Why We Won’t Stop Mass Killings: We Like Them Too Much | Econ201 Forgive me if I’ve already offended you with the title of this piece, but I’m an economist. As such, I tend to weigh up the costs and benefits of just about anything when trying to figure out what it means for society. And when it comes to mass killings, my analysis suggests we have some reason for introspection. Because of the inescapable reach of media, mass killings affect virtually everyone. While the victims and the ones who loved them suffer terribly, the rest of us may feel a combination of many emotions: grief (through empathy), fear, disbelief, curiosity, fascination, and even a thrill at seeing the commotion caused by what happened. After shootings like the one in Newtown, the media descend excitedly on the crime scene, and the public tunes in to see and hear the latest details. Later on, the media produce articles and programs eulogizing the dead. So how is the balance sheet looking so far? And that, in fact, is what we do.
Hacker Who Exposed Steubenville Rapists Raided By FBI, Faces Ten-Year Prison Sentence In April, the FBI quietly raided the home of the hacker known as KYAnonymous (whose real name is Deric Lostutter) in connection with his role in the Steubenville rape case. Today he spoke out for the first time about the raid and his motivations for pursuing the Steubenville rapists.Lostutter may deserve more credit than anyone for turning Steubenville into a national outrage. After a 16-year-old girl was raped by two members of the Steubenville High football team last year, he obtained and published tweets and Instagram photos in which other team members had joked about the incident and belittled the victim.Lostutter says he played no role in the hacking the Steubenville team’s fan page; he points out that another hacker, Batcat, has publicly taken the credit.
Area Woman Decides Not To Post Facebook Status That Would Have Tipped Gun Control Debate AURORA, IL—The contentious debate on gun control will continue unresolved after local woman Theresa Delacroix opted Friday not to post an anti-gun message on Facebook, an opinion experts agreed would have tipped the scales toward a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s firearm laws. “There’s already so much chatter about the gun issue floating around on the Internet, I really didn’t see the point of throwing my two cents into the mix,” said Delacroix, 29, whose unposted status update “No more Newtowns—the time has come for action” would have completely swayed the tide of public opinion, pushing the government to end the gun-show loophole and adopt a permanent ban on assault weapons. “Some of my friends are pro-gun, and I didn’t want to stir things up.
One Era's Traitor Is Another Era's Whistle-Blower - By J. Dana Stuster When the Guardian named Edward Snowden as the source behind a series of leaks last week on National Security Agency surveillance programs, the backlash was swift. In a rare show of bipartisanship, several members of Congress -- including House Speaker John Boehner, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton -- labeled the 29-year-old contractor a traitor. The Guardian's profile, meanwhile, characterized Snowden as "one of America's most consequential whistleblowers" and compared him to Daniel Ellsberg. The Guardian isn't alone in comparing Snowden to Ellsberg, who leaked a secret Pentagon-authored history of the Vietnam War, known as the Pentagon Papers, to reporters at the New York Times and Washington Post in 1971. But the reaction to Snowden's leaks is in many ways different than the response Ellsberg received when the Pentagon Papers were published four decades ago. When Ellsberg did face harsh criticism, it was often personal in nature.
Gorilla Sales Skyrocket After Latest Gorilla Attack SAN DIEGO—Following the events of last week, in which a crazed western lowland gorilla ruthlessly murdered 21 people in a local shopping plaza after escaping from the San Diego Zoo, sources across the country confirmed Thursday that national gorilla sales have since skyrocketed. “After seeing yet another deranged gorilla just burst into a public place and start killing people, I decided I need to make sure something like that never happens to me,” said 34-year-old Atlanta resident Nick Keller, shortly after purchasing a 350-pound mountain gorilla from his local gorilla store. “It just gives me peace of mind knowing that if I’m ever in that situation, I won’t have to just watch helplessly as my torso is ripped in half and my face is chewed off. “Law enforcement and animal control can only get there so quickly,” Keller added. “The answer to this systemic problem is not more gorillas,” Simmons continued, her eyes welling with tears.
Ashley Jessica, Student Activist, Says She Was Violated During TSA Pat-Down A 27-year-old Ph.D. student says a TSA agent touched her vaginal area during a pat-down at a California airport; however, a representative told The Huffington Post the agents followed procedure. Ashley Jessica , a psychology student from Toronto who has recently campaigned to raise awareness about invasive TSA practices , told HuffPost that she and her mother chose to opt out of a full-body scan at San Diego International Airport on May 23. Because they opted out, TSA agents said they had to give her an "extensive pat-down." Jessica and her mother filmed the whole thing, and video of the pat-down has gone viral since being posted online Sunday. About halfway into the procedure (at the 4:35 minute mark in the video above), a TSA agent feels the area between Jessica's breasts, and Jessica puts up her hands as if to protect herself from further touching. Less than two minutes later, the agent appears to run her hands all the way up the inside of Jessica's leg. "She just touched my vagina!"
Gun Laws and the Fools of Chelm - Newsweek and The Daily Beast Karl Marx summed up Communism as “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This is a good, pithy saying, which, in practice, has succeeded in bringing, upon those under its sway, misery, poverty, rape, torture, slavery, and death. For the saying implies but does not name the effective agency of its supposed utopia. All of us have had dealings with the State, and have found, to our chagrin, or, indeed, terror, that we were not dealing with well-meaning public servants or even with ideologues but with overworked, harried bureaucrats. Rule by bureaucrats and functionaries is an example of the first part of the Marxist equation: that the Government shall determine the individual’s abilities. As rules by the Government are one-size-fits-all, any governmental determination of an individual’s abilities must be based on a bureaucratic assessment of the lowest possible denominator. It is not the constitutional prerogative of the Government to determine needs. Q. A.
Eric Holder Signed Off On Search Warrant For James Rosen Emails: NBC News Attorney General Eric Holder personally signed off on the warrant that allowed the Justice Department to search Fox News reporter James Rosen's personal email, NBC News' Michael Isikoff reported Thursday. The report places Holder at the center one of the most controversial clashes between the press and the government in recent memory. The warrant he approved named Rosen as a "co-conspirator" in a leak investigation, causing many to warn that the Justice Department was potentially criminalizing journalism. The warrant also approved the tracking of Rosen's movements in and out of the State Department, as well as his communications with his source, Stephen Kim. The Justice Department later said that it did not intend to press any charges against Rosen. The attorney general is usually required to approve requests to search journalists' materials, but that rule does not extend to email records . Also on HuffPost:
Why the 'Citizen Militia' Theory Is the Worst Pro-Gun Argument Ever - Mark Nuckols Two out of three Americans see the Second Amendment as a safeguard against tyranny. What? A detail of the Minutemen statue in Lexington, Massachusetts (Tim Grafft/Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism/Flickr) The notion that an individual right to bear arms guarantees the American people against government tyranny is of course an old one. Given its apparent validation in the Second Amendment of the Constitution itself, it's not surprising that the notion has survived in some way through to the 21st century. If America experienced a widespread political uprising today, it would bear little resemblance to Lexington and Concord in 1775, with well-disciplined minutemen assembling on the town square to defend liberty against the redcoats. There is, we all know, a Second Amendment right to gun ownership. A citizen uprising today would probably not involve like-minded constitutionalists taking up arms to defend democracy and liberty. "Bloody Kansas" provides a valuable historical contrast.
James Rosen named a co-conspirator: Why is Barack Obama’s Justice Department going after a national security reporter? Fox News' James Rosen Screenshot via C-SPAN The Obama Justice Department’s crusade against leakers just took a quantum leap—and it’s extremely worrisome. It’s one thing to go after officials who leak classified information to the press. The Obama administration has gone after more of them than all previous administrations combined. Nonetheless, officials with security clearances sign a contract pledging not to share material with the outside world—and they know they could face criminal penalties if they do. However, it’s something else entirely to go after a reporter who receives the leak. This has never happened in this country. A similar case occurred in 2006, during George W. The section of the indictment titled “Ways and Means of the Conspiracy” found that Rosen and Weissman: Those final words are worth noting. As I noted in a Slate column at the time , “This is what journalists do routinely every day.