Dan Jones

As smoke hangs over the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, it’s important to understand its source. Some of this understanding will require us to reassess the history of police militarization in the United States. This will mean acknowledging its origins in the aftermath of the Watts Riots (1965) and the birth of the SWAT team shortly thereafter. It will mean noting the conservative reaction to the Warren Court’s civil libertarian protections in the 1950s and 60s to President Nixon’s launching of the drug war at the end of that same tumultuous decade. It will mean harping on President Reagan’s wholehearted embrace of racial policing and mass incarceration in the 1980s. It will mean interrogating the devastating effects of the 1208 Program (1990), which became the 1033 Program (1996), both of which authorized the transfer of military hardware to domestic precincts, a practice that has only accelerated in the wake of the Battle of Seattle (1999) and the attacks of September 11, 2001. The basic contours of this trajectory can be found in Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces (2013). As Tamara K. Nopper and Mariame Kaba argue in Jacobin, however, any serious reckoning must account for the ongoing dehumanization of black people, tout court.

One small way to measure the police violence against black people in Ferguson is to attend to its details. It is in that spirit that I present this simple catalog.

Combat Load

AP Photo/Jeff Roberson

There is a growing chorus of military veterans who have chimed in on the absurdity of photographs like this one. Let me join the parade. What we’re seeing here is a gaggle of cops wearing more elite killing gear than your average squad leader leading a foot patrol through the most hostile sands or hills of Afghanistan. They are equipped with Kevlar helmets, assault-friendly gas masks, combat gloves and knee pads (all four of them), woodland Marine Pattern utility trousers, tactical body armor vests, about 120 to 180 rounds for each shooter, semiautomatic pistols attached to their thighs, disposable handcuff restraints hanging from their vests, close-quarter-battle receivers for their M4 carbine rifles and Advanced Combat Optical Gunsights. In other words, they’re itching for a fight. A big one. It’s a well-known horror that the US military greets foreign peoples in this fashion as our politicians preach freedom, democracy and peace. It’s an abomination that the police greet black communities in the States with the same trigger-happy posture. Especially on the occasion of an unarmed teen’s death by cop.

Smoke Grenade and Smoke Bomb

Reuters/Mario Anzuoni

There’s at least one line every Marine knows. It’s ingrained at boot camp or Officer Candidate School and follows us to the front lines and back home again. It’s a simple command and it’s the second of the four weapons-safety rules. It says, “Never point a weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot.” The St. Louis County Police Department apparently never received the memo. Either that or they intend to shoot. Although their tactical flashlights might be assisting them in spying on (and blinding) their targets, I suspect their air-purifying respirators and the smoke and CS gas they’ve released might be getting in the way of said objective. It’s unclear whether it was cheap fuse-operated smoke bombs (think fireworks) or more expensive pin-operated smoke grenades that are responsible for the fog. Both tools have been reported onsite. For what it’s worth, such smokescreens are usually executed during flanking attacks, retreats, close air support missions or casualty evacuations. All of these situations are presumed to take place under real or potential conditions of heavy enemy fire. Make of this what you will. My guess is that they’ve got a surplus of toys to play with, and a powerless demographic to experiment on.

Stun Grenade

AP Photo/Jeff Roberson

There are scattered reports of stun grenade use in Ferguson. Also known as flashbangs or flash grenades, this weapon of choice for American SWAT teams (and Israeli soldiers) originated in the British special forces community more than four decades ago. Ostensibly less than lethal, stun grenades have been known to kill or severely injure numerous victims, and the device was recently in the news for burning a 19-month-old baby in Georgia, resulting in a coma, during one of the thousands of domestic police raids this year. They are designed to temporarily blind and deafen, thanks to a shrapnel-free casing that is only supposed to emit light and sound upon explosion. Nonetheless, the list of casualties is long, and the number of flammable mishaps is disconcerting. In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Balko recounts a story of an FBI agent accidentally lighting himself and his vehicle on fire.

Riot Gun

AP Photo/Jeff Roberson

Before moving on to the ammunition most visible in the media, it’s important we consider the machines from which they are being shot. The most likely culprit is the ARWEN 37, which is capable of discharging 37mm tear gas canisters or wooden bullet projectiles. Another possibility is the SL6, a 37mm six-shot rotary magazine projectile launcher that is seemingly capable of firing every relevant “non-lethal” round in the book. When a Marine or other warfighter is introduced to one of these for the first time, he likely thinks of the M203 Grenade Launcher as a point of comparison. This is because they’re all part of the same family. They’re all grenade launchers.

Triple Chaser CS

Picked up this canister of what appears to be tear gas from north end of Florissant tonight. #ferguson pic.twitter.com/dAJZvshwmF

— Zeke Johnson (@ZekeJohnsonAi) August 19, 2014

The police used tear gas unsparingly the past week, and it was perhaps the most disturbing ingredient in the stew. As others have noted, the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 actually bans the gas as a permissible means of warfare. Then again, it is allowed for domestic riot control, and nations like Turkey, Bahrain, Israel and the United States have exploited the loophole to great avail. If you’re interested in the weapon’s mechanics or science, the Internet has your back. In the meantime, I can assure you its effects are far from pleasurable. Every Marine has his or her own story about their time at the “gas chamber,” the place we go to become familiar with our gas masks (so they tell us). Suffice it to say it sucks out your organs, hogs your oxygen and burns you inside and out. Interim blindness and extended coughing fits are common, as well as an overall sense that you are dying or dead. And they’re dispersing this poison in people’s backyards.

Pepper Spray Projectile

#Ferguson pepper balls? found in grass at Lang and W Florissant crowd here reported be shot by rubber bullets pic.twitter.com/YOPF8taHX6

— David Carson (@PDPJ) August 12, 2014

St. Louis Post-Dispatch/David Carson

These “pepper balls” are lethal; the Boston Police Department banned them after a young woman was killed by one. It passed right through the eye and skull to the brain. She was guilty of being present in a rowdy crowd after a Red Sox v. Yankees game in which the former won. The ACLU condemned the use of such projectiles for the purposes of crowd management back in 1997, following an unfortunate incident in Eugene, Oregon. They even convinced Eugene officials to do the same. It’s about time St. Louis County and the rest of the country followed suit.

Rubber Bullet

“No injuries” RT @flotusinspired: Just wow….#Ferguson Look at the wound from the rubber bullets! This is terrible. pic.twitter.com/8PGhFq0fze— Jonathan Blanks (@BlanksSlate) August 14, 2014

You can find pictures elsewhere of the kinds of welts these things leave. The key takeaway is that, like so many of the other “safe” items on this list, they disable and kill. It appears the preferred method of discharge in Ferguson is by way of the 60-cal Stinger, which contains approximately 42- or 27 32-caliber rubber balls per casing.

Wooden Bullet Projectile

Brian Schellman of St. Louis PD confirms these were shot at protesters. They are “less lethal wooden baton rounds” pic.twitter.com/5hV2t0cJwo

— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) August 12, 2014

The Guardian/John Swain

Again, the wounds are nasty. All these injuries remind me of the after-affects of Simunition training for Marine officers at The Basic School, except worse. Like the stun grenade, employing wooden pellets as a form of riot control was spearheaded by the British decades ago, mainly in Hong Kong. As the ACLU makes clear, considerable litigation has proceeded in the aftermath of such tactics, including suits brought by protesters in Oakland who bore the brunt of these measures around the beginning of the Iraq War. Longshoremen on their way to work also suffered and sued accordingly. As a result, the Oakland police department caved and beating residents with wooden projectiles as a means of crowd management was rendered illegal.

Bean Bag Projectile

Found two of (2581 Super Sock) beanbag-round shells. Hadn’t heard of these being used in #furgeson yet. pic.twitter.com/au1hhi4BHw

— Brian Heffernan (@BrianHeff) August 14, 2014

Brian Heffernan

The Super-Sock constitutes yet another less-than-lethal impact munition that kills people. It also happens to have been directed at KSDK-TV photojournalists and Al Jazeera America TV crew members in Ferguson, along with a good dose of tear gas. Numerous suits concerning bean bag usage are also pending.

BEARCAT

Creative Commons/Wikipedia

The BEARCAT G3 is the SWAT team’s version of the military’s Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle, or better yet its MRAP All Terrain Vehicle. Seeing that there aren’t any mines or IEDs in Ferguson, that the chances of an ambush are slim to none, and that the terrain is relatively boring, the decision of the St. Louis County Police Department to roll out with (or even own) one of these is questionable. The same could be said for SWAT teams across the nation, some of whom are presently operating actual MRAPs. As Balko reports in Rise of the Warrior Cop, some are even fitted with 50-caliber machine gun turrets. A rumor in the warfighting community has it that a 50 cal can maim or kill a target even when it misses by a few feet. I don’t think this is true, but it speaks to a certain truth about the gun in question. Why any of this is still allowed anywhere, much less in our neighborhoods (especially in our neighborhoods of color) is beyond me.

Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD)

Two photos from this evening’s encounter with the SWAT team. It…wasn’t pleasant. pic.twitter.com/TCVqtD1Gni

— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) August 14, 2014

Jamelle Bouie

The LRAD is a sonic weapon that my psychological operations (PSYOP) friends could probably discuss more intelligently. All I can tell you is that the sound is so pain-inducing that in addition to being used to keep pirates at bay and break up groups of protesters or black people, it is wielded in order to regulate the movements of wildlife. Here’s how it looks and sounds when targeting human beings.

MD Helicopter 500 Series

Wikipedia

Local police departments no longer just rate military-grade armored personnel carriers and combat loads. They also rate the kinds of helicopters that can only make the North Korean Air Force blush. And one of them presumably spent the middle days of August patrolling Ferguson town folk from the skies. I’m sure they appreciated the service.

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K-9

AP Photo/Sid Hastings

Whenever the St. Louis County or Ferguson Police aren’t protecting the public via tear gas, impact munitions or sonic pain, they have been conducting civic outreach by way of growling German shepherds. As a good many military veterans are now lamenting, if cops are going to steal our gadgetry, they might consider adopting our overarching strategy too. Say what you like about Counterinsurgency Doctrine (COIN)—and I’ve said quite a few not-so-nice things about it in the past—but what is taking place in the above photograph spits in the face of everything COIN represents. The point, remember, is to win the hearts and minds of the people, not infuse them with helplessness and rage.

Lord knows we keep failing at this mission overseas. What’s so shocking is that we seem to have abandoned its most decent ideals altogether here at home. As Balko has shown, “community policing grants” have been used to fund more SWAT teams. Any commitments to empathy held by cops has given way to an “Oakleys and crew cuts” bravado that hides behind gargantuan slabs of metal and increasingly deadly ordnance. Most of all, Martin Luther King’s dream is dying a slow death. One officer of the law feels comfortable shouting to the black citizens he is sworn to protect, their iPhone cameras in hand, “Bring it, you fucking animals! Bring it!” This only echoes another quote in Rise of the Warrior Cop, where a SWAT member boasts, “When the soldiers ride in, you should see those blacks scatter.”

The arsenal on display in Ferguson is not the arsenal of riot control. In a town whose population is 67 percent black while its police force is 94 percent white, we are dealing with something more insidious, both locally and as a nation. We are dealing with an arsenal of racial oppression. It’s time we look it in the face, in all its awful detail. It’s time we call it by its name. And it’s time we finally do what we were tasked to do over a half century ago. It’s time we challenge, transcend and extinguish it.

Read Next: Dave Zirin on what Kareem Abdul Jamar got wrong in his powerful essay on Fegurson

 ★ 

The Legend of Zelda Annoying Navi Comic

 

HEY LISTEN! HEY LISTEN! HEY LISTEN!! Artist OMOCAT drew this cute & funny Legend of Zelda comic...



Artist: OMOCAT

(via: Geeks are Sexy)

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August 20 2014

 ★ 

Dark Gaming Alphabet

 

Brentalfloss made this gaming alphabet showing the darker side of many video games. Do you know all the characters and their games?



Artist: Brentalfloss

(via: Unreality)

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August 19 2014

Hello Kitty Avengers

 

Tehehehe, here's an fabulous collection of characters from the Avengers movie (and some bonus ones from Captain America: Winter Soldier) Hello Kitty-ized. Oh internet, thank you for this... now can someone please make a Hello Loki and send it to us? ;)





















Source: RocketNews24

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August 18 2014

Tech + Health

08.17.14

When a healthcare worker misread test results, it left the Halls with a daughter with a rare genetic syndrome. Now they're suing.

Sarah and Mark Hall* spent hours giving depositions in the elegant conference room of their obstetrician’s lawyers. Again and again, their doctor’s lawyers asked them the same question while court stenographer sat ready to record their responses. The Halls knew what they had to say—there was no other way their lawsuit could proceed. Yes, they each said, swallowing their repugnance. Had I known that our daughter had a genetic disorder, I would have chosen abortion.

In 2010, while Sarah was pregnant with their daughter Ellie*, the couple was in the midst of a tumultuous time. Mark’s mother died suddenly. Compounding the couple’s grief, Mark’s mother’s death left the couple financially and legally responsible for his older sister Jennifer, who, due to an extremely rare configuration of her genome, has special needs.

Jennifer lives independently. While she has held jobs for short amounts of time, she has performed unevenly and now collects disability benefits. According to Sarah and Mark, she is 40 and has a developmental age of about 14. Jennifer has intense emotional fluctuations and her behavior can be very challenging. In 2008, Mark, who is non-disabled, discovered through genetic testing that he is a carrier of Jennifer’s syndrome. This means that any children he has might have a typical genome, or they might, like him, be symptom-free carriers. They also, however, might have either Jennifer’s syndrome or Syndrome Z. (This latter syndrome is rare enough to be identifying, so its name has been changed).

Mark was told by his geneticist that, given her genomic configuration, Jennifer was unusually verbal, mobile, and independent. If his child were to have Jennifer’s syndrome or Syndrome Z, the child likely would be significantly more cognitively and/or physically disabled. The geneticist also told them there would be a risk to Sarah in carrying a child with either syndrome. (With the caveat that I am not a geneticist, I have searched for data to suggest that Sarah herself would have been at greater risk, and have been unable to find any.)

So when Sarah was 16 weeks pregnant, she got an amniocentesis. The geneticist’s report was sent to their obstetrician’s office. Someone from their obstetrician’s office informed the Halls of the results over the phone. Ellie was “just like you,” Mark was told. That is, Ellie was a carrier, but would not be symptomatic. At a time when the rest of their lives were in no small upheaval, this result was a reassurance.

It is a cruel quandary for parents and children alike—even crueler if their child’s disabilities are such that the child can understand what her parents have said about her when she’s older.

After she was born, Ellie developed typically for about six months. She smiled adorably and rolled over on cue. Then her development seemed to slow. She did not sit up, crawl, or walk. Her pediatrician became concerned about the size of Ellie’s head, and told the Halls that it didn’t seem as if Ellie’s brain was growing. The couple brought Ellie to specialist after specialist. Since all her doctors believed the amniocentesis demonstrated Ellie had a typical genome, however, no one suggested the Halls consult a geneticist.

The Halls describe that time of doctors, tests, and uncertainty as absolutely harrowing. “I couldn’t think of anything else but what was going on with my daughter,” Mark said. When Ellie was 18 months old, their pediatrician, now at a loss for other explanation, suggested they return to a geneticist. They all received further testing, and the Halls asked the obstetrician’s office for the geneticist’s report on Ellie’s amniocentesis. When Sarah received it, she was floored.

“I am not an expert in this. This isn’t my job. But I had read enough about genetics to know what it said,” said Sarah. The results, one simple line in karyotype notation, were clear. Ellie had Syndrome Z. The person who had phoned the Halls had, quite simply, misread the results. Their obstetrician’s office admitted the mistake, and a settlement is being negotiated.

Suppose, in the course of caring for you, your doctor makes a mistake. This alone is not enough to sue her. If you sue a healthcare provider for negligence or malpractice, you are required to demonstrate that the mistake the provider made actually caused harm. This is the problem facing the Halls and anyone else who receives a falsely reassuring result on a prenatal test. It’s not like the person who misread the amnio results caused Ellie to have Syndrome Z, nor did she exacerbate Ellie’s symptoms. So, then, what harm is really done?

In such cases, it is an established legal precedent in the U.S. that the only harm that can come of a falsely reassuring prenatal test is if the mother would have gotten an abortion had she known. Cindy Shapiro, a medical malpractice defense attorney in California who has no connection to the Hall’s case, said that the only way parents can win a lawsuit for a falsely reassuring prenatal test is to say that they would have had an abortion had they known. “The plaintiffs have to prove the causation aspect,” Shapiro told The Daily Beast. In at least one case, parents had to present a Do Not Resuscitate order they had signed for their son to prove that they really would have terminated the pregnancy.

Pro-lifers unite with disability advocates in rejecting what wrongful birth and wrongful life suits communicate about people with disabilities: that their lives are not worth living.

It is a cruel quandary for parents and children alike—even crueler if their child’s disabilities are such that the child can understand what her parents have said about her when she’s older.

In the case of a falsely reassuring prenatal test, there are two possibilities for a lawsuit against a health practitioner. The first is what’s known as “wrongful birth” lawsuit. The parents are the plaintiffs in a wrongful birth suit, and they sue for the harm that their child’s existence with disability has caused them. Another kind of suit is called “wrongful life.” That is a suit brought on the behalf of the child, rather than the parents. These suits assert, basically, that the child herself was harmed by the very fact of her own birth.

In one of the first cases to assert wrongful life, 1967’s Gleitman v. Cosgrove in New Jersey, the child plaintiff was intellectually disabled. The mother had had rubella during pregnancy, and was falsely reassured by her doctor that the virus could not result in disability to her fetus. The judge dismissed the child’s suit due to the difficulty, if not incoherence, in determining “the difference between his life with defects against the utter void of nonexistence.” Due to this difficulty, wrongful life suits are only permitted in three states. About half the states in the U.S. permit wrongful birth suits.

Opposition to both wrongful birth suits and wrongful life suits comes from an unusually wide array of the political spectrum. Pro-lifers unite with disability advocates in rejecting what wrongful birth and wrongful life suits communicate about people with disabilities: that their lives are not worth living. And worse, that their very existence is actually harmful to themselves or someone else.

Parents who bring such suits are routinely vilified. Shapiro told The Daily Beast that wrongful birth and wrongful life cases are incredibly difficult to win for precisely this reason. Her law firm represents health care providers, and has never lost either a wrongful birth or wrongful life suit when a provider has given a falsely reassuring result on a prenatal test. (California is one of the three states that permit wrongful life suits.) Shapiro has discussed cases with juries after trials, and they routinely express their disapproval of the parents for saying such a thing about their own child.

What the vilifiers may not realize is just how much the parents do not want to bring such a suit. The Halls sued for wrongful birth, which in their state is the only suit they could bring. They could not sue for emotional distress, damages for which can only be won in a wrongful life suit. It is indeed the case that they would have terminated the pregnancy. Now, however, they adore their daughter. Ellie is a captivating, laughing child with twinkling eyes. She looks uncannily like Mark, with a crop of soft dark curls. She is now three-and-a-half. She walks, albeit a little uneasily, and speaks in two-word sentences. By the standards of Syndrome Z, her developmental progress is remarkable.

I too have a child with a genetic syndrome and am all too familiar with the feelings that the Halls have, and that so many of us who are parents of kids with disabilities have. I wouldn’t have asked for this, and goodness knows it’s really rough sometimes. But now that my child is here, I wouldn’t give her up for anything. Isn’t this true not only about children with disabilities, but so many aspects of our lives? Some of what we value the most arises from moments of pain. A Wrongful birth suit is far too blunt a tool to acknowledge such complexities of life.

“Who wants to say ‘I wish this child wasn’t here’? What kind of mother is going to feel okay saying that?”

The Halls hate that they said what they did about their daughter. “That’s a shitty thing to say about a person—basically that you don’t deserve to live and breathe on this earth,” Mark explained. Sarah added, “Who wants to say ‘I wish this child wasn’t here’? What kind of mother is going to feel okay saying that?”

Of course, many will argue that they had a choice not to sue at all. However, telling them they could have shut up and put up is patently unfair. They are “not litigious people,” as Sarah said, but they felt they had a right to sue. The office should not be able to treat a matter of such importance with such negligence without any redress.

Parents who bring wrongful birth suits seem to face a burden faced by no other plaintiffs in medical malpractice cases. Shapiro agreed that, at least in California, if a healthcare provider misses a tumor in an MRI, then the plaintiff does not have to prove that he would have followed a given course of treatment. We are always, of course, free to refuse medical advice, and people regularly refuse treatment for various reasons. But the brain tumor plaintiff does not have to say what he would have done. Shapiro told The Daily Beast that most other cases do not determine what the actual plaintiff would have done, but rather what a “reasonable person” would have done. The burden on plaintiffs in wrongful birth cases “is unique, and is inconsistent with other types of malpractice cases,” she said. The plaintiff in the brain tumor case just has to prove that he would have had a greater than 50 percent chance of survival had the doctor diagnosed it at that MRI, and as a result now has a less than 50 percent chance of survival.

The Halls would far rather have sued for emotional distress. The original reasoning behind the inability for parents to sue for emotional distress seems to be that parents of children with disabilities often end up loving their kids anyhow. Of course this is true, but it hardly changes the fact that it can be extremely emotionally distressing to have a child diagnosed with severe disabilities, as those of us who adore our kids with disabilities will recognize all too well.

Sarah and Mark certainly have experienced emotional distress. Both of the Halls were working on their dissertations, but neither has finished. Therapies for Ellie take up far too much of their day. They stated repeatedly how lucky they are, and that things are not nearly as bad for them as for so many other people. The intensity of caregiving for Ellie, however, has put a strain on their friendships, professional lives, and marriage. Sarah said with a rueful wittiness, “I now say that I’m broken. Mark comes home and I say, ‘I’m broken right now, and Ellie broke earlier this afternoon. How are you?”

Parents of children with disabilities should not face a unique burden to redress their wrongs. Of course, negligence always requires proof of harm caused. Shapiro suggested that the “reasonable person” standard be used in such cases, although then the problem remains that the law still seems to state that someone’s very existence is harmful.

The harm should not be the child’s existence, but the parents’ emotional distress or lack of informed consent. No matter which way is chosen, it seems clear that not only do wrongful life and wrongful birth suits communicate a horrible and grossly false message about people with disabilities, they also put a patently unfair burden on parents.

*Names have been changed.

Harley Quinn's Daughter Comic from Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Two

 

We know there's a ton of Harley fans here so we thought you'd enjoy this except from Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Two #13! This is a heartbreaking passage and it shows even villains are human underneath the crazy. The Injustice series takes place in an alternate universe from the main continuity. In this book Harley reveals she has a 4 year old daughter named Lucy with the Joker as you can read in this except...



















From: Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Two #13 Tom Taylor (Author), Bruno Redondo (Illustrator)

(via: imgur)

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August 16 2014

Question

Gramps,

Recently I went to a planetarium with a group and the subject came up that Mormons do not believe in the Big Bang theory. Is that true and if it is why?

Alli

 

Answer

Dear Alli,

I think there’s some misunderstandings in play here. The first is what exactly Mormons believe. For the most part, there is silence on the creation of the universe. The scriptures in Genesis that deal with the creation are narrowed in scope by modern revelation. The Lord told His prophet that He created many worlds, “but only an account of this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you” (Moses 1:35). So the account in the Old Testament, and even the additional accounts revealed to other prophets, deal only with the creation of this earth, not the galaxy, or even the universe. Admittedly, there is a passing reference to the stars being created, so that does lend credence to God creating the entire universe at this time, but I don’t think that means what traditional Christians take it to mean.

A tradition has arisen among Christianity that almighty God, being the Uncreated Creator, or First Cause, must have omnipotently created the entire universe out of nothing. This is termed ex nihilo, meaning “out of nothing”. Frankly, it doesn’t have a lot of scriptural support, except perhaps from a particular definition of the English word create. It is not the way the ancients understood the scriptures. Joseph Smith taught:

“You ask the learned doctors why they say the world was made out of nothing, and they will answer, ‘Doesn’t the Bible say he created the world?’ And they infer, from the word create, that it must have been made out of nothing. Now, the word create came from the word baurau, which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos—chaotic matter, which is element, and in which dwells all the glory. Element had an existence from the time He had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning and can have no end” (King Follett Sermon, see the April and May Ensign.

So Mormons as a whole don’t tend to believe that God created the universe out of nothing, but we do tend to believe that God did create it. With traditional Christianity, we continue to maintain the omnipotence of God and His unchanging eternal nature.

The other misunderstanding here is what exactly the Big Bang is. The Big Bang is a model that describes the expansion of the universe, much like if you saw an inflating balloon you could take some key measurements and extrapolate what it looked like before it started inflating. With the Big Bang, the timeline for the expanding universe has been mathematically traced back to what the conditions were like when t=0, at the very start. In other words, the model reverses the expansion of the universe until everything – all the matter and all the energy and everything that comprises the universe – is collapsed down to a single, finite point – called a singularity. As time approaches 0, the universe is so dense that most of the laws we accept may not even apply anymore(!), so beyond that is a bit of a mathematical guess.

The key takeaway from this is that the Big Bang theory does not have the universe exploding out from nothing. All the matter and energy already existed. All models that I’m aware of that track t<0 continue to maintain the total sum of energy and matter. (The principle two that I’m familiar with are that the universe is in a cycle of expanding and collapsing; and another that simply has the singularity existing in a questionably unstable state. Again, the challenge for modeling it is that we aren’t sure what physical laws still apply, so we aren’t sure what a steady state would look like). So the scientific community does not have any sort of ex nihilo model for the origin of the universe.

So, to turn things on its head, there is nothing in the Big Bang theory that disagrees with Mormonism, but the theory is at odds with traditional Christianity unless the ex nihilo creation occurred before the singularity.

Gramps

 

In the wake of the sketchy timeline given by the Ferguson Police Department concerning the death of Michael Brown, a Rolling Stone reporter discovered the Twitter feed of a young man who appears to have live-tweeted the aftermath of Brown’s shooting.

“I JUST SAW SOMEONE DIE OMG,” tweeted @TheePharoah, soon tweeting an image of Brown’s body lying in the street.

He also noted that one of the policemen had an AR-15, and that Brown was shot seven times — twice in the back, and five times after he’d turned around to face the police. “The first two was clear, then it was a barage[sic] of them,” he added.

The time, date, and locations all match up with details surrounding the incident.

A majority of the tweets can be found below:

[h/t Tim Dickinson]
[Image via Twitter]

–

>> Follow Tina Nguyen (@Tina_Nguyen) on Twitter

How would American media cover the news from Ferguson, Missouri, if it were happening in just about any other country? How would the world respond differently? Here, to borrow a great idea from Slate's Joshua Keating, is a satirical take on the story you might be reading if Ferguson were in, say, Iraq or Pakistan.

Reporters surround Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

FERGUSON — Chinese and Russian officials are warning of a potential humanitarian crisis in the restive American province of Missouri, where ancient communal tensions have boiled over into full-blown violence.

"We must use all means at our disposal to end the violence and restore calm to the region," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in comments to an emergency United Nations Security Council session on the America crisis.

The crisis began a week ago in Ferguson, a remote Missouri village that has been a hotbed of sectarian tension. State security forces shot and killed an unarmed man, which regional analysts say has angered the local population by surfacing deep-seated sectarian grievances. Regime security forces cracked down brutally on largely peaceful protests, worsening the crisis.

"we can and should support moderate forces who can bring stability to America"

America has been roiled by political instability and protests in recent years, which analysts warn can create fertile ground for extremists.

Missouri, far-removed from the glistening capital city of Washington, is ostensibly ruled by a charismatic but troubled official named Jay Nixon, who has appeared unable to successfully intervene and has resisted efforts at mediation from central government officials. Complicating matters, President Obama is himself a member of the minority sect protesting in Ferguson, which is ruled overwhelmingly by members of America's majority "white people" sect.

Analysts who study the opaque American political system, in which all provinces are granted semi-autonomous self-rule, warned that Nixon may seize the opportunity to move against weakened municipal rulers in Ferguson. Missouri's provincial legislature, a traditional "shura council," is dominated by the opposition faction. Though fears of a military coup remain low, it is still unknown how Nixon's allies within the capital will respond should the crisis continue.

Now, international leaders say they fear the crisis could spread.

"The only lasting solution is reconciliation among American communities and stronger Missouri security forces," Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a speech from his vacation home in Hainan. "However, we can and should support moderate forces who can bring stability to America. So we will continue to pursue a broader strategy that empowers Americans to confront this crisis."

Xi's comments were widely taken as an indication that China would begin arming moderate factions in Missouri, in the hopes of overpowering rogue regime forces and preventing extremism from taking root. Gun sales have been spiking in the US since the crisis began.

Analysts warn the violence could spread toward oil-producing regions such as Oklahoma or even disrupt the flow of American beer supplies, some of the largest in the world, and could provide a fertile breeding ground for extremists. Though al-Qaeda is not known to have yet established a foothold in Missouri, its leaders have previously hinted at assets there.

Though Missouri is infamous abroad for its simmering sectarian tensions and brutal regime crackdowns, foreign visitors here are greeted warmly and with hospitality. A lawless expanse of dogwood trees and beer breweries, Missouri is located in a central United States region that Americans refer to, curiously, as the "MidWest" though it is nearer to the country's east.

It is known among Americans as the home of Mark Twain, a provincial writer from the country's small but cherished literary culture, and as the originator of Budweiser, a traditional American alcoholic beverage. Budweiser itself is now owned by a Belgian firm, in a sign of how globalization is transforming even this remote area of the United States. Analysts say some american communities have struggled as globalization has pulled jobs into more developed countries, worsening instability here.

violence could spread to oil-producing regions such as Oklahoma or even disrupt the flow of American beer supplies

Locals here eat a regional delicacy known as barbecue, made from the rib bones of pigs, and subsist on traditional crafts such as agriculture and aerospace engineering. The regional center of commerce is known locally as Saint Louis, named for a 13th century French king, a legacy of Missouri's history as a remote and violent corner of the French Empire.

Though Ferguson's streets remained quiet on Friday, a palpable sense of tension and uncertainty hung in the air. A Chinese Embassy official here declined to comment but urged all parties to exhibit restraint and respect for the rule of law. In Moscow, Kremlin planners were said to be preparing for a possible military intervention should political instability spread to the nearby oil-producing region of Texas.

How to Make Your Own Dancing Baby Groot!

 

Ok so we've already posted a Baby Groot Sculpture, Baby Groot Pop Vinyl & Hot Toys Baby Groot but... *drumroll* this is the first functional Dancing Baby Groot! Patrick Delahanty aka Durandal Cosplay made this adorable Dancing Baby Groot from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. He started with a Movin' & Groovin' daisy flower from eBay for the trunk, while his fianc?e sculpted the head using Crayola Model Magic. You can see more photos and tips/instructions for making your own in his facebook album here. And here's the fantastic video of little Groot, followed by set-by-step photos and super cute photos of the finished product...

Mastering the Tools of the Trade

Several tutorials for programers:

• Master Linux Commands
• practical git in 1 hour
• Visual CSS Dictionary
• Master JavaScript
• Xah's {Python, Perl, Ruby} Tutorial

I spend 5 years to write them. You spend 5 minutes to read them.

If you are a computer science college student, or if you are pro programer in lang X and want to learn lang Y, then read them. Just these, and the spec or official documentation. (usually linked from each page)

if you like them, you can buy all. Entire xahlee.info, formatted for offline reading. ∑ Xah Code