Lena Dunham Had Private Misgivings About Hillary Clinton, Will Chris Rock Boycott the Oscars? A.M. Links
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According to The New York Times, Lena Dunham's vigorous public support for Hillary Clinton is at odds with her private misgivings about how Hillary covered for Bill's mistreatment of women.
- Teresa Buchanan, the Louisiana State University instructor fired for using inappropriate language in the classroom, has filed a lawsuit alleging that LSU wrongly applied Title IX guidance in her case. I previously wrote about her situation here.
- The Flint water crisis may be a scandal, but it's not one primarily caused by Republicans.
- Chris Rock is under pressure to boycott the Oscars.
- The Hulk Hogan lawsuit has prompted Gawker to take on a new investor.
- Thousands of students are asking the federal government to forgive their loans on the grounds that colleges deceived them about their post-graduation career possibilities.
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...Lena Dunham's vigorous public support for Hillary Clinton is at odds with her private misgivings about how Hillary covered for Bill's mistreatment of women.
Shut up and vote with your va-jj.
The only less interesting than Lena Dunham's public political opinions are her private political opinions.
Her and Spike Lee.
Very slow news day?
Everyone's getting ready for the blizzard.
In the past people have referred to these types of storms as snowpocalypse or snowmageddon. I want to find a way to work Donal Trump into a catchy nick name for this one, but I can't figure out how. Ideas?
Blizzard? What, are you Yanks expecting one inch of snow?
BLOOOOOOZARD!
I'm supposed to get up to two feet. That's about 60 cm in your socialist unit system.
Snow-over?
Snow-over is decent.
Snow-Over of Trumpian size?
Did you hear about the snowstorm, it's going to hyoooge.
It seems like it's going to miss me. I'm very disappointed.
Dammit.
Start with 'uuuuuge.
Snow-shlonging.
Donald Dump?
Snowtorious BIG.
(hat tip to Lisa May on Twitter)
Its a blisteringly cold 53F here and expected to only get up to 72 today. It hasn't snowed in Yuma since 1932 - a record breaking 1.5 inches.
And her opinions about her privates.
Hello.
Rufus, do you dance to remember, or do you dance to forget?
i dance to forget to remember,
with up so floating many bells down
Take your Commie poetry elsewhere, fella!
I dance to honor the devil.
Safety Dance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM4okRvCg2g
or do I Dance With Myself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG1NrQYXjLU
Fun fact: Men without hats are from a wealthy section of Montreal called Outremont. The French version of Westmount.
Rufus dances because he *must*.
Makes you wonder if Bill's been hitting that.
Eww
Lena Dunham
Who? And why the fuck would I care?
She's a culture-maker... or trend-setter... or something. Look, she has a twitter account with subscribers.
Twitter?! I'd better pay attention!
She questioned Hillary. She must be part of the patriarchy! Misogynist apologist.
Women do that by having children and raising them according to their value system. Unlike normal elections, pussy voting requires effort and sacrifice, and it seems that women collectively tend to pussy vote more often for right wing values or outright patriarchy, mainly because the ones who support a more progressive view pussy vote less or not at all.
Teresa Buchanan, the Louisiana State University instructor fired for using inappropriate language in the classroom, has filed a lawsuit...
Title IX seems like a bonanza for attorneys.
A bonanza for attorneys on both sides. It's so arbitrarily worded/enforced that anyone can sue, or counter-sue over anything they feel like. Truly a situation where the attorneys are the only winners.
The lawyers always win. In every situation there is litigation...win.
The was a writer back in old England who suggested a solution for this problem. William something or other.
That's not what that line means.
It is when *I* say it.
Did you read your linked article HoD? Cause he is arguing that is exactly what it means.
Gee, I dont know. Most cases settle before any litigation is completed. If anything, Plaintiffs in civil actions are more likely to win.
The lawyers always win.
As an employee of a mid-sized regional law firm, i have no problem with this.
Lowell "The Hammer" Stanley?
I WISH.
NYT is worried that we won't be ready for driverless cars. And by "we", they mean government.
Jesus H. - that picture...the horror...the horror...
Who carved a face into a potato? That's just weird.
*polite applause*
Oh, sure, people carve up pumpkins and it's no problem, but you carve up one potat-o'-lantern for St. Patrick's and it's "hurtful" and "insensitive".
It started in Ireland by carving turnips you racist bastard. *swigs Tullamore Dew and takes a swing at a fellow pub crawler
Tullamore Dew sucks.
There. I said it.
*impolite applause*
It even scared away the alt text.
I have to admit when I first you Cosmos talking about Lena Dunham, and how awful she was, I thought y'all were discussing Lena Headey.
And I thought what a bunch of fools you were since Lena Headey is the Milfiest Milf since Milftown was founded.
Well, Elizabeth Hurley is pretty MILFie too.
agreed. Hurley vs Headey - I'm not that picky.
Would and would. Seriously. Even if I had to have both at the same time.
Break out the energy drinks.
Hola'? Salma Hayek?
Boom.
Have you not heard of Monica Belluci? Or Camryn Manheim?
*Bellucci.
Monica Belluci
Boom.
I made that same mistake.
Boys, boys, boys.
There's no need to fight over this topic. You are all correct.
Chris Rock is under pressure to boycott the Oscars.
Is Chris Rock's absence isn't going to make them any less lame. Also, I doubt voting members will give a flying eff. Pointless, therefore he should do it.
I moused over, and the link did not include this, and now I am disappoint.
Oh, Rico.
Better late then never, I have been boycotting the Oscars for decades
You know who else was under pressure?
David Bowie?
Ed Harris in The Abyss?
Jacqueline Bisset?
Cologne Imam explains why women there were assaulted - they were asking for it.
http://www.breitbart.com/londo.....e-perfume/
Because they wore cologne...
*narrows gaze*
Using that rationale, if they had been in another certain German city, those women would have been subject to full on dogging.
Nice.
Brav'.
We should all give this guy a big round of applause. Had we attributed those motivations to the attackers, we'd have been accused of racism and islamophobia. Here we have a credentialed spokescritter for Islam admitting that those men are, indeed, savages.
The fact that even 'moderate' Muslims command their women be covered suggests they indeed think this.
Sickening.
It is funny that Orthodox Judaism and Islam start from a similar tenet: That women should dress modestly because men are visually stimulated and are easily led to sexual thoughts. Though Orthodox women do dress modestly, they don't have to wear a sheet, and they only cover their hair after they get married.
But, Orthodox Jewish men generally don't rape their wives or beat them, or kill their daughters for dating a non-Jew (they may disown them, but they don't commit "honor killings").
That raises a good question. Are the ones who don't cover definitionally liberal (?) muslims?
Oh, I came to that conclusion yesterday.
"White Diamonds. These have always brought me fuck."
I like the link on the right column better.
I bet you that demographic actually votes at a pretty high rate.
I don't vote.
I'd like to know what's wrong with masturbating to anime.
Rick Wilson's twitter bio is: GOP Media Guy, Dad, Pilot, Hunter, Amateur Epistemologist, Cognitive Engineer, Cutter of Brush. Fake 45th POTUS. Callsign: GOP Establishment Actual.
That is a real man. Channeling my inner Brietbart: this guy, and the people like him, are part of the reason Trump will be the GOP nominee. My assumption is that Wilson is either working for Trump, or wants Trump to win.
Callsign: GOP Establishment Actual
??? Srsly?
"Uh, Establishment Actual, what is your current grid?"
....
"...splash out.... continuous fire, over..."
Go on....
Most of the dudes look like girls and everyone screams a lot.
It's easy to tell the girls from the guys. The girls are the ones who spend the most time naked.
The screaming - stipulated. Everyone dies, sometimes repeatedly. If you want anime with manly men, you'll just have to watch Supernatural.
Hey, you do you. I'm just telling you why normal people look down on it.
and tentacles *nervously licks lips*
And pixelated genitalia.
But it's art! Erotica! My bits tingle when I heard breathless Japanese panting that makes it 80% of the way through translation.
E.g. "I hope very much Asuki san doesnt not discover my perverted hallway peeping!"
This is the religion that CAIR thinks is taking over for MLK?
I don't think so.
Are Salafists in general basically fucking scumbags? Whenever I hear about Sunni terrorism and shitbaggery, seems like either Salafists or Wahabbis are involved, if any school is identified.
Dunham's vigorous public support for Hillary Clinton is at odds with her private misgivings about how Hillary covered for Bill's mistreatment of women.
I suppose Dunham thinks Hillary should have covered more like *she* did.
The Hulk Hogan lawsuit has prompted Gawker to take on a new investor.
Someone who wants to keep their name off the site?
Hey, at least they have a union.
Chris Rock is under pressure to boycott the Oscars.
I truly pity anyone who actually gives a flying crap about this, or about the Oscars, period.
I'm telling Aunt Viv you said that.
Why you gotta bring Auntie Viv into this? Hey man, you going to church on Sunday? Say hi to your mom.
Chris Rock is under pressure.
This is our last dance?
My suspicion has long been that many liberals tow the party lion about Hillary in public, but privately have misgivings. Clinton and her supporters may be in for a nasty surprise come the primaries. Also pollsters.
I have quite a few liberals and liberal-leaning folks in my family. At least in my group of acquaintances this is very true. It would not shock me if Hillary!'s support is a mile wide and half an inch deep. I was very GOP back in the early 90s so it's not like I'm unaware of the scandals from then, but even I didn't grasp just how odious her actions towards Bill's victims were. Hillary, the Democrats, and their media operatives very much want to pretend that all of her Bill-era actions are well known, discussed, and a dead item. But a woman in her early 20s today might not actually know that Hillary got in front of a microphone and said that the group of women accusing Bill of sexual assault were bimbos. That 20ish woman might not know that Bill was accused of a no-shit rape by a woman who has maintained her story consistently for 30+ years and has been slandered by the Clintons and their media operatives as a result. That 20ish woman might not also know that Bill demonstrably did quid pro quo sexual harassment of Monica and then sat back and allowed that young woman's life to be destroyed.
and then sat back and allowed that young woman's life to be destroyed.
Far be it from me to defend Clinton the rapist but I am unaware of how her life was destroyed. She got book deals, appeared on SNL, and even remains somewhat of a celebrity.
Are you joking? Monica was treated apallingly by the Clintons and their apparatchiks. You know this.
Does anyone else have the image of James Carville literally spitting the words "drag a 100 dollar bill through a trailer park....." burned into their brain? It was one of the ugliest moments of televised politics I can remember.
Particularly egregious because we now know that he knew at the time that there was at least some substance to the claims.
Sleazy operatives gonna operate sleazily.
Does anyone else have the image of James Carville literally spitting the words "drag a 100 dollar bill through a trailer park....." burned into their brain? It was one of the ugliest moments of televised politics I can remember.
I thought that comment was in relation to Paula Jones.
Gennifer Flowers, actually.
So he says now... but the list was long and getting longer and Paula Jones was the name on the table at the time.
Actually kinda worse if he really was talking about Flowers.... didn't they have a long-term affair? Calling her trailer trash is kinda dissing your boy.
The thing that made it relevant with Jones was the "vast right-wing conspiracy" pulling her forward to charge Bill with sexual harassment. I think the Clinton spin machine story on Flowers was that A.) it never happened.. and B.) it is old news and everybody already knew about it when he was Governor and it is all in the past and it is a private matter and just move on already. The contradiction of these positions has never been a problem.
But doesn't she deserve as much blame as anyone? I mean, she wanted to fuck the president from the start, didn't she?
Blame for what? For making herself a public laughingstock? Because I don't think that was something she did at all.
And your life totally isn't destroyed if the slut-shaming makes you famous.
Hey, she emerged from 15 years of hiding, in a different country, and she seems to have managed to sort of salvage her life. What else do you want?
What I want, Warty, is a nude spread in Playboy.
Oh wait...
Then again, just because you're famous doesn't making you any less miserable.
She sounds like someone that was beaten into a pulp.
She is probably set for life as a result of the money she received for her story, but whatever life she was going to have prior to taking that internship was ruined by Clinton's harassment. Maybe she regrets it, maybe she doesn't, but I'm certain she'd have a happier life today if Bill did not have a John-like thing for chubbies.
That's the impression I get when I hear her. She sounds unhappy.
Hillary has a black soul.
She also sounds like she still has feelings for him. She takes responsibility for her relationship and pretty much absolves him. I suppose it isn't useful for her to latch on to the idea that she was used by a much more powerful person who didn't have the same type of feelings for her.
Anyway, I heard an interview recently and she sounded like she's been through a lot of therapy on the subject and has moved on - other than some lingering affections. From the interview it sounds like she's finally found a committed relationship - in her early forties.
I dunno if you count that as destroyed or not, but it ain't what her Mama had in mind.
We don't. My interest in politics actually developed because of the Monica scandal. I had no clue about the other accusations until a little before this election cycle. This is all brand spanking new to the politically active in college and other youngish folks.
My interest in cigars developed because of the Monica scandal. Apparently they are very versatile.
My disdain for feminism actually developed by watching NOW suck the cock of a serial sexual predator because it was politically convenient.
It's hilarious that Hillary actually thought that putting Bill front and center while carrying out a "strong independent wymyn!!" angle was going to give her campaign a boost. To the extent that Bill was even an asset, it was to give people the impression that it would be him and not Hillary running things. That Trump essentially neutered him as a campaign asset by reminding people that Bill's a no-shit sexual predator makes it even more delicious.
She was probably counting on the normal GOP sense of decorum (see McCain, Dole, Romney) to insulate her. She certainly didn't count on Trump's bombastic and inhibition-free political style.
Although in hindsight it should have been blindingly obvious. If he'll go after a FOX news reporter who asked a modestly tough question by suggesting she was on her period, I really don't think it was reasonable to assume that Clinton's womanizing and Hillary's slut-shaming were somehow off-limits.
Thousands of students are asking the federal government to forgive their loans on the grounds that colleges deceived them about their post-graduation career possibilities.
Sounds like they need to sue the colleges. Quick, find some attorneys who can promise them a big cash settlement.
While I hate that type of lawsuit, it would be nice to see the traditional colleges on the receiving end of one of those. The academy needs a major comeuppance.
Sadly this is only about for-profit colleges defrauding people (also known as "advertising") and has nothing to do with "traditional" schools.
Yet.
Crap. But like LP, I'm hopeful.
Actually a number of professional schools are getting hit with lawsuits. Mainly law schools (obviously) but other overpriced, second and third-tier schools are starting to see them.
Law students turning against law schools?
Education Department officials say they are still trying to grasp the potential bill that will be footed by taxpayers. They say the cost of forgiveness could ultimately be in the billions of dollars
...
Mr. Mitchell added that borrowers are entitled to forgiveness?as well as potential reimbursement of repaid loans?if they have been defrauded, regardless of the taxpayer cost. "The law is clear about giving students redress when they've been defrauded," he said.
If they can prove fraud (or, more likely, "fraud"), why the hell would taxpayers be on the hook? How about making those guilty of fraud pay?
FYTW
The government is the answer to every question.
Thousands of students are asking the federal government to forgive their loans on the grounds that colleges deceived them about their post-graduation career possibilities.
Makes perfect sense. A service provider defrauded you, so you go after... the federal government... to cover your losses. Perfect. Sense.
Seems legit.
On second thought, they probably know that it wasn't fraud and so they have no chance of winning a suit against the colleges, so their only hope is to go crying to Uncle Sugar, much like the idiots who took out ARMs just before the financial crisis.
Hey, we're all in this together, alright?
"Loan forgiveness" is just a name for things that we choose to do together.
Responsibility, thy name is Chump!
Yeah, if you studied engineering at a cheap state school and worked constantly through college then the only reason you have no debt is that you got lucky. It's your duty as a lucky person to help out those less fortunate, right?
/bitter sarcasm
Isn't it amazing how much bad luck people asking for government handouts have?
Or, like me, you worked but also took some student loans and eventually paid them off. Fuck those kids.
Well, lucky and white.
Suing the wrong people. I've been telling academics for a while now that the claims they make about job placement are fraud for a while now, and they just cock their heads like confused puppies.
Norway sends migrants on anti-rape courses
Can the use of violence be legitimate? How do you know if a woman is consenting to sex?
Is it true that when a woman says 'no' she really means 'yes'?
That is why you tell her the safe word is "supercallafragilisticexpialadotius".
I would have hit Julie Andrews back in the day like hail hits pavement.
My wife hates the Sound of Music though.
Norway thinks this will work?
Norwegian progressivism versus Islamic cultural norms.
Taking bets. Who wins?
"In Norway, it's quite common to hug, to entwine, to dance very closely without it necessarily leading to a sexual encounter."
"BLASPHEMY!"
Take a chance on me? (I know, but still...)
+ everything.
I bet the Norse have more than a few Breiviks waiting in the woods when the rates of rape continue to increase despite the government taking a position and action against this.
Genetic hygene has always been huge in Europe.
I'm going to go with unintentional here.
+1 Aryan(I feel sleezy even typing it)
You know.. uh, you know who else... um.
Iran?
Not always, not these days. "Genetic hygiene" is so unpopular that Europeans are afraid to express any affinity for or any protection towards, their own ethnic group, for fear of being labeled a racist.
Progressivism is fucking doomed in Europe, whatever happens. Islamism might win eventually, but once a critical mass non-Muslims have had enough of their shit, there will be a very hard, very ugly fight (leftists, having already outed themselves as quislings, will be lucky just to be driven out of public life in shame), and the side that doesn't have a homeland to flee to is naturally going to fight more viciously.
The only question is whether the opposition ideology is simple nationalism, Christian extremism (unlikely, considering it's on life support), or some of militant Jacobin liberalism/secularism (not that such a movement couldn't easily also be nationalist). Best bet is a combination of militant secularism and nationalism, since the dividing lines are still very clear in both ethnicity and religion.
An anti rape course? I'd like to sign up.
"Dammit, Libertarian, you failed the final exam again. See you next semester."
Any who watched Lilyhammer and those bureaucrat-welfare scenes know this isn't going to work. If they're even half the losers we saw in the show Norway is in big doo-doo.
Yeah it's too bad they canceled that show. It was a bit campy, but pretty damn funny all in all.
"Thousands of students are asking the federal government to forgive their loans on the grounds that colleges deceived them about their post-graduation career possibilities."
So, these students actually thought that a degree in "communications" would help them become famous? Or that Marxist-feminist thought throughout 20th Century Latvian literature would secure them a job making 80k right out of college?
Look there really aren't any good guys here. Dumb students, college administrators who are just as bad as the worst used car salesmen, Leftist professors who promote their inane bullshit and legislators who decide college should be "free".
It sounds like they are (currently) going after for-profit schools. My guess is this starts as a shakedown of the traditional colleges' competition, but will eventually be turned against them.
They never learn that once the primary targets of those laws are conquered that government always casts the net wider. Laws never go away. Enforcement always expands.
First they came for the University of Phoenix, and I said nothing because I was not a Phoenix...
+1 Fire
"Without the ashes, a phoenix is just a bird getting up."
Yeah, I'm not sure how successfully suing a for-profit college for the fraud of selling a degree they should have reasonably suspected was worthless is a precedent that the rest of the universities and colleges wants to see. The non-profit schools have a couple orders of magnitude more students and money to lose.
Andrew Kelly of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, said there is a danger that the program will become overly broad, encompassing not just instances of outright fraud, but also cases in which borrowers simply regret taking out the debt because they can't find a job, through no fault of the colleges.
"It gets much more difficult when students say, 'Well, I was told this would improve my job prospects.? I don't have a job, and I'm mad about it, and I think I'm defrauded,'" Mr. Kelly said.
Oh you.
So getting a student loan for college is just like college's view of womens sexuality.
"At first I wanted to, but afterwards I regretted it, so it is fraud (rape)".
"He told me I would get a good job (I love you)"
"He said I would start at 80K a year (I won't come in your mouth)"
Good one, BO.
Does it become rape if you blow it where it's verboten?
Is it rape/fraud if all my friends make fun of my degree? What about if my parents embarass me during the holidays?
Of course, the gorilla in the room is the faulty premise that our postsecondary institutions are nothing more than glorified voc-techs.
Well, you can blame university greed for that. I'm pretty sure they had a strong hand in promoting the idea that everyone needs a college education to be successful.
"Thousands of students are asking the federal government to forgive their loans on the grounds that colleges deceived them about their post-graduation career possibilities."
Sure, your loan can be forgiven, but in exchange you have to give up your degree. If you were defrauded the thing is worthless and that won't be a problem. Somehow I think the number of takers would dwindle drastically with that condition.
Excellent.
Additionally, loan forgiveness typically comes with a significant tax hit. If a bank forgives a $300,000 loan on your house, that is essentially a taxable gift. How many students are going to be able to fork $20k+ on the year of forgiveness.
"Thousands of students are asking the federal government to forgive their loans on the grounds that colleges deceived them about their post-graduation career possibilities."
Camel's nose, meet tent. This will lead to full forgiveness for everyone. Let me go find my shocked face. It's around here somewhere.
The fallout will be the most fun to watch.
I hope Chris Rock has balls and ignores this rubbish.
Also, did Spike Lee ever suggest which of the 20 crackers nominated should be replaced and by whom? I saw Idris Elba take the Parliament floor in the UK and pleased a quota system be brought in. How will this help anyone? Does he really want people to cast a cynical eye on awards? Why not bring in a quota for Nobel prizes, I mean, it's waaayyyy too heavily weighted on white Europeans, correct? And why do celebrities get such platforms to spew pseudo-ideas of social engineering anyway?
Even among whiteys there has been controversy as was the case with Scorsese for years.
THIS IS ALL MAKING ME THIRSTY.
No, no, no, its:
"These pretzels are making me thirsty".
No it's
"These PRETZELS are making me THIRSTY."
I think Elba possibly should have been nominated for Beasts of No Nation since he gave a great performance, but I haven't seen 3 of the 5 movies the best supporting actor nominees came from so I don't know how good those performances were.
The two movies I have seen are The Big Short and The Revenant and Christian Bale and Tom Hardy absolutely deserved the nominations, so Elba can't have replaced them.
I can honestly say that of the two movies that I've seen Elba (Prometheus and Pacific Rim) in, in both he gave . . . a workmanlike performance. Nothing special. He's a good-looking man (no homo) at an age where giving the appearance of depth and gravitas is easily accomplished by dressing well and shutting the hell up while everyone else is jabbering. Nothing impressive about that.
BUT QUOTAS WILL FIX THAT. It'll make him GREAT.
The big problem is the Academy doesn't see a lot of the movies either.
You know that Straight Outta Compton screener never made it into the Blu Ray player in the old fart's screening room.
Beasts (on my Netflix queue) never had a theatrical release. It's starting from a deficit for the 'traditionalist' Academy.
This is the guy who went on national tv and said the President was the country's daddy and you should do what daddy says.
http://www.theblaze.com/storie.....ou-listen/
Beards may be more hygienic and bacteria-resistant than shaven skin
clean-shaven men are more than three times as likely to be carrying methicillin-resistant staph auerus (MRSA) on their cheeks
No wonder celebrities just kiss the air around each other's faces.
As a Bearded-American, i can only take joy in science's acceptance of what has so long seemed obvious: beard is superior to not-beard in every way.
Then i will perform manual labor while wearing a flannel shirt, eat a large amount of red meat, and make love to a beautiful woman.
Warty will perform a flannel woman, eat a beautiful shirt and make love to meat.
Is it Thursday already?
Except when you don't trim your moustache for weeks because it seems like too much effort and the stray moustache hairs go up your nose. That's kind of annoying. And eating pussy through your own hair is a little weird, too. Other than that, spot on.
But better than MRSA pussy. That shit will fuck a pussy up, yo.
Beware when banging Brazilian jiu-jitsu girls, bro.
This has to be a Warty-only problem. How do you get your mustache hairs to grow *up*? And unless your beard is of dwarven magnificence (and size) then you shouldn't be having trouble with oral sex. I mean, you don't have to worry about swallowing your own beard when eating anything else.
Moustache hairs are intransigent little fucks. You want them to go to the side, they want to go down, and sometimes they say fuck you and go straight up.
I say "Fuck it" and get out the trimmer when they start curling into my mouth. How Bonnie 'Prince' Billy handles it, i've no idea.
I don't remember if they were up or down the last time i shaved...three years ago...but this little stubble i have I will keep an eye on. I will let you know the orientation next year.
How do you get your mustache hairs to grow *up*?
Celtic follicular genetics are a grab-bag of inconvenient fuckery. For instance, as i power through my mid-thirties i'm starting to thin up top, while my eyebrows are beginning to bush out to the point that they sometimes become tangled with my eyelashes.
But yeah, 'stache hairs grow however the hell they want.
Dude. Fucking eyebrows. Sometimes I get these thick black fuckers that are stiff like wire. One of them I pulled starting bleeding. It felt like it was rooted somewhere behind my eyeball.
Every once in a while i get a long colorless one that reaches up toward my hairline like kudzu on the back of a Georgia double-wide. Said hairline is receding, so it'll never reach, but it's still pretty fucked up. I can't wait until i look like my grandfather, who's got a pair of obese white woolly bear caterpillars hanging out on his forehead (and a backup pair growing out of his earholes).
Had to shave last night as I came into the office today (normally I work out of my house). It would substantially decrease my quality of life to do that every day. Just very unpleasant and now my face feels all weird.
I feel for you. I don't shave but all those damn hipsters running around with their shit haircuts and lumberjack beards is making me think about picking up the razor again. Ugh.
I have the white beard problem. Hair not grey/white. Beard totally white. Ages me by at least 10-15 years.
What about perma-stubble?
+1 Sonny Crockett
Thousands of students are asking the federal government to forgive their loans on the grounds that colleges deceived them about their post-graduation career possibilities.
I should revisit all the cash I paid for music lessons in my high school years. Two decades on and they haven't netted me a single Grammy.
Colleges do really oversell the loans. I doubt your music teachers promised you a successful career in music. If they did, you might have a case.
I'm willing to bet (most) everyone here knows that. When it comes time to pick a subject to mock, in this, we are spoiled for choice.
Bankruptcy needs to be applied to education loans, in seriousness. The silly shit stops only when lenders have to pay for the folly of loaning $80k to a mediocre student majoring in art history.
This is the solution. Make loans dischargeable in bankruptcy.
Of course, afterwards the same people will be screaming that they can't get a loan for a grievance study major.
This is the only solution that has a chance of working. Removing all vetting of loans by underwriting them has created a forest of perverse incentives for everyone involved except the taxpayer.
Can you repossess a degree, though?
If it can be towed, I can repossess it.
/The World's Best Repo Man
I'm aligned with a bankruptcy option, but I'm not sure how you address "intent to defraud" from students who rack-up loans and then discharge. As they say in NJ - "it's a bust-out!"
The same way you address it in every other instance of bankruptcy.
The debt is unsecured, and encouraging lenders to refuse to perform due diligence on unsecured loans with no possibility of that biting them in the arse gets you exactly this result.
Anyone else remember the day the MNG refused to admit there was a difference between secured and unsecured debt? Man, that was tedilarious.
He really was a dishonest, tedious fuckstick.
His phd was guiding him.
Is bankruptcy a good option when these loans are backed by the Fed?
Well, it goes without saying that you have to lose the federal guarantee, also.
As someone who has paid his way through the first couple years back at school and is now looking at going full-time on loans, should I start borrowing gobs in preparation for the eventual loan forgiveness act? I'm going to feel like a chump if it turns out I could have partied and lived on the dole for years without having to work.
Don't do it. The loans could get forgiven and you'll feel like a chump, or they could not get forgiven and you will be a chump. Don't role the dice on the current group of snowflakes maintain or gaining power.
The good thing about the local university is that it's remarkably cheap.
The bad thing about the local university is that it's the local university and has the prestige of a turnip farm.
"According to The New York Times, Lena Dunham's vigorous public support for Hillary Clinton is at odds with her private misgivings about how Hillary covered for Bill's mistreatment of women."
So Lena Dunham is a gargantuan hypocrite who supports Hillary because ZOMG GIRL PRESIDENT even though Dunham is well aware that Hillary Clinton was an enabler of Bill's abusive treatment of a number of women he knew.
Leftists are so laughably immoral sometimes. I don't know how you go through life being this unprincipled.
I don't know how you go through life being this unprincipled.
I don't either, but most people don't seem to have a problem with it.
HHS secretary: Al Sharpton 'has spent his life fighting for what's right'
*** facepalm ***
I thought he spent his life fighting for what's left.
Well, if you define this as what's right.
"It was only one Jew" - Al Sharpton, 2014.
So, what is this bet that I hear Shriek lost recently?
Apparently he claimed he was putting $50,000 on two companies and bet Playa he'd make more money on those stocks than Playa would on stocks he picked.
Both stocks Shriek picked basically lost all their value.
So THAT'S why he hasn't been around lately.
Can't say i've missed him. He should welch on bets more often.
HAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
What two stocks? This is fantastic.
and links to this bet?
Didn't he buy options? I bet it was a paper trade anyway, no one willingly chops off their balls in public like that.
Yeah, I think it was options.
Which is why the bet is already over and done. Just the stocks, you never know, they could recover. But options? They are time limited, and can actually go to zero very quickly.
Wow. Somebody should always have a running bet with him, and just plunge into high risk positions. Even if that only keeps him gone 50% of the time, it's still a big win.
Apparently it regurgitated some bet being made on a yahoo board, and someone here foolishly took the bet.
I am not sure what the staeks were, but the winner was going to be whomever had the better returns.
Unsurprisingly, given that shriek is not sentient, the position it took was utter gibberish and had someone actually invested 100K in that manner they would have lost every... fucking... penny.
Sadly whomever took the bet was crowing about his mighty victory over what is in effect a random number generator regurgitating stuff off the Internet.
Playa. Playa took the other side of that bet, and since the only position of his I'm aware of is Chipotle - which was a goods call made from sound investigation into their financials and business method - I'm willing to ascribe a certain intelligent design to his madness.
I was wondering where PB was - thought he was to ashamed (har!) of the recent stock tumbles.
Its more likely that the loan shark he borrowed 50k from is looking for him.
Like PB could scrape together 50K from the allowance he gets.
Which is why he went to the loanshark.
His mom is a loanshark?!
Virginia man charged with trespassing on property carrying suspicious bacon
I suppose it was also unclear whether the gun was loaded.
bacon "covered in an unknown oily substance"
Bet you anything it was anti-freeze. Ethylene glycol is a wonderful poison for coyotes, dogs, cats, etc. - it tastes sweet, so they narf it down.
Cats just eat it to be assholes, though. They can't taste sweet.
One of mine will eat an entire roll of toilet paper for the same reason.
Makes sense.
Also.
Some upset with new batch of Orange County license plates that spell out 'GAY'
New Volvo? Partner? If the plate fits...
I think it's funny that a man got nominated for best actor for playing a transvestite and another man got nominated for playing an outright Communist, but the lack of black actors nominated proves Hollywood isn't left-wing enough and is standing in the way of the revolution.
No one got nominated for playing a Black man, DUH.
New 'Planet 9' May Be Next to Join Our Solar System
It's Planet 9 from Outer Space!
[narrows gaze]
How Planet 9 found itself in so remote a place is unclear.
Oh, it's *obvious*.
Hey, who hasn't woken up one morning and said "Man, its not clear how I wound up here."
Back in the day, I usually just said "Oh good, I'm indoors."
The Kremlin's Western Lawyers
Over the past 16 8 years, Vladimir Putin Barack Obama has built a system in Russia the U.S. in which power is centralized in the Kremlin White House and the rule of law is suppressed. The Putinist progressive narrative is built on projecting Russia as transforming the U.S. into a bulwark against a decadent bigoted and morally bankrupt West. . . .
Don't be fooled by Bernie Sanders ? he's a diehard communist
Don't be fooled by Sander's supporters. They are also communist, whether they admit it or not.
He was a communist collaborator during the height of the Cold War.
Why would that stop him? Being the money man and public apologist for terrorists hasn't slowed down Rep. Peter King, R-IRA.
Well, even liberal democrats seem to accept the underlying premises of communist arguments. I know it's not popular to refer to all Democrats as socialists, but they're all socialists. And a large fraction of them are communists whether they know it or not.
One of today's brickbats:
"The principal at Virginia's Mount Vernon High School has barred yearbook editors from including selfies taken by a pregnant student showing her baby bump. Principal Esther Mann said she fears the student may regret the photos later in life."
I find it hard to see what's wrong with this.
Numero uno, maybe these gals *will* regret in later years having such photos in their yearbook.
Numero two-o, a yearbook is supposed to honor the graduating class's achievements, and I wouldn't put unwed pregnancy (I doubt these pregnant gals are married) under the heading of achievements.
Numero three-o, if the students feel that strongly about the issue, they can put out their own yearbook, using their own time and their own money, with all the pregnant selfie pictures they want.
Yeah, yearbooks are produced by the school. It seems obvious they have editorial control over the contents.
Oh, it's just one pregnant girl. Well, I doubt she's married.
maybe these gals *will* regret in later years having such photos in their yearbook.
"I fucked up again!"
Several problems with this.
1. This is basically arguing that 'officials' should have blanket authority to prevent you from doing anything because 'you might regret it later in life'. Given that these kids are on the cusp of adulthood and barely children, I would say that that sort of attitude on the part of the school is very inappropriate.
In any case, she might regret *having gotten pregnant* as a teen - I don't see why she would regret openly acknowledging that pregnancy and having a couple of pictures of that time.
2. A yearbook has never, in my experience, honored the graduating class's "achievements" (though some will be listed), mostly it simply acknowledges that they existed at the same time as a bunch of other people - its a keepsake, not a trophy book.
3. A yearbook isn't some freebie that's handed out by the state, its a *product* that is produced *specifically for the students who will buy it*. Seems to me that they should have the majority say and final veto over what does and does not make the cut because it *is* their yearbook.
"This is basically arguing that 'officials' should have blanket authority to prevent you from doing anything because 'you might regret it later in life'."
No, see my third point.
"Given that these kids are on the cusp of adulthood and barely children"
They should be able to put out their own yearbook without state assistance, especially if they can recoup their costs through selling copies. Maybe they could even make a profit, especially if they market it as "the yearbook the principal doesn't want you to read!"
Except your third point is weird - its a *product* that a third part makes already. A product sold to the *students*. The yearbook is not for the school, its not done by the school. Its either done by a private company or done by the students themselves - and then sent to a private company to be copied and bound - and then sold to other students.
They're *already* doing their own yearbook. Hell, the school doesn't even pony up money up front and hope to recoup the costs by selling the books themselves.
There's really no reason for the school to get involved at all, let alone have any say about what's in the book.
Here is what the school district spokesperson told a Student Press Law Center reporter:
"The yearbook is not an extracurricular activity, and thus, it is not a public forum and never has been,"..."It has always been a part of the photojournalism class curriculum which takes place during the school day. We value our students right to exercise freedom of expression; however, the principal has the responsibility to act as the supervising administrator for the yearbook."
The article doesn't contradict the claim that it's a school-sponsored, class publication. Instead, they argue that even on school-sponsored publications, students are given broad discretion on what to publish.
Which narrows down the issue to whether the district policy (a) applies here and, if it does, (b) whether the policy is a good idea.
To clarify - the article cites school district policy to say students have broad discretion on what they can put in a school-sponsored publication. The policy (allegedly) goes beyond the First Amendment and creates a right of students to put their material in publications the school runs.
The district would be able to change that policy if the policy doesn't serve the public interest. It's not a question of 1A rights.
Maybe the economics of them have changed since my geeky days of school newspaper and yearbook staff, but the school still kicked in a good amount to cover the cost of the yearbooks. The students do pay for them, but it does not cover the whole cost.
I'm headed to the Holey Land WMA tomorrow for the weekend. Has anyone been there before? Anything I need to know?
I'm headed to the Holey Land WMA
So, that's what the kids are calling it now?
Glory hole lost some of its snap.
That's sounds way too interesting to Google.
It's a wildlife management area in the Everglades.
Are you and a bunch of your militia buddies investing a remote wildlife preserve outpost? Because you'd better bring airboats or you're doing it wrong.
wildlife management area
There's a euphemism I've never heard before.
I thought you were going to Israel - with blackjack and hookers.
Not this time. The python hunt has started and I'm incorporating what I learned from 2013. Next time you read about Florida Man, it will be about how he won something instead of stole something!
No, the next time we read about Florida man it will be because he had to be pried from the jaws of the python, that he stuck his jimmie in on a drunken bet, by emergency services. On a crowded golf course.
I give it 50/50
won something
Free tour of a python's digestive tract? Rabies? Bot fly infestation?
At least "eaten by a python" is an interesting epitaph.
It's always important to remember in cases of a corporation defrauding an individual, that libertarians are supposed to side with anyone but the individual defrauded.
What are you referencing?
Student loans. There are allegations of real fraud in many of these cases.
Oh. What LynchPin said then.
*Allegations*.
But there were allegations of fraud, after banks stared offering sub-prime adjustable rate mortgages at the behest of the government, when people found the interest rate in an adjustable rate mortgage could go *up* and up much higher than they could afford to pay (because they bought too much house).
These people really just didn't do any due diligence - they assumed there was no reason to as college is *important* and 'everyone needs college'. So at worst they trusted a single source of information - their prospective college - which used the most favorable numbers available to show how an education at their institution is not only affordable but will pay for itself in future earnings.
And none of them looked at alternative data sets or listened when it was pointed out that academia is like professional sports - there are hundreds of people applying for each TT position and only one of them is going to get the nod. The rest either move on to work in insurance or spend their lives bitching about what a raw deal they're getting as an adjunct.
And, finally, even the ones who actually got boned by their college (actually defrauded) still took out that loan. The car salesman may have sold me a lemon, but I still owe the bank on the note. They can try to go after the college to recover their tuition (and put that money towards paying off the loan they took) but I don't see why they should get out of the loan itself.
Well, outside of the fact that these loans being undischargable during bankruptcy is just flat out insane in the first place. The whole *point* of bankruptcy is to deal with these situations and imposes needed and welcome discipline on lender and lendee alike.
Pretty much this.
Even if they were defrauded (which I seriously doubt, but you never know), they aren't going after the fraudsters at all, as far as I can tell. Its really strange to say "Party A defrauded me, and Party B should make me whole."
Nah, this is just a pretext for trying to get out of their loans. Otherwise, they'd be suing the schools for damages.
It's like getting a car loan and when the car fails to drive as promised, you sue the bank.
Are we talking about the student loan thing here? If they can actually prove fraud in a court of law, let them sue. Instead, what they are doing is appealing to the DoE and making taxpayers foot the bill.
Taxpayers guaranteed the loans. The colleges involved in most of the claims are under federal investigation. They're most likely going to go bankrupt before this is over. And the students would, what, be stuck at the end of that with undischargeable debt to the federal government?
There are layers of awful here, no doubt. But why compound it? This is off the cuff, but it seems like a class action lawsuit against the colleges is in order. If they go bankrupt, would that put the students ahead of creditors? Seems like it should. And if that isn't enough to cover the cost of the loans, then that sucks, but that is also the deal these students signed up for.
If they go bankrupt, would that put the students ahead of creditors?
I'm not a bankruptcy expert, but damages from a lawsuit are unsecured until liens are put on the defendant's assets. Those liens are most likely going to be inferior to pre-existing liens. So, the students will be in the bucket with the unsecured creditors. They might get a preference against the other unsecured creditors, but their odds of recovering much from a bankrupt college are low.
Sucks, but that's no reason for the government to step in. It doesn't in thousands of other cases every year where somebody wins a lawsuit and can't collect.
As a taxpayer I'd be far, far, far more comfortable with the FedGov opting to "forgive" the loans of students who made the effort of going after colleges for fraud, were able to prove the fraud in court, received a judgment that would have allowed them to repay the loan had the college not gone bankrupt than I am to forgive the loans without them going through the effort to actually recover from the party that "harmed" them.
"Taxpayers guaranteed the loans"
Correction.
Politicians used taxpayer money to guarantee the loans.
What you fail to understand about Nikki's "thought" process is that in her mind, the non-aggression principle somehow gives people a right to that money because it was stolen from tax payers and magically transformed into the common property of all mankind.
Yeah. Because Free Shit For All sounds just like Nikki. It couldn't be that the schools are fraudulently promising things they can't deliver, the government is forcing taxpayers to underwrite the process, and eating the future earnings of an entire generation to prop up a failing consumer economy is mathematically idiotic.
Noooo, it must be that well-known penchant of hers to support free shit for all. Seems legit, brah. Seems completely legit.
Yesterday she literally told me that when the government steals property, it becomes "common property" that everyone has a moral right to because of...the non-aggression principle.
And the students would, what, be stuck at the end of that with undischargeable debt to the federal government?
Well, that's the deal they made with the federal government, so yeah.
Fraud will be hard, if not impossible, to prove. It requires specific guarantees that were intentionally not fulfilled. I've never heard of a university guaranteeing a job in writing to anyone.
But they do put job placement rates and graduates' starting salaries in writing. The schools involved in most of these cases are alleged to have lied about those things in order to recruit students.
Might be a false advertising claim.
"The schools involved in most of these cases are alleged to have lied about those things in order to recruit students."
Yeah, I'd agree that's fraud.
From the article:
""It gets much more difficult when students say, 'Well, I was told this would improve my job prospects.? I don't have a job, and I'm mad about it, and I think I'm defrauded,'" Mr. Kelly said."
Yeah, if people are going this route, how the fuck do you prove they were defrauded?
Yeah, those guys were not defrauded.
It's not that they were or weren't defrauded. The problem is proving it. The claim by the school is the degree will 'improve' your job prospects - not guarantee you a job.
Your sarcasm is so thick that it is suffocating me.
Also, if there was actual fraud they should be repaid by the colleges, not the federal government. Other than that, I agree with your point.
My comment above, plus: by guaranteeing these loans, the DoE puts itself on the hook for claims made by the institutions it approves for attendance.
by guaranteeing these loans, the DoE puts itself on the hook for claims made by the institutions it approves for attendance.
Not sure how.
If I guarantee my niece's lease, I am on the hook for paying that lease if she doesn't. I don't see how I am on the hook for any claims she makes in order to get the lease that creates liability for her outside the four corners of the lease.
It your responsibility to make sure your niece did not buy a lemon. If she does, you are on the hook for the loan and should not expect her to pay anything back to you.
That effectively puts the federal government in charge of all higher education as, if I remember correctly, the federal government has monopolized the student loan business. A school that does not take students with loans would be at a tremendous competitive disadvantage compared with schools which do.
Are we also supposed to side with them in demanding that the federal government, rather than the defrauder, make them whole?
Well Tyrese, you're half right. Someday you'll understand that you need to make a movie that is actually Oscar worthy to get nominated for an Oscar and people DON'T GET THAT SHIT JUST BECAUSE OF THE COLOR OF YOUR SKIN BECAUSE THAT'S RACIST!
Seriously, nominating people for an award because of the color of their skin is racist.
In any case, this is America - you want a film award that recognizes the contributions of 'people of color'? Then start one. That's how the Oscars got started - someone wanted to formally recognize the best of their industry. Then people got pissed that the Oscars only covered film - so the Golden Globes was created.
Fuck, what is it with people constantly trying to coop the work of others to their own ends instead of just doing it themselves. Lazy bastards.
Has anyone bothered to list which black actors and directors are deserving but victimized by the Oscars' racism? All I ever read is, "there are no black nominees". I have yet to hear someone give an example of who the missing black nominees should have been.
And some of the greatest artists in movie history have been screwed over by the Oscars. Black artists should take it as a compliment. They are in good company.
Idris Elba gave a great performance in a relatively forgettable movie. He's the only one I can think of who might have been nominated.
a great performance in a relatively forgettable movie
Isn't that what the Oscars are all about?
Ryan Coogler as director for Creed.
O'Shea Jackson Jr. for Straight Outta Compton as Ice Cube (granted, he's Ice Cube's son doing an impression of his dad.)
That's my feeling. You can't say "black people got robbed". If you can't point out a single black person that should have been nominated, then it isn't the Oscars that has a problem.
"Fast and Furious" star Tyrese Gibson told People magazine that Rock should skip trying to tackle the issue as host and instead boycott.
"Boy"cott. Heh.
There are also no Hispanics nominated despite the fact there are almost as many of them as there are African Americans in this country.
It's pretty racist that black people only care about people of their race getting nominated and aren't standing in solidarity with all the Hispanics who got stiffed. What happened to intersectionality?
Probably because Alejandro Gonz?lez I??rritu is up for best director again.
We need the Rooney Rule for the Oscars!
Spike Lee actually said that during an interview. And he was serious.
Okay, what's the over/under on how many black people get affirmative-action Oscars next year to make up for this year's "slight"?
Donald Trump is poised for the strongest primary performance in modern history
I still say Trump is going to implode all on his own. These pundits are acting like Chinese builders during a construction bubble. Trump is going to be history long before the convention.
Absent some kind of major revelation about him (a fraud indictment, etc.), its getting harder to see how at this point. I think the only way he gets tripped up is on his lack of a ground game, but I don't know who is in close enough striking distance that their better ground game can put them over the top.
I think he's just going to get sloppy(ier) saying things (PC will win). Either that, or he's going to have to finally explain some economic specifics, e.g. how China is making us poorer (see the discussion about the Pope and poverty way down-thread).
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2.....cated.html
Ann Althouse has an interesting post on Trump. She rightly points out that his popularity is rooted in people's weariness with PC culture and the total inability to have an intelligent conversation about immigration in this country because of the constant charges of racism.
What drives me crazy about Reason's criticism of Trump is not that the don't like him. They shouldn't like him Trump is a populist center leftist who supports closing the borders and is against free trade. The problem is reason rarely criticizes Trump for his economic positions. They criticize him for the one good thing he is doing, which is bull dozing the PC restraints on speech. Reason may enjoy the PC restraints on objecting to immigration controls but that is a short sided view to take. The same PC culture that says "you can't be against open borders without being a racist" also says "you can't be for ending the regulatory state or reforming entitlements or for states rights unless you are a racist". You can't just separate out which PC restrictions on speech you like. They come as a package. And until someone, be it Trump or someone else, kills the entire culture and opens up debate on everything, Libertarian ideas will forever be out of the public debate as Progs brand anyone who voices them a "racist" or a "nut" and dismisses them with the "you can't say that."
Yep. It's fun to watch Trump act like a bull in the PC china shop. But he just is not fiscally conservative. Not sure why the rest of the GOP contenders aren't destroying him on his tax and spend schemes.
Because that would call attention to *their own* tax and spend schemes.
^^This.
Pretty much. The Democrats are insane. The Republicans are just small minded petty theives. They just want to get rich and live a quiet life feeling important and not rock the boat or risk the gravy train ending.
If Trump were merely destroying the PC restraints without adverse effects, I would agree with you wholeheartedly about that being an unalloyed good.
I think, though, that much of the criticism is aimed at the content of the message. for example, when he said he was going to build a man-proof wall, and that Mexico was going to pay for it because he was such an awesome negotiator, my jaw hit the floor. I to this day can't decide what's more horrifying, the notion that he is serious, or the notion that he knows that this is a bullshit position but that it will excite people.
In the case of the latter - then Trump is behaving in a corrosive manner. Mobs are not smart. Mobs collectively can act on very stupid beliefs. A good leader does not pander to the mobs worst impulses but tries to elevate them. Contrast Martin Luther King to Jesse Jackson, for example.
What's very distressing to me about this election is that nobody and I mean nobody who is popular is an elevator. They are all demagogues and panderers. Cruz occasionally tries to elevate, but much of the time when he pops up on my radar, it's due to some bit of pandering he is doing and rarely is it because he is doing something elevating.
He is not relying on mobs. And he is giving people an outlet for their frustrations. As much as you hate Trump, he is benign compared to what he could be or who will be coming if people like you succeed in demonizing Trump. What you call a "mob", everyone else calls voters. And it sounds nice to tell those people to shut up and that they no longer get a vote in what goes on in the country but it is unlikely to work out well.
I know you hate those people and wish they would go away and just do as they are told or die or something. But they are not going to do it. So you better figure out a way to listen to them and start giving them a vote in things or all of your worst fantasies about them are going to come true.
Speaking of immigration Tarran. We keep going back and forth about Islam. And you are right that the problem is not "Islam" in the whole. If the issue were taking Turkish or Kurdish or Indonesian or even Iranian refugees or immigrants, there would not be a problem.
The problem we face is not Islam writ large but Arab Suni Islam and its twin Pakistani Suni Islam. The Germans have been taking Turkish immigrants for decades and to the extent there are problems it is because the Germans are assholes. The Turks in Germany are not out blowing themselves up or groping women in public. That only started happening when they started taking Arabs and North Africans. Hell, Afghanistan while backwards and poor was no worse than any other place in Central Asia back in the 60s and 70s. They fought the Jihad against the Soviets for a decade and never once did they commit a suicide bombing. It wasn't until the Saudi funded assholes showed up in the late 80s that all that shit started.
I dealth with the Shia militias a bit in Iraq and while they were nasty fuckers they were not completely insane and did not make a habit of blowing themselves up in markets. Muslims are never an issue unless they are Arab/North African or Saudi funded Imans have started showing up.
The more I think about it, the more i wonder if maybe Obama is right about Iran. Hell, pay off Iran and let them get nukes and let them deal with the Arab Sunis, because they seem to be the root of the problem.
You're right about the Wahhabiyya, and that's why you might want to rethink about those Indonesians. They don't call the Indo-Malay world "Saudi Arabia East" for nothing.
But isn't that a recent development in Indonesia? I was under the impression that Indonesian Islam was pretty benign until Saudi funded Imams showed up. Or was it always crazy?
It was pretty benign, but the Saudis have been pumping money into S.E. Asia for the past 40 years. All the masjids, textbooks, and Arabic language/Koranic teachers they have flooded the area with have raised a generation of Islamo-crazies.
One of the biggest problems Islam has is that a lot of Muslims consider it a sin to translate the Koran. The Koran is written in a really archaic and difficult form of Arabic. Few Muslims who live outside of the West have read it in their native language. And most of the ones who have read it in its original Arabic have just memorized sections without really knowing or understanding the language. So Muslims depend on their Mosque and the Imam for their knowledge of their religion. Change the Imam and you change the religion in many places. And the Saudis have been doing just that in a lot of places. Chechnya is another example. The Chechens were never radical Muslims. That is until the Saudi funded Imams showed up.
Like I said, maybe Obama is right to pay off the Iranians. I am no fan of the Mullahs, but they are not anything like the problem the Saudis are.
I guess I should have put my response here instead of on the Climate thread. 🙂
John, I think we broadly agree on the problems posed by the Gulf Arabs. I have some thoughts I'll type up at some point in the coming days that your comment inspired in me.
It's not just immigration I think, although that's where it's erupted now. It's the constant stream of being told you have to compromise, go along to get along, the naked transparency of pols wanting to return to an era where they can be best buds with the supposed opposition without the public being that aware, the shared cultural outlook ("cocktail parties"), etc. It's not just conservatives or libertarians either. The hard left is just as fed up. See Bernie's strength for that.
How is Bernie cutting against the PC culture? I am not arguing I am just curious how that is, because I have never thought of him that way.
Well he did say something about having rape remain a criminal matter which I wouldn't be surprised if he backtracked on by now. But after letting BLM halfwits steal his podium, I think it's clear how easily he'll cave to PC bullshit as president.
He also came out against reparations for Slavery. And I guess by the standards of the PC mob, saying men deserve due process when accused of rape and white people should not be taxed for the crime of being white is just as bad as Trump saying Mexicans tend to be rapists.
I don't think Bernie is specifically against PC culture, which is largely a child of the left, but that the same kind of frustration by leftists with their Democrat establishment is giving him wind.
It really is. The elites on both sides of the party line have way more in common with each other than they do their party base. They've gotten to the point where they are so isolated they don't even realize when something is only popular in their own social circle.
I've got no reason to believe the party base will be any more liberty friendly, but this shake up needed to happen.
There really is a bi-partisan fusion party. I know several Bernie Supporters. They are needless to say economic illiterates. They are not, however malevolent and have some very valid complaints. They rightly understand how badly Wall Street ripped off the country over the last 20 years and how corporatist and corrupt both parties are.
Their solution to those problems is of course insane. But, they are not wrong in identifying them.
I would be genuinely shocked if any Bernie supporters truly understand not just that Wall Street rips everyone off, but how they are ripping them off. For a Bernie supporter, a bank being a bank is all that you need to show in order make allegations of malfeasance. Their political solution to the financial industry's problems would be naive and entirely counterproductive, I have no doubt.
The ones I know don't think that deeply about it. They are not dumb people but are woefully ignorant about how the economy works. As much as I loath their ideas, I can't help but agree and sympathize with some of their complaints.
Living in NH, I am currently inundated with Bernie ads on TV and through the mail. His rhetoric doesn't even bother to make an argument more sophisticated than that. With no exaggeration, his two messages in NH are "Banks are bad" and "I'm going to take money from young people and give it to old people, because Medicare."
He really says he is going to take money from young people? IN that many words?
Wow. Give the guy credit for honesty at least.
Pretty much. When your ads are all mentally-addled geezers talking about how they have no "access" to healthcare and then another geezer comes on to claim he'll be your healthcare messiah, it's not hard to figure out what he means.
Are you ok? "The problem is Reason rarely criticizes Trump for his economic positions." Now allow me to talk about something unrelated to the problem I just raised.
Paging Doctor Scatterbrain, Doctor Scatterbrain to the ER.
Do you not know how to read? To you have problems comprehending complex sentences or ideas? Reason doesn't criticize his positions. I don't talk about that because that is not the point I am making. Reason criticizes him for the wrong reasons. They are right about economics. They are wrong when they go along with the PC mob about how "RACIST" Trump is.
I don't know how to make it any more clear than that. If you still don't understand it, just go post on another thread because this one isn't going to work for you.
Breathe John. I'm with you on a lot of this stuff, and Zen is kinda bad at reading if he didn't understand your post. You need to calm down, though. If you get worked up it gives people a reason to ignore what you say. Some people will do that anyways, but your odds of getting through to somebody go up when you stay calm.
Fair enough. My apologies Zen.
Good point Illocust, I tend to like his posts until they get him all worked up.
I, for one, despise Trump and believe he would be a disaster but I absolutely enjoy how he is shaking up the status quo by simply speaking his mind and not dancing around PC sensibilities.
You know who else shook up the status quo and spoke his mind...
Fus Ro Dah?
Dune reference?
Lenny Bruce?
Sometimes bad people do the right thing or have a positive effect. If Trump were to win the Presidency, the MSM's power to control the narrative and what is and is not an acceptable political position would be finished. That would be an enormously positive development. Whether Trump being President is a price worth paying for that, depends on your view of Trump.
He's a domestic Putin when it comes to the media. His life has been an open book, more or less, for the last 30+ years. Whatever skeletons he has have been dragged out long ago, unless he's got a dead underage hooker still in there. He's jujitsued personal attacks and humiliations for so long to the point where he doesn't seem care, which frees him from the mold of doing the things he's "supposed" to do.
The media's power is based on shame and embarrassment. When confronted with someone who has no shame, they are powerless.
We would be better off if the MSM had the power to control the dialog somewhat and used it responsibly and only occasionally to keep the real demagogues out. Our problem is that the media has abused that power so much and for such vile and partisan purposes that it now stands in the way of any intelligent or honest conversation about the problems the country faces.
I am not sure a world where the media is powerless will be so great. But, it will be better than what we have.
"shame and embarrassment. "
This. So don't be. Whenever someone accuses me of being "selfish" I say "Why thanks for the compliment." This usually leads to further discussion about why the prog in the room is the greedy person who wants to take more of your money for his pet causes.
My alma mater has officially created a PC Thought Police SWAT team.
http://www.press-citizen.com/s...../79089506/
Wow. The "Chief Diversity Officer" chair-filler isn't actually supposed to do anything,
I thought their job was to work tirelessly to put white males at a disadvantage relative to all other groups.
"We do need to differentiate between free speech and hate speech," said Dodge, who also is on the Board of Directors for ACLU Iowa.
I guess the ACLU really is ready to throw out the 1st amendment along with the 2nd.
Its only state supported organizations that can afford to put *diversity* in the C-suite.
Frank thinks there's only X wealth in the world, and he's keeping his, so you other guys ought to paga:
"Pope Francis tells Davos elite: Consider your role in creating poverty"
[...]
"Francis, who has made the defense of the poor a hallmark of his papacy and has in the past called money "the dung of the devil", said businesses and wealthy societies must acknowledge their role in creating poverty."
One more reason to ignore old farts in funny hats who hear voices in their heads.
Fuck off, Frank.
Yea how do wealthy businesses and societies create poverty?
Waste their money on donations to the Catholic Church?
Should the catholic church really be complaining about wealth?
There's so much stupidity and ignorance crammed into every sentence that he utters that it takes a couple paragraphs to thoughtfully refute it all. That's the real staying power of dumbfuck arguments, eventually even the the most tireless derpslayers get fatigued. It takes almost no intellectual energy to posit dumb shit like Pope Francis says, but costs considerably more to refute it point by point.
According to the pope if the US didn't become rich, then all the 3rd world countries wouldnt be 3rd world?!
TL:DR version: "Money is the dung of the devil. And everybody should have more of it!"
And aren't Catholics supposed to be like super dooper into that whole poverty thing?
Francis didn't actually call money the dung of the devil.
He denounced the worship of money.
And that's not exactly a new doctrine.
The Church always been against worshipping anything other than God. Not even the life-giving Sun. Certainly not money.
Of all the religions that have come and gone over the ages, sun worship is really the only one that seems relatively sensible in the face of a knowledge deficit.
The Pope is kind of an idiot. There is no other way to put it.
He said that "*our* own actions are a cause of injustice and inequality" [emphasis added] - he didn't say "your."
"Frank thinks there's only X wealth in the world, and he's keeping his, so you other guys ought to paga"
Here's some stuff he *actually* said:
"Do not be afraid to open your minds and hearts to the poor. In this way, you will give free rein to your economic and technical talents, and discover the happiness of a full life, which consumerism of itself cannot provide....
"As I have often said, and now willingly reiterate, business is "a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving our world", especially "if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good" (Laudato Si', 129). As such, it has a responsibility to help overcome the complex crisis of society and the environment, and to fight poverty. This will make it possible to improve the precarious living conditions of millions of people and bridge the social gap which gives rise to numerous injustices and erodes fundamental values of society, including equality, justice and solidarity."
Regarding economics, the message contains more UN-speak than I would have liked, but that's no reason to impute statements to the Pope which he didn't make.
Sure we are the cause of all that. The problem is that since we are away from God and suffering from original sin, there is nothing we can do about it. The more we try not to sin the more harm we end up doing and the more sin we commit.
The Calvinists have it all over the Catholics on this issue. Salvation through works, as opposed to faith, is just a Christian version of the road to hell being paved with good intentions.
I'd rather not re-fight the Reformation right now, but I'll just link to this from our Catechism.
My wife and I refight the Reformation all of the time. And as much as I am drawn to tradition and ancient institutions, I always wind up on the Calvinist side. And I can't stand the Calvinists. Damned if they didn't get a few things right though.
Well, God bless you, and of course your better half. I'm sure she's a better advocate than I am. 🙂
(advocate for the Church, specifically)
She is a life long Catholic. And the ironic thing is that I often take the Church's side when she doesn't. I wouldn't join the church but I have never understood those who do and then want it to be something other than what it is. If you don't like the Church, there are plenty of people who agree with you. We call them Protestants mostly.
There's plenty of Catholics who, though I would never tell them to leave, puzzle me by their failure to do so, given their disagreement pretty much across the board. Maybe they sense at some level that the Church is a bit better than their critical rhetoric suggests.
Hey, you lay off us Protestants you cultist! (that is correct, haven't been to Church in 20+ years)
business is "a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving our world", especially "if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good"
I'm sorry, but businesses do the most for the common good when they create wealth, not jobs. Otherwise, the Soviet Union would have eradicated poverty.
Personally, I think creating wealth often helps create jobs.
Of course. But Pope Francis seems to be saying it's the creation of jobs - not wealth - that is essential to the common good, which, while that sounds correct, is truly not.
Yes. No wealth ultimately leads to no jobs.
"According to The New York Times, Lena Dunham's vigorous public support for Hillary Clinton is at odds with her private misgivings about how Hillary covered for Bill's mistreatment of women."
To which the proper reply is "who gives a shit?"
Self-awareness ain't one of Frank's skills.
Ooops.
This in agreement with Libertarian, above.
"According to The New York Times, Lena Dunham's vigorous public support for Hillary Clinton is at odds with her private misgivings about how Hillary covered for Bill's mistreatment of women."
I want to make a comparison to rats fleeing a sinking ship, but i don't want to insult the rats.
My last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My sisters friend has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can't believe how easy it was once I tried it out. This is what I do..
Click This Link inYour Browser....
? ? ? ? http://www.WorkPost30.com
Finally, a comment i can agree with wholeheartedly!
"Bill's mistreatment of women"
Cute. Is that what they're calling it now?
I've made $76,000 so far this year working online and I'm a full time student.I'm using an online business opportunity I heard about and I've made such great money.It's really user friendly and I'm just so happy that I found out about it.
????????????? http://Jobstribune.com
V
I've made $76,000 so far this year working online and I'm a full time student.I'm using an online business opportunity I heard about and I've made such great money.It's really user friendly and I'm just so happy that I found out about it.
Open This LinkFor More InFormation..
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my classmate's mother-in-law makes $78 hourly on the computer . She has been out of work for 6 months but last month her check was $17581 just working on the computer for a few hours. view website
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And John Wayne and Martin Scorcese and Cary Grant. Marissa Tomei has won as many Oscars as Cary Grand and John Wayne combined.
Watched The Beer League.
Excellent!
Mel Brooks has one Oscar, Gene Wilder has zero.
Cary Grant, John Wayne, Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton, and Charlie Chaplin. That is five of what? The 20 most significant film actors of all time? And they have how many acting Oscars between them? Wayne won one, Grant never won one and I am pretty sure Chaplin didn't either.
What a sorry record those awards have.
The Artie Lange/Ralph Macchio masterpiece? Or the Broken Lizards guys one?
Comedy actors and comedy films have been completely screwed. When was the last time a comedy won best picture? The only one I can think of is "It Happened One Night" and that was in like 1934.
The 1974 Best Picture went to The Sting. There are worse movies that have won that award, but 42 years on, it is pretty much forgotten while Blazing Saddles has become a culture icon.
The Oscars are especially bad on Best Picture. How Green Was My Valley over Citizen Kane and Maltese Falcon. The Greatest Show on Earth won the Oscar and has a 44% on Rotten Tomatoes and beat High Noon. Around the World in 80 Days beat Giant, which is hilarious.
In fairness, they get a lot of them right, but some of the ones they get wrong look SO BAD in retrospect that you can't imagine what they were thinking.
Stanley Kubrick also won one Oscar and it was for best special effects, which is total insanity.
F.W. Murnau was never nominated for best director? What the fuck?
Driving Miss Daisy beat out Goodfellows. Have you ever watched Driving Miss Daisy? It is bloody awful. The other big one is Ordinary People beat out Raging Bull. Ordinary People is not as bad as Driving Miss Daisy and Mary Tyler Moore deserved some kind of award for after an entire career of playing the sexy girl next door everyone wanted to marry playing one of the most evil bitches in screen history and playing it well. But over Raging Bull? The drugs the voters were taking in 1980 must have some powerful stuff.
After several generations have processed through government schools, a lot of people are scratching their heads and wondering, "Freedom? What the hell is he talking about?"
You know who else just wanted to set you free?
I am Spartacus!
Driving Miss Daisy also beat out Do the Right Thing. Forrest Gump was a good movie, but there's no way it should have beaten Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption.
Goodfellows?
I don't like the sounds of that.
Morpheus, the answer is Morpheus.
And Reason - WTF is it up with, after posting a comment, the page refreshes to a random point in the comments and you have to scroll back down to figure out where you left off?
Because of racism no doubt.
Do the Right Thing is a horrible movie in its own right.
It's been doing that to me for weeks.
Yeah, it seems to take me back to my previous comment when it reloads.
Thanks, this looks fun. Recently watched Men With Brooms and enjoyed it. Really though, I have been binge watching .The Thick Of It. Peter Capaldi has made such a wonderful Dr. Who I wanted to see his other work and so far, I'm impressed.
Heh.
"Let's give 'er." Now we're talkin'!
It is the comedy version of the famous gangster movie Goodfellas.
It is the comedy version of the famous gangster movie Goodfellas.
I'm afraid that would only be a burn if the Pope had urged the rich dudes at Davos to give up their art collections.
He didn't.
Though I'm sure the Pope wouldn't mind if the Davos dudes gave free tours to the homeless.