In other news, I think this will present an obstacle to the continuing attempts to reenact a federal ban on semi-automatic rifles (aka “guns that look mean”). Scalia said that it is unconstitutional to ban a whole class of weapons that people legally use for home defense purposes.

In this environment I value personal liberty above public disarmament because I do have faith in personal responsibility at large. Don’t take my liberties away until I personally have inflicted real harm or until the environment is such that I can rationally agree to the terms.

When the world unites under Peter Wiggin I’ll sign.

I used to scoff at this justification, thinking that a few small firearms in the hands of irregular militia would be useless against the size and capability of the US armed forces.

Since watching the relative success of the resistance to US forces in Iraq, I’ve certainly changed my mind on that one.

Of course we should all be trying to avoid that sort of situation in our respective domestic spheres through one of the many forms of discourse that exist on the civil side of lynching. Perhaps a chat over a cup of tea with your local representative would be a preferable option to start with?

Beyond the rationale of self-defence, which I will accept at face value, and the defence of your country’s liberty, which despite my joke I also accept, are there other reasons why you would particularly want to own a gun?

I’m not trying to bait you, I’m just wondering if you would change your position if you felt that those two reasons were removed. If you felt safe in your home and in the admittedly unlikely event that you were confident that your government was incorruptible.

To lay it out, I’m wondering if gun related harms, which are logically a symptom of gun possession (”guns don’t kill people, etc.”), are in turn simply a symptom of fear engendered by a rational lack of trust. And if so, how can that trust be restored. Although I don’t condone gun ownership, I also don’t think the solution is to legislate the disarmament of those that want protection from what amounts to real danger at this time. The root causes are deeper than what is generally argued around and they are what need to be addressed before the natural attrition of the symptoms occur.

FACT #1
Computer gaming COSTS MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It does not matter what game you are playing. It don’t matter if its an MMORPG or not. The only variable is HOW MUCH MONEY. How much bandwidth do I need to pay for. How much do I need to spend on computer hardware. How much is the software. How much, how much, how fraken much…

FACT #2
EU is NOT gambling. Let us analyze three common criteria of gambling used in the U.S. court system:

1) Consideration usually means players must pay something of value to be eligible to participate.

You do not ever have to pay anything to participate. In addition to participating for free you can also advance your character by never paying from collecting and selling sweat. There is no gray area here what I just said is a black and white fact.

2) Prize includes not only money, but anything of value.
This statement is not true because one does not play games exclusively for money. If all of these people above played exclusively for money or value then they would not have deposited would they? They would have kept sweating which earns money for free. Obviously there is another criteria that a game must have to satisfy most gamers. A lack of boredom. The reason all of these people above deposited was not because of a prize but due to the boredom of playing exclusively for money (ie sweating). Go back and re-read their posts. Is boredom not the #1 reason cited for choosing to deposit versus sweat?

3) Chance means the outcome is not determined by skill.
The word chance gets to the heart of what makes great gamers great. A great gamer understands that games are based on mathematical probabilities. A great gamer seeks to understand the formulas used by any given game either by developer published information, hacked information, or their own in game testing methodology. Once a great gamer understands the formulas they are able to assess odds and formulate strategies. Probably one of the most commonly used terms by great gamers is damage per second which would apply to a plethora of games. Even by calculating damage per second it is still possible to do zero damage twenty consecutive attempts in a row, but is it probable? My point here is that there is a great degree of skill involved in understanding game mechanics and formulating any given strategy. It’s almost scientific.

So what we have here on this blog is a bunch of people who want to be great gamers bitching about this and that but they will always get bored too quickly to ever become a great gamer. We also have several people on this board that realize they are not great gamers and are satisfied being a good gamer because they enjoy the game. And we also have a select few great gamers who will actually make money playing this game once they perfect their strategy.

Now here is the reality for any great gamer. Once you formulate your strategy it is no longer a game it is work. The great gamers are the players who can sweat day in and day out and not get bored. Because when you are playing to an almost scientific strategy it becomes that tedious and boring at times. A great gamer has the ability to stave off boredom by playing to a very specific strategy. This is mainly because the satisfaction the great player seeks is not necessarily from playing the game but realizing a successful strategy.

Is it just me or is it ironic that economic success in real life follows a similar pattern? Unless you get lucky of course… which can also happen in EU.

Ha… geddit?

We need some pun control laws around here.

Ha… haaa… oh my… hmm

Seeing how many prefer to forfeit their rights for some marginal statistical promise of safety, anyone with a strong survival instinct might try exploiting them. It’s enough to make some people run for office.

While I, too, believe that gun ownership is a Constitutional right, background checks and waiting periods do not negate these rights.

There are far more guns in the US than there are people, which begs the question, “Does the right to bear arms” also imply the right to own any number of guns, or to own fully-automatic guns, or to possess armor-piercing, hollow-point, or any explosive type of ammunition?

In fact, the “right to bear arms,” is not equivalent to the “right to bear guns,” because “guns” are not the only type of “arms” one can “bear.”

Concealed weapons laws apply to all forms of “arms” and not just guns.

The NRA thinks otherwise.

There is no “God-given” right to own a gun. If there were, then Adam and Eve would be wearing holsters instead of fig leafs.

All I can say is that this grinder is JUNK and it is being returned today. Thanks for the tip on Williams Sonoma. I will stop by their store in Palm Desert after my gas wasting trip to Costco.

When replacing the keycaps the wiggling can sometimes break the wider, bottom, latches. I found the best thing to do is to hold the scissor up slide the key almost upside down under it (about 130 degrees) and latch it. There’s a little gap there for it to latch this way. Once the bottom is hooked let the key fall naturally, then wiggle a little with your finger as you push the top in place.

Thanks again for saving me from breaking my keys!