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I was raised to think that politics and religion are not appropriate subjects for polite company; and even that raising either topic outside narrow situations is impolite. I have since grown to think the sentiment is wrong and destructive. Assuming others in your cohort feel similarly, It leaves those discussions to only those people who are willing to breach decorum, or you simply don't have them. The results are that we tend to hear more often from zealots than we do more moderate people, we also leave ourselves ill-equipped to discuss contentious subjects and resolve conflict amicably, and worst of all we make important decisions on matters that affect everyone using poor information and without the benefit of the perspectives of our peers.

>how many USA plane crashes could have been prevented if a parachute was present and working?

None! But it could potentially have prevented a lot of the fatalities.

That would explain it! Not sure what I was thinking, he's police chief, not county sheriff. Looks like he's appointed by the City Manager, whoever that is. http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/issues/122006/PD...

Can you explain why she should?

Definitely, the lege needs to do something here.

>Before we turn into an angry mob, can we try to wait until more facts come out about this?

Okay but do yourself a favor and look up Austin PD, Art Acevedo, and co. before you rush to their defense. They're not exactly shining beacons of virtue. Frankly, I am confused as to how Acevedo can survive an election in Austin with all the shit he and his deputies have done over the years.

I'm very very opposed to a government which uses sticks as a means to prevent suicide. (criminalizing [gun, suicide implement] ownership)

re: 1. The majority of the time, guns are not used at all. Most of the rest of the time they're used for legal, positive reasons, like protecting your bank or recreation. Guns, there's just no way to prevent or collect them all (no way that's consistent with the US Bill of Rights, even if you toss out the Second Amendment). You really don't need much machinery to make an improvised gun, and with a little more tools and expertise, one can manufacture an automatic weapon.

>just look at the data from the UK. Even the police are better off without guns.

I'm more afraid of harm from police than I am from criminals with guns.

>2. This might be true for guns, but who cares?

Meh, it's not a great point but a lot of people in the US care, even if you don't agree with them.

>3. In the age of tanks, machine guns, and grenades, consumer guns don't enable us to overthrow unjust governments as they did when the bill of rights was written.

Tanks are literally useless. As the wars in the Middle East have nicely demonstrated, they do not magically enable victory, especially against an entranched/integrated guerrilla enemy. This is true for all sorts of high-tech military weaponry/machinery.

>As such, they no longer play a role in protecting our civil rights.

I disagree with the premise of your argument, so I also disagree with this point.

>If anything, gun rights are frequently a talking point for Right-wing politicians who happily trample over all of our other civil liberties. As a political force, the pro-gun politics is actively harming our civil liberties.

I can agree with that. There are a lot of authoritarians/fascists/logically challenged people on the pro-gun side; and a lot of politicians who use divisive issues to agitate the more excitable parts of the electorate. They do it for abortion and LGBT/civil rights as well. It's not great, but also not an argument for/against gun rights.

>4. Looking at the data, I don't see how your can argue this.

I don't see how the US gov't can effectively collect all of the guns in the US without some pretty draconian/authoritarian measures of exactly the type that pro-2A folks oppose in principle, and that most Americans agree with.

>In the US guns are used more in suicide

I don't want a government to try to prevent me or anyone else from suicide by trying to nerf the environment.

> or commission of a crime than in self-defense. In the UK, near-universal bans on guns have lead to a drastic decrease in gun deaths.

I admit the numbers are hard to argue with, even factoring in the violent crimes committed with other weapons and against the unarmed. OTOH, I've noted a disturbing trend of the UK to ban or attempt to ban or regulate the sale of other items which may sometimes be used as a weapon, mainly pointy things like kitchen cutlery. That's certainly not something I would support.

As an analogy, note that the US has attempted to prevent the distribution of illegal amphetamines by restricting the sale of so-called precursor chemicals. It hasn't prevented the distribution of methamphetamine, but it has prevented the retail sale of drain cleaner, cold medicine, and other household chemicals/items. It's a moderate inconvenience for a lot of people and the only discernible effect it's had on drugs distribution is to decrease the quality/safety of illegal drugs (through criminals using inferior methods to produce them). Gun culture is so ingrained in the US that I feel we'd see the same sort of things happening with guns if the gov't attempted to ban them.

What criminal trial? The criminals are dead. Yeah, I know, James Comey said that maybe there's another criminal; spare me, I ain't buying it.

Also, you hire an expert to testify as to the technical details. It isn't perfect, but it is what it is; and anyway, the first thing a defense attorney will say/do in the case that the FBI prefers is to cast doubt upon the integrity of anything the FBI finds after all of the screwing around with it that's been done.

Does the term WBS mean anything to you? Back when I worked on federally funded stuff, it was used to document every part of a project deliverable, down to the very last flat washer. While the software parts were more loosely specified than that I can tell you that the content of any public facing documents was scrutinized and edited by top level people before being posted.

My only billionaire acquaintance/friend has about a dozen cars at any time including a McClaren and all sorts of other fancy cars, but his/their everyday cars are as normal as anyone else's. They don't want to attract attention all the time, and why would they?

Pretty much exactly what I expected, and matches my experience. Pi2 is almost equivalent to a 10-15 year old low-end PC.

Serious question. Is it safe to assume that the NSA can't? NO

The NSA might or might not share with the FBI, and the FBI might or might not be able to use what's shared in court, which could explain why they want new authority.

I've had two students in six years who could perfectly reproduce the information on a textbook page after one look at it, even if they had no understanding of the material.

>This is not how negotiations work.

You mean it's not how oligarchs want it to work. Proponents of unpopular policy proposals want to govern people, but they don't want to have to explain themselves to the people they propose to govern.

>You don't make preliminary talks public.

Just because it doesn't always happen, does not mean that it never happens, shouldn't happen, or can't happen.

>Making the above process public will tie the negotiators hands.

Which is the point of democratic processes. It is exactly what people want. I'm not sure what they're worried about anyway, in the US the proletariat has been convinced to go along with all manner of political and economic policy that goes against their best interests; they beg for more of it.

>Sharp is dull and has been for years, and all the money in the world won't resurrect this corpse.

It's a shame, they've made some really high quality and neat stuff over the years. Anyone remember their Transmeta processor laptops? MM-10, etc. I had one, it was thinner and lighter than the MacBook Air IIRC, and predated it by years. It also had a neat little charging dock that let you access the HDD as a USBHDD. Problem is, I can't see them building a product that competes with Apple, biting the hand that feeds them so to speak. Sharp make amazingly good LCD screens, but that's less important now (quality is less of a distinguishing factor) then it was when they were first doing it.

Thanks!

Is anyone developing Tomato anymore? I used to really like that one.

Would it help if I buy internet access from my lawyer?

That's debatable depending upon what you're using it for.

>What's wrong with the letting the government get access to the phones of a few potential criminals/terrorists?!

Not much wrong with the FBI ruining guilty peoples' lives; it's all the innocent people they'll inevitably fuck over.

edit: Not to mention there's no such thing as a "back door for law enforcement only".

> How do we make sure these people don't simply sink when the 'bots come to take their job?

They won't so much sink as they will just never float.

Mind explaining why you think my proposal is impractical?

Isn't that what some like to call "employment"?

In any case the kid was unharmed.

Is that a major problem? Are Coloradans in the habit of leaving half-licked lollipops lying around, and do other unsuspecting Coloradans have the habit of picking up random half-consumed food items and consuming them? This sounds like it might be a potential parenting problem, but not a law enforcement problem.

>And there's also a vibe here

It's not just a vibe, but also a fact that cannabis use has health benefits under certain conditions. There is also very little to support the potential feared effects on "developing brains" or any other kind of brains; and growing evidence to show that it has few negative side effects.

>parents leaving things lying around for kids) applies for painkillers, anti-depressants, alcohol etc.

+1 to this Tylenol is probably as dangerous as poison, and some people treat it like jelly beans.

Somewhere a bunch of people are getting stoned, and they haven't even bothered to email you, they maybe didn't even send out so much as a tweet. What you hate, is the outspokenness of a small fraction of users. There's a fair chance you'd hate listening to these people no matter what they were on about at any particular moment.