Capt.Slog

They have quite different numbers than your source. Fascinating that Wal-Mart makes a profit and pays an average bonus of $933.60 to it's people, AIG tanks, and pays on average $395,000 to the people who caused its failure.

Correct. Gun crime is not caused by gun ownership. It's caused by cultural factors. Like a culture of worshipping guns.

"Highly criticized by some for not-so-great employee benefits and wages, the Wal-mart corporation has now publicized the fact that 80 million hourly employees will split more than half a billion dollars this year" ???? I never knew that 2 out of every 7 Americans worked for Wal-Mart. $1/2 B divided by 80M gives each employee an annual bonus of $6.25 Somehow I think your source is not very reliable.

How about just one or two? Here's a couple... www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,00.html-50k www.washington times.com/news/2006/may/18/20060518-114132-2456r/ Chuck Oh, I thought you meant REAL news sources.

Are you always Politically Correct like this, or is it something you reserve for attacking Democrats? Somehow I didn't see you as part of the PC crowd.

Pity that it's bogus, isn't it? The 1st Amendment gives us the right to complain about it. Don't you believe in the Constitution? Which one, Cherokee, Zuni, Iroquoian?

Indeed, it was the Washington Times that got its panties in a wad in its bogus story about "Pelosi's jet". I'd believe The Onion before I believed anything printed in the WT. Pretty dangerous program anyway: www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/25/national/main3965159.shtml

There is no place on earth, no matter what gun laws are in place, that can prevent a nutter from getting a gun if he wants one. So your wish is just a mythical fairy tale, that has no basis in reality. And, as Billvon pointed out, there's no guarantee that a civilian with a gun will stop an armed nutter either. No-one expects perfection, just improvement. But you and those like you claim the sky is about to fall every time anyone suggests something that might just inconvenience you a little.

The AIG execs need a dressing down like that, NOT bonuses.

affirmative action is neither racist nor sexist. how is it not racist or sexist? placing minimums on minorities and women means that a more qualified white male will be denied a job based on his race and gender. Don't confuse quotas with affirmative action. Not the same thing AT ALL.

What they DESERVED was to be out of work. Had AIG not been "too big to fail" they all WOULD have been out of work. I'm sure many of the laid off WORKERS from companies like Caterpillar, Boeing, GE, Eastman Kodak, Textron, Sears (and the list goes on and on) had "good performance" too, but you never seem to whine on their behalf.

How do you propose to do that? A good start would be not to rely on just their self-certification that they are not nutters. Every gun purchase made by a gun dealer is done with the personal approval of an FBI background check. That demonstrates that they have no prior history of being a criminal. I suppose you're referring to psychiatric data which is not available for background checks in every state, due to doctor/patient confidentiality laws. But if someone is enough of a nut that they're a problem to society, they usually quickly develop a criminal history. So the one that is already checked, is also a reflection of the other that is not always checked. Do you want every gun purchaser to first have to undergo a psychiatric evaluation before being allowed to purchase a gun? What about people who already own guns? Should they have periodic psychiatric evaluations to ensure that they haven't gone nuts since their last gun purchase? Would these government psychiatric evaluations also apply to, say, people with driver's licenses to see if they have problems with alcohol? Maybe we should give everyone an annual government psych eval to make sure that they're not suicidal! Oh yeah, we could really have a good crack-down on the citizenry with this system! Off to the gulag with 'em! Oh, you can always come up with a dozen straw reasons why your enjoyment shouldn't be disturbed for the sake of a few lives. "I prefer a few gun massacres rather than not have the freedom to be armed for recreation and self defense." John Rich, Sept 10, 2008 Pretty selfish attitude.

Straw man argument. No one has ever said they make us "perfectly" safe. If you're in a public place with your wife, and some nut starts shooting everyone in sight, which of these two scenarios would you prefer: 1) A place with strict gun laws so that no citizen is able to take action to stop the shooter, and only the arrival of the police will save you, or; 2) A place with "loose" gun laws that allows citizens to carry concealed handguns, so that there is a chance that an ordinary citizen will engage the shooter and stop the massacre before police arrive. What's your choice? I'd prefer the place where the nut finds it extraordinarily difficult to get the gun in the first place. Unfortunately we have gone to the opposite extreme in the USA. Thanks to people like you and mnealtx.

From Gallup today. It must really hurt for the GOPers on here to be losing their whipping boy.

I can, and this is far worse. 1/2 million losing their jobs each month for months on end?

Old news www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27034940/

And the part you snipped says: "Finally, what probably accounts for a good measure of the confidence and support the Obama administration has enjoyed is the fact that they are not Republicans. Virtually all Americans, more than eight in 10, blame Republicans for the current economic woes, and the only two leaders with lower approval ratings than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner."

And what happened to "we're facing the worst economic crisis since the great depression". Seemed for a while that's all B.O. could say on the economy. Was he wrong then or is he wrong now? Neither. It is the worst crisis since the great depression, and it is not as bad as you think.

Well, to be fair, on the economy and gov spending they both suck(ed) And, you dont want to compare in reality, cause you know it would make your man look really bad. What an absurd conclusion. How many presidents are there to compare with? Bush inherited a SURPLUS and left us with the worst recession in decades. Who was the last president before Obama to have inherited an economic mess of this magnitude?

I don't know. /Marg Here. This is total INTENTIONAL deaths (homicide + suicide).

Strawman. No-one said the President's wife shouldn't be on a government plane. All the whining from the right seems to be about the Speaker of the House, 3rd in succession, being on a government plane. O.K. Slick! The way I see it, he shouldn't have free rides on govt. air. I don't care if he is 3rd. in line. Fat chance he'd ever make it. I'm not on the 'whining right', either. Chuck That decision is, apparently made by the folks in charge of security for the House (Sergeant at Arms office) and not by you or me. And it was endorsed by the Bush White House. So all this whining about Pelosi is just a typical right wing shitflinging party.

In an ‘unauthorized armchair anthropologist” sorta way, I found it more curious to observe which folks assume I “do research,” etc and which credit other explanations. Interesting /Marg I like "Other". 1. You make it all up as you go, or 2. you were born knowng everything.

How is handgun ownership?

Yes, it's true. And once their term of service is fulfilled, they are allowed to purchase their duty rifles and keep them. The anti-gun folks don't like to talk about this example, as it destroys their "less guns = less crime" argument. Well, if their ammunition is sealed as quade quoted...

US rate of ownership of guns (estimates range from 83 to 97 per 100 people) is higher than the gun ownership rate in Switzerland (average estimate of 48 per 100 people). The estimate for Iraq in 2007 was 38 per 100 people and Yemen was 61 guns per 100 people. See, e.g., graphic attached to [1969912]’s post from Dec07 here, which is derived from primary data here. Relative rankings on crime, e.g., burglaries, in which Switzerland (#13) has a higher burglary rate than the US (#17) (overall incidence, those with guns not specified). The UK (#7), according to the data, has an even higher rate of burglaries (& ~5 1/2 guns per person). Finland is #5 in buglaries, with a higher per capita rate of gun ownership (56 per 100 people) than Switzerland (46 per 100 people), although less than the US (90 per 100 people). Looking at homicides via firearms: US is #8 w/3.6 firearm associated homicides per 100,000 people. Between Mexico (#7), altho' that may be slightly dated, and Belarus (#9). Switzerland isn't in the top 32. If one compares that with firearms per 100 people (a less than perfect measure of availability), I don’t see any correlation. Variables that have been found to correlate to high levels of gun ownership are (1) wealthy countries or (2) countries with recent, intense violent conflicts. The former is the case for US & western Europe; the latter reflects the situations in places like Angola and Columbia. See page 21 of the report noted above for a graph showing the range of GDPs and correlation with per capita civilian gun ownership. The authors discuss where that model breaks down, which it does. Where does gun ownership intersect with gun violence? My hypothesis is that there will not be a direct dependency found. Marg How is Switzerland in terms of suicides (and gun suicides)?