Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

If you watched NBC this morning, you saw that Gallup now has Bush and kerry running neck and neck at 49% a piece.

Russert also asserted without support that Americans believed 4 to 1 that Kerry won the debate.

Meanwhile, at the same time, on Fox, some cat named Rumminger (or something like that) who runs an independent poll, was stating that Kerry did not get a bump from the debates, and the race was still Bush 49%, Kerry 45%.

All that worthless predicting aside, there is one stat which must be giving the GOP the piss shivers - voter registration is at an all time high. New registrations are generally not GOP voters.

Predictably, Florida is already stating that many new registratnts will be turned away because they did not fill out the entire regitration form. this tends to happen when a baked Phishhead is signing college kids up outside the local Starbucks. One thing I'm fairly confident of is there will be some sort of litigation over the election in FL. Its all but a given...

Oh, and the Dems will fix PA this year. It is written.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me

Is the future of warfare really unmanned assault platforms?

I hope that's rhetorical.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Laughing? Usually it's the other people in the room laughing when you get a woodie from one of your fantasies.

Y'all just let me know if you have anything you could call insightful to add here. Meantime, about those dead lawyers whose corpses you were humping (as you might put it)?

He(3 days late or 4 days early)llo

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I remember thinking that spending money to modernize 911 wouldn't have changed the particular code error, but whatever.

It would if you have a computerized system with default codes. As in "Person with a Gun" or "Shots Fired", default code = (whatever the second from top priority is). Just to make sure the record is straight. Lots of places were modernizing from 1993 on. Some still are.

Hello

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Say if you were working the front door at the school in Breslan. Bunch of guys heading towards the door with guns...can you call right away or do you need to wait for something more?

See this is where this stuff is so screwed up. The next John Mohammed can walk into a theatre or school or city hall with a gun out?

You make it sounds as if the first thing you notice is the gun, and otherwise you have to wait to identify suspicious people. 20 bearded guys, too old to be in school and too young to have children, walking towards a school in a hurry would probably even be suspicious in Saudi Arabia.

[andViolins]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Israeli drones

Hello

Those same drones have taken nice footage of terrorists loading quassam rockets into UN ambulances. UNRWA is a sham. Certainly as bad as the oil-for-food debacle. Hansen admits that Hamas members are on the payroll. Why does it continue to exist?

aV

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Joe Sixpack likes the fact that Bush shows emotion (i.e "Why am I stuck here with this pompous ass with a cribsheet").

Joe Sixpack also does not like the fact that John "botox" Kerry's face is so frozen he can barely smile.

Your interpretation of Joe Sixpack's likes and dislikes does not seem to be reflected in the latest polls. Anecdotally, I live in a red area of a red state, and the Joe Sixpacks I overheard at the high school football game on Friday night thought that he looked like a ass for making faces. Of course, they said they're still voting for him, so who really cares?

As to debate rules, I thought that Bush spoke out of turn a few times, although that might have hurt him -- one time he asked for the 30 second discretionary reply, and didn't have anything to say for a good 10 seconds.

More importantly, can the Twinkies defeat the Evil Empire?

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Not Bob
Of course, they said they're still voting for him, so who really cares?

Exactly. Those of us who have made up our minds, and that is about 95% or more of the likely voters don't matter at this point. We aren't changing our votes.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Nope, I wouldn't bat an eye, particularly in the context of the city council meeting, and at least as long as nobody unholstered their gun (in which case I'm laughing as I imagine the rest of the people in the meeting, including the city council and Sgt. at Arms, unholstering their guns too). In context, this was a completely obvious political statement from people I simply do not see as scary. It would seem that very few people in NoVa would seem scary to me.
...
I'd hope that most of the 30 walked in with a giant smirk to let everyone know that it was all in fun (to make a political statement). If these guys so much as glared at anyone on the way in, it would have made them suspicious or even dangerous, and they would have rightfully been stopped (armed civilian, glaring at anyone on the way into a government building is pretty, uhm, suspicious).

Somehow I doubt that smirks were the order of the day. Guns aren't funny. To either the people who carry them or the people who feel threatened by them.

But you seem to have missed my main point. Why would someone, absent protest, need to take a gun into a municiple building? There is no reason. Thus the policy (put in place before anybody got the idea to protest, and almost certainly without thinking that anyone would care) was a good one: someone coming into a municiple building with a gun is suspicious. The reg just allows the poor government worker a little cover so that s/he doesn't have to decide if the person looks menacing/deranged.

In any case, the second guy doesn't need to be arrested, particularly when they have committed no crime. People who don't like the state's guns laws are free to move somewhere else. Ironically, almost anywhere else similar is not going to be as safe. Weird that.

Why have you decided this should be a state level issue? Why not local? Why not Federal? Why shouldn't the good people of Falls Church (and despite the shameful circumstances of the city's founding, they are good people) be able to decide the level of gun control within their own community? Why should the people of Roanoke and Richmond be able to force their views and values on Falls Church, merely because 350 years ago someone in England thought the Potomac river looked like a good place to divide up the territories controlled by two different Crown functionaries?

Personally, except for clearance issues (i.e. background checks to prevent felons from buying guns), and the regulation of the upper limit of firepower (no RPG's, etc.) I think gun control is a very local issue. Densely urban areas have different needs than rural communities, who are different again than affluent suburbs. Even in rural areas, there are differences between places like Wsetern Pennsylvania compared to West Texas. Some places the populace views a gun like a shovel, some like a football, some like canon. Who better to evaluate that then local municipalities?

Frankly, I see the action of the NRA in Falls Church to be nothing more than a tiny minority with the backing of an outside force imposing its ideals on an unwilling community, as inappropriate as denizens of Detroit, Boston or New York City imposing their views on guns on the rural communities in the rest of their states, or Congress overturning DCs ban on guns, despite absolutely no support among the DC populace.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
your story being featured nationally probably does show media bias, Cuzzzzzzz, guess what JFK's local paper went for Bush....

http://www.lowellsun.com/Stories/0,1...442984,00.html

etc.

And I'm pretty sure this won't get the coverage the big Crawford story received.

I actually agree with this. There are a hell of a lot of crackpot newspapers in Texas, and the Iconoclast seems like one of them. I don't think the endorsement is particularly indicative of the attitudes of central Texas towards the president. Though I was heartened to see the Democrat Headquarters in Giddings the other day. I didn't think Democrats existed anymore in Lee County. I suspect no one told them that we Texans are no longer against the Party of Lincoln.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Now we know how Kerry - according to some of you - "won" last week's debate.

He cheated

It gets worse, Slave.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
It gets worse, Slave.

Ha! good one! oh. by the way. Iran has already told Kerry to fuck right off.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._iran_kerry_dc

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Sunday rebuffed a proposal by U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry who has suggested supplying the Islamic state with nuclear fuel for power reactors if Tehran agrees to give up its own fuel-making capability.

Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said it would be “irrational” for Iran to put its nuclear program in jeopardy by relying on supplies from abroad.

“We have the technology (to make nuclear fuel) and there is no need for us to beg from others,” Asefi told a weekly news conference. ...

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by baltassoc
But you seem to have missed my main point. Why would someone, absent protest, need to take a gun into a municiple building? There is no reason. Thus the policy (put in place before anybody got the idea to protest, and almost certainly without thinking that anyone would care) was a good one: someone coming into a municiple building with a gun is suspicious. The reg just allows the poor government worker a little cover so that s/he doesn't have to decide if the person looks menacing/deranged.

Why have you decided this should be a state level issue? Why not local? Why not Federal? Why shouldn't the good people of Falls Church (and despite the shameful circumstances of the city's founding, they are good people) be able to decide the level of gun control within their own community? Why should the people of Roanoke and Richmond be able to force their views and values on Falls Church, merely because 350 years ago someone in England thought the Potomac river looked like a good place to divide up the territories controlled by two different Crown functionaries?

I'll address two points, one "need" or utility of guns, and the other "local control.

The first is what is commonly missed when people argue against concealed carry. The need is exactly the same need that exists on the streets, the alleys and the parks of a community. The need is that criminals can and will obtain guns in our community, and will not hesitate to use them. The police are often slow to respond. Ironically, Atticus' exact scenario highlights this.

So when a criminal goes into a municipal building and starts shooting, why shouldn't the citizens be able to shoot back?

Our fundamental disagreement probably revolves around this definition of "need". You might argue that no such "need" exists in some cases (whereas, in airplanes, I'd tend to agree that a "need" to ban guns exists because a likely result is catastrophic if a firearm is discharged). Unfortunately, the constitution and the legislature of the great state of Virginia have spoken on behalf of the people, and at the least they have not indicated that there is no need.

Don't get me wrong. I see these scenarios as at least improbable or rare. In the greater context of things, I think the "open" unpermitted carry laws are likely to get dumped in favor of permitted concealed carry laws. At least, to me, that seems like a great and reasonable compromise.

As to the second issue, I won't presume to guess where you stand on issues like gay marriage and abortion, but how in the world is a right expressly provided in the Constitution "local", when the Supreme Court has federalized rights that they made up out of thin air? Personally, I think a "permitting" process should carry across state lines, and even be organized (though not necessarily implemented) at the federal level so that people who are permitted can bring their guns with them when they move or travel (but not into airplane cabins).

The thing is, if every suburb gets to set its own rules, the results become absurd. In Falls Church its okay to have a pistol in your trunk, but in Alexandria its not? The right is effectively denied if the rule is local.

But hey, like I said, I'm not a gun owner and there are some scenarios that would throw me for a loop. Implement a concealed-carry law (with permits) and make it so that anybody noticed with a gun (i.e., not so well-concealed) can be subject to proof of permit.

The humor I'm seeing in all of this is that Falls Church would probably not have to confront this issue if they had just instructed their employees to use their own judgement etc. etc. etc., the same way the rest of the citizens of the state presumably use theirs. As a reverse-analogy, even though I favor drug legalization (or lots of executions), I don't want my town instructing its police not to enforce laws against drug users or drug dealers.

But I like this talk of "local" control you bring up. Care to continue?

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Ha! good one! oh. by the way. Iran has already told Kerry to fuck right off.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._iran_kerry_dc

Did Kerry run that by France to see if it passed the global test?

[Replaced_Texan]

Make sure that you're registered to vote. Deadlines are approaching fast. Today is the deadline for Texas and a few other states.

Early voting starts October 18 in Texas.