Wow. “For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to ‘those powerful few’—Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.”
Very cool photo series surveying life in the skyscrapers.
I’ve often wondered about this: Study suggests hat guilty look your dog gives you when you come home may just be her picking up on your body language, not acknowledgment that she’s done something wrong.
Creepy retro ads.
Sorry, but once you accept subsidies from the government, you’re no longer allowed to use the word “punk.”
If William Kristol suddenly takes up an interest in myrmecology, now you know why.
So this seems like a bad idea.
Our cousins: It’s what’s for dinner.
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TheAgitator.com
Because nothing says “Punk” like taking money from The Man.
Oh Rex, did you wrongly implicate a suspect in a murder again? Bad boy!
Lysol Douche? I’m sorry to be crude but if I got a whiff of lysol while having an intimate moment, I’d be more than a little concerned.
So what’s the over/under on the first time someone gets shot by a shot gun shell instead of taser device because the department only bought the new taser round and just used their own shotguns? Sure this isn’t going to end badly.
Following on Tokin42’s comment, part of the Lysol ad reads
Wait, so all those times I was mopping, I was actually douching the floor?!?
BTW, I wonder if that sort of hygiene is more appropriate before or after her husband spanks her ass for not wasting enough time picking out coffee?
Re: the new Taser product.
Yeah, this is going to have some really bad “side effects.” But I don’t think it’s Taser Inc’s fault, so much.
The main reason this is such a bad idea is because we here all know that cops don’t use their toys responsibly or safely, because a) they like toys and b) they have no reasonable basis to fear accountability for bad decisions.
In general, Taser is doing an arguably good thing by introducing effective weapons that are extremely less-lethal (though not nonlethal) than guns. Though they should play an important role in making sure they are used safely and only when absolutely necessary, I don’t think they should quit or be blamed just because it’s obvious their products will be misused with tragic consequences.
Because nothing says “Punk” like taking money from The Man.
I don’t think Jello Biafra would argue with that.
RE: Shotgun taser
“….can be fired from up to 100 feet away.”
I’m still pondering the need for such a device. And wondering if most LEOs could even hit a target at that distance. Having said that, what happens when someone is shot at close range with this thing?
Edmund Dantes, I couldn’t guess how long it will take before we see an incompetence-created fatality regarding these things (which might be a decent technology if they weren’t in the hands of people who often show almost no restraint in using tasers). But, I am sure the odds are overwhelming that the ensuing ‘investigation’ will conclude that the officer “acted appropriately”, “operated within department guidelines”, or, at worst, “made an honest mistake while doing a tough job requiring split-second decisions”.
When the BART officer killed the guy they had pinned to the ground, one of the possible explanations was that he pulled his firearm instead of his taser or cuffs or something else he was looking for.
So, the next step is to add pepper spray, a flashlight, and a radio to the shotgun, and the officer can carry much fewer items. And, of course, the stock can take the place of a baton. Then the officer doesn’t have to think too hard in a pressure situation. Whether he wants to club you, spray you, tase you, shoot you, or just shine a light in your eyes, he grabs the same tool. Much simpler, and less likely to lead to mistakes like the one in Oakland.
About the punk thing, I agree with djm completely. Punks are generally about hating the government and trying to do away with religion. Not taking handouts to make their hangout better.
I mean seriously, have they never listened to BR or NoFX?
The punk culture has become dominated by people that are full of shit just like every other subculture out there. What do you expect from a (now) mainstream group of non-conformists who all listen to the same music, wear the same type of clothing, and have the same haircut. Eddy Rotten has influenced a lot of posers over the years.
I don’t see why anyone would be upset about the post charging for access to influential policy makers… Blogojevich(?) openly shopped a senate seat around, Obama openly suspended habeas corpus, torture is being openly condoned…
it wouldn’t be ethical to sneak around!
Edmund Dantes,
The over under on getting shot with a real shotgun shell vs. a taser shot?
What’s the over under on getting shot with a real shotgun shell vs. a beanbag round (MANY departments have these as standard issue)?
The safety procedures they put in usually means marking the shotgun with say, bright orange tape or paint around the stock and mandating that standard shotgun ammo is NEVER to be used or loaded into the beanbag gun. Shotguns are cheap, probably cheaper than the TASER rounds. Departments will issue separate shotguns designated to fire only the TASER round.
As long as the officers follow procedures as to using only weapons/ammo combinations that are authorized, it’s unlikely that a “less lethal” designated weapon will be used to fire a lethal (as designed) cartridge.
All discussion as to the lethal potential and overuse of TASER devices is a separate issue… I mean, what happens when a person gets hit with multiple TASER shells?
I wonder if the Washington Post has to register as a lobbyist now. Another concern, how is it that they are on such good terms with admin officials that they can sell access to them.
“…and I for one welcome our new insect overlords.”
Punk: Punk was a genuine, grassroots subculture for about a year in the 70’s. Once they started taking large corporate dollars and showing their videos on Friday Night Videos and MTV I stopped taking their anti-man corporate rage seriously.
Dogs: I have always assumed that 90% of the actions and facial expressions that owners have cited to prove their dogs had emotions were learned behaviors evolved over years of interactions between dog and human. I found this unsurprising.
And for the Ants: Can we breed super smart children and send them to Battle School yet? The Formics are indeed coming, indeed they are already here.
On the punks: I love how in the middle of a budget crisis the NYT celebrates giving essentially over $2 million to an art group. They were given $1.6 million after they “bought” the building for $1. If they had just sold the damn thing to a developer to begin with the building would have been making NYC money, not costing money.
Also, today’s punks have a 90% chance of being a Trustafarian, in my experience. Capitalism-stole-my-dad types.
Sorry, but once you accept subsidies from the government, you’re no longer allowed to use the word “punk.”
I think you and those who have chimed in to agree ought to consider the relationship between British punks and something called “the dole” around the time of “God Save the Queen.” Or perhaps the Sex Pistols don’t meet your definition of punk.
Oh I dunno… By passing some of the money under the table, perhaps? They obviously aren’t doing it just to make the Washington Post some extra cash.
It would be a little too blatant (now, give it 10 years) for a politician to host his own $25k per seat cocktail parties, so they effectively hire somebody else to be the organizer.
This would explain Homo sapiens’ aversion to and dislike of humans with large amounts of body hair. Clearly they see us hairybacks as their ancient enemy.
BTW, I am of mixed Neanderthal and Yeti descent. So watch it.
My hypothesis is that animals (such as dogs and cats, but stopping somewhere up the ape line) don’t have a ’stream of consciousness’ like we do, and can’t analyze their actions in the world as they go along. It’s like you or I would be if we were sleepwalking, on full autopilot all the time.
They’re completely at the whim of their environment. And since a pet’s environment is dictated by it’s owner, including that owner’s emotional responses, it will adapt behaviors that mesh with that environment.
Further, it’s my hypothesis that the ’stream of consciousness’ we see is a programing interface we use to modify over time our essentially unconscious behavior during the day. To whit, you’re not controlling your body, it’s doing what it’s programmed to do. You just get to watch so you can subtly alter that programming.
Animals are the same way, they’re just doing what they’re programmed to do. The difference is that in an animal, precoded instructions (instincts) and modifications caused by the environment are all they have.
When I walk into a room with no idea that my dog has done anything wrong, and find him slinking away even though I had no intent to punish him and no knowledge of his crime, I don’t know whether he feels “guilty,” but he sure as heck is the only one who knows he did something wrong.
When it takes a minute or two to figure out that I had left a container of Baja Fresh sour cream on the table, which he had eaten, I suspect that his behavior had nothing to do with any non-verbal cues I’d given him.
I’m not saying that my experiences invalidate the testing done in the article. However, it’s certainly a different set of circumstances. I have no doubt that my dogs react to my cues (verbal and non-verbal), but when he acts “guilty” and I don’t know about it or suspect it – then it doesn’t have much to do with me.
Kidhandsome,
Ah, is he ‘acting guilty’ because of cues he’s picking up now, or cues (think of them as part of the dog’s perdieved environment) he picked up in the past.
He’s not ‘acting guilty’, he’s responding to past environmental conditioning. It’s YOU that thinks he’s ‘acting guilty’.
#23 Bob
“…don’t have a ’stream of consciousness’ like we do, and can’t analyze their actions in the world as they go along.
It’s like you or I would be if we were sleepwalking, on full autopilot all the time.”
Oh, ok I get it. You mean like LEOs.
I put “guilty” in quotes for a reason. I don’t know what he feels (fear?), but it isn’t derived from my cues at that moment.
“I put “guilty” in quotes for a reason. I don’t know what he feels (fear?), but it isn’t derived from my cues at that moment.”
Correct, it’s derived from what happens next in previous similar encounters. Whatever worked best before is what he’s doing.
I can’t believe we shame executives of tobacco companies but not the guys who run the tazer company. At least tobacco users are voluntarily hurting themselves but Tazer International has so much innocent blood on it’s hands its unbelievable.
Prince George’s County, MD
Charges may be filed after video shows cop punching suspect
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/01/video-shows-cop-punching-suspect/
What is wrong with that area? And why is there ANY hesitation to file charges? Oh yeah, the gang of cops/prosecutors/judges get a different standard and must protect their own.
The problem is this: I have absolutely no way to know that this doesn’t describe other humans.
Seriously, how can I *know* that you feel emotions in the same way that I do? I can’t, any more than I can know a dog or cat does.
But I do notice that my cat has responses to various things that are exactly as I would predict if her emotional make up was similar to my own, at least in certain ways. Therefore, I can conclude that she does have emotions, with at least as much certainty that I can conclude that other humans have emotions.
Jesus, people, what are you doing to your dogs? Mine greets me at the door, tail wagging furiously, as though my homecoming is the greatest fucking thing that has happened ever.
Have to love how ’scientists’ can find a single bone and suddenly it proves their theory.
As the sceptic stated they don’t even know if the Neanderthal was killed by the Homo Sapiens. For all they know it could have been living with them and died normally and then eating. Eating of dead ancestors is not unheard of. Jumping to conclusions is what gives some a bad reputation. Basing the extinction of an entire species on a single bone falls into that category. We know certain dinosaurs ate other ones. Does that mean that is what caused the extinction? They ate each other out of existance?
@ Michael Chaney
That’s a pretty standard solipsistic argument, but correlation isn’t causation. My nano pet was always looked pretty happy when i remembered to feed it back in fourth grade, but that doesn’t make it so.
I prefer to withhold judgment on the whole thing, and instead embrace my pets’ animal-ness, instead of trying to force my own ideas own them, correct or not. If I dropped dead of a massive coronary right now, I’m pretty confident that my cat would be batting around the little toe-tag as they were wheeling me out. And I’m okay with that.
#33, Waste:
Don’t take this the wrong way… I’m not getting down on you here. But I would point out the error you’re making.
The analysis the guy puts out is not a ‘theory’. It’s a hypothesis. There is a GIGANTIC difference between the two.
One of the problems is that the general layperson doesn’t know the difference between a ‘theory’ and a ‘hypothesis’. Here is a brief definition:
http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistry101/a/lawtheory.htm
A really good rule of thumb to use is to treat all ’scientific revelations’ as hypothesis unless clearly specified as a scientific theory, fully backed and bonded by the processes of repeatability, usefullness, and the ability to be disproven.
I blame the scientific community for this confusion. I also blame the school system for not teaching the distinction between a theory and a hypothesis to every kid.
I get the same rock star treatment every day when I come home. However, mine isn’t limited to that one event, but rather any time they see me or I acknowledge their existence. I love my dogs, and I consider myself the alpha of the pack. We even lay on the couch together – myself and 2 big dogs, all flopped on each other. This is what pack animals do :-)
@Mike Healy #16: ….”I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.”
Re: Dogs and greetings. My dog, toward the end, would give me, the “Oh, what do YOU want?” look when I came home. But, like BamBam, my pooh-bear and I would lay on my futon together, chilling out.
• Wow. “For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to ‘those powerful few’—Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.”
Oddly, Sir Francis Bacon was impeached by Parliament in 1621 for basically doing the same thing.
On dogs:
I half-remember a quote that went something like:
If anyone knows the source and accurate version of that quote, I’d like to find it again.
#30 | BamBam
good link- Prince George’s finest continues to make me proud!
#14: “As long as the officers follow procedures as to using only weapons/ammo combinations that are authorized, it’s unlikely that a “less lethal” designated weapon will be used to fire a lethal (as designed) cartridge.”
LEOs are, unfortunately, the same people who are known for (now and then) kicking in the doors of the wrong houses and shooting pets. No system can be designed to be completely error-proof.
#25 Bob: Ah, is he ‘acting guilty’ because of cues he’s picking up now, or cues (think of them as part of the dog’s perdieved environment) he picked up in the past.
He’s not ‘acting guilty’, he’s responding to past environmental conditioning. It’s YOU that thinks he’s ‘acting guilty’.
Can’t exactly the same questions be asked of humans? Does a three-year old feel guilt or does he just know how he’s expected to act after he dumps Mom’s purse out on the floor?
Ah, tasers
I bristle every time I read the (incorrect) term “less lethal.” “Lethal” is an absolute, like, oh, “dead.” “Less than lethal” is the correct term, meaning that used correctly it’s not supposed to kill you. But what does “less lethal” mean? That it doesn’t kill you quite as much as a bullet?
(”Is he dead?” “Well, he’s less dead.”)
That was a great link, BamBam. That cop pounding the crap out of a driver who was not acting violently is extraordinarily hard to defend, and the commenter (Mercedes Colwin?) who defended him basically was left throwing out a string of non sequiturs about how dangerous a cop’s job is. She’s a fast talker, but I think she got her ass handed to her, since it was very clear that, by her rationale, an officer has a non-specific reasonable fear from violence at a traffic stop, therefor he can pound people.
It may be true that court rulings allow an officer to demand that you exit the vehicle without providing a reason. But, 1) in a non-police state, it shouldn’t be assumed that citizens will know that their only option is to bow down and obey. And 2) it makes no difference, since he was already out of the vehicle when the officer went psycho on him.
In addition, that other cop, who didn’t seem to know why a fight had broken out, should also be brought up on charges, if he corroborated his partner’s false police report. The “blue wall of silence” is actually “the illegal wall of perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice” and needs to be prosecuted.
BTW, the anchor might have tried to be fair during the segment, but she says near the end that the cop had a split lip, therefor the driver must have hit him at some point off camera. Bullshit. He might have given himself a pop to the mouth when he was writing up the report and realized he was claiming the suspect jumped him but he was bringing in a beaten-up suspect when he (the cop) was unmarked.
On BamBam’s link, Mercedes Colwin perfectly exemplifies the problem with modern media: they try to the point of absurdity to boil everything down to absolutes. She basically says if you ever disagree with anything any police officer ever does, you want all cops everywhere to be murdered. And she says this with a straight face. At least Mark Eiglarsh was reasonably eloquent and rational, although since he took the time to add some nuance to his argument Colwin continually cut him off, and most Fox News viewers probably tuned him out anyway when she told them that he wanted to murder all cops. So really, other than the actual video of the beating, all you get out of Fox’s reporting is that Megyn Kelly is pretty hot.
#42: Gabriel,
Exactly correct. The 3 year old feels no guilt. The difference between us and animals is just that small.
A 3 year old human is barely self aware, and is operating in a fully ‘reacting to environment’ mode. (Essentially, the toddler is on autopilot, or ’sleepwalking’ in the adult frame of reference.) A lot of the programming he is going to need later in life is being set.
It’s going to be a while before the tyke can start comprehending and start taking responsibility for his actions.
But this is the difference between Humans and animals. An animal cannot self program, ever. They start with a pre-programmed set of behaviors set by their genetic heritage (called ‘instinct’) and are then modified by their environment. Humans, on the otrher hand, exhibit no instinctive behavior at all, and are totally programmed by environment at first… at some point (probably between age 2 and 3) their self programming system starts to work (They become self aware) and start to slowly program themselves. This, in my mind, is the very definition of sentience.
This is why I don’t have a problem with pre-birth abortions. It’s the same as not getting pregnant in the first place as far as the potential human involved is concerned. Plenty more eggs where that one came from!
Now, here’s the kicker. a 40 year old human will do the same thing. The difference is, an adult has an active stream of consciousness, and has the ability to adapt future behavior on the emotional analysis of what he sees in the stream of consciousness.
Of course, that’s just my hypothesis.
Aspasia #37 – Great quote! Kent Brockman is one of my (animated) heroes.
Mike #48: I totally agree! If I ever wanted to be a journalist with absolutely no integrity, I’d be Kent Brockman. Wait…is he the editor at NYT or Washington Post? :P
I miss Hires Root Beer, it is no longer available in my area, gross ad but the BEST root beer, ever.