Just gonna throw this out there, the argument that life begins at fertilization appears to be the more or less accepted position by embryology. I don't know of any conflicting scientific source on this.
@WarChiefZeke Having looked through that source I don't think it's making a helpful argument. I actually agree that fertilization makes sense as the starting point for development of a human life as that's the first point at which the genetic make-up of the future individual is determined.
However, that's not at all the same thing as saying scientists agree that fertilization is the point at which an embryo acquires the full protections we offer to humans. I've looked at a number of sources on that and it seems clear to me that the only agreement is that there is no agreement by scientists. Here's an article that gives a quick coverage of the issues.
If you consider the issue from the point of view of the law I think it becomes clear that it wouldn't be realistic to say that a fertilized egg acquires full human rights. As has been mentioned a couple of times only a small proportion of fertilized eggs continue to develop. If the law were taken to extremes a woman, without even knowing she were pregnant, could be charged with actions that would endanger her egg. That may seem a laughable idea, but there have been plenty of women in the US charged with conduct that endangers a fetus and, given how fundamentalist some legislators' actions have been on this issue, I think it's certain that a law establishing that a fertilized egg had full human rights would be used in some cases in what I would characterize as an abusive and coercive way. I didn't watch the programme, but I remember seeing this review of the Handmaid's Tale which points out one set of potential consequences when women's rights are subordinated to those of their unborn children.
@FinneousPJ: Most sects hold that original sin only applies, at earliest, after the person is born. Once you're born or reach a certain age, then you need baptism, rebirth, righteous conduct, and/or faith to be saved.
That's very interesting. So if in that sense the fetus is not a person, why is the fetus still somehow so sacred it cannot be aborted?
@semiticgod Very true. Its speculated that as many as 50% of fertilizations are aborted by the body early on due to not being viable. Personally, I hold that once the human body decides its viable and allocates the resources to gestate, it should be counted as human life.
@FinneousPJ It has more to do with ability to sin/understand sin and thus begin held accountable. Its fairly common in some sects to hold children are considered innocent until they are old enough to understand what disobeying is.
You'd expect career officials to have the back of one of their own, as you see with the "blue wall of silence" in almost every law enforcement agency. The fact that they recommended his dismissal speaks volumes.
Except when the president of the United States is already blanketing the entire top of the FBI and CIA as corrupt and needed to be purged.
The last two employees Trump named publicly on this were fired under suspicious reasoning and timing (Trump and McCabe).
To prevent themselves from being targeted next, they are towing the line, using McCabe and a lesser extent Comey as scapegoats.
The whole McCabe situation reads as a "he said/he said" scenario, but McCabe didn't get the chance to defend his actions, hence why I said, was not given due process.
And this situation is drastically different than a cop lying under oath for killing a black man. One is murder and a cover up. The other is a miscommunication of what he was allowed to share with a reporter about reopening the Clinton Email case.
There's been another explosion at a FedEx not far from Schertz, an hour's drive from Austin and close to San Antonio. @Mathsorcerer's guess seems to be coming true; this really does look like a string of test bombings building up to a larger one.
It's disturbing. If law enforcement can't track down the bomber before it happens, the actual bombing this person is planning for is definitely going to result in fatalities.
This latest device, if made by the same person, detonated inside the FedEx facility, which means they were trying to ship it--that was a mistake. There is too much tracking which goes on by shipping something that if the person in question did not manage to cover *all* their tracks--wore gloves, fake name, paid in cash, fake origination address, didn't drive a car registered to them to wherever they dropped off the package, and managed not to be caught on any security cameras--then investigators could get a lead in the case.
So far, though, about the only things the Schertz incident has in connection with the previous four are a) still happened right along I-35 (although well south of the other four events) and b) proximity in time. Truthfully, though, if I had to hazard a wild guess with no supporting evidence whatsoever I would bet that the latest device was from a copycat, not the actual Austin bomber. Although still an explosive device, this one seemed...sloppy...compared to the other four. Besides, none of the other were described as shrapnel-type devices (investigators are holding details very closely to their chest).
There are a *lot* of music fests and renfests which happen in March and April in Texas.
The whole McCabe situation reads as a "he said/he said" scenario, but McCabe didn't get the chance to defend his actions, hence why I said, was not given due process.
It's kind of shocking that you think the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility would recommend firing someone without letting them make their case. I think you know better than that.
The more the Cambridge Analytica story unfolds the more it is beginning to look as if Facebook colluded with the Russians to influence the outcome of the election. Facebook valuation (the sum total of the values of its outstanding shares) has fallen by $50 billion this week (and today is only Tuesday) and politicians in the United States Congress as well as the British Parliament would like for Zuckerberg to answer some questions.
The more the Cambridge Analytica story unfolds the more it is beginning to look as if Facebook colluded with the Russians to influence the outcome of the election. Facebook valuation (the sum total of the values of its outstanding shares) has fallen by $50 billion this week (and today is only Tuesday) and politicians in the United States Congress as well as the British Parliament would like for Zuckerberg to answer some questions.
Cambridge Analytica STOLE the data. Cambridge Analytica is funded by the Mercer family, who were heavily involved in Trump's campaign targeting and financing. Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon only ended up on the campaign because of the Mercers. When I said two dozen times in this thread someone was helping the Russians target their propaganda, this is the company I was talking about. You'll find posts of me mentioning this data firm months and months back. I didn't pull the name out of the sky. This has all been 85% out in the open since the beginning. Mueller just needs to fit the pieces together. And yes, I'd encourage everyone to abandon Facebook altogether.
For over 12 months, long before Mueller ever took over, I consistently mentioned 4 names: Manafort, Flynn, Page and Cambridge Analytica. Two of them are indicted, the other two swirling at the center of other narratives in the case. I didn't have inside information. These players were obviously dirty from jump street, even when the campaign was still happening. Money laundering, not registering as a foreign agent, a person the FBI was convinced was a Russian asset, and a data firm that stole the personal information of millions of people. All of them tied at the hip with Donald Trump.
Stormy Daniels passed a polygraph and the report found that the porn star was "truthful about having unprotected vaginal sex with Donald Trump in 2006".
Trump, a poor businessman whose businesses have been declared backrupt multiple times, could not be reached for comment. Known by aliases "John Barron" "John Miller" and "David Dennison", Trump has previously lost racial housing discrimination lawsuits and lawsuits relating to a scam university that he ran. He is currently being investigated by a special counsel for various allegations including money laundering, obstruction of justice, and collusion with a hostile foreign power to influence American elections.
Stormy Daniels passed a polygraph and the report found that the porn star was "truthful about having unprotected vaginal sex with Donald Trump in 2006".
Trump, a poor businessman whose businesses have been declared backrupt multiple times, could not be reached for comment. Known by aliases "John Barron" "John Miller" and "David Dennison", Trump has previously lost racial housing discrimination lawsuits and lawsuits relating to a scam university that he ran. He is currently being investigated by a special counsel for various allegations including money laundering, obstruction of justice, and collusion with a hostile foreign power to influence American elections.
@smeagolheart hey did you copy/paste this from somewhere?
Stormy Daniels passed a polygraph and the report found that the porn star was "truthful about having unprotected vaginal sex with Donald Trump in 2006".
Trump, a poor businessman whose businesses have been declared backrupt multiple times, could not be reached for comment. Known by aliases "John Barron" "John Miller" and "David Dennison", Trump has previously lost racial housing discrimination lawsuits and lawsuits relating to a scam university that he ran. He is currently being investigated by a special counsel for various allegations including money laundering, obstruction of justice, and collusion with a hostile foreign power to influence American elections.
@smeagolheart hey did you copy/paste this from somewhere?
No lol. Made it meself from what's publicly been out there. Feel free to copy and paste it though if you want to.
The aliases are from Wikipedia Donald Trump aliases. David Dennison is what he used to sign the NDA with Stormy Daniels according to Wikipedia confirmed by MSNBC to be used by the Trump.
Damn it--now another explosion in South Austin, this one apparently at a Goodwill location. No details on this one yet--it happened only about 30 minutes ago.
Damn it--now another explosion in South Austin, this one apparently at a Goodwill location. No details on this one yet--it happened only about 30 minutes ago.
How is it that none of these six packages have led to any leads in this case?? They had to have been dropped off SOMEWHERE. I would assume the post office keeps track of where mail is initially picked up. I would then assume the cops would look at any street cameras and question potential eyewitnesses in those neighborhoods. But the real question here is the Fed-Ex situation. It seems to me someone would have HAD to send that package in person, and they would know the exact location where the postage was paid and the time it happened. It seems highly implausible there he has made no mistakes, unless he is sending them from somewhere outside of Texas and has been hopping from state to state. But they seem to be coming far too quickly for that to be the case.
By this, I think we can only assume that she means we don't yet have any proof it was a Muslim. Again, this example of how we define terrorism rears it's head again and again and again. Even if we find out the person doing this DID have political aims (and the targeting of black activists are the first victims actually WOULD indicate that), almost no one will actually refer to it that way.
Of course human life has inherent value, if we don't hold that notion, very little about political dialogue or society makes sense, and people naturally value their lives, and will only apply the principle of human life being worthless in ways that won't affect them. It is only ever an excuse to treat another like they have no value.
Human value has life, yes. But believe me, insurance companies and actuaries very much put a value on it, and that value will sometimes result in loss of lives because the value wasn't high enough to justify corrective action.
'Fight Club' has an example using lawsuits and auto manufacturers that the protagonist works for. My Microeconomics textbook has an example involving the costs vs. benefits of a city deciding the installation of a streetlight for traffic safety.
@booinyoureyes I think the state does have an interest in protecting life - I'm not aware of any legal system which allows murder for instance. As with all things though that interest has limits to it. You can see the competing issues in lots of areas of law, not just abortion, e.g. - suicide. That's generally not a crime in Western democracies now, though in historic terms that's a fairly recent change. I think that reflects some reduction in religious influence and a general increase in the importance given to the rights of the individual to make their own choices. - assisted suicide. I would say the law in this area in many countries is currently going through the same process that applied to the law on suicide 2 or 3 generations ago. The same issues about the sanctity of life vs individual choice are being played out again, though there is the additional factor now about the need to build in appropriate protections against people being bullied into choosing an assisted suicide. - rescues. Someone referred to the fact a bit earlier that in some jurisdictions you are required to render assistance to others (though there are likely to be limits on that as well). - drug licensing. Most drugs have side effects and in some cases those can be potentially fatal. When licensing a drug authorities have to weigh up the potential risks and benefits. Protecting life is weighed heavily in this balance - so a drug that has a small chance of fatal complications, but is very effective in relieving stomach ache is unlikely to be licensed (while a dangerous drug that helped late-stage cancer sufferers probably would be).
I'll also note in relation to abortion though that by no means everyone accepts that abortion does equate to taking human life (that's the case even among religious groups, though that might not be obvious given the prominence given to certain fundamentalist views in the debate). That's effectively the basis for the law in many countries linking the stage of pregnancy to the ability to choose an abortion.
Not in 'Murrica.
Coincidentally my BLAW class covered Duty to Rescue yesterday as part of the Torts chapter.
1. 'Murrica is a country that does not require people to rescue others. As the teacher, who is a practicing lawyer, said, unless you have a special relationship (family, business) with the person in distress, then you don't have to do a thing, even if they fall down seizing and dying on the sidewalk in front of you, you can legally walk right on by. MORALLY and ETHICALLY, sure, you probably have a duty to, at the very minimum probably at least call 911, but not a LEGAL duty.
2. You certainly don't have a duty to rescue if it will put YOU in danger. We didn't cover people whose job it is to do the rescuing even if it puts THOSE rescuers in danger such as firefighters, police, or EMTs.
3. However, if you DO attempt a rescue, then you are legally responsible for carrying out the rescue and are in legal danger if you abort the rescue. His example was going out to rescue someone in the ocean and turning back halfway. Witnesses who might have been actually able to do the rescue might have chosen not to get involved and were no longer around to see you abort the rescue.
Legally, I am not allowed to kill a pickpocket to prevent the theft of my wallet, or use lethal force to prevent someone from violating my bodily integrity by tickling my toes. The moral underpinning is proportionality. You can use lethal force in response to a threat of serious bodily harm or death.
You can have a disproportionate response with Castle doctrine. At least depending on the state. Here in my state of Texas, that includes robbery. As my lawyer-teacher said, you can use Castle doctrine reasonably if you come on them while they're breaking in, or have broken in to steal your T.V., but not if they're in the process of fleeing and you go for a rifle to shoot them in the back when they're 100 yards away.
Life definitely begins at conception. Personhood is less clearly defined, though, and we don't have a means of detecting the creation of a soul.
Fun fact: most conceptions spontaneously terminate very early on, before the woman even realizes it's happened. Most such fetuses are automatically aborted within a matter of days, simply because the body decides that the pregnancy isn't viable or cost-effective.
If you accept traditional Christian theory that babies who die before birth are delivered straight to heaven due to being innately innocent, every sexually active woman on the planet is gradually sending souls on a one-way route to heaven. That means that heaven is more populated than hell no matter how hard it is for an adult to get into the former!
Well technically, life doesn't begin, and hasn't begun since about 4 billion years ago. We're all just continuation of that life.
And that is a very odd concept I never thought of, but then, I never dug much into Christian theory once I realized how stupid the whole thing was. Why theorize up explanations for what's already ludicrous?
The more the Cambridge Analytica story unfolds the more it is beginning to look as if Facebook colluded with the Russians to influence the outcome of the election. Facebook valuation (the sum total of the values of its outstanding shares) has fallen by $50 billion this week (and today is only Tuesday) and politicians in the United States Congress as well as the British Parliament would like for Zuckerberg to answer some questions.
Cambridge Analytica STOLE the data.
Is it really stealing when it's (more or less) publically available on a (more or less) publically available website?
I don't do Facebook, and for YEARS now I've heard horror stories about people who have lost jobs, didn't GET jobs, had breakups, et cetera, et cetera, because of stuff THEY put up on social media (Facebook) THEMSELVES.
At the very least, the app at the center of the controversy was wholly misleading in every way, including likely legally, in that it lied about what it was doing:
In a statement Facebook said that in April 2015 Dr Aleksandr Kogan, a lecturer at Cambridge University's Department of Psychology, published an app on its site called thisisyourdigitallife, and said it was "a research app used by psychologists." But instead of just using it for research, Facebook claims it was used for commercial purposes by Cambridge Analytica and others.
“Approximately 270,000 people downloaded the app. In so doing, they gave their consent for Kogan to access information such as the city they set on their profile, or content they had liked, as well as more limited information about friends who had their privacy settings set to allow it,” the statement reads.
The kicker’s in the last bit of that. Unless users had their Facebook privacy settings locked down the app slurped not only the 270,000 consenting users but all their friends as well - over 50 million people according to Christopher Wylie, a former researcher director at CA, who had a copy of the data set.
Out of the 50 million people who had this information analyzed, 49.75 million of them never gave consent for anything. The user agreement on the app was a lie (which will likely be proven in court if it gets there). The entire premise for the use of the app as told to Facebook was also a lie. In all likelihood, plenty of people in THIS THREAD were part of this data sweep. And yeah, Facebook is toxic, all the more now, but I abandoned it years ago. But it's narcissistic navel-gazing was always going to become a big problem. In this case, it was where people passed around false info about the 2016 election like it was the Nigerian Prince email scam.
How is it that none of these six packages have led to any leads in this case?? They had to have been dropped off SOMEWHERE. I would assume the post office keeps track of where mail is initially picked up. I would then assume the cops would look at any street cameras and question potential eyewitnesses in those neighborhoods. But the real question here is the Fed-Ex situation. It seems to me someone would have HAD to send that package in person, and they would know the exact location where the postage was paid and the time it happened. It seems highly implausible there he has made no mistakes, unless he is sending them from somewhere outside of Texas and has been hopping from state to state. But they seem to be coming far too quickly for that to be the case.
By this, I think we can only assume that she means we don't yet have any proof it was a Muslim. Again, this example of how we define terrorism rears it's head again and again and again. Even if we find out the person doing this DID have political aims (and the targeting of black activists are the first victims actually WOULD indicate that), almost no one will actually refer to it that way.
I mentioned earlier many of the hoops through which someone would need to jump in order to get a package into a FedEx processing facility without leaving evidence of their identity. The earlier devices were most likely hand-delivered as they did not go through any USPS, FedEx, UPS, DHL, or other parcel service.
It doesn't have to be a Muslim person to be terrorism, as most people realize. In fact, I suspect the Austin bomber is *not* Muslim because as far as I can tell no radicalized pseudo-Islamic group has taken responsibility...and they *love* to take responsibility, even when they didn't do it. The first few incidents seemed to indicate a racial element as to how the victims were chosen but the second three didn't actually target anyone at all, so it probably isn't racially-related. Still...some secessionist groups are classified as domestic terror organizations by the FBI and some of them exist in the Hill Country.
Strangely, *no one* is taking responsibility for this--no group has said "yes, this is us". Eventually, we will have a prime suspect and then we will probably find some website or vlog where they give their religious or political exegesis. Until then, given the few facts that investigators have given us the only motive which makes sense is that the person is pulling a Joker--they just want to watch the world burn.
How is it that none of these six packages have led to any leads in this case?? They had to have been dropped off SOMEWHERE. I would assume the post office keeps track of where mail is initially picked up. I would then assume the cops would look at any street cameras and question potential eyewitnesses in those neighborhoods. But the real question here is the Fed-Ex situation. It seems to me someone would have HAD to send that package in person, and they would know the exact location where the postage was paid and the time it happened. It seems highly implausible there he has made no mistakes, unless he is sending them from somewhere outside of Texas and has been hopping from state to state. But they seem to be coming far too quickly for that to be the case.
By this, I think we can only assume that she means we don't yet have any proof it was a Muslim. Again, this example of how we define terrorism rears it's head again and again and again. Even if we find out the person doing this DID have political aims (and the targeting of black activists are the first victims actually WOULD indicate that), almost no one will actually refer to it that way.
I mentioned earlier many of the hoops through which someone would need to jump in order to get a package into a FedEx processing facility without leaving evidence of their identity. The earlier devices were most likely hand-delivered as they did not go through any USPS, FedEx, UPS, DHL, or other parcel service.
It doesn't have to be a Muslim person to be terrorism, as most people realize. In fact, I suspect the Austin bomber is *not* Muslim because as far as I can tell no radicalized pseudo-Islamic group has taken responsibility...and they *love* to take responsibility, even when they didn't do it. The first few incidents seemed to indicate a racial element as to how the victims were chosen but the second three didn't actually target anyone at all, so it probably isn't racially-related. Still...some secessionist groups are classified as domestic terror organizations by the FBI and some of them exist in the Hill Country.
Strangely, *no one* is taking responsibility for this--no group has said "yes, this is us". Eventually, we will have a prime suspect and then we will probably find some website or vlog where they give their religious or political exegesis. Until then, given the few facts that investigators have given us the only motive which makes sense is that the person is pulling a Joker--they just want to watch the world burn.
The most horrifying murderer would be somebody smart and off the grid who doesn't care if others know his motives. So far there hasn't been anybody like that I've ever heard of. Somebody who's careful and only wants to kill people could probably get away with it if he/she wanted to. It would be a pretty unique personality type but there a lot of different types of people. Intelligent people probably wouldnt be mad bombers but what if? I've thought of writing a novel about somebody like that...
The most horrifying murderer would be somebody smart and off the grid who doesn't care if others know his motives. So far there hasn't been anybody like that I've ever heard of. Somebody who's careful and only wants to kill people could probably get away with it if he/she wanted to. It would be a pretty unique personality type but there a lot of different types of people. Intelligent people probably wouldnt be mad bombers but what if? I've thought of writing a novel about somebody like that...
You're describing the Unabomber. He sent bombs successfully for ~20 years until he decided to send a manifesto to the media, which eventually led to his capture.
The most horrifying murderer would be somebody smart and off the grid who doesn't care if others know his motives. So far there hasn't been anybody like that I've ever heard of. Somebody who's careful and only wants to kill people could probably get away with it if he/she wanted to. It would be a pretty unique personality type but there a lot of different types of people. Intelligent people probably wouldnt be mad bombers but what if? I've thought of writing a novel about somebody like that...
You're describing the Unabomber. He sent bombs successfully for ~20 years until he decided to send a manifesto to the media, which eventually led to his capture.
Even Kaczynski ended up wanting to be 'heard' though. What if he didn't give a shit? That's far scarier...
The Austin bomber essentially blew himself up this morning when a SWAT team attempted to aprehend him in a traffic stop. Shouldn't take too long at this point to find his reisdence and search it.
He was staying in a hotel in Round Rock, which is north of Austin (confirms my suspicion that he lived in the area--he was using I-35 for ease of access); strangely, he is a native of Pflugerville, which isn't that far away--I presume he needed the relative privacy that living in a hotel would give? *shrug* Suspect's name is apparently Mark Anthony Conditt--as noted, a 24-year-old white male. Police have not confirmed any potential associates or partners and I have no doubt that many journalists are already scouring social media and the general Internet to find his profile. APD states that they have his computer and his recent search history included other addresses in the Austin area--targets he did not live to hit.
Now all we need is his motive. It is unclear whether he was part of some group.
*************
Meanwhile, Trump is still keeping up his verbal attacks against Mueller. Now, though, even *Republicans* are starting to tell him "back off or we could impeach". Trump has just over 7 months before the window likely closes--some indications suggest that the Democrats could retake the House this election cycle.
When people say that parties should try to win every seat, no matter how "safe" the district might be for the other side, well... one reason is that it might avoid shit like this.
And neither the National nor Illinois GOP are supporting him (for now) . But if the polls show the nazi getting at all close expect them to support him.
Can we remember a couple months ago when the GOP disavowed Roy Moore for a day or two then changed their minds and went all in for him.
To the GOP winning is everything and it is party before country. We see this again and again. Look at their support for Trump and Roy Moore. After every awful thing gets discovered about Trump or he does something awful today they don't care. Couldn't be bothered to do a damn thing about it. 'Hardened democrats' and limp Republicans.
They refuse to concede elections they clearly lost and seek to cheat or weasel their way to a "win" that would overturn the will of the people. They love gerrymandering and even though they lost an appeal to the Supreme Court in Pennsylvania they are now trying to impeach Supreme Court justices because they cannot longer cheat people out of their representation there.
When people say that parties should try to win every seat, no matter how "safe" the district might be for the other side, well... one reason is that it might avoid shit like this.
They didn't even have to try to win the general election. Just go to basically any retired Chicago professional athlete, tell him that you need help keeping a Nazi off the ballot, get a thousand signatures, and call it a day. Allowing this nutjob to go on TV for the next several months with "GOP" next to his name is political malpractice.
When people say that parties should try to win every seat, no matter how "safe" the district might be for the other side, well... one reason is that it might avoid shit like this.
They didn't even have to try to win the general election. Just go to basically any retired Chicago professional athlete, tell him that you need help keeping a Nazi off the ballot, get a thousand signatures, and call it a day. Allowing this nutjob to go on TV for the next several months with "GOP" next to his name is political malpractice.
Absolutely. At this point, I welcome the party elitism and backroom deals. Bring in the smoke-filled rooms and the secretive lobbyists. They're better than Nazis and child molesters.
Comments
However, that's not at all the same thing as saying scientists agree that fertilization is the point at which an embryo acquires the full protections we offer to humans. I've looked at a number of sources on that and it seems clear to me that the only agreement is that there is no agreement by scientists. Here's an article that gives a quick coverage of the issues.
If you consider the issue from the point of view of the law I think it becomes clear that it wouldn't be realistic to say that a fertilized egg acquires full human rights. As has been mentioned a couple of times only a small proportion of fertilized eggs continue to develop. If the law were taken to extremes a woman, without even knowing she were pregnant, could be charged with actions that would endanger her egg. That may seem a laughable idea, but there have been plenty of women in the US charged with conduct that endangers a fetus and, given how fundamentalist some legislators' actions have been on this issue, I think it's certain that a law establishing that a fertilized egg had full human rights would be used in some cases in what I would characterize as an abusive and coercive way. I didn't watch the programme, but I remember seeing this review of the Handmaid's Tale which points out one set of potential consequences when women's rights are subordinated to those of their unborn children.
@FinneousPJ It has more to do with ability to sin/understand sin and thus begin held accountable. Its fairly common in some sects to hold children are considered innocent until they are old enough to understand what disobeying is.
The last two employees Trump named publicly on this were fired under suspicious reasoning and timing (Trump and McCabe).
To prevent themselves from being targeted next, they are towing the line, using McCabe and a lesser extent Comey as scapegoats.
The whole McCabe situation reads as a "he said/he said" scenario, but McCabe didn't get the chance to defend his actions, hence why I said, was not given due process.
And this situation is drastically different than a cop lying under oath for killing a black man. One is murder and a cover up. The other is a miscommunication of what he was allowed to share with a reporter about reopening the Clinton Email case.
So far, though, about the only things the Schertz incident has in connection with the previous four are a) still happened right along I-35 (although well south of the other four events) and b) proximity in time. Truthfully, though, if I had to hazard a wild guess with no supporting evidence whatsoever I would bet that the latest device was from a copycat, not the actual Austin bomber. Although still an explosive device, this one seemed...sloppy...compared to the other four. Besides, none of the other were described as shrapnel-type devices (investigators are holding details very closely to their chest).
There are a *lot* of music fests and renfests which happen in March and April in Texas.
For over 12 months, long before Mueller ever took over, I consistently mentioned 4 names: Manafort, Flynn, Page and Cambridge Analytica. Two of them are indicted, the other two swirling at the center of other narratives in the case. I didn't have inside information. These players were obviously dirty from jump street, even when the campaign was still happening. Money laundering, not registering as a foreign agent, a person the FBI was convinced was a Russian asset, and a data firm that stole the personal information of millions of people. All of them tied at the hip with Donald Trump.
Trump, a poor businessman whose businesses have been declared backrupt multiple times, could not be reached for comment. Known by aliases "John Barron" "John Miller" and "David Dennison", Trump has previously lost racial housing discrimination lawsuits and lawsuits relating to a scam university that he ran. He is currently being investigated by a special counsel for various allegations including money laundering, obstruction of justice, and collusion with a hostile foreign power to influence American elections.
Lieutenant Steve "Stormy" Daniels reporting for duty, sir!
The Stormy Daniels bit is news today.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/politics/stormy-daniels-polygraph-donald-trump/index.html
The aliases are from Wikipedia Donald Trump aliases. David Dennison is what he used to sign the NDA with Stormy Daniels according to Wikipedia confirmed by MSNBC to be used by the Trump.
https://www.msnbc.com/stephanie-ruhle/watch/trump-admits-to-using-alias-david-dennison-1190498371908
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_pseudonyms
He settled his Trump University scam for $25 million dollars.
The special counsel is doing that presumably.
For the record:
By this, I think we can only assume that she means we don't yet have any proof it was a Muslim. Again, this example of how we define terrorism rears it's head again and again and again. Even if we find out the person doing this DID have political aims (and the targeting of black activists are the first victims actually WOULD indicate that), almost no one will actually refer to it that way.
'Fight Club' has an example using lawsuits and auto manufacturers that the protagonist works for. My Microeconomics textbook has an example involving the costs vs. benefits of a city deciding the installation of a streetlight for traffic safety. Not in 'Murrica.
Coincidentally my BLAW class covered Duty to Rescue yesterday as part of the Torts chapter.
1. 'Murrica is a country that does not require people to rescue others. As the teacher, who is a practicing lawyer, said, unless you have a special relationship (family, business) with the person in distress, then you don't have to do a thing, even if they fall down seizing and dying on the sidewalk in front of you, you can legally walk right on by. MORALLY and ETHICALLY, sure, you probably have a duty to, at the very minimum probably at least call 911, but not a LEGAL duty.
2. You certainly don't have a duty to rescue if it will put YOU in danger. We didn't cover people whose job it is to do the rescuing even if it puts THOSE rescuers in danger such as firefighters, police, or EMTs.
3. However, if you DO attempt a rescue, then you are legally responsible for carrying out the rescue and are in legal danger if you abort the rescue. His example was going out to rescue someone in the ocean and turning back halfway. Witnesses who might have been actually able to do the rescue might have chosen not to get involved and were no longer around to see you abort the rescue. You can have a disproportionate response with Castle doctrine. At least depending on the state. Here in my state of Texas, that includes robbery. As my lawyer-teacher said, you can use Castle doctrine reasonably if you come on them while they're breaking in, or have broken in to steal your T.V., but not if they're in the process of fleeing and you go for a rifle to shoot them in the back when they're 100 yards away. Well technically, life doesn't begin, and hasn't begun since about 4 billion years ago. We're all just continuation of that life.
And that is a very odd concept I never thought of, but then, I never dug much into Christian theory once I realized how stupid the whole thing was. Why theorize up explanations for what's already ludicrous? Is it really stealing when it's (more or less) publically available on a (more or less) publically available website?
I don't do Facebook, and for YEARS now I've heard horror stories about people who have lost jobs, didn't GET jobs, had breakups, et cetera, et cetera, because of stuff THEY put up on social media (Facebook) THEMSELVES.
In a statement Facebook said that in April 2015 Dr Aleksandr Kogan, a lecturer at Cambridge University's Department of Psychology, published an app on its site called thisisyourdigitallife, and said it was "a research app used by psychologists." But instead of just using it for research, Facebook claims it was used for commercial purposes by Cambridge Analytica and others.
“Approximately 270,000 people downloaded the app. In so doing, they gave their consent for Kogan to access information such as the city they set on their profile, or content they had liked, as well as more limited information about friends who had their privacy settings set to allow it,” the statement reads.
The kicker’s in the last bit of that. Unless users had their Facebook privacy settings locked down the app slurped not only the 270,000 consenting users but all their friends as well - over 50 million people according to Christopher Wylie, a former researcher director at CA, who had a copy of the data set.
Out of the 50 million people who had this information analyzed, 49.75 million of them never gave consent for anything. The user agreement on the app was a lie (which will likely be proven in court if it gets there). The entire premise for the use of the app as told to Facebook was also a lie. In all likelihood, plenty of people in THIS THREAD were part of this data sweep. And yeah, Facebook is toxic, all the more now, but I abandoned it years ago. But it's narcissistic navel-gazing was always going to become a big problem. In this case, it was where people passed around false info about the 2016 election like it was the Nigerian Prince email scam.
It doesn't have to be a Muslim person to be terrorism, as most people realize. In fact, I suspect the Austin bomber is *not* Muslim because as far as I can tell no radicalized pseudo-Islamic group has taken responsibility...and they *love* to take responsibility, even when they didn't do it. The first few incidents seemed to indicate a racial element as to how the victims were chosen but the second three didn't actually target anyone at all, so it probably isn't racially-related. Still...some secessionist groups are classified as domestic terror organizations by the FBI and some of them exist in the Hill Country.
Strangely, *no one* is taking responsibility for this--no group has said "yes, this is us". Eventually, we will have a prime suspect and then we will probably find some website or vlog where they give their religious or political exegesis. Until then, given the few facts that investigators have given us the only motive which makes sense is that the person is pulling a Joker--they just want to watch the world burn.
Now all we need is his motive. It is unclear whether he was part of some group.
*************
Meanwhile, Trump is still keeping up his verbal attacks against Mueller. Now, though, even *Republicans* are starting to tell him "back off or we could impeach". Trump has just over 7 months before the window likely closes--some indications suggest that the Democrats could retake the House this election cycle.
What the #$%@%@5ing @$%@%
@#$^@#^
for @#$^@'s sake
@^$#
When people say that parties should try to win every seat, no matter how "safe" the district might be for the other side, well... one reason is that it might avoid shit like this.
Can we remember a couple months ago when the GOP disavowed Roy Moore for a day or two then changed their minds and went all in for him.
To the GOP winning is everything and it is party before country. We see this again and again. Look at their support for Trump and Roy Moore. After every awful thing gets discovered about Trump or he does something awful today they don't care. Couldn't be bothered to do a damn thing about it. 'Hardened democrats' and limp Republicans.
They refuse to concede elections they clearly lost and seek to cheat or weasel their way to a "win" that would overturn the will of the people. They love gerrymandering and even though they lost an appeal to the Supreme Court in Pennsylvania they are now trying to impeach Supreme Court justices because they cannot longer cheat people out of their representation there.