• Taranto: Put Him Down As Uncommitted
  
• Texas House Passes Late Term Abortion Ban
  
• No Entrepreneurs In This Neighborhood Please
  
• Immigration Reform Heads For A Slow Death
  
• NY School Dumps Michelle's Food Plan After Kids Complain Of Hunger
  
• Democrats Fight Each Other Over Student Loans
  
• In Detroit, 911 Is A Joke
  
• Obamaphone Scammers Taking Advantage Of Low Information Americans
  
• Spain's Obsession With High-Speed Trains Runs Into Budget Reality
  
• Sex Video Saves Two Men From Prison
  
• This Is Just Sad
  
• Miss USA Is Into Online Dating
  
• NBC Fails At Geography
  
• Long Island School Issues Summer Reading List Riddled With Errors
  
• Did Egypt's Military Commit Or Prevent A Coup?
  
• Lap Dances Subject To Tax In Philadelphia
  
• US Birthrate Hits All Time Low
  
• Mexico Surpasses The US As The World's Fattest Nation
  
• Zimmerman Trial Day 12
  

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Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:44 AM | Comments (181)
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Happy Wednesday.

Just 12 percent say the Obamacare individual mandate should be enforced in 2014. 41 percent say it should not.

As rumored, the House GOP has decided to split the farm bill into an actual farm bill and a food stamps bill.

Illinois legislators overrode Gov. Pat Quinn's veto of a concealed carry law. Illinois was the last state in the nation that prohibited concealed carry.

Two House Dems propose to make U.S. moon landing sites national parks.

The Muslim Brotherhood rejects offer to join the new Egyptian government, denounces transition plan, and vows to continue the disruptions until Morsi is returned to power.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's arraignment is this morning.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:49 AM | Comments (275)
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4 Things Every Modern Man Should Be Able to Do

4. Build a fire

3. Run a mile

2. Change a car tire

1. Divide up a bill

And speaking of changing tires you should go listen to the first 20 minutes of Adam Carolla's recent podcast where a July 4th flat tire with a non-driving teenage nephew turns into a Thurberesque nightmare.

Oh Rand What Were You Thinking?

I've wanted to unreservedly like Rand but have ended up staying a bit wary of him - mainly because I'm afraid he had a bit too much of his father's kookiness in him as well as his father's tendency to surround himself with questionable people with rather disreputable views.

And this doesn't help:

A close aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) who co-wrote the senator's 2011 book spent years working as a pro-secessionist radio pundit and neo-Confederate activist, raising questions about whether Paul will be able to transcend the same fringe-figure associations that dogged his father's political career.

Paul hired Jack Hunter, 39, to help write his book The Tea Party Goes to Washington during his 2010 Senate run. Hunter joined Paul's office as his social media director in August 2012.

From 1999 to 2012, Hunter was a South Carolina radio shock jock known as the "Southern Avenger." He has weighed in on issues such as racial pride and Hispanic immigration, and stated his support for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

During public appearances, Hunter often wore a mask on which was printed a Confederate flag.

And Hunter sure seems to share the same political preoccupation with neoconservatives as Paul Sr:

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:46 PM | Comments (711)
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A legislative bill that suggests, hey can we maybe after 5 months of a pregnancy, think about alternatives that aren't abortion? Oh, and in the interests of womens' health and maybe not letting women die in charnel houses like the one Kermit Gosnell ran with their filth, disease spreading carelessness, with unqualified workers administering drugs and other necessary "health care thingys"? ("Thingys" was about as deep as it got for some of these highly trained professionals).

Not to mention pickled baby parts.

The argument from those who politely demur, is the ever-popular time tested coat hanger prop.

Well coat hanger pics is phoning it in. Take a look at some of the photographic evidence from Kermit's little shop of horrors and remind me you are terribly concerned about the health of women. And want to preserve this to keep them healthy and all.

And stop screaming "vagina" to me too. I don't like that word (I'm clearly on the record here), it's just annoying and as politically played as the "waaaaazup" guys selling beer.

Get some new material. Maybe jars of picked baby parts, that's pretty goddamned horrible.

UPDATED: Commenter McGregor suggests sporks on a stick. I'd give it points for being at least a little more creative.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:35 PM | Comments (72)
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There's some reason to believe that derailed Canadian train was tampered with.

Canadian authorities have found evidence that a train that crashed in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, was tampered with, provincial police Capt. Michel Forget said Tuesday.

There have been many questions about the train explosion that wiped out a swath of Lac-Megantic's downtown, killing at least 15 people. As of Tuesday evening, 35 people were still missing, Forget said.

Investigators had earlier said that they are trying to figure out if the train's brakes were disabled before it barreled at a dangerous speed into the Quebec town, derailed and burst into a deadly inferno.

A source says he doesn't suspect malice or terrorism but I'm trying very hard to figure out how you power down a train's brake engine without malice or for the purposes of terrorism.

Posted by: Ace at 05:19 PM | Comments (78)
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Incredible. But this is where we're at.

The Illuminati, a popular clothing brand and activist blog that powers itself on paranoia and conspiracy theories, has called for the murder of George Zimmerman in order to restore “justice.”

“The Only Justice for Trayvon Martin is to take the Life of George Zimmerman. #EyeForAnEye #ZimmermanTrial,” the group posted Tuesday morning.

Here's a screencap of the call for murder.

Zimmerman's lawyer has said that Zimmerman will never be safe. No, he won't. Within a couple of years some skel will shoot him in the head in a supermarket parking lot.

Meanwhile, a phone app features "Angry Trayvon," a vigilante who murders citizens. In self-defense, you understand.

And of course Broward County has put out a PSA video to calm people down, on the off-chance that there will be riots. ("Off" is defined in statistics as equaling 90%.)

The video, titled “Raise Your Voice, Not Your Hands,” focuses on attempting to channel reaction into non-violent response. It depicts two youngsters, one black teenage boy, one Hispanic teenage girl. “Raise your voice!” says the girl. “And not your hands!” says the boy. “We need to stand together as one, no cuffs, no guns,” says the girl. “Let’s give violence a rest, because we can easily end up arrested,” says the boy. “I know your patience will be tested,” says the girl, and then both conclude, “but law enforcement has your back!”

“Let’s back up and choose not to act up, and deputies are with us, so no need to act up,” says the boy. “Let it roll off your shoulders,” says the girl, “it’s water off your back, don’t lack composure, because in one instant it could be over.” Both conclude: “So let’s make the choice to raise your voice and not your hands.” Sheriff Scott Israel says, “I’m Sheriff Scott Israel, and law enforcement does have your back.”

Yeah that ought to do it.

One warning: that last link has a very annoying autoplay video of that the PSA, plus an ad, etc. Maybe turn your computer down. It's not NSFW or anything, it's just very loud and annoying and I really do wish they'd stop it with that crap.

Posted by: Ace at 03:42 PM | Comments (473)
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I like arcologies, or at least the idea of them.

Via Hot Air, this building in Chengdu, China is very large. Not quite an arcology like you see in sci-fi books, but still the world's largest building. (Not tallest -- it's got a very big footprint.)

If you can get past the Engrish and the clawhammer-subtle Red Chinese Triumphalism (the narrator is trying a bit too hard to sell the message that "China has arrived!!11!!"), the below video gets interesting between 4:40 and 8:00.

Thomas Friedman just nutted.

I think that as far as politics, this project and should be faulted for of course being yet another gigantic project undertaken by a China determined to harness the power of government into catapulting it into First World status. They're going about it wrong, of course.

We don't really build big things too often any more. Maybe it's that we've matured as a culture and don't need to. Maybe it's because the government, often a necessary partner or prime actor in big civil engineering programs, is simply too corrupt and inept to be trusted with anything complicated.

But yet... a culture's energy is reflected in these sorts of major projects. From the 1880s to 1930s, America had a lot of cultural energy. Now, not so much.

Now you see big projects being built, but they're always in China or fficial&channel=fflb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=4pHcUejEJNOy4AOU5YDYAg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1058&bih=535">Dubai or whatever. Oh sure, we throw one up every once in a while, but nothing that really excites me. Nothing that says "Here's the future, kiddo."

(Although in fairness, the 8 Spruce Street building has a Public School inside of it, so it does have one feature of an arcology.)

It should be noted that China is also pouring billions into building enormous ghost cities where no one has ever lived (and no one lives at the present). So Thomas Friedman's notion that an Authoritarian Empowered Government is the Answer We've Been Looking for is wrong.

But putting aside who builds such thing -- someone ought to build them.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:52 PM | Comments (268)
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Want to be on a show called "Social Media Stars"?

Well sign up now!

It's not exactly as a crazy as it sounds. There are a fair number of cute and/or actually hot chicks, for example, that have YouTube accounts. So it all wouldn't be "Lighting bolt! Lightning bolt!" sort of dudes.

On the male side of things... I dunno, I don't know who they'd get.

In the future, all terrible ideas will have a TV show for fifteen episodes and/or "webisodes."

The only question remaining is:

Who do we know who's actually signing up?

Will we find out about it?

and:

How bad will we make fun of them for that?

via @kristinaribali

Posted by: Ace at 02:10 PM | Comments (128)
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Instapundit has a good question: Aren't the men falsely accused, who were put through hell and who faced the possibility of long prison sentences, the most direct and real victims here?

Do men not count? Does a real harm experienced by an actual man even matter? Is a speculative harm hypothetically experienced by an imaginary woman count for more than real harm inflicted on actual men?

What the hell?

Is the Narrative so powerful that men are simply branded as Never Victims, even when they clearly are?

Anyway, after not facing any consequences for the first four criminally false accusations, this woman will finally be seeing some minor criminal penalties. She'll spend two years in jail, despite a series of false accusations that could have resulted in twenty-five years of unjust incarceration (combined) for five different men.

But just as the Narrative says that men can't really be Victims, so too does it say that women can't actually be Oppressors. So the penalty leveled against her is a small one -- she really can't be a criminal. She's a woman, and women don't lie about rape, and if they do, well, they must have had a pretty good reason to do so.

Posted by: Ace at 01:31 PM | Comments (229)
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Pretty good expose of police procedure as it actually exists. It's pretty clear this guy isn't being hassled for any crime or any suspicion of any crime, except the One Crime that Matters, the Crime of Not Respectin' the Authoritah of a Cop.

He had an attitude, he knew his rights, he insisted on his rights. And of course that is not a crime. But it does get punished here just the same. more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:52 PM | Comments (255)
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