Res

My point is that it's not a drill done in schools in any other country. Outside of the U.S., China (with 3 x the population) has seen 10 school killings. Germany 3, Finland 2, other countries 1 or 0. It's just not something students in schools outside the U.S. ever have to consider.

I don't know why it's being framed as a democrat issue (well, I know WHY); I know people across the political spectrum, particularly parents, who would like to see some kind of gun control in place, and several polls bear this out (check the last graph in particular). It's frankly insane that we expect kindergarteners to go through active shooter drills in schools and not think it odd. The myth of the good guy with a gun is largely that, a myth. Sure it happens very occasionally, but it's in something like less than one third of one percent of mass shootings. Why doesn't it happen more often in the U.S., where guns are so easy to obtain? Meanwhile we have multiple examples of countries where gun control is effective. Like the Onion so aptly points out, this is solely a U.S. issue.

This is sarcasm, right? I have a hard time telling...

This is true. Still, we can open up discussion with family and friends. I'm wondering how to bring this up with the kids (especially as, now my eldest's in school, she'll be having active shooter drills soon). "Updated numbers after last night's shooting in Las Vegas: -11,652 gun deaths -23,512 gun injuries -273 mass shootings" and that's just for 2017 in the U.S.; still three months to go.

Yes, we do need that information, otherwise everyone jumps to Islamic terrorist/refugee/anyone but a white U.S. citizen. We could discuss, write and vote on enacting legislature, but that's not going to happen... The death toll keeps rising. :( On an immediate practical note, locals could donate blood. There will likely be some fundraisers for the victims, since funeral costs/medical care is expensive and there'll no doubt be people who can't afford it (another action we can take is to vote to extend medical benefits).

The idea that making premarital sex frowned upon would reduce abortions is laughable. - premarital sex was frowned upon/forbidden for centuries and had no effect upon the abortion rate. In the 1860s, in the middle of the puritanical Victorian era, where abortion was available in U.S. cities it was estimated that there was one abortion for every 4 live births. - the majority of women having abortions throughout much of history has been married women, especially as they were likely to be having sex and as contraceptives were not as effective. "Still, for the most part, it was not single women who were having abortions, but married mothers wishing to limit the size of their families. "I am 30 years old and have 11 children... kidney and heart disease, wrote one mother to Margaret Sanger. "Can you please help me. I have miss a few weeks and don't know how to bring myself around. I have cryed my self sick..." Although family planning is a lot easier and better these days, a little more than half of the women who obtain abortions in the U.S. are either married or cohabiting, and more than half are already mothers. - premarital sex being frowned upon did nothing to prevent an awful lot of premarital sex happening. All it did was make abuse more rampant and vilify women (rarely ever men, of course). There were more brothels than schools in Victorian England. - even if you want to argue that making premarital sex frowned upon *now* would reduce abortion rates; where's the evidence? Actually, abortion rates in the U.S. have never been lower! The abortion rate has been steadily decreasing as marriage rates also decrease (and as sex education has vastly improved). You could argue that there's a lot less pressure on people to find a partner and start a family and people are getting smarter about sex as a result. The age at which people first have sex has been steadily rising, as has the number of teens saying the sex they have had was voluntary. - abortion rates and teen pregnancy rates are higher in the more religious (thus, where extramarital sex is more likely to be frowned upon) countries and regions of the world.

The U.S. has a poorly trained police force that isn't skilled in the art of de-escalation (and has apparently actively discouraged it), and which protects bad officers and sees a complete lack of consequences for them. And it is literally the only country in the first world to have these issues. If people have a right to bear arms then the police should not be shooting anyone just because they make a movement with a gun, surely? Philando Castile did everything by the book. Where is the NRA in defense of him? Of course any police officer who shoots an innocent person is going to claim they were afraid for their life. I mean, what the hell else are they going to say? I'm going to link to the two previous examples I gave in this thread of people being shot dead where I'd really LOVE to know how the police officer possibly was afraid for their life. Ismael Lopez, shot through door (bullet holes in door corroborate this story) after the police had the wrong house. Daniel Shaver, shot in the back while crawling on the floor. What's so moral about beating up a mom or beating up Mike Faulk, etc. etc.? I wouldn't even dare to call the police unless it was a last resort. In small towns especially the police officers consist of the bullies from high school. Even in the U.K., which doesn't have a tenth of the problems of the U.S. police force, my brother (who is a DC) would laugh at the notion that his fellow officers are especially moral. They're ordinary people and he's been appalled in the past by some of the things that come out of his colleagues' mouths.

Race is intertwined with culture, though. Black culture in the U.S. has been shaped by slavery and discrimination, from names to language (AAVE) to food to mental health and that in turn affects how white people see and treat black people. And in other news: A lawyer from the DOJ has argued that it be allowed to fire someone for being gay. This is particularly disturbing to me: DHS is planning to collect social media information on all immigrants; this includes naturalized citizens and green card holders. I hope I don't have to explain why this is unconstitutional and plain scary. Speaking of national health services I was in the U.K. last month and had to avail myself of them (again) and it was another reminder of how much I really wish everyone had a chance to live in at least two countries; there's so much perspective you can gain from living in two different places (even if the governments are not entirely dissimilar). Well, that much is obvious.

Yes; there are just four doctors performing late term abortions in the U.S. and they describe the decision-making process as agonizing (also, I haven't seen the documentary in question, but this link makes a note that the only people seeking abortions for non-medical reasons were either raped or were teenagers from highly religious families). I try not to comment on what I think abortion legislation *should* be for the reasons you stated. Every person I personally know who's had an abortion has not made the choice lightly. Many of them were people who said 'I'd never have an abortion!' before they needed one. Even a first trimester abortion is not pain-free and usually has to be paid for (it's actually pretty difficult to get a free abortion in the U.S., and in many states there are so few clinics performing abortions that a person has to factor in travel costs, too), so no one is going around getting them willynilly.

I think you're misunderstanding everything I'm saying. I'm merely pointing out the hypocrisy of many pro-life people. All I want is for pro-life people to actually be pro-welfare and prove they give two shits about the actual babies involved. Because once the babies are born many pro-life people do everything in their power to make life difficult for them.

That's a question to aim at the prolife people who also don't want to provide any kind of assistance to single parents. Because it baffles me, too. The contradictory nature of the majority of prolife (well, they're really just pro-birth) people is something I despise. Of course many people in poverty are loved and happy. I never mentioned happiness. I was discussing success and opportunity, the two things that lead to money and financial independence. This isn't an argument. People abort fetuses, not children, and homeless people aren't occupying another person's body. Obviously people who think abortions = killing children aren't getting abortions for financial reasons. I'm all for supporting poor parents financially. I'm for a national health system, welfare, food stamps and housing assistance. I know first hand how simply *giving birth* can almost bankrupt you in the U.S. (and it does actually bankrupt people), so I'm definitely irritated by the hypocrisy of the pro-birth, anti-welfare crowd. Right now, all people are doing by making abortions harder to obtain in the U.S. is putting women's lives at risk.

It's selfless because it's virtually impossible for a person to raise a baby by themselves without some kind of assistance, usually monetary assistance. If you're poor and find yourself pregnant there's no winning with the majority of prolife people; the politically prolife tend to despise the financially dependent. And while poverty in and of itself is nothing to be ashamed of, it is a huge disadvantage in many ways. It is the single biggest determinator - moreso than race, religion or gender - of success.

Police get away with murder all the time. With all the literally hundreds of police killings that have occurred about 4 police officers have ever been successfully prosecuted. I would link to at least half a dozen cases where the police officer shot a person dead with zero provocation/justification but to be honest I already did that at least twice in this thread and both times my examples were ignored. Trump has been anti-NFL for years; his issues with the NFL extend back nearly 40 years. He won a lawsuit against them. This isn't just about taking the knee. This is also a handy distraction from all the hurricane relief issues, etc.

Hard Classic, no-grind run: Chapter 10: Yes, this was tough for me. I hadn't had a problem on Normal or when I was grinding, but it was definitely my first big challenge on a no-grind Hard run. I definitely had to play defensively; the first few tries I would keep getting too cocky and would send characters out too far, then not be able to recall them in time. Chapter 20: Winds of Change - this was probably the level I replayed the most! I kept making silly little mistakes and the problem is that the map is pretty slow-going, so it felt as if I spent forever on it. Chapter 21: Eternal Stairway - I ended up taking just a few of my strongest characters and rushing to the end as quickly as possible. Chapter 27: Working out where best to position everyone/pair everyone up so as to survive the first few turns was tough. Endgame: Fuck it, I didn't wish to play 27 again, so I just let half my squad die. Oh well. On the other hand, I did not have much difficulty with: Chapter 19: Kitsune Lair - I advanced really slowly, and it wasn't so bad. Chapter 23: Possessed - this doesn't stick out in my mind (been a few months since I completed this run) so it can't have caused too many issues! Chapter 24: Hinoka - I was absolutely dreading this chapter, but again, it ended up not being nearly as bad as I feared.

Ending DACA is especial bullshit; I can't imagine what it must be like to be forced back to a country you don't remember and whose language you don't speak. It also has zero to do with criminality since you require a perfect, blemish-free record to benefit from DACA.

Go Est!!! Yeah, we currently have a sickly household, I spent the past three days dealing with enough vomit, diarrhea and blood to last me a year. Also 3 hrs of sleep a night because Niko was too scared to sleep because he's associating sleep = vomit, now. He watched Dinotrux (he's only seen the entire 5 seasons 20 times or so) while I spent until 4 am cleaning.

Well, first off I know the society I was raised in affected my morals; that is ultimately the base for my morality, even if it's subconscious. These days I'm a fan of the platinum rule; 'treat others the way they want to be treated'. I find it more useful than the golden rule as we're not all the same, we all have different beliefs and what works for me isn't going to work for others. For example, I have friends who prefer to be referred to by a gender-neutral pronoun; pronouns don't matter to me and I'm happy to be called whatever, but I recognise that it's important to them that I use they/them, so I endeavour to do so. Also this, only feelings = society, it's hard for me to determine between the two. I've been reading on how much our feelings/emotions are actually shaped by society and are not innate to us, and it's been really interesting.

I must admit I had no real idea who he was before this and holy shit, he is really, really despicable.

Yeah, it sucks, I'm really sorry. :( Good luck trying the strips! Yes; I was really curious about pregnancy then after like, a day, I was all nope, I'm over this. Then I forgot and decided I could handle it again three years later. I'm totally done now, though!

That's where the ovulation strips can help! You can test for ovulation whenever. I also hear Taking Charge of Your Fertility is *the* book to read. But, hearing that she's irregular; has she ever pinpointed a source for that? Irregularity isn't necessarily a barrier to conceiving (I'm irregular too, but had no issues) but it can be indicative of hormonal issues or PCOS which'll make it more difficult to conceive (and make it even more essential to use the ovulation strips). I've not had problems getting my PCP to order blood-tests on the basis of irregular periods in the past.

This Right now I'm actually really angry because my mother-in-law did something wrong; she complained to my husband that I was ignoring her so I *very politely* texted her telling her how hurt I was, and not to do the thing again, and now she's ignoring *me* when she has my kids. Fuck off with that nonsense. But most of the time I don't really care.

Yes; I think they are. And I have some wonderful internet friends, but nothing is a substitute for physical contact, it's true (and I'm about as introverted as they come...) It's haaaard making friends as an adult. Yikes, that's something I'd never considered. That's really rough, I'm sorry.

Is your wife tracking ovulation? I have a friend who used to work in a fertility clinic and her first piece of advice was always to buy a cheap lot of ovulation tests (they can be bulk-bought on Amazon; I've used them myself, as well as the pregnancy tests from Amazon) and become familiar with when you're ovulating, typical cycle etc.

It's awesome that you're able to talk about it and good luck finding help! I'm glad your parents sound supportive. From personal experience it seems that mental health issues are more stigmatized in the UK than in the U.S.; here in the U.S. it is relatively easier (although I'm sure it depends on where you live) to find mental health support. I'm currently definitely not in a good headspace but I have 'white coat syndrome' (my blood pressure has risen as high as 180/120 at the doctor's office, but I don't suffer from hypertension) and I also have untreated Hashimoto's disease (my endocrinologist retired and I've been putting off finding a new one for a year, now) so it's difficult to say how much is stemming from that. A lot of symptoms overlap (a 1987 study found that as many as 15% of patients admitted to a psychiatric hospital for depression actually were suffering from some level of hypothyroidism.) So I can definitely sympathize with what you're describing.

I don't know; the latter are *largely* harmless. The former actually wield a lot of political influence and are the ones making the laws (including laws that would allow people to legally mow down protestors, Texas's new 'rape insurance' bill, etc.). Yes... it's also worth bearing in mind that most confederate statues were erected decades after the civil war with the sole purpose of being white propaganda - they were also largely mass-made, were cheap (hence the photos of them being easily crumpled) and have next to no artistic value.