Idk man. I'm out looking in too, but my list of problems guns are a good solution for stops pretty short after "killing something you want dead". I mean, cars and knives can do that pretty good too, but I've not seen many getting to work or chopping vegetables with their automatic. Well, unless its an automatic transmission car, which I gather are quite popular state side. Gun, automatic gun I meant. Also I guess technically the vegetable chopping thing is _possible_ with a firearm. I digress.

When used as self defence I think they might sometimes have uses if you are prepared and have it ready. My problem is that the only person who knows for sure that they are going to be in a gun point robbery/rape/[insert crime] situation on any given day is the guy doing the robbing/raping/[insert crime]ing. I mean, is the aim to get the point where every man woman and child is so strapped to the nines that mutually assured destruction is guaranteed? Excuse me from taking it the logical extreme, but I don't think it's entirely fallacious.

They are fun? I've shot some guns. It was fun. I didn't need to own them mind. Hunting aint for me, but evidently some people enjoy it...but I guess I'm not sure how strident I would be in defence of my hobby if it involved the use of a machine that has been streamlined by war to be the most efficient man-portable tool for taking life that we can conceive.

So yeah, I certainly think your right that is more to gun violence than gun ownership. Clearly there are countries with relatively high levels of gun ownership with comparatively little gun violence. (altho the US still has almost twice as many guns per person than the next nearest...so yah). I just struggle to understand exactly what reason there is for having quite so many of them given that everybody else seems to be doing mostly ok without them. What exactly are these problems the Americans should be using their guns as a solution for? Can knives and cars, which according to gun advocates are at least as lethal, perhaps be leveraged in creative ways to be the solution to the problems for which apparently only guns can currently solve?

Noook lee errr

Say it with me.

Nuk-u-lur makes you sound utterly stupid, or like a former US President (which is not to say the two are mutually exclusive).

He talk to me with mutual respect.

He was someone I wish I had in my immediate life.



Smaws would appreciate it.

Maybe he can meet me at the cross roads. That would be nice.

That's pretty disgusting....but sadly not at all unexpected. Various factions have seemingly taken control of the bastions of higher learning and systematically destroyed what I always saw as their fundamental function, fostering an ability to logically think for one's self. Anyone not on the 'right' side must be on the 'wrong' side and not worth listening to...or worthy of allowing others to listen to, I guess. That ain't learnin'...that's just mutual mental masturbation.
It's pretty funny/sad/telling that supporters of Palestine are called anti-Semitic, since Palestinians are also Semites, aren't they? The word doesn't mean 'Jewish', it's an ethnicity that includes 'Arabs'.

Hmmmm. I buy some of that, but not all of it. Or rather it's true in some cases but not all. Some art, like the two lovers/clocks has meaning beyond it's own form and that's important to appreciate it. But there are certainly some abstract works out there that are just too lost in art.

I'm on the edge of the art world as an illustrator and photographer and completely get the 'go do it' angle though. Just saying 'I could do that' is missing the point entirely. Anyone who looks at a simple bit of art with a high value and thinks it must be simple to just paint a few squares and put a thousand pound price on it can't honestly believe it, otherwise we'd be up to our eyeballs in shitty paintings with huge price tags.

If a bit of artwork needs an artist's name to be worth something then consider what it took for the artist to get to that place. They didn't just wake up one morning a famous artist. The name gives context and can be important. Not every time, some 'artists' are just way too into their circlejerks and mutual bigging up that the only skill an artist might need is to be just weird enough and in the right place at the right time to be one of the 'in crowd', but to be fair this isn't the case with the vast majority of abstract art.

Egads @TheFreak @kceaton1 @ant ... all of these comments Makes me feel the need to 'splain the situation! Not that I should have to ... but here goes:

I am friendly and open to almost everyone I meet [there have been very few exceptions] in my life ... up to a point. I prefer my solitude. However, in a rather large living environment where one must leave the property to smoke nicotine [don't judge me], human interaction with fellow pariahs is unavoidable. Several of us tend to hang out by the lake around the same times during the day and a few of us have become good friends. Over the years people come and go so he started hanging around [99% are women in this bunch by the way] on a regular basis shortly after moving here a couple of months ago. I'm generally not in a hurry to get to know someone new and will often avoid the gang altogether in favor of quiet time under a shady tree.

I was cordial with him at first, but I also trust my instincts which picked up a slight player/creep vibe that quickly overrode the initial physical attraction there could have been. He started bringing a chair out to sit by me if I didn't go where everyone was congregated. Chagrined, I try to zone him out by playing games on my phone [hint hint] and don't initiate any conversation. He has a asked a mutual friend to find out if I like him [what is this ... grade school??]. He has also made inappropriate comments when others aren't present.

So, ah ... I don't think it's me ... m'kay

Utterly embarrassing, puerile, mutual masturbation. Also, anyone who lists a brain washing work of fiction - the bible - as their favorite book, is delusional and, as such, unfit for high office.

I just watched Paul Mason's interview with Varoufakis and it's been rather depressing. Most of what he says is perfectly reasonable given the structural confines of the EZ. But it's all based on a belief in "mutual interests", a belief that negotiations can, and will, lead to a "mutually beneficial deal" with the financial inquisition.

Not sure if he's just adhering to his role as FinMin or if he truly believes it. I'd say it's a questionable assumption at best. From over here, it certainly looks like the creditors' position is "pay up, bitch!", end of story. Schäuble is not going to compromise, the majority of parliament is all in on neoliberalism and most of the electorate either doesn't care or even consents. Merkel might agree to a deal, given how she holds no convictions whatsoever except that being in power is better than not being in power. But Schäuble cannot be reined it with half the party being in lockstep with his actions.

No deal worth signing. Either full capitulation or they'll continue this charade with their buddies from PASOK and ND.

"Because people aren't born polygamists..." Sorry John, but whether you learn a behavior of mutual love and respect for the bonds with other human lives, you're still fucking human. I hate this shit that he spouts, the veiled hatred that conservatives jack off to with glee. The same hatred discriminating blacks used against gays... That's great...I love the support the gay community gets but not those that believe in alternative forms of marriage. It is funny that if read that another way, most people are born gay or straight. Essentially, if they aren't born that way and instead grow naturally into it, John thinks you're a pickle puffing faggot who doesn't deserve equality? I say that pissed off because homosexuals have always compared polygamy closer to bestiality than to their own sexual orientation. Its been laughed at. Haha. Fuck Stewart's views on this. I love him, but fuck his stupidity here.

I'll keep this fairly brief for once but, why is everyone so hung up on the idea that the theoretical "simulation" is somehow distinct from "reality"?

To put it another way, what are the laws of physics themselves?

We do appear to inhabit a reality defined by laws we can describe mathematically. The mathematical models may be abstracted, but whatever they describe is presumably in some sense analogous in its "true" nature right? (even if we can't get at it directly)

If you take the leap into thinking that reality may be more mathematical than physical in nature (or rather that "physical" is a property of what we could think of as mathematical phenomena interacting in the right way), then questions about who's computer were in kind of become moot.

If reality itself is fundamentally mathematical in nature, we don't need a computer in which to run it, so much as reality itself is the computer.

I really don't think it's an either or thing, more like a shift in how we think about the concept of "reality" itself. Even if an experiment could prove that the universe is holographic in nature, it needn't change anything about it's validity as a "real" thing.

The "simulation" and "reality" needn't be mutually exclusive, merely different ways of understanding the same phenomenon i.e. that we exist and experience things.

Sorry for the late response lucky, as I found myself getting angry at some posters and took a chill pill. To answer the question--yes Knox does make that distinction. In fact he takes great pains to do so because he isn't trying to make women seem like they deserve it. In fact he explains all the discrimination women go through.

And the level of violence does matter--or I would have left it out. I don't hide facts to further my point of view...

As someone with an abusive mother and a loving father, I gotta say I don't agree that my dad put up with the abuse to himself or to us for so long...I can also see why my brother is abused by his wife, or why my other brother was in a mutually abusive relationship (Although he always took it way further.) If you haven't lived with abuse...please don't speak like an expert. If you have, then you have all the right in the world.

Except almost all these bases are in allied countries, not as an occupying force (Guantanamo predates the Communist Revolution,so tough luck for Havana). These bases provide mutual defense and security.

Countries with US bases in them don't get invaded. How much do you think it would cost to have every single allied country try and run and maintain a truly effective military for their own defense instead of using the US as a strategic partner? Way more than $100b a year.

(P.S. loving the irony of the guy with the handle of Praetor and the avatar of the Emperor arguing he doesn't live in an empire, lol)

OK, makes sense. Just not quite as 'sex blind' as I thought she implied.
I'm all for them fighting together, men and women, if it's consensual. If violence is OK, violence is OK, right? At the same weight class, they should be close to the same strength...if not, figure out a ratio that makes them the same strength, and have at it, I say. Women can be tough, so if on equal footing should have equal chance of winning.
I get her point about abuse, but there's a clear distinction when it's consensual, equal, and mutual. Just my 2 cents.

You are once again sounding insane.
First, "conservatives" barely exist, and you are not one.
Neocons, like yourself, still believe in enslavement...they claim to be the "law and order" party, which means they write ridiculous laws (drug war, debtors prison, privatize prisons and let prison guards write laws, etc.) that put people in jail/prison for money...a type of enslavement.
Regulation is not enslavement.
Yeah, I see you can't even read yourself....they "haven't changed since Lincoln", but they have changed positions 100% since Nixon....and you don't seem to have the capacity to understand the two things are mutually exclusive.
What...you don't think there are enough highways, but there are too many salamanders? That seems like a typical assessment from you.


Oh, and for your last post, you are absolutely clearly racist. No question about it for anyone who's read your posts. When you separate people by race then talk crap about the other groups, that's racist, and you do it daily. You seem to just not know what the word means, that's the only explanation for you claiming to NOT be racist. The rest of your post is just insane straw men you made up....as in "only white people can be racist"...no one said or implied any such thing...you just WISH they had so your argument would make sense.

No need for some great movement or nationwide initiative. If a man and his wife so choose, then all their children can be 100% test free for life in a matter of minutes. Also, they can be freed from the burden of college.

But hey, that's not for everyone. If you want to be a corporate tool for 30+ years, college will get you there. Some people just don't have the intestinal fortitude or creativity for meeting people's needs in a financially mutually beneficial way without someone else providing the leadership. Let the peons be peons on a collective scale, while always trying to convince them to grow on a personal, individual scale.