The Refuge of the Toads

[Scented Nectar]

The plot has an unfolding story with a "malevolent force" in it, plus as you work your way to the center of the universe, things will get weirder and weirder, including life forms. Anyways, the video isn't about how procedural generation works, but about their team avoids the problems that others have with randomness and boringness. But the game's not for everyone. I can't even start playing minecraft because it's so ugly. However, NMS is so stunning graphically and has enough uniqueness, that even if I do ever get tired of it someday, it'll take a long time for that to happen. And I know you don't like their assets much, but I think they have really cute assets! :)

I thought it wasn't released yet? Are you part of the beta-test?

I wish! I'm basing my opinion on what I've seen so far in trailers and various gameplay videos from gaming sites etc that have been released, plus stuff the developers have said when talking about the game. Only 3 weeks to go before I'm playing it too. My computer's RAM is upgraded and ready and so am I. :)

[Lsuoma]

The Commander posted this a few days ago.....

Is anybody here actually "shocked" or "surprised" at this latest attack?

No, of course not.

We, especially in Europe, are now expecting these attacks to happen at an ever-increasing regular interval. Oh, and I predict Germany or Sweden are due.......

Breaking news is that a 17yo Afghaan refugee has gone berserk and attacked people on a train in, guess where........., Germany!

Wonder how Merkel will spin this.

Now, now! - the Beeb are saying that there's no motive...

[Cnutella]

If you let pharmacies sell all these drugs at low prices, you should wipe out organized crime overnight if the price is right.... fuck it, the government should subsidize it!
Women won't need to prostitute themselves, you will cut the amount of muggings and house breaking. You need less policing, or at least the police won't be run ragged. You don't have to tie up the courts and the prison system.
Legalize prostitution and gambling too, we'll see how glamorous the thug life is when all the money is taken out of it.

What I was driving at is that if everything was legalized and made inexpensive and prescription-free, everyone previously involved in the drugs trade would now need a source of alternative income. I would predict that the amount of burglaries, robberies and muggings would go up rather than down.

Whereas decriminalization appears to provide opportunities for organized crime to consolidate their activities.

[BarnOwl]

Love the Moron Cam on A+L's latest.

Things are looking OK: thanks for all the best wishes!

Huzzah!! Take care of yourself, FT!

[CommanderTuvok]

This will cheer people up. Completely unrelated to pretty much anything here, but a playboy model snapped a naked picture of someone else in the gym locker room and posted it on snapchat stating "If I can't unsee this then you can't either."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-inve ... an-at-gym/

Consequences so far seem about right for what she did. Here is her apology/excuse.

[youtube]G8z2KC74n4o[/youtube]

As far as I am concerned she could have done all that other stuff up until the point where she took a stranger's naked photo in the gym locker room.

Fuck that. If I take a picture of a naked woman in a locker room, I am getting charged with a crazy-ass crime and will have to register as a sex offender forever. And her excuse that she was just taking the picture to show a friend in private is no excuse. Am I allowed to go into gym locker rooms and take pictures of women for my own personal enjoyment?

Shauna Smith, a beautiful transwoman, was just charged with taking a picture of someone on the crapper.

https://tribwpix.files.wordpress.com/20 ... &strip=all

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/t ... -1.2710611

Why shouldn't the dummy be charged with taking and distributing a nude photo of a stranger? This is Gawker shit.

She really should have swotted up on her SJW education. The only public photographs she should be taking are crotch shots of men on public transport.

[VickyCaramel]

If you let pharmacies sell all these drugs at low prices, you should wipe out organized crime overnight if the price is right.... fuck it, the government should subsidize it!
Women won't need to prostitute themselves, you will cut the amount of muggings and house breaking. You need less policing, or at least the police won't be run ragged. You don't have to tie up the courts and the prison system.
Legalize prostitution and gambling too, we'll see how glamorous the thug life is when all the money is taken out of it.

What I was driving at is that if everything was legalized and made inexpensive and prescription-free, everyone previously involved in the drugs trade would now need a source of alternative income. I would predict that the amount of burglaries, robberies and muggings would go up rather than down.

Whereas decriminalization appears to provide opportunities for organized crime to consolidate their activities.

When you think about drug dealing as a business, it is near enough perfect. You have repeat business from customers who are addicted and they bring their money to you.

House breaking is a skill. So is mugging to an extent. People are not just going to be able to switch to another form of crime.
Besides, there are technical solutions to other crimes which will become widespread as a response as we have seen with car crime and bank robberies. Kidnapping seldom pays off, which leaves fraud and identity theft. Again there are technical solutions. Sooner or later people are going to realize it is easier to get a real job.

[BarnOwl]

she does find stripy patterns disorientating though.

For a variety of reasons I won't bore you with, it's really wrong that I laughed at this. :oops:

[Cnutella]

thought it wasn't released yet? Are you part of the beta-test?

I wish! I'm basing my opinion on what I've seen so far in trailers and various gameplay videos from gaming sites etc that have been released, plus stuff the developers have said when talking about the game. Only 3 weeks to go before I'm playing it too. My computer's RAM is upgraded and ready and so am I. :)

Fair enough... I hope it's awesome. The world could use a new awesome space game after Elite:Dangerous/Frontiers turned out to be kind of "meh" (although very pretty "meh").

[Steersman]

It's legal here in Washington state, hasn't changed the culture one bit. ....

There are a whole load of factors. In America, ethnics were shuffled off down town or to the other side of the tracks. .... There is the issue of absent fathers... none of this is a great mystery, but it needs a major intervention to sort it all out. Nobody is willing to say what needs to be said and tackle it head on. Not even America's first black president.

Exactly right - complex issue and problem with contributions from all parties, although moot who should be shouldering most of the blame.

However, I seem to recollect that Obama, at his first inauguration, referred to that issue of "absent fathers". Although he seems to have dropped the ball shortly after receiving that pass ....

But to digress a bit on Obama and his record, such as it is, ran across this tweet from Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

A relevant portion of that NationalReview post she referred to:

Obama: Anti-Anti-Terrorist

by ANDREW C. MCCARTHY June 18, 2016 4:00 AM

Sharia supremacists are not only shielded from scrutiny by U.S. intelligence but welcomed into the national-security apparatus.

Barack Obama has spent his presidency cultivating Islamists, particularly from the international Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates in the United States. As we saw this week, he chafes at the term “radical Islam” — as do his Islamist advisers. At their insistence, he had instructional materials for training government agents purged of references to Islamic terms that illuminate the nexus between Muslim doctrine and jihadist terror. ....

Obama, at least as far as Islam is concerned, looking more and more like the upper-class English twit who wouldn't say "shit" if they had a mouth full of it.

[jimhabegger]

Now that I've learn not to be too bothered by being killed in Minecraft, and I've collected stacks of cobblestone, gravel, granite, ores, gems, and plant and animal products; learned to explore without getting hopelessly lost; and made a bed, a bucket, a bowl, some slabs, some steps, and some dies; I don't know what to do next. I've looked at some Web sites and videos, but I haven't seen anything to do that looks interesting to me. It all looks a little pointless to me now.

That's minecraft (and most procedurally generated survival-type games). It's really great until you master it. Then you either have to start building huge projects or just continue to do the same thing over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over again.

Yes, that's what it's looking like to me now.

[Service Dog]

Let's add just a wee bit of perspective, shall we? The honor code of black America, the hip-hop, the art scene-all of that depends on JohnD, myself, and people like us.

Wrong. People with the same shirt collar & the same brand of car as John D. --are not synonymous with 'The Only Lawful & Productive Citizens', to the exclusion of all others. He's honest about his tribal mentality. You're putting lipstick on it.

Our taxes pay for the infrastructure that supports you. It is the common red neck farmer that allows you to eat. It is working people that build up homes and the middle-class that even allows any extraneous stuff to happen. I worked hard, despite my white privilege to allow my family to have a decent home. After my injury, my wife works hard to maintain it, and fortunately I have a small disability pension. I expect that our contribution in the form of taxes, of community service and being law-abiding affords us a degree of safety. It's not rocket science. If all the major cities, all the art scene, all the ghettos disappeared tomorrow, people would still eat. Humanity could keep plugging away. But if all the people who do the hard work of keeping society going, of getting food to bellies and power to outlets and roads built, if those disappeared, all of the rest of you would be dead in weeks.

Your 'us' and 'them' parameters are wrong. My family are still 'common red neck farmers', I grew up doing farm labor. I literally helped my dad build our house, starting at age 14. I built other people's houses, put the roof on the main Oscar Mayer packing plant, was a Teamster and a dock worker. I volunteered for civil rights organizations, transportation system reform, and community policing. And I'm still relatively self-sufficient + off-the grid. I use the same blue-collar skills in art, as I did before. --welding, 2x4 framing, pouring concrete, truck driving, hand tools, sewing machine.

I'm not trying to go all Randian, but people deserve to be and feel safe, period. Because if that falls apart, your street culture dies, and not figuratively.

Nope. When everything falls-apart, street culture swells to become the norm, like in the Great Depression. John D.'s solution is to hire thugs to hassle the Joad Family for driving a broken-down car.

And-- if the dotcom-crash-to-present is any indication-- my business managing the art assets for the super-wealthy is recession-proof. When the over-leveraged wealthy need to liquidate assets, I haul their art to the auction house. And when they're making money, I haul their new purchases back to their mansions. Art is an asset class, a place to diversify when economy or currency goes bust.

Being an artist can be a good bet for blacks, in hard times. The Cotton Club always made money.

The -only- way I don't qualify for John D's 'good people' status is my shitty shirt & car. Buy my experience on the wrong side of his law is enough to know it falls very short of the American ideal. Likewise, black culture is covered in warts. But, being desperate & homeless, I've found common-cause with have-not neighbors. They're as capable as-anyone of seeing the advantage of 'you watch my back/I'll watch yours' over cannibalism.

[youtube]3cQNkIrg-Tk[/youtube]

[Guest_935516df]

Docs: Pulse gunman Omar Mateen taunted at job for being Muslim
cbsnews.com/news/docs-pulse-gunman-omar-mateen-taunted-at-job-for-being-muslim/

"When I started at the courthouse G4S Lt. David Torres told deputies that I'm a Muslim extremist and potential terrorist," he wrote.

Mateen then detailed some of the alleged taunting, which he said included an officer making a comment about his bulletproof vest saying: "Hope it's not a suicide vest."

But you know what? They were right.

[Aneris]

The Commander posted this a few days ago.....

Is anybody here actually "shocked" or "surprised" at this latest attack?

No, of course not.

We, especially in Europe, are now expecting these attacks to happen at an ever-increasing regular interval. Oh, and I predict Germany or Sweden are due.......

Breaking news is that a 17yo Afghaan refugee has gone berserk and attacked people on a train in, guess where........., Germany!

Wonder how Merkel will spin this.

Now, now! - the Beeb are saying that there's no motive...

How it's reported now:

"Accorrding to Herrmann [Home Secretary Bavaria], the perpetrator had asylum and was from Afghanistan [...] when asked about an Islamic motive, Herrmann said there is no evidence [yet]. Allegedly, he cried something, but it has to be investigated further. According to a speaker of the Home Secretary, he allegedly cried "Allahu akbar"

ZDF tweets, with plenty of abbreviations: "[...] unattended underage refugee from Afghanistan, possible Islamic motive"

As I've reported before, pretty straightforward. People tend to mention islamicist motives when they suspect one.

[Suet Cardigan]

The Commander posted this a few days ago.....

Is anybody here actually "shocked" or "surprised" at this latest attack?

No, of course not.

We, especially in Europe, are now expecting these attacks to happen at an ever-increasing regular interval. Oh, and I predict Germany or Sweden are due.......

Breaking news is that a 17yo Afghaan refugee has gone berserk and attacked people on a train in, guess where........., Germany!

Wonder how Merkel will spin this.

Now, now! - the Beeb are saying that there's no motive...

Official.jpg

(51.63 KiB) Downloaded 168 times

[Brive1987]

Questioning Muslim immigration is racist, racism divides society, a divided society turns on itself: civil war.

More Muslim immigration means more radicalised citizens, v. small numbers of radicals cause disproptionate damage to society, it is in society's best interests to minimise this Islamic risk profile, more migration makes this task more difficult, further immigration should be suspended.

I am struggling with slippery slopes everywhere.

[Keating]

I hate you fucks for giving me the mental image of a van fucking anybody, let alone Lousy.

[Keating]

So traumatised and literally shaking, I didn't even notice autocorrect changed 'Zvan'.

[Keating]

How it's reported now:

"Accorrding to Herrmann [Home Secretary Bavaria], the perpetrator had asylum and was from Afghanistan [...] when asked about an Islamic motive, Herrmann said there is no evidence [yet]. Allegedly, he cried something, but it has to be investigated further. According to a speaker of the Home Secretary, he allegedly cried "Allahu akbar"

ZDF tweets, with plenty of abbreviations: "[...] unattended underage refugee from Afghanistan, possible Islamic motive"

As I've reported before, pretty straightforward. People tend to mention islamicist motives when they suspect one.

In this case, it doesn't actually matter what his motive was. This was a failure of immigration screening, which is what happens when you invite everyone in regardless of whether they'll be a burden on your citizens or not. Failure to screen. I'd hold the German government responsible for these deaths even if it turns out he was simply a mentally ill man from the United States; it's still a failure of immigration policy.

[Brive1987]

Waiting for a plane and listening in to the blaring 2way radios of the gate attendants.

Plane based hostess wants a wheelchair for an oversized passenger. Said passenger wants to exit with dignity on her own two tree trunks.

Meanwhile,Turkey burns.

[John D]

Let's add just a wee bit of perspective, shall we? The honor code of black America, the hip-hop, the art scene-all of that depends on JohnD, myself, and people like us.

Wrong. People with the same shirt collar & the same brand of car as John D. --are not synonymous with 'The Only Lawful & Productive Citizens', to the exclusion of all others. He's honest about his tribal mentality. You're putting lipstick on it.

Our taxes pay for the infrastructure that supports you. It is the common red neck farmer that allows you to eat. It is working people that build up homes and the middle-class that even allows any extraneous stuff to happen. I worked hard, despite my white privilege to allow my family to have a decent home. After my injury, my wife works hard to maintain it, and fortunately I have a small disability pension. I expect that our contribution in the form of taxes, of community service and being law-abiding affords us a degree of safety. It's not rocket science. If all the major cities, all the art scene, all the ghettos disappeared tomorrow, people would still eat. Humanity could keep plugging away. But if all the people who do the hard work of keeping society going, of getting food to bellies and power to outlets and roads built, if those disappeared, all of the rest of you would be dead in weeks.

Your 'us' and 'them' parameters are wrong. My family are still 'common red neck farmers', I grew up doing farm labor. I literally helped my dad build our house, starting at age 14. I built other people's houses, put the roof on the main Oscar Mayer packing plant, was a Teamster and a dock worker. I volunteered for civil rights organizations, transportation system reform, and community policing. And I'm still relatively self-sufficient + off-the grid. I use the same blue-collar skills in art, as I did before. --welding, 2x4 framing, pouring concrete, truck driving, hand tools, sewing machine.

I'm not trying to go all Randian, but people deserve to be and feel safe, period. Because if that falls apart, your street culture dies, and not figuratively.

Nope. When everything falls-apart, street culture swells to become the norm, like in the Great Depression. John D.'s solution is to hire thugs to hassle the Joad Family for driving a broken-down car.

And-- if the dotcom-crash-to-present is any indication-- my business managing the art assets for the super-wealthy is recession-proof. When the over-leveraged wealthy need to liquidate assets, I haul their art to the auction house. And when they're making money, I haul their new purchases back to their mansions. Art is an asset class, a place to diversify when economy or currency goes bust.

Being an artist can be a good bet for blacks, in hard times. The Cotton Club always made money.

The -only- way I don't qualify for John D's 'good people' status is my shitty shirt & car. Buy my experience on the wrong side of his law is enough to know it falls very short of the American ideal. Likewise, black culture is covered in warts. But, being desperate & homeless, I've found common-cause with have-not neighbors. They're as capable as-anyone of seeing the advantage of 'you watch my back/I'll watch yours' over cannibalism.

[youtube]3cQNkIrg-Tk[/youtube]

You misunderstand Dog.

I didn't say you had to drive a Honda necessarily. A pickup truck will do. It can be covered with rust. No problem. Red-necks are welcome (even if they are sometimes a bit bigoted against us white-collars). You don't have spinners do you???? Then you should be fine.

Your allegiance to thug culture is pretty odd in my opinion. You share little with them except a common enemy perhaps.

I don't support cops that break the law. I also don't support cops who fund the police station by writing tons of minor violations up... just to make money. I don't think we have that problem here... but if I heard we did this I would pitch a giant bitch to city council. However, I have no problem with cops who use their judgment to pull over thugs. That's just good policing. Walking down my block with a hoodie and pants on the ground... haha... well... we wont shoot you.... but we are all watching.

[Shatterface]

I hate you fucks for giving me the mental image of a van fucking anybody, let alone Lousy.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L6RFmFYBvNM/S ... ex-man.jpg

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

Let's add just a wee bit of perspective, shall we? The honor code of black America, the hip-hop, the art scene-all of that depends on JohnD, myself, and people like us.

Wrong. People with the same shirt collar & the same brand of car as John D. --are not synonymous with 'The Only Lawful & Productive Citizens', to the exclusion of all others. He's honest about his tribal mentality. You're putting lipstick on it.

Our taxes pay for the infrastructure that supports you. It is the common red neck farmer that allows you to eat. It is working people that build up homes and the middle-class that even allows any extraneous stuff to happen. I worked hard, despite my white privilege to allow my family to have a decent home. After my injury, my wife works hard to maintain it, and fortunately I have a small disability pension. I expect that our contribution in the form of taxes, of community service and being law-abiding affords us a degree of safety. It's not rocket science. If all the major cities, all the art scene, all the ghettos disappeared tomorrow, people would still eat. Humanity could keep plugging away. But if all the people who do the hard work of keeping society going, of getting food to bellies and power to outlets and roads built, if those disappeared, all of the rest of you would be dead in weeks.

Your 'us' and 'them' parameters are wrong. My family are still 'common red neck farmers', I grew up doing farm labor. I literally helped my dad build our house, starting at age 14. I built other people's houses, put the roof on the main Oscar Mayer packing plant, was a Teamster and a dock worker. I volunteered for civil rights organizations, transportation system reform, and community policing. And I'm still relatively self-sufficient + off-the grid. I use the same blue-collar skills in art, as I did before. --welding, 2x4 framing, pouring concrete, truck driving, hand tools, sewing machine.

I'm not trying to go all Randian, but people deserve to be and feel safe, period. Because if that falls apart, your street culture dies, and not figuratively.

Nope. When everything falls-apart, street culture swells to become the norm, like in the Great Depression. John D.'s solution is to hire thugs to hassle the Joad Family for driving a broken-down car.

And-- if the dotcom-crash-to-present is any indication-- my business managing the art assets for the super-wealthy is recession-proof. When the over-leveraged wealthy need to liquidate assets, I haul their art to the auction house. And when they're making money, I haul their new purchases back to their mansions. Art is an asset class, a place to diversify when economy or currency goes bust.

Being an artist can be a good bet for blacks, in hard times. The Cotton Club always made money.

The -only- way I don't qualify for John D's 'good people' status is my shitty shirt & car. Buy my experience on the wrong side of his law is enough to know it falls very short of the American ideal. Likewise, black culture is covered in warts. But, being desperate & homeless, I've found common-cause with have-not neighbors. They're as capable as-anyone of seeing the advantage of 'you watch my back/I'll watch yours' over cannibalism.

[youtube]3cQNkIrg-Tk[/youtube]

Sigh. You are taking my generalized us/you comments personally. Street culture will never "fill in" for farmers, engineers. If they could do something so enterprising, they wouldn't be part of street culture. There are a few artists and poets there, but there are more thieves, thugs and murderers. They exist because of the working class and the middle class support them, either through social services or by being victims. People that earn their money and should have a reasonable expectation of safety.

You're not arrested for how you look or the car you drive. If you get extra scrutiny, well that's the name of the game. If I get in colors and on a motorcycle, I look pretty hardcore biker. That's a choice I make. Like gang members in full color getting attention from the police. Fuck, you get in a uniform that says "I am wearing this to signify that I belong to a group of individuals that have a defiance for the law and operate to our own code, not yours" and expect no extra scutiny, then you are a fucking idiot. Why should police NOT be suspicious of people mysteriously existing without a viable source of income?

We are not talking desperate and homeless either, that's you changing the goalposts. We are talking about black honor culture. People who often claim themselves to be thugs, and proud of it. Fuck them.

Before you go off on another rambling defence of thug life, explain exactly how much this honor culture is being threatened by each other vs how much of it is coming from the police. Statistics are not on your side.

[gurugeorge]

You know, I'm wondering if there's soon going to be actual censorship and banning of news related to Islamic terrorism. According to Sargon's recent Week in Stupid, Germany's just come down hard on a couple running a private Facebook group of 900 members that was complaining about Immigrant crime - i.e. they were charged by the police for "hate crime", tried and fined, and the judge said if they came before him again they'd be jailed.

I wonder if the great and good are soon just going to have a self-imposed moratorium as more and more of this stuff happens, and in parallel the social system becomes more authoritarian and censoring. I mean considering the self-censorship of the police that was recently revealed re. the Cologne rapes, etc., it looks like it's already part of that aspect of the social structure there.

At the moment, the thing that's stopping it is that of course bad news sells (the root of that being we're wired to notice problems). But at some point the shared ideology may kick in to self-censor, and overcome the self-interest of the owners of the papers (or would it? the London Standard and the Independent are owned by a Russian who just wrote his own op-ed today in the Standard, calling for the West to get its shit together and fight back against Islamism). And while the internet and social media might have been a refuge from that, an alternative from that, there seems to be a big push to try and extend the concepts of "hate speech" so broadly that anything on social media that squeaks through could be censored too.

The result might be that nobody knows wtf is going on other than the plebs who are suffering at the sharp end, but they have no voice.

[Cnutella]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L6RFmFYBvNM/S ... ex-man.jpg

Damn Futurists. Although I might be too quick to judge, maybe he's not transphobic and is dating an attack helicopter that identifies as a woman.

[Sunder]

Podcast with Mykeru and Vito. I haven't listened yet, so I don't know how it comes off. Needless to say, I was not in a cheery mood and had abused the old bottle a bit.

[youtube.]CredljBPSjg[/youtube]

Listening to it now.

I recently heard Sargon doing a stream about Nice too. If you are still looking to get the message out there - maybe you could contact him for an interview.

Alternatively - you may be sick of the whole thing - and should take some (well deserved) time off...

Listening in spurts as it's hard to deal with this stuff for a long period of time (and I feel worse for Phil and agree he deserves a few days' break).

As of right now though the video has one comment and I read the whole thing vainly hoping it was someone being a tasteless wise-ass, but it seems to be some genuine batshittery.

[fuzzy]

Meanwhile,Turkey burns.

We must baste until it is based Turkey. Onward whatever

[Service Dog]

....
Your allegiance to thug culture is pretty odd in my opinion. You share little with them except a common enemy perhaps.
....
However, I have no problem with cops who use their judgment to pull over thugs. That's just good policing. Walking down my block with a hoodie and pants on the ground... haha... well... we wont shoot you.... but we are all watching.

I have probs with actual thug culture. for example, the current Chicago rap scene has a digusting murder problem. ...and a paucity of artistry.

But you cant indiscriminately praise Giuliani & his Broken Windows track record, & also claim to oppose policing for profit & bad cops. Giuliani's police commissioner & partner in 'Giuliani Kerik LLC' was convicted felon bribe-taker Bernard Kerik... who bungled his security appointment in Iraq, as well.

I think it's a mistake to use cops shooting blacks as the yardstick of whether police routinely engage in misconduct. i think they do. i dont think it usually consists of commiting murder. i think it consists of mistreating people in hoodies beyond the rightful limit of police power, for the non-crime of wearing a hoodie, t-shirt, saggy pants. Of which i am often guilty. so the lines are drawn For me, not By me.

You call it 'good policing'. The Supreme Court & I call it Unconstitutional. Yet you think you're a good American?

Time magazine on Giuliani's racist response to undercover cops shooting Patrick Dorismond, when he responded angrily to them offer to sell him drugs:

"Giuliani typically springs to the cops' defense. But this time he wouldn't even express sympathy to the victim's mother, because it "might imply that the shooting was unjustified." He had no compunctions about implying that the shooting was justified. Dorismond was "no altar boy," Giuliani reported, as if all non-altar boys are subject to summary execution on the sidewalks of New York. [it turned out, dorismond literally was an altar boy] The slain security guard had behaved in a way that was "very aggressive toward the police," he added, though there was no proof that Dorismond did anything except perhaps annoy the plainclothes narcotics cop by rebuffing his attempt to buy marijuana. Giuliani also asserted that Dorismond had spent a "good deal of his adult life punching people," a reference to a domestic complaint filed by Dorismond's girlfriend, which resulted in no charge against him. Though Giuliani released Dorismond's adult and juvenile records (the latter are supposed to remain sealed), they revealed that he had never been convicted of anything more serious than disorderly conduct. At the same time, Giuliani praised Anthony Vasquez, the officer who shot Dorismond, as a "very, very distinguished undercover officer," leaving out information suggesting that he was no altar boy himself; he once shot a neighbor's dog and pulled out his revolver during a personal altercation at a bar."

[Tigzy]

Oooh - ouch! New very minor blogger Abe over at FTB has announced the release of his literary endeavor: http://freethoughtblogs.com/oceanoxia/2 ... available/ - and he kindly offers us an excerpt:

He had once climbed the stairs of the Empire State Building, and that didn’t take half the time he was spending on these. Anthony was also fairly certain that he knew of no buildings with black marble stairs of such great width. He couldn’t see the walls on either side of him now, just darkness.

Wisps of pale green mist gathered around him, glowing faintly without lending any light to their surroundings. Anthony paused to look back. The stairs behind him were a well of darkness out of which reached faint tendrils of the luminous fog.

After what seemed like hours, he reached a door. It was unquestionably a door. Anthony was utterly certain that it was a door, but he couldn’t tell if it was a normal roof exit door, or a huge wooden door with wrought-iron hinges, or a house door, or a gate. It seemed to be all doors at once. Not flickering exactly, but not remaining in one guise either. Anthony realized that all the doors he had ever seen in his life were merely imitations or reflections of this door. Leaving such a door closed was not an option. Mouth dry and hands sweating, he opened it and stepped through.

Anyone even vaguely familiar with writing and reading creative fiction can see the problem here - the prose suffers from too much repetition. In the first paragraph we get 'building' and 'buildings', three instances of 'stairs' across two short paragraphs, and a pretty exhaustive use of 'door' in the third paragraph. Shit like this makes for clumsy prose and prevents the reader from being fully immersed in the story.

This is the kind of stuff you'd expect from a total newb at the craft, but according to Abe, 'This is the culmination of years of writing, learning, and re-writing' :o Dude has to be shitting us. Amazingly enough, it's not a vanity project, but has been released by what appears to be a genuine third-party publisher - albeit a (very) indie one, if the quality of their covers are anything to go by.

Still, it's not as bad as Greg Laden's infamously ludicrous effort. Ye gods, that was some funny shite:

She was discontinuity personified when she walked into that dark and dingy tavern, this den of mean scruffy men with beards. She was very white, except her hair which was off white, and of medium height and somewhat stocky build with very large head. She was clad in an enigmatically loud pastel pants suit, wore eye glasses that could have doubled as the marquee for a casino on the Las vegas strip, and sported a hairdo that went all the way to the top, and money. You couldn't literally see the money, but you could tell it was there...

Now quietly departed from Amazon, it seems. Oh well.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Ein 17-Jähriger hat in einem Regionalzug bei Würzburg mehrere Reisende attackiert und dabei vier von ihnen schwer verletzt. Er war laut Polizei mit einer Axt und einem Messer bewaffnet.

Why won't Germany pass stricter assault rifle bans?!

[Cnutella]

"She was clad in an enigmatically loud pastel pants suit, wore eye glasses that could have doubled as the marquee for a casino on the Las vegas strip, and sported a hairdo that went all the way to the top, and money. You couldn't literally see the money, but you could tell it was there..."

Ermahgerd. I am now suddenly sorry I didn't buy a copy. You can't fake writing like that - something that unintentionally awful comes from the heart, and that's a rare gift indeed.

"You couldn't literally see the money, but you could tell it was there."

So much for "show, don't tell", this is "show and tell" caliber. Laden's rapist instincts obviously influence his approach to writing.

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

Let's add just a wee bit of perspective, shall we? The honor code of black America, the hip-hop, the art scene-all of that depends on JohnD, myself, and people like us. Our taxes pay for the infrastructure that supports you. It is the common red neck farmer that allows you to eat. It is working people that build up homes and the middle-class that even allows any extraneous stuff to happen. I worked hard, despite my white privilege to allow my family to have a decent home. After my injury, my wife works hard to maintain it, and fortunately I have a small disability pension. I expect that our contribution in the form of taxes, of community service and being law-abiding affords us a degree of safety. It's not rocket science.

If all the major cities, all the art scene, all the ghettos disappeared tomorrow, people would still eat. Humanity could keep plugging away. But if all the people who do the hard work of keeping society going, of getting food to bellies and power to outlets and roads built, if those disappeared, all of the rest of you would be dead in weeks.

I'm not trying to go all Randian, but people deserve to be and feel safe, period. Because if that falls apart, your street culture dies, and not figuratively.

It is the common red neck farmer that allows you to eat.

You reckon? It's not corporations and their underpaid immigrant slaves, working in underpaid jobs without health insurance? What percentage of Americans are fed by "red neck farmers' in 2016? I have no facts yet, just a suspicion that the massive population centers of the Northeast and West Coast are not relying on Samuel Weidermeister of Iowa for the majority of their produce. If I am wrong, no problem.

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

This is how it got reported here.

You have to go 3 or 4 paras to discover 14 of the "injuries" were shock.

7 of which occurred on FtB.

Apparently a further 26 people literally couldn't even.

[KiwiInOz]

Love the Moron Cam on A+L's latest.

Things are looking OK: thanks for all the best wishes!

Belated best wishes.

[youtube]P7gMkiOPSeA[/youtube]

[KiwiInOz]

Free Palestine!

pali-flag.jpg

I'll take two.

[John D]

....
Your allegiance to thug culture is pretty odd in my opinion. You share little with them except a common enemy perhaps.
....
However, I have no problem with cops who use their judgment to pull over thugs. That's just good policing. Walking down my block with a hoodie and pants on the ground... haha... well... we wont shoot you.... but we are all watching.

I have probs with actual thug culture. for example, the current Chicago rap scene has a digusting murder problem. ...and a paucity of artistry.

But you cant indiscriminately praise Giuliani & his Broken Windows track record, & also claim to oppose policing for profit & bad cops. Giuliani's police commissioner & partner in 'Giuliani Kerik LLC' was convicted felon bribe-taker Bernard Kerik... who bungled his security appointment in Iraq, as well.

I think it's a mistake to use cops shooting blacks as the yardstick of whether police routinely engage in misconduct. i think they do. i dont think it usually consists of commiting murder. i think it consists of mistreating people in hoodies beyond the rightful limit of police power, for the non-crime of wearing a hoodie, t-shirt, saggy pants. Of which i am often guilty. so the lines are drawn For me, not By me.

You call it 'good policing'. The Supreme Court & I call it Unconstitutional. Yet you think you're a good American?

Time magazine on Giuliani's racist response to undercover cops shooting Patrick Dorismond, when he responded angrily to them offer to sell him drugs:

"Giuliani typically springs to the cops' defense. But this time he wouldn't even express sympathy to the victim's mother, because it "might imply that the shooting was unjustified." He had no compunctions about implying that the shooting was justified. Dorismond was "no altar boy," Giuliani reported, as if all non-altar boys are subject to summary execution on the sidewalks of New York. [it turned out, dorismond literally was an altar boy] The slain security guard had behaved in a way that was "very aggressive toward the police," he added, though there was no proof that Dorismond did anything except perhaps annoy the plainclothes narcotics cop by rebuffing his attempt to buy marijuana. Giuliani also asserted that Dorismond had spent a "good deal of his adult life punching people," a reference to a domestic complaint filed by Dorismond's girlfriend, which resulted in no charge against him. Though Giuliani released Dorismond's adult and juvenile records (the latter are supposed to remain sealed), they revealed that he had never been convicted of anything more serious than disorderly conduct. At the same time, Giuliani praised Anthony Vasquez, the officer who shot Dorismond, as a "very, very distinguished undercover officer," leaving out information suggesting that he was no altar boy himself; he once shot a neighbor's dog and pulled out his revolver during a personal altercation at a bar."

You are putting a few words in my mouth.... but maybe only a few.

My frustration is with the state of policing in America. Partly I just talk out of my ass because I am frustrated. I don't know how to fix these problems because no one has good ideas. I choose to escape into a safe white-bread neighborhood where my kids can go to solid schools and I can safely walk the dog at midnight. What can I say... I am selfish. It is bizarre that I can live in one of the safest places in the world.. when 10 miles from my house is one of the most violent. It kind of freaks me out.

At the same time, I don't see anyone coming up with good ideas.

1) BLM actually want to defund cops. What a nightmare! BLM should be asking for more police funding so the cops can stop fleecing poor people by forcing them to pay stupid fines. There needs to be more discipline and more security in poor neighborhoods.

2) Everyone thinks racism and crime is on the rise. The truth is that there are fewer blacks that are poor and less crime by every measure. To me this means more of the same... but everyone else wants radical change. Idiots.

3) Urban crime will increase in America... I am almost certain. Blacks have decided that they do not need to be governed or policed. I don't know how they will be convinced otherwise. I just think black crime will get worse. Seriously, I am thinking about buying a gun for the first time in my life. Paranoia... yeah... maybe. I am not normally prone to paranoia.

4) I don't condone police abuse. Police have to put up with some amazing amount of abuse. They usually only give people shit who start something with them. Some cops are cruel and go over the line. Fact.

You could choose to wear pants that fit.... just sayin. What is the deal with fucking baggies? Why does your tribe want to look like that? Is it just to piss off taxpayers like me????? "Pants on the ground... pants on the ground... lookin like a fool with your pants on the ground."

[Service Dog]

You underestimate the legitimacy of black street honor code.

It is not legitimate and contains no more honour than the honour code which lead to the fashion for dueling in 1800. It's no more legitimate than the families that kill their daughters for blackening the family name.

As a general rule of thumb, anyone claiming honour usually doesn't have any, has very little dignity and is pathetically trying to cling on to some pride.

Sociologists Manning & Campbell say Honor Culture exists when there's a vacuum of impartial authority, so citizens have to settle their own differences through acts of courage, including violence & duels. When social institutions exist-- informal ones such as customs, or formal ones like courts-- Honor Culture gives-way to Dignity Culture.

(Which can be abused as Victimhood Culture, when specious complaints are used to gain undue advantage.)

In that framework, there's a difference between honor culture behavior in the absence of fair Dignity Culture (such as frontier justice). Versus honor culture behavior when there's a perfectly-good dignity apparatus available (such as a US immigrant honor-killing their daughter, playing by old rules better left-behind in the Afghanistan wasteland.)

The thing that galls-me about John D's post, is his embrace of primitive tribalism-- when classical liberalism is available right under his nose. a much better tool for the job. Assuming he speaks for his neighbors & the police do their bidding, then they pissed-away the Dignity Culture which would have made the black Honor Culture obsolete. Instead they made it necessary.

....Before you go off on another rambling defence of thug life, explain exactly how much this honor culture is being threatened by each other vs how much of it is coming from the police.

See previous.

Statistics are not on your side.

I think they are. Like I said to John D, the relevant misconduct doesn't consist of cops on murder sprees. But it does consist of dialing up&down the way citizens are treated/ based on whether cops think the citizens will be able to defend themselves. Hey-- don't bully that guy/ he looks like he can afford a lawyers & is educated about his rights. Let's go fuck with those kids who don't know where their civil rights begin! (except the kids know they're on their own, under lawlessness. So they resort to honor, as any normal person would.)

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

Let's add just a wee bit of perspective, shall we? The honor code of black America, the hip-hop, the art scene-all of that depends on JohnD, myself, and people like us. Our taxes pay for the infrastructure that supports you. It is the common red neck farmer that allows you to eat. It is working people that build up homes and the middle-class that even allows any extraneous stuff to happen. I worked hard, despite my white privilege to allow my family to have a decent home. After my injury, my wife works hard to maintain it, and fortunately I have a small disability pension. I expect that our contribution in the form of taxes, of community service and being law-abiding affords us a degree of safety. It's not rocket science.

If all the major cities, all the art scene, all the ghettos disappeared tomorrow, people would still eat. Humanity could keep plugging away. But if all the people who do the hard work of keeping society going, of getting food to bellies and power to outlets and roads built, if those disappeared, all of the rest of you would be dead in weeks.

I'm not trying to go all Randian, but people deserve to be and feel safe, period. Because if that falls apart, your street culture dies, and not figuratively.

It is the common red neck farmer that allows you to eat.

You reckon? It's not corporations and their underpaid immigrant slaves, working in underpaid jobs without health insurance? What percentage of Americans are fed by "red neck farmers' in 2016? I have no facts yet, just a suspicion that the massive population centers of the Northeast and West Coast are not relying on Samuel Weidermeister of Iowa for the majority of their produce. If I am wrong, no problem.

The only way these corporations work is if there is a middle class to buy their products, work in marketing and design and buy hamburgers from the underpaid migrant. Modern farming in America has gotten larger due to mechanization, but it isn't an illegal immigrant running the John Deere. Most underpaid immigrants work in fruit or individual vegetables, not wheat and corn that actually feeds everybody.

There are massive inequities in the system, and it has to change. But the engine that powers America is the middle class. Thug life could disappear tomorrow and we would still be able to eat and expect power and internet. This is the crux of the argument at hand, not whether or not there are plenty of problems with the system as it stands.

[KiwiInOz]

Meanwhile,Turkey burns.

We must baste until it is based Turkey. Onward whatever

Turkey is stuffed.

[some guy]

PZ goes to a ball game. Left his book at home but not his laptop/iPad. The one constant is his inability to sit next to Mary without some form of escape mechanism.

Is that Scat on the left? Has her husband been heard of since she cooked that repugnant meal?

http://i.imgur.com/fz07A76.jpg

I do believe that PZ is manspreading there. :naughty:

[jimhabegger]

Partly I just talk out of my ass because I am frustrated. I don't know how to fix these problems because no one has good ideas.

I don't think there's anything that anyone can do to fix these problems, until a lot more people value all people a lot more, and care a lot more about about them, and I don't think there will be enough of that for at least a few more generations.

What anyone can do who wants to, is to help reduce and counteract some of the damage to some people's lives, and help with the growth and spread of people valuing all people and caring what happens to them.

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

The thing that galls-me about John D's post, is his embrace of primitive tribalism-- when classical liberalism is available right under his nose. a much better tool for the job. Assuming he speaks for his neighbors & the police do their bidding, then they pissed-away the Dignity Culture which would have made the black Honor Culture obsolete. Instead they made it necessary.

....Before you go off on another rambling defence of thug life, explain exactly how much this honor culture is being threatened by each other vs how much of it is coming from the police.

See previous.

Statistics are not on your side.

I think they are. Like I said to John D, the relevant misconduct doesn't consist of cops on murder sprees. But it does consist of dialing up&down the way citizens are treated/ based on whether cops think the citizens will be able to defend themselves. Hey-- don't bully that guy/ he looks like he can afford a lawyers & is educated about his rights. Let's go fuck with those kids who don't know where their civil rights begin! (except the kids know they're on their own, under lawlessness. So they resort to honor, as any normal person would.)

That is the definition of honor? Shooting each other in drive-by or popping somebody in the back of the head during a drug deal? http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new ... -way-teen/
http://komonews.com/news/local/federal- ... other-life
Yeah. It's about honor, not about trying to make quick money dealing drugs and enforcing turf. It all about people dealing with the lack of accountability, not hos, drugs, power and finding it just too damn difficult to work your way through life. Not romantic enough, better to bust a cap a slap a bitch.

I'm really glad your version isn't romatisized or anything.

[Service Dog]

Partly I just talk out of my ass because I am frustrated.

You've re-won my sympathies.

You could choose to wear pants that fit.... just sayin. What is the deal with fucking baggies? Why does your tribe want to look like that? Is it just to piss off taxpayers like me????? "Pants on the ground... pants on the ground... lookin like a fool with your pants on the ground."

Are they still sagging in Detroit? That has peaked, here.

I see it as normal rebellion. Everybody should go thru a phase of rejecting the received wisdom of their upbringing. Explore the boundaries of propriety & received wisdom. Then make an informed decision to retreat back to The Shire, or establish new boundaries.

Yeah,it doesn't seem like a phase for the underclass... perpetual juvenile delinquency. But maybe that's an appropriate response to being perpetually infantilized by a welfare state? A symptom not a root cause?

I'd also speculate that dressing like a neat 'good boy' is associated with mommy controlling how a child looks-- so offending mommy's tame sensibility is an early form of asserting independence/ which evolves into a symbol of masculine virility... being strong-enough to resist the nanny state's crummy employee-uniform.

Also-- playing a game you can't win is a losing proposition. So intentionally-losing is a way to subvert that outcome. There are little details of the 'right' way for a classy person to present themselves-- which a trashy person can't correctly emulate. So they veer the opposite way & pretend (or convince themselves) they never wanted to win the gold medal, anyway.

[dogen]

The plot has an unfolding story with a "malevolent force" in it, plus as you work your way to the center of the universe, things will get weirder and weirder, including life forms. Anyways, the video isn't about how procedural generation works, but about their team avoids the problems that others have with randomness and boringness. But the game's not for everyone. I can't even start playing minecraft because it's so ugly. However, NMS is so stunning graphically and has enough uniqueness, that even if I do ever get tired of it someday, it'll take a long time for that to happen. And I know you don't like their assets much, but I think they have really cute assets! :)

SN, you keep complaining about the ugliness of Minecraft, but have you ever seen how it looks witg a decent texture pack and shader mods? E.g.,

[youtube]HrLUuGRxJuk[/youtube]

[John D]

Partly I just talk out of my ass because I am frustrated.

You've re-won my sympathies.

You could choose to wear pants that fit.... just sayin. What is the deal with fucking baggies? Why does your tribe want to look like that? Is it just to piss off taxpayers like me????? "Pants on the ground... pants on the ground... lookin like a fool with your pants on the ground."

Are they still sagging in Detroit? That has peaked, here.

I see it as normal rebellion. Everybody should go thru a phase of rejecting the received wisdom of their upbringing. Explore the boundaries of propriety & received wisdom. Then make an informed decision to retreat back to The Shire, or establish new boundaries.

Yeah,it doesn't seem like a phase for the underclass... perpetual juvenile delinquency. But maybe that's an appropriate response to being perpetually infantilized by a welfare state? A symptom not a root cause?

I'd also speculate that dressing like a neat 'good boy' is associated with mommy controlling how a child looks-- so offending mommy's tame sensibility is an early form of asserting independence/ which evolves into a symbol of masculine virility... being strong-enough to resist the nanny state's crummy employee-uniform.

Also-- playing a game you can't win is a losing proposition. So intentionally-losing is a way to subvert that outcome. There are little details of the 'right' way for a classy person to present themselves-- which a trashy person can't correctly emulate. So they veer the opposite way & pretend (or convince themselves) they never wanted to win the gold medal, anyway.

It is time for me to go to bed... but I just had a nice walk with my Danish exchange student and she explained they have something called a "bear gift". A bear gift is something that looks like a good gift, but it is worse in the end. She said it is like when parents do everything for their kids when they are young, but then the kids can't take care of themselves when they are adults. A bear gift.

Is welfare a bear gift? Probably sometimes.... maybe most of the time. A bear gift.

[jimhabegger]

It's all about equality of outcome vs. equality of treatment (with a parallel distinction re. the definition of "egalitarian"). You can't have both without contradiction.

I agree with that distinction, and that there's a conflict of interest between them. I see aiming for equality of outcome as guaranteed to result in injustices. I haven't thought about whether the same is true of aiming for equality of treatment. I think that what most people would see as equality of treatment is also guaranteed to result in injustices.

Partly what I think is needed is equal access to education, training, knowledge, contributing to knowledge, and consideration for our ideas, interests, concerns and possibilities in life.

[sp0tlight]

It's not a show it's an old game

That's free to play. https://www.gog.com/game/beneath_a_steel_sky (hope I'm not :nin: ed)

[Service Dog]

That is the definition of honor? Shooting each other in drive-by or popping somebody in the back of the head during a drug deal? http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new ... -way-teen/
http://komonews.com/news/local/federal- ... other-life
Yeah. It's about honor, not about trying to make quick money dealing drugs and enforcing turf. It all about people dealing with the lack of accountability, not hos, drugs, power and finding it just too damn difficult to work your way through life. Not romantic enough, better to bust a cap a slap a bitch.

I'm really glad your version isn't romatisized or anything.

Today we learned you're pro-food & anti- ghetto art parasites. You're opposed to teenagers committing murder. Any more puerile insights you'd like to share? 20 more minutes until midnight. Howabout 'Ghostbusters doesnt look as good as the original?'

[sp0tlight]

So, X-men: Apocalypse was a piece of shit movie.

So disappoint.

I liked the last two, but this one smelled of rat from a mile. Maybe I'll stream it in the future. If our Netfilx will stop looking like a bucher shop in the 80s.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hc4_Jnlxmnk/S ... arybp0.jpg

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

That is the definition of honor? Shooting each other in drive-by or popping somebody in the back of the head during a drug deal? http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new ... -way-teen/
http://komonews.com/news/local/federal- ... other-life
Yeah. It's about honor, not about trying to make quick money dealing drugs and enforcing turf. It all about people dealing with the lack of accountability, not hos, drugs, power and finding it just too damn difficult to work your way through life. Not romantic enough, better to bust a cap a slap a bitch.

I'm really glad your version isn't romatisized or anything.

Today we learned you're pro-food & anti- ghetto art parasites. You're opposed to teenagers committing murder. Any more puerile insights you'd like to share? 20 more minutes until midnight. Howabout 'Ghostbusters doesnt look as good as the original?'

Nice of you to address my points. Honor that shit is not. You can romanticize and apologize, but it's a problem, not the solution. Glad we sorted that out.

[John D]

That is the definition of honor? Shooting each other in drive-by or popping somebody in the back of the head during a drug deal? http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new ... -way-teen/
http://komonews.com/news/local/federal- ... other-life
Yeah. It's about honor, not about trying to make quick money dealing drugs and enforcing turf. It all about people dealing with the lack of accountability, not hos, drugs, power and finding it just too damn difficult to work your way through life. Not romantic enough, better to bust a cap a slap a bitch.

I'm really glad your version isn't romatisized or anything.

Today we learned you're pro-food & anti- ghetto art parasites. You're opposed to teenagers committing murder. Any more puerile insights you'd like to share? 20 more minutes until midnight. Howabout 'Ghostbusters doesnt look as good as the original?'

I thought I was going to bed... but my wife told me to rub her feet while we watch a stupid TV show. I think I am feeling frustrated and Bunny is too... and you are too. Life is a bitch. Don't know what to do. I really actually like people, but they make me crazy.

I am actually not such an asshole as I sound.

Still thinking about seeing where you whore around in NYC... haha.

I don't see many people with pants on the ground these days. It does seem less popular.

I'm thinking about getting a classic Colt revolver. Cool gun. Hmmmm.

[Cnutella]

]

Today we learned you're pro-food & anti- ghetto art parasites. You're opposed to teenagers committing murder. Any more puerile insights you'd like to share? 20 more minutes until midnight. Howabout 'Ghostbusters doesnt look as good as the original?'

Speaking of which (and this is the last GB thing I'm gonna post, I swear), Red Letter Media have weighed in. Long review:

HUEKreyTkvA

[Cnutella]

[youtube]HUEKreyTkvA[/youtube]

[Aneris]

It's all about equality of outcome vs. equality of treatment (with a parallel distinction re. the definition of "egalitarian"). You can't have both without contradiction.

I agree with that distinction, and that there's a conflict of interest between them. I see aiming for equality of outcome as guaranteed to result in injustices. I haven't thought about whether the same is true of aiming for equality of treatment. I think that what most people would see as equality of treatment is also guaranteed to result in injustices.

Partly what I think is needed is equal access to education, training, knowledge, contributing to knowledge, and consideration for our ideas, interests, concerns and possibilities in life.

Only that the premises are bunk. Fitst, Equality of Outcome (EoO) vs Equality of Treatment (EoT) is a false dichotomy. You can treat most people equally, but help some a little, for example. Neither are you treating everyone equally, nor will some help equalize the outcomes. There are infinite possibilities on how much support and in which ways whom gets.

In addition, EoT can in fact not mean equal treatment as it seems to imply at first. It looks like that everything was fair this way, everyone is treated the same. But now enter the real world: everyone can pay, say $5,000 a year a for good education. Everyone has the exact same conditions, only that some people never have that money. Or how about, “when you own property (land), you can vote”. Fair and nice, everyone is allowed to own land. But some are never in that position. In the real world, the starting conditions are never the same, or even comparable, hence EoT by the letter is blatantly unfair. But that doesn't mean that you need to guarantee the same outcome for everyone. You can try to even out the starting conditions and try to make things fair. Obviously, this the starting point of many a political disagreement.

[sp0tlight]

Ein 17-Jähriger hat in einem Regionalzug bei Würzburg mehrere Reisende attackiert und dabei vier von ihnen schwer verletzt. Er war laut Polizei mit einer Axt und einem Messer bewaffnet.

Why won't Germany pass stricter assault rifle bans?!

How many people died? How many would die if he could get a gun easily?

[Aneris]

<snip>
Still, it's not as bad as Greg Laden's infamously ludicrous effort. Ye gods, that was some funny shite:

She was discontinuity personified when she walked into that dark and dingy tavern, this den of mean scruffy men with beards. She was very white, except her hair which was off white, and of medium height and somewhat stocky build with very large head. She was clad in an enigmatically loud pastel pants suit, wore eye glasses that could have doubled as the marquee for a casino on the Las vegas strip, and sported a hairdo that went all the way to the top, and money. You couldn't literally see the money, but you could tell it was there...

Now quietly departed from Amazon, it seems. Oh well.

:laughing-rollingyellow:

This is real?

[jimhabegger]

It's all about equality of outcome vs. equality of treatment (with a parallel distinction re. the definition of "egalitarian"). You can't have both without contradiction.

I agree with that distinction, and that there's a conflict of interest between them. I see aiming for equality of outcome as guaranteed to result in injustices. I haven't thought about whether the same is true of aiming for equality of treatment. I think that what most people would see as equality of treatment is also guaranteed to result in injustices.

Partly what I think is needed is equal access to education, training, knowledge, contributing to knowledge, and consideration for our ideas, interests, concerns and possibilities in life.

Only that the premises are bunk. Fitst, Equality of Outcome (EoO) vs Equality of Treatment (EoT) is a false dichotomy. You can treat most people equally, but help some a little, for example. Neither are you treating everyone equally, nor will some help equalize the outcomes. There are infinite possibilities on how much support and in which ways whom gets.

In addition, EoT can in fact not mean equal treatment as it seems to imply at first. It looks like that everything was fair this way, everyone is treated the same. But now enter the real world: everyone can pay, say $5,000 a year a for good education. Everyone has the exact same conditions, only that some people never have that money. Or how about, “when you own property (land), you can vote”. Fair and nice, everyone is allowed to own land. But some are never in that position. In the real world, the starting conditions are never the same, or even comparable, hence EoT by the letter is blatantly unfair. But that doesn't mean that you need to guarantee the same outcome for everyone. You can try to even out the starting conditions and try to make things fair. Obviously, this the starting point of many a political disagreement.

That covers a lot of what I was thinking.

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

That is the definition of honor? Shooting each other in drive-by or popping somebody in the back of the head during a drug deal? http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new ... -way-teen/
http://komonews.com/news/local/federal- ... other-life
Yeah. It's about honor, not about trying to make quick money dealing drugs and enforcing turf. It all about people dealing with the lack of accountability, not hos, drugs, power and finding it just too damn difficult to work your way through life. Not romantic enough, better to bust a cap a slap a bitch.

I'm really glad your version isn't romatisized or anything.

Today we learned you're pro-food & anti- ghetto art parasites. You're opposed to teenagers committing murder. Any more puerile insights you'd like to share? 20 more minutes until midnight. Howabout 'Ghostbusters doesnt look as good as the original?'

I thought I was going to bed... but my wife told me to rub her feet while we watch a stupid TV show. I think I am feeling frustrated and Bunny is too... and you are too. Life is a bitch. Don't know what to do. I really actually like people, but they make me crazy.

I am actually not such an asshole as I sound.

Still thinking about seeing where you whore around in NYC... haha.

I don't see many people with pants on the ground these days. It does seem less popular.

I'm thinking about getting a classic Colt revolver. Cool gun. Hmmmm.

I'm not at all frustrated by the conversation here. I'm amused that anybody would try to justify gang culture without being full-blown SJW, but we all have our blind spots. I like SD's stories, his societal prescriptions somewhat less. But I still like the guy.

Lemme know by PM if you want to *ahem* pull the trigger on the cowboy gun. I have a fair bit of experience with such, from trick shooting to marksmanship. I used to teach gun safety and marksmanship, back in the day.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Ein 17-Jähriger hat in einem Regionalzug bei Würzburg mehrere Reisende attackiert und dabei vier von ihnen schwer verletzt. Er war laut Polizei mit einer Axt und einem Messer bewaffnet.

Why won't Germany pass stricter assault rifle bans?!

How many people died? How many would die if he could get a gun easily?

Oder ein Lastwagen.

[Brive1987]

Hey Keating - what time is beer o'clock ?

[Brive1987]

Post COB