hilowe

Damn it Betsy, get it right. The pizza joint is where the fat cat pedophiles are at. They'll find his body in some back alleyway, along with some random drugs that will be "found in his system".... Please tell me that everyone can hear the sarcasm I'm using. On a side note, I could believe this, especially since it's the news interviews that he's bailing on, and he supposedly had a meeting with MGM higher ups prior to disappearing. Give it about another week, and we'll find out what's going on with him.

I had three more, that I deleted after reading your statement the second time. Thought I had gotten that one as well. By the way, I notice your second graph you linked didn't include Mexico or Russia. Another wonderful way to skew results (just remove the ones that don't conform to what the presenter is trying to show). \ I'll say maybe to this one. In my opinion, it takes more than just police. Police can't be everywhere. Add to that, in the US at least, the government in general, and the police in particular, are under no responsibility to protect us as individuals (1), (2), (3) Just a heads up, number 3 is a disturbing case. So, based on that, I'm responsible for the safety and security of myself and my family. Because of that, I want the most effective means available to me, and that is currently a gun. I actually don't want everyone to have guns. It takes a certain mindset to carry a gun for self protection, and some people just don't have it. There are some (like my wife) that can't hurt a fly. Then there's the flip side, where someone can get set off by the smallest thing. Give you an example, which just so happened to be the first day I ever carried concealed after getting my license. Was driving my car with my son in the passenger seat. Traffic is pretty heavy, and I'm in the inner most lane, pretty well boxed in. Look in my rear view mirror, and this guy is just flipping his shit. Totally upset about something, giving me the middle finger, then waving his hands, trying to tell me to get over and out of his way. Watched him change lanes to the right (so he's now in the middle lane of a road with 3 lanes each direction), speed up next to me (so he's essentially next to my son), and continue to give me the middle finger. That is someone that I don't think should be carrying a gun, because of what appeared to be an anger issue (maybe it was a bad day for him, don't know don't care). You also state that gun related deaths will increase. Maybe. In my mind, definitely if 100% of the population is carrying, because the criminal will weight the chances of getting shot, and choose to shoot first. I want to say that I read somewhere that about 10% of the population is enough. That's just enough to make the criminal not want to shoot right away, but enough that the criminal is likely to encounter someone that is armed. Not all incidents where a gun is drawn end up in a death or injury. End of my work day, so I can't search it, but I hear many times where a armed defender gets the drop on a criminal, and the criminal gives up. I think I linked to a couple of stories up above where that happened (home invasions) The one statistic related to guns that scares me is the suicide one. Unless there's a history of suicide attempts, background checks, etc won't stop suicide attempts. Going back to statistics, though, this is usually included in the number of "gun deaths" (have I said how I hate that phrase, the gun doesn't cause the death, it's just a tool). Per the CDC in 2013, "between the years 2000-2010, firearm-related suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups, annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who died from firearms related violence in the United States." The reason it scares me is, the methods to stop criminal use of guns won't work to prevent suicides, but because of the way the "gun banners" (I don't have a better term for them, especially with Feinstein on record as saying she hopes the bump stock legislation is the start of a slippery slope) present the statistics, it's always that "gun violence" is a problem, and implementing this law (in addition to the 10,000 already on the books) will stop it.

I

Every Town for Gun Safety has on their website the tag line "The Movement to End Gun Violence". It's in the name "The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence". Slate article: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2016/07/everytown_for_gun_safety_michael_bloomberg_s_anti_gun_group_is_taking_on.html Now, granted the last one is more specific to talking about how the groups don't want to be termed gun control groups, but they do talk about preventing gun violence. To me, if you're preventing something from happening, you're stopping all instances. OK, I'm going to admit to being stupid right now. I actually went out, searched for graphs that showed what I was looking at, then saw you said you do notice, not do not notice (how I originally read it). Are you agreeing with me, and I'm too dense to figure it out right now? Damn it, I need more caffeine before trying to argue with Betsy. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DJ-KA2WhhLo/UNZr8agpVqI/AAAAAAAAFH4/f6rrTVN7q6I/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-12-22+at++Saturday,+December+22,+9.26+PM.png

II

CXXXVI

CXXVII

CXIII

How about a spring loaded shoulder pad? Try banning something that isn't even attached to the rifle. Exactly the point I was attempting to make. The other thing that I usually say to people after something like this happens, we need to focus on the person, and why they did it, rather than on the tool they used. Got into this with my wife last night, she was trying to get me to agree that banning AR style rifles was necessary. I told her that if someone is sufficiently motivated, there are other ways to create just as many deaths, if not more. The two I reminded her of were Nice, France (80+ dead, 450+ wounded), and the Oklahoma City bombing (168 dead, 680 injured). The same tool that was used to murder multiple people in Las Vegas, has also been used by people to defend their homes (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/oklahoma-man-uses-ar-15-kill-three-teen-home-intruders-n739541) I'm an engineer, so I typically look at pros vs cons using statistics, but I try to get a complete picture, because I know how easy it is to lie using statistics. The one I usually hear is how the number of deaths caused by people with guns go down after guns get confiscated. OK, maybe (I don't buy it, because criminals that commit the crimes won't turn their guns in, but have never researched it to see the numbers behind the stats), but what happens to violent crime in general, and murder in general? Not just those acts committed by people using guns. What I usually hear is that those numbers go up. Let me twist one a little, and see if I can make my point a little better. Cities that have more hospitals have more deaths occur in hospitals, so we should ban hospitals, right? Obviously, the answer is no. Just trying to point out that statistics can be used to lie and deceive, based on someone's agenda.

Edit to add this response (had quoted it, and missed that I hadn't typed anything). The ATF in 2010 (under Obama) doesn't agree with your determination. It is currently a legal modification to a semi-auto rifle, because it doesn't change the fact that the rifle shoots one bullet for every pull of the trigger. Just allows you to pull the trigger much faster than normal. Even if Congress creates legislation to make bump stocks illegal, there are other methods to do the same thing, one that involves shoe string. You are completely missing the crackpot "it was a false flag attack", "it was the US military testing a new weapons platform, drones with small arms" BS. Consider yourself lucky. This guy was a high roller. My understanding is, if the casino knew who he was, and how much he gambled, they were extremely nice and helpful to him. Heavy bags? Who cares, help the man to his room. Large number of heavy bags? Even better, he's probably staying for a while. Don't want to piss off a well paying customer.

Private event. 2nd amendment applies to the Government, people and companies have the rights to state what can or cannot be brought in (similar to 1st amendment, Government can't tell you to stop something, but your work sure can tell you no politics in the office). You mean, most day to day interactions? Where nobody does anything violent, and everybody just goes along? Unfortunately, shit like this happens... http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/to-have-it-and-need-it/article_b9f0b293-a135-527d-a554-93a77bb9745d.html Or, these home invasions, stopped by a "good guy with a gun": http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/local-news/redford-twp-homeowner-shoots-intruder-in-hand http://www.wfaa.com/news/carrollton-resident-shoots-early-morning-home-intruder/480792528 http://www.timesnews.net/Law-Enforcement/2017/10/03/Don-t-Shoot-Hawkins-burglary-suspect-held-at-gunpoint-by-homeowner.html?ci=stream&lp=1&p=1 Not any more. DC vs Heller decision struck that ban down.

I'd actually change that to there is no ban or law out there that can prevent pure evil. There are truly evil people out there, and the best you can do is be prepared to defend yourself in case the worst happens. I gonna claim ignorance here. Have heard people say that, but usually it's people that have no idea about guns (like Kevin De Leon and his "ghost gun" that can fire faster than a squad automatic weapon when you do the math on his numbers) For anyone that is curious about bump stocks, the ATF determined them to be legal in 2010. This is the best description I've heard of why the ruled the way they did.

The bump stock is a very specific device. It replaces the standard stock on a semiauto rifle, and makes rapid firing much easier. The problem is, this is a device to do that. I'm seeing people online that are basically saying "yeah, we can do that without a bump stock, here's how". Doesn't take a bump stock to do it. Also, not just better chance of jamming, but really really lowers accuracy. Worked well for the murderer in this instance, with essentially a pray and spray attack into a crowded area. Exactly. I read someone was able to do this using the belt loops on their pants or a shoestring (didn't see a video of it, so it's questionable to me). Feinstein and Sanders have already introduced a bill to ban the bump stock by name, but with the vague way it's written, could also make illegal replacement triggers that have a lower pull weights that are used in competition.

It may be, but the FBI is investigating, so it falls back to federal law for them to classify it. Federal law requires a political motivation to be classified as terrorism. Since we still haven't heard the motive, they're not going to classify it as terrorism (although, knowing motive in the past was political still didn't cause them to classify the act as terrorism, so not holding my breath either way).

From what I've read online, he had a camera covering the exterior of the door to the room he had rented. When he saw SWAT coming, he took his own life. Haven't seen an "official" police report or conference that confirmed that, just remember seeing that on a couple of news sites. As for the girlfriend, I thought I heard she returned willingly from the Philippines and is being questioned by the FBI. Doesn't sound like waterboarding will be necessary.

I know I'm going a long ways back in the posting to respond to this, but every president issues pardons. Some pardons are obviously more controversial than others. Some examples I can think of (and had to use Google to get the correct names and backgrounds) are Barrack Obama pardoning of Oscar Lopez Rivera (admitted terrorist, offered pardon by Clinton in the 90's if he would renounce violence, but Rivera wouldn't renounce it), Bill Clinton pardoning his brother (drug related offense), and George W Bush commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence (perjury related to testimony about revealing an active CIA agents identity, still has guilty verdict, just removed the prison sentence). All of these are allowed, just for one reason or another (nepotism, favoritism, etc), the decisions were controversial. Wait... Was Breitbart created by Andrew Breitbart? Wasn't he the guy who made The Drudge Report the biggest news site on the planet? Wasn't he the voice and spirit of the Tea Party? and then mysteriously died of a heart attack at the age of 43? Yep... and I miss him every day. He was a Conservative Lion, and would have made a great President someday. This is utter nonsense. Of course they didn't think about California... but they did think about Virginia. It was by far the most populated state in our new nation, and the most important fact about Virginia... it was a slave state. There was no way the northern states would give that much power to the south. You are correct that our founders would never stand for a government ruled by a Monarch, nor would they stand for a Democracy... that is why we have a Republic. Draft up the amendment and go for it. Either succeed in changing the way we elect the President, or fail in the attempt. If you can manage to get the country to go along with it, I most certainly will congratulate you and abide by the new Constitution... but I don't think you will do it, succeed in doing it, or even get it off the ground... because the reason it was done in the first place, still exists to this very day. Also if you guys did try to do it, you know you will fail, and then you will lose your ability to keep complaining about it. You know I didn't like it when Bill Clinton became President after only receiving 43% of the vote... but he captured enough electoral votes to win. That's what chooses the President. By all means... I challenge you to change it... anything to get people to STFU.I will not STFU. Remember our beloved first amendment, I will say my opinion until you change the constitution and take that right from me. I can't imagine why my opinion about the electoral college upsets you to the point where you talk like that. Are you one of those special snowflakes I hear some people talk about? I'm obviously not a fan of popular vote. If this was ever going to pass, my entire state would have almost no say in presidential elections. The politicians would spend almost all of their time in probably the 12 most populous states (based on last population census I found, those 12 states account for ~192.5 million people in a nation of ~321.5 million people). My state, at 34th on that list, would never see a presidential candidate (not that that would be a bad thing by itself), and therefore, the candidates would not care what people in my state thought. My understanding was, that was the reason our founding fathers set on the electoral college, so a couple of large states couldn't make policy for the entire nation. I was not thinking of the votes being broken down by state. I was thinking of all votes being counted as a national vote. Like a true democracy. State by state would hardly be fair. We are also talking about a national popular vote. Candidates only have so much money and time to run their campaigns and can therefore only visit so many places. As hilowe stated, however, over 1/2 of the population of the US belongs to roughly 1/5th of the states. If you are a candidate and the election is based on popular vote you will campaign and pander pretty much exclusively to those states and effectively ignore all of the issues and needs of the other states because they just don't have enough people to be worth the time or effort. Why go to Wyoming at all for instance? There's only 600,000 people there and the same time and money could be spent in New York where New York City alone has 8.5 million. You'd get far more votes for your campaign dollar there, but what is good for New York is not going to necessarily be good for Montana or South Carolina and may in fact be detrimental to them. The electoral college boosts the influence of the smaller states so that they still have at least some influence in national politics and have their voices heard. Oh? I thought the candidates currently pander to the states that will provide them with enough electoral votes to win, while virtually ignoring others. Do you see it differently? They do, to an extent. In Nebraska, it's tough for a Democrat to win much of anything (Obama won 1 electoral vote from Nebraska in both elections, IIRC, because we are one of two states that will split our electoral votes), so they still campaign here, but not as much as they do in California and New York. Change that to national popularity, and then there's almost no reason to spend time here in the 34th most populous state. They can tailor their message for New York, LA, and Chicago (the three most populous cities in the US), and screw the rural areas completely. Going with CC's example of Wyoming. They currently have 3 electoral votes, which is 0.3% of the requirement to win a presidential election. Go to a national popular vote, and that number goes to 0.18%. Now consider New York (the city only), population of ~8.5 million, in a country of 322.5 million. That is 2.6% of the requirement to win in one city. My understanding is, this was something that the founding fathers were very concerned about (at that time it was the state of Virginia that had the huge population). The electoral college was the compromise they came up with that took into account the population, giving more populous states a larger say but still allowing the smaller states (Maryland) some say in national politics. It's also how they came up with the two houses of Congress (House of Representatives, where representation is based on population, and Senate, two representatives per state). Sources: Population of states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population Population of cities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population Electoral college: www.270towin.com Was reading this on the Daily Wire today, and remembered this conversation. http://www.dailywire.com/news/21099/hillary-wants-abolish-electoral-college-there-frank-camp Author brings up some stuff that I didn't remember from my history classes (or just wasn't taught, my high school history teacher was more interested in high school sports, hence he wanted to be called Coach John rather than Mr John).

I know I've seen the show on Crunchyroll (haven't actually watched it). Probably on several other locations on the internet as well (like animefreak.tv, I know I've seen some really old and really new stuff on there in the past, haven't been in a while). Shamus and Shanks, where do you guys find it easiest to watch? Crunchyroll has taken a huge dive for me, lots of video issues.

I'm curious where this number came from? Especialy the 10 year number you've got, because I thought Obama changed this in June 2016 (http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/26/transgender-military-ban-how-the-policy-could-impact-current-troops-240987) I'd also be careful about studies. I remember reading (but not researching this) that there was a study of the number of transgender soldiers in the military done by the Obama administration and the anticipated costs of covering the transitioning surgery, but it only accounted for active duty soldiers, and did not include military reserves and national guard. Writing this last sentence made me question my memory of what I read. Reason is, I'm not familiar with guard benefits, so I'm not sure if they receive VA benefits. The military is a federal resource, while national guard is a state resource that can be called up for federal service on an as needed basis, VA is a federal resource.

Is there a more nuanced middle ground that could have been reached, rather than a complete ban? Absolutely. However, the sole purpose of the US military is to go destroy whatever they are pointed at. Anything that impairs that ability essentially disqualifies people from being able to serve. My son actually has a disqualifying reason, and he's 13. http://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/disqualifiers-medical-conditions.html Only reason I'm willing to say that anywhere is because nobody will ever be able to guess what the reason is because of the number of disqualifying reasons. Hell, even if I wasn't too old to join, I have a few disqualifying reasons (the nicest one is hearing loss). Now, my understanding of the reasoning behind this had to do with the transitioning surgeries that Obama required the military to cover. No research on this, but I remember hearing that once someone starts that process they are non-deployable for 18 months if there are no complications, due to the doctors follow ups and medication that is required. Requires someone else to go overseas to cover the position/duty that would have been covered by the transgender soldier. I never served, but remember being told that the typical minimum commitment that a soldier signs up for is 3-4 years (can definitely be longer, depends on exact circumstances, and soldiers can re-up at the end of that initial commitment). So, if the transgender soldier doesn't have any complications, they are non-deployable to do the one thing that the military needs to be able to do for almost half of the time that they signed up to serve. So, like I said above, is there a more nuanced middle ground? Yeah, I see it right there with what I just wrote. Have the military and VA not cover transitioning surgeries, and transgender soldiers are allowed to serve.

I will agree with these two statements 100%.

I know I'm going a long ways back in the posting to respond to this, but every president issues pardons. Some pardons are obviously more controversial than others. Some examples I can think of (and had to use Google to get the correct names and backgrounds) are Barrack Obama pardoning of Oscar Lopez Rivera (admitted terrorist, offered pardon by Clinton in the 90's if he would renounce violence, but Rivera wouldn't renounce it), Bill Clinton pardoning his brother (drug related offense), and George W Bush commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence (perjury related to testimony about revealing an active CIA agents identity, still has guilty verdict, just removed the prison sentence). All of these are allowed, just for one reason or another (nepotism, favoritism, etc), the decisions were controversial. Wait... Was Breitbart created by Andrew Breitbart? Wasn't he the guy who made The Drudge Report the biggest news site on the planet? Wasn't he the voice and spirit of the Tea Party? and then mysteriously died of a heart attack at the age of 43? Yep... and I miss him every day. He was a Conservative Lion, and would have made a great President someday. This is utter nonsense. Of course they didn't think about California... but they did think about Virginia. It was by far the most populated state in our new nation, and the most important fact about Virginia... it was a slave state. There was no way the northern states would give that much power to the south. You are correct that our founders would never stand for a government ruled by a Monarch, nor would they stand for a Democracy... that is why we have a Republic. Draft up the amendment and go for it. Either succeed in changing the way we elect the President, or fail in the attempt. If you can manage to get the country to go along with it, I most certainly will congratulate you and abide by the new Constitution... but I don't think you will do it, succeed in doing it, or even get it off the ground... because the reason it was done in the first place, still exists to this very day. Also if you guys did try to do it, you know you will fail, and then you will lose your ability to keep complaining about it. You know I didn't like it when Bill Clinton became President after only receiving 43% of the vote... but he captured enough electoral votes to win. That's what chooses the President. By all means... I challenge you to change it... anything to get people to STFU.I will not STFU. Remember our beloved first amendment, I will say my opinion until you change the constitution and take that right from me. I can't imagine why my opinion about the electoral college upsets you to the point where you talk like that. Are you one of those special snowflakes I hear some people talk about? I'm obviously not a fan of popular vote. If this was ever going to pass, my entire state would have almost no say in presidential elections. The politicians would spend almost all of their time in probably the 12 most populous states (based on last population census I found, those 12 states account for ~192.5 million people in a nation of ~321.5 million people). My state, at 34th on that list, would never see a presidential candidate (not that that would be a bad thing by itself), and therefore, the candidates would not care what people in my state thought. My understanding was, that was the reason our founding fathers set on the electoral college, so a couple of large states couldn't make policy for the entire nation. I was not thinking of the votes being broken down by state. I was thinking of all votes being counted as a national vote. Like a true democracy. State by state would hardly be fair. We are also talking about a national popular vote. Candidates only have so much money and time to run their campaigns and can therefore only visit so many places. As hilowe stated, however, over 1/2 of the population of the US belongs to roughly 1/5th of the states. If you are a candidate and the election is based on popular vote you will campaign and pander pretty much exclusively to those states and effectively ignore all of the issues and needs of the other states because they just don't have enough people to be worth the time or effort. Why go to Wyoming at all for instance? There's only 600,000 people there and the same time and money could be spent in New York where New York City alone has 8.5 million. You'd get far more votes for your campaign dollar there, but what is good for New York is not going to necessarily be good for Montana or South Carolina and may in fact be detrimental to them. The electoral college boosts the influence of the smaller states so that they still have at least some influence in national politics and have their voices heard. Oh? I thought the candidates currently pander to the states that will provide them with enough electoral votes to win, while virtually ignoring others. Do you see it differently? They do, to an extent. In Nebraska, it's tough for a Democrat to win much of anything (Obama won 1 electoral vote from Nebraska in both elections, IIRC, because we are one of two states that will split our electoral votes), so they still campaign here, but not as much as they do in California and New York. Change that to national popularity, and then there's almost no reason to spend time here in the 34th most populous state. They can tailor their message for New York, LA, and Chicago (the three most populous cities in the US), and screw the rural areas completely. Going with CC's example of Wyoming. They currently have 3 electoral votes, which is 0.3% of the requirement to win a presidential election. Go to a national popular vote, and that number goes to 0.18%. Now consider New York (the city only), population of ~8.5 million, in a country of 322.5 million. That is 2.6% of the requirement to win in one city. My understanding is, this was something that the founding fathers were very concerned about (at that time it was the state of Virginia that had the huge population). The electoral college was the compromise they came up with that took into account the population, giving more populous states a larger say but still allowing the smaller states (Maryland) some say in national politics. It's also how they came up with the two houses of Congress (House of Representatives, where representation is based on population, and Senate, two representatives per state). Sources: Population of states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population Population of cities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population Electoral college: www.270towin.com

I know I'm going a long ways back in the posting to respond to this, but every president issues pardons. Some pardons are obviously more controversial than others. Some examples I can think of (and had to use Google to get the correct names and backgrounds) are Barrack Obama pardoning of Oscar Lopez Rivera (admitted terrorist, offered pardon by Clinton in the 90's if he would renounce violence, but Rivera wouldn't renounce it), Bill Clinton pardoning his brother (drug related offense), and George W Bush commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence (perjury related to testimony about revealing an active CIA agents identity, still has guilty verdict, just removed the prison sentence). All of these are allowed, just for one reason or another (nepotism, favoritism, etc), the decisions were controversial. Wait... Was Breitbart created by Andrew Breitbart? Wasn't he the guy who made The Drudge Report the biggest news site on the planet? Wasn't he the voice and spirit of the Tea Party? and then mysteriously died of a heart attack at the age of 43? Yep... and I miss him every day. He was a Conservative Lion, and would have made a great President someday. This is utter nonsense. Of course they didn't think about California... but they did think about Virginia. It was by far the most populated state in our new nation, and the most important fact about Virginia... it was a slave state. There was no way the northern states would give that much power to the south. You are correct that our founders would never stand for a government ruled by a Monarch, nor would they stand for a Democracy... that is why we have a Republic. Draft up the amendment and go for it. Either succeed in changing the way we elect the President, or fail in the attempt. If you can manage to get the country to go along with it, I most certainly will congratulate you and abide by the new Constitution... but I don't think you will do it, succeed in doing it, or even get it off the ground... because the reason it was done in the first place, still exists to this very day. Also if you guys did try to do it, you know you will fail, and then you will lose your ability to keep complaining about it. You know I didn't like it when Bill Clinton became President after only receiving 43% of the vote... but he captured enough electoral votes to win. That's what chooses the President. By all means... I challenge you to change it... anything to get people to STFU.I will not STFU. Remember our beloved first amendment, I will say my opinion until you change the constitution and take that right from me. I can't imagine why my opinion about the electoral college upsets you to the point where you talk like that. Are you one of those special snowflakes I hear some people talk about? I'm obviously not a fan of popular vote. If this was ever going to pass, my entire state would have almost no say in presidential elections. The politicians would spend almost all of their time in probably the 12 most populous states (based on last population census I found, those 12 states account for ~192.5 million people in a nation of ~321.5 million people). My state, at 34th on that list, would never see a presidential candidate (not that that would be a bad thing by itself), and therefore, the candidates would not care what people in my state thought. My understanding was, that was the reason our founding fathers set on the electoral college, so a couple of large states couldn't make policy for the entire nation.

No, this hate and violence was building even before Trump announced his candidacy. Since then, it's just gotten worse.

Mask please

Sadly, the best I can say I've gotten from writing any politician (state or federal level) is some mass printed and signed letter by mail that thanked me for voicing my opinion, and the reasons why he was going to vote a certain way. SeeBeeGipson, that sucks.