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Capitol Grilling is no more.  It's still up, but posting is disabled, and won't be reenabled before the site expires.

It turns out that Zeroflux at some point went from a libertarian/independent (and meant it, too, I've known him for 10 years) to a teabagger.  He called the election in Virginia wrong, and got pissed.  Then there was a gun control thread about the recent massacre, and he spazzed out, called everyone "morons", and then announced he was shutting the board down, presumably because there aren't any teabaggers left.

In its heyday (2000-2006), it was the best political board ever.  It declined from 2006-2008, as Zero took less and less interest in moderating it.  It's been on life support ever since, and it's probably a good thing that it was allowed to finally die.

So long, Zero.  You were a titan among men, but in the end you were just another putz.

Well I went looking for Capitol Grilling a few weeks ago and it was gone, no archives, nada, not even a mention in a Google search. But I did find this thread and lo and behold the OP is an old poster from CG named Malaclypse or Doc Howl. Always assumed they were one in the same but wasn't certain.

These twins had a completely different personality in that other place and time. Bearing only a slight resemblance to their apparitions on this forum.

Back then if Mal wasn't a screetching partisan you would never have guessed it, he seemed to be so much part of team librul. Even wore the cap and cleated shoes into the bar thread. He didn't wax poetic like he does in his rants here. He didn't polish his sentences and bother with grammar and/or spelling or even give a rat's ass whether he was skillfully reaching his audience, or just alienating them.

Course I was a real dickface in that forum myself. Never was a partisan but I couldn't help but kick them at every opportunity. I was mostly there to study the phenom or partisanship and find out whether it could be cured.

I know how to challenge cognitive dissonance and once you crack that shell a person's own feelings alert them to the fact that they are full of shit.

You can lead a partisan to water but you can't make him/her think.

So here is an other Mal. One who doesn't have that much in common with his alter at CG. One who rants like his intended audience is gonna pick his speel up off the city pavement beneath a tall downtown office building manana and read it, toss it or step on it, almost by random selection.

It is what it is. You never really know anybody, not even yourself. We all change. We aren't a static incarnation of ourselves. We are dynamic and part of a dynamic reality.

Aside from Mal the welcome wagon on this forum has the charisma and warmth of a tribe of cannibals. I have no interest in dialogue with shit flinging adolescent howler monkeys. Life's short, no time, sorry.

But I think I read all of your rants, Mal. Except those that were blarged out of existence. And I hear and approve of your underlying emphasis on our freedom to choose. You come back to that theme in almost every rant. I hear ya.

Thanks Mal. You be well.

To each and every one of you, I hope your path leads you where you choose to go.

And that's my cue.

And btw, loved the family pics, but for the purpose of this conversation dinos are just cold blooded birds.

[nine in 10 Republicans disagree with the FBI's decision]

A majority of Americans disapprove of FBI director James Comey's recommendation that Clinton not be charged with a crime over her email arrangement, by 56-35.

Nearly nine in 10 Republicans disagree with the FBI's decision and say it worries them about what she'd do if she became president.

Democrats see things very differently, but with less unanimity –- about two-thirds approve of the decision not to charge Clinton and think the issue is unrelated to what she'd do as president. But three in 10 of Clinton's own party faithful think she should have been charged.

Further, as noted, political independents side more with Republicans on the issue, with roughly six in 10 saying the FBI was wrong and that the issue raises worries about Clinton as president.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-11/majority-americans-disapprove-comeys-decision-hillary

nearly a third of her own party faithful thinks that Pres elect Clinton should be charged with a crime.........

Nothing to see here, move along

Two Houston Police Officers Kill Gunman Who Aimed At Cops While Obama Tries To Talk Down Social Divide

According to ACB13, two Houston officers shot and killed an armed man on the city's south side early this morning. Police says the officers involved were wearing body cameras and they each fired multiple shots.

Houston Police Department officials say the shooting happened on Cullen near Ward around 12:40am. Officers say they saw a man with a revolver standing in the road. There were two officers in one vehicle and they asked the man to put the revolver down. Police say a witness also asked him to drop the weapon. Officers say instead of dropping the gun, the man raised his weapon pointing it in the air. He then lowered it and pointed it at the two officers.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-09/latest-shooting-two-houston-police-officers-kill-gunman-who-aimed-gun-cops

to put this in perspective:  "We are all Palestinians now", or if you prefer "first they came droning Waziristanians and I said nothing because I wasn't Waziristani"

The ghost of John Belushi is not amused!

Is my point. Security is a degree of scale. There is no absolute. Which kinda fucks with his Liberty for Security theory. Liberty for security may well be the pitch that government inc are making and sure as fuck they'll take their payment in advance but that doesn't make it any less bullshit. I'm with ECH - I got plenty of both, go sell snake oil somewhere else. 

actually the fact that there is no absolute security only strengthens my point. But as you progress up any scale of security from 0 to infinity you likewise lose liberty en route.

cars don't kill people, self driving cars kill people.

DETROIT — The race by automakers and technology firms to develop self-driving cars has been fueled by the belief that computers can operate a vehicle more safely than human drivers.

But that view is now in question after the revelation on Thursday that the driver of a Tesla Model S electric sedan was killed in an accident when the car was in self-driving mode.

You gotta forgive the self driving AI for this one, it is still in the beta testing stage of development.

A friend of mine owns a tesla and when he bought it it didn't do self driving.

BUT it spontaneously downloaded the programming to become self driving one day, and so it was: a self driving car.

Hackable, as reliable as an auto part or any Windows program, and careening through every city in the US at 60 mph, built by a corporate code to maximize profits and externalize risks and costs. AND they are gonna do the same to buses and 18 wheelers! (don't play in traffic, kids!)

Sounds like a recipe for disaster just like it did in the late 90s when I heard the first mention of SDV R&D.

On the other hand we have been using the same basic technology to steer ships and airplanes for decades and in my experience they definitely outperform human error.

I feel statistically safer. You?

Meet the cute little drone that nuked the Dallas sniper:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-09/due-process-drone-was-used-blow-us-citizen-without-trial-week

I love the handle!

If I wonder about this extrajudicial assassination at all I wonder "why a bomb?"

Why not a smoke bomb or pepper spray, or even live wasps released onto the sniper?

I think the answer is pretty simple. DON"T KILL FUCKING COPS!

Cops in the US have always gone after cop killers intending to kill them, rather than take them alive. And they do it manhunt style with all the fixins.

They have to maintain a state monopoly on the use of force.

I fought the law, and the law won. Duh!

Dude, stop spamming links to zerohedge. I can tell when someone's just trying to drive traffic to a site and I won't tolerate it. Consider this your one warning.

You can't have liberty and security, the two are mutually exclusive.

But you can have liberty and death at once, although only momentarily. Que Sera!

You're a bit dim, aren't you? The two are only mutually exclusive if you rely on someone else for your security.

any kind of real security demands that you forfeit some or all liberty.

Dude, stop spamming links to zerohedge. I can tell when someone's just trying to drive traffic to a site and I won't tolerate it. Consider this your one warning.

You can't have liberty and security, the two are mutually exclusive.

But you can have liberty and death at once, although only momentarily. Que Sera!

OP seems to be advocating for a guaranteed basic income, which is, in my opinion, the only bandaid that can keep capitalism alive.  I prefer seizing the means of production, but that would be much messier.

btw, are you hip to anarcho-syndicalism?

Anarcho-syndicalism proposes that labor must own the means of production via the simple arrangement that all corps must be 100% employee owned.

In capitalism capital owns TMoP.

In Commyism the state owns TMoP.

In anarcho-syndicalism Labor owns TMoP.

Noam Chomsky also digs this shit!

I dig a pony. You?

In a perfect world all MoP would be owned by everybody to offset taxation and finance the social safety net. But we don't live in a perfect world and we can't trust politicos to manage anything.

And MoP is an outdated concept. Today's economy is more about the means of banking, the means of insurance, the means of healthcare, you know all the service sector economy stuff that matters in the now.

OP seems to be advocating for a guaranteed basic income, which is, in my opinion, the only bandaid that can keep capitalism alive.  I prefer seizing the means of production, but that would be much messier.

I am not venturing down that path because I like that path.

But compared to our (insert the most outlandish series of adjectives you can imagine) economic disorder that actually seems like the most practical alternative.

When the entire world acts, walks and sounds like the bullshitiest equation imaginable, within that framework only a hard core and revolutionary bullshitier solution can save the day.

Or maybe I have huffed too, no waaaaaaay too, much glue.

Admiral Glueon

[If Senseless Violence Continues, America Will Be A Total Police State In No Time]

If Senseless Violence Continues, America Will Be A Total Police State In No Time

exactly, the Big Blue BlowBack.

While we don't know who the police murderers in Dallas were, or their motivations, we do know one thing. Their actions will unquestionably have several very counterproductive and dangerous outcomes.

1. Further divide the country in general.

2. Further the already wide distrust between the police and the general public.

3. Increase the likelihood of more violence, and the eventual imposition of a total police state in America.

Either the people who committed the murders had the above goals in mind, or they were just stupid, violent criminals who didn't have the meager sophistication necessary to understand the extremely negative implications of their actions.

or they were just pissed and voting with their long rifles.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-08/if-senseless-violence-continues-america-will-be-total-police-state-no-time

The unintended consequences of the emerging War on Cops will that the cops fight back and win. They always win, cuz the people are skeered. States exist because they monopolize the use of force. Force is their strong suit and those who oppose them will end up disarmed, crossing check points and subject to law enforcement running roughshod across the law with no restraint.

I tells ya this now: This upcoming election is gonna be a show for the ages!

WORD!

http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-disqualified/

I read the link, it cited partisan sources who definitely sound to have been A) answering different questions and B) ill informed.
so who you gonna believe? Snopes or Cornell University Law School and the US Federal legal code?

She only managed to escape prosecution because Comey couldn't equate "extreme carelessness" with "gross negligence". Which of course any jury would have been instructed to equate.

Nice job at completely failing to read the link or refute the points within.

4 Shot, 1 Killed After Black Gunman Fires At Passing Cars On Tennessee Highway, Targeting Police, Whites

Case in point, the latest incident in what increasinly more are calling an all out race war was reported moments ago by AP who said that 37-year-old Lakeem Keon Scott, who is black, opened fire indiscriminately at passing cars and police on a Tennessee highway. He later told investigators he was angry about police violence against African-Americans. One woman died and three others, including one police officer, were injured in the rampage.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-08/one-dead-after-black-gunman-shoots-passing-cars-tennessee-highway-targeting-police-w

That is 5 cops killed, 8 more injured along with several white civilians in one 24 hour period.

War on Cops is clearly on. Lets see whom if anybody can settle things down.

Do we have any respected leaders anymore?

]quote]Manhunt Underway In St. Louis Suburb After Police Officer Shot In The Neck - Live Feed[/quote]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-08/manhunt-underway-st-louis-suburb-after-police-officer-shot-neck

that didn't take long.......