Two fireman are buttfucking in a smoke filled room

Welcome, potential person who has some skin in the gun control game (one way or the other).

Let me possibly confuse you, first thing: I don’t want to take anyone’s guns away.

Now let me clear that up: You get more views of your content via “shocking” or otherwise manipulative headlines. If that causes you some indignation (as opposed to other sites doing it and just not telling you) then I apologize and I won’t be upset if you stop reading.

This is mainly about mental health. Before you go making assumptions, I realize that there are plenty of people on both sides of the issue who realize that mental health is a very important topic, and that they actually act on it. I also realize that there are plenty of people on both sides of the issue who proclaim they think it’s an important topic but are really just dodging since they are the first to decry mental illness when it “helps” the perpetrator of something like a mass shooting avoid the death penalty.

My sister suffers from mental illness. I care for her greatly, even though I’ve seen her say and do some incredibly terrible things to other family members – and even to me a few times, whereas I’m usually able to talk her down – and every time she goes through a bad period I always find myself upset at how little is done for her by the people who are supposed to help her: mental health professionals won’t take her in as a patient, the ones who do only listen to her for 15 minutes and then give her some drugs, the hospitals’ concern only extends as far payment does, and the police only care that she isn’t harming anyone if they even respond to calls from/about her. She is unable to hold a job due to her illness so she has to receive assistance from the state. My parents help her out when they can, as well, but my family is middle class: there’s little to offer. All that wraps up to be a dire situation and when my sister tells me she’s feeling depressed I can understand.

The point is, the help isn’t there for the majority of people. Even for those with the resources it sometimes isn’t there. This is mainly because people either refuse to or don’t understand what it means to be mentally ill. My example above about the mass shooting illustrates the point perfectly: most people still think that “evil” motivates an Adam Lanza into a mass shooting, as if he rationally sat down and told himself about what he was going to do. This, of course, is asinine – by its very definition those actions defy rationality.

Now, the crux of all my exposition on this topic is not to discredit gun control legislation. I am not a fan of banning things because it ultimately doesn’t solve the problem but I certainly understand the argument: without access to the guns (especially in Lanza’s case) there’s most likely no violence – and I know that other countries have seen positive results from legislation. However, the real problem is getting the right help for people who need it so that someone like James Holmes doesn’t even find himself in a position to “rationalize” killing people. The lobby against gun control is so powerful, as well, that politicians lose their seats as a result of even small attempts to legislate. Of course that isn’t a reason to give up or move on, but imagine if mental illness got the same amount of power behind it that gun control has. People like my sister might be able to see a doctor instead of being turned away simply because she is a ward of the state. She wouldn’t have to be placed into a hospital and discharged a short while afterward when she still isn’t okay. The police would know not to patronize her or, if she does something worthy of an arrest, they would know to handle it gracefully. It would mean that the people who have previously felt there were no paths besides a Columbine/Tucson/Washington Naval Yard/Mission Valley mall would have support and, with any luck, lessen those types of atrocities.

If you’re pro-gun and thinking I’m on your side, think again. As I stated above, I don’t believe we should be outright banning guns. However, I doubt the candor any of the protestations given by the NRA and other supporters, though. Two, off the top of my head: 1) “Criminals don’t care about the law,” and 2) “What about gang violence?” They are, on the surface, decent things to bring up. Per my examples, a person who is going to commit a crime doesn’t care if using a gun is outlawed and gang violence is still a very big concern – but here’s my problem with that reasoning: Those things have nothing to do with the link between guns and mental health and as a result, you sound both uninformed and insensitive. Uninformed because a mass shooter isn’t a criminal holding up a convenience store at gunpoint or a gang member for the very reasons I listed in the first part. Insensitive because those protestations only come off as red herrings, and they aren’t consolations for people who lost loved ones; rather, they seem as attacks. Think about it – in reworked language, you’re basically saying, “This material thing [the gun] is more important to me than the fact that you lost someone.” (I get that it’s about much more than the object.) The same query I posed earlier applies to the gun owners: Think about what would happen if the energy spent on those protestations and lobbying against gun control was spent on advocating for the mentally ill.

Both sides of the issue, in their hectic dance, overlook the importance of the killer – the root problem that needs to be solved. If your gut reaction to these terrible events is contempt for the perpetrator, or to immediately pull out the second amendment, or to immediately begin crowing about laws to get rid of certain types of guns then I don’t think you are focusing your energy constructively. Like any other kind of social issue in this country it comes down to exposure and awareness. If you’re interested in learning more there are a myriad of resources to look at – a simple Google search for “mental illness awareness” alone will turn up many good ones. If you are one of those folks who needs things to be shared to you, a good start is the NAMI website.

If nothing else, I hope that my words have caused you to think. Perhaps, if you are all too familiar with the struggles of mental illness – be it you or someone you love suffering – you’ll share your story.

The Taliban are a bunch of irrelevant little babies. To prove that point, they made their #1 enemy a 14 year-old girl and then shot her.

They went after a 14 year-old girl. I mean, how useless is your organization that you’re going after a 14 year-old girl?

Then they attacked and shot her. So not only are they a pointless group of thoughtless troglodytes, but they are also a bunch of cowards! They probably have small genitalia, too. I mean, you’d have to be insufficient in the “manhood” area to demonize a 14 year-old girl, let alone go through with the whole process of harming her (and they had the intent to kill).

I hope this little girl gets better soon, because you know what she’s going to do as soon as she can speak? She’s going to forgive them. She’s going to explain that while it was a terrible experience, she’s not going to spread any more hatred.

And that’s what being an adult, a human, and a responsible member of this global society is all about.

The Taliban. LOL.

Repeat after me.
One red hen.
Couple of Ducks.
Three Brown bears.
Four running Hares.
Five fat, fickle females feeling fine.
Six simple Salesman sitting on a stoop.
Seven Sinbad sailors, sailing the seven seas on a sleuth.
Eight egotistical egotists echoeing their egotistical ecstacies.
Nine nude nubians nibbling on nags, nuts, and nicotine.
Ten, I wish I was a fig plucker or a fig pluckers son, cause Id pluck figs till the fig plucker comes.

That error means that the place where PHP stores sessions on the server is full. I think our game uses way too much space. Unless its something else. In any event, it's nothing I can change.

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Hey, happy birthday, Pappy. You old son-of-a-bitch.

Not literally, of course. Hope it's a fun day filled with activies you don't normally do. *cough*jaang*cough*

So, as a sales monkey... I hear all manner of stupid rumors about Plasma screen tvs... "They only last 2 years", "The plasmas need to be recharged", and a whole bunch of other bullshit.  So for all you folks out there wondering what the deal with Plasma is I have something to help you.  The following is the only website in the net that tells the truth about plasma.  If someone tells you something about plasmas that at is contrary to this site, they're wrong.

http://truthaboutplasma.dyndns.tv

I was just thinking about a few things, and while there is a lot going in my life that I love and I am very fortunate regarding many things.. there are always things missing. Part of my complaining is probably rooted in the fact that I am single. Now, it happens to be Valentines Day (or Valentines Weekend I'm told it was this year), and so assume what you want there, but it really is coincidental because it's definitely not in the front of my mind at the moment since it's something I am not seeking just yet since there are a few things I want to straighten out with myself first. Increasing my financial stability being the biggest priority, and getting in better shape physically is another. For the latter, I definitely feel a crunch there because part of me feels that if I don't get my body in better shape before my late 20s or early 30s I will never be able to. Not because I fear my health is in jeopardy due to my lack of exercise yet, but as people age it's harder to improve your body and you have less drive to do it too.

Anyway, regarding what I originally came to rant about. Stone actually sparked the following thought, which he can explain himself if he likes.

I went to school and got my bachelors degree. I attended from fall 1998 until graduation in spring 2002. I don't exactly feel proud about it, mainly because when it comes down to it, I really put in very little effort. I had a few hard classes that kept me up through the night a bunch of times, and pretty much always did what was necessary. But that is where I stopped. I did just what was necessary. I gave far less than 100%, and in some classes I don't think I gave much above 0% and still managed to not fail a single course (although I nearly managed to fail the HTML class I took senior year because I did zero homework during the semester and did every assignment for the semester in one night including the final project and handed it in all at once, fortunately they let me by with a C or a CD or maybe even a D.. I can't remember).

Anyway, I have been out of school for nearly 3 years.. and in many respects more than that. See, my final semester I usually took 6 day weekends. The only thing I never skipped was my physics lab which was big on attendance and required for graduation.

Being out, there are things I miss about school. The student life and being in the mix with so many other people that I automatically had things in common with being at the same school. I even miss some of the class work. See, a lot of what I did take was somewhat interesting.. but the presentation of the material caused me to shut down. Being a lowly undergrad means you are learning subjects from the ground up, and within the CS program I already had much real world experience (not that I already knew the theories and real info behind a lot of it) so that caused me to lose some interest too.

At some point I do want to go back to school and actually learn things to actually learn them. Not just to pass the next test, but to actually gain real knowledge. I can do that on my own to some extent by simply reading, but it lacks the feedback system in schools... you get to bounce ideas around at a school.

I guess my point is that it sucks to actually feel the desire to learn now that I've completed all the schooling I really need to have taken in my life. I don't think I wasted my time, and if I went back in time I probably couldnt talk myself into doing it any differently. It's also one of those things that you hear about freshman year.. parents and other older folks saying similar things that most people just brush off because it's a total buzzkill attitude to try to force on a kid.

Anyway, I'll stop here since this post is fairly pointless and is starting to sound preachy like I want people to put their heads into their book. I am not trying to say that since like I said, I don't believe I could convince myself if given the chance. It's just ironic I guess.