I watch one season of some show in a language I don’t understand
I wish my brain worked that way; I’d be watching Finnish television and movies all day, every day.
I watch a fair number of shows in Swedish or Norwegian, and I’ve never picked up anything from what they’re saying. I always have to have subtitles.
If each person that steps in to the position fails to change the way they do business, and each one ends up getting murdered, then pretty soon you either end up with no one willing to take the position --OR-- the next CEO changes the way they do business so that they aren’t painting a target on their chest.
Given what United Healthcare has been doing, the lawsuits against them, their denial of services using shady means, I can’t say that a targeted attack is all that surprising. I’m mostly surprised that this hasn’t been done more often against CEOs and people on the board of directors of corporations.
The gun charge was a sham. Yes, lying on form 4473 (firearm transaction record) is a federal crime. It’s also one that has historically never been prosecuted on it’s own; it’s always used as part of another prosecution, such as bank robbery, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, and so on. You can count the number of times where that’s been prosecuted on it’s own on the fingers of one hand, in part because it really doesn’t come to light unless you’re caught committing another crime while also possessing a firearm that you can’t legally have. The justice dept. was originally going to drop that charge altogether, until pressure was applied from the political right. (Also, maybe don’t write a memoir where you admit to crimes, unless you’re past the statute of limitation on those crimes.)
The tax charges were pretty legit though. Depending on sentencing guidelines–which are quite complicated–the odds are pretty good that he would have ended up with large fines and penalties, in addition to having to pay the back taxes with interest that he owed.
I will personally vouch for Russell at KE Arms; he genuinely believes that the second amendment is for all people, regardless of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, or religion. He’s a good dude, IMO.
But fundamentally, yeah, it’s nearly impossible to buy a firearm that is 100% ethical. I know that Karl Kasarda (InRangeTV) likes Desert Tech, because they’ve been good to IRTV and haven’t given him shit about politics, religion, or affiliation with marginalized groups. I don’t like Desert Tech, because they’re run by the Kingston Clan, which is a fundamentalist Mormon cult. I’m also unwilling to buy from Daniel Defense, because they actively market themselves as being a “Christian corporation”, and I oppose that kind of religious bullshittery.
Point is, you gotta pick and choose.
Well, no. Not the entire reason. California resulted in the Mulford Act in '67 which banned open carry of firearms, but the Gun Control Act of '68 wasn’t directly related to it. The GCA was more about commerce in the wake of Kennedy’s assassination, because the Carcano rifle that Oswald used to assassinate Kennedy had been bought as mail order. (And note that the NRA was in favor of both at the time; it wasn’t until the 80s that the NRA took a hard turn to the right. They used to mostly be about marksmanship and hunting rather than political activism.) (Depending on whether or not 6.5mm Carcano ammunition is manufactured in the US, and isn’t readily available in the US, a 6.5mm Carcano rifle might be legally an antique and not subject to the GCA provisions, which is kind of ironic.) One of the effects of the GCA was to ban the importation of small, cheaply made, and readily concealed pistols; those regulations remain in effect today, and pistols that don’t pass a fairly extensive checklist can’t be imported. The GCA was preceded by the National Firearms Act of 1934, which had originally been intended to functionally ban handguns (which is why short barreled rifles and short barreled shotguns are part of the act), but that got stripped out prior to the vote. That’s the act that originally made it very expensive to own a machine gun, silencer, SBS/SBR (and still makes it a pain in the ass).
But, to your point, Reagan was the governor of California at the time, and he was a flaming racist (…who concealed it under ‘law and order’ and ‘welfare queen’ language), and the Black Panthers being armed freaked him the fuck out. he was responsible for signing the Firearm Owners Protection Act in '86, which did some good things as far as the now-activist NRA was concerned–like making it much easier to transport firearms across state lines–but also banned machine guns produced after 1986 from being transferred to private owners under the NFA of '34.
Really diving into the history of gun regulations and politics in the US is incredibly complicated and dense. There are bad actors on both sides–notably Michael A. Bellesiles and John Lott Jr.–so getting accurate information ends up being really hard.
Fucking FINALLY.
Yes, women should be armed. Gay people should be armed. Trans people should be armed. Religious minorities should be armed. People that are on the political left never should have ceded the right to keep and bear arms to the political right.
I’m planning on getting certified as a firearms instructor through the NRA (because no matter how shitty the NRA-ILA is, the training programs are solid) this coming year so that I can start working with The Pink Pistols and Operation Blazing Spear.
I would strongly suggest that people try reading This Nonviolence Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible.
If you’re one of the people that is considering getting a gun, please listen to the “It Could Happen Here” podcast episode titled, Safe Gun Ownership.
I wouldn’t say that it’s the ‘vast majority’ of imports that are banned. The Gun Control Act of '68 mostly ends up applying to very small, often cheap, pistols (“Saturday night specials”), and guns that don’t have a “legitimate sporting purpose”. The ATF has said that practical shooting competitions (e.g., two gun, three gun, etc.) doesn’t count as “legitimate sporting purpose”, but the IWI Tavor is sold in the US, and is manufactured in Israel. source for that claim
Right now Turkish guns are having a moment. The Turks are making cheap firearms–sometimes very good, sometimes just cheap-- and sometimes making outright clones of more popular popular firearms. True, you’d be supporting Erdogan, but hey, you can’t always win.
Personally, I’m waiting for someone to start importing KMR pistols. The KMR L-02 Orca OR looks like an improved CZ Shadow II Orange, but I suspect the $3200 price tag is lot steep for most people. :(
Dubya at least had a face of ‘compassionate’ conservatism, and believed in the rule of law. Yeah, he bent the law a lot, but he never outright broke it. He was incompetent–or, he was at least not up to the task of being a president–but not apparently malicious.
Pity that SCOTUS stepped in with the Florida recount, since it was eventually found that Gore should have won. I wonder where we’d be on climate change now if Gore had won? Oh well Florida, enjoy your flooding and hurricanes.
He allowed American Surveillance with Patriot Act I and II.
People at the time were begging for that. There were a very, very few civil libertarians that realized just how dangerous those acts would be, but the people, as a whole, were really behind them. Just like the people went in gung-ho for the start of GWoT.
He is essentially the ripple effect of everything we’re dealing with today and Trump is merely the symptom of that.
I’d put that at the feet of Reagan first. Reagan was the one that cozied up to the ‘moral majority’, which was based in racism and misogyny, what with Bob Jones University being forced to desegregate. That’s where the birth of the alt-right (which I guess is now just mainstream Republicans) happened.
Absolutely.
But the loss of the manufacturing base, and the subsequent decrease in number of people covered by labor unions, has been one of the single largest factors that’s harmed the middle class. It’s not the only thing, but a manufacturing base ends up being a pretty important part.
tariffs very rarely ever benefit the country establishing the tariff.
Well. It depends.
If tariffs are sustained, then it can make sense to establish domestic companies that can supply the goods that were previously being outsourced. In that respect, over the long term–and I’m talking, like 20-30+ years–it could be positive. One of the things that made the US economy strong in the 60s was the fact that we had strong labor, and strong manufacturing; outsourcing our manufacturing has harmed labor and the middle class.
But that’s all very long-term stuff. It’s taken us 40 years to get to where we are now, and bringing manufacturing, and strong unions, back can easily take just as long. In the short term, it’s going to be super-bad for the working poor and the middle class.
How have you forgotten Remedy, with Alan Wake, Control, and Quantum Break?
I feel like Finland might be where I belong. If only I could realistically learn Suomi…
Lots of weirdly emo ballads, TBH. The metal is good, but it’s still pretty niche from what I understand.
Correct; it’s a shitfest, and it’s going to get a lot worse.
A lot worse.
Third, divorce. You will find out who your real friends are when you get divorced.
When my ex- and I were going through a divorce, they didn’t want me to say anything publicly at all. They were insistent that it wasn’t anyone else’s business, and since I was trying to make the process as painless as possible, I assumed that this was a good-faith request.
I was wrong.
I was being silent, and they were telling everyone a load of horseshit about me, and bad-mouthing me in public to every single one of our mutual friends. I lost all but one of our mutual friends; my silence was assumed to be an admission of guilt.
And what, exactly, is positive about it, that has no associated negative outcomes?
IMO, there’s no such thing as responsible AI use. All of the uses so far are bad, and I can’t see any that would work as well as a trained human. Even worse, there’s zero accountability; when an AI makes a mistake and gets people killed, no executives or programmers will ever face any criminal charges because the blame will be too diffuse.
requires a trial.
Not for people that are undocumented. People that are not in the us legally get hearings, but that’s policy rather than law, IIRC. Due process gets a little weird here, because the process in question isn’t a matter of law or the constitution.
Regardless - it’s not going to go well for anyone that thinks that he doesn’t mean them.
The denaturalization concept–stripping naturalized citizens of citizenship–is fa, far scarier than deportation. Once you can strip citizenship from a naturalized citizen, and once you’ve eliminated birthright citizenship, you’ve got a roadmap for stripping citizenship from anyone.
It’s been years since I had glög; I should make that again since it’s starting to get chilly.
Unfortunately, part of living in the US is that most people aren’t exposed to other languages to any significant degree. If you are a native American English speaker, and grow up in a large city, you might hear enough Spanish to learn it, but that’s about it. I learned Spanish in school, but there was no opportunity to practice until I moved to a large city close to the Mexican border.