Get Cynical

Just finished reading this. Best book I’ve read all year so far. Binet’s prose is reminiscent of Vonnegut.

From KTRH:

A 900-foot railroad bridge in San Saba Texas caught fire, stemming from a brushfire under it. The scene was just 90 miles west of Waco. Turns out, they didn’t have the extra equipment to save the bridge. The bridge, built in 1960 will cost $10 million to replace. It’s loss locals say, hinders the area’s agricultural transportation.

Skip to 2:11 if you want to get to the smashing.

Have you ever been banned from commenting on a blog? (Just peeked at my commenting blacklist and saw 24 people who won’t be answering this question)

I think I’m banned from Shakesville but I don’t remember my infraction. I must not have read their 4 page commenting policy or their 39 page Feminism 101 page that they require you to read before writing a Disqus comment.

There’s less studying to get an undergraduate degree than there is to comment on Shakesville.

Of course:

Conspiracy theorist radio host Alex Jones explained to his audience today how the government could have been behind the devastating May 20 tornado in Oklahoma.

On the May 21 edition of The Alex Jones Show, a caller asked Jones whether he was planning to cover how government technology may be behind a recent spate of sinkholes. After laying out how insurance companies use weather modification to avoid having to pay ski resorts for lack of snow, Jones said that “of course there’s weather weapon stuff going on — we had floods in Texas like fifteen years ago, killed thirty-something people in one night. Turned out it was the Air Force.”

Following a long tangent, Jones returned to the caller’s subject. While he explained that “natural tornadoes” do exist and that he’s not sure if a government “weather weapon” was involved in the Oklahoma disaster, Jones warned nonetheless that the government “can create and steer groups of tornadoes.”

From The Consumerist:

Earlier this month, a truck rolled over into a ravine next to the Ohio Valley Mall in Clairsville, OH. Of course, the sight of a huge truck resting in the ravine drew some onlookers from the mall parking lot, many of whom tried to take photos. It also drew one security guard who has lost her job after being involved in a physical altercation with one of these onlookers.

The video above [lots of shouting and some cursing, so it's headphone time if you're at work] seems to tell most of the story, with the security guard repeatedly shouting at people in the mall parking lot to not only stop taking photos of the wrecked truck, but to also delete any of those photos.

Much like many other malls, the Ohio Valley Mall apparently has a “no photography” policy, but neither the policy nor the guard’s shouting seemed to sway the onlookers taking photos of the ravine. She threatened to call the police on people if they didn’t cease the photo-taking, to which you can hear replies of “go ahead” from the gathered crowd.

Then, a couple minutes into the video, you see the guard get up close and personal, shouting directly into the face of a woman in what appears to be a motorcycle helmet. This shouting quickly escalates into a tussle, with the shopper getting the best of the guard. Soon, they are both down on the blacktop, with the shopper hitting the guard. At some point, the guard comes close to turning the tables and almost unholsters what looks like pepper spray, but the two combatants end up locked together on the ground until a man walks up and breaks the fight up.

WTF?

In the first terrorist murder on the British mainland since the 7/7 suicide bombings of 2005, the men attempted to behead the soldier, hacking at him like a “piece of meat” in front of dozens of witnesses, before both were shot by police who took around 20 minutes to arrive.

After the killing, one of the men, believed to be a British-born Muslim convert, spoke calmly into a witness’s video phone.

Speaking with a London accent, holding a knife and a meat cleaver and with his hands dripping with blood, he said: “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone. Your people will never be safe. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying by British soldiers every day.

“We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I apologise that women had to witness this today but in our lands our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don’t care about you. Do you think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start busting our guns? Do you think your politicians are going to die?

Huh?

A man being questioned in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings was shot and killed in Florida on Tuesday by an FBI agent from Boston when the agent “began to feel threatened,” ABC News confirmed.

Khusen Taramov said he and Ibragim Todashev were being questioned as part of the bombings by the FBI official and another law enforcement officer in Orlando.

Taramov said Todashev, 27, knew bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev because both were MMA fighters.

Taramov said they were interviewed nearly three hours, and at some point, “something went wrong,” and Todashev was killed.

“There was some sort of aggressive movement that led the FBI agent to believe he was under threat and he opened fire,” the law enforcement official told ABC News.

“(The FBI) took me and my friend, the suspect that got killed. They were talking to us, both of us, right? And they said they need him for a little more, for a couple more hours, and I left, and they told me they’re going to bring him back. They never brought him back,” Taramiv said.

The FBI confirmed that a person was shot and killed, but would not disclose details about the investigation.

The owner is facing deportation.