Kroney

Speaking of cowardice, it'd be my opinion that saying inflicting death or serious bodily harm is against the law and then allowing people to shoot other people in the name of "he started it" speaks of moral cowardice. Again, it's all perspective, isn't it.

I would counter that by saying that doesn't justify vigilantes shooting people in the streets. It's a matter of perspective, ain't it.

I love a gun debate. They're always such fun. I'll get this out of the way first of all, for the sake of honesty: I'm pro-gun control. I realise this will immediately make one side of the argument inclined to dismiss everything I subsequently say as a pink commie Euro-weenie, hand-wringling Liberal leftie, big-Goverment nanny-state subject attempting to hide behind Big Government's skirts so that he doesn't have to stand up to automatic rifles, tanks, artillery and air strikes with his bolt action hunting rifle when his democratic Government suddenly turns into a 1930s facist dictatorship BUT bear with me. The basic problem between the two camps butting heads is different perceptions of what safety is. Everybody wants to be safe. Some people think that having a weapon will make them safer, other people think that other people not having weapons will make them safer. There are various arguments on both sides over whether or not each position is valid. The answer is, that both are in different circumstances. Fundamentally, the only reason pro gun ownership people want to keep their guns is because they enjoy having them and don't want them taken away. I don't want guns de-restricted because I personally don't think a civilised society is one in which people need to walk around armed all the damned time. I can see why Guard Dog doesn't want a law to be created to take away something he sees as one of his civil liberties. It's because he likes it. Regardless of whether or not people have guns, the problem with a guy holding up a petrol station with a gun is the guy holding up the petrol station. The fact that he has a gun is almost completely irrelevant. The gun didn't make him attempt to rob the place, his situation did. The only way you fix that is in fixing the situation that caused him to turn to crime. It's just that I happen to believe that having ready access to a pistol made that situation potentially far worse. As, in fact, did the fact that other people in that petrol station had guns, too. Much was made of how two or three people pulled weapons on him and convinced him to lay his down. What if the opposite happened and he decided to start shooting? Sure, he'd probably end up dead, but so might the shop owner and one or two of the good samaritans. People certainly would have been injured. To my mind, it would have been a safer situation if only the criminal had the gun. Nobody would have been inclined to stand up to him, he would have made off with however much money the till had (which, by the way, didn't belong to anybody present) and nobody would have been hurt. You may consider this cowardly, but I consider it to be the job of the police to find and catch people that commit crimes, not the responsibility of the public to stop criminals. This is a perfectly valid opinion to hold. So is Guard Dog and the other pro-gun ownership peoples'. Can we not just accept that people who have guns want to hang on to them, whilst those that have never had them don't see the point in having them and move on?

Just a bit of voter priority reorientation. Nothing to worry about.

Watch out everyone, there's a bad ass in here!

That was a joke, chief. I had hoped it was obvious. I wouldn't like to see the sort of milking machine that would be required to suck fat out of people, but I'd imagine it would be rather more dystopian than the current government would like to be involved with. Everybody seems to be making the same argument (you should be responsible for your own actions with minimal nannying) and then getting hung up on the details.

The answer to that is natural selection.

Certainly. Making people "better" has definitely never had any negative consequences in the past.

Oh man, that'll teach me for not taking the internet seriously. Serious answer: Healthcare for stuff that's not your fault, smoking and drinking related illnesses you take your chances with. Sure if there's a spare liver or kidney knocking about that nobody else needs, then you're lucky. Just accept you're going to be further down the list than people that aren't doing their best to kill themselves through vice. You're an adult, you get to choose what you want to do, you are also expected to live, or die, with the consequences. Universal healthcare is a wonderful, wonderful thing, however it is not an excuse to check out of your responsibilities, it's not your mum. As I said, the WHO is not banning anything, it doesn't have the power to. It's doing what it's supposed to do, make recommendations based on the evidence they have. What they've actually said is "drink and cigs* are bad, they lead to cancer. Cancer is also bad". What pisses me off is that it's taken God knows how many very clever people God knows how long and God knows how much in public funding to tell me something I already knew. And if we can't tax fat people, can we at least send them to compulsory camps where they get to stuff themselves as much as they like in return for having the fat milked out of them to burn for fuel? Two problems fixed with one stone, right there. *yeah, so a word for cigarettes that begins with "F" is banned on a US site. Should have seen that coming, really.

The faces change, but the game stays the same. One one side one man hugs his gun and starts talking about big brother and state interference and how they're stealing your freedom to eat yourself to death and on the other another man talks about how people need to be educated whilst he nurses his soy milk chai tea latte. The fact of the matter is that the WHO can't do **** all to make anybody do anything. All they've made me want to do is neck a bottle or two of port. Stop banning things, stop taxing things. Stopping people from dying is the worst damned thing a society that cares about money can do. Have a nice, publically funded healthcare system so people don't have to bankrupt themselves fixing a broken leg, find cures for the really nasty diseases but otherwise just leave us to do what we want. I've got precious little time on this Earth, if I want to spend some of it chugging mojitos, I bloody well will. That said, I'm all for taxing fat people, because that ****'s gross, yo.

She's a spy? Cool. I was drinking scotch and ****tails* all night. As was she. I suppose beer would have been cheaper, but I was wearing a suit. Standards, old boy. *Oh for God's sake. DICKTAILS

If he could tell him in front of this bunker, I'd appreciate it.

Aaaand this is why I own a car as old as my girlfriend.

You tell him, I'll be right behind you. Also, a wall.

25 quid a round for me and the woman in London the other day. I'll tell you what, I don't know how many I bought, but it was more than four.

Nearly lost my job today after coming within a hair's breadth of releasing a virus to my company. Some rapid learning of the email system and some fancy footwork and I just about cleaned up the mess before any damage was done. I'm usually pretty clear headed in a crisis, but I won't lie, a little bit of poo came out.

I made a decision to take the car to a tuner to work on. It'll be more expensive, but I'll have a newly rebuild, tuned engine in the car, which will be fun. Just need to fit a decent washing machine, now.

Well, I've not been around much the last few days and this is why: The girlfriend's water tank sprang a leak. In attempting to drain the pipes, we managed to break her power shower then, in a completely unrelated coincidence, her washing machine packed up. Whilst driving to and from her place, my twenty five year old car decided it didn't like its engine anymore and ate a piston ring. So the upshot is we both need to find a couple of grand each. I may end up upgrading the engine whilst I'm spending money on it, which will cost more still. I'm going to have to raid my mortgage fund, unfortunately. Happy 2014, everyone!

Oh, I don't understand all this business at all. I belong in the era of the Shah, where I could be found sitting in a tent, wearing baggy silken trousers and a head cloth, fanned by a couple of Persian lovelies whilst my man-servant pours me a fresh tea. Visitors would take back tales of how "that awful man has gone entirely native". Nowadays they all seem so terribly cross.

Sorry, first day of proper work. There's a possibility my woe is me is showing.

No matter what we do, we just end up being hated even more. At this point, I have no idea if the situation can even be resolved without a proper war. Something that nobody other than the extremists actually wants.

I'm in Uxbridge. It's cold, wet, windy, I'm at work and I'm as sick as a dog. I hope you get earthquaked.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25558276 Schadenfreude lols

Hobbit 2. Meh. It's alright. Inserted characters are completely unnecessary.

I heard he was trying to get past Damon Hill.