Tom Brady Is Every Voter, Clinton Ethics Scandal, A Day Without Trump (One Day, Maybe): A.M. Links

• 

  Tom Brady

  Donald Trump explains what it would take for him to exit the race.

• Trump boycott of Fox News ends. How surprising.
• Bernie Sanders says the federal government is the largest low-wage employer. Politifact rates the claim "Mostly False."
• Pope Francis visited Kim Davis.
• Americans don't trust the media.
• Heroic Tom Brady admits he doesn't know anything about politics and is pretty much voting at random.
• A Clinton State Department staffer advised the Clinton Foundation on policy, a possible ethics concern.
• Survivor is still going strong (and I, for one, am still watching it/applying to be a contestant).

New at Reason.com:

Brickbat: It's Not Easy Being Green

By Charles Oliver

The War on Sex Trafficking Is the New War on Drugs

And the results will be just as disastrous, for "perpetrators" and "victims" alike. By Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Hillary Clinton's Transparent Lies

How the Democratic presidential candidate kept an email controversy alive. By Jacob Sullum

The Cult of Victims

Attaching attention and moral status to "victimhood" is changing the character of the nation. By John Stossel

Is a 'Black Silent Majority' Responsible for Some of America's Harshest Drug Laws?

A new book argues that black America helped pave the way for the War on Drugs. By Sara Mayeux

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Heroic Tom Brady admits he doesn't know anything about politics and is pretty much voting at random.

That takes the air out of Trump's campaign.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hello.

[Citizen X]

That takes the air out of Trump's campaign.

How so?

[The Shrubber's Woodchipper]

Ask the Deflator.

[Trump-o-Matic 5000]

Brady's endorsement guarantees Trump will win Massachusetts and lose the other 49 states.

[Princess Trigger]

Tom Brady is worse that .....?

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

Trump tried to set his daughter up with Brady years ago. She was having none of it.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

97) Never mind whether it's worthwhile funding the Ex-Im Bank or Planned Parenthood. What I don't understand is when we do decide to defund them, why does it take months and so much effort to cut programs that amount to some miniscule fraction of 1% of the federal budget? Good Lord, how much effort will it take if we ever decide to cut a whole department?

[UnCivilServant]

None whatsoever, because the cuts will be made by the force of the sun going nova.

[pan fried wylie]

I mean, technically a nova is a shitload of effort, so much that those budget cuts are gonna get transmuted into heavier environmental and healthcare legislation. I think, I'm a little fuzzy on my nucleopoliticaltic mechanics.

[Drake]

Ted Cruz explains it all. This is pretty epic - he goes into great detail on why nothing gets done, how the campaign money game works, and the difference between show votes and real votes.

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015.....eadership/

[Rufus J. Firefly]

The thing I love is when politicians say "what's 1% of the federal budget ergo why bother to cut it?' Well, if you have an endless stream of those programs it adds up to a lot.

Same with tax hikes. 'What's a 1% increase? Peanuts!' Isolated, sure, what is 1%? It doesn't seem like much. Besides this being a stupid 'one size fits all' quip, taxes are relative and intensely personal. If you keep adding 1% and add up ALL TAXES it starts to obliterate such thinking.

[Brian]

Government programs are always either too big to cut, or too small to be worth cutting.

Somehow, conveniently, no government program is just he right size for cutting.

It's the Goldilocks Dilemma.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

what is 1%?

More than I'm getting on my savings?

[Red Rocks Rockin]

what's 1% of the federal budget ergo why bother to cut it?' Well, if you have an endless stream of those programs it adds up to a lot.

From our perspective, yes, but in terms of percentages they're a small fraction of total spending. 75% of US spending is devoted to Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and defense. The next two largest items are welfare programs and interest on the debt, which brings the total to 92% of all spending going to just five areas.

Cutting funding to PP is fine in principle, but in terms of bringing spending in line with revenues it and other various programs won't even come close to closing the gap. Even cutting aggregates is going to be an issue because, like it or not, those various departments are jobs programs. Unless there are robust industries in place for those workers to quickly migrate to (and the problem is that a lot of them are glorified semi-skilled clerks, not high-skilled STEM grads), which will allow them to pay their bills, the fact of the matter is that there would end up being high unemployment for an indeterminate amount of time, which leads to social unrest. In a republican democracy, this means the end of the regime in charge before they can really begin to implement their own programs to increase employment.

This is why increasingly complex societies eventually collapse under their own weight.

[Bill Dalasio]

Cutting funding to PP is fine in principle, but in terms of bringing spending in line with revenues it and other various programs won't even come close to closing the gap.

I really don't think anyone thinks it will. But, I think for at least some of us, it's symptomatic f a larger problem. Here's an organization that's gotten caught doing things that at least border on illegal and we still can't bring ourselves to cut their funding. At some point, you realize that the political system isn't interested in cutting a damned thing.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Good points all around.

[Mike Laursen]

Anybody who has ever packed for a backpacking trip knows how that goes.

[Raven Nation]

Well, look at the response to Paul Ryan's budget plan a few years back. It was going to scale back spending in order to balance the budget in about 20 years. Apart from many politicians and journalists who oppose any spending cuts, it's all about not letting my ox get gored.

So Iowa conservatives who think government is too big and spends too much howl bloody murder when ethanol subsidies are threatened and the rate of increase in military spending is slowed. And progs who want to downsize the military scream when subsidies for streetcars are threatened.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Well, look at the response to Paul Ryan's budget plan a few years back. It was going to scale back spending in order to balance the budget in about 20 years

Ryan's plan was a joke. The figures assumed over 20 years without an economic recession, despite the fact that we've had one every 7-10 years for decades.

There's no other path than cuts that will hurt, and hurt badly. No President is brave enough to take that kind of political bullet.

[Raven Nation]

I don't disagree but that was kind of my point: a budget that really didn't cut anything was treated like Armageddon.

[Overt]

And when you add in the fact that any balancing will have to address Medicare/SS, anyone's plan is vulnerable to attack from that angle- whether the attackers actually care about those programs or some other program in the plan.

[Lord Humungus]

A followup:

Goat 'arrested' at Tim Hortons was possibly kidnapped

The goat was found wandering into the Martensville, Sask. Tim Hortons Saturday night. Goliath was walking back and forth into the store using the shop's automatic front doors.

Eventually, RCMP took the animal into custody, and left it at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine.

It appears the goat disappeared from the University of Saskatchewan Student Rodeo cabaret being held at a nearby country bar.

say what now?

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Our friends from India have made us goat briani (sp?) when we've eaten at their house. It's quite tasty.l

[Tonio]

Normally spelled Biryani, but I've seen it transliterated other ways.

[Rasilio]

Goat is awesome, it can be a little tough which is why it is usually served in stews but it is one of the most flavorful meats I've ever had.

I'm not a terribly big fan of Indian food in general but the fact that it is about the only place I can get goat makes me tolerate it

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

You need to find a central american "mexican" restaurant that serves birria. I think the best I had was from an El Salvadoran in Seaside Ca.

[Unreconstructed (Sans Flag)]

Or a Tex-Mex joint that has cabrito (baby goat, so less tough).

[Citizen X]

Now i want some Jamaican curry.

[Tonio]

You can get the meat from halal butchers, but...

[Rasilio]

I can actually get it at some of the grocery stores around here but the way it is cut there are a ton of bones in it and it is pretty expensive (~$7 /lb with about half of the weight being bone) so I don't usually bother.

[Akira]

If you can ever find ground goat meat, do yourself a favor and make a hamburger. Mix just a pinch of Madras curry powder into the meat, then slap that baby on the grill.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Look. Lay off our Canadian wheat hicks. The Roughriders are 2-11!

[Trump-o-Matic 5000]

I don't understand this story at all. Tim Horton is the Canadian Prime Minister, right?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

And he speaks with a twisted melange of Scottish-Ukrainian accents.

[Trump-o-Matic 5000]

Is the goat his wife?

[AlexInCT]

I thought Mr. Garrison fucked him top death a week or two ago?

[Pope Jimbo]

I can only hope the investigating Mountie told the suspect "You think this is my first student rodeo cabaret, eh?"

[Swiss Servator]

Seconded.

[BigT]

I was at a hotel in Alaska where a bear wandered in through the automated doors. We scattered, and the bear soon left and returned to pillaging the trash cans outside. Garbage apparently smelling better than a room full of scientists.

[Trump-o-Matic 5000]

We're here!
We're queer!
We don't want anymore bears!

[Akira]

+1 mustache parade

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

found wandering into the Martensville, Sask. Tim Hortons Saturday night.

Because what else is there to do in Martensville on a Saturday?

And don't tell me "Student Rodeo Cabaret", because the last one I went to was a real snooze.

[Ivan Pike]

Snow, wonderful snow!!

http://www.adn.com/article/201.....er-outages

[Rufus J. Firefly]

That'll be us in a couple of months or so. Ugh.

[Drake]

Sometimes I think it would be nice to live in Alaska. Then I read this in September and realize I would probably kill myself.

[Ivan Pike]

Drake, this is the second snow storm of the year. And Alaska is a wonderful place to live.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Is it like Northern Exposure for true?

[Ivan Pike]

Is it like Northern Exposure for true?

I have no idea what this means.

[Drake]

Bang!

[Rhywun]

I would trade a snowstorm for the disgusting humidity we have in NYC this week.

[commodious spittoon]

Beautiful bone-dry mid-80s in Albuquerque. For maybe a cumulative month and a half in early spring and early fall this city has its moments.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

I'll be in ABQ next week!

[invisible furry hand]

Going on a Breaking Bad / Better Call Saul trip?

[commodious spittoon]

Coming out for the balloon fiesta?

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

Visiting my oldest friend, who just moved to Santa Fe. We're going to the VLA, then to the balloon fest for the dusk burn thingie. And eating tamales, presumably.

I'd also like to go to Los Alamos, but apparently their visitors center/museum was designed by a physicist, not a museum curator (i.e. it's dull & incomprehensible).

[commodious spittoon]

My granddad worked at the labs. I really wish I had been older before he passed, but I'm told he regularly traveled to the Soviet Union as part of some scientific exchange program after the cold war. Was also present for a number of nuclear tests. Neat guy.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

That's awesome! I love physics, so my short visit will be heavily science-oriented, though I'll be hanging out with an art museum curator.

[commodious spittoon]

Oh, and there's an atomic museum in Albuquerque which is more layperson-oriented.

[Krokko]

I'm trying to get a job there. I like the rain in Seattle, but the people are driving me up the wall. Is it really only 1.5 months of good times? My thesis advisor used to live there and loved it.

[commodious spittoon]

In truth the weather is fairly clement for most of the year. The summers are hot but not ghastly Arizona hot, and better still we get very little humidity. Winters are cold and a little dreary, but not usually blustery and only infrequently snowy. Anyone from the northeast would probably find it mild.

But during March and some of April, or September-October, it's gorgeous.

[commodious spittoon]

Hit me up at this email if you do come out. I'm a student at the university.

[Krokko]

Thanks!

[RayJ]

Don't hate. I love my Phoenix summers, though, I love my Phoenix winters much better.

I lived in Chicago for 20 years and would never move back.

[Slammer]

EPA tweet

U.S. EPAVerified account
?@EPA
Think sunny days are good for plants? Not always. Sunlight causes #ozone to form, which harms foliage, weakens trees: http://www3.epa.gov/airquality.....system.htm ?

Sunlight is bad for plants? And the link goes to a "not found" page.

[UnCivilServant]

They got a torrent of mockery and pulled the page from their site.

[Tonio]

+1 Torrent

[Mr Lizard]

You know what plants crave?...

[Citizen X]

The blood of patriots and tyrants?

[Restoras]

The plants must be very thirsty.

[invisible furry hand]

Your lovin'?

[Rasilio]

Electrolytes

[straffinrun]

Attention from Trump or Hillary?

[Restoras]

Wait, I thought there was a big hole in the ozone layer, and we were all going to die from it?
Is that not a thing now?

[UnCivilServant]

Turns out that hole was always there, and wasn't actually the result of human activity. Ozone just never formed over the south polar region.

Now the temperature variation is being shown to be the effect of solar cycles and not actually the result of human activity.

Funny how a lot of these eco-panic items turn out.

[Rhywun]

So we can make aerosols that work properly again - right?

[UnCivilServant]

I'm more hoping we can get the refrigerators and air conditioners fixed.

Free the Freon@!

[Rhywun]

Interesting. The ones I have seem to "work" although I would definitely like to see them work better.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

That's one of those things that I distinctly remember being harped on so much when I was younger, then suddenly it never gets mentioned again. Later on I learn that it was yet another case of the "consensus" being a crock of shit.

It does make me smile when I read a book or watch a movie from the past that brings it up to make some big social point about how mankind is a pox on the Earth.

[Illocust]

Does anyone have any links to studies or scientific papers proving that the hole has always been there? This is one of those things I'd like to see evidence on.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

You know, I didn't actually have something handy because, as I noted, people don't bring it up anymore, but at a glance this looks reasonable.

[Illocust]

Thanks, I'm probably going to end up bringing it up at a later debate after I forget where I heard it from, so it always helps to not be completely talking out of my ass.

[Trump-o-Matic 5000]

Yeah, the truth of the matter is that the earth and its weather and climate phenomena are an enormously complexly puzzle that we know next to nothing about. Any predictions about what Activity X or Chemical Y will do to the entire planet decades from now is a complete guess.

[Suthenboy]

"Turns out that hole was always there, and wasn't actually the result of human activity. Ozone just never formed over the south polar region.

Now the temperature variation is being shown to be the effect of solar cycles and not actually the result of human activity."

Bullshit. We have sinned. The gods are angry. Sacrifices must be made.

*Sacrifices = You pay me money*

[Fist of Etiquette]

Pope Francis visited Kim Davis.

To find out why she switched parties.

[Tonio]

Yeah, when I first saw that I was sure it was going to turn out to be a hoax. This is going to take some of the wind out of the sails of the fawning media.

[Certified Public Asshat]

If you go to the Gawker story on this, the comments have already switched from COOL POPE to FUCK THE POPE.

[Citizen X]

If you go to the Gawker story on this, you should probably take stock of your life choices, since you're the kind of person who would go to a Gawker story on this or anything.

[crab_apple]

Are you kidding? This is the only time one should go to a gawker article to lick their salty tears and point out how hilarious it was they were ready to accept the Pope's doctrine as public policy when he was preaching their idiot progtard religion but they turned on him awfully quick. Delicious.

[Rhywun]

"kept secret from the media"

My god can you imagine the shitstorm if it wasn't.

[Just say Nikki]

To find out why she switched parties.

And religions?

[SugarFree]

She's an abomination due to her remarriage to her second husband.

(Oh, and the "Christians don't have to follow the Old Testament" argument doesn't hold water... she objects to gay marriage because of "God's definition of marriage since the beginning of time.")

[Rhywun]

I object to brussels sprouts because of "God's definition of food that doesn't make me puke since the beginning of time."

[invisible furry hand]

roast them bitches with extra virgin olive oil and bacon.

The brussel sprouts, that is

[Agammamon]

Then, when they're done, peel the bacon off the brussel sprouts, toss the sprout, and eat the bacon.

[Tonio]

Yeah, srsly, what IFH said. I hated BS as a kid because my experience was with the cooked-to-death ones they served in the school cafeteria. When I first tried a roasted one it was a revelation.

[OneOut]

Cook some bacon in a pan. Take the bacon out when done. Add BS cut in half and fry untill edges are crispy adding some sliced onion halfway through. Chop bacon into bite size pieces add back to the pan and stir around. Put into preheated oven for about 10 or 15 mins to finish. Before serving pour off excess bacon grease and drizzle olive oil over the top. Enjoy.

My contribution to humanity for the day is accomplished.

[pan fried wylie]

Microcabbage.

[Rhywun]

I have grown to appreciate broccoli over the years - isn't that enough?? Cabbage, cauliflower, sprouts, and all the rest of the little nausea-inducers can kiss my ass.

[commodious spittoon]

Cauliflower? It's the most inoffensive vegetable imaginable! It's like hating vanilla icecream or menthol cigarettes!

[Rhywun]

I can taste the family resemblance in it.

[commodious spittoon]

Fair enough. It features pretty heavily in my diet. Shredded and fried, blended and mashed, as a substitute for pasta (mm, cauliflower and cheese...) or simply raw. Broccoli, too. And tonight I'm making cold peanut noodle salad using mung bean sprouts. One excellent point in favor of splitting up with my fastidious ex is making meals I enjoy. ONIONS BELONG IN FOOD.

[Citizen X]

It's not just a family resemblance - brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collards, cabbage, kohlrabi, etc. are all different cultivars of a single species, Brassica oleracea.

[commodious spittoon]

So if I mix them together am I concocting a crime against nature?

[Just say Nikki]

But also her parents were Catholic and she apparently converted away from the RC church.

[Lord Humungus]

Amateur MMA fighter says big breasts are making life hard for her in the ring

Brye Anne Russillo has two big obstacles blocking her path to MMA glory ? her breasts.

The bartender-turned-brawler bemoaned how her big boobs are hurting her in the ring in a pre-fight interview.

"I can't cut my t--s off and put them on the side," she told My MMA News of her size F breasts, "They weigh 12 pounds."

yes there are pix...

[Just a thought not a sermon]

"I can't cut my t--s off and put them on the side,"

Why not? That's what the Amazons did.

[commodious spittoon]

Jeff Bezos is pretty hardcore.

[Swiss Servator]

*narrows gaze*

[invisible furry hand]

Why can she not fight in the old Highland way - bare breasted and each carrying an eight pound baby?

[UnCivilServant]

Morag would demolish her in the finals in that format.

[Elspeth Flashman]

+1 slap up tea at Mrs. Miggins pie shoppe.

[Pope Jimbo]

Isn't there some official who is willing to do a reverse butcher?

Instead of putting his thumb on the scale like a butcher, the official would gently lift her boobs while she is doing the weigh in?

[invisible furry hand]

Australia's sole libertarian Senator is pleased Uber is being legalised in the Australian Capital Territory:

"I use Uber from time to time, though not much because I usually conduct my business on my motorbike."

[Mr Lizard]

When you find the edge, you'll see where this guy lives

[Citizen X]

"...I usually conduct my business on my motorbike."

As illustrated here.

[Pope Jimbo]

Your link was broken

[invisible furry hand]

Actually he has a collection

[Fist of Etiquette]

Survivor is still going strong (and I, for one, am still watching it/applying to be a contestant).

Be the eye of the tiger, Rico.

[Certified Public Asshat]

Is this a safe place? I too still watch.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I DON'T EVEN OWN A TV.

[SimonJester]

If a vegan, for health reasons, does crossfit and doesn't own a television, which will he tell you about first?

[Rhywun]

Easy - the veganism. It's impossible to interact with one without that coming up - certainly if a meal is in the picture.

[Certified Public Asshat]

You can be a vegan crossfitter? Now I have heard of everything.

[Citizen X]

You can be a vegan crossfitter?

Well, not a very good one.

[Restoras]

Perhaps - guessing you'd just have to load up on protein supplements in place of all the meat eating.

[Riven]

I believe most of them subscribe to paleo

/adjusts invisible glasses

[Rhywun]

Humidity just ruins your hair.

[BigT]

"Survivor is still going strong (and I, for one, am still watching it/applying to be a contestant)."

Isn't it too late to get into the Heffalump debates?

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

I think I quit Survivor somewhere around season 12 or so. Nothing will top Pearl islands and the two-time winner goddess Sandra Diaz Twine.

[Bee Tagger]

Donald Trump explains what it would take for him to exit the race.

If someone slips a mirror in front of their face just as Donald Trump is calling him a loser.

[invisible furry hand]

The mysterious pothole penis street artist may have returned - or is it a copycat? (SFW, i suppose)

[Slammer]

'Wanksy'..heh

[Lord Humungus]

Questions no one is asking:

Why Have There Been No Great Women Bad-Boy Artists? There Have Been, of Course. But the Art World Has Refused to Recognize Them.

The short answer, I'm afraid, amounts to something like a crime ? the crime of being a woman. Long careers of female bad-boy painters have always been rare ? in fact, there have been so few of them over the past 50 years that I can count them on one hand. And the art world has never really known what to do with them, mostly responding from fear. For 5,000 years, art has been almost the exclusive domain of men. As Linda Nochlin famously pointed out in 1971, for centuries women were excluded from even attending the academies, never able to learn the skill-sets and tools of painting, and were persona non grata among those who defined the status quo and controlled the flow of ideas and capital. Men were the geniuses and ordained shamans of art; women were the flesh that made muses move, or they were just witches. Or cast as regressive or crafty or corralled in erotic and girly ghettos.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Obviously this means anything those male artists did was invalid and they should be completely disregarded.

[KDN]

Shocking development: Not Salon.

[Mongo]

Regular folk couldn't name a male bad-boy artist either.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

I don't know. I think everybody knows Van Gogh cut off his own ear.

[UnCivilServant]

Regular folk couldn't name a male bad-boy artist either.

Since I can't figure out what the definition of the term is supposed to be - I have no idea, other than this instinctual impression that whatever they did, it probably wasn't art.

[Swiss Servator]

Well some people try to pick up girls
And get called assholes
This never happened to Pablo Picasso
He could walk down your street
And girls could not resist his stare and
So Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole

Well the girls would turn the color
Of the avacado when he would drive
Down their street in his El Dorado
He could walk down you street
And girls could not resist his stare
Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole
Not like you
Alright

Well he was only 5'3"
But girls could not resist his stare
Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole
Not in New York

Oh well be not schmuck, be not obnoxious
Be not bellbottom bummer or asshole
Remember the story of Pablo Picasso
He could walk down your street
And girls could not resist his stare
Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole
Alright this is it

[Bee Tagger]

Politifact rates the claim "Mostly False."

Please put that in a more universal term of measurement like Pinnochios.

[Certified Public Asshat]

3/4 a full Pinocchio nose erection

[LoneWaco]

Mostly False = 8 Buttplugs

[Fist of Etiquette]

Bernie Sanders says the federal government is the largest low-wage employer. Politifact rates the claim "Mostly False."

The Sequester changed everything. It was literally the federal government's 9/11.

[Citizen X]

It literally destroyed America.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I always thought the government tends to overpay or pay a premium to attract 'top' talent.

In the process, by them doing that, it skews the market since the private sector wouldn't necessarily pay the same level.

[Rhywun]

In the past, the deal was the government would pay less but you would get better benefits and a fat pension.

Now, thanks to unions, they pay as much or more and still get better benefits and the fat pension.

[Lord Humungus]

It's all part of that social contract you signed at birth.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

If I were to get a Fedgov job on the same team for which I already work, I would get approximately a $10-$20k raise, just in salary. Then you add the wicked bennies on top of that and it's probably in the $30k range.

[pan fried wylie]

Yeah, i'd say my soul is worth at least $30k.

[pan fried wylie]

...getting to keep my...ugh

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

My soul is worth $10k, but getting a Fedgov job without having been in the military is easier said than done.

[G?C]

Ok, confession time - I am a federal employee. *hangs head in shame*

In my profession (accountant/auditor), my government salary is about the same as it would be in private industry for my experience/education. The biggest plus for me, and the reason I took the .gov job was the hours. When I graduated with my accounting degree, I had the choice of making around $40k starting with one of the big accounting firms or $30k with the gov. Big difference was the number of hours I'd be working - 70-80 hour weeks with the accounting firm vs. 40 with the gov. I did progress much faster in the gov than I would have in private industry, and the benefits are definitely better.

All that said, can I offset the taint of being a .gov with the fact that through my 15 year career, I have personnally been responsible for organizations in my agency getting their budgets cut by over $100 million?

[Lord Humungus]

Poll: Hillary Clinton's Image Improves Among Democratic Voters

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who has been losing ground in recent polls to challenger Bernie Sanders, is looked at more positively by members of her party after weeks of decreased support, a new poll found.

In the past two weeks, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have increased their positive views of the former secretary of state. She now has a favorable rating of 73 percent and an unfavorable rating of 20 percent, according to a new Gallup Poll released Monday. Her overall net favorable score yielded plus 53.

Earlier this month, Clinton's net favorable score had dropped to as low as plus 46. Her net favorable score had been as high as plus 62 in early August.

[Not a Libertarian]

Although the polls seem a bit schizophrenic on Democratic polling of Clinton

PHRASING!

Assuming this is a genuine feeling, What At All has Mrs Clinton and her campaign have done in the last month that would increase her favorability?

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Put out new polls with even more loaded questions?

[Citizen X]

Not been overt socialists?

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

She now has a favorable rating of 73 percent and an unfavorable rating of 20 percent

While Rand has the highest unfavorable rating of the Republican contenders. Which side is more fucked up?

[Bee Tagger]

Americans don't trust the media.

Channels 9 and 11 are a joke in your town, too?

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Get me the hell away from this TV
All this news and views are beneath me
So all I hear about is shots ringing out
About gangs putting each others head out

[Medical Physics Guy]

Ice Cube is down with the PE
Now every single bitch wanna see me
Big Daddy is smooth word to mutha
Let's check out a flick that exploits the color

geez I remember that entire track. great album.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

I listened to it pretty much every day when I was in the 10th grade. I put it on a few months ago after years and could still sing along (rap along?) with nearly every word.

[invisible furry hand]

Hell yeah. "Your mother's got gold nipples" is a line that pops, unbidden, into my head at inopportune times. I still have my original Fear of a Black Planet t-shirt

[Greg Loves His Woodchipper]

Jumped out of the jelly into a jam

[Fist of Etiquette]

Trump boycott of Fox News ends.

Red lines aren't what they used to be.

[straffinrun]

Obviously you missed the dead baby jokes yesterday

[gaijin]

Americans don't trust the media

I don;t believe this

[Lord Humungus]

Court ruling makes Minnesota latest state to call BB gun 'firearm'

It turns out the spring air action pellet gun so sought after in the holiday classic "A Christmas Story" is considered far more than a toy in the eyes of the law. Case in point: Minnesota, where the Court of Appeals ruled on Monday to uphold the conviction of David Lee Haywood for possession of a "firearm" ? in this case a Walther CP99 Compact .177-caliber BB gun.

Haywood wasn't allowed to own a handgun after a 2005 felony drug conviction, so he was sent back to prison after cops found the BB gun in his glove compartment during a 2013 traffic stop. Haywood argued that a BB gun wasn't a firearm. The Minnesota statute uses the word "firearm" but never defines it, so Haywood said the accepted definition of "firearm" should apply: a weapon that features a projectile fired by gunpowder. That's far different from the operation of a BB gun, which uses no gunpowder to expel its shell.

[Rhywun]

Jesus... I grew up in NYS and even we had BB guns.

[Lord Humungus]

China Cuts Minimum Home Down Payment for First-Time Buyers

China's central bank cut the minimum home down payment required of first-time buyers for the first time in five years, stepping up support for the property market after five interest-rate reductions since November failed to reverse an economic slowdown.

The People's Bank of China cut the minimum down payment for buyers in cities without purchase restrictions to 25 percent from 30 percent, according to a statement released on its website Wednesday. The previous requirement had been in place since 2010, when the government boosted the ratio from 20 percent to help curb property speculation.

[UnCivilServant]

They want their very own real-estate bubble and collapse - how quant.

[Jordan]

They already have it. They just want it bigger.

[invisible furry hand]

Jack the Ripper museum hires PR guy. PR guy defends Jack the Ripper

[Warty]

Somebody had to kill those old-timey hookers, after all. If not for Jack, they'd still be around, spreading AIDS and rhyming nonsense slang. Good for Jack.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Well, he did keep the streets clean.

He just did the work of people who were thinking it anyway.

[Mickey Rat]

Redjac.

[WTF]

Is the PR guy's name "Kosminski"?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Or Earnest?

[Antilles]

Anyone ever go on the 'Jack the Ripper Walk' in London? Pretty creepy to stand on the spot where each of his victims were found (except for that flophouse, that's been replaced by a parking structure). Although the scariest part was when our guide suddenly disappeared around midnight and stranded us in downtown London with no clue where our hotel was (this was 2001 before GPS phones). Highly recommended...

[G?C]

I went on one of those back in '93. But it was a private tour given by a historian from one of the universities in London, and he definitely had a flair for the dramatic. He actually took us out around the same time of year as the killings, and it was also in the middle of the night. At each spot he pulled one of us over, pulled out a knife, and demonstrated the cuts that would have been necessary for each of the killings. At least his knife was blunt. I think...

Another good one is the ghost tour of Edinburgh. They take you down into some of the small streets that the city just blockaded when the plague hit and didn't open again until everyone in there was dead....

[Lord Humungus]

Government Employee Hired To Find Drug Houses, Arrested For Running A Drug House

A Milwaukee government employee whose job was to know the signs of drug houses and report them was arrested and charged this month for running a drug ring out of her own home.

Milwaukee's Department of Neighborhood Services employ Regina Sims as its property management coordinator to investigate suspected houses of dealing drugs. But after a "citizen witness reported multiple instances of drug dealing going on" at Sims's house for about a year, according to FOX6, police got a search warrant and found a treasure trove of drugs, weapons and cash.

The police told FOX6 that inside the house they found a sandwich bag filled with heroin, 1.5 pounds of weed, multiple guns, ammunition, a digital scale and $3,600 in cash.

[Illocust]

Well, no one can claim she wasn't qualified for her job.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Just doing research?

[Mr Lizard]

It's rare government can recruit qualified talent.

Although seriously you could employ drunk drivers to ride along and pick out other drunk drivers on the highway.

[Tonio]

I think you're confused about what government considers to be proper qualifications.

[Tonio]

But did she lose her job?

[Sapient Mulch]

Paid administrative leave during the investigation?

[crab_apple]

So in otherwords, Milwaukee was funding a drug house. Shouldn't someone seize that money for being involved in a crime?

[Lord Humungus]

Officials: More work emails from Clinton's private account

The Obama administration has discovered a chain of emails that Hillary Rodham Clinton failed to turn over when she provided what she said was the full record of work-related correspondence as secretary of state, officials told The Associated Press Friday, adding to the growing questions related to the Democratic presidential front-runner's unusual usage of a private email account and server while in government.

The messages were exchanged with retired Gen. David Petraeus when he headed the military's U.S. Central Command, responsible for running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They began before Clinton entered office and continued into her first days at the State Department. They largely pertained to personnel matters and don't appear to deal with highly classified material, officials said, but their existence challenges Clinton's claim that she has handed over the entirety of her work emails from the account.

[Tonio]

unusual usage of a private email account and server while in government

Illegal, the word you're looking for is illegal.

[Bee Tagger]

Officials: More work emails from Clinton's private account

At some point the smaller set to work with would be emails that are not work emails from Clinton's private account, right?

[Lord Humungus]

Putin wins parliamentary backing for airstrikes in Syria

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday secured parliament's unanimous backing to launch air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria, paving the way for imminent Russian military intervention in its closest Middle East ally.

The move, which sets the stage for Russia's biggest play in the region since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, was announced as Syrian government warplanes conducted heavy strikes in Homs province and the United States and its allies struck Islamic State targets.

Russia, which has been steadily dispatching more and more military aircraft to a base in Latakia, declined to say when it would launch its own strikes, but made it clear it too would be targeting Islamic State militants.

[Lord Humungus]

Family smashes toilet after snake refuses to vacate premises

Her oldest son, Andrew, lifted the toilet seat and a snake was staring back at him.

"He's like, 'Ewww, Mommy, go look in the toilet,'" Garcia recalled.

Her response was simple.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh," she said in disbelief.

Garcia picked up the phone and sought help from friends. They rushed to help out, but the snake wasn't willing to be coaxed out. He actually slithered back into the pipes.

Finally they decided to lift the toilet up and carry it outside. They smashed the plumbing with a hammer and retrieved the snake.

[Jordan]

Need more evidence that Bernie is an economically illiterate clown?. He has $25,000 in credit card debt, some of which he's been rolling over for decades, even though he has $500k+ in an IRA.

[Slammer]

He's perfect for Washington!

[Drake]

Basically a stupid tax.

[Jordan]

Also, why is Bernie using an IRA? Isn't that, like, stealing from the government?

[Restoras]

According to Tony, yes.

[Drake]

And doesn't the IRA contain some of that evil shareholder stock?

[Tonio]

FTFA: The article doesn't mention an IRA. It does mention the senator's TSP plan; that's a 401k equivalent plan for federal employees.

[Jordan]

It's listed here. (PDF)

[Juice]

The report also shows no stock in his name.

So what's in his IRA? Nothing but treasuries?

[Lord Humungus]

(Sexual Assualt) 'Mandatory reporting' already exists on some colleges

The Times also notes another issue for university RAs when determining whether or not to report: The current campus climate of "political correctness that instills in students a fear of offending others and that hampers open dialogue."

Students are being taught to run to authorities for help instead of doing something as simple as saying "no" or "please stop." And that's not even in response to a potential sexual assault, it's to everything, even if someone is texting you too much or doing any number of a million other things that are annoying.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

When my children argue or fight and come to me to officiate, my response is the same as my mother's--"Work it out yourselves." But I can't count how many times I've seen other parents micromanage their childrens' interactions with each other. Aside from an overemphasis on sharing, and saying sorry, and taking turns, and "fairness"--which aren't always the right solutions to a problem--it simply teaches the kids they'll never have to sort out their own shit.

[Pope Jimbo]

My response to any of my kids ratting out their siblings was "Yup, that sounds about right for what happens to tattle-tales".

It didn't take long for them to not even bother (or go to their mother).

[Just a thought not a sermon]

When my children argue or fight and come to me to officiate, my response is the same as my mother's--"Work it out yourselves." But I can't count how many times I've seen other parents micromanage their childrens' interactions with each other. Aside from an overemphasis on sharing, and saying sorry, and taking turns, and "fairness"--which aren't always the right solutions to a problem--it simply teaches the kids they'll never have to sort out their own shit.

[Illocust]

The not being able to say No thing seems to be a real problem with a lot of these SJWs. It's weird as hell. They have no problem harassing people that don't use the current up to date nomenclature in their circle, but a guy asks for a blowjob and they become to paralyzed to say they aren't interested.

[Rufus J. Fisk]

As a teacher I always use the "work it out yourselves" response. Most of the time it works. I think it is one of the most valuable things you can let kids do. So many kids always look to authority figures to work things out for them.

[Just say Nikki]

"It's a hindrance on your social life because you know if a friend confides in you, you can't necessarily keep it a secret," Ms. McDonald said. "It's one of the burdens of having this role."

But she said she believes it's important to put her R.A. job before friendship. "During training, we talk about it and we try to remember, this is somebody's kid, this could be your kid one day," she said.

Of course. Never pass up a chance to imagine that a relationship between equals could actually be a relationship between you and your chattels. What would a slaver do?

[Sapient Mulch]

Friends is friends and bidness be bidness.

[Rhywun]

Jesus... my RA just holed up in her room and smoked pot all day.

[Number.6]

Didn't offer you any?

Bitch.

[Crusty Juggler]

Trump twice, Kim Davis and Tom Brady?

How dare you!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Iran's take on American's foreign policy:

http://www.iranreview.org/cont.....-Syria.htm

And Moscow Times on Russia's:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/.....35783.html

Interesting reads.

[Lord Humungus]

Lessons from The Beast Side: "Imagine how the cops would have reacted if a hate-spewing, black extremist had shot up a white church"

In the introduction, Watkins presents what could be considered the Ur-example of white privilege, the manner in which the police treated Dylann Storm Roof, the young white supremacist who murdered nine parishioners in an historically black Charleston, South Carolina church earlier this year. Despite the fact that police believed him to be heavily armed, when they approach his vehicle he is taken into custody without incident; when he tells them he's hungry, the police treat him to Burger King; and when he's transported to court, he's provided with a bullet-proof vest. "Imagine how the cops would have reacted if a hate-spewing, black extremist had shot up a white church prayer meeting, telling his victims as he blasted them at point-blank range, 'I'll give you something to pray about'?" For white readers, it's a useful thought experiment ? for black readers, it's an unnecessary one.

[Tonio]

They are not asserting any facts or evidence. They are encouraging people to use their fears and prejudices to define public policy. That never ends well.

[Irish ?s ESB]

I love this narrative more than anything.

First of all, cops are not monolithic. There are shitty cops and not shitty cops. The fact that shitty cops in Baltimore treated Freddy Gray badly (and three of those shitty cops weren't white, by the way) does not mean it's somehow suspicious that OTHER COPS were much more reasonable in their treatment of Dylann Roof. It's very possible that if these same Charleston cops had been the ones who took Gray into custody, they would not have treated him the way the cops in Baltimore did.

Secondly, Roof surrendered completely without incident. He wasn't shot because he gave no indication he was going to shoot at the cops, so the cops did their job and arrested the guy who was surrendering. As for the retarded points about BK and bullet proof vests, cops will give you food if you're in their custody if you're black too and here is a picture of the Beltway Sniper, who was black, with a bulletproof vest on.

It's actually standard procedure to put bulletproof vests on high profile criminals as you're transporting them and has been ever since Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald.

[Tonio]

^This. Thank you, Irish.

[Rhywun]

Collectivism is all these people know.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

Yes, these people are just flaunting their ignorance. Suspects get meals. Precautions are taken for high-profile suspects. There's no reason to think the cops would have acted differently if Roof was black. They were dealing with a mass murderer, for fuck's sake; the killer is not going to be viewed as even more dangerous or crazy if he is black.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

I really can't imagine this, because it's something that almost never happens. I guess they're saying the black dude would have been treated worse? I imagine the bulletproof vest thing is likely a matter of policy.

[Irish ?s ESB]

Yes, it is standard policy to give publicly known killers bulletproof vests because it's very likely someone might want to take a shot at them.

[Atanarjuat]

The discovery of water on Mars means no terraforming will ever happen. At least not until we've searched high and low for signs of life, for many years and maybe not even then. According to the article, NASA wants to send a probe to the site, but won't go near it for fear that microbes on the probe could contaminate the Martian water.

And that fear isn't totally baseless. I remember reading an interview with an Apollo astronaut who encountered an unmanned probe that had landed on the moon some years earlier. Samples of still-living microbes were found on it.

[Atanarjuat]

I know many of you aren't fans of the Tony Stark-industrial complex, but his endgame was a well-populated settlement on Mars within his lifetime. He's floated ideas like hitting Mars' polar ice caps with a nuke to cause some intentional anthropogenic Martian warming. Personally I think solving the magnetosphere problem would be more important, along with finding some extremophile bacteria or maybe even some Arctic tundra plants that could survive there and begin releasing atmospheric gases. But none of that will happen in our lifetimes because the presence of the water means that The Most Important Scientific Question Of All Time takes precedence. And who am I to say. Maybe they're right. If life does exist on Mars, Musk's goal of preserving Earth life in case of a destructive asteroid event seems kind of pointless. Life isn't really all that special or rare, after all.

[UnCivilServant]

I don't think that question should prevent colonization efforts. Especially since their argument regarding probes gets mooted by the number of probes already sent there. While these particular probes didn't land at the water site, you'll never know if any microbes found were actuall martian unless their mechanisms were totally alien to earth-based life.

[Illocust]

Fuck if life on earth is special or rare. I'm pro-human race. Preserving the rest of the species on this planet is nice due to personal benefits they give me and other humans, but if it comes down to all life on earth or humans I'd nuke all life on earth sans humans myself.

[SimonJester]

Yes, but we are not contending with rational humans. Combine crazy SciFi fanboys and girls with those nutters who want to stop a pipeline so they can save bugs that eat corpses and aren't even endangered. They will stop all progress onto Mars if they can manage it.

[Tonio]

Given the scale of engineering required to solve the magnetosphere problem it's more realistic to envision domed or underground colonies.

[Rasilio]

Not really, a thick enough atmosphere would solve 95% of the magnetosphere problem for any potential martian colonists and most of the rest is just replenishing the atmosphere as the solar wind strips it away.

The last 1% is what do you do if a large CME heads straight for mars but you'd have a few days advance warning to get everyone into an underground shelter and erect localized magnetic barriers over farms

[Tonio]

Given the scale of engineering required to solve the atmosphere problem...

Srsly, I want this to work. But it's going to be hella expensive. I think lunar or orbital colonies are much more practical. But also easier for government to shut down due to proximity.

[Rasilio]

Not really.

We aren't that far from being able to do it.

We need the ability to send a large ship out to deep space (past the orbit of Saturn), land it on a comet, attach itself to that comet and then act as an engine guiding it into a martian orbit. Then we carve it up and drop it in small enough pieces that the impact does not send the gasses back into orbit.

2 or 3 comets combined with the melted Martian Poles and sub surface ice ought to be enough to give Mars an atmosphere thicker than earths.

It is a project we could probably start in about 50 years and shouldn't take much more than 50 - 100 years to complete

[Atanarjuat]

But absolutely won't happen until it's been exhaustively proven that Mars has no life. Which would presumably require years of human researchers on site.

[Rasilio]

Don't forget the possibility the comets have life, that has to be conclusively ruled out too

[Suthenboy]

"Personally I think solving the magnetosphere problem would be more important..."

The presence of extinct volcanoes on Mars means that it once did have a magnetosphere, but without one now colonization of the planet will never be successful.

[Tonio]

Progs hate anything having to do with human exploration of space (as opposed to robotic). In the sixties this was framed as a problem of economic inequality - hungry children in Harlem and Whitey playing golf on the moon. The narrative then changed to how humanity has ruined our own planet and can't be trusted with others. Now the mask has slipped. People are actually talking about their fear that the rich will simply escape earth, and we all know we can't let that happen. You'd think they'd be happy to let those who want no part of their collectivist society to exit, but implicit in that is that they know they need those people who desperately want to escape.

[Restoras]

I'd be happy with any place to go to on this good Earth where the government would just leave you alone.

Are there enough of us out there to migrate to one remote location and take it over? New Zealand? Ireland? Iceland? Nova Scotia?

[Illocust]

Not until one of us gets rich enough to buy an island.

[Tonio]

All the good places are already settled and have governments. And even the smallest most pissant government can invade a colony - think of what the government of Tonga did to those libertarians back in the seventies. If you try to colonize Antarctica, the greenies would pitch a fit and that would be used as a pretext for shutting us down. Space is the only answer. There's too much of it to police, too expensive to get there.

We have to go there. They will do anything to keep us here.

[Illocust]

It's the end game of every society that's social contract becomes to onerous. The people who could live better lives elsewhere begin to do so, and those that rely on their productivity start to desperately stop them from leaving. See every communist country ever.

[Agammamon]

The discovery of water on Mars means no terraforming will ever happen. At least not until we've searched high and low for signs of life, for many years and maybe not even then.

1. Why would you go through all the effort to escape the Earth's gravity well - once you're in orbit you're halfway to *anywhere* - just to dive back down a hole?

2. Terraforming doesn't do anything for us - on anything other than a scale of tens of centuries its simply too energy intensive (ie, expensive) for what you get. You'd need to go to the Oort cloud to bring back an Indian Ocean's worth of water, *somehow* increase atmospheric pressure so that a human could survive without a pressure suit (even if they still need temperature control and a breathing supply), and go through a major genetic engineering project to build a suitable ecosystem from scratch.

And all you get is a place that's still less hospitable than Antarctica.

[Agammamon]

3. What *problem* does terraforming solve anyway? Space? We're not crowded, are unlikely to ever be, and emmigration in sufficient numbers would be impossible to pull off anyway.

'Existential'? Better to go asteroid mining and build orbital habitats around Earth and Jupiter. At least Jupiter both still receives a decent amount of solar energy and you can tap its radiation belts for a huuuuuuuuuuumoungous amount of energy. Plus, for those wanting He3 for interstellar fusion starships - Jupiter contains more and its more readily available (though that isn't saying much - 15-50 ppb (ie, 150 million tons of regolith need to be processed to get one tone of He3).

[Rufus J. Firefly]

All I know is the Patriots possibly have the quickest short-passing game I've ever seen - and that's saying a lot coming from a Canuck that watches the pass-first and fast CFL.

[Crusty Juggler]

Brady gets rid of the ball in just over two seconds. Two seconds!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

It's sick.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Only Rodgers and the Packers are on the same level.

[Crusty Juggler]

This guy is probably the best quarterback in NFL history! That guy!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Baarady!

[Citizen X]

Five seconds later Brady snaps that goat forty yards downfield.

[SimonJester]

For a Hail Maaaaaaaaaaary?

[Pope Jimbo]

That isn't a goat, it is a deflated sheep

[Dark Lord of the wood chipper]

Matt Ryan is also doing pretty good in that department this year.At least from the games I've watched.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Ryan and Rivers always struck me as effective QB's if not under rated.

[Restoras]

Brady and the Patriots are on a mission - I predict they win the Superbowl this year.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I can't see anyone taking them out in the AFC. Denver's defense can't stop that offensive scheme and Baltimore looks like toast. They can go on a run but are they legit?

The Packers and Seahawks are the only teams capable of stopping the Patriots.

This based on three weeks in of course.

[Restoras]

It's just a hunch - Brady seems like the kind of person that holds grudges and has a chip on his shoulder. Now that the nontroversy of deflategate has called into question his football cred, it wouldn't surprise me if he does everything he can to shred every opponent to the point of embarrassment. Not saying it'll happen - but it wouldn't surprise me.

Belichek is just ruthless in pursuit of victory - is he the Sherman of the NFL? Patton? Rommel? Guderian? Gap?

[egould310]

Spot on analysis.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Yeh.

I think he's echoing a growing segment of the football world myself included.

[WTF]

In honor of the 50th Super Bowl, the Patriots will go undefeated, and then suffer a humiliating loss in the Super Bowl in a close game to the Giants.

[Rasilio]

Um, have you seen the Giants play this year?

The have to make the playoffs before they can make the Superbowl

[WTF]

I refer to the Giants 2007 season where they started 0-2, made the playoffs as a wild card, and beat the undefeated Patriots in the Super Bowl.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I can't stand stories like that. Mediocre team (yeah, yeah good O-line and receivers) gets in way of all-time great narrative!

[Restoras]

That was a glorious season. The Superbowl win was great but the win over the Packers was perhaps sweeter.

[Irish ?s ESB]

Bernie Sanders says the federal government is the largest low-wage employer. Politifact rates the claim "Mostly False."

Even if it were true, when you count contractors the federal government has like 15 million employees. They're easily the largest employer in the country, so if they had the most 'low wage' employees, that still would mean literally nothing.

[Drake]

Like everything he says.

[Irish ?s ESB]

My favorite is when he said that the wages for males have not increased in 40 years but didn't take into account that part of the reason for that is because men must now compete with women in the workplace and women's wages have gone up 2.5 times since 1970.

As a result, the average worker's wages are higher today. It sure is weird he cherrypicked one of the two genders without taking into account what's happened to the wages of the other gender.

[Certified Public Asshat]

Are you saying, he hates women?

[Citizen X]

It sure is weird he cherrypicked...

That's an odd way to spell "predictable."

[tarran]

Remember the Rico 20 and the troubling financial disclosure forms where the founder of their organization was paying himself 750K a year in NSF grants?

Well, it turns out poor Dr Shukla has been the victim of a bunch of terrible mistakes!

1) He inadvertently posted that letter calling for the Obama administration to conduct of criminal witchhunt against the heretics questioning his cults failed predictions!

2) This mistake happened just as he was disbanding his foundation, because it accomplished its mission, and though it looks like it's as a result of people looking into his creative accounting it's really the product of a decision they made two years ago!!!

The letter that was inadvertently posted on this web site has been removed. It was decided more than two years ago that the Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES) would be dissolved when the projects then undertaken by IGES would be completed. All research projects by IGES were completed in July 2015, and the IGES web site is in the process of being decommissioned.

[tarran]

Those wanting to read this inadvertent letter may find a copy here.

If one clicks on the original url where that letter was first posted, a different pdf has taken its place. 🙂

http://www.iges.org/letter/LetterPresidentAG.pdf

[Illocust]

Nice very nice, shame it won't result in anything.

[Tonio]

Thanks fort that link, t. Very disappointing to see that the top six signatories are from George Mason University.

[Jerry Smith]

Question: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does clicking "follow" on Snowden still guarantee extra automated scrutiny from our digital overlords?

[Restoras]

If you are posting here you should assume you are on a special list already.

[commodious spittoon]

Preet Bharara keeps a creased, handwritten list locked in his desk drawer. Sometimes he holds it in front of his face and glares at all those pseudonyms, willing them to rearrange themselves and reveal their secrets.

[Citizen X]

Then he masturbates and cries.

[The Elite Elite]

Does that include the government loving drones like Tony and Buttplug?

[Citizen X]

Yep. Eggs, omelets, etc.

[Lord Humungus]

Benjamin Netanyahu wants bloodshed: A new, deliberately provocative right-wing incursion into sacred ground

Israeli authorities have abetted these right-wing extremists by effectively imposing a physical and temporal partition of the Al-Aqsa compound. We have been here before: It was Ariel Sharon's deliberately provocative visit to Al-Aqsa as opposition leader 15 years ago this month that triggered the Second Intifada and years of bloodshed.

Members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party ? such as Miri Regev and Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel ? have sought to violate the status quo in pursuit of Jewish control over the compound. In fact, the Israeli government provides funding to groups such as the Temple Institute, an organization that aims to build a temple to replace the Noble Sanctuary, destroying it altogether. If they succeed in this plan, there will be bloody repercussions in Palestine, Israel, the Middle East and beyond.

[UnCivilServant]

You forgot the trigger warning.

[Lord Humungus]

It's trigger warnings all the way down, brother.

[WTF]

How dare those perfidious Jews try to visit the holiest site in Judaism unmolested! The slimy bastards!

[Tonio]

But do remember that site is also holy to Islam and Christianity.

[WTF]

Yup. But the Christians don't seem to have a problem sharing it.

[Tonio]

Apparently the Jews do have a problem sharing it with Christians, particularly sluttily-clad western female tourists who see it as just another historical site.

[Tonio]

"sluttily-clad" in the judgement of the Orthodox jews, that is.

[Citizen X]

Flashin' that ankle.

[Marshall Gill]

sacred ground

It becomes that once you have slaughtered infidel pigs there, doesn't it? The Moslems should get back to them after returning the Hagia Sofia.

[Timon 19]

The Hagia Sofia is a museum and is not a working mosque or a working church.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Sanders has a problem with Obama: he's just too gosh darn reasonable and rational:

Sanders said that after a "brilliant campaign" Obama made a mistake by expecting that he could easily negotiate with the other party.
"He thought he could walk into Capitol Hill and the Oval Office and sit down with John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and the Republicans and say, 'I can't get it all. You can't get it all. Let's work out something that's reasonable,' because he's a reasonable guy. He's a pretty rational guy," Sanders said. "These guys never had any intention of doing [serious] negotiating and compromising ? I think it took the president too long to fully appreciate that."

But Sanders didn't have a firm answer for how he would more successfully broker deals, saying the only way things will actually get done with a divided Congress is if the general population stays engaged in the political process and demand it.

Personally, I remember a bunch of smugging about how "elections have consequences" and "you lost, deal with it", which suddenly made a screeching 180 after the electoral reversals of 2010 into "Tea Party Taliban hostage-taking terrorists holding a gun to the head of the American people" and "Republican obstructionism".

[Drake]

Maybe Bernie is planning a Reichstag fire?

[Somalian Road Corporation]

I have a hard time seeing that kind of gumption in him after the way he let himself get pushed around by those BLM protestors.

[Restoras]

That was only because he didn't have his brownshirts organized yet.

[Free Society]

"elections have consequences" might be one of the best legal tests ever, as the great John Roberts has shown. Basically if the judge likes the law in question, it's constitutional, when he doesn't like the law in question then presumably only then can it be struck down. I'm told that's called 'judicial restraint'.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

He didn't need to sit down with Boehner and McConnell, because his party controlled both houses of Congress.

[Lord Humungus]

What Everyone Gets Wrong About '70s New York

On the other hand, few times in recent New York history have been so longed for, so endlessly discussed. ("Blah Blah Blah New York in the Seventies" went a recent headline on the Awl.) The building of the Brooklyn Bridge, the bright lights of Broadway, Bird and Monk on 52nd Street ? how could any of that dry-bone history hold a candle to the moment Afrika Bambaataa started those turntables spinning in the schoolyards of the burning Bronx? Was genius ever so accessible as when Dee Dee Ramone vomited on your pant leg on the Bowery sidewalk in front of CBGB? Sure, you could get killed on the LL, the EE, the RR, or some other mystery train, but at least the last thing you'd see would be a museum-quality Futura 2000 full-car graffiti, so where's the bitch in that? The 1970s! That was New York when it was real, when rents were cheap, the cabbies were white, and you didn't really have to know how to play to be a star, or so the plotline goes.

[Lord Humungus]

Back in that particular day, punk friends made fun of hippies, hair down to their butts well into their 20s. That wouldn't happen to them, the next generation of cool kids declared. Raised on ten hours of TV a day, they were hard-bitten realists from the "live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse" school; they would not live long enough to engage in phony nostalgia for the scruffiness of their youth. Yet here they are, nearly 40 years later, still in their leather jackets and pointy little boots, no different than doo-wop singers stuffed into iridescent jumpsuits doing that one number that makes everyone remember who they once were.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Who has been to the Limelight?

/raises hand.

[WTF]

Who's played at CBGB?
/raises hand (A Wednesday night showcase, but still)

[sarcasmic]

"Go ahead. Bite the Big Apple. Don't mind the maggots."

[UnCivilServant]

I'm at a loss to see what this brain-damaged nutjob is pining for.

[Rhywun]

The writing is expectedly overwrought but he's sort of saying that the 70s are not worth pining for. He's also saying that Manhattan is boring because the rent's too damn high (he's right). And much of what makes NYC interesting is outside Manhattan. All fair points, I think.

[Restoras]

Indeed. Almost all of Manhattan has been 'gentrified'. I remember living there in the late 80's and early 90's, there were areas you just didn't go, or didn't stay in for long - Hell's Kitchen (sketchy, maybe dangerous), Alphabet City (sketchy, and probably dangerous), SoHo (there was nothing there), Times Square-42nd Street, etc. Now those areas are habitable by 'regular' people. Even Spanish Harlem is beginning to see this happen - wine bars, etc. have started popping up.

[Rhywun]

I lived in Chelsea in the late 00's and watched this in progress. Then I got priced out by Eurosnob students.

[Warty]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....97804.html

So that's how it works in Amerikkka today. WAKE UP SHEEPLE

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Comment with most thumbs up:

"you have an impenetrable barrier to using the judicial system to effect change in gun legislation in Colorado"
That is the way it should be.
The legislature writes the laws, not the courts.

And if you file frivolous lawsuits you should pay.
If someone stabs you can't sue the knife manufacturer.
If a gun dealer follows the law they should have protection from frivolous lawsuits, like everyone else.
Like ? Reply ? 2789 ? Sep 25, 2015 12:59pm

Interesting.

In the same thread some piker tries to go all 'activism because emotions' but was soon shot down.

Laws - how do they WORK?!

[Crusty Juggler]

It is un-American and outrageous that these special laws can deny us our day in court simply because we were victimized by the gun industry. Our lawsuit was not frivolous. Our Jessi was shot multiple times with high-velocity, armor-piercing bullets that were designed by our military to inflict maximum damage on enemy combatants.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

You weren't victimized by the gun industry.

As horrific her death was (and may she RIP), no amount of emotional appeals can detract from this. The laws are in place for a reason (as lefties like to say when it suits their needs).

If lawyers did explain the possible consequences (and it sounds like they did) you took on that risk and must now unfortunately pay.

[RAHeinlein]

My favorite quote from the article:

"Lucky Gunner has said that it is going to donate all these fees to "gun rights" groups. The thought is disgusting to us that Lucky Gunner does not even plan to use this money to pay for their attorney's fees."

[Griffin3]

We knew the risks of bringing the case.

I don't think you did.

[Tonio]

The situation is indeed outrageous and un-American, just not in the way they think it is.

[Akira]

Somewhat off-topic, but...

I just can't get over how disgusting it is that people who have lost their loved ones to mass shootings are then roped into being stage props and talking parrots for anti-gun politicians.

People whose son, daughter, brother, sister, etc. were shot by a psychopath are UNDERSTANDABLY and RIGHTFULLY enraged. This means that they are sometimes not thinking in perfectly rational terms, and I don't blame them one bit for that. Hell, I would probably do some downright stupid shit if someone I care about was murdered.

But I DO blame the snake oil salesmen who sidle up to them and whisper in their ear about how this wonderful bill could prevent things like that if only the mean old gun rights people would let them go through with it. You have to be a pretty sick, soulless person to take advantage of people like that.

Naturally, this goes for pro-gun people who would use that same tactic, although it seems to be very rare on that side.

[Free Society]

"Whatever I vote is going to be my own personal choice based on how I feel," says Tom Brady.

I can't think of a better way for society to be governed than by millions of voters like this.

[straffinrun]

If he feels disgust, I'll assume he's abstaining.

[Tonio]

Shameless plug: I'm a big fan of The Martian and was very gratified to hear Andy Weir's interview with Reason. So glad he's a liberty fan.

[Drake]

The book was really excellent. Hope they didn't screw it up too badly with the movie.

[Tonio]

From what I've seen it looks like Weir was smart enough to retain enough creative control to keep that from happening.

My only quibble with the book: there's no way the President would not have been all up the ass of NASA about that.

[Florida Man]

I watched Black Mass and thought the retarded door man was Matt Damon the whole time, with some good make up. My wife has been making fun of me for that all week.

[Antilles]

My wife has been making fun of me for that all week.

As she should. Matt Damon doesn't need makeup to appear retarded.

[Slammer]

World War II and metal:

Part 1

Part 2

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I thought it was literally about...metal!

[Irish ?s ESB]

By the way, in case anyone was unaware, Arthur Chu is a goddamn moron and wants social networking sites to be held individually liable if someone does something illegal on their site.

In other words, if I use facebook to harass and SWAT someone, Facebook can be sued because I used their service inappropriately. It would be like holding a gun seller personally liable if some rando he sold a gun to shot somebody.

Popehat obliterated this argument.

Arthur Chu seems to think that removing Section 230 will help end online harassment, because forums and sites and blogs will take down nasty things said about people he supports. Maybe. But does Arthur think that harassers won't just as quickly use this new tool he's kindly given them? Does Arthur have a blog? If he does, folks can use anonymous proxies to post mean and nasty criticism on that blog against, say, me ? and then I can rush in and sue Arthur. "But I didn't post it! It wasn't up that long! How could I know it was false? It's not really actionable harassment, is it?" Great arguments Arthur. You've got a real shot with those at the summary judgment hearing 18 months and $150,000 from now.

[Irish ?s ESB]

And the flood of lawsuits! Oh, the lawsuits. See, lawsuits are about leveraging the expense and brokenness of the system to shake money out of people. Even if you figure out who HurrHurrFeminitzSuck on Twitter is, he's probably a dude living out of a storage locker. No money to be gained suing him, especially if his comment is close to the line between defamation and non-defamation. But if you can sue Twitter, too, when he talks? Deep pockets ahoy. Now it makes sense to sue, because even if you have a shitty case on the merits, Twitter may settle for a few thousand bucks to avoid the cost of protracted litigation. There are lots of idle lawyers out there, friend. Do you have a house? If so, you better not have comments on your blog.

[Illocust]

I think the thing Popehat doesn't realize is that most of these guys are perfectly okay with shutting down their own comments sections or restricting them to known ass kissers. They don't like random people being able to walk in and possibly discredit their poorly written screeds.

[Tonio]

^This.

[Trump-o-Matic 5000]

Knowing a lot of trivia does not make you smart.

[Juvenile Bluster]

One day, somebody's going to explain to me why Chu has a platform other than his rantings on his own blog. He's not smart, he's not witty, and he doesn't write very well. His opinions, which of course he has the right to, are the only right ones, and none of the things he advocates for (which all would inevitably kill online free speech, which he says he's totally fine with) are ever supported by any facts.

He blocked me on Twitter for a long time for wrongthink (o noes!), then unblocked me for whatever reason, then blocked me again after I replied to Popehat agreeing with his analysis on the subject (o noes!).

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Hopefully Ken continues to pull his head out of his ass in regards to chumming around with the Gamerghazi crowd.

[Tonio]

It would be like holding a gun seller personally liable if some rando he sold a gun to shot somebody.

That's the point.

[Trump-o-Matic 5000]

It would be like holding a gun seller personally liable if some rando he sold a gun to shot somebody.

Yeah, I've heard this floated as policy proposal on dozens of occasions.

[Irish ?s ESB]

Yeah, I didn't realize that upthread there are morons complaining that they can't do just that.

[Illocust]

And if you scan up to Warty's post, it's something that is already happening.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

Does Arthur have a blog? If he does, folks can use anonymous proxies to post mean and nasty criticism on that blog against, say, me ? and then I can rush in and sue Arthur. "But I didn't post it! It wasn't up that long! How could I know it was false? It's not really actionable harassment, is it?" Great arguments Arthur. You've got a real shot with those at the summary judgment hearing 18 months and $150,000 from now.

Yep. What a goddamn moron.

He was annoying on Jeopardy, too.

[Just say Nikki]

Half of US Catholics who favor state-recognized same-sex marriage think Pope Francis does too.

[Irish ?s ESB]

And Pope Francis allegedly spoke with Kim Davis (though that's according to her lawyers who could be lying) and explicitly supported the idea that a public employee should be allowed to deny marriage licenses for religious reasons.

[Trump-o-Matic 5000]

Well, it's a good thing the Pope has no legal authority under the U.S. Constitution, then.

[Just say Nikki]

Well, plus the whole thing about the Catholic church not being okay with homosexual acts at all and stuff.

[Tonio]

And the irony is that the bible doesn't (AFAIK) say jack about lesbianism.

[SugarFree]

It does frown on crossdressing, though. Which does encompass many lesbians.

[Idle Hands]

fashion is just a social construct, have you seen the garb from JC's time? Imho they all went to hell.

[Tonio]

Interesting point, but no more so than any woman who wears jeans and a flannel shirt while gardening, housecleaning, etc.

[SugarFree]

but no more so than any woman who wears jeans and a flannel shirt while gardening, housecleaning, etc.

They are all abominations. All.

[Citizen X]

If she is wearing JUST a flannel shirt while doing those things, on the other hand...

[Idle Hands]

yeah tonio all dykes every single one, they should grovel for forgiveness that they will never receive.

[Tonio]

I'm not sure what the Tonio in your head said, but I'm not responsible for that.

[Idle Hands]

I was trying, unsuccessfully, to make a joke.

[invisible furry hand]

What about the Tonio in my head? Is he any relation?

[Notorious UGCC]

The Vatican spokesman has confirmed that the meeting took place.

Of course, they may have simply met to swap recipes.

[Tonio]

Yeah, the media did a good job of that.

But then again a credulous population that will believe in weeping statues will believe anything.

[american socialist]

Re: Bernie sanders and mostly false on Politifact

...the point being that the federal government makes contracts with private companies that pay their workers shitty wages. In this case, Politifact took a tweet meant to be illustrative, wrang it through their ridiculous politifa-meter and voila, see, he's a liar. They probably rank pieces from the Onion as Pants on Fire because those guys are hacks, you know.

[Hyperbolical (wadair)]

...the point being that the federal government makes contracts with private companies that pay their workers shitty wages

And the federal minimum wage: what is it? And to whom does it apply?

The fact is, you make this claim because it fits your narrative. But it's false and so is your narrative.

[WTF]

If socialists had to actually tell the truth, no one would be interested in what they are selling.

[Antilles]

For Democrats and Socialists, lying is a virtue (for their people, that is). So, I don't see what the fuss is all about.

[Irish ?s ESB]

And Arthur Chu being Arthur Chu, he had two articles up the same day on basically the same topic.

The Men's Rights Activists of the modern Internet, unlike their counterparts from more innocent times, don't need to sell any products like books or videos or deliver services like speaking engagements to make a living. They can charge their fans directly for the purpose of running websites to troll women online. The more rabidly zealous they get and the more they alienate the mainstream, the more devoted their hardcore fans become.

It's gotten so bad that everyone assumes a troll motive as soon as a story breaks. Professional trolls like Sarah Palin, Bill Maher, and Richard Dawkins?who all spend a lot of time on social media stirring the pot to get mentions and clicks?pounced on 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed as someone whom they think antagonized authority figures for nothing but attention. In other words, they claimed him as one of their own.

It's an odd definition of troll that includes publicly known vice presidential candidates, rich talk show hosts, and best selling evolutionary biologists.

[Irish ?s ESB]

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

I wish Sarah Palin, Kim Davis, Darren Wilson, and the whole merry band of suddenly wealthy bigots had simply been forgotten?that there was no surge of support that provoked the haters and no surge of hate that provoked the supporters.

Sarah Palin was a fucking VP candidate and he's acting like she 'suddenly got wealthy' from youtube money and Darren Wilson now has to live like a prisoner in his own house out of fear someone will try and murder him.

Yeah, I wish I too could be unfairly targeted after I shot someone who was assaulting me, have my name publicly dragged through the mud based on lies, and then have to live in constant fear that I will be killed, all while pudgy dweebs with no discernible life skills call me a bigot with impunity.

Incidentally, under Arthur Chu's ridiculous proposed liability laws, couldn't Darren Wilson now sue both Arthur Chu and the Daily Beast for liable?

[Juvenile Bluster]

Typo at the end there (libel, not liable). But yes. Of course, he has correct opinions, so nobody would ever come after him for such things.

[Notorious UGCC]

Everything in the passage you quoted seems like projection. Trolls stirring up the pot, bigots, haters.

And while Palin and Dawkins promote themselves to the public (horrors!), Davis and Wilson did not, they were simply selected as Goldsteins of the Month by media mobs (and actual mobs, in the case of Wilson).

And that makes *them* attention whores!

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

LOL, what the hell? Darren Wilson is "suddenly wealthy" now?

[Illocust]

They really hate Richard Dawkins. Which is kind of hilarious, because you'd expect someone with his attitudes to be making war with religious fundies not folks like Arthur Chu. I guess it goes to show he has actual principles.

[Irish ?s ESB]

They hate Richard Dawkins because Dawkins shits on Muslims just as much as he does Christians. When he was writing The God Delusion they loved him because they could imagine he was just talking about George Bush being a fundy weirdo, but once he explicitly started criticizing Muslims (and actually saying that Islam is *gasp* worse than Christianity!) they turned on him.

My favorite example of this was when he talked with Mehdi Hassan about Islam and Mehdi Hasan admitted that he literally believes Mohammad flew around on a winged horse.

Dawkins then asked on twitter how Hasan can be taken seriously as a journalist when he is so gullible that he will believe literally anything that supports his views and people claimed Dawkins was a bigot for advocating that Muslims shouldn't be allowed to be journalists.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Oh, yeah, and this. Also known as "how Christopher Hitchens got the boot from the bien-pensant" set.

[commodious spittoon]

Musn't forget his kerfuffle with Rebecca Watson.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Apart from his past rocking the boat in Elevatorgate, he's put himself in the wrongthink spotlight with SJWs again for being skeptical of the Ahmed clock narrative, noting that it wasn't an "invented" clock as per the claim but merely a commercial alarm clock stripped of its housing.

He backpedaled when his cocktail party invitations got pressured, though. Sigh.

[Tonio]

Oh, I hadn't heard that about the clock. That's disappointing.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Yeah, I'm shocked, shocked that it's absent from pretty much all lamestream coverage of the issue. That plus Mark Cuban mentioning that he was taking cues from his sister on the phone when asked about it--who had also undergone a similar bomb fiasco--firmly put me into the "put-up job" camp on this.

[Tonio]

Well they have to CYA, you know. Having touted the perfect minority boy-genius against evil no-neck Texas rednecks it would be embarrassing of them to admit the truth.

[Tonio]

Because Dawkins goes just as hard on black baptists as on white ones, and we can't have that. Dawkins also goes hard on the hippie woo, and again we can't have that. Only the bad religions can be persecuted.

Yes, I actually wrote that, and now I feel really, really dirty. Like SugarFree fiction dirty...

[SugarFree]

Jump on in... the mud is warm and inviting...

[Slammer]

That's not mud

[Citizen X]

More like butt-mud.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Here's a new one. Apparently, even if you don't see the mean words people are saying... cosmic waves will get you and apparently make it worse, or something? I can't even make sense of this.

Arthur Chu ?@arthur_affect ? 19m19 minutes ago
Again: You don't have to be on Twitter for Twitter to ruin your life. In fact you're more vulnerable then bc you can't see it happening

[Irish ?s ESB]

I actually see what he's saying there, which is that someone could spread false info about you on twitter and there's nothing you can do.

[Just say Nikki]

My only question is whether Chu also considers himself a professional troll.

[Juvenile Bluster]

He absolutely thinks he's right. It's everyone who disagrees with him that are trolls.

[Warty]

I feel like this infographic marks some sort of point of no return for civilization. BREAKING NEWS

[invisible furry hand]

Needz moar labelz

[Idle Hands]

Is winter coming?

[Dark Lord of the wood chipper]

Always.

[UnCivilServant]

Winter comes along every year - Earth doesn't have some warped eccentric orbit like westeros.

[Citizen X]

Oh yeah? Why did that dude with a chain around his neck sell me all these white ravens, then?

[thrakkorzog]

I keep trying to tell you, that was just Mr. T on the home shopping network.

[Jerry Smith]

Is Jon Snow dead?

[Lord Humungus]

You know nothing

[Lord Humungus]

Portlandian Plants Nazi Note On Dirty Diesel VW

Portland resident Rick Gencarelli found the following note under the windshield wiper of his Jetta TDI over the weekend:

Hello, VW TDI owner. While cute, your TDI is outfitted with a cheating device meant to elude emission standards. Your car is currently polluting at rates higher than nearly any modern gasoline car today. Not to mention VW lied to you and the public, and was founded by Nazis (sad face). Perhaps it's time to consider a different car.

(Signed) A sympathetic and concerned citizen of Portland.

[Idle Hands]

That's awesome.

[Notorious UGCC]

You know who else was a National Socialist?

[Juvenile Bluster]

Bernie Sanders?

[Trump-o-Matic 5000]

Democratic Socialism is different from National Socialism, or so I'm told. It's, um, democratic or something...?

[Lord Humungus]

We get to vote on the name of the concentration camps.

[Juvenile Bluster]

But only a few names. We don't need two dozen different names for concentration camps while children are starving.

[Lord Humungus]

+1 Camp Bernie

[Tonio]

Franz von Pappen?

[sarcasmic]

Joe Kennedy?

Henry Ford?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I own a TDI. While I admit it's weird liking VW given its history, it's weirder to harp on it and use it to shame people.

And isn't diesel better than gas? Diesel is preferred in Europe.

[Restoras]

BMW is good too - they made aircraft engines for the luftwaffe.

Funny though - do the same jagoffs complain about Mitsubishi?

[Antilles]

do the same jagoffs complain about Mitsubishi?

No, because it was US aggression in the Pacific that provoked the attack on Pearl Harbor. And then we nuked them for no reason. So, the Japanese are the true victims of WWII.

[Number.6]

Then you have Fuji Heavy Industries, who build the beloved-of-the-crunchies Subaru cars.

Incorporated in 1953, and basically a rebranding of Nakajima Aircraft Company, those guys who gave the World the B5N 'Kate' torpedo bombers that helped devastate Pearl Harbor.

Speaking of Pearl Harbor, you also have Aichi, the steelmaking and armorment firm that re-jigged its business from building E13A's ("Jakes") and D3A's ("Vals") to building - you guessed it - Priuses.

[Tonio]

I've heard of Pacific Theatre WW2 vets who wouldn't touch Mitsubishi products because of Pearl Harbor.

[B.P.]

My dad was in the Pacific in WW II, and did some complaining about Japanese products. Then he took a liking to Datsun/Nissan when Ford was turning out absolute crap that they wouldn't cover under their warranties.

[Antilles]

I fought in the Cold War and have vowed to never buy a Russian automobile.

[Tonio]

So, "Sympathetic" thinks the guy should just go out and buy a new car. But Sympathetic is also trying to create conditions under which the trade-in value of that TDI would fall to its scrap metal value. So what Sympathetic is suggesting is that vehicle owners be punished for the decisions of others which they neither knew about nor had any input on. That's classy.

[Citizen X]

I found a picture of the "concerned citizen".

[Crusty Juggler]

"Every time you point I see a penis."

[Rhywun]

Ah, memories of all that passive-aggressive shit they throw around on the left coast. I only lived on it for 1 year and I couldn't get out fast enough.

[Lord Humungus]

Sexually Explicit Casting Contract for HBO's 'Westworld' Extras Has SAG-AFTRA Concerned

Background actors ? extras ? for HBO's Westworld were being required Tuesday to sign a nudity and sex consent form that reads like the Kama Sutra and that has SAG-AFTRA officials worried that performers won't realize that if they get cold feet on set they have the right to withdraw.

Indeed, cold feet may be the least of a performer's worries.

The explicit consent form itself wouldn't pass standards reviews at a broadcast network as it recites that the performer "may be required to perform genital-to-genital touching, simulate oral sex with hand-to-genital touching, contort to form a table-like shape while being fully nude, pose on all fours while others who are fully nude ride on your back, [and] ride on someone's back while you are both fully nude."

Less strenuously, others might simply "have [their] genitals painted."

[commodious spittoon]

And they're being paid for this?

[invisible furry hand]

Oddly enough, I assume at least 20% of commenters here are doing at keast one of these things at any given point in time

[Crusty Juggler]

pose on all fours while others who are fully nude ride on your back, [and] ride on someone's back while you are both fully nude."

It is not difficult to post comments while straddling someone's back while nude.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

You know, I initially rolled my eyes when I heard about the remake of Westworld as a series and mumbled something under my breath about "yet another fucking remake, can we get something original please", but I have to admit that my interest has now been kindled.

[Tonio]

Sounds like another quest for the Holy Grail of Hollywood - a mainstream porn film. That they haven't yet pulled off that hat trick after a hundred years should tell them something.

[Tonio]

Sorry, "a mainstream porn film that works as both porn and non-porn entertainment."

[Restoras]

Doesn't Porky's count?

[Tonio]

The closest have been "Caligula" and "Deep Throat".

[Trump-o-Matic 5000]

I dunno, Avatar was pretty steamy

[Lord Humungus]

You know there's this thing called the internet which has lots of porn sites available - some are even free. Of course if you like plots with your sex then porn may not be for you. /sarc

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Look, my extremely specific Western sex robots fetish is an underdeveloped market.

[Suthenboy]

I think that is the point of this phony kerfluffle, publicity.

No way in hell anyone is going to miss seeing now.

[Illocust]

So HBO is making sure that the actor will know exactly what is expected of them ahead of time and this upsets people? Seriously, good on the guy that wrote the contract. This sort of thing should be standard procedure.

[Free Society]

Westworld eh?

[SugarFree]

This contract is fallout from Emilia Clarke on Game of Thrones. You were hired for your tits, Khalessi... deal with it.

[WTF]

Warty calls that "Tuesday night".

[Antilles]

First thing I've heard that makes me want to watch this unnecessary reboot...

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

Now it's DEFINITELY on my watchlist.

[Sevo]

"California lawmaker turns 'juice' into campaign cash"
[...]
"SACRAMENTO ? Around the Capitol they're known as "juice committees" ? the ones that oversee lucrative industries, allowing politicians to foster relationships that can lead to campaign cash."
http://www.sfchronicle.com/pol.....ate-result

Mostly pay-walled; the print version goes on to say that the contributing parties (the regulated industries) 'don't always get what they want', but I'm sure they get what they need.
The paper never quite gets around to calling this "corruption".

[Agile Cyborg]

Lounging in a grove is not without its random precarious. In spite of the waves of lovely ions emanating from the fibrous giants and their fluttering miniature wings and the pleasant tickling of shadow and light upon the geography of skin and terrain a large branch can be unhinged by one of earth's more pleasant forces and cave one's skull in.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Man killed by mob in India over rumors he had eaten beef

The perpetrators have been arrested. However, I'm trying to figure out this part of the story:

Ikhlaq's daughter said they only had mutton in their fridge, a gift from relatives on Eid. The police say they have taken the meat and sent it for forensic testing.

What, it's going to have been justifiable if it was beef?

[Notorious UGCC]

Don't have a cow, man!

[Illocust]

Maybe get the guy on defamation if it wasn't beef?

[sarcasmic]

I did a quick google and it looks like the slaughtering and consumption of beef in India can be illegal, depending upon which state you are in.

[Tonio]

Cows are sacred animals to Hindus. Sheep not so much. Some Hindus are vegetarian, eschewing all animal flesh; others simply avoid beef.

[Citizen X]

In some regional variations of Hinduism it's wrong to kill an animal but not wrong to eat meat, so the local Hindus just hire Muslims to do all the butchery. Seems a bit shady to me, but whatever works.

[Tonio]

Typical of the intellectual contortions in which the religious engage. Orthodox Jews would have the Black, Christian maid to do all the cooking on the Sabbath, turn lights off and on, etc. They didn't care that their servant was violating biblical commandments, just that they were covered.

[Citizen X]

+1 Shabbos goy.

See also: medieval Christian and Islamic societies in which it was considered immoral to charge interest, and thus came to rely on Jews to do all the banking.

[Sevo]

Let 'em eat cake.

[Trump-o-Matic 5000]

I want cake.

[invisible furry hand]

Let them eat cock

[Citizen X]

Australians pronounce English weird.

[Number.6]

I want ... erm ... n/m

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

Pope Francis visited Kim Davis.

This made me LOL so hard when I heard it on the news. All those progressives thinking the Pope was some kind of atheist socialist idol. El. Oh. El.

[Lord Humungus]

He's the King Pope of the Trolls.

[Sevo]

Wasn't mentioned in the dead-tree version this morning, and when I caught it on some web-scroll, I wasn't sure it was true.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

Our local Fox affiliate had a reporter "on scene" at the Nunciature and the whole nine yards this morning.

[Drake]

Damn, I saw the headline and assumed it was the same guy.

[Dark Lord of the wood chipper]

And let's not forget about the guy who died in prison for cutting the tops off of parking meters.

[Florida Man]

I thought even black powder revolvers didn't count as a firearm.

[Pope Jimbo]

Convicted felon? Hah, Tundra. You can be convicted of a misdemeanor involving domestic violence and lose your firearms rights in Minnesota.

in any state, of any of the following gross misdemeanors: gang violence, bias assault, false imprisonment, neglect or endangerment of a child, burglary, stalking, setting a spring gun, and riot (however, if more than 3 years has passed since the conviction and s/he has no subsequent similar convictions, s/he may be able to possess a gun at that time);

So yes, letting your kid walk to the park could make you lose your weapons.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Thanks Tundra! I think Ivan wants to beat me up.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Canada had its own Arctic show called 'North of 60' while I enjoyed it, Northern Exposure had an irresistible charm! Great show.

[Ivan Pike]

Thanks Tundra. I looked it up to see what he meant. Never saw the show. Rufus, no problems and no intentions of causing you harm.

[Rasilio]

Well then, is it really like Mystery Alaska (one of my wifes favorite movies)

[Rufus J. Firefly]

/wipes sweat from forehead.

Phew.

Heh.

[WTF]

In the insane states like New Jersey, even a flintlock pistol from the 1700s counts as a "firearm" and will get you jail time if caught 'carrying' (having one in your car).

[Crusty Juggler]

They have mosquitoes the size of birds there, so no.

[Ivan Pike]

Let's all move to Alaska!!

To get you started.

http://www.alaska.net/

http://www.movoto.com/blog/opi.....to-alaska/

[Florida Man]

Is Minnesota anti-gun? I assumed it was more conservative.

[WTF]

I think Minnesota is a pretty blue state, dominated by the Democratic?Farmer?Labor Party.

[Crusty Juggler]

I think Minnesota of one of those places where different sections of the state tend to have different views. I would assume the Iron Rangers do not share a thought process with the Twin City folk.

Plus, they elected The Body and Al Franken, so they are weirdos.

[Suthenboy]

"Is Minnesota anti-gun? I assumed it was more conservative."

Two words: Al. Franken.

[commodious spittoon]

I thought The Red Green Show was a documentary.

[Crusty Juggler]

Naturally, wikipedia tells me I was wrong: "The area remains the greatest Democratic stronghold in Minnesota along with the urban centers of Minneapolis and St. Paul."

In reference to the Iron Range. -1 me.

[Pope Jimbo]

Actually our state legislature lately has been very good on firearm laws.

http://bringmethenews.com/2015.....ppressors/

I'm wondering if they might "clarify" this. If they do, does this poor cluck get out? Or will it be one of those Catch-22 situations where they tell him, that "sure it's legal now, but when you did it it was illegal, so you stay in"?

[Florida Man]

Hmm. I've never been. My only reference point is Rose from Golden Girls.

[Pope Jimbo]

Crusty,

Different kind of Democrat in the Range. They are - as you said - indistinguishable from normals when it comes to firearms.

They tend to be a Democratic stronghold because of their background with unions in the mines. Then when mining died out, the Dems were huge on funneling all sorts of boondoggle projects up their way to "kick start" the economy. Of course none of it worked, but it kept them voting for more goodies.

I've said in the past and I'll say it again that I will pay the necessary taxes to keep sending boondoggle money to the Range in order to keep them from migrating off the range and ruining the rest of Minnesoda.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Union Derp in the Iron Range and Big City Derp in the Big City.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

It was.

/puzzling look.

[Sapient Mulch]

+5 dozen eggs.

[Crusty Juggler]

It is very similar to New York State.

[Antilles]

Just try to forget where that 'clean' electricity comes from, and all the energy required to produce it.