Again… it looks like a punching bag… Not generally a “child’s toy”…
Also… this isn’t a newspaper or other journalistic outlet… it’s a culture blog, so they get to make political opinions as they see fit… In this case, it’s about right wing fearmongering which is, you know, a major threat right now to millions of actual human beings, while calling this a “ball” is not.
Except it is an innocuous play thing. Or at least, an innocuous work out thing.
Also, for all your nitpicking at the author, did you fail to see it was the border patrol official who first called it a ball?
You didn’t even have to click thru. It was right there in the text of the post. It is a ball shaped thing that the border patrol official called a “ball”
The title is perfectly appropriate and does not “blur the facts”
It’s incredible that calling the thingy a ball bothers you more than MTG trying to warmonger over a ball of duct tape and sand
I could be a happy fun ball
“That’s no bomb! That’s my lunch!”
-Guy who eats dirt and only has duct tape to take it to work.
I’ve been seeing that a bit more in recent Boing Boing stories that mention Faux News. It’s almost as if the threat of a billion dollar judgement for lying is starting to have a tiny effect on the amount of poison they distribute.
Border Patrol explosives experts knew immediately that the object was not a bomb when they did not see ACME stamped on it and no coyote footprints in the dirt.
Totally an aside, but a boxing instructor told me that literally everyone’s first few goes at the speedbag look pretty much like that.
‘oy , and you wuz lucky then !! duct tape !! why we had to use generic dollar store brand cellophane tape !!
and dirt , what luxury !! we had to fill OUR sacks with the rejected bits from th’ local metal scrap shredder !
{ also , perhaps , ours wuz a tad smaller , eh ? ? }
likely not an accident the picture she uses in her tweet doesn’t really give you an idea of how small it is
here is another tweet that does
It looks like it fell off an xmas tree.
From personal experience… true. Yet it takes not much practice to get speedbags going as they should. As a novice (fiddling around at our company gym) I was taught to strike the bag downward about an inch or so above its center (visually excluding the “conical” upper portion) at a shallow angle. It’s not punched as one would a boxing opponent. You strike with the side of your fist (next to your pinky finger). The technique gives me a feeling of great control over the bag in spite of its pendulous wobbling. Truely seasoned speedbag “artists” may do it a different way.
It’s a border wall ornament!
Don’t tell Mr Pillow Guy.
But it is a ball, it’s a round innocuous object. Ball is a fine term that doesn’t assume an end use. No we shouldn’t be concerned, unless the sand in question is actually a Spiderman villain, but I rate the odds of that as low. A bag of sand remains completely not terrifying whether it was for recreation, a cartel way marker, or room decoration for a chupacabra. It is a bag of sand.
It very much is. We use the term ball for things as varied as basketballs, ball bearings, and hairballs. It is a vaguely solid round thing, that’s fair game to call a ball.
Can you think of any accurate description of the item where she isn’t worthy of mockery and derision? Swap ball for bag of sand and the BoingBoing headline still works, swap it in her statement and it fundamentally changes the meaning. Yet you’re using the same word to describe both. She isn’t being hyperbolic, she’s lying to spread fear and bigotry, and she can count on people not to call her on it, but instead engage in some bullshit false equivalence.
In a few places you’re said this isn’t innocuous and hinted that it holds some dark menace. So, what do you think it is? What should we call it? What is not innocuous about it?
Was it filled w/ Gazpacho?
So that’s where my duct-tape truck nut fell off.
That’s it. When you’re a representative of a political party with no plans or proposals to help your citizens the logical (in their minds) thing to do is start a war. It helps them even more when there is not a clearly defined enemy.
The Cartel; Which Cartel MTG? Where are they based MTG? How many soldiers do they have MTG? Where are they getting their supplies from MTG? If they get supplies from the US do we destroy those manufacturing plants MTG? Can you answer any of these questions MTG?
No, then STFU about going to war.
