Overnight Open Thread (9-2-2015)

Quote of the Day I - Everything Is Now Rapey Rape Or Almost Rape Or Pre-Rape And/Or Regret Rape Along With Of Course Classic Rape-Rape

The pilot survey - initially developed by the Justice Department's Office on Violence Against Women and conducted by Rutgers - generated responses from nearly 11,000 Rutgers University-New Brunswick students. In the report, "sexual violence" has a broad definition that was based on materials developed by the White House Task Force. The definition ranges from remarks about physical appearance to rape and other forms of sexual assault.

The most startling finding in the Rutgers report: Nearly one in four undergraduate women (24 percent) told researchers that they were victims of some form of sexual violence before they ever set foot on campus.

Quote of the Day II

Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.

-- Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson

Quote of the Day III

Time counts and keeps countin', and we knows now finding the trick of what's been and lost ain't no easy ride. But that's our trek, we gotta' travel it. And there ain't nobody knows where it's gonna' lead. Still in all, every night we does the tell, so that we 'member who we was and where we came from... but most of all we 'members the man that finded us, him that came the salvage. And we lights the city, not just for him, but for all of them that are still out there. 'Cause we knows there come a night, when they sees the distant light, and they'll be comin' home.

-- Savannah Nix

I'd give you more but after last night's pathetic, weak-ass ONT performance, it's clear you'd just waste it.

Remember Only You Can Preserve Civility: It has been  5 days since the last banning.

The Hillary Precedent

Hillary Clinton likes to point out that she is not the first senior national security official to conduct official business on a home computer system. She's right about that, but the precedent should not give the Democratic presidential front-runner much comfort.

Former CIA director John Deutch was also found to have stored classified documents - including top-secret intelligence - on computers in his homes in Bethesda and Belmont, Mass., leading to an investigation by the CIA inspector general and a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Deutch was stripped of his security clearance and ended up reaching a plea agreement admitting to his crimes - but was saved by a last-minute pardon from none other than . . . President Bill Clinton.

The parallels between the Deutch and Clinton cases suggest that come January 2017, instead of planning her presidential transition, Clinton may find herself lobbying for a last-minute pardon of her own.

Washington State University Relents, Will Now Let Students Use the Words 'Male', 'Illegal Alien', and 'People of Color'

You Can Have Open Immigration Or You Can Have a Welfare State, But You Can't Have Both

• In 2012, 51 percent of households headed by an immigrant (legal or illegal) reported that they used at least one welfare program during the year, compared to 30 percent of native households. Welfare in this study includes Medicaid and cash, food, and housing programs.
• Welfare use is high for both new arrivals and well-established immigrants. Of households headed by immigrants who have been in the country for more than two decades, 48 percent access welfare.
• No single program explains immigrants' higher overall welfare use. For example, not counting subsidized school lunch, welfare use is still 46 percent for immigrants and 28 percent for natives. Not counting Medicaid, welfare use is 44 percent for immigrants and 26 percent for natives.

How to Destroy a City in Five Minutes

I've been almost everywhere in that country more than once. It felt solid. Kick the walls if you want. They won't buckle. It will not come apart like Syria, Iraq or Libya. It was obvious from the very beginning that, post-Arab Spring, Tunisia would not explode in civil war like Syria, rupture into fragments like Libya, or devolve into another police state like Egypt. It sure as hell wouldn't go the way of Afghanistan. That was clear.

"If the Islamists want to Talibanize this place," I said to Sean as he sipped from his glass of Johnny Walker at that delightful restaurant in Sousse, "they'll have to kill half the population in order to do it."

He froze after I said that. I didn't ask what he was thinking at that moment, and I doubt he'd remember if I asked him-this was years ago-but he clearly felt a chill. I felt a chill, too. And I remember what I thought when I felt it: The bastards will probably try.

Crushing Enterprise & Raising Taxes Is Business As Usual For ISIS

Tyler Cowan: A Simple Primer For Understanding China's Downturn

1. You can't invest 45-50 percent of your gdp very well forever.  It's amazing how long China's run has been, but it is over.  The quality of their marginal investments is now low and that means their growth rate will be much lower too.  The low hanging fruit is gone, at least for the time being.  They might later on resurrect some new low-hanging fruit through institutional reform, we'll see if they end up stuck in the middle income trap but right now they are at a sharp discontinuity.

2. There is no simple way to switch to a "consumption-driven" economy without the growth rate both falling and staying permanently lower.  Structural reforms are absolutely called for, but in this context they represent a surrender to a lower rate of growth and thus they are especially difficult to pull off in a politically sustainable manner.

3. The Chinese have been growing at ten percent or nearly ten percent for about thirty-five years.  More than a generation of Chinese is used to treating the risk premium as if they don't have to worry about it.  I shudder to think what economic and also political decisions have been made on that basis.

4. The Chinese economic response to the dwindling of their low-hanging fruit is sharp rather than smooth because there is a sudden revision of expectations, as people realize the risk premium isn't zero after all.  And seeing the others see that causes the new set of beliefs to spread pretty quickly.  That is a very painful process for a macroeconomy, and it is not well captured by simple AD-AS analysis, although of course it has implications for both AD and AS.

China's Monkey Brigade

How Many Times Has a US Navy Ship Ever Been Attacked By MIGs?

Well at least once - during the Battle of Dong Hoi in 1972.

"MIG coming! MIG coming!" yelled the lookout and seconds later the after deck of the destroyer Higbee was aflame. The North Vietnamese jet dropped a 250 pound bomb onto the deck of the destroyer, wounding four seamen and destroying a gun mount that housed two 5 inch guns.

The U.S. Command said at least three enemy jets attacked an American task force in the Tonkin Gulf off the coast of North Vietnam late Wednesday afternoon. The command said one of the planes was shot down, two enemy torpedo boats were believed sunk and shrapnel from shore battery fire caused minor damage on the cruiser Oklahoma City, the flagship of the 7th Fleet.

Capt. Ronald Zuilkoski, skipper of the Higbee, said the MIG attacked his ship at least twice before the bomb hit the deck. "In the first two passes, bombs fell left and right of the ship," he said, "but on the third try one hit the deck and exploded under the mount. She flew so low over the deck that you could see everything."

Luckily the gun mount was empty, the 12 man gun crew having been ordered out while a round stuck in one of the barrels (hang fire) was being hosed down to keep it from exploding. But three men in the ammunition storage compartment under the mount were wounded. Other men pulled them out as the ammunition began to explode. The exploding ammunition ripped open a large section in the Higbee's left side. Flames and clouds of black smoke from leaking oil engulfed the deck as the crew fought the fire.

Another warning sounded: "Missile! Missile homing in!" "We heard the missile warning, but we had to stay with the fire or we would have lost the ship," said Hull Tender 2nd Class John J O'Brien, 40 of Camden, NJ

How To Carve Your Own Stone Sink

He made it look so damn easy that I had to give it a try. So after investing a whopping $22 in various diamond cut-off blades and dremel accessories from Harbor Freight I attacked a small river stone from the yard over the weekend. And surprisingly the tools worked better than expected. A lot of dust though. And I'll need some bigger blades and some diamond edge sanders to attack a sink-size rock. But it looks doable.

Testicles Are Not a Social Construct

But they can be social given the right circumstances.

When Selfies Kill

Guy Applies for Job, Gets Offer, Then Sends Naked Pics to HR Manager, Now Has Police Record, No Job

The Sex Propaganda of the French Revolution

Still NSFW-ish after 200+ years.

The Group knows your sins but doesn't care.

Tonight's post brought to you by the Student's Dilemma:

Notice: Posted by bla bla bla. Whatever. Like anyone reads this shit. Peace. Out.

posted by Maetenloch at 11:37 PM

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