The location wasn't a coincidence because it's an easy soft target. He knew the layout of the building. He knew the people inside were defenseless. It's a more logical choice instead of the possibility of not being able to accomplish as much at a mall where cops and security are more likely to be. I work in the state health building here in Houston. Don't think I didn't have a tinge of anxiety going into the office today.
That's a good point. And it also makes it that much more chilling. If he had no issues with his coworkers and still was willing to gun them down. That is some serious commitment to ideology. Him AND his wife were that far gone. It boggles the mind.
Dude, here in the town of Peterborough they burned either a mosque or Islamist centre. Yeah, a small eastern Ontario city. Assholes are everywhere, all the time.
I may be misinformed but I was under the impression this didn't occur in their office but in an offsite location that was being used for some sort of office party EDIT Went and found a source for that info http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/san-bernardino-suspects-1.3348412
On Tuesday morning, Terry Cormier arrived to open her Anaheim, Calif., Islamic clothing shop and found a Koran, riddled with more than 30 bullet holes, left at the door. She made a report to police and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), whose officials called it “a note that says, ‘You’re not welcome here.’ ” http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/af...cklash/ar-AAg0cQU?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout
Yes, it was offsite. But, he worked for the County health department and knew at least some of the people at the party. One report I read indicated that some of these same people had thrown some type of baby shower for him and his wife earlier in the year. I still don't exactly understand the motive. It seems like it was some combination of terrorism and workplace grudge. Strange.
Have faith. The Government is the answer. They will protect you. I've asked before and I will ask again. The NSA is collecting phone and internet data from everyone because it will make us safer and protect us from terrorism. If that is so, where were they on this one? One other thing I find troubling to think about: This couple had a newborn or near newborn child. They chose Jihad over life, over caring for this child they brought into this world. This is evil, pure evil.
Now this is obviously in relation to situations more relevant to Israel, however, the general idea behind it remains the same. The difference between people who care more about living in the present instead of preparing for the afterlife their entire lives.
That was the magical screwdriver that they used to pry the boards off the door. I just love the look of absolute incredulity on the CNN expert... he's gob-smacked.
This saddens me. I really liked the idea that this farce had reached the level of a reporter just rummaging in the freezer for a popsicle.
There was a report (no, I can't find it now) that a couple of weeks prior to the massacre the murderous asshole had a heated argument with a manager (his?) in which the manager claimed that Islam was not a religion of peace. In that same report it was stated that this manager was one the first people shot and killed. One possible scenario might be that the terrorists had another target initially in mind but switched to this site when perhaps a further "insult" occurred at the party. Maybe someone asked what a Muslim was doing at a Christmas party. Terrorism gone postal?
Holy fuck. The first work related, bigot related, terrorist shooting. HOW THE FUCK, AMERICA? I can't even wrap my head around that scenario if it pans out. In other news, THIS is how you troll. *Tips Fedora* M'lady... MO Rep. introduces bill to place same limits on gun purchases as getting an abortion. Missouri holds the record for most shootings BY toddlers. Not against toddlers, but BY toddlers. Upon further research, there's about about one toddler shooter a week. "Missouri has seen the highest rate of toddler shootings, with five reported cases this year. Florida has four instances, while Texas, Michigan and South Carolina each reported three." For the record, the waiting period and video criteria really are the burdens placed on a woman seeking an abortion in Missouri (120 miles being the distance to actually find an abortion provider).
Nope, not the first. In 2009 a Muslim who had been in touch with radical Islamists stood up, screamed "Allah Akbar" and proceeded to kill 13 and wound 32. It was classified as "Workplace Violence." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Fort_Hood_shooting In other news, still not a peep out of Obama on this attack. This is the same administration that assures us that they can properly vet Syrian refugees? The female of this duo slipped right through their vetting process. Another fun coincidence, the day after Obama declared ISIS was contained, they shot up Paris. The day after he declared the US was safe from ISIS, 14 people got killed by a lone wolf that had pledged allegiance to an ISIS leader. Yeah, I don't think I trust they can credibly vet refugees.
Juice gave a rundown of the presidential candidates a few pages back, but it didn't really spur a debate like I thought it would so I'm giving it another shot. I'm wondering where everyone stands on who they are considering voting for, and why. For me the biggest issue in this election is the continuing erosion of the middle class and the general well being of the workforce, along with ensuring that we don't repeat the mistakes of the Iraq war. The Iraq war cost over $2 trillion dollars and led to 4,500 armed forces deaths and thousands more in injuries, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths, and is directly responsible for the tremendous instability in the region and the growth of radical Islam. Health care spending continues to spiral out of control. Insurance still costs too much and most people who have health insurance will wind up paying thousands of dollars out of pocket before it even kicks it. Obamacare did a lot of good, but it was never going to solve the underlying issues with health care in this country. We need to follow the model of most other advanced countries and adopt a single payer/universal health care system. Families now have no choice but to work two jobs and put their kids into day care, which is rising exponentially in costs. Additionally, too many workers can't take paid leave after their kid is born, making us one of the only 1st world countries that doesn't offer paid family leave and child care assistance. Combine these two issues with rising tuition and the future issues with Social Security, and the middle class is headed for Armageddon if we don't make drastic changes. There are expenses everyone has to incur (health care, college, child care) that are eating up a bigger chunk of paychecks, which is turn eroding the spending power of the middle class. I'm voting for Bernie Sanders, not because I think he's going to be able to get everything he supports passed, especially with a Republican congress,and not because I think every economic idea he has will work (minimum wage should be increased, but I'm skeptical $15 phased in over a few years will not cost jobs; he will need to raise taxes on the middle class to fund everything he wants but i understand why he can't actually say that during the campaign). I'm voting for him because a vote for anyone else means, at best, more of the same policies that continue the gradual decimation of the middle class and continued endless war that does more harm than good, while political contributions keep destroying democracy. Sanders means what he says, and he at least recognizes that we can't keep continuing on this path and think we're going to change anything by making the same mistakes over and over again.
The Iraq war was probably the biggest foreign policy blunder in our country's entire history. With Vietnam the motivations were suspect. People forget that it was a civil war. Millions of Vietnamese did not want to live under a communist regime. With Iraq the reasons for invading were either exaggerated or entirely mythical. If you're going to invade a country because they have a stock pile of weapons of mass destruction, they better fucking have them. It should have been a clue in the first months of the war that Saddam Hussein was not refusing to fight back with all these catastrophic explosives and chemical weapons out of his pristine military ethics. Worse, there wasn't a coherent end plan even proposed. The war was justified first by continuously 'reevaluating' reports of weapon stock piles until they said what the Bush regime wanted them to say, and then interpreting the local population solely on hatred for the Saddam regime. Neither was remotely realistic. 'It'll be easy, we'll come in as big heroes, establish a progressive government no one actually wants, and throw a parade in DC.' The stupidity of the pentagon thinking they could establish peace in the region by slipping into the courtesan games of Iraq and Afghanistan and playing different factions off against each other cannot be overstated. If you want to make cuts in government spending start with the military. There's no justification in spending astronomically more than all of our enemies and most of our allies combined. Why is it people always want to cut the things that hardly amount to a fraction of a percent of the budget? Food stamps and foreign aid? Sure, and I bet you got rich by adding water when the soap bottle was low. This is a big one for me too, and I covered it in an earlier post. If public health care is inferior to our current system, or the system we've had over the last 20 years, prove it. Show me something, and I'll gladly tear it right the fuck down. The problem is people are too stupid to understand how broken it is until it happens to them. When their own fucking cousin, who has health insurance, gets cancer and still goes bankrupt, and spends more time arguing with insurance companies than getting treatment they babble about how he should have made smarter choices. Obamacare was a mess. It helped some people briefly, but it did far more damage. Just in my life I've known a lot of people that got fucked 3 ways from Sunday, and I can't really think of anyone who could boast about a significant improvement in their coverage. Most of the people were lower income too, the bill was screwing the very people it intended to help. Day care isn't that expensive. Regarding paid leave, I'm OK with it, but it needs strict limits. 6 weeks paid for maternity leave is enough. If you need more than that and want to retain your job - fine, but you shouldn't be paid for it. I don't want to incentive people to not return to work because that is exactly what they do. I'm reminded of a story about a Canadian mother who took a year off work for a pregnancy and then quit once the partial income finally dried up. The company paid her for almost an entire fucking year to do nothing, and then she quit. People will do this shit, and they will do it all the time. Give reasonable and quality benefits, but do it intelligently. The first question anyone should ask when offering this stuff is 'How are dip shits going to abuse this?' A lot of people will abuse the system for everything it's worth. Not a few, a lot. We aren't heading for Armageddon. I can rant all day about income inequality, and it's a very important issue for myself, but things are not as bad as some people make them out to be. You can be a full standard deviation below average intelligence and if you work hard more often than not you'll do ok. Most people who get to their 40s and are still working at minimum wage levels are lazy, and their problems rarely, if ever, actually stem from not having a chance. *That's not to say glass ceilings and starting points aren't relevant. They absolutely are, but nobody is born with a glass ceiling flipping burgers. I liked Bernie Sanders a lot initially. Since he's expanded his campaign I'm not so sure. He took the whole sexist income inequality stance even though it's been thoroughly debunked. He went from legitimate concerns and grievances to everything is institutionalized racism. He's desperate for voters, and thinks this is the only way he can cover ground. I understand every politician has to cater to morons to win, but he's starting to say shit that is just plainly false because he think that's what people want to hear. What I still really like about Bernie Sanders is that I think he'll seriously tackle the problem of politicians being bought left and right. No one else is taking this seriously, and it is a huge problem. He doesn't mince words about what kind of health care is going to work, and his support of the middle class isn't empty words. Despite all the ramblings of the last few presidents I've yet to see what substantive efforts they made to address middle class growth. What did they even try that was really significant? What the hell was their idea in the first place? "We need to support the middle class! We need to grow the middle class!" Ok, by doing what, exactly? Saying you think it's a really cool idea doesn't provide shit. A quick point about raising taxes - again, check the health care costs in this country. When taxes go up because of public health care you aren't necessarily losing more money than you were before. When university costs go down (you made money for a lot of students over the course of decades of their lives) you sucked a lot of interest revenue that generates so little value out of the economy, and it's not a bad thing. I don't mind hurting a corporate bottom line if the ways it's generated are damaging. Higher taxes mean you earn less, but it's not always that black and white. Give me the growing pains if you're really going to cure the disease.
Yes, your politicians DO sound like fucking idiots when they bring up income and equality. That's fake math to pander for votes. Not cool.