• From the “Get A Rope” Department – An Army Specialist in El Paso, Texas, has been arrested and charged with murder after allegedly beating his two year old daughter to death with a belt because the child soiled her diaper.  Details are sketchy, but it is apparent that at least two other adults, including the child’s mother, were present during the attack.   He’s being held by civilian law enforcement, but I disagree with that.  He needs to be handed over to the military and court-martialed.  Military justice grinds just as fine as the civilian version, but it grinds much more quickly, and a trial by his peers might just let justice be done.  It’s been a long time since the gallows at Leavenworth have been erected, but every so often they need to be brought out and exercised.
• From the “Thorny Issue” Department – The water company in Detroit, Michigan, is taking fire after it began shutting off water service to over 15,000 customers this spring and summer for non-payment.  It seems that the bankrupt city cannot afford to provide water to the almost 40% of its customers who do not pay on time.  Contrary to popular belief, things like clean water and electricity cost money to make and transport to homes and businesses, and when a significant number of customers do not pay, the entire system can grind to a halt due to lack of adequate funds.  On the other hand, it can be argued that access to clean water, either from a tap, a well, or from a body of water, is a basic human right.  Life in a modern, urban or suburban setting can become pretty hellish when the taps run dry.  This one is a hard one because I can see both sides of the argument.  What do you all have to say about it?
• From the “Fuuuuuuuuu” Department – A 22-year-old security vulnerability in the popular Unix and Linux bash shell has exposed millions of computers, routers, cell phones, and embedded devices to exploitation.  The dog whistle term here for me is “reverse shell”.  Makes the “Internet of things”, in which a bunch of things like thermostats, refrigerators, and light bulbs are given a light Linux OS and a network connection, sound like not so good an idea.  For the non-tech people out here, this is like discovering that the people who built the walls of your house forgot to make sure there weren’t any hidden doors on the outside that would allow just about anyone to walk right in.  Patch early and patch often, guys.
• From the “Sigh” Department – During a Fox News segment on the first female fighter pilot from the United Arab Emirates, two male co-hosts of the “The Five” program made rather ignorant remarks about the pilot and her ability.  One host quipped that after her mission to bomb Syria, the pilot was unable to park her jet fighter.  The other host joked that she could be considered “boobs on the ground”.  I’m proud of the female host of the program, who merely looked irritated and shook her head, rather than slapping the stupid out of the two dolts she works with.

• From the “DGU” Department – A man in Montana was arrested the other day when he violated a restraining order, showed up at a ranch, which he previously owned, and threatened the current owners.  Apparently Captain Success lost the ranch in a divorce, then doubled down on stupid by threatening the judge in the case and a prosecutor.  After spending 20 years in jail for the crime, he got out and decided to go back to his old habits.  By the way, if you ever want to know how stubborn us northern people are, note that he served every day of his sentence so that he wouldn’t have to deal with parole.  Yep, we’ll do that.  Anyway, when he was arrested this time, officers found him proned out with the owners of the property pointing guns at him.  The moral of the story, kids, is that the world is well stocked with crazies and bad people, restraining orders are just pieces of paper,  and nothing says “get the hell off my land” like a gun and a smile.
• From the “PSH” Department – Anti-gun blood pressure went up, either from hysteria or visceral happiness, when a Oklahoma City shooting range, which allows customers to have a drink with their lunch at an attached cafe, opened.  After you get past the first paragraph or two, you find that the range requires all purchasers of alcohol to lock away their firearms and scan in their ID, which then flags them as ineligible to use the firing line, prior to purchase.  Personally, this sounds like a great idea.
• From the “Good News” Department – A judge in Hawaii has ruled that the state’s ban on issuing firearms permits to permanent, legal immigrants is unconstitutional.  You see, the judge seems to have the mistaken impression that all civil rights are important and that all people are equal under the law.  Imagine the nerve of this judge, to believe that someone who has passed a criminal background check to enter the country, has shown that they can stay out of trouble, and can do just about everything else that a citizen can do, should also have the same civil rights.
• From the “Scary” Department – The CDC has released projections on the spread of the Ebola epidemic in Africa, with their worst case scenario showing 1.4 million people infected by the end of January.  The strain of EVD in question is about 70% lethal, so that translates to just shy of a million dead by Groundhogs Day.  American and European resources are being ramped up to fight the spread of the disease and give aid to healthcare workers in the region.  The U.S. is donating several field hospitals, and will be showing solidarity with the region by putting the 3000 soldiers being sent to set them up into quarantine for the holidays.  There is work being done to come up with vaccines and anti-viral drugs to combat the disease, so hopefully that will come to fruition in time to make some impact.  Of course, this all assumes that the disease will not get loose in a new location.
• From the “Just Stop” Department – I’d like to make a personal request to President Obama, and honestly, to all politicians:   Please stop saluting.  You aren’t required to do it, it’s obvious you don’t know how, and a lot of the time, it’s even more obvious that you don’t care.  Either respectfully acknowledge the honor that’s being paid to you by the guards with a nod or a thank you, or place your hand over your heart like FDR did.  Even if you took away the cup of coffee that the President had in his hand when he saluted his Marine guards, the little head bob to bring his forehead to his hand instead of bringing his hand all the way up is as ate up as a soup sandwich.  This is embarrassing.  If you’re going to do it, go get the senior enlisted advisor from the service of your choice, and have them spend an hour or so teaching you how to do it.  And if you’re a politician and a veteran and you do crap like this, I suggest spending an hour or so with R. Lee Ermey doing corrective training on you because you ought to know better.
• From the “Flashback or Foreshadowing?” Department – Violent protests broke out again in Ferguson, Missouri, yesterday after a memorial to Michael Brown was set on fire.  Several shop windows were smashed, and at least one fire was set while the peaceful protesters were peacefully protesting.  The grand jury, which is looking into the shooting of a black man by a white police officer, is due in October, and tensions are said to be high.  One wonders how the residents of Ferguson will react to the grand jury issuing a no-bill in the case if they start tearing things up over a cremated teddy bear.
• From the “Brilliant!” Department – Inventors in the United States have come up with a desk that includes a circular walking track that resembles the wheels pet owners put in cages for mice or hamsters.  They are considering putting a brake and a generator on the contraption, so that workers have the ability to stop this crazy thing without breaking their neck and so that they can contribute to their employer’s bottom line by generating electricity to power the computer they are chained to.  Next on their list will be a communal watering device that feeds liquids down a metal tube which is stopped with a rubber ball, as well as small bales of granola hung from the walls of offices.
• From the “Plowshares” Department – The South Carolina National Guard recently dropped several dozen outmoded armored vehicles into the Atlantic Ocean so that an artificial reef could form.  Apparently this has been going on for years, and almost 600 old tanks and APC’s are being used to create new marine habitats.  If you want to know what I think should be done with all of the surplus MRAP vehicles, I think that something like this would be better than handing them over to civilian police forces.
• From the “Greasy Kid Stuff” Department – An Oklahoma man was arrested the other day after police say he used a public fountain to wash his hair with mayonnaise.  Local delicatessens are setting up a legal defense fund for the accused, and donations of mustard, hot sauce, and dill pickles are being made to the jail so that he won’t be without his grooming aids.

• From the “Anthropology” Department – A new study suggests that warlike or homicidal behavior is natural and common in one of our nearest evolutionary cousins, the chimpanzees.  Interestingly, in bonobos, another close relative, it’s exceedingly rare.  The killing seems to happen most when competition for resources is highest, which fits in well with human behavior.  Of course, they have yet to find a population of chimps that enjoy knocking other chimpanzees down and stomping them for fun, nor have I seen reports of them kidnapping females and locking them up in secret rooms for years.
• From the “Biting the Hand” Department – Leaked emails from a group at Brandeis University seems to demonstrate just how far the political extremism goes in some parts of academia.   I’m not going to equate antisemitism with anti-Israel, but these messages are pretty rabid. It’s also apparent that to a lot of these academics, leaving your religion and then pointing out why constitutes a hate crime.  And just to flavor the soup, we have the regular vitriol about conservatives and anyone who doesn’t get their news from Pravda or Komsomolets.  Somewhere in my black heart, I hope these people someday have to face the victims of those they support.
• From the “Abandoned” Department – Former prostitutes in South Korea are being forced out of their homes near an expanding American base.  It appears that after being used by the South Korean government to provide entertainment to American GI’s for decades, they are being forgotten.  The seedy side of American bases in foreign countries was pretty sad to see, and the fact that these women are being cast aside now that their usefulness has declined and the political and social climate has changed is telling.  I’m not sure what a complete solution to this should be, but it ought to include some sunshine on what, if anything, American leadership knew about the Koreans keeping women handy for soldiers, and probably some sort of financial and social support for them.
• From the “FFS” Department – A local university went on lock down recently after someone reported seeing someone with a backpack and a gun.  After an hour or so of searching, the offender was located and the ‘rifle’ turned out to be an umbrella.   People, if you can’t tell an umbrella from a rifle on a rainy day, please stop wasting Pell grant money to go to university.
• From the “Anti-Gun Utopia” Department – A young man in Chicago recently learned that there is no safe place, there are no safe strangers, and you really shouldn’t live in Chicago if you can help it when he was attacked and hacked at with a machete.  Seven people, ranging in age from 15 to 23, have been arrested.  The members of the attacking group have been charged with robbery, aggravated assault, and trespassing.  So, I guess attempted murder was too much of a stretch for the police and prosecutors after one of the victims required 31 stitches to close a 6 inch long, 1 1/2 inch deep gash.  Luckily, this is Chicago, so nobody had a gun, so nothing serious happened.
• From the “Research” Department – The federal government is paying several million dollars for a study that entails getting monkeys drunk and then seeing what effect alcohol has on their tissues.  Funny, I’d have thought they could have done the same research at any public university during Greek Week for a lot less.
• From the “Bad Idea” Department – A man in Ireland was arrested in May when he exposed his buttocks to a member of the police and shouted insults and threats at him.  Having gotten into a fight or two with Irish police (Not in Ireland, thank the Lord), I’m pretty sure this guy was either drunk, is the bravest man on Earth, or is out of his mind.  I have a friend who has a crooked tooth because he smarted off to Officer O’Malley one too many times.
• From the “Misplaced Trust” Department – A federal judge has awarded a large sum of money to a former ATF agent who was pretty much abandoned by his agency after infiltrating the Hells Angels motorcycle gang.  An earlier settlement covered other offenses, but it appears that his ‘leadership’ at ATF decided to take a shine to the man and made life difficult for him until he retired.  Something tells me that a guy who was willing to infiltrate a biker gang for a couple of years isn’t going to be intimidated by some douche in a cheap suit, so it’s not surprising that he took to the courts and made the ATF pay.  It’s interesting that this is the same ATF office that bungled the Fast and Furious operation.
• From the “Beasties” Department – A surgeon in Australia has heroically removed a tumor from the head of a pet goldfish, and the patient is said to be doing “swimmingly”.   You read that right, ladies and gentlemen.  Somebody paid $200 to have surgery done on a $2 goldfish.  Apparently his owners had become quite attached to him in the 10 years of his life, and this new surgery will give him another 20 years to enjoy swimming in tight circles.  Now, I love my pets.  Honestly, there are days when I love my cat and my dog more than I like 99.99999999% of humanity.  But this takes it to another level.  Mr. Limpet is expected to make a full recovery, and will soon be on a speaking tour to discuss his heroic comeback.  All of this will be covered in his new book, “Against the Current”, in which the details of his struggles and victories will be laid bare to the world.
• From the “Update” Department – The Minnesota Vikings, bowing to public pressure and common sense, have told Adrian Peterson to stay away from the team until his legal troubles are cleared up.  You’ll recall that Peterson was indicted the other day for child abuse after he admitted to a grand jury that he used a switch to repeatedly whip his four year old son, leaving bleeding welts on the child’s buttocks, legs, and genitals.  I’d say that this is a good step by the club, and one that I hope is emulated across the league.

Something is rotten in the National Football League.  I started to smell it a few years ago when almost weekly news items detailed arrests for NFL players that never seemed to go anywhere.   This year we have Ray Rice getting a slap on the wrist for knocking his fiance out, which only got upgraded to a long-term suspension and release from the Baltimore Ravens when video of the actual attack was released by a tabloid website.  Commissioner Goodell has sworn that he had no idea the attack was so horrific, and that nobody in the NFL had seen the video from the elevator until it hit the news.  I guess he gets his intel from the same source as President Obama.

Next, Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings is in hot water because of an indictment for child abuse in Texas.  It seems that Peterson took a switch to his four-year-old son and beat him badly enough that the child was bleeding* from multiple wounds on his legs, buttocks, and other body parts.   But don’t worry, my beloved Vikings are planning to bring Peterson back on Sunday against New Orleans.  Well, I guess a one game suspension for drawing blood from a preschooler is pretty stiff, now isn’t it?  And now, we learn that there is another pending case in which Mr. Peterson is accused of harming a child badly enough to draw blood.

Peterson and Rice are just two very public examples.  The list of NFL players who have gotten in trouble with the law is long, and to be honest, disheartening.

I don’t know why these men do these things, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t care.   I’ve been watching professional football since before I could ride a bike, but I’m starting to have second thoughts.  I’m under no illusion that the players of my youth were angels, but I never remember things like this going on.  Whether they like it or not, when an athlete steps into the spotlight, he becomes a role model for young men and boys, especially those without good father figures of their own.  They are richly rewarded for their hard work, but for that we should expect better behavior.

The NFL needs to clean house.  I’m not a fan of zero-tolerance policies, but Commissioner Goodell and the owners need to tighten the screws before they start to lose us as fans.  We are the ones that buy the tickets and the merchandise, and we are the ones that watch the games and the commercials.  If we turn away in disgust, the multi-billion dollar not-for-profit that is the National Football League will burn to the ground.  This will require more than a change of leadership, rather it will require a change of culture in the NFL, and possibly a purge of those elements who do not wish to act like decent human beings and those who tolerate bad behavior.

Players who are accused of crimes need to be suspended until their cases are adjudicated.  Players who commit serious crimes need to be fired.  Coaches and owners who put up with this behavior and look the other way need to be asked to leave and not come back.  As fans, we need to vote with our feet and our wallets until we start to get the players we deserve, not the thugs we’ve been getting.

Oh, and Minnesota, since you’ve decided to start Peterson after a one game suspension for putting his kid in the hospital with bleeding welts all over his lower body, as a lifelong Vikings fan, all I can say is this:  Geaux Saints!

*Warning:  The photos linked to from that page are ugly.

Thanks to LabRat for helping me verbalize something that’s been rolling around in my knoggin for a while.

• From the “Get A Rope” Department – An on-line gamer was recently ‘swatted’ while broadcasting from his home.  Swatting is the practice by which a false police report is called in, causing the police to send armed people to storm the home or business of the victim.  In this instance, a report of a murder and threats to kill police were called in, and the hijinks were visible to anyone who was watching the victim’s video stream.  Nothing says family entertainment like sending people with rifles to mess with a gamer’s flow.  Words like “attempted murder” came to mind as I read this.
• From the “Sins of the Mother” Department – A four-year-old boy was kicked out of his school after his mother complained on-line about the school not notifying her about picture day.  Apparently the mother had agreed to not “sow discord” somewhere in the avalanche of paperwork that parents sign at the beginning of the school year, and she called into question the intelligence of the school’s personnel in her post.  You know, you can sow more than discord if you’re going to get kicked out anyway.  Just saying.
• From the “Corinthian Leather” Department – A woman in London was surprised when she opened the trunk of her new car to discover an 8 foot boa constrictor.  The former owner claims that he lost the reptile, but had searched the car thoroughly.  He says that the new owner can trust in him that no other large reptiles are loose in the car.  The snake in question appears to be unharmed, and will be driving against the Stig on the next season of Top Gear.
• From the “Cold Feet” Department – A man in Connecticut gets the DaddyBear’s Den Golden Schwanz Award for 2014 after having his father tell his British fiance that he had committed suicide.  It seems that the young man didn’t have the guts to break up with the young lady, and figured it was easier to fake his own death rather than make that call.  Now, I’ve been in some relationships that I desperately wanted to get out of, but I’ve never been so desperate that I’ve asked someone to tell the other party that I took my own life.
• From the “Criminal Mastermind” Department – Geologists from the outside world are being allowed to investigate and study a semi-dormant volcano on the Chinese / North Korean border.  Reports are that the volcano is rumbling a bit, but that might be linked to the secret submarine and missile launch base in the mountain’s crater.  Scientists have discovered a network of underground tunnels, where the DPRK’s leadership have stashed super weapons and caches of stolen gold bullion.  Kim Jong Un, leader of the Hermit Kingdom, deflected questions about the mountain as he sat on his throne, stroking a white long-haired cat and squinting through his monocle.  No word yet on the contents of the massive chamber that was broken into during earlier excavations or the status of the team that found it, although legends of the soul of Kim Il Sung wandering the side of the mountain persist.
• From the “Miffed Terrier” Department – President Emeritus Obama, taking a break from his summer holiday, has jetted off to Estonia to try to bolster relations with NATO members who share a border with Russia.  Mr. Obama promised to defend Estonia and other small European countries, just as soon as they complete new links-style courses for ‘maneuvers’.  In related news, Vice President Biden has been sighted in the Balkans reassuring confused Serb and Croat peasants that the United States will stand by its commitment to NATO.
• From the “All Rights Are Important Rights” Department – A black politician was arrested recently after police tried to stop him for putting leaflets on cars during a political rally.  The leaflets are reported to have detailed civil rights information, and the officers arrested the man after he asked them to tell him what law he was breaking after they objected to his activity.  Now, I’m sure that this gentleman and I would not see eye to eye on a lot of issues, but the fact that an agent of the state decided that defying orders to stop a legal and constitutionally protected activity was grounds to handcuff someone and drive them around town before taking them to jail raises my hackles.  Things like this should not happen in the United States, and we owe it to ourselves and every other citizen to stand up and fight when they do.  I hope he sues the police department over this, and if he needs donations to fund such a suit, he’ll get a bit of money from me.
• From the “Bad Things” Department – A Chicago police commander has been charged after it was alleged that he put the barrel of his sidearm into the mouth of a suspect and held an electric stun gun against the man’s genitals.  It’s a good sign that prosecutors and police leadership in Chicago are letting this see the light of day.  Maybe there’s some progress being made after all.

• From the “Big Government” Department – The governor of Missouri has called out the National Guard in response to renewed strife in the Saint Louis suburb of Ferguson.  I’m curious to see if the actual soldiers are as well equipped as the county police that showed up earlier in the crisis.  My gut tells me that they won’t have as much body armor and night vision, and their MRAP’s, if they even have them, won’t be as polished and clean.  Of course, they will be wearing camouflage for a reason.
• From the “Pros from Dover” Department – In related news, Arabs in Gaza are tweeting pointers to the rioters in Ferguson.  Advice on how to deal with tear gas and rubber bullets are intermixed with encouraging words.  You know, if you’re going to have to stand up to police when you’re burning down gas stations and looting businesses that don’t have armed people in front of them, you could do worse than to listen to those guys.
• From the “Bad Law” Department – A man in Texas is about to go on trial for the murder of the drunk driver who killed two of his children.  It is alleged that the gentleman went to his home after the accident, got a gun, and killed the man who ran down his sons while they were pushing a car down a dark road.  The gun in the case has never been found, the accused had no gunshot residue on him after the shooting, and no witness has come forward to say that he was the one who killed the decedent.  Prosecutors seem to be basing their case on the fact that the father was seen at the scene of the accident that killed his sons, and that he had bullets in his house that were of the same type and caliber of the ones used to kill the drunk driver.  Why the prosecutors are taking such flimsy evidence to trial is beyond me.  This smacks of “yeah, probably, but can you prove it?” to me.
• From the “Bad Things” Department – A police department in Illinois is under fire after two M-16A1 assault rifles (And yes, in this circumstance, that term is appropriate), which the department received from the federal government, went missing.  It appears that Officers Harpo, Chico, and Groucho have no idea who had access to the rifles, who lost the rifles, and when they lost them.  Now, Illinois is one of those states that have pretty onerous licensing of guns and gun owners.  What would happen to one of the common plebs if they couldn’t account for the whereabouts of their guns?
• From the “Par for the Course” Department – The mayor of Monticello, New York, has been arrested on corruption charges, along with the cities building inspector.  The mayor was a member of Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, so him being accused of a crime follows a pattern followed by other MAIG members.  Honestly, if I was on a jury, and was told that the accused was an active member of MAIG, I’d give that information the same weight as I would if I were told they were a member of MS-13.
• From the “Same As It Ever Was” Department – Over the weekend an isolation facility in Liberia was ransacked and many of its patients, who were being screened for Ebola, fled into the neighboring slum.  Some of those patients have come to other hospitals, but it is unknown how many people they have come into contact with and subsequently put at risk for hemorrhagic fever.  Additionally, it is unknown how many looters have infected themselves by using equipment, including mattresses and bedding, which they stole from the isolation facility.  If you’ve seen this movie before, you’ll understand why I’m hoping international flights out of Liberia and the other countries dealing with the epidemic become very rare and very controlled.
• From the “Just Happy To See Me” Department – A man in New Mexico was arrested after a police officer noticed a meth pipe in his waistband.  The man had asked the officer for help after a bug flew into his eye, but having drug paraphernalia in plain sight led to a search, which led to drugs and other pipe, as well as a two-foot sword.  The sword was being carried down the suspect’s leg, which leads to questions of a sheath, but I’ll let you go down that path yourself.
• From the “Familiar Story” Department – A man in Florida, who makes his living as a player in the only real sport in North America, was arrested recently after police found cocaine in the back pocket of his jeans.  The man claims to be shocked, yes, shocked I say, that there were drugs in his pants, since he had been wearing them for three days and had no idea how it got there.  His cousin Mookie and the criminal mastermind Sumdood were unavailable for comment.

So, apparently a new horror movie is coming out, and some jackass decided that Louisville ought to have an event that commemorated the idea of the movie.  Apparently, in the movie, there is a period of time every so often where all laws are suspended, meaning that people can rape, rob, murder, and loot to their heart’s content, and everyone is responsible for their own defense.  For those of us who don’t live in Detroit or Oakland, this is supposed to be scary.

Anyway, a Twitter post saying that Louisville ought to have their own ‘purge’, and the media has picked it up and is running with it like their hair was on fire.  To tell you how shrill the alarmists have been, a football scrimmage and a minor league baseball game are being changed so that they don’t coincide with the 8PM to 6 AM period when people are expected to lose their damned minds and burn the River City to its foundations.

So, because some twit decided to slash a photoshopped DVD cover on social media, the newsies and city fathers are cautioning people to be vigilant.  Irish Woman, who normally has a very good head on her shoulders, has asked me to make sure that the shotgun and pistols are ready to go, and when I jokingly asked if I could get the AR out of the safe, she told me that was a good idea.

What can we learn from this?  Well, we now know that you can get at least a small percentage of Americans to freak out if you can get ominously threatening Twitter posts to go viral.  Imagine if a terrorist organization wanted to mess with us at almost no cost.  All they would have to do is have a few people drop warnings that on Wednesday at 8 PM Eastern, something bad was going to happen.  They could then pop a bag of halal popcorn, sit back, and watch people get spun up.  Do that a few times, and the populace will become indifferent to them.  Then, you issue the warning, and actually do something.  After that, all it will take is a hint of something on social media, and the country will lock itself behind doors and order pizza.

People, we need to get a grip.  My guess is that, at most, we are looking at a few goobers in cheap plastic masks going booga-booga downtown.  There might be some vandalism, and they might mixed up with the normal bands of roving ‘youths’ who spend their warm summer nights knocking over liquor stores and old ladies.

As for me, I’ll be at home, enjoying my pizza, and doing a function check on the AR, just to make my wife feel better.  After that, I’m going to have a discussion with her about risk management, and go to bed.

If I’m wrong, I’ll see you all on the national news.