Keith Olbermann And The Meaning Of The Second Amendment

Has Keith Olbermann lost it? Maybe a little. By losing his job at MSNBC for donations made to Democratic Party candidates after appearances on his show (Countdown), he has taken a turn for the more opinionated, sometimes stepping over the line in terms of fact-reporting to get his political point across. At times, that has meant he sounds as nutty as Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannitty (albeit with a totally different worldview and civil perspective), despite looking poised.

On the other hand, there were too few dissident voices in the news during George W. Bush's turn in the White House - with the consequences that we have seen (the largest foreign attack on U.S. soil, two wars, at least one of them fully unwarranted). The media had been way too lax and the entire planet suffered. I see how he would feel he needs to teach Americans the Right Way and, failing that, wanting to knock some sense into them.

All told, I think we're better off with him having some sort of wide and official platform.

Nowadays, Olbermann has a webseries called The Resistance (formerly The Closer, it was changed following Donald Trump's victory), hosted by GQ Magazine. Today's video brings home a point many scholars try to teach about but that people are too thick to open their eyes to regarding the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:

He Took A Bite Out Of Crime, And Crime Bit Back

In other crime news, John R. Morales, a man who had previously worked as the mascot inside the McGruff The Crime Dog suit, was sentenced to 16 years in jail for a thousand marijuana plants and 27 weapons - including grenade launchers - and 9,000 rounds of ammunition in Texas.

All of these - well, the ammo, the grenade launcher, the sawed-off shotguns and the rifles, NOT the pot - are legal to purchase in Texas, but because he had previously been convicted on other counts and thus had a criminal record and was prohibited from buying any new ones.

And why did the young man turn to a life of crime?

Before being sent back to prison, Morales told the judge he was a humble, nonviolent person who got into the dope business to help his family, including a mother with leukemia and a sister with cancer.

Guess the cancer couldn't wait until Obamacare kicked in. Here's the kicker:

Morales' downfall came in September 2011, when a Galveston police officer with a drug-sniffing dog pulled him over for driving 50 mph in a 35 mph zone.

You think it had anything to do with the fact that he's Hispanic, or are they really serious about speed limits over there? In any case, if you've got a lot of compromising shit in your vehicle, you would do well to abide by the rules that would make you stand out and bring attention to yourself. Particularly ''with diagrams of two indoor pot-growing operations sitting on the front seat of his Infinity and a load of pot seedlings stashed in the trunk.''.

Idiot Of The Month

I've been sitting on this one for a few weeks now, because it's really graphic. Horrific, really, and even more stupid than it is violent.

It's a fuck-up, dancing at a wedding, with his AK-47, getting so excited he kills 3 people.

And, no, it's not a Christian Conservative at a gay wedding... just an over-excited idiot going Gangnam Style...

PLEASE DO NOT WATCH THIS IF YOU THINK IT MIGHT UPSET YOU.

Cop Kills Kid, Part 75

''To serve and protect.'' A motto dating back to the black-and-white days of yore, Pleasantville-type Utopian pasts of ''the way things were'', where the most rampant crime was underage smoking or forgetting to pay for your sundae at the drive-in diner.

Then again, there were less laws to even break back then, as cars didn't even have seat belts.

''Law enforcement'' has sure come  along way since then.

Wikipedia describes their job thusly:

Law enforcement broadly refers to any system by which some members of society act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering and punishing persons who violate the rules and norms governing that society. Although the term may encompass entities such as courts and prisons, it is most frequently applied to those who directly engage in patrols or surveillance to dissuade and discover criminal activity, and those who investigate crimes and apprehend offenders.^[1] Furthermore, although law enforcement may be most concerned with the prevention and punishment of crimes, organizations exist to discourage a wide variety of non-criminal violations of rules and norms, effected through the imposition of less severe consequences.

But in the past 10 years or so, what is most commonly referred to as ''the police'' have resorted more to the ''force'' part of the word ''enforcement'', using military tactics, weapons, vehicles and excuses to become what many conspiracy theorists once warned we were headed towards: a police state.

From the mass brutal beatings of tens of thousands of kids who thought a tuition hike was too high, to repeatedly sodomizing people they arrest even when under media scrutiny (a fact that happens way too often in itself, but it seems New Mexico cops in particular now have developed a taste for it), to having a double-standard regarding aboriginal women in Canada, to selling information to organized crime, to killing innocent civilians - perhaps the saddest, disturbing, recurring situation of all.

It seems to go over people's heads when it's an alleged criminal receiving the bullet, and things are usually forgiving when it's the result of intermediary force - for example the result of getting tasered (and we're lucky that in instances where Tasers are used on 80-year-olds they aren't always fatal) - but there are clear instances where death should simply have never occurred under any circumstance, and today's example is the strongest in a long time: a man wanted to teach his son a lesson after taking his truck without authorization, so he did what anyone born prior to 1980 would do: he called the cops, thinking they'd bring the boy home, he'd have a scare, and he'd have learned his lesson and be good to get on with his life.

But that's not how cops work nowadays. They have a licence to kill and use it, they shoot first and ask questions never, they seem to no longer have to nor have the training for using submissive and/or non-lethal force first and whenever possible. And they no longer shoot to maim or stop - they shoot to kill, period. Sometimes even on clearly homeless folks, a story found everywhere from Santa Clara (aged 22) to Montréal (aged 40, also dead: a 36-year-old innocent bystander).

Tyler Comstock, though, was a bright 19-year-old kid  on his way to getting his GED.

Ames Police Officer Adam McPherson eventually fired six shots into the truck, two of which struck Tyler who was later pronounced dead.

The official report claims the action was necessary in order "to stop the ongoing threat to the public and the officers."

Tyler's dad says he was unarmed at the time.

The saddest and most common part of that story?

McPherson is currently on paid leave pending the results of his department's investigation.

Of course he is. His friends and co-workers are investigating him and the tactics he used, which are the exact same ones they use all the time. How in hell are they going to bring the whole thing down by saying he did anything wrong? And from that point on, how are any of those murderers with badges ever going to be tried in a court of law like the rest of us mere mortals or, rather, the target practice we seem to be to them.

And there is a kicker:

An unidentified person on the Ames police radio dispatch twice suggested that police back off their pursuit of a teen who allegedly stole a pickup truck from the work site he and his father were working at on Monday.

Sounds a lot like what George Zimmerman was told when he shot and killed an unarmed teen. I wonder how that turned out.

Top 10s This Week

Top 10 Songs:

10. KING OF COPENHAGEN, The Mahones (2013)
9. CAME BACK HAUNTED, Nine Inch Nails (2013)
8. IF THE RIVER WAS WHISKEY, Spin Doctors (2013)
7. FOUR BLACK SHEEP, Martha Wainwright (2012)
6. KANKEJMEURRE, Les Anticipateurs (2013)
5. DRAG ROPES, Storm Corrosion (2012)
4. LE QUART DU CRISS, Les Anticipateurs (2013)
3. SIRENS, Pearl Jam (2013)
2. YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH, Metric (2012)
1. REFLEKTOR, Arcade Fire (with David Bowie) (2013)

Top 10 Songs About Guns:

10. HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN (The Beatles cover), The Breeders (1990)
9. MACHINE GUN, Jimi Hendrix (1970)
8. LAWYERS, GUNS AND MONEY, Warren Zevon (1978)
7. DIAMONDS AND GUNS, Transplants (2002)
6. SATURDAY NIGHT SPECIAL, Lynyrd Skynyrd (1975)
5. JANIE'S GOT A GUN, Aerosmith (1989)
4. THAT'S WHEN I REACH FOR MY REVOLVER, Mission Of Burma (1981)
3. 16 SHELLS FROM A THIRTY-OUGHT SIX, Tom Waits (1983)
2. THE GUNS OF BRIXTON, The Clash (1979)
1. BANG BANG (MY BABY SHOT ME DOWN) (Cher cover), Nancy Sinatra (1966)

Honorable mentions: Big Man With A Gun by Nine Inch Nails, and Me And A Gun by Tori Amos, both dealing with the issue of rape, one as the perpetrator, the other from the victim's side; I deliberately left out hip hop songs because that would have been the whole top-10, probably - and there would have been too many to choose from. One of the least violent groups out there, Cypress Hill, has at least 25 on their own, with Cock The Hammer, and A To The K first coming to mind.

Top 10 Songs (Mostly) About Bombs:

10. I'M A BOMB, Natasha Bedingfield (2004)
9. SPANISH BOMBS, The Clash (1979)
8. BOMBTRACK, Rage Against The Machine (1992)
7. CHERRY BOMB, The Runaways (1976)
6. YOU DROPPED A BOMB ON ME, The Gap Band (1982)
5. THE WAKE-UP BOMB, R.E.M. (1996)
4. CALM LIKE A BOMB, Rage Against The Machine (2000)
3. B.O.B. (BOMBS OVER BAGHDAD), Outkast (2000)
2. ROCKETS FALL ON ROCKET FALLS, Godspeed You! Black Emperor (2002)
1. TIME BOMB, Rancid (1995)

Honorable mentions: Tom Waits' Sex Bomb, and all the other songs in which being ''The (or Da) Bomb'' is the best thing possible, or ''bombing'' is the worst.

Mothers Day Shooting

This is becoming some kind of a sick joke: 19 were injured in a New Orleans Mother's Day Parade shooting...

FBI spokeswoman Mary Beth Romig called it "street violence" and said federal investigators have no indication that the shooting was an act of terrorism.

 In a twist I'm not used to seeing these days in Montréal because participants would get arrested swiftly:

As many as 400 people joined what is known as a second-line parade, a loose procession in which people dance down the street, often following a brass band. They can be impromptu or planned.

There Goes Gun Control

3D printing is here, we hear about it more and more.

And our inventiveness keeps getting better and better, and while society is getting dumber, some members of it are definitely getting smarter.

Which brings us to this story: a man has started a company who will provide plans to print your own plastic gun at home. The only thing not included is a small nail, which acts as its firing pin.

I particularly like this part of the story:

And it’s complied with the Undetectable Firearms Act by inserting a six ounce chunk of non-functional steel into the body of the Liberator, which makes it detectable with a metal detector–Wilson spent $400 on a walk-through model that he’s installed at the workshop’s door for testing. “Our strategy is overcompliance,” he says. (There’s no guarantee, of course, that anyone who downloads and prints the Liberator will insert the same chunk of detectable steel.)

Ah, a loophole the size of the moon - Republicans will love it!

Guns Don't Kill People, Kids Do

Did you hear about the 5-year old who killed his sister in Kentucky Tuesday afternoon?

Cumberland County Coroner Gary White identified the girl as Caroline Sparks. He said the children's mother was at home when the shooting occurred, and the gun was a gift the boy received last year.

"It's a Crickett," he said. "It's a little rifle for a kid. ...The little boy's used to shooting the little gun."

White said the gun was kept in a corner, and the family did not realize a shell had been left in it.

He said the shooting will be ruled accidental. "Just one of those crazy accidents," White said.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/04/30/2621458/5-year-old-boy-accidentally-shoots.html#storylink=omni_popular#wgt=pop#storylink=cpy

So to Coroner decided the outcome before the autopsy... seems legit.

For those wondering what a ''rifle for a kid'' looks like, here is a screengrab from the company's website:

It's not the size of the gun that matters, it's the velocity of the bullets, and on all guns, they come out at a speed that can kill. I checked out their website, and nowhere did I find an age requirement for any of these. Yet, G.I. Joes are for ages 5 and up because a kid could choke on... the detachable, plastic guns.

I mean, fuck - can't you get them paint guns until they're 10? What the fuck kind of small, hick county has a Coroner who knows the victim and culprit enough to say such things as "The little boy's used to shooting the little gun"? How used to it was he that he decided pointing it as a 2-year old was a good idea?

But the real criminals are the parents. They're the ones who killed their daughter, by giving a weapon and training a child who could not possibly understand the consequences of not making sure the weapon is unloaded and under lock inside the house.

I don't care if owning guns is a way of life, or if you could be allowed to marry your fucking pistol - a kid, under 10 for sure, under 16 a best, should not own one. You want to train them to shoot, you take them to a firing range, rent a weapon there, go back home alive.

There should be background checks. Not just for owning guns, for having fucking kids.

Irony

''We interrupt this press conference about possible restrictions on current gun control laws to take you live to the scene of yet another school shooting...''

Proving The NRA Wrong

Why teachers shouldn't have guns, and why even having armed policemen in schools isn't the answer:



This guy is a DEA agent, not some beat cop who'll never get to draw his weapon in 25 years of service working for the city; this guy is a fully-qualified field agent who goes after drug dealers on a daily basis.

Snopes verified that the story is real.

Gun Ads

This senseless violence. Constant.

And the debates, which used to be solely about ''gun control'', for or against, the rest of the world failing to understand the United States were born out of gunfire and it would be damn near impossible to take them away, paranoid as people can get.

And now the new debate on mental health and health care.

It's all good, but it misses some points.

In the culture of violence we're living in, in the instant celebrity world we're in, there remain to this day automatic weapon ads in ''normal'' men's magazines and other places, and this website has tracked a lot of them down. Wow. Here's (an old) one:

''Accidental discharge impossible''; heck, I can't even say that about my own body these days, seeing as I have uncontrollable diarrhea every time I move a muscle located between my knees and throat...

How To Survive A Public Shooting

Kind of reminds me of ''stop, duck, and roll''...

The Dark Night

You've probably heard about the shooting at the premiere for The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado.

And you've probably heard about one of the victims being Jessica Ghawi (a.k.a. Jessica Redfield), a young woman who had escaped harm in a recent Toronto shooting. Maybe you've even read her blog entry about the Toronto incident.

As could easily have been predicted, the story reopened the debate on the necessity of gun ownership, the risks, etc. And that's fine.

I just want to point out that this tragedy, this useless death, wasn't about just one victim. The others are just as important, died at the same place for the same stupid lack of reason.

How Lobbies Are Killing Society

In the wake of the Trayvon Martin useless killing, our eyes once again turn to Florida (this time, Tampa), where the Republicans will hold their presidential convention in August.

It will be forbidden to bring water pistols on  the premises; same goes for air and paint guns. But fully-loaded, concealed, actual fucking weapons will be ok, because it is illegal for the city to supersede state laws about the right to bear arms, even for a single day.

So instead they ban all sorts of other things: ladders, clubs, hatchets, switchblades, pepper spray, slingshots, chains, shovels...

Only in America!

Guns And Santa

The Holidays are fast approaching, and many cultures are going to celebrate them in their own ways, whether it's Hanukkah, the birth of Christ, or just Santa Claus bring presents.

Presents, and guns.

Heavy fucking guns, at that.

Basically, it's an Arizona gun club (the Scottsdale Gun Club, to be precise) who is offering ''children and families'' (uh huh) the chance to pose with Santa and heavy artillery.

The gun club's general manager, Ron Kennedy, had this to say:

Our customers have been looking for a fun and safe way to express their holiday spirit and passion for firearms.

They use these as Christmas cards and Facebook profile pictures - of course!

State Representative Steve Farley had this to retort, in protest:

To involve machine guns and Santa in a celebration in the birth of Jesus Christ is the worst kind of heresy I can imagine. I would suggest that the people who created this read some of the New Testament.

Because the Bible is shock-full of guns, of course. Probably in the same chapters where homosexuality and abortion are referred to.

Eitehr this is a ''the only way to deal with stupid people is with stupidity'' moment, or it's one for the ages for the ''why Humans will soon be extinct'' file.

Sigh.

Only In America: Arizona Murders Spike Gun Sales

Then again, it's Human Nature.

You hear about something you like and might eventually want to have going wrong, you might want to purchase it before it becomes illegal. Such was the reasoning, apparently, behind the spike in sales for Glock 19 guns after the Arizona fatal shooting of a U.S. Congresswoman and other people that left 14 injured.

If I understand correctly, the right to carry firearms is pretty much what the country was founded on - that and, say, Liberty, Freedom, and a free-falling economy based on a skewed vision of capitalism overlooked by a Federal Reserve whose job it is to devalue the money and make money off of lending the government cash that is worth less than the exchange rate between the two.

So fear not, zealots - they will never be able to take away your right to bear arms. Relax. It's like breathing to you.