Slashdot Mirror

Those of us in Maricopa County can worry about our sheriff; the rest of the country can worry about theirs. It's a local elected office. I do not understand the national media attention.

As a former Phoenix resident, I have to say maybe it's because of things like this and this?

Sorry, but once you step over the line and nobody else is reigning it in, it becomes a federal problem.

More people than 11 believe in ufo's.

Maybe some waterboarding?

Exclusive: Only Three Have Been Waterboarded by CIA

The last time was in 2003.

Do you think they might steal his organs?

lmgtfy
lmgtfy
lmgtfy

ABC: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/dnc-apologizes-for-showing-russian-warships-in-tribute-to-us-veterans/

CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57511365-503544/dems-apologize-for-russian-ship-imagery-at-convention/

New York Times: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/democrats-apologize-for-image-of-russian-ships-at-convention/

Amazing, stuff that is over 2 weeks old doesn't end up in the first few pages of political news during a presidential election campaign. I'm shocked! Of course if you use the term "warships" in your search it'll be in the top 5 results.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/dnc-apologizes-for-showing-russian-warships-in-tribute-to-us-veterans/

For instance, these two:

Abcnews.com

wash.post

Granted, both are blogs, but if it were a fiction, how could both blog entries comment on official political rhetoric?

Actually, given the US's history, the proper recourse should be...

Let's turn this around. How would the country of origin handle illegal immigration? Let's take a close neighbor, Mexico, it's not like they would they spend $100 million flying people back.

America lets in more people than any other country in the world combined. Borders need to be enforced and laws applied evenly, to everyone. America granted amnesty to everyone who entered the country before, see Regan's Reform and Control Act of 1986. 35+ million people have immigrated since 1965. That's more than Canada's entire population which is currently estimated at 34 million. Imagine if 10% of your population wasn't there legally, California is near the same size population wise as Canada but has a larger economy.

I don't think it's right if you get caught committing a crime that it should be rewarded. You're advocating granting citizenship (or a greencard) ahead of anyone who is 'on the waiting list' who's following the rules? The only people who like waiting seem to be the Star Wars / Trek / LotR fans....

Paying taxes, of course, are optional as an American, as it is considered patriotic not to pay them, or 'in your best interests' to pay them; the choice is yours.

Most other countries require you to be a productive member of society. If you don't have any money, any education, or anything to really offer, most countries won't let you in. Why is that?

Until a few years ago, tornadoes were a rare event in New York City, something that happened once in a while and made big news.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/images-frequency-make-nyc-twisters-notable-17195890 :

"Most people wouldn't say New York and tornado in the same breath.

But two twisters that touched down in the nation's biggest city on Saturday are the latest of about 60 small tornadoes that have hit the area in the past half-century, the years for which complete data are available. Saturday's pair brings to 10 the total number of tornadoes since 2007 in New York City, according to the National Weather Service.

To some, the tornadoes of the past few years might appear to be an uptick in the trend. Not so fast, said meteorologist David Stark of the weather service.

"In the past five years, there's been a slight increase in the number of tornadoes in the area, but it's too short a period of time to say it's a growing trend," said Stark."

http://www.wunderground.com/climate/extreme.asp :

"We currently do not know how tornadoes and severe thunderstorms may be changing due to changes in the climate, nor is there hope that we will be able to do so in the foreseeable future. Preliminary research using climate models suggests that we may see an increase in the number of severe storms capable of producing tornadoes late this century. However, this research is just beginning, and much more study is needed to confirm these findings. The lack of an increase in violent EF4 and EF5 tornadoes in recent decades implies that climate change has not yet increased tornado activity."

Your figure doesn't include the energy, time and other resources spent to collect, transport and hand sort the used glass.

Consider this... if used glass cost less resources than producing new glass, wouldn't someone pay people for their used glass? When's the last time you had an offer to buy your used glass that didn't involve the government charging you per bottle ahead of time and then using the money to help pay for processing it on the back-end?

If you really want to recycle something that make sense, buy a used house, or a used car, or go to a pawn shop. You'll notice that the people who sell that stuff all pay for what they're recycling to you, because it's clearly less cost to buy used ones than to make a new one. Plenty of reuse, there.

Why do you think NY city canceled their recycling program? It was costing them twice as much to recycle stuff than to throw it away. To the tune of $57 million/year. That's a lot of wasted resources being used. Doesn't sound like the stuff they were recycling was in huge demand from manufacturers because they'd save by using it in place of raw materials, does it?

But don't let basic economics intrude on feeling good about saving sand from extinction by driving trucks all over to collect worthless used glass from people's homes and then paying people to sort it into different colors. :)

Oops wrong link, it should be http://espn.go.com/nba/conversations/_/id/8373804/lebron-x-souped-lebron-x-sneaker-retail-270 which is the newest one and has 2,900+ comments.

Well, if you want... Here http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/8288491/nike-claims-reports-300-lebron-x-shoe-price-inaccurate is the link to the post with now 5,000+ comments and if they haven't removed his post though...

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/facebooks-forgotten-rule-fake-names-allowed/story?id=15509496#.UFvW1I1mRco

Not like Facebook is any different and we can all look forward to them enforcing that rule more and more.

Amish crime

Gotta love that the defendant's name is Mullet. Did he cut the beards short in front and leave them long in back?

You brick my phone
(And I'm not alone)
We'll find us time
For Amish crime
Burma Shave

Seriously: great project. As I'm connected using a Galaxy S 2 in hotspot mode as I write this, I may need to have a go at this project.

Kerry, Bush had similar grades at Yale, Comparing the academic record of Al Gore, John Kerry and George W. Bush, John McCain's academic record, Gore's Dubious School Record.

Nonsense. For one, we already know that Obama graduated Sigma Cum Laude. For another, it's slight of hand to pretend talk of known grades is the same thing as demanding the release of college transcripts, which has never been an issue at least in any modern presidential election.

But it is a fair comparison.

It's pathetic teabagger drivel, since everyone knows that Obama was talking about transparency in government. What's really sad, though, is Obama has plenty of actual hypocrisy on his actual promise to ding him for. Vowing to hold health care hearings on CSPAN, then the same backroom deals with literally the same lobbyist that he attacked in 2008. Vowing to protect whistleblowers and then prosecuting more whistleblowers than all past presidents combined. Promising to limit the influence of lobbyists, only to have his staff meet with them at coffee shops to get around the White House visitor log.

But wingers take a winning argument against Obama, and somehow manage to turn it into irrelevant junior high school bullshit. Amazing, really....it's like they've become so addicted to sophistry that they continue to use it when sitting in front of their noses is a valid case to be made....

I find it rather odd that slashdot fails to mention that originally a russian biologist named Maria Gontsjarova blogged about this propaganda stunt. What she said was "somewhat" different from the so-called facts slashdot mentions here.

Her first report stated that several cranes were injured during transportation in cages while at least one died when putin steered his planes propellor into it. Somehow these reports were "corrected" to the "official" version shortly after. I suppose you can imagine the mechanisms Putin has in place for "correcting" information on the blog of a student. Glad to see slashdot supporting the Russian propaganda machine! Keep up the good work!

http://www.rferl.org/content/claims-rare-cranes-died-during-putin-stunt/24701513.html
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/national_world&id=8801623

Exactly. So many "wins" for the predator class.
Manipulate global commodity markets for foodstuffs - WIN!
Chaos to justify re-ordering "democratic" societies - WIN!
And then? Reorganising municipalities into "Charter Cities", run by enterprise - WIN!

I've always thought that people who eat organic food for health reasons do so to avoid ingesting pesticide residue, not because they think organic food is more nutritious.

Thing is: The "organic" label is meaningless. It doesn't mean "pesticide free".

In most places the "organic" farmers are allowed to use anything that's found in nature, including the stuff that kills insects. So long as it wasn't made in a laboratory they can use it.

Guess what? Nature is full of nasty poisons. Most of the natural pesticides are worse than the artificial ones.

Plus the strip mines where they dig out stuff like copper sulphate ( a common organic pesticide) are environmental disasters in their own right. The copper sulphate also washes into the water system, poisoning everything in it - double whammy.

Bottom line: Organic foods is bullshit worthy of an episode of Penn and Teller.

Then he called out Romney for being "elitist" which I agreed with.

Would you also agree with Rush Limbaugh if he criticized Karl Rove for being an overweight, balding political hack? Gingrich was a congressman for 20 years, the Speaker of the House, and is a party insider worth millions of dollars.

But it's not the first time Gingrich has thrown stones in a glass house.

I hear that a lot, but nobody seems to ever be able to prove it.

Define proof.

Would Lessadolla Sowers, and NAACP executive, being convicted of 10 counts of voter fraud (voted 11 times for Obama in 2008) and now serving a 5-year sentence be considered proof?

When people admit it, does that constitute proof?

How about when they plead guilty?"

This shit is why in 2008 the Supreme Court upheld Indiana's voter ID law, 6 to 3, and in their decision stated "Flagrant examples of such fraud have been documented throughout this Nation's history" - the fact that you choose to ignore all the proof, and then sit there asking for proof, is proof that you are a Democrat shill.

Unification Church Founder Rev. Moon Dies at 92:

By HYUNG-JIN KIM Associated Press GAPYEONG, South Korea September 2, 2012 (AP)
Officials say the religious leader who founded the Unification Church and built it into a multibillion-dollar business empire has died in South Korea at age 92.

Coincidence? I do not think so.

How come we never heard from the so-called "Space Frontier Foundation" when Obama wanted to turn NASA into a zoo ?

Because he didn't.

Partisanship can only go so far, buddy, and when you cross the line you are telling a BIG FLAT LIE !
 
How do you explain this ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVM1ASIxwWI

Or are you saying that NASA Administrator Charles Bolden is a liar ?
 
Obama has instructed Charles Bolden to " find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering "
 
As report by The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7875584/Barack-Obama-Nasa-must-try-to-make-Muslims-feel-good.html
San Francisco Examiner http://www.sfexaminer.com/politics/nasa039s-muslim-outreach-al-jazeera-told-first
  and the White House itself never denied the existence of that "MUSLIM OUTREACH PROGRAM" http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/07/white-house-nasa-defend-comments-about-nasa-outreach-to-muslim-world-criticized-by-conservatives/
 
Sir, if you want to comment, comment away, but please, stop lying !
 

Tell it to these people:

http://espn.go.com/dallas/story/_/id/8323104/allen-texas-high-school-ready-unveils-60m-football-facility

It's like that douchebag that owns Papa Johns Pizza trying to tell me that my pizza will cost a whole extra dollar to pay for health care for his employees

Actually it is 14 cents.

And the survival rate of such companies will be, exactly what?

Well, if we're talking about the patent-whoring machines founded by the likes of J.P. Morgan, George Westinghouse, and John Rockefeller...
pretty
damn
good.

http://voices.yahoo.com/human-foreskins-big-business-cosmetics-201840.html

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/spray-skin-cells-heal-wounds-fast/story?id=16921765 , which was released August 4th of this year - what a strange coincidence!

Seriously, I can't make this shit up.

Just because there isn't a proven causal relationship, doesn't mean that there isn't one.

More to the point... has circumcision ever been shown to be linked to something harmful?

Yes.

Circumcision is an unnecessary and mainly cosmetic surgery picked by parents because of tradition and/or religion. Recent attempts to find medical justification for its existence are both new and almost laughable. It's a penile "nose job" for a baby so the baby isn't potentially made fun of for being "different" later on.

Unfortunately, circumcision is a surgical procedure. And no matter how "routine" and "minor" a surgical procedure is, it's only "routine" and "minor" until something inevitably goes wrong. Rare, but horrible when it happens.

Promoting circumcisions to prevent STD transmission is the worst sort of self-serving justification. Why not promote mastectomies at puberty for girls to avoid the 1 in 7 chance of getting breast cancer during their lifetime? Or appendectomies for everyone? If your STD prevention strategy consists of promoting circumcision, instead of promoting safe sex education and prophylactic barrier distribution, your priorities are wildly skewed.

You really want your baby circumcised? Wait until he's 18, and give him the choice.

Anyway, considering the most powerful nations in the world are after Assange for pressing his penis against a sleeping girl with whom he was sleeping and are prepared to storm embassies and engage in other acts of war in order to get their hands on him, I'm guessing $1.9million is going to get burned through pretty quickly in legal funds alone (assuming he ever sees the inside of a courtroom).

The prosecutors in one small European nation, Sweden, are after Assange for inserting his penis into a sleeping woman in a manner which she had previously expressly forbid, and to which she could not consent as she was asleep. (But you already knew that, didn't you?) Intercourse without consent is rape, even if they had previously had sex. (Perhaps you remember the debates about the legal question -can a husband rape his wife?) The UK is honoring its treaty obligations to Sweden by honoring the INTERPOL arrest warrant. After losing his legal fight to avoid extradition from the UK to Sweden, Assange fled the UK police, became a fugitive from justice, and took refuge in a foreign embassy of a nation currently oppressing its journalists. Breaking bond and escaping custody of the police is one easy way to turn even a minor crime into part of a much more serious offense. The UK had made it know that they could withdraw recognition of the current embassy grounds, not storm the embassy. Assange's legal bills would be much more modest if he wouldn't continue to create problems for himself. If he is lucky he will only end up serving time in a Swedish prison for sex crimes, and not be returned to the UK for bail jumping and fleeing the police. What about Russia and China? Not involved. The USA? It isn't involved in the matter of resolving the allegations of sexual assault against Assange other than to be the object of a red herring about extradition from Sweden to the US before Assange faces justice in Sweden.

Is $2,000,000 a big deal? Many small businesses hope to make that kind of money. Ask these guys.

It's funny that the Wall Street Journal you link to would consider $1.9 million to be distinctly "middle class" when it comes to tax policy,

That's funny, I thought $250,000 was the new rich.

Real income dropping? Like the increase in cost of healthcare due to legislation? My company just announced that healthcare premiums are going up by 50% because of the new laws. http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20120823/NEWS0107/208230314/
War on the thinnest of pretenses against people who did nothing to us? http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/world/middleeast/obama-threatens-force-against-syria.html
Greedy self serving bastards line their pockets with tax payers money while politicians blow them? http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/obama-fundraises-with-players-in-solyndra-scandal/ http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/314694/bad-worse-obama-s-gm-bailout-michael-barone

I won't mention the shift in wealth or the smoking hole in the economy because you can't pin that on the 4 or 8 years of any one president much less any one party.

Before you reply, did I say anything good about Republicans? But stop calling the kettle black if you are the pot. BOTH parties should be fired. Don't get blinded and think that only the right are corrupt assholes.

It sounds to me like the AC is under 30. $2000 to $3000 works out to $165 to $250 a month. When you are 40 or over expect that amount to triple, (or more.)

I bought an individual plan through Blue Cross. When I started in my mid 30's it cost that much. EVERY YEAR it goes up 20%. Yes, every April when I renew, it goes up another 20%. When I turned 40, it went up an additional 20%. I complained that they just raised my rates two months earlier, and they said I still have to pay the additional 20% because now I was older...

Now I pay closer to $9000 a year for an individual plan. After speaking with my close friends, they pay roughly that as well. Yes, I did everything I could including increasing deductibles, etc, yet it still goes up constantly. Also, I can not change to a different carrier, because unlike group plans, individual plans are not required to cover pre-existing conditions; if I change, I lose coverage. Even though I can't wait for this part of Obamacare to take affect, I am still wary. They may be force to cover pre-existing conditions, but that doesn't mean they have to make their policy affordable to you. Never try to outguess the weasel quotient of insurance companies.

I guess the one thing they just cannot tolerate is intolerance...

See, that's the problem. They accuse Republicans of being intolerant so that they may show bigotry towards them. Remember, Dick Cheney, the most hated of all Republicans and who is seen as the most right wing extreme, has a lesbian daughter. His daughter is a Republican too, by the way. Gee, you'd think that all Republicans were as intolerant as the left would have us believe, shouldn't Cheney have shot his daughter in the face by now? You'd think that he would at least not talk to her or shun her from family functions. Mary Cheney even got married. Dick Cheney said of his new daughter-in-law “Mary and Heather and their children are very important and much loved members of our family and we wish them every happiness.”

Those intolerant bastards!

Even if you want to say, "yeah, but Dick Cheney is different". Um... yeah. I haven't seen Dick get a lot of love from the gay community. (I mean Dick Cheney, of course)

And slashdotters should be better than extrapolating "truth" from a few slashdot posts onto a class of millions, yet here we are, reading your drivel.

The record for a female is 90 meters

Am I the only one that read this and wondered if it was the female being thrown?

The record for a female is 90 meters, by Babe Didrikson,

And then rereading it... She is really called Babe?
Upon further research that was a nickname, although the ESPN article uses an interesting phrase "The first to prove a girl could be a stud "
And given todays dodgy internet spellingz their headline "a woman ahead of her time" seems so apposite given that her initials are MEDZ.

Your claims are wrong and your reasoning specious (not to mention that the US only waterboarded three people, the last in 2003*).

In short, you're completely wrong.

At the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, a.k.a. Tokyo Trials, . . . only seven Japanese war criminals were executed. Every one of them was convicted of either being complicit in or directly comitting atrocities and murder on a grand scale.

. . . it seems pretty clear we executed these men for charges that far surpass concerns about waterboarding.

Now it does appear that various forms of torture were a consideration in some of these cases that resulted in death sentences at the Tokyo Trials. Media Matters marshals some evidence to that effect, but again waterboarding was presented as just one of several types of torture, many of which appear to be more severe. (Media Matters also appears to cavalierly lump all forms of Japanese water torture together and, say, forced ingestion of water — an execution method centuries ago — is obviously very different from waterboarding.) . . . . There are examples of war criminals convicted of waterboarding, even alongside convictions for a number of harsh forms of torture, who were not put to death.

In no way, shape or form could waterboarding be said to have been the predominate reason any one of these people were hanged. Begala suggesting people at the Tokyo Trials were hanged for waterboarding is akin to noting that Charles Manson is guilty of trespassing on Roman Polanski’s home and then insisting that’s the reason he got a death sentence. (Not that I’m suggesting trespassing and waterboarding are equivalent crimes; I’m just making a logical point.) --- Sorry, Paul Begala — You’re Still Wrong

More:

Holder on Waterboarding — Proving It’s Not Torture While Insisting It Is
The Waterboarding Trail to bin Laden
Waterboarding and Torture
Regarding Those Claims About WWII Waterboarding

* Exclusive: Only Three Have Been Waterboarded by CIA

Because when the president is a dumb-as-rocks puppet, then strong personalities effectively run the country. Personalities we didn't choose for that role.

Now look at Romney's speechmaking:

"I like trees"... "I know some NASCAR team owners"... ""Corporations are people, my friend"... "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me"... "I'm not concerned about the very poor"... "He [Obama] says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It's time for us to cut back on government and help the American people"... "I'll tell you what, ten-thousand bucks? $10,000 bet?"

Do you get the feeling that this is a person who can think on their feet? I sure don't. If that's the case, then Ryan could be a lot more than a figurehead over the course of a Romney-Ryan administration.

Are they even electable? Romney can't convince thinking voters he's qualified for the job, and Ryan appeals only to an already convinced hard-core of republicans -- he won't change the numbers much.

In the meantime, Obama's *real* record, that is, his accomplishments, as opposed to the hysteria the republicans are attempting to spread, is sitting in the swing voter's minds, and as history shows, it's difficult to beat the incumbent, even when they are absolutely terrible presidents, as was the case with Bush. But that's not the case with Obama.

Obama presided over some real setbacks for the homophobic, between the marriage issue and the military; over great things for consumer credit; the ACA, mangled as it was from what he wanted, is at least a step in the right direction (unless you're of the mindset that those who are sick and not rich should just simply suffer and/or die, and no, ER care (a) doesn't save money and (b) isn't sufficient treatment for many things.) The number of new jobs was dropping precipitously under Bush, and under the Obama administration, that trend turned around and *stayed* turned around.

The republicans want us to go back to the policies that *created* the mess we're in; Obama has been digging us out.

There's no question that Obama's far from perfect. He's particularly weak on constitutional issues (and that's really annoying for someone with his credentials), and his disregard for the misguided drug war is of great concern. But do we hear Romney saying he'll end the drug war? Do we hear him saying that warrants will be required for searches? He's not the man to shore up the country where Obama is weak. And where Obama is strong, Romney offers nothing.

But Romney shows absolutely zero signs of being better in any way.

In the mean time, the republicans in congress have also been busily demonstrating that they have no interest in doing their jobs, just in wasting time repeating pointless actions. So we have a lousy candidate, supported by a lousy party. Doesn't seem like a winning combination to me.

"In most civilised nations, healthcare is treated as an essential basic service just like policing, fire, and the military are."

Another poster said, "Imagine just NOT HAVING TO WORRY about healthcare or costs."

Both of these attitudes are problematic. No society has unlimited resources to devote to anything, including healthcare. Therefore, healthcare consumers should shop around, and financially reward the providers who give higher-quality care at lower cost. They should not be thrown into the largest government bureaucracy that ever existed (which is currently being spun up, now that John Roberts said the "Affordable Care Act" "is within Congress's power to tax," nevermind this). Such bureaucracies are notoriously insensitive to cost, and tend to rely on rationing mechanisms.

Am I saying that patients should be expected to shop around in emergency situations? Of course not. And most healthcare is not delivered in emergency situations.

Free markets and competition rarely intersect with the world of healthcare, but this is what happens when they do: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3602626

A truly civilized nation would make healthcare a very free market, which would drive prices very low and make unsubsidized treatments affordable to many more people than they otherwise would be. And then, the burden of helping those people who are still unable to afford treatment would be quite light and manageable.

National 5 days ago. Just because you did not see it does not mean it is not there.

West Nile Virus Outbreak: Planes Spraying in Dallas County After 8 Deaths

what about the human rights or the women in sweden

There is a line of women happily willing to give up their "rights" for every political figure that needs to be destroyed.
Eliot Spitzer
Bill Clinton
Mark Hurd
French presidential candidate
The list goes on

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/loaded-gun-slips-past-tsa-screeners/story?id=12412458#.UCVfNZ1lREM

There was just one two years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_plane_crash If that's not enough, here's some more TSA Fail: https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/newark-airport-terminal-shut-baby-checkpoint-unscreened-article-1.1068800#ixzz1tHJ5bW5z http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/new_jfk_security_breach_PB8L58gzpwjmyqktLHRssN http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/TSA-Agent-Slips-Through-DFW-Body-Scanner-With-a-Gun-116497568.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1357012/TSA-causes-outrage-confiscating-pregnant-womans-insulin-ice-packs.html http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120509/10161518848/congress-tsa-is-wasting-hundreds-millions-taxpayer-dollars.shtml http://consumerist.com/2011/12/tsa-agent-finds-pot-in-rappers-bag-leaves-note-rather-than-confiscating-it.html http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/boarding-pass-arrest-nigerian-slipped-jfk-airport-security/story?id=13963831

I would like to see some evidence that the TSA is doing a horrible job

Easily done.

According to one report, undercover TSA agents testing security at a Newark airport terminal on one day in 2006 found that TSA screeners failed to detect concealed bombs and guns 20 out of 22 times. A 2007 government audit leaked to USA Today revealed that undercover agents were successful slipping simulated explosives and bomb parts through Los Angeles's LAX airport in 50 out of 70 attempts, and at Chicago's O'Hare airport agents made 75 attempts and succeeded in getting through undetected 45 times.

I guess we know how well that prayer went over, the Bears lost horribly to my Broncos 31-3.

Nope and don't expect nationwide reciprocity any time soon.
Granted the House passed H.R. 822, but it won't go anywhere in the Senate. Not to say it does kind of step all over states rights.

cover your eyes, or they will find you...

Given their recent sales figures, I'd say the attention was hardly negative.

Yeah, well I also compared it to a news site, ABC in this case, where they are running a story about Sikh temple shooting, read the comments, there are all sorts of things there that can be classified as 'derogatory' etc. Should ABC be forced to moderate the forum and should a government legislation exist to make ABC news specifically liable for what people post there? How much time before 'derogatory' means you talking smack about Obama or Bush or Romney or any political event, etc?

There are countries where you can be thrown to jail for a very very long and unpleasant time for leaving 'derogatory' comments about people in power.

By the way, here is an ABC report on the shootings in a Sikh temple, read the comments.

Half of the comments there could be considered 'derogatory' if not worse, one way or another. This is a news site, so it is one huge advertising vehicle for the news channel, isn't it?

So with this new law in Australia would the news sites be eventually liable for the comments that people leave? You think not? Isn't it getting very political, very fast? How about dissent, can't dissenting opinion be considered 'derogatory' to people in power? You don't think so?

teach kids how to handle the gun so that you take away the mystery

I find your anacdote quaint, but your logic quite flawed, being that most gun owners with more than three guns are adults and have these weapons for no good reason other than simply because they like guns. The "mystery" is still there. Nearly all gun accidents happen to people just like you, and if you can believe it, even to those far better trained than you and your father or any gun owners you or your father know.

No, I'm afraid the only trick to preventing gun accidents in the home is to not have them there. Worried about crime? Gun owners have a far far far better chance of injuring or killing themselves or someone they love than ever having the opportunity to effectively protect themselves against crime. You like to hunt? Well, there is a strong minority that like to kill things just for fun... though I'm unaware or any valid reasons for it. We have these things now called "supermarkets" so that the inefficient method of feeding yourself by hunting for your own food is completely unnecessary. My moderation score will be reflective of whether the search for civilization, or even responsible maturity, continues.

The CPSC and other regulators did studies of bleach and other toxic household compounds, to find out the most effective ways to stop kids from swallowing them. They worked with the industry, and they studied the way consumers actually use the products to figure out ways of preventing kids from swallowing bleach. They developed new safety caps which made it difficult for kids to open bleach bottles, while not greatly inconveniencing adults who have to use them. They were very successful, and reduced the number of ingestions by half. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ParentingResourceCenter/household-cleaning-products-pose-poisoning-risk-kids/story?id=11305919#.UBF4U1KVr5w This is basic engineering.

Yes, people who wanted to sell bleach without childproof caps are assholes.

30 years ago, it was very common for toddlers to swallow lye. If they survived, this caused devastating injuries. Can you imagine what it's like for a kid to have his esophagus burned out, and not be able to eat or talk? The CPSC made them put childproof caps on the cans of lye, and they changed the formula. You don't need 100% lye to clear a drain. You have to dilute it anyway. Now it's a relatively rare injury.

What kind of asshole says, "I don't care if 10,000 kids every year swallow lye, and the government can prevent it. It's the parents' responsibility, and even though we can stop it, I don't want to." (Maybe Gordon Crovitz or somebody on the Wall Street Journal editorial page.)

I've talked to government regulators, in the electrical industry, the printing industry, and the chemical processing industry. They're not the arbitrary bureaucrats of Ayn Rand fantasies. They're reasonable people, who have often worked in business themselves and understand the realities of running a business. They try to work with industry and find reasonable compromises that will satisfy everybody. I remember a meeting where some guys from the New York State Department of Environmental Protection were explaining the new toxic waste regulations to a bunch of printers. They said, "We're not going to put you out of business. We don't want to impose unreasonable costs. We'll give you plenty of time and free technical advice. We just can't let you pour chlorinated hydrocarbons into the water supply."

I wonder what you would say if you had a kid who died or had a life-changing injury because you negligently allowed him to be harmed by a consumer product. Because of the government regulators who saved you from your own stupidity, I fortunately won't find out. (Unless you own a gun.)

Above all: I realize we are all participating in a thought exercise in the comments today. My thoughts are with the people harmed in this incident and their families.

Now...
Can we please begin blaming the perpetrator and NOT the tool they used to commit their crimes?

Can we craft laws that give family members the ability to report troubling behavior to authorities, possibly forcing a doctors' consultation? How is it that in the U.S., you can be jailed and forced to take treatment for Tuberculosis, but persons who walk around month after month, year after year exhibiting a dozen classical red flags for behavioral illness are left to their own devices? - Maybe they'll never harm anyone. Maybe they'll shoot up a movie theater.

Please stop blaming guns. Where are all the guns in Western Europe, where Britain has a violent crime rate higher than the United States, or for that matter even South Africa?

SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html
SOURCE: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/696036-britain-more-violent-than-us-and-europe

10 killed - 63 seriously injured - CLEARLY we need a background check and 30 day waiting period to buy AUTOMOBILES. What happens when a tragedy like this is intentional and not an accident? What could a sick person do with a Chevy Suburban in a crowded parking lot?

SOURCE: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,222924,00.html
SOURCE: http://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-05/justice/farmer.market.crash_1_movsha-hoffman-molok-ghoulian-brendon-esfahani?_s=PM:LAW

I'd rather gamble my life rushing a gunman to grapple their weapon away. The Tueller Drill / 21 Foot Rule says I'd probably win:
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill
SOURCE: http://www.policeone.com/edged-weapons/articles/102828-Edged-Weapon-Defense-Is-or-was-the-21-foot-rule-valid-Part-1/

According to a number of sources, gunshot wounds - with access to medical treatment - are survivable nearly 95% of the time. Fate is cruel; survivability has everything to do with where you are shot and what is damaged internally.

SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/nyregion/03shot.html?_r=1

This just in!
Another human being can pick a fight with you, or sucker punch you in the head, AND KILL YOU BARE HANDED.

SOURCE: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Man__bleeding_in_brain__after_club_fracas-139265238.html
SOURCE: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/02/27/20120227california-girl-dies-after-fight.html
SOURCE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9PoXH_-tUE
SOURCE: http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2011/04/teen-killed-in-fistfight-near.html/
SOURCE: http://abcnews.go.com/US/TheLaw/fist-fight-left-miami-tourist-dead-caught-video/story?id=11445914#.UAnc_oa-zUY
SOURCE: