News The Morning News
posted by on August 5 at 7:45 AM
Farewell, Public Health: King County announces budget shortfall—not of $60 million, as previously estimated—but of $85 million.
Power Struggle: Obama and McCain spar over energy policies.
Guns Don’t Kill People: Guns fired by teenagers aiming at hikers mistaken for bears kill people.
Oregon Coast: Private plane crashes into vacation house on first day of two-week family reunion, killing three children inside, passenger and pilot.
Not Out of the Woods Yet: Weyerhaeuser posts third consecutive loss.
It’s Their Party: They can cry if they want to.
Well before Senators Barack Obama and John McCain rose to the top of their parties, a partisan shift was under way at the local and state level. For more than three years starting in 2005, there has been a reduction in the number of voters who register with the Republican Party and a rise among voters who affiliate with Democrats and, almost as often, with no party at all.
G n’ R: Gregiore and Rossi agree to four gubernatorial debates.
Guns and Roses: Tumultuous young love ends in Issaquah stabbing death.
Life and Death: Despite hopes that Mars could support life, soil tests reveal inhospitable toxin.
Standard and Poor: McCain campaign pushes comedy to break through Olympics, distributes Obama’s energy plan to reporters: tire-pressure gauges.
Machetes and Explosives: Chinese police shut off Internet in Kashgar after being attacked, 16 dead.
Bullets and Ballots: Bracing for Democratic convention, police “expressed concern about low-level chatter on Web sites frequented by white separatists who spew hate about Mr. Obama’s race and what they perceive as his liberal agenda.”
Barrel Chest: Crude oil prices drop after tropical storm bypasses offshore oil sites.
Willful Negligence: Freddie Mac chief executive ignored report in 2004 that “Lending crisis determined to attack inside the U.S.”
Graphic Example: Intel endeavors to produce chip that advances graphics.
Inside Report: Robert Novak is retiring to focus on his state-secret-leaking, vehicular-assaulting brain tumor.
Olympic kick-off week: Watercube!
Kelly O and Ari Spool give Fnarf can of Rize, Fnarf drink Rize, freak out, troll out, FNARF BECOME CLINTONSARMY!
CLINTONSARMY WILL NOT SUPPORT SPINE-LESS NO-BAMA AND WILL RE-DEFEAT HIM IN NOVEMBER!
And no, I don't feel like letting it go.
Why is Slog ignoring Obama's big speech on energy and the economy?
$1000 rebates to Americans funded by tax on oil profits -- immediate relief -- smart, savvy politics -- yay.
Goals and dollars and timelines for getting off oil, investing in alternatives, developing electric cars -- yay.
Talks about addiciton to oil being our no. 1 challenge -- yay.
Open to drilling and opening stratigic pterol reserve - meh -- but yes, he better innoculate himself on this shit. He's getting more Clintonian every week. 1.5 cheers.
And this is the much vaunted policy and substance we all say we want to talk about instead of celebrities, who said what and all that gossipy stuff.
MEanwhile there's also this John Edward thing brewing ..... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-stranahan/say-it-aint-so-john-why-p_b_115165.html
if true what a fucking liar and cheat--this is 100x more irresponsible than Billdawg as if true this stuff would've come out and lost the election if Johnboy got the nomination or even was VP.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video_log/2008/08/obamas_new_energy_for_america.html
Well this thread is off to a great start.
About three months ago I stayed at the house that was destroyed by the plane crash. Crazy.
While the evidence seems to be leaning more toward Mars being generally inhospitable to life - at least life as we understand it - the discovery of percolates is nevertheless exciting in that it means it may be easier to manufacture solid rocket fuel from available Martian resources; a definite advantage considering fuel represents one of the major weight components of a potential future manned Mars mission.
In the tire gauge article McCain says that if it were to come down to a dual between the 2 candidates "light sabers IS my weapon of choice." Where did this guy graduate from again?
From a gun control standpoint, this is a non-story. The boys were using hunting rifles -- the kind that are legal pretty much everywhere except Great Britain and Japan -- and the hiker was out during hunting season without a blaze orange marker.
This isn't to say the boys didn't screw up -- for one thing, they should have been carrying binoculars to check their target before firing -- but the accident itself is politically inert.
Who holds a family reunion that last two weeks? I'm usually sick of my family after a couple of hours.
I promise to triple the deficit.
And sell Washington to Red China.
Yes, Judah, I'm sure you can deflect every particle of responsibility from your gun-worshiping views by analyzing to death every particle of these boys' poor technique. Like gun nuts always do. But the fact remains that these boys took what a gun-loving culture gave them and committed murder. Accidental? Does that make the victims' families feel better?
"Oh, it was an accident, they didn't have the right kind of binoculars, you see, they should have gone with high-end Pentax glass, nitrogen purged, or maybe the Ziess Victory T* FL series. What kind of shell was it that tore apart your mother's face?"
Because that's what gun nuts always want to talk about: their technology. It insulates them from feeling. They also like to talk about how guns made America, the Wild West and other popular lies about our history. It all serves the same purpose; to protect themselves from knowing what they have done.
That Intel article was fucking awful.
"Intel Corp. released details Monday of a new semiconductor design codenamed "Larrabee" that will lead to a series of powerful chips that contain multiple processors, or electronic brains."
Guh.
fnarf, i wuv you! please say you'll be at slog happy, please please please.
spoken like a true whiner, judah.
Right on, Fnarf.
One irony is that if you want to require taking advantage of certain kinds of technology, like trigger locks, then the gun nuts cry.
They are saying that every Deadeye Dick should have done X, Y, and Z, but that under no circumstances can we require by law that they do X, Y, and Z.
Also, hunting bears is murder.
Can someone please tell me WHY AREN'T THE BEAR "HUNTERS" being charged with murder?
WHY ?
Why?
help... I don't get it.
THANKS!
I don't particularly know Judah's history on gun issues, but taken by itself, his comment @8 is not unreasonable.
Fnarf @11 mocks discussion of "the right kind of binoculars," but the assertion was just that the teens should have had binoculars at all. Even that is over-specific, though. The fundamental issue, for shooting under any conditions, is know what the hell you're aiming at before you shoot (or else don't shoot).
Fnarf is right that absence of malice doesn't help the victim or his family. The teens fucked up grievously.
Pointing out the shooter's responsibility is not a defense against gun control arguments. To the contrary, it illustrates the need to impose serious competency requirements--classroom and practical instruction emphasizing responsibility and safety, government certification of instructors and training facilities, non-joke written and practical testing not conducted by the trainers, and regular retesting, with training and testing at the prospective owner's expense with no guarantee of passing. Most importantly, make it demanding, like flight training.
Doing this will not only sharply reduce gun ownership in general; it will deter many wannabe Rambos and convert a few determined Rambos into responsible owners.
Require a permit just to begin training, and then you have ample time for thorough background checks before even issuing a license. Leave purchase waiting periods in place, and have every purchase trigger an update of the background check, along with license renewals.
As a gun enthusiast myself, I'd welcome the assurance of fewer armed idiots and happily bear the expense and burden.
elenchos @14, you've put your finger on my main complaint about NRA ideologues.
An unloaded firearm in a safe can be accessed and loaded in less than a minute. If you don't have that much time, then you're in exactly the kind of situation that tends to result in gun owners being shot with their own weapons.
(Not to mention if it's the middle of the night, you really don't want your hands on a firearm if you aren't clearheaded enough to successfully get your safe open and a trigger lock off.)
My family has a house about 5 blocks away from the house that got hit in Gearhart. We have renters staying there now and they said that the whole house shook so hard they thought they were in an earthquake and they looked out at the ocean, because they were sure they were about to witness a tsunami! What a tragedy. It freaks me out! And @5: WOW! That is creepy! More things for me to worry about. Oh well, my worry pales in comparison to the actual harm done to those people in the house and in the plane. RIP people. And I hope the victims can heal.
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