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Archive for 2013
September 17, 2013
SO THAT PUTZ ERIC BOEHLERT WAS ON TWITTER TRYING TO PRETEND THAT ONLY POLICE HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH BRINGING DOWN THE TEXAS BELL TOWER SHOOTER. Here’s an excerpt from an article in Esquire that shows otherwise:
No one knew what time it was anymore. It was simply gunfire, screams, and the heat of midday. “What the hell to do?” Martinez remembers thinking. “I figured the source was up in the tower–I’d better get up there.”
Meanwhile, Houston McCoy ferried another student to get guns and ammunition. After the first fifteen minutes, the sniper was pinned down by students and other civilians who’d spontaneously flocked to the university area with deer rifles. McCoy then found a university employee who knew the tunnels of the campus, and he plodded through them, with his shotgun off safety, to the tower. The sniper had been killing for more than an hour now.
Reality slammed into Martinez as he rode the elevator up to the twenty-seventh floor of the tower, one floor below the deck where the shooting was coming from. As the numbers rose during the climb, he said the Act of Contrition. He figured there would be a police assault unit of some kind on top and he would join it. Instead, he found Officer Jerry Day, bookstore manager Allen Crum, and bodies mangled by whoever had taken over the tower. “I didn’t know it was just us chickens,” he says. Day was busy attending to a man whose family–tourists taking in the vista that day–had been shot to pieces and who now moaned and bled on the stairwell going up to the top. At the same time, Houston boarded the elevator and rode up with his shotgun ready at his shoulder. When the door opened, he was facing the gun of Jerry Day, and both men slowly lowered their weapons. Meanwhile, Ramiro had gone up with Crum to the office just off the tower platform. Crum had been deputized by Martinez and given a rifle. Houston got to the top just as Ramiro banged open the blocked door to the deck and slipped out. A gangway laced around the tower, just under the clock. Houston told Crum to cover one direction with a rifle and slipped out behind Martinez.
Compare that to this story from the America of 2013: ‘If We Had the Ammunition, We Could’ve Cleared that Building,’ Son at Navy Yard Told Dad. “My son was at Marine Barracks — at the Navy Yard yesterday – and they had weapons with them, but they didn’t have ammunition. And they said, ‘We were trained, and if we had the ammunition, we could’ve cleared that building.’ Only three people had been shot at that time, and they could’ve stopped the rest of it.” So, basically, the civilians of Austin, Texas in 1966 were better prepared to respond to a shooter than the Marines of 2013.
Ironically, if Media Matters’ David Brock had been there, his illegal-Glock-toting bodyguard might have been of use. But probably not . . . .
UPDATE: Reader Sean Malloy writes: “To be fair, in 1966, Austin was still a part of Texas. It’s not anymore.” Fair point.
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY, OUR PRESIDENT WOULD BE A BUMBLING INCOMPETENT WHO WOULD ALIENATE ALLIES. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Brazilian President Officially Postpones WH Visit Because of NSA. Of course, it’s not like the Brazilians don’t do their share of spying, electronic and otherwise.
BRIAN ROSS HARDEST HIT: Friend Says Navy Yard Shooter Was An Obama Supporter.
GIVING THE INSTA-WIFE SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO: What’s the Perfect Age? If You’re a Woman, It’s 53. Speaking as a cradle-robber, I like her just the way she is.
But bad news for me: “For men, the ideal age is 47, the poll says.” Hey, age is just a number.
USA TODAY: New Documents Show IRS Targeted Tea Party Groups Because of Their “Anti-Obama Rhetoric.”
Newly uncovered IRS documents show the agency flagged political groups based on the content of their literature, raising concerns specifically about “anti-Obama rhetoric,” inflammatory language and “emotional” statements made by non-profits seeking tax-exempt status.
The internal 2011 documents, obtained by USA TODAY, list 162 groups by name, with comments by Internal Revenue Service lawyers in Washington raising issues about their political, lobbying and advocacy activities. In 21 cases, those activities were characterized as “propaganda.”
The list provides the most specific public accounting to date of which groups were targeted for extra scrutiny and why. The IRS has not publicly identified the groups, repeatedly citing a provision of the tax code prohibiting it from releasing tax return information.
Uh huh.
WHY GENERATION Y YUPPIES ARE UNHAPPY: “I have a term for yuppies in the Gen Y age group — I call them Gen Y Protagonists & Special Yuppies, or GYPSYs. A GYPSY is a unique brand of yuppie, one who thinks they are the main character of a very special story.”
I’VE BEEN BEATING THE DRUM ON THIS FOR YEARS: The Growing Danger Of Drug-Resistant Antibiotics. What’s next? Phages?
More here.
PIERS MORGAN: Hypocrite. Well, yeah.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: On Planes And Trains, Why Everyone Prefers To Sit Next To Women. I dunno, a while back I was seated next to a . . . fleshy woman in sweatpants who trimmed her toenails inflight. I would have happily taken a pass.
INFOGRAPHIC: Should You Buy A New iPhone?
52 THINGS, 52 WEEKS: Eggs Benedict, And A Bloody Mary. “You’ve never had a Bloody Mary!? Did you just turn 12?”
A PRETTY DECENT TAX-REFORM PLAN FROM SEN. MIKE LEE (R-UTAH). More of that “libertarian populism” we’ve been hearing about. . . .
As far as I can tell, it does not repeal the Hollywood tax cuts, but there’s always room for an amendment.
NEEDS A CATCHIER NAME: It’s not a bike, it’s not a moped, it’s a Greyp. “Yes, the bike has pedals, but it’s also graced with a small electric motor than can propel a writer to speeds of up to 40 mph. A 1.3 kWh battery pack serves up around 75 miles of range, though the rider can extend that at any time by pedaling or use of the regenerative brakes.”
JOHN TIERNEY: The Rational Choices Of Crack Addicts. “If you’re living in a poor neighborhood deprived of options, there’s a certain rationality to keep taking a drug that will give you some temporary pleasure.”
Plus:
“Eighty to 90 percent of people are not negatively affected by drugs, but in the scientific literature nearly 100 percent of the reports are negative,” Dr. Hart said. “There’s a skewed focus on pathology. We scientists know that we get more money if we keep telling Congress that we’re solving this terrible problem. We’ve played a less than honorable role in the war on drugs.”
But lucrative.
SARAH HOYT: When Men Hoist The Pirate Flag. “It all comes down to men hunted and women gathered. . . . Chivalry and the code thereof was the laying down of those good reproductive (and civilizational) rules that make for a functioning society that passes on its values to its young: men who put their strength at the service of the weaker; women who praised them and admired them for it; and children who were raised to do the same. Tearing it down might seem like freedom, but you can’t remove the walls and wish the roof would remain standing.”
GIRL WHO FEELS NO PAIN could inspire new painkillers. But what she needs are proalgesics. I understand the Russians use those in interrogation.
PROTECTING MEDICAL IMPLANTS with encrypted heartbeats. I started encrypting my heartbeats years ago. A regular stethoscope just hears white noise without the key . . . .
HMM: Your DNA isn’t as unique as you were told. “Scientists are discovering that — to a surprising degree — we contain genetic multitudes. Not long ago, researchers had thought it was rare for the cells in a single healthy person to differ genetically in a significant way. But scientists are finding that it’s quite common for an individual to have multiple genomes. Some people, for example, have groups of cells with mutations that are not found in the rest of the body. Some have genomes that came from other people. . . . Science’s changing view is also raising questions about how forensic scientists should use DNA evidence to identify people. It’s also posing challenges for genetic counselors, who can’t assume that the genetic information from one cell can tell them about the DNA throughout a person’s body. . . . Last year, for example, forensic scientists at the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory Division described how a saliva sample and a sperm sample from the same suspect in a sexual assault case didn’t match.”
Just when you think the science is settled.
STEVE LONEGAN’S NOT SHY: Lonegan Press Conference at Booker’s Abandoned Crack House. “Mayor Steve Lonegan, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate, will hold a press conference today in front of Cory Booker’s abandoned property, now a crack house.”
SPACE: Coming Later This Month: SpaceX’s Big Reusable Rocket Launch. “It won’t happen just yet. During a static-fire test of the new Falcon 9 on Thursday (in which the rocket test-fires its engines but stays on the platform), the rocket achieved full thrust but had some ‘anomalies’ SpaceX needed to investigate, Musk tweeted. Early on Monday he updated the world via Twitter that SpaceX needed to perform another static fire test, and that the Air Force had dibs on the launch pads for testing ICBMs, so the SpaceX launch is delayed until Sept. 29 or 30.”
HMM: 51% Favor Government Shutdown Until Congress Cuts Health Care Funding. Interesting to see how this affects things.