Overnight Open Thread (8-12-2014)

Quote of the Day I

כל מי שנעשה רחמן במקום אכזרי
סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind.

Quote of the Day II

Those who turn away from fighting evil need to be aware, that the notion of evil as dark is actually the opposite of the truth. Evil is so bright, that people can't stare at it with their eyes. It's blinding; so people look at other things. Instead of fighting evil, they fight carbon emissions.

-- Dennis Prager

Quote of the Day III

As I said yesterday, under the insanity of America's hyper-regulatory tyranny, you now have to register musical instruments with the US Department of Fish & Wildlife.

And, even if you do, you still can't drive that instrument over a US/Canadian land border.

-- Mark Steyn in You Want Nazis?

Can We "Understand" Evil?

And do we even need to?

The CIA Is Now Directly Arming the Kurds

And if you're wondering where the CIA gets the guns and ammo from in the first place. well, that's actually not important.  I've been reminded that the stuff that the peshmerga are using right now isn't standard US military issue; resupply can be handled via the CIA's existing relationships with international arms dealers.

...Basically, the grown-ups are now in charge of our Iraq policy for the first time since, oh, January 19th, 2009.  And we have taken one more step towards putting troops back in Iraq.  Because while it's nice that the Kurds have infantry and the US Air Force, they're going to need more tanks and artillery and a bunch of other heavy hardware (and stuff that we make, not the increasingly-older relics of the old Soviet empire).  That's probably beyond the CIA's capacity, but not the military's. But that will require more. 'advisors.'

A Tea Party Fundraising Scam or Just The Worst PAC Ever?

Wherever there's passion and money, there's opportunity scamming.

$9.5 million raised, at a cost of $8 million, with less than $400,000 going to candidates.

What would you consider a charity that raised almost $10 million, but actually used less than 5% of that total on its mission and programs? By every reasonable definition, you'd have to consider it woefully ineffective, at best, a fraud, at worst.

Consider then that the Tea Party Express has raised just over $9.5 million between January 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014, but has spent barely $380,000 directly, or indirectly, to benefit the candidates they support. Also, as they spent more than they received, their cash-on-hand decreased by almost $350,000; from $848,000 on January 1, 2013 to $498,000 on June 30, 2014.

The direct costs for raising that $9.5 million were more than $8 million, or 85% of total receipts, with more than $3.6 million paid out to Tea Party Express founder, Sal Russo's consulting firm Russo, Marsh and Associates.

The Cost of War vs Welfare

And war is a lot cheaper.

As for blood and treasure expended, both Afghanistan and Iraq have been among the least costly of wars in blood expended and as for the fiscal cost, our perspective is skewed; "Since the beginning of the War on Poverty, government has spent $19.8 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars) on means-tested welfare. In comparison, the cost of all military wars in U.S. history from the Revolutionary War through the current war in Afghanistan has been $6.98 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars).* The War on Poverty has cost three times as much as all other wars combined." Stephen Daggett, "Costs of Major U.S. Wars," Congressional Research Service, June 29, 2010

Libertarians and Gender and Sports

Reason has a trollish essay up arguing that we should stop segregating sports by gender. Like a lot of libertarianism itself, it's a superficially interesting argument that would lead to practically terrible outcomes with no actual benefits, to anyone.

Because when it comes to physical performance differences between the sexes, there simply is no comparison.

Tennis gives you pretty much the same result. Back in 1998, the Williams sisters decided to play a full set against their hitting partner, a guy named Karsten Braasch, who was ranked #203 in the world. It was 6-2 against Venus, 6-1 against Serena.

Which means that if you merged Olympic track and field, there wouldn't be a single woman at the Games. If you merged the tennis tours, it's unlikely that there would be a single woman playing professional tennis. Ditto for the NBA and WNBA. Ditto for soccer. Ditto for pretty much anything except, possibly, motorsports, billiards, American Ninja Warrior, and a few other obscure activities where technology sufficiently mediates physical gender differences. And this would happen at every level where the sports were merged: Semi-pro, college, varsity, and JV. It would mean the end of women in anything other than recreational sports.

GOP coming out in support for Uber's cheaper cab rides

Robin Williams and Why Funny People Kill Themselves

Now do you want me to tell you how many messages/comments/emails we get from fans telling a writer to "kill yourself" because said writer wrote a joke they didn't like? When I ban them, they always act confused as to why.

"What, you're saying Cracked writers are a bunch of tortured literary geniuses? You write boner jokes in list form, for Christ's sake!"

Yeah, and Chris Farley just made wacky slapstick movies about a fat guy who falls down a lot, right up until he stopped his own heart with a drug cocktail. The medium has nothing to do with it -- comedy, of any sort, is usually a byproduct of a tumor that grows on the human soul. If you know a really funny person who isn't tortured and broken inside, I'd say A) they've just successfully hidden it from you, B) their fucked-uppedness is buried so deep down that even they're in denial about it, or C) they're just some kind of a mystical creature I can't begin to understand.

Unindicted Felon Out at NBC

Chris Pratt Loves the Guns

Chris "Starlord" Pratt is on the cover of this month's Esquire magazine. According to the mag, "Pratt talks about his thirty- or forty-gun arsenal. He bought Faris [actress Anna Faris, Pratt's wife, above] a gun in the event that crazy person comes to their house while he's in Louisiana and necessitates her 'blowing their f-- brains out.' He tells me to print that, just in case Anna Faris' and Esquire's fan demographics overlap."

But of course Esquire can't let this pro-gun statement go without some editorializing on their part:

It's not all so primal - Pratt believes in firearm regulation, background checks, and preventing guns from falling into the hands of the mentally ill. He explains population control and hunting licenses and tags and the virtues of eating what you kill. It all makes sense, but it also feels kind of like when Dexter explains that he's a good serial killer because his victims are rapists and murderers. Really, this guy just likes to kill s-t.

11 Smells That Are Disappearing

Mickey Rourke Loves Him Some Putin

Because Russian girlfriend.

Everyone likes to bang Russian chicks but that doesn't mean getting behind the wheel of a Soviet tank. I don't mind that Rourke doesn't care about politics, but Putin does. It would be like slapping an Obama sticker on your bumper and claiming you just like the letter O and Barack's taste in the hot caramel ladies. Rourke will remain in Russia until he heads off to North Korea to let Kim Jong un beat him in a televised arm wrestling match in exchange for funding Rourke's original movie about an scarred street fighter who fucks a hot Russian girl a lot.

Nothing Is Safe: Man Arrested For Sex With Woman's Driveway

Well maybe it was a hot, sexy, wanton driveway that was practically begging for it.

A man in Texas has been arrested and accused of humping a woman's driveway.  David Micheal Gray, 41, has been charged with public lewdness. Court documents state that on Tuesday evening a woman pulled into the driveway of her Harris County home when Gray walked up to her and asked her for a lighter.

She told him she didn't have one and he walked away. After she went in her house, she told police she saw Gray "thrusting and humping" her driveway.

The AoSHQ group. Watch yer cornhole.

Teh Tweet!

Tonight's post brought to you by Coppola's notes:

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to maetenloch at gmail. Otherwise send your hate to Dark Ace.

posted by Maetenloch at 10:03 PM

| Access Comments