Feds Spend Billions on Public Relations, Supreme Court Considers Affirmative Action, German Chancellor Named Time's Person of Year: A.M. Links

Time

• A new report shows the federal government has spent billions on public relations over the past seven years. And since 2007, the number of PR positions within the federal government has gone up by 15 percent; based on the number of PR employees, the U.S. government would rank as the second-largest public relations firm in the world.
• The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in an affirmative action case today.
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been named Time magazine's 2015 person of the year.
• The eternal sunshine of Donald Trump: "I. Will. Never. Leave. This. Race," the Donald tells reporters. 
• "Meet the apostates of the trans rights movement": trans women who say that they aren't "real" women.
• Uber is testing out a new ride-sharing template, UberHOP, in San Francisco.
• The U.S. House voted yesterday to ban people who've visited Iraq or Syria in the previous five years from to America.
• How Cuba has changed in the past year.  

New at Reason: 

Brickbat: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year —By Charles Oliver

How Star Wars Conquered the Galaxy: The economic power of the greatest movie franchise ever. —By Chris Taylor

Autonomous Terrorism Calls for Autonomous Defense: Unlike Obama's gun control proposals, armed citizens can stop mass shooters who are invisible until they strike. —By Jacob Sullum

Liberty, Fraternity, Security: After ISIS attacks, France follows in America's footsteps on targeting civil liberties. —By John Stossel 

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and don't forget to sign up for Reason's daily updates for more content.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been named Time magazine's 2015 person of the year.

You know who else?

[Lord Humungus]

Charles C. W. Cooke ?@charlescwcooke 52m52 minutes ago
You know which other German Chancellor . . .

BBC Breaking News @BBCBreaking
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is named Time Magazine's person of the Year http://bbc.in/1IUwYGp
30 retweets 39 likes

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I think Cooke reads these threads.

[Swiss Servator]

Who wouldn't?

[Tonio]

"I hope you'll have the kindness not to mention to anyone else that I spoke to you."

[Swiss Servator]

*applause*

[Juvenile Bluster]

Not only did you get the first post again, you beat me to that joke.

Hate you so much...

[Fist of Etiquette]

Well, maybe if you bothered showing up earlier than a minute past...

[Clich? Bandit]

Don't listen to him JB, he is actually The Doctor and he cheats.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Seriously, though. You would think the Germans would change the name of that position.

[sarcasmic]

Stalin? No. Um, Khrushchev? No. Wait, I think I know! Nixon? No. Putin?

I'm at a loss.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Hello.

Heh. Time is so pathetic.

[commodious spittoon]

Stop mucking around.

[Rich]

You?

[Just a thought not a sermon]

That Time Magazine cover is really, really not-flattering to Chancellor Merkel.

[straffinrun]

Sad thing is, it is.

[Overt]

When I saw it, I thought "Man, what a sad pseudo portrait of Hillary". It's got that same jowelly frown.

[Elspeth Flashman]

That's what I though too, "wow, someone really showed what Hilary's resting-bitch face is like."

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

On that subject, the stolen alt text is hilarious.

[GILMORE?]

At least they cleaned the blood off

[DJF]

Here is a funny line from Wikipedia

"""As of 2012, it(Time) has a circulation of 3.3 million doctor offices and various reception rooms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_(magazine)

[Suthenboy]

Damn you Fist. Damn you.

[In League with the Dark Ones]

Is Merkel the second German Chancellor to win "Person of the Year"?

[sarcasmic]

Police union stands with Trump: 'Next president of the United States'

http://www.theamericanmirror.c.....ed-states/
If a police union supports a politician, you know that can't be good.

[Bee Tagger]

The U.S. House voted yesterday to ban people who've visited Iraq or Syria in the previous five years from to America.

Our poor troops!

[Rich]

Oops!

[gaijin]

lol!

[Mickey Rat]

When was the last time Clinton was dodging bullets in Iraq?

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

On the plus side, a bunch of media personalities should be deported soon, right? We'll truly be rid of Brian Williams.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The U.S. House voted yesterday to ban people who've visited Iraq or Syria in the previous five years from to America.

Surfing? Skipping? Moonwalking?

[invisible furry hand]

Twerking

[Swiss Servator]

But...but...I twerk pretty fly, for a white guy!

[Restoras]

+1 Offspring

[Lord Humungus]

Socialite Decides to Kill Herself in an Assisted Suicide at 50 Rather Than Grow Old

A judge in England recently set a deadly precedent when he allowed a psychologically ill woman to kill herself simply because she was worried about growing old and fat.

Judge Justice MacDonald decided that the woman, "Clare," had weighed the facts in her case and reached a "clear and reasoned decision" on her own, according to The Daily Mail. MacDonald said he ruled in her favor reluctantly because he knew the decision "will alarm and possibly horrify many."

It is indeed a horrific decision that could threaten many vulnerable people's lives. Those facing depression or other psychological illnesses could succumb to similar fates as Clare.

[SugarFree]

Me'd

[Fist of Etiquette]

What are you, too good to google?

[Swiss Servator]

Enacting labour, etc.

[Lord Humungus]

http://www.lifenews.com/2015/1.....-grow-old/

[Ms. Eleanor Lavish]

Based upon the sweater(?) she's wearing in the photo, she should definitely go ahead and kill herself.

[LynchPin1477]

Those facing depression or other psychological illnesses could succumb to similar fates as Clare.

Choice?

[Hamster of Doom]

Choic is only a virtue when you choose as ordered.

[Auric Demonocles]

That only applies to killing a fetus, not your own body!

[MSimon]

You can't de fetus.

[Clich? Bandit]

holy shit that's is both awful and hilarious

[Chipper Morning Wood]

A fetus will never be Person Of The Year.

[Citizen X]

Does she own her body, her self, or not? Looks like the judge "reluctantly" decided in the affirmative.

[greasonable]

the link

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Nobody likes a show-off.

[Suthenboy]

We have been repeatedly assured that this kind of thing would not happen, that allowing gravely ill people to off themselves would only be used in extreme cases and that it was not a slippery slope.

[SugarFree]

If the drugs to end her life painlessly were legal, she wouldn't have to beg the state for permission.

[Mickey Rat]

So the Death penaltyby lethal injection can be done painlessly?

[SugarFree]

Of course it can. The libertarian objection should never be the method of death I object to, but that the state is putting its own citizens to death.

Death penalty opponents using regulations on methods to end executions are just as dishonest as gun control people using zoning to shut down gun stores or abortion foes closing clinics through regulatory burden.

[Azathoth!!]

The state doesn't put it's people to death. The jury does. They just use the state to carry out the sentence.

Can't get the death penalty from a bench trial.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Not better.

[Isaac Bartram]

Actually, most people can legally obtain the drugs necessary. Even highly restricted narcotics can be obtained with the right story to a doctor and collecting an adequate supply of those drugs can be collected by hoarding.

The larger problem is in obtaining information about dosages and methods of administration. Any one providing accurate information on how to kill oneself is likely to face charges likely up to and including murder.

The other problem is that many, if not most, people suffer from severe anxiety about impending death even if they have a stated desire for it. That alone, i think accounts for a significant number of failed suicide attempts. Any attempt at suicide would be helped by a substantial (possibly fatal on its own if administered properly) dose of anti-anxiety meds.

[Citizen X]

I am reminded of Doug Stanhope's bit about his mother's death by planned morphine overdose, and how as she was starting to fade, he and his girlfriend kept messing with her: "Mom, wake up! They found a cure!"

[Rhywun]

And I have repeatedly not cared less. For once the slippery slope leads to more freedom.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

122) I took a semester off from college at one point and spent three mornings a week volunteering for the Public Defenders' office in Nashville-Davidson County, TN. They were so overworked, they soon had me doing felony entrance interviews?a short (10-15 min.) interview with arrestees who had just arrived from intake to get their basic info, a brief version of their side of the story, and any medical issues they had.

One thing I noticed early on was how many defendants complained of being roughed up by the police. I didn't know what to make of it at first, and chalked it up to resisting arrest (indeed, they were often charged with that in addition to whatever their other charges were) or maybe overly dramatizing their arrest for sympathy.

But these complaints were so pervasive?I'd say about a quarter of all defendants?and the police accounts of resisting arrest nearly always appeared to be cut-and-paste jobs, I soon came to accept them at face value. In fact, a defendant would often say something like, "Man, I understand why I was taken in, but I surrendered peacefully. Why they have to bang my head against the curb when they puttin' on the cuffs?"

My conclusion was that in Nashville (and probably anywhere), if you're a poor person who gets in trouble with the cops, if you are anything but perfectly obsequious and compliant you're getting your ass kicked, and possibly even if you are.

[Raven Nation]

Last year, here where I live, some guy was charged with resisting arrest - and with no other crime.

[Hamster of Doom]

Happened a few times at Occupy Denver too.

[sarcasmic]

Not only are you going to get your ass kicked, but you'll likely be charged with several things that you didn't do, just to force you into a plea bargain. Especially if you are poor and get stuck with a public pretender.

[Clich? Bandit]

I have known some public defenders. I find the stereotype more than inaccurate. I find it ridiculously absurd on its face. Remember that the prosecution has many things that PDs do not. And private counsel ALSO has one of the same things the prosecution has. It is called discretion. A private attorney does not need to represent you. A Prosecutor does not need to prosecute. A PD MUST defend you regardless. So you will have skewed numbers from that alone. Also, PDs are in a pissing match against the prosecution. The DA is stumping for election/press/ego. The State PDO is never going to get elected to anything. The best they hope for is a private litigation job (which they can get due to experience). The DA has the cops. 100%. The PDO has ... other "criminals" and "accused". The fact that Arapahoe County PDO has a 25% win rate is fucking stunning.

[sarcasmic]

I don't know why public pretenders even exist. Just replace them with an audio loop that repeats "Take the plea. Take the plea. Take the plea..."

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

If don't bang people's head against the wall or ground you're asking for them to disobey and kill the cop and his family. Think of it. Do you really want to take that chance? Police officers have a difficult job and we just need to keep things in perspective. I endorse smashing people's faces in because authority and civility politely demands it. /David French.

[All-Seeing Monocle]

Depressing but not surprising.

The system lacks meaningful accountability, and there seems to be very, very little interest in changing that.

[Tonio]

I've not been a big fan of yours, JATNAS, mostly because of the obnoxious numbered posts, but you've just raised yourself in my estimation.

[Swiss Servator]

Would you say that is your #1 reason?

*ducks*

[bacon-magic]

1) Reason

[dan'o en barrel]

"Resisting arrest" was when I slowed their attempt to slam my face into the hood of a van. I was already handcuffed and allowed my body to contact and remain on the hood, but didn't allow the hard impact they (2 cops) were trying for. One yelled "quit resisting" and punched me in the face as I passively lay there. Brooklyn cops apparently don't like it when you realize you're about to be caught by a sting operation and throw your contraband down the gutter. Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it all disappear and caught a drug charge with resisting arrest tacked on.
Our heroes in blue...

[Rich]

the U.S. government would rank as the second-largest public relations firm in the world.

We're not explaining our policies sufficiently well. No wonder they hate us.

[gaijin]

What was Pravda's workforce numbers back in the day I wonder?

[Bee Tagger]

Uber is testing out a new ride-sharing template, UberHOP, in San Francisco.

I'm going to tell you this now: I'm going to be expecting pancakes.

[Swiss Servator]

*narrows gaze*

[waffles]

Nobody ever expects me.

[Elspeth Flashman]

What about the Spanish Inquisition?

[Mickey Rat]

Except that chain of dirty spoons in the south. Otherwise you are the red headed stepchild of hearty breakfast foods.

[Citizen X]

It comes with having originated in Belgium.

[GILMORE?]

Lies! Eurocentric wafflehistory elides contributions made by marginalized peoples. And aliens.

[Lord Humungus]

How to Get Rid of Your Landlord and Socialize American Housing, in 3 Easy Steps

Let's get rid of private housing.

Plenty of time and effort have lately gone into analyzing a host of related crises?homelessness, unaffordable urban real estate, devastating gentrification, and a housing bubble whose burst landed us in the Great Recession. But the explanations tend to be incomplete, the attributions shortsighted, and the policies rearguard. For every liberal who insists that deregulating zoning laws will curb skyrocketing urban housing prices, there's a conservative who blames the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act for the housing bubble, and none of them is anywhere near the mark.

The true culprit is so deeply embedded in American notions of wealth, rights, and property that we cannot see it for the terrible economy policy it is: private housing. Real estate as a store of private wealth is the rotten tree that sprouts these diseased branches, and the solution is to quit pruning twigs and chop the sucker down.

[Hamster of Doom]

Oh, god.

[UnCivilServant]

Lets ship anyone who write for 'the nation' to North Korea, where they can live in socialized housing. I'll keep my responsive private management company. They at least keep the shared areas in good order and response to maintenence requests promptly.

[SugarFree]

They can't get our guns, but they think they will get our houses? Good luck, commies.

[Rich]

It's the American NIGHTMARE!

[Citizen X]

As my own landlord: fuck you, The Nation.

[SugarFree]

Oh, look... It's this idiot: Jesse A. Myerson.

The Nation's answer to Hamilton Nolan, who is Gawker's answer to a glory hole at a hog slaughter facility.

[Swiss Servator]

"a glory hole at a hog slaughter facility"

Gah?! Well, so much for lunch, after reading that. SF, your abilities remain ....undiminished.

[Tonio]

Reading Sug's prose has been an important part of my weight loss program.

[UnCivilServant]

Bulimia is not a diet.

[Elspeth Flashman]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[Citizen X]

It is if you do it right.

[gaijin]

a glory hole at a hog slaughter facility

You do have a way with words!

[db]

He uses his mouth purtier than a twenty-dollar whore.

[Citizen X]

Thanks. I wasn't about to click to find out which particular argument for eugenics took that verbal dump on the Internet.

Just for emphasis, yo, fuck Jesse A. Myerson.

[Auric Demonocles]

Oh boy, I can't wait until all housing options look like the projects!

[Juvenile Bluster]

Please be The Onion, please be The Onion, please be The Onion..

::clicks::

Dammit.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Seriously. I was an exchange student in Berlin in 1995, and it was so obvious when you crossed over from the (former) West to the (former) East because all the buildings looked like they held Section 8 recipients. Every single one.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

I meant this response to be to Auric Demonocles.

[Elspeth Flashman]

The place where the kiddo plays hockey is next to a huge "development" of public housing. It multiplied in the last year, adding twice as many "homes," next to the ones that were already there. The existing homes got a facelift, so everything matches. But it's really depressing.

[BigT]

I was in both West and East Berlin in 1984, when the East was still a commie hell-hole. Your observations ar correct. What was more obvious was the complete lack of color in the East - no lights, adverts, window decorations, window boxes, etc. And the State Gardens (or whatever they were called) were completely overgrown and trash-filled - not very German. It was amazing what communism had done to the characteristic German tidiness, order, and responsibility.

[Rhywun]

Same here, 1986. East Germany remains by far the most depressing place I have ever visited. It was better outside of Berlin (e.g. Halle, Nordhausen) but not much.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

I need six hundred dollars by the end of the week
My body is cold, dirty socks on my feet
Not a black sheep, but who's the creep
Trying to put me on the street while I'm trying to sleep?
I wanna kill my landlord, murder in the first degree
If there's something wrong he wants to blame me
Wants to be a threat so he carries a gun
Well I pack a 9 cause I can't trust 911
Son of a gun, I'm the one who cuts the grass
Wash the windows and he still wants me to kiss his ass
But I laugh cause America's not my home
My landlord took me away from where I belong
But it's a sad song so I face reality now
Pick up the phone and now here comes the Mau Mau
To the rescue, down with The Coup
Yo landlord, I've got a little message for you
I'm going cuckoo, fuck a machete or sword
E-Roc is on a mission to kill my landlord

[Swiss Servator]

Dark and lonely on a summer's night
Kill my landlord
Kill my landlord
Watchdog barking
Do he bite?
Kill my landlord
Kill my landlord
Slip in his window
Break his neck
Then his house
I start to wreck
Got no reason
What the heck
Kill my Landlord
Kill my landlord
C-I-L-L
my l a n d l o r d

[Elspeth Flashman]

+1 SNL when it was still funny.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

That was the only thing funny for that entire season of SNL.

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

https://youtu.be/5zON0o_d51E

Eddie Murphy ? Kill The White People Lyrics
I live in a shanty in the shantytown.
We have no money so we had to sleep on the ground.
I played the music. My father he dig a ditch.
My mother she do laundry life sure was a bitch.

But 'till we killed the white people. Ooh we gun make them hurt.
Kill the white people yea. But buy my record first.
Ooh yea. Why don't you buy my record?

We sing of freedom and ooh equality.
But we really don't care we just want money money money.
We want to drive in a big black limosine.
Get so high off ganja we cant even see.
and then we kill the white people. Ooh we gunna make them hurt.
Kill the white people. Yea. Ooh but buy my record first ooh.

When u go in the record store. We gunna wait outside.
We gunna hit them in the head with a bat and make them cry.
but 'till we kill the white people.
Yea but buy my record first.

[Juvenile Bluster]

More fundamentally, though, what we call private housing is actually public land that government has set aside for private purposes. Land, save the bits beneath one's feet, can't be "possessed," as a phone or a shirt can. What a "land owner" possesses is a deed?a voucher one may redeem with the government to marshal violence (through policing) to exclude all competing claimants. The government established this location-exclusion program, designating pieces of nature as being solely for the use of the deed holders, and devoting its violent capabilities to enforcing that designation. In the 19th century, the government enacted homesteading laws to allow frontier settlers to claim indigenous lands as their own. If those deeds were challenged, the federal government sent troops to back them up. Or look at the 20th century, when the government funded highways and commuter transit?the Federal Housing Administration extended loan guarantees to new housing developments in order to create a massive suburban private-housing stock. The entire apparatus by which housing is privately "owned" is created by the government's decisions to subsidize or protect certain interests.

"You can't own property, man"
"I can. But that's because I'm not a penniless hippie."

[Just a thought not a sermon]

I know from having only recently read the "Little House" books to my daughter that the settlers had no expectation the government would protect their property. They armed themselves and enforced their claims when necessary. This is very clear even though the books are for children.

[Tonio]

This sounds like a more advanced version of freedom to gambol.

[Suthenboy]

So, Tony is Meyerson. It all makes sense now.

[Hi there!]

My favorite bit was: "There is no reason to suspect that a given property-development capitalist should be more capable of determining for a community what optimally desirable new buildings to produce than the community itself is."

Obviously, there's no reason to suspect it: It should be assumed that whatever Top Men the author has in mind to represent "the community itself" will be inferior to the developer motivated and qualified by the market.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Also, this is by Jesse Myerson, the same person behind this terrible paean to communism in Rolling Stone last year.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

"Jesse A. Myerson is an activist and writer living in New York City."

Pay no attention.

These people, and I've had tenants like this asshole, are beyond hope. You just have to smile and nod at their stupid comments, take their rent check and move along.

[SugarFree]

Another sore from the herpes America caught at an Occupy Wall Street event.

[Tonio]

Oh, Sug... [looks up gratefully at Sug with tear-streamed face after throwing up in office wastebasket]

[SugarFree]

I apologize for nothing!

[Rhywun]

OMG I'm wading into this thing and he's going on about how all the public housing in Vienna has swimming pools and yachts or something and the only reason it's so horrible in the US is because we hate poor ("and especially black") people.

[Suthenboy]

Of course it is The Nation. Fuckin' commies.

Imagine what the reaction would be if govt seized all real estate. This is a prime example of the kind of policies these scum want but know they can't enact without disarming the population first.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Well, Canada is 'disarmed' for all intents and purposes (though not totally) and the commies haven't gotten their hands on our wealth and assets...yet. Property taxes is what's gonna pinch us; particularly on commercial properties. Montreal's taxes are too high to justify even considering buying buildings there. We own a few and want to sell them.

[Rhywun]

the solution is to quit pruning twigs and chop the sucker down

I hate to break it to the commie, but short of putting us all in projects the real way that urban real estate becomes "affordable" is by dramatically increasing your crime rate.

[Auric Demonocles]

Or by getting rid of zoning laws so that people call build a ton more housing.

[Rhywun]

I'm beginning to question if that is enough, at least in NYC. It hasn't been tried so who can say.

[In League with the Dark Ones]

Zoning laws don't apply to government construction.

[JD the elder]

JFC. It apparently doesn't occur to them that you will always have a landlord, it's just that now your landlord will be a government bureau instead of a private landowner. Because government bureaus are always smart and correct, right?

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

"Private housing." As if the normal state of affairs before now was public housing.

[John C. Randolph]

Racial discrimination sounds so much more progressive when you call it by a bullshit euphemism, doesn't it?

-jcr

[Bee Tagger]

The eternal sunshine of Donald Trump: "I. Will. Never. Leave. This. Race," the Donald tells reporters.

This is the moment when the soundtrack by Explosions in the Sky hits a crescendo.

[Hamster of Doom]

I was thinking Eye of the Tiger. Can we get Welch to ask Trump? This is serious.

[LynchPin1477]

I got to see them this summer. Awesome.

[Fist of Etiquette]

"I. Will. Never. Leave. This. Race," the Donald tells reporters.

Reporters ambivalent about the declaration.

[straffinrun]

Dude on his period again.

[Lord Humungus]

North Fort Myers brothers arrested after shillelagh beating

Two North Fort Myers brothers who told police they had taken illegal drugs are facing aggravated assault charges after an argument led to a fight between them involving a shillelagh, a knife and a caulking gun.

The Lee County Sheriff's Office was called to Cape Coal Hospital Friday morning where Daniel Ehrhardt, 35, was being treated for cuts and bruises. He told deputies that his brother, Karl Ehrhardt, 39, had hit him with the shillelagh, an Irish wooden club.

[LynchPin1477]

caulking gun

Slightly modified military-style caulking gun.

[Citizen X]

Does it have the shoulder thing that goes up?

[Rich]

No, but one pull of the trigger ....

[Restoras]

I have seen collapsible stocks on some versions.

[DJF]

With or without bayonet holder?

[DenverJ]

Well, mine has that little thing that folds out to pierce the seal. Is that like a bayonet?

[Citizen Nothing]

Like this?

[Citizen X]

Jaysus Mary and Joseph, a shillelagh beating is no joke. It's a wooden club, yeah, but it's usually hollowed out and filled with lead.

[kinnath]

shillelagh == irish whiskey and irish mist

the next morning, you will feel like you've been beaten with a lead-filled club

[Swiss Servator]

Now you have done it....I want one of those!

[Just a thought not a sermon]

The drink or the beating?

[Restoras]

Aren't they the same thing?

[Citizen X]

If you're Irish, yes.

[Swiss Servator]

Drink, plz.

I'll skip the beating, if I may.

[Citizen X]

YOU WILL GET BEAT AND YOU WILL ENJOY IT.

[Suthenboy]

"... it's usually hollowed out and filled with lead."

I used to have one. Hickory with half a pound of #9 shot in it.

It really isnt a joke.

[invisible furry hand]

shillelagh beating sounds like a euphemism

[Hamster of Doom]

Its such a fun word. Shillelagh.

[Rich]

Yeah.. Kinda like "va-jay-jay".

[GILMORE?]

It's actually named after a black woman

[Atanarjuat]

I'm going to use this from now on. Although I'm currently taking a break from giving myself shillelagh beatings. /tmi

[Fist of Etiquette]

My my my shillelagh
Why why why shillelagh
So before they come to break down the door
Forgive me shillelagh I just couldn't take any more

[Overt]

With a shillelagh under me arm
And a twinkle in me eye
I'll be off to Tipperary in the morning
With a shillelagh under me arm
and a too ra loo la rai
I'll baby seal someone in the home that I was born in.

[Mickey Rat]

"...shillelagh law was all the rage
Wasn't it the truth I told you
Lotsa fun at Finnegan's wake!"

[MSimon]

Ah. The Clancy Bros.

[Butts Wagner]

Massholes who never left after Spring Training.

[bacon-magic]

Top o' the Morning - House of Pain

[Bee Tagger]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been named Time magazine's 2015 person of the year.

She'll be the only person in the world who thinks a mirror won the person of the year award again.

[invisible furry hand]

She must be delighted by the decomposing complexion

[SugarFree]

That's the painting she keeps in the attic.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Diary of Dorian Gray? It ain't working.

[Swiss Servator]

A Time Cover in Dorian Gray

[Trigger Hippie]

(shudders) That picture of her looks like she just walked out of a granny bukkake.

[Rich]

Good Lord.

[Atanarjuat]

Rule 34 is a bitch.

[invisible furry hand]

Granny Bukkake would be a great name for a band

[Suthenboy]

Goddammit.

[gaijin]

Maybe someone posted this in the PM links (what are those, anyway?), but Scott Adams has an interesting take on the Trump Islamophobia strategy:

So Trump owns the topic of terror because he has the only plan, as far as you know. The only other plan you can imagine is the one where the terrorist attacks escalate forever. You can tolerate that situation for now because religious freedom is a basic American right. But Trump is calculating (correctly) that the public will move away from "do nothing" and toward "do something" every time there is another attack. And when the time comes to "do something" you will only know about the Trump plan.

[LynchPin1477]

The only other plan you can imagine is the one where the terrorist attacks escalate forever

I can see them remaining incredibly rare and basically a non-threat for any given American.

religious freedom is a basic American human right

FTFH

[Drake]

Or the next big attack could be nuclear and kill a couple hundred thousand people, No telling.

[Hamster of Doom]

Hamster's Thinky Thoughts:

I sufficiently grok the legal argument behind If They Are Not Americans, We Don't Have To Respect Their Constitutional Rights. I grok it, yeah, and I think the people who hold it display a remarkable disrespect for the same principles they espouse and enjoy. The Constitution doesn't claim to be the wellspring of human and civil rights, without which, well, screw those motherfuckers. We don't get rights from a piece of paper, any more than we get them from the government.

We hold these truths to be self-evident. If that is only half a sentence, the rest being, "unless I don't really have to", then these truths aren't all that self-evident, now are they.

[UnCivilServant]

Technically since, "We hold these truths to be self-evident" comes from the declaration of independence, it's not binding on the constitution in a legal sense, only a moral sense. Though it's easier to protect due process rights if there is no delimiter between categories of persons to which various levels apply, preventing misapplication of the wrong standard, etc. The thing is, there is no right to come here, in fact deciding who and how people can come to the country is among the enumerated powers of congress (Article 1 Section 8)

[Hamster of Doom]

Okay. First? I wasn't in any manner or method arguing for total immigration, and if you do that again I'll give you such a smack. Second, my entire point was The Legal vs The Moral.

What we can get away with, as opposed to what do we actually believe.

[bacon-magic]

Huh huh, you said "right to come".

[Just a thought not a sermon]

"Hamster's Thinky Thoughts:"

My lawyers will be contacting you shortly.

[Hamster of Doom]

It'll take far more than mere lawyers to make me stop rambling.

[Citizen X]

The heat death of the universe, probably.

[Hamster of Doom]

This comment pleases me.

[Suthenboy]

They are self evident and the 'unless I don't really have to' people and the 'if I can get away with it' people get that too. That they get it is obvious in the contorted rationalizations and knots they twist themselves into to justify their positions.

Read the Meyerson article linked to above. It is the rationalization of a thief. A morally reprehensible POS telling us why everything we own belongs to him.

[MSimon]

Suddenly American hegemony over the Earth makes sense. Bring us your murderers, rapists, and mass killers, yearning to be free. Because we are all people. With rights.

[Hamster of Doom]

Don't be a tit.

This is all theoretical anyway. In RealityLand, our government puts us on watchlists for talking about our constitutional rights, so its not as if we, in any real sense, have any.

[Overt]

The Declaration's thesis though is that the people with those rights have the right to form a government that protects their rights. As people being ruled by "Tyranny from afar" they rejected the existing government as being unable/unwilling to protect their rights and setup their own. In other words, the thesis is that they set up a government to protect their own rights, and they agree that any population has that same right.

I don't see anything inconsistent with the statement "My government was setup to protect my rights, not yours." They aren't denying that you have rights, just denying that their government is obligated to protect them. If the government were so obligated, then it would (for example) be unable to defend from foreign attackers as the requirement for due process would be impossible on a battlefield.

In general, I agree that even if a government isn't obligated to defend non-citizen's rights, it is pretty cynical to demand that it violate others' rights for very very small risks.

[Hamster of Doom]

*beardstroke*

I like your thinky thoughts.

Protect, though. You keep using this word. I don't think it means what you think it means. The impact would have been greater if the government were actually in the business of protecting constitutional rights.

It ought to be. You are correct, that was its stated function at the founding. But that is not what it is now in the business of doing.

And we have come full circle. The Legal - what can I get away with - versus The Moral - what do we actually believe.

God, I'm navel-gazey today.

[GILMORE?]

"what do we actually believe."

I would contend "We" (citizens of the USA) don't believe anything. The framers of the constitution believed some stuff, and we just get to ride on their coat-tails.

Also, i doubt the BoR works as a logical framework for "universal human rights", particularly as a matter of law. What you put on paper is only ever as good as what you're willing to enforce.

[Hi there!]

I agree with the sentiment the BoR can't be used to extend rights universally...but again, I don't see that first clause in the 1st amendment as an extension of rights or protections...it is an admonishment in recognition that any action of Congress for or against religion is inherently damaging to freedom.

Your point stands, though, on ideologies and the broad powers Congress currently enjoys on immigration. There's another level Trump's drivel offends: All he had to do was couch it in terms of association, political ideology, or any number of other things you'd expect a citizen to be protected from government scrutiny under, but a candidate for immigration would be subject by Congress to answer on....just not religion. I think he could really have bled the left on that issue if he had simply finessed his phrasing, presenting the arguments as rational and legal measures in response to the threat. But distinctions like that don't occur to him. He's politically savvy enough to tap the zeitgeist, but he doesn't know what to do to grow it. He doesn't seem to grasp that with a little finesse (imhe), he could fan his numbers into something to challenge whatever the Dem. nominee.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Yesterday I was watching local news (and getting upset like usual because everyone is a fucking racist, ignorant, illiterate asshole - not kidding. There's some seriously fucked up people that live among us and in power) and the anchor people (who don't know how to keep objectivity by keeping their two cents to themselves) introduced a segment on Trump with a 'what did he say now?' angle. It's a ploy obviously to show how much of an idiot he is. Fine. But it's not their place to do that. Especially considering right after they show a 'meanwhile back at the sophisticated Democrat headquarters' Hillary is campaigning blah, blah, blah and the report preceding it was about banning plastic bags. A ban that will come with a campaign by the Montreal city council filled with an 'educate the public about plastic bags' propaganda ad. And I'm supposed to think Trump is the only asshole in town?

Everyone can go fuck themselves.

[wareagle]

well, Trump's not a leftist, so yes, you are to think he is the only asshole. Because no assholery is found on the left. And you say you live in Canada. Shouldn't you know this axiom already?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Yeh. It's just so in your face!

[waffles]

Everyone can go fuck themselves.

Indeed they can. We have so much freedom it's sickening.

[Citizen X]

We have so much freedom, we're gonna get bored with freedom!

[Rhywun]

Same here with the Trump pieces except replace the plastic bag propaganda with a guy in a wheelchair and a sob story about how Uber isn't "accessible" and oh BTW those poor cab drivers.

[Jimbo]

I'll just go ahead and fuck other people, if that's ok with you.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...the U.S. government would rank as the second-largest public relations firm in the world.

The first being the entire state of Denmark.

[Princess Trigger]

Didn't we have a poll last week showing a record number of murikans distrust their government?
I think the we need assess the effectiveness of this army of spinmeisters.

[Citizen X]

Obviously, they need to hire MORE PR people!

[gaijin]

.the U.S. government would rank as the second-largest public relations firm in the world.

yes, but did they count those employed at the major networks and newspapers?

[Atanarjuat]

I've noticed a lot of radio commercials with an HHS tag (and other agencies) at the end. Usually I think "fuck, I helped pay for that".

[Lord Humungus]

Ohio woman caught eating cereal while driving, leads police on 30-mile high-speed chase

According to investigators, it started when a Madison County deputy noticed a woman driving erratically on Interstate 70 near U.S. 42.

After stopping the car, the deputy noticed that the woman behind the wheel was eating a bowl of cereal. During the traffic stop, deputies say the woman took off, driving toward Columbus.

The pursuit reached speeds up to 100 mph. Stop-sticks were used near downtown Columbus, but failed to end the chase.

In the area of Weber Road and Reis Avenue, the car began to break down and the woman got out of the car and tried to run, according to investigators. She was then cornered by deputies and arrested.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

If she couldn't outrun some fat cops, I take it she wasn't eating Wheaties.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Call me crazy but people who drive with iPod ear phones in their ears and hoodies are equally if not more dangerous on the road. Not only does it likely hamper hearing what's going around in their surrounding, they block out their blind spots. These are the sort of people that come into your lane without signalling and when you honk are oblivious to what they just did.

[BigT]

Call me crazy but people who drive with iPod ear phones in their ears and hoodies

How about burkas? Oh, wait, maybe that's why women aren't allowed to drive - safety!!

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

The hoodie actually blocks your peripheral vision. The burka seems it doesn't impede vision. But I've never worn one so...a babushka on the other hand...

[MSimon]

I wore this hot 28 yo once. Walked her up a flight of stairs while wearing her.

[BigT]

My brother brought a burka back from Egypt a few years ago, to give as a white elephant in our family Xmas exchange. And it seemed to block peripheral vision quite a bit.

Babushkas. How does your grandmother block your vision? She have a beehive hairdo?

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

What's the problem? There's nothing wrong with eating cereal in a car. This is an open and shut case, and anybody who can't see that is a savage and an idiot!

[Butts Wagner]

Whatever you say Dennis.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

""Meet the apostates of the trans rights movement": trans women who say that they aren't "real" women."

So a fragment of a splinter of a movement that is itself only a tiny segment of US society. At what point does this involve such small amounts of people that it's no longer newsworthy?

[Illocust]

One thing I found funny in the article is that the author kept referring to the MtF as she in the article even though the person said they were still male despite their dysmorphia. Kinda funny how suddenly calling them by the correct pronoun is no longer a thing when they are a 'apostate'.

Also seriously, I can't believe they are using 'apostate' in this article. They are literally aligning themselves with the language of religion, and that doesn't set off a single warning bell.

[ant1sthenes]

You ain't no man, bruv.

[Just say Nikki]

Kinda funny how suddenly calling them by the correct pronoun is no longer a thing when they are a 'apostate'.

"She" is still the correct pronoun for that person, by her own choice. She considers herself a transwoman and male.

Also seriously, I can't believe they are using 'apostate' in this article. They are literally aligning themselves with the language of religion, and that doesn't set off a single warning bell.

The "apostates" themselves use that term. I think they heard the warning bells.

[Riven]

How did your brain even learn human speech? I'm just so curious.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

Woof. Catfight.

[Riven]

More just an excuse to use an incredibly appropriate Firefly quote. 😉

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

And if quotes were horses we'd all be eating steak.

[MSimon]

I'm a trans trans lesbian. I only date women.

[Jimbo]

I'm half Lebanese.

[Rich]

The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in an affirmative action case today.

First to testify: Rachel Dolezal.

[Swiss Servator]

Second - Shaun King?

[Citizen X]

Third: Ta-Nehisi Coates.

[Jimbo]

Fourth: That crying "Indian" in the canoe?

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

What number does Fauxahontus have?

[SugarFree]

Rachel Dolezal

She's pregnant, by the way. I'm sort of hoping the baby comes out plaid.

[invisible furry hand]

Is she really pregnant, or has she just always identified with the pregnant community?

[SugarFree]

Well, shit. Now I don't know.

She did go to a Historically Pregnant College or University, though.

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

"Don't make snarky stereotypical remark .....

Don't make snarky stereotypical remark .....

Don't make snarky stereotypical remark .....

Breathe ..."

[Lord Humungus]

Fan bites Norman Reedus (Daryl on 'The Walking Dead') at a convention

That's what happened at the Walker Stalker convention in New Jersey yesterday. Poor Norman Reedus, known as Daryl Dixon on "The Walking Dead," was bitten by a fan Robin Grover who got a little too excited when she stood next to him for a photo.

She went after his shoulder and left chest area. Two security guards pulled her off immediately. Somehow, she managed to procure a copy of the photo she received before the incident and posted it on Instagram. (More details here.)

In that post, Grover apologized and admitted her transgression, which led to her getting escorted out and banned from all future Walker Stalker conventions ? for good reason. She was not arrested and did not hurt Reedus physically.

[bacon-magic]

He should'a used the x-bow on her.

[Lord Humungus]

A Paris climate agreement is supposed to help save the planet. But the planet may have other ideas

The goal is an agreement that would set the world on a path to limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, or perhaps even 1.5 degrees Celsius, above pre-industrial levels. But at a news conference here at the Le Bourget conference center Wednesday morning, scientists pointed out a factor that could make hitting these targets quite a lot harder.

It's called permafrost.

As the planet warms, this frozen northern soil is going to continue to thaw ? and as it thaws, it's going to release carbon dioxide and methane into the air. A lot of it, it turns out. Potentially enough to really throw off the carbon budgets that have been calculated in order to determine the maximum emissions that we can release and still have a good chance of keeping warming to 2 C or below it.

[gaijin]

We must pursue negative emissions....the science sez so!

[Just a thought not a sermon]

There was an article in the Washington Post yesterday about how global carbon dioxide emissions last year declined for the first time in memory due to the recession in China. And keep in mind US emissions are falling because of natural gas from fracking.

So, the normal vagaries of the business cycle and innovation have many, many times more effect on carbon dioxide emissions than all these conferences and treaties and promises and hand-wringings put together.

[Timrekgrun]

Yes, but if we get the "Greenest" dip wads in office like Bernie, who wants to ban fracking and build no new nuke plants, we'll see CO2 immisions sky rocket! The stupid...it burns!

[BigT]

the normal vagaries of the business cycle and innovation have many, many times more effect on carbon dioxide emissions than all these conferences and treaties

Precisely why those idiots are aiming to cause a big down-turn with their taxes on carbon and emimssions regulations. Duh!!

[Overt]

It's also a well documented fact that the only reason Euro countries signed onto Kyoto was that they knew they would reduce emissions as they converted old communist bloc countries' power infrastructure to modern systems. They were doing it anyway, so they were going to meet the Kyoto treaty. Really the only country that had to make drastic shifts was the US. And of course, if the US couldn't make those cuts, it could always pay poor countries for the privilege of producing energy. A big scam, all the way down. Euro countries got to force the US to pause its economic development, and poor countries got free handouts for its chrony governments.

[MSimon]

Permafrost is temporary. Truth in advertising.

[RBS]

Re: Cuba

Complaints about capitalism and consumerism are up?

[Ken Shultz]

They should watch what's happening in Venezuela.

Customers will always complain about prices in free markets.

Socialism always seems to end with rationing, long lines, and empty shelves.

[Microaggressor]

Thousands of others are panicked about their place in Cuba where the well-connected are doing better but the poor are no longer protected by a socialist state that's becoming more capitalist and connected to the outside world

/HEADDESK
/Weeps for humanity

[Fist of Etiquette]

...Uber is testing out a new ride-sharing template, UberHOP, in San Francisco.

Spilling maple syrup in your lap on the way to the airport?

[Pat (PM)]

Man asleep inside trash bin survives garbage-truck compactor

FREMONT, Calif. (AP) ? Police say a homeless man sleeping inside a garbage bin survived two compaction cycles after the bin was emptied into a trash truck.

Fremont police spokeswoman Geneva Bosques said Tuesday the 44-year-old man was sleeping inside a large trash bin behind a restaurant when a trash truck collected it and used the compactor.

Bosques tells the Oakland Tribune (http://bayareane.ws/1Y0kkMK) the truck then traveled to a fast food restaurant, collected trash from another bin there and again used the compactor.

She says the man crawled out through an opening in the roof the next time the truck stopped at another store.

[Rich]

the man crawled out through an opening in the roof the next time the truck stopped at another store.

It took two compactions before he could fit.

[Swiss Servator]

*very narrowed gaze*

[Elspeth Flashman]

+1 People throwing away a perfectly good white boy.

[Citizen X]

"Aww! Aww! Hey, who would throw a friend out like this?"

[Pat (PM)]

Police: Father, son stole $41K worth of wings from employer

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) ? Authorities say a father and son stole more than $40,000 worth of chicken wings from a New York restaurant where they worked and sold them on the street or to other businesses.

The Onondaga County Sheriff's Office says 56-year-old Paul Rojek and 33-year-old Joshua Rojek, both of Syracuse, were caught stealing wings from the Twin Trees Too Restaurant in Syracuse.

Deputies say both men were employed as cooks when they placed numerous chicken wing orders with the restaurant's wholesaler. Officials say the Rojeks would later pick up the orders and resell them at a reduced price.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I think I saw similar ploys and plots on Mystery Diners.

[Juvenile Bluster]

I always assume that everything on that show is faked.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Yeh. I wonder.

[Rhywun]

Wings are serious business up there.

[Pat (PM)]

FHP: Speeding man was naked, drunk with three women in car

NAPLES (FOX 13) - The Florida Highway Patrol says a man was caught naked, going 110 miles an hour and driving drunk with three female passengers.

Troopers in Collier County say, at 3 in the afternoon Saturday, they started getting calls about a man driving recklessly. When a trooper stopped the car, FHP says the trooper noticed Noe Dejesus was shirtless and there was an open 12-pack of Corona.

The trooper asked Dejesus to get out and saw he was completely naked and allegedly smelled of alcohol and slurred his speech.

Dejesus, 33, is now facing charges of DUI and driving without a license. He was released Sunday after posting $6,000 bond.

[Citizen X]

The Platonic ideal of Florida Man?

[Citizen X]

Actually, i take that back, due to the lack of exotic wildlife and explosives in the story.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Sometimes somebody goes so far they don't deserve arrest, but a round of high-fives.

[Not a Libertarian]

That boy needs to say Yes to Jesus

[MSimon]

He needs to ReJesus.

[Hi there!]

No DeJeanses

[Pat (PM)]

Too Shy To Pee In A Public Bathroom? Urine Luck

If you're a guy who freezes up when you're shoulder-to-shoulder with a stranger at a public urinal, the Privi-Pee may one day be your No. 1 solution.

This device, not yet commercially released, is designed to help men hide their goodies as they do their business.

Online bathroom retailer Plumbworld unveiled the Privi-Pee prototype after a company survey reflected the anxiety some have over public toilets.

[Bee Tagger]

I've already coined the term "Peer Pressure"

[Rich]

HAHAHAHAHAA!

"Hey, Jack, you're dragging your cape through that stale piss."

[Rich]

*Zorro*

[invisible furry hand]

Is it shame over the size of their shillelaghs, or they just can't look another man in the eye and say "hey, we ain't piss buddies?"

[Pat (PM)]

I will admit, in bathrooms without dividers between the urinals, it's a little bit weird. I can't really say why, it just is. It's like that feeling when it's you and one other person in an elevator and you're not quite sure if you should talk to them or not, only your dicks are also out.

[Citizen X]

So no different than being in an elevator, then.

[Pat (PM)]

I should have known that was you...

[Crusty Juggler]

I just worry about the splash.

[Lord Humungus]

Wendy Davis: Why I Caved on Guns When I Ran for Governor of Texas
I was part of the reason we can't make progress on the issue. And I regret it every day.

Ever since I had announced my run the prior October, we had known this day, when I would have to declare my stance on this issue, would likely come. In every previous conversation that I had had with my team about open carry, I had been resolute in my opposition to the policy. Still, their concern that the issue threatened to "suck the oxygen" out of the conversation on other issues was a worry for me too.

Texas has some of the most lax gun laws in the country, with no minimum age requirements for possessing a firearm and no waiting period requirements. When I was running for governor, passage of open carry and campus carry in a state as gun-loving as Texas was just about all that the gun lobby there had left to achieve. Although federal gun laws place no restrictions on the open carry of handguns, six states, including Texas, had banned the practice since the Civil War. Open carry of long-barreled guns had always been allowed, and open carry advocates had taken to the intimidating practice of gathering in public places with shotguns and rifles strapped across their chests as an expression of support for extending that right to handguns.

[Illocust]

How is it intimidation for people to gather with weapons to show explicitly that no violence will result? People are really delusionaly scared of these things.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

It was especially stupid of her to cave, as she was a protest candidate anyway, with no actual chance of election.

[Not a Libertarian]

Oh I would be surprised if Ms Davis was not convinced that she would actually win the election.
The national press adulation she received actually harmed her candidacy. (of course she wouldn't have been nominated without it)

The question I have is why is Ms Davis bringing this up now? How does this further her political ambitions, is she maneuvering herself for a Clinton Cabinet position?

[Pat (PM)]

British cat denied advent calendar due to lack of ID

LONDON, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- A delivery addressed to a cat in London caused problems when British postal staff initially declined to release a package to the animal without proper identification.

Twenty-seven-year-old Brittany Maher-Kirk told the story of mistaken identity in a Facebook post after attempting to retrieve an advent calendar addressed to her cat, Ted, from British Royal Mail.
"So my mum posted the cat an advent calendar. Unfortunately, we missed the delivery and the post office won't give it me as the cat does not have ID," she wrote.

[Pat (PM)]

COP21: Cardinal says birth control may offer climate 'solution'

One of the Catholic Church's most senior prelates has said that birth control could "offer a solution" to the impacts of climate change.[...]

In a wide-ranging interview with the BBC, Cardinal Turkson suggested that birth control could help alleviate some of the impacts of climate change, particularly the lack of food in a warmer world.

"This has been talked about, and the Holy Father on his trip back from the Philippines also invited people to some form of birth control, because the church has never been against birth control and people spacing out births and all of that. So yes, it can offer a solution," he said.

[UnCivilServant]

Post-natal abortions on people worried about climate change?

[gaijin]

because the church has never been against birth control

Sounds like someone is worried they may run out of space in heaven for all these newly manufactured souls,

[SugarFree]

because the church has never been against birth control

Only when it's effective.

[John C. Randolph]

"the church has never been against birth control"

TIL that Cardinal Turkson is a bald-faced liar.

-jcr

[Pat (PM)]

The technicality under which he is speaking is that the church is okay with "natural family planning".

[CampingInYourPark]

the lack of food in a warmer world

Someone needs to explain to the Cardinal why people build greenhouses

[Azathoth!!]

Someone needs to explain this to ALL the warmenistas. It's like they believe that the ice age ends and WHAM!!< Dune, desert planet.

They seem to have completely forgotten the tens of hundreds of millions of years in which Earth was a warm, fecund tropical paradise, from Key West to Newfoundland.

[Lord Humungus]

Walmart's Imports From China Displaced 400,000 Jobs, a Study Says

Imports from China by Walmart, the nation's largest retailer and biggest importer, eliminated or displaced over 400,000 jobs in the United States between 2001 and 2013, according to an estimate by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive research group that has long targeted Walmart's policies.

The jobs, mostly in manufacturing, represent about 13 percent of the 3.2 million jobs displaced over those same years that the study attributes to the United States' goods trade deficit with China. Walmart's Chinese imports amounted to at least $49 billion in 2013, according to the study, which was based on trade and labor data. Over all, the United States' trade deficit with China hit $324 billion that year.

"Walmart is one of the major forces pulling imports into the United States," said Robert E. Scott, an economist at the institute and the study's author. "And the jobs we're losing are good-paying manufacturing jobs, which pay higher wages and provide better benefits."

[Pat (PM)]

"And the jobs we're losing are good-paying manufacturing jobs, which pay higher wages and provide better benefits."

Maybe skills that can be replicated by automated machines or sweat shop factory workers aren't actually worth all that much in a market where labor isn't artificially constrained, or something.

[Citizen X]

Those jobs manufacturing cheap crap aren't coming back, either. Not with 3d printing getting cheaper and more efficient all the time.

[straffinrun]

Not if I break em' all.

[Citizen X]

What, by throwing your shoes at 'em?

[straffinrun]

It's what all the cool kids do.

[Suthenboy]

By whacking them with your wooden shoes?

[straffinrun]

Fine, One for you, too.

[RBS]

The EPI Board of Directors.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I always liked those freaky photos like the one of one Larry Cohen. It gives the impression like they have a special aura. Or are deceased.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Hang on. This is a good thing for progressives, no? I mean, Wal-Mart doesn't pay a living wage anyway, right?

[JD the elder]

I'm reminded of the old, possibly apocryphal story about the Chinese construction project and the American economist. He observed that they were using a lot of hand tools like shovels and pickaxes, and that the project would be faster if they used mechanized equipment. His hosts explained that the project created a lot of jobs, to which he said, "Oh, well, if the objective is to create jobs, why don't you take away their shovels and give them teaspoons instead?"

[MSimon]

Milton Friedman.

[JD the elder]

I looked it up; apparently the story has been told about Milton Friedman, and Friedman himself may have told a version of the story, but there's no evidence that it ever happened to Milton Friedman, and the story itself dates back to at least 1935 if not earlier: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2.....s-shovels/

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

I thought everything at Warmalt was made in China.

[Pat (PM)]

North Face's Douglas Tompkins dies in Chile kayak accident

The North Face and Esprit co-founder died of hypothermia after the kayaks he and five others were in capsized in strong waves, authorities said.

He was taken by helicopter to hospital in Coyhaique but had stopped breathing when he arrived, doctors said.

Mr Tompkins bought up large tracts of land in Chilean and Argentine Patagonia to keep them pristine.

[Lord Humungus]

Emergency measures imposed as border surge surprises, overwhelms immigration officials

The surge of illegal immigrant children continued unabated in November, pushing the Obama administration to announce emergency measures to try to handle a problem it thought it had solved earlier this year.

Two months into the new fiscal year, the number of unaccompanied minors jumping the border and getting caught is at an all-time high. So far, the U.S. Border Patrol has picked up over 10,500 ? more than twice the number at the same point last year.

The number of families trying to cross also has surged, with more than 12,500 people caught ? a 173 percent increase over last year. The family surge underscored the changing nature of the flow of migrants, with parents increasingly risking the journey with young children in tow, hoping to take advantage of what they believe are lenient deportation policies under President Obama.

[Rich]

Google's chairman wants algorithms to censor the internet for hate speech

Like "Fuck Google"?

[Ken Shultz]

They should be free to offer a browser and search that does that for customers who want it.

[Illocust]

Day they do that is the day I start using bing.

[Timon 19]

I started using DuckDuckGo months ago due to the frustration with knowing that Google tracks everything. I must say I am quite pleased with my decision. DDG is pretty damn good.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Google needs some serious competition if they're going to start acting like PC assholes.

They do this and I bolt.

Fuck that guy and fuck Google.

[See Double You]

Yet more evidence progressivism destroys everything it touches.

[Overt]

What is really shitty is that these machine learning algorithms require training to hone in on characteristics of whatever they are trying to classify. It is highly likely that the people doing the training (by looking at a small percentage of training material and then classifying it) will be progs from Mountain View california. So expect every reason article to be censored because Progs didn't like the content or the comments.

[Ken Shultz]

"The eternal sunshine of Donald Trump: "I. Will. Never. Leave. This. Race," the Donald tells reporters."

He'll leave the race as soon as he has to start spending significant amounts of his own money to stay in the race.

It would have been more accurate for Trump to say that he'll never have to spend his own money because the press will never stop giving him the kind of free publicity you can't buy every time he says something outrageous or stupid.

[DJF]

Why should he spend any of his own money, Reason Mag among others will keep him in the news

[Not a Libertarian]

So basically if/and or when he bolts off to the "Make America Great Again" Party he is in until the election.

So Clinton 42 GOP 33 Trump 23 ish

Does that flip the Senate?

So many people here were saying that Trump would fade by fall and I didn't understand their optimism. The man has an ego the size of the moon and lives for the sound of his own voice. Why would he ever get out of the race (considering that he will always get free press)

[BigT]

"I don't care what the newspapers say about me as long as they spell my name right."

variously attributed to Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, and others.

But absolutely the Trump modus operandi.

[Lord Humungus]

Hillary Fundraises off Donald Trump Using 'Proud Muslim' Huma Abedin

The Clinton campaign, in fact, even sought to capitalize on anti-Muslim sentiment by circulating a photograph of Obama wearing a headscarf on a visit to Kenya. (The candidate herself claimed not to "know anything about it.")

Democrats have come a long way, from trying to appease anti-Muslim sentiment in their own party to using Muslims to fundraise from their supporters.

However, Huma Abedin is an odd choice. A "proud Muslim" would not marry a Jew?much less scandal-plagued former Rep. Anthony Weiner?given that Islamic law prevents women from marrying non-Muslims. Stranger still, Huma Abedin's mother Saleha is reported to be part of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is not only "proud" but radical, and violent.

TW: Breitbart

[BigT]

However, Huma Abedin is an odd choice. A "proud Muslim" would not marry a Jew?much less scandal-plagued former Rep. Anthony Weiner

But it was an all -beef ....

(wait for it)

....kosher Weiner!

[bassjoe]

Please don't post Breitbart here...

[Azathoth!!]

Hey, it's okay, there are some puppies and crayons over here.........you'll be alright.........you're soooo special!!!

[Lord Humungus]

Felons may not vote Democratic, bucking the conventional wisdom

The movement to restore felon voting rights has heated up, with even some prominent conservatives joining the cause. Yet considerable opposition remains from the Right. One reason is the conventional wisdom that felons are mostly Democrats.

Most of the academic studies on the issue back that notion. However, only a handful of studies have been done on the question and even the authors of those concede that they have very little real-world data to draw on.

"There may be many things that we are not picking up about the felon population," Jeff Manza, a sociology professor at New York University who has co-authored some of the most widely cited studies on the subject, told the Washington Examiner. "It could be we overestimated turnout."

You would think felons would be natural libertarians....

[Raven Nation]

"It could be we overestimated turnout."

Well, TBF, if they're on parole, they're supposed to avoid contact with other felons, so many of them may think they run the risk of running into a politician at the polling booth.

[UnCivilServant]

You would think felons would be natural libertarians....

Not if they think the world owed them something, or knowlingly and willingly initiated the aggressive acts, or...

[Pat (PM)]

The political distribution should pretty much match the general population since everybody is a felon.

[Raven Nation]

Maybe already covered but, in other news from across the pond, Tyson Fury now subject of police investigation over his public criticism of homosexuality.

MPs to question BBC chief over Fury's nomination as BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

[Auric Demonocles]

alt-text pilfered

Doesn't Matter; Had Alt-text.

[Lord Humungus]

Shaun King Was Fired From Job At Morehouse College Because He Brandished A Gun

Black Lives Matter activist and New York Daily News columnist Shaun King recently went on an anti-gun Twitter tirade in which he asserted that white men enjoy holding firearms because they have "small penises" and "low sex drive."

But as King himself wrote in his self-help book, "100 Life Goals," he was once forced to resign from his job at his alma mater, Morehouse College, the historically-black institution attended by Martin Luther King Jr., for brandishing a gun while trying to drive his car through a crowded campus block party.

[DJF]

Maybe he was creating a "safe space" for his "small penis" and "low sex drive"?

[Atanarjuat]

Haw. Most likely the "guns=tiny dicks" accusations are just another example of progjection.

[Entropy Drehmaschine Void]

progjection

Stealing.

[straffinrun]

Evidently he felt the need to protect himself at the historically-black institution. Racist.

[invisible furry hand]

Festive phallus tree freaks out Russkies

[Raven Nation]

The original phallus tree.

[invisible furry hand]

"File not found"

Oh you big tease

[Raven Nation]

Crap. Try this: http://tinyurl.com/ozbrryp

then scroll down.

[invisible furry hand]

So there's a Rule 34 for medieval manuscripts, eh?

[Citizen X]

Mankind has always enjoyed dick jokes. A huge percentage of the graffiti found in the ruins of Pompeii is dick jokes.

[invisible furry hand]

"Despite what the brewers might imply, beer still hasn't made its way into the food pyramid"

Thank God Scotch has.

[Swiss Servator]

Aye!

[Je suis Woodchipper]

Does Ron Swanson's pyramid of greatness not mention beer? I coulda swore bootlegging was on there somewhere.

[Citizen X]

Ron Swanson is a whiskey man, it is known.

[Citizen X]

Hmm. The only beverage mentioned is skim milk, which is to be avoided at all costs.

"The only thing i hate more than a liar is skim milk. Because it's water... that's LYING about being milk."

[Lord Humungus]

San Bernardino Shooters Practiced for Attack a Year in Advance

Two sources said Farook and Malik had practiced their shooting skills at a Riverside, California-area gun range for a year or more before last Wednesday's attack on a holiday office party. They killed 14 people and wounded 21 more with firearms at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.

Counterterrorism officials also told NBC News that Farook and Malik were making preparations for some time to "take care of both grandma and the baby." The couple lived in a Redlands, California residence with their 6-month-old daughter and Farook's 62-year-old mother, Rafia Farook. They left their daughter with Rafia Farook on the morning of the attack.

Investigators are examining a $28,500 deposit made to Farook's bank account in the weeks before the Dec. 2 rampage.

[DJF]

For all this planning you would think they would attack something more significant then a minor government health care organization?

[Pat (PM)]

Well bear in mind he was also a government employee, which speaks to his efficiency and time management skills.

[See Double You]

I think the theory that they planned an attack but chose this specific target for personal reasons (e.g., personal feud with a coworker) explains it.

[Rich]

Smartphones to die out 'within five years'

mobile technology is expected to be replaced by artificial intelligence

Right.

[DJF]

But they still won't be able to understand the phone companies wireless plans

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Artificial intelligence.

But enough about Obama and Justin Trudeau.

[Pat (PM)]

New handle, btw. It is I, the person formerly known as "PM". Back before we had registration it was easier to use initials (and to gambol). Update your greasonable.

[UnCivilServant]

I don't gambol.

[Swiss Servator]

But are you not free to?

[Lord Humungus]

Third Paris concert hall attacker visited Syria - judicial source

A third man who attacked the Bataclan concert hall in Paris on Nov. 13 has been identified as a 23-year-old from Strasbourg who went to Syria with a group of other young people at the end of 2013, a judicial source and other officials said on Wednesday.

Sources close to the situation named the attacker, who died in the assault, as Foued Mohamed-Aggad. Prime Minister Manuel Valls confirmed on BFMTV that the man had finally been identified.

Other members of the group that went to Syria were arrested and imprisoned in May 2014 after their return, the sources said.

[Jordan]

When even "the central banker's bank" notices the madness of central bank policies, you know things are well and truly fucked.

BIS Points Finger at Yellen, Draghi: Warns About "Unthinkably" Low Interest Rates, Bond Market "Dislocations"

It's pretty clear the BIS knows the FED and ECB have blown major asset bubbles, but for some reason they just did not state things so clearly.

Instead the BIS speaks of "dislocations", "unthinkables", "uneasy calm" and how "low interest rates fuel instability."

Yes, that's a pretty damning indictment of central bank policy.

[Restoras]

The collapse is going to be awful to live through.

[Illocust]

I don't know. I might be in a good position to pick up a foreclosed house. I'm still disappointed that I was in college for the last downturn.

[Lord Humungus]

Icelanders Form New Religion Called Zuism to Protest State Support of Religion

In Iceland, individuals are required to register their religion of choice with the government and each year the state provides these chosen faiths funding from the taxes it collects from the good citizens of the country. That might not seem like much of a problem if you're an ardent supporter of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland, which claims the allegiance of nearly three-quarters of the country. But some citizens aren't too fired up about parting with the equivalent of $80 a year to support the more than 40 state-acknowledged religions they don't believe in, according to the Guardian. To express their displeasure, these folks are fighting religion with religion and have started a new church of sorts called Zuism to protest the state funding of its competitors in the faith department.

[Swiss Servator]

Should have gone Jedi.

[Lord Humungus]

Rolling Stone: The Surprising New Effort to Tackle the Student-Debt Crisis

While these arguments are being led by academics and activists, there's another group of interested parties: Professional business groups, representing members of their occupation, are also telling a story about student loans. Their worry is that even when things work out for young people, and they graduate from a good school and get a job, their life stories are still significantly altered as a result. Student debt has serious consequences for the type of work people can do, and how they can do it, as well as their transitions between the stages of life, from building a family to retiring. These are stories that are much harder to pick up in the data, but business interests see them every day. Student loans have grown faster and more pervasive than our ability to measure them, and there's concern that these changes are happening in ways we aren't seeing until it's too late.

[Hi there!]

Getting a job and paying off my student loans made my life story piss its pants

[Suthenboy]

Huh. Time Magazine's person of the year is just like the Nobel prize. The committees have been taken over by proggies who choose the worst person possible.

You know who else was chosen as Time Magazine's person of the year?

[Pat (PM)]

Mom fights to save life of son on breathing machine

Chris Dunn, 46, is on a breathing machine now at Houston Methodist Hospital, receiving life-sustaining treatment. Doctors there think it is best to stop that treatment, but his mother, Evelyn Kelly, is fighting for his life.

Dunn has been in the hospital for 8 weeks because of a mass on his pancreas. His major organs are deteriorating and the hospital wants to stop life-sustaining treatment.[...]

Kelly contacted Texas Right to Life and Attorney Joe Nixon for help.

"There's a statute in Texas that allows hospitals to form a nameless, faceless committee and make a decision that they want to terminate life-sustaining care," Nixon said.

Kelly shot cell phone video on December 2 inside her son's hospital room. In the video, Nixon asks Chris is he wants to live.

"Do you want to stay alive?" Nixon asks.

Chris cannot speak because of a breathing tube, but he nods his head and folds his hands in prayer.

[Swiss Servator]

Oh damn, that is awful.

[Illocust]

I thought hospitals couldn't deny life saving treatment? Isn't the whole point of all the regulations and bullcrap we put in place so that living thinking person won't die steps away from the care they need?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Just like people may defend a person's right to die, they should defend their right to live.

We were in a similar position with my father years ago and had to fight tooth and nail to keep him alive - which to this day makes us wonder about our humanity that we had to do so. Long story short, he lived and is still with us.

Life is worth fighting for.

[Ivan Pike]

Somewhat interesting. Ak?at boss around Nannut.

...Subsistence-harvested bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) remains are available annually near local communities along the Alaskan portion of the Beaufort Sea coast to bears that come to shore. Relatively large numbers of polar bears and some grizzly bears (U. arctos) use these resources, creating a competitive environment among species and social classes. We documented competitive interactions among polar bears and between polar and grizzly bears for bowhead whale remains adjacent to a small community in northeastern Alaska in September 2005?2007. We observed temporal partitioning of the resource by bears, with lone adult polar bears and grizzly bears primarily feeding at night, and higher use by polar bear family groups and subadults during dawn and dusk. Interspecific interactions were less frequently aggressive than intraspecific interactions, but polar bears were more likely to be displaced from the feeding site by grizzly bears than by conspecifics. Female polar bears with cubs were more likely to display aggressive behavior than other social classes during intra- and interspecific aggressive interactions. Our results indicate that grizzly bears are socially dominant during interspecific competition with polar bears for marine mammal carcasses during autumn.

Here

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Reading Ivan's links is like sitting around the fire in camp and being told stories.

But with no marshmallows. I hate marshmallows.

[UnCivilServant]

Pecking orders in the animal kingdom are a thing, news at 11.

[Ivan Pike]

Pecking orders in the animal kingdom are a thing, news at 11.

Ak?at bossing around Nannut, this was the somewhat interesting thing, not that there is a pecking order.

[grrizzly]

grizzly bears are socially dominant during interspecific competition with polar bears

Go grizzlies!

[Swiss Servator]

I knew one person would like this...

[Citizen X]

It's because the polar bears are so depressed about global warming.

[Overt]

Watch in 20 years when progs have banned these native groups from harvesting whales, and the decline of Polar Bears (who have lost a major source of food) is blamed on global warming.

[Rhywun]

Re: the AA case -

Of her time as a student at Princeton University, Sotomayor wrote:

"The Daily Princetonian routinely published letters to the editor lamenting the presence on campus of 'affirmative action students,' each one of whom had presumably displaced a far more deserving affluent white male blah blah blah

20 bucks says this never happened.

[Illocust]

She should know better than to make claims that can be so easily fact checked. I'm betting the Daily has all its newspapers archived. It would have made a better story to claim she heard people saying this regularly. It would have been impossible to disprove then.

[Root Boy]

Somebody here may have tried to play a sick joke that went wrong:

Wood Chipper Accident

Wrong target if it was one of you.

[invisible furry hand]

Poor bastard. Awesome story linked from that one, however:

Suspected Burglar is Eaten By 11-Foot Alligator After Hiding Near Florida Lake

[Root Boy]

Saw that one too in my link browsing yesterday. Was on par with the burgler in the chimney that died, but wildlife deaths seem more colorful.

[Clich? Bandit]

When I owned a landscaping company I drug a lot of brush. (Co-owner was arborist, i was too stoopid for that. It really is an art and a trade) A woodchipper really is no fucking joke. Especially some of those big boys that will basically eat an aircraft carrier if you fed it in.

[Stilgar]

Dear Ms. Brown - it is common and preferred practice that when providing links to a PDF or similar document, you state that the link is to such a file.

[Pat (PM)]

You aren't meant to actually read the links, goofus.

[Clich? Bandit]

yeah no shit.

[straffinrun]

Watch Katie Couric freak out that Rand won't freak out over something someone else said.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Wow. Wtf? At some point someone should just tell her to f-off. Jesus. And she gets paid all that money, huh.

[straffinrun]

I didn't watch it. I was just guessing. Did I get it right?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Yes. She kept hounding him about it. Idiot.

[straffinrun]

"Hillary. Do you really believe it is ridiculous to lament the 24 choices of deodorant in the supermarket? And quit dodging."

[Rhywun]

Oh yes, let the signalling begin. The NYC Council is gearing up some sort of protest against Trump today. And God forbid if you don't take part.

"Who doesn't want to wear the ribbon?!"

[See Double You]

You know what other German was named "Person of the Year"?

[Citizen X]

Somebody who didn't notice that the exact same joke has already been made several times in this thread?

[See Double You]

That's what I get for hitting and running.

[Not a Libertarian]

The point of the Person of the Year is to sell magazines, how exactly does a Angela Merkel cover sell magazines?

[Not a Libertarian]

Who would be Reason magazine's "Person of the Year?

Either using Time magazine's criteria or whatever person most advanced the cause of Liberty in 2015.

[Lord Humungus]

Hitler?

[Drake]

A blank page?

[Elspeth Flashman]

Warty?

[Citizen X]

Warty is only legally recognized as a "person" in 13 states and the District of Columbia. Sad but true.

[UnCivilServant]

something something cocktail parties something

[Win Bear]

When governments do "PR", it is called "propaganda".

[Win Bear]

When governments do "PR", it is called "propaganda".

[0x90]

You're doing it wrong.

[pushpadevi]

Happy New Year 2016
thank you

[neoteny]

Nothing about the Venezuelan elections?

[MSimon]

Poison of the year.

[Swiss Servator]

HA! Just skated under the limit - I got back in December 2008!

[Rich]

That guy in "Ex Machina"?

[invisible furry hand]

"But I want ... to sing!"

[Swiss Servator]

None of that!!!

[Citizen X]

"But Mother-!"
"I'm your father."
"But Father-!"

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

And jelly beans. I hate jelly beans.

[Illocust]

Thanks Tundra, I'll make sure to remember that.

[Pat (PM)]

You don't hate jelly beans, you just haven't had a Juicy Pear flavored Jelly Belly yet.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I'd rather drink Buckley's.

http://bit.ly/1XWbmpj

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

*puts arm around Tundra*

We'll always have Bobby Smith.

[BigT]

Life is worth fighting for.

More importantly, it is every person's right to make that decision for themselves.

[Clich? Bandit]

He is, I knew him when he lived here in Denver and worked for the Rocky Mountain news. He is a libertarian leaning conservative. And to prove you know him you have to be able to properly pronounce his last name. hint: it is Hungarian.