Societal death spasms
Neighbor kills neighbor. Don’t worry, though. They will pay for what they’ve done. Especially if they hate the inconvenience of annoying paperwork, attending a couple of hearings and paying a fine. That’s more than sufficient punishment for killing a fellow human being, right?
What is a society? My definition is a system where people make decisions that impact the safety of others. More and more it seems like that’s the only definition that matters.
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Random musings on #Ferguson
The #1 result in Google Images for a search of “Ferguson Missouri Police Department.”
I’ve been thinking about recent events in Ferguson, Missouri. I’ve been trying to control my brain and avoid leaping to conclusions.
I preface the following thoughts with this disclaimer: I’m a big fan of law enforcement. They have a tough job. They have my empathy. They have an extremely necessary function in a society that is populated with far too many assholes. We need them.
I’ve never been a cop but I know a few. I have never walked a mile in their shoes. To those who say that means I’m not entitled to my opinion or that I’m somehow unable to form cogent (but possibly erroneous) conclusions from a different vantage point, I only say this: It is possible to form conclusions without having been there first. If that wasn’t true, humans would have never been able to leave Earth and visit outer space.
Therefore, opinions and conclusions about police by non-police shouldn’t automatically be rejected out of hand on that basis alone. That would be a logical fallacy. If you want to reject ideas, find a better rebuttal than that.
Thought #1
“It is a failure of civilization when an armed person kills an unarmed person.”
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Is This The Train To Desert Bus?
Desert Bus
This is part two in our ongoing coverage of meaningless content. -Ed
Do you like Penn & Teller? Did you know they once made a video game? I just heard about it and I have to say, I love it!
“[H]ere’s another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And here’s one: it’s called Kindergarten Killers. It’s been online for 10 years.”
–Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA
So how very nice then that Penn & Teller, in their infinite wisdom, gave us a video game that has no violence. At all. Not even jumping and stomping turtles and knocking them out of their shells. They are inventive bastards, I’ll give ’em that.
Ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between, I present to you the classic video game known as Desert Bus.
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Thar Be Trolls
I find myself still thinking about yesterday’s story about road rage and the trolling its spawned in comment sections galore. Mostly consisting of death threats and hate. That seems to be who we have become as a people.
I found a post I like on the topic of healthier responses to trolls. It offers three key points on how to view trolls in a different way. I think the points make sense although they might be a skosh overly optimistic on humanity itself.
It also includes an extremely disturbing example of religion-based extreme trolling that took my breath away. Wow.
This is my reblog of the week.
Jana Riess – Religion News: The care and feeding of Mormon trolls: A guest post by Stephanie Lauritzen
Are we Dunn yet?
Michael Dunn.
In the Netflix original series Orange Is The New Black a nun is in Danbury Correctional Facility because she chained herself to a flagpole at a nuclear test site. That’s fiction.
The character is actually based on a real life nun who was convicted of cutting a government-owned chain link fence at a Colorado missile silo, then using baby bottles filled with her own blood to draw a cross in protest. For this non-violent property damage offense she served more than two years at Danbury and an additional three years of probation. (See Common Dreams.)
Meanwhile, in 2013, a 16-year-old rich kid gets in his dada’s F-350 pickup, loads it up with seven of his friends, steals two cases of beer from a convenience store, drives 70 mph in a 40 mph zone with three times the adult legal limit BAC and Valium in his system. He causes an accident that claims the lives of four pedestrians on the side of the road. As we all know by now, the driver, Ethan Couch, received no jail time for his actions.
In 1978, Dan White murdered in cold blood Harvey Milk and the George Moscone, Mayor of San Francisco. The mayor he shot at close range in his office, hitting him in the shoulder, chest, and twice in the head. He then reloaded while walking down the hall and shot Milk five times, again at close range. The final two shots to the head came with the gun pressed against Milk’s skull.
For this actions, Dan White served just five years of a seven year sentence.
Justice is decidedly not a dish that is meted out evenly.
Now I’m thinking about the Michael Dunn case which currently rests in the hands of the jury.
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Juvenile Criminal Thoughts
I have no idea if this is a 20 gauge. This is not a blog particularly concerned with the accurate identification of firearms. I do believe, however, it is a shotgun.
This week brought the news that a 12-year-old boy in the 8th grade took a loaded sawed-off 20 gauge pump shotgun to his school and opened fire, seriously wounding an 11-year-old boy (shot in the face) and a 13-year-old girl in the school’s gym.
cold… calculated… premeditated… random…
The New Mexico state police stated that the attack was “planned.” Part of that planning included the shooter issuing warnings to friends, advising them to stay away from school.
The 20-gauge shotgun is a type of smoothbore shotgun shell that is smaller in caliber (.615) than a 12 gauge (.729). It is often used as a beginning shooter’s practice round and is noted by its yellow hull.
A 20-gauge shotgun is sometimes considered more suitable for hunting certain types of game, because it damages less meat, which makes it suitable for most game birds.
Source: Wikipedia – 20-gauge shotgun
The firearm was obtained by the shooter from “family members,” the police said. The shooter’s Facebook page featured a picture of the shooter beside a deer he had killed during a hunting trip.
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Shouts from the Abyss 
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