A.M. Links: Protest Over Eric Garner Grand Jury Decision, More Rain in California, 76ers Snap 17-Game Losing Streak

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  Protests erupted in New York City and around the country after a grand jury declined to indict the cop who placed Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold this summer. Garner's family, meanwhile, rejected an apology from the officer, Daniel Pantaleo, saying the time to show remorse and caring would have been as Garner yelled that he couldn't breathe.

• Drought-stricken California will get a third day of rain.
• Police and militants in the Chechen capital of Grozny exchanged gunfire; at least three traffic cops and six militants were killed.
• A bomb blast in Mogadishu hit a United Nations convoy, killing at least three.
• Two people were fatally shot by police in South Africa who used live ammunition for crowd control after a truck carrying rice and sugar lost its cargo.
• The Philadelphia 76ers snapped a record-breaking 17 game losing streak to start the season by winning their first game.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

...saying the time to show remorse and caring would have been as Garner yelled that he couldn't breathe.

Yes but who knew at the time killing him would become this big thing?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hello.

Garner is a protest I can get behind.

That was ridiculous.

[Drake]

Yep - my outrage meter went far higher on this one than Ferguson.

[UnCivilServant]

My outrage meter appears to be made of solid jade.

[Idle Hands]

But will you choke it?

[Atanarjuat]

I wonder if there would be any protest at all for Garner's death, if there hadn't been the riots in Ferguson so recently.

[Ted S.]

Didn't Garner's actual murder come before the incident in Ferguson?

[Monty Crisco]

Perfect storm what with the killing of that kid in Cleveland. Maybe America will wake up to the over-militarized police.

[Raping for Dummies]

Oh, we have. Everyone from Al Sharpton to Bill O'Reilly to the National Review is saying this is a huge miscarriage of justice and that we need to change the way killing by cops is investigated.

[Mike M.]

And may I say kudos to all the protestors around America last night. From what I saw on TV, everything looked peaceful and nothing appeared to be destroyed or even damaged.

[derpules]

Don't worry Fist, this will be forgotten in a month.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

1) What I don't understand is why there isn't more vigilantism in the United States when it comes to cops. Never mind the riots and the racial angle and all that. Let's pick a cleaner example, say one of the wrong house no-knock raids. If cops come to my house, throw a flash-grenade in the baby's room, shoot the dog, make grandma piss her pants, humiliate me in front of my kids, and won't even pay for a new front door when later it turns out later they mistook my address for the crack den two streets over, I'm sorry but I'm taking revenge. I won't necessarily want to kill one, but I wouldn't be averse to waiting with a crowbar in the parking lot of the favorite watering hole of one of the cops involved, you know? And I don't think I'm especially bloodthirsty or sick in the head (though I could be wrong there?). So why doesn't this scenario ever actually happen?

[BigT]

I feel your pain and that would be my first thought. But then I'd consider whether ruining my life AGAIN was worth it and whether I'd want to live in such a society. Maybe when I'm about ready to kick it...

[tarran]

Do you have a family you love?

Then you don't pull that shit, because your family will suffer when they take their revenge.

Do you have dreams for the future? Kiss them good bye because the cops and the courts won't stop till they are crushed and destroyed.

Revenge may feel good for a moment, but it won't actually fix anything.

Most people are good, and when faced with the evil that has embedded itself in American law enforcement, they choose not to throw their lives away in futile gestures.

[Drake]

I would certainly consider it. If they actually killed a loved one...

[Steve G]

If my son's last words were to call out for me like Kelly Thomas's, there'd be no mercy from me. I am amazed that his father showed as much restraint.

[Warren's Strapon]

Yeah...that would probably be a Death Wish moment for me, too.

[Jerryskids]

Most people are good, and when faced with the evil that has embedded itself in American law enforcement, they choose not to throw their lives away in futile gestures

"all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security"

Most people will take a lot of abuse before they'll fight back and many will never fight back, but there are some who will say "Give me liberty or give me death" and they will mean it - they would rather be dead than live like this.

There actually have been a few who have fought back, but the storyline the news media trots out is that these are lone nutbag whackjobs who just snapped for no reason. They can't fathom the idea that some people have ideals and principles and a sense of honor and justice that they are willing to die and to kill for. For these people "if you had just done what you were told to do, none of this would have happened" isn't a valid argument.

[Drake]

Eventually (maybe soon), we'll reach the point where the John Brown nut-jobs become heroes and the ones screaming "liberty or give me death" gather followers.

When the followers are Vets and the middle class (people who can make shit happen), things will get real interesting.

[Jordan]

Yeah, I'm surprised by that as well. By the way, what's with the numbers at the beginning of your posts?

[Just a thought not a sermon]

I decided to save these so I don't repeat myself. The numbers are an artifact of copying and pasting from the Word file.

[The Last American Hero]

Because you described what they do to innocent people. Just imagine what they would do when if you after them.

[Florida Man]

Because unlike killing a prole, a cop murder will be investigated and this time they won't leave anyone breathing after the raid.

[Auric Demonocles]

Most people have more of a self preservation drive than you do.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Well, I probably wouldn't actually do it. But if I did, I would take at least minimal steps to cover my tracks. But besides that, there are lots of low self-control folks out there who do all sorts of stupid shit, so where are they on this issue?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

If they killed someone in my immediate family without repercussions, I just might. I think about those cops down in Galveston trying to kidnap that little girl and wonder how I would react.

[Jordan]

Holy fucking shit.

[Griffin3]

I dug through the google, finally found a follow-up. Her lawsuit against the officers failed, the judge granted summary judgement to the defendants (individual officers involved) on 10/17/2010.

A quick reading of the order implies that as soon as she (the 12 year old girl) fled from police, then any subsequent injury to her was her fault. And that the follow-up arrest for resisting, while warranted, was okay, because FYTW.

[Restoras]

What do you think would happen to you if you did take revenge on the cops?

[ColonelEngineer]

The only way I can see this working is if everyone and their brother participated across the board. An overnight take down. Individual though?

First they'll kill you. Then they'll go to work on you.

[Fist of Etiquette]

You saw Braveheart?

[Idle Hands]

The Cartoon where that ginger chicks mom turns to a bear? which was an allegory for menopause?

[antisocial-ist]

You should probably wait a while to make sure you're not fresh in their minds. Then make sure to wear mask and gloves.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

A loving tap from a couple hundred yards should do the trick.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Dude, the reason is simple: The laws are stacked against YOU.

They have the guns and the laws and the mindset that backs it up says they have a legit right to using them and not YOU.

That's why people don't take revenge even if in their hearts and minds they want to.

[Tonio]

Because openly advocating for violent insurrection is a non-starter. Go troll someplace else.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

I'm sorry, who was advocating?

[Tonio]

Happy Thursday.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I don't think he was advocating that.

[Whahappan?]

Because the overwhelming majority of people aren't sociopaths, unlike cops.

[Jordan]

I don't think you know what a sociopath is.

[Matrix]

So maybe I wasn't the only person cheering for Gerard Butler's character in Law Abiding Citizen?

[sitnam90]

You weren't. Not quite the same sort of revenge as was being discussed I guess

[Fist of Etiquette]

Drought-stricken California will get a third day of rain.

Mudslides for Christmas?

[Injun, as in from India]

Climate Change! Koch Brothers! Fossil Fuels! CO2! Run for the hills!

[Johnny Bravo]

Run for the hills!

Just wait, the hills will come to you.

[UnCivilServant]

-1 California valley town.

[Mike Laursen]

This bullet point doesn't really convey the situation. It has been more than three days of very heavy rain.

Normally, that would get complaints, but nobody in Californiavwill utter a bad word about the rain.

[Bobarian (Mr. Xtreme)]

I'm dreaming of a brown christmas...

[Fist of Etiquette]

Protests erupted in New York City and around the country after a grand jury declined to indict the cop who placed Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold this summer.

De Blasio was so empathetic that he made sure they got nowhere near the Christmas tree lighting.

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

Up the People!
...
...
but not here and not now.

[Atanarjuat]

If they're protesting capitalism, that's another story.

[sarcasmic]

LA cops who shot unarmed veteran dead on live TV after dramatic Corvette chase to be disciplined

Police Chief Charles Beck found the officers' decision to use deadly force on National Guard veteran Brian Beaird, 51, last December was unjustified
Beaird was shot 13 times, including from behind, on live TV after dramatic December 13 high-speed chase in downtown LA
Cops told investigators they opened fire on Beaird after they saw him reach for the waistband
City of Los Angeles paid Beaird's family $5million in August to settle wrongful death lawsuit

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

It is now up to Chief Beck to decide whether or not to punish the officers in question. They could face suspension or termination.

Criminal charges? HAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA!

[sarcasmic]

Jaws of life: Extraordinary footage emerges of beachgoer slicing open a pregnant dead shark to save her pups and lead them to the ocean

Beachgoer slices open pregnant dead shark to rescue her unborn pups
Family found the deceased mother shark washed up on Cape Town beach
After seeing movement inside, the man cuts the creature open to free pups
Carefully avoiding their teeth, video shows him saving three baby sharks
Witnesses shout 'congratulations' as the pups are carried to the ocean

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

[DJF]

Three years later, beachgoer killed by sharks

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

The Irony of Nature.

[Florida Man]

+1 frog +1 scorpion

[Jordan]

Disgusting, but good for him.

[Tonio]

For the record, since I am often baselessly accused of cheerleading for this sort of thing here, I think this guy is an idiot.

[Florida Man]

Why?

[Jordan]

Why's he an idiot?

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

"Hey everyone, I just put three possible man-eaters back into the water!"...maybe?

[sitnam90]

He's probably informed enough to know that sharks kill a minuscule amount of people per year

[sarcasmic]

Loni Anderson selling risqu? nude portrait of herself commissioned by then-husband Burt Reynolds in auction

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

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Who's Loni Anderson? Sounds made-up.

[Zeb]

Someone with big tits.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Isn't that the chick that dunphy used to bang?

Oh, wait. That was Morgan Fairchild. Same difference. Or, at least, same hair.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Herb Tarlek has his checkbook ready.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Always liked Bailey Quarters better.

[sarcasmic]

aye

[Mike M.]

Starting to have flashbacks to the 12 year old me now.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Protests erupted in New York City and around the country after a grand jury declined to indict the cop who placed Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold this summer. The family of Eric Garner, meanwhile, rejected an apology from the officer, saying the time to show remorse and caring would have been as Garner yelled that he couldn't breathe.

I'm noticing a lot of anger and agitation from the left-wing chorus when conservatives and libertarians fault thuggish cops and cigarette taxes.

Which is funny because if Garner was murdered over marijuana possession they'd be agreeing that the law was the problem.

[Jordan]

These sorts of cases expose the tax fetishists for what they really are. They'd happily see a guy chocked to death for maybe depriving the state of a few dollars in revenue.

[Restoras]

For lefties it's all about identity politics. Can't have any cooperation with the other side to do what's right for the community. They win, or they scorch the Earth. It's infantile but so is their logic.

[Injun, as in from India]

Eric Garner was killed for trying to earn a living. He was not forcibly taking someone else's property. He was offering his property in exchange for money.

The asinine state of New York and the dumbf*** city that bears its name outlawed his non-violent commercial activity.

But the left's desire for social engineering and control makes them ignore this naked truth. They can't speak up against it because it would make them look foolish.

[sarcasmic]

Police are killing even more people than FBI figures show, as official tally misses HUNDREDS of fatal shootings

More than 550 killings by police not included in FBI figures between 2007 and 2012
Analysis of 105 police departments shows there were 1,800 such deaths over the five-year period
But this was 45 per cent more than FBI's figure for those departments

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

[Ted S.]

I blame these people.

[Jerryskids]

I blame global warming.

[Tonio]

Reason is your voice in debates about politics, culture, and ideas. Our annual Webathon is underway...

Um, no, I can and do speak for myself. That's insulting and off-putting.

[UnCivilServant]

Especially since reason and I don't agree on a crapload of cultural issues.

[Auric Demonocles]

I don't really mind that so much, as long as they don't insist that theirs is the only true libertarian answer.

[UnCivilServant]

Who cares about the "Libertarian answer"?

[Restoras]

But how can you have True Libertarianism without a Purity Test and an Arbiter?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

You forgot pedantry.

[WTF]

And the pot, Mexicans, and butt sex.

[Monty Crisco]

Cue Botard in 5..4..3..2...

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

Noooo!!!!

[Tonio]

Yeah, I didn't want to go there, UCS, into the details that is.

[Ted S.]

And fuck overlays that you can't close if you don't have images set to load.

[UnCivilServant]

What do you have against images?

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

THEY STEAL OUR SOULZ WHEN THEY ARE TAKEN!!!!

[Tonio]

Finally, someone else who understands!

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

*Tears off long sheet and then hands foil roll over to Tonio*

[Ted S.]

Having images load on H&R seems to make the pages load even more slowly and take up more memory.

[UnCivilServant]

Images or not, fuck overlays that make me have to scroll up to close them when they pop up on reloading the lynx comments!

[UnCivilServant]

Because of that assholish coding, I am definately not giving money to reason this year.

[Auric Demonocles]

I've made it clear that my donations are contingent on universal alt-text.

[gaijin]

Freeloader! 😉

[RBS]

That's insulting and off-putting.

I'd suggest developing a thicker skin.

[Citizen Nothing]

So like the Lorax of ass sex, Mexicans and pot.

[UnCivilServant]

A bomb blast in Mogadishu hit a United Nations convoy

What's the UN doing in SOMALIA! ? They're certainly not building ROADZ.

[Old Man With Candy]

What's the UN doing in SOMALIA! ?

Getting bombed. Sheesh.

[Jordan]

Vigorously "investigating" child sex slavery, probably.

[gaijin]

Some eggs must be broken in teh quest for good!

[RBS]

I thought the quotes went around "vigorously"?

[Jordan]

I'm saying they're raping kids like they did in the Congo.

[RBS]

And I'm saying they were doing it vigorously.

[Jordan]

I'm so confused. It would only make sense to put quotes around "vigorously" if they weren't doing it vigorously, no?

[DJF]

Its part of the plot to keep Reason Magazine from moving to Somalia and being fee from government.

[Restoras]

I call bullshit. Everyone knows that Somalia doesn't have any roads because it doesn't have any government, so how can their be a convoy?

[UnCivilServant]

You can convoy anything - boats, planes, tracked vehicles, minibuses.

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

"technicals"

[Ted S.]

Technically correct is the best kind of correct.

[This Machine Can Handle a Rope]

+1 Toyota Hilux

[Auric Demonocles]

Silly city folk.

[Ted S.]

How can their what be a convoy?

[gaijin]

All you need is a CB

Ah, breaker one-nine, this heres the rubber duck. you gotta copy on me, pig pen, cmon?
ah, yeah, 10-4, pig pen, fer shure, fer shure. by golly, its clean clear to flag town, cmon.
yeah, that Big 10-4 there, pig pen, yeah, we definitely got the front door, good buddy. mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a convoy...

It was the dark of the moon on the sixth of June
And a Kenworth pullin' logs
Cab-over Pete with a reefer on
And a Jimmy haulin' hogs
We's headin' for bear on Eye-one-O
'bout a mile outta Shakeytown
I says "Pigpen, this here's Rubber Duck"
"And I'm about to put the hammer down"

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

*roots around looking for his old 45 of this song*

[PBR Streetgang]

My dad had The Convoy soundtrack on an 8-Track that we'd listen to in his Maverick. That song is gold.

[sssbobbyr]

+11 long haired friends of Jesus +1 chartreuse microbus

[Atlas Slugged]

Between Homer singing this with his RapMaster 2000 and C.W. McCall making other classics, this post brought a smile to my face!

[BigT]

Just got this email:

Liberty in 2015, with Reason's All-Star Panel
Reason Foundation Vice President of Policy Adrian Moore will moderate an all-star panel with Reason magazine Managing Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason.tv Producer Jim Epstein, and Vice President of Research Julian Morris.

Join us as we discuss what went right, what went wrong, and what the prognosis is for liberty in 2015!

Tuesday, December 9. 1:00-1:45pm ET.
Register online here: http://adrianmoore.enterthemeeting.com/m/J63D7C77

You may also register by contacting Preston Cornish at [e-mail].

[Ted S.]

Does it say where the meeting is? And it only sounds like a panel of some-stars to me, if that.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Does it say where the meeting is?

In your butt.

(it's an online meeting, as indicated by the URL "enterthemeeting.com")

[The Late P Brooks]

The family of Eric Garner, meanwhile, rejected an apology from the officer, saying the time to show remorse and caring would have been as Garner yelled that he couldn't breathe.

Maybe if he put it in the form of a suicide note.

[Spoonman.]

Ed Krayewski had some epic Twitter rants last night. Bonus: use of "bigorati"

[The Late P Brooks]

Police and militants in the Chechen capital of Grozny exchanged gunfire; at least three traffic cops and six militants were killed.

Hear that, New Hampshire? THAT'S how you protest parking tickets.

[UnCivilServant]

By dying at twice the rate of the cops?

[Bardas Phocas]

Tree of Liberty - yada-yada-yada - water frequently.

[R C Dean]

That's an exchange rate the cops can't sustain.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Several articles in today's Washington Post play up the racial angle in the Garner chokehold story seemingly oblivious to stories like this also in today's paper:

"Frank Phillips, a Knox County Sheriff's officer, was fired Sunday night after a series of pictures taken by photographer John Messner were published in the Daily Mail in Britain. They showed an officer identified by the Sheriff's Office as Phillips grabbing 21-year-old college student Jarod Dotson around the neck and squeezing him until he fell to his knees."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....f-student/

[Idle Hands]

Quit resisting!

[Ted S.]

I didn't read the comments, but I wonder how long it will take (it's probably already happened) before people start saying that the outcome was different only because the guy being choked was white.

[Zeb]

Right, couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that this was a young fit guy and Garner was a fat asthmatic.

[Redmanfms]

So I watched Eat: The Story of Food.

Lots of food snobbery. Lots.

Michael Pollan. He didn't say anything profoundly stupid, but his smug delivery and expressions make me want to murder something.

Rachael Ray. Dumb cunt. Seriously. Dumb. Cunt. And ironically a food snob.

But the best was Ben Cohen (of Ben and Jerry's) sitting their with his pal on the sugar episode when they did a montage of the "socially consciousness" shit they've supported (mostly left-wing political stuff). Ben wore a T-shirt that said, "Stamp Money Out of Politics." What a grade-A douchebag.

[Auric Demonocles]

I do like the ice cream, but every time I go to the factory or just hear anything about their company I want to vomit.

[UnCivilServant]

Fun fact - there's a quasi-deli in Heathrow called 'Eat'. (No fresh cuts, but sells deli food)

[Old Man With Candy]

Avoid Pollan. Avoid Bittman. Avoid Waters (Alice, not John).

You'll be happier and smarter.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

For some reason I want to have sex with Rachel Ray.

[UnCivilServant]

The voice is so annoying I can't stand her presence.

[Idle Hands]

seconded, she seems like a screamer. Also I hope you don't have an olive allergy, because olive oil would be used excessively.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Nope. All good.

I'd pour it all over her.

[Atanarjuat]

My friend was banging a hippie chick for a while, who used olive oil for lube. One night we all went to bed and her moans (screams, really) were audible throughout the house. I had a pillow pressed to my head, trying to sleep. The bitch came out and accused me of listening to her and jerking it.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

The correct response is "Well, it was the only thing that could distract me from your shrieking."

[gaijin]

SOunds like a request for wish fulfillment

[RBS]

Ah, the old damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[Idle Hands]

well were you?

[Atanarjuat]

I wasn't jerking it. That friend had a tendency to try to convince me to double-team a chick with him. I think he tried to talk the girls he was with into it too. She may have had that on her mind (and she'd been passed around the circle of friends a few times already), because they both came out to the couch where I was sleeping. I just ignored them and rolled over.

I think I could have a MFM threesome, actually I sort of have since then, but not with a guy I am going to see every day.

[RBS]

I would. I remember this one time a girl I was dating tried to cook something from 30 Minute Meals, it was terrible.

[Old Man With Candy]

I did when she first appeared on the scene, but now she's just an aging parody of herself. The voice is awful, but there's an easy way to shut her up. The tanning booth tan is really off-putting, though, and much harder to fix.

Oh yes, and it's well known that she has no idea of how to cook.

[SugarFree]

It came out in her divorce that she likes to be pissed on.

[Coeus]

Now I want to sleep with her too.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Pretty much everyone in the culinary bidness is a gigantic douche. I think Eric Rippert, for all his Frenchiness, is the only top chef I've seen that seems like a sweet person. Also Jose Andres, but his restaurant Jaleo sucks.

[Jerryskids]

I like Anthony Bourdain - mostly because I want to know how I can get his job.

[Kaptious Kristen]

And he's the first to admit that he himself is a gigantic douchebag.

[Old Man With Candy]

I had some interactions with the late Charlie Trotter. Seemed like a decent fellow, but I'm sure his kitchen was a zero-tolerance zone.

[Overt]

I guess it depends on who you count as a top chef.

However, I have met and talked a lot with Hosea Rosenberg and Michael Voltagio- both winners of Top Chef- and found them to be decent fellows.

I think a lot of the reputation for chefs comes from the fact that they are basically CEOs. At work, people like that are always direct, no nonsense people. That doesn't make them douches, but that doesn't mean I would want to work directly with them either.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Hosea?!??! The guy who won over the amazing and hot Stefan Richter and delightful Carla Hall?? Fuck that guy.

[db]

"But surely, my Lord, there will be a stench!"
Ontario Family Waits on Man's Resurrection for Six Months

[Doctor Whom]

They're Christians, so even the slightest disagreement with them constitutes anti-Christian persecution.

[Medical Physics Guy]

They sure haven't done it yet, but at least the Tories now have a stated intention of reducing their government to pre-war levels. I would love to hear that from the GOP, maybe I missed it.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

That's funny, you must love the terrorists or something like that.

[UnCivilServant]

Which war?

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

The Second Matabele War

[mauricegirodias]

Heh, I just want them to finally repeal the stimulus. No more grants to campus rape centers.

[The Late P Brooks]

Ben wore a T-shirt that said, "Stamp Money Out of Politics."

Where do I donate?

[UnCivilServant]

https://www.reason.com/webathon/donate.php

[The Late P Brooks]

the Tories now have a stated intention of reducing their government to pre-war levels. I would love to hear that from the GOP, maybe I missed it.

Which war? I vote 1812.

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

I'll offer up the Quasi-War

[gaijin]

The 335-year war?

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

We will sweep the French from the waves yet!

[Raping for Dummies]

76ers Snap 17-Game Losing Streak

Go Sixers!!!

[Coeus]

The Dark Power of Fraternities

One warm spring night in 2011, a young man named Travis Hughes stood on the back deck of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity house at Marshall University, in West Virginia, and was struck by what seemed to him?under the influence of powerful inebriants, not least among them the clear ether of youth itself?to be an excellent idea: he would shove a bottle rocket up his ass and blast it into the sweet night air. And perhaps it was an excellent idea. What was not an excellent idea, however, was to misjudge the relative tightness of a 20-year-old sphincter and the propulsive reliability of a 20-cent bottle rocket. What followed ignition was not the bright report of a successful blastoff, but the muffled thud of fire in the hole.

Also on the deck, and also in the thrall of the night's pleasures, was one Louis Helmburg III, an education major and ace benchwarmer for the Thundering Herd baseball team. His response to the proposed launch was the obvious one: he reportedly whipped out his cellphone to record it on video, which would turn out to be yet another of the night's seemingly excellent but ultimately misguided ideas. When the bottle rocket exploded in Hughes's rectum, Helmburg was seized by the kind of battlefield panic that has claimed brave men from outfits far more illustrious than even the Thundering Herd.

[Coeus]

Terrified, he staggered away from the human bomb and fell off the deck.

Fortunately for him, and adding to the Chaplinesque aspect of the night's miseries, the deck was no more than four feet off the ground, but such was the urgency of his escape that he managed to get himself wedged between the structure and an air-conditioning unit, sustaining injuries that would require medical attention, cut short his baseball season, and?in the fullness of time?pit him against the mighty forces of the Alpha Tau Omega national organization, which had been waiting for him.

[Drake]

That sounds like an awesome party. If I had been present, I may have required medical attention for the gut I busted by laughing too hard.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

ATO, or as we used to call it, Asshole Training Organization

[Kaptious Kristen]

Yep. On my alma mater's campus, too, ATO was known as the douchiest Greek org. And we didn't have very many frats (I think maybe 6 or 7), so they were all pretty douchey.

[Zeb]

I know a few things about bottle rockets and unless he put the rocket in his ass the wrong way around (i.e. the tip in first and the fuse sticking out, I can't really figure how this is possible.

[Brett L]

His brothers had him working on kegels the whole first semester?

[Coeus]

Stuck it in too deep and clenched instead of relaxing. She probably meant it exploded while the stick was still inside his rectum. The rocket was probably in the cheeks.

[Zeb]

Perhaps the author was just too excited at an opportunity to write "the bottle rocket exploded in Hughes's rectum" and embellished a bit.

Still seems like the stick must have been pretty far up there. Maybe he shortened it.

[Coeus]

Perhaps the author was just too excited at an opportunity to write "the bottle rocket exploded in Hughes's rectum" and embellished a bit.

That would be my guess as well. I mean, how often do you get to write a sentence like that?

[Bobarian (Mr. Xtreme)]

I may have actually saw this video. When the sparks hit his ass, he clenched up...

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

If that type of behavior were only specific to fraternities, youtube would no longer exist.

[UnCivilServant]

I thought YouTube was for clips of crazy Koreans prancing like horses.

[kinnath]

Yes, and kittehs too.

[Ted S.]

Koreans prancing like kittens?

[UnCivilServant]

Or Kittehs prancing like horses.

[WTF]

"Hold my beer and watch THIS!"

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

"Most common last words in Wisconsin"

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

"FratTube"

[Tonio]

"also in the thrall of the night's pleasures" Wow, that's some seriously overwrought prose. Like a bodice-ripper, or one of those awful white slavery panic pieces from the twenties.

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

AND I WOULD WAGER DEMON MARIJUANA WAS INVOLVED!

*shakes cane and straw hat*

[UnCivilServant]

Demon Marijuana? Is that stronger than Regular Marijuana?

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

IT IS ALL THE DEVIL'S WEED!

*ties onion to belt*

[RBS]

seriously overwrought prose.

This seems to be reaching sort of an epidemic in the "cool" lefty media.

[Atanarjuat]

Exploded in his rectum? Um, you're supposed to point the bottle rocket AWAY from you. I'm pretty sure Steve-O* did it in one of the Jackass movies.

*Ringling Clown College graduate, FYI.

[The Late P Brooks]

That's insulting and off-putting.

This just in: princess discovers pea in bed!

[Brett L]

We're delicate snowflakes!

[Drake]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/.....-explained

The crash of the Middle Class ought to be the biggest headline of the year. We are getting taxed, regulated, inflated, wage stagnated, and Obamacared out of existence.

Everything Obama has done seems to be aimed at destroying the Middle Class and it's working.

[Jordan]

Meanwhile, the Fed recently declared that the economy is in good shape. The statements of central bank clowns are the best contrary indicators.

[The Last American Hero]

such good shape they decided to let interest rates rise...oh wait.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Besides Obamacare, what exactly has Obama done that's different from past Presidents in term of their populist rhetoric? His basic premise is 'tax and spend' and other tired, left-wing strategies for the economy. Even minimum wage is not his idea but part of an overall belief it's necessary.

I have a hard time pinning too much blame on any one President for something like 'the fall of the middle class'; heck the economy as a whole. Sure, they can send it off into different tangents.

What I do see is the soaring populist (and racial) rhetoric has increased under his watch but has that translated into actual policy?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

"Sure, they can send it off into different tangents."

You will ignore this sentence.

[Drake]

Spend $10 Trillion more than tax revenues, despite tax increases. Which crowds out private investment and sucks more of the national wealth into the government sector.

Regulate business to the point where many stop bothering to find new growth opportunities. How many hundreds of new regulations were released just last week?

Make hiring full-time employees more expensive and onerous.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

New regulations come in all the time. The growth of government has been going on well before him.

Look, I agree, just playing devil's advocate a tad.

[Zeb]

Everyone knows Reagan destroyed the middle class. That's what people keep telling me.

[The Last American Hero]

The system was bad, but Obama's programs poured gas on the fire.

[Injun, as in from India]

President Hope-and-Change and his team of starry-eyed democrats are working to reduce income inequality by making us as wealthy as the poor.

[robc]

Alcohol spending down 4.5% since 2007.

Craft beer spending up, well, its a lot, as its basically been double digit volume growth every year since then, and dollar growth has been stronger.

[robc]

$6.5B to $14.3B

So, a bit over 100% growth from 2007 to 2013.

[gaijin]

and dollar growth has been stronger

I'll say...a four pack for 10 bucks in the case of some crafties at the local Binny's

[Atanarjuat]

I just noticed the Reasonable box in the lower right goes slightly transparent when it's over Reason's donation graph.

[The Late P Brooks]

Everything Obama has done seems to be aimed at destroying the Middle Class and it's working.

But- but- but- Dow is up! Gold is down!

What kind of peanut gallery ignoramus are you?

*saunters jauntily away, twirling cane and whistling We're in the Money!*

[Doctor Whom]

If you ask what good the Dow has done you, they'll say that you've just disproved trickle-down economics. They've carefully constructed their dogma to be unfalsifiable and then demand that you falsify it.

[UnCivilServant]

The Dow has padded my Deffered Comp balances.

[The Late P Brooks]

Meanwhile, the Fed recently declared that the economy is in good shape.

"We conducted an informal survey down at the club, and everybody told us we're doing a great job."

[Brett L]

Sounds like "nobody I know voted for Nixon." If you only hang out with bankers and investment firms, and they're busy looting the treasury, of course their economy is in good shape. After the Baby Boomers have systematically looted all productive savings to pay for their retirement, what will the next generations do? Fuck, my house is worth 2/3 of what I paid for it, and 6 years after the crash, foreclosures are still sucking the price down. Add that to all the savings I have tied up in retirement bound accounts, and it looks to me like a generational scam. To say nothing of those even less fortunate who are bound up in student debt. At least I can walk away and just pay a ridiculous amount for the next car note if I'm not planning on buying another house for seven years. I won't, because I agreed to pay that note, and I can still afford to, but I feel less inclined to be bound to that with each passing month.

I'm strongly considering not putting any savings in retirement bound accounts. I'd rather have money I can spend on my family in the next 20 years, since I have little confidence in the securities market exceeding inflation over that period for hoi polloi like myself.

[Monty Crisco]

OT: from the comments on the protest last night:

Doctor Doom|12.4.14 @ 12:11AM|#

bull connor who had his men arrest the progressive party vp candidate in 48? lord you're ignorant

That is some kind of shit stain troll right there.

[Coeus]

Even more hate that the Eric Garner case shows the reality of taxation and the nanny state.

[Tonio]

Thanks, that's some epic butt-hurt and refusal to engage in honest introspection. Also, wait for it people...wait for it....Projection!

(Thanks, Epi)

[Outlaw]

I'm firmly convinced the left goes out of its way to sabotage police reform by insisting on making it all about race to stir up their voters. They don't actually give a fuck about police militarization or brutality. There are a thousand cases they've overlooked time and time again because a black guy wasn't the victim and it didn't fit the narrative.

I hate these insidious fucks more than words can describe.

[Coeus]

I'm firmly convinced the left goes out of its way to sabotage police reform by insisting on making it all about race to stir up their voters. They don't actually give a fuck about police militarization or brutality.

I've been kicking that idea around for awhile now. This Garner/Michael Brown stuff lends even more evidence to the theory.

[Kaptious Kristen]

There are a 1000 cases that they've overlooked or ignored where a black person was the victim. I'm still baffled as to which police murders get this kind of frenzied coverage and which don't. An eight-year-old girl murdered in her own house by a cop raid? No attention. No outrage. No media. That is empirically worse than a 19-year-old kid getting shot by a cop on the street. Yet the 19-year-old gets all the empathy and outrage, and that little girl gets none.

[antisocial-ist]

The little girl isn't decisive enough. Teenage thugs who are the victims of questionable police shootings divide the population against itself, ensuring that the police state continues to grow and minorities continue to believe that progs are the only people who care about them.

[Coeus]

I'm still baffled as to which police murders get this kind of frenzied coverage and which don't.

Seems to be the ones where rational people can look at the evidence and disagree. If there's no disagreement, you can't call anyone racist.

[Overt]

You also can't get two talking heads on a 1 minute segment yelling at each other about it. And that is what the Media wants- controversy.

If the girl being shot were on a 24 hour news show, everyone would say, "Yeah that's fucked up...uh...cut to commercial?"

[Coeus]

Fark response to a reason article.

Pick your favorite.

Here's a starter:

qorkfiend
22 hours ago
Frank N Stein: All in all, I like the idea of citizens coming together to protect the property of Ferguson citizens from the opportunistic and predatorial looters. However, "Oath-Keepers" is such a cringeworthy name.

Vigilante justice for everybody!

Why do you believe the police need or want assistance from amateurs?

[Coeus]

Oh, one more:

hardinparamedic [TotalFark]
18 hours ago

jigger: And regarding the bolded part, you've been reading some really loony shiat if you believe that

Apparently Sky News is some "really loony shiat", since they outright admitted they were going with the intention of using lethal force to "protect property", and are acting as an extrajudicial militia in Ferguson currently. Regardless of how you feel about the second amendment, it doesn't give you the right to incite violence and threaten others with your guns, buddy. The aforelinked interview is basically the guy jerking off to shoot someone.

[Zeb]

What does he think "incite" means?

[Zeb]

Yeah, people who do what they promise to do should be viewed with suspicion. That makes sense.

Why do you believe the police need or want assistance from amateurs?

Hmm, let's see. Maybe something to do with the fact that people's property is being destroyed and the police aren't stopping it.

At least he isn't trying to excuse the looters. Must be a racist.

[Raston Bot]

Why do you believe the police need or want assistance from amateurs?

Who said anything about assisting police?

[Zeb]

Or amateurs? Aren't the Oath Keepers mostly current or former police or military?

[Whahappan?]

I think it is exclusively for law enforcement and military.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I had no idea Ryan Leaf was in prison. I just thought he kind of faded into obscurity, like Gus Ferotte or Tim Couch.

[robc]

Leaf was an exceptional level of idiot.

Some guys just cant hack it at NFL level, Leaf had problems.

[robc]

It is one of the advantages of baseball...fringe guys can stay on the fringe and be AAA long timers or whatever.

A guy I played little league with was a 3-time AAA all-star. He spent about 2 weeks in the majors over 2 years. His career MLB ERA is over 10.

Even high draft picks (he wasnt) have that kind of thing happen to them. And instead of being laughed at like Couch or Leaf, they can be mostly anonymous.

[Brett L]

I worked with a guy who was a lefty reliever for Baseball U. He played in every goddam foreign league there was, because he knew he didn't have the size or the arm for The Show. It was a really eye-opening experience about how being a hard-working guy of average size doesn't matter at all when there are literally 10 million other guys in the world trying for less than a thousand jobs.

[robc]

Foreign leagues are full of great college players who werent quite good enough for the NBA.

A German guy I worked with in Switerzerland in the early 90s had a brother playing in the German pro league. He said his brother's team wasnt very good, they couldnt afford an American.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

You can earn a great living in Europe in most sports including volleyball.

[Drake]

Leaf strikes me as the kind of guy who couldn't hold a job anywhere - not just your typical NFL bust.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Well, yeah, given his pill addiction, I'd say he'd have trouble making it as a McD's janitor.

[BigT]

This guy is apparently the authority on police criminality statistics.

Phil Stinson joined the Bowling Green faculty in 2009. He worked previously as a police officer, juvenile detention counselor, attorney, and most recently taught in the Criminology Department at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). Dr. Stinson serves on the Editorial Board of Criminal Justice Policy Review. His research interests include police behaviors (police crime, police corruption, and police misconduct), newsmaking criminology, program evaluation, and mental health issues in the criminal justice system. He is currently principal investigator for a research project funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) at the US Department of Justice entitled Police Integrity Lost: A Study of Law Enforcement Officers Arrested

Maybe The Independents could have him on the air - what do you say MATT WELCH?

[BigT]

Posted earlier on Napolitano thread - repeated her for your amusement:

A few years ago Cato had some great stuff on their website about police misconduct. But it has not been updated since 2011. WTF? This is a big issue, get back to work.

The HnR commentariat will find it interesting that Cato singled out Washington State as the worst in terms of cop-fellating...er prosecuting.

While most legal experts cited in the news confirmed that Washington's laws, which require a nearly impossible burden of proving malicious intent to charge an officer who kills in the line of duty, could be a plausible reason for refusing to prosecute Birk. Other experts also cited how difficult it is in general to prosecute a police officer anywhere in the US for any reason, especially when the alleged criminal act occurred on duty. But this presents us with a question; could this be just a Washington problem or is this indicative of a much more systemic problem in the US?

The National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project has been gathering data including criminal cases against law enforcement officers for nearly two years, perhaps the answer to some of these questions resides within that data.

Have I lit the Dunphy beacon? If so, sorry.

[Kaptious Kristen]

The National Police Misconduct Reporting Project is updated almost daily.

[BigT]

Hmmm. For some reason I couldn't get to that page. Hmmm.

[Steve G]

Holy shite, the daily feeds are depressing

[sssbobbyr]

+11 long haired friends of Jesus +1 chartreuse microbus

[Rufus J. Firefly]

On the day both Oliver and Beliveau died!

[Pope Jimbo]

Tundra were you even surprised at this? I remember the first two years of the Tampa Bucs being in existence and just knowing that the Vikes would be the first ones to lose to them (astonishingly they weren't).

Life as a MN sports fan is a life spent knowing that you will always be left humiliated.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Not really. But it was devastating.

Beliveau was quite the persona.

I can't stress that enough and I'm sure it affected every player.

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

Nice.

[Tonio]

Come closer, Tundra...

[WTF]

Bad link

[R C Dean]

Yep, I'm sure.

http://www.listal.com/jan-smithers

[Rufus J. Firefly]

More importantly for communities everywhere. The stories of him with sick kids kept coming yesterday.

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

Do you have a sea bug for him?

*runs away laughing maniacally*

[Bobarian (Mr. Xtreme)]

Hey don't knock Loni

After all the hours I spent in the 70's, holding her poster up by one hand*

*Appologies to Steve Martin

[Tonio]

No Lobster Girl for you, Fondue Boy.

[Swiss Servator, Winter kommt!]

*jolts to a halt....seriously reconsiders 'sea bug' in light of Lobster Girl denial...*