France Launches Airstrikes Against ISIS, Dems Hold Saturday Night Debate, New Images of Pluto: A.M. Links

• 

  NASA

  France launched airstrikes against ISIS positions in Syria after the radical Islamist group said it was behind the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday. All but one of the identified Paris terror suspects are believed to be citizens of Europe. A spontaneous rally this weekend at the Republique Plaza, which included the banner "Can't Scare Us," dispersed after someone set off firecrackers, prompting a police response. At the G-20 summit, President Obama met with Vladimir Putin and urged Russia to join the fight against ISIS. Meanwhile, the governor of Alabama promised to ban any Syrian refugees from entering the state.

• Six semi-automatic rifles and 10 pistols were stolen from an Army Reserve armory in Massachusetts, according to the FBI.
• Democrats held the second of six presidential debates Saturday in Iowa.
• The security minister of Somalia says government forces thwarted a series of terrorist attacks the radical Islamist group Al-Shabaab planned to launch in Mogadishu.
• United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon may be visiting North Korea this week, according to a report in the South Korean press that the UN would neither confirm nor deny.
• Organizers of a 10k half-marathon in Bangkok accidentally added an extra seven kilometers.
• NASA has released new images of Pluto taken by New Horizons.

New at Reason.com:

• Brickbat: Warrants? What Warrants? By Charles Oliver
• Hillary's Appetite for War Clinton's hawkishness appears to have no limits. By Steve Chapman
• Marijuana Legalizers Who Ran for President Major-party candidates who opposed pot prohibition before Bernie Sanders. By Jacob Sullum
• Trump's Operation Police State Trump's proposed violence against families and communities is a recipe for social strife fueled by bigotry. By Sheldon Richman
• Eat Food and Die What happens when warnings about processed meat's cancer risk collides with California's absurd Prop 65 (over)warning law? By Baylen Linnekin

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

NASA has released new images of Pluto taken by New Horizons.

It's still not a planet?

[Raven Nation]

Contradictory statements: the alt-text suggests it is.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Hello.

10k half-marathon?

31k?

[Zeb]

The actual article seems to get it right.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Half marathon means they split it up between two different days.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

You come to a fork in the road. Pick the wrong route and...

[B. Woodrow Chippenhaus]

the Choose Your Own Adventure book ends?

[gaoxiaen]

Camus.

[BearOdinson]

No no no. When you come to a fork in the road, TAKE IT!

[Sevo]

'Cause you can never have too many.

[Notorious UGCC]

When you come to a fork in the road, don't touch it, much less eat from it, because Lord knows what diseases it has.

[Jerryskids]

10K half-marathon. The other half is 50% running, 50% biking, and 50% swimming. Otherwise known as a pentathlon, because there are 6 events. It's part of the Mathlympics, the non-Euclidian part.

[Brett L]

I read an article that quoted the head astronomer for the Vatican (and member of the Society of Jesus) admitting that the de-planetization of Pluto was a Papist plot.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Ooo boy read that as "de-penetrazation"

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Why would anyone want to penetrate a cartoon character?

Japanese tentacles notwithstanding.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I'm gonna guess there are people who do want to penetrate Pluto.

[Citizen X]

It's not called SUGGESTION 34...

[Notorious UGCC]

If we make believe it's not a planet, then people will be less likely to go there and find our secret base.

[Mickey Rat]

It is a bastard planet.

[AlmightyJB]

It identifies as a planet. A gay planet by the looks of it. So shut yo mouths you cretins.

[The Last American Hero]

That's no moon.

[Robert]

I always preferred Bluto to Pluto. Growl if you're with me.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Democrats held the second of six presidential debates Saturday in Iowa.

And Hillary is looking more presidential with every one!

[Rich]

Her donations from Wall Street prepare her for the next 9/11!

[DJF]

I thought it prepared her for the next financial meltdown.

[Rich]

Well, if by "financial meltdown" you mean her soon-to-be-renewed legal bills.

[Idle Hands]

If you hold a debate in the woods and nobody hears about it or watches it did it actually happen?

[BearOdinson]

Democrat Debate partial transcript:

Hillary: We need to RAISE taxes on the top 1%.
Bernie: No, we need to raise TAXES on the top 1%
Hillary: You are absolutely wrong. We need to raise taxes on the TOP 1%
Bernie: You don't understand the issues. WE need to raise taxes on the top 1%
O'Malley: My pecs are looking good!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Legit.

[Lord Humungus]

Obsessed man has a ?12k My Little Pony collection

Single Ian, who works in a fish restaurant to fund his pony fix, saw My Little Pony for the fi rst time at the age of 27.

He said: "I never watched My Little Pony when I was a child. I preferred Transformers and collected all the toys. But now My Little Pony is my life.

"I've spent at least ?2,000 a year on my collection and go to the pony conventions, so it all adds up but it's worth it.

[MetalBard]

ISIS, terror attacks, and now Bronies. Surely a sign of the end times.

[Rhywun]

27 is a little late to come out of the closet but OK.

[Hyperion]

now My Little Pony is my life

I see why his name is Single.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

His name is Single Ian? No wonder he can't get a date!

[pan fried wylie]

People spend that much on other hobbies in a year and it's not an "obsession".

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

who works in a fish restaurant

And spends at least a ton (or is it tonne?) a year might be an obsession.

[Bee Tagger]

Organizers of a 10k half-marathon in Bangkok accidentally added an extra seven kilometers.

That's a real kick in the crotch.

[Restoras]

A 10K is 6.2 miles - so a little short of a half marathon

[The Shrubber's Woodchipper]

Does Eddie K even read the articles he links to? There is no such thing as a '10k half-marathon.' The organizers had a 5k, 10k, half marathon (21.1k), and marathon (42.2k). The extra distance was added to the half-marathon course making it 28k.

If only the ugly commentariat hadn't run off Prostrel, the AM links wouldn't have reached such a sloppy state.

[commodious spittoon]

Sounds like someone's trying to work in a humble brag.

[The Shrubber's Woodchipper]

Look at me, everyone! I know how to read!

[commodious spittoon]

Reading the links is a lifestyle choice you're trying to force on the rest of the commentariat.

[The Shrubber's Woodchipper]

I only expect that the Reason staff read the links and author accurate bullet points. Otherwise the witty posting of the commentariat are only tilting at windmills.

(I thank the commentariat for reacquainting me with this idiom, prodding me to learn it's meaning.)

[The Shrubber's Woodchipper]

It's only Eddie's sloppy writing that inspired me to read this link.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Who's PRostrel? Did she used to lie down around here a lot?

[Swiss Servator]

Drink!

[Fist of Etiquette]

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon may be visiting North Korea this week...

The question being will the Norks bother hiding human rights violations and mocking up prosperity for him.

[Slammer]

Organizers of a 10k half-marathon in Bangkok accidentally added an extra seven kilometers.

So much for Asian math wizardry.

[Hamster of Doom]

Lacist!

[SIV]

I blame Millenials. I'm sure the route planner had some non sequitur of a personal narrative to stand in for an excuse on why it totally isn't her fault.

[commodious spittoon]

At least when Chinese students protest they're protesting for more democracy, not to bin fruits of the current democracy.

[Swiss Servator]

"not to bin fruits of the current democracy"

You'd rather they canned them?

[commodious spittoon]

Well, yeah. Constitutional preserves.

[Citizen X]

Delicious on toast.

[commodious spittoon]

Freedom toast.

[Lord Humungus]

Japan's economy falls back into recession again

Japan's economy has fallen into recession again after it shrank 0.8% on an annualised basis in the third quarter.

The preliminary data means the world's third-largest economy has contracted for a second consecutive quarter, marking a technical recession.

Growth was expected to decline after it fell a revised 0.7% in the second quarter on weak domestic demand.

Japan has been in recession four times since the global financial crisis.

On a quarterly basis, growth fell 0.2% in the third quarter from the previous one, weaker than forecasts of a 0.1% decline.

obviously moar spending is needed /duh

[SugarFree]

Krugman is going to be really pissed about this when he finally wakes up.

[Lee G]

needz moar stimewluss

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

"Meanwhile, the Democrats had a bizarrely rational and well-informed debate. By today's standards, that's positively un-American."

He such an annoyingly annoying predictable bore.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c.....sContainer

[Palin's Buttplug]

Japan needs a white Republican President!

(channeling John)

[Jordan]

Abenomics is failing spectacularly, as expected by anybody with a glimmer of economic understanding (i.e. not Keynesians and central bank clowns).

[Marshall Gill]

Isn't it fascinating how Japan hasn't appreciably grown in over a decade but emulating them is the path to growth?

[Gilbert Martin]

But it would all have been different if the right TOP MEN had been in charge, don't you see?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Just think how bad Japan would be if they'd been austere?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Also, Krugman blames the lack of giant monster attacks for Japan's economic woes.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Meanwhile, the governor of Alabama promised to ban any Syrian refugees from entering the state.

That's probably best for everyone.

[Slammer]

Who's gonna man the register at the Piggly Wiggly?

[Crusty Juggler]

Linda Sue?

[Citizen X]

Cletus and his brother, Cletus Jr.?

[Rich]

No *real* Syrian would work at a Piggly Wiggly anyway.

[SIV]

Haramary Waramary

[Spartacus]

No problem. Deepak Gupta, the owner, has hired the entire Dominguez family to help out.

[Bee Tagger]

NASA has released new images of Pluto taken by New Horizons.

Pluto must think of NASA like our government thinks of WikiLeaks.

[Stilgar]

So the French "war" has amounted to 20 of les bombes. Still waiting for a boot on the ground.

[MetalBard]

Perhaps you and some of your Fremen could support the attack...

[Adans smith]

Le wine must flow

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

The anti-freeze must flow.

[BearOdinson]

Maud'Dib! Maud'Dib! Maud'Dib!

[Bern-o-Matic 5000]

Bombing the shit out of places isn't war. /Obama

[Hi there!]

At the very least, they're bombing the country you'd expect to find ISIS in. Remember when we messed that one up?

[MetalBard]

"A spontaneous rally this weekend at the Republique Plaza, which included the banner "Can't Scare Us," dispersed after someone set off firecrackers, prompting a police response."

You got to be kidding me.

[Zeb]

Might need to fine tune the slogan a bit.

[Rich]

"You Can Disperse Us, But We're Not Scared"

[Drake]

"Running Like Frenchmen" was all I could think when I saw it.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I agree. More Pepe LePew.

[straffinrun]

Can't blame them for being on edge.

[Hamster of Doom]

Fine point. If that had been Times Square, think of the death toll as NYPD panic-fired wildly into the crowd.

[Hi there!]

Don't forget the last minute random beatings over the incident, handed out to mostly brown people from the frustrated Baltimore PD, they count too

[Hi there!]

*by the

[Swiss Servator]

"Oh yes I can"

/firecracker attacker

[Bee Tagger]

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon may be visiting North Korea this week

Movie night!

[Lord Humungus]

NYT: Many Say High Deductibles Make Their Health Law Insurance All but Useless

Mr. Fanning, the North Texan, said he and his wife had a policy with a monthly premium of about $500 and an annual deductible of about $10,000 after taking account of financial assistance. Their income is about $32,000 a year.

The Fannings dropped the policy in July after he had a one-night hospital stay and she had tests for kidney problems, and the bills started to roll in.

Josie Gibb of Albuquerque pays about $400 a month in premiums, after subsidies, for a silver-level insurance plan with a deductible of $6,000. "The deductible," she said, "is so high that I have to pay for everything all year ? visits with a gynecologist, a dermatologist, all blood work, all tests. It's really just a catastrophic policy."

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Yeah but....they're free now.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

"You've reached your limit of 10 free articles a month."

And that's even too expensive.

[Illocust]

Read this. Shame there wasn't a comments section. It would have been fun trying to watch the libs justify this.

[Hyperion]

It would have been fun trying to watch the libs justify this

They'll all sound exactly like our very own proggie, Shreektard.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

The NYT comments section is putrid. It pathetically funnels into 'a celebrated degradation of the GOP' and 'Republicans'. No attempt at formulating interesting thoughts whatsoever.

[Hyperion]

The NYT commenters are the worst. The most boring idiots on the planet who are all convinced they are some type of intellectuals just because they vote team blue and ramble on and on without ever saying anything of substance. Not an original thought in that bunch.

[Bern-o-Matic 5000]

Wow. No one could have possibly predicted this, either.

oh, wait...

[Swiss Servator]

GREATEST FREE MARKET LAW EVAH!!!!!

/derp

[Lee G]

I'm all for catastrophic policies, but...

[Rasilio]

Same here, thing is catastrophic policies for a single individual should cost around $150 a month, not $400 a month or higher

[BearOdinson]

I vaguely recall reading somewhere a long time ago about something called "supply" and something else called "demand". If only there was an explanation about how these concepts can affect the price of something.
Oh well, back to protesting:
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
"MORE FREE STUFF!"
WHEN DO YOU WANT IT?
"RIGHT NOW!"

[Hyperion]

This affects everyone in the country except for Shreek.

[The Last American Hero]

You have to have kidney failure to find out what's in it.

[Stilgar]

That is misleading. Their deductible is likely 2500 and out of pocket cap is 6K for an individual. And with silver plans the out of pocket max is reduced based upon income. At least in my area there are quite a few plans to chose from and with different levels of pay now or pay later. Regardless, and again specific to my area, the premiums are significantly lower than anything available to me (as an individual not on a corporate plan) prior to Osamacare. Blue Cross was charging close to $1,300/mo for their basic hmo policy. Even very high deductible plans were order $600-700 per month and still required many hoops to jump through to get that rate.

[Atanarjuat]

Osamacare

The treatment for kidney failure is a real bitch under that plan.

[Frankjasper1]

Where are you getting 2500?

[robc]

My pre obamacare policy was $2500 deductible +hsa for about $150/month. Max out of pocket was also $2500.

It grandfathered for years, I cancelled on 11/1. It was up to $190.

I have a family policy now thru work. Not as good a plan, but about same cost covering 3 of us (2 now, 3rd arriving soon).

Something is wrong with you if it was that expensive.

[Lee G]

My own experience suggests something completely different. My premiums and deductible have both increased by 100% or more.

[Stilgar]

@Lee G (and others). The plans vary by state and that has always been a problem with health insurance, both from provider costs to state plan requirements. I am in a large metro area with a high cost of living so not at all surprised that plans in other states (pre or post) obamacare are lower.

[robc]

Greyhound has a solution to your problem.

[commodious spittoon]

Woah. Not to give the impression that Albuquerque is a podunk town but I think I know that woman.

[The Shrubber's Woodchipper]

'No one should have to go into poverty to pay for their health care.'

[Overt]

I feel bad for these people, but this is exactly what we need. We need more people paying out of pocket for their expenses. This will lead to price shopping, which will ultimately lead to more price competition among health care providers.

The real crime is that we've blown so much money on ACA and other boondoggles, that we cannot target our help for people like this. If we must have some sort of health care safety net, it should target the truly needy and encourage them to save their own money so that they have a stake in price shopping.

If the ACA had instead setup high deductible insurance paired with HSAs, then government assistance could be based on matching dollars deposited into the HSA. Instead we've sunk ridiculous sums into exchanges that the private market would have easily provided with a profit motive for people freely shopping for the health insurance they desire.

Make no mistake, these articles are coming out as a shot against High Deductible Plans, not against ACA itself. If people don't recognize the true problems here, the "fix" will be replacing HDPs with cadilac plans for everyone.

[Trouser-Pod (The blowhard)]

We need more people paying out of pocket for their expenses. This will lead to price shopping, which will ultimately lead to more price competition among health care providers.

I wish I could be as optimistic about it as you are, but I think Homer more accurately explains the public, when it comes to having the government involved in their/our medical issues.

[Jerryskids]

"The deductible," she said, "is so high that I have to pay for everything all year ? visits with a gynecologist, a dermatologist, all blood work, all tests. It's really just a catastrophic policy."

So an insurance policy against unexpected medical bills beyond routine maintenance, minor ailments, normal wear and tear on the body. Sorta like an automotive insurance policy that covers a tree falling on your car but does not include new tires, oil changes, tune-ups or replacing the transmission after you've put 150,000 miles on the vehicle. That's what insurance should be - protection against the unexpected, not protection against the totally foreseeable.

But as much as I bitch about people conflating health insurance with health care, I get the feeling that it's a 'literally' losing battle. 'Health insurance' is not insurance in any normal use of the term, health insurance is a healthcare payment plan and somehow everybody expects to get more out of it than they put in - and they seriously, literally, honestly, insanely expect that everybody can get more out of it than they put in. It's just more free stuff that falls out of the sky.

[Juice]

Shouldn't it be "all but useful"?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Organizers of a 10k half-marathon in Bangkok accidentally added an extra seven kilometers.

I guess they were using Apple Maps.

[Bern-o-Matic 5000]

The security minister of Somalia says government forces thwarted a series of terrorist attacks the radical Islamist group Al-Shabaab planned to launch in Mogadishu.

Typical libertarians /progderp

[B. Woodrow Chippenhaus]

The terrorists hate Somalia for their freedoms!

[BearOdinson]

WINNER!!

[Lord Humungus]

Missouri police mulling charges against professor Melissa Click

Police at the University of Missouri are determining whether to file charges against Melissa Click, the assistant professor who generated an uproar this week when she was filmed blocking media access to protests at the school.

Major Scott Richardson told CNNMoney that the investigation remains "open and active."

[Illocust]

She didn't actually get hands on the student, so I'd think it be the muscle she enlisted that should be charged not her.

[Zeb]

Conspiracy.

[Tonio]

^This.

[tarran]

Her attempts to intimidate, her calling for muscle to lay hands on the guy is, I think, a textbook case of assault.

[Suthenboy]

"Can I get some muscle over here?"

Pretty clear threat of violence in my mind.

[Lee G]

It doesn't rate a criminal charge unless you agree with the protesters that words are violence.

[SugarFree]

I doubt it would hold up as a crime, but I bet threatening a student voids her tenure contract.

[Lee G]

Apparently she was just on some thesis review board and the university has already asked her to bugger off.

[Tonio]

I posted this in the PM Lynx on Friday, but always glad to see this posted again. In addition to criminal charges against her (filed by the student), the school has also filed a Title IX complaint against her. Delicious.

[Michael]

OMFG, that actually is her. I hadn't seen the video of this and thought the photo that Gillespie or whoever attached to a previous post was a still from Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something.

[Rhywun]

Expatriate runners are required to pay between 3-10 times the price that Thai national runners are required to pay

If you didn't expect that going in, you haven't done your Asian homework.

[Lord Humungus]

Zebras Escape from Circus, Lead Police on Chase in Philadelphia

The zebras, according to witness accounts, somehow got loose from the UniverSoul Circus outside the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, near 52nd Street and Parkside Avenue in Fairmount Park and ran out of the front gate.

Police Radio confirmed about 2 p.m. that zebras were loose in West Philadelphia and officers were trying to catch them.

"All I saw were two cops chasing the zebra, "said Rashad Smith, a witness. "We thought it was a horse."

[Rich]

What's black and white and all over West Philadelphia?

[straffinrun]

Moldy Cream cheese?

[Rich]

LOL

[Swiss Servator]

*narrows gaze all over Rich*

[Restoras]

so, a shmear-gaze?

[Swiss Servator]

Uh...yes....

*kicks at pebble, sticks hands in pockets and shuffles away*

[Bern-o-Matic 5000]

Does anyone remember the Fox show "Man versus Beast" from like 10-15 years ago? Among other awesome competitions, they had an Olympic sprinter race a zebra and a giraffe. It'd be great if they'd bring that back.

[The Last American Hero]

Yes. The best part was the Tale of the Tape part of the show.

Giraffe: Advantage - can run 4x faster than an Olympic Sprinter. Disadvantage - has no idea that it is in a race.

[Bern-o-Matic 5000]

Haha, yeah, I loved that. The chimp lost in the obstacle course race for the same reason, as I recall.

[Idle Hands]

I think they made their way to the Giants Patriots game. That's the only way they could possibly justify the non-touchdown call.

[Atanarjuat]

I saw the UniverSOUL circus when they came through town about 10 years ago. It might have been a smaller show then. Highly recommended. Honestly, I remember more of that show than of the Cirque duh Soleil shows I've seen.

Also, a caged cat took a 15' piss on a couple ladies in the audience.

[Trouser-Pod (The blowhard)]

Also, a caged cat took a 15' piss on a couple ladies in the audience.

I would have led with that. But, hey-it's your story 😉

[Fist of Etiquette]

All but one of the identified Paris terror suspects are believed to be citizens of Europe.

Literally biting the hand that feeds them?

[Princess Trigger]

We begin bombing at midnight.

[Lord Humungus]

Montreal river filling with used condoms amid sewage dump

A Montreal man shared video showing an unintended consequence of the city's raw sewage dumping -- the river filling with used condoms.

The city began dumping 1.75 billion gallons of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River Wednesday as part of a plan to replace the old infrastructure of the sewage treatment system and residents were asked to refrain from flushing items including medication, tampons and condoms during the estimated week-long dump.

However, a video posted to YouTube by user Viva Frei shows many residents apparently did not follow the instructions.

Canadian Sex is Polite Sex.

[MetalBard]

Who flushes condoms? Just throw them away.

[Illocust]

People who don't want other people to know they are having sex.

[Fist of Etiquette]

PUT MEDICAL WASTE INTO THE TRASH LIKE IT WAS NOT TOXIC?

[The Last American Hero]

Flushing them is a better way to avoid future child support payments.

[Rich]

week-long dump

Nice album name.

[straffinrun]

I've had the same problem with my week long dumps.

[Citizen X]

What, they're full of condoms? Either you're a really unfortunate prostitute or a really incompetent drug mule.

[straffinrun]

Not mutually exclusive.

[Citizen X]

True.

[straffinrun]

But it counts as two jobs so shreek is happy.

[straffinrun]

Not mutually exclusive.

[Rod Flash]

Still true.

[Illocust]

That should be good for the wildlife. Fish and other egg layers like plastics for laying eggs in.

[Citizen X]

Yeah but then they're going to end up with a bunch of half-fish, half-Quebecois monsters.

[Swiss Servator]

*golf clap*

[SugarFree]

Je suis lusus naturae.

[Lord Humungus]

so... Canadians?

[Citizen X]

They'll possess gill slits and flippery hands like their baseline Canadian brethren, but they'll play their hockey on the other side of the ice.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Yeh. That was a huge debate here. The Feds - you know, the party of the rational Liberals - allowed it.

[Lord Humungus]

Belgian Minister Says Government Lacks Control Over Neighborhood Linked to Terror Plots

Belgium's home affairs minister said that the government does not "have control of the situation in Molenbeek," a working-class neighborhood of Brussels that has been linked to several terrorism plots in recent years.

Speaking on the VRT television channel on Sunday, the minister, Jan Jambon, said that the government would "step up efforts" to bring order to the area of the Belgian capital.

"I see that Mayor Fran?oise Schepmans is also asking our help, and that the local police chief is willing to cooperate," Mr. Jambon said. "We should join forces and clean up the last bit that needs to be done; that's really necessary."

Prime Minister Charles Michel of Belgium said he was also concerned about jihadist networks in Molenbeek.

[Lee G]

An Israeli acquaintance just toured Europe and stated that Belgium was the only place he felt unsafe. So much so that he was even refused service in a cafe owned and staffed by Muslims.

He made this comment a couple of weeks ago.

[OneOut]

That is very sad to me indeed.

After 40 years I still have exquisite memories of my visit to Bruge during my European backpack tour.

[Illocust]

I'm really grateful that when we lose control of a neighborhood it is at least still filled with people that feel they are Americans first. After 9/11 our gangs started pulled out the weaponry in preparation to defend our nation.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

So,thes asshats know ther are entire neighborhoods they can't control and yet they want us to trust them to be effective stewards of our defense, economic policy and social services?

I wonder if there are areas in American cities where the police have zero control and the city governments ignore the rule of law. Anybody have any ideas if we are in that boat yet? And I don't mean south sid Chicago...I mean legitimately out of the control of the government.

[Lee G]

Libertopia, Indiana?

[Citizen X]

Hitlerville, Reichsylvania?

[tarran]

Detroit.

I don't have time to dig up the article, but there was a great series of articles in Hit and Run about neighborhoods where the cops' response time was hours, if at all, and residents were taking matters into their own hands.

[Tonio]

Dammit.

[Tonio]

Neighborhoods which they don't control. Not sure if they've actually tried very hard, but I suspect that's about to change.

I wonder if there are areas in American cities where the police have zero control and the city governments ignore the rule of law.

Detroit? And we all know that government at all level routinely ignores the law.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Yeah, I forgot about Detroit. Mostly because those aren't really neighborhoods anymore but are rather wastelands of empty buildings with the odd resident clinging to their home.

I was referring to neighborhoods where cops don't go because the neighborhood would expel them...where fundies have taken over...like areas in most European cities that minorities self-segregate into.

[Zeb]

So,thes asshats know ther are entire neighborhoods they can't control and yet they want us to trust them to be effective stewards of our defense, economic policy and social services?

Who want's Belgians to run our defense, economic policy and social services?

[Lee G]

Ever since they served me this in Brussels, I've never trusted those bureaucratic bastards.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

I'm speaking of government bureaucrats in general.

But since you ask, most of the mayors of Detroit have run for reelection up until their incarceration.

[Illocust]

"All but one of the identified Paris terror suspects are believed to be citizens of Europe."

This doesn't actually help the pro-immigration point. All it does is point out that letting in low skilled folks who don't speak the native tounge and have cultures radically different than the natives will result in the children of the immigrants radicalizing and causing problems for the natives. It's an argument against letting in refugees specifically not for it.

[Restoras]

No no no. It's an argument for Open Borders - they need to let even more in to speed the assimilation process.

[MetalBard]

And anyone who doesn't make it across the border we blow up - Cytotoxic

[DJF]

"""hey need to let even more in to speed the assimilation process."""

Until all of France looks like the Middle East

[MetalBard]

Exactly then the natives can learn to assimilate into the newcomers wonderful middle eastern culture, or be beheaded.

[Restoras]

Until all of France looks like the Middle East

I wonder if the US, Canada and Australia will be getting an influx of native European immigrants in the next 15-20 years or so.

[Atanarjuat]

Sounds like a win for us. I still say a winning presidential campaign slogan would be to allow unlimited citizenship for attractive European females. You know, to save them from the Muslim Rape Gangs.

[Restoras]

I'd go along with that with the caveat of a higher allocation of females from Scandinavia.

[Jimbo]

More "Special Interest" carve-outs? You're part of the problem! (In this case, it I'll go along with it)

[Jimbo]

Replying to Restoras

[Rhywun]

It doesn't help when the male youth are periodically jaunting to the ME for "vacation".

[DJF]

To the same places that the refugees say is too dangerious

[sloopyinTEXAS]

You know who else supposedly went to the ME for a secret vacation?

[Citizen X]

Princess Diana?

[commodious spittoon]

Bill Murray?

[Restoras]

Sarcasmic - and he didn't come back?

[Swiss Servator]

Napoleon?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

'Awrence

[tarran]

All it does is point out that letting in low skilled folks who don't speak the native tounge and have cultures radically different than the natives will result in the children of the immigrants radicalizing and causing problems for the natives.

The United States did this for a long time, and though there were problems associated along these lines at the turn of the century, we forget all about it.

The problem, in my mind, is the lack of freedom in Europe. Specifically, the lack of economic freedom. Both the law and the cultures make it very hard for an immigrant to earn a comfortable living. With few opportunities to improve their lot, and welfare checks that discourage the alienated from leaving for better climes, you have people who have nothing better to do with their time to get into mischief.

The human race will produce a steady stream of nutjobs, the Osama Bin Ladens, the Hitlers, the Lenins etc. In a free society, the nutjobs have trouble recruiting regular people to their standard, because their lives are good enough that a revolt just seems silly. People who would happily post on facebook that "Capitalism Sucks" won't go to the barricades since its bowling night. The increased commerce associated with economic freedom also means that people are far more likely to come into contact with people that they otherwise would avoid. The increased economic cooperation associated with freedom encourages people to form friendships etc.

[Swiss Servator]

The increased commerce associated with economic freedom also means that people are far more likely to come into contact with people that they otherwise would avoid. The increased economic cooperation associated with freedom encourages people to form friendships etc.

Best example of that around here are the "Indo-Pak" grocery stores. Over there, hate-kill-avoid. Over here - "howdy there, customer!"

[Atanarjuat]

So basically the French are choosing crony union patronage jobs over greater wealth and less crime and terrorism.

[Swiss Servator]

Oui.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

Al-Shabbab doesn't seem to have too much difficulty recruiting here. All of thwir anger has been focused on the moterthand though. For now.

[Jerryskids]

With few opportunities to improve their lot, and welfare checks that discourage the alienated from leaving for better climes, you have people who have nothing better to do with their time to get into mischief.

Plenty of them are not interested in opportunities to improve their lot through capitalistic hard/smart work - plenty just want more free shit. And plenty of them are young males who are crazy on the testosterone anyway and looking for any excuse to go all Clockwork Orange on the rest of society. Encouraging shiftless young males on the dole toward violence is as easy as encouraging Donald Trump to get in front of a camera and yap. Look at most any violent mob movement and you're going to see mostly young males with a government check in their pocket.

[Lord Humungus]

Could Paris Happen Here?

But such anxiety is unwarranted. In fact, it's a mistake to assume that America's security from terrorism at home is comparable to Europe's. For many reasons, the United States is a significantly safer place. While vigilance remains essential, no one should panic.

The slaughter in France depended on four things: easy access to Paris, European citizens happy to massacre their compatriots, a Euro-jihadist infrastructure to supply weapons and security agencies that lacked resources to monitor the individuals involved. These are problems the United States does not have ? at least not nearly to the degree that Europe does, undermining its ability to defend itself.

American policy makers have eyed Europe's external border controls skeptically for many years: The Schengen rules, which allow for free border-crossing inside most of the European Union, have made life simple for criminals.

[Illocust]

We're too bloody far away and we don't have the unemployment problem that Europe has. Plus we aren't nearly as racist.

[Rhywun]

Access to Paris is easier in France than in the US? That's some crack logic, NYT.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

And traveling freely among states is a boon to criminals...

[Drake]

Operating in a gun-free city was pretty helpful too.

As is having millions of assimilated Muslims (repetitive) living in neighborhoods that are perfect safe havens for planning operations.

[Tonio]

Did you mean un-assimilated?

[Idle Hands]

I'd like to seem them try one in Texas. They might be outgunned.

[Swiss Servator]

They did - that Pam Gellar Draw Muhammed exhibit - those two attackers that got whacked by the guy who was carrying (guard, off duty cop or somesuch - too lazy to look).

[Drake]

That's while it will be a blue-state liberal city - New York, San Francisco, or DC.

[Restoras]

Exactly my thought over the weekend. It doesn't comfort me very much as I ride MetroNorth and walk through Times Square every day. I am considering breaking NY's illegal gun laws and carrying but that is probably not advisable - I'd be more likely to be shot by a cop than a terrorist.

[Crusty Juggler]

I ride MetroNorth and walk through Times Square every day

I am sure you are comforted by the heavily armed, heavy police officers standing guard to protect you.

[Restoras]

Yeah, they make want to wear a bullet proof vest.

[Crusty Juggler]

But they all look so highly trained, especially while posing for pictures with tourists.

[Lord Humungus]

are lightweight bulletproof vests available? I remember - way back - such an option being available for high-level businessmen and the sort. Of course something that thin couldn't stop the bigger caliber / high velocity weapons but maybe shrapnel, and/or handguns.

Meh - what do I know?

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Weren't,people peddling bullet proof backpacks after Sandy Hook?

[sloopyinTEXAS]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....97428.html

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

That's nice, but... why? NYC, especially Times Square, is not bereft of cops.

Granted, that makes the situation even scarier, but it's not like if something happens there would be a dearth of guns firing in response.

[Restoras]

Times Square scares me less than being on MetroNorth - unarmed and confined to a small space. I'm a sitting duck.

Also, NYC may have a lot of cops but none of them will take a bullet for anyone not a cop. They'll be hiding and firing blindly from behind cover.

I see soldiers armed with pistols in GCT but I don't know what kind of training they've had. They don't inspire confidence - or fear, for that matter.

[Tonio]

While a successful attack on DC would carry more symbolic weight than any other US city, the place is crawling with cops of all types since many of the federal agencies have their own police forces.

[Restoras]

If these police forces have the equivalent training of other US cops they'll end up killing more civilians than the terrorists.

[BearOdinson]

Oh thank god, the armed auditors from the Dept. of Education are here. Hey wait, where are you runnning?

[Tonio]

^This. They have LEO training but they are mostly security guards and badge-checkers; they rarely arrest people unless it's protesters or citizens trying to get justice from a ham-handed agency.

[Akira]

"That's while it will be a blue-state liberal city - New York, San Francisco, or DC."

That will just prove that we need more "common sense" gun laws.

[The Last American Hero]

Whoa, time out - did the NYT just endorse enhanced border security? Interesting.

[Rasilio]

"But such anxiety is unwarranted. In fact, it's a mistake to assume that America's security from terrorism at home is comparable to Europe's. "

This is mostly bullshit for a whole host of reasons starting off with the fact that weapons are infinitely more common and easy to get your hands on in this country.

It would be trivially easy to kill many times the death count in Paris by attacking Malls on Black Friday, high school football games on almost any Friday night, or even just shooting up people in their cars on a gridlocked section of road during rush hour

The one thing they are almost correct on is that panic is unwarranted because it does you absolutely no good. Should you find yourself involved in a terror attack you might very well die no matter what you do. Panic however increases those odds exponentially.

The message of Paris is to arm yourself (doesn't even need to be a firearm necessarily) and always either maintain a minimal level of situational awareness or ensure that when you don't want to have to worry about it that you are with someone you trust who has agreed to keep watch for you and then if you do find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time when the shit hits the fan you don't panic you formulate a plan to fight back or get the fuck out of there alive.

[Lord Humungus]

Sanders doubles down: Climate change causes terrorism

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday reiterated his claim that climate change will lead to terrorism by destabilizing regions affected by droughts, floods, and other natural disasters.

"The reason is pretty obvious: If we are going to see an increase in drought and flood and extreme weather disturbances as a result of climate change, what that means is that peoples all over the world are going to be fighting over limited natural resources," Sanders said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"If there is not enough water, if there is not enough land to grow your crops, then you're going to see migrants of people fighting over land that will sustain them, and that will lead to international conflict," he added.

[Rich]

"President Clinton Appoints Sanders EPA Head"

[RBS]

I'm not sure Bernie knows what terrorism is...

[Drake]

So that's why Mohamed started his crazy cult and spread it using terror!

Shocked that Sanders isn't blaming capitalism - guess he's trying a slightly less direct assault on economic freedom.

[Citizen X]

Well, without capitalism we'd all be peaceful subsistence farmers with no Gaia-harming technologies at all. It's attacks on capitalism all the way down with that fucker.

[straffinrun]

A Socialist realizing "scarcity" actually exists. Baby steps.

[commodious spittoon]

Sanders gets a pass on making lazy handwaving arguments, but Carson is raked over the coals for suggesting that armed citizens targeted in spree shootings are better off than unarmed victims.

[sarcasmic]

Two police officers put on paid leave after 'shocking' video captured them brutally beating suspected car thief with batons as he lay on the ground in San Francisco

Video shows moments officers catch up to man in city's Mission District
The 13-minute clip captures their assault as suspect writhes on the ground
Its release led the Alameda County Sheriff's Office to launch internal probe
On Sunday, Sheriff Gregory Ahern placed the officers, who have not been named, on paid administrative leave
The public defender's office described the clip as 'shocking and brutal'
The suspect, Stanislav Petrov, 29 reportedly suffered several broken bones and multiple lacerations to the back of his head
Police spokesman said officers had approached him in a stolen car when he rammed their patrol cars, knocking one officer down

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....cisco.html
Will anything else happen?

[Restoras]

That's a rhetorical question, right?

[Bern-o-Matic 5000]

Now that's just a silly question.

[MetalBard]

I usually get pissed when I hear about these police abuse stories, but this asshole did steal a car.

He's no Tamir Rice, or that guy who was selling cigarettes in New York.

[sarcasmic]

Even so, the job of the police is to take people into custody, not continue to beat them once they cease to be a threat.

[MetalBard]

I agree, but it's also hard for me to have sympathy for a car thief.

Like usual there are no good guys in these types of stories.

[sarcasmic]

Doesn't matter what the guy did. Once he ceases to be a threat, that is supposed to be the end of it. Anything beatings that happen after that are nothing short of criminal.

[Rhywun]

It's not a matter of "good guys" or "bad guys". Cops are supposed to be trained not to go ape-shit in situations like this. That is their job.

[sarcasmic]

All the training in the world matters not a whit if they face no consequences for ignoring it.

[Restoras]

No one is asking you to have sympathy for him, especially if he is guilty but that is for the courts and a jury to decide.

[Rhywun]

Not sure if serious, but beating down a suspect with batons is not "standard procedure".

[sarcasmic]

I believe a beating is indeed "standard procedure" when someone pisses off the cops.

[Crusty Juggler]

It is not like they hit him once or twice out of anger.

[Marshall Gill]

I usually get pissed when I hear about these police abuse stories, but this asshole did steal a car.

And now, instead of being convicted and sent to prison for a few years this guy will receive a large payout from the taxpayers and have the charges against him dropped. I understand and share your lack of sympathy but this shit is lose-lose for everyone but the pigs.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

And these are the assholes who are supposed to help in defense against piece of shit terrorists shooting up cities?

I don't think so.

[Restoras]

Don't think for a minute that any of these assholes will take a bullet for anyone that isn't a cop. My BiL is a sergeant in a major metropolitan police force and has told me "that isn't part of his job".

[Citizen X]

The Supreme Court agrees with him.

[straffinrun]

I thought the cops weren't done beating the dead horse thief yet.

[Lord Humungus]

Clinton's Wall Street Donors Say More Than 9/11 Built Their Bond

The way he and Clinton's other Wall Street supporters see it, the connections that bind them are long, deep and nothing to be embarrassed about. As Clinton seeks the Democratic presidential nomination against candidates vowing to break up the biggest U.S. banks, her donors in the financial industry say their relationship doesn't hinge on a quid pro quo or the September 2001 attacks.

The hedge-fund manager Marc Lasry, another bundler, said investors like Clinton, who went on to serve as secretary of state under President Barack Obama, because of her determination. "Look, I've known Hillary for a long time," he said. "Whether you are from Wall Street or from Main Street, you respect her because of her intelligence and because she'll fight for you."

H. Rodgin Cohen, who as Sullivan & Cromwell LLP's senior chairman works on regulation and securities law for banking giants, said Wall Street supports her because she's qualified to be president -- and because she appreciates finance and nuance.

[Swiss Servator]

I give her $ "because she'll fight for you". Pay for Play!

[Rich]

H. Rodgin Cohen

Right.

[Inigo "Chip" DuBois]

Wait a minute, I thought that firm had gone through a merger and is now part of Dewey, Cheatem & Howe.

[Lord Humungus]

Dartmouth Protesters Assault Students While Screaming Racial Threats

A group of Black Lives Matter protestors at Dartmouth College led a violent protest Thursday, hurling racial insults at students and pushing them up against a wall as they tried to study in the library, The Dartmouth Review reports.

"Fuck you, you filthy white fucks!" "Fuck you and your comfort!" "Fuck you, you racist shit!" they reportedly yelled.

About a 150 Dartmouth protesters shouted as they marched through Baker-Berry Library at Dartmouth College. Students who didn't join in on their protests were harassed, one woman was pinned to a wall by protesters who shouted, "filthy white bitch!" in her face. Students who were seated were told to, "Stand the fuck up!" "You filthy racist white piece of shit!"

[Rich]

"Fuck you and your comfort!"

WTF?

[UnCivilServant]

Building bridges to a post-racial society

/sarcasm

[Bern-o-Matic 5000]

Why do other students put up with this shit? If I saw someone screaming and intimidating a woman at the library when I was in college, he'd have gotten an elbow to the throat.

[Illocust]

150 of them. It's probably hard to see what an individual protestor is doing in that mob, and all but the very brave would be intimidated by the numbers into backing down.

[Tonio]

Because the other students are from the same spineless generation as the screamers. They are doubtlessly afraid of getting charged with assault and then being unable to finish college.

[Illocust]

Well, that kind of behavior is definitely going to convince people that you are oppressed. I wonder if any of the harassed people were SJWs beforehand and switched positions afterwards.

[Suthenboy]

Remember the ones at the Starbucks who were robbed at gunpoint and blamed themselves? Does that answer your question?

[Illocust]

Some of the dyed in the wool types will do that, but most people are just going along with the crowd to be cool. Getting screamed at by protestors means you are no longer cool.

[RBS]

They really lack any sense of irony don't they?

[Hamster of Doom]

Its possible that they do not actually know what 'racism' means. If by 'possible', you mean 'I'm convinced of it, but what do I know?' And I do.

[Bern-o-Matic 5000]

Hamster, those Dartmouth students are super-oppressed. You can't even comprehend the depths of their oppression. I mean, really, Dartmouth.

[Crusty Juggler]

It's a step below Brown. I mean, really, Dartmouth is worse than Brown.

[TO in TX]

At least Dartmouth is in NH. Live Free or Die!

[Somalian Road Corporation]

They've redefined racism so that it's OK when they do it because it has to involve "power and privilege" for it to be racist, and they're just poor oppressed underdogs who have the full-throated support and groveling of college administrations, the lamestream media, the Democratic Party all the way up to the President, etc.

[MetalBard]

It's sad, because for at least a moment between now and the end of Jim Crow laws we built something akin to a post-racial society, a society where when it came to race most people simply didn't give a shit.

And how long did it take before the progressives came in and fucked it all up?

Consider for a moment how difficult it is build such a society, history is full of ethnic conflict, it's a major achievement to move beyond that, and we were so close, and then the left came in and fucked it all up.

The damage these assholes have done will reverberate for many years to come.

[Suthenboy]

^This x 1000

[Rhywun]

Yep. They're setting race relations back by decades. Congratulations, assholes.

[Tonio]

Feature, not bug. I think a lot of this is anger that we have become a mostly post-racial society. Without an oppressed class, and even more importantly an opressor class, they have nothing about which to complain. Also, they're angry that the post-racial society isn't absolutely perfect.

[Apple]

And the region in the US least affected (not for long) by SJW ideology, where something like a post-racial society still exists to a degree? The South. The irony of that would have to kill them if they ever allowed themselves to believe it. But, I fear those days are numbered even here.

[Suthenboy]

I thank everyone who voted for The Lightbringer for our shiny new post-racial society.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

The post-racial, post-ideological, post-toasties President.

[Lee G]

Those people studying are oppressing the shit out of them.

[Bern-o-Matic 5000]

We all know advanced calculus is just the white man's tool to further black oppression. We need more racially aware mathematics.

[Atanarjuat]

Well, yeah, they'll probably go on to make a lot more money than black males who sat around smoking blunts and playing Madden instead of studying. Inequality!

[Rasilio]

Well of course they are, studying implies that your success in life is largely dependent on your effort and character and is not almost completely controlled by your inherent privilege and promoting that idea is about as oppressive as you can get.

[JWW]

The next step in the college protests is punishing the "microagressors", and not being able to determine who is going to microagress or when they will, they'll just have to beat up all white people. Its the only way to be sure.

[Akira]

It's times like these that I'm glad my entire degree program is available online.

[Hyperion]

Is CNN and MSNBC reporting on this?

[Restoras]

HAHAHAHAHA!!!! That's a good one!

*wipes tears of laughter from eyes*

[Rhywun]

Waiting for this story to hit the MSM....

[Crusty Juggler]

"WE WANT ATTENTION, TOO!"

-Every future institution where this nonsense happens.

[sarcasmic]

Green with envy: Dubai police attracts envious looks from forces around the world as it adds environmentally friendly ?555,000 Porsche 918 Spyder to its fleet of supercars

Dubai police has added a stunning ?555,000 Porsche 918 Spyder to its fleet
It will join a Bugatti, Lamborghini and Ferrari already owned by the force
Used to patrol tourist areas, it will be linked to the police's command centre
The car has a top speed of 210mph but will contain speed cameras itself

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....rcars.html

[sarcasmic]

Doggers who use beauty spot for sex are given free condoms pinned to trees by health charity - but local fishermen say it'll only encourage them

Contraceptives tacked to trees near Kirklees Lagoon in Brighouse
It's part of a bid to promote safe sex among those using the scenic woods
But it's angered local anglers, who say condoms encourage the doggers

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....-them.html
Doggers. That's a new one.

[Rich]

Pinning condoms doesn't seem too smart.

[Zeb]

That was my first thought. But they do appear to have thought that one through.

[Slammer]

If you're fucking a dog do you really need a comdom?

[Idle Hands]

Yes. Just how do you think manbearpig happened?

[straffinrun]

You ask that like you've never seen Chelsea.

[Crusty Juggler]

You leave Webb Hubbell alone!

[Suthenboy]

"Doggers. Thats a new one."

No it isnt.

Nothing people do now is new.
Where do gloryholes come from? Knotholes in wooden fences of old.
Dogging? Just a new term for sex with strangers. There have always been places where people desiring such congregated.

"The only thing new under the sun is what is new to you" - Socrates

[sarcasmic]

I thought it was obvious that I was referring to the term, not the activity.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

It's a British phrase that I've never heard used in America. Not sure how long it's been in use there.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

condoms pinned to trees

Nobody sees a problem PINNING condoms to anything?

[sarcasmic]

Is Fallout 4 better than sex? Pornhub reveals its traffic dropped 10% on the day the game was released

From 5am on the 10 November, Pornhub analytics show traffic dropping
At its lowest, traffic dropped by as much as 10% between 7am till noon
Stats show traffic returning to normal until 6pm, when it dropped again
However, after midnight traffic jumped as high at 15% above average

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci.....eased.html

[UnCivilServant]

That data just says the release moved the timing of activities around rather than substituting.

[sarcasmic]

The release delayed other releases.

[Swiss Servator]

*opera applause*

[MetalBard]

technically if you're watching Pornhub then you're probably not actually having sex.

[Drake]

Six semi-automatic rifles stolen...

M1 Garands for funerals? The only semi-auto rifles I can think of that would be there - unless they had M21 sniper rifles which I doubt. Or the news just fucked it up which I don't doubt.

[Idle Hands]

Racism is alive in Kansas:

LAWRENCE, Kan. ? Racial tensions are growing at the University of Kansas with a call for three top Student Senate leaders to resign and a recent graduate initiating a hunger strike.

The Senate's Student Executive Committee is demanding that Student Body President Jessie Pringle, Student Body Vice President Zach George and Chief of Staff Adam Moon step down by Wednesday and that the full Senate to take up impeachment measures if they refuse to leave, the Lawrence Journal-World (http://bit.ly/1LfUc9v ) reported. The committee registered a 6-3 "no confidence" vote Friday for the three leaders. One member abstained from the vote.

The resignation demand comes after last week's unrest at the University of Missouri and after a forum that University of Kansas Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little moderated on Wednesday, where a student group Rock Chalk Invisible Hawk presented diversity demands, which include hiring a director for the Office of Multicultural Affairs by Dec. 15, mandatory "inclusion and belonging" training for students and faculty and increased diversity in hiring.

[Crusty Juggler]

Those Kansans were so quick to judge the Missourians, too.

I think they need another border war.

[Idle Hands]

a border war over who could be the most inclusiony and belongingly?

[Crusty Juggler]

It would give them something to do.

[Idle Hands]

It would for sure be one of the gayest conflicts ever.

[Lord Humungus]

there are black people in Kansas? *mind blown*

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Here we go.

[Lee G]

Well, I'd say the indoctrination efforts have worked. The students are demanding more. It's going to be the new nomenklatura, at least in the universities.

[Suthenboy]

Does it seem odd to anyone else that the hotbeds of racism are always universities where there is an overabundance of SJWs?

Down at the grocery store, the plant, the shipping centers, and the offices no one seems to give a shit about race. We had guests for supper last night. One white, two black. The subject of race never came up.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Ha, ha. SB doesn't know how to read internalized black pain!

[SugarFree]

which include hiring a director for the Office of Multicultural Affairs by Dec. 15

What a sad demand. "I will starve myself until an overpaid and ineffectual administration member is hired!"

[Lee G]

They're building an infrastructure which requires racism to justify its continued existence. The rabbit hole can only go deeper.

[Tonio]

^This

[Marshall Gill]

"I will starve myself until an overpaid and ineffectual administration member is hired!"

Oh, come on, do you really think they are even going without eating? Missing their mid morning snack has left them "hungry".

[Suthenboy]

"diversity demands...mandatory "inclusion and belonging" training for students and faculty..."

These people are the same everywhere and for all time. Fascist little fucks.

[Rich]

Cooking with vegetable oils releases toxic cancer-causing chemicals

Scientists found that heating up vegetable oils led to the release of high concentrations of chemicals called aldehydes, which have been linked to illnesses including cancer, heart disease and dementia.

It's healthy eating all the way down!

[Illocust]

Well I'm fucked. My brownies require vegetable oil to taste right.

[Rich]

They just *seem* to taste right because of your dementia.

[Restoras]

You can replace the oil with butter - have you ever tried?

[DJF]

In other news scientist say that life is fatal.

[neoteny]

Life is a sexually transmitted disease, for which the prognosis is 100% bad.

[CPRM]

we need to go back to lard deep frying to stop cancer!

[Free Society]

NASA has released new images of Pluto taken by New Horizons.

And the link takes you to a blurb on a shitty site that doesn't even let you enlarge the image that drew you to the site in the first place.

[sarcasmic]

Leggy Katharine McPhee shows off her slender curves in sexy black thigh-high slit dress at Seth MacFarlane's Christmas bash

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....-bash.html
Sha-wing!

[Idle Hands]

meh. also that sarah hyland kind of creeps me out. She looks like she is 14.

[sarcasmic]

I've always had the hots for her. Those legs...

[sarcasmic]

That comment was in reference to McPhee, not the other one. I don't even know who that is.

[Lord Humungus]

so just about right for sarcasmic?

[Hyperion]

If she looks over 10, that's a milf for sarc.

[Lord Humungus]

hey that's not fair, he's not quite OMWC

[Rod Flash]

Every picture I've ever seen of her looks like someone photoshopped a head onto a body. It just doesn't sit right.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

Sarah Hyland is BY FAR the best actor on Modern Family. She's quite a good comic actor.

But you ain't talkin bout her acting skills....

[Idle Hands]

Never watched the show although I've been told it's funny and I do like Ed O'Neil

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

It's so-so - it has it's moments. Best episode IMO was Fulgencio. It was a Godfather spoof. Sarah Hyland has such good comedic timing and knows how to play the docu-style very well.

[Derpetologist]

I think we could all use some cheering up, so here is a picture of a sea otter making a goofy face.

HAIL SCIENCE!

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I prefer the ones where they rape baby seals to death.

[Swiss Servator]

That is what passes for high culture up there, eh?

*shakes head and quietly throws away empty Timbits box*

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

....picks up box.

[Crusty Juggler]

Say what you will about Rufus, and we all know we have said plenty, that man appreciates an empty box of donuts.

[Lord Humungus]

ah... wat?

On Terror, We're All Right-wingers Now
The Paris attacks have reawakened martial feelings absent since 9/11.

Remember the mood in America just after 9/11? The surge of super-patriotism (dare we say jingoism)? The pall of political correctness (you're fired, Bill Maher). The phrases that so resonated: "Let's roll." "You're either with us or against us." "Bring 'em on." Something like that is taking hold in France right now after Friday night's horror, one of the worst terrorist attacks on Western soil since that terrible day 14 years ago.

...snip...

Hollande is likely to get a great deal of such support. Because in one night of slaughter, the attacks in Paris have caused the tectonic plates of geopolitics to shift sharply rightward, and no one will be unaffected. The new axis of opinion in the U.S. and Western European countries is plainly going to be harsher, more interventionist and less tolerant of, well, tolerance.

[Idle Hands]

Should you be tolerant of 130 of your citizens being executed in your capital by a known enemy?

[Jordan]

Depends what that means. More interventions in the Middle East aren't going to accomplish anything. It was our interventions in the Middle East that helped create ISIS in the first place.

[Idle Hands]

what course of action would you recommend?

[Jordan]

Leave.

[Swiss Servator]

What did I do??

*slowly walks out door*

[Jordan]

You know what you did!

[Swiss Servator]

*looks for self-criticism session and large character sign to wear around neck*

[MetalBard]

Thats just the price of freedom, or diversity, or immigration or some other such bullshit.

[Drake]

I can tell it won't change a thing. Instead of getting harsh with the Muslim neighborhoods in Paris, they are lobbing bombs at Syria.

Syria doesn't matter. The Muslim population of France is 10% and growing fast, even without immigration. In a couple of decades, they will be an Islamic Republic.

[Hyperion]

This, they are exacerbating the problem, dummies.

[MetalBard]

Exactly. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any good answers to what you do with that 10% Muslim population.

The Islamic world is fucked up beyond belief, and our policy should always be to have as little to do with that part of the world as possible, the problem is what do you do when you've already imported the middle east into all your major cities?

[Drake]

I'm guessing that efficient European will have a serious answer - then things will get very interesting.

[The Last American Hero]

Reform your shitty socialist policies so they can get jobs. Show sensitivity to cultural differences by lifting the ban on hijabs in schools?

[Drake]

Submit, pay the Jizya, and there will be no further trouble.

[Tonio]

The jobs thing is a real issue over there. People just will not hire them. I can't see people being willing to hire more Muslims after this.

[Free Society]

Would you hire someone with such a potent victim card? I reckon you'd at least be cautious.

[Tonio]

I don't think their victim cards have as much value there as they would here. But, no, I wouldn't hire someone who might scare away business, and make other employees uncomfortable. I wasn't calling for more hiring, just pointing out that them being unemployable is a problem.

They lack the stomach to kick them out now, so they will do nothing for a long time and then they will do something terrible.

[Free Society]

I don't think their victim cards have as much value there as they would here.

Oh not at all. They've got "hate speech" laws and public accommodation laws that make ours look like pure unfiltered freedom. The hijab and burka bans notwithstanding.

[Swiss Servator]

Yeah, this is just a great big shite sammich 🙁

[Tonio]

Well-put, Switzy.

[Free Society]

That presupposes that they moved to France and remain in France for all the jobs that rains down upon the people in that country. And believe it or not they already bend over backwards to educate the Muslim kids, to such an extent that it's a detriment to the French kids' own education.

[Tonio]

But they do get welfare. So they are angry, unassimilated and have a lot of time on their hands.

[Lord Humungus]

You know who else was angry and had a lot of time on their hands...

[SugarFree]

Styx?

[Hyperion]

A bad combination. They have the same situation in Sweden and England.

[Tonio]

For a start you round up every one of them who isn't a citizen, and deport them. That will only do so much good, but it's a start.

[BigT]

"For a start you round up every one of them who isn't a citizen, and deport them. That will only do so much good, but it's a start."

Monsieur Trump pour le President!

[Free Society]

They engaged in an irreversible social experiment that will spell the end of French society and culture and on a long enough timeline the virtual extinction of French people themselves. This was not the natural migration of people, this was a government policy of extortion and forced association in service to some platonic ideal of egalitarianism uber alles.

I say "irreversible" because the only solutions the French have been left with exist mostly outside of the bounds of rational ethics. This is true of Sweden, Germany, France, the UK and Norway as well.

[Tonio]

[T]he only solutions the French have been left with exist mostly outside of the bounds of rational ethics.

^This, sadly.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Hollande: We will be unforgiving with the barbarians.
Justin Zoolander: (that attacks are) Deeply worrying.

Drink!

[Lord Humungus]

Islamic State threatens attack on Washington, other countries

Islamic State warned in a new video on Monday that countries taking part in air strikes against Syria would suffer the same fate as France, and threatened to attack in Washington.

The video, which appeared on a site used by Islamic State to post its messages, begins with news footage of the aftermath of Friday's Paris shootings in which at least 129 people were killed.

The message to countries involved in what it called the "crusader campaign" was delivered by a man dressed in fatigues and a turban, and identified in subtitles as Al Ghareeb the Algerian.

"We say to the states that take part in the crusader campaign that, by God, you will have a day, God willing, like France's and by God, as we struck France in the center of its abode in Paris, then we swear that we will strike America at its center in Washington," the man said.

[Jordan]

An attack on Washington? Maybe these ISIS guys aren't so bad after all.

[Idle Hands]

I don't think they would be talking about budget cuts or outlawing abortion either.

[Tonio]

I'm pretty sure they are anti-abortion to a degree that makes Eddie look like an amateur.

[Idle Hands]

your right and I still can't think of something better.

[Rich]

Al Ghareeb the Algerian

[Lord Humungus]

You may call me: Lord Humungus the Dutchman

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Islamic State warned in a new video on Monday that countries taking part in air strikes against Syria would suffer the same fate as France, and

He's gonna be pissed when he gets there and finds out guns are largely illegal in Washington. What then, smart guy?

[Hyperion]

France launched airstrikes against ISIS positions in Syria

So what's the plan here? To create more refugees that France will then take in? Brilliant plan.

[Princess Trigger]

No, they'll go to Germany.
The French have never forgiven the Boche.

[The Late P Brooks]

we swear that we will strike America at its center in Washington

Good luck, and Godspeed.

We're rooting for you, out here in the flyovers.

[Rich]

Careful what you wish for. 8-(

[straffinrun]

No shit. I can already hear the remaining shreds of the constitution being stuffed in the shredder.

[Swiss Servator]

There are some left?!

[straffinrun]

The ones about ass sex, Messicans and weed.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

we swear that we will strike America at its center in Washington

Someone needs a geography lesson.

[Citizen X]

Hasn't Missouri been through enough lately?

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

I was thinking St. Louis, but perhaps ISIS should set their sights on Mizzou.

[Rasilio]

Technically the geographic center of the country is somewhere near Omaha

[commodious spittoon]

Organizers of a 10k half-marathon in Bangkok accidentally added an extra seven kilometers.

You know who else "accidentally" incremented the declared length in order to "organize" a "Bangkok" "marathon"?

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Tojo?

[Swiss Servator]

HM?

[The Late P Brooks]

Hungry? Have some word salad

Establishing a "safe space" was about much more than denying the media access; it was about securing a zone where students' blackness could not be violated. Yes, the hunger strike, the safe space and other demonstrations were protests, and protests should be covered. But what was fueling those protests was black pain. In most circumstances, when covering people who are in pain, journalists offer extra space and empathy. That didn't happen in this case; these young people weren't treated as hurting victims. Instead, after the confrontation with Tai, aggrieved journalists responded with a ferocity usually reserved for powerful entities with the means to inflict lasting damage on their First Amendment rights.

[Lee G]

I saw that this morning and couldn't bring myself to post it. It's just too stupid.

[commodious spittoon]

aggrieved journalists responded with a ferocity usually reserved for powerful entities with the means to inflict lasting damage on their First Amendment rights

Blatant projection. There's an aggrieved party looking to deprive others of their first amendment rights, sure, and you're writing on behalf of their cause.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

He's a journalist?

Yikes!

[sloopyinTEXAS]

it was about securing a zone where students' blackness could not be violated.

Wait, were they afraid the journalists were going to bleach the protesters?

[commodious spittoon]

They're worried those racist journalists will whitewash the narrative.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Their fears are not unfounded. But that pales in comparison to deprivation of 1A rights.

[commodious spittoon]

pales in comparison

So whitewashing is pale meaning censorship is, what, dark? I can't even.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

I'm going to black those words out so future readers don't have to see them.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

It's like when responding to FOIA requests, rather than whiting out classified date, the government chooses to Black the requests out. It's just another form of institutionalizing perceptions of "blackness" being bad while the clean white sheet of paper is good. In the case of the FOIA requests, the government is deliberately using black in a negative way because it's being used to cover up what's on the good, pretty whiteness below it.

-somebody on a college campus (or in Salon) in the next two weeks

[commodious spittoon]

*blacks out from outrage, wakes up briefly to slap self for transgressive phrasing, African Americans out again*

[Suell]

A case of the pot calling the kettle black.

[Suthenboy]

Behold the brainwashed useful idiot, or was we know them, social justice warriors in all their glory.

What the fuck are we going to do with these fascists when they are out of school? Why in the name of God would anyone hire one of them?

[Atanarjuat]

Why in the name of God would anyone hire one of them?

They'd be perfect for Obama's national service program, the Hillary Clinton campaign, or the EPA, HUD, etc.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Or as feed stock for my pigs for when weather gets worse and other feeds are too expensive due to climate change.

[Free Society]

Why in the name of God would anyone hire one of them?

Because the next Democratic president will declare "entitled dumbfuck hipsters" to be a protected group which cannot be legally discriminated against.

[Free Society]

; it was about securing a zone where students' blackness could not be violated.

Race is a social construct designed by the white race to oppress the non-white races! Except blackness, which is real. Don't you dare violate it because it's real.

No contradictions in this worldview, none at all...

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Was reading in Le Figaro terrorists (called kamikaze for some reason) tried to enter the Stade de France. In French:

http://sport24.lefigaro.fr/foo.....nce-779238

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Germany is bizarre:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11.....ekers.html

Yeah. That can't end well.

[Lee G]

One of the few people, in fact, who seem enthusiastic about the plan for Sumte is Holger Niemann, 32, an admirer of Hitler and the lone neo-Nazi on the elected district council. He rejoices at the opportunities the migrant crisis has offered.

No shit.

[Illocust]

It's apparently not working. So many Germans are reflexively anti-Nazi that they are embracing the crazy amounts of immigrants just to be on the opposite side of him. Being anti-Nazi is a good thing, but being so anti-Nazi that you embrace a refugee population seven times the size of your population is going to end badly.

[BearOdinson]

I love that the German people have learned from the Nazis and "owned up to it" (I don't mean to imply that Germans living today are guilty of anything. Just trying to express their feelings of being anti-Nazi).
However, I sometimes think they didn't learn the right lessons. Rather than learning to fight evil, they seem to have learned that fighting at all IS evil.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

I like how it was initially over 1000 before it got scaled slightly down.

[Free Society]

This is the lasting affect of Hitler upon the political culture of Europe and especially Germany. Showing any desire to protect ones own culture or society is immediately cast as nazism. Anything less than celebration of their cultural implosion is genocide. It's perfectly understandable to be anti-Hitler, but they've taken that position to absurd heights.

[The Late P Brooks]

More-

That black students would be skeptical of media is understandable. We've already seen the kind of headlines they undoubtedly feared. In an Atlantic piece headlined "Campus Activists Weaponize 'Safe Space'," Conor Friedersdorf calls the protesters a mob and insists they are "twisting the concept of 'safe space.'" Again, a journalist criminalizes black people for expressing their pain. It was another piece centering the reporter's privilege over the students' trauma. Friederdorf's piece completely ignores the intolerable racial climate that forced the students to establish a safe space in the first place.

"The First Amendment sounds good, in theory, but not if you're going to through some loophole saying stuff I don't agree with."

[Free Society]

Why? The media loves to the blow race baiter's causes far out of proportion. You'd think they'd be happy with that since the media basically invented their hastag movement from scratch.

[Lord Humungus]

(Baltimore)Schmoke: 'Subculture of violence' to blame for 300 killings

University of Baltimore president Kurt L. Schmoke condemned the city's "subculture of violence" on Sunday and reiterated his call for the decriminalization of marijuana and an increase in employment opportunities, as the city's annual homicide total hit 300 for the first time since he was mayor in the 1990s.

Speaking on a panel on WMAR's "Square Off" talk show with Richard Sher, the former mayor called the mounting death toll an "absolute tragedy" and said the community must take a stand against the violence to stop it.

"It is a subculture of violence ? of guys who'd rather shoot first and ask questions later," said Schmoke, who was mayor from 1987 to 1999. "So, yes, there's a law enforcement component to this too, but there's a whole community culture aspect of it."

[Rhywun]

That is like 10 times the murder rate of NYC. Something is obviously wrong there.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

The fact that it's Detroit East could be a reason.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Why would anybody ask the opinion of the guy that oversaw the last crime wave occur in his city?

And how the fuck does he still have a government job when he failed so miserably as mayor of a crime-ridden shithole like Balmer?

[Lord Humungus]

?A Look at France's New Surveillance Laws in the Wake of the Paris Attacks

Amnesty International has also been a vocal detractor. Deputy Director for Europe and Central Asia Gauri van Gulik aid that "French authorities appear to want to mimic their American and British counterparts in allowing the authorities to intercept and access people's communications at will." Genevi?ve Garrigos, head of Amnesty International France, condemned the bill as being "in flagrant violation of the international human rights to privacy and free speech."

But the law also allows for some activities that go beyond even the provisions laid out by its international relatives. Under the intelligence bill, the French government may use IMSI catchers, which impersonate cell towers and are capable of recording metadata from phones within the catcher's range as well as tracking the phone's (and its owner's) location.

When the law was still up for debate, senator C?cile Cukierman argued that this metadata would prove both unwieldy and intrusive. She said that "information that reveals real threats will be collected?because everything will be collected?but who will find them?" and that the black boxes would create a state of "permanent surveillance."

[BigT]

L'Acte Patriotique

[Lord Humungus]

Spike Lee Calls For Greater Diversity In Hollywood In Powerful Speech

By the year 2043, white Americans are going to be a minority in this country. And all you people out there in the position of hiring, you better get smart. Because your workforce should reflect what this country looks like," Lee said in his nearly 18-minute speech.

Lee told the story of his circuitous journey to becoming one of the most acclaimed directors in the industry -- starting with his first experience with a camera in 1977 to his graduate studies at New York University.

"Everybody in here probably voted for Obama, but when I go to offices, I see no black folks except for brother man, the security guard, who checks my name off the list as I go into the studio," he said. "So we can talk, 'yada yada yada,' but we need to have some serious discussion about diversity and get some flavor up in this."

"It's easier to be the president of the United States as a black person than to be the head of a studio," he added, eliciting applause from the audience.

[Rhywun]

"I've been a racist longer than all those crackers in Mizzou have been alive."

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Perhaps he should check his privilege to be openly against interracial dating and not have people howling "RACIST!" whenever he opens his mouth, as would happen to quite a few other folks.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

"It's easier to be the president of the United States as a black person than to be the head of a studio,"

If only we hadnt passed all those laws that prevented blacks from opening or investing in studios, this problem wouldn't exist.

What a dickhead.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Lee proves A) he's a racist jack ass and B) awards are over rated.

These people make me laugh. They talk as if they're getting screwed. Yet, he has a platform through blacks on the diversity driven ESPN to spew his nonsense.

Boring.

[Free Society]

We see so many people doing victory laps because whites are not projected to be a majority in what has historically been a predominantly white country. But no, those people celebrating their racial preferences being realized aren't racists or anything. It's the white people who don't care to subsidize the breeding habits of others that are the racists.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

What he studiously leaves out is the reason whites will end up as a minority will be due to Hispanic/Asian immigration, not black population growth. When he calls for more diversity, he means, "more black people," but blacks will continue to be a minority in this country short of a massive migration from sub-Saharan Africa.

[Bern-o-Matic 5000]

it was about securing a zone where students' blackness could not be violated

This sentence doesn't mean anything.

these young people weren't treated as hurting victims

Because they were screaming and intimidating people, dipshit.

Instead, after the confrontation with Tai, aggrieved journalists responded with a ferocity usually reserved for powerful entities with the means to inflict lasting damage on their First Amendment rights.

Let's not forget the deep egotism of journalists. Yes, they are usually idiotic progderps, but they are also arrogant brats who believe they are engaged in a noble quest of truth and, accordingly, expect to be catered to.

[Lee G]

these young people weren't treated as hurting victims

Because they were screaming and intimidating people, dipshit.

Their calls for violence will be cloaked in justifications of fear.

[Sevo]

Fools plan on fixed prices for the next twenty years, are SHOCKED when Bay Area rents increase!

"When Jeramie Andehueson and his husband, Andrew, moved into a two-bedroom apartment in the quiet East Bay city of Alameda last year, they thought they'd laid a blueprint for the next 20 years of their lives."
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bay.....ate-result

It's pay-walled, but suffice to say, the other fools in the Alameda city government think they can outsmart the laws of supply and demand; they're gonna institute 'rent control' and watch rents skyrocket as places go off the market.

[Illocust]

If you want fixed prices buy a home, but even then you're going to be paying more and more in property taxes each year.

[sarcasmic]

Depends on where you live. My town is quite frugal with the tax dollars. So when we got a new grocery store, they used the increased revenue from the store to lower the rate for everyone.

[Restoras]

That's nice to hear.

[sarcasmic]

Yeah. Less than a grand a year. It's pretty cool.

[Swiss Servator]

*stands slackjawed*

NO FAIR!!!! My town would just spend the shit out of anything they got in their filthy mitts.

[robc]

The key is personal scale. My previous town of 5k was like this, while Louisville was spending like crazy (I was in both, oddly).

The ability to walk 2 blocks to office and bitch directly at Mayor was a part of it.

[commodious spittoon]

But how can rents skyrocket if rent controls are in place? It's like saying gun crimes will happen in a city with stringent gun control laws. You're not making sense!

[Sevo]

It's a mystery wrapped in an enigma topped with a heapin' helping of just plain "stupid"

[Rhywun]

What's the eviction all about (mentioned in the picture's caption)?

[Sevo]

The (paper) article never quite makes it clear; the presumption (and innuendo) is a drastic rent increase. But for all I know, it could be a remodel.

[Rhywun]

Not even sure if that's allowed where I am. Maybe at the end of a lease?

[Rhywun]

In my limited experience with rent control in NYC, my rent is going up WAY faster than it was before. Can't wait to get out of this place and find a non-rent controlled apartment again.

Also, because I'm in a big building, I'm covering the rent for a bunch of old people that have been here forever. Huge mistake on my part.

[Sevo]

"United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon may be visiting North Korea this week, according to a report in the South Korean press that the UN would neither confirm nor deny."

In a repeat performance from this past weekend, he'll DEMAND young 'un release all political prisoners!

[Pope Jimbo]

FINALLY!

No more having to pester christmas shoppers in the Mall of America or marathoners, BLM in Minneapolis finally has a shooting they can vent on.

http://www.startribune.com/pol.....349730171/

It is a perfect deal for them. The guy who got shot sounds like a real prince (the whole encounter started when he returned to his house to stop EMT's from helping his wife who he had just beat up) AND there is a great story about him being hand cuffed when he was shot.

Why these guys are going to go to the wall for this creep instead of the poor guy in St. Paul who was hassled for sitting in the skyway, I have no idea.

[Suthenboy]

They latch onto incidences that maximally divide communities. A bad dude who is black killed by cops and there is some question over how the cops behaved. People choose sides and start throwing bricks at one another.

It is about disruption. A clear cut case doesn't accomplish that.

[Atanarjuat]

Well said.

[Crusty Juggler]

They were waiting for a black man to be killed by police.

Now the police union will fight back with leaked information about the man who was killed (who seems awful), and his family, and whomever else they can slander.

[Tonio]

Idiot proggie Ezra Klein feels that the Paris attacks should make us welcome even more Syrian Refugees.

[Idle Hands]

Good luck selling that.

[MetalBard]

Cytotoxic feels the same way

[Hyperion]

So do Obama and Hollande and every single leftist on the planet.

[Hyperion]

Find me a proggie who doesn't agree with that. Just one, I'm waiting.

[Loki]

A spontaneous rally this weekend at the Republique Plaza, which included the banner "Can't Scare Us," dispersed after someone set off firecrackers

"It's as if Alanis Morissette and O'Henry had a baby and named it this exact moment."

[Suthenboy]

Obumbles on TV now:

Reporter says (paraphrased) "Your strategies aren't working. Are you going to change them now?"

Obumbles(paraphrased) - "No."

[Suthenboy]

Ya' know, when someone's strategies aren't working it is safe to assume that their view of the situation is lacking in some way. If they adjust their view and change their strategy you assume they are wise enough to learn. Obumbles is not one of these people. His premises that he bases his world view on are incorrect and he refuses to adjust them, thus he cannot learn.

This guy was indoctrinated from birth with SJW bullshit. He is the ultimate useful idiot. He cannot solve problems because he can't see reality. He is more suited to be in the middle of the UofK or Mizzou fracas than to be in the White House.

Again, I thank everyone who voted for him.

[Hyperion]

The strategies aren't supposed to work in the way the reporter and us peasants think of as 'working'. It's sort of like Obama's strategy on a post racial society. It's working perfectly, just not how you think of as working.

[John]

I don't think he actively means harm. I think he completely lacks the imagination or the humility necessary to admit his strategy's are not working or that changing them could make things better. Tarran nails him when he says Obama has narcissistic personality disorder. It is all about Obama. If his strategies are not producing the desired results, it is because other people are failing him not because of any fault of his.

[Hyperion]

He most certainly is aware that he's doing harm and he doesn't care. He's a hard left ideologue. Those types are not capable of change or of ever admitting they are wrong. He would watch the country burn to ashes before he ever admits he's wrong, and so will almost all other leftists. So he may as well mean to do harm when he knows he is doing so and won't stop.

[Suthenboy]

You know who else watched their country burn to ashes because he couldn't admit he was wrong?

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Frank Savage?

[Restoras]

Nero?

[Suthenboy]

He has been asked the same question about six times now by different reporters. After the last one he scoffed and said "Let me try one more time..."

Yes I know Hyperion. Everything he has touched in the middle east has come up Islamist. I am starting to wonder if the 'secret Muslim' people aren't onto something. Well, not really, but he does hate America and I don't think he wants us to win.

[Hyperion]

He doesn't want to win in the way you think of as winning. He wants to use this crisis to get his way on things. We created this mess for a reason.

[MetalBard]

Obama just lives in a different reality. He grew up fully indoctrinated in leftist thinking. He doesn't see Islamists he sees people rising up against decades of Western colonialism or some other such nonsense.

His plans fail because they fit a different reality. Why he doesn't seem to learn from this I don't know, lack of humility I guess.

[Hyperion]

One of the base tenets of leftism is never admitting you are wrong, or could even possibly be wrong.

Their ideology has failed miserably everywhere it's been tried and it's never going to work, anywhere, ever. They don't live in reality. They have no understanding of human nature, of how markets work, or much of anything else. Their entire belief system is based on the illusion that they can create a utopia on earth through the use of force.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

I've got to find Bono's response. Hold tight and buckle in. It's a doozy.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Here we go. http://www.rollingstone.com/mu.....w-20151114

He never ceases to amaze.

Right now, the band is trying to make sense of the horrific carnage. "Our first thoughts at this point are with the Eagles of Death Metal fans," he said. "If you think about it, the majority of victims last night are music fans. This is the first direct hit on music that we've had in this so-called War on Terror or whatever it's called. It's very upsetting. These are our people. This could be me at a show. You at a show, in that venue. It's a very recognizable situation for you and for me and the coldblooded aspect of this slaughter is deeply disturbing and that's what I can't get out of my head."

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Musicians are going to over think this.

As long as he doesn't go all 'root cause' on me.

He finally got the point about Africa and free enterprise though.

[John]

I don't think he will. He did not do that in response to 9-11 as far as I can remember.

[commodious spittoon]

Dixie Chicks has a sad.

[Rhywun]

What a humanitarian.

Jesus Christ, is there no one who doesn't immediately rush to "me me me"?

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Jesus Christ, is there no one who doesn't immediately rush to "me me me"?

Terry Schiavo?

[John]

They did attack a rock concert. To the extent he has anything different to say about this, it is about that aspect of it. Also, it kind of is about him. If these apes start attacking concerts, Bono might be next or he might no longer be able to do his job. In that sense, these attacks do affect him in a way it doesn't affect you or me.

[Rhywun]

FFS, the terrorists didn't care what was going on in there. When someone shoots up an office building I don't think "gee, I could be next".

[John]

Ryhwun,

They shot up a public gathering. So I think anyone who makes their living doing big public gathering can rightfully think they might be next. If I were an NFL player, I would have wondered the same thing Bono wondered this weekend.

[Apple]

Yeah. As a frequenter of rock shows, this attack hit closer to home. I say that even as someone who enjoys watching sporting events and going to restaurants, two other activities hit by the terrorists this time. Something about music being such a big part of my life makes the concert attack more poignant to me. It's a part of human nature. Just like attacks in the US will affect us more than attacks in Paris, which will affect us more than attacks in Beirut. Also, Bono almost certianly knows some of those guys or their close friends. I don't know anyone in the band, but I know plenty of people who do, and unlike him, I'm not a successful musician.

[Illocust]

He seems to pretty clearly be in shock and trying to figure out how to feel. Also as other stated, he's a musician. Like artists everywhere they tend to overthink the meaning of things.

[commodious spittoon]

He's just trying to piece together why a bunch of European extremists would besmirch the name of Islam.

[Lord Humungus]

I'll just leave this here

[The Late P Brooks]

"Your strategies aren't working. Are you going to change them now?"

We just need a bigger hammer.

[John]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11.....p=cur&_r=1

Not only can Paris happen here, it will likely happen here in either New York, Washington or both within the next year. ISIS has been clear that it intends to hit the US. Is there any reason to think they are kidding?

[Hyperion]

It will happen in Germany and other cities around Europe before it happens here. Probably Germany, Sweden, and the UK. I still expect ruling caliphates in Sweden, France, and the UK before the end of this decade. For certain within 10 years. Citizens in the US will fight back, despite progs trying to stop them. European citizens will just put on their burquas like their new masters tell them.

Look at France already, they aren't going to do shit about the attacks. Bomb Syria when the problem is inside your own country? Laughable. They'll be more attacks and they still won't do shit, because their PC ways won't let them.

PC is going to be the end of the West.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

It's gonna be like "Red Dawn" but against the Islamists instead of the Commies.

I just hope it's the good " Red Dawn" and not the shitty remake. Because, even though she didn't get naked, Lea Thompson was hot as fire in that.

[MetalBard]

I think you are vastly underestimating the Europeans, they went from a people who started two world wars into the current pussys you see today within the blink of an eye, and they can turn back just as quickly.

[Hyperion]

I'm going to keep underestimating them until I see them do something different. The problem is the PC culture. Doing something effective might offend someone, so they are going to sit around and watch their cities and their culture burn because stopping it might offend someone.

We have a similar problem here, just that right now it's mostly confined to our college campuses, but that's quickly spiraling out of control. First a few administrators are forced out, next the lunatics will be running the asylum. Sure they haven't blown anything up yet, but they certainly have already displayed a desire for violence.

[sarcasmic]

That was before US bases replaced most of their military. They no longer have the capability to start a world war.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

The future belongs to those who show up for it. 1.3 children a couple against 8+, and we'll see just how the demographics of Europe look like in the near future.

[Rhywun]

The fertility rate in the ME is much lower than that. And it gets even lower when they're in Europe.

[sarcasmic]

Just because they intend to do that doesn't mean they are able to.

[Hyperion]

This. And despite their apparent insanity, why would they risk really pissing off the USA when they have a soft target in Europe, which won't fight back?

[MetalBard]

So we drop more bombs, create more refugees, and further destabilize Europe?

[Hyperion]

So we drop more bombs, create more refugees, and further destabilize Europe?

That seems to be the plan.

[Lee G]

With Europe in the shitter and Asia all fiscally screwed up, our currency will be totes awesome by comparison.

*ponders run for office*

[John]

Maybe you missed the news, but that cowboy George Bush is no longer President. What possible reason is there to think Obama would do much of anything in response beyond bomb a few camps in Syria? There is no way in hell these people are deterred by the thought of Obama unleashing the dogs of war. Yes, we still have a strong military, but that only deters if our enemies think Obama will use it, which rightly or wrongly, they have concluded he won't.

[sarcasmic]

Obama won't be president forever.

[Hyperion]

Not only this, but the citizenry of the USA are heavily armed and I'm betting that this will not happen too many times before you see they are willing to take up the battle on their own.

[John]

They are not armed in places like DC and New York. And an armed citizenry is great for a lot of reason. It is however of limited use against people who plan to die in the attack and thus cannot be deterred.

At best Americans being armed will limit the death toll from an attack like this but it won't prevent one. And of course, there are plenty of places where people are not armed. Even if that changed, they could just change the way they attack and go back to regular suicide bombing, where being armed doesn't help.

[John]

True. But he will be for the next year. I bet they hit us. I can't see how they won't.

[sarcasmic]

I can't see how they won't.

I do agree that there are likely people here or coming here with the intention and resolve. But if they can't get their hands on explosives and automatic weapons, then it's a non-starter.

[John]

Explosives can be made. And you don't need an automatic weapon. A semi-automatic weapon works just fine against unarmed people.

And automatic weapons are not hard to obtain. They managed to obtain them in France, why couldn't they get them here?

[sarcasmic]

With the proximity to regions of the world that have seen conflict using those kinds of weapons, AKs especially, I suspect that there are plenty of former military weapons floating around that are much easier to obtain than any full-auto would be around here.

[sarcasmic]

And military explosives as well, for the same reason.

[Restoras]

They got their hands on explosives and automatic weapons in Europe. It's not too much of a stretch to think they could do the same here.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

They could just go to every fireworks stand at South Of The Border and stock up on enough firepower in a few days to do some serious fucking damage.

Obtaining ordnance is pretty fucking easy. And it's untraceable if you pay cash.

Ex: five guys go to ten fireworks stands each and pay cash for the ones with the most gunpowder in them (easy to find out) buying no more than $500 worth each, which is not uncommon near July 4. Each then goes into a Lowe's and buys 10# of nails with cash, some batteries and a smoke alarm (for the wire in it). Each then goes to a Walmart and buys a stopwatch with cash and a stockpot.

There, you now have a bunch of bombs.

[BigT]

The NSA will be on your ass for this.

[tarran]

I think that an attack in the U.S. involving a squad of attackers is all but certain. ISIS has encouraged "lone wolf" attacks, and there have been a few, all of which were failures due to a combination of lucky defenders and shitty attackers.

After a great deal of thought, I have a hypothesis that explains the seemingly suicidal behavior of ISIS in trying to raise the entire world against them.

I think that the overriding issue is a religious one; the leaders genuinely believe that God is on their side, and they will win any battle with the west. I think they have a prophecy to the effect that they will defeat Rome whom they basically claim is a euphemism for the U.S. So the religious leaders are really pushing for this.

But there are also a whole bunch of practical benefits.

First, recruiting. ISIS needs recruits. A large number of them, especially since they are suffering heavy losses due to their suicidal tactics. This is accomplished by a slick propaganda department that encourages people to see this as a holy war and a chance to imbue their otherwise meaningless lives with grand significance. The propaganda energizes these people. Some are able to become fighters or travel to ISIS controlled lands to work as supply clerks or land-missile guidance systems.

[tarran]

But a significant portion of these people are not capable of this. So what to do with them? You can't just say "Sorry, no waivers for losers, go back to mommy's basement you hoser" They'll go crying to the authorities. You have to maintain the energy. So you encourage them to fuck things up at home. They die, and in the process they create propaganda-of-the-deed.

Secondly, fomenting war with the west makes ISIS look more revolutionary and religiously meaningful. And the western punitive campaigns give the ISIS propagandists more propaganda of muslim suffering to drive people to support their cause. If they truly believe that God will make them invulnerable to western attack, then this has no downside. They literally can't lose! 🙂

[tarran]

Third, geopolitics. I suspect that they seek to rupture the U.S.alliance with Gulf Arabs. ISIS's biggest vulnerability is their supply lines. Specifically, if the Gulf Arab states cut ISIS off from support, they are done. ISIS really came onto the scene when the Gulf Arabs realized that the U.S. was not going to intervene in the Syrian civil war on the side of the Sunnis, and started shipping arms and money directly to them. While ISIS now harvests billions of dollars a year from the territory they control, and thus are less dependent on gulf arab support, they cannot survive if the Gulf Arabs turn against them and allow Iran, Syria, and Russia to chew them up. If the Saudis and the U.S. part ways, ISIS calculates eventually, either through succession or through revolt, the Saudi Throne will fall into their hands.

The ISIS leadership might not be too off on their calculations. Defeating them cannot be accomplished by air power. To destroy them would require a modern mechanized army using effective combined arms tactics. The U.S. has no allies that will allow them to mass such a expeditionary force.

[John]

We are going to accept 100,000 Syrian refugees. It is very unlikely that some of those will not be ISIS operatives. And there are very likely ISIS operatives who are already here either because they are natives who have been recruited or have managed to get in the country from somewhere else. We know that Americans have gone to Syria to fight for ISIS. It is likely a good bet that ISIS either sent a few back home or told them to stay where they were.

It is not that hard to pull off what happened in Paris. You only need what a dozen committed terrorists? And thanks to DC and New York gun laws, you know you can strike an unarmed populace.

[sarcasmic]

Even so, it isn't easy to acquire automatic weapons and explosives. Strong will and intentions are meaningless if you can't put your hands on the tools you need to get it done.

[AlmightyJB]

Full auto totally unecessary. And gasoline burns quite well.

[AlmightyJB]

I think it was France where some Muslims were just running people over with a car. How much damage could you do like that?

[Rhywun]

it isn't easy to acquire automatic weapons and explosives

Might be easier here than in France.

[Agammamon]

Paris is *not* going to happen here - the occasional idiot tossing a bomb or shooting up a coffee shop notwithstanding - because our society handles immigration in a fundamentally different way than the European countries.

People like to say we're racist - but we've got *nothing* on the Euro.

[John]

Yeah, that is why they have never tried to pull of a big attack in the US. Every time they send an operative over here, they just quit. I mean 911 never happened right?

Sure we handle immigrants well. But so what? As badly as France treats them, the vast majority of Muslims in France don't become murderous lunatics. That doesn't matter because it only takes a few. And there will always be a few no matter how you treat immigrants.

Beyond that, it doesn't matter how well you treat the individual person. The 911 hijackers all lived comfortable lives. Hussain was a psychologist and a Major in the fucking Army. That didn't prevent them from becoming terrorists.

[ant1sthenes]

From what I recall, London is next, then the US.

[Lord Humungus]

I'm sure this was already mentioned, but Joel Hodgson is trying to Bring Back MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 via Kickstarter

They are at $1.8M right now.

[MetalBard]

So where does that leave Mike Nelson and Rifftrax?

[lap83]

It says in the faq that he doesn't know who would return to the show. I would be surprised if the rifftrax guys returned. At least I don't think all of them would. I think it's been pretty successful

[Private Chipperbot]

They are invited back according to Joel. None of them will be regulars or voices for the bots. They want a new cast. He explains it on the page in the updates.

[Suthenboy]

Excellent. I loved that show.

[The Late P Brooks]

This is the first direct hit on music that we've had in this so-called War on Terror or whatever it's called. It's very upsetting.

Let's just call it what it is. A war on shitty music.

Be afraid, Bono. Be very afraid.

[Suthenboy]

"ISIS does not represent Islam. Nor is it a reflection of the attitude of the vast majority of Muslims."

Half true. ISIS does represent a face of Islam, not all of them, but one of its faces. As for the majority I don't think so, but a not insignificant number.

[MetalBard]

The majority of muslims might not support ISIS, but how many support things like blasphemy laws, or killing those that leave Islam etc?

Even if ISIS isn't popular in the middle east that doesn't mean some of the ideas they promote are not.

[Mrs. Lemuel Struthers]

"Hamas does not represent the Palestinians. Nor is it a reflection of the attitude of the vast majority of Palestinians."

"The IRA does not represent Irish Catholics. Nor is it a reflection of the attitude of the vast majority of Irish Catholics."

The majority is either intimidated by or tolerant of the tiny minority and that's all it takes for that tiny minority to complete dominate.

[B.P.]

11/15/2015: The day Peyton Manning broke fantasy football.

[John]

He has been terrible all years, sans one forth quarter against the Chiefs. Manning has tortured the Chiefs for his entire career. For him to be run off the field at home against the Chiefs, means he is done.

And Denver may be done as well. That offense is terrible and I can't see it getting any better. I don't care how good their defense is, they have a pretty tough schedule going forward. Who exactly are they going to beat? They still have to play New England and Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, plus a decent Raiders' team twice and at Chicago in the John Fox revenge bowl next weekend. They could lose all six of those games and finish 8-8.

[straffinrun]

The idiotic tweets keep coming.

[Lee G]

"White masculinity isn't a problem for America's colleges, white masculinity is THE problem for America's colleges."

How is that these people aren't immediately fired?

[AlmightyJB]

Why do you think they were hired in the first place?

[AlmightyJB]

Racist accusations of racism are the best kind.

[Bern-o-Matic 5000]

Apparently, I am Ben Affleck and so are you.

[Lee G]

Now that's offensive

[AlmightyJB]

If I was getting the same tail you could call me whatever you want.

[Suthenboy]

I never hear them talking about black slave owners in America, that the people who captured africans and sold them into slavery were black africans themselves, or that Africa has more slaves today than at any time in history and the slavers and their owners are all black or arab. I never hear them talk about how slavery in the west was ended by white people.

Not that any of that matters. No white person today in the west owns slaves and no black person today is a slave. People aren't responsible for the actions of other people. They are responsible for their own actions and that means that Saida Grundy is an insufferable asshole.

[Suthenboy]

...racist insufferable asshole.

[Hyperion]

That stuff is not PC. You're not a right thinker or you wouldn't be bringing it up. Your privilege is showing.

[commodious spittoon]

It's a little odd that as much as they deny American or Western exceptionalism, they operate on the premise, quite correctly, that Westerners generally and Americans specifically should be held to a much higher standard than the underdeveloped world. They seem to think Americans are uniquely guilty for the sins of slavery or that the West is uniquely guilty for those of colonialism, but in holding us to account they demonstrate that we're uniquely capable of contrition and reparation. Everything the grievance-industry left wants to deny about the superior nature of Western culture they embrace in this one area.

[Suthenboy]

In other words, they refuse to see that their disgusting collectivist arguments apply to them as well. I declare all blacks as racist descendants of slavers and slave owners more so than whites because they probably have both as living relatives.

They need to check their goddamn privilege and start paying reparations.

[commodious spittoon]

Moreover they don't recognize how pluralistic and tolerant America is, despite the efforts of the johnny come latelies in the progressive movement who want to see American culture steeply racialized again and, presumably, mire blacks in economic and social stagnation for another couple generations because their parents' great society victories worked so well.

[Agammamon]

They deliberately refuse to see that - this is all about wolves cutting a weak animal from the herd. No one in Africa can afford to pay reparations, no one in Africa can be *bullied* into thinking that reparations are deserved in the first place.

But the USG can.

Because if we're scared shitless of anything we can't bomb into oblivion.

[The Late P Brooks]

Shocked. SHOCKED, I tell you!

But stop-and-seize also presents a danger to public trust. When the cops go around taking money from innocent people to fund their own departments and salaries, it understandably decreases trust in the government and the legal system. That is something we can ill-afford at the present time, with trust in the police already at a low ebb over a series of videos of police killings. If they don't trust the government, people will be less likely to report criminals, and possibly less likely to follow the law themselves.

Even more fundamentally, though, stop-and-seize is part of a worrying trend of less government accountability. The lack of oversight virtually ensures that the quality of government services will decline. This has been painfully apparent in abuses by bounty hunters, mercenaries and private prisons. But if the police are transformed into independent, self-funding armed gangs, the quality of policing -- and thus the effectiveness of all our legal institutions -- is sure to decline.

The decline in the quality of government services is what keeps me awake at night.

[Suthenboy]

""All of our home towns are sitting on a tax-liberating gold mine," Deputy Ron Hain of Kane County, Ill., wrote in a self-published book under a pseudonym?Hain's book calls for "turning our police forces into present-day Robin Hoods."

Sounds like a good way to get your ass shot off to me.

[commodious spittoon]

I can't recall where, maybe Monico or San Marino, but law enforcement there prices traffic violations differentially based on income. Which works when you've a great many very wealthy citizens, I suppose, but chances are good any such scheme attempted here would just soak the poor and middle class to an even greater extent than it does already.

[Rhywun]

I read about that in Sweden and maybe other Scandinavian countries too.

[Pope Jimbo]

A little late, but it is another example of how things have changed. In addition to GPS, getting real time access to satellite weather info is an amazing thing for people who like to spend time outdoors.

http://www.startribune.com/gal.....4802482/#1

Back in 1940 a blizzard caught a bunch of hunters unawares because our weather info used to be sent from Chicago who basically monitored temps sent by remote sites. The hunters went out when it was nice and were snowed in and 49 people died.

Like I said it made me think about how often I use weather info when I am out and about. It would be so strange to not have any real idea when bad weather was heading your way

[Illocust]

My phone tells me if it is going to rain or not everytime I open it up. Knowledge about what the weather is going to do even a week from now is ubiquitous. Hell this Halloween we knew it was going to rain sometime that weekend the weekend before and were preparing for it.

[Pope Jimbo]

I loved it when we still had our cabin. I could tell if the current rain storm was just a front passing through, or if I should pack up the family and just head back.

It is also nice to be able to tell if the weather will be nice in Medora, ND before I go hunting there. Helps with the packing a lot.

It is also interesting wondering how today's public would handle 49 people being killed by a blizzard.

[Mike M.]

Now over eight trillion in debt since Obama took office, and nearly half a trillion since the debt ceiling got raised at the beginning of the month.

[Agammamon]

A spontaneous rally this weekend at the Republique Plaza, which included the banner "Can't Scare Us," dispersed after someone set off firecrackers . . .

I'm sorry but - hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

And as for its 'ferocious' military actions - what exactly does France think its' going to accomplish that the US hasn't already been able to? Even if they had the will, they simply don't have the *industrial might* to go toe-to-toe with ISIS for any length of time.

All they're going to end up doing is making these guys keep their heads down for a few weeks until the pressure lets up - and then they'll be back to do it again. France is reaping a decades old harvest of ghettoization - all those pissed off BSPs living in the banlieues forced out of the legit economy by heavy regulation and high minimum wages now have a unifying theme to support.

Fat and happy people are less likely to shoot up their neighbors.

[MetalBard]

Yeah it's France's fault when a bunch Muslims decide to murder people sure. Asshole

is it's France's fault, and "ghettoization" when Muslims murder school children in Russia, or behead women in Thailand, kidnap people in the Philippines, murder people in the Balkans, Kill Jews in Israel, kill Coptic Christians in Egypt, Kill Indians in Kashmir, enslave blacks in the Sudan, etc etc.

In fact is there any group of people Muslims can get along with? It seems like all along the borders of the Islamic world there are conflict zones, from the Balkans to the Philippines, and every country a a significant Muslim minority seems to have religious conflict.

[Suthenboy]

He has a bit of a point. The Frogs let them in and did all of that. But, you are right too. They are a religion custom designed by and for conquering people and that is exactly what they are up to now. Nothing the Frogs did after letting them in would hav emade things different.

[Illocust]

They need them to keep their heads down long enough for the climate conference to pass. Important people that they care about will attend that.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

Speaking of hoofball - I'm starting to think the Vikings might actually be for real this year. And I love how they crushed the Raiders in Oakland after bitchface Howie Long did a piece about how they're back to their old dominating ways, especially at home. Suck it.

[Pope Jimbo]

I'm so happy we have gotten a coach who has moved on from the Tampa-2 defense. I couldn't stand watching us give up mid range outs over and over again. Finally we have some decent cover corners.

My fear is though that we will be exactly what A-Rog needs to get his mojo working again.

[Jake Stone]

"A spontaneous rally this weekend at the Republique Plaza, which included the banner "Can't Scare Us," dispersed after someone set off firecrackers"

What the hell just happened? My desktop irony detector burst into flames.

[Sevo]

They were lying.

[american socialist]

Gawd... Barack Obama has a huge war boner: "Let's assume that we were to send 50,000 troops into Syria," he said at a gathering of leaders of the Group of 20 industrial and emerging-market economies in Antalya, Turkey. "What happens when there's a terrorist attack generated from Yemen? Do we then send troops into there? Or Libya, perhaps?""

What a warmonger!

[Bern-o-Matic 5000]

I KNOW AMSOC ITS LIKE WHOA WHY DO THOSE THINGZ WHIN YOU CAN JUZT KILL PEEPS WITH PREDUHTER DRONZ!11!!!! WHO NEEDZ WARBONERZ DRONEBONERZ IS SOOOO MUCH MORE SATISFYING ITS LIKE FUCK YOU I DONT CARE IF UR A SITIZEN OR NOTS HERE COMES MY DRONEZ BITCH!!!!!!

[american socialist]

Anwar al-Awlaki was my homeboy. Like you, I cry a little when some murderous Islamists gets bombed. It hurts my feelings.

[Suthenboy]

For a prez that he and his supporters swear isnt a socialist he sure has a lot of socialists defending his every move.
I wonder what the means?

[Swiss Servator]

STEVE SMITH HAVE LASIK, NOT NEED TO BUG EYES OUT LIKE THAT TO SEE NEXT RAPE VICTIM ANYMORE!

[commodious spittoon]

We know his type.

[Suthenboy]

They aren't looking at them at all. They can't. Syria is a failed state. They have no records. 'Refugees' show up and you have to take their word for who they are.

[John]

No, there is another way to keep us "safe"; stop letting Muslims immigrate and and make life very hard for the ones who are here. We don't know who will go nuts and who won't, but we know for certain which section of the population they almost certainly belong too. So, no the entire country doesn't have to go Supermax, just the Muslim part.

[sarcasmic]

How does the saying go? Me today, you tomorrow?

[John]

Sure. That is a shitty solution. And yes slippery slopes are real. But who says the world owes us good solutions?

I can tell you right now, "just suck it up and die or be willing to get into a gun fight at any moment" is not a solution the public will accept. If these sorts of attacks ever become the slightest bit common, the public will take matters into their own hands and the government will be putting Muslims into supermax to protect them from the mob.

It is not a question of good or bad or right or wrong. That is just reality. People will not put up with being murdered and terrorized by an alien minority.

[Lord Humungus]

Yeah... I know several Muslims and they've been wonderful, kind people. Grouping them in with some zealots is beyond my ability to hate.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Canada is the best.

[sarcasmic]

The left would say the same thing about anyone who watches FOX News or listens to Rush Limbaugh.

[sarcasmic]

The Klan claimed to be a Christian group. So by your logic, if they were to rise again, the solution would be to round up every Christian.

[Agammamon]

John|11.16.15 @ 10:40AM|#

No, there is another way to keep us "safe"; stop letting Muslims immigrate and and make life very hard for the ones who are here. We don't know who will go nuts and who won't, but we know for certain which section of the population they almost certainly belong too.

So, you support making life hard for white people too? Seems to me that in this country, whites tend to go off the handle and shoot up schools/blow up people far more than anyone else.

What about the blacks? They're *known* to commit violent crimes all out of proportion to their numbers?

Or the Latinos - they're all rapists, right?

Seems to me that if we went down that road we'd find that the Asians would be the only ones allowed to walk the streets unmolested by 'authority'.

OMG! THAT'S IT! That's their filthy yellow plan - lock them up too. Just in case.

[commodious spittoon]

There oughta be a law.

[Citizen X]

Greasing your griddle with coconut oil makes pancakes taste fucking awesome.

[sarcasmic]

I know several Muslims and they've been wonderful, kind people.

Ditto.

[John]

Okay, then what are you going to do? Nothing?

[Somalian Road Corporation]

And the establishment and media of Europe have been entirely willing to enact a gigantic-scale performance of the Emperor's New Clothes with hilarity like pieces about "teenage" refugees who are quite obviously in their 20s and 30s.

Given my personal interactions with the people who have drunk the kool-aid on this matter, I don't see the Paris massacre as something that will cause the wake-up call needed.

[sarcasmic]

Okay, then what are you going to do? Nothing?

There is nothing logically incorrect with diagnosing a problem and finding something wrong with a proposed solution while not having a better one.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Sorry, John. But that so reminded me of this:

Well, what are you going to do about it, Whitey? Just sit there? Of course not! You are going to join with us. The members of the American Socialist White Peoples' Party. An organization of decent, law abiding white folk. Just like you!

And not because I think you think that way. Just because that was such a funny scene.

[Lord Humungus]

So the choices are:

1) round up and deportation

and/or
2) institute some system of oppression for a religious minority

and/or
3) stop further immigration by Muslims

and/or
4) having a massive surveillance state to look for possible threats

and/or
5) further intervention in the Middle East to kill more terrorists

I really don't like any of these answers, though background checks for immigrants from countries with high levels of terrorism may be the least difficult to implement - but even that would require a large spying apparatus to confirm the applicant is telling the truth.

There are no easy answers in life - but I personally I would like more freedom even if it costs us blood and treasure. Whether that jibes with reality, and what other people want - security! - remains to be seen. I doubt it.

It's like gun control - sure there would be less suicide and death if guns were outlawed and forcibly removed from people, but that's not a price I'm willing to pay if that means the end of the second amendment.

[John]

Sure they would. But so what? That doesn't change the reality of what we face. Yes, it sucks. It is terrible but it is what it is. The problem is Libertarianism can't cope with or offer an answer to the problem of religious radicals who want to die in the name of killing for the religion.

The NAP is great but it assumes that everyone else either follows it or can be deterred by an armed public. When you have a group of people who are willing to die and thus can't be deterred and are hiding within the population, the NAP offers no solution other than hope you don't die. You can't consistent the NAP take preemptive action against someone or collectively punish a group of people. Yet, without doing that, you are left virtually defenseless against the attacks of religious fanatics.

[MetalBard]

Exactly. Unfortunately there are no good solutions to this problem, they're all shitty, and some people seem to be unwilling to accept that.

The situation in Europe in particular is unbelievably shitty. You can't appease them by giving into their demands, you can't be super PC sensitive to them without basically adopting sharia law by another name, and the population there seem unwilling to assimilate into European society, and a small segment within that society is willing to use violence to achieve their objectives.

The governments in Europe seem unable to prevent these attacks, and the people living there are not going to tolerate routine terror attacks forever.

[sarcasmic]

You know who else collectively punished a group of people?

[american socialist]

Hey, stop picking on John. He's our friend. Even though he wants to stop any Muslim from crossing a border anywhere in the world he's a libertarian because he doesn't like Welfare. Pick your battles, libertarians. We all know the true enemies of Murray Rothbard are those that want to incrementally increase tax rates of the top 0.1%

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Dude! Watch what you say. There might be some kids from Mizzou on here. Don't give them any ideas.

[Hyperion]

But if he tried to make life hard for white people, that would make him a hero, right? Because privilege. Loony Toon college students agree.

[MetalBard]

Islam isn't a race jackass, it's a religion, and an ideology. It's a belief system, and groups like ISIS follow those beliefs to the letter.

It's not different then not letting self-proclaimed Nazis enter the country.

[John]

It doesn't matter what I support or don't. The point is that is the only solution available other than just letting this happen. All you are telling me is "that is horrible". And my response is "sure it is horrible but since when does reality owe you a nice solution to a problem?:"

More importantly, doing nothing is not an option the public will accept. If the government won't go after Muslims, the public will and will do so in a much nastier and murderous way than even the government would.

Go stand on your soapbox of righteousness all you like. It doesn't change the reality of what we face. All you are telling me is your ideology offers no solution other than hope you don't die. I already knew that.

[John]

No sarcasmic, there is not. The fact that you can do nothing, doesn't mean the public will accept doing nothing and not take action on their own if the government doesn't.

Like I say below, if this thing starts to happen with any sort of regularity, the government will be acting to protect Muslims from the mob. Doing nothing may be a possible answer but it is not one the public is likely to accept. And if the public doesn't accept it, it isn't an option.

[John]

Sloopy,

It is a funny scene. But it is only funny because there is a grain of truth to it. Even if the right thing is just to turn the other cheek and ignore these attacks, that is not an option since there is no way in hell the public will do that. If the government won't act, the public will act on its own.

[Pope Jimbo]

She's a masochist who can't afford all the leather restraints, ball gags and whips. So she watches the Vikes to get the same effect?

If it was The Worse saying she was a Vikes fan I would just assume she liked the Purple because she appreciates a team that supports a child abuser.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

Born in Rochester (IBM).

[John]

Every single country that ever fought a war in the last 200 years and most before that. I am pretty sure area bombing Germany and Japan counts as collectively punishing the Germans and the Japanese.

I get it that you don't like that solution. It is totally inconsistent with Libetarianism. And that is my entire point. There is no solution consistent with Libertarianism other than suck it up. And the public is not going to accept that if these attacks ever become more than a once a decade or so thing.

[sarcasmic]

When did I say "we should do nothing"?

If anything, these need to be treated as the isolated events that they are. Do nothing? No. Go after any surviving attackers and anyone who aided them. But anything beyond that is, without due process, punishing the innocent for something that they may or may not do.

[Suthenboy]

A month or so ago my son took my wife and I out on a local lake in his new boat. We were able to boat around and fish a bit and then head back and trailer the boat with perfect timing because we could see the front coming on our phones.

When I was a kid living on a remote farm we had a godawful ice storm and were iced in with no electricity for three weeks. The storm his us by complete surprise. Luckily back then we stayed prepared for such events. We had plenty of firewood and food stored away just because we never knew.

[Suthenboy]

Luckily...ugh, it wasn't luck.

*Despite the wonders of modern weather prediction I still stay prepared like that. I do it because I know when the shit approaches the batteries, gas, water, etc will run out in the stores quickly.

[sarcasmic]

You're comparing Islamic terrorism to war between nation states, and then claiming that because libertarians don't support rounding up innocent Muslims and putting them in concentration camps that libertarians wouldn't have supported defending the country from foreign aggression?

How many years of college did it take for you to learn how to construct such absurd arguments?

[Free Society]

If anything, these need to be treated as the isolated events that they are.

Isolated in the context of a state imported and state maintained population of Muslims living a society that's been inculcated to bend over backwards to give "tolerance" to those who don't deserve it.

[John]

Background checks won't work LH. Most of these countries have totally broken governments. Who do you call in Syria or Somalia or Aftghanistan to do a background check?

The only solution is just not let anyone from those countries in but even that is only of limited effectiveness since Muslims come from a lot of other places as well.

There are no easy answers in life - but I personally I would like more freedom even if it costs us blood and treasure. Whether that jibes with reality, and what other people want - security! - remains to be seen. I doubt it.

I would too. But what good is freedom if you are dead? It is easy for you and I to say that. We likely won't get killed. What if you knew you were going to be killed? What would you say then? Would you still say the same thing? Most people would not. You don't want to give up your freedom to stop this. Okay. Most people don't want to risk their lives to keep their freedom, especially when stopping it involves restricting the freedom of a minority they don't particularly like in the first place.

If the options are; let it run its course and hope for the best, restrict everyone's freedom, or go after Muslims, there is no question which option the public will choose. And that is just the way it is. It doesn't matter if you or I or anyone else likes it. It is reality.

[John]

How is bombing civilians and killing people who may not have had anything to do with the war anything but collective punishment?

And beyond that, you miss the point. There is no solution here other than "suck it up" or "go after the Muslims as a community". What other solution do you propose?

[sarcasmic]

But what good is freedom if you are dead?

I've got a greater chance of being hit by lightning on a cloudless day than I do of being killed in a terrorist attack. I'll take my chances, fuck you very much.

[sarcasmic]

Why must I have a solution, John? You're claiming that your solution must be correct on the grounds that I don't have one that you like better. Sorry, but that's a fallacious argument.

[sarcasmic]

I see the collective IQ in here just dropped fifty points.

[John]

Shut up Joe. The adults are talking.

[John]

That is great sarcasmic. You are willing to take that risk. Why do you assume everyone else will?

And why can't you understand that your assessment of the risk assumes the past is just like the future? You have no idea what your actual risk is because you don't know the future. If you were 18 years old in Europe in 1913, based on the past your chances of dying violently in a war were virtually nil. To bad, the future isn't always the same as the past.

[John]

Why must I have a solution, John?

You don't. You just need to understand reality is going to impose one whether you like it or not. I am not saying you have to like it or think it is a good thing. I am just telling you what is going to happen.

[Pope Jimbo]

That is such a loser thing to do. I'm waiting until they offer me a chance to buy a brick in the $10M pedestrian bridge.

That is where real monocle wearing libertarians will have their bricks installed.

Not only does Wilf cackle maniacally when he gets orders for those, how much is that mailing list of dumbasses worth to other people selling Vikings crap?

[sarcasmic]

John, it's like you asking "Hey sarc, what's your solution that involves punishing a shit-ton of innocent people? You don't want to punish a shit-ton of innocent people? Well, then. You don't have a solution."

[commodious spittoon]

Bitter clinger prepper, you. I bet you load up on ammunition after ever shooting spree, too.

[sarcasmic]

Why do you assume everyone else will?

I didn't. You know what? I'm sick of fending off these straw man attacks. Whatevs.

[sarcasmic]

Oh, I know what is going to happen, John. I'm not stupid. And I doubt I will support it either. Not that it matters. Though I know you'll be right in the front holding your hand up high if our government decides to round up all the Muslims and put them on rail-cars. You were born in the wrong country in the wrong era.

[John]

Yeah Sarcasmic. That is what I am saying. You are right. The only solution to this involves punishing a bunch of innocent people and doing a lot of nasty things. That is exactly what I am saying. I am not saying that is good. I am just saying that is how it is and the world sometimes is like that.

[american socialist]

I like my libertarianism to be essentially big tent. Racist, extremist, right-wing assholes who want to close the border and declare war on Mozlims everywhere, you are welcome!

[Bern-o-Matic 5000]

I AGREEE WE CAN BEWELCOMING TO AVERYWON!!!!

[sarcasmic]

Like I said above, you were born in the wrong country in the wrong era. You'd have been an invaluable asset in implementing certain solutions that were dreamed up by that dude with the funny mustache.

[Suthenboy]

Ha! You are wrong! I horde my ammo and no sprees, I shoot sparingly these days.

[Trouser-Pod (The blowhard)]

STEVE SMITH HAVE LASIK

OK, Swiss merits *standing opera applause* for that.