Overnight Open Thread (9-25-2013)

Front Yards Are Now School Zero Tolerance Zones

Madness:

A 7th-grade student in Virginia Beach, Va., suspended from school for shooting an airsoft gun in his front yard will find out on Monday if he is expelled for the rest of the year, a local television station reported.

Khalid Caraballo, 13, and some friends were playing with airsoft guns on his front lawn as they waited for the bus one morning, WAVY first reported. Airsoft guns are non-lethal replica firearms that fire plastic pellets by way of spring-driven pistons.

A concerned neighbor called 911 to report the incident.

"He is pointing the gun, and it looks like there's a target in a tree in his front yard," she told the dispatcher. "This is not a real one, but it makes people uncomfortable. I know that it makes me [uncomfortable], as a mom, to see a boy pointing a gun."

Ironically, the caller's son was playing with Khalid and Aidan in the Caraballo front yard.

In a Twitter post Tuesday evening , Virginia Beach School Board Chairman Daniel Edwards attached a letter defending the school's disciplinary actions against the boys: "Yet somehow student safety has taken a back seat in the intense media coverage of this case. This is not an example of a public educator overreaching. This was not zero tolerance at all. This was a measured response to a threat to student safety."

A Trivia Question

What two countries in the world are doubly-landlocked (you must cross at least two borders to reach the coast)?

Answers: Here

Michelle Malkin: Obama Lied and My Health Plan Died

Like an estimated 22 million other Americans, I am a self-employed small-business owner who buys health insurance for my family directly on the individual market. We have a high-deductible PPO plan that allows us to choose from a wide range of doctors.

Or rather, we had such a plan.

Last week, our family received notice from Anthem BlueCross BlueShield of Colorado that we can no longer keep the plan we like because of "changes from health care reform (also called the Affordable Care Act or ACA)." The letter informed us that "(t)o meet the requirements of the new laws, your current plan can no longer be continued beyond your 2014 renewal date."

In short: Obama lied. My health plan died.

For a lot of people ObamaCare won't just make health insurance expensive - it'll make it unavailable.

How Does Being Against Socialized Medicine - And Socialism in General - Make Someone a National Socialist?

Answer: When Chris Matthews' insane spittle is flying:

While appearing on Wednesday's edition of Morning Joe, Hardball host Chris Matthews compared Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to Hitler, telling fellow MSNBC demagogue Joe Scarborough the German dictator "even liked Jimmy Stewart" in the movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," Mediaite reported. This was after Matthews said Tuesday that Cruz is "a problem for our Republic."

"He is a problem for our Republic," Matthews declared, claiming that despite being a United States Senator, Cruz is not a legislator, nor is he allegedly a member of any political party.

"He has contempt for the American political system. He is not a member of any political party that I can tell," he said. "His behavior has been totally and utterly destructive."

Meet the Next Inflammatory Gun Term: Law Enforcement-style Shotguns

But how the heck do you make a pump shotgun sound scary?  A Remington 870? That's grandpa's shotgun. Dad had one, for God's sake. That's the gun even non-gun people have likely shot some clays with (and my, how fun that was!).  That's a tough one because people are generally quite comfortable and familiar with pump shotguns. It required coining a new term, setting a new standard for contrivance; the "law enforcement-style shotgun".

It fits nicely with their other recent incendiary term, "military-style assault rifle" in that it adds special qualifiers up front suggesting that these firearms need to be associated with special status, specially trained individuals and are only to be used for their specially sanctioned purposes. But to preempt complaints about the inaccuracy of the term, they again add "-style" as an excuse.  Exactly what is a "law-enforcement-style" shotty? Are the stocks black plastic instead of wood or camo?  "Law enforcement-style" is just the newest contrived term, again designed to garner support from the uneducated public to prepare the ground to take our shotguns away.

Plus you also now have bolt-action military assault rifles and assault shotguns:

FREEHOLD, N.J. (AP) - Authorities say a 2-day gun buyback program staged in central New Jersey last weekend netted 218 firearms.Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni says the weapons collected at a church in Asbury Park and the Rumson police department included 126 handguns, 39 shotguns, and 24 rifles.

Among the assault weapons surrendered was a Colt AR-15, a Mossberg assault shotgun and a World War II-era Japanese bolt-action rifle.

Participants were allowed to turn in weapons for cash with no questions asked. Gramiccioni says officials spent $15,000 to buy the firearms.

DEA: Nope Your Prescriptions Aren't Private

Because you gave the RX information to a third party (the pharmacy) they claim you have 'no expectation of privacy'. Of course there's no legal way to get prescription drugs without giving it to a third party but hey that's your problem.

State law does allow law enforcement to access the records, but only with a warrant. The DEA, however, thinks that, because the program is public, a citizen is knowingly disclosing that information to a third party thus losing all of their privacy rights (since you can always just opt out of receiving medical care) thanks to the Controlled Substances Act. The ACLU and medical professionals (PDF) don't think there's anything voluntary about receiving medical treatment, and that medical ethics override other concerns.

The History of the Trapper Keeper

Launched in 1978 by the Mead Corporation (which was acquired by ACCO Brands in 2012), Trapper Keeper notebooks are brightly colored three-ring binders that hold folders called Trappers and close with a flap. From the start, they were an enormous success: For several years after their nationwide release, Mead sold over $100 million of the folders and notebooks a year. To date, some 75 million Trapper Keepers have flown off store shelves.

...These organizational devices would come to define childhoods across North America, and adults who had them remember their Trapper Keepers fondly. (And those who didn't have them often remember exactly which one they wanted.) Joshua Fruhlinger at Engadget called it "the greatest three-ring binder ever created . Trapper Keepers-the way they combined all of one's desktop tools-were an early incarnation of the smartphone." There is robust business in vintage Trapper Keepers on eBay, where unused binders can go for $50 or more.

French Consulate Chauffeur Caught with 150 Kilos in Gold Bars

Plus some cigs, phones, and a few personal checks - you know the standard things that French drivers keep in their VWs. I'm sure it's nothing to be concerned about.

After the France24 story of the former French ambassador to Baghdad who got caught with 350,000 Euros in cash, we get Laurent Zecchini's story of the French consulate chauffeur in Jerusalem who was found to be crossing across the border to Jordan with 152 kilos of gold bars, 500 kilos of tobacco, hundreds of new cel phones, and $2 million in checks.

Bummer: Public Masturbation is NOT Okay in Sweden

Apparently the confusion was over a mistranslation of the judge's findings.

"It is not okay to masturbate in public in Sweden as we have the same laws as anywhere else on this type of behaviour."

Vrethammar was present in court when the 65-year-old man who was literally caught with his pants down was acquitted by the Södertörn District Court.

"For the man to be convicted for sexual molestation it needs to be proven that he was targeting one or several specific people. If you can't prove that is the case, then it is not sexual molestation," he said.

The prosecutor said the ruling does not the open the door for exhibitionists to simply peel off and head for their local beach.

"If a similar situation happened then it is likely the person would be charged with a sexual offence depending on the circumstances," he explained.

A Creepy Felony For You - Empowerment For Her

So Cosmopolitan Blogger Anna Breslaw masturbated on the NYC subway because self-actualizing exploration or something:

On the train, I clandestinely turned the vibrator on, but couldn't figure out a comfortable way to sit because they don't have helpful pamphlets on the ergonomics of public masturbation. Also, I was dripping tzatziki sauce on my skirt. From somewhere else in the car came the whooping cough of a small child, which oddly enough was not doing it for me sexually.  By Union Square, it was working physically, but to have an orgasm you also have to be in The Zone mentally, and I was about eighty miles and one off-road path from The Zone, no matter how hard I tried.. I did not have an orgasm. However I finished my gyro, which was actually pretty good.

But I'm betting that if *I* started rubbing one out in her car, she'd be on the phone with police before I even got the gyro open.

Teh Tweet!

Le AoSHQ groupe de Yahoo. Ooh la la!

Yahoo group. That is all.

Tonight's post brought to you by fapping ghosts:

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posted by Maetenloch at 10:33 PM

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