tvashtarkatena

Bill's implication: It WILL happen here if we restrict guns because: a) The events in Mexico happened AS A DIRECT RESULT OF THE RESTRICTION OF GUN OWNERSHIP IN !968. OF COURSE, THERE WAS A LONG GESTATION PERIOD....and b) the USA is EXACTLY LIKE MEXICO and c) if two countries are exactly alike then the same type of policy will produce EXACTLY THE SAME RESULT. d) (My personal favorite) The 1968 gun law made the following (not concurrent) generation of Juarezian's EXTRA HORNY. DENYING AGING FATHERS THE RIGHT TO FREELY OWN GUNS DRIVES SONS TO RAPE AND MURDER. This kind of wisdom is essential for making voting wisely. Consider Bill's choice for president, for example.

Well, not really. Join ownership includes only what you acquire together after marriage. If you own a car or a house or a pet mammoth beforehand, it remains 100% yours if you still continue to pay it off in full after the nuptials. That is, if you're wife isn't a stay at home housewife/mom, or she doesn't help with any of the payments on your stuff. Then things can get more complicated. So don't worry. If you get some chick preggers, she can't touch your beer bottle collection or Bjork boxset.

Shouldn't you be preparing for fatherhood, or was that the other kid....

You've just unwilling funded the bail out of the climbing porn industry.

My wife dissapproved of the black backround, but I had the power of the veto. For ice pics, there really isn't any other choice. Thanks all for checking in. I added a 'Forest' gallery last night. Personally, I think forests are the most difficult subject to capture. Oregon (lived there for 2.5 years) has some amazing flowers, for sure. The Gorge alone has about five climatic zones between Hood R and Portland, both E to W and top to bottom. The variety is incredible.

Your ward finally got Wi Fi?

It can be difficult to determine how Bill's mind works. Or if it works. Regarding Prole's debt repayment strike: we could call it the March of the Deadbeats. I happily paid my student loan back, on time, at 10% interest (a decent rate in those days), during a recession, so kindly STFU, you fucking little whiner.

Personally, as a voter, I've seen nothing that Obama's done so far that contradicts what he campaigned to do. He's picking a Lincoln style cabinet; a philosophy I agree with. It's probably helpful to remember that he hasn't been sworn in yet, so he actually hasn't really done anything as president. Still waiting for that list of Prole cabinet picks. Love to hear who you think would better represent me and everyone else here who voted the ticket.

That ain't nuthin. My wife (before she became my wife) had over 500 OW dives and several advanced certifications (night diving, wreck diving, cert. divemaster, cert. OW instructor, etc.) before she got bored with it all and took up windsurfing and climbing. Unless you were being sarcastic, Rudy, in which case, forget everything I just wrote. Yeah, well, I found the Titanic on a free dive, after I'd lost a fin, so fuck off.

Obama's tax plan had a break even point of about 250K - above that you pay more, below you pay less. I voted for him fully believing that he would not be able to cut mine nor anyone else's taxes, given the current situation. I never vote for anyone based on tax policy alone, or even tax policy as a primary reason. That's voting your pocket book, and that's bullshit. I voted for him because I believed he'd be an asset to this country in that job, given the challenges we face, and his rival would have been a liability.

Just finished. So far, there are three photo galleries: Alpine, Macro, and Ice, and I plan to add a fourth: Forest, pretty soon. There are also some videos and other stuff. linky Pat

I'd be interested in seeing who Prole's ideal cabinet picks would be.

The Wrath of Khan sucked donkey dicks at ten cents a herd. Why didn't Scotty have the courtesy to die BEFORE that series of movies was made, and save us all the horror of seeing the ravages of the aging process overstuffed into their original Go Go unies? The original Star Trek was great kitch. Some say every situation in life is covered by at least one episode. Remaking it, however, was beating a horse that should have stayed dead.

Not to mention that every time we torture we violate U.S. law (we have ratified the Geneva Conventions, which explicitly prohibits mistreatment of prisoners, including humiliation, anywhere, anytime. Under the Constitution, ratified treaties become federal law). Question: are there those among us who do not believe we should abide by the rule of law? If so, how would our democracy function if our rulers can do whatever they feel like?

The South African experience proves you dead wrong. Crime rates in Joburg are among the world's highest. Because of this many homeowners are armed. Because of this, many burglars enter and shoot the first person they see, assuming the owner is armed. Out of desperation, homeowners contract with private security firms, who respond to tripped alarms. They fire two shots in the lawn, then come in blasting. Many homeowners are shot by their own private security firms every year due to false alarms. The proliferation of guns has turned what would be simple property crimes (which suck, admittedly) into homocides. Just sayin. The 'common sense' that's behind many of these gun arguments is very often 180 degrees wrong. Almost everyone I knew in Montana growing up loaded their own ammo. I see this as a corporate run for monopolistic practices. The essence of this law will make large weapons corporations the only place to get ammo and they will then control the price more easily. I am talking about keeping gun laws and ammunition access pretty much the way they are. I doubt that you are arguing that if we keep going with the laws that currently exist, we will end up like South Africa. Right? I would argue that there are other variables in the mix that make S Africa a different scenario. No, that wasn't my argument. I simply gave an example of a society where the popular wisdom that 'an armed society is a polite society' has seriously backfired. Our own society did the experiment as well; during the 'winning of the west', when the habit of carrying a personal firearm was at a it's all time historical high...and so were violent crime rates, at least in as much as they were iomperfectly tracked at the time. Of course, there were other factors, such as the dearth of women (to mitigate the violence levels) in many western settlements at the time. Mods, it's really about time somebody fixed the fucking quote problem. Is it really that hard to pre-place the cursor after the last

Fortunately, we are soon to be lead by a more principled person with higher moral values than FW, JayB, and their low culture friends. American torture will become a shameful memory rather than a nightmarish reality.

$2000 worth of unmarked ammo.

MY best friend is from the UK, we've discussed this issue at length, and, yet again, you're dead wrong. The problem in the UK is a) Much laxer laws against violent crime, which allows all kinds of hooliganism; bar fights, muggings, etc, to take place there that wouldn't fly here and b) The greater difficulty of bringing civil suits, which produces the same result. Gun ownership has little or nothing at all to do with it. If gun ownership were more lax in the UK, the result would be utterly predictable: the hooligans would be the first to own them, and more innocent people would die.

I'm surprised a supposed libertarian like you would espouse such a cavalier opinion about your privacy rights and the danger of giving them up, particularly the naive "I've got nothing to hide" argument. This argument makes several wrong assumptions: The government never makes a mistake. They won't misinterpret your conversations and ruin your life. The government is always well intentioned. FBI agents get promoted by convicting people. If you look enough like a terrorist duck, some special agent just might use you to advance his career. Terrorism cases take on a momentum of their own, at some point. Once you're past that point, you're fucked. Their typical modus operandi, successful in many cases, is to threaten you with designation as an enemy combatant. Your lawyer then strongly advises you to take a plea bargain for, say, 5 to 10 years, and you know what? Everybody takes that deal, because Enemy Combatant status means deep dark hole forever. The government won't intentionally build a false case against law abiding dissent groups (it has, many times). For example, we now have a democratic administration. What it they DO decide to confiscate your guns, and use all of their surveillance powers to ensure you comply? If their were a large scale attack, such as the one that just occured in India, do you really think this is such a remote possibility? "Can't happen! 2nd Amendment!" you cry. BULLSHIT. Bush has trampled all over the Constitution since he took office. Any president could do the same. The final argument has to do with the health of democracy. Democracy depends on a free and unfettered press to inform the public as to what it's government is doing. For example, what's really happening in Iraq? If the government listens to every overseas conversation (which it currently has the legal power to do), and has security intel ties with other governments (which it does), then in certain sensitive areas, do you really think anyone on the other side of the phone is going to speak freely and openly, knowing that they may be detained and tortured by their own government for doing so? Invasion of privacy without probable cause, aside from being in direct violation of our highest law (we're supposed to be a nation of laws, right?), has a chilling effect on the freedom of the press. Freedom of the press is at the very core of a voting public's ability to know what's actually going on, and make informed voting decisions as a result. Think about it a while. You're little, extremely unlikely "what if my ammo get's jacked" issue is nothing in comparison.

The South African experience proves you dead wrong. Crime rates in Joburg are among the world's highest. Because of this many homeowners are armed. Because of this, many burglars enter and shoot the first person they see, assuming the owner is armed. Out of desperation, homeowners contract with private security firms, who respond to tripped alarms. They fire two shots in the lawn, then come in blasting. Many homeowners are shot by their own private security firms every year due to false alarms. The proliferation of guns has turned what would be simple property crimes (which suck, admittedly) into homocides. Just sayin. The 'common sense' that's behind many of these gun arguments is very often 180 degrees wrong.

"Captain, there be whales in here." Probably some of the worst movies of any genre ever made.

Pacific Fabrics on Aurora Ave

fluoridation removes melamine.

My favorite Sci fis (not necessarily ahead of their time, though, and not in order): War of the Worlds Forbidden Planet Robinson Caruso on Mars A Boy and His Dog Blade Runner Alien Pitch Black Supernova Dark Star I'd love to see The Forever War and some of Greg Bear's stuff make it to the screen.

Saturn does make a kewler backdrop. I wonder if there were snaffles on board?