winsor

Comparing anyone to Cheney has a Godwin quality to it.

Not really, it would be appropriate to point out the motivations of the killer in the article for sure, but to describe the victims by the color of their skin in the title, is racist. Why not 9 christians? They were people. If they were all white, would the headline say "9 white people killed"? or only if it was done by an 'African American'. I could care less if Michelle Obama or Oprah (for example) describe themselves as African Americans, they are being racist as well and only fueling the fire. If one wants to differentiate between race, then the terms Caucasian, Negroid and Mongoloid (and australoid) should be used... Try calling someone with dark skin a negroid though... they will think you are insulting them, when that is the scientific term for their race. The term negro also seems to be taboo these days, when it simply means black. But the word black is perfectly ok? weird. Society has such a skewed interpretation of what racism or equality is these days, that I am not sure anybody really knows what that means anymore. I am sick to death with people who define themselves by a particular parameter - be it religious, ethnic, political, sexual or whatever - but see fit to bitch about being judged by their self-imposed definition. You can point out how feelings are hurt by signs that say "No dogs or Irish allowed," but that rings somewhat hollow if there are political, religious and economic organizations based on one's familial ties to the old sod. I am with Teddy Roosevelt in his assessment of hyphenated Americans. One is either A) American or B) Other. Biker Trash Chic has existed on and off as long as I can remember, where various groups (frat boys et al.) try to put on badass airs by posing as Outlaw Bikers. I have more than once found it amusing when some of these assholes discovered to their dismay that wearing the wrong colors in the wrong place can result in having the living shit beaten out of them by the real deal. Be careful how you define yourself - others may well accept that definition with all its attendant baggage. BSBD, Winsor

One of my favorite T shirts says simply "Your Retarded."

It is not racism, it is school. I had an Asian studies professor who would assiduously correct the smallest punctuation error, yet he could not correctly pronounce the word "election". Did it sound like "erection"? We had a Mass Transfer Professor who, on day 1, went to the board and wrote "Frux=Flux." It certainly served to clear things up.

Well the south side of Chicago Is the baddest part of town And if you go down there You better just beware Of a man name of Leroy Brown etc.

Or breeding. which is much, much worse.

Bad Honky! Naughty, naughty Honky!

In Texas, Our new Govenor, Gregg Abbott did just that....Open Carry, not concealed. I carry 2, every where I go, even church, (Concealed) I cannot understand for the life of me why someone in the congregation didn't have a gun. It is a CHURCH. Since when do people go armed to CHURCH ? A Church is a peace haven. Always been. Always will. I believe pretty universally, in all (or most) religions. Unlest you are a fucking nutter extremist. An inspection of churches built over the centuries shows that many were designed as fortified structures, with an assortment of military features. Churches have historically been used for offensive and defensive purposes in conflict after conflict. In addition, churches have been at the epicenter of a variety of political movements, despite the supposed separation between things religious and political. As I noted previously, being armed when going to church was both the norm and legally mandated in 17th century religious fanatic Massachusetts, at the very least. All too many 'churches' were founded by nutter extremists of one stripe or another, so it is oddly fitting. BSBD, Winsor

Dollars to doughnuts says the guy was on some of the popular psychiatric meds (Prozac, Zoloft, Luvox, Paxil, Celexa, Welbutrin, etc.).

Oddly enough, when I lived in Massachusetts it was still a crime to attend a church without a loaded shotgun. It turns out that, when Europeans showed up, the locals concluded that the most effective way to implement immigration reform was to reduce the numbers of immigrants when they were all in one place and unarmed. Since church attendance was mandatory, that covered the first part of the equation. The legislature decided to ensure that the only way to address the problem was to ensure that every good Christian possessed the means to dispatch any heathens who sought to send them to Heaven when they met on the Sabbath. Needless to say, this law was not enforced, but I am not sure that it has been updated. Some dairy farmer brought his herd to Boston Common to graze, and it turned out the 17th Century legislation actually mandated his doing so. In any event, the shooter has garnered support for his victims from those who might not normally be on their side, and has alienated many who might not have opposed him otherwise. What an asshole. BSBD, Winsor

Actually, it is you who is not. I'm saying it's ridiculous to frame this as a situation where she should have done more to avoid the outcome. Why the fuck is the onus on her to move to fucking Uruguay for a year? Skydekker is under the delusion that this was a random event, and her merely coming home 10 minutes later would have meant she'd be fine. This could be true of a mugger looking for a score, but absolutely wrong for a jilted lover who knows where she lives and works. None of these ninja suggestions are as effective as her having an equalizing force. And her getting the gun doesn't preclude her for doing some of those as well - to my knowledge, no evidence has been provided to support this narative of 'stupid gun crazy bitch.' It's as popular as the argument that if the gun doesn't 100% guarantee success, that it's not worthwhile. Let me walk you through this. Using the analogy of other safety equipment, I heartily approve of emergency parachutes, AADs, PFDs and the like. Having said that, it only a moron, or the operational equivalent, who conducts themselves in a manner where the use of said equipment is likely. If your aircraft is compromised to the extent that using the pilot's rig is indicated, your likelihood of emerging unscathed is less than certain. If your boat ceases to be on the upper surface of the water, your emergency equipment may not be sufficient to keep you among the living. AAD activation does not mean you are going to walk away saying "wow! That was close!." "A sucking chest wound is nature's way of telling you you have been in a firefight." Anon Two of the Laws of Combat are A) know when to get out of Dodge, and B) know HOW to get out of Dodge. When the potential for combat exists, the onus is on you to survive. The most effective way to survive is to be out of range until the threat can be neutralized. Your last paragraph is 100% straw man. I have no idea who you are addressing there, but, again, if you think you are responding to anything I said, you are not paying attention. It is fine for her to be armed and competent, but she should be in a venue where that is not a liability - New Jersey favors criminals. BSBD, Winsor

You do not seem to be paying attention. A resourceful, determined assailant who has detailed working knowledge of their quarry poses a serious threat. It can take significant time, effort and resources to neutralize the threat. Taking a year's assignment in Uruguay (or even Connecticut) makes it tougher for said individual to stalk. Paying an appropriate service to keep tabs on him can help (GPS transmitter on his car, track his cell phone, etc.). Arranging to sleep on different people's couches and getting rides in other people's cars makes one harder to track. Learn some basic tradecraft to identify tails and likely ambush sites. Spend time with others who are skilled at self-defense. Generally do not go places alone. Get enough training that you don't shoot the dog or your neighbor out of fear and panic. Whatever you do, KEEP IT LEGAL! I assure you that this does not matter when the Powers That Be think otherwise, but it is important not to go to the Dark Side. These are but a few basics, and there are people here that have more, better ideas, but these have worked to deny armed assailants the opportunity to execute an attack. BSBD, Winsor

This is one of the reasons that impartial testing standards for professional licensing are so useful. You may have pulled straight As because your grandfather donated a building to the university, but there is no way to fake the Professional Engineer's exam, for example. Hiring on the basis of double standards can get people killed in my line of work. I would much rather hire someone who was held to a higher standard than a lower one. If the professors were looking for a good excuse to tromp all over someone from an ethnic group they didn't like, but the student got a 4.0 anyway, they have passed muster. If the professors gave a student passing marks they didn't deserve because their dad was a Senator, I would give them a pass. The assholes who are behind this protest are doing themselves a disservice in the long run. You want equality? Adhere to equal standards. BSBD, Winsor

From the article it is clear she was actually born in Kenya.

I am impressed that someone with your technical credentials would be so casual when discussing stochastic phenomena. For one who deals with lumped parameter systems it is understandable, but not when communication theory is one's livelihood. In performing a heat balance on a system, one can have any number of factors, most of which can be safely ignored (significance

On the one hand, seeing those guys kill each other to the last man would be immensely gratifying, kind of like hearing that the Crips and Bloods had wiped each other out. OTOH, my experience with social shitholes is that, when one ghastly regime is overthrown, it is immediately replaced by one or more organizations that are a notch more vile at the very best. Douchenozzles such as Saddam Hussein, Mummar Khaddafi, et al. are greatly preferable to whatever crawled out from under a nearby rock to replace them. Assad, for all his failings, is like a gift from your favorite god compared to any of his opponents. Back to the question at hand, I suspect that IS is significantly more virulent when all is said and done. The goal of the Taliban is largely to return their native land to a neolithic social order, while IS wants to bring the whole world back before the Dark Ages - with them in charge. If the Taliban could be allowed to do their thing in a hermetically sealed environment (nobody in or out of areas under their control), fine. Don't overfly the place, and whistle as you pass the graveyard of empires. BSBD, Winsor

That's rather presumptuous. That's the best outcome you could see? If my last action was to wound my killer, I'd prefer that to him walking away. You can't just walk into a hospital to receive care for a gunshot wound without questions being raised, law enforcement being involved. Neither presumptuous nor the best outcome I could see. Since the goal is to emerge unscathed from any potential encounter, the best approach is to avoid said encounter. Having to resort to the use of firearms is an indication that the situation is in doubt. If she had the gun, she could be practicing with it. Please don't repeat this falsehood that non LEOs are incapable of learning basic markmanship. I've taught Canadians that in a single afternoon. The people you see at the range practice more than the typical LEO. Having taught rather a few LEOs how to use firearms, both from a marksmanship and a tactical standpoint, I agree with the notion that the skillset of all too many LEOs is on a par with Barney Fife. However, to use a tool of self defense (particularly one where earplugs are useful) requires one hell of a lot more than knowing how to keep groups in the black at 50'. One would be advised to put in an awful lot of training if the firearm is to become more of an asset than a liability. and now we're back to blaming the victim for not engaging in Hollywood like thinking about how martial arts will make up for a greater than 2X weight differential and a knife. Bullshit. Those self defense moves can be effective on a random mugger/assailtant who wants an easy score. A murderous ex is not so easily deterred. Guns are a far superior equalizer for smaller women. And running shoes are no more effective than a holstered gun - if the attacker is already close, he can sprint to close the gap before you can run away. I guess it's better for her that she got killed. Come on. We know what actually happened. She was killed. No circumstance with her being allowed her 2nd amendment rights would have worsened the outcome. Many many reasons to think the opposite. The law on approvals within 30 days is equally clear, and was not met. (Though that's still 30 days too long for someone with a restraining order) Please go over what I actually wrote and lay off the straw man arguments. 1) New Jersey is without redeeming value regarding the rights of its subjects, so I am not even addressing those issues. In that venue, the Constitution is viewed as a set of nice suggestions, kind of like the way a drug-addled pervert Televangelist sees the Top Ten Commandments. 2) The most effective way to survive a confrontation involving lethal force is to avoid it in the first place, regardless of what artillery you possess and how well you can use it. 3) Even pros who have to use firearms in self-defense are not always successful in emerging unscathed. Nobody bats 1000. 4) Complete familiarity with a firearm is only part of the skillset necessary to survive a potentially lethal encounter. 5) I am all for her having shot the sonofabitch before he could get to stabbing, and would applaud her having done so. I would also likely contribute to her legal defense fund, since its requirements would have been breathtaking. In New Jersey it is orders of magnitude more expensive to do the right thing than it is to do otherwise. 6) The best thing she could have done is to get the fuck out of New Jersey. If she had done so, the proscription against interfering with a murderous assailant would be moot and she would likely be alive. BSBD, Winsor

"I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself." - Oscar Wilde Why don't you lead by example, eh?

In Colorado the farmers and ranchers (at least, the ones who have ancestors who claimed water rights 100 years ago) even own the rain that falls from the sky. It is illegal, and punishable by a $500/day fine, to use or divert water that is coming off your roof. Ranching interests this year blocked passage of a proposed law that would have allowed homeowners to use a rain barrel to catch rain to water their garden. The courts have not yet ruled whether or not farmers also own the clouds. Don Can you explain this more? Yes, I've read about these laws, but how can a governmental agency forbid one to use the water that falls from the sky on one's property? It lands on the ground or a structure then runs on to the ground. They can't do anything about it (practically speaking). They're doing it for our own good. Think of the children.

Nonsense, the NAACP is already an organization without credibility.

I already answered once, but since you had difficulty reading... Hitler's goose was cooked on June 22, 1941. All that would be different would be the date of the Nazi defeat. Indeed. The Western Allies went up against a small portion of the Wehrmacht (and the odd SS unit), and the issue was often in doubt. We were very proud of ourselves for besting the vaunted Afrika Korps using everything we had, when the total number of troops we opposed was at most 130,000. The Soviets, OTOH, were up against nearly 4,000,000 German troops, to include the bulk of the Waffen SS. When Uncle Adolph took on Mother Russia, he really stepped on his dick. BSBD, Winsor

True, if viewed through a worldly view point. But if viewed though faith empowered by the Spirit of God , disappointment paradoxically becomes blessing. Peace that passes understanding becomes a reality. ... Those of us who live in the world would view it that way. YMMV, of course, up there in cloud cuckoo land. My contention, that is routinely verified in practice, is that religious conviction is the result of mental malware. Stuxnet is easier to address and much less destructive.

Having worked in the Pharmaceutical industry on and off for decades, I am convinced that the system is one founded on good intentions and modified to accommodate various conflicts of interest. Medicine in most of the Western world is pretty much a closed shop. The system of medical training contains of equal parts of hazing and indoctrination, and technical expertise that results from the process is largely a byproduct. Much of what was deemed true a century ago has been discredited, and we are routinely finding out that the guesses upon which medicine is based are subject to update. The free for all that existed before pure food and drug legislation came along left much to be desired. I'm a huge fan of knowing exactly what is in anything I consume, so that part of cGMPs is a good thing. The proscription against various psychoactive compounds is a mixed blessing at best.Having a population full of phencyclidine, methaqualone and the like sucks, but paying the social and economic price to lock up anyone given to such behavior is a poor solution. Winning the war on drugs can be a pyrrhic victory at best. Having said that, I recommend legalizing anything that is no worse than tobacco or alcohol (which is pretty much everything). If someone can smoke opium, they won't be killing themselves with krokodil. Of course, this is easy for me to say, since coffee is my limit - I avoid even OTC medication. BSBD, Winsor

One comment made some decades ago, by someone who was both a pilot and skydiver, was that parachutes for pilots are largely an illusion. "By the time you start thinking like a skydiver rather than a pilot, look at the altimeter. You may as well stick with the plane." Similarly, the use of firearms for self defense is hardly a panacea. In this case the perp knew the victim well enough to get close before she could do anything about it, and having a thunderstick of some type was unlikely to change the outcome. Assuming she was even able to clear leather before getting stabbed repeatedly, the best she could have likely achieved is to get a round into her assailant before dying. Given that she was a Subject of the People's Republic of New Jersey, there is a fair chance that what she knew for certain about firearms came from Hollywood (hey, they get paid a lot of money - they MUST know what they're talking about...). From a practical standpoint, she would have been in better shape if she invested in A) a good set of running shoes and B) some serious close-range martial arts training (though coming up to speed with techniques for dealing with edged weapons is not in the beginners course). Getting out of stabbing range would have been a hell of a good start, and a shovel kick to the knee may have distracted him if he was too close already. If she had, in fact, been able to halt the attack with lethal force, her New Jersey legal problems would have just begun. The powers that be may have concluded that it was a righteous shoot, but that is not particularly likely. Odds are that, even if she was severely wounded in the attack, she would have felony charges filed against her as a matter of course. The right to bear is, in a sense, a side issue here. Surviving the attentions of a homicidal maniac all too often requires much more than a neophyte having a firearm available. If she had been at home and the assailant stormed the place, an 18" 870 with OO Buck and a million candlepower of illumination would probably have worked in a real messy kind of way, but I gather she was waylaid without much time to react. Any way you cut it, this situation sucks coming and going. BSBD, Winsor

"It don't matter if you're black or white..."