Like I said...the Giants were bullied into that stupid video. If not bullied, they did it for PR. There's no way the word "fag" hasn't come out of each one of those baseball players' mouths at some point in their lives. I'd bet most have them have said it since this video was made.

>> ^MaxWilder:

Are those guys gay? I'm not a big sports fan, so this video didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Seems to me the only people who can really say it gets better with any kind of authority are LGBTs who endured the teen years. Can guys who were very likely the stars of their high school baseball teams really be of any use here? Might be better if they were talking to the other high school sports players to tell them to cut that bullying shit out. Then again, they're playing for San Fransisco, so that might not help either.
I'm also not sure about the whole "we promise you" aspect. There are some pretty shitty places to be a gay adult. But maybe the ability to move somewhere else is part of the promise.

Are those guys gay? I'm not a big sports fan, so this video didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Seems to me the only people who can really say it gets better with any kind of authority are LGBTs who endured the teen years. Can guys who were very likely the stars of their high school baseball teams really be of any use here? Might be better if they were talking to the other high school sports players to tell them to cut that bullying shit out. Then again, they're playing for San Fransisco, so that might not help either.

I'm also not sure about the whole "we promise you" aspect. There are some pretty shitty places to be a gay adult. But maybe the ability to move somewhere else is part of the promise.

Thank you for this comprehensive response, it helps me better understand your stance. I can see now how, from an American legislative point of view, the San Fransisco law might have difficulty passing. That being said, I still believe it is unethical to irretrievably modify a child's body for cultural purposes.

In reply to this comment by SDGundamX:
In reply to this comment by hpqp:
@SDGundamX

Before you go, would you care to answer the question I posted elsewhere, i.e. "Is it okay for parents to tattoo their children?"

Or, on a similar note, to scarify their faces (for tribal recognition, as is still sometimes done in Africa)?

These analogies may seem irrelevant if you put forth the "health-care" argument of circumcision, but your own links disprove that there is such a one (as do my and others' comments here and on the related threads on the sift), which leaves only aesthetic and cultural arguments in favour of such child-disfiguring procedures.

As I've already told Lawdeedaw several times now, I have no problem with parents performing cosmetic procedures (tribal tattooing, nipple reconstruction, etc.) on their children so long as there is no evidence of permanent harm being done to the child (although I would of course not ever do these to my own children).

To take your tribal tattooing example, I happen to be friends with a Maori who got his first tribal tattoo as a child (he didn't have a choice by the way). Tribal tattoos are an incredibly important part of Maori culture. It's reasonable for New Zealand Maori parents to tattoo their kids and help them fit into the culture, as there isn't any permanent long-term harm that I know of.

Now, this friend currently lives in Japan where tattoo are frowned upon (because of their association with organized crime). But my friend is quite proud of his tattoos and his heritage despite the fact that now he has to cover them up in public. I would hardly consider having to wear long-sleeve shirts when you go to the gym "permanent" or "long-term harm," so I'm not against the Maori maintaining their customs. And if he really wanted to get rid of those tattoos, he could (although I have never ever heard of a Maori who wanted to erase his/her tattoos).

Now, let's say some parents in the U.S. decided they wanted to tattoo the words "Dumb Ass" across their kid's forehead. I'm pretty sure you could easily find thousands of psychologists who would testify that such an act would cause long-term and lasting psychological harm to the child. The state would be justified in intervening in such a case to prevent the parents from taking action or punishing them if they've already taken such action.

So you see, I'm not arguing "parents can do whatever they want" to their children. I'm arguing the state needs to prove that there will be lasting harm to the child in order to justify intervening. In the San Francisco case, the evidence is simply not there. You may disagree with that (i.e. you think enough evidence exists). However, as I pointed out to chilaxe every medical association in the world that has issued a statement on the topic disagrees with your analysis. They've looked at the research and found it to be a safe elective surgery to be performed on children if the parents so desire.

And this is the point. The San Francisco law cannot possibly stand (if it passes) because on appeal the majority of medical experts will shoot down the basis for the existence of the law. The state can't intervene unless it can reasonably prove permanent harm to the child. I don't think the studies that have been done show this and in fact I don't think future studies will either (given the neutral and positive results of the majority of studies that have been done). But as I've said several times now, I'm willing to change my mind if such evidence does appear in the future.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Somewhat gay.


So brave of you to finally come out.

At last!

Tags for this video have been changed from 'hungry hole, smut, san fransisco' to 'hungry hole, smut, san fransisco, John Waters' - edited by notarobot

@GeeSussFreeK

I didn't say GDP, I said GDP per capita. Both Finland and the US have roughly the same GDP per capita.

My assertion is that crimes are more likely to be committed by criminals who are empowered by guns. Suicide has nothing to do with this and that's why I didn't address it.

Murder rates are the only universally comparable measure when you consider various violent offenses are classified differently and with varying degrees of tolerance in difference countries.

I think it would hardly be a stretch to assert that guns allow criminals and delinquents to dish out far more death per violent incident - being a reason why crime is average/above average, but murder (especially by firearms) is astronomical.

Either way, I want to address murder singlehandedly as I think it's certainly still an important (and far less finnicky) topic to argue in and of itself, not crime generally.

Crimes again are classified and reported to varying degrees in different countries.

Again, I want to point out that my argument isn't about gun legislation but about gun ownership rates. I have no doubt that if you were to ban guns immediately in one state, there'll not be a chasm of a decline in gun murder rates. Arguments that look at gun laws ignore the blatant fact that US borders are very porous as far as I understand, and that even then, gun laws take years, decades perhaps to have meaningful effects on ownership rates and as a result, general availability at above minimal cost to criminals. Looking at the wikipedia page for California's gun laws, the only meaningful law I see is a 2005 ban in San Fransisco on all firearms and ammunition. Something like this would take at least a decade to have any meaningful effect though, I'm sure I would agree with you here when I say that smuggling guns into simply a city of all places (not a country with customs, or even a state) and selling them on the black market would hardly be difficult - where surrounding areas have no such ban.

I agree that no legislation will prevent a determined terrorist or capable individual from inflicting massive damage if nuclear weapons were readily available and manufactured in large amounts in one area of the world. A concerted and enforced gun ban on the other hand (with restrictions for hunting in some areas, target shooting, and potentially eased laws for protection in remote areas with low police presence) would do a great deal to reduce availability and reduce the incidence of gun murder by petty criminals which makes up the majority of gun deaths in the US.

Take for example our legislation in Australia. There's nothing exceptional about it, I'm just most familiar with it:

"State laws govern the possession and use of firearms in Australia. These laws were largely aligned under the 1996 National Agreement on Firearms. Anyone wishing to possess or use a firearm must have a Firearms Licence and, with some exceptions, be over the age of 18. Owners must have secure storage for their firearms.

Before someone can buy a firearm, he or she must obtain a Permit To Acquire. The first permit has a mandatory 28-day delay before it is first issued. In some states (e.g. Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales), this is waived for second and subsequent firearms of the same class. For each firearm a "Genuine Reason" must be given, relating to pest control, hunting, target shooting, or collecting. Self-defense is not accepted as a reason for issuing a licence, even though it may be legal under certain circumstances to use a legally held firearm for self-defense.[2]

Each firearm in Australia must be registered to the owner by serial number. Some states allow an owner to store or borrow another person's registered firearm of the same category."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia

There is a very good reason why this has led to a 5.2% ownership rate among citizens and a murder rate by guns of between 29% and 19% that of the US per capita depending on which numbers you use from here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

If you want to come back to saying that people simply murder in different ways, then look at purely the murder rate - the number goes up just slightly to 35% (the rate of murder per capita in Australia of that in the US).

Gun laws aren't punishment. Just like nuclear weapon bans aren't punishment. Or Sarin Gas bans. They're good policy.

Just like making everyone buy basic health insurance to reduce risk among consumers and lower prices, where the poorest are subsidised. If you insist on using analogies, I think this compares incredibly well to a gun ban which makes allowance for recreation and hunting (and at least in my view, allowances of 'for protection' licenses in remote areas with limited quantity and strict restriction to avoid smuggling).

Just like the compulsory third party car insurance we have here, that ensures that if you are at fault and damage another car, the innocent party is guaranteed to have their car repaired.

What I hope you understand coming from a libertarian position (and this is repeating the first thing I said in this whole discussion to blankfist) is that libertarianism is not a flat and universal position on individual rights. You, just like anyone I would imagine, have limits to how far you go with individual rights. You recognize the validity of a system of laws to limit the impact of one's individual's actions on another, and the retribution they should receive for violating it. You simply draw the metaphorical line on rights further right on the ideological spectrum than I do.

Therefore you can't simply justify gun ownership by claiming individual rights and the notion that everyone's entitled to them as they are not presumed guilty. You have to consider whether it does harm in society or not, just like the rest of us.

I hope I've laid out a pretty convincing arguments based on the statistics (speculative of course, I have neither the time nor resources to do a rigorous analysis controlling for a multitude of variables) that gun ownership does lead to more (gun) murders. If we were taking about a 10-20% difference, sure it would be debatable, but we're talking about a 2 to 3 fold increase. Let's not kid around about what causes this.

If you think that individual rights are so incredibly important that they trump this palpably gargantuan increase in death (and suffering) then that is certainly a position you can take, but let's be honest about this if that's the position you want to take.

As far as I'm concerned, I don't think they are. I think the opportunities for self defense, the willingness to use a gun of most people, the willingness of normal and ration people to risk death for losing their property are small. The sheer empowerment and impetus a gun (easily available from a nearby store at a price anyone can pay) can give a criminal on the other hand is huge.

---

Just a quick recap on things I didn't cover.

If you want to demonstrate guns are less devastating than drugs then kindly provide data to support this. If you are referencing the drug war or even if you are not, this is totally irrelevant to the question I posed to you.

Comparing guns to drugs and referencing the opium war is just not a good analogy. Colonialism. Colonialism. Colonialism.

Yes cars kill people, so do airplanes. So do pretzels. In fact, just about everything kills people (although yes car accidents are far more significant than pretzels). We do have a plethora of legislation that increases car safety. Guns are of course unique in that supposedly (if you would believe people in the US), more guns and LESS gun legislation protects you from the more guns you now have and so on. Let's look at this objectionably just as I compared the benefits to defenders versus aggressors for gun ownership. Cars provide an obvious benefit and are fundamental to commerce and modern life (unlike guns 99.9% of the time for private defenders of civil liberty). More legislation and safety requirements can obviously reduce death rates. To me it seems pretty obvious how to proceed here.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'izzard, executive transvestite, san fransisco, 1998' to 'izzard, executive transvestite, san francisco, 1998' - edited by calvados

It's pretty much the standard to have planes blowing right over your head in the Caribbean on small island state's airports, but over San Fransisco is strange.

I did a little web search:

'Until tomorrow, folks in the San Fransisco area are able to enjoy Fleet Week 2010. From their website: “The mission of San Francisco Fleet Week Association (SFFWA) is to honor the dedication to duty and sacrifices of the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces and to conduct and offer disaster preparedness training.”

To help celebrate, United Airlines flew one of their Boeing 747-400′s by the Golden Gate bridge. Pretty frek’n sweet, if you ask me. Over at The News Blog for Bay Area Travellers, they explained they have heard negative feedback about the fly over. Some say it is too similar to 9/11 and others are asking why a private airline is at a military celebration. Oh please.

First off, this is nothing like 9/11, it is a celebration with a bunch of different aircraft (including military) flying over the bay. If seeing a bunch of FA-18′s can fly by the bridge, why can’t a Boeing 747? Secondly, yes, United is not part of the military, but that doesn’t mean they can’t help to celebrate what the military does for our country.'
(http://www.airlinereporter.com/tag/united-airlines/)

I dont see any problem with this, cheaper flights is great, who gives a shit if your slightly uncomfortable for a few hours to travel distances that would be unimaginable without planes. Its great, fuck these people complaining. Pay more then. take a jog, stop overeating. Run there instead of flying. As for people with disability, well there are options there, like giving them regular seats at the same low prices. Like Louis CK says: "Your'e in a CHAIR, in the SKY!! Everybody on every plane should be constantly going "Oh my GOD, Oh my GOD!!" New York to San Fransisco in five hours and you had to wait 20 whole minutes on the tarmac, well that used to take 30 YEARS getting there, now you watch a movie and take a dump and you're home."

Fresno Grizzlies are an affiliate of the San Fransisco Giants. We'll take her.

>> ^rasch187:
^ The first part of this documentary focuses a lot on the gay communities in England. You would know this if you had watched it of course.


I did watch it all the way through and yes it has stuff on gay comunity in england and san Fransisco but there is nothing particularly gay about this.

maby you should think before you write

i wrote "I wouldn't necessarily put this in the gay category. its relivent to everyone and it dosent particualy focus on gayness."

Its pritty clear what i ment ( IT DOSE NOT PARTICULARLY FOCUS ON GAY NESS) im sure if you counted minutes of the documentary that were about gay stuff specifically it would be less than 1/5th the total .


I don't really care i was merely saying that its not exactly the most gay of things. i don't really have a problem with it going in the gay channel.

But it would help if you botherd to comprehend what sum one put in a comment rather than presume something. (why would sum-one say something regarding the overall nature of something having not watched it ? )

not to belittle the accomplishment at all, but i would've thought they came up with this a while ago. like, before they made a completely artificial heart.

another application is that were you to leave your heart in san fransisco, it'll still be working when you get back.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'dress to kill, language, being bilingual, herbs, san fransisco' to 'dress to kill, language, being bilingual, herbs, san fransisco, lisurae' - edited by ponceleon

Man, I need to move to San Fransisco... constant party over there!