Pepper sprayed for public safety.

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Egg, meet my face.

My furious rambling tirade on soccer moms accrues from the next day's wages of a heroic intake of 18 year old Yamazaki whisky (5 stars, BTW).

I detest suburban soccer moms, truly and deeply, as anyone who's listened to their inane chatter and neuroses and insecure competitiveness, would agree. But you're right. This woman is a good egg, and I was wrong to flip out in response to her article.

(The Yamakazi 12 is also great.)

Not enough peat in the Jap scotches. As for the Tasmanian stuff, a couple are not bad, but the liquor tax here makes them price-unfriendly. It is fucking $9 for a 30ml pour of Jameson, i.e. for a little more than half a mini bottle. A small martini is thus $20 +. It is hard to find an (imperial) pint of beer for less than $9.

LessinPerth

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

Not enough peat in the Jap scotches. As for the Tasmanian stuff, a couple are not bad, but the liquor tax here makes them price-unfriendly. It is fucking $9 for a 30ml pour of Jameson, i.e. for a little more than half a mini bottle. A small martini is thus $20 +. It is hard to find an (imperial) pint of beer for less than $9.

LessinPerth

I am no fan of peat, and I bought my first Japanese scotch from a vending machine in a Tokyo alley, so there's the sentimental factor.

My kid says everything is expensive but salaries are higher.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

Jap scotches

Originally Posted by Hank

Jap scotch

Jesus fucking Christ.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Jesus fucking Christ.

sorry. doing shorthand from my iPhone.

[Gattigap]

Good news! Fewer Americans own guns today than in past decades. Slight less good news: Those who own guns, own a LOT of guns.

A decreasing number of American gun owners own two-thirds of the nation's guns and as many as one-third of the guns on the planet -- even though they account for less than 1% of the world's population, according to a CNN analysis of gun ownership data.

***

A study published in the Injury Prevention Journal, based on a 2004 National Firearms Survey, found that 20% of the gun owners with the most firearms possessed about 65% of the nation's guns.

A 2007 survey by the U.N's Office on Drugs and Crime found that the United States, which has 5% of the world's population, owns 50% of the world's guns.

The number of households owning guns has declined from almost 50% in 1973 to just over 32% in 2010, according to a 2011 study produced by The University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. The number of gun owners has gone down almost 10% over the same period, the report found.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

"I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am Jason Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother."

Adam Lanza's mother owned the guns that killed the kids and even the Bushmaster, didn't she? If Ms. Lanza had as much knowledge of her son's potential for violence as the author does, and still kept those guns, she is a true accomplice.

News reports are that Detroit area gun shops are sold out of Bushmasters. People want to make sure they get theirs before any regulations come down.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

News reports are that Detroit area gun shops are sold out of Bushmasters. People want to make sure they get theirs before any regulations come down.

Great. In other words, If a law is passed, these folks are taking the opportunity now to make sure they'll qualify as felons.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Adam Lanza's mother owned the guns that killed the kids and even the Bushmaster, didn't she? If Ms. Lanza had as much knowledge of her son's potential for violence as the author does, and still kept those guns, she is a true accomplice.

News reports are that Detroit area gun shops are sold out of Bushmasters. People want to make sure they get theirs before any regulations come down.

We should tax the hell out of guns and use the money for mental health care.

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

It'd be a good start to tell these soccer moms to get lives, and allow their children to live their own a bit. Almost every decently well off suburban family I know has a kid who's at a minimum been evaluated for some syndrome/complex/ADHD-type-thing. The minute the kid doesn't fit exactly into some cookie cutter mold some shmuck academic or administrator (who's never raised kids) deems non-conformist, or outside the way kids are supposed to learn, he or she is defective. We've a nice Brave New World going on because of these ridiculous women and the industry of snake oil salesmen who see a market of fools, and sell them on the fact their kids could all get into Yale and graduate as valedictorian if they just took these pills, or enrolled in this therapy.

I'm not suggesting moms shouldn't be on the lookout for mental illness when a kid is openly violent. I'm just suggesting they should also be aware of their own mental illness: The delusion they can remove all risk from their children's lives and make them perfect. This idiocy is a lot of what's wrong with people today. Raise a kid to think everything can be managed and you'll raise a neurotic fool. Exhibit A: The endless parade of poor bastards we've all known in law firms who can't stand on their own two feet after being fired. The minute things go off script, these over-coddled people are meat on the street.

We're raising weak, overly-directed kids who have no coping skills. Yeah, this is a bit off topic. Yeah, it's a rant. But any time I hear a "soccer mom" spout off, I can't help but think what a cancer on society these people have become.

Man, there's a boatload of bitterness there. Everything going okay with the wife and kids?

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Adam Lanza's mother owned the guns that killed the kids and even the Bushmaster, didn't she? If Ms. Lanza had as much knowledge of her son's potential for violence as the author does, and still kept those guns, she is a true accomplice.

News reports are that Detroit area gun shops are sold out of Bushmasters. People want to make sure they get theirs before any regulations come down.

It must be rabbit season.

[Replaced_Texan]

Huh. I've suddenly started getting an uptick in Tarasoff type questions.

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Jesus fucking Christ.

Spare me.

LessinPerth

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Gattigap

Good news! Fewer Americans own guns today than in past decades. Slight less good news: Those who own guns, own a LOT of guns.

And are three times more likely to die by being shot than those who do not own guns.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

Man, there's a boatload of bitterness there. Everything going okay with the wife and kids?

Neither my nor I are helicopter parents of any sort. We both work, and have lives.

I'm not bitter. I simply detest a lot of the modern parenting I see. It appears to me to be centered on a myth that one can remove all risk from a child's life, prevent a child from failure, micromanage the child into a top flight school, and by doing all these things, create an uber-successful kid. This has led to a lot of the cookie cutter, absurdly dull human beings we all have to work among every day. Upper middle class robots.

I like poor people. I like rich people. Both seem interesting in conversation because they either don't give a shit, or don't have the time or energy to do so. They don't view life as a "competition." They aren't striving, or trying to impress you in everything they do. The upper middle class, and these loathsome mothers in particular, have deep seeded pathologies. Comparing your kids to others' kids, being so invested in managing a kid's life you stress yourself out obsessing over it, is mental illness.

Why not call these people out? They're one of many things fucking up the country we ought to discuss fixing.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Obama's going to let the payroll tax cut expire? This is the worst possible compromise of all.

Is he insane? How can one not understand this cut is perhaps the only one of those in play delivering 100 cents of consumer spending in the economy for every dollar of revenue conceded? Fucking baffling. Just baffling.