Brains, with the dipstick showing a quart low

[elfs]

The Five Kinds of Recession Sex!

The gawker brings us the five different kinds of sex people are having during this recession, including prostitution and the "laid off and have nothing better to do" sex.

15 year old girl takes nude photo of herself, faces 2nd-degree felony and registration as a sex offender.

A 15 year old girl at Licking High School (my gods, that sounds like a porn set, doesn't it?) has been charged with distributing nude photos of a minor-- herself-- to other minors. The judge apparently has the right to decide, since she's a minor and it's a "first offense," to have her not register.

What freaks me out is that the county prosecutor has 20 similar cases in the past years. None of them came to charges, unlike this case, but Osiris, if you've got 20 kids using cell phone cameras and snapping nude pictures of themselves or their peers, and the consquences of doing so are life-long disgrace, don't you think the law is just a little fucked up?

Deninger warns and explains the economic seziure coming

Denninger isn't normally this hysterical. Maybe we should be? Are we deer in the headlights today?

Nouriel Roubini predicts global market meltdown

Although solarbird seems to like Roubini, he always seems more than a little over the top to me. Everything is always "on the verge of the Apocalypse." But as Naked Capitalism points out, he's always been right. And now he's warning that the world is about to end. Again.

McCain pisses off scientists

Is it just me, or is McCain's failure to understand science really palpable? First, there was his attack on grizzly bear preservation projects. It made for a great sound bite until biologist Katherine Kendall's ass-kicking stories of trekking for days in the Montana wilderness and facing down a charging bear with nothing more than a walking stick made him seem weak, and the actual purpose and mandate of the project was described by the press. (It doesn't help McCain that his campaign director for Montana lobbied for that money.)

Now McCain has attacked Obama's support for funding the Adler Planetarium's zeiss projector, one of the oldest and largest planaterium projectors in the country, deriding it on stage as "a $3 million overhead projector." McCain seems to have lost the science vote with this one.

Palin pre-empts state report, clears self in probe.

Under the heading of "You've got to be kidding me," the McCain campaign released a Troopergate campaign of their own making indicating that Sarah Palin was completely innocent of all charges.

David Gergen worries about political violence.

David Gergen is an old, and respected, Republican politico who's worked for Nixon, Ford, Reagan and (oddly) Clinton. Last night he said he was "really worried" about political violence given the kind of rhetoric floating around the McCain campaign.

I was just telling some friends of mine the other day that one of the most remarkable things about the US is that political violence is almost unthinkable. Although we have had assassinations and attacks, and there has been racial and cultural violence, political violence has receded further and further into history as history has marched on. The McCainites are playing with fire with their current line of attack, and we will all be poorer for it if someone picks up their charge and runs with it.

Joe Klein at Time adds, I'm beginning to worry about the level of craziness on the Republican side, adding

[John McCain] no longer has his honor. But we are on the edge of some real serious craziness here and it would be nice if McCain did the right thing and told his more bloodthirsty supporters to go home and take a cold shower. But McCain hasn't done the right thing all year. His campaign is appalling.

Why the attacks on Obama's character matter, even if they fail

Digby nails it:

What we are really seeing is the beginning of a right wing story line about the next president of the United States — he is a drug user, a foreigner, a terrorist and a traitor. And the importance of that is that it gives permission to the right wing machine to do anything and everything to destroy him. He will not really be president, you see. He will be illegitimate — a usurper.

John McCain says, "I am not a coward!"

Obama has been calling McCain out, saying that McCain should "say to my face" what he's been saying on the campaign trail. McCain today, struggling to gain traction, said that he would have brought up the Ayers issue but "it didn't come up in the flow of conversation."

Uh-huh.

Pat Robertson asks American to pray lest "Middle Easterners" nuke us

Pat Robertson says that sometime between the election and inauguration day, Israel is going to start a war with Iran, Iran will respond with help from its nuclear-armed ally, Russia, and "American coastal cities" will be in the line of fire. Now, if this doesn't happen, he'll claim that he and his followers "preyed away" the threat. Lovely, ne? (via Dispatches from the Science Wars)

Comments

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

You do seem to have a much higher class of frothing political lunacy.

[solarbird]

But as Naked Capitalism points out, he's always been right.
And that's why I like him.

[omahas.livejournal.com]

Now, if this doesn't happen, he'll claim that he and his followers "preyed away" the threat.

I think you meant "prayed away" the threat, my dear. Though considering we are talking about Pat Robertson, he probably is "preying" on someone.

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

There's something particularly ironic about the "Laid Off and Want to Get Laid" piece showing up in Gawker.

How many people Nick Denton laid off last week do you know? I know three.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Oddly, I don't know anyone from the Gawker crowd. Heard about Tristan, though. That suxed.

But it is an overhead projector.

[blaisepascal]

A highly specialized, expensive, precision high-tech overhead projector which requires $3m to replace with a better highly specialized, expensive, precision high-tech overhead projector to be sure. But unless things have changed since the last time I went to a planetarium, the stars are projected overhead.

I wonder how McCain would react to the suggestion that spending $1m on a Hummer is a waste, after all, it's just a truck.

[duskwuff.livejournal.com]

Pat Robertson says that sometime between the election and inauguration day, Israel is going to start a war with Iran, Iran will respond with help from its nuclear-armed ally, Russia, and "American coastal cities" will be in the line of fire.

Someday, Robertson needs to explain his new concept of geography to us, so that we can understand how "American coastal cities" have found themselves translocated to the Middle East.

[fallenpegasus]

In re Digsby's comment...

It's just the flip side of the last 8 years. Just the sides have changed. Each side, of course, think that in their case they are correct and their insane hatred is justified.

Bush Derangement Syndrome, in the mirror.

[kengr]

A 15 year old girl at Licking High School (my gods, that sounds like a porn set, doesn't it?) has been charged with distributing nude photos of a minor-- herself-- to other minors. The judge apparently has the right to decide, since she's a minor and it's a "first offense," to have her not register.

What freaks me out is that the county prosecutor has 20 similar cases in the past years. None of them came to charges, unlike this case, but Osiris, if you've got 20 kids using cell phone cameras and snapping nude pictures of themselves or their peers, and the consquences of doing so are life-long disgrace, don't you think the law is just a little fucked up?

Guess you missed the news 6-12 months back when a 15 year old girl was *convicted* on Child pornography charges for putting nude pics of herself on the web.

The child porn laws, as written, are so far out of line it's insane. Having read the federal one *very* carefully back when I was running a BBS, there are a number bad things about it. And I get the impression that many state ones are worse.

First bad point is the idea that anyone under 18 is a "child".

Next is using things like "lascivious exhibition" (not defined anywhere as far as I know, definitely not defined in the law itself) of the "genitals or genital area" (yes, you can still get convicted if the pic is of *clothed* genitals).

But nobody in Congress or state legislatures is willing to come out and state that teenagers under 18 are not children and might not have been forced into posing or damaged by having posed.

[edichka2.livejournal.com]

Re: "McCain seems to have lost the science vote with this one."

Did he ever have it?
- E

[edichka2.livejournal.com]

P.S. It's "Licking Valley High School." All the better.
- E

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

re: Denninger

Am i reading that right, was he *TRYING* to instigate a run on banks and resource hoarding?! I'm all for understanding the importance of raising the alarm, but i didn't see much in the way of constructive suggestions from him.

On that note: Multiple talking points before the bailout passed mentioned teams of economists with competing suggestions and plans that "weren't listened to". We're listening now. Some major news network ought to run a solid 24 hours (even webcasted) of recognized economists tossing out their best ideas and suggestions. Points and prizes for those deemed the most helpful and original. There are thousands of these people out there. Polish off the damned PhD and brainstorm at a webcam for fifteen minutes. Here's a carrot.

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

polish *the dust* off the damned PhD, that is.

Political Questions

[(Anonymous)]

Before we make a choice we may regret for the next four years, the accusations against Barack Obama should be carefully considered, as they are here (http://www.FairAndUnbalanced.com?http://www.testimoanials.com/blog/blog1.php/2008/10/10/the-difference-between-jefferson-davis-a).

Re: Political Questions

[arucartoonguy.livejournal.com]

So you're saying I should follow a link with the word "testimonials' spelled wrong in it....