Doctor Pepper puts out an evolution themed ad on Facebook, and the inbred morons go nuts:
Here are some of the responses:
Seriously, there are way too many, “whacko, my parents are first cousins, X-Files wannabe, black helicopter, tinfoil hat wearing, stupid, dim-witted, thinks pro wrestling is real,” nut jobs out there in the world.
I weep for the future of out country.
The latest internal poll from Paul Ryan’s normally blood red Congressional district shows Democrat Rob Zerban down only by 7, and Ryan below 50%:
Rob Zerban, the Democrat running against Rep. Paul Ryan, has been trying to make the case that he has a real shot at taking down one of the GOP’s most visible leaders, and his campaign is now touting a new poll showing the race is closer than most expected.
The internal poll, provided to Salon ahead of its release, shows Zerban behind by just 8 points among likely voters when respondents were read a “profile statement” about the candidate. FM3 Research, which conducted the survey, wrote in a memo, “Paul Ryan is not the overwhelming favorite in the 1st Congressional District race … Rob Zerban remains a credible challenger.” After respondents were read the statement, 39 percent indicate they will vote for Zerban, while 47 say they will vote for Ryan. Another 4 percent went for a third-party candidate while 11 percent were undecided.
If you have a few bucks, you might want to throw it his way.
Even if it’s a long shot, it will put Paul Ryan off of his game as Mitt’s running mate, so it’s a win-win.
Certainly it’s better than giving to the DCCC, where (nominally) former Blue Dog Steve Israel is doing his level best to load up the Congress with Blue Dogs and New Dems.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has vacated the lower court ruling which upheld the law.
While this is not an injunction, it does appear that the court is very dubious of the claims by state government:
Signaling that it will tolerate “no voter disenfranchisement,” a divided state Supreme Court is sending the dispute over Pennsylvania’s new voting law back to a lower court to decide whether the state is doing enough to get photo ID cards to voters who need them.
In a 4-2 ruling issued Tuesday, the high court ordered Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr., who upheld the law in August, to file a supplemental opinion on whether the alternate-ID programs set up by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and state election officials are providing the “liberal access” to ID cards that the legislature intended.
“If they do not, or if Commonwealth Court is not still convinced in its predictive judgment that there will be no voter disenfranchisement arising out of the commonwealth’s implementation of a voter identification requirement . . . that court is obligated to enter a preliminary injunction,” the majority said in an unsigned opinion.The justices gave Simpson until Oct. 2 – just five weeks before the presidential election – to decide.
So, it appears that they are demanding affirmative proof that the state has set up its voter ID program properly.
I find it highly unlikely that they will be able to show this.
Of course, it is concerning that they basically kicked it down the road until October 2.
It’s a clusterf%$#, and I would argue that this is by design. The goal is to keep blacks and Hispanics from voting.
Not.
Case in point, the new clearinghouses are allowing for “collateral transformation” which serves to once again misstate counter-party risk to the detriment of society and the markets:
More obviously troubling was a Bloomberg story on how major financial firms are going to undermine the effectiveness of clearinghouses by engaging in “collateral transformation”:
Starting next year, new rules designed to prevent another meltdown will force traders to post U.S. Treasury bonds or other top-rated holdings to guarantee more of their bets. The change takes effect as the $10.8 trillion market for Treasuries is already stretched thin by banks rebuilding balance sheets and investors seeking safety, leaving fewer bonds available to backstop the $648 trillion derivatives market.
The solution: At least seven banks plan to let customers swap lower-rated securities that don’t meet standards in return for a loan of Treasuries or similar holdings that do qualify, a process dubbed “collateral transformation.” That’s raising concerns among investors, bank executives and academics that measures intended to avert risk are hiding it instead.
Understand what is happening here: clearinghouses are one of the major elements of Dodd Frank to reduce counterparty risks. But the banks are proposing to vitiate that via this “collateral transformation” which will simply create new, large volume counterparty exposures to deal with fictive clearinghouse risk reduction program. And get a load of this:
U.S. regulators implementing the rules haven’t said how the collateral demands for derivatives trades will be met. Nor have they run their own analyses of risks that might be created by the banks’ bond-lending programs, people with knowledge of the matter said. Steve Adamske, a spokesman for the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Barbara Hagenbaugh at the Federal Reserve declined to comment
Translation: the regulators are aware of the banks’ plans to finesse the clearinghouse requirements, and they neither intend to put a kebosh on it (which could easily be done by taking the position that any collateral transformation to meet clearinghouse requirements was an integrated part of the clearinghouse posting and could not be done separately on bank balance sheets) nor understand the impact of their flatfootedness.
The problem is that with complexity (“Innovation”) does not create benefits as much as it creates opportunities for fraud. (Saroff’s rule restated)
The problem is that finance lends itself to the selling of snake oil even more than does the sale of patent medicine, and the excesses of patent medicine, most notably Radithor, led to the requirement that medications be proven safe and effective before being foisted off on the public.
We need the same policy for financial instruments.
So Rahm’s vision for education in Chicago is to break the unions and turn the schools over to his rich campaign contributors, and it’s gotten Randroid Paul Ryan positively giddy:
Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan has twisted the knife just a bit more in an attempt to draw out President Obama on the Chicago Teachers Union strike, now entering its second day. He told a fundraiser in Portland, OR yesterday that he endorsed the position in the strike of the former chief of staff of Barack Obama:………
I think the most important by-product of this strike is that it will show how deeply embedded the Students First/Waiting for Superman frame has become, in the traditional media, in the cultural firmament among elites, and in the Democratic Party. I’ve heard people on social media wondering what this strike is about. Narrowly speaking, Chicago teachers aren’t supposed to be able to strike over anything but pay and benefits. And certainly, they’re trying to retain their health care. But it’s not that hard to see what this is about. Significant sections of the Chicago Public Schools system are starved for funds. They are putting 40-50 students in classrooms without air conditioning. The kids don’t have books or materials weeks into the term. And ultimately, the goal is to make those schools so poorly maintained, staffed and administered that they “fail,” allowing Rahm Emanuel and his hedge fund buddies to essentially privatize them: ………
Seriously, all this guy has is his ability to suck up to rich people.
I have no clue as to why he is a Democrat.
As to what Obama will do, I expect crickets as a best outcome.
A federal judge just ruled that there is no legal obligation to secure your WiFi signal in order to prevent file sharing:
It looks like it might be hard for rights holders in various entertainment industries to sue individuals who have open Wi-Fi networks for copyright infringement done by guests, if the following court case is any indication. A California man whose open network was allegedly used to download a copyrighted video cannot be sued, according to a ruling by a federal judge.
The complaint filed in April of this year alleged that Hatfield was negligent because he didn’t secure his network, and therefore liable.
AF Holdings, who admitted in its case that it does not know the identity of the user who downloaded its video using BitTorrent, targeted Josh Hatfield with a lawsuit in federal court because it was downloaded via his unsecured home Internet connection. Hatfield moved for a dismissal on the grounds that the plaintiff failed “to state a claim” and that the claim “is barred by Section 301 of the Copyright Act and by immunity under the Communications Decency Act.”
U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton dismissed the claim last week. The Electronic Frontier Foundation planned on submitting an amicus brief on behalf of Hatfield if the case had gone forward.
I’m not surprised by the ruling, but I am surprised that it happened this early in the process.
I think that people are beginning to recognize just how f%$#ed up the current IP regime is, and they are no longer willing to treat potential offenders like they’ve robbed a gas station.
*Pronounced in Japanese, “baka ni tsukeru kusuri wanai”, which means, “There is no medicine for stupidity.”
Unbelievably stoopid.
H/t HR at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.
When the US consulate in Benghazi was burnt down yesterday, US ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens was murdered.
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Scott Horton’s article on how the Obama administration has continued to embrace and extend the bush administration’s extreme views on executive power is worth a read:
A clear-cut example recently emerged when lawyers serving as defense counsel at Guantánamo discovered that they were arbitrarily being denied access to their clients on the orders of a military commandant, despite a series of court orders dating back to 2004 that had guaranteed them access. The Obama Administration had put in place new rules under which only those prisoners who are actively challenging their detention are guaranteed the right to talk to counsel; otherwise the commandant has the right to deny access. Moreover, to have any access to clients at all, the lawyers were being pressed to sign a “Memorandum of Understanding” with the Department of Defense under which they consented to these new rules.
But the Guantánamo bar took the Obama Administration to court, and yesterday they won a resounding victory. Chief Judge Royce Lamberth’s decision (.pdf) was not only an uncompromising vindication of the posture of lawyers who have provided pro bono counsel to Gitmo inmates for years, it was also caustic in its dismissal of the arrogant and meritless arguments of the Justice Department:
………
Barack Obama seemed at one point to appreciate this focal lesson. On the other hand, his Justice Department is so obsessed with the vindication of arbitrary and capricious exercises of power that it seems to have concluded that upholding the laws and the Constitution—to the extent that they impose obligations on, rather than grant rights to, the government—is a secondary consideration. And that, in a nutshell, explains the public’s current lack of confidence in the Justice Department.
Why I am glad to live in Maryland. I can exercise my conscience and not vote for the purveyors of this crap, even if the other side is worse, because is Maryland is in play, the election is over anyway.
Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s “Mad Money,” revealed Tuesday that the Republican Party’s voter suppression efforts will prevent his own father, a veteran, from casting a ballot this fall in Pennsylvania.
“I have a problem,” Cramer said on Twitter Tuesday morning. “My dad, a vet, won’t be allowed to vote in Pa. because he does not drive, he is elderly, and can’t prove his citizenship.”
That would mean Cramer’s father is one of nearly 760,000 voters, or about 9 percent of Pennsylvanians who regularly participate in elections, who the state said does not carry a state-issued photo identification. Despite that alarming statistic, a Republican Pennsylvania judge approved the law last month, saying that voters still have time to obtain their ID cards.
So now Republicans are pissing off hysterical white dudes.
Isn’t that their base?
I will say what I said last year, Osama bin Laden won.
And he’s sitting in hell and laughing.
Like a wasp that causes a driver to crash a car, he has put us on a road to our own self destruction.
Bummer.
With the new districts in Maryland, the 1stdistrict is pretty much a Republican lock.
The benefit is that it makes the 6th a district a lot more competitive.
So I understand that you might select a non-entity who has put in their dues as a sacrificial lamb.
However, when your candidate has committed felony voter fraud, you have not done even the minimal due diligence required:
Wendy Rosen, the Democratic challenger to Republican Rep. Andy Harris in the 1st Congressional District, withdrew from the race Monday amid allegations that she voted in elections in both Maryland and Florida in 2006 and 2008.
It was unclear, however, whether she could remove her name from the ballot with the election less than two months away. Under state law, a candidate has until 70 days before an election to remove his or her name from the ballot. The deadline for the Nov. 6 election passed on Aug. 28.
Democratic leaders — who raised the allegations, urged Rosen to step aside and notified prosecutors — said they would gather Central Committee members this month to identify a write-in candidate for the district, which includes the Eastern Shore and parts of Harford, Carroll, Cecil and Baltimore counties.
Republicans, meanwhile, said the allegations prove that voter fraud is real and called on Democrats to join the GOP in calling for reforms.
Rosen, 57, a Cockeysville businesswoman and Maryland voter, told The Baltimore Sun that she registered to vote in Florida several years ago in order to support a “very close friend” running for the St. Petersburg City Council and to vote on local issues there.
Rosen said she was able to register in Florida because she owned property there.
Under Maryland law, a voter here may not maintain registration in a second state if it allows the voter to participate in state or federal elections there, according to Jared DeMaris, director of candidacy and campaign finance at the State Board of Elections.
State Democratic Chairwoman Yvette Lewis said an examination of voting records in Maryland and Florida showed that Rosen participated in the 2006 general election and the 2008 primaries in both states.
Unfortunately, it’s too late to get another name on the ballot.
Someone needs to get fired over this.
Note also that this is precisely the sort of voter fraud that the various Republican “Papers Please” voter suppression laws will not effect.
I certainly hope that they did.
As I noted when he died, he f%$#ed Cleveland, and he F%$#ed Baltimore, keeping an expansion team out of the city for over a decade, so that he could jump in at his convenience.
We had a brunch for Charlie’s Bar Mitzvah this morning.
Omelets, waffles, and pancakes, in addition to bagels and lox. (Plus dessert)
All catered by the dairy restaurant Cocoaccino’s (their meat companion restaurant Accents Grill did the Shabbos dinner. Both are highly recommended, and not just because the proprietors son Jeremy is one of Charlie’s best friends)
We also had a DJ, and took some pix with Sharon’s side of the family.
Back to normalcy, and I hit the jungle grass on my front yard afterwards.
His Torah reading was almost flawless.
About the only thing that was an issue was that we could not find the printout for my prayer for Charlie, so I had to wing it.
No photos or recordings of the Bar Mitzvah, the shul does not allow that on Shabbos, but some photos from before and after will be forthcoming.
Charlie’s bar mitzvah is this weekend.
Off to run errands now.
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This time, the automated copyright cubicle gestapo took down the Democratic Convention live stream, despite the fact that everything was appropriately licensed:
Here we go again. Less than 24 hours ago, content-protection bots killed a livestream of the Hugo Awards, thanks to the brief appearance of fully approved clips from an episode of Dr. Who. The whole situation was completely absurd to anyone harboring the tiniest vestige of common sense, but IP-protection software isn’t built on common sense: it’s built on algorithms.
This time, content protection via crawling bots have taken down another approved, perfectly legal stream. The victim this time? The Democratic National Convention’s official stream, hosted at YouTube. ………
Un-dirtyword-believable.
We really need some sanity here.
I can start it now.
The power switch wasn’t dead, the power button, the bit of plastic that hits the switch, was.
After removing about 5x as many parts as I needed to in retrospect (it all went back, no left over bits), I pulled the button, and so now I directly tap the switch ……… I just need to use a screwdriver or eraser end of a pencil.
I’m going to set up an appointment with the computer shop, so that I don’t have to wait a week for parts.
Might have them add some memory too.
Art Model, the team owner who knifed Cleveland Football fans in the back when he moved the Browns to Baltimore has died.
It should be noted what is a decade prior to moving the Browns, he knifed to Baltimore fans in the back by blocking another teen being located in the city.
As someone who was 100 miles from Cleveland when he moved the Browns, I am not mourning his passing.
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My laptop refuses to turn on.
