The Good Post Gallery

[Joe Republic]

cc: Sulfur Mine

Stay classy gun control nuts.

This kind of sentiment is the kind of the thing that could easily go in the things that are f'd up about the US thread. In any other (supposedly) civilized country in the world a tragedy like this might actually lead people to reexamine their bizarre gun laws - or lack thereof. When a maniac massacred sixteen people in Dunblane in 1996, there was a near-unanimous consensus that the UK needed to tighten its gun control - and they did, with universal public support.

Only in America is the reaction to things like this a horrified panic at the very idea that there might have to be the slightest scrap of extra regulation on guns, because, lest we forget, it's a God-given right to allow lunatics to own the kind of tools that let them murder people with wild abandon.

I can't believe you have the gall to accuse people of "politicizing" this - as if this doesn't inherently have political ramifications and, more to the point, as if your very post wasn't a sleazy and political attack on those of us who think the sheer amount of violent firearms massacres in the United States might - just might - warrant a re-examination of the law.

The same goes for Sanchez and Sanders - spare us the phony outrage. Please. The idea that this incident can be shrugged off as "huh, it was just some nut, what you gonna do?" as if it's merely a sad but predictable and even acceptable event in a healthy society. This isn't normal.

[Joe Republic]

Infracting for trolling at the 2012 Election board is like giving speeding tickets at Indy 500.

[Joe Republic]

I'm so confused about all this, I'm no longer sure that I was the poster being insulted.

[Joe Republic]

lol, no one is talking about infanticide, calm down dude.

This abortion thing is exhausting. We know conservatives think women should go back to being treated as the baby-making property of their husbands. We know they're hiding this in arguments about the well-being of babies or whatever, even though conservatives repeatedly vote to cut funding to actually give these babies food and healthcare once they're born. This constant fake outrage about the poor babies and evil leftist baby murderers is really tiring.

If a pregnant woman thinks a child is going to inconvenience her life, she should be able to have an abortion. Conservatives sure aren't going to take care of the child for her. Look at Texas. Abortion is basically outlawed now, and the government refuses to expand medicaid so those unwanted children and their mothers aren't going to have healthcare. But conservatives don't give a sh[inks] about that, because they're both out of the womb by that point, and no longer conservatives' problem.

[Joe Republic]

tl;dr

[Joe Republic]

And fracking will continue providing energy independence for America, despite a few people in PA being able to light their water on fire.

The stakes are a lot sharper than just "a few people in PA being able to light their water on fire", even if one were to accept the premise that their inability to carry out normal life going forward is No Big Deal, as you so blithely seem to do.  The stakes are more like millions of people don't have drinking water anymore, and local governments are bankrupted- you are aware of where NYC's water comes from, and how by spending millions to preserve land around their reservoirs, they have saved $billions in construction and running of treatment plants in addition to all the other wildlife/air quality/recreational/etc. benefits of open space, and how they basically have some of the best water in the country because of it, and how it could all come crashing down if we blindly charge ahead with "drill baby drill", and cause economic devastation greater than the value of the gas?  (Sorry for the run-on sentence there.)

And keep in mind that those poor folks in PA are not getting compensated for damages at all, because the state government is rather deliberately looking the other way and refusing to do due diligence to see whether water supplies can be held harmless in the face of fracking- both from overuse (since fracking uses a lot of water), and also from the more well-publicized contamination issues.  Now look, I'm very much a pragmatist here- if they can find a way to do it that's guaranteed to not f**k up these people's lives, and actually be serious about paying damages when they mess up, I'd be willing to accept some drilling.  It is way better than coal, that I recognize. But we all know what those "if"s add up to.  First and foremost, the government needs to do get its head out of regulatory capture, do its job and regulate- and if that means a moratorium, if that means some marginal plays are just going to have to wait, if that means we don't drill anywhere near important reservoirs, then fine.  Take the time to get things right first, take all the externalities into account.