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gobbledonk

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Posts posted by gobbledonk

  1. Flash I would have expected better from you.

     

    +1

     

    When a BM who is normally level-headed seems to be supporting the gun lobby, or at the very least discounting calls for change, I'm disappointed. It's interesting that the Americans on the board, normally critical of so many things in the 'old country', cant see a way out of the current obsession with guns while those of us from outside the US can see a way forward. I wonder if you would be willing to defend the indefensible if you found yourselves face-to-face with the parents of one of the dead kids.

  2. 1 per cent of > 10,000 gun-related homicides each year isnt cause for celebration. I wonder how many of the other homicides involved the murderer shooting a 5-year old in the face ? Automatic/semi-automatic weapons dont belong in the hands of civilians - simple as that. There will always be a black market, and the 'bad guys' will always get the weapons they want, but you wont have the situation where a paranoid grade-school teacher can turn her house into an armory *legally*. His mother reportedly believed that the 'end times' were a-coming, and wanted to ensure that her family would be 'safe' : even Ted Nugent could see the irony in that.

  3. How many mass shootings (Tianamen notwithstanding) do they have in China ? Over a billion people, a massive gap between the rich and poor, but anyone contemplating such a thing knows exactly what the outcome will be. No lengthy trial/appeals process/20 years on death row - the Chinese Police would probably carry out 'sentence' on the spot.

  4.  

     

    I apologise to Americans on this forum I previously called weirdos. I was angry at the preventable slaughter of innocent children.

     

     

    I make no such apology - we now have US Senators appearing on TV to say that this has 'changed their stance' on gun control, and politicians who appear fired up enough to actually do something. Whether any of it will amount to a 'hill of beans' once the photo ops disappear is anyone's guess, but ask yourself this : how many of these politicians are prepared to face the media WHEN the next mass shooting leaves more innocent people in bodybags ?

  5. Forgot to add - initial reports were the security at the school 'buzzed' the killer through because his mother worked there - the media is now claiming he 'forced his way in'. Crackerjack security, guys - absolutely first rate.

  6. Alright - then give EVERYONE guns - from 12 year olds to geriatrics. I read an interview with a Texan many years ago who claimed that 'an armed society is a polite society'. He went on to say that you dont start trouble in a Texas bar when you know that half the customers are likely to be carrying - I wonder how that logic holds up to reality ?

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_and_gun_control_in_Texas

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luby%27s_massacre

     

     

    Finally, to those who rant about the need for the 'righteous' to be able to arm themselves (otherwise only the 'bad guys' would have guns ...), where were these righteous men and women in each of the following ?

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_Mine_massacre

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_U.S._Post_Office_massacre

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_Massacre

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Aurora_shooting

     

    but this is my personal favorite for sheer insanity:

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_shooting

     

    Despite being surrounded by armed military, he killed 13 and wounded 29 people : the key element was surprise. You dont expect 'your own people' to turn their weapons on you - shades of the ANA soldiers shooting coalition 'allies' then running off to join/rejoin Al Qaeda.

     

    Finally, lets consider the situation in Russia - surely a land where the 'bad guys' have truckloads of guns ? I expect that some have forgotten Beslan:

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis

     

    An extremely heavy-handed 'kill em all' response from the Russians saw 334 bodies, many summarily executed in their seats, on the floor of the theatre

    when the smoke cleared. That was almost 10 years ago, was NOT initiated by a lone gunman with no political motive, and the bulk of the Russian population seems content to get hammered and pass out on icy streets instead of shooting schoolchildren.

     

    If a country as fucked up as Russia can keep a lid on mass shootings, why cant the US ?

  7. OK - I'll turn this around - why arent US taxpayers forced to pay for armed security in every school / community hall / library etc in the country ? If you want the guns, fine - just be prepared to pay to have someone in place who can return fire. Bring the Marines back from Afghanistan and put them to use protecting the people who pay their wages.

     

    http://www.deccanchronicle.com/121214/news-world/article/man-stabs-22-children-china

     

    How many of these kids do you think would still be alive if the Chinese nutter had access to automatic weapons ?

     

    Beijing: The dreaded attacks on schoolchildren returned to haunt China today after 22 of them were injured besides an 85-year-old woman after a ‘mentally deranged’ man, armed with a knife, went on a slashing spree at a primary school.

    Armed with a knife Min Yingjun, 36 attacked group of children at the gate of a primary school in central China's Henan Province setting off panic in the village.

    The woman and most of the injured students suffered head wounds.

    Some of them were in shock, according to the People's Hospital of the county, which received most of the people injured in the attack.

  8. What the fuck is it going to take for US politicians to take on the gun lobby ? Even if they did manage to enact any worthwhile legislation, I suspect that it's too late - getting millions of weapons off the streets would take decades, and there will always be a black market somewhere.

     

    Again, the concept of 'hell' isnt completely without merit. Homegrown fruitcake, presumably with no political or religious motives : seriously fucked up.

    • Like 1
  9. I remember an editorial in a non-nutty-rightwing paper that asked if Obama was buying the election. As to California and Texas going blue, remember that both have huge and increasing Hispanic populations. Hispanics are the largest minority in the US these days, outnumbering Africa Americans by quite a bit. I used to hear bitter remarks about this from my Black GI friends when I worked for the Army in the 1990s. They'd say things like "... nobody sold their ass into slavery and made them come to this country and pick cotton." But they got Affirmative Action all the same.

     

    Granted, but at the risk of offending any black Americans who may read this, I get the distinct impression that many in the southern US have embraced the Latino population as a cheap, inexhaustible supply of cheap labor who, in many cases, are too afraid to speak up about poor pay/conditions. That may not be slavery circa 1800, but it seems hypocritical for 'liberals' in California to bemoan the efforts of people like Romney to maintain a permanent underclass while they continue to pay their gardener less than the minimum wage because they know they can get away with it.

  10. Petraeus should have come to Bangkok! :doah:

     

    post-98-0-79754200-1352705068_thumb.jpg

     

    Compared to his wife, she is a 12. On a scale of a 1 to 5 .... :yikes:

     

    Holly may well be America's sweetheart, but that is one very homely looking lady, I'm afraid, Little wonder Petraeus strayed from the reservation.

  11. Saw an interview with Levi Johnston on Dr Phil (!) yesterday : yet another in the long line of people willing to come out and say that Palin isnt the person she pretends to be when the cameras and microphones are pointed in her direction. I expect that there are two sides to this story, but the guy seemed more credible than many of the crazies they usually drag onto these shows, and his claims re threats and intimidation line up with a lot of the other 'kiss-and-tell' accounts of Palin's off-camera persona. The sooner she disappears entirely from the political landscape, the sooner Americans can get back to the real issues IMO.

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Sarah_Palin

     

    That reads like the CV for someone auditioning for the next movie about the Antichrist.

  12. For a Republican, the New Jersey Governor does have on redeeming feature.

     

    The governor is known for his devotion to rock star Bruce Springsteen, a New Jersey native, despite Springsteen's liberal politics and active campaigning for Obama.

     

    Maybe there is hope after all. Maybe.

  13. Stone's own problems are pretty well documented - I wouldnt damn Obama on the basis of anything that guy wrote.

     

    Watching the footage from the 'Super Storm' here this afternoon our time and its pretty surreal. They dragged the newscrew down to Times Square to tell us that 3 million people are without power, yet the famous neon signs still blaze into the NYC night, surrounded by blocks of blacked out skyscrapers. WTF ? No-one there to see it other than emergency personnel and media, but presumably the advertisers have some kind of penalty in place for any 'downtime'. Only in America. :surprised:

  14. US soldiers pay no tax ? Did I read that correctly ?

     

    We had to pay tax when I served in the Aust Army, and I was earning all of 25K pa as a Lance-Corporal in 1990..... sure, heavily-subsidided food and housing, free medical etc, but it was still a low wage compared to many city slickers.

     

    (even as recruits, where you get paid SFA, we still had to pay tax)

  15. Vietnamese Dong take the cake for me, and that would be a million Dong cake .....

     

    Getting back to the US Election, the talking heads are telling me that it will come down to the US Electoral College vote and rolling their eyes about the infamous GWB/Gore debacle. If our last election in Oz is anything to go by, you will have at least half the country pissed off that 'I didnt vote for that clown and the ship of fools that now runs the country !'. You have a different system of government, granted, but I would argue that your President has more power than our Prime Minister in terms of dictating policy.

     

    If Romney wins, you will have a President who has been described by a former business partner as a 'sociopath' (not alone - Palin and Cheney spring to mind), and if its Obama you will have a President who continues to shoulder the blame for GWB's mismanagement, Wall St greed and the continuing disaster in Europe. The 'sociopath' may well get business back on track, but I'd prefer the Devil We Know.

     

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/13/1131181/-Mitt-Romney-Sociopath

     

    http://www.politicususa.com/hell-mitt-romney-smiling-about.html

     

    http://mittromneysociopath.blogspot.com.au/

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antichrist#As_Lucifer

     

    http://www.thepropheticyears.com/wordpress/the-case-for-the-muslim-errrr-i-mean-the-mormon-antichrist.html

     

    OK, so that last one is a more than a little wacko, but its all way more interesting than the Presidential debates I've seen to date !

  16. I'm going to go out on a limb here and venture there might be some kiddies in Cambodian orphanages who could really use that money, Flash - they probably don't live your wild, free-spending lifestyle but hopefully we can get them up to speed on Western decadence. :evilpumpkin:

     

    FWIW, I plan to win 70million AUD next Tuesday night. I plugged that into xe.com for a conversion to baht and I think I broke the internet ..... :yikes:

  17. It saddens me that a loon like Trump can get airtime to muddy the waters so close to the election:

     

    My link

     

    If the swing states haven't come to grips with the authenticity of Obama's status as an American citizen by now, they have bigger problems than who to vote for. So much for focusing on his record and policies - much easier to let a nutjob loose on the networks.

  18. Iran is Israel;s neighbour?

     

    Geographically, Israel may be separated from Iran by Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Jordan, but I'm sure that 'flight time' between their respective borders is barely enough to get the kids into the bunker. Of the countries in the buffer zone, Lebanon is on the brink of civil war/total anarchy, Syria is already there, Iraq remains an extremely dangerous place for locals and visitors (?) alike, and the Jordanians are struggling with a massive humanitarian crisis on their borders courtesy of the above. Turkey has a very powerful military machine (atm pointed at the Syrians, oh joy), and the Saudis have long been accused of covertly funding Islamic extremists. One tiny-but-rich nation with nuclear weapons and powerful friends stuck in the middle of a powderkeg - fan-freakin-tastic.

     

    FWIW, I have long considered Turkey the elephant in the room - their government seems pro-Western, but the whole 'secular democracy' thing doesn't sit well with the fundamentalists in that part of the world. I do know how much respect they gained from their former enemies after Churchill's disastrous Dardanelles campaign - the Syrians might want to reconsider shelling their border towns.

     

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443635404578035822373395226.html

     

    ISTANBUL—Turkey attacked targets inside Syria for a second day Thursday and its parliament authorized military offensives into foreign countries, deepening the threat of sustained conflict along the neighbors' 565-mile common border.

     

    Syria, at the United Nations, castigated its neighbor for policies it said were fueling the conflict.

     

    Ankara's military and legislative moves came a day after Syrian shells landed in the Turkish border town of Akcakale, killing five people and spurring Turkish retaliatory strikes.

     

    In spite of the military authorizations passed earlier in the day, Turkish officials suggested Thursday that further armed action isn't likely imminent. The day's moves underscored how Ankara, while it has the vocal backing of its international allies after the attack on its territory, appears to have no partners for broader military action.

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