Well, you sort of had to say that title with the mickey mouse club tv theme song going to fully get it. But anyway, here's a way for you kids to learn the true meaning of.. um.. Disney.
Yeah...
I think it's on par with what Walt was doing, to be honest.
If you were looking closely at last weeks How I Met Your Mother, you may have noticed something strange about the episode. In that there was a count down going on. So here you go in the event that you didn't catch them.
Then it reached 0. At that point M-O-O-N, that spells dead.
But yes, the count down seemed pretty obvious throughout the whole episode. It sort of made you wonder what it was counting down to. Was it when Lily was going to get knocked up? Bam! Nope. Dad died.
The folks over at HIMYM were using it as a clue to the audience in early on that something momentous was going to happen. It's not really the most fun thing that they'd had to write but considering the direction the show is going to go in the next few episodes, it was needed.
Expect corporate Marshall to start to reconsider his place and his direction. It sort of struck a cord with me right now because I just found out my neighbor growing up, this old guy who was pretty grumpy but otherwise friendly towards me passed away recently. It through me for a loop because I had bumped into him around late December and he was perfectly fine. In fact, he suggested someone to paint my bumper. So to find out he died.. and of cancer, seemed really out of left field.
In any event, you never know when you'll see those numbers in your own life counting down to something that you really can't control and that could rock your world. You just have to roll with it, I suppose.
Late breaking news on the latest in the strange tale of birds falling from the sky at break neck speeds. Kirk Cameron chimes in on the latest news..
Kirk Cameron Not Worried About Mysterious Dead Birds And Fish January 07, 2011 12:25 AM EST
Kirk Cameron isn't worried about those mysterious dead birds and fish. The former "Growing Pains" star recently revealed that he doesn't believe the dead birds have anything to do with the end times.
Kirk Cameron, who is a born-again Christian, didn't claim to be an expert on the situation, but did say it was "silly" to link the dead birds with the end of days. "Well, I first think that they ought to call a veterinarian, not me," Kirk told CNN's Anderson Cooper.
It seems that everyone can agree that dead birds and fish are a cause for concern. What could be causing them to drop from the sky, and float belly up in the rivers? Hypotheses have ranged from apocalypse to aliens. Conspiracy theories are circulating, but until this this matter is resolved, Kirk Cameron's guess is as good as any.
Really Kirk? Really?! You starred in the whole Left Behind video bullshit that help scare people into this doomsday scenario. Then again, those folks who would be scared by the Left Behind series would probably been scared of just about anything that made a bang sound.
I have to admit, Kirk Cameron, former "Growing Pains" star has got to be the runner up to Joe Lieberman for the world's most punchable face. It's really that much of a smug face he has going on there. It sure is nice to know that he isn't worried about the mysterious death of birds and fishes.
It's actually a bit ironic that he isn't cashing in on this. I mean, I figured that most religious types would use this as the single best reason as to why the masses should give them their money in exchange of salvation. You can't ask for a better visual than seeing thousands of birds fall from the sky. But I guess Kirk Cameron's guess on this matter is as good as any.
I mean, everyone actually seems to care about this right now.... Which just puts into question how much genuine concern folks had over the tragic environmental damage of the past generation to now care about this. I imagine that with the species continuing to pile up, it seems almost farcical to even make this a news topic.
But then, here we are. Let's just pretend that it's everything to do with the end of the world and leave it at that.
When you pick up the newspaper today and look at your horoscope you may need to rethink which made up bullshit catch all summation of your day you base your fortune on. For yesterday all over the twitterverse and facebook galaxy posting links about how the Zodiac had changed. Not only have the dates changed, pushing people out of their very identities, but a new one has been added named... Ophiuchus.
Many of us read our horoscopes everyday. But now, it turns out, you may be reading the wrong sign. A shift in the sky over the millenniums altered your zodialogical sign.
The star doctors say Earth right now is in a totally different spot in relation to the sun and its equatorial alignment than it was 3,000 years ago.
That's when the 12 zodiac signs were assigned.
Those signs you were born into are now not really the same because the Earth's wobble on its axis means a nearly one-month bump in the stars alignment.
Depending on whether you are on the cusp, your sign either changed or just moved a bit.
Here is the updated list:
Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16 Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11 Pisces: March 11-April 18 Aries: April 18-May 13 Taurus: May 13-June 21 Gemini: June 21-July 20 Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10 Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16 Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30 Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23 Scorpio: Nov. 23-29 Ophiuchus:* Nov. 29-Dec. 17 Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20
* Ophiuchus is a rarely used astrological sign, not included in most versions of the Zodiac. It is also known as Serpentarius.
Like anyone will even be able to pronounce ofishicusvlous anyway. This shit is worse than when they kicked out Pluto as a planet. What the hell, man. In the event you're wondering if it's retroactive, more than likely. I mean, people have told me that it's okay that I'm stubborn because I'm an Aries. What am I going to use now as an excuse? I didn't like being an Aries anyways!
It's pretty comical. There's not a single Capricorn that overlaps anymore. The old dates were December 22nd through January 19. The new dates are January 20 through February 16. It was literally zodiac genocide. I'm not sure what is worse for those of you who got the switch over. A man holding a snake or a half man/half horse.
It makes you wonder what happens to all those folks who stupidly tattooed their zodiac symbol on their body. Don't believe me? This was found on the twitter-dom.
"If my zodiac symbol has been changed to a Libra, what am I supposed to do with my Scorpio tattoo?!?!,"
Yes, this has caused a major problem who permanently gave themselves a crab tattoo.
Some folks are justifying it by saying that it only takes effect for people born now. But I don't buy that at all. But hey, you can take a deep breath and be a little relaxed, CNN is claiming that this isn't true in any way that really matters to the whole mystical bullshit of astrology anyway. But not that it stopped people who live by it and base their decisions all around it.
Jawer states that the sun doesn't align with constellations at the same time of year that it did millennia ago. But that's irrelevant for the tropical zodiac, codified for western astrology by Ptolemy in the second century, he states.
In the tropical zodiac, the start of Aries is fixed to one equinox, and Capricorn the other. "When we look at the astrology used in the Western world, the seasonally based astrology has not changed, was never oriented to the constellations, and stands as … has been stated for two millenniums," Jawer said.
Everyone knows astrological signs are all bullshit anyway. Now the Chinese Zodiac... That's a different story altogether.
Proponents of financial deregulation may have a strong ally within the White House, now that President Obama has named Bill Daley his new chief of staff.
The prospect of Daley taking the key White House position had earned praise from Wall Street insiders who cited his ability to “bring people together” and “success in getting things done,” according to Fortune.
As the brother of Chicago’s outgoing mayor Richard Daley, a former Commerce Secretary and a current JPMorgan Chase executive, Daley shared certain commonalities with his predecessor: Rahm Emanuel also came to the White House by way of a Chicago connection, worked under Bill Clinton, and—as a former investment banker —brought his own ties to Wall Street.
In addition to those things, Daley has strong ties to the Chamber of Commerce, which opposed the financial reform bill that was a cornerstone of the administration’s agenda last year. From Kevin Connor, co-director the Public Accountability Initiative, a nonprofit research organization:
From 2005 to 2007, he co-chaired a Chamber of Commerce committee on financial (de)regulation. The “Commission on the Regulation of Capital Markets in the 21st Century” eventually became the Chamber’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, which played a prominent role in attacking derivatives regulation and consumer protections last year. The Hill called the group one of the “loudest voices on financial legislation”—and they weren’t exactly singing the praises of reform efforts.
Daley also signed on to a March 2009 Chamber manifesto on “Restoring Confidence in US Capital Markets,” the Chamber’s opening PR move in the financial reform debate.
The new chief of staff has publicly opposed the concept of an independent consumer financial protection agency—a key part of Dodd-Frank. In 2009, he criticized a pro-business Illinois Democrat for her position on financial reform, telling the Chicago Tribune that “she did not have a knee-jerk aversion to the concept of a federal consumer protection agency, in spite of all our brilliant arguments.”
News of Daley's selection broke this morning. The president had told the New York Times yesterday that the announcement would come in “due course,” after White House lawyers finished vetting the candidate.
I know what you're thinking.. a former JP Morgan Chase executive? No sir, only a current JP Morgan Chase executive will do! Let's put it this way, Karl Rove has endorsed this choice. That should tell you something.
When I saw the headline saying that 'Daley' would be Obama's new chief of staff, I thought it would be Richard Daley. Boy was I disappointed. I honestly didn't think Obama could pick a chief of staff that was more of an affront to his supporters than Emmanuel but now here we are.
Finally the financial sector will no longer have to suffer from under representation at the White House!
And that's my biggest question. How do you deregulate finance any further? They are running around and taking homes to which they have no claim to ownership over and betting against US Treasury bonds. How much more wild and crazy deregulated can you get?
Oh, let's not forget that they're causing chaos by buying up anything they can anywhere that has higher interest rates than 0%. But you know what, this is Obama. I'm pretty confident that they will find a way to make it worse. Yes We Can!
Yup.. because he's nothing resembling left at all.
If you weren't 100% disenfranchised before now, this should push you over the edge. And if you want to see this staff member's writing, here's a terrible op ed last year for the washington post
The announcement by Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith that he is switching to the Republican Party is just the latest warning sign that the Democratic Party — my lifelong political home — has a critical decision to make: Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come.
All that is required for the Democratic Party to recover its political footing is to acknowledge that the agenda of the party's most liberal supporters has not won the support of a majority of Americans -- and, based on that recognition, to steer a more moderate course on the key issues of the day, from health care to the economy to the environment to Afghanistan.
Like.. I just read that and I have a very confused look on my face. How in the fuck? I mean.. literally, what the fuck?! I see a lot of crazy shit on the internet but this is one of the first things in a long time that has completely baffled me. How can you even say something like this? What in the world? It's like everyone in the world is immune to reality.
This is considered centrist? Man, centrism in America is maintaining pax Americana at any and all costs period. Anything that threatens our absurdly wealthy, our oil supplies, and our access to cheap consumer goods produced with slave labor is instantly demonized by our media, sanctioned by our government and bombed by our military.
There is no left in American politics. Hasn't been in a long time. There's only America. It really is a good thing that Obama has sent a clear message to business that he's sorry about all the atrocious things he has put them through.
But really, I don't know which one angers me more. Pure evil, or really clumsily executed evil done in plain god damned view while the rest of the planet goes "Oh naw, he did not just do that" Oh yes he can. Yes he can.
It's just that the latter is a bit more degrading. But hey.. At least Obama is going to cut military spending for once....
The surprise announcement from Gates was a reminder for the military establishment - which has benefited from a gusher of new money over the past decade - that it will not remain exempt from painful austerity measures that federal lawmakers say will be necessary to control the soaring national debt.
In a news conference to announce what he described as efficiency measures, Gates said he hopes that "what had been a culture of endless money . . . will become a culture of savings and restraint" at the Defense Department.
At a time of "extreme fiscal duress," he said, "every dollar spent on excess overhead or unneeded programs . . . is a dollar not available to support our troops" or to deal with future threats.
"We must come to realize that not every defense program is necessary, not every defense dollar is sacred or well-spent, and more of everything is simply not sustainable," Gates said.
In response to questions, he emphasized that the $78 billion reduction over the next five years actually represents a "decline in the rate of growth," since the Pentagon budget will grow "in absolute dollars" every year. "The focus here is on a reduction in the rate of growth as opposed to absolute cuts," he said.
So there you have it. I know it's shocking to hear, but Obama pretended to take a stand by not actually doing anything or taking any sort of stand at all.
Most of these cuts are going to be personnel, also they're going to buy less f-35's as a form of "punishment"for fucking the program up so bad. They're also going to cut an over all $178 billion worth of stuff. Well, not really either. $100 billion of that is getting "reinvested" back into the military-industrial complex.
I'm not even going to get into the news that Obama was cheering at the latest employment numbers where they slightly went down... but only because a couple million people dropped off the face of the planet and no longer exist. For they are done looking for a job and no longer on unemployment benefits. So to our government, they don't exist.
Yup.. Way to go into 2012 doing nothing but pissing in the wind.
Or this is just another story to give as an example of why I didn't want to live in Florida anymore. If you thought being unemployed was bad, at least you're not in Florida where they're working hard to get the "Worst Legislature" title back from Arizona with a new potential unemployment clause.
Get a job or get ready for community service is the newest motto of Governor-elect Rick Scott's transition team.
Floridians receiving unemployment benefits may have to work for their money under the incoming Scott administration.
Scott's team said, in part of a 109-page report, the state has been too easy on those without work. Scott's economic advisors criticized the state's handling of people who get unemployment checks.
The report said the state has done little to get unemployed Floridians back to work.
So, the team is now suggesting that after 12 weeks, the unemployed must start community service before they can get a check. But some unemployed workers think this is unfair.
"Doing community service keeps you from looking for a job," Laurence Lukasik, who is unemployed, said.
"Sometimes I don't have a babysitter and if I have to worry about losing my unemployment because I have to go to community service, what am I gonna do? Either lose my unemployment or have nowhere for my kid to go?" Shane Stewart, who is also unemployed, said.
But not everyone disagrees with the report. Some unemployed people say Floridians should have to work hard for their money.
"A day's work for a day's pay," Bob Green said. "If you're getting paid, you might as well do something."
Reducing the number of people receiving unemployment checks would lower the number of taxes businesses have to pay and provide economic benefit to the state.
But still, many unemployed people say that requiring them to do community service will only hurt their job hunt.
The report also suggests that Scott start requiring those applying for unemployment benefits to prove they've been looking for jobs and stop benefits to those who aren't.
Because of Florida's high unemployment rate, employers face a major increase in the tax they pay into the program. Minimum rates are set to go up from about $25 per employee this year to $72 in 2011.
That is right. The money that the employer pays into unemployment is calculated in the cost of the employee. It's essentially part of the employee compensation, and now they want you to work for free so you'll be able to draw something you've already earned. Well how about that!
It's also a bit comical that Rick Scott is going against free government money when he literally stole 600 million dollars from the government. I mean, straight up jacked them.
I'll point it out again in case you just glossed over that. Scott stole 600 million dollars and got off scott free from Medicare.... IN FLORIDA! And he still won the election. And he's still harping on the fact that people are using unemployment. Something they paid into while they worked.
I also love the whole "A days work for a day's pay" statement the one guy makes in the article. As if that principle is universally in effect anywhere. Go ask the people who make a years pay in a weeks work. But hey, these people are riding the gravy train by not working!
This is one thing I've always wondered, how do you prove you're actually looking for a job? Do you show some bored civil servant a bunch of clippings from the classifieds or something? Maybe give them an update on which shitty retail job you applied to? I mean, you could just lie about that, can't you? It's not like they will call the place and see if so and so applied in their pile of applications.
I still can't get over the fact that they're suggesting that the state has been easy on those who are unemployed. Really? Yeah, that's it, let's make life even more difficult for those who are having a hard time make money to fucking survive.
That should teach them! Trying to coast on easy street off unemployment, how dare they! How dare those fuckers feel a reduced sense of self worth on their own instead of by big brother getting to force it on them.
I know plenty who aren't on unemployment anymore. But not because they found a job, but because it ran out and they don't count as even a statistic anymore. They're no one to the system but a phased out mouth that they don't have to feed anymore.
I hear it's happening across the pond as well. If you don't accept unpaid terrible 80 hour menial labor work then you can lose all unemployment benefits for six months per rejection.
If you think about it for a second, if the government made jobs for people to improve the community, wouldn't that be socialism? But hey, if we have the government force the unemployed to improve the community for subsistence wages... well then, that's completely different... right?
I'm pretty certain that the whole idea behind this is to force people off the unemployment check by increasing the requirements on "looking for employment" while at the same time forcing people to spend their days doing community service. Because really, how can you look for work when you're a slave to the state?
Then once they screw up one of those requirements, people will be tossed off unemployment benefits and the unemployment rate in Florida will start to drop when he takes office. Thus proving that the Republicans really do know what's good for the economy... right? right?
Let's move on to actual unemployment and the whole business of that. It's the sad fact that for every one position that is open, five people are applying for it. It's the most shittiest time to ever be unemployed.
I'd actually be pretty surprised if the ratio was actually that low. But that's the statistic the department of labor is showing the rate of job growth or loss, but it doesn't tell the whole story because all of the people are applying to basically everything. So it's not competing against 5 other people for any open job, it's against about 500 and only one will get it. The remaining 499 will go on to apply for the next one. Eventually a hundred of them might get jobs and the rest just keep scrapping along.
Sending out your job applications at this point is functionally not really any different than playing the lottery except for the fact that it's free and if you win you don't get to retire in luxury but toil in exploitation till you pass out and die or you ask for a raise and get downsized again.
It's not even a matter of going for a shitty job at McDonalds or Walmart anymore. I mean, the average person assume that they're always hiring. You'd think so, but they're not hiring either. So you can't even get a soulless job. Just imagine how shitty the position would be working at a McDonalds inside a Walmart? And yet you can't get that horror of a job either.
The only thing more depressing than realizing you're destined for a life of minimum wage slave jobs is not even being able to get a minimum wage slave job after months of sending in application after application.
If you're unemployed, perhaps you better ask someone to kill you before you ened up beinglike that guy.
Besides that, how long will it be before McDonald's does the Walmart self-checkout type thing and starts turning their stores into giant vending machines? I guess what I'm saying is that it's only a matter of time before McDonalds start to phase out human workers in their restaurants altogether.
The only thing that really is holding that up is that labor is still cheaper than infrastructure and the machines to do it. It's a lot easier to hire a fry cook right now because if a machine broke, you'd have to bring in someone who can service and repair it. If the fry cook breaks then you just throw him away and get a new one.
What's there not to love about a minimum wage job? Who needs more than 18 hours a week of pay or the ability to plan any part of your life further than 7 days ahead because you literally have no idea what your schedule is like for the next week until the day before.
It's really a testament to the broken psyche of America that people who work for min. wage only get depressed by the realization that their position in life is utter shit and that's the lucky few who have a job. Fuck those losers who don't even have that!
Look at this New York Times article. Essentially, if you're a white male with a degree and cannot get a job, you shouldn't blame society because you probably fucked up somewhere in life that ended up making you unemployable.
I really like how in old stories a homeless beggar is just likely to be described as "a man down on his luck". What happened to those times? I would like to pinpoint the exact moment when people stopped looking at poverty as misfortune and stated seeing it as a result of personal failure.
They must not have gone to college. You know, the place where you spend a shit lot of money and aren't guaranteed to walk away with a job.
Then there's those who think that without college they would have no social skills and thus, they don't regret going through the process and being swamped in debt from student loans. They justify the debt they got from college by pretending the cost was irrelevant to the "experience"
I think I have some advice for all those who instead of a house that has them in debtors prison, it's student loans that has their balls tied to a vice.
Go back to school and study a foreign language and some sort of science. Move to a new country Never pay your student loans back Expect never to come back to the U.S.A (thankfully) Problem solve.
But hey, let's not go back to a system where we have debtor's prison... Oh wait, ACLU report and Brennan Center report on the resurgence of debtor's prison. How about a newer article and HRW report on debtor's prison. And here's one where Paladino said that welfare recipients should live in prison cells while they are collecting benefits.
In short, this should teach us one thing... the poor are more fucked in the future to come and everyone should own a gun.
I know a friend who has been applying for jobs for the last 3 months and hasn't gotten anything from it other than frustration and time wasted. The two jobs that managed to give him interviews for he lost because his competition was people with 10+ years of experience who had been laid off so long they were more than happy to take the job at 1/6th what they were worth before.
I think if I was unemployed the course I would take would be to apply to a bunch of restaurants and see if I could get a job washing dishes or something. At least then I'll probably get good drug hookups with the kitchen staff. It's a proven thing also. The only time I ever bought weed was as a dishwasher from a cook way back in my youth.
That and the turn around of kitchen workers make it so that kitchen jobs are often hiring. If you're a privileged white male, working there will transform your political and social abstract ideals into a mental construct of very real people who need help, hope and justice. Let alone it will be able to teach you how to speak Spanish. Something that seems to be ever growing and important to the American way of life.
Besides that, washing dishes is pretty alright when you think about it. It's very little human interaction and you get food and drinks some times from the cooks you make friends with. So what if you work odd hours and live the life in reverse where you wake up in the afternoon and go to sleep in the morning.
Well, no doubt you're still recovering from the whole Arizona congress shooting. That was some crazy shit. I mean, woah. Though I have to say there was many things about that incident and the few days after that blow my mind..... okay, that was an awful and uncalled for pun that I didn't realize I did till after my fingers left the keyboard to that last part of the sentence.
Anyway, I would like to point out what CNN was reporting shortly after news broke:
CNN reports that al-Qaeda is not a suspect at the moment.
Way to go CNN. I know I make fun of you for being such a shitty news source, but here you are somehow finding a way to show how you're becoming more worthless every year. How exactly do you achieve that with such ease?
Why not just point out that the local ABC affiliate in Tucson is called KGUN. That should show you how much of a nation of laxed gun regulations we really are.
It would also be worth noting, if you are CNN, that there's a certain bit of irony in a shooting happening outside of a SAFEWAY. And in the event that you are wondering what happened with business the rest of the day you only need to look towards the hard hitting online journalist for that.
You know, when they broke with the back story on the guy, I mean, they gave out his name, Jared Laughner of Arizona, and really that's all the internet needed to spark a massive fire that was digging up every bit of information about him that our modern age of computers allowed possible.
And believe me, they found a lot of shit. It's really a sign of how mighty our modern fake journalist in the blogosphere when they're able to dig up shit long before the media news outlets ever catch of a whiff of this. It's really sort of powerful when you think about it.
Within hours they were able to dig up his Youtube channel You have to admit that you can't say you didn't see it coming in this instance. The kid was a nut job. I'm sure if I ever start ranting about stupid shit, you have my permission to call the cops on me. At least I write a blog on a blog and not on a youtube channel. I mean, who would even vote for that? Get with the times kid, you need to put way more ball punching or kitten videos if you want to be taken seriously on the internets.
Sadly though, his Myspace had been taken down. I'm pretty sure that Rupert Murdoch got his money's worth in that 2 billion spent for that company now that he's able to pull up anyone's name and myspace profile at the drop of the hat and hide them from the world.
His videos really are just some bizarre shit about his dreaming and ability to use mind control. I mean, it's pretty clear that any defense attorney is going to have fun with the insanity card on this one. The punk left all the markings behind to prove that he is literally bat shit insane. Just take a look at the shooter's yearbook photo.
You do have to give this kid credit. He sure knows how to fire a bullet. The thing went in her temple and then went straight out side of her head. That's some marksmanship. Wait, he wasn't trying to do that and was hoping for an instant kill ala a video game? Well then. He just found out that video games lied and not all head shots are instant kills.
But we should stop for a moment to point out that this was some miraculous trajectory going on in the bullet. If only the JFK bullet had been fired by someone with a shitty Youtube channel. Then again, he was hiding out in a book storage place. So in a sense, L. Harvey Ozwald is this guy of the past.
But it shouldn't surprise anyone that the internet is much faster at digging up information on a person than the media. The media has always been slow as hell for shit like this. You can tell whenever there's an earthquake in L.A. It's a good 20 minutes of the news casters just sitting in front of a camera pulling shit out of their asses without any clear idea on what they should be saying and without any official word, that's the best they're going to do.
It's really the only time to ever watch the local news. That is to say that it's comedy in itself to look at news casters just winging it clearly showing how little talent they actually have without the words written on a teleprompter spoon feeding them everything they need to sound educated.
It's always up to the video tech guys to pull this shit out into the spot light. Also something else to take notice of -You would think that this sort of news would spark folks to.. you know, not want to own a gun. The opposite is true in fact..
After a Glock-wielding gunman killed six people at a Tucson shopping center on Jan. 8, Greg Wolff, the owner of two Arizona gun shops, told his manager to get ready for a stampede of new customers.
Wolff was right. Instead of hurting sales, the massacre had the $499 semi-automatic pistols -- popular with police, sport shooters and gangsters -- flying out the doors of his Glockmeister stores in Mesa and Phoenix.
“We’re at double our volume over what we usually do,” Wolff said two days after the shooting spree that also left 14 wounded, including Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who remains in critical condition.
I would have thought that a pistol like that would be more than $499. They're normally more like $900. The funny thing is that they don't have built in safety's. HA! Talk about responsible gun ownership. This is an accidental shooting waiting to happen. But hey, if only the congress woman had a gun, then none of this would have happened.
As for the dude. Worse than being crazy and actually carrying out his plan it looks like he also did this because he hates Jewish people.
THE suspect being held over Saturday's shooting of US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords may have links to anti-Semitic race hate group American Renaissance.
An internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo quoted by FOX News Channel revealed the gunman - named by the media as Jared Loughner, 22 - is "possibly linked" to American Renaissance.+
I just have to wonder why isn't the actually dead federal judge getting any amount of television coverage that the congress woman who is actually still alive and showing progress of potentially coming out of this with a big thumbs up. I mean, the dude did actually die.
To sum up all the strange shit that has happened for those of you who decided to get blitzed out of their mind over the weekend and are just waking up in a pile of your own puke, let's do a run down. A dude shoots a congresswoman and it turns out that he's a schizo ron paul gold freak who probably has Alex Jones on speed dial. At the same time Sarah Palin was forced to take down a website where she had a map of congress people from this past election with cross hairs over each one asking the voters to take them out.
Then the local sheriff holds a press conference where he calls out right wing assholes for promoting violence in the way they have. Siting that their encouragement of shit like "Don't retreat, reload!" really sends out the wrong message.
I mean, how can you really say that? It certainly can't be a fair assessment of the republican extreme right, right? Right........
"I tell people don't kill all the liberals, leave enough around so we can have two on every campus; living fossils, so we will never forget what these people stood for."
Let's stop for a moment to take a second look at what Glen Beck has been saying... specifically the strange do as I say and not as I show in the picture on the side bar.
I just.. I'm not even sure what the hell to say. The text reads one thing and yet right there an inch away Beck has that 24 inspired image. What was he thinking? Perhaps something along the lines that he was going to look so tough in that picture with his gun pointed down. Just like in Die Hard. Oh how he has no idea how to hold a gun.
This next part is a bit long but I encourage you to at least skim it. I'm not going to bold any of this. Just read it all. It's a fucking good article.
Crazy Talk We're too quick to use "mental illness" as an explanation for violence. By Vaughan Bell Posted Sunday, Jan. 9, 2011, at 12:52 AM ET
Shortly after Jared Lee Loughner had been identified as the alleged shooter of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, online sleuths turned up pages of rambling text and videos he had created. A wave of amateur diagnoses soon followed, most of which concluded that Loughner was not so much a political extremist as a man suffering from "paranoid schizophrenia."
For many, the investigation will stop there. No need to explore personal motives, out-of-control grievances or distorted political anger. The mere mention of mental illness is explanation enough. This presumed link between psychiatric disorders and violence has become so entrenched in the public consciousness that the entire weight of the medical evidence is unable to shift it. Severe mental illness, on its own, is not an explanation for violence, but don't expect to hear that from the media in the coming weeks.
Seena Fazel is an Oxford University psychiatrist who has led the most extensive scientific studies to date of the links between violence and two of the most serious psychiatric diagnoses—schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, either of which can lead to delusions, hallucinations, or some other loss of contact with reality. Rather than looking at individual cases, or even single studies, Fazel's team analyzed all the scientific findings they could find. As a result, they can say with confidence that psychiatric diagnoses tell us next to nothing about someone's propensity or motive for violence.
A 2009 analysis of nearly 20,000 individuals concluded that increased risk of violence was associated with drug and alcohol problems, regardless of whether the person had schizophrenia. Two similar analyses on bipolar patients showed, along similar lines, that the risk of violent crime is fractionally increased by the illness, while it goes up substantially among those who are dependent on intoxicating substances. In other words, it's likely that some of the people in your local bar are at greater risk of committing murder than your average person with mental illness.
Of course, like the rest of the population, some people with mental illness do become violent, and some may be riskier when they're experiencing delusions and hallucinations. But these infrequent cases do not make "schizophrenia" or "bipolar" a helpful general-purpose explanation for criminal behavior. If that doesn't make sense to you, here's an analogy: Soccer hooligans are much more likely to be violent when they attend a match, but if you tell me that your friend has gone to a soccer match, I'll know nothing about how violent a person he is. Similarly, if you tell me your friend punched someone, the fact that he goes to soccer matches tells me nothing about what caused the confrontation. This puts recent speculation about the Arizona suspect in a distinctly different light: If you found evidence on the Web that Jared Lee Loughner or some other suspected killer was obsessed with soccer or football or hockey and suggested it might be an explanation for his crime, you'd be laughed at. But do the same with "schizophrenia" and people nod in solemn agreement. This is despite the fact that your chance of being murdered by a stranger with schizophrenia is so vanishingly small that a recent study of four Western countries put the figure at one in 14.3 million. To put it in perspective, statistics show you are about three times more likely to be killed by a lightning strike.
The fact that mental illness is so often used to explain violent acts despite the evidence to the contrary almost certainly flows from how such cases are handled in the media. Numerous studies show that crimes by people with psychiatric problems are over-reported, usually with gross inaccuracies that give a false impression of risk. With this constant misrepresentation, it's not surprising that the public sees mental illness as an easy explanation for heartbreaking events. We haven't yet learned all the details of the tragic shooting in Arizona, but I suspect mental illness will be falsely accused many times over.
Like Slate on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. Vaughan Bell is a clinical and neuropsychologist at the Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia, and King's College London.
Now I leave you with a great example on how any group will latch on to any aspect of this
The only certain fact about the motivation of Arizona killer Jared Loughner is that, like the lunatic who opened fire on the Pentagon last March, he is a pothead. Several people who knew Loughner say that he was a serious abuser of the drug and “liked to smoke pot.” What’s more, Loughner had been arrested in 2007 for possessing drug paraphernalia.
The use of marijuana has been linked to mental illness, including psychosis, and increases the kind of paranoia exhibited by Loughner in his writings.
Words escape me. I mean... really? You're going to try to blame this one on weed? I mean.. I don't recall weed having the effect of shooting up local elected officials. In fact, it's the opposite. If you're stone then you're not even going to know who your elected officials are. Shit, unless there's a proposition to legalize pot, they're more than likely not even going to vote anyway.
Yup, pot is not what made this dude attempt to kill a congress woman and shoot up others. That was the crazies. The weed, if anything, was something he should have had more of. Then he'd probably still be at home playing Xbox and posting stupid shit on youtube while visiting those crazy conspiracy internet websites.
I mean, does marijuana-induced psychosis have any credibility as a diagnosis?
Once was a writer, tho, you see words to your left, so I guess I'm still that to some degree.
You can find my scribbles and mind ranting on this and various other places as a means to keep the creative, satirical and costco talk muscles worked out.
Was once apart of the tv industry, but I'm sure the NDA's are still in effect so let's move on from that. Now I spend my time slinging beer and keeping a building in one piece.
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