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Your imagination doesn't match reality.

So... A dozen or so examples spread over 20-something years... compared to (pretty much) one mass-shooting a day (if not more).

One question I'd like answered - what happens to the "good guys with guns" if law enforcement are also on the scene...? Do they get to join in the fun - isn't that the point of being allowed to carry - or are they also taken down as a potential threat?

You just have fallen for this fallacy:

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

355 terrorist attacks this year in the US https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Not all brown people are terrorists.

So you're using the absence of evidence as evidence of absence.

I'd be curious as t how many mass shootings have ever actually been met with resistance by armed citizens (not police or other armed security types). I got this list from the Washington Post, which the writer intentionally excluded off duty police our soldiers from (I'm not sure if that's fair or not):

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

I think having armed citizens might prevent some, but probably not all mass shootings. I think this idea that just blindly adding more guns into the mix is just going to make things safer seems a leap without a good deal of evidence behind that.

Also consider that, no matter how distressing mass shootings are (which, I suppose, is the point why these people do them), they make up only a tiny percentage of gun crimes in America.

I am number 1 person against Eric Holder, but he ended CAF at the end of his term in the DOJ. It may be the only thing he did correct in his entire time there.

Did Lynch undo that and reinstate them?

I guess it could minimize fatalities, but I'm thinking of a bunch of armed people firing at each other in a relative small place and wondering if as many people would end up struck by "friendly" bullets as by the mass shooters.

Your imagination doesn't match reality.

Given how media favors gun control, every single incident where a citizen killed bystanders with "friendly fire" would be widely reported on as evidence for guns causing more harm than good.

Instead, there is silence on that topic because citizens using guns in self defense save lives.

When "highly trained" police officers shoot nine innocent civilians when trying to shoot a suspect, what are the chances that Joe Blow (who hasn't been to the range since he got his concealed carry permit) will avoid collateral damage?

I'll skip the fallacies and go straight to the factual errors.

We don't need 250 million guns.

Excessive hyperbole.

310 million civil firearms in the USA in 2009

civilians who commit literally hundreds of mass shootings every year.

Excessive hyperbole.

355 mass shootings this year so far.

On the other hand

There are more criminals than cops

I was surprised but that one hods true: In 2008, 1.2M police officers vs. 2.4M incarcerated people. To put in perspective, USA represents 4.4% of the world's population and 24.7% of the world's incarcerated population.

I'll skip the fallacies and go straight to the factual errors.

We don't need 250 million guns.

Excessive hyperbole.

310 million civil firearms in the USA in 2009

civilians who commit literally hundreds of mass shootings every year.

Excessive hyperbole.

355 mass shootings this year so far.

On the other hand

There are more criminals than cops

I was surprised but that one hods true: In 2008, 1.2M police officers vs. 2.4M incarcerated people. To put in perspective, USA represents 4.4% of the world's population and 24.7% of the world's incarcerated population.

How about they also do away with Civil Asset Forfeiture considering that cops have now stolen more from people than all burglaries combined last year, and most likely this year as well.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Coupled with all the other crimes committed by cops and the "justice" system over the years, like the Cash for Kids program, how are these people any different from a government sanctioned mob? Then there are the dimwitted idiots that are still defending these monsters, is this really the society we want?

I guess it could minimize fatalities, but I'm thinking of a bunch of armed people firing at each other in a relative small place and wondering if as many people would end up struck by "friendly" bullets as by the mass shooters.

Your imagination doesn't match reality.

Given how media favors gun control, every single incident where a citizen killed bystanders with "friendly fire" would be widely reported on as evidence for guns causing more harm than good.

Instead, there is silence on that topic because citizens using guns in self defense save lives.

In a typical year, just over 300 people are killed by those things in the US.

Huh? That number seems low. As of October 1, according to the Washington Post, there were 294 mass shootings so far in 2015, and that was still with three months left in the year. That accounted for 380 deaths so far, with well over 1,000 injured.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Even the conservative Wall Street Journal claims "the US leads the world in mass shootings." http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-...

355 terrorist attacks this year in the US

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

but yeah guns are good.

If they are symbolic bills, then all we'll get here is bullshit discussion about AGW or worse, politics. Must be a slow news day (well, other than the bigger-than-average daily shooting in San Bernardino)

Because it's better than pointing out we've known for months that Obamacare is going bankrupt?

And the insurance industry that pushed so hard for Obamacare because it forces people to buy their product is begging for a taxpayer bailout?

NY, NJ, and ILL do not have the most corrupt politicians in the country, they're just populous enough that you hear about it when their politicians go bad. Mining companies essentially own Idaho and Montana, so much that Montana had a law specifically trying to reign that in (removed by the Citizens United decision).

Really, if you accept corruption as a given, the fact that people still hear about it and get up in arms over it in some places should be a little encouraging - those people aren't so beaten down yet that they just shrug and move on when they hear about one of their politicians doing something bad.

Linked here to be self-referential:

http://science.slashdot.org/st...

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Bottom line, some people are stupid enough that they need to be reminded to breathe on a regular basis.

--Paul

How is that little trick performed?

Duh: having a cushion of air inside the capsule would obviously reduce G-forces; think about how a shock absorber works.

(Alright, kid but I wonder how many right-brained, artistic types would have been taken-in by my simple "logic?" *grin*)

2. Prostitution is *heavily* associated with human trafficking

Illegal prostitution is associated with human trafficking. This is a an argument for legalization. Anyway, "human trafficking" is a far smaller problem than commonly believed. It has been wildly exaggerated by law enforcement as an excuse to increase their funding.

... a girl being forced to sell her body, rather than wanting to. This is the reason that really matters.

Again, this is something that is worsened by criminalization. The best cure for coercive prostitution is legalization and regulation.

Pass a law allowing or denying the activity.

May we, please, remain spared of laws allowing things — everything, not explicitly prohibited is allowed, and that's how things ought to be.

Himmler and Hitler creaming all over themselves

Though Nazis really did Eugenics a great disservices, there is nothing obviously wrong with it.

"Rich" babies will all be 6' or taller kids with 130+ IQs and the "trendy" bits

Like the children of sports star-and-a-model unions? Or like the children of dedicated parents, spending time and money on sports- and math-classes for the children, their healthy eating and otherwise caring for them? Disgusting, is not it? Let's ban it all — to make sure, no child gets anything better than another... In fact, let's ban everything, that someone somewhere can not afford. In the name of equality, of course — even if the chosen few remain more equal than the rest.

Anyone below this threshold will be filthy poor people who can't afford the "therapy".

Why are you calling yourself — and the rest of us, currently living, "filthy"?!

cosmetic surgery [...] turned into the cesspool

Huh? What cesspool?

Most environmental concern is BASED on the findings of science,
whereas lack of environmental concern is based on either ignorance or selfish greed.

Your statements and his are not mutually exclusive. The bulk of people who are environmentalists or who think climate change is bunk form their positions on these issues for philosophical or economic reasons, not rational reasons. I'm an engineer and I spend a lot of time "educating" them. If you don't know the difference between kilowatts and kilowatt-hours (as most of these people don't), you have no business trying to influence energy policy. It's completely obvious you're basing your opinion on things other than facts.

The environmental scientists who research this stuff do so with a fairly neutral approach. A lot of engineers are environmentally conscientious as well because it correlates with energy efficiency, and engineers love optimizing for efficiency. But they're realistic about it. That's why such a large segment of slashdot readers are both pro-environment and pro-nuclear. They're realistic enough to realize that although nuclear has its drawbacks, the drawbacks of opposing it resulting in continued use of coal and oil are much, much worse (because wind and solar technologies are not yet capable of taking over base load, and probably won't be for another 20 years). Go ahead. Ask anyone who's pro-solar how many square meters of solar panels they'll need on average to charge their EV every night (using batteries as interim storage). Most of them have no clue, and wouldn't even know how to start figuring it out. Heck, most of them don't even have the faintest concept of how big a solar panel it takes to light a light bulb. How can you compare a technology to alternatives and come to a decision to advocate it if you don't even understand these basic things?

That's been the state of things for a while. Obama killed a US Citizen abroad using a Drone. As is standard procedure, someone asked about the legality - you know, due process. The White House said "There was enough due process." Meaning the justice department said it's ok. No trial, no jury, you know rule of law. Just whacked the guy. Not a peep from main stream media. Imagine if GW Bush did that. They'd still be talking about it and how terrible it was.

Anwar al-Awlaki
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Granted, this was probably justifiable and probably should have been done. However we're a nation of laws and I think they should have had more due process. Problem is, if one guy gets away with it, what's to stop the next guy in the WH from whacking whomever he wants abroad? Killing always gets easier the more you do it I understand.

Me, not so much.

The sad truth is that after four years of war in Syria there are few moderates left and those that do exist lack military strength. The Free Syrian Army was always a mosaic of factions and is now largely ineffectual.

The FSA, could be considered the most "moderated" group, actually showed that they are extremists, if not terrorists. Their commander ATE heart of Syrian soldier, or accused of allegedly trafficking in human organs. By no means, this organization is fighting for DEMOCRACY or FREEDOM.

Why, the West continuously claimed, Russian is bombing "moderated groups", they unintentionally reveal, BEFORE the Russian bombing, there are only 'four or five' Syrian fighters against Isis, by top general, many were deserted, or hand the armors, weapon to Al Quaeda. Or AFTER the bombing, eventually, the Defense Secretary of U.S Ashton Carter said:

However, the moderate Syrian forces “have not come under attack by either Assad’s forces or Russia’s forces.”

The Pentagon explicitly admitted their 500 million program to train "moderated" rebel is FAILED.
Where is the hell "Western-backed rebel forces" is bombed!?

I agree entirely when it comes to "tolerable" and "reasonable" and "obnoxious." Even if we completely ignore the fact that Yahoo's advertising network has been repeatedly compromised and used to serve up malware, the "legitimate" ads they display are from the gutter of the internet.

Going to any Yahoo site with ads enabled is like visiting a newsstand in the red light district. Lots of pictures of scantily clad women being used to promote something entirely unrelated; that's a grenade waiting to go off if you visit Yahoo at work. Lots of pictures of gross skin conditions and other medical problems. Lots of click-bait captions ("Surprising Ways Coconut Oil Can Change Your Life!," "20 product features you never knew existed!"). Lots of trashy, scammy sounding ads that remind you of the junk you see on TV at 3AM ("Search For Mesothelioma Lawyers," "How Much Can You Save By Refinancing?"). And on many Yahoo properties, each page will load a dozen or more 300x156 images all down the side of the page. Seriously, fire up a sandbox VM and go scroll through this page on Yahoo News without an ad blocker, it's unfuckingreal!

Yahoo Mail also insists that you enter your cellphone number in order to create an email account. This is a hard requirement and can't be bypassed. Gmail will try, and if you don't enter your number they'll remind you at every opportunity, but as of yet won't force you to link your email account to your pocket government GPS tracker. I know a lot of folks are attached to long-held @yahoo.com addresses but surely nobody new is signing up for this shit.

Originally? When in 3000 BC? You are showing a great deal of bias, nothing new there. Terrorism is a business. That is all it is. Pick the religion of your choice to rile up the natives. Throw in a few drugs and US dollars (that is what the fighters are paid in) to work the magic, and voila! Damn near as good as a robot/drone... If you're going to single people out, save your breath. The profits tell the whole story.

Irving schools look pretty mainstream to me:

They're still in Texas.

http://www.houstonpress.com/ne...

https://nonprofitquarterly.org...

http://www.theatlantic.com/edu...

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Christian violence is still ongoing. Yet the bigots will mod this down also. It's bad and getting worse. And nobody wants to acknowledge that it's the the money (up to 700 a month, in US dollars cash), that motivate the fighters, not the voodoo. You can use any dogma/religion, they all work. No, sir, we are regressing back to bad times.

I immediately found an article from earlier this year reporting on a recent study which reported the opposite results, i.e., that time spent with children didn't matter.

You did not look very hard - that article is talking about something very different, kids 3 to 11. Babies and toddlers need a lot more attention than older kids.
It seems quite possible we are neglecting our babies, and overindulging older children who could be more independent, e.g. ride a bicycle, walk or catch a bus to school, friends and soccer instead of being chauffeured everywhere.

And if you fucked on the head neo-cons would quit trying to build and maintain a worldwide military hegemony, the US AND the world would be a better place. Fucking coward.

If you think that's just "neo-cons", you really haven't been paying attention. I used to vote for Democrats because they promised to reduce "US worldwide military hegemony", but those promises turned out to be empty. Obama's actual record vs. his promises is abysmal.

In fact, blind Democratic partisanship has sapped the strength of the anti-war movement. Apparently, as long as Democrats get "their man" into office, it doesn't really matter what he does.

Which does raise an interesting point as to whether or not the effect is due to spending additional time with children or is merely a byproduct of the fact that those who can take time off to spend with their children are far more likely to be wealthy, which is more responsible for the outcome.

In looking for a study to back those assertions up, I immediately found an article from earlier this year reporting on a recent study which reported the opposite results, i.e., that time spent with children didn't matter. I haven't read through it yet, but here's a link to the study in question. (PDF Warning)

I'm all for workers getting maternity or paternity leave if they want to spend time with their newborns, but we shouldn't delude ourselves into why we're doing it.

Or maybe they're getting tips from domestic and foreign intelligence agencies and not just from innocuous tippers who won't testify. But if you want to trust them implicitly, then go right ahead.

If what you fear is getting shot, by a terrorist or anyone else, then it's worth pointing out that that's much much less likely in a society where no one has weapons except the bad guys (and the state, though I suspect many don't make that distinction).

If what you fear is a cataclysmic situation where it makes sense for everyone to be armed at very short notice, then the ongoing cost of gun ownership may be acceptable.

Please note that France has strict gun control laws and that from the news over the past couple of weeks hundreds of weapons(guns?) were confiscated by police while investigating the Paris attacks. Hmmm, seems like France being a victim multiple times over kind of makes the opposite point.

NSA Uses Google Cookies to Pinpoint Targets for Hacking
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/12/10/nsa-uses-google-cookies-to-pinpoint-targets-for-hacking/
By Ashkan Soltani, Andrea Peterson, and Barton Gellman
December 10, 2013

The National Security Agency is secretly piggybacking on the tools that enable Internet advertisers to track consumers, using "cookies" and location data to pinpoint targets for government hacking and to bolster surveillance.

The agency's internal presentation slides, provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, show that when companies follow consumers on the Internet to better serve them advertising, the technique opens the door for similar tracking by the government. The slides also suggest that the agency is using these tracking techniques to help identify targets for offensive hacking operations.

For years, privacy advocates have raised concerns about the use of commercial tracking tools to identify and target consumers with advertisements. The online ad industry has said its practices are innocuous and benefit consumers by serving them ads that are more likely to be of interest to them.

The revelation that the NSA is piggybacking on these commercial technologies could shift that debate, handing privacy advocates a new argument for reining in commercial surveillance.

According to the documents, the NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, are using the small tracking files or "cookies" that advertising networks place on computers to identify people browsing the Internet. The intelligence agencies have found particular use for a part of a Google-specific tracking mechanism known as the “PREF” cookie. These cookies typically don't contain personal information, such as someone's name or e-mail address, but they do contain numeric codes that enable Web sites to uniquely identify a person's browser.

In addition to tracking Web visits, this cookie allows NSA to single out an individual's communications among the sea of Internet data in order to send out software that can hack that person's computer. The slides say the cookies are used to "enable remote exploitation," although the specific attacks used by the NSA against targets are not addressed in these documents.

The NSA's use of cookies isn't a technique for sifting through vast amounts of information to find suspicious behavior; rather, it lets NSA home in on someone already under suspicion - akin to when soldiers shine laser pointers on a target to identify it for laser-guided bombs.

Separately, the NSA is also using commercially gathered information to help it locate mobile devices around the world, the documents show. Many smartphone apps running on iPhones and Android devices, and the Apple and Google operating systems themselves, track the location of each device, often without a clear warning to the phone's owner. This information is more specific than the broader location data the government is collecting from cellular phone networks, as reported by the Post last week.

"On a macro level, 'we need to track everyone everywhere for advertising' translates into 'the government being able to track everyone everywhere,'" says Chris Hoofnagle, a lecturer in residence at UC Berkeley Law. "It's hard to avoid."

These specific slides do not indicate how the NSA obtains Google PREF cookies or whether the company cooperates in these programs, but other documents reviewed by the Post indicate that cookie information is among the data NSA can obtain with a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act order. If the NSA gets the data that way, the companies know and are legally compelled to assist.

The NSA declined to comment on the specific tactics outlined in this story, but an NSA spokesman sent the Post a statement: "As we've said before, NSA, within its lawful mission to collect foreign intelligence to protect the Un

how do they expect to win hearts and minds?

Get the government to threaten their competition so they don't face marketplace competition?

Fortunately *some* states have been nullifying the FDA on this one. Unfortunately they're fighting prohibited speech with compulsory speech. #fail

This is what happens when you make philosophically-inconsistent carve outs like "rights stop existing when money is involved". Those who fail to understand that attempts to impose control always create chaos may now enjoy their maybe-it's-frankenfish.

Not to defend it, but then they would have used the word slave twice in close proximity, a writing no no.

Oh, wait. They used the word worker twice anyway.

But repeating the word "slave" isn't the issue. It's the use of the word "worker" that's the problem. They said: "The Atlantic slave trade ... brought millions of workers from Africa ..." They could have said: "The Atlantic slave trade ... brought millions of people from Africa ..." Then there would have been no problem.

As of today, the warm ocean temperatures that define El Niño have surged to a stunning three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than normal in the central tropical Pacific, the highest level ever measured. By one measure, this wicked El Niño is the strongest ever recorded: What it means

Not to defend it, but then they would have used the word slave twice in close proximity, a writing no no.

Oh, wait. They used the word worker twice anyway.

...he wants to be hired by Chris Nolan to produce more realistic bridge explosions.

Well, if not hired, he at least he wants directors and producers to take notice.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson winged about the night sky in Titanic and James Cameron changed it for him.

Umm, what HASN'T Neil DeGrasse Tyson whinged about?

...he wants to be hired by Chris Nolan to produce more realistic bridge explosions.

Well, if not hired, he at least he wants directors and producers to take notice.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson winged about the night sky in Titanic and James Cameron changed it for him.

Please, politicians, would you go get some sort of rudimentary technical education, or at least get some technical advisors, or technical advisors that aren't incompetent? Thanks.

Ben Carson had some experts make him a map. https://img.washingtonpost.com...

Wow, grasping at straws here. Whims set the price of medication, advertising is what, 1% of that?

Here's your sign.

i don;t think so but they re making stand in some places https://www.washingtonpost.com...

NSA Uses Google Cookies to Pinpoint Targets for Hacking
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/10/nsa-uses-google-cookies-to-pinpoint-targets-for-hacking
By Ashkan Soltani, Andrea Peterson, and Barton Gellman
December 10, 2013

The National Security Agency is secretly piggybacking on the tools that enable Internet advertisers to track consumers, using "cookies" and location data to pinpoint targets for government hacking and to bolster surveillance.

The agency's internal presentation slides, provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, show that when companies follow consumers on the Internet to better serve them advertising, the technique opens the door for similar tracking by the government. The slides also suggest that the agency is using these tracking techniques to help identify targets for offensive hacking operations.

For years, privacy advocates have raised concerns about the use of commercial tracking tools to identify and target consumers with advertisements. The online ad industry has said its practices are innocuous and benefit consumers by serving them ads that are more likely to be of interest to them.

The revelation that the NSA is piggybacking on these commercial technologies could shift that debate, handing privacy advocates a new argument for reining in commercial surveillance.

According to the documents, the NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, are using the small tracking files or "cookies" that advertising networks place on computers to identify people browsing the Internet. The intelligence agencies have found particular use for a part of a Google-specific tracking mechanism known as the “PREF” cookie. These cookies typically don't contain personal information, such as someone's name or e-mail address, but they do contain numeric codes that enable Web sites to uniquely identify a person's browser.

In addition to tracking Web visits, this cookie allows NSA to single out an individual's communications among the sea of Internet data in order to send out software that can hack that person's computer. The slides say the cookies are used to "enable remote exploitation," although the specific attacks used by the NSA against targets are not addressed in these documents.

The NSA's use of cookies isn't a technique for sifting through vast amounts of information to find suspicious behavior; rather, it lets NSA home in on someone already under suspicion - akin to when soldiers shine laser pointers on a target to identify it for laser-guided bombs.

Separately, the NSA is also using commercially gathered information to help it locate mobile devices around the world, the documents show. Many smartphone apps running on iPhones and Android devices, and the Apple and Google operating systems themselves, track the location of each device, often without a clear warning to the phone's owner. This information is more specific than the broader location data the government is collecting from cellular phone networks, as reported by the Post last week.

"On a macro level, 'we need to track everyone everywhere for advertising' translates into 'the government being able to track everyone everywhere,'" says Chris Hoofnagle, a lecturer in residence at UC Berkeley Law. "It's hard to avoid."

These specific slides do not indicate how the NSA obtains Google PREF cookies or whether the company cooperates in these programs, but other documents reviewed by the Post indicate that cookie information is among the data NSA can obtain with a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act order. If the NSA gets the data that way, the companies know and are legally compelled to assist.

The NSA declined to comment on the specific tactics outlined in this story, but an NSA spokesman sent the Post a statement: "As we've said before, NSA, within its lawful mission to collect foreign intelligence to protect the Un

The real issue I see here is how easy it appears to be to get military assault weapons in the EU. An interesting Washington Post article here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Apparently the Charlie Hebdo attackers bought an RPG. How is it possible that you can't get on a plane in Western Europe with a bottle of water, but you can buy an RPG in Brussels for less than $5k? That just seems incredible.

An unarmed civilian population (which I think is something hugely preferable to the USA alternative) should not be exposed to this level of risk. Even if all they could get were hand-guns it would have been a much less bloody outcome than mowing down people with assault weapons. I realise it isn't realistic to eradicate all the AK47s floating around, but it would seem if you really squeezed availability it would make these attacks more difficult and likely make the acquisition of weapons more noisy so that these people can be detected before they use them.

Why do we hear so much about how the government needs to empower a bunch of spooks sitting in air conditioned computing centres, while nobody is talking about how the EU can fix this assault weapons problem?

Seriously? Human society would not EXIST if it were not for living longer.

One of the most interesting perspectives I've encountered is this one:
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Relevant quotes: "The de-Baathification law promulgated by L. Paul Bremer, Iraq’s American ruler in 2003, has long been identified as one of the contributors to the original insurgency. At a stroke, 400,000 members of the defeated Iraqi army were barred from government employment, denied pensions — and also allowed to keep their guns.
[...]
It was under the watch of the current Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, that the recruitment of former Baathist officers became a deliberate strategy, according to analysts and former officers.
[...]
Baghdadi’s effort was further aided by a new round of de-Baathification launched after U.S. troops left in 2011 by then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who set about firing even those officers who had been rehabilitated by the U.S. military.
[...]
'The Baathists are using Daesh. They don’t care about Baathism or even Saddam. They just want power. They are used to being in power, and they want it back.'"

And the kicker, for slight comedic relief: "When U.S. officials demobilized the Baathist army, they didn’t de-Baathify people’s minds, they just took away their jobs"

Two Months Before 9/11, an Urgent Warning to Rice

On July 10, 2001, two months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. It was a mass of fragments and dots that nonetheless made a compelling case, so compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White House immediately.

Tenet called Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, from the car and said he needed to see her right away. There was no practical way she could refuse such a request from the CIA director. ...
Besides, Rice seemed focused on other administration priorities, especially the ballistic missile defense system that Bush had campaigned on. She was in a different place.

Tenet left the meeting feeling frustrated. Though Rice had given them a fair hearing, no immediate action meant great risk. Black felt the decision to just keep planning was a sustained policy failure. Rice and the Bush team had been in hibernation too long. "Adults should not have a system like this," he said later.

The July 10 meeting between Tenet, Black and Rice went unmentioned in the various reports of investigations into the Sept. 11 attacks, but it stood out in the minds of Tenet and Black as the starkest warning they had given the White House on bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Though the investigators had access to all the paperwork on the meeting, Black felt there were things the commissions wanted to know about and things they didn't want to know about.

The U.S. does not have shootings happening every day - and France just surpassed years of U.S. mass shootings of innocents.

Yes it does, actually more than one in 2015. As of August 26th the number of "mass shootings" (defined there as at least four people getting shot) had passed the number of days in the year. Multiplied out that's 247 shootings * 4 people == 988 minimum but those stats are for "at least" four people: each incident could have had more than four. So it's in reality higher.

So that's say around a thousand people, vs 129 people in this Paris attack. It simply is not comparable. Your attempted rebuttal is based on fiction, which is never a good start.

The U.S. has more gun deaths per year but almost all of that is gang violence, who aren't buying guns legally anyway so I'm not sure how you plan to stop them...

You seem to think that gangs are somehow special. The UK has gangs too. They're the ones renting the same gun to shoot at each other with because they can't obtain their own. Gun control, properly implemented, takes guns away from everyone. Or did you not read any of what I wrote above?

Over the next few years Europe will have a vastly higher death toll at the hands of guns, precisely because the populace has been disarmed and pacified.

You are delusional. What do you think is going to happen, some sort of mass EU-initiated genocide? Although the events in Paris are tragic, they don't fundamentally change anything: Europe isn't about to experience a "vastly higher death toll at the hands of guns". Even if the occurrence of Paris-style attacks becomes 10x more frequent, that'd merely bring it into the range of US mass shooting deaths, not exceed it.

And yet I'm not actually worried about going to the hospital and getting irradiated to death from a hacked x-ray machine. What incentive would someone have to make the effort and take the risk to hack these machines? The actual likely fallout from such a thing might be some invalid test results, and maybe even one or two direct deaths from an exploding MRI. The best scenario I can think of would be a foreign nation just wanting to do general economic damage to a country, but targeting a hospital would put them in violation of so many international treaties that they would be far more likely to damage their own economies after being sanctioned. Frankly I'd be far more worried about US gunships killing me at the hospital than hacked devices.

Healthcare costs increase are mainly due to a lack of universal coverage

If this were the reason, we would've seen sharp increases before WW2 as well. We did not. Fail.

Working with the government is much simpler, which saves time, which saves money

That may be, because the government has unlimited pockets — if they run short, they can always take more money from taxpayers.

I've not only learned this in class

Ah, so you are still under the influence of the Illiberalism — college professors are overwhelmingly Left and getting worse. Themselves overwhelmingly paid by the government, their solutions to most problems are inevitably Statist as well. It will take you years to shake off their influence — until then discussions of such topics with you aren't going to be productive...

Our complicated private insurance healthcare system is extremely wasteful.

Because it is not really "private" — the heavy regulations, mandates, and the government-enforced absence of competition is keeping it inefficient. The health-care market in general — and the insurance market in particular — aren't really free: the barrier to entry is enormous — an Alabama insurer, for example, can not sell policies to Tennessee residents. Instead of using the Commerce-clause to force States to open-up their markets for health-insurance, the Federal government is looking the other way — since 1945... Any corporation will get slow and inefficient in the absence of competition — it may, indeed, become worse than government in that case.

Progressives don't really believe in diversity. They say that diversity brings multiple viewpoints, yet increasingly progressives are using force to shut down any viewpoint that they don't like. For example, a program called "Uncomfortable Learning" invited a speaker to lecture, then withdrew the invitation after students said the proposed subject matter was too uncomfortable. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/22/suzanne-venker-is-unwelcome-at-williams-college/ Or the college students who got both speakers from a debate banned... one was supposed to argue the liberal viewpoint, the other the conservative viewpoint, and the students didn't want to hear either one. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/10/07/breitbarts-milo-yiannopoulos-banned-from-university-debate-about-censorship/

Progressives will count up how many people have assorted skin colors, and compare to the population and judge whether they are being "diverse" enough. Yet there are very few Republicans or conservatives in any place dominated by progressives, and even fewer who are not in the closet. Nearly half the population is conservative, yet conservative thinking is unrepresented in a modern university.

Next time a university claims to be diverse, ask how many Republican professors they have outside of their Economics program.

P.S. Above post is flagged for US-centrist viewpoint. I denounce myself. But the situation is the same in other countries... just replace $NAME with the appropriate local $NAME, KTHXBAI.