What is your malfunction? The people, under the rules of the Constitution, did, in fact, elect the president. The vote tally is not in question. The electoral college votes are not in question. The results are not in question. All that is in question is your ability to accept the truth, see the facts, and realize that you have so emotionally attached yourself to an ideology that your emotions are overruling your ability to think correctly.
What is at issue, based on your ridiculous conjecture, is the popular vote. My response is simple, factual, and correct. The voting results of an election predicated on the electoral college are not an accurate vote tally of how the American people would vote if the popular vote was the only metric for winning. The results we have are an accurate vote tally of what happens when you have an electoral college vote, nothing more. Any additional meaning you impart to them based on what you wanted to happen, or what the vote means outside of the parameters under which the votes were cast, is merely fantasy.
Easy proof: If even one Trump voter in California, or even one Hillary voter in Texas, stayed home and didn't vote because of the winner-takes-all system of the electoral college, then the results cannot be used as an honest metric of a popular vote question posed to the American people.
Now, if we had 100% voter participation in the last election I would back you up completely and you wouldn't be dead wrong. However, since roughly 40% of the electorate didn't vote, your claim that the PEOPLE elected Clinton is false. SOME PEOPLE voted for Clinton. SOME PEOPLE voted for Trump. SOME PEOPLE did't vote at all. SOME PEOPLE is fundamentally different from THE PEOPLE.
The people, as in "We the people", weren't asked the question you are saying the vote tallies answer. I guarantee you, without any question in my mind, that if the win condition for the presidential race was the popular vote and nothing more, the results would have been very different. If you can agree that this is a true statement you need to drop your insistence that "the people chose Clinton." You won't, but at least I was that guy that told you the truth when no one else would. You're welcome.
Do you go to the bank and ask them why your balance doesn't reflect the total of all of your deposits? Do you then yell at them that you deposited all that money, it should all be there? Do you freak out and call them liars when they show you the withdrawals you made? No? Then stop doing that to me and yourself. Rules are rules, and they shape the way reality is reflected in numbers. Denying it, shouting, stamping your feet, accusing others, and raging at the facts won't change it. You can't take the answer to one equation and use it for an entirely different equation and expect to get the correct answer. Chances are you will be wrong more than you are right, and this is one of those times you are wrong: factually, mathematically, and logically.
Jesus, another paid shill or mindfucked partisan zombie? How many of you are there?
Look bimbo, the rules for the game were set. Everyone knew them. Everyone agreed to play by those rules. Now you're using the results of a very specific political question as the answer for an entirely different question, namely who America really wanted in a popular election, without the electoral college.
That wasn't the question asked, so the answer given is not relevant to that question. See? Simple, straightforward, logical, and lo and behold, it's the truth as well. Imagine that.
I get the feeling you will go to your grave cradling and lamenting this false assumption you crafted in your deranged mind. Against my better judgement I will elaborate with some logic. Question: Can you think of any person who didn't vote in the last presidential election who would have voted if the presidential election were a simple popular election without the electoral college? If the answer to that question is yes (and it is) then your ridiculous assertion that "America" picked Hillary is wrong.
You know it, I know it, and everyone else knows it. I would ask you to stop, to consider what you are doing to yourself, but you obviously either need that check or you're too far gone down the partisan path to ever make it back to any semblance of sanity.
If you're not a paid shill I recommend you see someone about your mental health. I am disturbed by your utter inability to participate in consensus reality, to use logic and reason, and to refrain from attacking others based entirely on the delusions in your own head. You are sick. You need help. No, I am not joking. This isn't some rhetorical method of gaining control of an argument. It's not an insult. I am dead serious. Get help from a professional mental health facility before you get hurt or hurt someone else.
False positives or false negatives are only part of the problem with the function and action of K9 units as a whole.
Simply put, it is impossible for a judge, attorney, or a citizen to determine if a trained dog is either:
a) actually detecting contraband, or b) reacting to a specific clandestine command which triggers the dog to signal a "hit," thus nullifying your 4th amendment protection illegally, and providing law enforcement with the perfect opportunity to "find" the contraband they brought with them in order to indict you.
The situation above appears indistinguishable from actual guilt to everyone except the dog and the handler.
"Dog whistles" don't exist. Using that phrase reveals you as a shill or a ultra-partisan activist. You are therefore completely compromised and potentially dangerous to yourself and others.
Do you have some rope and a sturdy overhanging beam?
Maybe? Hard to say, and this is coming from a "Bernie is our savior!" guy.
America rejected Clinton for a vast number of reasons, any one of which could spell defeat for a candidate. America embraced Bernie for a vast number of reasons, many of which were used by Trump to win.
I am still convinced that Bernie would have won against Trump. His rhetorical skills are vastly superior to Clinton. His ability to be consistent and stay on message has endured for over 30 years. His demonstrated knowledge of political boondoggles and how to avoid them is evident from the voting record. He knows the struggles of the common person, or at least talks like he does, and isn't afraid to take on corporate dominance.
By contrast, Clinton still didn't have a fully voiced and persuasively stumped platform on election day. She appeared aloof, lackadaisical, and disconnected from the populist issues that both Trump and Bernie campaigned on. Her record was peppered with either (choose your own interpretation) a severe lack of foresight that led her continually into scandal or a diabolical prescience used to skirt the law and escape unscathed each time. Her record also revealed a tendency to reformat her platform based not on her own character, but the winds of political ascendancy. She was so tied to moneyed interests it is almost impossible to differentiate her from a Republican.
I could see Bernie irreparably damaged by them running together. I don't see Bernie as the band-aid to fix the boo-boo that was the most recent Clinton presidential run.
The authoritarian angle is completely ignored by the partisan. They worship any authority used by their own "party" to bludgeon and subjugate those that think differently than they do.
There is no left or right in the US. It's the corporatist oligarchy party or the corporatist oligarchy party. Choose.
Also, consider that Clinton did not win the presidency because American didn't want a Republican in office.
Again with the focus on a person. Sigh. It's not about the people, or the entities described. That is merely the anthropocentric wrapper. The concepts are the payload.
A child, constantly exposed to abuse and derision will, in the absence of abuse and derision, create their own self abuse and derision in their mind, even when the situations they experience do not warrant it.
Yep, no correlations between neural networks in computers and humans. Absolutely nothing to learn. No way to make any inferences or structure future experiments based off of this. Worthless. Just like me.
I wonder if you aren't being flexible enough with your mind, or maybe you do not possess that capacity. Hmm, maybe it's because of the experiences you were exposed to as a child...
Ahh yes, you point to the problem with our current system in the US. Established interests use the government to entrench their position. Regulations become barriers to entry. They force small companies to go through the larger ones to access the market. Or like copyright law, they seek to steal from the public domain, impoverishing the whole country so one company can make more money. Competition is stillborn or aborted at conception due to onerous startup costs.
This is not capitalism. It is, in my opinion, the conglomeration of extant corporations into the government machinery, much akin to fascism. It's a "pay to win" scheme, where each side pays each other and is compensated in the legally proscribed manner. Companies pay for candidates election, permanent re-election, appointment, lobbying, etc. The government, in turn, pays for and enacts corporate favorable regulations, gives the companies a seat at the table for discussion of new laws and regulations, and provides financial remuneration like tax cuts, lucrative government contracts, and even favorable trade laws.
Both sides are spending money the people give them, either through patronage or taxation, to dominate, control, and fleece the people. We are, quite simply, paying for our own impoverishment and disenfranchisement.
"The entire point of having a mobile app ecosystem is to make it quick and easy for people to get things done."
The world will make sense once you realize the word "people" in your statement actually refers to the people who made the app and their business affiliates. The EULA is there to make sure app users are defined as the product. The app itself is just a logistical tool which enables fast and efficient transport the product (you) to the "people."
So, um....this quote contradicts your assertion and speaks to the truth of humans:
"accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
It won't go down like you are thinking. It's contrary to human nature.
The people I know that watch streams are doing it to learn something about the game they currently are not capable of doing. They are accelerating their learning, gaining skills, practicing observational learning, and then going to play their own games and implement and practice those things they watched.
If this is the case in larger sets than the small sample size of the ones I know about then the issue may be the skill of female gamers.
If this is the case I am sure we can get someone to start a government funded project to make female gamers better so they can make more money.
You are a pig. No two ways about it. A sick and disgusting pig, with pig slop for brains.
Implied in your first statement is this thought: "Men only think with their sexual organs and are completely incapable of acting in a way that is not related to sexual attraction to women."
This blatantly false idea underlies a number of incorrect narratives. Quit spreading it. It's not true.
In spite of all that you wrote, there are actual documented cases where rape accusations are determined to be 100% false, and yet the false accuser faces no charges.
Funny how you totally sidestepped that contingency.
I never said I was fine with it. You dragged that out of your own mind.
I tried to address something at a higher level than you are capable of processing, and you returned an error.
It IS par for the course. It keeps happening. This is real. You aren't dreaming, though by your inability to accept reality I am convinced that you are living in a dream world.
Also, it is not more dangerous in a combat zone than in a school in the US. The fact that you cannot understand even this basic concept is more proof you are disoriented to reality.
You want proof of this statement? OK, lets get some parity then. Eliminate the differences, bring the two groups into conformity. Let's start small. Field 10 battalions in a hot zone. Keep them grouped up in tight proximity for 8 hours a day. Provide no cover, no support, and make sure none of them have weapons of any kind. Do this for 9 months out of the year. Then count the dead.
Now you may be thinking, "Who in their right mind would put soldiers in a dangerous position like that with no protection and without any way to defend themselves?"
I have been asking the same question about our school age children, ever since Columbine.
Once you accept that this is reality you can start to use logic and rational thought to approach the problem, instead of emotions. I posit that this is why you are in shock and also why you had no way of understanding what I wrote above.
Let me give you the starting point of my logic. You know that kid, the one that shot up the school? There, but for assorted and random privilege, go I.
If you can deal with the reality that our culture takes children and returns children who murder children, and then realize that if you were born into and lived the same circumstances as that killer you would be that killer, then you can start to figure out how to defeat the problem.
I already have it figured out. The only thing standing in my way are a bunch of panicked animals who pretend to be human and a bunch of selfish psychotics who are banking on more children getting killed so they can ride the stampede of panicked animals right to their selfish and destructive agendas.
Let's see if you can follow. What needs to happen first?
Thank you for pointing out the information I left out. I am 6 foot tall and weigh in at somewhere between 158 and 165. Broad shoulders, tapered waist, no "love handles" anymore (three years since I stopped drinking and they are completely gone!), slim build with lean muscle, and a distinctly unflabby torso.
I previously weighed as much as 200 pounds and was unhealthy due to poor diet and over-consumption of alcohol.
It is only shocking if you fail to ascertain the scope of reality that is right in front of you. For instance, if you are by some convoluted logic consistently blaming inanimate objects for the rise of mass murders in our schools, you will miss the facts that are right in front of you.
The truth is much simpler. Our society, our cultures, our schools, as they currently exist, manufacture a small but apparently increasing number of children who choose to commit mass murder against their peers.
This is a fact. There is nothing shocking about it, unless you are unable to deal with reality as it is. That you find it shocking means you are disoriented to reality. Something about it doesn't sit right with you. You have one expectation of how things should be, and are surprised by that expectation not being true. In short, you are wrong, and in being wrong and trying to hold on to the wrong thoughts you have, you are emotional (shock is emotional in nature.)
As someone in shock, you are doing what panicked animals do, namely attempting to transmit the emotional content of your state to others. We don't need a stampede right now, but thank you for demonstrating you possesses inherited reflexive survival traits. Unfortunately, we need reason and objectivity right now. You are poison to the reason and objectivity of others in this state and as such you are incapable of properly apprehending the reality of the situation, much less discussing and reasoning about it objectively.
Your opinions and thoughts on this subject should be considered suspect until such time as you demonstrate understanding and steadiness in the face of reality. If you find that you are consistently shocked by the nature of reality you may want to seek help. It is indicative of someone who has deep seated incorrect assumptions about how things actually are.
In many people their incorrect assumptions are tied to their self worth, their sense of self. When their incorrect assumptions inevitably grind up against reality it contradicts their false identity and as a result activates their threat resolution programming. Anxiety is a common result. Depression is an even more common result. Sensationalism is another one. Over perception of threats is another issue. Aggression is yet another. Paralysis of reason and inability to use logic to overcome unwanted emotional responses is pretty much universal in this syndrome, as is a constant state of shock and/or outrage. None of these help with calm considered reason. They are all indicative of long term emotional overload, reinforcing habits designed to trigger these circuits in the brain, and possibly what I call "addiction to your own stress chemicals."
Don't worry, if you are exhibiting these problems you aren't alone. You're just like almost everyone in America. Especially those kids that shoot up their schools.
Apparently, you shoot the fucking fuck out of them until they are dead, pull out your department issue "shooter" bingo card, then search the bullet hole riddled corpse, check off your bingo card, and see if you won.
I went to Wal-Mart the other day. I needed a belt in short order and it was the only place around. When I finally found the belts specifically designed for y-chromosome possessing hominids I was shocked to learn that my waist size (32 inches) was considered a child's size. It was the smallest belt they had in the building. The next closest size was 38 inches. Sizes progressed from there in 2" increments up to over 50".
It was shocking to extrapolate the algorithm used for stocking belts at Wal-Mart has determined that adult males who shop for belts at this Wal-Mart will be overweight. it's still freaking me out.
About the same time we started using the news media to intentionally propagate comforting lies so the weak-minded among us could all tune into the same stations and create a fake consensus reality.
Take it as Machiavelli's reverse engineering of Maslow's hierarchy, with the goal of rooting the political consciousness in the age of Instant Bullshit (formerly known as the information age.)
When you have the means to push a message over a wide enough sector of the news-space, and that message intersects plausibly with survival instincts, you have your "Step 2," where "Step 3: Profit" is the ultimate conclusion.
No one in the US ever went broke selling fear to the American people, especially when you give those people fiat to dominate, control, ostracize, and silence the speech of those who think differently. They get a free shot at getting wasted on fear and stress chemicals, but that's just the prelude to the mother of all drugs. Being "right," with the approval of your peers, having a "mandate" to take action because X (survival of the species, da kidz, teh oppressdeded, whatevvs) is sooooo important, gleefully forcing others to bend to your will, and reveling in torturing those who will not bend to your will. That shit makes heroin look like baby food.
Slashdot Mirror
I really love the new seasonal definition of racism! It's so hip!
What is your malfunction? The people, under the rules of the Constitution, did, in fact, elect the president. The vote tally is not in question. The electoral college votes are not in question. The results are not in question. All that is in question is your ability to accept the truth, see the facts, and realize that you have so emotionally attached yourself to an ideology that your emotions are overruling your ability to think correctly.
What is at issue, based on your ridiculous conjecture, is the popular vote. My response is simple, factual, and correct. The voting results of an election predicated on the electoral college are not an accurate vote tally of how the American people would vote if the popular vote was the only metric for winning. The results we have are an accurate vote tally of what happens when you have an electoral college vote, nothing more. Any additional meaning you impart to them based on what you wanted to happen, or what the vote means outside of the parameters under which the votes were cast, is merely fantasy.
Easy proof: If even one Trump voter in California, or even one Hillary voter in Texas, stayed home and didn't vote because of the winner-takes-all system of the electoral college, then the results cannot be used as an honest metric of a popular vote question posed to the American people.
Now, if we had 100% voter participation in the last election I would back you up completely and you wouldn't be dead wrong. However, since roughly 40% of the electorate didn't vote, your claim that the PEOPLE elected Clinton is false. SOME PEOPLE voted for Clinton. SOME PEOPLE voted for Trump. SOME PEOPLE did't vote at all. SOME PEOPLE is fundamentally different from THE PEOPLE.
The people, as in "We the people", weren't asked the question you are saying the vote tallies answer. I guarantee you, without any question in my mind, that if the win condition for the presidential race was the popular vote and nothing more, the results would have been very different. If you can agree that this is a true statement you need to drop your insistence that "the people chose Clinton." You won't, but at least I was that guy that told you the truth when no one else would. You're welcome.
Do you go to the bank and ask them why your balance doesn't reflect the total of all of your deposits? Do you then yell at them that you deposited all that money, it should all be there? Do you freak out and call them liars when they show you the withdrawals you made? No? Then stop doing that to me and yourself. Rules are rules, and they shape the way reality is reflected in numbers. Denying it, shouting, stamping your feet, accusing others, and raging at the facts won't change it. You can't take the answer to one equation and use it for an entirely different equation and expect to get the correct answer. Chances are you will be wrong more than you are right, and this is one of those times you are wrong: factually, mathematically, and logically.
Jesus, another paid shill or mindfucked partisan zombie? How many of you are there?
Look bimbo, the rules for the game were set. Everyone knew them. Everyone agreed to play by those rules. Now you're using the results of a very specific political question as the answer for an entirely different question, namely who America really wanted in a popular election, without the electoral college.
That wasn't the question asked, so the answer given is not relevant to that question. See? Simple, straightforward, logical, and lo and behold, it's the truth as well. Imagine that.
I get the feeling you will go to your grave cradling and lamenting this false assumption you crafted in your deranged mind. Against my better judgement I will elaborate with some logic. Question: Can you think of any person who didn't vote in the last presidential election who would have voted if the presidential election were a simple popular election without the electoral college? If the answer to that question is yes (and it is) then your ridiculous assertion that "America" picked Hillary is wrong.
You know it, I know it, and everyone else knows it. I would ask you to stop, to consider what you are doing to yourself, but you obviously either need that check or you're too far gone down the partisan path to ever make it back to any semblance of sanity.
If you're not a paid shill I recommend you see someone about your mental health. I am disturbed by your utter inability to participate in consensus reality, to use logic and reason, and to refrain from attacking others based entirely on the delusions in your own head. You are sick. You need help. No, I am not joking. This isn't some rhetorical method of gaining control of an argument. It's not an insult. I am dead serious. Get help from a professional mental health facility before you get hurt or hurt someone else.
False positives or false negatives are only part of the problem with the function and action of K9 units as a whole.
Simply put, it is impossible for a judge, attorney, or a citizen to determine if a trained dog is either:
a) actually detecting contraband, or
b) reacting to a specific clandestine command which triggers the dog to signal a "hit," thus nullifying your 4th amendment protection illegally, and providing law enforcement with the perfect opportunity to "find" the contraband they brought with them in order to indict you.
The situation above appears indistinguishable from actual guilt to everyone except the dog and the handler.
"Dog whistles" don't exist. Using that phrase reveals you as a shill or a ultra-partisan activist. You are therefore completely compromised and potentially dangerous to yourself and others.
Do you have some rope and a sturdy overhanging beam?
Maybe? Hard to say, and this is coming from a "Bernie is our savior!" guy.
America rejected Clinton for a vast number of reasons, any one of which could spell defeat for a candidate. America embraced Bernie for a vast number of reasons, many of which were used by Trump to win.
I am still convinced that Bernie would have won against Trump. His rhetorical skills are vastly superior to Clinton. His ability to be consistent and stay on message has endured for over 30 years. His demonstrated knowledge of political boondoggles and how to avoid them is evident from the voting record. He knows the struggles of the common person, or at least talks like he does, and isn't afraid to take on corporate dominance.
By contrast, Clinton still didn't have a fully voiced and persuasively stumped platform on election day. She appeared aloof, lackadaisical, and disconnected from the populist issues that both Trump and Bernie campaigned on. Her record was peppered with either (choose your own interpretation) a severe lack of foresight that led her continually into scandal or a diabolical prescience used to skirt the law and escape unscathed each time. Her record also revealed a tendency to reformat her platform based not on her own character, but the winds of political ascendancy. She was so tied to moneyed interests it is almost impossible to differentiate her from a Republican.
I could see Bernie irreparably damaged by them running together. I don't see Bernie as the band-aid to fix the boo-boo that was the most recent Clinton presidential run.
Please feel free.
The authoritarian angle is completely ignored by the partisan. They worship any authority used by their own "party" to bludgeon and subjugate those that think differently than they do.
There is no left or right in the US. It's the corporatist oligarchy party or the corporatist oligarchy party. Choose.
Also, consider that Clinton did not win the presidency because American didn't want a Republican in office.
Again with the focus on a person. Sigh. It's not about the people, or the entities described. That is merely the anthropocentric wrapper. The concepts are the payload.
A child, constantly exposed to abuse and derision will, in the absence of abuse and derision, create their own self abuse and derision in their mind, even when the situations they experience do not warrant it.
Yep, no correlations between neural networks in computers and humans. Absolutely nothing to learn. No way to make any inferences or structure future experiments based off of this. Worthless. Just like me.
I wonder if you aren't being flexible enough with your mind, or maybe you do not possess that capacity. Hmm, maybe it's because of the experiences you were exposed to as a child...
Ahh yes, you point to the problem with our current system in the US. Established interests use the government to entrench their position. Regulations become barriers to entry. They force small companies to go through the larger ones to access the market. Or like copyright law, they seek to steal from the public domain, impoverishing the whole country so one company can make more money. Competition is stillborn or aborted at conception due to onerous startup costs.
This is not capitalism. It is, in my opinion, the conglomeration of extant corporations into the government machinery, much akin to fascism. It's a "pay to win" scheme, where each side pays each other and is compensated in the legally proscribed manner. Companies pay for candidates election, permanent re-election, appointment, lobbying, etc. The government, in turn, pays for and enacts corporate favorable regulations, gives the companies a seat at the table for discussion of new laws and regulations, and provides financial remuneration like tax cuts, lucrative government contracts, and even favorable trade laws.
Both sides are spending money the people give them, either through patronage or taxation, to dominate, control, and fleece the people. We are, quite simply, paying for our own impoverishment and disenfranchisement.
"The entire point of having a mobile app ecosystem is to make it quick and easy for people to get things done."
The world will make sense once you realize the word "people" in your statement actually refers to the people who made the app and their business affiliates. The EULA is there to make sure app users are defined as the product. The app itself is just a logistical tool which enables fast and efficient transport the product (you) to the "people."
Welcome to the machine.
So, um....this quote contradicts your assertion and speaks to the truth of humans:
"accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
It won't go down like you are thinking. It's contrary to human nature.
The people I know that watch streams are doing it to learn something about the game they currently are not capable of doing. They are accelerating their learning, gaining skills, practicing observational learning, and then going to play their own games and implement and practice those things they watched.
If this is the case in larger sets than the small sample size of the ones I know about then the issue may be the skill of female gamers.
If this is the case I am sure we can get someone to start a government funded project to make female gamers better so they can make more money.
You are a pig. No two ways about it. A sick and disgusting pig, with pig slop for brains.
Implied in your first statement is this thought: "Men only think with their sexual organs and are completely incapable of acting in a way that is not related to sexual attraction to women."
This blatantly false idea underlies a number of incorrect narratives. Quit spreading it. It's not true.
In spite of all that you wrote, there are actual documented cases where rape accusations are determined to be 100% false, and yet the false accuser faces no charges.
Funny how you totally sidestepped that contingency.
I never said I was fine with it. You dragged that out of your own mind.
I tried to address something at a higher level than you are capable of processing, and you returned an error.
It IS par for the course. It keeps happening. This is real. You aren't dreaming, though by your inability to accept reality I am convinced that you are living in a dream world.
Also, it is not more dangerous in a combat zone than in a school in the US. The fact that you cannot understand even this basic concept is more proof you are disoriented to reality.
You want proof of this statement? OK, lets get some parity then. Eliminate the differences, bring the two groups into conformity. Let's start small. Field 10 battalions in a hot zone. Keep them grouped up in tight proximity for 8 hours a day. Provide no cover, no support, and make sure none of them have weapons of any kind. Do this for 9 months out of the year. Then count the dead.
Now you may be thinking, "Who in their right mind would put soldiers in a dangerous position like that with no protection and without any way to defend themselves?"
I have been asking the same question about our school age children, ever since Columbine.
Once you accept that this is reality you can start to use logic and rational thought to approach the problem, instead of emotions. I posit that this is why you are in shock and also why you had no way of understanding what I wrote above.
Let me give you the starting point of my logic. You know that kid, the one that shot up the school? There, but for assorted and random privilege, go I.
If you can deal with the reality that our culture takes children and returns children who murder children, and then realize that if you were born into and lived the same circumstances as that killer you would be that killer, then you can start to figure out how to defeat the problem.
I already have it figured out. The only thing standing in my way are a bunch of panicked animals who pretend to be human and a bunch of selfish psychotics who are banking on more children getting killed so they can ride the stampede of panicked animals right to their selfish and destructive agendas.
Let's see if you can follow. What needs to happen first?
Thank you for pointing out the information I left out. I am 6 foot tall and weigh in at somewhere between 158 and 165. Broad shoulders, tapered waist, no "love handles" anymore (three years since I stopped drinking and they are completely gone!), slim build with lean muscle, and a distinctly unflabby torso.
I previously weighed as much as 200 pounds and was unhealthy due to poor diet and over-consumption of alcohol.
It is only shocking if you fail to ascertain the scope of reality that is right in front of you. For instance, if you are by some convoluted logic consistently blaming inanimate objects for the rise of mass murders in our schools, you will miss the facts that are right in front of you.
The truth is much simpler. Our society, our cultures, our schools, as they currently exist, manufacture a small but apparently increasing number of children who choose to commit mass murder against their peers.
This is a fact. There is nothing shocking about it, unless you are unable to deal with reality as it is. That you find it shocking means you are disoriented to reality. Something about it doesn't sit right with you. You have one expectation of how things should be, and are surprised by that expectation not being true. In short, you are wrong, and in being wrong and trying to hold on to the wrong thoughts you have, you are emotional (shock is emotional in nature.)
As someone in shock, you are doing what panicked animals do, namely attempting to transmit the emotional content of your state to others. We don't need a stampede right now, but thank you for demonstrating you possesses inherited reflexive survival traits. Unfortunately, we need reason and objectivity right now. You are poison to the reason and objectivity of others in this state and as such you are incapable of properly apprehending the reality of the situation, much less discussing and reasoning about it objectively.
Your opinions and thoughts on this subject should be considered suspect until such time as you demonstrate understanding and steadiness in the face of reality. If you find that you are consistently shocked by the nature of reality you may want to seek help. It is indicative of someone who has deep seated incorrect assumptions about how things actually are.
In many people their incorrect assumptions are tied to their self worth, their sense of self. When their incorrect assumptions inevitably grind up against reality it contradicts their false identity and as a result activates their threat resolution programming. Anxiety is a common result. Depression is an even more common result. Sensationalism is another one. Over perception of threats is another issue. Aggression is yet another. Paralysis of reason and inability to use logic to overcome unwanted emotional responses is pretty much universal in this syndrome, as is a constant state of shock and/or outrage. None of these help with calm considered reason. They are all indicative of long term emotional overload, reinforcing habits designed to trigger these circuits in the brain, and possibly what I call "addiction to your own stress chemicals."
Don't worry, if you are exhibiting these problems you aren't alone. You're just like almost everyone in America. Especially those kids that shoot up their schools.
Apparently, you shoot the fucking fuck out of them until they are dead, pull out your department issue "shooter" bingo card, then search the bullet hole riddled corpse, check off your bingo card, and see if you won.
I went to Wal-Mart the other day. I needed a belt in short order and it was the only place around. When I finally found the belts specifically designed for y-chromosome possessing hominids I was shocked to learn that my waist size (32 inches) was considered a child's size. It was the smallest belt they had in the building. The next closest size was 38 inches. Sizes progressed from there in 2" increments up to over 50".
It was shocking to extrapolate the algorithm used for stocking belts at Wal-Mart has determined that adult males who shop for belts at this Wal-Mart will be overweight. it's still freaking me out.
About the same time we started using the news media to intentionally propagate comforting lies so the weak-minded among us could all tune into the same stations and create a fake consensus reality.
This is demonstrably false to anyone with a passing familiarity with linguistics and languages.
Take it as Machiavelli's reverse engineering of Maslow's hierarchy, with the goal of rooting the political consciousness in the age of Instant Bullshit (formerly known as the information age.)
When you have the means to push a message over a wide enough sector of the news-space, and that message intersects plausibly with survival instincts, you have your "Step 2," where "Step 3: Profit" is the ultimate conclusion.
No one in the US ever went broke selling fear to the American people, especially when you give those people fiat to dominate, control, ostracize, and silence the speech of those who think differently. They get a free shot at getting wasted on fear and stress chemicals, but that's just the prelude to the mother of all drugs. Being "right," with the approval of your peers, having a "mandate" to take action because X (survival of the species, da kidz, teh oppressdeded, whatevvs) is sooooo important, gleefully forcing others to bend to your will, and reveling in torturing those who will not bend to your will. That shit makes heroin look like baby food.