Displaying 0 To 0 Of 0 Comments Guns, Knives, Hammers and Bricks* That’s a good point, Abby. In Japan, where guns are banned, there was a horrific case of a woman putting rat poison in a community curry pot. Four people were murdered, and others became ill. But isn’t this the exception that more or less proves the rule? The entire nation was absolutely horrified by this,and the story went on for weeks, whereas in the US, gun violence is so common it doesn’t always even make the evening news. » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 3, 2010 @ 12:16 am You’ll be the Bill Gates of the semi-automatic knife launcher industry! » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 3, 2010 @ 12:12 am “But abby is also right that if someone really wants to kill someone else they can find a weapon and or a way.” That’s true, KQ. But it’s also true that if guns were banned, and someone figured out a way to turn knives or other non-banned weapons into the same level of havoc wreaking device a gun, particularly a semi-automatic, is, then the same calls would come from police departments and the citizenry to have THOSE weapons banned. » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 2, 2010 @ 11:58 pm I don’t see how the six year old argument is a strawman, because there are actual incidents involving children and gun use, either accidental or “intentional” that would not have resulted in deaths had not a gun been fired. Of course a child may kill a friend or a sibling with a scissors or a knife, and this does happen, but for a child to do so requires much greater sustained intent than to simply pull a trigger. Your argument, that the statement “GDKP,PKP” is valid, can be met with those examples, because the statement itself goes further than your consideration of people who are strong and capable of other forms of violence. And your statement about people battered with other weapons, although valid, doesn’t counter the type of crime I am referring to, the type committed by fringe types who go into a post office, or such kind of place and begin random shooting. I imagine that everyone in a post office has access to a scissors, a cutter of some kind, etc. They would be able to defend themselves, and far less damage would be done, if the psycho didn’t have the huge advantage that a gun affords him. I very much look forward to your counter argument, Abby! » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 2, 2010 @ 11:54 pm Abby, your argument seems only philosophical in nature, without fully considering the practical implications. Of course guns are weapons, just as knives are. By the same token, a machine gun, a tank, and a nuclear bomb are all weapons. But a nuclear bomb can do much greater damage than a machine gun or a tank. And countries want nuclear weapons, and spend huge amounts of money to obtain them. They don’t reason, “Why spend all this money? We can kill people with machine guns. Nuclear weapons don’t wipe out cities, after all; PEOPLE wipe out cities!” » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 2, 2010 @ 11:21 pm The Infantilization of America “Within the next generation I believe that the world’s leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience.” – Aldous Huxley, in a letter to George Orwell, comparing his “Brave New World” with “1984” » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 2, 2010 @ 7:33 pm Amazing. If you take the letters from “television” you can write “evil noise”, but then you have a leftover ‘T’ that I can’t find any good use for. » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 2, 2010 @ 6:05 pm Japanese tend to be better informed, I feel. They read actual newspapers, not USA Today baloney. And the TV news is delivered in dry, measured tones, not the breathless shouting that anchors in the US do so well. Your quotation from the old American newspaper is a revelation! This used to be a smart country! American literature was pooh poohed (nod to Khirad!) by Europeans, but the Transcendentalists, Hawthorne, Poe, Melville and the titan Twain were creating amazing works for a receptive audience. Alas! » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 2, 2010 @ 5:47 pm This is great! I can’t stop laughing! » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 2, 2010 @ 5:42 pm Great post! But the infantilization that takes place in Japan goes way beyond. Little cute characters point out to you that you might get your extremities caught in the subway doors as they close. Dancing umbrellas on the weather report tell you it’s going to rain, and the announcement on the train reminds you to take that umbrella that the perky weather girl told you that you need with you as you depart. Little animal friends gently admonish you to mind your manners on the trains and in the stations. » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 2, 2010 @ 5:20 pm Emerald, thank you for using the Planet in this way. It gives us another way to share our humanity. She is in my prayers, as are you and your sister. » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 1, 2010 @ 7:15 pm Dark Matter (WIMPS) the other Holy Grail in Particle Physics Why, thank you Abby! » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 2, 2010 @ 12:58 am That’s it! I’ve decided I’m going to apply for a grant to prove that fairies are real! I can’t be sure (because I don’t have the VERRRRRRYY expensive equipment to verify it) but my research thus far indicates that they are composed of two types of particles, called “Tinkers” (Tiny Invisible Non-Kinetic Electron Repellers) and “Bells” (Boson Emitting Luminous Loops). Their “dust”, actually minute particles of energy left over from the Big Bang, accounts for either everything known to exist, or the stuff that gathers in the corners of your bedroom. » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 2, 2010 @ 12:50 am Meet the new High Priests, same as the old High Priests. » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 2, 2010 @ 12:38 am I like it. And if you’re convinced they’re real, you are of course a positron. » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 2, 2010 @ 12:24 am God Particles move in mysterious ways. » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 2, 2010 @ 12:21 am Here’s a stumper for you all. » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 1, 2010 @ 11:52 pm Personally, I think we’re all God Particles. » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 1, 2010 @ 11:42 pm Exactly! Well said! » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 1, 2010 @ 9:04 pm Actually, KQ, I think when Thompson wrote this, it was directed more towards the Hitchens/Dawkins types and their acolytes who rush in to delegitimize every spiritual experience, no matter how profound, because there is “no (scientific) evidence”. You, on the other hand, I have always found to be open minded and gracious when considering the matters of another person’s spiritual views. » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 1, 2010 @ 8:35 pm “Anyway it » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 1, 2010 @ 8:21 pm This is with all due (and sincere) respect to KQuark, and is merely offered as counterpoint. “The trouble is that when we move into the world of big science, we encounter a weird world of superstitious beliefs in which all kinds of stuff we never see is said to exist. High priests tell us that quarks and bosons exist, and we have to take their word for it. Something that only exists as a nanosecond blip on a meter is said to be more real than actual human experience of artistic and religious enlightenment experienced by yogis, saints and artists in many different cultures throughout the ages. When the high priests of physics tell us about their world of invisible particles, things begin to get pretty weird. Let me give you chapter and verse from Paul Davies’ Other Worlds: Space, Superspace, and the Quantum Universe. “If accepted completely literally, it (the quantum theory) leads to the conclusion that the world of our experience – the universe we actually perceive – is not the only universe. Co-existing alongside it are countless billions of others, some almost identical to ours, others wildly different, inhabited by myriads of near carbon-copies of ourselves in a gigantic, multifoliate reality of parallel worlds.” » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 1, 2010 @ 6:06 pm My Poem ‘ A Thief in the Temple’ read by ME~ Bravo! Very nice reading, and I like the Middle Eastern music playing in the background. Mysterious and seductive! » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 31, 2009 @ 8:56 pm 2010 brings with it new hopes and new challenges, and asks the eternal question of mankind; are you ready to put aside your differences, or will another year go by with you stuck in the same rut? The immortal words of John Lennon ring out at this new dawn: Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe. » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 1, 2010 @ 5:47 am What do doctors know? Because of the distance from the sun, years on planet POV are much longer anyway. » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 31, 2009 @ 9:30 pm You’re as young as you feel, taffybelle! » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 31, 2009 @ 9:25 pm Of course! They’re bubblier than champagne, pizzazzier than fireworks, and cuter than mistletoe smooches (well, not sure about that…….) » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 31, 2009 @ 8:44 pm She was just trying to help. » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 31, 2009 @ 8:42 pm When they run in tall grass, they lope in a way that is reminiscent of dolphins swimming. And when they swim, they dog paddle. They are incredibly flexible and seemingly indestructible. They should teach yoga! » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 31, 2009 @ 8:19 pm
» Posted By whatsthatsound On December 31, 2009 @ 8:04 pmComments Posted By whatsthatsound
Take North Korea, for example. As countries go, it’s basically a “punk”. The only thing that gets the world to pay any attention to it is its threat to world peace, or at least peace on the Korean Peninsula, is its nuclear weapons program. In that sense, North Korea is like a six year old with a gun. If a six year old comes at me with a scissors or a brick or a knife, I think that if I keep my head and have some luck, I’ll be able to disarm my assailant. Put a gun in that kid’s hand and I don’t like my chances. Guns are weapons that, unlike knives or bricks, require nothing more than the most rudimentary physical power (it’s so easy even a six year old can do it!) to inflict harm, commit murder, etc. They have been called “the great equalizer”, which makes them the PERFECT choice for weak, outcast, disgruntled fringe types to wreak the Brobdingnagian havoc they imagine the world, or the post office, deserves for not treating them better. It is guns, and not knives or bricks, that puts the power in their hands to make their sick fantasies come true.
My trips to the reading room will never be the same!
And the TV shows? Guys dressed up in diapers always get a laugh.
Keep the people entertained, fed, childlike and busy, and the fire next time never comes.
If you don’t believe in God Particles, does that make you an atheist or just an agnostic?
I would like to quote the brilliant William Irwin Thompson, from his book, “Coming Into Being”
So Big Science gives us permission to believe in parallel worlds and other dimensions – as long as these beliefs and ideas have absolutely nothing to do with our experience and have absolutely no moral or aesthetic implications for how we live our lives.”
Ferrets don’t cry; they bounce!
(btw, these aren’t mine, just found on Youtube)
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