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Comment Re:Yeah right (Score 0, Troll) 138

Congratulations you have avoided natural selection once again.......The "huge" parts of the population that do not have normal immune systems use a disproportionate amount of the healthcare dollars. If you were forced to pay your bills out of your pocket, I suspect you wouldn't go to the supermarket to get sneezed on.

The GP's assertion that the flu hype is a money making effort is in no way refuted by your claim 'that you got sick so there must be no hype'.

Epi

Comment Re:Ah, paranoia (Score 1) 746

the linked wiki article refers to a small arms survey. this survey is based on manufacture and importation. It routinely states that it makes no distinction between illicit guns and legally purchased ones. So this is total guns.

You said that corpses are much easier to count. Why is the united states with less than 5% of the global population and between 35-50% of the worlds small arms not just full of bodies in the streets.

Your link supplies a higher percentage of deaths by firearm. I am not sure that this is a useful statistic clearly Thailand had a high percentage. I don't doubt that there is very high rate of homicide by firearm in these 2 country's. SA 74/100000 Thailand 33/100000 and the US 3.7/100000. Are there other factors that may be to blame besides the amount of guns? The US seems to have a much higher number of guns and not nearly the homicide by gun rate.

It's too bad that you live in a country with such oppressive firearm laws that you have to purchase on the street from corrupt police officers.

I think we could go back and forth forever. There doesn't seem to be good enough data to sway either of us.

Comment Re:Ah, paranoia (Score 1) 746

I am having trouble following your logic. You seem to say that South Africa and Thailand have very high rates of gun ownership and high crime rates. wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gun_ownership shows that the Us has 90guns per 100 people. Thialand has 16/100 and South Africa 13/100 these are 1/6 to 1/7 of the gun ownership rate. The wiki page is quick to point out that these numbers are not private ownership. I suspect that in other countries besides the US the private ownership is very low. I am glad that the Us hasn't had a military coup in the last few years like Thailand.

And before you tell me that US citizens with guns are unable to stop a military coup, It seems that a hand full of militants in Afghanistan and Iraq have given the US military a lot of work lately.

Epi

Comment Re:Ah, paranoia (Score 1) 746

>

And not only will xenophobes be able to get Muslims kicked off planes for suspicious terroristicky activity (i.e. speaking in Arabic or praying), they can now get shot, too!

Hmm according to this there are 18 mill people in florida http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=population+florida&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g9 The wiki links shows 600000 current ccw permit holders. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed_carry_in_the_United_States The math seems to show 3.3333% of the population of Florida has a permit. I quess that means that if you go to McDonalds at least one person around you will have a permit. Probably not carrying but maybe. Why haven't the things you talked about happened already? Haven't seen the news where permit holders went on a rampage like the new york police or any reports of permit holders running amok shooting Muslims. I think you might also be surprised at the level of training that most private shooters have. Most police can barley qualify with their firearm. While the civilians are out winning competitions and practicing a lot more. Who is buying up all of the ammo causing a shortage???? Not the police......still dont see the crazy people that you seem to be talking about.... Ill keep looking. I hope you start.

Comment Re:Ah, paranoia (Score 1) 746

I know I'm being kind of pedantic, but I find your use of "criminal behavior" to describe shootings to be disingenuous.

Criminal behavior, on the other hand, is more like robbery, rape, arson, or even drug dealing, and are far more common. I'm not sure there are too many cases where a gun in such events would be beneficial to the victim. In fact, it usually has the opposite effect, where the aggressor gets an additional advantage after taking the gun.

with just a quick search of something that happened in the last month. If you listen for these on the news you will start hearing more. I have been very surprised that defensive use with a firearm is making it to the mainstream media with more frequency. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32426383/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

I Know that with a little time I could inundate you with articles of a similar nature. The NRA (I know it's a bad word) reprints articles verified from smaller news agencies at, least 5 monthly, with defensive uses from criminal behavior.

And stopping or preventing organized crime with a gun amounts to vigilanteism, which is also frowned upon.

I am pretty sure that I never suggested stopping organized crime or vigilante behavior at all. The parent asked for evidence to support citizens stopping mass shootings and I provided. then you asked for info supporting private citizens stopping "criminal behavior " I provided it. Maybe a little more research instead of just repeating what you hear, especially about getting your gun taken away and used against you. In fact if you read this article the apparent "victims" took away the attackers weapon and then chased them away with a knife. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/sfl-robbery-lake-bn081009,0,821164.story

I do not think that everyone should go out and get a gun! People have a responsibility to train themselves on proper control and safety measures including retention and not shooting your neighbor. If people took the time to be trained and used firearms appropriately I believe we would be safer.

Comment Re:Ah, paranoia (Score 5, Informative) 746

you mean like this????

Pearl highschool "However, assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieved a .45 pistol from the glove compartment of his truck and subdued Woodham inside his mother's car." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_High_School_shooting

or

Colorado church shooting. "Chief Richard Myers called the Colorado Springs church security staffer "a courageous security staff member who probably saved many lives." http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/09/church.shooting/

Before you say that the church security office was a trained individual. please read about the story. as I remember it the church had some word that something might happen and they asked a few people to act as security guards. "
At this point, Jeanne Assam, a church member volunteering as a church security guard, opened fire on Murray with her personally owned concealed weapon" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Colorado_YWAM_and_New_Life_shootings

While I agree that these 2 incidents do not prove the value of CCW. they make a clear statement that not only professionally trained law enforcement officers stop these type of crimes. There are many under reported cases of private citizens stopping criminal behavior with a firearm.

Epi

Networking

Submission + - Ultra low power home servers - what are my options 1

An anonymous reader writes: OK Slashdot — I'm looking for suggestions. While at work and away from home, I find that it would often be nice to have access to a trusted machine.

The problem is, leaving on my desktop PC is completely overkill, as the functions I need are quite simple.

Does anyone have any suggestions for low power device that could handle the following functions?

1. A way to securely connect to the machine and use it as a proxy to instant message, email, etc. (I don't want my work reading everything I write)

2. The ability to download files overnight, via FTP or bittorrent, to an SD card / USB drive / etc. I realize that some routers currently have this feature.

3. (more demanding) A secure web browser that lets me browse from work with privacy

Now, option #3 probably means this will end up being something closer to a small form factor / atom-based custom PC, but that's really more than I want to spend. Additionally, these will probably draw more power than necessary.

Are there any options out there for around $50-$100 that could let me do the very basics? I recall reading about some PC's that plug directly into the electrical outlet, but they seemed to have limited functionality.

What do you think?
Businesses

Nokia Gives Carriers a Cut of App Store Sales 13

Robbie B writes "Nokia mobile users will be able to pay for apps from the Ovi App Store on their mobile phone bill. Nokia is working on billing relationships with mobile operators around the globe, according to the story. Nokia developers will subsequently have to share their spoils with mobile operators should consumers choose mobile phone billing over the credit card option. That aside, the terms and conditions of the app store look to be quite fair — more in the style of Apple and Android (no fees for each app or update uploaded) than the terms of Windows Mobile Marketplace or Blackberry App World."
Microsoft

Silverlight 2.0 Released 164

rfernand79 writes "Via Scott Guthrie's Blog for Microsoft, we find out that Silverlight 2.0 has been released. The blog post notes some interesting statistics, including the magnitude of video streamed during the Olympics and the Democratic National Convention (both using Silverlight). 'Hello Worlds' and educational links are included in the post."

Comment Re:Interesting... (Score 1) 443

Its really not that hard. Like I said practice practice practice. I have shot targets in the air. I just missed more than I hit. If you read about shooting sports I think you will find that many of the people that shoot regularly (more that once every 3 months ) are very accurate. And the gp said that it was impossible unless your on TV. That is what I was talking about. It's not nearly impossible just difficult.

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