In Goleta California, a gun shop is about to open right next door to Here We Grow Early Learning Center, a preschool.

Fraudster Christine Hunsicker, sentenced to five years for stealing millions from her investors, said it wasn’t her fault and she shouldn’t go to jail because in 2017 “ a 30-pound mirror fell on her head, causing physical and mental effects that helped trigger the crime.”

‘[First Minister] John Swinney has defended the use of more than £45,000 of public funds on business-class flights … to the World Cup.

… Justice Secretary Neil Gray defended the business class flights as a means of ensuring ministers “arrive fresh” when they travel overseas…  “[I]t is right that they are able to arrive fresh, they’re able to arrive in a way that means that they’re able to participate and do their work immediately.”

… Economy Secretary Stephen Flynn … also defended Swinney.

… “If we want our politicians to go and sit in row 46 beside the toilets and then land in Boston and then go and engage with US government officials having done so we’ll get exactly what we deserve as politicians.”’

No one wants cranky girls who smell of shit going up against US gov’t officials.

[O]fficers were dispatched to the 1600 block of Rosedale Street NE for a report of a man down.

But when they arrived, police found that it was instead a boy suffering from a gunshot wound on the sidewalk. First responders declared the boy dead, later announcing his identity as 13-year-old Ahmad Mims.

A 12 year old has been arrested in the case.

AWKward. As Mayor, you are of course bound to repeat the mantra crimedeclinecrimedecline til you’re blue (red?) in the face.

You are also, cognitive-dissonantly, in charge of admitting that, whatever the stats, your city’s still an abattoir, with beaucoup bloodletting even on Tuesdays. Time was people respected the Friday night to Saturday night special shooter time.

See the deal is if you’re Georgia —

Georgia has some of the weakest gun laws in the country. The legislature passed a law requiring colleges and universities to allow guns on campus in 2017, and in 2022, Georgia repealed its last foundational policy by passing permitless carry legislation. Though Georgia repealed its Citizen’s Arrest law in 2021, the state still has a dangerous Shoot First law that allows a person to kill another in a public area, even when they can safely walk away from the danger.

— your Wow look how much gunplay has declined! thing takes place in a special context. There’s so much powpow and so absolutely no legal constraint that even an eighty percent decline will still mean you can open your window and hear people going at it.

‘KENNEDY TARP TO STAY UP INDEFINITELY, SAY LAWYERS’

Sing it.

O tarp of my country! in darkness lies Kennedy
The vile name of DT hath hung o’er thee long;
When proudly, beloved land’s tarp, we unbind thee
Then all will return to light, freedom and song!

The warm lay of love and the light tone of gladness
Will waken thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill;
Forgotten will be today’s deep sigh of sadness,
Our great hymn of liberty will sound through the hills.

The Minnesota Dept of Human Services has had serious second thoughts about their OUTSTANDING REFUGEE AWARD program. It is backpedaling to beat the band, if UD may mix metaphors.

The program, that is, has passed on. It is no more. It has ceased to be. It’s expired and gone to meet its maker. It’s a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. Its metabolic processes are now history. It’s off the twig. It’s kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, rung down the curtain, and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible. THIS IS AN EX-PROGRAM.

No one pulled out a gun, even though there were lots of serious fights with injuries and arrests.

No one pulled out a gun! There was no mass slaughter.

State officials have already been invited to several other cities around the country to advise law enforcement on how they did it, and on how other police forces can do it too. Good on ya, Milwaukee!

THEORY.

and……

PRACTICE.

Can you really be surprised that a group of Palo Alto parents who revile the thought of their daughters as docile submissives are suing?

A group of Jewish, Hindu, and Zoroastrian parents share the sentiment of millions of Iranian women that for them the hijab is unacceptable, and they wonder why their daughters were offered them (some sources say ‘encouraged’) for a field trip to a mosque. Details here.

They’re not saying that women who are into submission shouldn’t wear hijabs; but veiling your head and draping your body (this latter I guess wasn’t included in the excursion, but it’s the rare hijabi who doesn’t veil her provocative body too) is just, you know, not us. I mean, in a big way. In a big lawsuit way.

The volunteerism of university frat houses is always inspiring, be it car washes for St Jude’s, or packages for Somalia… or, uh, Cocania…

[C]utting and bagging cocaine was, for some pledges, an indoctrination into the Delta Upsilon and Sigma Chi fraternities.

We’re speaking of storied Penn State, the only American university whose president went to jail — in 2021, for endangering the welfare of children. (You know. The Jerry Sandusky thing.). The school with a frat that famously killed a pledge, for which the frat’s prez and vice prez went to prison. In 2021, half the frats at Penn State were on suspension.

This latest drug distribution thing rivals Pusher U San Diego State; but SDSU’s criminal class stashed a big arsenal of guns in the frat houses, and we don’t yet know about Penn State’s weaponry, so we’ll see who comes out on top.

****************

Update: More yummy details as the story, er, cracks wide open.

… writes one of the best Jason Arday considerations.

The story … raised questions … about academic standards in the humanities, regarding both Arday’s education (Liverpool John Moores, which awarded his doctorate, confirmed that he had received just one in-person supervision while writing his PhD, which was later found to have substantial signs of plagiarism) and the education he provided to his own students.

…. Arday’s self-mythologising was not harmless. He hurt the academics whose work he plagiarised. He hurt the discipline he belonged to. He hurt the early career lecturers who were competing with him for jobs, but couldn’t match his fantastical legend. He hurt the families of non-verbal children who believed the story of his unprecedented late acquisition of language, and either blamed themselves for lacking the patience and love of Arday’s mother, or blamed their children for their failure to blossom.

… Being at the centre of a media storm is isolating and horrible. Arday had lost his job, lost his credibility, and even those he might have banked on as supporters were abandoning him: The Guardian’s Afua Hirsch wrote a column that was probably more brutal than anything from The Telegraph or The Spectator, which accused Arday of gulling his defenders and exploiting his autism as a cover for his actions. Ostracism is deeply destructive. I don’t think that Arday’s life was beyond redemption (if the Winns could survive The Salt Path, he could survive this), but I can understand why he might have believed it was.

… I do not regret writing about Arday, but I am sorry for him and for all of us that he was ever put in a position where he was somebody I would have cause to write about. If the plagiarism in his PhD had been dealt with at the time; if Cambridge had vetted his work; if his publisher had factchecked his manuscript and done him the kindness of rejecting it; if the allegations of his academic malpractice had been dealt with openly in the specialist press, rather than hushed up until they became a legitimate scandal — then maybe Arday would have been spared the punishing glare of a public life.

Clinical trials show that most patients’ depressive symptoms improved with the drugs, but there’s been growing backlash that they’ve been overprescribed and can leave users hooked without an exit ramp.

How to fix? Whiplash… stalled … exit ramp?

Bullshit.

The latest massacre in Kentucky prompts a local pol to wonder why why why. So here you go:

Kentucky’s gun laws are among the worst in the country, and the state’s gun death rate is above the national average. Kentucky has none of the foundational policies in place—after legislators repealed its concealed carry permitting requirement in 2019.

Kentucky is Gonzo Gun. It doesn’t just like them — it goes to a lot of trouble to make sure everyone gets plenty of them.

That doesn’t just mean lone loons blasting away. It means effing shootouts. Enjoy.

A cop working the fair last Saturday saw a man beating up his wife.

When the deputy intervened and identified himself in an attempt to de-escalate the situation, [Thomas] Smith reportedly told the deputy it was “none of his business.” Smith then pulled out a loaded 9mm pistol, pointed it at the deputy’s head, and threatened to “blow his brains out.”