Federal Judge Rules Key Provisions of Texas Abortion Law Unconstitutional

The religious right had to know this was coming
US News • Views: 19,110

A federal judge has issued a stunning rebuke to the Texas Republican Party’s ham-handed attempt to revoke women’s reproductive rights: Federal Judge Rules Key Provisions of Controversial Texas Abortion Law Unconstitutional.

In a stunning move, a federal judge Monday ruled that abortion restrictions authorized by Texas lawmakers in July are unconstitutional, and will not be implemented as scheduled on Tuesday, according to court documents obtained by NBC News.

U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel decided Monday that the regulations requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital impeded on the rights of physicians to do what they judge is best for their patients and would unreasonably limit a woman’s access to state abortion clinics.

“The admitting-privileges provision of House Bill 2 does not bear a rational relationship to the legitimate right of the state in preserving and promoting fetal life or a woman’s health and, in any event, places a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus and is thus an undue burden to her,” Yeakel wrote in his decision.

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295 comments
1 Charles Johnson  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:01:10pm

This is the Republican Party doing this. Not just in Texas. All over the country.

2 Sol Berdinowitz  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:01:41pm

Cruz and Perry have to continue to defend it, just so they can become martyrs for States’ Rights

3 Charles Johnson  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:02:00pm

And this is just the first of the legal decisions striking down the asinine caveman laws these goons are passing.

4 euphgeek  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:05:06pm

This judge was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2003, so naturally he’s a flaming liberal.
//

5 Targetpractice  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:07:04pm

re: #2 Sol Berdinowitz

Cruz and Perry have to continue to defend it, just so they can become martyrs for States’ Rights

Which, of course, will be to the detriment of their party next year with Wendy Davis running.

6 wrenchwench  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:08:11pm
“The admitting-privileges provision of House Bill 2 does not bear a rational relationship to the legitimate right of the state in preserving and promoting fetal life or a woman’s health and, in any event, places a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus and is thus an undue burden to her,”

So at least the judge is sure that if the fetus is already dead, it’s unconstitutional. Roe v Wade says the woman with a live fetus may not be impeded either. But the judge is leaving a little wiggle room for the ‘legitimate right of the state in preserving and promoting fetal life’. That right does not come in to play until viability, according to Roe. The state has no right in ‘preserving and promoting’ embryonic life, nor that of a non-viable fetus. The 20-week thing should have been struck down too.

7 klys  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:09:22pm

re: #6 wrenchwench

So at least the judge is sure that if the fetus is already dead, it’s unconstitutional. Roe v Wade says the woman with a live fetus may not be impeded either. But the judge is leaving a little wiggle room for the ‘legitimate right of the state in preserving and promoting fetal life’. That right does not come in to play until viability, according to Roe. The state has no right in ‘preserving and promoting’ embryonic life, nor that of a non-viable fetus. The 20-week thing should have been struck down too.

But BABY!!!!! And also, slut.

8 wrenchwench  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:11:13pm

The reason for the spate of laws over things like hallway widths and admitting privileges is that Roe allows for regulation of abortion to protect the health of abortion patients. The Republican/Fundamentalist strategy is to push those regulations as far as they can to make abortion as inaccessible as possible, until they can get case in the Supreme Court and go after Roe v Wade itself.

9 klys  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:12:57pm

re: #8 wrenchwench

The reason for the spate of laws over things like hallway widths and admitting privileges is that Roe allows for regulation of abortion to protect the health of abortion patients. The Republican/Fundamentalist strategy is to push those regulations as far as they can to make abortion as inaccessible as possible, until they can get case in the Supreme Court and go after Roe v Wade itself.

Just remember, government has no place whatsoever being involved in your medical decisions, unless you’re a woman looking for contraception and/or to terminate a pregnancy.

This is what I have learned from Republicans.

///

10 Charles Johnson  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:13:14pm

PUPPY

11 wrenchwench  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:15:13pm

re: #7 klys

But BABY!!!!! And also, slut.

Baby? That’s a moocher now. Fetus is what they like. But they call Fetus ‘Baby’, because it sounds more cuddly.

12 Dancing along the light of day  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:17:06pm

re: #10 Charles Johnson

I went and visited a neighbors puppy today, because sometimes you just need to rub a little fur!

13 Targetpractice  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:18:43pm

re: #8 wrenchwench

The reason for the spate of laws over things like hallway widths and admitting privileges is that Roe allows for regulation of abortion to protect the health of abortion patients. The Republican/Fundamentalist strategy is to push those regulations as far as they can to make abortion as inaccessible as possible, until they can get case in the Supreme Court and go after Roe v Wade itself.

In the meantime, they push such laws now by portraying themselves as caring about “women’s health” and “safety,” suggesting that Democrats are uncaring about female voters for opposing such laws.

14 Brother Holy Cruise Missile of Mild Acceptance  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:19:21pm

re: #11 wrenchwench

aren’t fetus’ technically moochers since, until birth, they are technically a parasite dependent on the host (aka mother) to provide them with oxygen, food etc?

15 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:20:14pm

re: #9 klys

Just remember, government has no place whatsoever being involved in your medical decisions, unless you’re a woman looking for contraception and/or to terminate a pregnancy.

This is what I have learned from Republicans.

///

Not to mention that regulations of any kind are Communism, unless they allow you to subvert Roe v Wade and punish the sluts.

16 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:21:11pm

re: #14 Brother Holy Cruise Missile of Mild Acceptance

aren’t fetus’ technically moochers since, until birth, they are technically a parasite dependent on the host (aka mother) to provide them with oxygen, food etc?

No, they only become parasitic after they’re born to poor people who want to be able to do things like feed and clothe them.

17 wrenchwench  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:21:44pm

re: #14 Brother Holy Cruise Missile of Mild Acceptance

aren’t fetus’ technically moochers since, until birth, they are technically a parasite dependent on the host (aka mother) to provide them with oxygen, food etc?

But this is the mother’s purpose in life. Without babies to raise, she is a worthless moocher herself.

18 lawhawk  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:21:46pm

Perry and the GOP will appeal, and appeal and appeal all the way to the US Supreme Court in the hopes that someone will agree with their claims, even though the law places unreasonable restrictions on abortion providers.

The proponents claim that abortion providers must have privileges at nearby hospitals because they claim that this is for the patient’s safety. Yet, as the GOP so keenly wants to remind everyone - ERs are required to take in patients in emergency situations. They can’t turn anyone away. So if there’s a problem at an abortion provider’s they can get that person to an ER for emergency care without any issue - regardless of whether the doc has admitting privileges or not.

The admitting privileges is designed to reduce the number of providers - there is no other reason. The GOP thinks that if doctors can’t get privileges, they simply wont be able to provide abortions.

It’s backhanded, but it’s what they do.

And they’ll still appeal this - and the costs will be borne by the state until they lose all the way to the US Supreme Court - because that’s where this is headed (unless the Supreme Court denies cert.).

19 klys  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:23:15pm

re: #15 GeneJockey

Not to mention that regulations of any kind are Communism, unless they allow you to subvert Roe v Wade and punish the sluts.

Oooo, and doctors who operate without a license and off the books (and therefore potentially end up killing patients because of inadequate standards of things like cleanliness, etc. - you know, the important shit) are a prime example of why abortion needs to be outlawed.

So that these kinds of situations can be more common.

20 sagehen  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:23:48pm

re: #8 wrenchwench

The reason for the spate of laws over things like hallway widths and admitting privileges is that Roe allows for regulation of abortion to protect the health of abortion patients. The Republican/Fundamentalist strategy is to push those regulations as far as they can to make abortion as inaccessible as possible, until they can get case in the Supreme Court and go after Roe v Wade itself.

They’re called TRAP laws (Targeted Restrictions on Abortion Providers).

If it was really about patient health and safety, they’d want the rules to also apply to dentists and orthopedists and plastic surgeons, all of whom use general anesthesia sometimes for procedures in their own offices.

21 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:24:12pm

re: #17 wrenchwench

But this is the mother’s purpose in life. Without babies to raise, she is a worthless moocher herself.

Unless she has a job that’s anything more than subservient. then she’s a ball-busting Feminazi.

Or, for Wingnuts who like LotR, FemiNazgul.

22 ausador  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:26:21pm

re: #4 euphgeek

This judge was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2003, so naturally he’s a flaming liberal.
//

Nope, that isn’t what they ever claim…well, hardly ever.

What the Right-Wingers will say is exactly what they always claim. That he is an “activist” judge who is substituting his own misguided opinion on the law for the will of the people that was rightfully reflected by the bill enacted by their duly elected representatives in the legislature.

Never mind that these are the exact same people who claim to live and breath every tiny nuance of the Constitution as it was originally written. Every time a ruling goes against them they prove that their reverence is only true when the constitution agrees with their own short sighted goals.

When it doesn’t they usually seem quite willing to just pitch the whole thing out the window.

23 lawhawk  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:26:26pm

re: #20 sagehen

They’re called TRAP laws (Targeted Restrictions on Abortion Providers).

If it was really about patient health, they’d want the rules to also apply to dentists and orthopedists and plastic surgeons, all of whom use general anesthesia sometimes for procedures in their own offices.

And plastic surgeons have a far higher complications rate than abortion providers do. But yet the GOP isn’t doing anything to tighten those regulations.

It’s all about imposing financial hardships on those who want to provide abortions.

24 Shiplord Kirel  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:27:09pm

Have we passed peak wingnut? Are the Tea Party and its Bircher/racist allies headed for the dustbin of history?
Could be.
There’s a long history of similar emotion and conspiracy driven movements disintegrating with startling speed when a few critical cracks start to appear. A prime example would be the second Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s, which went from several million members to a few thousand in the space of two years. This happened after a woman was raped and murdered by a Klan leader in Indiana. More recently, and on a truly gigantic scale, the precipitous collapse of international communism caught everyone by surprise in 1989.
The Tea Party has repeatedly revealed its essential disloyalty and destructiveness in recent weeks. They have overstepped the law and the courts are stepping in. Banana republic gerrymandering notwithstanding, the ‘baggers may be headed for an ass whipping of biblical dimensions in next year’s elections.

25 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:27:27pm

re: #20 sagehen

They’re called TRAP laws (Targeted Restrictions on Abortion Providers).

If it was really about patient health, they’d want the rules to also apply to dentists and orthopedists and plastic surgeons, all of whom use general anesthesia sometimes for procedures in their own offices.

There are so many places where that phrase, “If it was really about…” comes into play. If it were really about preventing abortion, they’d be pushing cheap, readily available contraception, for example, or if it were really about women’s health they’d fund Planned Parenthood, which is where a lot of women go for cancer screenings, etc.

26 wrenchwench  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:28:21pm

re: #20 sagehen

They’re called TRAP laws (Targeted Restrictions on Abortion Providers).

If it was really about patient health, they’d want the rules to also apply to dentists and orthopedists and plastic surgeons, all of whom use general anesthesia sometimes for procedures in their own offices.

And if it was really about patient health, they’d be all for sex education, contraception, morning after pills, and EASY, EARLY availability of abortions.

27 sagehen  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:28:58pm

re: #25 GeneJockey

There are so many places where that phrase, “If it was really about…” comes into play. If it were really about preventing abortion, they’d be pushing cheap, readily available contraception, for example, or if it were really about women’s health they’d fund Planned Parenthood, which is where a lot of women go for cancer screenings, etc.

If it was really about protecting the precious babeez, they’d double funding for WIC and S-CHIP.

28 klys  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:29:48pm

re: #22 ausador

On the Right, “activist” is code-word for “liberal.”

29 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:30:12pm

re: #27 sagehen

If it was really about protecting the precious babeez, they’d double funding for WIC and S-CHIP.

Already covered that one!

re: #16 GeneJockey

No, they only become parasitic after they’re born to poor people who want to be able to do things like feed and clothe them.

30 LGF Subscription: Breathes Like Egyptian Cotton  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:31:55pm

re: #28 klys

And on the left atavist is code word for “Conservative”!

31 b.d.  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:33:12pm

WHAT IS A FEDERAL JUDGE DOING MESSING WITH A TEXAS LAW!!1!! 10TH AMENDMENT OVERREACH!!1! SECEEDE!!

32 Shiplord Kirel  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:35:57pm

re: #31 b.d.

WHAT IS A FEDERAL JUDGE DOING MESSING WITH A TEXAS LAW!!1!! 10TH AMENDMENT OVERREACH!!1! SECEEDE!!

Succeed! (Cain’t ya’ spell?)

33 ausador  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:37:37pm

re: #27 sagehen

If it was really about protecting the precious babeez, they’d double funding for WIC and S-CHIP.

Only three days until the program cuts go into effect now, thank your local (GOP) congresscritter who couldn’t come to a deal to avoid the universal sequester program cuts. :(

34 ObserverArt  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:38:29pm

Damn, lizards be moving fast today. I am behind trying to catch up in every damn thread. Think I’ll just observe.

35 klys  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:39:19pm

re: #34 ObserverArt

Damn, lizards be moving fast today. I am behind trying to catch up in every damn thread. Think I’ll just observe.

I’m avoiding studying for the exam.

Of course, reality is going to set in soon and I will have to force myself to do so anyway, even if it will suck.

36 Shiplord Kirel  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:43:16pm

One more reason for the neo-confederate/Bircher/tea party horde to hate the feds and seek a “Second Amendment solution.” This has nothing to do with Sherlock’s Seven Percent Solution.

Or, on second thought, maybe it does: Sherlock was addicted to coke, the ‘baggers to their guns and their fantasy rhetoric.

37 elizajane  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:45:00pm

A few months ago I read John Galsworthy’s classic, Nobel-prize-winning Forsyte Saga. In this book written a century ago, there is an amazing scene where the main character is forced to choose between saving his wife, and saving the perfectly viable fetus. When he chooses the fetus over his wife, the doctor is absolutely shocked. It is clear that any decent man would kill the fetus, even at this late stage, to keep his wife alive. It is NOT presented in any way as a good moment for the husband.

I thought that, thanks to the “pro-life” movement, we have regressed considerably from 1920. The way the dilemma is presented in this novel is SO different from how it would be portrayed today. Then, the woman was clearly the priority, the full human being. The husband only chooses for the fetus because he does not like his wife much; and basically the doctor thinks of that as murder, while killing the fetus to save the woman would have been honorable.

It kind of blew my mind, really. I keep thinking about it, and how warped we have become.

38 Kragar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:48:03pm

Why do these activist judges keep overturning the will of white conservative Christians REAL AMERICANS?

39 Vicious Babushka  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:48:15pm

DERP

40 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:49:49pm

re: #39 Vicious Babushka

DERP

[Embedded content]

What’s an abortion advocate?

41 Amory Blaine  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:50:10pm

To call this ruling stunning is fucking stupid. NBC needs a better thesaurus.

42 Kragar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:50:16pm

re: #40 GeneJockey

What’s an abortion advocate?

Baby killer.
/

43 Kragar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:51:24pm

Based on prolifer logic, a school nurse should have a full surgical suite at hand because a kid could break his leg at school.

44 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:51:35pm

re: #41 Amory Blaine

To call this ruling stunning is fucking stupid. NBC needs a better thesaurus.

Perhaps they’re easily stunned. Flash a bright light at them, see if that stuns them.

45 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:52:12pm

re: #43 Kragar

Based on prolifer logic, a school nurse should have a full surgical suite at hand because a kid could break his leg scrape his knee at school.

FTFY

46 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:53:05pm


That’s cool. Even though people have 6 mos to sign up.

47 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:53:09pm

re: #42 Kragar

Baby killer.
/

I thought that was any woman who’d ever had a late period. Or is that just in some jurisdictions?

48 elizajane  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:53:30pm

re: #43 Kragar

Based on prolifer logic, a school nurse should have a full surgical suite at hand because a kid could break his leg at school.

“School nurse”? Where have you been since the budget cuts to education began? In our “very good” school district, the nurse circulates between all the 12 or so schools and basically does nothing except check vaccination records.

Kids who break their legs (or scrape their knees) are taken to the nearest emergency room. Just another efficient aspect of our A+ health care system //

49 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:55:14pm

Evening Lizardim from the cool and clear wild north country. The S word is being spoken in connection with tomorrow; I’m excited, some others among my compatriots not so much. How go things among the lizardfolk, here on the front lines of the war on derp?

50 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:56:20pm

Here in Mississippi they passed an admitting privileges law which is still held up in court. But none of the local hospitals around the only clinic left in the state (that the GOP is desperately trying to shut down) would grant those privileges.

51 Targetpractice  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:57:05pm

The admitting privileges BS is because many doctors working at clinics either live out of town or even outside the state, making getting admitting privileges at the local hospital virtually impossible. So either the clinics close due to lack of qualified personnel or the doctors move close by to get privileges and thus make themselves targets to “prolife” loons.

52 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:57:05pm

re: #49 thedopefishlives

Evening Lizardim from the cool and clear wild north country. The S word is being spoken in connection with tomorrow; I’m excited, some others among my compatriots not so much. How go things among the lizardfolk, here on the front lines of the war on derp?

Would the S word you refer to end with a W by any chance?

53 Kragar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:57:48pm

Why doesn’t my dentist, optometrist, podiatrist, or physical therapist have admitting privileges and a surgical suite on stand by?

54 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:59:18pm

re: #52 Eclectic Cyborg

Would the S word you refer to end with a W by any chance?

Why, yes. Yes it would.

55 darthstar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:59:40pm

re: #46 Justanotherhuman

[Embedded content]


That’s cool. Even though people have 6 mos to sign up.

TRAINWRECK!!!

56 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 3:59:54pm

It always amazes me that most of these crazies believe that gun laws will never, ever stop people from getting their hands on guns but in virtually the same breath will tell you the importance of striking down Roe V. Wade to “end all abortions”.

57 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:00:40pm

re: #54 thedopefishlives

Why, yes. Yes it would.

I enjoy skiing and sledding, I enjoy watching it fall when I have nowhere to go. I do not like shoveling it or driving in it.

58 Amory Blaine  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:03:36pm

re: #54 thedopefishlives

Why, yes. Yes it would.

Quiet you!!! :p

59 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:04:31pm

re: #57 Eclectic Cyborg

I enjoy skiing and sledding, I enjoy watching it fall when I have nowhere to go. I do not like shoveling it or driving in it.

I don’t mind disposing of it now that I have a snowblower; shoveling is right out. I actually like driving in it myself, it’s just dealing with everyone else who clearly do NOT enjoy driving in it that I do not enjoy. It also sucks to already have a 50-minute (give or take) drive to work in dry weather. Snow easily cranks that up into the 1.5 hour range.

60 Kragar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:05:06pm

Dear fellow commuters,

When the car in the lane next to you has the options to merge into your lane or drive into a concrete barricade, your options are either to go ahead and pass him or back off.

Hanging out in his blind spot while attempting to surge ahead to chase him out of your lane and honking is not a valid option.

Asshole.

61 Vicious Babushka  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:07:05pm

Fuck you Bryan, and you too Gavin McInnes.

62 kirkspencer  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:07:26pm

re: #39 Vicious Babushka

DERP

Tell me how it’s offensive to require abortion facilities meet surgical facility standards.

Why should a facility that provides abortions require standards that are stricter than those required for an Ambulatory Surgical Center?

63 Amory Blaine  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:09:45pm

Newsmax, the information source for special people.

64 ausador  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:09:46pm

re: #37 elizajane

A few months ago I read John Galsworthy’s classic, Nobel-prize-winning Forsyte Saga. In this book written a century ago, there is an amazing scene where the main character is forced to choose between saving his wife, and saving the perfectly viable fetus. When he chooses the fetus over his wife, the doctor is absolutely shocked. It is clear that any decent man would kill the fetus, even at this late stage, to keep his wife alive. It is NOT presented in any way as a good moment for the husband.

I thought that, thanks to the “pro-life” movement, we have regressed considerably from 1920. The way the dilemma is presented in this novel is SO different from how it would be portrayed today. Then, the woman was clearly the priority, the full human being. The husband only chooses for the fetus because he does not like his wife much; and basically the doctor thinks of that as murder, while killing the fetus to save the woman would have been honorable.

It kind of blew my mind, really. I keep thinking about it, and how warped we have become.

In 1972 my Methodist Youth Group was campaigning for a new abortion clinic that was having problems with the city over permits to open their doors. We came from the oldest and by far the largest church in town then.

Fast forward 12 years (1984) and the same church, now seriously suffering from a major membership decline, was sending pickets out to protest the same “abortion provider” that we had fought for against the city earlier.

65 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:11:47pm

re: #59 thedopefishlives

I don’t mind disposing of it now that I have a snowblower; shoveling is right out. I actually like driving in it myself, it’s just dealing with everyone else who clearly do NOT enjoy driving in it that I do not enjoy. It also sucks to already have a 50-minute (give or take) drive to work in dry weather. Snow easily cranks that up into the 1.5 hour range.

The joke when I lived in Canada was “when the first snow of the season falls, everyone forgets how to drive.”

66 jamesfirecat  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:12:40pm

Just won a minor political argument with my dad, whose politics are more or less a lot like mine (big shock) however as of tonight he finally believes in 2016 we will finally see the GOP run a deeply conservative candidate instead of a cypher for the business community.

67 Kragar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:12:41pm

re: #63 Amory Blaine

Newsmax, the information source for special people.

Newsmax, as to WND what Target is to Walmart

68 Amory Blaine  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:13:50pm

In our city, a single mother can drive with one knee on the wheel while disciplining 3 kids in the back seat during a blizzard. -_-

69 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:14:31pm

re: #65 Eclectic Cyborg

The joke when I lived in Canada was “when the first snow of the season falls, everyone forgets how to drive.”

Yeah, we use that one around here a lot. First snow of last year, I had an asshole who tapped my bumper (doing 60 mph) because I wasn’t going fast enough for him. In a snowstorm! I was like, I’m doing 60 in the snow and it’s not good enough for you?!

70 Kragar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:15:10pm
71 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:16:11pm

re: #69 thedopefishlives

Yeah, we use that one around here a lot. First snow of last year, I had an asshole who tapped my bumper (doing 60 mph) because I wasn’t going fast enough for him. In a snowstorm! I was like, I’m doing 60 in the snow and it’s not good enough for you?!

Some people will drive like jerks in any weather.

72 dog philosopher  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:16:21pm

re: #60 Kragar

Dear fellow commuters,

When the car in the lane next to you has the options to merge into your lane or drive into a concrete barricade, your options are either to go ahead and pass him or back off.

Hanging out in his blind spot while attempting to surge ahead to chase him out of your lane and honking is not a valid option.

Asshole.

i spend most of my time in a cube farm and honking is not a valid option there either

73 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:18:06pm

re: #71 Eclectic Cyborg

Some people will drive like jerks in any weather.

Ain’t that the truth. I’ve been working pretty hard on just letting them do their own stupid thing. It ain’t worth me getting my blood pressure all up into the stratosphere over.

74 Archangelus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:20:25pm

re: #24 Shiplord Kirel

Have we passed peak wingnut? Are the Tea Party and its Bircher/racist allies headed for the dustbin of history?

Yes, pretty, pretty please, with cherry on top!

75 dog philosopher  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:21:01pm

re: #69 thedopefishlives

Yeah, we use that one around here a lot. First snow of last year, I had an asshole who tapped my bumper (doing 60 mph) because I wasn’t going fast enough for him. In a snowstorm! I was like, I’m doing 60 in the snow and it’s not good enough for you?!

we have people in CA who want so much to make you move out of the way that they will tailgate you even when both cars are driving well over the speed limit rather than drive around you

the point seems to be to make you yield

76 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:24:03pm

re: #75 dog philosopher

we have people in CA who want so much to make you move out of the way that they will tailgate you even when both cars are driving well over the speed limit rather than drive around you

the point seems to be to make you yield

Each area of the country seems to have its own specific complaints about their drivers. Around here, it’s a lack of turn signals. Almost nobody uses them, which makes life entertaining when rush-hour traffic comes on and people start cutting and weaving across lanes with little or no warning whatsoever.

77 austin_blue  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:24:18pm

re: #3 Charles Johnson

And this is just the first of the legal decisions striking down the asinine caveman laws these goons are passing.

Well, of course it is. The law was unconstitutional on its face.

“If we can’t criminalize abortion, we’ll legislate it out of existence.”

Nice try, troglodytes. How’s that working out for ya?

78 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:25:40pm

re: #77 austin_blue

Well, of course it is. The law was unconstitutional on its face.

“If we can’t criminalize abortion, we’ll legislate it out of existence.”

Nice try, troglodytes. How’s that working out for ya?

It’s scoring them points with the rabid right-wing nutjob base. Their careers are secure for another term.

79 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:25:46pm

re: #76 thedopefishlives

Each area of the country seems to have its own specific complaints about their drivers. Around here, it’s a lack of turn signals. Almost nobody uses them, which makes life entertaining when rush-hour traffic comes on and people start cutting and weaving across lanes with little or no warning whatsoever.

Same problem down here. Drives me NUTS.

80 calochortus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:25:50pm

re: #31 b.d.

WHAT IS A FEDERAL JUDGE DOING MESSING WITH A TEXAS LAW!!1!! 10TH AMENDMENT OVERREACH!!1! SECEEDE!!

You’ve apparently been reading over at FR. Federalism is dead. States should be able to override the Constitution.

81 Eclectic Cyborg  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:27:50pm

Another thing I see a lot around here is people playing the “beat the yellow light” game and losing more often than not. Makes me wish I was a cop, I could hit my quota in no time.

82 ProTARDISLiberal  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:28:47pm

And, the mask falls off in Tunisia.

Ennahda party leader Rashid al-Ghannushi announced in a televised interview that the party may be willing to give up the government but not power.

MB needs to be put on a watchlist in the US.

83 darthstar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:29:16pm

My kind of lunchable.

Image: 1377089_10152053636958322_109336489_n.jpg

84 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:29:23pm

re: #81 Eclectic Cyborg

Another thing I see a lot around here is people playing the “beat the yellow light” game and losing more often than not. Makes me wish I was a cop, I could hit my quota in no time.

Those rules get a little lax around this time of year up here. You never go when the light turns green, because someone will probably be sliding through the intersection going the other way. Gotta give it a second and double-check both ways before going.

85 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:33:27pm

White House OKs limited waiver on health penalty

bigstory.ap.org

WASHINGTON (AP) — With website woes ongoing, the Obama administration Monday granted a six-week extension until March 31 for Americans to sign up for coverage next year and avoid new tax penalties under the president’s health care overhaul law.

(snip)

“As a consequence, Republican lawmakers, and some Democrats as well, are calling for a one-year delay in the penalties most Americans will face starting next year if they remain uninsured. Monday’s action by the administration stops well short of that, and amounts only to a limited adjustment.

“Under the latest policy change, people who sign up by the end of open enrollment season March 31 will not face a penalty. That means procrastinators get a grace period.”

We really are a nation of whiners and slackers on many, many issues. If you need health care, for chrissakes, sign up for it. If you need help doing so, ask for it.

If someone can’t find a way to sign up by next March 31—either by phone, online, in person or by mail—they’re not trying very hard.

When seniors were agonizing over which prescription plan to select for Part D Medicare, I simply called Medicare, talked to a very nice woman there who asked me if I had a preference. I said no—pick something out for me. She did, and I’ve been very pleased with it for the entire time I’ve had it. No hassle, no haggling, no worries, or trying to figure out plan after plan after plan, as I knew some were doing. The system works if you want it to, and trust it to.

86 darthstar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:33:32pm
87 ProTARDISLiberal  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:34:04pm

re: #82 ProTARDISLiberal

Also, the State Dept. must restore funding to Egypt.

The Military Coup there was done in defense of Democracy. There, I said it.

The MB was already acting in an un-democratic manner, and was encouraging persecution of minorities. The military did what needed to be done.

88 darthstar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:34:07pm
89 ausador  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:35:51pm

re: #84 thedopefishlives

Those rules get a little lax around this time of year up here. You never go when the light turns green, because someone will probably be sliding through the intersection going the other way. Gotta give it a second and double-check both ways before going.

Sounds just like Anchorage, it was amazing how people who drove on snow and ice for 7 months of every year could forget everything about doing so in the five months in between.

Every year being on the roads after the first major winter snowfall was like being in a demolition derby. Within a week of the first lasting snow on the ground at least one out of ten cars (at least it seemed like it) on the road would have collision damage evidence. Great for the body shops (and insurance companies), not so good for your peace of mind on the road however…

90 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:35:52pm

re: #75 dog philosopher

we have people in CA who want so much to make you move out of the way that they will tailgate you even when both cars are driving well over the speed limit rather than drive around you

the point seems to be to make you yield

Oh, crap - was that YOU? Sorry!
/////

91 dog philosopher  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:36:04pm

CA drivers exhibit special dumbass behavior because of the law here that makes the driver guilty for any accident involving a pedestrian, even if the pedestrian lies down in the middle of the road and disguises himself as the tarmac and yellow line

so, frequently if you are innocently standing on the curb the driver in the near lane will stop, wait, honk at you, and gesture vigorously at you to cross the street

even if there are other drivers proceeding at speed in the farther lane

people can and have been injured because of this when they disregard the driver who is not slowing down for pedestrians

92 b.d.  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:36:45pm

I’ll get right on this.

Note the Icelandic domain

93 b.d.  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:37:25pm

re: #92 b.d.
Why would Snowden need a legal defense fund?

94 darthstar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:38:06pm

Is there trouble in dudebro land? Greenwald’s favorite fanboi, Chris Hayes, is now taunting him?

95 dog philosopher  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:39:17pm

re: #83 darthstar

My kind of lunchable.

Image: 1377089_10152053636958322_109336489_n.jpg

that’s if you get it without the meth

96 austin_blue  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:39:21pm

re: #85 Justanotherhuman

White House OKs limited waiver on health penalty

bigstory.ap.org

WASHINGTON (AP) — With website woes ongoing, the Obama administration Monday granted a six-week extension until March 31 for Americans to sign up for coverage next year and avoid new tax penalties under the president’s health care overhaul law.

(snip)

“As a consequence, Republican lawmakers, and some Democrats as well, are calling for a one-year delay in the penalties most Americans will face starting next year if they remain uninsured. Monday’s action by the administration stops well short of that, and amounts only to a limited adjustment.

“Under the latest policy change, people who sign up by the end of open enrollment season March 31 will not face a penalty. That means procrastinators get a grace period.”

We really are a nation of whiners and slackers on many, many issues. If you need health care, for chrissakes, sign up for it. If you need help doing so, ask for it.

If someone can’t find a way to sign up by next March 31—either by phone, online, in person or by mail—they’re not trying very hard.

When seniors were agonizing over which prescription plan to select for Part D Medicare, I simply called Medicare, talked to a very nice woman there who asked me if I had a preference. I said no—pick something out for me. She did, and I’ve been very pleased with it for the entire time I’ve had it. No hassle, no haggling, no worries, or trying to figure out plan after plan after plan, as I knew some were doing. The system works if you want it to, and trust it to.

Would that it was as easy as getting help with Medicare. It isn’t:

nytimes.com

97 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:39:39pm

re: #93 b.d.

Why would Snowden need a legal defense fund?

It’s defence fund, you illiterate! ///

98 b_sharp  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:40:56pm

re: #65 Eclectic Cyborg

The joke when I lived in Canada was “when the first snow of the season falls, everyone forgets how to drive.”

When the first snow falls (and it hasn’t yet way up here) I take an opportunity to spin my tires and slide all over the place to remind myself how my car deals with slippery streets.

99 b.d.  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:41:18pm

re: #94 darthstar

Is there trouble in dudebro land? Greenwald’s favorite fanboi, Chris Hayes, is now taunting him?

[Embedded content]

I see him agreeing with all that Dianne denouncing spying on other pols but no other spying is a weird place for her.

No way wormy Hayes would defy his hero.

100 dog philosopher  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:41:38pm

re: #97 Justanotherhuman

It’s defence fund, you illiterate! ///

anyone spelling it ‘defence’ has socialized health insurance

101 Bubblehead II  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:41:42pm

re: #52 Eclectic Cyborg

Would the S word you refer to end with a W by any chance?

4-6 inches predicted for tomorrow morning in Jackpot, Nv.

Glad I work inside and am not on the ground/facilities crew. They are going to be hammered.

102 Patricia Kayden  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:42:08pm

re: #85 Justanotherhuman

“If someone can’t find a way to sign up by next March 31—either by phone, online, in person or by mail—they’re not trying very hard.”

Yeah, I get the big fuss over the malfunctioning website, but there are other ways to get coverage. Sadly, all the talk about the website may discourage some people from even trying.

103 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:42:25pm

re: #91 dog philosopher

CA drivers exhibit special dumbass behavior because of the law here that makes the driver guilty for any accident involving a pedestrian, even if the pedestrian lies down in the middle of the road and disguises himself as the tarmac and yellow line

so, frequently if you are innocently standing on the curb the driver in the near lane will stop, wait, honk at you, and gesture vigorously at you to cross the street

even if there are other drivers proceeding at speed in the farther lane

people can and have been injured because of this when they disregard the driver who is not slowing down for pedestrians

I deal with this all the time. We have 3 dogs, the 2 Greyhounds and our aging Eskie. She wants to go on walks, but can only manage about a block before slowing down, so we do a short loop and drop her off before taking the Greyhounds on a longer walk. When I get to the corner near our house, my wife and the Eskie are usually lagging behind, so I stop and wait. I’ve learned I have to stop WAY BACK from the corner, or people expect me to cross, and it’s just confusing. Some drivers are STILL not clear on the concept, so I have to blatantly turn AWAY from the intersection before they realize I’m not going to cross just yet.

104 b.d.  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:43:01pm

re: #100 dog philosopher

anyone spelling it ‘defence’ has socialized health insurance

and they typically put the letter u in words that don’t need it.

105 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:44:38pm

re: #100 dog philosopher

anyone spelling it ‘defence’ has socialized health insurance

Not my pretentious brother, who also spells it ‘colour’ and ‘favour’.

106 austin_blue  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:44:48pm

re: #104 b.d.

and they typically put the letter u in words that don’t need it.

You mean like in coght?

107 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:44:55pm

re: #103 GeneJockey

MN has a big problem with bicyclists. Namely, that they refuse to obey the rules of the road whatsoever. The funnest part? They have special stop signs on trail crossings because it’s impossible to see the bikes coming and if they don’t stop, they’ll get run over by cars. Yet they seem to think these are optional if there’s no cars coming. Umm, no, they’re there to give BOTH OF US time to see each other before you go traipsing out in the intersection and pancaked…

108 b.d.  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:45:46pm

Why would a guy fixing to enjoy his first Russian winter need a defense fund?

The only reason Snowden would need a defense fund is if he came back to face justice and that is not going to happen by his own free will.

This is a continuation of the scam to relieve Dudebros of their money.

109 b_sharp  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:45:55pm

re: #105 GeneJockey

Not my pretentious brother, who also spells it ‘colour’ and ‘favour’.

Those are the correct way to spell them.

110 aagcobb  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:46:34pm

re: #66 jamesfirecat

Just won a minor political argument with my dad, whose politics are more or less a lot like mine (big shock) however as of tonight he finally believes in 2016 we will finally see the GOP run a deeply conservative candidate instead of a cypher for the business community.

I think the establishment lines up behind Christie and he wins the nomination, with his most likely running mate being Marco Rubio because Florida.

111 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:46:39pm

re: #96 austin_blue

It’s only going to be tough for those who depend on their computer for everything.

112 Dancing along the light of day  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:46:51pm

re: #109 b_sharp

Snorts!

113 austin_blue  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:47:09pm

re: #109 b_sharp

Those are the correct way to spell them.

Yes, and the correct spelling of “Umbrella” is “Bumbershoot”.

114 Gus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:51:22pm
115 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:52:36pm

re: #91 dog philosopher

I agree that this is very dangerous behavior. Since I do a lot of walking I run into this all the time: I’ll be standing on the curb, waiting for the traffic to all pass, on the multilane street, so I can cross the street, and somebody stops in the right hand lane (closest to me), apparently not aware that the traffic to their left is still going to be whizzing on by. These stopped drivers don’t seem to realize that both I and they could end up dead because of these other drivers.

116 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:53:01pm

re: #114 Gus

What’s wrong with freedom loving Russia?

117 austin_blue  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:53:23pm

re: #111 Justanotherhuman

It’s only going to be tough for those who depend on their computer for everything.

Sorry, maybe Krugman wasn’t clear. Medicare, being a single-payer system, can provide one-on-one customer service. They already have all the info they need available on dedicated servers. Obamacare, being a Frankenstein expansion of a whole basket of private insurance options with various levels of subsidies, cannot.

118 dell*nix  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:53:32pm

re: #109 b_sharp

Got to argue with my English teacher in Kansas when I got back from three years in England. She marked down my spelling and we had a little talk about that.

119 Vicious Babushka  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:54:10pm

re: #109 b_sharp

Those are the correct way to spell them.

The correct way to spell them is T*H*E*M

120 darthstar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:54:11pm
121 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:54:29pm

re: #107 thedopefishlives

MN has a big problem with bicyclists. Namely, that they refuse to obey the rules of the road whatsoever. The funnest part? They have special stop signs on trail crossings because it’s impossible to see the bikes coming and if they don’t stop, they’ll get run over by cars. Yet they seem to think these are optional if there’s no cars coming. Umm, no, they’re there to give BOTH OF US time to see each other before you go traipsing out in the intersection and pancaked…

As a cyclist who also drives a lot, I tend to take issue with the blanket condemnation of cyclists as scofflaws, and note that nobody notices or remembers the ones who stop at the lights, wait for the green, don’t blow through stop signs, etc. Nope, people - even I - remember the clown who blew the stop sign right in front of them, nearly causing an accident.

What I also have realized is that dozens, possibly hundreds of drivers pass me every week, safely and unobtrusively, waiting for the proper time when the sightlines are good and then they give me a nice wide berth, and passing quickly and without squeezing me off the road.

But I don’t remember them. I remember the idiot who passes me on a blind curve, or the guy who HAD TO GET AROUND ME, just to turn right within 20 yards. Yesterday, I yelled at one such guy who cut me off to get onto the on-ramp for a freeway, when I was riding in the proper lane - right hand edge of the right-most ‘going straight’ lane. He stopped, ON THE ON RAMP, to yell back at me, and quickly got a bunch of people honking at him.

The rest of the ride, the motorists could not have been more courteous. But I remember THAT GUY.

122 Gus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:54:37pm

re: #116 freetoken

What’s wrong with freedom loving Russia?

Too cold and this Lada sucks!

123 klys  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:55:33pm

re: #121 GeneJockey

As a cyclist who also drives a lot, I tend to take issue with the blanket condemnation of cyclists as scofflaws, and note that nobody notices or remembers the ones who stop at the lights, wait for the green, don’t blow through stop signs, etc. Nope, people - even I - remember the clown who blew the stop sign right in front of them, nearly causing an accident.

What I also have realized is that dozens, possibly hundreds of drivers pass me every week, safely and unobtrusively, waiting for the proper time when the sightlines are good and then they give me a nice wide berth, and passing quickly and without squeezing me off the road.

But I don’t remember them. I remember the idiot who passes me on a blind curve, or the guy who HAD TO GET AROUND ME, just to turn right within 20 yards. Yesterday, I yelled at one such guy who cut me off to get onto the on-ramp for a freeway, when I was riding in the proper lane - right hand edge of the right-most ‘going straight’ lane. He stopped, ON THE ON RAMP, to yell back at me, and quickly got a bunch of people honking at him.

The rest of the ride, the motorists could not have been more courteous. But I remember THAT GUY.

I do remember the cyclists who obey the law.

Mostly because I see maybe one who falls into this category every 3-4 months.

124 b.d.  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:55:42pm

re: #116 freetoken

What’s wrong with freedom loving Russia?

Looks like a great country when a scrwany little single guy can go through an entire shopping cart load full of groceries a week.

125 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:55:54pm

re: #109 b_sharp

Those are the correct way to spell them.

Not where he lives. But he also - despite growing up in South Central Pennsylvania, and never living in Canada, acquired a Canadian accent for a while, eh?

126 darthstar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:55:58pm

re: #99 b.d.

I see him agreeing with all that Dianne denouncing spying on other pols but no other spying is a weird place for her.

No way wormy Hayes would defy his hero.

Greenwald has me blocked. I didn’t see that Hayes was responding to him until it posted. Weird that.

127 Amory Blaine  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:56:02pm

re: #108 b.d.

They can get their Bitcoins from the ATM.

World’s First Bitcoin ATM Arrives at Coffee Shop, Goes Live Tomorrow

128 Gus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:57:09pm

Toolbox | DNSstuff | WHOIS/IPWHOIS Lookup Results for freesnowden.is

Registrant
Julian Assange
Derek Rothera
Units 15 & 16
7 Wenlock Road

Administrative Contact
KH236-IS
Kristinn Hrafnsson
Julian Assange
susanlegal@riseup.net

The Julian Assange Defence Fund - Rothera

129 ausador  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:57:46pm

re: #75 dog philosopher

we have people in CA who want so much to make you move out of the way that they will tailgate you even when both cars are driving well over the speed limit rather than drive around you

the point seems to be to make you yield

If you are in the far left lane then it doesn’t matter if you are already going 15 mph over the speed limit, you should yield to the right to allow faster traffic to pass. Technically you are not supposed to even stay in the leftmost “passing” lane at all, just use it to get past slower drivers then move back to the right.

I have seen far too many people camped permanently in the “passing lane” of the interstate that would not yield to anyone because they were “already doing two mph over the speed limit.” Never mind car after car and even tractor trailers changing lanes and having to pass them on the right.

They are the self appointed vigilantes of the highway and if hundreds of other people have to perform needless and possibly risky lane changes in heavy traffic to pass them on the right then apparently that is their own problem and no concern of the vigilante driver camping in the passing lane.

130 Gus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:57:58pm

They also run Wikileaks in Iceland.

131 austin_blue  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 4:59:07pm

re: #127 Amory Blaine

They can get their Bitcoins from the ATM.

World’s First Bitcoin ATM Arrives at Coffee Shop, Goes Live Tomorrow

So how do they collect transaction fees? In bitcoin? Hmmm…

132 b.d.  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:00:54pm

re: #127 Amory Blaine

They can get their Bitcoins from the ATM.

World’s First Bitcoin ATM Arrives at Coffee Shop, Goes Live Tomorrow

Now I can launder my drug money while they are fixing my cappuccino

//

133 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:01:28pm

re: #117 austin_blue

Sorry, maybe Krugman wasn’t clear. Medicare, being a single-payer system, can provide one-on-one customer service. They already have all the info they need available on dedicated servers. Obamacare, being a Frankenstein expansion of a whole basket of private insurance options with various levels of subsidies, cannot.

I understand what you’re saying, but Part D was pretty much a throw up, too. I’ve had the same plan for the entire time, and still get notices every fall about Part D (it’s the time of year you can switch plans if you’re not happy with the one you have). I’ve gotten ads from Humana, Blue Cross and another (I forget which) so far. I throw them in the trash, because they’re asking you to sign on to their network. I have regular Medicare and don’t need Medicare Advantage and don’t want to pay extra for it, either.

I think we should have universal health care, but this is the best we could get with the Congress we have. It is just the first step, as I see it, but going straight to a national one payer system would not have pleased the insurance companies, nor the health care system as it’s currently constituted.

134 Amory Blaine  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:01:49pm

Iceland is on my bucketlist. The Mrs. is slowly warming to the idea.

135 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:02:56pm

re: #129 ausador

If you are in the far left lane then it doesn’t matter if you are already going 15 mph over the speed limit, you should yield to the right to allow faster traffic to pass. Technically you are not supposed to even stay in the leftmost “passing” lane at all, just use it to get past slower drivers then move back to the right.

I have seen far too many people camped permanently in the “passing lane” of the interstate that would not yield to anyone because they were “already doing two mph over the speed limit.” Never mind car after car and even tractor trailers changing lanes and having to pass them on the right.

They are the self appointed vigilantes of the highway and if hundreds of other people have to perform needless and possibly risky lane changes in heavy traffic to pass them on the right then that is their problem.

If I’m in the fast lane, and there are multiple cars ahead of me, and we’re all going faster than any lane to the right, but slower than we would prefer to go, I ain’t moving over for nobody.

If I’m in the fast lane, and there’s nobody ahead of me, and I’m moving faster than any lane to my right, I’ll move at my preferred speed. If someone comes up behind me wanting to go faster, I’ll look for an opening to the right to move into to let him pass.

If you’re in the fast lane, and I’m behind you obviously wanting to go faster, and there’s NOBODY to your right, I’m going to pass you on the right, and I’m going to think you’re a selfish prick.

136 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:03:05pm

And then there’s this:

‘Necropants’ Made From Dead Human Skin On Display In Iceland Museum [NSFW PHOTO]

A pair of pants made from human skin is so grotesque they could even make Hannibal Lecter reach for the barf bag. The 17th century human trousers, called “necropants,” are on display at the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft in Iceland. According to the museum, the bizarre slacks were made by skinning the legs of a dead man from the waist down, and include all the bits and pieces in between. Yes, even the genitals.

[…]

Iceland, land of Dudebros and necropants.

137 Gus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:04:05pm

re: #136 freetoken

And then there’s this:

‘Necropants’ Made From Dead Human Skin On Display In Iceland Museum [NSFW PHOTO]

Iceland, land of Dudebros and necropants.

Iceland. The country that almost went bankrupt. Perfect for the unicornians.

138 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:04:09pm

re: #136 freetoken

And then there’s this:

‘Necropants’ Made From Dead Human Skin On Display In Iceland Museum [NSFW PHOTO]

Iceland, land of Dudebros and necropants.

So, if someone was wearing them, and you pulled them down as a prank, would you be a Necropantser?

139 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:04:57pm

re: #128 Gus

Derek Rothera - accounting firm.

rothera.com

140 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:05:06pm

re: #134 Amory Blaine

Iceland is on my bucketlist. The Mrs. is slowly warming to the idea.

Icebucket list?

141 b.d.  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:05:24pm

re: #140 GeneJockey

Icebucket list?

Boo!!!!!

142 Amory Blaine  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:05:26pm

Can I get them in a 48in waist?

143 jaunte  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:05:49pm

re: #136 freetoken

Whoever wanted a pair of necropants would have to make arrangements with a friend to remove his skin postmortem.

I guess you would have to make friends with guys who were slightly bigger and taller.

144 Gus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:05:56pm

re: #139 Justanotherhuman

Derek Rothera - accounting firm.

rothera.com

Yep.

145 austin_blue  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:06:02pm

re: #134 Amory Blaine

Iceland is on my bucketlist. The Mrs. is slowly warming to the idea.

Well, until she gets there…

146 klys  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:06:03pm

re: #134 Amory Blaine

Iceland is on my bucketlist. The Mrs. is slowly warming to the idea.

We want to do it around Christmas some year.

Also, Geysir. And hot springs and snow.

147 b.d.  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:07:08pm

People are just dying to make those pants.

148 Mike Lamb  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:07:23pm

re: #134 Amory Blaine

Iceland is on my bucketlist. The Mrs. is slowly warming to the idea.

My buddy and a friend of his did a jeep tour around Iceland. He said it was fantastic.

149 jaunte  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:07:33pm

re: #138 GeneJockey

GG is Snowden’s Necropantser. Ed got skinned, and Glenn makes the money.

150 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:07:48pm

re: #142 Amory Blaine

Can I get them in a 48in waist?

Is there someone you intensely dislike who happens to be your size?
//

151 Amory Blaine  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:08:04pm

The ultimate emo skinny jeans for hipsters.

152 Gus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:09:44pm

Oh, I was uh, expecting like, pants. Hmm, it comes with a slot to drop money in. The display that is.

153 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:09:49pm

I leave to feed the junior fishspawn as we’re discussing traffic and the Snowden Defen[s,c]e Fund, and return to … necropants. What the heck, LFG.

154 calochortus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:10:34pm

re: #153 thedopefishlives

I leave to feed the junior fishspawn as we’re discussing traffic and the Snowden Defen[s,c]e Fund, and return to … necropants. What the heck, LFG.

The magic of LGF.

155 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:11:11pm

re: #154 calochortus

The magic of LGF.

Stream of collective unconscious.

156 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:11:45pm

re: #155 GeneJockey

Stream of collective unconscious.

We are Dopefish of Borg. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be asslaminated.

157 austin_blue  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:11:46pm

re: #155 GeneJockey

Stream of collective unconscious.

Uh…what?

158 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:12:04pm

re: #155 GeneJockey

Also, nominated for (now-defunct) rotating title.

159 austin_blue  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:12:25pm

re: #156 thedopefishlives

We are Dopefish of Borg. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be asslaminated.

Assalmonated?

160 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:12:42pm

re: #159 austin_blue

Assalmonated?

Don’t do that. Swim, swim, HUNGRY…

161 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:13:16pm

re: #159 austin_blue

Assalmonated?

What did the Little Mermaid say when the teacher asked why she didn’t turn in her homework?

162 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:13:20pm

Is this where people send GG money?

rothera.com

163 dog philosopher  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:13:33pm

it’s about the traffic pants defence

got it

164 Amory Blaine  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:13:39pm

Blame it on my A D D baby.

Youtube Video

165 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:14:08pm

re: #157 austin_blue

Uh…what?

If you have to ask, you can’t afford grok it.

166 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:17:48pm

Explains the religious fascination with snakes?

Snakes on the brain: Are primates hard-wired to see snakes?

Was the evolution of high-quality vision in our ancestors driven by the threat of snakes? Work by neuroscientists in Japan and Brazil is supporting the theory originally put forward by Lynne Isbell, professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis.

In a paper published Oct. 28 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Isbell; Hisao Nishijo and Quan Van Le at Toyama University, Japan; and Rafael Maior and Carlos Tomaz at the University of Brasilia, Brazil; and colleagues show that there are specific nerve cells in the brains of rhesus macaque monkeys that respond to images of snakes.

The snake-sensitive neurons were more numerous, and responded more strongly and rapidly, than other nerve cells that fired in response to images of macaque faces or hands, or to geometric shapes. Isbell said she was surprised that more neurons responded to snakes than to faces, given that primates are highly social animals.

[…]

167 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:18:44pm

re: #166 freetoken

Explains the religious fascination with snakes?

Snakes on the brain: Are primates hard-wired to see snakes?

I AM TIRED OF THESE - well, you know.

168 Mattand  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:20:26pm

re: #136 freetoken

And then there’s this:

‘Necropants’ Made From Dead Human Skin On Display In Iceland Museum [NSFW PHOTO]

Iceland, land of Dudebros and necropants.

I have to wonder about a country that looks to Ed Gein for its fashion sense.

169 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:20:48pm

re: #166 freetoken

Explains the religious fascination with snakes?

Snakes on the brain: Are primates hard-wired to see snakes?

Biology is some really cool shit, especially at the junction between cell biology, chemistry, and psychology.

170 aagcobb  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:22:04pm

re: #137 Gus

Iceland. The country that almost went bankrupt. Perfect for the unicornians.

Iceland is fortunate to have its own currency and not the Euro. While countries like Greece and Spain suffer Depression-level unemployment, Iceland’s is 6.1%, in part because it had its own currency to devalue.

171 ausador  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:22:05pm

re: #135 GeneJockey

Every year the Florida State Troopers write a few tourists tickets for impeding the flow of traffic. If the tourist contests the ticket they always whine about how they were going faster than the speed limit. The judges always smile broadly, explain the actual traffic law to them and then find them guilty and hit them with a rather painful fine.

The point being that these incidents always happen near the start of tourist season and are always widely publicized by the local media. It is the Florida State Troopers idea of a totally free “public awareness” campaign.

172 Justanotherhuman  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:22:27pm

Must not be much to do in Iceland during those long, dark winters, so you are constantly having to innovate, I suppose.

The Icelandic Phallological Museum

phallus.is

It’s said the Icelandic Handball Team won silver…

Image: ku-medium.jpg

173 Amory Blaine  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:24:22pm

I bought one of these for my poor old cockatiel because she aint getting around like she used to. When I approached her with it she threw a total shit fit like I’ve never seen before. I think she saw it as a snake.

174 ausador  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:26:41pm

re: #173 Amory Blaine

I bought one of these for my poor old cockatiel because she aint getting around like she used to. When I approached her with it she threw a total shit fit like I’ve never seen before. I think she saw it as a snake.

Possibly, maybe if you just installed it in the cage while she was out of it and let her discover it herself it might go over better?

175 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:26:44pm

re: #173 Amory Blaine

I bought one of these for my poor old cockatiel because she aint getting around like she used to. When I approached her with it she threw a total shit fit like I’ve never seen before. I think she saw it as a snake.

‘Jesus Christ! That bastard’s gonna feed me to a fucking SNAKE!!! And I thought he LIKED ME! All that seed and all, and he was just fattening me up for some goddam reptile!”

176 Amory Blaine  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:27:17pm

Right. I’ve had her 18 years.

177 Mattand  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:30:11pm

I’m finally beginning to get why people don’t use Macs for gaming.

178 dog philosopher  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:30:18pm

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

writes for “frontpage mag”, whose motto is “inside every liberal is a totalitarian waiting to get out”, and presumes to tell us all about modern engineering

government is magic

Our technocracy is detached from competence. It’s not the technocracy of engineers, but of “thinkers” who read Malcolm Gladwell and Thomas Friedman and watch TED talks and savor the flavor of competence, without ever imbibing its substance.

hese are the people who love Freakonomics, who enjoy all sorts of mental puzzles, who like to see an idea turned on its head, but who couldn’t fix a toaster.

The ObamaCare website is the natural spawn of that technocracy who love the idea of using modernity to make things faster and easier, but have no idea what anything costs or how it works.

It’s hard to have a functioning technocracy without engineers. A technocracy made in Silicon Valley with its complete disregard for anything outside its own ego zone would be bad enough. But this is a Bloombergian technocracy of billionaires and activists, of people who think that “progress” makes things work, rather than things working leading to progress.

i have been waiting just to hear journalism fellows tell me what is wrong with modern technology

179 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:30:22pm

re: #169 GeneJockey

Biology is some really cool shit, especially at the junction between cell biology, chemistry, and psychology.

Genome hacker uncovers largest-ever family tree

Using data pulled from online genealogy sites, a renowned ‘genome hacker’ has constructed what is likely the biggest family trees ever assembled. The researcher and his team now plan to use the data — including a single uber-pedigree comprising 13 million individuals, which stretches back to the 15th century — to analyse the inheritance of complex genetic traits, such as longevity and facial features.

The researchers pulled trees off of Geni.com .

The problem with Geni.com, though, and this is true for any “free” internet site hosting family trees, is that the trees almost certainly are full of lies. Not all are intentional lies, and some are just research or transcription errors, but there are falsehoods at every turn. That’s why quality genealogy searches for the paper trails, and then can be supplemented with DNA.

180 klys  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:32:49pm

re: #177 Mattand

I’m finally beginning to get why people don’t use Macs for gaming.

I am in the process of looking to replace my current MBAir (selling it to my sister because she desperately needs an upgrade and can’t afford much right now, so I get a new toy and she gets a very good deal) and realized that the laptop scene is so much shittier than I thought right now.

:(

181 b_sharp  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:33:48pm

re: #119 Vicious Babushka

The correct way to spell them is T*H*E*M

Ouch!

182 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:34:27pm

re: #179 freetoken

The researchers pulled trees off of Geni.com .

The problem with Geni.com, though, and this is true for any “free” internet site hosting family trees, is that the trees almost certainly are full of lies. Not all are intentional lies, and some are just research or transcription errors, but there are falsehoods at every turn. That’s why quality genealogy searches for the paper trails, and then can be supplemented with DNA.

I’ve always been curious about AncestryDNA. I’ve used regular Ancestry, and uncovered some fascinating things through the available documentation; I’m mostly just curious about what it does and what they report.

183 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:35:48pm

Be warned - online “genealogy” sites are full of pitfalls.

The biggest problem is that people are not really interested in genealogy.

Rather, so many people are looking for their somebody-ness. The easiest way to be a somebody is to be related to a well known somebody. So several of these sites exist to give you that somebody connection.

Consider the geni.com page called “People”:
geni.com
as an example.

184 ProTARDISLiberal  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:36:36pm

re: #137 Gus

It should be noted that this was because they took the advice of the free-marketeers.

185 Kragar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:37:09pm
186 ProTARDISLiberal  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:37:15pm

re: #182 thedopefishlives

Curious about that too.

187 Dancing along the light of day  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:40:01pm

re: #183 freetoken

But there are genealogical messes than can be helped by online site.
For example, my family apparently owns mineral rights on what is now the Marcellus Shale.
It’s been off the tax rolls since 1870, and it’s a MESS.
So the geneology available on line, it actually easier & more efficient to use
than going to BFE & trying to sort it out!

188 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:40:04pm

re: #179 freetoken

Genome hacker uncovers largest-ever family tree

The researchers pulled trees off of Geni.com .

The problem with Geni.com, though, and this is true for any “free” internet site hosting family trees, is that the trees almost certainly are full of lies. Not all are intentional lies, and some are just research or transcription errors, but there are falsehoods at every turn. That’s why quality genealogy searches for the paper trails, and then can be supplemented with DNA.

Oh, fer sure! A couple years back, my wife got into looking up her family, which got me interested in mine. I found a relative had built up a tree of my paternal grandmother’s family that went back to the 16th Century in Germany. One problem - absence of names. This led me to conclude that whoever did it had papered over gaps, connecting our family with people who shared a last name, but were not definitively related to us.

And I’ve seen folks hook into my tree, finding someone who seems like they might be their relative, but when you look closely they couldn’t be, like the one who decided my Great Grandfather’s sister, Ida May, who died at 16 of Typhus, was their Great Grandmother, and so they added two more generations to their tree that didn’t belong.

189 calochortus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:40:21pm

re: #183 freetoken

Be warned - online “genealogy” sites are full of pitfalls.

The biggest problem is that people are not really interested in genealogy.

Rather, so many people are looking for their somebody-ness. The easiest way to be a somebody is to be related to a well known somebody. So several of these sites exist to give you that somebody connection.

Consider the geni.com page called “People”:
geni.com
as an example.

On the other hand, through a message board on Ancestry I connected with a 3rd cousin back in “the old country” who is doing a lot of research on the family. Perfectly ordinary people, all.

190 Dancing along the light of day  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:40:46pm

re: #185 Kragar

What a hideous nic!

191 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:41:19pm

re: #182 thedopefishlives

It depends upon what you are looking for.

Are you looking into building out your family tree, or, are you looking for “ethnicity”?

I’ve not personally been tested by AncestryDNA, but a member has. The “ethnicity” calculations are far too esoteric for the average person to deal with, IMO, in a way that they can understand in light of human evolution. The new AncestryDNA ethnic calculator uses a best-fit method on a set of around a quarter of a million SNPs, but some of this “ancestry” could be quite ancient and I doubt of real use to genealogy.

If you are interested in building out your family tree, AncestryDNA will give you matches to people who have their family tree online at ancestry.com. However, unless you are part of the well trafficked population there - colonial American - then your number of matches will be small. However, if your ancestors were in colonial America you’ll end up with thousands of matches.

23andMe will give you some health data that might be important, and their ethnicity calculator uses runs of SNPs and not individual SNPs, so it is more relevant to a historic timeframe.

192 urbanmeemaw  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:41:55pm

re: #92 b.d.

Hey! I’ve got an idea! My dad has a barn and we could put on a show to raise money! Wow-ee!

193 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:42:32pm

re: #191 freetoken

I’ve often debated trying to write a pseudo-anonymous Page on the fish family. I am a colonial American on all four sides of the family; the Mrs. Fish, on the other hand, is a 3rd-generation immigrant.

194 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:42:32pm

re: #189 calochortus

Yup. The best thing about ancestry.com is finding other people - distant relatives - who are doing their own research and being able to exchange information.

195 Bubblehead II  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:42:52pm

re: #136 freetoken

And then there’s this:

‘Necropants’ Made From Dead Human Skin On Display In Iceland Museum [NSFW PHOTO]

Iceland, land of Dudebros and necropants.

Humans, we are just outright fucking weird.

196 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:43:06pm

re: #191 freetoken

pimf ” … a family member has…”

197 calochortus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:43:31pm

re: #191 freetoken

It would be vaguely interesting to find out if my family really goes back to where it purports to in colonial America, but it’s really low on my list of priorities.

198 Stanley Sea  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:43:35pm

re: #173 Amory Blaine

I bought one of these for my poor old cockatiel because she aint getting around like she used to. When I approached her with it she threw a total shit fit like I’ve never seen before. I think she saw it as a snake.

Heard a story on NPR about a fake snake placed on a freeway -people would swerve to intentionally run over it.

199 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:43:44pm

re: #194 freetoken

Yup. The best thing about ancestry.com is finding other people - distant relatives - who are doing their own research and being able to exchange information.

Finding one such person was how I managed to find my father’s family tree. We knew literally nothing beyond my great-grandfather’s name as recorded in the family Bible. I only wish I had thought to engage with Ancestry before my grandmother had passed.

200 Vicious Babushka  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:44:06pm

re: #136 freetoken

And then there’s this:

‘Necropants’ Made From Dead Human Skin On Display In Iceland Museum [NSFW PHOTO]

Iceland, land of Dudebros and necropants.

It’s a replica.

201 jaunte  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:44:41pm

re: #188 GeneJockey

Gigantic genealogy linking 13 million people sheds light on how genes influence complex traits.

Checking their family Facebook updates is going to be a chore.

202 ProTARDISLiberal  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:45:11pm

re: #191 freetoken

Interesting.

I have a Wallace in the family tree. Could that help?

203 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:46:15pm

re: #189 calochortus

On the other hand, through a message board on Ancestry I connected with a 3rd cousin back in “the old country” who is doing a lot of research on the family. Perfectly ordinary people, all.

My family, too, despite Crazy Aunt Doone and her contention that we were related to Sir Walter Scott.

One fun thing I did was to use the 19th Century Pittsburgh City Directories that the Pitt library has online to figure out where my ancestors were living and when, and then to find the places on Google Streetview. By doing that, I found the spot where my Great Grandfather had opened a Tobacco shop, where my Grandfather was born, and which went under, probably during the Depression 0f 1893. There is a costume shop there now, and I contacted them, and sent them a pic of my GGF, resplendent in bowler hat and moustache, standing proudly in front.

204 Kragar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:48:06pm

re: #183 freetoken

Be warned - online “genealogy” sites are full of pitfalls.

The biggest problem is that people are not really interested in genealogy.

Rather, so many people are looking for their somebody-ness. The easiest way to be a somebody is to be related to a well known somebody. So several of these sites exist to give you that somebody connection.

Consider the geni.com page called “People”:
geni.com
as an example.

I’m not really related to anyone famous, but thanks to having a relatively unusual last name, we were able to track back to one of our earliest ancestors to a Roman centurion in the last Empire who shares a name with a Italian villa established in the same region.

So I’ve got that going for me.

205 Vicious Babushka  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:48:29pm

re: #178 dog philosopher

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

writes for “frontpage mag”, whose motto is “inside every liberal is a totalitarian waiting to get out”, and presumes to tell us all about modern engineering

government is magic

Didn’t he used to post here and then went over to Stalkerlandia?

206 Dancing along the light of day  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:48:55pm

re: #198 Stanley Sea

Heard a story on NPR about a fake snake placed on a freeway -people would swerve to intentionally run over it.

You would SO do that!
LOL!

207 jaunte  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:49:26pm

re: #203 GeneJockey

My great-grandfather’s grocery store in St. Louis is now a hair salon. I need to send them his old photo, standing at the front door with the local beat cop.

208 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:49:28pm

re: #204 Kragar

I’m not really related to anyone famous, but thanks to having a relatively unusual last name, we were able to track back to one of our earliest ancestors to a Roman centurion in the last Empire who shares a name with a Italian villa established in the same region.

So I’ve got that going for me.

Yeah, my unusual last name led me to a town in the south of France, from which our ancestors apparently went to Scotland, from thence to Ireland, and then again on the boat to Pennsylvania. Wanderlust is us.

209 calochortus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:51:33pm

re: #203 GeneJockey

I’ve used Google Streetview for that too. Well, with my ancestors, not yours ;)
I’ve “seen” the farm in Finland where my great grandfather was born.

re: #204 Kragar

If you have European ancestry you are almost certainly descended from Charlemagne, so you do have a famous ancestor. Along with the rest of us.

210 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:51:40pm

BTW, here’s another diss at Geni.com: they are asking $289 for their “Family Finder” DNA test. This is just not competitive. The three companies people use which are the leaders in this are 23andMe, AncestryDNA, and FTDNA, all of which charge $99 for the autosomal DNA tests, all of which use the Illumina platform for testing SNPs, about a million in the case of 23andMe, and roughly 700 thousand in the case of AncestryDNA and FTDNA.

211 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:52:00pm

re: #208 thedopefishlives

Yeah, my unusual last name led me to a town in the south of France, from which our ancestors apparently went to Scotland, from thence to Ireland, and then again on the boat to Pennsylvania. Wanderlust is us.

My family has all been over here since the mid 19th Century, and they all have very common names, like ‘Smith’.

212 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:52:50pm

re: #209 calochortus

I’ve used Google Streetview for that too. Well, with my ancestors, not yours ;)
I’ve “seen” the farm in Finland where my great grandfather was born.

That’s good. It would be creepy, otherwise.

213 calochortus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:53:57pm

re: #211 GeneJockey

My family has all been over here since the mid 19th Century, and they all have very common names, like ‘Smith’.

One of my great great grandfathers rejoiced in the name of “Walter Smith” I’m afraid that particular line is a dead end for me.

214 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:54:04pm

re: #211 GeneJockey

My family has all been over here since the mid 19th Century, and they all have very common names, like ‘Smith’.

One side of the family is named Baker. That one was tough to track back, as we knew little about that side but I couldn’t just go claiming random Bakers as ancestors. There’s a LOT of them.

215 calochortus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:54:24pm

re: #212 GeneJockey

Very creepy.

216 Kragar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:56:03pm

My Mom’s side of the family was the Brauns till that little World War One thing came up, when they became the Browns for some reason.

217 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:56:12pm

One caution about these DNA tests: be warned that you might discover something that can really bother you.

There is a not-small number of people who discover they were adopted, or that their father is not their biological father, or that they have full or half siblings out there, etc.

218 Vicious Babushka  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:56:36pm

25 years ago I went to look up the house where my great-grandfather lived in downtown Detroit, but it was the I-375 freeway.

I did find his grave, which was located smack in the middle of a GM facility.

219 b_sharp  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:56:54pm

I had ancestors once.

220 calochortus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:57:04pm

re: #217 freetoken

One caution about these DNA tests: be warned that you might discover something that can really bother you.

There is a not-small number of people who discover they were adopted, or that their father is not their biological father, or that they have full or half siblings out there, etc.

Yeah, among other things, genealogy depends on none of your female ancestors having fooled around…

221 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:57:16pm

The other thing is that, without anything other than census records to go by, women just appear in the tree with no way to work back from them.

222 Kragar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:57:31pm

So I’m Italian and German and my wife is Japanese.

No wonder I have to keep telling my kids to stop annexing the neighbors.
/

223 Kragar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:57:46pm

re: #219 b_sharp

I had ancestors once.

THEY WERE DELICIOUS!

224 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:58:20pm

re: #216 Kragar

My Mom’s side of the family was the Brauns till that little World War One thing came up, when they became the Browns for some reason.

There are about 10 different variations of my last name in several regions of the country. Apparently, when they came from Ireland to Pennsylvania and started spreading out, nobody could figure out how to spell out what they were saying. As a result, my family tree on Ancestry looks like a bit of a mismatch even though the connections are all documented.

225 b_sharp  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:58:21pm

re: #223 Kragar

THEY WERE DELICIOUS!

With a little Chianti.

226 klys  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:58:39pm

re: #221 GeneJockey

The other thing is that, without anything other than census records to go by, women just appear int eh tree with no way to work back from them.

As God intended.

////

227 ProTARDISLiberal  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:58:46pm

re: #222 Kragar

I could list family history here, but we could be here a while.

228 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:59:01pm

re: #224 thedopefishlives

For the record, it’s still that way. I’ve learned to always spell my last name when I’m on the phone to any agency that requires such.

229 b_sharp  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:59:34pm

re: #227 ProTARDISLiberal

I could list family history here, but we could be here a while.

My family has been on Earth for only a few decades.

230 calochortus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 5:59:47pm

re: #221 GeneJockey

The other thing is that, without anything other than census records to go by, women just appear int eh tree with no way to work back from them.

I strongly recommend having ancestors in Sweden or Finland. The Swedish Church was extremely efficient and thorough in their record keeping. Births, deaths, vaccination records, weddings, people moving in and out of the parish (with a note as to where they were going) etc.

231 jaunte  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:00:21pm

re: #229 b_sharp

My family has been on Earth for only a few decades.

The Greys?

232 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:00:27pm

re: #228 thedopefishlives

For the record, it’s still that way. I’ve learned to always spell my last name when I’m on the phone to any agency that requires such.

Once, someone who’d forgotten my last name, but didn’t want me to know it, asked me “How do you spell your last name?”

This is not a question we Smiths hear often.

233 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:00:28pm

re: #222 Kragar

So I’m Italian and German and my wife is Japanese.

No wonder I have to keep telling my kids to stop annexing the neighbors.
/

My wife is, among many other things, part German and part Jewish. She jokes that somewhere in the family history, someone took home a Jewish war bride.

234 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:01:05pm

re: #230 calochortus

I strongly recommend having ancestors in Sweden or Finland. The Swedish Church was extremely efficient and thorough in their record keeping. Births, deaths, vaccination records, weddings, people moving in and out of the parish (with a note as to where they were going) etc.

Thanks! I’ll try that sometime!
////

235 thedopefishlives  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:01:28pm

re: #234 GeneJockey

Thanks! I’ll try that sometime!
////

Just change the nationality on your Facebook page. Wham, instant ethnicity.

236 jvic  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:01:45pm

re: #166 freetoken

Explains the religious fascination with snakes?

Snakes on the brain: Are primates hard-wired to see snakes?

My first reaction to an unexpecterd spider is to flinch or recoil. I’ve wondered if that’s a genetic residue from an era when my distant mammal ancestors were vulnerable to spiders.

It’s interesting that neurobiology may be soon be able to check this kind of conjecture.

237 b_sharp  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:02:00pm

re: #228 thedopefishlives

For the record, it’s still that way. I’ve learned to always spell my last name when I’m on the phone to any agency that requires such.

I always spell my German last name because it sounds just like a different English word.

238 Amory Blaine  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:02:05pm

re: #218 Vicious Babushka

I’m coming to Detroit this week to visit family. Greektown here I come!!!

239 b_sharp  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:02:30pm

re: #231 jaunte

The Greys?

There are no others, they’re just a myth.

240 Kragar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:02:53pm

re: #228 thedopefishlives

For the record, it’s still that way. I’ve learned to always spell my last name when I’m on the phone to any agency that requires such.

“Look me up in the system.”
“Sir, we have thousands of customers. It will take time to find which one is you.”
“No, really it wont.”

At this time, there are less than 10 men in North America who have my last name.

241 calochortus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:02:59pm

re: #234 GeneJockey

Thanks! I’ll try that sometime!
////

Do. Most of the stuff is available online as well-photos of the actual church registers. The Finns are even indexing them.

242 b_sharp  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:03:16pm

re: #232 GeneJockey

Once, someone who’d forgotten my last name, but didn’t want me to know it, asked me “How do you spell your last name?”

This is not a question we Smiths hear often.

Wife’s maiden name is Jones.
She’s aboriginal.

That can be confusing.

243 calochortus  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:04:26pm

Ah, I am informed dinner is ready. BBL. (Have I mentioned that I love being married to a man who can cook?)

244 jamesfirecat  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:04:50pm

re: #216 Kragar

My Mom’s side of the family was the Brauns till that little World War One thing came up, when they became the Browns for some reason.

Has any member of your family shown an interest in developing time travel?

245 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:05:03pm

Anyway, getting back to the article published in Nature, I think this is another case where a story is published (by an outlet thought to be among the most credible) but the substance is more questionable than what may appear at first glance. Unless someone knew of geni.com and their ilk, the problem of family trees, and so on, the naive reader will just look at that article and think more of it than I propose ought to be.

This happens all the time and here at LGF we’re particularly prone to being sticklers for things like provenance, but as I grow older it is easy to be discouraged over my observation that so much of what goes on around me is monkeys trying to out-deceive each other.

246 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:05:06pm

re: #240 Kragar

“Look me up in the system.”
“Sir, we have thousands of customers. It will take time to find which one is you.”
“No, really it wont.”

At this time, there are less than 10 men in North America who have my last name.

That would make it simple….

“Sarah Connor?”

“Yes.”

*BLAM! BLAMBLAMBLAM!*

247 Vicious Babushka  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:05:13pm

HURR HURR DON’T CALL ME A RACIST!!!!!1 DEMS IS TEH REAL RACISTS!!!!!!!!

248 klys  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:05:30pm

re: #243 calochortus

Ah, I am informed dinner is ready. BBL. (Have I mentioned that I love being married to a man who can cook?)

/grouch

249 ProTARDISLiberal  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:05:52pm

re: #229 b_sharp

I mean ancestry wise.

My mom’s side is very open. They cobbled most of Europe into the family tree.

250 jamesfirecat  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:06:32pm

re: #232 GeneJockey

Once, someone who’d forgotten my last name, but didn’t want me to know it, asked me “How do you spell your last name?”

This is not a question we Smiths hear often.

Hey, he could want to know “I” or “Y”…

251 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:07:51pm

re: #250 jamesfirecat

Hey, he could want to know “I” or “Y”…

I told him the ‘P’ is silent.

252 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:08:28pm

re: #251 GeneJockey

I told him the ‘P’ is silent.

As long as you do it down the side, not into the middle….

253 Bubblehead II  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:08:40pm

Night Lizards.

254 b_sharp  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:08:51pm

re: #249 ProTARDISLiberal

I mean ancestry wise.

My mom’s side is very open. They cobbled most of Europe into the family tree.

I’m just joking around because I know the world is remade every Thursday and all our memories are implanted.

255 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:08:51pm

BTW2, the Mormon church has been doing the yeoman work of genealogy for decades, microfilming volumes of records.

Their site: Familysearch.org, is free, though it does partner with corporations like ancestry.com (which was also started by Mormons, but was recently sold) and will occasionally try to send you links to pay sites.

256 b_sharp  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:09:58pm

re: #255 freetoken

BTW2, the Mormon church has been doing the yeoman work of genealogy for decades, microfilming volumes of records.

Their site: Familysearch.org, is free, though it does partner with corporations like ancestry.com (which was also started by Mormons, but was recently sold) and will occasionally try to send you links to pay sites.

I’m still trying to figure out how you square a W.

257 klys  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:10:01pm

re: #255 freetoken

Just be careful or you’ll find yourself Mormon baptized. Along with all your ancestors.

///

258 ProTARDISLiberal  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:10:02pm

re: #254 b_sharp

That would be a cool concept for a Doctor Who Episode.

259 dog philosopher  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:10:27pm

my firebagger buddies not very impressed with greenwald release

Why has it taken 5 months to get the story out if its so important?

He has all the documents, right?

Feel free to question my motives, I dont give a shit.

…

I think the story is critically important and Greenwald is still an insufferable jerk.

sort of a middle ground position…

260 Vicious Babushka  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:10:33pm

NSA HALLOWEEN COSTUME WIN

The only thing that would make this costume EVEN MOAR WIN would be if a Black or Asian guy was rocking it.

261 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:10:36pm

re: #230 calochortus

I strongly recommend having ancestors in Sweden or Finland. The Swedish Church was extremely efficient and thorough in their record keeping. Births, deaths, vaccination records, weddings, people moving in and out of the parish (with a note as to where they were going) etc.

The Scandinavians were compulsive family recorders. In the long and dark and cold winters, they had little to do in the evening but sit around and tell stories of who begat whom. And when they finished with that, they went and begat some more.

262 dog philosopher  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:11:14pm

re: #247 Vicious Babushka

I would vote for ANY black conservative

“he’s a good ‘un”

263 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:11:20pm

re: #254 b_sharp

I’m just joking around because I know the world is remade every Thursday and all our memories are implanted.

When Young Earth Creationists tell me I can’t prove that the Universe wasn’t created 6000 years ago with a 15 billion year history written into the light traveling from distant stars, I tell them I also can’t prove that the Universe wasn’t created last Thursday at 10:45 PDT, as a going concern.

Little did I know that I was right.

264 Stanley Sea  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:12:19pm

re: #260 Vicious Babushka

NSA HALLOWEEN COSTUME WIN

He snuck back into the US.

265 Decatur Deb  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:12:25pm

re: #2 Sol Berdinowitz

Cruz and Perry have to continue to defend it, just so they can become martyrs for States’ Rights

Martyrs is good. I like martyrs. They’s dead.

266 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:13:09pm

re: #256 b_sharp

I’m still trying to figure out how you square a W.

Since the W comes in both positive and negative configurations, pairing them up is not unreasonable:
quantumdiaries.org

267 Stanley Sea  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:13:27pm

Is snuck a word? haha, looks quite wrong.

268 ProTARDISLiberal  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:13:44pm

re: #261 freetoken

Dad’s side was from Fredrikstad, so Swedish exists in there in fair amounts.

Unfortunately, Norway fought like a nation many times its size against Nazi Germany. Earliest we can trace back is 1820s-1850s.

Dad’s Dutch part isn’t much better.

And my Mom’s Polish/Slovakian wing is an outright non-starter.

269 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:13:53pm

re: #266 freetoken

Since the W comes in both positive and negative configurations, pairing them up is not unreasonable:
quantumdiaries.org

Isn’t the negative configuration an M?

270 dog philosopher  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:15:47pm

re: #4 euphgeek

This judge was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2003, so naturally he’s a flaming liberal.
//

euphronius?

271 Vicious Babushka  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:16:02pm

re: #264 Stanley Sea

He snuck back into the US.

Those white guys all look alike.

272 dog philosopher  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:16:13pm

re: #267 Stanley Sea

Is snuck a word? haha, looks quite wrong.

what’s the past tense of ‘tweet”?

273 b_sharp  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:16:33pm

re: #266 freetoken

Since the W comes in both positive and negative configurations, pairing them up is not unreasonable:
quantumdiaries.org

Seriously cool.

274 b_sharp  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:17:00pm

re: #267 Stanley Sea

Is snuck a word? haha, looks quite wrong.

Snuck, snick, snack.

275 Decatur Deb  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:17:02pm

re: #272 dog philosopher

what’s the past tense of ‘tweet”?

Twat.

276 b_sharp  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:17:49pm

re: #272 dog philosopher

what’s the past tense of ‘tweet”?

twerk.

277 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:18:41pm

The news stream is full of articles on genetics and humans because the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics:

ashg.org

Lots of fascinating stuff presented.

278 Charles Johnson  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:19:04pm
279 Kragar  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:19:36pm
280 jamesfirecat  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:19:56pm

re: #274 b_sharp

Snuck, snick, snack.

And then you come galumphing back right?

281 Amory Blaine  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:21:14pm

re: #278 Charles Johnson

Hard to get the mower up there!

282 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:21:33pm

re: #276 b_sharp

twerk.

Hi-ho, hi-ho! It’s off twerk we go!

283 Stanley Sea  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:22:30pm

re: #272 dog philosopher

what’s the past tense of ‘tweet”?

I twaddled that to my followers.

284 GeneJockey  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:22:30pm

re: #281 Amory Blaine

Hard to get the mower up there!

You need the goats with the short legs on one side. But they can’t turn around without falling off.

285 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:22:35pm

Thousands of posters and presentations at the ASHG meeting… and none from the creationist viewpoint.

What do geneticists have against God?

286 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:25:31pm

If Twitter had been invented by the Japanese, the past tense of “tweet” would have been “tweetta”.

287 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:28:29pm

Unless of course your social situation would require a more polite form, in which case the past tense would be “tweetashita”.

288 dog philosopher  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:35:02pm

re: #287 freetoken

Unless of course your social situation would require a more polite form, in which case the past tense would be “tweetashita”.

elle pouvait toueeter partout?

289 freetoken  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:41:13pm

re: #288 dog philosopher

elle pouvait toueeter partout?

Strangely, or not, “toueeter” is very much like the Englisher word “touter”, from the verb “to tout”, which means “attempt to sell (something) by pestering people in an aggressive or bold manner “.

Which pretty much explains the origins of “tweet” and Twitter.

290 Amory Blaine  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:44:35pm

He he. A local sign.

291 dog philosopher  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 6:48:27pm

re: #283 Stanley Sea

I twaddled that to my followers.

yew has done twiddled et nao

292 Feline Fearless Leader  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 7:02:12pm

re: #224 thedopefishlives

There are about 10 different variations of my last name in several regions of the country. Apparently, when they came from Ireland to Pennsylvania and started spreading out, nobody could figure out how to spell out what they were saying. As a result, my family tree on Ancestry looks like a bit of a mismatch even though the connections are all documented.

A friend of my brother who does geneology tracing offered to do a trace of his for free. Turned up with a folder of printed out pictures and everything on a flash drive as well. I got a copy.

Data on my father’s family went back about as far as we knew since an uncle has researched it in the 1960s. Surname back to 1825 or so in western PA with some secondary leads indicating the Lancaster area and before that Germany along the Rhine. Father’s maternal side to Virginia in the 1700s and then back to Germany as well.

Odd thing was finding that what we thought was Scot in my mother’s side (Surname of Rose) is actually German - it was Anglicized from “Roos”. So all four grandparents were mainly German in ancestry.

293 Decatur Deb  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 7:04:00pm

re: #292 Feline Fearless Leader

A friend of my brother who does geneology tracing offered to do a trace of his for free. Turned up with a folder of printed out pictures and everything on a flash drive as well. I got a copy.

Data on my father’s family went back about as far as we knew since an uncle has researched it in the 1960s. Surname back to 1825 or so in western PA with some secondary leads indicating the Lancaster area and before that Germany along the Rhine. Father’s maternal side to Virginia in the 1700s and then back to Germany as well.

Odd thing was finding that what we thought was Scot in my mother’s side (Surname of Rose) is actually German - it was Anglicized from “Roos”. So all four grandparents were mainly German in ancestry.

So you got off Scot-free.

294 euphgeek  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 9:05:44pm

re: #270 dog philosopher

euphronius?

No, euphonium.

295 ibob  Mon, Oct 28, 2013 11:29:48pm

Late to the discussion as usual, but abortions used to be (and still could w/ the right equipment ) an office procedure. The only anesthesia needed is a paracervical block. In fact. when one the local multispecialty clinics in town closed a few years ago, some of the items sold were the suction machines used to empty the uterus for miscarriages and abortions from the 1970’s. No one thought anything about it then. You just told people you had a miscarriage or you had been cleaned out for menstrual regulation.


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