Just A Dang Minute

From CBS News:

Authorities stormed an underground bunker in southeastern Alabama Monday, freeing a 5-year-old boy and shooting his captor to death after a week of fruitless negotiations that left authorities convinced the child was in imminent danger.

Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, had taken the child off a school bus after fatally shooting the driver Jan. 29 and was holed up with the child for seven days, authorities said.

An FBI Hostage Rescue team launched the rescue attempt after concerns mounted that Dykes was growing more unstable and presented a growing threat to the boy's safety, a U.S. official told CBS News. At some point during the negotiations, authorities had inserted a camera into the bunker and observed that Dykes had begun brandishing a gun and acting increasingly agitated - signs his mental state was deterioriating. Rescuers stormed the bunker from an entrance at its top, set off a diversionary explosive device and ultimately shot Dykes.

But put yourself in the shoes of that kid's parents for a short moment - some asshole Doomsday Prepper has murdered a school bus driver in the process of kidnapping your son; a coupla phones calls are made and, as if by magic, the cops materialize at your door and they say - oh I dunno - they say something that can easily be paraphrased and boiled down to, "We're from the government and we're here to help you".  Is your first inclination to spit on their shoes and tell 'em to get the fuck off your porch?

Tune For The Day

Over-produced, but nuthin' beats Etta.

The Basic Fallacy

Krugman has a quick one about the argumentative attacks that get thrown at "Liberals":

Aside from the silliness of the exercise, this little exchange is another illustration of a point I’ve noticed before: the way hard-right commentators assume that the other side must be their mirror image. They insist that no government intervention is ever justified; so liberals must support any and all government interventions. They want smaller government, as a principle; liberals must want bigger government, never mind what for. They believe that deficits and printing money are always evil; liberals must be for deficits and money-printing under all circumstances.

This mirror-imaging thing has been effective for a long time, and it's the big reason (I think) for why Democrats get beat even when they have better ideas; why they're seen as weak in the face of political opponents who've got nothing but slander going for them.  Unfortunately, The Mud-Slinger usually wins - especially if he's the first to sling that mud.  Gerrymandering has plenty to do with why Dems couldn't get a majority in The House this time even when they got more votes overall, but the main thing is that way too often, the Repubs have put out some bogus crap - either a false positive for themselves or a false negative for the Dems - and let the already-in-place belief that "both sides do it / they're all the same" do the rest.

Once you've set up the framing that requires this Manichean binary simplicity, it gets easier.  And if you have Press Poodles who're willing to help maintain this false balance between false equivalence and false dichotomy, then you have the required 3-legged stool on which to build the perfectly false reality we kinda find ourselves in right now.

Thanks, Obama

From Jenna Marbles:

Podcast

Decode DC - Some very interesting stuff here.

The idea of protecting people's intellectual property is a ridiculously important one.  You have the right to profit from your own work, and this was built in to our Constitution.  But this guy mentions The Mickey Mouse Provision, which extends Copy Right exclusivity for 75 years after the death of the Copy Right owner.  To me, that's exactly what we weren't supposed to do, because it contributes to the creation and perpetuation of Aristocracy - where the only thing some people have to do for a living is to be born to privilege.  That's not what this joint's supposed to be about.

Music (redux)

Today's Quote

“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.” --Winston Churchill

That quote came to mind as I was listening to the podcast from The Professional Left.

Listen To Your Mother

From Mother Jones - 10 Gun Myths:

Myth #1: They're coming for your guns.
Myth #2: Guns don't kill people—people kill people.
Myth #3: An armed society is a polite society.
Myth #4: More good guys with guns can stop rampaging bad guys.
Myth #5: Keeping a gun at home makes you safer.
Myth #6: Carrying a gun for self-defense makes you safer.
Myth #7: Guns make women safer.
Myth #8: "Vicious, violent video games" deserve more blame than guns.
Myth #9: More and more Americans are becoming gun owners.
Myth #10: We don't need more gun laws—we just need to enforce the ones we have.

Great rebuttals for each one - and easy to remember.

One of my faves - illustrating the simple fallacy of More Guns Equals Fewer Gun Deaths.

Music

Always an understandable sentiment.  The trick is figuring out how to come back out of it afterwards.

Cuz They're DumFux

Lots of people hear this crap; internalize it; and then make decisions on things like who they'll vote for (eg) - acting on information that's false.  It's like a one-man Iraq War times 40 Million.

Fox News host Stuart Varney claimed that federal discretionary spending is "out of control." In fact, discretionary spending has already been reduced by $1.5 trillion, and non-defense discretionary spending is projected to be at the lowest level in 50 years.

One more time - Discretionary spending is down $1,500,000,000,000.00

Check it all out at Media Matters.