I can't do any set of steps that involves applauding myself. Yeah, I have a slight desperation for external validation in the form of gold stars or cold hard cash, but I really can't do it myself. That makes me feel weird.

I thought I might have linked to the funniest thing ever yesterday or the day before, but I was wrong. This is it. It's too funny to limit to the Comedy thread, even. Srsly.

Okay, so there was an incident of a shopper in Los Angeles who used pepper spray against fellow shoppers in order to acquire an Xbox.

[link]

Now, I hear reports that store security in North Carolina used pepper spray against shoppers.

[link]

[link]

I find both incidents incredibly disturbing. I wonder if this too liberal use of pepper spray will cause law enforcement to think about their own use of the product and the image it is projecting to the nation. If police casually use this item (and they have been BEFORE the Occupy movements, let us not kid ourselves), why can't Tom, Dick, Jane, and Martha use it for our own purposes?

It's all really sad.

I can't do any set of steps that involves applauding myself.

So don't. You choose the ones that work for you. I don't use "Imagine" because it doesn't work for me at all.

I thought I might have linked to the funniest thing ever yesterday or the day before, but I was wrong. This is it. It's too funny to limit to the Comedy thread, even. Srsly.

Holy effin' shiz, that is awesome.

le n, absolutely horrifying.

I think I might be the only employee on my floor today. I haven't received an email since Wednesday. Most troubling, I'm almost out of Internet!

At least they were using pepper spray and not bullets.

I hear you on the traffic issue, Sophia -- same for a bicycle. There's enough bikes and bicycle lanes around Somerville and Cambridge that I wouldn't feel unsafe (or no more unsafe than if I was walking!) because the drivers have gotten "educated" about looking out for them and driving past them. Also, there's a fair number of bike paths where you have to look out for dogs and walkers for their own safety!

I find both incidents incredibly disturbing. I wonder if this too liberal use of pepper spray will cause law enforcement to think about their own use of the product and the image it is projecting to the nation. If police casually use this item (and they have been BEFORE the Occupy movements, let us not kid ourselves), why can't Tom, Dick, Jane, and Martha use it for our own purposes?

The fact that retail frenzy becomes indistinguishable from OWS (in pepper sprayed mob chaos) is a black irony that is too rich for actual use in fiction.

So don't. You choose the ones that work for you.

I'm not criticising either you or the program. I'm just talking about what motivates me or doesn't, just like people have been saying about GTD and the like. I'm good.

I'm missing the bit in that Porter Ranch article where they talk about the source of the pepper spray in any detail. They just toss off that it was a shopper, but for the rest of the article it has no source. It almost sounds like it's something the authorities did.

However, the crowd behaviour--what is WITH people? Why do they think they have a right to behave like that?

If police casually use this item (and they have been BEFORE the Occupy movements, let us not kid ourselves), why can't Tom, Dick, Jane, and Martha use it for our own purposes?

Because there are a lot of other things the cops get to do that I don't? I'm not sure why pepper spray should be an exception. I can see store security blurring the lines, but I also think they're incredibly wrong in doing so. They are civilians too. I used to want to be a security guard, because I thought it was all cool and official and shit, but...it's so not.

[doubled up...deleted]

mr. flea is at work today, and he has been dubbed the Acting Branch Chief; he is probably the only guy there. Please, nobody have an environmental disaster involving water in the midwest today, okay? Unless a whiz computer modeler can fix it.

We're watching the end of Avatar. Then I have to actually do something with these children.

I think that most of the recent uses of pepper spray are an illegitimate use of force. When it is done so casually, I think people feel they can do it too.

Pepper spray shouldn't be the first technique of crowd control when no one is injured or hurt or lives aren't threatened. I would support security guards using it judiciously if lives are at risk. But the youtube video does not show that.