ashw_justin

It's easier to wash 10 underwears than 10 pants

That only happened after our federal government surrendered the people's airwaves to private interests.

I think most of us have similar thoughts, whether we admit it or not. There is a huge disparity between the killing power of an average citizen, and a gun nut. Indeed, under our national policies, handguns are so easy to get, that it makes idiots out of those who would rather not carry them. It is a dangerous situation that none of us appreciate being put into. And this is definitely a fear issue. The question that really needs to be answered is this: assuming I choose (or am forced) not to carry a handgun, how is our system going to protect me from gun violence? -take away all of the guns? (debateable, but certainly would make them harder to get, and more expensive...) -prevent civilian ownership of semi-automatic weapons? (but how will we exercise our 2nd amendment rights to rebel against the oppressive gov't?! or in other words, how will we kill cops then ) -increased security? (Armed guards at all public buildings?) -more sensitivity to personal warning signs? (more handholding sessions? or Patriot Act III?) -technology? (Tamper-proof tracking device embedded in all guns, triggers alarms in gun-free zones?) But we better try to find an answer soon, because I bet it's a good day to be a gun dealer. And I'm willing to bet that the ones going out and buying guns right now include a lot of folks who would be better off without them...

This page loads fine in Firefox 2.0.0.3 for linux, except that scrolling is a little messed up (pgup/pgdn not affected).

CNN is not news. Real reporting: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003647571_webuwshooting02m.html

I'm totally joking btw, hell, why not leave shit hanging. Few people seem to care, least of all those with any authority in the matter.

But, are you sure that it is possible to hang draws and redpoint in the same day? This makes me glad I'm weak enough not to have to worry about such dilemmas.

Neither party respects independent thinking. It would give too much power back to the people. But shouldn't this be under that "Senator Kline is a Dick" thread?

Yeah, I know many climbs are now bolted expecting draws to be fixed. I just wanted to point out the non-malicious possibilities.

Two legitimate reasons for a climber to remove draws come to mind immediately: 1) he/she wants to place their own draws 2) he/she does not trust their life to someone else's draws Given either of those possibilities, is this climber compelled to put the old draws back when they are done? Personally I think not. Although I could see leaving them on a bolt instead of tossing them or whatever. (But I have no connection whatsoever to this 'incident,' I am just theorizing.)

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So be it. I say let the voters decide, not the parties. I'm tired of this bipartisan oligarchy and its stranglehold on the electoral system.

Care to explain? Are you saying that these kids would be burning books instead, if the trillion dollars were being spent on books instead of bombs? Their message (albeit offensive) is pretty clear: down with the war. But let's go ahead and keep pretending that only radical fringe groups feel this strongly about it.

I'd like to see more of this so that we can stop voting for the lesser of two evils: http://www.instantrunoff.com/ If all of Nader's votes had defaulted to Gore in 2000...

Too bad most of the hard cracks are some kind of off-fingers

That's a great point (I hope I didn't come off sounding like I'm in complete disagreement). Surely ruining someone's life isn't going to help them become a civil human being. It's sad that we think we can just toss people in prison and forget about them, much in the way that we think that we can make our garbage just disappear (I'm not saying that people are garbage, just talking about the psychology of the discarder). I just think it's a huge mistake to portray people as not having control over themselves, or using some handwaving excuse for psychology to suggest that people are not accountable for their actions. It's precisely because people are accountable for their actions, that they have any hope of being civilized.

Dude. I am not arguing against your social/political beliefs on the justice system. I am arguing that the quote at the top of this thread presents a ridiculous argument: that people are not responsible for their actions. I am arguing that the pop-culture pseudoscience espoused by this quack has no place in an argument over criminal justice.

I'm focusing on this: Come. On. We're using this argument in the context of all crimes, including violent ones? Again, rabid dog vs. human being. You're saying that not only can someone be an instinctual killer absent of choice in the matter, but we should also forgive them for it with lightened penalties?

Better think a little harder before you deem criminals irresponsible for their actions, because in doing so you dehumanize them. He who has no control over his actions is a liability to society... If you posit that a wrongdoer has no control over their actions, then you must also conclude that they are unredeemable--incapable of making rational choices not to do wrong. This makes them analogous to a dog who has tasted blood. Do they go easy on a dog who has attacked someone? Take it down to the park to play with some kids so that it feels better? No. They euthanize it before it attacks someone else. Are you a human being capable of self-control, or merely a vicious animal acting on violent instincts? If the former, let's talk, if the latter, well we've all seen Old Yeller.

Unfair treatment. Perhaps with office hours and a non-discrimination policy, her unorthodox style of physical education could have made a difference. Helping young men discover their sexuality, getting knocked up so that some teen girl didn't have to...

Daaaamn yooz a racist fool. Just go with the po-dog stand like I said before. More dumb hungry fratfucks than hoodlums, last I knew.

Sounds like you are already doing everything that you can. Except for setting up a "po-dogs" stand. Perhaps your only hope is that enough shootings will lead to action against the club. If that's true, you're just looking a gift horse in the mouth.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6446183.stm Wait wait wait... WE are the Spartans? HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA I guess I had it all wrong. Here I was thinking that the dark horde, with its decadence and dishonor, represented the imperialistic Great Satan, come to subdue the noble insurgents in their own land.

I'm much more inclined to agree with you on the grounds of social justice than on any economic principle. A person has the right shop wherever they want--totally valid argument. However, I think it's equally valid for someone to argue that they don't want to see a Walmart go up in their community. For every person who wants to pay less, there may be another person who doesn't want a box store in their town. You may not respect their reasons, but they do have a right to oppose it through any legal means available. As an aside, for every 'price-fixing retailer' there is a greedy developer pulling the same strings in the local government. No town should be a developers' amusement park, or a virgin canvas for the corporate masterpiece. Development is regulated and subject to the scrutiny of the community. A town ruled by the free market is a slave to the dollar (or appropriate currency), its people left with no say in the way their community develops. Suppose in this case that they don't want the 'buying power' of their community bleeding out through a strip-mall artery to a far off land, never to be seen again. There are always compromises--absolute freedom is an illusion. There is no right or wrong on this issue. Some will get what they want, and others will get screwed, but in the end the community will decide what is best for itself, whether or not this agrees with free market principles. There are plenty of examples of special expenses being levied on the general public to appease the desire of the community as a whole. I could buy a lot more shit at Walmart if I didn't have to pay these school levies, but the community decided to pull some money out of my pockets for the greater good. I am forced to pay these taxes because I live in a community that doesn't accept illiteracy, just as your poor Mexican might be forced to forgo big savings in a community that doesn't accept Walmart. (Although for the sake of argument I am willing to concede that illiteracy is probably worse than Walmart.) But I can't stand to restrain my own leftist intellectual bias any longer-- The tragedy of the box store is that the customers will be dazzled by lower prices for long enough that the local businesses shut down, but will not realize that they are actually buying shittier products, getting abysmal "service", hemorrhaging the value of their local economy to non-local interests, and irreversibly changing their communities for the worse, until it is too late. I call it the "Reliably Tunnel-Visioned Price-Seeker Theory," although the corporate elite appear to have already come up with this theory and made billions off of it.

He [the shopkeeper] can claim whatever he wants, just as the consumer can purchase any "legal product" that they want. In the corporate world, "legal product" means something only due to constant regulation by the government that we have appointed to protect us, against the constant drive to offer products which maximize profit for the corporation, at usually certain expense to the society as a whole*. Anyone has the right to oppose the way in which a corporation does business, going as far as lobbying to redefine the legality of it. Now the likelihood of that succeeding is directly related to political influence, and the validity of the arguments made by the "leftist intellectuals," which under a democratic system depends ultimately on the people/public opinion. If support is too weak, then the lobbying will fail. End. Of. Story. (*which I refuse to refer to as "externalities" because that sounds like a word invented for the purpose of making it easier to disregard the adverse effects of business.) JayB this was almost your point at the outset, and I'm almost guilty of a "strawman"... But in what society do you live where people who take exception to corporatocracy should just STFU? Your clearly biased opinion shows through a veneer of fairness. Don't pretend to care about the poor--your concern is that people are lobbying against a business, a vile sin under the free market dogma. So, explain to me how the criticism of free market capitalism, and concern over the local impact of building a corporate box store, is socially or politically invalid? It sounds like you are promoting a world governed solely by the theories of free market capitalism, instead of one in which people have a right to participate, debate, and shape the society in which they live, whether the almighty Dollar agrees with it or not.