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Justice Department opens probe into Jeffrey Epstein plea deal

France: opening a can of worms ...

J'ai aussi été harcelée par la ligue du LOL pendant des années. Leur dernier fait d'arme est toujours en ligne, et il est punissable d'1 an d'emprisonnement et de 45 000 euros d'amende. (Y a prescription.) (_link) J'ai vos noms, mecs. J'oublie pas.

— Florence Porcel (@FlorencePorcel) 8 February 2019

○ French 'boys' club' of journalists accused of bullying women online | The Guardian |

'Sapere aude'

After getting a rundown on how the car works and what all the different buttons on the touchscreen controlled, I reached for the Tesla icon on the home screen. From there I knew I could slide open the hidden tricks and games, including the newest app: Emissions Testing Mode, aka "fart mode."

Sure enough, I could control which seats in the ironically emissions-free vehicle gave out a loud, noxious toot. Impressively, the farting noises really did sound like they were coming from the front passenger seat or the back seat. There's a drop-down menu of fart sound options, all named for inside jokes and nods to other Tesla CEO Elon Musk ventures and interests.

One of the seven fart options, Ludicrous (named for the all-out setting on some Tesla vehicles that can send the car practically flying), was the best. That emission option was perfectly juicy, but realistic -- all while still staying in the humorous realm. It never got too disgusting. And (for now) it's an odor-free experience, so it's more than tolerable. If you can't decide which fart you like best, there's an option for random gassing.

You can also set the farts to go off every time you use the turn signal, which is peak ridiculousness.

If Tesla ever goes belly-up, we now know why.

The problem is our national Fuck-Up forgot to have a Mexican communist burn down the Capitol Building first.

At the moment it seems the outcome will be a bit of kabuki where Congress overrides the decree with a majority vote, Trump vetoes the bill, and Congress is unable to muster a 2/3 majority to override the veto.  

The only alternative is for some GOP Senators to vote for the Rule of Law.

Don't hold your breath.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Putting an Adam Smith quote over AOC and dropping it into a libertarian right group is the fastest way to prove that even libertarians have no idea what they stand for. pic.twitter.com/3V5RIMo5Y3

— Aayla (In English, По-русски) (@PunishedAayla) February 16, 2019

That's why the 2010s have been so jarring across the west. People in power keep saying things like, My preference would be for tens of thousands of people to drown yearly in the Mediterranean, then commentators interpret & explain that really, it means poor people value identity.

— Flying_Rodent (@flying_rodent) February 15, 2019

Never related to something so much. pic.twitter.com/BKySzsvIqn

— yara (@iStanAristotle) February 18, 2019

Der Austritt Großbritanniens aus der EU ist beschlossene Sache und soll im März 2019 vollzogen werden! Aber das Ringen um Formalien und die konkreten Umsetzungen halten an und zögern den tatsächlichen ,,cut" noch hinaus. Doch wie ließe sich der Brexit eventuell noch verhindern? Auch absurde Ideen sind hier erlaubt. Hilft möglicherweise eine kluge Intrige von Angela Merkel? Oder kommt der Widerstand gar aus den eigenen Reihen? Das sind zumindest mögliche Szenarien, die Regisseur Ulrich Proschka für eine Satire auf die aktuellen politischen Auseinandersetzungen entwickelt.

Amazing... pic.twitter.com/brf87D2t3J

— Scene & Heard (@SaHreports) February 15, 2019

It's a cliché that the government builds "bridges to nowhere" that the private sector never would build. That's true. And it's a credit to the public sector. Bridges to nowhere are what turn nowheres into somewheres. We need many, many more bridges to nowhere.

Presumably this sort of thing will come to an end with Brexit.

Lately we have seen numerous conservative commentators posit the thesis that the Democrats are disqualifying themselves from a 2020 presidential victory by lurching too far left on key economic and social issues. The idea is that the American people simply aren't prepared to follow the Democrats into the leftist territory that seems to be their nesting place these days. Ergo, the party is in the process of ceding the White House to the incumbent Republicans, meaning a likely Trump reelection triumph.

This may be comforting to conservatives, but it is based on faulty political analysis. There is a strong prospect that 2020 will see the emergence of a new leftist president who represents democratic socialism of the European style--a brand of politics eschewed by America since at least the end of World War II.

"Some items in private collections [!] have already been returned but the bulk of the items are in public collections [!] within the UK and those cannot be restituted without an act of Parliament [!], and that is something that requires a big change in popular opinion and a bill has to be presented by members of Parliament," [Prof. Alula Pankhurst!] said last year. "This is something that cannot be done overnight."