There's a different version of the story at the New York Times website.
From the article: "On his way to pick up these materials, according to the indictment, he told his wife he was doing the transaction for the money and was no longer an American."
I would kill to have the Mario gameboy games updated to Super Mario World quality graphics and put on a console. Especially Super Mario Land 2. That was an excellent game.
And I really wish Yoshi's Island got more acknowledgment from gamers. I think it's because of the cutesy style. It wasn't on par with 3, Super Mario World, or 64 but it was a really fun game.
I'd also really like to see the original tabletop Mario Bros. arcade game in console form. It's like the embryonic form of Super Mario Bros. Anybody that hasn't played that original game should check it out if you can. I had one in my local pizza place growing up, and that's the first Mario game I ever played (although it was many years later).
Really? I find it astounding that a person that's gamed that long has never been interested in Mario games. You're missing out my friend. Up until the Gamecube, Mario was a flagship, genre-defining game. You should really try some of them out, especially the 2-D versions. Other than a couple duds and some weird gameplay quirks they're mostly still great fun. Certainly worth checking it out on emulator at least.
I think it's a perfectly valid point of view to believe a government should protect an environment where it's most productive members are enabled to enrich themselves and society as a whole.
Has that ever really been true? For the entire post-industrialization history of the US the powerful have been grabbing ever-larger shares of the wealth, while the share for the poor and working class people gets smaller and smaller. Income inequality has always been a huge issue in our country, and it's been getting steadily worse for over 30 years. Other than a relatively short period post-WW2, the trend has always been towards *more* inequality. And that post-WW2 era was also when we had a tax system that was much, much more progressive than the one we have today.
If the government spent half as much time and effort on helping the poor and working class build and maintain wealth as they do helping the rich do the same, this country would be a utopia of social stability and productivity. Friedman-style economics is and always has been a farce as far as the lower class is concerned.
That wealth is *never* going to "trickle down" to the rest of society. Never. The wealth that the powerful and well-connected accumulate through decreased tax rates and corporate tax loopholes is only used to buy more power and influence. 30+ years is a long time to tow the fiscal conservative party line while the evidence continues to pile up that it is an untenable solution.
The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. What shocks me is how many people on the poor side of the line support policies that actively harm them and their families.
I'll run down a checklist for you. Before prohibition you had:
1. Drug addicts 2. All the social problems they cause
After prohibition you still have: 1. Drug addicts 2. All the social problems they cause
Plus all these wonderful new problems: 3. Increased prevalence of organized crime, violence 4. Decreased enforcment of lesser laws, due to law enforcement's focus on #3 5. *Massive* increase in the cost of law enforcement 6. *Massive* increase in the cost of prisons to house all of the new non-violent offenders 7. Decreased desire for addicts to talk about their problems and seek help, due to the illegal nature of their habit. 8. Social cost of having large amounts of your young, male population in prison (ie huge percentages of kids growing up without a normal family structure.) 9. etc, etc, etc.
Nobody is saying that ending prohibition will magically make drug addicts disappear. What we're saying is that prohibition *adds* to the problem.
Maybe if prohibition actually worked then you would have a point. But it obviously doesn't, and it is especially stupid for drugs that are more or less harmless (marijuana, some psychedelics, etc.).
Drug users poison themselves, and I find very few possession charges of "individual use" quantities of drugs that carry mandatory prison time...
The real problem with drug statutes is the involvement of elected officials in defining mandatory sentencing guidelines for certain offenses, reflecting the "tough on crime" stance of coveted blocks of voters - disparate punishments for, say, crack cocaine, were not implemented to destroy certain racial communities, it was a sincere attempt by well-meaning, but ill-informed public that stiffer penalties reduce crime AND that crack cocaine was a more devastating drug than 'regular' cocaine. The do-gooders that tried to help poor inner-city families wound up destroying them, and once politicized, stiff drug penalties will never be walked back, lest the politicians be viewed as "soft on crime."
The mandatory minimum sentencing certainly wasn't instituted with the main intent of destroying "certain racial communities" (ie inner-city blacks) but it did a pretty damn good job regardless. Not only was crack and powder cocaine treated far differently, the limits for the minimum sentence on crack were extremely small (I think 5 grams). And the man who faked the research that the government used when writing the laws could very well have decided that crack was worse than cocaine because of its association with lower class black people. There really was no rational basis for what he did. (Sorry, my work blocks drug-related articles or I would give you a better reference on this part.)
Recently things have gotten better (especially regarding marijuana laws in many states and mandatory sentencing at the federal level) but there are still some pretty ridiculous laws out there. You can still be put away for a very long time for having a relatively small quantity of drugs, certainly well below the level of your average neighborhood dealer.
Your post is so inane I guess you might be trolling, but you seem sincere so here goes.
Now, if you consider the Declaration of Independence and the arguments within it to be the foundation of our beliefs, with the original Articles of Confederation and later Constitution being an implementation of those beliefs, you can see that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, that they have inherent inalienable rights, including the right to be free and determine their own lives, and that they have the right and duty to throw off the chains of despotism, you'll see that government has NO power to enslave you to itself or to someone else. Government allowed, even supported, slavery, black codes and segregation, so naturally it would take a further act of government, or the overthrow of the government, to remove those injustices.
First of all, the Declaration of Independence is not law in the United States and never has been. It has only sentimental and symbolic influence on our laws. The law has never followed these documents, and in fact for nearly a hundred years after the republic was formed the government did have the power to enslave people. The Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal, but the Constitution said for nearly a hundred years that slaves were 3/5 of a person. And then for a hundred years after that was repealed, the law said that blacks were not allowed to have the same opportunities as whites. This is not something that some shadowy force "the government" forced on the people. This was the common will of the people, as expressed through the laws made by their representatives.
Your argument that only more government can end injustice ignores the very fact that those injustices were created, sanctioned and supported by the government. Deny the government those powers, that is, rescind the government's unjust assumption power, and it can no longer do those things.
You seem to have a really strange concept of government as an outside force acting on the people. The government is just a concept of the societal rules which we impose on each other by common consensus. There is no such thing as *more* or *less* government in a democracy. There is *more* or *less* regulation, *more* or *fewer* laws, but the government is just a rigidly defined system for enforcing the collective will of the people. There is no difference between "the people" and "the government." You cannot break apart the concept like that. "The Government" is simply the system we have for enacting the will of the people.
Now, as for private business discriminating, the government has no business interfering in that business' operations. Any business which is willing to discriminate is ensuring that it will run at a suboptimal efficiency, allowing competitors to either take business (they serve blacks and whites) or hire more suitable candidates (a minority's abilities blow away his peers, but since the discriminator won't hire him, he loses productivity). Let the market punish them naturally, they'll find themselves out of business quickly enough, especially when tough times hit, and that will force them to re-evaluate their opinions.
Wow....just wow. Do you really believe this is true? That the business world is magically efficient? I guess that's why nearly every business in the United States that operated before desegregation was a miserable failure. And why every system of segregation worldwide was ended by the natural evolution of market forces, rather than direct (and sometimes overbearing) governmental intervention. Oh, wait, that has *never* happened.
The truth is that segregated businesses *perpetuate* social inequality by preventing minorities from having the same social and economic opportunities as whites. And by denying equal access to certain segments of society they establish a permanent lower class, to the point that only truly exceptional individuals are able to rise above segregationist barriers. To claim otherwise is laughably wrong, as evidenced by every segregated society that has ever existed. You are completely delusional.
Right, except shooting at a range is clearly just a non-lethal version of what the gun was originally intended for. It's practice. That's not even the same thing. And the gun is still a weapon in that situation, it's just not being used against people.
As for the knife thing, yes, some knives are clearly weapons designed to be used as such. Some aren't. Some could be used as a weapon in a pinch but have little lethal ability. An 8" combat knife is clearly a weapon designed to kill. But I would have a hard time trying to kill somebody with my 1" swiss army knife.
You're trying proof by analogy. That doesn't work. Pools and cars are not guns. Knives are closer, but have many legitimate uses that are not destructive.
Show me a gun that was not designed to be a weapon and that couldn't be used to kill somebody. They don't exist, because a gun that didn't have lethal power is a useless gun.
What is your definition of a weapon, since it obviously differs so much from the definition everybody else uses?
You're being entirely ridiculous. Yes, I can use my samurai sword to open a can of beans. But nobody builds a sword to open a can. If they wanted to open a can, they would make a damn can opener. You can also use a grenade to start a campfire and a land mine to hunt rabbits but that's not really what they were made for, is it? Hell, at most indoor ranges that I've been to the target is a silhouette of a human.
I'm not challenging the idea that human beings have free agency. But a gun is a tool that was invented to kill. They're designed to kill. They do kill. Just because you can also use it to shoot at fake people, concentric circles, or an orange disk flying through the air is irrelevant. The fact that you're even challenging that is absurd.
If we use your definition then *nothing* is a weapon. The word loses all meaning.
Hmmm...well you certainly have a strange definition of the word weapon. Just because you only use your.270 for deer hunting doesn't mean that it's an entirely different device from your AR-15. From a functional point of view they are nearly identical.
Do you actually treat them differently or is this just a semantic point in your head? I assume you probably treat them exactly the same as far as making sure they're properly unloaded, secured, etc. when you are not using them.
No, it is not my goal in life to kill another human, but it doesn't take long to realize that people are unpredictable and do stupid things all the time.
And your solution is that all of these people should carry a weapon that is ready to fire at all times? Or do you consider yourself above all the other stupid and unpredictable people?
So I actually agree with the general point of your post. I was raised hunting and shooting and I agree that prohibition is a losing strategy (although I vehemently disagree that it's necessary to routinely carry a loaded weapon around for your personal safety, but that's an argument for another day). But I'll play devil's advocate because there are a couple things I disagree with.
B: Criminals and thugs who don't go through the proper, legal channels to purchase their weapons (I use the word weapon here intentionally, as it is these people who consider their firearms to be weapons, and intend on using them.)
The only purpose of a firearm is to kill/maim. They are weapons. Always. It's what they are designed for. There is absolutely no other practical use for them.
Usually the targets aren't human, and usually gun owners don't use them to commit crimes, but that's what they are. Suggesting that there are certain cases where an operational firearm is *not* a weapon is insincere. As a gun owner, you should always be aware of the fact that your gun is a machine designed to kill.
C: Fringe elements made up of crazy mountain men and people who consider their friends to be a militia of some sort and are still out in the woods each weekend preparing for the Soviet Union to invade their small town. Really? Are you worried about these people taking over your country? They aren't a threat to anything except their local dentist's children getting the money for college... Sure, they're vocal and love making a spectacle, but they're on every watch list in the country and are largely law abiding citizens like group A.
I'm not so much worried about them taking over the country, but to say that militia movements aren't a threat is definitely not true. A good example being the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Also, many militia movements in rural areas are closely associated with white supremacist groups. I grew up in rural Eastern Oregon/Idaho and those groups are not all talk. They are very serious, and they do carry out violent attacks against minorities when they think they can get away with it. I think it's justified that the feds monitor these groups.
Actually, me and most of my friends are on OKCupid and it's pretty much just a hookup site (YMMV of course). And there are plenty of genuinely attractive, interesting people there (at least in my area). I imagine that OKCupid users have a much larger number of partners than people who are not actively. Much like people who go hit the bars every weekend probably have had more sexual partners than people who don't. It's very easy to get meet a lot of people, and if you're average attractiveness or better you can easily sleep with a bunch of women if that's what your trying for.
Just a small correction. We *were* seeing many countries shift their holdings to the Euro. But with the financial uncertainty that now exists in the EU, that trend has stopped (especially with the Chinese). But if Europe makes it through the recession without a major economy tanking (like Italy, Spain, or even Ireland) then I'm sure that trend will resume. But US Treasuries are still the safest bet on the national level, even if it's mostly because of inertia.
Now we have a banking collapse in the United States caused by government planners who wanted low-income people to be able to buy homes.
Woh, there. Care to back up that assertion? Because that's a pretty grandiose statement to put out there as an obvious fact. Particularly when the commmon consensus is that decreased government regulation allowed large financial firms to increase their leverage (and thus short-term profits) by using extremely complex financial instruments to reduce their perceived risk. And because some firms did not properly assess their own risk (due in no small part to the complexity of the financial instruments that were in use) the collapse of the housing market resulted in a much more broad economic decline, exemplified by the government bailing out industry giants like AIG.
I can't imagine what would make you think that the recession was caused by *excessive* government interference in the financial sector. Particularly since the thirty or so years preceding the recession there has been a dramatic trend of deregulation and reduced government control of the markets. The cognitive dissonance required to hold such an idiotic view must be remarkable.
It's an OK analogy, but the manner in which he delivered it made it blatantly obvious that he didn't fully grasp what he was talking about. He was in a very powerful position arguing for a policy that will dramatically revamp the way the internet operates in the United States (and probably the rest of the world by extension), and he didn't even understand his own argument. So it's very, very doubtful that he had even a basic, high-level, non-technical comprehension about how the internet works.
This, combined with his general reputation as being a corrupt scumbag for sale to the highest bidder, is why Senator Stevens was mocked.
The ironic thing is that ever since the late Reagan and early Bush senior era, the Democrats have been just as business-friendly and fiscally conservative as the Republicans (actually more so in a lot of ways). But since most voters believe what the media and their party tells them, they don't check to make sure their representatives follow through on their platform. The best example of this, of course, is George W Bush. You'd think he cut federal spending in half and eliminated every wasteful government program the way he campaigned and talked about himself, but in fact he presided over one of the most irresponsible spending sprees we've ever had as a country.
The bottom line is that if voters refuse to call bullshit on their own representatives and hold their feet to the fire when they lie and deceive, nothing will ever change. But Republicans know that they can get people fired up about guns and religion to deflect their attention from the fact that they are all liars and cowards.
Back when color first came out, there was no "converting to color"--it was either shot with color film or black-and-white film. There was no way to shoot it in black-and-white and then convert it.
You're not entirely off here, but that statement by itself is almost perfectly wrong. The first color films were actually made using black and white film that was painted different colors by hand. This technique is much older than you may think, dating back to Meliers and Edison. Later they used machines and stencils to dye frames various colors after they had been shot. This stenciling process was still in use until the late 1930's (full-color Technicolor was invented before then, but did not completely wipe out the older processes due to Hollywood's penny-pinching ways during the Great Depression).
His post was an over generalization, but it certainly wasn't any less ignorant than your own.
This is not an either/or situation. Islam has spread both by the sword and through more peaceful methods. Islam in SE Asia (and to a lesser extent the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia) was spread mainly by diplomacy and trade. But in the Middle East, Persia, North Africa, and the Mediterranean Islam was spread primarily by military dominance during Mohammed's life and the century following his death.
That doesn't mean they were brutal dictators. In fact it was nearly the opposite. Just as you described, the Muslim world in the first millenium was incredibly advanced in trade, science, mathematics, etc. They were also very tolerant of other faiths. But the caliphates were all extremely militaristic.
A couple years ago I was in Oklahoma City for work at a hospital. I got dropped off by a taxi at the hotel, which was across a large four lane highway from the hospital. The walk to the hospital was bad enough, as there was no crosswalk. I had to wait until there was a red light and then run across before the light changed again.
I needed to grab some clothes so I walked to the Target which was less than a half mile away. There were no sidewalks *anywhere* that I could take. No safer route. The walk included scrambling under a large overpass and crossing the offramp. People were honking and looking at me like I was crazy, but there literally was no way I could get where I was going without crossing highways (other than renting a car or taxi, which would have been ridiculous for a total walking distance of less than a mile).
Some cities have poor pedestrian access, and some have *no* pedestrian access.
Bear and cougar are appropriately described as gamey. Edible and not disgusting by any means, but very stringy and certainly not something you would eat outside of necessity or novelty.
But when bison, venison, elk, etc. are described as gamey it's for one of two reasons. Reason #1 is because it was taken from a less-than ideal animal. Aged females and adult males are less tasty than their younger, relatively hormone-free relatives. That's why in domesticated animals, males destined for slaughter and sale are neutered before they start to mature sexually. Animals taken in the wild obviously are not raised in the same controlled environments. Climate or disease might lead the animals to be much leaner and wirey in some years than they normally are. And very generally speaking the older the animal is, the less tender the meat.
Reason #2 is that people don't understand how to cut or cook lean meat. People treat it same way they would beef, when that potentially could ruin the flavor. Many game processors will cut deer or elk it into thick steaks, but you really want thinner strips that can be cooked on lower heats and for shorter times to preserve the flavor. The meat is leaner and displays a lower amount of marbling than beef, and if you cook it past medium the gamey taste will become more pronounced. But if you get it from a restaurant or educate yourself on how to cook it properly, you should be able to enjoy the experience fully.
I grew up in a family that hunted and ate pretty much everything and it's amazing how badly people can ruin some of the most delicious, healthy meat in the world.
Oh, that's good news. Since it is illegal to profile based on skin color, I'm sure the police would never do that.
Wake up! If you honestly don't think this law is going to be abused to the fullest extent, you obviously had never dealt with the police anywhere, let alone in Maricopa County.
Just as Taliban and Alqaeda cannot be made to understand western values, so is the issue with the west. I don't even know who is blind, the west or Islam.
While I understand how someone could be offended by deliberate provocation on a subject as important to them as religion, I'm going to side with the people drawing silly, satirical cartoons over the people who make violent threats against those artists. It is not ok to murder or threaten someone for drawing a picture. No matter how angry or offended that picture made you feel. The only reason these artists are "inciting violence" is because the people who commit the violence are acting like silly little children.
The fact that we even have to have this discussion is ludicrous. Grow up and understand that the rest of the world does not share your beliefs and that their criticism of your beliefs *in no way* affects your ability to live the life you desire. People are different and they believe different things. If you don't like someone publishing a picture of Mohammed, you don't have to look at it.
Good point, except that natural gas is usually obtained from the same fields as oil. So that doesn't get rid of the problems with drilling, it just shifts it a tiny bit.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a different version of the story at the New York Times website.
From the article: "On his way to pick up these materials, according to the indictment, he told his wife he was doing the transaction for the money and was no longer an American."
I would kill to have the Mario gameboy games updated to Super Mario World quality graphics and put on a console. Especially Super Mario Land 2. That was an excellent game.
And I really wish Yoshi's Island got more acknowledgment from gamers. I think it's because of the cutesy style. It wasn't on par with 3, Super Mario World, or 64 but it was a really fun game.
I'd also really like to see the original tabletop Mario Bros. arcade game in console form. It's like the embryonic form of Super Mario Bros. Anybody that hasn't played that original game should check it out if you can. I had one in my local pizza place growing up, and that's the first Mario game I ever played (although it was many years later).
Really? I find it astounding that a person that's gamed that long has never been interested in Mario games. You're missing out my friend. Up until the Gamecube, Mario was a flagship, genre-defining game. You should really try some of them out, especially the 2-D versions. Other than a couple duds and some weird gameplay quirks they're mostly still great fun. Certainly worth checking it out on emulator at least.
Has that ever really been true? For the entire post-industrialization history of the US the powerful have been grabbing ever-larger shares of the wealth, while the share for the poor and working class people gets smaller and smaller. Income inequality has always been a huge issue in our country, and it's been getting steadily worse for over 30 years. Other than a relatively short period post-WW2, the trend has always been towards *more* inequality. And that post-WW2 era was also when we had a tax system that was much, much more progressive than the one we have today.
If the government spent half as much time and effort on helping the poor and working class build and maintain wealth as they do helping the rich do the same, this country would be a utopia of social stability and productivity. Friedman-style economics is and always has been a farce as far as the lower class is concerned.
That wealth is *never* going to "trickle down" to the rest of society. Never. The wealth that the powerful and well-connected accumulate through decreased tax rates and corporate tax loopholes is only used to buy more power and influence. 30+ years is a long time to tow the fiscal conservative party line while the evidence continues to pile up that it is an untenable solution.
The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. What shocks me is how many people on the poor side of the line support policies that actively harm them and their families.
I'll run down a checklist for you. Before prohibition you had:
1. Drug addicts
2. All the social problems they cause
After prohibition you still have:
1. Drug addicts
2. All the social problems they cause
Plus all these wonderful new problems:
3. Increased prevalence of organized crime, violence
4. Decreased enforcment of lesser laws, due to law enforcement's focus on #3
5. *Massive* increase in the cost of law enforcement
6. *Massive* increase in the cost of prisons to house all of the new non-violent offenders
7. Decreased desire for addicts to talk about their problems and seek help, due to the illegal nature of their habit.
8. Social cost of having large amounts of your young, male population in prison (ie huge percentages of kids growing up without a normal family structure.)
9. etc, etc, etc.
Nobody is saying that ending prohibition will magically make drug addicts disappear. What we're saying is that prohibition *adds* to the problem.
Maybe if prohibition actually worked then you would have a point. But it obviously doesn't, and it is especially stupid for drugs that are more or less harmless (marijuana, some psychedelics, etc.).
The mandatory minimum sentencing certainly wasn't instituted with the main intent of destroying "certain racial communities" (ie inner-city blacks) but it did a pretty damn good job regardless. Not only was crack and powder cocaine treated far differently, the limits for the minimum sentence on crack were extremely small (I think 5 grams). And the man who faked the research that the government used when writing the laws could very well have decided that crack was worse than cocaine because of its association with lower class black people. There really was no rational basis for what he did. (Sorry, my work blocks drug-related articles or I would give you a better reference on this part.)
Recently things have gotten better (especially regarding marijuana laws in many states and mandatory sentencing at the federal level) but there are still some pretty ridiculous laws out there. You can still be put away for a very long time for having a relatively small quantity of drugs, certainly well below the level of your average neighborhood dealer.
I think that already happened 30 years ago.
Your post is so inane I guess you might be trolling, but you seem sincere so here goes.
First of all, the Declaration of Independence is not law in the United States and never has been. It has only sentimental and symbolic influence on our laws. The law has never followed these documents, and in fact for nearly a hundred years after the republic was formed the government did have the power to enslave people. The Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal, but the Constitution said for nearly a hundred years that slaves were 3/5 of a person. And then for a hundred years after that was repealed, the law said that blacks were not allowed to have the same opportunities as whites. This is not something that some shadowy force "the government" forced on the people. This was the common will of the people, as expressed through the laws made by their representatives.
You seem to have a really strange concept of government as an outside force acting on the people. The government is just a concept of the societal rules which we impose on each other by common consensus. There is no such thing as *more* or *less* government in a democracy. There is *more* or *less* regulation, *more* or *fewer* laws, but the government is just a rigidly defined system for enforcing the collective will of the people. There is no difference between "the people" and "the government." You cannot break apart the concept like that. "The Government" is simply the system we have for enacting the will of the people.
Wow....just wow. Do you really believe this is true? That the business world is magically efficient? I guess that's why nearly every business in the United States that operated before desegregation was a miserable failure. And why every system of segregation worldwide was ended by the natural evolution of market forces, rather than direct (and sometimes overbearing) governmental intervention. Oh, wait, that has *never* happened.
The truth is that segregated businesses *perpetuate* social inequality by preventing minorities from having the same social and economic opportunities as whites. And by denying equal access to certain segments of society they establish a permanent lower class, to the point that only truly exceptional individuals are able to rise above segregationist barriers. To claim otherwise is laughably wrong, as evidenced by every segregated society that has ever existed. You are completely delusional.
Right, except shooting at a range is clearly just a non-lethal version of what the gun was originally intended for. It's practice. That's not even the same thing. And the gun is still a weapon in that situation, it's just not being used against people.
As for the knife thing, yes, some knives are clearly weapons designed to be used as such. Some aren't. Some could be used as a weapon in a pinch but have little lethal ability. An 8" combat knife is clearly a weapon designed to kill. But I would have a hard time trying to kill somebody with my 1" swiss army knife.
You're trying proof by analogy. That doesn't work. Pools and cars are not guns. Knives are closer, but have many legitimate uses that are not destructive.
Show me a gun that was not designed to be a weapon and that couldn't be used to kill somebody. They don't exist, because a gun that didn't have lethal power is a useless gun.
What is your definition of a weapon, since it obviously differs so much from the definition everybody else uses?
You're being entirely ridiculous. Yes, I can use my samurai sword to open a can of beans. But nobody builds a sword to open a can. If they wanted to open a can, they would make a damn can opener. You can also use a grenade to start a campfire and a land mine to hunt rabbits but that's not really what they were made for, is it? Hell, at most indoor ranges that I've been to the target is a silhouette of a human.
I'm not challenging the idea that human beings have free agency. But a gun is a tool that was invented to kill. They're designed to kill. They do kill. Just because you can also use it to shoot at fake people, concentric circles, or an orange disk flying through the air is irrelevant. The fact that you're even challenging that is absurd.
If we use your definition then *nothing* is a weapon. The word loses all meaning.
Hmmm...well you certainly have a strange definition of the word weapon. Just because you only use your .270 for deer hunting doesn't mean that it's an entirely different device from your AR-15. From a functional point of view they are nearly identical.
Do you actually treat them differently or is this just a semantic point in your head? I assume you probably treat them exactly the same as far as making sure they're properly unloaded, secured, etc. when you are not using them.
And your solution is that all of these people should carry a weapon that is ready to fire at all times? Or do you consider yourself above all the other stupid and unpredictable people?
So I actually agree with the general point of your post. I was raised hunting and shooting and I agree that prohibition is a losing strategy (although I vehemently disagree that it's necessary to routinely carry a loaded weapon around for your personal safety, but that's an argument for another day). But I'll play devil's advocate because there are a couple things I disagree with.
The only purpose of a firearm is to kill/maim. They are weapons. Always. It's what they are designed for. There is absolutely no other practical use for them.
Usually the targets aren't human, and usually gun owners don't use them to commit crimes, but that's what they are. Suggesting that there are certain cases where an operational firearm is *not* a weapon is insincere. As a gun owner, you should always be aware of the fact that your gun is a machine designed to kill.
I'm not so much worried about them taking over the country, but to say that militia movements aren't a threat is definitely not true. A good example being the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Also, many militia movements in rural areas are closely associated with white supremacist groups. I grew up in rural Eastern Oregon/Idaho and those groups are not all talk. They are very serious, and they do carry out violent attacks against minorities when they think they can get away with it. I think it's justified that the feds monitor these groups.
Actually, me and most of my friends are on OKCupid and it's pretty much just a hookup site (YMMV of course). And there are plenty of genuinely attractive, interesting people there (at least in my area). I imagine that OKCupid users have a much larger number of partners than people who are not actively. Much like people who go hit the bars every weekend probably have had more sexual partners than people who don't. It's very easy to get meet a lot of people, and if you're average attractiveness or better you can easily sleep with a bunch of women if that's what your trying for.
Just a small correction. We *were* seeing many countries shift their holdings to the Euro. But with the financial uncertainty that now exists in the EU, that trend has stopped (especially with the Chinese). But if Europe makes it through the recession without a major economy tanking (like Italy, Spain, or even Ireland) then I'm sure that trend will resume. But US Treasuries are still the safest bet on the national level, even if it's mostly because of inertia.
Woh, there. Care to back up that assertion? Because that's a pretty grandiose statement to put out there as an obvious fact. Particularly when the commmon consensus is that decreased government regulation allowed large financial firms to increase their leverage (and thus short-term profits) by using extremely complex financial instruments to reduce their perceived risk. And because some firms did not properly assess their own risk (due in no small part to the complexity of the financial instruments that were in use) the collapse of the housing market resulted in a much more broad economic decline, exemplified by the government bailing out industry giants like AIG.
I can't imagine what would make you think that the recession was caused by *excessive* government interference in the financial sector. Particularly since the thirty or so years preceding the recession there has been a dramatic trend of deregulation and reduced government control of the markets. The cognitive dissonance required to hold such an idiotic view must be remarkable.
It's an OK analogy, but the manner in which he delivered it made it blatantly obvious that he didn't fully grasp what he was talking about. He was in a very powerful position arguing for a policy that will dramatically revamp the way the internet operates in the United States (and probably the rest of the world by extension), and he didn't even understand his own argument. So it's very, very doubtful that he had even a basic, high-level, non-technical comprehension about how the internet works.
This, combined with his general reputation as being a corrupt scumbag for sale to the highest bidder, is why Senator Stevens was mocked.
The ironic thing is that ever since the late Reagan and early Bush senior era, the Democrats have been just as business-friendly and fiscally conservative as the Republicans (actually more so in a lot of ways). But since most voters believe what the media and their party tells them, they don't check to make sure their representatives follow through on their platform. The best example of this, of course, is George W Bush. You'd think he cut federal spending in half and eliminated every wasteful government program the way he campaigned and talked about himself, but in fact he presided over one of the most irresponsible spending sprees we've ever had as a country.
The bottom line is that if voters refuse to call bullshit on their own representatives and hold their feet to the fire when they lie and deceive, nothing will ever change. But Republicans know that they can get people fired up about guns and religion to deflect their attention from the fact that they are all liars and cowards.
You're not entirely off here, but that statement by itself is almost perfectly wrong. The first color films were actually made using black and white film that was painted different colors by hand. This technique is much older than you may think, dating back to Meliers and Edison. Later they used machines and stencils to dye frames various colors after they had been shot. This stenciling process was still in use until the late 1930's (full-color Technicolor was invented before then, but did not completely wipe out the older processes due to Hollywood's penny-pinching ways during the Great Depression).
His post was an over generalization, but it certainly wasn't any less ignorant than your own.
This is not an either/or situation. Islam has spread both by the sword and through more peaceful methods. Islam in SE Asia (and to a lesser extent the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia) was spread mainly by diplomacy and trade. But in the Middle East, Persia, North Africa, and the Mediterranean Islam was spread primarily by military dominance during Mohammed's life and the century following his death.
That doesn't mean they were brutal dictators. In fact it was nearly the opposite. Just as you described, the Muslim world in the first millenium was incredibly advanced in trade, science, mathematics, etc. They were also very tolerant of other faiths. But the caliphates were all extremely militaristic.
A couple years ago I was in Oklahoma City for work at a hospital. I got dropped off by a taxi at the hotel, which was across a large four lane highway from the hospital. The walk to the hospital was bad enough, as there was no crosswalk. I had to wait until there was a red light and then run across before the light changed again.
I needed to grab some clothes so I walked to the Target which was less than a half mile away. There were no sidewalks *anywhere* that I could take. No safer route. The walk included scrambling under a large overpass and crossing the offramp. People were honking and looking at me like I was crazy, but there literally was no way I could get where I was going without crossing highways (other than renting a car or taxi, which would have been ridiculous for a total walking distance of less than a mile).
Some cities have poor pedestrian access, and some have *no* pedestrian access.
Because they weren't painting Sleestaks, they were painting a bird that actually existed.
Bear and cougar are appropriately described as gamey. Edible and not disgusting by any means, but very stringy and certainly not something you would eat outside of necessity or novelty.
But when bison, venison, elk, etc. are described as gamey it's for one of two reasons. Reason #1 is because it was taken from a less-than ideal animal. Aged females and adult males are less tasty than their younger, relatively hormone-free relatives. That's why in domesticated animals, males destined for slaughter and sale are neutered before they start to mature sexually. Animals taken in the wild obviously are not raised in the same controlled environments. Climate or disease might lead the animals to be much leaner and wirey in some years than they normally are. And very generally speaking the older the animal is, the less tender the meat.
Reason #2 is that people don't understand how to cut or cook lean meat. People treat it same way they would beef, when that potentially could ruin the flavor. Many game processors will cut deer or elk it into thick steaks, but you really want thinner strips that can be cooked on lower heats and for shorter times to preserve the flavor. The meat is leaner and displays a lower amount of marbling than beef, and if you cook it past medium the gamey taste will become more pronounced. But if you get it from a restaurant or educate yourself on how to cook it properly, you should be able to enjoy the experience fully.
I grew up in a family that hunted and ate pretty much everything and it's amazing how badly people can ruin some of the most delicious, healthy meat in the world.
Oh, that's good news. Since it is illegal to profile based on skin color, I'm sure the police would never do that.
Wake up! If you honestly don't think this law is going to be abused to the fullest extent, you obviously had never dealt with the police anywhere, let alone in Maricopa County.
While I understand how someone could be offended by deliberate provocation on a subject as important to them as religion, I'm going to side with the people drawing silly, satirical cartoons over the people who make violent threats against those artists. It is not ok to murder or threaten someone for drawing a picture. No matter how angry or offended that picture made you feel. The only reason these artists are "inciting violence" is because the people who commit the violence are acting like silly little children.
The fact that we even have to have this discussion is ludicrous. Grow up and understand that the rest of the world does not share your beliefs and that their criticism of your beliefs *in no way* affects your ability to live the life you desire. People are different and they believe different things. If you don't like someone publishing a picture of Mohammed, you don't have to look at it.
Good point, except that natural gas is usually obtained from the same fields as oil. So that doesn't get rid of the problems with drilling, it just shifts it a tiny bit.