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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
@The Iranian response: I get the distinct impression that a bunch of ministers and aides had a lot of fun with a hilarious overnighter coming up with that... just because you don't get amusement like that often.
Would like access to some of the dare doodles.
edited 9th Mar '15 5:49:58 PM by Euodiachloris
Yeah... that open letter actually prompted me to write to my Congressman (newly-elected John Katko, Republican) urging him to denounce the tactic. Whether he does or not will probably decide whether I'll even consider voting for him next election cycle.
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"Hilarious response from Iran. And very appropriate!
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Somebody cribbed the UK Foreign Office playbook (not surprising), or has binged on Yes Minister recently (also not surprising).
Zarif on Have I Got News For You, plz.
Ironically, the people I complain the most about SWAT Teams are very ardent defenders of the right to bear arms. Mind you, I support the 2nd amendment rather fervently myself. But if we're going to have body armor and AR-15's legal...the police should have them too.
Leviticus 19:34@ The thread being left-leaning: I have no problem with that if it's where the thread naturally goes. As I've said before, I'm not in the business of entertaining false equivalence to keep everyone from getting their feelings hurt. I also wish conservative tropers would, you know, come here and debate with us instead of sitting in other threads (or other websites) and whine about how they're voices aren't heard. But I also believe that this thread is seriously bullshitting itself hardcore if it thinks that it's civil, honest and fair 100 percent of the time. That goes for any thread, obviously.
If you want to point out the internal turmoil leading to fractures in the Republican party, by all means do so, but don't break out the champagne when 2022 or 2050 hasn't actually rolled around yet for the progressive liberal happy place to be a reality. Anything can happen between now and then, and we shouldn't gloat about this isn't the case.
@ The humanities and scientific hardness: fields of study such as psychology, sociology and even literature and art are often supported both directly and indirectly by hard sciences like neurology, ecology and mathematics. Rhyming couplets, iambic pentameter and the Italian sonnet are designed the way they are for specific mathematical and neurological reasons related to how we are attracted to certain prosodics and visual-spatial concepts. These reactions, interpretations and invocations can be collated, measured and duplicated. There's a reason why certain themes and genres keep appearing over and over again throughout human history, and it's not for totally subjective artsy-fartsy reasons.
Looking at a Rembrandt painting or doing your taxes is going to trigger a specific electrical and chemical response in the brain just like a love song would or, more relevantly, seeing the silky smooth legs of an attractive female news anchor who's babbling about something totally inaccurate like Obama's birth certificate or climate change.
edited 9th Mar '15 7:50:31 PM by Aprilla
I was thinking about something. 3D printing, and guns. What kinds of problems do you think will happen if anyone can 3D print a gun? Pistol or assault rifle. I'm not talking about in the near term, but later on, when 3D printers get more advanced, cheaper to get ahold of, etc. How would society deal with that, when the criminals are ignoring the gun laws and are now making their own guns easily, and the law-abiding citizens aren't?
Guns are easy to come by. 3D guns are just one of those You Can Panic Now bullshit things that won't really change anything.
Well I imagine hospitals would be packed with people missing fingers because 3D printed guns are fucking awful.
But regardless it's not the citizen's job to be cowboys and go shooting criminals themselves. That's for the police to deal with.
And if it gets to that point then these criminals are gonna get some serious heat after them as that's illegal arms manufacturing and trafficking. So it won't be some chubby beat cop after them it'll be the FBI and CIA and friends and they don't fuck around.
It's easier, safer, and less illegal to just go buy a proper gun with the serial numbers filed off.
edited 9th Mar '15 7:59:49 PM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?See, I'm fairly conservative in some regards but I've mostly given up with fighting with people online. Completely abandoned visiting most of the religion and LGBT threads to that end. Just gets me stressed out. Still get sucked in once in awhile but, meh.
Poll says Fox News is most trusted network in nation.
I'm absolutely shocked, who'd have thought fox news viewers believe what they say?
edited 9th Mar '15 8:09:52 PM by Joesolo
I'm baaaaaaackRe Fox News: That is the problem: we can't just write off everyone who votes Republican as gullible fools, any more than they can logically do the same to Democratic voters. The misinformation is bad in and of itself, but it feeds into a self-reinforcing world view that conditions the individual to seek out information sources that confirm that same world view. It's not really any one person's fault that they've fallen into that trap, and most of them are genuinely well-meaning.
We aren't fighting a war of ideology; we are fighting a war of fundamental cultural paradigms.
@Aprilla: Nobody is taking 2016 for granted. When the time rolls around, I'll be volunteering for the Clinton campaign (or the Biden campaign or whoever) to canvas my local neighborhood to get people out to vote, just as I did in 2012. We're fighting for the soul of our country and complacency is not an option.
What I decry are passiveness and resignation: the idea that because we can't have everything we want, what we do have is not worth fighting for. Clinton may not be the ideal candidate, but she is by far the best candidate who stands a good chance of being elected.
Re 3D printed guns: Our gun culture is a critical problem. These new ways of manufacturing, however reliable (or not) they may be, aren't going to change the fundamental issue at hand, which is that there is essentially no barrier to any individual owning as many firearms as they want. Furthering this issue, there are so many guns in private hands that any serious attempt to take them away is virtually impossible even if we cleared the political hurdles. I'm not a fan of private gun ownership but I don't see a way out of the mess we've made.
If some nitwit right-winger wants to blow off his own fingers because he printed a gun on his HP Deskjet [/sarcasm], that's fine with me. You can't fix stupid.
edited 9th Mar '15 8:31:30 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"3D-Gun printing will probably not be a huge problem in the future. While sure, I'd imagine a lot of street gangs might come to rely on it, it'll probably never be more practical then just buying a gun legally.
If anything, 3D Printing will be making things better off. Criminals will be using stupid plastic guns, while citizens will be buying real firepower legally.
Leviticus 19:34Pfft, criminals that are not of the Darwin Awards winning variety will find ways to get real guns too. If it's available for law-abiding civilians to purchase, it will find its way into the hands of the non-law-abiding ones. This is a fundamental truth that our culture seems to willfully ignore.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Interestingly there's statistics to suggest that these insane amount of firearms are concentrated in relatively few hands, and that the proportion of owners is decreasing even as the number of firearms owned goes up (almost said number of owners, but i'm not sure on that). I remember an article about Scott Walker and the counties that vote for him being passed through here, and they indicated that gun ownership rates were only about 40% (as a rate of households, mind, not of individuals) even in these blood-red counties. In Milwaukee itself, it was something like 10%. And yet we have as many guns as people in this country (or more).
It could just be that we're seeing increased stockpiling in the hands of police departments (via military surplus), shooting ranges (to a lesser degree), and the hardcore gun enthusiasts.
This makes me envision vast bunkers and armories in or near the homes of that small portion of the population who fetishizes guns, containing hundreds or thousands of weapons. Will we one day classify it as an addiction, similar to hoarding? Will buying your first handgun be considered a "gateway drug"? It would be funny if it weren't so serious.
I'm suddenly reminded of those shows that aired a while back. On Discovery I think?
All about these doomsday prepper people with bunkers in their backyards and how they talked about their plans to raid their neighbours for food.
Then the police saw the show and confiscated everything because it turned out most of them were felons and were barred from owning firearms.
Oh really when?Oh, Darwin Awards hopefuls, how we marvel at thy magnificent idiocy.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Gun control is one of those issues where I'm to the right of the general left-wing sentiment, but I would point out that at least some large gun collections are because some people are legitimately gun collectors — they don't have racks and racks of identical AR-15s in preparation for the apocalypse, they have individual examples of specific models the same way other people collect stamps or coins. (Admittedly, you can't shoot anyone with a stamp or a coin, but you get my point.)
Personally, I think gun violence is a symptom, rather than an issue in and of itself. I'd much rather see things like increased access to mental health resources (to prevent spree shootings) and reform in the economic and judicial system (to prevent everyday non-headline-grabbing shootings) than to see crackdowns on gun possession. But that's just me.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Yea, Militarized police are a joke compared to actual military forces, in numbers, training, and equipment. And even then, there's no way it'd happen in numbers. Most people across the country aren't looking to revolt. It'd be a handful of crazies.
I'm baaaaaaack