More trees than there have ever been? Are you out of your tiny mind? The whole east coast was a forest once, mostly hardwoods. We practically deforested the entire country by the early 1900's, and when we replanted, we sure as hell didn't replant the same stuff. Oak, and cypress, and the other HUGE slow growing trees are still rare as hell, and the fact that there are a couple of pine trees where they were doesn't touch the amounts in terms of pure quantity or wood.
Jesus. Right near me a lumber company is trying to get permission to salvage cypress trunks they cut down 100 years ago from the riverbeds because the 100 year old wood is obscenely valuable. 100 years ago, they let them sink because who cares, and now they're paying thousands of dollars an acre just to look for the damn stuff.
The problem, aside from the whole "destroying ecosystems" thing, is that the trees that paper companies plant are less effective at holding carbon than the trees that grew in those areas in the first place. They plant quick growing, quick dying trees, and in a natural system, those trees would be succeeded by slower growing trees with much longer lifespans. Pines succeeded by hardwoods, and by longer growing pines.
Ha! Sorry, I've worked with enough Unions to be immediately Union-hostile whenever someone brings it up. It's a system that really thrives on the abuse of power, and has no relation to efficiency or quality, and laws like the one the gggp was talking about are a huge part of the problem.
In states where Unions rule, you have crap like this so some joker with "seniority" can charge an arm an a leg and people like the GGP can't even get a job.
In other states, the work just has to meet code.
What's more important? The quality of the work? Or the person who does it? The obvious answer is quality, but though unions pay lip service to that with the line that all non-union workers are inferior, it's not what they mean.
I know where it is, but we have the same exact problems here. One look at the "No school left standing" educational policy of our fearless leader, and you see that.
See, this is what's wrong with american math. There is no three dimensional figure in ANY of the questions on the exam. Sure, the diagram is 3-D, but nearly every question goes back to triangles, and the few that don't just require a little geometric proof action.
This is one of those questions where you need to understand the why behind all the mickey mouse theorems that they drive into you by rote, because it isn't that hard, it's just not what you're forced to practice eternally.
I transferred schools my Junior year, and drove 16 hours straight to my Junior orientation, and (consequentially) ended up passing out in my math aptitude test from lack of sleep (I know, I know, I'm a wuss).
Long story short, I ended up having to take remedial math, which ended up earning me a world of hatred and loathing from my classmates, and made me a source of endless amusement to my advisor (who had told me to my face that my "sleep deprivation" story was hilariously implausible), due to my "impossible" 116 point class average...I was so far off the curve, that they had to adjust it anyway, and count my score as a data anomaly.
I'm not even that good at math. What universities consider remedial math is stuff that I think you have to know to just exist in society, stuff that you ought to get in high school.
I'd like to think that the questions (sample questions from the article) aren't analogous in the tests, but I know how crappy english speakers have become with mathematical proofs, so it wouldn't suprise me if they are.
The Chinese question isn't that hard, but they threw a really complex diagram in there to mess with your mind, so you have to be able to realize that you're really only working with triangles, and mostly right triangles to boot, despite the fact that the diagram itself is of a whacked out five sided prism.
The Chinese question also required more logic; I mean, the english question is a joke. It's a 3,4,5 right triangle; you just look at it and know that, as well as knowing all the answers to all the questions. You may have to think for a second on the tangent question (opposite over adjacent =P), but probably not.
With the Chinese question, you need to know the pythagorean theorem, but you also need to remember geometric identities, and be able to work with multiple unusual angles, none of this 30,60,90 crap.
I don't know. I'm not a big fan on how they teach math in the english speaking world, and one of the thigns I hate most is related to this; We're taught to apply method A to problem B and get answer C. In a lot of other places they're given problem B, and told to find the answer using the methods at their disposal. It's about thinking, instead of robotic plugging data into static formulas.
I had to take Calculus to graduate with a liberal arts degree. Dropping math altogether is absurd.
The Times wouldn't use it for bumrag...if you don't work for them, or have, you know, a Nobel or a Pulitzer or something. They don't really take freelance stuff.
If you did work there however, you could probably sell an editor on it, given the relevance of Sufism to the current national situation. Plenty of Muslims in New York.
Pistols are no more dangerous than any other gun...All guns are dangerous.
The thing with pistols, for me, is that there is a certain type of person who carries just to feel cool, and they don't take it seriously, and they don't have any skill or respect for the weapon.
They almost always carry pistols, for the very reasons you stated above: pistols are very convenient.
In my world, a pistol owner should be made to pass a fairly rigorous aptitude test for the privilege, and the reason for that is that I know the people I'm okay with having pistols would pass the test, and the people I don't really think should have a pistol wouldn't.
I think the car analogy is a good one; easy to get a drivers license, but not so easy to get a license to drive a tractor trailer.
I've got a CCW right now, a current one, even though I haven't carried in a while. I like being able to, if I should need to. Most states do a background check, and offer a piddling little fee. Now fricking Jersey, those bastards won't give you a permit, period...You pretty much have to be a retired DEA agent or something.
To get the one I've got, I had to pay 50 bucks. No test, though I did have to pay a couple of bucks for a fill-in-the-blanks "psych" test. That's about standard for the South...To get a New York State permit, it cost like 500 bucks, but there still wasn't a test.
Back to the car analogy, you've got to do more than that to get behind the wheel of a car (and, I admit, I wish places had tougher driving tests as well, usually after some moron in an SUV tries to merge into me...least I'm consistent, eh?).
I'd just like to see some assurance of basic skill and competence. I don't think it's completely beyond the bounds of reason.
You're such a jackass. If you'd bother to read anything here, you'd know that I haven't once said, "We should take guns away from people." All I've said so far is that I think a lot of jackasses have guns and treat them like toys, which should be obvious to anyone who really knows guns, as you claim to.
If you really know guns, haven't you ever been in a situation, at the range, hunting, training, where some fool turned to you with a gun in his hand, and that gun was pointed right at you? This has happened to me so many times that I've gotten to the point where I think it should be perfectly legal for me to shoot those people for assaulting me with a deadly weapon. And there are a lot of solid gun-toting bastards who agree with me on this.
So I say this, and say that I wish there was some way to make sure people who had pistols in particular should have to prove that they can fucking USE them without being a danger to bystanders, and people like you come out of the woodwork calling me an amateur and a hippy because I dare to even state a half-assed wish that people had to get a little fucking training. So me, some random non-politico with no money and no stake in the damn issue is endangering your god-given right to walk around with a 45 stuffed in your pants. How ever will you cook dinner without it?
I don't know how people can be such fucking zealots.
If you're so attached to your pistol that you grocery shop with it, and mow your yard with it, and cook your dinner with it, and work on your car with it, then yes, I imagine anything else would be hugely inconvenient for you. Maybe it's your job, and you're required to be armed all the time, who knows? But if it's not your job, I don't frankly care that it inconveniences you to carry a heavier gun. And if you can't cook your dinner without putting down your gun, you've got issues.
Sure, it may be on my conscience that you get gunned down while mowing your lawn, or getting your groceries, but that's a chance I'm willing to take.
That's crap. Put a SMG on a strap over your shoulder, it hangs right fricking NEXT TO YOUR HAND. Put a pistol in a holster on your belt, or under your arm, and you have a much greater distance to reach for it, and in the case of a belt, it's almost certainly going to be snapped in.
Pistols are convenient, but frankly, if you want to go armed, you should be willing to deal with a little inconvenience.
I just wasn't. All the worrying I'd done about just that sort of eventuality, and when I actually got there, I wasn't afraid at all. I could have dropped my stuff and gone for my gun, but I couldn't see any point in killing some dumbass kid, or being killed by one, or even a little of both.
I don't think he knew what to do with me. I just walked past him and went home.
He's right. Ritual is crazy important. The long force of good habit will carry you when you're tired, if you work to build a good set of habits before the familiarity sets in.
When I carried, I always carried the same way. None of this walking around with a rig dangling from your arm. You put it on, make sure it's right, then you put the gun in it, and you wear it all damn day. When you take the gun off, you put it in its place...Mine had a "home", I unloaded it, and put it in the same place every time I wore it.
You've got to treat them like a living thing, because a gun can turn on you if you're not careful. Killing is what it's for, and it doesn't give a damn who.
The thing is, it's legal in most places to carry a large gun. You just need a permit to own one, which anyone can get, and you can carry it anywhere.
Sure the cops will stop you, but but there is nothing for them to charge you with...Well, rifles aren't allowed in certain highly populated areas, and they may harass you for carrying any gun just because they can, but it's perfectly legal. Right to bear arms.
It's all about respect. If you respect a gun, acknowledge that it's always dangerous, and that it's never "safe", it goes a long way toward keeping it safe. That's something you really only get with training and experience.
It was something I'd always been told but I didn't really know it until the first time someone casually pointed a gun at me (while doing something else) and I pictured with perfect clarity what would happen to me if it went off. I knew what it would do, and I knew that that person had no idea what he had just done so casually.
Even a pistol is hard to grab when you don't see it coming. You get used to carrying it, you stop worrying about always having your gun hand free, especially when you've got a dominant hand, and tend to use it to do things like opening your car door, thereby leaving you with your car keys in your right hand, your gun under your left arm, and a pistol 1 foot from your face while some junkie is demanding your wallet.
I've been mugged twice in my life, and one time I actually had a gun. You know what I did with it? Nothing. I just kept on walking, while a guy with a 9mm tried to figure out why I just wasn't scared. That was pretty much the last time I ever carried a gun, because at that point I realized I didn't need to. A little common sense will protect you 99.9% of the time, and that last.1% you'll have your damn hands full.
Yea, because that's how your average mugger rolls, he doesn't wait for the guy with the big gun to go away, he fricking caps the bastard! Because the other guys got a gun, man!
Seriously, what situation are you talking about here? Is someone trying to assassinate you? I'm trying to think of a situation which would include me gunning for an armed bystander, and it's not coming to me. Either I'm carrying a longer gun as well, in which case it's obvious I'm also armed, so no advantage for a pistol, or I'm point blank on the guy, which would probably have alerted him somewhat if he's living somewhere so dangerous he has to carry a gun everywhere. I'm sure as hell not going to try and shoot him from any kind of range with a fricking pistol! That works in cowboy movies, but in the real world you're going to have to be close to kill someone with a pistol with anything other than a lucky shot.
If someone is willing to take on a whole group of unarmed people, he probably doesn't give a damn if any of them are armed, any more than a rabid dog would. He's screwed up in the head, screwed up people do screwed up things. And even here, in gun-friendly America, we all know damn well that no one in that crowd is carrying a gun (well, unless we're in Texas, NYC, or LA), and a criminal will attack with that knowledge. But not if they see a gun.
I'm pro-gun dammit. I like guns, I like shooting guns. But random unskilled jokers with pistols make me fricking crazy. That guys not going to see a criminal in his whole life, but there's a 50/50 chance that damn gun's going to go off by accident, and while the welfare of him and his spawn don't worry me, the welfare of bystanders (of which I may be one) worries me a lot.
I was raised around guns. I respect them, and I've never had an accident with a gun, and it's because I treat them like what they are...deadly weapons. I don't show 'em to people with the barrel parallel to the floor and a goddamn round in the CHAMBER. I've seen this crap over and over.
People always talk about Switzerland, and how they have more guns per capita than we do, and far less gun problems per capita. They also have mandatory military service, which forces people to learn how to use a gun intelligently.
There is no barrier to ownership here, and I'm fine with that in theory, but in practice it means a lot of people who have no business owning a gun, end up owning a gun. So compromise. Anyone can get a long gun, but you have to pass some serious tests for a pistol. We uphold the spirit of the Constitution, and maintain a little civil order as well.
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More trees than there have ever been? Are you out of your tiny mind? The whole east coast was a forest once, mostly hardwoods. We practically deforested the entire country by the early 1900's, and when we replanted, we sure as hell didn't replant the same stuff. Oak, and cypress, and the other HUGE slow growing trees are still rare as hell, and the fact that there are a couple of pine trees where they were doesn't touch the amounts in terms of pure quantity or wood.
Jesus. Right near me a lumber company is trying to get permission to salvage cypress trunks they cut down 100 years ago from the riverbeds because the 100 year old wood is obscenely valuable. 100 years ago, they let them sink because who cares, and now they're paying thousands of dollars an acre just to look for the damn stuff.
The problem, aside from the whole "destroying ecosystems" thing, is that the trees that paper companies plant are less effective at holding carbon than the trees that grew in those areas in the first place. They plant quick growing, quick dying trees, and in a natural system, those trees would be succeeded by slower growing trees with much longer lifespans. Pines succeeded by hardwoods, and by longer growing pines.
Mod parent up. Trees are basically water and carbon. It ain't coal or oil, but wood is pound for pound one of the best carbon sinks on the planet.
Ha! Sorry, I've worked with enough Unions to be immediately Union-hostile whenever someone brings it up. It's a system that really thrives on the abuse of power, and has no relation to efficiency or quality, and laws like the one the gggp was talking about are a huge part of the problem.
Probably not.
In states where Unions rule, you have crap like this so some joker with "seniority" can charge an arm an a leg and people like the GGP can't even get a job.
In other states, the work just has to meet code.
What's more important? The quality of the work? Or the person who does it? The obvious answer is quality, but though unions pay lip service to that with the line that all non-union workers are inferior, it's not what they mean.
It was offered as either three courses or one unified course where I went to college; I took the unified course, and aced it.
But it didn't count on my transcripts, because we were expected to have already known that stuff, not to have to take it in college.
I know where it is, but we have the same exact problems here. One look at the "No school left standing" educational policy of our fearless leader, and you see that.
See, this is what's wrong with american math. There is no three dimensional figure in ANY of the questions on the exam. Sure, the diagram is 3-D, but nearly every question goes back to triangles, and the few that don't just require a little geometric proof action.
This is one of those questions where you need to understand the why behind all the mickey mouse theorems that they drive into you by rote, because it isn't that hard, it's just not what you're forced to practice eternally.
I transferred schools my Junior year, and drove 16 hours straight to my Junior orientation, and (consequentially) ended up passing out in my math aptitude test from lack of sleep (I know, I know, I'm a wuss).
Long story short, I ended up having to take remedial math, which ended up earning me a world of hatred and loathing from my classmates, and made me a source of endless amusement to my advisor (who had told me to my face that my "sleep deprivation" story was hilariously implausible), due to my "impossible" 116 point class average...I was so far off the curve, that they had to adjust it anyway, and count my score as a data anomaly.
I'm not even that good at math. What universities consider remedial math is stuff that I think you have to know to just exist in society, stuff that you ought to get in high school.
I'd like to think that the questions (sample questions from the article) aren't analogous in the tests, but I know how crappy english speakers have become with mathematical proofs, so it wouldn't suprise me if they are.
The Chinese question isn't that hard, but they threw a really complex diagram in there to mess with your mind, so you have to be able to realize that you're really only working with triangles, and mostly right triangles to boot, despite the fact that the diagram itself is of a whacked out five sided prism.
The Chinese question also required more logic; I mean, the english question is a joke. It's a 3,4,5 right triangle; you just look at it and know that, as well as knowing all the answers to all the questions. You may have to think for a second on the tangent question (opposite over adjacent =P), but probably not.
With the Chinese question, you need to know the pythagorean theorem, but you also need to remember geometric identities, and be able to work with multiple unusual angles, none of this 30,60,90 crap.
I don't know. I'm not a big fan on how they teach math in the english speaking world, and one of the thigns I hate most is related to this; We're taught to apply method A to problem B and get answer C. In a lot of other places they're given problem B, and told to find the answer using the methods at their disposal. It's about thinking, instead of robotic plugging data into static formulas.
I had to take Calculus to graduate with a liberal arts degree. Dropping math altogether is absurd.
The Times wouldn't use it for bumrag...if you don't work for them, or have, you know, a Nobel or a Pulitzer or something. They don't really take freelance stuff.
If you did work there however, you could probably sell an editor on it, given the relevance of Sufism to the current national situation. Plenty of Muslims in New York.
Pistols are no more dangerous than any other gun...All guns are dangerous.
The thing with pistols, for me, is that there is a certain type of person who carries just to feel cool, and they don't take it seriously, and they don't have any skill or respect for the weapon.
They almost always carry pistols, for the very reasons you stated above: pistols are very convenient.
In my world, a pistol owner should be made to pass a fairly rigorous aptitude test for the privilege, and the reason for that is that I know the people I'm okay with having pistols would pass the test, and the people I don't really think should have a pistol wouldn't.
I think the car analogy is a good one; easy to get a drivers license, but not so easy to get a license to drive a tractor trailer.
I've got a CCW right now, a current one, even though I haven't carried in a while. I like being able to, if I should need to. Most states do a background check, and offer a piddling little fee. Now fricking Jersey, those bastards won't give you a permit, period...You pretty much have to be a retired DEA agent or something.
To get the one I've got, I had to pay 50 bucks. No test, though I did have to pay a couple of bucks for a fill-in-the-blanks "psych" test. That's about standard for the South...To get a New York State permit, it cost like 500 bucks, but there still wasn't a test.
Back to the car analogy, you've got to do more than that to get behind the wheel of a car (and, I admit, I wish places had tougher driving tests as well, usually after some moron in an SUV tries to merge into me...least I'm consistent, eh?).
I'd just like to see some assurance of basic skill and competence. I don't think it's completely beyond the bounds of reason.
You're such a jackass. If you'd bother to read anything here, you'd know that I haven't once said, "We should take guns away from people." All I've said so far is that I think a lot of jackasses have guns and treat them like toys, which should be obvious to anyone who really knows guns, as you claim to.
If you really know guns, haven't you ever been in a situation, at the range, hunting, training, where some fool turned to you with a gun in his hand, and that gun was pointed right at you? This has happened to me so many times that I've gotten to the point where I think it should be perfectly legal for me to shoot those people for assaulting me with a deadly weapon. And there are a lot of solid gun-toting bastards who agree with me on this.
So I say this, and say that I wish there was some way to make sure people who had pistols in particular should have to prove that they can fucking USE them without being a danger to bystanders, and people like you come out of the woodwork calling me an amateur and a hippy because I dare to even state a half-assed wish that people had to get a little fucking training. So me, some random non-politico with no money and no stake in the damn issue is endangering your god-given right to walk around with a 45 stuffed in your pants. How ever will you cook dinner without it?
I don't know how people can be such fucking zealots.
*rolls eyes*
If you're so attached to your pistol that you grocery shop with it, and mow your yard with it, and cook your dinner with it, and work on your car with it, then yes, I imagine anything else would be hugely inconvenient for you. Maybe it's your job, and you're required to be armed all the time, who knows? But if it's not your job, I don't frankly care that it inconveniences you to carry a heavier gun. And if you can't cook your dinner without putting down your gun, you've got issues.
Sure, it may be on my conscience that you get gunned down while mowing your lawn, or getting your groceries, but that's a chance I'm willing to take.
That's crap. Put a SMG on a strap over your shoulder, it hangs right fricking NEXT TO YOUR HAND. Put a pistol in a holster on your belt, or under your arm, and you have a much greater distance to reach for it, and in the case of a belt, it's almost certainly going to be snapped in.
Pistols are convenient, but frankly, if you want to go armed, you should be willing to deal with a little inconvenience.
What are you, Jack Thompson? Those skills are useless in a test for pistol aptitude. Might as well test your ability to play pac-man.
I just wasn't. All the worrying I'd done about just that sort of eventuality, and when I actually got there, I wasn't afraid at all. I could have dropped my stuff and gone for my gun, but I couldn't see any point in killing some dumbass kid, or being killed by one, or even a little of both.
I don't think he knew what to do with me. I just walked past him and went home.
Exactly. I always picture a line running from the end of the gun...that line should never cross something you aren't willing to shoot.
He's right. Ritual is crazy important. The long force of good habit will carry you when you're tired, if you work to build a good set of habits before the familiarity sets in.
When I carried, I always carried the same way. None of this walking around with a rig dangling from your arm. You put it on, make sure it's right, then you put the gun in it, and you wear it all damn day. When you take the gun off, you put it in its place...Mine had a "home", I unloaded it, and put it in the same place every time I wore it.
You've got to treat them like a living thing, because a gun can turn on you if you're not careful. Killing is what it's for, and it doesn't give a damn who.
The thing is, it's legal in most places to carry a large gun. You just need a permit to own one, which anyone can get, and you can carry it anywhere.
Sure the cops will stop you, but but there is nothing for them to charge you with...Well, rifles aren't allowed in certain highly populated areas, and they may harass you for carrying any gun just because they can, but it's perfectly legal. Right to bear arms.
It's all about respect. If you respect a gun, acknowledge that it's always dangerous, and that it's never "safe", it goes a long way toward keeping it safe. That's something you really only get with training and experience.
It was something I'd always been told but I didn't really know it until the first time someone casually pointed a gun at me (while doing something else) and I pictured with perfect clarity what would happen to me if it went off. I knew what it would do, and I knew that that person had no idea what he had just done so casually.
Even a pistol is hard to grab when you don't see it coming. You get used to carrying it, you stop worrying about always having your gun hand free, especially when you've got a dominant hand, and tend to use it to do things like opening your car door, thereby leaving you with your car keys in your right hand, your gun under your left arm, and a pistol 1 foot from your face while some junkie is demanding your wallet.
.1% you'll have your damn hands full.
I've been mugged twice in my life, and one time I actually had a gun. You know what I did with it? Nothing. I just kept on walking, while a guy with a 9mm tried to figure out why I just wasn't scared. That was pretty much the last time I ever carried a gun, because at that point I realized I didn't need to. A little common sense will protect you 99.9% of the time, and that last
That's what the long guns are for.
Yea, because that's how your average mugger rolls, he doesn't wait for the guy with the big gun to go away, he fricking caps the bastard! Because the other guys got a gun, man!
Seriously, what situation are you talking about here? Is someone trying to assassinate you? I'm trying to think of a situation which would include me gunning for an armed bystander, and it's not coming to me. Either I'm carrying a longer gun as well, in which case it's obvious I'm also armed, so no advantage for a pistol, or I'm point blank on the guy, which would probably have alerted him somewhat if he's living somewhere so dangerous he has to carry a gun everywhere. I'm sure as hell not going to try and shoot him from any kind of range with a fricking pistol! That works in cowboy movies, but in the real world you're going to have to be close to kill someone with a pistol with anything other than a lucky shot.
If someone is willing to take on a whole group of unarmed people, he probably doesn't give a damn if any of them are armed, any more than a rabid dog would. He's screwed up in the head, screwed up people do screwed up things. And even here, in gun-friendly America, we all know damn well that no one in that crowd is carrying a gun (well, unless we're in Texas, NYC, or LA), and a criminal will attack with that knowledge. But not if they see a gun.
I'm pro-gun dammit. I like guns, I like shooting guns. But random unskilled jokers with pistols make me fricking crazy. That guys not going to see a criminal in his whole life, but there's a 50/50 chance that damn gun's going to go off by accident, and while the welfare of him and his spawn don't worry me, the welfare of bystanders (of which I may be one) worries me a lot.
I was raised around guns. I respect them, and I've never had an accident with a gun, and it's because I treat them like what they are...deadly weapons. I don't show 'em to people with the barrel parallel to the floor and a goddamn round in the CHAMBER. I've seen this crap over and over.
People always talk about Switzerland, and how they have more guns per capita than we do, and far less gun problems per capita. They also have mandatory military service, which forces people to learn how to use a gun intelligently.
There is no barrier to ownership here, and I'm fine with that in theory, but in practice it means a lot of people who have no business owning a gun, end up owning a gun. So compromise. Anyone can get a long gun, but you have to pass some serious tests for a pistol. We uphold the spirit of the Constitution, and maintain a little civil order as well.