December 5, 2014

I'm not saying this is the answer to cops who get passes for murder, and are not sociopaths;

French police in crisis as suicide rate spirals

"On Friday a tweet from a police union announced that a policeman in the north of France had shot himself at home to become the 50th officer to take his own life since the start of the year. That compares to 40 last year and 43 in 2011 and 2012, with another month still to come."

"France as a country suffers from one of the highest suicide rates in Europe but a recent study concluded that police officers in the country had a 36 percent higher chance of taking of their own life than the ordinary population."

But here it veers from US cops because French cops, according to the article actually care about people and it seems the reason for the suicides is 'malaise' and "any sign of depression is considered to be a weakness".

It is also difficult to see, coming just after all the crap from scared shitless US grand juries and their failure to do the correct thing, that French cops seem "stigmatized by elements of the general public (for) the death of one person who was killed by a police stun grenade and the rape of a tourist while at the Paris police HQ" and “Being a police officer is often too heavy burden in a society where it is often difficult to be a police officer,” (vs. it's difficult believing what any cop in the US says anymore; just sayin').

http://www.thelocal.fr/20141128/french-police-in-crisis-as-suicide-rate

Amazing what we as a country are missing out as we are feeding upon each other, possibly to the whims of the 0.0001%'ers.

November 18, 2014

I just posted to an OP that is buried by now;

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014946544#post10

Study links virus to sea star wasting

I had just read an article from Raw Story and had a lot of additional info and not sure if I can start this OP or have it locked by the powers that be and since I don't know how to make sure I'm posting anyway and consequences be damned /s

November 13, 2014

Bernie Sanders is NOT a Democrat.

Does this fact mean that according to DU rules I can not advocate for him on this forum;

" In Democratic primaries, members may support whomever they choose. But when general election season begins, DU members must support Democratic nominees (EXCEPT in rare cases where were a non-Democrat is most likely to defeat the conservative alternative, or where there is no possibility of splitting the liberal vote and inadvertently throwing the election to the conservative alternative). For presidential contests, election season begins when both major-party nominees become clear."

So if it comes down to Bernie and Hilary in a primary race, am I allowed to push for Bernie because of his non-Democratic standing.

The rules are somewhat ambiguous on this point and with the recent news coming from and about him I just want to make sure this possibility has been thought out already.

Thanks

November 5, 2014

If I had not been preparing for tonight's disaster for a few months;

I would be almost as depressed as election night 2004, and that lasted for months.

Shit nuggets!

July 21, 2014

I'm 'finally' getting around to watching 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes';

And do you remember the one ape they called "Bright Eyes"?

That was the name given to Charlton Heston in the original.

But in this movie Bright Eyes is female.

I'm wondering if they were outing Chucky?

Just sayin'.

July 7, 2014

Indiana man shoots own hand, both of his wife’s legs in gun-cleaning mishap.

But wait, there's more to this 'man fights bullet; loses' story; PLUS a comment that would have earned the poster a Duzy if it were first posted here.

"Phillip Vincze thought the weapon was clear of bullets when he pulled the trigger and shot himself through the hand, said Elkhart County sheriff’s deputies.

The bullet then struck his wife, Jennette Collins, in both legs, deputies said.

Vincze and his wife were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.

The shooting, which deputies described as an accident, remains under investigation."

So this disproves the JFK conspiracy theory that a bullet can't change direction "The bullet then struck his wife, Jennette Collins, in both legs..."

As for the comment;

"In a related story a man who shot his penis last month, did not get a boner over this story."

July 6, 2014

"Certainly, Dr Andreas Vlachopoulos, a specialist in prehistoric archaeology, didn’t think so when h

"Certainly, Dr Andreas Vlachopoulos, a specialist in prehistoric archaeology, didn’t think so when he began fieldwork on the Aegean island four years ago. Until he chanced upon a couple of racy inscriptions and large phalluses carved into Astypalaia’s rocky peninsula at Vathy. The inscriptions, both dating to the fifth and sixth centuries BC, were “so monumental in scale” – and so tantalisingly clear – he was left in no doubt of the motivation behind the artworks."

snip

"Chiselled into the outcrops of dolomite limestone that dot the cape, the inscriptions have provided invaluable insight into the private lives of those who inhabited archaic and classical Greece. One, believed to have been carved in the mid-sixth century BC, proclaimed: “Nikasitimos was here mounting Timiona (?????ί????? ?ἶ?? ???ί??? .

“We know that in ancient Greece sexual desire between men was not a taboo,” added Dr Vlachopoulos, who returned to the far-flung island last week to resume work with a team of topographers, photographers, conservationists and students. “But this graffiti … is not just among the earliest ever discovered. By using the verb in the past continuous [tense], it clearly says that these two men were making love over a long period of time, emphasising the sexual act in a way that is highly unusual in erotic artwork. ”"

snip

"The epigrapher, Angelos Matthaiou, said the graffiti had not only shed light on the very personal lives of the ancients but highlighted the extent of literacy at a time when the Acropolis in Athens had yet to be built. “Whoever wrote the erotic inscription referring to Timiona was very well trained in writing,” said Matthaiou, for more than 25 years the general secretary at the Greek Epigraphic Society. “The letters have been very skillfully inscribed on the face of the rock, evidence that it was not just philosophers, scholars and historians who were trained in the art of writing but ordinary people living on islands too.”"

The title grabbed my attention both for the great find and about sex.

However, I was intrigued about the subject of gay sex (I wonder what it was called back then) and how long the etchings will last before some homophobic asshat defaces them (because he didn't want the rock to 'tumble over' and hurt some child.

When I heard of the Taliban toppling huge statues of Buddha I wondered what new destruction carried out in religious fervor might be next and this might be next.

July 2, 2014

Just one more idiot who shoots himself (not a dog or innocent person this time!).

"Off-duty officer accidentally shoots himself in leg

A Columbus (OH) police officer unintentionally shot himself in the leg this morning, then drove himself to the hospital.

The officer, whose name has not been released, was off-duty and in his personal vehicle when the incident occurred about 5:45 a.m. in the area of I-270 and Rt. 33 on the Northwest Side.

The officer notified dispatchers and drove himself to OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital, where he is being treated for an injury not believed to be life-threatening."


I am wondering if this asshat's name will be released, after the fact.

As for the facts, off-duty and in his personal vehicle, we have to take the Columbus police department's word on that.

May 29, 2014

Report: AR cop pointed gun at stepson, 5, threatened to blow his ‘Jewish brains out’

I want to point out an 2 items I found in this story that adds to my conviction that WTF is wrong with the cops in this country?

"Naaman Adcock, 40, resigned Wednesday morning from the Fort Smith Police Department after being charged with suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, possession of a firearm while intoxicated, reckless conduct with a firearm, felonious pointing a firearm and child endangerment, according to the Times Record.

According to the girl, her stepfather had been drinking heavily and screaming at her mother while holding a gun. Adcock allegedly said, “Damn, this doesn’t have any bullets,” referring to the gun, before pointing the gun at the boy. The girl alleged that Adcock said he would blow the boy’s “Jewish brains out.”

Deputies went to the Adcock residence where Adcock opened the door with a pistol drawn and pointed at the officers. A deputy drew her weapon and ordered Adcock to drop his gun. Adcock complied after first waving it around and stating, ” “What? Oh really, are you going to shoot me?”"

The Fort Smith Police Department is conducting its own investigation. Deputies said they took nine of Naaman Adcock's weapons when they arrived."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/29/report-ar-cop-pointed-gun-at-stepson-5-threatened-to-blow-his-jewish-brains-out/

This cretin was allowed to 'resign' which means he will probably keep whatever pension he has coming; '...pistol drawn and pointed at the officers' who did not blow him away.

Add to the crap this story generated;

While I was looking into news stories, I looked at both a TV station's story;

http://www.4029tv.com/news/police-officer-on-leave-for-holding-gun-to-5yearold/26198568

And the local newspaper's account;

http://swtimes.com/news/report-fort-smith-police-officer-threatened-5-year-old-resigns

They were pretty much the same, except the paper's account DID NOT have have the '...nine guns...', even though they did have the first sentence of that sentence, '...conducting its own investigation.'

May 7, 2014

"A virtual Universe"; a short video not to be missed.

Apologies to n2doc if he has already has an OP on the above topic;

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/SY0bKE10ZDM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This video is the formal and narrated video showing what the Big Bang looks like from a 12 million years after the event (if there was such one as new theories are postulating) to present day.

They used a 350 million light years across "large enough to be representative of the universe but detailed enough to show great detail" than previous attempts.

The video shows both "the light matter we can see and the dark matter we can't".

The biggest problem was how to produce many differently shaped galaxies for the 40,000 ones depicted.

From the website of the makers of the video, which is pretty much 'a making of...;

"The Illustris project is a large cosmological simulation of galaxy formation, completed in late 2013, using a state of the art numerical code and a comprehensive physical model. Building on several years of effort by members of the collaboration, the Illustris simulation represents an unprecedented combination of high resolution, total volume, and physical fidelity. The About page contains detailed descriptions of the project, for both the general public and researchers in the field.

On this website we present the scientific motivation behind the project, a list of the collaboration members, key results and references, movies and images created from the simulation data, information on upcoming public data access, and tools for interactive data exploration. The short video below is a compilation made from some of the movies available on the Media page."

http://www.illustris-project.org/

I have to say this made my day, well, sort of, but it was a welcome respite after doing yard work all day.