Trump's Hollywood Walk of Fame Star Destroyed, Waco Miniseries Coming to Spike TV, Universe May Not Be Expanding at Alarming Rate: P.M. Links

• 

  NASA

  A vandal destroyed Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood walk of fame

• Pro-immigration protesters in New York City stopped traffic across the George Washington Bridge.
• The Pentagon will no longer seek reimbursement from California National Guard soldiers who were wrongly paid recruitment bonuses for signing up.
• Islamic State fighters have halted the advance of Iraqi forces south of Mosul.
• Russia is sending an armada into the Mediterranean Sea as their military operations in Syria ramp up.
• Spike TV picked up the mini-series Waco, about the 1993 FBI siege of the Branch Davidians.
• The universe may not be expanding at an accelerating rate, according to scientists at Oxford.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

A vandal destroyed Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood walk of fame

Why is everyone making this popularity contest political?

[Ted S.]

One could only imagine the wailing if somebody destroyed an Obama statue.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

That'd be racist, obviously. Destroying Trump-related things demonstrates that you hate racism and embrace tolerance. It's okay to be violent toward non-goodthinkers.

[gaoxiaen]

Why does Trump have a star there?

[gaoxiaen]

Oh. For that crappy TV show that I never watched.

[jesse.in.mb]

Gutentag

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

[DEG]

Hello. I'm late today.

[bacon-magic]

You leave Rufus alone you bully!

[DEG]

Bully? Rufus is of Italian descent. I'm certain he knows people.

[bacon-magic]

I do have Irish blood in me...we've been known to hang out with the Italians. *sharpens ice pick

[DEG]

I have Irish ancestry too.

[bacon-magic]

Top o' the evening to you. *raises glass of whiskey(shots are for pussies)

[Rufus The Monocled]

O'Vito!

[bacon-magic]

Bonjovo to you to, eh?

[Pope Jimbo]

Have you told the father yet?

[Tonio]

Heh.

[DEG]

I'm the father.

[Zero Sum Game]

I thought that most of the pictures of Trump have been specifically chosen with his mouth open in a way that looks like he's a suckerfish that's been genetically crossed with a pumpkin and stuck to the side of an aquarium mostly as a political gag. It's the same way all the Clinton photos make her look like a ghoul. That's not really a gag, though. She just looks like that all the time, even in the photos where they're trying to flatter her. Someone pointed out that a frame-grab of her about to laugh makes it look like she's about to unhinge her jaw and eat a baby off-camera, which is pretty apt to be honest.

Shit, that 2007 photo of him receiving the star is the same thing. Long-running gag to frame-grab the suckerfish look, or he really just always looks like he's trying to catch bugs the way whales strain plankton?

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

A vandal destroyed Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood walk of fame

Good boy!

Woof!

[flye]

Yeah! Now do Steve Guttenberg.

[thrakkorzog]

Like The Stonecutters would let that happen.

[C. Anacreon]

Impressive knowledge of a mumbled line in a 20-year-old drunken song!
You win the internets for today.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

Oh come on. Everyone knows who keeps the metric system down and controls the British pound.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Ah yes, good old left-wing violence. Me right. Me can smash!'

[Domestic Dissident]

Mofo's gutter brownshirts are fundamentally psychopaths.

[C. Anacreon]

Ah yes, good old left-wing violence. Me right. Me can smash!

Me go pee-pee in his Coke.

[Pope Jimbo]

Or you could just steal a bunch of Trump signs, then write about it.

[TheZeitgeist]

Despite the rosy polls, pretty slim pickings if one is out to steal Hillary signs, even in the bluest waters. For instance, I see more faded Obama/Biden bumper stickers in Santa Monica than 'Stronger Together' claptrap.

Shit, I see more faded Ron Paul bumper stickers than Hillary stickers on West Side.

Trump paraphernalia is, obviously, non-existent (hence the going to Hollywood sidewalks in desperation).

[Michael]

Holy fuck, that is pathetic.

[Tonio]

And speaking of clueless celebrities who think they are entitled to tell the rest of us how to think: Why the Press Wants to Stop Celebrities Like Me from Talking About the Migrant Crisis

Oh, Lily Allen, you poor dear.

(continued...)

[Tonio]

Some of the anger felt familiar. People thought it was wrong for someone who has money to moralize on behalf of everyone else. In the Sun, it ran the headline, "Maybe they could stay in your lovely ?2m pad, Lily?"?"they" presumably being thousands of child refugees in Calais and tens of thousands more in Greece.

No, Lily, people are upset because your ideas are bad, not because of who you are.

You, who admits she lives in a bubble, are unlikely to suffer negative consequences from that. You will never encounter those refugees on your street, in your neighborhood, on a bus, etc. It's the people without ?2m homes, chauffered vehicles, etc who will encounter these people.

(continued...)

[Pan Zagloba]

Maybe they could stay in your lovely ?2m pad, Lily?"?"they" presumably being thousands of child refugees in Calais and tens of thousands more in Greece.

I note that you are taking exactly zero in, Lilly. So maybe, The Sun has a point that you give zero fucks if an iota of actual effort on your part is required?

[Scott Foval, Jr.]

You're not going to give her any credit for goodthink?

[TheZeitgeist]

It's the people without ?2m homes, chauffered vehicles, etc who will encounter these people.

I'm sure she encounters these people every day - doing her yard work, for instance.

[Tonio]

Others are more subtle: The furore about whether or not some refugees may have lied about their ages is not really about whether these refugees can enter the country; it's about creating the narrative that people trying to come here aren't asking for our help, but trying to dupe us, take advantage of the system. The hope is that this will make us less trusting of them next time around.

Wow, that's some smug cuntery you got going on there, Lil, presuming that you know what other people are thinking better than they themselves do.

And it really is about the ages. Those people have demonstrably tried to dupe us about basic info like their ages.

Rotherham, Lily, Rotherham.

(end)

[RBS]

Yeah, she really cunted it up.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

"Rotherham, Lily, Rotherham."

Always struck me as less of a problem about immigrants, more of a problem of employing PC pussies as cops.

A 'MURICAN cop would've just seen a furtive motion and shot all the suspected sex traffickers, and probably get some of the victims caught in the crossfire.

[Scott Foval, Jr.]

Christ, what an asshole. Lily, not you, Tonio. Good find.

[Tonio]

Well, me, too, but her much more so. Thanks, Junior.

[Pan Zagloba]

People keep mentioning Rotherham, but I much prefer* the Rochdale case.

Because in addition to the usual stuff about not investigating, it dragging on for years etc, Rochadle is a city in which child services removed children from foster parents because parents were UKIP members.

*you know what I mean. Hopefully.

[Rhywun]

Such a nasty country.

[John Titor]

Glorious Britannia died a long time ago. Now it's sort of like the Imperium of Man, it's centuries past its golden age and dying a slow death of decay, stagnation and tyranny.

[Ted S.]

Now you know how non-bien pensant celebrities feel.

[C. Anacreon]

To be a 'celebrity' aren't people supposed to have heard of you? I have no idea who this person is, and she doesn't look young, so it's not like she's some new starlet I haven't come across yet.

It seemed like she spent the entire piece bragging about how she's rich and famous rather than say anything truly profound. This all seems like a publicity stunt (and it worked, because now at least the HnR crowd has heard of her).

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

"We just had a vote, and 52 percent of people voted to leave the European Union because of immigration, and I really can't speak for them, but let me apologize on behalf of the other 48 percent who, I think, roughly feel the same as me."

*sigh*

[Free Society]

So she thinks the media is trying stop a celebrity from wagging her finger at people who don't want the middle east to relocate to Europe. What fucking media is she talking about? Because her level of understanding of the standard talking points, tells me that she consumes a great deal of pro-migrant media.

[Chipwooder]

Who the hell is Lily Allen?

Nevermind, I don't care.

[thrakkorzog]

Theon Greyjoy's IRL sister.

[GILMORE?]

British pop singer. Early in her career she had a song which made a minor splash in the US, but was never heard of again.

[John Titor]

The fuck's a Lily Allen?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Sassy little British pop vixen. I liked the one album she did that kind of splashed.

[Gray Ghost]

Her opinion on Calais may be idiotic, but her music's (22, The Fear, Alfie, etc...) hilarious.

If I couldn't listen to any artist whose politics I disagreed with, I wouldn't be left with much of Hollywood, the music, or the publishing industry.

[Brochettaward]

Don't know, but, based on Google, she can derp all of me any time.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Pro-immigration protesters in New York City stopped traffic across the George Washington Bridge.

So New Jersey Democrat Chris Christie was protesting immigration laws a couple years ago?

[John]

It is amazing how these people are not bright enough to understand how much that hurts their cause.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

Yep, if they were SMART they'd put some "Make America Great" hats on and THEN have their protest.

[John]

No. They would not block traffic and give the entire population of New York City a reason to hate them.

[Horatio]

Is the fact that they're banding together to prevent humans from moving across a border unintentionallly ironic or *the point* you think?

[bacon-magic]

Silly point since they don't own it.

[Red Rocks Dickin Bimbos]

I suspect there are lot of people in both NY and NJ who wouldn't mind putting up a wall on the state line.

[TheZeitgeist]

They did get somebody else to pay for it.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

So not pissing people off is a smarter strategy than pretending to be the opposition and THEN pissing people off??

[John]

Oh. I misunderstood you. I am not sure even the media is dumb enough to fall for a bunch of Mexicans blocking traffic in the name of Trump. But you never know.

[Hyperion]

Hey, it worked great for Occupy and BLM... oh never mind.

[John]

Police are now held in higher esteem by the public than ever before. That is because BLM made criticizing the cops synonymous with hating the entire country. The stupid mother fuckers couldn't have done a better job helping the police if they had been a false flag operation created to discredit those seeking police accountability and reform.

Whenever Libertarians roll out the Liberaltarian dream and talk about the need to work with Progs, people need to point out BLM and the huge amount of damage they have done to the Libertarian cause of police accountability. Progs are fucking retarded. You don't want them on your side.

[PurityDiluting]

I see more "we support our police" yard signs than Trump/Clinton/Johnson ones

[Deep Lurker]

I'm cynical about the surveys purporting to show that police are held in higher esteem. Given all the news about police brutality and misconduct, I'd expect people who have a low opinion of cops to keep their mouths shut, out of fear. Especially to some random stranger who comes out of nowhere to ask questions, and who one has no reason to trust.

Or they might even lie to the pollsters, out of that same fear.

[John]

What has happened is that a bunch of people who had no opinion on the issue now have one and have sided with the cops thanks to BLM. Most people have very little interaction with the police and hadn't given the issue much thought until BLM came along and gave them a reason. One of the biggest reasons why police are so unaccountable is that it is a problem that doesn't effect most people and that most people don't understand exists or if they do don't understand the extent of the problem. All BLM did was introduce those people to the problem and cause them to conclude that the only problem is a bunch of thug lowlifes who hate the country and the police by extension.

It is going to take a very long time to undo the damage they have done.

[Bill Dalasio]

Given all the news about police brutality and misconduct, I'd expect people who have a low opinion of cops to keep their mouths shut, out of fear.

Or, more likely, you're an outlier. Even most people who pay very close attention to the news, and only on a limited number of sources, run across these stories on a regular basis.

[John Titor]

That is because BLM made criticizing the cops synonymous with hating the entire country. The stupid mother fuckers couldn't have done a better job helping the police if they had been a false flag operation created to discredit those seeking police accountability and reform.

The dumbest way to ever market your idea to mainstream America is to be anti-patriotic. Sure, you can be anti-government, but you always have to frame it as how the government is fucking up what America is. The smart (or at least moderately self-aware) movements always try and come off like their ideas are the patriotic thing to do. So Martin Luther King Jr. uses long standing American legal values and Christian ideals to prove he's right, while BLM just decries the entire society as racist. Guess who succeeds.

[John]

And the civil rights movement was very savvy at picking its designated victims. When they decided to go after segregation on public transit, they didn't choose some black teenager with a criminal record to go and sit at the front of the bus. They had Rosa Parks, who looked like someone's grandmother, do it. They picked a symbol that everyone found sympathetic.

BLM, being retarded, don't pick victims of police like small children or old ladies that everyone could find sympathetic. No, BLM is retarded so champion the causes career criminals and thugs who are shot by the police. And they just can't understand why they never get anywhere.

[tarran]

What makes you think they're retarded?

They aren't trying to fix a problem and get on with their lives. They are trying to make a permanent problem that will employ them comfortably for life.

It's rather brilliant, if you have no self-respect.

[John]

Fair point. Whatever the reason, anyone who thinks Libertarians can work with Progs is delusional.

[Tonio]

Fist wins the coveted [golf clap] for this thread.

[Rich]

Seconded.

After all, it's all about the intent.

[Dick N. Bimbose (n?e Cooper)]

Why is blocking public roads tolerated?

At the very least, they could delay emergency services to a needed site.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Spike TV picked up the mini-series Waco, about the 1993 FBI siege of the Branch Davidians.

Holy shit? with Clinton in the election.

I wonder if they're going to admit it was a gun control raid?

[flye]

Series should be a real barn burner.

[Fist of Etiquette]

TOO SOON

[Playa Manhattan.]

Oh yeah. It's going to be a real killer.

[Florida Hipster]

It's going to be a real "children murder by the government."

I'm not sure I did that right.

[jesse.in.mb]

Eh, good enough for government work.

[flye]

SPOILER ALERT

[John Titor]

The 'Ruby Ridge' spinoff is probably going to be a lot more short-lived.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Have you ever read about Ruby Ridge? There's a real fuck up.

Randy Weaver and a neighbor go to court over a land dispute. Weaver wins. The neighbor retaliates by sending the FBI, White House, etc., letters threatening to kill President Reagan and Pope John Paul II. Weaver gets word of what's happened (but not who's doing it) and writes to the FBI that someone is writing letters under his name to implicate him in a various assassination plots and states that he has nothing to do with those letters. The FBI responds to Weaver's letter by investigating Weaver and threatening him with prosecution if he doesn't become an informant for the FBI against a white supremacist group run by someone Weaver knew. Weaver agrees, goes to one meeting, and decides he doesn't want anything to do with them. In the meantime, ATF agents approach him to ask to buy sawed off shotguns. He agrees and the FBI hands him over to the ATF and they threaten him with prosecution for that to turn informant for them. He refuses and they take him to trial for that and add in falsely that he was a bank robber.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Various trial dates and set and cancelled and various summons are issued and not sent to Weaver and finally the Federal court clerk issues a summons for the wrong trial date that lists the wrong date. When Weaver doesn't show up for the correct date, a warrant is issued and the judge refuses to withdraw it when informed that the summons listed the wrong date. That's when Weaver became a fugitive from justice. The ATF adds various false details like he was a Green Beret, boobie-trapped his property, had secret tunnels all over his property, etc., to make him seem more dangerous than he was. Then US Marshals go to raid his house and start throwing rocks at the house to test the Weavers' reaction and the dogs come out and the US Marshal shoot the dogs and then the firefight starts.

[Tonio]

Can you recommend some longer-form reading on this?

[OneOut]

They shot his wife because she was armed with a baby.

( the shot and killed her when she was standing at her front door while holding her baby in her arms)

Maybe they though she had rigged it with a suicide vest and was gonna throw it at them.

[VG Zaytsev]

Nut punch fact.

The agent that murders weaver's wife received a sharpshooter compendation for the kill.

[bacon-magic]

Wow, I thought it was just about sawed off shotguns. Fuck the government. (by fuck I do not mean to imply that governmental employees need to be fed into a woodchipper)

[Gray Ghost]

Piling on to PUPB's great summary, I wonder how much truth there is to the rumor that the accidental shooting of Vicki Weaver wasn't that accidental? I mean, weren't HRT shooters supposed to be among the elite of LE marksmen? Horiuchi's trying to hit a running Randy Weaver at 200 meters, and not only doesn't hit Randy with the second shot, he drills Vicki dead center in the head through the cabin door? When the rumor was that Vicki was the main source of resistance to Randy turning himself in? Hell of a miss.

Makes you wonder. Absolutely shameful the newly elected Idaho D.A. dropped the manslaughter charges against Horiuchi.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Wow, I thought it was just about sawed off shotguns.

Now that I think more about it? I wonder if the FBI set him up for that. As in, "We're trying to catch these guys distributing illegal weapons and need you to sell these guns to them so we can catch them and if you don't agree, we'll prosecute you under threats to assassinate the President."

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

They were actually eating children in the compound... Burning them up was the only way to save them!

[Leigh]

Meat taste better when cooked.

[bacon-magic]

Rare or it's overcooked. Well done is for pussies and grabbers of pussies without consent.

[MarkLastname]

Botulism is an acquired taste.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

It became necessary to destroy the children to save them.

[Possible Bot]

When I was growing up it was framed as dirtie pedophile fundies with scary guns got uppity. But uncle same saved us and they got what they had coming. Greater good and all.

Is that the angle they're taking?

[Zeb]

Yeah? I've always gotten the impression that most people think it was a big fuckup. And I didn't exactly hang around a lot of right-wing conspiracy theorists.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

It's fucked up.

I read an interview once with one of the FBI/ATF undercover agents. The Branch Davidians had figured out he was an undercover agents and still welcomed him in and showed him everything.

The Branch Davidians knew ahead of time about the raid from a Branch Davidian mail carrier the lost TV crew that the local police and/or ATF tipped off to televise the raid had stopped to ask for directions (as did everyone else in the county, including inmates at the local prison? the ATF was very noisy when they came into town) and the undercover agents warned the ATF and tried to get them to call off the raid and tried to persuade them to do a regular warrant enforcement but the ATF commander wanted to do a raid anyway.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

It's fucked up.

I read an interview once with one of the FBI/ATF undercover agents. The Branch Davidians had figured out he was an undercover agents and still welcomed him in and showed him everything.

The Branch Davidians knew ahead of time about the raid from a Branch Davidian mail carrier the lost TV crew that the local police and/or ATF tipped off to televise the raid had stopped to ask for directions (as did everyone else in the county, including inmates at the local prison? the ATF was very noisy when they came into town) and the undercover agents warned the ATF and tried to get them to call off the raid and tried to persuade them to do a regular warrant enforcement but the ATF commander wanted to do a raid anyway.

[Gray Ghost]

That they were near the end of the fiscal year, had I'm sure nothing to do with their desire to make the raid a giant dog and pony show.

[Possible Bot]

I was around 14 so I may not have picked up on the nuances. That probably mostly came from my mom's summary but I never heard any other opinion. It was a lefty kind of family and town though.

[OneOut]

I was 29 and lived near there.

In the Waco newspaper after the raid this info was in an article.

The local sheriff was livid over the raid. He was on a first name basis with Koresh. He had called David before about the concerns of some locals and David had voluntarily come in and talked to the sheriff about them.

The local sheriff had been out to the compound and was shown around by David.

David was know to jog down the rural roads unarmed every morning. The Sheriff told the Feds they could have stopped him any morning when he was jogging. David jogged by the house down the road where the Feds staged the raid. He knew they were there.

The entire operation made me sick.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

That's my understanding, too ? Koresh had a regular weekly schedule and almost any local you asked could tell you if you went to such-and-such a place at such-and-such a time, you could expect to see Koresh there, unarmed, and that he would sit and chat with you and invite you to his home.

The undercover agents had done just that ? that approached him, chatted him up, he invited them over, and, when he figured out they were undercover agents, he showed them his guns when they asked about them, introduced his children when asked about abuse, and would be generally quite open with what the police/ATF/FBI/etc. were investigating.

Like I said, the whole Branch Davidian incident was fucked up.

And lots of people died needlessly because of that.

[Tonio]

I've always gotten the impression that most people think it was a big fuckup.

Even if it is, Zeb, there's a big chasm between accepting that and doing anything about that including altering their voting behavior. People like their comfortable narratives that situations like this are isolated incidents.

[Zeb]

That is true.

[Hyperion]

Should be fun when Hillary makes Janet Reno AG again. We won't have to watch a series, we'll get the real thing at least a few times! Who's next?

[Rich]

Janet Reno's Dance Party

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Fun fact:

Janet Reno's claim to fame (or infamy) was prosecuting the Country Walk day care owners for child abuse in Satanic rituals. If you look at the next case in that page, you'll see another familiar name ? Martha Coakley, prosecutor of the Fells Acre case.

[Ted S.]

I can't believe David Brudnoy has been dead almost 12 years. 🙁

[BigT]

Wasn't there some accusation of child abuse?

In any case, killing 60 people is mass murder. Clinton and Janet Reno should be serving life in prison.

[BigT]

Wiki:

Reno publicly expressed her regret of the decision to storm the compound, and accepted full responsibility for the loss of life.

No, that would involve a long prison sentence. She accepted responsibility the way Hillary does - with words only.

[Gray Ghost]

"I accept full responsibility."

"What's that? No, I'm not going to jail. I'm not going to pay any judgment, and I'm certainly getting not fired or resigning. But I accept full responsibility for what happened."

Disgusting.

[MarkLastname]

"Well, you wanted me to prove I'm responsible, so there it is. Vote for me, the responsible candidate."

[Hyperion]

Yes, and the only recourse is to burn the children alive to save them.

/the government starring Bill and Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

ATF, which conducted the raid, does not have jurisdiction on child abuse. Just alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives.

The FBI came in later.

[DEG]

I'm certain this series will turn into a government agent fellating shit-show.

[Gojira]

Rejoice! The national debt simply doesn't exist, and the government can buy its own treasuries to fund whatever it wants to infinity! Warning: reading link may lead to brain damage and impotence.

[jesse.in.mb]

reading link may lead to brain damage and impotence.

How would you know the difference?

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Well, Jesse, it's sort of hard to explain.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

It's not really very hard....

[Juvenile Bluster]

Wuh.. guh... did I just read... help me...

[PurityDiluting]

"The public is lied to when it comes to the so-called national debt ... First off, there is no debt. Second, there is nothing to pay back. The debt is meaningless. It's just a bunch of bookkeeping entries. Keystrokes. It's time we stop fretting over this. The debt is not a bad thing, it is an asset of the non-government; however, ignorant, cynical, corrupt, dogmatic and self-serving groups like the Pete Peterson Foundation and organizations like Fix the Debt are in the business of keeping Americans misinformed and getting them to act against their own interests. These groups are bad and need to be stopped"

I am really struggling to understand this alternative universe.

[Tonio]

I don't think it's Fix the Debt which is doing the misinforming or encouraging policy contrary to self-interest. Anyone else smell false consciousness here?

[Scott Foval, Jr.]

self-serving groups like the Pete Peterson Foundation and organizations like Fix the Debt are in the business of keeping Americans misinformed and getting them to act against their own interests

Love it. LOVE IT.

[C. Anacreon]

Do Pete Peterson Foundation and Fix the Debt even exist?
They sound like 'Councilman Les Wynan' to me, just a made-up name to further an argument.

[Ted S.]

Do Pete Peterson Foundation and Fix the Debt even exist?

Not on your life, my Hindoo friend.

(OK, I'm mixing metaphors.)

[OneOut]

"against their own interests"

Wait until the actual interest rates uptick a few notches and we will see if "interests" has any bearing on whether the debt is just an imagination or not.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

"I am really struggling to understand this alternative universe."

It runs on the laws of pretty much being a satire of the universe you came from. Once you got that down, everything starts to make sense.

[PurityDiluting]

So I live inside an Onion. That at least explains the smells.

[Possible Bot]

That's because you don't understand the quantum physics of debt.

[B.P.]

"It's just a bunch of bookkeeping entries. Keystrokes."

And falling in love is just a chemical reaction.

[kbolino]

What a stupid argument.

If the debt is such a non-entity, then why does the government keep accumulating it?

Obviously, it has some value beyond just numbers on a ledger or in a computer.

[Rufus The Monocled]

/drops cigarette from lips mouth open.

[DOOMco]

Realmoney

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Who in their right mind is concerned with the national debt, when we have hoards of brown people storming our borders at the behest of a nigh invulnerable lich-queen and an orange arch-summoner calling forth hoards of albino deplorables amassing to fight them.

[C. Anacreon]

Have you been hanging out with Agile Cyborg?

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

The debt is not a bad thing, it is an asset of the non-government[?]

There is no debt! Please share.

How can it be "not a bad thing" if it doesn't exist?

->

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Post got cut off because I used greater than and less than symbols to make my errors? let's fix that and continue:

??

(Debt as an asset?)

[Eternal Blue Sky]

How can it be an asset if it doesn't exist??

[SimonD]

Well, obviously if it's non-government it doesn't matter. Only government matters.

Sigh, example #7,138,530 that it's impossible to satirize the Left. Anything you can make up in your wildest fever dreams (no SF, that is NOT a challenge) is already being averred for real (usually by an Ivy League professor).

I'd be frightened right about now if I were a fat Irish kid.

[PBR Streetgang]

It the federal debt is 100% entirely meaningless as this guy asserts, why does the Federal government collect any taxes at all? It federal debt is meaningless, just borrow every penny, no need for any revenue collection.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Social engineering, obviously. To make people pay their fair share.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Exactly this. The government could merely print whatever money it needs to perform its function, leaving me with 100% of my earnings. Win win! To infinity and beyond!!!

[PBR Streetgang]

Yeah, I'm thinking of writing in Mike Norman for President.

[gaoxiaen]

We need Robert Mugabe as an economic adviser. Then we'd all be trillionaires.

[PurityDiluting]

I've used that argument along the same lines as 'why not raise the minimum wage to $100/hr?' but it doesn't penetrate the protective derpiness

[PBR Streetgang]

Same experience.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

The fact that you want to keep 100% of your "earnings" pins you as a wealthy 1% who needs 93% of that money taken away.

[Stormy Dragon]

Hmmm, now I'm actually wonder, as a thought experiment, what the economic effects of a government funded entirely via currency devaluation instead of taxation would be.

[OneOut]

Query: What are the economic effects of a government funded through currency devaluation ?

See: Venezuela

[Homple]

Weimar Republic is, what, Leberwurst?

[Ted S.]

Better than Lebkuchen.

[Stormy Dragon]

The economic collapse in Venezuela is because the government is seizing private property left and right (effectively 100% tax rate) so that would be collapsing regardless of how it was implemented.

What I means is that supposed the US government A and US government B both take 15% of GDP each year. If US government A does that by taxing 15% of all income each year and US government B does it by not taking anything but by increasing the money supply 15% each year, how would the two different? i.e. B would probably have lower rates of personal saving but higher rates of capital investment.

[MarkLastname]

Inflation would happen, and the need to perpetually increase prices (see price stickiness, menu costs) would would cause prices to fail to keep pace with money supply, leading to falling saving and investment, not to mention instability which is very unhealthy for an economy.

Price stickiness is one of several reasons why it's kind of impossible to have stable, predictable inflation. The best monetary policy is one that keeps spending levels and prices fairly stable. What that means is hotly debated.

[VG Zaytsev]

Depends on the size of the government.

A night watchman state - of say

[VG Zaytsev]

Less than 5% of GDP could be entirely funded via seigniorage.

[MarkLastname]

Because it would crowd out the credit market, drive up interest rates and kill the private sector.

Much like with minimum wage, progs will tell you it doesn't do anything bad, but then the smart ones only embrace it in small quantities, as if they weren't really convinced of their own position.

[Ted S.]

A Krugman op-ed?

[jack sprat]

You didn't make the warning big enough!! I have been triggered. I need a safe space.

[John Pittman]

My brain hurts.

[Hyperion]

Well fuck. I mean why don't they just print up and spend a few hundred trillion right now? Fix all the infrastructure, give everyone a job, make the minimum wage $1000 an hour? Why do they keep bitching about revenue when the debt isn't real? Just fire up the printers, you pussies!

[PurityDiluting]

Jill Stein supports Hyperion's message

[Possible Bot]

Whole countries have been duped by that plan. Mostly because of wrong top men.

[Gray Ghost]

Pshaw. Minting a few trillion dollar coins should take care of that pesky debt.

I don't care that they say such stupid shit; I care that they think most people will believe it. It doesn't bode well.

[Hyperion]

Is this dude like Paul Krugman on steroids or what?

[Rich]

I say we all ask Mike Norman for a big fucking loan!

[Free Society]

I am about to give you some numbers. Mind you, these are not numbers I made up or to which had some kind of top-secret access. Nor is this inside information that I am exposing. Rather, these are publicly available figures that you can get -- free -- right off the U.S. Treasury Department's website.

Of course the numbers are free. EVERYTHING THE GOVERNMENT DOES IS FREE apparently. At a certain point, the effects of stupidity and the effects of evil are indistinguishable.

[Rufus The Monocled]

1.5k likes. Woo-hoo!

The book 'Debt' pretty much - after hundreds and hundreds of pages - basically concludes that much.

[Get To Da Chippah]

Terrible.

[GILMORE?]

MMT has been in vogue with the proggy set for almost a decade now.

[Scott Foval, Jr.]

Spike TV picked up the mini-series Waco, about the 1993 FBI siege of the Branch Davidians.

Twenty-three years in development hell?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Is Janet Reno no longer with us?

[Hyperion]

Her return is imminent.

[thom]

Wasn't there a mini-series about this right after it happened? I remember watching either a mini-series or a made for TV movie at the time.

[Crusty Juggler]

That was Ruby Ridge. It stars Crusty fave Laura Dern and a non-crazy Randy Quaid.

[Horatio]

HBO movie IIRC. I watched as a young' band told my dad what a weirdo Koresh was. He replied "enough to murder him and dozens of others?" Teachable moment.

[Horatio]

*young'n

[B.P.]

Good dad response.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

At least two:

"In the Line of Duty: Ambush in Waco" (1993)

"Waco: The Rules of Engagement" (1997)

[Juvenile Bluster]

Spike TV picked up the mini-series Waco, about the 1993 FBI siege of the Branch Davidians.

Given Spike TV's other offerings, I somehow feel that this will not portray the government as anything other than benevolent leaders powerless to stop the murderous Branch Davidians from killing themselves and the defenseless children inside.

[RBS]

I'm guess the new lineup will be: COPS, COPS, Bar Rescue, COPS, COPS, Waco, COPS, COPS, COPS, Infomercial.

[flye]

Don't forget Jail. That show is oddly fascinating, especially in Vegas.

[Certified Public Asshat]

I think you underestimated how often they play Bar Rescue reruns.

[AlmightyJB]

Am I the only one who thinks that guy is a total asshole.

[RBS]

What the fuck did you just say?

/breaks all of AlmightyJB's shot glasses.

[AlmightyJB]

Shot glasses are for pussies.

[DOOMco]

Look at the weirdos!!

[AlmightyJB]

Yeah, the statist don't view that clusterfuck the way we do. That to me was really when the surge in the paramilitarization of the police forces began. Started with feds and then went local with crime bill. Thanks Bill.

[Hyperion]

The Clinton's started a lot of bad trends in this country. And now they're back for more. Aren't we lucky!?

[BigT]

But Bill at least got us talking about spit vs swallow.

[Citizen X]

A Postal Service reference, Ed? What is this, 2003?

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Hey, where else are you gonna get your duck stamp?

[Dick N. Bimbose (n?e Cooper)]

How about that clearcoat?

[Crusty Juggler]

In Ed's defense he still wears JNCO jeans.

[Citizen X]

One of the funniest non-typoed things John has written was that Ed looks "like he's about to ask you to come see his Blues Traveler cover band." Credit where credit is due.

[rts]

Clown costumes banned in Prince George schools

Schools in Prince George, B.C., have implemented a ban on clown costumes this Halloween following a recent police incident involving a picture of cartoon clowns with guns.

In light of that incident, school officials decided clown costumes "were not appropriate at this time," according to School District 57 superintendent Marilyn Marquis-Forster.

[Rich]

"When our kids call this behaviour a prank, [we need to] make sure we're calling it what it is. And when you start to talk about threat-related behaviour and targeting schools, that is a Criminal Code offence," said [Safer Schools Together's] president Theresa Campbell.

And we need to make sure we're callingl Ms. Campbell what she is, as well.

[jesse.in.mb]

Do people even go as clowns for Halloween anymore?

Oh shit, I totally need to go as a slutty woebegone tramp clown for Halloween!

[Chipper Morning Wood]

I am torn as to whether I would want to see pics of that.

[jesse.in.mb]

The Halloween party I'm going to is "art" themed, so I was going to just wear these, but it's finally cooling off in LA and I don't think I'll be drunk enough quickly enough to pull off just wearing those at an outdoor party.

[Rich]

Now, *that* is a codpiece!

[bacon-magic]

And I thought you were going as a 55 gallon drum of lube, silly me.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Not practical. He is gonna bring a ziplock of lube, though. One of the large 1 gallon ones.

[jesse.in.mb]

Nah, not sure how I'd sell that as "art" themed. Bringing one might not be a bad idea though. Two years ago they ran out.

[bacon-magic]

That had to be rough.

[jesse.in.mb]

You have no idea.

[Enough About Palin]

Nah, not sure how I'd sell that as "art" themed.

Neo-Warhol

[Doctor Whom]

I wouldn't. The cultural appropriation against actual slutty woebegone tramp clowns would be triggering.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

I am torn as to whether I would want to see pics of that.

Not as torn as you would be afterwards.

[Tonio]

You're going to dress as Garrison Keillor?

[Tonio]

WaPo: Women who want to get ahead should look to the federal government, not corporate America

Government agencies have long prided themselves on helping their employees balance their work and personal lives. The GAO's approach is more serious than most: day care on site at the Washington headquarters, a student loan repayment program, a generous telework policy ? 65 percent of the staff worked from home one day or more per pay period last year ? and a flexible relocation policy.

Those meanies in the corporate world actually expect you to work a full day, pay you based on performance and think your childcare and student loans are your own business. And they aren't stealing money from others to pay your salary.

[Playa Manhattan.]

"a generous telework policy"

Is work really the right word?

[Tonio]

It means they will sometimes answer the phone or respond to email messages during ostensible business hours. But there will be children and soap opera noise in the background.

[Hyperion]

A lot of IT people work at home part of the time or all the time, but they are actually working, at least the ones I know. Government employees I wouldn't trust to actually work when they're on site.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

My company used to do IT services for local governments but stopped because they'd accept the work but wouldn't pay.

[Get To Da Chippah]

"I've worked in the private sector. They expect results."

~Dr. Ray Stantz

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Pentagon will no longer seek reimbursement from California National Guard soldiers who were wrongly paid recruitment bonuses for signing up.

They'll make that up in the VA's next budget.

[Playa Manhattan.]

10 grand to a soldier to deployed to a war zone: Not OK!

35 billion for a fighter that doesn't work: More Please!

[Tonio]

This is good news, but the fact that they tried to claw those payments back, with interest(!), is unconscionable. People should have gone to the stockade for that.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

Meh, they'll probably getting a big public firing followed by being quietly hired by Hillary's campaign.

[AnonCowHerd]

Seems like a good case to sue for fraud, bonus offered for re-up and deployment. Bonus rescinded after re-up/deployment.

[OneOut]

There was one report from a guy who went ahead and paid back 21K.

Does he get his money back ?

My biggest question about this ?

Did they go after the bonuses from the widows ?

"Ma'am we're very sorry about your husband. But now about that 10K bonus ya'll collected before we sent him to Iraq" ?

[Florida Hipster]

Isn't this the plot from Flesh + Blood?

[Rich]

Pro-immigration protesters in New York City stopped traffic across the George Washington Bridge.

They were arrested and deported, right? RIGHT?!

[Scott Foval, Jr.]

Another set of links: Trump 1, Hillary 0

[Pan Zagloba]

So today we finally say goodbye to the Jungle of Calais, a totally not-racistly named migrant camp.

Overnight, huts were set on fire on the main street leading into the camp, leaving makeshift shops in ashes. More fires were ignited during the day, but it is not clear who started them.

Ms Buccio told local media it was "a tradition among the migrant population to destroy their homes before leaving".

However the Calais police commissioner said he had been told by migrants that the fires were started by activists.

Yeah, I'd bet on the activists, too. Not like that is their shit or their people at risk.

Of course, hundreds of "unaccompanied minors" (i.e. we tell you we are under-18 and you won't check) remain in the camp, and hundreds more are missing, but hey, this totally resolves all the problems.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

"Ms Buccio told local media it was 'a tradition among the migrant population to destroy their homes before leaving'."

I can sympathize with these migrants and their traditions (even though Buccio is clearly lying out of her ass on this). I too, as a Viking American, am shamed for my traditional arson practices.

Look, those monks just need to respect my damn culture and deal with the fact their monastery is on fire!! It's TRADITION.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Calais: Metaphor for Canada's Indian reservations?

[rts]

Canoes reek of genocide, theft and white privilege, professor claims

According to Misao Dean, Professor of English at the University of Victoria, the canoe can be a symbol of colonialism, imperialism and genocide due to history. She also accused the canoers of cultural appropriation because they are primarily white men and have a privileged place in society.

Your move, Robby.

[Florida Hipster]

What? White men invented Canoes? I...
/walks away

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Is this just a cry for attention? I mean how retarded do you have to be to be a Canadian and not know about birch bark canoes? I would be more concerned about the fact that this ancient craft is dying out and that there are but a handful of people in the world that still know how to make a birch bark canoe. Also, there aren't birch trees big enough anymore to get the requisite strips of bark. But instead we give this numbskull attention.

[Zeb]

Lots of people invented canoes because it's the best design for a paddle driven boat.

According to Wikipedia, the oldest known canoe was discovered in the Netherlands.

I'm confused now as to whether the complaint is that Europeans have appropriated the canoe that Native Canadians invented (which is wrong) or that the canoe is a symbol of oppression and colonialism (which is also just wrong).

What the fuck does she want? White people can only row? Rowing sucks, you can't see where you are going. And a cox is very problematic.

[Playa Manhattan.]

What about kayaks?

[Tonio]

Worse.

[jesse.in.mb]

Speaking of hunky, bearish, English canoers, are you familiar with Matt Lister? Because I think you should be familiar with Matt Lister.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

So bears like other bears? I thought the maximum number of bears in a gay encounter was one.

[jesse.in.mb]

Sure, some do. Gay taxonomy isn't fate.

[Horatio]

Would you turn down MFF because of your strict adherence to protocol, you damned robot?

[Tim from Philly]

I think Matt Lister would be classified as an Otter. An Otter is a physically fit Bear. Please correct me if I am wrong Jesse.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Invented in Greenland, where they call them qajaqs.

[Playa Manhattan.]

"we have a whole set of narratives that make the canoe into a kind of morally untouchable symbol, something that seems natural, that seems ordinary, and seems to promote values that we ascribe to."

Is she confusing a canoe with my penis?

[jesse.in.mb]

Why? The "untouchable" part?

[AceDroman]

ZING

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

It said 'morally untouchable'; is that not clear enough for you?

[Ted S.]

Playa's penis is immorally touchable.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

"Every time you point, I see a canoe full of sperm heading right for me."

[Rich]

Canoes reek of genocide

Nice band name.

[Citizen X]

Canoers of Cultural Appropriation is pretty good, too.

[MetalBard]

Just

Canoes of Genocide

[TheZeitgeist]

Wheel and axle also cruel implement - and the natives didn't even have their own example. Misao prolly uses wheels and axles though (unlike canoes), so silo that one.

[Tonio]

Hey, it's a good thing we don't know who invented those as I'm sure there would be incredible levels of butt-hurt about cultural appropriation, royalties, etc.

[RBS]

Inventors of the wheel.

[TheZeitgeist]

Don't know who invented canoes either, but nothing stops the Stupid Inquisition.

[flye]

"My grandfadder was a fur trader, my fadder was a fur trader, I am a fur trader."

(My US History teacher in high school was the football coach -- we watched a lot of miniseries in lieu of book larnin'.)

[Scott Foval, Jr.]

Which of the Gulf states did you go to HS in?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

I missed the part where he talked about his granfadder being a carney?

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Ok, now I get the genocide thing.

[John Titor]

She also accused the canoers of cultural appropriation because they are primarily white men and have a privileged place in society.

Covered this last night, but the majority of dirt poor rednecks I knew growing up had canoes because they're cheaper than motor boats and you can portage between lakes for fishing. The canoe is the closest thing to a 'People's Boat' you'll ever get. Dean seems to think that only out-of-touch shitbag Toronto WASPs can afford them...probably because she is an out-of-touch shitbag Toronto WASP.

[Possible Bot]

They have point but...

[Aloysious]

Russia is sending an armada into the Mediterranean Sea as their military operations in Syria ramp up.

Wish Reason had been paying attention to this before now. It's kind of important.

[PurityDiluting]

NATO sending troops to deter Russia in the east

Putin promises confrontation
"Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued a veiled threat to Hillary Clinton, saying his country will engage in "confrontation" with the US if she continues to provoke the Motherland, according to a new report."

[Aloysious]

Thanks for the additional links. Yeah, kind of important.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

Woo hoo.

Future historians are almost certainly going to call the period between 1991 and 2017 as the "Pause" in the Cold War.

[PurityDiluting]

Does getting cyberfucked by the Russian bear put us into a protected class?

[MetalBard]

The Russian bear will grab your e-mails by the pussy.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

Can we start parodying the "Religion of Peace" meme for the Democrats?? I feel like every instance of Clinton talking about foreign policy needs a snarky "Party of Peace" in the comment section.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

*"Parodying" maybe not the best word on second thought...

Oh, I know, "appropriating". That's a popular word these days.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

Hunh. It's almost as though publically making a bunch of vague threats and snarky comments about Putin during the campaign isn't the best way to improve relations with Russia.

[PurityDiluting]

The reset button worked so well. Except that in Russian the word for reset also translates into 'flush'

[Ted S.]

I thought the word on the button actually translated to "overload"/"overcharge".

[Tonio]

Dammit, Wishy, how can you care about trivia like that when a political candidate called a beauty queen "fat?"

[Aloysious]

I know, I know. Existential threat to Democracy, and all that,

Ran across a quote by E.M. Cioran in the latest issue of Lapham's Quarterly that I found significant wrt the conventional wisdom that Hillary Clinton is an acceptably corrupt in predictable ways:

I hate the wisdom of these men unmoved by truths, who do not suffer with their nerves, their flesh, and their blood.

[Number 2]

Are they sending canoes?

[Gray Ghost]

Aren't they bringing a tug for each one of their combatants? IIRC, half the flotilla is oilers and support vessels.

What I really don't want to happen is for one of them to mysteriously explode and hand Putin his version of the Maine. Not like with, what, 25 embarked a/c?, they're going to be able to do much of anything else in the Syrian conflict besides die noisily.

Or cause a USN vessel or two to do so.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The universe may not be expanding at an accelerating rate, according to scientists at Oxford.

Climate change, right?

[Rich]

Oh, FFS! "Everything you know is wrong!"

[Enough About Palin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKZtt2yEwfs

[jack sprat]

Oh, oh. I guess that means I no longer have an excuse not to turn in my homework.

[BigT]

Like global warming, the original models have proven less than reliable...

By applying a different analytical model to the 740 Type Ia supernovae that have been identified so far, the team says they've been able to account for the subtle differences between them like never before.

They say the statistical techniques used by the original team were too simplistic, and were based on a model devised in the 1930s, which can't reliability be applied to the growing supernova dataset.

[LynchPin1477]

See my comments below. Their own results don't seem to actually back up the claim they are making.

[Zero Sum Game]

>Universe May Not Be Expanding at Alarming Rate

Krayewski somehow turns "accelerating" into "alarming." Dude, no.

[Robert]

I thought that was cute snark.

[Zero Sum Game]

I guess that should have occurred to me. It sounded like warmista propaganda. If that's the case, is Krayewski just yanking Bailey's chain?

[Rufus The Monocled]

Need (sigh) some thoughts:

Samsung Galaxy or Apple iPhone.

Pros/cons. Discuss.

Also. Tits.

[Citizen X]

Definitely tits.

[Playa Manhattan.]

Get applecare on the tits. They always break right when the warranty expires.

[Florida Hipster]

Do you want to look like a poor person? Then Galaxy.

[But Enough About Me]

Which is ironic, considering my last Galaxy cost me 800 bucks to buy outright. (I hate service plans!)

[Fist of Etiquette]

My phone has a cord attaching it to the wall, the way God intended.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

With this shitty battery life, my phone has a cord attached to the wall a large percentage of the time as well. Especially when reloading a Reason page.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Apple iPhone Pros: You're hip! You're cool!
Apple iPhone Cons: Someday, the iPhone's and the iOS features will catch up to Android. That day has not yet come.

Samsung Galaxy Pros: Android OS, Good Camera
Samsung Galaxy Cons: Spontaneous combustion (okay, that was the Note)

(I have a Galaxy S6. It's a pretty good phone.)

[DOOMco]

Im burning my galaxy phone soon, switching to google fi and their pixel phone

[But Enough About Me]

I'm burning my galaxy phone soon...

In all fairness, if it's a Note 7, it'll probably take care of that all by itself.

[Certified Public Asshat]

Pixel?

[Ted S.]

Neither.

[Tonio]

Fake boobs always look fake, but I hear they are making advances by putting the implants deeper, or something. Hormones work, but have other consequences. ;-P

[DEG]

Just say no to fake boobs.

[BigT]

Trust, but verify.

[Tim from Philly]

Not True. I had a hooker in Amsterdam with fake tits and could not tell till she told me. They were amazing. Said they were saline not silicone. They were also only B cups, but she was Thai and like 5'4" so they looked pretty big.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Work with both Android and iPhone professionally (enterprise MDM).

If you're going to use it for work, get an iPhone. Nearly all of the tickets I get involving phones are Android problems. And many of them I have to open a ticket with the MDM manufacturer and take 3-4 months getting it fixed.

The short tech support calls with the manufacturer end with "We've opened a feature request with Google to add the required APIs to Android."

One short call that didn't end like that ended with "You've got root the device to add the root cert for [unnamed major CA] to allow the Android to connect."

[Eternal Blue Sky]

Samsung Galaxy
Pros: Not Apple
Cons: Nothing that could POSSIBLY be outweighed by the Pros.

Apple iPhone
Pros: Nothing that could POSSIBLY be outweighed by the Cons.
Cons: Apple

Done.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

"Also. Tits." makes me think of this song.

[LynchPin1477]

I just switched from an Android to iPhone. The iPhone hardware is great but I don't like the software as much. It's sufficient but lacks a lot of the nice features of my old Motorolla. Unfortunately I like phones that fit comfortably in my pocket so the iPhone SE is about my only choice these days.

[Ted S.]

I bought a cheap LG Transpyre, which fits in my pocket just fine. It does what I want it to do, for the most part.

[Rasilio]

iPhone:
Pros - Battery life, Much better app store
Cons - Fucks with your music library, Hard to transfer thing from it to other platforms

Galaxy:
Pros - Most of them suck but way more apps on the app store, much more options for managing and configuring it yourself
Cons - You're probably never want to use those options, much more buggy and likely to crash

[Lachowsky]

I've had the same galaxy s5 since they came out. can't remember exact date, but over 2 years ago. It's still functioning fine and even has decent battery life with the original battery. It had excellent life when the battery was new. My wife just got an s7 a few weeks ago. She loves it.

[Ted S.]

How many times has it exploded?

[Lachowsky]

Galaxy s7, not the note

[GILMORE?]

I replaced an Iphone 5 w/ a motorola droid last year. I am not the kind of person who needs a giant phone. never crashed, pretty much everything works correctly out of the box. battery lasts about 2 days if left alone, 6 hours if heavy use.

the great benefit imo of android is the seamless integration of google apps.

[Hyperion]

The universe thing is just a theory as of now, not widely accepted. But I'm hoping it's true because when I finally get my interstellar ship to escape this hellhole, I don't want to get stuck in empty space because a billion light years is not yet far enough away from progtards.

[Rich]

I daresay Agile Cyborg can advise you about this.

[John]

No its not. Progressiveism is like a communicable disease. All it will take is one person in your crew catching it and you are done.

[Hyperion]

The first word coming out of any crew member's mouth that even hints of it, they're going for a space walk, without a tether and with the ship going at full warp. Just call it libertarian space pirate law.

[OneOut]

This has happened before in real life.

By choice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Oates

[gaoxiaen]

Open the pod bay door, HAL.
Fuck you, Dave.

[John]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/.....ks-9130051

The Brits sent an armored battalion into Estonia. Lovely.

[PurityDiluting]

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the troop contributions to a new 4,000-strong force in the Baltics and eastern Europe were a measured response to what the alliance believes are some 330,000 Russian troops stationed on Russia's western flank near Moscow.

[John]

I don't have a lot of faith in Russian morale or doctrine but there is a saying "mass has a quality all its own". Those 4,000 troops would kill a lot of Russians but they would still be nothing but a trip wire for World War III.

[Pan Zagloba]

That's the point, isn't it? Not enough troops to make a threat to Russia, enough to let them know they can't just march in and take over? And really, mostly there to assure Poles (100,000 active military personnel) and the Baltic states (~25,000 active military personnel between the three) that it's not 1939 again.

[John]

That is totally the point. And that is why I put up the link. I like Baltics a lot. And they deserve better than ending up back under the Russian boot. But I am not going to World War III to stop that from happening.

[PurityDiluting]

The press has already started the drumbeat of 'who cares about the Baltics'.
There was an article recently about Estonia doing something offensive toward some Christian religion. Expect that drip drip of negative Baltic news to become a drizzle in direct proportion to Russia's sable rattling about protecting their Russian population in those areas

[MetalBard]

Nah.. not until the election is over. The media still has to tell everyone that Trump is Putin's best friend cause he doesn't want to go to war over Estonia.

[mad.casual]

Expect that drip drip of negative Baltic news to become a drizzle in direct proportion to Russia's sable rattling about protecting their Russian population in those areas

Stop the orphans from shaking out the imported Russian furs for winter. Got it!

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Back in the 80's we used to say the whole reason for US forces in Korea was really to keep the South from going north. That BDE was just a speed-bump.

[MetalBard]

I'm not sure how much faith I still have in American military morale, and doctrine. We are teaching marines about transsexuals now. How much money is spent on bullets and bombs vs how much is spent on various forms of PC bullshit.

This is a trend that needs to be reversed ASAP.

[John]

I still have a lot of faith. Obama has tried his best to destroy the military but it takes more than that dumb bastard to do it.

[OneOut]

Carter didn't help them and Clinton tried to dump on them without success.

Obama seemed to thin the ranks of Patriots and install PC generals.

It's possible that not too far in the distant future we will be ruled by a political base that answers to the military like Egypt rather than the military being subservient to the politicians as our history has been.

[Crusty Juggler]

Although we are leaving the European Union, we will be doing more to help secure the eastern and southern flanks of NATO," Mr Fallon said.

London is also sending Typhoon fighter aircraft to Romania to patrol around the Black Sea, partly in support of Turkey.

It comes after an increase in tensions between the West and Russia in recent months.

[RBS]

I think I'll go dig up Red Storm Rising this weekend.

[Pan Zagloba]

So much better written than Team Yankee...

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

But Clancy needed to stick to naval ops.

Coyle had the tactics down a lot better.

[Pan Zagloba]

Honestly, my favorite parts were with Russians, since they were allowed to have personalities and layers. All the American characters were super-flat.

Hmmm...this was my experience with only other Clancy book I read (Rainbow 6) - maybe I should try Red October?

See, I didn't like tactics in TY. I get that he was basically writing to keep the reasonable fears at bay, but TY has what, 20:1 kill ratio and never fucks up? Even bad luck only happens to other people.

[Crusty Juggler]

Red October is the second-best Clancy book.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

I was not disagreeing on the quality of the writing... just commenting on the tactics. I was a brand new armor officer when that came out.

In Red Storm, Clancy kind of hand-waved away some of the 'War in Europe' aspect and spent more time on naval warfare.

Hunt for Red October, on the other hand, was actually used at the Naval Academy for military science classes.

Clancy was a much better writer.

[PurityDiluting]

"20:1 kill ratio"
Usually the kill ratio is at least 100:1 (think Black Hawk Down)
Which is why NATO is stationing 4,000 troops against Russia's 330,000.
Now we have them outnumbered

[Gray Ghost]

In TY, didn't they fall asleep (after killing a metric fuck ton of Soviets) by accident for a bunch of hours on one of the hills they were defending?

But yeah, I don't think it would have gone quite so well as he depicted. Really depends on when the Soviets decided to make their push, of course. Probably would have gone a lot better pre-TRADOC, post-Vietnam reforms, and a lot worse for the Soviets in, say, 1986.

[Crusty Juggler]

But Clancy needed to stick to naval ops.

It's worth nothing that Larry Bond co-wrote Red Storm Rising, and Bond was a naval officer.

[Gray Ghost]

It's worth nothing that Larry Bond co-wrote Red Storm Rising, and Bond was a naval officer.

Invented the naval wargame Harpoon too, didn't he?

[Pan Zagloba]

He did. He recently released a set of scenarios they used to game out Dance of the Vampires chapter in RSR (fleet of bombers attacks the NATO convoy ferrying first set of reinforcements over the Atlantic).

[Gray Ghost]

Thanks for the link. Pity it's not free, but it does look interesting. Funny that his playtesters got three different results, the three times they tried it.

I wonder if we or, more likely, our future opponent, will use drones to spoof/resemble a fleet of missiles/bombers, the way the Soviets used those Kitchens in RSR? The missiles have only gotten faster and nastier since then, not that Kingfishes were a picnic. BrahMos is supposed to go nearly twice as fast, stealthier, albeit with a smaller payload than AS-6's one ton of pain.

Eventually someone's going to figure out how to smack a Burke or, even worse, a carrier, when they're on the high seas.

Though the Houthis have done a good job lately, live-fire validating the nulkas and whatever other secret ECM toys the USN has under their hat.

[Crusty Juggler]

It made me wish I saved a sexy Icelandic whore from rape-death.

[Rat's voting Chipper-Shredder]

The book or the game?

[Scott Foval, Jr.]

Goddamn Trump, he did it again!

[Eternal Blue Sky]

Calling it.
Future history book:
"1991-2017: The Pause of the Cold War"

[Vladimir Putin]

That assumes it stays cold.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

Also calling "The Pause Right Before The Cold War Gets Really Hot"

[Brett L]

"Right, lads, we're here to protect the Estonians, keep the Finns alive long enough to get warmed up in their favorite sport, and direct the Russians to EU member nations if they invade."

[DEG]

Maybe a British protection will work out better for the Estonians than it did for the Poles.

[Crusty Juggler]

Spike TV picked up the mini-series Waco, about the 1993 FBI siege of the Branch Davidians.

John Goodman is playing the role of Janet Reno, so I have high hopes for the show.

[Florida Hipster]

Oh. I like Goodman. King Ralph. Excellent.

[Citizen X]

"I'll show you the life of the mind!"

[Certified Public Asshat]

It's time for Taylor Swift to say something about Donald Trump

She stayed silent on social media in the wake of this political controversy, as she has for the entirety of this campaign cycle. She's been silent on the hundreds of misogynistic and racist comments Trump has made, silent on who she will vote for in November?silent on whether she'll vote at all. It's surely an intentional decision on her part, to avoid controversy and maintain the allegiance of all of her fans.

But her reticence should be controversial. To remain silent is to remain complicit in every hateful statement, every reminder that a man with power and fame can?as Trump said this weekend?"do whatever he wants."

[Crusty Juggler]

How about Swizzle does whatever the frick she wants?

[Certified Public Asshat]

I'm not voting until I hear from her!

[The Fusionist]

"I may be Taylor Swift, but I'm not a moron. Why should I antagonize one class of fans in order to socially-signal to another class of fans?"

/what she should say

[Playa Manhattan.]

Somebody I don't know OWES ME. Waahhhh!!!

[Rich]

her reticence should be controversial.

Reticence's got nothing to do with it.

[Scott Foval, Jr.]

It's time for Taylor Swift to say something about Donald Trump

Goddammit I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

[jesse.in.mb]

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

There's a surprisingly easy fix for that! (Hint: it isn't space travel)

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

3 giant space arks?

"Well, we've only finished the first one, but it's really important we get you important people; the Progs, the Taylor voters, Crusty,... off the planet first! We'll be right behind you to catch up, just as soon as we finish the other two.

[AlmightyJB]

I can see where the prog is confused. She doesn't understand what it means to have class. I blame her parents.

[John]

She must say something because every single thing in life must be a tool for furthering Progressive politics. If it is not, it must be made into such or destroyed. That is what these idiots think. They are totalitarians in the fullest sense of the word.

[AlmightyJB]

Swift should tweet that Trump grabbed her Pussy, so then she grabbed his balls, and they both had a good laugh and went back to being richer than that cunt who wrote the article will ever be.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

It's time for Taylor Swift to say something about Donald Trump

Agreed. I refuse to listen to music unless the singer agrees 100% with my politics and virtue-signals about it constantly. Otherwise, she might be a secret TEATHUGLIKKKAN or, worse, a secret Trump supporter, in which case, we would have to ostracize her from society.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

I really want one of these stupid demands for celebrities to moral signal against Trump to end with an endorsement of Johnson, Stein, or Castle.

The cries of "Noooooo!! Not that way!!" would be scrumptious.

[thom]

Somebody should make a list of celebrities who haven't condemned Donald Trump yet and make sure they are mercilessly shamed on social media.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

They will be the first to be unpersoned if Trump wins.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

To remain silent is to remain complicit in every hateful statement, every reminder that a man with power and fame can?as Trump said this weekend?"do whatever he wants."

Umm...or she (1) doesn't care about politics, (2) doesn't believe people should look to musicians for moral/political guidance, (3) doesn't want to alienate ~40-50% of the population...the list could go on, of course.

I miss the days when it was rude to discuss politics in public.

[Lachowsky]

Spike TV picked up the mini-series Waco, about the 1993 FBI siege of the Branch Davidians.

I wonder if it ends with government burning to death 76 men, women, and children and never being held accountable for it.

[Playa Manhattan.]

That was the original pitch, but there was a last minute re-write.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Will it end with Janet Reno sobbing about the Branch Davidians burning their own compound down and the ATF/DEA being powerless to stop it?

[Vladimir Putin]

No they cut in a scene where my good frien... Ugh I mean a guy I never met before, Donald Trump, stares menacingly at the flames. At least according to some e-mails i read...

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

+1, well played, tovarisch!

[Pan Zagloba]

Molodec! (Can't be arsed with Cyrillic on tablet)

[mad.casual]

I wonder if it ends with government burning to death 76 men, women, and children and never being held accountable for it.

Yeah, sure, and the extended cut has various members of the DOJ standing around for the next two+ decades wondering why Tim McVeigh and practically any other non-Muslim that fits the description of white-supremacist, sovereign citizen, lone wolf, leaderless resistance member, pro/anti-BLM member, etc., etc. did what they did.

[Crusty Juggler]

Pro-immigration protesters in New York City stopped traffic across the George Washington Bridge.

An organization calling itself the Laundry Workers Center said on its website that it helped organize the protesters, who it said included immigrants and supporters.

"The immigrant community is tired of being in the shadows," Laundry Workers Center co-director Mahoma L?pez said in a statement on the website.

"For many years we are here, we contribute, we pay taxes, we build this country, but in the end, we don't have the right to participate in the decisions at the local and national levels," the statement said

[Playa Manhattan.]

"For many years we are here"

But not long enough to learn the language.

[Rich]

"Please to not be touching keyboard for long time."

[AlmightyJB]

Don't tell that laundry workers want the right to vote now. What's next, women?

[flye]

"...we don't have the right to participate in the decisions at the local and national levels..."

Sure you do---your money is a green as the next person's. If you mean the right to vote, then I have some for you about voting and political decision making.

[Ken Shultz]

"Pro-immigration protesters in New York City stopped traffic across the George Washington Bridge."

Sounds terrorist. Deport 'em if they're foreigners.

[LynchPin1477]

The universe may not be expanding at an accelerating rate, according to scientists at Oxford.

It wouldn't totally shock me if that was the case. Will have to look at the paper in more detail

[AlmightyJB]

Has the fat joke been done yet?

[LynchPin1477]

Having quickly read the paper I am not sure how they are making this claim. It seems as though their best fit model still prefers a non-zero cosmological constant, albeit smaller than the standard models.

[LynchPin1477]

Perusing Facebook I see others saying the same thing - their own analysis doesn't seem to say what they claim it is saying.

[wef]

Regarding this claim, I recommend reading Lubo? Motl's take:

http://motls.blogspot.cl/2016/.....ience.html

Motl's bottom line: "So of course it's possible that the most widely believed model is wrong and a better one exists. Except that the paper by Sarkar et al. is in no way the paper that establishes such a statement. So even after Sarkar et al., most cosmologists will surely consider the standard model of cosmology to be their preferred default explanation of the cosmological observations."

[LynchPin1477]

Yeah, like I said in my original post, it wouldn't completely shock me to learn that the Universe isn't accelerating. It's not my specific area of expertise but I do know that they have to rely on a number of empirical correlations to use the supernovae as standard candles. I don't question the empirical correlations but it layers models upon models. That's OK if you understand all the lower-level models, but if you don't it can lead you astray. It's also my understanding that the other supporting evidence for a cosmological constant, namely the WMAP and Planck results of the cosmic microwave background, are not totally independent confirmations.

It also wouldn't surprise me to see stronger evidence for acceleration in the future - I think it's *probably* correct. But it's not as solid as some other areas of physics or astronomy.

[gaoxiaen]

There goes my plan for an antigravity spaceship.

[Zeb]

So, are you some kind of astrophysicist or cosmologist or something? You seem to know what you are talking about. And it is a subject I am very interested in.

[bacon-magic]

He may have a newsletter you can subscribe to.

[LynchPin1477]

Astronomer

[Gray Ghost]

Hey, LP. Since I've got you here, what's your opinion of the not-Dyson swarm anomaly (KIC 8462852)? If a natural phenomenon, what do you think's causing it?

Also, my understanding is that stellar candles (IIRC, Type 1a supernovae) are remarkably uniform. Like part in 10,000 or so. What in our models of stellar evolution accounts for the companion white dwarves to be so uniform in size?

[LynchPin1477]

Heh, funny you should ask about that star. We are observing that as I write this to look for SETI . I suspect it's a debris disk of some sort. If it's aliens we should know in a few days, though 🙂

Type 1a supernovae occur when a white dwarf crosses a specific mass limit known as the Chandrasekhar limit, which is about 1.4 times the mass of our sun. This is the limit that electron degeneracy pressure can support (this is a quantum mechanical effect having to do with the exclusion principle - when you try to force electrons or other fermions into the same energy level they resist). When a white dwarf crosses that limit it begins to collapse and as it heats up, it triggers runaway fusion. Most white dwarfs of that mass will be made primarily of carbon because that is about the limit of what a sun-like star can create through fusion (more massive stars with hotter interiors can create more massive elements, up to iron. Elements heavier than iron are made in supernovae or in a lab). So the white dwarfs that lead to type 1a supernovae are very uniform in mass and composition.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

A vandal destroyed Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood walk of fame

More vandalism and property damage to demonstrate the power of tolerance and acceptance!

[AlmightyJB]

More Trump related violence. /CNN

[TheZenomeProject]

I'm not saying that Trump's statistically likely to win, but the left's paranoia and fanaticism makes me wonder if they know that they don't have it in the bag like they think that they do.

[John]

I think the same thing. Wikileaks has a Podesta email that says they are going to have polls over sample Democrats and then have the media use the results to declare the election over so Republican voters will be discouraged and not bother to vote. Isn't that exactly what is going on now?

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

But God forbid you suggest the election is rigged in any way

[TheZenomeProject]

This is exactly why I believe that Trump's "rigged election" pitches are a very effective counter-strategy. He knows that unlike establishment GOP voters, Trump supporters are likely to mobilize against such attempts at depressing the voter count.

[MetalBard]

Yes. I've never bought those polls that showed Clinton 12 points ahead. It just doesn't match what I actually observe. Thousand of people wait in lines for hours to go to a Trump rally, while at the same time Clinton is lucky if 50 people show up, that does not sound like someone that is 12 points ahead.

The media lies, it lied throughout this entire election, and colluded with the DNC to get rid of Bernie, and is now doing the same thing to try to destroy Trump. I have no idea why anyone would think after all that, that the polls were somehow magically sacred.

If I had to bet, I'm still betting Trump wins.

[Zeb]

I don't know if that really tells you much. More people seem to be very enthusiastic about him than Hillary, but that doesn't necessarily mean more people will come and vote for him. Hard to say.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the polls are way off. But I wouldn't be too surprised if they weren't either.

[BigT]

Story on local radio (CLE, OH) is reporting that the Sec of St of OH is saying the early mail votes from all the big cities are way, way down. (voting started a week or so ago)

[Gray Ghost]

Story on local radio (CLE, OH) is reporting that the Sec of St of OH is saying the early mail votes from all the big cities are way, way down. (voting started a week or so ago)

Weird. Our election clerk in Harris County, Texas, is saying that this is the biggest early voting push he's ever seen. We've had multiple hour waits at our polling places. For early voting. Something like 150,000 votes have already been cast, counting mail-in. Or what is basically the 2012 amounts for all of our two weeks of early voting in the first couple of days.

Not really going to matter, considering Texas was going to go for Trump anyway, but it's an interesting data point.

[TheZenomeProject]

The thing with large, angry populist movements is that you never know who or in how many numbers will people come to vote for it. This isn't so much a D vs. R election as it is rebellion vs. entrenchment. I wasn't initially excited about the election, but I think a Trump victory is not so far out of the reality that I can't dream about going to my university with a jar to collect prog tears. That's all that I'm saying.

[MetalBard]

Even if you don't support Trump, you have to get one of those "Make America Great Again" hats just for trolling leftists if he wins.

[TheZenomeProject]

Agreed, MetalBard, agreed. I have been considering an investment of the Make America Great Again cap in light of the recent poll changes. Haven't quite crossed the line to voting for him yet, but because I live in NC, my vote actually matters.

[MetalBard]

Well it's possible that Trump just has a cult following that will be overwhelmed by a bunch of people that will go to the polls, hold their nose, and vote Hillary.

But even if the majority of voters are lukewarm Hillary supporters, what are the odds they actually get up and bother voting?

I don't know, but there does seem to be a big disconnect with what I'm observing, and what some of these polls are reporting.

If the polls are lying though then the butthurt on the left will be even more intense if Trump wins, and that is a very happy thought.

[Pan Zagloba]

There's big money to be made if you're right.

I'm almost tempted - it would at least take the edge off the trump win. Sadly, Clinton odds are not nearly as good.

[MetalBard]

I would bet, but I don't know how that works exactly. Where do go? How do I get paid? I was under the impression that betting on presidential elections wasn't entirely legal.

[GILMORE?]

I was under the impression that betting on presidential elections wasn't entirely legal.

Intrade used to be completely kosher w/ it. I don't know how the newer betting markets work. I won a bunch of money on the Obama 2008 election, but it was done using iEscrow accounts. Sort of like an office pool.

*I actually won much more money on the Obama 2008 primary victory than the general. it was like 7-1 when i took it (December 2007). the general was like 3-1 before the September meltdown of McCain / market crash, then it was pretty much even money/slightly advantaged.

[John]

You can bet on the election in England. The Limeys will and do bet on anything.

[John]

You know who is saying Trump is a bit better than 50 50 to win? The British bookies. I give them more credibility than the pollsters. The bookies unlike the pollsters have a stake in being right. If they get the odds wrong, they could lose real money. They also have no stake in who wins. They don't care who is President and have no reason to lie about it. That is more than I can say for the pollsters.

[TheZenomeProject]

I'm not stupid enough to bet money on this either way, but I'm getting more and more excited about the ever-growing possibility of my prog tear jar getting filled up on Election Day.

[John]

I kind of feel the same way but am often wrong about these things. The funny thing is that if he does win, the media will have helped him do it because they are so stupid. They don't understand that people are voting for Trump as a way to tell the media and Washington to fuck off. So telling them that Trump can't win isn't going to discourage them. In fact it probably motivates them more. Meanwhile, it is likely cause a good number of Democrats who don't like Hillary but would vote her to keep Trump out from voting because they figure they don't need to so why soil themselves by voting for Hillary.

If the media had any brains and wanted to stop Trump, they would have embraced Trump and kicked around Hillary. This would have taken all of the fun out of voting for him for a lot of people and it would have rallied Democrats around Hillary because they would have perceived her as being a victim.

The fact that the media has made it its mission to stop Trump makes me think he might win. The media is more than anything utterly stupid and incompetent. So if their goal is to stop Trump, it is not a bad bet they will end up electing him. They really are that stupid.

[TheZenomeProject]

It also helps a ton that the RINOs like McCain, the Bushs, Powell, and Ryan are actively endorsing Trump without even realizing it. It's as if they are completely without any sense of self-awareness about their own status.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

The worst thing that could happen to Trump is an Obama endorsement. I'd I were Barry, I'd constantly talk about what a great pal Donald is, I've gone golfing with him a number if times, he's so much more toned down in prison, etc.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

That birther thing was actually just a running joke between the two of us

[TheZenomeProject]

The only thing worse for Trump than an Obama endorsement would be a Bill endorsement. Unfortunately no one in the DNC is genius enough to think up of that kind of chess move.

[Pan Zagloba]

Ladbrokes has Clinton as 1/5, and trump as 4/1. I.e. For each $5 you bet on Clinton, you get $1 (and your stake), for Trump you get $20.

That's...not exactly 50:50. But is almost tempting for a flutter..

Btw Pence is 100/1 and GJ 500/1.

[Gray Ghost]

I'd have lost a lot of money (I think: the election isn't over yet), if I had any balls and bet in August on someone other than Clinton or Trump taking the Presidency. I could've sworn it'd be Kaine, because Hil would've been under indictment.

Damn you to hell, James Comey.

[Zeb]

Well, that's probably more reliable than any poll, at least.

[Ted S.]

Bookies are more concerned about getting the money bet on each side to work out right so they profit regardless of the outcome.

That's why point spreads sometimes seem so wacky.

[Ted S.]

I should add that I don't know whether it's really an even proposition for Trump to win or not; just that whether it really is is wholly incidental to the odds.

[PurityDiluting]

Alternate universe, continued:

Higher insurance premiums = more affordable insurance

"The HHS goes on to actually boast that the huge premium hikes are a good thing because they can have the effect of lowering premium costs for consumers and can make more people eligible for the tax credits.
A table in the report shows how a 27-year old woman stands to benefit from the higher premiums. Her net premium cost could drop anywhere from $1 to $4 a month."

[John]

They really are saying "the more you spend the more you save". This country is governed by a race of retards.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Did you see the video of Rand Paul asking Bernie Sanders what areas of spending could be reduced when Sanders made that claim?

[John]

No. I am sure it was infuriating. What did Sanders do? Turn his head in incomprehension like a dog hearing a high pitched sound?

[JayU]

"Ask my wife, she's the one who pays the taxes."

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

the video

[Ted S.]

We're losing money on every sale, but we'll make up for it in volume!

[Ted S.]

The Democrats trying to lock up the "single woman" vote.

[lafe.long]

Dear Liberals: Trump is Right

Instead, it is Trump's assertion that the election is rigged, and that the outcome is not something to automatically accept as valid, that is fundamentally correct. And while the liberatti of the corporate media's Ministry of Truth wax obnoxious about the mortal danger of Trump's lack of faith in the sacred cow of US elections, they studiously ignore the material reality of the entire electoral system from the infrastructure to the polling and financial architecture.

Taken in toto it's hard to argue with the simple fact that the country that spreads democracy around the world at the barrel of a gun has merely the hollowed-out husk of a democracy at home. And whether it's Trump that says it, or a talking unicorn that shoots rainbows from its eyes, the fact remains.

[thom]

Elites have mocked Trump's claims that the election is rigged, but to the marginalized underclass that he's trying to speak to, of course the election is rigged. These are people who, their whole lives, everything has been rigged against them. So of course the election is too. To his base, Trump is just articulating something they already assume to be true.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

The fact that they are so vociferously rejecting even the notion that something shady could possibly happen anywhere in the entire U.S. is bullshit on its face. It's made worse by the release of videos (which the MSM and Reason still refuse to cover) of Dem operatives boasting about how they are doing so. And not just Dem operatives, but people in direct contact with Hillary and Obama.

[John]

The media basically confirmed that Trump was right when their only response to his claim was "how dare you". If the claim is so ridiculous, why can't the media be bothered to refute it rather than just dismissing it?

[BigT]

On today's Fifth Column the Editor at Large made a large ass of himself. Apparently he must have watched the wrong videos because he bitched about them being about blueberries or something.

[John]

Really? Did Welch really go after O'Keefe? That is pathetic.

[BigT]

Yes. Welch embarrasses himself regularly on those. He suffers a severe case of TDS.

I think it may be due to his wife. He may be trying to virtue signal her. So many men are afraid of dissing the Hildog because they are pussy whipped.

[John]

What did he say? How did he defend Hillary? Does he claim the videos don't show what they clearly do?

[BigT]

Welch complained that because the Dem operatives were dressed as Donald Duck the whole collusion was irrelevant.

Maybe plumbers weren't relevant either.

http://www.projectveritasactio.....nvolvement

[GILMORE?]

you're not really helping your argument

[Lachowsky]

My wife is actually going to vote for trump. I can see her reasoning. She really hates Hillary.

(when she told me she was voting for trump, I immediately grabbed her pussy. she thought it was hilarious.)

[Lachowsky]

My wife is actually going to vote for trump. I can see her reasoning. She really hates Hillary.

(when she told me she was voting for trump, I immediately grabbed her pussy. she thought it was hilarious.)

[Gray Ghost]

The fact that they are so vociferously rejecting even the notion that something shady could possibly happen anywhere in the entire U.S. is bullshit on its face.

The PA precincts with 100% turnout, all for Obama, were one of the bitterer pills to swallow in 2012. For Chrissakes, you can't get 650 people to all push the right button to agree they want free blowjobs and ice cream, and yet everyone in the precinct managed to vote for Obama without one or two of them fucking it up? Please.

We don't have data on the prevalence of voter fraud because we don't bother to look all that hard.

[PurityDiluting]

but if they know it to be true, will they bother to waste their time to go vote for him?

[lafe.long]

Perhaps I should have mentioned... that link is from a far-left web site that bills itself as "The Fearless Voice of the American Left Since 1993"

Some interesting articles there.

[lafe.long]

FTA:

And, naturally, liberals backing the Queen of Chaos have conveniently ignored the release of DNC emails proving that the Democratic primary was rigged in favor of Clinton and against Bernie Sanders. There's far too much cognitive dissonance created by simultaneously recognizing the reality of how this election has already been stolen, and still supporting Hillary Clinton. Orwellian doublethink seems to be a prerequisite for being a card-carrying liberal Democrat these days. Not only must they ignore how Clinton stole the nomination from Sanders, they must also ignore the steaming piles of evidence proving the entire election is a sham; Debord and Baudrillard would be so proud.

[GILMORE?]

Counterpunch is sort of like The Intercept

They're "principled lefties" - ideological to the point where they mostly end up criticizing the Democrat establishment for being horrible hypocrites and enablers of Warfare, worker-exploitation, crony capitalism, etc.

Pointing out that the elections are rigged to favor "their people" isn't going to upset anyone on the left.

I think its funny tho that they're concerned about rigged-voting-machines. The entire move to electronic ballots was to avoid another Florida 2000 situation. They've since spent billions on trying to 'upgrade election infrastructure', but like all government spending, they probably just made the situation worse

[lafe.long]

The counterpunch site came to my attention through my FB feed...
At first I thought the posts were coming from one of my rabid right winger acquaintances. Turns out they're coming from a rabid leftie acquaintance.

Priceless.

[gaoxiaen]

They keep on trying to improve on paper, first made around 200 BC, and are still fucking it up.

[Anomalous]

"Pro-immigration protesters in New York City stopped traffic across the George Washington Bridge."

I read somewhere that it was only on the upper deck. So, they did an upper decker.

[Tonio]

Dammit, Anomalous, I've already bestowed the golf clap for this thread, but that comment is so worthy.

[John Titor]

Tom Hanks pushes overpopulation back into the mainstream cultural zeitgeist.

Hanks revealed that a former professor of his introduced him to "the concept that eventually, the world will have too many people in it in order to subsist on its own." He noted the movie addresses the "quantum physics of overpopulation," and contended that "actually, the math does add up."

The quantum physics of overpopulation.

THE QUANTUM PHYSICS OF OVERPOPULATION.

THE QUANTUM PHYSICS OF OVERPOPULATION

RAGHHHHHHHHHHH

[John]

Okay, now I don't feel so bad for hoping it turns out that Hanks is the infamous "A list celebrity" that is running the Hollywood pedophile ring Corey Feldman says exists. What a dumb ass.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

He's too young? the head is supposedly 72 years old.

[John]

Damn.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

What about the body?

[PBR Streetgang]

That would be year of birth at 1944. So:
Michael Douglas
Sam Elliott
Danny Devito
Jeff Tambor
Rutger Hauer (He's 72? Seriously?)
Peter Mayhew

[MetalBard]

No don't say Rutger Hauer. He was nice enough to do voice work on one of Arjen Luccasen's albums.

[PBR Streetgang]

Oh...... and Gary Busey.

[Horatio]

Devito 3:1

[Eternal Blue Sky]

"and contended that 'actually, the math does add up.'"

Fucking Malthus's claims of how dire everything would be TODAY, in 2016 haven't added up, so why should we believe his claims for LATER??

[flye]

Look, say you have 2 kids. And they have 2 kids. Click 2 then x on a calculator, then the equal sign over and over until your calculator breaks. Get it now? THE MATH ADDS UP.

[Ted S.]

It's been done.

[John Titor]

I believe Malthus thought we were doomed once 2 billion people showed up. You're damn right the math doesn't add up Tom.

[MetalBard]

The math will continuously be adjusted to fit the narrative. Same with global warming.

[PurityDiluting]

and peak oil

[Gray Ghost]

JT, would we have been as screwed as Malthus indicated, if heroes like Norman Borlaug didn't expand the food supply to support 7 billion+?

You want someone on the new 20, SJW collective? Pick Borlaug.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

About the kind of intelligent statement I'd expect from someone who was in a movie about how Dungeons and Dragons drives innocent teenagers insane.

[John Titor]

Hey, that movie's fucking gold.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Imma have to watch that.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

People are fermions?

[Zeb]

Most likely. Not that that has anything to do with overpopulation.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

Yet, ironically, it's those most obsessed with the notion of overpopulation who oppose technological develops in fields like agriculture and energy, such as GMOs or nuclear.

[TheZenomeProject]

Let's make it clear: these kinds of progs don't believe that overpopulation is a pressing issue as much as they think that there will be too many people on Earth to be able to live "the right way".

[Horatio]

It's the inverse of the zombie fantasy: that you will have the world to yourself and things like motorcycles will still function

[TheZeitgeist]

The quantum physics of overpopulation.

Cloud Atlas obviously rots the brain for years afterwards.

[PurityDiluting]

plus there was the brain cloud in Joe vs the Volcano

[Possible Bot]

He should mocked but sadly half the population will probably think "Wow, Tom Hanks is really smart."

[BigT]

Tom Hanks is forever Forrest Gump ... except now he has morphed into Gump.

[Horatio]

Nope, he went FULL retard

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

"Politics is crippling the US economy, Harvard study says"

Large corporations are flourishing, given that they can move operations to any country with a friendly tax environment and skilled workers. Small businesses with fewer than 500 employees, which used to be country's most reliable job generators, are suffering. Since the 1980s, shows the report, the number of new businesses forming in America has tanked.

Of course, the left is blaming it on "trickle down economics" rather than the pre-PC Revolution tax code.

[John]

The fact that large companies are better able to adsorb the compliance costs associated with regulations and are also able to use their political influence to ensure those regulations hurt their competition and create entry barriers against new competition is something that would never occur to the dumb fucks. It is not like there isn't 50 years of experience with this in Europe showing that a regulatory state produces an hour glass shapped economy with a bunch of big companies and a bunch of small companies that can't grow and nothing in the middle or anything. Nope. That was just bad luck. It was going to be different this time.

[PurityDiluting]

^ this

[BigT]

large companies are better able to adsorb the compliance costs associated with regulations and are also able to use their political influence to ensure those regulations hurt their competition and create entry barriers against new competition

There's a word for that. Begins with f...

Don't tell me.

Hmmmmmmm

[B.P.]

Fitler?

[MetalBard]

Der thats not fair!!! We just need to pass more regulations to stop da big evil corporations from taking advantage of all the existing regulations. - Progtard

[PBR Streetgang]

The words in the headline are out of order. It should read "Cripples [mental] are politicking the US Economy"

[Juice]

That article sucked and was all over the place, but they came ever so close to getting it right.

[Brett L]

Noted not too bright columnist MattY crashes his Twitter. Can't wait for the Voxplaining of this one.

[DOOMco]

Just an easy mistake.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

"It's the free market's fault. Or libertarians'. You're a racist. And I'm smarter than you." /every Voxplanation for everything

[GILMORE?]

THERE IS A GOD

[DOOMco]

Currently buzzed in an airport.

[Crusty Juggler]

Quick, streak through the airport. DO IT.

[DOOMco]

You think i came here with clothes?!

[jesse.in.mb]

And now you look like this guy in my mind.

[DOOMco]

I am much skinnier. I look like a skeleton with a balloon over it

[jesse.in.mb]

*makes DOOMco a sandwich*

[DOOMco]

Please, sir, can i have another

[jesse.in.mb]

I wonder if we can get you adopted by an Amish family or something.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Yell "Boy, has Trump's presidential campaign BOMBED?". Emphasis on the final word. I assure you that nothing bad will happen and everything will be seen as hilarious by all involved*.

* This assurance not valid within the 50 states, or anywhere else for that matter.

[DOOMco]

Im already on a list or two

[bacon-magic]

Say "My name is DOOMco, and I'm loaded!" as loud as you can and let us know what happens next.

[DOOMco]

They're taking away my pho

[B.P.]

That's really the only way to be when in an airport.

[DOOMco]

Dia is a maze in the main section.

[B.P.]

Oh, I know it very well. I was buzzed there Sunday night.

[GILMORE?]

Pro-immigration protesters in New York City stopped traffic across the George Washington Bridge.

Yes, new york city, famous heart of anti-immigration sentiment. That'll show them!

[rts]

Majority of Canadians support legislation to ban distracted walking, poll suggests

*sigh*

[John]

I heard a great joke the other day. Do you know why Canada got Frenchman and America got black people? Because Canada and America had a bet and Canada lost.

[John Titor]

To be fair, we didn't import the French people like you did with blacks. They were already here and for some godforsaken reason we didn't ship them down to Louisiana like the Acadians.

/half anglicized French Canadian.

[John]

America got Jazz, Blues and Rock and Roll from having blacks, as well as the Harlem Renaissance and a lot of other things. What did Canada get out of having Frenchman other than a few nice parts of Montreal?

[BigT]

Jean Beliveau?

[bacon-magic]

Poutine and other French inspired foods?

[John]

You really know to hurt the Canadians don't you Bacon-magic?

[bacon-magic]

Eh, it's easy with the material that is given. That and I played Call of Duty with a bunch of Canadians(some of them were Frenchies that knew English yet would act like they didn't).

[DEG]

Poutine is food of the gods.

[bacon-magic]

If I really wanted to hurt Canadian feelings I would just mouth off about hockey. But I won't because that's the only sport I still watch. Go Blues!

[John Titor]

No, you need to mouth off about a specific team. No one gives a shit if you just rag on the game.

Now, this, this is the one thing Michael Moore ever got right.

[B.P.]

Dumping stuff on french fries is cuisine?

[John Titor]

Credit where credit's due, French Canadians used to be on the 'right side of history' a lot. They didn't want Canada participating in the First World War (happened anyway) and they were strongly against Prohibition (happened anyway in English provinces but died a lot quicker).

Also, before the Catholic Church collapsed in Quebec French Canadians produced a ton of super pro-freedom leaders/revolutionaries... see Laurier or Papineau. Now they've decayed into idiotic insecure national socialism.

[Pan Zagloba]

Smoking hot chicks.

[jesse.in.mb]

Well endowed, sexually adventurous gents.

[Ted S.]

Marty Brodeur slept with his sister-in-law.

[John Titor]

*Hot, loud-mouthed, fiery obnoxious princesses.

Fixed it for you. But I'm not complaining, it's worth it. Just remembering the time I got an alarm clock thrown at my head and a lot of 'caliss' and 'tabernac's shouted at me.

[John]

Yeah, there are a lot of beautiful women in Montreal. Can't argue that.

[DEG]

YES!

[MetalBard]

Thats no excuse John Titor, I mean the Indians were already here, but that didn't stop us.

[Florida Hipster]

It's funny because it's murder.

[John Titor]

The best part? Tolerating French Canadians is one of the causes of the American Revolution.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Next up. Canadians ban daydreaming in class.

Fucking retards.

Look, people who don't look up are idiots but let good old life sort it out. Once they walk into a car or a parking meter, they'll learn quick.

[GILMORE?]

Duh, why don't they just *ban cars running into people* and that way people can tweet while the cross the street?! PROBLEM SOLVED

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

TEACH CARS NOT TO HIT PEOPLE /herpaderp

[AlmightyJB]

This string about Canadians much too long.

[AlmightyJB]

Mom. Send lipstick.

http://nbc4i.com/2016/10/26/un.....-students/

[GILMORE?]

Russia is sending an armada into the Mediterranean Sea

Calling it now = they're going to have an accident before the end of the year. Either launching or retrieving aircraft. Or maybe they'll just catch on fire at random.

[John]

Sending a fleet out to see and keeping it there is a bit harder than the US and UK make it look. The Russians have not had the ability to do that really ever. The last time Russia sent a fleet off for major combat operations was in 1901 against Japan. It didn't work out well for them.

So, yeah, my guess is they will fuck this up themselves long before there is any need for NATO to do anything.

[RBS]

Something will sink before they even get there.

[PurityDiluting]

Russia wanted to stop in Spain for more fuel but NATO pressured Spain into ignoring them (because that's what friends do)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponlin......html?_r=0

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Bullshit, they sent their entire armada out to find The Red October. Fact.

[Pope Jimbo]

Didn't that same armada also almost run over our first black deep sea diver too? I think I remember watching a good documentary about that.

[tarran]

One bit of irony about the Russo-Japanese war, it not only set the stage for Japan warring with the U.S. over the Pacific, it also ensured that the Japanese would pursue a losing strategy.

Basically, the Japanese Navy defeated the Russian Navy in a few big battles, inflicting the most damage with a surprise attack at the outset of the war.

The Japanese doctrine throughout WW II was to try to draw the U.S. Navy into a devastating big battle where the superior* quality of the Japanese Navy would prevail. They basically wanted to recreate their experience against the Russians.

The Americans were uninterested in that sort of thing, and basically only fought big actions when they were either unavoidable or they saw an excellent chance of success. The American strategy was to fight a war of attrition and they were quite willing to experiment and alter their tactics and strategies based on what was working, while the Japanese kept trying to pound the round Americans into the square pegged hole that was what had worked against Russia.

*At the outset of the war the Japanese quality was superior.. and as the war progressed that became more of an illusion the Japanese clung to than reality.

[John]

The Japanese had no chance in a long war against the US and they knew it. So, their strategy had to be to win a few big battles early and then force the US to negotiate a favorable peace. The Japanese mistakes were many. One of them was to launch a surprise attack and then wage such a total war in the Philippines and SE Asia such that the US was so angry it would accept nothing short of unconditional surrender. Once the US made that determination, Japan was doomed.

[Lachowsky]

sort of On topic. I read a really good book about the naval battle at Guadalcanal a few months ago. Nuptune's Inferno. by James Hornfischer. It was really well done. The same author wrote The last stand of the tin can sailors. That's probably my favorite naval history book.

[John]

Lachowsky,

If you like that topic, this is an older book but a classic. It really shatters a lot of myths about World War II and explains the development of the career really well. I can't recommend it enough.

http://www.amazon.com/Development-Ope.....0060102780

[Lachowsky]

I'll read it. looks interesting.

[MetalBard]

Hmmm...Didn't we have an accident with one of our ships a century ago.. I think it was call the USS Maine...

[DOOMco]

Nope! Never happened

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

The Honda Point Disaster might be more relevant?

[JaimeRoberto]

I kind of remember that.

[thrakkorzog]

From what I've seen, isn't the fleet basically a carrier with a couple of tugboats to help push it along? I'm guessing there are probably a couple of subs around also, but that doesn't seem like much of an armada to me.

[GILMORE?]

From what I've seen, isn't the fleet basically a carrier with a couple of tugboats to help push it along?."

Thats what i gathered. I originally bolded "Armada" as a question-mark, suggesting that Fox/Ed might be a little melodramatic in their use of terminology.

While i don't think its a term the navy uses anymore (anyone who knows feel free to chime in)... it has been used in the past to reference 'things bigger than a single fleet' - a la the Normandy invasion. from what i gather the Russian thing barely qualifies as a 'strike group' or 'flotilla'. "Carrier support group"? meh

[tarran]

Task force.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

"Armada" is the term for the "navy" in Spanish and Portuguese (and military in Czech and Slovak) and used for the name of the Navy in Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries:

Armada Espa?ola = Spanish Navy
Armada Portuguesa = Portuguese Navy
Armada Republica Mexicana = Mexican Republic Navy

[Troy muy grande boner]

Yeah, The SS Minnow is part of the fleet too.

[Horatio]

So my buddy, 30yrs old, said he wished he could vote Bernie but will vote GayJay in the hopes that a 3rd party would receive federal campaign funding. Libertarian moment bitches.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Terrorism.

Not Terrorism.

"We were harassed. There were two vigilante men waiting to insult us," said Frances Raday, the delegate from the U.K. The men repeatedly shouted, "You're murdering children!" at them as soon as they neared the clinic, even though Raday said they are clearly past childbearing age.

"It's a kind of terrorism," added Eleonora Zielinska, the delegate from Poland. "To us, it was shocking."

[Pope Jimbo]

Who says Millennials aren't made of stern stuff?

This hipster from the mean streets of Minneapolis moved 56 miles out into the country! And is surviving!

And it must be really rural because it seems that they must be using black powder shotguns. At least that is what I got reading about the hillbilly who ruined his trip to the local graveyard:

As I knelt to examine the inscriptions on a grave, I started to daydream about their bygone lives. But my thoughts were quickly shattered by the unmistakable boom of a gun. I turned to see a neighbor, shotgun in hand, marching through a cloud of smoke. I contemplated fleeing or cowering behind a gravestone. Before I could move the man halted over his prey in a patch of tall grass. Whatever he had shot, it had died as quickly as my comfort.

[Pope Jimbo]

I was out hunting pheasants for 4 days last week and I can't remember any clouds of smoke that lingered long enough for any of us to march through.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Even with muzzle loaders, you can use smokeless powder.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Jesussss... here, have a fainting couch.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

No matter where I've lived, meandering has been a constant of my daily routine. Up until this past spring I wandered the streets of downtown Minneapolis, drifting through the shadows cast by skyscrapers of glass and steel. Now that I live in the countryside just west of the Twin Cities, the concrete sidewalks are replaced by gravel roads. And apart from the occasional silo, the towers are made of cottonwood, oak and maple.

This is ramping up to be the worst thing I've ever read...

[John]

It is in the running. It is just horrible. It makes the crazy bitch in the Washington Post who stole all of the Trump signs seem downright erudite. Is this truly generation retard or is there something about writing on the internet that is some kind of honey pot for the retards in this generation?

[GILMORE?]

is there something about writing on the internet that is some kind of honey pot for the retards in this generation?

It used to be there was some small barrier-to-entry when it came to getting published. There were layers of editors who screened content.

Now.... i think the whopping amount of "free content" has put publications in a competitive bind. Combined with a generational reticence to either give or receive criticism... they'll pretty much run anything that 'feels right'. Oh, its "millenial", talks about the city/country dichotomy, includes some sorta anti-gun references? RUN WITH THAT SHIT

""a flock of bronzed grackles sought refuge in the burnt orange and emerald green towers of the country. They were screeching like a thousand rusty hinges as a red-tailed hawk circled above. The sun peeked over the skyline, glistening as it melted the frost from the field of golden soybeans.""

its like the english language version of those pastoral stock-paintings you find in chain-hotel rooms.

[Hyperion]

Bambie dies you rat fucker! Stop making jokes!

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

OH FUCK, he mentioned Walden. I was wondering how many paragraphs in before I'd read 'Walden'.

So, with Walden in mind, I resolved to spend a year living at the cabin and hacking away on my typewriter.

[Pope Jimbo]

Well Walden Pond was only 2 miles from downtown Concord. So he is 28 times or so better than Thoreau.

But he is using a typewriter so he loses some points because that is way too modern and convenient for a wanna be Thoreau.

[John]

What is really annoying about Walden Pond is that Thoreau lived in an age where you really could drop out and go into the wilderness. And instead of doing that, he moves to a pond two miles outside of town and plays nature man for a few months when he is not hanging out with his friends who regularly come to visit him and then spends the rest of his life patting himself on the back about it. I really can't stand Thoreau.

[John Titor]

I need to see how shitty his cabin is before I can make judgement on if he's outdoing Thoreau. Naturalist cabin quality is measured in Unabombers.

[John]

The unibomber was hardcore. He lived up in Montana in an uninsulated cabin with no heat. Man that guy was nuts.

[Hyperion]

My dad knew a guy like that. He was a hermit basically, deep back a private lane in some woods. He took me out there a couple of time. It wasn't even a cabin, but just a sort of lean to shack insulated by tarps, stacks of hay and newspapers and other assorted shit. No electric, no heat. Yet the guy had been living this way for years. According to the guy, who had the appropriate long hair, beard, and tattered dirty clothing of a hermit, and seemed a little odd but was quite articulate, he was actually a college professor when he was younger, but his wife up and left him and so he just quit society and decided to live like that on his land. Sort of sad.

[John]

There is a great documentary called "Alone in the Wilderness" about a guy who in his 50s lost his wife and moved up to a cabin he built himself on a lake in Alaska. He lived there totally alone until he was in his late 80s and finally had to move to a rest home. The national park service now maintains his cabin as a museum piece. It is a fascinating documentary. This guy was a serious outdoorsman and woodworker.

[John]

And then there is this guy

http://www.gq.com/story/the-last-true-hermit

He lived alone with only a sleeping bag for 20 years in the Maine woods. In the entire time he said one word to a hiker he accidentally ran into and nothing else. If you haven't read about this guy, read the article. It is wild.

[John Titor]

My grandparents' old cottage is Quebec is on a lake where a similar hermit used to live in the 1970s. Lived up on the mountain in a house he built himself. Never heard about his background, but one day he up and disappeared. They found his horses in the river with their throats cut, and his house had been burned down with him inside. Never had an investigation, ruled it a suicide, and they buried him in the local cemetery. You can still walk up the mountain and stand on the old stone foundation of his house.

And that's how you create a generational ghost story.

[John]

The poor horses. Crazy fucker.

[Pope Jimbo]

My biological grandfather basically lived in a car because it was cheap and allowed him to spend all his time hunting and fishing. He had an old beater station wagon that he hauled his old boat around with.

He trapped just enough to make the money he needed for the stuff he couldn't hunt or catch on his own.

When I was a kid he would show up every so often when my father had our hobby farm and live in the back pasture for a few weeks in a hobo camp. I don't think I ever saw him again after we moved into town.

[B.P.]

"According to the guy, who had the appropriate long hair, beard, and tattered dirty clothing of a hermit, and seemed a little odd but was quite articulate, he was actually a college professor when he was younger, but his wife up and left him and so he just quit society and decided to live like that on his land. Sort of sad."

So he's the Joel character from Northern Exposure?

[Pope Jimbo]

I'm sure it is a pretty nice cabin if it can be lived in year round. I'm also pretty sure all the locals hate the kids guts. Mostly because he shows up at the local cafe and asks for some fancy coffee drink in front of all the local farmers. Probably rolls his eyes too when the waitress tells him that they only have Folgers.

So one Unabomber is 10x12 ft. I gay-rone-tee that it is at least 10K Unabombers.

[John]

It is one thing to grow up in a place and grow to hate it. Familiarity really does breed contempt. But it takes a special breed of dickhead to move to a place and then refuse to understand or appreciate the people there and spend the entire time looking down your nose at them. Any normal human being would come away from this experience with a better understanding and appreciation of the people in that town even if they decided living there was not for them. But not this aspy little fuck.

[Pope Jimbo]

The comments were pretty funny. One rural guy admonishes the kid to leave his liberal politics back in the city. That intolerant rural fuck then gets yelled at by a ton of liberal city slickers who tell him that they can't tell liberals where they can live.

[John]

I am sure those liberals would welcome conservative rural people with open arms.

[Hyperion]

My motto has been that saying 'God save me from nice little towns'. Sure, it might be nice to live in a tranquil little village like that, but not once everyone knows you. I used to live in a place like that and once I knew everyone, some of them would see me at the grocery store and say something like 'hey, I saw you driving through Taco Bell this morning'. And I would think good grief, this is some creepy fucking shit. When I left there and moved back to the city, I loved the feeling of just grocery shopping knowing that there wasn't one fucking schmuck going to walk in there who would know me from Santa Claus.

[John]

I don't like that either Hyperion. But I understand why some people do and I can see the attraction of such places even if they don't hold much attraction for me. It is one thing to understand a place and appreciate and also understand it is not for you. It is quite another to make no attempt to understand it and just use it as a prop in the self important morality play you run in your head, which is what this guy did.

[Hyperion]

Yeah, that guy is just your average city hipster douche. He went there and he learned nothing. He went in with some pre-conceived notion that it's paradise, Bambi and all that shit, but the rednecks and their guns have ruined it. He knows nothing about living in a place like that. He knows nothing of the way they think or live. When I was fresh out of school I decided to go on a similar adventure. I rented a house from a farmer and got farm hand work from some local farmers. There was no furnace in the house. And when I asked about it, the guy told me, 'Well, I reckon yer gonna need to get yourself a stove. See that patch of woods over yonder on that hillside? You can cut what you want of that. You'll need a few cords to get through the winter, best you get cutting now'.

[Pope Jimbo]

I hear you. I grew up in that small town and moved to the big city and have never really looked back.

I have friends who grew up in the Twin Cities and they all romanticize small town life. They never believe me when I tell them how shitty it is to live somewhere where every one knows your business.

[DEG]

I like living where I have room between my neighbors and me. I don't have as much room as I'd like right now, but oh well.

I chalk the "hey, I saw you driving through Taco Bell this morning" bullshit to busybodies. They exist every where there are people.

[Hyperion]

I like that too. In close vicinity of larger cities now in some parts of the country, that is getting prohibitively expensive. It's what everyone wants except the true urbanites who have to see people all the time and walk to local restaurants.

[John Titor]

This seems to have less to do with 'Millennial generation divide' and more 'urban vs. rural divide.'

Because the local punk ass kids who drive their four wheelers all over everyone's property and shoot every squirrel they see are definitely not hanging out with this guy.

[John]

Though it would make for some good reality TV if they ever did.

[John Titor]

Deliverance already exists.

[John]

So, like watching some hipster have to squeal like a pig ever gets old.

[Hyperion]

I should have never let my wife watch that. It took me a year after that to convince her that it's ok to drive through West Virginia.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

I should have never let my wife watch that. It took me a year after that to convince her that it's ok to...

I was thinking that sentence was going to end a lot different.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

How could they... even if they wanted to... I'm guessing the punk assed kids have jobs to go to. I'm guessing this kid has some kind of trust fund which allows him to "hack away on his typewriter" for a year.

[Hyperion]

"and shoot every squirrel they see"

I like these guys, I will pay them a bounty per tail.

[Pope Jimbo]

I'll out bid you, but they need to skin and dress the squirrel so I can eat it later.

Our apple tree in the back yard has hardly any apples on it this year. The usual batch of squirrels aren't back there trying to steal them, thus I haven't had a chance to get a few of them with my trusty Gammo pellet gun.

I may have to resort to baiting them with bird seed.

[Hyperion]

"I was just getting comfortable with my new way of life, but then fall arrived"

What a pussy, it's still typically a little above zero farenheit there in the fall.

[Gray Ghost]

Before I could move the man halted over his prey in a patch of tall grass. Whatever he had shot, it had died as quickly as my comfort.

And then, given it's bumfuck Minnesota, the guy promptly yelled at the Millennial in Hmong for fucking up his shot.

[Pope Jimbo]

It isn't bumfuck Minnesota though. Kids in Dassel can drive for an hour and be in downtown Minneapolis. Shit 20 minutes and you are getting to the suburbs of Minneapolis.

And the Hmong hunters don't wait until fall to start their own personal hunting seasons.

[John]

I call bullshit on that story. I have never in my life seen anyone hunting in a graveyard. And I have spent a decent portion of my life in small towns similar to where this asshat is. That is not how it works. People hunt on their own land or on the land of people they know. It is a giant no no to go and hunt on someone's land without them knowing about it or knowing you well enough for you to know you can do it whenever you like. And no one hunts on common areas in town much less in a graveyard.

This guy is just bullshitting.

[DEG]

It is a giant no no to go and hunt on someone's land without them knowing about it or knowing you well enough for you to know you can do it whenever you like.

It's a giant no-no, but folks do it. The family of a friend of mine from grade school had problems with hunters coming onto their clearly posted land.

[John]

Yes people do it. And they are always people from out of town. Hunters suck and they are loathed for that reason. But this guy has locals wondering around shooting shit and trespassing. And that doesn't happen.

[DEG]

I don't know if they ever found out who it was. I remember them telling me about finding evidence of hunters on their land, but never actually catching the guys.

[Hyperion]

I assumed that he meant the guy was hunting in a field or woods 'near' the graveyard. I've seen some graveyards by small rural churches that are like the size of my living room.

[suzanneezimmer]

I've made $64,000 so far this year working online and I'm a full time student. Im using an online business opportunity I heard about and I've made such great money. It's really user friendly and I'm just so happy that I found out about it. Heres what I do,

???????? http://YoutubeJobs.Nypost55.com