indeed… thanks pw

Thanks, PW. The thought is appreciated. Between this horror itself and the way the Usual Suspects have immediately begun to exploit it while telling the rest of us to shut up and grieve, I’ve been in a pretty glum mood today.

And easily the most abominable aspect of the aftermath of this tragedy was the media interviewing children in order to sate the public demand for death porn.

Thanks for saying that. And why did the parents or people watching over the children allow the media to do that?

Thanks PW. I think I am in massacre overload about now.

I love how the god bothers are blaming it on the lack of prayer in schools and saying god has been banned from school. If their god is omnipotent like they say, how can anyone keep him out. Incidents like this are a big reason I am not a believer.

because they were in the maelstrom, overwhelmed by events and grief, too stunned to even think, and the media preyed upon them

yes the fluffy baby kitties helped,but again looking to move out of this crazed country,new neighbor is a gun fetishist

Yeah, I suspect that they were in shock and horror and pretty pliable at that moment.

I suppose that’s true. But it’s awful and they will play those videos for weeks probably.

I can’t answer that question. They are complicit in the abomination though, no doubt.

In a world where the media are without shame, all I have left for them is contempt.

there was a shooting at a xitian school last year,next

I have many reason, as I suspect you do too but yep, that one is in the top five or so.

glad i havent unpacked yet!

A-yup.

It was central to my apostasy at 13. How can a benevolent, merciful omnipotent god allow the innocent to suffer like they do? The only answer was that either there was no god or it was a monster I wanted no part of.

ayup,hard to disagree

So’s the father of a friend of mine. When the guy moved to a new abode a few years back, the neighbors came out to stare at the sheer number of long guns being hauled out of the pickups and cars of him and his buddies.

Can’t we at least make owning and using a gun require a similar safety training course to that required to own and use a car?

my scroungy spaniels stir from their snooze on the couch to saay howdy to your fluffy whites….

Oh my. Here go the “great minds” again. I too came to the conclusion that god couldn’t possibly exist at age 13 as well. I remember the day like it happened quite recently.

Oh, and for those who need the doggies ID’d: Petey is the one with his mouth all the way open, and Penny’s the one in the middle of the pic.

Hmmph! My silly cat is attacking her own tail behind the bedroom door so she doesn’t have the attention to spare.

well thank goodness,its all night Lubitch on TCM,back to escape tee bee,good night all,try to dream sweet dreams!

We do have a lot in common that way. ;-)

Mine is attacking me. She apparently is feeling neglected and in need of being played with.

he set up a target FACING my proprty,when i said he could not hunt there

beautiful!i really sqeezed the shit out of my 2 rescue kitties mebbe 2or 3 lbs each,its all sickening!r

My responce to the god botherers and Mike Huckabee: Luckily God puts a magic bullet proof force field around Christian and Catholic Schools. My sister teaches at one, I’ll ask her about it. /sarcasm

What a sweetheart. Might want to remind him of the potential legal liability if a round misses or goes through the target.

How’s that Libya humanitarian intervention working out for you, PW?

Can’t we at least make owning and using a gun require a similar safety training course to that required to own and use a car?

Or even more stringent. Also making mental health services at least as available as firearms ought to be considered.

Could we skip the self-righteous snits tonight?

Phoenix Woman. This last week I’ve been working on a story about The Shooting Massacre That Didn’t Happen. It was on Nov. 19 and the guy was planning to shoot up Twilight movie goers in his town in Missouri.
He had 2 semi-automatics
400 rounds of ammo
A history of violent mental illness with a 96 hour involuntary hold
but what he didn’t have was his name in the database of people who could buy gun legally. Had it not been for his mother telling the police about his plans, he could have killed dozens of people.

I decided to call the Missouri Legislator for the country he was from and say, “Your community dodged 400 bullets by luck, Are you now going to act to fix Missouri law that doesn’t require people with a history of violent mental illness to go on the NICS list? And if they say that they can’t, then I will point out that they could have been the community of Newton today.

What I want to do is figure out a way to show people that even when there is a huge shooting and a foiled shooting the legislators still hesitate. I want to show people why and then help direct pressure on them.

Thoughts?

Think I will toddle off. Take care all.

I think I will to. Before I have the uncontrollable urge to launch into a self-righteous snit.
Oya.

Perhaps honest As to honest Qs would be refreshing.

Or not.

Dang, eCAHN, ya damn sure don’t pull your punches, eh…?

That one on the left looks vicious.

I’d say that Libya was a lose-lose situation. The guy in charge was mowing people down with weapons so its not like there wasn’t a humanitarian reason to intervene.

We’d still be a British colony if it weren’t for France and Spain intervening when we were establishing our country.

Heh.

I see LLN is already up, but wanted to say thankyou for bringing the FWCD’s tonight. They sure are fluffy, aren’t they? So cute.
Yeah, the furry friends are a comfort. they haven’t heard the news and the pontificating; they are just themselves, like always.

Libya seems to actually be in better shape than Syria, surprisingly enough — though I guess not so surprisingly, considering the differences between Gaddafi and Assad, not all of which boil down to who had more in the way of support in the form of weapons and whatnot from nation-states like Russia or China.

What’s so funny about certain people’s insistence, fed happily by a certain Russian TV news channel, that “oh of course the US and UK and France etc. etc. etc. wanted Gaddafi gone because they all hated him so much” is that the US, UK, and other nations were at the time of the Libyan revolts far more inclined to work with him than against him, mainly because of his willingness to aid in European and US efforts against terrorism, to the point where we were abducting Libyan dissidents on Moammar’s behalf so he could have them tortured:

Having sought for years to avoid the agents of the Libyan dictator, Sami al-Saadi was forced on board a plane in Hong Kong with his wife and four young children in a joint UK-US-Libyan operation. They were then flown to Libya, where all of them were initially imprisoned. Saadi was held and tortured for years.

[...]

Another Libyan victim was Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who was rendered alongside his pregnant wife. A letter from the MI6 head of counter-terrorism Sir Mark Allen to Koussa, also found in Tripoli, said: “I congratulate you on the safe arrival of [Belhaj]. This was the least we could do for you and for Libya. I know I did not pay for the air cargo [but] the intelligence [on him] was British.”Belhaj is pursuing his legal action against the British government.Saadi said on Thursday: “My family suffered enough when they were kidnapped and flown to Gaddafi’s Libya. They will now have the chance to complete their education in the new, free Libya. I will be able to afford the medical care I need because of the injuries I suffered in prison.”

That they are.

Good night!

See my comment above.

Actually, Libya’s probably a lot better off than Syria is right now. Things in Benghazi are still a mess, but Tripoli and other major cities are doing a lot better. Things are stable enough in Tripoli that Cinnabon now has a franchise there:

After 42 years, the country formerly known as the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya is getting its first taste of consumer capitalism in an unlikely form: sweet, sticky cinnamon rolls. Cinnabon, the Atlanta-based bakery chain, is at the vanguard of a potential business boom in the North African country, which deposed dictator Muammar Qaddafi last year in a bloody civil war. In July the unit of Focus Brands became the first U.S. franchise to open since the revolution, with a two-level Tripoli outlet. It’s become a popular destination in a city with few diversions for residents.

Considering that most US corporations really aren’t that keen on risk, either Cinnabon is being foolhardy or Tripoli is likely in better shape than, say, Damascus is right now. The downside of this is that the disaster capitalists are just waiting for the number of kidnappings and shootings to drop to what they’d consider a tolerable level before they swoop in and try to privatize everything.

Good for you! (And hopefully good for them.)

So how’s your son doing, e?

Gotcha.

U.S. had to send in thousands of Death Squads & high tech weapons to Syria to make Libya look good by comparison.

Can couch kitties substitute in a pinch?? :-P

-stewartm

My thoughts exactly. I just could not believe it. Like why were they not on their way home to get away from it all.