LAGC
LAGC's JournalDon't You Just Love Those Regular DVDs That Advertise Blu-Ray?
Seems like they are on every regular DVD rental these days.
The advertisements feature all this sharp sound and crisp picture, suggesting you only get that high quality if you buy Blu-Ray -- except, that's regular DVD quality at work there! What you are seeing/hearing is what you already got! Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to see/hear it!
They may as well just come out and say: "You don't really need Blu-Ray, because the status quo is just fine."
Some of these advertisers never cease to amaze me...
Steubenville Rape Victim Receiving Death Threats
Police say two 16-year-old girls are charged with threatening the girl. They say one of the suspected girls was arrested and the other turned herself in.
Police say one of the girls tweeted a threat to the victim, and they later learned of another threat from a second teen.
In a tweet to the victim, Police say one of the teens wrote, “you ripped my family apart, you made my cousin cry , so when I see you xxxxx, it’s gone be a homicide.”
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http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/03/18/police-probe-death-threats-against-steubenville-rape-victim/
Jesus... no wonder so many girls and women are reluctant to report sexual assaults.
And now the whole world knows her name...
Mass. woman sues FedEx over marijuana delivery
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Tobin said she thought the package was a birthday present for her daughter, because when she opened it, she found candles, pixie sticks and peppermint. There was also something she thought was potpourri, but it was marijuana.
Tobin said that about an hour later, a man knocked on her door looking for the package, while two men sat in a vehicle in her driveway, waiting. She said she didn't have it, and bolted and slammed the door. Tobin claims FedEx gave out her address, which led the men to her home.
http://news.yahoo.com/mass-woman-sues-fedex-over-marijuana-delivery-135742401.html
Jesus Christ... I'm not a big fan of frivolous lawsuits, but I think this woman may just have a case.
There's no reason FedEx couldn't have just sent the driver back to pick up the package.
Giving her address out to potential criminals just to save FedEx the labor/gas/trip is just plain negligent.
Someone needs to be held accountable.
Thank God Romney Isn't President Right Now
And I say this as an atheist... thank the heavenly Sky-Daddy!
Could you guys imagine this same aftermath of Sandy Hook right now? Not only would we likely be seeing the same gun control crap coming out of the White House, like a new AWB, but Mittens may have actually been able to peel off a considerable portion of the Republican vote in Congress to go along with him, just like Bush often did.
The nice thing about Obama being in the driver's seat is how predictable it is that the Republicans automatically knee-jerk against everything he does.
I mean, shit, he nominates a REPUBLICAN Defense Secretary, and the Republicans revolt along party-lines. Filibuster and everything. Go figure.
I have no doubt the Repukes are only going to increase their holdings in Congress in 2014, so it will be good to have a Democratic president to keep them in check.
Gridlock isn't necessarily a bad thing. Helps keep unconstitutional laws (like the PATRIOT Act and warrantless wiretaps) from seeping out of Washington.
So there are a bunch of conservatives in one of my community college classes I'm attending...
It's an online English Composition (writing) class, and the professor assigns us essays to read and discuss each week on a private online discussion board to help us analyze the works of famous writers. This week's required reading is an excerpt from Dreams From My Father, where Obama talks about how he first found out his dad had passed away. It was a very well-written piece and I was hopeful some good discussion might arise from it.
Anyway, the first half-dozen or so posters all said something to the effect of "I don't like Obama, so I'm not interested in anything he has to say." One even went so far as to call him a "pathological liar", which I took issue with. Here is what I wrote:
If anything, I think Obama has been quite candid about what he said his plans were back when he was running as a candidate, and has been quite diligent in pursuing those goals as president. He's fulfilled quite a few of his campaign promises, and those he hasn't only because of obstruction in Congress.
I don't agree with every stance of his agenda by any means, but I don't think its fair to single him out for being untruthful, considering who he has to work with in Washington.
Now I get to wait to see how many heads explode...
The Rifle on the Wall: A Left Argument for Gun Rights
"That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there." -- George Orwell
Let’s start with this: The citizen’s right to possess firearms is a fundamental political right. The political principle at stake is quite simple: to deny the state the monopoly of armed force. This should perhaps be stated in the obverse: to empower the citizenry, to distribute the power of armed force among the citizenry as a whole. The history of arguments and struggles over this principle, throughout the world, is long and clear. Instituted in the context of a revolutionary struggle based on the most democratic concepts of its day, the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution is perhaps the clearest legal/constitutional expression of this principle, and as such, I think, is one of the most radical statutes in the world.
The question of gun rights is a political question, in the broad sense that it touches on the distribution of power in a polity. Thus, although it incorporates all these perfectly legitimate “sub-political” activities, it is not fundamentally about hunting, or collecting, or target practice; it is about empowering the citizen relative to the state. Denying the importance of, or even refusing to understand, this fundamental point of the Second Amendment right, and sneering at people who do, symptomizes a politics of paternalist statism – not (actually the opposite of) a politics of revolutionary liberation.
I’ll pause right here. For me, and for most supporters of gun rights, however inartfully they may put it, this is the core issue. To have an honest discussion of what’s at stake when we talk about “gun rights,” “gun control,” etc., everyone has to know, and acknowledge, his/her position on this fundamental political principle. Do you hold that the right to possess firearms is a fundamental political right?
If you do, then you are ascribing it a strong positive value, you will be predisposed to favor its extension to all citizens, you will consider whatever “regulations” you think are necessary (because some might be) with the greatest circumspection (because those “regulations” are limitations on a right, and rights, though never as absolute as we may like, are to be cherished), you will never seek, overtly or surreptitiously, to eliminate that right entirely – and your discourse will reflect all of that. If you understand gun ownership as a political right, then, for you, if there weren’t a second amendment, there should be.
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http://www.thepolemicist.net/2013/01/the-rifle-on-wall-left-argument-for-gun.html
One LONG-assed essay, but a very good read, if you have the time.
Vatican Sides With Obama on Gun Control
Vatican's chief spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi, in an editorial said that 47 religious leaders have appealed to members of the U.S. Congress "to limit firearms that are making society pay an unacceptable price in terms of massacres and senseless deaths."
"I am with them," Lombardi declared, lining up the Vatican's moral support in favor of firearm limits.
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http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Vatican-guns-control-support/2013/01/19/id/472169
Maybe they should worry about protecting little boys first.
Vatican Sides With Obama on Gun Control
Vatican's chief spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi, in an editorial said that 47 religious leaders have appealed to members of the U.S. Congress "to limit firearms that are making society pay an unacceptable price in terms of massacres and senseless deaths."
"I am with them," Lombardi declared, lining up the Vatican's moral support in favor of firearm limits.
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http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Vatican-guns-control-support/2013/01/19/id/472169
Maybe they should worry about protecting little boys first.
Democratic Senator: White House Gun-Control Plans 'Way in Extreme'
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Host George Stephanopoulos asked Sen. Heitkamp: "Are you willing to sign on to some of the reforms that Vice President Biden and President Obama are already talking about?"
"You know, it's unclear," Heitkamp said. "I mean, you read Washington Post stories and you listen to what the administration says, and so I think what we need to do is we need to take a look at what happened at Sandy Hook. When I was attorney general, I was tasked with a national task force on school violence. We made a number of recommendations which, in fact, were adopted at Sandy Hook to help keep schools safer. They weren't adequate.
"Let's start addressing the problem," said Heitkamp. "And to me, one of the issues that I think screams out of this is the issue of mental health and the care for the mentally ill in our country, especially the dangerously mentally ill. And so we need to have a broad discussion before we start talking about gun control."
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/democratic-senator-wh-gun-control-plans-way-extreme
Uh oh... cue the torches and pitch-forks!!
Should be no surprise, but many rural Dems aren't on-board with new gun controls at all. And nothing is getting through Congress without them.
Looks like we'll have to look for other ways to deal with the violence instead...
I'm Kind of Enjoying All the Gun Threads in GD...
Seems like we're getting a lot more thoughtful discussion and reflection on this issue, less of the hard-core ideologues and trolls on both sides refusing to budge like most of those who dare venture into the Gungeon, already dead-set in their ways.
Maybe we should close the Gungeon once and for all and just let it all hang out in GD for good.
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