Saturday, April 13, 2013

April 13

Conservative logic: Arkansas GOP Votes To Ax Sex Ed In State With Highest Teen Pregnancy Rate
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Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead made it to the top of the UK charts following the death of former PM Magaret Thatcher.

And of course, the BBC tellie program, The Official Chart Show finds itself in a bit of a sticky wicket:

As of Friday, the song was No. 1 on British iTunes. Still, many people say the campaign — which aims to see the song played this weekend on the BBC's Official Chart Show — is in bad taste. Some have called on the BBC to promise it won't broadcast the song.

A cover-up!

John Whittingdale, a lawmaker from Thatcher's Conservative party, told the Daily Mail tabloid that many would find the ditty "deeply insensitive."

Yes, many would find the ditty "deeply insensitive," and that's why many actually paid for the song and drove it to the top of the charts.

"This is an attempt to manipulate the charts by people trying to make a political point," he said.

I think that is the point, John. Nothing gets past you. Mind like a steel trap, eh?

In a statement, the BBC said it had not yet decided on whether it would feature the song on its show — which normally plays all the week's best-selling hits. "The Official Chart Show on Sunday is a historical and factual account of what the British public has been buying and we will make a decision about playing it when the final chart positions are clear," the taxpayer-funded BBC said.

Well, if it is a historical and factual record, then I think you have your answer, Kreskin. --Tengrain

(SFGate)

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Study Finds Racial Supremacists 'Not Superior'


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It strikes me that Pres. Obama's embrace of chained CPI as a way to get Republicans to agree to tax increases is bad politics for a couple of reasons. First, by trying to bargain entitlement cuts for tax increases, the president is acting pretty much exactly like the Republican's caricature of Democrats as "tax-hiking liberals." Meanwhile, he's not acting like a real Democrat and protectingSocial Security. He's getting it from all sides because he's inviting it from all sides. 

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8 year-old Tennessee resident Aamira Fetuga followed state Sen. Stacey Campfield around the capitol until he withdrew an idiotic billlinking welfare payments to children's grades. Let me be clear on that; he pulled the bill. Nice work, Ms. Fetuga.

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According to a local news station, the store that sold weapons to the family of the Sandy Hook shooter lost it's license to sell guns following literally hundreds of violations of the law.

EAST WINDSOR, CT (WFSB) -Eyewitness News has learned more about a Connecticut gun shop that sold two of the weapons found at the scene of the Newtown school shooting. [...]

The reasons Riverview Gun Sales lost its federal firearms license were laid out in a 12-page document by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The ATF says losing the license is pretty rare and last year, it revoked only about 1 percent of them.

The document states the agency inspected and found violations at Riverview in 2007, 2009, and 2011.

During the one in 2011, "the licensee committed over 500 violations," ATF documents stated.

The ATF inspection in 2011 revealed that Riverview employees:

  • Allowed a man who said he was a felon to buy ammo and handle firearms.
  • Let someone buy a firearm and didn't do background checkuntil the next day.
  • Sold firearms to two people without checking if they were prohibited from buying.

My take away from this story is that it's damn near impossible to lose your license to sell guns. Even if you have violated regulations hundreds or thousands of times, the chances of being shut down are incredibly slim. You have to be an utterly inept business owner to lose your license to sell guns. A complete fuckup. And then, maybe, you will lose your license.

What this says to me is that our laws are criminally lax, the ATF is toothless, and there are colossal amounts of unfunded liability just floating out there.

This is on all of us.



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