Overnight Open Thread (12-15-2013)

Why the Arapahoe School Shooting Ended So Quickly

Because there was an armed deputy sheriff at the school who raced towards the shooting and ended the attack in just 80 seconds. Thanks to his quick response only one student (still in critical condition) was shot.

The rampage might have resulted in many more casualties had it not been for the quick response of a deputy sheriff who was working as a school resource officer at the school, Robinson said.

Once he learned of the threat, he ran - accompanied by an unarmed school security officer and two administrators - from the cafeteria to the library, Robinson said. "It's a fairly long hallway, but the deputy sheriff got there very quickly."
The deputy was yelling for people to get down and identified himself as a county deputy sheriff, Robinson said. "We know for a fact that the shooter knew that the deputy was in the immediate area and, while the deputy was containing the shooter, the shooter took his own life."

He praised the deputy's response as "a critical element to the shooter's decision" to kill himself, and lauded his response to hearing gunshots. "He went to the thunder," he said. "He heard the noise of gunshot and, when many would run away from it, he ran toward it to make other people safe."

The shooter who was 18 apparently bought the shotgun legally and it turns out that he was an avowed socialist who was also anti-gun. But you'd never learn this fact if you only listened to the self-censoring MFM.

If You Like Your Checking Account, You Can Keep Your Checking Account (Minus a Lot of Money)

Giving the government direct access to your bank account via ObamaCare is going about as well as you'd expect.

Shannon Bruner of Indianola logged on to her checking account Monday morning, and found she was almost 800 dollars in the negative.

"The first thing I thought was, 'I got screwed,'" she said.

The Bruners enrolled for insurance on the Washington Healthplanfinder website, last October. They say they selected the bill pay date to be December 24th. Instead the Washington Healthplanfinder drafted the 835 dollar premium Monday.

One viewer emailed KING 5 saying, "They drafted my account this morning for a second time."

Our DNA, Our Selves

Do you have the right to know your own genetic code? The FDA says no - and wants to regulate genetic testing.

Who Really Destroyed Detroit?

The people of Detroit pretty much - who kept electing governments that paid out 13 monthly checks per year even though only 12 were budgeted and who guaranteed city workers a high return on their savings no matter what.

Most press accounts note that city-worker pensions in Detroit are modest. They rarely mention that, for two decades, the city supplemented those pensions with annual, so-called "13th checks" for retirees-an additional monthly pension payment. Pension-fund trustees-themselves city workers, retirees, city residents, and elected officials-handed out nearly $1 billion in these annual payments to retirees in the city's general pension fund.

...In 2009, for instance, the pension system gave workers a 7.5 percent return on their savings, even though pension assets slumped by 24 percent. In its report, Conway MacKenzie called such payments "an abuse of discretion" and noted that the trustees, who determined the yearly guaranteed return, were "effectively robbing (the General pension fund) of precious funds necessary to support the traditional pensions the city had promised."

How To Live in Detroit

So to help keep that risk at bay, the man has spotlights all over his home and garage, he as a security system, you have to get through one screen door just to reach his fortified front door. He has two watch dogs and bars on every window and he has his dummies.

"A car will come by and they pick my place because I keep it nice. They'll slow down, see the dummies and take off. They come back around and look again. Eventually if they figure out they are dummies they are also figuring out that now they're being watched. They keep moving. They don't stop," he said.  "What's behind those dummies? You have to ask that. If you get past the lights, alarm, dogs, doors and dummies, then you have another problem, you have to deal with me. My home is my castle."

Well it seemed to work for the Omega Man.

End of the Warthog?

It's not looking good for the A-10. Despite its usefulness and effectiveness the USAF has never been fond of the plane and has long hoped to replace it with something sexier.

So why retire such a valuable aircraft?  The answer is rooted in the world of shrinking budgets and service rivalries that often characterize battles over military roles and missions.  After World War II, the Army made occasionally forays to take complete control of the CAS mission, arguing that their platforms should provide most of the support for friendly troops on the ground.  According to the Army, it should be their pilots flying support missions for ground units in contact, and not the Air Force.

...Unfortunately, the A-10 has been the big, ugly symbol of the CAS debate since its conception in the 1960s. The USAF only built it in the first place, it is argued, to deflect the Army's attempt to take over the mission with the fast and costly AH-56A Cheyenne compound helicopter. Now, say the boot-centric warfare believers, the USAF wants to dump CAS completely.

That argument is off-target. In the last 10 years, the USAF and its allies have provided CAS using fighters, helicopters and gunships....within this family, the A-10 is different but not unique. What it brings to the party is better persistence than a supersonic fighter, lower cost per hour and-its advocates argue that this is crucial-flight characteristics that are better suited to operations beneath an overcast."

True, the A-10 isn't the only arrow in the CAS quiver.  But can anyone name a platform--current or planned--that will do the Warthog's job with the same efficiency and effect?  Get back to us when you have an answer.

A Guy Could Have a Pretty Good Time in Peruvia with This

Or what the police returned to George Zimmerman.

.    3 Black Handgun Holsters
.    1 Pack of Gum
.    1 Religious Pendant
.    1 Flashlight
.    1 Pocket Knife
.    1 Sanitizing Wipe
.    2 cell phones
.    2 .223 rounds
.    8 9mm rounds
.    2 .40 caliber magazines with 8 rounds each
.    2 9mm magazines ( 1 with 14 rounds and 1 with 15 rounds )
.    1 Interarms .380 Handgun
.    2 Taurus 9mm Handgun
.    1 Glock 19 handgun
.    1 Kel-Tec 12 Gauge shotgun
.    13 12 Gauge Shotgun rounds
.    1 AR15 rifle
.    1 Soft Sided gun case
.    2 AR15 magazines
.    59 AR15 Rounds
.    1 Combination Lock

Bill Clinton - Exactly How You Imagined Him

Who Has the Sexiest Accent in America?

Why Airports Are Having to Renumber Their Runways

Because the Earth's magnetic field is constantly shifting.

As earth's magnetic north pole wanders from its geographic north pole, its magnetic field also changes in different ways for different parts of the world, and it's difficult to predict where the field will shift enough to make a difference for airports. In the past few years, Stansted Airport in London and a handful of airports in Florida, including Tampa's, have also had to renumber their runways.

These small shifts in earth's magnetic field are inconvenient for aviation, but they're nothing compared to a complete flip of the north and south poles. This has happened hundreds of times in earth's history, the last time 780,000 years ago. It's hard to say exactly what will happen-we humans have never lived through one-but it will definitely affect more than runway signage.

So Who's Tracking PuffyFace?

Weekly Commenter Standings

Top 10 commenters:
1 [455 comments] 'Vic</i>' [63.87 posts/day]
2 [327 comments] 'EC'
3 [327 comments] 'Anna Puma (+SmuD)'
4 [300 comments] 'Nip Sip'
5 [284 comments] 'MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit </s></b></i></u>'

6 [281 comments] 'Dr. Jesse Pinkman'
7 [275 comments] 'Brandon In Baton Rouge'
8 [248 comments] 'cthulhu'
9 [247 comments] 'Thunderb'
10 [225 comments] 'Mike Hammer'

Top 10 sockpuppeteers:
1 [77 names] 'phreshone' [10.81 unique names/day]
2 [68 names] 'Brandon In Baton Rouge'
3 [61 names] 'Meremortal, back from the brink '
4 [46 names] 'pros vs joes'
5 [46 names] 'Islamic Rage Boy'
6 [39 names] 'Cicero (@cicero)'
7 [39 names] 'The Political Hat'
8 [30 names] 'Nip Sip'
9 [27 names] 'Romeo13'
10 [27 names] 'fluffy'

The group. Yeah.

Where it's at - the Twitter

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posted by Maetenloch at 10:04 PM

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