I never intended to imply that it was an either/or choice. (EDIT: Sadly, it seems that may be the case, as they have yet to meaningfully address the water issue)

Since they DID change the law, they debated it. Are you saying you believe adding the topic of removing these unconstitutional parts of the law would stall, or even log jam that debate to the point of failure?
And for the reasons I delineated above, it's not pointless. Removing unconstitutional laws that are designed to target 'undesirable' portions of the population is not pointless. They certainly have been a problem in the past, and as I said, holding the specter of their use returning is a horror we should not tolerate being inflicted on so many for no reason.
IANAL?
Your next paragraph is my point...I can't imagine anyone publicly supporting it, so there should be no debate, it should simply be easily adopted in 2 minutes. That they neglect to take those 2 minutes, and instead again ratified this disgusting, unconstitutional part of an otherwise (seemingly) reasonable law is more than disgusting, it's a total shirking of their duty.
But yes, that's the US political climate. We're doomed.

*How's 1 year ago? Recent enough? There may be more recent.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/02/20/3624719/louisiana-police-arrest-two-men-anti-sodomy-law-declared-unconstitutional-2003/

EDIT: I understand that most people outside the US would be surprised that these laws are still on the books and being used, but they are. Often not prosecuted, but used to PERSECUTE instead.

in the same vein

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Dont-neglect-to-pay-Harlan-Ellison

Don't neglect to pay Harlan Ellison has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine.

Cool video, but he neglected to mention how inhospitable the universe can be. If your planet is getting hit by a GRB every so often, life won't have the time it needs to really get going.

The next election is going to be interesting. I wish Labour had realised that fighting over the center was only a sound strategy when there was no risk of encirclement earlier, because now the left is split. How complacent to assume support from leftist Scotland when they've neglected their base for so long.

People talk of how Corbyn is at the wheel of a sinking ship, but it was not he who steered it into such treacherous waters. I heard a Labour supporter on the radio today saying that principles are nothing without power, as if to slight Corbyn. I understand that she probably meant that you need both, but I think the frustrations with a lot of politicians is that they seem all too willing to sacrifice principles for the sake of power. Learn the lessons of the Lib Dem fiasco well Labour, do not repeat their errors.

America's problem is not guns, it's the awful social situation that rampant capitalism and consumerism has landed it in. Same as drugs aren't the reason why large communities of black people are stuck in the same cycle of drugs/gangs/violence/death. It's not because of the drugs, or the people themselves, it is because they are pretty much abandoned by society.

Guns are just a means to an end, and an easy one at that. They are an easy answer when you want to cause violence to someone else, or yourself.

The fact that so many people want to cause violence to others or themselves is what needs to be looked at.

I've visited many parts of the US and the people have generally struck me as friendly and polite to a fault. People will just strike up a conversation with you as if you were a long lost relative. I've had people sit with me on a public bus well past their stop just to make sure I got off at the right place. At it's heart, it's a great country. But the flip side is that currently, it's built on basic inequity and inequality. I was in LA when Katrina hit, and watching what happened was freaking unreal for me as a person who lives in an area prone to cyclones. When we get hit, the entire community bands together and takes care of each other. When New Orleans got hit, it was post apocalypse dog eat dog.

Getting rid of guns in the US won't stop inequality, it won't stop senseless accidents and it won't stop violence. The UK has had strict regulations on guns for years and *surprise* has a very high rate of knife crime. Australia introduced tough gun legislation after the massacre at Port Arthur massacre, but we didn't really have serious violence problems before that so while people claim that bans on semi-autos etc "worked", it's very hard to quantify going from "very little gun violence" to "very little gun violence" as much of a shift... It's a core difference in the social fabric of countries.

People who completely focus on banning the gun are neglecting to look at the bigger picture, and are often doing so deliberately because the bigger picture is far harder to solve. Same as the war on drugs. Regulate guns, sure, enforce safety and bring in high penalties for misuse or allowing your weapon to be misused. But banning them won't fix anything.

I don't really mind the video, thinking twice before owning a firearm is a good thing. But I think it misses the point.

These cruel souls who neglect their pets baffle me. I'm just glad the original owner came to her senses (probably got some $) and gave Rusty Diamond a chance at a happier life.

I sincerely apologize for my ignorance, and thank you for setting the record straight. (really)

My incorrect understanding of that (education about the war in Germany) came from about 40% being presented with bad information (or interpreting information incorrectly), and 60% drawing the wrong conclusions based on the censorship of Nazi imagery there.

Before commenting, I did quick web research to support the information I had heard about the censorship side of things there. When that basically confirmed what I thought, I neglected to do the same due diligence with regards to how the war is taught in schools.

...Pretty shitty on my part, especially considering that my opener in my previous comment was that it would be "interesting" to compare how education handles history in both countries, and then apparently I wasn't actually interested enough to actually fact-check.

So again, I apologize.

With regards to the issues in the Daily Show video, ie. the Confederate flag, I think it is probably reasonable to say that in my opinion it would be a good idea to remove the flag from use for Government / State purposes. The way Germany handles Nazi imagery goes beyond that. I'm not sure that I would agree with that extent of what amounts to censorship in handling it, but that is just my opinion.

So I guess in summary, it really *is* interesting to consider both countries approaches to handling uncomfortable bits of our past. I just should have actually done it properly when I said it the first time.

It doesn't matter how any of us feels about UKIP, it flat out was not democratic. Take a look at the number of votes per seat of the significant players in the 2015 election.

First past the post is a great way for 2 parties to maintain a stranglehold on power, which is a great way for politics to stagnate. What the video also neglects to mention - i think - is that these boundaries and seats regularly change according to what suits the party in power. My constituency used to be Labour, but recently they redefined the boundaries of my constituency so that the Labour seat i used to live in became Tory due to poor people being sectioned off into another constituency that was already strongly Labour. We are now associated with the richer more privileged parts of the area.

Blame the popularity of UKIP on the fact that none of the main parties have gained the trust of the average person, none of them have represented the interests of the average person, and none of them have spoken about the issues affecting the average person. In how long now? I don't know, but certainly for as long as i have known, so at least 25 years.

...What do you mean "even cops in Utah"? As if you thought Utah is special?
More fucking liars. Never met a cop that wasn't one.
She had no reason to question him in the first place, and no reason to demand ID. (EDIT: Maybe that's wrong, apparently Utah is a 'show me your papers' state where demanding ID for no reason is legal?)
Never say a word beyond "I want my lawyer."
"What's your name?"..."I want my lawyer"...."What's your date of birth?"..."I want my lawyer."..."Are you not going to answer my questions?"..."I want my lawyer."...."Can you sit in my police car for my protection?"..."I want my lawyer." Best advice I ever got...from a lawyer. Anything else you say may be used against you, or lied about then used against you (as in this case).

She lies "I saw you, and I wanted to see if you'd be honest with me", but neglects to finish the thought 'because I'm a bold faced liar and I'm going to lie about seeing you smoking to try to get you to admit to a crime I can harass you for, and if that won't work I'll harass you in another way.'.
Name and badge number, and where's my lawyer? Please put their name on the internet.

My take, there's no way to tell if there was brutality. Most everything happened off camera. However, there's no legal reason for them to be demanding passengers ID themselves unless the officer had reason to believe they had committed a crime (being black doesn't count). That seemed to be the reason for all the action and over reaction.

Any word on what happened in the end? Did the daughter have an asthma attack? Did she get help? Not rendering assistance is one of the charges in Baltimore, isn't it? They do have a duty to provide medical assistance if it's needed, and a death due to neglecting that duty is manslaughter at least.

I was blessed to hear from one of my truly favorite people here after another wonderful missive earlier and it brought to my mind another here for whom I hold much regard and love but who may not by my neglect know fully enough so.

So to you as well, my favorite toast:

May those that love us, love us.
For those that don’t love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if he doesn’t turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles,
So we’ll know them by their limping.

And if I may as well offer:

May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face
The rains fall soft upon your fields
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

Happy St. Patty's Day, enoch my brother,...much love.

Can't believe he neglected to mention that alcohol is water with yeast feces.

Then slow down with theories of our impending demise, the IPCC doesn't support it. You want to talk about not denying the science, then you don't get to preach gloom and doom. Don't claim a large percentage of farmland is going to be lost to sea level rise by 2100. Don't claim coastlines are going to be pushed back 10 miles by a worst case 1 foot rise of sea level by 2100.

We are talking about advancements solving problems like a maximum sea level rise of a foot in the next 100 years, with best guesses being lower than that. I think it's modest to suggest our children's children will have figured out how to raise the dikes around places like New Orleans by a foot in the next 100 years.
The concord and moon trips are no longer happening because they are expensive. We can do them if we needed to, and more easily than the first time around. Finding out people aren't willing to pay the premium to shave an hour off their flight doesn't mean the technology no longer exists. Just because America no longer needs to prove they can lift massive quantities of nuclear warheads into orbit doesn't mean we couldn't still go to the moon again if it was needed. There's just no reason to do it, the tech exists still none the less.
Yes, there are social problems that confound the use of new technology. You fail to notice that is also the problem with feeding everybody. Food production isn't the problem, but rather the men with guns that control distribution. Stalin's mass starvation of millions was a social problem, not climate change or technology. Mao's was the same. North Koreas the same. All over Africa is the same. We have more than enough food, and plenty of charities work hard to send food over to places like Africa. Once the food gets there though the men with guns take most of it and people still starve. The reason Africa has so many crop failures is the violent displacement of the farmers. Exactly the same problem that saw millions starve in Russia, China and North Korea.
You are right that a changing climate could compound Africa's ag industry a bit, but it's a small hit compared to the violent displacement problem. Also, don't neglect to consider to impact of meaningful CO2 emission restrictions around the globe. A large scale global economic downturn probably means a lot more war, bloodshed, and starvation. If you do not reduce emissions enough to trigger that downturn and instead just 'marginally', you get stuck with both because Africa is still going to see virtually the same climate changes through the next hundred years.

And if you are worried about losing the glaciers in the Himalayas by 2100 there is very good reason to believe that's gonna be alright:
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S41/39/84Q12/index.xml?section=topstories