EgyptAir Flight Crashes, Trump Speculates Terrorism Involved, Strippers Get Older in Louisiana: A.M. Links

• 

  RHL Images from England via Wikimedia Commons

  French President Francois Hollande has confirmed the EgyptAir Flight MS804 bound from Paris to Cairo has crashed with 66 people on board.

• Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump immediately speculated terrorism was involved with the crash. 
• Mitt Romney has reportedly ruled out a third party bid for the presidency and won't recruit another candidate to carry the banner for the #NeverTrump movement.
• San Francisco's last gun shop will rebrand as a non-profit marijuana dispensary.
• Three of the four members of anarcho-communist rap-rock pioneers Rage Against the Machine will form the new "supergroup" Prophets of Rage with Public Enemy's Chuck D and Cypress Hill's B Real. 
• Louisiana lawmakers unanimously voted to raise the minimum age for strippers to 21.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

French President Francois Hollande has confirmed the EgyptAir Flight MS804 bound from Paris to Cairo has crashed with 66 people on board.

I guess their security lines weren't long enough.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Hello.

I was painting.

"Three of the four members of anarcho-communist rap-rock pioneers Rage Against the Machine will form the new "supergroup" Prophets of Rage with Public Enemy's Chuck D and Cypress Hill's B Real. "

Super Duper Socialist Derp coming up!

[UnCivilServant]

Rufus, the finger paints are for the kids.

[Playa Manhattan.]

He does it for the fumes. Cheaper than booze.

[Bee Tagger]

San Francisco's last gun shop will rebrand as a non-profit marijuana dispensary.

That'll get the Feds off their backs.

[straffinrun]

Beating swords into blankstares.

[Free Society]

I applaud you.

[Jima]

Add mine to Free Society's applause.

[BigT]

Let them beat their guns into bongs

[Swiss Servator]

*standing ovation*

[Demoted Comment (Slammer)]

"This is my bong, this is my gun"

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

"This is for smoking, this is for fun!"

[SugarFree]

"Your days of smoking Mary Jane Sticky-Icky out of your purty pink bong have just begun!"

[Held Many Mics]

San Francisco's last gun shop will rebrand as a non-profit marijuana dispensary.

Why not both?

[Renegade Jew]

San Francisco's last gun shop will rebrand as a non-profit marijuana dispensary.

I'm torn about this.

[Agent Cooper]

non-profit

Dummies.

[Jima]

Pro tip, give away the weed, and sell snacks at a crazy markup. Avoid the Feds in your bank account, you're helping the chemically dependent. Hell, you'll probably qualify for Federal matching funds or something.

[Swiss Servator]

"Nutritional Assistance to the Chemically Dependent"

...OK, see the HUD rep over there - he'll cut you your grant check.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

179) After last week's Obama transgender blackmail letter to states, I was thinking about how much it would cost a state to forego federal funding as much as possible, in order to avoid stupid mandates tied to federal funds.
Looking at my own state, Virginia, about 22.9% of the total budget comes from federal sources. I checked a couple specific departments: 16.9 percent of our transportation funding in 2016 comes from the federal government. So far as I can tell, Virginia's public universities don't claim to receive any federal funds (can that be right? Or is all the feds' power in this area via student loan financing?). For K-12 education, I was unable to find on the Virginia DoE Website a single page with unified financial information (purposeful obfuscation or incompetence?), although we sure get funds from a number of federal programs.
Really, there seems to be no area of the state budget too dependent on federal funding. Although the budget would take a hit, I think it would be quite doable if Virginia decided to forego direct federal aid.

[BigT]

Virginia's public universities don't claim to receive any federal funds

Almost every professor who does research has a grant from NIH, DOE, DOD, etc. Those are all subject to Fed blackmail.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

I'm sure you're right, but those don't seem to make it onto the universities' budget pages.

[BigT]

Like a junkie, that's how they hide their dependency.

[Tonio]

That would make it more difficult to attract voluntary donations and additional taxpayer funding. Also, those grants are often highly targeted - for specific research projects. Not sure if the university covers the overhead for those or whether they skim some grant money off the top for electricity, lab space, etc.

[Detroit Linguist]

NSF and NIH grants are about 55% for the actual research (machines, research assistants, etc.) and 45% 'overhead recovery' (sometimes called 'indirect costs') that goes into the university's general fund and essentially pays for the grant's use of the university's facilities (labs, offices, electricity, computing support, etc.) The actual percentage varies with the institution and is negotiated with the granting agency.

[arbitrary wavefunction]

Some institutions are well over 50% indirect costs. At a lot of places that money basically goes into an enormous slush fund. A chemistry department prof gets a $2 million grant to do something and then $1 million gets distributed amongst the humanities departments to subsidize their offices etc. Basically, 50% of the scientific grant money in this country ends up supporting things that it really isn't tagged for.

[Detroit Linguist]

This varies among universities. At mine, the money goes into the general fund and pays for general operating expenses, which probably includes English professor salaries, but also the groundskeeper's salary, not to mention the gigabit network and the campus police.

[Tonio]

Thanks, guys. And welcome aboard noobs/lurkers.

[Cyto]

Wait, we have noobs and lurkers? I just assumed there were four guys with a hundred sock puppets having a proxy fight.

And then about 20 people who just come here to read the articles. Honestly.... it is just for the articles.

[Chip Woodier]

There are articles to read? I come for the comments.

[Col. Chestbridge]

People keep referencing these "articles"....

Is that a euphemism of some sort?

[PBR Streetgang]

Which part of the lovely Commonwealth do you live in?

[UnCivilServant]

Me? I'm west of the Glowing Sea.

Or were you asking the person you responded to?

[PBR Streetgang]

Directed at Sermonator, but I guess open to anyone that wants to respond.
Glowing Sea?

[Tonio]

Assume he means the Chesapeake bay. Most of Virginia's population lives on the Western Shore - a term that is only used when distinguishing between the Eastern Shore part of Virginia (the part on the Del-Mar-Va peninsula to the East of the bay) and mainland Virginia.

[Lee G]

Gamer joke

[UnCivilServant]

Lee is correct. The "Commonwealth" is the post-apocalyptic Massataxes in Falout 4, and the Glowing Sea is the southwest corner of the map.

[PBR Streetgang]

Cool. Learn something new every day.

[Krabappel]

Isn't the glowing sea Lake Anna?

[Chip Woodier]

Fukushima Bay

[Timon 19]

Barbertucky is among the most likely places to have a glowing lake in the middle of it.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

City of Fairfax

[Lee G]

Inside DC's orbit

[Tonio]

That explains so much. If numbered comments are your worst outwardly-appearing symptom you're lucky.

[Idle Hands]

At least your not in Annandale.

[Krabappel]

Uh, OK, Annandale might not be perfect, but it was the center of my food universe when I lived in NoVA.

EAT ALL THE KOREAN FOOD!

[PBR Streetgang]

Oh, NORTHERN Virginia.

[Chipwooder]

Fuck NoVa. FUCK NOVA. I can't possibly yell it loudly enough.

[Atlas Slugged]

Still better than Mordor (aka Maryland). I count the days till I punch out of Tysons Corner

[Krabappel]

Join me down in liberal Charlottesville! My neighbors have retarded political opinions but they're all very nice people and we make lots of good beer, wine, and cider!

Maybe I should start a Free City Project where libertarians move to Charlottesville and we can reconquer Jefferson's City.

[Tonio]

OK, somewhere I have a breakdown from the VA DOE on funding sources by school district, but it's only broken down by local/state/federal, not by specific funding mechanisms. I suspect that a lot of that federal funding is the free lunches for poor kids programs. Unfortunately, I won't have access to that until late this evening, but I will post here if nobody else has done so by then.

[Mike Laursen]

Virginia has been governing itself since 1619, which means this United States federal government thing has only been around for about 1/3 of Virginia's history. Tell them to take a hike.

[Tonio]

Meh. Limited local governance, but always at the whim of the Crown and Parliament until 1776. Also, for about five years Virginia was part of the CSA not the USA.

[Lord Humungus]

School defends 'cat intestine jump rope' lesson

In video obtained from a whistleblower by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Churchill High School juniors and seniors are seen jumping rope with cat intestines. There's a second video showing a dissected cat and other students holding a cat's insides.

"It does looks bad," 18-year-old Churchill senior Ashlei Walsh says she was inside the classroom that day. She says the video was taken out of context. "It's really educational. It wasn't just for fun or any of that."

[Bee Tagger]

Phew, for a second I was worried the kids in that school were confusing learning with fun.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Wait until PETA gets a load of the savages at this grotesque display

[sloopyinTEXAS]

::cough::cough::

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

It not my fault you put comment so far down there.

[UnCivilServant]

If the cat was dead before they started cutting it's not really anything special.

[commodious spittoon]

Animists, all of them.

[BigT]

Natural link sausages banned!

[sloopyinTEXAS]

In video obtained from a whistleblower by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Churchill High School juniors and seniors are seen jumping rope with cat intestines. There's a second video showing a dissected cat and other students holding a cat's insides.

Don't let them see the kids playing tennis, whatever you do.

[The Last American Hero]

Wait until the animal rights people learn about what's going on in the string section of the band. Or the drum corps with those gut snares.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Or wait till the animal rights people find out what's happening in PETA shelters.

[Zeb]

Nylon?

Catgut is expensive and not made from cats.

[Rich]

"Now, children, we're going to swing a dead cat and see if we can avoid hitting a progressive."

[jarflax]

Spare the cat spoil the prog!

[PBR Streetgang]

It was probably organic, so I don't see what the problem is.

[The Last American Hero]

I thought we were supposed to emulate the culturally superior First Peoples and use every part of the animal. Or is that cultural appropriation?

[Zeb]

Only if no one thinks it's icky.

[Lee G]

Anything that bothers PETA is by definition a good thing in my book.

[Tonio]

And that, Lee, is why you are a morally bankrupt hack. In Lee's black-and-white universe there is only Team and Non-Team. Because of the existence of a sketchy and fanatical group like PETA, nobody can be a principled advocate for animal welfare.

[Idle Hands]

I think you may be overreacting, I know and think people can be principled it's just that Peta isn't really a good example of that.

[Tonio]

Your name isn't Lee. And you missed the point.

[Lee G]

Dude, it was not intended seriously.

*adds animal welfare to Tonio's touchy list before heading out back to strangle some cats*

[Playa Manhattan.]

The new point is that you're going to be hearing a whole lot of animal torture jokes from now on.

[Lee G]

Lighten up Francis

[Azathoth!!]

So.....saying that anything that bothers---and I quote you--" a sketchy and fanatical group like PETA" is somehow the same as questioning all animal welfare groups?

I think you leapt before you looked with this one.

[Idle Hands]

Have these people ever watched what other carnivores do to each other when they feed on their prey?

[Idle Hands]

Fuck I've seen my cat play soccer with the heads of some of the voles it has caught.

[Zeb]

My cat always eats the head first for some reason.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Who doesn't love a little head?

[Cyto]

My cat always eats the head first for some reason.

Zombie Cat,
Oh, Zombie Cat-
What are they feeding you?

Zombie Cat,
Oh, Zombie Cat -
It's not your fault!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump immediately speculated terrorism was involved with the crash.

Hopefully on social media.

[Bee Tagger]

Is there any other kind of media?

[Swiss Servator]

*looks up from Twitter feed, nods*

/Millenial

[Rasilio]

Yep, there's anti social media, aka Books but like aint nobody got time for those anymore

[BigT]

Donald Trump immediately speculated terrorism was involved with the crash.

What a risk taker!

[Bee Tagger]

Mitt Romney has reportedly ruled out a third party bid

So that's where the lack of wailing in the streets this morning came from.

[Swiss Servator]

You live on K Street in DC?!!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Louisiana lawmakers unanimously voted to raise the minimum age for strippers to 21.

By then it's too late to teach daddy a lesson!

[Just a thought not a sermon]

At one point, the bill also included a maximum age and weight.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Finally, some legislation useful to the common man.

[BigT]

At one point, the bill also included a maximum age and weight.

That will fatten up the welfare rolls.

[Agent Cooper]

* widens gaze *

[straffinrun]

Gotta wait for the stripper's kids to enter junior high school?

[Swiss Servator]

*opera applause*

[Just a thought not a sermon]

"Three of the four members of anarcho-communist rap-rock pioneers Rage Against the Machine will form the new "supergroup" Prophets of Rage with Public Enemy's Chuck D and Cypress Hill's B Real. "

Don't believe the hype!

[Citizen X]

FUCK YOU, I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TOLD ME
FUCK YOU, I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TOLD ME
FUCK YOU, I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TOLD ME

[UnCivilServant]

He sounds like a petulant child.

[WhatAboutBob]

Like most Marxists!

[Citizen X]

My favorite description of Zach de la Rocha was in a Cracked article that referred to him as an "angry Communist muppet."

[straffinrun]

The fourth is on Gulag tour.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

I'm just glad they've foregone all profits and have given all of their money to the common good.

[Anarcho-Woodchipper]

Looking forward to the music. Dreading the lyrics.

?\_(?)_/?

[Zeb]

The lyrics are more tolerable if you think of RATM as a comedy act. That's what I've always done.

[straffinrun]

Tom Joad agrees.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Thy're teaming up with:

Dollar bill y'all
Dollar bill y'all
Dollar, dollar, dollar
Dollar, dollar bill y'all

Fiend for the mean green
Never get enough is a mother fuckin' gangsta dream
For the love on a cash flow
You could live fast and you could die slow

and

Mr., Mr., why you always tryin to take all our money

Because I am the government
And you have to pay

Stop tryin to take our money

This is irony, right?

[Jerryskids]

"Don't believe the hype"? Don't be silly, I don't believe anything until I've seen the news coverage of what Donald Trump has said about it and he tells me what to believe. Just sad that this rag is so biased they won't even tell me what Donald Trump has said about the RATM guys teaming up with Chuck D and B Real. So unfair that these losers who call themselves "journalists" will stoop so low as to keep me from knowing what to believe. Bad!

[Lord Humungus]

Amid Democratic infighting, polls are improving for Trump

An NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll released Tuesday morning showed Trump and Clinton performing at exactly the same level within their respective parties. Each commanded 87 percent support.

The poll also suggested that hopes among Democrats of an easy win over Trump are misplaced. Tuesday's poll had Clinton with an edge of just 3 points in a hypothetical match-up: The former secretary of State led Trump 48 percent to 45 percent.

The numbers track close to polls near this point in the 2012 presidential election.

Though I'm sure the Bernie supporters will flock to Clinton so they can defeat the most evil man in the world.

[Bee Tagger]

B-b-b-but that would mean the poll isn't very meaningful!

[Jerryskids]

But you paid attention to the poll, didn't you? That's what's important. Nevermind these people are old lying geezers nobody likes and there's a good chance one or more will be dead or in jail by November and nobody knows whether the losers of the primaries will be running as independents or third-party candidates and what may happen between now and then that has a huge influence on what the top issue for the voters may be come Election Day and how all these things affect who is most likely to be our next President or El Jefe Gordo. (Hint: Get used to trying to say "President Biden" without automatically adding "can you believe it?" It's gonna happen.)

[straffinrun]

Gary Johnson?

[Rasilio]

The problem is defeating the most evil man in the world means electing the most evil woman in the world and a good chunk of Bernie supporters see it that way too.

[Lord Humungus]

A Tetris movie is coming from Mortal Kombat's producer

It could be a blockbuster. At least that's what a Chinese-American movie studio hopes to produce in a sci-fi thriller based on the popular 1980s video game Tetris.

The $80 million US project is the first from the newly formed Threshold Global Studios, a joint venture between Chinese entertainment investor Bruno Wu's Seven Star Works and producer Larry Kasanoff's California-based Threshold Entertainment Group, which produces live action movies.

The joint venture "will make cross-cultural movies for the global market," a statement released Tuesday from the studio said. Kasanoff added that the 32-year-old video game Tetris "is a perfect first project for this strategy."

[Hamster of Doom]

They know the pieces fit.

[Anarcho-Woodchipper]

Nice

[lap83]

They should make that the title song

[paranoid android]

I don't know that there's any actor alive who could pull off the malevolence necessary to portray the L-block, who I assume is the villain.

[Zeb]

Which L-block? I think the mirror L is the villain.

And the proper term is "tetrad".

[UnCivilServant]

Don't be silly. The film is about the poor minsunderstood geometric forms who identify as real people but are callously butchered by the evil player before they can climb to the top of their oubliette and escape. The human is the villain.

[Agent Cooper]

We are all the villain.

[Zeb]

What the hell could that possibly be about?

[Jerryskids]

Ever seen The Maze? It's like that, only colorized. The trick to escaping involves manipulating the wall blocks into certain patterns.

Bad as it sounds making video-game movies by taking an existing movie and just adding arcade-game elements, wait until you see which movie they've got in mind for the arcade game Centipede. Just don't think about the fact that Pole Position is going to feature an all-male cast and the "saving enough for a final spurt to the finish line" has a waaay different meaning than you may think, a "hole" new meaning, if you catch my drift.

[Zeb]

So, gay porn?

[Jerryskids]

So many possibilities for morphing games into movies.

Galaxian = Mars Attacks
Dig Dug = Holes
Frogger = Any Three Stooges short
Earthworm Jim = No, not Tremors. Finding Nematode, ya big dummy
Pong = The Seventh Seal
Galaga = "Rocky" marathon

[Stormy Dragon]

Possible story line for the Tetris:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alw5hs0chj0

[Hamster of Doom]

San Francisco's last gun shop will rebrand as a non-profit marijuana dispensary.

Until it turns out they aren't allowed to do that either.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Seriously, though, a gun shop/marijuana dispensary would be pretty great.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

I always thought the ATF should be a convenience store rather than a government agency.

[UnCivilServant]

Bix box store at least, and make it "Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives"

[straffinrun]

Or just Weed, Tobacco and Firearms. Better acronym.

[UnCivilServant]

But it has fewer of the products I want!

[straffinrun]

You can get what you want if you have that stuff to trade.

[Glide]

Add some heroin and base the store in Canada and you can go to "WTF, eh?" for all your needs.

[Zeb]

And in the back room they keep the Mexicans and ass-sex.

"I'm heading down to the WTF/MA. Don't wait up."

[Yusef Adama]

Bought the shirt

[Fist of Etiquette]

Great for the flashbang grenade industry.

[commodious spittoon]

+1 inflammable infant

[Rich]

EgyptAir Flight MS804 bound from Paris to Cairo has crashed with 66 people on board.

I predict it'll turn out ISIS was trying to destroy the Pyramids.

[Lord Humungus]

Using the blood of peasants...

Chinese couple spend wedding night copying Communist constitution

In what may rank as one of the least romantic wedding nights in history, a Chinese couple reportedly spent their first night of marital bliss transcribing the Communist party's 17,000-word constitution as part of a campaign designed to shore up support for President Xi Jinping's administration.

Photographs posted on social media showed the newlyweds ? both civil servants from the eastern province of Jiangxi ? perching next to a balloon-covered double bed as they copied out parts of the 11-chapter text.

Li Yunpeng and his bride, Chen Xuanchi, saw the task as a way of creating "beautiful memories" of their wedding night, their employer, the Nanchang railway bureau, wrote in an online message.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Sounds like a fun couple.

[Jordan]

Sounds like Bernie's dream date.

[Lee G]

Well shit. I reposted.

*prepares seppuku*

[Rasilio]

Somebodies angling for a promotion

[Fist of Etiquette]

...and won't recruit another candidate to carry the banner for the #NeverTrump movement.

Mitt already did his time going door to door.

[Agent Cooper]

Mitt did his #LetsMakeaTrump part in 2012.

[Tonio]

Canadian PM Justin Trulander apologizes for Canada not admitting a shipload of immigrants - in 1914.

[Swiss Servator]

*sheds a single tear for our Canadian commenters*

[Bee Tagger]

Remorse is a dish best served cold.

[Fist of Etiquette]

"It's very cold in the space above America."

[Tonio]

Sure, it was a dick move, and apparently they were entitled, under then-Canadian law, to immigrate. But this is more about currying favor with Canada's current large population of Sikhs. There are worse people one could befriend.

[Pat (PM)]

currying favor with Canada's current large population of Sikhs

RACIST
A
C
I
S
T

[Agent Cooper]

Sikhs are cool.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Did he now?

Dude has bigger problems. Not only does he have a certain arrogance about him and smug punum to go with it, he also has a temper:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politic.....-1.3588407

[Free Society]

Well white people aren't allowed to have in-group preferences, he should apologize on behalf of all those misguided Hiters that actually did in the past.

[Hamster of Doom]

Louisiana lawmakers unanimously voted to raise the minimum age for strippers to 21.

They've got Pedo Island. The rest of you bastards will just have to do your best.

[John]

In other news Mississippi and Texas strip clubs rejoice!!

[Idle Hands]

How will those girls pay for college?

[Citizen X]

No link reference, but my god, how awful and dumb is Winston at insulting comebacks? Yesterday afternoon was embarrassing. I feel bad for him, but not as bad as his mom feels.

[Demoted Comment (Slammer)]

I'm glad it finished when it did. I was going to drop the nuclear 'your mom' joke to end it. I'm glad it's still in the arsenal for an emergency.

[straffinrun]

I think even his mom got in on the your mom jokes.

[John]

My mom being dead gives me a huge advantage in these sorts of things.

[Crusty Juggler]

What a terrible thing to brag about.

[John]

Crying isn't going to bring her back. And it happens to everyone.

[Crusty Juggler]

It just seems like an awfully strange thing to be proud of.

[John]

I am not proud of it. I was just stating a fact. On a board where "so is your mother" is an acceptable comeback, not having one is an advantage.

[Renegade Jew]

Her last words were, "Epi.... Epi...."

[UnCivilServant]

"... seriously, how do you pronounce the rest of it?"

[Pope Jimbo]

Not a Basketball fan?

[bacon-magic]

John,
My mom died when I was 10, I vividly remember having to cup my hands and pat on the side of her lungs to get the phlegm out, she had a lung disorder that was un-curable. I used to be testy about mom jokes, then realized it is a great social game that really is not about insulting mothers, but about bandying words about to pass the time.
The last thing my mom told me: "John's mom is so fat she gave him a life long fat fetish and she was so illiterate that John has to misspell every other word on the internetz."
Words to live by.

[Jerryskids]

My mom died of a heart attack on the kitchen floor when I was about 13. Her last words were "Why are you just standing there laughing instead of calling me an ambulance?" I remember them so well because she kept repeating them over and over for about 5 damn hours before I finally shoved a dish towel in her mouth just to shut her up.

[Lord Humungus]

Lady spiders demand gifts from their gentleman callers ? or else they eat them

"Nuptial gift-giving" has long been observed in nursery web spiders (Pisaura mirabilis). Basically, male spiders offer female spiders insects wrapped up in silk (yes, a snack packaged in high-end material).

There's been a fair amount of interest in this unique mating ritual, and a new study published this week in Biology Letters sheds further light on it. Researchers found male spiders without gifts were six times more likely to be eaten by female spiders before mating. And that happened "independent of female hunger."

"We propose that the nuptial gift trait has evolved partly as a counteradaptation to female aggression in this spider species," they wrote.

the bigger the diamond?

[Citizen X]

Winston's mom demands silk-wrapped insects from all of her gentleman callers.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

But she eats them either way.

[db]

Florida Spider

[Swiss Servator]

It said "insect" not "meth"!!!!!

[Demoted Comment (Slammer)]

Louisiana lawmakers unanimously voted to raise the minimum age for strippers to 21.

Stripper years are 7 for every human year

[Suthenboy]

No shit.

[John]

Rasmussen: Trump 42% Clinton 37%

http://www.rasmussenreports.co.....ouse_watch

Fox New Trump 45% Clinton 42%

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballo.....ry-clinton

Let the pants shitting begin.

[The Last American Hero]

I think you mean, let the pantsuit shitting begin.

[dan'o en barrel]

RCP is still Clinton +3.9%. Is it me, or is the bias divide from polling outfits turbo charged at the moment? Trump +5 from Rasmussen and Clinton +13 in CNN/ORC is like the Grand friggin Canyon

[John]

Clinton was +7 or more on RCP as recently as a week or two ago. Some polls had her up by double digits and no polls had her behind. You can't take any one poll as difinitive but it is clear that the Trump can never win bullshit was just that. Bullshit.

[dan'o en barrel]

I'm willing to bet that there is a sizable contingent of voters who will pull the lever for Trump once the privacy curtain is closed, but who won't admit it to pollsters- much less friends or family.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Trump's list of Supreme Court nominees will get a lot of #NT conservatives to hold their nose and pull his lever.

If he sticks to it.

[Jerryskids]

I'm willing to bet that there is a sizable contingent of voters who will pull the lever for Hillary once the privacy curtain is closed, but who won't admit it to pollsters- much less friends or family.

[Trumps Disappointing Poll]

"I'm willing to bet that there is a sizable contingent of voters who will pull the lever for Hillary "

Ill take that bet.

[Zeb]

Ugh. Can't we just skip to November now?

[Lord Humungus]

Robert Kagan: This is how fascism comes to America
Trump captures the nation's attention on the campaign trail

Their allegiance is to him and him alone.

And the source of allegiance? We're supposed to believe that Trump's support stems from economic stagnation or dislocation. Maybe some of it does. But what Trump offers his followers are not economic remedies ? his proposals change daily. What he offers is an attitude, an aura of crude strength and machismo, a boasting disrespect for the niceties of the democratic culture that he claims, and his followers believe, has produced national weakness and incompetence. His incoherent and contradictory utterances have one thing in common: They provoke and play on feelings of resentment and disdain, intermingled with bits of fear, hatred and anger. His public discourse consists of attacking or ridiculing a wide range of "others" ? Muslims, Hispanics, women, Chinese, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, immigrants, refugees ? whom he depicts either as threats or as objects of derision. His program, such as it is, consists chiefly of promises to get tough with foreigners and people of nonwhite complexion. He will deport them, bar them, get them to knuckle under, make them pay up or make them shut up.

[Demoted Comment (Slammer)]

Trump Mit Uns

[John]

I like Kagan a lot but Jesus tap dancing Christ get a hold of yourself. Beltway conservatives have lost their minds. I guess all of the crazy stuff people said about the Neocons caring only about war and being willing to say or do anything to continue to wage it wasn't so crazy after all. Why would an otherwise intelligent and reasonable person like Kagan manage to say something this stupid and over the top?

[Citizen X]

This is how fascism comes to America

Dude, that horse left the barn a while ago.

[BigT]

Isn't fascism an economic system? What does all that xenophobic nationalism have to do with it - other than the fact that some fascist systems are also xenophobic and nationalistic. It's not a requirement. Obama is a fascist, but not really xenophobic or nationalistic, for example.

[John]

All forms of nationalism are apparently the same as fascism now. And conservatives wonder why GOP voters hate them.

[Tonio]

"Nothing outside the state. Nothing against the state. Everything for the state." -Mussolini

So, while the total state does imply state control of the economy, actual fascism was primarily a political philosophy.

[Zeb]

People always conflate Fascism and Nazism.

[Suthenboy]

"Obama is a fascist, but not really xenophobic or nationalistic, for example."

Well, you are 2/3 right.

[Rasilio]

Actually Nationalism was an inherent part of Fascism because the intent was to drive use the economic sector to drive national greatness.

Basically Fascism is a marriage of Nationalism, Militarism, xenophobia, and a modified form of corporatist economics driven by a cult of personality and great man worship

[Rhywun]

This sounds like some of that pants-shitting I've been hearing about.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

John must have a hell of a cleaning bill.

[The Last American Hero]

And here I thought it was when a President mislead people into an unnecessary war and used GWOT to expand the powers of the State. Silly me.

[John]

If Kagan objected to Obama assassinating an American citizen, I am not aware of it. Yet, wanting to enforce the immigration laws is just fascism.

The whole thing shows how conservatives are just fakes. They never wanted to do anything about the border. It is just boob bait for them.

[commodious spittoon]

And the boobs finally got their say.

[Lord Humungus]

So you're more of a leg man?

[commodious spittoon]

I'm the ass man!

[Rhywun]

One in a million, doc!

[Jerryskids]

"They stole our shit and I'm going to go kick the crap out of They and get our shit back."

A paraphrase of Trump paraphrasing Hitler*. He's offering free shit every bit as non-existent as the free shit Bernie and Hillary are offering, he's just a little more expansive in his assessment of who the They are that stole our shit and thereby put you in the position you find yourself. To support Hillary or Bernie you gotta be mad at a pretty specific They, with Trump there's a much wider variety of They to choose from. And really, it makes more sense that a big coalition of They would be responsible for all the bad things rather than that one small group of They managed to do all the bad things all by themselves. But in any case, it's not my fault bad things happened to me, They did this to me. It's not my responsibility to fix the bad things, it's They who have to pay.

*Note: Hitler didn't become Hitler by killing 6 million Jews. Hitler killed 6 million Jews because he was Hitler. Killing 6 million Jews is only possible once you have the power to kill 6 million Jews. That sort of power starts with knowing you could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and it wouldn't cost you a single vote. You gotta work your way up to 6 million.

[Trumps Disappointing Poll]

You should kill yourself.

[Lord Humungus]

Boris Johnson wins The Spectator's President Erdogan Offensive Poetry competition

I'm pleased to announce that we have a winner of The Spectator's President Erdogan Offensive Poetry competition, and here it is:

There was a young fellow from Ankara

Who was a terrific wankerer

Till he sowed his wild oats

With the help of a goat

But he didn't even stop to thankera.

The author of this winning entry is former Mayor of London and chief Brexiteer, Boris Johnson MP.

[Libertarian]

Boris Johnson, England's Rob Ford.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Not quite. Boris is a pretty smart guy with a sharp tongue and the ability to use it to make political points. He's a mixed bag politically but he's not the buffoon Rob Ford...
::pours beer on curb::
...was.

[Libertarian]

Understood. I'm not even sure Rob Ford was as bad as Rob Ford. Despite his shenanigans in private life, from what little I read about him he was in office because voters liked his policies.

[Agent Cooper]

This.

[John]

What did Rob Ford do other than kill that bastard Jesse James?

[Citizen X]

What did Rob Ford do

All of the cocaine in Ontario.

[Rich]

Can White Kids Grow Up To Be Black? Some Preschoolers Think So

Well, t's true they can *self-identify* as Black.

[Rich]

*'tis*

*** gets coffee ***

[UnCivilServant]

Why not, I mean Rachel and Shaun did*

*not really...

[Hamster of Doom]

Rico quotes him with all sincerity, so it can be argued that Shaun did.

[UnCivilServant]

Seriously? dude's as white as I am, and I ignite in direct sunlight.

[Hamster of Doom]

Seriously.

[Citizen X]

My cousin was determined to grow up to be an Indian (feather, not dot) until he was about nine or ten.

[straffinrun]

My daughter told me she wanted to be Indian. I poked her in the forehead and told her that was impossible. Backfired.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

The students at the newly-renamed Navin Johnson Elementary School were shocked to find out the truth.

[commodious spittoon]

Enjoying "ethnic" food is cultural appropriation...

...but claiming ethnic status is not.

SJWs are the Outback of social movements: No rules, just rights.

[Zeb]

I suspect that this is one of those (many) things where the SJWs are not all on the same page.

[commodious spittoon]

Well, like feminist opposition to the trans movement, anyone who falls shy of fully embracing the SJW logrolling scam this week will be airbrushed out of the movement by next week.

[Zeb]

Maybe they will be evenly enough divided that they all airbrush each other out of the picture and they all become invisible.

[commodious spittoon]

Then you just get the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea.

[Zeb]

And look how it turned out for them.

[Jerryskids]

My hope is that at least some of them who get excommunicated from the Church will reflect upon their heresies and come to the conclusion that they committed no heresies, and from that start realizing the Church is really just a cult worshipping a false God and that being banished from the Church has given them the freedom to choose their own path to salvation. You don't have to be a black or a gay or a women or a whatever, you can just be you. If you're gay or black or female or whatever, that's cool - but that doesn't define who or what you are. You don't have to be a small piece of a greater organism, you can be a whole, complete You all by yourself. Who needs a God to follow when you can be your own I Am That I Am?

[Zeb]

I suspect that a lot of people do just that. Pretty soon after they finish college if they don't stay in academia.

[Zeb]

I think this is good. Everyone should just make up what race they are. It will really fuck up racial identity politics.

[Tonio]

Paging Injun, as in from India: Buddy, I wasn't able to watch your missing links youtube video until I got home last night. Beautiful, and thanks for the shoutout.

(BTW, it's "antsy", like to behave if one has ants in one's pants, not "ancy".)

[Pope Jimbo]

shut up ancy boy! Don't say anything negative about Injun's video. That was awesome and I want more.

[Tonio]

"ancy boy" Brilliant. I was trying to come up with a play on Nancy, but it eluded me.

Yes, more, please, Injun.

[commodious spittoon]

Jeez, you of all people.

[Injun, as in from India]

Thanks Tonio and Pope Jimbo. Glad you guys liked it!

[Pope Jimbo]

I don't know about Tonio, but I'm blatantly sucking up in hopes of getting name checked in the next one.

[Injun, as in from India]

You and Irish are both from Minnesota, right?

I'll do honorable mentions next time because you put up with Mark Dayton. That's an epic struggle in and of itself.

[Col. Chestbridge]

I thought Irish lived in Chicago . . . ?

The Pope, Tundra, and a few lurkers (like me!) live up here, that I've seen. And Minnesota politics is indeed brimming with derp.

[Pope Jimbo]

We wouldn't let a blatant racist like Irish reside in our state. Tundra and I live in the same suburb and there are some others as well.

[Injun, as in from India]

And thanks for pointing out the difference between antsy and ancy.

English is still my 2nd language, and I'm still learning it.

[SugarFree]

Just come to me with questions. I won't be mean about it like Tonio.

[UnCivilServant]

Don't! It's a trap!

[db]

"One speaks no English; the other speaks only Howard CosellSugarFree"

[Tonio]

I was unsure about whether to point that out, since grammar and usage corrections can be seen as rude. Glad you weren't offended. You write really good English and I would have never known that it was your second language if you hadn't told me.

DO NOT ask Sug for advice, that would turn out like Monty Python's "Hungarian Phrase Book" sketch.

[Swiss Servator]

"You write English well"

*runs*

[Zeb]

I always try to write good English well.

[Lord Humungus]

Students Create 'Healing' Space to Recover from a Speech They Didn't Even Attend

Students at California State University?Los Angeles have set up a "healing" space to deal with pain they were caused by having Ben Shapiro speak on campus ? even though that speech was three months ago and most of them didn't even go.

"On February 25th, our campus experienced immense hurt and trauma," states the description for the event, which will take place on Tuesday night. "Almost two months later, students are still feeling the emotional, mental, and physical effects that this event posed, and nothing has been done to facilitate our healing," it continues. "How can we help each other heal and move forward? How were you affected emotionally, physically, psychologically?"

[Demoted Comment (Slammer)]

That's beyond hilarious. MORE!

[Rich]

Serious question: Has anyone here ever been to a "healing space"? WTF is it?

[Libertarian]

Well, for me, it USED to be a place with 18 year old strippers. But 21? Who wants to watch a bunch of old hags like that strutting around?

[AlmightyJB]

"Who wants to watch a bunch of old hags like that strutting around?"

Crusty. but he was hoping for 71.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

I know they usually involve a Happy Ending.

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

Only one? Happy Endings is a great show to binge on.

[AlmightyJB]

"Has anyone here ever been to a "healing space"?"

Yes, but I just call it a bar

[Rasilio]

Aren't they usually called Hospitals?

[Rhywun]

"Find your power animal!"

[Agent Cooper]

Gay.

[Agent Cooper]

Planeloads to the Congo if they'd like to understand "immense hurt and trauma."

[Hamster of Doom]

Who wants to know how Europe's strongest-growing economy is doing?

Spain's Debt Now Worth More Than Spain's Economy

The bank said Wednesday that Spain's public debt stockpile stood at 1.09 trillion euros ($1.23 trillion) in the first quarter of the year. That represents 101 percent of the country's annual GDP ? 1.08 trillion euros ? in 2015.

Si se puede.

[paranoid android]

I've got $500 squirreled away to bid on the Alcazar in Seville when they put it up for auction.

[Injun, as in from India]

It's incredible how many countries around the world are mismanaged and deeply in debt.

[Rasilio]

That would be pretty much all of them and it will very shortly become a huge problem

[Swiss Servator]

OT - I just got around to the "Downfall" video.

RESPECT!

*salutes*

That was top notch work.

[Lord Humungus]

It's Not Wrong to Be White

But while there's no price paid by Harvard Law students who "check their privilege," or by Silicon Valley execs who enthusiastically embrace the latest trends in identity politics ? they and their families will do just fine ? the rest of white America is not so fortunate. We're left with the odd reality in which white kids who live in trailer parks are "privileged," while the sons and daughters of wealthy black doctors are "oppressed" ? in which the legitimate concerns of white working-class and middle-class Americans are dismissed as misguided at best (after all, they're privileged) and racist at worst.

Here's the problem: Progressives don't like to admit this, but identity politics work as the mirror image of white supremacy ? compressing the extraordinarily rich and complex histories of nations, continents, and cultures into one characteristic: skin color. For the white supremacist, white people are natural-born victors. For the identity-politics leftist, white people are natural-born predators.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

"It's Not Wrong to Be White"

Cue Kermit on the banjo...

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Or cue a Chinaman trying to do Luther Ingram at karaoke.

[straffinrun]

Cues Porky pig the supremacist,

"Obama isn't so baad. He haff wight."

[Renegade Jew]

That was Elmer Fudd. Jesus, kids today, don't know nothin'.

[Agent Cooper]

That's all folks!

[straffinrun]

My penance.

[Irish is a Millennial, Poll Me]

"For the white supremacist, white people are natural-born victors. For the identity-politics leftist, white people are natural-born predators."

I'd actually take this a step further and argue that left-wing identity politics actually *is* white supremacy. The entire argument by leftists is that white people are so powerful they can basically oppress anyone they want at will. Moreover, I've heard leftists claim that white people have been supreme throughout all of human history (someone actually said this to Milo Yiannopoulos, since he apparently hadn't heard of any of the non-white empires that have existed historically. Unless he thinks Mongolians, Malians, Ottomans, the Japanese, and the Chinese are white).

If I were a white supremacist, I'd actually like the things leftists say about white people since left-wing claims about white people dominating everyone else pretty much mirrors white supremacist narratives.

[Lord Humungus]

+1 The Invisible Empire

[UnCivilServant]

(someone actually said this to Milo Yiannopoulos, since he apparently hadn't heard of any of the non-white empires that have existed historically. Unless he thinks Mongolians, Malians, Ottomans, the Japanese, and the Chinese are white)

Prog devil's advocate (or, arguments they could make)

Well, Japanese are 'honorary white', so they already don't count. The Ottomans kept getting taken over by their slave-soldiers taken from sources of christians (balkans, caucauses and mediterranian shipping) so they could be argued to have been ruled by white people. The mongols got stopped when they hit white lands (albeit because of a succession crisis, but that ddoesn't play into the narrative), and the chinese collapsed once the imperialists arrived and forced them to smoke opium. As for Mali - you know africa doesn't have any history outside of being colonized, duh.

/end prog devil's advocate.

[Citizen X]

Mali was the wealthiest empire in the world, and even adjusted for inflation its 15th century ruler Musa is the richest person who has ever lived.

In the early 16th century the largest and most geographically diverse empire was the Andes-based Tiwantinsuyu of the Incas.

When the conquistadors entered the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, it was the first time any of them had ever seen streets that weren't covered in shit, thanks to the sophisticated sewer system there.

The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy had an oral code of laws, the Great Law, that bears a remarkable resemblance to the U.S. Constitution, and has been tentatively dated to between 1100 and 1450 AD.

[UnCivilServant]

Here I was thinking the open and closing tags would have clearly marked my post as jovial in nature.

Also I need a cite on the engineering of aztec sewers. As I recall that city was built atop a lake, making it a short run to the waters. I have doubts on the degree of 'sophistication' required to keep the streets clear.

Secondly, the Mughals and the Ming would contest the Incan claim to 'largest and geographically diverse'. You need to define the metric by which you define diverse geography. In sheer acreage, you're probably looking at the chinese at that time, and the topography and climes of china are far from homogenous.

I don't recall if any of the mongol successor hordes still held large chunks of territory at that time.

[Cyto]

And Rome was like, a long time ago and stuff. Like way longer than back in the olden days when the Spanish were conquistadoring and stuff.

[Hammer of liberty]

If they were anywhere near as advanced as Europeans they would have sailed over and taken Europe easily. The opposite happenned. The Iroquois laws resemble a treehouse club pact more than the Constitution.

[Irish is a Millennial, Poll Me]

Basically, white supremacists think white people dominate everyone and that's good, leftists think white people dominate everyone and that's bad.

Both of them take as a given that white people are supremely powerful.

[John]

Prog whites take white supremacy to a higher level. Not only do they assert their supremacy over other races, they assert their supremacy over other whites by virtue of their understanding of their white supremacy. They are not just superior, they understand their superiority and that makes them superior even to other whites. It is a seriously fucked up way of thinking.

[commodious spittoon]

Progs decry the exceptionalism of American or Western culture, which often serves as a proxy for white Christendom, and yet they prevail on Americans and the West to do something no culture in all of human history has done before: to atone for the sins of our collective past and right the wrongs of our shared history. They don't discuss the rampant slavery in African and Muslim societies, the highly stratified societies in the east, the belittling of women and minorities the world over, and the constant pillaging and warfare taking place everywhere and always. And that's because progressivism, with all its undertones of utopian secular millennialism, at heart believes in white supremacy and Western imperialism. They are exceptionalists in thinking that among all races and all peoples, only white Westerners are capable of overriding our barbaric human nature and embracing enlightenment. They are benevolent bigots.

Of course, their ideal for purifying our tainted human spirit is committing civilizational suicide.

[sarcasmic]

What is more racist than the notion that non-whites are so inferior that they require special privileges in order to compete with white people?

[UnCivilServant]

Poiting out progressive racism, duh.

[Irish is a Millennial, Poll Me]

What's dumber than the idea that you're living in a white supremacist society when Asians and Indians make substantially more money than white people?

Hint: When a bunch of non-white groups outperform white people, you probably aren't living in a white supremacist society.

[John]

Last I looked the most successful immigrant group on a per capita basis was black West Indians. No shit. Immigrants from the West Indies are wildly successful in this country. And they are black skinned. I have never had a Prog be able to explain that one.

[Irish is a Millennial, Poll Me]

A list of US ethnic groups by per capita income.

The top three aren't white. Asians as a group are substantially richer than white Americans and Pacific Islanders are pretty close.

It's true that all of the poorest ethnic groups are also non-white, but that's mostly because they're poor people coming from third world countries. Somalian and Ethiopian immigrants are not poor because they're being kept down by US white supremacy.

[Renegade Jew]

That list is fucked. No Jews on it.

[commodious spittoon]

No Jews on it.

Let me people show (up in the data)!

[Tonio]

Pacific Islanders - aren't a lot of (native) Hawaiians on welfare, and aren't those benefits the highest in the nation due to the high cost of living there? And they are small in numbers compared to other groups.

[Agent Cooper]

Latvian-American income is mostly mob-related, correct?

[Injun, as in from India]

^THIS.

I once got into a tiff with someone who complained that banks are racist against African-Americans in their lending practices.

I pointed out that Asians, especially Indians, are about 10 percentage points more likely to get approved for a low-interest home mortgage. So going by that logic, banks are racist against whites in their lending practices.

The response was crickets.

[straffinrun]

American eyes, American eyes.
Bury the past and rob us blind.
American eyes.

[Tonio]

We're left with the odd reality in which white kids who live in trailer parks are "privileged," while the sons and daughters of wealthy black doctors are "oppressed" ? in which the legitimate concerns of white working-class and middle-class Americans are dismissed as misguided at best (after all, they're privileged) and racist at worst.

This. And remember that progs despise them some poor and working-class whites, so those trailer park kids get the double whammy. Although the author doesn't call it by name those "misguided" concerns are (you know what's coming, people) false consciousness.

[commodious spittoon]

And remember that progs despise them some poor and working-class whites

Not as much as the #NeverTrump crowd. Remember, advising poor whites that their defunct communities are toxic and will never permit them to achieve is literally telling them to self-exterminate.

[Lord Humungus]

Oil drops below $48 on Fed hike speculation, fading support from outages

Oil fell below $48 a barrel on Thursday, pressured by a stronger dollar and as a surprise increase in U.S. crude inventories served as a reminder that supply remains ample despite output problems.

Supply losses in Canada and Nigeria have lent support, but cooler weather was expected to help firefighters battling Canadian wildfires. Traders said Exxon Mobil is boosting output at Nigeria's largest crude stream.

[Pope Jimbo]

Congratulations to our Wisconsin commentators. You truly dominated this list of US cities.

Fuck the Packers aren't even in training camp and you already have 12 of the top 20 drunkest city spots locked up?

[Tonio]

Begrudging congrats and an epic beer-burp to you all.

[Idle Hands]

The most impressive drinkers I've ever met have all hailed from Michigan.

[straffinrun]

Flint?

[Idle Hands]

if you can drink that water you can drink anything.

[Citizen X]

Hey, i do my part to bring the Old Dominion up in the rankings, but i'm only one man.

[Idle Hands]

I try to hold down the fort in the northern part of the state. too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is hardly enough.

[Krabappel]

I really want to build a copper still and start making some Virginia shine. 😮

[straffinrun]

You betcha! Number 1

[Cyto]

My wife's family is in northern Wisconsin. They have a unique culture around drinking. There are more little dive bars than any other type of business. By far. They are scattered throughout the landscape, spaced about 10-15 miles apart in the hinterlands.

Every grocery store has a bar next door. So what you do is you go shopping at the grocery store, then you drop by the bar for "a beer and a bump". In this case a bump is a scotch.

Then you stop at the bar on the way home.... there is always a bar on the way home.

Life in northern Wisconsin in the winter is kinda like the Monty Python "Bruce" sketch. Rule 4 - I don't want to catch anyone not drinking in their room after dark!.

[Pope Jimbo]

Scotch? Not brandy? Wisconsinites drink more brandy than any other group I know of.

[Pope Jimbo]

My theory is that the Appleton-Oshkosh-Fond Du Lac area scores so high because it is populated by the people who got so drunk at Packer games in Green Bush that they couldn't find their way back to Milwaukee.

When they staggered up to the shores of Lake Winnebago they just said fuck it and settled there.

[Lord Humungus]

Today's background music: Tangerine Dream - Thief Soundtrack (Extended Edition)

And one of my favorite movies - that a bit of a libertarian undercurrent.

[Rhywun]

Love that era of TD

[lap83]

I love that movie. I wish Michael Mann (or anyone for that matter) still made films like that...and Tangerine Dream is severely underrated.

[Lee G]

A different kind of tangerine dream

[Lee G]

NSFWish

[Citizen X]

What the hell was that? I have the weirdest erection now.

[Libertarian]

And I have the weirdest urge to listen to an Allman Brothers album.

[lap83]

that poor fruit!

[Crusty Juggler]

The device from James Caan uses to enter the vault was referenced in an episode of Archer this year.

[Crusty Juggler]

More Tuesday Weld references? Sheesh.

Also, Jim Belushi's second-best work.

[Pat (PM)]

U.S. Crews Fail To Place in NATO Tank Competition

A recent competition hosted in part by the U.S. Army and designed to test core tank crew skills saw European crews take the top honors, while crews from the U.S. Army failed to place. The results raise the question of whether the Army?after more than a decade of focusing on guerrilla warfare?has devoted adequate training to address "big war" skills.

Held from May 10 to 12 and jointly hosted by the U.S. Army and the German Bundeswehr at the Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany, the the Strong Europe Tank Challenge included challengers from six NATO countries: Denmark, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Slovenia?which sent tank platoons of four tanks each to compete? and the United States, which sent two platoons.

Probably on account of our military's shoestring budget since the sequestration. Thanks Obama!

[UnCivilServant]

Oh noes, we've neglected training in the type of war we're not fighting and are least likely to fight in the foreseeable future!

[Libertarian]

According to the link, "failing to place" merely means they didn't finish in the top 3. Have no fear, though, the warmongers at instapundit.com will use this as evidence that Obama has gutted the defense budget.

[Mustang]

Well, the skills probably carry over a bit. Probably has a lot more to do with leadership and bureaucracy and not the budget. They'll still blame the budget, of course.

[Chip Woodier]

Oh noes, we've neglected training in the type of war we're not fighting and are least likely to fight in the foreseeable future!
You mean, the only type of war the government should be fighting?

[Hammer of liberty]

If you just by targets they didn't place, but on the more important metric of having the most online classes, sharp certificates, women, and LGBT participants the U.S. Is the runaway leader.

[Pat (PM)]

How Kansas' highest-paid state employee pays almost no income tax

Bill Self, the head coach of the University of Kansas' men's basketball team, makes more than $2.75 million a year. He also pays almost no income tax, public radio station KCUR reported Monday.

Self was able to drastically cut his taxable income because of reforms signed into law in 2012 by Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, KCUR found. The cuts ? which Brownback said would create thousands of jobs ? eliminated income taxes for some types of businesses.

Because Self receives the bulk of his annual compensation through an LLC, only a small sliver of his income is ever taxed.

[Rhywun]

Carry on, wayward son.

[John]

But he has to pay himself a salary out of the earnings of the LLC or he can't spend any of the money for anything other than business expenses. I don't buy that at all. The LLC doesn't pay taxes but no way does Self not pay taxes. If he doesn't, then he is either just leaving the money in the LLC and deferring the taxes or he is claiming personal expenses as a business expense and committing fraud.

Journalists are morons.

[Lee G]

If he isn't taking enough pay out of the LLC, he runs the risk of having it declared a personal holdings company. The IRS loves those cases.

[John]

Good point. Are the authors of this report that dishonest or that stupid? Anyone with a basic knowledge of tax code could figure this out.

[Pat (PM)]

But he has to pay himself a salary out of the earnings of the LLC

Not only that, but earnings from pass through entities are normally taxed as individual income (unless you elect to be taxed as a corporation). Also bear in mind they're talking about state taxes exclusively.

[Florida Hipster]

Good for him.

[Mustang]

If he's a state employee, isn't he paid with tax money? I'm not sure how that works. I've never understood why someone who is paid with taxes is then taxed. Cut their salary by however much is pulled out in taxes and eliminate the tax regulation that causes them to be taxed in the first place. It might reduce some budgetary burden by reducing the amount of red tape, anyways. Yes, I know, we should just eliminate whatever portion of the state is employing them anyways, but I'm just brainstorming here.

More than likely they would just create another set of regulations that are added on top of existing one.

*ignorantly stares at wall*

[UnCivilServant]

By treating it as regular employment (seeing as how that is) makes the process simpler because it's the same as what everyone else has to go through.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

it's the multiplier effect! If you give someone money and take it immediately back, you've created state revenue, which is worth 1.35 time more than just keeping the money, because magic!

[R C Dean]

He also pays almost no income tax,

They can only mean "no state income tax"..

LLCs are usually pass-through entities for federal taxes. Everything they make is taxed as if it was earned directly by the individual taxpayer(s).

[Ken Shultz]

"Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump immediately speculated terrorism was involved with the crash."

Didn't everyone?

Is there something inherently wrong with speculating?

Is speculating inherently wrong because Donald Trump did it?

[Hamster of Doom]

Probably would have worked out better if he'd blamed the French.

[Ken Shultz]

I blame climate change.

[Glide]

Foolish French airplanes continuing country's track record of failure. Can you believe it? Sad!

[commodious spittoon]

Probably would have worked out better if he'd blamed the French.

Citroen makes airplanes too?

[Lord Humungus]

New poll finds 9 in 10 Native Americans aren't offended by Redskins name

Nine in 10 Native Americans say they are not offended by the Washington Redskins name, according to a new Washington Post poll that shows how few ordinary Indians have been persuaded by a national movement to change the football team's moniker.

The survey of 504 people in every state and the District reveals that the minds of Native Americans have remained unchanged since a 2004 poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found the exact same result. Responses to The Post's questions about the issue were broadly consistent regardless of age, income, education, political party or proximity to reservations.

did they ask Elizabeth Warren?

[Idle Hands]

As if facts matter, there was already a more definitive poll done in 2004, too many words have been spilled by white sports writers for them to turn back now.

[Pat (PM)]

How would those savages know if they were offended or not? They need the civilized white man to tell them.

[commodious spittoon]

THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.

[Ken Shultz]

I met some Indians in a bar in Utah who root for the Redskins specifically because of the team name.

[Tonio]

Then those aren't real indians; they're cigar-store indians (the native slur equivalent to blacks' use of "Uncle Tom" as a slur against culturally non-conforming blacks).

[lap83]

I like how progs use terms like that, but we're the racist ones

[Tonio]

Those terms originated among their respective ethnic communities and were then culturally appropriated by white progs.

[Rhywun]

It was never about pleasing Indians anyway. It's about white-people smug enhancement.

[Chipwooder]

Precisely. I have a good friend who is full Navajo, and he has always snickered about how the only people who give a shit about the name of the Redskins are white.

[Lord Humungus]

German Bill for Refugees: ?93 Billion

Officials based their estimates on 600,000 migrants arriving this year, 400,000 next year and 300,000 in each of the following years, the report said, adding that they expected 55 percent of recognized refugees to have a job after five years.[..]

The report said that 25.7 billion euros ($29.07 billion) would be needed for jobless payments, rent subsidies and other benefits for recognized asylum applicants by the end of 2020.

Another 5.7 billion euros would be needed for language courses and 4.6 billion euros would be required for measures to help migrants get jobs, it added.

93B Euros - is that like 25 cents?

[Tonio]

That's roughly 1,100 euros per person tax burden.

[Rhywun]

4.6 billion euros would be required for measures to help migrants get jobs

Too bad most Germans don't have a yard or a pool.

[Tonio]

But they apparently have municipal pools, which need cleaning, lifeguards, etc. Except that swimming isn't big in the ME, and ME guys tend to leer at the women.

[Rhywun]

ME guys tend to leer at the women

And grope them.

Yeah, forget the pool idea.

Maybe there're some factory jobs left that weren't filled with Turks during the last large-scale migration.

[Lord Humungus]

JK Rowling was right: free speech is for everyone, not just your friends

"The tides of populism and nationalism currently sweeping many developed countries have been accompanied by demands that unwelcome and inconvenient voices be removed from public discourse ? Intolerance of alternative viewpoints is spreading to places that make me, a moderate and a liberal, most uncomfortable." Speaking out about an online petition that sought to ban Donald Trump from visiting the UK, she said, "I find almost everything that Mr Trump says objectionable. I consider him offensive and bigoted. But he has my full support to come to my country and be offensive and bigoted there. His freedom to speak protects my freedom to call him a bigot. His freedom guarantees mine."

Commenting that this libertarian position must be taken "without caveats or apologies", she said: "If you seek the removal of freedoms from an opponent simply on the grounds that they have offended you, you have crossed the line to stand alongside tyrants who imprison, torture and kill on exactly the same justification."

impressed.

[lap83]

I think (non-political) writers probably appreciate free speech more than most. Neil Gaiman's another one who has been vocal about his support.

[Lee G]

Chinese couple spend wedding night copying Communist constitution

In what may rank as one of the least romantic wedding nights in history, a Chinese couple reportedly spent their first night of marital bliss transcribing the Communist party's 17,000-word constitution as part of a campaign designed to shore up support for President Xi Jinping's administration.

I'm imagining them frantically scribbling to the dulcet tones of this.

[Tonio]

Covered above by LH.

[Lord Humungus]

Ahem

[Tonio]

Ha!

[Lee G]

yeah yeah, whatEver

[Glide]

Related: has anyone seen the new McDonald's commercial where the bride and groom are leaving their wedding and found that Dad got them McDonald's for the limo ride and they're like "aww, how thoughtful."

I laugh every time at the thought of someone involving McDonald's in their wedding and treating it like a good thing.

[Agent Cooper]

The insight that you don't have enough time to eat at your own wedding is true, but the reality is that the groom is making a Taco Bell run at 1:45 AM.

[commodious spittoon]

And having Taco Bell runs at 4:45 AM.

[Rasilio]

Same here.

I mean the idea is sound, the just married couple is almost always too busy at the reception to really eat so someone thinking to put some food in the limo as they drive off to a night of hard core boning makes sense. But really? McDonalds? and what is worse is he couldn't even bring himself to spring for 2 orders of fries, they've got 2 big macs and a single order of fries to split between them.

[Zeb]

Since when do ads make sense and depict things that normal people would actually do?

[Lord Humungus]

Is this good or bad news?

Mexican Heroin Production Soars

Last week, the White House quietly, and unnoticed by any news organization, released the 2015 heroin production estimate for Mexico?it was another huge spike upward to an historic level. The amount of pure heroin produced in Mexico rose to 70 metric tons in 2015, a 67-percent increase over 2014, and a 169-percent increase over the 2013 estimate of 26 metric tons. Nearly all Mexican heroin is targeted at the United States. This flood of heroin is driving overdose deaths and the new estimate indicates that deaths will increase.

obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBbEHYrEJsY

[Tonio]

Bad, because it will pump up the prohibitionists.

[straffinrun]

"Babies across America crawling on the ceiling."

[John]

Maybe people getting their heroin high from pain pills wasn't such a bad thing. All the DEA going after doctors did was fuck a lot of sick people and get the Mexican drug cartels richer.

[Zeb]

Well, it's good if you like Mexican heroin.

[Demoted Comment (Slammer)]

New Star Wars trailer

[UnCivilServant]

"New Crews, New Villains, New Heros, New Worlds" implies that the crews will be the villains. Which would be a cool idea, but I don't think they meant it that way.

[Zeb]

Does it also imply that the heroes will be worlds?

[Lee G]

The derp, the strained associations, they reign supreme

The movement to break free from fossil fuels and reduce the climate change our planet is already experiencing still faces enormous barriers. Our capitalist economy continues to value the profits of resource extraction over people's lives.

Women are uniquely affected by resource extraction and climate change, and indigenous women and other women of color make up a disproportionate percentage of people living in frontline communities. Women are more likely to be low-income and forced to live in areas affected by pollution, or unprepared to deal with displacement, drought, or food scarcity. They are often in charge of caring for children and the elderly in the face of climate disaster, or farming for food while men are forced to migrate to seek work. Women often become targets during violent conflicts caused by climate change.

[UnCivilServant]

Women are uniquely affected by resource extraction and climate change, and indigenous women and other women of color make up a disproportionate percentage of people living in frontline communities.

Funny, I thought Roughnecking and Mining were predominantly male occupations.

[Lee G]

That's right up there with women are the primary victims of war.

[Libertarian]

This quote must be posted every single time it's appropriate.

"Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat."

-- Hillary Clinton

[Rhywun]

violent conflicts caused by climate change

But enough about eco-terrorism...

[Rhywun]

Kayaktivists take to the water to break free from fossil fuels.

*facepalm*

[UnCivilServant]

Aren't most kayaks made of plastic?

[Lee G]

Probably recycled

[Tonio]

Yes, the vast majority are. Like 99%.

[Demoted Comment (Slammer)]

Aren't kayaks made from oil?

[Rhywun]

In feminist utopia the natives will (re)learn to make them out of reeds and mud - as is proper.

[Pope Jimbo]

So seal skins stretched over whale bones and waterproofed with whale fat are out?

I think reeds and mud boats are more canoe than kayak.

[Tonio]

Yes, hide and bone would be right out.

Reeds - not a traditional kayak-building material, but could be done.

[Pope Jimbo]

Yeah, there is a reason Thor Heyerdahl's Ra expedition wasn't as famous as his Kon Tiki expedition. The reed boat he build didn't look any where near as cool as the Kon Tiki.

[Rhywun]

Only acceptable if the whales are found dead on the beach.

[Pope Jimbo]

It is sort of silly to drive your 60 lbs of plastic down to a lake so you can sit around with a bunch of other knotheads in their plastic tubs to protest petroleum addiction.

[Domestic Dissident]

I'll bet they were all wearing sweatshirts, given that we're still in the midst of the coldest spring that I can remember in years and years.

[Tonio]

Why, that can't be. I am constantly informed that this April is The Warmest on Record(tm).

[Irish is a Millennial, Poll Me]

"Our capitalist economy continues to value the profits of resource extraction over people's lives."

People would totally be able to live long and healthy lives if we extracted no resources.

[jarflax]

Absolutely, we could live 34-35 years easy without tech, well the men could. Women could live for 4-5 births, so probably into their late teens, early twenties. At least the survivors of the 90% die off as an industrial world levels back to hunter gatherer population levels, coul.

[Glide]

The ludicrous "women exist, therefore they are targeted by the weather!" argument isn't even worth addressing. But interesting how profit motive is always anyone's fault except the righteous environmentalists.

If life beats profit, why don't I see anyone taking that lobby money they're throwing at the government to try and profit green industry and use it to just give people free energy? I'm not dropping money on a Tesla anytime soon, but if Environment America just gave me a Tesla instead of trying to hire Hillary Clinton to drag Exxon down until Tesla looks affordable, I'd be living a lot greener.

[Rhywun]

Clinton and the like don't give a flying fuck about Gaia, except insofar as appeasing Her helps bring in useful idiots that she can use to fortify her empire.

[Pope Jimbo]

Women and weather are always connected.

When I was in the Marines, I learned from the squids that the best way to get the temperature of the ocean was to stick your finger in a WAVE. If it came out red, it was hurricane season.

[Yusef Adama]

Every single ProgBait word possible right there in one big Derp

[commodious spittoon]

Our capitalist economy continues to value the profits of resource extraction productivity and hedonic gains over people's lives further impoverishing poor people.

[Irish is a Millennial, Poll Me]

"Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump immediately speculated terrorism was involved with the crash."

And so did the Egyptian civil aviation minister:

"Let's not try to jump to the side that is trying to identify this as a technical failure - on the contrary. The situation may point - and I say 'may' because I don't want to speculate and I don't want to go to assumptions like others - but if you analyse the situation properly, the possibility of having a different action, or having a terror attack, is higher than the possibility of having a technical [fault]."
Sherif Fathy
Egypt's civil aviation minister"

[Juvenile Bluster]

Though TBF, the Egyptian government probably wants this to be terrorism even more than the American government does.

[Rhywun]

Also TBF, the Egyptian civil aviation minister is probably also a racist, fascist misogynist.

[Irish is a Millennial, Poll Me]

I suspect he isn't an anti-Muslim bigot though, which kind of messes with the narrative that suspecting this is terrorism is due to Islamophobia

[BigT]

I'll bet Donald wouldn't let that bastard Fathy into the US though.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

He did the math. France, Egypt, lotsa terrorists and history of attacks in both = possible attack.

Give him a math award.

[Aloysious]

Mob burns Venezuelan man alive over $5 as justice fails

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) ? The mob didn't know at first what Roberto Bernal had done, but he was running and that was enough.

Dozens of men loitering on the sidewalk next to a supermarket kicked and punched the 42-year-old until he was bloodied and semi-conscious. After all, they had been robbed of cell phones, wallets and motorcycles over the years, and thought Bernal had a criminal's face.

Then a stooped, white-haired man trailing behind told them he'd been mugged.

The mob went through Bernal's pockets and handed a wad of bills to the old man: The equivalent of $5. They doused Bernal's head and chest in gasoline and flicked a lighter. And they stood back as he burned alive.

"We wanted to teach this man a lesson," said Eduardo Mijares, 29. "We're tired of being robbed every time we go into the street, and the police do nothing."

[Mustang]

"We're tired of being robbed every time we go into the street, and the police do nothing."

Zero awareness. None.

[Pat (PM)]

Sounds almost as bad as a Trump rally. Almost.

[Rhywun]

This is what happens when you end stop 'n' frisk.

/NY Post, Manhattan Institute, et al.

[Domestic Dissident]

And this is a nutshell is why I'm not an anarchist.

[straffinrun]

Because you don't like failed Socialist states?

[kbolino]

I'm pretty sure there's a government in Venezuela...

[commodious spittoon]

It's the period between collapsed socialist state and the anarchic order which somehow spontaneously arises that causes consternation.

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

Though I don't know anyone who says collapsed socialists states can lead to liberal anarchy. It's certainly not the ideal way to get there.

[Bra Ket]

The theme of this story seems to be that vigilante justice is bad because they sometimes make mistakes and their punishments can be disproportional, unlike the cops I guess

[Cloudbuster]

Damn, Louisiana? Why do you hate 18-20-year-old strippers? Those are their best years!

[commodious spittoon]

After that it's nothing but sagging and stretch marks.

Wait, Louisiana? They should have reduced the age limit to 16.

[Injun, as in from India]

Louisiana lawmakers unanimously voted to raise the minimum age for strippers to 21.

Tie the voting age to the age for stripping, smoking, drinking, and gun ownership (in some nanny states).

Too young to strip, smoke, drink, or own guns? Too bad, you're too young to vote!

[Bra Ket]

they get charged as an adult because they are old enough to know right versus wrong, but not old enough to decide what is good for them.

[Zeb]

It has always seemed really odd to see reports of someone charged as an adult with possession of alcohol or tobacco.

[Zeb]

Actually, they should raise the voting age to 30 and let you do all the other stuff at 17.

[Crusty Juggler]

Bill Clinton Has a Manspreading Problem and That's Not Okay

[Crusty Juggler]

TW: it is really stupid, and someone was paid to do that. One of you nerds mentioned that site the other day, and I clicked around a little and found that. So, shame on you, person who mentioned that site.

[Injun, as in from India]

Manspreading is a natural tendency.

Testicles need to stay a couple of degrees cooler than the rest of the body. Manspreading is like natural air conditioning for your balls.

[commodious spittoon]

That's teabagging.

[Zeb]

I can see why people would complain about excessive spreading on a crowded train or something. But for fuck's sake, he's just sitting comfortably.

[Rhywun]

This. It's only a problem when the man in question is being a selfish jerk.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

We are talking about Bill Clinton here... so you're saying it is a problem?

[Libertarian]

I cannot believe they didn't include the most famous pic of all, on the cover of Esquire.

http://respect-mag.com/2010/04.....-magazine/

[Rhywun]

"OMG the tie is pointing at his penis!!11!!"

The outrage reads like a satire of fifties prudery.

[Zeb]

That's kind of the direction ties point.

[commodious spittoon]

PATRIARCHY!!1!

[lap83]

Ugh, gravity is so sexist

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

From all accounts, it does point to the left.

[Injun, as in from India]

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump immediately speculated terrorism was involved with the crash.

What if it turns out to be a flock of Canadian geese like Capt. Sullenberger's plane?

[Zeb]

Or a lost flamingo.

And it's "Canada goose".

[Col. Chestbridge]

And even then they are inaptly named. Rudest birds I've ever met.

[Zeb]

Geese in general are pretty unpleasant.

[Stormy Dragon]

See what happens when you let undocumented foreigners past the border?

[Enough About Palin]

San Francisco's last gun shop will rebrand as a non-profit marijuana dispensary.

Smoke weed, not Perps.

[Crusty Juggler]

Good news for you cheap fatties: The great detox delusion: Forget herbal remedies - the best way to cleanse your body is FREE

Eat vegetables? I don't believe it.

[Crusty Juggler]

Mark Zuckerberg admits to conservative leaders that site has trouble reaching their group in closed-door meeting held in the wake of trending topics controversy

What a stupid story. Can it get stupider, Big Juggs?

Among others in attendance, according to Facebook, was radio host Glenn Beck, American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks, Tea Party Patriots CEO Jenny Beth Martin and Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center.

My goodness, it can. Can it get worse than that, you big stud?

Republican South Dakota Republican John Thune wrote to Zuckerberg demanding answers about any possible bias in the company.

Of course.

[commodious spittoon]

Ugh.

Look, if they're taking ad money from conservative groups and misrepresenting how much exposure their posts receive, that's fraud and can be handled as such. If not, well, it's a private company and bias is their right.

[Stormy Dragon]

Tetris Movie Idea #1: Ancient Greek Tragedy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alw5hs0chj0

[Stormy Dragon]

Tetris Movie Idea #2: Animal Farm Style Allegory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTFG3J1CP8

[Chip Woodier]

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump immediately speculated terrorism was involved with the crash.

Well, damn...Who Didn't? Is it fair to ding Trump for saying what everyone was thinking?

[Domestic Dissident]

The most important editorial of the year.

If I could make just one minor edict, this piece would be required reading for every semi-educated person on earth.

[Rhywun]

It's almost like having a dictator plunder all the wealth of your country is bad or something. Because that is what is really going on, not this feel-good "serve the poor" crap they're claiming.

Meanwhile, many of our most cherished economic institutions, like weekends breaks from work, overtime rules and Social Security, owe their existence to the socialist movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Derp alert.

[commodious spittoon]

So we must gradually relive the mistakes of "successful" socialist economies before we can undertake the market reforms that inevitably make them successes?

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[SarahBerry]

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[Uncle Jay]

RE: Louisiana lawmakers unanimously voted to raise the minimum age for strippers to 21.

Did these 21 year old strippers do any "lobbying" for these Louisiana lawmakers so they can keep the younger and more attractive strippers from competing with them?
One can only speculate, y'all.

[lukashik]

Now, coming to the Showbox app, this is another superb app developed for movie lovers who want to get a better experience of watching movies and tv show on a bigger screen with more detailings.

[lukashik]

And one of those applications is Showbox apk app. It is one of the best online streaming application for watching Movies and TV Shows. In the starting, this application has been released for only a few of the mobiles and allows users to watch shows online.

[John]

Her standards were way too high for you people. She never liked nerds.

[Citizen X]

Crusty still would.

[Irish is a Millennial, Poll Me]

One sitting is a pretty retarded metric. A sitting could be any length of time. If I go hang out in a bar from 8 PM to midnight, that's 1 1/4th drinks per hour.

[straffinrun]

That's why had our Keggers standing in a cornfield.

[Zeb]

And they are fucking whining about not having money for Zika.

[Demoted Comment (Slammer)]

Dead girls don't say no

[SugarFree]

Or he wanted to ruin their wedding night with bloating and McGriddle dick.

[Zeb]

Or maybe it's an ad for McDonalds.

[Tonio]

It's whatever they want it to mean, Irish. Prohibitionists are notoriously dishonest.

[Zeb]

I thought it was supposed to be within one hour.

And 15 drinks a week is just over what we have been told is a reasonable amount to drink. Isn't 2 drinks a day supposed to be OK or even beneficial?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

To midnight?

Fuckin' quitter.

/Why I don't go to bars anymore. "What da fu u mean iss closin time? Gimme 3 more."

[Tonio]

Wooden kayaks are very expensive, or take a lot of time if you DIY. Plus, they are sealed with varnish. Lots and lots of varnish.

[Pope Jimbo]

Tundra, they carved their kayak from the trunk of a plastic tree by hand. When they cut the plastic tree down they said a prayer over it to thank it for its sacrifice.

[SugarFree]

And third to Trading Places.

[Crusty Juggler]

I was looking for the Tupac vehicle Gang Related, but you put forth a good choice as well. Belushi is criminally underrated .