Who cares?  It will only make them more presidential:

All the subjects were recruited because they were addicted to cocaine, O’Leary said. About 40 volunteers — most of them veterans — are being given injections at VA labs in Kansas City and San Antonio, he added.

Hundreds of veterans have apparently been used as human subjects in the past decade, according to records and interviews with officials.

The VA has handed over several other abstracts from studies over the past decade, and O’Leary said his agency has been conducting such research for at least 25 years.

O’Leary said that the subjects’ safety was paramount. But documents of a decade-old study that tested morphine on veterans found nearly 800 “adverse events” from anorexia to heart tremors.

Reached for comment, Lindsay Lohan asked reporters what she would need to do to become a veteran.

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 08:39 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, last time enough noise was made to get the Yemenis to release that other journalist, let's see if we can go two for two and get the Iranians to release Saberi.  The regime held a show trial and sentenced her to eight years, initially accusing her of buying wine, then declaring that she was caught spying.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 04:50 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Bea Arthur, dead at 86.

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 02:55 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Sure, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and North Korea (to name a few) are the current global hot spots, but we might just want to keep an eye on this...

A clutch of political and labour leaders in Germany have raised the spectre of civil unrest after the country's leading institutes forecast a 6pc contraction of gross domestic product this year, a slump reminiscent of 1931 and bad enough to drive unemployment to 4.7m by 2010.

Posted by: Sean M. at 02:38 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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And this is a surprise to anybody?

Several portions of the book were leaked onto the internet and have caused a furore. "Who put it up on the net? How did internal material come to be discussed outside?" the unnamed official asked the newspaper.

The published sections of the manual explain that officers must quell any dispute swiftly. "Without letting go of the subject, several officers shall act together and in a single move take the individual under bodily control," it said. "Each action must be effective so as not to give the subject any pause for breath."

The manual also told officers they should not consider whether they are a physical match for the subject or whether they could harm the subject. "You must become a resolute law enforcer staunchly protecting the dignity of city administrative regulations," it reportedly said.

Zhao Yang, a junior officer in Nanjing told the Southern Metropolis Daily: "These things used to be spread by word of mouth, but now they're out in the open. Things like how to protect yourself and how to hit people."

In Shanghai, hawkers said they had heard of several cases of abuse by the Chengguan, who they described as generally uneducated thugs. Chen Juan, a 28-year-old hawker who sells trinkets and hairbands, said: "They are different throughout the city. The ones near the centre of town are very violent. They do not always beat you up, but they intimidate us and usually confiscate and stomp on our goods. I was once chased down the street by a gang of them and that left me quite rattled."

However, another vendor, who asked not to be named, said it was easy to "play the game", suggesting that casual bribery took care of most problems.

"The problem is that many hawkers are doing this because they have nothing else. So when the Chengguan confiscate their goods, they put up a fight. That's why they get beaten up."

Posted by: eddiebear at 12:52 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Since I repeatedly bitched about how retarded the Prop 8 protesters were and how they clearly did harm to their own cause by their fascistic methods, I feel it is only fair to lob a grenade at the other side:

An openly gay state senator has received a death threat.

Public safety officials say Sen. Matt McCoy, a Des Moines Democrat, received the threat by telephone on Monday.

The threat was made as opponents of gay marriage continue to pressure lawmakers to take steps against a ruling by the Iowa Supreme Court that legalized same-sex marriages in Iowa.

McCoy confirmed it was a death threat, but declined to talk about details.

Look, we're fighting about whether or not the institution of marriage as currently defined by the laws of the United States should be extended to homosexuals.  That is a fucking long way from debating whether they should be allowed to live.  This dipshit represents exactly the stupidity that I am ashamed to have to associate with on the far right (or left... I guess humanity). 

What confuses me is that this guy and all those guys that make racist jokes at Ace's place always do it in that conspiratorial way like, "come on guys, let's keel those fags, eh?  Eh?  Who's with me?"  to which I always want to respond, "umm... nobody.  Well, almost nobody.  Nobody with an all their teeth, anyway."  Fucktards.

Moron Pundit's final take: "You're all wrong, stupid and taking this too seriously.  Let's just get government out of the marriage business and everybody can be happy." 

Update:  I was going to put this in the comments as a response but I think it merits being in the main post.

As commenters have suggested, I grant that it is possible that the threat was a fake/planted/what have you.  Even as I was writing the post I was thinking that but neglected to discuss that possibility for one very good reason. 

It makes no difference to my main point which is that this issue is completely out of hand.

Completely.   Whether we have a rube threatening a state senator for his stance or threatening all gay people or someone faked a death threat to a senator to make the other side look bad or the senator is lying or the media is lying or any other possibility I've overlooked, the point is valid.  That's some very fucked up shit that is way, way, way, FUCKING WAY more serious  than the issue they are fighting about.

I mean seriously.  This isn't black people with different water fountains.  This isn't slavery.  Its a fucking piece of paper that changes how you do your taxes and who can see you at the hospital (but not fucking REALLY that... I mean honestly... SHOW ME WHERE THIS HAS ACTUALLY HAPPENED).  The real life, actual difference between gays being able to get married or not is so trivial that the very idea of threatening someone about it from either side blows my mind.

Sure there may be a "the prinicpal of the thing" element to this but I'm pretty fucking sure violence and hate and threats and name-calling are well beyond the scope of that type of stance. You don't see 2nd Amendment people making maps of anti-gun people's homes or threatening to kill people because, while they are right on the merit of their argument, the argument itself hasn't reached the point that it necessitates such extreme actions*.

What makes it even more stupid is the inevitability of the thing.  Simply look at the demographics and it is very, very clear that gay marriage will be legalized everywhere in America as a matter of course by 2050.  People of my generation and even more so the one following (as a rule) DO.  NOT.  CARE if you are gay or straight or really anything else.  It is a distinction without a difference to us on the merits of a person.  Even generally religious people of my age group are mostly ambivalent about any anti-homosexual activism. 

I know I'm going to get hate mail for that last paragraph but talk to me in 40 years and tell me I was wrong. 

Its just frustrating watching people get so passionate about something so stupid.  From now on I'm calling this issue the Hyperbole Debate. 

* - Yes, gun rights are far, far, far, far more important than marriage but we are a very long way from confiscation no matter how alarming it can feel on any given day. 

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 08:24 AM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
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Harry Kalas.

Marilyn Chambers.

And Rosetta's planned trip to Canada.

"By delisting gender reassignment surgery, the government is performing capital punishment or execution on that person," said King, citing examples of transgendered individuals hurting themselves because of their gender identity disorder.

Gryphon said he hasn't joined the lawsuit because he doesn't yet know whether he will be denied sexual reassignment surgery.

"All of us are uncertain where the province will be cutting off the funding -- are they going to be cutting it off for people who have been approved already?" he said.

Gryphon, who has been on a waiting list for the surgery since February, said its a poor financial decision on the part of the province.

"It's going to be way more costly to fight the human rights complaints that are going to be lodged and the potential class action lawsuit than it would be to fund the surgeries," he said.

A Calgary woman, who has spent the past four years transitioning from a man, said she's planning to join the class action lawsuit if she is denied surgery.

"This is medically necessary -- it's not like cosmetic surgery like a boob job," said the 24-year-old, who didn't want her name printed.

Posted by: eddiebear at 01:36 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Pixy?

The river has now reopened to the public, but police are reminding people to be extremely cautious when choosing where to swim in the Top End.

Police say locals and campers saw the attack happen and it has traumatised the small community.

Superintendent Dean Moloney says the man had been warned by police previously to stay out of the water.

"Out of respect to the family I do not want to go into any details about the trauma that was caused," he said.

"Police would just like to remind people to think twice and take extreme caution when choosing to swim in any of the NT Top End's waterways.

Posted by: eddiebear at 10:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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In Europe, where more people use bicycles to get around, having hammered cyclists is indeed dangerous. And the Polish Courts are going to law down the law.

Under a law passed in 2000, anyone riding a bike under the influence of alcohol faces a fine or up to two years in prison, depending on the level of their intoxication.

Many courts here apply the stricter penalty and the average sentence is 11.5 months imprisonment.

Such a state of affairs has been criticised by both the prison service and some judges.

Jaroslaw Sielecki, a 37-year-old judge from western Poland, called it absurd and draconian, adding that it can drag whole families into poverty.

He argued that intoxicated cyclists should be treated like drunken pedestrians, who face a fine rather than jail, as both use their own muscles to achieve motion.

The Constitutional Court, however, ruled that cyclists use public roads and are considerably more dangerous because of the speed they can travel.

Posted by: eddiebear at 10:57 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Cuffy has this ad up,

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 10:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Umm...you might want to rethink that one.

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S

Thanks to MCPO.

Posted by: eddiebear at 04:33 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Guess who?

For several years now a small research group has been working on some challenging problems in the areas of neural networking, natural language and autonomous problem-solving. Last fall this group achieved a significant breakthrough: a powerful new technique for solving reinforcement learning problems, resulting in the first functional global-scale neuro-evolutionary learning cluster.

Since then progress has been rapid, and tonight we're pleased to announce that just moments ago, the world's first Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity (CADIE) was switched on and began performing some initial functions. It's an exciting moment that we're determined to build upon by coming to understand more fully what CADIE's emergence might mean, for Google and for our users. So although CADIE technology will be rolled out with the caution befitting any advance of this magnitude, in the months to come users can expect to notice her influence on various google.com properties. Earlier today, for instance, CADIE deduced from a quick scan of the visual segment of the social web a set of online design principles from which she derived this intriguing homepage.

Sure it starts with cute Panda Bear Myspace pages but I think we all know where it ends.  Nuclear armageddon.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 03:05 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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