Random Politics & Religion #00

That defined mass killing. And only for the purposes of that document.

Why does a shooting only count if someone dies? Explain without hyperbole please.

You probably have to hang dry them, but they seem like they're washing machine safe.

Ok, I will give it one more go.

Every time there is a mass murder of some other event that makes a multi-day/week news cycle. Every liberal source and their mother pulls out these horseshit statistics about how inclusive of the current round, mass incidents of death-carnage-destruction happen on a daily basis in this country. This is done to paint a false sense of what is really going on.

If six cops get in a gun fight with 3 bank robbers and 4 people get shot, maybe even the 3 bank robbers die, that qualifies as a "mass shooting" according to the horseshit statistics when in reality it is not even close to being anything like the events that occurred earlier in the week where some pissed off Muslim executed his personal role in the caliphate, nor does it relate to Joe blow who stopped taking his meds and went to shoot up a movie theater.

Need another?

This may include the gunman himself (because they often suicide by cop or use a gun to kill themselves to escape punishment), or police shootings of civilians around the gunman. The reasoning behind the latter being that if the shooter is arrested, he will often be charged with injuring people the police actually shot, as that is a foreseeable result of a shooting spree.

Well to be fair words are all subjective to interpretation...

I guess the no hyperbole thing isn't going to happen.

Mass shootings....

The year I first arrived in WA state just happened to be the first elk season in a number of years.

There was this incident where a herd of elk was walking along the center of a shallow valley. There were groups of hunters on either side of the valley.

Three hunters wounded, not a scratch on the elk.

Was that a mass shooting?

Words are wasted on you. "Mass shootings" that involve only the cops and the bad guys happen all the time. That isn't hyperbole in teh least. But please feel free to incorrectly lump them in with this week's terrorism for the sole purpose of furthering your anti gun agenda.

Pretty cool how well this guy handled being suspected of terrorism (taken in for questioning, his picture and name in the newspapers etc) and what he did after being cleared.

Made food for 400 people and invited everyone in the area instead of being bitter about it

Since news today that San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik is said to have posted a pledge of allegiance to ISIS around the time she and her husband killed 14 people Wednesday, the world’s attention has shifted to the mysterious mother-turned-murderer.

Malik, a photograph of whom was obtained by ABC News, was born in Pakistan but moved to Saudi Arabia 25 years ago when she was about four years old. When she was older, she likely moved back and forth between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, according to a source close to the Saudi Arabian government.

In 2007, she returned to Pakistan to study at Bahuddin Zakri University in Multan and stayed until 2012, according to a Pakistani intelligence official. She was said to be a brilliant student and was not known to have religious or political affiliation while there.

Malik encountered Syed Rizwan Farook, an American of Pakistani origin born in Chicago, on a dating website, an attorney for Farook’s family told reporters today. U.S. officials said Farook could have met Malik or her family in Saudi Arabia during a trip there in the fall of 2013. After another trip in July 2014, Farook returned to the U.S. with Malik in tow. The couple was married the next month.

Malik came to the U.S. on what is known as a “fiancé” visa, which allows an American fiancé to petition for his or her partner’s temporary entry before marriage. For the visa application, the address she listed in her Pakistani hometown, ABC News discovered today, does not exist. Malik received a her Green Card this summer, U.S. officials said.

Six months ago, the couple had a baby daughter and named her according to a naming convention more common to Arab families, rather than in the typical Pakistani manner.

How Malik purportedly became radicalized enough to post the alleged pledge of allegiance to ISIS and help kill more than a dozen people in a quiet California town is still a mystery.

The official close to the Saudi Arabian government said that Saudi intelligence officials did not have her on any of their watch lists and she did not appear to have any link to extremists in the region. Neither Malik or Farook were on the FBI’s radar in the U.S., officials said.

FBI Special Agent David Bowdich said today it’s also unclear who in the relationship led the other down the violent path.

“I don’t know the answer, whether she influenced him or not. Being a husband myself, we’re all influenced to an extent. But I don’t know the answer,” he said.

FBI Director James Comey said the Bureau is still investigating whether ISIS inspired the attack, but said there is “no indication” they were part of a larger network. No other suspects are being sought, though Bowdich didn’t rule out the potential for later arrests.

Today lawyers for the Farook family cast doubt on the reports of the ISIS pledge and said that there hasn’t been any real evidence that the couple has any “extremist tendencies.”

“At this point we believe they were more self-radicalized and inspired by the group than actually told to do the shooting,” an anonymous source in law enforcement told the Times.

...

President Barack Obama, speaking Thursday from the Oval Office, said it was possible Malik and Farook were motivated by terrorism or a workplace incident. “There may be mixed motives involved in this, which makes the investigation more complicated,” he added.

I know the husband worked at the county health dept, no idea where or if the wife worked.

This story just gets weirder the more an attempt is made to make any sense out of it. It may be that ISIS has a feminist branch that recruits or at least inspires women to join. Who knows?

It may be that ISIS has a feminist branch that recruits or at least inspires women to join. Who knows?

They do this to Swedish and British girls. They trick them into going on their own to Turkey and then bring them over to Syria. Must be doing it all over. They had a big news story on that here, journalists had gone 'undercover' and talked to these women and confronted them later.

If you knew Swedish I'd link the thing, it was pretty interesting