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Or one of the biggest.  Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman was captured alive and without incident this morning by a join Mexican and U.S. operation.  I find that very surprising, considering there's been an effort to find him and shut down his cartel going on for about eight years that created a body count on par with a civil war.  Guzman rose to power from a low-level cartel enforcer by knocking off all the other middle guys, to become basically The Man of Mexican-U.S. drug trafficking.  While most suspect he's bought every law enforcer between him and the Mexican President, being a household name in crime and probably soon to be in American custody makes his chances at getting out of this with a slap on the wrist pretty remote.

I'm not sure how much anybody on this forum might care, but as an American who's seen parts of the Drug War firsthand (and posted a rant about it here many moons ago), I figured anyone with an interest in the drug world might consider it big news.

Since I've got that kind of time, in my random browsing I came across something interesting today.

For just the low low price of 720 Euros, you can possess a glove made of basking shark skin.  Basking shark skin is famous for being covered in barbs, so you might think, "That sounds like a badass weapon."  You'd be wrong, because the barbed side of the leather is on the inside of the glove.  With the barbs pointed inward.

Should you put your hand in, you will discover that the thorns, all directed to slant inward, will lock your hand in place in the manner of, ten thousand fishhooks.

Because nothing says 'commitment' like a glove that costs a small fortune and can't be taken off without very carefully slicing it to pieces or degloving your hand.

It poses the question, "WHY?"  The answer of course is, "When you've got that kind of money, lack of need for hands, and ennui to burn the real question is, why not?"

Tell me of decadence my friends.  Tell me of the most extravagant purchases you've encountered, or even better, the things you've bought just so you can say you bought it.

For the second time in about four months, my desktop computer has suffered a harddrive crash.  With a four month old harddrive.  And an uninterruptable power supply.  Needless to say, I'm a little steamed and have had and will have again soon some very stern words with my landlord.

In the meantime, I have a PC that needs fixing, and I fear it's condition has worsened.

The best theory I could come up with is that the computer's power box had been permanently damaged from being plugged into the main before getting the UPS, and had somehow continued to deteriorate itself or some other part under normal operation.  I bought a replacement power supply from my first theory, a Coolmaster GX 650w (the old one being a Coolmax 600w), because I know Coolmaster is supposed to be a good brand.

Possibly related, the harddrive that I bought to replace the last one doesn't actually fit anywhere in the case.  After buying it, I had it sitting on a block of wood on the bottom of the box.  It refused to boot if the drive wasn't in contact with the case metal, or something I'm not a damn electrician so I'm operating on observation here.

One thing I learned from this is that the computer will actually start without a harddrive present (that it would acknolwedge anyway), and only asks that one be plugged in.  Working on it now, I have found a way to properly screw it in, but it isn't actually resting on anything, just hangs there bolted by it's side screws.  I don't think this matters because of the newest issue.

With both the new power supply and the old one, with the harddrive plugged in and unplugged, with the UPS between the system and the main and without the UPS, the box refuses to start at all now.  When the power button is pressed, the system will start up for about half a second and then shut off for a few and then repeat until I unplug it.

At this point, it seems to be a motherboard problem, since that's the only thing actually being powered on.  But I really have no idea.  I would certainly like to recover that drive if it can be, and I'm getting damn tired of spending money on this thing.  I'm also beyond pissed that the exact same problem happened again with a surge protector, which means even a whole new computer might wind up with the same problem a few months down the road.  Once power problems are bypassing a UPS, I think anything might be fair game.

So yeah, anybody who knows anything about computer wiring please speak up and give me some ideas on what to do with this pile of almost-new parts.

EDIT: I'm also wondering if the UPS itself might be the problem.  It makes a buzzing noise whenever my external drive's adapter is plugged into it, and I noticed that my router keeps reseting every few days even though it was plugged into the UPS too.

What is the most beautiful word in the English language?  For me, there's no contest.

Vindication...

I have a handful of peeves that can really set off.  Physics not working the way I expect it too, waiting on something for no readily apparent reason, and waiting on something when the reason is other people's gross incompetence are all high among them.  And driving... Driving in traffic punches my buttons like a silverback gorilla who thinks he's being fed for it.  And it's with no small amount of pride that I've managed to temper my frothing rage at the way other people drive, but now I'm a nine-to-five drone like the rest of humanity, I am truly starting to wear thin.

And don't think I'm a hypocrite about it.  I don't blame people who jump between lanes or cut someone off, they're mad just like me.  And I don't blame people for driving cautiously either, believe me, I know I should too, and bless them for leaving a proper number of car lengths between the vehicle in front of them (since it makes it a lot easier for the assholes to get around).  And I don't blame any large vehicles or trailers, they have every reason in the world to be slow.

I reserve my blame for a couple classes of people.  There are those who drive unnecessarily cautious.  And they exist, don't try to excuse them.  There is no reason in the world to be doing twenty MPH under the speed limit, if anything you're putting yourself and others in danger.  But more than that maybe, who I really blame are the people who are clearly just not paying attention to what the Hell they're doing.  The people who don't have a set speed in mind, they just stick like glue to whatever car gets next to them.  Or swerve and slow down to look at shit on the other side of the highway.  Or change lanes leftward and then slow down below the prevailing speed.  Or slow down as if there were traffic in front of them, where it is abundantly obvious the traffic is only beside them.  In short, people who are clearly taking their cues from atavistic instincts regarding moving objects in their peripheral vision (or perhaps believing their car can drive itself), and not exercising any particular amount of rational consideration or forethought to their actions.

I plan every move thirty seconds in advance, because I know I'm sharing the road with an exponentially larger number of people who don't so much as consider their navigation even after they're doing it.  And when I'm inevitably stuck in bumper to bumper traffic with obstructions in sight, I find myself pondering existential questions.

Why is the left lane always the first one to stop, when by definition there is no merging traffic there?
Can people lose their sense of object permanence after infancy?
When one is caught in traffic, is not "proceeding when the car in front of you does" automatically your main priority?
Why is that every time I change lanes, the lane I get into is the one that stops next?
And am I the only motherfucker on this highway with a vested interest in arriving at their destination?

Somewhere in the simmering rage that I build in my cab, I developed a theory.  That there are actors out there - Big Oil, The Police, George Soros, The Guvmint, Oprah Winfrey, The Majestic XII - for whom rampant traffic congestion is in itself desirable.  That there exists a concerted effort to create freeways full of automobiles, idling along at walking pace.  Above and beyond a small but real brand of people who just enjoying fucking up other people's days by being obnoxious.

My commute today provided some interesting object lessons on both ends of the scale.  My bread and butter these days is the Dallas North Tollway, a publicly-funded Chinese-owned American Autobahn where they invented the technology of eliminating the booths and just sucking their fare straight out of your bank account.  I'm even lucky enough to be going against the main flow of traffic, headed outbound to the suburbs in the morning and returning downtown in the evening.  The drive would take about twenty-five to thirty minutes at the posted limit of 70MPH - it never takes less than fifty.  This morning in particular saw a five mile long jam where on more than one occasion all three lanes came to a dead halt for the better part of a minute.  The kind of jam that makes me say things like, "There better be a dead body at the end of this line, so I know we're here for a good reason."

The reason: A bag of cement mix had fallen into the road, creating a gossamer thin dustcloud where two highways merged.  I'm aware of the theory of "phantom traffic", where ordinary behavior can ripple backwards to create nightmare congestion, and you can see the ripple effect from hilltops.  But I've always said that every jam is somebody's fault.  These somebodies made themselves known at the cloud.

Type 1, The Good People: Those who, upon achieving open road ahead, apply a controllable amount of acceleration and stay in one damn lane as they approach the posted speed limit.
Type 2, The Assholes: Those who, upon achieving open road, immediately hit eighty-eight miles an hour in an attempt to warp back in time to when they weren't late.
Type 3, The Problem: Those who, upon achieving open road, take a solid minute to recognize it before removing their foot from the brake, try to decide which lane they need to be in, and attempt to reach prevailing highway speed through engine-idle alone.

(You can guess by now which group I belong to.)

But it was the drive home that gave had me shouting for joy.  There are three areas along the return drive that are always congested, and I can mostly understand why.  It's the exits that are the problem, exits onto other thoroughfares that will be narrowed to one lane by construction until 2025, or onto town street intersections where the space between the highway and the (poorly timed) red light is no where near large enough to hold the volume of traffic.  As stated, these created jams in the left lane because slow objects to your side apparently mean you're supposed to go slow too, no matter what.

Except for today.  Same time as always, all the same piles of cars trying to get off on a few exits, even a major accident on the other side of the road.  And I never had to drop below 60.  Until I got to problem area number three, and that's where I saw... them.  The traffic was thick but it was moving, and it was moving side to side.  When I got into the pack, I noticing the issue: everyone swerving around and passing about a dozen cars who were doing around 30MPH (on a 70MPH tollway) with only empty space in front of them.  Some of them tried to stay near each other, lining up two or three abreast and slowing down in concert until forced apart by circumstance.  A few even tried to fight about it, speeding up when passed to get back in front of people and then slow down again.  I weaved my way through to a big fat nothing on the other side, promising sacrifices to Mercury in thanks for someone dropping the ball over at the Department of Causing Fucking Traffic.

I finally found them.  They exist.  A class of people who have dedicated their lives, by employment or philosophy, to making the rest of the world waste time.  They're real, and I can prove it, goddammit.  I told you mom, I told you Internet, I told you Judge Riley, there really are people whose only purpose in being on the road is to slow it down, and even if they might not be doing it consciously it's definitely an active effort.

I was fucking right.  I am vindicated.  There really was a gremlin on the wing.  And now, to tell the world...

The Results

Republican incumbents Wicker (MS), Heller (NV), Barrasso (WY), Bob Corker (TN), Orin Hatch (UT) reelected, joined by Flake (AZ) and Cruz (TX) retaining Republican seats.  One Republican pickup in Nebraska for Deb Fischer from the seat of retiring Democrat Ben Nelson.

Democratic incumbents Feinstein (CA), Carper (DE), Ben Nelson (FL), Cardin (MD), Debbie Stabenow (MI), Anne Klobuchar (MN), Claire McCaskill (MO) in a fiery race, Jon Tester (MT), Menendez (NJ), Gillibrand (NY), Brown (OH), Casey (PE), Whitehouse (RI), Cantwell (WA), and Joe Manchin (WV) reelected, joined by Murphy (CT), Hirono (HI), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Heinrich (NM), Tim Kaine (VA) and Tammy Baldwin (WI) the first openly gay woman in Congress retaining Democratic seats.  Two Democratic pickups for Joe Donnelly (IN), and Elizabeth Warren (MA) who is sure to be a very closely watched race.

Two "Independent" victories, with Bernie Sanders (VT) retaining his well-worn spot, and a surprise for Angus King (ME) who defeated two serious challenger for Olympia Snowe's vacant seat, running on the promise of breaking the filibuster rules in the Senate.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives went from 242 Republican / 193 Democrat to a number so incredibly similar I'm not going to wait around to update it.

Exit polling showed that the largely Democratic arguments about income disparity, preserving the social welfare system, and your various "equality" issues largely led the day, along with average-person support for things like the auto-industry bailout and the President's response to Hurricane Sandy just a week before the election.  Voter turnout was bigger than almost anyone expected, with people under 30 making a slightly larger proportion of the electorate than they even had in 2008.  Meanwhile, the House of Representatives stayed exactly the same, proving the old adage that most voters might want to throw the bums out, but almost never their own bums.

Well, it was another one for the history books, and proof that all the money in the world can only do so much for a challenger.  It will make and break rules and be studied for a generation.  It was a wild ride, and now it's all over but the crying.

So long, and thanks for all the memories.  See you next time around folks.

Please enjoy the rest of the OP, a nice little time capsule from early March when the Republican primary was still underway but pretty well locked.  Stay in touch Romney, we'll miss you.

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The greatest and most powerful country in the history of the human race (that's America btw) is head over heels into its contest for who will be the next Leader of the Free World.  This is going to be a very old thread by the time it's closed.  Likely, it will abandoned for a few months between the end of the votes and when Mitt Romney picks a Vice candidate.  An informed electorate is the key to a healthy democracy and all that jazz, so Americans and the world ought to have some idea of who's in the running to next be the most powerful person on Earth.  So without further ado...


Obviously, this mostly concerns the Republican Presidential nomination, since the Democratic candidate is kind of a lock; not that I'll exclude any noteworthy third-party candidate either.  2012 has proven to be a bit more contentious that the 2008 Republican primary was, because the national Republican party switched from a winner-take-all delegation system to a proportional count, meaning every percentage in every state counts for a candidate, even as quite a few early states temporarily invalidated themselves by caucus systems and party rules.  It's still likely that one guy will have an obvious and growing lead before too long, but we can all hope some for entertainment.

For some godforsaken reason, the first primary up is Iowa, because it's the only thing Iowa has in life to feel important.  By January 3rd, campaign and political advertising spending records had been broken by an order of magnitude, mostly in the form of "unaligned" PAC money spent on Mitt Romney's behalf to discredit Newt Gingrich, whilst Ron Paul and Rick Santorum suddenly climbed in opinion polling.  Further wounding any credibility the Iowa caucus system is supposed to have for picking Presidents, the votes originally totaled after election night were not the "final" count - it took over two weeks for the state party to announce the results, because eight precincts (out of 1766) lost their ballots and never returned the home office calls.

New Hampshire followed on January 10th, for the exact same pageantry and criticisms.  Romney and Paul entered with commanding first and second places, making the state a contest for margins and a race for third between Huntsman, Santorum, and Gingrich.  Most notable for Santorum's poorly-received insistence on discussing the need for greater social restrictions in law, and the introduction of Romney's career as a venture capitalist being a point of attack for his opponents, especially "I like being able to fire people."

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley endorsed Mitt Romney back in December, putting one more log under her 35% Approval rating fire.  Senator Jim DeMint also predicted a Romney nomination without actually encouraging such.  Gingrich and Romney spent more money on ads than the entire 2008 South Carolina primaries combined, in Gingrich's case thanks to all of one donor.  With Romney's business history suddenly a point of contention, Fox News stepped up to defend him at all costs.  And one week prior, Jon Huntsman bowed out, pledging Romney his "support", not impressing Rick Santorum who had himself just received the endorsement of a national coalition of evangelical pastors.

In the week of January 15 to 21, South Carolina suddenly because the House of a Thousand Daggers, as perfunctory winner Mitt Romney who was set to win an unprecedented Triple Crown of the leading primaries found the world caving in on him.  Half of the Republican party named him the pariah of "vulture capitalism" while the other half said they were defending him on principle, not on substance; he gave some hilariously choked up answers about releasing his tax returns, before admitting he pays about 15% total, would not provide any more disclosure than the law demands, has a few mil stashed in the Cayman Islands just because, and considers $370k in speaker fees chump change.  Meanwhile, Rick Santorum won the coordinated endorsement of 150 evangelical pastors as the Anti-Romney, and was post-facto declared the "winner" in Iowa; Newt Gingrich received multiple standing ovations in debates for attacking the media after his second ex-wife gave a scathing interview about him and introduced the term "open marriage" to Presidential politics, and started rocketing in the polls as millions were dumped into his PACs; Stephen Colbert launched a "formal" run for President under the name of Herman Cain who was totes cool with it, and polled as the most likable candidate in the race; and Rick Perry finally got bored and resigned his race, endorsing Gingrich for some reason.

January 30th was supposed to be make or break time, especially after the business in South Carolina, but wound up swinging right back to early-race polling with Romney in a commanding lead.  In total, Romney alone (and his "unaligned" PACs) spent 50% more money than the whole Republican field did in Florida in 2008.  According to media watchers, 99.2% of campaigning airtime was given to "negative" ads, designed to discredit an opponent more than boost the title man.  And most of it was aimed straight at Gingrich, who still got a solid second place, but in Florida close doesn't count.  He vowed to fight on regardless.  Possibly the most telling exit poll of all: Santorum was ranked far and away the most "likable" of the candidates, but Romney ranked marginally more "electable" than anyone else, and you can see where they all went.  Negative campaigning at work?

Feb 4th was the Nevada primary.  This one will be a real test of organization, because after John Ensign, Jim Gibbons, and Sharron Angle, the Nevada Republican Party doesn't really exist anymore, just voters cut loose in the void.  Made for a largely uneventful blowout Romney victory, possibly but probably not by him personally accepting the endorsement of Donald Trump (New Jersey casino tycoon), trouncing Gingrich's backer Adelson (Vegas casino tycoon, go fig).  Also considerably lower turnout than 2008, following a trend of Romney winning states in 2012 with less votes than he got in 2008.

Feb 7th was supposed to be the first of the Super Tuesday multi-primary days, with Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri.  Except the Republican Party said if they held their primaries that early, they would be penalized half of their delegates.  This was the same thing that happened to ever prior state, but they just went with it (which is why South Carolina has fewer delegates than Alaska).  These three states still "voted", they'll just hold real caucuses later in the year.  Until then, it was purely a popularity contest which turned into a Santorum blowout, I mean a Santorum tidalwave, I mean an explosion of Santorum, I mean... You get the idea.  Keeps him in the race at least, when he finally convinced some conservative billionaire to pour money into his SuperPAC.

Feb 11th was Maine's primary... then shenanigans happened. One county postponed due to the weather and was told it wouldn't count, any county was invalidated after the precinct captain called in to report the vote and was told the vote was already counted, another was thrown out when the paper ballots and computer records showed mirror opposite totals for Romney.  Ron Paul, then everyone else, cried foul and demanded a recount.  The state pulled some hasty moves and got a new “fair” and transparent vote, counting up less than 1% of the registered voting populace.  And Romney still won anyway.

Feb 28 was Michigan and Arizona, with actual primaries awarding actual delegates.  Capping his legacy of fantastic campaign decisions, Senator John McCain endorsed Romney, and for other reasons (including Mormons) he was expected to win Arizona handily.  Michigan was the real contest - it's (one of) Romney's home state(s), his father was a governor there, and look at all that money.  Conversely, he's spent the last two years devising new ways to defend his opposition to the federal aid to the car companies back in 2009.  A week before the election, Santorum was on top in every county except Romney's house.  Then, in the way of Election 2012, Santorum started talking...

Then Wyoming and Washington held completely non-binding votes.  Hooray!  Stay tuned for the first Super Tuesday.



In case you're worried, yes this thread is certainly for more than just the Republican Presidential race.  There's just not much to say about particular House and Senate races until around September, except high-profile cases like Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts.

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Feel free to profile any of these candidates at your leisure, that's why the thread's here.  I'll certainly try to later on, depending on how many of them stay in the race.


And Then All The Republicans – In Alphabetic Order






Possible Other Guys – In No Particular Order

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And there's plenty more to discuss and add, which I invite all to do, and invite the many non-Americans here to comment and question.  Informational links are especially appreciated.  What will be the effects of unlimited anonymous corporate campaign spending?  How will world politics factor into the race?  What will the nation do as Congress essentially shuts down for a year of campaign posturing, as they're threatening to do?  Will Joe Biden say something hilarious in his one debate?  Stay tuned.

IMPORTANT: I know this is a politics thread, but let's try to have too many politic arguments, okay?  It's inevitable, but I'd like to keep everything civil here, and the horserace of electioneering is more than enough to keep everyone entertained without a firestorm of pointless ideological debates.  I'm driving this thread, and I'll turn right around if anybody starts pulling hair or throwing things.

Okay, it's time to seriously discuss this.  Anybody who's regularly online here has to have noticed that the rate of new automatic advertising accounts and threads has been wildly increased over the last couple months, compared to the past.  It's impossible to make hard numbers, since they're all deleted, but it's unmistakable.  There's even been a few cases of living human advertisers, and now there's rumors of people on Omegle and such trying to drum up a "troll Bay 12" movement or something.

Point is, the validation process we're using here is clearly easy to bypass.  I know the word-problem math thing and captcha code is supposed to help, but the three bots on the first page of General Discussion now all registered within the last day or so.  Perhaps it's due for the Adams' to consider some alternatives.


The only really effective one I've seen on a few forums is moderator validation of new posts, at least the account's first one or two.  It would certainly shut down the spambots, but of course is a pain in the butt for Toady and ThreeToe.  Then again, it's not really any more labor intensive than deleting ad threads anyway.

You hear a lot of weird ads on the radio when your commuting times are 10PM and 4AM, since they're ads specifically targeted at people who would have such a schedule and economic condition to be in a car by themselves at that hour.  Dating services and condoms, mostly, but weird drugs too, and this one really caught my attention.

America's favorite legal drug craze is "stuff that keeps you awake when you shouldn't be", as exemplified in craploads of energy drinks, now distilled into pure liquid awake shots and pills.  This ad in particular was for Nuvigil (as in New Vigil, opposed to your old crappy eight-hours-sleep vigil) marketed for people who work the graveyard shift; key ingredient / non-street name Armodafinil, a hardcore anti-narcolepsy prescription.  Okay, so it's speed you can buy with a doctor's note (since apparently you're supposed to dictate what medicine you want your doctor to give you), all good so far.

What blew me away was the side effects.  This being the 21st century, the "mandatory, trial-test possibilities disclosure" portion made up about 2/3s of the radio spot, awkwardly wedged between the sales hook and the sales pitch.  The public interest list doesn't do justice to what the actual ad decided to disclose: hallucinations, increased aggression, thoughts of suicide, total insomnia, muscle spasms and stiffness, yellowing of the eyes, sores and lesions, and general skin rash and peeling that can become life threatening in severity (see a doctor immediately).  "Nuvigil is not intended to replace sleep."

In other words, it turns you into an unnaturally decaying shamble of a human, who can no longer distinguish reality from nightmares in their blind rage.  Mark my words, the first time you hear a newscaster sputter their way through the word "zombification", you'll have Nuvigil to blame.

Sleep now?  Sleep never!  Sleep with one eye open.  That's Nuvigil, brought to you by the Umbrella Corporation (I guess).