Mrebo

The power to stop time would be good. I lean toward wanting invisibility or shape-shifting abilities, which are more cool than useful.

This is the time I think about all the creative things I should have been doing. Or find a good book.

I should be up at 7:30. Think I can push the week away if I just stay up later…

1:13 AM

CatBus said:

yhwx said:

https://twitter.com/samswey/status/967068790814134272

25 fatal school shootings since Columbine. How did each shooting come to an end? A thread. (1/x) https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/02/15/fox-news-anchor-shepard-smith-lists-all-25-fatal-school-shootings-since-columbine/23362465/#slide=ad%23fullscreen

https://twitter.com/samswey/status/967090653011292160

Some of the common themes:
-many shootings happened quickly and ended in suicide
-unarmed school staff de-escalated or subdued shooter in many cases
-in many of these cases school police were on campus. None stopped the shooting

Actually I’m glad you posted this for a different reason. We’ve been talking on and off about suicides and one angle that doesn’t get a lot of discussion is that many mass shootings are also planned as suicides. World’s shittiest suicides, sure, but suicides nonetheless. Presumably some policies designed to prevent suicides would also have an effect on mass shootings.

The decision to take only one’s own life strikes me as very different from murdering others followed by suicide.

A policy designed to address mental health issues may well prevent murders and suicides. Despair can be a common root of both conditions.

Hello. Sunday night is the most difficult. The start of work again.

The Polish cow has died.

CatBus said:

Mrebo said:

CatBus said:

TV’s Frink said:

Can you give me the Clif Bar Notes?

Basically slow-ass or no-ass response times. Hard to say at this point how much the “resource officer” (school security guard) on site added to the confusion by what he did or didn’t communicate to the other officers, but clearly there was a bit of “Wait outside because nobody knows WTF is happening” going on there. The sheriff in this case seems to be IMO overly reluctant to call any fault other than on the resource officer until the investigation is complete. It’s pretty clear the initial officers on the scene weren’t following any sort of plan, and that’s a problem. Whether anyone other than the resource officer had the capability to actually reduce the fatalities is unknown and probably unlikely, but slow response times even beyond the point at which they could have prevented anything really do not help paint a picture of a healthy law enforcement presence.

As for the red flag angle, the police are very limited in what they can do when no crime has actually been committed, and the Sheriff manages to explain that really quite badly. “Imminent” is a high legal hurdle – involuntary commitment is probably the only way the existing legal system could have realistically stopped this, and while I’d be easily persuaded that Nazism alone is a dangerous mental illness, I’m not the one that would need to be convinced for involuntary commitment to work (this is also a high legal hurdle). I don’t know if the existing legal system could have stopped this particular attack, but it’s very clear that it did not. Which is why people are so interested in changing laws as a result.

Agree on your impressions. The slow response times might have mattered if not for stopping the shooter then in getting medical care to the people who needed it (as Tapper suggested). Along with other questions/answers, it helped paint a picture of a police department that is not engaged and proactive as it should be.

The Sheriff did make a mess of trying to explain the legal standard. Still “imminent” action is not necessarily required. There is a Florida statute (that the sheriff seems to have had in mind) that states:

“Credible threat” means a verbal or nonverbal threat, or a combination of the two, including threats delivered by electronic communication or implied by a pattern of conduct, which places the person who is the target of the threat in reasonable fear for his or her safety or the safety of his or her family members or individuals closely associated with the person, and which is made with the apparent ability to carry out the threat to cause such harm. It is not necessary to prove that the person making the threat had the intent to actually carry out the threat. The present incarceration of the person making the threat is not a bar to prosecution under this section.

Yeah, the problem is the words “credible” and “reasonable”. There’s a lot of state specific case law behind stuff like that and frankly I don’t know anything about it. Imminent is actually more straightforward to argue – if it meets that standard.

You don’t have to worry about the word “credible” in that statute because it is merely the moniker given to the described crime. It doesn’t have an independent meaning. The “reasonable fear” standard is common enough. Whether any of Cruz’s threats were sufficient to create “reasonable fear” is something that needs a closer look. But if we are looking for a statute that seems to cover what we have heard about Cruz this seems like a pretty good one.

CatBus said:

TV’s Frink said:

Can you give me the Clif Bar Notes?

Basically slow-ass or no-ass response times. Hard to say at this point how much the “resource officer” (school security guard) on site added to the confusion by what he did or didn’t communicate to the other officers, but clearly there was a bit of “Wait outside because nobody knows WTF is happening” going on there. The sheriff in this case seems to be IMO overly reluctant to call any fault other than on the resource officer until the investigation is complete. It’s pretty clear the initial officers on the scene weren’t following any sort of plan, and that’s a problem. Whether anyone other than the resource officer had the capability to actually reduce the fatalities is unknown and probably unlikely, but slow response times even beyond the point at which they could have prevented anything really do not help paint a picture of a healthy law enforcement presence.

As for the red flag angle, the police are very limited in what they can do when no crime has actually been committed, and the Sheriff manages to explain that really quite badly. “Imminent” is a high legal hurdle – involuntary commitment is probably the only way the existing legal system could have realistically stopped this, and while I’d be easily persuaded that Nazism alone is a dangerous mental illness, I’m not the one that would need to be convinced for involuntary commitment to work (this is also a high legal hurdle). I don’t know if the existing legal system could have stopped this particular attack, but it’s very clear that it did not. Which is why people are so interested in changing laws as a result.

Agree on your impressions. The slow response times might have mattered if not for stopping the shooter then in getting medical care to the people who needed it (as Tapper suggested). Along with other questions/answers, it helped paint a picture of a police department that is not engaged and proactive as it should be.

The Sheriff did make a mess of trying to explain the legal standard. Still “imminent” action is not necessarily required. There is a Florida statute (that the sheriff seems to have had in mind) that states:

“Credible threat” means a verbal or nonverbal threat, or a combination of the two, including threats delivered by electronic communication or implied by a pattern of conduct, which places the person who is the target of the threat in reasonable fear for his or her safety or the safety of his or her family members or individuals closely associated with the person, and which is made with the apparent ability to carry out the threat to cause such harm. It is not necessary to prove that the person making the threat had the intent to actually carry out the threat. The present incarceration of the person making the threat is not a bar to prosecution under this section.

Sheriff-do-no-wrong interviewed by Tapper-amirite. Sheriff says investigation ongoing and maybe somebody other than Deputy Peterson (and y’all agree he’s so bad) didn’t do something right, but not gonna speculate (except about Peterson who is just so bad, obv). Mostly the problem is the law, the NRA, we gotta focus on the other stuff, don’t worry, Imma gonna do a great job with the investigation of the officers. Amirite interjects at each step with “but is that true?” and looks confused, suggests bigger problems in the department.

Highlights:

Sheriff lays blame on Deputy Peterson at school for not going in. Says investigations ongoing of other officers who arrived at the scene, who haven’t been interview yet, but important to know shooting was over by the time they arrived (even though as Jake Tapper noted, they didn’t know that at the time).

Sheriff invokes Peterson’s numerous times when Tapper challenges him about other police failings - seemingly to demonstrate his strong leadership and putting blame mostly on that Deputy. Sheriff speculates about what Peterson was thinking, but avoids doing so on other officers.

Tapper challenged the sheriff for attacking the NRA at the town hall meeting when he knew about Peterson and other failings by the police department.

Tapper brings up the multiple calls made against Cruz. Sheriff says times where Cruz made statements about wanting to do a school shooting didn’t amount to a crime. The Sheriff’s answer didn’t explain that very well and said it was because Cruz didn’t have the means of carrying out a shooting. Tapper questions that.

The Sheriff says any failings aren’t his failings, that he is going to take action on those who failed. Tapper calls him out for failing to take responsibility. When sheriff says he has given “amazing leadership” Tapper repeats those words and leans back with his confused expression.

Tapper challenges about program where school doesn’t have to report issues to police department, suggested that officers might have been aware but did nothing. Sheriff says its great program, that bullets in backpack and threats of violence should have been reported.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng5o6TkTlFY

Brutal interview with the Sheriff. Is the media being unfair or did the police fail over and over again?

It’s weird how people are willing to tell others their dreams even if they are thoughts they wouldn’t otherwise tell.

paja said:

So be it Ash.

So he baits.
Saith Be So.
I bash toes.
Sobs I hate.

He does a good job of keeping the alligators away.

ChainsawAsh said:

Neat, I’ve never seen the original. How is it?

A lot of fun. The personality of the plant is great. Good quips. The remake potential jumps off the screen.

The original, which I have never seen before. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the musical.

If only I were doing something useful about now. Although I am watching Little Shop of Horros which is at least amusing.

Slow on a Sunday morning?

Would you like to fix that?

Approaching that magical time.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Mrebo said:

On one of my many dubiously open tabs I’ve had something I’ve wanted to share. Thought provoking for theists and non-theists about the nature of consciousness and design in the universe (crossing my fingers I copied the right url):

https://aeon.co/essays/cosmopsychism-explains-why-the-universe-is-fine-tuned-for-life

A shame the author appears to define theism solely by the traditionalist Abrahamic take on theism. As I’ve mentioned previous, I don’t believe in a God who is simultaneously omnipotent and omnibenevolent, and I know Zoroastrians don’t, Hindus probably don’t, etc, etc.

While I don’t see a conflict or problem with the existence of an omni-potent/benevolent diety, I agree the author was myopic.

NeverarGreat said:

Mrebo said:

That is the gist of it 😛

It’s more profound than one might think at first glance. The idea that the rules of the physical universe bend toward a certain result is compelling. We also might consider it in terms of maximalization: where matter arranges itself on the most fundamental level in order to create the most complex and varied existence possible. I think that sounds more sensible than the idea that stuff just is the way it is because.

The universe already tends towards maximum entropy or disorder.

But for a reason? What reason? If the physical world exists in a particular form (down to the precise nuclear forces) in order to bring about a reality that contains consciousness, maybe the entropy and disorder naturally follows from that.

TV’s Frink said:

Why people still think the Republican Party is racist, reason #4,327.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/former-republican-chairman-is-done-with-racist-insults-from-his-own-party/

Maybe it shows CPAC is racist but not the GOP since it gave the job to Steele because he is black 😜