Coss

"derelicts, psychopaths, deviants, preverts, bumbs, idiots, short changers, and the cheap fat balding unshaven punters."

Hey!, I shave!

Do its eyes following you when you move?

It must close it's eyes when it knows someone is looking. It just looks like an ordinary coconut tree when someone's looking.

My coconut tree just moved again, about a metre to the left.

Yes I was wondering how many 82 yr old Australian Entertainers there were in Berkshire.

"Money spent violating the basic human rights of Palestinians could be spent in America violating the basic human rights of Americans."

and the word Palestinians ay be substituted for any Nationality du jour, of your choice.

Hear Hear!

"The DHS has purchased over 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition over the past year – enough to wage a 20 year plus war."

No wonder the gun lobby is worried about the government attacking it's citizens. DHS - Department of Homeland Security - unless they think 1.6.billion Mexicans and Canadians are gonna need to be shot, who are they arming against.

Mind you, from news footage, it seems it takes the average perpetrator, 20 cops each firing 50 rounds, to get shot.

So at that ratio it's only 1.6 Million people they're worried about...

Apart from Jeb ( a good hillbilly name ) is every male in this family called George? Probably makes their names easy to remember.

Home sweet hoecake all you rounders. Ain't no lie went a court'n, wildwood flower! Cluck old hen hoecake scratching out dough died when I was young Juney bug soldier's joy run hot corn rye whiskey hot corn, shady grove nine-pound hammer. The cuckoo rambling. Work one day rolling down the track buried in the ground peg and awl going to town died when I was young.

Its amazing the amount of public sympathy for Dorner in LA even though he killed innocent people. Part of the reason is the LAPD themselves. They do not have a good reputation in Los Angeles and by extension this includes law enforcement in surrounding areas (LA County sherriffs, Inglewood PD, Santa Monica PD, etc.). They seem to try and outdo each other. Law enforcement in the greater Los Angeles area is a revenue generator. They will write up anyone for the mildest things. What used to be a simple warning years ago is now written up and can cost you time and money.

I recall late at night a cop sitting in the parking lot next to me watching me come out of a 24hr market. Forgot to turn on my headlights when I started my car and instead of reminding me to do it followed me out of the parking lot until I got down the street to stop me and write me a ticket. I was wondering why he was following me out of the parking lot. Was I wrong? Definitely. Was it chicken shit of a cop to do that instead of just telling me before I left the premises? Definitely. Its the kind of thing they do and its often against middle class, no one is immune. They camp out near night club areas and write tickets on weekend nights. They camp out near schools and universitities and do the same. Any and all minor infractions and the city raises the rates on those. I'm not talking $25 bucks or so but its usually closer to $100 and some require a courtroom appearance like speeding or whatever which requires a day off from work.

 

No one has love for the police. They target everyone. They are also known for corruption. The vice, narc squads especially. They will lie for each other in an instant. A few cases of outright lies have been unearthed.

 

Are there some good cops out there? Certainly, the majority are. However the good ones have been given a mandate to write as many tickets as they can to bolster their rating.

 

That said, Dorner is a complete nutcase.

I comment from a position of ignorance - my on the ground experience of the USA, being a week or so in San Francisco with Old Hippy as a tour guide... (Good times)

So I am always amazed at the apparent, over the top, actions of what always seem to be LAPD officers, like the ones who shot up a car containing a woman and her mother, thinking that they were a very big armed black man named Dorner. Many many many bullets, car riddled, other cars, neighboring houses with many bullet holes.... Curiously the women were not too seriously injured and survived.

The international media has fed me imagery, over the years, of scenes of cops, piling on with violence and aggression directed at seemingly passive subjects. A typical scenario is thus: a car chase ends, what looks like 50 police cars pull up and all the officers leap from their cars and pile on top of a single subject, who has thoughtfully laid down on the ground, hands behind his head, submissive. The resultant pile of cops is meantime, trying to pummel him to death, no doubt hitting each other and enraging themselves in the process. This sort of pack behaviour is most often seen in wild hunting dogs in Africa, when tearing apart prey.

People say that this is the few, the exception, but to my mind, it happens enough, to make it to the media often.

On the other side, Fred Reed of Fredoneverything, has a series of "cop columns" here that put this argument into context, the articles are a very good read and give the reader some perspective from the cop's side.

I can say, that the actions of the gun toting citizenry and police of LA as portrayed to me in the media, have put LA way down on my list of places to visit, I just wouldn't feel safe.

"built on the spot where tradition holds the tree from which Jesus' cross was made,"

risibly tenuous

What about a monastery built on the spot where woodcutters habitually took a leak, when cutting down the tree from which Jesus' cross was made, or the hovel in which a blind and crippled peasant passed his days, whilst being totally ignorant of the spot where woodcutters habitually took a leak, when cutting down the tree from which Jesus' cross was made. Surely that'd make a good spot for a monastery...

So some data entry prole got it wrong...

I'm not defending Tobacco, but I would suggest that many who smoke and die from "Tobacco use" related causes, may, as non smokers, have lived another year and died of non "Tobacco use" related causes.

There is a definite bias, to ascribing any health issue, for a smoker as a "Tobacco use" related cause. If I have a heart attack as a smoker, it's because I smoke, If I have one as a non smoker, I have a heart attack.

Just picking holes in someone's logic.

We be getting old - progress is upon us...

Craigslist sperm donor forced to pay child support to lesbian couple - despite giving up parental rights to the baby BEFORE she was born

 

...

This happened in Scotland too

 

If they're going to allow homosexual couples to raise kids, they should have the same rights - and obligations - as those of middle aged white heterosexual males...

Very good....

So are the PR China and North Korea.

And both of them could use NZ and OZ as examples of how to treat people nicely...

Think about it coss, if a pilot "goes troppo" does he really need a gun to do more damage than what we saw on Sept 11th?

My point exactly... Why arm them?

 

It really is quite possible and pleasant too to live in a society where guns are kept well away from the general no-need-to-own population.

 

 

Personally, I would like to see zero ownership. But perhaps make a start by banning all weapons that a farmer or a hunter would find unnecessary..such as [semi] automatic rifles and handguns. I have a good Canadian friend who hunts with a crossbow to give the game better odds and himself more skilful sport.

NZ and Australia are such places

Another comment about the gun argument I saw on the televisual extravaganza...

One guy hides a bomb in his shoes (and fails to kill anyone) and now millions of people around the world have to take off their shoes and belts and suffer harassment at airports everywhere.

But if you've got people slaughtering children with guns, the answer is - arm more people...

“Pilots have been armed now for many many years, we’ve not had another hijacking and the issue is, for the bad guy, he doesn’t know which airplane he’s getting on, if the pilot is armed or not.â€

Faaark! I didn't know that! Another reason not to fly to America. Just my luck I'd be on the plane where some pilot goes Clint Eastwood with some Rapper who thinks he owns the world and there's the big shoot out in the sky....

""we’ve not had another hijacking""

Didn't have a lot before, I'd suggest that airport security, increased intelligence efforts and passenger profiling has a lot to do with there not being another hijacking.

Still, lock up the remains and use the cell as a 'shock and awe' showcase for young 1st time offenders... 'See what happens when you don't behave?'

Her loony son and anyone with a functioning hand that could turn a door knob...

I'd jail her for life for contributory negligence...

As a non-USA person, I have this observation to offer:

If you throw a bunch of armed people into an area, someone is going to get shot.

My take on this is to imprison for life or longer, or execute anyone who shoots anyone else, except in clear and demonstrable cases of justifiable self defense or the defense of others, i.e. family or children. That's it. If you want a gun, then you use it responsibly, or else it's goodbye.

And before anyone says but this latest idiot didn't own the guns etc etc. If they'd been locked up as all guns should be, he couldn't have got them. If the USA society had a clear understanding that the Rambo films are not reality, and that guns are not for shooting people, then maybe he wouldn't have considered it.

So I'd lock up/execute the mother and the people who sold her the guns - not responsible people in my book...

Same same drink driving, if you cause no problems, you'll have no problems, if you injure or kill anyone whilst drink driving - goodbye!

Too many rights are accorded the modern man/woman.

The right to have weapons and then go "postal" is not one that anyone intended.

I saw a nice comment from some woman on the TV today, why do we need to be armed for war in suburban America?

Mind you, good way to improve the gene pool...

I didn't know he was a scientist ...

I like one of the qualifications for becoming a member:

{ Not having been sentenced by a judgment to imprisonment in any countries except for an offence committed through negligence; }

So people can say "Yes, but I didn't do anything, I didn't know it was happening..." about any particular crime - So very Thai...