The Zingularity
Just another Freethought Blogs site
TPM — The Blaze, the conservative news site affiliated with Glenn Beck, flagged the comments made Monday by Richard Mack, identified as a former Arizona sheriff who had joined more than 1,000 other protesters alongside Cliven Bundy, who has been feuding with BLM over his use of federal land to graze his cattle.
“We were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front,” Mack said in a Fox News clip pulled by The Blaze. “If they are going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers.”
That sounds … familiar.
Wiki — After World War II, it was claimed by German SS general Gottlob Berger that there was a plan, proposed by the Luftwaffe and approved by Adolf Hitler, to set up special POW camps for captured airmen of the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces in large German cities, to act as human shields against their bombing raids.
One of the most famous uses of human shields occurred in Iraq in 1990, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait that precipitated the Gulf War of 1990-1991. Saddam Hussein’s government detained hundreds of citizens of Western countries who were in Iraq for use as human shields in an attempt to deter nations from participating in military operations against the country. A number of these hostages were filmed meeting Hussein, and kept with him to deter any targeted attacks, whilst others were held in or near military and industrial targets.
According to various accounts—including that of the American ambassador to the U.N., the Taliban used women and children from their own population as human shields against coalition forces in 2006, and 2007, and when the British attacked during August 2008 during the war in Afghanistan
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God hates rock-n-roll, just ask anyone over the age of 80 who lives in the great state of delusion. Proof? S/He has smited the great AC/DC … after more than 40 years of rocking: [Read more…]
One day the right will jump the shark. We’ll, it’s happened already, several times, but it’ll get worse until it gets better. Here’s the latest example, where someone tossed a shoe at Hillarty Clinton, and there has to be a Benghazi cover-up in there somewhere: [Read more…]
If rejecting the federal Medicaid expansion for people living in poverty was ‘awesome in evilness,’ this new scheme by Florida Republicans to deprive middle-class and poor voters their constitutionally mandated rights in the state’s largest population center is social sociopathy:
Think Progress — During the 2012 presidential election, voters reportedly waited on line for upwards of six hours. That wait alone is enough to deter would-be voters from going to the polls. But now residents in Florida’s most populous county will have another disincentive: they won’t be able to go to the bathroom.Earlier this year, the Miami-Dade County Elections Department quietly implemented a policy to close the bathrooms at all polling facilities, according to disability rights lawyer Marc Dubin. Dubin said the policy change was in “direct response” to an inquiry to the Elections Department about whether they had assessed accessibility of polling place bathrooms to those with disabilities.
These same polling places had six-hour lines in the last election, so you get the picture. A interesting evil feature here: there are laws, some part of the voting rights act, that require public polling places be accessible for the disabled. That applies to buildings and bathrooms, too. What these evil bastards have done is hijacked that reg to screw over everyone, justified on the paper-thin premise that it is fair: it’s fair because it makes bathrooms inaccessible for everyone, thus creating a level non-peeing field for handicapped and non-handicapped voters alike. Yeah. Stone cold evil clowns trying to rig elections in the favor of the super wealthy conservative rich.
When I first saw this, I tought for sure it had to be Onion-esque satire. I’m still not entirely sure. But it appears to be real. We have a petition that’s burning up the intertoobz on this sick scam here at Daily Kos.com.
So, I think I have a job and I wanted to take a moment and thank all of you who have helped keep me afloat through 2013, which I hope will soon be the toughest year of my adult life fading in the rearview mirror. This particular job is a network support role and involves large agencies. It requires an extensive background check, now ongoing. If I pass that and it doesn’t fall through, the start date will be April 28th. It shouldn’t interfere with blogging and I’ll be able to get back into a regular habit without feeling like I’m wasting time doing something fun; writing and bitching about anything and everything here on FTB and elsewhere.
I know some of you have suggested consulting or being self employed in some way. I’m interested in knowing more about that. For example, there’s a lot of these companies popping up that set up web stores for small and medium sized businesses, like Web.com or Host Gator. Some offer design and support for the web pages, others hosting, still others will sync up social media, provide SEO services (SEO does sound a bit saturated, but I really don’t know enough about the state of that art to say for sure) and run email lists, a few try to do all these things.
What got me interested? Earlier this year an old friend who runs a landscaping biz offered me a few bucks [Read more…]
On HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher last night a guest stated assertively, several times, that a tactical nuke is exclusively defined as a weapon designed to penetrate underground installations like a conventional bunker-buster. While there is no precise definition, the term generally refers to a nuclear device that 1) produces an explosive yield measured more in kilotons than megatons and 2) is designed for use on a fluid, relatively nearby battlefield as opposed to a more distant fixed target like a military base or a city.
The individual was, I believe, Duncan Hunter (R – CA), staunch member of the Dunning-Kruger wing of the GOP. A syndrome which seems to afflict more and more conservatives these days. Hunter made this blanket claim, shooting down any skepticism by other panelists, with apparently little knowledge of the colloquial use of the term tactical nuke. He did so in a rather dismissive, smug manner and went on to imply that, since he served as a 2nd Lt in the US Marine Corp in Iraq, his view on any foreign policy issue, presumably including strategic and tactical nuclear devices, was beyond question. Among those views is Hunter’s more infamous statements that war with Iran will become necessary and the US should use nuclear weapons in a “massive aerial bombing campaign” together with conventional explosives. [Read more…]
You might think I’m writing a check with that headline these blogg’n finger can’t cash. If so, you would be wrong! There really is such a report out and vaginas are not the only things being grown in vitro, or outside of the body, whatever the terminology might be. [Read more…]
Many a blogger has speculated vainly on the mysterious and often bizarre choice of guests on the network Sunday talk news programs. The two main ones being Meet the Press with David Gregory and This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Back in the days when I had a full-time job and couldn’t follow the fast-moving intrigues of the weekly news cycle, these shows were marginally useful and occasionally even entertaining. These days, as I wait for a phone call telling me I have or haven’t been hired for a network support role that would boost me back into the lower middle class, they’re worthless. By the time Sunday rolls around my cohorts and I have heard the latest partisan poutrages, talking points and counter talking points and obfuscations galore, which get regurgitated on Sunday morning verbatim, as if they were new and fresh and completely un-debunked six ways from, well, Sunday. [Read more…]