Guns 'n' Ammo

I watched some of Maddow's one-on-one with HRC last night. Among a generally-quite-good exchange about guns, this bit jumped out at me at the time:

I am determined we're going to save lives and we're going to do it by taking on the gun lobby and getting common sense gun safety measures. But we're also going to do it by addressing the gun violence culture. Too many young in particular are turning to guns to settle disputes, grievances, resentments. We have got to help our young people understand guns are never an answer and there have to be other ways. And that's going to take all of us working in our schools, working through our churches and our houses of worship.

'Cept when they're the answer to every single international conflict, ever, right?

Mrs. Clinton's slightly-more-hawkish-than-Obama tendencies are one of the only things that bothers me about her being president. We're already way too deep in the world's shit, I'd rather not we keep jumping in new shitpiles every chance we get. I wish Bernie were as good at pulling her left on that as he seemingly has been on the economy.

Friday not-so-funnies

Via the Web of Evil we find a really delightful set of super inspiring photos taken on 9/11/2001. A couple of them even had speech/thought bubbles!

(click to make readable)

Oh, wait, no -- I added those.

You know what's missing from all those photos? A single tear. A sign of any emotion other than cold, calculating strategery.

Also, there are exactly two pictures of chief counter-terrorism adviser on the National Security Council, Richard Clarke -- one of which you see here. There are a few more of Prez Shrub, but not a ton. Plenty of pics of the "advisors/speechifiers" though, which were the important folk, natch. Cheney was clearly the main main in charge (as if we didn't know that already). These photos are a really interesting/disturbing look into the behind-the-scenes of that day.

For the record

(alternate post title "Truthful Tuesday")

I, your humble host have never:

• Been in the Army
• Been in the Navy
• Been in the Air Force
• Been in the Marines
• Been in the Special Forces
• Been in combat in any capacity whatsoever
• Thought it would be neat to lie and brag about any of the above
• Considered the possibilities of career enhancement by lying about any of the above
• Tried to impress members of the opposite sex by lying about any of the above
• Lied about any of the above in any way

Y'know, just in case the powers that be need a replacement for Lyin' Williams, or Bill O'Lieree, or that putz in charge of the VA, or any of the other rich serial "misrememberers" out there -- call me.

Uh....

I know this show was pretty bad:

But is it really worth going to war over, 40 years later? I mean, The Love Boat seems like a more deserving target, if you think about it.

Throwback Tuesday

Evidently all the things that were cool and hip and swingin' long ago in 2003 are back "in" again! Yay. Here, have an album released that year:

Here are a couple other things from that year. Nina Simone died:

So did Noel Redding:

So did Warren Zevon and Johnny Cash, and more.

And the Challenger Shuttle blew up on reentry.

And there was some war or something and a bunch of people in some country across the ocean might have died or been horribly maimed, but they don't count so whatevs.

Now I'm just gonna sit back and wait for the reanimated corpse of Robert Novak show up on my TV to out a CIA agent. Man, those were the days!

Anniversaries

Evidently my blahg turned 2 a couple weeks ago. No wonder it's been acting all childlike and squirrelly. At least it's potty trained. Mostly.

I think there was some other important anniversary of another horrible awful no-good stupid event recently too. I don't want to talk about that one though.

Not Creepy At All

This is not a post about the ultra-creepy misogynistic crap the "right" in this country is currently spewing at alarming rates. No, this post is about something nearly as creepy, a new DARPA running robot:

Yeah, not creepy at all.

I'll be so excited to see it after it's completed with a nice armored skin and a bunch of weapons bristling all over. It'll be super great if DARPA can manage to combine it with some of their other research into autonomous vehicles.

I hope there will be a non-lethal version available for your average campus police department and well-to-do homeowner. I envision a small market opportunity for some decorative "Beware Attack Robot" yard signs. Since I won't be able to afford the robot, I may have to get in on the sign making, maybe I can make a few bucks before one of our 1% overlords outsources that to China too.

Coming soon to a protest near you!

Has pepper-spraying non-violent protesters lost its charm? Do you long for that adrenaline rush you felt the first time you bashed some hippy in the head, but no matter how many heads you bash, it's just not the same?

Have no fear! Our delightfully precocious military is developing all sorts of exciting new "non-lethal" weapons that will soon be "trickling down" to your local campus police force and average rent-a-cop.

Will zapping hippies with microwave guns or the awesometastic-sounding "Distributed Sound and Light Array" give you that same rush? We'll have to wait and see, but I'm sure the average authoritarian rent-a-thug is already furiously masturbating while imagining the screams and sounds of sizzling hippy-flesh as he anticipates these exciting new developments in weapon technology.

Happy new year!

Ah, freedom

From Harper's Weekly:

As Libyan forces converged on Muammar Qaddafi's last redoubts countrywide, documents recovered in Tripoli showed that the CIA and MI6 had helped Qaddafi persecute dissidents, including Abdul Hakim Belhaj, military commander of Libya's national transitional government, whom the CIA rendered back to the country from Asia in 2004. "I wasn't allowed a bath for three years and I didn't see the sun for one year," said Belhaj. "They hung me from the wall and kept me in an isolation
cell. I was regularly tortured."

"It can't come as a surprise," said CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood, "that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats."

...

WikiLeaks released a diplomatic cable backing claims that U.S. troops shot at least ten handcuffed Iraqi civilians, including five children, in the town of Ishaqi in 2006, then called in an airstrike to cover up the act.

Brought to you by good ol' U S of A brand Freedom Torture™, Freedom Murder™ and Freedom Bombs™. Be sure to stock up next time you stop at Walmart!