Wait, you are telling me that all of the guesses I can find are not also an opinion? There are literally thousands of them within a single Google search. Show me one concrete fact on the age of the Universe, just one. If you could, I would have read such fact and known that we now know which theory is correct and how old the Universe is. Currently we have no proof that either the Big Bang or Expanding Vacuum theory are better than each other. Both are theories based on an "opinion" and both could be incorrect.
Like many on/. you're just too clever for the rest of us plebs, never mind the broad consensus of the discipline of cosmology.
Ahh, so many opinions so little time. Which cosmologist do you believe is working with pure facts, and why are these facts not available to everyone else in the world? Who's speculated numbers are you finding "factual" and who's numbers are fabricated? They are all fabricated by the way, go do some research.
Please specify the magical materials and energy involved.
Dark matter and dark energy are both magical stuff invented to make the models work. Those models are both Big Bang and Expanding Vacuum theory. Funny how we can detect every element in the periodic table from light years away, but we don't have exact measurements of the two biggest components of modelling the Big Bang (most models use 80% of the Universe being "dark", some as high as 90%). Another theory, which I find just as valid, is that we just don't know shit about gravity. There is no magical stuff making it all work. You won't sell many books with a realistic view of the Universe. There is no fanfare in that theory, and you won't hear your favorite cosmologist talking much about that one. People hate admitting ignorance, even when it's profound.
Heavy elements are at least logical. We know that most of an atom is empty space. In higher gravity, this space could be reduced. Magical stuff we can't see or detect is illogical. If you really believe in that stuff, please go find me factual numbers to show something about them. As with the theories of the Universe being created, it's all guess work. Competing theories show such vast differences in the magical materials properties. There is no agreement on the weight and mass of dark matter unless people are using the same models for a big bang for example.
As a non-expert in cosmology, I veer away from having strong opinions about it. Provisionally accepting the broad consensus is perfectly reasonable. You on the other hand know better. I suspect mount stupid [imgur.com] is at work here.
The word delusional comes to mind immediately. Any cosmology you believe in, is a theory and therefor an opinion. While we lack facts, it should be your desire to learn facts. Not take someones word for how the Universe works (This is the exact thing atheists tend to ridicule theists for isn't it?). We could all sit and vote on dark matter's properties, but that does not make it exist. This is what scientists did to make models of the big bang work. Making it a limited democratic process does not make it factual, and believing we know the answers is absolutely foolish.
I don't claim to know the answer by the way. I take a realistic view of what is presented and question it, as we are supposed to be doing with the Scientific Method. The two main competing theories currently render each other invalid. EV means a Big Bang is not necessary and would never have happened. Big Bang means that EV is wrong, and we somehow had enough stuff at the start to make it all go. There are also hybrid theories which combine certain elements of both of those theories. Calling any of those "facts" instead of what they are, opinions, should cause severe cognitive dissonance in an educated person.
Claiming that our current model gives everyone education and classical did not is a straw man argument. The classical eduction was not designed to exclude in any way. People were excluded from education by income, sure but those same limitations exist no matter what education system is in place.
The most common complaint from teachers is that they can not teach kids to learn, they only teach them to take the tests. Depending on your State, this can be as many as four times a year, however Federal Law mandates 2 times a year. If you are training kids to take tests, you are not teaching them to think you are teaching them to work by rote.
I don't discount your parents helping. Helping with homework is not unique to your parents. As a parent, I have also had to teach my kid math concepts out of school since the school does not teach the concept, they teach rote learning. This starts at basic math when kids learn multiplication, but continues. Some subjects, Geography for example, require this. Other subjects, Social studies do not. Is it more important to learn to question why we went to wars or what year a war started and ended? The latter is not taught or discussed.
Just for posterity, the proper acronym is "IANAL" for "I Am Not A Lawyer". The alternative is "IAAL" (I Am A Lawyer) or perhaps "IANYL" (I Am Not Your Lawyer). Perhaps you did not know of the acronym, or perhaps you find it offensive or uncomfortable. Either way, please don't write new acronyms for things that have been well established. If you search a site like Groklaw, you will see the acronym used heavily.
There is a whole Wiki page devoted to this acronym and it's relatives.
Not that long ago, we used a the classical education system. This was based on the Trivium (Rhetoric, Basic Math, Language) followed later by the Quadrivium which was Philosophy, Astrology (Later Science replaced this), Art, and Music. The advanced education (Quadrivium) still included the Trivium with more advanced subjects. When we educated this way we not only learned science and math, but people learned ethics, morals, and more importantly how to think. The classical education system was disbanded back in the 1930/40s, when we moved to the Marxist industrial education system. This system is designed to train people to perform jobs, and not to think.
Ethics and looking out for the greater good of society is something requires reinforcement and training, just like mathematics. Problems and Solutions are not made by people that never consider the full implications of their actions. I have long been an advocate of disbanding the Marxist education system that has taken hold in the US and other parts of Europe. Germany adopted our education system in the 1970s, and it's had a horrible effect.
Unfortunately, a large percentage of the population is not aware of how bad our education system is. They believe it's normal not to memorize times tables, and not understand the math concept of multiplication. Many teachers don't want to teach what the Government forces them to teach. They realize it does not teach kids to think but to perform robotic tasks. Their hands are tied by the Government mandated system.
It was because of how poor our education system is, that my kid went to private school.
There are not a billion humans on Facebook, sorry but that is absolutely wrong (though I don't doubt someone has posted that stat and that you believed it). There may be a billion accounts, but wholly shit man, use your head! A large portion of those accounts are people that quit using Facebook, but of course still count in the stats since their data is never deleted. A huge chunk of those accounts are businesses, not people. Some people may have 4-5 businesses so 4-5 facebook accounts (think Authors, Artists, Musicians). A huge percentage of those accounts are spam/bot accounts. And the largest percentage of real humans are not really users. They may log in once a month to read family updates, but that's not regular enough to be a user on any other system so should not be considered such on Facebook.
The real number of people actively using Facebook across the world is probably closer 100-150 million or so.
If you doubt my math, remember that the highest populated countries (China and India) have the largest populations living in poverty with no access to the Internet at all. It's maybe 1 in 100 people in China and India that have regular Internet access. Those other 99 out of a hundred would not have time to surf on the public computers, if they did they would starve. Now add in most of Africa, which has very smaller percentages of the population with Internet access. Some large portions of the Middle East also have no internet access.
If your number was correct, that would mean that 1 in 7 people in the world are Facebook users. Stop and think about how unrealistic that number is for a minute.
Hell, my estimate considers that the US has 10% of the population using Facebook, which is extremely generous. Out of my family (100 or so people) I can think of 3 people that are Facebook users. Only 20 or so have a Facebook account at all, many of which were created by the 3 regular users. It's not like my family is all out scratching dirt for a living, they just have no interest in surfing the Internet at all, let alone using Facebook.
Probably a very very small percentage of people. However, given the current desire to track everyone and snoop on what everyone does, these will be crammed down everyone's throats. Facebook popularity has been dropping steadily. Not for the reasons I hope (privacy) but because Facebook is stale and old news. Facebook bloomed when MySpace tanked (and of course was part of the cause). Facebook has no competition, and none will be allowed to compete unless it can do all of the same poor (and I don't mean financially) things Facebook can do. Which means that it won't be replaced, people will just be forced to use that or nothing.
I understand what mens rea is, it was to make a point regarding the wealth of knowledge available to the public.
Your last paragraph strikes me as odd. While I don't discount the importance of training with live ammo, I served in the military. We never trained with live grenades due to cost. We had demonstrations to show how powerful they were, but we used training grenades for training (true for Claymores, and M203 rounds as well. We trained with FMJ rounds, but not AP or hollow point rounds. Again, due to cost. Knowing how to target, sight, and fire the weapon does not change based on the round being used. With that said, how big of an army is DHS to require 1.2 billion rounds even for training? At best it's an absolute waste of societies money, at worst we should be more concerned based on what I pointed out above. So much information is unknown that your speculation is no better than my speculation. Since you seem to be ignoring other known concerns, my speculation holds more weight than yours in my opinion.
First, you are an idiot if you don't understand what the MRAP is. Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle. Did I say they purchased Tanks? No, I said very clearly "armored vehicles". The name MRAP shows clearly that the vehicle is armored. Will it stop a tank round? Not a KE or AP round, but it will not be bothered by small arms, or home made explosive devices and even smaller HE rounds like 25mm.
So since you back what I stated regarding the Patriot act perhaps you simply misread what I wrote previously. But...
Your numbers regarding bullet purchases are absolutely wrong. As is the reason for them purchasing killing bullets vs. target bullets. Here is an article showing 1.4 billion rounds. This includes sniper rounds as well as 9mm and 5.56 rounds so is higher than what I quoted. The reason DHS claims to need that many bullets is for target practice. Hollow points cost nearly 3 times what target rounds cost, so obviously this is either 1) a lie or 2) a waste of tax payer money. Since they continue to lie about the purchase, I have no reason to believe that they are honest with their intentions for use.
You also gave a fabrication for the number of armored vehicles being purchased by DHS. Here is a link that is not Alex Jones, showing that the purchase is for 2,700 but of course a good number of those have not been delivered yet.
When you fabricate information to prove someone wrong, you appear to be a government shill. It is possible that you are just absolutely misinformed. You use the term "conspiracy theorist" just like the media teaches people to use the term through propaganda. So as I started with, you are either a shill or ignorant.
Americans at least should be outraged by this, as well as all of the other wiretapping bullshit that has gone on since the Patriot act. While I would guess that most Americans have no idea what 'mens rea' is, they should all understand the concept of innocent until proven guilty.
There is no reason for all of these Government agencies to have unlimited access to your personal life without a warrant. None what so ever. If you believe the propaganda and rhetoric, shame on you for being ignorant. Just think, in 7 months the new NSA super computers will be cracking away at your encryption as well, so even that won't be safe.
Combine the FBI, CIA, DHS, ATF, and FEMA resources and you have an army big enough to take on the US Military and more intelligence for a domestic war. Speaking of which, the DHS this year purchased 1.2 billion hollow point bullets (add in other Government agencies and you have over 2 billion rounds of killing bullets, not target bullets). Hmmm, still you find nothing odd with them snooping into _everything_ you do? How about the 1,300 armored vehicles they purchased last year by DHS? Still nothing? Anyone remember the 2011 defense spending bill with the clauses allowing indefinite detention of US citizens without warrant, trial, etc...? How about NSA, DHS, FBI, and CIA drone programs operating domestically? How about the lack of transparency in all of these agencies we were promised over 4 years ago by the then candidate now President, and before that by GWB? Anyone else know about why FEMA has been building dozens of "Relocation Camps" in the US? There is footage of one at least, but of course all of them are denied.
Look at all of that shit, then combine with the fact that the main stream media has become pure propaganda. Suddeny those conspiracy theories really don't seem so whacky do they? It's well passed the time when we should be waking up the neighbors, protesting for change, and voting in new leadership based on Socrates' principles and not politicians!
You just pointed at the same thing again. The chile INGESTED magnets. What the fuck? What parent in their right mind allows their toddlers to play with these at all, let alone unsupervised. How do you know it was the parent's fault? Because the kid at twelve of these magnets. Not 1 where the parent took them away from the kid, but 12! Wholly shit you make no sense. I gave the logic previously, go back and read it again.
Whether you see purpose in them or not is irrelevant to the discussion! My kid played with magnets to learn about magnetism. He did so under close supervision because.. well, you know.. even at 6-7 years old when magnetism becomes cool a kid may decide to put one in their mouth.
In WA, Princess Margaret Hospital reports there have been 33 cases of children swallowing magnets since 2006 and four were admitted to hospital for treatment. In April 2012, a two year old boy underwent emergency surgery to remove 27 small magnets from his stomach.
I added the emphasis above, but this is from your article. The magnets were not harming children. Parents that allowed their children to play with adult toys unsupervised harmed the children.
If your logic was true, every company producing kitchen knives is responsible for children that get cut when fishing through the knife drawer while the parents are not looking. Every company producing cleansers (including lye) is responsible for children that get sick or die from ingesting the cleaners, and not the parents for keeping the cleaners out of reach of children.
Come now, the problem is not that an idiot did something with a tool which they should not have. I'd be willing to bet that when the first person was bludgeoned to death with a cook pot, some asshole said "ban them all!". Fortunately leadership was smart enough to ignore that idiocy, and we can still use our cookware. And as a side note, people still occasionally get bludgeoned with cookware.
If leadership is allowing stupid ass laws to be passed banning tools because an idiot uses it in a fashion which can cause harm, vote in some new leaders. Don't blame idiots for doing idiotic things. They are acting absolutely normal and as expected. Idiots are not new.
What is new is that a staggering amount of people allow shit leadership to stay in place. The easy and complacent thing to do is to ignore poor leadership and put blame where it maintains a status quot instead of correcting problems.
Humor aside, when I left Michigan the company I worked for gave us a verbal memo dictating that we all had to work 2080 hours per year whether we liked it or not (I had good reason to leave MI). We also got a nice 5% pay reduction due to the poor economy. The verbal memo was to save them from a law suit that would have been provable if they wrote something down.
You may try the song backward as well as forward. The brain does process things that way more often than people will admit, and perhaps it needs something in the fore from the song in reverse?
Nicely stated. Many people posting anonymously do expect replies. Even worse, they believe you should be able to determine their anonymous comments out of all of the other anonymous comments. Anonymous people have said "I did not say that, it was the other AC" and "Oh, you didn't reply so I must be right" often enough.. Anonymous cowards say the craziest things...
Why do you ignore the statistics that show the impact to overall violent crimes when guns are banned? Where people can use guns to defend themselves, violent crime rates are very low. In places where guns have been banned, the rate of violent crime greatly increases. Australia reported this exact thing after banning and burning guns. In Australia, every gun toting criminal was replaced with 3-4 knife or club wielding criminals. Logical trade off? Go ask a victim. Many of those victims used to own guns, and have been vocal about how stupid the ban was and is. You probably don't want to read or listen to any of those people though, I mean their story would not back your illogical belief that guns are a problem. Do you think it matters to the woman whether she was raped at gunpoint or after being beaten senseless by a baseball bat?
You also neglect how many of these reported statistics ignore gun crimes. For example in the UK if a person is convicted of murder with a gun, the crime gets reported. In the case of an unsolved crime or failure to convict the gun murder is not counted. Why would they manipulate numbers in this way, except to keep people ignorant?
You are ignorant, the end. First, the 2nd Amendment is about owning arms to prevent Tyranny or overthrow an illegitimate government. Not just "self protection". Second, the amount of people killed annually by legally owned firearms is miniscule. Most gun deaths in the US are from illegal arms. If they are illegal, then guess what happens if laws are changed? Illegal guns will still be here and good people will be at the mercy of anyone owning an illegal gun. If you want to see how well that works out, look at crime rates in Chicago or any other "Gun Free" zone in the US.
Please take your appeal to emotion arguments and shove them right on up your asshole. Facts do not back you on any level.
In about 75% of all cases, gun ownership was mainly causing tragedies.What?!? So the owning of a gun causes a person to commit suicide? Sorry, that is absolutely false and irrational thinking. People that are suicidal are going to be suicidal whether or not they own a gun. In fact I have a couple family members that were in such a state and owned no gun (1 person tried twice, another succeeded their first try). Do you ban razors, kitchen knives, and over the counter medicine because people become suicidal? Do we blame those objects for the person becoming suicidal? No, you don't ban them and believing they "cause" the state of mind is absolute rubbish.
Someone else stated that you need references on other statements. I believe you are ignorantly repeating propaganda instead of checking facts and actually "thinking" about what you are talking about. Appeals to emotion may be powerful rhetoric to you, but someone thinking rationally recognizes it as a fallacy.
You nailed it, but to what avail? The people in power currently want to blame video games, and I'm sure this person made a shitload of money to make this "science" available. (Quoted because it's obviously not science, but will be called exactly that by propagandists). They will refuse to admit that the real reason we see psychopathic killers is because society has deeper issues than a video game. I find it interesting that they don't blame Hollywood which shows way more blood, gore, killing, anti-social behaviors, and even makes heroes/heroines of the people committing those acts. Music that encourages that behavior is not being blamed either. Nasty musicians are promoted by main stream media, and people are shown (and encouraged) to worship those nasty people. There are plenty of things we need to look at and change, but those are symptoms of a sick society.
Fact: A great majority of people are ignorant enough to believe everything they are told today. Until we can teach each other to think, society will continue to crumble. "It is imperative for society that the most intelligent of us are the most Honest." by Aristotle is very important here. While I believe that statement to be true, the majority of us that are honest and intelligent need to go teach the masses.
There was a similar study long ago not dealing with how to get the song out alone, but also what the cause of the song being stuck was. The majority of cases tended to be related to the brain not being able to remember or work out a part of the song. That study also gave the easiest remedy to the issue: Listen to the song from start to finish without interruption. In a majority of their test cases, the playing of the song jogged the memory and filled in the gaps allowing the brain to move on to other things.
You are describing Utopia, which does not exist for way too many reasons to possibly address here. The point of having a Government is because Utopia is not possible. Maybe you missed those lessons in Sociology, Philosophy, and Economics.
You are an idiot comparing bananas to goats. The end. Your post that follows this one is like claiming that roads are not important, or keeping sea ways clear is not important, etc.. Governments are supposed to subsidize projects which better society.
Coal, Gas, and Oil are known to be horrible for society. If you have doubts, please go purchase a cheap plot of land next to a plant or refinery and take up permanent residence (How cheap the land is should compel you to purchase right? And yes, that land is almost free!). "Cheap" is not better for society when it causes physical harm to members of society and creates sick people which become a burden on the rest of society, and destroys land which belongs to society.
Slashdot Mirror
The age of the universe is pure guess work.
In your opinion.
Wait, you are telling me that all of the guesses I can find are not also an opinion? There are literally thousands of them within a single Google search. Show me one concrete fact on the age of the Universe, just one. If you could, I would have read such fact and known that we now know which theory is correct and how old the Universe is. Currently we have no proof that either the Big Bang or Expanding Vacuum theory are better than each other. Both are theories based on an "opinion" and both could be incorrect.
Like many on /. you're just too clever for the rest of us plebs, never mind the broad consensus of the discipline of cosmology.
Ahh, so many opinions so little time. Which cosmologist do you believe is working with pure facts, and why are these facts not available to everyone else in the world? Who's speculated numbers are you finding "factual" and who's numbers are fabricated? They are all fabricated by the way, go do some research.
Please specify the magical materials and energy involved.
Dark matter and dark energy are both magical stuff invented to make the models work. Those models are both Big Bang and Expanding Vacuum theory. Funny how we can detect every element in the periodic table from light years away, but we don't have exact measurements of the two biggest components of modelling the Big Bang (most models use 80% of the Universe being "dark", some as high as 90%). Another theory, which I find just as valid, is that we just don't know shit about gravity. There is no magical stuff making it all work. You won't sell many books with a realistic view of the Universe. There is no fanfare in that theory, and you won't hear your favorite cosmologist talking much about that one. People hate admitting ignorance, even when it's profound.
Heavy elements are at least logical. We know that most of an atom is empty space. In higher gravity, this space could be reduced. Magical stuff we can't see or detect is illogical. If you really believe in that stuff, please go find me factual numbers to show something about them. As with the theories of the Universe being created, it's all guess work. Competing theories show such vast differences in the magical materials properties. There is no agreement on the weight and mass of dark matter unless people are using the same models for a big bang for example.
As a non-expert in cosmology, I veer away from having strong opinions about it. Provisionally accepting the broad consensus is perfectly reasonable. You on the other hand know better. I suspect mount stupid [imgur.com] is at work here.
The word delusional comes to mind immediately. Any cosmology you believe in, is a theory and therefor an opinion. While we lack facts, it should be your desire to learn facts. Not take someones word for how the Universe works (This is the exact thing atheists tend to ridicule theists for isn't it?). We could all sit and vote on dark matter's properties, but that does not make it exist. This is what scientists did to make models of the big bang work. Making it a limited democratic process does not make it factual, and believing we know the answers is absolutely foolish.
I don't claim to know the answer by the way. I take a realistic view of what is presented and question it, as we are supposed to be doing with the Scientific Method. The two main competing theories currently render each other invalid. EV means a Big Bang is not necessary and would never have happened. Big Bang means that EV is wrong, and we somehow had enough stuff at the start to make it all go. There are also hybrid theories which combine certain elements of both of those theories. Calling any of those "facts" instead of what they are, opinions, should cause severe cognitive dissonance in an educated person.
Always happy to help educate, thanks for taking no offense to the post as some may have.
Claiming that our current model gives everyone education and classical did not is a straw man argument. The classical eduction was not designed to exclude in any way. People were excluded from education by income, sure but those same limitations exist no matter what education system is in place.
The most common complaint from teachers is that they can not teach kids to learn, they only teach them to take the tests. Depending on your State, this can be as many as four times a year, however Federal Law mandates 2 times a year. If you are training kids to take tests, you are not teaching them to think you are teaching them to work by rote.
I don't discount your parents helping. Helping with homework is not unique to your parents. As a parent, I have also had to teach my kid math concepts out of school since the school does not teach the concept, they teach rote learning. This starts at basic math when kids learn multiplication, but continues. Some subjects, Geography for example, require this. Other subjects, Social studies do not. Is it more important to learn to question why we went to wars or what year a war started and ended? The latter is not taught or discussed.
Just for posterity, the proper acronym is "IANAL" for "I Am Not A Lawyer". The alternative is "IAAL" (I Am A Lawyer) or perhaps "IANYL" (I Am Not Your Lawyer). Perhaps you did not know of the acronym, or perhaps you find it offensive or uncomfortable. Either way, please don't write new acronyms for things that have been well established. If you search a site like Groklaw, you will see the acronym used heavily.
There is a whole Wiki page devoted to this acronym and it's relatives.
Not that long ago, we used a the classical education system. This was based on the Trivium (Rhetoric, Basic Math, Language) followed later by the Quadrivium which was Philosophy, Astrology (Later Science replaced this), Art, and Music. The advanced education (Quadrivium) still included the Trivium with more advanced subjects. When we educated this way we not only learned science and math, but people learned ethics, morals, and more importantly how to think. The classical education system was disbanded back in the 1930/40s, when we moved to the Marxist industrial education system. This system is designed to train people to perform jobs, and not to think.
Ethics and looking out for the greater good of society is something requires reinforcement and training, just like mathematics. Problems and Solutions are not made by people that never consider the full implications of their actions. I have long been an advocate of disbanding the Marxist education system that has taken hold in the US and other parts of Europe. Germany adopted our education system in the 1970s, and it's had a horrible effect.
Unfortunately, a large percentage of the population is not aware of how bad our education system is. They believe it's normal not to memorize times tables, and not understand the math concept of multiplication. Many teachers don't want to teach what the Government forces them to teach. They realize it does not teach kids to think but to perform robotic tasks. Their hands are tied by the Government mandated system.
It was because of how poor our education system is, that my kid went to private school.
There are not a billion humans on Facebook, sorry but that is absolutely wrong (though I don't doubt someone has posted that stat and that you believed it). There may be a billion accounts, but wholly shit man, use your head! A large portion of those accounts are people that quit using Facebook, but of course still count in the stats since their data is never deleted. A huge chunk of those accounts are businesses, not people. Some people may have 4-5 businesses so 4-5 facebook accounts (think Authors, Artists, Musicians). A huge percentage of those accounts are spam/bot accounts. And the largest percentage of real humans are not really users. They may log in once a month to read family updates, but that's not regular enough to be a user on any other system so should not be considered such on Facebook.
The real number of people actively using Facebook across the world is probably closer 100-150 million or so.
If you doubt my math, remember that the highest populated countries (China and India) have the largest populations living in poverty with no access to the Internet at all. It's maybe 1 in 100 people in China and India that have regular Internet access. Those other 99 out of a hundred would not have time to surf on the public computers, if they did they would starve. Now add in most of Africa, which has very smaller percentages of the population with Internet access. Some large portions of the Middle East also have no internet access.
If your number was correct, that would mean that 1 in 7 people in the world are Facebook users. Stop and think about how unrealistic that number is for a minute.
Hell, my estimate considers that the US has 10% of the population using Facebook, which is extremely generous. Out of my family (100 or so people) I can think of 3 people that are Facebook users. Only 20 or so have a Facebook account at all, many of which were created by the 3 regular users. It's not like my family is all out scratching dirt for a living, they just have no interest in surfing the Internet at all, let alone using Facebook.
who actually wants this?
Probably a very very small percentage of people. However, given the current desire to track everyone and snoop on what everyone does, these will be crammed down everyone's throats. Facebook popularity has been dropping steadily. Not for the reasons I hope (privacy) but because Facebook is stale and old news. Facebook bloomed when MySpace tanked (and of course was part of the cause). Facebook has no competition, and none will be allowed to compete unless it can do all of the same poor (and I don't mean financially) things Facebook can do. Which means that it won't be replaced, people will just be forced to use that or nothing.
I understand what mens rea is, it was to make a point regarding the wealth of knowledge available to the public.
Your last paragraph strikes me as odd. While I don't discount the importance of training with live ammo, I served in the military. We never trained with live grenades due to cost. We had demonstrations to show how powerful they were, but we used training grenades for training (true for Claymores, and M203 rounds as well. We trained with FMJ rounds, but not AP or hollow point rounds. Again, due to cost. Knowing how to target, sight, and fire the weapon does not change based on the round being used. With that said, how big of an army is DHS to require 1.2 billion rounds even for training? At best it's an absolute waste of societies money, at worst we should be more concerned based on what I pointed out above. So much information is unknown that your speculation is no better than my speculation. Since you seem to be ignoring other known concerns, my speculation holds more weight than yours in my opinion.
First, you are an idiot if you don't understand what the MRAP is. Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle. Did I say they purchased Tanks? No, I said very clearly "armored vehicles". The name MRAP shows clearly that the vehicle is armored. Will it stop a tank round? Not a KE or AP round, but it will not be bothered by small arms, or home made explosive devices and even smaller HE rounds like 25mm.
So since you back what I stated regarding the Patriot act perhaps you simply misread what I wrote previously. But...
Your numbers regarding bullet purchases are absolutely wrong. As is the reason for them purchasing killing bullets vs. target bullets. Here is an article showing 1.4 billion rounds. This includes sniper rounds as well as 9mm and 5.56 rounds so is higher than what I quoted. The reason DHS claims to need that many bullets is for target practice. Hollow points cost nearly 3 times what target rounds cost, so obviously this is either 1) a lie or 2) a waste of tax payer money. Since they continue to lie about the purchase, I have no reason to believe that they are honest with their intentions for use.
You also gave a fabrication for the number of armored vehicles being purchased by DHS. Here is a link that is not Alex Jones, showing that the purchase is for 2,700 but of course a good number of those have not been delivered yet.
When you fabricate information to prove someone wrong, you appear to be a government shill. It is possible that you are just absolutely misinformed. You use the term "conspiracy theorist" just like the media teaches people to use the term through propaganda. So as I started with, you are either a shill or ignorant.
Americans at least should be outraged by this, as well as all of the other wiretapping bullshit that has gone on since the Patriot act. While I would guess that most Americans have no idea what 'mens rea' is, they should all understand the concept of innocent until proven guilty.
There is no reason for all of these Government agencies to have unlimited access to your personal life without a warrant. None what so ever. If you believe the propaganda and rhetoric, shame on you for being ignorant. Just think, in 7 months the new NSA super computers will be cracking away at your encryption as well, so even that won't be safe.
Combine the FBI, CIA, DHS, ATF, and FEMA resources and you have an army big enough to take on the US Military and more intelligence for a domestic war. Speaking of which, the DHS this year purchased 1.2 billion hollow point bullets (add in other Government agencies and you have over 2 billion rounds of killing bullets, not target bullets). Hmmm, still you find nothing odd with them snooping into _everything_ you do? How about the 1,300 armored vehicles they purchased last year by DHS? Still nothing? Anyone remember the 2011 defense spending bill with the clauses allowing indefinite detention of US citizens without warrant, trial, etc...? How about NSA, DHS, FBI, and CIA drone programs operating domestically? How about the lack of transparency in all of these agencies we were promised over 4 years ago by the then candidate now President, and before that by GWB? Anyone else know about why FEMA has been building dozens of "Relocation Camps" in the US? There is footage of one at least, but of course all of them are denied.
Look at all of that shit, then combine with the fact that the main stream media has become pure propaganda. Suddeny those conspiracy theories really don't seem so whacky do they? It's well passed the time when we should be waking up the neighbors, protesting for change, and voting in new leadership based on Socrates' principles and not politicians!
If the logic is so poor that they blame the magnets and not the parents, I doubt your point will have any impact. I hope so too, but we'll see.
You just pointed at the same thing again. The chile INGESTED magnets. What the fuck? What parent in their right mind allows their toddlers to play with these at all, let alone unsupervised. How do you know it was the parent's fault? Because the kid at twelve of these magnets. Not 1 where the parent took them away from the kid, but 12! Wholly shit you make no sense. I gave the logic previously, go back and read it again.
Whether you see purpose in them or not is irrelevant to the discussion! My kid played with magnets to learn about magnetism. He did so under close supervision because.. well, you know.. even at 6-7 years old when magnetism becomes cool a kid may decide to put one in their mouth.
In WA, Princess Margaret Hospital reports there have been 33 cases of children swallowing magnets since 2006 and four were admitted to hospital for treatment. In April 2012, a two year old boy underwent emergency surgery to remove 27 small magnets from his stomach.
I added the emphasis above, but this is from your article. The magnets were not harming children. Parents that allowed their children to play with adult toys unsupervised harmed the children.
If your logic was true, every company producing kitchen knives is responsible for children that get cut when fishing through the knife drawer while the parents are not looking. Every company producing cleansers (including lye) is responsible for children that get sick or die from ingesting the cleaners, and not the parents for keeping the cleaners out of reach of children.
Come now, the problem is not that an idiot did something with a tool which they should not have. I'd be willing to bet that when the first person was bludgeoned to death with a cook pot, some asshole said "ban them all!". Fortunately leadership was smart enough to ignore that idiocy, and we can still use our cookware. And as a side note, people still occasionally get bludgeoned with cookware.
If leadership is allowing stupid ass laws to be passed banning tools because an idiot uses it in a fashion which can cause harm, vote in some new leaders. Don't blame idiots for doing idiotic things. They are acting absolutely normal and as expected. Idiots are not new.
What is new is that a staggering amount of people allow shit leadership to stay in place. The easy and complacent thing to do is to ignore poor leadership and put blame where it maintains a status quot instead of correcting problems.
It's an email that says "memo" at the top?
Humor aside, when I left Michigan the company I worked for gave us a verbal memo dictating that we all had to work 2080 hours per year whether we liked it or not (I had good reason to leave MI). We also got a nice 5% pay reduction due to the poor economy. The verbal memo was to save them from a law suit that would have been provable if they wrote something down.
You may try the song backward as well as forward. The brain does process things that way more often than people will admit, and perhaps it needs something in the fore from the song in reverse?
Nicely stated. Many people posting anonymously do expect replies. Even worse, they believe you should be able to determine their anonymous comments out of all of the other anonymous comments. Anonymous people have said "I did not say that, it was the other AC" and "Oh, you didn't reply so I must be right" often enough.. Anonymous cowards say the craziest things...
Why do you ignore the statistics that show the impact to overall violent crimes when guns are banned? Where people can use guns to defend themselves, violent crime rates are very low. In places where guns have been banned, the rate of violent crime greatly increases. Australia reported this exact thing after banning and burning guns. In Australia, every gun toting criminal was replaced with 3-4 knife or club wielding criminals. Logical trade off? Go ask a victim. Many of those victims used to own guns, and have been vocal about how stupid the ban was and is. You probably don't want to read or listen to any of those people though, I mean their story would not back your illogical belief that guns are a problem. Do you think it matters to the woman whether she was raped at gunpoint or after being beaten senseless by a baseball bat?
You also neglect how many of these reported statistics ignore gun crimes. For example in the UK if a person is convicted of murder with a gun, the crime gets reported. In the case of an unsolved crime or failure to convict the gun murder is not counted. Why would they manipulate numbers in this way, except to keep people ignorant?
You are ignorant, the end. First, the 2nd Amendment is about owning arms to prevent Tyranny or overthrow an illegitimate government. Not just "self protection". Second, the amount of people killed annually by legally owned firearms is miniscule. Most gun deaths in the US are from illegal arms. If they are illegal, then guess what happens if laws are changed? Illegal guns will still be here and good people will be at the mercy of anyone owning an illegal gun. If you want to see how well that works out, look at crime rates in Chicago or any other "Gun Free" zone in the US.
Please take your appeal to emotion arguments and shove them right on up your asshole. Facts do not back you on any level.
In about 75% of all cases, gun ownership was mainly causing tragedies. What?!? So the owning of a gun causes a person to commit suicide? Sorry, that is absolutely false and irrational thinking. People that are suicidal are going to be suicidal whether or not they own a gun. In fact I have a couple family members that were in such a state and owned no gun (1 person tried twice, another succeeded their first try). Do you ban razors, kitchen knives, and over the counter medicine because people become suicidal? Do we blame those objects for the person becoming suicidal? No, you don't ban them and believing they "cause" the state of mind is absolute rubbish.
Someone else stated that you need references on other statements. I believe you are ignorantly repeating propaganda instead of checking facts and actually "thinking" about what you are talking about. Appeals to emotion may be powerful rhetoric to you, but someone thinking rationally recognizes it as a fallacy.
You nailed it, but to what avail? The people in power currently want to blame video games, and I'm sure this person made a shitload of money to make this "science" available. (Quoted because it's obviously not science, but will be called exactly that by propagandists). They will refuse to admit that the real reason we see psychopathic killers is because society has deeper issues than a video game. I find it interesting that they don't blame Hollywood which shows way more blood, gore, killing, anti-social behaviors, and even makes heroes/heroines of the people committing those acts. Music that encourages that behavior is not being blamed either. Nasty musicians are promoted by main stream media, and people are shown (and encouraged) to worship those nasty people. There are plenty of things we need to look at and change, but those are symptoms of a sick society.
Fact: A great majority of people are ignorant enough to believe everything they are told today. Until we can teach each other to think, society will continue to crumble. "It is imperative for society that the most intelligent of us are the most Honest." by Aristotle is very important here. While I believe that statement to be true, the majority of us that are honest and intelligent need to go teach the masses.
There was a similar study long ago not dealing with how to get the song out alone, but also what the cause of the song being stuck was. The majority of cases tended to be related to the brain not being able to remember or work out a part of the song. That study also gave the easiest remedy to the issue: Listen to the song from start to finish without interruption. In a majority of their test cases, the playing of the song jogged the memory and filled in the gaps allowing the brain to move on to other things.
You are describing Utopia, which does not exist for way too many reasons to possibly address here. The point of having a Government is because Utopia is not possible. Maybe you missed those lessons in Sociology, Philosophy, and Economics.
You are an idiot comparing bananas to goats. The end. Your post that follows this one is like claiming that roads are not important, or keeping sea ways clear is not important, etc.. Governments are supposed to subsidize projects which better society.
Coal, Gas, and Oil are known to be horrible for society. If you have doubts, please go purchase a cheap plot of land next to a plant or refinery and take up permanent residence (How cheap the land is should compel you to purchase right? And yes, that land is almost free!). "Cheap" is not better for society when it causes physical harm to members of society and creates sick people which become a burden on the rest of society, and destroys land which belongs to society.
Everyone knows that Al Gore invented surviving a nuclear war as well as the Internet.