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Yesterday, I was texting my friend. I have seriously cut down on my term of racial euphemism, but referred to a “black.” Was it racist? Sorta? Maybe.

But things got more hilarious.

At the very time I texted that, one of my black friends IMed me, and a black co-worker walked in on my friend.

There is, of course, only one logical conclusion that can be drawn from this: Black people can tell when someone is talking racist. No matter what.

It could be referred to as the “sixth sense,” the ability to have an uncanny sense of racism.

Theres an ongoing campaign to change whatever the current terminology is toward a racial minority into an unacceptable term. “a black” and “a gay” are starting to sound out of place because politically correct terms have been pushed on us so when they’re not used they raise suspicion from paranoid people and those people usually translate suspicion into certitude so – tadaaa – youza RACIST. and everyone can feel it through the thought-grid we’re all plugged into..

Coming soon: Actual Mind Reading?

Researchers demonstrated that the brain breaks down words into complex patterns of electrical activity, which can be decoded and translated back into an approximate version of the original sound.

Because the brain is believed to process thought in a similar way to sound, scientists hope the breakthrough could lead to an implant which can interpret imagined speech in patients who cannot talk.

Believe it, son…

By breaking down the conversation into its component sounds, they were able to build two computer models which matched distinct signals in the brain to individual sounds.
They then tested the models by playing a recording of a single word to the patients, and predicting from the brain activity what the word they had heard was.

The better of the two programmes was able to produce a close enough approximation of the word that scientists could guess what it was, from a list of two options, 90 per cent of the time.

Lyrics:

I am Broadway Karkat.
That means I’m the boss
When you’re in my Livestream
My word is law.
You will listen when I give you my orders,
Or the mods tell you to shoosh
Break the rules, and I’ll banhammer you!

Please don’t RP here
It confuses me
It tends to clog the chatroom
Which we then must clear
How about you guys take my advice
And make things easier on me
Also, don’t use bold text
UNLESS YOU’RE ME!!
Or one of my mods

By the way…
Don’t even think about testing my mods
They will fuck your shit up nicely
If you even so much as step out of line
I’m just kidding, we’re not strict,
These are in place for safety
I’d really love it love if you’d keep them in mind

Please do not:
Make any lewd comments in the chatroom
Directed at one of the voice actors
That panty-throwing joke was not funny
Just calm your tits fangirls, we will answer soon

Yes, I do take requests
But unfortunately
I might not get to all of them
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You are welcome to send me notes on Tumblr
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Share links with us to show in the Livestream
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The most important rule of my Livestream
Is for you nooksuckers to have fun
That’s why I set all my rules to music
So follow ‘em please, sit back, enjoy the show!

———-

BONUS: A barbershop rendition of “Go the Distance” from Hercules with some added verses:

Via the New York Times:

Netflix has regained almost as many customers as it lost following an unpopular price increase, signaling that the video subscription service is healing from its self-inflicted wounds.

Fourth-quarter figures released Wednesday show Netflix Inc. ended December with 24.4 million subscribers in the U.S., up from 23.8 million at the end of September. That gain of about 600,000 customers compares with the loss of 800,000 subscribers last summer after it raised its U.S. prices as much as 60 percent.

The uptick is a positive sign for Netflix after several months of upheaval battered its stock. The shares reversed course Wednesday, surging nearly 16 percent.

Harvard Business Review says Netflix will rebound faster than you think. Not faster than *I* think. I’ve been saying this since the un-subscribing nonsense started.

In fact, two new sets of data show that criticism over Netflix’s pricing moves has been overblown, and that the company is performing better than expected.

Netflix’s latest earnings data, out Jan. 25, shows that its pricing move didn’t hurt the company nearly as much as people thought. In the six months since the price increase, Netflix lost 405,000 domestic paid subscribers — not the 800,000 subscribers often touted, which included free subscribers trying the service out. This represents a 1.7% decrease in paid subscribers, which is meaningful if the trend continues but is not doom and gloom per se. Revenue per paid subscriber went up 11.9%. This was the first time revenue per paid subscriber went up since 2009, which is a good thing overall for the business. Quarterly revenue and contribution profit went up 10.0% and 15.4%, respectively, from Q2 to Q4 2011.

On the whole, the way to look at Netflix recent performance is that a more modest price increase (vs. the supposed 60%) led to double digit sales and profit growth with 1-2% volume loss. The most recent quarter actually showed a slight gain in domestic paid subscribers, reversing the negative trend.

One of the lessons of Netflix’s travails is that price increases are an exceedingly difficult process to manage. In a previous HBR blog post, we noted that nearly two thirds of categories/companies that raised prices recently saw sales and volume decline. This put Netflix’s pricing move near the top tier of category pricing moves out of more than 100 other categories. Most companies would declare this pricing action a success.

Some fun examples of this were on display recently on a Facebook post that I commented on which included mention of the downturn in the overall economy under Obama’s tenure. One of these things is the fact that when Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, the unemployment rate was 7.8% and today it is 8.5%. I didn’t say he is callously and purposefully acting as a crazed arsonist, destroying the American job market just so he can watch the world burn. I didn’t say he went around chainsaw-massacring small businesses in service to his Kenyan Keynesian Communist (the KKC?) masters as part of a plot to ruin all our lives. I just pointed out a fact and did so in the most reasonable sense possible: by comparing Obama’s start on the job to now – because a scammy way to do this would be to go back 2 months to election day in November of 2008. scammy because even though he was elected president in Nov 08, the dude didnt start the job until January 20th 2009, so that is the REAL start of his tenure. The unemployment rate was shooting upward in the last months of Bush’s term – conservatives say, because businesses were preparing to have the less-business friendly occupant in the Whitehouse as all the polls started trending toward an Obama win, but whatever – none of that matters because I cited inauguration day.

Anyway – long story short – a couple Obama-cultists couldn’t handle the implication of imperfection in their hero and flipped balls. Here are some highlights of the thread…

Most of the fire came from this Ziad fellow who insisted that I was making shit up to smear his Dear Leader.

Ziad
Your chart is BULLSHIT!! When Obama started in office, the unemployment rate was at 10.5% not 7.8%. It is currently at 8.5%..An improvement don’t you think? To make the long story short, most white folks do not want to see a black president in office any longer. I’ve known Romney since i was a kid. He was over at my parents place all the time, the man is a crooked person.

Richard
make some money, Ziad. i’ll match whatever you want (in real amounts. not zillionbillion). i’ll pay through paypal. or are you already googling AFTER you ran your mouth to find out that youre dead wrong?

Ziad
No one is spreading lies. Can’t handle the truth, huh? Btw, i don’t need to make any extra cash, i’m doing well financially unlike yourself:)

Ziad
Obama will rout Romney by a huge margin, getting large votes from sections of the United States where working class people are tired of the do-nothing Congress, controlled by do-nothing Republicans. How about the auto industry? If not for Obama and his auto clunker program, the Republicans would have allowed the auto industry to die a terrible death. The auto industry has made a dramatic recovery. Anything else, Richard? Class dismissed!

Richard
who said you needed to keep it? you dont know any charities that could use the money?

Ziad
Richard Bushnell is a racist!

Classy. I like the part where he says “no one is spreading lies” when he actually means to argue that HE is not spreading lies. The next part is too funny to copy&paste though. Only a screenshot will do it justice:

Clearly I lost that exchange… Although he deleted the comment that called me racist so it shows even he was ashamed of the stupidity of the accusation even though he wasn’t man enough to say it publicly.

I tried to get him to put up some money OR just admit that he Googled the January 09 unemployment rate and found out he was wrong, but alas, he would do neither. While using the “I don’t want to waste my time” excuse for why he wouldn’t bet me (ie: something that takes zero time), He kept commenting that I’m a loser and fool and that i’m just “too stupid to understand”. Ya… that was probably it.

He wasn’t ALL negative though: He said the following about why Obama is an awesome asset to this country:

Ya…about that… the bank bailout, also known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)… was done by Bush. It’s one of the big things the Tea Party was against and it’s true that Obama (and McCain) supported it, but it was still a Bush policy.

I’m posting all this to remind you that these people exist… They know nothing of what they passionately argue and bully others into agreeing with and facts cannot penetrate their steel bubble of faith. And it is “faith”, not only because the stuff he believes about the unemployment rate or who did the bank bailout is factually wrong, but because facts aren’t even a concern to people like this. Look at that comment saying “help is on the way” – completely ignoring that Obama has been president for 3 years, 2 of which he got EVERYTHING he wanted because his party controlled both houses of Congress (currently they control the Senate but the Republicans won back the House in 2010).

I was also really interested in this alleged inside-scoop he had about Mitt Romneys dirty dealings in addition to Googles false unemployment stat-records that they worked with the Bureau of Labor to fabricate just to deceive the American people about poor Barack Obama but Ziad wouldn’t divulge any such top secret info he wouldn’t stop insisting he has.

Then there’s this Lana person…

I’m 60% sure it’s a fake account but whomever is behind it, i’ll use the name and gender assigned to it anyway. Every time Ziad would call me a name instead of making an actual argument, she’d “like” the comment until finally breaking her silence by posting 3 comments defending Obama.

Problem? She plagiarized a Forbes magazine opinion piece i read several days ago so she could SOUND like she was weighing in when in reality she had nothing of substance to add…

I read a ton of news and politics articles every day and recognized the text in the comments from something I read recently… So I checked my history…

All 3 of the comments were pasted from the Forbes blog by Peter Cohen titled “why obama should be re-elected” — meaning that she read this comment thread “liking” the bullshit bullying and slander against me and wanted to join in but isnt informed enough on the issues to do so, so she literally googled “why obama should be re-elected” – clicked one of the results and copy & pasted the stuff that sounded good.

Check out Lana’s contribution to the discussion with the juxtaposition below.

Above are the only 3 comments she left in the entire thread. Below that is the end half of the above article she plagiarized. Ziad is of course the one who “liked” each comment.

The only thing changed was the addition of the substance free line: “Romney is no good for us”.

And this, friends, is what you get when you have people who have pre-determined that they will blindly endorse a Politician 100% in everything they do, no matter how effective they are or not and you are faced with numbers like this…

Jonathan Lipnicki is 21 now, but 90s kids know him as the little nerdy kid in Jerry Maguire, Stuart Little and The Little Vampire. Today, he’s ditched the glasses and added some muscles.

Here he is in 1996:

Here he is in 2011:

Just another reminder that people grow up.

(update) Highlight:

Newt panders to illegal immigrants. Romney says ENFORCE THE LAW.

Newt doubles down on pandering and says he wont bust in and deport grandmas.

Newt says Mitt Romney is the most anti-immigrant person on the stage.
Romney whomps back and OWNS. Says not to call someone you disagree with on immigration policy.

Romney calls it “repulsive” to call him anti-immigrant and demands apology. His father was born in Mexico and his father-in-law was born in Whales. He is not anti-immigrant just for supporting American law, douchebag.

My thoughts: Calling someone against illegal-immigration, “anti-immigrant” is like calling someone against shop lifting, “anti-capitalism”. Morons.

RT @AnnCoulter Newt using typically liberal (dishonest) lingo — opposition to amnesty for illegals is now “rounding up grandmothers.”

RT @AnnCoulter about “grandmothers” re: illegal immigration is like talking about rape & incest in argument @ abortion. HOW @ THE OTHER 20 MILL?

The grandmother argument is especially obnoxious considering it rests on the premise that “if you have grand kids you should be excused from law breaking”. Grandmother thieves, drug traffickers and murderers okay too, Newt?

RT @AnnCoulter Newt wants open marriages for Mexican grandmothers.

How is CNN getting past the FCC by airing such a bloodbath?? Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is killing up there. This posts new name: “The Boston Massacre”.

 ^actual photo of Romneys victims in tonights CNN Florida debate

Newt dodges question and says he won’t answer the moderators request that he clarify criticism he made against Romney about a Swiss Bank account Romney had. Newt says to move on to more important issues. The debate moderater then, amazingly, has to badger Newt into answering the question and defending his charge against Romney. Newt still refuses and literally shrugs the question off with a hand gesture. Romney PWN’s again and says “wouldn’t it be nice if people wouldn’t make accusations that they’re not willing to defend here”. Destroyed – Gingrich caves and says yes, he thought the Swiss Bank Account was shady. Romney schools him again and lets him know how blind-trusts work.

Newt Gingrich is either a shameless liar or he literally knows nothing about economic matters. Way less than me – I know what a blind trust is. Why doesn’t Newt Gingrich? Two times he criticizes Mitt Romney for actions going on in his blind trust when – BY DEFINITION – Mitt Romney is BLIND to the handling of the contents of the frigging trust. That is what it is.

Gingrich brings it up AGAIN, saying Romney didn’t know what was in his stock holdings – Romney interrupts saying “of course not – it was a BLIND TRUST”. What the hell is Gingrich thinking? Just relying on people being ignorant of what a blind trust is even after Romney just explained it to everyone? It would be ILLEGAL for Romney to know what is in it. That is literally the entire point: to appoint someone else to manage the contents of your assets specifically so the beneficiaries will have no knowledge of the holdings within the trust.

Gingrich is supposed to be the worldly, big-ideas, historian intellectual and master debater who would cream Obama in a debate if given the chance, yet he can’t even dent Mitt Romney. Why is he still saying Romney should have directed the trust to “not do certain things”? Newt Gingrich is the former Speaker of the House of the united states. I am an improv comedian on the internet. Why am *i* the only one of the two of us that knows that the beneficiaries of a blind trust have no right to intervene in their handling?

Newt-pandermania to Ron Paul supporters: Ron Paul is asked about his health since he would be the countries oldest president ever and Paul said he’s in tip top shape and challenges any of the other, younger, men on the stage with him to a 25 mile bike ride in the heat of texas. Everyone laughs and Newt adds that Ron Paul would have no problem as president because Newt has seen how peppy he is at these debates. Reason it’s pandering bullcrap: Newt said he would not vote for Ron Paul against Obama. Mitt Romney, when asked the same question, said “of course” he would vote for Ron Paul instead of Obama.

Space question: Romney says he wants to bring corporate America and the defense industry together to form a national Space Program that would be worth the expenditure. Says he is NOT for a colon on the moon, referring to something Gingrich has proposed, saying it would cost billions to trillions and he would rather rebuild homes in America then on the gead dayum MOON. Right answer!

Gingrich’s chance of being GOP nominee down to 5.9% on Intrade. Started at 10.0% tonight.

Romney says Obama’s answers to fixing America’s insurance problem is like “Groundhog day all over again”. Excellent line! Spin on the Yogi Bera phrase “it’s like Deja Vu all over again” except now with a Bill Murray cultural reference. Nice!

Rick Santorum is playing it safe and not being a dick. Consequently he sounds less whiny. This is the first attack he’s leveled on the whole debate: saying that Obamacare is the same as Romneycare (false) and Gingrich supported the Obamacare & Romneycare mandate to buy insurance (essentially a tax on just being alive) for 20 years (true).

Romney is answering Romneycare accusations like a champ. I’m watching 4 different Romney-hating right-wing accounts on twitter completely flail and flame out. They’re melting down, unable to admit that the dude is owner whichever of their boys is up there.

HAHAHA. laughed out loud – Santorum gave a teeth gritted terse response to Romneys accurate distinctions between Romneycare in his home state and Obamacare, which Romney says is unconstitutional. Romney answers “first of all, it’s not worth getting mad about”. Essentially, the 2012 election has had it’s first “you mad” moment. AWESOME.

Question on why would your wife make the best first lady. Can’t wait for Newts answer!
Ron Paul is nice and mentions his wifes cookbook and their anniversary.

Mitt Romney, with the best answer, yet agin – says his wife Ann would bring compassion, especially to women in pain. Ann was diagnosed with Multiple Sclurosis in 1998.

Consequentially, so was Newt Gingrichs wife at the time (#2), around the same time. Not sayin Newt divorcer her cuz she got sick but… he divorced her when she got sick. Romney, the Mormon with less wives than the Catholic Gingrich, met Ann when he was 18 and married her in his early 20s and they’ve been inseparable ever since. Sorry folks – but that stuff matters sometimes. This is one of those times. Obama has a perfect looking family. It must be matched with an equally perfect looking one.

Newt Gingrich’s answer…

RT @AndrewStilesWFB: Gingrich leaving door open to appoint a new first lady, if elected.

RT @AnnCoulter Newt got married again during santorum’s answer.

Jk.
Gingrich said Callista would bring an artistic sense to the Whitehorse because she loves the arts, plays the french horn and sings…. um… ya. ok. awesome dude…
Rick Santorum says his wife is smart and pooped out a lot of kids (had 8. 1 died. raising 7). I guess that’s nice too.

Rest of the debate didnt matter. Romney obliterated these jokers. Santorum gave good answers and in another lifetime it would have been a great night for him. Too late. He’s going no where. Romney will win Florida, the primary and beyond.

Erik Erickson is on Red State. big Romney critic but can’t find anything bad to say about Romney so he just says Newt and Romney “hurt each other” tonight. lol. Nice try. Newt got sunk.

“see ya later, Losers”

If you missed Obama’s State of the Union speech last night – dont worry! It was no different than the ones he gave the last 2 years.

Step 1: Copy & Paste.
Step 2: add some current references so the masses dont get suspicious.
Step 3: win re-election for your soaring rhetoric on “hope and change”

It was also the 3rd year in a row that it was written at an 8th grade level.

The vast majority of State of the Union speeches were delivered in writing prior to FDR.

Each of Obama’s three addresses are among only seven of 70 in the modern era that were written shy of a 9th grade level, and among the six that have averaged less than 17 words per sentence.

Obama’s 2012 and 2010 addresses averaged 16.6 words per sentence with his 2011 address coming in at 16.8.

Other low-scoring addresses on the Flesch-Kincaid scale over the decades are George H.W. Bush’s 1992 address, Harry Truman’s 1951 and 1952 addresses, and Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 address.

Obama’s speeches are a continuation of a general pattern that finds as State of the Union Addresses have perhaps become more and more political, they have been written more and more simplistically.

With three addresses under his belt, President Obama has the lowest average Flesch-Kincaid score for State of the Union addresses of any modern president. Obama’s average grade-level score of 8.4 is more than two grades lower than the 10.7 grade average for the other 67 addresses written by his 12 predecessors.

Then again, with such accomplishments, who needs fancy language in your speeches?

But my prediction remains: It won’t matter. Obama will be all smiles and everyone will love him in 2012 just as much as they have the past 3 years.

FINALLY, a politician is willing to tackle the important pressing issues our time. An Oklahoma senator has introduced a bill that would ban “the manufacture or sale of food or products which use aborted human fetuses.”

To that end, his proposed statute reads, “No person or entity shall manufacture or knowingly sell food or any other product intended for human consumption which contains aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients.”

My own research suggests that Shortey may have noticed a boycott directed at PepsiCo, which since 2010 has worked with flavor research firm Senomyx to develop sweeteners and other flavorings.

Based in San Diego, Senomyx has been accused of using proteins derived from human embryonic kidney cells in its research, which has been used by many large food companies. An article in the Miami New Times summarizes those claims, notes the company’s denial of them — and also notes that in 2003, the company filed a patent for “recombinant methods for expressing a functional sweet taste receptor.”

Gawker has coverage of this story that you should go check out, letting you know which product are aborted fetus free and which may not be…