A.M. Links: Trump Heads to Indiana, Putin Addresses Russia, Tennessee Wildfires 'Likely to Be Human-Caused'

• 

  Todd Kranin

  President-elect Donald Trump is headed to Indiana today, where he will visit the Carrier plant in Indianapolis.

• Sarah Palin is reportedly under consideration to serve as the secretary of veteran affairs in the Trump administration.
• Senate Democrats are planning to make the confirmation of Trump nominees "as painful as possible for the new president."
• In his annual state-of-the nation speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia is "not seeking conflict with anyone." But "we will not permit harm to our interests."
• The Tennessee wildfires that killed at least seven are "likely to be human-caused."
• "Oil swept to a six-week high on Thursday after OPEC agreed to cut crude output to help clear a glut, while sterling hit a three-month peak after traders interpreted comments from a senior UK official as a crack in the government's 'hard Brexit' line."

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Comments

[Lord Humungus]

woah… head fake!

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

Er. What kind of move was this?

[Lord Humungus]

the first blowjob I ever got?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

There is a joke here about giving and receiving…

[Free Society]

You need to say goodbye in the PM links from now on. It is decreed.

[straffinrun]

Huh?

[Rich]

Let’s do the Time Warp again!

[Rich]

The weird thing is — Where’s FIST?!

[straffinrun]

Think these comments get wiped?

[Rich]

Nope. He’s cool.

[juris imprudent]

Didn’t even show up in the precisely at 9:00 comments.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Too busy crying and pouting.

[Lord Humungus]

Winnie-the-Poo: Angry bear rescued from septic tank

A video posted to YouTube by user Vitaly Petrukhin shows the construction workers coming to the rescue of the bear after it apparently fell into the concrete septic tank while chasing chickens on a farm in Ericek.

The video shows the workers using a digger to reach the bottom of the tank and a hydraulic hammer to punch a hole through the concrete.

The dissatisfied and excrement-covered bear pokes its head out from the hole and helps to dig itself to freedom and run off into the nearby woods.

[Rich]

excrement-covered bear

Nice band name.

[invisible furry hand]

or Christmas gift for an annoying child

[Rich]

I like the way you think, ifh.

[PBR Streetgang]

Or very weird gay, German predilection.

[Injun, as in from India]

or a new flavor of gummy bears for kids.

[Citizen X]

+1 jenkem

[Lord Rollingpin]

It’s imagination like this that makes America the great country it is.

[Brett L]

“Hey rabbit, does shit stick to your fur?”

[Rich]

“Silly rabbit — Shitstix are for KIDS!”

[colorblindkid]

I’ll one up your cute bear story. This happened close to where I live:

Bear cub gets his head stuck in a cookie jar.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/20…..gwood-n-j/

[Citizen X]

That bear went full Pooh.

NEVER go full Pooh.

[Groovus Maximus]

This full Pooh.

[invisible furry hand]

With his blood sugar raised by he snacks, the bear was then finally strong enough to burst through the window and eat them. Hurrah for the bear!

[Citizen X]

The Platonic ideal of the Russian YouTube video, right there.

[Rich]

Palin is reportedly under consideration

You can say *that* again.

[loveconstitution1789]

Why won’t that lady just go away? I would think veterans would be 1M times more qualified for that position.

[Rich]

Hey! Isn’t she *married* to a veteran, or at least to a guy injured in a snowmobile accident?

[CE]

But all Alaskans have to know a lot about animals — they have to care for their sled dogs, and know the habits of wolves, bear and moose for their own safety.

[x'); DROP USER Tony;]

Sarah Palin is reportedly under consideration to serve as the secretary of veteran affairs in the Trump administration.

“What, like with Glen Rice?”

[Fist of Etiquette]

ZzzzzzzzZZZZZzzzZZZZZ huh what?

[Bee Tagger]

Did Root forget to text you that these were going up early?

[Groovus Maximus]

Nope, Denial, The Angry Prostate, kept hitting Fist of Somnolence’s snooze button like how Fist furiously F5’s every morning.

It’s fascinating to see Fist’s Prostate leap from sentience to actual manipulation of the environs.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Sentient Prostate is also a good band name.

[invisible furry hand]

What a concept. “Hey, warm your finger before you start prodding me, you jerk!”

[yet another dave]

“The Angry Prostate, kept hitting Fist of Somnolence’s snooze button” these euphamisms

[loveconstitution1789]

Wakey wakey, shake the snakey.

[Injun, as in from India]

shake the snakey.

Do you want him to suffer from Shaken Snake syndrome?

[Citizen X]

Symptoms of Shaken Snake Syndrome include dizziness, sweating, dry mouth, chapped lips, hairy palms, chafing, and a mess you have to clean up.

[Groovus Maximus]

So, basically a date with Crusty, then?

[Citizen X]

“Date with Crusty” is an excellent euphemism for it.

[robc]

Fun fact: The Carrier Dome is air-conditioned.

It normally doesnt matter, but football games in early September can get a bit balmy.

[robc]

ISNT

dammit.

[Rich]

Carrier on.

[MikeT1986]

Carrier on my wayward son?

[Rich]

*Once* I rose above the noise and confusion.

[Groovus Maximus]

*Just* to get a glimpse. Beyond this illusion?

[Rich]

Morning, Doc!

[Groovus Maximus]

Dobrij den’, Rich!

[thrakkorzog]

There will be peace when you are done.

Great, now I want to go watch Supernatural reruns.

[EDG reppin LBC]

Well now I don’t know which one to believe.

[Mickey Rat]

That is fine, Carrier dies not make anything in Syracuse anymore anyway.

[Lee Genes]

Concerning the gay-hating home remodelers article:

Buzzfeed and Kate Aurthur’s Home Planet Has Residents Who Are Firmly Against Interracial Marriage

Hmm, no comment from @KateAurthur. So there’s a good chance she singled out Chip and Joanna Gaines because she despises interracial couples.

[Lord Humungus]

‘roid RAGE!

Irate bodybuilder flattens a judge and whips out his penis in protest after losing international competition

A Greek bodybuilder was so angry at losing a competition that he slapped a judge and pulled out his penis in protest.

Giannis Magos had already been declared winner of the 100kg competition and looked set to win the 2016 IFBB Diamond Cup title in Athens, Greece.

But when he was not declared champion, he went into a rage, hitting respected judge Armando Marquez in the face, throwing him onto the floor.

Onlookers tried to reason with the shirtless muscleman, but continued screaming in protest.

[Lee Genes]

In fairness, that is a customary greeting among men in Greece.

[OldMexican Blankety Blank]

He flaunted his influence.

[Libertarian]

He flouted his flatulence.

[SugarFree]

Well, there goes a Warty Hugeman story I had in progress. Stupid reality.

[Rich]

Just change the names to protect the “innocent”.

[Lost_In_Translation]

Magos Smash!!!

[straffinrun]

This Greek hero should’ve just shrugged.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Atlas Mushroom Stamped

[invisible furry hand]

hitting respected judge Armando Marquez in the face, throwing him onto the floor.

His dick slap was enough to throw the judge to the floor? Respect.

[Rufus The Monocled]

What an asshole.

[straffinrun]

Sounds like a Hillary voter.

[Injun, as in from India]

Sounds like a Buzzfeed reporter.

[straffinrun]

You know the top 10 things that Asians really hate being asked?

[Injun, as in from India]

1) “Why are Indians on the Asian-American Student Council?” (Answer/Question: Which continent is India located in?)

[Citizen X]

“I’m transracial, you dick!”

[Citizen X]

“I’m transracial, you dick!”

[John Titor]

The Indian subcontinent?

[Injun, as in from India]

pulled out his penis in protest.

If he measured his penis using Drachmas instead of Euros, the number would make it sound a lot bigger.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

“It was so cold, my dick looked like a stack of drachmas?”

[Eternal Blue Sky]

Every piece of news I hear out of Greeks makes me think they should still be part of Turkey. I don’t think that country can be trusted to be left to its own devices.

[Swiss Servator]

*Hellas declares war on EBS*

[Scarecrow & WoodChipper Repair]

“… and borrows white flags from France.”

[Darth Squirrel]

Is this more of that dicks out thing?

[thom]

Senate Democrats are planning to make the confirmation of Trump nominees “as painful as possible for the new president.”

They really have their finger on the pulse of the American public.

[Lost_In_Translation]

They re-elected Pelosi, I mean, they’re going full retard.

[Shirley Knott]

Sadly, tragically, there is no ‘full retard’. They apparently don’t realize you can’t dig your way down to the bottom of a hole.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

you can’t dig your way down to the bottom of a hole.

Sounds like someone is a flat-earther. You got something against China?

[Lachowsky]

Obstructionists, the whole lot of them

[Tyler.C]

Yes im excited to now hear how obstructionism is an amazing thing frim democrats and that it is just anti-democratic from the Republicans.

[Injun, as in from India]

They got rid of the filibuster.

So the pain is going to be all theirs.

[WTF]

Count on the Stupid Party to allow the filibuster and fail to enact Harry Reid’s “nuclear option” to deprive them of the filibuster. Just count on it.

[Cyto]

Somebody needs to go back and pull all those quotes about “elections have consequences” and how the President deserves to have the cabinet he chooses, etc.

But as far as causing Trump pain…. he’s proven that he couldn’t give a rip about what people think. He won’t back down.

Remember Clinton and all of the issues about paying Social Security taxes for nannies and housekeepers? Remember how they said they were backing their nominees 100%, only to pull the nominations within 48 hours?

Can you see Trump doing that? He didn’t back down from “grab them by the pussy”. Who really thinks he’s going to back down from “that 4 star general that you nominated isn’t a nice guy”?

[Red Rocks Dickin Bimbos]

Somebody needs to go back and pull all those quotes about “elections have consequences” and how the President deserves to have the cabinet he chooses, etc.

When Schumer and Pelosi have their first policy meeting with Trump, he should tell them “I won” just for the lulz.

[Lord Humungus]

Happy St Andrew’s Day! America could be about to lift 45-year ban on haggis and Scots are thrilled

The haggis, traditionally served on Burns Night across the world, has not been allowed on sale in America since 1971.

The reason is what it contains – a none-too-appetising mix of sheep’s heart, liver and lungs, mixed with oatmeal and spices and encased in sheep’s intestines.

Governing body the US Department of Agriculture ruled four decades ago that “livestock lungs shall not be saved for use as human food”, meaning haggis was a no-no.

[Rich]

The haggis … has not been allowed on sale in America since 1971.

Now, *that* is a “fun fact”.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Let it be known that I’m completely in favor of a haggis ban and am also in favor of the death penalty for anyone who thinks eating it is a good idea.

[Rich]

How about loss of citizenship? Scottish, I mean?

[G?C]

** marks Juvenile Bluster off his Burns Night invitation list **

I love haggis. Wife makes an incredible haggis egg roll with a spicy red onion chutney. We routinely host a Burns Night with 5 or 6 different single malts, and the best cranachan I’ve ever eaten…

[UnCivilServant]

Haggis Egg Roll?

Care to share the recipie?

[G?C]

I’ll ask her, but I have a feeling it may be futile – every time she cooks it is a bit different. She really doesn’t follow recipes (except for baking, where it is more important). Her normal procedure is to add stuff until it tastes right to her.

But it always turns out tasty!

[G?C]

Yup, I was partially correct – her first response was “throw @#$% together until it looks right, cook at a cooking temperature. Voila.”

She did say that she will type it up later. May want to send me an email (link is in user name) to remind me though. Too many concussions to remember who wanted it or what thread it was in…

[Citizen X]

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You don’t like anything… except haggis?

[G?C]

That directed at me? I like plenty of food, to include haggis in all its forms. We’ve made haggis fritters, egg rolls, and the traditional haggis, neeps, and tatties.

Nothing better than a night out than a full English/Scottish/Irish breakfast…

But I hit the jackpot when it came to marrying a cook – she makes better pizza than most restaurants (including those in Italy), cooks all the standard fare of SW Germany (where she’s from), and dabbles in traditional Thai dishes. There is a reason my waistline has expanded at a steady pace since we got married…

[Citizen X]

No, i was replying to UnCivilServant. He is an acknowledged hater of coffee, beer, chocolate, children, fresh air, music, plants, birds, and basically everything.

[Swiss Servator]

…and books. And juice.

[UnCivilServant]

Where did you get chocolate from?

And it’s not my fault your taste in music sucks.

[Lord Humungus]

that explains a lot. UCS only likes the bottom of the food chain.

[Libertarian]

No worries, JB. As soon as the SJWs get wind of this cultural appropriation I’m sure protesters will be taking to the streets.

[straffinrun]

Let’s go light some flaming haggis in a Scot’s front yard to get that ball rolling.

[invisible furry hand]

What about sporrans or deep-fried Mars Bars?

[Chipwooder]

The last funny thing Mike Myers ever said might be, “No, I don’t eat haggis. In fact, I think most Scottish cuisine was based on a dare”

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Haggis is only dangerous because all the sheep in Scotland have become smokers to cope with their indignities.

[Citizen X]

Those are post-coital cigarettes.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

You mean I have a can of banned food in my kitchen?

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

?Sarah Palin is reportedly under consideration to serve as the secretary of veteran affairs in the Trump administration.

Oh God, if they put this nincompoop in charge veterans across the country might start dying at VA hospitals from preventable illnesses while they wait for care. Can you imagine the outrage if that ever happened?!

[Atanarjuat]

Either Trump is once again floating a controversial name to the media to let them spend their time frothing, or it’s some kind of 5D chess move to trick lefties into caring about the patients dying in the VA.

[Atanarjuat]

*Or straight-up payback for supporting him.

[Lee Genes]

Dana Milbank stays true to form

“We have across most states some significant element of voter suppression,” says Zoltan Hajnal, a University of California at San Diego political scientist specializing in voting rights. “Over time these have shrunk the electorate in significant ways and tilted the electorate toward the Republican Party.”

The total number of would-be voters deterred is in the “millions,” he said. “If you were to superimpose the most liberal voting laws on all the states, it’s quite likely we would have had a different winner” on Nov. 8.

Though it’s difficult to quantify the effect of voter suppression in 50 states, Hajnal reports in a new study that after Texas implemented a strict voter-ID law, Latino turnout dropped sharply between 2010 and 2014, and the gap between white and Latino turnout increased by 9.2 percentage points. In the rest of the country, the gap between white and Latino turnout decreased over the same period.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

“Though it’s difficult to quantify the effect of voter suppression in 50 states”

i.e. Difficult because barely exists

[juris imprudent]

But, but, millions!

[Rich]

Soon, you’re talking real corruption!

[Get To Da Chippah]

I wonder what Zoltan thinks of CA’s primary system, which results in statewide offices being a choice between Democrat A and Democrat B, and how that might suppress the turnout of conservative voters.

[Injun, as in from India]

Doesn’t count.

If Democrats win, it’s not voter suppression.

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

So if ID suppresses minorities or democrat voters (how does this some how affect them but not GOPers)….wouldn’t this mean requiring drivers licenses to drive is also suppressing minorities from driving?

[Roger the Shrubber]

Or opening a bank account
Or enrolling in state and federal benefits programs
Or purchasing a firearm
Or…..

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

I like when progs say they don’t want to suppress rights via requiring iD….so then immediately ask about 2nd amendment

[OldMexican Blankety Blank]

Hajnal reports in a new study that after Texas implemented a strict voter-ID law, Latino turnout dropped sharply between 2010 and 2014[…]

He says that as if it were a bad thing.

[Atanarjuat]

Correlation: always the same as causation, when I want it to be.

[John]

Isn’t that evidence that there was fraud going on? Why are Hispanics less likely to have an ID than white people? The only reason I can think is if they are here illegally.

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

What is their explanation for Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Penn, Michigan and Iowa all flipping red despite being blue the previous 2 times?

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

Also NC and Indiana were blue in 2008

[CE]

Russian hackers.

[Mickey Rat]

Maybe the drop in Latino turnout were people who were not eligible to vote? Because I really do not see how a voter ID law deters a lawful voter. A mere drop in turnout is not something that automatically should be considered a bad thing in itself.

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

Yea and how does it only happen to be Democrats.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

That’s not even his final form.

[John]

It could be that the laws are suppressing. Or it could also be that the laws are preventing fraud. The result would look the same in both cases. Milbank of course assumes it is suppression.

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

Friends dont let friends read dana milbank

[Red Rocks Dickin Bimbos]

Huh, when you require an ID for people to vote, a cross-section of the population known for having a large number of illegal residents suddenly doesn’t show up to vote themselves. Who could have seen that coming?

[Rhywun]

after Texas implemented a strict voter-ID law, Latino turnout dropped sharply between 2010 and 2014

Now what could possibly account for that.

[Rhywun]

Or, what several other of you mooks already said.

[R C Dean]

Hajnal reports in a new study that after Texas implemented a strict voter-ID law, Latino turnout dropped sharply between 2010 and 2014, and the gap between white and Latino turnout increased by 9.2 percentage points.

This could due to Latino citizens not voting any more for some reason (honestly, I have a hard time believing a significant percentage of adult Latino citizens in Texas don’t have a driver’s license), or it could be because illegal immigrants were voting (a lot, apparently), and this prevented ineligible people from voting.

[Groovus Maximus]

Shhhh, Counselor, you’re impinging on the narrative. Reason’s position of, “There is no voting fraud, therefore we have no reason to investigate instances of non-existent voting fraud,” is not to be challenged, and that O’ Keefe hooligan is just a unreliable one-off, just like that Assange fellow (who, oddly, appears to be persona non grata around here as well.)

[CPRM]

The leader of a space cult also believes in voter suppression? Zoltan!

[invisible furry hand]

‘I’m looking forward getting a hot missus’: Unemployed man, 25, who went on $2.1MILLION spending spree due to a banking error brags on Facebook that he’s ‘not guilty’ of fraud

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Damn, I thought bank error in your favor only got you $200.

[Swiss Servator]

*slow clap*

[CE]

And you never had to give it back either.

[Brett L]

Its amazing how idiots can take the smartest people in the world for millions. Good on ya, Luke Brett.

[robc]

Seems right. He didnt meet the standards of fraud.

Declare bankruptcy, sell off what is left, and move on with your life.

Scummy move, but legal.

**I expect based on that last comment everyone who lambasted me for calling payday lenders scum will be all over me again.

[Lachowsky]

nah. payday lenders are scum. And the people that use them are idiots.

[Real and Legitimate News, Jr.]

I won’t deny that I’m an idiot, but last month I absolutely had to use one. No way around it.

I’m certain that there are people who get themselves trapped in payday loan hell, but it worked perfectly for me.

[Lachowsky]

I guess I can back that statement off a bit. Perhaps there are times when it can be appropriate. Anyone who uses one regularly is appropriate idiot. Same with credit cards. Use it responsibly and there’s no problem.

One that is absolute insanity though is the income tax refund expectation loans. I know of lots of people who will willingly give a not insignificant amount of their tax return to H&R Block just so they can go on their tax time shopping spree a month early. Totally blows my mind.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Given the electronic filing is paying in less than 2 weeks, it’s even worse.

[Tyler.C]

What’s really horrible, is when i worked at Wells Fargo, our branch had 3-4 pay day lenders around us and we would see people come in all the time. We actually had a similar but much cheaper and easier to manage alternative but then the government shut it down, which meant all the people who we were saving money for now had to go to pay day lenders.

*despite this Wells Fargo is still a horrible institution.

[CE]

Couldn’t you just open several new accounts for those people?

[Cyto]

All of these high-cost financial instruments are stupid……. if you have access to capital in other ways. But having access to capital at a very high cost is better than having no access at all.

I used to work for a company that did various specialty financial instruments – like attorney cost financing. One day early in my employment I asked the CEO, “why would anyone do this transaction.” He said, “If they could go down to the bank and get a signature loan for $8,000 at 9% they wouldn’t. But they can’t get a loan at the bank at any rate. So for them this makes sense.”

Lack of access to capital is a big problem in developing economies. That is why there are nonprofits doing things like micro-loans.

Our attorney cost financing product had a fairly high interest rate. And the customers were all law school graduates. So not uneducated poor people being taken advantage of. So why did they use our services? Because they were able to earn more money than it was costing them by being able to hire expert witnesses, meet payroll on extra paralegals, pay for office equipment, etc. They don’t get paid until the case is finished, so they’d have to float tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not everybody has that kind of cash laying around. And even if they do, there is often an opportunity cost by having it all tied up.

Consumer protection laws that outlaw things like car title loans, payday loans, etc. may sound good, but they end up hurting the poor.

[EDG reppin LBC]

Thanks for this. Not everyone who gets a payday loan blows the funds down at the dog track. Sometimes they use the funds to complete a real estate deal, or get quick cash to get into a real estate deal. The key is “quick”.

[Brett L]

Or fix their broken down car so they can keep their job. Or pay the kid’s daycare so they don’t have to take off work.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Kinda low on the technical details as to why he was acquitted and released.

[invisible furry hand]

The charge was dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage by deception. From the headnote:

Whether Mr Moore was authorised depended on the terms and conditions of the contract between him and the Bank: at [33]?[34], [54], [59].

The terms and conditions of the contract, on their proper construction, allowed Mr Moore to request additional funds to be lent to him, such that Mr Moore was authorised, albeit by an oversight on behalf of the Bank. The statutory notion of deception in s 192B(1)(b) was therefore not satisfied by Mr Moore’s conduct: at [36]?[46]; [54]?[58]; [59].

The case is here

[Rufus The Monocled]

Thanks.

[Juice]

How is that Hyundai $32k? That boat over $50k?

[CE]

When you’ve suddenly got 2 million bucks, maybe you don’t negotiate as much.

[Lord Humungus]

Australian Man Mistakes Jellyfish For Breast Implant, Takes It To Police

“Investigations revealed what police suspected… the item was indeed a jellyfish.”

Colin Sparkes, from Surf Life Saving Queensland, said the discovery was most likely a blubber jellyfish.

He said the species was commonly found in Queensland waters and its sting was irritating, but not dangerous.

“[The] tentacles have been knocked off by wave action or eaten by fish,” he said of the one handed to police.

[Rich]

A man in Queensland’s Sunshine Coast in Australia recently put a beached jellyfish in a bag and took it to police believing it was a breast implant and possible evidence of a drowning or murder.

Or he was just fucking with them.

[Libertarian]

According to police, his explanation of how he suffered burns to his lips and genitals was “unconvincing.”

[Bee Tagger]

Sarah Palin is reportedly under consideration to serve as the secretary of veteran affairs in the Trump administration.

Trump was just telling her what state she was governor of but she heard “I’ll ask ya”

[DenverJ]

The Tennessee wildfires that killed at least seven are “likely to be human-caused.”

We need common sense human control.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Do not give the left any ideas!

[Rich]

Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday called Trump’s Treasury secretary nominee, fundraiser and former Goldman Sachs partner Steven Mnuchin, the “Forrest Gump of the financial crisis.”

HAHAHAHAHAAA!!

[Injun, as in from India]

And Lizzy Warren represents the bullies who scare Forrest Gump so much that he drops his crutches and runs?

[Lachowsky]

Forrest was pretty good with money. I think he got invested in some kind of fruit company as then didn’t have to worry about money no more.

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

What about Bubba Gump shrimp?!

[Free Society]

So Trump’s Treasury Secretary is going to blunder into one success after another, making everything he touches better?

[Bee Tagger]

In his annual state-of-the nation speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia is “not seeking conflict with anyone.”

They’ll just be swinging their arms like this and if you happen to get hit by one of them it’s your fault.

[straffinrun]

I don’t think it’s the Russians that encircled the U.S. with bases.

[Bee Tagger]

Oh to be able to joke and be factually correct, that’s the dream.

[straffinrun]

It’s elusive. I’ll give you that.

[Capt. Rimmer]

We’re encircled at the invitation of our allies who fear Russian aggression.

[straffinrun]

Entangling alliances are entangling.

[Citizen X]

If only someone had warned us against them!

[creech]

No, just the Baltic states. (Not that the U.S. will or should do squat if Estonia is invaded.)

[Lee Genes]

Say what?

John Bolton, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a regular commentator on cable news, does not engage in wishful thinking…

[I can't even]

I didn’t realize that Charlie Hebdo had caved in to the Islamists.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/942…..disappears

[Groovus Maximus]

“Caved,” is not the word I would use.

For the first anniversary of the massacre at Charlie Hebdo’s office, Riss released a cover not with Mohammed, but depicting a murderous Judeo-Christian God, as if Riss’s colleagues had not been butchered by Islamists but by Catholics. Riss had, in fact, announced earlier that the magazine would “no longer draw Mohammed”.

The first person at Charlie to capitulate was “Luz”, a well-known cartoonist. He surrendered, saying: “I will no longer draw Muhammad”.

So many interest groups here, which one shall win sympathy, I wonder? Perhaps, Reason may have a take on this one…

[Mickey Rat]

The attacker’s got what they wanted. The Islamists have been informed that murder is an effective tool to silence criticism.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

“but depicting a murderous Judeo-Christian God, as if Riss’s colleagues had not been butchered by Islamists but by Catholics.”

Ya know it is the same God right?? Or, at the very least, the Muslims who you want Hebdo to go after think it is, so they’ll think that’s actually worse than drawing Muhammad.

[I can't even]

This Christian certainly doesn’t think it’s the same god.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

And I’m pretty sure the atheists at Hebdo don’t agree with you nor do they care what you think on the subject. If they want to mock you, the Jews, and the Muslims, they’re going to draw the God you all share.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

The Flying Falafel Monster?

[Cyto]

This Christian certainly doesn’t think it’s the same god.

Then I think you are not up on current Christian theology.

Contemporary Christianity is a monotheistic religion. There is only one God. At the time of Abraham this may not have been universally held, but by the time Paul is writing the belief is clearly that there is only one God. All other gods are false – meaning they don’t exist. This is why Baal couldn’t light the offering, for example. Not because he wasn’t as powerful as Elijah’s God, but because Baal was a fantasy.

So if you are worshiping a monotheistic god, the concept of whom you got from the Abrahamic tradition, you are worshiping the same God. There might be some disagreement as to who He is and what He wants of His people. But kinda by definition it is the same God (being that there is only one).

[ant1sthenes]

So… Flying Spaghetti Monster folks are worshiping the same deity as Christians?

[John]

Ya know it is the same God right?? Or, at the very least, the Muslims who you want Hebdo to go after think it is,

Yes they do. But Muslims are not going to see that drawing as anything but an attack on Christians and Jews. So, this is a capitulation.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

“But Muslims are not going to see that drawing as anything but an attack on Christians and Jews.”

Yeah most of your comments have made me think you don’t know much about Muslims or Islam, but fun fact: they actually think drawing God is a greater offense then drawing the Prophet (and even with the Prophet it’s only the Sunnis. The Shia won’t even draw God).

[Cyto]

I gotta say, the depiction of God as a man kinda weirds me out a little too. Not in a “kill all the infidels” way, but more in a “wow, that’s kinda presumptuous” way.

Even more icky is actors playing Jesus. When the actors say things like “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” it just kinda sounds… wrong.

Or the voice actor playing God in “The Ten Commandments” having to say “I am the Lord your God”.

I definitely wouldn’t tie a car tire around his neck and set it ablaze over it though. But when I was a lot younger I would have cringed a little bit… especially if the production values and acting weren’t up to DeMille’s standards.

[Krabappel]

I don’t necessarily blame them for no longer drawing Muhammad but they should at least say “we will no longer draw Muhammad and put our employees in danger because of a savage religious cult that engages in violence over free speech”.

[John]

If they are not going to go after Islam, they should stop going after religions at all. Refusing to go after Islam while attacking Christianity and Judaism effectively makes them pro Muslim even if they don’t intend to be that way.

Penn Gilliette has said that he won’t attack Islam because he fears it would put his family in danger. That by itself is fine. He is an entertainer and is under no obligation to risk his life. What is not fine is for him to then turn around and continue to attack Christianity and Judaism because the adherents of those religions don’t shoot back. That just makes him a coward and a bully. Either attack them all or walk away from the subject altogether.

[Krabappel]

I agree with that.

[John]

As annoying as Bill Maher is, he is one of the few public atheists who has not backed away from criticizing Islam. I don’t like Maher but you have to respect him for that.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

“Refusing to go after Islam while attacking Christianity and Judaism effectively makes them pro Muslim even if they don’t intend to be that way.”

Even over a year ago, when they bashed Muslims, Christians, AND Jews, they never mentioned Norse Pagans, Taoists, Baha’is, Sikhs, or Confucians, effectively making them Pro-all of those religions.

You’re not demanding they mock all religions, or even all major religions (no demand for Hindus), or even all Abrahamic religions. You just don’t think they’re being fair as long as they don’t include YOUR hobby horse in their stupid excuse for satire.

Why does every call for “fair and equal coverage” I see always seem to boil down to “cover MY hobby horses or you’re biased!!”??

[bacon-magic]

Which one of those religions killed someone recently over being mocked?

[Eternal Blue Sky]

Well the Hindus recently butchered a man for supposedly having cow meat in his fridge. The police decided “testing” the meat was relevant to their investigation and found it was water buffalo or something like that.

I mean killing someone for being mocked is extreme, but killing someone on the mere suspicion that their meat offends your sensibilities seems like a more extreme stance to me.

Personally, I don’t fucking care what religions people choose to mock. But hearing people bitch and whine about how the religions they WANT to be mocked aren’t being mocked by the people who mock religions just seems fucking whiny to me.

Hey, why don’t YOU go out and mock Islam?? If Hebdo’s too cowardly to do it why not you do so, instead of bitching at Hebdo for them choosing who they want to mock in a way you don’t agree with??

[Cyto]

I think Penn is kinda attacking Islam when he says he’s not going to attack Islam because he doesn’t want to put his family in danger. It is a little meta, but I think the message is pretty clear.

And despite his outspoken atheism, he’s been pretty affectionate toward Christians the last several years. Maybe not Christianity as a belief system, but he seems to have a lot of affection for Christians.

His worst attacks on Christianity seem to be of a similar “misdirection” style to the attack on Islam. He holds up people like the Westboro Baptist Church as the only true Christians (because they actually follow through on their fundamentalist beliefs). He’ll say he really respects them because they will do anything to save you from going to hell – which is a real example of selfless love.

[Cyto]

To flesh that out a little: Penn has pretty explicitly stated that he’s not going to attack Islam because he is afraid of what its adherents might do. He then juxtaposes this with saying he’s not afraid to say bad things about Christianity or Mormonism.

He says you can say anything you’d like about Mormons and they are just so nice, they would just smile at you and be kind. Christians might offer to pray for you and try to save your soul.

So he isn’t just attacking Islam, he is directly impugning Muslim people. Something that he explicitly avoids with other faiths – adhering to a philosophy of “I love the people, they are wonderful. But the religion is crap.”

But with Muslims he says “I am afraid of these nut jobs”.

So that’s a pretty full-throated rebuke, disguised as an avoidance of the issue.

[Bee Tagger]

Senate Democrats are planning to make the confirmation of Trump nominees “as painful as possible for the new president.”

Ah, bet they wish they were in favor of enhanced interrogation techniques, now.

[Real and Legitimate News, Jr.]

Good morning. I’ve got another busy day in front of me, so here’s my (likely) one AM links post:

If Ivan Drago was in Punch-Out!!!

[Lord Humungus]

Electoral College voter: I’m getting death threats

Michael Banerian, the youth vice-chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, will be one of his state’s 16 electors. The honor of being selected, a role typically bestowed to recognize a person’s service and dedication to their political party, has come at a price, Banerian told CNN’s Brianna Keilar .

“Obviously, this election cycle was pretty divisive. Unfortunately it’s bled over into the weeks following the election and I have been inundated with death threats, death wishes, generally angry messages trying to get me to change my vote to Hillary Clinton or another person, and unfortunately, it’s gotten a little out of control.” Banerian said.
Banerian said he has been threatened with violence.

“I’ve had people talk about putting a bullet in the back of my mouth. I’ve had death wishes or people just saying ‘I hope you die.’ Or, ‘do society a favor, throw yourself in front of a bus,'” he said.

[Rich]

HATE CRIME!!

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Okay, I’m not a public figure so maybe I just don’t understand, but if you receive a death threat email, is there some reason you can’t just delete it? I mean, unless it’s an ex-spouse or someone close to you like that, is there any reason to believe it’s credible?

Actually, I have received death threats. In middle school, I remember more than once bully types saying they’d kill me. I didn’t take it seriously then because they were full of shit. Is there some reason to believe a random death threat you get via social media would be any more believable?

[Rich]

What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, kiddo.

[$park? is totally a Swifty]

*standing ovation*

*wipes tear*

[Zero Sum Game]

gorilla warfare

Gets me every time. Harambe’s jimmies are rustled.

[R C Dean]

is there some reason you can’t just delete it?

Because then its not evidence of a crime?

[Lost_In_Translation]

What?! I thought the Trumpers and Trumpettes would be happy?!?!

Wait, its the “sane” people that are out of control and threatening violence…

[Lachowsky]

“Banerian said he has been threatened with violence”

There’s this guy over at the FBI who looks into this kinda thing. Name of Preet. A real hard hitter. Let him see the emails and he’ll put an end to this see hit real quit. He’ll come after them hard, with a subpoena and a gag order.

[Don'tTreadOnMeChipper]

7:01 Never Forget!

[Free Society]

I’m sure the SPLC, the ACLU and the FBI are going to be all over these highly illegal threats to democracy. Any day now….

[Mr. Flanders]

I trust all of these incidents are being reported to the SPLC?

[CE]

See, Trump is inciting more violence.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Gruesome parasites. Not as bad as progressives or socialists but close enough:

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

[Free Society]

Kurgsgezegt has some interesting videos where it concerns the natural sciences. Then one day I saw them post a video about the migrant crisis and then later on economics that couldn’t possibly have been more of a bullshit propaganda piece. THEY FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE

[Lord Humungus]

Bitcoin Exchange Ordered to Give IRS Years of Data on Millions of Users

On Wednesday, a federal judge authorized a summons requiring Coinbase, America’s largest Bitcoin service, to provide the IRS with the records of every user who traded on the site between 2014 and 2015. Covering the identities and transaction histories of millions of costumers, the request is believed to be the largest single attempt to identify tax evaders using virtual currency to date.

As a so-called “John Doe” summons, the document targets a particular group or class of taxpayers?rather than individuals?the agency has a “reasonable basis” to believe may have broken the law. According to The New York Times, the IRS argued that two cases of tax evasion involving Coinbase combined with Bitcoin’s “relatively high level of anonymity” serve as that basis.

[Libertarian]

“transaction histories of millions of costumers”

Bitcoin meets cosplay?

[WTF]

I guess this is okay because it somehow does not violate the prohibitions against general warrants, because fuck you that’s why.

[Juice]

So there is no probably cause. Tell them to fuck off and appeal it to a higher court.

[Lord Humungus]

Gun Rights Groups Are Saying Hell No to David Petraeus as Sec of State

As rumors have swirled that retired Gen. David Petraeus is under consideration to be Secretary of State in the Trump Administration, the most vocal (and serious) criticism has been the obvious ? that he knowingly gave classified information to his mistress, lied to the FBI, and was convicted of mishandling classified information.

Some gun rights organizations, however, have an additional concern. They believe Petraeus, who formed a gun control organization with Gabrielle Giffords’ husband Mark Kelly, would be bad for the Second Amendment.

One group, Firearms Policy Coalition, is concerned about Petraeus’ role in International Traffic in Arms Regulations:

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Well there’s that and the fact that he has to check in with his parole officer before leaving his state or accepting a new job.

[John]

Yes. Spending all fall calling Hillary a criminal and then hiring an actual convicted criminal like Petreus is not exactly the best move.

Petreus needs to go away. I am sorry, but, feeding your mistress classified information as pillow talk is kind of a big deal. The other thing about Petreus is that during his army career he was a notorious hard ass and moralizer as a commander. He ended a lot of careers for adultery only to then get a mistress himself. And he wasn’t even discreet about it. He hauled her around as a defacto aid and everyone around him knew he was banging her.

[Red Rocks Dickin Bimbos]

And he wasn’t even discreet about it. He hauled her around as a defacto aid and everyone around him knew he was banging her.

It’s not like this sort of thing in the top brass is uncommon, either. Eisenhower was supposedly carrying on with his secretary during the war, and I worked for a 3-star in the desert a few years ago who eventually got shit-canned for sending sexually explicit emails to a married Lt Col.

[Juice]

I’ll bet Trump thinks it would be perfect. It would be a way to rub Hillary’s face deep in her loss. It would be saying “I was just bullshitting everyone about your emails and it worked. Now I’m president and I’m going to hire someone that did something similar to what you did to prove that I didn’t really give a shit about what you did.” Sort of like showing a bluff after winning a big pot in poker.

[Injun, as in from India]

Like corrupt Illinois governors, Secretaries of State will now have a tradition of being idiots with handling state secrets.

[Libertarian]

I never cease to be amazed that in a country of over 300 million people, there seems to be a pool of only a few hundred that are considered for the highest positions in government — despite their histories, their transgressions, and their unethical behavior.

[Juice]

You go with the devil you know.

[CE]

It’s the same with NBA coaches.

[Darth Squirrel]

Isn’t Petraeus still on probation for mishandling classified documents? How in all the hells would he get a security clearance?

[Lee Genes]

Al Gore Finds the Electoral College Too Inconvenient

Warning autoplay

[Juvenile Bluster]

I’ve always thought that if Gore had done his Futurama guest spots pre-election, he wins in 2000.

[juris imprudent]

Thanks for the warning – not about auto play, that it was man-bear-pig.

[Lord Humungus]

Trump HHS Pick Pleases Cigar Makers

The agency floated the idea of bringing premium cigars, which have a much older user base, under its regulatory authority in 2014.

“They brought the hammer down on us and want to expose a small, artisanal industry to the full compliance, burden, and expenses that Big Tobacco deals with everyday,” Pursell said. “Small manufacturers will not be able to afford the expense of bringing products to market.”

The rules would force all cigar makers to present the FDA with all new blends and products introduced; only product lines introduced before February 2007 would be exempt. Purcell said that premium cigars?”the type you see at weddings”?make up just 300 million of the 14 billion cigars sold in the United States each year and the FDA said that “approximately 90 percent of domestic entities affected by this rule are estimated to be small.”

These products are hand-rolled, typically in Nicaragua, Honduras, or the Dominican Republic, and do not have the vast user-base and extensive revenues that cigarette makers enjoy. He said the agency overreached in treating cigars on the same plane as cigarettes.

[commodious got a stew going]

I don’t want people smoking cigars *or* cigarettes on the plane.

[bacon-magic]

And vaping.

[Chip Woodier]

The rules would force all cigar makers to present the FDA with all new blends and products introduced

Its known in the industry as a taste.
Taste: a percentage of the take
“Tony gets a big taste from bookmaking or racketeering but only a little taste from medical fraud.”

[invisible furry hand]

And the winner of the 2016 Bad Sex Literary Award is Erri De Luca, for this:

“She pushed on my hips, an order that thrust me in. I entered her. Not only my prick, but the whole of me entered her, into her guts, into her darkness, eyes wide open, seeing nothing. My whole body had gone inside her. I went in with her thrusts and stayed still. While I got used to the quiet and the pulsing of my blood in my ears and nose, she pushed me out a little, then in again. She did it again and again, holding me with force and moving me to the rhythm of the surf. She wiggled her breasts beneath my hands and intensified the pushing. I went in up to my groin and came out almost entirely. My body was her gearstick.”

Was he robbed? Read the shortlist and judge for yourself.

[Lord Humungus]

SugarFree is William fuckin’ Faulkner compared to these pikers.

[Pope Jimbo]

Good analogy. Faulkner pioneered the “stream of consciousness” style of writing. SF also writes in a certain stream of somthing style.

[SugarFree]

If his whole body was inside her, how is he touching her breasts? Or wait… is he touching them from the inside?

[Rich]

Well, it *was* a dark and stormy night.

[Libertarian]

It was just two jellyfish.

[SugarFree]

OK, that makes sense.

[straffinrun]

She wiggled her breasts? I think that may not be a chick. More likely the Greek weight lifter above.

[Crusty Juggler]

“He closed his eyes and heard himself make a gurgling sound. And as his trousers slipped down his legs all the burdens of his life to date seemed to fall away from him; he tipped back his head and faced up into the darkness beneath the ceiling, and for one blessed moment he felt as if he could understand the things of this world in all their immeasurable beauty. How strange they are, he thought, life and all of these things. Then he felt Anezka slide down before him to the floor, felt her hands grab his naked buttocks and draw him to her. “Come, sonny boy!” he heard her whisper, and with a smile he let go.”

[Citizen X]

My… my god.

[Crusty Juggler]

Come, sonny boy!

[Citizen X]

I just did, but i don’t feel right about it.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

I was not smiling when I let go.

[Swiss Servator]

*hits head with mallet to drive memory of this passage out*

[Je suis Woodchipper]

i’m not fooled. that’s obviously the english google translate of something poetically beautiful in its mother language.

[Lord Humungus]

Do Illegal Votes Decide Elections?

A postelection survey conducted by Americas Majority Foundation found that 2.1% of noncitizens voted in the Nov. 8 election. In the battleground states of Michigan and Ohio, 2.5% and 2.1%, respectively, of noncitizens reported voting. In 2013, pollster McLaughlin & Associates conducted an extensive survey of Hispanics on immigration issues. Its voter-profile tabulation shows that 13% of noncitizens said they were registered to vote. That matches closely the Old Dominion/George Mason study, in which 15.6% of noncitizens said they were registered.

Fixing this problem is very straightforward. The Trump administration should direct the Department of Homeland Security to cooperate with states that want to verify the citizenship of registered voters. Since this will only flag illegal immigrants who have been detained at some point and legal noncitizens, states should pass laws, similar to the one in Kansas, that require proof of citizenship when registering to vote. The Justice Department, instead of ignoring the issue, should again start prosecuting these cases.

The bottom line is that the honor system doesn’t work. There are people?like those caught voting illegally?who are willing to exploit these weaknesses that damage election integrity.

[John]

I was informed by both Crusty and Zeb that thinking that illegal votes might be significant is no different than thinking a unicorn might visit my back yard every night when I am not looking.

[Free Society]

“Pics or it didn’t happen.”

[R C Dean]

There’s around 23 million noncitizens, so that comes to almost half a million illegal votes nationwide. Seems like enough of an issue to be worth shutting it down, no?

[Pope Jimbo]

Uh-oh. Some fat cats in Minnesoda are going to be forced to cut a check to the Vikings.

Legislative Auditor opens “priority” investigation into Vikings stadium luxury boxes.

A list of the “guests” and the prices they will have to repay

Among the guests in the suites who reimbursed the MSFA $200 this month were: Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges (who voted against the stadium while on the City Council ? nicely played) and her husband, Gary Cunningham; several state commissioners; Minneapolis City Attorney Susan Segal and her husband, Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Myron Frans; and Minneapolis City Council Member Jacob Frey.

I’ll let you guys research what party those free loaders belonged to.

[Juvenile Bluster]

They weren’t Democrats!!!! They belong to some DFL party, which is totally different!!!

[Pope Jimbo]

Yup, probably those stinking Farmer-Laborer splinters of the DFL who were there for the goodies.

[Rufus The Monocled]

They were Democrats. BUT. If Republicans would just not obstruct something, something, they wouldn’t have to do bad things.

Is that about the gist of it where Dems are concerned?

[Pope Jimbo]

I think that even most Dems know this was colossally stupid. Those Pol Sci profs and ethics experts are normally trotted out to explain that the Dems are good/ GOP are bad. So if they are saying that this is bad, it is really bad.

The problem is that Dayton appointed the half wits who did this. So you have one guy who is only where he is because of his name appointing other people who are only where they are because of their parents. If any of these people had been up and comer type schemers, they would have set this same thing up, but in a way that no one could really find fault with.

[Lee Genes]

We’ll start with something totally false…

What was revealed on Election Night was that a virulently outraged segment of the population ? either nakedly bigoted or too willing to ignore the prejudice of their comrades ? had been networked together into an ad hoc movement without order or a concrete goal.

We’ve seen the online radicalization of these people take flight over the past several years, via an ugly web of conspiracy theories, harassment campaigns, hate movements, trolling, and the web presence of the old right merging with new media to terrible effect.

The result was a surge of white turnout at the polls for the most unabashedly white nationalist candidate in recent American history.

And end with something that is completely contrary to identity politics…

In the wake of fascism’s latest dawn, we must meet the abstract networks of hate with our own, based on love, faith in our freedoms, and radical inclusion.

[Juvenile Bluster]

We’re just ignoring that Trump got a lower percentage of the white vote than Romney did, aren’t we?

[Lee Genes]

Or completely in denial about it.

[Rufus The Monocled]

“unabashedly white nationalist candidate”

Er….

[straffinrun]

“Unabashedly” if you mute him and say “Whites are great” over and over as you watch him speak.

[Free Society]

“Wonderful people. Just terrific. Believe me.”

[CatoTheChipper]

Trump is unabashedly nationalist. It’s the essence of MAGA.

Trump is white.

Ergo, Trump is unabashedly a white nationalist.

… in the same way Obama is a black Muslim.

[commodious got a stew going]

either nakedly bigoted or too willing to ignore the prejudice of their comrades

When “nakedly bigoted” applies to thinking voter ID laws are a good idea, and “too willing to ignore prejudice” applies to not being willing to pick apart every innocuous statement for hidden racist intent, it’s no wonder nobody cares for your philosophy. But by all means, keep up the head-up-your-own-ass routine, it’s done wonders for your movement.

[CE]

Except there was no surge of voter turnout for anyone, just a lot fewer Democrats voting because their candidate was uninspiring.

[OldMexican Blankety Blank]

The Carrier deal shows Americans’ predilection for Fascism. This and other not-so-new stories tonight, at 11.

[Lord Humungus]

Our Brave New Feminists

“Trump Health Czar Tom Price is a Nightmare for Women,” declared Erin Gloria Ryan on Tuesday in the Daily Beast. “Price helming HHS is a nightmare scenario for advocates of reproductive choice,” she continued, “and a dream for those with a nostalgia for the time before Roe v. Wade, if not Griswold v. Connecticut.”

Yikes. This Price guy sounds pretty retrograde! Did he announce an improbable plan to singlehandedly overturn Roe v. Wade, thereby banning abortion, even though he’s not on the Supreme Court? Has he unleashed a scheme to outlaw contraceptives, even though Griswold already declared that unconstitutional? Has he proposed a forced nationwide return to modest poodle skirts and drive-ins and people who exclaim things like “Gee, Linda, I sure don’t trust the punch at this sock hop!” in a completely un-ironic fashion?

Well, no. Get ready, America, and prepare to be shocked: Tom Price doesn’t think you should be forced to pay for everyone else’s abortion and contraceptives.

[John]

Feminists are more or less irrelevant. They won on all the issues that mattered. Since being a feminist is all the have, they latch onto increasingly stupid and insignificant issues like this to define “feminism”.

[Libertarian]

Add MADD and Gays to the list. But it’s not just the Left. I remember Christians whining about how persecuted they were even as a born-again W. Bush sat in the oval office.

[John]

Having the President be one of yours isn’t all its cracked up to be. How did things work out when black people finally got one of theirs in the White House?

The fact that Bush was President didn’t make the popular culture any less leftist or any less hostile towards Christians. Do Christians in this country have it as bad as Christians in say China or Cuba? No and they don’t have it anything close to that bad. At the same time, to be an open evangelical and unapologetic Christian, while fine if you are anonymous and don’t want to work in higher ed, sans a very few places, it is not so great if you are thrust into the public eye by being an athlete or having a TV show. Openly saying something like gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry or that transgenderism is a bunch of bullshit, will end your career or certainly put it in danger. I don’t think Christians have invented that. That is the truth.

[Cyto]

Eh… get over it.

Oh, and Merry Christmas “Happy Holidays” to you!

[John]

I don’t have anything to get over. The people like Curt Shilling, that Pizza place in Indiana and the bakery in Oregon who have lost their jobs and businesses thanks to the tolerant mobs, however do.

Go be an evangelical Christian and try to get a job as a college professor. Good luck with that. But, you hate those people so what do you care? Everyone you hate deserves whatever they get.

[commodious got a stew going]

Also, the photographer in Albuquerque fined seven grand for refusing service to a gay couple. That’ll learn ’em.

[Cyto]

I think you missed the sarcasm. Putting the strikeout “Merry Christmas” should have been a clue.

Maybe I should have substituted “Season’s Greetings”.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

It’s because this is the Satire Dimension, I’m telling you.

In the Real World, Feminists of that dimension /sometimes/ have concerns that are a bit unjustified or slightly petty.

So here in the Satire Dimension, our Feminists are concerned about other people buying things for them and the length of the space between men’s legs on public transit.

[John]

Isn’t pretty much all of the known universe part of the “Satire Dimension” these days? If not, please tell me how you escape because I am not finding the way.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

There is no escape. And yes, this whole universe is the Satire Dimension. Clearly, this is a universe that is simply a satire of some other Real World that exists in another dimension. Every single world event supports this theory.

[Injun, as in from India]

These “feminists” are hysterical shrews.

[The Late P Brooks]

Question-

I have been made aware, lately, of the Common Core math. Is it just my imagination, or are they now teaching trial-and-error as a legitimate methodology? I remember my teachers roundly rebuking t&e in my math classrooms.

And- this has reminded me of a conversation long ago about computers doing math, in which I was told there was no point in programming “elegant” solutions into them, when they could just grind away by t&e and still be blindingly fast.

Related?

[Rich]

they could just grind away by t&e and still be blindingly fast.

Citation needed.

[Pope Jimbo]

I don’t have an actual citiation, but when I was in school for EE, the dean gave us a problem to figure out. In theory, we could have applied the math concepts that we had just learned about and come up with the answer.

My approach was to write a program that ground through several million iterations of the problem using random numbers, while at the same time working the math.

End of the story is that it took me a half hour to program the simulation, another 2 hours to run it on the Memphis State VAX system. Spent the weekend working on the math. Computer answer was very, very accurate. No one in the class beat the computer with the math. Dean loved me for being pragmatic.

To quote Barbie: “Math is hard”

[Rich]

Very nice solution; but do the “t&e” kids do such programming?

[Pope Jimbo]

Lazy people make the best programmers. They are always trying to figure out a way to make things easier for themselves, which often leads to good tools for the rest of us.

I bet the overlap between lazy and Trial/Error kids overlaps quite a bit.

[Brett L]

I agree. The best programmer in the world is the guy who sees himself doing something a second time and says, “I’m automating this so I don’t have to do it a third.”

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

That is my entire existence at work.

On repeatable requirements, I’ll spend 2-4 hours setting a 15 minute requirement up the first time so that I can repeat the answer with a button push from then on.

But elegant solutions are sometimes a necessity. I’ve had to go back and redo brute force trial and error solutions because they got to the point where they’d clog the server or run so long that they’d time out.

[Darth Squirrel]

Takes them hours for a cuppa, though

[Brett L]

You couldn’t use an actual computation algorithm? NR or some other error approximator?

[Pope Jimbo]

It was an exercise where the prof described a system, gave you a bunch of tolerances for each component and asked for the ideal settings. The first part was to model the system and come up with a formula.

Then supposedly, you could use some fancy transformations to come up with the ideal settings.

The dean didn’t really think we’d get the math right on the first attempt, but it was a way to get us thinking and then use it as a concrete example of how the math should be done.

[Brett L]

Ah. One of those “these little fuckers are getting uppity” problems.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

It’s also partially that some kinds of math, for a computer, take longer than other kinds of math.

And the kinds of math humans find faster doesn’t line up with the kinds of math computers find faster.

So some calculations need to be structured with different kinds of mathematics.

[Libertarian]

“they could just grind away by t&e and still be blindingly fast.”

You just described my wedding night!

[UnCivilServant]

I was told there was no point in programming “elegant” solutions into them, when they could just grind away by t&e and still be blindingly fast

Whoever argued in favor of brute force was a moron. Elegant solutions will run faster and you can run more of them in parrallel, thereby not clogging up the system while you do whatever it is you’re doing. If computers were monotasked devices go ahead and burn those CPU cycles, but often there are other processes and other users who need those resources. So doing the same with less is still a better idea than “just force it”.

*glares at McAfee*

[Pope Jimbo]

If the elegant solution is available and easy to implement, sure I vote for that approach in a heartbeat.

On the other hand, if you don’t have an efficient solution immediately at hand, why not brute force it for a while? And what if this is a run once piece of code?

I work with too many Comp Sci majors who think that writing code is an art and everyone should be forced to wait while they create a masterpiece. I love working with converted engineers who see writing code as just a job and something that should be done as quickly as possible to meet the requirements.

Thanks for letting me vent.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

But sometimes, what is an “elegant” solution to a human is different than what is an “elegant” solution for a computer. Computers suck at certain types of mathematic approaches.

Let’s say for example you have two base 17 numbers and you simply want to add them.

For a human, doing the addition by hand will be the fastest and most elegant solution.

For the computer, converting both numbers to base 2 and then adding them is a faster and more elegant solution than trying to create and implement logic to handle and correctly add the numbers in a base 17 format.

For the human, on the other hand, converting the numbers and then adding them is slower than just adding them.

Humans and computers just think differently.

[Pope Jimbo]

My biggest gripe with computers is that they unfailingly execute the code I wrote, instead of doing what I really wanted.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

No idea what Common Core is teaching, but isn’t T&E the only method we have for some problems? For problems that are difficult to calculate but have small solution sets, it seems like T&E might actually be the preferred solution.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Or you can just read what Pope Jimbo said above.

[Brett L]

Trial and error is always a valid strategy. I think what Common Core appears to do is teach a whole bunch of algorithms, but I haven’t seen (my kids aren’t there yet) where it teaches the bigger picture about WHY things work so that a student can have some insight into when to apply which algorithm.

[Lee Genes]

Common Core’s fault is that it attempts to teach one method for solving the problem to every student.

Different people learn in different ways. One kid may require repetition and memorization and the other may take a more flexible approach using systems.

[Pope Jimbo]

My problem with my kids’ math classes in elementary school was way too much emphasis on trying to link basic things like addition/subtraction and multiplication tables to real life.

For example, my kids would get homework where they would be shown 10 apples printed on the page. The question would be “what is 10-3” and the correct answer was to cross off three apples, count the remaining apples and write in 7.

I argued about this all the time. My thought was that gobs of repetitive work sheets for basic skills suck, but if you have to use apples or fingers to do math you are doomed at higher levels when you just need to be able to do the basics in your head.

I made my kids all do gobs and gobs of flash cards. They all scored off the charts in the testing they did. All of them had test scores in the fourth grade that were sufficient to pass the basic skills test that they need to take to get a high school degree. That isn’t so much a brag on my kids (although I am sorta proud of them) but more a condemnation of how low the HS standards are.

[Brett L]

At some point, you have to be able to know the simple operations. Like, have a singe neuron that fires on 4×8 and gives you 32. You can’t master advanced math without being able to do the basic mechanical operation. Once that happens, things like fractions and single variable algebra are nearly trivial additions.

Same thing with trig identities. Sure you can compute them every time, but you can miscompute. Better to memorize the simpler ones. Those (e^pi – e^-pi)/(e^pi+e^-pi) you memorize for one test and then know where the table of those is.

[Pope Jimbo]

Eggsactly.

My biggest friction with the teacher(s) was that my kids would simply write the answer down and not a) cross off the extra apples (or draw in more) and get dinged for points.

After complaining most would stop marking them down, but one insisted that the “right” answer was to cross the apples off and write the number. I told the kid that had her to simply ignore the teacher and simply put in the number. Mom and I would do the conversion on the grade.

The wife fired me from all Parent/Teacher conferences that year because of our conversations on that subject.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

You should have told the kid to cross out/draw in apples and then told the kid that sometimes you have to do stupid stuff to appease idiot bosses so you can get the real work done.

[Tyler.C]

See my understanding was that CC tries to go beyond the rote algorithms we learned as kids and get kids to understand math at deeper levels.

Do they do a good job? Prob not.

[Juvenile Bluster]

I haven’t seen trial and error style math, but the kid’s only up to 2nd grade.

Some of the common core math I’ve seen so far makes no sense, some of it makes more sense than the way I did it as a kid. They’re also starting to teach concepts way easier than I remember (Pre-Algebra in 1st grade), but that might be her school or my own faulty memory.

[Atanarjuat]

I have a young son in public school. Sometimes I help him with math homework. The 5th grade worksheets I’ve seen are just basic questions, although sometimes they make you solve things in dumb, convoluted ways. I really have no way of seeing how the teacher teaches, the school is like a prison. I do know he hates their method.

[Azathoth!!]

The point of common core is to interfere with common sense solutions, with pattern recognition, and with devising solutions.

By using counter-intuitive processes, students are left wallowing, waiting for direction from authority and incapable of putting 2 and 2 together–quite literally.

The damage this causes later in life is soul crushing.

[Lord Humungus]

Pence’s D.C. neighbors troll him with pride flags

Several houses on Pence’s block in Washington’s Chevy Chase neighborhood have put up rainbow pride flags since the vice president-elect moved in, according to D.C. ABC affiliate WJLA-TV. Pence is living in the neighborhood temporarily until he is sworn in as vice president, when he will move into the official vice presidential residence on the ground of the U.S. Naval Observatory.

Pence has a history of opposing the gay community, both nationally and in his home state. As a congressman in 2006, he supported a constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman, saying in a speech that gay marriage would bring about “societal collapse.” He also opposed the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prohibited gay service members from serving openly.

As governor of Indiana, he signed the controversial “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” that opponents said would have allowed discrimination against LGBT individuals in his state. Under pressure, Pence later signed legislation that amended the bill to prevent discrimination.

[John]

He won’t bake them cakes. The monster. At some point the other side is going to start using these types of tactics and I don’t think the pink mafia is going to like it very much.

[Free Society]

They’re so brave! And they’re making such a difference! What a noble fight! Just like the Hamilton cast, it’s a shame those people weren’t alive to fight the two world wars for us, with such bravery and high minded priorities we might have won those wars in a few months apiece.

[Red Rocks Dickin Bimbos]

Pence should invite them to a “spirit cooking” session for the laughs.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

You could take that paragraph and replace ‘Pence’ with ‘Clinton’ and it would still be just as true, except the Indiana part.

And the Indiana part could be replaced with the Federal RFRA.

[Pope Jimbo]

Speaking of Minnesoda, Gov. Mumbles has gotten himself into another controversy. A really important one this time too.

Dayton storms out of meeting discussing the return of Civil War paintings to the Gov’s office after renovation

The outside now completed, inside still in flux. The six Civil War paintings depict battle scenes, including legendary Minnesota regiments at Gettysburg and Nashville.

They’ve been part of the Governor’s Office since the Capitol opened in 1905. But Gov. Dayton has suggested they be removed because he says the paintings don’t “represent the full complexion” of the state.

Dayton stormed out of the commission meeting that was discussing this issue and accused Republicans of hijacking the commission. For those of you who aren’t Minnesodan, don’t worry we natives don’t understand this latest kerfuffle either.

My best guess is that Mumbles is off his meds again. And he is probably dumb enough to not know that Minnesoda fought on the anti-slave side of the Civil War. He probably just heard Civil War and thought “eeww, that is slavery and stuff. I don’t like it.”

[Rich]

More likely that nasty Confederate flag shows up in one of the paintings.

[I can't even]

Angry that Minnesota sent regiments to the war to fight Democrats?

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

the paintings don’t “represent the full complexion” of the state

White and, um….whiter?

[Pope Jimbo]

Wait, we have Norwegians, Swedes, Finns AND Germans! How much more diversity can you want?

And we have all sorts of eastern europeans in the Iron Range. But we don’t ever mention them in polite society.

[Lachowsky]

Every Hmong I have met or worked with here in arkansas moved here from Minnesota.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

You can’t fool me! That’s not even a word!

[Pope Jimbo]

Yup we have a lot of Hmong living here. Other than being inveterate poachers of fish and game, they are pretty good citizens. They mostly work really hard and don’t cause problems.

[straffinrun]

Grant fought against a group that wanted to paint a mural on the capitol rotunda depicting Lee’s surrender. Today, that would be painted and with labelz screaming “Racists!”.

[Chipwooder]

There are GUNS in those paintings, for god’s sake! He’s thinking of the chi-hi-ldrunnnnn, you assholes.

[Lachowsky]

Yes very advanced guns. percussion cap fired muzzle loading rifled guns. There are probably a few breech loaders depicted as well. Those are not the flintlocks the founders had In mind when penning the 2A.

[SugarFree]

President-elect Donald Trump is headed to Indiana today, where he will visit the Carrier plant in Indianapolis.

This might go do as the most heinous act of Trump’s presidency.

[The Late P Brooks]

Sarah Palin is reportedly under consideration to serve as the secretary of veteran affairs in the Trump administration.

No, no, no. Secretary of the Interior.

If you’re going to troll, do it right.

[Rich]

You betcha.

[Juvenile Bluster]

US Ambassador to Russia. C’mon.

[John]

It is a nearly impossible job. Head of the VA is about as close to a career ending slot as there is. All it takes is one fuck up in the media and you are done. If they really hate Palin, they should welcome this.

[Groovus Maximus]

Lt. Col. Allen West.

High ranking brass, has actually dealt with both the VA and enlisted, and since Robby Horse types are consumed with Identity Politik, his ethnicity should shut up detractors about, “INCLOOOOOOSIVE,” and “DIVEEERRRRRSITEEE.”

[Cyto]

His race is “extreme conservative”. As such, not eligible for diversity bonus.

[Brett L]

No it won’t. I’m sure he’s aggressively against the VA doing gender reassignment surgery, which is the current definition of inclusive and diverse.

[Groovus Maximus]

Well, if he’s nominated, I’m sure it will come up. And if he is not in favour of the VA performing surgeries that Johns Hopkins will no longer perform, as a disproportionate number of the patients ended up with, “Buyer’s Remorse,” and committed suicide, it’s not irrational to forgo paying for TXs that are are strictly elective and not medically necessary.

[Brett L]

His position may be rational and well justified by evidence from the medical community. It will not stop Democrats from Uncle Tomming him and using that as an excuse.

[Swiss Servator]

High ranking?! I was the same rank and considered myself as middlin’.

Of course, I started out a Private…so maybe in absolute terms it was “high”.

[Groovus Maximus]

I never served in This Man’s Military, Swiss. Forgive a mere civilian and simple country doctor for his ignorance. Though the point still stands he would be a qualified choice, being a career military man and veteran.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

Secretary of Education (yeah, I know, he’s already picked that one)

[I can't even]

Inflation in Venezuela has reached the point where merchant weigh currency instead of counting it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wor…..43596.html

[The Late P Brooks]

Citation needed.

Olden times; business calculations, not scientific. Slightly less absurd?

[The Late P Brooks]

Senate Democrats are planning to make the confirmation of Trump nominees “as painful as possible for the new president.”

They might want to have a word with Harry Reid about those procedural changes he made to “streamline” the confirmation process in the face of an obstructionist opposition.

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

But but but they thought they had a blue wall!

[John]

“As painful as possible” is a relative term. They will no doubt do that but it won’t be very painful for Trump.

And they will of course expect the country to forget that they spent 8 years calling anyone who dared question or obstruct the President’s agenda a traitor and a terrorist. I don’t think the public has quite as short of a memory as the Democrats think they do. This won’t work out well for them.

[Lord Humungus]

No, Rosa Parks Was Not Sitting in the White Section of the Montgomery Bus?And Four Other Myths

The bus driver asked: “Are you going to stand up?” Parks looked him in the eye and responded with a quiet but resolute, “No.” She explained that she had gotten on board first, that she paid the same fare and that she wasn’t sitting in the white section.

She didn’t think it was fair that she had to stand for someone else to sit who arrived after her and that she was not violating the city ordinance. (She didn’t complain how nonchivalrous it was that a supposed gentleman would make a woman stand so he could sit, or how irrational it was that he wouldn’t even want to sit in the same row with her.)

“Well,” Blake responded, “I’m going to have you arrested.”

Parks gave him the permission he did not request: “You may do that.”

Blake called his supervisor, who advised him that after warning the passenger he had to exercise his power and put Parks off the bus.

He then radioed the police, who sent officers F.B. Day and D.W. Mixon.

As they boarded the bus while several passengers exited through the rear, the officers debriefed Blake and then peacefully arrested Parks.

[John]

So she refused to give her seat to a black man? If not and she wasn’t in the white section, wasn’t the white man who wanted her seat the one violating the law? It is just as illegal for a white person to sit in the black section as it was for a black person to sit in the white section.

[Citizen X]

White people could take seats in the black section if the white section was full.

[John]

Interesting. Then the fact that she was in the black section really doesn’t change anything.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

Pretty much changes nothing.

[Cdr Lytton]

Read the link.

[Cdr Lytton]

WTF squirrels?

Municipal buses in Montgomery each had 36 seats.

The first 10 were reserved for whites only.
The last 10 seats were theoretically reserved for blacks.
The middle 16 seats were first-come-first-serve, with the bus driver retaining the authority to rearrange seats so that whites could be given priority.
Parks was sitting in an aisle seat on the front row of this middle section.

[Cdr Lytton]

A few minutes later, when the bus reached the third stop in front of the Empire Theater, several white passengers boarded, and driver James E. Blake (1912?2002) noticed a white man standing near the front.

He called out for the four black passengers in Parks’s row to move to the back, where they would have to stand, as all of the seats were now taken.

They did not respond.

Blake got out of his seat and instructed the four to move, saying, “Y’all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats.”

Three of the black passengers reluctantly proceeded to go and stand in the back of the bus.

Parks, however, refused to get up, sliding from the aisle seat to the window seat, which would have allowed for the white passenger to sit in any of the three seats in her row.

The bus driver asked: “Are you going to stand up?”

Parks looked him in the eye and responded with a quiet but resolute, “No.” She explained that (1) she had gotten on board first, that (2) she paid the same fare, and that (3) she wasn’t sitting in the white section.

She didn’t think it was fair that she had to stand for someone else to sit who arrived after her. She also pointed out (correctly) that this was not an actual violation of the city ordinance.

[Cdr Lytton]

(She didn’t complain how nonchivalrous it was that a supposed gentleman would make a woman stand so he could sit, or how irrational it was that he wouldn’t even want to sit in the same row with her.)

“Well,” Blake responded, “I’m going to have you arrested.”

Parks gave him the permission he did not request: “You may do that.”

Blake called his supervisor, who advised him that after warning the passenger he had to exercise his power and put Parks off the bus.

He then radioed the police, who sent officers F.B. Day and D.W. Mixon.

As they boarded the bus while several passengers exited through the rear, the officers debriefed Blake and then peacefully arrested Parks.
“Why do you all push us around?” she asked the tired beat cops.
Officer Day responded, “I don’t know, but the law is the law and you’re under arrest.”

[Cyto]

What all of this exposition fails to point out (but it is implied) is that only a grade-A dick and a bonafide pussy would demand that an old black lady give up her seat on a bus so he could sit.

I was raised in the south, and not so terribly far removed in time from these events. My openly racist grandfather would have gotten up to offer his seat to a lady even when he was old and infirm, regardless of her race or age.

Dudes in Montgomery were spoiling for a fight.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

James Blake was a Grade-A Prime Dick.

He made blacks pay at the front and then reenter the bus at the back but often drove off before they could make it.

Parks had at least one run-in with him before.

[Lee Genes]

Democrats are losing their shit over the Carrier deal as a PR stunt and a bad deal all around, yet no one seems to remember Solyndra and all of the other wonderful deals conducted under their rule.

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

Wait i am so confused…i thought they were against large corporations going outside the US due to lack of regulations and low costs?

[Lee Genes]

Who the hell knows? I’m not in favor of cutting special deals for anyone, level playing field and all that, but the Democrats’ two-faced position on this annoys the shit out of me.

[I can't even]

They are in favor of stories that make Democrats look good and Republicans look bad – and absolutely against the opposite.

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

Ah so see below….

they say they care for people but really all that matters is what gives their team more power

[Citizen X]

Shocking, ain’t it?

[LynchPin1477]

He didn’t Trump hard enough. He should have forced them to keep *all* the jobs in Indiana.

[Domestic Dissident]

Of course the democrats are pissed It’s a lot harder for them to either kill the working class whites they despise so much or make them permanently dependent wards of the state if the bastards still have jobs and can support themselves without help.

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

Yea i think this is their end game. They dont want to see people out of poverty….they want to keep them in it because they are easier to control.

[VG Zaytsev]

Finally an outrage that the Cosmos and Proggies can share.

[John]

Finally? You can’t think of any other outrages they share in? Really? Are you sure about that VG?

[Red Rocks Dickin Bimbos]

This is why I think Trump should propose a version of the single-payer healthcare system that Truman wanted to enact and propose a pull-out from the entire Middle East, just to get the left screaming against them in their typical contrarian fits.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

Joe Scarborough goes on lengthy rant about media double standard toward recount.

The clip is worth watching just for his co-host’s reaction throughout.

[Brett L]

Won’t watch, but I hope those ladies all looked like they expected Hillary’s henchmen to shoot him dead on set.

[Rufus The Monocled]

That was great.

Good for him.

If liberalism has a shot it’s because people like Scarborough being honest enough to call them out for being total asshat hypocrites.

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

My observation regarding progs is everything they say about themselves tends to be the opposite….everything they accuse others of doing is what they end up being

Claims about themselves

– reality based
– tolerant, loving and inclusive
– critical thinkers
– will amend their views when presented with new information
– results oriented

Reality
– feelings and emotion
– dog piling on those who disagree
– superficial skin deep thoughts
– once they form the narrative it stays as such
– intentions oriented

[John]

It is not just that. Everything they say at all is usually the exact opposite of the truth.

Claims
The GOP is a regional party that is about to split up
The GOP is a radical ideological driven party that has moved away from the country and purged all its moderates
Trump is certain to lose
The right is violent
Democrats care about the common people

Reality
The Democrats are a regional party virtually extinct in large areas of the country and on the verge of a full on civil war between the hard left and the rest of the party
The Democrats have gone full left and purged nearly all its moderates
Trump won the election
The left routinely engages in violence disguised as protests while the never does
Democrats are the party of Silicon Valley, public employees and Wall Street.

[Injun, as in from India]

Bravo, Tornado.

I’m saving this.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

I have noticed the same thing, especially with the accusations they level toward others:

-Prone to violence toward people they disagree with
-Refusal to accept results they don’t like
-Racism/sexism/xenophobia/homophobia rants

[Eternal Blue Sky]

“Senate Democrats are planning to make the confirmation of Trump nominees ‘as painful as possible for the new president.'”

Yeah?? Too bad you don’t have a majority, eh??

[Darth Squirrel]

Or a filibuster. Because obstructionist. bwahahahaha.

[Get To Da Chippah]

The Tennessee wildfires that killed at least seven are “likely to be human-caused.”

Because they’re a symptom of climate change, right?

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

Fires are hot. Therefore, lots of fires are super-hot. And Tennessee is part of the globe. Therefore, GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!

[Get To Da Chippah]

The Tennessee wildfires that killed at least seven are “likely to be human-caused.”

Because they’re a symptom of climate change, right?

[The Late P Brooks]

She pushed on my hips, an order that thrust me in. I entered her. Not only my prick, but the whole of me entered her, into her guts, into her darkness, eyes wide open, seeing nothing. My whole body had gone inside her.

Gulliver amongst the Brobdingnagians?

[Brett L]

I hear there’s a blooming subculture of guys who want VR apps like that.

[Rhywun]

President Pen and Phone is at it again. There’s no way this could go dark-hilariously wrong.

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

Dammit!!

[Rhywun]

Heh

[straffinrun]

Read about that elsewhere. They quote Julian Castro saying that this won’t end up with anyone being evicted. That’s almost as absurd as saying you can’t deny preexisting conditions in health insurance and the premiums won’t rise.

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

Yeah, they’ll just take their money in the form of fines, then put them in a cage when they can’t pay.

[straffinrun]

“We’re confident that public housing authority staff can work with residents so that that can be avoided.”

There’s the rising star of the Democratic Party.

[Rhywun]

They quote Julian Castro saying that this won’t end up with anyone being evicted.

Evictions?! I’m expecting (more) dead bodies in stairwells.

[straffinrun]

Clearly lung cancer.

[Sevo]

I understand lead can cause cancer.

[Crusty Juggler]

“This landmark public health action will make sure the families who are in NYCHA who are having to endure secondhand smoke will no longer have to do so,” said Patrick Kwan, director of NYC Smoke Free.

Sadly, Patrick Kwan will not be interviewed after the police kill someone while investigating a complaint for indoor smoking.

[Rhywun]

OTOH, since I’m paying the lion’s share of their rent you can certainly make the argument that I should be able to tell them what they may or may not do in their homes. But then I’m not an asshole like the government or an employee of “NYC Smoke Free”.

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

Government seeks to further entrap poor folk in the never-ending cycle of fines & jail & fines & jail.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

Why does the Obama administration hate poor minorities so much?

[Citizen X]

What are you talking about? The Obama administration has done its damnedest to make more of them!

[Rhywun]

Stuff white people care about.

“This is a priority for the chancellor and the mayor because they believe that diverse classrooms and diverse learning environments are better for kids,” said Deputy Schools Chancellor Joshua Wallack.

The report I saw on TV this morning showed some black people saying that all of the problems in their kids’ schools would be solved if only there were just more white kids in them. Ha just kidding.

[John]

Is there anything more racist than thinking black kids can’t excel unless they are around white kids?

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

If you put a bunch of middle class white kids in a classroom with poors their affluence and privilege will rub off on their less advantaged classmates.

Government applies the same theory for homeownership. Just put poor people in homes they can’t afford and they’ll become respectable and responsible middle class taxpayers.

[John]

Is there anything more miserable than being a poor kid going to school with a bunch of rich ones? The thing about being a kid is that you don’t know any better. If everyone around you is poor, it likely isn’t going to bother you that you are poor. But if some people around you have a lot and you don’t, you are going to be pretty envious and miserable and they being kids are going to spend their time rubbing your nose in it.

[Jerryskids]

More transparent government. By which I mean it’s becoming pretty clear that government’s a racket.

Based on court records and financial accounts, Cooksey believes Britton started taking some donations in cash, completely off the books. Auditors counted thousands of misdemeanor cases that were closed without a clear reason; Cooksey thinks under-the- table deals could account for many of those. By reviewing shoplifting cases, he found a woman named Christine Quigley whose charges had been dropped in August 2014, without a record of a donation. When Cooksey called her, Quigley said she’d been told in Britton’s office to choose between being arrested on the spot or paying $500 cash.

[The Late P Brooks]

Joe Scarborough goes on lengthy rant about media double standard toward recount.

The clip is worth watching just for his co-host’s reaction throughout

Nice.

“You’re giving me a headache,” sez Mika. The truth, it hurts.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Major League Baseball team owners and players association have entered into a new collective bargaining agreement. Among the changes are a complete ban on chewing tobacco with new players (older players who currently dip are grandfathered in) and finally the elimination of the stupid gimmick that the All-Star Game decides home field in the World Series.

All in all it’s impressive how well Major League Baseball is run compared to the other major sports leagues.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

the elimination of the stupid gimmick that the All-Star Game decides home field in the World Series.

Glad they are learning. Everyone hated this stupid rule.

[John]

Unlike the NHL, they seem to have learned their lesson after they damn near killed the sport by canceling the world series. The big thing that MLB has figured out that the other sports have not is how to make coming to the game attractive in the age of high definition television. High def is starting to make a real dent in ticket sales in other sports and especially the NFL. Why pay a fortune to go to the game when you can see it better at home for free? MLB has made going to a baseball game an event beyond just the game and thus have been much less effected.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Baseball has a nice niche as a summer sport where for most of the country it’s the time of the year where you want to go outside and do things.

The larger capacity stadiums and 162 game season means that ticket prices remain reasonable and affordable for most families. The sport itself is also more fun to watch in person as a spectator rather than at home.

[John]

My experience at MLB games is that few people are watching the games. It is an excuse to get outside and drink beer as much as anything.

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

Also socialize with friends

[Red Rocks Dickin Bimbos]

You’ve attended a Colorado Rockies game, I see.

[Real and Legitimate News, Jr.]

The ASG deciding home-field was less stupid than the old method, which was: this year, AL. Next year, NL. And so on.

[creech]

I’m surprised the players didn’t insist on having the National League go to designated hitter too. NL pitchers have gotten hurt, effecting their career, by having to run the bases. And the employment opportunities for players who can no longer play decent defense (e.g. Ryan Howard) are limited because only half the major league teams can employ them as a DH.

[Idle Hands]

You are a monster. The pitcher is a player on the field, all players should hit. The DH is an abomination and should stay in the AL where it belongs.

[Real and Legitimate News, Jr.]

The DH is an abomination and should stay in the AL be banished to the lowest depths of hell, where it belongs.

Fixed.

[creech]

I’d agree to get rid of it too. But it is ludicrous to have it in one league and not the other. Imagine if old NFL teams had to play the QB on defense but old AFL teams could rest him while the defense was on the field.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

I would pay a significant amount to see Tammy Brady play safety.

[CE]

Andrew Luck will lay you out though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5STc2_bM7k

[CE]

The DH should be abolished so both leagues play real baseball again.

[Sevo]

People are really pissed that you’re not paying more for your stuff and they want gov’t to “fix” that!

“New study compares Amazon to 19th century robber barons, urges policymakers to break up the online retail giant”
http://www.geekwire.com/2016/n…..ail-giant/

Yeah, Amazon is just like that! They all wanted to sell stuff cheap and make money! Shame on them!
People seem to be jumping up and down, screaming and making me wish I’d voted for Trump.

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

Another inconsistency of progs…

Which one do they pick…consumers especially lower income or workers?

What is funny to me is 15 min wage is beneficial to market share for these large companies like Amazon, Chipotle etc and hurts smaller business owners who can’t automate as easily or spread the increased costs out. I would like to point this out them when they call for it…..”this must mean you are in favor of helping large corporations!”

[Sevo]

The Salvation Army runs a day-care in Oakland, free to poor women so they can get jobs. They pointed out to the city council that a raise in the M/W would mean firing some of the staff, putting them and the women who must now stay home out of work.
The council raised the M/W and now those folks are out of work, but the feelz remain!

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

It just shows me progs don’t care about people…they care about inflating their own ego

[Rhywun]

beneficial to market share for these large companies

All of their policies contribute to pricing the middle class out of places like Manhattan and then they bitch and moan that Manhattan is nothing but chain stores anymore. They really are insufferable.

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

Yea i wonder if they are just stupid or evil. Neither one is appealing to me.

[Free Society]

The Truth About The Austrian Election | Norbert Hofer vs. Alexander Van der Bellen
According to the Austrian Interior Ministry, nearly 1 in 3 asylum seekers in Vienna was accused of committing one or more crimes in 2015.

North African that gangs fought for control of lucrative drug trafficking were responsible for about half of the 15,828 violent crimes — rapes, robberies, stabbings or assaults– reported in Vienna in 2015.

Out of 21,000 officially approved asylum seekers, 6,503 were known to have committed crimes in 2015– and increase of 50% since 2014

The area around Praterstern station has become overrun by shiftless migrants from Afghanistan and North Africa selling drugs and assaulting female passersby. Police were dispatched to this specific area 6,265 times in 2015 (17 times a day). Local authorities appear either unable or unwilling to restore order to the area.

The head of the Austrian police Union reports that Vienna needs around 1,200 more police officers to establish order in the capitol. “Almost all asylum seekers are moving to Vienna. We now have more migrants than the population of the city of Salzburg, the fourth-largest city in Austria”.

[John]

There are no downsides to open borders you big meanie. Reason assured me that only women and cute children were seeking asylum.

[Lord Humungus]

Just one more immigrant away from paradise.

[Citizen X]

You know who else was Austrian?

[Real and Legitimate News, Jr.]

Sixth Street?

[Rhywun]

Rainier Wolfcastle?

[DOOMco]

the Arnold?

[Je suis Woodchipper]

should’ve been a defensive gun use

[Tornado35235gsg35423ttg3gt3g3g]

Progs i think suffer from the crab bucket syndrome

[DOOMco]

they smell like seafood?

[Pope Jimbo]

Take that back! I love Faulkner.

Go visit Oxford, MS and his novels make a lot more sense.

[Lord Humungus]

I just picked the author since his last name goes so well with the word fuckin’

[Pope Jimbo]

Now that they have cleaned up Times Square, I’m not sure where you would visit to “get” SF’s fiction.