When you say .." I have consistently said Carter was my favorite recent president.." That all I need to know how lost you are with reality.

The president provides leadership for USA and for the world. The world looks to us for stability and he provider of help when others are in need.

I didn't know what to think of Ron Paul idea about being a non interventionist. Obama has lifted the hand of interventionism off Arab nations and now we have a shit storm of assassins and killers who desire to kill everyone. Everyone knows this But OBAMA who for what ever reason fails to see this world danger. Now it will take the world decades to fight is battle. Sure these might have had a shitty American backed leader but their peoples were not mass murdered on wholesale levels like ISIS is doing.

We had domestic terrorist attacks. Fort Hood shooting (13 killed) , Boston bombing, and the car bomb that was defused in NYC. Many more stopped. There will be more blood shed on our soil in the name of ALLAH. This is a world wide problem.

Obama is the worst because of this and on domestic side he is a failure because he is steadfast with my way or the highway approach. 6 years and still a shitty economy, real employment is hovering just below 10%, IF you lost you job today do you think you would be able to get another straight away at the same pay? I don't

Salaries have continued to stagnate over last 20 years but under this leadership salaries have lost 4K.

Democrats got a historic spanking this recent midterm and Obama still thinks he can do what ever he thinks. He is delusional.

Times did get better with Regan and Clinton, The Bushes sucked.



History will be the judge, we are just spectators.

1) Very annoying music.
2) I got to grocery store to buy my shit and get out..If some dumb cow blocks my way and makes me spend any more time there than I have to i'll punch it in its giant inflatable head.

It doesn't matter.

However, women's weight gets remarked on all the time in very nasty ways. This was just my way of doing a tiny bit of payback into the Universe. Plus -- he might really be ill. Some medications make you puffy.

Understand that claiming to 'know' the 'unknowable' is a definition of insanity. :-)
I can understand your position on ET life, but I disagree it's a certainty, it's merely a statistical NEAR certainty. Just as I must leave that tiny possibility that 'god' exists, you should leave open that tiny possibility that other life does not. We can't know (until we find positive proof, of either, until then it's a question...one can't prove a negative).
Please don't indicate I said any such thing. I do not 'hate people who do', nor have I ever said any such thing. I have said I am disturbed by the ACT of claiming to know the unknowable, and hate the assertion of 'proof' that is never 'proof' (or as you said, BS as fact). It doesn't matter what the topic, to me.
While you may be correct, most don't mention their beliefs daily, that's not what I said...I said when they DO discuss their beliefs, it's usually offered in a 'these are the facts, believe them' manner, morphing to anger if the beliefs are not simply accepted as fact. Again, not always, but more often than not in my experience.
No, proselytizing is not just accepting others' different beliefs, and allowing others to make up their minds. It's saying 'my way is right, anything else is wrong, now do and believe as I do'. I'm guilty of it myself at times, but I'm looking for people to not 'believe' anything but learn how to assess data and figure out reality for themselves (not based on others ideas and beliefs).
I'm pretty much there with you about greed and religious elite.
We differ about science. Beauty, love, love of beauty (art) have been boiled down to chemical processes in the brain scientifically (my godfather was the brain chemist that discovered most of the chemicals in the brain and how they interact). I see no need for anything else, no matter how cool it might be if there were really 'magic' or 'supernatural' things out there to explore and understand.
I try to never take it personally, unless I see a personal attack. I hope you do the same. As I said, I usually try to 'hate' actions and methods, but not the people that use them (with some exceptions for assholes).

EDIT: I think it boils down to people mistaking what they fervently believe for what they 'know', an understandable mistake.

you misunderstand,which may be my fault.
anarchy=no rulers
it does not mean=no government (for some anarchists it may mean that,but not all),nor does it mean=no police or military or public schools and i do not believe i stated anything of the sort.

i also stated that while the anarchist prefers direct democracy,he/she will be ok with representative,as long as they represent..which they dont.

so the anarchist sees this non-representative government and sees it for the vile,corrupted beast it is and states that it should be killed.preferably from orbit.

please understand i am not trying to sway you to my way of thinking or convince you of anything other than to point out that anarchy is not a single,one trick pony.

ok,consider this:you are walking down the street and an important text come in with a pdf attached.you are given information and told that in two days you will be expected to vote on the matter.

just an idea how direct democracy can work.

this discussion is really fascinating me.
i call out hard-liner libertarians for not even acknowledging the massive corrupt influence of the corporation,because it is an intellectually dishonest argument to NOT point out the destructive influences of the monied elite.

i find it just as intellectually dishonest to not address/criticize and question the government.

one does not preclude the other.
we can argue which one gave birth to the other but i dont think anybody can deny that what america has now is NOT a representative democracy but rather a plutocracy.

so just as i dont understand how a hardline libertarian can ignore the power and influence of a corporation and call it "capitalism" (hint:its not),i equally cannot understand the defense of a government that threw its citizens overboard 40 years ago.

i refuse to defend moral bankruptcy,on any level.
i refuse to buy into the "its not perfect but its the best we have"
no..it is not.we can do better and what we have now is far from the best.
best intentions maybe....but not the best..

newt brought up a big point that i was unaware.
this is my flavor of anarchy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism

which to some anarchists makes me a "bad" anarchist,whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean.

I had all the stitching replaced in my old (Red & Black) Air Jordan High Tops and had the heel re-inforced.
When I took them in, he looked at me funny. But the shoes were $170 and made entirely of leather. I just told him to do what he could and not to worry if it didn't work out.

What I got back was like a completely new pair of shoes. And the heels were built up solid. That guy was amazing. I paid the $40 and was on my way...

Edit: they looked just these: http://cdn.sneakernews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/air-jordan-1-vntg-banned.jpg

@bobknight33

Please tell me what your experience is with the scientific community. Do not waffle or sidestep the issue but answer exactly what the extent of your experience with scientific research is, and if necessary how that positions you to judge scientific material.

Please also provide three examples from three separate (and recent) peer reviewed (and published, i.e. forming part of the scientific argument) scientific research papers from approximately the last 4 years (since 2010) that provides something illogical as a foundation argument or any particular conclusion. (You realise of course that even 3,5,10, 100 out of 10 thousand is meaningless, but i know that you can't even understand the layout of a scientific paper, nevermind find 3 examples of an illogical statement in a scientific paper.... even my professors would struggle with that.)

I'm not going out of my way to be a dick here @bobknight33 .. but if you tried to give people medical advice (chemotherapy is illogical propaganda!) then you would be expected to have an expertise in medicine. So don't run away from your responsibility.

This shouldn't be a difficult challenge for you, being as you are so certain and so correct that the science is illogical propaganda. I've had to accept things that ran completely counter to my intuition, so if climate change science is bull then as soon as you prove it, i'm on board.

So go ahead, explain to me simply and clearly what makes it bullshit science, or you're going to have to admit that you don't even have the first clue what you're talking about (as i strongly suspect).

Believe climate SCIENCE, do not believe what politicians and industry leaders tell you about climate science - ASK A FUCKING SCIENTIST. And most of all - @bobknight33 - it is NOT ok to pretend to understand science and lie to people about it, you deceptive, brain-dead parrot. Well, having said that, at least parrots have redeeming features.

@shinyblurry
hey man,congrats on the married dealio.
please understand i was not suggesting to convert you to my way of thinking.i was simply expressing the joys of watching someone progress on their path.i am quite sure your conclusions will differ from mine but i can admire your progress even though we differ yes?

in my way of thinking,we may diverge at points but in the end we shall meet at the same place.

still...your progress makes me smile,though we disagree.

getting married...
they grow up so fast..
/sniff sniff

I'm probably just stuck in my ways

And yeah, I think the difficulty levels are a bad way to learn a song.
I suppose my main issue with it is that I'm a decent enough guitarist that I can play almost all the riffs without too much trouble but I find the note highway an information overload for leads.

" At present, a little more than half of all Americans own the sum total of about 320 million guns, 36% of which are handguns, but fewer than 100,000 of these guns are used in violent crimes."

Per year. You don't cite your source, but this is looks to me to be an underestimate. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey there are half about half a million people claiming to be victim of a gun related crime over the course of a year. I remember being a victim of a gun crime in America (the perp was an British-born and educated woman) where the police said that they weren't going to follow things up because they were too busy with more serious crimes and they weren't confident of successful prosecution, they didn't even bother to look at the bullets or interview the perpetrator. I'd be surprised if it was even officially reported for crime statistic purposes.

"So gun ownership tends increase where violence is the least."

You didn't discuss the confounding variables.

But nevertheless, nobody is saying that owning guns makes you intrinsically more criminal. The argument here seems to be that criminals or those with criminal intent will find it much easier to acquire firearms when there are hundreds of millions of them distributed in various degrees of security across the US.

And those that have firearms, who are basically normal and moral people, may find themselves in a situation where their firearm is used, even in error, and causes harm - a situation obviously avoided in the absence of firearms and something that isn't necessarily included in crime statistics.

"In the UK, where guns are virtually banned, 43% of home burglaries occur when people are in the home"

Yes, but here's a fun fact. I've been burgled a few times, all but one of those times I was at home when it happened. You know what the burglar was armed with? Nothing. Do you know what happened when I confronted him with a wooden weapon? He pretended he knew someone that lived there and when that fell through he ran away. When the police apprehended him, there wasn't any consideration that he might be armed with a gun and the police merely put handcuffs on him and he walked to the police car. He swore and made some idle and non-specific threats, according to the police, but that's it. In any event, this isn't extraordinary. There are still too many burglaries that do involve violence, of course.
Many burglaries in Britain are actually vehicle crimes, with opportunity thrown in. That is: The primary purpose of the burglary is to acquire car keys (this is often the easiest way to steal modern vehicles), but they may grab whatever else is valuable and easy too.

"The federal ban on assault weapons from '94-'04 did not impact amount and severity of school shootings."

What impact did it have on gun prevalence? Not really enough to stop the sentence 'guns are prevalent in the US' from being true....

" So, it's likely that gun-related crimes will increase if the general population is unarmed."

I missed the part where you provided the reasoning that connects your evidence to this conclusion.

"Note retail gun sales is the only area that gun control legislation can affect, since existing laws have failed to control for illegal activity. "

This is silly. Guns don't get manufactured and then 32% of them get stolen from the manufacturers warehouse. They get bought and some get subsequently stolen. If there were less guns made and sold there would be less guns available for felons to acquire them privately, less places to steal them or buy stolen ones on the black market, less opportunity for renting or purchasing from a retailer. Thus - less felons with guns.

If times got tough, and I thought robbing a convenience store was a way out of a situation I was in - I would not be able to acquire a firearm without putting myself in considerable danger that outweighs the benefits to the degree that pretending to have a gun is a better strategy. I have 'black market contacts' so I might be able to work my way to someone with a gun, but I really don't want to get into business with someone that deals guns because they are near universally bad news.

" states with right-to-carry laws have a 30% lower homicide rate and a 46% lower robbery rate."

Almost all States have such laws, making the comparison pretty meaningless.

"In fact, it's {number of mass shootings} declined from 42 incidents in 1990 to 26 from 2000-2012. Until recently, the worst school shootings took place in the UK or Germany. "

I think 'most dead in one incident' is a poor measure. I think total dead over a reasonable time period is probably better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers:_School_massacres
The UK appears once. It is approx. 1/5 the population of the US. The US manages to have five incidents in the top 10.

Statistics can be fun, though, huh?

" In any case, do we have any evidence to believe that the regulators (presumably the police in this instance) will be competent, honest, righteous, just, and moral enough to take away the guns from private citizens"

You've done a lot of hard work to show that most gun owners are law-abiding and non-violent. As such, the police won't go door to door, citizens will go to the police.

"How will you enforce the regulation and/or remove the guns from those who resist turning over their guns?"

The same way they remove contraband from other recalcitrants. I expect most of them will ask, demand, threaten and then use force - but as usual there will be examples where it won't be pretty.

"Do the police not need guns to get those with the guns to turn over their guns?"

That's how it typically goes down here in the UK, yes.

"Does this then not presume that "gun control" is essentially an aim for only the government (i.e., the centralized political elite and their minions) to have guns at the exclusion of everyone else?"

The military has had access to weapons the citizenry is not permitted to for some considerable time. Banning most handguns etc., would just be adding to the list.

"Is the government so reliable, honest, moral, virtuous, and forward thinking as to ensure that the intentions of gun control legislation go exactly as planned?"

No, but on the other hand, can the same unreliable, dishonest, immoral and unvirtuous government ensure that allowing general access to firearms will go exactly as planned?

You see, you talk the talk of sociological examination, but you seem to have neglected any form of critical reflection.

"From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary

"From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary"

On the other hand, I've been mugged erm, 6 times? I've been violently assaulted without attempts to rob another half dozen or so. I don't tend to hang around in the sorts of places middle class WASPs would loiter, shall we say. I'm glad most of the people that cross my path are not armed, and have little to no idea how to get a gun.

You don't source this assertion as far as I saw - but you'll have to do better than 'it's interesting' in your analysis, I'm afraid.

No formatting, because too much typing already.

@lucky760

Well, the terminology you used is a bit charged, isn't it? "Manipulate oneself" into feeling something? Compassion is all about putting yourself in someone else's shoes--imagining being them. It's not manipulation; it's actually perfectly natural thanks to mirror neurons--when we see other people in pain we activate the areas in our brain as if we were experiencing pain. The thing is, our higher order cognitive abilities can override this natural function. Basically compassion is our natural state and we later learn how to turn it off. I'm sure there is some evolutionary advantage to that but what I've been trying to discuss here are the disadvantages.

But that's more of an aside to the main issue. The main point is we both agree that showing compassion is important. Splitting hairs about the semantics of feeling/showing compassion doesn't add anything to the discussion so I'll simply tip my hat to you for being willing to engage in this conversation with me for so long and be on my way.

*facepalm*

Wanna know what kind of moron I am? I have all three blu-ray box sets and I'm still making my way through season 3, but I haven't even considered watching the special features.

I think I'm going to have to backtrack to watch all those before I continue.

Thanks for reminding me what a dipshit I am! And thanks for the links!

(I also just finished the full Breaking Bad series and didn't watch any special features on those. Now I'm contemplating if I should.)

As Guy Faulkes looks on...

He says, "I can't say if I was speeding because I was on my way to headquarters."
What? How does one's destination impact whether or not one can know if one is speeding? I don't understand the "logic."

I've worked more years in the service industry than I care to admit.
I've had my share of un-user-friendly clients ream me out for things I had no control of. I've worked the long hours without sitting down, missed breaks, sore feet, no days off... etc.., etc....

BUT I always took pride in trying to do things a little better every time I did my tasks, no matter how mundane they were. And I smiled at customers, and I took my heavy breath and I shuffled on. I went out of my way for the client/customer every time.

Please don't presume to tell me I have no clue. If you chose to let your job get the better of you, then it's time to move on. I eventually did. Moved up and over. Tripled my pay and got on with life. But I never took anything out on the job, I always performed and I never pretended to think I was above the job. It's a job. And if we choose to be there, then we damn well better choose to do it well. That's called character, and responsibility.

Period.

I'm a cyclist in NYC, and I do a little o' both. I break the traffic laws when I deem it safer or more convenient for everybody that I do so. I do it to get myself out of the way. And on my way.
Obviously not paying attention at all to stop lights is just dumb, you can't just mosey into cross traffic without looking, but I do agree with Yogi that the usual traffic laws shouldn't apply to bikes. Fortunately, this seems to be the de facto state of affairs in my city.