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At 10/22/13 10:25 AM, Proteas wrote:

At 10/22/13 01:02 AM, Fim wrote: I'm not going to get dragged into another 'debate' on here,

So why did you post in this topic?

I duno, I know it's a huge waste of my time. I just get so emotionally wound up/ exasperated every time I hear another news story about a school shooting. I will concede that arguing on teh internet is by definition a pointless thing to do, I should be looking at pictures of cats or something.

Explain how a background check would have prevented the Nevada School Shooting, or any other such school shooting for that matter. As it's my understanding, the kid behind the shooting stole gun from his parents.

You're right, in this instance BC wouldn't have stopped this incident. However school shootings like this are symptomatic of a wider problem, and they are easily sensationalized by the media who generally ignore gun related incidents. Background checks seem to be the mildest method to curb the US' problem with gun violence, and when you factor in the overwhelming public support, the clear humanitarian impact it would have, and how the pros far outweigh the cons, I just find it insane that people are stalling it whenever I gets put to congress. Do you disagree?

Arguing against people who aren't here, baseless claims, arguments centered in appeal to emotion... are you by any chance related to lolomfgisuck, or are you just another anti-gun whackjob who'll disappear the minute you have to start defending your points with logic?

I'm more than happy to defend anything I've got to say in a rational context. I believe that the evidence supports the hypothesis that gun availability is undeniably linked to gun violence, and although I don't think that you can completely get rid of guns in the US I think you can take steps to limit the availability. Doing nothing is not a strategy.

At 10/22/13 07:43 AM, Tony-DarkGrave wrote: stop posting here.

I'll make you a genuine offer Tony, I will stop posting here forever if you will.

Also, stop replying to me. We've been through this whole rigmarole enough times already and I just feel that I'm wasting my time with you because you are never going to change your mind.

and its been proven that 90% figure was bullshit

the gallop study recently found that 83% of Americans want a universal background check. It was the most popular proposition on the whole fucking list.

I'll say it bluntly Tony, you are the problem. People like you and your NRA buddies represent a very very slim minority, and the only reason you win legislatively is because you make campaigning for guns your entire sad pathetic life. Just look at how much you post in this thread. You're updating this thread at least every week deliberately, persistently misinforming people. You don't give up.

I've just heard there's been another school shooting, in Nevada. It's a shame that stories like this are never out of the news for very long.

It's even more depressing to know that inevitably there will be pro gun lobbyists who will use the media attention generated by this tragedy to promote their backward, slogan oreientated, pro gun agenda. The same people who decide to stage a 'guns save lives day' on the anniversary of the newton massacre. Disgusting.

I'm not going to get dragged into another 'debate' on here, but seriously America needs to do something. Why do you not even have background checks yet? Last figures I heard were that 90% of Americans supported that proposition. There is a undeniable link between gun violence and gun availability.

Maybe if you tackled that you would hear less stories like this, admitting you have a problem is the first step towards solving it. Just realise that every tragic event like this makes America seem even more insanely dysfunctional to the rest of the world.

Or I guess you can just ignore it.. Seems to be working. - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24613025

At 10/21/13 06:30 PM, Confucianism wrote:

At 10/21/13 06:29 PM, Fim wrote: and even Jeremy Kyle

. . . They can keep him. At least we still have Stephen Fry and Terry Pratchett.

Ain't nothin betta than jezza

At 10/20/13 10:44 AM, exudaz wrote: Dear England, what happened?

All of our best and brightest seem to migrate across the pond to America :( You've taken our best and brightest, Hugh Laurie, John Oliver, and even Jeremy Kyle

At 10/21/13 12:01 PM, Korriken wrote:

Thanks for a wholly informative, verifiable and non-biased political ramble.

At 10/20/13 03:36 PM, HibiscusMallow wrote:

At 10/19/13 08:01 PM, Fim wrote: Tea party republican defends being on Medicaid while opposing Medicaid

So? There are many situations where someone can use something while opposing it and not be a hypocrite.

How is he not a hypocrite?

For example a slave who does as they are told

That's a very poor example, a slave does not have a choice.

In both these situations it is futile or at great personal cost for them to live by their "morals".

This is the crux of my thread, I assume that the politician is rich enough to not sign up to Medicaid if he really disliked it that much, all he's proved is that he's not willing to put his money where his mouth is.

Do you practise what you preach? Or are you political / social beliefs like ornaments; they are nice to show off but have no practical application.

Also this made me chuckle. Tea party republican defends being on Medicaid while opposing Medicaid Lolol

At 10/19/13 05:59 PM, beakerboy wrote:

At 10/19/13 05:49 PM, Bryan wrote:
Where's Slint for some fedora tipping right now? That's pretty edgy, man. At 17 I'm sure you know all about politics, and everything.

Actually, it takes a cat's intelligence to understand politics are bullshit.

I agree with you that some conservatives can behave like dickbags, you don't need to look very far back in recent history in congress to find examples of that, but play nice. Everyone's entitled to an opinion.

At 10/19/13 05:51 PM, Vinnyy wrote: Why vegetarians? What's wrong with people who live a life of not consuming any meat?

They think they're better than everyone else.

Not all vegetarians are vocal about their beliefs. What I find depressing is that they are in a bit of a lose lose situation when it comes to telling people why they are veggie, because on the one hand they don't want to be preachy but on the other hand I think that people would change their dietary behaviour if they actually knew how fundamentally fucked up the meat industry was.

I thought you were being more literal with 'freaks of nature'... I was going to suggest my best mate the towering 7 foot russian, majestically hairy Nikolai Valuev who proposed to his wife through some poetry he wrote, what a big softie.

What do we have now, like 5 more hours until the world is possibly fucked over by political point scoring?

At least when China rule the planet they won't play chicken with the world economy like the Americans are.

At 10/15/13 08:56 PM, sweet-n-saltynut wrote:
I couldn't agree more and although it would never happen in this country I think it should be illegal to have kids while on it

What a brilliant idea, tell me, how are you going to enforce that?

Does anyone think there's any merit to what qualified nutjob Alex Jones and a few other commentators have been saying, that if this shutdown is still unresolved on the 16th of October Obama can just declare a state of emergency and pass the bill without consent of the house?

At 10/12/13 01:08 AM, illicit wrote:

I like the yellow one better, any chance you could use bigger images? Maybe some Ralph Steadman

http://www.originalprints.com/images/prints/prt20461.jpg

Hows this?

perfect! Cheers sister

At 10/12/13 07:18 PM, kazumazkan wrote: I was thinking about what if they had anbng app you know give socialfeatures payable games or mobile games stream music from ng etc. That I'll be great.

Anything's better than having nothing!

At 10/12/13 05:25 PM, Vinnyy wrote: Chances are if there was a Newgrounds app the only people who would download it or even care about it would be Newgrounds users and as of now the site is currently dying and isn't as popular as it used to be. Therefore, creating a Newgrounds app won't really do this site any good.

Are you joking? If they released a slick, comprehensive app and it got picked up on it could be huge for newgrounds. If it got featured for a week that could bring in millions of new views.

At 10/12/13 11:40 AM, vannila-guerilla wrote: Probably because a lot of older smartphones can't use Flash.

As I already said, that doesn't matter because 1. A lot of content that gets uploaded thesedays isn't flash 2. there's swivel anyway.

It wouldn't help that much most likely, either.

Why do you say that?

At 10/12/13 11:21 AM, Elitistinen wrote: They probably don't have any religion.

I love how you saying they probably don't, as if there's a slight chance they do.

At 10/12/13 11:19 AM, GameChild214 wrote: You mean a newgrounds smartphone app?

I do mean a smartphone app. Android/iphone/youknow

This has been bugging me for a while so I thought I'd ask, why isn't there a newgrounds app?

The big elephant in the room is that this site isn't as popular as it used to be, that's not even debatable, and it seems to me a bit of a no-brainer to try and enter the market of apps where a lot of the attention is shifting.

Even something shitty like an updating page of the 'top 5 movies / games of the day' would be pretty neat. We've moved on from the time where newgrounds just did flash movies, so there's plenty of content on here that would be workable for the smartphone movement which predominantly isn't flash compatible. Not to mention we've got swivel now so some of the best content could be migrated over.

It might be an way to get more people interested in newgrounds and checking out the website further. I'd definitely use it.

Thoughts?

First and foremost, I'm sorry for your loss. I hope you can take something positive out of this and it makes you stronger.

As for the pastor, I think you've got to appreciate the context of what he actually said, he's a pastor doing a speech in a church, and he was probably under impression your mum was a christian. I'm going to presume he didn't know your mum so he probably just said something generic that he would have said at most funerals.

At 10/9/13 01:29 AM, illicit wrote:

At 10/9/13 01:27 AM, illicit wrote:

At 10/8/13 06:44 PM, Fim wrote: I think I asked for a new sig here aaaaages ago, but I either didn't get a response or it wasn't what I wanted.

Can I have something with Hunter S Thompson and a pterodactyl?

Hows this?

or this, with more yellow?

I like the yellow one better, any chance you could use bigger images? Maybe some Ralph Steadman

http://www.originalprints.com/images/prints/prt20461.jpg

I think I asked for a new sig here aaaaages ago, but I either didn't get a response or it wasn't what I wanted.

Can I have something with Hunter S Thompson and a pterodactyl?

At 10/7/13 07:52 AM, Tony-DarkGrave wrote: yeah private prisons aren't the problem nor will they ever be. you know how much paperwork and capital its takes to get a private prison going? try the tens of MILLIONS, not to mention they are put under a microscope for any sort of violations by federal inspections and investigations if anything goes wrong.

It's pretty obvious that these private prisons are a problem tony, when they actively try and influence policy which will make them even richer exploiting a section of society nobody really cares about. I'm not against prisoners paying for their detention by any means, but the amount of it's own people that the fabled land of the free slam up is shameful.

As people have already mentioned, it doesn't matter if it costs them millions to set up a prison, these companies in this sector are making billions.

Thought I'd type this into the search-bar on the off chance, www.isthegovernmentshutdown.com

I've always been a bit too thrifty to engage in something that will almost guarentee to lose me money.

On a related note , I posted this the other day, you should check it out. The most badass gambling story you will ever hear - David Choe ultimate gambling story, loses 16 million, bangs 50 hookers with lobster on his dick.

I don't even have enough fuel in the tank to launch off a rant about how dubstep has been completely buttfucked by you Americans, and now exists in a basterdized form far removed from the gritty basement sound system raves they used to be, and are now concert headlining acts for 13 year olds. It just makes me sad :(

everyone always thinks they are a nice guy / everyone who gets with hotter girls than me is an asshole = logic

how about don't moan on the internet and actually talk to a girl kids.

per the prison population was about 1.5% in 1980 and is now at almost 5%.

Wooops, I meant 0.15% and 0.5% not 1.5/5% >_<

pic unrelated

At 10/6/13 12:34 PM, Camarohusky wrote: It's as watertight as saying "well, more black people commit crime, therefore being black is a strong factor in committing crimes."

I don't think that's the same comparison as what I'm making.

The correlation that the private prison population has skyrocketed is easily tied to the fact that states have been starkly slashing their prison budgets and needed to turn elsewhere to house the convicts they already had as well as the incoming stream that was expected.

I honestly don't see how slashing prison budgets could affect the sentencing of criminals. Criminals are getting harsher and longer sentences now than they did before, sentences for the same crimes have been growing by 36% within 2 decades. As Angry-Hatter has already said, the private prisons have had a hand in " three-pronged strategy of contributing to political campaigns, lobbying, and gaining access to policymakers through close relationships."

Is it possible or even likely that some of the issue is caused by the privatization of prisons (FYI, how a rational non-idiot refers to the "prison industrial complex")? Yeah. But to blame it solely on that or even largely on that is just plain lazy.

I'll admit that the PIC isn't the sole contributor to this problem, but it's not worth ruling out completely. I actually agree with prisoners not being a drain on public revenue, but I draw the line at private companies trying to maximize profits by treating criminals unfairly to the extent in America at the moment.

the US population has grown by 35% since 1980.

It doesn't matter if the population grows because these figures are based on the prison population per capita. There are more people in prison now than in 1980 sure, but the per the prison population was about 1.5% in 1980 and is now at almost 5%.

You really think 3.3 million dollars over two decades in a big deal of money? HA! First off,

As Angry-Hatter has already stated, it's actually $22 million since 2001. Which is enough klout to hold some sway if you ask me. It's definitely not worth ignoring. The private prisons are making a killing the way things are so you have to ask what their intentions are by donating that amount of money towards schemes like the 3 strikes.

As I've said, crime is down year on year, yet lengths of sentences are up, prison populations are up, profits from prisons are up. There are people making money off this paradigm, and the nature of all business is to maximize profits, so its not much of a leap to assume that's exactly what's happening here. There is even evidence of private prisons hiring ex-government officials as consultants who have inside connections to current policy makers, known as the “revolving door” between the public and private sectors.'

At 9/27/13 11:21 PM, Camarohusky wrote: No this is NOT a case of the private prison industrial complex (keyword for people who want to blame "the man" but have no logial way to blame him) going crazy.

Do you really think there's no merit at all in the Prison Industrial Complex theory? It seems like a pretty watertight argument to me, I wouldn't go as far to say that they have reinvented slavery like some people have argued, but I think there's something there Ie: as soon as it became profitable to incarcerate criminals the prison population in the US skyrocketed. for people who don't know...
What is interesting is that while the prison population has tripled since the introduction of the privatisation of prisons, crime has actually been decreasing. I don't think you can say that either that Americans have suddenly become worse citizens, or that the social issues have got worse since the 1980s.

So ridiculous mandatory-minimums, three strikes laws, and sentencing disparities play no role in this whatsoever?
No, they're a result of our social issues, not the cause.

I'm sorry, you simply can not deny that the three strikes law is a factor in this, when you've got someone serving 25 years for stealing socks, it's a bullshit law with the same logic of a baseball game and it really needs some reform. As somebody has already mentioned, the private prisons are donating millions to help push laws that will increase the number of incarcerated, and therefore increase profits.

You and me usually see eye to eye on most issues Camarohusky, so I'm just interested to know what your reasoning is behind this?