Silly Saturday

OK, call it silly Saturday, but they're all the same, all silly and it's a shame.

Went to the grocery store and grabbed a package of the yogurt covered cranberries my wife likes and what do you know?  They're now Greek yogurt covered cranberries although they taste exactly the same. The revolution is over.  There's no more non-Hellenic yogurt to be had anywhere in any form.  Active, inactive, fruit on the bottom or no fruit at all, it's all Greek, all the time and forever. Another win for commercial groupspeak.  Opa!

The way we talk!  I've never heard it before but in the last few days, I'm hearing "in the wheelhouse" over and over.  Sometimes it's my wheelhouse or your wheelhouse and as far as I can tell it might mean what "in the ballpark" meant last week, or perhaps it still does -- who knows?  Not me. Anyway, my boat has a wheelhouse but I'm not in it.  Too damn hot today and  by the way God Damn it, it's not genius whatever it is - nothing is genius, it's a damned noun, not an adverb!  Is that in your twerking wheelhouse brah?


So whatever else might be trending today amongst the low word count, #instaenglish set, keep it to yourself. I've had enough, go put it in your hashtag and smoke it or shove it up your shark and jump it. I don't need a reminder of how nothing makes any sense and how much you like it that way

The End is Nigh

You don't mention the Southern Poverty Law Center down here in the South and you certainly don't want just anyone to know you're a supporter.  You'll be ostracized at best because they are on the shit list of every right wing group from top to bottom, all with their own pet hate, usually centering around that bogeyman : the United States Government.

SPLC's Hate Watch Blog had been tracking the pair of raving lunatics who murdered

two policemen, declared a revolution and killed themselves in a Las Vegas Wal-Mart.  They were part of the idiotic standoff between the Bureau of Land Management and Cliven Bundy this Spring and are fond of spewing the apocalyptic, revolutionary idiocies typical of a huge number of armed, hostile and bellicose Americans identifying themselves as "patriots."   SPLC is right to do so and too bad more attention wasn't paid to the warnings.  The as yet unnamed couple is hardly unique either in their armaments or attitudes and if the flood of e-mails I've been getting addressed to "fellow patriots" is an indicator, there are a number of them out there. A week hasn't gone by in years without a prediction of something horrible that Obama and the Liberals were about to do that fellow 'patriots' needed to be aware of.

No need to elaborate -- suffice it to say, none of their predictions have ever come true to the slightest degree, the FEMA concentration camps or the National Guard rounding up guns, although people like that will still still hang on to hope that there will be an excuse to get into the fortified bunkers and the armored vehicles and get out the big guns. I have no idea why these people chose today over yesterday or tomorrow, but perpetual predictions of that financial collapse and that gun grab would only make sense to a psychotic spoon fed hatred and lies by not only the militias and survivalist groups, but Karl Rove and Fox News and the Republican Party.

It's hard to crack down on people who haven't yet done anything and of course the above mentioned groups make it harder, portraying the subhuman hordes as heroes, but it's time we admitted we have a problem more serious than making sure no one ever says anything racist, or misogynistic or insensitive and it's time we pay attention.  History seems to be trying to repeat itself and the cast of characters is already in costume.

American Dreamin'

On this hot and steamy, Summer dreamy, hammock-sleepy Sunday.

I happened to have CNN on the other day and they were airing another one of their puff pieces on "The American Dream,"  one of those annoying reflections on how the land of opportunity is failing to be a land of opportunity.  I find it annoying because of the assumption that the USA is somehow a unique place when it comes to providing upward mobility, a more honest name for a dream that, let's face it, is everyone's dream.  I've seen figures  that argue for other countries -- quite a number of other countries -- being better places to get ahead, to get out of poverty, to save some money, to make a good life for your children, but we still call it an American Dream as we still use the word freedom to stand for some special thing we, and only we possess.

The people interviewed all seemed to believe that those Americans about to enter or having recently entered what we like to call the "work force" will not have as prosperous a life as their parents.  I remember hearing the same thing about my children's generation some 30 years ago.  If hope for the future is the American Dream, pessimism is the American affliction.  Things are always getting worse.

One young female interviewee told us her vision for the future of  people her age was bleak "because of all the guns and violence" and the answers of  the others were is bizarre and confused as hers.  It's true, the middle class of America has been shrinking for quite a while, and with a possible brief interlude, so have living standards, including health and education for all but a tiny proportion of us, but perhaps the dumbing down includes an inability to correlate the marginalization of the masses with the rise of  retro-Capitalism and the idea that we're all dependent on the very, very rich for our prosperity.  It's an idea that does I think, depend heavily on a misunderstanding of Capitalism and of prosperity.  I could easily cite Mexico or other countries with a lot of wealth in a few pairs of hands and very little opportunity that doesn't involve swimming a river or climbing a fence.

But here at home, in my unincorporated area with large spreads of trailer parks and not much more than a crossroads shopping center or two, I have to wonder just how much trickles down from a few dozen multi-multi-millionaires and billionaires who live withing walking distance from me. They don't shop here, lobby effectively to keep much commerce and traffic away and although property taxes do help our schools, most people of the white persuasion send their kids to private institutions, many of them parochial. There are very few employment opportunities even at the minimum wage.

Most of the visible trickling is the water consumption of the private water parks and golf courses owned by the sports and entertainment folks you never see, unless it's one of their helicopters going overhead.  They might as well not be here.  I can only wash my car on Thursdays and Sundays while the bulk of our drinking water nourishes grass and water slides. Trickle Trickle.  They're not really job creators other than for lawn mowing and pool maintenance.  If you find a job here, your employer would likely be a local business man.  A shop keeper, painter, mechanic, grocer -- and they are suffering still, long after the market has hit historic highs and unemployment is back in the 6% range.
It's percolating up, not trickling down and of course we understand how it all ends with no affluent consumers to fuel jobs and opportunities -- and no dream, American or otherwise, just pessimism, hopelessness.

But a good part of  the malaise has little to do with the failure of Capitalism, the growth of  monopoly, the reduction of choices and opportunities, it's also the legacy of round the clock scandal, outrage and doom marketing having so little to do with objective reality.  The 20 something has less to worry from guns and violence than I did 50 years ago, she won't be drafted, she's more likely to live a long life and not to be bankrupted by medical bills, less likely to die in a car accident and a lot of other better than nothing things, but the spirit of defeat and hopelessness is there. The habit of looking backward instead of forward of seeing defeat in victory and victory in being a loser and I have to blame the information age and the technology that lets those very, very rich prosper by providing that stream of disinformation and outrage people just can't tune out and don't know enough to question. All we lack is a Colosseum.

Before Bowe Bergdahl spoke a word to anyone, the media had already turned from hope and relief to slander and scurrilous accusation lest any unity arise.  I understand his parents have received threats and that the slime machine is at full production levels. The machine that cannot tolerate our feeling good about anything lest we tune out, unplug, wake up, fight back. 

I think it's a fine example of how dreams and hopes and even hard work are turned to shit for corporate profit:  an explanation of the success of all those apocalyptic destruction blockbuster movies and those apocalyptic shooting/suicide shootings, stabbings and bombings because we all know the end times are here and nothing is ever going to get better, unless you live on Jupiter Island Florida with a private water park and a private helicopter to fly you between your yacht and your private golf course.   These good folks aren't interested in seeing Godzilla stomp on our cities.  They are Godzilla and they've been stomping for years -- and God help anyone, from peon to president who interferes.

"...for good people to do evil..."

Nobel laureate in Physics and atheist, Steven Weinberg, once observed that good people will always do good, and evil people will always do evil.  But for good people to do evil, that takes religion.

That's the only possible explanation for the following ongoing atrocious report coming out of Ireland:




800 long-dead babies found in septic tank by home for unwed mothers

 The bodies of nearly 800 babies have been found in a septic tank by a home for unwed mothers in a small town in Western Ireland in County Galway.

“The Home”–as it was actually called–housed thousands of so-called “fallen women” and their children from 1925 until it closed in 1961. While the women often left “The Home” after their period of indentured servitude was up, many of the children were not so lucky. This, apparently, is what became of many of them.

The children were not murdered by the Bon Secours nuns whose care they were left in, not deliberately anyway. Documents simply show that these children had a very high infant mortality rate due to malnutrition and neglect, as well as diseases like measles, convulsions, TB, gastroenteritis and pneumonia. This was hardly uncommon for these type of homes, as the infant mortality rrate for “illegitimate children” was nearly 25% during this period. The records show that nearly two babies died a week at “The Home,” and apparently, upon death were thrown in the septic tank rather than buried.

This is the natural outcome for any religion whose emphasis is concentrated on sexual sins and on punishing only women for them.  We see this sort of misogynistic hatred in many of the world's major religions, where women are seen as unclean temptresses who, even when raped, are blamed for the shame they bring upon their families, and are often murdered because of that shame.  

In Catholic Ireland, a young woman who became pregnant out of wedlock brought shame to her family and village.  She was sent to a Catholic home run by nuns where she probably gave birth in terrible pain and suffering after which her baby was taken from her to be cared for by the nuns until it was sold for adoption or died from sickness and thrown into mass grave.  She was then indentured to that Christian facility to pay for her sins and sentenced to many years of forced labor  as a washer woman or other servile work that those who ran these homes meted out to these young women.  

And make no mistake, the goal was to make these young women suffer for, as Andrew Sullivan wrote, "...the crippling, toxic, near-insane fixation on sexual sin as the core ideology at work here. A view of sex that is riddled with shame and disgust, in which simple human nature must be so expelled and exterminated it requires a secret mass grave to keep the lie in place." 


From Salon:  "Though the full details of what happened to those children may never fully be explained, the strong implication of severe abuse and neglect cannot be ignored. But horrific as the record of deaths is — a rate of at least one every two weeks, for decades — and the cavalier way in which these tiny human beings were disposed of, it would be almost easy to consider these atrocities a thing of the distant past. Speaking on RTE last week, secretary of the Tuam archdiocese Father Fintan Monaghan said, “I suppose we can’t really judge the past from our point of view..." 



But judge is exactly what the Catholic Church did to the young unwed mothers who were placed in these homes and condemned for their mistakes.  Those young women were judged to be undeserving of compassion and tolerance, and their children were judged to be less than human and treated as such. So, yes, Fr. Monaghan, we really CAN judge the past and the atrocities committed by your organization.


More:

The Tuam historian Catherine Corless discovered the extent of the mass grave when she requested records of children's deaths in the home. The registrar in Galway gave her almost 800. Shocked, she checked 100 of these against graveyard burials, and found only one little boy who had been returned to a family plot. The vast majority of the children's remains, it seemed, were in the septic tank. 

Corless and a committee have been working tirelessly to raise money for a memorial that includes a plaque bearing each child's name. For those of you unfamiliar with how, until the 1990s, Ireland dealt with unmarried mothers and their children, here it is: the women were incarcerated in state-funded, church-run institutions called mother and baby homes or Magdalene asylums, where they worked to atone for their sins. Their children were taken from them. According to Corless, death rates for children in the Tuam mother and baby home, and in similar institutions, were four to five times that of the general population. 

A health board report from 1944 on the Tuam home describes emaciated, potbellied children, mentally unwell mothers and appalling overcrowding. But, as Corless points out, this was no different to other homes in Ireland. They all had the same mentality: that these women and children should be punished. Ireland knows all this. We know about the abuse women and children suffered at the hands of the clergy, abuse funded by a theocratic Irish state. 

Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish calls this a crime against humanity which, so far, seems to be an apt description of what was done to these women and children: 


 Let us call this what it is: a concentration camp with willful disregard for the survival of its innocent captives, a death camp for a group of people deemed inferior because of the circumstances of their birth. When we talk of mass graves of this kind, we usually refer to Srebrenica or the crimes of Pol Pot. But this was erected in the name of Jesus, and these despicable acts were justified by his alleged teaching.


"...for good people to do evil, that takes religion."

The Long Bowe Hunters

Let's talk about Bowe Bergdahl, shall we? The Right Wing, like always, has been looking for a reason to attack Obama. And their latest one just happens to be the polar opposite of one of their earlier ones. For the past five years, Bowe Bergdahl, the only captured American prisoner, has been a cause célèbre for the GOP, a consistent placard that they could hold up to punctuate the phrase "Obama doesn't care about the troops!"

At least, that's how it was until there was a possibility that Bergdahl might be released. Now, suddenly, people who've been crying out for his release are calling him a traitor. They have literally reversed their position on the subject. And why? Because it might have ended up looking good for the black guy.

Sarah Palin. Senators John McCain (Arizona) and Kelly Ayotte (New Hampshire). Every un-American, small-minded, troop-hating maniac on the right has spun their position 180 degrees away from what they were saying as recently as the beginning of this year. And why? Because they don't care about the military; they only care about attacking the president.

Now, suddenly, all they can say is "Obama has endangered the country! He released terrorists! And for a deserter!"

Let me explain this as clearly and rationally as I can. Anyone who says that we should not have made a deal to get Bowe Bergdahl released can suck my balls.

Are you saying that we should have left an American citizen in the hands of the Taliban? That he deserved to stay in their custody forever? If you believe that, you are a pustulent sore on the asshole of humanity. Oh, and fuck you.

Let's be clear on this - no investigation has been done. There has been no trial. You don't get to convict American citizens on the basis of rumors, half-truths and outright lies. If you want Bowe Bergdahl punished, then you bring him back to the States, and let the military do their job. And if it turns out that he is guilty, then they get to punish him. Not you, not Fox "News," and not every cowardly, Cheeto-eating, overweight loudmouthed blogger on the planet.

Fuck every one of you, you chicken-shit, scum-sucking, America-hating losers.

The military has jurisdiction here, and they've never been shy about using it. Look up the case of another PFC, a guy named Robert Garwood: a POW in Vietnam, he was returned to the US in 1979, where he was tried for desertion and several other charges, court martialed and convicted (they lost the desertion conviction, but got him on other things).

That's the military's job. They're pretty good at it.

Oh, but incidentally, bad news for all you amateur lawyers out there: the maximum punishment for desertion can only be death in a time of war - and the US never declared war in Afghanistan. Plus, there's only been one person given the death sentence for desertion since the Civil War: Eddie Slovik in 1945. The military prefers to avoid that. Most likely, he'd get confinement, demotion and forfeiture of pay. But he'd only get it after a trial. That's how these things work.

The various branches of the Special Forces have taken the position that "you don't leave a man behind" for decades, for one simple reason: it's difficult to get people to risk their lives, if they don't believe that you'll be supporting them later when things go wrong. We support our soldiers for having sworn an oath to protect their country to begin with, and we continue to support them, even if we don't agree with their statements on every subject.

It's called "free speech" - if you stop wiping your ass with the Constitution for a few minutes and read the fucking thing, maybe you'll discover that it gives the American people all kinds of rights that don't involve guns.

We keep hearing that he was responsible for the deaths of soldiers who were searching for him. Unfortunately, you can't really blame him for every death that happened in theater at the time; the records from the region don't really support that.

Mr. Bethea wrote that of the six men killed in August and September, two died in a roadside bombing while on a reconnaissance mission, a third was shot during a search for a Taliban political leader and three others were killed while conducting patrols — two in an ambush and one who stepped on a mine.

He suggested some connection to Sergeant Bergdahl for several of the deaths, saying the Taliban leader and a village that was in the area of one of the patrols were "thought affiliated with Bergdahl's captors." He also said a village in the areas of the other patrol was "near the area where Bergdahl vanished."

Still, those villages and insurgents were in the overall area of responsibility for the soldiers, and the logs make clear that the region was an insurgent hotbed. A log on May 21, 2009, for example, said it had historically been a "safe haven" for the Taliban.

A retired senior American military officer, who was briefed at the time on the search for Sergeant Bergdahl, said that even though soldiers were instructed to watch for signs of the missing American, they would have been conducting patrols and performing risky operations anyway.

"Look, it’s not like these soldiers would have been sitting around their base," he said.

And incidentally, while we're cutting through the lies, can we stop with the phrase "we don't negotiate with terrorists"? Is it because George W. Bush kept repeating that canard? Did you know that he would say it almost immediately after completing a series of negotiations with terrorists for (as one of his chief negotiators pointed out) "information, supplies, personnel — a lot of different topics."

In fact, every president has negotiated with terrorists, whether drug traffickers or radical Islamic factions. Whether it was Carter getting 52 American hostages released in Iran by unfreezing assets from American banks, or Reagan selling missiles to Iran, America has a long history of negotiating with terrorists. As does every other country in the world.

But to hell with that. It doesn't matter what it took to get Bergdahl's release. We got it. Because we had to get it. Here's two quotes for you that explain why: the first is from President Obama. I know, you don't like him, because he's all black and uppity and stuff. Doesn't matter - he's the Commander in Chief of the military, and as he put it:

"Regardless of circumstances ... we still get an American prisoner back," Obama said during a news conference in Warsaw, Poland. "Period, full stop -- we don't condition that."

And if that isn't enough for you, how about the words of the Pentagon spokesman, Rear Admiral John F. Kirby:

"When you're in the Navy, and you go overboard, it doesn't matter if you were pushed, fell or jumped," he said. "We're going to turn the ship around and pick you up."

So, are we clear on this? If you say we should have just left him in the hands of the Afghani's, you are a crappy American. You're allowing your hatred of a black president to make you into a traitor, a coward, and an idiot. Fuck you, and go find a country that shares your beliefs. Try Somalia: you'll like it there - everybody has guns, and women don't have rights.

Transient Sanity Events

Particles do escape from black holes, or so argues Steven Hawking. the phenomenon is called Hawking radiation. Things do escape beyond the event horizon at the NRA as well apparently. It's called a Transient Sanity Event.

Members of Open Carry Texas, people who think it's really cool to act like a 6 year old with his new Hopalong Cassidy cap gun on Christmas morning, are cutting their NRA membership cards in half over a statement that somehow escaped the gravitational well of craziness and irresponsibility:

  “Let’s not mince words. Not only is it rare, it’s downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself. To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one’s cause, it can be downright scary.” 

The official apology for having allowed a sanity particle to escape was forthcoming from the NRA who called it one man's opinion and assuring the OCT people that

 "Our job is not to criticize the lawful behavior of fellow gun owners”

 except perhaps fellow gun owners who think these people are "downright scary."

 “If they do not retract their disgusting and disrespectful comments, OCT will have no choice but to withdraw its full support of the NRA and establish relationships with other gun rights organizations that fight for ALL gun rights, instead of just paying them lip service the way the NRA appears to be doing,” 

 responded Open Carry Texas openly.You know what's even scarier?  The idea that anyone thinks the NRA is too reasonable and that there may be other groups who are even more irresponsible.

Can this possibly end without bloodshed?  Texas, like many states, has a " menacing" law that has consequences to someone who causes you  to believe they will cause physical harm or serious physical harm to another person, their family or property.  Frankly, someone coming into a place of business or even a public square looking like Pancho Villa, or even carrying a holstered pistol makes me feel menaced and without a doubt, the police would be deluged with calls about armed men at playgrounds, gas stations, fast food restaurants and everywhere.  Welcome to the OK corral because every one of these open carry fools might just have that secret blaze of glory fantasy.

Gun Nutz in the First Degree

This Stephen Colbert video features Doug Varrieur, a rogue homeowner in Big Pine Key, Florida, whose backyard target practice range is tormenting neighbors.  Every day, neighbors endure the discharge of firearms - living in fear of stray bullets and in fear for their lives. Neighbors consider him “inconsiderate, obnoxious, a wacko” and a menace to the neighborhood.  When asked about the safety of local children or boaters, “I don’t care,” replies the imperturbable Doug Varrieur.

Are there are no laws to prevent Rambo wannabes from menacing our neighborhoods? Doug Varrieur may challenge anyone to stop him, but he should think again.  Most municipalities have "anti-menacing laws" defined as:

‘A crime governed by local or state laws, which vary by region, but typically involve displaying a weapon or a course of conduct that intentionally places another person in reasonable fear of physical injury or death.’

All rights have limits.  Free speech does not confer a right to defame a neighbor or broadcast crazy rants at 100 decibels in the middle of the night.  There are laws that cover slander and disturbing the peace.

Property rights do not mean you can operate a strip joint in a residential neighborhood or within proximity to schools or houses of worship.  Zoning laws prevent rogue operators from despoiling neighborhoods.

Freedom without responsibility is not freedom, and rights without reasonable limits are not rights when any self-styled fanatic turns himself into a public nuisance.

When the NRA pushes gun rights to this extreme, what recourse do you have? Call law enforcement and invoke the laws of your municipality.  You can also vote out lawmakers on the NRA dole who support unconscionably bad bills that turn formerly safe and peaceful communities into a torment. Here is an example of extremism gone too far.  Enough is enough!

CNN: Unfair, Unbalanced, and Worse than Fox

According to Jeffrey Toobin of CNN, “Obama clearly broke the law” in his effort to free American POW Bowe Bergdahl. My gripe about this report. I watched another segment aired on CNN earlier yesterday, and there was an opinion expressed by a Law professor (whose name I failed to note at the time) who questioned the constitutionality of the law requiring President Obama to notify Congress within 30-days of any prisoner release from Guantanomo.

The language of Article Two ("command of the military") in the U.S. Constitution clearly states:

“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

Clearly, the 30-day Congressional notice requirement encroaches upon the powers of the executive branch. President Obama and Defense Secretary Hagel had reason to believe that American POW Bergdahl faced immediate danger – necessitating quick and preemptive action. More than justified under such circumstances, any constitutional challenge in court of his command authority would far more than likely favor the president.

Meanwhile, why did CNN fail to include the “other” opinion? More to the point, why was this constitutional issue withheld from public discussion?

Sensationalism as usual, inflaming public controversy for ratings and audience share, prescribing 'shrink wrapped' news instead of reporting it - this is garbage journalism at its worst and unworthy of CNN.

Afternoon Update: Be prepared for Benghazi Part II and the art of politicizing everything you can)! Related stories:

GOP dispatches hit team to interview angry former members of Bergdahl's platoon (IOW, how to hold kangaroo court by gossip on FaceBook instead of practicing due process in a court of law).

From Zero to Impeachment in One Day. I have only one regret. Too bad President Obama didn’t trade all Tea Party Republicans to the Taliban for one prisoner of war.

NORTH CAROLINA'S F**KING FRACKING BILL

I believe the state GOP understands that this November's mid term elections are not guaranteed in their favor so they are pushing through as much crap legislation as they can.The GOP controlled state house, senate and governor's mansion have been busy, busy, busy!

They handily pushed through bills to obstruct and constrict women's rights, voter rights and curtail local governance and now we have the dastardly, bastardly  fracking bill, signed into law by our very own Governor Rat Boy, shill to Duke Energy and any other industry willing to pay for the privilege.
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In 2012 a moratorium was put in to place on fracking in this state  until a state created agency could be formed to oversee fracking and develop safety and operational rules. Once the GOP took over, screw all that! They just pushed through a bill WITHOUT DEBATE OR PUBLIC INPUT.

The state can start issuing permits 61 days after drilling rules are approved although they promised to keep the moratorium in place until the agency had been created. One of the worst pieces of this abhorrent piece of crap is that "treated" waste water will be allowed to be discharged into rivers and streams. And what will be in this "treated" water? We won't know because while any energy company seeking a permit will have to provide a list of chemicals and other ingredients to be used, this new law makes it a misdemeanor (the original bill called for it to be a felony) TO DISCLOSE THE LIST OF CHEMICALS BEING USED UNDER OUR HOMES! The list will instead be given to a state geologist who will keep it locked up in case of emergency....

Wait, it gets better. There is also a provision barring local and county governments from enacting any additional restrictions or rules on gas/oil operations.

As one concerned citizen pointed out, "If they can do this on fracking, they can do this with any issues, overriding local government.

Welcome to the new Banana Republic - North Carolina!

A violent man will die a violent death (Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, ch 42)

So I was on Facebook, because I'm old and it's no longer fashionable. And I came across this post.

And that sounds like a terrible thing, right? A guy, murdered in his home by rogue police officers - that's a travesty of justice!

Yeah, it sounds pretty bad, until you look into it. But that's part of the problem with the internet - people post stories, and other people believe them without looking up the details.

Now, before I start, let me point out that I oppose police brutality. I understand that there is police overreach, and that criminal acts have been and will be performed under the cover of a badge. I mean, hell, I live in Albuquerque - I'd have to be an idiot to think otherwise.

The thing is, this one isn't like that. Not according to the available evidence. The police were, in fact, sent to the wrong address. But only after they arrived did things go straight into the crapper.

Waller exited his residence and entered the garage with a handgun showing. Police did not know if he was a resident or a suspect.

Investigators said that the Hoeppner gave Waller repeated commands to drop his gun, but the homeowner did not comply. According to the officer, Waller responded with "Why?" and "Get that light out of my eyes."

Hoeppner added that Waller eventually put his gun down on the trunk of a car. As the officer moved in to retrieve the weapon, Waller scrambled to pick it up, and then pointed it at the officer. The report said that this is when Hoeppner fired his weapon six times.

Waller wasn't an innocent man - he was a paranoid nutjob with a gun. And he felt that he had the right to point that gun at the police. Sure, they were at the wrong location, but they were doing their job. And what, exactly, are the police supposed to do when confronted with armed lunatics brandishing firearms? Lie down and bleed?

The NRA wants you to believe that an armed society is a polite society, and that the only defense against a bad man is a good man with a gun. But they're wrong. Because what is the defense against a good man with a gun? Or an armed man who believes he's good?

If Waller hadn't been a Second Amendment cultist, nothing would have happened. But he felt that he was had the right, and the knowledge, and the training, to act as some kind of lone vigilante protecting his homestead. So instead, he committed suicide by cop.

The only tragedy for Waller's family is that they didn't talk him down off the ledge; you have to wonder how long he'd been cleaning his guns and muttering angrily to himself. But the real tragedy is for Officer Hoeppner, who had to face the choice of killing a man or being killed himself. He made the right choice, but now he has to live with it.