"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!""
It doesn't matter that the politicians are voted out every 4 years if someone else, representing the same interests, is voted in.
You know, I came up with a rather nice ending about a year ago that involved Big Pussy coming back from the dead as zombie and using voodoo to take over Tony's crew, then going to war with Phil and then the rest of the Five Families. I even wrote a theme song (to the tune of the Three's Company theme song)...such a pity they didn't use it. Now that would've been a great setup for a spinoff. People like the mafia, they like zombie flicks...how could it fail?
No, no, no. You're forgetting that the fleeting use of "obscenities" actually physically harms children under 12. Too much exposure and their eardrums will literally melt. And while their eardrums will eventually grow back, the buildup of melted eardrum material will cause long-term hearing loss if left untreated.
BUWAHAHAHAHA!!!
Yes, I'd forgotten that naughty words cause little heads to asplode. Silly me.
"If we can't restrict the use (of the two obscenities) during prime time, Hollywood will be able to say anything they want, whenever they want," Martin said in a statement.
Wouldn't that be a good thing?
Why would censorship be considered de-facto beneficial?
First, from five minutes with google "Kellermann AL" seems a bit... contraversial. Until I know more about him and his study ( nb: do his study numbers include suicides?) I take him with a large grain of salt.
Second, if you'll reread my comment, I discounted the FDA analogy. I see no reason that any law abiding sane citizen should be denied the firearm of their choice. I can see an argument for licensing, say, flamethrowers ( something currently largely unregulated, check your local laws ) or anti-aircraft batteries... but for small arms, I don't see a pressing reason.
As to this comment:
I actually am a proponent of mandatory testing of proficiency as well, and can see no reason to not expect this.
In a sense I agree, although this is ripe for abuse as well. See also: jim crow laws for how such well intended proficiency testing could be misused. I will say the CCW training provided by my state seems to be a decent program... as does the "shall issue" permit system.
Also this:
If you hand a man a gun that is capable of magnifying the power of a single finger action to definitely lethal proportions, then I want to know you're capable of safely operation such a device.
Bit dramatic, no? If you've actually shot a firearm, perhaps you'd agree it takes more than a "single finger action" to be effective? Or have you not seen someone at your local range blast though a magazine only to have the target ( at seven meters ) be undamaged?
Although for testing... Heck, if the police I've shot with can pass their tests, then I doubt anyone would fail;)
As for this:
Actually much less regulated since all you have to do is prove that you're the law abiding citizen you say you are and keep your nose clean and you can have all the firearms you want.
If you're saying that with a permiting system you'd repeal the 1934 federal firearms act, the 1968 gun control act ( as amended in 1986 ) and the 1989 import bans... you might be on to something.
As an aside, would You support a law abiding sane citizen owning fully automatic weapons? The "all the firearms you want" part of your comment makes me wonder.
To drag this back to it's original point: Democrats simply aren't trusted by a large number of gun owners. Their attempts at banning guns ( and I can call nonsense like HR 1022 nothing but a ban ), supported by Democratic party leadership ( Pelosi, et. al. ), are the reason for this distrust.
My contention is that if the Democrats want to gain votes from gun owners, they should take steps to modify their platform to be more accomodating to gun owners. An acknowlegement that the 2nd amendment is as important as the first would be a good start, as would the acknolegement that all persons, regardless of race, creed, color, religion, sexual orientation or gender have a right to defenend themselves with the most effective means at hand ( i.e. personally owned firearms ).
From discussions here, I doubt this will happen. Aparently, to Democrats "accomodation for gun owners" means "give up guns that scare us". Exactly why should gun owners give up their firearms... what benefit would they get?
Crime statistics show no reduction in crime when "assault weapons" are banned, yet there are continued calls to ban them ( and, if you notice, the definition of "assault weapon" is expanded with each attempt at banning ). Its like a losing gambler doubling down with each bad bet. To many, such legislation is pointless at best, nefarious at worst.
So, I guess the official Democrat position is: if you care about gun rights, vote Republican.
Of course, not having RPGs could be regarded as limiting one's ability to defend oneself. The question is, where do you draw the line? It clearly has to be drawn somewhere.
Umm... why does a line have to be drawn?
Again and again I ask: why do you care what a law-abiding sane citizen posesses? Why do you care? What would restricting them benefit you, especially since you've called such restrictions "bad policy and security theater"?
If it doesn't work... um... why do it? Why support those who advertise such restrictions as some sort of solution?
We already have at hand destructive chemicals which can cause much more damage than firearms ( gasoline, chlorine, et. al. ) all largely unregulated. No claptrap please about how they have other uses... firearms are used more often for anything other than crime than for crime.
If you're worried about your neighbor shooting though walls or something, hunting weapons ( such as the.30-06 ) are far more likely to do that than, say, an semi-auto AR clone in 5.56mm. Of course, such hunting weapons were not covered by the AWB.
You've already said that H-bombs and VX are right out. Are RPGs OK? Land mines? Are you restricting it to hand-carried firearms? If so, why? Isn't that just about as arbitrary as anything else?
I said nothing of the kind. In fact, you've convinced me those should be available to law-abiding, sane citizens as well in the same manner firearms are now ( hint: take a look at what it takes to own fully-automatic weapons ).
We both know that right now, dealers have to jump through plenty of hoops to sell a gun to somebody at a storefront. A private sale between two individuals, though? Not so much. The people who are committing crimes with guns aren't buying them from legitimate firearms dealers. They're getting them through private party transactions that the government has no transparency into. I'm suggesting a way to slowly (admittedly very slowly) dry up that aftermarket.
And I'd say focus on drying up the supply of criminals, rather that focus on something they can use as a tool. After all, what's to stop them from switching to knives if guns become unavailable ( see also: UK ).
That's the fundamental difference in our view points. I do not see gun bans as crime bans, but apparently you do.
I'd much rather existing firearms laws be kept the same or scrapped. Instead, a focus on criminals is called for both in prevention ( mental health funding, substance abuse treatment, job creation, et. al. ) and in deterrance ( and I see an armed citzenry as a key component of that deterrance ).
You can call me "alarmist", but until such time as the Democratic party ceases to embrace policy which has been proven ineffective they'll continue to alienate a large voting block who, now, can only see their views reflected in the Republican party.
That's sad. There's even a social justice angle to preventing crime... but the Democrats seem to ignore that, instead focusing on ineffective legislation and feel-good security theater ( nice choice of words you have there, btw. ).
Encrypted email is great and all, but I can only send it to other people with encryption-enabled email clients.
Where is the it-just-works email encrytion for dummies?
Well, there's one problem. You'd have to have a consistent standard.
Also, how would you handle key exchange? For "it-just-works", you'd likely not even ask the user if they want to get a particular senders public key, which makes a man in the middle attack very feasable ( because no one has ever spoofed email headers... ).
Where would one get a public key from a particular sender, anyhow? From the sender? A central repository? If the sender, how do you trust them if you've never met them? If a central repository you've still got the trust issue, but also who'd manage it?
For the "it just works" crowd, you'd also have to explain why encryption is necessary. The people I've tried that with usually respond with something like "I'm not a secret agent! LOLLZ" or some such.
That's not an unreasonable position. I'm not sure how the AWB fits into it, given that there are still plenty of guns to go around, but it's certainly one way of looking at things.
The AWB limited a law-abiding, sane citizens ability to defend themselves by limiting the available tools.
Therefore, it was ( and is ) unacceptable. Note that it also failed to impact national crime rates in any measurable way, and is therefore twice a failure.
Why do you ( apparently ) see such things as HR 1022 as acceptable?
I see it as "acceptable" simply because I don't see a compelling reason in the Constitution that a private citizen should be able to own whatever gun he wants. I also don't see a compelling argument that the particular guns in question are the only guns that can be used for the uses the gun lobby claims to be trying to protect. They're largly not hunting weapons, and I can think of a fairly long list of guns I'd rather have my neighbor using to defend his house (just a few layers of sheetrock away from my bed) than a lot of the weapons on the list.
So, in your mind the only real reason someone should own a firearm is for hunting? Self defense is a tangeal benefit?
I think we've found the difference between our view points. I see self defense and a last ditch resistance to tyrany as the primary reason the 2nd amendment was written.. not as an aid to hunting. Taken in context, the 2nd amendment would allow common citizens the right to keep a personally owned version of current Military weapons, so what we have today is too restrictive given that view.
It appears that you and I have fundamentally incompatable viewpoints. I would see the loss of gun rights as the destruction of our republic.
Your views on registration are interesting; they also seem far to trusting of government / politicians and seem ripe for abuse and unlikely to deter crime in any way.
For instance, if a police officer stops someone on a street and they can't produce their CCW permit, they're already subject to arrest. In your registration scheme, they might also have to produce a "firearms owners card". Redundant, no?
What would happen if, say, a government decided homosexuality was reason enough to deny someone a "firearms owners card" because it considered such behavior "sinful"? Or decided people with red hair were to be denied?
I'd much rather trust a thousand common citizens than one politician. Our current system does this imperfectly, but I am hopeful.
What I hope for is a supreme court decision which affirms the 2nd amendment as an individual right, similar to the federal court decision which recently overturned the gun bans in Washington DC.
If the democrats did more than knee-jerk bannination reflex legislation ( and yes, I'm "technically correct"... but there's a large voting block who also sees things such as HR 1022 as gun bans... since such laws ban guns. No, your FDA analogy doesn't work... the guns HR 1022 would ban work as advertised ) they might have a hope of gaining some voters.
Look, we're not going to convince each other of anything. My original idea was that the current Republican voting block consists in large part of the "God, Guns, and Gays" crowds.
I thought that if the Democrats embraced gun rights, they could entice a large block of the Republican party to vote Democrat.
In our conversation, I get the impression that you'd have gun rights supporters convert to a more Democrat view point. That just doesn't seem probable, or for many even possible.
So, it seems more likely that the "Guns" crowd will continue to vote Republican in droves... which is disheartening. It would be nice if the "Guns" crowd had somewhere to go without giving up their core issue.
I haven't seen anything like a gun ban come anywhere near being a serious platform on the federal level at all.
Not since the 1994 AWB. May it continue to be so.
I have seen limitations on certain types of weapons and certain classes of owners proposed, and I think that the people who want to paint those limitations as "banning guns" are doing the country a disservice, just like people who paint foreign policy discussions as "supporting terrorism" or people who call all taxation "theft." The fact is, absolutism on the topic doesn't result in good policy.
In my thinking, the argument goes like this:
Violent crime is a problem.
The police can not be everywhere to prevent crime.
Therefore, there will be times that a law-abiding citizen must have the capability to defend themselves.
The most effective means of defense for the average citizen is a firearm.
If the Democratic party could get behind those ideas, they might gain more supporters from those who currently vote Republican.
Instead, we hear cries that an armed citizenry will lead to blood in the streets and every fender-bender will lead to OK Corral style gunfights. Which hasn't happened in any of the states which allow citizens to carry concealed weapons, a fact Democrats seem to dismiss as inconvenient.
However, a question for you: Why do you care what "arms" a law-abiding sane citizen possesses? Why do you ( apparently ) see such things as HR 1022 as acceptable? I call such laws gun bans because... well, they ban guns. Thus restricting law-abiding citizens while doing nothing to prevent crime. If you were to look into the specifics of that bill ( which you refuse to do, apparently ) we might agree.
There might be a middle ground.. current laws against felons and the mentally ill seem to have widespread acceptance, but from there the camps seem to diverge wildly. Banning even certain types of firearms doesn't seem to do anything to limit violent crime, yet there are still those who propose such restrictions.
So, an acceptable middle ground might be an affirmation, as part of the Democratic party platform, that individual citizens have a right of self defense and to further that right they must have legal access to firearms. This should be a litmus issue, similar to how support for abortion rights is treated.
Exaggerate much? What percentage of gun control supporters are actually interested in "banning" guns? Seriously, now.
Exactly how do you view "assault weapon bans" then?
How about HR 1022, which would ban almost all semi-automatic rifles.
To say the gun-control advocates aren't interested in banning guns is disingenuous. That seems, instead, to be the point of their organization.
At least as important as the 1st Amendment? I'm not buying into it. I'm all for the individual right to gun ownership, but I'd put restrictions on it well before I'd put restrictions on freedom of speech. For example, if you rob a convenience store, I have zero problem with making it illegal for you to own a gun. Forever. No more guns for you. I can't think of a crime that you could commit that would cause me to support abridging your freedom of speech or religion.
There's already laws in place to prevent convicted felons ( and some convicted of misdemeanors ) from ever owning firearms again.
Perhaps those who engage in fraud, say securities fraud, should have the right to continue in that fraud? Or would you restrict their freedom of speach ( via the removal of their SEC license, for instance ) ?
How about the classic example of limiting the 1st amendment: Do you support the right of free speach to yell "Fire" in a crowded movie theater when there is no fire?
It might help the situation if we could get away from Second Amendment absolutism a bit. Do you really think that the right to bear arms should be 100% without restriction? Would you be OK with your neighbor down the street owning a hydrogen bomb or a VX gas rocket (to prevent government oppression, you know)?
Excellent strawman you've got there. We're not talking about hydrogen bombs or VX gas.
When you say "get away from Second Amendment absolutism", what some of us hear is "give your guns up".
That's been a non-starter for the Democrats for at least 20 years. We have only to look at US cities like Washington DC to see how well gun control works as crime control.
The point is, I think both sides of the gun debate like crime control.
Instead of trying to take firearms from the law abiding, which not only doesn't work as crime control, but is becoming increasingly unpopular in the US ( see here for a list of states which now permit law-abiding citizens to carry firearms for personal defense ), how about focusing on the things that can work.. like education and job opportunities for those economically disadvantaged, increased treatment of the mentally ill, increased treatment for cronic substance abusers / adicts, etc. .
If Democrats would like to create new laws to remove firearms from those who haven't commited any crime and make self-defense effectively illegal ( see: here ) then they will continue to alienate a large part of the electorate, who simply do not see any evidence that gun control == crime control (quite the contrary).
If the Democrats would, however, like to attract that part of the electorate then perhaps some changes in their platform are in order.
There's a simple way to take this, at least, out of Republican hands. Stop trying to ban guns.
There's no evidence that crime goes down; in fact, there's oodles of evidence that crime goes up after a gun ban. Gun free bastions like Washington DC, for instance, don't exactly prove the "less guns==less crime" hypothosis.
So if a Democrat wanted to take at least that part of the Republican voting block away, seeking and getting the endorsement of the NRA might be a good step. Public statements the the 2nd amendment is at least as important as the 1st would help as well.
"My parents said we are [only] paying for four years of school and I could not become a lawyer in four years", 48 year-old CIO said. " I just said okay, well I want to make a lot of money and so what is the next best thing? And I did the research and the computing industry was the next big booming thing"
If you're in technology for the money, there would seem to be easier ways ( marketing, stock trader/finance ). Perhaps, if this is the motivation, a different path might be better?
However, this ( also from TFA ) seems to be spot-on:
"[Working in IT] is a place where I can get control that a child from a dysfunctional family wants," a 49 year-old IT operations architect, who had a traumatic childhood said. "I can make order. I can put those damn cards in the right order. I can get the syntax perfect. I can run it and have it compile cleanly. There are all of these tidiness control things that are so beautiful about programming and a computer program will not betray you. It does the same damn thing every time"
So, if you're a bitter control freak ( All programers and DBAs, raise your hands. Yes, you too. Mine is up as well.) welcome home.
What's interesting from TFA is 18 of 92 respondants quoted the first motivation, while 28 quoted the second. What, did the other 46 pick "other"?
So wait.. Thompson is essentially barred from suing Take Two over it's games ( see here ) so now he's after Bill Gates?
And what's this nonsense?
As you also know, Lee Boyd Malvo trained on Microsoft's Halo to further enable him to become the remarkably efficient "DC Beltway Sniper." That was reported by NBC News at the time and was noted in Malvo's criminal trial.
Yeah... killer training... because pushing buttons on a controller is exactly like firing a rifle.
Seems like more grandstanding. I'd say Thompson is off his meds... but frankly, I'm not sure he was ever on them.
It is much more productive to try to analyze which emotional needs makes people hold to these irrational positions. Once you understand the true reasoning behind them, you can start working on filling the emotional need the motivates them, and the positions become irrelevant.
So, you're implying that people act more on emotion than on rational choices?
Slashdot Mirror
Bill Hicks might have been onto something:
"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!""
It doesn't matter that the politicians are voted out every 4 years if someone else, representing the same interests, is voted in.
Exactly right. "Gun control" is not crime control.
Spree killers in Japan use knives.
Comming next: "a made for sci-fi orginal movie"
Except in the case of viri... which might redefine the term zombie computer
Thanks. You owe me a new keyboard... ;-)
BUWAHAHAHAHA!!!
Yes, I'd forgotten that naughty words cause little heads to asplode. Silly me.
So, public communication should be limited by government fiat to that which is acceptable for a two year old?
Wouldn't that be a good thing?
Why would censorship be considered de-facto beneficial?
Second, if you'll reread my comment, I discounted the FDA analogy. I see no reason that any law abiding sane citizen should be denied the firearm of their choice. I can see an argument for licensing, say, flamethrowers ( something currently largely unregulated, check your local laws ) or anti-aircraft batteries... but for small arms, I don't see a pressing reason.
As to this comment:
In a sense I agree, although this is ripe for abuse as well. See also: jim crow laws for how such well intended proficiency testing could be misused.
I will say the CCW training provided by my state seems to be a decent program... as does the "shall issue" permit system.
Also this:
Bit dramatic, no? If you've actually shot a firearm, perhaps you'd agree it takes more than a "single finger action" to be effective? Or have you not seen someone at your local range blast though a magazine only to have the target ( at seven meters ) be undamaged?
Although for testing... Heck, if the police I've shot with can pass their tests, then I doubt anyone would fail
As for this:
If you're saying that with a permiting system you'd repeal the 1934 federal firearms act, the 1968 gun control act ( as amended in 1986 ) and the 1989 import bans... you might be on to something.
As an aside, would You support a law abiding sane citizen owning fully automatic weapons? The "all the firearms you want" part of your comment makes me wonder.
To drag this back to it's original point: Democrats simply aren't trusted by a large number of gun owners. Their attempts at banning guns ( and I can call nonsense like HR 1022 nothing but a ban ), supported by Democratic party leadership ( Pelosi, et. al. ), are the reason for this distrust.
My contention is that if the Democrats want to gain votes from gun owners, they should take steps to modify their platform to be more accomodating to gun owners. An acknowlegement that the 2nd amendment is as important as the first would be a good start, as would the acknolegement that all persons, regardless of race, creed, color, religion, sexual orientation or gender have a right to defenend themselves with the most effective means at hand ( i.e. personally owned firearms ).
From discussions here, I doubt this will happen. Aparently, to Democrats "accomodation for gun owners" means "give up guns that scare us". Exactly why should gun owners give up their firearms... what benefit would they get?
Crime statistics show no reduction in crime when "assault weapons" are banned, yet there are continued calls to ban them ( and, if you notice, the definition of "assault weapon" is expanded with each attempt at banning ). Its like a losing gambler doubling down with each bad bet. To many, such legislation is pointless at best, nefarious at worst.
So, I guess the official Democrat position is: if you care about gun rights, vote Republican.
Umm... why does a line have to be drawn?
Again and again I ask: why do you care what a law-abiding sane citizen posesses? Why do you care? What would restricting them benefit you, especially since you've called such restrictions "bad policy and security theater"?
If it doesn't work... um... why do it? Why support those who advertise such restrictions as some sort of solution?
We already have at hand destructive chemicals which can cause much more damage than firearms ( gasoline, chlorine, et. al. ) all largely unregulated. No claptrap please about how they have other uses... firearms are used more often for anything other than crime than for crime.
If you're worried about your neighbor shooting though walls or something, hunting weapons ( such as the
I said nothing of the kind. In fact, you've convinced me those should be available to law-abiding, sane citizens as well in the same manner firearms are now ( hint: take a look at what it takes to own fully-automatic weapons ).
And I'd say focus on drying up the supply of criminals, rather that focus on something they can use as a tool. After all, what's to stop them from switching to knives if guns become unavailable ( see also: UK ).
That's the fundamental difference in our view points. I do not see gun bans as crime bans, but apparently you do.
I'd much rather existing firearms laws be kept the same or scrapped. Instead, a focus on criminals is called for both in prevention ( mental health funding, substance abuse treatment, job creation, et. al. ) and in deterrance ( and I see an armed citzenry as a key component of that deterrance ).
You can call me "alarmist", but until such time as the Democratic party ceases to embrace policy which has been proven ineffective they'll continue to alienate a large voting block who, now, can only see their views reflected in the Republican party.
That's sad. There's even a social justice angle to preventing crime... but the Democrats seem to ignore that, instead focusing on ineffective legislation and feel-good security theater ( nice choice of words you have there, btw. ).
Well, there's one problem. You'd have to have a consistent standard.
Also, how would you handle key exchange? For "it-just-works", you'd likely not even ask the user if they want to get a particular senders public key, which makes a man in the middle attack very feasable ( because no one has ever spoofed email headers... ).
Where would one get a public key from a particular sender, anyhow? From the sender? A central repository? If the sender, how do you trust them if you've never met them? If a central repository you've still got the trust issue, but also who'd manage it?
For the "it just works" crowd, you'd also have to explain why encryption is necessary. The people I've tried that with usually respond with something like "I'm not a secret agent! LOLLZ" or some such.
The AWB limited a law-abiding, sane citizens ability to defend themselves by limiting the available tools.
Therefore, it was ( and is ) unacceptable. Note that it also failed to impact national crime rates in any measurable way, and is therefore twice a failure.
So, in your mind the only real reason someone should own a firearm is for hunting? Self defense is a tangeal benefit?
I think we've found the difference between our view points. I see self defense and a last ditch resistance to tyrany as the primary reason the 2nd amendment was written.. not as an aid to hunting. Taken in context, the 2nd amendment would allow common citizens the right to keep a personally owned version of current Military weapons, so what we have today is too restrictive given that view.
It appears that you and I have fundamentally incompatable viewpoints. I would see the loss of gun rights as the destruction of our republic.
Your views on registration are interesting; they also seem far to trusting of government / politicians and seem ripe for abuse and unlikely to deter crime in any way.
For instance, if a police officer stops someone on a street and they can't produce their CCW permit, they're already subject to arrest. In your registration scheme, they might also have to produce a "firearms owners card". Redundant, no?
What would happen if, say, a government decided homosexuality was reason enough to deny someone a "firearms owners card" because it considered such behavior "sinful"? Or decided people with red hair were to be denied?
I'd much rather trust a thousand common citizens than one politician. Our current system does this imperfectly, but I am hopeful.
What I hope for is a supreme court decision which affirms the 2nd amendment as an individual right, similar to the federal court decision which recently overturned the gun bans in Washington DC.
If the democrats did more than knee-jerk bannination reflex legislation ( and yes, I'm "technically correct"
Look, we're not going to convince each other of anything. My original idea was that the current Republican voting block consists in large part of the "God, Guns, and Gays" crowds.
I thought that if the Democrats embraced gun rights, they could entice a large block of the Republican party to vote Democrat.
In our conversation, I get the impression that you'd have gun rights supporters convert to a more Democrat view point. That just doesn't seem probable, or for many even possible.
So, it seems more likely that the "Guns" crowd will continue to vote Republican in droves... which is disheartening. It would be nice if the "Guns" crowd had somewhere to go without giving up their core issue.
Not since the 1994 AWB. May it continue to be so.
In my thinking, the argument goes like this:
If the Democratic party could get behind those ideas, they might gain more supporters from those who currently vote Republican.
Instead, we hear cries that an armed citizenry will lead to blood in the streets and every fender-bender will lead to OK Corral style gunfights. Which hasn't happened in any of the states which allow citizens to carry concealed weapons, a fact Democrats seem to dismiss as inconvenient.
However, a question for you: Why do you care what "arms" a law-abiding sane citizen possesses? Why do you ( apparently ) see such things as HR 1022 as acceptable? I call such laws gun bans because... well, they ban guns. Thus restricting law-abiding citizens while doing nothing to prevent crime. If you were to look into the specifics of that bill ( which you refuse to do, apparently ) we might agree.
There might be a middle ground.. current laws against felons and the mentally ill seem to have widespread acceptance, but from there the camps seem to diverge wildly. Banning even certain types of firearms doesn't seem to do anything to limit violent crime, yet there are still those who propose such restrictions.
So, an acceptable middle ground might be an affirmation, as part of the Democratic party platform, that individual citizens have a right of self defense and to further that right they must have legal access to firearms. This should be a litmus issue, similar to how support for abortion rights is treated.
But then, I suspect you and I disagree on that.
There's a simple way to take this, at least, out of Republican hands. Stop trying to ban guns.
There's no evidence that crime goes down; in fact, there's oodles of evidence that crime goes up after a gun ban. Gun free bastions like Washington DC, for instance, don't exactly prove the "less guns==less crime" hypothosis.
So if a Democrat wanted to take at least that part of the Republican voting block away, seeking and getting the endorsement of the NRA might be a good step. Public statements the the 2nd amendment is at least as important as the 1st would help as well.
What's really bad about username==password is that some protocols, while being relatively open, will still take steps to obscure the password.
So, anyone running a sniffer will see the username, but not the password... unless they're the same damn thing, of course.
Pr0n?
[badum-ching]
Some people are blockheads.
News at 11.
If you're in technology for the money, there would seem to be easier ways ( marketing, stock trader/finance ). Perhaps, if this is the motivation, a different path might be better?
However, this ( also from TFA ) seems to be spot-on:
So, if you're a bitter control freak ( All programers and DBAs, raise your hands. Yes, you too. Mine is up as well.) welcome home.
What's interesting from TFA is 18 of 92 respondants quoted the first motivation, while 28 quoted the second. What, did the other 46 pick "other"?
And what's this nonsense?
Yeah... killer training... because pushing buttons on a controller is exactly like firing a rifle.
Seems like more grandstanding. I'd say Thompson is off his meds... but frankly, I'm not sure he was ever on them.
I'll have you know I'm not missing any chunks.
There was no sniper on the grassy knoll.
[eyes shift back and forth]
ps: dont look at my user name.
is now
well formatted
text?
That whooshing sound you heard? Yeah, that was the joke going over your head.
So, you're implying that people act more on emotion than on rational choices?
That scares me, so you're wrong.
[yes... it's a joke.]