billcoe

Lighten up dude, isn't there already enough angry rhetoric? Make love not war. Go rent a copy of "Nailin' Palin", a Larry Flynt production and you'll be able to get your happy spank on again. Come back with a full TR and a smile on your face will ya? LOL! Of course, just turning off your TV will usually get you most of the way to happy again....

Police shooting at police and 41 shots fired. Here's the associated press report: "Baltimore officer was killed by fellow officers AP By BEN NUCKOLS, Associated Press Ben Nuckols, Associated Press – Mon Jan 10, 8:37 pm ET BALTIMORE – Baltimore police say that fellow officers fired the gun shots that killed a plainclothes officer during a melee outside a nightclub. A 22-year-old civilian was also killed in the early Sunday morning shooting. Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefield III said on Monday that no civilians fired any shots. Officer William Torbit Jr. was on duty in plainclothes when he responded to a report of trouble at the club. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi (goo-lee-EHL-mee) says Torbit was trying to break up a fight when he was attacked and pulled out his weapon to defend himself. At some point after that, officers opened fire, killing the officer. Police say Torbit was wearing his badge but there were no other indicators he was police. The officers who fired are on administrative leave." They were pretty distraught over it.

Damn, looks like I need to post less.

Holy crap, we were all sitting around the office turning up the heat today. Good on your guys for getting on it! Sweetness Plaid!.......uhhh.... is that a slight bit of a halo over Steves head there? Hot damn the man gets some bonus points for patience!

gun control argument OK, here is what I think since you asked Bradley. Unfortunately, a typed out response is generally much shorter and full of holes than a back and forth discussion that might last an hour, so here’s the short version. Remember that it is what I think. Others can and do think differently. Political power is the reason I think guns should be in the hands of citizens. Not hunting. Not self-defense. Its about political control and the balance of power. There. When I was in college, one of the most liberal profs I had (a philosophy professor named Larry Bowlen) shocked me and his entire class with a statement that I am paraphrasing as this “I don’t believe in gun control, in fact I think every citizen should own guns”. In a room full of young liberals you could have heard a pin drop...until the inevitable eruption of arguments occurred with in a few moments. “Uh, but people cant be trusted”, “You mean you want people to have the means to kill you? “What about crazy people and criminals?”...etc etc” What followed was this statement by the prof. “Bottom line, I trust you and all the people I meet, that is, all my students, neighbors and relatives more than I trust any politician. Even random people on the street”. In the long conversation/argument that followed, Bowlen allowed and recognized that there were bad elements in society, and you obviously don’t allow the criminals and the crazy access to the same rights as average honest citizens. For myself, I didn’t agree, but coming from such a highly intelligent person whom I respected so much otherwise, I didn’t forget it and continued to reflect on it. Over time, I came to recognize that what he said contained a lot of truth. Certainly the human nature and some distrust of politicians is in there for me as well. Yet it is wrong for us to think that those who seek power are doing so for the same reasons which we might do so. It is often not altruistic and to make a better world, although it can be, but when it is not, those seeking power for the control alone will often find a way to overcome and eliminate those who are altruistic, kind and gentle. The framers looked for ways to cause natural checks and balances so as to restrict these kinds of imbalances. It seems clear from reading their writings at the time that they felt that an armed population was one of the ways to counterbalance a despots wish to take away things they considered natural freedoms. A quick look around the world and you’ll see some examples. Certainly Stalin and Hitler come to mind, but a study of the history of South America the last century or Southeast Asia will garner you a relatively long and sorid list of power hungry men like Pol Pot and Idi Amin: lesser men seeking control and power over those they rule. For them to be able to garner that control, the population looses it’s freedom. Looking at some of these spots, you see that one of the many things a dictator does to consolidate power and control is gun control. Of course, that isn’t the rational that gets everyone in a country behind the drive to ban weapons, it’s usually some other news story that starts the ball rolling. And make no mistake, in many other countries, those with the weapons have the power. Review the political structure all the countries in the middle east except Israel. That isn’t to say that you can’t have an England, with tight gun restrictions and still a solid democracy, but that’s not the norm throughout the world. For myself, I like this way of life and the freedoms which are so easy to take for granted until they are gone, and don’t want to see it change.

I challenge you to quote where Rob denys this exists. This country is swinging towards totalitarianism. Left wing nut jobs are fine with this, while right wing nut jobs are not. Then there is all kinds of colors in between, like Napoleon (Trash) and me. We see it coming and don't like it and would like to not see it continue. We are probably very close to agreeing across the board on this issue, even though it is hard to get past the fact that he always acts like a prick on this site. Divide and conquer, like the Bone says. Thats what is up my brother.

I don't think we need more control over our speech or our weapons. Certainly back in Ronald Regan's day in an effort to save a buck they started to let out mental patients who were semi-sufficient into society. Yet the conversation of "who is crazy" and "when should they forfeit their freedom" was and is still being carried out to this day and that's what we are looking at here. Mentally ill have rights too. What are they and when do those rights to live free impair our ability to operate with freedom? That is the root question we have here. In the old days many folks like this guy would have been swept up into the system and possibly even neutered so that he couldn't breed. Many people who bumped into this guy thought he should have been locked up. The police were having contact with him before although I can't say what it was. Now we are a kindlier and gentler society and don't do that....we wait for things like this to occur instead. That is the question here. As a society we have let many marginal and not so marginal nutcases loose to live free, free range, fend for themselves. I'm discussing severe mental illness and not talking about nuts like Pat, who basically thinks he's Napoleon and has dreams of grandeur and is harmless. In PDX the other day, the police were called out to deal with an angry, mentally ill homeless person. It led to him being shot and killed by the police when he advanced on them with a knife. What the police chief said in discussing that event is that the police are called and have contact every hour, on average, with a mentally ill person. We have deferred the $ we payed the mental profession to help or lock them up, and have put it onto the police. This is clearly a case of "you can pay me now, or you can pay me later". Yet we can pay for all kinds of mental health workers and you will still cannot get rid of every instance of this kind of thing in a free society. Restrictions on weapons and free speech won't do it. Take for example the case of Nidal Hasan, the Muslim soldier who killed thirteen people and wounded thirty others at Fort Hood just back in 2009. Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire. You going to disarm all of the soldiers? Eliminate all free speech or just all free speech for Muslims? Clearly the answer is no. Where do we go then and still maintain our freedoms? Ivan lays it out above, you get some of this with your freedoms. Probably time to re-read the Voltaire tract Larry posted. Live free my brothers.

Too bad Rob, because of the time restrictions here, you can't name the murder of JFK by Lyndon Johnson.

I have seen nothing but universal condemnation on this attack. Both sides of the aisle throughout the entire country.

Whew, some story campwire. I was grateful to be asked to guide for a local company while it's 3 founders went and climbed K2 25 or so some odd years ago. All 3 were some of the baddest assed climbers on the planet at that time. Many years later one of them, John Smolich still is listed on some Rainier speed records. http://www.wwwright.com/climbing/speed/rainier.htm A brief look at the end for John Smolich and Alan Pennington. Brief it was. 2 of 3 died in that avalanche. http://books.google.com/books?id=1rbQvvxaIeQC&pg=PA153&lpg=PA153&dq=John+Smolich+climber&source=bl&ots=oiNnlvYers&sig=XJjqaI26c_t1jh1kURsLxlkeIr8&hl=en&ei=FoArTbCxNZLksQOF2c2jBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false It's sad, but the risk is known. You can be Alex Lowe, and big mountains don't seem to care and will still kill ya 5 different ways even when you are looking right at it. I often reflect on Jeff Lowe, and some of the stuff he's done and survived in his amazingly jaw dropping and remarkable career. Only to get taken down by MS at a relatively young age. I don't know what all that means, except we all have choices, and we make them.

You should move! You'd be happy as they have this already in Mexico. Very strong gun control. Hows that working out for them? Violence everywhere, guns or not. Kidnappings daily, all kinds of gun violence to the point that 15 headless bodies in Acopoclo the other day hardly hit the front page for 15 seconds.

Let me clue you in Rob cause I like you. You're about to be accused of being fair and balanced and you'll be kicked out of the Libtard club and then attacked endlessly with 6th grade name calling. Having been around mentally ill people, not just Pat Gallager (Posts as tvashtarkatena) and Chode on this board, but up at the VA Hospital, I can tell you that almost all of us are much closer to mental illness than we ever imagine.

Well, your quest to help him out has been cracking me up Dave, but I thought you guys had it nailed down on the other thread. I'd try and fit the words "jackass", and "mean-spirited worthless hemorrhoid Douchefuck" in there someplace as well.

Yeah, go get it! Come back safe with some great stories too!

Zero for 4 it looks like. A nutcase for sure. Your rush to judgment seems to have missed the real fact that per Nitrox's quick sniff, he's a left wing loon, much like yourself apparently. Dude certainly seemed to have that jew hating thing that seems to pop out of your crazy mouth on odd occasions as well. It will escape your notice I'm sure, that more than most people, you preach and spout violence as an answer to your complaints and petty bitches. Get a grip and look at yourself once in a while Chode: try to get your own out of control hate mongering under control so you don't step out of the whack zone. It's not a left wing/right wing thing, it's just a thing. You can't control the rest of the world but you damn sure can control yourself. Start there. Damn sad in either case and it's a hit for our country and all citizens that stuff like this - and things like Chodes normal threats of violence on this board, occurs. Does anyone besides me remember his suggestion that Rush Limbaugh be killed? I have no love for Limbaugh, but freedom of speech is a bedrock of our society and it's total bullshit to be going off like that. Sad to see it all amping up. Sending well wishes to the congresswoman for a full recovery.

We're all hoping that it's not another one where you stick your tongue up a cats ass...

The gov't has been controlling the media as much as they can get away with for years. It's so much bigger than these little republican and democrat spats jb, Trash and The Chode go off on it's crazy. That's just from the times they've been caught, who knows whats really happening?!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird http://partisan-news.blogspot.com/2010/01/cia-controls-media.html Old news, new news it's apparently still all about big money. Not about repub vs dems. M.O.N.E.Y. NPR is part of this gig. Big money lets you send some in to NPR so they can get buy-in on the bullshit. After all, as you all know, "we've always been at war with Oceana". Toss in a few real and true facts on other things and talk fast. Like Rush Limbaugh. Talk fast so they don't sniff out the bullshit. Ask yourself who killed Martin Luther King and then start researching it to see if you even know the answer. The lies and criminal actions some of our fearless "leaders" are playing are likely going to kill our great and (formerly) amazing country. Read the book An Act of State by William Pepper. I just finished it and was shocked, sickened and sad. It makes me even more distrustful of those in power that a handful can do this kind of thing and get away with it. It alludes to the conspiracy to murder Kennedy as being part of the same group of assholes. And we continue to overfund these assholes so that they can continue to do it to us. Shit. We need to cut the funding TO START WITH. REDUCE THE BUDGET AND CUT THE FUNDING THESE SMARMY BASTARDS GET. Honest people need to step up. Yet, it's hard as a citizen to identify those who are honest and those who are greedy selfish powerbrokers. The gov't control of the press, as noted by a recent retired ex-CIA guy in the news stating that the 4th estate is effectively dead. And it's getting worse as government creeps in even deeper. And we are paying for that control over us. Cut the funding. hrump..it's a start anyway, anyway I'm not believing any of this till I see what this chick looks like naked. Pics? (insert screeching train derailment noize here) LOL!

Well Admiral... Mr Jackboot, time to get down off the fantail there and set sail. The shocking part to me isn't that jb hasn't changed one iota since 2005, same tired old carrying on, shrillness, opinionated self-centeredness and hysteria, etc etc, but that you are still responding to him. I've all but stopped and the hysteria he brings has gone down dramatically Archy had some great advice to jb on that thread in 2005, but I'm convinced like always he didn't read past the first word in a sentence which he considers inflammatory: in this case the very first one (get). Cya!

LMAO!!!! Peter, need to add this one now. I think that's more likely a weeks worth, not a years worth. Steven made the call and out it comes:-) So predictably funny. For myself, I like Al Jezebel too, but be aware that many Arab equivalents of jb claim it's an American mouthpiece. Motto: "Fair and Balanced, well....as close to it as an Arabian based news organization can get! Allah Akbar" I don't read or respond to the Choda anymore, but that Jew comment someone quoted above seems worse than his other hatefilled trash talking and over the top even for him. For as little as he knows about anything, I'm surprised he knows so little about Jews.

I think it is very difficult to know what those people are thinking over there. Their timelines seems to stretch out further than ours. Much of what they spew for internal consumption, curiously, never gets reported here. Certainly not on NPR. Here's one. When I was there in 2006 or 2007, I was told by a party member that it was widely and publicly disseminated that the government would re-embrace, through peace if possible or violence and war if necessary, Taiwan (Republic of China) back into the fold. There was a timeline of 5-10 years. I've never seen anything with anything resembling a timeline here in our news, just a notation of general disapproval and that China doesn't recognize Taiwan.

Someone has a stream of Douchery running out of control from their mouth that just can't seem to get stopped.

I think he meant largest market cap Rob. (shares outstanding X share price) In that case, Apple might be an overpriced phone company if you examine Nokias market cap and add in MSFT as well. What goes up will come down. PS, this is from someone who sold Apple too soon, so take that with a grain of salt:-) No that's not really the case Nate. You should do some serious research on Exxon. Interesting story found from digging into Nates link: http://stevenf.tumblr.com/post/359224392/i-need-to-talk-to-you-about-computers-ive-been

There are tax borrow and spend Republicans just like there are Tax and Spend dems. It's just shocking that you are surprised.

Great photography - nice work!

She said that? But was it "Better than Sex"?! We did the short straw/long straw. Scott won. Plaidman, FA leading P1 "Better than Sex". No poison oak was harmed. P2, TBD.