The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

A Chick-Fil-A Gun? Pluck Poultry Pistols!

Posted on | July 21, 2012 | 23 Comments

by Smitty

The Mayor of Boston is firm in his devotion to protecting Beantown from the ravages of Christianist hate-mongers:

Mayor Thomas M. Menino is vowing to block Chick-fil-A from bringing its Southern-fried fast-food empire to Boston — possibly to a popular tourist spot just steps from the Freedom Trail — after the family-owned firm’s president suggested gay marriage is “inviting God’s judgment on our nation.”
“Chick-fil-A doesn’t belong in Boston. You can’t have a business in the city of Boston that discriminates against a population. We’re an open city, we’re a city that’s at the forefront of inclusion,” Menino told the Herald yesterday.

This is kind of like the commitment to protecting citizens that fellow mayor Rahm Emmanuel is showing in Chicago where gun control is a deal of Biden-esque proportions:

The streets of Chicago are officially more dangerous than a war zone: Homicide victims in the Windy City outnumber U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan this year.
While 144 Americans have died in Afghanistan in 2012, a whopping 228 Chicago residents have been killed, and the murder rate is up a staggering 35 percent from last year. That’s a rash of homicides quadruple the rate of New York City’s, and police and crime experts fear it may only get worse.
This week, Chicago announced it will allow police in the cash-strapped city to work overtime at time-and-a-half pay in order to put more officers on the street.

The Chick-Fil-A menace must be restrained!

This blog commends these fine American Mayors for their commitment to civic safety, and the right of consenting adults to put chickens wherever they want to, without fear of derogation from some dude in a suit and his Christianist minions.

Also, you had better not pray for rain!

Update: rampant anti-Statist Bill Quick suggests banning Mayor Bloomberg, to improve public safety in the Rotten Apple. Reached for comment, Mayor Bloomberg’s tea cup suggested that San Francisco should force Quick to write out all of Nancy Pelosi’s speeches, longhand, 50 times. Or until the moment that Quick’s mind ‘splodes, whichever comes first.

via Twitchy

Category: Illinois, Massachusetts

The Daily Disgrace

Posted on | July 21, 2012 | 30 Comments

The front-page headline in this morning’s New York Times:

GUNMAN KILLS 12 AT COLORADO THEATER;
SCORES ARE WOUNDED, REVIVING DEBATE

The headline is different in the online version of the story, but the “debate” the editors have in mind is referenced in the fifth paragraph, which declares that “once again . . . the nation was plunged into another debate about guns and violence.”

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, who has waged a national campaign for stricter gun laws, offered a political challenge. “Maybe it’s time that the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it,” Mr. Bloomberg said during his weekly radio program, “because this is obviously a problem across the country.”

A separate article on page A13 carries the headline, “In Columbine’s Wake, Colorado Has Become Key Player in Gun Law Debate”:

The news of the horrifying armed assault in Aurora, Colo. — just a half-hour drive from the site of the Columbine High School shootings in 1999 — has a freakish resonance in a state that has long played an unsought role in the national debate over gun laws and firearm rights.

Again, the online version of the story has a different headline, but the point is the same: The editors of the New York Times are eager to turn this crime into a debate about gun laws, and we know what side of that debate the editors of the New York Times are on, don’t we?

The New York Times wishes to “debate” gun control in the same way that teenage boys want to “debate” oral sex while they’re parked at Moonlight Lake with their dates, and the invitation to this “debate” is tendered in a remarkably similar spirit.

UPDATE: Mayor Bloomberg’s “national campaign for stricter gun laws” notwithstanding, there were nearly 500 murders and more than 1,400 shooting incidents in New York City last year.

UPDATE II: The accused gunman James Holmes is described by neighbors and teachers as quiet and studious:

In high school, Holmes won a competitive position at a rigorous science boot camp and an internship in neurobiology at the prestigious Salk Institute.
Tom Mai, who lived next door with his family for a decade, remembers James as smart, quiet, polite.

This makes us dumb loud rude guys feel better about ourselves. And isn’t feeling good about yourself really the most important thing in life?

Category: Colorado, Crime, Media Bias, New York Times

Theological Question

Posted on | July 21, 2012 | 15 Comments

by Smitty

In a 2010 NYT editorial “We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change“, Al Gore said:

From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.

The Apostle Paul:

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;–Romans 3:23

Question:

Through what mechanism do individual sinners, forming a government, achieve that which they cannot accomplish individually?

Related: The Parable of the Misguided Tea Partier

Category: ManBearPig, Troglopundit

Whittle Putting BHO’s “You Didn’t Get There On Your Own” In Context

Posted on | July 20, 2012 | 8 Comments

by Smitty

It’s already the defining moment of the campaign, but Bill Whittle slices like a hammer here, casting Captain Collectivism’s remark in a biographical context that makes it abundantly clear: #OccupyResoluteDesk is intellectually incapable of viewing reality in any manner than the one which liberty-loving Americans are busily deriding:

Category: PJTV

DaTechGuy Was With Mitt In Bow, NH

Posted on | July 20, 2012 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

Da Tech Guy brings you Fedora on the ground reporting from NH. The Romney event was solemn, beginning with the invocation:Lord rest the victims, strengthen the survivors, and point toward justice for the perpetrator.
Mitt sounds truly Presidential here:

In Florida, President Obama:

“Even as we learn how this happened and who’s responsible, we may never understand what leads anybody to terrorize their fellow human beings like this,” Obama said. “Such violence, such evil is senseless. It’s beyond reason. But while we will never know fully what causes somebody to take the life of another, we do know what makes life worth living.”
“I know many of you came here today for a campaign event,” Obama continued at the event in Fort Myers. “I was looking forward to having a fun conversation with you about some really important matters we face as a country, and the differences between myself and my opponent in this election. But this morning, we woke up to news of a tragedy that reminds us of all the ways that we are united as one American family.”

Thanks, Pete: even on a tough day like this one, you’re a champ.

Update: Da Tech Guy’s full post here.

Category: Barack Obama, Da Tech Guy, Mitt Romney

‘Higher Education Bubble’? Colorado Shooter Is Medical School Dropout

Posted on | July 20, 2012 | 10 Comments

Larry McShane of the New York Daily News reports:

The suspected Colorado movie mass murderer was a loner and a medical school dropout who described himself last year as “quiet and easy-going” on a rental application.
James Holmes, 24, withdrew abruptly last month from the University of Colorado Medical School, spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery said Friday.
She did not know what prompted his decision just weeks before Holmes snapped, killing a dozen people and wounding at least 50 others.
The suspect, who came to Colorado from California, lived in a third-floor apartment in the Denver suburb of North Aurora — about four miles from the theater where the killings occurred.
Neighbors told the Denver Post that Holmes was a reclusive type who ignored other residents when they said hello.
“No one knew him,” one neighbor told the newspaper. “No one.”

When ABC’s George Stephanopoulos rushed to find a Tea Party connection to blame for this evil deed, perhaps he never stopped to think that the suspect might be a grad student who suffered a mental breakdown, perhaps because of stress or academic failure.

Therefore, let’s cast a shadow of suspicion on all quiet reclusive types — dangerous loners! — pursuing advanced degrees, because that makes as much sense as blaming the Tea Party.

Me? I blame The Higher Education Bubble.

Category: Colorado, Crime, Education

#SGS12 Hey, Wait a Minute: James O’Keefe Is Smart, But Not a Girl

Posted on | July 20, 2012 | 5 Comments

So how is it that James O’Keefe got invited to speak at Smart Girls Summit this weekend? And as I look down the list of wonderful speakers, I see many other of my friends, including Brandon Darby and Ben Domenech — both are smart, but neither of them is a girl.

Ann Marie Buerkle, Dana Loesch, Anita Montcrief, Amy Kremer, Renee Ellmers, Kristina Ribali — yeah, they’re definitely girls, all friends of mine, who will gather this weekend at the fabulous Westin Hotel in Alexandria, Virginia. And yet no one bothered to invite me?

It’s almost like there’s a pattern here or something . . .

 

Category: James O'Keefe

MULTIPLEX MASSACRE: 13 Dead After Shooting at Colorado ‘Batman’ Opening; UPDATE: Suspect Identified by Police as 24-Year-Old James Holmes; UPDATE: ABC News Interviews Suspect’s Mother? UPDATE: Despicable — Stephanopoulos Implicates Tea Party in Tragedy

Posted on | July 20, 2012 | 46 Comments

At least 14 people are dead in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado, after a gunman opened fire inside a movie theater.

UPDATE: Ten people were shot dead inside the theater, which was crowded with patrons watching the opening of the new “Batman” movie; while four more victims died at local hospitals or en route to hospitals. Police say 50 others were wounded.

UPDATE II: CBS News reports:

The violent and chaotic scene erupted about 12:30 a.m. local time as a gunman stood at the front of one of the Century 16 theaters at the Aurora Mall where the latest Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises” was playing, police said.
“Witnesses tell us he released some sort of canister. They heard a hissing sound and some gas emerged and the gunman opened fire,” Oates said at a news conference.
Police, ambulances and emergency crews swarmed on the scene after frantic calls started flooding the 911 switchboard, officials said.
Officers found the gunman near a car behind the theater.
“A gas mask, rifle, handgun at least one additional weapon (were) found inside” he said.

There are reports that the gunman was a 24-year-old resident of North Aurora. He is in custody and police reportedly have evacuated the apartment complex where the suspect lived.

UPDATE III: NBC News reports:

An FBI official told NBC News that the agency was working with local authorities on the investigation, but that there was no early indication of a link to politically-motivated terrorism. President Obama had been notified by counterterrorism chief John Brennan and was aware of the incident, KUSA said.
Police raiding the theater in the hunt for the suspect had to ask for gasmasks.
“Get us some damn gas masks for theater 9, we can’t get in it,” one officer radioed back to emergency dispatch, according to an excerpt aired on KUSA, during the operation.

There are reports that young children are among those killed during this unexplained murder spree.

UPDATE IV: Blogger Jaime Marshall was inside Theater 8, adjoining the theater in which the shootings occurred. She tweets that she and her date actually had tickets for Theater 9, but decided instead to go to the less-crowded theater next door. Both theaters were showing The Dark Knight Rises.

UPDATE V: Permit me to state that, so far, there is no information about the gunman’s motives. All we have been told so far is that the gunman is a 6-foot-tall white male. The fact that law enforcement have reportedly ruled out political terrorism would seem to suggest that this is a “deranged loner” type of incident. If there is any other motive, we will learn it in due course but, based on past experience in covering such crimes, I advise commenters it is best not to speculate on motives.

UPDATE VI: The Denver Post reports:

A 24-year-old suspect in is custody and an apartment building in north Aurora connected to the suspect was being evacuated and searched for possible explosives . . .
[T]he man in custody had made a statement about possible explosives in his residence.
Police have blocked off a three-block area around an apartment complex in north Aurora.

Via Memeorandum, with further blogging by Outside the Beltway and The Gateway Pundit.

CNN reports:

Police arrested a man believed to be the shooter in a rear parking lot of the theater, Frank Fania, a police spokesman, told CNN. The suspect was not immediately identified, though Fania said he was believed to be in his early 20s.
“He did not resist. He did not put up a fight,” Fania said. Police seized a rifle and a handgun from the suspect, and another gun was found in the theater, he said.

UPDATE VII: Linked by Bill Quick at Daily Pundit, who eschews caution as to the gunman’s motives. Until we get some more definite information, I again urge commenters to stick to the facts. Early reports on incidents like this tend to be confusing. If you wait a few hours — at least until the suspect is named — questions of motive will become easier to answer.

UPDATE VIII: OK, we now have a name for the suspected gunman, ABC News reports:

The young man who is in custody after allegedly gunning down 12 people in a mass shooting spree overnight in Aurora, Colorado has been identified as local resident James Holmes, according to federal authorities.
Law enforcement officials and witnesses told ABC News Holmes wore what appeared to be a bullet-proof vest and riot-type mask as he opened fire in a movie theater with three weapons at a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises.” In addition to the 12 deaths, at least 50 people were injured, according to police.
Local news reports showed aerial video of police cautiously searching Holmes’ apartment, some five miles from the Century Aurora 16 theater, as the suspect reportedly told police he had explosives inside.

Note that this ABC News report reduces the number of dead to 12, instead of the 14 that were previously reported by other news organizations. Even the number of victims tends to be confused in early reports, which is why caution is so important.

UPDATE IX: While it is unwise to speculate on the killer’s motive, commenters point out that this “Batman” movie aroused intense emotion even before it was released. A reviewer at Rotten Tomatoes who panned the film was subjected to death threats from commenters:

For Rotten Tomatoes, that was enough. The website shut down the commenting feature on all “Dark Knight Rises” reviews. Rotten Tomatoes Editor-in-chief Matt Atchiity wrote, “There are plenty of other things to get angry about, like war, famine, poverty and crime. But not movie reviews.”
“These ‘crazy people’ have already locked themselves into liking the film,” says Collider.com film reviewer Matt Goldeberg. “They’ve been hit with so much marketing from the studios that they feel like they have invested time, energy, and passion into the film even before they have seen it. For someone to say, ‘it’s not good’ is not an acceptable answer to them.”

UPDATE X: Associated Press with eyewitness accounts:

“I told my friend `we’ve got to get out of here,’ but then he shot people trying to go out the exits,” Jennifer Seeger told NBC’s “Today.” She said the shooter made his way up the aisle, firing as he went, saying nothing.
Some of those injured are children, including a 3-month-old infant who was shot.
Police earlier said 14 people were dead, but later revised the number to at least 12. . . .
Witness Shayla Roeder said she saw a young teenage girl on the ground bleeding outside the theater.
“She just had this horrible look in her eyes …. We made eye contact and I could tell she was not all right,” Roeder said.

Via Hot Air Headlines.

UPDATE XI: Watching the TV news this morning, you understand why speculation about motive is so common. Cable TV hosts in a New York studio have to fill airtime with something, and they bring on “experts” who start blabbing about psychological or political motives.

My opinion of “experts” is nearly as low as my opinion of “TV news.”

It’s a professional bias. During more than two decades in the newspaper business, I long ago became accustomed to, and resentful of, the idiotic sensationalism of TV talking heads. Especially when breaking news like this happens, the talking-head compulsion to keep blabbing, interviewing “experts” and endlessly re-running the same video footage, cable TV news is just about the worst possible way to gather information. Give me facts and stop speculating!

You’ll notice that “why” comes at the end of the classic “5 Ws” formula: Who, what, when, where and why. Until we have some clear indications about the motive, it is ridiculous to “report” guesswork, even if “experts” are doing the guessing. This reminds me of another Colorado story:

In April 1999, newspaper op-ed pages, weekly news magazines and cable-TV networks were swamped with “experts” offering competing theories for the massacre at Columbine High School. Psychologists, culture critics, religious leaders, gun-control activists, think-tank wonks — for about two weeks after the shootings, the expert analysts were ubiquitous.
Ultimately, however, the best explanation of Columbine came from comedian Chris Rock: “Whatever happened to crazy?”

“What, you can’t be crazy no more? Did we eliminate ‘crazy’ from the dictionary? . . . When l was a kid, they used to separate the crazy kids from everybody. When l was a kid, the crazy kids went to school in a little-a– bus. They had a class at the end of the school . . . Just in case they went crazy, they would only hurt other crazy kids. And we was all safe.”

UPDATE XII: More about the Aurora suspect, James Holmes:

The gunman, who was wearing a bullet-proof vest and dressed entirely in black, was not on any watch list that would have alerted authorities that he was dangerous, officials said. The incident was not believed to have any connection to international terrorism, they added.
The car Holmes was driving had Tennessee plates, but police sources told NBC News that they believed he had been living locally. Federal authorities told NBC News that Holmes has no military history.

Here’s NBC News video:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

UPDATE XIII: Thanks to a commenter for this news item:

A San Diego woman identifying herself as James Holmes’s mother spoke briefly with ABC News this morning.
She had awoken unaware of the news of the shooting and had not been contacted by authorities. She immediately expressed concern that her son may have been involved.
“You have the right person,” she said.
“I need to call the police,” she added. “I need to fly out to Colorado.”

“You have the right person.” If this is accurate and authentic, the reaction of the suspect’s mother may indicate a history of mental illness. Otherwise, why would she have reason to believe her son was actually involved?

More updates at Hot Air.

UPDATE XIV: Today’s obligatory media bias emetic:

On Good Morning America, ABC News’ Brian Ross and George Stephanolpoulos suggested that the Tea Party might be connected to the mass shootings early this morning . . .

Right: Because Tea Party people hate “Batman” movies. Deficit spending, high taxes, government regulation and “Batman” movies.

Meanwhile, we have actual news: A 6-year-old girl wounded in the shooting has now died, bringing the official death total to 13.

UPDATE XV: Linked by The Lonely Conservative, who bemoans the politicization of this horrific crime. This is something that gripes me about the 21st-century media: Everything is now political.

Why? Because so many people in the media come to their jobs with a political agenda, rather than a commitment to facts. Not that facts and politics can’t co-exist, but some people have a bad habit of putting the political cart in front of the factual horse.

If everything — everything — is about scoring points for your political “team,” you probably need to stay the hell away from the news business.

UPDATE XVI: Linked by the Rio Norte Line — thanks!

UPDATE XVII:


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Category: Colorado, Crime
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