MacGyver

I hope that when I die, my friends and family remember me this fondly:   http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/savannah/obituary.aspx?n=william-mccullough&pid=166950349#fbLoggedOut

The thing about Alexander and Corker is that they've got a lock on the business money in this state as long as they want it.  They're reliable to the entrenched business interests in the state, and the business money keeps putting them in office because of it.   So, if you really want to see change, you're going to have to get involved at the street level.  We can make it happen, but it's not going to be a simple matter of showing up at the polls come primary day. 

Well.... The tree of liberty does need a good watering every now and then, you know?

Are they going to get the chance to vote on it?   I know the House is trying to pass something, but there's no way Reid is going to even consider bringing it up much less bringing it to a vote in the Senate.   Mind you, I'll vote for a Democrat before I vote for either Alexander or Corker again. 

Are they doing fiber to the house?  Or are they doing fiber to the POP and a couple twisted pairs to the house?  Either way it makes me kind of angry.   Fiber is expensive.  In Tennessee, despite the fact that it's come down a lot in recent years, laying last mile subterranean fiber is still just shy of $800/ft. 

Interesting.  Yeah, that picture is a lot clearer.  I don't know what would really be intended for.  The guy did a nice job on the finished blades, though!

It's got a lot of potential.  It's not quite there, yet.   Having had one of the first ones they shipped to developers, it offers a lot of potential.  But, as far a usable apps go, at least right now I'd still classify it as a cool gizmo to impress your friends.

That is a good looking knife.  Is that jimping on the back of the blade or do they have some serration going on?

Neither of my children knew who he was.  We found some old episodes on PBS's site.  They did in fact recognize his neighborhood from Daniel Tiger.  I will say that Fred Rogers is timeless.  He was a hit with my kids.

That's exactly how I take the letter - "you guys let up or you're going to find yourselves unwelcome here."   It's a one time opportunity for these guys to change their course without more suffering more severe consequences of having these stores officially post.

The thing about Starbuck's letter, and their public posting of it, is that it is literally a shot across gun owners' bows.    They're giving us another chance - when they were likely advised to just post - because they just want to sell you a cup of coffee and a scone.  With their letter, they're broadcasting that they're willing to post - but would rather not force the issue.  Erik is right.  All open carriers are not the problem.  But a few of them are in a major way.   And there's the rub.  There's no winning hearts and minds here.  A gun is a tool used to do one thing - kill.  Maybe it's to protect your family.  Great.  Maybe it's to provide food for you table.  Awesome.  Maybe it's to keep the government off of your front porch.  Okay.  But, when a non-gun person looks at a person they don't know carrying a gun openly, they see a person who wants to kill somebody and today might be the day.  You might have some conversations with folks.  But regardless of whether or not the conversations end well, they all started out of fear - the fear that you might do something crazy with that gun.  You're not going to win.  Ever.   Our "rights" as gun owners have expanded more in the last 20 years than they have in the last century and a half.  You have more ability to carry today than any of us have had in our lifetimes.  And, those abilities are still expanding.  Ask anyone in Illinois 10 years ago if they'd ever be able to carry a gun to protect their families.  Despite that, however, individual people can screw that up.   The thing about strapping on a weapon, is that the moment you choose to do so, you either become an asset to society or a liability.  And, your actions speak for all of us collectively.  You do something stupid with that gun - and you paint us all in a poor light.  There's no place in civil society for a person to walk into Starbucks with a shotgun.  Your individual actions have just made it harder for all of us.  That's why so many of us get upset about this.  It's not about ceding our rights.  It's about selfish people doing stupid things that cost us all.

you know, I'll have to ask her if she knows who that is. Is he even on anymore, even in syndication? We're more of a Disney channel family - at least for the few hours cartoons are on and they may have the opportunity to watch TV. I never thought I would say it as a parent, but their lack of commercials for anything but other Disney cartoons during that time block is what gets them a pass.

Y'all are going to get my soapbox out before the day's over.    This is one that gets me riled up, and I wish that we could get people to actually put down their phones long enough to care.  Mind you, if I get going on it, I'll probably wind up having to report myself or something :)

Their double wall stainless travel cups are worth every penny.  I don't know if they put nuclear waste in between the layers or what, but I can make coffee at 0630 and it might be cool enough not to burn my tongue by 0900 or so.

Government sponsored monopoly and fiber optic?  Wow!  This is just too good when you reconcile that with stuff like PRISM.  I bet they don't even have to go to court.  They just build the splitter going to the NSA right into the system...   Not that you're apparently any better off with your local independent ISP.  The government has clearly shown that they can get that data as well even without the ISP's knowledge.

You can actually really tell just how much Starbucks just wants to sell a cup of coffee by their response. They could have very easily gone and posted their stores. Howard Schultz and his management team in all reality probably backed away from the advice they received from their counsel to post their stores. Why? They just want to sell a cup of coffee. That said, I'd bet anyone their favorite Starbucks fruity drink that we don't make it until Christmas without them being posted. The "I'm going to jam my 2nd Amendment rights down your damn throat" folks are going to see to that. If I win, I guess we'll have to get that drink at the drive thru.

Jay,   I didn't have a single member in mind when I composed the original post.  When I feel there's a need to call someone out individually, I'll do exactly that, but privately.   I'm asking folks to be mindful of their tone in whatever they post - but mentioned law enforcement here, as it's been a subject of a lot of the unduly negative posts of late.  The tipping point that caused me to write the post was being questioned by a couple of new members with whom I have relationships about the anti law enforcement tone.  They're new shooters and weren't able to reconcile how one group that carries guns can be so spiteful towards another group that carries guns.  They weren't complaining - they were seeking some clarification.  What struck me in both of the conversations was that if that was the first observation a new member to our site has, and it had enough of an impact to cause them to ask me about that instead of the myriad other new shooter questions they could ask, then we have an issue that needs to be addressed.   You won't find a bigger proponent of small government than me.  I can't call myself a "L"ibertarian, because I think that term has been coopted by people who aren't really sure what they believe.  But, we aren't trying to stifle any particular voices - unless, again you're only posting something to poke the proverbial hornet's nest and get people stirred up.    So long as anyone is bringing intelligent discourse to the table, we won't have a problem. 

Greg, please hear me say that this thread was not aimed at anyone.  Period.   Rather, we're in a pretty politically charged time, and the staff thought that we could all back away from the cliff with our rhetoric a little bit. 

Yet.  Give the "pro-2A" guys a week or so to force their hand.

Eric, my six year old saw your Avatar on my iPad last night and commented, that man looks really angry...   I couldn't quite explain to her that the picture wasn't really you :)

I've got a CTR on my 10.5" .458 SOCOM right now.  It's light and fast to come on target.  Plus, as a bonus, you get a free Magpul tattoo with every shot!   It's not really that bad.  It's not like you're firing hundreds of rounds through it.

I commonly edit posts to remove language, offensive links, and personal information that someone may not want shared.  As a general rule, when I do this, I leave the "edited by" comment visible, and leave a reason.   I figure if it was my post, I'd rather have it cleaned up than removed altogether.  The poster always retains the right to go back in and re-express themselves in a more appropriate manner.

I think I can get that squared away.  Good idea.

Register a complaint around here and you're likely to die of old age before we cede to your list of demands. This was absolutely not driven by complaints. As I said in the original post, it's us as a staff keeping our fingers on the pulse of the community and noticing something off. We've got a good thing here that we don't particularly want to see screwed up. We thought posting some guidance as opposed to making hard and fast rule changes in the TOS would be more than sufficient for the vast majority of our membership.

Here's the thing, y'all. We're not trying to ban any topic. Nor are we saying you have to be pro law enforcement. Lord knows I'm critical of a lot that's going on right now, and I love to discuss issues big and small. But, if you're going to engage in a discussion, make sure you're actually adding to the debate. Do that and you're fine. If a thread devolves, we'll lock it. We don't do this very much now, and I don't expect to going forward. My original post was just giving you guys some insight into how we're looking at things as moderators.