Nuclear Weapon Summit Is Probably Pointless, Mississippi Passes Broad Religious Freedom Bill, State Department Was Mean on Twitter: P.M. Links

-
National Nuclear Security Administration World leaders have gathered in D.C. to discuss curbing the threat of nuclear weapons. Russian President Vladimir Putin is not there, so not much is expected to happen.
- Mississippi's legislature has passed a new religious freedom law that would forbid the state from punishing some conduct and discrimination in opposition to same-sex marriage and some other LGBT situations. The law protects businesses who provide wedding-related goods and services, but also permits therapists and doctors to refuse to assist transgender people with their issues (but only related to transitioning), prohibits clerks from being punished for refusing to license same-sex marriages, and a host of other things. Rather than declaring this law is "better" or "worse" than what has been going on in other states, here's a link to the text for you to read yourself.
- Serbian politician Vojislav Seselj has been acquitted of playing any role in the murders, persecutions and atrocities against thousands of Muslims that took place in Eastern Europe in the 1990s.
- Hundreds of thousands of people in France are protesting labor reforms that would give employers more power to negotiate work hours. Mind you, France's unemployment rate is still in double digits.
- Sen. Ted Cruz's campaign is trying to get Gov. John Kasich dumped from the Montana primary ballot by questioning the validity of signatures.
- The State Department has apologized for a tweet that suggested that not everybody is supermodel gorgeous as part of an effort to warn folks overseas from being lured into scams or robberies. So this is where we are.
- The California Assembly has approved the proposed $15 minimum wage plan, 48-26.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and don't forget to sign up for Reason's daily updates for more content.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
The California Assembly has approved the proposed $15 minimum wage plan, 48-26.
Economists almost all.
Democracy!!!
Cheerocracy!
Ready?!? OK!!!
Idiocracy.
True statement!
Nearly all economists agree, if not for the minimum wage, the stolen land of the southwest United States would be buried under 12 feet of polar bears.
But I guess they don't mention that on...FOX NEWS.
Faux News, pronounced Fawkes News by most progs.
If not for the undocumented mass Siberian-American migration of 12,000 to 15,000 years ago, the US would still be covered in 1,000 feet of ice and woolly mammoths would still roam the land.
wait you mean it's not and they don't?
Hello.
Mississippi interesting.
California predictable.
Canada cold.
I was thinking about minimum wage hikes this morning. Could a restaurant get around the wage law by doing profit sharing instead? Example: I own a restaurant, can I hire 10 servers and instead of a wage, they each get 1 percent of the profits at the end of the month? They aren't employees, they are junior partners. It would encourage the workers to cut down on waste/fraud and I could avoid raising prices.
I tried a variation of that here but for daycare. I found payroll taxes to be excessive at 20% so I wanted to hire everyone as self-employed contractors - which some workers prefer. But, surprise, I wasn't allowed by the ministry that governs this business. Here's the kicker: They hire contractors for the same reason as part of a plan to 'save' money. Apparently they're allowed but business are not.
Fuck you. That's why. Right?
Lol
Fuck you. That's why. Right?
Absitively, posolutely!
They outlawed hiring people as contractors in most professions in the US back in 1986 (unless they were historically a consulting profession like cleaning ladies and lawyers). Because this mode of operating had become very popular in the tech sector, and the govt figured those highly-paid professionals were cheating on their taxes. Therefore they wanted to force them to be corporate employees and pay via withholding. Turned out they had all been paying their taxes as contractors anyway, so the change netted zero for the IRS, but they couldn't overturn the law because government (even the congressmen who wrote the bill tried to repeal the law and failed).
So then the IRS publicly said they would just not enforce the law and a smaller tech contracting industry limped along of the die-hards willing to operate in a technically illegal manner. Then in 2010 the govt needed money badly and realized they had created a fertile little source of fines, so our hero Obama started enforcing the useless rule again. When the crackdown was announced, Joseph Stack, who had made it his life's struggle to try and operate as a contract-based software company, flipped out and killed the manager of the Austin IRS branch by crashing his private plane into the IRS building:
Within days of that attack, it appears, the IRS began targeting tea party and patriot groups...
That was very interesting, thanks for the info!
You might get away with that if they're equity partners with voting rights.
Which means you wouldn't get away with it as your business would collapse immediately.
Pay raises for everybody! woot-woot!
I'm not business savvy. Say the servers own 25% of the company and the proprietor own 75% of the company, they would hold votes but the proprietor gets 3x the votes.
Maybe. But the servers would have to buy in and get bought out when they're fired.
So as a new hire you get a loan that is deducted from future profits. If you get fired your loan is canceled and instead of unemployment you get bought out for the value of your share. Obviously the simplest solution is to get rid of minimum wage laws.
This sounds like California's response to Islamic banking.
Here's the thing. As a part owner, you're responsible for all of your payroll taxes (the self employment tax) instead of just half.
I don't think a waiter would put up with that shit for a sub-minimum wage job. It's 15.3% tax (on gross, not net) with no deductions or exemptions.
I should have guessed it wouldn't be that simple.
Active participants in the company's operations who aren't at least managing partners (shares equal to the largest share owned by an individual, 50% for two-person partnerships, 33% for three-person, etc.) are still considered employees. Sorry, the government is actually competent when it comes to screwing over businesses.
Well well well, it looks like somebody went online business school here.
If I understand your question, regardless, 75% is still majority and gets final say.
The votes are purely symbolic.
Eeeexcept - now the majority shareholder is bound by all sorts of obligations to the minority shareholders. You're not, legally, allowed to run roughshod over the rest of the owners just because you have a majority share.
And even if you're doing your duty to the other shareholders you still leave your company open to predatory lawsuits. If anything, you'd now have to vet staff with the same care you'd vet a *partner*.
But it *is* workable - its basically a worker-owned cooperative and the reason that I find people who hate capitalism so strange. Capitalism is only *one* among several models of free market commerce that we've tried and that you *can still try*. But the reason coops are so rare outside of small groups of service professionals is that capitalism simply works sooooooo much better for anything capital intensive or with a high turnover of workers.
There's nothing un-capitalist about a co-op.
Compared to the traditional 'capital owner hires staff' (a worker owned coop the capital owners *are* staff) there's plenty of difference.
But my point was that its the *free market* we want - capitalism is just one form of that and contrary to the claims of many other forms of free market business organization already exist, have been tried, and the door is open for new ones to appear.
You silly bastards think you can outsmart a thief as powerful and determined as the US govt...heheheh.
Always be one step ahead
You would probably still have to guarantee them the minimum wage if their shares of the profits didn't cover it. So, no, you'd end up paying them anyway and probably underwriting their earnings out of your share of the profit.
I'm glad I'm an employee and not an employer.
Already tried long ago; doesn't work.
What is encouraging is that even NPR did a story about how this wage hike may not be entirely fair to the poorer cities around the state were it *doesn't* cost $2,000 a month to rent a 200sf studio.
Nobody lives in those places.
They're too crowded?
Ba-dum TISH
To be fair, those places (El Centro, Fresno, Stockton) are so unimaginably shitty that the incremental increase in shittiness caused by even more unemployment will be barely noticed.
Wow man. Have you even been to any part of El Centro that's not a gas station off the 8?
Women, minorities, and teens hardest hit.
+1 that's the point
That is because employers are sexist racists that don't understand millenials.
Sen. Ted Cruz's campaign is trying to get Gov. John Kasich dumped from the Montana primary ballot by questioning the validity of signatures.
This is the first time I ever saw this being used against anyone other than the Libertarian Party.
The State Department has apologized for a tweet that suggested that not everybody is supermodel gorgeous...
MY MOM SAID I WAS BEAUTIFUL.
She told me the same thing.
Zing!
When you were trying on her panties and tucking it back?
I was able to fit both legs through one leg-hole.
That wasn't the leg hole.
My mom said I had a interesting personality.
And your school said you were special.
We're all above the median!
But when we feel the Bern, everybody will be right at the median. What will happen to Lake Woebegon, I wonder?
They will drain it and send it to Flint.
Then all its woes be gone.
No she didn't. When you were born, you were so ugly that the doctor slapped her.
I heard his mom used to hang a pork chop around his neck so that the dog would play with him.
Damn, I miss Rodney.
+0 respect 8-(
"You're uglier than maggots in a manure spreader."
"You're uglier than eight miles of gravel road."
"You're so ugly your face looks like the floor of a movie theatre."
Geez, you people are amateurs.
Americans used to believe the average American's opinion was garbage by itself, and only reasonable arguments were allowed in draft rooms and political meetings.
Somehow, this changed, and a single tweet can be the vanguard of a "public relations disaster." Can we wait to call it a disaster until the aftermath is completed?
I mean, Twitter is indicative of social consciousness? 140 character feedback?
Wait, so if the average American though the average American's opinion was garbage, then they thought their opinion about opinions was garbage and that we should value average opinions...
*ERROR* *ERROR* DOES NOT COMPUTE *explodes in a cloud of sparks*
Where did you get the second inference? "Then they thought their opinion about opinions was garbage?"
They knew that a solitary opinion was garbage, which is made clear by me typing "by itself." Then, using at least three brain cells, you infer that something more was needed, eg reasonable arguments, to graduate to political discourse, eg draft rooms and political meetings.
Use "b" for BOLD, "i" for italics, and "s" for strikethrough my good man, if you are feeling saucy. You may even want to sneak a link in there, or block quote. Then the all the kids will think you are L33T.
But to get to the point where they had a consensus that an individual opinion was garbage they'd have had to *individually* hold that opinion and put it forth to see who else agreed.
1 person is a moron but 60 million is a majority/mandate.
Your mom was pro-life before you were born, after...not so much.
Tinfoil Time with Tonio: WRT the impending shutdown of some DC Metrorail lines for up to six months, each. I'm wondering if there is something else going on there - like they're installing some type of protection, detection or countermeasures against - something. Or hardening the tunnels against bombs or infiltration through maintenance tunnels. The Blue line which is often mentioned as needing to close for an extra long time has a stop at the pentagon, and also goes near the White House.
While I certainly don't doubt the ability of government to fuck things up royally, I'm suspicious that they've actually let things go that far in DC since that would be quite embarrassing for the US Government.
Interesting. Do you produce a newsletter to which I could subscribe?
Yes. But I have to run copies on a ditto machine for security reasons. I love smelling the duplicating fluid. Post your address here and I'll send you the next edition.
Tonio's fingers are permanently stained blue. So is his mouth, but for a different reason.
The Spice?
Blu Man Group is his favorite Vegas act and he likes to show his appreciation.
There is a papa smurf joke available.
Very clever trying to get my address. Not going for it. But I do agree about mimeograph fluid. Memories of my time in elementary school.
Just drop a copy at the Dunn Loring Metro stop and I'll pick it up.
Ditto and mimeograph are two different things.
Really? What's a ditto machine then?
Spirit duplicator a.k.a. ditto machine (the one with the smell).
Mimeograph (uses ink).
Yeah, someone else knows the difference.
Do you know what PC LOAD LETTER means, too?
Well how bout that? I blame my lack of this knowledge on our failed public school system.
In your defense, PBR, back in the day many people did use the terms rather loosely.
Will you send me a pizza roll if I subscribe to your webzone?
+3 cans of Raid
wHAT HAPPENED TO yOUR FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!
Enough with the masturbation euphemisms.
I read that and drooled with glee.
Swiss, we need your glaze gaze
*narrows gaze*
" I love smelling the duplicating fluid..."
in the morning. It's smells like..... victory.
Get your fix.
+1 sweet aroma
Don't they have escalators that turn into Slip N' Slides when they break down?
They have people who die of starvation when they break down.
That happened at a Colorado Rockies baseball game I attended a few years ago. A big, long, steep escalator malfunctioned and went slip-n-slide. Some dude lost a foot.
If you have lived in DC for any extended period, you would not be remotely surprised about the possibility of Metro shutdowns. They have, indeed, let the system degenerate that terribly.
Another reason I no longer live in that area.
This. One summer taking the Red Line from Farragut North was more than enough for me.
Good paying Union Jobs!
What thats unpossible!!! Washington has some of the best planners in the ......
Very, very, very glad I work in Bal'mer now. I don't miss DC commutes. AT. ALL.
Very, very, very glad I work in Bal'mer now.
So sad. Understandable, as a step up from DC, but still . . . .
DC has it's good points, but traffic is not one of them. It's actually a good enough reason, alone, to nuke the city.
Luckily for Baltimore, it would be well within the blast radius of a Castle Bravo fireworks show over DC.
(We are all on another list now.)
I'll be very disappointed if something along these lines is not a plot point in next Monster Hunter International book, only with monsters and/or Elder Things.
Did Correia really sell out? I heard the next book is going to be a spinoff by some hack, and the next actual MHI book won't be until 2017.
IOW, is Correia going the late-career-Tom-Clancy route?
The last MHI book was set partly in DC, with entire US Govt chasing Agent Franks, and included a segment in so something like this would seem right.
The next book I think is an anthology set in MHI Universe, and yeah, real next book is coming sometime next year.
Ah, found the spinoff - Monster Hunter: Grunge, by John Ringo (less a hack, more a madman) and Correia, so at least he's not going Full Clancy and is still personally involved. Plus, the fact that he kept it in editing for over a year is promising.
Having spinoffs written by other established writers seems to be a Baen thing. They've done it with several of their other big series. Ringo and a few other writers have done several books for David Weber's Honor Harrington series, for instance.
"Mr. President, we must not allow a Metrotunnel gap!"
Why not both?
Nah, they just need time to clear out some camps of raiders and supermutants.
+1 Suppressed Advanced Marksman's Sniper Rifle
That's not in any fallout game.
And yet you know exactly what I was talking about. Funny, how that happened.
No, I knew ant1sthenes was describing fallout. And it's a shame they still haven't made a Fallout 4 just like they never made a Matrix sequel.
Mod purist. Just like my husband. Fine. Rush the main quest to the gatling gun and your private hoard of mini nukes. FINE.
I opened my save and looked up the name of my primary rifle. It's the Recoil Compensated Calibrated Powerful Pipe Bolt-Action Sniper Rifle. I shall rename it Antidisestablishmentarianism.
Super Mutants. They are installing the lab that will create FEV.
Tonio - there's no need to drag out special conspiracies when the bog standard one will do.
1. They've never made money - for the entire existence of DC metrorail they've been dependent on subsidies.
2. They've never spent the money they got wisely - for the enitre existence of DC metrorail they've spent the money on *new shit* instead of maintenance. More shinies ensure a larger budget next year than boring old 'ensuring the existing shit still works'.
3. The majority of the DC metrorail network is approaching 30 years - which is the normal operating lifespan of these rail networks before everything needs to be replaced. If they had budgeted appropriately this replacement work would have been an ongoing project over the last decade and a half instead of the looming emergency that it is.
4. As a looming emergency they can use this crisis brought about by management incompetence to hustle for more money.
5. When there's a budget crisis, no government agency has *ever* shut down extraneous services because a) that doesn't generate pissed off people to complain to lobby for you and b) if you shut down extraneous services someone might start questioning why you had those services in the first place and whether or not they need to be continued to be funded.
#5 is known as "Washington Monument Syndrome".
+1 Benedict Arnold Statue
Sen. Ted Cruz's campaign is trying to get Gov. John Kasich dumped from the Montana primary ballot by questioning the validity of signatures.
The Jouhn Hancoucks didn't have enough superfluous U's in them for Cruz's liking.
What are you going on aboot?
U.
O, U!
A! E! I!
And sometimes Y
patriarchy!!!
Vice Media ordered to give RCMP its material on Canadian suspected in terror charges
Thanks for doing our work for us, I guess.
Maybe CSIS can improve their operations a little so the RCMP doesn't have to rely on the media?
But that would mean Canada acting like a mature country.
Sometimes I wonder if we're 'Fredo from The Godfather.
Seriously?
Its a point in Canada's *favor* that the police needed to do this.
Is a point against Canada that their court ordered the reporter to turn over his documents.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is not there, so not much is expected to happen.
Because a lot of stuff usually gets done when world leaders muster for photo ops.
Perhaps Vlad is busy with Wendi
Wendi Deng: Rupert Murdoch's Ex-Wife Is Dating Russian President Vladimir Putin, Report Says
Can't wait for the book deal.
"Chicken Soup for the Soulless Sex-toy" or even "Empire Building for Dummies" or perhaps even "From Russia, with Smug"
Deng that's a lot of money, Bobby.
If that's true, this will be his downfall. I mean, come on, she's not that bad, but Murdoch's ex? Who, if we are to trust the article had a thing with Tony Blair and wrote this:
There's not enough bare-chested tiger wrestling in the world to make up for it.
Be Seen Discussing Important Things With Grim-Faced Urgency
It's step #11 in population appeasement.
That woman sure happens to meet a lot of rich, important people. Do they all go to the same bars?
The California Assembly has approved the proposed $15 minimum wage plan
These masturbation euphemisms are getting REALLY abstract.
Look, even fluffers need to make a living wage, dude.
I'm not sure how you'd charge hourly for that. I'd get paid per handie.
My god, man!
The cost of eye protection alone!
You'd need a splash-guard for your face, too.
Citizen X, known in smaller circles, as Citizen eXtenz, made their fortune pushing acai penis enlargement pills to prepubescent children in the Australian outback.
When asked about their philosophical viewpoint, one which holds that everything is related to the penis, they had this to say. "Dicks are everywhere! I can't stop thinking about dicks. Vagina's too, but to a lesser extent."
News at 11.
But, are they getting out of hand?
Re: The alt-text
+1 crown of creation
+2 Death Blooms by Mudvayne
Hundreds of thousands of people in France are protesting labor reforms that would give employers more power to negotiate work hours.
"Who are you to resist it, huh? MY CHILDREN NEED WINE."
How many nuclear weapons are there in Mississippi?
It's pronounced "nuke-YOU-ler."
It's Mississippi. It's pronounced "nucular." Learn it. Say it.
It's Mississippi. It's pronounced "that thing there whut glows in the dark".
How did I mississippi that.
who knew Carter and JFK were from Missippi, (and the middle pair of s's has no place in the South)
A non-zero amount.
How many nuclear weapons are there in Mississippi?
Bizarre Nuclear Trivia #3458:
Mississippi was setting for nuclear test detonation, furthest easternmost place in history of United States to host such an event.
Well, that certainly explains Hattiesburg.
Would have preferred if it were just reduced to rubble, personally.
It's called rustic.
How many nuclear weapons are there in Mississippi?
*Puts hand over eye*
Obligatory link
In the river, none.
Dammit, 'An obligatory link' for the haiku!
Alt text: Evidence emerges on how Hillary destroyed incriminating emails.
Yay! It's Shackford.
I'm Not Male. I'm Not Female. Please Don't Ask Me About My Junk.
I hope I am not inspiring moar Transgendered Bathroom Panic.
We won't ask about your junk if you don't tell us about your gender identity issues.
^This. Don't constantly talk about your gender identity and people won't ask questions about your naughty bits.
Somehow I have a feeling their bits aren't that naughty any more.
Except people constantly ask "when are you getting married? Do you want to meet my cousin?"
Me-yow! Here's the only way that could have been more catty.
I rule this a fair compromise.
No, but SugarFree is probably taking notes, you bastard.
"I know, at least, who my father is; you pig eating son of a whore." - /13th Warrior
Thanks for making me think of that movie. I'm going to watch it again.
You'd be surprised how many people ask me about my crotch. It's a lot.
Probably because of that "Ask Me About My Crotch" sign you wear.
I assume it goes more like this.
"I'm non-binary."
Random person on the bus: "Huh?"
"Yeah, sorry if that freaks you out."
RPOTB: "What are you talking about?"
"GAWD, I'm so sick of people not understanding me! Time to blog!"
seriously, nobody cares about your Special Snowflakeism, Sam Escobar.
"In other news, police officers had to widen their search for a suspected bank robber, saying that because of the uncertainty of the gender of the blue haired, massively pierced individual, all Women's Studies, English Majors, and Feminists at nearby Yale College should report to the nearest precinct for interrogation."
Xe's pretty. If xe has a vag (and no historically male parts)...
Would.
You're being transphobic, Francisco. Whether or not xe currently has or has ever had a penis should be irrelevant to whether or not you want to have sex with xem
Look man/woman/other, I just don't want to be called gay, alright?
Stossel turned you gay.
It was the stache.
"Stache"? I bet that's something extremely dirty in Polari.
most people you meet simply do not know much about non-binary gender identities
Maybe because you freak out when people ask about it?
Why would we be surprised? If you're getting into discussions about your gender identity, it's going to arise.
Can you (easily) use the urinal? Do you have eggs or sperm to sell? These are practical questions!
No, I'd call that a good party.
I hope I am not inspiring moar Transgendered Bathroom Panic.
After having induced/tip toed through a 'transgendered bathroom panic incident' recently; enjoy your ignorance. I think the current panic will be the tip of the iceberg. I expect mandatory sound proofing, abolishing of urinals altogether and/or a loss of 1A freedoms (i.e. a right to be forgotten in the restroom) so people can pretend they use the bathroom one way or the other.
I think it will be fantastic when we come full circle and there will be no public restrooms for women because 'real women' will be too afraid to use the restroom in public.
"Hello Toledo! We are Transgendered Bathroom Panic, and we are here to rock you!"
...prohibits clerks from being punished for refusing to license same-sex marriages...
AKA doing their jobs?
Not working is my religious prerogative...
Ah, the Original Trump, except for the billionaire part. I don't know if I have the stomach to look for his Greatest Hits on YouTube, but it might help H&R see a genuine fascist in action.
After his acquittal, Serbian politician Vojislav Seselj declared a "righteous infidel" by ISIS.
Dianne Feinstein Has To Use Google To Look Up Hillary's Senate Accomplishments
"As someone who worked with Hillary Clinton for nearly a decade in the Senate, what in your view was her signature accomplishment as a senator?"
"Golly, I forget what bills she's been part of or authored."
Well, to be fair, Dianne's no spring chicken, either.
Crusty?
Would.
Well, someone is gonna sell arms to Saudi Arabia, right?
The point people are missing is that Canada is supposed to 'be back' with all its superior morals and values under Trudeau. Meanwhile Limp Dion is the face of this country abroad.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com...../comments/
Dion's a smarmy, self-important ass, in either official language.
Four NYPD officers (3 of whom have prior civil rights complaints) arrest a mailman while wearing plainclothes because he criticized their driving after they almost hit him.
Which was a federal crime. And nothing else happened.
Luckily all the officer's gun's were jammed, and their tasers were depleted. Next time, mailman, next time.
Nuclear Weapon Summit Is Probably Pointless
"Probably"? Someone's in a generous mood today.
One of the more-bizarre (*so crazy its Brilliant!) editorials i've seen in a while =
Hank Paulson: Fight Climate Change With Free Trade
I obviously agree with the sentiment, but think maybe the "co-opt the narrative" strategy is a little lame here.
World leaders have gathered in D.C. to discuss curbing the threat of nuclear weapons.
Oh jeez, that is like so Ronnie Raygun circa 1980. Is Obama going to pass an executive order requiring that we start terrifying schoolchildren by making them sticks their heads under their desks again or something?
And if he thinks that nuclear proliferation is such a big deal, then why the hell did he blithely pave the way for Iran to build their own bomb? Oh right, because the shady, likely double agent Valerie Jarrett is his personal Svengali.
No nation has the combination of technology and recklessness to attempt a nuclear strike against the US. The real risk is all the nukes that disappeared in the waning days of the Soviet Union.
I like to think of Jarrett as his personal Rasputin.
Wait, you mean she's not just Rasputin after his sex change?
Heading to Vancoucer (BC) for a few days, anyone have any recommendations on where I should or shouldn't go?
Isn't there a commenter here who lives in Vancouver? Have a meet-up with him.
It serves as a warning.
anyone have any recommendations on where I ... shouldn't go?
Vancouver as a whole.
I... this is probably accurate.
There's nothing to do there now. The grizzly bears are still hibernating.
Is that why I didn't see any at the airport?
Can't think of any places you shouldn't go, even our shitty parts are pretty safe. Well, there's Surrey which is just a joke, but how would you ever get there unless you were trying to go?
Now things worth going to? Richmond has some genuine Chinese and Japanese stuff in it, including (I'm told) places where you can get real Chinese food rather than North American bastardized version. Granville Island is a tourist trap but there are a few stores worth the visit. Stanley Park is a piece of rainforest left inside the city, which might be interesting if you don't live in NorthWest. Dr Sun Yat-sen garden in Chinatown and Museum of Anthropology at UBC show off unique things about Vancouver and West Coast.
And if you liked Deadpool, Number 6 Orange is a notorious strip club that was in the movie, signs and all.
"places where you can get real Chinese food"
This. Look for inside-out rabbits hanging in the windows.
inside-out rabbits
Masterbation, euphemism, etc.
Have you seen "Finding General Tso" on Netflix? Pretty interesting history of Chinese food in America.
Orly?
It's been suggested in my feed a few times. I figure I ought to watch it one of these days. ... Everytime I order Chinese, there's always an order of General Tso's Chicken included.
It goes into some of the laws in California making it illegal to hire Chinese people, so most of them had to be self employed. Two businesses that were easy to open was Chinese laundry and restaurants. So thanks to California racism, we get to enjoy yummy food.
I'm going to call that a bug, not a feature, but I'll still take it.
We had Chinese on Tuesday night...but it might be time to have it again.
Pft. That's not all we got.
That's laundary related. FAIL!
Nope. I'll add it to my watch list and try to get to it next week, wi-fi permitting.
Thanks
This was very helpful, thank you.
Do patrons throw coins at strippers in the clubs?
No clue, but come on, you come from the US, you spare a Canadian fiver.
Or just flash some US Currency, it will be well received.
You're supposed to throw whole rolls of coins at strippers. Overhand. Stretch out and warm up your shoulder first.
I find the assertion that because the culture of Chinese in North America has developed differently than the culture of Chinese in China, that one is more or less authentic than the other.
Then you have shitty taste in food.
Richmond has some genuine Chinese and Japanese stuff in it, including (I'm told) places where you can get real Chinese food rather than North American bastardized version.
Er, somewhat. The last place in the Lower Rainland? that does Dim Sum the way God intended is actually in Coquitlam, and even Chinese families from Richmond make the pilgrimage there on weekends to partake! It's called the Kam Ding Seafood Restaurant and it's on 3021 Anson Ave.
I live a 20-minute drive from Kam Ding. I blame it for my intense love of all things Pork.
A couple of days?
If you have time, take the ferry and go see Butchart Gardens.
He doesn't want to spend the whole trip at Butchart Gardens.
Yeah, Butchart Gardens is remarkable. Will it be nice this early in the season though?
They have one of the coolest Art Deco buildings in the world.
Check it out.
Not much to add but...go to Stanley Park and Robson street. Maybe trek up to Whistler.
The rest of the time I was in North Vancouver.
Take a logging tour of The Beachcombers.
I'm kidding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXfuLuEln-k
Wife and I visited Vancouver Science World when we were there 10 years ago. I remember having fun for about 3 hours. Planetarium show was good. (My wife would also recommend the Butchart(?) Gardens, but then she really likes gardens.)
Don't jaywalk. If you do, anyone who sees it will treat you like you are raping a toddler with Down's Syndrome.
Well now I kind of have to.
I was assuming it would have that effect when I wrote it 😉
I.e. still better than if you mention you're a libertarian. So x-nay on the L word.
Also, Trump is the anti-Christ, Obama is Jesus Come Again and Bernie Sanders is Prince Who Was Promised. DO NOT deviate from that.
"I.e. still better than if you mention you're a libertarian. So x-nay on the L word.
Also, Trump is the anti-Christ, Obama is Jesus Come Again and Bernie Sanders is Prince Who Was Promised. DO NOT deviate from that."
I'm already living in Seattle, I'm just hoping American Politics doesn't come up at the strip club.
If you want slightly more sanity in your politics, head eastwards. By the time you get to Port Moody/Coquitlam/Port Coquitlam (PoCo in the vernacular; the three together are referred to as the TriCities) or across the river in Pitt Meadows, most people refer to Vancouver the same way Obi-Wan Kenobi referred to Mos Eisley spaceport: "a wretched hive of scum and villainy."
What about SodoSopa and CtPa Town?
Comox Valley?
Rather than declaring this law is "better" or "worse" than what has been going on in other states, here's a link to the text for you to read yourself.
Way to endorse the law, Scott, by not explicitly denouncing and condemning it.
And what does this have to do with Trump?
No, its not LARPing
"Special Paramilitary Training" in China
I don't know what they're doing waist-deep in a pond, or why one has an axe, or why their camouflage face-paint is all bright-colors, or.... oh, forget it.
That's a Ax gang axe...what was the name of that movie? Google says: Kung Fu Hustle.
That was a bizarre but enjoyable movie.
It's the Chinese are awesome.
Multiple people injured at Virginia bus station, suspected gunman dead
Greyhound terminal, or public transit?
Greyhound
Bus stations are great places to hang out if you want to meet ex-convicts.
+1 no fly list.
Also, fun women.
Rather than declaring this law is "better" or "worse" than what has been going on in other states, here's a link to the text for you to read yourself.
Enact your labor?
I think not.
MAN WITH 13 DEAD CHICKENS IN TREES DRAWS NEIGHBOR'S IRE
[He] told police Wednesday that he is simply drying the chickens out before properly disposing of them.
"Oh. Well, carry on."
So, Rhode Island is in Florida now?
Rhode Island is the Florida of New England.
Hmm, I'd say Maine is the Florida of New England. Rhode Island is more the...Rhode Island of New England.
Take that back!
Rhode Island is the... New Jersey... of New England.
The Pepper-Sprayed Girl? Drew First Blood
play stupid games, win stupid prizes
Ha - I kind of called that one, I said it was "important if true."
"Didn't think racists, bigots, and misogynists fought back," said one surprised Sanders supporter. "I thought the bad guys always lost."
Dreadlocked White Kid? Allowed to confess his sins in interview, told he should be really sorry
He's a white dude with dreads. He owes us ALL an apology.
I didn't want to say it (again.)
The boy really screwed up his opportunity to win any of his SJW crowd over to his side.
He complained that dreadlocks weren't just a part of the colored people's community.
COLORED PEOPLE ? That's so George Wallace I can't even...... .
IT'S PEOPLE OF COLOR YOU NAZI WARMONGER MICROAGRESSOR !
I give him a pass. He was reaching for the word "negro" but blanked.
As punishment he must wash and comb his hair.
Gotta love struggle sessions.
I hate everyone involved in this story.
They should show clips of this guy Goldstein before any YouTube video. For about two minutes.
What he probably said: "Like, dreadlocks are totally NOT about cultural appropriation, OK, because blah blah blah."
What he ought to have said: "Not only do I have dreadlocks, I'm working on my Jamaican accent and recording Rasta music, doncha know, mon."
Verbatim. "Like...uhm, vikings and shit..... its not like an indian head-dress, which would be like totally not fucking cool man"
Vikings?
Check this out
That clip should have been nothing but two minutes of him saying, "Bacon, mon" in his best Jamaican accent.
"I and I be concerned you cunny be funny, bumbaclot."
Why are white men required to wash their hair?
In his defense, he's really ugly.
He'd be ugly even with hair that a white person could pull off, but the dreads throw him into Sloth territory.
If I've said it one time I've said it one-hundred times: Jews cause all the problems in this world.
You Know Who Else...?
Sheldon Richman?
How has nobody else noticed at around :50 seconds, he refers to,"the colored community".
Holy fuck, he's gonna get savaged for that faux pas.
Exclusive: Most Americans support torture against terror suspects - poll
OK, hold a straight up-or down vote in Congress on whether to provide some limited authorization of torture...let these putative tough guys put their money where their mouth is...
oh, crap, what am I saying, never mind.
Sen. Ted Cruz's campaign is trying to get Gov. John Kasich dumped from the Montana primary ballot by questioning the validity of signatures.
Bernie's gonna take it all.
So he really IS a socialist!
Female Wage-Gap = Soccer Players Hardest Hit
Female soccer players: they just can't reach the goal.
Before we move the goalposts, let's kick around some ideas....
They're just trying to level the playing field.
I'm not buying their pitch.
They do seem to be fishing with a wide net.
How long before the Federations throws in the towel?
This aggravates me to no end, not least because they could have proven their point better if they just began boycotting matches. But no, gotta get the state to force the federation's hand while not inconveniencing themselves in the slightest way, because EQUALITY UBER ALLES.
I'd like to see the USWNT (the world fucking champs) complete in the MLS USL for 10 games and see how far they get. If they manage to pull 10 points then I'd be willing to entertain their ludicrous notion.
I endorse opening all sports to all prospective players. Either you're good enough to be competitive at the highest level, or you suck it up and deal like every other Rudy and Johnny Bench who ever lived. We keep this whiny shit up and the next thing you know white point guards will be crying for reparations from the black community.
It's supposed to be a test of skill. Color, nationality, gender... pointless distractions.
Shorter Hamster.
I can't wait to see mixed-gender MMA matches. Because, of course, I'm a shitlord who wants to watch men beat up women. Not because I'm interested in the sport of it, like when it's two people of the same gender.
The problem is that the normal weight class system probably doesn't work across genders. It's seems likely that a transgender male could cleaning up in women's MMA...
*shrug*
The top level is where the money is. If women can't compete at the top level, fine, settle at a lower level of difficulty. Just don't bitch that you make less money in the farm league with the cheap seats.
If Rousey can't kick Bisping's ass, then no one owes her Bisping's winnings.
Your reply kinda makes my point?
Bisping - ?185 lb
Rousey - 135 lb
Any male 135 pounder would also be defeated by Bisping.
The point I was making is that a 135 lb Rousey also probably loses to most 135 lb professional males at her level, because men and women have biological differences that advantage men in cage fighting. If you actually want fair competition, you'd account for those differences just like weight classes attempt to create competitive fights across the spectrum of humans who wish to professionally fight. Or do you only want to watch heavyweight fights or something?
A world in which there is only male sprinting and heavyweight fights seems plainly inferior to this one, ymmv.
Male MMAers play above the rim or something.
Yeah, I think they probably have a pretty good argument. I have a suspicion that the women's team might out draw the men's team - due to their huge success as well as the hordes of soccer-playing young girls who follow the team.
People like a winner. If they are pulling in more endorsement dollars for US soccer than the men, they should be getting paid more.
They should be paid more than the men. They're better.
Is This The End Of Sex As We Know It?
For once in my miserable life, I'm on the cutting edge. I've NEVER had sex to make babies!
Carl?
that it will a legally regulated service that will be low cost enough that everyone
We can't just have people fucking and creating babies just willy-nilly! We need central planning, damn it!
Pff. "Willy".
Yeah, its funny - you can fuck and mix yo genes all willy-nilly without regulation but if you want to do the shit *right*, well then all of a sudden you need the hand of almighty government to ensure you do it right.
Michel Houellebecq wrote about it 15 years ago in The Elementary Particles.
"stop having sex to make babies" != "The End of Sex"
I called it. First we pee sitting down, then we start exchanging genetic material via mail.
Who wouldn't sit down, look at these news!
Nah, we'll figure out how to do it right. We always do, right?
The future is now for me.
That's two days in a row. I'm starting to think that riven is some kind of baby denier.
Gattaca is a shitty movie with a boring premise.
France = Still France
There's probably a law banning protesting in English, however
And its just awful what cabdrivers are being reduced to
Emma Sulkowicz seems to have made an appearance
Well played. Still not carrying it herself, I see.
I believe the children are the future
The children are our future.
Children are people
It's time to turn off the war machine and turn on our children... *clears throat* turn on our children.
No matter how you parse it, that sentence still makes you look bad.
I read something about a millionaire drain there. 10,000 have left in the last year.
"Hundreds of thousands of workers and high-school students joined protest marches across France on Wednesday to challenge plans to loosen the country's protective labor laws that unions say favor businesses."
I have an idea. Don't enact ANY of these laws, and then no one is "favored."
Lots of coders are self-taught, according to developer survey
There are some fuckers out there who want to ruin the profession with unionism and certification nonsense. Those people need to be fed into a woodchipper*.
*Metaphorically
I'm just glad I got out when I did.
Same for brain surgeons, rocket scientists, and lawyers.
EU expands sanctions against North Korea to match U.N. move
Leaders of U.S, Japan, South Korea issue new warning to North Korea
One scientist thinks that we'll stop having sex to make babies within 30 years.
Trust me; I NEVER EVER had sex with the intent of making a baby. Quite the opposite.
You had sex with the intent of destroying a baby? I like the cut of your jib.
A couple lines in and I see already that you can now refuse to serve unmarried couples that you think are having sex.
*grabs popcorn*
It's linked to end of all sex. Which is linked to the end of all men. And people worry about global warming. That's not hot at all.
Uhm, everyone knows married couples aren't having sex, so that's not a tricky conclusion to reach.
A couple lines in and I see already that you can now refuse to serve unmarried couples that you think are having sex.
Like, at that moment?
Mexico City: Government Requires All Cars to Stay Off Roads 1 Day a Week to Combat Smog
Ha, I see that the commie Pope got to them, with his babbling about environmental problems!
Shouldn't then Sunday be car-free day? Get them out of cars and into the Mass!
How do you think they're getting to Mass?
en Mass?
--en Mass?--
Very nice.
On the backs of donkeys, emulating the Lord Himself (if not true believers), or on foot, while flagellating themselves?
My knowledge of Catholic practices, of course, being almost exclusively from Monty Python.
You forget that PRI is full fledged member of Socialist International.
*** revs oil-burner on blocks in day-long attempt to tune it up ***
"Sen. Ted Cruz's campaign is trying to get Gov. John Kasich dumped from the Montana primary ballot by questioning the validity of signatures."
Seems like normal stuff. When a candidate only has a small percentage over the required amount, why not have them verify it? At least 10% or so will not count but it may turn out that 20% don't and Kasich doesn't make the ballet. His campaign should have gotten double the required signatures to guarantee their spot.
"and Kasich doesn't make the ballet."
John, is that you?
It's the Baryshnikov clause. Seen it a hunert times.
I'd like to see how Kasich tries to dance around this problem.
Bernie Sanders Will Make the Economy Great Again
Liberal critics like Paul Krugman argue that Sanders's economic platform is unrealistic. They are dead wrong.
Enjoy.
To address these charges seriously, we first need to draw a clear distinction between what might be realistic in political terms versus economic terms.
I stopped reading at that point.
No shit.
Does Bernie Sanders's economic program amount to pie-in-the-sky nonsense? The short answer is no. All of his major proposals are grounded in solid economic reasoning and evidence.
The first three sentences. It isn't going to get any better, is it?
The part where they claim the minimum wage won't be a big deal because it will only require McDonalds to raise their prices by 12.2% is hilarious.
Well, their fucking fries better get 12.2% more delicious, then.
IMPOSSIBLE!
They could go back to beef tallow. But they wont. Dicks.
All those rich people who eat at McDonalds can afford that price increase! Oh, wait....
Look, it's fine, all the people who eat there will benefit from $15 minimum wage and can afford the price increase.
And if you keep it up, you can have cool currency like this!
Years ago, I used to joke about restaurants in SF that served $10 hamburgers. Now, that's about the standard price for one in a non-fast-food restaurant here.
It's almost like someone forced a bunch of small businesses to both pay higher minimum wages and provide healthcare to all of their employees, and those small businesses responded by dramatically increasing prices.
That's how far I got too.
Oh NOW Ze Nashun has a problem with Krugman.
Where did they get his programs would make economy great again seeing how we haven't had those before?
Jackson Square: New Orleans City Council to Hear Argument for Removal of Andrew Jackson Statue
The guy is a Tulane administrator, I bet the students are so triggered right now!
"Marksbury isn't trying to take down New Orleans' most famous statue. Instead, the argument was intended to show council members they started down a slippery slope when they voted 6-1 to remove statues of Lee, Jefferson Davis, P.G.T. Beauregard and a monument to the Battle of Liberty Place in December."
It gets better -
"Marksbury has previously argued that unless the council is prepared to remove the Jackson statue - and another to the black cavalry regiment known as the Buffalo Soldiers, which fought against Native Americans in the 1800s - none of the monuments should be removed."
obligatory
The Battle of Liberty Place was an attempted coup by a Democratic-affiliated paramilitary against the elected Republican government that was put down by the Federal troops.
Do they really want to commemorate a coup?
Inscription on the Battle of Liberty Place monument:
Sometimes the little shepherd boy is right, and there *is* a wolf...sometimes the SJWs are right and there *are* white supremacists at work.
Fuck Andrew Jackson, and fuck prog dipshits who never learned the lessons Firefly taught us.
France's unemployment rate is still in double digits.
It's been high for the past 30 years, somewhere between 8-11%.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ss7B.....france.png
Double digits. Annoying phrasing. So, between 10-99%, eh?
WHAT. It's my turn to be the pedant. Silly pet peeves are silly.
I've been peeving on that forever.
Recently heard some blatherer on tv blather that someone had a "double digit lead" on someone else. Less than meaningless.
Libyan unity government starts work from 'secured' Tripoli naval base
The article ends with:
Knock knock
Who's there?
Jihad.
Jihad who?
Jihad your chance to surrender, now we kill you all.
Red Letter Media on Superman v Batman: Maybe if they finally bomb hard enough, they'll just turn over the rights to Marvel.
Love these guys. "Get a life." Deadpan stare at camera for five minutes.
I thought the Chris Nolan "Batmans" did very well financially. And the "Man of Steel" did well too. Is this new one an attempt to destroy both franchises? because the very idea of it seems sort of stupid to me.
I liked the Nolan films. I didn't see MoS, but RLM tears into it quite a bit.
"MrFishman3822 days ago
casting Lex Luthor
"hey, get me that guy from Breaking Bad. I think his name is Eisenburg?"
"No problem boss."?"
LOL
Har!
A movie that made $530 million worldwide in one week is not "bombing hard", no matter how badly critics wish it were.
"Bombing" depends on net profit. Have they recovered production costs yet?
According to boxofficemojo.com, the production budget was $250 million (this does not include marketing).
IMDB sez:
Budget: $250,000,000 (estimated)
So, not yet, probably will soon. Now, if 'triple for marketing cost' (or is it four times) formula is true, it'll take a while.
Yeah, forgot about marketing.
Was told 200mil for marketing so yes.
See, this is what bugs me. Comic book movies are mostly trashy and dumb, but they don't have to be. The material is pretty bad, granted, but they're not wedded to it. But because they rake in tons of cash every goddamn time, they'll keep stamping out formulaic, badly scripted, terribly paced, obnoxious melodramas.
It may very well be an artistic failure (I've not seen it so can't say one way or the other), but it seems to be succeeding rather well financially, so it's weird when people talk about it bombing.
You mean pulp fiction is pulp fiction? If I ever feel like mixing in pretentious navel-gazing with my capes, I'll finally deign to see Birdman. For now, I'm quite happy with superhero plots no more complex than "Batman beats up people and explosions happen".
When isolating the film from the coverage of the film, I think Birdman is too fast-paced to come off as pretentious. It is different, though.
I wish Hollywood did stupid shit better. I didn't like DK and DKR because of all the philosophical shit attempted (and failed) in them.
My favorite superhero movies by far are Deadpool and Guardians of the Galaxy precisely because they don't go out of their way to be deep. And I have a soft spot for the first 15 minutes of Iron Man 2, because it's a philosophy you almost never see in movies, done right (and fast).
*You*, sir, are the reason people like Michael bay are allowed to keep making movies.
Actually, I just checked. They spend 250 million on production, so with a 530 mil box office, they've made a little more than that in net. You're right about it not "bombing hard", but it's not the mega-hit the studio was hoping would launch a Marvel Film Universe-like franchise. But until recently, DC has always fucked up with that. The Arrow-verse is the first DC successful media franchise in my memory.
Whaa? What's the DC Animated Universe, chopped liver?
I was going to put in a caveat about not counting the cartoons, but I figured it would be obvious I was talking about live-action only. Yes, actually, that's one thing DC has always done better than Marvel.
Um spiderman and his amazing friends...
My point stands.
Oh you wanted Firestar. Just admit it. Or maybe you wanted Bobby before he realized his true desires...
Speaking of ballistics...
I stumbled across a couple of articles about the DoD's quest for a new handgun for teh trupes, and something jumped out at me. The articles both referred to the option of using hollow point ammo to increase the stopping power of a 9mm weapon. Wasn't hollow point banned by the Geneva Convention? Has that changed?
Geneva convention, psssh.
Northrop Grumman will just find a way to cook people in their clothes from space.
Resistance is futile.
Stock up on garlic. The flavor of the meat is affected by the diet of the eatee.
Hague Convention.
Declaration concerning the Prohibition of the Use of Bullets which can Easily Expand or Change their Form inside the Human Body such as Bullets with a Hard Covering which does not Completely Cover the Core, or containing Indentations
This declaration states that, in any war between signatory powers, the parties will abstain from using "bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body." This directly banned soft-point bullets (which had a partial metal jacket and an exposed tip) and "cross-tipped" bullets (which had a cross-shaped incision in their tip to aid in expansion, nicknamed "Dum Dums" from the Dum Dum Arsenal in India). It was ratified by all major powers, except the United States.
Emphasis mine
Oh, real classy man. REAL CLASSY!
This declaration states that, in any war between signatory powers
Boom. ISIS, not a signatory power.
*drops microphone*
More like the Vague convention.
*picks up microphone in order to drop it. Forgets to say boom.*
Wasn't hollow point banned by the Geneva Convention? Has that changed?
It was the 1899 Hague Convention, apparently. We never ratified it, so...
The thing is - the stopping power of the 9mm is just fine as it is.
Every time we get in a conflict, the enemy is always some sort of fanatic hopped up on some crazy mixture of drugs and religion and we need a bigger gun to shoot them with.
Except . . .
In the modern military the handgun is more showpiece and indicator of rank than actual weapon of war. For those of you in the infantry how did combat tours, how close did you ever get to needing to pull out your sidearm? How many of you were even issued one?
Like the 5.56mm round, the 9mm isn't an automatic 'one-hit/one-kill' weapon. And like the ARs, you're not actually ever expected to just hit the guy once and move one. You pull that trigger until it goes 'click' (jamming it up his arse first is optional) because the dude is in your face and you've run out of ammo for your primary weapon.
Its something officers can hold when they want to point at what they want others to shoot - except that the officers low enough in rank to still be doing that are carrying their own rifles anyway.
https://youtu.be/oodTuhaLYpU?t=62
*SO's* keep asking for them - and they might even need them - but SO's are always asking for special shit. May as well just tell each individual SO to buy what they want, specify the ammo to be used (hardball, full metal, etc) and let them do what they want.
Wiki sez
Hilariously, this was in response to The Late P. Brooks above, but we shall let it stand as a testament to his anti-threading stance.
Good. More businesses moving to Texas.
Unfortunately that also means more Californians also moving to TX.
I was under the impression that USSOCOM had gone for the Glock 19, and that the rest of the Army was going to follow suit in a little bit.
AFAIK, yes. But this article suggests otherwise
Or - OR - maybe its the police, being excused from international laws or norms, should be restricted to using ball ammo?
"The notion that [in modern warfare] two states agree to Marquess of Queensberry Rules is very archaic"
So a declaration of war is no longer written on a calling card and left at the other country's club?
huh huh, country club
we shall let it stand as a testament to his anti-threading stance.
Bless you, my son.
I knew you guys would come through for me.
OK
Mississippi passes a law as I see government should not mandate regulate a private business; leaving individuals in a free market to decide for themselves what services they will offer. It seems to me a Business can still offer marriage and other services to LGBT but the government will stay out of the debate as it should be.
"Hundreds of thousands of people in France are protesting labor reforms that would give employers more power to negotiate work hours. Mind you, France's unemployment rate is still in double digits."
Hey, you expect those protesters to get jobs?
Their deepest hope is emigrating to the United States, where they hope to take jobs protesting on behalf of California unions.
The law protects businesses who provide wedding-related goods and services, but also permits therapists and doctors to refuse to assist transgender people with their issues (but only related to transitioning),
I can't see any possible libertarian objection to this. Its a shame it was wrapped in religious freedom blah-blah ,rather than just plain old freedom, but I'll take it.
prohibits clerks from being punished for refusing to license same-sex marriages,
That's dumb. If you can't do the job, don't cash the paychecks. Its different when the state discriminates as opposed to private parties.
and a host of other things.
On a quick scan, it looked mostly like they were promising to jack up private parties. Which is good.
I'm struggling to figure out why Reason isn't saying "This is mostly a step in the right direction, as it protects private parties from enforcement action by the state."
Oh, and props for the link to the bill itself.
Should be: "it looked mostly like they were promising not to jack up private parties"
No, I liked your first version better.
"If you can't do the job, don't cash the paychecks."
Do what job? The job that they would have if the statute *hadn't* been passed?
The statute says a public official can recuse him/her/zeself from doing marriages - of *any* kind - so long as he/she/ze acts to make sure marriages are still performed by other officials.
The *statute itself* says marriages aren't part of the job of those who recuse themselves.
If the concern is with the wishes of the taxpayers, hold a vote among the taxpayers, asking if they want to fire public officials for conscience-based recusals.
Clerks are government. Government doesn't have rights. Clerks have no rights in the capacity of performing their government jobs. Can't perform the job in good faith...step down.
It's like saying you want to be a fighter pilot and a conscientious objector.
Clerks have no rights
Lol. Yeah, no, not how that works. You're still an individual with constitutionally protected rights, even if you happen to work for the government. Performing or not performing your job duties can and should affect your employment status, but it's not because you lost any rights when you signed your employment contract.
Let's quote the ENTIRE sentence.
You accuse me of saying something I never said.
The person performing that job, certainly, has rights. But as a clerk, that person is government and doesn't have the right to refuse to do the job she was appointed to do based upon her personal beliefs/rights.
The job she was appointed to do specifically *does not* include marriage if she duly recuses herself.
What exactly is the conflict here?
There's *no conflict* here between their constitutional rights and the duties of their job, since by law those duties *do not include* marriage if you recuse yourself.
The laws defining their duties don't conflict with their conscience, no matter how much you say so, and no matter how much you want it to be true.
Since they wrote the statute to keep her from losing her job, AFTER the indecent, you are correct. The argument, I believe, RC was making, and I don't mean to put words in his mouth, was not whether it would be legal or not, but whether such a statute was smart/wise/correct/needed/proper...
Thee phrase he used was "that's dumb", not "that's illegal. And I completely agree.
Just because it's legal, doesn't mean it's not stupid. Again, I could pass a law saying a fighter pilot may be a conscientious objector, but it doesn't mean such a law wouldn't be stupid. If you can't do the job because of your beliefs, find a job that you can.
I'm afraid it still begs the question of what "the job" entails.
A better analogy would be a statute saying fighter pilots can recuse themselves from drone duty and fly fighter jets instead.
Likewise, a clerk could recuse herself from gay-marriage duty and update the property records instead.
Or imagine a statute that DMV clerks can recuse themselves from licensing motorcyclists so long as they find a replacement, which would mean they'd spend their time licensing car owners, SUV drivers and truckers instead.
Fine, we'll use your analogy.
Pilots don't get to recuse themselves of drone duty. Or any other duty for that matter.
Why would I hire them if they are unwilling to do the entire job? I've got six applicants who are to be paid for getting X done. One of them will only do X-1. Why would I hire her if she's going to pawn part of her job off to my other employees?
A law allowing her to is stupid. Just like allowing someone to be a fighter pilot who opts out of his primary duties is stupid.
AND with your way there is no end to what people will claim they shouldn't have to do.
I am of the church of Fd'A and we believe that working more than 16 hours a week is an abomination. My claim and my religion is every bit as legitimate as yours. Should the government pass a statute to accommodate me?
"Should the government pass a statute to accommodate me?"
I think the government already has part-time workers. They may even be glad of the chance to avoid paying benefits.
You see, it really depends on the context of the specific situation.
But in this case, the federal government wants to conscript the Mississippi government into doing gay marriages, contrary to state law, and Mississippi says OK, so long as we don't have to purge the civil service.
So context matters.
Why should a state purge employees who are loyal to the state constitution, just because Justice Kennedy wants a fawning profile in the media and invents a right to get gay-married?
And speaking of "they should do their jobs or be fired..." isn't Justice Kennedy's job to interpret the law, not rewrite it?
He did interpret it.
He interpreted the 14th Amendment to mean that a sate government couldn't make a law defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
Sure, in the sense that his colleagues interpreted the Commerce Clause to include smoking dope.
That is, they made up the law in the guise of interpreting it.
Because it's wasteful and stupid to create a government position and then pay someone not to do it.
Shoulda gone the the Alabama route.
Who, exactly, created the position of "gay marriage promoter for Mississippi?" The federal courts did. So why blame the Mississippi government?
I'm afraid it still begs the question of what "the job" entails.
Issuing marriage licenses. When doing that job, the clerk can't discriminate, because when xe does, xe is acting as an agent of the government, and so its the government discriminating. The government shouldn't discriminate.
I really didn't have any larger point than that. Dancing around with "oh, but she can get somebody else to do it" probably isn't a precedent we want to set. Next thing you know, there's one guy who comes in every third Thursday who is the only gay marriage license signer, etc.
The Mississippi statute provides that "The person who is recusing himself or herself shall take all necessary steps to ensure that the authorization and licensing of any legally valid marriage is not impeded or delayed as a result of any recusal."
So unless you're trying to celebrate your special day with a civil-service purge, I don't see the problem.
"The statute says a public official can recuse him/her/zeself from doing marriages - of *any* kind - so long as he/she/ze acts to make sure marriages are still performed by other officials."
Incorrect.
Section 3.8.a is the part about govt. employees, and the relevant text is "[...] may seek recusal from authorizing or licensing lawful marriages based upon or in a manner consistent with a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction described in Section 2 of this act"
Section 2 is pretty narrow, endorsing objections based on one man-one woman marriage, on sex only being within a marriage, and only gender only being assigned at birth.
So objections based on it being an inter-faith, inter-racial, a Westboro Baptist, a Muslim, a May-December romance, etc.? No dice.
Hmmm...I skimmed it and thought that if you object to doing gay marriages you can be recused from *all* marriages. Maybe I'm thinking of the North Carolina law where you choose between doing gay marriages and doing no marriages at all.
Might end up that way in policy (though that might run afoul of the whole "state government shall not take any discriminatory action against that person" part), but the person opting out of all marriages would still have to state, in a written record, that it's based on one of the criteria in section 2.
Trivia Time = who said the below?
""If you're in business in the United States, you shouldn't be able to choose what classes of people you will or will not do business with. You have the right to not go into business, to choose a profession that will allow you to never deal with whomever it is you don't want to deal with; you don't have the option to go into business and then discriminate based on basic, immutable things ? or you shouldn't have that option, anyway. ""
John Denver?
My wiseass guess is "obviously, Hayek"
Seriously, I'd say "Obama" but google says...
Holy shit, I did NOT see that! Why must you ruin everything, GILMORE?! WHY?!?!?
Tony
Not my mother?
Answer
I was close. Also, you suck.
Then again, people can change, especially when they are exposed to new ideas that are put forth in an intelligent and easy-to-understand way.
For example, I have learned so much just by reading each and every Hit and Run abortion thread.
Me too!
Sure. And I'm not playing the "Winston" card here trying to suggest that all the Reason writers are hopeless cosmo-squishies at all. Just saying, in response to RC's comment re:
... that i think the 'freedom of association' thing is something Reason-writers avoid because the only possible context anyone ever talks about it in is "The Right To Discriminate", and who needs the magazine to die on *that* hill? See = Rand Paul and him getting his ass handed to him over comments re: the Civil Rights Act.
basically, mostly they avoid it, and at best make gestures that could be read as "sympathetic" to the theory, but generally fall on the side of minority-"rights" (public accommodation) because its just safer. Which is fine i guess. Scott tends to be the one who goes out on a limb and takes the "free association" position most often. As well as other some other stickier things.
And then you have fags like me, who would find the whole "no non-discrimination for gays" stance a lot more bearable if people *were* willing to go out on the limb more. But when you're not willing to stick to your claimed principles, I wonder why I should have to suffer for them.
So, you're taking a utilitarian analysis of another person's principled stance, and come to a conclusion that they're not acting principled enough?
Can you say hypocrite?
Sure: libertarians/Libertarians who claim that all private-sector non-discrimination laws should be abolished, but only take *action* when such laws involve gay people, are hypocrites.
You want to convince me you're not a hypocrite? Then take action when it's hard, not just when it's easy.
Tell me, oh brilliant one, what "action" I've taken regarding non-discrimination laws that involve gay people.
Tell me, oh brilliant one, what actions I haven't taken when it was hard.
Tell me, oh brilliant one, when I only did things because they were easy.
Tell me, oh brilliant one, since you know me better than I know myself, what I have and haven't done.
In all seriousness, fuck off! You don't know me, you don't know what I've done, and you don't know what I believe. You're nothing but a sniveling bitch trying to stir shit up.
There should be absolutely no laws prohibiting any form of private discrimination in association. Framing this principle as a religious freedom issue misses the point badly. The Klansman, the Nation of Islamist, the Radfem, and the radical member of La Raza have the same right of free association as the baptist.
There how do you feel about that statement?
Jarflax, you may say those things, but you really just hate TEH GAIZZZ!!!!
/moron
Scott tends to be the one who goes out on a limb and takes the "free association" position most often.
This is why we quietly judge Scott.
This is why I like Scott.
That's sad. I wonder if she's rethought that opinion any?
She probably molted that position along with her support for the birth control mandate right around the time when Reason started cutting her checks.
Well, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I know people who are very libertarian, by nature, who don't actually know much about libertarian philosophy. They don't always come to the textbook libertarian conclusion on all issues because they don't have the philosophy as a guide and their feelz get in the way.
If she actually did change her position because she rethought it based on her affiliation with folks who could point out her inconsistencies and talk her down, put it in the win column.
If she didn't, FUCK HER!
(Just kidding ENB) 😉
it's about whether a broad-spectrum of individual employers should be able to opt out of insurance coverage mandates they don't like. I don't think they should.
Sorry, but it would take a real burning-bush, road-to-Damascus type conversion experience to move somebody from that position to ITS EXACT OPPOSITE, for cryin' our loud.
So disappointing.
That ENB link isn't what you think it is:
I knew that birch control coverage could save money and I had some facts and figures about it. But if it drove down costs, why didn't insurers already subsidize contraception?
It's an article about Arbor day.
No it's about BDSM, Birch = switch
Wow. That's hardcore jackbooted thuggery being endorsed by a Reason writer. Yikes.
Thank you for including that. It's inconsistent that people can beg off when it violates the precept of their brand of Sky Daddy, but just having a conscience and a doubt as to the wisdom of the planned course isn't good enough.
Preliminary nitpick that the First Amendment protects all religious belief, even non-theistic kinds...
OK, the people who conscientiously object to these kinds of laws don't want those laws applied to *anyone.* The fundies would jump for freakin' joy if these laws were abolished for *everyone.*
Meanwhile, the religious types have the First Amendment and RFRA and show no signs of giving up those rights.
Neither here nor there, but i think the uber-pedant calls them "Geneva Conventions" (plural), re: "Laws of War", because there were like.... uh, (4) of them? dating as far back as the mid-19th century, then subsequently updated between WWI and WWII, then again in a big-bunch after WWII (1949), only modestly amended since then
My obviously faulty recollection was that the dum-dum bullet was a WWI phenomenon, and was outlawed afterwards. Silly me.
The navy is still allowed to fire chains from their cannons, I hope.
It better be! If you know of a better way to stop the prizes from escaping without destroying them, I'm all ears!
Norwegian man comes to Skyrim, should have known better.
It's sad that the mountain seems to claim several lives each year. What's even more sad is that if you read the incident reports prepared by the park service the vast majority of those deaths could have been prevented if people would:
1) avoid climbing out of season,
2) travel in groups of 4 or more, and
3) ensure they have proper supplies and training for when things go sideways.
I didn't read the linked article, so I don't know what supplies they had, but sometimes people just don't realize you can die up there. You get above a certain altitude, and you might as well be on Everest.
"Oh but it's so pretty and sunny!"
"You get above a certain altitude, and you might as well be on Everest."
No.
It puts me in mind of John Krakauer and various Ski Mountaineers who said "Your first friend dies, and you think to yourself 'here's what he/we could have done to prevent this'. Then your second friend dies and you say 'well, here are the factors that caused this, so if we avoid this or that, we'll be fine'. Then your third friend dies, then your fourth friend dies. Then a fifth and a sixth and eventually you realize that at some point you're not completely in control. If the mountain's going to take you, it'll take you. So you take the best precautions you can, but your number might still come up".
That's paraphrased, but the man credited with inventing the term "ski mountaineering" said that during a documentary about the activity, in which at least one person profiled in the documentary was done before the editing was finished.
documentary was dead before the editing was finished.
While I agree with your general point, i think Tom's point re: Altitude is that "you're not going to die of high-altitude cerebral edema on Rainer" (though i'm reading into what "no" means)
Yes, all mountains are deadly, and you can die from slipping and breaking your leg in a place you can't crawl out of just as easily as you can die at 20,000ft. That's nothing to do with "Altitude"
In fact, i think crevasses & exposure have probably killed more people on mountains than pure altitude-related issues.
Speaking of which, if anyone hasn't seen "Touching The Void", please go watch that. Its freaking awesome.
Let's talk about Tom like he's not here. I presume Tom meant to disagree with my statement about being like everest past a certain altitude. He's certainly right that the top of Rainier is not "like Everest" on the scale of Dangah! However, my point is that above a certain altitude, there are certain aspects you're not in control over. If we call Everest a 100, Rainier might be called a 68. Where anything over 60 you get into the 'aspects you're not in control over' territory.
These numbers are 100% accurate because I made them up in my mind.
yes, sure. Its not really as much linked to "Altitude" as i think you might mean. Its just "mountains" = places hard to get to/from, where rescue is not fast or necessarily even readily available, where the weather can change very fast and kill you quickly.
I think someone told me once that more people have been killed on Mt Washington (6,289) than Rainier (14,411).
o Crevasses that weren't there a week ago.
o Snap whiteout storms
o Partners that don't wait for you and just head for the bottom while you hallucinate due to hypothermia.
yes, sure. Its not really as much linked to "Altitude"
Sorry, "elevation".
You pedantic, faggy mountain climber types.
Climbing is all about strapping yourself to the back of a brown guy and letting him carry you up the mountain.
" If we call Everest a 100, Rainier might be called a 68. "
The top of Rainier is about half the altitude of the top of Everest which might imply Rainier would be 50 out of 100, except that going from 14,400 to 29,000 feet is not a linear increase in danger/difficulty. Logarithmic would be a better description (whatever that means).
I've been up Rainier. Not really a big deal if you have at least half your shit together.
LAH, your post reminds me of the SouthPark character, Captain Hindsight, which goes well with your handle.
The vast majority of all accidental deaths are preventable.
World leaders have gathered in D.C. to discuss curbing the threat of nuclear weapons. Russian President Vladimir Putin is not there, so not much is expected to happen.
You don't know much about spy thrillers do you? All the leaders of the planet in one spot - except one, and that's the evil criminal mastermind one? Yeah, Bruce Willis is catching a flight to Moscow as we speak, preparing for a night-time drop over the Kremlin.
Has anyone seen the HBO David Simon thing from last year, "Show Me a Hero"
any good?
So a florist and a baker are side by side. The florist is gay with an irrelevant-to-this-scenario religion, and the baker is straight and Christian.
The gay florist gets engaged, and goes next door to the baker. The baker refuses him, saying "my god hates fags."
The next day, the baker gets engaged, and goes next door to the florist. The florist says "well, your god hates fags, so I'd really like to refuse you, but under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, I'm prohibited from doing so."
But as libertarians/Libertarians continue to tell me, while it's easy to protect the baker's Freedom of Association, protecting the gay man's Freedom of Association is just too difficult.
Yeesh. Y'know, I'd be more bitter towards Mississippi if Mississippi actually *had* any non-discrimination laws that included gay people. As is, this law is *entirely* message legislation and doesn't do *anything*. It's already legal to fire, evict, and refuse service to someone in Mississippi for being gay regardless of who your God is.
"protecting the gay man's Freedom of Association is just too difficult."
In the one case I heard of where they tried to limit a gay baker's freedom of association, the gay person won his/her case on the ground that he wasn't discriminating.
Can you think of examples where Mississippi ordered some gay guy to do business with a traditionalist Christian?
If you're thinking of the Colorado baker, they won the case 'cause they agreed to bake the bible-shaped cake, and only refused at the message. All the other infamous bakers said "no" based on the customers, before any discussion of the actual cake started.
"Can you think of examples where Mississippi ordered some gay guy to do business with a traditionalist Christian?"
Nope. Can you do the reverse?
The answer, of course, is no. No one can be sued in Mississippi for refusing service to someone for being gay. They can, however, be sued for refusing service because someone belongs to a religion.
It's hard to predict what the courts would do, actually...but if there's an actual case of a gay baker being sued for objecting to a Christian message, then I suspect most SoCons/fundies/bleevers/Sky Daddyists will defend freedom of association, if only to protect themselves in similar cases.
You do know that there are *hundreds* of non-discrimination cases every year, right? If people were actually serious about opposing non-discrimination law, rather then just opposing non-discrimination law *that includes gay people*, there is no shortage of cases.
OK, I thought we were talking about your hypothetical about the florist and the baker, not about discrimination law in general.
Fine, produce one single case where a gay business owner was forced to serve a patron against their will.
Stop with your special snowflake bullshit.... your priorities aren't the same as mine, I couldn't give a fuck if my beliefs and my comments are "gay friendly" enough to meet your bullshit litmus test.
"I couldn't give a fuck if my beliefs and my comments are "gay friendly" enough to meet your bullshit litmus test."
Good for you?
Just because I state a standard ("if libertarians want me to believe they're serious about [...]") doesn't mean you're under any obligation to meet it. In fact, most don't. It just means that you are not a special snowflake and I won't believe you're serious about Freedom of Association.
Yeah, get that strawman!!! I think you're just bitching because you want to be able to force people to bake you cakes.
Actually, I'd be 95% fine with getting rid of most non-discrimination laws.
And if it's a strawman, it's one I've gotten from these comment sections. I've been explicitly told that the reason more libertarians/Libertarians don't actually *do* anything about non-discrimination laws regarding religion is that it's just too difficult, so why try?
Your point still eludes me... There's a lot of stuff I believe in that I can't do anything about.... what action would you have us do?
And if it's a strawman, it's one I've gotten from these comment sections. I've been explicitly told that the reason more libertarians/Libertarians don't actually *do* anything about non-discrimination laws regarding religion is that it's just too difficult, so why try?
Was the name of the person who told you this perhaps "Tony" or "John"?
Again = Link to an example of what you're referring to, or you're just making shit up.
And what exactly is your point? that we should reject RFRA-style laws? that we should be agitating to repeal the civil rights act? I don't know what it you think *should* be the logical approach.
A side note - re: "discrimination based on religion or sexual orientation" = both are IMHO different than race because in most cases you don't wear either on your sleeve. that they're not necessarily "apparent". If i walk into a store and order a pizza, my either being gay or a Mormon generally isn't relevant to the transaction, whereas if i happen to be black, its unavoidable.
Consequently, i tend to think blanket comparisons of racial vs. religious vs. sexual-orientation "discrimination", as if they're all equally the same, are incredibly stupid.
"Again = Link to an example of what you're referring to, or you're just making shit up."
I was going to say no, because why would I preserve links on the off-chance some idiot is going to demand 'em, but then I saw your comment up-thread.
"i think the 'freedom of association' thing is something Reason-writers avoid because the only possible context anyone ever talks about it in is "The Right To Discriminate", and who needs the magazine to die on *that* hill? See = Rand Paul and him getting his ass handed to him over comments re: the Civil Rights Act."
You're phrasing it differently, but it's the same point. Regardless of their "principles", libertarians/Libertarians only actually bother talking about non-discrimination law when it comes to gay people.
"And what exactly is your point? that we should reject RFRA-style laws? that we should be agitating to repeal the civil rights act? I don't know what it you think *should* be the logical approach."
I'm not a libertarian, I don't pretend to be a libertarian, and I have no interest in telling libertarians or Libertarians what to do (though I do expect to vote for one in November).
That said, when the *only* time a group talks about an issue is when a tiny sliver of sub-set of that issue comes up, I find it hard to believe that they actually care about the issue, and not just that tiny sliver of a sub-set of the issue.
I care about this issue pretty deeply. That does not mean I think I have a snowball's chance in hell of getting the civil rights act, Title IX, etc overturned. Laws that enshrine an orthodoxy of opinion, in this case that various prejudices are evil, destroy the good in their underlying ethos, in this case tolerance.
When people associate with, hire, do business with, members of whatever group because they are afraid of the consequences of refusal they do not grow to love the protected group but to hate them. Dogma is evil even when the underlying message is good.
Bullshit. There's tons of talk (and articles) about repealing Affirmative Action laws, tons of talk about the Civil Rights Act... and the only reason teh gaze get any special attention of late is because the Supreme Court stepped in and legislated gay marriage from the bench
- which BTW the magazine and most commenters including myself largely *cheered* despite it being less 'strictly libertarian' policy outcome than getting the government out of marriage entirely.
All i can gather from your incoherent rambling is that *you want special laws because you're special*, and you're upset that libertarians won't let you have them.
This is demonstrably false. You seem to have invented a straw man entirely out of your imagination and yet seem to think its supposed to be readily apparent to everyone.
You seem to think libertarians aren't supposed to oppose new protected classes until we've accomplished the elimination of ALL current protected classes under law? This doesn't even make sense in a theoretical sense, much less a practical one.
A link to an article two years old and an article six years old.
Consider me schooled.
By contrast, you're basing your one-dimensional blanket-judgements of ALL "big L, little l" libertarians based on a shallow sampling of comments which you're unable to provide a *SINGLE EXAMPLE OF*?
You're off the charts on the lack-of-self-awareness scale.
Sure = and those were just things at the top of a search that pulled up *dozens and dozens* of pieces on the respective topics.
One was actually cited because it was itself *a compendium of coverage of Civil Rights Act related writings*... which also provided a helpful link to everything tagged with that topic, which included a half-dozen so far this year, as well as 30+ in 2015... and so on. And while more than half of those are LGBT related (*for already mentioned obvious reasons) there's plenty of similar discussion of Title IX, Affirmative Action,
for you to claim = "the *only* time a group talks about an issue is when a tiny sliver of sub-set of that issue comes up"" is willfully ignorant, and demonstrably false.
Even when pointed to substantial evidence you seem disinterested in actually noting the reality.
Maybe helpful is this piece about critics of Rand Paul and his position re: anti-discrimination laws, noted for "The Lamest Argument You'll Hear About Him"... which is surprisingly similar to your own criticism.
You both have the freedom to associate, or not, with anyone who wants to associate with you.
See how that works? It takes two to associate, and either can refuse. My refusal to associate with you does not violate your freedom of association.
You do know we're discussing actual law, not ideal law, yes?
Where do you get that nonsense from?
most libertarians would argue that the same principle of free association should apply to both. Do you have an actual (link) example of the Strawman position you're proposing, or did you just make it up now?
I don't track links to conversations I have in comment sections, so no. But I get it from self-identified libertarians 'round here.
Also, while he isn't a self-identified libertarian, Rand Paul has also said that he's opposed to non-discrimination laws in general, but that doing anything about existing ones is just too hard, so he'll just oppose new ones and call it good. So there's that too.
Again, why do you have a stick up your ass on this? Is it because you don't get your pony, so you're going to take the ball and go home? Because that's the impression that I'm getting from you.
You do realize that libertarians are about 5% of the electorate, right? You do realize that we live in a majoritarian political system, right? How the fuck is one senator going to repeal all non-discrimination laws???
"You do realize that libertarians are about 5% of the electorate, right? You do realize that we live in a majoritarian political system, right? How the fuck is one senator going to repeal all non-discrimination laws???"
Gee, if only there was some other comparably tiny group out there that's spent decades in the same system achieving legislative, court and moral victories to get their view of what the law *should be* into what the law *is*.
Maybe you should look up other comparably tiny groups to crib some notes off of.
No homo!
That is Nikki's position right?
You mean like net taxpayers who get to subsidize your free shit? Awesome.
Don't worry, no one is going to take away your subsidy.
Donald Trump is every open borders fan's biggest gift: support for a border wall has crashed to 38% after years of stability at ~47%. Support for allowing illegals to stay remains at about 3/4.
http://thefederalist.com/2016/.....ity-falls/
I support making Muslims build randomly placed walls in Mexico and making the Chinese pay for them.
golf clap fairly loud but not deafening applause.
The Kaiser approves.
Exelcior!
The Chalkening 2: Fear and Loathing in Kansas.
I hold a very low hope that the administration will tell these people to get fucked and expel them for attempting to suppress diversity of thought on campus. Obviously, by "these people," I mean the offended snowflakes.
The administration actually posted sane responses on Twitter - which is itself grounds for outrage from the SJWs.
I am going to have a hard time not bringing chalk with me the next time I drive through Vassar College's campus.
Bring stencils and spray paint. Let's make the chalkening stick!
Hammer and chisel!
Hammer and sickle cell anemia!
You get more of what you reward.
Emory students got their cookie, now everyone wants one.
Very good, grasshopper. When you can snatch the Iron Law from my hand, you can walk the earth and sneer at lesser beings who defy the Laws, and pay the price.
For you, G:
Can a Dress Shirt Be Racist?
"It is NOT racist to acknowledge that particular ethnicities are more likely to have a particular body type," writes Natasha Devon, a mixed-race body image expert, in The Independent.
#BlackAssesMatter
"What IS racist is to silently but powerfully expect women of all cultural backgrounds to conform to Caucasian beauty paradigms."
What if one loudly but impotently expects women of all cultural backgrounds to conform to Caucasian beauty paradigms, whatever *those* are?
Sheesh, name one person who IS racist in Devon's sense.
Can I at least get my hair shirt custom made?
"He noticed an odd pattern. In that first batch of 30, the shirts fit best on testers who were Caucasians. They seemed to fit worse, in a predictable way, on people who weren't Caucasian. All subjects of one ancestry???Asian, say???seemed to require the same general alterations. Skerritt noted the anomaly and added a question on what he called "ethnicity": Asian, Black, Caucasian, Hispanic, or "I'm not sure." The question, Skerritt says, has proven invaluable to sizing his customers' shirts."
And this is apparently racist.
If you notice people's differences you are a racist, and if you don't you're denying their lived experience.
Exactly. Anybody needing perfectly fitting dress shirts has better things to worry about. Like boatloads of money.
Depending on fabric, you can get a good made-to-measure dress shirt for 120 bucks. It's not like buy a car. Geez.
"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
The guy pointed out they've been making glasses specifically for Asians for years because they noticed back when it was still okay to mention such things that Asians have different shaped heads and faces than Caucasians so glasses made for Caucasians tended not to sit well on Asian people.
Some information is just too dangerous to use when making a shirt. No worries about what the NSA and IRS is doing with your personal information if/when you buy a pocket constitution online, however.
I got through about the first few hundred words before scrolling to the bottom and going JESUS FUCKING CHRIST how can someone waste that many words on this topic?
Oh, right = social-justice people can find differences between White and Yellow rice "problematic"
My only observation is that i really don't think the "mass-custom" model is a good idea for clothes business at all. its a razor-thin margin business, and you can get custom tailored dress shirts for $100-120 a pop or so. If you want a specific kind of fit, you get a different brand that has that kind of "last" (body-shape template). e.g. Brooks Brothers tend to be 'bulkier', and wider in the shoulders, CT tend to be narrower, flatter, etc.... and so on. No amount of computer-modeling is ever going to make a better-quality/better fitting shirt than a tailor, and it simply can't compete on price with the malaysian/vietnamese etc. textile industry.
Thank you.
Anthropologists are keenly aware of this peril, because it comes from their own field. It was early "anthropologists" (those are air-quotes) who first described a "natural" caste system of humans that featured certain whites on top. That pseudoscience was then used to justify slavery, imperialism, colonialism, Nazi atrocities and more???to repeatedly excuse the brutal exploitation and even extermination of one group of people by another.
As Mark Twain said, a cat who sits down on a hot stove lid will never sit down on a hot stove lid again, but she won't sit down on a cold stove lid either. Be careful not to take more learning out of a lesson than what's there. Yes, not all members of race x fit the stereotypes of race x, but they are more likely than a member of race y and it's stupid to claim that since not every member of race x fits the stereotype then the stereotype is useless. Just because you note Northern Europeans tend to be taller than Southeast Asians doesn't mean Northern Europeans aren't on average taller than Southeast Asians or that you think it justifies killing all the Jews.
And then there's the "Calling groups white or black is a pre-Darwinian view of biology that does not fit the facts of human variation." Other anthropologists I spoke to also roundly denounced the question. Race, they say, is a social construct. Fuck. You. This is the same BS that says if you don't know the exact height of the Eiffel Tower, 3 feet, 500 feet, and 6 miles are all equally valid guesses. Yeah, there's a lot of variation in humans, but show me a random group of Mexicans and a random group of Germans and a random group of Ethiopians and I'm pretty damn sure I can tell which group is which. Sure, you can find some Mexicans you might confuse with a German and some Ethiopians you might confuse with a Mexican, but, c'mon, that doesn't mean they're all just the same.
Ok, so what if I show you a group of Sudanese next to a group of South Africans?
Will the fact that they superficially appear to be the same "race" ("black") be meaningful?
Perhaps we should ask Zimbabwean immmigrants in South Africa for their perspective on how much "race" matters... ?
Actually Africans, while all the sub-saharans are 'black' there is quite a bit of variation amongst the tribes. People familiar with them can easily pick out where someone is from just by looking at them. Hell, even with as little experience as I have I can do a fair job of it.
What I take issue with is the use of 'black' and 'white' being used as race. It isnt that race is a social construct, its where the lines are drawn that is the social construct.
Hold an Italian next to a Swede. Not the same. The Finns, very different from the peoples all around them.
I think that's his point. He's obviously right, but that doesn't mean that, for the purposes of clothes fitting, knowing the 'race' of the person (even if where the line is drawn is a social construct) is useless.
You clearly don't understand the first step in being a not-Racist, which is to assume that all people of "European" extraction are exactly the same in all ways because they're all "white."
I can afford to be a racist. Apparently I belong to the group with the highest percentage of Neanderthal DNA so I am not really one of you damned dirty humans.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is not there, so not much is expected to happen.
Like Putin being there would mean something would happen.
Whatever happens, I hope it involves Putin keeping his shirt on.
Why would you hope for that?
Because I was trying to think up a clever punch line?
You?
But I must...
I just came to say "Good Night and Good Trump" to everyone.
/Edward R Murrow, Trumpistador
And that's the way it is.
/cronkite
Courage.
If I had known this website was an anti-homosexual hangout I would have donated more money during the pledge drive.
It's Adam and Eve, people.
Wait I thought I was the only person here who isn't gay?
No, you're gay.
Can I haz cake?
I'm not.
Aren't you an artist? Painter? Something like that?
Coroner?
I slap around pigment in a thoroughly hetero manner. I swish my shoulders around rather than my wrist. You can't be gay if you use used agricultural equipment as a primary mode of expression.
Depends. How you using that back ho?
No, that's gay.
Fuck that, it's my primary mode of making money.
Apparently you can be Gay
Quincy once tantalized the group by admitting he could get his hands on a barrel of lube.
Why would you think that being gay means someone is not anti-homosexual?
In my experience the closeted are the worst.
I once worked with a guy who had quit his job and moved away from Key West because of all the gays there. I asked him "Don't they have lots of straight women there?"
Him - "yeah, sure."
Me - "So you were in a small town with straight women and you were one of the few straight guys in town? Most of the other guys were gay?"
*wheels slowly grinding in his head*
Him - "Well, you know, I never thought about it like that."
Me - "Dumbass."
So what you are saying is a bi male should head for Key West asap?
Key, Kanye...whatever.
YOU MAY BE ENTITLED TO COMPENSATION WITHOUT GOING TO COURT!
So, I was reading Dune during a break in my quidditch match when a friend came up and grabbed me by the arm. "I want to get an abortion and have the Mexicans pay for it", he screamed.
Did you offer him a slice of deep dish pizza and then tell him that he should have the kid specifically for the purposes of getting it circumcised?
Guess I'll have to find out if he's a minarchist or anarchist first.
/Interesting that autocorrect thinks minarchist=monarchist.
Which are pro deep dish pizza? I need to know to decide if I am allowed to like it or not. I am already on thin ice with the anarchists as it is.
There are only like 5 anarchists here and they'll pretty much argue with you no matter what you say because they're an ornery bunch.
Even if I say "Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna' be fooled again!"?
I completely agree.
I don't.
Not all anarchists want humanity to feast on cyanide laced deep dish. We new a new marketing manager.
Fake service animals would be criminalized under a bill that just passed the Colorado House
"There are well-meaning people out there who feel the dog does provide a service, but they haven't done the proper training." ? "When people go about with a pet which they are passing off as a service animal falsely, they bring the entire program into disrepute."
OK, help me out here. Is licensing service animals a legitimate function of government?
This is in response to a fairly recent trend of getting around no pet policies by claiming your pit bull is an anxiety or depression service animal.
The gerbils I keep in my rectum are certainly keeping me from feeling depressed.
What does the gerbil have in his rectum? I'm picturing a Russian nesting dolls only better.
Oh, I get that.
But why is claiming my pit bull is an anxiety service animal not real unless "training" and "program"?
Taking it further, suppose I claim that *I* am an anxiety service animal for my pit bull?
1) create privileged class
2) notice that people abuse the rules for membership in the privileged class
3) create crime of abusing the rules for membership in privileged class
#thesystemworks
4) profit
No, wait, that's another game.
Yatzhee!
FTA :
The government is trying to solve a problem the government caused, as per usual. Namely, the fact that most businesses are required by law to allow service animals inside their place of business, and now a lot of people are taking advantage of that by claiming their animals are service animals even when they lack the training that keeps service animals from being disruptive.
Cops ARE civilians you syphilitic sycophant!
Bernie Sanders is about as pro-civil liberties as Lenin was. I mean look what he was saying mere months before Red October:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Theses
1.Condemns the Provisional Government as bourgeois and urges "no support" for it, as "the utter falsity of all its promises should be made clear." He condemns World War I as a "predatory imperialist war" and the "revolutionary defeatism" of foreign social democrat parties, calling for revolutionary defeatism.
5.Calls for "abolition of the police, the army, and the bureaucracy" and for "the salaries of all officials, all of whom are elective and displaceable at any time, not to exceed the average wage of a competent worker."
Socialism has coercion, theft and the subjugation of the individual baked into it. Tools of that trade. There is no way around it.
Some are drawn to socialism specifically because they want to use those tools.
Bernie is one of the idiots who doesnt see that but will use those tools when in power because he is a true believer. He is drawn to socialism because he wants Utopia.
Some think that makes Bernie one of the 'good' socialists, a decent guy. *facepalm* I am sure that will matter when we are up against the wall.
Where can I get one of these "tornado watches"?
Or this from 1905:
Everyone is free to write and say whatever he likes, without any restrictions. But every voluntary association (including the party) is also free to expel members who use the name of the party to advocate anti-party views. Freedom of speech and the press must be complete. But then freedom of association must be complete too. I am bound to accord you, in the name of free speech, the full right to shout, lie and write to your heart's content. But you are bound to grant me, in the name of freedom of association, the right to enter into, or withdraw from, association with people advocating this or that view. The party is a voluntary association, which would inevitably break up, first ideologically and then physically, if it did not cleanse itself of people advocating anti-party views.
Or this from just a week before Red October:
The Bolsheviks will do everything to secure this peaceful development of the revolution.
Or this from 1919:
No Bolshevik, no Communist, no intelligent socialist has ever entertained the idea of violence against the middle peasants. All socialists have always spoken of agreement with them and of their gradual and voluntary transition to socialism.
What? This Lenin guy has a point.
I love this one from Lenin:
We set ourselves the ultimate aim of abolishing the state, i.e., all organized and systematic violence, all use of violence against people in general. We do not expect the advent of a system of society in which the principle of subordination of the minority to the majority will not be observed.
In striving for socialism, however, we are convinced that it will develop into communism and, therefore, that the need for violence against people in general, for the subordination of one man to another, and of one section of the population to another, will vanish altogether since people will become accustomed to observing the elementary conditions of social life without violence and without subordination.
Darwin would agree. If humans with some propensity to object to being ruled over were killed off, generation after generation, humans would evolve to be more compliant. Are you against SCIENCE, Winston?
Behold : Utopia!
Interesting. The third photo down depicts one of those things our own Bernie has spoken so glowingly about.
Shit. I forgot the link
http://www.rferl.org/media/pho.....74454.html
I should try commenting sober some time, just for fun.
But I see you commenting on the morning all the time.
Oh. Oh! Oh...
*chugs beer*
No Independents thread?
Oh. Oh! Oh...
*crosses self, mumbles in Latin*
Reading Neal Stephenson's Zodiac, wondering how a free market EPA would work out.
Very well, actually. I haven't finished the book, so don't bother me with fact's.
Privately owned interests in waterways, for a start. If I recall, the EPA was either complicit in the pollution schemes or comically incompetent. So parties interested in seeing their beaches and the water flowing through them preserved would be an important source of pressure on would-be polluters. Then the threat of torts, private investigators, and vigorously enforced property laws to right any wrongs. Imagine being a group whose job it is, like in the book, to track down sources of pollution.... but then you sell your research to class-action lawyers who carry out the injunction and lawsuits. I bet that alone would make polluters think twice. Much better incentive than the environmentalist vigilantes depicted in the book. But I have been accused of being an optimist.
Thank you,
I read this years and years ago when I was a starry-eyed and impressionable libertarian ingenue, so ymmv. I'm really not too well-read in actual libertarian philosophy outside the Mises people, and I haven't kept up with their work in years, so I have no idea where in the libertarian firmament they sit. But it seems like a good primer on the subject, especially disabusing naive statist environmentalists of the benefits of complete government ownership.
Ahhhhhh, the good ole days.
*Fd'A sheds a single tear*
Ol' Iron Eyes Frank, they called him.
In other news, Milo Yiannopoulos is actually 44 interns wearing a trenchcoat. http://www.buzzfeed.com/joseph.....ources-say
Intern! Please post a response to Juvenile Bluster on my behalf.
Can't a guy catch a break? The man works all day at the business factory and all he wants to do when he comes home is stay up late and watch R-rated movies.
Whee!
"Tesla fans lining up to preorder $35,000 Model 3 sight unseen"
[...]
"While nary a photo or prototype of the car has been revealed, Musk has shared the car will have a 200-mile range and a price tag of around $35,000 that can drop even lower if a buyer takes advantage of tax credits."
http://www.sfgate.com/news/art.....219959.php
Are we to believe the $35K price doesn't include taxpayer contributions? Including, oh, free charging? For a car which will take 3 days (including charging) to travel from LA to SF.
What a *SIGNAL*!
I know someone who is lining up for one....
I probably do too, and I'm glad I haven't had to respond to the gloating.
Where da whyte wimmins at??
New York State just passed a minimum wage law for NYC. 15$ by the end of 2018. Cuomo, "We're leaders in economic justice."
And the supporters of that M/W sill be the first to gripe that China is stealing our jobs! And that the unemployment rate is too high since business owners aren't willing to share their wealth!
No, China isn't "stealing our jobs." American manufacturers are outsourcing our solid, middle-class meal-ticket careers overseas (careers which are somehow exploitative and require sweatshops to operate when done by foreigners).
"American manufacturers are outsourcing our solid, middle-class meal-ticket careers overseas"
Shame on them for making money and rewarding investors.
Your whine is of a poor vintage.
Before I saw the bank draft which had said $9426 , I didnt believe that...my... brother woz like actualy earning money part-time at there labtop. . there uncles cousin has done this 4 less than fifteen months and by now repaid the dept on there place and got a great new Mini Cooper . read the full info here ...
Clik This Link inYour Browser
http://www.JobToday60.com
RE: World leaders have gathered in D.C. to discuss curbing the threat of nuclear weapons. Russian President Vladimir Putin is not there, so not much is expected to happen.
Gee, if the Iranians will be there.
If Putin isn't there, who will bring the vodka?
Start making more money weekly. This is a valuable part time work for everyone. The best part work from comfort of your house and get paid from $100-$2k each week.Start today and have your first cash at the end of this week. For more details Check this link??
Clik This Link inYour Browser
? ? ? ? http://www.MaxPost30.com
He was adopted, but his new parents gave him back.
Outstanding.
I hope he didn't get a penalty for it.
He really pumped that 6 foot 8 (?) frame into Stone.
He's no Stevens but hey. Nice!
Here's McGuire (Screech Monkey) on Buff-Lynn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-6y608d0hg
Jesus Christ. Fuck me. I mean...
Byfuglien? That's a name?
That could potentially be very mean, but I'll allow it.
And he's American!