Overnight Open Thread (4-7-2013)

Meet the Merman

Apparently there is a 'merman lifestyle'. And along with the shame there's also money in it.

Next on the Obama Hit List: 401Ks

About $250K a year is where you turn into a class criminal and pretty much anything can be done to you. Because you're a criminal.

President Obama's budget, to be released next week, will limit how much wealthy individuals - like Mitt Romney - can keep in IRAs and other retirement accounts.The senior administration official said that wealthy taxpayers can currently "accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving."

Under the plan, a taxpayer's tax-preferred retirement account, like an IRA, could not finance more than $205,000 per year of retirement - or right around $3 million this year.

The Stupid Party at Work

The GOP has been steadily taking over state legislatures in the US but when they get in charge they also do dumb shit like this.

Apparently opening county commission meetings or school football games with prayer is so important that the First Amendment needs to be trimmed back in North Carolina. Hence the NC GOP has proposed this bill:

SECTION 2. The North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the State of North Carolina, its public schools or any political subdivisions of the State from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

And then you have the Virginia AG fighting to keep a law on the book that bans oral and anal sex between adults. Granted he's trying to hit a 47 year old man who has sex with a girl over 15 with a felony but it would also have the effect of banning all BJs in Virginia.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled on March 12 that Virginia's "Crimes Against Nature" statute, which banned oral and anal sex, violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. One judge dissented, agreeing with a lower court that the Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas on sodomy laws applied only to consenting adults. The case in question involved a teenage girl and a 47-year-old man, William Scott MacDonald, who was convicted of soliciting a minor to commit a felony.

Trayvon's Family To Get $1 Million

Not from Zimmerman but from the HOA of the subdivision where the shooting happened. The amount is confidential but believed to be at least a million dollars.

The parents of a teenager who was fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer last year have settled a wrongful-death claim against the homeowners association of the Florida subdivision where their son was killed.

...Under the terms of the settlement, Trayvon Martin's parents and his estate agreed to set aside their wrongful-death claim and claims for pain and suffering, loss of earnings and expenses, the Sentinel reported.

According to a cover page attached to the settlement that was placed in Zimmerman's criminal case file, copies of the settlement were given Thursday to Zimmerman's attorney, as well as to the prosecutor and the judge, the newspaper reported.

Crump has previously said he intends to file suit later against Zimmerman, and the settlement specified that Zimmerman was not part of the homeowner association's deal.

You would have thought the HOA would have delayed until the trial but maybe they were afraid of an even bigger award if Zimmerman is convicted.

Police State: The Early Days

The DHS has set up checkpoints far from the border and randomly stops and questions people. Yet as these video show they don't have any justification for doing this and if you simply refuse to cooperate, they have no recourse.

More Black Men Are in Jail Than in College?

Not true. And almost certainly never was true.

More than 10 years ago, the Justice Policy Institute released the report "Cellblocks or Classrooms." While the report should have been a wake-up call to policymakers, one line resonated and echoed more than any other: "Nearly a third more African-American men are incarcerated than in higher education."

Yet here is a graph of black male incarceration vs college enrollment:

Meanwhile there's now one less black man in prison - Wesley Snipes is finally out after serving almost 3 years for tax evasion. It turns out his various justifications for not paying taxes just weren't persuasive to the court.

A July decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding Snipes' conviction and sentence recounts how after becoming involved with the American Rights Litigators organization, Snipes failed to file individual federal returns from 1999 to 2004, despite grossing more than $37 million during those years. According to the decision, instead of 1040s, Snipes sent the IRS correspondence advancing various theories as to "why the IRS was powerless to collect income taxes from him" including "that he was a `non-resident alien to the United States,' that earned income must come from `sources wholly outside the United States,' that a `taxpayer is defined  by law as one who operates a distilled spirit Plant,' and that the Internal Revenue Code's taxing authority `is limited to the District of Columbia and insular possessions of the United States, exclusive of the 50 States of the Union.'''

Stanley Kubrick's Favorite Movies

Based on interviews with his friends, family, and colleagues. A lot of the picks you'd expect are on the list but then there are some you'd never guess.

An American Werewolf in London

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

White Men Can't Jump

The Jerk

The 25 Drunkest Cities in America

Shockingly Milwaukee is only #3.

Clever Business Cards

Weekly AoSHQ Commenter Standings

Top 10 commenters:
1 [506 comments] 'Mike Hammer' [70.99 posts/day]
2 [476 comments] 'Sean Bannion'
3 [466 comments] 'J.J. Sefton'
4 [389 comments] 'MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Hobbit </s></b></u></i>'
5 [387 comments] 'artisanal 'ette'
6 [357 comments] 'Harlekwin15-Emergency back Up Angst ID'
7 [355 comments] 'zsasz'
8 [341 comments] 'elizabethe'
9 [336 comments] 'Anna Puma (+SmuD)'
10 [307 comments] 'Truman North'

Top 10 sockpuppeteers:
1 [61 names] 'The Political Hat' [8.56 unique names/day]
2 [42 names] 'Cicero, Semiautomatic Assault Commenter'
3 [41 names] 'Romeo13'
4 [39 names] 'andycanuck'
5 [37 names] 'Reggie  Love'
6 [26 names] 'kbdabear'
7 [26 names] 'Truck Monkey'
8 [24 names] 'Regular Moron </i>'
9 [24 names] 'Brick Obama'
10 [23 names] 'zsasz'

The group. Yeah.

Where it's at - the Twitter

Tonight's post brought to you by the media guide to AR-15 assault machine guns:

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posted by Maetenloch at 10:00 PM

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