Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Reports of protests are overblown. A few incidents around the country, but nothing major.

5 (45.5%)

A few major incidents in capitals, but nothing much in DC.

5 (45.5%)

A major incident in DC, but nothing much around the country.

0 (0%)

More than 10 capitals have major upheavals, but nothing much in DC.

0 (0%)

A major incident in DC plus more than 10 capitals with significant upheavals.

1 (9.1%)

More than half the capitals around the country have problems with protesters, but DC is quiet.

0 (0%)

DC has major problems, while more than half the capitals around the country also have considerable trouble with protesters.

0 (0%)

Huge disruption to the day.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: January 19, 2021, 10:49:21 PM

[bambu.]

The chance of a home invasion occurring is exceedingly small.
The chance of a loaded gun always carried around being misused seems much much greater.

Probably why Aussie bar patrons are not allowed to carry guns, strapped on ready to fire or otherwise.
No one is allowed to own or carry handguns...with few exceptions. Open slather for serial killers and home invaders on an unarmed public.
They invade your home, bash you senseless, ruin your life.
Baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire, you might get away with that in your own home, but the cops might say "excessive force".
AR15-ilk are banned too.
Knives are banned, not allowed to carry them either...no blades of any type.
Not sure if you're allowed to carry whale bones around with which to whack terrorists.

In America women are lucky, they can mow down the home invaders as they enter their homes intent on evil.
In Australia women [and everyone] are not so lucky, they're just sitting ducks;


Elderly woman choked and paper towel stuffed into her mouth during home invasion in Guildford.
Thursday, 19 December 2019 8:13 am

A manhunt is under way after an elderly woman was attacked by two men in her home in Sydney's west.

The 78-year-old was home alone in Guildford about 11am on Wednesday when she saw the men jump a rear fence and approach her door, police said.
She tried to call police but before she could the men kicked in the door and held her to the ground, choking her and stuffing paper towel into her mouth.
The duo then ransacked the woman's home, taking her mobile phone and then fleeing the scene.

[bambu.]

Let me help you think about North Korea:

1) Sanctions are fairly useless on an isolated nation such as NK.  The US and its allies just don't actually trade anything with NK.
China does the most dealing, but they likely keep that going to keep their influence, to know what's going on in NK, and to have some leverage and control over NK.  NK is useful to China as a thorn in the US' side, as a buffer to keep US allies off its NE border, and China doesn't want large numbers of NK refugees flooding into China.

2) NK will not give up their nukes.  It's their primary guarantee against being attacked by a hostile and militaristic USofA.  If they ever had any doubts, which I doubt, they can just look at Libya or Ukraine for how good an idea it is to voluntarily remove your nukes.

3) NK is fairly impervious to any military attack, because the huge metropolis of Seoul and plenty of US troops sit just across the border (35 miles away) and are/will be an easy target before NK military capabilities are destroyed.  You can only attack North Korea is you're willing to have roughly half of Seoul level and killed.  Seoul has 10M people in its city limits, another 15M in the surrounding suburbs, or half the population of SK in and around Seoul.  This is why the infinitely wise Donald Trump recently suggested moving Seoul.

All of this is why not even Jared can solve the NK problem.
Trump was a chump to believe NK was going to give up their nukes.

He had to try diplomacy.
Never know your luck.
Obviously a big waste of time.

So, NK is just going to be allowed to fire nukes at anyone it likes, ...US, Australia, Japan etc, with impunity.
Charming.
Dr Phil would say..."How's that working for you"?

Then bomb China instead...gonna get nuked by NK anyway, might as well go down fighting.
Or start with a global boycott of all things 'China'...Trump does a call to arms...

[bambu.]

Ever volunteered his time to make others' lives easier?

I will never be volunteering to host friends or family over Christmas/holidays or any other time either.
I'll be saying 'no'.
Look at all the horror stories of what has befallen people who have said 'yes'.

[bodiddley]

Trying diplomacy is fine.  Believing NK is willing to give up their nuke arsenal is naive.  The concessions Trump got for elevating Kim with meetings and nice words amounted to very little.  Fake concessions really (NK shut down one nuclear test spot which it turned out had already mostly collapsed form nuke testing)

NK is a problem because it's very hard to do much about that regime.  And if you ignore them too much they do stuff like lob missiles near Japan to get attention.  But they can't cause too much trouble really.

Seems the best course is to get info into NK about how poor and backward it really is.  And try for an uprising.  I think that was part of the SK detente strategy.  The other option is to try a targeted assassination.  but since they have nukes, that's probably off the table.  So the best you can do is try to get some in the inner circle to stage a coup.  But Kim runs a pretty paranoid regime, and has killed even some relatives in gruesome ways.  It's tough to penetrate NK it's so closed off.  So hard to disrupt their nukes, or get an informer in, or an assassin, or foment a coup.

Another major problem is that NK has roughly half the population of SK.  So it's not like West/East Germany where there was a 3:1 pop ratio in our favor, and East Germany wasn't as poor or backward as NK is.  So even South Korea is wary of any unification.

For all those reasons, and those in the previous post, most just try to maintain the bumpy status quo.  Overall, a real conundrum, unlike the Palestinian situation which could be solved in a week.

[kidcarter8]

Trump got the ball rolling with Kim.  Should he lose in November it should be interesting to see how the next guy/gal approaches NK issues.

[kidcarter8]

The chance of a home invasion occurring is exceedingly small.
The chance of a loaded gun always carried around being misused seems much much greater.

When speaking to protecting one's home and family these probabilities mean little

It's YOUR specific circumstance that matters

[bodiddley]

Maybe.
But if there is almost no need for gun protection v. your kid might accidentally shoot himself or his sibling, or suicide risk goes up, or you might shoot a relative or friend, or get shot with your own gun, etc.

A weapon in your house makes it much more likely that someone will get shot in your house.

[LarryBnDC]

Trump got the ball rolling with Kim.  Should he lose in November it should be interesting to see how the next guy/gal approaches NK issues.

Trump, the Great Negotiator, got played.

[Hairy Lime]

Trump got the ball rolling with Kim.  Should he lose in November it should be interesting to see how the next guy/gal approaches NK issues.

He did not."get the ball rolling". He caved and gave NK something they wanted, and which successive Presidents of both parties have withheld. For nothing. NK played his amateur ass.

[REDSTATEWARD]

Alan Dershowitz on the consequences of Impeachment

My view—which I suspect much of the public shares—is that Mr. Trump was impeached by a partisan vote and deserves to be acquitted by a partisan vote. The representatives who impeached him along party lines after devising partisan rules of inquiry have no principled argument against a party-line acquittal.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/president-trump-is-impeached-or-is-he-11577045305?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

[barton]

http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/us-on-high-alert-for-possible-christmas-gift-missile-from-north-korea/ar-BBYfZUg?li=AAgfYrC&OCID=AVRES000

US on high alert for possible ‘Christmas gift’ missile from North Korea

US officials are on high alert for signs of a possible missile launch from North Korea in the coming days that officials have referred to as a “Christmas gift.”

A significant launch or nuclear test would raise the end of North Korea's self-imposed moratorium on missile launches and tests.

It would also be a major blow to one of President Trump’s major foreign policy goals to get North Korea back to the negotiating table to eliminate its nuclear weapons.

#####

President Trump tried his best at diplomacy...

Spit take!   

[barton]

Cowards like Kid can’t shoot straight. When they snap, they tend to miss their targets a lot and hit a bunch of bystanders.

Some of the discussion about dry wall penetration and preferred ammunition when shooting folks in your home were interesting.

Some of the paranoia is impressive too.
One commentator professes to always having a handgun strapped to his person even in his own home.  Another talk aboutangry mob attacks including some with a "baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire."  Seems like some folks maybe watching too many movies.  Or perhaps there are home invasions with barbed-wire Louisville Sluggers I'm unaware of . . .

Dangerous marauders in the home is one of the central myths of the gun-nut brigade.  I worked, briefly, for the DoJ, doing IT stuff that included crime stat DBs, and have to say, your chances of being struck by lightning are greater than having a violent marauder enter your home and actively try to find you and harm you.  And, if you have a gun that's quickly accessible, the chances much greater that it'll be used on a family member.   Some of the many facts the gun nuts are immune to.

[Hairy Lime]

Alan Dershowitz on the consequences of Impeachment

My view—which I suspect much of the public shares—is that Mr. Trump was impeached by a partisan vote and deserves to be acquitted by a partisan vote. The representatives who impeached him along party lines after devising partisan rules of inquiry have no principled argument against a party-line acquittal.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/president-trump-is-impeached-or-is-he-11577045305?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

I think it is hilarious that because Republicans have devolved to tribalism and ignore facts they have not disputed it is Democrats who are acting in a partisan manner. Dershowitz's argument is essentially that since Repos ignored the President's conduct for political reasons in the House, that justifies them doing so in the Senate.

[LarryBnDC]

Alan Dershowitz on the consequences of Impeachment

My view—which I suspect much of the public shares—is that Mr. Trump was impeached by a partisan vote and deserves to be acquitted by a partisan vote. The representatives who impeached him along party lines after devising partisan rules of inquiry have no principled argument against a party-line acquittal.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/president-trump-is-impeached-or-is-he-11577045305?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Dershowitz still pissed at being ‘shunned’ on Martha’s  Vineyard  and still trying to get folks believe he kept his underwear on white  molesting underage girls...

[josh]

Ever volunteered his time to make others' lives easier?

I will never be volunteering to host friends or family over Christmas/holidays or any other time either.
I'll be saying 'no'.
Look at all the horror stories of what has befallen people who have said 'yes'.

Fool. It's a wonder you set foot outside ever!