champu

I should be President... ...I'll only be 34 in Nov 2016 though

This thread is still dieseling along?

I am saying neither of those things. What I have said in the past is that "normal" and "insane" (where the "insane" epithet would lead to abridged rights) are not collectively exhaustive adjectives. In the past you've said that "normal" people don't go on shooting sprees, and that they are necessarily insane. Now you're saying that people who buy a bunch of guns and write about a shooting spree, but don't actually carry it out are "not normal." Clearly he wasn't normal, but if the only other bucket you allow for is "insane," then that's where we have the disconnect.

Fitting though, as the attitude of those adamantly opposed to "assault weapons" and "high-capacity magazines" are worried about what could happen, not about what actually does happen, or its statistical significance. It doesn't seem to matter how abstract it gets (e.g. "Holy cow, that could have been my daughter in that dorm where that guy could have gone and killed a bunch of people, but didn't.")

While "liberal" and "liberty" share the same latin root meaning "free," the former has come to mean "free from tradition" and the latter "free from restrictions." So if, traditionally, you enjoyed something without restrictions the two words could be in opposition.

don't really get it. He knows that once he pulled the fire alarm, fire and police would start to arrive any second, right>? So what difference really does the 911 call make? He was in a room with view outside, he would still have some targets... Sounds like he decided he couldn't shoot people after all when push came to shove. Well that, and the way the story read to me he had an opportunity to shoot the roommate ("pointed a weapon at him") before he made the 911 call. That doesn't sound like someone who was going to walk around shooting anyone who moved but for the police getting there more quickly than he expected. But knowing how wrong media reports are anything could have actually happened. For all we actually know the roommate pointed the gun at him. The tone of your reply implies that you think you're Claire Voyant. He could have written this differently, such as "Shall I infer from your thread title that you think... ?" but quade's choice of words fishes for the question, "Okay, so what was the minus side..." and quade has been very outspoken about people that an average person might label "insane" having access to weapons. But, putting words in quade's mouth or not, this does make for an interesting case study in the discussion a little while ago. Quade said that "normal people" (aka "not insane people") don't go on shooting sprees, and asserted that there existed experts that could make a determination and prevent such a person from buying firearms. Ah, but here we have someone who did everything except actually go on the shooting spree. So I would ask quade if he would consider this person to have been "insane", and would he have expected his hypothetical "insanity" screen to have prevented him from purchasing firearms?

Sounds like he had some problems, gave up on himself, built up a target of blame in his head, made some plans, bought some weapons, built some bombs, pulled a fire alarm to start things off, and then the gravity of what he had set out to do hit him when he found himself pointing a gun at someone. Sad story... Glad to hear that no one else was injured.

Fun with generalizations (and run-on sentences)... Social conservatives expend a great deal of effort stating publicly that they are okay with all walks of life and that they embrace "to each their own," only to go vote for that which they'd rather not defend and that which, when analyzed further, is found to do little but remove rights from others that they previously stated they had respect for and no problems with. If their voting record is revealed or their stance is exposed, it leads to mumbling in an attempt to portray themselves as more centrist than they are. Social liberals expend a great deal of effort stating publicly which sufficiently vague as to be easily defensible social movements and positions they support, and vote proudly for the "Anti-Mean People and Koala Orphanage Preservation Act," even though, when analyzed further, it attempts to marginalize mean people and preserve Koala Orphanages in a horribly ineffective and costly way, and with many unintended consequences. When presented with the problems in the AMPKOP Act, it leads to shouting in an attempt to portray their opponents as less centrist than they are.

Choose your old fart wisely though otherwise he or she will just tell you that "7 cell canopies don't have good glide," "stilettos give you line twists," and "the 45 degree rule is the best way to get exit separation." A combination of the advice given here is probably best. Read up on the manufacturers' websites and reviews here, ask your instructors, demo as many as you can, and beware the advice of someone with a canopy for sale.

That's the one. I think that any federal program with a cost that grows as O(n*log(n)) or faster relative to the population is doomed to bury us. Meanwhile the things not exempt from the sequester are things like the FAA which is probably O(log(n)) and the National Park Service which I'd bet is damn near O(1).

There was a plot (bar chart) floating around on here that showed total projected outlays over the next decade, and showed the cuts mandated by the sequester. Such a plot certainly makes it easier for most people to shrug off the hyperbole getting tossed around. The thing missing from the plot, though, is an indication of how much of the outlays are exempt from the sequester. Claims that the cuts are "across the board" are as bullshit as anything else that comes out of Washington, and that's why a "less than 3% cut in federal spending" results in many workers getting a 20% furlough. Directors will make choices they didn't want to have to make, but life will go on. Just keep in mind when looking at the sequester and thinking, "thank you sir, may I have another" that this kind of approach will very quickly turn into the usual, "layoffs of teachers and firefighters" while less-defensible line items continue to get exempted.

Don't forget, there are people who reason that spending more increases revenues thus lowering the deficit, and there are people who reason that lowering taxes will increase revenues thus lowering the deficit. So we'll be more than fine.

Well thank god they weren't shot 11 times...

You forgot to say [on-topic]. "[on-topic] Gimme your lunch." See, that's better. Leaves him less wiggle room.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Rape-related+pregnancy

The big island is 90 miles across. Which is STILL a tiny target in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for a country who hasn't learned to aim a ICBM yet. Without a reentry vehicle deployed in a stable manner, they can't hit anything. That wasn't my point. But if you can land a warhead at all then landing it with a 90 mile CEP isn't as tall an order as Joe was making it out to be.

The big island is 90 miles across.

In the cases where there have been disruptions on commerical flights and the national guard scrambled fighters to escort the plane to an emergency landing, what do you think those fighters were there for? Moral support? I think we can all agree that an arrest and due process would be preferrable to the president ordering a drone strike on a suspected terrorist hiding in the tribal areas of Pakistan, the president ordering the national guard to shoot down an airliner that's under control of hijackers and heading towards a population center, or a cop shooting a suspect dead while serving an arrest warrent because the guy pulls a gun. But in each of those circumstances, due process doesn't really play out due to decisions made by the offender. Still, in each of those circumstances a judicial review needs to happen at the very least after the fact to make sure the action was warrented/defensible. This is particularly important considering at least one (and possibly all) of those circumstances is going to end up killing bystanders. Now, targeted killings (by drones or any other means) of Americans on US soil? Or even targeted killings of a citizen of any country where there is a prevailing rule of law such that there is what I'll call a "reasonable expectation of due process"? I don't think that would have any trouble not holding up to the post-action review described above. And I think the president is aware of that.

Sometimes I wish this site implemented http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellbanning

Whenever you feel compelled to blame liberals (or if people feel compelled to blame conservatives for things) I invite you to partake in a thought experiment I posed last week that is probably better suited to this thread. What I'm getting at is that the idea that a party would gain control of a portion of government and take that as a message from the people to implement their entire list of crap they want to implement is something that is wrong with America. But being blind to the underlying reasons about why "your guy" didn't win is why candidates are getting more and more extreme, and why it seems like everyone's entire list of crap is terrible.

You do realize this would create ridiculous situations with a 5000% marginal tax rate at $100K and a 25000% marginal tax rate at $250K yes?

A thought-provoking web spun here is that the policy of not performing CPR could be, and probably is, an entirely legal decision rather than a medical one on the part of the facility. However, had the employee been appropriately certified, disregarded the policy, and performed CPR to no avail, it's the disregard for the policy that would likely be one of the stronger arguments against her in showing negligence. I'm not a lawyer so I don't know how well a defense of, "That policy only exists to keep the facility out of lawsuits like this one and has nothing to do with the health of the tenants," can be substantiated by a defense attorney or received by a judge and/or jury.

Interesting to consider the "option packages" you get with the two parties, and the courting of swing voters. Do democratic politicians want "any 'ol" gun control measures so badly that they're willing to risk driving voters towards opponents who want to repeal universal healthcare laws? Or do the politicians see fit to assert their viewpoint on firearms is "obvious" and to hell with the people whose votes they lose? Do republican politicians want to stop abortions and gay marriage so badly that they'll drive people into power that want to dredge up useless weapon bans? Or do these politicians see their viewpoint as "fundamental" and to hell with the people whose votes they lose? I just hope when either party in control of a portion of the government conforms to their party stereotype, right down the line of issues, that they do so to their own peril. Because neither party has a monopoly on issues they should really just back away from.

Maybe they will all be awarded in absentia while the recipients watch on television.

No one is proposing banning all skydives, just tandems. Nobody needs tandems, we have static line jumps.