It’s Wednesday afternoon and your favorite contributor (I AM your favorite, am I not?) is taking an unusual turn at the helm of the Afternoon Links. I promise this will have 93.76% less hunky content than my normal posting.
Proper Papal palace
- TED Talks 2017 is officially a techno-rite church service in communion with the Roman Papacy (I was hoping they’d join up with the Pope in Exile in Avignon, but apparently that’s not a thing anymore, so whatevs). CNN summarizes, “Essentially, he told the academics and innovators, scientists and techies, there is no ‘you,’ without an ‘us.'” full transcript with link to the ~20 minutes
sermontalk here. - Jeff Goldblum is planning to reprise his role as Dr. Ian Malcolm. The internet responds with a vexing amount of genital moistness, which confuses this author, but I’m certainly not going to yuck someone else’s yum.
- Side of English beef, Ben Cohen, may soon be single. His professional dancer lady love wants a Hollywood career, but he wants her to stay in jolly ol’ England. *tidies cave, polishes club* I’ll be right back.
- Passenger found dead after United flight from Heathrow to O’Hare. Passenger was rabbit on track to be a world record holder for size, owner was a former model turned rabbit breeder. Fuck it just click through it’s all weird.
- Serge Brin apparently wishes he was as interesting as Sir Richard Branson and is “reportedly building his own secret airship,” which “apparently looks like a classic zeppelin.” While it isn’t partying naked with my favorite ginger prince on a private island, we at Glibertarians welcome our Steampunk zeppliney future with open arms and freshly brushed top hats and polished monocles and brass doodads.
Not pictured: Brin’s airship
Much appreciated!
seriously the stuff of Riven’s dreams
…90s kids have the weirdest fetishes.
Goldblum was the subject of my first naughty dream. Jurassic Park-era Goldblum, even. Rowr.
You make this too easy for me Riven.
Real talk: I saw that movie when I was eleven and it scarred me for life.
This Goldblum was even younger.
Hahahah! Mr. Riven and I watched the Fly just a few months ago for the first time for both of us. Man… those were some gross effects.
Would still bang.
There’s a reason why ‘Cronenberg’ has now become an adjective for ‘gross body horror’.
Where’s Vincent Price when you need him?
Live version of Rick Sanchez
Complete with the blue belched up shit on his chin.
Whubalubadubdub!
Younger still was Jeff Goldblum the street hoodlum in Death Wish. Rather hilarious in retrospect.
How about Young Goldblum in UK?
I would watch that, to be sure.
It’s actually pretty good, especially behind-the-scenes comedy parts.
He also was in “Earth Girls Are Easy” with Geena Davis. (1988)
In the books everyone knew when to die – good and hard. No hanging around for sequel after sequel.
Speaking of the Papacy, Jim Harbaugh gave the Pope a Michigan helmet, which is likely the greatest troll job ever pulled on Notre Dame.
It’s good for Harbaugh to give him something he owns. I suppose Urban Meyer could give him five Wolverine hides (or five pairs of gold pants) if he visits before next season.
And we don’t troll Notre Dame. We just beat the piss out of them to the point they won’t even schedule us anymore.
Harbaugh is a sad, petty dickhead. And after he goes 0-3 after next season in The Game, he’ll be looking to head back to the NFL.
This has been my Harbaugh question all along. The guy has had success everywhere he’s gone. He’s also been shown the door with a big “don’t let it hit you on the way out asshole” on the way out.
He was brought in to Beat MSU, Beat OSU, Win Big 10 Championships, Win BCS playoff games, Win National Titles.
The “Question” is what happens after 4 years if he’s 2-2 vs. MSU, 0-4 vs. OSU, no Big 10 title games, let alone Championships, and no BCS games let alone championships? Do the alums still back their “Michigan Man” or do they start to see what an asshole this guy is? Because for all the pomp and circumstance, for all the massive salary, for all the lowering of recruiting standards to become an SEC North school, they didn’t do those things to go 9-2 every year, have at best a 500 record with their in-state rival, still not be able to beat their long-time nemesis, and not win trophies.
After the number of kids they graduated (none of which have ever beaten Ohio State, by the way) and the number of starters the Buckeyes have back this year, it’s gonna be tough for TTUN to be in a position to fight for anything but an Outback Bowl berth by the time we roll into AA this November.
And 2018 isn’t looking much prettier based on the class we brought in last year, this year and already have signed for next year.
I don’t want to put down any bets because is a rivalry game, but I’d probably feel safe in saying I expect the Buckeyes to put Harbaugh in an 0-4 hole against them next November.
*tidies cave, polishes club*
Not even a euphemism…
Or two euphemisms in a row??
😉
Pretty sure he just outed himself as Neegan.
He has the facial hair…
That’s a disguise.
Ann Coulter backs out of Berkeley event, cites backers dropping out.
That there sounds like cuck behavior, boy.
~~~magic edit fairy~~~
Damn, I thought she was a man! Weak, weak, weak.
Low energy. Sad!
Ha! I was quoting Tony Blair, who I don’t think would be flattered by comparison.
Also, that whole exchange is hilarious, bitching about joining Euro and shit!
Is the lawsuit still on? From my understanding FIRE isn’t backing down
The College Republicans said the lawsuit is still on.
Disappointed but not surprised. Although I understand that it was her sponsoring orgs that backed out not her personally. in either case the fuckin mob will dance in the streets like they had just downed a giant.
Yep. The group that invited her rescinded the invitation, so she really had no choice in the matter. She says she still may go to Berkeley, but there will be no speech. Not sure what she has planned, but it could be interesting.
O’Leary dropped out too.
Backs Bernier.
SO MUCH FOR TRUMP NORTH!
And he blames Quebec too, that’s just hilarious.
O’Leary was missing Trump’s ‘stubborn/stupid like a fox’ persona, he’s way more risk averse, so it doesn’t surprise me he’d look at something like that and figure it was better to throw in the towel.
I don’t care for her but I can’t really blame her for not wanting to be pepper sprayed/beaten up/murdered.
I give credit to Gavin McInnes, he doesn’t give a fuck and flat out won’t cancel an event. This guy got pepper sprayed and went in and gave a speech anyway.
Yeah, I give Gavin credit. I’ve only listened to his podcast once, though, when Matt Welch was on there
Apparently Gavin and some of his friends at The Rebel will still be going. Probably not high profile enough to cause a riot but there will still be kindling.
It’s a dark day for the First Amendment. The dirty, fucking anti-fa jackboots got their ransom paid. And I’d expect them to ramp up intimidation tactics like this in order to stifle speech from others they don’t agree with. That will continue until a violent enough person from the opposite end of the spectrum schedules an event and brings some heavy artillery, resulting in massive bloodshed.
A dark day. Nobody with a conscience will applaud this result. And any friends I have that do will be unfriended and never talked to again.
But you forget an important point – she’s icky.
Word is there’s something else planned. Maybe with Milo. Something unexpected.
Something unexpected.
Another Spanish Inquisition?
Trump?
A rabbit died on his way to O’Hare. There’s a damn good joke in here somewhere.
Stolen from someone who stole it:
Daffy Duck is being questioned also.
Wabbit season.
Duck season!
I’ve been reading Claire Berlinksi on and off for a while (ever since her biography of Margaret Thatcher crossed my path), and her latest is an excellent primer on Turkey. Little new stuff since she wrote about this shit as it was happening, except for how many times phrase ‘vibrant democracy’ is repeated in the articles she quotes
And not only did I typo Ms Berlinski’s name, I forgot to link the article. Sad!
Be real with us Pan, you’ve got the natural instincts…should we be ready for Round Two against The Turk? You’ve claimed Ataturk killed The Turk, but I’m not so sure.
Ataturk killed The Ottoman. Erdogan is trying to bring him back.
All I can tell you is that in my Book O’ Racism, Turks at their most Islamic are still better than Arabs, so encourage him to emulate Selim I?
It was Berlinski’s article that made me realize just what Erdogan is, and also how hilariously similar Turkish politics and culture are to Serbian. To the point that her description of attending an opposition party meeting in Instanbul made me cringe, because I heard literally same shit years ago.
Turks at their most Islamic are basically seen as religious traitors by Arabs, so there is that, but I’m not sure how many sex slave harems and Kurdish mass graves I’m willing to tolerate as a whole.
Soldiers of Odin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8LYhA3C0Rw
Pan, is that you?
Literally the Fourth Reich up in there, but with shitty uniforms! So triggered!
Speaking of Vibrant Democracies, I’m getting some noise behind the static when I listen to the waves about Suu Kyi losing some “human rights activist” polish amongst the usual chattering classes. I don’t have much more than that, but it comes down to Muslims. I think.
Rohingya. Somehow all the government massacres of Christian and animist tribes (closer to the Thai border) never made it through their skulls over the last 2 or 3 decades…but it’s a Muslim group that tugs the heartstrings (same thing in Southern Thailand – except those folks are straight up terrorists).
The internet responds with a vexing amount of genital moistness, which confuses this author, but I’m certainly not going to yuck someone else’s yum.
Life, uh, finds a way.
According to wikipedia, Jeff Goldblum is married to a 34 year old contortionist. Way to go weird old guy!
I like his guest spots on Portlandia.
I have ordered a knife, a digital TV antenna and a reading stand for my phone. Some many little boxes coming. So many. Yay!
why are you arming your phone with a knife?
Because some bitch owes my phone money.
Bayonet antenna
the more serious question is how is he going to get the knife out of the packaging if he doesn’t already have one?
No, obviously the digital TV antenna is for his phone
/Oxford Comma
It must be one of them new-fangled “Smart Phones” I keep hearing about. Reads and watches TV too!
Do you need a special app to use the antenna?
You like the knives Sug?
I just wanted to take up cutting. I like to keep current with the youth trends from a decade ago.
I told you not to watch Painful Secrets!
Half the fun of Amazon is all the little boxes. I have a few waiting for me at home.
No knives this time, though.
Reading stand for your phone? It’s called a business card holder. Target, $1.99.
Welcome to Vhyrus’s afternoon music links. Today is April 26th, so to celebrate we will take the way back machine to California, circa April 26th, 1992. I know the official title is April 29, 1992, but that’s not what he sang so fuck him we’re doing it live.
Great song. You have good taste, Vhyrus
This past weekend with my 8 year old daughter in the car I had the iPod on shuffle. “Wrong Way” came on. I don’t think I’ve ever hit the “skip” button so fast.
I was obsessed with Sublime back in the day. One of my favorite less known songs from the time was a song by No Doubt and Sublime called “Total Hate”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsFfKBaPUzU
would the 8 year old have even caught it? It’s kind of subtle what he’s referring to in the song. Now ‘date rape’ on the other hand…..
“But I’m staring at her tits”
I don’t know that his kid is ready for an ornithology lesson.
She’s big on asking what songs mean. I’m not in the mind to answer a question from an 8 year old about the meaning of “7 horny brothers and her drunk-ass dad”
For the death metal fans
Well you managed to fuck me over for my song on Saturday, you goddamn motherfucker.
And some days my song in the morning links is all I’ve got.
::gently sobs::
Half of me feels bad, the other half is enjoying your salty ham tears. I am torn.
You could always do it anyways, since the title IS April 29.
But we’ll all know you’re just copying Vhyrus and will mock you relentlessly for it.
God dammit. I’ve been holding that for weeks.
I’ll console myself by jumping in my pool.
https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/857077419802583041
Weigel reaches new levels of derp
I thought you were going to link to this tweet https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/857320853696020480
I guess everything Weigel posts on twitter is derp. You learn something everyday
A watchmen reference, really? Damn that’s odd.
if they were serious they’d draw her blue and nude
/Contemplates for a moment; heaves into trash can
Wait, is that tweet implying Clinton died? Why didn’t anyone tell me before!
…or is it saying she’s Doctor Manhattan. An odd comparison, considering Doc just wanted to get away from people while Clinton ran a campaign to rule over them.
Best response: Is she floating off to jail?
I can’t even view it… He’s got me blocked. Must’ve been something I said?
You don’t need an account to view it. I don’t have one. He basically mocks an article that says that the Left has a blind spot in defending socialism and the atrocities that it has committed
Oh, I *have* a twitter account which I am logged into, and it says, “Sorry, you are not authorized to see this status.” So. Seriously. He blocked me at some point like some kind of delicate snowflake, and now I can’t see any of his tweets unless I log out and view them as some kind of plebe. 😉
There’s an even easier way to not see what Weigel writes…
something like this?
Good, good. Now do the same thing with Facebook and you’ll be well on your way to more free time.
I already don’t have a facespace!
There’s an even easier way to not see what Weigel writes…
Ok, I nearly spat my drink out over my monitor. Well played, sir, well played.
The replies are like 90% people smugly stating that Cuba, Venezuela, USSR, Maoist China, East Germany, etc. aren’t real socialism and anyone who doesn’t think Sweden and Denmark are real socialists are idiots. While never actually stating how they define socialism other than “not the bad stuff!”
Idiots seem to want to pretend that Marxism “isnt’ socialist” and that socialism “isn’t Marxism” at convenience.
Ah, yes, Denmark. Because when I think of countries whose government seized the means of production, it’s definitely a tiny European nation and not, y’know, a South American country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves that somehow has just been headed downhill lately. Probably the kulak’s fault.
I don’t know if they “seized” them per se, but they definitely own/operate some major stuff, like the railways, the electrical grid, and TV/Radio stations.
A General Motors plant…
billions of assets of SaudiAramco
So… America.
Hey, if you’re gonna talk Weigel twitter, you’re gonna have to screencap it or copy/paste it.
He’s got some of us here blocked. The coward.
If he didn’t block people like you and Riven he might be introduced to logic and reason instead of the almost unanimous fart sniffing most of the people that he gets otherwise.
Never forget – Reason once employed that fucking guy.
Ajit Pai has announced plans to reverse the Obama-era FCC’s Net Neutrality rules. Obviously, according to people on my FB feed, this is doom and gloom and the internet is now ruined.
Ars Technica: Ajit Pai announces plan to eliminate Title II net neutrality rules
This is good news. Net neutrality is one of those subjects that most people don’t understand. My friends and colleagues who are for it can’t seem to understand how a libertarian like me can be against net neutrality.
Maybe I am confused. Why should I be against net neutrality? Isn’t that simply the idea that your ISP cannot prioritize certain data above others? Because if it can, then your ISP can literally turn off the sites it doesn’t want you to see. That doesn’t sound very free or open to me.
Then get a different ISP. Net Neutrality is about the government getting its hooks into the internet to control content, under the guise of “not controlling it, really, we swear.”
If the US had a reasonable choice of ISPs that would be a legitimate argument.
That is a big nonexistent ‘IF’.
And that definitely sucks. But allowing a utilitarian justification for government control of the internet is not just a slippery slope, it is pretty much libertarians shooting themselves in the dick. Hold the line brother.
I am going to argue that allowing your ISP to control your content is a much much bigger dick shot then the gov forcing everyone to play fair. You are advocating letting your ISP determine what sites you can view. If your ISP decides it doesn’t like Libertarians anymore, POOF there goes your access to this site. As I said, if there were a wide range of competitive ISPs available all over the US, this would not be a big deal, but most people even in large cities have 2 choices, and many have only 1.
And the reason they have limited choice is government interference in the market. The solution to government interference causing problems is to remove the government interference, not add more government interference.
No argument there, but unless the government interference goes away (which it wont) letting the ISPs compound an already bad problem is a very dangerous gambit.
Are you sure you want justify socialist policies based on the idea that corporations are evil and want to screw their customers over? It’s a tough sell to most libertarians that the government should be allowed to dictate the contractual terms between a buyer and a seller. If the ISP’s go all evil on us, then feel free to start a new one and you’ll get my business.
Perhaps a bit of a gambit, but advocating additional unremoveable regulations that will have incredibly harmful effects to prevent a problem that hasn’t occurred and likely never will, is down right emotion fueled stupidity.
I don’t consider a law prohibiting corporations from censoring your media as socialism. It does largely depend on how it is written. As I said the best solution would be a completely hands off approach, but if the gov is already screwing us we can at least ask for lube.
As far as “start your own ISP” I really hope you’re being glib about that. If not how bout you get on that, and make the next facebook while you’re at it, preferably a less liberal one.
An ISP is just an elaborate gateway. You act as though creating one means re-creating the whole internet. It’s just a place for you to connect to that provides connections to other places.
If that actually is the case then how is comcast still in business? They are literally the most hated corporate entity on planet earth. I am pretty sure people would pay MORE just to use a different service. I think you are being a little too simplistic on this one.
You sure? I got 9 (8 different companies & Century Link fiber & cable )
Comcast has a government-enforced monopoly on a specific kind of broadband. You can go satellite, fiber, DSL…
Comcast sucks BECAUSE they have that government-enforced monopoly. Giving government more control isn’t going to make things better.
So lets fight against the monopoly. But focusing on net neutrality is the wrong battle.
Even without much competition, it’s very bad business for an ISP to censor content. People who think this will happen don’t understand market incentives. Or networking.
If your ISP started actually blocking sites– there’d be such a consumer outcry, it’d never stand.
It’s a basic tenet of market capitalism that corporations that under serve their clients will eventually be overtaken and crushed by companies that offer better value. In your hypothetical world where the ISPs decide to censor the web (which hasn’t happened despite there being no laws to prevent it), then some other ISP will relish the opportunity to steal their customers. The internet is driven by freaks, porn, and commerce. I don’t think anyone (other than retards in government) is in a hurry to kill the cash cow by censoring content.
And yes starting an ISP to rival Time-Warner is tough, but micro ISPs exist all over the place and while they aren’t exactly easy to get started it’s far from impossible when you have a few people of means willing to pitch in. Which you certainly would in your dystopian future
In the mid 2000’s there were several cases of rewritten or dropped packets for bittorrent and VOIP and the evidence pointed at ISPs doing the tampering. Any time a story picked up the behaviour usually stopped but at least a few of those were documented by IT experts before going to press. Or more recent cases where ISPs were inserting their own ads into web pages. The bigger problems are government granted and enforced monopolies on internet. Where a city literally will not grant right-of-way to run line or a state shuts down a city approval for an alternate ISP.
cuz property rights man. ISP’s can do what they want and if you don’t like it you can use another one.
Oh, there isn’t one? That’s too bad.
The ISPs must treat all Internet traffic the same. So they can’t charge more for uses which have higher bandwidth.
Plus what Mad Scientist said below.
Or above. Whatever!
I am pretty sure your understanding of net neutrality is incorrect. It has nothing to do with the amount of bandwidth you use, but that all data is considered equal. If net neutrality is not a thing, you ISP can pick and choose which websites you have access to.
JD isn’t talking about your ISP charging YOU more. He’s talking about YouTube or Netflix, for example, paying a premium to your ISP so that their content gets priority, and you get a stutter-free stream.
Well, taken to its extreme, net neutrality also prevents tiered services for the consumer as well. Everyone gets the same bandwidth and data caps, because to do otherwise rewrite prioritization of data. But for the same price, so we can all have the same shitty internet, because socialism of data will work the same as socialism for everything else in the end.
Free Minitel for all!
That is a wonderful possibility, but the downside is literal censorship of your internet by private entities. I will gladly keep my internet access censorship free in exchange for a slightly choppy episode of game of thrones.
Who is censoring your internet now?
Here is a list of ISPs known or suspected of throttling bandwidth to certain services such as p2p file sharing or media streaming. Go ahead and scroll down to America and see if there isn’t a major service listed.
https://wiki.vuze.com/w/Bad_ISPs
We already have known instances of services like google and facebook shaping content specifically around a political agenda. We know it’s already happening. Why do you think it won’t get worse?
Facebook is not an ISP. Outside of an experimental fiber area, Google is not an ISP either.
Some ISP’s limit P2P and media streaming because you’re running a server on their network at that point, which means you’re using more bandwidth than you’re paying for.
You’re trying to solve a non-existent problem with government regulation. Good luck with that.
“Who is censoring your internet now?” Mad Scientist on April 26, 2017 at 3:41 pm
Nobody, but what prevents them from doing so in the future? Suppose ISPs join Google and Facebook in censoring “fake news”, as an example.
Get another ISP then.
Suppose there isn’t one where I live.
Move or start your own ISP
Good ideas.
So you need government regulation to help you with the problem you’re not having, Homple?
“So you need government regulation to help you with the problem you’re not having, Homple?” Mad Scientist on April 26, 2017 at 4:24 pm
Nope. Just pointing out a possible future situation. I said absolutely nothing about government, now, did I?
The biggest issue I have with Net Neutrality in its current incarnation is that when implemented it completely flies in the face of the OSI model. I completely agree that leaving ISPs to choose who gets access to what and how is terrible, but Net Neutrality is hardly the ideal solution to the problem.
That’s not what net neutrality did. Net Neutrality banned ISPs from prioritizing traffic. As typical with non-technical yabbos passing laws over things they understand not, that has huge implications for innovation. HUGE. It was a law that literally attempted to cement the Internet into the “way it works now” for ever more. Vhyrus, seriously, Net Neutrality is awful. Awful.
If an internet provider wants to create a service that sells itself as a high quality video provider by prioritizing video streams, it would be illegal.
That’s just one awful aspect to NN rules.
I am pretty sure we can find a way to keep the good aspects of NN while minimizing or eliminating the bad aspects, but straight out blocking NN without addressing the ISP monopoly in this country is a very bad idea.
Not when politicians with an agenda to have government control the internet so they can control the sheep have anything to say about it…
All of the following “bad things” are inherent to the concept of NN and inextricable from the “good things” that it is allegedly supposed to provide:
1. Reducing the range of consumer choice (no prioritization means no priority plans)
2. Removing a whole host of solutions to network engineering problems (no prioritization means no QoS, no dedicated links, no selective routing, basically no software solutions at all)
3. Putting the Federal government in charge of every ISP’s network policies (every regulation requires monitoring and enforcement)
Point (3) is technically not inherent to the concept of NN but since I haven’t seen a single NN proponent suggest another way, and those other ways would likely just involve other governments or government agencies, I think it’s fair to include it.
If it concerns you so greatly that you might have degraded service from your ISP, why don’t you push to have ISPs offer plans guaranteeing such “net neutral” access in addition to whatever other plans they might offer? Then let the market show whether it actually matters to consumers that Bittorrent and Netflix be treated equivalently.
It Assisi means that your ISP can’t prioritize streaming services over email. Or that your ISP can’t make deals with other companies giving preferential services, such as wireless carriers making it so that streaming audio services didn’t count againstyour data cap. It means that ISP’s cannot prioritize data such as the data needed to perform remote surgery over anything else.
Without net neutrality we end up with a possible problem, that could also be solved by the free market. With net neutrality we solve one problem and get several others.
Also, Assisi, fuck my phone.
It’s not a perfect analogy, but take a look at the airlines industry: heavily regulated, anticompetitive, distorted by market controls and forever verging on collapse. Like the telecoms, government plays a huge role in maintaining infrastructure vis-a-vis publicly run and staffed airports. And, despite all this, when an airline gets into a minor kerfuffle like United did, they take an epic beating in the market. So despite all the controls and insulation from market forces, they’re still susceptible to consumer demand.
So the question, to my mind, is who has the bigger incentive to control content, and who stands to lose more by getting a black eye if they’re caught censoring content or throttling bandwidth? ISPs, for all their flaws, or government? You have little recourse if the feds decide to shut down access to content it considers harmful to the public good. But more likely than censorship is the quotidian regulatory malaise we see everywhere else government sinks its claws: tens of thousands of rules and regulations ISPs are suddenly forced to follow as Title II carriers, and being subjected to massive fines when they break any one of them. The FCC overseeing how new services and technologies are instituted and priced. Big-ticket ISPs inevitably pricing out upstart competitors due to regulatory and legal hurdles. Because that’s what bureaucracy is, it’s a machine for slowing down innovation and ripping billions of dollars out of industries to feather its own nest.
The internet has worked pretty well so far with minimal regulation. Probably not a good idea to go messing things up in a vain attempt to stick it to Comcast. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.
If your monopolistic ISP is doing something you don’t like, then you should take it up with whoever granted them that monopoly, which is not the FCC. Net neutrality is about the FCC determining how ISPs get to run their own networks, and if you think that won’t result in censorship, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
So other people downthread have dealt with this very well, but I would just add that there’s a similarity here to the Internet Privacy Act. In that case, it was the prevention of the enactment of regulations on ISPs to prevent something that was already legal for websites…and ISPs.
In the case of Net Neutrality, ISPs have had the capability to censor, and have not. Why would they? What does Verizon care if I look at porn, or Wolfram Alpha, or Glibertarians? I’m paying a monthly fee, they’re getting the money regardless of my activity. As said below, the issue here is that while I am a user and pay for the bandwidth I use, the sites or services I use don’t pay anything on their end no matter how much bandwidth is used. The ISP can’t prioritize relatively high-bandwidth media streaming or gaming over, say, lots of tabs with sites updating text. The result is that you need to purchase more bandwidth, and when that doesn’t do it, you complain, which pressures the ISP to spend more on infrastructure. Guess who winds up paying for that in the end.
The counterexample is the USPS and FedEx/UPS. The “last mile” service is used to save time and money by shipping companies, but by law the USPS can’t charge them. This puts a burden on the rest of the mail service and its end users. But, hey, at least all mail is considered “equal”.
“Why would they? What does Verizon care if I look at porn, or Wolfram Alpha, or Glibertarians?”
Why would Google or Facebook care if I am conservative or liberal? They shouldn’t, but there is documented evidence of both of these very large and very influential companies modifying their algorithms to push a political agenda. Why they would do it I am not totally sure, but the fact is they have done it. To say it won’t be done because they have no incentive is a very weak argument because there is already evidence of similar antics from similar organizations. The current iteration of net neutrality may be poorly written, but the idea that an ISP should not be able to unilaterally deny or limit data arbitrarily is absolutely something we as a political fringe should pursue very strongly.
I can see the government being very happy that private near-monopsonies hinder or quash wrongthinkers. Note Faceberg cozying up to Frau Merkel about shutting up anti-migrant speech as an example.
Ok, but who would be more inclined to exert some sort of influence to pursue a political agenda: a private corporation with at least some, however limited, competition? Or an unelected bureaucracy headed by political appointees? Remember, the FCC would be the one making these determinations. When Facebook pushes an agenda, or when Google pushes an agenda, it becomes a public scandal, and people react by seeking alternatives, of which there are ample. If the FCC decides a particular provider is favoring content–say, by “zero rating” it–it does so arbitrarily, on a case-by-case basis, and with no recourse for the consumer. It’s not like you can choose to replace the FCC.
So, you get rent-seeking and the expansion of unelected federal authority over the most important communications tool of our time. In a way, Net Neutrality is the Affordable Care Act of the Internet. It does nothing to solve the real problem, which is local market monopolies created by government policies which encourage rent-seeking and, frankly, graft, and introduces new problems by adding a layer of regulation that raises compliance costs and giving an unaccountable federal bureaucracy more control.
Here’s the rub though: For all we bitch about the government, there actually are rules that prevent them from political discrimination. There are no such rules against private entities. So if Comcast or whoever decides one day “You know what? Fuck those backwater hicks that lost us the election!” and completely cuts off Fox news, Breitbart, etc. There is absolutely no legal recourse. They can (and will) tell you to piss right up a fucking rope. If the gov does it, not only will they do it very poorly (because they’re the government) but they will actually be breaking the rules and we can legitimately take them to court over it.
As I said, none of this would be a problem if we had an open market with viable competition, but because of the gov we don’t. It’s a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation, but coming down on the wrong side of this could legitimately fuck us up for a very long time.
And yet Lois Lerner, Susan Rice, and everybody who collaborated with them to abuse government power for political ends walk free…
Bullshit. As long as they enjoy a government-granted monopoly, the people who live under that monopoly have legal recourse. You may not like it, it may not feel all warm and fuzzy like having the FCC be put in charge of every ISP network in the country, but it is there.
Your forms of legal recourse include:
1. Popular appeal
2. Petition
3. Civil suit
4. Local elections
There is a solution for that. There is no connection between “net neutrality” and local monopolies. The latter is a local (often state as well) problem that is addressed by opening up competition. The former is a Federal takeover of a private industry that doesn’t solve the local monopoly problem at all.
Why would Comcast (NBC, Universal Pictures, Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications) care that you get your TV, Movies and Phone from some internet service like Amazon, Netflix and Vonage? They wouldn’t have any incentive to deprioritize/degrade traffic from those services. AT&T (HBO, Time Warner, CNN) is in a similar position while CenturyLink and Verizon are less multifaceted but also have less market share. The Comcast/Netflix spat over peering in 2013/2014 is something that could easily happen again.
The reasoning goes…
Comcast or one of its corporate partners/subsidiaries sets up its own revenue-generating media outlets (in the present day, that means “video streaming service” but who knows what it could mean in the future).
Consumers would, left to their own devices, often choose competing outlets (e.g. Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, etc.) which don’t generate any additional revenue for Comcast.
Comcast would then subtly degrade the quality of experience from the competition, using their power as owner of the network, then when consumers complain, offer some made-up explanation for why it isn’t good (probably blaming the other side), before suggesting their own solution as a better alternative.
The inferior experience on competing services would offer a strong incentive for Comcast’s ISP customers to use Comcast/affiliates’s media services instead. Comcast can thus drive out the competition not necessarily by offering a better service but instead by using its monopoly power to reduce consumer choice.
… whereupon you or someone knowledgeable about these matters collects evidence and uses it to make the case to consumers and local governments that Comcast is engaging in anti-competitive behavior which jeopardizes their right to have a monopoly. Maybe you just get them to stop, or maybe you push your local government to allow other providers into the area.
No “net neutrality” required or desired.
Of course, another solution (or part of a solution) would be to do away with all this archaic* bullshit about “peering” and just let both sides buy and sell transit across networks. But that would probably make NN proponents’ heads explode (TIERED INTERNET!).
* = I say archaic because it’s based upon a concept of the Internet that doesn’t match what people in the present day actually use the Internet for, and is built around the 1970s idea of a bunch of academic institutions connecting their networks together at a time when those networks had very limited uses.
As he wrote in his 2016 encyclical, Laudato Si, all those tweets and selfies can add up to a big pile of “mental pollution” that distracts us from what is really important.
A communist talking about mental pollution. Lol.
¡Laudato No!
TED Talks 2017 is officially a techno-rite church service in communion with the Roman Papacy (I was hoping they’d join up with the Pope in Exile in Avignon, but apparently that’s not a thing anymore, so whatevs).
I say we need to be patient, Pope may reveal the wisdom of Omnissiah soon!
We all know the human aspect of the Omnissiah is some glowing guy from Anatolia who wears golden armour and halo and can basically make miracles.
But he wants it made perfectly clear that he’s not a god.
Did this show up in links yet? Apparently some saints were less saintly than others because they didn’t show Muslim invaders proper multi-cultural respect.
Florida Diocese Punishes Teacher Who Quoted Saint’s Critique of Islam
Bosco?
The technochurch harbors no rivals
https://www.amazon.com/Technopriests-Alejandro-Jodorowsky/dp/1594650500/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1594650500&pd_rd_r=8S2N2C3X974KHK3RKWXR&pd_rd_w=R7v62&pd_rd_wg=6QxVU&psc=1&refRID=8S2N2C3X974KHK3RKWXR
I dunno, up until the last book of the Incal, the techno technos and aristos were playing off each other pretty well. At least on Terra 2017.
I would certainly be entertained by non-violent religious schism of decent magnitude.
I’m looking at you, Benedictines
Mmmm now I want a Singapore Sling
Would you cool it with the damn euphemisms??
*reads link*
O yeah, that thing
I prefer chartreuse in my religious search for elixir of life, but really just booze drinks.
Setting up Benedict in Avignon would be the greatest thing Catholic Church did since plaid skirts.
Don’t forget your membership cards!
Oh, sure. Let’s see…[pulls out wallet, starts going through it] I’m an elk, a Mason, a communist. I’m the president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance for some reason…ah, here it is. White privilege.
Good for 2-for-1 biscuits and gravy at Cracker Barrel!
I’m a stonecutter!
Seriously though, the analogy of touching a stove is just ridiculous. When you touch a stove you pull your hand away, not because of the discomfort but the damage you are doing to yourself
Unintentionally accurate, then.
WTF?
““It’s like putting your hand on a glass-top stove,” he said.
With the first swell of heat, you want to snatch your hand away. But this experience means to arouse self-examining pain, Hunter said….
““This is such an important moment,” Hunter said, quoting McCann, “it’s too critical to take your hand away from the stove.”
“In order to examine white privilege, he said, “you have to legitimize discomfort as an appropriate way to feel.””
Numero uno, that’s retarded. You teach two-year-olds not to touch hot stoves, but SJWs are apprently dumber than two-year-olds.
Numero two-o, these guys have no intention of getting out of *their* comfort zones, they want to make *other* people uncomfortable.
Seriously, we’re expected to believe that calling other people racists makes SJWs experience discomfort?
Maybe if by “discomfort” you mean “a raging boner.”
Cost: $50
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
What a bunch of suckers that buy these tickets.
Whenever SJW’s refer to how “society” has so much “Work to do”…?
I always interpret that as, “WE WILL NEED MUCH MONEY IN FORM OF GRANTS AND BULLSHIT DIVERSITY ADMINISTRATIVE JOBS IN ORDER TO MAKE US STOP ANNOYING YOU”
e.g. animal rights advocates ? =
https://www.friendsofanimals.org/magazine/summer-2016/carol-adams-animal-advocates-%E2%80%98we-have-lot-work-do%E2%80%99
She quotes Derrida for some reason
Clinton, on facing her own defeat in the election
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Clinton-Breaks-Her-Silence-Theres-A-Lot-of-Work-to-Do-20161117-0002.html
“A lot of work to do”
Everyday derp.
Words mean what I feelz they mean.
That whole website is derp
Oh great, let’s double down on retard, BC. By all means, let’s close the border with US while we’re at it, it certainly won’t kill the country in three weeks.
You want me to vote Commie? Cause this is how you’ll get me voting Commie!
Visual metaphor for Clark’s negotiation tactic.
This is what happens when you believe Canada is truly independent and not a branch plant economy and satellite of the United States.
You start to do loco things.
I always thought Obama’s 57 states included adding in the Canadian provinces and Mexico.
His numbers would still be off, there’s ten provinces and three territories.
He was a community organizer man, not an accountant….
Apparently buying votes by offering some free shit doesn’t have the same effect when you’re rival in the election is promising free everything, so you have to play the “EVUL ‘MURICAN” card to appease the un-washed rubes.
Jesus Christ, Lana, do you want to blow us all to shit?!
For the last time, it’s HELIUM!
What part are you not getting?
The core concept obviously!
I feel like no one has linked this yet. Then again, I don’t always get to play in the links.
Kingsman 2. Oh yes. I will be watching that.
I’m pretty excited, the camp looks like it got dialed up a little, which is fine by me. The first one was nice unclean fun.
Agreed! I’m hoping they don’t mess with the “feel” of the first one because it was just so much fun, as you said.
The ending montage with Land of Hope and Glory came out of nowhere and made me howl with glee.
Yeah that was great
As long as the villain is another species of leftist, I’m down! We need one movie a year that lets us exercise Glorious Right-Wing Male Privilege!
It was surprising that the movie was a essentially a green radical who could barely pass as a ‘well intentioned extremist’ and the global elite get wiped out while life basically goes on.
Took the piss out of greenies, jumped-up tech utopians, political elites, academia…
Bigoted churches? It seemed more of an all-pupose piss taker than a right wing movie.
Note that while Church-goers are racist, generally bigoted, uncouth and armed, they don’t do anything until Mr Zuckerberg-Jobs flips the “murder” switch, at which point they are not responsible for what happens.
My progressive friends who liked the movie don’t like it when I (only half jokingly) predict that Leonardo DiCaprio is going to turn into the villain from the first Kingsman within the next 5 years.
Does anyone understand all of the details of the Trump proposed tax cuts? From what I could garner of it, it looks like businesses would be the big winners with business taxes reduced from 35% to 15%. So far, so good. But it looks like the middle class are getting nothing. The rate would be 25% on most middle class earners, which is exactly what it is right now. Am I missing something here?
I won’t be happy with any tax proposal other than a flat tax.
I too want a flat consumption tax with income tax and property taxes eliminated. And yes I know property taxes are local. Just nuke them from space already.
0% flat tax
It depends on where the breakdown of the 10%/25%/35% proposed brackets falls. Haven’t seen any details on that.
If what I found is accurate, it’s like this for a married couple:
$75,000 – 225,000 – 25%
>75,000 – 10%
> 225,000 – 33%
So basically, what it looks like to me is that most middle class earners are going to pay about the same as before. But if you’re making a lot more than 225k, you could save a hell of a lot since the top bracket before was 40% and now it’s capped at 33%.
The way that Trump is always going on about the middle class I would think he’d try to do something for them here, but it doesn’t look like it. But again, I may be missing details. And of course, cutting the corporate rate is likely doing a lot for the middle class in that maybe they’re small business owners or that in maybe there will be more of them now because of more and better jobs.
“>75,000 – 10%”
Correction:
<75,000 – 10%
By comparison, these are the current rates for middle class taxpayers.
0-$18,550: 10%
$18,550-$75,300: 15%
$75,301-$91,150: 25%
$91,151-$191,150-28%
Lets take someone whose post-deduction income is $100k. Under the old plan they’d pay approximately $16,583 (10% on the first $18,550, 15% on the next part of their income, 25% on the part after that, and 28% on the rest. Under Trump’s plan (if that’s the breakdown) they’d pay $13,750 (10% on the first $75k and 25% on the rest). That’s a pretty big difference.
edit: those were the 2016 rates, not 2017. 2017 divisions changed a little and the actual tax burden would be a couple hundred dollars less. Still a difference.
I see. Well, that sounds somewhat better for sure.
Keep in mind that median income in the US is ~52K, so lowering the under 75K bracket is providing middle class tax relief.
Meant to say *lowering the rate for the under 75K bracket*
Yeah, I can’t even believe I’m in the top 20% of incomes in the USA. I sure as hell don’t feel rich. In the area I live in, I wouldn’t consider anything other than 75K to even be in the bottom of the middle class. Maybe for a single person, but not for a couple and especially not for a couple with children.
The rate doesn’t change, but a doubling of the standard deduction is in there.
A couple other nice things:
There’s a double standard deduction? I didn’t see that either. I haven’t itemized in quite a while since my standard married deduction has been higher.
Yep.
Sweet!
While I would prefer a flat-tax, Trump’s tax proposals aren’t terrible.
I’m guessing Paul Ryan will fuck it all up, propose a VAT, then lose a vote because his own party hates him (rightly so).
Isn’t horrible, but I feel disappointed in that it looks like my income bracket pays the same as now.
They’re considering a tariff, not a VAT, because no one has the guts to cut spending to balance out the deficit that reduced receipts from a tax cut will produce.
When you walk into a manhole with eyes open, is that a comedy or a morality play?
Seriously, man, did you also order some caviar and cake while you were at it?
There’s an Onion for that
Dammit, Onion, why you have to not be so good anymore?! BibleThump
Sargon was talking about how any meme of Macron should have his head edited onto a 18th century French aristocrat, complete with wig. Because that’s basically what he is.
No one needs to travel by air while an entire country is starving.
~~~holy shitballs, the edit faerie has no clue why that went wrong twice~~~
It appears that tags don’t work inside of links? Or what am I doing wrong?
Lookit Junior here, doesn’t want to nest his tags like the rest of us folks.
there was no closequotes “—” for the URL
The 2nd double quote should ave come before the semicolon & ‘title’
“One good thing going for Air Koryo: they’re never overbooked.”
Really. You don’t say. A 1 star airline within dirt poor North Korea and just four international destinations (all in China) with planes from the Soviet era, crap food, and playing propaganda the whole time haa trouble finding enough passengers to be overbooked. I can’t tell if they were making a joke or not.
Hey, now, one of those international destinations was Vladivostok in Russia! They fly into two countries!
This is like when some tiny local airport is an “International” Airport because they have a couple planes fly to Canada every week.
Or Albuquerque “International” which I have a vague memory of a newspaper article about customs pulling out because the flight to mexico was too irregular. That was, I think, in the 90s? (No idea if they’ve changed it or not, tho)
Albuquerque sunport is a legit international airport. Alb is the largest city in NM, so it’s not nothing. Now if you were to talk about Las Cruces ‘international airport’ I’d have to agree with you.
when I was a kid in NM it was called an International airport, but it was always a joke. And like I said, I think they pulled customs out at some point for lack of international flights. Maybe they’ve been restored, but I’m pretty sure there was a period when there were none.
Longest bullshit anti-gun screed you’re likely to see any time soon.
And the fucked up part is that it’s all one anecdote.
About halfway through. Lovely stuff. Parading dead children is a real high class move.
It’s all they’ve got, really. They’re losing the 2A fight because leftists are starting to arm themselves because of Trump…and they’re realizing they aren’t killing machines ready to go Maximum Overdrive any moment they’re not disassembled.
“If I have seen further it’s only becuase I have stood on a bigger pile of bodies.” /not really a quote.
But a prog attribution no less.
Okay, she’s an ER doc in Philly. My father was a ICU nurse in DC in the 80s. D fucking C. He got multiple GSW victims every single day. He saw a guy shot 100 times… all in his legs and pelvis, still alive although certainly wishing he was dead. Guess what? He owns as many guns as I do, maybe more. That might have something to do with the fact that he was chased from his homeland by government thugs and saw his neighbors snatched from the fucking streets by the police and military, and he doesn’t want to ever have to deal with that again. Or maybe he just likes to shoot cans and isn’t going to murder anyone since he literally saves peoples lives for a living. I’m not sure.
No one needs to travel by air while an entire country is starving
Hot flight attendants, though.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-interior-monuments-idUSKBN17S1MH
Progs on my derpbook feed are already tripping balls
+1 Fist Pump, Removes Tank Top, Pours Water on Self
Yeah. I actually picked it from an acquaintances page, where her post was something like ‘I AM WRITING IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE THIS MAKES ME MAD’. No discussion, just anger.
IT’S MORE SCIENTIFIC WHEN YOU WRITE IN ALL CAPS!!!
EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE TO PAY FOR THE PLACES I HAVE NO INTENTION OF VISITING!
Essentially yes. That is the conceit, and that DRUMPF is literally selling ‘OUR LAND’ to the KORPARASHUNS!!!!!
“tripping balls” is an expression which AFAIK originated with white people, and was understood to mean =
“being so high on ecstasy/mushrooms/coke/mesc/microdots at the club that you want to high five all your guido bros and tear your shirt off and start dancing on the table”
then there’s the black/hiphop use of the term ‘tripping’ which is usually in reference to someone who is freaking out unnecessarily, usually young black women
*i have heard black folks refer to the 1st definition when they were themselves all fucked up. its one of those terms that seems to go back and forth between subcultures and take on different meanings.
I wonder if the link technically counts as K-Pop.
Is she half korean? i knew she was “Blasian”, but not what the recipe was
there you go. Gtown graduate. That song is a banger in any case.
I’m sure these dolts expect a McMansion development to take place in front of the Lincoln Memorial with high-priced views of The Great Emancipator’s crotch.
I love me some national parks, but both of these were created at the end of Dem Presidencies as a big middle finger to Utah conservatives and have a lot more to do with that than protecting our national heritage.
I expected to find some cringeworthy stuff in the Pope’s TED Talk, but instead I got this:
“Fortunately, there are also those who are creating a new world by taking care of the other, even out of their own pockets. Mother Teresa actually said: ‘One cannot love, unless it is at their own expense.'”
Isn’t that a bit different from the standard lefty vision of compassion, which means paying out of someone else’s pocket?
Purple/green arcs of light observed at night at northern latitudes, what do we call this magnificent spectacle? Why STEVE of course!
To get more information, Donovan paired an overpass of a satellite from the European Space Agency (ESA) with a ground sighting of Steve. The ESA reported that as the satellite flew through Steve, the temperature “jumped by 3000°C and the data revealed a 25 km-wide ribbon of gas flowing westwards at about 6 km/s compared to a speed of about 10 m/s either side of the ribbon.”
STEVE SMITH PASS GAS SORRY
Trump orders rollback of “Federal Power Grab” in Education
I’ve got two words for DeVos: Gut the abomination that is Title IX!
DoE could defund enforcement, but i think “gutting” it would require congress.
i think the reason Reason (drink) takes the Robby-stance and says, “simply change the way its enforced” and don’t recommend actually repealing the law is because they know that it would force lawmakers into uncomfortable stances which NOW et al would murder them over. Better to strangle it in the crib, administratively, i think is the ideas.
What i hate is how they never articulate this
But the problem isn’t the law, it’s the administration of it. The law granted the DoE the power to administer it as it saw fit. So she could gut it by establishing new guidance on its administration.
Any law that vague is a bad law.
Any law that can be interpreted to mean anything from “making sure girls have sports teams” to “mandating sex-police” is a bad thing.
as you say, its at the whim of the administration on how to enforce it. Which just leaves open the possibility for future hideous applications regardless for how any current admin decides to downplay it.
Women are now the majority of students and graduates @ colleges in America. Title IX is a solution in search of a problem.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, this sounds like something we need the UN to weigh in on before we decide on a course of action.
NPR continues to prove its worth as a pillar of American intellectualism.
You can make out only a sliver of light between Bill O’Reilly’s gross treatment of women, and their wholesale sexual enslavement as baby factories. It’s pretty much verging on reality.
I read the novel – Atwood’s scenario took place after a nuclear apocalypse, allowing Christian fundamentalists to take over and start repressing, abortionists, Catholics and Quakers, as well as uppity women.
As long as uppity women are repressed, I guess it’s worth it.
And abortionists and Quakers.
And Quaker abortionists.
If they’re quaking, they probably shouldn’t be preforming abortions.
You forgot the negroes, which is Atwood going for a classic Canadian “those Americans, huge racists, amiright?”
And Jews, who were dumped in the sea during their “repatriation” to Israel.
Of course, the “Children of Ham” suffered a worse fate by being all relocated to Detroit.
Wait, Dr. Klahn’s lair was on Mt Tabor?
I remember it being ecological collapse, not nuclear apocalypse.
I’m fairly sure nuclear radiation was involved, in any event.
What’s annoying is I feel compelled to read this just to be up on current discourse.
I’ll say this about Atwood, she may be a fetishist for global collapse and environmental calamity of the bog-standard we-told-you-so variety, but her books aren’t awful. I liked Oryx and Crake.
You should read it, it’s actually a very good book. I read it back in 1985 right after it came out, and was very impressed. Then sadly watched as it was turned into a bizarre fetish for feminists.
See, up here it’s basically required reading for English classes, because idiotic Canadian nationalism. Her fiction’s not that bad, but they made you read this in high school, which was already outdated by thirty years when she wrote it in the 70s and is rife with snobbish Toronto WASP assumptions about literature.
I think there’s some punishment related to cleaning up nuclear waste, which I think is more an attempt to tie “nuclear power R bad” onto the ecological message than a nuclear war.
Yeah, the mother of one of the characters was forced to clean nuke waste until she died. I thought it was the aftermath of a war, but maybe I don’t recall correctly.
Yes, they can be sent to “the colonies” as punishment, ecological wastelands they are presumably trying to rehabilitate for future colonization.
Yeah, I read the book too. It’s a pretty quick read, but not that great of a book IMO.
“Doesn’t feel so far-fetched”
I remind everyone that the justification for the society in The Handmaid’s Tale is that the government tells the banks to close women’s accounts and all the money goes to them. And everyone just goes along with it, including, say, people who work in industries and markets entirely dependent on women. Because reasons.
This is, of course, as nuanced a feminist scifi as you can get.
DO NOT SPEAK ILL OF OUR NATIONAL TREAUSURE!
Jesus, man, if PM Zoolander reads this, his hair will uncurl!
I think Peter Watts, despite being a great hard scifi writer, is a bit of a cunt personality wise, but his ripping apart of Atwood’s snobbish attitude is fantastic.
Sigh, it’s a PDF. Copy/paste is ass. But it’s glorious. I recommend everyone reads it.
Yeah, I snorted at that when I read it. But it doesn’t really matter, because the story is not about how they took power.
I feel the same way about Idiocracy
“Moss made headlines last week when she told an audience at the Tribeca Film Festival that, to her, Handmaid’s Tale is ‘not a feminist story.’ But I wonder if that answer was more about avoiding a political discussion, because the series does an excellent job of depicting women struggling to survive and resist a system that defines females as second-class citizens — which kinda sounds like the definition of feminism.”
So a series about the evils of the Ottoman empire would by definition be feminist?
Or does he mean that “defin[ing] females as second-class citizens” is in fact the definition of feminism?
Bah, can’t find it now, but I scrolled past an article critical of the series cast because the main woman is a Scientologist and they aren’t playing up feminism enough.
Do you mean this article by the great Anna Merlan?
That’s it. I think it was reposted to other
GawkerGizmodo properties that show up in my RSS feed, but I saw the tickle text and tapped next.It’s not all females, only fertile ones, and only because they’re so valuable.
You know who else wanted to keep women segregated from society as valuable breeding stock…
The Cylons?
Young Conan the Barbarian’s captors?
Anthony Drake?
I never read anything by him besides the Dune books and I wasn’t too thrilled with Dune Messiah or God Emperor Dune.
Dr. Strangelove?
The British Army captain in 28 Days Later?
Little bastard tryna be extra cute tonight.
No cigar?!
What’s the black growth?
Some sort of mole – he’s had it for years.
My dog had a mole once. Shredded the poor bastard.
That’s a seriously cute pup you’ve got there.
Turn away Eddie.
Goddamned fucking commie shitbird pope needs a solid asswhipping. The kind that leaves him in a wheelchair. The college needs to be fitted with nooses.
Really? What is it this time?
Is it the TED talk?
“[The Good Samaritan] felt compassion for this man, which compelled him to act in a very concrete manner. He poured oil and wine on the wounds of the helpless man, brought him to a hostel and paid out of his pocket for him to be assisted….
“Fortunately, there are also those who are creating a new world by taking care of the other, even out of their own pockets. Mother Teresa actually said: “One cannot love, unless it is at their own expense.”
Was this wrong? Should the Samaritan have picked someone else’s pocket instead of reaching into his own?
Really, Suthen, you give angry white southern guys a bad name 🙁
Maybe he’s talking about the weak Papal response to the atrocity of 12 April, 1204? Fucking Schismatics…
Maybe it’s him palling around with Jim Harbaugh. I mean, doesn’t the father of Holy Mother Church have better people to meet than the coach of such an evil institution as TSUN?
Hey now, Christ walked among the sinners, the whores and prostitutes. Let’s not be Pharisees.
Well, I’m a bit drunk and thought oops, I might have misread so I went back and read again.
Nope. A bunch of collectivist bullshit from a commie POS. It is the pope’s version of obama’s ‘you didn’t build that’ speech.
Seriously? You got that from the speech?
This can only be resolved with dueling essays about the interpretation of said speech. Footnotes optional.
Whoah whoah whoah lets not lose our minds here!
Hey, Hey Glibs!
I recently watched this BBC documentary – 80 Treasures Around the World – with host Dan Cruickshank.
Fairly decent, but one of his treasures – the 1851 Navy Colt revolver – was rather oddly presented, which was a given considering the British nature of the show. “The weapon of Manifest Destiny” that allowed Americans to kill Indians was the general message. Would the anti-gun nuts be happier if we had killed the native population with spears? Or is smallpox the only acceptable way?
No. Starving them by nearly hunting bison to extinction is another acceptable answer.
***Spoiler Alert*** #79 and #80 belong to Kate Upton.
I don’t know who this Jeff Goldblum guy is, but George RR Martin lost a ton of weight.
I don’t know who’s right or wrong on this, but somebody’s lying.
“European Parliament takes first step to lifting Le Pen’s immunity over misused funds
The move follows a request by French prosecutors to further an investigation into whether Le Pen abused EU funds to pay party assistants. The presidential candidate has dismissed the allegations as a “bare-faced lie.”
http://www.dw.com/en/european-parliament-takes-first-step-to-lifting-le-pens-immunity-over-misused-funds/a-38600430
It reads like competing scandals between Comey, Hillary’s email server, Trump’s ties to the Kremlin, piss-gate, etc., etc.
There’s something fishy about the European parliament lifting immunity from a EU skeptic candidate just ahead of an election–sort of like the FBI selectively leaking or not leaking or whatever the hell happened ahead of Trump being elected.
The Europeans love to imagine themselves as so much more sophisticated than us heathens in North America, but we’re all just hairless apes looking for a screw.
Are we not men?
Yup, just like how as soon as Fillion became the presidential candidate, evidence popped up he paid his wife from government funds for a made-up job.
Yes, he’s a corrupt fuck. So’s Mr Macron, but no investigation will be started on him.
We are DEVO!