A.M. Links: NYC Politicians Not Interested in Exploiting Police Reform Movement Anymore, George H.W. Bush in Hospital, Game Networks Crash on Christmas

-
White House After the on-duty killing of two cops last weekend, politicians in New York City are no longer trying to attach themselves to the police reform movement that's loosely centered itself around that city.
- Labor unions are courting immigrants who may be legalized because of executive action by President Obama as potential new members.
- A man who was shot by a cop in Newark, New Jersey while trying to flee in a taxi will be charged with resisting arrest, making terroristic threats, possession of marijuana, and possession of a loaded gun. It's unclear why police initiated an encounter with the man.
- After being brought in as a "precaution," George H.W. Bush spent a third night in the hospital.
- Al-Shabaab took credit for eight militants who infiltrated an African Union base in Mogadishu, killing three peacekeepers and a contractor.
- Hackers claimed responsibility for a Christmas Day crash of the online services associated with the Xbox and PlayStation video game systems.
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Labor unions are courting immigrants who may be legalized because of executive action by President Obama as potential new members.
THEY'LL MAKE THE CURRENT MEMBERS LOOK BAD!
Why...
Hello!
They'll work too hard.
But they will join, price themselves out of the market and then employers will look for a new source of illegal, cheap labor...HANG ON A MINUTE?!?!?!
something something foreseeable consequences something.
Or, lather/rinse/repeat
Somalians. Doing jobs Mexicans won't do. It will be nice to get those Anarchist votes. I'm sure some will enjoy seeing Black folks out in the fields again.
It's unclear why police initiated an encounter with the man.
It hardly matters once you find the charges you can retroactively pile on.
And when you can kill people with impunity.
Hackers claimed responsibility for a Christmas Day crash of the online services associated with the Xbox and PlayStation video game systems.
I choose to believe it was North Korea. Or perhaps DHS nationalized them for a day and did their usual bang-up job at website management. ZING.
Disgruntled Microsoft and Sony ex-employees?
Hackers claimed responsibility for a Christmas Day crash of the online services associated with the Xbox and PlayStation video game systems.
SJW hackers
Federal workers get the day off by presidential proclamation, but contractors have to use PTO (or go to work). Fuck you Obama.
I am a contractor and I love these days. All the regulars are at home and I can focus on my "real" work.
No meetings. No sudden drop ins. It is all good.
My company is private, so I don't begrudge the day off to any of the regular employees. If I was a govt. contractor, though, it would urinate me off that they just get a day off with pay for no better reason than "because".
WTF ever happened to crusty old managers who made their underlings do a day's work for a day's pay?
It really sucks for the government contractors who work on-site. They have no choice but to use vacation time, since the building where they work is closed. At least I work off-site, so I can save the PTO for something else.
You're a federal contractor?
If you have to ask after reading those posts of mine then your reading comprehension is worse than I thought. idjit
It's kind of. 'Well, really' type of question than for clarification.
This is why no one likes you.
Haha, welcome to middle school.
Yup. I don't have an option to go into work today for that very reason.
It's better than the previous contractor I worked for, though. At that place, even if the site was closed and you had a natural disaster occurring (seriously) you were expected to show up to work unless you'd requested PTO several weeks before. And yoy were written up if you didn't (just so they could justify not giving you a cost-of-living adjustment that year).
Oh well, fuck it...that's why we get paid better than most federal employees.
Ugh. One of the worse companies I ever worked for started in Mpls and then about a year in we got a new CEO who relocated all the execs to Herndon, VA.
After all the execs had been safely ensconced in VA, the new HR director published guidelines for inclement weather. Basically, the HR director would decide when weather was too bad for the office to be open. If she decided that the weather didn't warrant an official office closing, then you had to burn PTO if you didn't make it in.
Of course it soon turned out that 1/4" of snow would close the Herndon office. It took at least three feet of snow in Mpls to get an official closing. According to the HR director, we knew how to deal with bad weather so we should know how to get in.
That was one of the policies that put that company into a death spiral that it never really recovered from.
I guess I've got it pretty good where I'm at. My bosses don't mind if I work from home when the weather sucks. So whenever there's enough snow for the plow to block the driveway, I VPN in so I can make sure my pretty lady has no problems parking her car when she gets home from work.
FYI rant: The urban planning department as well as inspectors in my town make 65-70k a year working 4 days a week.
Arrogant and rude to boot.
One of our "code inspectors" is a character right out of a Charles Dickens novel [sour look, humorless, slightly hunched over, I think he even went "bah" when handing a citation to a barber shop that already had a city permit for a temporary sign]....I pointed him out to my son as the perfect embodiment of government. So at least he was useful in that regard
Ha.
Except the people in this dept. are young!
They will sour and age like a speeded up film clip...
I think it would be worth it to me to raise their wages if they would agree to only work 2 days a week.
City planners with too much time on their hands tend to do shitty things to people.
http://www.startribune.com/loc.....y#continue
Like demand he make updates, then not issue a permit to make updates and force owner to stop working on updates.
Then use lack of repairs as a reason to condemn property and order it to be torn down. Did I mention that this property was near a busy intersection and valuable?
After the on-duty killing of two cops last weekend, politicians in New York City are no longer trying to attach themselves to the police reform movement that's loosely centered itself around that city.
Matt Welch assured me reform is not dead!
All it took was the killing of 2 cops and any talk of reform is over. Real rational and logical populace we've got here.
Well, yeah! Reform could jeopardize the most important thing in the world: officer safety!
I don't know who Officer Safety is, but he sounds like a real asshole.
But he goes home every night!
That's all that matters.
If only he'd stay there, not that I'd wish that on Mrs. Safety.
Officer Safety is just a general asshole
Dunphy is the real asshole
Politicians are craven if nothing else.
Reform was not going to be led by NYC. Especially with their wet blanket of a mayor leading the charge.
More because unions hate reform, regardless of who's in charge, and once the police unions told politicians to obey and roll over those politicians heeded...like good, obedient dogs.
Al-Shabaab took credit for eight militants who infiltrated an African Union base in Mogadishu...
You know who else attacked on Christmas?
General Washington?
FTW!
Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern?
+1 spread, spread, Delaware...
The Grinch?
Well, yeah...
His question was just too obvious.
Loaded.
King Herod?
Ooooh.
The 82nd Airborne?
Hans Gruber?
General L?ttwitz?
Imaginary Rapists?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....ruder.html
Bell should have claimed he was from the police.
Homeowner shoots Christmas robber who smashed him in the face with a wrench
DISPROPORTIONATE RESPONSE!
Joe Biden approves.
aye
Fucking, awesome.
Never seen that before. Spectacular.
Damn, that was fun.
and you saved that for a year? Bogart.
A shotgun to the back?
Serious question: how is he going to be able to claim self-defense, if the guy was already fleeing? I think we were taught in CC class that you absolutely cannot do this.
He was charging but then turned around right as I was pulling the trigger.
That's what I was thinking. You're supposed to shout something at the guy to get him to turn around, and then unload into his chest. Right?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....raphs.html
Who would pay 60 fancy L's for that?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....ttack.html
Perhaps they can claim it's racist too in addition to bullying.
Given it seems seals are color blind, FTA:
It seems (as I think was already assumed here) what the vets believe says a great deal more about their worldview. Additionally it shows the ability for humans to falsely find "evidence" backing their worldview when they really, really believe it to be true.
Interesting article in the NYT on Hank Greenberg suing over the AIG bailout.
Interesting because the story has links to all the previous NYT editorials and stories calling Greenberg a slimy turd for filing the outrageously frivolous lawsuit over a completely legal deal that bailed his ass out - except that now that the feds have been forced to turn over a bunch of internal documents it turns out the feds knew that what they were doing was illegal and it was some pretty dirty dealing. Plus, the story dips into the conflicts of interest and insider profiteering on the deal.
The AIG bailout wasn't much different than the GM bailout in that it wasn't necessary, the government had a lot to do with the original failure, the feds just made up new rules as they went along and to hell with the law, and now that everybody knows the feds will bail you out if you fuck up massively enough it discourages small risk taking in favor of massively outrageous risk taking. Various people are already warning that the bank fix last time didn't fix anything and in fact made things worse and the fire next time is going to be hell.
Why did you light the PB signal? 😉
If you guys stopped feeding it whenever it vomits up its random yet inflammatory strings, you could have discussions on any topic under the sun.
The new Dodd-Frank law REQUIRES that the firm be liquidated via Orderly Resolution.
I know you Peanuts don't read the actual law but it is in there - Barney Frank called it the real "death panel" that Congress passed.
What did I say, Jerry? 🙁
If only we could get a liquidation here - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needed liquidating a long time ago.
The whole mess was caused by banks issuing mortgages to dead chipmunks knowing that they could sell the paper to Fannie and Freddie. Fannie and Freddie of course were "private" companies but everybody knew when the bubble burst the feds would ride to the rescue astride the trusty American taxpayer - and they did.
Everybody talks about the banks making "risky" derivatives gambles, but what was the risk? That the feds would forget how to write a big fat check? There was no risk to the banks and no risk that the taxpayers would miss out on a cornholing.
Cool story, bro.
Hank Greenberg? As in Hammerin' Hank?
Our old CEO nearly dropped dead of apoplexy when Uncle Fed gave a direct competitor hundreds of billions...I believe he actually called that idiot Paulsen and asked if he would be doing that for any more of our competition...
I wonder what will happen in NYC if [ when ] the rookie cop who shot a man by 'accident' does not get indited? Hell ,his first call was to a union thug,uh, rep!
Aw, come on! It was an accident! He didn't mean it!
"There's no double standard. No prosecutor in the country would charge a man with anything for shooting someone like that" - Dunphy
"if"?
Oh yeah, well the Ruble is barely worth more than toilet paper.
So they've got value in Venezuela then. #TooEasy
Cheaper and easier to smuggle real toilet paper, plus they're more liable to be sold without argument.
Russia is for losers!
The Field General in the War on Christmas
"The latest front in the War on Christmas, like so many of its battles, began in Texas. In 2012, Dwayne Bohac, a state lawmaker from Houston, picked up his son from first grade and was alarmed to hear the boy say he had spent the day putting holiday decorations on a holiday tree...And so in June 2013 the Texas legislature passed the "Merry Christmas Bill," in a nearly unanimous vote, to protect school districts and other governmental entities from lawsuits over effusive holiday promotion...
Asked if the law meant schools would be free to celebrate Kwanzaa or put up a Diwali display, Bohac said, 'Those aren't the traditional winter holidays we are celebrating. I have never gotten one letter in my office about one of those. I have never heard a single person wish me a happy one of those.'"
http://www.thedailybeast.com/a.....stmas.html
The 'kicker':
"But asked if he would say "Merry Christmas" to someone who he knew did not celebrate the holiday, he paused for several seconds.
'I have never thought about that,' he said. 'I like the term 'Happy Holidays.' That is a great term, as well. I wouldn't want to be offensive to someone.'"
Here's how I live:
Someone says "Merry Christmas", I say, "Thanks, same to you."
Someone says "Happy Hanukah", I say, "Thanks, same to you."
Someone says "Good Kwanzaa", I say, "Thanks, same to you."
Same for Festivus, Winter Solstice, Boxing Day, etc. It is a well-wishing. No one is asking me to believe these things. There is no reason to take offense or to believe that they are forcing their religion on me.
Why can't everyone get this? Why must everything be a goddamn political soap opera these days?
Anyone who gets offended by someone wishing them well is a piece of shit.
I'm guessing most people say to you 'merry' the holiday you celebrate.
Paging Captain Obvious! Captain Obvious to Bo's mommy's basement!
Perhaps the good captain could help you with my point.
What is the solution then? To say happy holidays on every fucking holiday?
Or just, never speak to anyone.
Why not say happy holidays when you're not sure and merry whatever to those whom you're more sure of? That's what I do.
The solution is to ignore bo on days when his mommy forgot to give him the special pills that reduce the retard levels in his blood for a few hours.
Wow, you really were sting the other day.
Stung
The solution is to ignore bo on days when his mommy forgot to give him the special pills that reduce the retard levels in his blood for a few hours.
He is incapable of honest debate, so all he deserves is insults and ridicule.
Yes, the suggestion that people who wish others well might try a more inclusive phrase can only come from a place of dishonesty.
You're absolutely right. Next time someone tells me Happy Hanukah, I will reproach them for not considering the possibility that I am an atheist.
That's a better world.
Yes, the suggestion that people who wish others well might try a more inclusive phrase can only come from a place of dishonesty.
Thanks for the input, Anita.
You're letting your leftism show.
You do understand that inclusion requires exclusion, don't you. Inclusion is not what leftists think it is.
In fact, that's EXACTLY where it comes from Bo-Bo.
BOXING DAY?!?!?!?! WHAT ARE YOU, SOME SORT OF COMMONWEALTH SYMPATHIZER??????
Granted, that was a bad example.
Not around here. A day to give presents to the servants-- the yearly change of clothes and a half day's work for all those orphans.
*marks the retired LTC in the questionable column*
Because people are insanely full of themselves.
Exactly. Who gives a shit? Although I don't know why anyone would wish me Good Kwanzaa but if they did all good to me.
I'm thinking a number of his constituents might be upset if wished a happy Ramadan.
Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Crazy Kwanzaa, a tip-top Tet, and a solemn, dignified Ramadan.
Humbug.
Since one is not wished a 'happy ramadan', this shouldn't be surprising to anyone.
If someone told me "good Kwanzaa" I'd give them the traditional Kwanzaa gift.
http://theinfosphere.org/What_the_Hell_Is_Kwanza?
exactly. Good grief. People who say whatever do so out of politeness and with good intent; neither Merry Christmas nor Happy Holidays is meant as some sort of insult. Did I stumble into Salon?
If they intend good then wouldn't they want to know what greeting is more applicable and appropriate for the recipient?
If I used the most applicable greeting for most people, I'd spend half my day saying "Fuck off".
Aren't you the strong silent type?
I think "Fuck off cunt face" is the minimum amount of verbosity required in polite society.
In your case people would have to define each and every word of the greeting to make sure they didn't play semantics with you for the next several hours.
As others have requested, please post your first day in court so we can all attend (with popcorn) so we can watch the judge rip you a new asshole as you try your semantic bullshit will the him/her.
"Councillor, why are there so many people with refreshments in the gallery?"
There's this dude that comes around every year with good intentions on April 15. What's an appropriate greeting for him?
Fuck off slaver.
When well-wishing becomes insulting, something has gone terribly wrong with society.
Only you would deride a law designed to protect against frivolous lawsuits.
I saw The Interview last night; I loved it. It's Pineapple Express 2 with explosions and a hot Asian chick costar.
"a hot Asian chick costar"
So....one redeeming feature then?
I have never heard a single person wish me a happy one of those.
+1 Pauline Kael
In his defense, I don't think many have.
In my experience nobody really celebrates Kwanzaa. I think people like the idea of an African variant of the solstice holiday, but fewer people find it worth participating in.
In contrast, Christmas, an amalgamation of Roman Saturnalia's tamer traditions, with the copts' adaptation of the Osiran birth celebrations, started out like Kwanzaa, but did have traction, because a sufficient number of people wanted to celebrate it every year.
I agree he probably doesn't get this, which would be uncommon in much of Texas. But in the big cities in TX it'd be more common, and he's a state legislator.
The history of Kwanzaa particularly the history of its founder is pretty fucked up if you've never seen it.
Does employing a tenured professor who kidnapped and tortured a woman promote rape culture?
The networks in Philly always find at least one A-A family that is celebrating - usually making African food while wearing African garb - but it's probably the same family every year!
FTFY
Key-rist its cold. 43F right now and expected to go as low as 41F tonight. I've got to endure a whole freaking *month* of this crap.
I should point out that we've had a wonderful stretch of 32+ weather here in Sunny Minnesoda and we are all grateful.
43 would make us faint with delight. When we came to, we would be surrounded by protesters telling us that Global Warming was real and it was here. So it would be a mixed blessing.
I don't know how you people handle that shit.
Give me good old 120 degree weather, this cold stuff *hurts*.
Those are "Open the windows" temperatures.
+1 Gramma just made lutefisk for Christmas
It's a glorious 40-ish in Chicago.
Suggest you adjust your benchmark.
Who else made a roast beef for dinner yesterday? Seems like that's been the trend this year.
I made corned beef. I was alone, so I turned it into sandwiches.
We made Yorkshire pudding for the first time. It was as easy as it was yummy. I think it will become a standard menu item whenever we roast meat.
It's good, huh? Glad it worked out for you. Hope you and your family had a merry Christmas!
Thank you and back at you!
I made lechon kawali to feed the Pinoy (wife's) side of the family. It's like bacon on steroids. Served it with some sukang maanghang. Sarap!
Not very traditional but I'd give it a try.
Not traditional unless you're married to a Filipina. It's worth trying, though, as is crispy pata.
Crock potted a duck, then shoved it in the oven at 425 for ten minutes to crisp the skin.
Compliments all around from the co-workers, which made working on Christmas a little less shitty...
Very nice!
CA takes stand on political slush funds, makes politicos disburse funds after leaving office!
(unless they decide they'd rather not)
"Politicians use 'ghost' campaigns to fight specter of lost funds"
[...]
"For example, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer announced last year that he is retiring from politics, but he has $1.7 million in a campaign account for a purported 2018 run for lieutenant governor."
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/.....979153.php
I'm sure there is a level of sleaze to which a politico won't lower himself, we just haven't dug that deep yet.
I'm not sure its CA's business what these guys do with that money.
If a Kickstarter asks for $400,000 and gets a million, no-one expects them to give the extra back.
Agammamon|12.26.14 @ 10:38AM|#
"I'm not sure its CA's business what these guys do with that money."
Maybe, but the hypocrites pass a law supposedly 'policing' their own funds and then weasel around it.
What's more is there may be some state interest in that if you donate for a reason (campaign) and then the funds are used for hookers and blow, it seems a contract has been broken.
"Cop shares his street smarts in new book"
[...]
""As a street cop, one of your major goals is to prevent violent crime and take felons into custody, but they don't come to you. You have to go out and find them, and one way is stopping people for minor violations ? littering, riding a bicycle on the sidewalk. Then you can ID them."
http://www.sfgate.com/entertai.....978555.php
That's what he said; fishing expeditions are just fine.
He's screwed up in so many ways.
How many *actual* felons do cops pick up this way - vice people hiding from *warrants for felony prosecutions*? Who, technically, aren't felons yet.
The vast majority of actual felons are in jail or have already served their time and been released.
He's basically mainly taking people in for bullshit parole violations. If drugs weren't illegal then 90% of the power police have to screw with people would be gone.
Whenever I read the local paper I always check the police report. 75% of the entries are warrants or parole violations. 20% are DUI and drugs. That last 5% consists of actual crimes against people or property.
That's consistent with my experience. Sometimes(though not very often) parole/probation violations are related to an actual crime.
In the suburbs at least the major job of a cop is to show up at traffic fender benders and direct traffic while the tow truck hauls the damaged vehicles away. Responses to actual crimes are a small percentage of "incidents" in our township.
"Labor unions are courting immigrants who may be legalized because of executive action by President Obama as potential new members."
Another indication that illegal aliens make an important contribution to society, in no small part--because they're illegal.
Do you want to know how easy it would be to get a job without all those labor laws and government interference?
Want to know how inexpensive labor intensive products and services would be if unions didn't have so much support from the government?
Look at illegal aliens. Their labor is relatively free of government interference. Look at illegal aliens. They're the low cost substitute for union labor.
No doubt the unions would love to assimilate all those illegal aliens. Less illegal aliens means less competition, and if they can't keep them out of the country, the next best thing is to unionize them.
Once on the plane, he was warmly greeted by a flight attendant who also wished him a "merry Christmas." That was the last straw.
"Don't say, 'Merry Christmas!'?" the man raged before lecturing the attendants and the pilot about their faux pas.
The crew tried to calm the unidentified man, but he refused to back down and continued hectoring them.
He was escorted off the plane as other fliers burst into cheers and applause.
American Airlines did not return a request for comment.
It's not clear whether the other passengers were cheering the man for standing his ground or cheering the airline staff for escorting him off the plane.
Police in Haverhill, Massachusetts, are asking the public to help solve a bizarre theft.
Authorities say a priest at Sacred Hearts Church, north of Boston, called them Christmas morning to report that someone had stolen a baby Jesus from a nativity scene and replaced it with a real pig's head.
I would cry "Mooslim!", but I don't think the Mohammedans like to touch pork.
Two teenagers were arrested on Christmas Eve for stabbing a nativity donkey 12 times and forcing it to miss its annual show.
Cheeky the donkey, who is 22 years old, was due to star in the Christmas show at Greenmeadow Farm in Cwmbran, South Wales, until she was knifed in the night.
Well, less stoner-y.
I was going to append, "Of course, that's not a good thing for everyone.", but thought it went without saying. I guess not.
Southern Arizona.
Tundra, you know that Minnesoda is the place where we put on a jacket when it gets down to 40 (fall) and then take it off when it gets back up to 30 (spring).
No better day in the year than that first day in March when it is 30 and sunny. Mandatory hookey day for me from work.
Remember to rejoice every day between Thanksgiving and March when it is above freezing.
Yah we are gonna get a dose of cold, but we made it to the new year in good shape.
Snow sports? Tundra you pervert!
For the rest of you, snow sports are like water sports in other parts of the country, the only difference being that you use yellow snow in snow sports.
I've noticed that people who obsess about MUH PROPERTEEEZ VALUZZZ are busy-body prog fucktards.
When I lived in town I was constantly getting notices that my grass was greater than 4 inches high (I only mow after a couple good soaking rains) and had weeds (I'm cheap and don't use grass seed or herbicides) so after perusing the zoning laws I planted my entire 1.3 acre lot with blackberries.
As of 2012 blackberry brambles are still a huge nuisance throughout the entire neighborhood. Eat the unkillable, ever-expanding, thorny shrub of death fuckheads!!!