champu

And yes, while I'm talking olive branches, it would go a long way if firearm rights advocates would acknowledge that guns are purpose-built as weapons. They are designed to break inanimate objects and turn animate objects into inanimate objects. I love sport shooting as much as the next guy, but there's a reason we call clay targets "birds" and why many paper targets look the way they do. And, as GeorgiaDon suggested, even amongst purpose-built weapons there are aspects of motivation unique to firearms that deserve consideration. So while comparing stats can be useful to help bring perspective to the argument, I don't think it's helpful to mock gun control advocates by suggesting they should "ban x" just because "x" causes more deaths than a particular type of firearm.

His point was similar to one I tried to make here, which is that if one is to focus on particular features or classification of weapon with legislation, then crime statistics presented need to be similarly focused. I think one of the strongest "olive branch" maneuvers that people in favor of additional regulation of firearms could make would be to acknowledge how ill-informed much of the 1994 AWB was with respect to what kinds of weapons were actually used in crimes. Sort of off-topic... I saw an article last week that I thought was interesting in the context of the gun debate. Here we have two cases of [likely] mentally ill people killing a person in a graphic and violent way that hits close to home for a lot of people, and the government response is that it needs to be kept in perspective. I think that's all that's being asked by folks who are trying to defend rifles.

No. It had zero to do with it because it had zero to do with it. What you're suggesting is everything the government is involved with was part of the "fiscal cliff" negotiations, but simply decided not to include this. That's not the case at all. What our friend Marc is complaining about was decided more than a ago and the rates were set no matter what happened this last week. The things I listed in the second paragraph were all things that were due to automatically change yesterday and were thus all considered a part of the fiscal cliff. They were all "decided more than a year ago" and what happened last week could have easily affected all or none of those things. Nobody in congress or the senate chose to make a stand on extending the SS tax break. It's as simple as that.

Only because nobody chose to include it or it was blocked from being included in the final agreement. It has always been one of the things wrapped into what everyone referred to as the fiscal cliff though. The Bush tax cuts expiring had zero to do with sequestration, which had zero to do with long-term unemployment expiring, which had zero to do with the temporary SS tax decrease, which had zero to do with medicare payment changes, which had zero to do with the AMT, which had zero to do with milk, and on and on and on. It's all a part of the long term deficit concern, and it's all a part of the policy effects on the economy. Everyone who says, "well that's a problem, but it's a totally separate problem" simply has nothing to politically gain from that piece of the larger problem being addressed as part of the current negotiations. /edited to add the underlined for clarification...

Okay, see post #48. Or, more specifically... ((0.062 * 113700) - (0.042 * 110100)) / 12 = $202.10/mo

Yes, the company withholds based on the tables submitted by the gov Has somthing to do with health insurance withholding ? Now I'm confused too... They shouldn't be withholding more federal income tax as a result of health insurance unless you've added someone you aren't related/married to to your policy and the company is covering a portion of it. It still sounds like your company is simply withholding based on assumptions that didn't come to pass though. You could always call/e-mail your payroll department and ask.

Just looked at my first 2013 paycheck What ever the fuck is happening is gonna cost me 6k more in withholding this year vs last year And I am no where near 400k in earnings Your first paycheck is very likely to be jacked up this year because companies didn't have a lot of notice to get the withholding tables correct. My company guessed correctly (i.e. Fed OASDI returned to 6.2% withholding and fed withholding appears to be using the same tables as last year) but it would have been just as easy to assume that no deal would be reached and withholding would go up. You'll probably see them fix it over the next couple paychecks. That said, if you earned above the SS cap last year and will earn above the cap this year then your SS withholding will be a little over $200/mo higher.

I think an argument could be made for the heir(s) to pay taxes on the cost basis of the inherited estate and capital gains on any asset once those gains were realized, but treating it like a capital gains tax forces the heirs to either realize the gains (liquidize the estate) or go into debt (to a bank) to pay the levied taxes. Alternatively, they could establish corporations or trusts to avoid having the assets be subject to the estate tax in the first place. In other words you either sell under duress to a corporation and give a substantial chunk to the government, you go into debt with a corporation and give the money to the government, or you circumvent the whole thing. I don't consider applying pressure to assets to drive them into the hands of corporations and the government to be a noble goal. And I don't think creating yet more tax devices that are easier to get around the more assets you're working with is the desired result. In terms of it being "just another revenue stream" it's not a very good one in the long term. Congress keeps screwing with it so you'll see spikes up and down with the revenue it generates. If it's configured to affect a lot of people / small businesses and left that way you'll see the revenue erode as people will be able to accurately predict its affects and plan around it. Some, I'm convinced, simply like to see an estate tax used as a tool to make establishing a family that's economically strong generation after generation as Sisyphean as possible, and I'm not sure what their motivation is.

I'll admit, I never know who the Roscosmos guys are. They put up a lot more first-timers than we do.

http://theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-insourcing-boom/309166/

Or try explaining that we've mapped subsurface structures of the Moon, are geologically and biologically exploring Mars, and are expanding our study of the formation of solar systems.

People use this site as a form of entertainment in a great many ways. Kallend enjoys making ambiguous or suggestive statements and then mocking anyone who responds reading into his suggestion and also generally riling up certain folks around here by focusing on the GOP congress and other conservative groups. A lot of my posts are criticizing the arguments/suggestions of people I don't fundamentally disagree with if you take a couple steps back, which I suppose is similar and/or equally annoying at times, so I can't really fault him. In any event, the "lies, damn lies, and statistics" adage seems particularly applicable to the discussion of home defense gun usages vs. "family" getting injured or killed. You can debate all you want about what numbers to start with but all the projecting and estimating of what might have happened in different situations sounds like people arguing about the parameters of the Drake equation. And unfortunately, I'm not convinced there are any players (i.e. quoted references) involved who actually give a shit about coming up with a correct assessment.

Just wanted to wish everyone in Speakers Corner a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Joyful Yule, and/or a very pleasant fucking whatever. I'm glad to be able to spend the holidays this year with emmiwy and with family, but that hasn't always been the case. Several years back I spent Christmas with fellow skydivers navigating through caverns in Joshua Tree. More recently I've spent a Christmas driving out to and climbing a terminal object with a good friend. So if you're with loved ones, great. If you've got nothing to do, head to the nearest dropzone and see what happens. And finally, if you're deployed overseas, thank you. Take care and be safe!

quoted from the second article. That seems a little beyond "acting scary". It sounds like he was on the opposite side of a fence the whole time, and went back into the woods after everyone ran away. The part of the article I find interesting is the following... A "unique position of emotional vulnerability?" Really? What the hell does that mean and what does it have to do, legally speaking, with what this guy did or what his punishment should be?

The poll poses a yes/no question and both yes and no are present, so I don't see the problem. If people wanted to describe their scenario(s) having voted then they were free to do so, but there's no built in scenario in the answers. (possible exception for the last choice which is fishing for stories.) The poll options you suggested are basically just you saying you believe the 'no' votes should outnumber 'yes' votes, and that you think some of the 'yes' votes are wrong (i.e. the person didn't have to use their gun.) You've said a couple times that everyone's stories are valid but it feels like you are reading and responding to this thread so that you can police it and make sure no one "gets away with" claiming they needed a gun when you don't think they did.

I like my local police. They were very pleasant and professional when they came out last month to take my statement and pull prints off windows a month ago after I scared someone off who was trying to break into my house at 11:30 at night. However, the police are just plain not going to be able to help you if an intruder tries to get into your house. 911 as a solution is a non-starter.

I see, so even though the vast majority of gun owners are responsible and law abiding citizens, they'll all participate in black market illegal activities if a ban was in place. Okay. Good to know. There are plenty of people out there who are otherwise law abiding but still buy and use pot illegally. Those people probably feel that the ban is stupid, and that it's not a big deal because their having and smoking pot isn't hurting anyone. Likewise if you implemented a "hard" ban on, say, "semi-automatic weapons with removable magazines," you'd have a lot of otherwise law-abiding people who felt that the ban is stupid, and would have no trouble purchasing them on the black market because they felt their owning the firearms wasn't hurting anyone. There would be somewhat fewer firearm purchases but there would be a vastly expanded black market because you will have funneled a lot of new customers into it. Now you have otherwise law-abiding citizens subsidizing a market that doesn't care how crazy or how criminal their customers are. Just like with illegal drugs, the dealers don't care who their customers are, "...well hey, well that's the way it is." I think throwing up your arms and saying nothing can be done doesn't make the problem go away either. I think you have to start with the assumption something can be done. Not to completely eliminate, because that probably isn't possible, but to do something in the direction of helpful rather than fuck it. I agree with the idea that throwing your hands up doesn't change anything or fix any presented problems, but if a suggestion is presented, and someone responds explaining why it won't help, the fact that they don't then also present a counter suggestion doesn't make their argument about why the original idea isn't a good one any weaker.

We live in the society we live in and that comes with a multitude of different risks. People are, generally, free to mitigate those risks as they choose, and I'm a fan of keeping options open. Some people go overboard but that doesn't automatically enter everyone in a race to see who can go furthest overboard. It's funny that a couple people here said they are glad they don't have to think about kevlar backpacks because they don't live in the United States. That attitude is silly. I don't have to think about building an underground bunker in my backyard just because there's a show about people who do on the History channel. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's nutcaseness.

I guess not, Ms. Martindale. Nope. Don't want to live in this society. Why don't you just kill the kids, instead. Haha, this is an awesome literal interpretation of the rhetorical question posed. "Given that people are sending their kids to school in kevlar backpacks and proposing we arm teachers, do we want to live?" Of course we'd want to live, but that's a silly take on what she said. The way I interpreted the statement above was, "Do we want our society to be one where kids wear kevlar backpacks and teachers are armed? Because we're going to have to live in it [and I don't think such a response is warrented.]"

People are jumping back and forth between annual statistics and what one nutcase can pull off in a single episode a little too freely. If people are talking about banning weapons with certain features or characteristics then do so in the context of how many people are killed or injured as a result of those features or characteristics. Saying there are X gun deaths per year, and epsilon percent of those were mass shootings, and mass shootings tend to involve rifle Y, so we need to do away with Y because look how big X is, does not follow. I honestly don't think there are enough mass killings happening to have a realistic expectation of how additional gun bans would affect them. And I don't mean, "hyuk hyuk, they wouldn't have guns, idiot." I mean people who would do such a thing may just turn to homemade IEDs if the threshold for access to a semi-automatic rifle with a removable magazine is raised. You can't outright discount culture and world events when comparing to other countries or time periods. We could say, "screw it, let's ban the guns and find out." But that's not a controlled experiment, and if it doesn't stop nut jobs from killing people then now we've got attacks AND law abiding citizens have had their guns taken away. I think mental health and popular culture portrayal of violence are the heart of the problem. That includes, btw, both inappropriate fandom and fear towards certain types of weapons that needs to be moderated back towards simple respect.

Well, I suppose if you are ignorant of the concept of evolution this viewpoint makes sense. I don't see the connection to evolution where I have to work to pay for the consequences of other people's choices. If a person holds an individual or group of people in such low regard, I would think it would be an easy sell if that individual or group of people offered to limit how frequently they were reproducing (spreading their lowly-regarded genes) if the tab was picked up for them. From an evolutionary standpoint that's always going to be money well spent.

I don't see it as a case of, "Do as I say and not as I do." It's a plea not to go down the same road as we have with all the problems/mistakes/close calls we've had since the 1940s. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2989211#2989211 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4376702;#4376702

It really depends on your travel habits. Unfortunately most airlines have dropped the motto, "the customer is always right" in favor of, "the customer with ____ level status and above is always right, to everyone else we're disposable, so they're disposable to us too." The idea of promoting customer loyalty with perks makes good sense, but allowing you to check bags, have a seat other than a middle seat in the very back, change your flight, or get on anywhere but boarding group 7 (i.e. have access to overhead bin space) don't really seem like "perks" to me in the same way that, say, a priority security line, getting bumped to first if seats are available, or a nice lounge in the terminal are.

"How much like it? Was it the same cat?"

I travel regularly, but not a ton, and almost all of my air travel complaints are "passenger vs passenger" in nature. Many are related to passengers who don't listen to airline staff like putting coats and purses in the overhead instead of under the seat in front of you, putting roll aboard bags in the overhead sideways, pretending you simply don't know how numbers work when boarding, or when the flight attendant asks nicely on a flight that was running late for people without connecting flights to stay seated on arrival and 90% of the plane gets up and starts shoving anyway. I encountered a somewhat new one on a flight a couple days ago though... Usually, and especially on long flights, I try to get a window seat because my way of dealing with air travel is to pass out, slump over against the side of the plane, not be bothered by people with smaller bladders than me, and generally do my best impersonation of cargo. Unfortunately on this flight there were very few seats available and I ended up in an aisle seat. On five occasions, in as many hours, as I was trying to sleep I had people that were walking down the aisle to get to the bathroom lean with all their weight on my headrest and then let it go as they moved past, spring-boarding my head forward. Not once did I wake up to an elderly person who had been taken by surprise by some turbulence, nor once to an apology. Does this happen to anyone else?