WTF Sh*t's F*cked Up and Bullsh*t - a "Who Cares" thread for news

[Romana]

A Montana man attacked a 13-year-old boy and fractured his skull for 'disrespecting' national anthem, police say

A Montana man was charged with assault after he allegedly slammed a 13-year-old to the ground for not taking off his hat during the national anthem.

www.yahoo.com

 

[Cindy Claveau]

White House Staffers Privately Admit Trump’s El Paso, Dayton Visits Were a ‘Debacle’

“We have seen repeatedly where there is a national crisis, he gives a speech off a teleprompter and then he undercuts his own words either before it or after it,” Haberman observed. “He doesn’t do well fundamentally on these major moments that require empathy and somebody looking as if they are rallying the nation and rallying people to support one another.”

 

[detrius]

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Douchebag with a gun open-carries in Missouri Walmart; gets arrested

The Springfield Police Department arrived on scene within three minutes of the call. Police stated that a young white male, appearing to be in his twenties, pulled up to the Walmart, where he donned body armor and military fatigues. Police say the man had tactical weapons.

Police then say the man walked into the Walmart: Neighborhood Market where he grabbed a cart and began pushing it around the store. Police say the man was recording himself walking through the store via a cell phone.

The store manager at the Neighborhood Market pulled a fire alarm, urging people to escape the store.

Police say the man then made his way out an emergency exit where a former firefighter held the man at gunpoint. At that moment Springfield Police arrived on scene and detained the man.

The Springfield Police Department could not confirm the nature of statements said by the man to those inside of the Walmart, but they do confirm that the man had loaded weapons, and over one hundred rounds of ammunition.

 

[Brenda Archer]

This is extremely dangerous. The pro-gun lobby is trying to make it appear that the mentally ill are responsible for gun violence and even Dems are falling for the idea of making a list of the mentally ill. All kinds of non-violent people could wind up on such a list (and so much for HIPAA privacy).

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Schoolchildren in China work overnight to produce Amazon Alexa devices

Leaked documents show children as young as 16 recruited by Amazon supplier Foxconn work gruelling and illegal hours

www.theguardian.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

This is extremely dangerous. The pro-gun lobby is trying to make it appear that the mentally ill are responsible for gun violence and even Dems are falling for the idea of making a list of the mentally ill. All kinds of non-violent people could wind up on such a list (and so much for HIPAA privacy).

In the UK, as you might expect since we don't have the constitutional right to arm ourselves to the teeth (and don't really miss it), we do it rather differently.

Here you have to apply to local police force for a firearms or shotgun certificate, and as the application form explains,

You must disclose any relevant physical or mental health conditions that you have been diagnosed with or treated for in the past as this may affect your ability to safely possess and use a firearm or shotgun. Relevant medical conditions which must be disclosed are listed in note 5. Sections 27 and 28 of the Firearms Act 1968 (as amended) specify that in order to issue a firearm or shotgun certificate the chief officer of police must be satisfied that an applicant can be permitted to possess a gun ‘without danger to the public safety or the peace’. Medical fitness is one of the factors police must consider when assessing a person’s suitability.

Relevant medical conditions which must be disclosed are:
• Acute Stress Reaction or an acute reaction to the stress caused by a trauma
• Suicidal thoughts or self harm
• Depression or anxiety
• Dementia
• Mania, bipolar disorder or a psychotic illness
• A personality disorder
• A neurological condition: for example, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s or Huntington’s
diseases, or epilepsy
• Alcohol or drug abuse
• Any other mental or physical condition which might affect your safe possession of a firearm
or shotgun

https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/downloads/central/services/apply/firearms/form-201.pdf

The notes go on to explain that

Where no relevant medical conditions are disclosed the police will contact your GP asking if they are aware of any relevant medical conditions or have any concerns about the grant of the firearm or shotgun certificate. Depending on the reply, the police may ask you to obtain a medical report from your GP/specialist. You are expected to meet the cost if a fee is charged for this. If further information is required the police may request and pay for a further report.

The police will ask your GP to place an encoded reminder on your patient record to indicate that you have been issued with a firearm or shotgun certificate. The GP is asked to notify the police if, following issue of the certificate, you are diagnosed with or treated for a relevant medical condition (listed in note 5), or if the GP has other concerns about your possession of a certificate that might affect your safe possession of firearms. Following contact from your GP there may be a need for a medical report to be obtained to assist with assessment of your continued suitability to possess a firearm or shotgun certificate. The police will pay if a medical report is required.

That seems to me a preferable way to proceed. While I have no objection to disclosing or discussing my problems with depression, well-controlled for many years with medication, I would certainly object most strongly to that, or any of my medical records, being held in a central database without my consent (which I would not give because I don't trust HMG's data security policies anywhere near enough to feel comfortable with my confidential medical records being held on a central database that can be accessed by multiple agencies).

However, the British system depends on my having to obtain the consent of the local police if I want to own a rifle or shotgun in the first place, which doesn't seem too great an imposition to me, but clearly would not be constitutionally acceptable in the USA.

We used to have the right to bear arms here, too, or at least Protestant gentlemen of good character did, under the 1689 Bill of Rights, but that was quietly removed soon after WWI (presumably because they were worried about the number of unemployed ex-servicemen who might have brought back souvenirs from the trenches).

I don't think anyone misses it. Certainly even though I am in a small minority in that I think our gun laws are too restrictive, on the general grounds that people should be allowed to get on with their own lives subject to the minimum of interference by the state consistent with the preservation of public order and the safety of its citizens, I can't say it's an issue that particularly worries me.

 

[Brenda Archer]

In the UK, as you might expect since we don't have the constitutional right to arm ourselves to the teeth (and don't really miss it), we do it rather differently.

Here you have to apply to local police force for a firearms or shotgun certificate, and as the application form explains,

The notes go on to explain that

That seems to me a preferable way to proceed. While I have no objection to disclosing or discussing my problems with depression, well-controlled for many years with medication, I would certainly object most strongly to that, or any of my medical records, being held in a central database without my consent (which I would not give because I don't trust HMG's data security policies anywhere near enough to feel comfortable with my confidential medical records being held on a central database that can be accessed by multiple agencies).

However, the British system depends on my having to obtain the consent of the local police if I want to own a rifle or shotgun in the first place, which doesn't seem too great an imposition to me, but clearly would not be constitutionally acceptable in the USA.

We used to have the right to bear arms here, too, or at least Protestant gentlemen of good character did, under the 1689 Bill of Rights, but that was quietly removed soon after WWI (presumably because they were worried about the number of unemployed ex-servicemen who might have brought back souvenirs from the trenches).

I don't think anyone misses it. Certainly even though I am in a small minority in that I think our gun laws are too restrictive, on the general grounds that people should be allowed to get on with their own lives subject to the minimum of interference by the state consistent with the preservation of public order and the safety of its citizens, I can't say it's an issue that particularly worries me.

At least this way you can keep some privacy by not buying a firearm. Not only could a central database be broken into, it could be repurposed for additional uses - forced institutionalization is a particular fear. There's no bottom anymore to how low the hard Right will go and people fear all the worst.

How hard would it be to wreck someone's career by revealing a diagnosis they didn't even know they had? All kinds of inaccurate crap gets into medical records. I used to think it took proper evaluation to slap a mental illness diagnosis on someone but even general practitioners do it and they're not qualified. Then the patient is stuck with a stigmatizing label and might not even know.

 

[Brenda Archer]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

At least this way you can keep some privacy by not buying a firearm. Not only could a central database be broken into, it could be repurposed for additional uses - forced institutionalization is a particular fear. There's no bottom anymore to how low the hard Right will go and people fear all the worst.

How hard would it be to wreck someone's career by revealing a diagnosis they didn't even know they had? All kinds of inaccurate crap gets into medical records. I used to think it took proper evaluation to slap a mental illness diagnosis on someone but even general practitioners do it and they're not qualified. Then the patient is stuck with a stigmatizing label and might not even know.

Exactly, and I would hope that anyone who was contemplating applying for a firearms or shotgun certificate would have both the common sense and the courtesy first to approach their GP (primary care doctor, I think it's called in the US -- the medical practice with which you have registered, anyway) to tell them they're thinking of applying for a shotgun ticket or whatever, and will there be any problems?

Furthermore, I would feel far more comfortable knowing that my confidential medical information was shared only with the specialist unit inside the police department dealing with applications and then on a need-to-know basis than would I feel with it being held in a central database that was widely accessible to the police service nationally.

 

[Myradyl Muse]

This is extremely dangerous. The pro-gun lobby is trying to make it appear that the mentally ill are responsible for gun violence and even Dems are falling for the idea of making a list of the mentally ill. All kinds of non-violent people could wind up on such a list (and so much for HIPAA privacy).

I agree completely. This is horrifying and supremely dangerous. It creates a vast intrusion of people's health privacy with grave potential for misuse/abuse of any such information, re. violent crime and beyond (e.g. insurance, job applications, social/interpersonal stigmatization, involuntary hospitalizations). Remember in WW2 how 'defectives and imbeciles and mentally unstable' were rounded up from target lists. The Nazis were infamous for keeping meticulous 'perfect' lists of their undesirables. And then experimenting and eradicating them.

Targeting of persons with mental illness must stop. Knowledge and research in the area is clear that there is only a limited connection of a small proportion of the population to any gun violence. Most suffering people instead move to suicide, made much easier by quick access to deadly weapons. The best predictor of violence is past violence per the literature. The current recommendations being portrayed in the media harken back to the 1940s and before. Mass incarceration and punishment of the suffering is barbaric.

 

[Romana]

This is extremely dangerous. The pro-gun lobby is trying to make it appear that the mentally ill are responsible for gun violence and even Dems are falling for the idea of making a list of the mentally ill. All kinds of non-violent people could wind up on such a list (and so much for HIPAA privacy).

I called Cuomo's office and gave a staffer there an earful. Not scatological, just emphatic.
Actually, I was in tears by the time I got thru, because I've experienced the kind of discrimination this could result in, and don't want to again.
She said she'd pass it on to the governor; who knows . I was so pissed off I wanted to vent anyway.

 

[Tigger]

Powercuts!

Large chunks of the UK, ranging from cornwall up past bath and parts of south wales, across the midlands and the east and south east of the country were subject to a powercut today after transmission failures, the outage lasted up to an hour.

About 500,000 customers in Wales, south-west England and the Midlands were affected and 300,000 customers in south-east England were left without power, the local distributors said. A further 110,000 in Yorkshire and north-east England were affected, alongside about 26,000 in north-west England, according to the electricity distributors in those areas.

Thats not far off a million people hit!

The power failure hit during rush hour and it's caused absolute mayhem on our transport infrastructure with trains stuck for hours and major railway stations now closed down at least until tomorrow. Doesn't seem to be any clear explanation why trains aren't able to run now that power has been restored. I would have hoped for a little more resilience in these systems.

Good luck to anyone trying to take a train home tonight!

Transport chaos across England and Wales after major power cuts

Energy watchdog Ofgem warns it could take ‘enforcement action’ over the outage

www.theguardian.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Doesn't seem to be any clear explanation why trains aren't able to run now that power has been restored. I would have hoped for a little more resilience in these systems.

I would think it's because the trains are now all in unexpected places, and that's going to play hell with the signalling until they get the network back up properly.

As I understand it, stretches of track between two signals (and therefore sets of points) may be used by only one train at a time.

So after whole areas have been shut down for a considerable time, as they have been today, that means they can't use the automatic signalling systems any more since all the timings will be completely out and assumptions about which trains need to use which sections of track during what intervals aren't valid.

This means an awful lot of manual signalling, which is a lot slower.

There's also the whole question of drivers' shifts being completely messed up, and I would imagine there are some rules about how many consecutive hours a driver may be in charge of the the train before taking a mandatory rest break of several hours, like HGV drivers.

ETA I would imagine that, when something like this happens, the emphasis is on getting the passengers to their destinations safely, no matter how late, and on trying to ensure that as many trains as possible are back where they should be before tomorrow's services are scheduled to start.

 

[Brenda Archer]

Speaking of power. Why WHY is the local utility in Phoenix not running on 100 % solar? (And yes, the answer seems to be “conservatives”)
$&@#~<%###

Sun, we has some. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

 

[danielravennest]

Speaking of power. Why WHY is the local utility in Phoenix not running on 100 % solar? (And yes, the answer seems to be “conservatives”)

Serious answer: the Sun isn't out at night.

Arizona Public Service, who I think serves Phoenix, is building solar and batteries, and they already buy surplus solar power from California when available.

Solar by itself can only work an average of 6-7 hours a day in Arizona. When the sun is low in the sky, you don't produce as much power as at noon, and of course at night you don't produce any. It has only been a few years since batteries became cheap enough to store a few hours of excess power. So new solar + battery farms, or standalone battery farms, are now being built. But you can't replace a whole state's (or the whole US) worth of power plants all at once, nobody has the money or production capacity for that.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Yup, that Missouri loser is exactly what I pegged him for

Mr. Andreychenko told the police that he had bought a rifle and body armor because of the recent shootings and the fatal stabbings of four people in Orange County, Calif., on Wednesday, according to the arrest report.

He shared his plans beforehand with his wife and sister, both of whom were questioned by the authorities and said they had warned Mr. Andreychenko that he would cause alarm, the police said.

“He said he wanted to see if the Walmart manager would respect his Second Amendment rights,” the arrest report said.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html?fallback=0&recId=1PDJ1V5w2OExExst9egjLvn2WmA&locked=0&geoContinent=NA&geoRegion=LA&recAlloc=story&geoCountry=US&blockId=home-featured&imp_id=584184065

Angelice Andreychenko, his wife, told him “it was not a smart idea,” according to the arrest report. “She told him that people were going to take this seriously due to the recent events.”

“He told her he called multiple Walmarts to see if it was,” the report added.

Mr. Andreychenko tried to enlist his sister Anastasia Andreychenko to film him entering the Walmart, the police said, adding, “He called it a social experiment on how his Second Amendment right would be respected in a public area.” She declined, and he used his phone to record video, according to the report.

I'm about to have some strong words for people whose first reaction to El Paso is "but you're still gonna respect my right to carry my freaking assault rifle and 100 rounds of ammunition around in Walmart, right?"

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Yup, that Missouri loser is exactly what I pegged him for



I'm about to have some strong words for people whose first reaction to El Paso is "but you're still gonna respect my right to carry my freaking assault rifle and 100 rounds of ammunition around in Walmart, right?"

What a fucking dumbass! He's damned lucky he didn't get shot! If he hadn't been white, he likely would have.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Yup, that Missouri loser is exactly what I pegged him for



I'm about to have some strong words for people whose first reaction to El Paso is "but you're still gonna respect my right to carry my freaking assault rifle and 100 rounds of ammunition around in Walmart, right?"

Mr. Andreychenko tried to enlist his sister Anastasia Andreychenko to film him entering the Walmart, the police said, adding, “He called it a social experiment on how his Second Amendment right would be respected in a public area.” She declined, and he used his phone to record a video, according to the report.

I think my strong words would concern people whose career plan is to attempt to monetize their obnoxiousness by filming themselves behaving like complete idiots and posting the results on YouTube.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The man, Dmitriy N. Andreychenko, 20, of Springfield, Mo., was carrying a tactical rifle slung across his chest, a handgun and 100 rounds of ammunition on Thursday when he caused a panic at the store, the police said.

Pictures taken by a witness showed that Mr. Andreychenko was wearing a bulletproof vest.

“This is Missouri, I understand if we were somewhere else like New York or California, people would freak out,” Mr. Andreychenko told a police officer, according to an arrest report.

He forgot to add, "Piece of luck I'm white, or we wouldn't be having this conversation!"