FF:QLD News of the Day

Goobs, the tragedy does not lie in the fact that 32 people died, but that they died in circumstances that made their deaths completely preventable.

No one person's life is worth more than another's, and there is NO EXCUSE and NO REASON for the willful slaying of anyone. Yes, in comparison to Iraq and Africa the quantity is so very, very small, but in a western, democratic, and civilised country these events should not have played out the way they did.

We cannot control the governments of the world. We cannot force them to do as we would wish. When we do that we are accused of being dictators. Take Iraq. We KNEW the Kurds were being systematically exterminated by Hussain, yet what was done? And why when America stepped in (yes I do think they did it for oil, but as a side benefit the genocide was stopped) was it suddenly all about how America was trying to force itself on the world? Why did eeryone suddenly believe that America was committing the world's worst crime and Hussain was some sort of saint? Why was NOTHING mentioned about the Kurds?

We CANNOT stop the tragedy in Africa or in Iraq. Sending troops to "assist democracy" results in deaths on both sides AND innocent bystanders, not sending them allows genocide to continue, and none of us can see the future in order to be able to tell WHICH action will save more lives or help to preserve the quality of life.

A depressed, gun-wielding student? THAT we can stop, can prevent. No gun, no bullets, and 32 people wouldn't be dead. Why are explosives so hard to obtain, yet guns aren't? Guns have the potential to kill just as many almost as quickly, yet they are readily available. No other weapons have the power to inflict so much death and so quickly.

 

I agree with the above, but have one thing to add:

Support services - Better counselling services. Better mental health systems. Better support groups.

Gun control's only part of the problem. Why someone needs to pick up a gun needs to be addressed just as much.

Be seeing you,

Magnus Darcrider

 

Spot on Lozza.

 

I think Bill Hicks said it best...

Gun Control? "England, where no one has guns; fourteen deaths. United States -- and I think you know how we feel about guns; whoo! I'm getting' a ****** -- 23,000 deaths from handguns. But there's no connection, and you'd be a fool and a communist to make one."

 

I agree with you Lozza. And there's innocent deaths in both situations. I think that the means to remedy either item we're discussing here is more feasable in the University Shooting. Being stuck an an innocent civillian, to live in an area of conflict, your home, is much sadder.

This said, my thoughts here are upon relection of the situations after hearing the news. Not something I am passionate about, nor something I make a habit of debating. All in all, I am more focused on getting to work, downloading the file I'm downloading, paying my bills...

 

Aren't we all? I don't generally read into this stuff very closely. Any of it. Universities, schools, warzones... If you skim the news it's easy to brush it off. If you read it and think about it, it makes you feel ill.

Why do people do terrible things to one another? Seriously, why?


EDIT: Oh, and Loz, Magnus, well spoken, both of you.

 

The less empathy you have for others the more likely you are to commit atrocities. Might be putting it simply but it is one reason.

 

On a slightly brighter note today:

The future is right here!

Sorry I'm getting a little excited about this in terms of space applications. Save on hard oxygen, save on mass, save on huge $$$.

 

No that's fair enough Gav.

I've often wondered how people can do the things they do. I have a hard time getting it through my head how people can do things that will cause other people harm in some way, shape or form and find it funny. Everything that happens, or every tiny thing I do, the consequences travel through my head. There are a lot of self-centric people who just don't think about the consequences to other people though...

edit: Heh that's pretty cool Loz. Now when are they giving us our jetpacks and hovercars?

 

I'm working on it, morgs. Hovercraft have proven a mite difficult to scale up to car size though.

 

Well, start small. Like a Jetpack!

Sorry to bring everyone down, but here's an interesting perspective on American Gun Culture. Well worth a read.

Be seeing you,

Magnus Darcrider.

 

Interesting read, yeah. I guess I'd never really thought about the 'wild west' mentality with regards to this before, or quite why and to what extent the gun culture is an integral part of the American national identity.

As for the fact that it can't be categorically stated that the presence of guns causes people to be violent, isn't that kind of beside the point? People go crazy everywhere, all over the world. What's worse, a crazy person, or a crazy person with a gun? If people who are pre-disposed to this sort of violence are unable to obtain firearms, mass shootings cannot occur. Yes, there's lots of other ways they could hurt people if they decided they wanted to, but if they didn't have guns, it wouldn't be possible for mayhem like this to occur. Could this guy have murdered 35 people in the space of a few hours if he was using a knife? Would he have gone ahead with anything at all if he didn't have easy access to weapons that allowed him to create the carnage he wanted?

In my mind, it's just that simple. I don't, strictly speaking, have any moral problem with the whole 'right to bear arms' thing, I think it's just an inescapable fact that, cause or not, guns are a facilitator of this kind of violence. Surely that's all there is to it, right? And comments to the effect that this wouldn't have happened if there had been MORE guns on campus, so everybody could have started shooting wildly at the first sign of trouble, well, isn't that kind of arms race mentality severely flawed?

 

Possibly the most incredible double-take worthy news headline ever.
Well, at least since 'hippo devours dwarf'

Amusement park crocodile shot after eating boy

 

Yay! For the crocodile that is. That the crocodile at the kid that is. Only hope the meal was worth it. Probably not though.

 

They're nice and tender when they're young, I'm led to believe. Old people are too stringy.

 

That's horrible, really. That poor child. I hope it was quick.

But since the crowd of children were attacking and pestering animals within an enclosure and one got taken, my sympathy's muted somewhat and I'm throwing this one down to "natural selection".

Be seeing you,

Magnus Darcrider

 

They delibrately climed over the wall in search of "entertainment". Kids torturing animals is one of the things that I cannot stand. The kid got what he deserved. Natural selection FTW.

 

Too young for Darwin Awards too.

Where the hell were their parents?

 

As much as my cynical brain is saying, yeah kid deserved it, and quite frankly he shouldn't have been over the fence teasing the animals in the first place... I'm glad I've only got what I can imagine of it in my mind... And that's still too gruesome.

 

The parents?

Perhaps they were like these model citizens and capturing it on film for posterity.

 

That sickens me. Just... good grief.

 

Today's news: (well, yesterday's really, but suck it up I'm posting it today)

You now have the workchoice to get sacked and hired back at a lower rate of pay, purely for 'operational reasons'. Yes - the opportunity to pay less for your talented staff is operationally appropriate.

You'll be able to spot me on election day, I'll to be one standing right outside your poll booth setting liberal voters on fire.

 

Yeah. Again, I fall back on "don't blame me, I didn't vote for them." Very sad.


And good god, that previous news item is just horrible.

 

Will we be ready when SPACE ALIENS INVADE!?

 

George Bluth did that years ago, everyone knows that!