A hearty debate in the iSportacus comment section over whether or not the taser should have been used on that kid Monday night. I say yes, Palestra Jon, BMT, Parsnip, et al. disagree. We’re still not sure exactly where Bob T. stands. He sort of plays the fence on this one.
I’ve started doing some writing for Comcast. Here’s my column for today: Best 5 Mexican American athletes of all time. I also heartily recommend the NFL Draft All-Name team, featuring Selvish Capers and Roddrick Muckelroy.
I’ve also begun doing quizzes for them. Here’s one: NFL First Rounder or Not Drafted at all.
JGT made the comment that “I am all for excessive force on raging douchebags,” and I stated that I thought that would be a good guiding principle for both domestic and foreign policy, so I guess I came down on his side.
Seriously, I don't really know. I don't have a really strong opinion one way or the other. It doesn't sound like the guy was a particular threat, but I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the security guy. I'm also inclined to give a lot of weight to the opinion of the cop who commented on the incident, and he thought the use of the taser was justified. The kid looked harmless, but then that ahole arrested for the Times Square thing looks like half the nerdy graduate students wandering around the U of P campus near where I live, so maybe we shouldn't put too much faith in a harmless appearance when an individual is engaging in potentially dangerous behavior.
I'm a lot more concerned about the reactions to the attempted terrorist attack in NY than I am to the saga of this screwed up kid running around a ball park. As has become routine in terror attacks, the Obama people first tried to pretend that it wasn't really a terrorist attack. Then they attempt to downplay it– it was “amateurish,” or it was “isolated,” the action of a “lone wolf.” No story here, folks, so move along. Of course, just as with the Fort Hood case and the underwear bomber, this narrative that it's not really very important and we've got everything under control etc. etc. has collapsed, and we're left with the reality of a terrorist who quite obviously had connections with Islamic radicalism, was trained in a terror camp, may quite possibly turn out to have been a “sleeper” agent in place for years, and whose potentially deadly attack was only thwarted through blind luck. Once again we got lucky. Meanwhile, we have an administration which has decided to purge any mention of Islamism and Muslim radicalism from our security efforts, and seems determined to keep its head ostrichlike in the sand and continue its policy of denial about this obvious and deadly danger threatening our nation.
It's a crying shame that the attack didn't turn out to be connected to a tea party guy or a militia group or somebody who would fit into the Clinton/Obama/Napolitano/Holder fairy tale about how the real terror danger in this country isn't the Bush/Cheney manufactured overhyped danger of Muslim terrorism, but rather the true threat of violence posed by disgruntled Republicans, returning combat veterans, tea partiers, gun enthusiasts, Fox news watchers, Limbaugh listeners, Glenn Beck fans, practicing Christians or pro-lifers. You wouldn't have seen any minimizing of the problem if there had been the least whiff of the most tenuous suggestion of a possiblility of a remote contingency of that.