ParanoiA

And so apparently it's knives on the hit list, in Britian. Oh, the level of ignorance being weilded here is stunning. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/justice/article1468998.ece Here's where your redirection technique leads you Lance. Guns, then knives, then slingshots, then sticks, then rocks....gee, how long before you finally start focusing on the disease? I hear a lot of conspiracy theories about suppressed cures for cancer and other diseases, because there's more profit in treating symptoms - letting the patients die after years and years of expensive treatment. If I didn't know any better, I might think the same of British law makers; avoid treating the disease so they can ensure years and years of elected employment treating the symptoms, passing law after law until every sharp edge and blunt instrument doesn't exist on the continent. From the article: I about fell out of my seat. That is priceless. I will likely die of laughter when slingshots really do become their new "killer of teens". Yeah, keep concentrating on those inanimate objects. You'll get there.... No. No. No. There's a whole freaking shit pot full of factors determining the number of people who kill themselves. You just don't care about saving them until the last step - the attempt.

I don't see any reason not to try and of course I'm on board with the idea that independence from oil solves at least two major problems, possibly three. I think the whole concept of intellectual property rights and patents out to be reviewed. Current Patent, Copyright and Trademark laws have always felt viscerally wrong to me. It just seems a bit too much credit is presumed to the creator of an idea, and a bit much restriction applied.

Well, I'll be... I didn't know that. I figured if you could work a job, why not receive credit? Yeah, I've always appreciated that point. However, I've had several militant financial gurus berate me about it, claiming that I should have money in savings just for emergencies; that it's part of good money management. I can see their point, but emergency costs are a variable surprise. Ultimately, I think you're right.

Well, really what's so silly about that? You can work at age 16, so in terms of business, why not offer you a card before you're 18? I guess what always kicks me in the crotch is when I think how long I held out and didn't submit to credit card lust. I finally gave in at 34 years old. I haven't drowned myself in it or anything, but it certainly feels stupid to carry a balance on those. I have re-resolved to giving them up and haven't swiped one in over a year. So, you think you can reject this legerdemain money trap? For your sake, I hope so. Of course, the kicker then is that your credit score isn't as good. Yeah really. Responsible money management is not what they're looking for. Responsible DEBT management is what they're looking for. I think that sucks.

Isn't a lack of principle a lack of character? Not that I'm necessarily disagreeing with you, but if we're going to start throwing poop at each other for "lip slips" then we shouldn't be too surprised when we get a lip savvy return on our investment - which is entirely substance free. This waters down the possible intellect we could enjoy in these positions if we would stop playing along with these idiotic exercises. The few fanatics can do this all day long and still not garner a moment's attention from the rest of us. But we play along. I'd rather deal with a guy that doesn't talk like an ace, but rather thinks like one. Of course, I want to distinguish slip of the tongue from slip of the brain. If you meant to say "that's a great bit" but instead said "that's a great tit" then I say leave it to the fanatics to wrestle over it. But when you say "A came before B" and you meant to say "A came before B" and then realize that B came before A, then you spoke from a position of ignorance and it should be noted. That does seem relevant to the job. I don't really think transparency and democratization is the problem though. I mean, I see it, sure. But we, as in the public, should be aware of that transparency and not react like children when they say something they obviously didn't mean. It's using someone's speech imperfections to defeat them in debate. You've seen these people in your life. They make themselves right by ridicule. They're arguing with someone and everytime their opponent missteps their speech, stumbles on a noun, they're right there pounding it in their chest, showboating for the crowd. We should be the crowd that doesn't respond to that.

AAHHH!!!!!! You sold me out!!! I thought we were buds??? Ah well...nothing a nice massage and chocolate won't fix.

Hey, don't married men need the brothel more than the single guys? We're the ones getting the shoddy service. It happens when you enter into a contract, suddenly the service goes in the tank. We're the ones that have listen to single guys recite their sexual adventures with poll master "Bambi, with an I" and her roommate. Getting sex at all is an adventure for us. We're the ones that are upside down in our investment. Single dudes put in some social time, a few drinks, dinner...resultant output = x. We commit all of our resources, indefinitely, years of compromise and incremental dissassembly of male ego...resultant ouput <<<<< x. I sure hope my wife doesn't read this.

And thus, we see why the true substance driven statesman is dead, only on display at the intellectual museum. No one who is focused on real problem solving, disinterested in partisan babble, committed to the principles of the constitution and honest reverence to the people is going to be "perfect" enough to pass our pedantic social tests. We sure are missing out.

What? Minor misstep? Claiming it's a matter of history on a fairly big event like the Anbar Awakening was catalyzed by the surge, when it very clearly was not? Particularly after berating Obama's lack of knowledge of military matters and Iraq? I guess I'm lost here because I don't see any ambiguity on the definition of "it" in this context. McCain blew it. In his zeal to fry Obama on the lack of support for the surge as well as the prediction of it's failure, he made an ass of himself. It happens, I know, but it's not minor, to me anyway. He could fix it like a stand up guy and steal some "honest man" points from Obama if he apologized for it...maybe he was sleepy when he said it. I think I've shared my experience here before, but the two measily times I was involved in a local media story, in two different states and networks mind you, they did EXACTLY that. They played the reporter's questions recorded in the studio, and then played back our answers filmed on site. The questions asked in the studio were not the same ones asked on site. This has done considerable damage to my opinion of media. If they do this subtle but crucial manipulation at the local level, I can only imagine the shit they pull at the national level where the stakes are higher and the money so much greener. The media business is corrupt. They should be hauled before congress just like they did the oil execs.

Awesome. Doesn't she look smart now?

But is it the nature of Op/Ed to serve as a debate platform between two politicians? I note his comments on Obama's position on the surge and his subsequent political maneuvering around that stain (and then apply that model to his recent Iraq declarations) as relevant and worthy, but much of his piece is a critique of Obama. Maybe that's ok, I don't read the paper...

Absolutely spot on. I wish he would have done that. Why does McCain's content need to qualify philosophically? That's partisanship, period. They know it. They don't care. They believe their intellect trumps the masses and are doing what's best for us - pimping Obama. They love him. In Obama they get all the liberal ideology they love, AND they get to show everybody how racist they're not. He's perfect. That's conjecture on my part, obviously, but it seems to fit my personal experience anyway.

I love the article and I don't see it as making excuses for anybody, rather just an explanation of the phenomenon. I've long railed against the credit culture and have felt disadvantaged being the kind of consumer that resists credit almost vehemently. I feel like counter-culture since I don't believe in the autonomic notion that financing vehicles, housing, furniture and etc on credit is "normal". Credit is a huge exception, not an immediate option. That's why I love the article. I don't think it's strong enough, but I like hearing someone else point out how silly and somewhat offensive our "shopping" addiction is and how the entire market has evolved seemingly into one big credit conspiracy. Exactly how many cars, boats, entertainment systems, are bought by people who already have the money for it? I'll bet that's a tiny fraction. That's disgusting. This is also what makes it hard to teach your children - or to influence your spouse - about sound monetary choices when virtually 99% of their environment is telling them the exact opposite. I hate that. I'm dealing with my teenager on this very subject. He throws his hands up because we won't finance more goodies on credit so he can have a new game system, a new car for his 16th birthday, etc. He's grown up around kids who's parents are credit whores for every gizmo that lights their loins. I personally hate the credit culture. I can't stand how "saving money" is some archaic, out dated concept that old people had to do. I sometimes wonder just how much total money in the market is being thrown away to interest. How much money would we all still have if we didn't finance everything in our lives on credit? Dave Ramsey certainly has promoted an anti-credit agenda. He's got some good stuff to say on the subject too. For anyone who hasn't heard of him, his big thing is getting people debt free. Then they have credit card cutting parties - or something goofy like that. It's a good thing, IMO. You can find him on Youtube I'm sure.

At the very least we should recognize the sign posts in leading us there. There can be a convincing case to be made for a real recession as well as a mental recession at this point, but the dynamics of the economy seem to mimic those of a build up to a recession. Stratfor wrote an interesting article on this a few months ago about the american obsession with "recession". Ever since the great depression americans seem to brace themselves for disaster at every blip on the economic radar screen. We have difficulty appreciating a thriving economy because we're always worried about the shoe dropping. I think that's a valid observation. Akin to an abused child, the great depression really depressed the hell out of us. In history class, I always wondered if I was the only person in class that was disturbed by the war bringing us out of it. What if there was no war? Would we have recovered?

Anyone who thinks this is a depression is either highly partisan (anti-Bush) or incredibly ignorant of the real dynamics of a freaking depression. The unemployment rate now is around 5%. At the height of the depression the rate was around 25%, starting from around 8% in 1930 and maxing out in 3 years. Hell, by 1929 only 15 to 20 percent of all americans were considered middle class. Over 600 banks closed per year throughout the 1920's. That's not happening, not even close. However, recession is very apt. The gap between the rich and poor and the shrinking middle class certainly resembles the build up to the depression.

I'm not sure I really care anymore. We're so negative and defeatist on everything now as it is, I'm ready for some big doses of inspiration and motivation. I don't really care if it doesn't really get done in 10 years, let's just go for it and get out of this negative funk we're in.

Why can't you just use your soundcard? I'm thinking you could select "What you Hear" or WAV, Stereo Mix, whatever yours is labeled, as your recording input and just use your microsoft sound recorder to record it.

I always enjoy your exchanges. You two make good, catalytic posts.

So then I'm left to infer that you must believe that banning guns will achieve more than a minor extent. And, thus, have to negotiate this notion, that it's better to ignore focusing solving problem on the source and instead redirect it to inanimate objects because of your short term aspirations. I vehemently disagree with this approach of treating symptoms over disease and it's rather thoughtless and disrespectful to your fellow man. Let's "shoot" for long term solutions with exponential humanitarian payoff.

Yep, compromise is for politicians, not us. Of course, if they looked more like statesmen than salesmen I might not resent them for it.

Actually, isn't it only a handful that can do this since this is a direct consequence of the executive? It may seem unsettling in this case, but I'll bet it would be far more unsettling if one of the three branches could claim primacy in this balanced power triangle. I think I read somewhere that we don't really want to know if the executive trumps congress. We may think we do, but we don't really...

And this is where you're wrong. You've picked ONE tool out of thousands that are capable of killing humans (the current most "popular" tool) and decided that IT is the reason the humans are being killed. That's just silly Lance. That's not critical thinking by any stretch of the imagination. That's left over dreams and invalid correlations from childhood naivety. To pick an inanimate object and restrict access to that object is to never cure the problem - people killing people. You keep investing so much interest in the tools and objects used for it, thereby short changing humanity since you've spent no energy stopping people from killing themselves and other people with ANY tool. Good thing they aren't using skill saws to kill people or I might not have been able to remodel my kitchen this weekend.... Your tack is to regulate tools that are popularly being used for killing. That's like regulating game fish by restricting access to fishing poles.

Ok, so you spent an entire paragraph telling me how opinions aren't important to you only to follow up with two paragraphs of your opinion. Well, I simply see a lack of critical analysis of your position. On the surface, it is sensible and seemingly obvious. But it fails to deal with legitimate concerns over the structure of our government's balance of power and a person's basic, animal right and obligation to defend one's self. There is nothing more obviously observable in life than every entity's duty to itself, and I believe that to be a natural born, inalienable right. Guns are a tool to equalize the weak against the strong. When they are mishandled, like cars, electricity, knives, gasoline, lighters, firecrackers and etc then people get hurt. Punish accordingly. But just like automobiles are justified despite the corpses you mentioned above, guns are also justified despite the corpses.

Yeah, what kind of leadership is that? Obama voted, as unpopular as his choice was for his base. And I guess I got my question answered afterall. He did plan on voting for it even if the retroactive immunity wasn't removed.