Why do we spend at least 1,000 times more money protecting ourselves from terrorism than we do protecting ourselves from gun violence? I’m not necessarily suggesting that we spend less on anti-terrorism programs. Like everyone else, I am grateful there have been no mass casualty terror events since 9/11. I’m just wondering, instead, what possible justification there could be for spending so relatively little to try to reduce the casualties of gun violence. […]
Our government has asked us consistently since 9/11 to sacrifice individual liberties and freedom, constitutional rights to privacy for example, in the name of national security. And we have ceded these liberties. Yet that same government in that same time hasn’t asked anyone to sacrifice some Second Amendment rights to help protect innocent victims from gun violence.
Joshua Tucker, themonkeycage.org
0 comments
Tolga Sinmazdemir, a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Washington University in St. Louis in the Department of Political Science, sends along the following response to Alberto Simpser’s now very well read Monkey Cag…
Pure speculation. But what the heck, eh?
Yikes. I left a green state (after having lived in two others) for a red one. So, yeah, I’m aware.
From good:
According to a new Pew study, increasing your earning potential may require literally moving on up: If you aim to climb the income ladder in the United States, your best bet might be to move north and east—and definitely stay out of the south.
WTF?! Seriously?! In the 21st century … people choose to live like our cavemen ancestors?!
From kqedscience:
Photos of people living off-the-grid in the United States
“Eric Valli spent 3 years taking photos of people in the United States who have “decided to live light on the earth.” The photographs are terrific. It looks like Valli spent time with two clans: a frontier/settler type group, and another group that look almost like cave people. I wish he had included more information about them!”
Hurray! We may yet win the Zombie wars!
From kqedscience:
Zombie ant fungus, meet the anti-zombie-ant fungus
“A new study has found that a zombifying ant fungus can be kept at bay by another pathogen.”
![Only in America!
theatlantic:
DEA Agents Abandoned a College Student in a Jail Cell for Five Days
A student at UC San Diego was rounded up in a drug bust then left in a DEA holding cell for five days without food or water, after officers apparently forgot he was in there.
Drug Enforcement Administration agents arrested nine people and confiscated large amounts of pills, marijuana, and weapons during a raid near the UCSD campus on April 21. One of them, Daniel Chong, was eventually told that he was not being charged and would be allowed to go home, but after being returned to his cell to await release, no one ever came back for him. He was locked in the 5-foot by 10-foot room with no windows and no toilet from Saturday to Wednesday before he was discovered, 15 pounds lighter and totally incoherent.
Chong says he heard people in nearby rooms, but his cries for help went unheeded. As things got more desperate, he tried to drink his own urine and eventually tried to kill himself with the glass from his own eyeglasses. Chong spent three days in intensive care, where nurses said that he had apparently swallowed the glass, damaging his throat and lungs.
The only other thing that Chong had to ingest was a bag of methamphetamine that he apparently found in his cell.
Read more at The Atlantic Wire. [Image: NBC San Diego]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3ei7gmW2M1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
Only in America!
DEA Agents Abandoned a College Student in a Jail Cell for Five Days
A student at UC San Diego was rounded up in a drug bust then left in a DEA holding cell for five days without food or water, after officers apparently forgot he was in there.
Drug Enforcement Administration agents arrested nine people and confiscated large amounts of pills, marijuana, and weapons during a raid near the UCSD campus on April 21. One of them, Daniel Chong, was eventually told that he was not being charged and would be allowed to go home, but after being returned to his cell to await release, no one ever came back for him. He was locked in the 5-foot by 10-foot room with no windows and no toilet from Saturday to Wednesday before he was discovered, 15 pounds lighter and totally incoherent.
Chong says he heard people in nearby rooms, but his cries for help went unheeded. As things got more desperate, he tried to drink his own urine and eventually tried to kill himself with the glass from his own eyeglasses. Chong spent three days in intensive care, where nurses said that he had apparently swallowed the glass, damaging his throat and lungs.
The only other thing that Chong had to ingest was a bag of methamphetamine that he apparently found in his cell.
Read more at The Atlantic Wire. [Image: NBC San Diego]
![This can’t possibly end well.
shortformblog:
thedailywhat:
Titanic 2 of the Day: Because the maiden voyage of the R.M.S. Titanic didn’t exactly go as planned, an Australian billionaire has commissioned a replica of the ship for a series of journeys that will hopefully have a happier ending.
Clive Palmer, a Queensland-based mining billionaire, is partnering with China’s CSC Jinling Shipyard to build the ship, which will be ready for passengers by 2016.
“It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems,” he said in a statement.
The ship’s first trip will be from London to New York — rather than from Southampton to New York like the “unsinkable” original — and Palmer admits that some potential passengers will stay away because of superstitions.
“It is going to be designed so it won’t sink. But, of course, if you are superstitious like you are, you never know what could happen,” he said, encouragingly.
No word on what kind of deck chairs the new ship will have, or how they’ll be arranged.
[cnn.]
In which a titan of industry tries to become a Titanic of industry.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3bjozCvyR1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg)
This can’t possibly end well.
Titanic 2 of the Day: Because the maiden voyage of the R.M.S. Titanic didn’t exactly go as planned, an Australian billionaire has commissioned a replica of the ship for a series of journeys that will hopefully have a happier ending.
Clive Palmer, a Queensland-based mining billionaire, is partnering with China’s CSC Jinling Shipyard to build the ship, which will be ready for passengers by 2016.
“It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems,” he said in a statement.
The ship’s first trip will be from London to New York — rather than from Southampton to New York like the “unsinkable” original — and Palmer admits that some potential passengers will stay away because of superstitions.
“It is going to be designed so it won’t sink. But, of course, if you are superstitious like you are, you never know what could happen,” he said, encouragingly.
No word on what kind of deck chairs the new ship will have, or how they’ll be arranged.
[cnn.]
In which a titan of industry tries to become a Titanic of industry.
(Source: thedailywhat)
