Today's Pix

(click on the pic and it will embiggen)

Maybe Next Time

Drinking and guns and a casual confrontation - what could possibly go wrong?

KMSP-TV

Getting a little shit-faced kinda short-circuits your Impulse Control Mechanism. Trigger an impulse with practically any kind of instigating incident; add the convenience of a readily available gun as a simple means of satisfying that impulse, and "suddenly" you've got the neighbor lady saying she was shocked (in that standard, neighbor lady way) that the guy would behave like that because she'd never seen anything like it before and she just can't imagine how such horrible things could happen here on our quiet little family street.

Today's Eternal Sadness

(paraphrasing Samantha Bee) Since we can't prevent all gun tragedies, why do anything at all to prevent any gun tragedy?

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive

We are so fucked.

Out For A Bit

Gotta be off-line a for a few days.

Back by next Tuesday, if not sooner.

Like Charlie always says, "Play nice, ya bastids."

Today's Eternal Sadness

Just the latest in the parade of carnage that accounts for the death of a child every three days.

PAYSON, Ariz. (AP) — A 3-year-old Payson boy shot and killed his 1½ -year-old brother after the boys found a handgun in a neighbor's apartment and took it to another room, the eastern Arizona town's police chief said Wednesday.
Police Chief Don Engler said his department's investigation of the Tuesday shooting will take about a week. Results will be forwarded to the Gila County Attorney's Office for a decision on whether to prosecute anybody, he said.

"What we're taking a look at is the circumstances regarding the securing of the weapon" and how the boys were able to get ahold of it, Engler told The Associated Press. "We are continuing our investigation, and we haven't ruled out criminal charges at this point."

He said it was too early to say what recommendation his department might make to prosecutors.

The boys and their mother were visiting the 78-year-old neighbor in their apartment complex when the shooting occurred in a bedroom.

The brothers found the semi-automatic pistol somewhere in the living area where it was not in plain sight, the police chief said without elaborating. Neither adult knew the boys had the weapon, Engler said.

The boys were playing when they found the gun, police said. The weapon discharged, and the toddler was shot in the head.

Engler said the mother was just entering the bedroom when the shooting occurred and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

The younger boy was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Names of those involved were not released.

Engler said he didn't know whether the 3-year-old grasped what he had done.

"That'd be a difficult stretch for me to make that assumption," the police chief said.

However, he said the shooting was a tragedy that was felt by many in the community, including members of his department. Payson is about 90 miles northeast of Phoenix and has a population of approximately 15,000.

Engler noted many of the department's young officers have children of their own. "Certainly it's difficult for our officers in those circumstances," he told KPHO-TV.

But hey - freedom ain't free, so we'll need to continue these little sacrifices because what's good for the Ammosexuals is good for America.  And besides, your dead kids don't trump my constitutional rights.

Check this out at Pacific-Standard:

Since 1996, when a small CDC-funded study on the risks of owning a firearm ignited opposition from Republicans, the CDC’s budget for research on firearms injuries has shrunk to zero.

The result, as we’ve detailed, is that many basic questions about gun violence—such as how many Americans are shot each year—remain unanswered.

 And this at The New York Daily News:

Guns kill 32,000 Americans a year, but not one penny is given to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to find out why.

Victims of gun violence can thank the National Rifle Association for squeezing off that funding.

The NRA began lobbying Congress in the 1990s to limit the CDC’s funding after the agency gave financial backing to an independent study that found that keeping a gun in the home was strongly associated with an increased risk of homicide.

The pro-gun behemoth succeeded in ramming legislation through in 1996 that forbade the CDC from using federal funds for studies that “advocate or promote gun control.”

Whenever it becomes obvious that you have a real problem - and when that problem seems pretty obviously epidemic and systemic - then certainly the last thing ya wanna do is find out what the fuck might be causing it.

And finally, from The Onion, here's the checklist for enacting gun control legislation:

• Write gun control legislation. Pass gun control legislation.
• Before voting on gun control bill, try, if you can, to remember any recent examples in which guns have been used to kill innocent people.
• Acknowledge that it’s going to be hard to buck the pressure of the high-powered gun lobby, but not that fucking hard, dumbass.
• Consider if overwhelming public support for a particular measure is something you want to be associated with or not.
• Inform your decision by researching whether guns are good or bad when placed in the wrong hands.
• Muster everything that’s left in your black, desiccated heart to do something that might actually be of service to someone other than yourself.
• Carefully assess the other side of the argument wherein mentally unstable people can buy weapons at a gun show with no problem whatsoever, and then realize there is no other side of this argument.
• Put on your stupid little suit, run a comb through your greasy hair, go to the U.S Capitol building, pick up your fancy little gold pen, and pass a fucking gun control bill.

Today's LOL Cats

Turn About's Fair Play(?)

I'm not buying into this one 100%, but there's a point worth considering.



hat tip = Bored Panda

Take Me Back

The bad old days, when 42nd Street was something kinda wild and dangerous (also fun):

I'm not convinced this qualifies as "improvement":

But I have to keep reminding myself that 'Nostalgia' was considered a mental disorder until mid-20th century.

Dodging Bullets

Like anybody needs more reasons to avoid Wal-Mart:

PHOENIX -- Police said a man accidentally shot himself in the leg while at a Wal-Mart store in Phoenix on Saturday.
Phoenix police spokesman Officer James Holmes said the man had a gun on his hip and it went off.

Christa Allejandro was checking out at the store near 16th Avenue and Bethany Home Road when she heard a loud bang.

“It sounded like a balloon,” she said. “We were in the aisle paying for our stuff and then the next thing you know, a couple of aisles down from me, we hear a gunshot and we see a man cover his belly."

Holmes said the man's injuries were not life-threatening.

“I was just trying to get stuff for my son's birthday ... and next thing you know, all this chaos, and now it's shut down,” Allejandro said.

The whole ordeal caused confusion, shoppers to panic, and the store to be evacuated.

“I was tripping. I was trying to just get out of the store,” Allejandro said.

No one else was hurt.

--and--

COLUMBUS, Ind. (AP) -- Police say a gunshot wounded a woman inside a central Indiana Wal-Mart store after a man's handgun fell from his pants and fired.

Columbus police Lt. Matt Myers says the 26-year-old woman was treated for an upper arm wound by medics at the store but declined to go to a hospital.

Myers tells The Republic that city Police Chief Jon Rohde was inside the Wal-Mart store Saturday evening when he heard the gunshot and called for assistance.

Myers says a 56-year-old man told officers that his handgun was in a holster when it fell from his waistband. One bullet hit the woman who was pushing a shopping cart with her newborn son inside.

Myers says officers confirmed the man had a handgun permit and he wasn't arrested.

Wasted Weaponry

An unused weapon is a useless weapon.  Could we just stop fuckin' around with this shit now please?

And maybe do something with all that junk that might actually be of some use to somebody?

We really do deserve better than what we're getting out of all this.

The Patron Geek

How rich is Bill Gates?

What's The Matter With Wal-Mart?

The short answer, of course is, "Who fucking cares?"  but there's something that feels like a bellwether in this, from CNBC:

At the center of the discounter's domestic woes is its appeal among shoppers who are facing stagnant wage growth and simply can't afford to spend on discretionary items—or in some cases, food.

"They're lowering prices and they're still not getting the traffic," said Belus Capital Advisors analyst Brian Sozzi.

First, Wal-Mart is making all the right moves if what they're attempting to do is to drive a deflationary downward spiral.  They cut their prices which means they have to hammer their workers and their vendors to cut costs, which means their vendors have to hammer their workers and their vendors and on and on and on - until nobody's making enough to spend the few pennies it takes to buy any of the piece of shit merchandise available anywhere.  It's an obvious over-simplification, but that's basically how an economy works.

But there's a kicker - a delicious extra bit of irony.  From the comments at the CNBC site:

walmart can have it, went yesterday, stopped stocking three things we went there to get. no customer service, the place is full of third world village idiots who have no discipline with themselves much less five or six anchor babies in tow. Their prices may be cheaper, but I'll pay more just to stay away, or starve.............now car insurance?? whats next?? baby birthing stations for illegals??????

This rube has grown up believing the bullshit about how differences between people are all about ethnicity and skin color and everything except economic class. So the guy we tend to think of as the "typical Wal-Mart shopper" is now going to avoid shopping at Wal-Mart because it's filled with people just like him.

Today's Quote(s)

A couple from Bertrand Russell:

"It's a good idea to hang a question mark on things you've long taken for granted."

--and--

"Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes....A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men."

Today's Eternal Sadness

"We wear our Widow's Weeds like nuns, and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifice."



Memorial Day is actually the one day I wish we could forget.  But as long as we seek  retribution while mistaking it for justice; as long as we see the extreme cowardice of brute force and insist on calling it gallantry; as long as we're willing to cover the stench of corpses rotting on the battlefield with dress uniforms and neatly folded flags, then we'll continue to have wars - which means we'll continue to have the dead and broken warriors that go with it, which means we'll continue to pretend there's something noble in sending people we love to fight and to bleed and to die in some shit-hole halfway around the world in order to get some dickhead politician re-elected so he can make sure ExxonMobil and Pfizer and Halliburton and Grumman and Goldman Sachs can add a few extra pennies to their quarterly earnings per share, which makes sure those companies have lots of extra cash to contribute to other dickhead politicians so we can keep this parade of war porn cranking along smoothly and efficiently.

In the meantime, maybe we could take just a moment away from our little celebratory circle-jerk and try to focus on a few of the reasons for this particular day.

One lousy fucking day - 0.3% of the year.

Anyway, take a look at this from Addicting Info:

Twenty-Two: the estimated number of veterans who commit suicide every day.

Three hundred and fifty: the number of active-duty military members who killed themselves in 2012.

Eight hundred and forty-one: the number of active duty troops who attempted suicide one or more times in 2012.

Eight thousand: the estimated number of troops who die by their own hand each year and that is a low estimate.

Military Crisis Line: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

Military One Source: 1-800-342-9647

Wounded Soldier And Family Hotline: 1-800-984-8523

Today's Quote

"Negro poverty is not white poverty. Many of its causes and many of its cures are the same. But there are differences—deep, corrosive, obstinate differences—radiating painful roots into the community and into the family, and the nature of the individual. These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice." --Lyndon Johnson

Ta-Nahisi Coates does nothing to help me as I wrestle with what I do or don't need to do about "Reparations".

Sometimes, I understand completely why people spend so much time and energy longing for the good old days, when (they think) everything was so much simpler and easier.  Shit makes my head hurt.