|
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 29, 2012 9:43:31 GMT 10
"but one can't help wondering if such things would still be possible in C21st America"I'm going to assume that wasn't rhetorical ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_AhlquistYeah, it can still happen. The _violence_ of that earlier incident seems a lot less likely, but the emotional response and backlash still happen. You might also be aware of the country club in michigan which cancelled a booking for a "free thought" convention when it found out that richard dawkins would be there. That was actually organised by the missus of one of the guys who does the Reasonable Doubts show, so they had a bit to say about it. Possibly the most curious recent(ish) development is a push-back against overt religiosity in the US military. Some quite odd things have been going on there - it seems that the US army is not an institution welcoming to atheists. A west-point student recently dropped out, citing the military's refusal to accept the first amendment. It's not just "skeptic" groups paying attention to that, either - a lot more has been done and said by christian groups who see the obvious problem - Welton Gaddy at the interfaith alliance (yep, there IS an evangelical "left") has been on about it for years, and has had some quite surprising interviews on his show. Even if you don't give a toot about the military embracing Jesus ... what if it then decides that it doesn't like YOUR Jesus? The victims in that business in '81 were Christians ... just the wrong SORT of Christians.
|
|
|
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 29, 2012 9:46:48 GMT 10
"You are totez gonna get an angry wordy letter dude"
Well, I hope it gets posted here for all to see (I'd be impressed if he could get my address, though)
|
|
|
Post by jack on Dec 29, 2012 9:58:39 GMT 10
From the Guardian... Growing numbers of elderly and sick Germans are being sent overseas for long-term care in retirement and rehabilitation centres because of rising costs and falling standards in Germany.
The move, which has seen thousands of retired Germans rehoused in homes in eastern Europe and Asia, has been severely criticised by social welfare organisations who have called it "inhumane deportation".
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/26/german-elderly-foreign-care-homes The article doesn't give much idea of the scale of the problem. While there are some who see the situation as not a problem at all, rather an exercise of 'choice' in the context of market realities. Naturally it begs some questions for Australia. If, as some in the sector fear, aged care costs become similarly prohibitive, will Australians be shipping their elderly offshore to Asia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc.?
|
|
|
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 29, 2012 10:17:57 GMT 10
"Naturally it begs some questions for Australia. If, as some in the sector fear, aged care costs become similarly prohibitive, will Australians be shipping their elderly offshore to Asia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc.?"
That would be up to individual australians (but unlikely). More likely is that we'll see a managed increase in immigration to fill a lot of low-paid jobs.
I think there was an onion article a few years back about parents deciding that, the economy being what it was, rather than employing illegal workers from south of the border to look after their kids - it was cheaper to just send their kids to mexico to be looked after there. At least ... I think it was the onion. I don't THINK it was true ...
|
|
|
Post by jack on Dec 29, 2012 10:30:40 GMT 10
"The _violence_ of that earlier incident seems a lot less likely, but the emotional response and backlash still happen."
Actually I was thinking of the Little Axe community's apparent tolerance for the savage mutilation of a child's pet goats.
Seems to me sadism is another dimension beyond "emotional response and backlash".
At any rate, it's interesting that this kind of thing seems tolerated in a culture that fears creeping "Islamic totalitarianism".
|
|
|
Post by jack on Dec 29, 2012 10:49:41 GMT 10
|
|
|
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jan 5, 2013 15:24:40 GMT 10
Some might wonder why I've been so quiet .... pjmedia.com/blog/gun-control-fails-say-statistics-from-gun-control-advocates/I'm not posting under my usual name, there. But I think you should be able to spot me easily enough. I had to stop posting with my own name after I was banned a couple of years ago - conspicuously, after posting a comment that I thought it was inappropriate for a news organisation to publish a comment calling for a public figure to be assassinated (with a "double-tap to the forehead"). That thread's particularly wonderful, because THAT guy's supposed to be some sort of firearm policy "expert". He's certainly very widely quoted by the gun nuts, and I think I was able to resoundingly demonstrate that he has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. After a robust rebuttal of his claims I got him down to basically calling me names and refusing to answer direct questions. I expect that he tried to get me banned (he canvassed the idea in a comment), but this time the PJM gods must have said no. Maybe they were taking notes. That wasn't the first thread I'd participated in, but by then I'd spent a couple of weeks poring over crime statistics from around the world, trying to line them up and looking at historical trends, so I was pretty much kitted out for an argument by the time that expert had a go (and I dare say, I might now even be more of an expert than that guy is) I can now say (and prove) that the US isn't just as bad (when it comes to gun violence) as leftist liberals try to make out. It's worse. It really, really is. The real miracle is that their crime rates are dropping - their police are doing an incredible job, and maybe all those leftist social policies might be having an effect after all. Howard had another try here: pjmedia.com/blog/shooting-from-the-hip-the-medias-inaccurate-gun-reporting/I really should get a life.
|
|
|
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jan 6, 2013 11:10:04 GMT 10
|
|
|
Post by jack on Jan 6, 2013 17:47:12 GMT 10
MoC, that thread is truly awesome.
Aside from your sparring with Howard and others, the most memorable contribution would have to have been @ 42 from 'rachel'.
Wow! Just one long godwin. And I mean 'long', must be going on a thousand words. With the NYT and WaPo (presumably) as "the equivalent of [Hitler's] brownshirts," no less.
rachel's reasoning (call it that) about why "where Obama’s kids go to school, eleven armed guards stand at the ready" is far from clear. But after reading her screed I can think of a few more fairly compelling reasons.
Also notable is the reply from the guy applauding rachel's "sound of rationality in these troll-infested waters." (Hey, you're an "infestation"!)
Yep, that stream of unsubstantiated, unhinged assertions is evidently regarded as "rationality" by these people.
And the obverse of "trolling"!
Most notable is that it all went totally unremarked by Howard, whilst he took pains to try to 'counter' your contributions.
Oh, and 'pooks'? WTF is that?
Matthew, you can be fairly certain you made not so much as a dint in the carapace of derpdom there.
But full marks for perseverance.
|
|
|
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jan 7, 2013 12:38:06 GMT 10
"Hey, you're an "infestation"!"
An infestation of one, yep. And I've got them surrounded (h/t to timothy leary)
The problem for the pro-gun bullsh1t artists is that the data that they misuse is very easily available. I wish australia's crime data was more easily accessible in time-series form, but you can actually get quite detailed breakdown statistics for reported crime going back many years direct from the ABS. The AIC does some occasional time-series reports, but they're too frequently out of date.
The UK home office has excellent historical data going back to 2000 (now hosted at the office of national statistics). They also have crime victimisation survey data easily available.
As does the FBI (through its unified crime reporting system). Although they're still using definitions of some crimes dating back to the 1920's, so they're extremely conservative numbers when it comes to non-homicide violence or sex crimes.
The US CDC also has an excellent online search engine for national recorded causes of injury and death. That one alone is very good for shooting down ridiculous comparisons between shooting deaths and other forms of accidents.
Canada also has some good online data sources.
Then there's the UNODC data collection, and the (defunct) International Crime Victimisation Survey.
And all of the data, when seen in its entirety and in context, refutes most of the junk put about by the gun manufacturers and their PR people.
They're easy to take apart once you have the data. It's no wonder that howard was so adamant about refusing to cite anything - it means that he can keep claiming things which would be trivially disprovable if he specified his source.
|
|
|
Post by angra on Jan 7, 2013 15:21:12 GMT 10
Little Timmeh's crowing because there have been fewer mentions of 'gun control' in the media. As if this means anything.
And a woman in Georgia shot a would-be thief five times, thus protecting her life and her child's.
Er - no, the thief was after money and stuff, and she emptied her magazine into him (not the Womans Weekly).
Excessive force perhaps?
And some bastards in Western Sydney are attacking people with machetes. So Timmeh assumes if we gave home-owners guns they'd all be a lot safer.
I seem to remember a bugs bunny cartoon in which he and Yosemite Sam engage in an arms race going from pistols to rifles to machine guns then cannons etc. and eventually atom bombs and manage to blow up the world.
|
|
|
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jan 7, 2013 20:09:55 GMT 10
From TB:
"Meanwhile, the gun debate has lost some heat"
Yeah, well, you've just jinxed it, Tim. Because I'm getting the feeling that obama is going to make gun regulation reform the central pillar of his next two years.
|
|
|
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jan 7, 2013 20:11:42 GMT 10
Just watching The Drum, and they're talking about the unusually coincidental commentary by various people linked to the liberal party about tony abbott's attitude to IVF.
I wonder if the libs would have even imagined that they could get away with it if the press wasn't in press-release mode for xmas.
It's a pretty robust discussion, too. And the IPA is, naturally, being a goose.
|
|
|
Post by chookmustard on Jan 9, 2013 21:28:45 GMT 10
Collective noun for MoC... An Infestation
|
|
|
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jan 12, 2013 11:06:22 GMT 10
|
|