ashw_justin

Are you talking about the 17-year-olds? Yes he's a sick fuck, but it's up to South Carolina and its justice system to decide whether he should die, no?

I don't think you can directly compare the two, at least in the way you are suggesting. In a trial, you are deciding whether a crime occurred or not, the simple fact of which is not influenced by separate events. However the court is allowed to know the public records of an accused person--once it has decided that a crime has occurred. Then you move into sentencing, in which previous history most certainly is taken into account. There the question is not "what happened" but "how do we treat this person," and the latter is more related to gun control.

You forgot to do this part our armies were equally unreliable and a strong militia of self-equipped citizens was essential to repel attacks for which we would have virtually no warning. Or are you going to convince us that there is any conceivable serious attack on the country of the United States of America in which private handgun ownership would make a lick of difference?

The real tragedy is that this videonarcissism of gymbering is ruining all of your chances for doing tapesights.

When a rational and innocent person submits to a cop it is not because he has a gun, it is because the cop is doing his job, i.e. carrying out the 'will of the people' as codified by the law. Those who have a problem with that will quickly realize that they should blame the law and the system that created it, not some random guy trying to make a living. But of course the rational and innocent people are not the problem. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, and that is why we have a police force. The problem with taking violent justice into your own hands is that the common person is not qualified to administer the law, just as your common person would make a pretty terrible math professor without proper education, training, and discipline.

Seems like there are so many more standup knockouts, and knockout upsets in UFC lately... is 'MMA' finally ready for the bloodlusting American audience??? How amazing and how fortunate for the investors that this just happens to coincide with its appearance on cable, for the 'free' enjoyment of all. And it looks like a home run for SpikeTV: execs probably pissed their pants with glee at the sight of real live violence on their very own network. But hey, it's a free country. Until your kids kill someone with their bare hands. Jeez. How did I get so negative? It must have been that video.

I'm aware of why they keep swinging. (I also wouldn't want to get the shit beat out of me because I showed a little mercy.) But since we're on the baseball analogy ('bat against a side of beef' by the OP): when a baseball player hits a home run, he knows it. He doesn't go tear-assing around the bases, and cream the catcher on the way in.

I don't know, I stopped watching the tube years ago. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO THINK NOW!!?? My honest answer though (and this may end up reading like a high school essay), is that the guilt of those of us without an unfair share of the power to influence others (that being most of us) derives from complicity--and we comply with the grand conceit as soon as we start to -believe- more than we -think-, and become too secure in ideas that we've never actually questioned. It is very easy to submit to mental/ideological slavery; all members of a society are susceptible to it. It seems (and I haven't been alive for that long, but I do have eyes, ears, and a brain) that the recent advance of technologies both material and political has made it much easier to control public opinion, and in effect 'enslave' the intentions of large numbers of people by convincing them to believe in whatever is necessary (and yes, I plagiarizing Chomsky now). But in the end, with what measure of free thought we are left with, we have the ability to debate any ideas that leave us unsatisfied. Which is why we are here arguing with each other--so that we have a chance to think for ourselves, and have an opportunity to debate new or competing ideas, that are actually delivered by another human being without pretense. Well now maybe a little pretense... protect the freedom of the internet!!!

I should have clarified that I wouldn't mind a new UW Rock, assuming that the old one was history. Yes, the UW Rock is historically significant and a great training ground. Which is why if they were to knock it down, we'd hopefully expect to get a new one, replete with some good cracks. I wonder though, like mountainmatt, whether in this day age the university would ever allow another one (or even an expansion) to be built. Anyway, what is the latest status on the fate of the UW Rock? Does anyone know? I have a bad feeling that if they are going to tear it down, then they will hide that fact from us for as long as possible.

What do you mean, he only punched the guy a few more times after he was already unconscious... I mean, that's civilized, right?

I also think the sport is respectable and generally 'safe.' These guys are masters of h2h combat. They could tear each other apart limb from limb in seconds, but they don't--because that is not what the sport is supposed to be about. However, this subtlety is almost certain to be ignored by your average boob tuber, and turning the sport into a national televised phenomenon could even change the character of the sport itself. Just look at football. Did the first '60-minute' football games take 3 hours? No. TV did that (among other things).

Alright chodeboy, I'll let your foolishness speak for itself: Methinks someone has been watching a little too much Actually I do have one more thing to say: I respect MMA (and have even loosely followed it), but you know as well as I do that putting it on cable will lead the young and stupid to misunderstand what the sport represents. "Wanna play catch?" "Fuck that sheepfucker, let's beat the shit out of each other like our new TV heroes!!!" The last thing we need are 20 million+ MMA wanna-be's. ps. I don't think that violent footage belongs on the news either, especially since the main motivation for it is to increase ratings.

Lesson: don't get in fights! That's almost vomit-inducing. A strong reason why UFC does not belong on standard cable tv--that shit is way more X-rated than porn.

Really though, isn't the 'guns keep the establishment in line' argument obsolete? The powers that be no longer need violence to war on the people--ideological isolation, televised propaganda, and mass market economics were the 20th century's most powerful weapons. The powerful don't need to subdue the people by force anymore--it just tells them how and what to think, believe, buy, vote. Welcome to the information age! Elections are the new civil wars, and what make us foot soldiers are our votes, not our guns.

I'm not challenging anyone's choice (or right) to carry a gun. I'm not necessarily even saying that it doesn't make you safer. What I am saying is that the wilderness is a dangerous place. It is not supposed to be safe. The safest wilderness is the one that doesn't exist anymore. Yes, I am comfortable saying that the wilderness is dangerous, and that there is nothing you or anyone can do to make it 'safe.' On the other hand, obviously everyone is entitled to feeling safe in their homes, businesses, SCHOOLS, towns, cities. Whether someone else has a gun at home (and whether it makes them safer) is really not my business, and I didn't even bring it up--I don't appreciate that you did. Nor do I appreciate the gender references--men are not immune to violent crimes. Like I said before, the best way to feel safer in the wilderness is to take a partner. There are many risks associated with going out alone, of which animal attacks are only one possibility. That is, unless your partner is

I don't know, if a cougar decides to start attacking hikers then probably its days are numbered anyway. My opinion would depend on where it happened though--if it were deep in the woods, no harm no foul...

Yeah, maybe I'm giving cougars too much credit. I thought they were more dangerous than that.

Probably if a cougar attacks you, it's going to come from behind, and you won't know until it has your neck in it's mouth, no? If it means business, it's probably going to kill you before you can get a shot off. (Based on cougar attack behavior, a hiking partner almost certainly makes you safer than a gun.) And you're going to need more than a pistol for the kind of bear that charges... I could see packing in case of aggressive humans though. God knows how easy it is for people to get guns these days. Are we scared yet?

You could reason that this is no different than a teacher opening up a passed note to read what it says. In that light an on switch is no different than a piece tape holding a note closed. But clearly the kid misjudged you, expecting you to respect her privacy. Guess she should have known better how to 'cover her ass.'

I imagine there was a prehistoric time when adolescents exhibiting poor decision-making just got selected out of the gene pool. Luckily for us in our times we had/have parent types to help us stay alive through our stupid years. Take that, gene pool!

STFU already about the coke people, you don't even know it was coke. But it's an interesting take on the privacy issue. Before the days of ipod, if a student were looking at photos in class, and the teacher confiscated them, he/she would never be challenged for looking at them. But suppose the student instead put the photos back into an envelope before handing them over. Is the teacher allowed to open the envelope? Kind of hard to argue "no." I mean, unless the student says something like "there are private and embarrasing photos in here, please don't look at them."

Beware the claims of 'systems biology' like the ones being made here--numbers alone mean nothing, and these numbers are quite close to begin with. Especially in a field like this one, mindless wonder for scientific claims far outpaces statistical rigor. The news is reporting this before the primary research has even been printed.

I can only hope that they come out with oinking mufflers by then. Or maybe squealing ones. I can't decide.

Has anyone done an analysis of how much fuel is necessary to produce a pig though? By the time you factor in all of the machinery involved in feeding, maintaining, and harvesting the pig, do you still end up with a net gain in fuel? And what about people fat? There seems to be more of that around nowdays... any organ donors in tha house?

But this, like used cooking oil, will only be a "cheaper alternative" as long as nobody is using it. Plus, considering that the pigs have to eat food (fuel) in the first place, why not just cut out the middle man and get the fuel from the food? (The answer, I am willing to concede, is the superior, delicious odor.)