider]

No shit. Why not just commute all of those unfair sentences?

[Medical Physics Guy]

It is really hard to get inside his head on this. Commutation is not an executive power grab of any kind. Not that he’s against those anyway.

[Fist of Etiquette]

His days of building a legacy that isn’t the shit show that is Obamacare are rapidly dwindling. He’s trying to build a positive one without doing much work, it seems.

[Root Boy]

I’ve heard he could take MJ off of schedule 1 with his pen, but he hasn’t done much on that, has he?

[invisible furry hand]

“After 53 hours in custody, having been shackled at the ankles, strip-searched, blood tested, forced to sleep on a concrete floor without a mattress or pillow and having no access to toilet paper or eating utensils, I can happily say I AM SAFE & OUT OF JAIL”

Her crime? Complaining online about someone who hogged the disabled parking

[UnCivilServant]

Her flaw in judgement – travelling to the UAE.

[Juvenile Bluster]

It’s going to be hilarious when Dubai collapses. It’s only a matter of time. Whether it’s $30/barrel oil or the desert taking back the land, it’s going to happen.

[Medical Physics Guy]

But the media told me that Dubai had successfully transitioned to a service economy!

[UnCivilServant]

“Importing Indentured Servants” is not “Transitioning to a Service Economy”

[Root Boy]

Tim Blair had a good post on her…she’s worried about the hell Tony Abbot is unleashing on Australia:

http://blogs.news.com.au/daily…..bats_fate/

[Pan Zagloba]

SpecOps: The Line had that covered. Not so much “hilarious” as “heart of darkness”, though.

[fleshy wavefunction]

But… DUBAI !1!!1!

[Raven Nation]

Oh, BTW, did I mention 52-6?

[invisible furry hand]

Oh, XXXX off!

I couldn’t finish watching the decider, it was so inept. Did you see this?

[Raven Nation]

Brilliant! See, if politicians would just stick to doing this kind of stuff we’d all be much better off.

[invisible furry hand]

Sydney wife wins right to collect dying husband’s sperm but ordered not to use it

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Keep it on the mantle, to remember him by?

[Elspeth Flashman]

In law school – wills class – the “joke” is about the 80 year old pregnant lady (always assume a woman can get preggers, even if you’re drafting her will, and she’s 80). So I guess this is the male version of that.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Millennials will outgrow the “sharing economy,” says Time writer Bobbi Rebell…

Regulators will make sure they have no choice.

[Lee G]

Which begs the question: Is this a generation that has permanently adopted a culture of sharing and will continue to do so? Or, as they grow up and evolve into financially stable adults, will they act more like their parents and buy into an ethos of owning a lot of stuff? (Or at least get a little more possessive?)

And she fails at the grammatical usage of begging the question, while simultaneously deriding the Millenials for saving money and acting like they are the last generation to exist. She’s a bright one.

[Lord Humungus]

Bizarre mystery: B.C. family upset after cat repeatedly found shaved

“The first time it was the base of her tail as well, and under her belly,” Yarjau said. “It looks like a razor did it because it looks like her nipples were cut, and that’s a pretty defining factor of what’s going on.”

She said it seems whenever Tabby goes outside in the Kit Crescent area of Campbell River, she comes back with a different part of her body shaved. It’s happened five times already, and other cats in the neighbourhood have also been shaved, Yarjau said.

The family has growing concerns that the cruel joke will only escalate.

…

The family is pleading for the person responsible to stop shaving their cat, and warning other pet owners in the area to be on the lookout.

You know who else liked to shave pussy? (I should withdraw this comment but…)

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

So people used to shave cats in ancient times? I thought that would be more of an A.D. type thing.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Dr. Evil?

[invisible furry hand]

A similar thing happened in Darwin, but the local paper’s headline was “They shaved my pussy”

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Mrs. Garrett on the girls?

[Crusty Juggler]

Danny Boyle?

[Fist of Etiquette]

“She said it seems whenever Tabby goes outside in the Champs-?lys?es area of Paris, she comes back with a different part of her body with a stripe of white paint on it and the faint stench of skunk.”

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

William of Occam?

[Lord Humungus]

China stocks drop again, positive data shrugged off

China stocks tumbled in afternoon trade on Wednesday, despite surprisingly positive official economic data, as a recent post-rout, government-triggered rebound appeared to be running out of steam.

The CSI300 index of China’s largest listed companies tumbled more than 5 percent at one point, but eased some losses to end the day down 3.5 percent, at 3,966.76. The Shanghai Composite Index lost 3.0 percent, to 3,805.70 points.

The slide highlights the difficulty Beijing faces as it seeks to restore confidence in its stock market without signaling investors it is guaranteeing a zero-risk free for all, which would simply reinflate a rally that even regulators said had become too frothy.

[UnCivilServant]

“Surprisingly”? The Official data would be good if it was true or not.

[Pro Libertate]

I’m flabbergasted at how often people take data issued by totalitarian states seriously. We’ve even seen it here, when the trope that the U.S. has more prisoners than China does. That’s absurd on its face, even assuming China simply executes most prisoners.

[Root Boy]

I’ve seen more stories lately talking about investors who don’t trust the Chinese stats — use Elec consumption or rail freight to calculate GDP instead.

Now, if we could only get more people skeptical of USG statistics.

(Also, I like how China is doing all it can to stop a stock slide by banning selling and shorting, kind of like what the Fed does).

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, we’re lying a lot now, too. Maybe there’s always been some shading, but where the government controls the data, we’re increasingly seeing total bullshit. Like with unemployment.

[Restor-woodchipper-as]

Cue Mr. Burns: Excellent.

[Illocust]

You mean investors don’t trust China to tell them the truth? Who could imagine such a thing.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

Thanks to China’s one-child policy, and their upcoming financial collapse they are soon going to have a bunch of young unemployed single men with nothing to do all day, but being pissed off at their government. It wouldn’t surprise me if China started a war just to give all these guys something to do.

[Restor-woodchipper-as]

This has been my thought for some time as well. Maybe they’ll grab Siberia? It’s not like the Russians could stop them.

[Illocust]

I’ve been hearing that prediction for a while. A better cheaper option, if china was smart, would be to try and import japan’s grass eater culture.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

Grass eater culture? Do Japanese men like to taking trips down south with unshaven women?

[Illocust]

Basically a bunch of Japanese guys opting out of the typical Japanese relationship of guy works overtime every day, never sees his kids, never gets to really enjoy his income, and dies at his desk. Instead they play video games and don’t pursue relationships. Grass eater is a rough translation referring how to they don’t chase after meat (women). China doesn’t have quite the same problems with what is expected in the male side of a relationship that caused Japan’s grass eater sub culture, but it would still do China good to encourage men to pursue lives that don’t revolve around either women or physical violence.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

So a choice between war or becoming a nation of pussies? Not sure if the trade off is worth it.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

Actually it’s no contest I choose war instead. I figure if I’m going to spend my entire life a virgin playing video games, and jerking it to pictures of Sailor Moon then I’m dead already. What would I have left to lose?

[Illocust]

The latter situation would be temporary. Cultures that don’t breed by their very nature have trouble becoming and intergenerational thing. Plus you get all that lower crime rate and faster development of technology that comes with a large section of your population spending their evenings gaming.

[Christophe]

Well that culture dies off after a while, since it doesn’t raise kids. In theory, you can do this as a one-off with no long term consequences. Of course, China’s track record on social engineering isn’t exactly good (neither is anyone else’s for that matter).

[Pro Libertate]

Eventually, Japan will solve this problem by importing men from North America as breeding stock.

[Igor]

Well, for certain value of “men”.

Even as a consumer of manga, I have to concede that most of other the guys I know who are devoted to that ouevre that have said they’d like to live in Japan do so because they see it as cool, trendy, culturally advanced and unlike America, a place with a real future. So basically, they’re fantasists.

Even the more assertively masculine ones give off a “pajamaboy” vibe. These guys often couldn’t be breeders in a nymphomaniac colony.

[fleshy wavefunction]

Is ‘grass eater’ a stereotypical play on the words ‘glass eater’ that we have in english?

[Root Boy]

herbivores, not carnivores

[Trshmnstr doesn't recycle]

paging Swiss!

[fleshy wavefunction]

Not disagreeing, just curious whom you think they’d start a war with? Do they really believe they’re ready to take on the Big Dog or is that all just… Hyperbole and bluster? Not a “true threat”?

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

I don’t know. They wouldn’t attempt anything against us that would just be suicide. They have territorial claims with India, and the Russian far east looks tempting, and Russia has few allies in the world, and I still the Russians are militarily still strong enough to stop them.

No my guess is they’ll start acting like us, and get involved in some minor conflicts in countries that don’t concern them. Maybe North Korea would be a good target, they could claim they’re only trying to protect their borders with them, or that they are there on a peacekeeping mission should that country become unstable. North Korea has no allies that would protect it, and I doubt the international community would bitch much.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

Of course North Korea does have the bomb and that complicates things a bit…

[Drake]

Which is why Putin is bluffing in Eastern Europe. If he pulled his best combat units off the Chinese border for an adventure in the Baltics, the Chinese take Siberia.

[John]

Japan. The Chinese and Japanese hate each other and don’t really recognize the end of the Second World War.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

That would piss off the international community too much, plus Japan has close ties with the United States, and has a strict policy against aggressive military action, and so it would be difficult for the Chinese to blame the war of the Japanese. The presence of American soldiers in Japan also complicates things.

[John]

They are out building artificial Islands in what Japan considers its territorial islands. China still wants revenge for World War II. And even though Japan would like kick their sorry asses just like last time, the Japanese are an easier mark than Taiwan, who would send the entire Chinese navy to the bottom of the Formosa Straights taking a few hundred thousand invasion troops with it.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

Control of the sea lanes in the South and East China Sea and at a stretch Vietnam. They’ve been doing the latter for centuries. In fact they didn’t have the same reservations we did when they kicked Vietnam’s ass in the late 70’s. Funny how that works.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

This^^

Present treaties what they are, war with Japan is war with the US.

[R C Dean]

Japan has close ties with the United States

A bunch of countries in the Mideast thought they had close ties with the US, too.

Imagine their surprise when the US signed on to their bitterest enemy getting nukes, and offering their bitterest enemy a phat trade and assistance package into the bargain.

“Close ties with the US” these days means: Watch your fucking back.

[Illocust]

China can’t attack Japan. Anime is too mainstream and Nintendo is still a large section of the populations god in America. You mess with Japan and the nukes come out.

[Overt]

Not to mention the giant, city-wrecking robots and lizard creatures that I see on Japanese newsreels all the time.

[Trshmnstr doesn't recycle]

Mechagodzilla and Giant ASIMO v. the Chinese Million Man Army!!!

I’d watch it!

[Igor]

No AIBO/CyberWarg hybrids?

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

There are very few justifications for nuclear warfare. Threatening Studio Ghibli is one.

[Pan Zagloba]

Russia has a collapsing population and vast area in the east.
They’ve also been expanding in the Pacific, by literally making islands and claiming them Chinese territory. Vietnam and the Philippines aren’t happy about that.

Finally, there’s the good old standby of taking Taiwan. Call the US bluff – you want to end the world over it?

[tarran]

Riots in West Berlin, buildings in flames. East German fire brigade crosses the border
to help. Would you press the button?

[Pan Zagloba]

I posted that yesterday. Such an awesome show. Every libertarian should watch it (and share it – it’s a good recruitment tool).

[Princess Trigger]

The problem with that scenario is that the one-child policy also has left an enourmous segment of aging parents whose retirement plan is that one son. They’re not going to be too happy to see him marching off to Vietnam/Burma/Phillippines/California.

[Drake]

A more diabolical totalitarian solution would be forced sex-change operations on half the surplus men. Problem solved and anyone complaining gets their junk cut off.

[Lee G]

The dead cat bounce was only to give individual investors some source of optimism while the big boys try desperately to get more out of the market.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

The dead cat does seem to bounce a lot…and high too.

[Lord Humungus]

Tsipras Braves Parliament on Aid as Greek Outlook Worsens

With Greece’s finances deteriorating rapidly and its banks on the verge of collapse, the European Union proposed a four-week bridging loan that countries including the U.K. have refused to back. Adding to the worsening outlook, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund both said they had serious concerns about Greece’s debt load.

The increasingly desperate efforts to aid Greece underline the fragile nature of the deal struck in weekend negotiations to keep the country in the 19-nation euro region. The first challenge falls to Athens, where parliament must back a package of austerity measures as a precondition to the country’s third bailout in five years.

[Illocust]

Good on the other countries. They’ve finally learned their lessons. Greece has to actually make its lifestyle changes before it get more money, not just promise to do so someday.

[LynchPin1477]

It sounds like there is a decent chance this doesn’t get through the Greek parliament. Which, honestly, may have been the plan all along for some parties. Propose a deal you know can’t pass to shift blame back to the Greek MPs.

[LynchPin1477]

The IMF report highlights a massive flaw in the deal hammered out so painfully between Greece and the rest of the eurozone: the numbers don’t add up.

It believes that without a restructuring of the Greek debt, it will keep on rising.

But the point about this deal is once again in the eurozone, it was a case of politics trumping economics.

The desire to keep the eurozone together was stronger (for now) than the economic forces threatening to pull it apart.

Yep

[TwB]

The Eurozone has to let Greece go. They cannot continue to give Greece money, regardless of what useless plans are created to resolve Greece’s debt. The Eurozone has to send a message to the other countries that are in danger of becoming another Greece (Italy, Spain, Portugal), that they need to get their acts together. And if not, I wonder if we will see the Eurozone dissolve within the next 20 years.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Northern Italy’s economy (roughly 33 million people) is closer in line with the North. As for ‘getting their acts together’ Italy has been a member since the ECC and always generally got back in line with prescribed parameters just like Germany and France have.

Italy is not in great shape (and it merits close attention to be sure), but not as bad as painted either; and it’s certainly not even close to Greece. At all. Portugal is on record as saying they resent being compared to Greece for crying out loud:

GDP per capita: http://bit.ly/1y3zdoN

Peruse around eurostats. Not that bad and certainly not Greece.

http://www.theguardian.com/bus…..e-minister

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Greece: Island of the Blind:

http://bit.ly/1Jhu9y8

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Excerpt:

“…There are many egregious examples of entitlements gone berserk. One of the better known ones was that until a few years ago about 40,000 unmarried daughters of deceased public service workers received 550 million euros per year. The rule now is that these daughters can no longer receive a share of their late fathers’ pensions after they reach the age of 18. But Greece’s Court of Audit is considering whether sons should be entitled to retroactively claim this bounty because they had been victims of sex discrimination.”

[invisible furry hand]

We stopped importing criminals in 1868 – so please stop sending them

Amber Heard will have to answer two charges in Australia of illegal importation and one count of producing a false document ? namely the incoming passenger card.

She could face up to 10-years jail time and a fine of $100,000 if found guilty.

[fleshy wavefunction]

You need to build a wall. A Great Wall to make Australia great again! Do you want our Donald Trump? We will trade it for your fancy opera house.

[Dark Lord of the wood chipper]

Or Paul Hogan. Or a six pack of shitty beer. Or a novelty boomerang. Or…

[Lord Humungus]

Professor: Scott Walker and Hitler Share ‘So Many’ Similarities That ‘It’s Terrifying’

The College Fix reached out to Professor Goldrick-Rab on Monday to seek clarification about her strongly worded tweets. Goldrick-Rab released the following statement to The College Fix:

Thank you for your question. Please note that I have taken time out of my unpaid vacation to respond, as a courtesy to the timeliness of your request.

If you reread the tweet, you will see that I stated that an expert in the field ? a psychoanalyst with decades of experience ? compared the ‘psychological characteristics’ of the two individuals, and that I was struck by his analysis. There do appear to be commonalities.

I’m confident you are capable of seeing the difference between such an assessment and equating the whole of two different people.

I’m also confident you will note that the tweet was not a “reaction” to any particular event, and thus it may not fit with your narrative.

[gaijin]

an expert in the field ? a psychoanalyst with decades of experience ? compared the ‘psychological characteristics’ of the two individuals

Two individuals that the expert has never met nor interviewed….but an expert nonetheless. And who cannot be “struck by…the commonalities” in such an analysis by an expert?

[LynchPin1477]

a psychoanalyst

For example, both are ambitious, both like to talk in front of large groups of people, both are confident, both have been successful in the face of early opposition, and both want to have sex with their mothers.

[Lee G]

Raising the ad hominem bar to a whole new level.

[fleshy wavefunction]

I’d bet diamonds to doughnuts that if I took any two random historical figures, say Ghandi and Stalin, referred to them as patient A and patient B and had a ‘psychoanalysis expert’ look for commonalities, they would say that these are essentially the same person.

[Christophe]

Any two politicians probably have more in common, personality-wise, than a politician and the average person voting for them.

Pathological Narcissism, for starters.

[widget]

Please note that I have taken time out of my unpaid vacation to respond.

That’s withering.

[Certified Public Asshat]

Please note that I have taken time out of my unpaid vacation to respond, as a courtesy to the timeliness of your request.

Oh fuck you lady.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

AKA “summertime”?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Psychoanalysis commie I bet.

I reckon we can pull out traits out of anyone and compare them to anybody we choose.

It’s silly.

[GILMORE, Haiku Pornographer]

I’m confident you are capable of seeing the difference between such an assessment and equating the whole of two different people.

So she tweeted that too, after comparing dude to Hitler?

[Lee G]

A more convoluted version of ” just sayin’ “

[ant1sthenes]

I heard that he, or some other presidential candidate, was recently heard speaking favorably of some Nazi-sympathizing eugenicist. Terrible times we live in.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

I believe that same person was seen embracing a man with a White Power tattoo.

[Pro Libertate]

Credibility, what’s that?

[Chinny Chin Chin]

Something impossible to find in the field of psychoanalysis. Is there any softer science?

[Pro Libertate]

It’s not a science. The science in that field, to the extent it really exists, is mostly in other fields, like neurology.

[Chinny Chin Chin]

It makes economics look like astrophysics.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Typical passive-aggressive feminist shitlib response.

[Warty]

For my money, Krugman won the debate, even though he did not have the home crowd. In fact, he openly antagonized the audience, saying, “There is a version of the world you want to hold. It just isn’t true.”

It was an enlightening moment, because Moore and Krugman peddle confirmation bias for a living. Whether or not Krugman realized that he also was talking about himself and every block of voters in America, I have no idea.

As far as a bipartisan array of pundits and political junkies are concerned, libertarians are and will always be evil Ayn Rand acolytes who will not rest until America has no public roads to drive upon or fire stations in front of which to place its Dalmatians. It is the party of tinfoil hat crazies.

“I don’t want to drink raw milk, but some people do. I don’t want to smoke marijuana, but some people do,” Boaz said. “It’s also true that a lot of Republicans still want to fly the Confederate flag, and only a few years ago it was the Democratic Party that put the Confederate flag on top of the South Carolina statehouse. Bernie Sanders looks at a world full of Venezuela and Greece and says, ‘Let’s be more like those countries.’ Who are the crazies?”

Good shit in the Playboy article. Also, tits.

[Irish ?s ESB]

“For my money, Krugman won the debate, even though he did not have the home crowd. In fact, he openly antagonized the audience, saying, “There is a version of the world you want to hold. It just isn’t true.”

It was an enlightening moment, because Moore and Krugman peddle confirmation bias for a living. Whether or not Krugman realized that he also was talking about himself and every block of voters in America, I have no idea.”

Wow, that’s actually…a pretty astute observation. Maybe I should start reading Playboy for the articles.

[Medical Physics Guy]

“There is a version of the world you want to hold. It just isn’t true.”

I’m not giving him that. I would say that libertarians favour an open society, and we generally don’t make any claim to the world having one or another inherent nature. Rather, in giving people liberty, our knowledge of the world is constantly being improved and altered through a kind of hive mind discovery process.

[Warty]

It doesn’t really matter to me that freedom makes people richer. It does, of course, and it’s good that it does. But my primary reason in being for freedom is that it’s not moral to constrain people against their will unless they’ve done something to deserve it. If we could be, say, twice as wealthy with Krugman as omnipotent economic dictator, I still wouldn’t be willing to do it.

[tarran]

Why write all those words, when someone already is making the argument with all the eloquence needed.

[Jerryskids]

“There is a version of the world you want to hold. It just isn’t true.”
.
I agree with that – but dig a little deeper into that and look at it from a reverse angle. Libertarians believe that we would have a better world if we depended more on voluntary cooperation. That world being a better place depends on most people being mostly good, mostly acting rationally in their own self-interest, mostly working to achieve their own goals and leaving other people alone. That’s a rather dubious proposition, I think. That world being a better place also depends on the definition of “better” – libertarians tend to believe people getting what they want is “better” regardless of whether or not most people think it’s better. Drug addicts want drugs, for example. Are they better off for getting what they want?
.
Krugman I think would say no to that last question – people are better off if they get what they should want but most people are too stupid or lazy or evil to pursue what they should want rather than the shiny baubles of whatever it is they think they want. And who do you suppose Krugman has in mind to instruct the plebs as to what they should want and force them (at gunpoint if necessary) to pursue the good as Krugman sees it rather than the good as the plebs see it?

[Chinny Chin Chin]

I’d be very curious to understand exactly what Krugman thinks is the libertarian’s version of the world. The fact that he thinks we all agree on that version tells me his conception doesn’t hew closely to reality.

In any event, I like the fact that he antagonized a crowd from the safety of a video feed. In my version of the world, Krugman is a weenie, and he’s confirmed that as true.

[Igor]

I don’t think it’s outrageous to think that Krugman’s image of libertarians looks awfully like a mountain of burning straw men, atop a bottomless pit of currently unignited straw men, leading all the way down to the Earth’s core.

[invisible furry hand]

Joe Donatelli is the Sex & Culture editor of Playboy.com.

And yet there is not one mention of the average libertarian’s stance on butt sex

[Warty]

What stance do you prefer? Reverse anal cowgirl is way better in theory than in practice, it turns out.

[invisible furry hand]

There should be some sort of government guideline

[Igor]

To come up with guidelines, you’d need inspections.

And probably a permitting process.

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

Current government guideline on butsechs:

FYTW.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Rand Paul sues Obama administration over FACTA banking law

Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul sued the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service over rules on how Americans abroad are taxed and what foreign banks must disclose about U.S. customers.

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is supposed to make it harder to hide assets overseas, yet its regulations are unconstitutional and violate privacy rights of U.S. citizens, Paul said in the complaint. The suit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Dayton, Ohio, also seeks to strike down requirements for Americans to file reports on foreign accounts over $10,000.

The tax act, or Fatca, “imposes enormous economic costs on individuals and financial institutions,” according to the suit by the U.S. senator from Kentucky and six others. It makes millions of Americans living abroad report accounts above $50,000 with their annual tax returns. Fatca also requires foreign banks to report any account held by a U.S. taxpayers.

“On the most fundamental level, Fatca deprives individuals of the right to the privacy of their financial affairs,” according to the complaint. “On a practical level, Fatca is severely impinging on the ability of U.S. citizens to live and work abroad.”.

“Rand Paul Sues on Behalf of Tax Dodgers!” //HuffPo headline

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

Even if you work abroad the United States still owns you apparently, and the Huffpo has no issue with this.

[Chinny Chin Chin]

Your life abroad, you didn’t build that.

[Certified Public Asshat]

About time, the reporting requirements are ridiculous and clients are bitchy (for good reason).

[Pro Libertate]

This practice is totally at odds with any concept of a free people. The U.S. government doesn’t fucking own us.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

concept of a free people

Nice sentiment, let me know when you find any.

[Lord Humungus]

Ghost Students, Ghost Teachers

Over and over, the United States has touted education ? for which it has spent more than $1 billion ? as one of its premier successes in Afghanistan, a signature achievement that helped win over ordinary Afghans and dissuade a future generation of Taliban recruits. As the American mission faltered, U.S. officials repeatedly trumpeted impressive statistics ? the number of schools built, girls enrolled, textbooks distributed, teachers trained, and dollars spent ? to help justify the 13 years and more than 2,000 Americans killed since the United States invaded.

But a BuzzFeed News investigation ? the first comprehensive journalistic reckoning, based on visits to schools across the country, internal U.S. and Afghan databases and documents, and more than 150 interviews ? has found those claims to be massively exaggerated, riddled with ghost schools, teachers, and students that exist only on paper. The American effort to educate Afghanistan’s children was hollowed out by corruption and by short-term political and military goals that, time and again, took precedence over building a viable school system. And the U.S. government has known for years that it has been peddling hype.

[UnCivilServant]

Goes right along with the Ghost divisions in the Iraqi army.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Our government? Lying? How dare you accuse them, good sir.

[Illocust]

Freaking BuzzFeed is the one to find this out. Fuck, do Journalist just not care about the low hanging national news fruit anymore?

[LynchPin1477]

Fuck, do Journalist just not care about the low hanging national news fruit anymore?

Donald Trump, Caitlyn Jenner…that IS the low hanging fruit.

[commodious spittoon]

Afghanistan stopped being interesting around the time we switched drivers and headed into the sunrise of racial and social harmony.

[Rhywun]

Not since around 2008.

[gaijin]

BuzzFeed News investigation

I am sure CBS, NBC, ABC and the NYTimes have already investigated this story.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

We simply exported CPS and LAPSD to Afghanistan. Why is everyone bitching?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Why is everyone bitching?

Because we didn’t send em all?

[Rich]

psychologists are telling parents and caregivers to put them down because cellphones may be hazardous to our children’s mental health.

BAN CELLPHONES — FOR THE CHILDREN!!

[Root Boy]

There is a story out of Dallas of some mom who let her three kids drown in a pool because she was preoccupied by her cell.

Of course nobody should have to be told to watch your little kids at a pool and this woman probably did it on purpose.

[Lord Humungus]

Is flicking a sunflower seed littering? Winnipeg police think so
‘Angry cop’ dings man $175 for flicking sunflower seeds out sunroof

A man visiting from New Zealand learned the expensive way that discarded sunflower seed shells are considered litter in Winnipeg.

David Watt was driving last Thursday on the Moray Street bridge and eating sunflower seeds, flicking the empty shells out the sunroof of his car, when he heard a police siren chirp.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

When are people going to react the same way to a cop stealing $175 from them as they would any non-uniformed thug stealing $175 from them? I mean people have been shot over much less.

[Acosmist]

That is littering, though. There’s a debate about this?!

[commodious spittoon]

My buddy used to throw bags, wadded up food wrappers, and on occasion entire styrofoam containers out the window when he’d finished eating. Kind of a scumbag. He was never stopped or ticketed. There’s a place for discretion in enforcing laws, much like wanting to pull into a lit area before yielding to a cop shouldn’t be treated as evading police.

[Chinny Chin Chin]

I had a friend who did the same. He was an environmental educator, and said he was ensuring job security.

[Rhywun]

Somewhere, a tear rolls down a fake Indian’s face at the sight of massive piles of sunflower seed shells, covering the land and somehow not biodegrading.

[Overt]

That is littering, though. There’s a debate about this?!

When I was growing up, small bio-degradable waste like this was not considered littering. It was specifically told to us by teachers in school that it was no different than what happens in nature every day.

[BigT]

Can you still flick boogers out the window?

[looks around sheepishly]

[Lord at War]

“Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms.”

[Mike M.]

Mark Steyn: comparing Obama to Neville Chamberlain is unfair to Chamberlain.

[Lord Humungus]

Yellen intensifies Republican outreach amid Fed probe, Senate bill

As political pressure mounted on the Federal Reserve this spring in the form of a regulation relief bill and a probe into an alleged information leak, Fed Chair Janet Yellen kicked her congressional outreach efforts into high gear.

Yellen connected with more individual lawmakers in May than in any other month since she took on the Fed’s top role in February 2014, according to her most recent calendar disclosure, obtained through a freedom of information request.

A test of that effort will come on Wednesday, when Yellen delivers her semi-annual monetary policy report to the House Financial Services Committee, the scene of intense verbal clashes when Yellen last appeared before that panel in February.

[Root Boy]

Ha Ha. Trying to save her hide and the Fed due to that minutes leak to their wall st. buddies. What is such a joke is they leak shit all the time to their bank buddies and they only got caught because the stupid analyst firm decided to print the fucking minutes.

Of course she will save her hide. Nobody seems to want to rein in the temple priests

[Irish ?s ESB]

“Millennials will outgrow the “sharing economy,” says Time writer Bobbi Rebell, as if Uber and AirBnB are like slap-bracelets and saying “bae” rather than immensely convenient and cost-effective services used by people of all ages. ”

This new fangled television contraption shall surely never catch on. It is but a novelty, likely to peter our and vanish once people grow tired of its minor, transient pleasures.

[Rhywun]

The logic in the article seems sound to me – i.e. millenials are getting older and moving to the burbs and producing issue. These are not the folks using Uber and Airbnb. It’s not saying anything about the “sharing economy” itself fading or rising.

[Root Boy]

I’m an old fucker (between baby boom and genx) and I use Lyft pretty often (no, not to go to Walgreens to get my metamucil), and we used Abnb to get a rental when we moved recently.

[Rhywun]

Fair enough. OTOH, I’m Gen X and I have never used either. I do think the users skew younger and more urban, though.

[Trshmnstr doesn't recycle]

I see a bunch of interest from Gen X and Baby Boomers in things like Uber/Lyft/AirBnB, but there’s generally a hesitation to pull the trigger and actually use the service.

[Overt]

The funny thing is that Uber is only marginally a Sharing Economy business. Yeah, there are some people who drive around in their shitty car to make a few extra bucks, but by and large it is being used by professional black-car drivers.

[Overt]

The funny thing is that Uber is only marginally a Sharing Economy business. Yeah, there are some people who drive around in their shitty car to make a few extra bucks, but by and large it is being used by professional black-car drivers.

[Free Society]

I don’t see what’s “sharing” about it that’s any different from other market interactions. The person owns property, their car, that they combine with their labor to provide a service to consumers.

When a person says “sharing economy” I think of those gift systems that can only work in small hippie communes.

[Trshmnstr doesn't recycle]

“sharing” effectively means individual franchising with low regulatory overhead.

[Free Society]

I understand “what it effectively means”. But it’s an arbitrary label to describe the type of economic interaction taking place. We don’t consider garage sales to be a facet of the “sharing economy”, nor all sorts of low regulation economic activity. Maybe next time the Democrats go after background checks for private firearms sales we can rebuke them for cracking down on the “sharing economy”.

[BigT]

“He who controls the language controls the masses”. ? Saul Alinsky in Rules for Radicals

In this case the use of ‘sharing’ is working to our benefit since it give a good feeling to good ol unfettered capitalism.

[ant1sthenes]

You know, with a little more standardization, the “sharing economy” is basically very decentralized franchising. Maybe someone should develop a “sharing economy” app for security services, develop a sort of quasi-national entity.

[UnCivilServant]

A “Hue and Cry” app which sends an alert to any phone in the vicinity when an alarm goes out?

That might actually work.

[Juan "Brushmaster" Seguin]

I always thought an app like that would be great for places like Mali or some such…a sort of decentralized early warning system for people to bug out when the assholes come riding through.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Florida state Rep. Carlos Curbelo “has taken to Spanish-language media to suggest that Trump’s campaign could be a Democratic scheme to hurt the Republican Party.”

Because no one could be that est?pido?

[Lord Humungus]

Britnnnneyyyyy

The world only has ugliness for black women. That’s why Serene Williams is so important.

Media personalities suggest that she’s doping. And racists emboldened by the mouthpiece and anonymity of twitter misgender her, calling her a man and deriding the strength of her body. In a piece at the New York Times, Ben Rothenberg interviews several current women’s tennis players who evince varying levels of anxiety about how playing the sport makes them look “unfeminine.” In the midst of this, Serena says, “I’m really happy with my body type, and I’m really proud of it. Obviously it works out for me. I talk about it all the time, how it was uncomfortable for someone like me to be in my body.”

That kind of body confidence from a dark-skinned, “thick” Black woman, with a round posterior that all my homegirls and I, straight and gay alike, admire, is hard won. This world does not love Black girls or women, and it takes every opportunity to project its own ugliness onto our bodies. We spend a lifetime trying to resurrect our self-esteem from these hastily dug mass graves.

[TwB]

Uhhh, how about Iman? Naomi Campbell? Tyra Banks? Last time I checked, they are all black and they are all supermodels.

And how does playing tennis make women look “unfeminine”? Are you kidding me?

[Certified Public Asshat]

And how does playing tennis make women look “unfeminine”? Are you kidding me?

Looks feminine to me

[Warty]

Serena Williams’s heavy PED use is an open secret. Now, I don’t have any problem with that, because if you’re a professional athlete and you’re not taking drugs, you’re not really trying to win. But I wonder what this writer would think about Serena’s body confidence and shit if she knew how much her pharmacist has to do with her body’s shape.

[TwB]

Of course Serena Williams has used PEDs, and if not early in her career, definitely over the last 5 years. You dont stay this dominant in tennis, especially women’s tennis, after age 30 without some pharmaceutical help.

[Warty]

She has a panic room in her house. When the drug testing people show up unannounced, she hides in the panic room. Why? Because you’re allowed to miss one or two tests before it counts as a positive. It’s trivial to beat the drug screening if you have half a brain. And remember, it’s not against the rules to take drugs, it’s against the rules to be caught taking drugs.

[Crusty Juggler]

Excuse me, she is all natural.

I give her credit for getting into the best shape she can, because after reading this fairly good story about injury prevention in the NBA, I learned that the biggest obstacle to a player’s health is laziness.

[Warty]

A lot of NBA players are shockingly weak. It’s amazing that “gain 30 pounds and get twice as strong” is still considered insane advice.

[TwB]

Remember Darius Miles? High school to NBA kid back in the late 90s? He couldn’t even bench press the BAR. The fucking BAR. And he made it in the NBA for over 10 years. It boggles the mind.

[Warty]

Well, if you’re close to 7 feet tall and have good hand/eye coordination, the NBA can use you. You can’t teach height.

[Crusty Juggler]

Step Curry credits dead-lifts with helping to strengthen his ankles. I would be reluctant to say was the entire cure, but working out in a way that gives a player’s entire body more muscle has to help with recovery, especially during such a long season.

[Crusty Juggler]

Steph Curry. There.

[Warty]

And even he is only as strong as a 14-year-old farmboy. A 400 pound deadlift counts as insane strength in the world of basketball, it seems.

[John]

The good ones are not weak. One of my friends from college is fairly close with Tony Allen of the Grizzleys. That guy is a monster in person. He is solid muscle.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

The ultimate example

Manute Bol

[John]

No one competes at an elite level in a sport like Tennis at her age without PEDs. Remember, she has been playing professional tennis for almost 20 years. Professional tennis players are some of the most fit athletes on earth. Keeping your body at that level of fitness wears it down. What happens to tennis players is they lose their legs. They can still make the shots but they lose the ability to get there and set up for the shot. Getting there just a fraction of a second later at that level is the difference between setting up and hitting a proper shot and reaching and hitting a poorly placed or outright error.

There is no way that she is going to win a grand slam at age 33 without PEDs. And if she were anything but a black woman, the media would be all over her.

[Trshmnstr doesn't recycle]

Look at Federer. He was all-time great talent, and he’s struggling at 33 to make it to the finals of a tournament anymore. He used to straight-set people all the way to the final and then fight an epic battle with Nadal (who has also lost a step).

From personal experience, my ball placement on the tennis court was 10 times better when I was (a fit) 205lbs compared to 225lbs. Like you say, getting there a fraction sooner helps a ton for setting up a shot.

[John]

Roger Federer is one of the greatest players of all time. He is also one of the fittest and hardest working players of all time. I would like to hear someone explain how it is that Williams is playing the best tennis of her life at age 33 while Federer is no longer able to beat the top younger players even on his best surface.

[Trshmnstr doesn't recycle]

As an even better example, look at her sister. Venus was never quite as good as Serena, but in their prime those two were pretty close, talent-wise. They were clearly the head of their class, and both had the potential to become all-time greats. Then they both lost their dominance for 4 or 5 years due to injuries. Now Serena is back to almost prime levels, but Venus is a journeyman player.

There are obviously some confounding factors (I think Venus has a chronic illness), but you can tell that there is something fundamentally different about 33 year old Serena versus 35 year old Venus.

[Trshmnstr doesn't recycle]

Also, Venus shows what somebody of Serena’s body type *should* look like in tennis fitness. She’s definitely still big and powerful, but she’s not buff.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

She’s been built like the Hulk for several years now–of course people are going to wag their tongues when even the most powerful female athletes typically have very little muscle definition.

Look at Ronda Rousey–her “walking-around” weight is about 150 pounds, but even when she’s training for a fight and dehydrating to make weight, there’s not nearly the amount of muscle mass that Serena has.

[John]

And Rousy is 28. She is five years younger than Serena, which makes Serena’s build even more suspicious. Of course Rousy has to meet a maximum weight and Williams doesn’t. Rousy can’t just endlessly add muscle mass.

[lap83]

Like most progs, she’s confusing “the world” with Hollywood.

[Aloysious]

Brittney Cooper is a contributing writer at Salon, and teaches Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers.

Schlong.com. Where your brain goes to die.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I still have nightmares about Navratilova.

[John]

That whole article is a giant insult to Navratilova. People were brutal to her in ways they have never been to Williams.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Hospital consultant becomes first man in UK to be ordered to pay EVERY penny of his ?550,000 assets to his GP ex-wife in extraordinary divorce case
A hospital consultant has become the first man to be ordered to pay all of his ?550,000 assets to his ex-wife, following an extraordinary divorce ruling.

Anaesthetist Dr Essam Aly, 54, ‘washed his hands’ of his family after leaving wife Enas, 46, in 2011 and moving to Bahrain – and has not paid a penny in maintenance or child support since 2012.

Out of the reach of the British authorities and courts, it was feared the ‘serial defaulter’ from Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, would never again pay to support her or their two children….

[TwB]

Ok, the guy is a deadbeat dad, I get that. But to take ALL of his assets? Jesus christ, that is extreme.

[Drake]

Should have taken all his dough with him when he skipped off to Bahrain.

[John]

Unless the marriage was arranged and forced on her, maybe his wife bears some responsibility for her poor character judgement.

[Trshmnstr doesn't recycle]

Sucks for the kids, though.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Hillary Clinton’s brilliant plan to get Millenials to join unions

Her argument isn’t just the moral one, it’s also smart politics. Workers, especially young workers, know intimately what she’s talking about. As Shane Ferro at Business Insider points out, the gig economy has been instrumental in suppressing wages for most workers outside of the wealthiest ten percent. In addition, being a gig worker?even if you work the lengthy, body-destroying hours that Bush has in mind for you?is just plain expensive. Since you don’t get benefits, your actual income is much lower than it would be if you were paid the same at a real, full-time job.

It’s also an issue that can help tie together Millennial voters with the older, union worker base that Clinton has traditionally leaned on. Young voters are understood, for good reason, as alienated from labor organizations, largely because they have almost no real access to organized labor. But this issue unites these two Democratic bases. The young voters want more job security and fairer wages for their work. Labor wants to preserve an economic system where people work full-time jobs with security and benefits. Their interests align perfectly on this issue. We just need some leadership to bring them together, and Clinton’s campaign is as good a place as any to start on that front.

Clearly Amanda has never worked a union job.

[gaijin]

a real, full-time job

Unreal

[GILMORE, Haiku Pornographer]

Most young union members get shit hours because work is doled out by seniority, not productivity

[Root Boy]

And that is if they get hired in the first place since unions are very effective at eliminating jobs

[Overt]

Additionally, every time the Union is forced to make concessions on pension payments, health insurance, etc, the new workers are the ones that take it while older workers are “grandfathered” in. Union philosophy is fundamentally no different than many other liberal bastions including Social Security, Journalism and Academia. Spend your entire young life supporting the generation before you (with dues, pension contributions, and unpaid labor intensive work) in the hope that the system is still in place in 20 years when the next generation comes in.

The problem is that the decrease in Union membership is causing the same problems as the decrease in young wage earners has caused for Social Security. They are simply running out of enough young people to keep the old people comfortable, requiring the young to pay and work even more. Eventually the young are going to decide it isn’t worth the cost.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

“Labor wants to preserve an economic system where people work full-time jobs with security and benefits. Their interests align perfectly on this issue. We just need some leadership to bring them together, and Clinton’s campaign is as good a place as any to start on that front.”

This sentence gets my vote as an example of the rampant economic illiteracy today.

[LynchPin1477]

I don’t really have a problem with people wanting to unionize, as long as they don’t get special treatment by the government and employers are free to say no to unionized labor. But in principle, unions can server a very valuable function for workers.

[ant1sthenes]

An economy where workers own the capital directly and “management” is highly automated and just helps with marketing and sales can serve a very valuable function for workers.

[Drake]

Who needs benefits when they have all those delightful options through Obamacare? And isn’t her party advocating further manufacturing destroying emissions regulations to appease the Greens?

Make up your mind Grandma.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

SETTLED SCIENCE, OR SELECTIVE IGNORANCE?
…Then there is a fact that, in my opinion, doesn’t get enough emphasis in these debates: in the course of preparing its most recent report, AR5, the IPCC slashed its estimate of future global warming by almost 50 percent. And this was at the end of 2013! How can the science be settled, when it isn’t even settled within the IPCC, a political body that was established by the U.N. to promote global warming alarmism?

It is obvious to any disinterested observer (i.e., anyone not funded by a government) that the alarmists are in disarray. Their models?the sole basis for their predictions of catastrophic warming?have been shown to have no ability to forecast the future. And, in fact, they don’t even hindcast very well. It is easy to create a model that matches the past better than the alarmists’ models, but to do that, you have to downgrade the importance of CO2?which is, in truth, a minor factor in the Earth’s climate….

[NotAnotherSkippy]

http://www.thegwpf.org/content…..rd-inc.pdf

And it gets worse:

http://climateaudit.org/2015/0…..ing-paper/

[Rich]

Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps?and What We Can Do About It

since most female clothes are more fitted, they often double as restraints, Eliot says, pushing girls away from physical activities.

I’m thinking Dr. Eliot probably doesn’t wear a bra.

[widget]

Let me take this opportunity to send my thanks to men’s underwear makers.

So I’m in the coffee break room with the operators and old Jose comes back from the restroom complaining that his balls splashed in the water when he sat down on the toilet.

The free market has solved this problem with underwear that supports without gripping.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Just a question before I borrow your chair… Do you keep your underwear on when you shit?

Stinky?

[fleshy wavefunction]

In sports, men frequently wear tight fitting clothing because it’s actually the opposite of a restraint. It gets in the way when you’re trying to do stuff. Compression shorts, baseball and football pants, etc. You don’t see anyone trying to run the 100-yard dash in baggy jeans. This is idiotic.

[fleshy wavefunction]

Loose clothing gets in the way. “It” was a bad choice there.

[BigT]

You don’t see anyone trying to run the 100-yard dash in baggy jeans.

Until the cops show up.

[Root Boy]

I was watching some good parkour videos on youtube with my son and was surprised all the dudes (and some girls) were wearing these stupid looking baggy sweats. They were able to leap tall buildings though.

And to add — hasn’t this writer heard of the rise of UnderArmour and seen what they make?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Church disciplines wife for wanting to divorce husband who admitted paedophile leanings
A Dallas megachurch is facing accusations that it has failed to deal with one of its members who viewed images of child abuse and instead made his wife a subject of church discipline.

The 10,000-member Village Church, whose lead pastor is Matt Chandler, supported two of its members, Jordan and Karen Root, in their work with the SIM USA mission organisation in East Asia. Jordan Root was found to have been viewing child pornography and his appointment with SIM was terminated following an investigation and his admission of guilt.

…Karen Root ? now Karen Hinkley ? took steps to have her marriage annulled and resigned her membership of the church. However, The Village Church has a strict ‘covenant’ membership policy which includes the commitment: “I will seek to preserve the gift of marriage and agree to walk through the steps of marriage reconciliation at The Village Church before pursuing divorce from my spouse.”…

[invisible furry hand]

“Root” is Australian slang for “fuck”.

That is all.

[Crusty Juggler]

Let’s go rootin some ‘roos?

[Igor]

On the other hand, telling someone you “feel like a shag on a rock” is considered quite genteel.

I swear, Australian English is by far the most entertaining when it comes to toilet, sex and nudity terminology.

[Derpetologist]

I have it on good authority that in Oz, frogs are called “chazzwozzers” or “malungagoolachucks”.

[UnCivilServant]

Strange names for the French.

[The DerpRider]

How popular is root beer in your neck of the way?

[invisible furry hand]

All beer is root beer if you drink enough of it

[gaijin]

DO you root, root, root for the home teams there?

[invisible furry hand]

Starstruck young ladies in some crappy nightclubs dom and then wonder why he doesn’t phone them the next day.

One supports, follows, or barracks for a team, eg. “Fuck the Rooters, I barrack for the mighty Bunnies” = “I hold the Sydney Roosters Rugby League Club in disdain, as I support the South Sydney Rabbitohs”

[Timon 19]

Lest you think she made up those team names, behold: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._G._Ball_Cup

[Lord Humungus]

Kumbaya

Israel and Saudi Arabia present united front over Iran deal
Iran’s enemies unsettled by its deal with the West, but Bashar al-Assad of Syria says it is ‘a great victory’

[widget]

There’s no lack of theories on this Internet thingy that Israel and the Saudis are both supporting ISIS. Each for his own reasons. The Saudis are either Shia or Sunni, fuck if I can keep this straight, but the Saudis and ISIS together belong to the more rigorous sect of Islam. Iran is populated and ruled by apostates of the other variety. But Iran is a more potentially competent as a threat to Israel. Thus, NutandYahoo, who seems kind of alpha and gives some here in the US a hard on, begs for support in the US Congress.

Our President, who I have few kind words for, won’t play this game. And good for him.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Oldest sperm ever found in Antarctica

Benjamin Bomfleur can’t help but laugh a little when talking about this latest, record-setting discovery.

“A 50-million-year-old worm sperm from Antarctica?” he said between chuckles. “Who would have thought that’s possible?”

And yet, what Bomfleur, of the Swedish Museum of Natural History, and other researchers stumbled upon was a serious discovery: the oldest animal sperm ever found.

As it goes with many great discoveries, this wasn’t what they were looking for. While on an expedition on Seymour Island in the Antarctic, Thomas M?rs, a paleobiologist at the same museum, was looking for signs of small mammal bones when he discovered a fossilized cocoon. Remembering that cocoons like this often carried notable remains of plants, he passed it along to Bomfleur, a fellow palaeobiologist. Bomfleur took it and started looking for plant remains. That’s when he noticed the long, fragile remains of what appeared to be a sperm.

No expert in sperm himself, Bomfleur sent pictures of the specimen along to Marco Ferraguti, who just so happened to be an expert in annelid sperm.

Through radiometric dating, it was determined that the cocoon and its contents were at least 50 million years old, making the sperm the “oldest fossil animal spermatozoa yet identified.”

Life will find a way.

[Rich]

worm sperm from Antarctica

Nice album name.

[tarran]

sent pictures of the specimen along to Marco Ferraguti, who just so happened to be an expert in annelid sperm.

I guess we know Crusty Juggler’s real name now.

[Crusty Juggler]

Disgusting.

[Medical Physics Guy]

God put that sperm there approximately 5000 years ago, but He made it appear 50 million years old.

[Derpetologist]

Spot the Not: wacky government studies

1. a study to determine why prisoners want to escape from prison

2. a study to determine if cocaine use increases risky sexual behavior in Japanese quails

3. a study to build a robot laundry folder

4. a study to teach mountain lions to run on treadmills

5. a study to determine the incidence of sexism, racism, and homophobia in toddlers

6. a study to determine the effects of Swedish massage on rabbits

[invisible furry hand]

I’m tossing up between 2 and 4. I remember 5 actually happening

[Citizen X]

Isn’t “tossing up” Strine for puking or jerking off or something?

[invisible furry hand]

No. “Toss” can mean “masturbate”, and “tosser” means “wanker”, but it’s not the most commonly used term (“wank” wins hands down. Or hands on.) Using the word the way I did (to indicate vacillating between two options) would not even get a smirk. “Root” OTOH…

[Derpetologist]

I guess the slang meaning for root came from rut.

[Derpetologist]

5 is the Not, although there have been various cases of children as young as 3 being punished for supposed racism and sexism.

[Christophe]

I’m going to go with 6.

[Warty]

I watched the Randi documentary last night. It was really well done. Recommended.

[Crusty Juggler]

Thanks for the recommendation.

[Derpetologist]

I liked it when Randi exposed James Hydrick and Peter Popoff, although Popoff has returned to televangelism and is as shameless as ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CASghTzNhc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7BQKu0YP8Y

[Aloysious]

The two televangelists that I will never understand the appeal of is Popoff and Robert Tilton. How these two appeal to ANYBODY is beyond my ability to comprehend.

[Warty]

Tell people what they want to hear, tell it charismatically, tell it shamelessly, and the world is yours.

[Citizen X]

See also: Barack Obama.

[Derpetologist]

Some ancient Roman said mundis vult decipi, ergo decipiatur. The world wishes to be deceived, therefore it is deceived.

[Aloysious]

I understand what you are saying; my disconnect with the believers, whether it be of the televangelists or team red/blue clowns happens with their initial reaction to whichever personality appears on the screen. Their reaction is to take said televangelist or politician seriously, and my initial reaction is to laugh out loud with derision.

Probably explains why I am some weird mix of anarchist/Libertardian.

[John]

Two things are going on I think. First, people want to believe. Second, to admit the guy is a fraud is to also admit you were a fool who was taken in by the fraud, which is not something people like to admit.

[Lee G]

The emotional cost to admitting you were wrong about something you held onto so dearly and structured your life around is large. Most people can’t do it. Politicians, evangelists, fraudsters, etc… all understand this very well and use it to their advantage.

[Derpetologist]

I have read that hearing an opinion you agree with stimulates the pleasure center of the brain in a way similar to food or sex.

Explains a lot, doesn’t it?

A few years ago, I went to Salt Lake City to visit and old friend. We had gone to the same Mormon church when we were kids before becoming Latter Day Ain’ts. We went to the temple for shiggles, and I struck up a conversation with a young greeter/junior missionary. She asked asked if I was Mormon and I said I used to be. She asked why I left. I said the main reason is that there is no evidence for the events described in the Book of Mormon: no evidence for the battles or cities, native languages and religions have no resemblance to Hebrew or Judaism, etc. She said that I needed to use my faith to see the truth, a statement that to me was so absurd it left me speechless for a moment. I said we must agree to disagree.

Truth and honesty are very important to me. It’s impossible to do the right thing if you can’t tell true from false.

But for many other people, all they see is: this is my tribe, my tribe is good, my tribe protects me, I protect my tribe.

[Lee G]

use my faith to see the truth

I hate that sentiment with a passion. Not the first time I’ve heard it.

[John]

Derpologist,

That is how I am. It is why I have never been a member of a church. While I certainly listen to other people and learn from them, ultimately I make my own conclusions and I can’t sign on to something I don’t agree with. And no church that I have ever found quite matches my beliefs.

[Trshmnstr doesn't recycle]

A church is a tool. The church I go to doesn’t match my beliefs or my lifestyle particularly well (not many churches do), but it has resources and people that do match my beliefs and lifestyle a bit better. At the very least, these are people who are capable of challenging my beliefs and discussing them on my level. What ends up happening is that I grow my ownership of my beliefs because I’m forced to take responsibility for protecting them when I’m surrounded by people who don’t think the same way that I do. As the Bible says, iron sharpens iron. My beliefs would be rather crude if they weren’t sharpened by criticism.

However, I couldn’t imagine church being my primary exposure to my faith. It would be miserable, confining, and quite superficial. IMO, a church is like a TED talk. You get the warm fuzzies from it, but you’re not any closer to becoming an expert than you were when you walked in the door.

[Lee G]

Saw that this past weekend. I enjoyed it. Sort of wish they had spent more time on Geller.

[John]

I could see that being good. Does it spend much time on how Randi destroyed Yuri Geller?

[Lee G]

Not enough for me. Also wish they had talked about Randi’s prize for proof of psychic powers more.

[Warty]

It spent a good bit of time on Uri Gellar, and it turns out that he’s undestroyable. Which is pretty frustrating to watch. The last third was mostly about the immigration woes of his boyfriend, and that was unexpectedly interesting.

[Lee G]

Get yer Geller crystals right here

http://site.uri-geller.com/crystal_connections

[John]

Undestroyable meaning his brain dead fans won’t give up or that even Randi can’t figure out how he does it?

[Lee G]

Geller and his ilk always have an inexhaustible supply of hopeful idiots to draw upon. Even Popoff is still in the game.

[commodious spittoon]

He’s always two steps ahead of Randi, almost as if… no, that can’t be right.

[Warty]

Undestroyable in the sense that no matter how many times his lies are exposed, he keeps on getting rich telling them. It’s depressing.

[Pro Libertate]

I like that they were open about his failure to destroy frauds like Gellar, despite exposing him in about as public a way as possible. What’s truly disturbing about Gellar (knew this one before seeing the documentary film) is that he had some scientific backing. Frauds are something we have to deal with, but they’re far more dangerous when they have a veneer of science protecting them, even if the science is poorly performed.

[BigT]

Frauds are something we have to deal with, but they’re far more dangerous when they have a veneer of science protecting them, even if the science is poorly performed.

Global Warming anyone?

[Pro Libertate]

I ended up watching it, too (well, I had to stop with 11 minutes to go, so I technically haven’t finished it). Quite good.

[Once More Into the Hopper]

Florida Man Laughs at Mere Man on Horse Bestiality

Ever want to make it with a cloaca?

/would’ve been more impressed if he’d got oral from it

[Once More Into the Hopper]

Best comment:

There was no crime here. Rupert Darwin identifies as an alligator. Love wins!

[John]

Bingo. That guy shouldn’t have been arrested. He should be getting an award at the ESPYs tonight.

[Citizen X]

His last name is Darwin? Dude’s just trying for the eponymous Award.

[John]

Someone was asking yesterday what the Republicans in Congress were thinking when they agreed to give up their advise and consent power over the Iran deal. What they were doing is making the Iran deal another Obamacare in that it will another disaster that will pass without a single Republican vote and leave Democrats holding the bag for Obama’s fuck up. That is of course cynical beyond belief. They are basically okaying a disaster just so long as the other side is stuck with it. That is however what they are doing. And the Democrats in Congress are insane to fall for it. This treaty is going to be rejected, Obama is going to veto, and every single Republican in Congress will vote to override the veto. If Congress doesn’t override it and the deal goes through, the Democrats will now own Iran and be completely responsible if Iran gets nukes or any harm they cause with them.

[TwB]

Exactly. John, I wonder if any Democrats actually grow a pair and reject the treaty. Some of them have to come to their senses, right? Maybe?

[John]

I wonder. If they don’t reject it, it puts lie to all of the conspiracy theories about the Saudis running Washington. You can debate about whether Iran will threaten the US or use nukes on the US. There is no question, however Iran will do that to the Saudis. The Saudis are in big trouble if Iran gets nukes.

[UnCivilServant]

You’re attributing guile and strategy to a congressional leadership that has repeatedly bent over backwards to accomodate Obama’s vision instead of following the voter mandate that put them where they are.

[John]

The GOP are small men with little imagination and no courage. Like all politicians they have a feral sense of political survival.

[Derpetologist]

Everybody complains about politicians. I sort of feel sorry for them. They respond to incentives just like everyone else. If voters consistently vote for people who increase spending, say the right buzzwords, wear suits, smile when they don’t mean it, and promise everything to everybody, what do you think politicians will do?

It’s silly to expect politicians to be more noble than the people who vote for them.

[John]

This is true. And it is also silly to think the GOP leadership knows nothing about politics or how to win elections. It is foolish to attribute any kind of principles or values but equally foolish to think they have no political acumen. If they didn’t have that, they wouldn’t be where they are.

[ant1sthenes]

Sure, like Hillary is responsible for openly breaking the law. When you own the vast majority of the media and education complex, facts are not a fucking problem.

[John]

Some facts are undeniable. They try to pretend that Obamacare is working but people see their insurance premiums. They will no doubt try and claim “just is just bad luck and no one could have stopped Iran” and in fact already are. But it won’t work. Their control of the media works on issues where the failures of Prog policies can be hidden and ignored by the media. This isn’t one of those issues.

[commodious spittoon]

Alt text: That’s a man, baby!

[Ken Shultz]

“Meanwhile, Catholic employers who object to the Obama administration’s accommodation on covering birth control in insurance plans were dealt a blow by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday.”

Catholic employers who object were dealt a blow, as well as Protestants, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Zoroastrians, atheists, and everyone else who cares about their First Amendment rights to religious freedom.

When this goes to the Supreme Court, as I’m sure it will, it’ll be interesting to see whether broccoli comes up again. It’s one thing to say that the federal government can force people to eat broccoli against their will like ObamaCare does, quite another to say that ObamaCare can force people to eat broccoli–even if eating broccoli is expressly violates their religious convictions.

P.S. Can the government require Muslims and Jews to eat pork in spite of the First Amendment?

[invisible furry hand]

Can the government require Muslims and Jews to eat pork in spite of the First Amendment?

The pork lobby will be happy to give it a go.

[The DerpRider]

They’ll be rooting for it?

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

*narrows gaze*

[John]

What starts as “we need to make sure everyone has health insurance” ends with a bunch of Nuns being forced to buy birth control. If that isn’t a microcosm of how progressive government actually works, nothing is.

[Ken Shultz]

And it should also be noted that progressives see using the coercive power of government to violate people’s religious rights as a feature rather than a bug.

The whole definition of “progressive” is a belief in using the coercive power of government to force individuals to make sacrifices of their individual rights for their “greater good”.

In other words, forcing Catholics to perform abortions or hand out birth control isn’t an unintended consequence of the law–and we shouldn’t let the progressives hide behind that kind of rhetoric.

The progressives did this to Catholics on purpose, and if it violates the First Amendment rights of Catholics, then the progressives are glad about that. It’s time for them to celebrate!

[John]

They absolutely are. It is why they changed position on gay marriage. Progs spent decades hating marriage and doing everything they could to tear down the institution. For the entire decade of the 80s and a good part of the 90s gay marriage was seen as nothing but a tool to oppress gays and destroy their unique and free culture. Then suddenly every Prog was informed marriage was sacred and gay marriage a fundamental human right. Why? Because they figured out gay marriage was a way to go after freedom of religion.

[tarran]

The progressives did this to Catholics on purpose, and if it violates the First Amendment rights of Catholics, then the progressives are glad about that. It’s time for them to celebrate!

Few people remember that the evangelical protestant movements that spawned modern progressivism (in much the way that Tortskyite communism spawned the neoconservatives), were very motivated from the get-go to use the state as a tool to break the back of Catholicism and to lever Catholics away from the church.

Their attitude toward christianity may have changed, fads like eugenics may have come and go, but their anti-Catholic zeal has stayed pretty true (except when contemplating the liberation theology movement).

[Ken Shultz]

“except when contemplating the liberation theology movement”

Some people in the church see that as anti-Catholic, too.

[John]

Yes. One of the driving force behind the creation of the public schools was to try and get kids out of the clutches of the evil Catholic schools.

[Trshmnstr doesn't recycle]

This should be the rallying cry of any liberty-lover. Progressives try to pin hatred of blacks and women on the GOP and others, despite a rather tenuous connection at best.

There is a direct correlation between the hatred of Catholics by the Social Gospellers/Progressives of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the modern Progressives. If they want to talk about dog whistles and innate biases, maybe it should be pointed out that everything they do seems to be to spite the Catholic Church.

[Trshmnstr doesn't recycle]

I’ll add that the same tactics are in play that were 100 years ago. The eugenicist Progressives branded Catholics and other religious groups as “anti-science” because they wouldn’t leap to evolution’s “inevitable conclusion” of eugenics. The Social Gospel Progressives branded Catholics as “backwards and uncivilized” because of their immigrant ties.

The same critiques that are levied by Progressives today have been honed and whittled for over a century, mainly against Catholics.

[tarran]

What starts as “we need to make sure everyone has health insurance” ends with a bunch of Nuns being forced to buy birth control. If that isn’t a microcosm of how progressive government actually works, nothing is.

I had a married couple as neighbors who were both in dentistry; husband is a orthodontist and wife a pediatric dentist who is the lady all the dentists in the area send children needing complex dental procedures to.

Laughing bitterly, he told me that he had been forced to purchase dental coverage for his kids. he and his wife still do their dentistry, but now they have to pay a third party to reimburse them for their expenses (and thus lose even more money on the deal).

[CatoTheChipper]

They will never be satisfied with merely controlling behavior. Their objective is to control the way people think. To do this, they must punish crimethink.

[Princess Trigger]

The National Pork Board is intrigued and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Pro Libertate]

Sure. Just make the compelled consumption a law of general application, and it’ll be totally legal. Well, maybe not totally since that’s completely unconstitutional, but that’s the way the law, legitimately or now, works now.

[John]

Make everyone purchase a set amount of pork every month. No one says you have to eat it, just buy it. And of course Kosher Delis will have to sell it since they are a public accommodation and your religious freedom apparently ends with your thoughts in our brave new America.

[Pro Libertate]

There’s the peyote case, too, which lets us screw religious people if we do it to everyone else. I get the justification of that to a very limited degree (human sacrifice may be part of your religion, but it’s still murder), but there’s an amazingly bad precedent there.

[John]

Yes it was. I don’t think it would have been very hard to draw the line to allow drug use while not allowing human sacrifice. I am pretty sure the state’s interest in preventing murder is of a different order of magnitude than its interest in enforcing the drug laws.

The issue should not have been equal treatment. The issue should have been a balancing test between the state’s interests in maintaining law and order and the religious believers’ right to free exercise. So things that directly victimize others like human sacrifice, child marriage, theft and such lose but pretty much anything else wins.

[Pro Libertate]

There’s a libertarian solution–so long as your religious practice doesn’t infringe on the rights of others, then it’s groovy. So peyote is fine. Of course, why they didn’t do that is obvious–a decision hat broad would’ve resulted in a new drug-using religion in a matter of weeks.

[John]

The reality is prohibition of any substance for personal use is contrary to the BOR. There was a time when the country understood this. This is why they passed an Amendment to ban alcohol. Today, they would just ban it outright and Roberts would uphold the law calling the ban a tax that is enforced by prison in lieu of payment.

[Galactic Chipper Cdr Lytton]

Even with prohibition, there were exemptions for sacramental and medicinal use. And personal possession in your own house for yourself, family, and any guests was also allowed.

The Volstead Act was three pages long. Three pages! Modern day proclamations honoring someone aren’t that short, let alone actual legislation.

[commodious spittoon]

But where in that justification does the state get to invoke an intrusive and overbearing compelling interest in regulating your intimate affairs?

[Pro Libertate]

They don’t, of course. I was just thinking in terms of the law as it is now, not as it’s supposed to be under that fading piece of parchment.

[John]

Spittoon,

I am not sure if you were being sarcastic or not. But the answer is they don’t have one. The government only has an interest when your actions affect other people such that there is a conflict. The government’s role is entirely to step in and resolve conflict and administer justice so people do not do so themselves and you end up with blood feuds and such.

So, I would agree that a state or local government could regulate or ban the public sale of drugs. It should have no ability to ban the private possession or production of drugs or the transfer or sale of such as long as it occurs within your home. Basically your body and your home should be your castle and out of the reach of government. Government only should be involved when you step out into the public sphere.

[Ken Shultz]

“There’s a libertarian solution–so long as your religious practice doesn’t infringe on the rights of others, then it’s groovy.”

Right on the money!

It’s a huge pet peeve of mine, and it goes all the way back to John Stuart Mill. Honest liberals will still say that individuals should have the right to do anything that doesn’t harm other people–but we’ve since come to realize that everything we do–or don’t do–harms somebody else in some way. Not buying health insurance can “harm” taxpayers, growing wheat on your own farm for your own use can “harm” other wheat farmers,…

The correct standard is that we should all be free to do as we please so long as we don’t violate someone else’s rights.

I should be free to start a pizza restaurant next to yours, make pizza of higher quality at a lower price with better service and drive you out of business so that you lose your home, your wife divorces you, and she takes your kids away.

Yes, I have a right to harm you.

If I don’t buy insurance, it might do the taxpayers harm, but that does not necessarily mean that I don’t have the right to refuse to buy insurance.

[Pro Libertate]

Mandatory seatbelts were justified because it “harmed” society in higher insurance premiums.

[Ken Shultz]

In Wickard v. Filburn, they expanded the scope of the Commerce Clause by saying that a farmer who grows wheat on his own farm for his own consumption is illegal because it means he buys less wheat on the open market, and that hurts wheat farmers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

Everything we do or don’t do “harms” somebody in some way.

Every time I don’t buy something, I’m harming someone in some way.

Every exhale of mine sends more CO2 into the atmosphere.

If we give the government the ability to regulate anything we do (or don’t do) that harms someone else, then we have given the government the ability to regulate every single aspect of our lives.

There must be some limit on the Commerce Clause somehow! You’d think First Amendment religious rights might out from under the Commerce Clause’s authority, at least, right? Are they really going to give the Commerce Clause precedence over the First Amendment, like really?!

[John]

Exactly that Ken. The state has a proper role in quality of life issues. So for example if street walkers and their customers are fucking up a neighborhood, that affects other people and the state can say no street walking. Understand, it is not banning prostitution just banning a certain way of doing it that adversely affects other people. If a woman engages in prostitution in her own home, then state has no role there assuming she is not rippling someone off.

[Hyperbolical (wadair)]

…she is not rippling someone off.

Sounds intriguing.

[Trshmnstr doesn't recycle]

So for example if street walkers and their customers are fucking up a neighborhood, that affects other people and the state can say no street walking.

How are they fucking up the neighborhood? Are they loitering in other people’s yards (trespassing)? Are they littering? Are they parking on the street and blocking the neighbors’ driveways? Or, are they just bringing a “bad set” to the neighborhood? I don’t see anything wrong with Nancy Nightwalker strutting her stuff in her front yard, waiting for a John to happen by.

[CatoTheChipper]

“Can the government require Muslims and Jews to eat pork in spite of the First Amendment?”

In light of recent events, it seems more likely that government will ban pork because its production and consumption perpetuates the legacy of hate toward Muslims and Jews.

Only disingenuous haters and right-wingers would argue that they like bacon because it tastes good and that it is part of their culture’s cuisine. We all know that bacon is an overt symbol hate.

[Free Society]

A woman reportedly told police she was counterfeiting money because she read online that President Barack Obama created a new law stating that people can start printing their own money.

The Times News reports Pamela Downs tried to use a counterfeit $5 bill at a local grocery store in Kingsport, Tennessee, on Sunday.
Police say that counterfeit bill was printed on computer paper and that each side had been glued together.

“I don’t give a ****, all these other b****** get to print money, so I can too,” she reportedly told police when she was arrested.

She kind of has a point.

[Pro Libertate]

It’s a crime when she does it; it’s sound, well-considered monetary policy when the government does it.

[commodious spittoon]

Of course it’s a crime when she does it; she can’t manifest nearly enough of that phlogistan quintessence aether aggregate demand that powers the economy.

[Clich? Bandit]

Wow, the AZ prime and walmart online sales are completely locked up..some good deals on Walmart though..

[Notorious G.K.C.]

So Planned Parenthood seems to have come up with its talking points on the selling-of-fetal-remains scandan – they realize that “it didn’t happen” will fail the laugh test, so they’re going with “sure it happened, and it’s perfectly legal and respectable!”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/a…..video.html

[Notorious G.K.C.]

“and these right-wingers are evil for exposing this totally legitimate activity!”

[ant1sthenes]

You wouldn’t think that an organization founded by a Nazi-sympathizing eugenicist who wanted to rid the world of degenerates, darkies, and the disabled would go around trying to profiteer off of industrial mass-murder of human beings. It’s always the ones you never suspect.

[John]

But she meant well.

[Pan Zagloba]

She was just trying to deal with the externalities irresponsible people inflict on the society around them by breeding!