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I believe that is what Charles Rockett did when he took his life which was different from Artie Lange who stabbed himself multiple times and lived.
Easy peasy.
I know coakley was a bad candidate but isn't she considered the front runner for the democratic nomination if Kerrey gets state?
There WILL be two SC Senate races in 2014 -- and they'll be entirely separate ballot line items, without any crossover.
Whomever the appointee is to fill DeMint's slot will be on the ballot to fill out the last two years of Demints' term (he was just reelected), and Graham will be separately up himself under the standard for his seat.
On one hand, Lindsay Graham is probably the happiest man in SC right now -- it would be infinitely easier to unseat an appointee in a primary than a sitting Senator (especially given the past few cycles of purity candidates unseating establishment blessed candidates in primaries).
On the other - whoever runs for "seat B" (DeMint's seat) is going to be up again in 2016, just two years after winning.
Obviously, in a state that tends to be so deeply tinted one color - you'd expect some backdoor deals to put the 'right candidates' into the 'right race'... but -- again -- there's a fair bit of internal squabbling amongst the SC GOP right now, and that's even discounting the fact that however much the conservative base may dislike Lindsay Graham - sitting US Senators do have their friends in the establishment/party infrastructure.
My bet --
DeMint is supposedly boosting Tim Scott as his replacement. Scott's more of an outsider than insider, so I could absolutely see Haley appointing him. Scott's got pretty rock solid conservative credentials, so it's awfully hard for me to see him getting a 'grassroots'/McDonnell/Mourdochian primary challenge in 2014. I would suspect any primary challenge to a hypothetical Scott comes from a party establishment type (and that could send some interesting fur flying); while the TP/con/base keeps the aim squarely on Graham.
In any case, it is a pity that the Democrats are more than likely on the outside looking in...
Stanwyck aged better than almost any actress in history, but not too many 39 year old women can survive the sort of slutty blond wig that she had to wear in order to play down to her lowlife character in the plot, a character who was obviously Fred MacMurray's type.
But still, the list is a bit like looking at the career top 10 in HR in 1940. There's Ruth, then there's Gehrig, Foxx, and Ott with about 30-45% less than Ruth, then a bunch of guys with far less than half Ruth's total, winding up with Hank Greenberg with 247.
Maybe it's not linear? If the US had the same % of gun ownership as Switzerland, and tighter controls on guns like Switzerland does, who do you think would be the people to no longer have guns? Maybe the people who are most likely to use them against other humans? IOW, reducing the gun population by 10% the right way may reduce the gun violence by 20%
Agreed. Stanwyck wasn't supposed to be everyone's dream girl in Double Indemnity. She was made up to be one very susceptible guy's.
The question is whether its worth the price.
Given how many of the countries have the highest murder rates are in Central America and Caribbean my guess is that drug trade, particularly drug trade in the USA is huge factor. This likely applies to the US as well, quite a lot of American gang crime is related to illegal drug trade. It would be interesting to see if a shift in drug policy that shifted production of drugs away from criminals and Latin American countries would affect crime and murder rates both in the US and those countries.
The drug policy plays a part in the cultural part of the US violence problem as well, because drug dealing gangsters are often among the most popular and glorified characters in American art and media, right there with old west style vigilantes.
Obviously there is more to the cultural problems we have with guns in this country than just illegal drugs, but its a big factor, and in my opinion a bigger factor than the availability of the guns themselves.
The ankle bracelet is crucial. To some it says "meh" but it probably goes as far in suggesting kinky esoteric tastes as one could go in Hollywood at the time. Or any time, for that matter: the point of a fetish is that it lures mysteriously.
I agree keeping weapons out of the hands of criminals is important, but so much of this discussion is driven by crimes committed by guys like Belcher who were not previously criminals. In France to own a gun you need a license for sport shooting or hunting, Belcher was into sport shooting and had a clean enough record, he would almost certainly qualify for a license; someone like James Holmes probably could as well. So Whitlock and Costas saying more strict gun control would prevent his incident from happening are completely off base, unless they mean a full scale nationwide ban, but that goes well beyond is needed to keep most civilized countries under control.
Requiring registration, background checks, licensing and training and limiting things like 100 round extended magazines are fine ideas that would help some, but they likely wouldn't come anywhere near solving the problems with firearms in this country.
The two aggressive, disrespectful, menacing "gentle-men" with bad intentions were trying to offer Mr. Wawra and his wife free tickets to the Calgary Stampede.
Definitely true. Honduras and Guatemala (and probably El Salvador but I've never been there) have a huge gang problem. That gang is MS13 which came out of the LA prison system, and they're nuts and very violent. I believe the zetas are also trying to muscle their way down south to control more of the drug pipeline.
Re guns: I wonder how the gun ownership rates were calculated. Being from the US, I was shocked by the number of guns in Guatemala and Honduras. Some of it may just be a cultural (and legal) difference in how acceptable it is to publicly display guns, but I also wonder if these surveys aren't capturing the number of illegally obtained guns.
So that means the top US exports are now scrap metal, manufacturing jobs, and gang members. Lovely.
That's one of the funnier things I've read lately, of curse I've been to Calgary at Stampede Time, and immediately thought that's what these two "thugs" were talking about even before the article got to that punchline.
Anyway, Western English Canadians tend to be boisterous and loud for some reason, and they will approach and address strangers in what to a NYer seems to be an overly familiar fashion... of course this Walt guy is from Michigan not NY...
Spin what away, Andy? Unless your theory is that Latinos are liars, the polling on this, which has been posted about a dozen times, is as clear as can be: Immigration isn't a top-five issue among actual Latino citizens (i.e., Latinos who can vote), while the vast majority of those same Latinos tell pollsters they want a "bigger government with more services." Does that scream "natural Republicans" to you?
That aside, the idea that a Puerto Rican talk-radio host is the spokesperson for all Latinos on immigration is absurd.
The domestics are the part where gun laws seem to really play in. Obviously men can kill women and children with hands or knives or fire or whatever, but the access to guns clearly raises the death rate in those cases. The hard part on this is mentioned above, that lots of the domestic killers are people with minimal records using handguns so it's hard by law to screen the guns out of their hands unless you basically screen all handguns out of everyone's hands.
Many factors go into things, but it's interesting that Manhattan must have the lowest gun ownership rate and one of the lowest rate of stranger murders in the country. That doesn't help people who already live in dangerous areas and who might see gun ownership differently but it is interesting to note that the relationship between gun ownership and safety from stranger murder is at best messy.
That's a shame - so many more shenanigans are possible if there was crossover. I guess a serious Democrat candidate would run against Demint's replacement but if Graham lost in his primary to some crazy then that candidate probably would prefer to run in that race. Would Haley run for Senate?
In the meantime, is anyone else fascinated to see how legalization of marijuana works out in Washington? We know that the spoils are going to go to the powerful, as always, but iirc Canada had to rescind a $5 a pack cigarette tax 20 years ago because tax evasion was such a big deal. I've heard estimates as high as $600m in tax revenues. That sounds like governmental overreaching, big time. If it's right, though, and WA's pop is 1/45th of the US's, we're looking at potential tax revenues of around 25 billion a year once pot is legalized throughout our beautiful country. That's not bad.
A lot of casual users aren't going to avoid taxes, but I have no idea how the market divides up. I know some regular users and, boy, are they regular. The trick is to tax them just a little less than the amount that would send them underground to find their weed. Call it the Puffer Curve.
So not only is Rubio ahead, but he's ahead with Republicans who describe themselves as "very" or "somewhat" conservative — the very same (alleged) xenophobic racists who are allegedly scaring Latinos away from the GOP. Modern politics is so confusing.
It is not the conservative elements of the GOP that are scaring away Latinos, it is the whole party and its agenda especially vis-a-vis the Democratic Party. And once more, for whatever reason, the GOP has adopted Cubans as honorary white folk.
However, polls this early don't mean much in any direction, though I am amused by the polls with HRC as the prohibitive Dem favorite.
But that article correctly points out that there aren't many moderates left in the GOP, so the "very" and "somewhat" conservative Republicans essentially *are* the "whole party." Regardless, the only way the GOP is scaring away Latinos is by being honest about wanting to cut spending and reduce the size of government, while Latinos, by the widest margin in American politics, want more spending and bigger government. I know the self-righteous lefties prefer the "racism" and "xenophobia" angles, but they just aren't accurate vis-a-vis the mainstream of the GOP or the GOP platform.
?
I don't know anything about this, but FWIW, a king-size pack of brand name cigarettes (25 regular cigarettes) costs a little of $13 at most corner stores. The bargain brands are down around $8.
I'd love to see weed, and more importantly if we're talking about economic benefit, hemp, legalized in the US. I can't see it happening any time soon though, despite the progress being made in CO and WS. The UN is pressuring Eric Holder to enforce federal drug laws despite the wishes of the respective states, and we know how much the Obama administration loves to please the UN.
By what percent did the GOP cut spending or reduce the size of government between 2003 and 2006 when they controlled the White House and all three branches of government?
Rock on, GOP, rock on.
Stimulus, man. Stimulus!
Joe, I sincerely hope your side "wins" this intra-party debate, and shrugs off messages like the one that Alfonso Aguilar---a conservative Latino, Romney-supporting radio host---is trying to present. At the rate they're going, the Republicans are going to be reduced to little more than a party of ultra-Orthodox Jews, soft libertarians, and a lot of angry whites with their minds stuck in 1955. I have no problem with any of that.
And I know it's been said before, but the beautiful irony of Romney's final percentage being at 47% is almost enough to make this lifelong agnostic believe that God is trying to send us a message of His own.
Compromise...a video game where you play the role of a studio executive from 1930-1960. Can you lock your stars into borderline exploitative contracts? Can you refrain from sleeping with your lead actresses? (Or alternatively, how many actresses can you sleep with?), Can you successfully lobby against censorship? Can you defend yourself against charges of Communism? (or alternatively, how many fellow executives and entertainers can you get blacklisted?)
It's win-win!
Nonsense. I've been a longtime critic of GOP spendthrifts, here and elsewhere.
Will B. Mouse disclose?
Yeah, I got ahead of myself. I don't see it happening at all soon, either. What's the rationale for the UN pressure--do you know? (ah--never mind. Your link didn't show up the first go round.)
I think it was a quillion. Not that I want to make his arguments for him, but if Joe wants to wobble along in this vein, he should focus on the GOP wanting to cut social insurance programs (more accurate than 'entitlements', imho), and not trundle out the 'GOP cut spending and reduce the size of gummint' silliness that not even Grandma Tilly still believes.
But that was different---those deficits stopped Saddam Hussein from taking over Disneyland and making sex slaves out of the Mouseketeers. You know what they say about people like that.
I saw it yesterday on my RSS feed. I'll look when I have time. Sorry for the delay.
It's funny to see Andy trying to present an anti-gay marriage Puerto Rican radio host as the voice of reason within the GOP just because the guy happens to favor more low-skill immigration (which, of course, favors Dems). If amnesty happens, Andy will forget immigration and point to this "anti-gay bigot" as a prime example of why the GOP is dying.
Compromise...a video game where you play the role of a studio executive from 1930-1960. Can you lock your stars into borderline exploitative contracts? Can you refrain from sleeping with your lead actresses? (Or alternatively, how many actresses can you sleep with?), Can you successfully lobby against censorship? Can you defend yourself against charges of Communism? (or alternatively, how many fellow executives and entertainers can you get blacklisted?)
It's win-win!
I'll forward your suggestion to our Ambassador in Pakistan and get back to you once I get his feedback.
Combine this with the cool Big Studio video game and I think we might have something there!
<back to work>
I feel pretty safe saying that WA does not contain 1/45 of the pot-smokers in the US though. Pro-marijuana laws are almost certainly being passed first in places that have more than their fair share of marijuana users.
Having grown up in Toronto I'd say Western Canadians tend to approach strangers in an overly familiar fashion as well. They tend to be pretty outgoing folk. Having grown up in Toronto where if a stranger talks to you in the street it means he is insane I found living in Saskatchewan took some adjustments.
To be fair I would turn and run from anyone trying to get me to go to Stampede as well.
Of course, that is not to say Canada doesn't have its crime problems as well. For instance, I would not suggest hanging around North Central Regina past 2am.
Sorry, I forgot that Puerto Ricans, unlike Cubans and members of the Tea Party, aren't real Latinos. And do make sure you drive moochers like Aguilar out of your party, because we all know you've got millions of votes to spare.
How do you feel about the Ryan budget not bringing revenues and expenditures into alignment for decades? Or the party's desire to pump even more money into defense spending?
Note: The first link is to a PDF.
To be fair anti-gay bigots are one reason the GOP is ... well dying is extreme, but suffering under a headwind.
If it were easily accessible in stores I'd likely take it up again. I have no idea how representative I am of my generation though.
With Demint leaving it will be interesting who fills his shoes as the Senate's top gay basher.
To be fair, hanging around most public places after 2:00 AM is probably not a good idea. I grew up in a small town (25k population), and I can think of several locations there where I wouldn't want to be wandering around that late in the evening.
On what basis, other than the racial- and ethnic-solidarity stuff that liberals allegedly hate so much, would or should Puerto Ricans — who are U.S. citizens at birth — have immigration concerns, let alone immigration complaints?
Good point!
I suppose every town has those places...Regina's just the one instance where I was stupid enough to head to those places at 2am. (To be fair, it was the last liquor store in town that was open...what was I supposed to do?)
Huh... exactly the opposite for me.
Never tried it in HS... but this was mainly due to the County Sheriff doing a '21 Jump Street' undercover thing at my (rural) HS when I was in 6th/7th grade, and it ended up netting some high profile arrests (where arrests were hardly any bigtime dealers -- but the fact that the star QB of the HS football team had a joint in his locker, etc). That pretty much killed pot - for the most part - for the good part of a generation in my town.
College was another matter entirely.
Post-college, it's been mostly a matter of -- as you say -- sourcing becoming harder... but my posse has a few connections here and there ;-) It's mainly just a matter of folks -- I would say -- 'maturing' into less of the cheech & chong college stoners into 'responsible' types who might occasionally cook up some brownies for a concert or perhaps spending a Saturday afternoon on the deck.
Depending on where you went to college I think I did the opposite move, which might explain the flip. High school in Toronto, university in a rural area (OK, Regina's a city, but 95% of the students I knew came from rural backgrounds).
An old-time conservative, for example, doesn't want small government; he wants a government that takes care of the borders, keeps the currency stable and the courts efficient, and otherwise pretty much keeps its mitts of his land and his stuff.
The interesting question becomes, why do Latinos, as a group, prefer more extensive social insurance programs? And, why are they willing to pay higher taxes to get those extensive social insurance programs? That's interesting, and accurate. Implying Latinos are a bunch of greedy freeloaders who each want their own personal ball polishers isn't interesting, and it won't win you national elections any time soon.
So keep it up, I guess.
Oh, and those aren't remotely the only ways the GOP is scaring away Latino voters, but you just keep those blinders in place, I guess.
@1247--Clinton by a nose! That is funny.
edit: there's nothing honest about your claim, either, but I figured that went without saying.
when has the GOP EVER And I mean EVER been honest about that? The 1920s? 1946?
It certainly wasn't honest about that in, oh 2000 & 2004
or 1980/84...
Not fair! Money to defense contractors and mercenaries doesn't count!
Well they never actually try to cut things unless there is a Democrat in the White House and then (and only then) they discover the evils of the deficit. They are consistent on the revenue side of the equation though, so give them that.
It's not really an interesting question, because the answer is plainly obvious: The overwhelming majority of Latino immigrants (1) come from places that are heavily classist, with high income inequality, and have dysfunctional governments, and (2) are low-skilled and/or have lower levels of educational attainment relative to native-born U.S. citizens, which puts them at a disadvantage in an increasingly competitive U.S. job market.
As with native-born citizens who want more and more but want to pay less and less (whether it's government or shopping at Walmart), it's not clear at all that Latinos are willing to pay higher taxes themselves. Just like with native-born voters, they're happy to get more without paying more, and they're happy to get more when someone else (e.g., "the rich") has to pay more.
Anyone in California who can't get a 420 card isn't doing it right.
What makes you think they wouldn't do both?
I guess that's it -- college for me was Chicago/just north of Chicago...
FWIW - I'm fairly amazed at which the velocity of the legalization opinion has shifted - I heard some polling on the radio today a measurable majority of Americans overall think the feds ought to let WA and CO be, and I think polling on the question overall in the US has hit parity.
I do think that some of that support is (falsely, IMO) based on the idea of "Hey - tax revenue... and tax revenue that won't come from me!" I've seen the studies - which generally seem to come from orgs with a clear pro-legalization agenda - but as someone that can understand the quantity most folks would be buying, it's nothing to close to say -- tobacco.... You can tax it at 100%, 200% of whatever - and I'm still thinking you're only going to see a fraction of the revenue. I'll grant you can probably find the occasional pothead that's an exception -- but it's not like cigarettes, where you're going to find millions of pack-a-day folks.
But whatever - I'd vote yes if the measure came up nationally or in my state, and I'm pretty much in your boat -- I don't turn it down, but it's just not as easily found as it once was and I don't have the desire to endanger myself, my job, or my arrest record in seeking it out more actively.
I am confused why an experience with dysfunctional government would lead immigrants to want more governmental programs.
And funny how all of the "other" groups* skew the same way Latinos do - Asians, Jews, African-Americans, Females, and so on. Almost as if there were something - what could it be? - that caused many groups of non-white non-males to not feel welcome.
Sure the policies of the parties do matter, but I think there is more to it than that, what country people came from, and a desire for free stuff.
* By other I of course mean non-white, non-male. Does any group like that not skew against the GOP? I am sure there must be one somewhere.
Because they don't like being told to go home by gringos who think they're from somewhere else, and by gringos who don't know Puerto Rico is a US Commonwealth.
Suggests to me voters think he's on the right track by pushing tax rates back in the direction of historic norms.
They're middle-aged folks who prize the ability to work and think clearly, so they'd draw from a range of drugs only what they needed in order to feel tolerably well and do the work and travel they love to do. That might involve a mix, sure, but it wouldn't be in order to find the highest high. AFAIK, anyway, and I have no idea how representative they are.
People talk about the increase in dependence that'll come with legalisation, but I wonder how much that dependence will replace and reduce dependence on alcohol?
I smoked dope with mild frequency in college, but my last joint was in 1980 – I just didn't like the effect. I'd make the comparison that gin is easily accessible in stores right now, and I wouldn't touch that stuff either.
I don't really know why that's relevant, except to say that access doesn't encourage use by any means. I've learned to use handguns, too, and I could very easily get one; but I'd as soon buy a gun as buy marijuana or gin.
How many voters under the age of 40 have never smoked up? And half of those people have no real objection to pot other than it's not for them. Hell, my aunts and uncles are in their 60s - they're getting close to the elderly voter demographic - and they were big stoner hippies in college.
The people who think the whacky tobaccy is the devil's drug are dying off every day, being replaced by 18 year olds with bong hit experience in the voting rolls.
If Choice A is a dysfunctional government that offers few services and Choice B is a government that offers "free" healthcare, "free" food stamps, welfare, disability, etc. — almost all of which are unheard of in Latin America — which do you think poor immigrants are likely to prefer?
Not only has the GOP launched a war on women, but also a war on Jews. Who knew?
You, sir, are not nearly as amendable a person as I was previously led to believe.
If forced I would choose gun, then gin, then MJ - but basically none for me thanks.
Buy one, get two free.
Well I never used the word war here, but clearly the groups in question since they are avoiding the GOP in droves.
Why have Jews supported Democrats since 1920? What gifts do you think they are getting?
So their plan is to flood the U.S. with others who look like them? Sounds logical.
Bunyon just beat me to it ;-)
That would be a tough one for me - setting aside the criminal activity as a possibility.... gun would be 3rd, but I suppose the other two would be a coin flip - beyond the specifying the particular type of each.
I happened to mention to my mom the other day that I'd never smoked marijuana. I think I haven't disappointed her that much in a very, very long time. Probably when I called her a ##### for making me make my bed when I was 12.
They know that most of the people interested in immigration crackdowns don't know (or care about) the difference between a brown person from Mexico and a brown person from Puerto Rico, and they don't want to be constantly getting stopped and frisked and asked for papers and the like.
Jews avoid the GOP in droves because for large numbers of them, liberalism is more of a religion than Judaism.
What is the reasonable maximum that people here would be willing to pay for one joint of the size and quality necessary to leave you with a very nice, smooth high for, say, a couple of hours?
How many times a year would you smoke dope of that quality?
After we get that figured out, we can probably figure out the cost sans taxes of getting it to your local 7-11. What remains is the taxes people are willing to pay.
It's never too late to fix that.
If you need help, I know a guy...
If you need help, I know a guy...
How did you know what she said?
Ah ok, they're being bad Jews. Got it.
This is silly. Like a lot of the self-appointed immigration experts in the media, the Puerto Rican guy Andy has been talking about is whiter than I am.
A small but growing number of Republicans have indicated a willingness to raise tax rates on the wealthy. Administration officials meanwhile have indicated they would not insist on raising the top rate all the way back to the Clinton-era level of 39.6%.
"The economy rarely did better than it did in 1992-2000, when we were taking in enough revenue to pay for all the improvements in infrastructure we've painfully postponed. Fix the country, put people back to work, it's as if Jesus himself designed it."
Your words, not mine. The idea that Jews vote for Dems because they see themselves as being disliked, let alone oppressed or discriminated against, by Republicans is utterly ludicrous.
That doesn't really answer the question though. Jews vote Democrat because they're hopelessly devoted to the principles of the Democratic Party. Why?
It did answer the question: Because they're liberals. Just looking at two key issues, Jewish people tend to be pro-choice and — hard as it is to believe — anti-gun. That they tend to vote for Dems should surprise no one.
And from noted right-wing Republican rag, FiveThirtyEight
Well, first of all - I can't imagine the salable quantity would be joint level -- that's the equivalent of convenience stores selling singles (cigarettes, which is illegal... or at least -- it means they cracked open a pack and selling the contents illegally).
Neither the CO or WA initiatives specify quantity -- the CO amendment specifies "personal use" (as well as cultivation limits - 6 plants, I think)... but generally -- 'personal use' has tended to be quantities under an ounce (at least - that's usual the line most places use for "intent to distribute" and misdemeanor/felony lines).
An ounce is probably enough to roll upwards of 50 joints (not a big rolling guy, so someone else can correct me), probably more. While it's been a while, and this, too -- I'm sure -- differs from place to place.... Let's say an ounce runs you $200. The production cost is nowhere near that of course, but I think that sounds like a fair number to work from.
Sooo... $4-$5 a joint?
I'd probably make a weekend habit of it at that price... I'd go higher, but not at some annoying small amount like that. If it were possible to walk into a state-run store and pay -- say -- $300 for an ounce, I'd imagine that would last me a good 3 to 6 months, depending on how often I broke it out.... and that's about how often such a quantity would last back in the day.
My mom asked me earlier this year if I ever did drugs back in the day. When I responded no she said that pretty much agreed with her belief. My brothers and sisters all did (to one degree or another - which my Mom also knew), but not me.
So I would pay $0 and smoke it zero times per year. For a big time liberal in favor of loosening drug policies I am very square (in most ways).
So long as we are not stereotyping anyone ...
Seriously though when a bunch of different people all tend to vote the same way there might just be a common cause.
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