A.M. Links: San Bernardino Shooters Identified, British Bombers Hit ISIS, Police on Trial in Baltimore for Death of Freddie Gray
-
The San Bernardino shooters have been identified by authorities as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27. The couple were killed in a shootout with police.
- The motives behind the San Bernardino shootings, which killed at least 14 and injured at least 17 at an office holiday party, remain unknown at this time.
- British bombers have made their first airstrikes against ISIS in Syria.
- The trial of Baltimore police officer William Porter for the death of Freddie Gray enters its second day today.
- "Harvard College plans to change the title of its heads of residential housing from 'house master,' the traditional term, to a new term that will better reflect 'the 21st-century needs of residential student life,' according to a letter to students from the college dean, Rakesh Khurana."
- Donald Trump is refusing to release his medical records.
New at Reason
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- Think NSA Spying Has Stopped? Think Again Though Section 215 of the Patriot Act has expired, the NSA's other authorities to spy have not. By Judge Andrew Napolitano
- Is Infrastructure Spending a Good Investment? Hillary Clinton says yes, but it's complicated. By Veronique de Rugy
- Why Assad Isn't 'Our Son of a Bitch' Assad was our son of a bitch when the U.S. government needed him. Then he outlived his usefulness. By Sheldon Richman
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The San Bernardino shooters have been identified by authorities as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27.
Their worst crime is effing up the narrative.
Hello.
“The San Bernardino shooters have been identified by authorities as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27. The couple were killed in a shootout with police.”
I knew it. White Arabs.
Hey, the guy worked there. It’s just another case of workplace violence. If only California had strong gun laws.
Pakistanis are not Arabs of any variety.
Was that too serious a response?
No it wasn’t.
White Pakis.
Better?
See, this is exactly the sort of language that drives these people to murder.
Well, I guess they might be Aryan.
Let’s get technical!
/Sing to Olivia Newton-John ‘Let’s get physical’.
Damn you, Rufus…now that cursed tune is stuck in my head!
There’s a cure for that
You know, I am now understanding why aussies survive in that devilish land. You guys are really cruel aren’t you? It must be something in your convict genes. 😉
+1 Gene Kelly on roller skates
Why are you looking at me? Blame Zeb. He inspired me. /puts ONJ leotards on.
Agreed.
Is it really that hard to determine motivation. Read their emails, interview friends and family. People generally let others know why they are doing stuff.
Sure, but that might require more than 12 hours.
They have so much man power I’d think they could do it all simultaneously.
Dunno, man. Remember those collaborative projects in college? Six weeks putting together a presentation and somehow none of those chuckleheads could manage the work of one.
Well, having a bomb ready certainly doesn’t scream “spontaneous”. And that a husband and wife would do this makes it unlikely that it was just a singular grudge that this one guy was holding, unless he was really good at manipulating his wife (who recently gave birth, I guess?) to turn into a muderer and then die along with him.
Having said that, I’m not jumping to “Islamic terrorists” just yet. Drawing conclusions based on incomplete information and assumptions is something we criticize other people for doing, and rightly so.
Good grief, now you are screwing up the narrative.
Latest info is there were no bombs.
Talk to the third shooter. There were three of them weren’t there? I kept hearing three shooters. What happened to the third shooter? The third was the undercover FBI agent who actually supplied the weapons and the body armor and the money and the constant encouragement for the other two to carry out this operation, wasn’t he? That’s why there were so many cops putting a lid on anybody talking to the media and the federal black helicopters immediately on site – THEY don’t want you to know this was a FBI “sting” gone wrong. They were supposed to stop those two before they actually started shooting (or before they started shooting the wrong people, the ones the FBI didn’t want shot) but somebody screwed up. I can’t wait until the people on site start talking about what happened and describe one of the shooters in terms that don’t fit the description of these two. Or the guy who insists he saw one of the shooters calmly walking off with a cop and getting in a black SUV and driving away. Can we get a conspiracy theory going here already?
I’ve read that Syed was on paternity leave. If that doesn’t get under a man’s I don’t know what does.
a man’s ^skin
Aw. I was going to start filling in the blank.
Bazooms?
^^^ color, please
It’s important to the narrative.
His Forskin?
Under a man’s…?
scrotum
Hitler?
That’s not how you play! MOM! Derp-o-Matic 5000 isn’t playing the game right!!!!
Dumb Derp-o-Matic 5000 was sooooo dumb, …
Cheesebarn.
It’s been darkly amusing watching lefty trolls jump on these shootings, insisting it’s a violent right wing ratfucker, only to be proven wrong each time.
The Planned Parenthood Aborto-Freak shooter on Friday was one of your ilk. That was an easy call.
This one yesterday was obviously some goat-fucking conservative Muslims from the start.
Modernity is a bitch.
ZOMG PB I HAVUNT SEEN U IN SO LONG THANK U FOR RETERNING TO US LOWLY LIBBERTARDIANS YOU ARE SHOWING US ALL TEH LIGHT WITH YUR BRILLYUNS!!! SHOOTING PEEPLE IS TOATS LIBBERTARDIANS ILK!!!111!!!! AMIRITE BRAH????!!!111!!EVENTTYONE!!!!!!
“Conservative Muslims”
Good effort, but it doesn’t help the “it’s not about religion” narrative
Who says its not about religion?
It is about religion. Religion is poison. It kills your mind and Islam is the most toxic (Christianity is up there too).
You’re confusing me for a progressive. I despise Islam.
No, she is confusing you for a human.
So are you for importing more Muslims into the country at taxpayer expense?
The Planned Parenthood Aborto-Freak shooter on Friday was one of your ilk.
Considering he’s mentally ill, I would consider him one of your ilk.
Shriek is just a leftie bigot, not mentally ill.
Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
No, based in his posting history since 2007 or so, i’m convinced he actually is mentally ill. Sometimes he’s semi-lucid, other times he goes off his meds and just raves, but he is never, ever fully participating in the same reality as anyone else.
“My” ilk? He was a young, good looking libertarian with a huge cock? I thought he was a middle aged, mentally disturbed trailer trash weirdo, like you.
Well played, sir. Well played.
The guns are guilty! Ban ’em!!
“This one yesterday was obviously some goat-fucking conservative Muslims from the start.”
Who, in the United States, are primarily supported and coddled by left-wing Democrats.
The Planned Parenthood Aborto-Freak shooter on Friday was one of your ilk.
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Via Popehat, known idiot Markos Moulitsas on that exact subject
You SF’d the link.
Whoops
Which narrative? They seem fairly likely to bolster the narrative of a lot of people.
After some consideration, I will admit I was wrong. Their worst crime was actually murder.
How can Reason lead with this story when the worlds’s future is hanging in the balance in Paris?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new…..-warn.html
Who woulda thought India and China would save the world from our own hubris?
They’re just holding out for their cut of the $100 billion per year that Obama and the European socialist leaders have promised to the “developing nations”.
Once that gets settled, China and India will play along.
Here’s an excellent analysis of China’s position with respect to Paris:
http://www.thegwpf.org/new-rep…..out-china/
Meat prices have been increasing rapidly the past few years. Why?
Ans: About 27% of our corn crop goes into ethanol for fuel blending. That’s about the same pct that goes to feed cattle and pigs. So for ZERO GHG ‘benefit’ we are all paying more for hamburgers.
Thank you, Al Gore et al.
Poor Paris. Victims of another terrorist attack right after the last one.
Next year’s weather may be even more pleasant than this year’s.
No love for Sandy Berger?
Wingnut.com has full coverage of his death. He was big there.
Is that your site? I can see why you loved the guy.
He was everything shriek loves – leftish government apparatchik, loyal to the Clintons, do anything to protect the left flank of the Cause.
And criminally culpable, though perhaps that’s redundant.
No one gives a shit about the addle headed old bureaucrat except right wing conspiracy crazies.
VINCE FOSTER!!!
Jessie Walker wrote a book about you nut-fucks. Read it.
How do you wipe the spittle off your screen? Cloth or paper towels? Or did you just give up when the jizz stains covered most of it?
Yeah, I know. Berger is a lefty mastermind while Ollie North is a true hero Mr. America.
You TEAM RED! assholes are all alike.
Welcome to Retardation: A Celebration. Now, hopefully with this book, I’m gonna dispel a few myths, a few rumors. First off, the retarded don’t rule the night. They don’t rule it. Nobody does. And they don’t run in packs. And while they may not be as strong as apes, don’t lock eyes with ’em, don’t do it. Puts ’em on edge. They might go into berzerker mode; come at you like a whirling dervish, all fists and elbows. You might be screaming “No, no, no” and all they hear is “Who wants cake?” Let me tell you something: They all do. They all want cake.
i can’t imagine anyone on this site who doesn’t find North despicable. This is one of my two comments a month.
North had the good taste to hire the hottie Fawn Hall.
Shreek logic: if you think that his Blue team of power tops is despicable, that means you think that the Red Team is wonderful. Of course, he has the advantage over most of us of being able to count to twelve using his toes.
able to count to twelve using his toes
People usually assume it’s six on one and six on the other, but it’s actually eight and four.
You know who else wrote a book?
Me?tag=reasonmagazinea-20
No flogging books in HnR!
Show some dignity.
Also, ‘Shadowboy’ wasn’t too bad. Kind of dragged in the middle with the whole “Spreadsheets for Superheros” and organizing a team thing.
There is no dignity in advertising.
I appreciate the feedback, and I do see where you’re coming from.
Did you read any of the others?
Not yet. I’m a little backed up
(with books).
Baldrick?
+1 Little sausages
Oh, very well.
Well, they were in his pants.
The motives behind the San Bernardino shootings, which killed at least 14 and injured at least 17 at an office holiday party, remain unknown at this time.
I just hope this incident doesn’t detract from coverage of Mizzou protesters.
Did somebody there accidentally call the holiday party a “Christmas” party?
I think the issue was that they WOULD NOT call it a Ramadan Party.
And they served bacon …
Aha! It was part of the War On Christmas!!1!!!!
So that’s the motive. Someone wished Farook a “Merry Christmas”.
Zing!
Probably to make an anti-abortion statement. There was a PP clinic a few miles away.
Blind chicken, corn.
Kruggy proves you can’t be totally wrong all of the time.
117) Bill James, the baseball sabermetrics guy, wrote a book on crime in 2011 called Popular Crime. Like his baseball abstract books, it’s a combination of stats, essays, and general bullshitting (I mean that word in the best way).
He mentions at one point how serial killers were faddish from the 1960s to 1980s, both in actual crime taking place, as well as in the popular culture. Then, in the 1990s, for whatever reason, serial killers dropped off the map. Sure there’s still the occasional sicko out there who fits the classic serial killer profile, but only a fraction of the number a few decades ago still operate. Like shopping malls or rock music, American popular culture has moved on.
My theory is that a similar thing is taking place with the mass killings today. Maybe it was Columbine that started it, but nowadays, creeps with inclinations to mass murder turn to big event shoot-outs. In a decade or two, we’ll probably move on to something else, maybe a return to the bombings that were fashionable in the 1920s and 1930s.
You know who else fancied a fashionable bombing?…
Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty?
Bill Ayers?
Dresden?
OutKast?
Claw clap
Paul Tibbets?
Sacco and Vanzetti?
Harry Truman?
Heisenberg?
That’s easy. Robert Conquest.
The Wachowskis?
Guy Fawkes?
The guy who wrote Gigli?
Billy Mitchell?
DJ Pierre?
I think there’s some truth to this, especially with all the media attention and hushed fear that is heaped on these worthless assholes.
Maybe, just maybe, the media might have some culpability in the recent spat of mass shootings.
Lurid coverage and discussion of bat-shit crazy people’s reasoning might just incline other bat-shit crazies to want their 15 minutes, too.
In a decade or two, we’ll probably move on to something else,
Fingers crossed!
Parents dunk children in cow dung ‘for its medicinal properties’
A Hare Krisha guy once told me “cow dung is the purest substance on Earth”.
Did you tell him people generally do not regard pure bullshit as a good thing?
Did you miss the 2008 and 2012 elections?
I did write “generally”.
“Dunk”? That’s some runny cowshit.
It’s kinda liquid by nature.
It gets hard after it sits in the sun. Hard enough to use as a base for softball.
Somebody sliding into the wrong patty is always funny as fuck, too.
Apparently children who don’t get enough exposure to dirt at a young age grow up to have more allergies, so maybe there’s something to this.
I doubt that’s much of an issue in a tiny Indian village.
And what is dirt, if not decomposed shit?
Decomposed rock.
I think “granulated” is more accurate than “decomposed”.
We have a couple who have descended into full blown Gaia mode. It’s sad to watch the slow descent into madness really. The ointments they apply and the food they feed their kids is borderline insane. The worrying part is the husband is an engineer with quite the sense of humor (and avid hunter but had to stop because of his wife), quit his job, grew a Millennial beard and dedicated himself to this nouveau-age crap while his wife sells natural remedies products. Once in a while he comes to his senses and you see the common sense liquid restore balance in his eyes but for now he’s in a lull.
Jaden Smith is writing a philosophy book and wants you to be his spiritual follower
No spoiled hollywood brat has insights into life that I need to hear.
Um… no.
At least L Ron Hubbard wrote a few sci fi books before he created his philosophy.
Well this young man seems to be going for the Gaius Balthar approach. Which looked pretty good when Gaius did it.
I AM A TRAINED SCIENTIST!!
Are the Smith’s Scientologists?
Yes. And their genitals issue forth prophets and whores.
They’re in the closet, I think, but it’s widely rumored.
Then I should think what the kid dreams up will be rich in derp.
Clicked the “interview” link in the above – oh, he’s already full of derp.
“You can uncover the truth of life’s mysteries as I did, watching the sun rising over a calm ocean while driving 80mph on the PCH in a Maserati”
Nice.
*applause*
+1 My Maserati does 185.
+1 I lost my license, now I don’t drive.
Life’s been good to you.
So far.
Not on the PCH it doesn’t, unless you want to wind up like Smiler Grogan.
Depends on where on the PCH you are. At dawn, it is quite enjoyable once you get down around OC or up north of Santa Monica.
The stretch north of Monterey going towards Santa Cruz is quite capable.
During the Moto GP, at Laguna Seca, I was travelling that stretch at about 95 when someone on one of super-bikes came by so fast that I could only see him for a few seconds.
The CHP officer chasing him was probably maxed out at ~150 and looked like he was barely moving in comparison and a good 5 seconds behind.
He can call his new book When Dunning Meets Kruger
He is Legend in his own mind.
He is Legend in his own mind.
The Squirrelz are Legend in their site.
Pennsylvania Officials Stumped Why Town Smelled Like Cat Pee
I blame cats, probably from Ohio.
Warty’s kitties piss HARD!
STEVE SMITH SORRY LET KAT OUT. WONT HAPPEN AGAIN
I didn’t know that the show had gone that far off Broadway.
Cincinnati Bengals?
*standing ovation*
“I blame cats, probably from Ohio.”
Ohio has pussy galore?
NOW you tell me!
Perhaps there was a spill of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc?
It’s hard to make a large reptile queasy, congratulations filthy mammal.
“Harvard College plans to change the title of its heads of residential housing from ‘house master,’ the traditional term, to a new term that will better reflect ‘the 21st-century needs of residential student life,’ according to a letter to students from the college dean, Rakesh Khurana.”
Nursemaid.
Master’s degrees from the institution will henceforth be known as ‘Barrista Grande’
‘Cum Loudly’
the creme de la creme of latte
House Mommy? House Daddy?
Too othering.
House Nanny?
This is too hard!
Wet Nurse.
Applications triple.
House coddler.
Well, it is cruel and triggering to all of the formerly enslaved students at Harvard.
Half of Harvard’s Campus Democrats were getting their genitals caught in cotton gins not too long ago.
Wet Nurse
Untouchable
Harvard College plans to change the title of its heads of residential housing from “house master,” the traditional term, to a new term that will better reflect “the 21st-century needs of residential student life,”
namely “house elf”.
“according to a letter to students from the college dean, Rakesh Khurana.”
Head Brahmin?
I was sad when that house elf died in Harry Potter. You just triggered me.
Just pretend he was Putin.
+1 Crimea a river.
-1 redundant a
+0 oops.
Would you like to see a picture of a five-foot long goanna crawling up the side of a house?
There are no exceptions to the “everything in Australia is out to kill you” rule.
“God created Arrakis Australia to test the faithful”
Sleeping with one eye open, holding your pillow tight
Sometimes you have to throw it all away for an Achewood reference.
That would freak me out
I love how the guy is like “yeah, whatevz”.
Not really, but I clicked on it anyway. That would send me running.
That island should be walled off from the rest of us.
I wonder if that is a close relative of our own Mr Lizard?
I see my cousin frank is doing well down there.
Ha!
That is some Reptilian timing.
It’s all in the blood.
…the cold, very cold blood.
Chase him off with with Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc
Normally that would be effective. However Frank does not exactly have discerning tastes, not is he very civilized. And this is coming from Florida Man’s neighbor.
I would have assumed they’d lose the zero-G feet when they reached that size. What do they taste like?
I’ve never eaten it, but the usual boring line about tasting like chicken gets trotted out. They’re not as easy to acquire as kangaroo, which is sold in supermarkets. My best bet would be to go bush and catch one and cook it in the ashes. as Aborigines do. Rather than food, their main commercial use is to produce goanna oil, a very old school liniment used for… well, anything and everything, actually.
Aggressive Squirrel Attacks Kindergarten Class In Novato
“Server Squirrelz Day Off”
I loled
“Walking Squirrelz”
“Finally, the school custodian arrived and managed to remove it from the classroom.”
I hope his name was Willy.
Did they test it for Rabies?
Talk about microaggressions in the classroom!
Talk about microaggressions in the classroom!
Professor calculates economic impact of destroying ‘Death Stars’
But think of all the broken windows to fix!!!
That tends to happen when a fascist regime, and its major public work project boondoggles, unravel in spectacular fashion.
He advocates a “government bailout” to fix the supposed economic damage. One – neither potential government is going to have the cash on hand and will have to rob the economy to do that, and Two – the ‘damage’ done was the krugian stimulus from constructing them in the first place.
why does he calculate using dollars? How many quatloos to the dollar are there?
Just because something valuable is destroyed doesn’t mean it hurts the economy. What were the deathstars giving back to the economy that they will no longer be doing? What businesses will shut down that won’t be replaced by scavenging the wreckage for valuables.
They were giving ORDER!
Those exchanges for the intergalactic spaceways are shovel ready projects
Large laser maintenance contracts? Tie Fighter spare parts suppliers? Defense tower inspection program? Or what about vent shaft cleaning services?
That’s a lot of upkeep business that got vaporized
That were spurred by artificial demand and paid for by involuntarily procured wealth. The whole scheme was a net loss.
A large chunk of those businesses would have had to keep their personnel on base due to the mobility of the DeathStar, so they would be vaporized instead of looking for new jobs. Whole new businesses are going to open up as everyone scrambles to claim all the technology, valuables, and raw materials scattered by the death star explosion.
Ya but you know you can only get Tie Fighter Ion drives from Corellia…and it’s a 6-8 lead time. That means their are likely back orders already in production that can’t be paid for now
As opposed to the Death Stars destroying worlds like Alderaan which was an apparently productive planet of over billion people for mere propaganda purposes.
Krugman disagrees. The economic benefit from rebuilding Alderan alone was enough to stimulate the empire for generations.
I have it on good authority that the destruction of Alderaan will be a net benefit to its inhabitants, since they can look forward to lucrative employment opportunities reconstituting the planet.
Sunk cost fallacy.
The depression would occur whether destroyed or not. In fact, the destruction of the 2nd begore completion saved money.
How does he know the economic impact of the death stars without knowing the GDP of the Galactic Empire?
How does he even know the actual cost of building these things for a super advanced Type 1 or 2 civilization? He calculates the cost to build them by comparing them to 2015 dollars in a galaxy far far away and does not account for the presumably monumental superiority of their industrial and energy efficiency that we could not even fathom.
Yeah this.
For all we know there are a million inhabited planets with GPP’s that would each be measured in the hundreds of trillions not to mention all the energy and mineral wealth to be found in asteroids and comets.
For all we know the cost for the Empire to built the death star might be closer to the cost for us to build a coast Guard cutter relative to their GDP
“As if millions of economists suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”
HA. You win the A.M. links.
In Grim Ritual, Barack Obama Again Calls for Stricter Gun Control After Mass Shooting
That headline is about all you need to know about these people.
“Grim” seems to fit the onetime Lightworker.
I love how he doubles down on “it only happens here” while the Parisian bodies are still warm.
Well, to be fair, he did skip the Charlie Hebdo thing.
Per capita France has more mass murder victims this year than America.
But that’s none of my business.
“The French have witnessed three mass public shootings this year. January saw two attacks, one on the Charlie Hebdo magazine and another on a Paris supermarket. In the November attacks, 129 people were killed and 352 were injured. In 2015, France suffered more casualties than the U.S. has suffered during Obama’s entire presidency (508 to 394).”
Obama isn’t correct even if he meant the frequency of fatalities or attacks. Many European countries actually have higher rates of death from public shootings that resulted in four or more murders. It’s simply a matter of adjusting for America’s much larger population.
Let’s look at mass public shootings from 2009 to the middle of June this year. To compare fairly with American shootings, I excluded attacks that might be better classified as struggles over sovereignty. For instance, I did not count the 22 people killed in the Macedonian town of Kumanovo last month.
Norway had the highest annual death rate, with two mass public shooting fatalities per million people. Macedonia had a rate of 0.38, Serbia 0.28, Slovakia 0.20, Finland 0.14, Belgium 0.14 and the Czech Republic 0.13. The U.S. comes in eighth with 0.095 mass public shooting fatalities per million people. Austria and Switzerland are close behind.”
http://news.investors.com/ibd-…..z3tH2WFSws
I excluded attacks that might be better classified as struggles over sovereignty
So drug related mass murders were excluded?
I hope he didn’t track any blood onto my tax-funded carpet
These idiots don’t have follow-through, though. They just talk. And tweet. And Facebook. Get off your ass and get a Constitutional Amendment going. Let’s do this. Let’s have this debate. For once and all.
Stop being pussies and put your money where your mouth is.
Modern science detects disease in 400-year-old embalmed hearts
bore tell-tale signs of a heart disease
“TRUE! –nervous –very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses –not destroyed –not dulled them”
Baltimore Ravens fan?
may I quothe you?
British bombers have made their first airstrikes against ISIS in Syria.
You know who else bombed Syria?
Henny Youngman?
Antichious III?
Alexander the Great?
101 Damascans?
Disney’s direct-to-DVD sequels are getting out of hand.
Miles Gloriosus?
Album Review of Pope Francis’ “Wake Up”
It ends with:
Attention all dioceses of the Catholic Federation. We have assumed control. We have assumed control. We have assumed control.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
You win 1 internets.
I think I’ll stick with Ayreon for my prog-rock.
I’ll care when he goes progressive death metal
Spitting raps by Drake? I disagree with him about many things, but only now do I find him irredeemably evil.
Oklahoma police arrest donkey, take it home in squad car
What an ass
“Police in Norman, Oklahoma, had to deal with a total ass on Tuesday morning.”
Presidential visit to Norman?
“I’m a donkey on the edge!”
Norman gets destroyed by a tornado once a decade, and they keep rebuilding it, in the same river valley that channels the tornadoes. And then are surprised when, ten years later, another tornado comes through.
I don’t know what that has to do with a donkey.
Australian politicians can spend taxpayer funds on their reading matter:
Fucking hypocrite shouldn’t be spending my money on reading matter!
He could have at least sprinkled a few pr0n mags in there, sheesh.
They still make those?
#ReadingMatterMatters
NYT: The Horror in San Bernardino
If the US would simply give warning that we were going to nuke Mecca and Medina in 48 hours, and then do it, this shit would probably end. Prove Islam’s lack of divinity without a shadow of a doubt. Short of that? Probably beyond the power of government, I agree.
Making up with the Custodian of the Two Holy Glass Parking Lots might take a little work afterwards.
That’s some fine yellow journalism.
as if something explicable had happened.
Indeed. All this stuff is totally random and makes absolutely no sense.
The gun made them do it
Must have. Couldn’t have been any other motivation.
Not sure what it means, but interesting how the call and response media are modifying the official word list they parrot at one another:
Mass Shooting (replacing Shooting Spree)
Gun Violence (replacing murder)
Long Guns (replacing Assault Weapons)
Active Shooter (replacing Gunman)
It’s funny that they have chosen to use “long guns”. “Gun violence” is definitely the most insidious. As if a bombing or a bunch of stabbing would be less of a problem or something.
I know that if I’m one day bleeding out from a stab wound to the gut, I’ll sit there and smile, thankful that at least it wasn’t a gun which “killed” me.
Long guns is also insidious as it starts people thinking that all Long Guns are dangerous. It is no longer scary Assault Weapons, but also scary shotguns and bolt action rifles.
If someone was shooting up a bunch of people in a confined space, I’d have been more scared of the shotgun to start with.
You are right about the intent. But the fact remains that long guns are used in very few crimes and mostly look like grandpa’s hunting rifle.
My preferred elk rifle is a semi-auto BAR in .30-06. It would be worthless in a “Mass Shooting” situation. However, I have no doubt that conflating my rifle with assault weapons will make it all that much easier to be caught up in a ban. Very likely after a couple of these shootings, you will get calls to ban all Semi-Auto Long Guns.
Yeah, I frequently ask the gun-grabbers how their anti-gun ramblings are not equally applicable to every other weapon, automobiles, machinery, tools, and practically any household item.
The first response I usually get is something about automatic weapons and killing large amounts of people. I point out that the Boston Marathon assholes used a pressure cooker. From there, it just gets into a lot of incoherent rambling.
Their rejoinder is always “But guns have only one purpose- to kill”. And to them, that is all you need to know.
CNBC started the “assault rifle” narrative this morning.
“Attack” is being filtered out of any story, and replaced with “Violence”
See, ‘attacks’ are created, made, enacted by individuals… “violence” happens like some force of nature
America’s gun violence shifted Wednesday to San Bernardino, Calif.
Are you fucking kidding me?
There will be post-mortems and an official search for a “motive” for this latest gun atrocity, as if something explicable had happened.
Are you fucking kidding me? What, do they think that people just do shit like this at random?
America is to blame here. /nyt
Clearly the guns made them do it.
Why aren’t you calling on political leaders to ban blunt objects every time someone gets beaten to beat?
Nice beat. You can beat to it.
“In the office waiting for cops”
This is overlooked. This is what the fucking problem is right here.
Indeed. How many of these shootings would happen if the cowards had good reason to think they would be met with return fire? I think fewer, perhaps many fewer. You might have some that armor up like the CO Batman movie shooter, but that makes one a bit conspicuous.
And they are making the coordinated talking points theory look so credible. While I still believe a lot of this rhetoric can spread spontaneously, a lot of gun controllers are using this “politicians offer nothing but platitudes” line after this particular incident.
I think its organic in this case. One person came up with it, and then all the other gun grabbers mindlessly parroted it. It’s not any deeper than that. It sounds good so they apply absolutely no thought to it.
Apparently some comedian a month ago made the joke about the useless of prayer in the face of tragedy. So now all the goodthink people are parroting him. Including those who have offered the exact same platitude in the past.
Yeahr all those innocent fucking health inspectors.
Not sure what to ask Santa for? Why not bacon-scented underwear?
This sounds like something I could easily make at home, though.
Plus, I’m not sure I really want every dog in the neighborhood trying to lick my crotch. Even more so than currently happens, I mean.
The bacon attracts the puppies, the puppies attract the women…
LOL
The women attract bears. The bears can smell the menstruation.
And bears are delicious, if you cook ’em right.
Their meat can be a bit chewy and stringy. I’m thinking maybe use a crockpot to make some bearbeque pulled bear sandwiches.
*narrows gaze*
*widens and averts gaze*
So wrap the bear meat with bacon before cooking.
Bacon goes with everything.
“He licked the honey from her hair…”
well, she shoulda wore pants then.
I inadvertently create bacon scented clothing at home all the time. It’s nothing I would pay money for.
Might be just the thing to combat the Female Circumcision Epidemic.
Fun with science:
My daughter is 5 weeks (max) away from being born, but today is her 1st anniversary of being alive.
In vitro? I guess the other option is your wife is an alien like the girl in Species. She was really hot, but be careful.
Heh.
When did test tube change to ivf? The former is cooler if not at all accurate.
My daughter spent 4 months in carbonite (topical reference).
So, now you absolutely need to get a cast of her when she’s a newborn. Just hang a fake carbonite display up on the wall in her room, she’ll be on the right track in no time. Plus, it’ll blow kids away in show and tell in 4 or 5 years.
Your wife is an elephant?
Guns bought legally
Won’t stop the narrative
Actually, it would probably strengthen it on the theory the laws aren’t restrictive enough.
Yes, California’s gun laws aren’t restrictive enough. That seems a pretty tough sell.
The gun grabbers might finally admit that their laws, licensing, and regulation are not enough and argue that we need total confiscation.
Honestly, I think that would be the best thing for the gun rights community. This lie that “nobody wants to take your guns away” keeps a lot of people complacent about gun control, even many gun owners. I know a few gun owners who religiously vote Democrat because they believe that the push for more gun laws will stop at some “reasonable” point.
They were smart to convince the public that gun confiscation is some nutcase conspiracy theory that only a tinfoil hat-wearing schizophrenic would believe. I’m eager to see if they’ll make the mistake of throwing it away by calling for outright confiscation.
If they were smart, they’d just slowly expand the “prohibited persons” category until it includes nearly everyone. They’re already pushing for that with the idea that nobody on the “no-fly” list should be allowed to buy a gun.
Will any of these weak mammals ever go out using a calibre worthy of a true warrior?
Although at least they didn’t go with an AK…too cliche
Bruce Bartlett ?@BruceBartlett 36m36 minutes ago
Libertarian–Rand Paul failed to get his father’s supporters because he’s not enough of a conspiracy nut. Trump is. http://ow.ly/VqvOd
Trump taking Ron Paul supporters.
Your mom takes Ron Paul supporters.
When they can get it up.
NOBODY can get it up with shriek’s mom unaided. She has to inject Cialis directly into the balls. Hers AND her victim’s.
Sergeant-at-Arms Staffer Arrested for Bringing Loaded Gun to Capitol
How is he supposed to work for the sergeant at arm with arms?! duh.
Who does he think he is, Jim Webb?
Handholder
THIS!
How long before the military starts changing the names of enlisted ranks like Master Sergeant or Master Chief Petty Officer?
Master Mister Chief Petty Superdooper Important Officer?
Chief? Chief?! Your cultural appropriation makes First Nationals tear up. Why not just call them Master Redskin Superdooper Important Officers?
Also “Officer” others the lower enlisted.
Mxter Human Superdooper Important Equality Person
that was easy
“Harvard College plans to change the title of its heads of residential housing from ‘house master,’ the traditional term, to a new term that will better reflect ‘the 21st-century needs of residential student life,’ according to a letter to students from the college dean, Rakesh Khurana.”
House Massa has a much more pleasant ring to it.
House Brahmin
Leaked document reveals EU plans to suspend Schengen for two years
Mario Draghi Is About to Become the World’s Market Risk Manager
“The fresh wave of monetary stimulus that he’s predicted to unleash on Thursday may become the best chance for a much-needed impetus to consumer prices.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Laugh or cry. Those are the only options.
Yeah…I am trying the laugh one, for now.
I read this Kevin Williamson article about Chicago/Rahm yesterday. It is pretty good and thoroughly depressing.
warning! National Review’s website.
Oh look. Justin Zoolander is a liberal one-percenter who has the public pay for his nannies:
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/…..-residence
Problem? He CAMPAIGNED on the notion the rich should pay their fair share and not receive perks.
party’s status of women critic
Can anyone translate this to non-Canadian
FemiNazi
It’s amazing how economically illiterate people are when it comes to wages.
Is she “saddened” that any babysitter makes so little, just PM McDreamy’s?
He is getting this perk because he is IMPORTANT, not because he is rich. Don’t you understand the difference?!
Police: Man tries to run over ex-wife; hits 14 vehicles, house
If only we had more common sense car-control.
Why does anyone *need* a 1999 Ford pickup truck?
Apparently those old F150s can take a beating.
“Upstate NY Man”
Bad sense of aim?
Trigger Warning, Raw Story link:
Fox pundit says ‘white privilege is racist’: I confront my whiteness by ‘going to the tanning salon’
To me, especially in the Northeast, confronting my white privilege is going to the tanning salon.”
“Look, we’re talking about this white privilege issue, and yes, it’s funny and it’s easy to laugh at,” she continued, “but I actually think it’s quite racist, and I think we have to talk about it in those terms.”
“You’re being prejudiced towards people based on the color of their skin, and I reject this idea that only white people can be racist when white students on these university campuses are now being ostracized for the color of their skin.”
Heresy. She acts like white people are just allowed to live their lives somewhere without being relentlessly hounded about how everything that’s good and decent in their lives was stolen from some brown person.
ATTORNEY: CITY, CPD COVERING UP ANOTHER POLICE SHOOTING OF UNARMED MAN
Yep, that’s right. Chicago cops were caught on video murdering somebody else and are again concealing the video.
I heard the lawyer on the radio – says the guy gets shot in the back 5 times. This stuff keeps dribbling out, we actually have a winter riot.
How fun!
“a winter riot.”
I’d wait a few months. It’s cold in Chicago.
One warmish day and a couple more of these tapes and its going to be The Night Chicago Died, part II.
Well, they’ll set fires.
The public has a right to know.
Agreed. I’m sick of riots, though.
I would imagine the judge is prohibiting its release.
The Left Prays After San Bernardino Shooting, To Its God Of Government
Yeah, the left seems to really be at war with the concept of waiting until emotions die down right now. Makes sense considering emotions are the only way they are going to win this, but it’s starting to cause an emotional backlash against them.
Area Atheist Only Sent Thoughts to Victim’s Family.
“As a presidential candidate, I have instructed my long-time doctor to issue, within two weeks, a full medical report-it will show perfection,” Trump said in the tweet.
“His prostate is YUUUGE!”
Somehow, telling your doctor what your diagnosis will be ahead of time doesn’t seem like a good way to get a medically useful report.
I don’t plan on paying any attention to the latest round of gun-grabbiness from the Left and our media overlords. Does anyone know if they’ve found a motive yet?
well the man recently returned from Saudi Arabia with the Pakistani woman who was his wife. Otherwise, nothing.
“They said he recently traveled to Saudi Arabia and returned with a woman he met online.”
Nothing to see here
I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. He was probably inspired by Sarah Palin putting pictures of targets on a map of vulnerable Congressmen.
Hamilton college presents its list of demands. Excellently parodied by National Review.
The was an article in the Federalist the other day pointing out that all of these “Demands Lists” happen to contain requests for higher salary, tenure, and special admin positions for various diversity/gender studies types and speculating that, perhaps, these idiot students are being manipulated as part of some hardball negotiating strategy.
That may have been the intent. But surely any staff who hoped to benefit from this movement can see it is snowballing quickly.
Only the white staff who thought they had sufficiently demonstrated their self-loathing are going to be taken by the snowball. Underqualified blacks and women working in frivolous fields of study stand to benefit tremendously.
That was a pretty funny parody. Good on the federalist.
The parody has too few grammatical and spelling errors to be a genuine collegiate list of demands. Its illogical and nonsensical quality, however, was pretty good.
Heard on the radio this morning that the defense in the Freddie Gray murder trial is arguing that he broke his own neck. Dude’s hands and feet are restrained, and he managed to break his own neck. Only a jury would be dumb enough to believe that.
The Jury will acquit.
Actually sarcasmic, I’m very very very surprised that these cops didn’t waive their right to a jury trial so that another cop (called the judge) would find them NOT GUILTY.
This is usually what cops do. And, in situations where there is a jury, they usually change the venue to the white-est pro-cop venue.
Regardless, among those jurors, one or two will hang. I bet my LIFE on IT that these cops will get away with this.
If not, you can commit ritual seppuku and have it You Tube’d for us.
I had to look that one up Swiss. I figured it was some suicide ritual.
I’ve got 14 years left on my multi-million dollar insurance policy. We’ve got lots of time before that.
My brother tried to argue that exact bullshit with me.
The story goes that Gray got arrested intentionally and tried to harm himself by banging his head into the wall of the paddy wagon trying to manufacture a police brutality payout and that he had a history of doing that already only this time he slipped up somehow and broke his own neck
Some people will believe most anything if the alternative is losing trust in their beloved policemen.
Harvard College plans to change the title of its heads of residential housing from ‘house master,’ the traditional term, to a new term that will better reflect ‘the 21st-century needs of residential student life,’ according to a letter to students from the college dean, Rakesh Khurana
“University Mommy and Daddy”?
Too paternalistic.
…and the Saudi pilgrimage and wife…
So work place violence then?
They were on their honeymoon?
Staycation.
But ALWAYS facing East.
It’s probably a good assumption that it was some kind of Islamic terroristical thing, but that’s still just a guess based on their names/origins.
If this is unrelated to Islam, I’ll eat my shoe.
I’ve seen this ruse before. You’re probably wearing bacon shoes right now, aren’t you?
It’s still a grim task to eat bacon that have been wrapped around my sweaty feet and picked up particles from the ground.
So you’re saying the motives are known, simply by their names?
People with Islamy names can go crazy and kill for stupid reasons, too.
I’m saying that sometimes books can be judged by their cover. Of all the Islamy named people that commit mass murders, what proportion of them are not motivated by Islam in some way? We may not yet be certain of their motvies, but “Islam” is an order of magnitude more likely than “workplace violence” or some such nonsense, but apparently you and Mr Obama are on the same page about which is more a reasonable possibility.
The fuck is the point of speculating? We’ll have a more concrete idea of their motives very, very soon. It’s been less than a day, and nothing is gained by jumping to conclusions. The most you can expect are kudos. Just wait.
I don’t know. That has no effect on whether these people were ideologically motivated to go on a shooting spree.
Usually not in pairs.
some quality twitter derp:
Lucas Neff Verified account
?@RealLucasNeff
We can eliminate mass shootings today.
Make it illegal for white men ages 15-65 to own guns.
At 9:19, I think today’s derp award has already been won.
Does that include disarming cops?
Prog : Only police and law and enforcement should have guns, police and law enforcement are racists who target and murder unarmed black people, so only racists should have guns, but racists are bad, logical paradox system malfunction error error….
Spot on, except for the system malfunction. Progtards are perfectly comfortable with doublethink
Gun Industry Executives Say Mass Shootings Are Good for Business
Well Democrats are certainly good for gun sales.
I have to go check my Vice Fund shares. I bet I made money today.
“Ed Stack, the chief executive of Dick’s Sporting Goods, a leading gun and ammunition retailer, ”
Dick’s Sporting Goods, excellent aptonym.
http://rightwingnews.com/guns/…..ning-guns/
The motives behind the San Bernardino shootings, which killed at least 14 and injured at least 17 at an office holiday party, remain unknown at this time.
I’d bet dollars to doughnuts someone was othered.
Someone was definitely triggered. Safe spaces were violated.
Minneapolis uses the new mass shooting to their PR advantage. They evicted the BLM protesters last night, probably figuring that people would still rather talk about the new mass shooting than this.
http://www.startribune.com/nei…..360193601/
Plenty of ancillary value in tradgedy.
I think we should update Root’s title, to reflect the 21st century needs of commenting alt-tex-lovers.
Microsoft is doing a very soft rollout of Windows 10. Anyone using it yet?
Yes. It’s better than the piece of crap that was Windows 8 but not as good as Windows 7.
The privacy issues make me refuse to touch it. (do a fast google search and you’ll find a lot of them)
The privacy issues are easy to work around. You just have to break Cortana.
MUST. BREAK. CORTANA!! and use Classic shell for an XP/& feel, and then you basically run Windows as usual, maybe faster but YMMV,
You can disable all of that crap but you have to dig a bit to find the options. There is a way to do it during the install process, but naturally it’s visually sidelined to discourage you.
Even if you turn off all the user-accessible options, Windows 10 still phones home. The data appears to be encrypted and/or anonymized though. If you use a local account instead of a MS/Bing/whatever account you’re in much better shape. But it’s still going to collect crash data, usage statistics, and shit like that.
I’m at WIndows 7, been holding off on 10 since this machine is a 5yo quad processor. PC guy at work says 10 runs faster but I’m skeptical since everything seems to bloat as time goes on.
I tried 10 for a while. It does seem to be a little faster than 7. Definitely boots and comes out of sleep faster. But it has a lot of features that annoyed me, so I went back to 7.
Watching Microsoft fuck over their customer base is one of the many reasons I use Linux at home. 🙂
What distro? Do you find it is easy to get all of the online video players and whatnot to work well?
I use Linux at work all the time, but haven’t really used the newer fancy GUI desktop and entertainment stuff much.
I upgraded to Kubuntu 15.04 1.5 months ago. Actually, I did a clean install and copied files I wanted off my old hard drive.
So far the only negative is that the muon package manager sucks. Not a problem since I use apt-get from the command line.
Does HTML5 very well. I haven’t had any problems with video players.
ffmpeg and/or gstreamer will handle all of the non-open web codecs in common use (h264, aac, mp3), and the ancient-but-still-security-patched Flash plugin for linux is still available if you’re a masochist.
I have Mint on one of my partitions. It’s great for penetration testing, cough cough. But my speakers don’t work very well with Mint, too quiet. I have to boot into Windows to watch movies or listen to music. I tried to fix it once, but just made it worse.
I haven’t been able to get a firm handle on Linux. I have some Virtual Box Linux machines running here, but it always takes me a good six hours to get one working. And then what?
IT really depends on *what* you are using your computer for!!!!
Linux is less user friendly. However, it has a more powerful suite of applications that are readily available – if you know what you are doing.
It’s also far less user hostile. The move towards pervasive computing has also been a move towards computers doing what the developers think is best for the user which is not necessarily what the user actually wants.
I spend far less time swearing at the Linux box than I do at the Windows and the Mac machines I deal with.
And if I’m using it the play the occasional video game?
I get slightly better framerates in CS:GO on linux than Windows.
I use my windows laptop for gaming. I don’t game much, so I really rarely need Windows.
I should amend that I only need it when I’m gaming with my son. The games I like to play solo are old dos games mostly (which dosbox handles well) or have Linux clones.
The catalog of Steam games that have migrated to linux has gotten pretty solid in the last year, year and a half as SteamOS approaches primetime. There’s a lot of mainstream titles that play exactly like they do on Steam for Windows. BF4 is the only game I actually need to boot into Windows for these days.
Heh, I still occasionally play original BF2 via BF2 Revive (which conveniently runs great on Wine under linux). After Gamespy shut down their servers the community developed an alternative launcher. It’s a bit sparse, but there’s still a few servers to play on. You can almost always get a game going on Karkand.
On BF4 I mostly play TDM and Rush, but I all but abandoned it two patches ago when they severely fucked up all TDM maps (no more ladders/roofs).
Karkand is in the dictionary as a synonym for “overplayed”. It seems that even in death, it remains overplayed. I was always more of a chopper whore anyways. Sometimes referred as a chopper “god” or “hacker”. I don’t think I’ve ever been so good at anything as I was at flying the AH-1Z….sadly enough….
True, but I’ve played the shit out of every BF2 map, so they’re all just nostalgia trips now to me. Dragon Valley is GOAT, but I think I’m the only who likes it.
One of my gaming buddies was the same as you, he was designated air support in BF2. Sometimes I’d gun while he’d fly and my k/d would jump by about 200%. Vehicle physics in BF4 are… very different. I can’t fly any of the choppers or jets via keyboard and mouse for more than about 2 minutes without crashing.
Dragon Valley was the fucking best. My buddy and I ran a server, alternately called Twin Eagle and Thai Hooker Palace for about two years we ran almost nothing but Dragon Valley with an added dash of Daqing Oil Fields and other maps where the J-10s didn’t have too profound of an advantage.
As for chopper whoring in Bf4…. “atrocious” is the word that comes to mind. Even once you overcome the terrible flight mechanics, you find that TV missiles have a tiny blast radius so you basically have to directly hit infantry to kill them, meanwhile it takes no less than five eternities to shoot down other aircraft with hydras and TV missiles and ground-pounders with RPGs and stingers are basically gods that will annihilate your helicopter even if it’s wielded by a rank 1 noob who has no idea how to aim. It’s like the game was designed to fuck over the helo pilots.
If you go through the forums on bf2 and bf3, you’ll see why they designed bf4 this way. It’s like nothing but ground-pounders bitching that that helos and jets are killing them too much. Nevermind that they’re playing the a combined operations game to begin with and if they hate aircraft so much they should play on maps that don’t have them…
Basically BF4 was infected with Call of Duty player disease. Where legions of Call of Duty people bought into the series and eroded all things that made the battlefield series uniquely awesome with their bitching and noobery. Sort of a metaphor for Islamic immigration. ;P
The last linux distro that took me longer to install and set up than a Windows install was Mandrake 10.0 in 2004-ish. If you’re using any mainstream distro the installation should take half an hour at most, and you can take the defaults unless you have some specific reason not to. If you want out of the box non-FOSS media support without having to add any repositories, just install a distro with them pre-included like Mint. Unless you’re running pretty bleeding edge hardware driver support isn’t a real big issue anymore.
I’ve got a late-2010 dual-core laptop that doesn’t run any slower with Windows 10 than it did with Windows 7. It was a little sluggish for a bit after the first boot but I’m fairly certain that was due to one-time events (specifically, the anti-malware service doing a scan of new files and those new files being indexed for faster searches–both of which you can disable if desired).
My older desktop isn’t any faster that I can tell on 10 than it was on 7 Ultimate. Running off an SSD was a much more noticeable improvement. If I could roll it back, I would. 10 looks like a decent OS for a phone or a touchscreen. I think with the nannyware that I’m not sure I’ve totally eradicated, it sucks balls compared to 7, though I think I’m just bent at losing WMC for watching/recording OTA TV. It also isn’t as robust at recovering from a crash IME than 7 was.
I wouldn’t feel like I had to upgrade if I had an older machine. I’m not sure where the gain is, frankly.
Yeah, I wouldn’t call Windows 10 any kind of speed “upgrade” but like I said it didn’t make anything slower. Putting your OS drive (and page file, if you don’t have a lot of RAM) on an SSD will result in a much better speed boost than anything else. Although you should be running at least Windows 7 on an AHCI-based system if you’re going to do that on an expensive SSD.
Yea, it is pretty cute.
However, the new Browser doesn’t work with anything that I use….specifically the VPN to work.
So I still use I.E.
It’s slowly going back to the Old windows with the Start Menu looking for normal.
Still think the DESKTOP is DEAD !!! As soon as my windows machine dies, I’m getting a MacPro.
First
DESKTOP is DEAD
Then
I’m getting a MacPro
You really are the biggest idiot ever.
Desktop is not dead. The day I’m forced to play my games on a laptop is the day I stop playing PC games altogether. I prefer the custom built gaming rig with a 42″ screen that makes my eyes bleed, thank you.
My son has it – not much different except the touchscreen if you want to use it. And you can make the home screen look like a cell phone if you want. Seems stable enough for basic office / school work.
It’s like 7 and 8 had a love child. Seriously though, it’s not bad. Loads fast. Seems to be stable. Takes some time to get used to, but so far I’ve been able to find whatever I needed.
I’ve been using it. The Microsoft Edge browse is surprisingly good. Faster than Chrome.
*Browser
I like that Edge has a logo suspiciously similar to Explorer, and the Explorer icon is difficult to find when you first install Windows 10. Very clever of them.
The nice thing is that the Edge does not support Active X. The problem is that I only use IE when I need to use Active X (it’s a work thing). Thus I don’t want Edge. It is worthless to me because there are other browsers that I use that I am happy with.
I haven’t used it as a primary browser but as a PDF viewer for the extremely fast loading when I click on an embedded link
Use Foxit Reader, it has plugins for in-browser reading for Chrome and FF (and IE) and loads PDFs very quickly.
The tests I’ve seen show that Edge is faster and that was my experience, even as a Chrome user since Day1. I still mainly use Chrome though
SumatraPDF is also a good alternative for viewing PDFs without all of the useless bloat and security vulnerabilities in Adobe’s crap.
Yeah Sumatra rocks. Adobe is way too big and slow to just open PDFs
Yeah when I first updated I got them confused until I did some research
Same here. I’d been avoiding the update to 10 for about three months, but the wife okayed the update earlier this week. It’s not as terrible as I was expecting and is, in some ways, an improvement over the previous version, but I’m a man who hates change once I get comfortable with my routine.
I updated as soon as it became available. I’m on the insider program for my desktop and upgraded from factory Win 7 Pro on my 4 year old laptop. It’s been running very nicely (haven’t had a single Nvidia bug on the desktop yet, which was a pleasant surprise), although my laptop seems to be the only computer on earth that boots slower after the upgrade.
That said, openSUSE is my primary OS for the desktop, and the un-killable anonymous phoning home in Win 10 was enough to get me to switch on the laptop as well. I haven’t booted into windows in about a month.
I have somewhere between 15 and 20 PCs. Most are running still running XP. I run Win7 this computer, but for ease of setup XP is still better.
XP was the best by far, in my opinion
Long live Windows 2000!
I upgraded from 8.1, and like it much better.
I did experience a performance issue but I have a peculiar set up. My only computer is a Surface Pro that I daisychain to two full size DisplayPort monitors when I’m at home. After installing 10 my video would be unstable when I ran all three monitors simultaneously. I set it up to run without the Surface Pro screen when I’m at my desk and it works fine now.
I thought of updating over Thanksgiving weekend, but meh. I don’t see the point. Win 7 is working great for me, I don’t want to have to deal with customizing the tiles BS to look like classic Windows, and I’m not sure what I’d get out of it. My SSD boots up the comp fast enough already.
I should say I also stayed on Win2000 for years before installing XP, and only went from XP to 7 back in… early 2012, I think.
“”Harvard College plans to change the title of its heads of residential housing from ‘house master,’ the traditional term, to a new term that will better reflect ‘the 21st-century needs of residential student life,’ according to a letter to students from the college dean, Rakesh Khurana.””
Hello, boys and girls, I’m your new Residence Advisor, Mr. Magister.
What about this famous House Mother from SAE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qM8vl_lDdY
I feel sorry for her. I don’t think she’s racist, per se. She was just parroting a BLACK RAP SONG.
So I’m in the waiting room of an orthopedic surgeon about three hours after yesterday’s shooting in California and that fucking piece of shit president Obama is on the fucking TV saying that although we can’t prevent all mass shootings, we can reduce the number of them if we enact sensible gun control. What a useless cunt.
So I’m in the waiting room of an orthopedic surgeon about three hours after yesterday’s shooting in California and that fucking piece of shit president Obama is on the fucking TV saying that although we can’t prevent all mass shootings, we can reduce the number of them if we enact sensible gun control. What a useless cunt.
He has a narrative and he’s sticking to it. He’ll ignore the Islamic angle completely.
He would be saying the same thing if it the shooters were North Korean commandos or space aliens.
Hey now, when the “space aliens” start shooting that smug naritive will evaporate in an atomic fire.
Well to some extent he might be right.
If they did enact a lot stricter gun laws that really did make it a little harder to acquire guns then there would probably be a handful of mass shootings where the shooter found it easier to use a knife, bomb, or car to cause pretty much the same level of carnage and death but they wouldn’t technically be “Mass Shootings” anymore
Did someone (a psychologist?) just say on Fox that we now need to call the cops when someone leaves a party or a meeting and appears upset? (I was in shower – this is what my wife told me.) My goodness, in my career the SWAT team would have been at the office once a week! What a bunch of pants-wetters Americans have become.
To un-pc to say “when a devout Muslim who just completed a Hajj pilgrimage storms out…”
“Harvard College plans to change the title of its heads of residential housing from ‘house master’ to ‘SUPREME Overlord‘
Seems like people on the news are really going with the “OMG, 350 mass shootings this year” thing. Which I had never heard of before yesterday.
Someone on Reddit came up with a list that changes the definition of “mass shooting”, resulting in more of them existing, which the media runs with because it fits the narrative.
I shot a whole mass of .22lr at targets last week. Need to buy another brick or two.
So, does that count as a mass shooting now?
Saw it on PIX 11 last night and commented about it in the Shackford thread. It’s amazing. The playing around with figures like this is the workshop of the ignorant. Reminds me of when Harper was elected, suddenly (as if the for the first time in elections history) 66% of Canadians didn’t vote for him. If people who spewed such nonsense would actually stop and think, that’s the feature of our electoral system. More often than not, the majority government gets into power on 30% of the vote. Notice how no one said it when Le Beau got elected.
A lesson for any who favor the Parliamentary system.
Not much different from a system where half the people stay home because they refuse to vote for tweedle-dee or tweedle-dum.
How are these people so unaware that they would make a statement like this about two weeks after the Paris shooting?
Serious how can they be bashed in the face with the blunt end of reality and still deny it?
Progtardian connotative dissonance.
Also known as PCD.
Matthew Yglesias is the derpiest of derps at Vox, a website constructed of pure derp. I really can’t understand how someone can remain so smug and sanctimonious despite being absolutely wrong on everything always.
You have to remember he is pretty far down the Aspy scale. He has a hard time with social interactions and understanding social convention. Likely Matt doesn’t understand that people are offering “thoughts and prayers” as a social convention to show their concern and sympathy. He probably thinks they are doing it because they think it will actually prevent future harm. He is really that stupid and maladjusted.
I know aspy people. They’re goofballs but endearing and a lot of fun to be around.
Yglesias is a man I would probably glass after a single drink. I have not hit someone in anger since grade school, but Matt could talk me into it.
I do too. And you are right. But there is an exception to every rule. Just because you have Aspy or some disorder doesn’t mean you are not a person and that such people don’t come in all varieties. Matty is a horrible human being who also happens to be on the Aspy scale.
Yeah, what the hell is all that? I’m not a praying man, but why the fuck wouldn’t you if that’s the sort of thing you are into. I suppose they are tryin gto paint conservatives a hypocrites because they are praying instead of passing gun control or something. But that’s a stretch even for gun control nunus.
I am telling you Zeb, Yglieisias has some kind of mental issue. I don’t think he understands social cues very well. He really doesn’t understand that the people saying thoughts and prayers don’t literally mean those thoughts and prayers are going to have an effect in the real world.
If you liked that, here’s a slew of them to enjoy. Like Andy here with Mediaite:
Cutting to the heart of the matter, we are.
And what, may I ask, does Andrew have to offer San Bernardino?
Mewling about gun control and the GOP, I imagine. You know, helping.
And this clown has what to offer? Sorry but last I look a fog of smug doesn’t raise the dead or console the survivors.
What are the odds his facebook profile was recently changed to add tricolor shading? 😉
I have the solution. We need to nuke Raqqa and train kindergarteners on how to confront a mass shooter with an AK.
Who ever called Derp of the Day at 9:19, you’re fired.
Sorry 🙁
The essential act of Penance, on the part of the penitent, is contrition, a clear and decisive rejection of the sin committed, together with a resolution not to commit it again.
Derp of the Day doesn’t include AmSoc or Shriek, because it isn’t fair to include them.
Thanks, man. But I can’t take credit. It’s blowing up all over Matt Drudge’s site so I just attempted to summarize.
Figures the only one here who reads Drudge is you.
Oh, shriek gets his rage boner on there too.
And then comes here to wank it out. I really don’t understand the rationale. Does Drudge not have commenting?
Your mom has a solution.
Not any more; too late for an abortion.
Ah, let’s try anyways.
It’s always pretty sickening watching lefties jump on the corpses for political gain, but getting butthurt about being unable to jump on the corpses is an entirely new level of wretched.
Everything is justified it serves some greater good with these people, which is why they should always be kept far far away from the levers of power.
But that’s not your FINAL solution, is it? Come on, don’t be coy
“I have the solution. We need to nuke Raqqa and train kindergarteners on how to confront a mass shooter with an AK.”
Did you get your bloody shirt on sale?
He scammed the taxpayers for the money he paid for it, so kinda.
I think that anyone who mentions the dreaded phrase “gun control” after a mass shooting is shamelessly exploiting the deaths of the dead. On the other hand, anyone who mentions that people who say we should have gun control are exploiting the deaths of the dead are ok.
american socialist|12.3.15 @ 10:08AM|#
“I think”
Nope. Not possible, shitbag
Go wave that bloody shirt; your comrades are relying on you.
The blood needs to be wet. He should open another vein.
Re: American Stultified,
I don’t know what you mean with this “we” business, Kemosabe. The government was training kindergarteners on how to best protect themselves from a nuclear explosion back in the 50’s and I am sure the government provided the same kind of sage advise for teachers and students (and officer workers) on how to better confront a shooter with a stapler, instead of conceding the obviousness of the effectiveness of open carry.
Mass shooting?
351st!
So an article in the Chron on ‘teaching black manhood’ gets my attention, and I figure I’ll link it as an example of the racism of lowered expectations.
Well, you can go here ( http://www.sfgate.com/search/?…..ck+manhood ) and find it’s been flogged as a ‘success’ for at least 4 years and probably more.
OK, what’s ‘success’? The best measures I’ve found are:
“The study found that following an effective first year, in 2011?2012, MDP increased from three to six cities. Today the program is operating in 17 schools throughout the district. The majority of students had a decrease in suspensions and an increase in attendance as well as an increase in GPA, self-efficacy and school belonging.”
Uh, it’s a “success’ because other places are doing it? What about the kids? Oh:
“Some of the findings include:
92 percent of students reported their MDP teacher wants them to succeed
82 percent of students reported MDP activities make them feel proud to be a young, Black male
79 percent of students reported MDP makes them want to be successful in school”
http://www.diversityinc.com/ne…..ack-males/
Those expectations probably can’t be lowered a whole lot more..
They live in a pretend world where someone having self esteem is all that is needed for success.
Anything can be a success. You just need to make up the right criteria for success.
I posted this in last night’s PM links, but they died pretty quickly.
This Saturday, the 5th of December, there is a New England area meet-up. If you’re interested, contact either JD (jdkomododragon AT gmail DOT com) or me (dgroves140 AT gmail DOT com) for details.
Does it surprise anyone that the CA shooter just visited Saudi Arabia.
It surprised me.
I’m leaning to think that this is an ideological crime in which this Muslim Couple decided to do an American Terror Attack.
Could it be that the angry worker is also Muslim? Maybe. But I don’t have enough info yet.
I made the mistake of watching the news this morning. We are so screwed. The truth is that the world is infected with a murderous ideology that inspires otherwise unremarkable people to commit horrific acts of evil and happily die in the attempt. I don’t what the solution to that problem is but whatever the solution is (if there is one) we won’t find it by lying and pretending there isn’t a problem. So what is every prog politician and their media enablers is to blame their political opponents, as if any amount of gun control or government power could deter someone who wants to die.
I have come to the conclusion that the whole point of being a Progressive for most people is to feel superior to other Americans who are not. They wake up every day convinced they are all that stands against the forces of evil and intolerance. Along comes someone like the assholes in San Bernardino and the ridiculousness of that fantasy becomes clear. Even the worst redneck Trump voter is a pretty reasonable and thoughtful guy compared to these assholes. Progs can’t accept that because to do so takes away their entire sense of self worth. So they just pretend the assholes don’t exist or are somehow the fault of their political opponents.
John,
It’s a tsunami of derp. It will scour some beaches. It will denude a few hillsides. And in a few days water will have flowed back to the ocean and all will be – not well – but maybe back to normal.
You can almost feel their butt hurt that it wasn’t a white male tea bagger. They wanted so bad for that to be true. The fact that it was Islamic terrorism has caused them to go immediately to full derp lest someone believe their lying eyes.
Just read amsoc up above. The only thing worse than a mass slaying is a one they can’t parlay into derpy talking points. It’s enraging for them.
Shreek also seems quite angry that the shooters were Muslim, one a child of immigrants and the other an immigrant, rather than kochsukcing christfag aborto-freaks.
He was riding high on the buzz from the PP shooter, but wished a few more had died in the melee. Yesterday was unadulterated wish fulfillment up until their identities were revealed.
No motive has been determined yet. I bet twenty bucks that if it turns out to be something other than religious in nature, that you’re going to be just as butthurt as the proggies who wanted the shooters to be rednecks.
I will take that bet. This is not workplace violence. If it were, his wife would not have been involved. This is just another Fort Hood type deal.
This should be interesting. Who will decide whether John’s reaction qualifies as butthurt?
Is the deal void if it is religious violence?
If it turns out religion has nothing to do with it, I am wrong. I don’t know what else to say. I think that is unlikely but time will tell.
Frankly, I hope sarcasmic is right. I don’t think there is much danger of many people going postal. it happens but rarely. I would rather deal with that possibility than it being religiously motivated.
It wasn’t a bet on the motive. It was a bet on your being butthurt if the motive is not religious.
Bad bet for John to take, technically, using formal logic, you would win if the motive **is** religious.
If the motive is religious, then the bet is off.
Then I have already won the bet. I openly admit I hope I am wrong and the motive turns out to be that he was a nut. That would make this just a one off thing.
So there you go. All you can do in response is claim “you don’t mean it you are really butt hurt”. To which I say, yeah whatever. Either I am really butt hurt and won’t admit it or you just can’t admit I am not. I will leave it to the rest of the board to believe you or their lying eyes.
How many ‘workplace violence’ cases had the actors making pipe bombs and turning their house into a bomb factory? Not many. Yeah, the Columbine kids tried it, so too the Batman shithead. But it ain’t many.
Moreover, even if their motivation was religious, what makes anyone think we’ll hear about it? Has there been a lot of discussion about what motivated: the Chattanooga shooters, Major Hassan, the guy who tried to blow up Times Square, the different guy who tried to blow up an airport, the guy who shot up the El Al counter at LAX, and a bunch of other Muslim wannabe and actual mass murderers who I’m certainly forgetting? No. As soon as religion comes into it, the event goes right to Page 25 of the Local section of the paper.
We’ll hear more about the crazy shit the not-quite Planned Parenthood killer thought and wrote about, before we learn of which radical Islamists this guy and his wife were talking to online, and maybe in person in the Kingdom.
Ghost,
The Collumbine losers were terrorists. The whole “they just wanted revenge against the bullies” story the media peddled afterwards was a complete lie. They were not bullied and they planned to do more killing had they been able to get away from the school.
Oh, I know the Columbine guys were nihilistic fucksticks. I’m just pointing how that very few people who go postal, do it while also running a bombmaking enterprise in their home.
Thank God that bomb making is evidently a lot tougher than it looks. Even the Tsarnaevs could have done a lot more damage with some proper improvised explosives with better brissance, than using fireworks’ black powder or smokeless powder.
I’m waiting for some of the truly baroque stuff we’ve witnessed in the ISIS theater to make it here: armored dump trucks, filled with tons of ordnance-harvested blasting compound; TATP or Hexy multiple pound vests with shrapnel; barrel bombs, etc…
If you delve into the comments on the story on Jezebel you can actually see the moment when “We’re looking for tthree whites guys” becomes “we found Sayed Farouk and his wife Malik”. The Jezehelions are actually more pissed that it wasn’t a bunch of Teabagger and instead a couple Muslims than the fact they murdered 17 people.
the world is infected with a murderous ideology that inspires otherwise unremarkable people to commit horrific acts of evil
Well, sure, but there are only so many PP clinics in the country.
Speaking of I dare one of you to rent bullet proof vests out of the back of van outside of a PP clinic.
That would be the Greatest Concern Troll ever.
That is right. The real threat is that the California shooting will distract people from addressing the real danger of people praying in front of abortion clinics.
I’m sorry John. I don’t feel that I’m better than anyone else per se.
But I think I may have a bit over the Donald Chump followers.
Don’t know where the hate comes from John. I don’t hate libertarians or conservatives. In fact, this is one of my favorite sites and I’m a progressive.
Many of us have different views and different ideas to try to solve the same problems.
Can we agree to disagree without being so hateful and insulting ?
Can we agree to disagree without being so hateful and insulting ?
John? Not a chance.
Hilarious. You had to insult in response to this question? It is John who is the problem and you are just telling things like they are? Show us on the doll where John touched you.
Good for you. But that doesn’t change the fact that every Progressive politician and journalist I have seen responded to this by blaming their political opponents and denying the reality of what we face. If you are willing to face that reality, I am happy to hear it.
Please do me a favor and try and convince your fellow Progressives to do the same and stop pretending this is about gun control or the evil House Republicans.
I could be mistaken but I suspect the handle Alice Bowie is a conflagration of Alice Cooper and David Bowie. Last time I checked Alice Cooper is an avid golfer and David Bowie lives in Switzerland. Not very ‘progressive’, After All.
We’re painting our faces and dressing in thoughts from skies…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwStT-jA1X8
Click on my Link. Alice Bowie is the Cheech and Chong Band from Up-In-Smoke.
Alice Cooper is from everything I can tell a great guy. It is funny how he made his music career on being the ultimate weird guy to shock your parents with when in reality he seems like the most down to earth good guy you can imagine.
Alice is. I have not dealt with him personally, but I worked with people who did when he played golf where I worked. They uniformly said he was a decent guy.
(Which probably means he tipped well, but w/e.)
You don’t think you are better than Syed Farook or Tashfeen Malik? You don’t believe our basic Western Judeo-Christian values and culture are far superior to their cult of totalitarian hate and perpetual war?
If so, then no we can’t agree. You can’t even recognize the problems, much less solve them. Your basic assumptions are too far off to bother trying.
I think I am.
Not only have I never killed or maimed anyone. I’ve done my best to help people throughout my life.
I’d be much further in my Wall St career as an IT Manager if I was just a bigger DICK.
I would never ever go and kill a bunch of people that I don’t know. Nor would I want any invention or work of mine be used to kill people.
I think ALL RELIGIONS SUCK. I’m with Bill Maher on this one.
A Christian the other day shot up an abortion clinic.
As an American Citizen and former alien, I’m grateful for this country and What Western Values Bring.
I don’t think Columbus came and imprisoned me. I feel that Columbus came and civilized me…and I’m grateful.
As far as Judeo-Christian, the more we shed that part and all BULLSHIT Religions, the better we get.
Countries that “shed” their religion don’t tend to work out in the end.
And I say that as an atheist.
I think America did a great job shedding religion. It’s still an on-going thing.
Other than 75% of the country being affiliated with a religion, uh, yep!
“A Christian the other day shot up an abortion clinic.”
Serious question: What church did he attend?
The mere fact that he had a Bible or something is pretty much irrelevant. I have Marx’ Capital on my Kindle, but it does not mean that I’m a Marxist.
BTW, the same logic should probably apply to Farook. If he did neither attended a mosque for Friday prayers nor left some Islam-oriented manifesto behind nor acted as a sleeper for radical Wahhabis, I’m not at all sure this should be pinned on Islam.
He did complete a hadj. Whether it was his religion that influenced him to commit the crime is one thing, but saying he was deeply religious does not strike me as a bridge too far.
“A Christian the other day shot up an abortion clinic.”
Links ?
But I think I may have a bit over the Donald Chump followers.
Yes, and when your entire world spans between Rachel Maddow and Donald Trump, it’s pretty easy to write off your opposition as a bunch of raving lunatics.
War is coming very soon. And our leaders can’t even name the enemy or pretend to champion western civilization – instead they busy themselves trying to disarm those who would.
This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
I Doubt war is coming here. We may have terror attacks but I don’t see Islamic Infrastructure invading the Vader Land.
Will there be War over there…most definitely. It’s that War Over There that has been causing all of these problems.
We have an enemy (The A-Rabs) that are not just taking it sitting down. They are fighting back the best that they can.
Perhaps if we just stop fucking with them.
“They are fighting back the best that they can.”
By going after civilians at concerts and holiday parties?
When we Bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, these were civilian cities…not military sites.
We, the US, are the founders of Terrorism in the sense that we demoralized our enemies by killing their families.
Yes, because the United States was the first nation to ever do that. You don’t know much about history, do you?
Again, biggest idiot ever.
This is one of the dumbest comments in this thread, congratulations.
I don’t think the US government is some kind of shining beacon of morality, but claiming that we were the first to target civilian cities and implying that ISIS is therefore justified in targeting civilians is just retarded. For one thing, our goal was to end a war whereas ISIS’ is to start one.
We may not be the 1st guys. But killing a bunch of civilians instead of hitting the military itself proved to be very effective.
The Bomb is a Horrible thing and will probably destroy NYC, DC, and other major cities one day.
Alice, you need to brush up on your history a little harder.
We should have law banning progressives from reading history. They’re liable to lose an eye.
Regardless of the industry, many innocent people that never wanted to go to war were murdered while Hirohito got to surrender.
Libertarians?
Wouldn’t it SUCK if you and our families were destroyed by Nukes due to Obama declaring War with the wrong guy?
Regardless of the industry, many innocent people that never wanted to go to war were murdered
Are you even aware of the nature of war? And did the people of Nanking ask for it?
Karma. Or as we like to say in these parts, “What goes around…”
Yeah, it would. Congratulations on noticing that wars are not awesome for people in general.
Gorram it!
Why do you guys let Alice Bowie derail conversations like this?
You guys realize that the is a worthless shitbag whose sole reason for coming here is to induce you guys to waste time arguing with him?!?
Have you guys not been paying attention to previous instances where he says outlandish shit and delights in hopping from bullshit to bullshit in a rhetorical game of whackamole?
We would all be better off if we ostracized him.
Europeans in 1937 didn’t believe war was coming either. Perhaps if we just stop fucking with them didn’t work then and won’t work now. Us fucking with them has little to do their motivations – they even say so, smug Progressives just refuse to believe what the poor brown people are saying.
I don’t wholly agree. I think American foreign policy has exacerbated the problem. ISIS exists largely because of our helping rebels in Syria and blowing up Iraq. Hell, Saudi Arabia exists because the British backed the Wahhabists because the fundamentalist Muslims were willing to play ball and work with the Empire.
We can’t go back in time though, so why ISIS exists doesn’t actually matter. It might be that the only option left to us will be to militarily destroy them but there’s no guarantee that will come anywhere close to solving the problem.
I agree with you. American foreign policy is the cause of all of this.
Back in 1947, had we supported both the Arabs and the Israelis and showed some good-faith…
The same Arabs who had teamed up with Hitler to help exterminate the Jews?
We should’ve been nicer, then they wouldn’t be forced to destroy so many of their own
Those Arabs in the Desert Called Israel Today and Palestine before 1947 had no material participation.
We definitely helped rebuild the South, Germany, Japan, and left the A-RABS to rot.
No participation you say?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_al-Husseini
“The same Arabs who had teamed up with Hitler to help exterminate the Jews?”
Which has nothing to do with the fact that after 14 years of the War on Terror Islamic terror attacks have increased a hundred fold..
War isn’t coming to the US but I could see it coming to Europe. Europe is becoming increasingly Muslim and you now have the competing forces of Islamism and the xenophobic European right. Right now Europe is remarkably tolerant, but that could change rapidly if these attacks don’t stop. If it does change at a time when huge percentages of London and Paris are Muslim, you could see an immense amount of violence between non-Muslim Europeans and Muslims.
Look what happened to Lebanon as it became more Muslim. They eventually had competing paramilitary groups of Christians and Muslims that went around killing each other.
Terrorism and economic warfare are how Islamics fight wars.
Sometimes they fought and won big battles, but far more often they raided, used terror, intimidation and economic warfare to breakdown resistance. Traditionally they used piracy in the Mediterranean and attacks on trade routes to soften up resistance. Not a coincidence that the repeatedly attacked the World Trade Center.
I’d be pretty surprised if Europe doesn’t break into war in the next decade.
The night of the Paris attack, I saw a really bizarre comment about how it is all the sadder because the person considers Europe the height of civilization. Their welfare system and supposed cosmopolitanism are the ideal we should all strive for, blah blah blah. Usual progressive claptrap. And it’s just so divorced from reality. Europeans killed each other for millennia and there’s little reason to think they won’t do so again. There is a lot of racism and sectarian divisions, moreso than in much of the US. There are legitimately fascist parties gaining popular support. While Germany may still be too ashamed to start up camps in the near future, that doesn’t mean the rest of Europe won’t. There’s a very real potential for things to get bad there.
I don’t think Europeans will be going to war with each other, that seems pretty far fetched. Moreover, Hitler sort of spoiled the whole “defend your national/ethnic identity” thing, as any manifestation of Europeans showing in-group preference is tantamount to genocide.
I fear the federal government’s response to terrorism much more than terrorism itself.
They only thing you have to fear is feds fearing for themselves.
“I have come to the conclusion that the whole point of being a Progressive for most people is to feel superior to other Americans who are not.”
Bingo. I’ve heard the term oikophobia used as the opposite of xenophobia for people who hate their countrymen. The left in America and Europe prefer non-Europeans and Americans to the people in those countries, which is a pathetic joke since the people who most exemplify supposedly liberal values are the ones in Europe and America. Europe, Canada and the US are probably the least racist places on Earth (although South America is so diverse they tend not to be that bad) yet the left is always running down the most tolerant nations on the planet for supposedly being run by white supremacists.
Compare Europe and North America to first world countries that aren’t descended from Europe, like South Korea and Japan, and the issue becomes even more obvious. Casual racism in Japan is accepted in a way it isn’t in Europe, yet the European left is still convinced we’re the ones who aren’t tolerant enough.
It gives them a very skewed view of the world.
The fact is that the US is compared to the rest of history and the rest of the world an amazingly tolerant and peaceful place. Progressives can’t accept that because to do so means that your politics really are not that important. Your politics are important in a place like Cuba. There, your politics and your willingness to fight the government pretty much determines your moral value. Here, whether you are a Sanders supporter or a Trump guy or don’t give a shit really doesn’t say much about your morality. There are plenty of well meaning decent people who fit all those descriptions. Progressives hate that because they get their self worth from politics.
Everyone interested in this idea and the why behind it need to read “Boomeritis” by Ken Wilber. A leftist this MIT prog explains how and why of progs worldview and why is it so dangerous and damaging to those whom they pretend to care for.
It is tedious reading but can be skipped to the last chapter for many here who already have a gist of what he says about proggie feelings and motives.
Like I was saying yesterday, I think this is what the Muslim reformation everyone keeps clamoring for looks like–this is their version of the Thirty Years War.
The ultimate solution is that Muslims themselves come to an understanding of the proper relationship between faith and government–like we did after the horrors of the Thirty Years War. They need to find their own Peace of Westphalia, and it has to come from the ground up.
And because it has to come from the ground up, there isn’t much we can do. This is the Muslim world struggling to reconcile their religion with modernity–just like Christians did. What we call the Reformation wasn’t just a theological progression–it was a bloody mess. We certainly can’t address these social, political, and cultural upheavals throughout North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia with any one policy of the United States.
It took Christendom 30 years to come to the Peace of Westphalia and decide that the religion of individuals and the religion of rulers should be disconnected, etc. If it takes the Muslim world less than 30 years and fewer lives to come to the same conclusions, they’ll be doing better than we did.
While we wait, I hope we resist the urge to protect ourselves by engaging in stupid wars and sacrificing our rights for the false hope of security. Oh, and if Obama hadn’t made it easier for them to duke out the Muslim Thirty Years War with nuclear weapons, that would have been great.
“I think this is what the Muslim reformation everyone keeps clamoring for looks like”
But I’ve yet to see an Abdul Luther, and I think if he had 95 thesis, he’d end up with a hundred holes in him.
Islam hasn’t been unified since shortly after the Prophet died, but there were plenty who came before him. There was Huss and Waldo and Calvin and others. And they weren’t operating in a vacuum. They were reacting to things like the printing press, Galileo, and other ideas from the Renaissance. When historians talk about “modern” history, they’re talking about the era that starts around the year 1500. That the 95 Theses hit the church door in 1517 isn’t a coincidence. It was part of that. When individuals started reading and thinking for themselves, things changed. What you’re seeing happening in the Muslim world is like that, too. Instead of the printing press, they have satellite television, twitter, and bookface. They revolted against their dictators. Just like happened in the Reformation, you can’t just shove political, cultural, and social change back into the bottle.
“Islam hasn’t been unified since shortly after the Prophet died, but there were plenty who came before him.”
I hit the wrong key combination and posted this too soon.
: (
“There were plenty who came before [Luther]” is how it should have read.
The logic was supposed to be that just how there are plenty of different Islams in the Muslim world before what is happening now, there were other reformers before Luther when the Christian Reformation happened. Just like the Christian Reformation itself was a response to cultural, social, and political changes that came before it and were happening at the same time, so the same thing is happening with what I’m calling the Muslim reformation.
Ken,
I see your example as closer to the east/west schism in the Catholic church; both fundies, but disagreeing on whether burning or drowning is the proper response to apostasy.
It’s just that the changes the Muslim world is seeking are more profound than that.
They wanted to get rid of their dictators–and three of them fell. In Egypt, they turned to the Muslim Brotherhood in elections. The Muslim Brotherhood squandered their popularity by trying to institutionalize their religion in government and law. So the military led a wildly popular coup and deposed the Muslim Brotherhood. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that using the government to persecute the fundamentalists isn’t going to be the solution either. They’re going through the same process in Turkey.
The Christian world went through the same experiments. As I wrote elsewhere, life under the Calvinists in Geneva was probably as brutal as life under ISIS would be–if ISIS weren’t in a perpetual state of war. You were not allowed to own musical instruments in Geneva, there were no entertainments allowed, and the punishments were brutal. Doesn’t that look a lot like what is happening in the Muslim world? However, our concepts of the separation of church and state evolved from that, and we also took things like the Protestant work ethic from that Geneva Calvinist tradition.
The institutional respect for other people’s religious beliefs founded in the Peace of Westphalia grew out of that kind of brutality. Also, from the kind of brutality that came with the Thirty Years War. Our religions beliefs evolved from that, and we moved on.
The Muslim world appears to be going through the same process. If we know what the resolution of that has to look like, and we know that it has to come from within the Muslim world itself, then I sure hope we stop talking about putting boots on the ground in Syria or repealing the Second Amendment.
Because that doesn’t have anything to do with it.
Maybe Ken, but I think their version of the 30 Years War is right around the corner. It will be fought between Wahabbi Sunni Islam and 12th Iman Shia Islam, and it will be fought with nuclear weapons. Wait until Iran proves to everyone they’ve got the Bomb. You might be surprised how insanely fast Saudi follows suit. And then, as I’ve mentioned here before, you will have a three-sided (Israel counts) MAD situation, with small arsenals, poor early warning, and legit fears on each side that the other two may gang up on them.
I give it no more than 10 years. Maybe five. It won’t be intentional, it will start by accident, and my biggest fear is that one of the sides will attack us to get us involved, trying to make it look like one of the other two sides did it instead.
A problem with the Islamic Reformation is that, IIRC, the Quran is inviolate, laid down by God, and unalterable. It doesn’t have the Christian wiggle room of “Which prophets are we going to count?” and “Are we really sure that’s what they said?” Later passages abrogate prior passages where the two conflict, but unfortunately, the later passages are the more violent and intolerant.
Is there a leading Iman who preaches a version of Islam that deemphasizes concepts like jizya, dhimmitude, and jihad in favor of peaceful tolerance and coexistance? And does he have any followers?
“A problem with the Islamic Reformation is that, IIRC, the Quran is inviolate, laid down by God, and unalterable.”
And yet there are many different flavors of Islam–and one of the ways they differ is by culture. The Islam of sub-Saharan Africa is not exactly like the Islam of Malaysia or Iran. The ways in which Shia Islam in Iran differs from Sunni Arabian Islam are the ways in which Iranian Islam is the same as Zoroastrianism, Islam’s monotheistic predecessor in Persia. This religion is demonstrably subject to variations in culture.
Suffice it to say, Islam is not immune to the influences of culture, changes in society, etc. Remember that religion is an evolutionary adaptation. Not only is it subject to the changing ideas of people, it’s very existence is predicated on adaptation and change. Like every other religion, Islam adapts to change.
And what do you know about abrogation in the primary texts? If you read nothing else today, you should read this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naskh_(tafsir)
I disagree every time I hear the Muslim Reformation wishful thinking. They had their reformation the Wahhabis and their type started it – ISIS is the end-product of it.
Just like the Christian Reformation, it was based on the actual scriptures. Unlike the New Testament, the Koran and Hadith contain repetitive instructions to use violence, rape, murder, slavery, raids, and terror to spread the faith.
ISIS is Muslim equivalent to a reformed church.
Yeah. If it is a reformation, who is Luther? I don’t see any great force changing Islam other than the radicals.
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Hassan al-Banna – Their Luther’s and Calvin’s.
You beat me to it!
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792) is Sunni Islam’s Luther. The Saudi Arabian Sunnis are analogous to the Evangelical Lutheran Church that acts as the state religion of various European countries, the Taliban its ELCA, and ISIS are its Missouri Synod.
Like I said, the story of the Christian reformation may focus on Luther, but what about Huss, Waldo, Zwingli, Calvin, and others? The Reformation wasn’t just about some superman named Luther. It was a huge social, cultural, and political response to modernity.
I tend to think of the Protestants as being the good guys, having been raised ultra-Protestant myself, but if there have to be analogies, the Wahabis might be more like the Lutherans, and ISIS is probably more like the Calvinists. Life in Geneva under the Calvinists had a lot in common with life under ISIS.
Anyway, I’m not saying that what I’m calling the Muslim Reformation will be the analogous to or the same as the Christian Reformation in every way. But I think what we’re seeing happen in the Muslim world now, and since the Cold War really, is massive, cultural, political, and social change, and it involves the same kinds of questions that the Christian reformation struggled with–like the proper role of religion in government.
Look at the Thirty Years War that culminated in the the Peace of Westphalia. Look at the tenets of the Peace of Westphalia. That’s what the Muslim world needs. A fundamental acceptance of the right of individuals to belong to other religions and believe whatever they want, and an individual’s faith that the government will protect their own right to believe what they want.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Peace_of_Westphalia#Tenets
The Protestant Reformation was also about literacy and the printing press. Once people could read the Bible for themselves, they could figure out what a load of shit the medieval Catholic Church had been peddling.
Muslims reading their scripture figure out that the moderates have it wrong and the nuts like ISIS are living like Mohamed.
Yeah, if there’s an analogy to the printing press here, it’s satellite television, social media, and the internet.
The predestination aspect of Islam is hard for a lot of people in the West to really grok. Understand that they don’t believe Jesus really died on the cross–because God’s world is just, he is all powerful, and he wouldn’t let something bad like that happen to a perfectly innocent man.
If you’ve never lived in the Third World (and I don’t mean just visiting the beach), it’s an eye opening experience, but that’s nothing compared to what people from the Third World experience when they see the opulence of the decadent West for the first time. Our wealth and extravagance shouldn’t be possible in their predestination world view.
And when social media and the internet and satellite television first became available to the Muslim world, starting in the late ’80s early ’90s, it was like hearing about evolution for the first time. It was like learning that the earth orbits the sun instead of vice versa. Yeah, in the Muslim Reformation, maybe they’re not reading the Bible for the first time and comparing the church’s interpretations to their own experience of the world. Maybe they’re seeing the rest of the world for the first time, through the internet and satellite television, and comparing it to what their political and religious leaders have been telling them about the Quran.
ISIS is actually more like the bat-shit crazy Anabaptists in Muenster.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M?nster_Rebellion.
If the Muslim’s biest problem is within themselves why are they attacking the rest of the non Muslim world. ?
The jihadists are radical Muslims, they are the most devout Muslims.
The father of this Sayd in Cali said that his son went to prayer, read the Koran, didn’t smoke or drink. He was a good Muslim said Sayed’s father.
So something triggered him at a “Holiday ” Party at his workplace and he leff in a huff, picked up his immigrant wife and put in play a plan they had in readiness for just such an occasion.
He was a good Muslim with a plan and was just waiting for the right excuse to prove it to Allah and the world.
“If the Muslim’s biest problem is within themselves why are they attacking the rest of the non Muslim world. ?”
First off, who says human beings are rational?
Secondly, isn’t deflection and projection sort of a standard reaction?
‘Other people are prosperous beyond belief, and if it isn’t because they reverence the Quran, then it must be because they’re in league with the Devil’, isn’t just something the Muslims dreamed up. Isn’t that pretty standard for everyone from union members and welfare queens to northeastern progressives and lazy hipsters? You didn’t build that! Why, you wouldn’t even know about Aristotle and the scientific method if it wasn’t for Muslims!
A third point related to the second, no, the problems aren’t internal. It’s Oceania!
That kind of deflection was made a lot easier when we spent the Cold War cozying up to the vicious dictators that were oppressing these people. And we really were supporting them. We’re still effectively supporting them in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Our support for Israel can’t be properly understood without the context of the Cold War, either. To the extent that Al Qaeda was popular, it was popular as a means to overthrow vicious dictators and strike back against the superpower that made those dictatorships possible. We need to get out of those alliances eventually. They’re vestiges of the Cold War and served their purpose. But now they’re doing us more harm than good.
There is no other long term solution. Not coming from within the Muslim world. Not being imposed on them from outside. The Muslim world has to choose that for themselves. And in time, their religion will either conform to the reality of what is necessary to thrive, or it will be discarded. Muslims are no more committed to Islam than the Japanese were to emperor worship, but emperor worship led to destruction, so emperor worship had to either reform or go.
The japanese were committed to the Emperor to the extent that their awakening had to be imposed from outside.
I think the Muslims are more committed to Islam than the Japanese were to the Emperor. Allah offes paradise after a life of suffering to those who go out in a blaze of gory glory. Emperor worship offered only social respect for one and one’s family here on earth.
BTW, I asked about ‘mass shooting tracker’ last night and was informed it was a pile of shit masquerading as data. Pretty sure it was Gilmore who said it would be cited anyhow.
Well:
(you’ll have to search “2015massshootings” – link no work)
A good bit of the first page is propaganda, ‘explaining’ why they use various criteria to make sure their numbers back their agenda; you know, the ‘scienciness’ of the slimy left.
I’m too lazy to search for this, but I keep hearing that gun research is banned. What’s the story on this?
I saw that and got a good bounce on the BS meter. This morning, I saw an ‘amended’ claim that funding for such research was ‘banned’.
Maybe someone got a grant denied? I’m tired of looking up lefty lies this morning.
Basically, the CDC is prohibited from doing public health studies on firearms.
The proggies are but hurt because they want the government to fund sociology research that is designed to show that serfs cannot be trusted with firearms, thus allowing them to pretend that their neofeudalism is based on science rather than their emotional desire to rule over the lower classes.
What the law doesn’t do is:
1) Prevent the CDC from doing anything about disease (you know – its actual raison d’etre)
2) Prevent Harvard University from dipping into their endowment to fund the flawed sociology research.
Gun ownership is a disease! Bitter clingers! Blarghargahrgh.
And if the CDC hadn’t given its imprimatur to research on the public health effects of firearms that made the most strident AGW bullshit look like CERN’s attempts to verify General Relativity to the 20th digit, then they probably wouldn’t have pissed off Congress enough to ban funding such research.
I’m not a professional scientist, nor am I versed in the statistics underlying good experimental design. But when I can look at, e.g., Kellermann’s study that attempted to use a ghetto neighborhood in Philly and expand the traits of that population to cover all gun owners, and see the holes in his methodology, then that’s junk science drawn up to prove a pre-existing narrative. That kind of research isn’t intended to figure out why things work the way they do: it’s propaganda.
And I don’t see why Congress should be forced to fund one side’s or the other’s propaganda.
And if the CDC hadn’t given its imprimatur to research on the public health effects of firearms that made the most strident AGW bullshit look like CERN’s attempts to verify General Relativity to the 20th digit, then they probably wouldn’t have pissed off Congress enough to ban funding such research.
I’m not a professional scientist, nor am I versed in the statistics underlying good experimental design. But when I can look at, e.g., Kellermann’s study that attempted to use a ghetto neighborhood in Philly and expand the traits of that population to cover all gun owners, and see the holes in his methodology, then that’s junk science drawn up to prove a pre-existing narrative. That kind of research isn’t intended to figure out why things work the way they do: it’s propaganda.
And I don’t see why Congress should be forced to fund one side’s or the other’s propaganda.
Jeez squirrels. What’d I do?
Congress won’t allow the HHS/CDC to make grants of federal funds to totally un-biased researchers in our esteemed colleges and universities to generate agenda-supporting research.
Of course Bloomberg and Obama could donate their $ to fund research grants.
Sorry.
Amend that to “The NRA-felating, Republican extremist, Ratfuking” Congress…
Not banned – Congress just refuses to spend taxpayer money on it through the CDC. If the State isn’t paying, Progressives call it a ban.
Thanks, all!
CDC is banned from using funds on firearms as a public health issue.
Because when they had funds, they used them for anti-firearms propaganda.
Simple as that.
Is there any chance they shot the wrong people?
Hours later. Suspects driving “black SUV”. Muslims. Shootout doesn’t specify if they were shooting back at the time they were killed. Wouldn’t be the first time cops in S. California opened fire on the wrong car.
I don’t think so. From what I hear they shot the cop as he was walking up. Maybe the cops are lying and the cops shot first. That is possible. But even if they are, how is it that not only were these people in a black SUV but were also armed and ready to fire back, which they clearly did, when the cops opened fire? That seems pretty unlikely. They were also wearing vests. So if they were the wrong people it would mean there was some other couple wearing bullet proof vests driving around California in a black SUV. Really?
Weren’t they also chucking poorly made pipe bombs out the back of the Expedition during the chase? Besides, they were looking for this guy right from about 15 minutes after the shootings, only they were calling him Farouk Said on the scanner. It’s the same people.
Now then, where’s the third guy that supposedly was shooting too? It could be a mistake, but the cops were looking for 1-3 people from the outset, and I thought they confirmed later that day that it was actually three people?
That too. They got the right people.
It’s possible, but highly unlikely – if the cops are telling the truth.
1) Both of them had semiautomatic rifles and engaged in a gun battle with the police when the police tried to pull them over.
2) They had a pipe bomb in the car and a detonator that was compatible with the fuses on the pipe bombs at the massacre site.
Yes, it’s possible that they just happened to have those thing sin the car and yet a different group with similar stuff carried out the attack. But I don’t think it’s likely.
Of course, the cops could be lying their asses off as they did in Waco…. :/
And didn’t the man work with the people at the party? That would be another pretty amazing coincidence.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
Of course he could have left the party early to take his young, hot wife to the range… 😉
Then this really would be a tragedy.
Well his co-workers were kaffir and their women were uncovered and their men debauched, thus, his actions were Sharia compliant. What would be interesting to know was whether he considered himself to be a Muslim first and member of society second, because if so that tells you exactly which body of law he holds to be more applicable to his interactions with others.
Cattoos!: Temporary Tattoos
You own the 10 kitten t-shirt, don’t you
http://www.amazon.com/The-Moun…..op?ie=UTF8
Wow, so this is a thing
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00P9X39BU/reasonmagazinea-20/
A review:
Unfortunately, after I looked at this one for a while, I realized that this is not an actual picture. I suspect it has been photo-shopped because the way the lighting is on the kitten and the ship does not match the position of the sun – so more than likely this event never really happened. Now when people say “Wow, cool shirt!”, I have to tell them that in all honesty the events depicted are likely fictional. This is not a real picture and we have to accept that if we want to find this leviathan kitten of epic size and ferocity, we must look within ourselves – to the Krakitten inside us all.
That shirt is amazing.
Well…
Just heard TEH LIGHTWORKER uh and um his way through a prepared statement – leftie heads are exploding everywhere, as the first thing he did was offer thoughts and prayers – ha! He did throw a “could be ‘workplace violence'” in there too.
As I said, this is a mini-tsunami.
In Newtown you had a guy massacre a bunch of helpless kids.
Most people would volunarily disarm to save kids. They won’t voluntarily disarm to make terrorism more difficult.
The proggies just need to have their little temper tantrum.
I almost wish I was on Twitter to send O!’s opening remark to all the Progs that were joining the “Where is your God NOW!” throng.
“Where is manbearpig NOW?”
So far they’ve indicted Republicans and expressions of prayer and California’s permissive gun laws, but I’m certain they’ll get around to the terrorism aspect.
Seriously? He’s just fucking with us now.
http://www.mediaite.com/online…..al-office/
“Could be terrorism, could be workplace violence – we don’t know and this will take a long time to figure out”… that makes me suspicious that they know it was probably teh terrorz.
This is like the blaming Bengazi on a youtube video. Everyone knows it’s bullshit, but it’s hard to believe that the gov would be that bald faced blatant in their lies, so something clear cut becomes questionable. I think they are just hoping to ride out the media cycle before they admit it was terrorism.
You know who else used the “Big Lie” strategy to trick people into believing a ridiculous falsehood had to be based on truth?
Charlie Sheen?
Joseph Smith?
Totally. If it were anything else, they would be telling us. The “we just don’t know” is just them hoping they can lie long enough to get this off the front pages.
Ans they didn’t “know” Farook’s name for many hours after they “knew” his name.
They pull this every time TFDFTN. The Facts Don’t Fit The Narrative.
Every time people say it might be work place violence I kinda want to shake them and say it could have been the wife pissed Christmas party goers didn’t like the desert she brought too. We don’t have any proof that it’s not after all.
The circumstantial evidence is in. We’ve got names. Suspicious trips overseas. Similar event occurring recently, and enough armaments to point towards premeditation. It’s not jumping the gun to call it radical Islam related terrorism now.
Had the couple been less prepared, I might buy the workplace violence and A-rab coincidence.
However, I have to agree. This looks to me to be a radical Islamic Terror Attack.
Nice to know that the Syed fellow is a US Citizen. Muslims are going to be really really FUCKED if this keeps up.
I use the Nigger word and the A-Rab word and the Fag word for special effects.
I mean Radical Islamic Terrorist which includes the entire spectrum of Suni-Shia, etc.
In the words of the Great George W. Bush: “Aren’t they all Muslims?”
Thees two weren’t radical Muslim.
A radical Muslim would be one who preached and lived peace and harmony with all people including non Muslims.
These were devout Muslims.
Thees two weren’t radical Muslim.
A radical Muslim would be one who preached and lived peace and harmony with all people including non Muslims.
These were devout Muslims.
He was orbbably “triggered” by some imagined slur against Islam at the “Holiday” party. Perhaps somone brought a food item that contained bacon or other pork . Maybe someone made a remark about this being a Christmas party.
Whatever it was it gave them the justification to put into play a plan they had already prepared for.
Whatever set him off causing him to leave the party in a huff and come back shooting was just the excuse he had been looking ofr to execute his plan.
Is his wife included in his harem of virgins ? She had already given birth so I don’t know.
Maybe she gets her own harem of virgins.
Nor is it jumping the gun to be generally suspicious of the morals of anyone with a plainly Islamic ideology and worldview.
No more Master’s at Harvard ?
There goes my AM degree !
OTOH, enlightened administrators must now rescind all the No Smoking signs that reflect the racist Master Settlement Agreement
ISIS is like a troubled teen that just needs a hug so they’ll stop lashing out
How do we stop fucking with a Muslim who lives in California?
I’m glad to hear that I bring positive to your life.
First and most, I’m troll. I use this as a way of debating and hearing many ideas from you guys.
You guys have made me think of things and my views have changed including:
– Healthcare — I feel that the third party distorts costs
– School vouchers — I want school choice … you guys convinced me on this
– Gun control — The “No Gun here” law doesn’t work
– Government Healthcare SUCKS — look at the VA.
I still hold to progressive views and call my self a left-leaning libertarian.
I sometimes have to change my handle as some people just keep insulting me and that gets in the way of a debate.
But I love you guys.
I am a John Kasick Fan.