Open Side Menu Go to the Top
Register
May the LC Thread Be With You May the LC Thread Be With You

05-24-2014 , 04:58 PM
CBC tho
05-24-2014 , 05:14 PM
GG's response to Kinsley:

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2...chael-kinsley/
05-24-2014 , 07:51 PM
Surprised no one called that UCSB whack job a PTSD Afghanistan vet. Y'all are slippin' imo.
05-24-2014 , 09:41 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by goofyballer
Seems like a country full of pretty normal people that gets an almost cartoonish portrayal in the media because of its extreme government. How long until that government and the desires of its people diverge enough to cause significant social upheaval?
A couple I know just came back from Iran. The woman's family is originally from Iran although you wouldn't know it (for instance, her parents are both atheists I think). She has an Iranian passport.

I was talking to the guy last night (who had never been before) and he said people there have two modes of behavior, one for within their houses where they are normal people who could be from wherever, and one for in public where they have to act like they're being watched the whole time, because they might be.
05-24-2014 , 10:02 PM
Every Iranian I've ever met has been a genuinely likable person that I had no problem relating to at all. lol anecdote and sample size or whatever, but I can't think of any other group where the public image of their country is so completely at odds with how their people tend to come across on an individual basis.
05-24-2014 , 10:36 PM
One of my best friends had Iranian parents, though he was born here. They spoke Iranian exclusively every Tuesday after work/school and were all-around awesome people. His dad would talk about the "two modes" thing all the time.
05-24-2014 , 10:37 PM
Crazy Muslim Iranians aren't leaving Iran. Western facing Iranians are.
05-24-2014 , 10:52 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by ikestoys
Crazy Muslim Iranians aren't leaving Iran. Western facing Iranians are.
But I can't say the same thing about Saudis or Afghans or Pakistanis. There's usually a clear social disconnect there, even if they enthusiastically emigrated. IME, that cultural disconnect doesn't exist to anywhere near the same degree with Iranians.
05-25-2014 , 09:02 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by goofyballer
New entry in the "Amazon is a pretty scummy company" files: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers



Combined with the earlier stuff about how terribly they treat their workers, I think I'm going to start seeking out other places to buy things when possible.
Wait, what is Amazon doing that is scummy? I skimmed an article on Vox and one somewhere else, seems like this is a standard Amazon move to push prices down.
05-25-2014 , 09:09 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by pvn
Rich white person uses uber, then thinks it might be "libertarian," gets icky feelings and freaks out

http://pankisseskafka.com/2014/05/07...s-progressive/

Cliffnotes: uber and airbnb hurt poor people because rich people like them, and they don't create unnecessary make-work jobs. In other words, the author is basically arguing for the luddite social safety net.

Also I love the author's "I like this service and will continue using it but I hope the government make it illegal" stance, very brave.
London cabbies are confirmed furious about uber-like service that actually includes current cabbies.

http://www.thewire.com/technology/20...arters/371524/
05-25-2014 , 12:00 PM
Quote:
Three more counts of child pornography have been filed against former state Rep. Keith Farnham, a month after he was initially charged with one count of possession.
Quote:
A federal criminal complaint alleges that Farnham, a Democrat from Elgin, possessed two videos depicting child pornography on a computer that was seized from his state office in Elgin a week before his abrupt resignation in March. Authorities also linked a Yahoo! email account used by Farnham to an online trading forum in which he chatted with other users about his sexual preferences, according to the charges.

“12 is about as old as i can handle,” Farnham allegedly said in one online chat in November, according to the charges. “i love them at 6 7 8”
Spoiler:
Quote:
Farnham twice co-sponsored bills in the House that toughened penalties for child pornography. When he resigned his seat on March 19, Farnham told the Tribune he was stepping down due to serious health concerns. A Navy veteran who ran a painting business in Elgin before running for office in 2009, Farnham said he is receiving treatment for bladder cancer and also struggles with pulmonary fibrosis, a condition that causes lung tissue to scar.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,1168249.story
05-25-2014 , 12:09 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by joeyDizzle
Wait, what is Amazon doing that is scummy? I skimmed an article on Vox and one somewhere else, seems like this is a standard Amazon move to push prices down.
Amazon's warehouse game is WalMart-like.
05-25-2014 , 12:30 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by pvn
Rich white person uses uber, then thinks it might be "libertarian," gets icky feelings and freaks out

http://pankisseskafka.com/2014/05/07...s-progressive/

Cliffnotes: uber and airbnb hurt poor people because rich people like them, and they don't create unnecessary make-work jobs. In other words, the author is basically arguing for the luddite social safety net.

Also I love the author's "I like this service and will continue using it but I hope the government make it illegal" stance, very brave.
WTF did I just read. Does this guy think that the government does (or should?!?) get involved in me subletting my apartment on craigslist?
05-25-2014 , 12:31 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by joeyDizzle
Wait, what is Amazon doing that is scummy? I skimmed an article on Vox and one somewhere else, seems like this is a standard Amazon move to push prices down.
Quote:
“We are determined to protect the value of our authors’ books and our own work in editing, distributing and marketing them,” said Sophie Cottrell, a Hachette senior vice president.
That pretty much screams "we want to keep prices high and we're mad that amazon is trying to lower them.
05-25-2014 , 12:33 PM
Also, remember Hachette was on the losing end of the earlier price-fixing case. It's not like it's a real stretch to figure out what's going on here.
05-25-2014 , 12:35 PM
Yeah seems like standard hudge retailer putting pressure on a supplier to lower prices. Walmart and Costco do this too.
05-25-2014 , 01:26 PM
John Oliver's HBO show is pretty solid.
05-25-2014 , 05:06 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by joeyDizzle
Wait, what is Amazon doing that is scummy? I skimmed an article on Vox and one somewhere else, seems like this is a standard Amazon move to push prices down.
From another article:

Quote:
But the more basic problem here is that Amazon is violating its own code. To win a corporate battle, Amazon is ruining its customer experience. Mr. Bezos has long pointed to customer satisfaction as his North Star; making sure customers are treated well is the guiding principle for how he runs Amazon.

Now Amazon is raising prices, removing ordering buttons, lengthening shipping times and monkeying with recommendation algorithms. Do these sound like the moves of a man who cares about customers above all else?
I'm not asking you to agree with me, I totally understand libertarians fapping over a company exercising its market control as the ultimate expression of FREE MARKETZ, but it shouldn't be a mystery to you why other people find this scummy.
05-25-2014 , 06:11 PM
NYT editorial: End Mass Incarceration Now

Quote:
Several recent reports provide some of the most comprehensive and compelling proof yet that the United States “has gone past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits,” and that mass incarceration itself is “a source of injustice.”

That is the central conclusion of a two-year, 444-page study prepared by the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences at the request of the Justice Department and others. The report highlights many well-known statistics: Since the early 1970s, the nation’s prison population has quadrupled to 2.2 million, making it the world’s biggest. That is five to 10 times the incarceration rate in other democracies.
Quote:
Meanwhile, much of the world watches in disbelief. A report by Human Rights Watch notes that while prison should generally be a last resort, in the United States “it has been treated as the medicine that cures all ills,” and that “in its embrace of incarceration, the country seems to have forgotten just how severe a punishment it is.”

The severity is evident in the devastation wrought on America’s poorest and least educated, destroying neighborhoods and families. From 1980 to 2000, the number of children with fathers in prison rose from 350,000 to 2.1 million. Since race and poverty overlap so significantly, the weight of our criminal justice experiment continues to fall overwhelmingly on communities of color, and particularly on young black men.
Quote:
Many of the solutions to this crisis are clear, even if the political path to them often is not: Reduce sentence lengths substantially. Provide more opportunities for rehabilitation inside prison. Remove the barriers that keep people from rejoining society after they are released from prison. Use alternatives to imprisonment for nonviolent offenders, drug addicts and the mentally ill.
05-25-2014 , 06:26 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by goofyballer
From another article:



I'm not asking you to agree with me, I totally understand libertarians fapping over a company exercising its market control as the ultimate expression of FREE MARKETZ, but it shouldn't be a mystery to you why other people find this scummy.
It's important to keep in mind that only one company in this story has a monopoly over the products at issue, and it's not amazon.
05-25-2014 , 07:36 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by goofyballer
From another article:



I'm not asking you to agree with me, I totally understand libertarians fapping over a company exercising its market control as the ultimate expression of FREE MARKETZ, but it shouldn't be a mystery to you why other people find this scummy.
Is this country run by libertarians? There is no obligation to stock a certain manufacturer's product, no law requiring you to be kind to publishers. This is a very simple form of freedom of association that almost everyone in this country recognizes.

Amazon is trying to lower the prices consumers pay for books, Hachette is trying to keep prices higher. Weren't they one of the companies who was illegally colluding to keep ebook prices higher?

Telling a supplier, I'm not going to carry your product unless you give us a better deal isn't scummy, you do that **** every day of your life, when you choose what products to buy and not to buy.
05-25-2014 , 08:07 PM
goofy instinctively agreeing with anti-amazon hachette is pretty ****ing funny.
05-25-2014 , 09:42 PM
Seriously go read #YesAllWomen on twitter.
05-25-2014 , 10:02 PM
not top trending anymore, #yesallpeople is though, and the results are.... predictable.
05-25-2014 , 10:04 PM
thanks for that goofball, that was like reading youtube comments, not that i've ever done that. It's what I assume it would be like.

**** twitter for anything but sports news.

      
m