Cotton Balls

Sully says there's something deep in this story, but isn't seeing it.

I see it: This woman is now the most legally-immune domestic soldier for-hire in the world. Or maybe Germany.

Either way she's getting a call from Dick Cheney right now.

Desktop

Drug War Casualties: +1

A guy has pot, his home is searched under a warrant. Not news.

Somewhere between start and finish, he's shot. Unfortunate (he's fine, recovering), but not really news anymore.

Commenters on the article say the Sherriff's dept. is in the right, because the boy is a druggie. Depressing, but not news.

What's news to me? That apparently cops are to be treated as dangerous animals when executing a warrant. If this is to be so, then lets write a law that all searched persons are to be given a kevlar vest before the search.

Or we could expect our cops to calmly and gently restrain all civilians during police operations. Just throwing a wild idea out there.

This too.

YYYN experiment 14 from Adam Pelling-Deeves on Vimeo.

Wait for the part with the numbers.

This is too brillant.

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

And for those that like the music, the title of the video is the title of the music piece.

Question: didn't torture save American lives?

NO.

Seriously, people, we knew this since early English jurisprudence. Back when they considered transmutation a worthy attempt at economic vitality.

Cause --> effect

Aid torture --> prosecuted for war crimes.

Any questions?

:s/GWOT/OCO/g

or "Overseas Contingency Operation"

Please, God, no.

A massive helicoper-and-floating-hotel. When the hell will people realize that it takes massive energy (for the proles: FUEL) to counteract gravity (prole: FLY) ??

I've seen worse colo closets.

But not by much.

Put Down the Phone

Yes, they (usually) make pretty cars. I'm a big fan myself. But, seriously, please stop consulting them for design decisions. They're not gifted or anything.

No really: stoppit.

Another Brilliant Whine

UGH

We're Not Crazy About All the Slapping

Script Notes From the VP of Programming Following the Inevitable Purchase of the Spice Network by GE/NBC Universal

We can all agree on Blagojevich's corruption

But you can't keep bigots from being bigoted while talking about it.

K-Lo: you better tell your kid about "Gay-Americans". They're going to find out about it anyways. And the difference between telling them at 12 and them learning about it at 16 is 8 years of collegiate experimenting that you'll have to find out about the hard way.

And after you get done with that, start working on "Gay-Canadians".

Semantics alert!

Publius, regarding the Bombay attacks:

Even more maddening though, India’s outrage and desire for revenge are absolutely reasonable.

No. Bad language. Revenge does not come from reason. It comes from something less than reason. It will never be "reasonable" to seek revenge. Understandable, yes. Reasonable, never.

However, when you get attacked and you respond to the attacks with a reasoned "Well, that was blowback for something I did earlier", you're name is Ron Paul and you're angrily shoved off the soapbox.

THIS.

This. Read. NOW.

My comment wouldn't do this man sufficient honor. Just read.

(Requisite Hat Tip to Sully, ever the foreigner who gets it)

FYI

Icons are for libruls.

Reminder

From the desk of one Lisa Shiffren, c/o Teh Core:

Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus, who is smarter than your average feminist, (and has a Harvard law degree to prove it) has a column today which amounts to whining about the fact that Michelle Obama, who has a Harvard Law degree, has announced that she will be the nation's "mom in chief" above all other roles. Marcus frets that she is choosing to be "Jackie Kennedy" when her education and ambitions fit her to be Hillary Clinton.

Jen Rubin at Contentions finds this exaperating. Marcus's complaint, she notes, reminds us that feminism was never about choices. It was only ever about choosing power. ...

Reminder to all players: Every organization that continues to exist beyond a natural expiration changes its focus to seek power. Movements don't have a natural expiration.

Feminists wanted choices, won a bunch of them even. Now there's more free time for them to focus on what everyone wants before they die: abstract, amorphous, undefined and unlimited power.

Now someone tell me: if the average feminist has an implied lower intelligence than the rest of society, where does the average writer for The Corner fall?

Youthful Petulance

While I solidly attribute the downfall of the GOP to inevitable hubris following from lack of opposition, I'm also starting to get under the impression that the depths that they have sunk follow from a lack of willpower to take life seriously. Andrew Breitbart, everybody (*applause*):

The future of the Grand Old Party needs to be dangerously youthful, devastatingly attractive and outrageously fun.

Throw the liberal baby boomer bums out. And let's elect to higher office some good-looking, freedom-loving Net Generation babes. Face it: Democracy needs a face-lift and a youth movement. (I'm from Los Angeles, what can I tell you?)

These people just handed us off from a hobbled one-party nation without serious issues to a hobbled one-party nation (but different party) with deadly-serious issues. And the GOP needs to get fun again?

I have to say, I find this weird. I'm surrounded by twenty-somethings who have this traction with reality that I don't see in the media, those twenty-somethings just took over a large piece of the constituency, and the Republicans have failed to absorb any of it. They really did kick all the buzzkills out of their frat-house kegger just before the house came down, didn't they? Amazing.

LAWL

ROFFLE

But next time, really, make the message believable. Someone spouting off racism with frequency isn't going to say "my racism is a sham!" Go for: "so seriously, I was looking on Craiglist's casual encounters m4m section, and you wouldn't believe the number of dumb [redacted]ers posting pictures of their dicks. I mean, really, wow." You have to plant the seeds of doubt, let the victim walk into the trap.

>:3