kleinbl00, you can see the correlation between gun ownership and gun fatalities even more clearly at the state level: source To (maybe, finally) wrap this thread up, even Abbott's 100% empty "could have been worse" condolences were a lie. The Uvalde police apparently shat their pants too hard to follow protocol and rush inside to engage the shooter. So, uh, maybe there are some holes in the "good guy with a gun", pro-guns argument? Not that it matters; Unaddressed hypocrisy is very much a core tenet of fascism. I've no doubt that more horrifying details of the cowardly, bungled police response will come out. People will be angry. Doesn't matter. bfx is right. Nothing will change. The same minoritarian ruling faction soon to outlaw abortion under the premise of caring about unborn children has decided that their gun fetish is worth GUN-RELATED FATALITIES SURPASSING AUTOMOBILE FATALITIES AS THE LEADING SOURCE OF DEATH FOR CHILDREN. Gun buybacks? Let's say $500/gun, ballpark, with 350 million guns = upwards of $1.5 Trillion. That's how big of a problem this has become. It ain't happening. We are fucked. Maybe we'll put up a good fight after the military collapses and China invades? LOL, there is no silver lining here.
I mean, look, did it take armed officers more than 30 minutes to open a locked door? Did they likely need a key from a teacher to unlock the door? Probably! But you have to give them credit, cops that can't recognize black from white and can barely read, well, it's an uphill battle to do anything other than shoot a minority Edit: You can't make this shit up. Cops in Uvalde start at about $44k a year after probation, and basically only need a GED and...not much else...do you think I should tell the city that this is how they spelled "Administration" on their own web-site? "ADMINSTRATION".
"Ad menstruation" is the tits. Nice find. Maybe it was all just super confusing, because the shooter's in the racial majority down here, technically. And the cops knew that, but since, on a national scale, he's a minority, and some of the cops are white and didn't want to be labeled as racist, they can't shoot the dude for, I dunno, at least 45 minutes. So the libs did the shooting, basically, by being so quick to play the 'racist' card against cops. See, look at that! I started off with a joke, and by the time I was done, I'd written something that I'm pretty sure I can already or will soon be able to find in the wild. Neat-o!! Anyway, I guess I'll just begin to accept that it's possible we'll never really know what the fuck the cops were thinking, or who gave the orders or didn't, whatever. Luckily, something else even worse will probably happen soon, to relieve us of ever really processing this. ----- encourages Texans on twitter to buy more guns, @'s the NRA in the same post (done linking to twitter, sorry) takes god only knows how much campaign funding from the NRA repeals almost every possible gun restriction "cool womb. it's mine." systematically implants fear, especially of The Other steals $210 million from Health and Human Services Commission for border bullshit uses funds to cost businesses at least a billion dollars in commerce only to find literally nothing illegal "power grid? power schmid." criminalizes the T in LGBTQ+ in an attempt to expand state power speaking at this weekend's NRA conference 18.01-year-old shoots up a school "it's a mental health crisis" Greg Abbott is part of what's causing the mental health crisis. And even more obviously, toxic gun-worship culture. Seriously, American gun culture's so weird! It gets really weird for so many people. I know some personally. Best friend's soon-to-be fiancé (shhh!) teaches at a public elementary school. She had a very rough start to wednesday morning. But she went in, and the kids either have no awareness of it or it's had zero impact on their behavior. I thought that was beautiful and dystopian, simultaneously. She says there are going to be far, far fewer teachers next year, and I know student enrollment is up just about everywhere. Wife and I might have to bail outta here sooner than we initially thought. Many of my friends and local colleagues talk about leaving. I mean, this is surreal, like think about how many problems are just rapidly stacking up here. We're like... the failed state's failed state. A preview of the glory we can expect nationally if Trump gets back into power. Ahead of the curve. First fascists, bitches.profile: Greg Abbot
At first you go bankrupt slowly, then all at once. - Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises The first place i encountered the swiss cheese model was in failure analysis. And while it isn't an applicable metaphor in all things, Texas governance seems apt. It's following the post-war arc of most petro-states: Oil is found, multinationals come in, wealth is inequally distributed, inequality rises, populists come into power, cronyism replaces competence, competence leaves for greener pastures, populists insist that the people of the One True Faith shall triumph in the face of adversity and Fifth Columnists. So while things may have been stable and self-sufficient back when Ann Richards was alive, 25 years of cronyism and demagoguery mean there's plenty of dry tinder about and one spark is a dozen brush fires. Thing is? These are all just tribulations to the One True Faith. If virtue is on your side, you can justify everything that's going wrong as just the destiny you're supposed to experience and any justification you care to espouse will be accepted. Greg Abbot exists because there is nothing that will get Texas Republicans to vote Democratic and the more racist and reactionary the Republicans run, the more racist reactionaries will come out to vote. Texas has always deigned to be a member of the United States, but not really. It's the Texas Republic, temporarily down on hard times. What better way to differentiate yourself from the other 49 than by going your own way in all things at all times? If that chases away everyone competent, then they weren't really Texans anyway - see Venezuela, Iran or Turkey. There are those who require an internal framework of beliefs to be logically consistent... but they aren't true believers, because if your internal framework requires logic than OBVIOUSLY you lack faith. FAITH is what lets you believe all shooters have mental health problems and that a Good Guy with a Gun will stand between paradise and perdition. And if it didn't work? Well, then the people involved were faithless and they aren't really our people anyway.
Hoooooly shit. I didn’t know about the Health and Human Services money transfer to fund border patrol / wall stuff?)!!! And then that man has the gall to stand in front of cameras and address this shooting as a mental heath crises after diverting $210 MILLION that could have in part been used to, oh, I don’t know, address mental health...? Where would you go off to? We seem to have more than a fair share of Austinites up here.
Isn’t that one of the rich ironies. Every time this happens all the GOP crow about “mental health “, but ask them to give one measly, stinking dollar to public health and they lose their grip on reality. Put your money where your mouth is or shut the fuck up.
You're applying the logic model, not the purity model. - We are pure. - the pure do not succumb to mental illness, for they are pure. - if you succumb to mental illness, it is because you are impure. - the way to prevent the impure from harming the pure is by segregation, which we are no longer permitted to say out loud, so we must settle for charter schools. - purity is compounded by eschewing interactions with the impure. So long as the impure continue to choose to be impure, they shall continue to interact with the impure and suffer the detriments of impurity. You say "irony" without recognizing that an all-white charter school filled with rich republican children that say prayers every morning before the pledge and are kept in line by corporal punishment would not need to worry about any of this. After all, the Incel Rebellion would lose a lot of steam if date rape were a petty misdemeanor again. Your problem is your impurity has twisted your judgement. Get Pure and it all falls into place.
I'm almost done with it and as someone who grew up 'Pure' and managed to largely self-extract from christian fundamentalism / white nationalism Haidt is about 30 years too late. His book seems like a largely self congratulatory attempt by a non fundamentalist to steel man the arguments of 'The Pure.' Which incidentally is the name for some baddies in a sci-fi novel I finished recently, apropos of nothing. Maybe the last 15% will change my mind, seems unlikely though.
His point is that rational argument is not the most convincing rhetorical strategy when conversing with the faithful or conservative, not that one side is right and the other side is wrong. I recognize that me bringing this up to you is just me wasting my time; you are still "pure" and still refuse rational argument. Your every rhetorical gambit comes from a place of "ours is the one true blood" you've just foresworn your birthright. So we'll keep talking past each other because you've chosen a weird demographic: those who fundamentally believe fundamentalists are evil and are utterly incapable of rational discussion about rational discussion.
Yeah. Another Jan. 6th-like moment, wherein I realize that if something THIS simple and obvious isn't enough to meaningfully turn the tide against these hilariously idiotic, dangerous political leaders, we're cooked. I have no doubt Abbott will win re-election this fall. Your neck of the woods was nice. Can't yet really afford to own property there, though, or most urban places near either coast. Even after a few years of building equity in a mortgage, the cheap cost of living here is like crawling out of a financial well. Might have to go at least quasi-rural, but suburbia is lame. If there's no way to move somewhere without losing 1,000 sq. ft., dunno, that's looking like a more and more feasible sacrifice. I would miss my music studio terribly. We'd not have much real income anywhere overseas, paying double taxes, but we live at least semi-modestly, so I dunno. My wife and I (and these damn, ungrateful kittiez) are so very fortunate, at the personal level, and it's not fair that I have the option of leaving, but I can't figure out what staying put would guarantee besides further deteriorating social conditions. Leaving's probably the best way I can still meaningfully vote, right? My biggest concern is the grid going down. And soon. That's the one that'd instantly bring the entire state to its knees. The largest disaster in modern U.S. history, save (perhaps?) covid, which was international anyway, and all it would take is a small series of missteps or mismanagement during the process of instituting rolling blackouts the next time instantaneous demand for electricity exceeds supply. A condition we flirted with, not during winter, but earlier this May, during a heatwave. In May. May. Uh-oh.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/fox-news-coverage-uvalde-shooting-150828619.html "Hmm I wonder if there's been more mass shootings and more guns since 2012. Oh, there has been? Obviously we need more guns." These people are worse than fucking idiots. Meanwhile, from the same "rules/laws won't deter shooters" fuckwads: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/25/1101181842/nra-trump-speech-guns-banned-houston
They don’t give a fuck, man. They get their money from the NRA, they appeal to the portion of their voting base that are fanatics over guns. If Sandy Hook and Newtown didn’t change anything, this won’t either. Manchin and Sinema aren’t willing to reconsider their stance of the filibuster to get HR-8 approved. This country is fucked.
Hey name_of_teacher.txt, this is XxAutoKillBillxX, your gun instructor for the summer 2022 training session!! I hope we can have enough fun together that you'll practice shooting more than the mandated 50 hrs/week until classes begin again in the fall. Your students' lives may depend on it 😜! Before the end of the semester next week, we're going to practice simultaneously shielding students with non-life threatening wounds while also putting some small children out of their misery, in addition to laying cover fire as well. Your weapons skills are valuable!! You will receive an extra $50/year for this know-how. Thank you for teaching, and I look forward to sculpting you into a lean, mean, killing machine 😃
P.S. The class materials fee of $134 is due each morning at the beginning of each class. This fee is tax deductable under the Educator Expense Deduction up to the $250 allowed per year by law.
Wow, so you hate the disabled. (PSA: this a right wing "debate" simulator, press alt+F4 to quit)