grumpyduck
grumpyduck's JournalDon't people read anymore?
A couple of days ago I sent out several emails asking for some very simple information for a project I'm working on. The emails went to established businesses.
About half the replies told me that the respondents didn't read the email content (which was very clear and very short): they apparently went just by the subject line. In one case the response was to a totally different question than the one I asked.
I've been seeing this more and more over the past couple of years. I'm seeing it here on DU and I see it on other forums.
What's up with this?
Police encounters with black people: now and previously?
We're hearing more and more about police being called on POC, and their ridiculous responses. The latest seems to be the woman (a lawyer) who was shopping with her daughter, accused of shoplifting, and handcuffed roughly. Before that it was the cop who went after a 22-year-old who had taken his sister to the prom.
I don't know if it's going to be possible to keep this thread from derailing, but here's a question: Is this happening more often nowadays, or was it happening all along and we're just hearing about it more?
I have my opinions too, but can we find some factual information?
Interesting piece on HuffPost re: NRA membership
According to their poll, only about 8% of gun owners are members. And some of the responses to "why" are interesting.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-many-gun-owners-dont-join-the-nra_us_5ad8a110e4b03c426dabf372
I know, I know, there will be those who scream FAKE POLL! 
Why are there so many duplicate posts here?
This has been mentioned before, but just now there are several OPs about trump's lawyer, and there were several OPs just recently about Michelle Wolf, the Starbucks incident, and many others, basically all saying the same thing.
I think it's fascinating.
Those of you who are crackerjack researchers...
There should be a way to look up how the medical records of Obama, Bush, Clinton, et al, were transferred from private doctors (if they were) to a government office. I'm not up to speed with the ins and outs, but I would love to see SHS called out on her "standard operating procedure" comment.
I would also love to see a real reporter do a piece on this -- assuming, of corse, that there's a story there.
Let's act to call out hypocrisy NOW!
When I discovered DU a few months ago, I said to myself, hey, cool, here’s something I can get involved in. My first few posts were along the line of “let’s do something,” but I quickly realized that DU is basically a chat room and that, except for the occasional long drawn-out pointless argument, we’re all basically singing to the choir.
But this morning two items popped up that got me thinking. One was the reaction to Michelle Wolf‘s routine last night at the WHCD. The other was the tweet from the Parkland students about the gun ban at the NRA event. I’ve said before that talk is cheap and posting online is free, so here’s an idea for something we can do in prep for the upcoming elections.
I’m going to call it a “Hypocrisy Database.” It would be an online listing of documented specific instances where someone has said something and then done the opposite. For instance, I read here a couple of times that the NRA campus is a gun-free zone. If that’s correct (and I’m not certain it is), then their stance on people buying guns for protection is an example of hypocrisy. I can already see the arguments: “It’s an office building,” “No bad guys would go in there anyway,” “It’s their policy and they have the right to any policies they want,” yadda yadda. But it’s still hypocrisy. And if it turns out, and can be proven, that some of their top officers carry in the building, then it’s a double whammy.
A listing on the database would say, for instance: “On 5/6/17, so-and-so said he would ban first-class travel for federal officials in cases other than emergencies. On 12/5/17 he bought a first-class ticket on government money to go on vacation.” Links to contemporary media items would follow. Short and sweet and documented.
The tweet from the Parkland students, BTW, in my view, is not appropriate. The gun ban on the event is a Secret Service request because Pence will be there, not an NRA request. Even if the NRA had wanted to allow guns, the Secret Service would have nixed it.
The idea behind the database, of course, is to give people a place to look up specific stuff and tweet or otherwise send it out to others. In a short time, I believe the MSM would get wind of the database and mention it or add to it, increasing its visibility and status. And more people would see it.
The database, as I see it, would not be a chat room – we already have one or more of those. People would send specific documented examples to a team of moderators, who would review them for accuracy and then post them. This would also avoid repetition and drawn-out arguments, and keep trolls out.
From the post counts and visibility of some members here, I have to believe they’re retired or semi-retired and have time on their hands, and/or DU is a serious hobby or a passion and they’d probably be willing to put some time into it with help from other members. But the goal would be to get the word out to many people who might not otherwise be aware of how much hypocrisy there is out there.
Our government and the NFL draft
This morning I was going through the primary election booklet we received from the County, and, later, we had lunch at a local restaurant that had a screen running parts of the NFL draft. And I realized something very interesting (to me, anyway).
Those kids hoping to get drafted have been playing football for years, probably starting early in high school or before. They're out there playing their hearts out, knowing there's no place to hide on that field. Sure they're thinking about the money (heck, I would be too), but they're working like hell to show the scouts they know what they're doing and are qualified for the big time. And the ones who get drafted are only beginning: they have to spend the rest of their careers proving that they can do the job they were hired for. The vast majority of them do.
Meanwhile, anybody, with absolutely no qualifications, can run for office... and some of them win. I read some of the blurbs on the candidates for various positions (including governor, senate, and house), and it was mind-blowing. Heck, I have better qualifications than some of them said they had. All they have to do is convince enough other people to vote for them, which they do by spending donated money. That's it. And when they get in office they can proceed to not do the job they were elected to do and still keep the job.
The other part I find interesting is that, in Congress, these elected lawmakers get to vet people nominated for various jobs: cabinet officials, general officers in the military, and many others. Yet nobody vetted them. And half the time approving someone or not approving them is a political trade-off anyway: "I'll vote for your guy if you vote for mine."
I don't have a clue how this could be changed, or if it should, but I find it fascinating.
Why did they give the guns back to the shooter's father?
Illinois lawmakers are trying to close a loophole that allows guns to be given back to the families of people who lose their licenses. IOW, "Here, we took this from your son and we're giving it back to you."
The question is WHY? If the gun is confiscated, why give it back to a member of the family (or to anyone else, for that matter)?
Did I miss something here?
Any legitimate studies on the demographics of Dems and Reps?
I'm curious as to whether any university or other group has ever done a study of "typical" Dems or Reps: age, education, income, and so forth. Actually, I'd love to see such a study done by a British or European group, to hopefully get an "unbiased" perspective.
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Member since: Sat Dec 16, 2017, 01:51 PMNumber of posts: 6,232
