Charlottesville: When White Supremacists/Nazis Snowflakes Turn Violent

A striking image from Charlottesville today: A black
cop trying to keep the peace while racists and the
KKK rally behind him.

It's a horrible day in Charlottesville, Virginia as a bunch of white supremacists and Nazis descended into town, and as of 1 p.m., there had already been violent clashes between these turds and counter-protesters.

Many of the so called white nationalists (read complete ass wipes) are toting guns, so it'll be a miracle if nobody gets killed.

I'm technically a target of theirs, too. Yeah, I'm a white guy, but I'm also gay. Last I heard, some of these jerks were chanting "Fuck you, faggots," at counter protestors. 

The Nazis that descended on Charlottesville last night with torches was a nice touch, too. Nothing like a good old revival of the violent KKK to cheer things up, right?

It does take two to tango, and if there is violence and fights, it's the fault of both the KKK types and the counter protesters.

However, the white supremacists are the aggressors here, and the stupidest people are the ones that think they'll get their way through violence and intimidation. Exhibit A of this stupidity is on full display in Charlottesville today.

And everybody, please start calling them the alt.right. They're not cool, like alt.country or alt.whatever hipster trend is out there.

Call them what they are: white supremacists, Nazis, horrible people, whatever.

Meanwhile, we set a low bar for President Trump, so given that low bar, I have to appreciate Trump for condemning the violence today.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe has understandably declared a state of emergency in Charlottesville, so that the state can aid in keeping the level of violence down.

Even if Virginia and police manage to keep injuries and destruction to a minimum, that doesn't solve the bigger problem.

We all hear about terrorism perpetrated by Muslims, in America and abroad.

But so far, it seems we Americans have more to fear from white supremacists terrorists than Muslim extremists.

In June, we learned from The Nation Institute's Investigative Fund and The Center for Investigative Reporting's Reveal that most terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between January, 2008 and the end of 2016 where perpetrated by right wing extremists.

The problem is when a Muslim does something hateful, it's called terrorism by politicians and many members of the media. When a white guy does something similar, it's dismissed as just a lone nutcase.

But the database we got in June shows that 115 of the 201 terrorist attacks cited in the report were carries out by right wing extremists. This includes people like the supremacists, militias and "sovereign citizens."

Another 63 cases were done by Islamic extremists, and 19 were from left wing extremists, wuch as ecoterrorists and animal rights militants.

So when you hear ultra conservative snowflakes whine that they're being terrorized by maurading liberals, don't believe it.

The white supremacists can be violent, no doubt about that. But oppressed? Don't think so, bud.  Maybe get smarter, shut your trap when you want to spout hate speech and mind your own business and then you'll be more successful in life.

The reason nobody is hiring you is not because there's a big affirmative action thing going on. They won't hire you because you're a complete turd.

Still, complainers gotta complain. One incident crystallizes this. According to Gizmodo, idiot white guy Richard Spencer, en route to the Charlottesville shindig, said he stopped at a restaurant but they wouldn't serve him. He says it was based on his viewpoints, that he was being treated like African Americans attempting to go to lunch counters in the 1960s.

But the real reason why the restaurant wouldn't serve Spencer is because at the time he stopped by, the eatery wasn't serving anybody. It was morning, and they don't open until 5 p.m. The place was closed.

Restaurants tend not to serve would-be patrons when they are closed, dude.

Anyway, here's hoping the white supremacists in Charlottesville display their extreme dimwittedness today for all the world to see, all the while avoiding this devolve into violence.

However, as I write this, I just learned a car slammed into a crowd of people protesting against the white supremacists, and there are multiple injuries.

Let's all work together to call out all the white supremacists, expose them to harsh daylight of reason, and watch them wither away.

Conservative Pundit Erickson Says Noncomforming Gay People Should Get Beaten Up.

Snowflake Erick Erickson wants everybody to look and act like
him because those who don't are so icky that it weirds him out

Erick Erickson, to use the term so often bandied about by conservatives, is a total snowflake.

It turns out that he finds people who are obviously different, especially gay people who don't dress and act like he wants them to, are totally icky and he Just. Can't. Stand. It.

Why can't people look and act like he wants them to? Why does he have to suffer through the torture of seeing guys who aren't as macho as he is? Why can't everybody just make him happy like he deserves? Or something.

This all started when, last week, Republican Senator Mike Enzi spoke to a group of middle and high school students in Wyoming and one of the students asked what he was doing to impro e the life of the LGBT community in Wyoming.

Part of Enzi's response was this:

"In Wyoming, you can be just about anything you want to be, as long as you don't push it in somebody's face."

Then he went on: "I know a guy who wears a tutu and goes to bars on Friday night and is always surprised that he gets in fights. Well, he kind of asks for it. That's the way he winds up with that kind of problem."

No, the problem is solved when, if you see a guy in a bar wearing a tutu and you don't like that fact, you ignore said guy in the tutu.

To Enzi's credit, he apologized for the inartful comments and called the guy who wears the tutu, who reports they had a productive conversation.

Well, pundit Erickson was NOT happy with Enzi's apology.

He responded by writing a column titled, "You Will Get Punched and Others Have Rights Too."

Erickson's column collapses in its very first paragraph, which is:

"You know, I'm really damn tired of all the people running around making other people extremely uncomfortable then screaming about their rights and priveges when called out. If you want to go around making people uncomfortable, you've got the problem, not the the rest of us."

Um, actually, you've got the problem Erick! If you fall apart because some guy is wearing a tutu in the same room as you, that makes you a total snowflake.

And you're the worst narcissist ever. It's not everybody else's job to make you comfortable and happy. You're not the center of the friggin' universe.

Again, the solution is so, so easy: Ignore the people you don't like.  You don't get to punch people who you believe are aesthetically displeasing.

Erickson goes on:

"I know liberals in the coastal bubbles of homogenized whiteness and skinny jeans think everyone has to be think like them - not does, but has to - but the reality is we don't. We are a culurally heterogeneous nation with diverse cultural norms."

Um, since when does anybody think you have to like their point of view and their skinny jeans. Nobody is making you do anything, Erick. You get to think what you want. And if skinny jeans give you the vapors, they you're really a wimp.

Erickson demands in his column that everybody he thinks are icky should "get over themselves." No, Erick, you need to get over yourself.

You don't get to dictate how others look and act. Just like me or anybody else has no right to demand that you act or look a certain way.

Sure, we can criticize you, and you can criticize anyone you want.

But don't go around justifying beating up people you think are weird.

Frankly, Erick, I think you're weird, but I don't want to beat you up and I don't want anybody else to, either.

Just chill.

Mocking Trump Might Be Only Way To Stop This Dangerous Jerk

Imagining Donald Trump if he was an Olympic swimmer. 

The news over the past 24 hours has been all about Donald Trump's latest outrage. (There's one every day.)

Of course, the latest outrage you've heard about is The Donald saying "Second Amendment People" have, um, options, if Hillary Clinton is elected and she starts appointing Supreme Court justices that are hostile to the Second Amendment.

But it was a joke! he says. Ha ha! What he really meant was people who love the Second Amendment can band together to work for Trump's election and Clinton's defeat.

Riiiight.

As any bonehead knows, if Trump really just wanted to say Clinton is bad for the Second Amendment, all he had to do is say, "Hillary is hostile to gun rights! Vote for me to preserve the Second Amendment and gun laws!"

Boom, that's it.

However, as many commentators pointed out, he does this all the time. He says really bad things but says them in ambiguous ways that he can backtrack and say, "It was only a joke."

Most of the world takes these as jokes, because Trump is a joke.

But Trump also knows there's a certain segment of the population that won't get the nuance, and take his words as marching orders. That's the dangerous part.

Thomas Friedman wrote about that today in a New York Times column, the first sentence of which was:

"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin got assassinated.

Friedman went on to explain that extremist rabbis and militant settlers branded Rabin a traitor, and then candidate Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a "feverish right-wing rally from a balcony in Jerusalem's Zion Square, as protestors below shouted for the death of Rabin"

Sounds like a Trump rally to me. Which illustrates the danger and how Trump is playing with fire for his own personal gain. Who cares if somebody dies, as long as he wins, right?

Nobody is ever going to rein Trump in, to make his discourse semi-civil.

It seems one way to tear Trump down is to mock him. He's so fragile it seems to send him off the deep end. Plus, his rabid supporters won't listen to facts, but maybe they will if the rest of us somehow make Trump seem "uncool."

It's a long shot, but it eventually worked for cigarettes.

 The ever-reliable Elizabeth Warren hit the nail on the head again when she Tweeted this: "@realDonaldTrump makes death threats because he's a pathetic coward who can’t handle the fact that he’s losing to a girl."

He is especially bad at taking criticism from women, and regularly becomes unhinged when people like Warren launch tweet storms against Trump. She, too, understands mockery is the way to defeat Trump.

I get it that mocking people is a form of bullying. But it can be appropriate when used on a bully like Trump who won't back down.

The following letter recently appeared in the Tampa Bay Tribune.  It's also a perfect sendup.

It might be the best trolling of Donald Trump ever:

Here's the text:

"My Letters Are So Great!"

"I write fabulous letters. If you read all the letters I have written, you would agree. You would love them. Other letter writers are weak, soft and out of touch. I'm not like that, and I'm sure if you are reading this you aren't either.

This paper really needs great letters, and I am awesome at letter writing.

Other letter writers might attack me, but then they go away. They don't have what it takes to keep writing letters. I have what it takes to write the best letters. Letter writers who disagree need to be punched in the face and run out of town.

I guarantee this letter will be picked as letter of the month. If it isn't picked, it will prove that this letter writing contest is rigged."

----Terry Vaught, Dover

Actually, Vaught later said the letter was a little longer but the paper apparently edited it down some.

The omitted sentence. "My letters are so great I'm going to build a wall and putting my letters on them. Then I'll get the other letter writers to pay for building the wall."

In my opinion, the letter should have also said that anyone who disagrees that the letter is great is mentally unstable.

If you have any great ideas on how to mock Trump, tell me in the comments section, or on Facebook or  Twitter. 

Trump Violence A Hallmark Of World's Most Ignorant, Entitled Candidate

Anti and pro Trump partisans confront each other
in Chicago Friday night.  

Trumps famous incendiary words are only part of the reason why there's so much hate and trouble surrouding his increasingly odious rallies.

A lot of the trouble comes with Trump's attitude that he's going to do what he wants, when he wants, without ever consulting with anybody else.

He lies to get his way.  He's a classic bully who gets what he wants at the snap of a finger, and he's not going to stop now.

That's to everybody's detriment. Except Trump, of course.

It appears a lot of the trouble in Chicago Friday night came when Trump abruptly canceled the rally for safety reasons "after meeting with law enforcement."

Note the artful dodge here. Somebody in Trump's camp probably did talk with someone in law enforcement, so you technically have a "meeting" here with law enforcement.

However, both Chicago and University of Illinois police said they played no part in the decision to cancel the rally and as Acting Police Superintendent John J. Escalante said, "were kind of taken by surprise" by the announcement to call off the rally.

Surprising the police like this is never a good situation, especially when you have two large groups of people angry at each other - the Trump partisans and those demonstrating against the candidate.

Police usually have crowd control methods that work a lot better when they know something is coming, i.e. a rally with 10,000 people being cancelled.

I bet the police, through no real fault of their own, were caught flat footed by the announcement the rally would be canceled, and inevitably chaos erupted.

This plays right into Trump's (small) hands and perhaps that was his plan all along. Trump had been under escalating criticism for the violence at his rallies.

Now, he had a bunch of anti-Trump protesters here, and an abrupt rally cancellation would inflame the situation. The anti-Trump crowd would  get into fights, and then Trump could blame the liberal "goons" for all the trouble at his rallies, deflecting the blame away from Trump and his supporters.

I might have gotten too conspiratorial here with my theory but I wouldn't put it past Trump.

A Trump rally earlier Friday in St. Louis, which until Chicago was one of the worst yet, lends credence to my theory.

There's no question Trump is a goon. In St. Louis he said of the protests: "Part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long (to kick protesters out) is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore....There used to be consequences. There are none anymore."

Essentially he was saying it was OK to beat up a protester, then. I'm all for arresting and charging someone if, IF they're doing something illegal. There's you consequence right there. It shouldn't be assault, as Trump advocates, at least implicitly.

I get it that Trump isn't the one that made many of his supporters so angry. A complex, messy stew of economic turmoil, social change and other frustrations did that, not Trump. But Trump is using that anger to his advantage, and creating a show by whipping up that anger until we literally get sucker punches being thrown at his rallies.

Trump is a showman, and he realizes the rage he fans just makes the show all that much better. At least to his fans. And his ego. It's all about his ego, after all.

Trump said the protesters were "so bad for our country." Really? Protest, peaceful protest, anyway, is enshrined in the First Amendment.

But I know how much Trump hates the First Amendment except in the moments it benefits him.

Not all anti-Trump demonstrators are blameless. True,  rhe vast majority were peaceful, as were the vast majority of the Trump supporters, Neither side should resort to violence. It was a fail to see fists flying.

I'm also gratified there were large anti-Trump protests, but if their aim was to shut down the Trump rally rather than just demonstrate against it, that makes me uncomfortable. Free speech, even odious free speech, should be encouraged, not shut down.

The antidote to bad free speech is more free speech, so of course peaceful demonstrations are fine here.

I'm definitely no fan of Trump's GOP rivals in the presidential campaign, but I have to say they were spot on and  made some very good points in reacting to Trump's Friday Night Fiasco..

"There aren't fights breaking out at my rallies, Ted Cruz rallies, John Kasich rallies, Bernie Sanders rallies," noted GOP candidate Marco Rubio, the Senator from Florida.

Cruz correctly chimed in: "There's no doubt that a candidate bears responsibility for the culture that is set from the top."

Which proves Cruz and Rubio at least occasionally understand something Trump does not.  That with rights come responsibilities. We are free to say what we want in this nation, but there are consequences to what we say.

Trump, as noted above, wants consequences all right. As long as he never has to deal with any of thoae consequences.

Consequences, apparently, are for the little people.

Judge Tells Prosecutor That Writing Rap Lyrics About Gangs Is Not A Crime, Duh!

San Diego rapper Tiny Doo faced up to life in prison
because prosecutors said he profited from gang
activity by writing lyrics about gangs.
A California court tossed the charges recently.  

Last November, I told you about the rapper named Tiny Doo, who was jailed and charged with, as prosecutors put it, fitting the legal definition of a gang member who 'willfully promotes, furthers, assists in any felonious criminal conduct by members of that gang.'

Prosecutors were applying a law that says if somebody personally profits from gang activity they can be charged with a felony.

So yeah, if Tiny Doo was gunrunning to make a profit and supply the gangs, that would be a problem. It would also be a problem if the gangs paid him to tell them the location of somebody they wanted to kill.

As I noted a few months ago, Tiny Doo did none of these things.

He released a rap album called "No Safety" which had cover art showing a gun and bullets. Plus some of the lyrics dealt with the things gang members do.

Because he made money rapping about the things gangs do, he profited from gang activity, said prosecutors.

Thankfully, a judge just said, Uh, No. The First Amendment wins after all. Just because gang members like your music, doesn't mean you should be charged with the crime of profiting from gangs.

Says 7NBC in San Diego:

"(Prosecutors) claimed his homegrown music helped inspire the violence, even though there is no evidence connecting him to the actual shootings."

The prosecutors' logic, it seems, is akin to somebody listening to the old song "I Don't Like Mondays," which is about a school shooting, and then claiming a real school shooting arose because the assailant happened to hear that song.

Or as Tiny Doo's defense attorney, Brian Watkins said, "I think the whole world was watching because when they put our First Amendment here in America on trial, to say that Brandon Duncan's rap music encouraged these shootings."

That's why I'm making such a big deal out of this one case. Slippery slopes don't always happen, of course, but what's to stop some prosecutor from making a crime out of producing any kind of art the prosecutor thinks is distasteful.

I happen to like the song, "I Don't Like Mondays" so should I be arrested as a potential school shooter even though the last thing I ever want to do is bring a gun near a school. (I don't even have a gun, for crissakes. )  

 7NBC in San Diego says San Diego County District Attorney spokeswoman Tanya Sierra released a statement saying the office would respect the court's decision but added this:

"While a debate over the law can be constructive and educational, combatting the scourge of deadly gang violence remains our focus. Instead of waiting for ore shootings and murders to victimize the community we used this law to cripple the organization."

I'm all for stopping violence and putting gangs out of business, but maybe prosecutors should have went after gangs without getting creative with the First Amendment. I'm sure they can pin a lot of evidence on gang members who shot or threatened people.

The District Attorney's office said all the people they charged in connection with the Tiny Doo case are gang members. So, prove it. Is Tiny Doo a gang member or not?  If he is, you'd think there'd be evidence beyond the fact he made rap music.

The statement from Sierra's office said court records show that everybody's a gang member in this case and the media is being manipulated.

I would think that somebody in the media would find the supposed evidence that Tiny is a gang member and report it.

If so, charge him. With real evidence. Until then, I'm totally writing this off as prosecutorial overreach. And I'm offended the prosecutor has such little regard for the First Amendment.

I Love The Ferguson Police. Maybe.

Are the police in Ferguson overdressed here?
Photo by Jeff Roberson, Associated Press.  

Yep, that's right, I think the police out there in trouble Ferguson are  totally boffo. They've done us all an enormous favor.  

Or, they, and other police officials down there, are rapidly pushing this nation toward a crisis, I'm not sure yet.

No, I don't like that police in Ferguson shot an unarmed black teenager. No, I don't like that they played dress up, pretended to be soldiers with ridiculous amount of gear, and military trucks and gear.  I don't appreciate them arresting journalists who are trying to tell us what's going on.

I don't like that the police are trampling First Amendment rights. Or telling people "I will fucking kill you" for the high crime of walking down the street.  Or telling a CNN producer to get out because those "niggers" might do anything. 

The reason I love the job police in Ferguson are doing is because they've finally got us talking about whether arming local police to the teeth with hard core battle weapons is a good idea. They've got us talking about how our rights to peaceable assembly and speech are threatened by goons who say they are trying to keep the peace.

Police in Ferguson have us talking about race, crime, rights, poverty, freedom. I have no idea if all the talking we're doing because of Ferguson will improve things, but it's better than silence.

Look, I get it. Ferguson is complicated. There are a few criminals, looters, violent offenders, and jerks amid the hundreds, or thousands of peaceful protestors that have been out every night in Ferguson.

You've got to control the creeps, arrest them, put them away, but at what price? Isn't there a better way than to also treat everybody who lives in and near Ferguson like they are terrorists?

WAR GAME ARE FUN!

They brought the dogs out in Ferguson. Photo
by David Carson, St. Louis Post Dispatch  

We can start by police nationwide, who are taking advantage of federal giveaways to receive enought high tech arms to make Vladimir Putin blush.

Do we really want local cops to constantly act like third rate actors making some sort of lowbrow military Rambo movie? Yeah, in extreme events, some of this stuff might come in handy. But once in a blue moon. Do we really need entire invading armies to execute basic search warrants?

The juxtaposition of peaceful protests and police so pimped up in military gear it looks like they're in a knock down, drag out battle in Baghdad is disturbing to say the least.

The Economist has a good summary of how Congress, awash in military hardware campaign cash, perpetuate this extreme militarization of what used to be the nice police on foot patrol in your neighborhood.  

"In this as with so much else in American governance, it starts with federal cash. Every year Congress passes the National Defense Authorization Act, which sets out the Defense Department's budget and expenditures. The version passed in 1990, in the wake of the sharp rise in drug related violence, allowed the Defense Department to transfer military gear and weapons to local police departments if the were deemed "suitable for counter-drug activities. 

"....The American Civil Liberties Union found that the value of military equipment used by American police departments has risen from $1 million in 1990 to $450 million in 2013."

Apparently, defense contractors weren't making enough money off of wars overseas. The bottom line would get even better if they encouraged police to declare war on us. The shareholders must be so excited. 

 U.S. News and World Report has a pretty good take on this point: 

"Have no doubt, police in the United States are militarizing, and in many communities, particularly those of color, the message is being received loud and clear: 'You are the enemy, ' writes Tom Nolan, a 27-year veteran of the Boston Police Department and professor at SUNY Plattsburgh, in an op-ed that appeared in DefenseOne in June, more than a month before the Ferguson riots.

Is that what police in this country really want? That we are their enemy? That is truly scary. 

FIRST AMENDMENT

I also love the police efforts to detain and shut up journalists covering the unrest. Yeah, like THAT'S going to work.

Lord knows some journalists are jerks, too, bloviating about nonsense and puffing up their over inflated talking head egos even more. But the truth is, most journalists, imperfect as they are,  just want to tell us what's going on. They want to make us understand the deal. And the have the First Amendment right to do so.

Apparently, the cops in Ferguson think the First Amendment is bullshit, and reporters should just shut up and regurgitate their happy little press releases.  I hope the national conversation about this crisis eventually convinces them otherwise. But I'm not totally optimistic on that one.

At least Ferguson has gotten so much attention, and drawn so many journalists, that police in Ferguson have ended up playing whack-a-mole. They detain three or so journalist to shut them up, and 30 journalists come in to yak and yell about journalists being detained.

I guess police in Ferguson police haven't figured out how to control the entire media like China has, which is a good thing.

And by the way, you Second Amendment enthusiasts. Where were you when they were trampling the First Amendment? I bet you'd be howling in the streets if the police trashed the Second Amendment as badly as the First. Aren't all the Constitutional Amendments important?

Who knows if the reaction to Ferguson will improve things in this country? At least we can count on minor victories.

The cop that told peaceful citizens and journalists to leave or "I will fucking kill you" has been reassigned away from Ferguson. (When asked for his name the "I KEEL YOU" cop said "Go Fuck Yourself" so I guess that's his unusual name)

I don't know how the rest of the Ferguson story will play out. I don't know if police will back away from arming themselves to the teeth.  I wonder if anyone will be held accountable for trashing Constitutional rights.

But something better change, dammit.

to

Four Hilarious, Pathetic Cases In Which The Holidays Proved Too Stressful

It's New Year's Eve, which means the holiday season is almost over.

A ceramic squirrel died in this woman's hands.  

For those who don't like stress, thatnk gawd for that.  Sometimes, the holidays really send people over the edge. If you thought you had tense moments over the Christmas holiday, I have four incidents that make your holiday feel like bliss.

(Thanks to the blog "Nothing To Do With Arbroath" for documenting all this Christmas mayhem)

Booze flows freely during holiday celebrations, and if the liquor spigot stops, there's often trouble. Like in South Carolina, where a man sent out to find some beer found the stores all closed late on Christmas Eve.

The man's common law wife, Helen Williams, 44, was none too pleased with this development. So she stabbed him with a ceramic squirrel, according to police in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Luckily, our victim is going to recover, but Williams is in a heap of trouble, charged with "crimial domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature," as police put it.

I''d also charge her with a home design crime for having ceramic squirrels in the first place, but that's just me.

There was something about South Carolina and the holidays that didn't seem to work well this year, anyway.  Another couple got into a Christmas time argument over the upcoming wedding. (Judging from what you'll read next, don't expect an invitation to arrive in your mailbox. I think the wedding is off.)

In Richland County, South Carolina, police said Krysta James, 34, stabbed her fiance during an argument over the planned color scheme of their wedding. 

Details on what was right or wrong with the color scheme were not available, but Krysta was jailed, leaving her time to contemplate what colors she'd like at her dream wedding. A dream wedding, because that's all she'll probably get. A wedding in her imagination.

Don't mess with this woman when it comes
to wedding planning.  

After all, who the hell would want to marry her in reality after this incident? Imagine how violent she'd get if she hated the bridesmaid dresses.

Now it's time to leave South Carolina and head to the lovely town of Jamestown, in western New York, where a woman had Christmas fixings simmering away in a crock pot.

That is, until a man in the house, maybe worried about all that expensive electricity usage, unplugged the crockpot.

The woman, Bridget Putnam, 21, responded like any reasonable cook would. She choked and stabbed the guy who shut off her crock pot, according to Jamestown Police. 

Don't mess with the Christmas cook!

Food was the center of another food fight in neighboring Ohio Christmas night. Apparently, two sisters had a dispute over some apple fritters. The fight ended with one sister stabbing the other. 

Judging from these incidents, the old Christmas trope of peace and goodwill toward man (and women!) during the holiday is SO passe.




e

Update: Told Ya: Black Thanksgiving/Friday Fights, Violence, Gunshots, Ugliness

I ranted yesterday about the stupidity of Black Friday and now, this year Thanksgiving shopping stampedes the result in fights, injuries, and just general ugly behavior.

Black Friday violence last year. Similar
scenes are being reported across the country today.  

True to form, as of 7 a.m. this Friday morning, there have been several reports across the nation of people being shot, stabbed, punched and assaulted over these store "sales" So far, there have been no reports of deaths.

According to NBC News, there was a litany of bad behavior. A man was shot in Las Vegas as thieves tried to steal the big screen TV he just bought. There was a big fight in a California Walmart parking lot because somebody tried to cut in line. At a West Virginia Walmart, somebody was badly stabbed over a fight centering on a parking space.

Early Friday morning, the Huffington Post had a series of videos and Tweets posted about numerous incidents of bad behavior at Walmarts overnight.

On the bright side, in a update from yesterday, Pizza Hut corporate media relations stepped in on a Pizza Hut franchise owner who fired a manager for refusing to work on Thanksgiving. Pizza Hut offered to rehire the manager after a public outcry.  No word yet if the guy even wants the job back.

Ah, the holidays. A time for peace and joy and giving and aggravated assault in the middle of a fight over a cheap television.

Here's a heartwarming video over sale items, supposedly at a Washington State Walmart last night.

Boring Speech, Then Scary Assassination Attempt

I don't know if you've seen this one on the news yet, but this post contains some scary video of an assassination attempt on a politician in Bulgaria.

To set it up: In the video, a man in a suit is droning on at a podium at some conference or political meeting when a large man runs onto the stage and points a gun at point blank range at the politician's head.

Through some miracle, the gun briefly jams, allowing the politician to swat the gun away. Then a whole bunch of people run onto the stage, tackle the would-be assailant and start beating the crap out of him.

News reports indicate the assailant was Okta Enimehmedov, 25, a guy with a criminal record that includes assault and robbery. His condition after the beating he (deservedly) took was not immediately available. The reports said he was using a gas pistol, which is normally a nonlethal weapon used for self defense, but it can cause life threatening injuries if used at point blank range.

The description of the incident sounds scary enough , but my words are boring compared to this video (You might have to click on it to say you are over 18)

Girl Still Suspended For Writing Newtown Poem

As far as I could determine via Google News, a San Francisco high school student who was suspended at least a week ago is still out of the classroom, and it looks like she might be about to be expelled from school.

The problem: She wrote a poem saying she "understands" the Newtown school massacre. She doesn't support the shooting, wouldn't shoot anybody, wouldn't hurt anybody. But she did write a dark poem about the sad event. 

Courtni Webb faces expulsion from school for
writing a poem about the Newtown massacre.

The school decided that this poem is a threat to the students and everybody else at the school and kicked her out.

One of the more supposedly scary lines in student Courtni Webb's poem was this:

"I understand the killings in Connecticut. I know why he pulled the trigger. Why are we oppressed by a dysfunctional community of haters and blamers?"

As Webb notes, she didn't say she was going to do anything violent. She points out that famed horror writer Steven King writes about some pretty disturbing and violent stuff, and nobody thinks he'll go off the deep end and turn into a mass murderer.

Seems to me like Webb is doing what a lot of young people do: Explore other people's dark emotions to understand their own mentality. It's the same reason why teens drive their parents crazy listening to noisy, loud, and lyrically incorrect music.

But as SF Weekly reports:

"But after the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., schools like Life Learning Academy aren't taking its chances. The academy has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to the threat of violence. A "violation of any one of these rules can result in dismissal from school."

I can see a school not taking chances on somebody making threats, but really. Sometimes these zero tolerance rules are an excuse for school administrators to exercise absolutely no critical thinking.

Maybe the administrators at the school could take the time to do some basic fact finding. Did they talk to Webb after finding the poem? If so, what did she say? Had she ever displayed disturbing behavior?  Her mother and several other people have publicly said Webb seems to be a pretty well adjusted kid.

If it turned out Webb was a little off her rocker, would just expelling her solve the problem? Probably not. Expelling her would be an easy way to just say she's not the school's problem. But that would make her somebody else's problem.

Quite a good way to teach responsibility, huh?

Speaking of responsibility, what message does this tell the other students at the school? I might be naive, but I thought students are supposed to ask questions, try opinions and philosophies and lessons on for size, to see if they make sense. It's called learning. Something that's supposed to go on in schools, remember?

The message the school seems to be sending is, shut up. Just do what we tell you do to, "learn" by rote, and for God sakes, DO NOT engage in critical thinking.

Gives you real hope for the future, doesn't it?

I

The Mall From Hell Is near Sacramento, California

For some reason, I don't like shopping malls. It's just my bias. They're fine, really, if you like Cinnabon, especially.

But most of them to me are boring, selling the same stuff to the same people over and over. Yawn.

But some malls are worse and more starstruck than usual, and my nomination for the worst mall is the Galleria Mall in Rosewood, Sacremento, California.

The ill-fated Galleria Mall in suburban
Sacramento, Calif. burning in 2010

Why is it this particular mall always has bad karma?  A brawl on Black Friday led to a viral video of two guys really going at it. Apparently, they were fighting over tennis shoes. As if a 1.3 million square foot mall only had one pair of shoes for two morons to fight over. Plus, later, a car was trashed in retailiation. 

This isn't the first round of bad publicity for this mall. A couple years ago a flash mob showed up to sing Christmas carols, but their bouncing and dancing almost collapsed the place, leading to a hasty evacuation. (Structural engineers later declared the place safe for more Christmas shopping)

The flash mob incident hit right after the mall reopened after a crazy guy barricaded himself inside a GameStop store set a huge blaze in the mall  in Oct, 2010 for no discernable reason.

So I'd be afraid to do my Christmas shopping at this mall. Imagine trying to buy some clothes as a gift at the Gap, and I don't know, maybe locusts or poison frogs would kill me before I had a chance to swipe my debit card.

This mall sounds like the place the B-52s sang about in their 2008 song "Funplex," a place that sounded in the song to be a delightful horror.  I'm especially intrigued by the referenence to the Funplex food court restaurant called the Taco Tiki Hut. Sounds wonderfully tacky. I'd eat there, just for goofs. The B-52s paint the scene in their lyrics:

"I'm your daytime waitress
at the Taco Tiki Hut
I'm your daytime waitress
Here's your stupid 7-Up"

Yep, pretty much sounds like the service I get at a typical mall.  I wonder if the Taco Tiki hut also has stupid draft beer. I'd need it in that mall.

It still would be fun to start a Taco Tiki Hut franchise, just to see what would happen.

Just for fun, here's the video for the B-52s "Funplex" As always, they're hilariously chaotic. I want to invite them to my next party. Watch:





 

Predictable Black Friday Violence Vile, Unexplanable

As predictable as it was disgusting, there were reports Friday across the nation of Black Friday violence, in which people rioted, fought, stampeded and otherwise behaved abysmally to grab the Christmas gifts they demanded.

Peace on earth, good will toward men? Not these morons.

A lovely Black Friday scene. Wish you were there?

I don't think there's a more shameful scene than people rioting in stores on the Friday after Christmas. I don't think any of the people who participate are nearly smart enough to have any self-awareness of how awful they are.

I poked around today looking for information on the psychology of Black Friday rioters and found precious little on the topic. It does seem there's an emptiness in these people that they try to self medicate by being the Top Dog in the holiday shopping wars.   If a few heads get smashed, so be it, I guess.

A Christian Science Monitor piece last year suggested the violence is desperation on the part of consumers and retailers to bust out of iffy economic times, come hell or high water.

Look, I know I've complained about people standing in long lines and struggling through clouds to attend the Black Friday festivities. It's not for me, but if you somehow enjoy that kind of thing, even if the deals aren't really as good as advertised, go for it.

The vast majority of people who partake in Black Friday are fine. They're mostly happy, or at least nonviolent. Almost all of them manage to avoid rioting.

The rioters? I hope they don't find what they're shopping for, and I hope the rest of their holiday season really, really sucks. They deserve no better.

Here's a happy little video of morons at a Wal-Mart this year:



The retailers that invite these riots are at least as disgusting as the actual rioters.. They create this onrush by appealing to the way our brains are wired. They create an atmosphere of scarcity by saying the deals are for an hour only, there's limited supplies, limit two per customer, yada, yada, yada.

And then the riots happen. So what if they're employees get trampled, punched, run over, injured, killed? The retailers' disdain for their employees is breathtaking. We have an associate in Aisle 3 killed by a mob? Get rid of the body and hire some other schmuck at minimum wage to face the homicidal mob. As long as we rake in the profits, who cares if a few people die in the process?

There's a lot of good in Christmas. But the Black Friday lunatics, and the retailers that enable them deserve something much worse than a lump of coal from Santa. They just need to crawl back under their disgusting rocks and leave us alone.

Child Abuse Video Disturbing, or Not?

An Irish anti-child abuse organization has come out with a disturbing commercial against child abuse.

Yes, I know about 99.9 percent of the people out there are against child abuse, but the aim is to encourage people to report, stop and otherwise discourage abuse.

The commercial is graphic, but in a way, dignified, in the way the child talks about the world he wants to grow up into, as opposed to the horror he's living. Give it a watch and tell us what you think: