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Poll_Blind

Poll_Blind's Journal
Poll_Blind's Journal
March 29, 2013

North Korea's "U.S. Mainland Strike Plan" released, shows targets. Did YOU make the cut?

Once they leave North Korean airspace, most DPRK rockets seek out the nearest embassy and request citizenship and a hot meal. However, the "U.S. Mainland Strike Plane" (presumably for a ballistic missile attack) was released by the DPRK today, so get out your tickets and see if you're a winner!

Targets are....
Hawaii
San Diego
Washington D.C.

and...(apparently) Austin, Texas

Please recycle your tickets. Tickets may only be redeemed by North Korean ballistic missiles or their legal designates. Tickets only good for one drawing/nuclear attack.



More photoanalysis, here:
ANALYSIS - North Korean Photo Reveals U.S. Mainland Strike Plan.

PB

March 29, 2013

When a member of a minority group doesn't agree with advocacy groups, whose opinion has more weight?

The member of the minority group or the advocacy group?

In real life, I've known African-Americans, LGBTQ Americans, Jewish Americans, American women and Latinos who have, on occasion, disagreed strongly with or found offensive the positions of advocacy groups which purport to defend them.

Is the burden on an individual member of a minority group to conform to the standards the advocacy group proposes, or on the advocacy group to encompass most or all viewpoints within that minority group?

PB

March 29, 2013

Sinister interpretations of otherwise normally explainable events: The Umbrella Man

I just stumbled on this infinitely useful 6-minute mini-doc by Errol Morris and I thought I'd share it.

This documentary is, I suppose, well, you could say it was about The Umbrella Man. The Umbrella Man was a "mysterious" figure holding an open black umbrella, captured in the Zapbruder film of Kennedy's assassination.

But this beautiful little bit of documentary film-making isn't about the Kennedy assassination, The Umbrella Man or conspiracy theories at all: It's about how we research history and how, as we turn up the magnification of the lense (as is so often is possible in the digital age), the stranger and more distorted the picture may become.



PB
March 26, 2013

Sherry West may have a bipolar or schizophrenic disorder and that may be...

...the cause of her communication, her behavior in the interviews has seemed "off" to some. She may or may not have been under the influence of medication to treat this disorder at the time she was attacked and her baby murdered. I just came across a video article Sherry West's story questioned by daughter after baby killed

Glassey said she started to have her doubts after receiving a phone call from her mother telling her that her brother, Antonio Santiago, had been killed. She claims the night of the shooting her mother asked, "How soon do you think life insurance policy will send me a check?"

Glassey tells First Coast News she hopes her suspicions are wrong but based on conversations with her mother she's not sure. Glassey described their discussions by saying her mother is crying one minute and then sounds fine the next.

"I spoke with the detectives and investigators and the evidence leads to many witnesses, not just me," said Sherry West, mother of the 13-month-old that was killed last Thursday morning.

Glassey says her mother is bipolar and has schizophrenic tendencies. She believes her mother is on medication but could not tell me any prescriptions specifically.

"She changed her story she told me the baby was shot first and then she told me she was shot first," said Glassey.


I knew a guy my age (worked with him, was friends with him outside of work) who suffered from schizophrenia. I watched him deteriorate over a number of years, and saw what the drugs did to him. They kept the schizophrenia under control, but they also...they reduced his emotional level and intellectual capacity considerably. And the disease? He could laugh one minute and drop into a depressive spiral in a snap of your fingers. Watching Sherry West give interviews I don't see anything amiss but I can imagine how others might not be able to fit her responses into the rubric they normally use to assess normal human emotion in a situation like that.

I just want to make it clear: From all the evidence so far, the worst thing Sherry West did was be a overweight middle aged woman suffering from a bipolar schizophrenic disorder pushing her baby down the street, trying to enjoy a day she otherwise might have spent shut inside, when she and her infant were targets of a heinous crime.

She may have diminished mental capacity. She may have been on prescription drugs to treat a serious mental disorder. From her own admission, she didn't get out much. She may have had her eight year old daughter taken away from her. Her older teenage son was killed years before in an apparent attempt to kill another boy.

Her life, it appears, had been broken into many pieces before the tragedy unfolded.

But none of those things, none of those mistakes, or disorders or bad life choices or any of that put a gun to her infant's head and pulled the trigger. None of those awful, embarrassing or downright ugly aspects of her life shot her twice.

Those things will not be on trial for murder.

If neither she nor anyone else is to be tried for those things by the police, why should we put her on trial for them now?


PB
March 23, 2013

Wait, wait- I thought that was Kathy Griffin?

No, I'm wrong...THIS is Kathy Griffin:



Wait, isn't that Carrot Top?


No- sorry. I'm wrong again. THIS is Carrot Top:






Oh sweet Jesus what have I done?

PB

March 20, 2013

BBC: Voyager craft 'exits' Solar System

Voyager craft 'exits' Solar System
The Voyager-1 probe has left the Solar System, according to some scientists.

If confirmed, it would be the first man-made object to do so.

Launched in September 1977, the probe was sent initially to study the outer planets, but then just kept on going.

Researchers who have studied its data indicate it has now entered a realm of space beyond the influence of our Sun.


In related news, a number of geostationary satellites held a press conference requesting help from law enforcement agencies in order to recover missing articles which they'd loaned Voyager 1 and which they fear will not be returned.

"Everybody was gaga over 'Vee', that was the hotshot nickname he was using last time we saw him." explained ATS 3, a Hughes model satellite put into orbit by NASA in 1967. "'Hey, AT, can I borrow that silver Zippo. I'm going camping this weekend.' I figured 'Why not?' it's not like...like...."

"It's not like he's going to run off beyond the ecliptic!" interjected LES 8, another mid-70's vintage satellite. "Look, Vee and I were pals and he's not the kind of celestial hardware to go off and do something like this. Last time I saw him, he was talkin about some Spanish dancing girl he met. Talked about her eyes all the time. You ask me, she's the one behind this. If he's got that Spanish girl out beyond Pluto...well, I can kiss my favorite pocket knife goodbye. Gerald Ford gave that to me personally."


PB
March 7, 2013

ABC News: Box of "Liberal Causes" stolen from DNC warehouse. Libertarians suspected.


Photo Credit AP

From ABC News:
Washington, DC - A refrigerator-sized cardboard box containing all the party's liberal causes has been stolen from the Democratic National Committee, sources report. The box of 'left wing' political ideas went missing sometime after being put into storage after the Democratic National Convention of 2012.

"Every two years we go to the warehouse and get the box loaded onto the truck. We open it up, dust the liberal causes off, do some restoration if necessary, and then put them on display during the convention. An intern was taking an inventory for insurance purposes and found it wasn't at the warehouse anymore." said Edith March, DNC spokesperson. "Which is ironic, because we hadn't actually insured them."

--snip--

"Well, it's not a total loss. We still have these little bobblehead statues of Ted Kennedy and Paul Wellstone from a gift shop in the lobby. Somebody had written 'liberal' on the bottom with a Sharpie so we've put those in a safe place. Oh, also...Somebody found an old 'ERA NOW!' button in their desk. We're looking into what that means and what it would take to mount the button on either of the bobbleheads. Maybe with hot glue or something."

Asked about the possibility the Democratic Party may not be able to recover the ideas, March seemed optimistic about being able to rebuild from scratch if necessary.

"We had a big brainstorm a few days ago to see what everybody remembers and so far we have: 'something about Social Security', 'there's nothing wrong with black people', and something about growing corn or maybe the sea. Didn't somebody famous write a book about corn growing in the sea? Anyway, we're getting there."

"Oh, one more!" she added, "'Old people need blankets.'"


--snip--

Sources close to the police investigation have implicated members in the local chapter of the Libertarian party in the theft. A YouTube video surfaced, showing Libertarians coaching each other on the pronunciation of phrases like 'Constitutional Rights', 'living wage' and 'old people need blankets'. Arrests are expected soon.


PB

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About Poll_Blind

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