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We have four stories for you this weekend; the links are in the headlines and we recommend that you consider reading each one in full.
Before You Favor Ground Troops in Syria, Give Some Thought to Captagon
[Captagon, a] tiny, highly addictive pill produced in Syria and widely available across the Middle East, its illegal sale funnels hundreds of millions of dollars back into the war-torn country’s black-market economy each year, likely giving militias access to new arms, fighters and the ability to keep the conflict boiling,according to the Guardian.
“Syria is a tremendous problem in that it’s a collapsed security sector, because of its porous borders, because of the presence of so many criminal elements and organized networks,” the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) regional representative, Masood Karimipour, told Voice of America. “There’s a great deal of trafficking being done of all sorts of illicit goods — guns, drugs, money, people. But what is being manufactured there and who is doing the manufacturing, that’s not something we have visibility into from a distance.”
A powerful amphetamine tablet based on the original synthetic drug known as “fenethylline,” Captagon quickly produces a euphoric intensity in users, allowing Syria’s fighters to stay up for days, killing with a numb, reckless abandon.
“You can’t sleep or even close your eyes, forget about it,” said a Lebanese user, one of three who appeared on camera without their names for a BBC Arabic documentary that aired in September. “And whatever you take to stop it, nothing can stop it.”
“I felt like I own the world high,” another user said. “Like I have power nobody has. A really nice feeling.”
“There was no fear anymore after I took Captagon,” a third man added.
So the question is: would we want U.S. troops fighting without Captagon against DAESH (ISIS/ISIL) troops who are using Captagon — or do we want our troops fighting while using Captagon to stay competitive? Problems with the former: our troops have the disadvantage of not inviting death to quite the same degree. Problems with the latter: our troops might commit atrocities, get hooked and go through bad withdrawal, and/or suffer massive PTSD as a result. DAESH’s veterans benefits are considerably less lavish than ours. Not an easy problem to solve. (Oh, and also — when we go to war with a country, we have a tendency to bring their drugs back home: see opiates, 1960s, 1970s, 2003-present; cocaine 1980s-1990s.)
An Interactive Map of Shootings by Firearms, December 5, 2014 to December 5, 2015
It is what the headline says it is. And it’s comprehensive and astonishing — and yet also unastonishing. You can tool around for yours on this one if you’d like not to have a good day. Here’s a small taste of what Slate has to say about it:
Thanks to a nonprofit, nonpartisan project known as the Gun Violence Archive, data on gun homicides and nonfatal shootings is now available well before the federal government releases its statistics. Those data include location information that makes it possible to plot those shootings on a map showing how many have taken place in your vicinity.
Violent crime has fallen drastically since the 1990s, but guns stubbornly claim a disproportionate share of American misery, with the rate of firearms-related death largely holding steady for the past 15 years. That grim constancy has come as regulation, industry safety improvements, and public health campaigns have reduced the mortality of other products. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tables show that in 2013, guns killed 3,428 more people than falls, 4,635 more people than alcohol, and 30,876 more people than fires. Researchers have forecast that 2015 will be the year that bullets kill more Americans than car accidents, which had long been the leading cause of injury death in the U.S.
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The interactive map included in this article is the result of a collaboration between Slate and the Trace, employing the aforementioned Gun Violence Archive data. It represents an attempt to close the gap between awareness and understanding. When shooting deaths and injuries are laid out geographically, one is able to assess first the sweeping reach of gun violence, and then its pernicious patterns, the dots growing ever denser as the reader scans from the countryside to the suburbs to the inner city. Finally, mapping gun violence this way makes it possible to see how often it has played out in your own neighborhood, town or city, and state—and how close it has come to touching the routes you travel in your own life, as well as those of your family members, friends, and co-workers.
In all, the map contains 30,215 incidents recorded by the Gun Violence Archive from Dec. 5, 2014, to Dec. 5, 2015. As comprehensive as it is, it’s also incomplete: Guns are used in twice as many suicides as homicides (and are the most lethal means of suicide). But because many suicides are not reported in real time by the law enforcement sites and news outlets that the GVA mines in compiling its database, they are missing from this visualization. Also not included are an additional 9,000 episodes in which no one was struck by a bullet, though some of that gunfire undoubtedly affects those who witness or hear it.
Originally, this appeared without designations of Police, Accidental, and Self-Defense shootings, which you can see in the legend of the map of Santa Ana at the top (as opposed to the map of mostly of OC except the east and south, just above.) Readers demanded their inclusion. It’s a good addition. A map that breaks down all of those green markers into their own individual shootings could be accomplished — by anyone who wants to volunteer!
Trump’s Voters Sings His Praises: ‘Unbreakable! He’s Politically Alive, Dammit! It’s a Miracle!’
Republican pollster Frank Luntz did some intensive three-hour focus groups with GOP voters in which he flung all sorts of attacks against Donald Trump to see what might loosen his grip upon them. Answer: everything backfires.
The broader conclusion to be drawn here — and the Luntz focus group reaffirms rather than reveals this reality — is that the people who are for Trump will almost certainly not be peeled off of him no matter what is thrown his way over the coming weeks and months. That’s amazing.
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That’s like Trump and his negatives. There are so many — including so many self-inflicted wounds — that they cause people who like him to simply say some version of “Oh, that’s just Trump being Trump.” If Mr. Burns is indestructible, then Trump is un-attackable. Everything bad is already out there about him. Oftentimes, he’s said it about himself in some way, shape or form.
And it’s not simply that normal political attacks against Trump don’t work. As Luntz demonstrated in the focus group, those attacks actually make Trump stronger because they affirm for his supporters that he is different from all the politicians trying to bring him down.
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That means there is absolutely zero that establishment Republicans can do other than hope fervently that Trump’s momentum slows or stops on its own or, somehow, he collapses under his own weight.
UPDATED! OJB is Your Primary for OC CIF Playoff Football! (Please do not attempt to verify this)
It’s CIF Regional Finals this weekend, and four of the five OC Teams in the playoffs have already played. (Note: the figure 5 includes La Mirada, because that city — along with La Habra Heights and Cerritos and unincorporated South and East Whittier — rightfully belong in OC and someday we shall have them! But technically it’s just four. Still, we’re rooting for La Mirada!)
OC is about 18% of the Southern part of the state. (Note: these percentages are a little bit made up based on unverified assumptions. This is sports, not districting!) Very few people seem to understand the new playoff system, and I am not among them, but beneath the “Open Division” Bowl it looks like “I” is highest, “VI” is lowest, and within every numerical level “AA” is better than “A”. (My guess is that this system is imposed because it allows the victors of, for example, the fifth-best “II-A” title to have a decent shot at convincing unwary college recruiters that it was actually the second-best of the title games.)
With 14 title games (the “Open” game for the real State Championship is the CON-COR game between De La Salle of Concord against Centennial of Corona) for 11-man teams, in a statistically just world OC should legally be entitled to between two and three of those spots — as well as about 1 of the 14 eventual titles. So how are we doing in the CIF’s brand new and incomprehensible 14-title game regime?
I-AA
First of all, this seems to be the most prestigious division (and therefore feeds into the second-most prestigious outside of the State Championshop game.) Mission Viejo beat 7th-ranked Helix of La Mesa to improve its record to 15-0. The 5th-ranked California team will face 19th-ranked Bellarmine College Prep of San Jose (now 14-1) — an upset 42-35 winner over 8th-ranked Folsom in the Northern Regionals — in next weekend’s title game.
II-AA
Ranked 16th State La Habra, which until yesterday had lost only to Mission Viejo this season, lost to 9th-ranked Camarillo, which will play 28th-ranked Del Oro next weekend.
III-AA
Pride of Almost-Orange County La Mirada, ranked 29th, demolished 76th-ranked Oceanside. It will play 121st-ranked Campolinda of Moraga next weekend, which hardly seems fair.
IV-AA
Anaheim Hills’s Canyon High, vanquisher of gutty little Brea-Olinda last week, put up its 142nd-ranked squad up against 72nd-ranked Bonita Vista yesterday and lost by a mere field goal. The Chula Vistans advance to play 130th-ranked Hanford, which is in Hanford. (Which is west of Visalia and Tulare, south of Frenso.)
Division V-A
12/12 @ 7:30p @ Laguna Hills HS
Browsing through The Guardian I found this recent article by Gustavo, on Trump’s remarks on Muslims. Loretta should read it.
“Thanks to all this, Muslims are now public enemy número uno. Welcome to being a Mexican in the United States”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/10/we-mexicans-welcome-muslims-as-the-new-public-enemy-number-one
And our Little Saigon friend The Bolsavik compares Syrian refugees to the Vietnamese refugees of the 70s and 80s… http://voiceofoc.org/2015/12/bolsavik-refugees-are-suspect-they-said-that-of-vietnamese-too/
As usual, it is too heavy on policy prescriptions and political strategy and tactics. But still pretty much ok.
*This is a great article…..love the story about “Muslim Juicers”……yep, we don’t need to send any of our guys to stomp on cockroaches. They used Naplam in Vietnam. They used Depleted Uranium Artillery Shells in Desert Storm, Desert Shield we used Packet Bombs dropped by helicopter or other flying devices. “Captagon”, yeah, the Donald Trump 2nd Amendment people probably think these guys are all “Law Abiding Citizens” and we shouldn’t drug test for new firearm purchases or transfers. The amount of saturated killing zones in Orange County is growing and as long as we continue to not house our Homeless Population……their affect is going to have an impact of our whole area, just as it does in Los Angeles and San Francisco. As far as High School Football is concerned – we are all for it. The National Universities need to find those guys that have had concessions already….so they can’t be blamed later. As far as Donald Trump is concerned…..we would love to see Ted Cruz beat his butt by 10 points in Iowa. Not because we like Ted Cruz…….between his hair coloring and eye make-up we hardly hear anything he is saying anyway. We just need to see Brother Donald Trump – Twist in the wind………. for a very long time! Hey, how about a Rick Santorum/Lindsay Graham ticket? Anyway, wonderful thought provoking article.
Regarding the HS Football thing: BELLERMINE BABY.
As for the Kami Harris post. If ANYBODY belives Kami used $1,200. Suites for anything other than her own comfort they simply don’t know Harris. Kamala is HIGH mantainece. She may be for the peoplebut she is not “of” the people. She is EVERYBIT the billionares choice.
I like her, support her but to pretend she is not Hillary Clinton on STEROIDS is naive and ininformed. If you are an educated “leftist” looking for a job, albeit SHORT TERM she’s your girl.
Our other powerhouse “Campolinda” holds a strong solid place in our states First lady’s heart (will Jerry fuck the Jesuits and support St. MARY’S).
*What did the song say: “She was a high tone woman…made me walk the line…”” Kamala will be a great Senator…..they all have to be millionaires…as you know.
9 shootings within 1 mile radius in 92701 (Santa Ana) oooohhhhhh – that’s NOTHIN. In 1990 there were 9 killings by shooter within 2 blocks in same area.
Over a period of 2 months ….
*For ;those that watched the Republican Debate last night…..we can only say: The scariest thing we saw were the 15 Black SUV”s coming late to the debate with Trump
and his entourage of Secret Service protection, which seems to exceed that of the President. The Army of over 40 Agents bodes ill…….for our Republic. The Black suits protecting this living Molotov Cocktail…….are asking us to get ready for Big Brother….
America. Very scary stuff, when Rand Paul looks like the voice of reason and Ted Cruz and Ben Carson kiss up to Trump between takes!
Some time last week someone using the name “Santa Ana Update” — who used a familiar tone and menu of favored policy issues, employed a Latino name, and did not reply to an email asking “Wassup?” — wrote a post for this WOT contending the following:
OJB (at least this corner of it) has no idea whether any of the above are true (except that Valerie is indeed Al’s daughter.) Just wanted to give you all a sense of how someone with a million grudges wants to use this blog to address them. If anyone with a declared reputation to lose has evidence for any of them being accurate, let us know and we’ll update this. Until then, the hombre remains on moderation.