Once again, I take you for a brief tour of the day’s news as seen by people who would prefer not to speak Engrish!
OEF Veteran not smart enough to know that service in the military while often helpful in gaining citizenship is not automatic. Seriously, after two tours you would think he gave immigration a call. That sort of went to hell when he was caught smoking pot on base (dumbass), resulting in a General Discharge. All of which ultimately led to the drug conviction that led to them denying citizenship. I mean, I feel for the guy with the pot thing, but once you sell a kilo of cocaína to an undercover cop, well….
En 2010, fue condenado en el condado de Cook, Illinois, por cargos relacionados con la entrega de casi un kilo de cocaína a un oficial encubierto. Fue sentenciado a 15 años y su tarjeta verde o tarjeta de residencia fue revocada. Había cumplido la mitad de su condena cuando ICE comenzó el proceso de deportación.
Pérez dijo que estaba sorprendido de estar en detención de ICE y erróneamente creyó que alistarse en el ejército automáticamente le daría la ciudadanía estadounidense, según su abogado, Chris Bergin. Su solicitud retroactiva de ciudadanía fue denegada a principios de este mes. Si bien hay disposiciones para agilizar el proceso de naturalización de las tropas, un requisito principal es que el solicitante demuestre “buen carácter moral”, y la condena por drogas fue suficiente para influir en la decisión en contra de su solicitud, dijo Bergin.
Pérez se alistó en el ejército en 2001, solo meses antes del 11 de septiembre. Sirvió en Afganistán desde octubre de 2002 hasta abril de 2003 y nuevamente desde mayo hasta octubre de 2003, según su abogado. Él dejó el Ejército en 2004 con un despido general después de que lo sorprendieron fumando marihuana en la base.
Pérez inició una huelga de hambre a principios de este año, diciendo que temía que la deportación significara la muerte. Además de no recibir el tratamiento que necesitaba, le dijo a CNN que teme que los cárteles de la droga mexicanos intentarán reclutarlo por su experiencia en combate y lo asesinarán si no coopera.
“Si me están sentenciando a una muerte segura, y yo voy a morir, ¿por qué morir en un lugar en el que no he considerado mi hogar en mucho tiempo?”, preguntó.
_____
In 2010, he was convicted in Cook County, Illinois, on charges related to the delivery of nearly a kilo of cocaine to an undercover officer. He was sentenced to 15 years and his green card or residence card was revoked. He had served half his sentence when ICE began the deportation process.
Perez said he was surprised to be in ICE detention and erroneously believed that enlisting in the military would automatically give him US citizenship, according to his attorney, Chris Bergin. His retroactive request for citizenship was denied earlier this month. While there are provisions to expedite the process of naturalization of troops, a principal requirement is that the applicant demonstrate “good moral character”, and the conviction for drugs was sufficient to influence the decision against his request, said Bergin.
Pérez enlisted in the army in 2001, just months before September 11. He served in Afghanistan from October 2002 to April 2003 and again from May to October 2003, according to his lawyer. He left the Army in 2004 with a general dismissal after he was caught smoking marijuana at the base.
Pérez began a hunger strike earlier this year, saying he feared deportation would mean death. In addition to not receiving the treatment he needed, he told CNN he fears that the Mexican drug cartels will try to recruit him because of his combat experience and will kill him if he does not cooperate.
“If they are sentencing me to certain death, and I am going to die, why should I die in a place where I have not considered my home in a long time?” He asked.
On Univision Noticias page its all….China, immigration, deportation, immigration, census BS, immigration. Here’s something different!
Daniels –cuyo nombre real es Stephanie Clifford– “tiene la intención de demostrar que el acuerdo de silencio no tenía un objeto o propósito legítimo”, arguye Avenatti en la moción.
“Más bien, el acuerdo y el pago de $130,000 que se hizo de conformidad con el propósito de influir en la elección presidencial de 2016 al impedir a la demandante de hablar abierta y públicamente sobre el Sr. Trump apenas semanas antes de las elecciones”, sostiene Cohen en su escrito a la corte.
____
Daniels – whose real name is Stephanie Clifford – “intends to demonstrate that the silent agreement did not have a legitimate object or purpose,” Avenatti argues in the motion.
“Rather, the settlement and payment of $ 130,000 was made in accordance with the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election by preventing the applicant from speaking openly and publicly about Mr. Trump just weeks before the election,” Cohen argues in his brief to the court.
Next week: Hillary blames Trump paying off a porn star for losing the election.
I’m sure they are glossing over the details of how they went about doing it, but the result is pretty cool.
“La idea era peatonalizar la calle, que se le pusiera un poco de area verde, algo de color y mobiliario. No había nada muy elaborado por parte de la municipalidad”, dice Fernández, quien comenzó a pintar desde los 14 años, al sur de Santiago. “Escuchamos lo que querían y la verdad es que nos pareció que tenía un potencial tremendo”.
Si bien la propuesta ya era innovadora en lo visual, también lo fue en lo comercial: la Municipalidad de Santiago no tuvo que sacar ni un peso de sus bolsillos. El proyecto completo se financió, básicamente, a través del aporte que distintas marcas hicieron para visibilizar sus logos en el Paseo, por donde transitan decenas de miles de personas cada día. Con el dinero entregado por las empresas privadas, Fernández pudo cerrar el espacio a los autos y buses, comprar los materiales, y solventar los gastos que significaba transformar, pintar e intervenir la calle Bandera. Según el artista, el costo total del proyecto no superó los 550,000 dólares.
_____
“The idea was to pedestrianize the street, to put a little green area, some color and furniture. There was nothing very elaborate on the part of the municipality, “says Fernández, who began painting at age 14, south of Santiago. “We heard what they wanted and the truth is that we thought it had tremendous potential.”
Although the proposal was already innovative visually, it was also commercial: the Municipality of Santiago did not have to take any weight out of their pockets. The entire project was financed, basically, through the contribution made by different brands to make their logos visible on the Paseo, where tens of thousands of people pass through each day. With the money given by the private companies, Fernandez was able to close the space to the cars and buses, buy the materials, and pay for the expenses that transforming, painting and intervening Calle Bandera meant. According to the artist, the total cost of the project did not exceed $ 550,000.
As always, translation services provided by the Alpha Beta Corporation, who say, “we might suck, but at least we’re not Facebook!”
I’m officially starting the Glibertarian Children’s Hating Club. Who wants in?
I might have to work on the name.
No, the name is perfect. Sign me up xD
Yeah, it sounds like you hate the children of Glibs. How could you hate a child named Liberty?
I read it as the Hating Club for Glibertarian Children, although the apostrophe should be after the “s”, not before.
Are we hating children or are we “children” hating something else?
I think we need to get our children to hate things.
My orphans are way too busy in the salt mines to feel anything but pain and exhaustion.
You are truly an inspiration to us all.
I believe it is fine for your orphans to hate you, just as long as they fear you more.
It’s a fine balance that can be used as a method of motivation.
I think we are the object of the hatred…? Which is also good!
Clever. Everybody hates us, especially children.
I don’t hate y’all, I just think your dislike of children is short-sighted and immature.
Sorry, I missed putting in the emoticon to show that I’m just yanking y’alls chains. ?
It’s all good, trshmnstr.
I have been assured that my opinion on kids will change in the event I have one+ of my own. I’m sure that’s true… but in the mean time, I’ll be over here, quietly judging kids and their parents.
“Well, that screaming toddler is sure effective birth control,” says Mr. Riven.
‘Thank goodness we don’t have one,’ I reply.
There’s no reason they HAVE to be screaming monsters, after the first 6-12 months.
Hell, some of them grow into adults and they don’t cut that shit out.
Cue the screaming at the sky gif
Your mileage may vary, but based on a survey I took of myself and a couple other people we just like our kids, not all of them as a group. And now we can judge other parents and then say, “AH, but you see, I am ALSO a parent, and so I’m speaking from experience, you troglodyte.”
We listened to a little bit of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules last weekend, and included in what we listened to was some pretty basic parenting advice regarding how you need to be a parent first and a friend much, much later to your kids. It did give me some hope that we might be alright parents, if we do elect to go that route one day.
Who knew the Iron Law of getting more of what you reward and less of what you don’t could apply to child rearing? … Oh, right–successful parents everywhere.
Children are not stupid. They are short. And weak. And ignorant. And impulsive. But they are smart, and conniving, and manipulative.
Many parents take a long time to learn this, if ever. But my mom’s side of the family is short, ignorant, smart, conniving, and manipulative, so I picked up on it pretty quick.
I have been assured that my opinion on kids will change in the event I have one+ of my own.
There’s some truth to that, but I’m still mortified when baby trshmnstr makes too much noise in public. It’s never a meltdown or anything, we plan around those times of day. When there’s ambient noise, she likes to yell.
I think I have more patience for the occasional yell or cry from other babies, but a full-on meltdown is just as grating as before.
TL to write the whole article but …
1. Kids are trainee adults. That doesn’t mean they have to pay their way, but you should give them responsibilities and expect them to “deliver” as soon as they are able.
2. Your mission is to get them to adulthood as well-prepared as possible, w.r.t. socialization, maturity and experience. That will require you exposing them to risk, in a way that you can control.
3. Never compare them to other kids. Compare them to themselves of a year ago, and what they will be in a a year’s time. Whatever you do, however, objectively evaluate them – regularly – and expose them to your assessment.
Our process was benign neglect.
They survived. The real world hasn’t hurt them since they left home.
I was surprised at how quickly my little banana loaf became an actual person. By the time she hit 2 she had a real personality. Like there’s stuff she does that I think of as typically Eliza behavior. And the most surprising thing is how much of her personality seems to just come from her, not stuff she’s picked up from us or other people close to her. So to the Jordan Peterson point, yeah, we had to pivot to parent-mode much quicker than we thought we’d have to because she’s so damn smart and she’s been watching us for years, learning our patterns, listening to us…
Do you remember the day the banana loaf became self-aware? Y’know, so you can go back in time and “fix” it to be later?
Why would you want to undo self-awareness? that’s the point when they start to refrain from being mewling, annoying blobs of screaming flesh.
I’m firmly convinced that anyone who worries whether they will be a good parent will be a good parent. It’s the people who think it’s no big deal who are the bad parents.
No children myself, but a pile of nieces and nephews; with that bit of perspective, I’m positive that nature vs. nurture is in no way 50/50 – nature is dominant. The kids came with their personalities mostly pre-installed; my siblings have been able to, at best, nudge them.
There’s no reason they HAVE to be screaming monsters, after the first 6-12 months.
Two words:
Shock. Collar.
Yeah, that’s the funny thing. When she was just shy of 1 she started to “trade” stuff. So if she had something I didn’t want her to have, I’d say, “trade?” and offer her something she could have, and if she was into it we’d swap and she’d be fine with it. There was a sweet spot where we could explain why we wanted her to do something or not do something and she’d usually be fine with it, but now she’s gotten to the point where she may understand us but I guess is rejecting the base premise entirely. Plus now she can plan and lie and stuff, so it’s a battle of wits to get her to not feed the dogs meatballs while we’re not paying attention. Still, it’s easier in a lot of ways now that she’s a kid instead of a gurgling poo monster.
That’s not the chain your yanking on so energetically.
*raises hand*
Children are the worst.
My children are ok, but everyone else’s are terrible.
The other people also got the ugly ones…
Libertarians hate teh chirren. It is known.
Look at the t shirt this kid is wearing: http://www.theintell.com/news/20180326/detentions-stemming-from-walkout-lead-to-passionate-pennridge-school-board-meeting
Do you hate her or not?
Let’s crowdfund a one-way ticket to Caracas for her.
Hate. Hate with the fury of an angry god.
She’s too young to hate. But by all means, hate the fucking parents.
Of course that’s what it’s about. It always was. I will say it again – marxists use mob violence and riots to bully the population and they cant do that here because we are armed.
It’s funny, I know what the letters spell but in my head it just becomes “I’m dumb as a bag of hammers!”
Not OMWC.
Reluctant golf clap for Ted S. That took way too long.
Unless they’re older than 13.
Older than 13 is not a child, in my book. Not properly an adult, either, but teenager (or youth) works as a serviceable term to delineate a distinct stage of life. It’s a pet peeve of mine when 17, 16, and even 15 year olds are called “children”. They are minors, yes, but not all minors are children.
Sounds childish.
I might consider membership in your club so long as we’re able to beat them like baby seals.
Consider beating them *with* baby seals and you’re in.
Children are like congresspeople. Yours are fine, it’s everyone else’s who suck.
OK, they’re like normal non-libertarians’ opinions of congresspeople.
This post is brought to you by the letters T and A.
http://archive.is/dzEry
Without violating my no-face rule: 5, 6, 12, 16, 24 (puffy nipples)
However, many of the no-face posts have absolutely fantastic cabooses. Or “colas” as you Messicans are wont to say.
#6 is the Libertarian I’d ask to share a room with at the New Orleans convention.
That’s kinda cute. You barely know me and now we’re in a bromance!
Cool. Bring #1 and #2 with you and you can have your choice.
I’m still sick.
I have to say, #1 is a nice opener.
Tommy Robinson permanently banned by Twitter
No details what exactly he did wrong.
See ya on GAB, Tommy.
Imagine the trouble this guy would get into in the UK for stating historically accurate events.
They Drew First Blood: A Brief History of Islamic Aggression Against Christendom
good read
I think we all know what he did “wrong.” From what I’ve seen of the guy he’s both personable and intelligent-not a lunatic or an asshole at all.
I loved his critique of the UK’s new military recruiting commercials. Skip to 2:50 for the derpiest part.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcoDJB2kP7w
What the hell are they thinking?
U.K. Army: Fuck all, we’re a grievance group now
Wow.
Damn, I’d be tempted to join the PLA but I don’t care for rap. The Russian one was good too, the English videos not so much.
for comparison: the newest USMC ad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzpNjnvrA1Y
No more dungeons and dragons?
The lava monster has moved to bigger and better things.
Jeebus… Even the canadian one is less cringy than that. Enjoy your dhimmiitude Brits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBLnz2pT9Tc
You mean like when someone’s afraid that if they say something critical of people you like you’ll ban them? Twitter’s free to ban whoever they want, obviously, but I wish they’d be honest about why they’re doing it. When SJWs post hateful speech they don’t seem to swing the banhammer, but it seems as if a certain demographic gets it good and hard.
I do wonder if Twitter is going to manage to kick enough people out at the same time to generate critical mass for a competitive platform.
Nice business plan, guys.
OK I clicked on the link in your author description…
Good Lord above.
Took one of you long enough.
Just one extra piece of information that Google now knows about me. I was already sufficiently horrified today by seeing maps of my daily trips from years ago.
Uhh, that shit ain’t right.
I’m officially starting the Glibertarian Children’s Hating Club. Who wants in?
“Anybody who hates children and dogs can’t be all bad.”
My brother called me yesterday. He said his oldest son barfed in his new car and now it reeks of vomit.
He scheduled a vasectomy.
Seems a bit harsh as a punishment. But, who am I to second-guess another parent.
lol
Like kids. Hate dogs. Is that enough of a qualifier for me to join?
today I learned
Fasting for three days can regenerate entire immune system, study finds
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/fasting-for-three-days-can-regenerate-entire-immune-system-study/
***
The researchers say fasting “flips a regenerative switch” which prompts stem cells to create brand new white blood cells, essentially regenerating the entire immune system.
–– ADVERTISEMENT ––
“It gives the ‘OK’ for stem cells to go ahead and begin proliferating and rebuild the entire system,” said Prof Valter Longo, Professor of Gerontology and the Biological Sciences at the University of California.
“And the good news is that the body got rid of the parts of the system that might be damaged or old, the inefficient parts, during the fasting.
***
It’s interesting that every tribe and religion includes fasting rituals. Ancient people must have known about the benefits even if they didn’t know the cause.
I wonder if the ketogenic diet does the same thing, since, in many ways, it’s chemically equivalent to starvation.
Q, I have heard that claim.
But what is the Ad for?
Starve a cold
“It’s interesting that every tribe and religion includes fasting rituals. ”
That’s the out Maduro was looking for.
LARF!
That’s a pretty subtle advertisement. I like it.
John Stossel: Why so many are ‘taking the red pill’ (and discovering the truth about the mainstream media)
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/03/27/john-stossel-why-so-many-are-taking-red-pill-and-discovering-truth-about-mainstream-media.html
***
Owens also objects to the way the media cover police brutality. It leads some people to believe that the biggest threat to young blacks is the police.
“Fact No. 1: Approximately 93 percent of black homicide victims are killed by other black people,” she says.
I pushed back, pointing out that there still is plenty of racism, and some innocent people have been tortured by police.
“That’s absolutely right. Some innocent people have also been struck by lightning. Sixteen unarmed black men were killed by police officers in 2016. If you are watching CNN you would’ve thought it happened every single day. OK? That’s a problem.”
Owens (correctly) said thousands of young black men were killed by other black men, whereas “sixteen represents .00004 percent of the black community.”
Media coverage of Black Lives Matter, she says, also creates a distorted picture of what’s going on.
“Black Lives Matter actually resulted in more black deaths across the country, because police officers don’t want to answer the call.” (Some authorities dispute that. Killings nationwide did rise after the shooting in Ferguson, but more recently they dropped.)
But Owen’s main argument is that the media mislead. The biggest issue facing blacks today is not racism or police shootings, she says, but dependence on government that began 50 years ago with Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” programs.
“They incentivized mothers not to marry fathers. That’s why single motherhood is up. The government would give you more if you didn’t marry him.”
That’s a fairly common view among conservatives, but among blacks, says Owens, it’s easier to tell your family you’re gay than to reveal that you’re a conservative.
***
Heckuva thing for an Uncle Tom with false consciousness to say.
Did you read the last paragraph of the article?
I did, I find it hilarious.
Omg. You can’t assume xer gender like that!
Aunt Tom?
Are you saying uncles can’t be female, shitlord?
So why do blacks get trapped in the great society net, but not whites?
Who said they don’t. Ever been to, say, Boone County, WV?
White privilege means that poor, white trash still have an systemic advantage over middle class black families.
Get with the program.
Superfluous r.
Get with the pogrom.
That’s my point. They frame welfare as a problem for blacks, but it should be framed as a problem for all indigent communities.
This is essentially what I asked the other day. Why is the effect disproportionate among blacks vs. whites (there are plenty of whites in the self-inflicted poverty-welfare trap, just not the same percentage of the population)? Also, I think a similar disparity arises between Hispanic whites and non-Hispanic whites which raises the same question, although the answers might be different.
Race is the wrong parameter to analyze this on. Class is the correct parameter to analyze this on. The upper class keep themselves out of the great society snare. The lower class doesn’t.
Generally, eastern Asian is correlated with upper class. You will end up seeing fewer of them in the trap. Whites are split, and… Coming Apart. Blacks are over represented in the lower class. You see more of them in the trap.
You see race because its literally in your face. Your eyes can see it. But the underlying mechanism isn’t race, its class. For lots of Americans, we have a hard time seeing class because of a historical fiction (a good one) that we were a classless society. The upper class claimed to be middle class. The lower class claimed to be middle class. It was a good lie, for the most part. But its over. Also, because of our history with slavery and immigration, race has been tied to class. So Americans see race.
But I spent a lot of my formative years in Appalachia, where most everyone was white. And there was a clear class difference that everyone understood. It wasn’t till I moved the fuck out of there that I understood that that’s not how most of the country sees things.
I can see class as part of it. And no doubt slavery and discrimination shaped the experiences and outcomes for the descendants of slaves. But I refuse to accept the nonsensical notion that slavery is more damaging to black communities today than it was 50+ years ago. In 1950, 65% of black women were married, compared to 68% of white women. Today, it’s 26% vs. 52%. While I am not trying to promote marriage as a solution to problems or anything like that, it does serve as an indicator.
So do I. We are in agreement.
Slavery/Jim Crowe forced black Americans into the lower class*. In 1950, they were lower class but had similar statistics to upperclass people of all races. Not just on marriage, but lots of things. Membership in civic organizations. Male-prime-age-employment. Church attendance. Just like lower class whites. Since the 50’s or so, those metrics have cratered for all lower class folks, black, white, or other.
*Mostly by destroying their civil societies, removing their incentives to improve themselves by stealing all their returns to human capitol, and then via coercive and explicitly racist laws post-reconstruction.
Did Jim Crow get worse from the 1940s to the 1960s? It’s plausible, but seems unlikely. And that just leads to another problematic argument, of similar character, that Jim Crow does more damage today than when it was actually in effect.
No, Jim Crowe didn’t get worse from the 1940’s to the 1960’s.
But completely changing a group of people’s social class doesn’t happen quickly, if at all. Take any group of people. Make them chattel slaves for a few generations. Break up their families. Take away their property, their self ownership, and their social institutions. Prevent them from gaining even the most rudimentary education. Build up the perception in other people that they are subhuman, ignorant, stupid, and lazy. Then put them back into society as legal second class citizens.
Where do you think they are going to slot into that society? How long do you think its going to take them for their social mobility to spread them across all strata of that society.
I can’t see any answer other than “lowest class” and “many, many generations”
I guess the problem I see is, you’ve got social mobility and economic growth in the late 19th century, the 1920s, and the 1950s that all see black people, who are themselves (mostly) the children, grandchildren, and eventually great-grandchildren of slaves, improve their situation and communities despite great legal barriers, negative cultural attitudes, and all-around societal shittiness directed against them. While they may never have achieved statistical parity on all metrics, they had on some and the gaps were closing on others.
Then it all just seems to go off the rails, concidentally but still, when all of that bad stuff starts to go away.
1) Because there is no well funded group of political operatives telling poor whites that there impoverished state is someone else’s fault. There is for Blacks.
So poor whites get told their poverty is their own doing and if you don’t change your poor decision making and lack of self control it won’t change. Poor blacks get told it isn’t your fault, you are poor because someone else is doing it to you so working on self discipline or making better choices will not help.
2) Because there is no cottage industry telling poor whites that they are required to adopt an entirely different culture from the American mainstream in order to maintain their “identity”.
For example, a poor white could name their kid Paul or Cleetus. No one will think twice about the name Paul but Cleetus will create a very specific image in the head of anyone encountering it and cause no end to problems for the kid later in life so you very very rarely see kids being named Cleetus anymore.
Same thing with a black family, they could name their kid Ashley or LaQuesha. No one would profile the person based on the name Ashley but the name LaQuesha, they instantly know that not only is she black but she comes from a lower class urban community and will make any number of stereotypical assumptions about her based on the name. Problem is black families, especially poor black families almost never choose Ashley over LaQuesha choosing to advertise their class status even when it is clearly harmful to do so. why do they do this? Because there is a cottage industry built up around protecting “blackness” over integration with mainstream American culture.
These 2 issues combined pretty much explain why blacks are trapped by the welfare system in so much greater numbers than whites
They do,
Hmmm…. I wonder if there are other, perhaps similar stories in which media coverage makes a problem out to be more than it is…
I am a big fan of this Spanish format, as I am a fan of the Sugar Free format. Keep it up guys!
¿Donde está la biblioteca?
Mi tocadiscos está roto.
¿Donde está la zapatería? Juan es muy guapo.
Cuantos cuestas los ninos?
SugarFree Format?
I’m old school, but I think if you fuck up and get the world’s worst case of gonorrhea you should be publicly shamed.
While I think shame can be a powerful corrective force, in this case it’d be counter productive to convincing people to get tested and treated, which is sort of the goal there.
I would think that the intense burning in your penis would be enough incentive. But to each their own.
It would be great if that were the case, but gonorrhea is often asymptomatic (more frequently in women than men, but frequently enough that it’s not uncommon in either. If everyone were highly symptomatic it’d be easier to get everyone tested and treated.
The main issue with the strain he had isn’t the severity of pain or discharge, but the difficulty treating it and the idea that this strain could be in the wild in the UK. Scaring people off of getting tested who might have had contact with him would give a resistant strain more time to get rooted in the population.
Well shit, ignore my post downthread.
No need to click the link, besides its in Spanish right?
I’m here for you. *Thumbs up*
¡vete te!
I am a big fan of this Spanish format
It allows me to ignore the links guilt-free!
¿Por qué eres un racista?
I KNEW IT!!!
“Listen, I’m gonna keep doing this until the schtick wears off.”
I’m just waiting for that body paint to wear off.
believed that enlisting in the military would automatically give him US citizenship
BULLSHIT.
I have lived this with a few soldiers, and had to put one out because he failed to act.
Entering military service and serving faithfully puts you on the fast track for citizenship, but you are still required to apply and do the legwork.
The guy who got put out after 7 years tried to say he didn’t know, but there was ample evidence, including his enlistment contract and people who contacted him about taking care of that stuff that proved otherwise.
Double fuck that guy.
Quick question – Do you (or anyone else here) think that serving in the military should grant you automatic citizenship?
I don’t see any reason it shouldn’t – the Americans you fight next to become your brothers in arms. If you’re willing to shed your own blood for the country, then you’ve earned citizenship in my book.
I’m comfortable with it. I’m even comfortable with it being used to absolve some felonies.
I’m with MS on this one.
However, I think there should be a probationary period of some kind after discharge from service. For instance, you can’t get caught selling a kilo of coke for 5 years or something.
Less than a kilo is cool though.
Personal use.
That would argue in favor of having the probationary time spent as a Legal Alien. There’s no point in making someone a ‘probationary citizen’, if you’re going to want to reserve the right to deport them.
Once they’re a “citizen” they’re America’s problem – and NOBODY ELSE’S.
It is pretty much automatic. But a person still needs to send an application.
Automatic? No.
With very little hassle, after having served for at least a certain amount of time, been discharged honorably, and sworn the oath of citizenship? Yeah, I don’t have a problem with that.
I can agree with this, minus the oath. I really don’t give a shit about oaths.
Why not? If everyone gave a shit about oaths, and if old ladies spit on the ground in front of oathbrakers, and if no self respecting girl would give oathbreakers the time of day, we’d have a cheap and easy way for civil society to enforce contracts.
And you’d be able to, should you need to, enter into one such contract without having to run off to a third party (*cough government cough cough*) to get your contract recognized.
I think one has to be careful not to overuse oaths. The state loves obedience but compulsory oaths breed disrespect for the whole practice.
However, the oath of citizenship is administered once.
Sure, but its not the oath, its the compulsory part. There’s nothing wrong with lots of things, until the state says “do this or you get it in the neck.”
Big difference between oaths sworn between private individuals and oaths sworn to the state
Well, it is required of all other naturalized citizens, so I don’t see why a specific exemption would be granted for people who’ve served in the military. If anything, the oath of citizenship is redundant, since the oath of enlistment is stronger. But I do think it is, at least, a good reminder of what U.S. citizenship means, because once granted it is very difficult (and should be very difficult) to take away.
I suppose I should clarify that I don’t really care one way or the other. I’m not against the oath – I just wouldn’t care whether or not people would be required to take it.
FWIW there is a part of the oath that I find objectionable; citizens-to-be must agree that “I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law”; note that this isn’t about the draft, which is covered by the preceding two sentences. The law can’t require you to do something the government has no Constitutional authority for.
Yeah, that is a problem. The state shouldn’t be forcing anyone to do labor on its behalf. Actually, that line seems like a contradiction to everything that American life is about.
I wonder when it was added, and why. It reeks of the New Deal but it’s possible it was added later.
Oath to uphold the Constitution, Works for me……
This is the current policy. See my link below. You don’t even need to be discharged. You have to serve one (1) year.
I’m fine with the citizenship, it’s the right to vote that bothers me.
Currently, you get fast tracked, which means citizenship in under two years, if you do your paperwork.
Which I think is the right answer.
We currently are holding up green-card and visa holders from joining because the background checks are so backed up. Basically, it takes longer to get in the Army than it does to get citizenship.
If our military wasn’t 50-75% glorified workfare and they were actually defending the country? sure. Doing a dangerous job doesn’t get you any special points in my book, unless the dangerous job really needed doing.
Yep. And heck the military isn’t even dangerous. It’s safer than being a truck driver, a fisherman, a logger, tow truck operator, dozens of civilian careers.
Agreed. If you are willing to die to protect my children I will stamp your hand myself.
I am fine with posthumous citizenship. It’s the right to vote in Chicago elections that bothers me.
If our defense were entirely militia, I would say yes. Otherwise our current military is mostly there to enable far too much offensive shit from the deep state that I am no longer willing to support any more incentives beyond the paycheck.
No. No and no.
I’m not used to this side of Bobarian.
What part of his military experience made him think “hey, these guys don’t really care about paperwork”?
Lindy West cares. She cares deeply. If you don’t care like Lindy cares, you’re a dick.
So here’s some context for you: Last week, the secretary of housing and urban development, Ben Carson, testified in front of a House subcommittee that trans women in homeless shelters make cisgender women “not comfortable.” According to a 2016 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality, 20 percent of trans people report having been homeless at some point because of their gender identity, 55 percent report being harassed by homeless shelter residents and staff, and 29 percent have been turned away from shelters for being trans. Meanwhile, on Netflix, Gervais graphically speculated about Caitlyn Jenner’s gender confirmation surgery, repeatedly referred to her as a big strong man, relentlessly called her by her pre-transition name and compared gender dysphoria to a human choosing to identify as a chimpanzee.
That is the context within which Gervais insists he doesn’t care about critiques of his work — critiques pointing out that describing trans women as goofy, freaky, delusional men who’ve just “popped on a dress” isn’t edgy or cheeky, it’s dangerous. Giggling at the “weirdness” of trans people — presenting your spasms of discomfort as something relatable — makes it harder for trans people to find a safe place to sleep. Transphobia is not a pet issue of the hypersensitive but a continuing international emergency.
Ricky Gervais is a bad, bad person. Because he doesn’t care.
Because if there’s one thing homeless people are doing, it’s watching Ricky Gervais on Netflix. (I saw that special. It was pretty funny. The chimpanzee thing was a bit much, though)
Also, West says: “According to a 2016 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality, 20 percent of trans people report having been homeless at some point because of their gender identity, 55 percent report being harassed by homeless shelter residents and staff, and 29 percent have been turned away from shelters for being trans.”
1. Great source, no bias there.
2. If only 20% of them have been homeless, how are 55% of them getting harassed at homeless shelters? Is the volunteer ethic that strong among trans people?
3. Even if we take it as “55% of the 20%” and similarly the last point as “29% of the 20%”, how exactly do they assess these things?
how exactly do they assess these things?
It’s self-reporting, so basically its worthless. Its also highly dependent on how the study (if it even is a study) defined “harassment” (if it defined it at all). Remember, 1 out of every 5 women are raped on college campuses, based on self-reporting and the study’s own special definition of rape that no one uses anywhere.
Even if the questions are legit, we’re talking about the homeless here. Mental illness is way WAY overrepresented in the homeless population.
I watched that special on NetFlix. It was actually pretty damn good. He shits on everybody. Himself, his family, poor black children from third world countries, trans people, Christianity, pretty much anything. As a good comic should. I hate it when people are selectively outraged about their own pet issue but could care less about the insults directed elsewhere.
Fuck you, Lindy
I saw it too. He’s keenly aware of the hypersensitivity around the subject, and was completely fair in his treatment of Jenner. He pointed out the absurdity of being expected forget the existence of the Bruce Jenner he’s seen in the goddamn Olympics. That point flies over Lindy’s head; what do you expect.
Transphobia is not a pet issue of the hypersensitive but a continuing international emergency.
Poe’s Law intensifies.
And I love him for it. Mind you, he’ll probably be kicked out of Britain within the year, but fuck it, who wants to live in England anyway?
I wonder if Lindy’s gay husband has left her yet.
I happen to do some work that related to homeless shelters. I wouldn’t be surprised by this worrying the ‘cis-gendered’ women. Often these women are victims of domestic violence. And ‘surprise’ they don’t hold those ‘Avant-garde’ views of white progressive elites. So yeah they probably see these people as Men in dresses. Is this fair? No. I’m not surprised that trans population has a high homelessness rate, but you can’t just poo-poo the experiences that the female homeless population experiences.
I’m just waiting for that body paint to wear off.
Is it… edible? I’d give that girl a kitty-bath.
I’m wearing off some skin.
It’s called exfoliating.
Daily Kos throws hissy fit about newspaper coverage of Phoenix gun-grabbers’ march. How dare they provide balanced coverage.
But the term “gun-huggers” is totes OK and balanced.
Yeah, it’s a shitshow of childish name-calling.
believed that enlisting in the military would automatically give him US citizenship
I cannot help wondering if a recruiter told him that.
However, he had plenty of time to verify it. Caveat Emptor, bub.
Choosing not to traffic cocaine probably would have helped his case, too.
Do you (or anyone else here) think that serving in the military should grant you automatic citizenship?
Serve, let’s say, six years or more, and be honorably discharged? I’d be okay with that.
You seem to be much less generous than the current immigration requirements for the members of the military.
then you can apply for naturalization.
Me llamo AlmightyJB.
¡Holà AlmightyJB!
has this made the rounds yet?
China says North Korea’s Kim pledged commitment to denuclearization
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-china/china-says-north-koreas-kim-pledged-commitment-to-denuclearization-idUSKBN1H305W
***
U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter he had received a message from Xi on Tuesday night that his meeting with Kim “went very well” and that Kim looked forward to meeting the U.S. president.
“Look forward to our meeting!” Trump wrote, while adding: “In the meantime, and unfortunately, maximum sanctions and pressure must be maintained at all cost!”
“For years and through many administrations, everyone said that peace and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was not even a small possibility,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday. “Now there is a good chance that Kim Jong Un will do what is right for his people and for humanity.”
Earlier this month, Trump, who has exchanged bellicose threats with Kim in the past year, surprised the world by agreeing to meet the North Korean leader to discuss the crisis over Pyongyang’s development of nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States.
North Korea’s official media has made no mention of Kim’s pledge to denuclearize or the anticipated meeting with Trump, which is planned for some time in May.
***
I’m cautiously optimistic.
Did he pinky swear like the Ayatollah?
I’m cautiously optimistic.
I’m not. Kim will promise everything that Trump wants in exchange for economic sanction relief – Trump will naively agree and NK will continue doing whatever the hell it wants, breaching the agreement under lighter sanctions. We will get nothing from them, just like we always have.
Kill all the sanctions, begin air drops of food, leaflets explaining where the food came from, and weapons of war, and let the starving masses take care of the NK problem.
Lifting the sanctions gets rid of the incentive. If your goal is regime change, you have to maintain the sanctions but make their removal clearly contingent on the overthrow of the Kim regime.
I’m not endorsing this strategy as moral or right, just commenting on what would be more effective.
Here’s an incentive, 100 bushels of corn for every severed head of the NK politburo.
Maybe I’ve watched Deadwood too many times.
I think you need a rate scale, otherwise you just get a bunch of dead but mostly harmless mandarins and functionaries.
I’m sure the exchange rate will fluctuate.
Aren’t they too weak to pick up a Rifle?
They certainly can’t aim…..
/Parasitic Defector
I can get behind this plan. We should also include a shit ton of rock and roll and posters of playboy models (and the guys from magic mike, for the people that are into that).
We should also include a shit ton of
rock and rollk-popFor diplomacy to succeed, you must know your audience.
Good point!
Particularly target the prison camps for the drops.
begin air drops of food
Ah, because North Korea is just peachy with unauthorized aircraft violating its air space? And will certainly not shoot them down while screaming about American aggression?
Or do you want to run destruction of AA assets first, and assume they won’t escalate to full shooting war?
OK, use a huge trebuchet then.
” Trump will naively agree ”
He’ll probably ‘cynically agree’.
meaning: the same thing everyone else has done for the last 50 years w/ the Norks. They scream and rant and lob missiles into the sea, and eventually china placates them and the US makes some faux-agreement to agree about agreeing, and things calm down for 5 or so years before the cycle renews itself.
After looking at Google’s horde of information they have on me, I’m ready to un-Google my life. I’m thinking of a home-cooked mail server. I already have a home server for VPN, fileserver, local DNS, etc and I have successfully setup postfix for various purposes before. However, I have no idea how to get a domain and setup DNS for the wide open internet.
How stupid/dangerous is this idea?
Having no expertise on the issue whatsoever I’ll go with ‘just stupid/dangerous enough to work’!
Are you setting up your server on a cayman island?
I’m told the bathroom is the place to put it.
What, like where I put my cloths?
A closet in the Cayman Isles
Couple points.
It’s cheaper to run your DNS from a service like Namecheap. They have other services that are sometimes useful.
Email? Running your own is a pain and rolling your own requires constant vigilance. I use Zoho.com which has just about anything you’ll need, including spam management. If you really want cloud-based apps and storage, they have those too.
VPN? Well, you can set up a firewall for your home connection, and you can set a VPN up on that, or you can go client-based, a VPN on each device. I do both
Storage? If you have a gateway server at your house you CAN do double-duty there. I use a selection of obscure services.
In general, try and make sure that when you set your ‘off the google’ world up, you pay attention to how heavily your home link will end up being hit. As soon as you have your DNS pointing AT your home connection, you’ll have people tryng to break in. This isn’t a problem if you’re prepared
This is my main concern along with spam management. I currently have a public/static IP and see a lot of traffic hitting port 22 and 23 along with everything else. I could see that getting more intense after having a domain attached to it.
Well, I have my family domain MX record pointed at Zoho.com – 5 5Gb email accounts for free with pretty good email, including DKIM/SPF. The great thing when you run your own domain is if you don’t like your current email provider, you can switch with a minimum of hassle as and when you want.
So, if Zoho pisses me off, or I really MUST move my email to a server in Iceland, I can make that happen as and when I want.
Thanks 6, I’ll check it out.
There are lots of others. The key is managing your own domain, using a VPN and changing your behavior so you deny data and metadata to google and their ilk.
The key is managing your own domain
Seinfeld was right about everything.
I just switched to Zoho (from Microsoft– I kind of wished I’d waited a few weeks to switch in protest), and I can echo 6’s recommendations. Been very happy with them so far.
Can’t you use Tor for browsing, Signal for Messaging, and whatever encrypted email that’s out there?
In general, anything you can get for nothing is probably worthless.
* I’m a Signal user, but will probably migrate to Threema in the near future
* Tor is thoroughly compromised. A standard VPN to a server outside the US if possible is better. A VPN Provider that has lots of exit points, better still.
* Email – diversify. Have a front-facing one for normal stuff, sign up for Blur for disposable accounts and set up something like Unseen.is or protonmail for sneaky stuff.
Why don’t you like Signal? Last I heard was 1) they crypto is still up to snuff and 2) well, this.
Not that I don’t like it. It’s just that Threema is better IMNSHO.
Ok, but in what way in what way do you think its better? Are you talking UI? Are you talking about something in the back end (you can use big words)? Are you talking about something the org managing it?
I’m not asking to be confrontational. I’d like to know and maybe switch if there’s a good reason to do so.
You’re not being confrontational at all. The advantage for me, with Threema is that it doesn’t need device mirroring and it’s not tied to an IMEA number. The lack of cloud sync is a plus for me.
The feature sets in both are evolving, and so in the future, I might find it valuable to move back to Signal, but for the moment, I use both.
Cool thanks. Yeah, I’ve heard of Protonmail. I definitely need to do something for my email.
Do you have a specific VPN solution that you prefer? I’m not really up to speed on that. If you couldn’t tell:)
I use Cyberghostvpn.com.
They’ve always been great, quirky client UI but fast. Time it right and they have deep discounts on their plans.
Virtualshield are said to be pretty good too. They have a deal on at the moment with a 30% discount for subscribers, of you use the rebate code “bearing30”
Many of them have degraded service “free” connections.
Thanks for the tips!
Wouldn’t it just be easier to change your phone number?
The goal is to own my data. Nobody sifting through it for marketing purposes or selling it to 3rd parties.
I understand, but the value of old data falls quickly, especially if it is orphaned.
“This Hudson guy, we haven’t got any new data on him since last March.”
“He probably changed his phone number. Here’s a list of 1,000 new units we started collecting data on since then that have a similar profile to his old one – one of them could be him. Let’s take a guess at which one is him.”
Part of the problem is people don’t change their account names and numbers often enough. There’s shitloads of data being collected on you that have zero to do with the internet.
I have a mail server at home. It’s not too bad to setup. Google does a fantastic job at keeping spam out of your inbox. If you home brew your own server you won’t have that any longer. There are some tools for postfix, for example, that help, but they definitely don’t eliminate the problem. The other inconvenience is that Google is accessible on any machine in the world for sending and receiving. Your home server will be considerably more finicky to make that work.
Fortunately, I don’t anticipate any need to check my personal email on a machine that I do not own. I don’t even browse this site on company equipment.
Opera, with modest customization of setup, plus a cache cleaner.
Startpage.com as search engine, with ddg as a backup.
Yeah, I REALLY don’t get the concern.
who the fuck cares if google knows where I drive and what websites I frequent (hint, pretty much just this and facederp). What are they gonna do, actually show me advertisements for products I might actually have interest in buying?
Now I do care about the state having that information but lets face it ditching google and facederp aren’t going to do much to change that. They have or can readily get all of that information any time they want and the only way I could avoid it would be go completely off the grid getting rid of all computers, gaming systems and cell phones and that is more of a price than I am willing to pay.
Well, there’s also all your correspondence. Any files you store. When you stored them. Who else has a copy of them. Any photos you store and all their EXIF data. Every face on every picture can be identified and cross-indexed.
And then one day, something you’ve been doing which is technically a federal offense that hasn’t been prosecuted, and you, everyone you know, everyone you associated with 20 years ago, are all cross-indexed and cataloged. The FBI, being the FBI, interrogates you, and asks you whether you were at home on the 18th November 2004. You misremember. After all, it’s 2024, how could you be expected to remember?
You’re aware of just how much trouble you can get in if you suffer a memory problem when being interviewed by the FBI (Hillary does, of course – but in her case, the answer is “nothing”).
Of course, step 1 is to not volunteer stuff to companies who will gladly sell you out.
well lets see, my only correspondence is arguing politics here and elsewhere. 99% of my pictures are taken by my 9 year old daughter playing with the camera filters. The other 1% is OF my kids. Files I upload? Well I suppose if they are really that interested in my Dungeons and Dragons game they are welcome to them but that is pretty much it. Associates? Ha jokes on them I haven’t had anyone I associated with on more than a superficial level since 01. Next, yes I am well aware of the risks of being interrogated by the FBI as a result should I ever find myself in such a predicament I will immediately invoke my right to counsel and then through my attorney inform them that the only answer I will provide to any verbal question is to invoke the 5th amendment. Should they desire answers to questions they may submit them to me via my attorney and we will answer those questions in private away from the authorities so we have the opportunity to review the answers and ensure they are as complete and correct as they can be including where necessary legally valid disclaimers to not recall.
That said the most important part of what I said was that ditching google and facebook and apple and microsoft will not actually help prevent the cross referencing and compiling of data one bit. You will still show up in your friends photos, you will still be tracked by a nokia flip phone from 1995, you will still be tracked by your car ezpass or cameras recording your license plate, your steam account, XBox, and even home internet connection will track you as well. Sure the digital tracking of you might not be quite as complete as if you just used whatever tools were offering services you find useful but it will be more than complete enough to build whatever case a future prosecutor wants against you. What is worse is going out of the way to avoid this digital tracking will just create a huge red flag that you have something worth looking into. When I said the only thing that would help is going completely off the grid I meant it. You can’t even use a computer or own any kind of internet enabled computing device of any sort and realistically you should be looking at buying a few dozen acres in the mountains and not even owning a car.
Choosing not to traffic cocaine probably would have helped his case, too.
Details, schmeetails.
The front page photo…is…is that what Mexican soccer hooligans typically look like?
Lord, have mercy.
No, that’s what exceptional Mexican soccer hooligans look like.
Hey Sharpy! thanks for the shout last weekend
Sure thing!
Damn. I thought I’d finally learned why people claim to like soccer.
Good news, Seattle-ites. If you have the right connections and the right amount of money, you can buy off the King County DA’s office to lead a crusade for you.
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/24/demand-abolition-sex-work-nonprofit-prosecutors-king-county/
I’m sure we can get enough money together. What should the crusade be against?
Obviously corruption. We should see how much it cost to raid ‘Demand Action” for bribery.
OT, but you know, there’s even a bad time to talk about fine spirits. So last night, I was finally able to score a bottle of the Colonel E.H. Taylor single barrel. Before I’ve only had the small batch. And today, I was grabbing some beer at the small store near me when I noted that the guy was very low on liquor. So I asked him, hey you getting wiped out there? Something about holiday… is it or are we near a Jewish holiday? Anyway, I said, where’s the Whistlepig 12 year old rye? So he asked me if I want another bottle and I said of course I do. So the guy gets under the counter and pulls out a bottle ‘you want it’? Of course I want it! How many more do you have? Last one. Not sure what he was hiding that from, must have been me, lol. Yes, I’ll take a dozen more of them for that price.
https://i.imgur.com/MCwAMkg.jpg
Store I got the EH Talyor single barrel, had a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 23 year old. Too rich for me, tempting, but no.
I know I’ve heard that Pappy is both over-priced and over-rated, but I want to try it, just once.
For only like $499, I can hook you up. Can I have a couple glasses for hooking you up?
Most of the Buffalo Trace stuff is not overrated, though. If there is one I would say I’ve tried that is, it would be the Eagle Rare 10 year old. Blanton’s is most definitely not overrated, probably underrated. I’ve only been able to find one more bottle at the moment, and at $79, I’ll probably grab it tomorrow.
Sounds like we have a similar whiskey palate. Blanton’s or angel’s envy is my go to bourbon. Sagamore is my new go to Rye or Bulliet’s if I don’t want to spend too much.
Angel’s Envy is good. I have 2 bottles on my shelf, one about half empty. I was tipped off about that one here, can’t remember by who now. For a cheaper drink, I typically keep a few bottles of the regular Buffalo Trace around.
Sounds like Mad Scientist’s recommendation to me. I’m still keeping an eye out for Angel’s Envy, recommended to me by him
I don’t have much problem finding that one, it’s typically in at least 2 of our local store. I think around $50 a bottle if I’m remembering correctly.
I have a bottle right here. I’ll drink some for you and let you know how much you like it.
“I have a bottle right here. I’ll drink some for you and let you know how much you like it.”
I’ll drank to that. Damnit, I can’t drink tonight! I mean not hard alcohol, just this beer *haz a sad*
Mmmmm. You really like it. You’re thinking, “It’s not 21-year-old Balvenie, but it’s 1/4 the price and nearly as smooth. Terrific stuff. That Mad Scientist has been right about everything he’s ever told me! What a guy!”
“but it’s 1/4 the price and nearly as smooth.”
If you like smooth bourbon, try E.H. Taylor. The smoothest 50% ABV whiskey I have ever drank. Not the most complex by far, but smoothest, most definitely.
I see someone has lit the Rye Signal. /me breaks out the Michter’s
I had the whistlepig farmstock at whiskey fest. Very good. Try sagamore spirit the next time you want to try something new.
Thanks, will do! I haven’t had the Farmstock, but I saw it in a store last night, same one I got the Taylors single barrel from. The 12 year old is wonderful and at $86 a bottle, hell yes, never have seen it otherwise under $100. Might just be this region, not sure. I did see the Sagamore last night, which one should I get?
I like cask strength and double oak (honestly all four are good) The double oak uses two barrels with different char levels. Very complex. Little pricey, but if you’re drinking Whistlepig, it’s in your price range.
Sounds good. The 12 year old Whistlepig also used mutltiple barrels, 3 of them, also very complex. Holy shit, don’t get me started, I can’t dranks this stuff tonight, visiting clients tomorrow. I’ll be looking out for the Sagamore now.
So I asked him, hey you getting wiped out there? Something about holiday… is it or are we near a Jewish holiday?
We’re near Passover (for Jews) and Easter (for Christians). Kind of a big deal in those circles.
Passover then, this community has a very high Jewish population and that store, not sure owned by, but definitely a very large percentage of their customers are Jewish. Jews have an affinity for Scotch? Practically their entire Scotch section was empty.
My deceased father-in-law had a large single malt collection, so from my sample size of one, I will say that yes, Jews have an affinity for Scotch.
(As I understand it, he and his buddies were all Scotch enthusiasts).
I should stress “had” – on first visiting the childhood home of my girlfriend-now-wife, she opened this unassuming door to reveal a wet bar stocked with dozens of different single malts. Her mother chimed in, “nobody drinks Scotch, help yourself”. I did, and I have, for years. I finally felt obligated to drop some cash and restock a bit, as the shelves had started to look a bit bare. Entirely self-serving, as I’m still the only one putting a dent in it, but at least it’s back to being aesthetically pleasing (it’s a really good looking little bar)
Ok, I still cannot understand why they are hiding bottles of top shelf rye under the shelf for us gentiles to snatch up at discount prices, but ok. I have, I think, about 4 bottles of Michters, and it’s not bad at all. But trust me, it is no way in the league of this WP 12 year old. But maybe I don’t know, I might not have their best offerings.
Oh, no – the WP 12 is fantastic, I’m sure. It’s also something like 3.5X the price of the Michter’s – the Michter’s is just my everyday sorta rye (or the Sazerac rye, if I’m feeling less flush).
I’m stopping in again tomorrow to see if this guy is hiding anymore of this, lol. I told him I would take all of it, then he hesitated and told me it’s the last one after taunting me about maybe there’s another one. He’s a pretty good guy though, talk to him a lot. I was in there a few weekends ago, and they had a bottle of Rockhill Farm bourbon setting on the back counter. I was just staring at this and thinking ‘where the fuck did they get this? This is impossible to find. How much is it’? They were so busy that I didn’t ask, I figured I’d go in the next day and ask, but the guy in there didn’t have a fucking clue. But my friend who works there, seems to have a clue, someone has a connection to the good stuff and I need to know, damnit!
excellent
A Kansas bill could make schools liable for shootings if they don’t arm teachers
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/28/us/kansas-house-bill-arming-teachers-school-shooting-trnd/index.html
***
As the debate over arming teachers in schools reverberates across the country, Kansas is doubling down on the idea.
A new bill would not only authorize the arming of Kansas school staff, it would hold schools responsible if a shooting were to occur and the teachers and staff present were not allowed to be armed.
Here’s the exact wording from House Bill 2789:
“In any action against a unified school district arising out of acts or omissions regarding the possession or use of firearms on the premises of such school district, there shall be a rebuttable presumption of negligence on the part of such school district when it is shown by evidence that such school district did not authorize any employee of such school district, other than school security officers, to carry concealed handguns…”
***
I’m not really a fan of teachers being armed. My reasoning being that they might prove incompetent at it. It’s not really their job, which is in theory at least, to teach. I’d rather see dedicated armed security deal with it, because it’s actually their job and they shouldn’t be distracted by other duties. I mean, I’d actually prefer we shut down public schools and privatize the entire thing, making the private entities responsible for their own security.
Playing devil’s advocate… If the teacher is incompetent, you could have a situation where they leave a loaded gun where a kid can find it. Or, if a kids knows the teacher is armed, they can overpower the teacher and steal the gun. So you would have to have some safeguards.
But I think just the possibility that one or more people in any school are armed will be a pretty effective deterrent.
“But I think just the possibility that one or more people in any school are armed will be a pretty effective deterrent.”
Well, if you want to kill as many people as possible before being taken out, where better than a gun free zone? When these psychos plan this stuff, they are fully aware that their chance of doing maximum carnage before they are challenged is about 100%. Just a single case or two of one of these nuts having their brains splattered all over before they do any harm will put a very large damper on this non-sense. Think leftists want that? It’s one of their biggest fears. More dead bodies to climb upon is their goal.
For these reasons I actually don’t mind the no armed teachers rule, but teachers aren’t the only adults on campus, just the ones who spend all day in a classroom. Maintenance, administration, coaches, and other various staff should all be free to be armed, especially if there is no/insufficient dedicated security.
I know, it’s things like that I’m talking about. Let professional security deal with this, they are trained for it. My wife works in airport security and they have active shooter units who train in situations like this.
When seconds count, professional security is there in minutes.
Except that they are already there. And they’ll still beat the police by 30-45 minutes so that they can arrive and stand outside and pick their noses. I mean, if you really think teachers should be armed, I’m all ears.
I think requiring teachers to be armed is dumb. Allowing teachers to carry should be a fundamental right.
We’re at the stage where certain people are trying to prevent people from learning how to use a gun safely.
I wasn’t trying to be snarky. Professional security can’t blanket every area every moment, in most cases they won’t arrive on scene for 90 seconds. That’s just the laws of physics. You can bet the police union would love to replace the professional security people with their own, which scares me more than an active shooter.
Yeah, ok, but I do happen to be married to someone who is a professional at this stuff now. You watch the entire perimeter and don’t allow anyone to breach it. If they do, then you neutralize them quickly. You are not going to do better than that. I’m not saying don’t let teachers be armed, it’s just not a top strategy or first defense.
Meh, I always thought the idea was to let teachers carry if they want to, not to compel them to. The problem isn’t that every teacher isn’t a trained security guard, it’s that teachers and staff who do have some practice and experience can’t carry.
That’s where I am on this. I don’t think people should be forced to do one thing or the other regarding firearms. In school settings the problem is that they’re typically “gun free zones”, pronounced “target rich environments”, so teachers who might want to carry for one reason or another can’t. I mean, let’s be real, in Maryland if this is addressed at all it’s going to be with increased SRO presence. In states friendlier to gun rights they either already permit teachers to carry or they’ll start if they decide to change policy.
Also, I don’t think it needs to be either/or. There’s no reason you couldn’t have a professional security detail and allow teachers who are willing to carry do so. Hell, make it conditional on undergoing regular, routine training for active shooter situations within the school.
I think a key issue is that a security detail in a school is almost certain to never see an incident. Ever.
Now imagine doing security duty in the same environment for weeks and weeks on end. If you’ve ever experienced that kind of task, you’ll know just how fast you lose your ‘edge’. Without constant training, the chances are, you’ll be a bit better than a mall cop within months. There’s a reasonable case to be made that you’ll also be one of the first casualties if a school shooter decides to strike.
This kind of credentialism is understandable, but – I believe – misplaced.
My Jr. HS coach kept a K-22 in his desk. He squirrel hunted with it. He was a pretty ballsy guy too. He would have been plenty competent. My Elementary school principle kept a 12 gauge in his office. He was competent. In HS we had several teachers/staff that would have been competent. There was an arsenal in the parking lot. Some of those teachers had shotguns or rifles in their offices. Most of those guns were because people hunted before or after school. We never thought about school shootings because we never had any.
The only sensible solution is arming the students. Otherwise we’re only infantilizing them.
Hurray! Super Gonorrhea!
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/health-43571120
‘He had a regular partner in the UK, but picked up the superbug after a sexual encounter with a woman in south-east Asia.’
Woman, ladyboy, it’s all the same during a drunken night in Bangkok.
What happens in Thailand stays in…whoops guess not.
So, the Hong Kong Cooties has finally made its way here. Great.
Florida woman says hey.
http://nbc4i.com/2018/03/28/woman-charged-with-giving-hiv-to-child-had-gotten-pregnant-4-times-during-alleged-relationship/
Emma Gonzalez isn’t endorsing communism, she’s living her truth
[spit take]
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/28/opinions/steve-king-has-emma-gonzalez-cuba-flag-wrong-bodenheimer/index.html
***
Perhaps the most confounding attack came from Iowa Rep. Steve King, who suggested Gonzalez was expressing support for a communist dictatorship by wearing a Cuban flag patch on her jacket during the March For Our Lives rally in Washington.
Putting aside for a moment the real possibility that King’s statement was merely a cynical ploy to distract the American public from the real issue at hand — the urgent need for stricter gun control laws — his comment betrays a lack of understanding about the meaning of the Cuban flag (and, for that matter, about most flags displayed outside their country of origin).
The Cuban flag is not a symbol of political orientation, as King suggests, but rather a sign of national belonging, independent of ideological belief. And one reason King and many Americans don’t understand this is because the American flag has come to represent for many a specific ideology that some consider xenophobic or militaristic.
***
Oh is it now? Then surely you agree the Confederate flag is just a symbol of heritage and regional pride.
Twat.
So… she is Cuban? I meant that’s my first question, Is she Cuban, is that why she’s wearing it? Because if not, what does it represent? Cuba is a repressive communist regime who has slaughtered millions of people in the name of communism. Is there even a real debate about that?
Cuba’s body count was a lot lower than that, but the bulk of your point stands.
I thought that their foreign campaigns made it that high. Thanks for the correction.
Yeah, Cuba preferred the post-Stalin method of shipping people off to camps.
The American flag you stand for is the same flag that denied rights to Negros before the VRA.
That Cuban flag is unchanged since 1849. As I noted yesterday, it’s difficult to infer what – if anything – it means as an accessory on Gonzales’ jacket.
Mine has more stars
Her dad is Cuban. If I was run out of the US because commies took over, I would still wear the American flag because it’s my heritage.
No kidding, most Cubans if I am not mistaken, hate Castro’s Cuba. I guess that’s maybe why they are here.
“represent for many a specific ideology that some consider xenophobic or militaristic.”
What else is a flag for?
By Her own Logic, she admits to pride in belonging to a Slave State,
Gross
Author has a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology… Who am I to question her logic?
Similarly, from the Miami Herald (though in more of “goddammit, okay, this is going to turn off half this city, lets try and rehabilitate her” tone)
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fabiola-santiago/article206920809.html
From the “coming so close to understanding yet missing the point” files…
With its military might and technology, the U.S. government could quash a rebellion in days
See US in Vietnam; followed by Russia in Afghanistan; followed by US in Afghanistan.
With its military might and technology, the U.S. government could quash the free media, checks and balances, and due process in days.
Can anybody actually argue against this formulation? An armed populace is one of the checks and balances. Getting rid of makes getting rid of the others that much easier.
“With its military might and technology, the U.S. government could quash a rebellion in days.”
And yet, for some strange reason, dictatorships *always* go the extra mile to disarm the population.
Gee, I wonder why?
fun fact: the British soldiers Paul Revere warned about? They were on a mission to confiscate guns.
***
Just after the Redcoats’ attempt to seize the arms of the rebel militia at Lexington and Concord in 1775, Gen. Thomas Gage ordered all the inhabitants of Boston to turn in their arms at Faneuil Hall for temporary safekeeping. When the people complied, troops seized the firearms, never to return them.
***
Depends, of course, entirely on the size of the rebellion. A hundred men under arms with commensurate support would be easily crushed. Ten million men under arms with commensurate support would topple the government. And this is how it should be: governments should be strong enough to crush fringe groups but weak enough to be capable of being overthrown by the people if a general will turns against it.
Remember Eric Frein?
How long did it take to find that single nut job? 48 days.
Assuming the military would cooperate in such squashing is a big assumption.
Sadly if my military experience is worth anything a lot would, particularly with the officer corps and non combat arms mos’s.
I think Drake covered this yesterday. The Cuban flag predates Castro by a generation (1912 or 1902 or something). Some expats hate it because Castro co-opted it and some still see it as a symbol of the country they left and would like to not be ruled by Castro. Her father fled Castro’s Cuba, so it’s pretty much a coin-toss whether it’s a middle finger to her father or an acknowledgement of Cuba being part of her cultural heritage.
She’s 18. She’s not a smart person. Who cares what she thinks? That’s not a slight, that’s just a fact. That describes most (but certainly not all) 18 year olds. It’s no big deal. The media trying to give credibility to what she says and make her into some exemplar of righteousness and wisdom is what’s truly asinine.
Twat.
I cunt hear you!
I got an ear in-fuck-tion.
Flagsplain me
This came up here the other day. She’s Cuban descent – her father fled Castroland. The flag has been around since the early 1900’s – Castro was one of the few Commies that didn’t create his own commie flag.
I’ll give (even) her the benefit of the doubt. When she shows up in a Che t-shirt? Suspicions confirmed.
flags displayed outside their country of origin = not ok to display the stars and bars
Commie flags ok, Confederate not.
Nice little caveat.
I didn’t know autistic people talk so much.
https://everydayfeminism.com/2018/03/5-ways-to-support-autistic/
***
Many people assume that autistic people aren’t empathetic, creative, outgoing, extroverted, dynamic, flexible, fashionable, or adventurous—and those assumptions are false.
Like non-autistic people, we’re a diverse community and we come from a variety of backgrounds, with different interests, goals, and skill sets. I have a novelty, whimsical sense of style that involves lots of tulle, glitter, and colorful prints, while my autistic friend prefers plain clothing that’s inexpensive and utilitarian.
***
Alright, stop it. Just stop. Neither of you dingbats has autism. You’re just annoying and peculiar.
I don’t post a ton because I’m genuinely terrified that I’m going to say something so dumb that y’all will hate me and I’ll get pushed away from this place. I’m not sure if that’s the asperger’s or the anxiety disorder.
98% of the people who call themselves autistic on the internet aren’t, you know, actually diagnosed (same with depression and anxiety). They’re just assholes, and want to use it as an excuse to continue to be assholes.
Delete your account.
I’m just kidding. Come on JB, it’s like a family here, an alcoholic dysfunctional family.
The rational part of my brain and the anxiety-ridden parts have never gotten along very well.
The anxiety usually wins all the arguments.
Truth
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/89/67/05/896705f7304f6669cff233db0e26857f.jpg
an alcoholic dysfunctional family…
Don’t forget the incest.
Wait…what? I never get in on any of the fun stuff. / Sad face.
Whatever it is, it ain’t autism.
I don’t post a ton because I’m genuinely terrified that I’m going to say something so dumb that y’all will hate me and I’ll get pushed away from this place.
Unlikely. We accepted you through a brony phase. If you get Phinneas Gage’d or something and have a dramatic personality change we’ll revisit this.
“I’m autistic, and this is how you can support me at work: Give me the ability to adapt my schedule and work flexible hours…Allow me to work remotely..Let me wear my odd, offbeat clothes to work because I need them to think creatively”
Hey, I’m Autistic too!
Can I bring my support alligator to work with me also? I need it to feel secure. All those micro aggressions and whatnot.
PSA: Death of Stalin is an excellent movie, even if it does not fully go into the swineries and absurdities of the regime. Cast is terrific, and Jason Isaacs steals the show as G. K. Zhukov. That it was banned in Russia for “making Zhukov look like a moron” is a travesty – he comes across as the only badass in the bunch. Go see it.
The one big failing is when (SPOILER) Beria gets his show trial, charges are his actual crime (murder, serial rape) instead of the ones used in the real-life show trial. Having him executed on trumped-up charges would have been so perfect.
***
Beria and all the other defendants were sentenced to death on 23 December 1953. When the death sentence was passed, Beria pleaded on his knees for mercy before collapsing to the floor and wailing and crying, but to no avail.[47][not in citation given] The other six defendants were executed by firing squad on the same day the trial ended.[48] Beria was executed separately. He was shot through the forehead by General Pavel Batitsky who had to stuff a rag into Beria’s mouth to silence him. His final moments bore great similarity to those of his own predecessor, NKVD Chief Nikolai Yezhov, who begged for his life before his execution in 1940.
***
Good riddance.
I liked the movie. It’s a comedy, so one shouldn’t expect perfect historical accuracy. Nonetheless, it was interesting to see how “peasant” Khrushchev outschemed his rivals in the Politburo, which is fundamentally historically accurate.
At the start, when he begins Every. Single. Sentence. with “When I was in Stalingrad during the war…”, I cracked up. I remember reading in Court of the Red Tsar (awesome book, btw) how proud he was of being the commissar there, even though he really didn’t do much, or actually be on the west bank of Volga, where the fighting was.
I do wish they gave him his crowning moment of glory and mentioned the speech of 1956, when he kicked off de-Stalinization.
Also historically accurate – Beria was pushing of liberalization, to the point that he was blamed for civil unrest in East Germany. Wikipedia even claims he was willing to consider trading the reunification of Germany for US aid to USSR.
So i have just learned that there was some sort of Gunfight @ The OK Corral between Ezra Klein and Sam Harris
– There is this fairly broad category of “people (many academics) who are otherwise “left-liberal”, but have become targets of criticism by the hard-left for being too-critical of Progtarded Social Justice stuff”…
see: Pinker, Haidt, Harris, Saad, Bret Weinstein, Kipnis …. Dave Rubin….. others i’m not remembering… maybe Hoff-Summers and Jordan Peterson too, tho i think they’re probably more ‘center-right’ to begin with…
They probably need a name of some kind, to describe them as a whole. But anyway, i have sensed for the last 6-8 months or so that there is some pushback brewing against them, because their criticisms make too much sense, and are too effective at undermining the credibility of the New Media shrieking progtard crowd.
anyway, i don’t really otherwise follow most of these people’s shit at all. I do enjoy hearing their stuff from time to time, and generally agree 60-80% with their basic arguments. what’s really most notable about them is that nothing they say is ‘unreasonable’; in fact, the most-bizarre fact about them is that they’re considered “controversial” at all, because literally all they’re arguing for 90% of the time is an appeal to some common-sense enlightenment values, and expressing skepticism of leftist ideological witch-hunts
So… anyway, because i can’t keep up with their shit, i never heard about this until just now, and i feel like, “fuck, now i need to wade knee-deep into some shit for the next few hours” if i want to stay abreast of developments in the Internet Culture Wars. At least the Peterson/Newman video was a quick, 30min watch.
this is a bizarre way for me to recommend this as reading material for others, but… there you go.
They probably need a name of some kind, to describe them as a whole
Mensheviks? Factionalists? Revisionists? Titoists?
If nothing else, history of Communism is full of attributes given to groups of dissenters before they (or just random people you don’t like) can be ostracized and punished.
Your definition of “sane and ethical” really needs some work, Mr Harris. But hey, if one sits down with the cannibals, they gotta eat something or they might wind up in the pot. And if you do eat, do you get to claim you’re not a cannibal?
Some of them label themselves as classical liberals.
If you accept J.S. Mill after his Utilitarianism conversion, I guess. I don’t think they’d look kindly on Bastiat or Hayek.
Haha no most wouldn’t. I really just consider them Democrats that aren’t full of rage.
In European system, they’d be Social Democrats. They’d be sitting in the middle between Liberals and Socialists (and Socialists are distinct from Communists). “Mostly free market, with some regulation, social safety paid for by high taxes, and low government interference in private life” used to be SD platform all over the continent…
I don’t really even understand your point because i haven’t read his thing yet.
i do tend to take the side of the [still-unnamed liberal critics of hard lefties], but it doesn’t mean i necessarily endorse them as people. i just think they’re less bad than what has become ‘the norm’.
i did watch a sit-down between Dave Rubin and Brendan O’neill last night. I feel like i’ve already done my dose of this “we’re the sane middle” stuff this week, and am a little tired of it.
my main interest in digesting any public-spat between the Ezra-Klein types of the world, and anyone else, is primarily as a collector of “bullshit rhetorical tactics” common among the Vox-writing/reading types.
i’ve already seen it mentioned (on twitter) that one of the popular ones employed in this ‘not-yet-read’ debate is “very kindly and generously suggest your interlocultor is probably a cypto-racist, and offer them your condolences because its probably not their fault and its just outside their own control anyway”;
i think that used to be summarized as “patronizing” someone. But people invent new terms for old-shit all the time.
My point is that he still thinks these are fine and reasonable people, who for some reason overreact to disagreements.
They’re not. Some are ideologues who insist on conformity because they understand in an atmosphere of true, free discussion, their flimsy facade of intellectualism built by repeating received wisdom and latest talking points will be exposed, and they will be sent back to where they belong. That Ezra Kleins, MattYs, Jessica Valentis and more of them will lose the power, influence and easy life they have now.
Harris is an intellectual giant compared to that lot. That’s why he must be kept in the fold repeating the same twaddle as they do – if he gets to dissent and not be punished, what happens to loyal mediocrities? Especially ones who are not quite as loyal, and much easier to take down than Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins? Better to pile on and prove loyalty.
Yes, it leads to a cycle of increased denunciation over ever-pettier differences. But it’s like being the first guy to stop applauding Stalin’s speech – everyone wants to stop, but it doesn’t
Yes, i see now what you were getting at. I entirely agree.
I’ve been keeping up with this stuff for a long time and watch a lot of videos from the people you mentioned. They’re doing good work but once you’ve seen a few hours worth of interviews with each one of them, you’ve pretty much heard everything important that they have to say. They’re so busy with basic stuff like “not everyone is a bigot” and “calling half the nation evil is not a road we should go down” that I doubt they will take up that much of your time – unless you’re into the drama of it all, because that is an endless rabbit hole.
Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson have interesting things to say outside of the controversial subjects, the other ones, not so much.
I must say that life is good commenting on PM links from Twin Peaks with a cold mug of craft ale in hand… Cheers to Beer:30, gang!
I found this today, Odd tasting, like a Pilsner flavor almost, well, CHEERS!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ByRu7j19psZ7r8RI3
OT.
talking with my youngest brother about markets and I was going over black, grey, and white markets. He just goes “I don’t see color.”
Thought that was hilarious.
+1 duty free carton of cigarettes
Score one for the luddites? More Tesla bad news.
http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-robots-are-killing-it-2018-3
A different excerpt from the Bernstein report that makes up the meat of the story.
So, the ending of the story is that their stock jumped 17%, right?
“automation actually raises costs beyond a point, as Exhibit 14, from academics Gorlech and Wessel”
I would like to see what kind of calculations for labor Gorlech and Wessel are making.
“In welding, mistakes and inconsistencies go unrecognized – but the machine powers on and builds cars with the wrong geometry or bad spot welds in key locations. These are only found later – when for instance the windscreen is inserted, or a door re-attached”
That is totally dependent on what steps are done for tolerance checking. Either the tolerance checking for the welding is non-existent or the tolerance checking at that stage in the process is allowing for too wide a range. It has nothing to do with whether a human or a robot did the welding, if anything the likelihood is that the robot is way better 99% of the time so they removed the tolerance checking altogether.
“but they don’t detect and account for threads that aren’t straight, bolts that don’t quite fit, fasteners that don’t align”
Are they checking tolerance on every bolt that is delivered? If not, why not? (Here’s a hint: cost). If robots aren’t good at identifying bolts that don’t quite fit, the problem isn;t the robot, the problem is the tolerance checking on the bolt.
“Humans are really good at this.”
Except on Monday mornings and Friday afternoons.
“Now you have your answer.”
No, now I have your opinion.
Honestly Tesla bores the shit out of me. Musk is a grifter living on subsidies. Electric cars are wildly unreliable and inefficient. They aren’t going to catch on unless electricity is cheaper than gasoline and the technology for storing it gets much better and much cheaper.
The free market would do to Tesla what Tesla (and its investors) has coming to it. The problem is the whole thing is a creation of Leviathan – not only the subsidies but the activist government pensions investing in it.
Alright, props to the Mississippi State University Student Association for this. They’re right. Some opinions deserve no audience. I’m fine with their “first amendment freedoms” being violated in the name of the greater good.
https://twitter.com/MSU_SA/status/979068956735614982
TRUE DOMINEERING SPECIES CHOOSE GUACAMOLE WITH A SPLASH OF SALSA…discuss
The Tiniest Lavender plant, in bloom like Mom and Dad
https://photos.app.goo.gl/UBRFVwjr6YilmpDn2
Quick question for you Glibs with military experience / more firearms knowledge than I have.
I think that when people talk about arming teachers, the idea in their head is that the teachers are concealed carry on their person. But that seems crazy to me. Its a controlled environment. Why wouldn’t some kind of locker in every class room be a better answer? In my mind, this system only involves a few of the lockers actually having a weapon in there (ie if the teacher in the room is vetted and approved, whatever that entails).
1) Is there some kind of robust check in / check out and locking mechanism that would make the locker sufficiently accessible to an authorized adult but not an unauthorized adult / student? For check in / check out, I’m thinking of something like a camera that engages when the door unlocks/opens and that can transmit real-time images to both the office and a 911 call desk (and archived). For locking mechanism.. well, what would be appropriate here?
2) Is there sufficiently robust alarm systems that could be used such that the locker can’t be opened without setting off a serious alarm on par with a firealarm?
3) Are there any other real-world examples of weapons lockers scattered around that can and should only be accessed by a few people? How do those work?
Public school teachers are the last people you want to give guns to.
Second to last. Cops are the last.
I admit that they are pretty far down on my list, but they are still higher up than “people literally shooting children right now.”
Also, I’m not giving shit to no one. The state takes them away.
I don’t know. I can think of a few that I had in public school.
I mean, 5% of em.
Just go grab a few thousand democrats from a big city who got their degrees on “Gee: everyone says this is the easiest thing to graduate with!”, hand out firearms, and say “defend yourselves!”
I assume you end up with a pissed off teacher and a classroom of dead kids.
Ok, an addendum to my post would be that I’m only talking about *permitting* access to the firearms by people who are already CC permit holders, or who go through a *self selected* licencing process on par with reasonable CC permit requirements from not-crazy-restrictive states.
But, then, why are they teachers?
Gee, next you’ll tell me that we’ll form a cabal of science teachers for public school drawn from prize-winning nuclear physicists.
I have no idea what you are trying to say. Are you saying that no teachers anywhere are competent and interested in being armed around children?
Apart from Richard Feynman, most prize-winning nuclear physicists would make terrible teachers. Also, they make terrible administrators (see: Steven Chu’s tenure as Secretary of Energy).
Because becoming a teacher is one of the easiest bachelors degrees to get, pays well, has great benefits, fantastic time off, it’s clean and has great retirement. And they get to whine about being poor while making greater than median income with more time off.
The advantage of simply allowing CC is that 99% of the staff who did so would keep it a secret as the bulk of the staff would not approve. Very few people would know where the guns were, or even how many there were, and that in itself is a huge deterrent.
I’m more sanguine about permitting any adult staff who wants to carry, subject to state and city regs, gaining a CCW. In practice, it’s a self-selecting issue, and I’d guess maybe 20% of adult staff – max – would go for it.
Typically, CC holders are no worse at a target range than cops, and sometimes, far better. The cops have an advantage that in order to qualify each year, they have to go thru’ a test and a defensive shooting refresher, which might be an appropriate idea for teachers.
The challenge teachers have is that they would – if they had to react – be in a chaotic environment where it could be very difficult to take a shot without innocents being beyond the shooter, which of course is a recipe for disaster. The counterargument is of course that there’s a frickin’ psychopath ALREADY on the loose. How much worse can it get?
The average cop doesn’t hit the range that often. Rounds fired in training/practice/quals per year are anywhere from 50 on the low end to 500 on the higher end. For a “gun enthusiast” 500 rounds might last a month. Of course not every CC holder is an enthusiast who trains with their gun.
The recipe for disaster is coercion. Much like terrorism, nobody dares mention that school shootings are a form of blowback, even though the perps almost always say that it is. “We can never acknowledge that a criminal might have a valid point!”
“I assume you end up with a pissed off teacher and a classroom of dead kids.”
And the problem is…?
I’m only being 95% snarky. I consider schools to be somewhat toxic environments, and mostly because of the volatile mixture of unions and compulsion.
Speak for yourself. I was in JROTC and I’d trust both of my instructors there with guns. And my government teacher was a retired Marine colonel who fought in Korea.
There are such things as gun safes with biometrics that could be used, but to a determined thief, you can bust into them. A gun in a locked location is a gun whose location is known to many people.
Sure, you could put alarms on the box, but then the alarm tells everyone that people are arming up. A central control room with the alarm logged and relayed to the police station would likely be better. In general though, the more complex you make the system, the more likely it is that something will fuck up.
Furthermore, you’re more likely to have staff that can shoot better if they;re shooting a weapon they’re familiar with. Ideally, the one they shoot when they practice.
Lastly, the ‘best practice’ rule is to carry on your person if at all possible, this denies unauthorized persons to gain access to a weapon.
Good point. Would an overly sensitive alarm reporting be possible, practically speaking? (99.98 of my security knowledge comes from the bits and bytes world, not physical security)
This, I am very aware from from the bits and bytes world.
Good point, hadn’t considered this.
This is probably just something I don’t really understand. My brain says “Law of Big Numbers!!” and that school shootings are so rare that the occasional ND from on-body carry is a greater threat than school shootings. But on the other hand, I personally know many people that carry every single day and haven’t accidentally capped someone.
A sensitive alarm system is likely to generate a lot of false positives – human nature dictates that the alarms would start to be ignored, or at least, not responded to as promptly as you’d want, if the alarm was a legitimate problem. As you know from electronic world, most of the security lapses that experts see are at least in part due to human psychology.
On the final part, one of the reasons I don’t carry, and probably won’t while I live in New England is that you don’t get “good” at carrying unless you’re carrying most of the time. I’ll probably end up working in NYC again at some point in the future, and I can’t carry anywhere in NY state, and most definitely not in NYC, so habit and muscle memory and conditioning will never fully ‘set’. Having said that a good holster, fitted properly, isn’t really much of an encumbrance.
However, working as a school teacher, while carrying concealed is going to be a challenge. I completely expect that a CCW teacher will be ‘outed’ pretty quickly. It doesn’t take much of a sartorial slip to let a handgun show.
On the issue of safety and NDs, that’s why they’re called “Negligent Discharges” and not “Accidental Discharges”. With proper holsters, an appropriate firearm and modest practice, the possibility of a real ‘accident’ falls dramatically. Almost all NDs that cause an injury happen in one of two situations. When holstering/unholstering, and when cleaning.
In both situations, it’s the gun handler themselves that are most at risk. When the gun’s in a holster, the chance of an ND ends up with a huge denominator (provided you don’t own something very old, inappropriate, or a Taurus).
Good points. Thanks.
I’ve seen what public school educators make (I’m boning one on the reg. And share a bank account with her. And also I am legally married to her). They are more likely to be carrying a Hi-Point.
The thing with Taurus is that some modern models of revolvers they make have a nasty habit of just going off. So, a real Accidental Discharge. There’s currently a raft of lawsuits in Brazil over the issue.
Ladies often have a problem concealed carrying demurely when the firearm is as big as a Hi Point, but on the plus-side, something like a used Glock 23 really isn’t much more, and I’ve seen one of THOSE carried in a garter belt, which I’m sure would be quite exciting if you’re into that kind of thing.
As far as #1 goes, yes there are. Morsewatchman is one company I know of, I think medeco has some stuff very similar. And there is always a way to wire some sort of access control into a closet that could be opened by prox card.
Downsides would be that these things aren’t impervious to everything and if someone wanted to get in they will. The Morse is usually used for key access, like fleet vehicles. They have options for an interior cabinet that would be able to hold a handgun or two. They can be off pin codes (which aren’t that secure imo) or prox card or fingerprint. The fingerprint might not be the best for some sort of active shooter, but prox cards can be stolen.
I think other access control and locks are a rather good, but expensive, solution. Every school is different and I could see something like that working in some places.
I assume you are thinking of the possibility of a student taking a gun away from a teacher. If you put too many safeguards in place the gun may as well not be there.
I would keep my little Sig P938 in my jacket pocket unloaded. The magazine, loaded with frangible ammo would be in a different pocket.
If some kid did manage to take it away he would have no ammo. If I needed it it would only take a few seconds to put the mag in and chamber a round. I can hit a human sized target at 50 feet with that little bugger very reliably. In the shitshow of a school shooting I would probably be closer than that. I would never let on to anyone that I was armed.
Problem solved. No money spent.
P938 is still on my list of things to buy.
The Springfield EMP is a good size and fairly easy to conceal, but it doesn’t really fit in a pocket. There could be days when the 938 is a better option.
Why does Mr. Suthern always wear a jacket?
You’d be known, but that might not be an issue, because you’d also potentially be feared.
Modern Zen Koan
“E, ready for dinner?”
“I want waffles!”
“Waffles!? No, we’re having spaghetti!”
“Oh”
…
“Mac and cheese?”
“N-”
“I want chicken nuggets.”
I’m not really a fan of teachers being armed. My reasoning being that they might prove incompetent at it. It’s not really their job, which is in theory at least, to teach. I’d rather see dedicated armed security deal with it, because it’s actually their job and they shouldn’t be distracted by other duties.
The problem I have with that is a “school shooting” is such a remote possibility, it seems pointless, to me. Add in the inevitable mission creep, and you end up in a situation worse than if you do nothing (See: School Resource Officer). You don’t have to coerce anybody to participate in an active defense scenario. You just need to not forbid it.
No matter what you do, you’ll get burned by an unanticipated variable. Allowing school staff to voluntarily take an active role seems like the absolute least pernicious alternative, to me.
My worry is that the odds of a teacher stopping a school shooting in such a situation are less than the odds of a teacher “accidentally” killing a kid “in fear for their lives”, and likely getting the same protection as police officers do in such cases.
Unlikely. The teachers who volunteer would likely be the ones with prior firearms experience, possibly military experience etc.
If there is a shooting going on how much worse can it be? Thats like complaining about a fireman smoking during a house fire because he might catch part of the house on fire.
I think that when people talk about arming teachers, the idea in their head is that the teachers are concealed carry on their person. But that seems crazy to me. Its a controlled environment. Why wouldn’t some kind of locker in every class room be a better answer?
Why not the administrative/principal’s office? It’s segregated from student monkey business, and it the response to a threat will still be a whole lot closer and faster than waiting on Officer Donut.
Late to the party, but in reading I.B. McGinty’s article, one part of the Deomcrat’s response jumped out at me: “The House also voted to make it easier for veterans who have serious mental health conditions like PTSD…”
The implication here seems to be that veterans with PTSD are all psychos waiting to murder people. It is precisely statements like that that cause many veterans to avoid seeking the mental healthcare they need.
Fuck you Congresscritter Dumbass. I hope you burn in Hell.
Once that’s in they’ll just define down mental illness to stubbing your toe. Sane people would be aware of the coffee table leg!
‘The implication here seems to be that veterans with PTSD are all psychos waiting to murder people. It is precisely statements like that that cause many veterans to avoid seeking the mental healthcare they need.’
That’s ok, because when they commit suicide we’ll use that as a statistics to push for gun control. /Dem rep
I will say again; as I recall, the assistant principal at my high school was an ex- naval aviator. The more I think about it, the less surprised I would be to learn he did, in the early ’70s, have a .45 locked in his desk drawer.
You don’t have to arm *everyone* and you don’t have to disarm *everyone*.
¡Jesus Cristo! ¡Esas chicas tienen buenas tetas!
Don’t take the BOOBS name in vain!
“The House also voted to make it easier for veterans who have serious mental health conditions like PTSD…”
I think that was a reference to voiding Obama’s order to the VA about automatically putting any veteran with a “guardian” for financial affairs onto the NICS no-buy list.
Typical “up is down” bullshit.
*I think it was a executive order or some sort of decree from the Obama admin.
No doubt it was in reference to a very specific set of circumstances, but if someone told me that without any context I’d have a very hard time controlling my temper.
My worry is that the odds of a teacher stopping a school shooting in such a situation are less than the odds of a teacher “accidentally” killing a kid “in fear for their lives”, and likely getting the same protection as police officers do in such cases.
I’m pretty certain you’re correct in thinking there are far more student-on-teacher assaults each year than there are spree killings on school grounds and/or in school buildings. How great is the risk that it would escalate to lethal force is a question which deserves consideration.
In the spirit of resistance against the gun grabbers, I propose at least one of us comment on news articles which mention homicide by any means other than guns by stating, “At least it wasn’t gun violence.” I almost did it publicly on an article where the perp admitted he knocked off his wife with a baseball bat…
“Thank God it wasn’t gun violence” I think is the best choice phrase. Really make it clear that the worst case scenario didn’t materialize but for the divine hand of the Almighty.
David Burge parodies Sean Penn’s hideously-bad novel
Well, at least that makes the plot sound interesting. Maybe Penn should do a colab with John Ringo, on the promise that both of them write with no restraints whatsoever.
If he partnered with Correia, we’d have some cool firearms descriptions too!
Correia’s writing is quite polished these days. I should go back and read the first MHI – I suspect it’ll be a little jarring.
it will be. But it is still good. I think the first Black Sword book is his high water mark and am seriously looking forward to the next one which should be out early next year I think. He just gets better with every novel.
Son of the Black Sword blew my mind. I loved MHI series, but damn, I wouldn’t have believed this was the same author if it weren’t for the cover. I’m glad I didn’t read the short story/excerpt he posted because WTF dude, why blow the big revelation?
He needs to step up and write more, but I’m guessing Warmachine stuff pays the bills and has harsher deadlines, while being easier to write….
He writes a ton, problem is he has so many irons in the fire
Yeah. I’ve been a huge Larry Fan since stumbling over the first Baen edition of MHI. I own everything he’s written. and Black Sword blew my mind too. The only other fantasy series I have ever liked is The Lord of the Rings. And I read Black Sword just because I am so fond of Larry. I’d read a regency romance if he wrote one.
But I was blown away too. I mean, that book is /tight/. Every single aspect is amazing, the characters, their development, the world building, the plot, the literary techniques, everything. That it wasn’t critically acclaimed indicates that most critics don’t know shit.
I said in a review that I have never read a book that made me angrier. Not at the author, but at the antagonists and the wickedness of the rulers of that world. I normally don’t get that caught up in emotion in a book, but the society painted was simply so unjust without being a caricature. *ahem* I’ll stop fanboying.
As for writing more, no, I don’t think it is the warmachine stuff. MHI and Black Sword are his best-selling stuff. And the man puts out 2-3 books a year. I think he simply has a ton going on; writing, and getting better at that so his novels are more complex and take longer to write, editing collections of short stories, television shows, apparently negotiating option deals on some of his work, and building Yard Moose Mountain.
Agreed – ‘Son of The Black Sword’ was a gem. Really looking forward to ‘House of Assassins’ – cover art is badass too.
Jesus, Ringo. His book hijacking Corriea’s MHI universe was cringeworthy. Holy Marty Stu.
I like over-the-top stupid, but I bailed after the first one. I mean, Correia (I think) tried to do something with “he’s unreliable narrator, don’t trust everything he says” in the intro but come on.
The punchline at the end was great, though. If he stuck more with comedy and less with mentally jacking off….
I had his Oh, John Ringo, NO! series in mind. I only know it by notoriety, but at least it’s 100% over the top…
I bailed after the first one, too. As I posted in one of my rare Goodreads reviews re: the unreliable narrator: “…books that effectively use that device reveal at least glimpses of the truth instead of just stating it outright and never referencing it again. In this case it feels like after-the-fact damage control by an editor.”
I have read them. I even have the t-shirt that Ringo organized as a fundraiser after that was published.
Do they get any better? I hated ‘Grunge’.
I meant the Oh John Ringo No books. I enjoyed them all but the last one which was a co-written. Ringo claims he at one point wanted to end them by having someone find Mike’s body in the wheel well of a jetliner and imply the whole thing had been a psychotic break followed by his fever dreams as he died of asphyxia.
I’ve read both of the Ringo MHI books too. I thought the 2nd one was/is better. It’s in New Orleans. There’s still some of the main character being super special. but…well, Mary stu is sort of inherently part of MHI. Owen is basically Larry with the serial numbers filed off after all. And I admit to liking Ringo’s sense of humor which means I’m more likely to think well of something of his. I admit, the tone doesn’t quite fit with MHI.
Oh, sure – Owen is Larry, as is Jake Sullivan; especially with Owen, he’s a victim of his own success & can’t change that much now. But, at least that’s just the author injecting himself into the story a bit – he’s not excellent at everything, like a real Mary Sue/Marty Stu; that dude in Grunge is exceptional at _everything_ – smart, handsome, saves the day every time, fucks like a beast, etc.
He’s also kind of impetuous and gets his ass in a sling. But yeah, I get what you are saying. He’s a Ringo Stock Character. Military Bad Ass Fuck Machine. The othesr being Amazing With Guns Hot Babe, and Incredibly Clever Capitalist Man
Holy Christ, I just read some of the excepts:
What the actual fuck?
Everything he learned about monologues, he learned by watching V for Vendetta. Twice
Just one more charge for Alan Moore’s trial for crimes against humanity, I guess…
LOL, from the article
Stay classy, HuffPo. Stay as classy as Sean Penn’s prose.
But not his poetry. That was…they should have sent a poet. One they really, really hate.
Scottsdale deployments
Well, I guess that means I need to arm up before going to work.
The above linked review compares it to Crying of Lot 49 (Pynchon)
– unfavorably, but doubly so because she suggests that “lot” is also wildly over-rated alliterative verbal diarrhea; just that Penn’s alliterative verbal diarrhea doesn’t even rise to the level of *fooling anyone* there’s any actual talent behind it all
* disclosure: i really liked Crying of Lot 49. not everone’s taste, sure.
Drugs or insanity? I know, they aren’t mutually exclusive…
This is Sean Penn we are talking about here.
I’m going to with: “stupid and arrogant”; Sean Penn is Dunning-Kruger Effect made flesh – he’s not a fraction as smart as he thinks he is.
NAP
https://fee.org/articles/reject-the-identity-politics-of-the-alt-right-and-the-control-left/
This talk of whether teachers should be armed got me reminiscing of my teachers and whether I would want them armed. A few stick out:
o 1st and 2nd grade, Mrs Baldwin (early 50’s so she was “Mrs”). She was as grey-haired and sweet and tough as they come she’d have defended her flock with a vengeance. She also illustrates what we lost with womens’ lib. For her generation being a teacher was about the only acceptable career for a young woman. Today she’d end up as CFO of a major corperation.
o 5th grade (1st half), Mr Noll. He flew an F-86 in Korea and could have held off any school shooter with his 1911. He was, however, no match for a room full of 5th graders we literally drove him out of the teaching profession – kids are assholes.
o 5th grade (2nd half). Mrs Anderson. We quickly learned that no one messed with Mrs Anderson. After that she was real cool (funny how that works). She’d have done fine with something smaller than the 1911.
o 6th grade, Mr Rasmusen. He drove a Sherman tank in North Africa and probably did carry. He played basketball at BYU and at recess he’d chose one boy to be on his side and the two of them would take on the whole class – he wiped the court with us.
Jr High. Mr Thompson. Metal Shop teacher – nuff said. The Chukes were actually afraid of him.
High School Mr Aldridch. German teacher. Sterotype first against the wall Trotsky Commie. He’s have wet himself at the sight of a firearm.
Most of the rest of the group should probably not have carried. Of course, all the shop and gym teachers (even the Dyke girls’ PE) would have been fine.
“Mr Thompson. Metal Shop teacher – nuff said. The Chukes were actually afraid of him.”
What is a Chuke?
In the old days there were some guys in every town nobody would mess with. The Blacksmith and the Baker are at the top of the list.
I presume it’s pachuco.
Yep
Hmm, My Metal shop Teacher “sponsored” the Mexican gangs, to the point of letting them tale over that buildings Bathrooms, and no one cared….
Take over….
Thompson ran a tight ship ’cause he knew his shop class was about the last chance for a lot of his students to learn anything useful towards making their own way in the world. A lot were hopeless, but he wanted to help the ones who maybe weren’t.
A friend of mine is retired Army. Went to school in his middle ages to get a master in education. He now teaches and primarily works with kids with problems. This is the kind of teacher you want to have access to firearm if shit hits the fan.
Since it is slow…Ed Wuncler’s story about the snotnose rich girl lecturing him on the civil rights movement in the ’60s reminded me of something.
When I was about 16 I told my grandfather that prohibition was a bad idea and a complete failure, that it caused more harm than good. He listened to my screed and then he said
“You don’t know what you are talking about. You weren’t there. You didn’t see it.” He then explained that since the whiskey rebellion it was illegal to make whiskey without paying the tax but everyone did it anyway and to avoid more trouble the government mostly turned a blind eye. By his time every third house on the road anywhere you went had a bar set up in their living room and they made their own hooch along with selling dope which was also ignored. The drunks and the dope heads were everywhere. You couldn’t go anywhere without getting rolled. Crime was rampant. The murder, rape and robbery were out of control.
“You know that place up at French Fork? They’d getcha coming and going there. Hell, it was so bad that when they put the railroad in from Rhinehart to Jonesville they routed around French Fork. That’s why there ain’t nobody up there anymore. That killed the town. Prohibition was bad because the cost was so high, but it was a success. In a lot of ways it saved the country.” People got tired of all of that shit and began to complain. Prohibition was enacted because the government saw that it had enough public support to stop turning a blind eye.
I had to concede that there was a lot more to it than I knew. He was right, I didn’t know what I was talking about and yet 16 yo me was so sure before that. I doubt Ed’s debutante would be that intellectually honest or self aware.
I also didn’t know that the whiskey rebellion was still simmering as a guerrilla war right up into the 20th century.
I’ve been curious…worried… about this for awhile. What if drug prohibition is an evil, but it’s not the central evil of drug addiction and violence of the drug trade? So you decriminalize drugs. Those ghetto economies that engender all the violence collapse, ideally, leaving pharmacists who can prescribe what ails ya. Where do the dealers go? The criminals who dealt, they’re still around. In the ideal libertarian world, you’ve choked off income for criminals, but there are still criminals… none of whom have any stake in the local economy. Now what? And the addicts who struggled to survive before, now they’re able to sustain their addictions at a much lower cost… but it’s silly to pretend they don’t ramp up their usage to suit this new price.
Giving better quality, reliable drugs in lower strength would be one way to handle it. Of course the dopers will just concentrate it themselves but the quality and strength would be better. Probably less overdoses and far less violence and rights violations. It wouldn’t be a cure all. Bad shit will still happen but it would be an improvement.
It’s a problem with no good solution.
But that is just it, in a free market the really hard damaging drugs would simply not exist because no one would have an incentive to make them and those who would use them will have safer alternatives available.
The drug dealers, well yeah they are a bit of a problem but saying “they are still criminals” is a bit misleading. The majority are only criminals because there is a black market available to earn much more money than they can earn in legitimate jobs available to them in. It is not like they are criminals because they like being criminals or victimizing people. Sure, some of them do but nowhere near all of them. The real risk is that they go try and create some new black market to control to replace the lost drug income but at the end of the day when the drug money dries up the majority of dealers and suppliers will just drift away into sitting around using the newly cheap drugs on welfare or somesuch
Test.
How are you getting FIVE copies of the URL in your link?
Here
Thanks, UnCiv!
Past a certain number of comments, I watch in the comments dashboard, I didn’t realize you’d gone to a dead thread to test.
Test 2.