"it's the assault that makes it an assault weapon" LOL. Guess we should start banning assault hammers and assault knives then.

10 yr Assault weapon ban didn't affect gun violence at all.

AR-15s aren't weapons of war, they are used by police agencies across the country.

BTW, the parkland shooter used 10rnd low capacity magazines. Looks like banning 30rnds won't do much good at all, but that's just common sense.

This gun control hysteria is the Republicans' best shot of retaining control of the house and senate. Just look at '94 when they swept into power after the clinton assault weapon ban.


You can't really show any side when you limit each exchange to a 2-sentence sound byte. Pretty pointless.

Is there a pro-gun talking point that was missed? Maybe you wanted her to personally attack a teenage victim?

I suspect you feel it wasn't a fair exchange because the opposing side got to voice opinions. Suppressing the dissenting views is the most effective way to defend the indefensible.

I don't trust Uber Drivers to be properly insured - I can't see myself Flying Uber.

So fun fact, you all know Uber is owned by Jeff Bezos

You may know him as the owner of Amazon.
Well he owns Uber and he also owns Twitter, The Washington Post, Linden Labs (AKA Second Life), and more tech companies than I can list.

As of March 14, 2018, he has an estimated net worth of $130.5 billion.

He is creator of the Amazon Echo which is designed to sit in your home and monitor your every word. It databases everything you say in exchange for on-demand music and news, similar to Siri on your iPhone.

"Bezos recently disclosed that the company’s Web-services business is building a “private cloud” for the CIA to use for its data needs." For $6 Billion, he will be supplying the data for use by the CIA.


Just some information for everyone to play around with in their heads

I've never read Rand, but today's forgotten word of the day seemed apropos...

Chrematistics: the science of wealth. From the Greek chremata, wealth. -John Ridpath's home reference library, 1898

In short-Aristotle established a difference between economics and chrematistics that would be foundational in medieval thought.[1] For Aristotle, the accumulation of money itself is an unnatural activity that dehumanizes those who practice it. Trade Exchanges, money for goods, and usury creates money from money, but do not produce useful goods.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrematistics

I imagine Rand was not a believer in chrematistics.

We have a treaty with the Ukraine.
In exchange for them giving up their nuclear arsenal left over from being part of the USSR, we, and Russia, agreed to guarantee their borders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances

It's because Russia was secure in thinking we would not honor our promises to defend them that they invaded Crimea, a Ukrainian territory at the time, and later the Ukraine itself.

It should be noted that, in effect, Israel declared war against Russia days ago by attacking Syria, a Russian ally, and likely killing Russian troops in the process. Be prepared for that to get messy fast.

This business will get out of control, and we'll be lucky to live through it.

@bobknight33

mueller finding evidence of russian collusion during the campaign?

yeah..you are probably right.still have yet to see concrete evidence,just a lot of circumstantial pearl clutching.

however..

there IS a lot of evidence,and growing larger by the day of trump colluding with the russian government and russian oligarchs to:
illegally launder money from russia.
tax evasion with the help of russian banks.
and a ton of hanky panky money exchanges to cover that all up.

which of course is not really news.
if anybody had bothered to pay attention trump has been mobbed up for decades.

david cay johnston has been exposing trumps corruption for quite awhile.

This article covers the exchange a little better:
https://lynx.media/2017/12/06/police-captain-placed-leave-white-male-privilege-remark/

From my take the white male privilege comment seemed pretty accurate since the guy was arguing that the statistics from a study must be false since he hadn't personally experienced the activities that had been studied.

Drain the swamp... I don't see any swam draining. He drained the very same Wall Street people he complained Hillary would bring in, into the White House, and other low lifes... like Bannon.

And if we get just another 10 months of turmoil depends on how we pray... of course a minor chunk of Christianity don't vote Republican, and actually vote the way Jesus would, which clearly wouldn't be for Trump or his kind... but I digress. So they are praying against Trump, but of course we know she means we need to pray for the nation, and for Trump's divine leadership from God... odd how the right is willing to say that God appoints leaders like Trump, but wouldn't say the same about Obama, who clearly was far more Christ like than Trump... Anyhow, the point I was going to get to, is odd how one has to pray to get God to act, though His will is perfect, so you can't change His mind, or His will... and why would He just sit and go... "4,998,888 more prayers to go, then I'll answer.. ohh... 4,999,884 to go! Way to go My people." That isn't compassion or anything... Either His will is perfect and His will will be done, or He's malleable, which isn't divine... or He's a fake, or at least no more real than any of the other 5,000 gods out there, and can't actually answer prayer any more than those other gods... "It takes an action of faith on our part, by praying"... bull shit, either He's going to do it or not.... because most of those kids with brain and bone cancer, Christian, with Christian families who pray all the time, as are most of the people who are dying of horrible things in this nation, but somehow His answering prayer ratio seems to be about the same as random, and the same as to any other god...

All these kind of people, and Fox News types who also brag about their faith, and how Christianity is under attack bull shit line... is why I hate Christianity and what it's become... to which Christians take great offence, "why hate me?" but I hate Christianity, not you as a person... of course they don't get that, because they identify so strongly with their faith that they take that personally as an attack against them... of course then they don't see how their anti-LGBT rantings, and the "don't hate the sinner, hate the sin" is basically the same... they can't empathize, and see how their hatred of the sin of homosexuality as they see it, is the same as my hatred of modern Christianity.

I love how the far right is far more upset at the leaks than the crime... when the DNC was having leaks, they had near zero concern about the leaks, it was the potential crimes being exposed that they were concerned with. Now that it is against Trump, suddenly the potential crime matters nothing, all that matters is leaks. Were this Clinton or Sanders, they'd be screaming from the mountain top, "the crime matters far more than the leaks! Lock her/him up!" Now they are going after leakers, who haven't exposed anything that endangers national security, just is embarrassing for our asshole in chief.

Of course the people who watch this, 700 Club, TBN, Fox, listen to right wing radio, and the like... they are still fired up, they still believe. Some of the people who voted for him who may not be in that crowd, might start having doubts, but the vast majority of his base still is in love with him, and still thinks he's God's greatest gift to this nation. They've been lied to and deceived by their churches for so long... that even if they actually do take a moment to read the Bible for themselves, they can't interpret it any other way than the way these ilk violate it's teachings, and the teachings of the Jesus they claim to follow.

As I've said before, if I were still a Christian, I'd seriously consider the modern right wing evangelical movement to be part of the anti-Christ system, as they turn more people against God than for Him, and are teaching a system opposite of what Jesus taught... Satan/the anti-Christ doesn't need to deceive the world, we are already damned to Hell, what he'd need to deceive, would be those who think they are faithful to the teachings of Jesus. Use them, not as a beacon of life and hope, but the pure bigotry and hate that modern Christianity is. To make it it unappealing... they might still get into Heaven with those who actually believe the way Jesus taught (because believing Jesus is the Christ, the son of God and all that is the only requirement in), but the Judgement Seat of Christ would find them learning how they cost millions of souls, then He'd point to the Christians on the left, and would say, they did far better, they followed my lessons... He'll look at Jim there and say, "look at the thousands of souls that you personally turned against My message, because you didn't teach the Love I commanded, you didn't teach the golden rule as I taught it, you taught a corrupted message, and now they'll burn for all eternity in Hell, because of you. I tried to reach them, but they heard your message of bigotry and hate, of love of money over helping the needy and the poor, of greed over the command to heal the sick, and turned from me.... now because you believed in Me, I have to let you in, but you'll live seeing those who turned from me as they are tormented in the back of your mind... you'll have a small home here, not the grand home that those who have taught my message properly have... to those who much was given, much was expected, and you failed. That man there, murdered 33 people, and converted before his execution, and his home will be grander than yours. Those who had much, will have little... so enter to your reward... of praising me for all I've done, 24/7 for all eternity, but as you praise, remember those who aren't here, because you poisoned the world against me." "Surely Lord there must be some who were saved, I saw them come forward." "They were already saved, or would soon be, for each one of them that actually turned to me because of you, hundreds turned away... that's not a good exchange Jim..."

Good post, I was just looking into how Bitcoin works a week ago and this video helped solidify what I learned online. I can see the appeal of cryptocurrencies to criminals, hackers, or your garden variety government conspiracy theorist but I don't really see why an average person would have any interest in this, particularly given the volatility of the exchange rates between cryptocurrencies and the real world or the potential for hacking/losses due to errors in the system (see the disastrous Mt. Gox case here in Japan).

We really do see an entirely different world.

What I see originally happening here is a dispute/conflict between two citizens. The driver and the cyclist. There was a collision that damaged the car and maybe the cyclist. The cyclist is a minor, and the only account we get on video is the driver fairly insistent they were the ones that got hit when the cyclist ran a traffic sign. Blame on that doesn't matter to the video though because the police aren't meant to address blame and never attempt to.

Do we agree on the above preamble view of what happened at least? I think we do, so I'll pick up with that assumed.

The cyclist does not want to cooperate with the required exchange of information for insurance and liability purposes. So presumably the driver got the police get involved. This is exactly what I think we all should want. Rather than expecting the parties involved resort to their own use of force, we want to defer that to trained police officers. This is preferable for either party to simply being victimised with no recourse for injury to the cyclist if the driver's at fault or damages to the car if the cyclist is.

I again would hope we are still on the same page at this point, lets call it point B?

If I understand right, we now diverge in that I believe when office says come here to the cyclist, the cyclist is in the wrong for instead dodging around the officer and trying to take off on their bike. When the officer immediately stops them from that physically and tells them they are being detained, the cyclist is again wrong for actively resisting for the entire remainder of the video.

You seem to think the officers would be angry to see their child in the video, and we agree on that. We disagree on whom they would be angry with though. I'm pretty sure the officers would angry with their kid for consistently resisting the officers and would likely be telling their kid they are lucky the officers were as gentle as they were because they absolutely didn't need to be.

I don't know who to credit the analogy to, but this feels to me like an instance of the police being the wolf hounds protecting the us sheeple. Their use of violence and force looks scary to us and we just wish those mean, nasty and violent wolfhounds would be replaced with more mild mannered sheep. It's not until an actual wolf comes along that all of sudden we wonder were those hounds are because we went to get as close under their shadows as we can.

The reason it comes to mind is because having 3-4 officers spending hours begging, pleading and otherwise trying to non-violently persuade a cursing, kicking, resistant teenager to take accept pretty basic instructions is not what I want. I get the impression you would prefer that, but I do not. I want the officers sitting at nearby coffee shop bored and eating donuts instead. When they come to deal with this incident, I want them back to those donuts as quickly as possible. The reason being, when a wolf somewhere starts up a domestic dispute, or starts beating up someone in the street, or breaking into somebodies home I want the police unhindered and ready to their 'real' jobs.

A comment from Youtube:
"So, this horrible and blatant act of racism happened to occur to a former ACLU civil liberties counselor who majored in Critical Race Studies -- described as a major aimed at "naming one's own reality" by "using narrative to illuminate and explore experiences of racial oppression." Isn't it ironic and unfortunate that this would happen to her of all people?

What's also a little ironic is that Ms. Suh not only received these texts from a "Tami," but also happens to have a Facebook friend named "Tami" who posts on Facebook about "Tiny House Listings" -- a house rental service.

Speaking of which, it's kind of interesting that Tami showed up as "Tami" on Ms. Suh's phone, rather than as a phone number, isn't it? And there's a photo for Tami too. That means Tami is saved as a contact. It's a little odd for some random Airbnb host that Ms. Suh never met in-person to be a contact with a photo on her phone, isn't it?

Interestingly, if you look at Facebook-friend "Tami's" photos, they're all sort of artistic, colorful photos of inanimate objects -- just like Tami's photo in the texts.

If I didn't know better, I would almost, almost think that this stilted, formal, perfect little racist exchange between house-renter Tami and critical race studies major Ms. Suh, and the passionately tearful speech in the rain that followed -- why was she making speeches in the rain anyway? -- was, in fact, a carefully constructed "narrative" that Ms. Suh conspired to create with her Facebook-friend Tami.

But hey, that couldn't be right, could it?"

Hmmmm...

I cant find any substance in any of Milo. Capable troll, but the confrontation is not an argument, just an exchange of insults.

I find him so unpleasant to watch and listen to, that it makes him fascinating somehow. He is Bruno in a way, a contorted persona meant to catch peoples attention.

radical islamic terrorism is the usage of a rigid fundamentalist interpretation as a justification predicated on abysmal politics.

ill-thought and short sighted politics is the tinder.
hyper-extremist fundamentalism is the match.

ISIS would never even have existed without al qeada,who themselves would not have existed without US interventionism into:iran,egypt and saudi arabia.

and this is going back almost 70 years.

so lets cut the shit with apologetics towards americas horrific blunders in regards to foreign policy.actions have consequences,there is a cause and effect,and when even in the 50's the CIA KNEW,and have stated as much,that there would be "blowback" from americas persistent interventionism in those regions.which stated goals (in more honest times) was to destabilize,dethrone (remove leaders not friendly to american business) and install leaders more pliant and easily manipulated (often times deposing democratically elected leaders to install despots.the shah and sadam come to mind).

see:chalmers johnson-blowback
see: Zbigniew Brzezinski-the grand chessboard.

or read this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-created-al-qaeda-and-the-isis-terror-group/5402881

so to act like islamic radicals just fell from the fucking sky,and popped out from thin air,due to something that has been boiling for almost 70 years is fucking ludicrous.

radicalization of certain groups in populations have long been understood,and well documented.

and religion,though the most popular,and easiest tool to motivate and justify heinous acts of violence for a political goal,is not the SOLE tool.

nationalism is another tool used to radicalize a population.
see:the nazi party.

but it always comes down to:tribalism of one kind or another.

@transmorpher

so when you use this "ISIS themselves, in their own magazine (Dabiq) go out of their way to explain that they are not motivated by the xenophobia or the US fighting wars in their countries. They make specifically state that their motivation is simply because you aren't muslim. You can go an read it for yourself. They are self confessed fanatics that need to kill you to go to heaven. "

to solidify your argument,all i see is someone ignoring the history and pertinent reasons why that group even exists.

you may recall that ISIS was once Al qeada,and they were SO radical,SO fanatical and SO violent in their execution of religious zeal..that even al qeada had to distance themselves.

because,again...
religion is used as the justification to enact terrorism due to bad politics.
but the GOAL is always political.

you may remember that in the early 90's the twin towers were attacked and it was the first time americans heard of al qeada,and osama bil laden.

who made a statement back in 1993 and then reiterated in 2001 after 9/11 that the stated goal (one of them at least) was for the removal of ALL american military presence in saudi arabia (there was more,but it mostly dealt with american military presence in the middle east).

but where did this osama dude come from?
why was he so pissed at america?
just what was this dudes deal?

turns out he was already on the road to radicalization during the 80's.coming from an extremely wealthy saudi arabian family but had become extremely religious,and he saw western interventionism as a plague,and western culture as a disease.

he left the comforts of his extremely wealthy family to fight against this western incursion into his religious homeland.he traveled to afghanistan to join the mujahideen to combat the russians,who were actually fighting the americans in a proxy war.and WE trained osama.WE armed him and trained him in the tactics of warfare to,behind the scenes,slowly drain russia of resources in our 50 year long cold war.

how's that for irony.

osama was not,as american media like to paint the picture "anti-democratic or anti-freedom".he saw the culture of consumerism,greed and sexual liberation as an affront to his religious understandings.

this attitude can be directly linked to sayyid qtib from egypt.who visited the united states as an exchange student in 1954.now he wasnt radicalized yet,but when he returned to egypt he didnt recognize his own country.

he saw coco cola signs everywhere,and women wearing shorts skirts,and jukeboxs playing that devils music "rock and roll".

he feared for his country,his neighbors,his community.
just like a southern baptist fears for your soul,sayyid feared for the soul of his country and that this new "westernization" was a direct threat to the tenants laid down by islam.

so he began to speak out.
he began to hold rallies challenging the leadership to turn away from this evil,and people started to take notice,and some people agreed.

change does not come easy for some people,and this is especially true for those who hold strong religious ideologies.
(insert religion here) tends to be extremely traditional.

so sayyid started to gain popularity for his challenge if this new "westernization",and this did not go un-noticed by the egyptian leadership,who at that time WANTED western companies to invest in egypt.(that whole political landscape is totally different now,but back then egypt was fairly liberal,and moderately secular).

so instead of allowing sayyid to speak his mind.
they threw him in prison.
for 4 years.
in solitary.

well,he wasn't radicalized when he went IN to prison,but when he came OUT he sure was.

and to shorten this story,sayyid was the first founder of the muslim brotherhood,whose later incarnation broke off to form?

can you guess?
i bet you can!
al qeade

@Fairbs ,@newtboy and @Asmo have all laid out points why radicalization happens,and the conditions that can enflame and amplify that radicalization.

so i wont repeat what they have already said.

but let us take dearborn michigan as an example.
the largest muslim community in america.
how many terrorists come from dearborn?
how many radicals reside there?
how many mosque preach intolerance and "death to america"?
how many imams quietly sanction fatwas from the local IHOP against american imperialistic pigs?

none.

becuase if you live in stable community,with a functioning government,and you are able to find work and support your family,and your kids can get an education.

the chances of you become radicalized is pretty much:zippo.

the specific religion has NOTHING to do with terrorism.
religion is simply the means in which the justifications to enact violent atrocities is born.

it's the politics stupid.

you could do a thought experiment and flip the religions around,but keep the same political parameters and do you know WHAT we find?

that the terrorists would be CHRISTIAN terrorists.

or do i really need to go all the way back to the fucking dark ages to make my point?

it's
the
politics
stupid.