Some Questions

From WaPo via Little Green Footballs:

Larry McQuilliams had “let me die” written in marker across his chest when he fired more than 100 rounds in downtown Austin early Friday morning.

McQuilliams, who Austin Police officials called a “homegrown American extremist” with ties to a Christian identity hate group, was shot dead on Friday by a police officer outside the department’s headquarters.

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo told reporters on Monday that officers who searched the gunman’s home found a map with 34 targets, including two churches. McQuilliams had fired bullets into Austin police headquarters, a federal courthouse and the Mexican consulate in downtown Austin on Friday. He also tried to set the Mexican consulate building on fire.

--and--

Among other things investigators need to determine: How McQuilliams got his weapons. He had been arrested in 1998 for driving under the influence and in 1992 for aggravated robbery, Acevedo said. He also served time in prison for a bank robbery.

Phineas Priesthood affiliates were tied to a string of 1996 bank robberies and bombings in the state of Washington.

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told The Post that the Phineas Priesthood is a “concept” that originated with “Vigilantes of Christendom,” which came out in 1990. The group takes its name from a story about the biblical figure of Phineas in the book of Numbers.

1) Isn't this exactly what the FBI and ATF and DoD and about a dozen other agencies have been trying to warn us about, while "conservatives" are always saying it's just Obama's anti-white-man propaganda?

2) When can we expect the NRA to chime in with, "we just need to enforce existing law" (when it comes to keeping guns away from convicted felons), while re-asserting the bullshit about how there's no need for background checks?

3) Shouldn't somebody out there on the Far Right be saying something shitty about Chief Acevedo?  (this one may take some time because they have to make some small effort to expressed it in terms couched ever so deeply in coded racist language so as to give themselves a little plausible deniability)

4) This happened Monday, and maybe I just missed it, but how come "the librul media" wasn't all over it?  Unless of course, "The Liberal Bias of Mainstream Media" is one big fucking lie.

Today's Homemade Music

The Children's Illustrated Book Of Music --Janapriya Levine



hat tip = Little Green Footballs

Today's Toon

And a comment from Keith:

Wanting And Getting Ain't The Same

We get a solid confluence of Religion and Rightwing Politics because there's a buttload of people out there who just flat-out gotta have answers that are simple and authoritative and permanent.

Their religious traditions condition them to receive Revealed Truth, and so they look for that process to play out with everything else.  They need that Father Figure to tell them what's what.

One of the best examples I can think of right now is the whole mess about Climate Change. How many times have you heard some Chucklehead say if Global Warming was a cause  for tropical storms like Rita and Katrina to be worse than they shoulda been way down there in Nawlins in the summertime, how can it then also be causing problems like Polar Vortex and killer snowstorms in Buffalo in the wintertime?  They're looking for that definitive immutable answer that explains everything for them; and once attained, never requires them to learn anything new.

Just like that crap about Mike Brown - it has to be a definitive pronouncement (which is usually pretty arbitrary), and not generally a logical conclusion following thought and deliberative consideration.

The Daddy State rules - but only until you start to understand that for every question which is gnarly and complicated and weird, there's an answer which is simple and elegant and fucking wrong.

Jim Webb

The guy says he's only "exploring" whether or not to run for Prez in 2016, and he seems to be a truly decent human being, but...

First, never let the facts get in the way of a good slogan.

But second, we really don't need another candidate who just sounds good.  

Add a little bullshit - a little - and the roses grow better.  But if all you start with is bullshit, then try not to act too surprised when we see you as just another Bullshit Marketeering Creation spouting cutesy little bromides.  (Hey - if you think that crap is good Tweet material, then you don't get to bitch at me about fucking up my metaphor)

Anyway, I'm not the one running for office.  

We deserve better - try harder.

Where's The Outrage?

From Deseret News, via HuffPo:

A Utah high school student nearly launched a shooting rampage but a classmate saw his loaded gun and prevented a tragedy on Monday, according to police.

The student who saw the gun told a school resource officer who apprehended the allegedly armed teenager, thwarting a potential shooting at Fremont High School in Plain City, Utah, according to Fox Salt Lake City. The school was evacuated.

The 16-year-old suspect was arrested and taken to a juvenile detention facility, according to Desert News.

He allegedly admitted to police that he wanted to shoot a girl with whom he'd had a relationship and then open fire on others, according to the New York Daily News.

"We do not think that there were any additional students who were armed," Weber County Sheriff's Lt. Lane Findlay told KUTV. "It appears to be a lone student."

The teen, who has not been identified because he is a minor, faces charges of possession of a weapon with intent to assault, possession of a firearm in a restricted area and possession of a firearm by a minor.

But wait just a durn minute - the kid with the gun hadn't done anything but exercise his god-given right to keep and bear arms. Why is the "hero student who stopped a potential shooting incident" getting away with this blatant and unwarranted imposition of Nanny State tyranny?

How did anybody know for sure - before anything happened - that the kid with the gun was intending to do anything other than making sure he could defend himself and his schoolmates against somebody else?

Where's the NRA when you really need 'em?

Happy Zappadan

Tonite (Bummernacht) marks the end of the 21st year since our dearly demented Brother Frank split the scene.  And tomorrow begins Zapandan 2014.  Blessed be the Sheiks and the Weasels and the Pygmy Ponies, and all the rest.

There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another. --Frank Zappa

Cosmik Debris:

Today's Modern Policing

Hard to imagine why 'conservatives' haven't been totally maniacal about this shit - complete with brain foam erupting from their ears and every pore and follicle of their skull covers.  

Why has this not registered even the tiniest little blip on the Gubmint Conspiracy radar?

WaPo piece by Gene Robinson:

According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, in 2013 there were 461 “justifiable homicides” by police — defined as “the killing of a felon by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty.” In all but three of these reported killings, officers used firearms.

The true number of fatal police shootings is surely much higher, however, because many law enforcement agencies do not report to the FBI database. Attempts by journalists to compile more complete data by collating local news reports have resulted in estimates as high as 1,000 police killings a year. There is no way to know how many victims, like Brown, were unarmed.

By contrast, there were no fatal police shootings in Great Britain last year. Not one. In Germany, there have been eight police killings over the past two years. In Canada — a country with its own frontier ethos and no great aversion to firearms — police shootings average about a dozen a year.

If you pay any attention to the stories of Sherlock Holmes or Colombo or House or Scooby-fucking-Doo, then you know mysteries get solved when the hero sleuth manages to put one bit of info together with a coupla other bits of info, and suddenly everything starts to make sense.

Here in USAmerica Inc, it almost seems like somebody wants to keep us from putting certain bits of info together.

And in case this one slipped past ya - the NSA (eg) demands we shit-can our civil rights and allow them to put together all manner of bits of info.  

So anyway, how is it that in a system of Self-Government, regular people are always having to push rocks up the hill while a shrinking number of very privileged snoots are always hanging out at the top telling us we should just be grateful for the banana peels they're tossing our way?

It's a wonderment.

A Crowning Achievement

The Daily Show
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Here's what I'd like to think: When you've twisted and warped your entire world into an elegant and obvious parody of yourself, it has to be over for you.  

That's what I'd like to think.

Go Places, Do Things

I have to wonder tho' - by thinking there's some place else we can go, we can continue the rationalization that it's OK for us not to take good care of this place.

Undercurrent

So, 5 guys - the receiver corps - who play for the St Louis Rams did the Hands-Up-Don't-Shoot thing when they came out of the tunnel during introductions yesterday.



Which BTW just continues a long proud tradition of Americans standing up for what's right, and being unafraid to speak the truth.



I remember thinking back then that it wasn't cool for Carlos and Smith to do that, but I was fortunate enough to have people in my life to present an alternative viewpoint - to teach me that ya gotta take your shots whenever the chance comes along.  Powerful people are 'in charge' and they need everybody to stay in line, and if staying in line makes permanent losers out of a significant bunch of Americans who're supposed to be getting exactly the same chance as everybody else, then somebody has to have the balls to step outa that line; somebody has to throw a little sand in the gears; somebody has to take one small moment to remind us that all anybody really wants is for this country to try a little harder to live up to its promises.

Anyway, then the Rams hung 52 on the Dog-Ass Raiders.  

And Dallas lost.

And my Donkeys beat KC to stay on top in the AFC West.

Pretty good Sunday.

A Cop's Eye View

I copied this whole post at Democratic Underground.  The author says he asked his nephew about Darren Wilson killing Mike Brown. Take it or leave it according to your own bent.

Not only is he a 29 year cop, he is the third highest ranking officer in the county that he works in. I asked him about this. Being the Republican that he is, I expected him to jump to Darin Wilson's defense. He had this to say.

He would not say it was a racial thing because he doesn't know. He did say he read all of the reports and the grand jury testimony.

1- He said at very least Wilson is completely incompetent. That you never get out of the car by yourself if you know there is going to be a physical confrontation with an unarmed person. Especially if you were in Wilson's words, "afraid" of the guy.

2- He said Wilson should have let Brown go, followed him as far as he could in the car as he called for back up. If he had to, arrest him later.

3- He had no business firing once Brown was down on the ground. He fired four shots too many even if you believe his story.

4- It is unheard of to leave the guy laying in the street for four and a half hours.

5- If all of this was in accordance to Wilson's training, an idiot trained him.

6- Brown's family will get a huge settlement from Ferguson because if this goes to civil trail it will cost them many millions more.

What my nephew thinks happened is that Wilson got into an argument with the guy, got out of his car to whip his ass. Quickly realized he bit off more than he could chew, so he shot the guy.

Take it for what it's worth.

Today's Wow

I'm something of a Sapio-Sexual, so I think any Fem-i-Nerd is kinda hot anyway, but holy crap.  If STEM courses are populated with women like this one, I suddenly have reason for hope.

Merry Mythmas

Where's The Outrage?

Yo - "Conservatives",

Michael Jackson was plagued with financial problems at the time of his death in 2009. Last year, the IRS sued Jackson’s estate, claiming that it owed over $700 million in federal taxes.

If you're really all that het up about Da Gubmint staying off everybody's back, then you need to be raising something of a stink every time.  Being selective about your deep concern over who's getting stepped on is why the rest of us are pretty sure you're a lot more worried about who gets to join your little club and who doesn't.  

BTW, here's a tip for ya: You're not in the club.  And your eagerness to slag people in order to keep them out of the club is an obvious attempt to suck up to the bosses who are in the club, and - listen to me now cuz I'm talking sense here - that's not gonna get you into their club.  They need you to think they think you're cool so you'll go on doing the heavy lifting, but you're just another credulous rube gettin' played for a cheap trick.