Monday, May 31, 2021

Blue Öyster Parrot

Eric Bloom my ass.

Walt Whitman, Clint Eastwood Born

Refresher Course In America

If you were a fobbit, desk jockey, pencil-pusher or paper-shuffler, you may qualify as a veteran, but today is not your holiday. You have to have died in combat to qualify for today's festivities. As in dead.
Mostly directed at idiots in the various media who will spend today thanking everybody who served or is serving. 

No. Just the corpses today.

Sunday, May 30, 2021

Kerrville Man: Threat, Or Menace?

Jes' so y'all know: This reporter's immediate male ancestor grew up in Kerrville.
Gerald Tracy / WOAI:
Kerrville man arrested after officials intercept plans for mass shooting at Walmart  —  KERRVILLE, Texas - The FBI, Texas DPS and FBI have arrested a Kerrville man they say planned to carry out a shooting at a Walmart. 

Coleman Thomas Blevins, 28, popped up on the Kerr County Sheriff's Office radar last week and reached out to Blevins.[sic] According to the KCSO, it confirmed Blevins was planning a mass shooting after speaking with him.

In a message KCSO intercepted, Blevins allegedly threatened to shoot up a Walmart, which location was not released.

Blevins was arrested Friday on a Terroristic Threat warrant, then officials got to work on a search warrant at his home. 

There, deputies say they found firearms, ammo, electronic evidence, concentrated THC and “radical ideology paraphernalia,” which they said included books, flags and handwritten documents. 

We are told Blevins is on active felony probation, which means he is prohibited from having guns. He remains in jail.

“This case reminds us that we need to always be vigilant. Many think ‘that can’t happen here’, and it was well on the way to happening,” Sheriff Larry Leitha said. “Our investigators did outstanding work in this case, and possibly saved many lives. The plot interrupted in this case is unthinkable. We appreciate the assistance of all our law enforcement partners, including the FBI, DPS, KPD, and Secret Service. We’d like to remind the public - if you see something, say something. The KCSO, working with other law enforcement professionals, will continue to stop threats to our community, and bring those responsible to prosecution.”
Excuse the heck outta me, Kerr County Sheriff Larry, but does "outstanding work" apply here? One idiot mouths off on social media, a dime is dropped on him, & he then apparently breaks down & admits his (alleged) nefarious plans to shoot up the MALL⭐WART the minute a deputy asks? "Outstanding" hell, barely even sounds like work. And isn't Rule Fucking One of Nazi-Confederate-Saudi Club not to talk? How much of an actual threat is this guy?

This Weekend's High Score

Jeanne D'Arc Bruleé

Desecration Day: I Piss On Your Graves!

Faded & Frayed

Here's Cincinnati's Kroger Corp. dissing the flag for which our boys & girls died. Betcha George A. Ralphs is a-spinnin' in his grave.
Don't forget the profiteers & enablers.
Remembering the arms industry this Memorial Day

Saturday, May 29, 2021

He Had A List

We're Number One!!

He killed the people he wanted to kill.

He targeted his co-workers.

He had a list.

That’s how witnesses and authorities describe the gunman who opened fire on a San Jose rail yard early Wednesday morning, killing nine men before apparently turning the gun on himself.

Law enforcement agents are still investigating why a transit maintenance worker packed a duffel bag with semi-automatic weapons and loaded high-capacity magazines, got into his white Ford pickup and drove to work intent on mayhem.

When Samuel Cassidy pulled the trigger, over and over, he was committing a rare but terrifying crime — one that has risen sharply since the pandemic began to wane.

There have been 37 mass workplace shootings since 2009, according to data tracked by Everytown for Gun Safety. But in an alarming trend, five of those deadly attacks occurred in just the last 10 weeks.

And two of this year’s mass workplace shootings were carried out in California, in keeping with yet another lethal shift. From 1986 to 2011, a fourth of all mass workplace shootings nationwide occurred here, according to researchers at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

In that span, Robert McCrie, a professor of security management at John Jay, counts 44 of what his research describes as workplace mass homicides in the United States. Eleven happened in California. The next deadliest states were Texas, Florida and Missouri; each had three.

Why California, McCrie said, is still a mystery and requires more research. But who commits mass workplace shootings is much clearer, and the San Jose gunman fits the general profile.

There is no standard definition of what constitutes a mass workplace shooting. Depending on the researcher and data available, such definitions can vary in the number of fatalities, whether the casualty count includes the gunman or people who are injured but not dead, and the location.

Workplace shooters “are more likely to be striking out, as we saw in this case,” McCrie said, “and they strike out at the place where the pain can be greatest — either in their home and neighborhood or their place of work.”

What was striking about the Valley Transportation Authority shooting “was how much it fit the other cases.” The gunman, he said, “was a disgruntled worker. He had given lots of signals about his dissatisfaction with his life. He made specific threats that he would kill people some time ago, but he was not listened to.”

And so most of the early shift at the VTA, which runs bus and light-rail lines in the Silicon Valley, was wiped out.

These are the men who died: Paul Delacruz Megia, 42; Taptejdeep Singh, 36; Adrian Balleza, 29; Jose Dejesus Hernandez III, 35; Timothy Michael Romo, 49; Michael Joseph Rudometkin, 40; Abdolvahab Alaghmandan, 63; and Lars Kepler Lane, 63; and Alex Ward Fritch, 49.

Security video posted on YouTube by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office shows the gunman walking calmly across the rail yard Wednesday morning, across a wide swath of asphalt striped with tracks and past a light-rail train parked near the two buildings where the shooting occurred.

One houses the ways, power and signal team, and the second building includes operations and light-rail maintenance, according to a VTA clerical worker, who wished to remain anonymous because she was advised not to speak to the media.

Based on the first building’s layout and exit locations, she said, the victims would have had “nowhere to go.”

Cassidy brought only a fraction of his arsenal to work with him Wednesday — three 9mm semi-automatic weapons, and 32 high-capacity magazines fully loaded with ammunition.

He left behind cans of gasoline, suspected Molotov cocktails, 12 firearms and approximately 25,000 rounds of various types of ammunition. Authorities said the shooting was “a planned event.”

Santa Clara County sheriff’s spokesman Russell Davis described Cassidy during a Thursday briefing as “a highly disgruntled VTA employee for many years, which may have contributed to why he targeted VTA employees.” He was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in 2016 and found to profess “a hatred of his workplace,” as was first reported in the Wall Street Journal.

The VTA is reviewing Cassidy’s records, investigating whether he made other employees fearful, the agency said.

In a study of workplace shootings published in the journal Injury Epidemiology in 2019, researchers studied such attacks nationwide between 2011 and 2015 and found that 40% were committed during robberies and 12% had unknown motives.

It was the other 48% — 744 shootings — that gave insight into the mind and motivation of the workplace shooter. About three quarters of those shootings involved an argument or a conflict.

The researchers also found that, while there was a drop in workplace shootings committed during robberies during the time frame studied, the number of shootings committed by a co-worker “displayed an erratic, upward trend.”

“When we think of workplace shootings, going back to the ’90s, we used to think of them as robberies gone wrong,” said Mitchell Doucette, an assistant scientist with the Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy at Johns Hopkins University.

“Workplace homicides, particularly workplace shootings, are no longer robbery related but are more often interpersonal in nature,” said Doucette, one of the study’s authors. They are “arguments, conflicts that maybe exist between co-workers and customers or intimate partners.”

Cassidy is believed to have committed the crimes alone, which is how he apparently lived most of his life. Authorities described his San Jose home as “cluttered” and a “possible hoarder situation.”

He was married for a decade but divorced in 2005. Cecilia Nelms, his ex-wife, told the Associated Press that Cassidy had talked about killing people at work more than a decade ago.

“I never believed him, and it never happened,” she said. “Until now.”

Co-workers described him as a loner at the agency, where he worked for the last eight years. John Jay College’s McCrie said that’s a characteristic shared by many workplace shooters.

“They attract bullying and sometimes that’s a factor in triggering them,” he said. It is also typical, as in Cassidy’s case, that “they either have been disciplined, they’re facing a disciplinary hearing or they have been terminated.”

But some who study workplace shooters believe they’re no different from any other man — and it’s usually a man — who brings a gun to a public place and kills. And the overwhelming majority of disgruntled employees don’t shoot up their work sites.

“Workers all over the world get fired, have disagreements in their office,” said Shannon Watts, founder of the advocacy group Moms Demand Action. “What makes America different is that we give these people easy access to arsenals and ammunition.”

Seamus McGraw has studied what he calls the modern era of mass shootings, which he says started on Aug. 1, 1966, when Charles Whitman took weapons to the observation deck of a tower at the University of Texas at Austin and began firing.

His book-length meditation on gun violence — “From a Taller Tower” — was published in April. He believes coverage of mass shooters has made them larger than life; it is a mistake, he said, he has committed himself.

He argues that all mass shooters are the same: “fakes, frauds and weaklings.” And he believes the San Jose gunman — he will not say his name — fits neatly into that mold.”

“I don’t see as much of a distinction as others do between workplace violence and our epidemic of mass shootings,” McGraw said. “It’s where they hang their grievance ... and their sense of victimhood.”

You rancid bullying sons-of-bitches are very lucky this reporter is no longer forced to have a job for mere survival.

["Workplace shootings are all too common in California. The latest one fits a pattern."/L.A. Times. Probably paywalled, but it's all here.]

Stamp Act Denounced, JFK Born

Bob Hope would be 118 today. Kennedy'd be dead today, no matter what.

Friday, May 28, 2021

The Schaden Freudes Itself

From Green Eagle, 'cause that prick Bezos's WaPo firewall works too well.
"The country’s declining covid-19 case rates present an unrealistically optimistic perspective for half of the nation — the half that is still not vaccinated.

...adjustments for vaccinations show the rate among susceptible, unvaccinated people is 73 percent higher than the standard figures being publicized. With that adjustment, the national death rate is roughly the same as it was two months ago and is barely inching down. The adjusted hospitalization rate is as high as it was three months ago.  The adjusted rates in several states show the pandemic is spreading as fast among the unvaccinated as it did during the winter surge."

Oooh, too bad. My heart pumps piss for every one of these unfortunates. It's herd culling time, losers!!

Friday Freak-Out: Scab Of A Nation, Driven Insane, Loses Its Mind

Study finds nearly one-in-five Americans believe QAnon conspiracy theories

That nearly 20% would be around 30 million probably armed & allegedly adult Americans.
Understanding QAnon’s Connection to American Politics, Religion, and Media Consumption
THIS WHOLE MONSTROSITY WAS CONCEIVED AND EXECUTED AS A RESULT OF SOME UNPLEASANT PREMONITIONS*, AUGUST THROUGH OCTOBER 1967.
*All premonitions continuing to come true.
No shit. Earliest premonitions:
[Nutty Broadcasting Corp./Public Religion Research Institute]

Life, Birth, Death, Infinity, Ennui

Thursday, May 27, 2021

No One Is Safe, Anywhere; Arm Yourselves Now While You Can!!

"Scab Of A Nation Driven Insane"

We don't need better licensing & regulation for guns alone. Not only are you not safe anywhere, you aren't safe from anyone, as apparently some right-wing women are just as blood-thirsty as the men. Look at this shit. One of these delusional paranoids is going to decide to "clean up" New York City or wherever & roll coal up & down an urban sidewalk, Taxi Driver style, while setting a new high score for mass murder.
Timothy Bella / Washington Post:
‘No vaccine!’:  Woman arrested for allegedly driving through vaccination site in protest, nearly hitting workers  —  As a coronavirus vaccination tent was set up in the hope of inoculating more residents in Maryville, Tenn., sheriff's deputies working at the site this week saw an SUV speeding their way …
Nice how the fucking New York Murdoch Post headline downplays it.

G.O.P. + Police = Sex Crimes

Yes, it's the party of law & order, morality & (incestuous) family values. What's wrong w/ these sub-human perverts?
Report alleges Missouri lawmaker had sex with teen when he was a cop  —  JEFFERSON CITY — A Missouri lawmaker allegedly used his position as a cop to receive a “sexual favor” from an intoxicated teenage girl in 2015 and his boss, the Pike County sheriff, is accused of attempting to obstruct …
Sounds like "rape under color of authority" to this reporter. Chop off the fucking pig's pecker & give him 30 lashes: If the laws don't work any more it's again time for corporal punishment in this country.

Golden Gate Opens, Sink The Bismarck!

Good Job, AP!

Try again?

Ladies & Germs, The Sex Potatoes!

Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Here We Go Again: Same Shit, Different Day, Eight Dead

Rick Hurd / Mercury News:
Multiple people dead in mass shooting near San Jose VTA light rail yard: sources  —  Shooter is also dead, sources say  —  Multiple people are dead in a mass shooting early Wednesday morning near a VTA light rail yard and the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office, according to sources.
Meanwhile:
Morgan Phillips / Fox News:
Republicans grill Biden ATF nominee on past remarks on guns  —  David Chipman said he disagrees with his current employer that the Second Amendment is moot  —  Fox News Flash top headlines for May 26  —  David Chipman, President Biden's nominee to run the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives …

Murder Nation

Limeys Abandon Frogs, Andrew Johnson Acquitted, Marion Morrison, Hank Williams Jr., Birthed

Now You're Talkin'!!

The words of the prophets are written on the demolished car wash walls.

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

EMRGNCY? Not Really

Didn't appear to be an actual police terror situation, & no sooner had I shot this then a METRO repair truck pulled up. Don't cry "Wolf!" too often, METRO.

Fascism On March In Myanmar

How long until this happens here?Just a few yrs. is this reporter's guesstimation. Remember how it started in Myanmar; a disputed election:

What has happened now, and why?

The military is now back in charge and has declared a year-long state of emergency.


It seized control on 1 February following a general election which Ms Suu Kyi's NLD party won by a landslide.


The armed forces had backed the opposition, who were demanding a rerun of the vote, claiming widespread fraud.


The election commission said there was no evidence to support these claims.


The coup took place as a new session of parliament was set to open.


Ms Suu Kyi has been held at an unknown location since the coup. She is facing various charges, including violating the country's official secrets act, possessing illegal walkie-talkies and publishing information that may "cause fear or alarm".

Sound familiar? Biden better defund & dissolve the U.S. military & law enforcement, pronto. Preferably before 2022 when the shit may really hit the fan.

Remember When I.B.M. Sold Punch Card Technology To The Nazis?

Well, here we go again. And Oracle surely knows exactly how their technology will be used.
Mara Hvistendahl / The Intercept:
Oracle Boasted That Its Software Was Used Against U.S. Protesters.  Then It Took the Tech to China. … As he helped plan massive demonstrations in Chicago to protest the 2012 NATO summit, Matt McLoughlin knew he was up against a formidable police force.  An organizer with Chicago's Occupy movement …
Fuck you Ellison.

Idaho Man & (New) Wife

"Grand Theft by Deception"? Sounds like insurance fraud. "Hey honey, let's kill the kids for money!" Fucking libertarians.

So, Mr. Gutmann ...

Andrew Gutmann / The Hill:
One father's stand against critical race theory: We're indoctrinating our children  —  A month ago, I mailed a letter to all the parents of my daughter's New York City private school, Brearley, asking them to speak up against the school administration's illiberal and indoctrinating antiracism initiatives …
... are we then to assume that you are pro-racism? Are you against all indoctrination/education as well? Or just anti-racist indoctrination? What about anti-anti-semitism? Should your privileged little snowflake be "indoctrinated" in that?

Oh Gawd, Not This Crap

As good a date as any to mark as the beginning of the perpetual juvenilization of the American masses & the downfall of the American Empire. Kinda ironic, huh? Thanks a lot for hitting the masses' sweet spot w/ your big-budget remake of fucking Buck Rogers, George Lucas.Obviously a drug song.
Can't we sail away
On a lazy daisy petal
Over the rim of the hill?
Can't we sail away
On a little dream and settle
High on the crest of a thrill?
Plus that philandering dope addict Kennedy encouraged Lucas.

Monday, May 24, 2021

Fi-yuh!!

Morse Sends Telegram: "What Hath God Wrought?", Queen Victoria Is 202, Bob Dylan Is 80

And Duke Ellington Died.

Saturday, May 22, 2021

Good (Long Term) News For Once: The Age Of Breeder Scum Is Finally Over

Long Slide Looms for World Population, With Sweeping Ramifications

Fewer babies’ cries. More abandoned homes. Toward the middle of this century, as deaths start to exceed births, changes will come that are hard to fathom.

In Japan, where adult diapers now outsell ones for babies, municipalities have been consolidated as towns age and shrink.
I decided not to reproduce a loooong time ago; as usual, your pathetic species remains about 50 yrs. behind me. 

Just keep it in your pants, you fucking animals!

[The NYT; try an incognito window if their fucking fascist paywall interferes w/ your search for knowledge.]

Birmingham Bomber Convicted

Friday, May 21, 2021

Art In Action On The Street

"Lucky Lindy" Lands, Leopold & Loeb

Friday Flying Frolics

Compare & contrast: Your ancestors' tax dollars at work.Of non-aviation interest: Rustbucket U.S.S. Ozbourn (DD-846) replenishing from the Leyte while underway, at (0:06 - 0:35), (1:27 - 2:51), (3:22 - 4:15). Not the heaviest sea, but she sure do go up & down.Nicely ominous cello music, too.

Thursday, May 20, 2021

7-Eleven®/Marines®

1700-1701, Tuesday 18 May 2021, eastern side of Western Ave. between Sixth St. & Wilshire Bl.

World Of Trash

Your world & welcome to it.
This reporter's delicate sensibilities are more than offended. I don't know how much more of this world I can take.

Two Murders, One Killer Cop

Police Murder & Cover-Up

Hannah Knowles / Washington Post:
Body-cam video shows Louisiana troopers stunned, hit and dragged Black man before his death  —  At first, police told Ronald Greene's loved ones that he died in a car accident — plowing into a tree late one night in 2019 after driving past a traffic stop, according to a lawsuit filed by the man's family.

Explorer Christopher Columbus, Comedienne Gilda Radner Die

Today in HistoryToday in History for Tuesday, May 20thToday in History for Tuesday, May 20thThe Associated PressHighlights of this day in history: Charles Lindbergh begins his trans-Atlantic flight; Amelia Earhart starts her trek across the Atlantic; Freedom Riders attacked in the South; Explorer Christopher Columbus, comedienne Gilda Radner die. (May 20)[Notes:ANCHOR VOICE]May 20th, 1927: (AP Photos)(NAT of "Lucky Lindy" song)Aviator Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York's Long Island aboard the Spirit of Saint Louis.Some thirty-three hours later, Lindbergh lands in Paris --- becoming the first person to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean.1932:(AP Photos)Aviator Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland, Canada for Ireland --- becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.1961: (AP Photos)The Freedom Riders suffer more violence as they campaign against racial segregation in the South.This time, the civil rights activists are attacked by a white mob in Montgomery, Alabama. That prompts the Federal Government to send in U.S. Marshals to restore order --- and protect the activists.1506: (AP Photos)Christopher Columbus, the explorer whose trans-Atlantic voyages led to European coloniziation of the Americas, dies in Spain.And, 1989: (AP Photos)(SOT of Radner as Emily Litella)In Los Angeles, comedienne Gilda Radner --- an original cast member of TV's "Saturday Night Live" --- dies of ovarian cancer.She was 42.Today in History, May 20th --- ___ ___, The Associated Press.(****END****) ANCHOR VOICE:-------------------------Camille BohannonVIDEO PRODUCER:------------------------------Ray BassettVIDEO SOURCE:--------------------------VariousVIDEO APPROVAL:------------------------------Nick MooreVIDEO RESTRICTIONS:----------------------------------NoneSCRIPT/WIRE SOURCE:------------------------------------
Wing of Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis being lifted onto a boxcar.

Thursdays At The Troub

When I was running the Troubadour, there was this transition from the classic singer/songwriter Jackson Browne types to bands like Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys, and Fear. Those are just some that come to mind. Oh, and Adam Ant! The Fear fans wanted to 'crush' the Ants. These guys hated each other.

Jon Taffer

The path of apathy is the path to wisdom.
Doesn't mean shit to a tree.

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

CRIME OF THE CENTURY!!

Andrew Stiles / Washington Free Beacon:
SPOTTED: Socialist AOC's Tesla Parked Illegally Outside Whole Foods in Posh DC Neighborhood  —  Like most celebrities, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) doesn't always play by the rules.  Sources inform the Washington Free Beacon that the socialist congresswoman's white Tesla …
What inane bullshit. Go fuck yourself, Andrew Stiles.

Wailin' Weds.

It's Electric!

Marilyn, Malcolm & John

Obligatory.

Every Layout Needs One

  • Preiser HO 28140 Hostage Situation
Availability: Usually Ships in 2 to 3 Business Days
Current Stock Level:
Current Stock Level: 2
The Preiser 28140 Geiselnahme. ("Hostage-taking". Advertised as "Hostage Situation".) Really, Krauts?

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

CNN Dumbs It Down

"For Why"? Really, CNN?

Don't s'pose he writes the headlines, but is THE PO!NT here the one atop Cillizza's cranium?
Next wk. on CNN: "How Come Some Folks Still Ain't Getting Vaccinated"

A Modest Proposal

Howzabout no more fucking Cuomos or Giulianis in public life? This reporter is already, on general principle, embarrassed he's one-quarter Italian; these Two Families of New York Politics aren't helping one damn bit. Papist mother-fuckers.

Three Little Words:
"Commercial Sex Acts"

The skin crawls.

"Death From Above": Malcolm Gladwell Is A Murderous
War Crime-Endorsing Chump

Stop lying & omitting facts, Gladwell, you sack of Canadian crap.
... sly maliciousness and explosive vacuity: the two primary qualities of Gladwell’s oeuvre.
[...]
A skeptical reader may wonder: Why would Malcolm Gladwell, who seems to admire LeMay so much, talk at such great length about the lethality of LeMay’s Japanese firebombing? The answer lies in what this story leaves out. Mentioned only glancingly in Gladwell’s story are the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The omission allows for a stupid and classically Gladwell argument: that indiscriminate firebombing brought a swift end to the war, and its attendant philosophical innovations continue to envelop us in a blanket of security that has not been adequately appreciated.
[...]
In 1968, he [Lemay] would join forces with segregationist George Wallace as the vice-presidential candidate on his “American Independent Party” ticket, a fact literally relegated to a footnote in Gladwell’s book. This kind of omission is par for the course in The Bomber Mafia. While Gladwell constantly reminds the reader that the air force leadership was trying to wage more effective wars so as to end all wars, he cannot help but shove under the rug that which is inconvenient.
[The Baffler]