Trump is safe following shooting at Florida golf course; suspect detained

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I understand. That's the very reason I don't like oatmeal or cream of wheat.

OMG!!! Some of the great breakfasts of the world!

And being from the Excited States, I'll bet you don't like (and have never even heard of) Red River Cereal.

How impoverished you must be...

 

[Ebionite]

wow, someone predicted that Trump would play golf, at his own golf course. amazing.

I guess 20% odds are reasonable if you're dedicated about taking a shot.

President Donald Trump has spent 307 days, almost a full year, golfing during his presidency.

Donald Trump Spent Almost A Year Playing Golf During Presidency

Almost a year of time spent on golf courses was punctuated recently as December became the worst month for deaths and infections in the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. Many in conservative media made a point of mentioning time spent playing golf by President Obama. But Trump has now far surpassed...

seattlemedium.com

 

[Spice]

OMG!!! Some of the great breakfasts of the world!

And being from the Excited States, I'll bet you don't like (and have never even heard of) Red River Cereal.

How impoverished you must be...

The closest thing to a hot cereal I sometimes indulge in is grits, and that's rare.

 

[Wandering Monk]

The closest thing to a hot cereal I sometimes indulge in is grits, and that's rare.

B'fast at Fort Jackson, NC included grits and STEAMED OKRA. That OKRA was like swallowing thick snot. Disgusting.

 

[Pogo]

I understand. That's the very reason I don't like oatmeal or cream of wheat.

Oatmeal; heaping half cup quick oatmeal with I/2 cup half and half and water each plus 1/2 teaspoon sweetener, your choice, skip the salt recommended. microwave 11:11 seconds (4 pushes of the 1 button) at power level 3 (4 pushes of the power level button) and eat immediately and it is good, leave it too long or screw it up and it is a slimy mess. As for cream of wheat, you need to mix it 50/50 with Wheteana either one by itself is not very good, too slimy or to grainy.
The oatmeal recipe is the result of much experimentation and the realization that counting to four before coffee is achievable on most days and much better than the obvious lazy solution of 3 and +30.

 

[Pogo]

Ew.

No, I reserve that for the Lamb and even worse the Mutton my ex-wife raised.

 

[Spice]

B'fast at Fort Jackson, NC included grits and STEAMED OKRA. That OKRA was like swallowing thick snot. Disgusting.

You had a real low-country style breakfast there. You just needed some shrimp in them grits. LOL
Your description of steamed okra is perfect. My step-mother would steam hers on the top of a pot of collards. I love collards, but would not eat out of the pot she had them disgusting thongs in.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

The closest thing to a hot cereal I sometimes indulge in is grits, and that's rare.

Back in 1991, I took a motorhome from Toronto down into the U.S -- big trip down the whole east coast, winding up in New Orleans and then up the Mississipi, Blue Ridge Parkway, Shenandoah Valley and finally home. But coming up the Mississippi, I stopped in Helena Arkansas for breakfast.

Catfish and grits -- and I tell you, it was fabulous!

 

[Pogo]

OMG!!! Some of the great breakfasts of the world!

And being from the Excited States, I'll bet you don't like (and have never even heard of) Red River Cereal.

How impoverished you must be...

Well if it is available on Amazon, I'll try it to make my 35$ eh, $20 a kilo, guess it is the other way around.

Second oldest food producer, yes I will count Molson though sellout to Adolph probably changes that.

 

[F1fan]

B'fast at Fort Jackson, NC included grits and STEAMED OKRA. That OKRA was like swallowing thick snot. Disgusting.

I never had steamed okra, but I can see how that might be gross.

My grandmother was from Denison "If it aint fried it aint cooked" Texas (fun fact, one of the boys in her neighborhood that was part of the group that played together was John Hillerman who is best known for playing Higgins on Magnum pi). Anyway she made us fried okra that was dipped in a batter of corn meal and eggs, and then fried. God that was good eatin.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I will agree that tripe is down there with Okra in disgustingness in texture but I would consider Haggis as I actually like liver and heart if prepared well.

You haven't tried okra the way they make it in Mauritius (off Madagascar). Quite lovely. And I say that as someone who hated the snot-textured rubbish I got in New Orleans.

 

[Ebionite]

For example, one might ask whether containment was the correct approach for America's national interests during the Cold War. Should our leaders have taken approaches suggested by Generals Patton and MacArthur to deal with our adversaries with one swift blow?

13:47 "It all flows, Clayton, from the decision made after the second world war that we were going to control the affairs of the world and that we were going to call the tune for third world countries, european countries. It all comes out of war."

 

[Ebionite]

 

[McBell]

Off to Springfield, Ohio

 

[Stevicus]

By less talented I mean people who don't have as many skills that can be applied to the benefit of the greater good. In general it can be measured by the well being of specific group, with the caveat that this doesn't measure the effect of beneficial or predatory relationships between groups.

Skills can be taught and learned. That largely depends on how much of an investment society wishes to make in public education. I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say "the effect of beneficial or predatory relationships between groups," as the benefit to society as a whole is what I was thinking about.

There's also the issue of attitudes towards slavery. Slavery can benefit society when it is a just punishment of wrongs.

Slavery is a violation of basic principles of human rights which most of the world has come to embrace.

It's questionable as to how beneficial it ever was. The most powerful and robust economies in the world got there through industrialism (which produces a diverse variety of products), not by embracing a plantation economy (which produces only one or two commodities).

I agree that perceptions relating to worldview should be discussed openly. The problem is that those who determine classifications of information may have a radically different worldview because they are aware of information that is not in the public domain.

Perhaps, although if the true state of the world is so radically different from what the government is willing to make public, then that may call into question whether the nation's leaders are acting in good faith and have America's genuine best interests at heart.

The only thing the public really has to go by is to judge them by their results and the effect on America as a whole, our standing in the world, our economic well-being, public order, the viability of our military forces, and other key indicators.

Government failure is an indication that they're either not as smart as they think they are, or they're not working for America's interests in good faith.

So, if they're not interested in reviewing the fundamental flaws within their worldview and insist that it all remain classified and secret, then that will have its own consequences. Their actions and attitudes would indicate that they believe themselves to be above reproach and that they don't have to answer for their failures.

I'd suggest that you take a look at Major Jordan's diaries for some perspective on the Cold War. The driving forces here were the intelligence assets of Operation Paperclip who benefited from the adversarial relationship betwen the US and the USSR.

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Yes, this is a good example of what I'm talking about, and it's the reason why such discussions should be carried out in the open, in the light of day.

To understand why this is so it's essential to be aware of the historical context. IMO the significant events occurred at the end of the second world war, especially Operation Highjump.

The doctrine of full spectrum dominance is a symptom of the foolishness of U.S. hubris and one of the consequences of the imposed adversarial strategy of the Truman era.

Again, the question has to be asked: Were America's leaders back then genuinely working for America's national interests? Or were they working for some other country's interests or for some criminal enterprise? As I mentioned above, one need only look at the results and consequences of their actions and how they have affected the overall status of America and its current role in the world.

 

[Kathryn]

See my above comments on sausages and that sort of thing.

As for oatmeal, I eat it but I don't love it, I'd rather have cheese grits.

I like fried okra and even pickled okra but I don't care for steamed okra.

I like most beef medium rare.

I love cream of wheat! I have to stir mine pretty constantly while it's cooking but it's worth it to me. I don't eat it that often.

 

[anotherneil]

You realise the scales of the issues are WILDLY different, right?

And you think that's supposed to make it ok?

Seriously, your link lists NINE mass shootings in the past four years (of which, seven had no fatalities).

Compare that, to this:

List of mass shootings in the United States - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The USA has had FIFTEEN mass shootings IN THE LAST NINE MONTHS. That is FIFTEEN TIMES MORE than happened in the UK in the same period, and all but ONE resulted in fatalities. And this is hardly an aberration:

2023
UK: 1 mass shooting, 0 with fatalities
USA: 28 mass shootings, 27 with fatalities

2022
UK: 2 mass shootings, 1 with fatalities
USA: 23 mass shootings, 21 with fatalities

2021
UK: 3 mass shootings, 1 with fatalities
USA: 13 mass shootings, 13 with fatalities

2020
UK: 3 mass shootings, 1 with fatalities
USA: 7 mass shootings, 3 with fatalities

2019:
UK: 1 mass shooting, 0 with fatalities
USA: 18 mass shootings, 11 with fatalities

If you want to make an argument that involves comparing differences incident scales between countries, don't you think it's important to take into account what the population of each country involved is? The ratio of population between the US and UK is 5 to 1, so in "per capita" terms, we're not really talking 15 times more; we're talking 3 times more.

Yes, 3 times more is still a much bigger ratio, and that may enough to prove something meaningful, but what? I don't think it proves anything meaningful, because for one thing, you're taking a multi-dimensional issue and ignoring all the dimensions except for one, and from that one dimension you're using you're trying to draw conclusions about the multi-dimensional issue. In other words, depending on what point you're trying to make or what you're trying to prove, you're essentially cherry picking.

Let's look at another dimension - access to firearms; are they more easily accessible in the US than the UK? Let's start with the implied premise from the original post to which I replied, which I take to be that firearms are fairly accessible in the US and practically not accessible in the UK. I'm not sure how to quantify this right now, but it seems like a ballpark estimate based on this, and without knowing the statistics, would yield mass shootings in the US that occur hundreds, thousands, or even more times as many as the UK.

As an analogy, to try to explain what I mean by this, let's compare a 1 square mile apple orchard (50,000 apple trees) to a 10 square mile area with only 1 apple tree; this means a ratio of 500,000 apples in the orchard to every apple on the tree in the 10 square mile plot (assuming an equal yield of apples from each tree).

Why is the ratio of mass shootings between the UK and US only 1:3, rather than - say - 1:500,000, or 1:50,000, or 1:5,000, or 1:500, or 1:50, or even 1:5?

Here's one more dimension: crimes that could've been prevented if the victim was armed with a firearm. Since we're talking specifically about mass shootings, how likely would you expect a mass shooter to square off with a group of people armed to the teeth & even if they did, how many shooting (or "mass" shooting) casualties would they be able to achieve? With a group of people armed to the teeth, they might be able to get one, but once they get that one victim, that's probably it, because at that point the rest of the people armed to the teeth will turn that would-be mass shooter into Swiss cheese.

I'm going to assume a 1 in 100 chance that a would-be mass shooter would square off with people armed to the teeth; that would correspond to bringing down the number of mass shooting attempts to 1% of what they would've otherwise been. You can make it 10% or even 50% if you want, but there's going to be those would-be mass shooters who have enough brains to know that they're very likely going to fail by trying to go up against people armed to the teeth, and it's a little difficult for me to buy the idea that even 1% of them don't have the brains. This means 0 mass shootings for 99% of the would-be scenarios.

Now let's talk about the remaining would-be mass shooters (the ones who don't have the brains); to reiterate, they might get 1 casualty, but that's it & this means that they failed to achieve a mass shooting, which won't be counted in as a mass shooting event since they failed.

Since this thread is about the incident at the golf course with Trump, what happened there? Well it seems like this would-be assassin was going to try to allegedly whack Trump, yet got to fire off no shots. Had there not been a presence of Secret Service agents who were armed, and fired at him, this guy probably would've fired at Trump repeatedly until he got him, and just like the 1st assassination attempt in Butler PA, as well as the Congressional baseball mass shooting incident in Alexandria VA, it could've also been a mass shooting incident.

Maybe this explains why the ratio isn't anywhere near 1:500,000, but why is it still a higher 1:3 ratio, one might ask. Well, let's consider that despite the ease of access to firearms in the US, we have gun-free zones. The law-abiding people in these zones have to be unarmed when they're in them, or even if they are armed when they go into them, they're going to be hesitant to draw their weapons and use them because with that act alone they'd be breaking the laws. So, in effect, you don't have people armed to the teeth; you have sitting ducks. This gives would-be mass shooters some target-rich environments, and that's where we have large mass casualties when a mass shooter decides to inflict their wrath.

These are just a couple of examples of the dimensions involved; there are many more & I think the ratio of per capita mass shootings in the US would actually be way lower than the UK if the 2nd Amendment was respected everywhere, all the time, here in the US.

Your argument utterly fails when you look at the rates, because it's pretty obvious that those "bad guys" who want to do mass shootings sure don't seem to manage to do them as much when access to guns is restricted. You've accidentally proven the point quite well that gun availability contributes massively to the likelihood of mass shootings.

EDIT: In fact, on double-checking my sources, it's actually SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE than the above, because the Wiki pages I referenced for USA mass shooting stats only refer to "NOTABLE" mass shootings, while the UK source lists literally ALL mass shootings.

List of mass shootings in the United States in 2024 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

List of mass shootings in the United States - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The actual number for the mass shootings in the USA is THIS:

2024
432, with 527 dead

2023
600, with 739 dead

2022
695, with 762 dead

2021
690, with 431 dead

2020
615, with 521 dead

2019
434, with 387 dead

To even attempt to draw a direct comparison between the UK and the USA in this regard isn't just dishonest, it's outright delusional.

Argument? I refuted the claims that were posted, and that I had responded to, with facts.

Literally a logical fallacy. Do better.

Which logical fallacy is it? Show me how.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

And you think that's supposed to make it ok?

You think my position is that a small amount of gun crime is okay?

No, suprisingly. That is not my position. My position was that you were falsely conflating mass shootings in the UK to mass shootings in the USA to imply the problems are the same, despite the fact that there are literally HUNDREDS of mass shootings in America compared to barely any in the UK, so trying to imply that, therefore, gun control hasn't prevented mass shootings with that logic is obviously false.

If you want to make an argument that involves BLAH BLAH BLAH (edited by me)

Boy, that sure is a lot of words to try and justify making a completely absurd comparison.

Argument? I refuted the claims that were posted, and that I had responded to, with facts.

You literally refuted nothing. All they did was point out that there are significantly fewer mass shootings or mass deaths in countries with gun control. All you did is show that mass shootings still happen - albeit at a rate and number that is SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER than the USA. Which is the point.

Which logical fallacy is it? Show me how.

Association fallacy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And, even more specifically:

Reductio ad Hitlerum is a type of association fallacy.[5][6] The argument is that a policy leads to—or is the same as—one advocated or implemented by Adolf Hitler or Nazi Germany and so "proves" that the original policy is undesirable. Another type of reductio ad Hitlerum is asking a question of the form "You know who else...?" with the deliberate intent of impugning a certain idea or action by implying Hitler had that idea or performed such an action.[7]

Reductio ad Hitlerum - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[anotherneil]

Oh my, no sense of humor and an inability to reason.

Nevermind me; I'm not the thread topic & frankly neither is your hijacking of this thread by changing it into a gun grabber debate.

Those people in Australia were arrested for merely having a weapon.

And no one ought to be getting arrested for that.

And yes, in a dictatorship the government needs gun control.

Do you want a dictatorship?

Trump has not won so the US is not a dictatorship yet.

False! He won in 2016 and becames POTUS back then - did you forget?

Were we a dictatorship during his presidency & if so, did he impose gun control? If he did, why are the pro-gun rights voters supporting him so much?

What you're saying makes no sense.

You probably do not even understand why your supposed counter example does not work.

What counter example? I refuted your claims.

 

[Revoltingest]

Do you want a dictatorship?

Many liberals want Democratic Fascism, ie, the
voters willingly impose laws that criminalize
hate speech, gun ownership, raising prices,
raising rent, etc.