The direction of society lately

[Too Tall]

I hope people don't read too much into the military background. The military is a product of society and includes all the ills which are hopefully weeded out. I served 27 years with 20 deployments, and I'd still run into a burning building and drag out someone I couldn't stand.

Of course you would, your character is known well by myself and others who read your thoughts here full stop.

Service comes in many forms is honorable.

People in many forms, not always so honorable.

[Too Tall]

When I think of my past in newsrooms I can see why it’s noted by people reporting the stories—patterns feel like valuable information and tend to be sought—but I agree with your point, that there’s a risk of positioning the military as a society unto itself and downplaying its reflection of society at large.

He!! yeah and myself as did others take a knee when 911 and Pizzagate etc. etc. happened with the immediate reaction that it would not be a person who's profile is targeted by racism.

People are good, stand for something gdamnit.

[j44ke]

FBI received a tip that led to the arrest of a man in Virginia with 150 homemade pipe bombs.

https://apnews.com/article/homemade-...b432272399aa28

Some people are just more industrious than others?

[bigbill]

He!! yeah and myself as did others take a knee when 911 and Pizzagate etc. etc. happened with the immediate reaction that it would not be a person who's profile is targeted by racism.

People are good, stand for something gdamnit.

I hope that the antisemitism that keeps rearing it's ugly head finally finds no place in our society.

I taught my son about sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. I raised a sheepdog who is there to protect the sheep from the wolves. Wolves take many forms from extremists to scammers to people who take advantage in other ways. He opens doors for people, he enters a room and identifies the exits, he keeps his back toward the wall, and he watches for things out of the ordinary or out of place. In a few years when he's being catapulted off a carrier in an F-35, he's the sheepdog for the Marines on the ground.

[Peter Polack]

...Interesting to see what these individuals have in common

How about they're both dead.

[suspectdevice]

When I heard Fayetteville had been awarded the 2022 CX worlds, i just immediately assumed it was the one near Fort Bragg.

Imagine how much different America could be? I sold bikes to a couple of different Operators out of Fort Bragg circa Obama’s Surge. Two airbone medics, bathed in blood, celebrating the life enhancing properties of bike racing.

When we serve one family and their interests over others, you get 2025.

[thollandpe]

Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the 42-year-old Texas man accused of crashing a truck into New Year’s Day revelers in New Orleans, served in the US army for 13 years, including a deployment to Afghanistan.
Guardian link

The driver of the [truck] that caught fire and exploded in Las Vegas outside one of the hotels in Donald Trump’s business empire has been identified as soldier Matthew Livelsberger, from Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Guardian link

Interesting to see what these individuals have in common

There are similarities and differences between Matthew Livelsberger and Shamsud-Din, both who they are and what they did. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, how they are treated in the media beyond just what brand of truck they chose for their attacks.

I think there is an unconscious desire in all of us to label people who do terrible things as an outsider or member of a fringe group, and if we identify and exclude others like them then we’ll be safer. And that’s an overt desire in some, the immediate and overriding (and sometimes politically or commercially successful) reaction, to solidify and promote a prejudice. Unfortunately it’s often oversimplistic at best, and counterproductive at worst because it ignores or gives cover to who and where the threat really comes from.

FBI received a tip that led to the arrest of a man in Virginia with 150 homemade pipe bombs.
AP Link

Frightening, innit?

[rwsaunders]

True to the requirements of government agency reporting, the FBI publishes an annual report on domestic terrorism and they actually break down the incidents into five categories, with subcategories or course. The report is dated 2023 and identified a total of 2,700 investigations for 2022, with half of those investigations focused on breach of the US Capitol. With that POS coming back into office with his entourage, I’d wager that the investigation load from that event will be reduced as they pardon the perps and move forward with their future criminal activities.

1. Racially or ethnically motivated
2. Anti-government/anti-authority
3. Animal rights/environmental
4. Abortion related
5. All others

https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/...-2023.pdf/view

[bigbill]

Our self-absorption as a society makes us a target rich environment. We don't pay attention to what is going on around us until something bad happens, and then like Todd points out, we want to quickly label them, put them in neat columns, and blame that group. It's never that simple, patterns exist, situations are created that make it easier to commit these acts such as large groups of people, and if we're going to live our lives without fear, people have to be aware of what is going on around them and say something. The two most recent domestic terrorists had families, friends, neighbors who had to know something was going on. There are reports of missing barriers in New Orleans, why isn't that on a checklist for law enforcement before any event? We're too complacent about our surroundings and terrorists looking for soft targets is our new reality.

For domestic groups and a map of their location, The Southern Poverty Law Center is a good reference. https://www.splcenter.org/

[gregl]

Snip:

There are reports of missing barriers in New Orleans, why isn't that on a checklist for law enforcement before any event?

Per media reports/quotes, the New Orleans police chief didn't even know that the city owned portable vehicle barriers (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ars-rcna186012). They only rolled them out after the attack. The street where the attack took place was blocked by a police car, but the attacker drove around the police car via the sidewalk to commit the attack. The attacker thought outside the box. The police did not.

Greg

[AngryScientist]

Snip:Per media reports/quotes, the New Orleans police chief didn't even know that the city owned portable vehicle barriers (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ars-rcna186012). They only rolled them out after the attack. The street where the attack took place was blocked by a police car, but the attacker drove around the police car via the sidewalk to commit the attack. The attacker thought outside the box. The police did not.

Greg

Apparently they have a more robust permanent system that is "under repair" - despite warning of heightened threats of vehicular violence there. Very sad.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/03/us/bo...ans/index.html

[suspectdevice]

statistics:
U.S. Military service is the strongest predictor of carrying out extremist violence:

https://theintercept.com/2025/01/02/...orleans-vegas/

Not every service member is lucky enough to have our Bill as a father, or the experience of graduating from a service academy…

[j44ke]

statistics:
U.S. Military service is the strongest predictor of carrying out extremist violence:

https://theintercept.com/2025/01/02/...orleans-vegas/

Not every service member is lucky enough to have our Bill as a father, or the experience of graduating from a service academy…

Yep.

[SlowPokePete]

I would think a garbage truck (or similar) would do a pretty good job as a "portable vehicle barrier."

Nobody thought to park a few of them in the way since the permanent ones were missing?

SPP

[thollandpe]

I don’t think the answer lies in better bollards or bulletproof backpacks. I’m pretty sure we can’t arm all the administrators and teachers. Today I read again about the work done just down the road from me by Prof. Ray Coppinger, after reading Bill’s sheepdog metaphor, about his decades of research and breeding livestock guard dogs, who are raised to be part of the flock.


Nobody here but us sheep.

When shit like this happens, I go back and re-read the brilliant Gene Weingarten. This link won’t be a gift link because I let my subscription lapse, if yours is active help me out by replying with one.

[takashi]

"...better bollards or bulletproof backpacks"

And what if the terror comes from the sky? And a figure looking at a screen unleashes it?

[suspectdevice]

I used to take great pleasure in cleaning out Ray Coppinger’s kennels, one summer in college.
It was so much better than moving the boxes full of the bones of millenia-dead Qatari children from room to room, or shoveling fish emulsions from the aquaculture experiments, that innocent summer of 2001.

[suspectdevice]

As we all suspected, this is what happens when your country goes morally bankrupt prosecuting and loosing “the Global War on Terror”.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/...wake-call.html

People full of pain and trauma, left behind.

Seeing Al Qaeda take over Syria with the CIA and Israel’s help 2 years after the Taliban took back Kabul is probably a pretty miserable thing to experience when you remember the smells and sounds of so much, apparently pointless, death and destruction.

[sk_tle]

I don’t think the answer lies in better bollards or bulletproof backpacks. I’m pretty sure we can’t arm all the administrators and teachers. Today I read again about the work done just down the road from me by Prof. Ray Coppinger, after reading Bill’s sheepdog metaphor, about his decades of research and breeding livestock guard dogs, who are raised to be part of the flock.


Nobody here but us sheep.

When shit like this happens, I go back and re-read the brilliant Gene Weingarten. This link won’t be a gift link because I let my subscription lapse, if yours is active help me out by replying with one. But for now I’m gonna cut and paste, because the piece is 20+ years old and should be a public service announcement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archi...-efce75c0f3a3/

It’s a big chunk, but a very good and important piece of work, in my opinion. Humorists are well versed in the art of telling the truth.

Fear Itself
Learning to live in the age of terrorism
August 22, 2004
By Gene Weingarten

[...]

I am sure you meant well but copying as is an entire article is not the way to go and way past the fair use exception of copyright.

[suspectdevice]

If you’ve read the Green Beret’s suicide note, you see two main things:
Dude was absolutely freaking out about the NJ UAP’s, and he was forced to cover up a series of airstrikes on civilians in Afghanistan that took a heavy toll on him.

Self Immolation.
I would love to hear Chelsea Manning’s take on this.