america? FUCK YEAHH

[Slurm]

Utah passes a bill requiring "abstinence only" sex education be taught, or none at all.

Thats lookin' after yer kids!

[frogman]

Telling teenagers not to have sex. There is no face palm big enough.

[heist]

usa can assassinate anyone it likes because when it comes to "national security", "due process" does not mean "judicial process"

... it means... "no process".

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/03/due-process-vs-judicial-process/254123/

[Slurm]

Nothing is wrong with having all those drones.

If you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear.

[kranky al]

have you seen how fat american teens are these days? abstinence will become the in thing given a secure border my friend - stop the under 18 boats

[kranky al]

Nothing is wrong with having all those drones.

If you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear.

this is precursor tech for slap drones - and slap drone = win

[nosaj D:]

this is precursor tech for slap drones - and slap drone = win

Slap drones?

have you seen how fat american teens are these days? abstinence will become the in thing given a secure border my friend - stop the under 18 boats

May also see an increase in Japanese land-whaling operations in the US

[djdeej]

yeah?!? :/

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/307...t-pump-is-real


http://www.naturalnews.com/035143_TSA_breast_pump_bottles.html

[chay]

46 advertisers have dropped rush limbaugh's show, with over 3 minutes of dead air time on his show on monday

http://mediamatters.org//blog/201203080008

[heist]

http://lucilleandmitt.tumblr.com

[chay]

bill introduced to regulate men\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s reproductive health

COLUMBUS – Before getting a prescription for Viagra or other erectile dysfunction drugs, men would have to see a sex therapist, receive a cardiac stress test and get a notarized affidavit signed by a sexual partner affirming impotency, if state Sen. Nina Turner has her way.

Under Senate Bill 307, men taking the drugs would continue to be tested for heart problems, receive counseling about possible side effects and receive information about “pursuing celibacy as a viable lifestyle choice.”

problem, senators?

[Slurm]

I wonder how long a Republican president, when elected, will be able to hold back the ravening hordes of civil disobedience.

[Slurm]

“Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is.” - Santorum

[chay]

“Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is.” - Santorum

it's like sarah palin is special guest political adviser

to all of them

[Chach]

It's much easier for a republican, they just change the agenda to fear instead of hope and everyone STFU

[monkey]

I wonder how long a Republican president, when elected, will be able to hold back the ravening hordes of civil disobedience.

?

[Slurm]

“According to Politifact’s “Obameter,” Obama made 508 separate promises during the campaign.

Of these, he has fulfilled, by the Obameter’s count, 158, or just under a third—everything from ordering the troop surge in Afghanistan to removing don’t ask, don’t tell to reforming health care to reducing strategic nuclear weapons.

He has broken, again according to Politifact’s count, fifty-four promises, just over 10 percent.

But even on these, such as failing to end the Bush tax rates for upper-income taxpayers and passing “card check” for unions, generally the story is that Obama wound up placing a low priority on some items and was defeated on them.

What I think is most telling is that of the original 508 promises, only two—two!—are “not yet rated,” implying that there’s been no action at all.

What the Obameter is really telling us is the same thing that political scientists have found: presidents certainly try to carry out their campaign promises, and they succeed in many cases, although they’ll push harder on some things than on others, and they are sometimes defeated or forced to compromise.

Campaign promises set the presidential agenda, even when they don’t tell you which items will pan out and which won’t.”

— Jonathan Bernstein


----

*cringe cringe cringe* at the agenda the republicans are setting then.

[Slurm]

DARPA Director takes senior job at Google.

What could go wrong?

[kranky al]

terminator googlebots terminate you if you visit the whos online page?

[frogman]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...comm_ref=false

Started reading, took me until the third paragraph to think "I bet a republican sponsored this bill.

Arizona legislators have advanced an unprecedented bill that would require women who wish to have their contraception covered by their health insurance plans to prove to their employers that they are taking it to treat medical conditions. The bill also makes it easier for Arizona employers to fire a woman for using birth control to prevent pregnancy despite the employer's moral objection.

Under current law, health plans in Arizona that cover other prescription medications must also cover contraception. House Bill 2625, which the state House of Representatives passed earlier this month and the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed on Monday, repeals that law and allows any employer to refuse to cover contraception that will be used "for contraceptive, abortifacient, abortion or sterilization purposes." If a woman wants the cost of her contraception covered, she has to "submit a claim" to her employer providing evidence of a medical condition, such as endometriosis or polycystic ovarian syndrome, that can be treated with birth control.

Moreover, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, the law would give Arizona employers the green light to fire a woman upon finding out that she took birth control for the purpose of preventing pregnancy.

"The bill goes beyond guaranteeing a person's rights to express and practice their faith," Anjali Abraham, a lobbyist for the ACLU, told the Senate panel, "and instead lets employers prioritize their beliefs over the beliefs, the interests, the needs of their employees, in this case, particularly, female employees."

The sponsor of the bill told the committee that it is intended to protect the First Amendment right to religious liberty.

"I believe we live in America," said Majority Whip Debbie Lesko (R-Glendale), who sponsored the bill. "We don’t live in the Soviet Union. So, government should not be telling the organizations or mom-and-pop employers to do something against their moral beliefs."

Lesko's bill resembles recent efforts on the federal level to repeal the Obama administration's contraception mandate, which requires most employers to cover contraception with no co-pay for their employees. Obama's rule has a broad religious exemption that allows faith-based organizations to opt out of covering birth control and shifts the burden of coverage over to the insurer in those cases. But many conservatives, including Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), are not satisfied with the exemption and believe all employers should be able to opt out of covering any kind of health service to which they morally object.

Lesko's bill is different from the controversial amendment Blunt proposed, in that it differentiates between birth control used for medical reasons and birth control used to prevent pregnancy. If the new law goes into effect, it will force female employees who can't afford to pay full price for birth control to share private, sometimes embarrassing medical information with her employer in order to get her prescription covered.

Lisa Love, a Glendale, Ariz., resident, testified before the committee about her polycystic ovarian syndrome in order to make a point about how private and personal the issue can be.

"I wouldn’t mind showing my employer my medical records," she said, "but there are ten women behind me that would be ashamed to do so."

The bill now moves to the state Senate for a full vote.

I was right.

[frogman]

WASHINGTON — With emotions still raw from the fight over President Obama’s contraception mandate, Senate Democrats are beginning a push to renew the Violence Against Women Act, the once broadly bipartisan 1994 legislation that now faces fierce opposition from conservatives.

The fight over the law, which would expand financing for and broaden the reach of domestic violence programs, will be joined Thursday when Senate Democratic women plan to march to the Senate floor to demand quick action on its extension. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, has suggested he will push for a vote by the end of March.

Democrats, confident they have the political upper hand with women, insist that Republican opposition falls into a larger picture of insensitivity toward women that has progressed from abortion fights to contraception to preventive health care coverage — and now to domestic violence.

“I am furious,” said Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington. “We’re mad, and we’re tired of it.”

Republicans are bracing for a battle where substantive arguments could be swamped by political optics and the intensity of the clash over women’s issues. At a closed-door Senate Republican lunch on Tuesday, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska sternly warned her colleagues that the party was at risk of being successfully painted as antiwoman — with potentially grievous political consequences in the fall, several Republican senators said Wednesday.

Some conservatives are feeling trapped.

“I favor the Violence Against Women Act and have supported it at various points over the years, but there are matters put on that bill that almost seem to invite opposition,” said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, who opposed the latest version last month in the Judiciary Committee. “You think that’s possible? You think they might have put things in there we couldn’t support that maybe then they could accuse you of not being supportive of fighting violence against women?”

The legislation would continue existing grant programs to local law enforcement and battered women shelters, but would expand efforts to reach Indian tribes and rural areas. It would increase the availability of free legal assistance to victims of domestic violence, extend the definition of violence against women to include stalking, and provide training for civil and criminal court personnel to deal with families with a history of violence. It would also allow more battered illegal immigrants to claim temporary visas, and would include same-sex couples in programs for domestic violence.

Republicans say the measure, under the cloak of battered women, unnecessarily expands immigration avenues by creating new definitions for immigrant victims to claim battery. More important, they say, it fails to put in safeguards to ensure that domestic violence grants are being well spent. It also dilutes the focus on domestic violence by expanding protections to new groups, like same-sex couples, they say.

Critics of the legislation acknowledged that the name alone presents a challenge if they intend to oppose it over some of its specific provisions.

“Obviously, you want to be for the title,” Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, a member of the Republican leadership, said of the Violence Against Women Act. “If Republicans can’t be for it, we need to have a very convincing alternative.”

The latest Senate version of the bill has five Republican co-sponsors, including Michael D. Crapo of Idaho, a co-author, but it failed to get a single Republican vote in the Judiciary Committee last month.

As suggested by Mr. Sessions, Republicans detect a whiff of politics in the Democrats’ timing. The party just went through a bruising fight over efforts to replace the Obama administration’s contraception-coverage mandate with legislation allowing some employers to opt out of coverage for medical procedures they object to on religious or moral grounds.

Polling appears mixed over which side gained political ground on the fight, but Republican lawmakers are not eager to revisit it. State efforts in Virginia and Ohio to mandate ultrasounds before an abortion or ban abortions once a heartbeat is detected have further inflamed passions. And the Democratic National Committee on Wednesday pounced on a suggestion by Mitt Romney that he would eliminate federal financing for Planned Parenthood.

“There are lots of other issues right now that could be dealt with other than this one,” said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, who is responsible for Republican messaging. “I suspect there’s a reason for bringing it up now.”

But if Republican lawmakers are not eager to oppose a domestic violence bill, conservative activists are itching for a fight. Janice Shaw Crouse, a senior fellow at the conservative Concerned Women for America, said her group had been pressing senators hard to oppose reauthorization of legislation she called “a boondoggle” that vastly expands government and “creates an ideology that all men are guilty and all women are victims.”

Last month on the conservative Web site Townhall.com, the conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly called the Violence Against Women Act a slush fund “used to fill feminist coffers” and demanded that Republicans stand up against legislation that promotes “divorce, breakup of marriage and hatred of men.”

The third reauthorization effort of the legislation started off in November the way the previous efforts had, with a bipartisan bill and little controversy. The measure, authored by Senators Crapo and Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, attracted 58 co-sponsors, including Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, Ms. Murkowski, Mark Steven Kirk of Illinois and Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts.

But Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, found multiple reasons to oppose the bill when it came up for a formal consideration last month.

The legislation “creates so many new programs for underserved populations that it risks losing the focus on helping victims, period,” Mr. Grassley said when the committee took up the measure. After his alternative version was voted down on party lines, the original passed without a Republican vote.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, one of two women on the judiciary panel, said the partisan opposition came as a “real surprise,” but she put it into a broader picture.

“This is part of a larger effort, candidly, to cut back on rights and services to women,” she said. “We’ve seen it go from discussions on Roe v. Wade, to partial birth abortion, to contraception, to preventive services for women. This seems to be one more thing.”

Republicans say they see that line of attack coming and will try through amendments to make the final version more palatable. But if Democrats dig in, Republicans will stand their ground, Mr. Blunt said, pointing to a new New York Times/CBS News poll that showed Americans supporting an exemption to the contraception mandate for religiously affiliated employers 57 percent to 36 percent. By 51 percent to 40 percent, Americans appeared to back Senate efforts to grant employers an exemption on religious or moral exemption grounds.

“Our friends on the other side are in serious danger of overplaying their hand on this one,” Mr. Blunt said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/us...2&pagewanted=1
Bolding is mine

[Multivital]

pointing to a new New York Times/CBS News poll that showed Americans supporting an exemption to the contraception mandate for religiously affiliated employers 57 percent to 36 percent. By 51 percent to 40 percent, Americans appeared to back Senate efforts to grant employers an exemption on religious or moral exemption grounds.

Bolding is mine.

Let's see how this works -

Religious employer can find it easier to fire employees who insist on using contraception.

So they get knocked up.

Religious employees then give them paid maternity leave and keep their job open.

Hang on, I think I might have missed something there.

[Birt]

The United States has many things I like, however it also has many things I don't like.

[frogman]

The United States has many things I like, however it also has many things I don't like.

You are a middle aged white straight dude, correct?

Imagine how much people dont like it if they dont belong to the most privileged class possible.

[heist]

Imagine how much people dont like it if they dont belong to the most privileged class possible.

thankfully as a member of that demographic, i don't have to contemplate it

[Birt]

You are a middle aged white straight dude, correct?

Imagine how much people dont like it if they dont belong to the most privileged class possible.

Agreed to some extent. I am doing ok at the moment enough to get by.

I just want to be in a position where I can try and make changes before I get to be the old rich straight white dude, which is THE most privileged class possible.

EDIT: As I always like to point out to the wife. "NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION" as my tax dollars go straight to the man and I see nothing that benefits me. (However please note I am in no way bitter about this and am happy to pay my share. I would also be willing to pay more if need be to help changes come through that would benefit this country.)

[Multivital]

Agreed to some extent. I am doing ok at the moment enough to get by.

I just want to be in a position where I can try and make changes before I get to be the old rich straight white dude, which is THE most privileged class possible.

EDIT: As I always like to point out to the wife. "NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION" as my tax dollars go straight to the man and I see nothing that benefits me. (However please note I am in no way bitter about this and am happy to pay my share. I would also be willing to pay more if need be to help changes come through that would benefit this country.)

Can you give the road back please then? And the subsidies on fuel, food and all other amenities?

In fact, if you aren't catching and cooking all your own food using tools you made yourself living in a house you built yourself with materials you already owned and engaging in activities all day long that only use your own resources and in no way require subsidisation could you just simply STFU about taxes altogether?

Your lack of understanding in this area is no doubt due to the fact you are entirely self-educated?

[Birt]

Can you give the road back please then? And the subsidies on fuel, food and all other amenities?

In fact, if you aren't catching and cooking all your own food using tools you made yourself living in a house you built yourself with materials you already owned and engaging in activities all day long that only use your own resources and in no way require subsidisation could you just simply STFU about taxes altogether?

Your lack of understanding in this area is no doubt due to the fact you are entirely self-educated?

I didn't mean to upset you, as it seems I have.

My comment was a tongue in cheek reference to the fact that me being English and now living here in Boston, the home of the American Civil War/American Revolution.

[frogman]

EDIT: As I always like to point out to the wife. "NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION" as my tax dollars go straight to the man and I see nothing that benefits me. (However please note I am in no way bitter about this and am happy to pay my share. I would also be willing to pay more if need be to help changes come through that would benefit this country.)

Ahhahaha. No. You recieve so many benefits from the government, but you are just so used to them that they fall away into the background noise of your life. Like being able to tell the time? The government regulates that. The petrol you use to drive the car you like on the roads to go to where you want to? Yep, thats all the government as well. Like having a weather forecast? Thats the government too. Enjoy your education? Whoops, I guess thats the government as well.

There are an unending amount of behind the scene work that makes countries run smoothly that the government does day after day after day, but try and get the same people that it benefits most to pay for em, and you are pushing shit up hill.

[Multivital]

I didn't mean to upset you, as it seems I have.

My comment was a tongue in cheek reference to the fact that me being English and now living here in Boston, the home of the American Civil War/American Revolution.

eh, no not that.

this

"as my tax dollars go straight to the man and I see nothing that benefits me."

LOOK HARDER

[frogman]

*wipes cum on forehead*

[Birt]

eh, no not that.

this

"as my tax dollars go straight to the man and I see nothing that benefits me."

LOOK HARDER

Sorry I guess I forgot to include this in my post. I guess my off hand comment was taken a bit more liberally than it should have been.

I fully understand that my taxes are put to use by "The Man" at both a state and federal level. I do also understand that a portion of my taxes go towards aspects of American life that being a permanent resident in this country I am not able to partake in.

[Multivital]

Sorry I guess I forgot to include this in my post. I guess my off hand comment was taken a bit more liberally than it should have been.

I fully understand that my taxes are put to use by "The Man" at both a state and federal level. I do also understand that a portion of my taxes go towards aspects of American life that being a permanent resident in this country I am not able to partake in.

....good?

maybe you need a welfare break to get your money's worth?

[Birt]

....good?

maybe you need a welfare break to get your money's worth?

No, alas I can't get it.

That is why I was back in Perth over the summer, had to make do with Centrelink while I was looking for a job out here.

[heist]

That is why I was back in Perth over the summer, had to make do with Centrelink while I was looking for a job out here.

MY TAX DOLLARS PAY FOR YOUR SPLENDOUR!



/homer

speaking of which, kudos america for the simpsons and futurama.. you guys done good there. fuck yeah.

[kranky al]

didnt know where to put this one - the america fuck yeah - the 6th or just throw my breakfast all over the computer

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/op...lers.html?_r=1


Natural Born Drillers

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: March 15, 2012

To be a modern Republican in good standing, you have to believe — or pretend to believe — in two miracle cures for whatever ails the economy: more tax cuts for the rich and more drilling for oil. And with prices at the pump on the rise, so is the chant of “Drill, baby, drill.” More and more, Republicans are telling us that gasoline would be cheap and jobs plentiful if only we would stop protecting the environment and let energy companies do whatever they want.


Thus Mitt Romney claims that gasoline prices are high not because of saber-rattling over Iran, but because President Obama won’t allow unrestricted drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Meanwhile, Stephen Moore of The Wall Street Journal tells readers that America as a whole could have a jobs boom, just like North Dakota, if only the environmentalists would get out of the way.
The irony here is that these claims come just as events are confirming what everyone who did the math already knew, namely, that U.S. energy policy has very little effect either on oil prices or on overall U.S. employment. For the truth is that we’re already having a hydrocarbon boom, with U.S. oil and gas production rising and U.S. fuel imports dropping. If there were any truth to drill-here-drill-now, this boom should have yielded substantially lower gasoline prices and lots of new jobs. Predictably, however, it has done neither.
Why the hydrocarbon boom? It’s all about the fracking. The combination of horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing of shale and other low-permeability rocks has opened up large reserves of oil and natural gas to production. As a result, U.S. oil production has risen significantly over the past three years, reversing a decline over decades, while natural gas production has exploded.
Given this expansion, it’s hard to claim that excessive regulation has crippled energy production. Indeed, reporting in The Times makes it clear that U.S. policy has been seriously negligent — that the environmental costs of fracking have been underplayed and ignored. But, in a way, that’s the point. The reality is that far from being hobbled by eco-freaks, the energy industry has been given a largely free hand to expand domestic oil and gas production, never mind the environment.
Strange to say, however, while natural gas prices have dropped, rising oil production and a sharp fall in import dependence haven’t stopped gasoline prices from rising toward $4 a gallon. Nor has the oil and gas boom given a noticeable boost to an economic recovery that, despite better news lately, has been very disappointing on the jobs front.
As I said, this was totally predictable.
First up, oil prices. Unlike natural gas, which is expensive to ship across oceans, oil is traded on a world market — and the big developments moving prices in that market usually have little to do with events in the United States. Oil prices are up because of rising demand from China and other emerging economies, and more recently because of war scares in the Middle East; these forces easily outweigh any downward pressure on prices from rising U.S. production. And the same thing would happen if Republicans got their way and oil companies were set free to drill freely in the Gulf of Mexico and punch holes in the tundra: the effect on prices at the pump would be negligible.
Meanwhile, what about jobs? I have to admit that I started laughing when I saw The Wall Street Journal offering North Dakota as a role model. Yes, the oil boom there has pushed unemployment down to 3.2 percent, but that’s only possible because the whole state has fewer residents than metropolitan Albany — so few residents that adding a few thousand jobs in the state’s extractive sector is a really big deal. The comparable-sized fracking boom in Pennsylvania has had hardly any effect on the state’s overall employment picture, because, in the end, not that many jobs are involved.
And this tells us that giving the oil companies carte blanche isn’t a serious jobs program. Put it this way: Employment in oil and gas extraction has risen more than 50 percent since the middle of the last decade, but that amounts to only 70,000 jobs, around one-twentieth of 1 percent of total U.S. employment. So the idea that drill, baby, drill can cure our jobs deficit is basically a joke.
Why, then, are Republicans pretending otherwise? Part of the answer is that the party is rewarding its benefactors: the oil and gas industry doesn’t create many jobs, but it does spend a lot of money on lobbying and campaign contributions. The rest of the answer is simply the fact that conservatives have no other job-creation ideas to offer.
And intellectual bankruptcy, I’m sorry to say, is a problem that no amount of drilling and fracking can solve.

[kranky al]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68GbzIkYdc8

on a lighter note

[kranky al]

http://www.digitalspy.com.au/showbiz...unkenness.html <---lols

[nosaj D:]

video's already been posted my man

[kranky al]

well spank me silly and call me susan what a stupid sausage i am

[Slurm]

[neonknome]

[Slurm]

"National Defense Resources Preparedness Order"

Oh my dear, lolling fuck.

This is beyond NWO, 1984, Brazil-type, wacko domination here.

[monkey]

Cant find the Greens thread so it can go here...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-2...0?WT.svl=news1

Hope its not true or Slurms head might explode.

[nosaj D:]

He's a liberal? Sounds more like a conservative
Something about neocons being linked to the first war in Iraq. The CIA had been keeping tabs on the iraqui's for a while, and noticed nothing to suggest a weapons buildup, so the neocons decided they would set up their own investigations team, which claimed things like grain silo's were bio-weapon storage facilities, and tractors were scud missiles
K maybe i made that last part up, but hopefully someone will correct me if ive got it wrong

[Slurm]

I don't give a fuck who is funding it.

Anything preventing the expansion of coal is a good thing.

Christ, blow the fuckers up. All of them.

CIA/Rockerfeller conspiracy theories are so damned lol though.

[Slurm]

Funded by an "offshore political power" is treason?

HahHAHAHAHAHHAHAAH

Show us your books Palmer.

Show us the Queensland Coal Industries books Palmer.

Lets see how much "Offshore Political Power" is behind you and your ilk.

What a load of absolute codswallop.

People will believe this claptrap too.

[nosaj D:]

Christ, blow the fuckers up. All of them.

People will believe this claptrap too.

The only solution is clear... blow up everyone dumb enough to believe things like this
I believe you're looking at about a 50% kill rate of the Ausfalian ppn, though this is a CONSERVATIVE figure

lolwut?

[monkey]

hey long-time no hear. hb btw.

I don't give a fuck who is funding it.

really?

Anything preventing the expansion of coal is a good thing.

how bout the expansion of nUcLEaR?

Christ, blow the fuckers up. All of them.

can I watch?... I like to watch.

CIA/Rockerfeller conspiracy theories are so damned lol though.

ditto, and scary.

What a load of absolute codswallop.

Its not that unbelievable is it? I hate to say it but if I had to take a punt I'd probably back Palmer on this one. Cant believe either of them though.

People will believe this claptrap too.

PALMER 2012

(and no that doesnt mean I think KONY was a bad idea)

[Slurm]

You can't blame people for being indoctrinated.

You can't blame people for being victims of the coercive marketing of modern capitalist politics.

The people to blame are those knowingly perpetuating the big crimes, and those that allow and protect them.

The financial industry, the legal industry, the resources industries, the political industry.

Not the drones and henchmen. Not the common folk. They are prevented from making the important choices by generations of domination, coercion, indoctrination.

Thats what occupy is all about. The 99%.