I keep slamming DU'ers (as well as righties) for suggesting that violence may be a good idea.

Kimveer Gill is a good illustration of the danger of that.

Online communities attract a large number of similarly-minded people. And, generally, they're passionate about whatever it is the online community is about. You don't bother to spend four hours a week in a model airplane site unless you're pretty serious about model airplanes.

It's the same with political sites, of course. No one here is apolitical, and few are true "moderates." (Even those posters who are "moderates" overall must be fairly passionate about the War on Terror, etc., to be here. Otherwise, why bother with this site as opposed to some other?)

Certain freaks are self-starters when it comes to killing people. Others require a bit of moral support from whatever community will have them.

These Goth guys frequently gave this asshole good feedback for his disturbing, disturbed postings. I don't imagine they took it seriously; they probably imagined all the talk of killing was, as it was for most Goth idiots, just a pose to seem kewl.

But it wasn't, and Gill seems to have taken that positive feedback seriously.

This jerkoff loser had fantasies about becoming a hero if he killed his "oppressors." No, he certainly didn't have any fantasies about general society lionizing him. But he hated general society, and could give a shit about their opinions on the matter.

What was important to him was what the Goth/"VampireFreaks" community thought about him. And, based upon their positive feedback to his constant declarations he was going to kill someone, he went out and did in fact kill someone, and shoot up a school.

Again, I don't want to say the VampireFreaks community took him very seriously.

But that's the trouble with encouraging statements about killing people-- you never know who out there is actually kind of serious about it, and who may just decide to go through with a shooting spree -- or political assassination -- based on your "Yeah! That's the ticket!" encouragements.

The political left has been especially egregious about offering this sort of irresponsible, dangerous moral support to the various nutters among them who hint (or speak directly) of killing political figures they don't like.

Take note.

Would Kimveer Gill have been deterred if the communty whose opinion he respected, and whose acceptance he craved, had spoken bluntly to him and told him to stop with all the asshole murder-talk? Would he have been dissuaded had he realized he would not be hailed as the Vampire Goth Conquerer, but rather reviled as a loser spree-killer, even by the community whose opinion mattered to him?

We don't know. Because no one bothered to say anything negative about it. So we don't know if he was a determined, self-motivated psychopath or a less motivated one who needed the encouragement of his chosen peers.

But, again, one never does know.

The DU'ers and Table Talkers and Huffington Posters and IndyMedia'ers should scold the next sociopathic loser who calls for the death of the President, but of course they won't.

Because liberals are peaceful. All of them. Even the crazy ones.

And of course because many of them don't mind giving a bit of encouragement to a would-be assassin.

If someone says they might commit suicide, you do not encourage them.

That rule applies tenfold for talk of murder and assassinations.

The hard left is now more or less openly agitating for the assassination of President Bush, and the media -- which does still retain some of its old power as arbiter of mainstream, acceptable political thought in this country, and still can shame those well outside of it -- says nothing.

And if an assassin should happen to attempt to take the President's life-- will they speak up even then? Or will they attempt, even then, to deflect their responsibility by ignoring the subject entirely?

I know one thing. When Jesse Helms suggested, thuggishly, that President Clinton might not be safe in his home state, the media reacted with the proper amount of outrage.

Now we have a film glorifying the murder of the President, and sold-out crowds jacking themselves off to the political pornography, and the media are as quiet as churchmice.

Thanks to dk for the photo.

Compare And Contrast: Just as no one would get the idea of killing a cop from a song called "Cop Killer:"

But Range said he did not believe the film glorified the president's death.

"I think the film makes it clear it would really be a horrific event," he told the Associated Press news agency.

"I really don't think that anyone would get the idea of assassinating Bush from this film."

...

The film was shown to a sell-out crowd at the Toronto Film Festival, who applauded at the end of the screening and several times during a question and answer session with the producers.

"It seemed very real," said audience member Linda Walsh. "I found myself mesmerised."

No, they wouldn't get the idea of kiillng the President from the film.

Many already have the idea.

What they'll get is the necessary moral support and not-so-subtle encouragement.

Posted by: Ace at 07:11 AM | Comments (43)
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Not Islamic. Goth.

A man with a black trench coat whose shooting rampage in a Montreal college killed one person and wounded 19 others before he was slain
by police said on a Web site in his name that his favorite Internet game was about the Columbine shootings.

The gunman who opened fire at Dawson College on Wednesday was Kimveer Gill, 25, of Laval, near Montreal, a police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because authorities were not ready to announce it publicly yet.

Six victims remained in critical condition, including two in extremely critical condition.

The official said police had searched Gill's home.

In postings on a Web site called VampireFreaks.com, blogs in Gill's name show more than 50 photos depicting the young man in various poses holding a rifle and donning a long black trench coat and combat boots.

One photo has a tombstone with his name printed on it _ below it the phrase: "Lived fast died young. Left a mangled corpse."

Andy the Squirrel sends me a couple of sites on VampireFreaks.com to check out:

this one, and this one.

Still waiting for my sign-in name to be created. Here's one quote Andy sent:

How do you want to Die:

Like Romeo and Juliet -or- In a hail of gunfire

Apparently they're not going to be able to call him a rightwing extremist, so they won't be mentioning his politics at all.

Will add more as I check it out.

Cached Pages: First one.

His name is Kimveer. You will come to know him as Trench. He is male. He is 25 years of age. He lives in Quebec. He finds that it is an O.K place to live. He is not a people person. He has met a handfull of people in his life who are decent. But he finds the vast majority to be worthless, no good, kniving, betraying, lieing, deceptive, motherfuckers.

Work sucks..........School sucks..........Life sucks..........What else can I say

Metal and Goth kick ass

Life is like a video game, you gotta die sometime.

"Not a people person." Would not have guessed that.

This one shows him a4WdORZYBMJ:www.vampirefreaks.com/profile.php%3Fuser%3Dfatality666+KIMVEER&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2">posing as a "vampire" with guns and knives.

The below picture runs with the text directly following it:

Vengeance is coming.

Bowling For Columbine Bonus: Michael Moore's odious "documentary" Bowling For Columbine specifically contrasted the supposed guns-and-death culture of America with the peaceful, but still gun owning, culture of Canada.

How's that workin' out for him?

more...

Posted by: Ace at 05:47 AM | Comments (129)
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about some lucky men who made the grade.

The men I refer to? None other that the Fab Four, of course. Who, according to this article on BBC News, are soon to be honored with their own set of postage stamps.

The series of 6 stamps (which are pictured below if I entered this right) feature the cover photos of 6 of their albums.

Further, they go on sale in January 2007. And would probably make a wonderful gift for a rock and roll obsessed blogger who has brought you countless seconds of quality entertainment. For free. And that was just in bed!

Namely.....me.

Here are the stamps that are to be issued:

Which is all well and good. I like all those albums well enough.

But if there's one thing I know about avid Beatles fans it's this: aren't you all just a tad disappointed that the original "Yesterday & Today/Butcher Babies" cover didn't make the final cut.

Because that, my friends, would really have knocked the squares for a loop.

NOTE: The story behind the "Butcher Babies" cover can be found here. It isn't what you think. If anything, it's goofier.

Posted by: Ace at 08:16 PM | Comments (27)
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Daley vetoes "big-box" retailer living wage law, fearing economic harm.

They had a veto proof margin, but there's talk some may switch sides now that Target halted expansion plans.

A question. What is it, really, that's so benevolent about 10 bucks an hour by 2010? Why not 15? 20? Why not next month?

Because that doesn't mean anything to the UFCW. Attacking Wal-Mart does.

It's called scratch my back, or something silly like that.

UPDATE: Dogstar points out the City Council couldn't overturn Daley's veto.

He didn't give us a link, but he did say I was way behind the curve.

Thanks for covering my back, wing-man!*

*I keed, I keed

Posted by: Ace at 08:00 PM | Comments (19)
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The discovery of what may be one or two ancient pyramids in Bosnia is a few months old, but today it was updated after Dr. Mohammed Ibrahim Ali, a professor of Egyptology in Cairo, examined the excavations and stated it is worth digging there.

I bring this to your attention for two reasons. First, I love disciplines like archaeology, ancient history, and Egyptology (as should be evident from my name). Second, so I can quote this:

The theory has been disputed by a number of local and international experts, who claim that at no time in Bosnia's history did the region have a civilization able to build monumental structures.

Well that claim seems to be somewhat up the air, now, doesn't it? I love the circular logic here: someone finds a big pyramid-shaped thing in Bosnia, but "experts" know there's no such thing as a pyramid in Bosnia, and therefore whatever is under those mounds (which we shouldn't bother excavating, because the experts have already told us what cannot possibly be there) is most certainly not a pyramid. Because Europeans never built pyramids. QED.

That reminds me of a debate about the Dead Sea Scrolls. For two thousand years, it was received wisdom that Jews never practiced baptism. Then the scrolls were found, which described a group of Jews who practiced ritual submersion in water for religious, symbolic purposes. But whatever those rituals were, they certainly weren't baptism. How do we know? Because Jews never practiced baptism.

Thank goodness we have experts.

Posted by: Ace at 06:41 PM | Comments (20)
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I've been following the CNN headlines on this for most of the day. It's hard to offer a summary, because the details have changed every time I refresh my computer, but basically someone walked into Dawson College in downtown Montreal, started shooting, and is now dead.

None of the reports have identified the shooter. I've been especially interested in seeing some mention of the shooter's race. I wonder if his name has an "al-" in it somewhere.

Maybe, and maybe not. I have no idea. The thing that has really caught my attention here is the wide variety of details and the speed at which they have changed. It went from one to shooters, the clothing was either black or military fatigues, the number of wounded went from 12 to 20, and the shooter's death went from suicide to being gunned down by police. The most recent report says one victim was killed.

As I've watched the changing story, I've reflected on 9/11 reportage on the day of the attacks. Professional idiots like Dylan Avery exploit conflicting reports that came out almost immediately after the single worst attack on our nation since Pearl Harbor, with over 3,000 dead, four downed airliners, covering three different (non-contiguous) states. The events of that day involved re-routing Air Force one, grounding every single passenger plane near North America, a bazillion phone calls from panicked loved ones, and who knows how many reports coming in from terrified and/or confused eyewitnesses, many of whom thought the apocalypse was beginning.

The reportage on the Montreal shootings indicates just how quickly misinformation can get out, how much uncertainty can remain, and how badly the reporters can screw things up even hours after a tragedy. I'm not attacking reporters with this statement, I'm making the common sense observation that after a tragedy like this, we simply can't expect all the facts to come in, get digested and evaluated, and put into any kind of coherent story-line.

And yet Avery et al use video clips from immediately after the 9/11 attacks to make their case. Interesting.

Update: the local police are quite certain, however, that " the shootings were not hate crimes or terror-related."

Well, I guess that settles that.

Posted by: Ace at 03:37 PM | Comments (39)
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At least he didn't sub it out to his girlfriend.

Northern Colorado punter Mitch Cozad arrested and charged with assault for stabbing the starting punter, Rafael Mendoza in the leg.

Attacked him from behind, taped over his license tag numbers. Got spotted by a liquor store clerk.

He thought his little plan would work.

That's cute.

Posted by: Ace at 03:00 PM | Comments (19)
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Yahoo! News provides a helpful listing of the most popular articles on it's site. Currently an opinion piece from The Nation holds the number two position on the "Most Emailed" list. The piece lauds the new incarnation of Edward R. Murrow, a man whose fearless and hard-hitting journalism stands as a shining example to us all.

Keith Olbermann.

The Nation
Mon Sep 11, 9:49 PM ET

The Nation -- Keith Olbermann is without a doubt the best news anchor on television today. Two weeks ago, echoing the spirit of the legendary Edward R. Murrow, Olbermann took Donald Rumsfeld to task for comparing critics of the Iraq war to Nazi appeasers. Tonight, broadcasting live from above a desolate and still demolished Ground Zero, Olbermann delivered a stirring eight minute commentary indicting the Bush Administration's shameful and tragic response to 9/11. The entire speech is worth watching and reading, so I'm posting the full text below.

I did not realize this. Actually, yesterday I watched a YouTube clip of Olbermann's Ground Zero piece and thought he had achieved a new milestone in fucktardinosity.

Silly me. I'm lacking in discernment, I guess. All those people gleefully emailing Keith's opinions can't be wrong.

Either that, or they are just slack-jawed mouth breathers who can't distinguish between journalism and Olbermann's desperate attempts to pump up his ratings.

"We Have Not Forgotten, Mr. President."

Posted by: Ace at 02:06 PM | Comments (36)
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Posted by: Ace at 12:49 PM | Comments (59)
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Andrew Sullivan's next frenzied "Christianist"article in 5..4..3..2..1....

Apparently, as reported in the Washington Post, President Bush had a little face to face sit-down in the Oval Office today with a group of conservative journalists and said the following:

""A lot of people in America see this as a confrontation between good and evil, including me," Bush said during a 1 1/2 -hour Oval Office conversation on cultural changes and a battle with terrorists that he sees lasting decades. "There was a stark change between the culture of the '50s and the '60s -- boom -- and I think there's change happening here," he added. "It seems to me that there's a Third Awakening."

A third awakening??? Oh noes!!! Sounds evil. Better get that freakout meter adjusted.

What's a "third awakening" you ask? Luckily for you heathens, the article explains it.

"The First Great Awakening refers to a wave of Christian fervor in the American colonies from about 1730 to 1760, while the Second Great Awakening is generally believed to have occurred from 1800 to 1830.

HORRORS!!!!

And how, pray tell, is this "third awakening" manifesting itself? Surely, as Sullivan is probably feverishly writing now, these Theocratic Christianists are imposing Taliban-like restrictions upon the very freedoms that are part and parcel of the AoS lifestyle. Right? Let's see what the President says:

"Bush told a group of conservative journalists that he notices more open expressions of faith among people he meets during his travels, and he suggested that might signal a broader revival similar to other religious movements in history. Bush noted that some of Abraham Lincoln's strongest supporters were religious people "who saw life in terms of good and evil" and who believed that slavery was evil. Many of his own supporters, he said, see the current conflict in similar terms."

Dear Lord! People displaying open expressions of faith??? In public??? In AMERICA????

The next thing you know they will want to pray at football games. Or high school graduation ceremonies.

And what's with all this judgmentalism about good and evil. That's not the Spirit of the Sixties, man. Well, OK, maybe the 1860's you clock-turner-backer!!!

In all seriousness, how can anyone find anything about the President's comments to be objectionable?

And yet, it's a big story in the Post. And it will provide fodder for the next 50 or so Sully columns.

Which, come to think about it, is the most objectionable thing about this whole non-story.

Posted by: Ace at 12:20 PM | Comments (54)
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