2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 AL Central Division Champs!

However, before the conservatives start celebrating, pay attention to this

In other words, you're stuck with him until you confirm someone to take his place. So if you hate him, the best thing you can do to get rid of him is to encourage the senate to actually hold a vote on his replacement. Even if the senate flips in November, they won't be able to push him out until they vote to approve someone else.

Eric Holder To Resign As Attorney General (source chosen because it has no paywall)

Some dumbass in Korea is desperately trying to gain access to my home system. In less than 6 hours, the system has made over 5,000 unsuccessful attempts to get in. I'm not sure if "phone book" is the right term or not, but they are going through a (very) long list of usernames and attempting to log in with them. One IP address the whole time, just not giving up.

Not that I expect it to make a difference, but I sent an email to their ISP.

This is an interesting change from the distributed attacks that I was used to seeing. Not sure if the two are related or not but I do seem to be seeing a larger number of attacks since being issued a new IP address at home.

Nothing engages (enrages?) the crowd here on slashdot like pointing out what a tool samzenpus is when he posts whackjob conservative FUD to the front page. My first comment has so far drawn twenty-six moderations. Of those 26, the tally is currently:

• 6 troll
• 5 flamebait
• 2 informative
• 9 insightful
• 1 interesting
• 1 funny
• 1 underrated
• And 1 insightful that was undone

What actually surprises me the most is that not one of those moderations were "overrated".

Although if I could ask anything to change here on slashdot, it would be that they give us a way to actually view all these moderations in a way other than having to read the poorly-formatted comments that they send to our slashdot "inboxes". Clicking on my comment tells almost nothing useful about how it was moderated.

The article that this links to has nothing to do with wasting food. The point of the Seattle City Council's action is to get people to compost. You can throw as much food as you want in the compost, that is just fine. This goes with their earlier ordinances to encourage recycling, they are just trying to reduce the amount of material that is disposed of as "regular" trash.

This is in response to the atrociously miswritten Seattle Passes Laws To Keep Residents From Wasting Food. Even the worst editors on slashdot usually read at least a little ways in to an article before attempting to summarize it. However, once in a while samzenpus is so engrossed in beating off to fox news that he allows this kind of garbage to slip right in.

Well done, samzenpus. You showed us that just when we thought the front page crap here couldn't get any worse, you can still one up the crappiness. For those with short memories, I will remind us that he also posted these awful gems: NBC apologizes for editing Zimmerman 911 call

school sends child's lunch home after determining it unhealthy

Tesla will discontinue the Roadster

... and the cherry on the turd sundae:

California May Reduce Carbon Emissions By Banning Black Cars

I know I've missed plenty of great samzenpus failures along the way, but these are just some highlights. Really, why the fuck is this idiot an editor? I know some people who work for google, I'm sure they have a decent algorithm that could replace him.

Funny how we didn't do anything about this problem. After Surgery, Surprise $117,000 Medical Bill From Doctor He Didnâ(TM)t Know (new york times, 9/20/2014).

Oh, wait. We didn't actually do anything - aside from handing out the largest government handout in the history of government - with the affordable care act. If you want to know who owns the congresspeople and senators that are supposed to represent you, look only as far as the insurance card(s) in your wallet.

There has been a character limit for article headlines on the front page for ... well, I presume it's been there as long as slashdot has been in existence. For some part of that time, slashdot had editors who ... actually knew how to edit text (we long ago replaced them with people who randomly mash buttons in exchange for stock in dice.com).

Yesterday, there was an article that had a title that just couldn't fit under the limit. At least one comment pointed out that "rollout" was truncated to "rollo".

Now, we could have edited the headline to fit under the limit. Or we could have just buried the story as it wasn't relevant to the scope of slashdot anyways. Yet neither of those options were acceptable. So somehow a patch was devised to allow for this to make it to the front page with its full headline.

Don't try to tell me anymore that this site doesn't cater to a deeply conservative base. No sensible site would have gone to such lengths to get this crappy article up.

I had a little bit of downtime yesterday afternoon with my phone in my hand and decided to see how awful slashdot is with the default browser on Android. It is - as one might expect - rather bad. More so, the front page actually had conservative advertisements on the page (beyond the usual collection of conservative stories). The first ad was touting Paul Ryan being scheduled to appear at a conference about medicare and medicaid. Being as I was not logged in to slashdot through my phone at all, this appears to be part of the new default set of ads served up to newbies.

Well done, slashdot. Might as well cater to your own base. You wouldn't want people to think that other opinions are welcomed here or anything.

PS - I liked it better when we had ads for mail-order-brides on the front page. At least that was something that performs a useful service. The GOP can't claim that.

The situation in Ukraine should be causing conservatives to collectively blow their gaskets, except that most of them discarded logic long ago. Let's examine their beliefs on the matter. Many conservatives believe:

• That Obama is a communist (which is obviously wrong)
• That Marxist communism was the dominant philosophy for most of the existence of the USSR (also obviously wrong)
• That communism and fascism are in any meaningful way similar philosophically (also obviously wrong)
• That Vladimir Putin is attempting to reinstate communism in Russia (also completely and utterly wrong)

If we were to suspend reality long enough to pretend that those statement are not all pure crap, we then have a bigger situation in current events to address - Obama vs. Putin over Ukraine. If the two were philosophically aligned, why would they be so doggedly opposed to letting the other get an upper hand in the situation? Surely, two communists should be able to agree on how to take over a third country for Marxist happiness, should they not?

... and of course, President Lawnchair is building (another!) "coalition of the willing".

On "Patriot Day" this year it occurred to me that 9/11 and Benghazi have some interesting parallels. Indeed these parallels, when considered in the context of how completely different the conservative responses to them are, are indicative of how much the conservative right has changed in the past decade-plus.

The fact that the latter event occurred on the anniversary of the former is not lost, although there is no evidence to support that being more than a coincidence.

One of the biggest parallels of the two events is that both were followed by large government investigations. The publication of the findings of one became an instant best seller at bookstores around the country and beyond. The release of the other was preceded by partisan rhetoric from people who were convinced it was a cover-up.

Both events were tried as calls for action by conservative presidents. 9/11 was used as justification for the invasion of two countries - one that was a likely hiding place for the person pegged as the "mastermind" of the attack, and one that had nothing to do with it whatsoever. Quickly as the war drum beat deafeningly loud anyone who dared to question those attacks was labeled as "Un-American" and prepared for tarring and feathering. When the conservative president at 1600 Pennsylvania during the Benghazi attack suggested we change something, he was met with a deafening chorus of "not so fast, we have to try to impeach you first!".

The success of the 9/11 attacks were blamed on "uh, ummm, whatever - we couldn't have possibly known this was going to happen". The success of the Benghazi attacks were blamed squarely on the POTUS and his cabinet.

The 9/11 attacks lead to massive changes - including mandatory anal probes - at airport security for all passengers. The Benghazi attacks lead to more partisan attacks aimed at the White House.

Don't forget Benghazi, either.

Hate Crime on Video

Reality Collapse

... not that we didn't see this coming. Too bad I'm bringing it up in the wrong crowd here.

Slashdot just informed me that recently 5 of my comments - all in different discussions - were up-modded "underrated". It seems an odd coincidence; perhaps someone had mod points they didn't know what to do with? (could it be related to this JE?

Though just as with the people who mod bomb me in the other direction, mod points are likely more effectively used elsewhere. It also isn't likely to bring people to read those comments as the discussions they were in are teetering on extinction.

But hey, to each their own. If someone has mod points they can use them as they please.

When you're at the range, and you line up your shot to center mass, and you pull the trigger, where you miss is indicative of what you're doing wrong -- if it's consistent. (Some short barrel concealed carry guns are not accurate at longer ranges; they aren't intended to be, either. However, the average full size hand gun is intended to be pretty accurate.)

Here's a link to a helpful free (PDF) target that may make you a better shot.

If I miss at the range -- which is rare -- I usually miss down and to the left of the bullseye (but not by much) because I'm pulling my index finger a little too hard -- I'm tightening my fingers.

If I was in a high stress situation -- say one where a yelling, large, aggressive nearly 300 pound man is charging me, I'd probably tighten up even more and miss to the left, say, hitting the assailant in the right arm. As I continued to pull the trigger, I would likely start missing up from the recoil of the gun -- more likely if I've firing a .40 cal, which has a sharper, more upward recoil than a .45 ACP or a 9mm does. (I've shot a few .40 cals before -- I've not shot a .40 cal Sig Sauer, but I have shot a couple of Berettas and I wasn't a fan. Besides -- .45 ACP is better than .40 anyways :) )

In this regard, the autopsy result of Michael Brown tends to support the officer's account of what happened. Brown was charging him, and under stress he over tightened, and missed to his left from center mass which would be the assailant's right arm / shoulder as he likely did not take a lot, if any, time to re-sight as he was in the line of a charging bull.

The other piece of evidence is going to be the brass. If it's all in a localized area, the officer was standing still. If it's scattered, then he was running toward the assailant.

The other question, which leads into another somewhat related point: How many rounds did Officer Darren Wilson fire? His gun had a 12 round magazine (+1 in the pipe) so it's possible that he missed a few times - which wouldn't surprise me, as here's a dirty little secret:

The police do not train with their firearms enough, or even as much as the average CHL holder.

A couple of my closest friends are police officers, and I can out shoot them any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Despite their "training" I have a much tighter grouping and many, many more bulls-eyes with the same weapon than they do.

The reality is, this trend tends to hold across the general population. You are far more likely to get shot by a cop -- whether intentional or not -- than you are a legal concealed carry licensee.

Consider that little fact the next time you want to think that "only the police should have guns".

And if you are a concealed license holder -- when was the last time you practiced? Find a range and keep those skills sharp.