Today's edition of quick hits:
* New York moved with impressive speed: "New York lawmakers on Tuesday approved the toughest gun control legislation in the nation, expanding the state's existing assault weapons ban and addressing gun ownership by those with mental illnesses in the first major legislative action in response to the Newtown, Conn., school massacre."
* School shooting: "A gunman walked into a business school in downtown St. Louis on Tuesday and shot an administrator in the chest before shooting himself, police said."
* Syria: "Twin blasts inside a university campus in Syria's largest city on Tuesday set cars ablaze, blew the walls off dormitory rooms and left more than 80 people dead, anti-regime activists said."
* Mali: "France carried out new airstrikes overnight against Islamist fighters in central Mali, as Paris pledged on Tuesday to commit more troops to a potentially protracted campaign against extremists pressing south from a jihadist state they have forged in the desert north of the country."
* Good economic news: "Retail sales rose more than expected in December as Americans shrugged off the threat of higher taxes and bought automobiles and a range of other goods, suggesting momentum in consumer spending as the year ended."
* More good economic news: "For nine straight months, national home prices have been in the positive, and the gains are only getting larger. The latest reading for November shows a 7.4 percent jump from a year ago.... This is the largest year-over-year jump since 2006 when we were at the height of the housing boom."
* Good for them: "Wal-Mart will hire every veteran who wants to trade their camo fatigues for khakis and dark-blue polos, the company announced Tuesday."
* On the Wall Street Journal's editorial page: "One of the things about the Journal editorial that makes it so consistently entertaining is that its supply-side enthusiasts are so bad at their jobs they don't even know how to do propaganda right."
* Criminal stupidity: "A man who found six children in his driveway in Newtown, Conn., after their teacher had been shot and killed in last month's school massacre has become the target of conspiracy theorists who believe the shootings were staged."
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
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I had not heard about the latest Conspiracy Theory that Sandy Hook did not happen -- this ridiculous must end! I wish the Good Samaritan would make all names, emails, etc. of these harassers public information so they experience our disapproval.
I am so sick of these conspiracy theory nuts. Do they need to see the bloody little bodies of children to convince them what's real?
God gawd, the You-tubers are all over the map with this crap..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_b9hh2lp3I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HIP1wTLwuQ
Keep reading the Bible though!!
Fanatics cling to ideology because they're desperate for absolute certainty. Ideology is simple, absolute, and uncompromising. When persuasive evidence contradicts preconceived notions, normal folks revise their preconceived notions, but fanatics can't do that, because they'll lose their sense of absolute certainty and righteousness. Their only alternative is to deny reality, something fanatics are notorious for doing. These paticular conspiracy whackos are a classic example of this paradigm. Sandy Hook undermines their guns-make-me-a-patriot-and-hero fantasy, and they're fighting for their emotional lives and sense of self worth.
The belief that if you do not grieve in an accepted way is often manipulated in the court room to justify prosecution. There is no one better than Nancy Grace who exemplifies the sheer stupidity of this attitude. If the person on trial cries too much Nancy will immediately state that he/she is acting and is therefor guilty of the crime. If he/she doesn't cry at all then clearly he/she is a sociopath who must be locked up for good! It is confirmation bias coupled with cognitive dissonance taken to an ideological extreme- which is pretty much the worst possible combination of events you could have simultaneously occurring. The people who make the statements that these must be actors are, of course, convinced in their belief because it fits whatever narrative they've decided to cling to. And the justification doesn't have to be empirical (in fact notice the complete lack of empirical support for each video)- it just have to fit whatever particular narrative a person wants to sew. This is why individuals like Glenn Beck become so popular because even though 99% of what he states is crazy, factually corrupt and/or made-up, and often times borderlines sedition or threats, he still ends up convincing people that he is correct.
Sofferclese-
Good post.
I'd love to rip their conspiracy theories from their cold dead hands (after making them cold and dead). Goddamn scum that they are!
I just hope that the conspiracy stories haven't been planted by the NRA or its operatives. I can almost excuse the dim-bulbs out there who can't accept reality because the cognitive dissonance is too painful. But if someone is orchestrating this it would be plain evil.
Best NewThing in the World vegetable edition
The Native Seed Search catalog came in today. There was a variety of corn I've never seen before. It's called Glass Gem Corn:
http://www.nativeseeds.org/index.php/community/blog/entry/story-of-glass-gem-corn
Did you ever think corn could be so beautiful?
What a surprise! Thanks for the link.
Considering that Rep Mulvaney doesn’t want to do the right things to help these people with what happened from Hurricane Sandy, perhaps it would be better of these people just moved right into his house. Plenty of tents can be placed with heaters and warm cots to help those people on Mulvaney’s and other Republican properties. Than finally these worthless deadbeat Republicans can be of some good use. Surely, these Republicans have plenty of bathrooms and kitchen facilities to help these Hurricane Sandy people than. Let’s just load up some buses and drive them over, these people would appreciate any help they could get, since it is probably a warmer climate at these locations anyway.
ouch
Just look at the people, no, look at the trash in the teapub party that are dead set against aid for Sandy. These are the same teapub trash with their hands out for federal monies when they have a disaster in their state. As a matter of fact, didn't a Mississippi teapub trash recently ask for more federal monies for Katrina?
These states are also the ones that get double back what they pay in taxes, hate the northeast coast states because they are the ones paying double what they get back in taxes to keep the teapub states from going belly up. It's another part of the red states not wanting to pay their debt because they have been freeloading for so long on the government teat they just don't want to share.
I have mine so fu.
The Patriot Act was passed with impressive speed too.
Oh, well. I bet there's some gun nuts in New York who have been stocking up. And guns isn't the only thing they're thinking about. They're also seeing dollar signs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y88VNIeNSZo
double ouch. well done.
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Thanks, all! Any likes/shares, etc, are appreciated.
On the surface the Wal-Mart hiring Vets sounds great! However, with their history I wonder if really they are just looking for more workforce that has built in VA medical benefits from being Combat Veterans?
Bingo!
Also, WalMart gets a tax credit of between $5600 and $9600 for each veteran hired depending on whether or not they were wounded. Their offer to hire these vets expires on the same day that the tax credit does. If you go to the link, you find out all sorts of strings attached to the offer like only giving benefits to full time hires, applying this to jobs already in existence and not creating any new jobs, and in general, not actually changing their policies. I hope any vets that get hired retain their solidarity with their comrades and start pushing for union membership.
Yes but keep them at 32 hours or less so they are not full time employees. Hey grunt push those carts.
I'm not so sure I think our veterans should get paid a livable wage. Huge pecetage of Walmart employees are on public assistance with the Waltons laughing all the way to bank. They pay less, we pay the rest.
It is a nice plan, but why is Walmart including only veterans that were honorably discharged within the past 12 months in their hiring promise?
Because they get free health care from the government for 5 years. It's a trick
to keep their costs low under the Affordable Care Act.
"Wal-Mart will hire every veteran who wants to trade their camo fatigues for khakis and dark-blue polos, the company announced Tuesday."
And pay them sub-slave wages, give them no benefits, and introduce them to a system where talking to your fellow employees during working hours is "stealing the company's time." Being shot at in Afghanistan is better than working for those fascist scum at Wal-Mart, and a career in the Army pays better if you remain a Private for 20 years.
A bill has been introduced in the Texas state legislature that would make it a crime for federal agents to enforce federal gun laws in Texas. This isn't simply a case of yet another ignorant tenther making a complete public jackass out of himself. The jackass in question here is fully cognizant of the supremacy clause and states that it is his intention to subvert it because that's just how devoted "conservatives" are to the Constitution.
My impulse is to want to get myself and my daughters out of this wasteland called Texas so badly. But that's what the right wingers want.
I am convinced we can at least change our state to purple because of the population growth here from other states and the coming of age of children born here of immigrant parents. In addition to insane legislation as you mentioned above (which wastes so much time and tax payer money), workers' rights here are abysmal, and I don't think things can keep going this way.
I work for a company that hires temporary labor to drive trucks for $13/hr with no overtime and no benefits. These guys work 80+ hours per week. I hate working there, but I have no choice because I have to feed my family and the healthcare benefits are very good for the few actual employees of the company . :(
I am stepping up my volunteering with voter registration groups, union organizers and the like.
So if somebody breaks into your house and you shoot them in NY the first thing theyre going to do is check how many bullets your magazine holds(dollars to donuts more than 7) look for "ny compliant" magazines to hit the market oh...tomorrow or so. On a side note ...Right wing site DK's lead story is not exactly thrilled with the anti-gun mayor/financier of the entire anti gun rights movement(again shocking)
Just to show how insane this has become...I was flipping between the right side of the dial (supposed outrage over some show about a black guy with 11 kids from 10 mothers--ok I expect this nonsense) and the left side of the dial with somebody who should know better describing his military issue m16(a fully automatic and already VERY illegal to possess weapon) and his m9(a perfectly appropriate home or carry weapon in 9mm) in the same context...as horrible evil weapons of doom
Just a simple salution instead of depending on Government to keep your childrens safey,it should be us and community responsoblity to take care of them three words . Security/ security /security,First of all , all the money you guns nuts out there who are buying these arimie guns that have no use than to kill peoples ,God for bid that some day you my turn them on your family or friends. and all the money you are giving to the NRA, could be put to better use by giving it to your school district for better security for the the schools your children attend ,security camera for all main entries that the childrens enter,second TV monitor for every class room a simple 12 inch monitor on the back wall behind childrens a split screen,only the teacher will be able to see it at a glance that would be the best response ,they can see the danger ,ahead so they can lock down to keep the children safe,but it wii be the school responsoblity to make the doors or safe, eighter replacing the doors for a steel doors or a sheet of steel sheet on the back of each doors with a dead bolt lock on the inside,gun dosent belong in our class rooms keep guns out of teachers hands and the NRA out of our children schools ,we dont want our children to have nightmare thinking about their teachers with guns, this his not the wild wild west,school should be a safe environment for our children away from home thanks .God help uu all,
Would you PLEASE remind Rachel for the millionth time that the Iowa Caucuses are not monolithic? The Republican caucuses are not true caucuses -- they are in fact a sham and predictably top-down fraud of the truly democratic Democratic Caucuses. I know she's as hot to hate on Iowa as Andrew Sullivan is to get high, but here routine inability to differentiate from those two processes makes her seem significantly less informed than I think she would like to be. [Headdesk.]
Why is no one insisting an expedited appointment be made to ATF?
Well that would cost money as that is a real job. Da.
President Obama will pass some sensible assault weapons ban through executive order as well as appoint the staff needed to fill positions at the ATF. The big thing that you guys should be worried about is the Gerrymandering that's going on. You think "Citizen's United" corporation's are people my friend might have worked with buying elections. Wait till you see the republicans win from here on because of the red-districting. Please fix this for the sake of democracy. Don't let them steal votes just as much as they wanted to buy them...