What I'm seeing here is that guns are dangerous when the person holding it isn't properly trained in how and when to use it.

It's worth noting that of those 30,000 deaths, about 17,000 are suicide. While they're regrettable, they're also matched by an similar number of non-firearm suicides. Clearly, the suicide problem isn't going to be solved by taking away guns. This is not to dismiss these deaths, just to say that blaming them on guns is rather silly.

In the same year I'm examining, accidental firearm deaths ran at about 600. Again, terrible, but accidental deaths by fire was about 5 times higher, and a great deal of these are cause by improperly trained children dealing with their last live fire drill. Personally, I'm not interested in talking about adults foolish enough to fall asleep while smoking of a bed or couch.

Now, let's talk about homicide. This brings us to about 13,000 per year by firearm. Cut/pierce homicides (stabbing fatalities) run about 2,000 per year, or about 1/6 relative to shootings. I'd say that gun control could probably bring the overall number of homicides down, but not by 13,000. How much is hard to say. As much as it's hard to say how much crime and/or gun deaths would go down if everyone was properly trained with a firearm and could be expected to carry at all times.

I personally don't have any firearms, and would only buy them for hunting (long guns, naturally). I also don't have a problem with properly trained people owning them. Personally, with the freedoms purportedly enjoyed in the US, I think it behooves a great number of the population to not only own guns, but take significant training in their use.

Source for above.

So what you're saying is that gun-control laws keep stupid people from killing themselves, thereby raising the average intelligence of the citizenry? Now I see why the government wants to stop him!

I wonder how long it was before the incident in Tienanmen Square that a Chinese person had said that?

Hmm, judging from the movies I've seen, probably a few thousand years...

Allow me to correct myself, since you're merely trying to make me say what you're saying.

Yes, laws can add artificial limitations. I think whether they should is the topic under discussion...

Oh look, another pedophile!

Seriously, I'm just kidding.

While I agree completely with what you're saying, it can be argued that the Canadian content rule has the exact same result. The difference is, one is limited and corporate controlled. The other is much less limited and generally user controlled.

But the two are fundamentally different. With broadcast TV, there is a limited number of sources I can access. This still applies to VOD. Therefore, one can reason that requiring something that promotes Canadian culture is a benefit to us, which is what the purpose of the law is. Note that I'm not required to watch any of that Canadian content on broadcast TV or VOD by my cable provider of choice.

With internet video streaming, I'm not limited to a certain number of sources - in fact, the number of sources is quite large, almost infinite. And I choose what it is I will watch, with the origin of the content being relevant only if I choose for it to be. Note that I only have to watch what I wish to watch.

That is the key difference. In broadcast, a limited medium, the rule allows me to watch Canadian content if I choose to. With the internet, a much less limited, user-accessed medium, no rule is required to allow me to watch Canadian content if I choose to.

Now tell me, given the current paradigm of the internet, how exactly is the CRTC going to promote Canadian content without requiring me to watch it? Requiring Netflix or Google to pay 'comparable' rates for shows no one wants to watch sounds a lot like extortion to me (against both the providers and the consumers). If they want to promote Canadian content, they can start their own streaming service and provide it to Canadian IP addresses for free. They can even include ads for all I care! All they have to do is include it as a condition of the government money they give to these shows to happen here.

And if you think that's a bad idea, do you really think it's worse than requiring Netflix or Google to buy Canadian shows that people don't want? Please keep in mind, the driving force behind their service is to provide content people want to view. (Well, for Netflix. For Youtube, it's to allow any clown to upload their videos and hope someone watches. I'm sure Google will be happy to price match ad profits, like most other channels.) If they could get quality Canadian content for a reasonable price based on the expected viewership, I'm sure they would be all over it.

Keep in mind that pretty much the most expensive option for Teslas tends to be a larger battery pack or a bigger (or extra) motor. It's not merely a trim pack or more speakers.

To be fair, this could solve the donkey population problem we seem to be having...

...maybe we should substitute cheeseburgers.

There is a fundamental difference between reverse engineering and reverse compilation. Copying someone's work, with or without the intermediate step of making it human-readable, is different than examining the functionality of some work and producing an original work that functions the same way (which may still be considered a derived work, depending on what and how it's made).

This is not relevant to whether Mojang is using GPL'd software in a different, related, project or not.

Moreover, testing was at a less critical phase. Nuclear test bans weren't going to get rid of nuclear bombs, or even necessarily improvements in them. It would just slow them down. If they had followed them in the first place.

What has been somewhat more effective is using various means to keep more nations from joining the nuclear club. But that is because getting the details right (the first time) is kind of hard, especially when sabotage is involved. I suspect you'll see a similar trend here, with the big players getting them and then trying to stop the smaller players from getting them.

Sorry, buddy, our motto is "Peace, Order, and Good Government", not "Land of the free, home of the brave". Looks like we got two out of three. And how many of those two do the Americans have?

To be honest, even our government isn't terrible, just often teetering between inept and indifferent.

Sadly, this is also the case in Canada. It's one of the main reasons I prefer to torrent or use Netflix. I'm sure that if I put in the effort I can blame the US, but it's at least as much my nation's fault as theirs. Now, if only Canadian content was required to stand on its own merits, and not required to be played, maybe we would get something that could replace the American drivel that is so much a part of what is broadcast.

Time to watch some old and/or foreign shows on Netflix, and reminisce about my youth.

While much of what you say is true, being mentally handicapped and being an ass are not mutually exclusive.

Congrats, he doesn't have autism. Check out the symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome, another condition on the Autism Spectrum. People with Asperger's tend to find mechanisms to deal with social dysfunction, and suffer social developmental delay, rather than complete retardation. Little things like "non-optional social obligation" would resonate with someone who has Asperger's. Ritual and consistency is also very important to those with Asperger's, such as having "his spot" on the couch, or having a narrow and specific time window in which to have a bowel movement, and a multitude of others. Having specific conversational topics he wants to talk about, and will use very poor techniques to direct others to his topics of choice. Obsessive behaviour about specific topics, far beyond the typical hobbyist (trains). Having a selection of canned responses to certain social situations, rather than a dynamic response to a given situation (in one episode, he talks about his process to turn Barry into his friend). He's been tested for mental health, and passed. But he didn't go to the recommended follow-up diagnosis...

No, he doesn't have classical autism. He doesn't sit in a corner and rock, or scream if strangers touch him (but I suspect he wants to - he does carry sanitizer and refuses to take public transportation, except for trains). But he certainly has been tailored to give many of the signs of stereotypical Asperger's syndrome coupled with high intelligence and a career with little social interaction and a technical focus.