posted
Hope Bob and Dana weren't doing any shopping today. I had considered going there today too.
I used to work at that store, about 10 feet from where the shooter would have been. Weird.
Not sure why this story is getting so much press, shootings happen all the time in Omaha, I sure it's just because it was in a nicer area of Omaha and not one of the poor ones.
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quote: Not sure why this story is getting so much press, shootings happen all the time in Omaha, I sure it's just because it was in a nicer area of Omaha and not one of the poor ones.
Yeah, but nine?
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posted
At the time, the headline said "5 wounded", and didn't mention any fatalities at all.
Being on the Red Cross disaster action team, Niki and I got called in to the local chapter. We didn't do anything but sit around for a couple of hours though. There were some Red Cross folks at the scene, but most of us were just there "in case". In case of what, I don't know.
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First I have to say that I feel very sorry for the families of those killed and or injured... I used to live in Omaha when I was in the Military and parts of where I lived downtown near the hospital sounded like a warzone some nights. Every city has crime even where I live now near Woodstock, NY there was a shooting at a mall 2 years ago where 2 people where killed.
Nebraska has been getting alot of news coverage with firing the head coach now this.... what next?
To me they shouldn't be showing this on the news because it will just give some troubled kids bad ideas... Maybe schools need to do something at an earlier age to prevent this type of violence... Another question... How does a 19 year old get his hands on a SKS assault rifle?
So glad I don't live in that boring state anymore
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posted
WorldTradeOrganization: if a product is legal within a nation, imports of equivalent products must be allowed. SKS are dirt cheap. NationalRifleAssociation: defeat of the assault weapons ban. Any American adult may purchase an assault weapon. Nixon's solution to the Vietnam Draft: old enough to be drafted, old enough to be an adult.
So any American aged 18 or over can legally own an SKS and other semiautomatic weapons; unless a convicted felon, or officially reported as homicidally insane by a mental health professional. (Lack of an official report is what allowed VirginiaTech) And thanks to the NRA's opposition to any meaningful control over secondary gun sales, anybody under the age of 18 can easily purchase firearms illegally (Columbine, etc)
BTW: Florida police have been already been complaining about the increase in the use of assault weapons and ammunition which can pierce kevlar vests. Which is where the NRA's version of "the right to bear arms" originated, cop-killers: folks who wanted to enforce JimCrow through intimidation of honest police officers after federal troops were pulled out of the South.
posted
The stupid jerk said he wanted to become famous. We should enact a law forbidding his name ever again to be mentioned in the media. As far as possible, let his whole existence be expunged. Let him be buried in an unmarked grave, in an unknown location, and then pave it over for people to walk on.
By the way, that should be "Niki and ME," not "Niki and I." The word "I" is nominative case, not objective case. Used as the object of the preposition "from," the proper word is the objective case "me." Sorry to be particular about this, but English is my native language.
[ December 06, 2007, 06:12 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
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This proves my point about Nebraska... They don not even know proper grammar. I wonder how they can read books. Must be all the corn they have to eat.
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The only thing I have against Nebraska is that I ran out of gas there once because they have marker signs for crappy little towns with no gas station. So I slept the night on the roadside. And I was pregnant. So someone told me there's no Troopers at night.
Several years later, when we drove through nebraska, we managed to get two speeding tickets in one night. But that was near that one big crappy town. I can't remember what it was called. The town sort of in the middle where everything is so expensive?
But we've gotten multiple tickets in New York too. So, you know, nothing personal.
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What, you think that just because a bunch of jocks can't spell that it's okay for you, too? Man, with names like Ortiz, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them weren't native English speakers, either.
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I dunno. You ever been to a sensitivity training? They're all "don't say this" and "don't squeeze that" and "don't put that in writing," and it's just yadda-yadda-yadda to me, y'know?
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It seems like as technology advances, it's only going to put more and more power into the hands of fewer and fewer people until at some point any individual on earth will have the power to destroy the world. Can we possibly survive that? Probably not with society in the form it is today. I don't know.
It seems like we need a lot more knowledge about what causes suicidal and violent destructive tendencies in people. Now that I've read recently about how Lyme (and syphilis, back when it was prevalent) causes aggression and violence, I tend to wonder if there is some parasitic or disease basis behind all such stuff. Wouldn't it be weird if all along much violence was caused by some type of disease? And we've been treating it as a behavioral problem?
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Wouldn't it be weird if all along such violence was caused by some type of bad parenting? And we've been treating it as a violent TV/music problem? >_<
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I thought that we weren't allowed to comment on possible bad parenting. Isn't the rule that we can never know enough to decide anything is bad parenting?
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quote:Originally posted by Saephon: Wouldn't it be weird if all along such violence was caused by some type of bad parenting? And we've been treating it as a violent TV/music problem? >_<
It could play a role in it. I wouldn't rule it out. I've read that this kid was in the system. Do most people have any idea how being in the system can effect children? Mostly it's being moved from one home to another on top of abuse, on top of who else knows what. But attachment can play a huge role in things that is often misunderstood. I don't think it's just the television or the music, it's our whole society that is messed up.
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Tatiana, you have hit on a serious concern. What happens as the power available to the individual becomes greater and greater? Some graphs people have tried to make of this increase show not just a straight-line increase, but an upward curve that eventually reaches asymptotic. Hopefully the Lord will come before then.
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I think in a great deal of cases attachment has something to do with it. It's not always the whole picture, but it's a big chunk of the problem. It's not as if in the past in Western society it was any better, but technology has made it worse and better in some ways.
quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: It seems like as technology advances, it's only going to put more and more power into the hands of fewer and fewer people until at some point any individual on earth will have the power to destroy the world. Can we possibly survive that? Probably not with society in the form it is today. I don't know.
It seems like we need a lot more knowledge about what causes suicidal and violent destructive tendencies in people. Now that I've read recently about how Lyme (and syphilis, back when it was prevalent) causes aggression and violence, I tend to wonder if there is some parasitic or disease basis behind all such stuff. Wouldn't it be weird if all along much violence was caused by some type of disease? And we've been treating it as a behavioral problem?
posted
Tatiana, I think you are indulging in wishful thinking. Evil is a disease? I'm afraid the problem of evil is much more basic than that. Evil consists of knowingly making wrong choices, supposedly meant to benefit self in some way, regardless of how they may result in harm for others. Evil is the opposite of love, which seeks the good of others above self.
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No, what she's doing is thinking about something from an unusual angle rather than just assuming that her present understanding is correct, period, and dismissing all attmpts to examine it further. Questioning your assumptions is not a bad thing.
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Wishful thinking, in my opinion, would be hoping that the Lord will come before it gets too bad instead of constructively addressing the problem.
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He received treatment as a juvenile for ~4years under the Nebraska mental health system after threatening to kill his step-mother with a knife, then released because he was an adult when he turned 18. So causation was more than a bit more complex than bad parenting or simple evil. And you can add RonaldReagan's "mental health initiative" as yet another factor in the crime.
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So how much blame belongs to the individual who actually pulled the trigger? I hope all of you will admit he at least deserves some.
There is nothing simple about evil. And it is the worst thing of all to overlook or ignore. No social welfare program, no pill or other medicine, can take the place of what is really needed: a change of heart.
Do you want to know who is really, ultimately the most at fault? All the churches. For failing to carry out their gospel commission. For teaching that the divine Law has been done away with. For denying the Bible doctrine of the Judgment. For going along with false doctrines of science which deny the true brotherhood of man, instead of affirming the true science of Creation by God of the human race. For the failure of faith that leads them to rely exclusively on ostensibly good social welfare programs, instead of actually seeking to introduce them to Christ and the Holy Spirit, Who alone can actually change hearts.
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False doctrines of science? What are you talking about? Religion aside, the system really does need to change. Individual responsibility has a big role in things, but upbringing, being moved from one home to the next, never attaching can really effect how the brain developes. It seriously can.
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Ron, you also believe that US soldiers die because God is punishing us for allowing homosexuality in this country, right?
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Icarus, don't be stupid. Of course not. Though I would not be so quick to deny an apparent link between homosexuality and AIDS. Even there, I believe it is God who would be supporting those who are trying to find a cure. God merely warned us that there would be natural consequences to indulging in certain practices forbidden in the Bible. That is why He forbade them. For our benefit!
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Dood. You do realize how many non-homosexual people have AIDS? Hemophilliacs come to mind. And what about lesbians? Lesbians probably have the lowest risk for AIDS ever. That's totally illogical. And if that was really the case than why has it taken so long for AIDS to see the light of day? Folks who try to state that AIDS=punishment for homosexuality ANNOY me. AIDS is a disease. Even INFANTS get AIDS. Is that a punishment too? Ridiculous.
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In Ron's defense, I think what he was saying is that he believes God warned us not to have homosexual sex because the risk of disease is higher, not that God sent diseases to homosexuals to punish them for sex He proscribed.
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I certainly don't want to dismiss the role of agency in behavior of all kinds, including criminal behavior, but we know that many other factors play a part. Kids with loving homes, kids who are wanted, kids who are well-cared-for with adequate nutrition and wholesome environments do far better overall in keeping the social contract than those who aren't. We know that.
What if disease is one factor in this? We know that neglect and abuse cause a child to develop with different gross brain morphology, for instance, which adapts them for harsh environments. That's been noted. And everybody knows if you raise a dog with cruelty from puppyhood it grows up to be a vicious dog. It turns out that Lyme (which is a spirochete like syphilis) in late stages gets into the brain and does a lot of damage there. One effect of the damage can sometimes be that the parts of the brain responsible for aggression are "shorted out", so to speak, and start going off for little or no reason.
We have a thread on how parasites can change the behavior of their hosts in ways that favor the parasite's survival and propagation. What if aggressive individuals tend to get pushed out or sent away from the group and therefore wander farther spreading the disease? It's speculation but it's an intriguing idea. Syphilis is known from history to cause aggression in the late stages. They think some of the most brutal mass murderers in history had syphilis and it contributed greatly to their brutality.
What I'm saying is that if we want to prevent things like this from happening, understanding all the underlying causes and doing something about them might be a lot more fruitful an approach than simply focusing our revulsion on perpetrators after the fact.
And as for thinking God is going to come and save us from ourselves, my feeling is closer to that of the Scouring of the Shire at the end of Lord of the Rings. "Don't you understand? This is what you've been trained for." I think one of the most important ways we learn here is by figuring out and fixing our own messes. There is no deus ex machina who will take over and tidy up for us. We have to learn how ourselves. We have to muster the will and the knowledge to do it with God's help.
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Synesthesia, what I learned concerning the history of AIDS in this country is that the first confirmed case of a person infected with HIV was Haitian refugee in a refugee camp in Florida some 30 years go. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta attempted to apply the standard protocol of quarantine. But they were interfered with politically by the "gay lobby," because the infected individual was a homosexual male, and they claimed the quarantine was anti-gay discrimination. If they had not interfered through their ignorant protests, the AIDS epidemic never would have spread throughout America, to infect first and primarily the homosexual community, followed secondarily by the intraveneous drug users, then by the partners of people who "go both ways," and thus throughout the general population. The horse is out of the barn now, of course. But there are lessons that should be learned so history is not repeated unnecessarily.
By most accounts, anywhere from one-fourth to one-half of the population of Africa is now HIV positive. That means that unless a cure is found, within ten years or so, as much as half the population of Africa will die. Why has HIV infection spread so rapidly throughout Africa, compared to the US? Some people, including missionaries I have talked to, believe the reason is the extremely promiscuous lifestyle of most Africans. Again, had Biblical standards been applied to life, a huge population might have been spared. God did not cause this as a punishment or anything else. God tried to prevent it.
[ December 09, 2007, 01:35 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
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posted
My understanding was that the first recorded case of AIDS in this country was a gay flight attendant, back in 1977. I believe I read that in TIME magazine some years ago.
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AIDS is when HIV starts showing symptoms. HIV infection comes first. Medical authorities had learned to detect HIV, early enough that they could have prevented the epidemic, if they had been allowed to act.
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"But there are lessons that should be learned so history is not repeated unnecessarily."
Ron, it sounds like you're implying that we should hate gays because of AIDS. You do realize that gay men have contributed quite a bit to culture and science over the last 2000 years or more? They didn't have to spend as much time finding sex partners, so they were able to spend more time on other projects, is my main theory as to why. Regardless, their contributions are disproportionately large compared to their numbers.
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Actually, if everyone who was HIV positive had used condoms and not shared needles, perhaps we wouldn't have so much of an epidemic on our hands. That includes homosexuals, heterosexuals, and anything-else-sexuals.
It seems to me that safe sex and not sharing needles if you are a drug user are pretty common sense things that people might want to do for other reasons even if they didn't know about HIV/AIDS (if it was before the time when they were prevalent.)
Sure, abstinence/having a single partner and not using IV drugs are best. But second best would be condoms and clean needles.
Sadly, there seems to be both a common sense problem and a knowledge or supply problem (in some cases. I'm not counting jerks who knowingly infect others.)
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TomDavidson, do you want God to be breathing down our necks all the time, not letting us stray an inch without being pounced upon? No? Like everyone else in the human race, you want Him to back off, and give us space?
OK. Now just how hard do you think God should try to prevent us from bringing down on ourselves things like AIDS, syphillus, hepatitus, bubonic plague, etc.? --Besides giving us the practical, lifestyle counselling that can prevent or arrest the spread of such maladies? The Creator has given us a User's Manual. Don't blame Him if you don't use it.
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