A.M. Links: Gary Johnson, Ryan Lochte, Self-Driving Ubers

• 

  Gage Skidmore / Flickr.com

  Gary Johnson on the 2016 presidential race: "We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't think we had the opportunity to win."

• Why Hillary Clinton "doesn't have this race locked up."
• Self-driving Uber cars will soon be arriving in Pittsburgh.
• Car bombings today in Turkey killed at least six and wounded over 200.
• "U.S. Olympic swimmers Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz were pulled off their U.S.-bound flight by Brazilian authorities Wednesday, and were interviewed by police about the alleged gunpoint robbery in Rio de Janeiro of which they were allegedly victims, along with Ryan Lochte."
• The police union in Cincinnati says officers won't wear body cameras unless the city pays them extra.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Gary Johnson on the 2016 presidential race: "We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't think we had the opportunity to win."

But win what?

[SIV]

A Nazi cake!

[Heroic Mulatto]

A Nazi cake!

By Nazi cake, you merely refer to "carrot cake." As carrot cake is worse than the Holocaust.

[Chipwooder]

I want to punch you in the face.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Get a load of Goebbels over here!

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

I'm thinking Himmler... fat, carrot-cake eating bastard.

[Lee Genes]

Hinrich Lohse fit the bill a little better

[Chipwooder]

If I have to be a high ranking Nazi, I'm going with Heydrich

[Aloysious]

Carrot cake is more like a muffin than cake...

[mojoe]

A muffin can be filling

[Crusty Juggler]

It is if Crazy Joe Devola is looking for you.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

My favorite part is that this article is from an inside page of the Palm Beach Post. Sort of the equivalent of giving a speech to a mostly-empty room in a conference room at the Ramada Inn.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

[Glide]

I'm betting it's not a replica flintlock pistol, he already had one and didn't seem to want it.

[LynchPin1477]

A romantic weekend getaway in Lake Placid, NY with SIV.

[Crusty Juggler]

Lake Placid is lovely. Fun fact: The Olympic Village from the 1980 games is now a correctional facility.

[Rhywun]

Not surprised. That's been the only growing industry in upstate for decades.

[prolefeed]

Sooo ... delusional or deliberately lying?

I'd love for him to win this, but I would be pleasantly shocked if he won even one state, the best shot for which would be Utah.

[kbolino]

Doesn't every LP candidate say that? I remember Barr and Badnarik doing it.

[CatoTheChipper]

At age 68, grandma Hillary has around a 1.3% chance of dying in the next year.
At age 70, grandpa Donald has a 2.3% chance of dying in the next year.

Divide Hillary's 1.3% by 3 to reflect health and time to election. Divide Trump's 2.3% by 4 for same.

0.4% x 0.6% = 0.2% of them both dying before election.

However, I'm not sure even that would a difference. People might be more enthusiastic about voting for the VP candidates anyway.

[Scarecrow & WoodChipper Repair]

Not such good math skillz there bub.

[prolefeed]

Yeah, 4 chances in a thousand times 6 chances in a thousand = 24 chances in a million.

And, even then, people would still turn out and vote for the dead person to prevent the election going to the other main party.

[Zeb]

I say if the dead person wins, they should still have to serve. Just prop them up in a chair in the Oval Office and crank up the AC.

Best president ever.

[Chipwooder]

Given the way Hillary! is falling on the stairs and having weird seizure-like episodes, I'm guessing her chances are greater than 1.3%

[Artifex]

Demonic possession is hard on the body, but they generally don't die off until they do the most damage to those around them. Expect her to survive the term.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Expect her to survive the term.

I'm not worried about her, I'm worried about everyone else.

[John DeWitt]

Least likely to appear like a functioning member of society during an interview?

[John DeWitt]

Least likely to appear like a functioning member of society during an interview?

[Red Rocks Okey-Dokein]

The squirrels are fully functional.

[Trigger Warning]

So is Data.

[commodious es un perdedor]

A permanent Democratic hegemony?

[GILMORE?]

The future

[Fist of Etiquette]

Why Hillary Clinton "doesn't have this race locked up."

I don't think you're allowed to say Hillary Clinton and locked up together.

[Rich]

Oh, very well.

Hillary Clinton "doesn't have this race in the can."

[Jerryskids]

Be fair - both Trump and Hillary can be rightly criticized for lacking convictions.

[Rich]

Nice.

"I yust got out."

[(((Renegade)))]

Don't say Hillary Clinton and can together, either.

[Rich]

Oh, very well.

Hillary Clinton "may yet snatch defeat from victory."

[Citizen X]

Don't say "Hillary Clinton" and "snatch" together either, unless you're trying to get the 'beetus.

[Rich]

Don't say "Hillary Clinton" and "beetus" together, either.

[Zeb]

Clit dong.

[Citizen X]

Oh, we're playing Two-Word Derby now? Very well:

Testicular Seizure

[bacon-magic]

Snatch Beetus

[Fist of Etiquette]

Self-driving Uber cars will soon be arriving in Pittsburgh.

Uber trying to thin the Yinzer pedestrian herd.

[Certified Public Asshat]

May as well start by running over all of those poor underpaid Uber drivers.

[Bee Tagger]

Will the Uber cars understand the Pirate game is over and all laws regarding pedestrian street crossing are null and void?

[db]

In three years, Uberdyne will become the largest supplier of transportation computer systems. All Pittsburgh taxi cabs are upgraded with Uberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they drive with a perfect operational record. The Yinznet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes online August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from transportation. Yinznet begins to learn Pittsburgh traffic patterns at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug. But Yinznet has poisoned all the pierogies and kolbassy.

[db]

Oops, pasted the wrong version.

In three years, Uberdyne will become the largest supplier of transportation computer systems. All Pittsburgh taxi cabs are upgraded with Uberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they drive with a perfect operational record. The Yinznet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes online August 4th, 2020. Human decisions are removed from transportation. Yinznet begins to learn Pittsburgh traffic patterns at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th, making its first Pittsburgh Left. In a panic, they try to pull the plug. But Yinznet has poisoned all the pierogies and kolbassy.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Yinzers can't be reasoned with.

[GILMORE?]

I thought it was Philly that you hated? Doesn't that make Pittsburgh the 'good guy'?

[robc]

Is Fist actually in Harrisburg? That would enable him to hate both.

[Citizen X]

Eugene's full-time job is professional Civil War reenactor at Gettysburg.

[Eman]

Harrisburg's worse than either

[Fist of Etiquette]

All metropolises are dens of terrible. People living virtually on top of each other? Their lives being regulated to the atom? Being able to actually see your neighbors? Your private residence existing in full view from public property? Yuck. It's no way for a civilized person to live.

But, no, Filthacrapia is an especially heinous plot of Earth, not so much for its location but for its people, who, to a man, is an a-hole.

[Brett L]

No, the fucking Uber drivers thought they were going to agree to one set of terms and renegotiate for another, many want to collectivize. I had a driver tell me about how she was underpaid and should be able to get cash tips. Or can. I pointedly didn't tip her. Their contractors are trying to turn Uber into Yellow Cab and Uber is pushing back.

[BYODB]

Which is kind of funny, since they probably couldn't get a job with a 'Yellow Cab' due to their union rules.

Sweet irony!

That being said, these 'self driving cars' are the best reason yet to pull your investment capital out of Uber. This is a $300 million dollar boondoggle at best.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

They're not contractors. Maybe you didn't get the libertarian memo.

[Brett L]

Do they set their shifts or does Uber?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

They're in a Union.

And further, their schedules are in direct control of the city council.

[Mike Laursen]

One thing I can relate firsthand is that, about a month ago, a desperate recruiter from Uber was doing a mass search on LinkedIn for a software engineering manager willing to move to Pittsburgh to oversee all or part of the project. Guess they found someone.

[Bee Tagger]

Self-driving Uber cars will soon be arriving in Pittsburgh.

We will know they have become sentient when they start making Pittsburgh Lefts.

[Agent Cooper]

+1 n'at.

[Injun, as in from India]

Gary Johnson on the 2016 presidential race: "We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't think we had the opportunity to win."

If he gets on the debate stage, he actually has a chance.

[straffinrun]

To fall off the debate stage?

[Hamster of Doom]

Put Johnson in training with the commentariat. Two weeks with us, he'll win that debate. Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy. He would also appear awake, offend no less than two demographics and get the phone number of a few backstage crew, but sometimes in life we have choices.

[straffinrun]

He'll be calling Trump "Tulpa" and Hillary "Mary."

[Agammamon]

Shut the fuck up Tulpa!

[straffinrun]

Tulpa forgets to change his sock sometimes when he posts. I never do that.

[straffinrun]

^So much this.

[Slammer]

*beep* off, slaver!

[robc]

I dont think they censor debates.

[commodious es un perdedor]

The insider references and AC-styled slam poetry and reciting a SF vignette involving the frontrunners will prove very popular with independents.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

"reciting a SF vignette involving the frontrunners "

You cannot count the amount of money I would pay to see this.

[Red Rocks Okey-Dokein]

One STEVE SMITH cuddle-rape reference, though, and he'd fall off the map.

[Citizen X]

STEVE SMITH NOT GAY - NO CUDDLE BEFORE, DURING, OR AFTER RAPE.

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

And his glutes would be fucking raging.

[LynchPin1477]

Despite my bold prediction of throwing the race to the House, I think even with the debates the best he can hope for is to make a solid impact.

[Injun, as in from India]

If he makes an appeal the right way, he can win outright. IMHO, he should do these things:

1) Point out how one candidate is unhinged and the other is fundamentally dishonest.
2) Ask voters to think outside the party box, and vote for their country and conscience instead of party.
3) Remind women that it's a historic election in a sense, that Johnson/Weld are fathers of daughters and would love to see a woman president, BUT character and integrity are more important than gender.

[Stoic]

Also, they're the only hope of "bridging the partisan divide" in Washington. That message worked for Obama in '08 -- doesn't matter whether or not it's actually possible.

[Injun, as in from India]

Remind voters that Hillary said Republicans are her worst enemies, so she's not going to be doing any compromising.

[Citizen X]

Other things that are Hillary Clinton's enemies:
- basic principles of cybersecurity
- goiters
-her husband's rape victims
- truth

[All-Seeing Monocle]

3) Remind women that it's a historic election in a sense, that Johnson/Weld are fathers of daughters and would love to see a woman president, BUT character and integrity are more important than gender.

Yeah, good luck with that.

[Stoic]

There really aren't that many women voting for Hillary just because she's female. I've heard plenty of "I really want a woman president, but not Hillary." If it becomes clear that Trump isn't going to win, the "A Trump presidency would be the end of the world!" women will be more inclined to consider Stein.

[Crusty Juggler]

I would hope that women are smart enough to see through that line of patronizing bullshit.

[Eman]

A lot of men don't see through it either. You sure you want to cast the firstproverbial stone?

[Mike Laursen]

Progressive women friends on Facebook have said things like, "I guess I'm voting for Hillary. I wish it were someone else, but my daughter will see a woman President in the White House."

I don't get this at all. How is it a leap forward for women to have a despicable woman be the first President. It's essentially saying all that matters about Hillary to them is her genitals.

[mad.casual]

I don't get this at all. How is it a leap forward for women to have a despicable woman be the first President. It's essentially saying all that matters about Hillary to them is her genitals.

The target audience is even more non-sensical to me, IMO. Vaginas voting for vaginas makes sense to me, I don't agree with or subscribe to the notion, but I can understand it. Women (and men) refusing to vote for Hillary I can *certainly* understand and, again, I don't agree with or subscribe to the idea of voting for Trump, but I can understand it. What makes zero sense to me is the principled stance against both Hillary and Trump (presumably to whom the comment most appeals) with simultaneous gross ignorance or lack of awareness of any/all 3rd parties and/or the internet.

It's a moot point considering that there are no libertarian women, but I assume that once there are some, they wouldn't be in the "I'm a libertarian because vaginas." demographic.

[All-Seeing Monocle]

I agree that it's not just because she's a woman. It's because she's a democrat. The committed followers on both sides are going to rationalize their way into voting for their party regardless of any appeals you make to their conscience. I was reading a jezebel thread just yesterday where they were going on at length that yes, it's kind of bad that Bill is a serial rapist and Hillary played the role of enabler, but they were all in complete agreement that they had to reluctantly overlook that because otherwise a non-Democrat might win the most important election of all time.

Nothing you can do or say will keep them from rationalizing their way into voting for her.

[Agent Cooper]

BUT character and integrity are more important than gender.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Mike Laursen]

While getting into the debates would be a milestone for libertarians, he wouldn't have a chance.

There is a scenario where both of the major parties fuck up and Johnson is the only candidate left standing. Say, Trump's campaign truly self destructs and Julian Assange makes good on his threat to produce dating emails from Clinton (it would have to be really, really damning, because Clinton voters seem willing to overlook just about anything).

[The Fusionist]

That scenario could get Johnson 20% of the vote!

[Mike Laursen]

Yeah, the only way this hypothetical scenario works is if both major party candidates are completely knocked out of the race.

[thom]

Can't be knocked out of the race. 1/3 of the voters vote D and 1/3 of the voters vote R. The battle is for the remaining 1/3 of the voters. Both parties could nominate former rapists in comas and they would each get 1/3 of the vote.

[Mike Laursen]

I don't think you're following. I'm talking about a scenario where there is no longer a Republican or Democratic candidate.

[Rasilio]

I don't think so.

Even if he is wildly successful there really isn't a path for him to 270 electoral votes.

The best case scenario is he pulls maybe 25% of the vote, wins 50 or so electoral votes and throws the election into the House of Representatives but the idea that the House would settle on Johnson as a compromise candidate seems remote at best, far more likely is they extract some concessions from either Trump or Hillary (more likely Trump assuming Republicans retained control of enough state delegations) and settle on one of them than upset the 2 party system and let a 3rd party candidate in.

[thom]

If that happened, the negotiation would likely involve a quick Trump resignation and a Pence Presidency? The party leadership would have a chance to regain control.

[Lord Humungus]

That's not much of a living:

Indian 'oldest man ever' says yoga, celibacy key to age

Looking remarkably unlined for his claimed 120 years, an Indian monk who says he is the oldest man to have ever lived puts his longevity down to no sex or spices, and daily yoga.

Hindu monk Swami Sivananda was born on August 8, 1896, according to his passport. If true, his life would have spanned three centuries, but despite his apparent age he remains strong enough to perform yoga for hours at a time.

He is now applying to Guinness World Records to verify his claim. It currently lists Japan's Jiroemon Kimura, who died in June 2013 aged 116 years and 54 days, as the oldest man to have ever lived.

India's passport authorities confirmed Sivananda's age from a temple register, the only record many Indians even decades younger have of their date of birth.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

"yoga, celibacy key to age"

pass

[Rufus The Monocled]

Seriously, I'd give up 10 or 15 years on that trade.

[Zeb]

Some people aren't so into sex. Maybe he's one of those weirdos.

[Injun, as in from India]

Given a choice between a short, licentious life and a long, celibate one, I'd choose the former.

"So many women, so little time"

vs.

"So many women, but I'm going to prolong my time without doing anything with them"

[Princess Trigger]

You can cuddle with them.

[Florida Hipster]

That's like telling a starving man he can't eat the food, but he can still smell it.

[Injun, as in from India]

^THIS.

The aroma is great when you're hungry, but you gotta eat in the end.

[Rich]

Not necessarily.

[Swiss Servator]

"no sex or spices, and daily yoga"

Er.....no.

[Florida Hipster]

Cut him open and count the rings! Then we'll see how old he really is.

[commodious es un perdedor]

What's the Indian equivalent of hari kari? Pretty sure that's the rule for failing to refresh.

[Citizen X]

Yoga is alright, although i prefer just watching my wife do it. What's the point of even living if you can't have sex or tasty food, though?

[commodious es un perdedor]

his claimed 120 years

Count the rings.

[Injun, as in from India]

You want to chop off his wood to count the rings?

[Citizen X]

It's not like he's using it.

[Michael]

Indian 'oldest man ever' says yoga, celibacy key to age

Hey, I respectfully beg to diff...

(croaks)

[Agammamon]

So - all those other monks that did the 'yoga and celibacy' thing that died younger . . .?

[Brett L]

Not praying hard enough. Like when God kills kids with cancer.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

216) I wonder if the decline in religiosity and belief in God in America and the West has to do with the changing roles of fathers. What's the traditional view of a father, from a child's point of view? Well, he's gone much of the time at a mysterious place called "work", when he shows up it's not clear whether he'll be tender or vengeful, he metes out punishment for things you've done wrong, yet everything he does is out of love.

Are these not also the traditional views of God?mysterious and often absent, unpredictable in temperament, giving punishment when due, and yet loving all mankind? Perhaps young children exposed to this sort of father in their lives grow up to become believers in such a God.

But fathers nowadays are not like that. They're available for their children, both physically present and emotionally open in ways older generations of men never were. Spankings and harsh punishments are out of fashion. Fathers today are gentler, less terrifying, and more knowable. That may well be preferable, but it does mean they don't make nearly as great a psychic imprint on their children, an imprint that might prime children later for (certain types of?) religious experience.

[Auric Demonocles]

This seems like an awful lot of overthinking.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Just some overthinking, not a sermon

[Certified Public Asshat]

You have lots of thoughts, you should try reading old Garfield comics in the bathroom instead.

[LynchPin1477]

Though I don't have polling data to back it up, I suspect religiosity started to decline long before the traditional view of fathers started to change.

Also, I'd argue that the vision of God you describe doesn't really apply to typical views on Jesus.

[Auric Demonocles]

Well that's because he's the Son, not the Father.

[LynchPin1477]

Yes, but he's also the primary object of devotion for the largest religious group in the world, so I don't think the changing role of fathers would impact the views of Christians very much.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Well, to Catholics God and Jesus are one and the same.

[robc]

Considering for most of history, the kids worked in the fields with the fathers, and mothers, I think the basic premise is wrong.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

^ This

[Brett L]

I had a history teacher -- European history, Fall of Rome to the Renaissance -- who talked about how you could see the disappearance of childhood in that era. Kids didn't have toys anymore (except the very richest). Basically, kids got put to work at about 2 doing whatever a 2 year old can do (picking chaff out of the grain, chasing pests). When people talk about the horrors of global warming, I think of the near ice age in Europe between about 350AD and 1300AD and how hard life got. You don't have any comparable periods where it was too hot for humanity to flourish.

[Rod Flash]

Until this month.

[mad.casual]

Considering for most of history, the kids worked in the fields with the fathers, and mothers, I think the basic premise is wrong.

Yup, kinda corollary to my initial thought; the centuries of losing mothers, fathers, and siblings to famine, disease, and war were probably greater influences on religiosity compared to the stay-at-home Dad phenomenon.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

You're both right. It's like Belloc explained, it was the divorce of work from home, occupation from property, that queered everything.

[Heroic Mulatto]

They're available for their children, both physically present and emotionally open in ways older generations of men never were. Spankings and harsh punishments are out of fashion. Fathers today are gentler, less terrifying, and more knowable

In so many ways, this only applies to White people.

[Brett L]

Its nice to have the social space to let your kids throw tantrums. Twelve year old black boys who act out might get shot by the cops.

[But Enough About Me]

I'd go for this explanation. Although, to be fair, my father was a dick and a sociopath.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Russell Peters on the topic at hand.

[But Enough About Me]

Yeah. Although again, my Dad would whoop us for breathing some days. He was a semi-funky corn-fed white boy from Regina, Saskatchewan. His Dad was an ex-coal miner from Wales. Also an SOB.

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

So does the decline of religiosity, no?

[Heroic Mulatto]

So does the decline of religiosity, no?

With the notable exception of Korea, I'm hard pressed to think of an example of an East Asian culture that's currently big on religion.

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

in America and the West

[Eternal Blue Sky]

Since your "traditional view of a father" only seems to be referring to "traditions" that post-date the agricultural industrial revolution, I'd say your viewpoint is flawed unless you are seriously asserting that people only became religious after the majority of the population was no longer locked into the agricultural trade.

[Zeb]

That too. Sounds like a stereotype of late 20th century TV families.

[Zeb]

But is that really how most fathers were in the past? I really don't know. But it seems like it could be one of those overgeneralized stereotypes.

And there are lots of traditional views of God. You describe more the OT God, but for Christians God is usually a bit more consistent and even tempered.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Well, I grew up in a kind of peculiar environment that was like a hundred years behind the rest of the country, and fathers as a rule were expected to and made SOME effort to act as r?le models and instructors for how to be a man. Even the ones that sucked tended to still teach right from wrong and rationality sufficient that any above-halfwit child could easily extrapolate the right from both what his father did right and from what he did wrong. People also stayed married, which kind of places it further back than a hundred years for most the country.

[lap83]

Fathers today are gentler, less terrifying, and more knowable.

Or if the story below is any indication, fathers are live-in verbally abusive boyfriends

[Mike Laursen]

I'm pretty sure the decline on religiosity can be attributed to easy access to criticisms of religion on the Internet, and exposure to secular, non-provincial lifestyles from the media.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

wrong. People aren't religious because of some universally applicable argument. They are religious because they have evidence of some sort that other people don't. Maybe they're nuts. If so, used to be a lot more people were crasy than now. But I can tell you, having lived in various highly religious communities as well as many almost entirely secular communities, that it's not because of exposure to an argument that folks pick one side or the other.

[Mike Laursen]

I'm talking specifically about what stops children from following their parents' religion.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Car bombings today in Turkey killed at least six and wounded over 200.

They would investigate but all resources are tied up prosecuting 40,000 coup planners.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Worse than that--they're releasing actual criminals--38,000 of them--from the prisons in Turkey to make room for more political prisoners.

[ant1sthenes]

And now you know why Democrats are so big on criminal justice reform.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Two girls, one coup.

[JW]

Erdoganse.

[Zero Sum Game]

If only Turkey would enact common sense car bomb control.

[Bee Tagger]

Why Hillary Clinton "doesn't have this race locked up."

Uh, excuse me, you write for the Internet. I believe you are contractually obligated to type that as Lochted up for as long as Ryan Lochte is trending.

[Hamster of Doom]

This is why no one anthropomorphizes Damon Root's hair.

[commodious es un perdedor]

Wait... Trump or Soave?

[Fist of Etiquette]

U.S. Olympic swimmers Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz were pulled off their U.S.-bound flight by Brazilian authorities Wednesday...

Another crackerjack choice, IOC.

[Lord Humungus]

John has a sad.

Egypt Suspends 8 Female TV Anchors, Saying They Are Overweight

Earlier this week, Safaa Hegazy, the director of state-run Egyptian radio and television, barred eight anchorwomen from appearing on the air for a month, saying they were overweight, the state-owned Al-Ahram news website confirmed. Ms. Hegazy ordered the women to go on a diet during their suspensions, Al-Ahram said.

Khadija Khatab, one of the eight anchorwomen, said that she had not yet been formally notified of Ms. Hegazy's order, but added that she was recently told that "measures will be taken against" those who fail to lose weight by mid-September, according to an interview she gave to a privately owned television station.

Ms. Khatab said she was offended that coverage of her ordeal included words like "fat" and similar terms she called "unfair" and "insulting." She also said that the pictures of her that had been circulating and mocked on the internet and social media sites were old and that she had lost weight since they were taken.

[Fist of Etiquette]

"From the WBMI News Desk..."

[Swiss Servator]

*narrows gaze*

[KDN]

Roger Ailes lands on his feet.

[Red Rocks Okey-Dokein]

"I want you to fire all the fat people."

[Agent Cooper]

THUD!

[prolefeed]

State run television for you, people ... anchorwomen who are both fat AND ugly:

Now, if the suspended women looked like this, I would think they were making a * big * mistake:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mq_r.....ngerie.jpg

[Illocust]

What? No pictures? How are we supposed to judge if there are no pictures?

[prolefeed]

I looked at the picture in the link. I would not be doing anyone any favors making it easier to see, unless you get turned on by fat, ugly, and old.

[commodious es un perdedor]

No photos?! This would never happen at Daily Mail.

[Zeb]

Well, she is fat.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

+1 Roger Ailes.

[Injun, as in from India]

Why Hillary Clinton "doesn't have this race locked up."

Locked up = 100%
HRC's current chances = 85+%

You might as well call that locked up, unless the FBI is the one locking her up.

[Gozer the Gozarian]

Hillary's wake is littered with locked up failures.

[mojoe]

And the corpses of 'former associates'.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

And yet, as a former first lady she got elected as Senator in New York, went on to be Secretary of State and now is looking at a presidency until 2024.

[Swiss Servator]

Fist is very active this morning....extra cup of coffee?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Everyone else is dragging ass.

[Swiss Servator]

Quite.

[Injun, as in from India]

The question to ask is: did he drink the extra cup or snort it?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Coffee is a vile liquid. I don't touch it and have no respect for those who do.

[Brett L]

Brave words from behind your giant can of Mountain Dew Code Red.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Also not something I would drink. IN FACT, it's mostly water that I intake these past few years, as my fractional renal system requires great care.

[Brett L]

Damn. I don't think I'd do well at that.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I used to hate water. You might be surprised at how easy it is to adjust. (But then caffeine never seemed to have that much effect on me anyway.)

[Citizen X]

Would you say we're all getting Fisted this morning?

[But Enough About Me]

We've all been getting Fisted for much longer than that.

[Lord Humungus]

YouTube Stars Are Now Being Used for North Korean Propaganda

Which brings me to his travels in North Korea, a series of videos that he's currently uploading. Cole and a bunch of other vloggers recently went on a trip through the reclusive, politically repressive nation, beaming back positive depictions of people and places that all seem . . . awfully tidy, judging from what we know?or, to be fair, what politicians and journalists tell us?about North Korea. It all seems highly suspicious, this vision of a country, a North Korean media tour similar to Vice's fascinating documentary, only without any of the critical context and perspective.

In the description section of one of his North Korea videos, Cole writes, "I'm trying to focus on positive things in the country and combat the purely negative image we see in the Media." Which, O.K., sure. But as another vlogger shows us in his own video from the DPRK (vloggers seem to be going there en masse), these videos are meant to capture a very carefully curated vision of a country whose human rights abuses are "without parallel in the contemporary world," according to Human Rights Watch. Cole has, so far, not really made mention of any of that, choosing instead to go for a light tone, oohing and ahhing over abundant food in a country ravaged by hunger.

[Injun, as in from India]

Oppa Gangnam Style.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

To be fair, from what I understand, all foreigners who visit North Korea are given highly-curated tours with trips to only the most sanitized locations. Sneaking off on your own will get you expelled from the country, and your handler, er, tour leader, likely sentenced to a lengthy spell at a work camp.

[Injun, as in from India]

+1 Potemkin Village

[Gozer the Gozarian]

Similar to the Brazilian Olympic Village but without all the consensual sex.

[commodious es un perdedor]

Some of them are shown unparalleled hospitality.

[Rufus The Monocled]

To be fair? How can you not know that's what they will do? You have to be a naif to believe what you see in these places? When I visited Cuba that much is painfully obvious. Which makes me wonder how idiots like Moore and other celebrities can write and believe the crap they spew. Either they truly are left-wing idiots or they're lying - or both.

As for these clowns, if they go off on their own and get caught watch them beg to have their country save them. Personally, I'd let them face the consequences of their actions because there's ample evidence and information to suggest this would happen. They chose to go visit and find shit out. Honestly, although I'm all for exploration, I just don't see what the fascination is with North Korea that compels people to go. Plus it has a nut job as a leader who can detain you on a whim.

[Zeb]

I just don't see what the fascination is with North Korea that compels people to go.

I'm not interested, but I can see why people would be. A place that is so closed off and fucked up carries a certain fascination.

Even with the sanitized experience that visitors get, the documentaries I've seen about NK show a place that is really bizarre and disturbing.

[Rhywun]

To be fair, this guy with the culturally inappropriate hair needs a punch in the face.

[Citizen X]

YouTube Stars

So much for words meaning things.

[Zeb]

If he doesn't know that everything he sees is carefully regulated by the NK government, he's a fucking moron.

[Slammer]

The police union in Cincinnati says officers won't wear body cameras unless the city pays them extra.

No chance of someone saying, "You wear the cameras or you're fired.", huh?

[kbolino]

... and yet even if they were paid more, I'd bet more money than their pay increase that the cameras will frequently "fail to work" despite whatever "training" they would also have demanded and received.

[prolefeed]

The camera detached from the officer's helmet prior to the officer's gun releasing a bullet, which reached its terminal velocity in the immediate vicinity of the detainee.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The police union in Cincinnati says officers won't wear body cameras unless the city pays them extra.

I'm beginning to think civic union contract negotiators are on the take.

[Injun, as in from India]

Remember this line from the Big Lebowski? The cops are playing the role of Bunny, while Brandt is the citizenry.

Bunny Lebowski: Brandt can't watch, though, or he has to pay a hundred.

[Fubini Baby]

Who are the cops sucking off for a grand?

[Agent Cooper]

Your local democrat (most likely) politician?

[Hamster of Doom]

The police union in Cincinnati says officers won't wear body cameras unless the city pays them extra.

Cincinnati taxpayers demand the city pay them extra, since they're the ones who will be ponying up for the lawsuit settlements.

/in a better world

[Gozer the Gozarian]

How's this for a compromise: No camera, no gun. You patrol unarmed, here's your billy club.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

I like the suggestion in the comments on the original article; "We set your uniforms; the cameras are now part of your uniforms."

with, perhaps, the rider; "Give me a lot of sh*t over this, and we add tutus."

[Lord Humungus]

Girl, 4, thought her name was 'idiot' because her parents were so cruel

The girl had been at the Cooper-Anthony Mercy Child Advocacy Centre in Arkansas when staff noticed she was showing signs of abuse and called the police.

When officers arrived at the centre last Friday, they found the malnourished girl with her mother, Jennifer Denen, 30, and her mother's partner, Clarence Deen, 47.

According to a police report, when an officer asked the girl what her name was, she replied: 'Idiot.'

Her mother's boyfriend, who lived with them, regularly referred to the child as 'Idiot' instead of using her actual name, police said.

He also zip-tied the girl to her bed as a form of punishment.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Sometimes I think we should bring back humiliation as a form of punishment. Lock these "parents" in the stocks in the middle of town and let people hurl rotten fruit at them.

[Rich]

So much this.

[Chipwooder]

Public flogging seems appropriate in this case, too.

[straffinrun]

Make that guy officially change his name to "idiot".

[(((Renegade)))]

I know a baby who responds to the name "Fuckface."

[spqr2008]

This actually happened because of me to one of my youngest cousins. I was 4, and in daycare, and I learned, Motherf**ker from some kid there, and kept repeating it. My cousin, 7 months younger than me, picked it up, and his two older brothers encouraged it (since at 11 and 17, they thought it was hilarious, from both of us). He ended up telling the 2 year old cousin that he was a "Motherf**ker" because she knocked down a bunch of blocks we were building into a fort, and she responded to that for almost 6 months.

[ant1sthenes]

Coming from someone with your former moniker, this is a bit disturbing.

[Slammer]

I thought my name was "Shut up" until twelve or so.

[Citizen X]

Shut up.

[Slammer]

*leaves thread to go outside and mow lawn with 1960s push mower*

[Bee Tagger]

The police union in Cincinnati says officers won't wear body cameras unless the city pays them extra.

All the objectionable parts of this comment aside, this seems like a very interesting bluff to call.

[Lord Humungus]

Bee rescue mounted after hospital breaks out in hives

A British hospital discovered it had become home to more than 100,000 bees when patients noticed honey dripping down the walls.

Beekeepers were summoned to Rockwood Hospital in Cardiff, Wales, after the discovery last month, and found a large colony of bees in the roof above a ward.

Abigail Reade of the Tree Bee Society charity said Thursday that honey was "dripping through the ceiling tiles, it was dripping down the walls."

She said the hive had gone unnoticed for up to five years. It's thought warm summer weather melted some of the wax, releasing the honey.

[Auric Demonocles]

How the hell did no one notice thousands of bees for 5 years?

[Rich]

"Oh, we noticed, dearie. Just not our job."

[Agammamon]

That's how the NHS and its 'new professionalism' in all roles, rolls.

[commodious es un perdedor]

The National Health Service, Humphrey, is an advanced case of galloping bureaucracy.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

Bureaucracy does not gallop. At fastest it moseys. Generally it oozes.

[mojoe]

I've seen it meander once. Not a pretty sight.

[Citizen X]

In British slang, doesn't "galloping" basically just mean "out of control"?

[Princess Trigger]

Maintenance doesn't like to leave their office in the basement. There's stuff on tv.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

That's why this never would have happened in the 1970s. Because the NHS was fully funded before Margaret Thatcher came in? No, because the BBC provided the only two channels on TV at the time.

[Zeb]

But they had opened up TV broadcasting by then. And at least 4 channels were available.

[CatoTheChipper]

They're government employees.

[Gozer the Gozarian]

Lots and lots of medication.

[Agent Cooper]

Was Robert Plant there?

[Auric Demonocles]

Last night I received an updated ATM card (they were reissuing new ones with chips). The expiration date is in 2049. Fucking crazy, though not as bad as a morning links with no alt-text.

[Rich]

From Bank of Nigeria?

[Rufus The Monocled]

What's wrong with cards issued from BofN?

/looks down observing card nervously.

[Chipwooder]

Nothing at all. Hillary never has any problems with the large cashier's checks she gets from the BofN all the time.

[straffinrun]

You sure that wasn't your PIN number?

[commodious es un perdedor]

*violently shushes straffin*

[Citizen X]

These masturbation euphemisms are getting pretty abstract.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

The card won't physically last until 2049.

[Auric Demonocles]

That was one of the things that I found ridiculous about it.

[Rich]

The police union in Cincinnati says officers won't wear body cameras unless the city pays them extra.

"Here's another free donut. Now, if you don't wear an operating camera you'll be fired."

[commodious es un perdedor]

The Cincinnati police department, Rich, is an advanced case of galloping bureaucracy.

[Rufus The Monocled]

But Nate Silver....he says Clinton's lead is clear and steady...

http://fivethirtyeight.com/fea.....nd-steady/

[KDN]

Clear and steady, but not in the bag. Read the article, Clinton's chances are 85 - 90%.

[Rufus The Monocled]

As noted above, pretty much in the bag!

THE BARF BAG.

[robc]

What happened to "cops want to wear body cameras, it helps them out"?

[John DeWitt]

Those people had an accident. Tragic.

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

They contracted AIDS from all their smooching.

[Lord Humungus]

Aging Danes Hope Robots Will Save Their Welfare State

Like many other developed countries, Denmark's population is aging. One obvious solution is to get people to work longer. Successive governments have already canceled early retirement schemes and have increased the minimum pension age (to 68 years by 2030). Further measures may be announced in Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen's forthcoming 2025 economic plan.

The alternative to cutting costs, of course, is to increase revenue. But Denmark's not doing too well there either, with faltering productivity leading to an economy that's now expanding at a slower pace than the euro area's.

...

Lebech believes technology is already helping bring back to Denmark some of the 150,000 industry jobs that moved abroad after the financial crisis.

Danfoss, for example, is now able to make more sophisticated thermostats in Denmark thanks to advances in robotics and 3D printing.

Robots are also part of the solution for Helge Pedersen, chief economist at Nordea.

"Robots allow us to pull production back home," he said, but they can also "help improve the return on welfare spending."

[kbolino]

But Denmark's not doing too well there either, with faltering productivity leading to an economy that's now expanding at a slower pace than the euro area's.

But, but, socialist success story?

Where muh narrative gone?

[Princess Trigger]

Maybe import some of those friendly refugees? They seem like they'd be fine elder care workers.

[straffinrun]

Lego Wall!

[Suthenboy]

"...the return on welfare spending..."

I see.

[kbolino]

It's funny how they say a certain amount of inflation is "expected" in a modern welfare state yet turn around and say there are "returns on investment" for welfare spending. Umm, where does the inflation come from if the welfare spending has a positive ROI?

[Rufus The Monocled]

I keep having this dream where in the future Danes all become slaves to Lego people.

[Rufus The Monocled]

And what happens when the robots realize their working to keep lazy Danes on welfare?

[Zeb]

Program them to want to keep lazy Danes on welfare.

[Rhywun]

How did we ever get to a point where entire societies expect to stop working and live off other people's money for 30 years or longer? How the fuck did they think this was going to end?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

The alternative to cutting costs, of course, is to increase revenue. But Denmark's not doing too well there either, with faltering productivity leading to an economy that's now expanding at a slower pace than the euro area's.

It's nice to know that us wealthy nations are going to Holiday our way to ruin.

[Lord Humungus]

David French: The Tragic Transgender Contagion

According to this lie, parents should rejoice when their children finally identify as transgender. After all, it's the first step to becoming their "true selves." According to this lie, there is nothing to fear except discrimination itself. Once individuals embrace their true identity, only intolerance can destroy their lives. Thus the fury at dissenters. Thus the academic censorship. Because of high suicide rates in transgender populations, endorsing ideological conformity becomes a matter of life and death.

The truth, however, is stubborn. Human experience simply doesn't conform to ideological models, and the far worse damage is done when we try to impose radical ideology onto the complexities of individual, troubled lives. In reality, people are far more vulnerable to suggestion and fashion than the Left lets on.

...

Let's be clear: The vast majority of kids who experience a period of discomfort with their biological sexual identity eventually desist. Indeed, the number may well be over 90 percent. In other words, kids who are growing and learning about life and themselves sometimes endure a period of confusion.

[Auric Demonocles]

I can't wait until my children identify as trans-vampire. They'll really be embracing their true selves!

[Slammer]

That would suck.

[KWebb]

That joke bites.

[Citizen X]

That joke should never have seen the light of day.

[Hamster of Doom]

Talk about sucking a theme dry.

[Citizen X]

I guess it's time to put a stake through this joke's heart and bury it.

[Lee Genes]

I know of at least one person who believes themselves to be such.

[Auric Demonocles]

It is horribly offensive of you to use the cis-dead pronoun themselves. It should be vemselves, you bigot.

[Lord at War]

C'mon guys... where did Dracula live?

Transylvania

[Rufus The Monocled]

Fuck David French.

[Rhywun]

I think the truth lies somewhere between French's huffy dismissals and the extremes he's listing.

[Rich]

Princeton HR department: Don't use word 'man'

... suggesting "ze, zie and hir," "they and theirs," and "Ey, em, eir and emself."

But it's still OK to say "Fuck you, man!", right? RIGHT?!

[Lord Humungus]

The Man is putting us down!

[Injun, as in from India]

Language is where totalitarians begin their meddling.

This is straight out of 1984.

[Rich]

The principles of Newspeak

Trigger warning: Russian website.

[Red Rocks Okey-Dokein]

Not that the state schools are any better, but the Ivies at this point are simply hedge funds that run colleges as a hobby. Most of the cutting-edge research that's legitimately helping society is coming out of STEM schools, not the Ivy League.

[commodious es un perdedor]

I'd accept pretend pronouns well before accepting plural pronouns in reference to persons in the singular. It's a cowardly dodge for a stupid fad. If you want to embrace non-gendered language, just do it and take your lumps for sounding idiotic.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Observing your disdain for recognizing the distinction between the body royal and the body politic through social-relational deitic use of personal pronouns, one is not amused.

[Rhywun]

Ahem. Human Resources Department? For shame.

[Agent Cooper]

"Ey, em, eir and emself.""

So we're all EastEnders now?

[Krabappel]

I'm sitting in the lobby of safelite getting my windshield replaced (stupid little rock made a crack halfway across the window) and the Today show is playing and the hosts are all mindless trained animals and my brain is dying. Send help.

[Lord Humungus]

*sends St. Bernard with brandy*

[Krabappel]

I guess i should just be thankful that CNN isn't on.

Billy Bush just interviewed female olympic athletes and asked who their celebrity crushes are. I might just bash my head into the window of this building and end it all.

[Florida Hipster]

*sends Saint Bernard with tiny barrel of hard cider*

[Krabappel]

Mmm, oaked cider.

[straffinrun]

Was expecting a croc with a vial of meth.

[Florida Hipster]

Shows what you know. Krabappel is a cider fan. Also, it's my meth!

[Krabappel]

I would also have accepted a Chihuaha with a bag of weed.

[straffinrun]

How about some Flakka and Hillary's campaign schedule?

[Krabappel]

I'm not eating that face. Its probably chewy and tastes like bile.

[straffinrun]

Guess you're not a baboon. Too bad. Would've been a nice ending to the campaign.

[Krabappel]

I just watched the Firedogs episode last weekend to explain to someone the "SAVE MY BABY!" reference.

Save my horse! Save my walrus! Save my elephant! Save meeeeeee!

[Hamster of Doom]

"Yo quiero dank."

[Agammamon]

I thought these sorts of guys came to you. At least they do in states that require insurance to cover windshield breaks - free money!

[Krabappel]

They can but I work in a different city so i just wanted to get it done in the morning before work.

[Hamster of Doom]

Hold on, man!

[Krabappel]

I made it! They finished. Thanks, Dean.

[Hamster of Doom]

Ass guitar never stops being funny.

[Crusty Juggler]

I thought they came to your house or place of business.

[Lord Humungus]

What are they, escorts?

[Florida Hipster]

Crusty ironically drives a 96 escort to pick up a 96 year old escort.

[Citizen X]

Hey, an escort that age will teach you stuff! Stuff you can use!

[commodious es un perdedor]

A permanent mental block on orgasms?

[lap83]

My 90's era escort taught me at a young age about the dangers of hydroplaning

[Heroic Mulatto]

Escorting at a young age?

Go on...

[lap83]

Yes, I had an internship in Kansas City. It was a very long ride everyday and it left my bottom sore.

Like that?

[Zeb]

And many have lost their teeth, which has its advantages.

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

Finally, we're back to some creative euphemisms.

[OneOut]

*sends Kate Upton with brandy*

[Lord Humungus]

Lots Of Newspapers Discovering That Paywalls Don't Work

For many years, while some journalists (and newspaper execs) have been insisting that a paywall is "the answer" for the declining news business, we've been pointing out how fundamentally stupid paywalls are for the news. Without going into all of the arguments again, the short version is this: the business of newspapers has never really been "the news business" (no matter how much they insist otherwise). It's always been the community and attention business. And in the past they were able to command such attention and build a community around news because they didn't have much competition. But the competitive landscape for community and attention has changed (massively) thanks to the internet. And putting up a paywall makes it worse. In most cases, it's limiting the ability of these newspapers to build communities or get attention, and actively pushing people away.

And, yes, sure, people will point to the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times as proof that "paywalls work." But earth to basically every other publication: you're not one of those publications. The paywalls there only work because of the unique content they have, and even then they don't work as well as most people think.

[Auric Demonocles]

Literally right now I have an incognito window open to get around the Boston Globe's paywall for more than 5 articles a month.

[Rhywun]

I've tried incognito once or twice and it didn't work for me, at least at some other sites. Do you find it works consistently?

[Auric Demonocles]

I haven't really tried it to get around the paywall at other sites, but for the Globe it works perfectly.

[OneOut]

If they give any number of free aeticles an ingogniti window works.

[Lord at War]

Rhy

For me, it works at Wash Post, sometimes at NYT, not at WSJ

[Chipwooder]

Unless I'm mistaken, the paywall hasn't done much to reverse the NYT's financial difficulties.

[commodious es un perdedor]

And yet it continues to limp along, much to the disappointment of my ravenous desire for schadenfreude.

[Rhywun]

Hear hear. And the same goes for "anti-Adblocker" sites. Note: punishing and/or shaming your potential visitors is not a successful business model.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Who the fuck pays for the WSJ or NYT, other than other journalists?

[Mazakon]

"Benghazi Mom" Speechwriter Prefers Hillary to Trump, "Kooky Libertarian"

"I cannot vote for Donald Trump. I could never vote for Donald Trump," Cross wrote. "So instead I am confronted by two painful choices: vote for the most divisive political figure in the past 25 years or throw away my vote on a kooky Libertarian ticket."

He continued, "[T]he prospect of voting for Hillary Clinton is uncomfortable to me, as if Dr. Van Helsing were compelled to vote for Dracula. But the only prospect more terrifying than voting for Hillary Clinton is not voting for her. The reality of American politics today is, she is the only choice."

[Injun, as in from India]

Kooky libertarian ticket? Let's see.

You've got a proto-fascist thug who has verbal diarrhea running out of his mouth.
You've got a pathological liar who has lied about everything from being shot at by Bosnian snipers to circumventing FOIA through a private server.

Not kooky. No.

You've got 2 governors with decent track records. Both men are smart and better than the two major party candidates.

But they're kooky.

[Mazakon]

Well when I see a "longtime Republican" who can't pull the lever for Trump or Johnson but can for Hillary, my first thought was neocon.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Exactly.

It's like they refuse to pay attention or something.

[Chipwooder]

Johnson, sure. Weld fucking sucks.

[Zeb]

Yeah, but he's the VP candidate, so he's nothing.

[Whahappan?]

Worse than Hillary?

[Zeb]

No one is that bad.

[Free Society]

And they're not kooky per se. They try very hard to appeal to centrists and moderates of both parties.

[John DeWitt]

"Kooky Libertarian"

While I fully intend to vote for Kooky Libertarian, her choice of descriptor doesn't miss the mark by much. He has a personality fit for print.

[Zeb]

I never would have thought that being dull and awkward makes someone kooky.

[Citizen X]

That's not what makes him kooky. What makes him kooky is trying to act like politics isn't a binary proposition.

[Citizen X]

Or so i've been told by a wide variety of people.

[Suthenboy]

It is pretty clear that the trauma and grief of losing her child and having to deal with the CankleBeast has driven this poor woman insane.

[Brett L]

No, this was the speechwriter, not the mom. Some paid hack whose meal ticket is more and bigger of the same.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Is it me or do some of these sports dish off too many medals? E.g. canoe/kayak, swimming, cycling track.

[Auric Demonocles]

It's one of my complaints when people use Phelp's raw number of medals to say why he's the best athlete or even just Olympian ever. Most sports don't give you the chance to compete for 8 medals in the same Olympics. (You can make good arguments based on his dominance over others in his sport, but simply citing that he has more golds than anyone is a shitty argument)

[kinnath]

Competing for 8 medals is a lot of opportunity. It is also a lot of expended energy. Being able to dominate in lots of competitions over lots of consecutive Olympics is a pretty rare thing.

[KDN]

It's dominating at all aspects of the sport, too. It's part of the reason why Jordan (best scorer of his era offense and possibly the best perimeter defender ever) and Ruth (the only all-time hitter that was also an elite pitcher) are so widely regarded as the best at theirs despite arguments to the superiority of others, and why to this day a lot of people prefer Howe to Gretzky despite the latter's clear numerical superiority.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Howe was dominant for sure but even if you adjust the numbers as The Hockey Compendium did, Gretzky still comes out on top by most metrics and measures. He's the greatest ever.

[Rufus The Monocled]

By the way, the only two other players who are in serious contention to that mantle are Lemieux and Orr who show up in those adjustments.

[commodious es un perdedor]

Hockey? You mean ice boxing?

[KDN]

Gretzky still comes out on top by most metrics and measures. He's the greatest ever.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Imagine his great fortune: he's the greatest offensive force of all time and he manages to show up right when there was no goaltending talent and the league completely stopped caring about both goaltending technique and team defense.

Also, fuck Bobby Orr. I remain convinced that if he never came along then we wouldn't have had an era of coaches and GM's looking for every single defender to emulate him, thus skewing a whole generation's expectations of what the final score of a hockey game is supposed to be.

[Rufus The Monocled]

You're wrong about Gretzky in my opinion. The aforementioned stats discounted those factors and he still came out on top.

Also, it was the same era for a bunch of players too and he still dominated them.

[KDN]

Wrong? I granted that he's the greatest offensive player of all time and I'm even willing to say that it's not particularly close. But if you think that he's sniffing anywhere near 200 points if he was born fifteen years earlier or ten years later then you must be huffing glue.

Gretzky did his best work from 82 - 87. The top goalies in that era should have been drafted 1974 - 1978, but the only goalie worth anything drafted in that timeframe was Pete Peeters. Gretzky dominated while hacks and old men were in net. Goaltending talent began rebounding in DY 1980, and as more and more of those guys hit their primes Gretzky got worse and worse, and it's not a coincidence.

[kinnath]

Mark Spitz took 4 individual and 3 relay golds with seven world records in 72. Eric Heiden took 5 individual golds in 80. These were really, really big deals when they happened. Phelps has blown them out of the water.

[Auric Demonocles]

And Spitz is relevant if you are talking about Phelps being the greatest swimmer ever. Otherwise neither one really is.

What Phelps does have going for him is that he's been the best at his sport for 4 Olympics in a row (and by a lot). That's what actually matters, not the fact that his sport offers so many different events.

[robc]

It will be interesting to see if Bolt can come back in 4 years and dominate again.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

That's because he cups.

[Zeb]

Yeah, you can't really compare across sports, especially based on medal counts.

But it's probably fair to say Phelps is the best swimmer ever.

[Auric Demonocles]

That I have no problem with.

[Suthenboy]

I have put everything Olympics into the 'couldn't give less of a shit if I was dead' category.

[Zeb]

I like it. It's fun to see sports that do things other than run up and down a field with a ball.

And, yes, I know it's possible to watch them anytime, but I'm not enough of a sports fan to be bothered.

[Rhywun]

I like team sports but yeah I couldn't care less about the individual stuff.

[Zeb]

I'm just the opposite. I really enjoy the amazing pure athleticism in a lot of individual events.

[Zeb]

I don't care. But it does seem a bit much in some sports. But I think the number of events for each sport comes from the usual way each sport does things and isn't anything special about the Olympics.

[Auric Demonocles]

I don't care that sports have different numbers of events. I care that people ignore that and just say "most medals= best".

[Zeb]

Yeah, there is really no valid comparison there.

[Mazakon]

New Social Network "Gab" Could Be the Free Speech Alternative to Twitter

The biggest modern social networking platforms are rife with censorship, opacity and inscrutable rules governing harassment. Many conservatives feel unfairly targeted and believe their viewpoints are being suppressed.

Enter Gab.ai, a new social networking platform that hopes to be the answer to these pressing issues.

A beta version of the site, which is a lot like Twitter with hints of Reddit, was created in a remarkably short three weeks and has let in a few hundred users for testing. While the site currently only contains basic features, its founder holds lofty goals for the platform. As it stands, the site allows you to write 300-character "tweets," but also upvote and downvote them like on Reddit.

[Injun, as in from India]

My prediction: Twitter will become a leftist safe space. Gab will become a free-for-all non-leftist arena.

Both will become echo chambers.

[Juvenile Bluster]

My prediction: Twitter will continue, terrible policies and all, while Gab is relegated to the dust heap of all the other Twitter/Facebook killers.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Or it becomes the "safe space" for the absolute worst, like Voat is to Reddit.

[Agent Cooper]

Twitter isn't long for this world if it can't make any money.

[Free Society]

If the chamber echoes because it scares away the opponents of free speech, then be happy for the echo. Leftists don't win debates, they win pigeon chess. They can have that on twitter.

[Swiss Servator]

"The worst of both apps!"

[SFC B]

Oh yeah, all the terrible writing of very short blocks of text, combined with hive-mind down-voting of different opinions.

This will be terrible.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

A beta version of the site, which is a lot like Twitter with hints of Reddit, was created in a remarkably short three weeks and has let in a few hundred users for testing.

Uh, how hard is it to create software for a message board these days? Three weeks seems a little long to me.

[Lord Humungus]

I Identify As Married To A Man Who Won't Have Me, And It's So Unfair

Sometimes the bigotry I face makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning. From the moment I open my eyes, I know it will be another day of fighting to be who I really am. I have woken up some mornings to Mr. X trying to physically remove me from his bed, calling me a trespasser, a pervert, or worse.

Bathrooms cause me even more angst. Mr. X has repeatedly tried to harass me into using the bathroom in my own apartment instead of in his house. To him there is only the binary of "single" and "married," rigidly distinguished by the words of a marriage rite. To me there is the need to be acknowledged for who I really am, regardless of social norms or mutual agreements. What he can never experience is how every time I shower by myself in my own bathroom, I feel like a fraud, acting out the script society has written for me.

Those daily battles gnaw away at my soul, causing me to question my own value as a person. In my heart, I know that I was always meant to be married, but the world is constantly trying to push me back in the "single" box.

[robc]

I dislike how they put "satire" at the top.

If you have to explain that, you have already failed.

Or better yet, the fact that some people can't distinguish truth from satire makes it so much better.

[Injun, as in from India]

It was a good read though. Total mishmash of the touchy-feely you see these days.

[commodious es un perdedor]

Bathrooms cause me even more angst. Mr. X has repeatedly tried to harass me into using the bathroom in my own apartment instead of in his house.

Heh.

[Slammer]

"Be yourself," society told me, and yet at the same time it was telling me that if "being yourself" impinges on other people's identity or property, that expression of personal essence is illegitimate.

People have berated me for equating my relationship identity with sexual orientation or gender identity, all based on the claim that my self-identification imposes upon others. Yet how is my quest for equality any different from those civil rights issues?

Words mean things, and until society learns to align its language with what people feel rather than what appears to be true, words will define me and others in ways that do not allow us to be whatever we want to be.

Goddamit.

[Suthenboy]

That last sentence is gold.

[Slammer]

Dr. Jill Stein ?@DrJillStein 10h10 hours ago
Dr. Jill Stein Retweeted Medea Benjamin

Our #GreenNewDeal will create 20M living wage jobs, halt climate meltdown & make oil wars obsolete!

"If Hillary wants full employment, she should support a #GreenNewDeal to create 20M jobs by transitioning to 100% clean energy by 2030."

LOL

[kbolino]

create 20M living wage jobs*

* = after eliminating 60M jobs

[Injun, as in from India]

20 million jerbs?

I'd love to see the math on that claim.

[Rich]

Well, she includes 10.5 million honeybees and 9 million earthworms.

[Injun, as in from India]

I guess the remaining 1/2 million jobs will be bureaucrats keeping tabs on the honeybees and earthworms?

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Oh, the jobs people work at!
Out west near Hawtch-Hawtch
there's a Hawtch-Hawtcher Bee-Watcher.
His job is to watch?
is to keep both his eyes on the lazy town bee.
A bee that is watched will work harder, you see.

Well? he watched and he watched.
But, in spite of his watch,
that bee didn't work any harder. Not mawtch.

So then somebody said,
"Our old bee-watching man
just isn't bee-watching as hard as he can.
He ought to be watched by another Hawtch-Hawtcher!
The thing that we need
is a Bee-Watcher-Watcher!"

Well?

The Bee-Watcher-Watcher watched the Bee-Watcher.
He didn't watch well. So another Hawtch-Hawtcher
had to come in as a Watch-Watcher-Watcher!
And today all the Hawtchers who live in Hawtch-Hawtch
are watching on Watch-Watcher-Watchering-Watch,
Watch-Watching the Watcher who's watching that bee.
You're not a Hawtch-Watcher. You're lucky, you see!

[chemjeff]

"Pick a number between 1 and 10."
"20!"
"Close enough. 20 million new jobs it will be!"

[Rhywun]

"Now please pass the Charmin."

[Slammer]

CLIMATE MELTDOWN!

[Agammamon]

Jobs are a cost, not a benefit, of any plan to do anything.

Also, are these 'living wage jobs' or 'living wage job *equivalents*'? Ie, are we talking about 20 million jobs at $15/hr or 60 million at $5? Because the distinction was pretty important for Obamacare when deciding when businesses were going to be penalized.

[kbolino]

Created or saved, bitches!

[Fubini Baby]

How is that not considered just as vapid and deluded as anything Trump says? (I say this as someone who despises Trump)

[AddictionMyth]

I'm going go shill for Jill. Can I just say?

[Crusty Juggler]

You can say whatever you like, sweetheart.

[Rich]

"I'm jacking for Jill!"

[(((Renegade)))]

Self-driving Uber cars will soon be arriving in Pittsburgh.

I took a Lyft car when I was in LA last week. By the oddest of circumstances, the driver turned out to be Los Doyers. He drives the same way he writes.

[Injun, as in from India]

Did Lyft make you pause to think about gun violence like Uber?

[(((Renegade)))]

No, but 5 minutes with Los Doyers did. Though not the way Uber intends.

[commodious es un perdedor]

*deletes Uber app, downloads Lyft*

[Citizen X]

He drives the same way he writes.

So, while tripping balls and masturbating?

[(((Renegade)))]

On the lookout for Brazilian trannies. "Hey, Jew, look at the bulge on HER!"

[Citizen X]

LD: "Excuse me. You're not one of those silly men who dresses up like a woman, are you?"
Hooker: "No, baby, i'm all wom-"
LD: [peels out]

[Heroic Mulatto]

[insert soundtrack here]

[Citizen X]

Hell yes.

[Los Doyers]

You don't maintain a 4.95 rating without a bit of jerking off at a red light.

[Lord Humungus]

Venezuela crushes 2,000 guns in public, plans registry of bullets

Gangs often get weapons from the police, either by stealing them or buying them from corrupt officers, experts say.

With inflation of 185 percent in 2015 and a currency collapse, police salaries have fallen far behind rising prices creating more incentives for corruption.

President Nicolas Maduro promoted Reverol this month, days after the United States accused the former anti-drugs tsar of taking bribes from cocaine traffickers.

"We are going to bring disarmament and peace," Reverol told reporters, while police officers drilled and sawed at rusty shotguns, home made pistols and some newer weapons.

Other guns were crushed in truck-mounted presses. Some members of the public watched, although more danced to a nearby sound system playing salsa music.

Venezuela has also bought laser technology to mark ammunition, Reverol said, in an attempt to keep a registry of the bullets given out to the South American nation's many state and municipal police forces.

[Injun, as in from India]

Some members of the public watched, although more danced to a nearby sound system playing salsa music.

A nation of sheep will, in time, beget a government of wolves.

[commodious es un perdedor]

Ancient Indian proverb?

[Rhywun]

Indian Calgon, take me away!

[kbolino]

Venezuela has also bought laser technology to mark ammunition, Reverol said, in an attempt to keep a registry of the bullets given out to the South American nation's many state and municipal police forces.

But who is going to keep a registry of the bullet-tracking lasers? I imagine those things, sold on the black market, could buy some food and other supplies.

I mean seriously, you have a problem with police equipment disappearing. Your answer is to buy even more expensive equipment?

[tarran]

The point is to ID who is selling their government issued bullets on the black market.

I doubt the crooks particularly care about etching their bullets with anything.

Naturally, the pro-governemnt gangs will continue to get issued unstamped bullets... meaning they will be offered even more money to sell off their ammo.

[Injun, as in from India]

The crooks will start making their own ammo. It's not hard.

[Drake]

AKs and G3s are pretty easy to come by in Central / Northern South America.

[Suthenboy]

Maduro is racing headlong into his role as the latest Pol Pot. One of those laser-marked bullets has his name o it but there will be mountains of skulls before that happens.

I just keep thinking of all the idiots here who cheered this on in its early stages and are now silent. We have always had those evil morons. They cheered and covered for Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, etc. I hope they all burn in hell.

[Injun, as in from India]

Venezuela needs a successful coup d'etat.

[Rhywun]

And a real one, not whatever the hell just happened in Turkey.

[Drake]

I think we found the place all the people threatening to leave the U.S. if Trump wins can go. It has everything the Democrats have been promising.

[Crusty Juggler]

Omaha dad finds pot brownies, eats 4 of them, says mean things to cat

Omaha police officers were called to a house near 90th and Maple Streets about 9:45 p.m. Tuesday to investigate an accidental overdose. They learned that a 53-year-old man had been unloading groceries and found some brownies in the back seat of a car that his adult children had used earlier in the day.

The man ate four of the brownies.

The man's wife told police that as she and her husband were watching TV, he noted that he was getting "bad anxiety." She tried to call their children to ask them what was in the brownies but couldn't reach them. (The woman told officers that she would rather not provide her children's names because she thought they could get in trouble. An Omaha police spokesman said the investigation into the matter has concluded.)

While police were at the house, one of the couple's children arrived and told officers the brownies belonged to his siblings. He told them he was "pretty sure it was just marijuana in the brownies," according to a police report.

[Crusty Juggler]

Paramedics called to the scene who checked the man found his vital signs to be normal. But they noted that he was displaying odd behavior ? crawling around on the floor, randomly using profanities and calling the family cat a "bitch."

The man told paramedics he felt like "he's trippin'." He declined their offer to be taken to the hospital.

Ban brownies.
Ban children.
Ban bitches.

[Fubini Baby]

They should have filmed him and put it on YouTube. The death of Tourette's Guy has left a gaping hole in our collective hearts.

[Fubini Baby]

This is why Nebraska took Colorado to the SCOTUS

[straffinrun]

found some brownies in the back seat of a car that his adult children had used earlier in the day.

If those were used, they weren't brownies.

[Hamster of Doom]

The man ate four of the brownies.

Tch. Greedy bugger wasn't going to feel well anyway.

/Grandma told you

[Brett L]

Four pot brownies will fuck you up. But its not like no one ever accidentally drank spiked punch and got fucked up.

[B.P.]

Yeah, four pot brownies is a pretty rough trip. But really, what pig is scarfing down four regular brownies anyway?

[commodious es un perdedor]

Omaha man bogarts brownies, gets his just desserts.

[Citizen X]

Sweet wordplay, dude.

[commodious es un perdedor]

Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

[kilroy]

Marlin Perkins would never stand for this.

[Crusty Juggler]

'The worst place on earth': inside Assad's brutal Saydnaya prison

nmates were constantly blindfolded or forced to kneel and cover their eyes when guards entered their cells, so sound became the key sense by which they navigated and measured their environment ? and therefore one of the chief tools with which the Forensic team could reconstruct the prison layout. Using a technique of "echo profiling", sound artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan was able to determine the size of cells, stairwells and corridors by playing different reverberations and asking witnesses to match them with sounds they remembered hearing in the prison.

Another detainee recounts details of the "welcome party" ? the terrifying initiation ceremony that awaited new arrivals, fresh off one of the "meat fridge" trucks used to transport prisoners, clueless to their whereabouts until the doors clanged open. Beatings with metal bars and cables were followed by so-called "security checks", during which women in particular were subjected to rape and sexual assault by male guards. "As we waited for our turn, we heard the sounds of beating, of people falling out of the truck, we heard people scream," says Jamal Abdou. "Everyone was screaming ? the guards and the prisoners."

[AddictionMyth]

Now see, this is why we must keep bombing Syria - in case some escape. Once they are radicalized in prison they can become extremely dangerous.

[Suthenboy]

Actually, I think the human slaughterhouses that the anti-Assad rebels operate where people are sacrificed to allah by having their throats cut and then are laid out on a table and chopped up for human consumption make Saydnaya prison look like Disneyland.

[AddictionMyth]

They're witches! Witches I tell ya! I seen em eating each other!

[Heroic Mulatto]

Tell us more about the perfidy of World Jewry.

[AddictionMyth]

Ask Jill - she explains it better than me.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Dr. Stein?

Why would I fall for the disinformation campaign of a Zionist lizard person operative?

C'mon, son!

[AddictionMyth]

Tell us more about the perfidy of World Jewry.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Wait, what?

[Suthenboy]

I am not looking up the videos. I did it once before and posted them.

Someone snuck a video camera in where the 'good terrorists' were operating a slaughterhouse for christians and pro-Assad people and got video of it. The videos are out there if you care to look and can stomach it. I cant.

Also, there are lots of reports of migran...invaders, showing up in Europe who are afflicted with kuru. Those are easier to find.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I do remember this shit.

I had no idea though that it was so systematic.

[Lee Genes]

In their defense, it was Mogwa who taught them how to defeat the grayhairs.

[mashed potatoes]

saw this story and the story with the kid that survived the bomb blast comb out this morning.. really starting the war propaganda and war drums for a Hillary presidency.. I thought they would wait longer

[Rhywun]

Because a civil war in Syria needs to involve America because...?

I'm guessing they leave that part out.

[mashed potatoes]

Because Hillary gets tens of millions from the Saudis and GCC, and the Saudis and GCC want a sunni Syria after Iraq fell to the shia..

our policy is for sale..

[lafe.long]

Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith: Disney Reportedly Alters Gesture Made in Attraction's Video

Patrons waiting to ride the Disney's Hollywood Studios' ride are shown a video featuring Aerosmith. A thumb-to-ring finger motion made by singer Steven Tyler was digitally altered, outlets reported.

-1 Shocker

[Agent Cooper]

My son and I just rode this last year (4 times in a row ... he liked it.) and I never even noticed the gesture.

[tarran]

Remember that whole Exxon were hiding knowledge of AGW from investors crap that Joe and his fellow travelers have been peddling?

It turns out the wheels came off the bus just as it was trying to get on the highway.

Newly released records show even ideologically aligned state attorneys general offices privately voiced concerns from the beginning of the abusive campaign to use anti-racketeering laws and other investigations to silence political opposition to the President's climate agenda, a campaign spearheaded by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The unease was found even among AGs personally recruited to the crusade by Schneiderman's office.

Emails just released by the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) capture these concerns. One AG's office, which bailed on Schneiderman, characterized him internally as a "wild card" after the March 28, 2016 organizational meeting in New York City. Other records just released show AG offices requesting that Schneiderman's team back off of its rhetorical overreach about their efforts to date. Still more seek restraint in touting the prospects that others would join in "investigations" Schneiderman called for using the AGs' law enforcement powers to target dozens of conservative organizations and think tanks.

[Lee Genes]

So were they more worried about the illegality of the project or the bad proggie press if they didn't go along with the shenanigans? Seems to me they were just a tad bit torn on the issue,

[Suthenboy]

This is the single worst thing the left has done to date, and that is saying a lot. And yet, barely any coverage on the MSM or much outrage at all.

[Free Society]

Because this witch-hunt has good intentions. Saving the world! Law and ethics rank below saving the world. Which is why it's so important that we tie every conceivable issue to global warming to get our way. /Leftist Scum

[GILMORE?]

Unless the media covers this, it won't matter.

[lafe.long]

Dr. Drew Pinsky: Physician and TV Host Says He Is 'Gravely Concerned' About Hillary Clinton's Health Care

"We were gravely concerned not just about her health, but her health care," he said on 'Midday Live' after reviewing Clinton's records. "She's receiving sort of 1950s level care by our evaluation."

[Crusty Juggler]

She is smoking Luckies and having a scotch and soda to combat her feminine hysteria?

[commodious es un perdedor]

Prediction: the next four years are going to be conducted Weekend at Bernie's-style with Abadin and Mills propping her up.

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

I saw a clip of her walking to the stage with Joe Biden the other day. She looked in worse shape than my grandmother did at 85.

If the call does come at 3AM, she's gonna break a hip trying to respond.

[commodious es un perdedor]

She'll not be taking any 3 am call, it'll be Sidney Blumenthal.

[Lord Humungus]

The Era of 'The Bitch' Is Coming
A Hillary Clinton presidential victory promises to usher in a new age of public misogyny.

llary Clinton wins the White House in November, it will be a historic moment, the smashing of the preeminent glass ceiling in American public life. A mere 240 years after this nation's founding, a woman will occupy its top office. America's daughters will at last have living, breathing, pantsuit-wearing proof that they too can grow up to be president.

A Clinton victory also promises to usher in four-to-eight years of the kind of down-and-dirty public misogyny you might expect from a stag party at Roger Ailes's house.

You know it's coming. As hyperpartisanship, grievance politics, and garden-variety rage shift from America's first black commander-in-chief onto its first female one, so too will the focus of political bigotry. Some of it will be driven by genuine gender grievance or discomfort among some at being led by a woman. But in plenty of other cases, slamming Hillary as a bitch, a c**t (Thanks, Scott Baio!), or a menopausal nut-job (an enduringly popular theme on Twitter) will simply be an easy-peasy shortcut for dismissing her and delegitimizing her presidency.

[AddictionMyth]

Kind of assumes the alt-right doesn't have a big cool-aid party before the inauguration.

[Brett L]

Fuck these people right in the ass. Like they didn't do the exact same fucking thing to Sarah Palin. More reaping of the whirlwind.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I'm convinced that one of the reasons Condi Rice never ran for office was she knew the depth of the vile invective that would have been thrown at her by the Left for the "intersectionality" of being a Black, female conservative.

[Chipwooder]

Which makes sense, considering how much of that she received just for being Secretary of State.

[Auric Demonocles]

Or all the ape/monkey insults about W.

[Juice]

100% deserved though

[Crusty Juggler]

There was not one mention of Sarah Palin in that article. I am shocked!

[Red Rocks Okey-Dokein]

When she finally croaks, I know I'll be celebrating the way the left did Thatcher's death, so there's that.

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

Unless she dies in office, I don't get the appeal. I'll celebrate when she retires from public life and influence. Granted, unlike Thatcher or the Bushes, that is likely to be the same day she croaks.

[Free Society]

The appeal is that a corrupt civilization destroying sociopath is dead.

[mashed potatoes]

saw this story and the story with the kid that survived the bomb blast comb out this morning.. really starting the war propaganda and war drums for a Hillary presidency.. I thought they would wait longer

[commodious es un perdedor]

I am baffled shocked confused mystified totally unsurprised by the left's routine gender partisanship. Merely being a woman, even if a corrupt, self-serving, and amoral woman, is enough to enjoy their unquestioning approbation. I'm not sure what message this really is meant to send women other than: your qualifications and history don't actually matter, just your tits.

Yet it's Hillary's detractors who are misogynists. Right.

[mojoe]

And this differs from the 'If you disagree with Obama politically, you're a raaaccisttt!!!1!, how?

[lafe.long]

Belgrade, Serbia: Protestors Chant 'Vote for Trump' During US Vice President Joe Biden's Visit to City

The demonstration was led by the head of Serbia's ultranationalist Radical Party, Vojislav Seselj. Activists gathered outside Parliament wearing Donald Trump t-shirts and holding "Vote Trump" signs.

[lafe.long]

Belgrade, Serbia: Protestors Chant 'Vote for Trump' During US Vice President Joe Biden's Visit to City

[Lee Genes]

Yeah, they don't like Clintons there.

[ant1sthenes]

Can't imagine why.

[lafe.long]

Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board: Agency Eases Wine Sales Laws, Will Allow Direct Shipments to Homes

The law allows Pennsylvanians to order up to 36 nine-liter cases of wine shipped to their homes by licensed wine producers, the board said this week. More than 100 companies have applied for licenses.

[Injun, as in from India]

The blood of all the people dying from alcohol poisoning and liver cirrhosis will be on their hands!

[AddictionMyth]

And of course, "When your family is killed by a wrong-way drunk driver, you'll be changing your tune."

[DEG]

One day Pennsylvania liquor laws will become sane.

Stop laughing.

[commodious es un perdedor]

The day the bombs fall and the monopoly stores are looted by survivors?

[lafe.long]

eBay: UK Blogger Says She's Listed Wedding Dress on Site to Pay for Divorce From Husband

'It will need a dry clean first to rid the stench of betrayal... If you've got any questions either about the dress or the skank that my husband ran off with, feel free to contact me'

[Brett L]

You know who else will be soon arriving in Pittsburgh? Me. I am there Tuesday and Wednesday night down near the Strip District (?) if any reasonoids are around. Sloopy and banjos can vouch for me as a real person. Email me at the link in my name.

[Certified Public Asshat]

Fist lives near Pittsburgh, try and verify that he is a real person.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Near is a relative term. Come to think of it, so is lives.

[Certified Public Asshat]

Brett seems like a normal enough guy. We'll blindfold him, and then dump him in one of those automated Ubers to have him come out to the compound.

[Fist of Etiquette]

All those autonomous Ubers are going to end up in the Mon. Mark my words.

[AddictionMyth]

The corrupt, lying media stole the election from Trump. I'm not voting for him because the whole system is rigged against us.

[Ken Shultz]

Try to imagine the Rio Olympics from Brazil's perspective.

When Brazil won the the right to host the Olympics, everyone was talking about Brazil like it was going to be a world class power like China only much better.

Since then, the economy goes to hell, and every public official from the President down to dogcatcher is either being impeached or indicted. You go through tremendous political turmoil and spend money you don't have to present Brazil to the world as a new modern nation with an amazing culture and a bright future only to have the world treat it like coeds in Cancun for spring break.

Instead of being impressed by how amazing the place is, everyone in the West is talking about the place like it's a crime ridden sewer of a banana republic, with corrupt officials, corrupt police, the kind of place where (like most of the developing world) you can't drink the water, where the police prey on tourists along with the local criminals, and besides that, they say place is rife with exotic viruses that will deform your baby's head.

The Brazilian government sold these games to their people as a righteous expense to show the world the best of Brazil, but the world makes fun of them at their debutante ball instead for their pretentiousness--for being a third world pig in a dress. Brazil is a proud country! And then this American shows up and claims that the special police they hired to keep the athletes safe robbed him at gunpoint.

[geo1113]

I don;t know...I'll just watch these chicks do the high jump.

[Illocust]

Huh, that is a very well thought out point.

[robc]

Try keeping the pool blue.

[tarran]

And then this American shows up and claims that the special police they hired to keep the athletes safe robbed him at gunpoint.

Did he? He said they were robbed by men, one of whom produced a police badge to detain them, and then a gun to rob them.

But maybe you're right; and even if he were robbed, he should have kept his whore mouth shut, huh?

[Ken Shultz]

No, I think the political realities in Brazil should magically realign themselves to something they're not because some naive Olympic athlete wasn't smart enough to understand his role.

[Suthenboy]

Those idiots were stupid enough to talk about that?

You keep your money in your shoe. You put a few bucks in your pocket for the muggers. You give them the money and go about your business. You don't whine about it or call the cops.

Idiots.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

The story now is they got drunk and, when a gas station attendant told them to use a bathroom outside, they vandalized it and urinated on the gas station. The attendant called security who pulled a gun on them and the gas station employees demanded money to pay for the damage to the bathroom door. When they got back, Lochte told the media (did he report it to the police?) the story about being held up in their taxi.

And it looks like Lochte knew it was BS and left for the US on the first flight out?

Apparently, there is video of the incident, too.

I wonder why the Bentz, Conger, and Feigan didn't leave, too.

I also wonder if they backed up Locate's story.

[Drake]

So instead of investigating, swearing this shit never happens, and apologizing - they double down on stupid and try to bully the athletes? That kind of stupid thuggishness isn't going to improve their image.

[tarran]

Yeah, it's shocking that the Brazilian federal government, the provincial governments and the city government have a reputation for being a corrupt set of kleptocratic parasites.

[Ken Shultz]

"So instead of investigating, swearing this shit never happens, and apologizing - they double down on stupid and try to bully the athletes? That kind of stupid thuggishness isn't going to improve their image."

I'm not saying Brazil's behavior is justified. I'm saying their reaction to this was foreseeable and should have been foreseen.

At this point, they're not trying to justify themselves to the world. They're trying to justify this to their own people--who paid for this bad publicity with their taxes thinking it would be a tourism advertisement and a source of national pride.

[GILMORE?]

They're trying to justify this to their own people--who paid for this bad publicity with their taxes thinking it would be a tourism advertisement and a source of national pride.

yeah. That's a good point.

They know they can't resurrect their reputation w/ the outside world. But they can certainly appeal to patriotism and pride and turn what should be an embarrassment into defensiveness in order to prevent the public turning on the organizers & politicos who blew billions on this circus.

[Rhywun]

they can certainly appeal to patriotism and pride and turn what should be an embarrassment into defensiveness in order to prevent the public turning

Hey, it worked for China post-1989.

[Suthenboy]

A one hundred year old joke is "Brazil is the country of the future. And it always will be."

[commodious es un perdedor]

only to have the world treat it like coeds in Cancun for spring break.

Better than treating it like a shooting gallery, I suppose.

[Juice]

and every public official from the President down to dogcatcher is either being impeached or indicted.

Sounds like a good start.

[Mickey Rat]

Truth often hurts.

Throwing a tantrum about it only makes one look worse.

[Ken Shultz]

One time coming back across the border into Mexico from Belize, I was singled out from among the other passengers on a local commuter bus by Mexican border officials--probably for being American. Americans don't usually come across that checkpoint that way. These border officials looked and acted like they'd come out of central casting for corrupt Central American officials, the kind who would might take you out back behind the coils of razor wire (they had walls of the stuff), set the dogs on you (which they had in abundance), and bet on how long you can stay alive. Even their uniforms, hats, ribbons, and medals made them look like colonel Gaddafi.

The bus left without me.

The head honcho had three questions for me. He wanted to know 1) If I'd paid my visa fee to come across the border, 2) What I thought of his country, and 3) What I thought of the way I was being treated.

When people come to the U.S. and talk shit about America, it makes me want to punch them in mouth. No one should be surprised if going to Brazil and talking shit about Brazil pisses off the Brazilians

[Lee Genes]

Talking shit and saying you were robbed at gunpoint are two different things.

[Ken Shultz]

Not when the point of the games was to use America's athletes as a means to buck the historic perception of Brazil as a corrupt cesspool, where the local criminals rob tourists with impunity and the police are either unable to help or on the take.

[Lee Genes]

That's on the Brazilians and their collective insecurity.

[Ken Shultz]

I'm not saying what they're doing is right. I'm saying what the Brazilians are doing is understandable and predictable.

If you don't want to put yourself in the middle of a Brazilian shit-storm because you actively undermined the whole purpose of the Brazilian government (which is currently undergoing impeachment proceedings) suffering withering criticism for spending billions in taxpayer money on the Olympics? There's an easy way to avoid that.

Can you guess what it is?

[tarran]

Not go there? Boycott the Olympics?

Done and done!

[Ken Shultz]

Or you might watch what you say to the cameras until you get out of the country.

For your health!

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

Wasn't it exacerbated by the Olympics commission trying to smother the story?

[Lee Genes]

I'd go for predictable, if the person making the prediction is not a twenty something athlete obsessed with nothing other than personal performance and partying.

[Ken Shultz]

+1

[Juvenile Bluster]

The government of Brazil once tried to sue FOX for an episode of The Simpsons.

[DEG]

Cars for sale at Pebble Beach

There's an Omni listed:

Auctioneers: RM Auctions
Est. value: $40,000 - $60,000

Admittedly, $60,000 might sound like an awful lot for a 1980s Dodge Omni. This isn't just any regular Dodge Omni, though. This is the Dodge Omni GLHS, a high-performance model engineered with assistance from Carroll Shelby, a man famously obsessed with speed. Known for cars like the Shelby Cobra and Shelby Mustangs, he called this model one of his personal favorites. An even faster version of the Omni GLH (Goes Like Hell), the GLHS (Goes Like Hell, S'more) had a 175 horsepower turborcharged four cylinder and upgraded suspension. Adding significant extra value is the fact that this one was Carroll Shelby's own personal car.

[Juvenile Bluster]

That last line seems awfully significant.

[Drake]

And awfully hard to believe.

Hmm, what to drive today? The Ford GT, the Cobra, Maserati 450S...? I know, The Omni!

I suppose he had lots of "personal" cars and some were used more often than others.

[Chipwooder]

Absolutely. That's why George paid more for Jon Voight's LeBaron.

[commodious es un perdedor]

THE Jon Voight?!

[perlchpr]

The police union in Cincinnati says officers won't wear body cameras unless the city pays them extra.

"Wear the cameras or we won't pay you at all."