I wouldn't call that as the intention. But the NRA, Big Pharma, Big Energy, Big Tech, most GOP (and to be fair, some Democrats like Manchin & Sinema) are all about the big "Ps" - profit & power - before morals. Extremist terrorism as a means to more profit/power? Their motto is "Hell Yeah why not?"

They're reduced to reading 4 words in the 2nd Ammendment as their whole and only (constitutional & religious) Bible.

Imagine the scenario where a bad guy pulls out a gun, the first "good guy" pulls out a gun, then a second "good guy" pulls out his gun... wanna bet the probability who the 2nd guy points his or her gun to? And the subsequent 3rd-nth good guys' guns going to point theirs to?

Oh, then unevitably the "no duty to protect" police forces come and shoot ALL the guys with guns.

Total chaos, and good luck untangling the legal lawsuits that will inevitably come after. America! F**k YEAH!!

"Good Guy With A Gun" Theory. These NRA honchos reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally don't want their subservient cohorts think one more step ahead of any argument. The sad truth is there's enough of mindless American too lazy (or even capable?) to think ahead just as they wished due to America's educational system and pathetic "freedom at all costs" patirotism & American 2nd Ammendment Exceptionalism crap.

There are many democratic countries that said no to widespread gun ownerships (Australia, NZ, Japan) and are far better for it. I guess (read: I don't watch C-SPAN) that sense of American Pride infects even the Democrats to be gutsy enough to compare the US to other countries during legislative gun-control debates?

That assault-style (like the ARs) gun ownership rights is pretty FUBAR from the get go. If that's a right, why not grenades? Tanks, fighter jets, subs and heck, nuclear missiles? As long as I'm a "no criminal record" American citizen, isn't it my God-given right -- and my freedom! -- to own any weapons as long as I can afford it? Unhindered Capitalism at its finest we're talking here! The most American of values!

I'm going to make water not wet...so when I throw a bucket at them...they won't get drenched and annoyed.

Will someone ammend that?

Yes, of course, the economic crash and Bush era Republican backed policies had no responsibility for that rise in debt. (head hits wall) You must be one of those who believed the hype that he had spent more than all other presidents put together in his first 1/2 term...I heard that often and had to constantly remind my friends of the facts and the numbers, which they usually agreed with, then quickly chose to ignore or forget and start the same BS argument and claims again a week later. It's maddening! He's spent far too much, but no worse than his predecessor that had a surplus when he started office, in many respects better.
I wish those who claim the president ignores the constitution would actually read it, including ammendments. The president has the LEGAL right to make 'presidential decrees' and the like, and to act in many ways without congresses go ahead, thanks to the Bush era he can almost declare war! Much of what he tries may be overturned by congress if they can get their shit together (but they can't). Don't take it wrong, I'm not happy to see this being done in most cases, and certainly not as a run-around of congress, but it's not against the constitution as it stands today, and those that make that claim are simply wrong and have been misled.
I'll just ignore your last paragraphs, they are not legitimate or reasoned arguments, just name calling.

Why would I?? Because after i was banned as choggie I was canned with no recourse but to lurk and read the COMPLETE HORSESHIT the mob talked about me with me having no way to defend myself...I was righteously pissed. You obviously are not a student of history here, i don't forget shit, but I DO FORGIVE.

Plus, the sift needs a douche of all the wholesale crap that got posted during that bogus election, and I'd love to see the AWOL unseated from prominent places.....get some perspective instead of talking more shit perhaps>???

How about cleaning up some tired dead rhetoric on the sift and gang-up on someone who isn't sincere, thoughtful, and full of empathy.\??
TO answer your question directly Sarzy, "Because I CAN and will to do so.

I miss a lotta folk here, especially the ones who slinked-off after they fired-up torches against me and then passive-aggressively bailed when I was allowed to return..Believe me, i extended olive branches to some of the worst of offenders here. ...and they call ME a hater-

NR admitted he was shill....and I have made ammends with his old-lady

Yo u need some context before you startin' with the same program...I love everybody, it simply looks like shit to some.

Can't stand pep-rally mentalities, and won't suffer charlatans with a single program.

That's why-

People love to use the analogy that weapons bans are the same as reasonable limitations on your 1st amendment rights. They use arguments like "You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater", "You can't Slander", etc. but there is a big difference.

An assault weapons ban basically equates to "you may not own this item" the restrictions on 1st Amendment rights say "you man not use a word in this very limited list of situations".

If they were truly equal then the "reasonable" restriction on your 1st amendment right would be "You may not EVER use the word FIRE. Not in a crowded theater, not at home, not at work, not ever. Remove it from your vocabulary and we will not teach it to people who learn the language in the future."

No one would find that reasonable and everyone would fight to protect their right to use the word "fire" in safe, appropriate conversation.

Now lets take that and reverse it. Let's apply what everyone says are reasonable restrictions on our 1st ammendment rights and apply them to our 2nd ammendment. If you did that then you would havesomething along the lines of the following: "You may own the gun but you may not use it in these very limited list of situations".

Oh wait a minute! That's what we currently have. "You may own your gun but you may not use it to rob a store, murder someone, threaten someone, etc."

I am not trying to convince everyone that my side is right. I am just pointing out that you need to be careful when you start restricting ANY constitutionally guaranteed right. Take the restrictions that you think are fair and apply them equally to any other right that you have and see if they still sound "Reasonable".

There is a nice part of Yes, Prime Minister regarding nuclear deterrent that outlines my position quite nicely. http://youtu.be/IX_d_vMKswE

See, your government isn't going to sell you to slavery overnight. More likely they'll strip your rights away bit by bit. How do you protect yourself against that with a firearm. At what point do you organise a militia to overthrow the tyrants, and tbh...why hasnt it happened yet? I didn't see many gun owners defending themselves from say, the patriot act or demanding that money be out of politics while waving a 9mm around.I like the spirit of the 2nd ammendment, I think europeans are perhaps too complacent, I just don't think its really practical. Its a law from another era.

As for school shootings etc. Well, correlation doesn't equal causation. Other countries might have less firefarms and less shootings, but we also don't lock up 1/7 of black men. Some shootings you can definitely see that gun control would probably have prevented it, but you can see that if somebody really wants to kill, and spends time planning it then they're probably going to find a gun somehow.

I do think that guns raise the stakes on a lot of non-violent crimes that can turn fatal though. Neither the homeowner or the burgler want to kill the other, but both fear that the other might pull the trigger first. Its a sort of prisoners dilemna where really the only winning option is to shoot first and ask questions later. Maybe with less guns swimming around you'd get less twitchy fucks shooting black kids carryin nothing more than a bag of skittles. I don't think it does anything as a way of deterrent either, desperate people do tend to somewhat ignore all risk.

You know, I'm not a Palin fan, but she wasn't really wrong on the 1st ammendment issue. If you've got Mayors calling for boycotts of a store because of comments they made, then that's government officials violating the ammendment. There's nothing wrong with ordinary citizens calling for a boycott, but as soon as you have elected officials doing so, you've crossed a line.

The rest of the things she said, on the other hand, were batshit crazy.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

@GenjiKilpatrick, you forgot rule #427,362: If Danny can't think of a way to improve a technology that he was just introduced to, off-hand, via information he learned in a two-minute video, then further innovation is clearly impossible.
>> ^dannym3141:
The only way i can imagine to get more visible light out of this, other than actually increasing the intensity of the light emitted per cell by the stuff...


@dannym3141: I too assumed that the cells were emitting the light, but if you read/watch it again, the cells are merely producing energy (via carbon somehow) that is stored in batteries. The light source is still just a light.


Perhaps you've forgotten rule #427,362 ammendment A which suggests you read things carefully to ensure you're not over reacting, for example when someone uses the phrase "genuine question" and then tries to explain their point more clearly and asks for clarification from the other.

I'm afraid i don't have time to read up on every technology that i see cool videos of, but lucky for me some other people do and if i ask nicely and sound interested i tend to find they're happy to explain it to me.

If you'd read my first post which actually started the matter i think you'd have understood my confusion and maybe not needed to be rude? Earlier i asked "why don't they shine the weak light onto a solar panel?" Well, it seems that kinda is what they do, thanks for letting me know

I'm surprised that someone as apparently vigilant to information as yourself (what with you knowing rule #427,362 so well) didn't even bother to read the original question. So when genji tells me "it would get better", i think the method of operation has been confirmed and then i try and use my understanding of how something like that might work to try and understand how it might be improved. Then, i try and discuss it.

I'm not going to apologise for trying to figure out and find out how something works.

@dystopianfuturetoday I'd like to help you visualize what I understand a free market is or ought to be. When you say free markets are impossible, I tend to compare that to someone saying, "free speech is impossible" while holding an extreme or maybe unrealistic interpretation of what free speech ought to be as well.

Imagine when freedom of speech was first proposed, "What if we had a society where people could say whatever they want without fear of censorship or oppression?". Before we had a country where freedom of speech was in the first Ammendment of its Constitution, I'm pretty sure we didn't have freedom of speech anywhere, or mostly in any time in history. Someone could have replied, "A free speech society is impossible, which is why one has never existed, and why you were unable to come up with any working examples". Sure, because there would almost always be some asshole, usually a king, a despot or church, telling people what they could or could not say, and punishing them for it.

Now, do we enjoy absolute freedom of speech today? Not at all, and I'm fine with that. There are laws against libel, hate speech, obscenity, incitement to commit crimes, etc., which are all restrictions imposed on that very freedom.

However, all things considered, I think freedom of speech is mostly free. I don't know of anyone who advocates "restricted speech" or "highly regulated speech" as an ideal. More importantly, whenever censorship is reported or witnessed, everyone is instantly indignant and sometimes outraged, because we are all aware of how essential freedom of speech is to a free society, a freedom that should be cherished and protected.

Now let's take a look at the dynamics of free speech in society.

Just because people can say whatever they want, doesn't mean there won't be millions of people lying, deceiving each other, spreading ideologies that are COMPLETELY WRONG, etc.

Does that mean we should have laws banning ideas that are wrong? Not easy to do, because it is common sense that no one has absolute authority over truth, so such laws would hardly be fair.

Instead, we resort to letting ideas compete, letting people select for themselves what is true or not. That might doom society to eternal stupidity and ignorance or to a gradual process where truths will be preferred, and lies will tend to be exposed or ignored. Which outcome do you think is more likely? It takes time, but a free society matures with such freedoms. When abuses happen, society learns and deals with them without immediately resorting to laws and restrictions, because that would be considered censorship, and, therefore, usually unfair.

Now when it comes to economic freedom, liberals treat it as a whole different ball game, when I don't think it should be. First off, "free markets" = obscenity. They learn to understand it like you do, "absolutely free of government intervention, chaos everywhere, society is doomed", when in fact the proponents of free markets recognize that the State is necessary to enforce contracts, punish fraud and protect private property.

Liberals are mostly influenced by the socialist interpretation of capitalism as an inherently unfair system. Whenever any perceived abuse happens in an economy, they see it as resulting from an imbalance of economic power, so they rush to demand laws and regulations to forcibly correct them.

How about letting these abuses happen, and let society learn to deal with them, select them, and evolve? Just like what happens with free speech. Sure, if it's blatant fraud, theft, breach of contract, etc. the State can and should step in. Otherwise, let people come up with their own solutions. It will be a painful process, but it's better to let a free society mature by itself than oppressing it into behaving well.

Besides, if you think about it, politicians aren't any better than anyone at judging what economic practices are right or wrong. So the laws they make are usually unfair. They have the same kind of presumptuousness of someone who would claim authority over truth, and want to create laws censoring "wrong" ideas. Like keynesian economists who try to plan and steer economies because they have little theories where they claim it's smarter to use other people's money than letting people make decisions with their own money.

We would never put up with people trying to engineer society/culture through censorship. Why do we put up with that when it comes to economics?

About the thought experiment (hoping it's not a trick question), I don't see why there should be a limit on how much property a person can own, as long as the property is honestly obtained.

I don't think it's an injustice when someone owns more than others, maybe there are other factors to be considered? Forcibly redistributing property is usually more unfair than just letting society deal with any problem arising from someone having property that others want or need.

@spoco2

You THINK you know the truth of there even being a god, and you believe you know who this god is. But these are THOUGHTS and are not backed up by ANYTHING whatsoever. 2+2 = 4 is backed up by being able to SHOW it... you can take 2 beads, take another 2 beads, count them, and have 4 beads.

You cannot point at ANYTHING and say 'See, there's my proof that there is a god, he is the one in the bible, and that is true'.

If you prayed to Jesus Christ and sincerely admitted that you are a sinner, asked for His forgiveness and asked Him to come into your life as Lord and Savior, you would come to know there is a God. It is something which can be empirically verified.

And I said that it was fine for you to believe that there was one true god. Go right ahead and believe that you have found that 'truth'. It's your forcing of YOUR belief in this on others, this belief that cannot be shown to be true in any way. This belief of yours that a man who sleeps with another man is damned to hell forever and so should be feared and scorned is horrible.

If it's fine to believe that Jesus is God incarnate, then it is also fine for me to obey His commands, one of which is to preach the gospel. This is a fundamental right that every american has according to the first ammendment. Why should I be censored? You feel free to say what I believe is not correct. Why shouldn't you be censored?

A man who tells a lie, steals something, blasphemes the name of God, or looks at a woman with lust is on his way to hell. One sin isn't necessarily worse than any other sin; the wages of sin is death, and all have sinned. So the man who lies is just as guilty as the man who sleeps with another man. God cares so much about the well being of His Universe that He punishes all sin with eternity in hell. He cares so much about us that He gave His only Son to take our place in punishment, so we could be forgiven and have eternal life. Those who reject His mercy will have to face His justice.

My beliefs, those of science and observable phenomenon, do not say anything about how people choose to live their lives. My morals state that anyone is free to be with whoever they want to. They can live however they want, including believing in an invisible man in the sky with a long, flowing beard, as long as that way of living doesn't try to do harm to others.

You are doing harm to others. Mumford and Sons are not.

Many of your views may hide behind apron of true science, but I can guaranatee you that the presuppositions of your worldview are not based on empirical testing. As far as who is doing harm, if you saw someone in a burning building, would you not stop to try and rescue them? At least one atheist understands this:

http://videosift.com/video/Penn-Jillette-gets-a-Bible

>> ^Barbar:

If you actually believe he is setting laws based on his belief in Jesus, based on that link, you're an imbecile. I expect you're smarter than that, but sufficiently dim to expect nobody to follow the link. Yeah, he mentions Jesus, but I rather suspect it's an attempt to reduce the deficit that's driving him, not a religious compass. He's just saying in an offhand way, 'Hey republicans, here's a way to square this with the ministry of Jesus.' presumably to preemptively take the wind out of their sails in the future head butting.
Yes, Obama is campaigning. I'm no fan of Obama any more, that is for sure. Never really was a fan of either party, although Obama briefly gave me Hope(tm) before flushing it down the toilet. I don't see how it's relevant that some of his grassroots efforts are in churches. Is that not typically the case? Either way it's a complete straw man.
What Santorum said was on a whole other level of idiocy. It was based on a misunderstanding not only of the text, but also of the practical implementation of the ammendment over centuries of history.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
All the Prog-Lib-Dytes out there are such hypocrites on this subject. Santorum says a few things about religion, and the neolib goons all start freaking out about how he's "violating the wall of seperation".
Meanwhile, Obama - your beloved dictator - has directly and clearly stated that he is setting government policies based on his belief in Jesus...
http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/02/news/economy/obama_tax_rich_jesus/i
ndex.htm
And he has also called on churches to start telling thier congregations to vote for him...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BdjoHA5ocwU
So - to put it bluntly - you people who are pretending you are so offended by guys like Santorum are nothing but partisan hacks. You completely ignore when social progressives directly use religion to push political agendas that you agree with. You get all upset when conservatives even hint that they have a religious faith. It gives you zero credibility, and makes you a bunch of blinkered, pig-ignorant hypocrites.
Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows what Santorum and other conservatives mean when they talk about religion. They support the 1st Amendment in its true sense - religious freedom FROM GOVERNMENT. That's all the 1st Amendment ever meant; not the selectively applied "Oooo - you aren't allowed to even THINK about religion in a public place" that you Prog-Lib-Dytes use as a rhetorical club to beat down any ideas that you dislike.




I pretty much agree with Barbar.

And, criticizing Santorum doesn't mean I can't criticize Obama. His appeal to religion is nowhere near the same level as Santorum's, but I don't like either tactic. I think it's more in line with how things are "supposed" to run to leave religion out of the entire process, no matter who is running.

I use more than two brain cells when I think, and when I do, I infer that the right usually have specific social policies in the crosshairs when they try to get us revved up by using religion. Abortion, contraception, gay marriage. These are all specific issues that are directly impacted by the Right's appeal to Christian voters. They aren't shy about name calling (neither is Winstonfield_Pennypacker it seems). They tend to forget, if they were to be elected, they would have to represent all Americans, not just Christians.

And so, while I'm not a fan of Obama's appeal to churches or religion, it's different from the way Republican candidates, namely Santorum, invoke religion to get a vote. If you look at my previous posts, I make a pretty clear distinction between an individual stating his believe and a government official letting his personal religion guide policy. The thinking seems to be: Since most of us are Christians let's use religion to our political advantage.

So, when religion becomes a justification of the decisions our government makes, we need to call them out.

If you actually believe he is setting laws based on his belief in Jesus, based on that link, you're an imbecile. I expect you're smarter than that, but sufficiently dim to expect nobody to follow the link. Yeah, he mentions Jesus, but I rather suspect it's an attempt to reduce the deficit that's driving him, not a religious compass. He's just saying in an offhand way, 'Hey republicans, here's a way to square this with the ministry of Jesus.' presumably to preemptively take the wind out of their sails in the future head butting.

Yes, Obama is campaigning. I'm no fan of Obama any more, that is for sure. Never really was a fan of either party, although Obama briefly gave me Hope(tm) before flushing it down the toilet. I don't see how it's relevant that some of his grassroots efforts are in churches. Is that not typically the case? Either way it's a complete straw man.

What Santorum said was on a whole other level of idiocy. It was based on a misunderstanding not only of the text, but also of the practical implementation of the ammendment over centuries of history.



>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

All the Prog-Lib-Dytes out there are such hypocrites on this subject. Santorum says a few things about religion, and the neolib goons all start freaking out about how he's "violating the wall of seperation".
Meanwhile, Obama - your beloved dictator - has directly and clearly stated that he is setting government policies based on his belief in Jesus...
http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/02/news/economy/obama_tax_rich_jesus/i
ndex.htm
And he has also called on churches to start telling thier congregations to vote for him...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BdjoHA5ocwU
So - to put it bluntly - you people who are pretending you are so offended by guys like Santorum are nothing but partisan hacks. You completely ignore when social progressives directly use religion to push political agendas that you agree with. You get all upset when conservatives even hint that they have a religious faith. It gives you zero credibility, and makes you a bunch of blinkered, pig-ignorant hypocrites.
Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows what Santorum and other conservatives mean when they talk about religion. They support the 1st Amendment in its true sense - religious freedom FROM GOVERNMENT. That's all the 1st Amendment ever meant; not the selectively applied "Oooo - you aren't allowed to even THINK about religion in a public place" that you Prog-Lib-Dytes use as a rhetorical club to beat down any ideas that you dislike.

The Fifth Amendment says nothing about dash cams. I did a word search both with and without the space.

But seriously, standard equipment on a car is not covered by the Fifth Amendment, mostly because private enterprise decides these, things based on attractiveness to the buyer, not by government based on Big-Brother-ness. Auger8 didn't say they should be legally required.
>> ^Payback:

>> ^Auger8:
Imagine the world if dash cams were standard, no reckless driving, no speeding, no DUIs, 3 billion safer more aware drivers.
>> ^VoodooV:
I really want to get a dash cam for myself. Should be standard issue for crying out loud. Everyone drives nice when the cops are around but turn into Mr. Hyde when they're gone. Dash cams for everyone would put a stop to that.


...completely negating the Fifth Ammendment in the US.
Just sayin.

>> ^Auger8:

Imagine the world if dash cams were standard, no reckless driving, no speeding, no DUIs, 3 billion safer more aware drivers.
>> ^VoodooV:
I really want to get a dash cam for myself. Should be standard issue for crying out loud. Everyone drives nice when the cops are around but turn into Mr. Hyde when they're gone. Dash cams for everyone would put a stop to that.



...completely negating the Fifth Ammendment in the US.

Just sayin.