A.M. Links: Half of Guantanamo Bay on Hunger Strike, Ethnic Cleansing by Buddhists in Burma, North Korea Moving More Missile Launchers

• 

  KCNA/Reddit

  More than half of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are now on hunger strike.

• Facebook is reported to be building a $1.5 billion data center in Iowa.
• Residents of West, Texas are returning home after a deadly fertilizer plant explosion.
• The Taliban took nine hostages after a Turkish civilian helicopter made an emergency landing in eastern Afghanistan.
• Human Rights Watch says Buddhists are ethnically cleansing Muslims in Burma.
• North Korea apparently moved two more missile launchers to its Pacific coast.
• Russia warned the European Union against lifting the arms embargo against Syria in order to supply rebels.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

North Korea apparently moved two more missile launchers to its Pacific coast.

Someone's really overcompensating for something.

[Chloe]

I guess nobody has told the little fat man that everyone stop giving a shit about his tantrum last week.

[BakedPenguin]

Pacific coast? What coast does it have that's not on the Pacific?

[Ted S.]

Technically, it's one on the Sea of Japan and one on the Yellow Sea.

Of course, don't tell Koreans it's the Sea of Japan.

[Pro Libertate]

It's the "Sea of Northern Aggression."

[Virginian]

Mike Lupica: Idiot

http://www.nydailynews.com/new.....bled=false

[Night Elf Mohawk]

When you're often the dumbest guy on the Sports Reports stage, your ceiling is pretty low.

[robc]

I will take random Sports Reporter over random Op/Ed guy any day.

[Ted S.]

I won't. I find sports writers to be more politically correct and insufferable than even reporters in other areas.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

I find sports writers to be more politically correct and insufferable than even reporters in other areas.

Same here. Sports reporters are basically jock-sniffing nerds trying to suck up to the minority players they have to cover, and thus are terrified of saying anything that might be remotely construed as ethnically insensitive, even though their writing reveals they buy into the same stereotypes, by and large. See Peter King and Charles Pierce as the ultimate examples of the spineless SWPL sports journalist.

[Mickey Rat]

Oh, that's not true. Sports Pundits are inveterate concern trolls, but they will turn on minority sports celebrity who does not share their social justice obsessions. Tiger Woods, for instance, took a lot flak for not publicly supporting the campaign against Augusta National for not having women.

They are more concerned about their progressive politics then pandering to an individual athlete.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Lupica is a dessert topping and a floor wax.

[Chloe]

Yes, because people who are hellbent on killing other people are not going to get their weapons anyway possible. Fucking idiot.

[John]

So how exactly are "heroes" supposed to confront these mad men if they are unarmed? It seems to me the existence of such people as the Boston bombers argues for a well armed populace.

[Ptah-Hotep]

It seems to me the existence of such people as the Boston bombers argues for a well armed populace.

Sure John. And when the tuf gai Bostonians kill anyone who is darker that a Boston Ale bottle and/or has a Coexist sticker on their car; who you gonna blame? The only way to handle this is to quarter soldiers in their homes, that way the bad guys will never seek refuge there.

[Rich]

Stop giving them ideas!

[LTC(ret) John]

I'll be over in 30 minutes - I call the couch!

[Too_Big_to_Fail]

Gonna need to see a running estimate and a story board and don't you dare use Cupertino...

[John]

It is not like there is any danger of the cops just randomly shooting up vehicles in one of these manhunts or anything. That is the kind of stuff you get when citizens are armed not when professionals are.

[Ted S.]

who you gonna blame?

Ghostbusters!

[T]

Doesn't Ernie Hudson have enough problems?

[Lord Humungus]

that's a big twinkie

[hamilton]

he only way to handle this is to quarter soldiers in their homes

...aaaand there goes the last of the Bill of Rights down the crapper.

[JW]

It was already in the crapper, but still peaking out of the hole. It just needed that 2nd clearing flush.

[Cavpitalist]

Am I the only one who feels like the whole "asset forfeiture" system as it's currently setup is a a pretty good example of the modern application of intended protections of the 3rd?

I mean, it isn't soldiers quartering, but it certainly is the confiscation of private homes by the government for allegedly "war" reasons.

[dalewalt]

"After they had run out of bombs, they still had a fast-shooting military gun, and their two handguns."

Fast-shooting military gun? Uh... one trigger pull, one bullet, right?

[Virginian]

http://www.jammiewf.com/2013/a.....ewspapers/

KOCHTOPUS!!!!!

[VG Zaytsev]

"As we now know, these guys are Muslim,"... And so, as usual, any moment now we'll start to hear, 'Oh well, these are just lone wolves,' as Rush said. 'They're not typical of anything.'

Calidissident has been saying this already on H&R.

[Lord Humungus]

Mark Steyn: Media will downplay Boston bomber-Muslim link, same as Ft. Hood, underwear bomber
http://dailycaller.com/2013/04.....z2QwsIXMvY

[Palin's Buttplug]

What a load of shit. All I read is how the older brother became radicalized via Islam.

Is Steyn the gay Brit who fills in for Fat Rush on occasion? That would explain the fact-wrangling.

[Virginian]

He's not gay, and he's not British. Other then that you're spot on litle buddy.

[LTC(ret) John]

Andrew Sullivan is the ghey Brit.

[Palin's Buttplug]

OK, Steyn is the conservative who sounds like a Brit and talks about man-on-man sex all the time. Sullivan is a different conservative.

Got it.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Human Rights Watch says Buddhists are ethnically cleansing Muslims in Burma.

AND ON EARTH DAY OF ALL DAYS???

[LTC(ret) John]

Yes, they are honoring Gaia by cleaning!

[JW]

Ethnic genocide is the most carbon-neutral of all mass-murders.

[Brett L]

Isn't it Lenin's birthday, too? I'll bet he's looking on proudly from Hell.

[T]

Yes, because the murderer who started Earth Day deliberately started it on Lenin's birthday.

[Pro Libertate]

Huh. And just a couple of days after Hitler's birthday. Coincidence or global conspiracy?

[Trespassers W]

But Buddhism is a religion of peace!

[sarcasmic]

Looks like Megan Fox has been enjoying some cheeburgers.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....Green.html

[alittlesense]

She still looks pretty flippin' good...

[Atanarjuat]

Flippin'...burgers...ISWYDT.

[Virginian]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/.....le/2527754

More like this please.

[Pro Libertate]

I have to say that this type of response seems a little more common this time around. I'm not sure people are buying the need for more government--in fact, a lot of the success here can be credited to private citizens.

[sarcasmic]

Courtney Love is still disgusting.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....hella.html

[sarcasmic]

Mily Cyrus is turning into a boy.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....dding.html

[sarcasmic]

She doesn't touch herself anymore.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem.....rosis.html

[Brett L]

Too soon.

[John]

She was only 53. Very sad.

[sarcasmic]

Fat lady refused refund at tanning salon.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....efund.html

[sarcasmic]

Salt mine has its own mosque.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....ilway.html

[LTC(ret) John]

"Russia warned the European Union against lifting the arms embargo against Syria in order to supply rebels."

Wait, aren't these guys selling stuff like mad to whomever can funnel it to Assad? So their complaint is merely an anti competition/barrier to entry argument?

[Tim]

The AK-47 is the Coca Cola of assault rifles. They got to protect market share.

[Virginian]

http://pjmedia.com/drhelen/201.....sts-await/

Anyone who is in school or has school age kids needs to know this: if a crime has been committed never ever let the school handle it. You have zero due process rights, its basically a show trial. Whether victim or accused, demand that the crime be properly investigated.

[Jordan]

Unfortunately, the Dept of Education has still cleared the way for colleges to expel anyone accused of sexual assault with zero due process. Even if you take the matter to court, you are still fucked.

[John]

The whole idea that a school would handle a crime as serious as rape is insane. If someone really is guilty of rape, they need to go to prison, something the school can't do. Given that, what is the point of these boards? You can never properly punish guilty people. So all you will do is screw innocent people.

[Virginian]

Keeping this kind of thing under the rug so as not to embarrass the school. Punishing the guilty and protecting the innocent both pale in comparison to keep the school's name out of the papers.

[John]

Yeah, so one of two things is going to happen. Either an actual rapist will get off without a conviction and going to jail or an innocent person will have his reputation and academic career ruined by a kangaroo court.

[Ted S.]

I'm sure both will happen.

[mad libertarian guy]

I'm sure both will have happened.

FIFY

[Lord Humungus]

I Know why the Lame Duck Squawks
http://www.americanthinker.com.....uawks.html

This has not been a good week for President Obama. I think it will not be the worst week of this year or this term, which I predict will get worse as his own personality flaws and patently partisan strategies make his lame-duck term even more impotent than is usually the case.

...snip...
But I think it was more than stirring the base. The Daily Caller pegged it -- the president hoped that this wedge issue would deliver a Democratic House next year.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Just because Obama got beat on it doesn't mean he won't make it a major issue for 2014. His team is very good at saturating the market with their various messages around election time, so it won't surprise me at all to see a bunch of ads with solemn-faced kids asking, "Why do Republicans jeopardize the safety of children?"

[Lord Humungus]

How Urine Can Be Used to Make Gunpowder (and Other Interesting Pee Facts)
http://www.todayifoundout.com/.....4vRMp7R.99

see, Keisha (or whatever her damn name is), is just a scientist,

[Brett L]

Saltpeter used to be mined from old latrine sites.

[Ted S.]

It's pronounced "ke-dollarsign-ha".

[a better weapon]

Scientist?

.... or terrorist.

[NeonCat]

If they do not come to the correct conclusions there isn't much difference as far as some people are concerned.

[wingnutx]

You can actually make a high explosive out of urine, urea nitrate.

Didn't anyone else have the Army Improvised Munitions Handbook as a kid?

[Kaptious Kristen]

I'm excited to report that I became a gun-owning American yesterday! A nice pre-owned 410/.45 Taurus revolver, aka "The Judge" is happily ensconced in my closet.

I won't get to shoot it until mid-May, though the squeeze showed me about loading, unloading, locking, etc.

Now, what to name it? Either Drew or Judy. I guess I'll know when I fire it.

[Virginian]

Congratulations. You never forget your first.

Just remember, despite what some people will tell you, the .410 is not, even in some of the new advertised self defense loads, an appropriate defensive weapon. It simply lacks the penetration. The .410 is for snakes and other small critters, and you can blast clays out of the air with it , which is cool. But don't load it up with shotshells and keep it in the nightstand. The venerable Long Colt will do just fine on any goblin.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Yeah, we tried to get some .45 long ammo, but nobody had any. Even cheaperthandirt.com is out of stock on most of its ammo.

[Virginian]

Yeah....you kind of came to the party after all the beer and wings were gone.

I have exactly one box of target 9mm, and one box of JHP.

[Gray Ghost]

Oddly, our local Gander Mtn. only has on the shelves calibers like .45 LC, .460 SW, etc...everything else is gone. I can still find .45 ACP at WalMart, OTOH. I'm still kicking myself very hard for not jumping on a deal I saw for 1000 rds of the 230 gr LE Winchester load for 600. Beats the hell out of paying 1.65 to 2.00 a shot for Gold Dot or Buffalo Bore.

You might want to give these guys a try. They're still listing .45 LC ammo. Never ordered from them before though.

Congrats on the pistol purchase, Kristen.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Awesome, GG! Thanks!

[Kool]

Hickok45 on YouTube has a pretty good vid on the Judge shooting different 410 loads.

Be careful of Taurus-haters around here. 😉

OT, everyone: I'm awaiting my jury screening. Any suggestions?

[Virginian]

Taurus is fine for shooting around. I had a PT92 that would FTE or FTF every so often...but not a big deal because it was a range toy. For a carry gun or a nightstand gun, I would not trust it.

[JW]

OT, everyone: I'm awaiting my jury screening. Any suggestions?

Masturbate in the jury room. A lot.

[Kool]

Not much material to work with here.

[Gray Ghost]

Do you actually want to serve on the jury or do you want to be excused? If the former, keep your mouth shut and look attentive. If the latter, speak up during voir dire and have strong opinions. If you know any LEOs, point that out, along with statements that you can't think the guy's innocent. I mean, after all, they arrested him, right?

Basically, you're trying to demonstrate an honestly held bias that renders you unable to be impartial.

[Rich]

While reading a book on logic.

[LTC(ret) John]

Jury screening - tell the truth and you will most likely be thanked and excused.

[Kool]

I'm writing Jury Nullification on my forehead.

[LTC(ret) John]

That will do it. Well done.

[Brett L]

I don't hate it, it just doesn't work very well after only putting maybe 100 rounds through it. I just don't know enough about gunsmithing to know if this is an adjustable problem or the firing mechanism was cheap.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

I have the same impressions from my Taurus. I'll probably trade mine in for a Ruger in the near future.

[Ted S.]

I didn't realize the Taurus was still being produced.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Too bad Balko's book isn't out yet - reading that in a jury room will get you some eyeballs, I bet.

[Kool]

Well, I am reading reason on my phone.

[#HOLO YOLO]

In high school I lent one of my teachers Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters.

She was summoned to district HQ to sit on disciplinary hearing and brought it along with her without even thinking. Apparently it earned her some pretty funny looks.

[mad libertarian guy]

Thta's a good self defense carry gun for up close. Load a 410 shell as the 1st round (maybe 2), then fill the rest with some 45 colt.

At any range beyond point blank, the 410 will be next to useless against a motivated attacker. It is not a "there is a guy across the living room let me blast him with my scatter gun" kind of round.

[Virginian]

No, because penetration is key for defensive use. The .410 will not penetrate far enough into the body to inflict the damage you need. Not out of a handgun anyway.

It will cause a lot of superficial bleeding, but that doesn't stop the threat. What stops the threat is shots that deeply penetrate blood bearing organs inside the body cavity. The .45 LC can do that. The .410 cannot.

[mad libertarian guy]

That's why I would never use it past a guy being at fist fight distance.

[Virginian]

Even at that range, it's not going to penetrate where it needs to go. Not out of a handgun barrel.

[Gray Ghost]

Here's the Box O Truth's take on the Judge. Brass Fetcher only looked at .410 in shotgun barrels, unfortunately.

Cliffs:

1. The 3 inch .410 shells did slightly better than the 2 ? inch shells did. But most of them still failed to make the 12 inch minimum penetration standard. However, a few loads made the minimum penetration standard.

3. The longer barrel of the 28 inch shotgun made quite a difference in penetration. It seems that the short 3 inch barrel of the Judge is its main limitation.

4. Even at 7 yards, the pattern of the Judge is too wide, and will cause some of the load to miss a bad guy. Not only are you responsible for every pellet you send down range, but if they miss him, they do not Stop him.

[T]

Congrats! Welcome to the tribe.

[Brett L]

Congrats. May you never have to use it to protect yourself.

[Agammamon]

Don't fail to consider Wapner or Reinholdt!

[db]

Congrats! Those are fun guns to shoot. Even if you have no plans of reloading, keep all your spent brass (not the. 410). Someday you will be glad you did, either because you start reloading or oyyou can trade it to someone who does for swag.

[Lord Humungus]

Timothy P. Carney: Civil society, not Big Brother, is the American way
http://washingtonexaminer.com/.....le/2527754

"I do think we need more cameras," Republican Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said the day after the Boston Marathon bombing. "We have to stay ahead of the terrorists."

"We Need More Cameras, and We Need Them Now," blared the headline at Slate magazine.

As with every terrorist attack and high-profile killing, the Boston bombing has prompted calls for Americans to give up civil liberties for the sake of security. Rather than gun control or airport pat-downs, this time the call is for a Big Brother-like network of police cameras allowing authorities to more closely monitor people who move about the streets.

[Ted S.]

Paging generic Brand, cleanup on aisle 3.

[Ptah-Hotep]

In 1755 (Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, Tue, Nov 11, 1755), Franklin wrote: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Can't be said enough.

[Ted S.]

"I do think we need more cameras," Republican Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said the day after the Boston Marathon bombing. "We have to stay ahead of the terrorists."

Thus spoke the bagman for the IRA.

[Rich]

Good grief, Peter.

How many cameras do those terrorists *have*?

[LTC(ret) John]

Mr. President, we are facing a Camera Gap!

[Lord Humungus]

President warns Greeks not to take democracy for granted as poll shows 30% think life was better under junta
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4d.....013_495053

In a public message marking the 46th anniversary of the overthrow of Greece's democratically-elected government by a military junta, President Karolos Papoulias warned Greeks not to take democracy for granted.

His warning came as a poll for Sunday's Eleftherotypia newspaper indicated that 30 percent of Greeks thought "things were better under the dictatorship compared to today."

[LTC(ret) John]

"Eleftherotypia"

I thought they developed a vaccine for that some years ago?

[Lord Humungus]

it itches like a bear.

[Jordan]

How do you say "Top Men" in Greek?

[JW]

Topek Menopolis.

[Zeb]

Androi aristoi or something like that.

[Lord Humungus]

Build on the river, they said.

A story closer to me: Grand Rapids has been hit with some river flooding.
http://interactives.woodtv.com.....ng/lowell/

[LTC(ret) John]

"the president hoped that this wedge issue would deliver a Democratic House next year."

Instead of a Donkey House, it might actually deliver an Elephant Senate. Derp one for the WH.

[Rich]

It's a wedgie issue!

[Lord Humungus]

Divinyls Singer Chrissy Amphlett Dead
http://www.nationalenquirer.co.....hlett-dead

1980s pop star CHRISSY AMPHLETT lead singer of the DIVINYLS best known for "I Touch Myself" dead at 53.

She died in New York City after a long battle from breast cancer her hubby former Divinyls drummer Charlie Drayton by her bedside.

She revealed in 2010 that she had breast cancer, and she had also battled multiple sclerosis.

I prefer to remember her for this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73mx10GmFsU

[Lord Humungus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_gmGLLlJ3Y

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMSyumchMWA

[sarcasmic]

You're five minutes too late.

[Lord Humungus]

meh, my links are better.

[sarcasmic]

My caption was better.

[Lord Humungus]

I'll give you that.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Agreed.

[PS]

A tourist boss is threatening to sue weather forecasters for pessimistic predictions he claims are ruining his business.

[Enough About Palin]

More than half of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are now on hunger strike.

What difference, at this point, does it make?

[mr simple]

Sounds like a boon, what with the sequester and all.

[LTC(ret) John]

Maybe this is O!'s strategy to close the place - the inmates all starve themselves to death and he can close it.

[Drake]

So, is it torture to set a sizzling steak and some fresh baked bread down in front of them?

[Rich]

BACON!!

[Rich]

The Taliban took nine hostages after a Turkish civilian helicopter made an emergency landing in eastern Afghanistan.

Yeah, it's Turkey's turn to be in the barrel. They can't do any worse than the Soviets and the USNATO.

[Brett L]

This hits way too close to my professinoal experience. Unfortunately, too many companies reading this study will misunderstand their stupidity for "functional", rather than the actual dysfunctional bullshit it is.

[Brett L]

You win, today, irony.

[robc]

joez law

[Rich]

I just have to put in a plug for The Dilbert Principle.

It is a *great* book.

[$park?]

"Functional" is the key word here. Stupid works if you're smart enough to know when not to be.

The hardest part of all.

[Lord Humungus]

we had a saying: "Those who can't program, manage."

because the managers at the last programming house I worked at, were to the T, some of the worst coders around.

[T]

Leave me out of this.

[Numeromancer]

"Leave me ou of his".

[VG Zaytsev]

"Critical reflection and shrewdness" were net positives, but when too many clever individuals in an organization raised their hands to suggest alternative courses of action or to ask "disquieting questions about decisions and structures," work slowed.

The study's authors found that stupidity, on the other hand, seemed to have a unifying effect. It boosted productivity.

[Rich]

Toddlers becoming so addicted to iPads they require therapy

Sounds like *someone's* parents need a time out!

[Brett L]

Take the fucking ipads away. Go outside and push them on a swing. Problem fucking solved.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Better yet, don't give them one in the first place, and limit computer time.

The worst thing about this generation is its dependence on the fucking digital umbilicus.

[Virginian]

Is there anything more bullshit in the media than any sentence which begins with the phrase "Experts have warned.."?

[Bam!]

"Scientists say..."

[Kaptious Kristen]

"[MADD] [CSPI] [SPLC] released a statement..."

[mad libertarian guy]

My kids regularly use our iPads. When they pitch a fit over handing it over (not very often), they get an ass whoopin' of varying degrees depending on the infraction. See? Simple.

[Brett L]

And the vultures begin to circle in West.

Fertilizer plants and depots must report to the DHS when they hold 400 lb (180 kg) or more of the substance. Filings this year with the Texas Department of State Health Services, which weren't shared with DHS, show the plant had 270 tons of it on hand last year.

A U.S. congressman and several safety experts called into question on Friday whether incomplete disclosure or regulatory gridlock may have contributed to the disaster.

"It seems this manufacturer was willfully off the grid," Rep. Bennie Thompson, (D-MS), ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said in a statement. "This facility was known to have chemicals well above the threshold amount to be regulated under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Act (CFATS), yet we understand that DHS did not even know the plant existed until it blew up."

Just so's I have the narrative straight, the fertilizer plant went rogue by telling a state agency they had a shit-ton of AN, but not the Feds. Riight. Obviously, they were planning to redistribute the AN to bomb-makers around the world. Stupid, mendacious fucking statist fucks.

[John]

If the regulators can't stop fertilizer plants from blowing up, what exactly are they good for? I would think keeping factories from blowing up half of the town they are in would be a fairly high regulatory priority. If they can't do that, why do we have them? What is exactly is going to happen if we don't have them? Factories blowing up and killing dozens of people?

[VG Zaytsev]

If they can't do that, why do we have them? To harass uppidy self styled entrepreneurs and attend sexual harassment and diversity conferences.

[John]

Regulatory effectiveness is a limited commodity like anything else. You only have so many time and resources. My guess is they spent so much time obsessing about who was buying the fertilizer they didn't bother to check and see if the factory was meeting even minimal safety standards.

[Rich]

Just put the FDA in charge of regulating fertilizer, which is a drug used for food.

Then you have all the standard FDA excuses right at hand!

[John]

The FDA would just ban it altogether pending three or four decades of safety testing.

[sarcasmic]

My neighbor used to work at the egg farm a few miles from my house. He said that every building had a mandated federal inspector who spent the day reading or sleeping.

[John]

See OSHA. The workplace accident rate hasn't changed one bit since OSHA was created in the early 70s. Billion of dollars in direct costs and compliance costs and it hasn't improved worker safety in any measurable way. But good luck killing OSHA.

[mad libertarian guy]

You're assuming that even if they were searching every nook and cranny of those factories that a government regulatory body would be competent enough to keep something like this from happening, or that, even if government were competent enough, it would have the ability to stop ALL of them.

See the BP spill.

[John]

And no amount of failure will ever get people to think that perhaps the regulatory process itself is useless. No, we just need better regulations. We will get it right one day.

[mad libertarian guy]

Yep.

Your average statist will see this as proof that the regulations were bad, not that the regulatory process doesn't magically convince an industrial plant operator that blowing himself up might be a bad idea.

[BakedPenguin]

Or worse, they will claim it's due to phantom deregulation that happened under Chimpy McBushitlerburton.

[Gray Ghost]

From articles in our local paper, it seems the regulators were much more concerned about emissions than safety. So, if the plant was o.k. on its VOCs and other metrics, the regulator could have given a shit about the pallets of AN lying around. The articles further mention there were no deluge systems at the factory and little firefighting equipment. God only knows how much AN they were friggin' storing there. It goes on to say that pretty much any small TX town in farm country has one of these things. Even if the regulators had a brain fart, you'd think the factory's insurance carrier would have been more on the ball

The aerial photos are damning. They built the middle school right next to the plant. I mean the running track and the plant share a fence. Even if their listed worst case happened---the complete venting of their anhydrous ammonia tanks---you still would have killed a bunch of kids if the wind was blowing the right way.

[John]

From articles in our local paper, it seems the regulators were much more concerned about emissions than safety.

You can only regulate so much. Who cares about safety when there is Mother Gaia to worry about?

[Brett L]

The articles further mention there were no deluge systems at the factory and little firefighting equipment.

They just didn't revisit their process safety when they changed their process.

[sarcasmic]

The beneficial effect of state intervention, especially in the form of legislation, is direct, immediate, and, so to speak, visible, whilst its evil effects are gradual and indirect, and lie out of sight.

http://cafehayek.com/2013/04/q.....y-603.html

Filter won't let me post the whole quote, but it's worth a read and a ponder.

[Mainer2]

http://www.rmstitanic.net/comp.....boats.html

"The Titanic's lifeboat capacity was governed by the British Board of Trade's rules, which were drafted in 1894. By 1912, these lifeboat regulations were badly out of date. The Titanic was four times larger than the largest legal classification considered under the eighteen year old rules and so by law was not required to carry more than sixteen lifeboats, regardless of the actual number of people onboard. When she left Southampton, the Titanic actually carried more than the law required: the sixteen rigid lifeboats were supplemented by four additional collapsible boats. "

[UnCivilServant]

Huh. If I were writing regulations, it's be in the form of Y lifeboats per X people of capacity and never have to revisit it if they make a bigger boat. But then again I'm naturally lazy, and don't want to revisit problems later, so more permanant solutions are more attractive.

That might mean your lifeboat has to carry it's own lifeboat, but my laziness is worth your hassle.

[Drake]

It's too bad there weren't a couple hundred regulators there when the plant caught fire.

[Brett L]

This: "I strongly believe that if the proper safeguards were in place, as are at thousands of (DHS) CFATS-regulated plants across the country, the loss of life and destruction could have been far less extensive," said Rep. Thompson.

Is probably half true. Allowing a fire to break out at your AN dump is pretty unconscionable. The local gunpowder manufacturer doesn't allow any fire-making devices or electronic devices that aren't certified as static free. The transports inside all run on compressed air. If you aren't doing this around 300 tons of AN, you probably aren't prioritizing safety enough.

[John]

Fertilizer while highly explosive is not that volatile. It doesn't just go off. I would think that the safety violations would have to be numerous, egregious and obvious for something like this to happen.

[sarcasmic]

You have way too much faith in regulation.

[John]

Just the opposite. For this plant to blow up it had to have been run by the three stooges. So if they didn't stop this, they basically are not doing anything.

[sarcasmic]

Or the regulators gave them the green light. Why fix or update the fire suppression system if the regulator said it was OK?

Unintended consequences. Read that link I posted above.

[John]

That too. Once you create regulations, the entire business process is going to be driven by them. So if you get them wrong, it will have bad effects.

[mad libertarian guy]

If they can't do that, why do we have them?

An excuse to steal money from our checks? A jobs program for those too useless to do anything productive and who will slobber all over government cock come election time?

[sarcasmic]

The problem with regulations and regulators is that they can result in complacency.

I mean, if the place passed inspection, where's the need to be proactive? Why fix this or that if it passed inspection? Regulators said it was OK, why bother to spend money to fix things?

Then when it burns down, no one knows why.

[Brett L]

More seriously, I keep waiting to find out why there were still firefighters around that warehouse. Somebody failed spectacularly to communicate that there was a giant pile of self-oxidizing fuel in there, or they didn't know what that means to an industrial fire.

[Agammamon]

NOt *federal* regulators - at the most this sounds like a STATE proficiency

In any case, why the fuck would the DHS have *any* role in plant safety oversight?

[John]

DHS has a role because safety and security are pretty closely linked. If the plant is unsafe, that makes it easier for someone to break in and blow it up.

[T]

Uh, wait, what? Physical security and process safety don't have much to do with each other, John.

[John]

Yes they do. If the plant is so poorly run a simple fire will cause an explosion, it is not exactly secure is it?

[VG Zaytsev]

What could possibly go wrong from shutting down small fertilizer manufacturers?

If it saves even one life it worth it. Besides, Warren Buffet just invested in some large manufacturers and he'll follow the new rules.

[T]

Given the shitshow every other aspect of DHS has been, I wait for somebody at the plant to come forth and say "Yes, we made our filings. Not our fault DHS lost them."

[The Late P Brooks]

I'm awaiting my jury screening. Any suggestions?

Don't mention the war nullification.

[Kool]

Can I start telling everyone here about it... Loudly?

Of course it will most likely confirm most people here are statists. What do you mean, disagree with a law? It's a law.

[Jordan]

If I ever get selected for jury duty, I plan to do exactly that.

[John]

http://www.tmz.com/2013/04/21/.....-incident/

I guess the girl next door is so next doory after all. Wow does she look bad without a bleach job and makeup. "Don't you know who I am" God, the cop should have tazed her like they do everyone else.

[Lord Humungus]

a little makeup and paint makes a girl look like what she jolly well ain't.

[John]

I think also that having looks that translate well to the camera doesn't necessarily mean you look that good in person. The camera distorts what people actually look like. And I think that the best looking person in person is not always the best looking person on camera.

[Nikki makes the sign of a tsp]

As an inveterate Reese Witherspoon hater, I must admit I got a laugh out of this one this morning. I hope the media and law enforcement give her the full Lindsay Lohan treatment. (As if.)

[John]

I can't stand her either. She plays the same roll in every single film. I hated what she did to June Carter in Walk the Line. June Carter was a serious musician. Witherspoon made her look like a clown.

[wingnutx]

She was great as a white trash delinquent in 'Freeway'.

[CampingInYourPark]

"13 Worst Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"

http://www.freedomworks.org/bl.....h-day-1970

"By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate? that there won't be any more crude oil. You'll drive up to the pump and say, 'Fill 'er up, buddy,' and he'll say, 'I am very sorry, there isn't any.'" ? Ecologist Kenneth Watt

"The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age." ? Kenneth Watt

[John]

Awesome.

[Virginian]

Paul Ehrlich has made a very good living for the last four decades off of being spectacularly and absolutely wrong about everything. It's quite amazing. I mean, if he told you the sky was blue, you'd have to go check.

[UnCivilServant]

The sky is grey. On deviant weather days the light pollution from the sun makes it turn blue. Luckily, those days are rare.

[$park?]

The sky is clear.

[UnCivilServant]

Let me guess, you're one of those guys who's going to stick to the 'settled' science that shows all of the constituent elements that make up the sky are in of themselves transparent, but that the effect of changes in density on differeng wavelengths of light cause the refraction and diffusion that presents something other than the raw color of the sun or the lack of color of space from reaching our eyes?

[$park?]

I'm one of those guys that's going to say when I walk around outside I don't see a field of blue.

[UnCivilServant]

The sky is not the entire atmosphere. What layer of the atmosphere we designate as the lower bound has not been determined.

[$park?]

Says you.

[Atanarjuat]

Let me guess, you're from Pittsburgh?

[UnCivilServant]

No, Upstate New York. Our skies are naturally grey.

That's also why I'm surrounded by Idiots now that I'm stuck on the Hudson (See my comment on the immigration thread)

[#HOLO YOLO]

Paul Ehrlich has made a very good living for the last four decades off of being spectacularly and absolutely wrong about everything

True story, I was at a lecture a few weeks ago during which the prof was citing Ehrlich in earnest

[Matrix]

What part of "the science is settled" don't you understand?

[Ptah-Hotep]

What part of "the science is settled" don't you understand?

The first four words?

[bostonaod]

If present trends continue..

- Kenneth "Disco Stu" Watt

[Palin's Buttplug]

Today is the day the Beckerhead will expose Obama's cover-up in the Boston Bombing with "proof" he has that Saudis really did it and Obama framed the two brothers.

http://www.americanthinker.com.....lifet.html

BOMBSHELL! The biggest story of his life!

[John]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuGtxt84wPQ

BECKFAG!! BUSHFAG!! AHH!!!!!!

[Palin's Buttplug]

It is a big story.

And the American Thinker has it covered.

[John]

The Saudis are connected to everything.

[T]

Pssht. They're just the frontmen for the Gnomes of Zurich.

Speaking of, I think I still have Illuminati and all the expansion sets in storage. I should dig those out and see if I can get a game going.

[LTC(ret) John]

They sure act like they are agents of the Servants of Cthulhu or the UFOs.

[Rasilio]

As long as he stops claiming to be a libertatian before he posts his insane conspiracy theory I really don't care what he says

[Rich]

Americans 'snapping' by the millions

What difference, at this point, does it make?

[Ted S.]

Then they're 20 years behind the times.

[$park?]

Yet, during eras when society and families are stable, unified and fundamentally decent and moral ? as, say, America during the 1950s ? the stress level for each person is minimized, or at least not compounded by a perverse society. Conversely, when ? as is the case today ? we have widespread family breakdown, a depraved culture that mocks traditional moral values, a chaotic economy and disintegrating monetary system and a power-mad government dominated by demagogues and sociopaths, the normal stresses of life are greatly multiplied.

FAMUHLY VALYOUZZZZZZZZZ!

[Virginian]

Eh, ceteris paribus, a stable home environment is much better than the alternatives.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

A country largely populated by stable families is much less dependant on the state for a multitude of everyday needs. There's a reason communist philosophies devote themselves to undermining family bonds as much as possible.

[The Late P Brooks]

"This facility was known to have chemicals well above the threshold amount to be regulated under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Act (CFATS), yet we understand that DHS did not even know the plant existed until it blew up."

And I think we all can agree: we don't know whose fault it was, but we know whose fault it wasn't.

[CampingInYourPark]

"Intense fighting between the military and Islamist militants in northern Nigeria is reported to have killed at least 185 people, however the army has disputed this figure."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22243834

[sloopyinca]

Alabama police officer pleads guilty to civil rights violations. How did he violate his victim's civil rights? He drove her in his patrol car to a remote area and raped her.

He was not charged with a state crime after his own department's IA investigation.

[Matrix]

no rape charges?

[Virginian]

Should be rape and kidnapping, along with anything else they can come up with. If it wasn't a cop, he'd be looking at essentially a life sentence.

But it's a cop so it's 10 years max, which means 3 or 4 with good behavior.

[sarcasmic]

Don't forget the mandatory 30 years per gun. He likely had his sidearm and a shotgun, plus a long gun in the trunk. That's 90 right there.

[sloopyinca]

Nope. If you want to charge a cop with rape, Louisiana is a better place.

Of course, when the cop's rape victim is a 15 year old girl, it's more difficult to cover up.

FTA: Pratt is a Sixth District police officer and has been serving with department since 1997.

So when they get shot at, they're a "two year veteran", but when they rape a teenage girl, they've "served with the department". I love the subtleties of the English language.

[UnCivilServant]

Bernard: I see it's one of those irregular verbs, you give confidential press briefings, I leak, he's in violation of the official secrets act.

Hacker: exactly

[Jordan]

Sounds like some vigilante justice is in order.

[$park?]

Why does it say sexual assault and not rape?

[sloopyinca]

Hey, I'm just happy they got him to admit it in his statement. It might get him sentenced to the max amount allowable. In the eyes of the court, he's merely guilty of "criminal civil rights violations", which is a blanket charge for almost anything.

[Agammamon]

Because in a lot of jurisdictions rape is a very specific crime, with specific requirements to have been commited, while sexual assault is more inclusive.

[$park?]

So you agree with me that sloopy was wrong to call it rape when the charge says sexual assault.

[Gray Ghost]

Perhaps sloopy saw this article, calling it a rape.

Are you trying to pick up Tulpa's old job?

[$park?]

Are you trying to pick up Tulpa's old job?

Nope. But there is a difference between distrusting cops and hating cops. I don't begrudge sloopy his daily cop outings.

[Gray Ghost]

I don't begrudge sloopy his daily cop outings.

Nor do I. Someone has to take up Balko's old job, and Sloopy is doing a good job of it. Incidentally, the Feds don't have a crime for "rape", instead they call it "sexual abuse." See 18 USC ? 2241 and 2242. Alabama does still though list rape, sodomy, and sexual abuse as separate crimes, instead of folding them all into the crime of sexual assault. So it's strange to me that the DOJ release mentions sexual assault, rather than rape.

I would have thought that the federal civil rights violations would have tied back to specific state crimes, not to violations of federal law, but IANAL.

[sloopyinca]

I've got to fall on my sword on this one. Looks like the state charges are "still pending" and the feds did a plea deal after originally charging him with a few other charges that could have landed him in the federal pen for life.

I did what I thought was a pretty good search for details and came up dry until Gray Ghost posted that link. After following it, it looks like he's not out of the woods on state charges, although 2 years is quite a long time for the charges to still be "pending".

[Gray Ghost]

After following it, it looks like he's not out of the woods on state charges, although 2 years is quite a long time for the charges to still be "pending".

Me too, though if this is to be believed, there is no SoL for the crime of rape in Alabama. As mentioned, IANAL, but how long does it take to process a rape kit, take the complainant's account, the suspect's account, and check it with his employer? It could be that the state was waiting for the feds to figure out what they want to do and stayed proceedings until then.

Alabama lists Rape in the First Degree (the applicable crime here, if it indeed was a rape) as a Class A felony, with a sentence between 10 and 99 years. You would think the state prosecutor would pile on, given the federal sentence is a max of 10 years, and who knows how the Guidelines will adjust that downwards. Doubt it'll happen though.

[sloopyinca]

My whole point was that he was never charged with sexual assault. He just admitted that is what he did while pleading guilty to the nebulous charge of "criminal civil rights violations". The fucker should have been charged by his co-workers when they did their own investigation but it took the feds stepping in.

IA departments need to be replaced by confidential civilian oversight boards with subpoena powers and the ability to convene a grand jury.

[$park?]

And you can make that case without saying he raped the girl. The other story you linked to came right out and said forcible rape, this one didn't. I'm not saying what he did wasn't wrong and he probably should be punished much harder than what he's going to end up with.

That being said, the cop-hating hyperbole gets a bit much sometimes.

[sloopyinca]

That being said, the cop-hating hyperbole gets a bit much sometimes.

It's hard to say this is hyperbolic when the prosecutor and every other witness in the case said he raped her.

And IMO, all sexual assault = rape. It's just a matter of the degree he raped her.

[$park?]

It's hard to say this is hyperbolic when the prosecutor and every other witness in the case said he raped her.

Then you've clearly done research on the case beyond what you linked which only said sexual assault.

[Nikki makes the sign of a tsp]

sloopy, my copy of the Bill of Rights doesn't have "your right not to be raped shall not be infringed on it." I'm sure Tulpa's doesn't either. So I don't even see how this is a civil rights violation to begin with.

[UnCivilServant]

Some people subscribe to the concept of natural rights. These "Unwritten Rules of Life" vary from person to person (sort of like the taste of soylent cola) but personally I'd like the retain the natural right to not be raped, that's a good one to have around.

[Nikki makes the sign of a tsp]

Sorry, I was making a joke about Tulpa, who seems to think our rights are in fact enumerated, at least when he feels like trolling.

[UnCivilServant]

That's okay, I have a minimum snark level in every comment I post. I don't always achieve it.

[Eduard van Haalen]

If I had to guess, I'd say the victim was deprived of her liberty (seized and raped) without due process (the seizure and rape was *not* part of the process of bringing her into court to have charges against her adjudicated, hence no due process).

[Eduard van Haalen]

I see you were joking.

[Auric Demonocles]

Silly nicole, "shall not infringed" wouldn't mean anything anyway. It actually says you have a right not to be raped without an attorney present.

[John]

Among the more unusual aspects of what has been learned thus far about the Brothers Tsarnaev is that in January 2011 Russian officials encouraged their U.S. counterparts to take notice of Tamerlan, the older of the two, for possible Chechen terrorist links. The only known result of the interviews that followed was to delay processing of Tamerlan's U.S. citizenship application. (His younger brother, Dzhokhar, became a citizen on Sept. 11, 2012.)

http://washingtonexaminer.com/.....le/2527772

This reminds me of the underwear bomber. In that case the guy's dad called the US embassy in Amsterdam and told them he thought his son was about to blow a gasket and do something horrible. DOS decided not to pass the information along because Islam is the religion of peace you know.

Every single time we have an incident of Islamic terrorism the guy turns out to be an obvious fuck up that anyone who met for five minutes knew was a dangerous nut. Yet, the FBI and the feds refuse to do anything about it. Hasan gave a professional presentation about the duty to kill the infidel and got promoted to major for his trouble. The list goes on and on. The only conclusion I can make is that our entire domestic defense apparatus is a complete waste of money. If they cannot do anything about the obviously dangerous people that are directly brought to their attention, then they cannot do anything to defend this country.

[Ted S.]

In that case the guy's dad called the US embassy in Amsterdam and told them he thought his son was about to blow a gasket and do something horrible. DOS decided not to pass the information along because Islam is the religion of peace you know.

Or possibly because they get a lot of calls from people arbitrarily claiming somebody the caller knows is a freak.

[Rich]

"If that false positive saves just one child's life ...."

[John]

The Dad was in the diplomatic service. He was known to the embassy and not a freak. He was a serious person who gave serious information. Yet, the underwear bomber was never put on a no fly list, local authorities were never informed, nothing.

[Gray Ghost]

Was it ever determined if underwear guy's bomb actually would've worked? In some of my darker moments, I wonder if DHS etc.. knew dipshit was coming on the plane, and knew he had an alleged device? There was a giant contract for scanners that came up right after the hue and cry from his attempted bombing.

Meh, I hate being that guy. But after something like F and F, is anything really off the table for this Administration anymore?

[John]

It would have worked. But Napalitano actually had it right for once. That is what good security looks like. You can't stop every bomb. But the security was so good that the terrorist was reduced to trying to assemble a hall assed bomb from materials in his underwear in flight and doing nothing but burning his balls off. That is about as good as it is going to get.

[Ptah-Hotep]

Yet, the FBI and the feds refuse to do anything about it.

That is because they are too busy manufacturing terrorists here. Why do the hard work when you can spoon feed some clueless fuck a bomb and get a conviction. Keeps the funds flowing.

[John]

That is the conclusion I have come to. Our domestic security consists of the FBI getting stupid people to try to plant bombs. The actual dangerous people seem to act with impunity.

[Loki]

The actual dangerous people seem to act with impunity.

Not to mention, hellllooooo, they're dangerous! These FBI agents have families to go home to at the end of the day too, ya know! /sarc

[mad libertarian guy]

If they cannot do anything about the obviously dangerous people that are directly brought to their attention, then they cannot do anything to defend this country.

This.

[Agammamon]

I think a difference is, and a reason for the US to sort of ignore the tip, is that until *now* Chechen terrorists have been a russian problem.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Yeah, to be fair, the Russians kind of have an interest in exaggerating the Chechen terrorist problem and getting other countries to focus on it.

[NeonCat]

Probably thought Putin's people were pranking us. "Chechen terrorist, sure, yeah, we'll get right on it, Ivan."

[Lord Humungus]

Data shift to lift US economy 3%
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0.....abdc0.html

The US economy will officially become 3 per cent bigger in July as part of a shake-up that will see government statistics take into account 21st century components such as film royalties and spending on research and development.

Billions of dollars of intangible assets will enter the gross domestic product of the world's largest economy in a revision aimed at capturing the changing nature of US output.

[John]

If you torture the numbers enough, they eventually will give up the message you want.

[Virginian]

R and D spending? Film royalties?

AHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAAH

[Rasilio]

Wait they are including R&D spending as part of GDP? That makes absolutely no friggin sense. R&D is a long term necessity in any industry, however it is not in and of itself a good, merely a means to (hopefully) eventually produce a beneficial improvement for future development

[Virginian]

R and D is one of the fetishes of the technocratic Left. Up there with "infrastructure" as a magic word.

"Investment in green R and D to Win the Future is necessary, along with infrastructure spending. Some say we cannot do it, some say we shouldn't, but I reject both of these extremes. Let me be clear, yes we can, and God bless America.

[VG Zaytsev]

How was R&D spending possibly previously excluded? Or royalties for that matter.

[Rasilio]

R&D is reported under Capex (Capital expenditure) and not OpEx (Operational expenditure) that means it is very easy to separate them out.

In the past GDP, which is supposed to be the sum total of end products created in the economy, did not include items in the Capex portion of a companies accounts because those would have been considered "intermediate products" (for example, the value of the nails produced in the country are not factored into GDP because nails are never an end product, only those items which use nails such as homes or furniture count).

Obviously the change here is to begin including Capex (R&D at a minimum, possibly other items as well) items in the GDP calculations.

[Agammamon]

Too bad we can't get the economy to "shrink" by no longer including government spending in GDP.

[UnCivilServant]

So taxes vanish from the economy to magically reappear in my pocket when I get my pittance every two weeks and buy food?

Perhaps scrapping the GDP entirely, because it's pretty nigh useless as a measure.

[Andrew S.]

I have no problem with this in and of itself. It's probably a good idea.

What I will have a problem with is the way Team Blue and the media are going to be crowing about the huge jump in GDP and how it's a sign of how well we're doing.

[Rasilio]

I do. I'm not sure on the Royalties thing, I'm kind of torn on that one because on the one hand it is income produced off of a previous end product (the movie, book, whatever) however that product could have been produced 15 years (or more ago) so it does not represent any new economic activity.

On the R&D side however it is pure and unadulterated BS designed to make the President look good by artificially boosting the numbers. R&D is by definition an intermediate product. Nobody buys R&D for it's own sake and therefore including it in GDP completely destroys whatever legitimacy the measure had.

[Gray Ghost]

R&D could be an endproduct if the company was hiring an outside consultant to perform it. Why couldn't the outside consultant treat the report with their findings as an economic product?

Are fees and excise costs included in GDP? Because royalties seem like a similar thing, only they're paid to the rights-holder instead of the sovereign.

But I think Brett, below, has the right idea on the change:

Seems like they're running out of gimmicks to keep the double dip away.

[UnCivilServant]

It doesn't really matter if it's the company's end product. Divested or in-house research, same economic effect - investment for down the road. This is one of the many reasons GDP needs to stop being used as an economic indicator.

[Brett L]

Seems like they're running out of gimmicks to keep the double dip away.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

This is the tacit admission that GDP growth, contrary to what that dumbass shrike says, has been built entirely on federal deficits and not actual growth.

[The Late P Brooks]

Fertilizer plant explosions are rare; extremely rare. At some point they become so rare, people forget they can happen, and become complacent. They get sloppy, and forget why the whole process is so complicated and "inefficient". Meanwhile, the trend in both regulation and general business practices is for ever-larger, more centralized facilities. "Economies of scale" are cited.

Suddenly, one day, an explosion happens (for reasons which may or may not be fully known and understood) and it's a really really big one.

Surprise!

[John]

Yup. Someone needs to go to jail over this, assuming they didn't get blown up themselves. For that plant to blow up is just criminal negligence.

[Brett L]

Every Wednesday for an entire semester, ChemEs in my program have to do a presentation on some chemical plant accident, and also to review the Feynman recounting of the Challenger explosion. Why? Because all of the accidents come from exactly this: risk acculturation. As soon as industrial plant managers forget that not following the procedures can lead to death, an inevitable spiral starts. Most times, its only a little accident, like a fire starts but gets put out. Then everyone gets born again hard about safety and procedure. Unfortunately, sometime the dice come up snake eyes when the accident happens.

[John]

It is like gun range safety. When you first go in the military and go to a range, if you have never been around firearms, you will wonder why they are so insane about every rule that basically amount to a ten layer in depth defense against accidental discharges. The reason for that is once you start getting slack about any rule, you eventually will get slack about all of them.

[Brett L]

That was definitely the message I got, and I believe that was the message they were trying to drive home.

[sloopyinca]

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Officers will not face charges for killing man in his own home after e fired at them.

They demanded he open his door even though there was no evidence of violence. He refused and said to talk to him through the door. They tried to kick the door in after pulling out a tazer. When they attempted the break-in, he fired four shots.

Was the man justified in defending himself against an illegal entry? Were the cops justified in their self-defense? Tough call, but I gotta think they could have easily secured a warrant and gone about it in the proper manner, unless they had evidence he had committed a crime.

This is why "Reasonable Suspicion" is bullshit.

[Virginian]

Eh, looking at the totality of circumstances, I'm with the cops. Honestly for me, in broad daylight I am much more likely to give the cops the benefit of the doubt. It's the midnight no knock raids where some poor bastard is woken by his door flying open where I don't mind when cops get shot at.

This guy was in a rage, fully awake, the cops did everything they could, they got shot at hell they got bullets in their vests.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[sloopyinca]

He told them to speak to him through the door and they tried to kick it in. Unless they had a warrant, they were trying to force entry into the house and could easily have been "civilian" friends of the woman posing claiming to be cops.

[Virginian]

True. In a perfect world, a man's home is his castle. In the world we live in, if the king's men want you to open the door, you better do it.

This is a case, IMO, where I wasn't there and I think there are nuances. But at the end of the day, if a cop has a bullet in his vest, I'm not going to accuse him of evil actions. Stupid actions, bad judgement, but we've seen a lot worse then cops who actually wait to get shot before they fire back.

[Agammamon]

I will - if you try to force your way into a home without the actual legal authority to do so then you kinda deserve that bullet.

[robc]

I didnt read the link so this will vary, but if the raid was illegal, then castle doctrine applies: Home invaders are fair game, no self defense for invaders.

If the raid was legal, then the cops can use self-defense.

[Agammamon]

I'm not - just shooting at a cop is not, by itself, the only justification that should be needed to kill someone.

That said, I'm more than willing to give a cop who's just been shot at a huge benefit of the doubt in the ensuing investigation.

But a counter-example - here in Yuma, AZ about a year and a half ago a similar situation came up. Cops knocking on an apartment door, responding to a complaint, when the occupant refused to let them in. In the ensuing stand-off the occupant fired through his door at the deputies.

Amazingly enough the deputies did *not* return fire through the door, defused the situation, and took the guy into custody alive.

[Virginian]

I think that's because it happened in Yuma AZ.

The majority of abusive cops are in big city, unionized police forces. The reason a lot of Team Red is still pro cop is because their cops may enforce unjust laws, but they are not in general corrupt or abusive. Or at least not to the same extent that a big city cop is.

[sloopyinca]

A lot of Team Red are still pro cop because they're authority fetishists. They want to be ruled as much as Team Blue fanboys. They just want their guys doing the ruling.

[Virginian]

Eh, I mean if I lived out in Goochland I probably wouldn't hate cops. Every single encounter I've had with Goochland sheriff's department has gone just fine. Richmond PD is an entirely different story.

[sloopyinca]

I know what you mean. I used to travel to all the small airports in the state, and always had great interactions with Albemarle County sheriffs. But go into Charlottesville and the cops were Grade A assholes. Same went for my trips to Shenandoah Valley Airport. Augusta County cops were cool. Rockingham County cops were pricks.

[Virginian]

Yeah in a rural community or a small town, they're more likely to think of you of the guy their brother played softball with, or as the son of their 4th grade teacher.

In a big city the average cop is thinking of "skels" and scumbags.

[Rasilio]

In this case I have a hard time faulting the cops too much, I also do not believe that a warrant is a magical piece of paper that would have calmed the guy down into compliance so other than the 60 minute wait in which he may have calmed down on his own I can't really see where it made much difference.

Any way you cut it however there is no justification for his opening fire on the police

[sloopyinca]

He told them that he would not open the door and they had not informed him that he had committed a crime. They then tried to kick his door in. Now unless someone shows me a warrant, I'm to assume they have no right to enter upon my premises without my permission under any circumstances, especially if they ordered me to open the door (without the authority to do so) and then proceeded to try and break in.

I'm probably fleeing out the back instead of opening fire on them, but IMO, he's a right to defend himself against any intruder, especially if they've not articulated and shown a warrant and/or told me I'm being charged with a crime.

[Rasilio]

And how would you see the warrant without opening the door, which he adamantly refused to do?

Like I said, I can't imagine that the magical piece of paper would have lead to a different outcome.

Further castle doctrine does not give you a blanked right to respond with lethal force to repel a break in. So even if you want to argue that the cops were in the wrong for attempting to kick in the door without a warrant it does not justify his response, both parties would be in the wrong with his crime (attempted murder) being the more severe.

Could the cops have handled things better, probably. They could have just sat there and waited him out while talking to him through the door (since there was no evidence or indication that he was an immediate danger to anyone) but the ultimate blame for the guys death falls on himself because he opened fire first

[sloopyinca]

And how would you see the warrant without opening the door, which he adamantly refused to do?

You politely ask the homeowner to come to a window or door and look at it. If he refuses, you then have the legal and moral high ground to enter upon his property.

Yeah, he handled it poorly, but they initiated the shooting by illegally attempting to break down his front door. And he didn't "open fire" until they did so.

Hell, maybe he knew the law and expected the cops to know and obey it. If that was the case, he would have probably believed it wasn't really a cop trying to break down his door, since no law-respecting cop would try to break into someone's house without a warrant or probable cause to believe they were committing a crime at that moment.

[Gray Ghost]

That the incident took place in Iowa is probably relevant. Did the IA Leg walk back their Supreme Court's ruling?

State law on when a police officer may enter a residence is going to be extremely important in figuring out whether they had the right to kick this guy's door in or not.

[robc]

I can't really see where it made much difference.

Its the difference between a legal and an illegal entry by the cops.

That makes ALL the difference.

Legality is tied to these kind of things.

[Rasilio]

Again, not really relevant to the question at hand.

Even if you assume that the police attempting to kick the door in amounted to attempted breaking and entering on their part, that does not justify the level of response the dead guy engaged in. He was in no immediate danger, the cops while armed did not have their weapons drawn and were clearly not attempting to kill him. Further they key point with the warrant is he never would have known if they had one since he refused to open the door. It would not have changed his response one bit therefore even if the cops were in the wrong by attempting to enter the premises without a warrant he was still in the wrong for initiation the shooting .

Finally it is called a SEARCH WARRANT, they were not attempting to engage in a search for evidence, however they had a legitimate role to be present to adjudicate a domestic dispute, the woman wanted her belongings back and by all appearances they were merely attempting to corroborate her story, get his side and if indicated see to it that she could retrieve her belongings in piece. Had he simply cooperated there is a very good chance that there would not even have been an arrest made

[sloopyinca]

Finally it is called a SEARCH WARRANT, they were not attempting to engage in a search for evidence, however they had a legitimate role to be present to adjudicate a domestic dispute, the woman wanted her belongings back and by all appearances they were merely attempting to corroborate her story, get his side and if indicated see to it that she could retrieve her belongings in piece. Had he simply cooperated there is a very good chance that there would not even have been an arrest made

He was under no obligation to assist them in any of this and there was no physical evidence an assault had taken place. He is under no obligation to comply with the orders of a police officer while he is in his home, unless they have a search or arrest warrant. And without that, the cops' entry was criminal trespass. In a castle doctrine state, you have a right to deny that person entry to your home whether they have weapons drawn or not.

[sloopyinca]

Cop #1: Hey, that guy's suicidal!

Cop #2: Then shoot the POS!!!!!

[Virginian]

Assuming the cops aren't lying, that's a good shoot. If a guy is charging me with knives in his hands, I'm shooting him.

Of course, who knows if that's what happened.

[The Late P Brooks]

And, of course, when that explosion happens, the usual suspects will scurry out of the baseboards and learn exactly the wrong lessons, and prescribe exactly the wrong solutions.

[The Late P Brooks]

Was the man justified in defending himself against an illegal entry?

I say yes. But I am mentally unhinged.

[John]

http://www.althouse.blogspot.c.....b-she.html

The dead Boston bomber was married to some dumb little liberal white girl who volunteered for the Peace Corps and got a little too friendly with the other. She seems like a female version of John Walker Lindh. Good middle class liberal upbringing only to go very wrong at some point.

[Rich]

FTFC: She appears not to be Jewish so at least that's something.

[John]

So a Jew grows up to be a radical Islamist. That brings new meaning to the term self hatred.

[Loki]

Kyle: My worst fear is that I'll become just like him. I'm a Jew and he's even making me hate Jews!

Stan: Dude, a self hating Jew? You are becoming a stereotype.

[John]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....rnaev.html

She is pretty cute too. What a shame.

[tarran]

John,

I strongly encourage you not to go there, since while you could be right, you could also be very wrong.

Take my case. I married someone who seemed to be my soul-mate and who became more and more emotionally unstable while a sacrificed more and more in an attempt to keep the marriage going. Eventually, my wife was committing major larcenies and was only caught when she tried to get me to unknowingly fence one of the items.

In my case, each sacrifice would briefly restore things to the happy state they were when we first got married, the carrot would briefly be in my mouth until once again she would extend it out of my reach to get me moving again.

To this date I don't know how much stuff she stole, but I am convinced it easily topped $25,000 worth of jewelry that was never recovered. Now you can call me an idiot or a stupid person or imply that somehow I was a bad guy for letting her steal so much shit, but most of us don't ever consider that the person to whom we have given our heart can be a very bad guy.

So let's leave her be. She's a widow with a child. Nobody will be collecting money for her upkeep. Her lack of a college degree dooms her to low income for life. Her infamy will close and lock doors she needs to go through to improve her lot. Her son will be a pariah because of his father. She and her son face a life of suffering and pain. Let's not add to it gratuitously.

[John]

She obviously feel very hard for a very bad guy. I think it is interesting that she did. It may have been just love. But I think there is more to it than that. Why did she fall so hard for this guy? Converting to Islam has become a really good way to give the finger to polite society. If you are alienated for whatever reason, converting to strict Islam is about the best way I can think of to separate yourself from mainstream American society. It also has a lot of cache as something exotic and oppressed by the US. It is a good way for a white American to make themselves part of a first class liberal victim group.

[John]

And reading that Daily Fail article will make you never want to have a daughter. What a nightmare for her parents.

[tarran]

My daughter scares me. She really, really likes rogues with hearts of gold. She also desperately wants to be an adult.

I live in fear of her first boyfriend. That far side cartoon where the poodle parents are meeting their daughter's boyfriend (caption: "So, Rusty, our daughter tells us you work in the field of junkyard security.") keeps coming to mind.

[John]

My sympathy Tarran. I had a sister like that. And there really isn't a damn thing you can do as a parent. The more you raise hell the more she will be attracted to the guy as a way to piss you off. All you can do is hope she gets smarter before she does too much damage to her life, which most girls do when they get older.

[tarran]

Right now, I can control her, barely. I am building up a wealth of really funny stories.

Last week, at the supermarket, jealous that I was buying her brother his first shaving razor, she loudly announced that "Dad! I have something to tell you! You don't know this, but I'm becoming a woman, ...dramatic pause... and I need a woman's shampoo!".

This old woman a little way down the aisle gave me an immensely pitying look.

[John]

Girls are so damn cute when they are little. Then they hit puberty and turn evil.

[sloopyinca]

I remember one of my daughter's first trips to the grocery store. She specifically requested Lucky Charms and didn't want "fucking Corn Flakes".

She was 2.

[John]

They are like sponges. They pick up everything you say.

[Loki]

Others here have speculated that the younger brother was "roped in" by his older brother. Now we learn about his wife being a fairly typical middle class American white girl who may have likewise been roped in.

I suspect as more becomes known about these two, the more it's going to look as if the older brother was some kind of charismatic, narcissistic sociopath. But, instead of starting a cult or running for political office, he became a terrorist.

[Lord Humungus]

"I want to become immortal and then die." /paraphrased from the movie Breathless

[sloopyinca]

Good middle class liberal upbringing only to go very wrong at some point.

Just being a contrarian here, but how exactly did she "go wrong"? I know many Muslims and some of them are converts to that faith. I would never ever tell them that they "went wrong".

I'd like to see you tell Cassius Clay ca. 1965 that he "went wrong".

[Nikki makes the sign of a tsp]

Yeah, I mean, without knowing a whole hell of a lot more than I do at this point, she could just as easily have gone completely right. So, she converts her religion, which is a thing people do. She gets married, has a kid, leaves the guy, goes back to parents. Who knows what he was like when they married? Last I heard she had converted previous to meeting him. (I also heard she converted to marry him though.) I mean it sounds like it could easily be "marriage didn't work out because dude turned out to be a dick a couple years later."

[John]

He was arrested for beating the shit out of her a couple of years ago. He was most definitely a dick even before he decided to become a terrorist.

[John]

I think marrying a sociopath and terrorist is going very wrong.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Absolutely, but the good news is that her hubby is dead. It's "till death do us part," not forever. So she can take another course for her life.

[T]

Good thing for me my wife had no problems with it.

/joke

[John]

And I think that any woman who would covert to strict Islam has problems. The religion is wildly misogynistic. It just is. Women are treated horribly in strict Islamic countries. Any Western woman who would convert to that has gone down a dark path.

[sloopyinca]

John, you've made the greatest blunder since Operation Barbarossa: trusting the Daily Fail to get facts right.

[John]

She is clearly a Western White woman. Her parents are clearly not Islamic. She is dressed in strict Islamic dress and was married to an Islamic terrorist. Daily Fail or no, she definitely converted to a pretty strict form of Islam, which for a woman to do is really strange and self destructive.

Remember, Muhammad Ali was a man and he converted to an American form of Islam that was and is reasonably popular among African Americans. Totally different than a Western White Woman embracing Wahhabism.

[sloopyinca]

I grew up in a Baptist family. Was it "strange and self-destructive" of me to convert to Roman Catholicism?

I get what you are trying to say, I just think you're faulting this woman's character because she converted the wrong way.

Would you say the same about a woman from Qatar converting from Islam to Presbyterianism? It would be equally out of character, right?

[John]

Catholicism or or any form of mainline Protestantism doesn't treat women in anything approaching the way strict Islam treats them. A women converting to strict Islam is voluntarily joining a religion that says she is essentially the property of her husband, is entitled to few if any civil rights and must basically be strictly segregated from mainstream society outside the home and always be escorted in public by her husband or male relative.

To convert to that and embrace that kind of treatment is very odd. To convert away from that and decide you want to follow a religion that demands you be treated better is a totally different matter.

So yes, the two cases are completely different.

[sloopyinca]

A women converting to strict Islam is voluntarily joining a religion that says she is essentially the property of her husband, is entitled to few if any civil rights and must basically be strictly segregated from mainstream society outside the home and always be escorted in public by her husband or male relative.

And that's nobody's business but her own until she infringes on somebody else's rights. Perhaps she wanted to be someone's property.

[John]

It may be her business but that doesn't make it any less self destructive.

[Nikki makes the sign of a tsp]

I don't know, John, it sounds to me an awful like your average liberated feminist woman converting to a life of stay-at-home mom-ness and fulfilling motherhood, just like you think they all secretly want to do.

Yes, I am snarking, but it's not like there's something so bizarre about becoming more conservative, and in fact you often think a lot of women subconsciously want to do so (even if "serious Muslim" is too far of a conversion for you).

Honestly, I think it's stupid too, but I understand religious conversion even less than religious belief.

[John]

I don't know, John, it sounds to me an awful like your average liberated feminist woman converting to a life of stay-at-home mom-ness and fulfilling motherhood, just like you think they all secretly want to do.

No it really isn't. It is a total difference in kind. Can that stay at home mom's husband come home and beat her and all of the community and family feel he is in the right? Is that stay at home mom considered a whore if she appears in public alone or with anything other than her head and neck showing?

Finding a nice husband and playing mommy and going tennis lessons and dance recitals is not anything like what we are talking about here. Come on Nikki.

[sloopyinca]

John, I was making a contrarian argument for no real reason other than to start a dialogue. And I have to say that you handled yourself with aplomb in refuting me and Nicole. Bravo.

[John]

It is a hard thing to say someone shouldn't covert to a religion if that is what they honestly believe. And I think 90% of the time women convert to Islam it is not self destructive. But if you really convert to the hard core end of it, there is something else going on. It is one thing to grow up in it. But to grow up in the West and decide that life is the life for you, is very puzzling.

[The Late P Brooks]

the cops did everything they could

Except de-escalate.

[CampingInYourPark]

"Merkel says euro members must be prepared to cede sovereignty"

http://www.reuters.com/article.....AS20130422

Since that military strategy didn't work out....

[T]

I've been saying for a while Germany was going to conquer Europe by foreclosing on everybody else. At last, Merkel is acknowledging it.

[Brett L]

It only took them 900 years and 3 really bad ass kickings to come up with an alternate strategy.

[Virginian]

Three?

[Brett L]

Well, I mean, the German state didn't start until after the death of Charlemagne, so I was going with the HRE, WWI and WWII. The 30 years war and incidental border skirmishes I leave out.

[Gray Ghost]

I thought you were going with the 30 years war for the third asskicking. Considering it was the worst one of the three. When the best case scenario is that the area suffered 15 percent civilian deaths, you've had a very bad time.

[John]

Don't forget the 17th and early 18th Centuries. Louis XIV used to burn the Rhineland as weekend sport.

[robc]

Ive been saying for a while that Germany spent the entire 20th century attempting to "unite" Europe, they arent going to pull out now that they have succeeded.

[Loki]

send Hans Blix?

Kim Jong Il: Hans Brix? Oh no! Oh, herro. Great to see you again, Hans!

Hans Blix: Mr. Il, I was supposed to be allowed to inspect your palace today, but your guards won't let me enter certain areas.

Kim Jong Il: Hans, Hans, Hans! We've been frew this a dozen times. I don't have any weapons of mass destwuction, OK Hans?

Hans Blix: Then let me look around, so I can ease the UN's collective mind. I'm sorry, but the UN must be firm with you. Let me in, or else.

Kim Jong Il: Or else what?

Hans Blix: Or else we will be very angry with you... and we will write you a letter, telling you how angry we are.

Kim Jong Il: OK, Hans. I'll show you. Stand to your reft.

Hans Blix: [Moves to the left]

Kim Jong Il: A rittle more.

Hans Blix: [Moves to the left again]

Kim Jong Il: Good.

[Opens up trap, Hans falls in]

Kim Jong Il: Fuck you Hans Brix!

[sloopyinca]

Cops pointing guns at "civilians". Not just for McDonalds Drive Thru lanes.

FTA: Arnow told police when both vehicles came to the red light, Hotaling exited his vehicle to confront the Arnows. The Arnows then exited their vehicle which led to Hotaling returning to his vehicle where he retrieved, what was believed to be, his duty weapon and pointed it at the pair. Matthew then called 911 and as he attempted to give the dispatcher Hotaling's plate number, he sped off.
and
Hotaling turned himself in to police Wednesday night. He has been charged with Menacing.

Hmmm. No brandishing a firearm, terroristic threats, assault and the firearm enhancers to all of them?

[Brett L]

Sequesterocalypse Part II.

Mark Duell at the flight tracking website FlightAware said that John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports in New York indicated delays due to lower staffing starting late Sunday evening

[Sevo]

Part III:
"Sequester cuts starting to hit Bay Area Medicare cancer patients"
Chemo patients forced to go to a hospital instead of private centers!
http://blog.sfgate.com/chronrx/
(most of it is behind a pay wall, but you'll get the drift)

[a better weapon]

So when a REALLY dangerous guy is on the loose, our 4th amendment rights are suspended? Look at these perfectly innocent people herded out of their home being shouted at with guns pointed at them. I find myself as enraged as I was when I first heard about the attack. Such BS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....ture=share

[An0nB0t]

You knew those videos were going to start popping up as soon as word came out. If you see that happening in your city or state and don't get out right away, I'm going to have trouble feeling terribly sorry for you if and when the SHTF.

Buy a farm, homeschool (suddenly Gary North doesn't look nearly as bad as many of the alternatives), try to salvage something of the states that are worth saving.

[sloopyinca]

PA County Sheriff charged with giving confidential gun permit application of a woman to her political opponent .

I'm not sure what to make of the story, other than the fact that PA's gun licensing laws are fucking retarded.

[John]

What to make of it is that the Sheriff is a scumbag.

[sloopyinca]

FTA: "Instead of violating the public trust, Steward was upholding it by casting a public spotlight on a serious problem in the sheriff's office with references not being checked on gun permit applications," he said.

In the wake of the revelation, Stoffa said he is planning to ask County Council to approve additional staff for the sheriff's department.

"I don't like the fact we that we're not checking references. ? The fact of the matter is that we should," Stoffa said.

Hey, Penna. Go fuck yourself.

[sloopyinca]

Hey, Penna. Go fuck yourself.

That bit was not in the article.

[Brett L]

2nd private rocket company reaches orbit.

A privately owned rocket built in partnership with NASA to haul cargo to the International Space Station blasted off on Sunday for a debut test flight from a new commercial spaceport in Virginia.

[Bam!]

"A privately owned rocket built in partnership with NASA..."

So basically NASA contracted a company to build a rocket. Like they contracted General Dynamics to build the Atlas rocket family.

I still don't understand the Libertarian slobbering over the private space industry.

[Auric Demonocles]

When there actually gets to be a private space industry, the chance for an actual libertarian society reemerges. We will never have a libertarian country again; we might have a libertarian colony.

[#HOLO YOLO]

A lot of internet-libertarians (myself included) are nerds. In case you haven't noticed.

[The Late P Brooks]

No brandishing a firearm, terroristic threats, assault and the firearm enhancers to all of them?

Why would a prosecutor load a bunch of additional charges on some poor guy who made an honest mistake? He probably didn't even know it was illegal to wave a gun around in a confrontation.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

You can bet any CHL would be long gone, too.

[db]

More than half of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are now on hunger strike.

The other half are enjoying the great new pork soup.

[Sevo]

OT:
Dionne poisons the well!:
"The way forward on guns"
..."Advocates of sane gun regulations would scatter in despair and be torn apart by recriminations."...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html
Only tired, old, progs are sane!

[Virginian]

His tears are delicious.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Fists of fury!!

[Nikki makes the sign of a tsp]

I'm honestly starting to wonder. Do these idiots not know that gun rights advocates actually want to roll back laws? I.e., that the status quo is actually not acceptable for us, and we're trying to fight against a whole other set of shit in addition to their latest proposals? Because it really doesn't seem like they had any idea about that.

[Virginian]

They know very well. It's why they hate us. Fact is literally the only pro-liberty issue where the friends of freedom are gaining ground is on guns.

And my god do the little fascists hate it.

[An0nB0t]

Reciprocity missed by three votes--three--in a heavily democratic senate four months after one of the worst and most emotional mass shootings in American history and after the GC lobby used every last ounce of its political capital to push their garbage bills through. If it had passed, that would have been the most humiliating political defeat and reversal in a generation. Just imagine DiFi going to her grave with the knowledge that her whole initiative was twisted into liberalization rather than prohibition. Too delicious for words.

Obama is almost certainly going to have to veto constitutional carry and several other pro-RKBA after 2014, because the Dems are going to bleed seats after insisting that their purple-state comrades be the first to burn in this spectacular auto da fe.

[Nikki makes the sign of a tsp]

Well now An0nB0t is making me hot.

[An0nB0t]

You know what they say about battery-powered life forms:
we just keep going
and going
and going

[T]

"Earth women who experience sexual ecstasy with mechanical assistance always tend to feel guilty!"

[Nikki makes the sign of a tsp]

Describing the reaction to the death of so many children as "emotional" rather than rational should be electorally disqualifying.

Poor, sad, emotional little E.J. Dionne.

[sarcasmic]

Dude is understandably pissed when cops confiscate steal his two pound spliff.

[sarcasmic]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....joint.html

fergot the link

[The Late P Brooks]

What was striking about Wednesday's vote is that many of the senators who had expressed support for universal background checks after the slaughter at Newtown meekly abandoned their position when the roll was called.

Or, possibly, when they saw a concrete and specific law in draft foirm, they didn't like it.

And it's amazing (not really) to see how people like Dionne are completely unable to recognize how stupid they sound when they say, "Those big meanies listened to an outside influence different from the outside influence I wqant them to listen to!"

Because the NRA's lobbying is evil, but Mayors Against Legal Gunz (and Mike Bloomberg, and Mark Kelly, et al) are representatives of the Truth because the sob sisters of the world like Dionne agree with them.

[Sevo]

"Or, possibly, when they saw a concrete and specific law in draft foirm, they didn't like it."

Poll, a couple of years ago:
'Should everyone have access to the best medical care?'
You bet!

Poll that didn't get taken:
'Should everyone have access to the best medical care, and you pay the bill without any idea how much that bill is'?
Well, hold on a second...
Reality has a tendency to correct emotion.

[The Late P Brooks]

Ray Kelly was on Morning Joke. The nodders did everything but prostrate themselves before him and lick the soles of his boots.

Then came the deluge of hi-fucking-larious "stop and frisk' jokes.

It's nice to know the thoughtful serious! punditocracy believes in nothing so much as raw, unfettered government power.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Just for funzies. News anchors crack up over Ryan Lochte's vapidness and boringness.

[John]

Why do woman swimmers seem to be so charming and the men ones such bores? The females always seem to be these super cute next door types whose adorable levels go to 11. The men seem to be vapid and boring.

[Elspeth Flashman]

Thanks for the laughs 🙂 I'd have had a hard time keeping a straight face too.

[Hyperion]

Human Rights Watch says Buddhists are ethnically cleansing Muslims in Burma

WTF? Let me see if I understand this... Buddhists, those folks that won't step on a bug for fear of some sort of bad karma in their next life, or whatever, are running amok in a murderous rampage?

The world has went crazy. Next thing you know, we'll have a Nun Mafia outbreak on our hands.

[Sevo]

...'Buddhists, those folks with a hell of a PR department'...

I think this is closer to reality.

[John]

Not all Buddhists are so peaceful. The Tibetans have never been.

[An0nB0t]

That's the Jains. Many/most Buddhists have eaten meat from the beginning of the religion.

That said, I don't think it's David Carradine and the Shaolin monks who are out there murdering muslims. Nominally buddhist populations are just as stupid and lazy about living the teachings of their religion as mainline Christians are about theirs, so if you can imagine a majority of American xians supporting a decidedly un-Christian war (or several), you can imagine some Buddhist idiots massacring innocents or at least doing nothing to stop it.

That jogged my memory for that great moment in Godfather III when the cardinal cracks open a small stone that's been sitting in the fountain and shows it to Michael Corleone--it's been in the fountain for a century, but it's completely dry on the inside, and that's the way most Christians are with the teachings of the church and Christ.

[sloopyinca]

that great moment in Godfather III

ERROR! ERROR! Does not compute!

[An0nB0t]

I did say that, as in singular. Though I do also recommend the helicopter massacre and Bridget Fonda's ass.

Okay, fine: I liked the movie.

[John]

I second recommending Bridget Fonda's ass. Her career was too short and contained far to few scenes of her getting her kit off.

[An0nB0t]

Dude, she was naked in virtually every film she was in for fifteen years. Which isn't to say that I disagree.

Man Rule #23: Nudity Good, More Nudity Better

[John]

She was sort of kind of naked. She did a lot of show some side boob or show a little ass scenes. She rarely did the kind of full on frontal nudity we all wanted.

[An0nB0t]

The Nicole Kidman treatment; that would have been nice.

But at least we'll always have Single White Female.

[John]

I love that movie. I am a huge Jennifer Jason Leigh fan. Being 12 years old and seeing her naked in Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a cherished memory. HBO really was proof God loves us and wants us to be happy.

[sarcasmic]

Student jailed for refusing to remove NRA shirt.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....chool.html

[John]

That story has been floating around for a few days now. Tulpa claimed the kid should have been arrested because the image of the gun my have caused adverse psychological reactions in other students after Newtown.

[sarcasmic]

Tulpa is a moron.

[John]

That is an understatement. I don't think he is a troll. He is just that stupid.

[sarcasmic]

Some people are good at being taught, but not so good at learning.

[sarcasmic]

Cop assaults man for recording him.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....rding.html

Will anything else happen?

[sloopyinca]

This [makes sarcastic look] is my shocked face.

[Matrix]

Nothing else will happen until people stand up for themselves and face these tyrants headon.

[sarcasmic]

In a free and just society, a dozen people would have put their hands on their pistols the moment the cop stepped out of line. Alas we are not free, and there is no justice.

[sloopyinca]

Nothing else will happen until people stand up for themselves and face these tyrants headon this unlawful behavior ends in the death of a Top Man's child.

FIFY.*

*They don't give a fuck about us proles, and nothing will ever change so long as this doesn't happen to a child of the ruling elite.

[sarcasmic]

Kate Beckinsale is still hot.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....skirt.html

[sloopyinca]

GLAAD will not tolerate intolerance, even if it comes from one of their own.

BEE needs to tell them to all go fuck themselves.

[John]

Doesn't him being gay give him some street creed to say those things? If I as a straight guy says some gay guy isn't a good fit to play the American house wife's S&M fantasy, I could see where people could rightly say what the hell do I know. But if a gay guy says it, you may not agree with it but at least he has some base of experience to make the assertion. Same with gay men being horny little bastards as he said. As a straight guy I am just speaking from stereotypes. As a gay man, he is speaking from experience. Is he not supposed to ever mention it if his experiences fit the stereotype?

[sarcasmic]

Doesn't him being gay give him some street creed to say those things?

To an extent, but there are limits.

For example on a local newspaper forum one of the commentors, a gay man, voiced his disapproval of redefining marriage. He was "drummed out of town" in a way similar to a black guy revealing himself to be conservative.

Certain deviations from groupthink are capital crimes.

[sloopyinca]

Having had several personal conversations with the man ranging from literature to baseball, I can safely say that Bret Easton Ellis has the street cred to talk about anything gay. Or anything just plain bizarre. He always seemed like a fairly likable guy, but he was strange.

Besides, the bier issue is why GLAAD would give a big award to the guy that implemented DADT and DOMA. What's next, the NAACP posthumously honoring Robert Byrd?

[John]

Because GLAAD sadly is not really a gay rights organization anymore. It is a leftist organization. Gay rights are just the vehicle they use to achieve the end of leftist policies. Them honoring Bill Clinton just shows that. They don't care that he was a bad President for gay rights because gay rights are not the point. Bill Clinton was a good and loyal leftist President and especially ex President. And that is good enough for GLAAD.

And that is really sad. I don't see how anything but harm can come to the gay rights movement over that.

[sarcasmic]

Gay rights are just the vehicle they use to achieve the end of leftist policies.

Yep. And sadly many libertarians have gotten on board.

[#HOLO YOLO]

Maybe it's just because I haven't seen the shows in question, but I dunno why GLAAD would find these objectionable:

If you think Modern Family has a progressive attitude about gayness then you're a retrograde tool. The fact that it's being lauded: a joke.

The writing on "The New Normal" is fairly funny for a sitcom despite the fact that it's a gay minstrel show. I wanted to trash it but can't.

[John]

He is right about Modern Family. I haven't seen the other one. But the Gay Couple in Modern Family are the worst of every possible stereotype of gay men. They are both anal, effeminate, bitchy dramatic queens. I don't see how that show makes gay men look anything but bad. It is the gay equivalent of having a black couple that speaks ebonics and eats fried chicken and watermelon every night for dinner.

[Gray Ghost]

I thought his tweet on Andrew Rannells was really funny:

Andrew Rannells in "The New Normal" makes Sean Hayes in "Will & Grace" seem like Jason Statham in just about anything.

I've not seen either The New Normal, nor Modern Family, but his analogy definitely paints a picture of Rannells's portrayal.

[John]

Hollywood wants so desperately to normalize gays into society, which is a perfectly fine goal. But in trying to do so every single gay character they create is anything but normal. Gays on television in the movies are almost always total stereotypes whose lives are completely defined by their sexuality confirming every negative thought expect outright pederasty opponents of homosexuality harbor.

[John]

except not expect.

[Slumbrew]

That's like the best tweet evar - I LOL'd (I haven't seen the show either, but I now have a sharp mental image of the character).

Makes me think of the classic "Wayne Brady makes Bryant Gumbel look like Malcolm X" line (which then led to one of my favorite sketches of all time).

[Otis B. Driftwood]

NPR story on Rand Paul running on the 2016 ticket

The comments are fucking maddening.

Ron Paul wrote newsletters which included racist, anti-Israel or anti-gay comments, including a 1992 newsletter in which he said 95% of black men in Washington "are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." So there goes the African American,LBGT and Jewish votes.

[John]

The sins of the father shall be visited on the son. Pathetic.