Going to Pot, hmm...Well two states so far!
Congrats, soup!!! As soon as I saw the new title that LU had granted us, I just
KNEW there was going to be a comment about certain seven pointed herbaceous plants that are the leading cash crop in a certain large coastal State in the southwestern US. And, wonders of wonders, it was posted by someone
FROM that State!!!!
All that now begs the question; what do you do to generate supplemental income? It's been common knowledge for decades that Cali's biggest cash crop was also not legal (and it's still your home State's biggest cash crop!!!!)
And yes, I know that it's grown around here as well; we will start seeing it in the headlines in the next month or so. The State Police runs helicopter sweeps on a regular basis, but they only have a small budget for it. Where the big tips come from is when the State National Guard units start their summer training cycle. All that infrared night vision equipment can also tell a corn field from a different leafy plant.....
Now, where was I??? First off; Landuse, thanks are due for your transfer. While the name may be taken as being a little "off color" in some markets, it does add a little "gallow's humor" where it wouldn't hurt to have it...
Fowler; i can sympathise with you on that one; personally, I think you'll have much better odds staying at home in Oz. Chile is by no means the most corrupt country in South America, but it still has a long way to go before it would be comparable in civil rights, and all those things we tend to take for granted in the more developed world. And if anyone is thinking I'm claiming the US is the best in the world, all across the board, think again. We still have all the problems (plus a whole bunch that are unique to us) that most any country in the world has. At least here, if some fruit loop is waving a gun around, threatening people, it's still legal for me to put one of my size 12 steel toes up his
to show him the errors of his ways.
Here's a problem most countries don't have to worry about; they don't have large, for profit, Non Governmental Agencies trying to strike down all common sense rules for owning firearms. These people claim that you should "
NOT BE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST FOR THE OWNERSHIP OF GUNS, just because you have some small personal issues, like say
MULTIPLE violent felonies;
DOCUMENTED mental illness/ issues. They feel that we must "THROW AWAY" "OUTDATED/ ANTIQUATED PRINCIPLES and/or CUSTOMS" such as you do not carry a weapon into a house of worship, or a school, or a hospital. They want to overturn established legal precedent that say's that if my employer, (of a privately owned company) makes it an automatic firing/ termination of employment offence to carry a loaded weapon OF ANY SORT onto his private property; here in Michigan, a place of business that does not deal with the general public (I.E. retail), has the same legal standing as his or her personal home. The argument that "someone" needs to carry a weapon to defend themselves while in public don't apply when the general public isn't supposed to be there in the first place. Apparently, this really basic bit of logic is highly offensive to some people. I would have serious reservations about working for a company that allowed
nut jobs to wander around with loaded firearms whenever they want.
And yes, there are safe and sane CC gun owners out there; of the seven that I personally know, six are adamant that mandatory background checks, and mandatory remedial retraining/ testing would put a serious bite on the tragic headlines we have several times a year around the US. Treat it like a drivers licence, they say. In many states, it's harder to get a drivers licence that it is to get a pistol permit, which is nuts, because it's a lot easier to kill someone with a handgun than it is with an automobile.
Sorry; this topic got really close to home today. The shop I'm working for ATM is in one of those multi suite commercial complexes. There was an incident at the vending company based in the unit two doors down today; no shots were fired, and no one was hurt. Still not entirely what was going on, but there was a knock down, drag out of some sort just before 8:00 this morning, with someone returning with a gun just after 9:00. The first we knew about it was when the cops showed up, guns drawn, sirens wailing. There was only four layers of drywall between our space and where the battle would have been... For the record, does anyone know where I can look up the armor ratings/ protective specs for 3/8" to 5/8" drywall? I might need to know this stuff, because most OSHA rated machine enclosures are rated for how well they keep the mess being generated inside the machine, not what caliber of fire they can withstand.....
I really just want to emigrate to aus more and more by the day haha
Sorry Paul; you got me on that one; yesterday was just 
