Chicago Police Kill Two, Injure One in Weekend Shootings, 43 Die in Storms, Tornadoes Across U.S., Star Wars Movie Does Well: A.M. Links

• 

  Star Wars

  Over the weekend, police in Chicago shot and killed a grandmother while shooting and killing a bat-wielding teenager, while injuring a father in a separate shooting incident in the Far South Side. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he's going to demand reforms, and has ordered a change in how police are trained to respond to situations involving mentally disturbed individuals.

• At least 43 people were killed across the United States in tornadoes and storms over the Christmas weekend.
• The government of China unveiled its new, two-child policy.
• Forces in Iraq have expelled ISIS from the center of Ramadi.
• The government of Japan lodged a formal complaint after China sent an armed vessel into disputed waters.
• Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning denied allegations made by an Al-Jazeera documentary that he used human growth hormone.
• The new Star Wars movie hit $1 billion in a record twelve days.
• Ferrari issued a recall of 185,000 California T Models because of a risk of fire.

New at Reason.com:

• Brickbat: Living Space By Charles Oliver
• Dems, GOP Giving Hillary Clinton All She Wants for Christmas She's a terrible candidate, but the parties seem to be in a race to the bottom. By Steve Chapman
• The Year's Best Drug Scares Impossibly potent marijuana edibles, formaldehyde in e-cigarettes, pills of war, MDMA disguised as Halloween candy, and superhuman flakka zombies. By Jacob Sullum
• Heroin for the Holidays HBO documentary provides inside look at modern users. By Glenn Garvin
• Ringing Out What's Old—and Ringing In What's New—in Food Policy Food policy cognoscenti discuss the top issues of 2015 and predict what might happen in 2016. By Baylen Linnekin

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

The new Star Wars movie hit $1 billion in a record twelve days.

How much time is that in parsecs?

[Swiss Servator]

*boils*

/Nerdrage

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Hello.

[BigT]

A parsec is 3.26 light-years, a distance not a time.

[WTF]

Someone doesn't get it.

[Juvenile Bluster]

The joke's been made since 1977, and it's long since retconned. It's distance because Han was able to complete the run in such a short distance because he took the ship closer to black holes.

YES I'M A NERD WHAT ABOUT IT?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

So. Yay or nay to giving Chip another shot?

[Monty Crisco]

Dude has made his bed. He is a loser.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Well, he is 26-21 as HC. Not quite officially a loser.

[Monty Crisco]

The BEST kind of correct....

[Juvenile Bluster]

Yes as coach, no as GM. I think he gets one more year as coach, but the Chip-as-GM experiment has failed.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

It's crazy how someone can be so wrongheaded - if not arrogant - as to get rid of so many established players because of a 'system'. It's nuts. I just hope his decisions haven't/won't set the franchise back.

[LynchPin1477]

About 0.006 parsecs.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Before I got my first Nintendo when I was 8, Parsec (on the TI-99/4A) was my favorite game ever. Kind of wish I could play it again.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Ferrari issued a recall of 185,000 California T Models because of a risk of fire.

Henry Ford is rolling over in his grave.

[Swiss Servator]

*sulks, because I wanted to make that joke*

[Fist of Etiquette]

I've asked people before if they wanted me to stop making quick comments and no one took me up on it.

[Illocust]

Keep up the quick comments. It's fun to race you.

[Fist of Etiquette]

A man (or mythical libertarian woman) who enjoys a challenge. I worried this place was made up solely of crybabies.

[Swiss Servator]

Oh no, I was bemoaning my own slowness.

[Fist of Etiquette]

THAT STILL COUNTS AS CRYBABYISM. BEHOLD, I AM A PITILESS GOD.

[Swiss Servator]

Can we propitiate you through sacrifice?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Only if I get something out of it. Dead lambs don't do shit for me unless they lead to delicious gyros.

[Medical Physics Guy]

If fine gyros appeased the gods, Greece would not be in the shape that it's in.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

They obviously appease the wrong kind of gods.

As noted in the previous post.

[Jerryskids]

The first thing I checked was the article - the headline does say 185,000. The story says 185. 185,000 Ferraris is approximately every Ferrari ever made.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning denied allegations made by an Al-Jazeera documentary that he used human growth hormone.

They're just trying to shake America by undermining our heroes.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Does HGH cause head growth?

[R C Dean]

The supposed source for AJ has completely, comprehensively, withdrawn and repudiated his statements. His story is that he smelled a rat, and was just trying to smoke them out of the woodwork.

Now one of the men who Al Jazeera relied on for its bombshell documentary is saying his previous statements were untrue.

"Any recordings of me were made without my knowledge or consent," Charlie Sly, a former employee at the Guyer Institute in Indiana, says in a YouTube statement. "The statements ... are absolutely false and incorrect."

He added: "I am recanting any such statements."

http://www.businessinsider.com.....ng-2015-12

[Not okay]

Meh, the guy caught saying he gave them HGH now says he didn't do it. So basically his drug dealer "recants" and the client list obtained through sting becomes void? I would expect him to recant since what he's claiming in the sting would be illegal.

If Manning was getting shipments of HGH in his wife's name to his house it's suspect no matter what anyone recants. That part should be able to be proven true or false.

[OneOut]

Congress should hold some hearings and get on TV and stuff.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

If it distracts them from doing 'useful' shit, then I'm all for it.

[R C Dean]

Sure, what this story needs is corroborating evidence, which at this point it sorely lacks. At this point, I think it pretty much lacks an unretracted evidence, to tell you the truth.

Could be true, but its a long way from being well-supported.

[Not okay]

Sure but in Manning's statement he just said his wife was getting treated there also. Sounds like he's conceding her shipments of HGH but claims its for her use for something medical.

[R C Dean]

Still looking for corroborating evidence.

[Pat (PM)]

Meth user arrested after joyride on Walmart motorized cart

LECANTO, Fla., Dec. 27 (UPI) -- For one Florida woman, a wild weekend joyride through an area Walmart ended with shoplifting and drug paraphernalia charges and jail.

Citrus County police arrested 25-year-old Josseleen Elida Lopez after she was detained by a Walmart employee who found her eating stolen food and drinking stolen wine while cruising through the store in a motorized shopping cart.

Lopez was found to have drunk two bottles of wine and eaten sushi, a rotisserie chicken, cinnamon rolls and mini muffins. All totaled, Lopez's damages totaled $44.53.

Police officers also found two used syringes in Lopez's possession. The 25-year-old admitted having used the syringes to inject crystal meth earlier in the day.

Lopez told officers she knew what she was doing was wrong but took and ate the food because she was hungry.

[Swiss Servator]

"Florida woman"... figures.

Anyone know what happened to our Florida Man?

[Juvenile Bluster]

Meth overdose?

[gaoxiaen]

Must be some shitty meth if she's able to pig out like that.

[Lee G]

I thought he met up with Mr. Lizard in Tampa and was never heard from after that.

[Citizen X]

Sadly, he was heard to say "Hold my beer. Now watch this," immediately before attempting to referee a deathmatch between an alligator and a Burmese python, and he hasn't been seen since.

[Florida Man]

I check in time to time, but this election cycle has broken me. The fact that Trump and Clinton are front runners is just depressing.

[Free Society]

Anyone know what happened to our Florida Man?

Sinkhole.

[straffinrun]

Lopez told officers she knew what she was doing was wrong but took and ate the food because she was hungry.

That still makes her one moral leg up on Bernie.

[Medical Physics Guy]

inject crystal meth

The kids don't smoke it anymore?

[Atanarjuat]

because I know you were wondering. As for me, I'm going to say I'd probably go for it.

[DenverJ]

yeah, cute and crazy go in hand in hand

[UnCivilServant]

Texas got Snow before Upstate New York - Something ain't right about that.

[WTF]

Global warming Climate Change!!!11!!!

[Hyperbolical (wadair)]

Ya beat me. Refresh, what is it?

[Hyperbolical (wadair)]

Climate Change?

[BigT]

Climate Exchange

[WTF]

I can deal with the warm weather as long as they don't send us their fucking tornados.

[Lord Humungus]

something something John being crushed by a woman named Olga:

Woman in Siberia rewarded with truck full of coal for slimming down

When the long-serving -- and somewhat overweight -- governor of Russia's Kemerovo region Aman Tuleyev promised earlier this year to reward locals with 1.5 metric tons of coal for every 10 kilos lost, everyone thought it was a just joke.

But Tuleyev made good on his promise on Wednesday when Yelena Salnikova, a nurse from a small town of Berezovskiy, got a truck full of the black stuff from authorities in the coal-rich region for losing 30 kilos (66 pounds).

"I had insomnia, headaches, I could hardly climb stairs to the fourth floor," 43-year old Salnikova told Mir television.

[Elspeth Flashman]

You know who else got a truck full of the black stuff?

[Lord Humungus]

something something Nikki and interracial porn

[Juice]

They just dump it in the front yard? jeez

[Pat (PM)]

More than $900 billion has been spent saving Matt Damon

I'm not sure there's an actor in the history of cinema that has required more saving than Matt Damon. I'd never really noticed it before, but one astute Quora user posed a hysterical hypothetical question to the community earlier this year that was more interesting than I ever imagined: "How much money has been spent attempting to bring Matt Damon back from distant places?"[...]

Here's what he came up:

Movie Budgets
Courage Under Fire: $46m
Saving Private Ryan: $70m
Titan A.E.: $75m
Syriana: $50m
Green Zone: $100m
Elysium: $115m
Interstellar: $165m
The Martian: $108m
TOTAL: $729m

Fictional Costs
My estimates, costs are in 2015 currency
Courage Under Fire (Gulf War 1 helicopter rescue): $300k
Saving Private Ryan (WW2 Europe search party): $100k
Titan A.E. (Earth evacuation spaceship): $200B
Syriana (Middle East private security return flight): $50k
Green Zone (US Army transport from Middle East): $50k
Elysium (Space station security deployment and damages): $100m
Interstellar (Interstellar spaceship): $500B
The Martian (Mars mission): $200B
TOTAL: $900B plus change

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I've always wanted someone to tabulate how much in damages NYC suffered in the movies over the years.

[LynchPin1477]

Enough to stimulate the economy for thousands of years!

[Pat (PM)]

It has to be pretty deep into the trillions.

[UnCivilServant]

Well, the city has been erased entirely in several movies...

Good times.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Good movies!

[BigT]

how much in damages NYC suffered in the movies over the years.

Not nearly enough.

[Mickey Rat]

Interstellar was an attempt to leave Damon somewhere. It almost did not work.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The government of Japan lodged a formal complaint after China sent an armed vessel into disputed waters.

How come we never got a formal complaint back in '41?

[Juvenile Bluster]

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he's going to demand reforms, and has ordered a change in how police are trained to respond to situations involving mentally disturbed individuals.

Are they talking about mentally disturbed individuals in the public, or their fellow mentally disturbed individuals at the precinct?

[gaijin]

Common sense bat legislation. Chicago White Sox hardest hit.

[Swiss Servator]

Ha. The Sox have forsworn the use of bats for years now 🙁

[VG Zaytsev]

They forgot to mention that the tiny dancer is vacationing in Cuba.

[Rhywun]

Chicagolanders might want to complete any necessary shopping or flying soon.

[Just say Nikki]

Or not. Sleet is brutal right now. Don't go outside, Chicagolanders. Seriously.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Why don't you call it by its real name? BLACK ICE!

Or is that racist now?

[Just say Nikki]

Because it's still coming down.

[UnCivilServant]

Sleet is not black ice.

Sleet is small diameter rain that has frozen before it lands. Black ice is caused by liquid water freezing on the road (usually freezing rain).

[Pat (PM)]

Oh yeah, well if you're so smart, what's the difference between sleet and hail?

[Just say Nikki]

Hail hurts more.

[gaijin]

in that case, 'Hail to the Chief'

[Mickey Rat]

Hail can help summon the Gorgon.

[UnCivilServant]

Hail can form during warm weather on the ground, and only falls when updrafts are no longer able to keep it aloft. Sleet freezes on the way down instead of freezing at altitude and agglomerating.

Hail is also an order of magnitude or two larger.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I just wanted to say black ice.

You guys must be downers at the table at parties with your literal explanations.

/spins propeller on beanie.

[UnCivilServant]

I don't attend parties, even when people invite me, because I know I'm not going to have fun, and the other people will not appreciate my presence.

The last time I attended a party the only thing that went through my head was "I don't belong here".

[Pat (PM)]

The last time I attended a party the only thing that went through my head was "I don't belong here".

Did you feel like... a creep?

[UnCivilServant]

No. Just out of place.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

You have a mole don't you?

[Pat (PM)]

No. Just out of place.

Not a Radiohead fan either then, I take it?

[Rhywun]

"I don't belong here"

That is usually me but I made a deliberate attempt to be genial at the last party I attended and it worked wonders. Most fun I've had in a while.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Those 'knock, knock' jokes are great ice-breakers!

'Hey, hi I'm Rhywun! Knock, knock...I'm heading to the bar anyone want a drink? It's free!'

[Rhywun]

I said 'genial', not 'unhinged'.

[Atanarjuat]

You guys must be downers at the table at parties with your literal explanations.

The common thread that unites libertarians everywhere.

[DenverJ]

#BlackIceMatters

[Deep Lurker]

Incentives matter. If you want real reform, you need to give the cops "skin in the game." Subject them to the same scrutiny, after a shooting, as private CCW holders can expect, rather than letting the cops get away with "We need more rights than you, Citizen!"

Imposing a change of training, without changing incentives, will only result in cops having to figure out new ways to game the new system.

[Lord Humungus]

Police: 'Frustrated' Creswell man releases flock of chickens in Eugene tax office

A Creswell man apparently upset with the state revenue office released a flock of chickens inside the agency's field office near Valley River Center on Wednesday.

A Eugene police officer ?responded to the state ?Department of Revenue office about 12:20 p.m., shortly after the man, identified as Louis J. Adler, 66, released seven chickens in the office lobby.

The officer and a ?responding animal welfare officer gathered up the birds and took them to the First ?Avenue Shelter.

[MSimon]

Headline:

Chickens Flock Tax Office

[Pat (PM)]

Light Supermetal Yet Super Strong Created In the Labs of University of California

A team led by researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has created a super-strong yet light structural metal with extremely high specific strength and modulus, or stiffness-to-weight ratio. The new metal is composed of magnesium infused with a dense and even dispersal of ceramic silicon carbide nanoparticles. It could be used to make lighter airplanes, spacecraft, and cars, helping to improve fuel efficiency, as well as in mobile electronics and biomedical devices. To create the super-strong but lightweight metal, the team found a new way to disperse and stabilize nanoparticles in molten metals. They also developed a scalable manufacturing method that could pave the way for more high-performance lightweight metals.

[Swiss Servator]

"Metallica"

*flees*

[gaijin]

*flees*

to Beyond Magnetic?

[11H1P, Professional Beach Bum]

I snort-laughed LTC...

[AlmightyJB]

They should change their name to the Samurai school and start make swords.

[Hyperbolical (wadair)]

Nobody needs 23 different metals when there are starving children.

[Copernicus would chip]

The inventor made a bracelet out of the metal but his wife didn't approve.

[robc]

Was going to make a miracle metal joke, but this is better.

[GamerFromJump]

Contrasting adjectives using "yet" need to be kept together, BEFORE the appellation.

"Light yet strong 'supermetal' created..."

Come ON, people, get it together.

[Monty Crisco]

This shit gets NO PLAY from American media, and it is the EXACT reason that we have the second amendment (Gee, I wonder if that is WHY it gets no press?!?):

http://www.nationalreview.com/.....-depravity

And here is some truly awful video :

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Isra.....hem-423831

IT could happen here, make no doubt...

[Drake]

I saw that video - that guy with gun is there fast. A head shot would have sped things along although it was satisfying to see the scumbag slowly bleed out.

[Fried]

in other Jerusalem news, an ostrich was caught roaming around today.

[straffinrun]

Damn. That video is the perfect argument against gun control.

[LynchPin1477]

a change in how police are trained to respond to situations involving mentally disturbed individuals

Why isn't there more political traction for firing cops that kill innocent people? It seems like the biggest work-related fuck-up imaginable.

[AlmightyJB]

Going to take a lot more than a few small protest. Unfortunately.

[Hyperbolical (wadair)]

Right. It seems that discipline might make for some powerful training.

[GamerFromJump]

"Shoot, get shot", would be even more powerful training.

[some guy]

Why isn't there more political traction for firing cops that kill innocent people?

These killings don't get much attention in the media. When they do the attention is usually either neutral or favors the cops. As a result, most people don't ever see it, certainly not in their own neighborhood. So it's someone else's problem. Or they think, "well, the cops wouldn't have shot him if he was really innocent. He probably did something or was about to do something, but you can't charge a corpse..."

[Fist of Etiquette]

...a change in how police are trained to respond to situations involving mentally disturbed individuals.

If you're going to murder voters, do it at CPD black sites!

[Lord Humungus]

Buddy, can you spare $300 billion?

Canada's largest province has asked its taxpayers to donate their hard-earned money to the cause of bailing out the much indebted provincial government.

On top of paying among the highest taxes in North America, and coping with skyrocketing hydro prices ? hikes directly caused by the decisions made by this Liberal administration and the previous one ? the Wynne government wants more.

Treasury Board Chair Deb Matthews made the bold request last week, and specifically asked folks to donate their tax return rebate to help pay off the provincial debt.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Wynne is evil. A liberal progressive spendthrift.

[Swiss Servator]

"Fuck off, slavers"

[Medical Physics Guy]

The bubble world these people live in.

[AlmightyJB]

That's like giving more money to a crackhead.

[Illocust]

It'll be interesting to see if folks will do it or not. People who are for higher taxes aren't generally for donating extra amount of their money. Especially if it's in a non visible way that won't get them praise from others.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Er, it's Canada. We're so taxed with what money are they gonna do that? Plus we're cheap as hell.

Lemme summarize a Canadian for you in one sentence: They brag about the CFL but when it comes time to show up at the games to support it they're nowhere to be found because they're watching the NFL. That's a Canadian. All talk, no action and complain about it by blaming Americans for their decision.

[Hyperbolical (wadair)]

Cutting spending is never a solution.

[Drake]

And once all that debt is paid off, they'll never borrow another dime, loonie, whatever... right?

[Pat (PM)]

Hard Disk Drives with HAMR Technology Set to Arrive in 2018

Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology promises to increase capacities of HDDs significantly in the coming years. Unfortunately, mass production of actual hard drives featuring HAMR has been delayed for a number of times already and now it turns out that the first HAMR-based HDDs are due in 2018.[...]

Modern HDDs based on perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) and shingled magnetic recording (SMR) platters have areal density of around ~0.95 Terabit per square inch (Tb/in?) and can store up to 10TB of data (on seven 1.43TB platters). Technologies like two-dimensional magnetic recording (TDMR) can potentially increase areal density of HDD disks by 5 to 10 per cent, which is significant. Moreover, Showa Denko K.K. (SDK), the world's largest independent maker of hard drive platters, has outlined plans to mass produce ninth-generation PMR HDD media with areal density of up to 1.3Tb/in? next year.

Companies like Seagate Technology and Western Digital believe that to hit areal densities beyond 1.5Tb/in?, HAMR technology along with higher anisotropy media will be required because of supermagnetic limit (physical "pitches" on optical media become so tiny that it will not be possible to produce a powerful enough magnetic field in the HDD space to write data into them).

[AlmightyJB]

I remember buying my first PC with a 20MB Hard Drive. Will never need more than that said the experts of the day. 25Mhz processor. Packard Bell Windows 3.1.

[AlmightyJB]

Hard to believe that was less than 25 years ago.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

That would have been state of the art 25 yrs ago.

My college room-mate's Zenith 286 with 20 mb HD was +$4K in 1987.

[Galactic Chipper Cdr Lytton]

The 20MB drive would have been state of the art a little more than 25 years. I had a PC XT with a 20MB drive.

[UnCivilServant]

I once uttered the comment "Who would need a 1GHz processor?" at the time the first one was announced.

Given that is slower than the chip in my phone...

[Pat (PM)]

My dad upgraded from Commodore 64 to a (IIRC) 286 with a 20 MB hard drive. The sales guy at Costco asked him "What are you ever going to use much storage for?"

[Rasilio]

Porn of course

[AlmightyJB]

Would have taken quite some time to download that much porn at the dial up baud rates at that time:)

[Rhywun]

I remember we had a 2 GB hard drive in my 9th grade comp-sci classroom circa 1984. It was the size of a small refrigerator.

[UnCivilServant]

I've seen one-can refrigerators (big enough for a solitary beverage can). So are we talking that, or dorm-fridge size?

(actually I know what you meant, but I have to be a smartass.)

[Rhywun]

Bigger than a dorm fridge. Smaller than a regular fridge.

[some guy]

I still remember the time I saved up my allowance to buy 2 MB of RAM for like $200 around 1990. I was so very careful installing those sticks. I felt like Zorg defusing the bomb he planted in Fifth Element. I think I was literally sweating.

[DenverJ]

The first computers I learned to code on were Apple IIEs. They had no hard drive. Every time you turned the machine on, you had to insert a floppy (the big ones) and install DOS.
There was no GUI (graphic user interface, think Windows), it was all command line.
ahh good times, good times

[Free Society]

Companies like Seagate Technology

can go fuck themselves. I've never had a Seagate HDD that didn't fail within two years. Not one single non-piece-of-shit from Seagate.

[Pat (PM)]

I haven't owned a Seagate in well over a decade, but I never had good luck with them either. My Maxtor drives all died premature deaths (with a lot of data loss) as well. Made perfect sense to me when Seagate acquired them. I finally gave up on getting deals on HDDs and I just buy mid-end or higher Western Digital. Haven't had a data-loss failure yet (knock on wood), and they were really good about warranty service on the one that took a shit.

[Free Society]

Maxtor. I forgot they ever existed! Yeah I buy Western Digital almost exclusively unless I'm looking for a SSD and only then because WD hasn't delved too deeply into that market. I've only had one or maybe two Western Digitals shit out on me in my entire computational life.

[MSimon]

WD for me. Two decades.

[some guy]

I've never had a problem with Seagate. Hell, just a couple of years ago I finally got rid of a 16GB drive from 1999, I think. It still worked, it was just a waste of space.

[Pat (PM)]

Here's how badly Democrats have to screw up to lose the election

If the eventual Democratic nominee maintains 2012 levels of support among three key groups ? an "11-point deficit among white college graduates, a 22-point deficit among white working-class voters, and a 64-point advantage among minority voters" ? the Democratic candidate will overwhelmingly win the popular vote, and will almost certainly win the election, the report's authors concluded.

And even though minority voters, who are expected to make up 30% of the electorate in 2016, are key to Democrats' election strategy, the nominee could actually afford to lose some support within those blocs.

CAP estimated that even if minority groups' support for the Democratic nominee fell to 78%, and if opposition among white working-class supporters stood at the levels of the 2014 midterm elections, in which Democrats were crushed, Democrats could still win if the party maintained its 2012 support from white college graduates.

[Rhywun]

I think "nominating Hillary Clinton" is all that it will take.

[R C Dean]

Its incredible to me that the Dems can lose, massively, in Congressional, state and local elections (as they have over the last six years) and still have such a strong grip on the one national election that we have.

[some guy]

It's because they have so many supporters who think state and local elections aren't worth their time.

[dan'o en barrel]

inclement weather or mid-term elections tend to favor the gop (at least thats what I've always heard.)

[Lord Humungus]

'You're never too old to get married': Couple with joint age of 187 get engaged

Evergreen Bill Griffiths, 91, proposed to Flo Marshallsay, 96, earlier this month after "living in sin" together for 10 years.

They were sat together on their sofa drinking tea with Bill's son Peter, 63, at their home in Oldbury, West Mids., when Bill popped the question - in a very unusual way.

Retired engineer Bill first asked his son whether he "minded" if he proposed to Flo.

Peter said he was asking the wrong person, so Bill turned to his partner and proposed.

[Pat (PM)]

I'm not even 30 yet and my mom is already on my ass.

[Citizen X]

All you have to do is outlive her by several decades and then do it on your own timetable.

Also, get off my lawn.

[straffinrun]

At 96, I'm thinking that Flo won't be so heavy.

[Free Society]

zing

[Fist of Etiquette]

The government of China unveiled its new, two-child policy.

Too little, too late. Aging China-men better hope the Japs start exporting their robotic nursing home attendants soon.

[Lord Humungus]

The Year Nothing Worked: Stocks, Bonds, Cash Go Nowhere

While the depth of losses in equities and commodities is nowhere near as bad as in 2008, the correlation of declines highlights the challenge for money managers who seek to amplify returns by rotating among assets. Among other things it's a recipe for pain among hedge funds, according to Bianco. The industry is heading for its worst annual performance since 2011, with closures rising, data compiled by Bloomberg and Hedge Fund Research Inc. show.

"The Fed stimulus lifted all boats, and then the Fed withdrawing the stimulus is holding the boats down," Bianco said by phone. "If the argument is right that the economy is going into 2016 weak and earnings are negative, those conditions will continue and therefore on the asset allocation level, I don't expect anything to break out just yet."

[Swiss Servator]

Betting against Chipotle worked!

/Playa

[Pat (PM)]

The surprising downsides of being clever

[...]Keith Stanovich at the University of Toronto has spent the last decade building tests for rationality, and he has found that fair, unbiased decision-making is largely independent of IQ. Consider the "my-side bias" ? our tendency to be highly selective in the information we collect so that it reinforces our previous attitudes. The more enlightened approach would be to leave your assumptions at the door as you build your argument ? but Stanovich found that smarter people are almost no more likely to do so than people with distinctly average IQs.

That's not all. People who ace standard cognitive tests are in fact slightly more likely to have a "bias blind spot". That is, they are less able to see their own flaws, even when though they are quite capable of criticising the foibles of others. And they have a greater tendency to fall for the "gambler's fallacy" ? the idea that if a tossed coin turns heads 10 times, it will be more likely to fall tails on the 11th.[...]

A tendency to rely on gut instincts rather than rational thought might also explain why a surprisingly high number of Mensa members believe in the paranormal; or why someone with an IQ of 140 is about twice as likely to max out their credit card.

[John]

Smart people are often believe the dumbest things. This is especially true in atheists. Without the belief in God the smart man often sees himself as the measure of all things.

[Pat (PM)]

I fancied myself quite the smart cookie coming out of high school. Academics always came relatively easy to me and I did better in school than all of my friends. Then during and after college I encountered and learned about some truly brilliant people, and realized just how ignorant and downright stupid I am by comparison. I suppose there's a small number of truly genius polymaths who never have the experience of being humbled by someone else's intellect or talent, but especially if you do spend your time in the company of gifted people, it's hard to get a swell head.

[Hyperbolical (wadair)]

I believe there is a threshold over which a person must cross before they can truly learn a given subject. That threshold is the one you described. The point where a person realizes how much they don't know. I call it the Socrates threshold.

[Troy muy grande boner]

This happened to me as well as well. I met some really intelligent people that made me feel stupid. So now i hang out at places where there are a lot of retards to make me feel better (i.e. here.)

[Libertymike]

But what about one of the corollaries of the Dunning-Krueger effect, that smarter people are less apt to overestimate their abilities and skills?

Then again, as my buddy Bobby the toll taker said this morning of Bill Belichick, "sometimes he's too smart for his own good."

[Copernicus would chip]

"Without the belief in God the smart man often sees himself as the measure of all things."

Do you know of any effective measuring system that uses "infinite" as its basis?

[Swiss Servator]

Measuring Salon's level of Derp?

[Free Society]

Smart people are often believe the dumbest things. This is especially true in atheists. Without the belief in God the smart man often sees himself as the measure of all things.

And smart people believe in sky Hitler.

[Citizen X]

It seems to me that more intelligent people are often just better at rationalizing dumb beliefs.

[John]

Bingo.

[Ken Shultz]

Intellectuals can easily fall victim to the appeal to authority fallacy because they genuinely believe in their own authority.

[Illocust]

Pretty much, there are so many facts and arguments to choose from. If you're good at putting a puzzle together it's pretty easy to stich together a believable sounding argument for nearly anything.

[gaijin]

True this. Also, mirror mirror... Keith Stanovich at the University of Toronto has spent the last decade building tests for rationality, and he has found that fair, unbiased decision-making is largely independent of IQ.

[Illocust]

This is one of the few situations were researcher bias actually proves his point.

[John]

See also the comic lack of self awareness of those claiming to rely on their "reason" as if it is some infallible source of wisdom or is somehow independent of the assumptions they use.

[Copernicus would chip]

I predict you will burn for eternity in a lake of irony.

[Free Society]

My "reason" is a better descriptor of reality and better predictor of future events than my "faith" as dictated to me by long dead iron age child murdering Semitic goat herders.

[Hyperbolical (wadair)]

Like science, reason is a tool, not a source of truth.

[Ken Shultz]

Doctors are notoriously easy targets for investment scams for precisely this reason.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fin.....scams.html

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Well, at the risk at upsetting some fine people here since several are engineers, but when I was a broker the most difficult people to deal with were engineers, pilots and doctors in that order. The firm even gave seminars on how to deal with them.

[Illocust]

We know numbers. The stock market is just numbers right?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

They know numbers as it relates to engineering. Not so much markets. As such, they're no different than anybody.

Five of my buddies are engineers. Smart as shit and I love them but it was pulling teeth explaining to them they don't have the options markets figured out.

[Illocust]

I was poking fun at us. I know there is more to the market than calc III.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I got that sense but I wanted to generalize more to be a prick.

[Clich? Bandit]

My dad had an engineer friend who bought a sail boat. My dad sees him on the dock and says hey you bought a boat (We had a 40' wooden Cal, she was gorgeous)? Do you know how to sail? And the engineer responds "it is all forces and vectors." Then follows up "Hey, what are all these ropes for?"

[UnCivilServant]

People don't go into STEM for being people persons.

[Copernicus would chip]

"but when I was a broker"

Is this another way of saying "when I was a salesman"?

I would be proud to be on a salesman's list of most difficult customers. It would mean I'm not easily scammed.

[UnCivilServant]

There's more than one way to be a "Difficult customer" You might be the "how do I control my toaster with this lamp?" kind of difficult.

[Swiss Servator]

*applause*

[Free Society]

"Your shitty remote won't turn off my blender. What kind of outfit are you people running?"

[Copernicus would chip]

For a salesman, that wouldn't be a difficult customer, that would be a "cash cow".

[straffinrun]

I'd hate to find out at 46 years old that I had a high IQ. With an IQ of 80, I'm killin' it. If I'm at 130, I'm a fuckup.

[lap83]

It's interesting, I don't know my IQ or my brother's, but I wouldn't be surprised if his was higher. However, I know I'm happier and have more wisdom (he frequently makes choices with bad outcomes I can anticipate from a mile away, then it happens and he whines and doesn't learn) He's also a bitter progressive. Personally I'm content with being dumber but understanding and accepting reality.

[AlmightyJB]

A wise man understands that he doesn't know shit.

[Swiss Servator]

That is a direct quote of the Buddha, yes?

[AlmightyJB]

It should be if it's not:)

[robc]

The latter is also a problem for good salesmen...I can sell me way out of debt!

Same for smart people. They thinl they will get the raises, etc to pay it off.

[Pat (PM)]

This Day in History

1065 - Westminster Abbey consecrated.

1832 - John C. Calhoun became the first vice president in U.S. history to resign from office.

1846 - Iowa became the 29th state in the United States.

1869 - William F. Semple patented chewing gum.

1895 - The Lumiere Brothers gave the first commercial movie show at the Grand Cafe in Paris.

1937 - Composer Maurice Ravel died in Paris at age 62.

1945 - Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.

1981 - Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American test-tube baby, was born in Norfolk, Va.

[Citizen X]

Number 3 is the Not - Iowa isn't real.

[Swiss Servator]

Wait...its just a front for Ethanol subsidies?!?!?!

[Citizen X]

Exactly. [taps side of nose with index finger]

[BigT]

Pledge of Allegiance

Why do we ask kids to pledge allegiance? Does anyone think this would prevent an insurrection? Just normal government brainwashing?

Wouldn't it be better if they recited the Bill of Rights?

[Swiss Servator]

Yes, yes it would be.

[Elspeth Flashman]

but the liberal teachers unions would hate it & so that would never work.

[Akira]

My god, you should see the conniption fit that a teacher will have if a kid sits in respectful silence rather than doing the pledge.

[straffinrun]

Poor Maurice missed out on what Bo would do with his music.

[Lord Humungus]

Ex-DHS head: We can't vet Syrian refugees

"I'm just not confident that they've got sufficient information from law enforcement, the intelligence community to do effective screening," he added.

"So, a pause for refugees from that part of the world is very appropriate at this time."

Ridge said the refugee crisis is the result of the global community's "failure" to deal with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

"The countries that are involved in accepting the refugees ? that is just a consequence of the broader global community's failure to take on ISIS in Iraq and ISIS in Syria," he said.

"And you're going to continue having refugees fleeing these barbarians, these murderers until the global community, particularly ? hopefully ? with U.S. leadership, but that may take another president, and NATO countries."

[WTF]

He is clearly a pants-shitting racist xenophobe.

[Akira]

"He was probably appointed by BOOOOOOSH!!!111"

/Palin's Buttplug

[John]

But Syrians are Muslims and Muslims are wonderful. Every Libertarian knows that.

[R C Dean]

Even better:

One of the most persecuted and victimized groups in the current Mid-East war (Christians) is de facto excluded from the refugee programs.

Tragically, present policy does not take into account the uniquely precarious situation of displaced Christians. Instead of receiving priority treatment, Christians are profoundly disadvantaged. For instance, the State Department has accepted refugees primarily from lists prepared by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees, which oversees the large camps to which refugees have flocked, and where they are registered. Yet endangered Christians do not dare enter those camps.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/mi.....1450396991

May be paywalled; if so, Google the title and you can get in that way.

[lap83]

That is pretty sad

[Fist of Etiquette]

At least 43 people were killed across the United States in tornadoes and storms over the Christmas weekend.

Mother Nature's War on Christmas.

[gaijin]

If we can save even one person from the scourge of weather violence...

[Lord Humungus]

Indiana Woman, 69, Stockpiled Her Urine So She Could Dump It On Neighbor's Home

As first reported by The Star Press's Douglas Walker, in a bid to capture the urine tosser in the act, Basler installed a hidden camera that eventually recorded VanTyle twice "throwing a liquid on his house."

When confronted by police, VanTyle initially denied dousing her neighbor's home, but subsequently copped to the vandalism, police say. VanTyle admitted that, for several months, she had been urinating in a blue bucket. When Basler would leave his house, she would toss the waste on his home.

As for why she went to such extremes, VanTyle told cops, "I don't like him. He's a bad neighbor." During the October police interview, "Jackie also advised she had been doing this all summer," according to a Lynn Police Department report.

When told by a cop that she could be jailed for the urine tossing, VanTyle "stated to the effect that she thought it was just a nuisance."

[Pat (PM)]

You have to admire her dedication.

[Swiss Servator]

No...not really.

*shudders*

[Elspeth Flashman]

You meant to say:
"shivers"

[Swiss Servator]

Me timbers?

[Elspeth Flashman]

It's a pee joke. You know, piss shivers. I hardly thought I'd have to explain this to an H&R commentariat.

[Swiss Servator]

I was going for house joke (shudders - close as I could get to shutters) and then a pirate joke....say, what happened to our Pirate Truther from a while back?

[Akira]

Don't worry; I spotted him yesterday.

[BigT]

So she was .....

....pissed off?

[Swiss Servator]

*narrows gaze*

[Copernicus would chip]

She should save that urine again. She's going to need it when Basler burns her house down.

[Rhywun]

20 bucks says she's a hoarder who has to pee in a bucket outside anyway cuz her bathroom doesn't work.

[Swiss Servator]

No bet...I think you have it spot on.

[Ivan Pike]

He's a bad neighbor.

I don't think she will win any Neighbor of the Year awards either.

[Lord Humungus]

Who says self-deportation doesn't work?

Residents are fleeing New York ? yet Albany won't fix the problems

As the Empire Center noted last week, 153,921 more residents moved out of New York than moved in from other states over the 12 months through July 1, new US Census data show.

That brings New York's total "net domestic migration" loss since 2010 to 653,071.

And here's a dubious distinction for the state: That loss is bigger than in any other state for those years ? in both absolute terms and per capita.

The outflow means an ever-smaller share of the nation's population is choosing to live in New York. And that has consequences: The state is now on track to lose yet another congressional seat after the next 10-year census.

[UnCivilServant]

Albany doesn't care because it's elected by downstate. NYC is growing and Upstate is emptying out. So the situation will ony get worse until NYC finally goes broke from the weight of its own policies (both at the city level and those it's pols force on the state level)

[Juvenile Bluster]

Before I lived upstate, my only NY contact was my family on Long Island, so it was just stories. Then I moved to Syracuse for a few years and saw just how little Albany cares about anything north of Westchester County.

[Citizen X]

Virginia is getting to be that way, too. Richmond doesn't even care about Richmond - if it's south of Manassas or west of Ashburn, the state does not give a fuck.

[Mr. Flanders]

This is very true. The DMV controls the entire state, everyone else is just plebs to us.

[Mr. Flanders]

Oops, I meant to say NoVA*.

[Illocust]

Oh, I see what's happening now. I thought that people were fleeing the city. Which would be a good thing considering their rent prices, but if it's upstate that's emptying out, there is no benefit.

[Rhywun]

I thought that people were fleeing the city.

Hardly. We're close to 8.5 million now (highest ever) with no end in sight.

[Rhywun]

NYC finally goes broke from the weight of its own policies

As long as NYC remains a magnet for global plutocrats, that will never happen.

[R C Dean]

The state is now on track to lose yet another congressional seat after the next 10-year census.

Every dark cloud . . .

[Rhywun]

Meh, wherever large crowds gather there are sure to follow calls for higher taxes and regulations. Florida is already the new New York. Don't think any state is safe.

[toolkien]

How unpatriotic of them.

[GamerFromJump]

New York only wishes it could exit tax its escapees.

[Lord Humungus]

Unintended result: Investigation into serial killer Gacy clears 11 unrelated cold cases

Since then, though, his search has led him down an unexpected path: He has cleared 11 unrelated cold cases across America. After eliminating the missing young men as Gacy victims, he pored over DNA results and medical and Social Security records; enlisted anthropologists, lab technicians and police in Utah, Colorado, New Jersey and other states; and cracked missing-persons cases that had been dormant for decades.

Most recently, Moran identified a 16-year-old homicide victim in San Francisco who had been buried 36 years ago.

He has brought comfort to some by proving, through science and dogged research, that their missing loved ones are dead.

He has brought joy to others, finding long-lost brothers and sons still alive.

Marveling at this remarkable detour from the ghastly Gacy trail, Moran says he recently told his boss:

"Is it possible that an evil serial killer has done some good?"

[R C Dean]

No. Gacy did no good. You did, Mr. Moran.

[Tonio]

Tonio's Libertarian Xmas Story: So, I get a small bound copy of the Declaration and Constitution from a batshit proggie friend. Looks familiar; I check the back cover and, yes, it's the Cato Institute edition. I ask the proggie if he knew who Cato is; no, he doesn't. The look on his face as I explain that to him and thank him for his donation to the cause of libertarianism was priceless. "We're all about the Constitution, you know."

[Pat (PM)]

You should have told him it's a labor-affiliated think tank. You can shear a sheep a hundred times, you can only skin him once.

[Tonio]

That's brilliant and subtle. Wish I'd have thought of that in the moment.

[UnCivilServant]

Those Cato folks mailed me an unsolicited pocket constitution. I'm pissed - who told them I exist? Right now I have to blame reason, for reasons which will go unstated.

I HATE unsolicted contacts.

[Tonio]

Now I'm wondering if that's where he got it. If he's on their mailing lists, something is wrong.

[straffinrun]

Really?.

[UnCivilServant]

Youtube doesn't work at work.

[straffinrun]

Here ya go.
BTW, Lord H, I take it back. That wasn't useless.

[Elspeth Flashman]

I get lots of republican stuff in the mail - I was supposed to be a precinct delegate, like 6 years ago. But the upside is that I get a Christmas card from Justin Amash.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

It wouldn't surprise me if a decent number of progs don't realize they're deconstructionists.

In other words, retarded.

[Tonio]

No, this idiot thought he was getting in a zing by giving me a copy of the constitution, like I didn't know what it said or something. Suspect he'd be surprised by what it didn't say if he had actually read it.

[Free Society]

"There's something about democracy and social justice in here somewhere, just hold on you braindead libertarian."

[Rhywun]

The Hive Mind has been spreading the message that the Constitution was written by patriarchal slaveholders so maybe that's the "zing".

[WTF]

Yeah, some progs believe that everything they really desire is required by the constitution and everything they really hate is prohibited by the constitution. The rest just don't care about it because it's like 100 years old and hard to read.

[Certified Public Asshat]

Monday Morning Facebook Derp:

Guy posts this link:

Did Bernie Sanders just send the 'most economically illiterate tweet ever'?

The tweet was:

You have families out there paying 6, 8, 10 percent on student debt but you can refinance your homes at 3 percent. What sense is that?

? Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 26, 2015

A supporter responds:

That's nonsense. I pay more interest on my house than my student loans. Student loans are artificially created loans and it does NOT make sense for them to be so high. Especially if we want an educated country.

[LynchPin1477]

"artificially created loans"

Please, go on. I'd love to hear more about this.

[Free Society]

If he were arguing that when lending capital is actually wealth seized from tax payers that constitutes an "artificial loan" I might give him a pass after pointing out the semantic problems with that statement. But since he's a Bernie supporter I'm going to assume that he believes loans grow on collectivized tree farms.

[Swiss Servator]

Fucking risk, how does it work?

[BigT]

Ever try to foreclose on a BS degree?

[UnCivilServant]

It just takes an icepick and a hammer.

[Pat (PM)]

Goddammit.

[Pat (PM)]

Maybe if they start printing college diplomas on gold tablets so that they can be repossessed by the lender...

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

4,454 likes.

Yikes!

My poem for the day.

[Lord Humungus]

Rufus once wrote a poem
that was a rather short tome
it spoke of rancid poutine
that was quite gelatine

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

FOR THE LOVE OF INFINITY I DON'T LIKE POUTINE!

[Citizen X]

No, you LOOOOOOVE it.

[WTF]

No true canuck dislikes poutine.

[Elspeth Flashman]

OK, I lol'd.

[gaijin]

Hey, Bernie knows what to do with the collateral securing a student loan!

/MandatoryPeaceCorp

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

That is spelled /MandatoryPeaceCorpse

[R C Dean]

Student loans are artificially created loans

Almost entirely a government-created, supported, and controlled market, so yes, I would rate this as true.

[Rhywun]

So are home loans.

[R C Dean]

Sadly, this is also true.

[Ken Shultz]

"Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning denied allegations made by an Al-Jazeera documentary that he used human growth hormone."

The guy that made the allegation that the Manning used HGH, Chuck Sly, has completely recanted his story about Peyton Manning using HGH.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=14442042

If Al Jazeera airs this documentary after that recantation, I hope Peyton Manning sues the crap out of them.

[UnCivilServant]

But it's obvious he used HGH, he's not infant-sized. So he much have been under its influence... even if it was manufactued by his own body.

[Not okay]

Basically every player who's used steroids had their provider deny it. That's hardly evidence. Also, it already aired.

[Lord Humungus]

My house got hit by a high windstorm on Thursday early AM. A corner of front gutter ended up in the back yard and some of the roof cap got removed. Imagine a lusty Lord Humungus running around in his boxers and a t-shirt... (no shoes)... tugging on the remaining gutter that's wildly swinging around in the wind.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Ha!

I kept an eye on my Tempo. I didn't secure it with cement blocks; we normally don't get high winds like we got. So I went to pick some up.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Imagine a lusty Lord Humungus...

Nope... can't do it.

[Lord Humungus]

A wary start to Syrian refugees' new life in Kentucky

They had hoped to stay in Jordan, too, but the desert refugee camps had limited water, and the government denied Sarhan permission to work. He tended to some almond trees in exchange for bread. He applied with the United Nations for refugee resettlement, stating a preference for Europe, where a few friends had been sent; or for Canada, which had offered to take in 50,000 Syrian refugees; or for Australia, because he had seen pictures of its rolling farmland dotted with sheep.

Instead, in the randomness of refugee assignment, his case had been referred to the United States. After two years of interviews and security checks his family had been booked on one-way flights to Louisville, where now the van pulled onto a street of boarded-up homes and stopped at a refurbished yellow house. Their interpreter and their caseworker from a refugee agency greeted them at the door.

"Welcome. This is where you will live," the caseworker said.

[Tonio]

I originally read that as "a Warty Start..."

[Lord Humungus]

Once Warty starts there is only one end.

[Citizen X]

...and given the Calabi-Yau manifold nature of the Doomcock's structure, the end is only the beginning.

[Troy muy grande boner]

A ham in every fridge and a dungeon in every basement.

[Free Society]

His oldest daughter was carrying an American flag she'd been given during a pre-departure cultural orientation for refugees. They had been taught that Americans believed in wearing seat belts, that girls and boys attended school together, and that recent terrorist attacks in Paris and California had caused a backlash against Muslims. They'd been told about Donald Trump, and how his supporters talked of shutting down mosques, banning Arabic and creating a government registry of Muslims. These were some of the things Sarhan knew about the United States.

Free housing, free healthcare, free educashun, free food too no doubt. And probably to the tune of 250k per year for this one household. Plus wonderful Federal government propaganda to predispose newcomers to the Democrats. Totally a win for liberty that all libertarians must support.

[Rhywun]

Geez, can't we let them settle in a little before radicalizing them?

[lap83]

and that recent terrorist attacks in Paris and California had caused a backlash against Muslims

as evidenced by......? I remember a Salon article (or some other similarly respectable website) with a white person saying they drove in a cab with a driver who had to go like two hours without passengers because racism after the Paris attack. Oh and Trump said mean things. That backlash?

[Rhywun]

a white person saying they drove in a cab with a driver who had to go like two hours without passengers because racism after the Paris attack

Which was complete horseshit because 99% of the cabbies in NYC are Muslims so what, people just decided not to travel anywhere?

[Lord Humungus]

The Great Republican Revolt
The GOP planned a dynastic restoration in 2016. Instead, it triggered an internal class war. Can the party reconcile the demands of its donors with the interests of its rank and file?

You can measure their pessimism in polls that ask about their expectations for their lives?and for those of their children. On both counts, whites without a college degree express the bleakest view. You can see the effects of their despair in the new statistics describing horrifying rates of suicide and substance-abuse fatality among this same group, in middle age.

White Middle Americans express heavy mistrust of every institution in American society: not only government, but corporations, unions, even the political party they typically vote for?the Republican Party of Romney, Ryan, and McConnell, which they despise as a sad crew of weaklings and sellouts. They are pissed off. And when Donald Trump came along, they were the people who told the pollsters, "That's my guy."

They aren't necessarily superconservative. They often don't think in ideological terms at all. But they do strongly feel that life in this country used to be better for people like them?and they want that older country back.

[Juvenile Bluster]

They ain't called the Stupid Party for nothing...

[John]

They are geniuses compared to Dreyer.

[John]

Freer is such an idiot he manages to be comically wrong even when he is onto something. His description of the problem is quite good. He then proceeds to say the solution is for Republicans to embrace Obamacare. No kidding. How can someone not in a sheltered workshop be that stupid?

[R C Dean]

Exactly. He basically says "The base is pissed off at the establishment because the establishment is on board with every significant Democrat initiative. The solution: embrace every significant Democrat initiative."

[Rhywun]

And when Trump wins he and his ilk will pen reams of navel-gazing bullshit in an attempt to comprehend it.

[CatoTheChipper]

Obviously, the idiot doesn't know what ObamaCare really is. I've posted here several times about my own case, in which as a self-employed consultant I have a marginal tax rate of over 500,000%. (This occurs when income is at 400% of poverty line.) However, I have run into an ObamaCare absurdity that make this one pale in comparison.

I support a local non-profit that provides residential, training, and transportation services to cognitively handicapped adults. One of the residents, a 55 year-old woman who has worked as a grocery checker since she was 20, recently got hit by a car, and now is not only cognitively but physically disabled. She was dismissed from her job, and receives a meager disability check. During her career, she lived frugally and saved in a 401k for retirement. Her father tried to sign her up for ObamaCare after he COBRA benefits ran out, only to learn that it would cost about $440/month. The ObamaCare subsidy only applies if one makes over 100% of poverty line. Below that, the subsidy is zero. The theory is that she would go on Medicaid. In practice, however, she doesn't qualify for Medicaid due to its asset test in my state. If she made $11770/year, she'd qualify for the ObamaCare subsidy, and pay next to nothing for insurance. But since she makes less than this poverty threshold, she gets no subsidy and there's no way she can afford it.

This is the real ObamaCare.

[Lord Humungus]

Argh... the new Firefox version has disabled fascr since the add-on isn't "verified".

[Pat (PM)]

They're killing the existing extensions framework anyway and migrating to Chrome extensions. For the time being, you might want to just use Chrome.

[Lord Humungus]

but I don't like chrome *whines*

[Pat (PM)]

Neither do I. Fortunately, the only extension I use is ABP. I could probably get by with Midori, actually, but I prefer to use Qt applications if I can.

[UnCivilServant]

but I don't like chrome *whines*

Neither do I, but for some inexplicable reason, the people at Mozilla keep imitating all the worst aspects of Chrome. First it was the version grind, then it was putting the tabs in the wrong spot and disabling the right location. I just want to shake them and shout "Chrome is shit! Stop chasing it!"

[Pat (PM)]

The unsolicited Pocket integration and targeted ads on the New Tab page were a nice touch too...

[Rhywun]

for some inexplicable reason

Maybe because Chrome has 3-4 times the usage? I tried going back to Firefox once or twice and it wasn't pleasant - and right around the time they announced the plugin overhaul. I figured why bother when plugins are going to disappear for who knows how long.

[UnCivilServant]

IE also has an overblown user base - that doesn't make it good.

[Rhywun]

No but IE installed by default. People have to choose to use Chrome. Big difference.

[UnCivilServant]

Here's another angle to this appeal to popularity - all of the users who like the shit way chrome does things are already likely to be using chrome. Aping chrome is unlikely to make users switch, while it has the effect of driving of the users who like the way mozilla used to do things.

There is no good reason to chase chrome, as it involves abandoning the market segment they'd previous served to fight in someone else's segment at a strong disadvantage.

[bdhr]

Lord Humungus: It appears you may be using an outdated version. The latest version is signed and should not cause this error.

PM: Mozilla is (eventually) killing XUL/XPCOM extensions. fascr is built on the Addons SDK, aka Jetpack, which so far they say they intend to keep supporting.

[Lord Humungus]

yeah my version is old - will update it

[Fried]

you can manually override this in about:config by setting xpinstall.signatures.required to false.

[Lord Humungus]

ah thank you. will do.

[Fried]

you can also get greasonable to work with the Greasemonkey extension in Firefox if you prefer.

[Crusty Juggler]

Yes, thank you.

[R C Dean]

Don't use Firefox. Punish them for firing their CEO at the behest of the proggies.

[straffinrun]

Got my new Vape. Anything real worries with these contraptions? Save the oral fixation jokes. Fuck it, go ahead.

[Lord Humungus]

http://i.imgur.com/lv6e1mu.jpg

[straffinrun]

Timing. Well played. Useless to me, but well played.

[Lord Humungus]

http://i.imgur.com/1hpB6oW.jpg

[straffinrun]

Are you done?

[gaijin]

that's what she said

[Lord Humungus]

I can go on. *pouts*

[Florida Man]

I was talking to a pulmonologist about vaping and he tells his patients that smoking is a known risk and vaping is an unknown risk. Not exactly an endorsement, but it makes sense.

[UnCivilServant]

Aren't you supposed to be missing?

[Florida Man]

I'm trying to reach Yeti status. Everyone claims to have seen me, but no one believes them.

[Citizen X]

Given your location, don't you mean "skunk ape status"?

[Caput Lupinum]

Shouldn't that be Skunk Ape status?

[Florida Man]

On second thought... Maybe more like abominable snowman.

[Swiss Servator]

FL!!!!

Good to see you - I was getting worried.

[Florida Man]

I'm well. I just got too steeped in politics and had to back away for awhile.

[Swiss Servator]

Screw politics - just stay here for the STEVE SMITH and Warty jokes.

[Tonio]

That is a perfect example of medico-legal advice. He knows that the short term risks of vaping are way lower that the long-term risks. I find it useful to point out to the doc that you know what's going on - "I know what the medico-legal answer is, I was looking for *your* opinion, you know as my healthcare provider - for now."

[Florida Man]

He's not my MD we were just chatting. I find physicians to be fairly paternalistic in general, so even though he does not know of any risk it's safer to tell the "kids" no, because I say so, from a liability stand point. My personal guess is vaping is probably safe because they are rigging studies to make it look dangerous. It was dangerous they could just produce the results.

[R C Dean]

he tells his patients that smoking is a known risk and vaping is an unknown risk

Well, I suppose, but there is no reason to believe that vaping is within an order of magnitude of the risk of smoking.

[Lord Rollingpin]

Vaping may be an unknown risk but it is an unknown small risk. There is zero tar in the vape cloud so the risk is way lower.

[Crusty Juggler]

Hey, when I quit smoking cigarettes I wanted to spend a lot of time with something else in my mouth, too. I get it.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

...GO ON.

[Swiss Servator]

NOOOOO! DON'T!

[straffinrun]

And Florida man is the only one with useful info. Proud of yourselves?

[Sevo]

straffinrun|12.28.15 @ 9:39AM|#
"...Anything real worries with these contraptions?..."

Yeah. Every two-bit do-gooder is trying to outlaw them.

[Swiss Servator]

^THIS^

[Mr Drew]

I've been using one for months now and have no real complaints. I started out with a cheap one and then once i was confident that I would continue to use it, upgraded to a better battery and tank.

My only real complaint is the "flavors". 1,500 flavors and all of them taste like candy. I asked for something that tastes like a Lucky Strike and the sales person directed me to something called Jon Wayne. Sounds like a hard core smoke, right? Alas, it tastes like mild tobacco that has been soaked in maple syrup for a month.

On the upside, with no real effort my Lucky consumption has slowly dwindled to zero. Plus I get to be snarky with the self-righteous. "Sir, there is no smoking permitted anywhere on the grounds of [wherever]." "Well, thank God I'm not smoking then"

[straffinrun]

I took a few pulls of my buddy's a few weeks back and like it, so I just got the nice one. Tastes a bit off, but I find it hard to believe it could be worse for you than cigarettes.

[Rhywun]

Don't get comfortable. "Vaping" is quickly becoming the exact equivalent of "smoking" everywhere.

[R C Dean]

1,500 flavors and all of them taste like candy.

I think you mis-spelled "ass".

[Tonio]

Enjoy. I used vaping as a way to taper down and quit. It's a lot easier to taper down when you don't have to commit to a whole cigarette. If you want to quit, try telling yourself - OK, I can do without that last puff. And before you know it your consumption will be down to the point that you can easily quit.

Fuck all those public health nannies and busybodies. Every. Last. One.

[Florida Man]

I've met several people who switched to vaping just to be healthier and ended up quitting even though it wasn't their goal.

[Lord Humungus]

Donald Trump's bile is a healing balm for spurned Americans

The simple truth is, the more provocative his language, the deeper and more passionate his support. He is no dummy; there is a method to his proverbial madness. Mr Trump says ? to the growing legions who will listen ? what tens of millions of Americans are already thinking. Respect or revile him, the man has hit a vein.

I spent three hours in a deep dialogue focus group with 29 Trump supporters. The phenomenon of "The Donald" is rooted in a psyche far deeper and more consequential than next November's presidential election. His support denotes an abiding distrust in ? and disrespect for ? the governing elite. These individuals do not like being told by Washington or Wall Street what is best for them, do not like the direction America is headed in, and disdain President Barack Obama and his (perceived) circle of self-righteous, tone-deaf governing partisans.

Trump voters are not just angry ? they want revenge.

[John]

That is what the idiots in the media left and right don't get. It is not that people like Trump so much as it is that they hate politicians and the media.

[straffinrun]

The media also hates that he's playing them for fools and they can't doing anything about it.

[Sevo]

NYT a couple of weeks ago:
'The Donald is *making* us cover him! We want to quit, really, we just can't! Sob!'

[Illocust]

Yep, the bow and apologize ritual that has become so prevalent is driving folks nuts. People who refuse to do so have been gaining increasing amounts of popularity. Just look at that protein powder company that saw a huge sales jump after refusing to bow to the SJWs about bikini bodies.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

circle of self-righteous, tone-deaf governing partisans

His cronies are some of the worst people I have ever had the displeasure of working with. They aren't just shady, but they're uncouth and obnoxious.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

(though I predict a Trump administration would be just as uncouth and shady)

[R C Dean]

I'm sure it would, but there's value in turning over your class of cronies every so often. Keeps them from getting too entrenched. See, e.g., every one-party town or state, ever.

[R C Dean]

Trump voters are not just angry ? they want revenge.

Indeed they do. Because they feel they have been betrayed.

I'd love to see Trump come out and make a high-profile call for somebody to primary Paul Ryan. If the Trumpistas got behind that, it could well happen.

[UnCivilServant]

Somebody is already going to primary Paul Ryan.

[Warty]

Any professional athlete that doesn't take HGH and steroids and every other drug he can get his hands on is a fucking idiot.

[Crusty Juggler]

Keep Warty out of the Hall of Fame!

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Warty is like Phil Hartman after he ripped his arms off trying to lift weights.

[Crusty Juggler]

Using HGH to assist with injury recovery is something that all athletes and non-athletes should at least consider.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

Whoopie! A Zeppelin....errrr....A380!

[Crusty Juggler]

Peyton Manning hired Ari Fleischer to deny HGH report: guilty!

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

Oh for fuck's sake. Is that what that scumbag is doing with his time theses days? Probably making a crapload of cash at it, too.

[Sevo]

So NPR is going to run a program on what to eat next week, and the TV critic in the Chron luvs him some food advice. Turns out it's featuring a guy names Michale Pollan who 'cuts through the fog and offers simple advice; Eat Food!'
Except, he's a luddite and one of his rules is:
"Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. "When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes, or eat something with 15 ingredients you can't pronounce, ask yourself, "What are those things doing there?" Pollan says."
http://www.webmd.com/food-reci.....for-eating

One more f'ing primitivist, pining for the pure, pre-Edenic past. Man, I'm tired of these dimwits! I hope he goes to Chipotle and gets some nice, fresh organic E. coli.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

Pollan is a "favorite" here among the reason commentariat. Can't remember what he did, but his name appeared frequently here a couple years ago. Maybe something to do with the NYC soda ban?

Anyhoo, he's an asshole.

[Sevo]

He got under my radar, prolly since I ignore any food 'moralist'.

[Illocust]

It both is and isn't good advice. If you don't know what you're eating it's hard to eat healthy, but that isn't the same as man made chemicals are bad. It just means you need to familiarize yourself with the different names for simple sugars.

[Sevo]

"It just means you need to familiarize yourself with the different names for simple sugars."
That's NOT what he means, and I don't personally give a fig about 'simple sugars'.

[Illocust]

That was my advice at the end, not his. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Ingredients in a banana. How many of them can you not pronounce, Mr. Pollan?

[Sevo]

Yeah, well, his Grandma wouldn't eat one of *those*, either.

[R C Dean]

My guess is you'd be surprised what Grandma would put in her mouth.

[Rhywun]

Grandma probably spent a quarter to a third of her income on food. Those were the days!

[Sevo]

And only got food poisoning, oh, once a month or so! Damn korpurashunz, killing all those 'natural' things!

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

I just started watching House of Cards. That is one fantastic show. My favorite scene so far was where Claire was explaining to the dying secret service guy why she married FU, because he assumed she was some unhappy, childless political wife.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Yeh but it gets more infuriatingly bizarre in unraveling the Claire and Francis as they go from sociopaths to psychopaths.

Didn't the creator once say he made them Democrats so as to gain sympathy from viewers? It had the opposite impact for me. I loathe them to the point I would strangle them they're so primal in their evil.

[Crusty Juggler]

It is pretty good show up to a point, so let Kristen enjoy the show until she gets to that point, Rufus. Sheesh.

[Michael]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/.....story.html

Moreover, worker wages will get an additional boost from higher minimum wages taking effect in a number of cities and states. California's new minimum pay goes to $10 an hour in January. The increase will amount to an 11% pay raise for Marco Ruiz, a carwash worker in Anaheim who earns $9 an hour.

That's an additional $40 a week, more than enough to cover Ruiz's bus fare to his job from his home in Norwalk, which he rents with his brother-in-law. "It's marvelous," said the divorced 35-year-old, who started at the carwash eight years ago making $7.50 an hour, the state's minimum wage then.

Someone please enlighten me here. It seems that every time I read a story about the minimum wage, there's always a mention of someone that has been toiling away at a job for years and never managing to get any sort of raise. Are these examples supposed to tug at the heartstrings somehow? It seems that it would actually take a concerted effort to never get any sort of raise aside from what is mandated by law.

[UnCivilServant]

I read that and asked "Is he avoiding alimony, or is he a chronic fuck-up?"

[Rich]

Perhaps he's just mentally challenged.

[UnCivilServant]

Doubt it. The mentally challenged who manage to hold down a job tend to be very hard workers, and would earn more than the legal minimum through sheer effort.

[Rich]

Good point, although I have known mentally challenged people who were also assholes, to their detriment.

[Rasilio]

Ex con on the sex offender registry could explain it

[sarcasmic]

It said he started at $7.50 and worked up to $9.

[UnCivilServant]

Are you sure that wasn't all due to minimum wage increases?

[sarcasmic]

Dunno. Let me look it up. Sure 'nuff. You're right.

That's ridiculous though. Every couple years the minimum goes up fifty cents to a dollar. That's about what a low-skilled worker could earn in raises anyway. If anything, the state is forcing his wage to rise faster than he could through his own effort. I see no reason to look down on the guy for it.

[Michael]

Yeah, with $9 being the current minimum. The dude's been working there for eight years and managed nothing more than minimum wage increases.

[sarcasmic]

When I used to work in fast food, I remember how they'd make a big deal out of giving everyone raises, right before the minimum went up again. It was rare for someone to earn more than fifty cents above minimum unless they were in management. I don't see why a car wash would be different.

[Michael]

Trust me, I know how shitty working in some jobs can be and do sympathize, but the dude has been at that job for EIGHT YEARS. I don't think the employment situation in California has been so dire as to discourage him from looking for something better in that time.

[sarcasmic]

Maybe he likes it.

[Rich]

Maybe he's getting some under the table.

*** wink wink nudge nudge ***

[UnCivilServant]

How many of the employees were eight year veterans?

[sarcasmic]

How many of the employees were eight year veterans?

Most of the employees were kids looking for experience, or adult losers who couldn't find anything better. The former didn't work for more than a couple years, while the latter tended to be lifers.

Now though I don't see much of either when I go to such restaurants. Seems the ever increasing minimum wage has priced them out of a job.

[Free Society]

Are these examples supposed to tug at the heartstrings somehow? It seems that it would actually take a concerted effort to never get any sort of raise aside from what is mandated by law.

It's an anecdote meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator in society. Many r-selected lowlifes can see themselves in Ruiz here.

[Rhywun]

That's an additional $40 a week, more than enough to cover Ruiz's bus fare to his job from his home in Norwalk

... until the bus fare, along with the cost of everything else he purchases, inevitably eats up his raise.

[R C Dean]

No prob. We'll just legislate him another one!

[MSimon]

Ferrari makes Model Ts?

[Lord Humungus]

http://www.caranddriver.com/ferrari/california-t

[GILMORE?]

The California T is the car you buy if you want to be able to claim you own a Ferrari, but don't actually want a car that's any faster or sexier or more technologically advanced than something costing 1/3 as much. Its the "idiot's Ferrari".

That's why its named the "California".

[Juvenile Bluster]

Theresa May wants the UK government to be able to look at everybody's internet habits, so The Independent tried to turn the tables. You can guess what happened.

The Home Office has refused to make Theresa May's internet browsing history public under freedom of information rules, arguing that a request to do so is "vexatious".

The Independent requested the Home Secretary's work browsing history for the last week of October under the Freedom of Information Act.

[...]

"We have considered your request and we believe it to be vexatious. Section 14(1) of the Act provides that the Home Office is not obliged to comply with a request for information of this nature," officials said in a response.

"We have decided that your request is vexatious because it places an unreasonable burden on the department, because it has adopted a scattergun approach and seems solely designed for the purpose of 'fishing' for information without any idea of what might be revealed."

[Suthenboy]

*scratches head*

How do libertarians explain Europe....how indeed...

[R C Dean]

I think its more of a cautionary tale.

[Rich]

Under the new Investigatory Powers Bill announced by Ms May the internet browsing history of everyone in the UK will have to be stored for a year and police and security services will be able to access the list of visited websites without any warrant.

http://www.fytw.co.uk

[Alice Bowie]

Oh' Chicago Chicago Chicago.

The COPs are now shooting the neighbors.

These are the people to Blame:

1. The BLACK Father calling the CHICAGO POLICE on his BLACK son.
2. The NEIGHBOR for trying to help...in the world we live in, "No good deed goes unpunished!"
3. The BLACK son (THE main person to blame) for Bat swinging and causing the problem in the 1st place.

As for the Chicago Cops shooting 1st and asking questions later, that's par for the course.
The officer responsible for the shooting is now on Paid Vacation and will be cleared on this...as always.

[R C Dean]

Seems like a textbook case for trying the Taser first, doesn't it?

[Drake]

Textbook case of never calling the cops on a family member or anyone you don't want shot dead.

[Fat Hubie]

Just look at all those dead people inthe sunny South!
When are "WE" going to outlaw bad weather?

[DenverJ]

If bad weather is outlawed, only outlaws will have bad weather.