Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 28, 2019 16:50:10 GMT -5
My reasoning was that the money allocated to the border, was already in the military budget, and reallocated from another Corp of engineers project. No more extra money (cost) was actually added to the budget. Your thoughts ? Son: "Dad, can I use the car to go to the Mall." Dad: "No." Son: "Can I use the car to go to the Library to study with my friends." Dad: "Yes, that is an okay use of the car." Later - Dad: "I hear you were at the mall." Son: "Yes, you gave me permission to go study with my friends. I was headed to the Library. A friend called and said all my friends were at the Mall. I wouldn't be able to study with them if I went to the Library so I went to the Mall." Dad: "But you were supposed to study." Son: "We did." Dad: "At the Mall? What did you study?" Son: "Gender Relationships." Teenager logic. Pretty good. Although I would submit: Son: Dad, can I have $8K to build a fence around our house to keep the rabbits out. I see another rabbit caravan a-comin'. Dad: No. Rabbits are good. Son: But they eat all our carrots. And poop everywhere. And a have a lot more rabbits. Dad: Yes, but they also eat all the weeds nobody else will eat. And they're cute. Also, they like me a lot more than they like you.
Son: Awww nuts.
(later) Dad: What!? A wall around our house? Where did you get the money? Son: You know that $1M fund we have for killing gophers over in the park? Dad: Of course I do. We need to kill those gophers before they come over here and topple our giant lawn gnome again. Son: Wasn't that badgers? Dad: Badgers are a type of gopher. It doesn't matter. What about the park-gopher-killing fund? Son: Well, I took $8K out of the fund to build the wall. So it doesn't cost us one extra penny. Dad: What!? Did I give you permission to do that? Son: Well, no. But technically the money is for repelling gophers. And I think rabbits are a kind of gopher too. Dad: Rabbits are the good kind of gophers, you lackwit. No wonder the family voted me in as Dad this time around. You'll regret this, boy.
Son: Awww nuts. Washington logic.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 28, 2019 12:22:17 GMT -5
Is this your thread to ask whether Ms. Almanzar is being treated less harshly than a male performer? The article mentions "R. Kelly" (the name sounds familiar) and seems to suggest that a similar confession he made would be a good standard for comparison. So... what happened to him? Did the public forgive him or not?
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 28, 2019 9:08:26 GMT -5
If these "scientists and people" weren't entirely funded by some of the most insidious globalist interests on Earth, or--better still--if they could demonstrate that they indeed "understand the issue" one whit via prediction and reproducible science, perhaps the skeptical among us would be more willing to embrace policies a hundredfold as oppressive as those that have provably devastated economies in Europe and provinces of the British Commonwealth. Most of which, by the way, did absolutely jack to curb greenhouse gas emissions. See my previous link. The (still-ongoing) "Yellow Vest" riots in France: their biggest concern? Joblessness and runaway taxation, largely brought about by climate-related policies from the past few years (which they embraced like fools, by the way).
There's another glimpse into your "effective future". Mass unemployment, crushing taxes, riots, and you're still not meaningfully diminishing GG emissions, assuming you care about that bogeyman.
But in fear of crushing taxes and the “boogeymen” let’s sit back, relax and open up a few more coal plants to produce electricity, let’s deforest every single surface on Earth all so we can have a very comfortable life and a remote control always handy. What happens with my children and their children? Don’t know, don’t care! It will be their problem! Deforestation hasn't been a problem in North America for decades. Industries long ago realized that unsustainable forestry would be the death of them; they moved to sustainable practices. Coal plants shut down automatically when the energy they produce isn't significantly less expensive than energy from renewable sources. The price of energy from renewable sources drops when (and only when) the technology improves. The technology improves when private (not public) investment into research yields marketable fruits over time. The reason TPTB are pushing the "NOW NOW NOW!" harder than ever is because they know perfectly well their policies--their resource grabs, power grabs, carbon taxes, greenwashing--are neither effective nor necessary for the transformation of the energy industry. This is the most lucrative and meticulously-crafted scam in human history, the window of execution is rapidly closing, and they need a public scared out of its wits to consent to harmful and deeply illogical policies before technology brings about the revolution naturally.
Rep. Cortez is among their chief "NOW NOW NOW!" foghorns in the US. A charismatic true believer. They've mobilized everything from Hollywood celebrities to pop scientists to tot armies marching in the streets, and Rep. Cortez is just one more cog in that machine.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 28, 2019 8:48:09 GMT -5
If these "scientists and people" weren't entirely funded by some of the most insidious globalist interests on Earth, or--better still--if they could demonstrate that they indeed "understand the issue" one whit via prediction and reproducible science, perhaps the skeptical among us would be more willing to embrace policies a hundredfold as oppressive as those that have provably devastated economies in Europe and provinces of the British Commonwealth. Most of which, by the way, did absolutely jack to curb greenhouse gas emissions. See my previous link. The (still-ongoing) "Yellow Vest" riots in France: their biggest concern? Joblessness and runaway taxation, largely brought about by climate-related policies from the past few years (which they embraced like fools, by the way).
There's another glimpse into your "effective future". Mass unemployment, crushing taxes, riots, and you're still not meaningfully diminishing GG emissions, assuming you care about that bogeyman.
I challenge the bolded statement. There are many reasons for high unemployment and the high level of taxation in France. To blame them on the Paris Accord is highly inaccurate. - The policies I'm talking about long predate the PCCA. I shouldn't have said "past few years"; it's closer to "past 10-15 years".
- The causes of mass unemployment, crushing taxes, and riots in France not attributable to climate-related policies are attributable to other policies Rep. Cortez has endorsed. France is an oversocialized, overtaxed, overregulated, overimmigrated, underassimilated mess that's running out the socialist death clock just a bit slower than the PIIGS, and it will be a grim spectacle to behold over the coming decade.
Look at the bright side, though: as France slowly transforms into rural Afghanistan, eventually their carbon emissions will have to come down.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 28, 2019 7:09:16 GMT -5
She may not be instructed on the subject and the details of it but that is why we have scientists and people that understand the issue. If these "scientists and people" weren't entirely funded by some of the most insidious globalist interests on Earth, or--better still--if they could demonstrate that they indeed "understand the issue" one whit via prediction and reproducible science, perhaps the skeptical among us would be more willing to embrace policies a hundredfold as oppressive as those that have provably devastated economies in Europe and provinces of the British Commonwealth. Most of which, by the way, did absolutely jack to curb greenhouse gas emissions. See my previous link. The (still-ongoing) "Yellow Vest" riots in France: their biggest concern? Joblessness and runaway taxation, largely brought about by climate-related policies from the past few years (which they embraced like fools, by the way).
There's another glimpse into your "effective future". Mass unemployment, crushing taxes, riots, and you're still not meaningfully diminishing GG emissions, assuming you care about that bogeyman.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 27, 2019 17:32:04 GMT -5
- We don't know if this is an apples-to-apples comparison. An investigation into WH dalliances isn't likely to have the same nation security hazards as an investigation into influence by foreign agents. We also don't know if the two reports were in an identical state of pre-disclosure sanitization.
- Sen. McConnell might well have been in error to vote for a hasty release then.
- Even if Sen. McConnell is temporizing for political reasons rather than genuine concern for national safety, it doesn't mean he's "against releasing the full report to the public". Wait for him to do something that actually blocks release of the report before you get out your torches and pitchforks.
White Water <> WH dalliances Ah. Yes. Right. Still, same principle.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 27, 2019 16:40:52 GMT -5
But the real solution is nuclear ... AOC could be exactly what is needed to apply political pressure to Climate and get us focused on what society needs to do. ... The GND is 100% opposed to nuclear energy. The Republicans hate her because her policies (while barely proscribed) are borderline insane, her followers are wantonly ignorant of the policies' destructive potential, and if she ever gains real power, she'll be the younger, less hinged counterpart of (ex- Ontario Premier) Kathleen Wynne, who devastated millions of lives and an entire provincial economy with just a handful of "green" initiatives. Read up on that if you want a sneak peek at Rep. Cortez' "effective" future.
This much is true.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 27, 2019 16:13:05 GMT -5
That is the same McConnell who voted to release the Whitewater report within 48 hours of its disclosure, in full on the internet for all to see, after a FOUR YEAR investigation right? - We don't know if this is an apples-to-apples comparison. An investigation into WH dalliances isn't likely to have the same nation security hazards as an investigation into influence by foreign agents. We also don't know if the two reports were in an identical state of pre-disclosure sanitization.
- Sen. McConnell might well have been in error to vote for a hasty release then.
- Even if Sen. McConnell is temporizing for political reasons rather than genuine concern for national safety, it doesn't mean he's "against releasing the full report to the public". Wait for him to do something that actually blocks release of the report before you get out your torches and pitchforks.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 27, 2019 11:06:13 GMT -5
A little ways back it was collusion,, collusion,, collusion,, now its Obstruction, obstruction, obstruction, Don't fall off that horse, changing horse in the middle of the river! So what will be the next great "what ever" if they don't prove obstruction?
I think Mr. Mueller is starting to look a little Russian, don't you? Robert Swan Mueller III.
A lot of swans over in Russia. Russia has III federal cities. ...
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 27, 2019 10:58:17 GMT -5
I'm not too worried about that. If there was nothing that could be proven, like the collusion charges, I think Mueller would have declared that up front. The fact that Mueller refused to make a determination makes me think there was evidence on both sides that at least merited discussion. I agree there's probably some skeletons in there, although not because of Mr. Mueller's behaviour. Everything he's done thus far seems like the usual lawyerly pro forma base covering following a politically charged investigation that didn't return universally welcome conclusions. But anything is possible.
There could be a Grade A impeachable-but-Mueller-didn't-want-to-be-the-one-to-say-it Trump-and-Putin-dancing-the-Kozachok nuclear strength bombshell in there just waiting to leap out and end the Democrats' waking nightmare. It's not a crime to dream.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 27, 2019 8:34:40 GMT -5
And of course the brothers said they did it. They were given immunity for saying so. You would lie and claim your sibling perpetrated a hate crime hoax with your assistance... to preemptively immunize yourself from legal woes that might befall you if/when your innocent brother was prosecuted? "And of course..." Not "It's conceivable, if both brothers were fools and cowards, and their family was dysfunctional beyond measure, ..."
Of course they'd do that. Doesn't everybody do that? My brother did that to me last week. Then, of course, we beat our mom with a baseball bat. That's just what families do, amirite? Money, celebrity, and connections talk. It's a sad fact of life. I don't personally wish any ill on Mr. Smollett, but I hope the enormity and the folly of what he did stay close to his heart for a long while. He acted no better than an ISIS propagandist, and if the hoax hadn't been discovered and debunked, he might eventually have had innocent blood on his hands.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 27, 2019 7:56:53 GMT -5
From The Hill: But McConnell objected, noting that Attorney General William Barr is working with Mueller to determine what in his report can be released publicly and what cannot.
"The special counsel and the Justice Department ought to be allowed to finish their work in a professional manner," McConnell said. "To date, the attorney general has followed through on his commitments to Congress. One of those commitments is that he intends to release as much information as possible."
...
Schumer added after McConnell's objection that the resolution didn't say the report should be released "immediately" but just that it ought to be released.
"I'm sort of befuddled by the majority leader's reasoning in this regard because it is not in the words of this resolution," he said.
But McConnell countered that the president has had to wait two years while the investigation was ongoing and "it's not unreasonable to give the special counsel and the Justice Department just a little time to complete their review in a professional and responsible manner."
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, quickly backed McConnell up in a tweet.
The GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee passed legislation during the previous Congress that would protect Mueller from being fired, but it wasn't taken up on the Senate floor amid opposition from McConnell and other GOP senators. From where I'm sitting, it seems like both parties politicking for optics. The Democrats putting forward a "solution looking for a problem", as Sen. Rubio puts it, and Sen. McConnell refusing to play nice. If he actually does something to block the release of the report at some point, then it'll be a topic worth discussing.
The key word in my opening sentence is "Full". McConnell blocks resolution to release full Mueller reportSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has blocked a non-binding resolution to make special counsel Robert Mueller's full report public. The big picture: The resolution was passed unanimously in the House, and President Trump himself said earlier Monday that it "wouldn't bother [him] at all" if the full report was released. McConnell cited national security concerns for his decision to block the resolution, and he argued that Attorney General Bill Barr should have time to decide what's made public. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who put forth the resolution, said that it does not specify a time frame. linkSo wait for the report to come out and see how much is redacted. If you've got bits and pieces cut out--a name here, a few sentences there, a classified e-mail or two--these are consistent with national security edits and we should hold our peace. If you've got swaths of text or entire sections cut, then you can board the "What are they hiding?" train without looking like an alarmist. Even then you shouldn't worry. Democratic congressmen are going to read the full contents of the report by hook or by crook, and if the GOP somehow managed to stymie all attempts, it would scream "coverup" and destroy any sense of vindication the report has thus far earned them. I don't think the GOP is so devious, but it's conceivable they'll sit on the report just long enough for Democrats, the MSM, et al. to whip themselves up into a speculative frenzy, then put the whammy on them a second time by releasing a barely-redacted and highly unremarkable report. It would compound the earlier humiliation and help cement the message that Democrats and the media are hopeless Trump-hating conspiracy theorists. That's what you should be worried about.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 27, 2019 7:24:31 GMT -5
I went looking for 18th Century revolvers (1700s) not finding ten bullet revolvers unless you mean the shooter shoots maybe six and then refills his weapon all within ten seconds. Shoots six, reloads, shoots six more, in under ten seconds. Some modern marksmen can get 16 shots on target in under 4 seconds (8-round revolver, empty the cylinder, reload, empty the cylinder). It's vile and watching it serves no purpose. Its only legitimate usefulness in a gun control debate is to convince doubters of the destructive capacity of modern arms, or to convince the morally ambivalent that a mass shooting is a terrible and senseless act. I am neither a doubter nor morally ambivalent. I don't understand your '10 bullets in 10 seconds' pronouncement followed by "Handguns, hunting rifles and the like can be left alone." I know you're aware that virtually all handguns (and probably some hunting rifles) are capable of unloading at least 10 rounds in 10 seconds. Hence either your standard for 'ban-worthy weapon' is more qualified than 10 rounds/10 seconds or else you believe a great many more conventional arms also ought to be banned.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 26, 2019 22:49:12 GMT -5
The GOP senator majority leader, Mitch McConnell, is against releasing the full report to the public. The GOP controls the senate. McConnell's spouse is trump's U.S. secretary of transportation. From The Hill: But McConnell objected, noting that Attorney General William Barr is working with Mueller to determine what in his report can be released publicly and what cannot.
"The special counsel and the Justice Department ought to be allowed to finish their work in a professional manner," McConnell said. "To date, the attorney general has followed through on his commitments to Congress. One of those commitments is that he intends to release as much information as possible."
...
Schumer added after McConnell's objection that the resolution didn't say the report should be released "immediately" but just that it ought to be released.
"I'm sort of befuddled by the majority leader's reasoning in this regard because it is not in the words of this resolution," he said.
But McConnell countered that the president has had to wait two years while the investigation was ongoing and "it's not unreasonable to give the special counsel and the Justice Department just a little time to complete their review in a professional and responsible manner."
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, quickly backed McConnell up in a tweet.
The GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee passed legislation during the previous Congress that would protect Mueller from being fired, but it wasn't taken up on the Senate floor amid opposition from McConnell and other GOP senators. From where I'm sitting, it seems like both parties politicking for optics. The Democrats putting forward a "solution looking for a problem", as Sen. Rubio puts it, and Sen. McConnell refusing to play nice. If he actually does something to block the release of the report at some point, then it'll be a topic worth discussing.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 26, 2019 22:24:42 GMT -5
Who said anything about banning airplanes. I said fix the problem which caused the plane to crash. And Canada, Europe and most of the world have banned the 737 Max from flying until whatever has caused two 737 Maxs to recently crash has been fixed. So yea, banning types of airplanes happens. So can firearm laws be tweaked to take out semi- assault weapons. No civilian needs a firearm which can shoot ten bullets in approximately ten seconds. Handguns, hunting rifles and the like can be left alone. I don't care one bit if my neighbor owns one. Just don't point it at me. The closest plane analogy would be: "Despite our best efforts, we're having a jumbo jet successfully hijacked and crashed once every ~8 years (1 hijacking = 300 dead = approx. 8 average years worth of mass shootings involving assault weapons). We'll never be able to eliminate this risk as long as jumbo jets exist, hence it's best we ban jumbo jets. Small passenger jets are still OK." But this wouldn't be fair either, since jumbo jets admittedly have far greater utility than assault weapons. Comparing planes and guns just doesn't work as analogy. Too many dissimilarities. As for paragraph 3: every handgun going all the way back to 18th Century revolvers can shoot ten bullets in ten seconds, hence I'm not sure where you're going here. Did you mean ten bullets in one second?
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 26, 2019 19:35:13 GMT -5
Maybe they should start being unbiased and do their job according to the tenets and ethics of proper journalism.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 26, 2019 19:23:59 GMT -5
I find it interesting that the same thread author was all excited about DT being investigated and swore DT had been completely vindicated since he wasn't indicted. A black gay man is investigated and found to be not guilty and automatically he must have paid someone off. You realize there were multiple confessions, forensics, video evidence... When the Mayor of Chicago and the Superintendent of Police are both going on record calling this a "whitewash of justice" and saying money talks, you might want to sit on the race/gay trump card, even if it works in every other thread.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 26, 2019 19:09:26 GMT -5
Isn't A.G. Barr's temporizing just that, though: temporizing? Has he actually come out and said he's going to move against publishing the report, or is it just about timing?
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 26, 2019 18:52:31 GMT -5
So are plane crashes. But when one crashes, we investigate and fix the problem so it does not happen in the future. "Ban all planes" isn't customarily on the list of fixes. So, you'd be OK with something like a 2A in Canada? You'd like everyone to be armed to the teeth and to have more guns than people in the country? You'd like to go to the local corner store, place of worship, movie theatre, etc., and see people with guns strapped to their hips? Certainly not. We have no cultural obsession with guns, and I'd like to keep it that way. If I had my druthers, there'd be no gambling, pot, porn, drunkenness, or abortions anywhere in Canada either, but seeing as our culture is obsessed with these things, I'd be extremely careful as to how hard and how fast I pushed bans on them. The problem with trying to get any of the 'sensible' changes to the gun law completed is that the NRA has always been so aggressive in defeating even the smallest proposed changes, and they had the money and the political clout to frighten lawmakers away from them. The NRA even managed to convince lawmakers to not allow the CDC to research statistics about gun deaths. I've seen some reasonable proposals shot down, with the US media blaming the NRA. How much of the blame is deserved, I don't know. The issue with the NRA and the CDC goes back decades and is murkier than most people realize. At the outset, the NRA wanted to prevent a goal-seeking government monopsony in gun death research, not unlike the goal-seeking monopsony on AGW research that plagues us today. They believed (not unreasonably) that actors at the 1993 CDC weren't going to conduct objective or scientifically valid studies, and because they'd be funded by limitless taxpayer money, no force made up of private citizens/industries could possibly afford to debunk it or counter it. It's a "pick your poison" dilemma, and the right answer depends on how much faith you have in the objectivity of government-backed research. If I knew a priori that gun research would turn out the same way as AGW research, I'd side with the NRA. 'No research' is better than 'tainted research that nobody can afford to refute', and it saves taxpayer dollars to boot. But gun violence isn't the same vague netherworld as AGW haruspicy. It would be much harder to cover up consistently bad science, and I believe that having faith in our governments is a good thing generally. Hence I'm narrowly on your side here. Maybe we can even get a law passed that doctors and school teachers have a 'duty to report' if a patient/student threatens to bring a gun to work or school - the same kind of 'duty to report' that we use to report potential child abuse. That might actually help identify mass shooters before they act. We can hope. I can't say this is a bad idea, but worry it might lead to unintended consequences. For example: police departments beleaguered by false alarms, abuse by students wanting to make hay, reports triggering the attacks they're meant to prevent, or the threat of reports impeding professionals' ability to detect problems and deal with them in a less adversarial manner. Domestic violence is commonplace; mass shootings aren't. The type-I/type-II error calculus is very different. We don't know how many 'near-' mass-shooters there are for each soul who carries out the act. I'm referring to the people who, by the grace of God, hear a kind word, feel a pang of emotion, confess to a friend or parent, chicken out, lose heart, lose interest, exit a stressful situation, witness something beautiful, hear a sermon, get an unexpected visit, make a friend, or otherwise get inspired by any means not to act out their rage. It could be 1,000:1 for all we know. The worry, therefore, is that in our well-meaning attempts to hopefully intercept the 1, we don't inadvertently push any of the 1,000 out of the 'near-' column and onto the rolls of mass murderers.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 26, 2019 12:45:47 GMT -5
He pointed out that the NRA built itself up over about 30 years into a powerful lobbyist, but he thinks we're at a transition where the NRA is diminishing while those new organizations pushing for reform are gaining support. So maybe, 30 years from now, it will be the gun reform people who are pushing around the politicians, not the NRA. What bothers me (and should bother gun control proponents ) is that the kinds of gun controls that would have the biggest impact--by factors of hundreds--have nothing to do with mass shootings. I can get behind wait periods (for suicides, impulse murders), temporary bans following domestic abuse convictions (again, to reduce fatalities from impulse murders), and closing background check loopholes at gun shows. What do these have to do with mass shootings? Nothing. Mass shootings are an anomaly. A hyperextraordinary, statistically insignificant event in Earth's yearly quota of violence. They're the equivalent of moose strikes in a roundtable discussion on how best to improve car safety. They may serve as formidable tools for emotional manipulation, but their exploitation breeds deep resentment and hostility, which has led to the indifference, the conspiracy theories, the hair-trigger sensitivity, the unconditional support for the NRA, and the intransigent attitudes--all of it. Mass shootings are not the platform on which to have a productive gun control debate, and they have nothing to do with the kinds of gun control that will save lives in America. Gun control is inexorably one of those issues where you have to avoid emotional contexts, target only the biggest problems with the least invasive controls, beat people to death with statistics (which you kinda sorta started to do in your previous post, which is why I 'liked' it), and let people's minds change over the span of a generation (as is presently occurring), with patience and longsuffering. You also have to be content with the inherent costs of the 2A. That is, even with all the peripheral gun controls in the world, there are always going to be a lot of gun-related deaths when people can freely own, carry, and employ handguns.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 26, 2019 7:08:03 GMT -5
I think I was quite clear in my OP and my first reply to x as to my thoughts. I'm pretty disgusted by a couple posters in this thread, and I don't think anyone needs me to point out which ones. threads rarely stick to one topic, and quite frankly, we as mods are not in the habit of telling people where and what to post. I'm not about to start here, as much as I think some of it doesn't belong here. none of it violates CoC. I don't particularly appreciate being chastised for what I should and shouldn't know about how to post, especially given that there was way more I wanted to say in my first reply. choosing to abide by the CoC, I censored myself. I'll do so again here. have a splendid day. It seems to me the posters you're "pretty disgusted by" did exactly what you wanted them to: read the subtext of the OP (which I didn't even realize was a plug for gun control until reading this), threw it back in your face, and bootstrapped your gun control scrum. Poor Tenn and I are just babes in the woods. We thought you wanted to talk about PTSD or something. Good luck with "tragedies and gun control on YMAM" episode #573. I've seen this one 572 times before, so I'll make myself scarce.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 26, 2019 3:30:53 GMT -5
This thread is disgusting. It's not disgusting, but I do question the wisdom of posting the articles in the OP without any questions or guidance for discussion, e.g. "Are we handling post-shooting trauma as well as we could?", "Is our national response to these tragedies compounding traumas?", "Have you ever been touched by a PTSD-related suicide?", etc. chiver78 should know by now that, absent such guidance, members are going to read in all kinds of underlying significance, that "pretext for gun control" is almost certainly going to be among the inferred significance, and that the past 572 threads on "tragedies and gun control" have always featured particularly stark divides between pro-security and pro-liberty. Hence, chiver, if it wasn't your intent for this thread to turn into "tragedies and gun control" episode #573, now would be a good time to provide those questions and guidance. Or just lock the thread, if the OP was more of an FYI than a topic up for discussion.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 25, 2019 21:39:37 GMT -5
Oh boy. Let me finish the argument for you. "There's no reason anyone needs these kinds of guns. We need common sense gun laws. We need to save lives." "Gun control doesn't work. Liberty over security. Don't tread on my rights." "You don't care about bodies piling up." "You don't care about the joys and liberties of responsible owners." "Guns have to go." "Gun control just doesn't work." "Yes it does." "No it doesn't." "Callous wingnut!" "Gun grabbing nanny stater!" "Killer!" "Tyrant!" ... ... *huff huff* *huff wheeze* "I thought that went pretty well." "Yeah. I did too." "Same time next shooting... or... post-shooting suicide?" "I'll be there." "Do take care." "Quite. And yourself."
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 25, 2019 21:14:36 GMT -5
... the 1st Amendment is FEDERAL law. there are no federal schools. ... the 14th Amendment is FEDERAL law. There are no federal elections. You might also want to send him the FIRE active list of disinvited speakers and active list of banned discussion topics. They keep pretty good records. The real censorship is in professors getting passed over for tenure (or simply canned), students being flunked, and student societies being bullied into silence for expressing politically incorrect views. But this is a diffuse phenomenon documented over thousands of sites and testimonials, not just one or two. Anyone who's done any significant CE research--on anything--over the past five years and hasn't come across the issue at least half a dozen times is pretty damn blinkered. On a more miraculous note: I agree with your position in this thread. Governments cracking down on anti-free-speech campuses is a good prima facie theory, but I shudder to think what it would look like in actual implementation. Not to mention it would be the government shoving yet more anti-discrimination laws down the public's throat in vain attempts to police what people think. If there's a solution to campus censorship, government ain't it.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 25, 2019 16:26:37 GMT -5
I know what The Onion is. My point is that it's not a part of the MSM.
Your answer is right. Your stated reasoning is wrong. How so? If you're objecting to my characterization of The Onion as "news", think 'news' as in "news format". The Onion's "news cycle" (or "content cycle", if you prefer) isn't in lockstep with the MSM conglomerate. You generally can't predict what issues The Onion is going to be parodying, the information they're going to provide, or the yarn they're going to spin based solely on other nodes in a conglomerate. With the MSM, you can. If you know what any one node (say, CNN) in the network is talking about on a given day, the information they're providing, and the yarn they're spinning, you know exactly what every other node (CNBC, Bloomberg, Newsweek, the Daily Show, etc., etc., all the way down to your local newspaper) is going to be talking about, the information they're going to provide, and the yarn they're going to spin. They report to different audiences, with different formats, but they're otherwise perfectly synchronized. Hardly surprising, since they're owned and controlled by the same media conglomerate, i.e. "the MSM".
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 25, 2019 12:44:11 GMT -5
I wonder if the suicides are statistically anomalous.
It's unfortunate, but teenage suicide isn't an uncommon thing. We had a suicide at my high school of about 600 during the four years I was there--that I knew about. I've read that for every successful suicide, there are dozens of attempts (I seem to recall a 25:1 ratio). We're perhaps falling prey to a post hoc fallacy. For anyone with the time, it might be interesting to look into how students from other shootings have coped (statistically speaking), and whether there are observable differences in outcome based on how the incidents were handled. Although I'd have put things more... delicately... than @x, I share his concern that our national responses to these shootings (the acute orgy of grief, condemnation, and partisanship) may well be multiplying the stresses and emotional shocks that lead to suicidal ideation. I doubt we'll ever know. I still set stock by the Amish response to the Nickel Mine shooting. Those people will forever be an inspiration to me.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 25, 2019 12:07:58 GMT -5
I've proscribed the MSM before. It's based on ownership and synchronicity of message. 'The Onion' obviously doesn't qualify because it's not owned by the Big Six conglomerate and it doesn't run precisely the same news stories as all of the outlets owned by the conglomerate. 'The Daily Show' is owned by the Big Six conglomerate and does run (or at least cover) precisely the same news stories, with identical biases, omissions, etc., hence it is a part of the MSM. FOX is also a part of the MSM, if that's what you mean by "Trump's state propaganda network". FOX is unusual in that it has pro-Republican biases, but it reports the same things, ignores the same things, hypes the same things, downplays the same things, and in many ways crafts the same narratives as all the rest.
Seriously? The Onion is satire. IT IS NOT NEWS, NOR DOES IT PRETEND TO BE. I know what The Onion is. My point is that it's not a part of the MSM.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 25, 2019 8:03:35 GMT -5
One outstanding question: What does "collude" even mean here? "So I saw Joe and Jimmy colluding in the corner." "Colluding to do what?" "No. Just colluding." "But I mean: were they colluding to steal a waffle, put a firecracker in someone's underpants, what?" "Well, it was Joe doing most of the colluding." "What?" "Yeah, Jimmy wasn't really colluding much. Joe was doing pretty much all the colluding." "It takes at least two people to collude." "No it doesn't. Joe was colluding perfectly well on his own." "That doe... Y... Colluding to do what?" "Colluding to collude."
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 25, 2019 7:43:20 GMT -5
You keep referencing the Main Stream Media, as though all the world is an MSNBC editorial show. Who are you referring to? Because the "Main Stream Media" that I read and listen to largely did NOT jump to premature conclusions on any of this either- with the exception in a few quarters of the Trump Tower meeting. Since the Trump Tower meeting was clearly an attempt by some on both the Russian and American (Trump) sides at colluding, it was the low hanging fruit, and easily pointed to as an example of where collusion would likely be found. I am not talking about editorial missives here. I am talking about news stories, by the old bastions of MSM, such as the NYT, the WP, Network news, NPR, even my home state newspaper. I did not see a rush to judgement before judgement was due, and even now I see notes of caution to wait until we actually see the report before drawing any final conclusions. What I did see was a lot of caution to put it in perspective, to realize that this investigation had but ONE goal, and that was to investigate claims of collusion, and that its scope was limited. I also saw what seemed like a continual drumbeat of indictments, guilty pleas and convictions, and that drumbeat sure sounded like GUILTY for two years. So perhaps you are understandably confused? Virgil lumps everything that isn't Trump's state propaganda network into 'MSM' - including satire like The Daily Show and the Onion. I've proscribed the MSM before. It's based on ownership and synchronicity of message. 'The Onion' obviously doesn't qualify because it's not owned by the Big Six conglomerate and it doesn't run precisely the same news stories as all of the outlets owned by the conglomerate. 'The Daily Show' is owned by the Big Six conglomerate and does run (or at least cover) precisely the same news stories, with identical biases, omissions, etc., hence it is a part of the MSM. FOX is also a part of the MSM, if that's what you mean by "Trump's state propaganda network". FOX is unusual in that it has pro-Republican biases, but it reports the same things, ignores the same things, hypes the same things, downplays the same things, and in many ways crafts the same narratives as all the rest.
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 25, 2019 7:36:08 GMT -5
I believe the news thus far is limited to: no additional federal indictments, no obstruction (as determined by AG Barr). All I can say is that the MSM had better hope either i) the report is heavily redacted before being released, or ii) the report isn't redacted before release and includes powerful circumstantial evidence (in the eyes of 2020 swing voters) of wrongdoing that for whatever reason didn't rise to the level of indictable offenses. Failing either of those, the MSM just shot the few lingering shreds of public faith they have left since 2001. As I've said since 2016, I personally expect there will be some skeletons in the report. Not related to Russian "collusion", but conflicts of interest, backroom business deals with Russian heavies, false testimony, graft, etc. Suffice it to say I'll be astonished if Pres. Trump, Mr. Kushner, and the Trump family all come out squeaky clean. And of course, NY state may still indict any or all of them--or at least try to. Assuming I'm correct, the MSM gets a slight reprieve. They still look hopelessly biased (the report outcome wasn't going to change this), but at least they won't look like tinfoil-wearing dark web conspiracy theorists. You keep referencing the Main Stream Media, as though all the world is an MSNBC editorial show. Who are you referring to? Because the "Main Stream Media" that I read and listen to largely did NOT jump to premature conclusions on any of this either- with the exception in a few quarters of the Trump Tower meeting. Since the Trump Tower meeting was clearly an attempt by some on both the Russian and American (Trump) sides at colluding, it was the low hanging fruit, and easily pointed to as an example of where collusion would likely be found. I am not talking about editorial missives here. I am talking about news stories, by the old bastions of MSM, such as the NYT, the WP, Network news, NPR, even my home state newspaper. I did not see a rush to judgement before judgement was due, and even now I see notes of caution to wait until we actually see the report before drawing any final conclusions. What I did see was a lot of caution to put it in perspective, to realize that this investigation had but ONE goal, and that was to investigate claims of collusion, and that its scope was limited. I also saw what seemed like a continual drumbeat of indictments, guilty pleas and convictions, and that drumbeat sure sounded like GUILTY for two years. So perhaps you are understandably confused? You can't say "I'm not talking about editorial missives here," and throw away 80%+ of the MSM's "value added" in the Internet age as though it isn't important. I will grant you a few things: 1) reporting in NYT and WP non-opinion pieces was decent whenever developments broke; the problem was with their ceaseless editorializing, 2) the "continual drumbeat of indictments" was real and newsworthy; again, the problem was the constant editorializing and speculation. What we observed was a steady trickle of facts over three years that was buried in an avalanche of rank editorialism and irresponsible speculation. In one sense, you can't blame the MSM for clinging to life. We live in an age when every tweet, indictment, Washington meeting, and sparrow breaking wind is instantly put up and shared online by somebody. Investigative journalism in the MSM is well and truly dead. (As a silver lining: the NYT's biggest gaffes in Russiagate all centered around poorly-sourced investigative journalism, hence a lack of it isn't an entirely bad thing.) So what do the dinosaurs in the MSM have left to offer? Some institutional credibility, yes. Battered and badly eroded since 2001, but still extant. But that won't sell enough papers or draw enough eyeballs in the Internet age, so what else? Analysis. Editorials. More editorials. Special guests. Op eds. Talking heads. "Here come the feds!" "Beware the reds!" As you point out, some outlets (particularly MSNBC, CNN, FOX, Wapo, and Huffpo, which collectively comprise a massive share of US news consumption) were worse than others. These also benefited more than others. The Russiagate affair is credited by many for stalling--even reversing--decline in viewership in many of them. But they got that bump through editorializing and drama, and now comes the reckoning for that gambit.
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