overtone

I would be much less bothered if I thought the Republican Party actually represented the citizens of the United States. That would be simple justice - the citizens getting what they deserved, good and hard. No complaints. Happytalk about Democracy is no excuse for the current Republican Party.

If you read your link there carefully, you will find that the dramatic effects described were large and sudden only locally - in the North Atlantic near Greenland. Although there were measurable global effects from that, they were much smaller and slower. The current AGW is global, very rapid, and essentially permanent - long term, for sure. No one has discovered a geological precedent for such a warming as we face now. At the same time, the resources and capabilities of wild animals have been much reduced by human usurption -they have much less room to move, fewer options for response.

Round three, off and running. The only thing visible "through" all this bullshit is that entire matter is a polarized deadlock of irrational and emotional extremists who can't be trusted with governmental power. And that's been my thesis, as well as (apparently) the general public's perception, throughout. Fortunately, it's not an emergency. Drug dealers and suicides can continue their mayhem without greatly risking the regular citizenry, we can reduce the gun violence in the US via a few long-overdue improvements in matters such as lead poisoning and drug laws and police enforcement behaviors that don't have the "gun control" label dragging them sideways, and after things cool off we can get some reasonable regulation of firearms in this country. The important thing is to take it off the table. It has killed the candidacies of more good politicians than almost any other issue I know, and it wasn't worth a single one of them. If we end up with a Cruz presidency on this issue, as we (arguably) did a W disaster, then that's a damn tragedy.

No post of mine "so calls" bad guys, or good guys. I'm sure you think you were making a point there, but it isn't visible. You quoted the whole post, then went rambling off somewhere - what are you talking about?

So? These people voted for W. Twice. What could they possibly know about decent citizenship? I doubt that. Where would I have said that? Oh yeah, I forgot: you can't read. The words "Republican Party" simply don't register in your brain, even in a post explicitly contrasting the Party with Republicans in general. I'll see your "slums of the cities " and raise you "meth houses of the farm", "suburban drug customers of the inner city", and so forth. The difference being, of course, that the cities of the US are full of decent, capable, neighborly, trustworthy people, and the suburbs are full of clueless, unfriendly, and incompetent assholes who voted for W. Twice. Twice. No excuses. They really didn't know any better than that, care about their country any more than that. They proved it. And nobody who voted for W twice is allowed to talk about anyone else having their reality mixed up.

For stuff they didn't do. We didn't have much choice by then - although Obama famously tried to keep the US out of it. What had destabilized Syria was the invasion of Iraq (including US response to Syria's opposition to it), and then a massive drought. The US did not initially undermine the Syrian government because of the Arab Spring (that came years later), but because Syria refused to cooperate with the invasion of Iraq. W again. You keep bringing him up.

So? Of course one wouldn't expect people who have lost their collective mind to respond to any such approach. They aren't getting any big picture concepts from the Left. They aren't getting anything from the Left. They wouldn't know what the Left was if it was actually signing their Social Security checks "from the Left". No, they aren't. And their media pundits are not going to just have a change of heart one day. Have you been following where these people are getting their news? Listening to their media pundits? It's not a "vent", it's journalism. And if it isn't happening, it's the journalists who should be called out. Having the entire body of the news media ignoring the craziness of the current Republican Party, and treating the rise of fascism to power in this country with respect as a legitimate political ideology, is dangerous, and should be called out. Trying to be specific about where somebody like Mike Huckabee or Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz could "help" is a complete waste of time, unless you specify the planet on which you expect that to happen. They are not, however, "specifically good" people. For example, you're right about those buttons being white and black - yep. And I'm not interested in getting their respect - I'm interested in minimizing their influence on my government. Look: if you think these people are reacting against being confronted and criticized, you are taking their whining and claims of persecution way too seriously. They have not been confronted, not been criticized, not been forced to account for themselves at all. These people have been mollycoddled for forty years, treated with respect for doing and saying stuff no adult should have to put up with from a two year old. They're spoiled, not persecuted. These are tantrums, not grievances. These people are, as Matt Taibbi documented so thoroughly last election, completely full of shit. And it's partly because they have never faced consequences for their behavior, delivered by the people they abuse. Insistence that they need mental help would be directed at those capable of providing it, not the crazy themselves. Meanwhile, if you think they are going to be paying any attention to reason you haven't been paying attention to them. How would they find out about it? The good news is, this is 27% of the electorate. They can be isolated, and stepped on, democratically - the longer you postpone, the harder it will get. Once we had to fight a Civil War. Once we had to endure a Great Depression kicking their teeth in. Once we had to call in the National Guard so that their neighbors's children could go to school - through a gauntlet of these "generally good" people spitting and screaming. Those were consequences of letting things go and hoping they would see reason in small, palatable chunks. They won't.

Invalid reasoning, contradicted by observation. Sane and reasonable regulation of firearms, including such aspects as background checks (including mental health and restraining orders etc) on all purchasers, restrictions on transport and display, protection of children from accident, and various licensing requirements for concealed carrying, are in fact supported by 80 - 90% of all Americans. And they haven't "happened". \ Probably. There aren't very many of them, though. Gun control itself is not what people oppose. I know where "the stats" came from. Do you know why I said "your stats" are bs? Statistics are just facts, more or less reliable as they are more or less carefully compiled. People draw conclusions from them, and that's where the trouble starts. When people draw bogus conclusions in the course of attempting to refute something they've misread in the first place, the validity of the stats themselves isn't even involved. Here's the assertion again: "Statistically, other people's guns are not a significant threat to ordinary citizens in the US. Start there. "

And it's still wrong. The only telling of Republicans I have attempted here is to tell them they should stop voting for Republican Party politicians, because such votes harm their country and betray their fellow citizens. The way the Republican Party is now is unacceptable to sane and decent citizens, and it's continuance in the realms of power is the biggest threat the US faces as a country. Your response has been to deny that it is as I describe it, not to argue that it should be accepted in such a state. You know decent people who are Republicans, therefore the Republican Party itself cannot be the Rat King I describe, you claim. And as far as I know that's the only defense of that Party anybody has - denial of the reality in front of them. How it should be instead is none of my concern. In my opinion no effort should be put into cleaning it up and making it different, but instead it should be shoveled into the gutter where it can drool and rant and bite itself and disintegrate without fouling the thoroughfare. If you want to try to rehab that foul hulk of perverted, bigoted, corrupt, incompetent ugly, and make something worthwhile out of it, go to 'er. But don't vote for any of it in its current condition, ok? It's dangerous.

No, I believe solid research - the stuff that is carefully done and not obviously wrongfooted. And nothing I've posted here - much less the post you quoted - conflicts with any research at all. Nor does it conflict with any reality, or physical fact. Which brings up the point that you think it does. Which makes no sense. Which is yet another addition to my increasingly voluminous compilation of pieces of evidence for my thesis: this issue in the US is - uniquely, unlike almost any other issue - currently a deadlock of irrational and emotional extremists on both sides, and that's why we can't get nice things like reasonable gun control.

To deny their role in causing their problems, they have been forced farther and farther into hallucination, farther and farther from a reality that will not - out of courtesy, say - ever become a different reality, and cease its progress away from them. The progress of the entire juggernaut of crazy depends on amnesia, forgetting the past in order to mistake the direction and deny the destination. The only caveat here is that this is not recent: Trump is just Limbaugh running for office, Gingrich with no political obligations, Coulter with a fat ass and better makeup - Limbaugh has been the central and most significant Republican intellectual since 1992, Gingrich got this monster on its feet in 1994, Coulter has been the best selling Republican hit man for twenty years now. What's the difference between that and losing one's mind? Losing one's footing in reality and losing one's mind are the same thing. We now have essentially every single pundit on the major media doing the "both sides" whackdance on this stage, trying to find some way to fit Donald Trump into a play about sane and competent adults belonging to a legitimate political Party democratically governing a major industrial power according to a commendable set of values, and it's becoming clear that what started in tragedy is going to end - as foreshadowed by Ronald "Quotes" Reagan and spotlit by Sara "Winks" Palin - in farce. This isn't anything new, folks. This is the incoming Republican political world since 1968, the power takeover of 1980, the consolidation of 1994, the consummation of 2000 (remember the giddy celebration of W's win that year? The fireworks and chestbeating of Mission Accomplished? How much fun it was to call all those whiny liberals "traitors" before they turned out to be, once again, right? You can still find the remnants on Youtube).

In other words, exactly what I recommended is presented as an objection to my posting. Another illustration of where the reasonable folks, 80 - 90% of whom (as I) favor sane and well-considered gun control measures in the US, get their mistrust of gun control advocacy, and dig in their heels when asked to hand power to irrational people with ill-considered and bogus arguments for authoritarian governmental impositions. No, it isn't. Your stats are bs, your arguments are deadlocks between polarized extremes of irrational vendetta, and the ideological basis of your recommendations is dangerously authoritarian. Statistically, other people's guns are not a significant threat to ordinary citizens in the US. Start there.

In the US the distinction would vary considerably by State. In my State we have "townships", areas under a single governance that may or may not (almost all do) include an actual "town". Back in the 1970s many but not all legally incorporated "towns" and "villages" were converted from "charter cities" to "statutory cities" - meaning they had to have or arrange for certain bureaucratic duties, had to have accountable officials of certain kinds, etc, in order to gain certain privileges regarding zoning and taxation etc - http://www.lmc.org/page/1/cities-and-towns-townships.jsp. So in Minnesota there are no legal "villages"any more, and the word is not common - it's a term I associate with stories about people who live far away or long ago, like "hamlet" - while vernacular "towns" are anyplace with shopping (the word interchanges with "city" at any level below "big city" or "the city"). So where I live, originally a village and now a legal city, is either a town or a city depending on who's talking and why. And this entity is afaik always called a "town" if it's called anything: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birchwood_Village,_Minnesota, although legally it's a "city" and the residents put some effort into keeping the term "village" associated with it by changing the official name of what is officially a city. Calling something a "village" in my area nowdays attaches implications of small, quaint, friendly, honest, cute, safe, old-fashioned, slow, rural, fun to visit, etc etc. People use the term for marketing - shopping centers, tourist attractions of one kind or another. The other common use is in connection with "idiot", as in "somewhere there's a village that really misses this guy" or "y'know, we should call his village and see if they'll take him back". Compare this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welch_Villagewith the "town" closest to it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welch,_Minnesota. Notice that there are at least two "towns" closer than the "nearest city" to the ski lifts: Welch and Vasa. These are actual towns, in a sense - they have some shopping - but they are both unincorporated, and therefore not legal cities but rather densely populated subregions of the associated townships. And anyone talking about "Welch Village" is talking about the ski resort - not the town. And all this is in Minnesota. Different States, different laws, different vernacular. For contrast, try Louisiana. And thanks, - I had fun.

Why yes. That's a fairly common response to such history as they have experienced. (Notice the historical background of the US Constitution and subsequent legislation in this arena). Agreed, as always when you post things like that. What's the point? One of the side issues illustrated there is the fact that Congress cannot mandate a background check for private gun sales because it would impose an undue burden on the seller. This is not a property of the universe, but an incapability of current US governance. If it were easy and cheap and quick to run a gun-purchase background check on anyone buying a gun, which it could be, it could be mandated without violating the US Constitution.

If you don't want to be associated with these guys, CATO and Heritage and Wattsupwiththat and Fox and so forth, if it feels weird, don't link to them and describe their bs as a "nice summary of some of my concerns". They are easy to avoid in themselves, and their strong influence on the rest of the news media and public discussion means you won't miss out on anything they provide. Here's a rundown on the problem: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/28/meet-the-climate-denial-machine/191545 sample relevant here:

But they clearly didn't - they published error bars and ranges, clear description of their assumptions etc, and numerous revisions of their results and conclusions as new information arrived, in public and on the record. And they clearly discarded the high sensitivity models in making their summaries, going with the lower ones.

That's not common, especially among non-criminal private citizens, but does happen. So? For one thing, because it's so often contradicted by other stuff they say and the actual legislation they support. And it's not just the "gun lobby" noticing this. Tell that to the Bosnians. How about the Ukrainians? But you have had a good run, at least among proper Europeans since the Berlin Wall fell, of various unarmed people not being subjugated by men with guns. May it continue. In the US, of course, the oppression of disarmed black and red people is fresher in mind. I was responding to this post you made: " Besides that, most of the civilized countries the world already have gun control and live far more safely than the USofA because of it. " . Clearly I don't have to have any idea of your immediate personal circumstances, or even which country you live in, to respond. I only need an adequate familiarity with most of the civilized countries in the world, which you chose to speak for.

You have to have the firearm to compare, and reasonably intact bullets recovered. Also, it can be manipulated - the gun physically altered afterwards to give a different signature if compared. The isotope signature is on file at the manufacture, and the powder embeds in everything - hands, clothing, the bullets.

Did you notice how that happened? Did you notice we had almost complete agreement about all that stuff? So do most Americans. It isn't much different. That's my point. Your estimate of your safety is maybe a bit careless, and your ascription of your safety to your gun control even more so.

Fortunately for the mootitude of the correctness of my position, however irrelevant here, it is shared by many. It is you, not me, who is failing to take the Republican Party into account. It is the political facets of Republican Party that I find wrong. "We" don't all have the political proclivities, agenda, and tactics of the Republican Party. It is a damaging agenda, and horrible behavior, and something has to be done about it if we care about our country. Nobody in the entire country has been more taken into account, catered to, granted privilege and power unearned - for forty five years now - than Republicans.

Sure they can. But in the current reality, the Republican Party is the main source of bad stuff, and a source of essentially no good stuff. The decent people and adult citizens of the US have a moral duty to enforce the will of free and civilized people on the current Republican Party. It's community self defense. The Republican Party is most definitely not on my team. My team does not incorporate such agenda and behavior, and I would abandon it immediately if it did. As I have said before, I don't. Why do you keep posting that? And what difference would it make to me, of there was nobody left to be right? I don't need any help typing these things.

And gun control advocates often cite benefits from gun control only available by somehow making all those guns go away - that's a threat. I didn't miss it, I illustrated its foolishness. It's irrelevant - you describe a situation where having a gun makes no difference. There are many such. Fine. So what? People carry them (so they say) for the other situations. No, I don't. I keep quoting you saying that, obviously thinking you are making some kind of point, as evidence for my thesis.

So? Besides noting the undercounting (the reduction in breakins of occupied dwellings noticeable in high-gun neighborhoods is not even estimated, for example. The most common self-defense benefit expected - rightly or wrongly - from a gun, is the crime that does not happen because a gun is or might be present. ) we also note that "millions" of such events are not necessary for the gun owner's argument. You are interpreting the stat backwards. If guns worked perfectly for self defense, the only people shot would be by accident - most likely the gun owner, mishandling.

So: 1) I never say that, and that's not the strong form of the argument. 2) Everybody knows the Constitution can be amended. So do that, or quit bitching about it, ok? 3) Do you realize that having a whole bunch of gun control advocates describe the Constitution as a "piece of paper", "just an old bit of paper", and so forth is one of the major factors killing gun control in the US? I'm tempted to just quote that, and add it to the list. Not "lunacy" - wrong, silly, and threatening. Wrong: you "need" a gun (if ever) whenever you are small, old, female, frail, slow, solo, sick, asleep at home, sitting in a car, or in any other way the physical inferior of your assailant(s). Silly: That's the most common situation that people carry guns for - not to get in gunfights, for pity's sake. Threat: how are you planning to see to it that in the US the other guy does not have one of those 300 million guns? It's oblivious. You've been lucky - that's nice.

Please cite some foolishness but not the Constitutional stuff that most bothers the wary and occupies the center of the public debate. That will do. Or the lead quotes in posts 905 and 919. Or this: That's what, two pages back in this very thread? If it's not silly enough for y'all, search the first few pages for the stuff about how the country is awash in murderous gunslinging, complete with 30k+ killed by gunshot every year, and so forth. Or you can look up the last time somebody claimed that 1) gun control advocates were not talking about confiscating people's guns, next to 2) the prevalence of guns was causing all this mayhem that had to be stopped, next to 3) {deleted claim re Constitution does not protect private firearm possession}. Hello?