ADT Security Canada

Mark, the issue of gun control and all the surrounding stupidity of a lot of it, ESPECIALLY here in Canada, is enough to make Mother Teresa swear...

RHC

I understand, just making a joke RH, now if Mother Teresa said f*ck that would be amazing

I don't know about that but there was a youth minister in Jacksonville, Florida who did the same thing. He was killed.

It's either "5555" or "5010".

I believe in total gun control...Every law abiding citizen one should pack a gun. Convicted felons caught carrying or using a gun should be shot on sight. Just like the old days... :)

There are a few small towns here in the USA where it is illegal not to carry a gun...I bet the crime rate is low in those towns.

Jim Rojas

Which (IMO) further illustrates the point that any kind of "gun control" should be first and foremost about gun safety, including hands on training on how to safely handle, store, and assume the responsibilities of owning a firearm - NOT just wholesale restricting in a totally indiscriminate way the guns themselves. And our situation is not helped along by the ongoing portrayal of the "guns are evil" stupidity by many in urban Canadian society (try to sell that bullsh*t to our native Eskimos in Nunavat.... or anywhere in rural Canada for that matter). This stupid gun hating attitude simply polarizes opinion on both "sides"...

In spite of my utter contempt for the latest Canadian gun laws for their $2 billion wasteful registration of long guns, and the bureaucracy, and hopeless ineptitude of the Canadian Firearms Centre, the latest laws do mandate that owners go through a measure of safety training that makes sense. There are mandatory courses for long guns and another for handguns. I took them both, and they are very basic, but better than allowing an untrained individual unfettered access to a firearm. A lot of this part anyway is not unlike what your NRA has been promoting for years. Too bad that youth minister didn't have some basic safety training (along with a bit of common sense)....he would likely still be preaching today.

Guess it goes to show that some good can come out of even the worst situations......

RHC

Archie Bunkers cure for hijacking planes is about the same as that. Issue every passenger a hand gun.

Actually there was a time that that those towns DID have lower crime rates. Over the last 8 to ten years or so there's been more and more states that are increasing convictions for gun related crimes. That seems to have sent the message to anyone who's considering using a gun to commit a crime. Gun crimes and murders with guns are down. Also, the big migilla over the assault weapons ban reducing gun crimes didn't do a damn thing. There were just as many crimes during the ban as without it........ which were some ridiculously low number to begin with.

You forgot Jack in the Box and Micky D's...and 7-10 and Circle K.

No, it's a 50/50 split. The other half runs Dunkin' Donut stores, and Holiday Inns.

Our country's liberal way of thinking is what got us Sept 11th, and I feel that is just the begining. I am really surprised they haven't struck again since then.

Our country always does things after the damage has been done. We have had police in every subway car since the 1980's, but not on airlines...hmmm. Hijacking is nothing new. What was our government thinking? Did they assume all the hijackers suddenly retired and opened up convenience stores all over the USA?

Unfortunately, I think it will take alot more deaths before anything really gets done, as usual.

Jim Rojas

I disagree. The reason many Islamic nations hate us is that we have historically supported repressive regimes which dominated them. The US at various times supported the Shah or Iran, Saddam Hussein and a raft of other rotten folks.

The other issue they have is our strong ties to Israel. In their eyes, anyone who likes Israel must automatically be anti-Islam. While there is some justification for their anger over our government's foreign policy, there was obviously no justification for 9/11 or any other terrorism. But as a nation we need to come to grips with the things we have done to incite the wrath of these people.

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that any change of course on our part will cause the terrorists to change their course. Like Jiminex, they're on a mission. They can't see anything but their hatred and they can't accept anyone who fails to join their jihad.

Agreed. It's only a matter of time before they get their hands on a nuclear weapon (not an imaginary one like the Bush lies that got us stuck in this useless Iraqi war). Once they do they won't hesitate to use it without warning. New Orleans will be nothing compared to that tragedy.

Much of the time we also contribute to the damage.

Now we have police on many flights, too. They're dressed as ordinary pass angers but they're well armed. I doubt that there will soon be another attack using airliners as flying bombs.

Thinking? You're talking about the Bush administration. Thought is not part of the equation.

Same as New Orleans. FEMA knew this could happen but they did nothing to prepare. The same was true of the mayor, the state government and virtually everyone who *should* have been more prepared.

Yeah but the US is still doing 99% better than most other countries .. People can complain all they want but they dont know how good they got it.

People from other countries (like mine) who may hate america are just jealous. ...

And as for security .. Geez, yall need to see what non existent security we have in this country .. sure you may have some areas that need fixing, as noone is perfect, but generally speaking.. at least your government is doing something.

I'm not, you take the fight to where THEY are which contrary to media reports is working quite well

Wrong, they hate us because we are not Islamic, if we weren't around they'd be fighting each other for not being Islamic enough

Accountability. It should start here:

Explaining Michael Brown

The idea that someone like Michael Brown could possibly get a job as director of FEMA belongs in parody. We're talking about a guy who had spent a decade running horse shows before being fired for supervision failures in 2001, when Bush crony Joe Allbaugh was hired as FEMA director. Brown had never managed a natural disaster, but his experience as Allbaugh's old college roommate got him the deputy director's job. After Allbaugh left to consult for companies seeking contracts in Iraq, Brown took over the agency. When Katrina hit, Brown spent his time denying the facts about what was going on in New Orleans, in a transparent attempt to fool people into thinking the situation was under control. Now Brown's FEMA is expending lots of effort in blocking incoming aid. Even Michelle Malkin wants Brown fired.

The difference between this and the stellar performance of James Lee Witt's FEMA during the Clinton administration is like night and day. When the manager of the Des Moines Water Works called local officials shortly after midnight on July 11, 1993 to say that flooding was going to shut down the city's water supply, FEMA set up 29 water distribution points in town by that evening. While floods rendered the Water Works inoperable for two and a half weeks, the city had all the water it needed. Five hours and three minutes after the Oklahoma city bombing -- an event that occurred with no warning whatsoever -- FEMA's advance team was on the scene to assess the damage, and James Lee Witt himself had arrived within 12 hours.

Why did James Lee Witt and the disaster-relief commandos of the Clinton Administration suddenly give way to Michael Brown and the incompetents of the Bush Administration? It would seem that there would be plenty for an administration to gain in hiring effective disaster-relief people, given the political fallout that accompanies mismanaged disasters.

A look at Kevin Drum's timeline suggests one answer. The Allbaugh/Brown regime saw FEMA chopped apart and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. One of the benefits of hiring clueless but loyal hacks to head government agencies is that they won't complain when you dismember their agencies or privatize essential functions in order to satisfy your anti-government preferences. If you actually hire somebody with genuine competence in doing things that the agency is supposed to do, you might get some angry complaints and defense of turf when mission-critical functions are compromised by your agenda.

There's also a reason that lies deeper in Republican psychology. Republicans don't really want to see government succeed in doing things right. Sure, when they're running the country, they want to get the political advantages of success, if such advantages are to be had. But this desire is in tension with a desire to see government fail, to see it held up to public scorn for its incompetence and ineffectiveness. So they're not going to go all-out to hire the absolute best people, especially if their buddies just got fired from

Nothing much in South America they want I imagine

Many of the arab countries also have no particular interest in the Arab-Israeli "thing"

Yea because we tend to fight back

You've got to stop making so much sense. This is ASA. Such foolhardy attempts at explaining things with reason, intelligence and understanding are doomed to failure. :^)

When was the last time a Middle Eastern terrorist attacked anything in South America? Care to know why?

Not one South American nation ever tried to ride roughshod over them. Also, most have no particular interest in the Arab - Israeli thing.

That's a given but there are reasons why they hate us so much more than other non-Islamic nations.