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Shots Fired At US Capitol
skade88 writes with a report that "The United States Capitol has been put on lockdown after shots were fired. Reports indicate a policeman was injured." From the story: "The FBI was responding to the unconfirmed reports of shots, and a helicopter landed in front of the Capitol. A message from the Capitol Police ordered anyone in a House office to 'shelter in place.'
'Close, lock and stay away from external doors and windows,' the message said." Doubtless more to come on this; watch this space for updates. Update: 10/03 19:08 GMT by T : ABC News reports that the shots followed an attempt to ram the White House gates; the police subsequently shot and killed the driver. Other than that the driver was a woman, the reports adds little detail. Update: 10/03 19:19 GMT by T : Reuters' U.S. Politics Live feed is currently collating many reports from the scene. Of note: the lockdown itself was brief, and has been lifted.
It's probably just some responsible gun owner assuming that since the government has shut down the capitol should be empty and therefore would be the ideal place for a shooting range since there should be no chance of hitting anyone.
Seriously though, $10 says it's a U.S. citizen unhappy with D.C. dysfunction. The terrorists wouldn't waste their bullets. They're home watching CSPAN with a bowl of popcorn and thinking "Mission Accomplished".
So you are saying that Fox is presenting serious news about issues that will actually affect millions of Americans while everyone else is focusing on pushing hyped-up violence to get eyeballs.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Holy shit, look at people's comments on the fox news article:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/03/us-capitol-in-lockdown-reports-shots-fired/#
Don't these idiots know the US Federal Govt is shut down...no one is at home, right...?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Because this matters, and frankly I prefer to discuss this sort of thing with my fellow slashdotters. Sure maybe we troll each other some, but its head and shoulders better commentary then what you will find on CNN for example.
Divisive American politics appears!
What do you want to do, [playerName] ?
[1] Ad-hominem attack against another American political party
[2] Retreat to echo chamber of own political affiliation
[3] Accuse other of racism or communism [2 Special skill points]
[*] Find common ground [Skillset not yet unlocked: need maturity level 5]
It's starting to look like this: Some woman in an ordinary sedan tried to ram the White House gates. (Which wasn't going to do much; those gates were upgraded decades ago to stop much heavier vehicles.) Then the car went down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol area. Some Capitol Police officer may have been run down. Shots were fired, probably by cops. Others heard the shots and hit the panic button.
Time for everyone on Capitol Hill to get back to work.
CIA employees have been furloughed. 70% of CIA analysts have been furloughed.
Time makes more converts than reason
Because this matters, and frankly I prefer to discuss this sort of thing with my fellow slashdotters.
Why? Not why do you prefer, but why at all?
This isn't a technical issue where debate can come to a good understanding of a problem, or resolve some issue for someone who has a question. The only possible outcome from discussing this here is the inevitable flame war when it turns political. Each side will score points for their side, leaving the people in the middle wondering why this kind of stuff is relevant to techies in general and why does it always devolve into flames and insults.
Who done it and why isn't the topic for a debate. Who done it won't change if someone makes a really good point about reaction of the suppressed masses or creates a fictional similarity to some other even at some other time. Why it was done won't change, only points will be scored by the "Republicans drove her to it" (she drove herself, pun intended) or "racism" or "tea party this or that" sides as they award themselves points for one-upmanship.
In truth, this event has very little impact on techies per se, even if a few care a lot because they live in their parent's basement which is next door to the White House. We've lost the concept that every topic isn't technical in nature just because someone who is technically inclined finds it interesting. I'm sure that some ./ers knit, but that doesn't make the latest news about knitting either "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters (to nerds)."
the warning signs were pretty obvious
Yes, because there were so many clear and excellent choices that it is mind boggling that the US citizens didn't pick them! News flash. Getting a vote isn't the same as being able to choose between the douchebag and the hero. In the last decade it was a choice of: Would you like this complete douchebag, or this even bigger douchebag?"
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
My honest (and exceedingly cynical) answer: because the government will latch onto any event like this to further curtail what the rest of us are allowed to do under the guise of security, and it will have a run-on effect in other areas.
My best guess, they'll push back the secure area around the White House, and even more of DC (or anything even close to a government building) will be under lock down more often, and they'll give themselves heightened powers to stop things like this.
Give it a little while, and there will be new secret regulations saying they can stop and detain anybody in a car to question them to be sure they don't plan on trying something like this.
It sounds very tinfoil hat, but I've started to conclude that the most paranoid/cynical interpretation tends to come true over time.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I got a kick out of the ABC article description of cops and secret service vehicles wrecking on those automatic barriers they've placed around DC. It sounds like the perp's vehicle made it over the barrier, triggering it to pop up just in time to disable the pursuing cops. Good thinking there.
Have gnu, will travel.
Because this matters
No, it doesn't. Just because some looney decided to ram the gates of the White House and get herself killed doesn't mean that there is something to discuss. There is no political meaning, no background story, it isn't even funny. Even if there is a deeper cause behind all this it will get covered up and we will never learn of it, unless some deepthroat/whistleblower decides to enlighten us, in which case it will become interesting. For the time being, however, there is nothing to discuss, move along.
Having said that, this is why I love reading the news (online and in print) instead of watching them on TV: one can skim over the headlines and only read the interesting bits. So the GP also didn't have a point.
Sounds like all the shooting was police or Secret Service. Car impact, female with babe in a car with out of state plates, chased, and shot ?
What if she was lost, confused and just made a wrong turn while talking on her cell phone, surprised by the barrier?
Perhaps the true price of paranoia.
You can be opposed to Obamacare and still want socialized medicine. Forcing someone to make a private purchase or pay an exorbitant penalty is a much bigger trampling on rights than just having taxpayer-funded healthcare. It's true that this isn't the majority Republican reason for being opposed. But it's a good reason that a lot of Democrats should have been opposed.
It's looking more and more like all the shots fired were by the Police...
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
That's actually too generous.
The real issue is that voters don't actually pick their candidates anymore; its the other way around. Every 10 years when the census is done, all the states have to redraw their congressional districts. What happens in most states is that whoever controls the state legislature gets to do the drawing. They get maps and their state's entire voter registration database out, and make a modern computer-aided science of drawing things so that as many districts as possible are packed full of their party's registered voters. Any districts that have to go to the other party are drawn to look like malaria germs so that they scoop up every voter possible from the other party. Ideally those opposition districts will have more voters in them too. The idea is to give voters from the other party as little voice in government as possible.
In other words, nearly every voting district in the country is designed to be a "Democratic" district or a "Republican" district. The only true election happens on primary day, and nobody from the other side of the political spectrum gets a vote. So you end up with a Congress packed full of extremists. Extremist congressmen don't give a damn which party won or lost the last election, because their own seat is safe either way. All they have to worry about is that someone more extreme than them will challenge them in the next primary.
TL;DR: elections don't matter
I honestly don't care about the pay stuff. The more they get paid, the harder they are to bribe. That's fine.
But the refusal to use ACA it a structural problem. The whole damn point of the USA is that we don't have a ruling class who gets to live by a different set of rules than the peons. It's bad enough piling on law after law faster than anyone can keep up with what's legal, but when it all doesn't work out acceptably, the right answer is to change the law until you find it acceptable. Once the rulers start saying the rules don't apply to them, or their friends and donors (but I repeat myself), with a waiver here and selective enforcement there, all hope is lost.
I'd almost call that feudalism, except in feudalism tradition demanded the noble class provide a lot for the serfs - not a good deal for the serfs, but not entirely one way. We don't have that spirit today, so if we allow a ruling class to form that's above the law that applies to the commoners, it will end badly indeed.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"I honestly don't care about the pay stuff. The more they get paid, the harder they are to bribe. That's fine."
Well, first off I agree with the other poster who said it makes them not care. But I will go further: pay that is too high (and cannot be revoked) makes them also not care what other people make.
The salaries of Senators and Representatives should be tied to the median incomes of everybody in the United States. Note that is the median income, not the mean, because a relatively few, very rich people skew the mean by a long way. (The other common method of averaging, the mode, is ridiculous in this context and need not be considered.)
That will give them an actual incentive to see that the income of everyday Americans stays at a decent level. And it should also be in dollars adjusted for REAL (not the current, bogus, weasel method of calculating inflation that the government currently uses). That would remove much of the incentive to fudge the figures by inflating the dollar... as they now do.
"The whole damn point of the USA is that we don't have a ruling class who gets to live by a different set of rules than the peons."
Agreed. They should be bound by ALL the same laws as other citizens. No special privileges. The latter, yet again, just gives them motive to not care much about everybody else.
"The more they get paid, the harder they are to bribe."
It hasn't worked out that way. All that money and power attracts the worst types of people. Too much is never enough for them.
And, with it looking more and more like the police got overexcited and gunned down an unarmed woman, it's looking more and more like Fox was right to not play this as a "big front page pictures and caption for this story"....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Or she was trying to navigate to the nearby super market with her iphone.
So, given the choice between disabling the car, boxing her in and arresting her or just shooting her, they shot her. How the fuck is that ok? That's called murder where I come from.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
you guys have got to be kidding or you've got to be really disconnected from reality.
almost *every single* member of congress is already *at least* a millionaire. No shit:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/01/new-congress-new-and-more-wealth.html
and it's not like this is even a new thing. It's been this way a LOOONG time.
So if you honestly think that the salary these d-bags are pulling is anything more than tip money for the golf caddy to these guys you're living in a fantasy land.
It's looking more and more like all the shots fired were by the Police...
It is looking even more like:
1) a distraced mother with a baby in the backseat took a wrong turn driving in DC
2) accidentally ran into some low-visibility short-height pole barriers
(see this view on google streetview)
3) was confronted by plain-clothes police brandishing firearms
4) was scared shitless for herself and her baby and took off
5) was chased for a while until she got out of the car
6) was shot dead
To me, this looks like a case of cops who have been militarized to the point of neglecting training on de-escalation. Hyped to believe that terrorists are hiding under every rock, they over-reacted when they should have realized that it was just the far more likely scenario of a regular citizen finding herself in an unfamiliar and threatening situation.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.