UConn James

Did you not even read the highlights of Bob Woodward's book? There was a deal in hand --- Boehner had the votes at a $800M tax increase on the rich --- and then Obama killed it when he did a bait-and-switch and demanded a $1.2T tax increase. One of the worst things the Republicans have done under Boehner's leadership is let the Democrats punt things until after elections. It gave a free pass and enabled Democrats to not have to run on SCREAMING records of tax-and-spend. It has let Obama/Dems stay on offense and dictate play. It has let Dems define Republicans. You can't just push this stuff to a later date and assume that you're going to be in a better negotiating position post-election. Boehner has been the epitome of zero backbone and zero cojones and look what it's got him. Ryan is very popular in the Congress, he's the numbers guy, he's the nominal party leader right now in this vacuum period.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/12/22/Laura-Ingraham-Sources-Say-Paul-Ryan-to-Replace-John-Boehner-as-Speaker Gotta say that Boehner's time has been a serious disappointment.

There's planning and then there's bucking up and saying 'Let's get this done!' and stop handsitting. Some of these same entities were planning the Peace Bridge for 30 years.... It'll be up to the next owner now. Frankly, that doesn't fill me with confidence.

This was like the 96-year-old buying a new kitchen range because all the burners on his ancient one won't light anymore because they're gummed up with junk or connections have failed. It doesn't mean that he's going to start fixing up the entire house so it's a primo place and sells for a lot of coin after he's gone. All it means is that he has to have a stove so his home aide can have something to cook on so he doesn't starve. This simply kicked the can far enough down the road so we can keep walking, but short enough that the next guy isn't encumbered to kicking it more if s/he doesn't want to or if it's not profitable (enough).

My brother delivered a number of the inmates there with the Air Force Raven unit. He was just in and out, tho.

Que? I Want A Dog For Christmas, Charlie Brown was on last night....

Yes... but remember that the Mayans lived in our hemisphere's time zones.

As Craig Ferguson (the late, late show on CBS) said in a standup bit of his, there are three questions that must be asked before making a statement of any importance: Does this need to be said? Does this need to be said right now? Does this need to be said right now by me? The answer to the first two is definitely yes. And in this, I admire him for saying what few others have had the balls to say (and I believe he may be the first one to say this who actually has chips on the table). But that third one applies for EW. I can't imagine that these words will be looked at very kindly by the management/FO. It's been shown over and over that they don't care how much talent you have, if you embarrass them in public, they WILL cut off their noses to spite their faces.

From this post, it seems like you're still under the impression that the shooter's mother was a teacher. She was not. Who's the one 'speaking retard'?! This is the pot calling the Dove soap black. But to the other point, the thing about this town in Texas is that the nearest police presence is 20 minutes away from the school. In a scenario like Newtown/Columbine, everyone in the school could be dead by the time police car's rubber even enters the parking lot. Shootings where the intent is to kill as many as possible and then the killer shoots himself/is shot by police are done within and dependant on the margins of police response time. Now, they've learned some things --- in Columbine, police waited outside in an expectation of negotiation and as it turned out, the shooters used that time to keep killing. Since then, as in Newtown, police go in right away. But we're still left with the age-old problem that transportation of resources takes valuable time. We have not yet invented the teleportation device from Star Trek. I know all you liberals would like to think that dialing 911 and police are you need. People who live in the real world, tho, realize the truth to the adage that "when EVERY SECOND counts, police are just MINUTES away." And so, in many instances of violent crime, personal security is self-help. Police show up after the factto collect evidence to see if they can catch the perp and file reports for the insurance companies to use. And so, in this Texas school, since police physically cannot show up until it's all over, someone with an ounce of sense decided to try something that could handle a situation in a much more timely manner. These teachers receive extensive training and their weapons are secured. would be able to do more than shield and cower and wait. Perfect solution? Dunno. But it's a better option than simply shielding students with your body (an act that is THE most truly heroic, as reports of what Vicki Soto did, don't get me wrong) or cowering and waiting. And response times, even in developed parts of the country, can be on par to this 20 minutes and give those intent on destruction a lot of free, unopposed operating time.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2012/1218/NBC-s-Richard-Engel-released-in-Syria-a-journalist-danger-zone *Whew*

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2249562/Award-winning-NBC-News-foreign-correspondent-Richard-Engel-missing-Syria-Thursday.html Hoping for the best here.... He's been the best source of what's actually going on the Middle East for over ten years now.

I don't want to hear the contraction screams.... Show me the baby!

Wow, Denise is really shooting herself in the foot in this final tribal. Basically, telling the whole jury, 'I'm better than you!' and using that as her case. Lisa kinda screwed herself by not coming back with an 'I'm not rich from that...' to Penner. He just laid the wood to her chances there.

Actually, talking the experience through is one of the most effective forms of therapy. Another of the symptoms of PTSD is when remembering it brings about those same feelings of panic/anxiety/etc. One of the points of therapy is being able to talk about it without re-experiencing it. I would reference the PBS miniseries "This Emotional Life" in this regard. Granted... talking to the media isn't any form of this kind of therapy. But, people want to try to understand this event, and the people who experienced it are the kids. It's naive to think that this won't or shouldn't happen.

It doesn't merit censorship. On that I agree. I said far less about Ralph Wilson in the Shoutbox (that when he kicks the bucket, the state of the franchise will be better off. Literally. That's what I wrote.) and got banned and 2 "warning points" for it. So as for any consistency in moderating on this site... every mod is a sheriff in his/her own right and is above questioning as Beerball wrote in the Customer Service forum. We don't want them here, we don't need them here, we "police ourselves." You have the right to write your opinions here, but incumbent in that is a personal duty to not be a prick before dead first graders are buried. I know someone who has/is working the scene. In the school, in those two rooms. It is beyond terrible. This person is as hard-boiled as they come, had seen everything... and I can see a change in this person's personality already. It will be their nightmare for the rest of their life. Post traumatic stress disorder has been described as the brain trying and failing to make sense of the insensible. Someone has to do it, and it is unenviable. There's a reason why people in the military are rotated through Graves Registration. I have an uncle who did that through two tours of Vietnam; most of those guys blew their own brains out. I don't see how it's such a hard thing to let this settle down a bit before people go poking the nerve.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/legally-recognize-westboro-baptist-church-hate-group/DYf3pH2d

And still, there's a time when it's necessary to show a modicum of respect and period of reflection in the wake of tragedy without being a total *. Even here on PPP, this applies.

They are saying that the virus likely caused dehydration, which caused the faint, which caused the concussion. That thought crossed my mind too, but I don't think even a Clinton would try that as an excuse. I mean... if they were really looking for an out, they would probably just have someone killed.

I get what you're saying about predictability and habits... but that's an extremely marginal factor in a case where there's a determined individual bent on destruction and who doesn't care a wot about consequences b/c he's preparing to die anyway, and is simply seeking personal vengeance and then whatever he can get to try to rack up a high score. There is no way that routines and/or changing them up would have made a difference here. He had deadly weapons combined with psychotic bent, and they hid behind doors and under desks. Feel however you want in whatever way helps you sleep. But if someone has you as a target for whatever reason and you have no method of security other than the police with 10 minute response times... you're on a slab, bro. Safety in the crucial first couple of minutes is self-help.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/15/children-and-adults-gunned-down-in-connecticut-school-massacre/ It's in the 3:06 p.m. update. Just going to say that I found out off the record just how bad this was going to be ("over 20 dead" someone told me) a little over an hour before the media got it and were still only saying the gunman was dead. Still didn't prepare me one iota for the shock. I feel 100 years old.

Evidently, his mother was NOT a teacher there. There is some speculation that was either a substitute or a sometimes-volunteer. The latest I read was the shooter had an agument with four teachers/staffers on Wed or Thursday, when he went to the school. He returned Friday and killed three of those four (the other had called in sick and was home yesterday), apparently primarily targeting them. What the nature of that argument was has not yet been detailed. In retrospect, if someone who doesn't belong there/has no reason to be there comes onto school grounds and gets in a tiff with staff, maybe it would have been best to get police involved and check it out. Not assigning blame here, just to be clear, but this was a warning sign and may be an area of stress going forward. If you have no business at a school, GTFO.

On the subject of SoS comes the news today that Hillary Clinton fainted, hit her head and suffered a concussion last week. http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-73709151/ I'm certainly not her biggest fan, but I wish a speedy recovery. Scary thing to see someone faint out of the blue. Happened in college ~10 years ago when a girl was standing at the printer not far from me and she suddenly just went totally limp and flopped like a sack of potatoes. Came to and fainted again. Called 911, medics came... She was really classically pretty too... but from what I suspect as I was trying to keep her talking, she hadn't eaten and was likely borderline anorexic.

Where do you think abortion falls in that? 'If this emerging life is too much for you to handle, if you can't afford it, if it's a cramp to your lifestyle... just snuff it out. Problem solved!' Now, I actually support many abortion rights and the stare juris of Roe, but you CANNOT remove it with a clean break from the degradation of society's views on the preciousness and value of life. Maybe especially in this case, of innocent life that did nothing wrong, it was simply viewed by an older person with the means as so detestable/inconvenient/etc. that it should be gotten rid of. From what little we know, he hasbeen described by a couple of people who knew him as a First-Person-Shooter-Videogame player. Personally, I think if we were to dial back those games to the Nth degree in availability and content, as well as encourage fewer murder-death-kill teevee shows (NCIS: Alabama, CSI: Waterloo, Law&Order: 7 Spinoffs, Criminal Minds, Bones and WAYYYY too many more to name here) with ever more graphic content, it would go some of the way toward ending the desensitization bent. Monkey see, monkey do. And if programmers don't want to do this voluntarily, then by other means, including broadcast licenses, First Amendment be damned. This stuff is obscenity much moreso than porn that gets all the focus in this section of law.

I'm not entirely sure whether Brown's ~2 years would count in that... but, yes, I'm under the impression that the Sr./Jr. designation goes by consecutive time spent in office, not by non-consecutive. As it stands, that terminology is only important to newspaper reporters to have another non-proper-noun when referring to the two.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/kerry-replace-hillary-state-dept-report-article-1.1220883 Gotta say that this is much more preferable to Susan Rice. Kerry will be confirmed easily with Senate collegiality. ----- Aside from all that, it would set up an interesting special election in Mass. if, as expected, Scott Brown runs for the seat and the challenger can't ride the Obama/general-ticket coattails.