Boehner Could Get the Boot, Senate Fast-Tracks Planned Parenthood Vote, Taliban Leader May Be Dead: A.M. Links

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  DonkeyHotey/Flickr

  Republican Rep. Mark Meadowns (R-N.C.) filed a "motion to vacate the chair" which could ultimately oust House Speaker John Bohener (R-Ohio) from his position. The chances of this happening are low, but Meadows said he wants to force a "family conversation." 

• Afghan officials said they are looking into reports that Mullah Mohammed Omar, "the mysterious one-eyed leader of the Taliban who has had a $10 million price on his head since 9/11," is dead.  
• John Kasich wants us to leave Donald Trump alone about marital rape. (P.S. Trump/Palin '16?)
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Tuesday fast-tracked a Planned-Parenthood defunding measure; the Senate could vote on it as soon as next week. 
• Will urban resurgence hurt Democratic candidates?
• Border patrol agents are stopping about 3,100 people every week. 
• The New York Times has offered an official "Rebuttal to The NYRB's Article on NYT Nail Salon Series." 

New at Reason:

• Brickbat: It All Adds Up - Charles Oliver
• Zealots at the EPA: Creating environmental rules that hurt even environmentalists - John Stossel
• The Second Indictment of Dylann Roof Is Worse Than Redundant: New charges against the Charleston shooter highlight the unconstitutional absurdity of the federal hate crime statute. - Jacob Sullum
• Listen to Me Marlon: Marlon Brando in his own words - Kurt Loder

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Republican Rep. Mark Meadowns (R-N.C.) filed a "motion to vacate the chair" which could ultimately oust House Speaker John Bohener (R-Ohio) from his position.

Here come the tears.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hello.

Alex Rocco is dead?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Rocco

[egould310 reppin' LBC]

Great character actor. RIP, Alex Rocco.

I wonder how Lou Reed will take the news?

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

Maybe he will suggest the Cleveland Browns as pall bearers?

[gaijin]

Judas Priest! Not again

Here come the tears

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Broken.

Like your face.

Or is it heart?

[gaijin]

Well now I am crying

Here Come the Tears

[postalmarksman]

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=kiss tears are falling&qs=VA&form=QBVR&pq=kiss tears&sc=8-10&sp=1&sk;=

[widget]

I don't like him much. He's got a German last name which is pronounces as 'boner'. Jews with the last name 'Wiener' don't cower down so much even when they should.

[In League with the Dark Ones]

It's actually more like "behner".

[Clich? Bandit]

*sniff sniff*

Something smells bad. I think it is this thread. *looks down thread* Yeah, gunna walk right by this one.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

77) I have this theory that the success of a society depends on how well it deals with its sociopaths. I assume there's a certain level of sociopathy that normally occurs, and if there's a robust rule of law and productive paths for such people, things will be all right. For instance, if a society can funnel the smarter of those guys into, say, the corporate executive suite and stock trading, and the dumber ones into, I don't know, defensive lines in football, or at least prison, then things will go well. It's when those sociopaths run loose without legal checks, or manage to acquire real power, that things turn to shit. I think many sociopaths tend to gravitate naturally towards law enforcement, and over the past 30 years we've removed a lot of restraints on them there (more militarized equipment, lower standards for engagement with the population, etc.) and we're now seeing the unfortunate results.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Save it for a Trump thread.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Don't you have a job now you should be working at?

[Mike M.]

Fuckface should have finished his crappy rock and roll book a long time ago. I'm surprised that the publisher hasn't just cut their losses and pulled the plug on his sorry ass already.

[WTF]

Are you quitting on me? Well, are you? Then quit, you slimy fucking walrus-looking piece of shit! Get the fuck off of my obstacle! Get the fuck down off of my obstacle! NOW! MOVE IT! Or I'm going to rip your balls off, so you cannot contaminate the rest of the world! I will motivate you, IF IT SHORT-DICKS EVERY CANNIBAL ON THE CONGO!

[wareagle]

we elect sociopaths but, unfortunately, not for the purpose of keeping an eye on them.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Apparently, we like our sociopaths to keep an eye on us.

[Christophe]

+1 Panopticon

[Free Society]

Democracy is nothing if not a contest between pathological liars where the winner is he who is best able to hide his sociopathy from the public. Popular elections virtually guarantee that despicable people will gain power.

[SugarFree]

and the dumber ones into, I don't know, defensive lines in football, or at least prison

Internet trolls.

[Lord Humungus]

Black would have been acceptable...

Britain's Lord Sewel quits Parliament after he was caught on tape allegedly snorting coke, wearing orange bra

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hasn't that always been a standard behind the scene activity for British parliamentarians?

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

Needz moar autoerotic asphyxiation.

[Zeb]

What good is being a Lord if you can't have a little fun?

[Slammer]

Carson does NOT approve.

[SusanM]

Oh, those upper-class Brits...

https://youtu.be/MHMuSA63eoA?t=73

[Charles Easterly]

I expected Monty Python. Thanks for the surprise.

[SusanM]

That's the first time I've been thanked for surprising someone 😉

[Not a Libertarian]

well +100 for the Young Ones

but I am not certain that Lord Sewel was upper class.

He is a life peer; before joining the House of Lords he was an academic and a Labour local government official.

[Pope Jimbo]

That lord snorts like a lady!

[Monty Crisco]

Hot Air on a topic that inspires fervent debate among libertarians:

http://hotair.com/archives/201.....harvester/

"It's that they know that the organ-harvesting trade exposes the lies on which their business model is built, and the American public will see it for what it is ? the industrialized killing of human beings for convenience. It's horrifying."

But, like Rotherham, this topic won't be covered here at reason as reason TENDS to be a little left-leaning? (yes, Nick, I am looking at you?)

[Zeb]

Yeah, what Reason needs is more abortion arguments.

[Crusty Juggler]

No, what Reason needs is fewer abortion arguments!

[Juvenile Bluster]

I'm here for an argument.

[Zeb]

Oh, sorry, this is abuse.

[Crusty Juggler]

You are wrong!! This is NOT abuse!!

[WTF]

Yes it is.

[lap83]

+1 stupid git

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

I am here to be hit in the cervix with a hammer ...

[Charles Easterly]

Kristen posted a link to a skit which referenced your preferences (above, at 9:47).

[Elspeth Flashman]

You know who else was hit in the cervix with a hammer?

[Old Man With Candy]

No, what Reason needs is fewer abortion arguments!

OK, you're already better than ENB.

[SugarFree]

Or most libertarians support a robust free market in organs.

[gaijin]

free market in organs

Anyone have a good Foie gras recipe?

[Spencer]

Oh, I thought this was all about churches and ballparks being able to maintain their atmosphere's without government intervention.

Dun dun dundun dun DUN- ChARGE!

[Certified Public Asshat]

Watch out, PB just stepped up next to you and tried to put his arm around you.

[SugarFree]

We just don't need anymore whining around here. One Winston is far more than enough.

[Palin's Buttplug]

I'm a radical social and market liberal.

Selling stuff to each other is the basis for a society - whether it be goods, sex, drugs, or whatever and should not be the business of any government whatsoever (including state and local government taxes).

[SugarFree]

No, you're a troll. Fuck off, ass donut.

[Citizen X]

No way, dude! Buttplug is completely a free-market, no-government-interference kinda guy*, just like his hero Barack Obama!

*according to his diseased self

[tarran]

Oh God! Surely you, sugarfree, recognize the futility of arguing with creatures with cognitive capacities so low that cockroaches routinely beat them at chess?

[SugarFree]

Oh, I do. But some here are trying to link me to the turd, and I won't have it.

[Lord at War]

"Hey SugarFree, need a kidney? I've got one from some moron in Georgia that thinks he's a libertarian..."

[Monty Crisco]

Aren't you PRO-Obamacare?!?

[Certified Public Asshat]

Yes, because markets!

[Palin's Buttplug]

Aren't you PRO-Obamacare?!?

No. I have only defended the private market portion of it as better than Medicare.

In fact, it will be the future model of Medicare privatization.

[Monty Crisco]

What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Talking. About?

[SugarFree]

He's just lying, Monty.

[Palin's Buttplug]

You dumbass. Don't you know that Cigna, Aetna, Anthem and others BID on insurance contracts in the Obamacare portal?

If you go to healthcare.gov and apply for insurance you are buying PRIVATE insurance from an (ostensibly) low bid private supplier.

[commodious spittoon]

The community rating, mandates, and heavy subsidization are, of course, mere courtesies.

[Spencer]

that you are forced to buy because of gov't intervention... and they are only allowed to sell you certain coverages... because of government intervention... AND the cost is going up... because of government intervention.

[Jordan]

Except for health insurance (Obamacare), financial instruments (Dodd-Frank), minerals (Dodd-Frank), or guns (every gun control proposal from Obama). Actually, I've never seen you not defend a regulation from TEAM BLUE.

[Palin's Buttplug]

You're lying.

[Spencer]

he's rubber, you're glue. nananananana!

[Old Man With Candy]

He lies 8% of the time.

/trying to remember the atomic number of tin...

[Free Society]

Selling stuff to each other is the basis for a society - whether it be goods, sex, drugs, or whatever and should not be the business of any government whatsoever (including state and local government taxes).

Nonetheless you not only demand that all sorts of goods and services be produced by the government, but that everyone has a right to those goods and services. Fucking logical consistency, how does it work?

[Not a Libertarian]

I am dubious that you fall under a market liberal identification but certainly well within the social liberal framework.

Somewhere between social democrat and actual conventional classical liberal.

This is a perfectly valid political position even on a libertarian website.

Your online persona on the other hand...

[wareagle]

and if PP were paying its organ suppliers, or at least waving the fees on abortions, their case might sound better.

[SugarFree]

So just incinerating perfectly good organs is preferable?

Either women can take their biohazardous waste home with them or Planned Parenthood can sell the abandoned property.

[wareagle]

I'm just saying - pay your supplier, or write off the procedure as part of the cost of doing business. I'm not demanding govt force everyone else to agree.

[SugarFree]

Planned Parenthood is eating the cost of disposal either way.

And besides, offering free abortions when they are Federally funded? You'd squawk about that just as loud.

[wareagle]

I wouldn't squawk about any of it if the federal $ went away. Abortion is the least interesting issue going.

[Mrs. Lemuel Struthers]

Planned Parenthood is eating the cost of disposal either way.

No. PP get's paid for providing abortions and disposal is a cost within that payment.

[Marshall Gill]

Either women can take their biohazardous waste home with them or Planned Parenthood can sell the abandoned property.

Abandoned property? You are pretty nimble for a big guy.

[Mrs. Lemuel Struthers]

Either women can take their biohazardous waste home with them or Planned Parenthood can sell the abandoned property.

Either the women or medicaid are paying for the abortion so disposal should be covered within the cost.

The problem is really that PP has been dishonest about the transactions. They've limited the knowledge of the "donors". In some cases they've altered the actual procedure without the consent of the patient to better harvest organs intact. They've then accepted a fee in excess of the cost of storage - thereby profiting from the exchange.

If you want to make it about a transaction, at least require full disclosure instead of obfuscated bullshit.

[Illocust]

If they were honest less women would want abortions. Its the same logic as saying fetus vs baby. Baby humanizes and makes it harder to mentally justify killing. Talking about harvesting organs does the same. Organs are something humans have not parasites or clumps of cells. Hell its why the whole sonogram thing was fought so hard against.

The funny thing is I started truly on the fences about this subject, but the more I find out that's being hidden the more I start going against anything that isn't first trimester.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

For organs obtained legally, from people who consented to giving away their organs, or selling them yes. Not sure how a fetus can consent that, or if it even matters.

I have no strong feelings on this one, but it seems to me to be a little more morally grey then some people are making it out to be.

[SugarFree]

No, there is only this fantasy that abortions are happening because Planned Parenthood is selling the resultant by-products. Which has outraged the people already outraged that abortions are being performed in the first place. The organ sales are absolutely irrelevant.

[Monty Crisco]

This is true. But I think this issue is causing people to think about what it means to abort a 24-week fetus as opposed to a 4 week clump of cells.

[Monty Crisco]

And, actually, I haven't seen ANYONE making the argument that " abortions are happening because Planned Parenthood is selling the resultant by-products."
Abortions are happening, though. A LOT. And PP makes more money than the NCAA. Which, I think, is also federally funded.

[SugarFree]

Ahem...

ant1sthenes|7.29.15 @ 9:34AM|#|?|filternamelinkcustom

Well, people already assume PP is predisposed to encourage women to have abortions, rather than make their own choice. But now there is evidence that they might be making a lot more money from the abortion, once the organ and tissue sales are accounted for, so it isn't even mere ideology in play.

[Monty Crisco]

I don't consider him a leading pundit or the comments section a national venue for his argument. But ultimately he IS making the comment that people respond to incentives, and I agree with that. Most people do. But I don't think that THAT is the reason that "abortions are happening".

But it is DEFINITELY the reason that PP doesn't want over-the-counter contraception...

[Free Society]

Well they are an institution set up for the purpose of encouraging abortions. The fact that they sell baby organs may or may not have any bearing on their modus operandi, but it presents a clear conflict of interest while they try to convey an image of being an unbiased health service provider.

[wareagle]

the organ sales on top of the abortions are an ick factor. That PP gets federal funding is not helping the organization.

[SugarFree]

Defund them. Defund the hell out of them, but pretending that this is some step too far for an audience of already committed pro-lifers is hilariously disingenuous.

As is Monty's idea that this is about 4 weeks vs. 24 weeks. Whatever lies the pro-life movement tells about a "reasonable compromise" on viability, 95% of them won't be content until all abortion is banned, and most of them don't raise an objection about calls to ban IUDs and Plan B (which is what calling those methods "abortion" amounts too.)

This "controversy" is no different than the crusade to mandate condoms in the porn industry. They don't care about condoms; they want to make porn unviable because they can't get the political will to the polls to ban it outright.

[wareagle]

Being disingenuous or self-serving is not new. It was barely a week ago that a Jefferson / Jackson fundraiser was renamed over slavery. Similarly, pro-lifers are going to latch on to this and it's not a tough emotion to capitalize on.

Monty's idea is far closer to the crux of the matter than you want to give it credit for - if organs are being harvested, then the differentiation between person and fetus gets all the murkier. And, as with the pro-lifers you cite, an equivalent percentage of the choice crowd is just fine with abortion on demand right up till birth, as their collective yawn over Kermit Gosnell demonstrated.

[SugarFree]

Similarly, pro-lifers are going to latch on to this and it's not a tough emotion to capitalize on.

I agree. It is a very emotion-driven argument.

And once again you display the idea that pro-choice people are somehow ignorant of what their position entails, when in reality they just don't care.

[wareagle]

And once again you display the idea that pro-choice people are somehow ignorant of what their position entails, when in reality they just don't care.

no, I did not say they are ignorant. They know full well what their position is and they very much care.

[Just say Nikki]

And, as with the pro-lifers you cite, an equivalent percentage of the choice crowd is just fine with abortion on demand right up till birth, as their collective yawn over Kermit Gosnell demonstrated.

Why would that make anyone yawn over Gosnell, who harmed the women getting the abortions? It's just a total non sequitur.

[Monty Crisco]

The left did their damndest to ignore it regardless. And Gosnell was convicted of homicide of the infants as well as the woman.

[Just say Nikki]

People also get convicted for drug crimes every day.

[Monty Crisco]

Don't really get the point you are trying to make. His original point - that libs don't care about abortion taking place up to the point of birth and even after - has been made by the fact that they did everything they could to ignore Gosnell.

[Just say Nikki]

I don't know who "ignored" Gosnell. I know a lot of people who were horrified him, but not because of abortions "taking place up to the point of birth and even after" (this is literal nonsense). Because he hurt women. I read about Gosnell on mainstream sites. I saw reports about him on the news. It seems that by "ignore," people just mean "don't get upset about exactly what I'm upset about."

You seem to be arguing that people should have been upset about the abortions because they ended up categorized as crimes, but that is of course not persuasive to a libertarian.

[Monty Crisco]

That is not what I am saying at all. By ignore, I mean the majority left media acted like it was a non-event until they were shamed into covering the trial by Fox news. That is the ONLY reason you saw any coverage of it.
And while I agree that Gosnell's treatment of women was appalling, his treatment of infants was worse, because his method of "abortion" was to induce labor. deliver the child and essentially slit its throat.
There was plenty to be horrified at with Gosnell. The left thought not so much.

[Plush Cthulhu]

I don't think it's improper to observe that PP now looks a little less a "medical service provider" and a little more like a "meat processing plant".

A bit more "Hormel, Inc." than "Chicago Hope", if you like.

[WTF]

You know who else processed humans like a factory slaughter house?

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

Kurt Vonnegut?

[Charles Easterly]

"You know who else processed humans like a factory slaughter house?"

Boston Memorial Hospital?

[Zeb]

Then so do all hospitals. Lots of money gets made from organ donations.

[Plush Cthulhu]

I dunno, the 'evil bastard' part of me would like to see the pregnant woman's name on a release form that clearly indicates that they are donating their aborted 'undifferentiated clumps of cells' (or 'differentiated fetal liver tissue', if you're not in the 'clump of cells' camp) to Planned Parenthood with the knowledge that it is not going to be incinerated as medical waste.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

They're not irrelevant. If you die, and you're not an organ doner I can't legally do anything to your organs. Even though you're dead I'm still expected to respect your wishes in that regard, whether I agree with them or. If you see the aborted fetus as a human being with rights then you are harvesting it's organs without their consent.

It's no different then a severely handicapped person, with no way to consent dying and you then harvesting their organs.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

"an organ doner"

Is that like a German cannibal sandwich?

[SugarFree]

And you care about the organ harvesting more than the "murder?" Of course not. In absence of the harvesting you would object to the exact same degree. Therefore, it is irrelevant.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

So if someone was selling organs from murder victims you would be cool with that? Just the free market at work huh?

[robc]

There is some subset of people, however small, who are generally okay with abortion but opposed to harvesting organs. This issue is about shifting them.

Not everyone is set in stone on one side or the other.

[SugarFree]

There is some subset of people, however small, who are generally okay with abortion but opposed to harvesting organs. This issue is about shifting them.

I can accept that.

But most of my issue is with the constant calls here that I and/or Reason should be more outraged than we are. And it's not just on this lone subject. And I find that exceedingly boring.

[John]

But most of my issue is with the constant calls here that I and/or Reason should be more outraged than we are

Logically, you should not be. That said, however, doesn't the fact that they can harvest organs from these things make you question your assumption that life doesn't begin with the magic trip down the birth canal, just a little?

[SugarFree]

Life doesn't begin at the birth canal. But then life has nothing to do with personhood. Broccoli is alive. Is that a person too?

[John]

Life doesn't begin at the birth canal. But then life has nothing to do with personhood

You do realize that "personhood" is a completely subjective, unscientific bullshit made up term? Seriously, how can you of all people resort to such bullshit? There is no objective meaning to "personhood". It is just a made up word that can mean whatever the person using it wants to mean and is nothing but a rationalization to kill people. You think a fetus doesn't meet the definition of "personhood", Peter Singer thinks a two year old child doesn't. The Nazis thought a Jew didn't. And there is no way for you to claim they are wrong other than to say you don't agree.

[Just say Nikki]

And there is no way for you to claim they are wrong other than to say you don't agree.

We've been over this. There's also no way for you to say SF is wrong that it's okay to kill a "human life" other than to say you don't agree.

[John]

There's also no way for you to say SF is wrong that it's okay to kill a "human life" other than to say you don't agree.

No. I can point to objective things like DNA, and brain activity and say that is what makes a life. Sure, you can claim that those are not it. But I can claim that my factors are objective and scientific and yours are just convenient rationalizations for the result you want. Further, I can also say that my criteria are both objective and don't justify killing large numbers of people. Claiming "personhood" can't do that. Since it is not objective, you can use it as a reason to murder anyone.

If you want to support late term abortion, fine. But don't delude yourself with horseshit like personhood. Just be honest and admit you don't know if it is a life and don't care if it is. That is at least truthful.

[Just say Nikki]

I can point to objective things like DNA, and brain activity and say that is what makes a life.

And what is your objective reasoning by which it is wrong to kill a human?

[John]

And what is your objective reasoning by which it is wrong to kill a human?

If you don't want to buy the NAP, that is a different debate. But the object reasoning for it is that my desires are in not better or more important such that I have the right to kill someone absent self defense. I don't have a right to steal from you do I? If your interest in your property is great enough to take away my right to take it, then your interest in living is certainly great enough to make it wrong for me to kill you.

[Just say Nikki]

Well, the debate seems to be that you think what you do is objective, but what other people do isn't. Which doesn't seem terribly objective.

[Mickey Rat]

And that is a sociopath's logic, which puts human rights and therefore libertarian philosophy in question.

[Mrs. Lemuel Struthers]

And you care about the organ harvesting more than the "murder?" Of course not. In absence of the harvesting you would object to the exact same degree. Therefore, it is irrelevant.

Yes, you can. The patient consented to the abortion but not necessarily to the organ harvesting.

Again, it's about consent. Were the patients aware that "tissue donation" entailed the abortionist altering the procedure to better extract whole organs? Were they aware that PP may have been receiving a fee for intact organs?

If PP fully disclosed then all if fine. But, as I suspect, they obfuscated the procedure, the "tissue", and the cost then they are fucking liars. If they ethically have no problem with what they're doing then then why wouldn't they disclose? Because they know some of their patients and the general public would object. Therefore they hid the process and lied about it.

[Zeb]

If you see the aborted fetus as a human being with rights then you are harvesting it's organs without their consent.

Yes, and you are also opposed to abortion whether or not organs are harvested, so the whole question is redundant.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

If you die, and you're not an organ doner I can't legally do anything to your organs.

1. Should this be the case?

2. What about children? Say, a one-week old or two-year old child? Isn't consent up to the legal guardians anyway?

3. As SF said, if the fetus is "a human being with rights," then the "murder" charge overshadows this weak "but the fetus didn't consent!!" charge.

[John]

Yes it should be the case. You own your body even after death. Why wouldn't you? I get to determine who gets my property after death. The government can't just come and take my house just because I am dead. Why would my body be any different.

And yes, the parent or guardian makes the decision for a child. And yes, it is a child and yes the fact that the parent murdered the child is a much bigger deal than them consenting to PP selling its organs.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

Even if "you own your body," "you" are dead. Should the organs be treated like other property, and consent passed to the appropriate party if it was not specified while you were alive? The government also doesn't bury/incinerate your house with you when you die.

[John]

Even if "you own your body," "you" are dead. Should the organs be treated like other property, and consent passed to the appropriate party if it was not specified while you were alive?

Sure. But that just means your family makes the decision, provided you didn't leave a will expressing your desires.

[ant1sthenes]

Well, people already assume PP is predisposed to encourage women to have abortions, rather than make their own choice. But now there is evidence that they might be making a lot more money from the abortion, once the organ and tissue sales are accounted for, so it isn't even mere ideology in play.

[SugarFree]

pro-life zealots already predisposed assume PP is predisposed to encourage women

FTFY

[Spencer]

Look- rational arguments don't work on irrational people. Many of the commentariat are irrational about this topic- more than any other.

[John]

So SF, the fact that they are making money selling the body parts of aborted fetus in no way changes your opinion about the possibility that PP is predisposed to encourage women to have abortion? Is PP just noble and different than every other organization in human history and immune to the desire to make money?

And it is the pro life people who are zealots? Really? You don't want to maybe rethink that claim?

[ant1sthenes]

Yes, not all people, obviously. My point is that the idea is already out there, and this provides more credibility for it.

[bacon-magic]

I'm not a zealot, more pro choice in fact. (I still think it's wrong but I do not rule over another so let them make a bad choice if they want). But selling organs(and that is what they are doing, shipping/handling charges are a profit point in business) is wrong, especially without that life's consent. These videos(i'm sure there's more) & the fact that PP are harvesting HUMAN organs proves that life does begin before birth.

[John]

In theory you are right. The problem is that it is not the committed pro lifers who are lying, it is the committed pro choice people. If the majority of the country who claim to be pro choice thought like you do, PP wouldn't be embarrassed by this. The reason why they are is that most pro choice people don't think like you do. They lie to themselves and pretend that abortions are rare and involve some sterile removal a clump of cells. The reason why PP is so embarrassed and finds this so damaging is that it shows what they do in its full ugly light and makes all of the people who claim to be pro choice face the lies they tell themselves.

Virtually no other country in the world allows abortions as last term as the US does. Mark Steyn gave a great rant on this subject explaining how even the most liberal countries in Western Europe have abortion laws that are much more restrictive than the US.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/438.....show-clips

[Red Rocks Rockin]

They lie to themselves and pretend that abortions are rare and involve some sterile removal a clump of cells. The reason why PP is so embarrassed and finds this so damaging is that it shows what they do in its full ugly light and makes all of the people who claim to be pro choice face the lies they tell themselves.

Based on the hysterical reactions of shitlibs whenever they see posters with pictures of aborted fetus body parts, I'm inclined to agree with this. As long as the results of their political position are kept out of their sight, it's easy for them to pretend "it's just a clump of cells/parasite" all the way up until the baby makes its first squall. But when they're confronted with the results of it, they usually don't shrug their shoulders and say, "well, it's just the expected result of a medical procedure." They fly into a rage and cry about being triggered. Someone who didn't have an instinctual aversion to abortion simply wouldn't react that way. It's a textbook case of cognitive dissonance.

And that's why PP is coming out looking so bad about this. When you have a doctor talking on camera about "crunching" body parts, it's going to spark a visceral reaction in anyone with a sliver of imagination, and it's ultimately a test of what a person believes to be human or not.

[John]

The problem is that there is no rational defense for late term abortions. It is is a life. How can you say something that has human DNA, brain activity, feels pain and all the organs of a human such that those organs can be transplanted to a human is not a life? You just can't. The pro abortion people do anything they can to avoid that indisputable truth.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

It's a textbook case of cognitive dissonance.

I also don't want to butcher a pig, but I'm not gonna stop eating bacon. It's not cognitive dissonance to find something acceptable yet icky. That's common in life.

I also don't want to geld or execute a serial child rapist, though I think that person ought to die.

[John]

I also don't want to butcher a pig, but I'm not gonna stop eating bacon. It's not cognitive dissonance to find something acceptable yet icky. That's common in life.

Not the same thing. You might want to do it, but you know what is involved and don't believe it is anything but what it is. You don't think your bacon comes from pigs that are not really alive and it is just extracted from a few cells of other pigs. You know your bacon means someone killed a pig and butchered it. Just because you don't want to do it yourself doesn't mean you are lying to yourself about it.

Abortion is totally different. They don't just not want to do it, they lie to themselves about what it involves.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

Fair point, for some people.

[Mickey Rat]

How many people who eat bacon think pigs have rights?

This is not about "ickyness", it is about objectifying humans and the utilitarian rationalizations for doing so.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

I also don't want to butcher a pig, but I'm not gonna stop eating bacon.

You might want to rethink that analogy there.

[Old Man With Candy]

The organ sales

This makes me think of Tex and Edna Boyle.

[Tonio]

Even those who are inarguably children, say a six-year old, cannot legally give consent for medical procedures.

[Rasilio]

Yes but you still havn't explained why I'm in the bathtub full of ice

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

+1 "where did these stitches come from?!"

[Spencer]

They took a testicle...

[SugarFree]

Luckily, he was born with seven. The OB screamed and then fainted.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

"Let me lay it on the line
He had two on the vine
I mean two sets of testicles so divine"

[Tybus]

I'll sell one...about time it starts making me money instead of costing me

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

I just seriously f'ed up then - I am donating a kidney next Wednesday 🙁

[SugarFree]

Can you at least get some sort of in kind exchange, like make them be your butler for six months or something?

[gaijin]

at least get some sort of in kind exchange

he should ask for a nice chianti...and some fava beans

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

The recipient is quite IT smart - maybe I'l ask him to make me a working HAL 9000 or something.

[Florida Man]

Really? Good luck.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

Yes, relli!

I am up for pre-surgical tomorrow, then transplant on Wednesday. I failed as a drunk commenter - we'll see how I do on opiod pain killers, 'bout Friday next week or so.

[bacon-magic]

That is a donation that not many would do. You are a credit to the human race.

[Just say Nikki]

Free market in organs?!? But then where will I get my SANCTITY???

[Mickey Rat]

From nonco.senting donors?

[Palin's Buttplug]

We fully support selling organs and euthanasia.

Get over it.

[WTF]

Let us turn the whole country into a socialist fairyland by the joint operation of the army and people!

[Free Society]

Let the strong winds of fish-farming blow across the country!

[SugarFree]

Who's "we," fuckstick?

[Citizen X]

'Plug, i finally found you a buyer - a circus in Bulgaria is interested in your "brain." I'll be by later with a hacksaw and a jar.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

I larfed. A lot.

[Mickey Rat]

Don't you need a melonballer too?

[R C Dean]

We fully support selling organs and euthanasia.

Because there are no perverse incentives there.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Looking for a ruling here. Has "Reason won't cover topic X because reason Y" become so entrenched as an idiotic meme that it's now part of the drinking game?

[SugarFree]

Yes. It's almost to the two drink stage.

[WTF]

Absolutely.

[Lord Humungus]

I blame Reason for my alcoholism.

[Spencer]

Well, i DO only have a couple of days left at this job... what are they going to do... DRINK!

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Mad Lib for the day:

Reason won't cover _______ because _______

[Citizen X]

Spoiler alert: the second blank is always "COSMOZ."

[WTF]

COCKTAIL PARTIEZ is also acceptable.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

"Reason won't cover TRUMP because THEY HAVE STANDARDS"

[Elizabeth Nolan Brown]

YES

[Juvenile Bluster]

Well there it is, confirmation from on high.

I'm not sure my liver can take this addition, but c'est la vie.

[Citizen X]

Thanks, ENB. Of all the days to leave my flask at home...

[Zaytsev]

You don't get invited to good cocktail parties by covering stuff that makes abortion look bad.

[Fist of Etiquette]

John Kasich wants us to leave Donald Trump alone about marital rape.

Helluva campaign strategy.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Mickey Kaus had the sickest burn I've come across in a while after E.J. Dionne wrote an editorial praising Kasich as a reasonable Republican, saying Kasich is the choice of the "E.J. Dionne wing of the Republican party."

[grrizzly]

Kasich is also pushed by Barron's.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

That just ended Kasich's chances right there...BOOM!

[Spencer]

really. he could have at least gotten Digiorno to back him.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Kasich is jockeying for the Trump VP ticket.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hasn't Ivana publicly stated the so-called incident happened many years ago and it was misreported?

[commodious spittoon]

There is no statute of limitations in the court of public opinion.

Now if only there's a campus we can expel Trump from.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Just as likely it was a legal strategy on her part back then anyway.

[Lord Humungus]

Neighborhood ice cream truck driver arrested wearing only underwear

Officials say the driver of the truck acted belligerently by yelling at kids, but that wasn't all parents had to complain about. Police say the driver drove while wearing nothing but his underwear.

Erie County Sheriff's Deputies who responded to the complaint Friday arrested 24-year-old East Amherst native Ryan Duff. They say following investigation, they realized he was driving high on drugs through the Emily Court neighborhood.

While in police custody, officers say he refused to cooperate with testing, and a drug recognition expert made the final determination that he was under the influence.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

If you can't drive an ice cream truck high and in your underwear, what's the point of taking the job?

[Citizen X]

Big Worm's been sampling his own supply.

[Tonio]

But I bet if it were a chick in a bikini, nobody would have batted an eye.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

Oh, some soccer moms would have complained, I reckon.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

Epi is an ice cream truck driver?!

[Juvenile Bluster]

The driver was wearing underwear. Epi would've been naked.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

Hmmm. I think you are right.

[BearOdinson]

#FreeTheBombPops

[R C Dean]

"Hey, kid. Want a Fudgesicle?"

[commodious spittoon]

drug recognition expert

It's oregano.

[Free Society]

a drug recognition expert

"Far out man, I recognize the good stuff right there."

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

"...a drug recognition expert..."

I would like to see this person's CV.

[Butts Wagner]

Today is the greatest day I've ever known

[Lord Humungus]

Naked, banjo-playing Washington man taken into custody after two-hour standoff with police

According to Oregon's KPTV, police received a call on Sunday afternoon about a naked man walking around his neighborhood with a knife.

When officers arrived on the scene, they found resident Andrew Helmsworth outside his house. Helmsworth refused to surrender.

At one point during the two-hour standoff, he went inside, put on a pair of shorts and returned with a banjo, which he played for the officers before he was subdued with a non-lethal round and taken into custody.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

Two hours? Really? While up in Cleveland they just drive right up to you and shoot you dead for playing with a toy gun. By the way whatever happened to that murderer?

[WTF]

By the way whatever happened to that murderer?

I don't know, but commendation and a medal wouldn't surprise me.

[Spencer]

He was on viagra. No cop is going near some dude with a banjo until the hardon goes away.

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

Especially one using it as his pick.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

First person to link to the scene in 'Deliverance' gets a big wet one from Rufus.

[gaijin]

a big wet one

"You sure do have a pretty mouth"

[WTF]

"SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

[Plush Cthulhu]

<fx

[Tonio]

Banjo playing is one area on which I'm willing to look the other way as far as free speech absolutism.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

"The Amendment I Banjo Exception"

[commodious spittoon]

By itself? Certainly. But accompanied by cello and fiddle?

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

Epi plays the banjo?!

[R C Dean]

So, naked guy with knife, cops do nothing.

Guy in shorts playing banjo gets a beanbag round.

Sounds about right.

[Tak Kak]

Wow, I thought I was the only banjo player in Washington.

He's my better in every way.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Tuesday fast-tracked a Planned-Parenthood defunding measure...

If only they'd be this enthusiastic about defunding other things that shouldn't be federally funded.

[Drake]

This after he snuck full funding for PP through last Friday along with the Export-Import Bank re-authorization. Now that he's been called out as a fraud and liar, he brings it up.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-g.....iran-deal/

[straffinrun]

Like Parenthood.

[Lord Humungus]

Fed expected to push ahead with rate hike plan

With a slew of employment, inflation and GDP reports to come before its September meeting, the Fed is unlikely to hint too strongly about its plans, Barclays economists Michael Gapen and Rob Martin wrote in a preview of this week's meeting.

But simply hewing to the language of the June policy statement, when the Fed said the economy was expanding moderately, or even strengthening the outlook a bit, "leaves the door wide open for September," they wrote.

Despite a dovish reputation, Fed Chair Janet Yellen has been among those pulling on the door handle in recent public statements, saying she felt a rate hike would be appropriate sometime this year absent a negative shock to the economy.

[Palin's Buttplug]

.25% hike on the Fed funds rate would be extremely bullish for the market, US Dollar, and US industry. Just do it, Janet baby.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Wow, the first intelligent comment you've made on here in a long, long time.

[WTF]

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.

[R C Dean]

Raising interest increases return on equities?

What about the bond market. Does it do good things for the bond market, because I thought higher interest rates reduced the value of bonds with lower rates.

[straffinrun]

Doctor to junkie "I'm cutting your heroin intake by .25%. You think you can handle that?"

[Rasilio]

" saying she felt a rate hike would be appropriate sometime this year absent a negative shock to the economy"

Lol right and anyone who is paying any attention at all can see that the only reason the economy is "strengthening" is because we're in another housing bubble in many if not all of the major markets in the country (and quite possibly the whole country).

It's early enough that a quarter point rise in the interest rate probably won't even slow the rate of inflation in the bubble for a little while but it is pretty obvious that sometime in the next 12 - 18 months we're looking at another housing crash

[Lord Humungus]

Speaking of housing bubble, when I was house shopping I looked at this dumpy 2-bedroom cottage type of house - maybe 1000sq feet. There was apparently a bidding war of some type that I didn't want to get involved in... and, as a I said, the place had thin walls, no yard, a corner lot, and was too small.

Someone bought it - did about $10k of work on it - paint, kitchen cupboards, refinished the floor, and put it on the market three weeks later with a 50k higher price. I wonder if anyone will buy it.

[Free Society]

I've seen some stupid stupid shit from home buyers in my lifetime. My cousin just bought an 800 sq feet bungalow that needs a shit ton of work for close to 80k in a neighborhood and town where houses of that size and quality go for about 30k. After he fixes up the place, he'll have probably 120k wrapped up in a little turd of a house that will never sell for more than he bought it for. People are stupid.

[Free Society]

Now I'm selling my old house which is move in ready, I wish I could find one of these stupid people to pay me 20 more thousand than I deserve.

[Jordan]

The Fed is clueless as usual. "What bubble?"

By the way, they were accidentally somewhat transparent the other day:
Fed Inadvertently Publishes Staff Forecast for 2015 Rate Hike

Upset Over Leaks - Why?

Congress is upset over leaks. Is that what people should really be upset over?

Why? We should be happy to have a glimpse of what this secret sect thinks, discusses, and wants to hide vs. the spoon-fed crap they want us to hear.

What To Be Upset Over

I propose people should be upset at a group of clowns who actually believe they can steer the economy like a truck, when it's obvious they cannot.

We should also be upset because the documents suggest that Fed official statements are nothing but souped-up nonsense to appease the financial markets and Fed egos about what they don't know but pretend to.

[Lord Humungus]

Herpes?

Companies have found something to give their workers instead of raises

More businesses are upping their spending on benefits such as one-time bonuses, health care and paid time off, according to recent survey data. Many are rolling out perks such as free gym membership, commuting subsidies, even pet health insurance.

Often, those benefits are being provided in lieu of higher salaries. Government data shows the growth in spending on benefits is outpacing gains in wages. Companies say they are catering to the growing workforce of millennials who seem to prize short-term flexibility over long-term financial security, and the change allows bosses to reward star employees without permanently increasing costs.

[SugarFree]

It makes sense. The government doesn't steal as many of your benefits as it does your paycheck. The politicians are creating the same sort of conditions that led to employer-based healthcare, which turn out to be a disaster in the long-term.

[Citizen X]

I can't wait until the passage of the 2042 Affordable Pet Care and Gym Membership Act.

[Rasilio]

Don't forget the prepaid legal aid benefit.

How long before having a company paid for lawyer on retainer becomes a mandatory benefit?

[SugarFree]

Australia, New Zealand and India all have fringe benefit taxes.

[Warty]

Serfdom is only a disaster for the serfs, idiot.

[SugarFree]

Get back out in the field, peasant.

[gaijin]

Herpes?
lol

[Bee Tagger]

John Kasich wants us to leave Donald Trump alone

The person with less likelihood of being president than Trump is the person who feels compelled to discuss Trump while running for president.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

I'm really surprised that Kasich doesn't have more support he seems like just the kind of middle of road, wishy washy Republican that the establishment always seem to favor.

[Palin's Buttplug]

He is #3 in New Hampshire where Rand Paul is #7. Kind of sad really.

When did Pawlenty drop out in 2011? September?

[Rasilio]

Becasue Bush and to a lesser extent Walker, Graham, and Fiorina are already eating up that establishment support

[Lord Humungus]

Health Spending Leaps Upward As ObamaCare Takes Effect

After trending downward since 2002, national health spending jumped 5.5% in 2014 ? the steepest climb in seven years ? as ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion and insurance subsidies took effect, according to the latest data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Spending by the federal government jumped 10.1% last year, compared with 3.5% in the private sector, the report shows.

The finding runs counter to repeated boasts by President Obama that ObamaCare had ushered in the lowest rate of health spending growth in decades.

[mfckr]

Surprise, surprise.

[gaijin]

Gotta keep that GDP above 0% somehow.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Well, it did add 6-7 million new Medicaid recipients (an onerous burden). And the VA is spending more.

Compare Medicare alone y/y for a more accurate representation of cost increases. That is IBD after all. Those buffoons still think there is a "death panel" that kills individuals.

[CatoTheChipper]

Evidently, ObamaCare enthusiasts knew what they were talking about when they said it was going to "bend the cost curve".

They did not say that it was going to be bent down.

[straffinrun]

You know who else got bent?

[gaijin]

A man from Kent?

[WTF]

Was he a hairy handed gent, who ran amok in Kent?

[Lord Humungus]

during Lent?

[Fist of Etiquette]

No one willing to put her name on this links offering, eh?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Spoiler alert: Sullum.

[Once More Into the Hopper]

Florida Man Arrested for Masturbating in front of family at McDonalds Drive-Thru

Special Sauce or Artisanal Mayo?

[straffinrun]

Can I have a shake?

[Citizen X]

Just one?

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

NO!!!!!

[Mr Lizard]

60 second guarantee?

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

*narrows gaze*

[Mr Lizard]

Well you might want to close them

[Free Society]

Florida Man Arrested for Masturbating in front of family at McDonalds Drive-Thru

I can only assume that every man in Florida has a rap sheet a mile long for doing stupid and/or awful things. Fucking A Florida.

[Don Mynack]

Neither. It was "gentleman's relish".

[Lord Humungus]

Florida man told he must contain all BBQ smell on his property or else stop BBQing

If you want to barbecue in Pinellas County, Florida, you'll basically need to be Aeolus, Greek god of the winds.

A YouTube video shows a county official confronting two men about the smell of their barbecue following a neighbor's complaint. If they can't contain the smoky scent inside their property lines, he says, they'll have to stop the cookout.

The BBQers aren't interested. "So we're supposed to control the smoke, and the wind, and the way it's blowing?" the cameraman asks incredulously. They argue that the same complaining neighbor has repeatedly called the police on their cookout smells, only to have the cops rule in favor of barbecue every time.

[Juvenile Bluster]

If we gave the panhandle back to Alabama and Georgia, we'd cut out 90% of Florida Man stories. Most of what happens in the rest of the state is due to moronic government, as seen here.

[Drake]

Fez sighting?

[ant1sthenes]

Hey, the police are just trying to protect the property rights of their neighbors. Very libertarian.

[Florida Man]

Who the hell complains about BBQ smell?!?

[Juvenile Bluster]

I do. Makes me hungry, and I'm trying to lose a few pounds.

[egould310 reppin' LBC]

Yeah. My wife bought this scented candle that smells like really sweet vanilla cupcakes. I'm sitting in the living room the other day, and my stomach is growling. Im thinking, "why an I so hungry?"

It's this goddamn candle!

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

Fucking vegans.

[Mr. Paulbotto]

Damn right. It's our duty to smoke a brisket over Jack Daniels barrel chips right under their noses.

[bacon-magic]

I'm going to light up the bbq today and just let it smoke. I love that smell.

[R C Dean]

Austin is getting ready to pass new regs on barbecue restaurants that will close most of them.

A shame, really.

[Bee Tagger]

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Tuesday fast-tracked a Planned-Parenthood defunding measure;

But what if this ruins Josh Lyman and Amy Gardner's relationship? Will no one think of that?

[Lord Humungus]

From rents to haircuts, Americans start to feel price hikes

Apartment rents are up. So are prices for restaurant meals, haircuts, gym memberships and a cup of coffee.

For American consumers who have become used to flat or even falling prices for several years, an unfamiliar sight has emerged in many corners of the economy: Inflation is ticking up.

The price increases remain modest. And in many cases, they're canceled out by price declines for other items that are keeping overall inflation historically low.

Yet the stepped-up price tags for a range of consumer items are the largest since the Great Recession ended six years ago. They actually reflect a healthier economy: Many businesses have finally grown confident enough to pass their own higher costs on to consumers without fear of losing customers. Employers have added nearly 5.6 million jobs the past two years, allowing more people to absorb higher prices.

[Zeb]

See, I knew there was a good reason why I never spend money on haircuts, gym memberships, rent or cups of coffee and rarely go to restaurants.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

So.

You're an anti-social hobo who likes mayo.

Great.

[Zeb]

I have a house. I'm no hobo. And I make better food than most restaurants.

[straffinrun]

Are you a hobophobe?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Canned tuna doesn't count!

You know I bust, right?

I do because I love.

[Zeb]

I know. Otherwise I'd be very concerned about your mayo obsession.

[Citizen X]

Inflation is ticking up.

Somewhere in New York City, Paul Krugman spontaneously orgasms.

[Rasilio]

In Boston Rents are getting weird.

There is virtually no family housing available to be had on the rental market but with what little there is available prices on single family home rentals has not yet started rising but apartments are through the roof.

In my recent housing search (I'm moving on Friday) 3 bedroom 2 bath 1300 sq foot apartments in crappy school districts were running between 2000 and 2500 a month, if you could find one at all that is, however 4 bedroom 2+ bath 1700+ sq ft single family homes with good sized yards in upscale suburbs with excellent school systems were only running between 2100 and 2600 a month and were slightly more of them available, albeit they generally came with more restrictions like absolutely no pets and required far more move in money, sometimes requiring 4 months rent to move in (first, last, 1 month security deposit, and 1 month brokers fee).

The other problem with it was that the market was so tight an ad would go up on craigslist and within 48 hours they'd have half a dozen people who have offered more than the list price to rent it sight unseen

[egould310 reppin' LBC]

Rents on my duplexes in Cleveland went up 10+% just in the first half of the year.

[Free Society]

For American consumers who have become used to flat or even falling prices for several years, an unfamiliar sight has emerged in many corners of the economy: Inflation is ticking up.

Where are these consumers? What corner of the US has been experience flat and falling prices?

[Plush Cthulhu]

Find the ones who seem ridiculously happy that their chocolate ration was increased.

[Rasilio]

Overall price inflation has been flat.

The problem is that price inflation in the core necessities with the exception of gas has not

[Free Society]

A flatness owing to a collapse of commodity prices in general. Consumer goods don't seem to be flat at all. I drank a $2 cup of orange juice in my own kitchen, not a restaurant.

[Bee Tagger]

Republican Rep. Mark Meadowns (R-N.C.) filed a "motion to vacate the chair"

Are you sure this isn't just a Clint Eastwood casting call?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Wonder what people think about what happened to Colin Cowherd.

Personally, I think he was making a valid point. Had he been black or Hispanic ESPN wouldn't have said boo.

[Juvenile Bluster]

He's always had a habit of saying stuff that annoyed people. If he wasn't leaving ESPN anyways, I doubt they'd have suspended him.

[Drake]

Some publicity for hos new show was a nice going away gift.

ESPN wants to talk about political topics when they affect sports, but wants it's people to never utter anything slightly outside the PC lines. Makes for terrible TV and radio.

[Juvenile Bluster]

10 years ago, the 11 PM SportsCenter was required viewing. Every night. ESPN Radio's shows were on my radio most of the time.

Now ESPN is for live sports only. And Dan LeBetard's show, but only because he's local and I've listened to him since forever.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I've grown to really like LeBatard.

[Rasilio]

Don't like LeBetard, even Stephen A Smith has a more nuanced view on race than him. With LeBetard EVERYTHING is about race and evidence of racism.

I also generally find him to be annoying as hell and not really very knowledgeable about anything outside of Miami Heat Basketball and LeBron James.

Mike and Mike however I watch/listen to every chance I get and while I didn't always agree with him generally liked Cowherd and found him to be a much much more intelligent version of what Jim Rome tried to be.

[John]

LeBetard sucks. But his dad is great. They should fire Lebetard and just let the old man have his own show.

And the worst rate baiter on the network is Mike Wilbon. He is just horrible.

[Rasilio]

I've only ever caught Wilbon on a few episodes of PTI but I wasn't impressed with either him or Kornheiser so I don't really watch it much

[John]

They used to be fun but they have gotten much worse. The show is good when they have Bob Ryan and the one fat black guy on. Even LeBetard is pretty good. Yes, that is how bad Wilbon is. He makes LeBetard seem reasonable and fun by comparison.

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

I grew up reading Wilbon in the Washington Post. Maybe that's why I can handle his relatively infrequent racial comments on PTI. I agree that Jason Whitlock is not only better on issues of sports/race but generally is a much better and more intelligent sports commentator.

[John]

I used to really like Wilbon. But in the last few years he has turned into just an angry old black guy and not in a good way. And Whitlock is smarter and more interesting. I don't always agree with him but I find him at least interesting.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I agree. Whitlock can be interesting. Race discussions, when treated properly, is not only important but interesting as well.

The old guys start to get into 'get off my lawn' mode.

Look at Frank DeFord. Sheesh.

[John]

Yeah Rufus, when I find you to be an angry old guy, you are really an angry old guy.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Wilbon has a chip on his shoulder and has an irrational hatred for new media. Like as if only his writing is good or matters. He does give the impression he's one blow up away from going full race baiting.

And I like LeBatard because he's irreverent.

Too many sports guys take themselves too seriously.

[Crusty Juggler]

Yes. You have to be ESPN's version of controversial. They take take that tame version of a meaningless controversy and beat it into the ground on all of their programming.

"You mean to tell me you think LeBron is better than Jordan?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?" for six straight days.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

ESPN's obsession with Lebron's tweets is akin to Reason with millennial polls.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

But what about Stephen A. Smith, Jamele Hill, Jason Whitlock and others?

I think Cowherd was more right than wrong.

Dominican education is horrendous and baseball is perhaps not as complex as football given it's such a schematic sport.

[wareagle]

Smith got suspended not long after the Ray Rice incident for daring suggest that some womenfolk provoke menz into doing stupid things. He even offered up personal stories to back that up. ESPN still sat him down.

Jamele Hill I cannot explain beyond the fulfillment of a quota.

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

I don't agree with Whitlock all the time but think he's very intelligent with a great deal of sports knowledge. Smith is a clown. Hill offers literally nothing.

I've always hated Colin Cowherd because I think he's a stupid human being. Just thinking about his weasel-like face in front of his spittle-flecked microphone makes me cringe.

[Not a Libertarian]

I've never liked Cowherd (and I am generally an easy-going guy not prone to dislike)

But you've distilled it.

He IS WEASEL FACED.

[wareagle]

it was Cowherd being Cowherd. It's like being shocked that Ann Coulter said something outrageous, though unlike her, Cowherd works at the pleasure of an employer whose hypersensitivity is known.

[Irish ?s ESB]

I don't even think it was outrageous. I mean, here's what he actually said:

""....I understand that when you mention a specific country, they get offended. I get it. I do. And for that, I feel bad," Cowherd said. "But I have four reports in front of me.....where there are discussions of major deficiencies in the education sector at all levels. It wasn't a shot at them. It was data.""

He's criticizing their EDUCATION, not saying that they're racially inferior. If you don't think the Dominican Republic's educational system blows, you're a moron. His point is 100% accurate.

Moreover, it's a longstanding inside joke among baseball fans that players from Latin American countries are often incredibly talented but make unbelievably stupid mistakes on the field. Think Manny Ramirez. The reason for this is because they learned to play baseball in really rough conditions which is conducive to becoming very talented and skilled, but they had no coaching and are often uneducated, so you see a lot of base running errors and dumb fielding mistakes from Latin American players. If a team has a very talented head case (Starlin Castro being a modern example), they're disproportionately Hispanic.

It's not racist, it's a point about coaching and a lack of education.

[wareagle]

in today's age of bed-wetting, accuracy is immaterial. Look at Dylann Roof and the carry-on about the Confederate flag that followed.

Cowherd's remarks were painted as illustrative of Dominicans rather than the game itself, which is where Cowherd was totally wrong. No sport makes itself out to be more complicated than it really is than football.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

There was also the fact they (Latins in general) had no patience at the plate rarely going deep in the count preferring to swing for the fences. Think Vladimir Guerrero.

It's changed a little over time of course.

[Rasilio]

What happened to him?

Yesterday I was in the car during his show for the first time in a long time and noticed he wasn't on the air but I hadn't heard anything about why

[Irish ?s ESB]

He made the accurate point that Dominicans are often badly educated and mentioned that this contradicts the argument by baseball aficionados that baseball is super complicated since uneducated people from the third world are capable of dominating.

So people freaked out and he got fired because people get angry when you say facts that they can twist into being supposedly racist, even when they're not racist.

[Drake]

He already had a new gig lined up at Fox Sports - so it was the perfect time to get fired.

[wareagle]

aficianados of every sport try to make that argument even though football and basketball are similarly dominated by non-Mensa scholars. No game pretends to be closer to rocket surgery than the NFL.

[Rasilio]

Well parts of the NFL game are massively more complicated than anything in any of the other major team sports primarly because it is the one sport where team play is absolutely essential to have any hope of success.

This is especially true on the offensive line, 5 linemen with average athletic ability who can really work together will beat one with 5 superior talents that can't work together as a coherent unit.

On the flip side, a running back barely even needs to be litterate

[Old Man With Candy]

This is especially true on the offensive line

Note that two of the three smartest guys to ever play football (Harris Barton and John Urschel) were/are OL. The third was a quarterback (Frank Ryan).

[DrZaius]

If that was truly his point it's fucking stupid. Uneducated doesn't mean incapable of learning. If you're a kid in the minor leagues with little to no formal schooling being immersed daily in the sport you will learn it at a high level provided you're not a functional retard.

I guess with that said Cowherd seems to be arguing a point that doesn't match reality; kind of like if he really thought the earth was flat or something. And of course every fucktard PC thug within ten goddamn light years picks that up as racism because the subject was brown people.

[Crusty Juggler]

-The New York Times has offered an official "Rebuttal to The NYRB's Article on NYT Nail Salon Series."

Let me save you the time and skip to the final sentence:

But we are nonetheless disappointed that the New York Review of Books chose to publish what is essentially an example of industry advocacy, not unbiased journalism.

-Signed, NYT editors.

[Crusty Juggler]

To his credit, he has been upfront about being part of the salon industry and having a vested financial interest in its health. Still, that doesn't alter the fact that he has taken on the role of a partisan defender, not a journalist.

Emphasis mine.

HA!

[WTF]

Just ignore that the original article was demonstrated to be factually false.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

That's why the NYT is the biggest full of shittest piece of shit paper of shittiness:

The whole fucken world knows they hold a liberal bias. They have abdicated their right to call out others on 'unbiased journalism'.

[Lord Humungus]

Secret history of a northern slave state: How slavery was written into New Jersey's DNA
Though eventually & thankfully on the right side of history, the North wasn't immune to America's original sin.

As a kid growing up in New Jersey, I was taught in school that slavery was a Southern moral defect. Imagine my surprise when at almost 60 I learned that my own state, New Jersey, was once an enthusiastic booster of slavery.

My path to enlightenment started while I was helping my daughter at her stand at our local farmers' market last summer. The Mendham Farmers Market was located on the Pitney Farm, which up until our town bought it a few years back, had been in the same family since the 1740s ? 11 generations dating back to when New Jersey was a colony. As I stuffed kale into bags, I spotted a black lawn jockey, which stood in front of the Pitneys' manor house, the architectural focal point of a farmstead with barns and additional cottages. And thus I wondered: Was it possible that slaves worked this land?

So I decided to use the Pitney Farm as a prism of place through which I could glean the reality of slavery in my own community.

[SugarFree]

Secret? They elected Christie in secret?

[Zeb]

Uh. Who doesn't know that all of the colonies had slavery at one time or another?

[Tonio]

Proggies, obviously. But were there really ever slaves in say Maine or New Hampshire? If so was it part of indigenous culture or simply a southerner relocating?

[Zeb]

Portsmouth NH had an active slave trade for some time. It wasn't plantation slavery, but lots of labor in the 17th century was done by enslaved Africans.

[SugarFree]

The first slave known to be in Maine was in 1686.

All the states had slavery, but outside of the South they were mostly personal (or body) slaves as they were not desired for large-scale commercial farming.

The US education system has spent so long linking the South with slavery that they have produced a lot of people profoundly ignorant about the subject. (And I say this having no great affinity for the region or culture of the Southern states.)

[Rasilio]

Well technically it wasn't Maine at that point but part of Massachusetts.

Since Maine was created as a compromise to keep the number of slave and non slave states equal there were legally never any slaves in the state of Maine, but there were on the land currently occupied by Maine when it was part of Massachusetts

[SugarFree]

I have been out pedant'd! Curses!

[straffinrun]

They don't know that it ever existed outside the US either, so cut them some slack

[Tonio]

Thanks, guys. As a Southerner I know all about slavery down South but you don't hear much about slavery up North.

[WTF]

Navel-gazing lefty progtards, apparently.

[Irish ?s ESB]

I have no idea. Samuel Adams actually freed a slave that his wife inherited and he lived in Massachusetts.

I think this is yet more evidence that the average progressive knows nothing about history and is shocked when presented with basic facts they should already know.

[Dark Lord of the wood chipper]

What are you talking about Zeb? Everyone knows that the only place slavery ever existed was the American south.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

It's really embarrassing to admit that you didn't learn about this until you were 60.

What a moron.

[Drake]

Here's a bigger secret - every country everywhere had slavery at some point. Damn near every human is descended from slaves and slave owners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery

[Free Society]

the North wasn't immune to America's original sin.

America's original sin? People say that as though every society on Earth had not ever practiced slavery and as though there aren't at least a dozen other countries who didn't abolish slavery until decades after the US did, where it was already partially abolished by 1861. And even if it were "America's" original sin, less than 4% of white southerners even owned any slaves and as percentage of the total US population the rate of slave ownership was even lower.

It's the same sort of line of reasoning that tells people America and Britain in particular has a long history of child labor and awful working conditions because such was the norm in all of human history prior to the industrial revolution.

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

Although I agree with you that the "America's original sin" is a phrase currently bandied about by progs hellbent on keeping us stuck in an era of grievance-mongering, I'm pretty sure the original intent of the phrase was as applied to the irony of that pesky (and disgusting) 3/5 language appearing in what is otherwise one of the greatest documents of political freedom the world has ever witnessed.

[Free Society]

The 3/5ths language was not "racist", it was a legal maneuver. In fact the slave holding states of the south didn't want that language, they wanted slaves to be counted as full persons for census purposes because it would have granted them an electoral advantage in the House of Representatives. The Northern states wanted that language in the document to weaken the political power of slave states, in fact they didn't want the slaves be counted as a "person" at all. And keep in mind that a "person" in this context is legal designation, not a moral one.

[Free Society]

If anything, counting the slaves as 3/5ths of a legal person instead of a full legal person was a blow to the perpetuation of the institution of legal slavery.

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

I was using the "3/5 language" reference more as a general criticism of the "making human bondage a legal institution in the same document that discusses the inherent freedoms of man" thing. THAT'S what is more appropriately "America's original sin."

It's the the original sin of our founding, not that the sin is original to America. Unfortunately, all too many idiots seem to actually convince themselves of the latter.

[Free Society]

Well I don't disagree with any of that. I would just add that without the 3/5 language, this document would never have been ratified or forcibly imposed without a war. Legal slavery in certain states, who were entirely sovereign up to this point, was the status quo at the time of framing and ratification.

Now if the 3/5th language and any other codification of slavery violated the spirit of the document, and I agree that it did, then the framers should have been content to form a confederation that excluded slave states unwilling to forgo those terms. But in their drive for centralization, which is of course what the constitution represents, the idea of ruling over a smaller jurisdiction is blasphemy. Lincoln, for example, was the heir of that view most prominently expounded by Alexander Hamilton. The real original sin, was that many hundreds of thousands later died because the collective borders of those United States were thought to be sacred to the drive for empire and centralized statism.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Ohio Man Jumps into Cougar Enclosure at Columbus Zoo

An Ohio man who jumped a fence to pet cougars at the Columbus zoo and posted video of it on YouTube says he jokingly said "Here, kitty" and decided to move closer when the animals seemed to respond.

Thirty-five-year-old Joshua Newell of suburban Gahanna is set for arraignment Wednesday on a misdemeanor criminal trespassing charge.

The video posted last week showed an outer fence being jumped, then two cougars being petted through another fence as a voice says "Kitty, kitty, kitty."

Newell tells WBNS-TV ( http://bit.ly/1D8DCLI ) the encounter lasted several minutes. He says he may have acted like an idiot but also questions the ease of access to the cats.

Columbus Zoo and Aquarium officials say safety and animal welfare are top priorities but they'd prefer not to change the exhibit.

I assume any idiot that would try that gets mauled 9 times out of 10. So no need to change the exhibit indeed.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Was she hot?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

So mature.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

I think this needs a narrow gaze.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

Agreed.

*narrows gaze*

[Citizen X]

Proof that whenever you think you've made something idiot-proof, nature goes and makes a better idiot.

...and decided to move closer when the animals seemed to respond.

You know what every animal likes? A meal it doesn't have to work for.

[Tonio]

Why didn't he just hang out at the nearest Holiday Inn lounge and lure them with Chardonnay?

[WTF]

Because they prefer merlot?

[Warty]

I liked that movie.

[Mickey Rat]

Here is an answer to Newell questioning yhe ease if access. I expect the zookeepers thpught people would act with some kind of thought of self preservation.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Teen discovers her Dad played in Nirvana's first ever concert

How cool is your dad? Washington teen Maggie Poukkula thought her dad was pretty cool already ? she has photos of him playing music together with the late grunge rock icon Kurt Cobain, frontman of Nirvana. But when she tweeted out the photos, she discovered that they were actually from Nirvana's first concert ?ever?. Poukkula's dad was part of music history.

An eagle-eyed Nirvana fan saw Poukkula's photos and realized they were taken in March or April of 1987 at the band's first performance in Raymond, Wash. Four years later, the Seattle-based Nirvana would come out with their smash hit "Smells Like Teen Spirit," which skyrocketed the band to international fame and solidified grunge as a hallmark of the '90s. The band was on top of the world, but their time in the spotlight ended in tragedy in 1994 when Kurt committed suicide at age 27.

Sheesh, that's almost 30 years ago. Gen X is aging fast.

[Juvenile Bluster]

"Where were you when you heard Kurt Cobain died" is the hallmark of late Gen X/early Gen Y youth. Discuss.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Well I was two and a half, so I couldn't say.

[Juice]

Damn. I feel old.

[Zeb]

Or Jerry Garcia. I was never much of a Dead fan, but I did appreciate their facilitation of the movement of LSD about the country.

I didn't give a shit when Cobain died. Though for a certain set of my contemporaries I'm sure it's some kind of momentous event.

[Juice]

I remember where I was. Hated the Dead. Music mostly sucks except for a few songs. But you're right about the acid. After he died, it slowly but surely dried up. I haven't even seen it in ages.

[Certified Public Asshat]

I was 8. I remember the rock station my dad listened to played Nirvana almost nonstop for a month.

That is all.

[lap83]

I was 11 and don't remember it at all. But my dad listened to "light rock" and I didn't watch MTV.

[kinnath]

Where were you when Lennon was shot?

[kinnath]

Where were you when Lennon was shot?

[Zeb]

Asleep in bed (or possibly some kind of crib still at that point), I would imagine.

[Mickey Rat]

Watching Monday Night Football.

[egould310 reppin' LBC]

I actually was in Venice, CA. I was high on meth. I didn't know Kurt personally, but we shared the same drug dealer, and had mutual acquaintances. I had heard he left rehab in Marina Del Rey. His suicide was a major downer, and one of the reasons I stopped using drugs.

[Drake]

Suicide or crazy wife?

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

Kurt Cobain was one of the worst guitar players.

[Zeb]

Maybe one of the least best. The world is full of terrible guitar players.

[Rasilio]

Eh, I'm 45 and it wasn't that big of a deal to me, at the time I was more of a Rush fan.

I liked Nirvana's stuff I heard on the radio but not really enough to go buy any of their albums and I preferred Pearl Jam's sound for Grunge

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

+ Ten

[bacon-magic]

+2112

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

I was 16 or 17 and always preferred Alice in Chains and Soundgarden anyway. Besides, his death ostensibly gave birth to the Foo, so there's a positive.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

What's funny is that it happened my senior year of high school and I honestly don't remember where I was or what I was doing.

The Challenger explosion is my generational touchstone. I still remember vividly that it happened during recess--I actually got a sudden, weird feeling on the playground that something bad had happened, but wasn't sure exactly why. When we came back inside, our teacher sat us down and told us the shuttle had blown up. A couple of my classmates started crying after that.

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

100%. We were watching it on the closed-circuit television in elementary school. That combined with the live shots of the sledgehammers at the Berlin Wall were my two "wow" moments when I was younger.

[bacon-magic]

You felt a disturbance in the Force too? /Jedi Jawa

[Rhywun]

Yup, that was big. I was skiing in Austria on a school trip - we got back and everyone was glued to the TV.

[Rhywun]

I guess I was 25 years old but I wasn't a fan so I don't know.

[Lord at War]

I did not give a shit about K Cobain.

April 94... I was a 30 yr old quitting a $27K/yr warehouse job where I basically overhauled their inventory proecesses and helped to implement a computerized database/location of their products- then they hired the owner of their front-office janitorial crew to be my supervisor- and screwed me out of a raise.

I made another $80K that year selling marijuana after I quit...

[Just a thought not a sermon]

I saw Nirvana in concert in Atlanta in 1993 and they were terrible. Somebody threw something at Kurt Cobain while he was on stage after the second song and he stormed off in a huff. He showed up about 15 minutes later, probably after a talk with the arena management about his contractual obligations, and proceeded to play the most sullen set of music imaginable. Thanks asshole. That $50 ticket sure was worth it.

The opening band, the Breeders, was great though.

[Certified Public Asshat]

Well, he was highly depressed and killed himself shortly after that show.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Great. If you're suffering from extreme personal problems, maybe don't launch a national tour until you get your shit under control. f I pay a bunch of money to see a band quit a couple songs in, I at least want it to be the Sex Pistols.

This was also about the time when I read an interview with Cobain in Rolling Stone where he explained to the interviewer that making a million dollars in a year wasn't really that much money. He said that after taxes and buying a house (!), he just didn't have anything left over.

I went from looking up to him as a musical hero to regarding him as pretty much a dick real fast.

[Zeb]

I never liked him much. At that point I had a pretty strong aversion to anything that was popular. And I could see that he was kind of a selfish dick. If you are going to do rock and roll self destruction, do it with some style at least.

[Warty]

Kurt Cobain was a clown. Dave Grohl was the real talent in that band.

[Ken Shultz]

Kurt Cobain was the best songwriter of his generation.

Nirvana was not a great live act--certainly not in big arenas.

Hole was better at that than Nirvana.

Their unplugged show was great. But that was a small intimate gig.

If you caught Nirvana back in the day in some rented VFW hall with Sonic Youth or earlier, then they were great, but by the time everyone had heard about the, those days were over.

[John]

Kurt Cobain was the best songwriter of his generation.

Cobain is a second rate hack compared to Billy Corgan. All of Cobaine's songs followed the same light to heavy structure that people had been doing since Led Zeppelin. Cobain could never have written a song like Perfect that doesn't follow that structure.

[Zeb]

yeah. i'm not the biggest fan of his music, but he is a very talented man.

[Zeb]

Grohl, that is.

[Rhywun]

+foo

[John]

They are the most overrated band maybe ever. They did one studio record of note and one really good live record. That is it. Compare that output to other short lived stars. Jimi Hendrix recorded three studio records of note one of which was a double album. Jim Morrison made six records with the Doors. And all this heroin addict clown could come up with was three studio records, the last of which is terrible, the first is forgotten and one live record.

They had some good songs but they just were not that great.

[Dark Lord of the wood chipper]

I stand by my assertion that the most overrated band ever was KISS.

[Slammer]

Yeah, but KISS knows that.

[John]

Don't you have to be rated to be "overrated"? How can a band that everyone outside of their hard core fans thinks is terrible be "overrated"?

[Dark Lord of the wood chipper]

They do have millions of fans. Some of whom actually make decent music that I really enjoy. It just always puzzled me. KISS was never anything more than a boring, generic garage band with makeup and fireworks.

[tarran]

Actually, KISS thrived because they paid a great deal of attention to making their fans happy.

I read somewhere that Gene Simmons would audit the concert receipts before he started his post-concert partying.

[John]

And they did that in the mid 70s, when the music scene was filled with Prog Rock bands who either completely ignored the audience and just played or in some cases showed outright contempt for their audiences.

[Troy muy grande boner]

KISS isn't a band. More a marketing conglomerate.

[Citizen X]

But Nirvana came out of nowhere and killed '80s hair metal!!1!! You know, as long as you pretend that Mother Love Bone didn't exist.

[John]

That is a bit of a myth. It was dying before they got there. There were already bands like Jane's Addiction, and Smashing Pumpkins and NIN who were starting to get traction and were doing that. And it is not like Nirvana was the only grunge band. They were just the first to hit it big. And don't forget, Achtung Baby was released the same year as Nevermind. That was the biggest band in the world at the time totally moving away from its 80s sound.

The 80s were going to die anyway.

[tarran]

For some reason, John, I am reminded a great scene from Mystery Men

Disco is not dead! Disco is life!

[Citizen X]

That's my point. There's a general popular notion (pushed explicitly by the likes of MTV, VH1, Rolling Stone, etc.) that Nirvana came out of left field in 1991 and destroyed '80s metal almost single-handedly. Meanwhile, Kurt Cobain admittedly just wanted his band to be the Pixies.

And the evolution of grunge wasn't as catastrophist as all that anyway. In 1988 Mother Love Bone already had a sound that was exactly halfway between Guns 'n' Roses and Alice in Chains. Its frontman even invented the grunge stereotype of dying from a heroin overdose.

[John]

Sorry I somehow missed your Mother Love Bone part. And if anything killed hair metal it was Guns and Roses. People forget just how huge they were in 89 and 90. They were bigger than Nirvana ever was. And G&R was just as much of a rejection of hair metal as Nirvana.

[Rhywun]

Yeah, GnR was an unstoppable monster my freshman year of college - it was *everywhere*. I'm in my dorm room listening to New Order and Skinny Puppy and whatnot and I open the door and it's just a wall of GnR up and down the hall GAHHH.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

That is a bit of a myth. It was dying before they got there

It was definitely on the downswing, but Nirvana is really the band that put the stake in its heart. All the hair metal acts, as stupidly fun as they could be, had reached the saturation point, and had become a parody of themselves. The formula was the same--find a masturbatory guitar player and charismatic frontman (bass and drummer were superfluous and interchangeable), release a "hard rock" single to get attention on rock stations, then try to get a mainstream hit with a power ballad and hope it's enough for your record to hit gold or even platinum status.

Nirvana completely flipped that on its head because they really weren't like anything that the mainstream rock stations were playing at that time. No songs about partying or chasing girls, a frontman who literally would rather kill himself than be famous, and the drummer was the best musician in the band. Bands like Pearl Jam and Pantera started off as stereotypical "hair metal" acts but thery were smart enough to see where the industry was heading and so they changed their image quickly enough to capitalize on that.

[Certified Public Asshat]

Wait...

a Seventeen link?

[Lord Humungus]

#BlackLivesMatter Protests Escalate in Toronto as Police Shooting Deaths Scrutinized

The Peel Police narrative was that the 33-year-old black man was holding a knife, and that police told him to "drop the knife" before an unnamed officer shot and killed him.

On July 21, Special Investigations Unit director Tony Loparco told media his investigators didn't find a knife at the scene, and that an officer had handed in the 13-centimeter kitchen knife to a senior officer "several hours" after the shooting, in a paper bag.

"This conduct is hard to fathom," Loparco told media. "As a result of the officer's actions, the SIU, and in a broader sense the public, is asked to accept that the knife it retrieved from police was in Mr. Carby's possession when he was shot, when that same inference could have more readily and safely been made had the scene not been tampered with."

[Crusty Juggler]

They couldn't find a more threatening knife to plant in the scene within a few hours?

[Juvenile Bluster]

That's the trouble with cell phone cameras. Much harder for police to plant weapons without being caught.

[straffinrun]

Why would you hire an officer if you don't know his name?

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

*polite applause*

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Three scientists investigating melting Arctic ice may have been assassinated, professor claims
A Cambridge Professor has made the astonishing claim that three scientists investigating the melting of Arctic ice may have been assassinated within the space of a few months.
Professor Peter Wadhams said he feared being labelled a "looney" over his suspicion that the deaths of the scientists were more than just an 'extraordinary' coincidence.
But he insisted the trio could have been murdered and hinted that the oil industry or else sinister government forces might be implicated....

[Just a thought not a sermon]

"Dr Boyd is thought to have been struck by lightning while walking in Scotland."

Those oil companies sure are powerful.

[Ein Barde und ein Holzhacker]

Well they are teamed up with the religious right, so maybe they hired the help of a higher power to take care of their opponents.

[Mr. Paulbotto]

Dick Cheney's HAARP strikes again!

[SugarFree]

"Damn you, Thor!"

[Tonio]

"sinister government forces"....right. Sorry, Professor, but governments love them some CAGW because it gives them an excuse to control more stuff.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

Hey Tonio! You got some extra foil for this dude? I am fresh out...

*pats worn foil homburg*

[Free Society]

But he insisted the trio could have been murdered and hinted that the oil industry or else sinister government forces might be implicated....

Sinister government? Does he mean the same institution that he trusts with unlimited regulatory power to oversee the saving of the world?

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Computer programmer defrauds company of $476,000 to fund stripper habit

A Gilbert computer engineer financed a nearly half-million-dollar online-stripper habit with a company credit card and tried to cover it up by lying about what he had bought in expense reports, according to federal authorities.

A federal grand jury in Missouri indicted John David Berrett last week on five counts of wire fraud in connection with more than $476,000 that investigators say he spent using purchasing power entrusted to him by World Wide Technology.

A St. Louis-based company with an office in Phoenix, World Wide Technology describes itself as a "global systems integrator" with about $6.7 billion in annual revenue.

The 16-page indictment accuses Berrett of buying tokens used to pay online strippers and spending about $10,800 on one website alone. He racked up the charges on a corporate credit card for roughly 13 months in 2013 and 2014, documents state.

During that time, Berrett, authorities allege, tipped online strippers about 2,200 times for a total of more than $100,000, records show. Berrett also is accused of giving one stripper about $27,000 to pay for her college tuition, buy new tires and finance her parents' utility bill.

But first, the whores!

[John]

Didn't someone tell this guy that no matter what a stripper tells you THERE IS NO SEX IN THE CHAMPAGNE ROOM?

[Mickey Rat]

Well, they were online strippers, so...

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Obama to Disciples: "You will experience an epiphany"
"My job is to be so persuasive that if there's anybody left out there who is still not sure whether they will vote, or is still not clear who they will vote for, that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany ... and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama"

Lebanon Opera House, New Hampshire. January 7, 2008.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Look in my eyes, what do you see?
The cult of personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
I've been everything you want to be

I'm the cult of personality
Like Mussolini and Kennedy
I'm the cult of personality
The cult of personality
The cult of personality

Neon lights, Nobel Prize
When a mirror speaks, the reflection lies
You won't have to follow me
Only you can set me free

I sell the things you need to be
I'm the smiling face on your TV
I'm the cult of personality
I exploit you, still you love me
I tell you one and one makes three

I'm the cult of personality
Like Joseph Stalin and Gandhi
I'm the cult of personality
The cult of personality
The cult of personality

Neon lights, a Nobel Prize
When a leader speaks, that leader dies
You won't have to follow me
Only you can set you free

You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You gave me power in your God's name
I'm every person you need to be
I'm the cult of personality

[TwB]

Excellent song. And unfortunately, perfect for Obama and his ilk

[gaijin]

+1 pair Corey Glover yellow spandex

[bacon-magic]

It's like the songwriter had a premonition of the coming of his majesty King Obama.

[Juvenile Bluster]

A local puppycide. Story's the same as always. Cops enter innocent person's backyard without them knowing, saying they're looking for a fugitive, shoot and kill dog, family gets no answers.

Even includes the required passive voice in the police statement:

Miami-Dade Police have only confirmed that a weapon was in fact discharged and released a statement that reads, "As any open professional compliance bureau investigation, we do not comment into the matter," said Miami-Dade Police Detective Daniel Ferrin.

[Lord Humungus]

The Hill's 50 Most Beautiful

#1 is a redhead:
http://thehill.com/50-most-bea.....ylor-weeks

[Lord Humungus]

and #2 wins the alien eyes award
http://thehill.com/50-most-bea.....ramasuriya

[Certified Public Asshat]

Yes, yes, yes, to #1.

[Certified Public Asshat]

#9, no way.

[Free Society]

what the fuck. the woman is so unattractive that I'd compare her to any one of several primate species if I wouldn't be castigated as a racist for doing so.

[Crusty Juggler]

It is more like "these are the people who are going to be stealing your money" list, and some of them are attractive.

[Certified Public Asshat]

You wouldn't let the redhead steal your money?

[Crusty Juggler]

While I am very attracted to redheads, because of past experiences they terrify me. My head would be on a swivel the entire time.

[Irish ?s ESB]

Every year the Hill has some really good looking people and some mongoloids who are in there because whoever writes for the Hill has a sick sense of humor.

[Idle Hands]

#1,#4,#7 are good. Went through whole thing no terrible choices really.

[John]

Even without a soul she is beautiful. With that face, you could almost be happy even after she poisoned your dog and slashed the tires on your car.

[TwB]

#1 is spectacular. God bless Texas indeed.

[Rasilio]

Don't care enough to scroll through it, anyone know if Libertarian Girl is in there?

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

NSFW: Nude photos from the 1970s taken at a hippie colony on Kauai

[Palin's Buttplug]

The first chick is hot. That was when I was imprinted. The tatted-out fake-tit whores of today don't compare with a 70s babe.

[widget]

the 13-centimeter kitchen knife

That's the length of a football field, I have no idea.

[Slammer]

Gisele dons a burqa to secretly fix her 'deflated' boobs

That is a great fucking headline.

[Tonio]

New Archaeology Discovery at Jamestown Raises Questions: A reliquary (fancy box used to contain religious artifacts) was discovered at a burial in the Jamestown Colony. Jamestown was the first permanent English-speaking settlement in the New World. As a Crown Colony, Jamestown was officially protestant (Church of England). Reliquaries are very much a Catholic thing. Catholics were not popular in England at the time (bonus Catholic Oppreshunz(tm) pr0n for Eddie): "One leader at Jamestown had already been shot for being a Catholic." [Virginian-Pilot article]

[John]

The vast majority of the English population did not want to split with the Church and remained secretly Catholic after Henry VIII split with the church. Henry was ahead of his time in killing monks and dissenters the way the French Revolution did.

The split occurred in the 1530s. Jamestown was less than a hundred years later. Those finds are not surprising at all.

[SugarFree]

Secret Catholics?!? To the Freemasonmobile!

[Warty]

It's not a surprise that tons of English Catholics went to the New World. Don't people remember the point of Maryland?

[Dark Lord of the wood chipper]

I thought the point of Maryland was to suck off as much tax money as possible from the rest of the country and still be a shit hole.

[Tonio]

This was before the foundation of Maryland. At the time Jamestown was the only English colony in the New World.

[Certified Public Asshat]

This is amusing:

Give the Olympics to Los Angeles

Reasons:

1. LA's games were the most fiscally responsible, ever
2. No wasteful or outrageous infrastructure will be built (hahahahahahaha)
3. A transportation boom will prevent logistical nightmares (see 2)
4. Sprawl actually works in LA's favor
5. People in LA actually want the Olympics
6. LA will force the IOC to reform
7. The city is getting a test run right now
8. We had a dude in a jetpack?31 years ago (this is the best reason)

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Isn't California basically bankrupt?

[TwB]

Sure. But at this point, they figure why not throw more money away?

[Certified Public Asshat]

This article aside, how do liberals realize that government spending on the Olympics and sports stadiums is bad (there is no multiplier after all!?) but then fail to apply that same idea to anything else?

[tarran]

The left wingers here in Boston who opposed the olympics weren't opposed to the spending per se.

The lefties basically feared that the money for the spending would come out of cherished buckets like public transport, education, or welfare.

The hogs don't like another hog showing up at the trough.

[Certified Public Asshat]

Roadz and skoolz, of course.

[Juvenile Bluster]

They're going to spend over a billion on a stadium in LA to lure a football team or two anyways.

[Irish ?s ESB]

"LA's games were the most fiscally responsible, ever"

Because LA has shown itself to never, ever waste money. The two examples they give of fiscal responsibility are 1932 and 1984 back when LA was a much different city than it is now.

"No wasteful or outrageous infrastructure will be built"

LOL okay. They'd build outrageous infrastructure they don't need entirely so that cronies could get the building contracts.

"People in LA actually want the Olympics"

Well, no one ever said they were smart.

"LA will force the IOC to reform"

Wut

Someone in the comments also mentions that this would be an absolute catastrophe because of California's drought issues, which is a great point I didn't even notice. Of course, this would be years out, but it's probably not the best idea to have a massive influx of people like that when you're a state known for your drought problems.

[Ken Shultz]

"LA's games were the most fiscally responsible, ever"

That was because of Peter Ueberroth--not because it was in LA.

http://tinyurl.com/prvdk76

He took the proceeds from the '84 Olympics (Yes, it was privately funded, and there were proceeds), and he split it among each of the Olympic teams' sports--to promote their sport or train athletes for their sport as they saw fit. Some of the lesser known sports used it to fund scholarships or buy and promote programs at various schools. Some of them used it to sponsor various athletes and hire coaches. Some of them invested the money for the future of their programs.

Those individual teams are still thriving on the money they made from the '84 Olympics.

Ueberroth is the best damn Governor California never had.

[Overt]

I think LA could be a great venue if it followed the private model. The Staples Center and adjoining buildings are the most successful privately financed venue in the country, and one of the few shining reasons people go into downtown (though Patina, in the Disney Center is the only reason I ever went other than a couple hockey games).

While LA does have a culture of massive government projects, it also has tons of very rich private financiers who could really make something of the games.

[Lord at War]

Best thing about the 84 Olympics... I ate McDonalds for free all summer.

[Drake]

Hilarious to think the IOC would even consider using the LA Coliseum for events.

[Ken Shultz]

They're begging to come to the U.S. because it's all about auctioning off the broadcasting rights, and advertisers won't pay the same when their commercials aren't broadcast over live games.

So, they need to broadcast from somewhere in the U.S. to get that live advertising money, and if LA is the only place with the airports and venues that'll do it...

No one in Canada is falling for it. They're still pissed off about how much Vancouver cost.

[John]

And Montreal. Don't forget that. The 76 Olympics almost bankrupted the city. And if LA is building a new football stadium anyway, that solves the issue of using the Colosseum.

The reason why LA worked hosting the Olympics is because it has all the necessary venues to begin with. The city is full of colleges, all of whom have outstanding athletic facilities. So there isn't a single venue that needs to be built other than maybe the Olympic village.

In a sane world that somehow decided it had ot have the Olympics, they would just permanently site the summer games in LA and call it a day.

[Drake]

LA is talking about a new football stadium - and has been talking about it for 30 years.

MA has a new football stadium but that apparently isn't good enough for the IOC.

Even if LA or a team owner built the stadium, it probably wouldn't have a track or facilities for track and field. What NFL owner is going to waste space on that crap? So they would still be at UCLA or USC. How is that much better than BC, Harvard, or UMass?

[John]

You build it with a track and then after the games are over just lower the field and put in seats where the track used to be. That is easy. The reason why Gillette stadium wouldn't work is that it was built without a track in the first place. You can't add a track in without expanding the size of the field and making the front row 20 feet or more above the field. If you build the stadium with a track, it is a simple process to lower the field and then put in more seats going down to your new and smaller field. College football stadiums used to almost all have tracks and now almost none do. That is because they lowered the field and got rid of the track.

And it appears that LA is actually going to build a stadium and the Chargers and Raiders are likely coming to use it.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

And it coincided with the rise of the nationalist Parti Quebecois thus leading to an exodus of some 500 000 people and several headquarters.

Montreal NEVER recovered.

[Drake]

Between Logan, Providence, Worcester, Manchester, and Hartford there aren't enough airports in the Boston area?

Between the Boston Garden, Gillette Stadium, Worcester Centrum (I know it's called something else now), and dozens of major college campuses - there aren't adequate venues in Eastern Massachusetts?

This only happens if LA caves to the IOC on money and lavish upgrades - or nobody does and they have to dial back the demands.

[Mickey Rat]

Do they not understand the current IOCs requirements for building new facilities? It is less if they needed or wanted by the host city, it is what the IOC demands. If memory serves they were thrilled about Atlanta msking ectensive use of ecisting venurs and changed their rules since.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

America's 10 best cities for pizza

Spoiler alert: Number #1 is a deep dish place in Chicago

[TwB]

Lou Malnati's is better than Giordano's. There, I said it. Let the arguments begin.

[Juvenile Bluster]

They're talking about pizza. Neither of those places serve pizza.

[TwB]

Blasphemer!

[Monty Crisco]

It's fucking lasagna, dude. If you want lasagna, by all means, have it, but don't call it pizza. Deep dish is retard's lasagna.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

*narrows gaze*

[egould310 reppin' LBC]

I agree with TwB. I love Lou Malnati's. I'll be in Chicago in late September and plan on eating there.

[WTF]

DEEP DISH IS NOT PIZZA! Therefore the entire article fails.

[Free Society]

Worst pizza ever in Italy. *ignites fires of Rufus signal*

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Pft.

Best I ever had was there!!

[Free Society]

This has all gone exactly according to plan.

[Mr. Flanders]

http://www.politico.com/story/.....20601.html

""These investments in broadband will connect nearly 7 million rural Americans," Adelstein pledged in a report to Congress, "along with more than 360,000 businesses and more than 30,000 critical community institutions like schools, health care facilities and public safety agencies, to new or improved service."

Judged against the agency's 80-year track record, those numbers didn't seem unrealistically ambitious. During the Great Depression, after all, RUS had loaned out millions of dollars to string electric lines to distant farms and small towns in parts of the country that private companies refused to serve ? a bold and calculated risk that had transformed America in a single generation.

But more recently, RUS has strayed from its rural mission. Even the agency's staunchest defenders in Congress have learned: When it came to funding broadband projects, RUS never found its footing in the digital age."

[John]

We need this because there is no such thing as Satellite internet.

[Overt]

As someone who lives rurally but works a tech job, Satellite internet is terrible. The latencies involved are dreadful, the upload speeds are medieval and the bandwidth caps are underwhelming.

Most internet out here in the boonies is provided via WiMax and similar wireless technologies. They can get you to around 10MBps downstream and 2 up, but they are notoriously sensitive to weather and over-subscription. Cell (e.g. Verizon hot spots) is a viable alternative, but the bandwidth caps are onerous if you watch a lot of online video.

The real problem with rural internet (beyond the primary issue of population density) is government interference. Local and state governments have given monopoly power to the phone and cable providers, and they have no incentive to offer good internet service. If you are an overbuilder trying to bring broadband to a locality, you have to deal with small town and county councils who are well lubricated by the entrenched monopolies- which are then generally scooped up by large providers.

[Rhywun]

But more recently, RUS has strayed from its rural mission

To the bone!

"Rural = poor" stopped being axiomatic decades ago. Kill it.

[Je suis Woodchipper]

Lest there be confusion about apprentices??these are not the equivalent of unpaid summer interns at a magazine.

BWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA

oh man, it's cognitive dissonance at a base level but i still enjoy it.

okay, let's review the differences:
1. apprentices learn a trade which they leverage into higher paying gigs
2. apprentices are financially compensated while learning a trade. albeit only enough base* salary to cover lunch
3. unpaid interns are unpaid
4. unpaid interns apparently don't learn anything

*assumption: tips would cover transportation

[PM]

With the Trump hysteria in the news I missed this, but Larry Kudlow has a good piece on Hillary's inconceivably stupid capital-gains tax scheme

In her latest economic speech, Clinton proposes doubling the capital-gains tax rate on the profit made from asset sales (stocks, bonds, real estate) held a day less than one year up to two years. Right now, if you take a capital gain a day more than one year, you are taxed at a 20 percent rate. Actually, it's 23.8 percent when you include the health-care surtax. So under Clinton's brilliant new play, you'd be taxed at 43.4 percent ? the top individual cap-gains rate of 39.6 percent plus the 3.8 percent Obamacare surtax.

That means, instead of keeping 80 cents on the additional dollar of profit, you'd only keep 56.6 cents ? a 30-percentage-point reduction in the take-home-pay reward for taking an extra dollar's investment risk.

This will create a tall barrier to investment ? what we don't need. If you tax something more, you get less of it.

[Plush Cthulhu]

Did he mention the proposed exemption for cattle futures?

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

+100,000

[Jordan]

Chinese central bank clowns say "Who could have possibly foreseen this?!". Janet Yellen agrees.

Nearly 1,800 stocks, over 60% of issues traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges fell by the daily limit of 10% and were halted according to a Financial Times report.

On Monday, Zhu Baoliang, director of the economic forecast department of the State Information Centre, a government research agency, told Reuters the stock market crash was having a deep impact on the real economy and that it was "essential for the authorities to cut interest rates and loosen monetary policy further."

Bear in mind that it was excessive liquidity that created China's property bubble followed by the stock market bubble.

Thus, Zhu Baoliang is another charlatan promoting the inane notion that the cure is the same as the disease. In effect, Baoliang wants to give alcohol to alcoholics.

When the US bubble bursts, we will see more blame the shorts mentality here, just as we see in China now, and also as happened in 2000 and 2008 in the US.

The Fed will never point the finger where it belongs: At themselves.

[straffinrun]

Someone needs to take one for the team and shoot a load onto Yellin's face. She'll finally understand excessive liquidity.

[Swiss Servator, rudert schwer!]

You first.

[Je suis Woodchipper]

Mish is great reading except that one time he left econ and waded into gun control. I doubt he'll do that again.

[Jordan]

True. He is from Chicago, after all.

[Lord Humungus]

My report from the People's Republic of Ann Arbor:

Good-looking women are in extreme shortage there. I saw maybe 2-3 that caught my eye.

Apparently walking in lead boots is a past-time at the Marriot I stayed at. At 12AM all I could hear is thump-thump-thump as someone walked back 'n' forth above.

Detroit area drivers are terrible.

People hate getting passed by a Mini Cooper - including a Honda Odyssey driver who was going 70... and then 80... and finally 90 before giving up.

Good Indian food at the Suvai Palace.

Also ate Chipolte for the first time - don't get the love for this place.

Canadians (my in-laws) are weird.

[Mr Lizard]

"Good-looking women are in extreme shortage there. I saw maybe 2-3 that caught my eye."

Yes and don't talk to them. I doubt their attitudes improved any in the last decade.

[Warty]

Michigan is deep within the Land of Ugly People. Also, they do drive like huge assholes there for some reason.

[Elspeth Flashman]

We make the cars, so we don't have to learn to drive them properly /my sister's logic on moving to Detroit.

[egould310 reppin' LBC]

I don't think those people in the hotel room were "walking". Just sayin'.

[Lord Humungus]

I can tell the difference between humpin 'n' walking... unless they were screwing and moving along the floor at a good rate (rug burn!).

[John]

Journalist at The Atlantic and Salon laments that we can't lock religious believers up in mental institutions.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/c.....ghtjackets

His reasoning is classic. Look at all of the damage it does to Progressive causes. Think about the millions of children who are "afflicted with home schooling". The continuing Progressive crack up is grotesque but also too entertaining not to watch.

[tarran]

I'll bet that cunt thinks the Nazis must have been really evil people for wanting to jail and eventually kill the unwanted people they believed were messing up German society and holding it back from greatness, and is pretty proudly convinced that he would have hidden Jews in his attic rather than applying for a clerical job with the SS had he been living in Germany in the 30's.

[Mickey Rat]

Maybe, butshe probably also thibks Israel is a blight upon the world.

[Irish ?s ESB]

I don't think he wants to go down this road because if believing in religion is a dangerous delusion, why could someone not make the exact same argument about, say, believing America is a patriarchy, thinking you're a woman born in a man's body, or freaking out about microaggressions?

There are enormous numbers of progressive assumptions that you could call a delusion if you wanted to. The issue is that people should be allowed to believe there's a patriarchy, should be allowed to freak out about microaggressions and should be allowed to think they're a woman trapped in a man's body and behave accordingly. You don't need my approval to believe any of those things, but they could all be called 'delusional' to the same degree as religious belief.

[commodious spittoon]

The talk about religion is just a screen, anyway. The truly unforgivable sin, the delusion Tayler really wants to see punished, is believing their will to power is not reason enough to hold it.

[John]

Exactly that. If religious people didn't stand in the way of him getting power he would love them.

[commodious spittoon]

"In fact," he posited, "religion, so potentially dangerous that the Founding Fathers established a 'wall of separation' to keep it clear of our affairs of state, continues to enjoy an entirely unmerited imprimatur of respectability."

This is a man who almost certainly believes that religion, at least Western religion, involves nothing more than fairy tales and stern edicts against onanism.

[John]

And that is the other thing. If he really believes this, then I guess he will be okay with starting the process by locking up all of the religious Muslims in the country, right? And while we are at it, lets put everyone who claims the Pope as a moral authority about global warming in therapy.

I don't think he would be supporting those things.

[Irish ?s ESB]

I googled 'Jeffrey Taylor Islam' and he apparently despises Islam too. So at least he's consistent.

Realistically there's nothing wrong with despising religions or even one particular religion. The issue is supporting the idea that the state somehow has the right to compel belief, which basically puts you on the same moral plane as Pol Pot.

[John]

Yes. Not just compel belief but declare dissenting belief to be insane.

[Irish ?s ESB]

Holy cow, I found an article from the good Islam apologists at where they got angry at Jeffrey Taylor for, hilariously, saying that Islamic beliefs are 'untrue.' Apparently you aren't allowed to say you think a religion is false.

[Irish ?s ESB]

Holy cow, I found an article from the good Islam apologists at where they got angry at Jeffrey Taylor for, hilariously, saying that Islamic beliefs are 'untrue.' Apparently you aren't allowed to say you think a religion is false.

[Irish ?s ESB]

^ at *Mondoweiss* is what that should say.

[Lord Humungus]

The Colossal Hoax Of Organic Agriculture
Organic agriculture is an unscientific, heavily subsidized marketing gimmick that misleads and rips off consumers. The federal government should stop promoting and subsidizing it.

Consumers of organic foods are getting both more and less than they bargained for. On both counts, it's not good.

Many people who pay the huge premium?often more than a hundred percent?for organic foods do so because they're afraid of pesticides. If that's their rationale, they misunderstand the nuances of organic agriculture. Although it's true that synthetic chemical pesticides are generally prohibited, there is a lengthy list of exceptions listed in the Organic Foods Production Act, while most "natural" ones are permitted. However, "organic" pesticides can be toxic. As evolutionary biologist Christie Wilcox explained in a 2012 Scientific American article ("Are lower pesticide residues a good reason to buy organic? Probably not."): "Organic pesticides pose the same health risks as non-organic ones."

[Free Society]

My least favorite aspect of organic food is the hijacking of the term "organic" to mean basically that something is the socialist equivalent of kosher.

[Slammer]

Bias-Free Language Guide claims the word 'American' is 'problematic'

"American," "illegal alien," "foreigners," "mothering," and "fathering" are just a handful of words deemed "problematic" by the University of New Hampshire's Bias-Free Language Guide.

The guide notes that "American" is problematic because it "assumes the U.S. is the only country inside [the continents of North and South America]." (The guide doesn't address whether or not the terms "Canadians" and "Mexicans" should be abandoned in favor of "Residents of Canada" and "Residents of Mexico," respectively.)

Using the words "rich" or "poor" is also frowned upon. Instead of saying "rich," the university encourages people to say "person of material wealth." Rather than saying a person is "poor," the university encourages its members to substitute "person who lacks advantages that others have" or "low economic status related to a person's education, occupation and income."

Terms also considered problematic include: "elders," "senior citizen," "overweight" (which the guide says is "arbitrary"), "speech impediment," "dumb," "sexual preference," "manpower," "freshmen," "mailman," and "chairman," in addition to many others.

[PBnHugh's Woodchipster]

More silly prog stuff. Language is a form of communication and therefore is full of bias. "Bias-Free Language" is a contradiction in terms. Just sayin'.

[Lord Humungus]

"overweight" (which the guide says is "arbitrary")

quantity of matter inversely challenged?

[Rhywun]

Me doubleplus bellyfeel Ingsoc language!

[Azathoth!!]

The US IS the only country in the whole of the Americas to use 'America' in it's name.

So people from the US are called 'Americans' because it's part of the namee of their country. Chileans, peruvians, Columbians and Maxicans all understand--too bad progs can't.

[Vincent Adultman]

I went to the stock market to do a business.

[Jumbie]

Today's HyR debunk challenge:
7 Myths about the $15 dollar minimum wage.

Most of these seem irrelevant.

But 3), 5) and 6) I've seen raised here before and they are relevant since they attempt to magic away adverse effects.

I am particularly curious about the Goldman Sachs study she cited for number 5.

But feel free to take down as many as you wish. Citations and step-by-step reasoning will earn you style points.

[Frankjasper1]

If this increase has no negstive affect why phase it in? Do it right away.

If it is good for business revenue and wont increase costs and pricez because they will have better workers somehow...why does there need to be a law to pass it?

She didnt explain how 15 was the right number either. 10.10 was the number for a living wage a few years ago and now 15? How is 20 bombastic i wonder but 15 is great

[Injun, as in from India]

Will urban resurgence hurt Democratic candidates?

HOLY SH**. The concluding line of the article:

In fact, House Democrats could use a resettlement program.

[Plush Cthulhu]

I'm in favor of them having their own "Trail of Tears".

[John]

They are the party of Jackson. Don't think they won't relocate you if your presence gets in the way of progress.

[Injun, as in from India]

Add the HUD's new racial demographic data gathering efforts with the Democrats' apparent need for a resettlement program, and you know where this will lead to.

[Rhywun]

Is the answer "more Democrats in office"?

[Plush Cthulhu]

Oh, no, I want the House Democrats to experience a Trail of Tears. I don't want them mandating one for anyone else.

[prolefeed]

we elect sociopaths but, unfortunately, not for the purpose of keeping an eye on them.

The problem is that we locate seats of government in buildings accessible to the general public, rather than in the privately run insane asylums that a civilized society would use.

[KerryW]

From the CNN article on Kasich/Trump:

"Trump called The Daily Beast a "joke" desperate to remain relevant.

Pot/kettle.

[simplybe]

Boehner should ve ousted. Besides the fact that he is drunk he thinks it is ok to be a dictator in the house. The purpose of Congress is to represent the people not special interest and congressmen that actually believe that they are thier to voice the peoples views should not be marginalized. Do I say FIRE the drunk a**hole

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

"Do I say FIRE the drunk a**hole"

You yellin' at the mirror again?