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Post by bjd on Aug 4, 2019 16:47:20 GMT
I confess I no longer read those articles. I heard on the French news that it's the 241st mass shooting this year in the States. That's more than one a day. It's a weird and crazy country.
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Post by questa on Aug 5, 2019 0:13:26 GMT
Is it just the presence of guns or is it also the absence of sanity that produces these killers? After the event there are always the people who will say, "He was always a bit of a loner" or "He was crazy about guns". If the killer survives he will always be found 'not fit to plead due to unsound mind.'
So what makes them go crazy enough to commit mass murder? If I were an investigator I would be looking at the connections between the vivid electronic 'games' that create extreme situations for the gamer to identify with.His adrenal glands pump out more Adrenalin and he gets a 'high'.
This 'flight or fight' response has evolved to be used in short bursts but the gamer can get hooked and need more and more stimulation to get the buzz. Gaming for days at a time he loses touch with reality, plans his own scenario, picks up his weapons and goes out to find the buzz again, this time for real.
I read somewhere that South Korea has set up compulsory rehab centres where schools identify problem gamers and the students stay in the centres with psychological help, counselling, learning woodwork, mechanics etc.Early intervention seemed to be working.
I don't think USA will ever grow out of the gun culture, but work could be done to improve the sanity of gun holders.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 5, 2019 1:21:28 GMT
What I fail to understand is the reticence to register guns. Québec has a hell of a lot of rural and remote northern regions, but in general people register their hunting rifles, just as they register their motor vehicles.
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Post by bjd on Aug 5, 2019 6:38:33 GMT
I don't think it's just gaming. That's an easy excuse for recent killings, but it has been going on for years and not only by people playing video games. It's a combination of too many guns, mental health issues, and certainly other things like a culture in which it is considered a good thing to take things into one's own hands. Not to mention the money earned by arms manufacturers. Trump's hate speech and incitation to violence, at least in speech, does not help, but as I said, it's not just a recent phenomenon.
How many times over the years have we seen pictures of people hugging, holding candles, little signs and stories about the victims? And this is going to continue as long as politicians refuse to take responsibility for what is going on, put in gun control laws, buy back guns and rein in the NRA. Violence would also go down in Central America, because many of the guns used in the violence there come from the States.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 5, 2019 11:54:52 GMT
And here I thought that prayers and candlelight vigils were all that was needed, like when Mum kisses your bobo.
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Post by questa on Aug 5, 2019 12:10:37 GMT
Your Mum's kisses had more therapeutic value than the phrase often used by talking heads who wish they were somewhere else. "Ourthoughtsandprayersarewithyouatthistime.
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 5, 2019 16:36:29 GMT
All those prayers don’t seem to amount to much.
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 7, 2019 9:09:49 GMT
Pence says to spend more time on your knees than on the internet.
Apparently this is an influential and intelligent person
Unbelievable.
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Post by mossie on Aug 7, 2019 10:38:44 GMT
Bible belt and gun belt are one and the same, that is their religion.
Hallelulyah, praise the lord and pass the ammunition.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 7, 2019 14:16:17 GMT
And I don't think Pence was referring to furtive gay sex.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 7, 2019 19:10:00 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 7, 2019 19:50:08 GMT
Yes, I read that. I definitely understand the fear of Latin Americans who sometimes get yelled at just for speaking Spanish. People from the rest of the world just have to worry about being mugged or mowed down by assault weapons.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 7, 2019 19:57:32 GMT
I've often thought the US State Dept. awfully quick to put up travel warnings about other countries, & wonder how it feels about getting a taste of its own medicine. Added to that is my irritation at how often people in the US and in Europe tell me -- tell me, mind you, not ask me -- about how dangerous Mexico is. Oh really?!
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 7, 2019 20:03:46 GMT
I have read more than once that everywhere in Mexico is a bit dangerous... except Oaxaca. I have no idea if Oaxaca is really safer than the rest of the country, but it seems about as accurate as saying that the United States is dangerous, except for Missoula, Montana. (And I read a VERY ugly thing about Missoula today.)
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Post by Kimby on Aug 8, 2019 3:08:02 GMT
Are you thinking of the man who bodyslammed a kid for not taking off his hat for the National anthem, sending him to the hospital with a skull fracture? Was that Missoula?
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 8, 2019 3:55:21 GMT
I don't know if it was Missoula, but the article I read said that it was reported in The Missoulan.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 8, 2019 4:59:21 GMT
I just saw a film clip of Mussolini. He appears to have had very small hands. Significant?
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Post by bjd on Aug 13, 2019 5:16:18 GMT
Now that ICE is rounding up illegal immigrants working in chicken processing plants, and the government is talking about new rules for not letting people who claim benefits stay (today's news), who is going to work in those places? Who is going to pick fruit and vegetables in the agricultural areas?
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 13, 2019 6:08:36 GMT
Oh, undoubtedly it will be those red-blooded Americans who grouse about immigrants stealing all the jobs. They're probably lined up right now, all eager to apply at the chicken plant.
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Post by fumobici on Aug 13, 2019 15:39:51 GMT
Oh, undoubtedly it will be those red-blooded Americans who grouse about immigrants stealing all the jobs. They're probably lined up right now, all eager to apply at the chicken plant. I think the commonly expressed idea that there exist jobs that US citizens won't do is nonsense. The market would quickly determine a price that would be sufficient to motivate USAsians to do any of those jobs if the market were allowed to work. If it turns out you have to pay people $30-40 an hour to work in chicken plants or to pick tomatoes or apples, I don't see any problem stemming from that. It'd be excellent for the economy, the increased marginal costs in products would be more than offset by the increased retail spending by the people working those jobs at better wages. What ticks me off is that the government always goes tough on the poor undocumented workers and *never* puts the owners of the farms and plants in cages. Any business that routinely hires undocumented workers should have their management and owners put into one of those nightmare camps. Not that treating *anyone* inhumanely is ever morally correct, but a little payback to those wealthy exploiters really responsible for the situation wouldn't bother me.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 13, 2019 16:04:27 GMT
Well, we all know that Trump would be in one of those cages if the people employing undocumented workers were punished.
Thirty years ago, the problem was often qualified here as immigrants "eating the bread of the French" by having such jobs, but people aren't stupid enough anymore to say that, although a lot of the same people still want to see an end to immigration.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 14, 2019 10:04:22 GMT
Certainly they are picking the wine grapes.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 15, 2019 14:41:40 GMT
I have no idea if Oaxaca is really safer than the rest of the country, but it seems about as accurate as saying that the United States is dangerous, except for Missoula, Montana. (And I read a VERY ugly thing about Missoula today.) Are you thinking of the man who bodyslammed a kid for not taking off his hat for the National anthem, sending him to the hospital with a skull fracture? Was that Missoula? I don't know if it was Missoula, but the article I read said that it was reported in The Missoulan. Actually Mineral County, not Missoula. At a County Fair rodeo, I think. Lots of patriotic red necks at such places. Missoula is a blue island in a red state. But the Missoulian is published by Lee Enterprises and covers all of Western Montana.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 16, 2019 10:08:22 GMT
Now that Trump wants Greenland, he should just nuke the Danish bastards.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 16, 2019 10:13:10 GMT
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Post by mossie on Aug 16, 2019 10:45:49 GMT
That would give them sooo much more room
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Post by Kimby on Aug 16, 2019 16:56:02 GMT
Are you thinking of the man who bodyslammed a kid at a rodeo for not taking off his hat for the National anthem, sending him to the hospital with a skull fracture? Turns out the body-slammer’s lawyer is actually using the Trump defense, claiming his client believed that because the President of the United States was so supportive of patriotism, and called another body-slammer “my kind of guy”, he was given permission to MAKE the young man respect the national anthem. 😳 (Didn’t help that the kid responded F___ you....)
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 19, 2019 16:29:16 GMT
So look what is on 24-hour special price offer at Amazon Kindle books: It Can’t Happen Here is the only one of Sinclair Lewis’s later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, it is an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America.
Written during the Great Depression, when the country was largely oblivious to Hitler’s aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime, and a liberal press.
Called “a message to thinking Americans” by the Springfield Republican when it was published in 1935, It Can’t Happen Here is a shockingly prescient novel that remains as fresh and contemporary as today’s news. A further quote on the offer ($1.99) page quotes Salon in bold letters: “The novel that foreshadowed Donald Trump’s authoritarian appeal.”—Salonwww.amazon.com/Cant-Happen-Here-Signet-Classics-ebook/dp/B00DGZKU88
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Post by whatagain on Aug 19, 2019 16:38:33 GMT
Someone wrote that if you don't learn history you are condemned to go through it again.
Meanwhile here I am trying to read ´ Der Spiegel a well known and well read weekly newspaper in Germany and it writes very clearly that Germany and USA have never been in such dissonance.
DEutschland is zum Antipoden von Trumps Amerika geworden is quite explicit.
Basically it says more clearly what I read in french and Belgian magazines that Trump is weakening NATO, sabotaging EU and showing no interest in Europe. Der Spiegel writes further that many start seeing US as a greater danger than Russia or china. Something I might be led to believe actually. Adding for the moment.
Europe is starting to understand that we cannot consider USA as friends anymore. And obviously even less partners Took Trump 2 years. Great achievement.
Sigh.
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Post by whatagain on Aug 19, 2019 16:47:44 GMT
Reading further der spiegel says Germany is at bottom of US interest and Trump doesn't even call nor meet Merkel based also (mostly ?) on her stance about immigration. Trump has planned meetings with Poland and Denmark - 2 countries hard against immigration. But has no plan to talk to Angela. Something decoded here as a message. Why would he lose time with people (a woman on top of it) who is not fighting immigration !
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