Todays' Gun Nut

Out of Florida (natch) a few days ago, Florida Today reports a brand new Stand Your Ground incident:

Officials say Woodward snuck up on a Labor Day barbecue and opened fire at about 12:30 a.m. on Sept. 3, 2012. Police arrived and found Gary Lee Hembree, Roger Picior and Bruce Timothy Blake all had been shot. Hembree and Picior died of their injuries. Blake, who was hit 11 times, survived.

Woodward, 44, is accused of two counts of first-degree felony murder and attempted first-degree felony murder.

Before the incident, police had responded numerous times to the ongoing dispute, according to a release. Woodward and Hembree went to court to discuss the dispute before Judge John D. Moxley. Moxley did not issue an injunction.

The motion filed by Woodward’s attorneys says in the hours prior to the shooting, all three men were yelling at Woodward and that this type of behavior had been ongoing for over a month.

Be sure not to miss the part where Woodward's lawyer invokes The Bush Doctrine to justify his client's murderous intent.

hat tip = Addicting Info

Today's PFU

It's Called Engineering

All Syria All The Time

I'm not gonna say none of this crap about Syria matters - it does.  But when I look at what passes for debate in congress and all over TV and Radio and Newspapers and the Blogosphere, I'll say none of that matters any more than pissin' in your wetsuit.

Nothing anybody says has anything to do with what's really going on because Obama's not gonna tell us everything he knows - or thinks he knows.

Kerry got himself all worked up - to the point where the expression on his face almost changed (I know, right?).  Anyway, the guy's runnin' around all crazy, yelling stating calmly in his best clear-but-stern-Brahmin-esque voice, "I'm not Colin Powell; I am not Colin Powell, dammit".

Meanwhile, Huckleberry Closet-Case and his best old buddy Grampy McDumfuck wanna make sure everybody knows they're on top of things, and that no matter what happens, America is still large and in charge; and 1986 is gonna be a great year for us - amiright!?!!  USA! USA! USA!

I'd call this a circus inside a circle jerk wrapped in a cluster fuck, but that'd be an insult to all 3.

So here's the deal - this is my considered opinion and what I think I should get paid top dollar for suggesting the Prez should do:

Everybody knows 2 basic things.  One is that Assad's gotta go. The other one is that Assad knows he either "wins" this thing or he dies.  Winning is pretty unlikely no matter what happens, but he can't win even in the short-term if he doesn't have big powerful friends - which he thinks he has in China and Russia.

So here's the play:  Obama has to figure out how to get Putin to dispose of Assad.  And actually, he has to get Putin to believe that by taking Assad out, Russia makes strategic gains in the middle east.  That's what Vlad wants after all.  So Putin jacks Assad, and the ensuing mess is Putin's problem.  But Putin knows all that, so...

...long story short - that's the setup, and here's the sting:  We knock off Assad and make sure Putin's fingerprints are all over the caper - a bit of Polonium-210 residue oughta do it.

Better yet - we get Bejing to do it, and they make sure Putin gets the blame.

Or maybe we could get the Israelis to get the Ugandans to get the North Koreans to get the Chinese to get the Russians...

Where's Curtis Lemay when you really need him?

C'Mon Man

It seems there are people looking to the elections here in Virginia as some kind of bellwether.  Our 4-year election cycle (for Gov, LGov & AG) runs in off-years.  So as the midterm campaigns start to heat up for next year, the prognosticators and the bookies and the junkies are trying to get a read on what's to come.

(Ed Note:  They're doing the same in New Jersey, but nobody here in God's Country really cares what a buncha Yankees are foolin' with up north)

We have the usual Big-Government Moralistas on the Repub side (Ken Cuccinelli, EW Jackson, and Mark Obenshain), running against some Neo-Liberal Clintonians put up by the Dems (Terry McAuliffe, Ralph Northam, and Mark Herring).

Today's OP-Ed piece in RTD by local guru Ken Shapiro laments the possibility of a Democratic sweep, saying Cuccinelli and Jackson are poison, and only Obenshain stands a chance; and then gives us this little gem:

Among the questions: Obenshain’s election-year legislation — now law — making it harder for Virginians to vote and easier to keep secret that they carry a concealed gun. Obenshain also is harangued for a 2009 measure — later withdrawn — that would have required women report miscarriages to authorities within 24 hours.

Obenshain has made his bones in the last several years by pushing a very regressive agenda, and indulging in the kind of uber-pandering to the basest of "the base" that makes most of us more than a little nauseous, and he's the GOP's best chance to forestall this impending disaster?

BTW - if we drive some of the wackier wackos out of electoral politics, and we manage to put a bit more democracy back into the democratic process, and we make it a little easier for actual flesh-and-blood people to live a little freer - please tell me again how that qualifies as some kinda disaster(?)

BTW also too - Mark Obenshain is another political legacy puke.  See Dick Obenshain at Wikipedia

Today's PFU

Mother's Little Helper(s)

James Lee Stanley (on the right) and John Batdorf.




And a short bit from Bryant Gumbel on drug use in USAmerica:

Gumbel Commentary: America's Drug Problem

We're 5% of the world's population, but we consume 80% of the world's pain meds (including 99% of the world's Vicodin).

Ritalin = 4 million kids (mostly)

Anti-Depressants = 22 million women

Sleeping pills = 30 million adults

Statins (to lower cholesterol) = 32 million of any age or gender

We spent over $325,800,000,000 on prescription drugs last year - that's close to $1000 for every American.

Americans who took at least one prescription medication last month = 150 million

Americans who took 3 or more prescription medications last month = 67 million

Americans who took 5 or more prescription medications last month = 31 million 

Ain't Nobody But Me

Let me tell you a story that'll make a change,
Let me tell you when I'm way out of range;
It's about a man who's crueler than me,
So promise not to cause a scene,
Heaven help the one's you love,
There's no big need for stars above

Well, you can run, you know he'll find you,
It don't matter now, just look behind you,
You had your warn, and you knew the score,
You got it wrong, and that means war;
So, why'd you have to treat me rough,
Your explanation's not enough.

Ain't nobody but me,
Gonna lie for you, gonna die for you;
Ain't no fish in the sea,
Gonna sigh for you, gonna try for you,
Gonna lie for you, gonna die for you,
Wooh-

You see, I got a mental disposition,
Sometimes, I'm mean, sometimes I'm vicious;
I'm Dr. Jekyll, I'm Mr. Hyde,
So if you wanna stay alive,
Just give me all you've got to give,
And, then perhaps I'll let you live.

Ain't nobody but me,
Gonna lie for you, gonna die for you,
Ain't no fish in the sea,
Gonna sigh for you, gonna try for you,
Gonna lie for you, gonna die for you;
Gonna sigh for you, gonna try for you,
Gonna lie for you, gonna die for you.-

(HUSH) Now baby, stop your crying,
(OH YES) I know that I've been lying,
(HUSH) Now baby, stop your crying
(OH YES) I know that I've been lying
(HUSH) Now baby, stop your crying
(OH YES) I know that I've been lying
(HUSH) Now baby, stop your crying
(OH YES) I know that I've been lying
AAAaaa

Man Eater

She'll only come out at night
The lean and hungry type
Nothing is new, I've seen her here before
Watching and waiting
She's sitting with you but her eyes are on the door

So many have paid to see
What you think you're getting for free
The woman is wild, a she-cat tamed by the purr of a Jaguar
Money's the matter
If you're in it for love you ain't gonna get too far

Oh here she comes
Watch out boy she'll chew you up
Oh here she comes
She's a maneater
Oh here she comes
Watch out boy she'll chew you up
Oh here she comes
She's a maneater

I wouldn't if I were you
I know what she can do
She's deadly man, and she could really rip your world apart
Mind over matter
The beauty is there but a beast is in the heart

Oh here she comes
Watch out boy she'll chew you up
Oh here she comes
She's a maneater

I Brake For Art

Zooming around the intertubes, screeching to a dead stop at this:

Miles Morgan

hat tip = Democratic Underground

Hucksters And Pimps

Hucksters come in many guises.  Some are wearing diapers and onesies, and they're just trying to hustle you for one more cookie before bedtime.  Or they have a ring on their left hand, and they swear eternal love while plotting to throw you over.  But those aren't all that bad really.  Shit happens and ya deal.

The worst of the worst are dressed in the vestments of the clergy, or they have lapel pins in the shape of the American flag, or they're wearing Business Casual.  And all of 'em pimp the baloney of collapse and disaster and the end of the world as we know it; and "ONLY my special brand of salvation can help you, so give me lots of the money that I just told you is worthless so I can save you from the horrors I am constantly inventing in order to keep you fearful and therefore dependent on my guidance" blah blah blah.



The best part for me was when he finally launched into his pitch for Galt's Gulch.  Fucking classic.

Today's PFU

PFU, as in thats' Pretty Fucked Up right there.

Hipster Urban Yuppie Types.

I'm a Boomer, and a good number of subsets of not-so-pleasant people (with some not-so-great fetishes and/or agendas and/or hangups) have sprouted from The Baby Boom Generation over the years - shit, we invented Yuppies; along with "quality time", and the 8-dollar cup of coffee that takes 10 minutes to make just right for ya.  So I think I can safely say I really never thought a group would come along that everybody could hate on more than The Boomers, but there it is - Hipster Urban Yuppie Types.

And so now what - are gonna see some kinda new trend that's all about Rescue Chickens?  Can't wait for that Facebook page.

Well Now, Ain't That Interesting?

The independent political polling company NSON Opinion Strategy recently published the results of a case study in which 250,000 randomly selected American voters were asked a series of questions.

The details of how and where the study was conducted have yet to be released but the results are clear: 87% of Americans consider the word “Republican” to be synonymous with greed, racism, and violence.

Today - Again

35 years ago, I was pretty anti-union.  I tho't they'd had their day; they'd been useful and good once upon a time, but they'd become too big and too powerful (therefore corrupt), and so they needed to be reined in.  I don't think I was wrong as far as that particular tho't was concerned at that particular time.  What makes it all wrong now is that unions have been beat back and beat down for so long, that we're seeing all of the bad shit happen that the unions warned us would happen if we abandoned the unions altogether, rather than just getting things back into balance.

So, basically, what's happening is that the American labor force is being reduced to the standards of the rest of the world, when what we used to hold out as a primary goal was the raising of labor standards in those other countries to be more in line with our own.

What I'm having the most trouble understanding is why we think downward pressure on wages and prices is a good thing when we're supposed to be the level-headed-clear-eyed capitalists who understand that exactly the opposite is what makes the whole thing actually work.

From Bill Moyers:

Today, a single parent earning minimum wage takes home $15,080 a year. That’s $3,400 below the federal poverty line for a family of three. President Obama noted the statistic in his State of the Union Address — “That’s wrong,” he said, calling for an increase in the minimum wage to $9 an hour because “in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty.”

A "small" example of the relationships between Unions, Wages and Outcomes by way of Addicting Info:

In the current anti-union climate in the U.S., there may not be any group of unions that has been singled out for more criticism than teachers’ unions. Unions such as the National Education Association (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) have been blamed by politicians, think tanks, and the public for everything from low student achievement to blocking proposed education reforms.

However, despite claims from some quarters that unions are a large part of the problem with American public education, there is ample evidence that teachers’ unions are a vital piece of the education puzzle, and that students benefit from their existence.

If I pay the worker in Laos a whopping 3 bucks a day to make toasters, then I can sell a toaster to you for 10 or 12 bucks (instead of 30 or 40), which means I can pay you less for whatever you do (like teaching?), which means I can keep more for myself.

Like I said above, oddly enough it works (and works better for more people) when we do it the other way around, but apparently that's just too complicated for the geniuses being churned out by American MBA mills.  They aren't learning Fair Practice or Business Ethics or Mutual Advantage or anything else that doesn't fit in with the Imperial Predator Model of commerce in the 21st century - which (also oddly enough) fits perfectly with what we know about how things were done 65 years ago, and 100 years ago, and 150 years ago, and 250 years ago; as far back as you care to look.

Anyway, we said we were gonna be different.  So let's be different.

Today

While we're busy celebrating this Fall - yelling about everything from, "Remember 9/11" and "Support The Troops" to "Yay Football", maybe we could take a small moment and remember the sacrifice of some people who are now pretty much demonized and belittled; people who wanted little more than for this country to live up to its promises.

Per Wikipedia:

The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914.
In 1914, when workers at Colorado mine went on strike, company guards fired machine guns and killed several men. More battling followed, during which 2 women and 11 children were killed and John D. Rockefeller Jr., the chief mine owner, was pilloried for what had happened.
The massacre resulted in the violent deaths of between 19 and 25 people; sources vary but include two women and eleven children, asphyxiated and burned to death under a single tent. The deaths occurred after a daylong fight between militia and camp guards against striking workers. Ludlow was the deadliest single incident in the southern Colorado Coal Strike, lasting from September 1913 through December 1914. The strike was organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) against coal mining companies in Colorado. The three largest companies involved were the Rockefeller family-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company (CF&I), the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company(RMF), and the Victor-American Fuel Company (VAF).
In retaliation for Ludlow, the miners armed themselves and attacked dozens of mines over the next ten days, destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard along a 40-mile front from Trinidad to Walsenburg.^[1] The entire strike would cost between 69 and 199 lives. Thomas G. Andrews described it as the "deadliest strike in the history of the United States".^[2]The Ludlow Massacre was a watershed moment in American labor relations. Historian Howard Zinn described the Ludlow Massacre as "the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history".^[3] Congress responded to public outcry by directing the House Committee on Mines and Mining to investigate the incident.^[4] Its report, published in 1915, was influential in promoting child labor laws and an eight-hour work day.
The Ludlow site, 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Trinidad, Colorado, is now a ghost town. The massacre site is owned by the UMWA, which erected a granite monument in memory of the miners and their families who died that day.^[5] The Ludlow Tent Colony Site was designated a National Historic Landmark on January 16, 2009, and dedicated on June 28, 2009.^[5] Modern archeological investigation largely supports the strikers' reports of the event.^[6]

Today's Pix

Today's Shameless Fanboy Plug

All hail Keith!

There is no bigger pain in the ass (from what almost everybody says), and there is no better reporter anywhere in any field at any price.

The NFL recently agreed to pay $765M to be paid out to 4500 guys over a 17-year period.  As others have said, it sounds right decent, but... a little math (the kind that's simple enough even for me to understand) shows just how big this particular bamboozle really is.

The league made some $9.5 Billion last year - BILLION. If that number stays static over the 17-year lifetime of the deal (and we all know it's a lot more likely to go up rather than stay the same or go down), the total "cost" to the owners is less than one half of one percent of league revenue.

But of course, we can always count on some Press Poodle - who in this case owes his living to the NFL - to come up with some good PR Fluffery (in the form of sneering mockery which has become the prevailing journalistic style of Corporate Attack Dog Media).

Enter Pete Prisco at CBS Sports:

I just got off the phone with my attorney. Why?

I had a concussion playing 115-pound football and another in high school. Back then -- not leather helmet days but close -- they just called it getting your bell rung and stuck some nasty crap in front of your nose, and told you to go back into the game.

So I am suing.

Why not? I might get an extra $100,000 or so for my bank account. The precedent has been set. The NFL settled Thursday with a group of players filing concussion lawsuits to the tune of $765 million. So why not go after the high schools? Pop Warner? Colleges? And maybe even those two-hand touch games set up by our dads?

So, are you saying your coaches didn't know about the dangers of head injuries?  And that we should pretend it's still 1965 and make all of our health and safety decisions based on what we didn't fucking know 50 years ago?  Or are we finally unmasking your deep-seated fear that maybe your daddy didn't really give a fuck about you?

Here's Keith taking Mr Prisco down:



Nobody does it better.  Welcome back, Mr Olbermann - we've missed you.

BYU @ Virginia

I'm trying hard to be less of a football fan, but sometimes I just cain't hep muhsef.  It's my game and I love it.



My boy Luke plays on his HS LAX team, and since Americans have lost their ability to understand the causal relationship between paying less and less in taxes and getting less and less in terms of (eg) the quality of public schools (which includes "little extras" like Arts & Humanities, Athletics, air conditioning etc), the Booster Clubs for each of the sports teams (ie: parents) have to devise ways of raising several thousand dollars in order to provide their kids with commensurate "little extras" like transportation, lacrosse balls, helmets - just those incidentals that make the activity a bit more enjoyable, and maybe even - oh I dunno - survivable?

Anyway, our big money-maker is to volunteer as a group to scan tickets at UVa football games.  So there we were yesterday at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville for the season opener;  the Cavaliers of Virginia versus the Cougars of BYU, when a little airplane flew overhead towing one of those advertising banners - you know - it's usually something like "10% off all day tomorrow blah blah blah."  But not this one. We looked up and saw this:

Maybe you can teach an old Democrat new tricks.

Dumb Is Dangerous

From a piece in HuffPo:

It's remarkable how low America places in healthcare efficiency: among the 48 countries included in the Bloomberg study, the U.S. ranks 46th, outpacing just Serbia and Brazil. Once that sinks in, try this one on for size: the U.S. ranks worse than China, Algeria, and Iran.

But the sheer numbers are really what's humbling about this list: the U.S. ranks second in healthcare cost per capita ($8,608), only to be outspent by Switzerland ($9,121) -- which, for the record, boasts a top-10 healthcare system in terms of efficiency. Furthermore, the U.S. is tops in terms of healthcare cost relative to GDP, with 17.2 percent of the country's wealth spent on medical care for every American.

In other words, the world's richest country spends more of its money on healthcare while getting less than almost every other nation in return.

Keep Pluggin' Away

Bill Watterson retired from writing and drawing "Calvin & Hobbes" about 18 years ago, but the timelessness of his message -- to always remain thoughtful, imaginative, and playful -- will stick in our culture forever, if we're lucky. Case in point: Cartoonist Gavin Aung Than, who pens comics on his blog Zen Pencils, created this tribute to Watterson that has struck a chord with the Internet over the last few days.

Than took the text from a commencement speech Watterson delivered at Kenyon College in 1995, and illustrated it in the style of "Calvin & Hobbes." He explains that this is the first time he's intentionally attempted to mimic Watterson, although the man has been an inspiration for his art as well as his career.

If you want to buy a print of Than's cartoon, you may be out of luck. He explains that since Watterson famously refuses to license his work, preferring to let his art speak for itself, selling this "would be against the whole spirit of Calvin and Hobbes." However, you can (and should) click over to his site and browse his other, non-Watterson related artwork.

hat tip = HuffPo via Democratic Underground