Obama Seems to Favor Clinton as Successor, Censorious Professor Charged with Assault, Trial over Reckless Shooting by NYPD Officer Begins: P.M. Links

• 

  Credit: marcn / photo on flickr

  While President Barack Obama is declining to endorse a successor yet, he is kinda-sorta gesturing toward Hillary Clinton, who is running a campaign promising to pretty much extend all of Obama's policies.

• There continues to be wintery weather in January for some reason.
• The University of Missouri communications professor who infamously was captured on camera trying to physically censor journalists on campus has been charged with misdemeanor simple assault.
• Maryland's legislature has overridden the governor's veto of a bill that offered modest civil police asset forfeiture reforms and a bill decriminalizing possession of objects used to smoke marijuana like bongs and papers (the state had previously turned possession of marijuana itself into a civil, not criminal violation).
• A British explorer who was attempting the first unassisted solo crossing of Antarctica has died after 71 days, within 30 miles of achieving the goal.
• Today the trial began for rookie New York Police Department Officer Peter Liang, who faces manslaughter and negligent homicide charges for recklessly opening fire in a public housing unit stairwell, killing Akai Gurley.

New at Reason:

• How Long Could the U.S. Go Without Electricity?
  Ted Koppel's latest book explores the effects of EMP weapons.
  By A. Barton Hinkle
• Should Charter Schools Be Allowed to Push Out Difficult Kids?
  Q&A with Robert Pondiscio on Success Academy and the 'Got-to-Go' controversy.
  By Nick Gillespie and Jim Epstein

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

There continues to be wintery weather in January for some reason.

If only Congress had acted on sensible gun control- I mean, climate change legislation.

[TheZeitgeist]

Climate Control legislation.

[Tonio]

A British explorer who was attempting the first unassisted solo crossing of Antarctica has died after 71 days, within 30 miles of achieving the goal.

But surely with all the globul warmingz that was like a stroll through the park on a brisk October day.

Seriously, sorry dude, at least you died living your dream.

[Libertarian]

Maybe he downed! Didn't think of that, did you? I didn't think so.

[Libertarian]

I was so excited, I left out the "r".

[Rich]

"I didn't think sor"?

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

The penguins were driven mad by abnormal climate and pecked him to death.

Or, to make the death work for two agendas: the irate penguins were also armed.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Don't you start with the hop-ons, too.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

You always go first, you're gonna get some hop-ons.

[Tonio]

The snow has me feeling all Canadian.

[Ted S.]

+1 Bret Bielema

[The Tone Police]

Bert is worth at least 2-3 physical people #karma

[Crusty Juggler]

Bret Bielema shirtless.

TW: He is not a traditionally handsome man.

[OneOut]

"Mr. Worsley, a former British military officer who had served in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, pulled his own sled with food and supplies in an attempt to complete the projected route of adventurer Sir Ernest Shackleton a century ago".

Mr. Worsley was a dumbass. He has only himself to blame because he ignored history.

Robert Falcon Scott who's entire party also died about 10 or 20 miles from completing their round trip to the South Geographic Pole was supposed to have proved to all Artic and Antartic explorers that the human body simply cant pull a sledge with enough food to sustain the body under that type of caloric burden for extended periods...

Admunson was highly experienced in using sled dogs who not only can pull more weight than they expend in calories. Plus when the food runs low they become food themselves for the other dogs and the men.

Shackelton used Siberian ponies because he didn't know how to use dogs on his first attempt at the pole when he came within 97 miles of the pole before giving up to save the lives of his men. This attempt was made on Shackelton's first expedition as a leader. His party was the first to the magnetic South Pole and the first to scale the Mt. Erebus volcano .

[OneOut]

Scott was the first to try to reach the South Geographic and failed well short. Then Shackelton tried and bested Scott when he came within 97 miles. Admunsun was an experienced Artic explorer and he and his dogs easily raced to the Pole and beat Scott on Scott's second attempt by two weeks plus because of the dogs he and all his men lived and Scott and all of his men died.

Shackelton never lost a man.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

What kind of nightmare dream is this?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Hello.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...he is kinda-sorta gesturing toward Hillary Clinton, who is running a campaign promising to pretty much extend all of Obama's policies.

The idea of Obama sharing a stage with the Clintons is just too good.

[kinnath]

Step 1) Lock out Bernie

Step 2) Indict Clinton

Step 3) uh . . Michelle

Step 4) Profit!

[PapayaSF]

I know this is a theory floating around. Or, Biden. But it seems far-fetched.

[KDN]

If Hillary were to be indicted during the election and drop out, would her running mate assume the lead role on the ticket?

I'm imagining a scenario where Biden gets put on the ticket and Obama drops the hammer on Hillary late in the campaign in an epic double-cross. I don't know how the rules work, though.

[Cyto]

Drop out? Are you high? Democrats in general don't resign or drop out in response to scandal, let alone a Clinton.

No, an indictment would only serve to energize her base. I'm sure they could also spin it to fire up the minority vote as well..... and a part of the war on women.

The real question is: If she's indicted and then elected, would any court in the land dare to hold the trial while she is President? I seriously doubt it. I'd say they'd be punting that bad-boy across 1st street to the Congress. That way the sexist, male-dominated GOP could try to impeach the first woman president. Yeah, not gonna happen.

They'd have to have an iron-clad and high-level case before any US attorney is going to risk career suicide by taking on this prosecution.

[KDN]

I'm not saying it's at all likely: it's merely a thought experiment. What are the rules in such a scenario?

[PapayaSF]

I doubt an indictment would "energize the base." It would certainly not energize independents in her direction.

[OneOut]

Under your senario they could probably make the case that the trial has to be put off until she is out of offce.

By then she will have made it all go away.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Rules? There are no fucking rules. In the game of thrones, you win or ...

[Krabappel]

House of Cards = "Game of Presidents"

[commodious spittoon]

You bitch on social media? You call the winner and congratulate her? You spin off your election nonprofit into bankruptcy to discharge your campaign debts? What?!

[kinnath]

Indicted after locking Bernie out (by delegate count) but just prior to the convention leaving Hillary's delegates swinging in the wind.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

pretty much extend all of Obama's policies.

Another 8 years of Gitmo?

[Jerryskids]

Has Obama allowed Obama Organizing For America to allow Hillary access to their donor database? (Not that Obama controls that group since it's totally not an Obama group.) I thought that was the plum everybody wanted and the granting of access tantamount to an anointing of the heir-apparent.

[Paloma]

I don't think Bernie appeals to too many Black people.

[Pat (PM)]

South African mayor giving scholarships to virgins

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- A mayor in South Africa has awarded collage scholarships to 16 teens for maintaining their virginity through high school, the mayor's office said Sunday.

Mayor Dudu Mazibuko of the town of Uthukela tried something new this year and offered scholarships to young women in the district for remaining virgins. The program is an attempt to stem the tide of teenage pregnancy and give incentive to girls to be "pure and focus on school," the mayor's office said. Almost six percent of teen girls in South Africa became pregnant in 2013.

But the girls who applied for the scholarships have to prove they are maintaining their virginity by agreeing to be regularly tested.

"To us, it's just to say thank you for keeping yourself and you can still keep yourself for the next three years until you get your degree or certificate," Mazibuko told a local South African talk radio station.

[Ted S.]

Warty needs to set up a counter-scholarship.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

by agreeing to be regularly tested.

+1 Government hymen tester.

[Brett L]

I have a special tool...

[Rich]

prove they are maintaining their virginity by agreeing to be regularly tested.

"The first test took my virginity!"

[Jerry on the rocks]

They pass the test through the backdoor.

[Tonio]

What about boys?

[Pat (PM)]

They can find their own virgins.

[Ted S.]

They could always give blowjobs.

[Rich]

And get technical scholarships.

[The Tone Police]

Collage scholarships? Were they boards with cut up rands all over them?

[Medical Physics Guy]

they were for the safe spaces.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Does anybody else think Mayor Dudu Mazibuko is full of shit?

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Does anybody else think Mayor Dudu Mazibuko is full of shit?

[OneOut]

I want to give the tests.

I would make sure they all passed if they made sure they really didn't.

[Rich]

A British explorer who was attempting the first unassisted solo crossing of Antarctica has died after 71 days, within 30 miles of achieving the goal.

GEICO should drag his body across the finish line.

Seriously, RIP.

[Pat (PM)]

Former concentration camp to be turned into luxury resort

MAMULA ISLAND, Montenegro, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- A former World War II concentration camp in Montenegro has been approved to be turned into a luxury resort, despite outrage from the families of former prisoners.

The government of Montenegro gave the go-ahead to refurbish the historical site after posting an ad declaring the tiny island -- just 200 meters in diameter -- on the Adriatic Sea was open for investors.

Eventually, a deal was made with Swiss-Egyptian developer Orascom, signing a 49-year lease deal that the company said will create "around 200 new jobs and bring ?7.5 million [$8.11 million] of revenue for the Montenegrin state over a 15-year period."

[Illocust]

Ummmm, why the hell would you care about the place that was hell for your family members being torn down. You'd think they'd be volunteering to help with the demolitions.

[OneOut]

"Stories of the cruelty that took place there became known after the war and Italian military records document 2,300 people were imprisoned there and 130 were killed or starved to death in the fortress."

So 2,300 people there for what 3,4,5 years and only 130 died ?

Some concentration camp.

The VA hospital in Arizona ( home state of war hero John McCain) has a worse record of deaths than that .

[PapayaSF]

Is it just me, or does that island look like it's more than 200 meters across?

[Swiss Servator]

Swiss-Egyptian developer Orascom

Wait...who?!

[commodious spittoon]

Relative of yours?

[Limpee Wiltstock]

'A former World War II concentration camp in Montenegro has been approved to be turned into a luxury resort, despite outrage from the families of former prisoners.'

What, they think it should remain a death camp forever? This is worser than rent control.

[TheZeitgeist]

A British explorer who was attempting the first unassisted solo crossing of Antarctica has died after 71 days, within 30 miles of achieving the goal.

British explorer in the finest tradition.

[Tonio]

But did he die with a Union Jack in his hands and a portrait of the Queen clutched to his heart?

[TheZeitgeist]

But did he die with a Union Jack in his hands and a portrait of the Queen clutched to his heart?

Nevermind. Guy apparently called for help, then succumbed.

Not British at all!

[Medical Physics Guy]

You walk across Antarctica solo then.

[PapayaSF]

You can try....

[TheZeitgeist]

You walk across Antarctica solo then.

Norwegians walk across.

Brits die trying.

I'm American. I talk local Chinese population into building railway first, then roll in style. Complicated.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

+1 Sir John Franklin's expedition.

[OneOut]

The Norwegian, who had extensive experience in the artic, was smart enough to know you can't man haul enough food to survise those journeys. Admunson used sledge dogs which can pull more for less caloric intake and also serve as food when the supply runs low.

[dinkster]

What if he pulled nothing but frozen mcgriddles?

[Limpee Wiltstock]

The English were sort of handicapped by the fact that they didn't even know Norway existed till just recently (Recall when they imprisonned the Norwegian embassy for impersonating an embassy, on the basis that Norway wasn't a real country.). Read any English translations of Norwegian texts that were made sometime less recently than yesterday, and when it comes to details it gets totally fucked. For one thing, there seemed to be a lot of confusion about the meaning of the word "ski". I've seen twae English translations of "Berthe Tuppenhaugs fortellinger", for instance, and both go so far from the original sense it's like they were struggling to translate some arcane runic inscription from prehistoric Mongolia or something, with a particular failure in anything relating to surviving in arctical conditions, plus the fact that many English-from-Norwegian translators seem to get firmly stuck by the fact that a single narrative may employ several variations on one written standard and as many uncodified colloquial variants as there are people speaking, which includes some pretty vast points of difference in terms of basic grammatic system. [SPACE]

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Also, the fact that "norway" is just an old-timey way of saying "up north" (in both English and Norwegian, but less of a problem for the latter since they no longer use it to refer to the country, instead employing heavily deformed colloquial corrumptions which don't sound samely enough to get confusing). In other respects, you'd think there'd be more cultural traction, since both races got a tradition of filial piety suffusing the yingyang... and I've forgotten completely what meant to go to the end of that sentence.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The University of Missouri communications professor who infamously was captured on camera trying to physically censor journalists on campus has been charged with misdemeanor simple assault.

Does she even have tenure at Mizzou?

[Ted S.]

Missouri loves company.

[Tonio]

[Narrows gaze]

[Swiss Servator]

*joins Tonio*

[GILMORE?]

ouch

[Pat (PM)]

'X-Files' Creator: 'I Thought The FBI Was Going To Shut Me Down'

Alien conspiracies, monsters, cryptids, mutants, paranormal phenomena -- just a typical day for the fictional FBI agents of "The X-Files."

But how close to fiction was it?

Creator, writer and director Chris Carter tells a real-life tale about the show in its early days that's worthy of the show's catchphrase, "The truth is out there."

"I had someone come up to me during the original run of the series, who said they worked in some high place in a secret government agency, [and] said that we were very close to the truth," Carter told The Huffington Post.

"I didn't know whether to take that person at their word or not. I can tell you this: When I wrote the [1993] pilot, I called the FBI to do some research, and they were nice enough, but didn't really give me the time of day.

"Then, all of a sudden, as we got close to airing, the FBI called and said, 'Who are you and what are you doing?' And for a second, I thought it was going to be the long arm of the law coming in to shut me down."

[Ted S.]

The truth is not out there.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Is like these arsehools always saying, "Well, it is what it is..." and the like, like it fucking means something. I've got where it only seems right to effervescently disagree whenever someone says it now, saying, "I don't think so!" and challenging anyone who tries to defend the statement, arsking, "How in hell do you know if it is what it is or if it isn't? It could be anything. Any evidence in the matter seems inclined to suggest that it in fact isn't what it is." Curiously, though, no one who's chosen to defend the statement has been capable of doing so convincingly, and in one case the man ended up conceding I was right, that it was more truer to say "It appears to be what it is." Which is odd. Seems like it's the kind of proposition we were expected to be able to write an unshakable argument in defense in less than two paragraphs back in grammar school, but now such a simple logical argument is beyond everyone? Or is it just that nobody capable of reasoning goes around saying stupid crap like, "It is what it is."?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Is this why he went all derpy with his script?

O'Reilly truth in an eyedropper...ma get outta here.

[Ted S.]

There was a time when it wasn't derpy?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I seem to recall it being good entertainment minus all the stupid partisan bull shit they blind sided me/us with.

Jesus that was retarded.

[Tonio]

Cool story, bro.

I had someone come up to me during the original run of the series, who said they worked in some high place in a secret government agency, [and] said that we were very close to the truth...

I don't doubt that. But I do suspect the person was not an actual government employee. Unless doing a false flag.

"Then, all of a sudden, as we got close to airing, the FBI called and said, 'Who are you and what are you doing?' And for a second, I thought it was going to be the long arm of the law coming in to shut me down."

That is less believable. The only thing they'd do is generate bad publicity for themselves (FBI) and inflame all the conspiracy nuts.

[Illocust]

Conspiracy nuts are a good thing. They discredit anyone that actually figures out what you are doing.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Cornspiracy nuts are too stupid and not even remotely paranoid enough. What do you say to someone who's going on about how the FBI is using the new electrical meter to put virusses in his computer because it's the only way they can get to him when you know that there's a half dozen local peace officers in spitting distance that could, on their own initiative, walk in and put a bullet in the guy's face for no reason and at no risk to themselves? Or to some guy going on about how he's got to be careful who he says this to because the government may keep lists and he could end up on one when you know that there is a list and we're all on it?

[ant1sthenes]

Yeah, well, given the Lone Gunman pilot that came out of a few months before 9/11...

[Cytotoxic]

Is the new X-files good?

They should have an arc that is based around how Dreyfuss and Tom Cruise avoid any visible aging.

[JeremyR]

No.

And it's funny, Mulder has aged poorly, but Skinner, his boss, hasn't aged at all, so Mulder now looks about 15 years older than him.

And Scully looks a bit hagged out.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Sound like the new Star Wars, where Carl Adolf seems to have stopped aging a couple decades ago so he looked better than these other actors harf his age. Maybe "Paleolithic survivor" refers to aging well?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Maryland's legislature has overridden the governor's veto of a bill that offered modest civil police asset forfeiture reforms...

The legislature exists closer to Charm City than the governor, I guess.

[Always a Carl, Never a Clyde]

The Seven Types of Techies Who Went Nuts Over Possible Bloomberg Presidential Run

*barf*

Apparently someone set the writer straight, because the piece has amended

he has a libertarian streak that is attractive to many powerful folks in Silicon Valley, too.

to

he has a technocratic approach that is attractive to many powerful folks in Silicon Valley, too.

Libertarian streak, technocratic approach, same diff.

[Ted S.]

Angry nuts, or orgasmic nuts?

[Brett L]

Libertarian != authoritarian

[Tonio]

Tell that to the progs.

[commodious spittoon]

Telling proggies they shouldn't be able to tell others what to do is itself oppressive.

[Rich]

HILLARY SUFFERS MASSIVE COUGHING FIT

"You wouldn't indict a *sick* woman, would yHACKAHACKAHACKAHACKAHACKA ?. whoo."

[Ted S.]

True story: I was doing the morning news shift at my college radio station the day the first President Bush threw up on the Japanese Prime Minister at a state dinner.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Did he also burn down the cabin later?

[Pat (PM)]

+1 John Cheever.

[BearOdinson]

"I loved him deeply. In a way that you would never understand!"

[Crusty Juggler]

"I knew it!"

[GILMORE?]

Those drudge tweets are hilarious trolling.

[dinkster]

I despise Hillary, but watching her slowly die on stage as her dreams flutter away before her is just depressing. Like greyjoy getting his tallywhacker lobbed off.

[Pat (PM)]

Why Tech Entrepreneurs Should Support A Bloomberg Bid For The White House

If there's one sector in particular that should rally around Bloomberg and that stands to benefit from him at the helm ? it's the tech industry.

Bloomberg has long been a booster of the technology industry in New York City and has voiced his support for Uber in NYC and its ability to break the hold of the taxi industry. in the city

In fact, he is also a key investor in Andreessen Horowitz, one of the main backers of Lyft. Bloomberg literally backs the disruptors.[...]

As a successful entrepreneur, Bloomberg understands the issues of entrepreneurship and venture capital better than any candidate in the election. He bootstrapped a multi-billion dollar startup, which happens now to be the largest tech company based in NYC, a global business with 15,000 employees.

He also has a track record of applying his own experience to public policy to find ways to make it easier for others to start and grow their own businesses.

Between 2000 and 2010, the Tax Foundation found that 3.4 million residents moved out of New York, Forbes listed the state in their feature "The States People are Fleeing in 2014"...

[Trouser-Pod (The blowhard)]

Shorter Techcrunch: Crony Capitalism: You Betcha!

[Medical Physics Guy]

Between 2000 and 2010, the Tax Foundation found that 3.4 million residents moved out of New York

That's all right, Krugabe told me it's just because real estate is so much cheaper in the South.

[Irish ?s ESB]

That's New York *state* though, not the city Bloomberg was mayor of.

[Pat (PM)]

The stat is statewide, but I'm sure there was considerable overlap.

[Irish ?s ESB]

I'm sure there's some overlap, but the most destitute parts of New York State are all the upstate regions no one cares about because the city controls state politics. I'm sure a large percentage of people fleeing are those who cannot ever find a job in the really poor areas of upstate New York.

[Cytotoxic]

I've heard round these parts that, horrible gun legislation, stop and frisk, and Big Gulp ban aside, he was actually quite good on the fiscal side of things. He may be the best we can do. He probably wouldn't fuck with libertarian efforts at the state level, which is where they've had the most success.

[Irish ?s ESB]

No way. Bloomberg is very authoritarian. No candidate cares about federalism any more, but he'd be one of the worst presidents ever when it comes to centralized federal authority.

[Cytotoxic]

He's a very very petty authoritarian. Maybe he'd try and fail to take your Big Gulps and forget about your immigrants. He might also try having logic wrt foreign policy. And the GOPers would suddenly give a shit about the USC, styming his centralization efforts.

[Pat (PM)]

New Yorkers, You Must Shovel by 11 A.M.

Imagine how chaotic life would be if there were no laws.

After a blizzard, for instance. If people did not shovel their sidewalks, the city would become a nearly impassable, boot-swallowing labyrinth.

Fortunately, New Yorkers are a law-abiding people. At 11 a.m., the shoveling requirement kicks in, and the sidewalks will all be magically cleared.

According to New York City's shoveling rules, if it stops snowing between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m., you have until 11 a.m. to clear your sidewalk.

[Tonio]

And some control freak on my neighborhood derpbook page was calling for the police to do crowd control at the local sledding hill.

[Just say Nikki]

I hope this was posted because it's the sanest of all NYC laws.

Except they actually give you too much time to wait.

[Pat (PM)]

Individualist anarchy, ladies and gentlemen...

[Just say Nikki]

Yes, individualist anarchists are able to recognize that despite the illegitimacy of a governing body, it is able to pass laws with varying degrees of sanity.

Some of us also know how dangerous it is when your neighbors are dickheads who don't shovel their sidewalks.

[Pat (PM)]

Whatever works for you.

[Free Society]

That's her guiding principle, she reconciles it with less subjective principles after she decides on her preference.

[The Tone Police]

You need to live in an advanced American city where people **drive** from place to place.

[Just say Nikki]

I do. We also walk.

[The Tone Police]

Walking is such outdated tech.

[gaoxiaen]

And gambol.

[Swiss Servator]

Has gambol-tech advanced much the past few years?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

My kid has shoes that light up. Shit's amazing.

[BearOdinson]

So anarchy for me, but not for thee........

[Free Society]

Yes, individualist anarchists are able to recognize that despite the illegitimacy of a governing body, it is able to pass laws with varying degrees of sanity.

Unless you're talking about immigration or whichever hobby horse you're tying yourself in knots over to pretend it complies with your purported principles.

Some of us also know how dangerous it is when your neighbors are dickheads who don't shovel their sidewalks.

Snow melts. Strap on your adult sized boots and deal with it.

[Libertymike]

A-fucking men.

What a fucking whiner.

Oh, the snowz threaten me.

[BearOdinson]

"Some of us also know how dangerous it is when your neighbors are dickheads who....."
smoke pot
own guns
don't drive electric cars
let their kids walk home from school
are Muslims
are Christians
are Atheists

The great anarchist utopia. No laws! Except shovel your sidewalks. And give me free birth control.

[Horatio]

That's how liberty dies, to the sound of shovelling.

[Free Society]

I just think it's funny she's using the "some laws are good even though they're statist" argument here, but on the issue of immigration she'll tell you that you can't have any kind of immigration restrictions because all statist laws are collective and unjust.

She even argues that the Non-Aggression Principle gives third parties a right to your property after the government has stolen it. But that same right to your property isn't created when a common thief steals it because government exists in it's own moral category, philosophically distinct from all other humans and groups and organizations. So much for consistently applied principles. I'm an individual anarchist myself, and I assure you that her ilk doesn't speak for them.

[Cdr Lytton]

Nikki, the Corv?e Princess. She truly is the worst.

[Scalro Humillimus]

We don't have sidewalks. We're still waiting for VDOT to plow our street. I guess that makes the government the dickheads which is the norm.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

It's like a town where I lived (one which can actually receive some quantity of snow), where the city ploughed the streets but was incapable of removing snow, in fact arguing that such a task is IMPOSSIBLE (despite the fact that much more impoverished communities further inland that typicly receive even more snow do just this every fucking year, several times). The city couldn't even shove all the snow from each block onto one of the empty lots (there's a couple on almost every one). The ploughs just ran down the street shoving the snow directly to the side (or the centerline). Anything else would be impossibly difficult, according to the administrators. So every time there was some snow, everyone's sidewalk got completely buried. One time my car was actually buried. I had to dig it out with a tractor. A person can come out in the morning to find a five foot wall of snow and ice where his sidewalk used to be. So the firechief was complaining that hydrants were being buried so that they were impossible to be accessed and at times difficult to even locate. To retrieve the situation, the city sent out a letter telling citizens they were required to keep snow from piling up on their sidewalks.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Somehow, there was no contradiction in their minds in believing every random citizen was capable of shifting yards of snow and ice from their property regularly whilst simultaneously holding that a paid city crew with voluntary assistance from the jail and a passel of heavy equipment was incapable of shifting snow from the streets onto neighbouring empty lots.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Does NY/NJ try to regulate every single part of their lives?

Man, I wouldn't be able to stand it.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I will say this though, as I converse with myself, I can't stand when my neighbors start up their snowblowers at 10 at night.

[Ted S.]

At least when you talk to yourself you're guaranteed to have an intelligent conversation.

[Always a Carl, Never a Clyde]

At least when you talk to yourself you're guaranteed to have an intelligent conversation.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I WAS GONNA MAKE A SELF-DEPRECATING STATEMENT BUT NOW I'M JUST GONNA YELL AND BE ANGRY OVER HERE.

[Ted S.]

How I imagine Rufus

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Yeh and:

http://bit.ly/1Un5UpC

[Private Chipperbot]

I picture this https://youtu.be/f4WLYZXNrSo

[Crusty Juggler]

I picture this.

TW: a shirtless man.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I'M THE EMBODIMENT OF ALL YOUR HOPES, DREAMS AND MYTHS.

[WoodchipperPatriarch]

How thin are your windows? None of my neighbors hear my snowblower.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

There is no TRY.

[Ted S.]

Only fail.

[Jerryskids]

According to New York City's shoveling rules, if it stops snowing between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m., you have until 11 a.m. to clear your sidewalk.

Before you shovel, though, remember to get your Sidewalk Snow Removal Permit from the Superintendent of Sidewalk Maintenance at the Office of Sidewalk Supervision. Office hours are 12-to-5 p.m. Failure to procure a permit carries a heavier fine than failure to shovel.

[Trigger Warning]

You just gave every bureaucrat in NYC a boner.

[Always a Carl, Never a Clyde]

In dystopian Britain, the police now hunt down 'pre-rapists'

The man, who can't be named for legal reasons, was found not guilty of rape in a trial last year. And yet a magistrate's court decided he was nonetheless dodgy, and served him with a Sexual Risk Order decreeing that he must provide the police with the name, address and date of birth of anyone he plans to bed, 'at least 24 hours prior to any sexual activity taking place'.

[Winston]

I imagine the Rotherham police aren't doing this?

[Medical Physics Guy]

Exactly. The whole thing is so weird and surreal.

[Winston]

Reminds me of that "anarchotyranny" stuff. The government is run by a bunch of authoritarians who don't really give a shit about crime unless the criminals actively oppose the government.

[ant1sthenes]

More like they actively encourage it because the people stupidly keep boosting their funding and power in the hopes that they'll eventually do something. The Raymond Cocteau model of rehabilitation.

Apologies to Rand, but the slogan for our future is "Who is John Spartan?"

[Medical Physics Guy]

Everytime I tell myself Britain can't get any more totalitarian, something new comes along. smh as the kids say.

[Ted S.]

Why do the kids say Sydney Morning Herald?

[PapayaSF]

Don't worry: I'm sure importing more Muslims will improve things.

[Cytotoxic]

Damn right. I'd take mild Sharia over this shit.

[ant1sthenes]

Well, -you- would. Get a tan and grow out a beard, and even you can get to second base.

[Cytotoxic]

This hurts my feelings.

[PapayaSF]

Well, at least a brief second base with some unwilling infidel girl he corners somewhere. That's sharia dating for you....

[Migrant Log Chipper]

And you are a fucking moron, badabing...fuck off war monger.

[Private Chipperbot]

Rotherham exlcuded, I'm sure.

[gaoxiaen]

*starts uploading Yorkshire directory in the morning while making coffee*

[BearOdinson]

But they are civilized country and we are just savages with our guns and stuff.

I can just imagine:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Unless the subject is dodgy, then it is, like, totally ok."

[Homple]

"upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Or if a dog acts like it smelled something.

[gaoxiaen]

Or you cross a checkpoint within or further than 100 miles of the border.

[Pat (PM)]

Man apparently trapped in running car by plow deluge dies

Authorities in eastern Pennsylvania say a man apparently trapped in his running car by a snowplow deluge died of carbon monoxide poisoning during the storm.

The Berks County coroner's office says 56-year-old David Perrotto was pronounced dead less than an hour after he was found Saturday night in Muhlenberg Township.

Assistant Chief Deputy John Hollenbach says Perrotto was apparently trying to dig out his car. Investigators believe he either was in the car with the motor running to take a break or to try to get out of the space when the plow came by and buried the car, blocking the exhaust and preventing him from exiting.

Another person trying to dig out their vehicle found the running car. Perrotto was pronounced dead at a hospital emergency room.

But just imagine how much deader he would be if we didn't have laws about shoveling your sidewalk...

[Ted S.]

He couldn't shut off the ignition?

[Tonio]

Possibly he couldn't open the doors because the snow pushed against them. I would have broken out the windows, then sued the *&^%$#@! out of the city.

[Ted S.]

But if he was in the car he would at least have been able to shut off the ignition and the try some way to get out of the car.

[Illocust]

He probably didn't know it would kill him. CO2 is dangerous in how it kills you without you realizing what's going on. The guy was likely just trying to stay warm while waiting to be rescued.

[Tonio]

Monoxide, not dioxide, but still.

[Libertarian]

CO2 is killing the whole damn planet. Don't underestimate it!

[Illocust]

Ah, thanks for the correction. To much time on the Global Warming articles.

[LynchPin1477]

Yeah, but still, turn off the car. Then honk the horn, call someone on your cell phone if you have it....

Probably he didn't realize he'd die of CO poisoning.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

One man dying of CO is a tragedy, billions dying from CO2 is just a statistic.

[Cyto]

Or he jumped in to warm up and didn't realize he was being poisoned. CO works that way - you'd feel a little tired and short of breath. If there was enough CO around you might get too fuzzy to figure out what was going on before it was too late.

[Cytotoxic]

MO will also give you headache, vertigo, burning eyes.

[DenverJ]

Which is why I stay the hell out of Missouri.

[Rt. Hon. Judge Woodrow Chipper]

Probably he didn't realize he'd die of CO poisoning.

He would've voted Democrat anyway.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

It's entirely possible he had no way to alert anyone. Folks I know, only about harf of them have working horns, and there are places where you can honk all day and nothing comes of it. And then it's possible he was put to have to chuse between suffocating or freezing while he waited. This is why my grandparents always had those duck feather shawls and wool blankets. Those heavy Norwegian duckfeather shawls are something else. They stop any wind and will seem to have an unbelievably powerful insulating value. I gone out in the snow to feed the birds in winter wi nothing but a bathrobe, boots, and a shawl, when it was nigh till 20 below F and never got uncomfortably chilly. And that Norwegian wool is about as close to waterproof as it gets. But no, let's go dragging a fucking sledge acrossed Antarctica in a Downs hunting costume...

[Brett L]

Its hard to tell from the inside that yout exhaust is blocked if it happens after you get in the cat

[Ted S.]

I think I'd notice if my cat were constipated.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I'm guessing Perrotto didn't have the greatest problem-solving skills. It either never occurred to him to shut off his engine because he got too preoccupied with getting out of the vehicle, or he thought he'd freeze to death if he were trapped there, so he had heat with the engine running.

I'd kill to have a picture of the scene because that suggest that the passenger side or 'curb side' of the car was so buried he couldn't dig out that way, seeing that the plow would only hit the street side.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I mean, he got IN the car so some of the work had already been done.

[B.P.]

Seems to me his car would've only been plowed in on one side. I suppose the snow may have been high enough on the sidewalk/passenger side to make getting out difficult, too. I don't know -- I was enjoying Denver T-shirt weather this past weekend. Mwahahahaha....

[Tonio]

We need government to make our lives better.

[Trouser-Pod (The blowhard)]

eastern Pennsylvania

Ahhh. See, in Texas, our people die from heat-related issues. Just like nature intended.

[Illocust]

Heat kills a lot less people than cold every year. It's easier to strip off clothing and sleep it off under a tree than not freeze to death if your an old person that lost electricity.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

If those old people were jogging in place and eating organic Kale as nature commanded, they'd be a lot warmer and fit.

[Unreconstructed (Sans Flag)]

As a bonus, you don't have to shovel heat off the sidewalks either.

[BearOdinson]

Having lived in the Midwest (Kansas), NY and AZ I have experienced the spectrum.

And I will take the cold any day of the week and twice on sundays. You can always put more clothes on, and snuggle with your partner(s). When it is 120, you can only get so naked. And at that point, being naked isn't much fun.

[Cytotoxic]

I can take living in a furnace as long as I get to SLEEP in comfort. If it's even two degrees Centrigrade outside of my range, my life turns into a sleep-deprived hell.

[Old Man With Candy]

You being naked isn't much fun for the rest of us, either.

[Rich]

NASA preparing humanoid robots for future deep space missions

"I'm sorry, Dave ?."

[Brett L]

"I can't do that. Teledilonics are not in my programming"

[gaoxiaen]

They never showed what TARS and CASE could do with the middle section.

[Libertarian]

Did NASA have a booth at the porn convention?

[Tonio]

[robotic golf clap]

[Mongo]

Dave's not here!

[TheZeitgeist]

Lol. Humanoid to 'assist' humans.

So go to all the trouble of having infrastructure for peeps on mission, then have fake peeps. So Apollo 11 version of this is where 'bot gets out instead of Neil, who still rode to surface with it but waits in the 'safe' LM.

Glad these geniuses are increasingly out of the spaceship-building business.

[BearOdinson]

"Give my regards to Capt. Dunsail."

[Pat (PM)]

Watch this robot solve a Rubik's Cube in 1 second

Software engineers Jay Flatland and Paul Rose have built a machine that can solve Rubik's Cubes ridiculously fast. Their robot takes just over one second to complete the task.

The duo is currently in the process of applying for a world record. This shouldn't surprise anyone given that the current machine record stands at 3.253 seconds (the current human world record is held by Lucas Etter at 4.904 seconds). Indeed, if they are approved, they would crush the previous record.

In the video, the robot solves the infamous puzzle in 1.196 seconds, 1.152 seconds, 1.047 seconds, and at the very end, 1.019 seconds.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Considering there's a world record for blindfolded rubik's cube, building a robot to simply spin with the same pattern really, really fast isn't all that impressive.

[Libertarian]

So now we're designing robots to play our games for us? Wouldn't it be simpler not to produce the games in the first place?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Q-BERT!

[BearOdinson]

Just think of the time we could save if our robots could do our jigsaw puzzles and sudokus for us!

[commodious spittoon]

Pfft and next they'll be winning Jeopardy, right?

[Pat (PM)]

This Day in History

1890 - Nellie Bly bested Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days by completing her circumnavigation in 72 days.

1890 - United Mine Workers of America was founded.

1915 - Alexander Graham Bell inaugurated transcontinental telephone service.

1924 - The first Winter Olympic games opened at Chamonix, France.

1961 - President John F. Kennedy held the first presidential news conference carried live on radio and television.

1971 - Charles Manson was found guilty of murdering Sharon Tate and six others.

[bacon-magic]

#1 is the not. Whoa Nellie.

[Brett L]

#6 is the not. He just incited the others to murder.

[Rich]

Harvard is trying to build an AI as fast as the human brain

The project will generate over a petabyte of data, which will be analysed by a series of complex algorithms

"At Hahvahd, we do not end our sentences with prepositions."

[Tonio]

But will it have to go through consent training before it's allowed to interact with coeds?

[Medical Physics Guy]

This wasn't the original I remember reading, but it will do:

Trying to simulate the human brain is a waste of energy

Basically these project are always pouring money down the toilet. We don't even know what we're supposed to be simulating.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

If they could get a chatbot to hold a believable conversation, they'd be miles ahead of where they are now.

[Medical Physics Guy]

Radiolab once hyped some Cornell AI as being able to pass the Turing test. I went to its web site. What a bunch of hype. That thing was crap.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Was that the one where they primed the testers by claiming the person on the other end didn't speak "good English" so the testers basically ignored all the gibberish and nonsense?

[Medical Physics Guy]

I got the impression that the Turing tests have become entirely inside baseball, AIs that do well in it are programmed to say "surprising" random nonsensical things and so forth, to try to fool a judge into thinking it must be human. And so everyone is just trying to out-clever everyone else, rather than develop an AI that responds like a normal person.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

They're parlour tricks. Even the one's I've messed with which are supposed to be the 'best in breed' are using a kind of sleight of hand.

[BearOdinson]

+1 Chinese Room

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

BTW, you should check out the movie Ex Machina which treats the subject of AI really well, at least in the approach of the characters.

The young kid asks the designer if it's a valid test because in a real Turing test, the tester isn't supposed to be aware he's talking to a machine.

Isaac's character says that the robot would easily pass the turing test, so the real question is, would the kid feel that the robot had a consciousness, even knowing that it was a robot.

[OneOut]

Good flick.

Have you seen Interstellar ?

I digged it.

[Always a Carl, Never a Clyde]

This is one of my favorite images ever used in a Wikipedia article ("Settlement of the Americas", specifically). It's adorable.

This map image could be recreated using vector graphics as an SVG file, indeed.

[Ted S.]

I think you screwed up the link.

[Always a Carl, Never a Clyde]

Indeed I did.

[Libertarian]

"Obama Seems to Favor Clinton as Successor"

Well, of course he does. In 4 short years he would look great by comparison. Best legacy come-back since Nixon.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Which is funny because Bernie Sanders is his distilled heir apparent.

[tarran]

Narcissists don't like competent people upstaging them. They prefer to surround themselves with less capable people compared to whom the narcissists shine!

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Bernie appears to be running on a platform that's as incompetent as Obama initially wanted to be.

[tarran]

If you consider the histories of Bernie's stint as Mayor, he appears to have been pretty adept at gauging what sorts of horse trading was required to get his opponents to support his policies or at least to stop opposing them vigorously.

There is no doubt in my mind that if Bernie were to win, he'd forge a working relationship with the Republicans that would have him transforming the country as thoroughly as FDR. He scares me more than Trump to be honest. Trump is a lazy idiot. Bernie is really competent and energetic idiot.

[Libertymike]

Yes, one can see why one might be more scared of Bernie than the Donald. However, based on their life stories, how can it be because Trump is lazy and Bernie is really competent and energetic?

[Cytotoxic]

I just don't see it. Bernie is the crazy uncle with incipient dementia. I don't see him getting far even as prez.

[Migrant Log Chipper]

Then again you are a fucking idiot..

[Old Man With Candy]

If you consider the histories of Bernie's stint as Mayor

Of a town the size of Mayberry.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Obama is a party man to the end. This isn't much of a surprise.

[PapayaSF]

I have to ask: what's the story with your screen name? A reference to Chelsea Clinton? Did you have a sex change? Or...?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Oh, like most everything I've done in life, it's not particularly thought out... it was during the Clinton email scandal when I found out Chelsea Clinton went under the nom de plume of Diane Reynolds... and a lot of other people did a name change involving the wood products industry, so I felt a name change was in order... but I kept the original because I kept trying to figure out who was who during the great name-changeover here on Reason. Plus it allowed people who filter me to continue to do so by keeping the wildcard in there.

I'm all about putting others first.

[PapayaSF]

Do people filter you? By that, do you mean filter you out, or in?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I have no idea if people filter me (out). But if people don't want to read my insipid comments, I want to make it easy for them not to.

[Old Man With Candy]

and a lot of other people did a name change

Can I let you in on a secret? "Michael Hihn" is actually Nikki. Apparently, the original one went into a coma several years ago, the handle was abandoned, and... well... it's hilarious to watch. She's very skilled.

[PapayaSF]

Well, they've both been rude to me recently, so maybe there's something to that....

[Brett L]

"Her who I give the kiss of friendship, her shall you arrest."

[Winston]

I hope Bloomberg runs. And I hope Reason will run an article saying that he might be better than Trump or Clinton/Sanders which will be hilarious.

[Medical Physics Guy]

I think he probably would be. A sissy nanny is probably less trouble than a fascist, corporatist warmonger or a communist.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

You're confusing me, which one's which?

[Libertarian]

I'll give up my Big Gulp when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Reason should just endorse whoever the libertarian candidate is. If not, just sit it out.

You can't be libertarian and fricken endorse any of those sauces.

[Winston]

Reason has for the last few election cycles ran a "libertarian case for" whichever Democratic and Republican candidate. And in the latest midterm elections. And they run Steve Chapman and Terry Michael articles.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Which strikes me as silly. Yeh, I get the 'cocktail' angle and to be relevant because those are the people who will get elected. But it's sad about endorsing on the grounds 'of hope and pray they're not too big government'.

[PapayaSF]

I keep saying this: we did not get into the bankrupt and semi-socialist mess that we're in because the Socialist Party won elections. We got here through incremental socialist measures by the Democratic Party (usually). So it makes sense to examine the "libertarian case" for non-Libertarian candidates.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

They're not endorsements. Has Reason ever endorsed a candidate? The writers publish who they vote for.

[Winston]

Only Rufus said that Reason has "endorsed" anyone.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

Yes, that's why I am responding to him.

[Brett L]

I can't wait to see how Southerners take to some little abrasive fella from NYC telling them that after he gets done prying the Big Gulps from their cold, sticky hands, he's coming for their guns.

[Tonio]

Brett, Bloomberg recently bankrolled a liberal anti-gun congressional candidate in Virginia; that candidate lost big-time. A lot of people said they were voting against Bloomberg as much as anything. I'd love to see him waste his fortune on a quioxtic bid for office.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Well bully to Virginia. They're more Bloomberg-friendly where I live.

[Cdr Lytton]

Ditto. Baja Washington is gaga for Bloomberg.

[Pat (PM)]

He's got 35 billion dollars. A fully self-financed campaign would probably only eat up 10% of his net worth at most.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

According to some maths I saw on the internet, he could give each of us like $70M and completely eradicate poverty.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

He'll get your guns LONG before he gets your big gulps.

[BearOdinson]

The fucked up thing about Bloomberg, is that on economics, he would probably be better than most of the people running (with the exception of Rand obviously and Cruz). But he has such a fucking hard on about controlling people's lives in every other way.

[WoodchipperPatriarch]

Where do you get that he would be any good on economics?

[Cytotoxic]

I've heard that as mayor he actually held the line on finances.

[DenverJ]

It doesn't matter which symptoms he shows, he is still infected with authoritianism.
Fire cleans out most infestations.

[Cytotoxic]

Why would the simple truth be hilarious?

[Winston]

Because they called him the no. 1 Enemy of Freedom since Reason was formed in 1968?

[Winston]

http://reason.com/archives/201.....of-freedom

[Medical Physics Guy]

Man found dead on sex swing surrounded by gas cylinders.

Anyone seen _______?

[Ted S.]

ENB?

/ducking

[Medical Physics Guy]

I hear a rumor it was Jack and Ace

[Trshmnstr, terror of the trash]

Hitler?

[Libertarian]

Stupid Brits. Why didn't he just park in a snow drift, like a real American would?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Electric cars don't emit anything.

[Libertarian]

Smugness. They emit smugness.

[lafe.long]

Lena Dunham: Actress Says Coverage of Hillary Clinton's Campaign Has Been 'Rabidly Sexist'

"I literally want to make a list that we hand to media outlets that says, 'These are the words you can't use when describing a female candidate,'" Dunham told Variety.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I wish she and Justin would just get a room to distract each other and spare of us of their banality.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Dunham, 29, is often proclaimed as a voice for millennials and women

*lets out really long sigh*

[Hamster of Doom]

Imagine how we feel. Sean Penn is bad enough, but picture people claiming he was a voice for men.

[GILMORE?]

""I literally want to make a list ...that says, 'These are the words you can't use "..

LITERALLY

[The Tone Police]

As opposed to a figurative list?

"Literally" is the hill I've chosen to die on, or at least go into Old Man Yells at Cloud about.

[GILMORE?]

I'd like to hand Lena the OED with a label taped on the front= "WORDS YOU CANT USE"

[Scalro Humillimus]

I read that as "an IED".

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

'These are the words you can't use when describing a female candidate,'

Pantsuit?

Bitchy?

Dunhamesque?

Estrogen laced?

Female?

Logical?

Presidential?

Okay, those last two are ones I can't use to describe Hillary.

[WoodchipperPatriarch]

You forgot Bossy.

[Hyperbolical (wadair)]

Bossy is the new "leader".

[BearOdinson]

Unless its Sarah Palin. Or Carly Fiorina. Or Condoleeza Rice. Or any other bitch with an R by her name. (See, it is ok to call them bitches, because, you know, they are rethuglicans.)

[Trouser-Pod (The blowhard)]

So, a woman slug evil-Picasso-painting-come-to-life makes her living saying pretty much whatever she likes, as a form of entertainment, and wants to tell others what they can and can't say?

Sounds legit.

[Crusty Juggler]

You animals leave her alone - she speaks to me!

[Trouser-Pod (The blowhard)]

Yeah, but you can't talk to her without following her goodspeak list.

BTW, is her nickname Pebbles?

[gaoxiaen]

Number 1. Hot.

[lafe.long]

Stacey Dash: Actress and Political Pundit Publishes Blog Post, 'How BET Lies to Black People'

Dash appeared on "Fox & Friends" and said that the BET network and Black History Month should be discontinued. She elaborated on her opinions in a post on Patheos.com.

[GILMORE?]

A glance at that seems to say to me, "PERSON SAYS SHIT ON TWITTER TO GET ATTENTION, THEN USES ATTENTION TO DRAW MORE ATTENTION TO SELF. ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME SOMETHING BLACK ME ME ME ME ME ME"

to be fair, its Milo Y's game too, but at least he's got some wit.

[commodious spittoon]

He also describes himself as a professional troll provocateur (actually I'm pretty sure he acknowledges troll, too), so he's also forthright about his roll in the world.

[commodious spittoon]

...just roll with it.

[Winston]

Did anyone realize that Black History Month is February which has leap day, something created by a slaveowner?

[PapayaSF]

"Of course our white oppressors would only give us the shortest month!!"

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

It's funny when Aaron McGruder makes that complaint, Stacey. A conservative saying it is just a race traitor.

[Libertarian]

What's Morgan Freeman, chopped liver?

[Libertymike]

No, he's a chauffeur.

[Winston]

Speaking of classical liberalism and its decline:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.....ed_Kingdom

In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, a group of British thinkers, known as the New Liberals, made a case against laissez-faire classical liberalism and argued in favor of state intervention in social, economic, and cultural life. The New Liberals, which included intellectuals like T.H. Green, L.T. Hobhouse, and John A. Hobson, saw individual liberty as something achievable only under favorable social and economic circumstances.[6] In their view, the poverty, squalor and ignorance in which many people lived made it impossible for freedom and individuality to flourish. New Liberals believed that these conditions could be ameliorated only through collective action coordinated by a strong, welfare-oriented and interventionist state.[17]

The Liberal governments of Henry Campbell-Bannerman and H.H. Asquith, especially thanks to Chancellor of the Exchequer and later Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, established the foundations of the welfare state in the UK before the First World War. The comprehensive welfare state built in the UK after the Second World War, although largely accomplished by the Labour Party, was significantly designed by two Liberals: John Maynard Keynes, who laid the economic foundations, and William Beveridge, who designed the welfare system.

[Winston]

Damn it they made some compromises, engaged in political expediency and classical liberalism sure survived didn't it?

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

As I said* last time you brought this up, these people weren't "compromising." They had a different conception of liberalism, freedom, and the legitimacy and capability of state power. It's right there in the words you quote. They are not the dreaded cosmos settling for school vouchers as second-best to full privatization.

*or thought I said... maybe I got bored before getting to this point

[Winston]

these people weren't "compromising."

Bullshit. Campbell-Bannerman, Asquith and Lloyd George were compromisers who sold out classical liberalism and destroyed their own party, Britain and Europe in the process.

Also I explicitly compared the "we should stop hating government" libertarians to these guys since these "social liberals" said the exact same thing!

[Cytotoxic]

Your own article makes clear they didn't 'compromise' in the slightest. You're a mendacious asshole.

[Winston]

Um Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith served in Gladstone's cabinet and Lloyd George was in an alliance with the Conservatives and did not become a Liberal Unionist because he missed a meeting?

Anyway my point is that once the liberals started saying that "we should love the State" then their decline into modern progressivism was inevitable.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

What was the compromise in the People's Budget? I see the compromise narrative over, say, nationalizing education, but everything I've read* about the period and the people involved suggests they clearly had a different conception of liberalism. They were not moderate Spencerites who were just trying to nudge things along, but challenging intellectuals who had a place in one of the two reigning parties. And this split was inevitable, given the weak backbone of liberalism. And sure enough, libertarian is such a broad label today that it largely suffers the same problem. And I have more to say, but it's time for dinner and you're an incessant whiner who willfully misreads the point of the "we should stop hating government" libertarians, so fuck it.

*like the wiki summary you just posted

[Winston]

I mention political expediency because there definitely was an attitude that Liberals had to become more socialistic to avoid socialists and Labour from becoming too successful (verdict: didn't work).

My personal beef is the whole "if government works then people will want less of it" which I find rather dubious. Sure the "people hate government but want more" is true but that is because they want TOP MEN to provide free shit and aren't getting enough.

[Trouser-Pod (The blowhard)]

In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, a group of British thinkers

Well, there's your problem...

[TheZeitgeist]

Like overland navigation of Antarctica, some British traditions persist from the Victorian age.

[PapayaSF]

Eight (8) theories on the heavily advertised embrace of Trump over Cruz by the disembodied GOP "establishment"

Thoughts?

[Winston]

Cruz is more libertarian than Trump and Trump, having made dealings with the money men over the decades, is more likely to be "tamed" than Cruz.

[GILMORE?]

The only one that actually has a shred of logic to it is #6

"They just want to win"

[AlmightyJB]

Posted an article the other day where they were talking about gop lobbyist not worried about Trump playing ball with them. A horse to water. Cruz on the other hand.

[Cytotoxic]

My theory: they worry Cruz will win and complicate life for them but they know Trump cannot win. They can live with Clinton.

[AlmightyJB]

Well you can't blame the cops for the assholes car catching on fire. Would be funny if it were a Honda since a major Honda factory is right along that highway in Marysville Good thing the dog got out

http://nbc4i.com/2016/01/25/po.....iery-mess/

[Libertarian]

Are they sure they got the right guy? He looks like such a sweetie in his mug shot.

[GILMORE?]

that is just... i mean, come on.

[lafe.long]

Chromebook: Google to Donate $5.3 Million Worth of Laptops to Refugees and Migrants in Germany

Project Reconnect, a collaboration with the nonprofit NetHope, will provide laptops to German aid groups to "facilitate easier access to education for refugees," Google said in statement.

[Libertarian]

Oh, sure, the LAPTOPS are free, but wait until they need an upgrade.

[TheZeitgeist]

They can save all their fatwas and goat porn on Google Drive for only $20 a year.

[Free Society]

LMFAO

[PapayaSF]

"Hey, everyone! Let's meet at the festival. There should be a lot of sexy infidels to grope!"

[Libertarian]

I don't think the phrases "migrants" and "flash mob" would be very popular in Europe right now.

[Res ipsa loquitur]

The computer donations will probably go about as well as the ones we donated to the afghans. Strangely, they would all crash a few days later so clogged with porn or all sorts it would boggle the mind. Truly, Islam is the land of sexual repression.

[OneOut]

So they had a bunch of unsold inventory sitting around and someone said let's donate it a full retail value to a NGO with social cache. That way we show a write off above our manufacture cost. it's a win win win for us.

And So they did.

[Brett L]

So, like 100,000 shitty computers that let them tailor advertising to the fastest growing sector of18-35 year old men on the planet? They're so humanitarian.

[Crusty Juggler]

Great alt text, Scott.

[Cytotoxic]

Libertarian Moment: Antigua and Barbado has abolished the income tax it implemented in 2004.

[Irish ?s ESB]

"No More Robbing of Your Labor in Antigua and Barbuda"

Panam Post has some fucking anarchists working over there, don't they?

[Cytotoxic]

It's a good site. They also call out the nativist idiots for their lies too.

[Akira]

You know who else had a mustache like this guy?

[Crusty Juggler]

Harris grand jury indicts pair behind Planned Parenthood videos

Fucking Texas.

[Crusty Juggler]

Secret videographers David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were both indicted on charges of tampering with a governmental record, a second degree felony that carries a punishment of up to 20 years in prison. Daleiden received an additional misdemeanor indictment under the law prohibiting the purchase and sale of human organs.

[GILMORE?]

"tampering with a governmental record"

from a quick read there, it seems that they used faked IDs when they tried to get the PP people to talk on the record with them about 'fetal organ' sales?

[Crusty Juggler]

The organization alleged that Daleiden and others used aliases, obtained fake government I.D.s, and formed a fake tissue procurement company in an effort to gain access to private areas and record private conversations to be deceptively edited to create a false impression.

The second indictment for Daleiden suggests that the grand jury found that he went too far in trying to get Planned Parenthood to admit to selling tissue. The crime, a class A misdemeanor is committed if a person intentionally offers to buy or offers to sell a human organ, including fetal tissue. If convicted, the maximum punishment is a year in jail.

Apparently.

[Cyto]

This one looks pretty egregious. They cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing in the arena of selling fetal tissues, but at the same time indicted the activist/journalists for offering to purchase fetal tissue as a part of their investigation. There's no chance that this isn't a politically motivated prosecution at that point.

If you don't indict the drug dealer for actually selling pot because he's complying with state law on marijuana sales, you certainly shouldn't be indicting the journalist who demonstrates that you can go down to the dispensary and get prices for the latest hybrid strain. The same applies to these whackos.

It will be interesting to see where the left is on this one. This is one of their favorite tactics. The PETA types love to break in to research labs and video research animals, or get behind the scenes at slaughterhouses to show just how much blood there is when you kill a thousand cows. They have been outraged at attempts to silence this activism. I wonder if they'll stand on principle and defend the anti-abortion activists. Or will they go with team proggie.

I know which side I'd lay my money down on.

[Free Society]

20 years? I personally know of a couple child rapists that got less than 1/5th of that time. Some "justice" system.

[GILMORE?]

"maximum" sentence. they always print the absolute max, when the 'real' max is usually 1/5 of the quote, and the average sentence hardly anything

[JeremyR]

Yeah, but in political cases like this, the maximum sentence is often applied

[grrizzly]

Is it the same crime that kids commit when they get a fake id to buy booze?

[GILMORE?]

that's usually a state-drivers-license, and the penalties for under-age drinkers using them are fairly mild (tho can vary wildly depending on state)...

I have a little experience with this, having been arrested in 3 states as an underage drinker w/ differing forms of valid/invalid ID.

also - there are different kinds of crime related to fake-id's. One, for example, is taking an existing ID and changing the birth date or photo. Another is actually "faking" an actual document (something that was never a valid ID in the first place). All have different penalties and also vary on how they are employed.

i suspect what they're charged with is a bit more complicated than that, and may have involved presenting fake credentials which suggested they were authorized to conduct X/Y/Z transactions

[OneOut]

Hey Crusty.

You know who else tampered with a government record buy telling her aides to strip it of it's classified heading in order to make it an unpaper and then send it over an unsecured fax because she's is too stupid to know how to use email but yet isn't under indictment even though she did that before these people videoed PP trying to sell murdered baby parts as she runs for the presidency ?

Go ahead guess who?

[Derpmaster General]

Does anyone know how much the value of my Mizzou JD has gone down in the past 6 months? Can we find a way to measure this? I've been flat out laughed at (for good reason) by 2 firms in Texas solely for having that on my resume.

[Cytotoxic]

TO cop found not guilty of murder BUT is found guilty of attempted murder....for guy he murdered. Cop unions has sad.

http://news.nationalpost.com/n.....ith-murder

[Winston]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around how someone can be charged with attempted murder of someone they killed? Is this some "it wasn't the gun that killed him it was the exsanguination!"

[Winston]

Also this strikes me as a way to convict a cop for killing someone without calling it murder.

[Cytotoxic]

Hey, whatever works.

[Winston]

More accurately they convicted a cop for killing someone without convicting him for killing someone.

[paranoid android]

I think I've got it.

Thought experiment: you're walking down the road when you're set upon by an unknown assailant. You have a weapon on you and shoot the attacker until he falls--textbook justified self-defense. You can see the attacker is not moving and the threat he posed is extinguished. Angered at his transgression, you stand over his prone body and empty the rest of your bullets into him anyway. If the attacker was alive at this point, you've just murdered him--but the medical examiner concludes that the first bullet you fired, in the midst of the attack, was the fatal one. So you didn't murder him--but you attempted to.

[commodious spittoon]

The second-degree murder charge against the officer relates to the first three shots he fired, while the attempted murder charge pertains to the second volley.

I think you've got it right.

[gaoxiaen]

He's such a bad shot that he really didn't expect to hit the suspect.

[Cytotoxic]

"The bullets murdered him with their uncalled for accuracy."

[GILMORE?]

Brain-Damage-Causing Mosquito on its Way to USA

- "may have actually been here for decade, scientists suggest, noting popularity of Lena Dunham, Donald Trump".

[Cytotoxic]

This morning when I woke up my sheets were upside down! Isn't that wacky?

[Crusty Juggler]

That is one of the first symptoms of Jumping Frenchman of Maine disorder.

[Cytotoxic]

Now that is something I'd like to know about!

[R C Dean]

Here's an interesting one:

The DA has decided not to go after Planned Parenthood for illegally selling fetal tissue (which I thought was very clear from the videos that they were out of compliance with the law) but is instead going to indict the people who made the videos.

http://www.chron.com/news/hous.....782865.php

Let the cognitive dissonance begin! On the one hand, First Amendment. On the other hand, abortions!

[Irish ?s ESB]

"Daleiden received an additional misdemeanor indictment under the law prohibiting the purchase and sale of human organs."

Wait, fucking what? How did he engage in the purchase and sale of organs unless Planned Parenthood was engaged in the purchase and sale of organs, in which case they should also be indicted?

[ant1sthenes]

You know, with a morally contentious topic like abortion, people can deal with things in a first amendment fashion, or a second amendment fashion, so to speak.

The threat of jailtime for using violence probably dissuades some radicals from that course when other arguments in favor of nonviolent protest fail. However, if it becomes perceived that the progs are manipulating the law to find excuses to put people in jail for their speech (*cough*nghazi*cough*), then I wonder whether that will change the calculation.

[See Double You]

Eighteen-year-old pregnant girl dies after shoveling snow.

I had no idea people died from snow shoveling...

[Crusty Juggler]

I had no idea people died from snow shoveling...

It is usually just the elderly.

We got my father this product because while he is not too old, he recently had knee surgery and my parents have a long driveway, so he can't shovel it, but he tries. It seems like it would make shoveling a lot easier, but we did not yet had enough snow this year to try it.

[AlmightyJB]

That looks pretty sweet. We haven't had much this year either. Two fairly light snows. I like that though design though.

[Crusty Juggler]

I think it's worth trying for $40.

[OneOut]

Many of uus in Texas are regularly shocked by the number of heartattacks that kill snow shovelers every heavy snowfall each year i heard this on the radio today.

it's not so much the exhortation it's self that kills, it doing it in the cold which restricts the blood flow to constricted lungs supplying oxoygen to the blood.

[GILMORE?]

"It is usually just the elderly.

We got my father this product because while he is not too old, he recently had knee surgery and my parents have a long driveway, so he can't shovel it, but he tries.'"

That's hilarious. My dad is exactly the same way and yesterday he was talking to me on the phone about this and asking me to buy him one.

https://wovel.com/

it looks retarded, but apparently they work. i don't think it would actually work in his particular application., which is hilly and doesnt really have an easy place to "toss" the snow.

Basically, if he were using a walker, he'd insist i install a snow-plow in the front and demand he do the work himself. Old people, they crazy. but i do think the boom in "novel snow-shoveling solutions" is cute.

[commodious spittoon]

I suppose if you're short on blind orphans to shovel snow with their bare hands, this "wovel" might suffice.

[JeremyR]

It's pretty hard work

[SusanM]

Alt-Text: I'll give 'em back if you endorse me.

[Brian]

Ben Cohen, the co-founder of ice cream company Ben & Jerry's, creates a "Ben's Best" Bernie Sanders ice cream flavor.

It would be a "Ben & Jerry's" ice cream flavor, except they sold it to Unilever in 2000.

Nothing says socialism like selling your ice cream store to a huge multinational conglomerate.

[GILMORE?]

Ben & Jerry's was sort of the symbolic prototype of the modern "progressive" liberal hypocrite

before then, a liberal was more characterized by the hippy, Whole Earth Catalog aesthetic. spartan frugality, humility. underfed cats. wheat germ.

they were the first examples of the 'super-wealthy liberal snoots', who believed you could combine conspicuous consumption and self-indulgence with moral-superiority. That you could be a super-rich suburbanite and moan about the 'destruction of the planet' without a hint of self-awareness.

[ant1sthenes]

Sort of the liberal counterpart to TV televangelists?

[widget]

So why isn't a treat like ice cream going the same way as beer? I mean with regional and local manufactures competing with multi-nationals. It would seem to be about the same startup cost for a creamery as it would for a brewery. Superbowl commercials are that effective?

[Sevo]

In SF there used to be ice cream parlors that made the ice cream on premises, with a *wonderful* place in the first block of Clement St. in the Richmond. Another in upper Noe Valley, near where a GF lived at the time.
They're gone; dunno if it was just economics or some gov't sanitary regs, but...

[OneOut]

Similar start up costs perhaps.

Similar profitss? NO.

When is the last time you saw someone eat 12 ice cream cones in a row

When is the last time you saw someone drink 12 beers in a row ?

[commodious spittoon]

Night before last, in a mirror. Crying and shouting abuse. Worth every penny.

[Sevo]

From the comments:
"It's full of nuts, flakes, and fruits, but it's still bland and tastes recycled, and worse, when you buy a pint you will find it's only 10% full because the other 90% has been given away for free to the people who refuse to pay for it, AND even though a pint costs only $7.00, there's a $70.00 tax added on."

FUNNY!

[Ammy50]

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..

Clik This Link inYour Browser....

? ? ? ? http://www.Workpost30.Com

[Ammy50]

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..

Clik This Link inYour Browser....

? ? ? ? http://www.Jobstribune.com

[Ammy350]

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..

Clik This Link inYour Browser....

? ? ? ? http://www.Workpost30.Com

[ammytelar1458]

just before I saw the receipt that said $7527 , I accept that my mom in-law woz like actualey making money in there spare time from there pretty old laptop. . there aunt had bean doing this for less than twentey months and at present cleared the depts on there appartment and bourt a great new Citro?n 2CV . look here.......
Clik This Link inYour Browser.
??????? http://www.Jobstribune.com

[amyedwards4569]

My first job out of High School was at St Paul and over the next 5 years Iearned so very much. Seeing the hospital torn down tears a small piece of my heart out. The Daughters of Charity and the doctors and staff of St Paul Hospital will always be with me.
??????????? http://www.Jobstribune.com