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Monday, March 4, 2013

News Morning News: A Cure for HIV, a Fake Bishop, and Some Cat-Sized Rats

Posted by Anna Minard on Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 10:08 AM

Toddler Appears to Be Cured of HIV: The baby in Mississippi contracted HIV at birth and was given high doses of antiretrovirals. It's a "functional cure," meaning there are still trace amounts of the virus in the baby's system, but this is a really, really big deal.

Two Men Found Dead in Car in South Seattle: SPD says a sergeant patrolling the New Holly neighborhood discovered the two men this morning and that both men had been shot in the head. The investigation is ongoing.

Who Is Sequestration Hurting? Napolitano says airline passengers. Eli says the poor.

Gregoire Not Named EPA Chief: President Barack Obama rounded out his new cabinet by naming veteran Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy to replace outgoing EPA chief Lisa Jackson. Former Washington Governor Christine Gregoire had been rumored a top candidate for both EPA and Secretary of the Interior, but ended up getting squat in Obama's second administration.

Controversy in Seattle Public Schools Over Curriculum on Race and Gender: I reported about the curriculum suspension this weekend.

You're Still a Badass, Lauren Silberman: The first female kicker to ever participate in NFL tryouts had to drop out after only two kicks because of an aggravated leg problem. "I tried staying off [my injured leg] and waited for today," Silberman said. "I didn't even take kicks in warm-ups. It's pretty hard to know that you'll be in pain and I wanted to work through it and I certainly tried to, but I just couldn't do it today."

"Batman" Solves Crime, Disappears: West Yorkshire Police said, "We do not know the identity of the man dressed as Batman and do not know if he is friends with the man who was handed in."

Cat-Sized Rats! Snipers have been dispatched to take care of Tehran's 11-pound rats because apparently poison isn't killing them.

They're Killing Us: "More than half of mass shooters used assault weapons and high-capacity magazines," reports Mother Jones, complete with a handily horrifying graph.

Fake Bishop Tries to Sneak into Vatican Meeting: There has to be a good joke here! Come on, people. Goldy's brainstorming right now—"Something about robes?" Help him out in comments.

Hope Your Work Week is a Great Adventure: Sorry, that's stupid. I just can't think of another excuse to post this AWESOME theme song as your diverting morning video.

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Did MotherFucker Jones point out what a teeny tiny percentage of murders are by "mass shooters"?

asswipe.

Posted by how about a teeny tiny bit of handily horrifying truth? on March 4, 2013 at 10:17 AM

on the issue of Gregoire/Obama, will Eric Holder 'retire' soon? (we can only hope)

Posted by theophrastus on March 4, 2013 at 10:24 AM

Please don't miss Larissa McFarquhar's incredible work in the New Yorker, "Requiem for a Dream":

He could not deal with people talking about him. It’s taken me some time since he died to get used to talking about him because I was under such strict instructions not to. But he fucked up something really major. He made a really dumb, bad decision. And it’s my right now to ignore all the other things that I thought were dumb, too. Maybe if I hadn’t felt I couldn’t talk about him to other people this wouldn’t have happened. I’m not going to let those preferences that led, in one way or another, to him killing himself guide my life anymore. I reject them.
Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, Aaron Swartz’s girlfriend

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/…

Posted by gloomy gus on March 4, 2013 at 10:31 AM

The fake Bishop was discovered when he declined a gift bag with a blow-up baby doll, Little Debbie snack cakes and premixed Shirley Temples.

Posted by Pope Peabrain on March 4, 2013 at 10:32 AM

Did Chris "Don't Call Me Christine" Gregoire piss off someone at ObamaCo? Did her one resume item, the Tobacco settlement, make so many GOP senatorial enemies that she can never be confirmed for a cabinet post? Maybe an endorsement 5 years ago, in the middle of a forgettable governorship, doesn't mean as much as she thought it would.

Posted by Sir Vic on March 4, 2013 at 11:19 AM

If you define an "assault weapon" as just about any semi-automatic gun, no ban ever has a chance of being passed.

If you move the capacity requirement up a touch, you will actually rule out the vast majority of hunting rifles, handguns, and shotguns, which is supposed to be the point of the ban. It only bans the high capacity semi-automatics rifles that everyone pictures when they think "assault weapon." It may be politically feasible then, after it is watered down by congress.

I do think it is very funny that they considered bolt action rifles as assault weapons in a previous analysis, as they themselves point out. I mean, at that point, anything is an assault weapon.

Posted by Theodore Gorath on March 4, 2013 at 11:22 AM

Mass Shooters' Weapons, 1982-2012
That's 30 years.

They investigated 62 mass shootings in those 30 years.
So that is barely over 2 per year for the last 30 years.
In a nation of 300 million people.

Of their 143 weapons ... 48 (not really, only 20) would have been outlawed by the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013.
20 assault weapons, across 14 mass-shooting cases
So 20 shootings over 30 years.
In a nation of 300 million people.
With about 100 million guns.

Statistically insignificant.

Posted by fairly.unbalanced on March 4, 2013 at 11:43 AM

Change that to "So 14 shootings over 30 years."

Posted by fairly.unbalanced on March 4, 2013 at 11:44 AM

It's "The Bishop" ... (cue Monthy Python music)

Posted by Will in Seattle

on March 4, 2013 at 11:49 AM

I only made it through line one of the data set - Somehow, having a semi-automatic shotgun in the trunk of the car (unused) makes for two "assault weapons" for the Sandy Hook shooting.

If some of the shooters in mass killings owned chainsaws, should we not include them in weapons used?

Most modern handguns have high capacity magazines. So, oddly enough, they appear as 'frequently used'.

But here's the best quote, "Feinstein's Assault Weapons Ban of 2013 isn't just about mass shootings, of course. By far the most common weapons used in these cases are semiautomatic handguns—the type of weapon also at the heart of the daily gun violence plaguing American communities." What??? Handguns??? Not "Assault weapons"???

Posted by randoma on March 4, 2013 at 11:54 AM

Three cheers for an experienced-based appointment for the EPA, instead of a political appointment.

I'm still disappointed that Michael J. Morell isn't CIA director.

Posted by madcap on March 4, 2013 at 11:56 AM

Studies show that price increases for semi-automatic assault weapons reflect public moods and fears about social instability. According to author James Barr, in many countries, "The Kalashnikov index is effectively a futures market for violence." More than 80m AK-47s circulate between countries in predictable patterns that are associated with social instability.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/…

Is the 2nd amendment really design to ensure the private right to a killing weapon for men who are too chicken actually join the military?

Posted by biffp on March 4, 2013 at 12:00 PM

What @6 said.

The bill banned all rifles and pistols with "threaded barrels." I assume that means a rifled barrel?

That's pretty much every gun in existence. Even a lot of shotguns have rifled barrels.

There's no chance whatsoever of that bill passing.

Posted by Urgutha Forka on March 4, 2013 at 12:12 PM

Yes, it's the poor - including a lot of the families of military - who will suffer the most in this sequestration nonsense. And it's the middle class who will pay for the consequences of the poor suffering.. But it's the celebrities who will tweet about how they've been delayed at an airport that will get the attention.

Posted by Catalina Vel-DuRay

on March 4, 2013 at 12:24 PM

@13
"The bill banned all rifles and pistols with 'threaded barrels.' I assume that means a rifled barrel?"

I took it to mean a barrel with threads on the outside at the end to enable a flash suppressor or "silencer" or such to be screwed on later.

Posted by fairly.unbalanced on March 4, 2013 at 12:36 PM

@15,

Ah, yes, I think you're right.

Posted by Urgutha Forka on March 4, 2013 at 12:56 PM

i need something to scale those rats against. like a starbucks cup or a regular size rat.

Posted by Max Solomon on March 4, 2013 at 3:19 PM

Those old Hobbit and LotR movies are weird, and so is the animation style they used. I wish someone had told the director that it's okay to have people stand still occasionally (and it means less work for the animators). It's more weird to have the characters tottering and fidgeting every other second, as they did.

Posted by Knat on March 4, 2013 at 8:40 PM