Comfort

Charlie Pierce at The Atlantic:

The comfort of the ordinary. The comfort of the mundane. Let's just have a trial. Let's just have an open and honest trial, with all the evidence right there in the open, and not whispered piecemeal and half-baked out of Spookworld to Richard Engel or Barbara Starr. Let's have an open and honest trial with no showboating from an embattled U.S. Attorney, and all the evidence laid out there in good, honest cop-speak -- "The suspect said..." "The suspect did..." (One of the most startling examples of this came during the sanity hearing granted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Milwaukee when, reading from his own notes, one of the arresting officers testified, "The suspect stated it takes about an hour to boil a head.") We can do that here. 

Music

Put this on after a few drinks on a warm night, and you still can't get laid?  Well then you'll need to straighten up and just do something about yourself.

Music

Just toss up my heart and see where it lands.

Today's Question

So how exactly would it have turned out better if all the people at the marathon had been carrying lots and lots of guns? 

Today's Pix

Dire Threat To The 2nd Amendment

What Obama originally proposed in January 2013:

Proposed Congressional Actions

• Requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales, including those by private sellers that currently are exempt.
• Reinstating and strengthening the ban on assault weapons that was in place from 1994 to 2004.
• Limiting ammunition magazines to 10 rounds.
• Banning the possession of armor-piercing bullets by anyone other than members of the military and law enforcement.
• Increasing criminal penalties for "straw purchasers," people who pass the required background check to buy a gun on behalf of someone else.
• Acting on a $4 billion administration proposal to help keep 15,000 police officers on the street.
• Confirming President Obama's nominee for director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
• Eliminating a restriction that requires the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to allow the importation of weapons that are more than 50 years old.
• Financing programs to train more police officers, first responders and school officials on how to respond to active armed attacks.
• Provide additional $20 million to help expand the a system that tracks violent deaths across the nation from 18 states to 50 states.
• Providing $30 million in grants to states to help schools develop emergency response plans.
• Providing financing to expand mental health programs for young people.

Executive actions

• Issuing a presidential memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
• Addressing unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
• Improving incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
• Directing the attorney general to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
• Proposing a rule making to give law enforcement authorities the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
• Publishing a letter from the A.T.F. to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
• Starting a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
• Reviewing safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
• Issuing a presidential memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
• Releasing a report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and making it widely available to law enforcement authorities.
• Nominating an A.T.F. director.
• Providing law enforcement authorities, first responders and school officials with proper training for armed attacks situations.
• Maximizing enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
• Issuing a presidential memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research gun violence.
• Directing the attorney general to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenging the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
• Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
• Releasing a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.
• Providing incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
• Developing model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
• Releasing a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
• Finalizing regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within insurance exchanges.
• Committing to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
• Starting a national dialogue on mental health led by Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, and Arne Duncan, the secretary of education.

And this is what the US Senate couldn't bring itself to vote on this past week:

1) Expanding background checks
2) Cracking down on gun trafficking and straw purchasing
3) Reauthorizing and expanding a Justice Department grant program for school safety

That's it - that's what Wayne LaPierre lied about, and couldn't allow his bitches in congress to bring up for a vote.

Music

Dreamin' in a slow groove on a dreary Friday afternoon.

Malkin Blows Another One

And be sure to spend most of your day watching DumFux News - that way you're sure to stay dumb enough to spend most of your day watching DumFux News.

Seriously - what the fuck's wrong with these people?

Hit "Like" If You Don't Like This Shit

I dearly love to hate facebook - and with good reason I think.  Read the whole thing and learn something important about marketing in the age of digits.

From an editorial in a Canadian newspaper:

"Anyone else getting sick of these daft posts?" my "friend" Chardon asked. This was on Facebook a while back.

That's why I put "friend" in quotation marks. She was talking about an annoying trend: posts showing up on Facebook news feeds, saying something like, "Name a city without an 'R' in it. It's harder than it looks!"

It's not hard, of course. Ouagadougou, Vilnius, Montevideo all leap to mind. And Budge Budge in India. I'm sure there are others.

So what's the deal? Why go to the trouble of posting such an easy puzzle on Facebook?

Another "friend" replied, "Maybe someone is testing to see how many posts this rubbish can get."

And he was partly right. The rest of the explanation turns out to be creepy and may affect you even if you're among the dwindling minority of Canadians not on Facebook.

It gets especially creepy when the post is less benign and strikes an emotional chord:

"'Like' if you hate cancer."

"'Like' if you hate bullying."

--snip--

A Facebook page is created, with an appeal for readers to like, comment or share. The creators, who are working together to build these pages, share it among themselves. They all have big networks, so the pages instantly get into thousands of other people's news feeds.

When those people respond with a "like" or a share, then it reaches their friends. Suddenly, the thing has spread faster than a high-school rumour.

Then what? Then the people who started it, having quickly acquired tens of thousands of followers, sell the page. Now an advertiser has all those names and Facebook addresses. And that advertiser, who isn't allowed to phone you and whose flyers go straight to your recycling box, is sending you commercial messages on Facebook.

Not That Anybody Noticed

It seems like we're so stuck in "Yay Us" mode, that we can't even acknowledge reality.

And sometimes it's like we don't have the confidence (or maybe the courage?) we need to cut thru the politics to get at the truth.

If I can't trust The Red Team or The Blue Team not to make it about nothing but politics, how are we supposed to hold people in the Junior Bush Administration accountable for the horrors of this last decade?  And how do we demand that Obama's Admin stop whatever they're doing to continue those horrors - making it even harder to put an end to it all?

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

I dunno - but i think refusing to acknowledge the reality of how fucked up we let ourselves get is actually what keeps us stuck in "Yay Us" mode.  And it appears we'll be there for a while longer.

Careful What You Swallow

The Big Lie works wonders.  And just how big are the NRA's lies?

MoJo breaks it down:

Music

Mr Curtis Stigers - covering Dylan's Things Have Changed

Today's Featured Website

Just in time for all the bullshitty douchebaggery coming out of Washington, here's a great way to let your favorite Congress Critters know just how much you appreciate all their hard-workin'-kick-ass attempts to fuck us all with our pants on.

http://www.shitsenders.com/

hat tip = JG

I have no idea if it's real or not, but what a great idea.

Lotsa Layers

Peel this one like an onion:

Today In Good Government (updated)

And now, a message from the US Senate for the 90% of Americans who want sensible and reasonable regulations for gun ownership:

There is no soul and no honor in American politics anymore - not when the senate can't even scrape together enough courage to vote in favor of voting on the matter of some pretty simple rules about selling guns.

And way too many Press Poodles keep telling us "the measure failed".  The measure didn't fail; the measure was never voted on.

I'll have to take a day or two off, as I try to get the stench of this latest sorry episode out of my nostrils.

It occurs to me though, that some of these Coin-Operated Politicians pull this kinda shit on purpose.  If enough of us are disgusted enough by the way these assholes behave, then maybe enough of us will just throw up our hands and walk away - leaving them to do their shitty little deals without being seen by the people they're supposed to represent.  If I stay too close to this junk, I start feeling like I should be throwing furniture at people's heads.

I'll be back - and I'll be watching.