By Steve Greenberg - Freelance, Los Angeles * Posted 9/12/2009 12:00:00 AM
Technorati Tags: civil discourse,steve greenberg
Monday, September 14, 2009
Don’t bring up gun control if you don’t want to face the wrath of extremists!
My column “Let’s face it, no one will take the high road” received a lot of attention yesterday. Most of it negative, and coming from over a dozen blogs featuring NRA poster children. The Times-Standard Forum is full of examples. Comments under yesterday’s blog, which carried the column, are some more examples.
Despite the fact that I said I didn’t want to take away everyone’s guns, the idea that I dared to suggest there should be more safeguards against assault weapons awakened the wrath of extremists.
Talk about irony. I was talking with a friend in Fortuna today and he told me that he sold his shotgun. He explained that he knew a guy that would sell it for him, and it took him less than 24 hours to get $350 for it. Did anyone pay taxes or get their fingerprints taken during this transaction? No. Now, how often do you think that happens nationwide? It starts to get scary when you reflect upon it.
Related subject - Click here to read:
“Ban Assault Weapons”
Meanwhile, would you like your very own assault/automatic weapon? No problem! Just go here and they’ll be glad to take care of you.
I found another web site that I highly recommend the NRA crowd go to. Maybe it’ll bring them down to earth. Try it, click here and read on.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Let's face it, no one will take the high road to gun control
By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard
Posted: 09/13/2009 01:27:16 AM PDT
The Beatles were spot on with their song lyrics that suggested “Happiness is a warm gun.” That gun has to have bullets, and these are at a premium right now, for several reasons.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) scare tactics claimed when President Obama came into office he would take people's warm guns away from them.
The response was almost immediate. Sales of guns and bullets skyrocketed on this rumor. And make no mistake. It was a rumor. That fact doesn't seem to bother the people who went on a buying spree. There seems to be no end to this spree while people believe they may lose the constitutional right to purchase and own weapons.
In California alone, about 60,000 more guns were sold in the first seven months of this year, than in the same period last year, a 26 percent increase, according to the state Attorney General's Office. Click here to read the rest of this column.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Who reads this blog?
Every now and then I like to talk about visitors to this blog.
My stat counter tells me that I have a lot of international viewers, and that I average about 500 visitors daily. The majority of viewers still come form the USA, but the gap has been narrowing this past year.
Just for fun, I picked out a segment of the readers – people in schools. They can be students or administrative staff, but they all have education connections.
Here’s a 24 hour list from Sept 10th to Sept. 11th:
Westmont College, Santa Barbara; San Francisco State University; Miami Dade College, Florida; University of Idaho; Department of Education & Training, New South Wales, Australia; Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky; Colorado Springs School District, Colorado; Elk Grove School District, California; City College of New York; Palomar Community College District, San Marcos, California; Rice University, Houston College; Georgia Department of Education; The School District of Lee County, Florida; Gorseinon College of Fe, Gorseinon, Swansea, United Kingdom; North Carolina Research & Education Network; Jordan School District, South Jordan, Utah; Wake County Public Schools, Raleigh, North Carolina; University of Mississippi; Alabama Research Education Network; Art-Institute-Of-California, Costa Mesa, California; Utah Valley State College; California State University of Chico; Bureau of Indian Education, Winslow, Arizona; Denver Public Schools, Colorado; San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, California; East Side Union High School, San Jose, California; and the Hawaii Department of Education, in Honolulu.
Technorati Tags: universities
Body Worlds plans cadaver show dedicated to sex
Just when I think I’ve heard it all something like this comes up. It’s bizarre, weird, and disgusting.
Nothing is sacred anymore. There’s no concern that even death is being exploited for the amusement of gawkers.
Throw in sex, and you can attract more visitors. What does that say about this new millennium?
By Jason Rhodes –
German anatomists plan a new show dedicated solely to dead bodies having sex as part of the Body Worldsexhibitions.
Gunther von Hagens and his wife Angelina Whalley show corpses prepared using a technique invented by von Hagens called "plastination," that removes water from specimens and preserves them with silicon rubber or epoxy resin.
"It's not my intention to show certain sexual poses. My goal is really to show the anatomy and the function," Body Worlds creative director Whalley told Reuters in an interview, adding the sex exhibition may open next year.
Body Worlds exhibitions, visited by 27 million people across the world, have been criticized for presenting entire corpses, stripped of skin to reveal the muscles and organs underneath, in lifelike and often theatrical positions.
Von Hagens has already triggered uproar with a new exhibit which shows just two copulating corpses. Click here to read the rest at Reuters.
Friday, September 11, 2009
The Ten Most Revealing Psych Experiments
Psychology is the study of the human mind and mental processes in relation to human behaviors - human nature.
Due to its subject matter, psychology is not considered a 'hard' science, even though psychologists do experiment and publish their findings in respected journals.
Some of the experiments psychologists have conducted over the years reveal things about the way we humans think and behave that we might not want to embrace, but which can at least help keep us humble. That's something.
The Robbers Cave Experiment is a classic social psychology experiment conducted with two groups of 11-year old boys at a state park in Oklahoma, and demonstrates just how easily an exclusive group identity is adopted and how quickly the group can degenerate into prejudice and antagonism toward outsiders.
Researcher Muzafer Sherif actually conducted a series of 3 experiments. In the first, the groups banded together to gang up on a common enemy. In the second, the groups banded together to gang up on the researchers! By the third and final experiment, the researchers managed to turn the groups on each other.
Click here to see the other nine at Brainz.
Technorati Tags: robbers cave experiment,psych research
FAIL: Why pick today for a Coast Guard exercise?
Okay…someone screwed up. I know that the Coast Guard training exercise was intercepted by someone who thought a real attack was happening, but why did they have to have this training event today of all days? On 911!
Doesn’t anyone know anything about “timing” for such events? You gotta wonder. Officials are already putting a spin on this and calling it a “good teaching moment.” Vice Adm. Currier made it clear to the press that his people didn’t do anything wrong, and there won’t be any apologies forthcoming.
Currier said this morning that the Coast Guard will review the training incident along the Potomac River that triggered security concerns about President Obama on the eighth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Click here to read the whole story at CNN
A Handy, New Bible Interpretation Guide!
If you can keep an open mind, then check out this satirical site.
Betty Bowers has a sense of the absurd when it comes to religion. Some may find this offensive, and if that’s the case with you…don’t view.
Otherwise, click here and go to Bowers’ site to see more.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
It’s was about FREEDOM…
Easy Rider sound byte:
They're not scared of you - they're scared of what you represent... what you represent to them is freedom.
Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper have the above conversation minutes before they are blown to pieces by two rednecks in a pick-up truck. The movie was released in 1969.
image via Starstore
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