Friday, May 30, 2014

"You know what? I'm gonna make you a mix tape. You like Phil Collins?"

"I've got two ears and a heart, don't I?"


Phil Collins Joins Middle School Band for First Public Performance Since 2010, Is Awesome | BroBible.com: "Last week, Phil Collins nonchalantly joined a middle school band in Miami to reprise some of his greatest hits. The former Genesis frontman and hero to all hadn’t rocked out in public since 2010, probably because he was waiting for the perfect gig."


NSA can't find any emails from Snowden, then it can (convenient, no?) - Boing Boing: "Yesterday, the NSA released an email from Edward Snowden to his superiors asking about the legality of NSA spying, claiming it was the only evidence they had that he ever tried to go through channels before turning leaker; on its face, this is pretty damning. But there's one problem: six months ago, the NSA claimed that they had no emails of the sort from Snowden, and then this one happened to turn up just in time to counter Snowden's allegations on US TV that he'd tried to blow the whistle from inside."


This ‘How Often People Masturbate’ Chart Seems Just a Touuuuuuch Inaccurate | BroBible.com: "Goddamn. You learn something new everyday. Even if what you just learned is off of a chart comprised of stats compiled from an ocean of lies. You heard me, LIES." 

Here's Every 'Song of the Summer' For the Last 100 Years: "How DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s smash hit, “Summertime” isn’t on this list of every song of the summer for the last 100 years is beyond me. The news of this might actually be the travesty of my day."


 

Police Filmed Wrongly Arresting Libertarian Gubernatorial Candidate - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "Minneapolis police are backpedaling after wrongly arresting, citing, and injuring Minnesota Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate Chris Holbrook yesterday. According to a local ABC affiliate, Holbrook and "party members [were] sorting literature and getting ready to get signatures for his upcoming campaign"—their sixth consecutive day doing so—when "park patrol approached them and said they were violating a park ordinance and they had called the police." Officer Brian Woodfill told the candidate that he needed a permit to be petitioning, told him stop filming the cops, and then cited him for allegedly violating Park Board Ordinance PB2-15, "use of parks, parkways and waters for financial gain." Petitioning is not actually within the scope of this ordinance...  Park Police Chief Jason Ohotta personally apologized to Holbrook, dismissed the citation, and today announced that an internal investigation will take place."



Toddler Bounkham Phonesavanh Severely Burned After Georgia SWAT Team Tosses Stun Grenade In Crib: "A 19-month-old toddler, Bounkham Phonesavanh, was seriously injured early Wednesday morning during a SWAT team raid on the Georgia home his family was staying in... Officers were looking for Wanis Thometheva at the home in Cornelia, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Thometheva sold methamphetamine to an undercover police officer on Tuesday evening, authorities said, and they visited the home to arrest him. But at the time of the raid, Thometheva wasn’t home. "

SWAT Team Reportedly Throws Flash Bang, Burns Toddler During No-Knock Raid - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "Bounkham Phonesavanh, a nineteen month old toddler, is in a medically-induced coma after reportedly suffering severe burns when a SWAT team from the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia threw a flash grenade into his home during a no-knock raid apparently over a drug purchase made there earlier in the week. Sheriff Joey Terrell said officers asked the informant who directed them to the house whether there were any children and were told there weren’t so there was nothing they could have done to prevent it...

Whether the sheriff’s office should be executing no-knock warrants on homes because they can find informants to buy drugs from there seems like something Terrell, the GBI or the DA could “look at.” Unless the social media activists launch the right hash tag to end the war on drugs, Bounkham Phonesavanh is unlikely to be its last child victim. No one thinks of the children when cops get to play commando."

When Drug Warriors Burn a Baby, Who's the Terrorist? - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "Habersham County, Georgia, Sheriff Joey Terrell feels bad that his deputies horribly burned a toddler by tossing a "distraction device" (a.k.a. a "flash bang" grenade) into the playpen where he was sleeping during a drug raid on Wednesday morning. "The baby didn't deserve this," Terrell concedes in an interview with AccessNorthGa.com. "The family didn't deserve this. This family was displaced from another home down here and apparently just moved in...

But it turns out Terrell does have an answer: 'The person I blame in this whole thing is the person selling the drugs. Wanis Thonetheva, that's the person I blame in all this. They are no better than a domestic terrorist..'

Terrell sees nothing wrong with sending a heavily armed SWAT team into an alleged meth dealer's home in the middle of the night, which inevitably endangers not only the dealer but anyone else who happens to be there. In Terrell's mind, that is not an act of aggression. It was Wanis Thonetheva who attacked first by agreeing to sell speed to people who wanted it. Hence Thonetheva is a "domestic terrorist," harming an innocent child because all he cares about is making money. Terrorists, of course, are usually motivated by politics rather than greed. And it was not Thonetheva who sent Alecia Phonesavanh's 19-month-old son, Bounkham, to the hospital with severe burns. One of Terrell's deputies did that, in service of a political ideology that says people may not alter their consciousness in ways that are not approved by the government. "He is in a medically induced coma and he is paralyzed," Phonesavanh told WSB-TV, the ABC affiliate in Atlanta. "I hope he's not going to remember this. I know his sisters, his mommy, and his daddy will never forget this. Our kids have been through enough this year. This is just more trauma that they didn't need, and I just wish there was something better I could do to make it better for him. Wrong place, wrong time."

That place is America, and that time is a period during which police believe it is their duty to launch military-style assaults on civilians who sell politically incorrect drugs, knowing full well that there is bound to be "collateral damage" like this from time to time. After Bounkham recovers from the injuries inflicted by his government and becomes old enough to ask what happened that night, is there any explanation that will make sense to him?"

Sheriff in Burned Baby Raid Wants Your Prayers; Target of Warrant Could Be Charged For Injuries to Toddler - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "Terrell has insisted his officers and those of the local police department did nothing wrong and blamed the target of the warrant (not found at the house that was invaded) on the attack on the toddler. A chief assistant district attorney for the county, J. Edward Staples, says the target of the warrant could in fact be charged for the injuries the sheriff's deputies caused the toddler. In an obvious attempt to immunize himself and his office from liability, the sheriff has claimed the situation was unavoidable even as he attempted to offer reassurances that his SWAT team would be more diligent in the future. He told CNN that his officers "obviously would have done things different" (IF they knew there was a child in the home), like go in through a side door or not use a flash bang. Until using violence to crack down on non-violent "crimes" becomes politically untenable for "public servants," it won't matter how much ass-covering law enforcement does after the fact, these kinds of incidents will continue to happen."




 



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