Vice President Joe Biden spoke out forcefully against the Iranian government Tuesday at the Rabbinical Assembly Convention meeting, saying actions taken by the Obama White House were preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. But the Romney campaign was quick to disagree.

Military assistance, coupled with financial and oil sanctions passed by the U.S. and the European Union, would cripple the Iranian economy, Biden promised.

“When we took office, let me remind you, there was virtually no international pressure on Iran. We were the problem,” Biden said. “We were diplomatically isolated in the world, in the region, in Europe.”

Biden continued, “We were neither fully respected by our friends nor feared by our opponents. Today is it starkly, starkly different.”

The other side of the aisle struck back at Biden’s comments, with GOP presidential candidate and presumptive nominee Mitt Romney’s Policy Director Lanhee Chen calling foul on the placement of blame, and stating the vice president’s words were “wrong and completely inappropriate.”

CONTINUED at CNN. Video at link.

After Dharun Ravi was convicted of “bias intimidation” crimes that carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison, many people wondered why he had rejected a plea deal that would have kept him out of jail. Ravi’s lawyer explained that the 20-year-old defendant’s parents “didn’t believe their son acted with hate, or bias, and they didn’t want him labeled like that for life.” But it turns out you can be convicted of a hate crime without hating anyone, which only compounds the injustice of laws that punish people for their bigotry.

The jury acquitted Ravi of trying to intimidate his roommate at Rutgers University, Tyler Clementi, on September 19, 2010, when Ravi briefly used a webcam in his dorm room to watch Clementi kiss another man. But the jury nevertheless concluded that Clementi, who killed himself three days later for reasons that remain unclear, felt intimidated and “reasonably believed” he was targeted because he was gay. Under New Jersey law, that was enough.

To convict Ravi of this unintentional, hateless hate crime, the jury had to infer Clementi’s state of mind and conclude that the circumstances justified it. Those elements have reasonable doubt built into them in case like this, where the victim cannot testify and no one else knows what he was thinking. “We’ll never know exactly what he was feeling,” one juror conceded. “I can only assume.” Our system of justice demands more than that.

We do know, based on Clementi’s instant messages and posts, that he initially dismissed what he called Ravi’s “five sec peep” but upon reflection was angry, especially since Ravi had tweeted about it. Two days later, Ravi told his Twitter followers the same man was visiting Clementi again and dared them to watch.

The second viewing never happened, apparently because Clementi unplugged Ravi’s computer. He also applied online for a room change, complained to a resident adviser, and repeatedly checked Ravi’s Twitter feed. Still, the fact that Clementi had sex again in the same room suggests he was not exactly intimidated.

The jury concluded that the aborted second viewing was a deliberate attempt to intimidate Clementi “because of [his] sexual orientation.” Yet the prosecution’s own witnesses testified they had never heard Ravi, who was not shy about expressing his opinions, disparage gay people or Clementi.

CONTINUED at Reason. Written by Jacob Sullum.

Dozens of House and Senate Democrats are urging federal regulators to implement limits on speculative trading in energy futures markets that the lawmakers call a major factor behind the run-up in gasoline prices.

A letter Monday to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) from 23 senators and 45 House members underscores how gas prices have soared to the top of the political agenda on Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

“It is one of your primary duties — indeed, perhaps your most important — to ensure that the prices Americans pay for gasoline and heating oil are fair, and that the markets in which prices are discovered operate free from fraud, abuse and manipulation,” states the letter from lawmakers including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) and Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.).

The March 5 letter to the CFTC bashes the regulators for failure to implementrules finalized last October that establish “position limits” on the amount of futures and swaps contracts for oil and other commodities that traders may hold.

CONTINUED at The Hill.

Panic is in the air as gasoline prices move above $4.00 per gallon. Politicians and pundits are rounding up the usual suspects, looking for someone or something to blame for this latest outrage to middle class family budgets. In a rare display of bipartisanship, President Obama and Speaker of the HouseJohn Boehner are both wringing their hands over the prospect of seeing their newly extended Social Security tax cut gobbled up by rising gasoline costs.

Unfortunately, the talking heads that are trying to explain the reasons for high oil prices are missing one tiny detail. Oil prices aren’t high right now. In fact, they are unusually low. Gasoline prices would have to rise by another $0.65 to $0.75 per gallon from where they are now just to be “normal”. And, because gasoline prices are low right now, it is very likely that they are going to go up more—perhaps a lot more.

CONTINUED at Forbes.

Egyptians ranging from soccer fans to lawmakers blamed the country’s military rulers for a bloody post-match riot Thursday as anger mounted over the failure of police to stop the violence when a narrow stadium exit turned into a death trap in a seaside city north of the capital.

A network of soccer fans known as Ultras vowed vengeance, accusing the police of intentionally letting rivals attack them because they have been at the forefront of protests over the past year, first against former leader Hosni Mubarak and now the military.

Thousands of protesters converged on Cairo’s Tahrir Square – the epicenter of the uprising that ousted Mubarak last year – carrying the red flag of the city’s Al-Ahly soccer club and the national banner. They then marched to the nearby Interior Ministry to protest the police inaction and call for retribution for the 74 people who died in the world’s worst soccer violence in 15 years.

The protesters raised flags of Al-Ahly and Zamalek, another top team with its own Ultras group, and Egyptian flags. Some held black banners reading: “Mourning.”

Survivors and witnesses described people falling from the bleachers and other scenes of chaos after as fans from the local Al-Masry team in Port Said chased supporters of the visiting Al-Ahly club with knives, clubs and stones. Hundreds fled into the exit corridor, only to be crushed against a locked gate, their rivals attacking from behind.

“The lights went off. The doors of the corridor were locked and sealed with a chain,” said Sayyed Hassan, 22, who suffered a broken leg. He sat on the pavement with other mourners outside the morgue in Cairo, where many of the dead were taken.

“We weren’t able to get out. I don’t remember anything else,” he said, adding that he had lost his 25-year-old friend in the stampede.

The riot at the stadium in Port Said erupted when Al-Masry fans stormed the field following a rare 3-1 win against Al-Ahly, one of Egypt’s most popular clubs. Some Al-Ahly fans said they had hung banners making fun of Al-Masry supporters in Port Said before the game, apparently provoking the local fans to riot despite their victory.

Ultras who support Cairo’s Al-Ahly and Zamalek clubs have long been bitter enemies of the police who wielded wide-ranging powers under Mubarak-era emergency law. The fans’ anti-police songs, peppered with curses, usually go viral on the Internet, an expression of the hatred many Egyptians feel toward security forces.

CONTINUED at the Huffington Post.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

I’m not going to sit here and type up some bullshit scare piece about how American society is ripping apart at the seams. However, I am going to point to the fact that the actions of our military and the words of several of our political elite in this country have come off as pretty disgusting the last few days. This has been a weird week full of strange happenings and none of it really paints a positive picture as to where this is all going. Tensions in Iran are at an all-time high and the truth is, we are at war, it just hasn’t been declared yet. I mean, between drone attacks, assassinations and secret sabotage attempts, what else would someone call it? Over in Afghanistan, tensions are also pretty high, if not even higher than they were a few days ago.

You see, two incidents have happened recently that are a bit unsettling. The first incident involves United States Marines pulling their dicks out and pissing on dead Taliban soldiers. Now while I understand that these dead men are pretty much dead dogs and terrorists, it doesn’t excuse this immature and classless act. A lot of people are really upset about this and there are also a good amount who are praising these servicemen for emptying their bladders on these slain bastards. Now while I am not a person who is easily offended by things, I do find this to be disturbing because of the message it sends.

Now I understand that war is hell and outsiders can’t necessarily put themselves in the mind frame of a soldier in the heat of battle but regardless of that, this is still inexcusable. When a man or woman wears that uniform they are representing all of us and to partake in such actions makes our country, as a whole, look like a bunch of assholes. It’s also going to just piss the Taliban off even more, as their dead are being disrespected. Granted, I could care less about showing them any respect but what this incident really does is it disrespects the United States and what it is we are supposed to stand for. This sort of behavior just paints a really clear picture of reality, that we are an evil empire toppling regimes and milking resources all over the globe. It’s obvious that this isn’t about fighting terrorism anymore considering that the guy we went in there to get, we got. Realistically, even though we just snuffed Osama bin Laden last year, it doesn’t mean that we didn’t lose sight of our purpose before that. In all honesty, I think our leaders were completely dishonest about the real reason as to why we went over there to begin with.

As for the soldiers pissing on dead people, I understand that they may have been high on adrenaline and disgusted by the evil fucksacks that they had just killed but if they are incapable of maintaining the behavior and decorum of an American man in uniform, then they need to be dealt with. In this case, they obviously weren’t able to do the right thing and not succumb to their sophomore antics. What these soldiers failed to understand, in the heat of the moment, is that America needs to be the country setting the example across the globe. If we’re going to preach all the things we preach to people, then what are they going to think when they see our military personal pissing all over their fresh kills. Just because the Taliban beheads dead American soldiers and parades them around in the streets, doesn’t make it right for us to disrespect them in a tasteless fashion. Truthfully, if you were to commit an act like this, you shouldn’t take pictures or video for fuck’s sake! On stupidity alone these guys should be court marshaled.

Needless to say, the Pentagon is pissed. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said:

I have seen the footage, and I find the behavior depicted in it utterly deplorable. Those found to have engaged in such conduct will be held accountable to the fullest extent.

Former Marine and U.S. Congressman Michael Grimm said:

This actually hurts me. This is painful. There’s no excuse for this ever happening. They were trained, and they know better, and they disgraced their country.

Former Army lieutenant colonel and U.S. Congressman Allen West said this in a letter to the Weekly Standard:

I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.

I agree with West, for a change, but do find myself at odds with his last sentence. The people don’t need to shut their mouth, they need to hold their leaders and their military accountable for their actions, whether he thinks that we can wrap our heads around war or not.

The point of all this is that when you are in the military you take an oath to serve and protect this country. With that oath comes the responsibility of carrying yourself in a certain manner, with a certain attitude and a certain set of principles. These four men who urinated on these dead Taliban soldiers did not carry themselves in such a way and should be punished for their actions. The world already sees us as a giant bully and now we’ve given them more reason to think that. In fact, we’ve probably ignited even more hatred within the hearts of our enemies and the repercussions of that could just be more of our servicemen sent back home in body bags as we continue on this pointless conquest.

All the pundits praising these guys are assholes. Then again, those same pundits want perpetual war in an effort to combat this fictitious “War on Terror”. These pundits are even praising the assassination of Iranian scientists as well, which brings me to my next point.

Just yesterday, an Iranian scientist was assassinated when men on motorcycles put a magnetic bomb on his car and detonated it. Several other people, besides this scientist, were injured in the blast. Now it is suspected that Israel was behind the attack, which means that the United States was involved or most likely knew about it. So, why was the scientist killed? Well, he was working on Iran’s nuclear program. Apparently, just because of that, he deserved to be murdered and the innocent people around him deserved to be maimed.

Now this attack wasn’t the first one like this. A similar assassination happened a few months back and that one took the lives of two people. Of course, the American mainstream media praised the attack and completely ignored the reality of the situation. With this latest attack, the mainstream media followed the exact same formula and condoned this action as well.

In fact, Sean Hannity on his radio show, just after the attacks, said:

Whoever is involved in the killing of these Iranian nuclear scientists, God bless them.. ..I wish we were involved.

You can hear him for yourself at this link.

So not only is Hannity condoning murder, he is condoning terrorism, YES terrorism. I guess where Mr. Hannity sits it is only terrorism when it is someone else doing it to us. How would he react if the roles were reversed and Iranians killed either Israeli or American scientists, not to mention innocent bystanders? Hannity and every mainstream shitcock like him would be outraged and calling for war! Hell, we’d hear about how the dead scientists were just patriots doing their duty for their country and now their children have to grow up without their mom or dad. When you flip the fucking coin, this bullshit is absolutely transparent and it is sickening! To steal an old overused cliché adage: what has America become?

I can’t just point the gun of reason at Sean Hannity, I’ve also got to point it at my favorite punching bag, the big bag of dicks himself.. Rick Santourm! Of course this piece of crap asshole had to open his mouth in regards to all this. Here’s what the bastard said:

On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that’s a wonderful thing, candidly. I think we should send a very clear message that if you are a scientist from Russia, North Korea, or from Iran and you are going to work on a nuclear program to develop a bomb for Iran, you are not safe. And people say ‘well, you can’t go out and assassinate people.’ Well tell that to al-Awlaki. Okay, we’ve done it. We’ve done it to an American citizen, so we can certainly do it to someone who is producing a nuclear bomb that can be dropped in the state of Israel or provides a nuclear shield for a country which spreads terrorism with impunity and changes the face of the world.

Hey, here’s the video!

God, I hate this guy. Santorum is so quick to fight abortion yet so quick to murder anyone he can paint as a fucking boogeyman and he does it while carrying the cross. This sanctimonious fucksack is the worst kind of evil and the fact that people would vote for this guy just blows my goddamned mind! The fact that the people in the room when he said this didn’t throw the closest objects they had next to themselves at Santorum’s head is a fucking travesty. Guys like Santorum, with comments like that, are just terrorists themselves. Rick Santorum will never let the crusades end, he won’t stop until he drowns in the blood of Islam as he is blinded by faith in a God he thinks he understands. The difference between Rick Santorum and the crusaders of the past is that Mr. Santorum is a fucking coward. He would never fight this perceived evil himself, he’d rather just send countless kids over there to die for his archaic vision and just like Sean Hannity, he would condone all acts of terrorism by our guys and our allies because we are on the right side of this bullshit holy war.

So while condoning all these evil deeds, these guys keep trying to sell us on the idea that Iran is either building a bomb or already has one. Funny, considering Leon Panetta was caught on tape admitting that Iran has no immediate plan for nuclear weapons. That came directly from the mouth of our Defense Secretary yet these establishment conservative cockpuppets continue to ignore facts and preach insanity. These are the same vile dickbags that are high-fiving each other over soldiers pissing on terrorists, even if they don’t publicly support that action. The fact is, we’re a nation lead by and preached to by cowards who would never pick up arms themselves. Fuck these cockroaches.

To be frank, America’s behavior is becoming deplorable in the realm of the military, politics and the media. At least there are us sane people that can see through this sort of bullshit and not succumb to its influence. Then again, guys like O’Reilly and Hannity have consistently high ratings and the attendance at patriotic organizations like Tea Party events has been overtaken by Fox News drones and Newt Gingrich supporters instead of real constitutional conservatives and libertarians who are willing to look passed party politics and promote liberty. I guess I have to wait for that third group to emerge that bridges the gap between the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement and is strictly made up of the best from both groups not the joiners and sycophants. I don’t think this country can wait on that however.

Now I know that this is probably coming off as negative but I do think that there are enough of us that see the forest for the trees. In fact, I know that our numbers grow by the day and even if we have to ride out this storm awhile longer, we are still going to come to a point where enough is enough and the sort of actions and rhetoric that taint the image of our unique society will no longer be effective. The mainstream media and the horrible politicians and the bully military will no longer have a hold on the free minds of the public and they will lose their power. “Live free or die” used to mean something and even if it seems like some overused throwaway slogan from a few hundred years ago, the truth in those words will mean something incredibly significant again.

TEHRAN, Iran — Two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to the car of an Iranian university professor working at a key nuclear facility, killing him and wounding two people on Wednesday, a semiofficial news agency reported.

The attack in Tehran bore a strong resemblance to earlier killings of scientists working on the Iranian nuclear program. It is certain to reinforce authorities’ claims of widening clandestine operations by Western powers and allies to try to cripple nuclear advancements.

The bomb killed Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a chemistry expert and a director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported. Natanz is Iran’s main enrichment site, but officials claimed earlier this week that they are expanding some operations to an underground site south of Tehran with more advanced equipment.

Witnesses told Reuters they had seen two people on the motorcycle fix a bomb to the car.

“The bomb was a magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for the assassination of the scientists, and is the work of the (Israelis),” Fars quoted Tehran’s Deputy Governor Safarali Baratloo as saying. “The terrorist attack is a conspiracy to undermine the (March 2) parliamentary elections.”

‘Our path is irreversible’
Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said the country’s nuclear path would not change despite the killing, which it branded a “heinous act”.

CONTINUED at MSNBC.

From a rational perspective, joining a protest rally is like voting: a complete waste of time. The odds that your voice or your protest sign will make a difference are no better than the odds that your vote will change an election. Yet people do join protests, and people do vote. They do these things not to advance their rational self-interest but to express moral passions and moral identities.

In Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, home base of the Occupy Wall Street movement, a noisy, festive crowd of hundreds was doing just that when I stopped by on October 8. In an attempt to make sense of the goals and motivations of the protesters there, I brought along a small camera and Moral Foundations Theory, which I developed with psychologists at the University of California at Irvine (Pete Ditto), the University of Chicago (Craig Joseph), and the University of Southern California (Jesse Graham, Ravi Iyer, and Sena Koleva). This theory, which is based on ideas from the anthropologist Richard Shweder, outlines six clusters of moral concerns—care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation—upon which, we argue, all political cultures and movements base their moral appeals.

The foundations are like the taste receptors on the tongue: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savory. Each culinary culture creates its own unique cuisine using some combination of these tastes, including elements that lack immediate appeal on their own, such as bitterness. Similarly, each political movement bases its claims on a particular configuration of moral foundations. It would be awfully hard to rally people to your cause without making any reference to care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority, or sanctity.

My colleagues and I found that political liberals tend to rely primarily on the moral foundation of care/harm, followed by fairness/cheating and liberty/oppression. They are very concerned about victims of oppression, but they rarely make moral appeals based on loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, or sanctity/degradation. Social conservatives, in contrast, use all six foundations. They are less concerned than liberals about harm but much more concerned about the moral foundations that bind groups and nations together, i.e., loyalty (patriotism), authority (law and order, traditional families), and sanctity (the Bible, God, the flag as a sacred object). Libertarians, true to their name, value liberty more than anyone else, and they value it far more than any other foundation. (You can read our complete research findings at www.MoralFoundations.org.)

So what is the mix of moral foundations at Occupy Wall Street (OWS)? In my visit to Zuccotti Park, it was clear that the main moral foundation of OWS is fairness, followed by care and liberty. Loyalty, authority, and sanctity, by contrast, were very little in evidence.

Fairness/cheating

The psychological meaning of fairness is proportionality. Human beings have been engaging in cooperative enterprises for hundreds of thousands of years, and we are now vigilant for signs that anyone is taking out more than he is putting in. We really hate cheaters, slackers, and exploiters. By far the most common message I saw at OWS was that the rich (“the 1 percent”) got rich by taking without giving. They cheated and exploited their way to the top. As if that were not bad enough, we the taxpayers then had to bail them out after they crashed the economy, and so now they really owe us for saving their necks. It’s high time they started paying what they owe (see photos 1 and 2).

CONTINUED at Reason. Written by Jonathan Haidt. Lots more pics of signs at link.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Lately, talk show hosts, politicians and know-it-all politificionados have been in an uproar over the political rhetoric that is used against one another. These pimps of political correctness and sensitivity are boo-hoo-hooing over the fact that anything that can somehow be related to combat, guns or war simply has no place in political rhetoric. What these tear-soaked turd munchers fail to realize is that we’re a pretty toned down society compared to where we once were. That doesn’t matter to them though because they don’t really study history, they just blow unjustified and inaccurate claims out of their tired lame rosy asses. They are calling for an “era of civility” just like in the days of yesteryear. It’s time to man up and face reality kiddies!

Introduction:

The Giffords shooting brought all of this out into the forefront. Every libtard maroon from the Beltway to Dagobah was in a bitch and rant session about how evil Sarah Palin was for having crosshairs on her website, even though liberal campaign king Bob Beckel admitted to inventing the crosshairs imagery for “targeting” districts back in the 1990′s. Of course the liberal websites that used that symbolism are not under fire because it is the conservative side of the line that is evil. Never mind that the fucking kid was a psycho shitbag that didn’t even have a real political ideology that made a lick of sense. But the conservatives are to blame because liberals are perfect. I’m a libertarian by the way, but libsnots lump us in with the conservatives because they don’t pay attention to anything other than making unicorns with their own poop.

Anyway, my rhetoric here is salty, I hope I’m not “shooting” myself in the foot already. I wouldn’t want to prematurely go to “war” with anyone who may have me in their “sights” before I can fully “hit” my point with the accuracy of a “sharpshooter”. I don’t want to get involved in a “crossfire” debate or anything over my rhetoric. I’m trying to tone it down here without “taking shots” at anyone specific, as I don’t want that to be interpreted into my calling for violence against a specific “target”. I think I’m failing at this already. Maybe I should “reload” and start over. Shit, I can’t get away from it!

Point is, this talk of how people should talk is fucking retarded. I’m not talking Leo DiCaprio in ‘Gilbert Grape’ retarded, I’m talking all out completely redonkulous people that listen to Black Eyed Peas retarded! Get the fuck over it homies and move on! Stop pointing the finger at everyone other than the dude that did the evil deed. Jared Loughner is responsible for the shooting not Sarah fucking Palin and Glenn assclown Beck! Muthafuckas is always looking for someone to blame besides the one who is to blame.

Now apart from my four paragraph rant, I want to show these libsicles why we are much more civilized than previous eras in this country. We aren’t on a path towards destruction in regards to our language, symbolism and expression. If anything, we’ve come a hell of a long fucking way than where we were in the days of our Founding Fathers. You think those cats were civil? Well then you must be smoking angeldust and rubbing heroin on your gums. Let me tell you about a crazy muthafucka named Aaron Burr, who was one of our many Founding Fathers.

CONTINUED at Original Post.

*Taken from Newsbusters. Video at link.

Colin Powell on Sunday blamed the media as well as the Tea Party for the divisive political tone in Washington.

Not surprisingly, neither the class warfare stoked by President Obama and his Party nor the resulting Occupy Wall Street movement was mentioned during this seven minute interview with Christiane Amanpour on ABC’s This Week (video follows with transcript and commentary): VIDEO AT LINK.

CONTINUED..