Kevin Smith Rips a Heckler at Comic Con

Do not screw with the man with the mic. Kev lays the smackdown.

Whenever somebody appeals to the "greater good"... run. Run, and don't look back.

Because you are about to get royally screwed.

Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > FBI to Congress: Murder, Wrongful Imprisonment May Be Necessary to Preserve Drug Investigations:

"Last week, a federal judge excoriated the FBI for not only hiding exculpatory evidence that would have exonerated four innocent men who served more than thirty years in prison, but for rewarding those who did the hiding and covering up with bonuses and promotions...

Well, we're just getting started. On July 19th, the House Judiciary Committee held hearings on the use and abuse of confidential drug informants. The testimony Assistant Director of the FBI Directorate of Intelligence Wayne M. Murphy gave at that hearing is truly astonishing.

...Murphy's being questioned by Rep. Dan Lundgren (R-Calif.) and Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.). The context: Lundgren and Delahunt have cited incidents in the past in which the FBI has covered up evidence that its confidential drug informants have committed violent crimes (including murder) in order to protect their identities, so that they could continue providing the bureau with information. They've cited other incidents, including the case above, in which the FBI has hidden exculpatory evidence, and allowed innocent people to go to prison. Lundgren and Delahunt want Murphy to assure them that the FBI has instituted policies to ensure that these sorts of incidents won't happen again--that murderers won't be protected and innocent people sent to prison in order to preserve drug investigations.

Remarkably, Murphy refuses to make such assurances.

...We're talking about the FBI concealing evidence of murder and other violent crimes, and of knowingly allowing innocent people to go to prison in order to not disrupt drug investigations. In other words, all of this is necessary, the FBI is saying, to keep people from getting high. And when confronted by the United States Congress, the FBI can't even say outright that this is categorically a bad idea, nor can it promise that it will institute a policy preventing these things from happening in the future."

Heh.

PostSecret: Sunday Secrets:

"(PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.)"

Gutless, spineless, useless...

Typical.

Crooks and Liars » Senate Democrats Cave - Agree To Give Bush More Power To Spy On Americans Than Ever Before:

"The Senate bowed to White House pressure last night and passed a Republican plan for overhauling the federal government’s terrorist surveillance laws, approving changes that would temporarily give U.S. spy agencies expanded power to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order.

The 60 to 28 vote, which was quickly denounced by civil rights and privacy advocates, came after Democrats in the House failed to win support for more modest changes that would have required closer court supervision of government surveillance. Earlier in the day, President Bush threatened to hold Congress in session into its scheduled summer recess if it did not approve the changes he wanted."

This is about the most awesome thing I've seen today - 14 year old builds windmill to power house in Africa.

[Despite the "What am I doing with my life?" conundrum that arises when people much younger than you are kicking ass.]

TED | Talks | William Kamkwamba: How I built my family a windmill (video):

"When he was just 14 years old, Malawian inventor William Kamkwamba built his family an electricity-generating windmill from spare parts, working from rough plans he found in a library book. In conversation with TED Curator Chris Anderson, Kamkwamba, now 19, tells a moving story of ingenuity and adaptation, and shares his dreams for the future. This talk inspired outpourings of support from the TED community and in the blogosphere."

Sometimes I do miss North Carolina.

Overheard in the Office | I Already Have Your Address:

"Cashier #1: I don't understand why people act like such assholes to us, you know?
Cashier #2: Because they know we can't say anything back.
Cashier #1: But... for all they know we could be mentally unbalanced and one little comment from them could send us over the edge, and we could get their addresses and hack them into pieces one night.
Cashier #2: I'm telling my mama not to go through your line no more, you crazy bitch.

Grocery store
Farmville, North Carolina"

I nominate Joe Rogan as the philosopher king of the country.

For his insights on religion, and cocaine, alone...

The Joe Rogan Blog » Conduit to the Gaian Mind » “I’ve been everywhere, man…”:

"Now, if I had to choose between hanging out with someone who is fucked up on coke, or someone who is fucked up on the baby Jesus… well, that’s a tough call.

The one thing you DEFINITELY want to avoid though, is a cokehead that’s also a Jesus freak. That, my friends, is a one two combo that can very easily lead to an opening segment on the evening news.

The problem I’ve always had with people that are doing coke is that their ego gets out of control, and they can tend to get violent.

And if you know someone that’s a coke head, and then all of a sudden they start text messaging you bible quotes – I’d say that’s a pretty good time to get the fuck outta town.

...And for those people out there hating on California - please put it to rest.

Forget all the bullshit you hear about people being dumb or fake, (all true) all you need to know is that it’s 80 degrees and sunny year round, the women are ridiculously hot, you can get state legal medical marijuana in over 500 different locations, and the Terminator is the fucking governor.
This state fucking RULES.
Sure there are some idiots here, but there’s idiots everywhere. No getting away from them.
What California does have going for it though, is that most of the people that live here moved here because wherever they used to live sucked.

...There’s sooo many weird state laws out there, especially when it comes to sex.
For instance: You can’t have sex with a 16 year old girl in Boston, but you can always take her on a trip to New Hampshire where it’s totally legal.

“I heard about a place that has the BEST ice cream, and it’s only an hour drive away!”

The age of consent in New Hampshire is 16, but if you want to try any of that homo stuff, you have to be at least 18 or they’ll lock you up.

I’m pretty sure I was a lot smarter if I was a sober 13 than a drunk 21. Maybe they should take that into account up there too since they have a liquor store just about every 20 yards.

When I was a kid, Boston had those retarded colonial age “blue laws,” where liquor stores were not allowed to sell you booze on Sunday, so people often drove up to New Hampshire to buy booze. It was a regular event. We actually had people that made laws forcing you to observe religious days, and to not allow folks to earn money selling perfectly legal booze on “the Lord’s day.”

Sort of like our own little Taliban.

...How about a one-mile strip in between states where you could do whatever the fuck you want.

Carry a handgun, get a hooker, eat magic mushrooms, run around naked and piss in the street screaming into a megaphone that you’re going to kill the president and fuck his lifeless face - anything you want to do, as long as it doesn’t actually hurt anyone.

We can just have a few common sense and decency laws.

There would be a big sign when you enter:

You are now entering a “gray area” of limited laws. You must be 18 or over to enter this area.

The rules are:

No murder.

No rape.

No thievery.

No drunk driving, and you can’t fuck kids.

Good luck, be careful, and have fun.”

How fucking cool would that be?

One mile of casinos, 24 hour liquor stores, whore houses and night clubs that only close for a couple hours to clean up.

And when we catch people in that area that are just useless douchebags, we can all pass a vote on it and kill them.

To the person that lacks the proper vision that can seem barbaric, but really that’s just the right and civilized way to deal with some people that are beyond hope. It’s not like there’s some shortage of people, and leaving them locked up in a cage until their heart stops beating isn’t really doing them any favors. I’m not talking about doing this for normal illegal shit - just for stuff like murderers, rapists and kid fuckers.

I believe that there are certain people that deserve a second chance.

I believe that many people evolve over time. I personally have certainly evolved in my own life, and I certainly do think that some people can change, and learn, and grow, but I think it really all depends in where they’re starting from, and how much time they’ve been alive. There are some people that are just completely beyond hope, and we really just need to kill them off, the same way we kill off bad dogs.

When someone’s pitbull eats the mailman’s dick, no one thinks “Well, I guess we need to train that little fella and teach him to stop doing that.” No, you’re like, “Shit, I need to kill that fucking crazy dog.”

That’s the way it should be for people, too. You catch a grown man fucking a 10 year old boy, you’re not supposed to lock him up and give him therapy… you’re supposed to gun him down in a crowded arena and stream the whole event live on the internet.

Maybe he’ll come back as a beautiful sparrow and start all over again, but in this life… you fucked the catcher of the little league team, and you gotta go.

It’s not like if we didn’t kill the creep he’s going to live forever and cure cancer."

Great way to try and live.

Maria Kang Journal:

In days like today, after years of repeating similar life cycles...I've given up on trying to 'conform' and realize that no matter how hard I try, not many will understand why:

- I don't react to negative energy with negative energy.
- I am not persuaded by money, objects, title or power.
- I don't care if the wrong people don't like me.
- I will never waste my life living robotically under the control of people and things that are dead in spirit.
- I will never ever measure my life, my family, my morals, my friends or my health for anyone or anything.
- My favorite moments is when I'm stretching after physically training.

I need more positive, that's for damn sure.

The Occupational Adventure (sm): Feed the positive & eliminate the toxic:

"Every day we're surrounded by inputs that either feed our energy or drain it. And for the most part we don't spend all that much time managing those inputs.

Stop for a minute and look at your own life. What feeds your positive energy? What sucks it away? What makes you feel good and optimistic? What casts a dreary pall over your outlook on life?

Several years ago I swore off watching television news. I realized that it was adding nothing to my life, that I could get my information about the world in other ways, and that the "if it bleeds it leads" nature of it left me feeling crappy.

After "detoxing" for many years, I find that watching the news has a strongly negative impact on me. I didn't notice it when I was constantly exposed to it, but now I realize just how extraordinarily toxic it really is.

There are a lot of things like that in our lives. Things that suck our energy away and feed a negative outlook. Often we have gotten so accustomed to them that we don't even think about what life might be like without them in the picture. For example, sometimes there are people in our lives who are so invested in staying stuck that they habitually ooze pessimism over the dreams of others."

Old man shot in the back by trespassing cops selling drugs.

Just fucking astonishing the stuff that they get away with.

Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > Isaac Singletary Update:

"Singletary... is the elderly man in Florida who, upon seeing drug dealers on his lawn, came out of his home with a gun to scare them off.

Unfortunately, they weren't drug dealers, but undercover cops posing as drug dealers. Upon seeing Singletary with his gun, they shot him dead. Even the police and town officials concede that Singletary was involved in no criminal activity, and was merely attempting to protect his property from what he thought were criminals.

As noted before, Singletary's death is drug war collateral damage. His death is the entirely predictable consequence of having crimes on the books that the police have to break in order to enforce, and of ratcheting up the stakes for those crimes by declaring a "war" on them. It now looks like the cops who killed Singletary won't face criminal charges.

...The disturbing parts of this case:

# The undercover narcotics officers were trespassing on Singletary's private property. And they were doing so to engage in drug activity. I doubt this is legal. And if it is, it shouldn't be. Unless they have a warrant, and are investigating Singletary himself (they weren't).

# The state's attorney investigation found the police actions justified because Singletary "was an armed civilian who refused orders to drop his gun." But the same report criticized the police for not announcing themselves as police before they fired on Singletary. If both of these things are true, then the state's attorney is saying Singletary should have obeyed orders to drop his gun from armed men he understandably believed were dangerous, and trespassing on his property. If Florida's new home defense law means anything at all, one would think it would mean the right to hold your ground when armed men are on your property.

# Singletary was shot four times. Once in the back."

More at the link.

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin

How pathetic.

Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > Somebody's Watching Me... And I Like It:

"The U.S. could easily outstrip the U.K. if lawmakers decide to put more cameras on the streets, and Americans... seem perfectly O.K. with that.

Given the chief arguments, pro and con—a way to help solve crimes vs. too much of a government intrusion on privacy—it isn't close: 71 percent of Americans favor the increased use of surveillance cameras, while 25 percent oppose it."

This kid totally has a future in acting.

Japanese kids have the cute gene, clearly.



H/T Japan Probe.

Iron Man teaser from the SD Comic Con.

Pretty damn geektastic. I don't even dig on Iron Man that much, but Robert Downey Jr is knocking it outta the box here.