RIP diesel!

Les chiens d'assaut et de recherche d'explosifs: indispensables dans les missions des opérateurs du #RAID pic.twitter.com/vb5lGjnwjO

— Police Nationale (@PNationale) November 18, 2015

The operation began at 4:25 a.m. local time, when police laid siege to the apartment about a mile away from Stade de France, one of the sites of Friday's terror attack. The six terror suspects returned fire, lightly wounding five police officers and killing Diesel, a 7-year-old Belgian Malinois police dog. (via)

quit it with that nonsense

via

normally i wouldn't

According to this nyt article, Newt Gingrich is worried about and electromagnetic pulse terrorist attack that would fry our power grid and give rise to roving bands ala Mad Max. Normally i wouldn't give credence to this sort of kookery, but the article happens to coincide with the fact that last night I had my first nightmare in close to a decade. It was all about how there was an attack on the US and what I had to do to save myself and the people around me.

Incredibly telling and depressing spoiler alert: Eventually, I just gave up and got killed.



UPDATE: this jem was in the comments:

"Given that the Republican base doesn't believe in or study science, his scaremongering is one more cynical play on American hysteria born of ignorance."

Dumb comment. FYI I am part of the "Republican Base" and I have a degree in engineering and have done graduate work in Physics. What are your credentials???? A major in art? It's the Democrats that don't believe in science or if they do they believe in bogus science like the idea that "Green" energy is going to solve all our energy problems. I find most liberals are math challenged.
Why?
one reason is that studies show that liberals tend to gravitate to degrees in the liberal arts areas and other "soft" fields like teaching and journalism. They are also always experts in economics yet I see few that have actually studied it.


oof. Burn. I was an art major and i'm a teacher. does that "soft" comment extend to my dependability in  nightmares too? 

sounds like they might have figured it out : WTC1

The architect of 1 World Trade Center has finally devised a way to clad the concrete base of the tower in shimmery glass. The breakthrough comes after technical problems forced designers to abandon an earlier glass-sheathing plan last spring, sources said.


Architect David Childs had wanted to encase the 185-foot-tall base in prismatic glass panels to disguise the thick, windowless fortified concrete that is one of the tower's signature safety elements. The idea was to have it not look like a bunker. The massive concrete base means that office space in the 1,776-foot tower doesn't start until the 20th floor. The challenge then was to create a facade that suggested movement, life and light where none existed. However, the panels of prismatic glass, which were designed to reflect light, were not only difficult to make: As it turned out, they also shattered easily. 


 Now, sources said the base will be covered with glass louvers that are set at different angles on the base and lit from behind, creating an inviting atmosphere that would also reflect the nearby memorial honoring the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. The glass is treated so it would pebble instead of shatter in case of an explosion, much like a car windshield does in a severe accident.

Read more

UPDATE : the "iowa incident"

yesterday, joel did some investigative reporting into the act of terrorism that took place at the tennessee alumni bar this past weekend (never forget).

today, an inside source provided us with a post made on the iowa alumni's facebook page:

One quick note - anyone feeling the need to leave the bar and go cause trouble across the street at Traffic's Tennessee gamewatch should not feel the need to return to Opal. In fact, you won't be allowed back in. Let's just please have a good time together and not disrupt another group's gamewatch or try to vandalize their property. It's not funny. It's embarrassing and classless.

looks like most of those hawkeyes have got their beaks on straight. good luck to them against pitt this weekend. and GO VOLS!

the terrorists win.

from fresh air, an interesting analysis of the change (or lackthereof) in the american lexicon following september 11th:

They were instant cliches, but they needed saying anyway. September 11th was our Pearl Harbor. It would change the way we think and create a new normal. It defined a generation. And from the beginning, people looked to the language to bear witness to how utterly differently we were seeing the world. Ten years later, it's not so clear. 

I've been making a list of all the words I've been tracking since 2001 that were connected to 9/11 and its repercussions. Its a jumble: axis of evil and the army you have, cakewalk, coalition of the willing and connect the dots, dead or alive and don't touch my junk, evildoers and enhanced interrogation. But the one thing that jumps out at me is how ephemeral they are. Most have already disappeared, and apart from 9/11 itself, few of the rest will be around a decade from now. (via)

dead

wolf blitzer just said that this is one of those moments that you will always remember where you were when you found out.

here is a strangely prescient huffpo article

shit is going down in libya

and bahrain and egypt. ya herd. qaddafi is so weird. and a terrorist.

someone call the fashion police.

gd it.

A fire at the future site of a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, is under investigation but "you can reasonably make the assumption" that it was arson, an FBI spokesman told CNN Sunday.

"The evidence is being analyzed to see what the origin of the fire was," Keith Moses, an assistant special agent with the FBI in Nashville, told CNN Sunday. "We have to follow the facts."

The fire, which struck early Saturday morning at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is under investigation by the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office.

The fire consumed an earth mover and damaged three other vehicles, according to Camie Ayash, a spokesperson for the mosque. Ayash said that the Mufreesboro Fire Department told her that the vehicles had been doused with an accelerant. (via)

the daily show goes to the boro!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Tennessee No Evil
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

so proud.

kill me now.

remember congrassional candidate, racist, and terrorist-in-training, lou ann zelenik? well she got on tv. how infuriating.

the life aquatic

SAN FRANCISCO — A Navy seal — actually a sea lion — took less than a minute to find a fake mine under a pier near AT&T Park.

A dolphin quickly located a terrorist lurking in the black water before another sea lion, using a device carried in its mouth, cuffed the pretend saboteur's ankle so authorities could reel him in.

The specially trained Navy Marine Mammals, based in San Diego, stole the show in a day of anti-terrorism training exercises held at ports throughout California.

More than 3,000 local, state and federal responders are participating in the scenarios that began Tuesday as part of California's annual, two-day homeland security and disaster preparedness exercises started by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004. (via)

son of a bitch, i'm sick of these dolphins.

great bear idea

"Bears have scent detection that is far superior to bloodhounds! Trained bears with GPS and day/night cameras around their necks might be able to hunt down the scent of UBL [Osama bin Laden], even in and through any caves and tunnels!!! Overnight, Parachute some bears into areas UBL might be. Attempt to train bears to take off parachutes after landing, or use parachutes that self-destruct after landing. "

—One of many awesome messages sent to the Pentagon via the "Contact Us" link on the Defense Department website (via)

BoNuS LiNk!!

oh great.

NEW YORK - A suspicious white van parked in the heart of Times Square caused a brief scare Wednesday, prompting the New York Police Department to partially evacuate high-rises and send out a bomb squad that quickly determined the vehicle was safe.

The bomb squad used a robot-based camera to approach the vehicle. Police say the area around 42nd Street between Seventh Avenue and Broadway was blocked off as a precaution.

Two high-rise buildings — home to NASDAQ and Conde Nast publishing — were partially evacuated for a brief time. 

The van with tinted windows had been parked there for around two days. A placard from a nonexistent law enforcement agency was on the dashboard, and it has no license plates. (via)

don't worry. it was just a bunch of clothes.  thx joey toni.