Shoblongoo

Mood: _________ He didn't get the nomination. But he proved that what once once dismissed as 'radical' ideas of the fringe-left are mainstream positions that millions of people want to get behind. And he left a mark on the political scene that's not going away anytime soon. Well fought, Bernie. Well fought.

Go to the office. Meet with clients. Settle cases. Work. Not be laid off due to emergency business closure 😕

[GEOMANCERS]: magic users that specialize in drawing magic out of the land itself to craft their spells. Can use special terrain-based spells and abilities when standing on or adjacent to forests, mountains, water, lava/fire, or plains. High level geomancers that have madymtetes theix class can use their magic to change the surrounding terrain.

Here's one from the University of Cincinnati Law Review: https://scholarship.law.uc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1230&context=uclr Here's one from the International Journal of Constitutional Law: https://academic.oup.com/icon/article/7/2/316/758653 This thread was where we had extensive prior discussions on this topic: 2016 Capstone Review of All Academic Literature in the Field: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26905895 One particular prior study I'd recommend taking a closer look at is Kwon's 2005 "The Effectiveness of Legislation Controlling Gun Usage": https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2005.00378.x Because Kwon just approaches this strictly as a statistician. And he gives a really good explanation of how the multivariable math and modeling works.

I’ll get back to your response to my earlier post later, when I have time to type up a full length response myself, but for now I’ll leave you with this thought: part of the problem I’m seeing here is this blind hero-worship of the “Founding Fathers” (you call modern lawmakers and judges unqualified to write and interpret laws for a modern country, while referring to everything they said 2 centuries ago as perpetually better then anything subsequent generations of legal minds can conceivably say or do). What if I told you the words and writings of pre-industrial backwater aristocrats isn’t infallible, and that just because ‘the Founders’ said something that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea???

Lawmakers and judges. ...which is a nice cheery way of saying its older, less modernized, and less responsive to the current country conditions and policy needs then the laws of other nations. I'd rather have good laws then old ones. Unnecessary. All you need is a liberal interpretation to get from: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." to "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." (See Justice Steven's dissenting opinion in Heller) ...was a 5-4 split decision on a case-of-first impression. And where the majority opinion of the late Justice Scalia has since been heavily criticized by legal scholars + the minority opinion widely discussed and cited. Which is to say that if the Supreme Court swings one vote to the left (i.e. Ginsburg lives long enough to retire + be replaced by a Democrat president, and then Clarence Thomas dies), the majority opinion in Heller is one that is likely getting overturned. Moreover, you mischaracterize the Court's holding in that case to the extent you believe Heller completely precludes reasonable restrictions on gun ownership. As you yourself quoted from the opinion of the court: "Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms." The majority opinion in Heller specifically held that one particular DC law which constituted a near total ban on private citizens keeping firearms in their home was an unreasonable restriction on the private right to gun ownership; not that the second amendment prohibits reasonable gun control. The court was explicit that even by the most conservative of readings, the second amendment is not a blanket prohibition against any kind of gun laws. Good. Thats a reasonable restriction. 95% of the population shouldn't be running around with automatic weapons. This topic has been covered exhaustively in other threads, but just for the sake of putting it to bed let me bring you up to speed. The way policy researchers and statisticians distinguish causation from correlation is by running multivariable linear regression models, to check for whats called multicolinearity. Don't know how familiar you are with policy research or statistical analysis, but basically, this is how it works. Take a simple, single-variable model: y = m(x) + b (i.e. the simple rise-over-run model we are learned in grade-school level math) Y is your dependent variable. X is your independent variable m is your slope (i.e. the magnitude of correlation) b is your constant ...in this model, if (y) is levels of gun violence and (x) is strength of gun control laws, all that tells you is you have a correlation... Now make the model: y = [m1(x1)] + [m2 (x2)] + [m3(x3)] + [m4 (X4)] + [m5(x5)] + [m6 (x6)] + [m7(x7)] + [m8 (x8)] + [m9(x9)] + [m10 (x10)] + b Where: m1 is strength of gun control laws m2 is % of the population that has a high school education m3 is population density m4 is % racial homogeneity ...and so on and so forth... Every purportedly explanitory dependent variable--throw it all in there. When you do that, what you can do is you can start comparing correlative values. You can see how those correlative values change or don't change depending on what variables you add or omit from the model. And what researchers find when they do this is that no matter what variables you add to try to change the correlative values, the Big 3 that keep popping out as producing huge m-scores are: 1) Poverty Rates 2) Education Levels 3) Strength of Gun Laws This is how we know empirically that we have causation; not just correlation. This is also how we know that when comparing the effects of (3), you're comparing apples-and-oranges if you aren't looking at countries that are similarly sitauted in (1) and (2). This is why when we talk about levels of gun violence in the USA compared to countries with effective gun control: our basis of comparison is the Western Europe, Scandinavia, Canada, Oceania, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. And this is why trying to argue "gun control would increase violence; more guns makes us safer!" by comparing gun violence in the United States to countries like Ethiopia and Guatemala is silly.

Best empirical evidence you can bring to the table. (this is like going up to a homicide detective and saying "you have zero evidence he committed the murder, except DNA and fingerprints") You look at what countries are doing different. You account for the relevant differences in country conditions. And then you look at what results you're getting vs. what results they're getting. Thats how you analyze policy. (This is illustrative of the deficiency in how American gun enthusiasts think about this issue--the You have absolutely zero evidence to back up this notion of more gun control=less gun homicide argument invariably just boils down to dismissing the rest of the worlds experience with this issue as unusable or invalid.) And then you have--what--an 18th century American piece of theocratic political doctrine that posits everybody should have unregulated access to firearms because God wills it as your counterpoint??? ...sure.... Let me tell you a little something about legal "rights." You have a constitutional right to free speech. (i.e. the government can't punish you for your speech) ...you can still be punished by the government for terrorist threats if your "speech" is telling someone you're going to mail a pipebomb to their house ...you can still be punished by the government for lewdness with a minor if your "speech" is telling a child to perform sex acts on you ...you can still be punished by the government for inciting a riot if your "speech" is running into a crowded theater and shouting "FIRE!!!" A right is not an unqualified right. Implicit in every right is the understanding that it is subject to reasonable regulation, to the extent necessary to advance competing legitimate interests of law and public policy. (the keyword there being "Reasonable") And that a regulation is objectively reasonable if it strongly advances a legitimate interest of government in the least restrictive manner that the interest can be advanced. ...thats how the Second Amendment works... Thats why the gun laws that we do have in this country haven't all been struck down as unconstitutional. You can have a country that legally recognizes the right to own a firearm. And that lets you buy, possess, and use them in a reasonable manner. And that still places reasonable restrictions on things like: Some types of guns have no legitimate non-military use, and shouldn't be accessible to the civilian populace. Some people shouldn't have guns because of their mental health and criminal histories. Lawful gun owners should have to pass licensing exams, register their firearms, and should have their licence revoked if they commit a particularly egrigious unsafe operation offense. What I want and what we could feasibly get done in this country are 2 entirely different things. To strike a balance between the rights of Americans who love their guns and the legitimate needs of public health and safety, I'd be satisfied with something like the Norwegian gun control system. i.e. Lawful use and ownership subject to robust government oversight and regulation. With a license and registration process akin to something like how America currently treats driving privileges + lawful ownership and operation of a motor vehicle.

“It has recently come to my attention that someone has been taking Anette’s spirit dust and replacing it with Aderrall. While the number of kitchen accidents has greatly decreases and I appreciate the intent, I must reiterate that use of Amphetamines under the Seiros creed is strictly disallowed.” ~Seteth

Damn. Stay safe. They at least got enough PPE and facemasks for the doctors out there? (My cousin is an ER physician working with COVID patients; NJ/NY is so hot right now they’re reusing old masks and using bandanas as homemade substitutes)

Yo @Rezzy; you’re on the frontlines as a healthcare provider right now. What are you seeing and how are you holding up?

The police issue is related to the gun control issue, insofar as people getting shot and killed by police in numbers unseen anywhere else in the developed world is part of the American gun violence problem. And insofar as knowledge of how prevalent guns are among the general populace in this country is one of the big reasons why American police are so quick to panic and draw their own weapons when confronting suspects. (Police in countries with strong gun control and who almost never encounter suspects that can shoot back are much less inclined to take a shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach to policing)

^^^ This. ...this is true... (See again the Top 3 Predictors of Gun Violence in a Given Country are: [1] Poverty Rates; [2] Education Levels; [3] Gun Laws) However, the need to address [1] and [2] does not discount the importance of [3]. And while it is true that to bring down America's insane levels of gun violence, we need to be improving education and reducing poverty (and by extension tackling things like healthcare costs and mass incarceration of non-violent drug offenders as public policy problems that are driving up our poverty rates) ...once you've addressed poverty and education, if you wanna get those gun violence stats down to the levels of other developed nations with comparably progressive policies in healthcare and education and the like... You still have to do some form of gun control.

No fornicating in the sauna.

Your ahego fetish isn’t “art”—stop commissioning Ignatz to draw Hentai

What are your thoughts on this? https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/490576-hawaii-residents-visitors-quarantine-5000-fine-prison-time

They got confirmed spread in Miami. And they didn’t close their public beaches; those numbers are going to go up with no social mitigation buffer to flatten the curve. And it’s where all the retirees go, so on top of that they’ve got an extra-large population of vulnerable seniors that’s gonna get exposed. Florida is going to be a disaster

I see a few other people (mostly Asians) wearing them at the grocery store and saw one guy using a bandana as a homemade substitute, but most people even in New Jersey (as hard as we’re gettubc hit) aren’t trying to cover their face with anything.

PornHub flexing better leadership and judgement in a crisis then a sitting president. Crazy times.

Allegedly this is still a first world country. Sure doesn’t feel like one when the only way to get medical face masks is to have your Taiwanese brother-in-law bring them in from an international flight (He got back from work in Colombia and was just like here. Have a box of them. No shortage there). Obligatory reminder that Project Runway Winner Christian Siriano was able to retool his workshop to produce face masks instead of designer brand clothes + high fashion. And that if we had competent leadership in the White House right now, we could have used the defense production act to do that throughout the entire industry weeks ago.

I got a few dozen masks and I only been leaving the house like once a week for grocery runs for the past two weeks now.So yeah—masked up every time I leave the house, and can keep that going for months if I need to.

Sad but true. Although it appears he’s dropping the ball on Michigan, and that’s a swing state he just BARELY won where Biden is outperforming Hillary, so we’ll see. Also—Florida is about to get hot. (Major outbreak starting after all the moron college kids who decided COVID wasn’t going to stop them from hitting Miami Beach for spring break became spreaders)

It’s an easy decision to make when you live in a state where your vote doesn’t matter because of the dumb way we do national elections. Not like Hawaii is in any real danger of going Red.

Ya know—I’m willing to give Biden a benefit-of-the-doubt that I didn’t give to the guy who bragged “when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab em by the pussy.”

So I love that you went to the Metroid fandom with this one, and the intro scene to Fusion most certainly fits the call of the challenge. I wish that it was maybe a bit more of your own head-canon and creative supplement to the narrative, and a bit less of a straight novelization of the fusion intro with some dialogue slapped on top of it (I don’t think the piece being dialogue heavy is a bad thing btw). Can’t comment on the Other M comparison because I avoided that game like the plague—but yeah—from what I’ve heard that games a lesson on everything not to do when writing Samus

I think that can have more of a “I’m calling you this because you’re a god-awful human being” context though.