>> ^blankfist:
You tire me out, NetRunner. I cannot imagine even trying to honor your ridiulous claims. Obama and McCain are terrible choices, so I refuse to argue that one should act one way or another because it's befitting of their party to gain a win. That's what you do. Not me.


>> ^blankfist:
Actually, rereading that comment it sounds harsh. When I say you tire me out, I don't mean I tire of our debates. I actually do enjoy debating you, NR. In fact, our PM debates have been some of the most fun I've had on here. You're a great debater and passionate about your party's politics. So, there. I said something nice. Don't tell anyone.


Schizophrenia gets you everywhere. A big Fuck You and a big kiss for you.

My evil plans to help protect voter's rights are too late: the Ohio SCOTUS just did that for me.

To try to pander to your lunatic 3rd party aspirations, I'll repeat some advice I've given previously: if another 3rd party or party outcast (like Paul or Kucinich) gets a money bomb like Paul did, they need to take that money and try to run a campaign that includes TV ads, on-the-ground organization, and a TV-media-interview strategy for having them legitimize you.

Part of why Democrats lost in 2000 and 2004 is because they were up against people who knew how to manipulate the media narrative to their benefit, and the Democrats didn't think that was something they either could or should do (I'm not sure which).

Times have changed. I think the Campaign for Liberty is a possible sign that Paul is realizing that too, I'll be sure if he starts working on getting a libertarian AM radio talk show running.

I also think 3rd parties should try to win some seats in the House, rather than taking futile cracks at the Presidency.

I guess the cynical lesson that's finally been driven into me through this process is that too few people care enough, or are educated enough to even have a glimpse of what policies might be beneficial or harmful -- they mostly go based on the beliefs reinforced by the media they consume.

I know you're a true believer in conservative/libertarian philosophy, but how many people out there voting for Republicans really know what that even is? Joe the Plumber^TM sure as shit doesn't. I don't even think Caribou Barbie Sarah Palin does either, and if she does she probably learned it at an Alaska Independence Party meeting.

You guys need another William F. Buckley, who's smart, and charming, and entertaining, who gets on TV and puts the right face on your philosophy. Until that happens, 3rd parties are just going to be a curiosity.

I'm cautiously optimistic that the Republican party as we've known it is about to get shattered. Lots of people are going to be looking at how to reassemble it for 2012. Now might be a good time to get organized to be ready, and get that party back to its roots. I hope Ron Paul wins, but if I had to guess right now we'll be seeing the Mike Huckabee party rise in 2012, and that won't bear any resemblance to a paleo-conservative party at all.

dupe.. =( sorry
http://www.videosift.com/video/Daddy-teach-me-how-to-strip-and-reassemble-a-AR-15
*discard

sorry, this is a dupe of
http://www.videosift.com/video/Daddy-teach-me-how-to-strip-and-reassemble-a-AR-15
=(
*discard

>> ^Aemaeth:
I'll upvote when the tags change. It's too bad more people don't understand that gun are less dangerous when proper education takes place.


I agree with the idea that kids should be educated about weapon safety, especially of any weapons in the house.

However, the guns themselves are not less dangerous when children are educated.
The children just have a better chance at surviving around them.
I came to this conclusion when my son's very best friend (who had been not only trained in weapon safety, but was a sport shooter with his father, had won awards for contests, and always went hunting with his Dad) managed to shoot himself through the eye causing instant death. He was left alone in a vehicle with a loaded pistol while parents ran into the grocery store for a couple of minutes. He was about to turn 10.
I say this to remind people that kids are still kids, educated on gun safety or not. Trusting their education isn't enough and supervision around weapons should never be relaxed.
That's all.

I have nothing against guns myself, when handled properly. My dad was a hunter and I went to the gunranges with him when I was about 10. But, he had a shotgun, not a frigging semi-automatic!

To me, there is no reason why a little girl should handle a gun like that. I see she is having fun with her dad, but there is a reason why weapons like this should be kept locked all the time.

This is not your 'defend you house in case of a burglary' weapon. If you think I am wrong to put this under 'terrible', well, it made me feel pretty terrible. You want to change the tags, please help yourself, I am not doing it just to get your vote.

>> ^Aemaeth:
I'll upvote when the tags change. It's too bad more people don't understand that gun are less dangerous when proper education takes place.

>> ^SDGundamX:
What's so terrible about this? It's not like the weapon was loaded or anything and clearly the girl is having fun bonding with her father.


I agree. And if the dude's gonna keep a gun in the house, his daughter should know how to be safe around it... and that includes knowing how it works.

>> ^thinker247:
Give her seven more years and I think MG may be knocking on her door.

7 more years? try months...that perv

Hamas' charter calls for a withdrawal from all land occupied by Isreal since 1967, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. That is their legitimate goal and attacks sanctioned by Hamas are against military targets on occupied Palestinian territory. Attacks inside Isreal are not sanctioned by Hamas and are condemned by Hamas.

The unilateral withdrawal offered by Sharon that you mention was in fact a 10 year truce mediated by Jimmy Carter in return for complete withdrawal of Isreal forces from the occupied lands taken in 1967, and a return to the 1967 borders. Isreal never responded to it.

Hamas then offered another truce in June this year mediated by Egypt. They have agreed to stick to the timetable but will continue to respond to Isreali attacks. Isreal didn't respond to that either.

In 2006 Hamas announced it would cease all violence if Isreal recognised the 1967 borders and withdrew from occupied territory.

I hope you are seeing the parallels with the Irish struggle.

In reply to this comment by bcglorf:

Hamas does not exist to stir retaliatory strikes from Isreal, that is American propoganda and is completely untrue. Hamas wants to liberate their country which has been illegally occupied by Isreal and wants to reassemble their nation which is an entirely legal and legitimate goal.

By Hamas own charter, they define the illegally occupied country as the ENTIRETY of Israel. If taking that 'back' is a legal and legitimate goal I'm content to disagree.


Isreal is circling and taking over Palestinian land, the idea that they are encouraging any kind of withdrawal is laughable and untrue.


Israel took the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights after the six-day war from, not the Palestinian people, but from Jordan and Syria. Israel was not concerned with circling the Palestinians, as they were not in control of those regions, they were concerned with the armies that Egypt, Syria and Jordan were massing on their borders.

As for withdrawal, have the Palestinians put forward anything similar to Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan? I'd think that, at the least, somewhat qualifies as encouraging withdrawal.

Hamas does not exist to stir retaliatory strikes from Isreal, that is American propoganda and is completely untrue. Hamas wants to liberate their country which has been illegally occupied by Isreal and wants to reassemble their nation which is an entirely legal and legitimate goal.

By Hamas own charter, they define the illegally occupied country as the ENTIRETY of Israel. If taking that 'back' is a legal and legitimate goal I'm content to disagree.


Isreal is circling and taking over Palestinian land, the idea that they are encouraging any kind of withdrawal is laughable and untrue.


Israel took the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights after the six-day war from, not the Palestinian people, but from Jordan and Syria. Israel was not concerned with circling the Palestinians, as they were not in control of those regions, they were concerned with the armies that Egypt, Syria and Jordan were massing on their borders.

As for withdrawal, have the Palestinians put forward anything similar to Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan? I'd think that, at the least, somewhat qualifies as encouraging withdrawal.

You don't just decide to not negotiate with an elected democratic government because you view them as extremists from inside your own culture. Nelson Mandella was an extremist, my own country is now governed by people who murdered and planted bombs in the 1970s, in retaliation to British oppression. They are extremists but they are not terrorists.

Hamas does not exist to stir retaliatory strikes from Isreal, that is American propoganda and is completely untrue. Hamas wants to liberate their country which has been illegally occupied by Isreal and wants to reassemble their nation which is an entirely legal and legitimate goal.

As MP George Galloway has said, a suicide bombing of of a group of Israeli soldiers in illegal occupation of Palestinian lands is an entirely legitimate military act, a suicide bombing of a group of Israeli settlers illegally occupying Palestinian land is an entirely justifiable military action. A suicide bombing of a falafel stall in Tel Aviv is not. A bombing of a nightclub in Haifa is not.

It is not the methods or the weapons that make them terrorists.

Isreal is circling and taking over Palestinian land, the idea that they are encouraging any kind of withdrawal is laughable and untrue.



In reply to this comment by bcglorf:

Hamas is not a splinter group, it has a political mandate and the people put Hamas in power. It is more than an analogy I use, there are Palestinian flags flying in the streets of Belfast right now. The Irish republican parties do not recognise Northern Ireland as being British, that is a political position with democratic support.


I call Hamas a splinter group in the sense of operating through suicide bombers and operating on a mandate to remove all Jews from the region because they are Jewws. In Hamas' sick and twisted version of Islam, that's every good muslim's duty. Did you not even look at the quotes I gave you, go read the whole charter and see for yourselft. That they managed to get a political mandate just makes them all the worse. The extremists in the world need to be marginalized, not dignified by negotiating with them. I'd say negotiating with Fatah and refusing to recognize Hamas until they change their mandate is the proper course.


It is not the moderates who have to be negotiated with, no political struggle has ever been resolved by moderates, it is the extremists who need to negotiate.


And few political struggles with extremists have been resolved through negotiating, that's why history is littered with assassinations, coups, and wars. I'd rather see negotiations with the reasonable elements than lending any strength or dignity to extremists.


Hamas recognising Isreal's right to exist would loose the support of the people who put them in power and is political suicide, no government of Palestine, not Hamas nor anyone else put there by those people can ever do that. If it were not for Hamas Palestine would have been wiped off the map, Isreali troops have been beaten back time and time again by Palestinian forces.


Now your listening too closely to Hamas' propaganda. Hamas runs out of Syria, they are primarily an engine to stir retaliatory strikes from Israel. Syria provides the funding, training, and rockets so Hamas can attack Israeli civilians. Then the Hamas militants hide in civilian homes and mosques and wait to see if Israel will come after them. All the while Syria hopes for as many dead Palestinians as possible to rally more anti-Israeli sentiment. Hamas lacks any real military strength to 'beat back' Israeli forces. Israel has always mantained a policy of short and quick military operations. The only goal they have is to defend their civilians from attack. Taking land is not a goal so there is no invasion for Hamas to even try to beat down.


Whatever the historical context, it is the will of the people today that is paramount, this is the very essence of democracy and it is the only way all of these conflict historically have been resolved. The Isreali and Palestinian people are sick of the bloodshed, but only the Palestinians have taken the political steps. This is exactly how it happened in Ireland.


And what political steps are you proposing Palestinians have taken? Electing Hamas, seems to me to be making things worse and giving a mandate of more war and bloodshed, not less. For Israel's part, their political process has continued to encourage withdrawal from expanded settlements and encouraged the handover of land taken in previous wars over to the Palestinian Authority.

This must be the biggest load of crap ever on videosift. I've not tried the M16, but I know for a fact that from a distance of 170 yards it's easy to get a group smaller than your fist with the AK-47, without any goddamn sandbags. Can't believe it's that much more difficult from 200 yds.

"Even with such limited experience with the weapon I can recall being timed in the 1.5 - 2 minute range."

Anyone I ever saw in the Finnish Self-Defense Force could dis- and reassemble their RK-62 (an AK-47 variant made in Finland, main differences are the smaller manufacturing tolerances) in under 50 senconds the first day we got a hold of it, and most could do it in under 30 a month later. And that includes a 3 second mandatory pause. (Personal best 47s blindfolded, Something in the low 20s normally.)

Also (and I know I'm going to get flamed for this one) I remember when one of the majors in Tikkakoski told us about his trip to the US. He had been training American soldiers and couldn't believe how terrible shooters they were. Many of the ones chosen for sniper training were mediocre at best in his opinion.

Wow. Four shots from 200 yards = 182.88 m and he didn't hit the target at all? What a n00b. I haven't tried an M16 but the AK can definitely be more accurate than that. And it is ridiculously easy and fast to disassemble and reassemble as well. I think the best times of dis- and reassembling the gun were well under 20 sec. in my platoon. Not blindfolded, heh!

The point about the AK losing basically all accuracy after the first shot while bursting is absolutely true though. But does it really matter because your first shot hits...?
Seriously, one should only use the burst mode in close combat. At distance it's just a waste of bullets.

I'm still curious, can you really shoot 3-shot bursts with the M16 and still be accurate over distance. What is the longest range a good shooter can reliably hit a target with an M16. With an AK you can't expect to hit too accurately after 300 meters...

Farhad2000:
You want to talk about a weapon and it's inferiority because of it's age? The AK-47 was designed in 1947 - and it hasn't changed a bit. The AK-74 is a completely different weapon with an entirely different round (@ 5.45mm whereas the AK-47 has a 7.62mm round). Just because something is old does not make it outdated. Yes, there are better weapons being developed, like the new Heckler and Koch, but for now, we have the M16A4, which is a fine weapon.

Look at the Browning M2 .50 cal. Machine gun: It has been in service since 1921, and is a hell of a weapon, still going strong today.

Yes, the M16A1 might have done poorly in Vietnam, but our troops were still using the M14 then, so the introduction to a new weapon meant little time in training, and it might have jammed more than the M14 with equivalent cleaning, so that might have skewed reports of reliability.

Fiver2: Soldiers prefer a weapon that can actually hits the target, hence the M16. Don't tell me what soldiers want. So long as you maintain your weapon, the M16 is reliable. I know mine was.

Abducted: I'm not really sure where you were going with that.

Arsenault185: Take better care of it next time. Also, we used to have contests in the squadbays to see who could disassemble and reassemble an M16 the fastest - while blindfolded. It never really look longer than a minute and a half.

I can tell you from personal experience. The M16 is junk. It jams all the time, double feeds, and misfires like its going out of style. And its way more complex to take apart and clean than the AK. I used to be able to dissemble and reassemble the AK blind folded in about 45 second. If I tried that with the M16 I'd be there all day.

looks cool. he does look rather similar to #5 though, no? that's where the stepping on the bug thing is taken from. "Reassemble, Stephanie; Reassemble!"