Statute of Limitations for Sex Crimes Challenged, Obama Promises Debt Forgiveness for the Disabled, Trump Trots Out His Kids: A.M. Links

• 

  CNN screenshot

  The federal government will forgive some $7.7 billion in student loan debt held by permanently disabled Americans.

• Meet your future First Family.
• Another teenager has been fatally shot by Chicago police. The cops say 16-year-old Pierre L. Loury had an "armed confrontation" with an officer, but Loury's mom says the boy did not have a gun.
• California is considering removing the statute of limitations for prosecuting sex crimes. 
• In China's first court case involving same-sex marriage, a judge ruled against a gay couple who were seeking the right to marry. 
• North Dakota will pay $245,000 to the state's lone abortion clinic after attempting to enact an unconstitutional ban on abortion after six weeks. 

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

In China's first court case involving same-sex marriage, a judge ruled against a gay couple who were seeking the right to marry.

But the ultimate population control is right there!

[Injun, as in from India]

LOL.

[shinokilo]

uptil I saw the bank draft four $7328 , I be certain ...that...my friends brother was like they say actualey bringing home money parttime at their laptop. . there aunts neighbour has been doing this 4 only 16 months and resently repayed the dept on their villa and bought themselves a Audi Quattro . check ????????????? Click this link http://goo.gl/JNLxe5

[Eternal Blue Sky]

I thought they had loosened up on population controls in China recently. Because, believe it or not, state mandated population controls turned out to have horrible unintended consequences.

[ant1sthenes]

Well, looks like Apple will no longer be doing business with China.

[Fist of Etiquette]

California is considering removing the statute of limitations for prosecuting sex crimes.

Because, like California wine, memories and evidence get better with age.

[Swiss Servator]

+37 year old date rape case?

[Lee G]

Why not all violent crimes? Why are sex crimes different from violent assault in this regard?

[Rich]

Why not all hate crimes?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

What about thought crimes?

[Trouser-Pod (The blowhard)]

I knew you were going to bring that up!

[Enough About Palin]

Why are sex crimes different from violent assault in this regard?

Because womens.

[Eman]

right? worse than murder? Im perplexed.

[LynchPin1477]

I understand the rationale behind statutes of limitations. I also understand the rationale behind not wanting to put a horizon on when someone can be held accountable for a crime. Let's see how it goes in CA and learn from there.

[R C Dean]

I think a statute of limitations is an essential element of due process, myself. At some point, you have to say that the evidence is too old, too much is unavailable, too much is lost to time to be able to prove up a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.

There's value in certainty in a system of laws; a statute of limitations, while arbitrary, gives that certainty.

Reducing everything to case-by-case is its own recipe for arbitrariness.

[Suthenboy]

+1 Reign of terror

[bassjoe]

Eh... violent crimes and persons, in general, shouldn't have statute of limitations; if you physically injured somebody, you should not be able to walk away from that crime simply because some arbitrary measurement of time passed. Sex crimes could also involve psychological issues like battered-spouse syndrome, etc., that could take somebody many years to work through.

[mad.casual]

Sex crimes could also involve psychological issues like battered-spouse syndrome, etc., that could take somebody many years to work through.

As Lee G said, if we aren't all crypto-Neo-Victorians sex shouldn't make a difference. If I held someone against their will, waterboarded them daily, forced them to sleep standing up, and constantly verbally abused them does sex somehow magically make it all worse?

If men=women and gay=straight, there are/can be no sex crimes. A man sticking his penis in a woman's vagina is synonymous with him sticking his finger in another man's ear.

[Citizen X]

A man sticking his penis in a woman's vagina is synonymous with him sticking his finger in another man's ear.

I bet you throw the most interesting parties.

[mad.casual]

I dunno about that, but I do expect everybody to clean their own ears.

[Eman]

what about their vaginas?

[Swiss Servator]

In China's first court case involving same-sex marriage, a judge ruled against a gay couple who were seeking the right to marry.

Paypal to cease operations with China?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

So. Will the Blues finally topple your Hawks?

[AdamJ]

Never!

[Swiss Servator]

Probably.

[bacon-magic]

Go Blues! ?

[Private Chipperbot]

Let's see if Apple responds the same way they did to the NC bathroom law.

[AdamJ]

Doesn't count if they're Arab, Asian, etc

[Michael S. Langston]

At least Bruce Springsteen should ensure no engagement with China, such as not purchasing goods made there 🙂

[Fist of Etiquette]

Meet your future First Family.

I'm still holding out hope that America will go full Kardashian.

[Swiss Servator]

I...I hate you for even making me imagine that.

[Fist of Etiquette]

You know you want to see it.

[Crusty Juggler]

Yeezus 2020!

[Citizen X]

Obama's down with that because he's so cool, or as he likes to think Kanye might say, "ceezy."

[Drake]

Which would be President and which First Lady?

[Fist of Etiquette]

The one's ass will be both.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

"You arrogant ass...you've killed us!"

[Crusty Juggler]

"Combat tactics, Mr. Ryan."

[Eman]

I would rather see a kim and kanye sex tape, and I really don't want to do that.

[invisible furry hand]

Why Soviet Refugees Aren't Buying Sanders's Socialism

"We feel like we survived a plague, and now we are seeing people with boils on their skin."

[Doctor Whom]

Something something false consciousness not true socialism unlike Denmark they are refugees and therefore wreckers and kulaks.

[Derpetologist]

FTA: "Socialism is a conspiracy of losers against achievers," Menaker said.

That about wraps it up.

[Injun, as in from India]

Socialism is organized bullying. That's basically what it is.

Bullying organized by avaricious crooks who don't have the balls and the guns to come and steal your stuff.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

How are Indians who lived under the License Raj viewing Sanders?

[Domestic Dissident]

Yep. The problem is we've got more lazy, worthless losers in the world now than ever before in history.

[Injun, as in from India]

Proggie: But, but! The USSR was communist. These refugee f***ers are conflating communism with socialism.

Me: What about India? I left the world's largest democratic socialist country.

Proggie: But you never had single payer, so you weren't socialist. Look at Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway!

Me: All of those countries have fewer people than New F***ing Delhi.

Proggie: No, your country never had socialism. You don't understand your own country and what you grew up under.

[Injun, as in from India]

The above is the gist of an actual online conversation I had with a bovine woman.

[Florida Hipster]

bovine woman.

...a Minotaur?

[invisible furry hand]

with a bovine woman

Bhoomi, baby

[Overt]

Doesn't India have free national healthcare anyways?

[Injun, as in from India]

There are government hospitals where you can get it essentially for free. But the government hospitals are what you would expect - the kind of hospital Michael Moore didn't show in his propaganda piece Sicko.

My Dad's eye doctor, a deeply religious Hindu, ran a private clinic where he would give free healthcare to the poor. Villagers from miles around would come there. They were treated compassionately. He restored eyesight to thousands of people. It was a stark contrast to the government hospital.

[Injun, as in from India]

As India gets richer, the government will have more loot to spend and will start sticking its dick into more things. And this sort of charity I mentioned above will be killed off.

It's going to be charity at gunpoint and the destruction of the human spirit.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Point of Information: The USSR was socialist (it's the second S or third C!). They were striving to build communism.

[gaoxiaen]

America's gulags have rainbows and unicorns. Sorry about the ass-rape.

[Idle Hands]

Sundeyeva said liberals accuse her of racism for questioning President Obama. "When Obama says, 'Trayvon Martin could be my son' ? that translates that he is giving him legitimacy only because he has the same skin color, and this is racism," she said. "When I ask [liberals] all these questions, they don't like to answer them."

[Idle Hands]

Others at the party seemed more conflicted, particularly when it came to abortion, which was widespread and normalized in the Soviet Union. "We have become successful and comfortable within capitalism," said Gina Budman. "On the other hand, I really am adamantly pro-choice. And I would love to see education that is less expensive. I am for gay rights."

Libertarian moment?

[HeteroPatriarch]

No, just someone who knows what it's like to see the gestapo take away a neighbor, family member, or friend and knows how to hedge her words.

[Mainer2]

Like with any immigrant group, the political views of Russians in the United States range widely. Ilya Strebulaev, a Russian-American and a finance professor at Stanford, said the left-leaning Russians he knows outnumber the right-leaning ones.

This Stanford professor Strebulaev is mentioned once in the article, just to say he knows more left leaning Russians. Bet he knows more left leaning people generally....so what was the point of including his comment ?

[Idle Hands]

To show that there are numerous nonracist right thinking Russians, even though the author couldn't be bothered to actually seek them out.

[neoteny]

what was the point of including his comment ?

"Balanced reporting".

[ant1sthenes]

Funny that the people who try to claim Bernie Sanders' socialism is okay because it is democratic socialism would not say the same about Trump's democratic fascism. Evil is evil, even if you get a lot of people to vote for it.

[Slammer]

Another teenager has been fatally shot by Chicago police. The cops say 16-year-old Pierre L. Loury had an "armed confrontation" with an officer, but Loury's mom says the boy did not have a gun.

Man, I'm so sick of these stories. Am I am bad person for not believing anything coming from any side anymore?

[Swiss Servator]

No, you are being wise.

[Zeb]

I'll at least say that him mom's say so isn't really a good way to tell if he had a gun or not. 16 year olds do lots of things their moms don't know about.

[Rich]

"He was a troubled youth who had fallen in with the wrong crowd. But he was a good boy who was just turning his life around."

[commodious spittoon]

It's like the "veteran deputy shot on the day before retirement" trope.

[Crusty Juggler]

They made a movie like that called Fruitvale Station.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

"When Eddie said he didn't like his teddy. You knew he was a no good kid"

...Und I did.

[Col. Chestbridge]

+ just 7 days
-1 neck

[PapayaSF]

Go to the Pierre L. Loury Facebook tribute page and there are pictures of him with guns. Just another dead violent moron. Nothing to see here.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Loury's mom says the boy did not have a gun

Neither did the cops... they said he had arms.

Have you seen what arms can do? They can choke you, or squeeze you, or pick things up...totally justified.

/derp

[commodious spittoon]

Assault arms?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Everyone knows the black ones are more dangerous.

[HeteroPatriarch]

Those are hands.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Oh posh... The cops would never shoot anyone because of hands, but ARMS?

Besides, hands only do what arms tell them to do.

[Mainer2]

Bet he was "flailing" his arms.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Hello.

[Swiss Servator]

Gr?ezi mitenand.

I must now go be a dancing monkey for the various bigshots over from the CH. Maybe PM Lynx I can see what has been going on in the world.

[Rich]

Be sure to use your briefing puppets. The high muckitymucks just *love* 'em!

[Cdr Lytton]

various bigshots over from the CH

Big for gnomes?

[Old Man With Candy]

If they're the German kind, the tradition greeting will impress them. "Du bist haesslich und deine Mutter kleidet dich komisch."

[Hamster of Doom]

He'll probably want to conjugate it more formally. These are bigshots, he did say.

[Old Man With Candy]

This shows sincere friendliness. "Sie" seems cold and distant.

[Domestic Dissident]

$1.48 Trillion: Government Collects Record-High Taxes in First Half of FY 2016:
despite collecting record revenues, government still runs $461 billion deficit.

And for those with short memories, $461 billion is even more than what the lying lowlifes in Congress, the CBO, and their lickspittles in the JournoList said the deficit would be for the entire year.

[Good News, Everyone!]

Boring. The real issue this election cycle is the way the candidates eat their pizza!

[B.P.]

Try to keep up. The real issue is where a vanishingly small minority goes to the bathroom.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The cops say 16-year-old Pierre L. Loury had an "armed confrontation" with an officer, but Loury's mom says the boy did not have a gun.

Well, the cop was armed.

[DJF]

And Pierre might have been armed though maybe not with a gun.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Armed with the wrong skin tone?

[Lord Humungus]

Hot on the Lot: Leasing a Used Car
As inventories of preowned vehicles rise, dealers look to buyers who don't qualify

Aspiring Lexus owners may have a hard time refusing Brendan Harrington's latest offer: Get a lightly used version of one of the hottest luxury SUVs in America for as little as $370 a month.

The terms?offered by Mr. Harrington's Longo Lexus dealership near Los Angeles?come as part of a lease deal on a three-year-old RX 350 with 35,700 miles on the odometer. Spanning 36 months and 45,000 miles of use, the lease requires little money up front and is potentially hundreds of dollars less than a comparatively equipped new model sold at similar terms.

Inventories of used cars in good condition are soaring in the U.S., and finance companies and dealers are scrambling to offer leases as a way to make payments affordable for people who don't qualify for cheap deals on new cars or those looking to save cash.

New-car sales gained steam in recent years, creating a glut of used vehicles. Those inventories are problematic for auto makers hoping to maintain a record sales pace on fresh sheet metal and remain profitable in the process.

[Princess Trigger]

Cash for Clunkers II: the Wreckoning!

[Lee G]

Sweet. I prefer used Toyota/Lexus vehicles. I look forward to some price reductions on them as they are notoriously high priced.

[Drake]

Or, just buy an economy car for the same price and still own a car in 3 years - and spend half as much on gas and insurance in the process.

[Crusty Juggler]

Heated, supple, leather seats are a joy.

[Florida Hipster]

Snob

[Crusty Juggler]

I try.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

When Crusty 'uses' his 'Heated, supple, leather seats', nobody else wants them.

That's why he buys.

[jarflax]

Bondo is not a color!

[gaoxiaen]

65 GTO's are better.

[brokencycle]

Don't forget those sweet, sweet AC seats.

[Lord Humungus]

Life is too short to drive economy cars. What you need is a nice unreliable Mercedes S550.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

AMG or GTFO

[Drake]

The older I get, the less I seem to care about the vehicle that gets me places - as long as it does so reliably and economically.

[Slammer]

My kid got expelled after 'Dora the Explorer' actress peer pressured her into vaping

The parents of a teenager booted from her elite Manhattan private school for vaping say she was a victim of a bad influence ? Dora the Explorer.

Well, at least the voice actress for Dora in the popular Nickelodeon show, who, the parents say in their Manhattan civil suit? against the school, ?pressured her into smoking out of a vape pen, leading to her expulsion, while ?the actress ?Dora-girl got just ?a ??three-day suspension.?

Parents Nadia Leonelli and Fredrik Sundwall say ?in their Manhattan civil suit that ?they helped found the $40,000-a-year ?Chelsea school ?Avenues:? ?The World School?.

EXPELLED for vaping?? WTF?

[Crusty Juggler]

Way to light the Enough About Palin signal.

[Enough About Palin]

Ten fucking grand, baby!

[Rich]

Que Bueno!

[Citizen X]

Swiper narc'ed on them. They should have let him have a puff.

[PBR Streetgang]

Dora: Vaper! NO Vaping!

Expelled Student:**snaps figners** OH Man!!

[commodious spittoon]

Figners sounds dirty.

[PBR Streetgang]

Sorry misspelled 'foreigners'.

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

FORTY-THOUSAND for high school?? WTF?

[Eman]

when you literally have more money than you know what to do with, but not quite enough to run for president?

[invisible furry hand]

A politician wants to stop police from using sniffer dogs to detect drugs on random passersby, so of course...

NSW police are investigating allegations that serving police officers posted sexist and racist comments on social media that targeted Greens MP Jenny Leong.

[Derpetologist]

Spot the Not: North Korea's least insane ideas

1. Men may marry at 20, but women may not marry until 28. This policy is meant to prevent North Korean men from worrying about their girlfriends marrying someone else while they do their mandatory 10 years in the army.

2. To improve literacy, North Korea eliminated all Chinese characters from the written language, leaving an alphabet with 24 letters.

3. In April 1974, North Korean abolished all taxes.

4. North Korea's power system uses high voltage direct current instead of alternating current. This system is cheaper to build and requires less power.

5. Traditionally, it was taboo for Koreans to marry someone who had the same ancestral name. North Korea allows marriages for people with the same ancestral name so long as they are not close relatives.

6. North Korea invited the American Christian rock band Casting Crowns to play a concert there. The only other American band ever invited to play in North Korea is the New York Philharmonic.

[Swiss Servator]

5?

[Zeb]

That would make it kind of tough to be a Kim.

[Jerryskids]

I've never heard of any of these, but all of them are less insane than some of the ones I have heard. Especially the one about the size of Dear Leader's hands.

[Aloysious]

1?

[Doctor Whom]

I've heard of 2, so not that one.

[Florida Hipster]

4

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

6. God rock doesn't seem to be high on the Nork agenda to me.

[Injun, as in from India]

4?

If it was cheaper, the greedy capitalists in America would have also done it.

[straffinrun]

6?

[gaoxiaen]

Legal pot, no fat chicks. Cool.

[UnCivilServant]

4, the reason AC won in the Edison-Tesla war was because it could be transmitted over longer distances without loss. DC would require far more generation plants right at the useage sites, and thus would not be cheaper.

[Derpetologist]

Not so- the main advantage of AC is that it's easy to increase or decrease voltage with transformers. Losses are less at high voltage, but are still there. This is true for both AC and DC. The main drawback of DC is the cost of the voltage changing equipment.

[Jerryskids]

DC power transmission could certainly be cheaper in North Korea - your mistake lies in thinking there would have to be long distances and multiple generation plants involved. There's only one electrified building in all of North Korea and it uses about 400 watts of electricity. It's powered by a car battery.

[BigT]

1. Too crazy even for NORKs

[Derpetologist]

4 is the Not. In the spirit of North Korea, there will be no prize for the winners- only a mass punishment for the losers. Your punishment is to listen to an entire album from The Shaggs, widely considered to be the worst band ever and the 3rd worst band in the known universe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQqK1CjE9bA

[HeteroPatriarch]

Worse than Nickelback?

[Derpetologist]

Yes. They're the 2nd worst band in the known universe.

[Mainer2]

HEY ! The Shaggs happen to be from my current town of Fremont, New Hampshire. Also home to the oldest cooperage in the country. So we got that going for us, too.

[Eman]

you ever seen jonee earthquake?

[HeteroPatriarch]

4 actually violates the laws of physics, so I'm gonna go with that one.

[robc]

I saw Casting Crowns in concert last summer. Surprisingly good. My wife is a fan, not my thing usually.

[Enough About Palin]

The New York Philharmonic is not a band; it is an orchestra.

[invisible furry hand]

If you're in a colsi, you're a smart kinda guy. You're probably really good looking too. No doubt you spend your free time rescuing orphaned woodland creatures and reading to blind cats. A colsi man needs to be ready at a moment's notice and is always dressed for any occasion. Backyard cricket to five star cuisine with his astrophysicist girlfriend? Check. Helping build a wood-log cabin for your elderly neighbours? Check. The colsi man is all things to all people. What kind of man are you?

Gentlemen, would you wear a colsi?

[Slammer]

Response

[Swiss Servator]

No. But I suspect Florida Man might keep one for weddings, funerals, etc.

[Florida Hipster]

Why pay for a whole shirt when you can buy just the business part?

[CatoTheChipper]

Sure I will ... but only after I start wearing clip-on neckties.

[Citizen X]

Australia is the Florida of the world, it is known.

[gaoxiaen]

If I'm getting a (cishetero) blow job, I'd wear crotchless panties.

[HeteroPatriarch]

What is a colsi? The collar part or the navy blue wifebeater part?

[GILMORE?]

Between this and someone from HUD potentially being VP, i'm horribly nauseous

[BigT]

If that's what it takes to get you undressed.

[Lord Humungus]

STEVE SMITH MOST DANGEROUS GAME

Woman lost 9 days in Arizona forest wrote 'help' in sticks

Rodgers got lost in the White Mountains in eastern Arizona after her hybrid car ran out of gas and battery on March 31. Rodgers survived in the forest for nine days by drinking pond water and eating plants. Authorities came across her dog April 9, and a DPS flight crew spotted a "help" signal made of sticks and rocks on the ground. Rodgers had left the area, but she was found on a reservation that's home to the White Mountain Apache Tribe after starting a signal fire

Authorities came across her dog April 9, and a department flight crew spotted a "help" signal made of sticks and rocks on the ground. Rodgers had left the area, but she was found nearby on the Fort Apache Reservation after starting a signal fire.

Rodgers said she was waving to the helicopter. When it landed to rescue her, she sat down and cried.

[Sevens]

Nicely done, Rodgers. Hope the dog is alright.

As a side note, clearly cars need cole, too. Can't have more people getting lost in mountains.

[Crusty Juggler]

If she had eaten the dog she would've had plenty of strength to make it back home.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

That is bizarre. Her family would be smart to have her checked for cognitive impairment because I don't see how you can end up there if you were intending to go from Tucson to Phoenix.

[Sevens]

Well, all of the hybrids navigational systems failed, mostly sun, moss, astrology, and satellite.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

Fuckin' Apple Maps.

[Rich]

she was found on a reservation that's home to the White Mountain Apache Tribe after starting a signal fire

and promptly charged with a federal felony, right? RIGHT?!

[Lee G]

The Cedar Fire of San Diego was started by a hunter who lit a signal fire. It burned 280,000 acres.

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

"she was found on a reservation that's home to the White Mountain Apache Tribe after starting a signal fire"

STOP APPROPRIATING NOBLE SAVAGE CULTURE!!!

[Princess Trigger]

"Turned to survival mode."
I was going to start that in Fallout 4 this weekend.

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

Did that for about an hour a few weeks ago before dialing it back to "very hard." It is definitely a hell of a lot more challenging.

[Jerryskids]

Does Fallout 4 have a DPS flight crew? I'm assuming something called a flight crew is a ranged rather than melee wep. I have a Jade Bow of Keening equipped with an Onyx of Accuracy that does +8 DPS - how does the flight crew compare?

[HeteroPatriarch]

she was found nearby on the Fort Apache Reservation after starting a signal fire.

Too bad John Wayne wasn't there to keep her head on straight.

[Jerryskids]

Shit, I forgot all about CNN doing that infomercial for Trump even though I'd seen the promos for it. How the fuck is CNN not required to be registered as a PAC by the FEC?

[gaoxiaen]

They're gay?

[HeteroPatriarch]

Because they're not partisan, just statist.

[Slammer]

Illinois police department gives up on body cameras because they're tired of people asking for videos

Officers from a police department in Illinois have given up on body cameras because they are tired of people asking for the videos.
Cameras were given to 15 officers from the Minooka Police Department last July as part of a trial run that ran until January.
Police Chief Justin Meyer said he was happy with the functioning of the cameras but was concerned about the amount of time cops were spending completing requests for video from suspects and their lawyers.

'It just became a bit burdensome for our administrative staff,' Meyer told Morris Herald News.
He added: 'You could have four officers on a call for a domestic incident.
'If they are on scene for an hour ? whether there's an arrest or not ? that's four hours of video that has to be uploaded.'

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

Uh, hire some admins maybe?

[DJF]

Admins might not know what parts of the recording need to have technical difficulties to protect the officer

[gaoxiaen]

Put it on Youtube. Any discrepancies will be pointed out. Other than those parts that are "adminned" out.

[Princess Trigger]

Uploading stuff is hard.

[gaoxiaen]

How would you feel if you were asked for some easily available evidence every time you committed a crime while you received a paycheck from taxpayers?

[Citizen X]

Dunno, you should ask Hillary Clinton.

[BigT]

They never heard of Periscope?

[Sevens]

Sure, do away with all statutes of limitations.* Ridiculous to have them, when due process is gone. Create the "perfect victims", the accused.

*Sure they mean statutes and not statues? You know these, limiting things on campus?

[Princess Trigger]

In important racial news: Rachel Dolezal has been signed to write a book "about people 'caught between boundary lines of race or culture or ethnicity'". God bless her crazy black soul.
http://bit.ly/1qoDZfp

[Slammer]

Black and white and read all over?

[Rich]

😎

White print on black background.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

What's black and white and red all over and can't get thru a revolving door?

A nun with a spear thru her.

[straffinrun]

She does sound borderline.

[invisible furry hand]

Is she actually going to write it or is she just identifying with the writing community?

[Injun, as in from India]

+ A Million Little Pieces

[This Machine]

Oh, snap! IFH from the top ropes! With a folding chair!

[Suthenboy]

Yesterday I heard her say that her explanations about her race are 'creative non-fiction'.

Cognitive dissonance for the win.

[gaoxiaen]

The proof in the pudding is does she have a purple pussy? Pics or GTFO.

[HeteroPatriarch]

Who is this one, again?

[HeteroPatriarch]

Oh, wasn't she on the Drew Carey show?

[Fist of Etiquette]

North Dakota will pay $245,000 to the state's lone abortion clinic after attempting to enact an unconstitutional ban on abortion after six weeks.

An actual consequence to an incursion on constitutional rights? If only that would catch on.

[Florida Hipster]

So when our second amendment rights are restored the Fed/States are going to owe an infinite amount of money? We'll be rich beyond our wildest dreams!

[Drake]

I'm assuming that they have some kind of "loser pays" rules for litigation.

[Lord Humungus]

I really think so...

Should We Turn Japanese?
With economic instability and terror plaguing the open West, a case emerges for the insular approach.

Japan has found a separate reality?a separate peace if you will?from the globalization paradigm that has dominated the West since World War II. The country's experience over the past quarter-century raises the question: How open does a modern nation need to be in order to be "successful"? That should prompt us to ask, in turn, whether we in the West have been overstating the benefits of openness and globalization, and underestimating the virtues of social cohesion and stability.

...

Japanese" traits such as lifetime employment, so recently lauded, were quickly reinterpreted as rigidity, risk averseness, and a general inability to deal with a new era of innovation that valued the individual over the group. In particular, it became an article of faith in the West to decry Japan's insularity, whether economic or socio-cultural. Japanese society, ethnically monolithic and anti-immigration, was derided as fatally parochial in the new, modern borderless world.

[Jordan]

I'd rather not have two decades of zero nominal economic growth, thanks. Of course, the central bank clowns are determined to make that happen here, anyway...

[John]

yeah Jordan, we will get all of the terrorism and social disruption that comes with mass immigration and the zero growth of Japan.

That said, Japan has zero growth for the same reason we do, its central bankers think printing money is the way to get rich.

[gaoxiaen]

It's how the bankers get rich. Peons, not so much.

[gaoxiaen]

+1 ten million dollar bonus, while the hoi polloi are being evicted. Contract law, etc...

[straffinrun]

At least we have consistent interne

[Rich]

Hillary Confirms Trillion Dollar Tax Hike Plan

? "restoring basic fairness to our tax code." These proposals include a "fair share surcharge," taxing carried interest capital gains as ordinary income, and raising the Death Tax.

Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!

[Injun, as in from India]

The only basic fairness is equal treatment before the law.

The only fair share is getting to keep 100% of your income.

Populist wh0re.

[Certified Public Asshat]

So I would spend about $100 billion a year. And I think it's affordable, and I think it's a smart way to make investments, to go back to our economic discussion, that will contribute to growing the economy.

Now I'm well aware that this is a heavy lift. I understand that.

So which is it?

[Bee Tagger]

Meet your future First Family.

What about our first future family? Is the singularity a younger or older brother?

[gaoxiaen]

+1 Fucking Gallaghers, which would be an improvement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OJh_iWV1c0

By the way, I am a Gallagher, though probably not a relative.

[Lord Humungus]

McCain demands military help on U.S. border

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain is demanding the Department of Homeland Security request military help to combat drug trafficking and illegal immigration on the Mexican border.

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, McCain, R-Ariz., called on him to immediately request Department of Defense support "so we can take full advantage of the department's air assets to secure the border and combat illicit drug trafficking."

McCain said Army drones are flying along the Mexican border, but none of the training missions are coordinated with DHS to help detect drug smuggling.

McCain is also running for reelection.

[John]

McCain finds religion and decides that the people he represents suddenly matter about every six years. Funny that.

[kbolino]

He has not at any time bothered to respect the U.S. Constitution or established legal precedent like Posse Comitatus.

[John]

The kind of support he is asking for doesn't violate Posse Comitatus. And even if it did, it seems a bit odd that we can't use our military to guard the border. Isn't defending the border why we have a military in the first place?

[kbolino]

If we are putting troops on the border with Mexico, then we had damn well better be at war with Mexico.

[John]

Putting troops on our side of the border is not an act of war. Moreover, the numerous armed incursions that happen on our border from Mexico are acts of war. We can put as many troops on our border as we want. It is our border.

[kbolino]

If the problem was with our side of the border, then we wouldn't need troops there, now would we?

To the extent there is a problem, it's coming from Mexico. Shit or get off the pot.

[Zeb]

Defending against a foreign military invasion, yes. For routine border patrol, I'd say no. Guarding and defending are different things.

[John]

Not really. The army can only stop military? It can't stop someone walking over the border? That is simply not true.

[Zeb]

Well, obviously it can. I'm not even claiming it's necessarily unconstitutional. I just don't think it is a good idea.

[kbolino]

Of course the military can carry out non-military actions. The point is that it's rightfully illegal for them to do so. You use the military to conduct wars, not to paper over politicians' and civil servants' incompetence and malfeasance.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

So if they walk across in civilian clothes, they're golden?

Even if guarding and defending are two different things, it doesn't explain why the military can't do both.

[Zeb]

I said that?

We aren't at war with Mexico, or with immigrants from the south. We are sort of at war with some drug dealers, but that's a stupid war and our fault. If we were, whether the invaders were wearing uniforms or not, using the Army would be appropriate.

I'm sure the Army can patrol the border. I'm saying it shouldn't.

[OneOut]

We've already had troops on the border once. I think it was in Texas and IIRC it was National Guard.

One of the soldiers shot and killed a young boy who had a .22 rifle as he was herding goats.

The troops were withdrawn shortly after.

[gaoxiaen]

That's okay. The ROEs in war zones don't apply within the US borders. Just shoot 'em.

[Zeb]

Wasn't there something about not having a standing army in the constitution too? What happened to that?

[kbolino]

Technically, the Constitution just prevents Congress from appropriating funds for the army for a period longer than 2 years. Obviously, the intent was at least to curtail the operation of a standing army.

[gaoxiaen]

They sit or use a prone position. Doesn't apply.

[OldMexican with sails unfurled]

North Dakota will pay $245,000 to the state's lone abortion clinic after attempting to enact an unconstitutional ban on abortion after six weeks.

The correct decision was made because it is a scientific fact that women do not beget human beings until it is convenient to regard them as so.

[Hamster of Doom]

What, you aren't doing the rest of the links today?

No one is a human being until it is convenient to regard them as so. This is kind of how people work, OM.

[Lord Humungus]

'We don't know why it came to this'
As white women between 25 and 55 die at spiking rates, a close look at one tragedy

Fifty-four years old. Raised on three rural acres. High school-educated. A mother of three. Loyal employee of Kmart, Walls Bargain Center and Dollar Store. These were the facts of her life as printed in the funeral program, and now they had also become clues in an American crisis with implications far beyond the burnt grass and red dirt of central Oklahoma.

White women between 25 and 55 have been dying at accelerating rates over the past decade, a spike in mortality not seen since the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s. According to recent studies of death certificates, the trend is worse for women in the center of the United States, worse still in rural areas, and worst of all for those in the lower middle class. Drug and alcohol overdose rates for working-age white women have quadrupled. Suicides are up by as much as 50 percent.

What killed Jones was cirrhosis of the liver brought on by heavy drinking. The exact culprit was vodka, whatever brand was on sale, poured into a pint glass eight ounces at a time. But, as Anna's family gathered at the gravesite for a final memorial, they wondered instead about the root causes, which were harder to diagnose and more difficult to solve.

[Crusty Juggler]

Maybe a lot of alcohol, or nicotine, or meth, helps makes a shit life tolerable.

[Zeb]

Yeah, but beer and weed is less likely to kill you and can probably get the job done.

[Crusty Juggler]

Or following a strict vegan diet while taking plenty of yoga classes.

[Zeb]

Not sure if the vegan part helps. But self-satisfaction and smugness goes a long way, I guess.

[Crusty Juggler]

I assume that is where those "how do we help them" conversations end up.

[gaoxiaen]

Exercise and pot overcomes a lot of those other problems.

[AlmightyJB]

I just go to yoga classes to watch.

[Lee G]

It must be society's fault.

[Jordan]

Maybe her family should sue Smirnoff.

/gun grabber logic

[straffinrun]

Absolutly

[Swiss Servator]

*returns to fiercely narrow gaze, then run off to next meeting*

[BigT]

#whiteTrashMatters

[Lord Humungus]

Progressive groups target Juli?n Castro

With Bernie Sanders' durability exciting progressives at their potential to shape the Democratic race, a coalition of groups ? many of them backers of the Vermont senator ? are launching a preemptive strike against Housing and Urban Development Secretary Juli?n Castro, aimed at disqualifying him from consideration to be Hillary Clinton's running mate.

Tuesday morning, the group emailed petitions to several million people attacking Castro on the relatively obscure issue of his handling of mortgage sales and launching a website with an unsubtle address: DontSellOurHomesToWallStreet.org.

They're just as open with their political aims: to publicly discredit Castro as a progressive, latching onto the mortgage issue to seed enough suspicion to keep him off Clinton's shortlist.

[Spoonman.]

The better disqualification is that being Mayor of San Antonio is a totally fake job that pays like $7,000 a year.

[Bee Tagger]

They look like they're about to pose for a Christmas card you immediately toss in the recycling?heavily made up and over-gelled, the men manspreading in expensive, ill-fitting suits, their ties wide and outdated, the women sitting upright as if their limbs are made of plastic in what appear to be the latest fashions from the Ivanka Trump Collection.

Who reads this and doesn't think "I want to like them now just to spite the person writing this?"

[Fist of Etiquette]

Exactly the type of shallow coverage I suppose Trump uniquely deserves, but still exactly the type of writing that sends voters to him.

[Rhywun]

Yup. Can you imagine the Obama family getting that treatment anywhere outside of a Stormfront website?

[Lord Humungus]

Porn actors 'having trouble keeping it up' with awkward virtual reality cameras strapped on their chests

If having a guy in a mesh vest and bum bag holding a boom wasn't enough to turn you off (yes, I like to imagine the porn industry to still look like Boogie Nights), actors are facing a new mood killer: multi-camera virtual reality rigs.

During a Reddit AMA on Monday, Pornhub employees were asked whether adult film actors have to wear awkward equipment while they perform.

"Yup," staffer Corey replied, "I've heard that male talent has a lot of trouble keeping it up with such heavy gear on their chests. Often the scenes have to be filmed multiple times."

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

"Often the scenes have to be filmed multiple times."

It must be sheer hell having to have sex with Stoya multiple times. I feel for these poor souls.

[Slammer]

"I've heard that male talent has a lot of trouble keeping it up with such heavy gear on their chests. "

Come on, man. The chicks work with heavy gear chests all day long.

[straffinrun]

They need Max Headroom?

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

A federal judge has said the Mississippi state flag is "unAmerican." The theory of the case is and could in no way lead to massive abuse if it prevails:

"Moore argued that under the U.S. Supreme Court decision last summer that effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, a majority of justices found the Constitution protects a fundamental right of dignity."

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/.....&ocid=iehp

[commodious spittoon]

That didn't take long.

[R C Dean]

a fundamental right of dignity = a fundamental right not to be offended.

If this stands, the 1A is toast.

[The Last American Hero]

Perhaps we need a governing body to decide if things/activities are un-American.

A council, if you will.

[Trouser-Pod (The blowhard)]

An assistant state attorney general, Doug Miracle

Damn, that's a great name. Too bad it's wasted on an A.A.G.

[Lord Humungus]

Closures and court cases leave Turkey's media increasingly muzzled

But with the seizure or closure in recent months of several newspapers, broadcasters taken off air and a German TV comedian facing a Turkish legal complaint for insulting Erdogan, journalists like Yilmaz say they are having to think twice about the consequences of their work.

"You wonder, 'will a court case be opened if we say that?'," Yilmaz told Reuters in his office in an Istanbul suburb.

"Unfortunately we have reached the stage where if you write the 'p' of president, an investigation and court case is opened against you," he said, looking over the shoulder of a colleague working on the layout of the paper.

[Rhywun]

Without explicit protection for free speech, every country will see this eventually - guaranteed. Hell, even with it you still have to fight tooth and nail to protect it.

[Lord Humungus]

FBI paid professional hackers one-time fee to crack San Bernardino iPhone

The FBI cracked a San Bernardino terrorist's phone with the help of professional hackers who discovered and brought to the bureau at least one previously unknown software flaw, according to people familiar with the matter.

The new information was then used to create a piece of hardware that helped the FBI to crack the iPhone's four-digit personal identification number without triggering a security feature that would have erased all the data, the individuals said.

The researchers, who typically keep a low profile, specialize in hunting for vulnerabilities in software and then in some cases selling them to the U.S. government. They were paid a one-time flat fee for the solution.

[John]

I guess it is too much to ask the Famous but Incompetents to be on the same level as hackers. It is not like they don't get a huge budget to do that or anything.

[Lee G]

I'm assuming they copied the flash memory to another device and then just brute forced it until they got it open.

[Jerryskids]

They turned over the phone and saw the Sharpied "The password is ALLAH1" on the back.

[John]

The federal government will forgive some $7.7 billion in student loan debt held by permanently disabled Americans.

Not every disabled person is broke. A lot of them work and some have family money and such. This sounds nice but is absurd. The answer is to make these things dischargable in bankruptcy after so many years. We have a system where people who can't pay their debts are allowed a fresh start and creditors are paid fairly with what money there is. Maybe we should use it.

[sarcasmic]

A large number of "disabled" people are not disabled. Once unemployment runs out a great many people, like in the millions, have managed to concoct a disability (with the help of government employees) that gets them a check for the rest of their life. This is just another handout to layabouts.

[John]

That too. We are creating a further incentive for people to go on the dole and further punishing people who do the right thing. If I work and can't pay my student loans, I am fucked. If I fake a disability and go on the dole, I am set.

[Lord Humungus]

I have a friend who is "disabled" - which consists of sitting around in a condo and watching lots of movies, shopping for his elderly parents, and listening to his extensive record collection on a stereo system worth a few kilobucks,

He suffers from anxiety.

Heck I suffer from anxiety but I just buck up and go in to work.

[Florida Hipster]

Lexapro, Xanax, Ativan, meditation, exercise, exposure therapy, or you know, just chill at home while others pay your bills. If I send you a hundred dollars, will you punch your friend in the face, real fucking hard?

[Jerryskids]

If you send his friend a hundo he'll punch himself in the face.

[commodious spittoon]

Heck I suffer from anxiety but I just buck up and go in to work.

The thought of being permanently unemployed is seriously upsetting. How does someone survive like that?

[Mike Hihns Depends]

Having been through the system myself there are certain "disabilites" that seem to be fast tracked. I once sat in the waiting room listening to people discuss with their lawyers what they needed to say to convince a judge they were unable to work because of (insert your favorite mental "disease" here). Those of us who actually had a physical disability with medical records to back it up always seem to be denied. It took me 3 years (no working allowed) and multiple appeals to be approved. I also have to be retested every 3 years to see if my condition improves. It won't as it's genetic and worsens with age.

I would have zero issue with this whole disability mess being done away with but if it's there I'm going to use it. It offsets some of the taxes my wife pays and pays the student loans she took out when I couldn't work anymore and she had to be the breadwinner.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Nice handle, you're full of shit, right?

[gaoxiaen]

I'm working overtime to buy a new hip and related surgery. Maybe I should just apply for welfare.

[Jerryskids]

I've fought this battle with myself a hundred times - at what point do you surrender and stop fighting the forces that want you to take the government check? At some point you've paid more into the system than you're ever going to get out of it and at some point the system's going to go broke and nobody's going to get anything out of it. Do you give in and take the check and rationalize it as just getting back your fair share or do you suck it up and live without the guilt of knowing taking stolen money is still aiding and abetting the theft?

[sarcasmic]

For example a former friend of mine is "disabled." His wrist pops when he twists it. He claimed to be disabled and now he gets a check every month and lives in subsidized housing. He claimed that it hurts to type, and for that reason he can't go back to college or do any job training, yet he spends all day commenting in Yahoo!. All. Fucking. Day. Disabled my ass.

[John]

And he can now get his student loans forgiven.

[lap83]

my brother is a PI and investigates people like that for a living, but for private individuals and companies. If that guy was trying to scam anyone but taxpayers he wouldn't get away with it

[kbolino]

We have a system where people who can't pay their debts are allowed a fresh start and creditors are paid fairly with what money there is. Maybe we should use it.

Fine, then remove the caps on student loan interest rates and allow creditors to tie the rates and the amounts to creditworthiness and student aptitude.

[John]

We should do that as well. We didn't on the loans that exist. And that sucks. There are no good options. The moral hazard associated with allowing some people who can meet bankruptcy requirements to walk away from their debts is less of an evil than a good chunk of an entire generation not being able to get married or buy a house or live a normal life because of debts that can't ever be paid or discharged.

And those debts are going to have to be made good thanks to the government guarantees. That is a problem too. We solve that problem by taxing the living fuck out of college endowments and using the money to pay off the guarantees. The colleges are the ones who got rich off of this and they are the ones who should have to bear the brunt of paying to fix it.

[kbolino]

You can make the colleges pay after you've made every Senator, Congressman, President, Vice President, department head, SES, and GS who proposed, supported, or implemented it penniless.

[R C Dean]

The federal government will forgive some $7.7 billion in student loan debt held by permanently disabled Americans.

We all knew the accumulation of student debt by the feds was going to lead to mass forgiveness of loans, effectively socializing the cost of higher education.

And so it begins. Its just too, too juicy a handout for politicians to resist.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

The cops say 16-year-old Pierre L. Loury had an "armed confrontation" with an officer, but Loury's mom says the boy did not have a gun.

He should have armed himself.

[gaoxiaen]

Especially if he's going to decorate his bar with my friend.

[Lord Humungus]

Uber says gave U.S. agencies data on more than 12 million users

The ride-sharing company said that between July and December 2015, it had provided information on more than 12 million riders and drivers to various U.S. regulators and on 469 users to state and federal law agencies.

The privately held company, valued at more than $60 billion, said the agencies requested information on trips, trip requests, pickup and dropoff areas, fares, vehicles, and drivers.

Uber said it got 415 requests from law enforcement agencies, a majority of which came from state governments, and that it was able to provide data in nearly 85 percent of the cases.

A large number of the law enforcement requests were related to fraud investigations or the use of stolen credit cards, according to the report.

[Crusty Juggler]

Do the mentally disabled count, because if so I have to get in on that.

[AlmightyJB]

I'll testify on your behalf

[Hamster of Doom]

Don't tell us the threading, it's more fun to guess.

[Crusty Juggler]

I am channeling my inner p brooks.

[commodious spittoon]

These euphemisms...

[Rich]

Hillary on New 25% National Gun Tax: "I am all for that."

"I just don't know what else we're going to do to try to figure out how to get some handle on this violence."

"I'm truly at my wit's end."

[Irish ?s Lauren Southern]

It seems to me that 'shall not be infringed' would also preclude a tax specifically meant to decrease the ability of people to buy firearms.

[sarcasmic]

What are you talking about? The 2A refers to the "militia" which is the National Guard. Such a tax wouldn't infringe upon the rights of the National Guard to keep and bear arms.

[Drake]

That's why when I was in the National Guard, I could buy and carry anything I wanted in any state. Or something like that.

[Rich]

something reasonable something commonsense something must do something

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Right after she signs the National Poll Tax bill.

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

"Oh, you want your Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure, huh? We need a warrant, you say? Well, why don't you just give me 25% of that brick and your cash and it'll be just LIKE we didn't come into your house?"

[Crusty Juggler]

She went on to say, "I want to invade another country full of brown savages."

[Irish ?s Lauren Southern]

No. Full of 'super predators.'

[AlmightyJB]

Wdatpdim

[Crusty Juggler]

I still can't believe she said that.

[Irish ?s Lauren Southern]

At least with that, she wasn't running for office at the time and people were less sensitive in the '90s. I think the 'colored people time' joke was worse just because she had to know how sensitive people are these days and she's actually trying to run for president - and she needs black votes to beat Sanders in the primary.

In terms of tone deafness, CP time beats super predators.

[Crusty Juggler]

Agreed. I thought otherwise it first, but I had no idea that term was so well-known. Only she could get a pass for that.

[UnCivilServant]

I only needed to be recognized once, the internet would have spread that knowledge like wildfire.

[ant1sthenes]

I'd never heard of CPT before the kerfuffle, and I'm a bit younger than Herself, so I can't exactly criticize or assume it was anything more than an innocent mistake.

[Mike Hihns Depends]

I always like to substitute gun with abortion and watch the same people suddenly find the constitution.

[Irish ?s Lauren Southern]

Abortion is specifically mentioned in the Bill of Rights, though, unlike gun protections

[gaoxiaen]

Penumbras, etc...

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

I used to like to ask idiots who support these policies "what other constitutionally protected right do you want to be subject to a monetary payment to the government?" Unfortunately, these are now the same fucktards who are likely in favor of restricting the 1A as well.

[Juice]

Wait. How can increasing taxes possibly reduce demand and hurt businesses?

[Lord Humungus]

Harvard: Breaking Centuries of Public Silence, Porcellian Club Criticizes Final Club Scrutiny

"I sincerely hope that the administration will not set the precedent of creating a 'blacklist' of organizations that students cannot join," Storey wrote. "Such McCarthyism is a dangerous road that would be a blow to academic freedom, the spirit of tolerance, and the long tradition of free association on campus."

Storey also wrote that the Porcellian believes it "is being used as a scapegoat for the sexual assault problem at Harvard despite its policies to help avoid the potential for sexual assault."

The Porcellian, which claims U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes among its membership, has a long-standing members-only policy that bars guests from entering their Massachusetts Avenue clubhouse. That policy, Storey wrote, "greatly reduce[s] the potential for sexual assault."

[Rich]

Costa Rica says its doors are closed to Cubans

Foreign Minister Manuel Gonz?lez Sanz told el Nuevo Herald that Costa Rica was already worn down by its handling of the previous wave of 7,800 Cubans who were detained or stranded here from November of 2015 until March.

"Well, off to Miami, then!"

[Sevo]

It's important to get women involved in tech, right?

"Rebecca Minkoff, Intel team up to pique women's interest in tech"
[...]
"She recalled the recent installation of "smart dressing rooms" in the flagship Rebecca Minkoff store in New York
[...]
"The entire team was made up of men," Minkoff said. "So when the two girls went in to try it out, right away, they said 'This is a fat mirror. We are not shopping at a store with this mirror.' And no man would have known barely what that term was. So it was sort of an aha moment for me to see that if a woman had been on the team, she would have known that you have to consider the mirror and how it makes a woman look. It's just those small details of a woman's user experiences that can make such a difference."
http://www.sfgate.com/business.....244388.php

And now we know why; the rag trade will suffer if we don't!

[Lee G]

Hey Minkoff, nice job drawing an equivalence between professional engineers and self-obsessed fashionistas. That's sure to draw support for your cause among male engineers.

[John]

I think it is important to get smart and well suited people into tech. I really don't care if my software with written with a special touch that comes with a vagina. I just want it to work. But that is just me.

[Old Man With Candy]

There's actually a point here. Sure, writing the software or designing the "smart dressing room" is genital-neutral. But setting the specs in the first place requires real market research like a focus group, and that will not be genital-neutral for things like this.

[UnCivilServant]

What the fuck is a "Fat Mirror"?

[Crusty Juggler]

John's nickname in college.

[gaoxiaen]

It's the thin mirror mounted wrong by ninety degrees.

[ant1sthenes]

I don't know if it specifically speaks to getting women into tech (perhaps for this case, though it assumes any random woman would understand the fat mirror issue), so much as generally getting better input about client needs to tech.

[DEG]

Ford is accepting applications to purchase a Ford GT

Check your bank balance before you apply in case you do get selected because prices will start at about $450,000, making it the most expensive Ford production car ever.

It's a highly unusual sales process. Even with limited-production cars like this, automakers usually supply the cars to franchised dealers, which are independently owned and operated businesses. The manufacturers then leave it up to the dealers to decide which customers get the cars.

In this case, the automaker is deciding who gets to buy a GT. Once a buyer's application is approved, a new "Ford GT Concierge Service" will assist with the purchase of the car through a dealer the buyer chooses.

[John]

That actually is not unusual for a hyper car like the GT. Purchase of the Ferrari Le Ferrari was by invitation only. You had to be one of the customers Ferrari considered worthy to get one. I think Porsche did the same thing with the 918.

These companies actually lose money on these cars. They are totally marketing gimmicks. Since the point of making them is marketing not to make money, controlling who can buy one makes perfect sense. If you are Ford, you don't want Justin Bieber or Kim Kardashian destroying your brand by driving around in a GT and you don't want some wholesaler getting one just to sell it at Barrett Jackson next month.

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

There's a guy in River Oaks here in Houston that owns one. My apartment building is about a 1/4 mile from his house and when he fires it up on the weekends it seriously sounds like a jet is being spooled up. The thing is beautiful.

[DEG]

Buildings that never were

But what if the building, as of yet to be named, doesn't make it off the drawing board?

The history of architecture is littered with failed ventures -- scuppered on the rocks of hubris, bad luck and financial meltdowns. Line these projects up and it makes for fascinating reading.

[UnCivilServant]

You know what those have in common? They're monuments to ego with neither regard for human factors and use, nor for the practicalities of building them. (some could work if scaled-down, but they were shooting for sheer scale)

[This Machine]

Don't let's start another Fountainhead thread, now.

[Injun, as in from India]

US v Al Gore
New York v. ABC/Walt Disney Company,
United States v. United Nations

Yes, Let's Prosecute Climate-Change Fraud ? and Start with the Scaremongers

Ten years have passed. Is there a scientific consensus that the world has reached a "point of no return?" No? Gore's documentary grossed almost $50 million worldwide. I'd suggest that number as a starting point for damages. But of course you'll need to subpoena all his business records and communications. We wouldn't want him hiding his ill-gotten gains, and goodness knows that public schools could use some cash.
...
Broadcasting from the heart of New York, Good Morning America claimed that in 2015 milk would cost almost $13 a gallon, gas would be more than $9 a gallon, "flames [would] cover hundreds of square miles," one billion people would be malnourished, and Manhattan would be flooding ? all because of climate change.
...
United States v. United Nations: In 2007, the chairman of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajenda Pachauri, said, "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. . . . What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

[BigT]

The AGs actions are a criminal conspiracy.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/...../82878218/

[Rhywun]

In China's first court case involving same-sex marriage, a judge ruled against a gay couple who were seeking the right to marry.

"Gays are a corrupt Western influence" in 3... 2... 1...

[Injun, as in from India]

Will the DC Madam's Lawyer Disregard His Gag Order and Release Individual Names of Clients?

While Sibley has been fighting to have his own gag order removed on the information, he has threatened to disregard it altogether.

I'm taking bets. If this is not a forgery by a disgraced lawyer, who is it?

Trump, Cruz, Sanders, Hillary, or Kasich?

[Idle Hands]

I believe O'Malley is still on ballots right?

[Injun, as in from India]

LOL. It would be epic if it was Hillary. Truly epic.

[R C Dean]

FAYK SCANDUL!!!

[R C Dean]

Not Trump. He doesn't have to go to DC to get top-shelf service.

The others are DC regulars. Could be any or all of them.

[Woodchiprow Wilson]

i'm just glad that i have to watch ads all the time now. you're the best reason! Gonna save me a fortune on donations.

[HeteroPatriarch]

Blame AdBlock.

[Karinka]

Want to meet a girl? Welcome to http://goo.gl/mxiosK
the Best adult Dating site!

[Eman]

hmmm that student loan forgiveness thing is actually gonna help me but I really don't see why anyone else should pay for my education cuz of my bad luck. Im certainly not gonna refuse anything but it seems kind of an ethical gray area (at best)

[Eman]

this would be a much more forgivable govt intervention if they were stricter about their definition of "disabled", but that's the kind of thing that just naturally grows in a democracy (or whatever you want to call the bastardized form of government we live under)

[The Late P Brooks]

Cars are bad, Children. Mmmmmmkay?

Driving an SUV or even a mid-size car from New York to L.A. is worse for the planet than flying there. This is true in part because cars' fuel efficiency has improved far more slowly than planes', but also because of Americans' increasing propensity to drive alone, which has made car travel less efficient and more carbon-intensive per passenger-mile in recent years.

So cars pose the biggest threat on the climate front, with all the costs that global warming imposes on infrastructure, homes, and lives through increasingly severe storms, droughts, rising sea levels, and pressure on food supplies. If the price of gasoline and the vehicles that burn it actually reflected the true costs and damage they inflict, the common car would go extinct. Gasoline would cost way more than $10 a gallon. That's how big the secret subsidy is.

And people can just go wherever they want, at the drop of hat. Every time you go to the grocery store, you bring Climate Armageddon nearer.

And they're killers. Deadly, deadly killers.

[DOOMco]

Ban highways.

[Jerryskids]

If the price of gasoline and the vehicles that burn it actually reflected the true costs and damage they inflict, the common car would go extinct. Gasoline would cost way more than $10 a gallon. That's how big the secret subsidy is.

Do you know who pays the true costs of the damage and that secret subsidy? We do. And we do it willingly. We are paying the full cost of our cars and their use, part of it through the money we spend directly through paying for the car and its operating costs and partly through the damage they inflict on us and our environment, you moron. If we can afford to pay for the cars plus the taxes it takes to run the EPA and the NHTSA and the DOT and all the others, how the hell is it mathematically posssible that we would be unable to pay for cars that would be taxed enough to pay for the EPA and the NHTSA and the DOT and all the others? All you're doing is shifting the costs we're paying outside of the cars to costs we're paying inside the cars - if we can afford it one way we sure as hell can afford it the other. How the hell do you think those costs get paid for if not by us?

This argument is one of the more annoying arguments out there - like Walmart being subsidized by the fact that their trucks get to use the public highways, as if Walmart trucks aren't paying a huge chunk of the motor fuels taxes that pay for the damn highway.

[BigT]

But, but, cars are dumping CO2 into that great big 'sewer in the sky'. -Proggie

More like that great big fertilizer depot in the sky.

[Notorious UGCC]

"North Dakota will pay $245,000 to the state's lone abortion clinic after attempting to enact an unconstitutional ban on abortion after six weeks."

Those are legal legal costs the state paid because the clinic was successful in challenging the law in court.

And of course I presume that if an abortion clinic sues to stop a prolife law, and the court *upholds* the law, then the clinic pays the state's legal expenses, sparing the taxpayers the burden of supporting a bogus lawsuit?

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[Lee G]

DOD - Department of Democracy

[Mickey Rat]

So the Blues are jinxed, then.

[AdamJ]

Brett Hull is not walking through that door!

But Hawks will have a tough go. Repeating in NHL seems damn near impossible. Too many games, too much turnover with salary cap. But get a hot goalie, Toews, and a raging Kaner, you never know...

[Crusty Juggler]

50 bucks says Tundra picks his nose.

[gaoxiaen]

I am just a monkey man. I'm glad you are a monkey woman, too.

[Crusty Juggler]

50 bucks more says he eats it.

[Zeb]

Would you rather he wiped it on the underside of a table or something?

[DEG]

Cool car, though.

Yes, and hopefully it works better than the version Jeremy Clarkson bought.

You're not well-chilled anymore? Spring finally arrived?

[UnCivilServant]

They're whitetail deer - a pest species not to dissimilar from tree rats, pidgeons or seagulls. "Poaching" should not be applied to wiping out pests.

[DEG]

Flowers have been trying to bloom here. Unfortunately, winter reared its ugly head and ruined my daffodils. But, things are warming up and I expect to see women wearing skimpier outfits soon.

Fuck Winter. Figuratively, not literally.

[gaoxiaen]

RKD are just as delicious, if fresh.

[Jerryskids]

I hope you're a safe monkey man.