The Atheist Communist Caliphate Made Flesh, Spread the Clusterfuck Around Thread

[*In a Nutsack]

Just in case you were worried that Congress is not addressing the issues that matter to you...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hV4mOJQgUsQthrydU_Vty4iVgC5gD9759GG00

Everyone from President Barack Obama on down to fans has criticized how college football determines its top team. Now senators are getting off the sidelines to examine antitrust issues involving the Bowl Champion Series...

Obama and some members of Congress favor a playoff-type system to determine the national champion. The BCS features a championship game between the two top teams in the BCS standings, based on two polls and six computer ratings.

Behind the push for the hearings is the subcommittee's top Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. People there were furious that Utah was bypassed for the national championship despite going undefeated in the regular season...

In the House, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, has sponsored legislation that would prevent the NCAA from calling a football game a "national championship" unless the game culminates from a playoff system.

*forehead slap*

[Tank]

Just in case you were worried that Congress is not addressing the issues that matter to you...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hV4mOJQgUsQthrydU_Vty4iVgC5gD9759GG00

Everyone from President Barack Obama on down to fans has criticized how college football determines its top team. Now senators are getting off the sidelines to examine antitrust issues involving the Bowl Champion Series...

Obama and some members of Congress favor a playoff-type system to determine the national champion. The BCS features a championship game between the two top teams in the BCS standings, based on two polls and six computer ratings.

Behind the push for the hearings is the subcommittee's top Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. People there were furious that Utah was bypassed for the national championship despite going undefeated in the regular season...

In the House, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, has sponsored legislation that would prevent the NCAA from calling a football game a "national championship" unless the game culminates from a playoff system.

*forehead slap*

*twiddles thumbs*

[Quality Start Machine]

I don't know what a Burt Prelutsky is, but he certainly was able to pen an insightful piece about Michelle Obama:

... After all, in spite of the fact that affirmative action got her an Ivy League degree and a $7,000-a-week salary and, moreover, has sent billions of dollars for no particularly good reason to Africa, she insists this is a mean country.

If Affirmative Action wants to send billions of dollars to Africa, I'm sure Affirmative Action has a perfectly good reason for doing so.

You'd never see a Republican Persident send any money to Africa.

This is the one thing I will concede that GWB did right.

Are you sure about that?  Do you have a Datase to back you up?

Hey, I got the scooby thing right. Cut me some fucking slack, pal.

[*In a Nutsack]

Just in case you were worried that Congress is not addressing the issues that matter to you...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hV4mOJQgUsQthrydU_Vty4iVgC5gD9759GG00

Everyone from President Barack Obama on down to fans has criticized how college football determines its top team. Now senators are getting off the sidelines to examine antitrust issues involving the Bowl Champion Series...

Obama and some members of Congress favor a playoff-type system to determine the national champion. The BCS features a championship game between the two top teams in the BCS standings, based on two polls and six computer ratings.

Behind the push for the hearings is the subcommittee's top Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. People there were furious that Utah was bypassed for the national championship despite going undefeated in the regular season...

In the House, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, has sponsored legislation that would prevent the NCAA from calling a football game a "national championship" unless the game culminates from a playoff system.

*forehead slap*

*twiddles thumbs*

I'm meaning this to be a legitimate question, but why are members of Congress getting into sports now?  Why isn't the NCAA the lead agency for trying to fix the BCS if it needs fixin'?  This just seems stupid for these guys to use their time on sports considering the plight of the times.  Am I out of bounds on this?

[RV]

Interesting stuff on the correlation between deregulation and financial sector salaries:

Philippon and Reshef hypothesize that "regulation inhibits the ability to exploit the creativity and innovation of educated and skilled workers [while] deregulation unleashes creativity and innovation and increases demand". In other words, the laxer the regulatory environment, the more ways there are to try and beat the system -- and the more Wall Street is willing to pay for people who can figure out ways to do so.

Even accounting for the fact that laxer regulatory environments increase the premium on highly-skilled workers, however, Philippon and Reshef find that professionals in the securities industry are overpaid. Specifically, they are overpaid by roughly 40% relative to their educational backgrounds and risk of job loss.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/two-birds-one-stone-regulation-and.html

[Eli]

Just in case you were worried that Congress is not addressing the issues that matter to you...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hV4mOJQgUsQthrydU_Vty4iVgC5gD9759GG00

Everyone from President Barack Obama on down to fans has criticized how college football determines its top team. Now senators are getting off the sidelines to examine antitrust issues involving the Bowl Champion Series...

Obama and some members of Congress favor a playoff-type system to determine the national champion. The BCS features a championship game between the two top teams in the BCS standings, based on two polls and six computer ratings.

Behind the push for the hearings is the subcommittee's top Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. People there were furious that Utah was bypassed for the national championship despite going undefeated in the regular season...

In the House, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, has sponsored legislation that would prevent the NCAA from calling a football game a "national championship" unless the game culminates from a playoff system.

*forehead slap*

*twiddles thumbs*

I'm meaning this to be a legitimate question, but why are members of Congress getting into sports now? 

Congress has meddled in sports before.  I know they got involved during the baseball strike, for one.  It's just way to pander and seem appealing to voters.

[morpheus]

Interesting stuff on the correlation between deregulation and financial sector salaries:

Philippon and Reshef hypothesize that "regulation inhibits the ability to exploit the creativity and innovation of educated and skilled workers [while] deregulation unleashes creativity and innovation and increases demand". In other words, the laxer the regulatory environment, the more ways there are to try and beat the system -- and the more Wall Street is willing to pay for people who can figure out ways to do so.

Even accounting for the fact that laxer regulatory environments increase the premium on highly-skilled workers, however, Philippon and Reshef find that professionals in the securities industry are overpaid. Specifically, they are overpaid by roughly 40% relative to their educational backgrounds and risk of job loss.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/two-birds-one-stone-regulation-and.html

On Philippon and Reshef and the bolded statement - I imagine that if they update their statistics on "risk of job loss" past 2006 they might come to a different conclusion.  I'm sure that, to take an extreme case, if they had done a paper on "Wages and Capital in the U.S. E-Commerce Industry" and used a sample that ended in 2000, they would say that professionals in technology were overpaid relative to risk of job loss and educational background... and then in 2003 or so they would have sung a much different tune.  Of course, one can say the 250,000 or so jobs that have been cut from the financial industry over the past 6 months or so are simply a return to a more "normal" level, a necessary precursor to compensation levels returning to equilibrium.  The whole compensation model that prevailed for many years in securities and investment firms is very broken now.

[Oleg]

Just in case you were worried that Congress is not addressing the issues that matter to you...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hV4mOJQgUsQthrydU_Vty4iVgC5gD9759GG00

Everyone from President Barack Obama on down to fans has criticized how college football determines its top team. Now senators are getting off the sidelines to examine antitrust issues involving the Bowl Champion Series...

Obama and some members of Congress favor a playoff-type system to determine the national champion. The BCS features a championship game between the two top teams in the BCS standings, based on two polls and six computer ratings.

Behind the push for the hearings is the subcommittee's top Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. People there were furious that Utah was bypassed for the national championship despite going undefeated in the regular season...

In the House, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, has sponsored legislation that would prevent the NCAA from calling a football game a "national championship" unless the game culminates from a playoff system.

*forehead slap*

*twiddles thumbs*

I'm meaning this to be a legitimate question, but why are members of Congress getting into sports now? 

Congress has meddled in sports before.  I know they got involved during the baseball strike, for one.  It's just way to pander and seem appealing to voters.

Since when is interstate commerce and a multi-billion dollar industry outside of congressional jurisdiction?  Or are we still getting hung up on some naive idea that sport, even collegiate, is not a business?

[Eli]

Just in case you were worried that Congress is not addressing the issues that matter to you...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hV4mOJQgUsQthrydU_Vty4iVgC5gD9759GG00

Everyone from President Barack Obama on down to fans has criticized how college football determines its top team. Now senators are getting off the sidelines to examine antitrust issues involving the Bowl Champion Series...

Obama and some members of Congress favor a playoff-type system to determine the national champion. The BCS features a championship game between the two top teams in the BCS standings, based on two polls and six computer ratings.

Behind the push for the hearings is the subcommittee's top Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. People there were furious that Utah was bypassed for the national championship despite going undefeated in the regular season...

In the House, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, has sponsored legislation that would prevent the NCAA from calling a football game a "national championship" unless the game culminates from a playoff system.

*forehead slap*

*twiddles thumbs*

I'm meaning this to be a legitimate question, but why are members of Congress getting into sports now? 

Congress has meddled in sports before.  I know they got involved during the baseball strike, for one.  It's just way to pander and seem appealing to voters.

Since when is interstate commerce and a multi-billion dollar industry outside of congressional jurisdiction?  Or are we still getting hung up on some naive idea that sport, even collegiate, is not a business?

That's it.

[*In a Nutsack]

Just in case you were worried that Congress is not addressing the issues that matter to you...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hV4mOJQgUsQthrydU_Vty4iVgC5gD9759GG00

Everyone from President Barack Obama on down to fans has criticized how college football determines its top team. Now senators are getting off the sidelines to examine antitrust issues involving the Bowl Champion Series...

Obama and some members of Congress favor a playoff-type system to determine the national champion. The BCS features a championship game between the two top teams in the BCS standings, based on two polls and six computer ratings.

Behind the push for the hearings is the subcommittee's top Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. People there were furious that Utah was bypassed for the national championship despite going undefeated in the regular season...

In the House, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, has sponsored legislation that would prevent the NCAA from calling a football game a "national championship" unless the game culminates from a playoff system.

*forehead slap*

*twiddles thumbs*

I'm meaning this to be a legitimate question, but why are members of Congress getting into sports now? 

Congress has meddled in sports before.  I know they got involved during the baseball strike, for one.  It's just way to pander and seem appealing to voters.

Since when is interstate commerce and a multi-billion dollar industry outside of congressional jurisdiction?  Or are we still getting hung up on some naive idea that sport, even collegiate, is not a business?

That's it.

Indeed.  Thanks, Oleg.

[morpheus]

Just in case you were worried that Congress is not addressing the issues that matter to you...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hV4mOJQgUsQthrydU_Vty4iVgC5gD9759GG00

Everyone from President Barack Obama on down to fans has criticized how college football determines its top team. Now senators are getting off the sidelines to examine antitrust issues involving the Bowl Champion Series...

Obama and some members of Congress favor a playoff-type system to determine the national champion. The BCS features a championship game between the two top teams in the BCS standings, based on two polls and six computer ratings.

Behind the push for the hearings is the subcommittee's top Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. People there were furious that Utah was bypassed for the national championship despite going undefeated in the regular season...

In the House, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, has sponsored legislation that would prevent the NCAA from calling a football game a "national championship" unless the game culminates from a playoff system.

*forehead slap*

*twiddles thumbs*

I'm meaning this to be a legitimate question, but why are members of Congress getting into sports now? 

Congress has meddled in sports before.  I know they got involved during the baseball strike, for one.  It's just way to pander and seem appealing to voters.

Since when is interstate commerce and a multi-billion dollar industry outside of congressional jurisdiction?  Or are we still getting hung up on some naive idea that sport, even collegiate, is not a business?

Yes.  However I think if you put the emphasis on the word "now" in "why are members of Congress getting into sports now?" then it's a legitimate question.  They have the power to do so - no question there - but it's an interesting time to be focusing on how the NCAA decides who its football champion is.

[*In a Nutsack]

Just in case you were worried that Congress is not addressing the issues that matter to you...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hV4mOJQgUsQthrydU_Vty4iVgC5gD9759GG00

Everyone from President Barack Obama on down to fans has criticized how college football determines its top team. Now senators are getting off the sidelines to examine antitrust issues involving the Bowl Champion Series...

Obama and some members of Congress favor a playoff-type system to determine the national champion. The BCS features a championship game between the two top teams in the BCS standings, based on two polls and six computer ratings.

Behind the push for the hearings is the subcommittee's top Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. People there were furious that Utah was bypassed for the national championship despite going undefeated in the regular season...

In the House, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, has sponsored legislation that would prevent the NCAA from calling a football game a "national championship" unless the game culminates from a playoff system.

*forehead slap*

*twiddles thumbs*

I'm meaning this to be a legitimate question, but why are members of Congress getting into sports now? 

Congress has meddled in sports before.  I know they got involved during the baseball strike, for one.  It's just way to pander and seem appealing to voters.

Since when is interstate commerce and a multi-billion dollar industry outside of congressional jurisdiction?  Or are we still getting hung up on some naive idea that sport, even collegiate, is not a business?

Yes.  However I think if you put the emphasis on the word "now" in "why are members of Congress getting into sports now?" then it's a legitimate question.  They have the power to do so - no question there - but it's an interesting time to be focusing on how the NCAA decides who its football champion is.

[RV]

If you're a fetus-eating pinko you might enjoy this summary of things to be ANGRY about.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/26/comparisions/index.html

[morpheus]

If you're a fetus-eating pinko you might enjoy this summary of things to be ANGRY about.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/26/comparisions/index.html

Wow, this is a fascinating article.

Gleen talks about "the incestuous relationship between governments and large [] corporate conglomerates" like that is prima facie a bad thing.  He does not, however, follow that to its obvious logical conclusion, that the people best suited to regulate a business are the people who don't know anything about it.  Mainly because if he did, he'd sound like a loon.

On to the "war crimes" piece. 

And we just found out the international Red Cross, also the definitive body on torture, found that this was a real torture program.

(Yes, I know that's a quote from Turley, but Gleen uses it to make his point.)  That Red Cross report's source for information was... the prisoners themselves.  And "torture" included "sleep deprivation" and "extreme temperatures."  As I am wont to say in such instances, sure.

[*In a Nutsack]

If you're a fetus-eating pinko you might enjoy this summary of things to be ANGRY about.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/26/comparisions/index.html

You guys would be proud of me--I read all of that post.  And, fucking wow.  Just...fucking wow.