I spoke to my lawyer a few weeks ago about this, and he said that getting named in a frivolous lawsuit is gonna cost you about $1000-$5000 just to file a motion to dismiss (the higher end is if there is some back and forth before dismissal). If there is any merit to the suit at all, you're looking at $5000 - $20,000 in attorney's fees alone for a simple matter. It just goes up from there depending on complexity. He's had cases in litigation for 10 years!
If you were looking at $20k in legal fees plus whatever the award costs you if you lose, would you not want to settle for $10k, Mr. Backbone? Would you want all your business activities stayed for 10 years while this thing is in litigation? I don't know what the numbers looked like for this guy, but my guess is his lawyer was just trying to save him some money.
Sometimes settling is the correct business decision.
I actually love not having to answer to anyone about where I am or what I'm doing.
The right partner will not be an impediment to you. For instance, when I told my wife that I wanted to leave my comfortable job and start a business, she did not say, "What, are you crazy? We live comfortably! Why do you want to do something unstable like that?" She said, "How can I help?"
God bless her, she had no idea what she was getting herself into. But she stood by me month after month after month of:
My dedicating every waking and non-waking moment to the business
Pouring every available dollar into the business
Eliminating all non-essential expenses
Vastly scaling back all essential expenses (i.e. food: the fscking dog ate better than we did).
Not knowing when the end to the sacrifice would ever be.
Not once did she say, "I'm frustrated! When can we turn on the heat?" and whenever I ever got exhausted, she was always there to encourage me.
Well, now business has taken off and we don't worry too much about money anymore. She doesn't have to work now, but she seems to enjoy having a career and is doing very well, I might add. More power to her.:)
But the point is I'm not sure how I would have be able to take the plunge without her income, her health insurance, and, most importantly, her moral support.
And, yes, I call her if I'm going to be out late drinking with my buddies. Seems like a small price to pay though, doesn't it?
I hate those things. Seems every time I post a message to a mailing list, I get 30 of those stupid "I won't see your email unless you click this link or hit reply" messages.
Take a wild guess if I go through all those messages clicking the stupid links.
Better check what email you're missing.
Re:I think you're looking at the wrong thing
on
Assault Weapons Ban
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· Score: 1
Erase the laws of prohibition and prosecute murder, assault, endangerment, whatever, regardless of the weapon used.
You're missing the point, then. The point is prevention, not prosecution. If you were murdered, assaulted, endangered, whatever, would the assailant's prosecution make you any less dead, injured, endangered, whatever?
No, I'm extending your logic to its rational, reasonable conclusion. If I cannot be trusted with a machine gun, then I cannot be trusted with a.22 for exactly the same reasons.
That is why the 1934 NFA isn't the only gun control law. Once begun, the basic logic that people cannot be trusted with their own arms leads to only one conclusion: Disarmament.
You sound paranoid here. No one has threatened total disarmament. What would be the use of that?
The ugly rifle ban certainly did infringe upon my right to choose my own defense, since I was unable to purchase such an ugly gun if that indeed was what I concluded would fit my needs best.
I'm actually a little curious how you feel an assault weapon better meets your self-defense needs than a defensive gun.
By taking it upon yourself to make that choice for others, you have made yourself morally liable for anyone who died because their choices were limited.
Are you ready for that?
That depends. Do you accept moral responsibility for every mass-murder?
I've already said at least twice that the scenario I'd attempt to address is an emotional and psychological one. Banning assault weapons and actually enforcing that ban would make it much more difficult for someone to go off the deep end, purchasing an assault weapon at a gun shop, and then going into work the next day and commiting mass murder.
The rest of your post is just one big false dilemma. The choice isn't an all-or-nothing where either you can have all guns including assault weapons, or no guns at all. If it were up to me, you could have as many hunting and self-defense guns as your little heart desires. Why do you want to own an assault weapon, anyhow?
Where gun control is lower, crime rates are lower.
Look. I've said over and over I am not advocating outlawing all guns. But since you keep bringing it up, why don't you prove it! While you're proving it, make sure to explain why in 2002, Honolulu had the lowest homicide rate per 100,000 people of all US cities with at least 500,000 people, yet Hawaii has strict gun control (permit required to purchase any gun, registration of all firearms, and permit required to carry). For that matter, explain why Memphis was ranked #4 in homicides per 100,000 and TN has little gun control (no gun registration, no permit required to purchase). Milwaukee was ranked 8th, and WI has little gun control as well. California had Los Angeles ranked highly at #9 but San Diego and San Jose had low rates (ranked #28 and #30 out of 32, respectively). Explain that one.
Maybe homicide rate is not so tightly correlated to gun control, after all? I'm certainly not finding any evidence to support a tight correlation. Maybe I should rethink my views regarding gun control? Maybe it really does work? Sure seems like it's working in Hawaii! Thanks for pointing that out!
Re:I think you're looking at the wrong thing
on
Assault Weapons Ban
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· Score: 1
All the rest, regardless of prohibition, have been illegally possessed. So the prohibitions on big bad evil machine guns has done nothing what so ever to effect crime rates. The people who abide the law are not and never were the problem.
That is why we need to enforce the laws that are already on the books. The NRA and I are in agreement on this point.:-)
John R. Lott ran the numbers of multiple victim shootings, the very thing you are concerned about, against the changes in laws regarding firearms ownership. Multiple victim shootings showed the greatest effect of the changes, with their incidence nearly vanishing when the laws were changed to make lawful carrying of arms easier.
I think you're equating banning assault weapons with banning all guns.
This is not the case. Bob, by all means, please carry a handgun for self-defense. If someone goes nuts and begins a shooting spree, please kill him before he claims more victims. No assault weapons ban infringes upon your right to defend yourself. It is merely attempting to ban weapons whose design is to look mean and kill as many human beings as possible.
This is why soldiers, whose job is to kill as many opposing soldiers as possible, carry assault weapons and not hunting rifles or Saturday-night specials.;)
The "issue" you have with firearms is based on emotion without experience or context. We can sit here and argue hardware all day long, but it won't get us any closer to having a context.
You are absolutely right. My issue is based on emotion, not on hardware. I am aware that aware of the fact that gun manufacturers have been legally building guns post-AWB with exactly the same specs as AWB-banned guns, but with aesthetic changes. I am not trying to argue that AWB was a good law. In fact, I read somewhere that even the author and proponants felt it did not accomplish its intended goals.
There is more, of course, such as the fact that in every state where it has been made easier for people to lawfully own and carry firearms, crime rates went down.
Just to be clear, I am not against gun ownership. I do not personally own a gun, I never have owned a gun, and I doubt that I ever will own a gun, but I fully respect and believe in the second amendment. I think that banning guns would be a bad idea.
Everything in this paragraph is belied by something you have no objection to: The Shotgun. A 12-gage with 00-buckshot puts out exactly the kind of barage of lead (or steel) that blankets an area as you are afraid of.
This is an emotional issue, not a hardware issue. I have no doubt that someone who is trained in firearm usage could do a ton of damage with just about any hardware. Examples include the shotgun scenario you mention, John Muhammed and Lee Malvo paralyzing the Washington DC area with a hunting rifle... I'm sure we could find examples for just about any hardware. But that's not the point. No weapons training is complete without weapons safety training. I am not worried about responsible, well-trained gun owners here.
The reasons for AWB, IIRC, were some high-profile shootings at office buildings (a CA law firm, and some such other place). As someone who works in a high-pressure office, I would not want someone who is untrained in weapons safety to get depressed and be able to just go buy the baddest-ass looking bad-ass semi-automatic weapon at the local gun shop and shoot up the office.
Don't believe that could happen? I was at IBM out in San Jose (Cottle Rd. campus) when they had a big round of layoffs and someone got depressed drove a car into a building. No, I don't think we should allow cars, as they serve a much more useful purpose. Nor do I think we should outlaw all guns, as they serve a useful purpose. But why not outlaw guns that are specifically designed to kill as many humans as possible? What useful purpose do they serve?
Shotguns and handguns are great for self-defense, rifles are great for hunting. But what are assault weapons good for? Why do soldiers use assault weapons and not shotguns? Because they are good for killing as many other soldiers as possible! I may not be a gun expert, but I am not stupid, either.
Yes, I realize that the AWB was flawed, and in that sense, I'm glad it was not renewed. If it were up to me, the US would pass a real assault weapons ban with real penalties like in DC if you are caught with an illegal weapon.
By all means, go ahead and keep a properly stored handgun or shotgun in your house. If someone breaks in and threatens you with deadly force, please kill him before he breaks into my house. But if you were going to keep a weapon for self-defense, would you really choose an AK-47 to defend your dark house!? Of course not. Sure, you might kill the intruder, but you'll also kill your wife, your dog, and 2 of your kids by the time you get done emptying your 30 rounds.
P.S. "But will someone please think of the collectors!" you say. Fine. Let the collectors collect. Just block the barrels so they cannot be fired.
First of all, you better have a big down payment if you want to buy a $1M house on only $200k/yr income. Secondly, you need to look at the situation by cash flow, not as a capital investment. Most people who make $200k/yr do not buy a $1M house every year!
But let's bring it down to scale. Would you lend $100,000 to your neighbor who has negative cash flow (spends more than he earns)? What makes you so sure investors will loan the US much more than $7,000,000,000,000 on negative cash flow?
You're looking at the wrong numbers. Unless you'll have me believe that the only taxes paid in Canada are personal income + social security. Well I'm not buying.
The numbers you want are "Total tax revenue as a percentage of GDP". That way you account for all taxes, not just income tax. When you take into account all tax receipts, you will see that Canada's tax burden is 22% higher than in the US. The only benefit Canadians get for all that extra tax is universal health care. But as I have already pointed out, my health care costs much much less than that. You pay 22% higher tax for your health care, but mine only costs 1% of what I pay in taxes. I'm not sure how to present this more clearly to help you understand just how much you are paying in taxes.
We likely get better tax payment from our corporations, though.
Really? That is so cool! Canada is officially the only place on the face of the planet where they've figured out how to get a corporation to pay taxes!
But, seriously, corporations do not pay taxes. A corproation is a piece of paper, and papers do not pay taxes. Living, breathing human beings pay taxes.
I should know. I own a corporation, and I can't seem to get the friggin' thing to pay any taxes. I file a tax return on behalf of the corporation because a piece of paper can't fill it out (neither can I for that matter) and the money for my corporation's tax liability certainly does not come from that piece of paper.
The money for my corporation's income tax liability comes from three sources:
My customers (I charge them more to help pay for the tax)
My employees (I pay them less to help pay the tax), and
Me (I pay as little as I can get away with, for obvious reasons!)
I can assure you that my piece of paper, my corporation, does not pay any taxes. I wish I would; but it never does.
My point is you, a consumer of goods and an employee, are paying more tax than what you see deducted from your paycheck. You (yes you!) pay corporate income tax, tariffs, excise tax, sales tax, among others.
And yes, Canadians pay more taxes than Americans even when you factor in that we have to pay for our own health insurance.
Re:I think you're looking at the wrong thing
on
Assault Weapons Ban
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· Score: 1
Remember, if it's better at killing one deer (because of its higher caliber and velocity) it's also better at killing one human.
I guess the subtle distinction between dead and more dead is lost on me.
The situation that I'd like to see made more difficult is someone getting depressed, picking up a semi-automatic or automatic weapon, and mowing down everyone in sight. Would the higher-caliber ammunition not make it more difficult to fire in rapid succession?
Also, don't underestimate the testosterone aspect. Some depressed guy who doesn't know about which features one rifle does or does not have is just going to want the baddest-ass looking gun he can find (that AWB bans). It's an emotional, not a rational decision at that point. Perhaps all guns should be made hot pink.
So, yeah, the old law was probably flawed. But can you see what I'm getting at?
I think you're looking at the wrong thing
on
Assault Weapons Ban
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· Score: 0
Compare cartridge power of the dreaded AK-47, the 7.62x39, with the "standard" American deer rifle cartridge, the.30-06. The.30-06 fires a heavier slug far faster. Yet functionally identical AK's were banned, while "standard" deer rifles continued to be made and sold.
I am not a gun owner and I know jack shit about guns, so go easy on me here. As a non-gun-owner, I have no problem with people hunting. I have no problem with people shooting at targets.
What I do have a problem with are weapons whose primary purpose is to fill an area with as much lead as possible. These weapons serve no useful sporting purpose--you may kill the deer, but you'll prolly hit 3 of your buddies and two of your tires as well--they are designed to kill a lot of people.
I say you're looking at the wrong thing because I don't care if a hunting rifle fires a heavier slug faster because that is not a weapon designed to kill many people. It's designed to kill one deer. I object to weapons that shoot low-velocity rounds that produce little recoil so you can just blanket an area in lead. What sporting purpose do these weapons serve short of giving a deer a heart attack?
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation revenue statistics, the 2001 total tax burden in Canada was 22% higher than that of the United States. And no, my health care does not cost 22% of my income! It costs roughly 1%.
I'm sure Canada is a great place and all (I've never been there), but low-tax it ain't!
If the public schools were eliminated, along with the associated massive government expenditures, maybe taxpayers could actually survive on one income.
My wife and I pay about $3000/yr in property taxes, and property taxes pay for school. If we had that back, we still would not be able to live on one income.
But those tracked into the middle or lower levels don't do well, and usually benefit greatly from being mixed in with the more advanced students.
Those advanced students, in turn, are bored to tears while their time is utterly wasted waiting for the teacher to explain some simple thing for the upteenth time to a student who does not, and probably forever will not, get it.
In every US state I've lived in, I was automatically registered to vote when I got my drivers license ("Motor Voter"). In some states you can register at the polls immediately before you vote. Most states have online registration. It's not like they make it hard.
I'd rather have voting be a minor (5-10 minutes) effort. If you don't care enough about the country to be willing to spend 10 minutes to vote either in person or by absentee ballot, then I don't want you to have a voice.
Does anyone know of an opcode to enable these features? The linked-to articles confirm that the phone supports the functionality, but Verizon has merely chosen to disable it.
He said he was upset about having to wait an hour to make some legal copies for people doing something blatantly illegal. It was the waiting that upset him.
What do you expect? You paid a metric shitload of money to be able to put that name, Stanford University, in bold in your post. You can put it in bold on your resume. That costs a lot of money!
Surely you realized that going into the deal, didn't you?
Slashdot Mirror
If you want to kill your brain cells figuring out how to use your frickin' code repository and have no brain cells left for coding, use arch.
If you were looking at $20k in legal fees plus whatever the award costs you if you lose, would you not want to settle for $10k, Mr. Backbone? Would you want all your business activities stayed for 10 years while this thing is in litigation? I don't know what the numbers looked like for this guy, but my guess is his lawyer was just trying to save him some money.
Sometimes settling is the correct business decision.
God bless her, she had no idea what she was getting herself into. But she stood by me month after month after month of:
- My dedicating every waking and non-waking moment to the business
- Pouring every available dollar into the business
- Eliminating all non-essential expenses
- Vastly scaling back all essential expenses (i.e. food: the fscking dog ate better than we did).
- Not knowing when the end to the sacrifice would ever be.
Not once did she say, "I'm frustrated! When can we turn on the heat?" and whenever I ever got exhausted, she was always there to encourage me.Well, now business has taken off and we don't worry too much about money anymore. She doesn't have to work now, but she seems to enjoy having a career and is doing very well, I might add. More power to her. :)
But the point is I'm not sure how I would have be able to take the plunge without her income, her health insurance, and, most importantly, her moral support.
And, yes, I call her if I'm going to be out late drinking with my buddies. Seems like a small price to pay though, doesn't it?
Take a wild guess if I go through all those messages clicking the stupid links.
Better check what email you're missing.
The rest of your post is just one big false dilemma. The choice isn't an all-or-nothing where either you can have all guns including assault weapons, or no guns at all. If it were up to me, you could have as many hunting and self-defense guns as your little heart desires. Why do you want to own an assault weapon, anyhow?
Look. I've said over and over I am not advocating outlawing all guns. But since you keep bringing it up, why don't you prove it! While you're proving it, make sure to explain why in 2002, Honolulu had the lowest homicide rate per 100,000 people of all US cities with at least 500,000 people, yet Hawaii has strict gun control (permit required to purchase any gun, registration of all firearms, and permit required to carry). For that matter, explain why Memphis was ranked #4 in homicides per 100,000 and TN has little gun control (no gun registration, no permit required to purchase). Milwaukee was ranked 8th, and WI has little gun control as well. California had Los Angeles ranked highly at #9 but San Diego and San Jose had low rates (ranked #28 and #30 out of 32, respectively). Explain that one.Maybe homicide rate is not so tightly correlated to gun control, after all? I'm certainly not finding any evidence to support a tight correlation. Maybe I should rethink my views regarding gun control? Maybe it really does work? Sure seems like it's working in Hawaii! Thanks for pointing that out!
This is not the case. Bob, by all means, please carry a handgun for self-defense. If someone goes nuts and begins a shooting spree, please kill him before he claims more victims. No assault weapons ban infringes upon your right to defend yourself. It is merely attempting to ban weapons whose design is to look mean and kill as many human beings as possible.
This is why soldiers, whose job is to kill as many opposing soldiers as possible, carry assault weapons and not hunting rifles or Saturday-night specials. ;)
The reasons for AWB, IIRC, were some high-profile shootings at office buildings (a CA law firm, and some such other place). As someone who works in a high-pressure office, I would not want someone who is untrained in weapons safety to get depressed and be able to just go buy the baddest-ass looking bad-ass semi-automatic weapon at the local gun shop and shoot up the office.
Don't believe that could happen? I was at IBM out in San Jose (Cottle Rd. campus) when they had a big round of layoffs and someone got depressed drove a car into a building. No, I don't think we should allow cars, as they serve a much more useful purpose. Nor do I think we should outlaw all guns, as they serve a useful purpose. But why not outlaw guns that are specifically designed to kill as many humans as possible? What useful purpose do they serve?
Shotguns and handguns are great for self-defense, rifles are great for hunting. But what are assault weapons good for? Why do soldiers use assault weapons and not shotguns? Because they are good for killing as many other soldiers as possible! I may not be a gun expert, but I am not stupid, either.
Yes, I realize that the AWB was flawed, and in that sense, I'm glad it was not renewed. If it were up to me, the US would pass a real assault weapons ban with real penalties like in DC if you are caught with an illegal weapon.
By all means, go ahead and keep a properly stored handgun or shotgun in your house. If someone breaks in and threatens you with deadly force, please kill him before he breaks into my house. But if you were going to keep a weapon for self-defense, would you really choose an AK-47 to defend your dark house!? Of course not. Sure, you might kill the intruder, but you'll also kill your wife, your dog, and 2 of your kids by the time you get done emptying your 30 rounds.
P.S. "But will someone please think of the collectors!" you say. Fine. Let the collectors collect. Just block the barrels so they cannot be fired.
But let's bring it down to scale. Would you lend $100,000 to your neighbor who has negative cash flow (spends more than he earns)? What makes you so sure investors will loan the US much more than $7,000,000,000,000 on negative cash flow?
The biggest problem with Bush is he is not a conservative! Why the hell do Republicans like him so?
The numbers you want are "Total tax revenue as a percentage of GDP". That way you account for all taxes, not just income tax. When you take into account all tax receipts, you will see that Canada's tax burden is 22% higher than in the US. The only benefit Canadians get for all that extra tax is universal health care. But as I have already pointed out, my health care costs much much less than that. You pay 22% higher tax for your health care, but mine only costs 1% of what I pay in taxes. I'm not sure how to present this more clearly to help you understand just how much you are paying in taxes.
Really? That is so cool! Canada is officially the only place on the face of the planet where they've figured out how to get a corporation to pay taxes!But, seriously, corporations do not pay taxes. A corproation is a piece of paper, and papers do not pay taxes. Living, breathing human beings pay taxes.
I should know. I own a corporation, and I can't seem to get the friggin' thing to pay any taxes. I file a tax return on behalf of the corporation because a piece of paper can't fill it out (neither can I for that matter) and the money for my corporation's tax liability certainly does not come from that piece of paper.
The money for my corporation's income tax liability comes from three sources:
- My customers (I charge them more to help pay for the tax)
- My employees (I pay them less to help pay the tax), and
- Me (I pay as little as I can get away with, for obvious reasons!)
I can assure you that my piece of paper, my corporation, does not pay any taxes. I wish I would; but it never does.My point is you, a consumer of goods and an employee, are paying more tax than what you see deducted from your paycheck. You (yes you!) pay corporate income tax, tariffs, excise tax, sales tax, among others.
And yes, Canadians pay more taxes than Americans even when you factor in that we have to pay for our own health insurance.
The situation that I'd like to see made more difficult is someone getting depressed, picking up a semi-automatic or automatic weapon, and mowing down everyone in sight. Would the higher-caliber ammunition not make it more difficult to fire in rapid succession?
Also, don't underestimate the testosterone aspect. Some depressed guy who doesn't know about which features one rifle does or does not have is just going to want the baddest-ass looking gun he can find (that AWB bans). It's an emotional, not a rational decision at that point. Perhaps all guns should be made hot pink.
So, yeah, the old law was probably flawed. But can you see what I'm getting at?
What I do have a problem with are weapons whose primary purpose is to fill an area with as much lead as possible. These weapons serve no useful sporting purpose--you may kill the deer, but you'll prolly hit 3 of your buddies and two of your tires as well--they are designed to kill a lot of people.
I say you're looking at the wrong thing because I don't care if a hunting rifle fires a heavier slug faster because that is not a weapon designed to kill many people. It's designed to kill one deer. I object to weapons that shoot low-velocity rounds that produce little recoil so you can just blanket an area in lead. What sporting purpose do these weapons serve short of giving a deer a heart attack?
Try http://www.e-gold.com/. This does not resize my browser or pop up any windows.
I'm sure Canada is a great place and all (I've never been there), but low-tax it ain't!
Nice try, tho.
Gawd, I hated school.
I'd rather have voting be a minor (5-10 minutes) effort. If you don't care enough about the country to be willing to spend 10 minutes to vote either in person or by absentee ballot, then I don't want you to have a voice.
Anyone have a workaround other than a USB cable?
Trust me.
P.S. Why can't you read?
Surely you realized that going into the deal, didn't you?
I'm still trying to work out my $LD_LIBRARY_PATH!
I used to race little 16' boats. There was no preparing to come-about or jibe. It was just "DUCK!!" ;)
Thanks for that.