The Obama Administration continues to be awesome… Embiggening here…
• Awesome: The White House has officially responded to the ‘We the People’ petition to commit the US to building a Death Star. Best line: “Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?” Next best: “The Administration does not support blowing up planets,” which may represent a slight shift from the position of the previous administration.
Also, that whole war in Afghanistan? Yeah, that’ll be gone too…
• Weekly Address: Ending the War in Afghanistan and Rebuilding America
Gun Fetishists
Just so we’re clear…
fet·ish
[fet-ish, fee-tish]
noun
1. an object regarded with awe as being the embodiment or habitation of a potent spirit or as having magical potency.
2. any object, idea, etc., eliciting unquestioning reverence, respect, or devotion: to make a fetish of high grades.
3. Psychology . any object or nongenital part of the body that causes a habitual erotic response or fixation.
[link]
• The state of Tennessee has suspended the handgun carry permit of James Yeager, CEO of Tactical Response, who recently said he would “start killing people” should President Obama take executive action on gun control. State officials explained they revoked the permit because of Yeager’s “material likelihood of risk of harm to the public,” according to a local TV station. Tactical Response is a Tennessee-based company that specializes in firearms and tactical training.
• According to a ThinkProgress analysis, 51 gun shows in January ban attendees from bringing loaded guns onto the premises. In addition, ThinkProgress was unable to identify a single gun show this month that explicitly allowed people, even those with concealed-carry permits, to bring a loaded weapon with them. For every event, their stated rationale for not permitting loaded weapons in the gun show was simple: safety.
• Two men walked the streets of Portland armed with assault weapons earlier this week because they said they wanted to “educate” residents, who reacted by fleeing and calling police. Warren Drouin and Steven Boyce told KPTV that they were forced to take drastic measure to make sure people were aware of their Second Amendment rights after 20 children in Connecticut were massacred with same type of AR-15 rifles they were carrying.
• Unfortunately for LaPierre et al., the notion that Hitler confiscated everyone’s guns is mostly bogus.
Reproductive Rights
• Paul Ryan Once Again Sponsors the Bill That Would Make It Possible for Women’s Rapists to Sue Them: In an unsurprising turn of events, Ryan has signed on as cosponsor to the Sanctity of Human Life Act again. The original bill — which declares that life begins with fertilization, and would give states the right to ban all abortion, even in the cases involving incest, rape, or the life of the mother — thankfully died in Congress in 2011. But now it’s baaaaack, which is scary because not only is the above terrifying, there’s all sorts of other creepy shit hidden in this monster. Like, if a woman who was raped in a state that banned abortions went to a state that didn’t ban abortions and had an abortion? Her rapist could theoretically sue to stop the abortion from happening, and probably win. And it doesn’t stop there with the reproductive weirdness, if passed, it’ll probably make many forms of IVF illegal.
• Shorter – Women just need to drink a glass of wine and enjoy it, also, teenage girls lie about rape when they get pregnant, apparently all the time: Rep. Phil Gingrey, an ob-gyn and chairman of the GOP Doctors Caucus, explained to the audience at the Cobb Chamber of Commerce breakfast Thursday in Smyrna, Ga., that Akin wasn’t far off on the science when he said rape victims rarely get pregnant because their bodies have “ways of shutting that whole thing down.”
In other news
• Indonesia’s top intelligence agency said that it is possible that a new strain of bird flu could be a form of biological weapon used by foreign nations. The new strain of avian flu has killed thousands of ducks in the past few months. Indonesian National Intelligence Agency Chief Lt. Gen. Marciano Norman said that an investigation has yet to find proof that the outbreak is a form of biological attack or a test of biological weapons by a foreign country, according TheJakartaPost.com.
• Federal government loses hard drive with information on more than half a million people: The federal government has called in the RCMP to investigate what could be one of the largest privacy lapses in Canadian history, after losing a non-encrypted external hard drive containing the personal information of 583,000 Canada Student Loan borrowers. The lost hard drive contained the personal information — including names, social insurance numbers, dates of birth, contact information and loan balances — of more than half a million Canada Student Loan borrowers between 2000-06. An employee with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada discovered the hard drive was missing in early November from an office in Gatineau, Que., but it took more than two months to investigate internally and ultimately report it publicly to Canadians on Friday. No banking or medical information was included on the portable external hard drive, which was not approved for use by the federal government.
F.D.Brightly
There will be no Death Star
Shorter Question Everything
The Obama Administration continues to be awesome…
Embiggening here…
• Awesome: The White House has officially responded to the ‘We the People’ petition to commit the US to building a Death Star. Best line: “Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?” Next best: “The Administration does not support blowing up planets,” which may represent a slight shift from the position of the previous administration.
Also, that whole war in Afghanistan? Yeah, that’ll be gone too…
• Weekly Address: Ending the War in Afghanistan and Rebuilding America
Gun Fetishists
Just so we’re clear…
• The state of Tennessee has suspended the handgun carry permit of James Yeager, CEO of Tactical Response, who recently said he would “start killing people” should President Obama take executive action on gun control. State officials explained they revoked the permit because of Yeager’s “material likelihood of risk of harm to the public,” according to a local TV station. Tactical Response is a Tennessee-based company that specializes in firearms and tactical training.
• According to a ThinkProgress analysis, 51 gun shows in January ban attendees from bringing loaded guns onto the premises. In addition, ThinkProgress was unable to identify a single gun show this month that explicitly allowed people, even those with concealed-carry permits, to bring a loaded weapon with them. For every event, their stated rationale for not permitting loaded weapons in the gun show was simple: safety.
• Two men walked the streets of Portland armed with assault weapons earlier this week because they said they wanted to “educate” residents, who reacted by fleeing and calling police. Warren Drouin and Steven Boyce told KPTV that they were forced to take drastic measure to make sure people were aware of their Second Amendment rights after 20 children in Connecticut were massacred with same type of AR-15 rifles they were carrying.
• Unfortunately for LaPierre et al., the notion that Hitler confiscated everyone’s guns is mostly bogus.
Reproductive Rights
• Paul Ryan Once Again Sponsors the Bill That Would Make It Possible for Women’s Rapists to Sue Them: In an unsurprising turn of events, Ryan has signed on as cosponsor to the Sanctity of Human Life Act again. The original bill — which declares that life begins with fertilization, and would give states the right to ban all abortion, even in the cases involving incest, rape, or the life of the mother — thankfully died in Congress in 2011. But now it’s baaaaack, which is scary because not only is the above terrifying, there’s all sorts of other creepy shit hidden in this monster. Like, if a woman who was raped in a state that banned abortions went to a state that didn’t ban abortions and had an abortion? Her rapist could theoretically sue to stop the abortion from happening, and probably win. And it doesn’t stop there with the reproductive weirdness, if passed, it’ll probably make many forms of IVF illegal.
• Shorter – Women just need to drink a glass of wine and enjoy it, also, teenage girls lie about rape when they get pregnant, apparently all the time: Rep. Phil Gingrey, an ob-gyn and chairman of the GOP Doctors Caucus, explained to the audience at the Cobb Chamber of Commerce breakfast Thursday in Smyrna, Ga., that Akin wasn’t far off on the science when he said rape victims rarely get pregnant because their bodies have “ways of shutting that whole thing down.”
In other news
• Indonesia’s top intelligence agency said that it is possible that a new strain of bird flu could be a form of biological weapon used by foreign nations. The new strain of avian flu has killed thousands of ducks in the past few months. Indonesian National Intelligence Agency Chief Lt. Gen. Marciano Norman said that an investigation has yet to find proof that the outbreak is a form of biological attack or a test of biological weapons by a foreign country, according TheJakartaPost.com.
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is convinced that a lone gunman wasn’t solely responsible for the assassination of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and said his father believed the Warren Commission report was a “shoddy piece of craftsmanship.”
• Federal government loses hard drive with information on more than half a million people: The federal government has called in the RCMP to investigate what could be one of the largest privacy lapses in Canadian history, after losing a non-encrypted external hard drive containing the personal information of 583,000 Canada Student Loan borrowers. The lost hard drive contained the personal information — including names, social insurance numbers, dates of birth, contact information and loan balances — of more than half a million Canada Student Loan borrowers between 2000-06. An employee with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada discovered the hard drive was missing in early November from an office in Gatineau, Que., but it took more than two months to investigate internally and ultimately report it publicly to Canadians on Friday. No banking or medical information was included on the portable external hard drive, which was not approved for use by the federal government.