Fairweather

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Lucky, by your logic Fred Beckey should have to pay "royalties" to every first ascensionist in his trilogy. Basically, I think you don't understand the difference between research and plagiarism. And since the latter is a serious accusation, you may want to tone it down just a bit. FWIW.

It's, like, winter. And besides, it's football season!

Today,the North Pole tomorrow, Minnesota!

If you should go skating On the thin ice of modern life Dragging behind you the silent reproach Of a million tear stained eyes Don't be surprised, when a crack in the ice Appears under your feet You slip out of your depth and out of your mind With your fear flowing out behind you As you claw the thin ice --Pink Floyd Ok, sorry, not relevant. But this topic reminds me of the song.

As usual, TTK's poor reading comprehension is matched only by his lagging academic accomplishments. Note, I said "tension," and nowhere did I use the word "accommodate," which you improperly attributed to me. (Exactly who is building a strawman here?) If your version of equality were only about economic opportunities and justice under the law, well, we'd already be standing on the same piece of ground. We all know that you're more of an "outcomes" type of fella. Freedom--particularly economic freedom--is anathema to equality for many of the very reasons you stated in the latter, barely lucid portion of your rant. Not really a shocking proposition. Since you seem to lack the ambition to acquire a proper education, I suggest you examine the Freedom-Equality Model of Political Variations in Milton Rokeach's The Nature of Human Values.

You're talking about the freedom vs equality axis here. And while having both is a nice goal, there is always going to be tension between these two ideals. On the whole gun thing, you might want to read this interesting story in today's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. If you live in Portland, it looks like Obama's ATF has been busy in your neighborhood... http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/atf-uses-rogue-tactics-in-storefront-stings-across-the-nation-b99146765z1-234916641.html

Where do you live that requires the registration and taxation of your guns? There is no gun registration here in Washington State, and I can tell you that it takes local LESA about 30 minutes to renew a concealed pistol license.

I'm having a hard time with this. As another poster pointed out, "force depends on deceleration rate at which the kinetic energy of a fall is absorbed. The faster the deceleration rate the greater the peak load or force on the system." Let's compare this to climbing a rock wall: what you are saying, Tod, is akin to claiming it is easier to hold the fall of your follower when he is, say, 5 meters from the belay than it is when he is fifty. This simply isn't so. If you're talking exclusively about opportunities for rope slack, then your point is probably valid. But if the argument is limited to dynamic ropes--kinetic force applied as a function of deceleration over time--then it seems to me more space between climbers is better as the deceleration time is longer, hence, peak load is lower. What am I missing here?

I dunno, Bezos's and SPD's little drones might provide for some good entertainment.

I've got no problem with departments having a drone or two--unarmed and used only to survey unfolding situations. But I have no desire to live my life with drones buzzing overhead. The proliferation of surveillance cameras is bad enough.

They've also done a pretty horrible job screening their cadets and purging hotheads and other undesirable officers from the ranks.

The police, generally speaking, have no political agenda--although a few metropolitan police chiefs certainly do. My belief is that police should be more than "law enforcement." They should integrate themselves with the communities and people they serve. My harping notwithstanding, I like cops on bicycles for this very reason. As for the criminal armed with an AR rifle, well, we just don't see this very often--except, of course, in recent mass shootings. And I would point out that our well-armed police forces have been largely ineffective responding to these tragedies. I would propose that the gun culture has been just as effective ginning up sales in the law enforcement business segment as they have with civilians. Do you believe our "well-equipped" police should have drones hovering routinely over our cities? To me, this sounds like a very bad idea. Again, my opinion, police departments should not look like this:

While it's impossible to deny the problems this country has meting out equal justice, I'm more worried about the militarization of law enforcement. Of course the police unions, mayors, chiefs, etc. regularly claim they are "outgunned" on the street, and this is why they need armored vehicles, drones, helicopter gunships, and military tactics to take down a convenience store robber armed with a machine-stamped .25 caliber piece of junk (or a native-American wood carver armed with a knife). And of course, they always run that video from years back of the Hollywood bank robbers who were, in fact, armed with illegal weapons to justify the notion that we the people, for all intents and purposes, need soldiers on our streets. Police shouldn't be acting like soldiers, IMO. If it walks like a duck, flanks like a duck, shoots like a duck, or hovers like a duck...

Your friend and mentor, TTK, believes that felons should remain franchised--even while serving their sentence. Should these felons keep their guns too? And at what point should someone who has been declared mentally unstable/deficient/whatever have their right to own a gun restored? Never? If I recall, the gun purchase form says something like "have you ever been declared mentally..." We may very well be talking past each other here, but all of our rights deserve a strong defense. Even the ones that are an affront to our sensibilities.

My mistake, I guess. I guess you agree with me re: gun control. Regarding denying one right but not others: you mean like, taking away a drunk driver's driver license but letting keep his right to vote? I guess you're right, it's not consistent. But why should it be? Why should you have to lose all of your rights all at once? Why not lose just some, depending on what your infraction is? I dunno, I guess I don't understand what you're asking. Not trying to dodge, I just don't get what you're asking. For the record, though, I typically don't like systems wherein somebody can't earn their rights back. I don't know if that's relevant but I'll throw it out there. Rob, when we say "rights" within the legal context that we're discussing, we mean constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. You keep trying to draw comps to driving--because it's easy. But, c'mon, you can't possibly be this dense. Seriously?

Sure, you just disagree with any effective means of enforcing limits on gun ownership for felons. Like universal background checks. I do not know how I feel about convicted felons and voting, I guess I don't know enough about it. I mean, I know the basics -- felons can't vote until their rights are restored? However, I am not aware of any law that prevents the mentally ill from voting. Is that common? 1.) Please do show me where I've ever opposed universal background checks. I'd love to see it. (I certainly do oppose gun registration.) 2.) You're missing the point (no, probably dodging it) re voting rights. In what way is denying certain people one right while upholding their other rights consistent? I'd like to hear your thoughts. I can guess what they are, so you might want to think it through carefully. (Which, I realize, is not something you're accustomed to doing.)

Reading comprehension, Rob. I've never anywhere said that the mentally ill or felons should have their 2nd Amendment rights in full. Let me ask you this: do you believe that the mentally ill and/or convicted felons should have their voting rights left intact?

Yes, Prole, and if I recall correctly you once described both Republican Spain and the German Wiemar Republic (est. 1919!) as your political ideals. Who wouldda thought you were so vicious!

but the SCOTUS already ruled that controls on gun ownership is not unconstitutional. Another moment of cognitive dissonance? Just clench your teeth, it'll pass. Yes they did--in a round about way. But in the Heller 2008 decision, they clearly defined gun ownership as an individual right. Rob, TTK, & Co. can parse that sentence and semicolon in the 2nd until the cows come home, but it's a done deal. (BTW, Ben, this same decision also rendered DC's ban on handguns unconstitutional.) Anyhow, Rob can tell us all that he has no authoritarian bent, but the logic that flows from his belief system in pretty easy to follow: permits for the press, speech, petition, association, and even, perhaps, religion along with his regulation of the second freedom. Fact is, Rob is a sheltered Seattle simpleton who has no clue how or where he stands on much of anything.

One of my Ed Abbey favorites: "Guns don't kill people; people kill people. Of course, people with guns kill more people. But that's only natural. It's hard. But it's fair."

Mr Ben, you are wise beyond your years.

I have zero interest in outlawing guns -- I just want to see them properly regulated with mandatory universal background checks, training and licensing: just like we have with cars (which are another possibly lethal implement which has been very successfully regulated) As a gun owner myself, I cant even begin to fathom why any rational individual would be against universal background checks and licensing. Imagine if we treated cars like we treat guns. Shudder! Cars are probably the single most heavily regulated thing we own... guns are largely unregulated... cars kill more people than guns, even if you factor in suicide. They kill more people unnaturally than anything, for that matter. If you leave suicide out of the equation, I think it's like 3:1, in fact. I'm not sure how your car analogy is supporting your argument for regulation There's also that pesky constitution thing that Rob & Co. can't get past. Guns are a protected right; cars aren't.

Rob's stat is BS.