Joe (you must be Kehoskie's sock puppet--they're can't be two of you), did this other poster make you cry and take your lunch money? Couldn't have been hard to do.

"My name's Joe Ray, and in order to be a contentious assh*le and because I have no ideas to propose, I'm going to pretend that in a fight there's no difference between having a gun, and having a knife."

Belcher himself probably would be alive today. I doubt he would have successfully knifed himself to death with all those men around to stop and/or treat him.

I've heard that suicidal people jump off bridges or in front of trains or out windows. Quite easy, actually.

And knifing oneself to death is quite easy.

Am I the only person that assumed that Ray meant "slitting one's wrists" when he said "knifing oneself"?

Yes; it's a common method, so I don't know what the peanut gallery is so confused about.

I'll take "Subjects Ray Has Decided To Comment On While Having Given The Details No Thought At All" for $300, Alex.

Most suicide attempts who slit their wrists *do it wrong and survive.*

"Serious" suicidal people might knife themselves to death. It's a very hard thing to do. You probably expect to die slowly. With a gun you can easily kill yourself in an impulsive moment.

Just like killing other people.

Let me repeat that for you Ray.

Forget it, he's on a roll

And knifing oneself to death is quite easy.

Am I the only person that assumed that Ray meant "slitting one's wrists" when he said "knifing oneself"?

So what's the alternative to bankers and politicians?

County Commission Chairman John Eaves thought he had the four votes necessary to finally fix the lock problem — one of the last major hurdles the county must clear to get out from under a federal consent decree that has cost county taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. But his plan unraveled Wednesday when Northside Commissioner Tom Lowe arrived at the regularly scheduled meeting 3 1/2 hours after it began.

.....

Lowe, who is frequently late and leaves meetings early, said he was tied up with an important business matter Wednesday morning and declined to elaborate. Through much of the remaining meeting, he appeared to be napping.

Earlier this year, his late arrival at a meeting almost caused Atlanta to lose animal control services, as Lowe was the fourth vote to keep the service going amid a dispute with the city and county over whether to ban elephant bullhooks. Eaves took criticism for reconvening that meeting later in the day and holding a second vote.

Lowe, who said he would have voted for replacing the locks, acknowledged Wednesday evening that he has an obligation to be present for votes. “I understand that; it’s my job,” he said.

But he said he doesn’t like listening to some commissioners’ protracted grandstanding on many issues, and he makes no apologies for dozing off. Especially, he said, while Vice Chairwoman Emma Darnell is talking.

If anyone wants some insight as to why I hate bankers and politicians so intensely, watch Chasing Madoff.

Particularly when there are a bunch of people around, including trained cops, to ... you know ... run over there and stanch the wounds.

So can someone explain to me why this treaty was a bad idea?

But he said he doesn’t like listening to some commissioners’ protracted grandstanding on many issues, and he makes no apologies for dozing off. Especially, he said, while Vice Chairwoman Emma Darnell is talking

(Darnell) believes that the essential purpose of government is to serve people– and that if you serve people, “the songs will come by themselves and of themselves.”

So can someone explain to me why this treaty was a bad idea?

There's also hara-kiri

Because we would give up some of our sovereignty by ceding power to the UN, even though it does none of that. Agenda 21!

So what's the alternative to bankers and politicians?

So can someone explain to me why this treaty was a bad idea?

There's also hara-kiri


You don't realize that seppuku was reserved for noble suicides by samurai specifically because it was so friggin' hard to accomplish, do you?

More past campaign stuff. Contrast the Obama camp's approach to polling with the Romney wishcasting:

The UN's problem - at least so far as getting black helicopter America to agree on anything - is that they haven't learned the Congressional fine art of treaty/resolution/etc naming....

Could someone in South Carolina even pull a reverse Scott Brown?

Could someone in South Carolina even pull a reverse Scott Brown?

'If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins (the girlfriend he killed) would both be alive today.'

BOB COSTAS: Well, you knew it was coming. In the aftermath of the nearly unfathomable events in Kansas City, that most mindless of sports clichés was heard yet again: Something like this really puts it all in perspective. Well, if so, that sort of perspective has a very short shelf-life since we will inevitably hear about the perspective we have supposedly again regained the next time ugly reality intrudes upon our games. Please, those who need tragedies to continually recalibrate their sense of proportion about sports would seem to have little hope of ever truly achieving perspective. You want some actual perspective on this? Well, a bit of it comes from the Kansas City-based writer Jason Whitlock with whom I do not always agree, but who today said it so well that we may as well just quote or paraphrase from the end of his article.

"Our current gun culture," Whitlock wrote, "ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead."

"Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it. In the coming days, Jovan Belcher’s actions, and their possible connection to football will be analyzed. Who knows?"

"But here," wrote Jason Whitlock," is what I believe. If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today."

There was an interesting poll last week that actually has Obama's approval ahead of Nikki Haley's -- but part of that is because Haley has managed to piss off a lot of Republicans in the state by being... let's say, insulated and ornery.

There was an interesting poll last week that actually has Obama's approval ahead of Nikki Haley's -- but part of that is because Haley has managed to piss off a lot of Republicans in the state by being... let's say, insulated and ornery.


This has a lot of people on both ends of the spectrum a little pissed.

“Que?! Que?!”

Alfonso Aguilar shouts into the mike, gesticulating wildly to no one in particular on a recent Saturday morning. He is taping his radio show, which is recorded in the District and beamed into nine cities, including Houston, Chicago and Miami.

News has broken that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney blames his election loss in part on “gifts” President Obama gave Hispanics and other minorities.

Aguilar — “La Voz de Los Latinos” (the Latino Voice) — is incredulous.

“He thinks Latinos voted for entitlements,” he tells listeners in Spanish. “Mr. Romney, Latinos didn’t vote for President Obama because they liked Obamacare. No, they voted for Obama because of your stance on immigration. In the primary, you moved to the far right.”

Not the kind of talk you’d expect from a committed Republican, a guy who stumped for Romney and whose employer ponied up $400,000 in anti-Obama campaign ads that focused on the administration’s record deportation rates. It’s a set of curiosities not lost on a caller from Los Angeles.

“How could you have supported him at all?” Francisco wants to know.

“I’m a conservative,” Aguilar responds.

But not just any conservative. Aguilar is a 43-year-old Puerto Rican-born former official in the George W. Bush administration; an opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage; a supporter of free markets and limited government. But on immigration, he has differed sharply with his party’s orthodoxy, unapologetically embracing comprehensive reform, including a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

With Obama promising to push immigration reform early in his second term, Aguilar is poised to be a driving force in the debate, helping to shape how Republicans respond to an issue of paramount importance to about 12.5 million Latino voters — a growing segment of the electorate that has continued to skew Democratic. In many ways, Aguilar already is a pivotal presence....

“Our goal is a complete gridlock for the next two years. There is no place for bi-partisanship, compromise, only acceptable outcome is total victory and any politician that disagrees will be treated as a traitor. This is war.”
— Jim De Mint

DeMint doesn't care. "I've been told by businesses that if we would stop the tax increases the best thing that could happen for business after that is complete gridlock. At least gridlock is predictable," he tells Bloomberg Businessweek, taking a quick break between TV appearances. His goal, he says, is to stop programs that violate his anti-Big Government ideology. "What happens in the Senate is the Republicans sink to the lowest common denominator," he says. "People want an alternative to some kind of watered-down Republican philosophy."

You don't realize that seppuku was reserved for noble suicides by samurai specifically because it was so friggin' hard to accomplish, do you?

Consider the case of Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, the new Republican kingpin and enforcer on Capitol Hill. DeMint claims he was misquoted by Bloomberg Businessweek last week as saying that his goal for the next Senate is "complete gridlock." But you'd never know it from the way he's behaving during the Senate's do-nothing, pre-election legislative session. DeMint makes no apologies for saying that there's no place for bipartisan compromise or consensus or some "watered-down Republican philosophy," as he put it. For DeMint, this is war. The only acceptable outcome is total victory, and any Republican who dares to disagree will be treated as a traitor during the next election cycle.

So the top 15 countries by gun ownership are the USA, Serbia, Yemen, Switzerland, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Finland, Uruguay, Sweden, Norway, France, Canada, Austria and Germany.

.....

There are a few not so safe places among the gun owning countries and a few nice countires in the non-gun owning list, but generally speaking the gun owning countries are much safer places to live.

"But here," wrote Jason Whitlock," is what I believe. If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today."

Found the quote. The quote is fabricated.

Take a knife, rest the blade on the side of the neck below your ear, and imagine making one violent thrust with the knife through and across your throat. It's not that hard.

As for misquoting DeMint, there's no need.

Nice try, but while the US is close on the list to countries whose people don't shoot each other all that often, the drop off is substantial. Canada may be close on the list, but has about one third of the guns as we do. I don't know your motives so I won't presume to call it disingenuous, but it's on the order of looking at two expenditures 30 years apart and failing to adjust for inflation.

Fair enough - but the quote's real, it's the attribution that's wrong. Sort of like Whitlock and Costas.

My point was that gun ownership by country and violence doesn't correlate well at all....