Sociotard

Drunk driving may not get you fired, as long as you aren't driving professionally or embarrass the company when arrested. You're just arrested. That's a legal issue. In some states, marijuana is legal. People still get fired for using. That isn't a legal issue. Its a liability thing.

Marijuana may help opioid addicts get clean. Well, clean of opioids anyway. (My doubts linger. I can imagine it working in the physiological sense. Maybe even treat the chronic pain that can lead to opioid addiction in the first place. But using marijuana will get you fired, even if used off-duty. It is my understanding that people in a bad situation (like unemployment) are more likely to get addicted. Although Wikipedia says that the "Rat Park" experiment hasn't been reproduced well.)

Is everybody following the Brett J. Talley judicial appointment? He's one of the district judge appointments Trump has procured. The Senate Judiciary committee has not been kind (and for good reasons). The American Bar Association has voted that he is not qualified for this position. It gets better: The vote was unanimous (14 plus one abstention). Its the first "unanimous not qualified" since 2006. He has never tried a case, or argued a motion, and he has practiced law for a whopping three years. Oh, but he does have a prolific, solidly conservative blog. In case you thought the ABA was a bunch of unfair left-wingers. The committee approved him anyway (along partisan lines). It's no secret that when a party is power they try to pack the lifetime appointments with young, ideologically correct judges. I mean, generally they try to get qualified judges while they're at it, but whatever. He did not mention that he is married to a White House lawyer. The questionnaire. requests relationships "likely to present potential conflicts of interest", and he didn't mention he is married to Ann Donaldson, the chief of staff to the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II. So either he lied or he messed up filling out a legal form, and I'm not sure which is worse. The Senate is going to vote on him soon. Just . . . wow.

Ah, but those are democracies. Did the people have the government take away guns to make them safer, or did they let the government take the guns because they felt safe enough. For example, Australia had a homicide rate an order of magnitude smaller than that of the United States BEFORE the 1996 tightening of gun laws

But do they have fewer murders because they have fewer guns, or do they have fewer guns because there are fewer murders (i.e., people have less motive to get their own protection) (something I idly wondered the other day)

I'm not sure they get as much of a thrill from vista's. Humans are super vision-oriented. Humans who sought out and enjoyed vistas were more likely to identify food sources/threats over a large area. Thus, we evolved to like a big view. Dogs are much more dependent on scent and hearing, and they're low to the ground in the best of times. I bet goats like a nice view though.

Gun shows are fairly unpopular targets for spree shooters, who want the big numbers. Offices, churches, schools, theaters etc are much more common. That's coming out as a anti-gun-control argument and I don't mean it to. But the fact remains, your scenario seems unlikely. 9 Faith leaders on the "thoughts and prayers" bit said after every tragedy

I suspect much will be made of the Texas church shooter being shot by an armed citizen. I poked through a few conservative forums and the sentiment that people should not go to church unarmed was expressed

Their nuke test collapsed surrounding tunnels, killing about 100, plus killing another 100 who went in for rescue work. The conspiracy theorist in me wondered if it was really sabotage (US or China) but I'm assured that is unlikely. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punggye-ri_Nuclear_Test_Site_tunnel_collapse Meanwhile, one of Trump's appointments for Judge got a unanimous Not Qualified from the Bar. His review before the Judiciary Committee was . . . entertaining. And yes, that rating being unanimous is unusual. https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-court-pick-rated-apos-230405192.html

I think arguing that the above link was a common conservative opinion would be difficult.

I thought the tonal awkwardness came from referencing different 80s source material. A bit of bronze age X Men, maybe some blade runner. This, as opposed to the Spielberg/King source of the rest.

Absolutely. There is no limit on his pardon power. And if anybody boobed about it, he'd just say "Mark Rich" and move on.

Again, I'm impressed how well the White House is pivoting to make this Hillary's scandal, with the unmasking and the funding reveal. And no matter how this plays out, future Republicans will feel justified using Unmasking against opponents, and leaking unsubstantiated dossiers to boot.

Spa day just isn't the same when you have to bring the kids

I have to admit, I'm impressed with the Judo-style reversal Trumps team is doing vis-a-vis the Trump-Russia dossier. I still don't get why it was wrong for the DNC/Clinton Campaign to pay for dirt. Isn't that what all politicians do? http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/10/25/fusion-gps-fallout-dnc-clinton-fbi-take-heat-after-bombshell-that-dems-funded-trump-dossier.html That and the increased attention to the Unmasking scandal. I will admit, that one looks bad.

The problem is, I don't even know what honor would look like. What courage would look like. What virtue would look like. What wisdom would look like. If we replaced all the politicians? Then what? If we don't investigate, we don't learn from our mistakes. We don't have a public discussion about why the US is meddling in Nigeria and what our interests are. If we do, I can see no other outcome but blame and recrimination. Do you know a third path,?

What bothers me is that this is similar enough to Benghazi that we can see there is no justice, only politics. The Republican Congress will not investigate thoroughly, because of politics. If this were a Democratic Congress, they would launch dozens of investigations and inquiries. This would also not be justice. This would also be politics. There is no goodness. There is no righteousness. There is only politics. There is only tribalism. There is only factionalism. We are lost. All is lost.

I was amused when I read through a history textbook from Central America that referred to us as "Estadounidoense", or United-states-ese

Naive and disillusioned Britons returning from Syria should not be prosecuted, says terror law watchdog Wow. Magnanimity in its purest form. You across the pond have my respect.

You may want to ease your mother into the fact that incumbent presidents almost always win reelection. Oh, I think his party might do badly in the midterms. The US seems to have a preference for divided government, in that the presidents party often takes a beating in midterm elections. Barring a big ol' recession, I don't see him losing in 2020 though. And, apologies to your mother, I can't bring myself to hope for that. I mean, given the cycle of things, we're kind of due on, but I still won't hope for one.

He didn't just take off a shirt. Acknowledged that this is the internet, but accounts of him showing off his member, including commenting on it to reporters and staff while peeing, are legion. There's enough accounts that at least some of them have to be true. Trump comments on his, but he doesn't pull it out while doing so.

Given that we have the witness of three people, and one is a sitting member of Congress, and the President's credibility is what it is, I will assume the exchange happened as the wife described. I am not convinced the President intended to be disrespectful. It felt more like the clumsy statement of a man who is just bad at expressing condolences, like he was trying to pepper in a shot of "not my fault" with his "I'm sorry". I suspect the president feels like he is honest when he says he was not disrespectful, because he wasn't trying to offend the wife. I can't even blame him too hard for flubbing the name. I know I flub names all the time. I mean, were I to make these calls I would give myself a script with the names on it so I didn't make the mistake, but I can still empathize. Anyway, in the scope of presidential dickery, this isn't all that remarkable. Remember the time LBJ showed off his penis to a reporter?

Reading about the way "deaths of despair" seem to target Trump's base, I can only conclude that they really are hurting. Not just wounded pride or quiet racism. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://aese.psu.edu/directory/smm67/Election16.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwiP6bGV-fjWAhVC32MKHVEfCmAQFggmMAA&usg=AOvVaw1LDMeHAGCEg6u4_cHdHrBh

If it weren't video I would have assumed Photoshop.

"Hey kids, you wanna know where gold comes from?"