War Handwavium

For those who can read pseudocode: 

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     keep_feet_to_fire(); 

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 For those who prefer a more visceral explanation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xnk9aqih8o

The incident took place in Anaheim, California. Orange County. The story is here:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/martinez-north-officer-2208731-police-running

 To sum up:

A police officer running after a group of suspected burglars early Tuesday shot and killed an innocent 20-year-old man (Julian Alexander ) who had come outside to investigate the noise, police said.

Julian was a 20 year old black male. Here’s a picture from the police conference:

http://www.ocregister.com/slideshow/martinez-north-officer-2208731-police-running?pos=0

Police Chief John Welter is a white dude, Special Operations Officer Joe Reiss is a white dude, and Captain Joe Vargas is a white dude, and they say the police will have to “investigate” what really happened.

(Welter) said the officer would be interviewed to determine what commands he gave to Alexander before shots were fired.

Uh, hello??? If a cop shouts “Halt!” and the guy doesn’t comply, that isn’t a free pass to put a cap in his ass. Or two in the chest. The “commands” that this cop shouted are irrelevant to whether Julian was a threat and whether the shooting qualifies as self-defense or as improper use of deadly force.

Witnesses say a broomstick was on the ground next to Julian after the shooting, which still is not a free pass to a claim of self-defense. Julian would have to be threatening the officer and the officer’s life would have to be in immediate danger for the incident to qualify as self defense.  The family said that Julian may have heard the burgulars running around outside and that Julian may have gone out to defend his pregnant wife.

I’ll bet the farm that Julian did NOT go outside to attack a random police officer.

To quote “The Clash”,

You have the right not to be killed. Murder is a CRIME! Unless it was done by a Policeman

http://lyricwiki.org/The_Clash:Know_Your_Rights

Update: All (yes, all) police firearms should have a guncamera mounted to them. Not only would it immediately answer questions as to what exactly happened when police shoot an innocent person, but it would also serve as far more objective and jury-swaying proof in cases where the police are involved in a shootout with violent criminals. The cost of the cameras would quickly pay for themselves by reducing court costs in convicting real criminals. Cops submit the recordings to the District Attorney, the DA shows it to the accused, the judge, and a jury, and the accused is quickly convicted. Long and expensive court cases hinging on who shot first would be greatly reduced.

 http://wcbstv.com/local/police.handgun.cameras.2.722036.html 

In last nights final debate, John McCain channelled Richard Nixon and told Obama “I am not a crook.” OK, he said “I am not George Bush”, but, whatever. McCain saying he’s not the McSame as George Bush is about as absurd as Nixon declaring he is not a crook.

Obama responded by pointing out that its hard to tell the difference between the policies of Bush versus McCain because they keep lining up. McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time. McCain has been proud of this fact. McCain repeatedly voted for Bush’s budgets. He voted to invade Iraq. He has an entire decades-long history of voting for deregulating the markets. But he’s not Bush?

OK, I suppose we are talking about two different flesh and blood bodies here, so they can’t be the same. And I doubt McCain is Bush’s supervillian secret identity. Well, I know they aren’t because we keep seeing them together. Hugging. Kissing. An occasional tush grab. GET A ROOM YOU TWO!

Anyway, in light of this rather surreal statement, I give you the original I am not what I obviously am :

Also, under the category of WTF?

 The nation straddled with all the damage that comes from failure to win a long and bloody war.

 The country spiraling into economic ruin.

A war veteran turned national leader enters the scene and doesn’t offer solutions but rather looks for someone to blame.

The population, wanting to blame someone for their troubles rather than accept their own contribution to national ruin, eat it up.

McCain in 2008?

How about Hitler in 1933.

I’m not going to go into the specifics of McCain’s flame-baiting and trollery, but rather point you to Glen Greenwald who has a fairly good write up here:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/10/09/balz/index.html

Calling Obama a “terrorist”, saying he is funded by “secret arab sources”, saying he ”hates the troops”, saying he “hates America”. These are the tactics of John McCain and Sarah Palin and the facists who would do anything, including inciting a nation to riot over an innocent man, to get McCain into the White House.  Right wing “news” channels ponder if Obama and his wife are committing some sort of secret Terrorist Fist Jab. Right-wing fringe-cakes protest “baby-murdering muslims for president”. No, really.

After WW1, Germany was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles, which blamed Germany entirely for the war, forced Germany to pay massive reparations, make substantial territorial concessions, disarm militarily. In the ensuing economic ruin and military ineffectiveness, Hitler stepped in, blamed all of Germany’s problems on scapegoats to the point that German’s were in no way responsible for its current state of ruin, promised to rebuild Germany’s weakened military, and promised an empire that would last a thousand years.

McCain’s latest tactic is to ask “Who is the real Obama?” and then allow the fascists in his audience answer the question for him. Here’s a clip where McCain asks the question and someone in his audience yells “Terrorist!”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buyVS9fRqkw

Note that McCain didn’t correct the racist pig on this outburst. This is exactly the response McCain wants. McCain can’t come out and say “here’s the hard evidence that Obama is a Terrorist” because Obama isn’t a terrorist and McCain doesn’t have any evidence. He can’t give specifics without lying. Instead, McCain leads people down the road of generalities and scapegoating, points people in the direction of finding someone to blame rather than offering solutions, and then drops Obama’s name.

America is spiraling down into economic ruin. Our military is stretched so thin that we could do nothing when Russian invaded Georgia. We’ve been bogged down in a war in Iraq that has no end in sight. McCain refuses to accept an 18 month deadline for withdrawal because he knows 18 months isn’t enough for the total victory. McCain says the reason we haven’t won the war is because we were betrayed from the inside. Obama voted against funding troops, McCain points out without mentioning his own votes against troop funding.

McCain will tell you that we haven’t won the war because we have been stabbed in the back by people like Obama.

This is McCain’s campaign: An appeal to people’s baser desire to avoid responsibility for the damage their own actions have caused themselves and their country. An attempt to demonize and scapegoat people like Obama who were pointing out the foolishness of invading Iraq from the beginning, who have been calling attention to the problems of complete deregulation of the capitalist markets.

McCain wants you to know it isn’t your fault that we have global warming, even if you own a fleet of SUV’s. No, it’s Obama’s fault because he’s a terrorist funded by Arabs. McCain wants you to know that it isn’t your fault that we’re stuck in Iraq, even though you were beating your chests to invade in March of 2003. No, it’s Obama’s fault because Obama voted against funding the troops in 2008 and hates America. McCain wants you to know that it isn’t your fault that Wall Street has collapsed, even if you are a devout worshipper of the Invisible Hand of Capitalism and even if you howled against restrictions on corporations. No, it’s Obama’s fault because Obama is a sleeper agent for muslim terrorists.

This is McCain’s Big Lie.

All we need now is a October Surprise and watch the fascists try to blame it on Obama.

update: When the overall lies are so big, the little ones go by without so much as a “Say what?” After the Troopergate report finally came out, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said: ” absolutely no wrongdoing found in the report … no violations of any kinds of laws or ethics rules.” Palin said she was “cleared of any legal wrongdoing … any hint of any kind of unethical activity there.”

 For those not keeping score, I refer you to “Finding Number One” of the report, which says “Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alask Executive Branch Ethics Act.”

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/10/12/davis/index.html 

If you grew up in the US, you probably have heard of something called the “Boston Massacre”. But you might not know the details. So, an abbreviated history lesson:

 In October 1, 1768, British troops entered the colonial city of Boston to occupy it and quell the unrest that was brewing there as a result of unpopular British taxes on the colonies. On March 5, 1770, it all started when a young wig-maker’s apprentice, Edward Gerrish, went to a British post to complain to Captain Lieutenant John Goldfinch that he owed the wigmaker money. Goldfinch ignored him. Gerrish left and returned a couple hours later with a group of people and continued his complaint. Some of the people with Gerrish started throwing snowballs at Goldfinch. At this point, a British soldier named Private White challenged the colonists. Insults were exchanged. White strikes Gerrish on the side of the head with his musket. This escalated the situation, and the group of colonists grew to several hundred people.

Meanwhile, the nearby Main Guard position was manned by Captain Thomas Preston. Preston had been watching the situation escalate and eventually sent between 8 and 12 British soldiers, including Private Hugh Montgomery, with muskets and fixed bayonets to relieve White. When these dozen British soldiers reached White, they became pinned in by the several hundred colonists and a standoff emerged. The colonists were shouting at the British soldiers, shouting insults and shouting “fire!” to goad them into attacking.

A colonist struck Private Mongomery with a club. Montgomery fell to the ground, got up, shouted “Damn you, fire!”, and then fired his musket into the crowd.

A moment later the rest of the troops fired into the crowd. Eleven colonists were hit. Three died at the scene. Two would die from their wounds later.

A colonist, possibly Samual Adams, wrote up a one page pamphlet describing what had happened and distributed to the public. This is the headline:

THE HORRID MASSACRE IN BOSTON, PERPETRATED IN THE EVENING OF THE FIFTH DAY OF MARCH, 1770, BY SOLDIERS OF THE TWENTY-NINTH REGIMENT WHICH WITH THE FOURTEENTH REGIMENT WERE THEN QUARTERED THERE; WITH SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE OF THINGS PRIOR TO THAT CATASTROPHE

The “Boston Massacre” galvanized many of the colonists against British rule. Two hundred fifty years later, many Americans know of the “Boston Massacre” between British and Colonists and know it was one of the sparks that led to the Revolutionary War.

Right?

OK. Now. Fast-forward to August 22, 2008. The US is occupying Afghanistan in it’s pursuit of the Bin Laden. US forces call in an airstrike on a village named Azizabad because they believe there are Taliban forces there. The American air strike ends up killing thirty Afghan civilians, including women and children. The Afghan government claims about 90 civilians were killed. American military forces originally claim that a “handful” of civilians were killed.

What do you think is going to happen?

Do you think the Afghan people will react any differently to a foreign occupying army killing their own civilian people than the colonists in the New World reacted to British soldiers killing civilians in Boston?

 source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/washington/08inquiry.html

Oh, for the love of gaaawwwd.

 McCain loves to lie. Yet again, he said during the second debate that Obama voted 94 times to raise taxes. This count includes repetitive votes as well as votes to cut taxes for the middle class while raising them on the rich. HORRORS!

An analysis by factcheck.org found that 23 of the votes were for measures that would have produced no tax increase at all, seven were in favor of measures that would have lowered taxes for many, 11 would have increased taxes on only those making more than $1 million a year. 

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says that 81.3 percent of all American workers and families would see a tax cut.

John McCain: shut your lying pie hole. Your scaremongering using repeated and disproven lies disqualifies you from ever calling yourself part of the “Straighttalk Express”.

Weirdest twist of the debate?

John McCain is repeatedly “incredulous” that Obama would ANNOUNCE THAT OBAMA WOULD ATTACK AL QUEDA IN PAKISTAN.

Never mind the simple fact that McCain said he would do exactly the same thing in an October 2007 interview in “Military Times”. That’s simple political bullshit.

 No, what’s weird about it is McCain tried to say Obama was being “irresponsible” because such an announcement would “telegraph his punches”. Er…. what??? In trying to cast himself as the “military expert”, McCain came off as a complete nincompoop.

If someone were to “telegraph their punch” with regard to mililtary action in Pakistan, they would announce that US forces will be bombing targets at longitude xxx, latitude yyy, at zero-five-hundred hours tomorrow. This would then let Al Queda know that they need to bug the hell out of that particular coordinate, and that they’ve got a little over five hours to do it.

Saying “We will attack Al Queda in Pakistan if we have actionable intelligence” isn’t giving Al Queda any actionable intelligence itself. They can’t bug out of any particular potential target. They can’t evacuate from one place and move to another because they don’t know what the target is or when it’s going to be hit.

If anything, announcing that Al Queda in Pakistan are valid targets might actually cause Al Queda folks to become panicky. They might expend extra resources keeping their location secret and changing locations, and they might end up making their location accidentally known because they keep moving it.

Either McCain knows all this and is simply lying to try and make himself look like the “expert”, or McCain doesn’t know this and… well, then he isn’t the military expert he claims to be.

That McCain announced he’d do the exact same thing in the “Military Times” interview says McCain is a lying asshole.

The vice presidential debate proves that Palin will make a great vice president… as long as being vice president means you don’t have to deal with any issues that you haven’t memorized a canned response to.

 Palin said she wasn’t going to answer every question, and said so with pride, trying to frame her attitude as being a maverick. But really what it meant was that since bombing at the velvet glove interview with Katie Couric, Palin was coached on several talking points to make during the VP debate, and she wanted to make those points whether they related to any question or not. At times she sounded robotic.

This might explain why the McCain-Palin ticket is so adamant about meeting foreign leaders with preconditions. Palin would want a precondition to be that the foreign leader not ask any question that she hasn’t already been coached on.

Favorite part of the debate? Palin said that Obama voted such and such a way. Biden replied by pointing out several votes by McCain and how McCain was no different than Bush. Palin then turned around and said “There you go, Joe, talking about the past again.” Not a moment earlier, Palin had been talking about the past, about Obama’s voting record. When Biden came back with a truckload of facts that showed that McCain was no different than Bush, Palin turned talking about the past being “backward looking”. Palin knows how to shovel the bullshit, that’s for sure.

This double standard to history became comical when the debate started talking about global warming. The moderator asked about global warming and what caused it. Palin said she didn’t want to focus on what caused global warming. She admitted that some of it was PROBABALY caused by man, but she didn’t want to get into a debate about this or that specific cause. She wanted to focus on fixing the problem. Biden correctly pointed out the fundamental problem with that attitude: How the hell do you solve a problem if you refuse to admit what is causing the problem?

 You don’t.

Remember, Palin is a young earth creationist who thinks the world was created 6,000 years ago and thinks that dinosaurs and mankind coexisted on the planet. Thinking about the past in any objective intelligent manner isn’t her strong point.

Spookiest moment of the debate? Palin saying that she would like to see her role as Vice President expanded. During the Katie Couric interview, Palin said the only thing Dick Cheney had done wrong in the last 8 years was shoot his friend in the face, and that was an accident, and people were blowing it all out of proportion. Biden said straight out that Cheney was the worst vice president in history. And the reasons why boil down to Cheney taking the office of vice presidency to being part of the executive as well as legislative branches, removing an important separation of power, an important check and balance, built into the Constitution. Palin likes Cheney’s attempts to rewrite the Constitution.  Which means she intends to continue Cheney’s power grab, while McCain continues Bush’s administration.

If anyone doubted that the McCain/Palin ticket was anything other than four more years of Bush/Cheney, that should have clarified it for them right there.

Most satisfying moment? Palin had called McCain a “maverick” for the umpteenth time during the debate. Biden called bullshit. Biden goes on a quick rant that dumped a truckload of facts on just how un-maverick McCain really is. McCain voted for 4 out of 5 of Bush’s budgets. McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time over the last 8 years. McCain voted consistently for taxes on the middle class and tax breaks for corporations. McCain voted for the war. McCain said Iraq would be easy and short.   This might have been where Palin came in and said “there you go, Joe, playing the blame game.” John McCain is little more than an angry, aged clone of George W. Bush.

 Once again, the Straight Talk Express balks at personal responsibility when it points out the mistakes of John McCain. McCain is perfectly fine with wanting to fire the chairman of the SEC, even though a president doesn’t have that authority. McCain loves to play lip service to how he’d fight earmarks by making individuals from congress publicly accountable for pushing an earmark. But McCain is nothing but a rat when called to account for his own actions. That’s in the past, he says (or Palin says), that’s the blame game.

Horseshit.

Palin said that Obama refuses to admit the surge worked? Hey, Palin, you’re buddy McCain refuses to acknowledge that he voted for invading Iraq and told the American public we’d be out in a couple weeks.  Accountability my ass. You were coached on a talking point and you spewed it out from rote memorization without any awareness of the full context of what you were saying.

Most surreal moment? Palin said that there’s greed on wall street and the government needs to provide oversight to protect the American people from greedy and corrupt people on Wall Street, and that McCain/Palin is the ticket to do it. Uh…. WHAT???? McCain has a history spanning twenty-some years as a senator consistently calling for DEREGULATION. How the hell is McCain suddenly the government-oversight expert? Since Palin probably doesn’t know that fact about McCain’s voting history (it would be more of the blame game after all), she managed to say that with a straight face. I on the other hand, ended up choking on my Mountain Dew when I heard her say it.

Most avoided fact? Palin was Mayor of Wassilla, population of 7,000 people at the time. Palin is curently Governor of Alaska, population 600,000. It ranks 47 out of 50 states in terms of population. Rhode Island has twice as many people as Alaska. And she wants to be Vice President of three hundred million people?

Palin: Excellent rote memorization. Zero understanding. A Cheney wanna-be. And absolutely no concept of history.

 In short, Palin fails the Turing Test.

update: crapanator! This just in. Palin called herself a small business owner during the debate and someone did some fact checking on that. Apparently, Palin’s “business experience” consists of owning a car-wash that never washed any cars and owning a marketing business that never made any money. source

Update Update: you just can’t make this shit up. Palin who’s been harping about Obama’s “connections” to Ayers and the Weather Underground is pretty lame. Obama and Ayers were on the board of Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty foundation. Obama was a member from 1992 till 2002. Ayers was a member from 1999 to 2002.  The board met once every three months, for one day each meeting, to decide on grants to help alleviate poverty in the Chicago area. The Weather Underground was a radical group that operated from 1969 till about 1973 protesting the Vietnam War. Obama was 10 years old at that time.

Meanwhile, Palin’s HUSBAND was a member of the Alaska Independence Party (AIG), you know, that group that wanted Alaska to secede from the US? Well, the AIG was founded by a man named Joe Volger. Joe’s take on the US government? Armed insurrection.  Volger appeared before the United Nations in 1993 to denounce United States “tyranny” before the entire world and to demand Alaska’s freedom. He managed to get to speak to the UN because he had persuaded IRAN to sponsor his resolution. Palin gave AIG a shout out earlier in 2008 as govornor of Alaska, telling AIG “keep up the good work” and “god bless you”.

While Palin wants you to believe that Obama’s work on an anti-poverty foundation in the 90′s somehow connects him with the actions of extremists in the 70′s, actions that took place when Obama was all of ten years old, what Palin does NOT want you to know is that her HUSBAND was a member of the AIG for seven years, a group founded on the principles of armed insurection against the federal government and a group willing to work with IRAN just so it could denounce the US. source

This video makes it clear that Palin and her husband have been active in AIG in recent years including up until 2008. It also gives you a taste of what AIG’s political positions are.