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Voltaire's "Candide" is a pretty interesting book...... I wish I could read French; I'm sure the English translation isn't quite as good. (here)
Dave Marinaccio's life/humor book, "All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Watching Star Trek", is pretty interesting, probably not what you think.
Rules are very important, but when the rule doesn't fit the situation, the wise implement a rule that does fit that situation.
Starsky & Hutch? Everything this guy needed to know he learned from it.
"Battlefield Earth" (the book) by L. Ron Hubbard is pretty good. But he ruined the ten book series "Mission Earth" by writing a retarded ending to an otherwise wonderful story.
How about that commerical for tea where the British boss from "The Drew Carey Show" says that if tea had been as delicious in the late 1770's, we wouldn't have thrown it into the harbor? (Pretty funny.) (You decide why; I'm sure "ten different people would give ten different answers"....)
Global Warming? How do science people, hopefully using the "Scientific Method", come to different conclusions? I guess it's like everything else. Opinions cloud judgement and point out data to choose.
Here in Texas, supposedly a violent place (or so I've heard) due to "all the guns", all anybody has to do is put some specific wording on a sign (in both English and Spanish, of course) and it's illegal to bring a (from doing much much legal paperwork) licenced-to-carry gun into a place with the sign.
No, I am not a member of the NRA, thank you very much.
Some guy here in Austin is being sentenced for beating another guy to death with a baseball bat.
The guy with the bat will probably end up in prison for longer than the kid that shot the teacher in the head.
I'm sure that a 14 year old teenager is probably more deserving of mercy, though. So maybe our system does work at times? I guess it depends on what you thought of the 14 year old's motives.
Whichever, he's got 28 years to think about it.
I don't know if you've ever seen "Oz" on HBO, but even if you haven't, you need to think if being 14 and spending the next 28 years in prison is any better than being dead. Or if it's worse. But I'm thinking being dead might be better. I don't know; I've never been in prison and I've never been dead.
For whatever their personal reasons, I totally agree with any jury's decision.
For example, in a murder case: If they thought there was no intent, and don't convict of first degree (as in the teenager above), then they are correct; whatever the reason they thought it.
I wasn't on the jury, so how can I second guess them? They decide, and that becomes the truth - that's the rules. I hope.
And yes, I also agree with that other one: The jury said innocent, so he is. The jury was picked by a process that seems to be mostly fair to "both sides".
What? You say that it was rigged and emotion and race and gender? That in a civil trial he was convicted?
The rules for criminal trials (beyond a "reasonable" doubt) are different than they are for civil trials (enough evidence to suggest).
I see the difference as a "Stop evil while protecting against mistakes" kind of thing in one, while a "That's probably true" kind of thing in the other.
It's been said there aren't many drive-by or fast-food shootings in Huntsville, Alabama because anyone pulling out a gun would probably be shot by about half the people around them. I wonder what would have happened in New York if that guy with the pistol on the train hadn't been wrested to the ground. Or if he would tried it at all if he knew 10-70 percent of the other passengers had been "Packing Heat". But I also have to wonder if the people with the guns standing around an incident aren't such good shots, what would happen...
I guess it all equalizes out. Maybe.
But do you need to worry about how good a shot they are if the fact that there are others with guns around stops the act in the first place? Just think about that idea.
The U.S. doesn't seem to be agreeing much with anyone these days. Global Warming, Small Arms, Germ Warfare, Human Rights, Iraq.... Does this mean we're for such things as Germ Warfare, or are these things just badly written? Or both? I wonder sometimes, but there's no dearth of opinions on "why?" in the media or online.
George Moscone, John Lennon, JFK, MLK, Lincoln, Garfield, Yeshua Ben Jacob, Archduke Ferdinand, Julius... All assassinated and/or executed.
Feinstein, Clinton, Hussein.... Neither executed nor assassinated.
Draw your own conclussions.
Nobody has ever proven there's not a God.
And nobody has ever proven there is one either.
Only one person has ever come back to tell us, as far as we know.
Odd. People like to quote Japan's low murder rates but not Switzerland's low murder rates. Japan has an unknown (but very low number) of guns, but in Switzerland, 27.2% of households own them. An even odder thing is that Norway (who are above Japan in homicides, but lower than Switzerland is) has 32% household ownership.
Okay, this is also odd. Great Britain (if we just count England/Wales and Scotland) both have the same laws and the same 4.7% household ownership of guns, but Scotland's murder rate is much higher. I can't find a pattern. Maybe you can.
Another thing is that Ireland has the lowest homicide rate of any of the 38 countries on my list, lower even than Japan's! (Japan is 37th, true.)
The rate for Ireland is, of course, not including Northern Ireland.....
Oh, yes, The U.S. has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world, 39% of households. That's not good nor bad, but I wonder; as I said, Norway is at 32%, so it's not like we're crazy or anything, despite what some say.
But what's also odd is that the murder rate in the U.S. is 9th on the list. I mean, we are violent, bigoted, unfair and all. So why aren't we first? We have "cop killer bullets" and "assault rifles" and such.
What? You want to know who's above the U.S. in murder rates? Okay.
South Africa (1st) followed by Columbia, Estonia, Brazil, Mexico, Philippines, Taiwan, and Northern Ireland (8th) all top the U.S. All have both higher murder rates and higher firearm murder rates; except -- Taiwan has a firearm murder rate around four times lower than ours.
But overall, homicide's higher in Taiwan than in the U.S.
More people get killed in Taiwan than they do here? That's strange. Well, strange depending on to whom you listen.
(By The Way, I am talking percentages above, not raw numbers. Here's the info: The Data, compiled by Dr. Stolinsky)
Ever wonder about stuff?
The major cause of death in war is disease. (Not firearms?) Maybe not recently though. I know up to at least, say, World War II.
The major cause of death in a war from combat-related matters is shrapnel wounds to the chest.
"I never killed anybody. It was the gun!" (From here)
"Guns don't kill people; I kill people." ????????????
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