A gunman in Idaho set a brush fire, then when the firemen showed up, he shot three of them, killing two, and seriously injuring the third.

WTF, America, WTF?


FWIW, the shooter's body was found later, means of death not yet announced, but I would guess "su!c!de" by firearm, given that his body was removed ahead of the spreading fire. IOW he wasn't kiiled by the fire he started.

Its the 'I've got a gun, therefore it is my right to hoot someone' mind set in so many people

Wow, that's interesting! I don't recall that question (but it sort-of makes sense). The big difference today, of course, is that it is infinitely easier to search and prove an omission.

This isn't the first occurrence of a shooter going after firemen. Has there ever been an explanation (other than complete and utter derangement, of course)?

I don't recall being asked either but searching and proving someone did/ was connected to something when you have their name sounds easy, but can be far from it - I spent a number of years doing such searches myself, though not for the government. Your name might be Fortesque Harrisonburg Rotherhythe and a simple name match is likely meanful, though that is far from certain as even "weird" names might be more common than you'd imagine, but trying to find out anything useful from a search for John Smith (or any other top 50 common English surnames), at least in databases not indexed by some sort of "government issued ID no", or at least a date of birth, is likely an exercise in futility, and worse if the name you're looking for is Lee, Ng, Chang/ Zhang/ Xiang, Patel, or Chaudhuri or Mohammed (the last two under half a dozen or more different spellings, none of which might be recognized by the person as they can't read the roman alphabet, so don't even know how their own name is spelt in their own passport, and may have been picked at the whim of a clerk in the passport office). And that's before we consider the possibility of people using a middle name, shortened name, nick name (which bears no resemblance to their legal name) or other pseudonym.

All true, but - consider searching for 'someone' who owns a Honda Accord and a BMW SUV and lives in South Carolina and has 'x' daughters and no sons, was born in UK and is now a naturalized US citizen. Even if that were 'John Smith', it's likely to be the only one. With powerful search capabilities (able to access protected records like DMV, SS, IRS, property tax records, etc) that may not be so hard to do. There's a lot of talk recently about the Government signing a contract with "Palantir" to build the mother of all databases, accessing all these records, and using them for this very purpose.

Agreed, you'd know that you'd found the right person, but ....
... finding that person, with currently available technology and databases, can (not always, but "can") be a lot harder that you might imagine. And some of your datapoints are just not captured, at least not outside of governmental databases* such as whether someone is a naturalized citizen. .... An experienced searcher can infer such data, for example if you can prove that the person's SSN was issued after they were 18 years old then you almost certainly have a naturalized citizen (or born after the 1980's and not issued at birth then "likely a naturalized citizen").

* Even if you're arging from the perspective of government visa/ ESTA screening, the problem may be every bit as great, but mirror image - you might know that you're looking for a naturalized citizen, but that just isn't a data point that either private businesses or state and local government is looking for/ capturing, and indeed it may not be legal for them to do so. FWIW I went to my bank when I naturalized to let them know that I was now a US citizen, and discovered that my account record had been set up showing me to be a USC when I first opened the account five years earlier!

The Justice Department today announced the results of its 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown, which resulted in criminal charges against 324 defendants, including 96 doctors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and other licensed medical professionals, in 50 federal districts and 12 State Attorneys General’s Offices across the United States, for their alleged participation in various health care fraud schemes involving over $14.6 billion in intended loss.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/natio...ction-over-146

WTF is "intended loss"? I can only assume that it is a "Musk estimate" that should be taken with a shovel of salt, like everything else that the current federal administration says.

Yeah that jumped out at me, too. Everything about medical care is just funny money. My current status this year, from my insurer, is something like ..

Invoiced so far - $25,000
We paid - $927
You owe - $0

So I’m guessing the figure the current regime claim they’ve saved in relation to these frauds, is the highest possible claim that would never have been collected anyway.

A Charlotte, NC area, er, "business" had planned a classic car show for August 2025.

As of this evening, July 9, the car show has been canceled. But who ever thought this was a good idea?

Someone made a grave mistake planning this!

I’m glad the business’s governing body have reconsidered

Soon after our conversation, details have emerged about some of the funding objectives in the "BBB" (Big Beautiful Bill).
Part of the "BBB" includes a huge pile of money for ICE, and one major initiative that is being planned is to give Palantir a contract to build a humongous database, aided by AI, to be able to search through all manner of government records.

Check out this article: https://www.techpolicy.press/how-tru...e-to-big-tech/ - extract: "Palantir co-founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel also appears set to gain from this bill. $700 million dollars are set aside for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s “information technology investments to support enforcement and removal operations.” Based on previous Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contracts, a significant portion of this funding is likely to flow to Palantir, the data-mining giant co-founded by Thiel. Palantir, whose CEO has boasted the company is “making America more lethal,” supercharges ICE’s ability to monitor, locate, and detain individuals."

I think it's no secret that current government departments have siloed data and inefficient practices, which is what you allude to above - the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. But in some ways, that's what prevents serious invasions of privacy. I have no doubt that someone like Palantir could build some modern, fully-integrated database (or means to search across multiple diverse databases - same difference in this context) and use it to join together all these dots in ways that could be quite chilling. As for the legality of such actions - I'm not seeing 'adherence to laws' as a main characteristic of the current administration!

Yeah, it was obviously just tomb much.