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ZooeyModeratorBrexit devastating to British youth:
This Post Perfectly Explains Why Brexit Is So Devastating to the UK’s Youth
Young Brits furious:
Young People Are Furious at Older People for Voting to Leave EU
ZooeyModeratorI thought it failed because the London Monarchs voted to leave the league.
ZooeyModeratorWhat I don’t get is the age difference in the vote-if in fact this was in part a racist fueled vote. By far the older generation in Britain-from what the polls show-voted to stay while the younger vote voted to leave. I would have thought the opposite would be the case if racism was behind the vote.
I believe you have that backwards. The polls I saw leading up to the vote showed that each age group progressively became more inclined to Leave the older the group was. And one of my Brit friends yesterday was complaining that it appeared young people weren’t turning out to vote (and he was a strong Remain).
ZooeyModeratorI’m afraid I see it in terms of what’s going on in the US today, and that worries me. Gary Younge’s take on the vote is informative. He talks about the incompetence of the Remain campaign, and how it was oblivious to the concerns of the people and set itself aside as the smart people who know better than you do, and never made a good case for remaining in the EU.
This is EXACTLY what went through my mind.
Trump is the irrational, racist, fear-mongering bull in the china shop that was supposed to fall aside after every incindiary comment, but never did.
Clinton, meanwhile, “knows better than we do,” she’s experienced, and has no case outside of that to be president.
Trump overcame the establishment and just kept winning. Clinton overcame her opposition by being smart and experienced and nothing else. I don’t see either one of them changing their gameplan.
ZooeyModeratorI dunno. The whole thing seems like a stunt to me. The bill is window dressing. This is the biggest wave of support for gun control the country has seen, and the Democrats are spending the moment to use it to stop sales to people on the No Fly list? That’s not going to make any measurable difference. Typical waste of time from the party that claims to be progressive.
Maybe next they can cure urban blight by limiting the number of cans of spray paint people can buy at one time.
On the NRA’s intransigence: I had a (gun-toting survivalist) friend of mine tell me that he was worried that ANY gun restrictions would just lead the way to more. He said, “We saw what happened to cigarette smokers…one restriction after another.”
June 23, 2016 at 4:18 pm in reply to: informal poll–how many favor limits on certain firearms #46934ZooeyModeratorWell, I would get rid of clips and semi-automatics. I agree with Billy. And I want training and licenses.
ZooeyModeratorWell, obviously the catch there is that they gave you the Sharks and Giants which sucks. You should have held out for the Kings and Dodgers, but you still got a good deal in spite of that.
I assume your overseas dude was Indian. When I was a teacher in Kathmandu, students called me “Mr. Jeff” all the time, and the other teachers “Miss Jill” and “Miss Daina,” etc. That’s the way they do it because they do that in their own language with each other. They don’t call people by their last names there. That’s a western thing.
ZooeyModeratorSF says they are fine at QB and they wouldn’t have drafted Goff, anyway.
Yeah that’s like me. If someone offered me a million dollars with no catch, I would turn them down. Not everyone wants to be rich. People don’t need to be rich. So I am actually glad that has never happened.
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I hear you.
I’d like to add that I would certainly have no interest in advances from Salma Hayek, or the Modern Family babe. Who needs that?
ZooeyModeratorWell, the Rams aren’t going to cut him, and nobody wants to draft RBs these days, let alone trade for one, so he’s here. Which is good, imo.
June 22, 2016 at 1:28 am in reply to: Keenum will be the starter to open camp…how close or far is Goff? #46813ZooeyModeratorIs Jared Goff as ready to start as Russell Wilson was as a rookie?
The “NFL Total Access” crew compares Los Angeles Rams rookie quarterback Jared Goff and Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson. Is Goff as ready to start as a rookie as Wilson was?
One of the guys says Goff is struggling? I haven’t heard that. I’m sure Goff is making rookie mistakes but from what I’ve read he’s about where you would expect a rookie to be thus far in his development. Struggling implies he’s doing worse than expected and I haven’t heard that from anyone.
Oh, you know, somebody researching the story (cuz they didn’t have anybody covering the OTAs themselves; they just read other people’s reports)…some intern guy read that Goff threw 5 interceptions the last day of practice, and voila. Goff is struggling.
ZooeyModeratorWe had a party after my son’s graduation this year, but it was mostly family. A few families have larger parties, but I think there aren’t that many, and most of them are “hubs” with friends all having one party together at one kid’s house. Not a big thing.
Our school also does a Grad Night party each year where we rent out a big Water Park with crazy slides, a wave pool, two mini-golf courses, full arcade, and laser tag. The party is fully catered, and starts at 8 or 9 at night, and goes until 4am. It’s a “keep the kids sober” deal, and it attracts close to half the graduating class, I think.
We are going to have a bigger party later when my son returns from Europe where he is spending about 7 weeks this summer, and before he leaves for USC.
ZooeyModeratorDrought, you know. Brown is the new green in California.
June 20, 2016 at 4:59 pm in reply to: TV News Feasts on Trump Controversies While Ignoring Hillary’s Scandals #46713ZooeyModeratorAnd Julian Assange announced last week (widely covered in the media, btw) that Wikileaks will publish more of her emails soon, and that there is definitely enough to indict her – though he adds he doesn’t think they will because – duh. According to the establishment, Assange is the criminal.
ZooeyModeratorThis.
This is why I don’t allow argument papers on this topic.
It isn’t an actual argument that respects the rules of logic and rational argumentation as laid out by Aristotle. It is a religious argument with underlying realities that do not correspond. It isn’t an “argument.” It is a declaration of religious allegiance.
June 18, 2016 at 1:34 pm in reply to: Fred Dryer speaks out on the great Rams horns design controversy #46503ZooeyModeratorI do like the thicker horn, I won’t lie.
But more important to me is the godawful colors. Go to the blue and white or the blue and yellow but get rid of the current color scheme as soon as possible.
I agree with you on both counts. I like the thicker horn, but Dryer talked about “separation” of the horns, and he kinda lost me there. They have always been separated.
June 18, 2016 at 1:21 pm in reply to: informal poll–how many favor limits on certain firearms #46500ZooeyModeratorOkay. I can’t resist. This is the conversation that is happening, so here is my bit.
Arms are already restricted. Citizens cannot have anti-aircraft guns, right?
There are already lines drawn. So there is no debating that. There is only the debate about WHERE that line is drawn. I don’t have any affection for guns. I don’t really get the attraction myself, and if I could just push a button and be done with it, I’d just get rid of ownership of guns altogether because a gun’s purpose is to kill, and I just don’t really consider killing a recreational activity, and I don’t think guns are actually used for self-defense anywhere near as much as gun advocates would have us believe. That’s how I “feel” about guns.
But, having said that, I don’t “advocate” banning gun ownership anymore (I did 30 years ago) because I can sort of empathize with the “thrill of the hunt,” and I can’t see a moral distinction between hunting down a deer and a livestock slaughterhouse, and I like pepperoni. I also understand that there are some kind of legitimate issues surrounding population control of wild animals though I don’t know much about that. Handguns creep me out, but I’m content to live with you all owning them because I know I am not likely to be affected personally by those guns. You are much more likely to be affected by those guns – negatively, btw – but you are an adult, and you can run that risk if you want, and expose your family to that risk, I guess. I don’t think it is wise, but I don’t think it’s wise to get drunk and have unprotected sex with a stranger either, but go for it if you want.
Now I don’t know anything about guns to speak of. I don’t know what the exact classifications are, or anything really. But I haven’t heard any argument justifying citizen possession of AR-15s, and guns like that. They are bad news, and it amazes me they are legal. I would get rid of those in a second, and I would probably draw the line at clips bigger than 6 rounds or so.
And for the love of god – this I don’t understand – I would have a process for this. I mean we all have to take an education course and pass a test, then get trained and practice for months of driving before we get a license to drive a car. Why on earth do we not do that for the possession of a lethal device? I would mandate education on the care, use, storage, etc. of guns by a certified instructor, and require a written test. Then I would have training in a firing range and a test of a person’s ability to properly handle the weapon before granting a license for that gun. And I would require licenses for different categories of guns the same way there are different licenses for cars, motorcycles, big rigs, and so on. I seriously can’t believe anybody can walk into a Wal-mart and buy a gun. That is so completely ridiculous it boggles my mind.
You get a background check. You get educated. You get trained. You get a license. You go buy a gun.
So let it be written; so let it be done.
June 18, 2016 at 12:21 pm in reply to: Fred Dryer speaks out on the great Rams horns design controversy #46493ZooeyModerator
Dunno, really, that the difference is worth starting a world war.
ZooeyModeratorAnd the gun debate to me boils down to the difference between people who see it the way you just said you see it, and the rest of us.
I don’t see it as being anything even remotely the way you describe. Not even a tiny bit. I take your description of the discussion as this completely alien viewpoint.
It has nothing to do with “freedom.”
And all over the world, there are societies with different forms of gun control that are ALSO completely democratic–frankly, in a lot of cases, more than we are.
And that is why I no longer allow students to write argument papers about guns (or abortion). The sides are not engaging in the same debate.
ZooeyModeratorI guess I’ve become more conservative in my old age.
ZooeyModeratorI still don’t understand why he wears a glove. It seemed like he was saying that kickers are like wide receivers. Which made me uncomfortable.
That was the punter, Pat McAfee. And he has a point—every play a punter is on includes him catching the ball.
Big deal.
I still hate Vinateri. So I’m not sure what your point is.
ZooeyModerator…i never have a whole lot to say about these gun-debates-after-a-shooting
cause, to me, AS BAD AS THEY ARE,
on the hierarchy of problems we have, the shooting issues dont come close
to the deadliness of….corporate-capitalism. Corporate-capitalism kills people, starves people, degrades people, sentences people, causes cancer, causes war, mutilates people, causes climate catastrophes, destroys meaningful democracy, and poisons the biosphere — in a quiet way. A way that dont make the corporate-media’s Headlines.McDowell County WV lifespan — 65
Fairfax County VA lifespan — 84Now, THAT, should be a headline, everyday. But it aint all dramatic like a shooting.
The corporate-media dont do ‘system analysis’ — they do love certain kinds of ‘drama’ though.w
vI agree with you which is why I quit debating guns years and years ago. A comment would quickly escalate to argument, and then to ranting, often laced with conspiracy paranoia that can’t be reasoned with. Just no point in having the discussion when other things are far more important. Besides there is the irony that gun owners are far more likely to suffer gun violence than people who have no guns. Shootings of strangers for crazy reasons is small potatoes compared to the number of domestic shootings and suicides that wouldn’t happen if the people didn’t have guns in their house.
ZooeyModeratorAnd I have no idea what the crack meant about “with the way that culture is heading.” As in, I literally have no idea what that means.
It means Sharia Law being practiced with the consent of the government and beheading in the streets.
Did you just say Sharia Law? In the USA?
That’s literally the dumbest thing I’ve heard all week and my teens haven’t been terribly creative trying to get out of work around the house.
Sharia law is unconstitutional. Period. End of discussion. It’s IMPOSSIBLE. Any law based on the Quran or the Hadith would be unconstitutional. Done.
Moreover, we have had very heavily Muslim districts, be they Somali or other in various parts of the country for many, many decades and literally NONE of this has even been mentioned.
He was talking about Sharia Law in the UK, not the USA. Because of the absence of a version of the 2nd amendment. That doesn’t elevate the level of wisdom any, but it is a bit of clarification.
June 15, 2016 at 5:19 pm in reply to: Physicians Demand End To 20-Year-Old Ban On Gun Violence Research #46235ZooeyModeratorTwo things Americans just can NOT talk about:
Abortion
and guns.
There is no conversation to be had. The two sides talk completely passed each other, and are talking about completely different values/standards of measurement. The twain shall never meet.
For years, gun control advocates have tried to negotiate with the NRA.
This Orlando slaughter seems to be a possible tipping point in which the gun control side of the debate has recognized that it is time to stop appeasing the unappeasible, and is going to ram through something that may possibly be significant.
But don’t expect any gun lovers to go gently into that good night.
This isn’t a negotiation. This is leverage.
ZooeyModeratorI thot i was gonna like that, but after a while
it left me with a yucky feeling.I think i would rather hear them read tweets
about gardening.w
vSame.
Kinda felt like they lacked a sense of humor about it, especially Vinatierryie.
I still don’t understand why he wears a glove. It seemed like he was saying that kickers are like wide receivers. Which made me uncomfortable.
June 14, 2016 at 8:35 pm in reply to: Top 7 ways to tell if Someone is lying about being a ‘Salafi Jihadi’ #46165ZooeyModeratorMy own thing is to lump Trump and Hillary together. I see them both as
reflections of an electorate that has been propagandized to the point
we get voters thinking the are wasting their votes if they DONT vote
for the corrupt-corporate-puppet-warmongerer, or
the billionaire talk-radio-Republican.w
vYeah, I hear people complain a lot about the two party system. I tell them that, in fact, there are other parties. And I see a little cognitive dissonance for a moment.
It is a self-limiting, self-fulfilling prophecy if one thinks a vote for any other party is “wasted,” or a vote for the “enemy.”
I’d love to see Sanders run on the Green ticket. It would put the Greens on the map, and force the democrats left. It would be substantial.
ZooeyModeratorWhen I lived in England, people who wanted to go shoot guns recreationally could. But the guns stayed locked up in the shooting club. When someone went to shoot, he checked his gun out. When he was finished, he checked it back in.
I don’t know if they still do that.
ZooeyModeratorSo what we have here is a sexually-conflicted man who suffered self-hatred because of all the “gays will go to hell” stuff he believed.
ZooeyModeratorYet he is a registered DEMOCRAT. Oops.
I really appreciate everyone who posts here and all the contributions.
That said, don’t fucking do that. Just fucking don’t. Don’t play puerile politics days after the mass murder of 50 people.
There is no political party affiliation that makes any difference here.
The man had serious mental illness. The man may or may not have engaged in terrorism in addition to the hate crime it clearly was.
You know what doesn’t matter? What corporate fucking club he belonged to.
So can we please NOT?
If for no other reason than out of respect for the dead.
Respect for the dead demands we can’t say he is a registered democrat? I disagree. The democrats are using this to try to deny our 2nd Amendment right. You know it too. It was an act of terrorism. You know that too.
Sure. But it is just as logical to point out that he worked as a security guard.
But you don’t do that because it doesn’t serve your political itch.
Mackeyser is right. You are politicizing mass murder to serve your own interest.
ZooeyModeratorI am with Mackeyser.
I think Hillary Clinton is the END.
Right now the waters of the Rubicon are licking our toes.
That’s it.
And I understand that she will be less damaging to civil rights, but it won’t matter that a lot of people avoided nastiness that Trump would have inflicted because we will be dead in 100 years anyway.
ZooeyModeratorI get all of the arguments to to just vote Jill Stein or not vote or whatever–and in fact, I even agree with that sentiment on some level. But if bernie can get some of the progressive stuff he has been pushing into the Democratic platform. If Hillary chooses an Elizabeth Warren, there can be that subtle opening within the Democratic party.
Is Hillary still a neocon? Of course. But do I see her as reckless as Trump?
No. I don’t. Yes–she screwed up Libya. I get it.
My fear of Trump is how bad he can be?
If Gore had beaten Bush would we have invaded Iraq and set all this stuff of nightmares loose? I don’t think so. 8 years of Bush really was a disaster.
Well–Hillary is more war hawkish than Obama. It concerns me for sure.
But what about Trump? I can see us stumbling into wars and conflicts we didn’t think were possible–and not because of some neocon vision–but because he’s inept at all of that. He understands none of it.
Will he rip up the Iran deal and send nukes their way?
Who knows?
He strikes me as having no temperament for the job and his outright racism is a big warning light to me.
Am I being ruled by the same ol’ fear that always compels me to vote the “lesser” of two evils? Yes. And is she even the lesser of two evils? I can’t say I even know that for sure.
But I do live in one of those big swing states. And Pennsylvania is key to Trump’s strategy of winning the electoral votes. It’s a big key. I have to vote Clinton in my mind. Trump will give the right wing whoever they want on the court as long as it doesn’t hurt his own interests. He’ll give them most anything that doesn’t conflict with his interests.
I get the “Bernie or Bust” movement. I respect it and I think everyone must vote their conscience. But I have to follow my own conscience on this one. And that means a vote for Clinton. Or should I say a vote against Trump? Someday I suspect I will also hit that “Bernie or Bust” movement and I thought this was the year–to be honest. I really did.
But I’m not there yet.
It is a truly awful situation.
And…not to make your decision more complicated, or painful…but here is an interesting bit on Hillary
Hillary Clinton’s war crimes are unforgivable. No real progressive could ever support her.
I do not blame anyone for whatever choice he or she makes this November.
I am leaning towards Jill Stein, and my reasoning is basically that we are running out of time on the environment. There is a time to fold your hand, and wait for another opportunity. But I just don’t see any time for that anymore. It feels like the 4th quarter to me, behind by two scores, and realistically only one more possession after this one. We have to score on this drive. It’s 4th down. To me, a vote for Hillary is a punt. At best.
The time has come, imo. We need to terminate fossil fuels right now. And neither Trump nor Clinton are interested in the least.
What we have here, as far as I can tell, are two candidates who are strikingly similar to George Bush both in international policy, and domestic policy. Clinton is a smarter version of Bush, and Trump is a dumber version of Bush.
I honestly wonder if a dumber Bush isn’t preferable to a smarter Bush. Because at least with Trump, we know that the entire congress is going to be en garde against him from Day One. And Trump also completely lacks the network that Clinton owns, both domestically and internationally. Trump’s great weakness is that he is an outsider. Nobody is going to cooperate with him, and both parties – and probably even his own cabinet – will be holding counter-Trump strategy sessions. Trump is likely to be the most useless president ever. He is like that moron guy from Ohio, or wherever it was, that Joe Sixpack guy who had his 15 minutes of fame. He will have a little bit of use to some factions momentarily, but nobody will take him seriously. Nobody inside the beltway is going to respect Donald Trump. They are going to see him as this accidental blowhard freak of reality TV. If he is elected, the Republicans are going to instantly huddle up and figure out how to use him. They already ARE doing that. The guy is a bigger empty shirt than Ronald Reagan was, or George Bush. He has NO idea what’s actually going on. The person you will have to worry about is Rasputin. The Karl Rove, the Dick Cheney. Right now, we have no idea who that is going to be. But Trump will be the most ineffectual president since Warren Harding. Doesn’t mean he won’t do damage; he WILL. But so will Clinton, and it’s possible her damage will be unchecked.
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