I must admit when it comes to JJ Abrams, he has ruined Star Trek, but that's because he tried to turn it into Star Wars. He did a very good job with the Star Wars feel in the new movie. Here the flashy quick cuts and the special effects add to the atmosphere. But they aren't excessive like the special effects in the prequels. You can tell they deliberately used real costumes and models in a lot of places even if it does look lame compared to computer generated stuff. I mean in at least 2 scenes there are Gonk droids in the background.
Well in the movie time had no meaning. I hate it when they write in specific times that are so obviously wrong. Why say 15 minutes if half an hour of movie time (minimum 20 minutes of uncut time) pass before the 5 minute warning comes? And then the last 2 minutes take no less than 10 minutes. Would the movie have been less exciting if they had said 2 hours until firing instead of 15 minutes? We all knew the new death star was going to blow up before firing... At least make the preparation time reasonable or don't write in specific times to be provided to the audience.
Hey, if we are actually going by logic, then Kylo Ren is probably dead too as the planet was already exploding, he was bleeding profusely, and there was no chance in hell the Hitler guy actually had enough time to find him, load him onto a craft that couldn't land in the forest, and get off the planet before it imploded into a star...
If you didn't see the death, there is always a bullshit chance that they survived because "reasons." Hell given the way the emperor "died" in the same way, I wouldn't be surprised if Snoke is really him...
It's a drastic difference, but you are looking at the wrong metric. The better metric is road fatalities per distance. Distance is a more accurate assessment of risk exposure than population. In 2013, the US had 1.11 fatalities per 100 million miles traveled. Looks like the UK was.74 (converted from 100 million km) in 2006. Still a difference, but not nearly the difference the population would indicate. The US is much larger and people here spend a lot more time on the road and drive a lot further. Additionally, there is a much greater variety of driving conditions and many more urban areas without public transit.
Speed limits are typically set not to completely prevent fatalities, but to minimise them.
Citation needed...
Maybe it's different in the UK, but here in the Mismanaged States of America speed limits are set by arbitrary proclamation of a committee that may or may not have taken any scientific or empirical data into consideration. And any proposed increases they make will be immediately decried by the police (whose funding depends on enforcement) and the IIHS (whose funding depends on jacking up the insurance rates of those who have been enforced by the police).
I assume then you are also working on the cause of disarming the police as they aren't exactly restrictive about using firearms against innocent civilians either. I mean England does just fine with unarmed police, why shouldn't we follow their example?
Of course, why stop there? The military does plenty of killing of innocent civilians too... There are several countries that do just fine with no military or at least a very reduced military considering what we have here. I can't imagine why we'd need a nuclear arsenal the purpose of which is only killing innocent civilians.
I am planning on buying my first gun this week. I already have items in my home that can be used to commit suicide, that could poison me, and I drive probably more than average (including in high risk situations like driving on track). I have a healthy fear of heights and I don't smoke so that helps me on two big ones. Though I do love bacon.
That being said, I don't think my gun ownership will protect me against the gun violence category since I plan on having it for target shooting and recreational purposes, not self defense.
My point being is that many things are likely to kill you or the ones you love. You have to decide for yourself what risks you are willing to accept.
No. In your messed up world apparently laws stop actions. They do not. Laws simply necessitate retribution and attempt to compensate victims when they are broken. Owning guns doesn't hurt people. The misuse of guns hurts people. Thus owning guns should not be a crime but the misuse of guns should be. You should only have laws against things that hurt people. That seems simple enough doesn't it?
A killer will kill people even though it's illegal. They will also obtain guns even if it is illegal. People who think making guns (or certain classifications of guns) illegal will prevent murders apparently think that murders will be caught trying to buy guns before they manage to kill people which seems like a small amount of murders that might be prevented.
I will argue B first: 2013 vehicle deaths: 32,719 2013 gun deaths: 33,169 (not including law enforcement use) but subtract out the 21,175 by suicide with a firearm and you're left with 11,994 non-suicide deaths from guns. Though admittedly, there is definitely a percentage of suicides included in the vehicle deaths number, but it's probably far lower than 60ish percent like it is with guns. Based on these numbers, guns most certainly are less dangerous to operate than cars or at the very least, used less often.
Moving on to C: Private guns are so vital to our society that the founders of this nation specifically included language making them a right to own that the government should not infringe. Their arguments are spelled out in Federalist 46 and contrary to popular belief, the argument is that a well armed populace is a good defense against an overreaching government, not criminals. This is exactly the reason why the government shouldn't be allowed to restrict the arms of the population. Conversely there is no constitutional protection for vehicle operatorship and there are alternatives for transportation for those unable to drive.
D is a decent argument. You do not need a license to operate a vehicle on private property, only on public streets. Therefore I think it's entirely reasonable that people would need a permit to carry a loaded gun in public (as is already the case in many jurisdictions), but are free to use them on private property. An unloaded gun would be the same as having a vehicle on a trailer and hence no license would be required.
I will also touch on E and actually argue the reverse that operating a car should require MORE training and stricter licensing requirements than currently because as previously stated in the argument for B, they are far more dangerous to the public.
For reference, I am a fairly hardcore libertarian.
If you want to take away peoples' "gun rights" you are going to have to come up with a better response than "guns kill people." Create an amendment to repeal the 2nd amendment. The process is there, you just know it doesn't have a chance in hell of passing. Shit or get off the pot. Create a law banning guns and see if it passes. Don't keep trying to chip away at the edges of banning guns making it harder for law abiding citizens to be lawful. That's a dick move.
Well I wouldn't force my lifestyle on anyone. And bear in mind, me "mitigating climate change" isn't an on off switch. I reduce my energy usage as much as I can at home and drive small cars (I love small cars anyway, so it's not much of a sacrifice). Using LEDs/CFLs, energy efficient appliances, and high MPG vehicles all mitigate climate change, but that isn't good enough for many tree-huggers. They want us to put up expensive solar panels (I rent, so not an option anyhow), but carbon credits, or do some other extreme methods that don't have any noticeable impact on carbon emissions. Meanwhile using cheap natural gas from fracking to replace coal has been doing more than any of their efforts...
Well the options are not A) Fuck over future generations or B) Don't fuck over future generations.
The options are more like A) make the planet warmer for future generations that may cause them some problems in the future which they may not be able to accommodate with their technology that may be indistinguishable from magic today or B) fuck over the current generation in the hopes that we might be able to slightly mitigate the damage we've already done to the carbon cycle.
I'm not selfish. I believe that mitigating climate change will have minimal impact on my 1st world life, but may cause huge problems for the poor trying to move up. The selfish thing is believing that because you can afford to spend more on energy to benefit future generations, everyone else should too.
Freedom sometimes requires getting shot every once in awhile. Or did George Washington not go to war for freedom?
Besides, no one is claiming people should have the freedom to shoot other people, but rather they should have the freedom to own a firearm. Equating owning a firearm with shooting people is the worst reducto ad absurdum.
I didn't say one way or the other what I believed, but your angry response is why you're a troll. Thankfully you are down to a +3 mod now, and commenting further will help mods adjust accordingly.
Fighting climate change will not save any lives... It will merely change life expectancy for some. So will mitigating climate change. There is no free lunch in here. We can't magically stop using carbon based fuels without repercussions that are known to be severe. The debate isn't over whether the climate will change, it is if the mitigation is worse than the problem.
Agreed 100%. Rather than the leaders of the world getting together and negotiating to try to keep the planet from changing, maybe they should all get together and plan for how to handle change. The climate will get colder, it will get hotter. Weather patterns will change. Land features will rise and fall. Ocean shores will move over time.
Rather than trying desperately to engineer ourselves against nature, maybe we should engineer ways to adapt to changing environments. A good example on a smaller scale is New Orleans. It's going to keep sinking further below sea level... Should we spend the money building bigger pumps, higher walls, and more levees or should we just relocate neighborhoods and allow the river to run free from time to time?
And exactly who are you to judge what we like to do here in the US?
Exactly. If people think other countries have better laws, go live there. People who want the US to adopt gun laws because they "work in civilized societies elsewhere" should move to those other "civilized" societies and let Americans enjoy freedom and the problems that come with it. If you don't like people to have the freedom to make poor decisions, then move to a country that doesn't have freedom. Don't take away my freedom because you don't like it.
Seeing angry trolls (swearing, assuming debating points are from shills) like this get modded to +5 insightful tells me all I need to know about groupthink when it comes to climate change.
Indeed. You don't contribute to charity while you are carrying a balance on your credit cards... Writing checks to foreign governments seems a bit stupid when we are hemorrhaging money at home.
Thankfully coatings technology is advancing faster than steel technology. Rust isn't nearly the problem in new cars today as it was before every steel component was coated at the factory.
Slashdot Mirror
They are stored underground AND under pressure. Storing a gas at atmospheric pressure would be a huge waste.
I must admit when it comes to JJ Abrams, he has ruined Star Trek, but that's because he tried to turn it into Star Wars. He did a very good job with the Star Wars feel in the new movie. Here the flashy quick cuts and the special effects add to the atmosphere. But they aren't excessive like the special effects in the prequels. You can tell they deliberately used real costumes and models in a lot of places even if it does look lame compared to computer generated stuff. I mean in at least 2 scenes there are Gonk droids in the background.
Well in the movie time had no meaning. I hate it when they write in specific times that are so obviously wrong. Why say 15 minutes if half an hour of movie time (minimum 20 minutes of uncut time) pass before the 5 minute warning comes? And then the last 2 minutes take no less than 10 minutes. Would the movie have been less exciting if they had said 2 hours until firing instead of 15 minutes? We all knew the new death star was going to blow up before firing... At least make the preparation time reasonable or don't write in specific times to be provided to the audience.
Hey, if we are actually going by logic, then Kylo Ren is probably dead too as the planet was already exploding, he was bleeding profusely, and there was no chance in hell the Hitler guy actually had enough time to find him, load him onto a craft that couldn't land in the forest, and get off the planet before it imploded into a star...
If you didn't see the death, there is always a bullshit chance that they survived because "reasons." Hell given the way the emperor "died" in the same way, I wouldn't be surprised if Snoke is really him...
It's a drastic difference, but you are looking at the wrong metric. The better metric is road fatalities per distance. Distance is a more accurate assessment of risk exposure than population. In 2013, the US had 1.11 fatalities per 100 million miles traveled. Looks like the UK was .74 (converted from 100 million km) in 2006. Still a difference, but not nearly the difference the population would indicate. The US is much larger and people here spend a lot more time on the road and drive a lot further. Additionally, there is a much greater variety of driving conditions and many more urban areas without public transit.
Somebody has a really large, empty, and desolate yard...
What exactly caused them to come into being?
Sex.
What do they want?
Sex.
How do we keep them from ever getting it?
They aren't getting it. That's why they are angry and are willing to die for any cause. They know they have no future.
Speed limits are typically set not to completely prevent fatalities, but to minimise them.
Citation needed...
Maybe it's different in the UK, but here in the Mismanaged States of America speed limits are set by arbitrary proclamation of a committee that may or may not have taken any scientific or empirical data into consideration. And any proposed increases they make will be immediately decried by the police (whose funding depends on enforcement) and the IIHS (whose funding depends on jacking up the insurance rates of those who have been enforced by the police).
I assume then you are also working on the cause of disarming the police as they aren't exactly restrictive about using firearms against innocent civilians either. I mean England does just fine with unarmed police, why shouldn't we follow their example?
Of course, why stop there? The military does plenty of killing of innocent civilians too... There are several countries that do just fine with no military or at least a very reduced military considering what we have here. I can't imagine why we'd need a nuclear arsenal the purpose of which is only killing innocent civilians.
The odds of dying from multiple causes:
http://www.nsc.org/NSC%20Image...
I am planning on buying my first gun this week. I already have items in my home that can be used to commit suicide, that could poison me, and I drive probably more than average (including in high risk situations like driving on track). I have a healthy fear of heights and I don't smoke so that helps me on two big ones. Though I do love bacon.
That being said, I don't think my gun ownership will protect me against the gun violence category since I plan on having it for target shooting and recreational purposes, not self defense.
My point being is that many things are likely to kill you or the ones you love. You have to decide for yourself what risks you are willing to accept.
No. In your messed up world apparently laws stop actions. They do not. Laws simply necessitate retribution and attempt to compensate victims when they are broken. Owning guns doesn't hurt people. The misuse of guns hurts people. Thus owning guns should not be a crime but the misuse of guns should be. You should only have laws against things that hurt people. That seems simple enough doesn't it?
A killer will kill people even though it's illegal. They will also obtain guns even if it is illegal. People who think making guns (or certain classifications of guns) illegal will prevent murders apparently think that murders will be caught trying to buy guns before they manage to kill people which seems like a small amount of murders that might be prevented.
I will argue B first:
2013 vehicle deaths: 32,719
2013 gun deaths: 33,169 (not including law enforcement use) but subtract out the 21,175 by suicide with a firearm and you're left with 11,994 non-suicide deaths from guns. Though admittedly, there is definitely a percentage of suicides included in the vehicle deaths number, but it's probably far lower than 60ish percent like it is with guns. Based on these numbers, guns most certainly are less dangerous to operate than cars or at the very least, used less often.
Moving on to C:
Private guns are so vital to our society that the founders of this nation specifically included language making them a right to own that the government should not infringe. Their arguments are spelled out in Federalist 46 and contrary to popular belief, the argument is that a well armed populace is a good defense against an overreaching government, not criminals. This is exactly the reason why the government shouldn't be allowed to restrict the arms of the population. Conversely there is no constitutional protection for vehicle operatorship and there are alternatives for transportation for those unable to drive.
D is a decent argument. You do not need a license to operate a vehicle on private property, only on public streets. Therefore I think it's entirely reasonable that people would need a permit to carry a loaded gun in public (as is already the case in many jurisdictions), but are free to use them on private property. An unloaded gun would be the same as having a vehicle on a trailer and hence no license would be required.
I will also touch on E and actually argue the reverse that operating a car should require MORE training and stricter licensing requirements than currently because as previously stated in the argument for B, they are far more dangerous to the public.
For reference, I am a fairly hardcore libertarian.
If you want to take away peoples' "gun rights" you are going to have to come up with a better response than "guns kill people." Create an amendment to repeal the 2nd amendment. The process is there, you just know it doesn't have a chance in hell of passing. Shit or get off the pot. Create a law banning guns and see if it passes. Don't keep trying to chip away at the edges of banning guns making it harder for law abiding citizens to be lawful. That's a dick move.
I think your test page went live... Or the editors have hit a new low.
"Giant walking penis"="Noodley appendage"
Well I wouldn't force my lifestyle on anyone. And bear in mind, me "mitigating climate change" isn't an on off switch. I reduce my energy usage as much as I can at home and drive small cars (I love small cars anyway, so it's not much of a sacrifice). Using LEDs/CFLs, energy efficient appliances, and high MPG vehicles all mitigate climate change, but that isn't good enough for many tree-huggers. They want us to put up expensive solar panels (I rent, so not an option anyhow), but carbon credits, or do some other extreme methods that don't have any noticeable impact on carbon emissions. Meanwhile using cheap natural gas from fracking to replace coal has been doing more than any of their efforts...
Well the options are not A) Fuck over future generations or B) Don't fuck over future generations.
The options are more like A) make the planet warmer for future generations that may cause them some problems in the future which they may not be able to accommodate with their technology that may be indistinguishable from magic today or B) fuck over the current generation in the hopes that we might be able to slightly mitigate the damage we've already done to the carbon cycle.
I'm not selfish. I believe that mitigating climate change will have minimal impact on my 1st world life, but may cause huge problems for the poor trying to move up. The selfish thing is believing that because you can afford to spend more on energy to benefit future generations, everyone else should too.
Freedom sometimes requires getting shot every once in awhile. Or did George Washington not go to war for freedom?
Besides, no one is claiming people should have the freedom to shoot other people, but rather they should have the freedom to own a firearm. Equating owning a firearm with shooting people is the worst reducto ad absurdum.
I didn't say one way or the other what I believed, but your angry response is why you're a troll. Thankfully you are down to a +3 mod now, and commenting further will help mods adjust accordingly.
Fighting climate change will not save any lives... It will merely change life expectancy for some. So will mitigating climate change. There is no free lunch in here. We can't magically stop using carbon based fuels without repercussions that are known to be severe. The debate isn't over whether the climate will change, it is if the mitigation is worse than the problem.
Agreed 100%. Rather than the leaders of the world getting together and negotiating to try to keep the planet from changing, maybe they should all get together and plan for how to handle change. The climate will get colder, it will get hotter. Weather patterns will change. Land features will rise and fall. Ocean shores will move over time.
Rather than trying desperately to engineer ourselves against nature, maybe we should engineer ways to adapt to changing environments. A good example on a smaller scale is New Orleans. It's going to keep sinking further below sea level... Should we spend the money building bigger pumps, higher walls, and more levees or should we just relocate neighborhoods and allow the river to run free from time to time?
And exactly who are you to judge what we like to do here in the US?
Exactly. If people think other countries have better laws, go live there. People who want the US to adopt gun laws because they "work in civilized societies elsewhere" should move to those other "civilized" societies and let Americans enjoy freedom and the problems that come with it. If you don't like people to have the freedom to make poor decisions, then move to a country that doesn't have freedom. Don't take away my freedom because you don't like it.
Seeing angry trolls (swearing, assuming debating points are from shills) like this get modded to +5 insightful tells me all I need to know about groupthink when it comes to climate change.
Indeed. You don't contribute to charity while you are carrying a balance on your credit cards... Writing checks to foreign governments seems a bit stupid when we are hemorrhaging money at home.
Thankfully coatings technology is advancing faster than steel technology. Rust isn't nearly the problem in new cars today as it was before every steel component was coated at the factory.