B-Ball-fan

Still a hot jam 30 years later, isn't it? And STILL underground at that.

I know what current hot button would kill it in a heart beat. :laugh:

Now now...don't give me any ideas.

Impressed by all of the perfect scores, and some are even repeats from last week @mcpapa or other weeks @sumoroyal ...also a big shout out to @PP1 ...congrats on your perfect week man. :thumb:

What?... Wait... ...saw this active thread and thought "Wow it can't already be Friday, is it?"

Ray Thomas of the Moody Blues has such an incredible voice (sorta reminds me of Roger Whittaker), and while MB fans know his brilliance, how humbly he remained mostly in the background when he certainly could have had a successful solo career all his own. He deserved to be more of a household name than he ever was. So underrated. While I dig so much of the Moody Blues no matter who in the band is singing, if I had to choose, and even while Justin Hayward is wonderful and the no doubt most noticeable front man for the band, I think that I'd have to pick Ray as my favorite. His contribution to the band created a level of poetic imagery while taking an already classy band up a notch more. Thomas is now 75 and retired from the band 15 years ago due to illness, but released a solo project in 2010. About 4 years ago he was diagnosed with in-operable prostate cancer, yet he is staying on top of it through medicinal treatments.

7 - Cowboys 5 - Jets 3 - Saints 2 - Vikings 1 - Giants TB - Saints

Nitzer Ebb - Join In The Chant (1987) Early British Industrial

This next example of course is just one, but it had a big effect on my perspective. I forget exactly the timeline, but let's say about 15 years ago or so when there was a big discussion in society and on the news about getting permits to conceal carry. I worked with a large crew at my workplace, and previous to all the gun discussion if you were to ask me which co-workers I would least trust with owning guns, these just happened to be the two guys who became the most forthright and vocal about how they were going to get their permit. These two loose cannons, while having no previous legal issues in their background, were just not the kind that I felt comfortable getting all worked up about their rights and/or having a gun. They were perfect examples of the ignorant pawns who felt the need to jump right on the trend and beat their chests. When I saw them in action, it made me think just how many more goof balls throughout this country will be just like them, and it made me uneasy to ponder a future where too many average irresponsible idiots could possibly be carrying because they were granted the privilege because they fell through the cracks for having no previous record.

I really don't how many ways or how many times that I can say it, but while not blaming gun owners for the acts of nutjobs, the push from the "me and my rights" proponents have helped to facilitate a more gun preoccupied and obsessed culture that while maybe the majority of gun owners are responsible people, the strong push for gun rights has as an adverse effect created more problems than they have helped. You don't have to agree with that assessment, but this indeed is my assessment.

Some might view the strong push for the defense of the 2nd Amendment to be admirable, but I opine that it's been ultimately counter-productive and shortsighted not to see that as a result we've created an environment with more guns. While we can't blame gun owners for acts of nutjobs, their strong preoccupation with their rights has helped to facilitate the too many guns culture that we now unfortunately have to live with.

While I have opposing positions with some here, in general I can still have a discussion with them, but with you however it's quite apparent that you and I are on big time apples and oranges wavelengths that the idea of going down the rabbit hole in discussion with you wears me out. I'm not conceding to you, yet I will run away because I don't have the interest or energy to discuss what seems to be most important to you. I respect your right to be where you're coming from, but I just don't feel comfortable sharing that space with you.

I'm not blaming gun enthusiasts for the acts of nutjobs, but the strong push and the prevalence and preoccupation with defending the 2nd Amendment has counter-productively contributed to a more gun obsessed culture, and with it more gun productions meaning more guns in circulation which IMO is didn't do our culture any favors.

You've actually proved my point that the OTT national discussion created more gun owners. I suppose that depending on where one is standing they'll see the other side as the culprit of the escalating obsession and paranoia. If we're being honest we can probably admit that it's both sides that has contributed to it. You can fault the gun restriction folks and find them to be ignorant and mindless regarding the principles of our country's freedom, yet is it so hard to see that the goal was to dial down the environment of a violent culture with the hopes of less incidents of fatal crime, and while gun owners presented logical rebuttal to that push to disarm, they're strong push back created within the discussion no middle ground that would suggest that most of us, both sides, would like a less violent culture, yet there are two schools of thought regarding reaching this having proponents of those two schools of thought counter-productively going at each others throats destroying the opportunity for a solution, and now with more guns in circulation, finding that solution unfortunately eludes us.

See post 270... seems we were posting around the same time.

OK guys run with the term "stockpile" if you'd like as it seems that I've struck a nerve with that word, but I think that you're missing the point that I was making. You don't have to agree, but my take is that while gun enthusiasts have the right to own them, and I'm not proposing to restrict that, the sensitivity of the issue created a cultural hysteria where more and more people's passion regarding the right to own had escalated and with it so did the production. IMO, while serving the principle of defending gun owners rights it has also been counter-productive for our culture as a whole to now because of have far too many guns circulating as a result of appeasing to the defending of the 2nd Amendment. The "me and my rights" mentality regarding this has not done our country any favors in the long run, and now we're stuck in a far worse problem with too many guns in a gun obsessed culture. Because I'm not a gun owner, or have ever been enthusiastic about them, 15 or so years ago I was looking from the outside thinking that it's not going to be helpful to our country if more folks get caught up in this gun owning obsession brought on by way too much national attention that had it being discussed too regularly around dinner tables, and I've seen nothing now 15 years later to have disproved my hunch. Yes we indeed do and should have the right to bear arms, yet the pushing of the agenda so damn hard has in the end been terrible for our culture as a whole.

The hyper-sensitive preoccupation with our right to bear arms leading to so many to want to stockpile, leading to a massive over production of them all for the stubborn "me and my rights" shortsightedness can be thanked for that.

I suppose if you want we can discuss guns everyday considering there are shootings everyday, but speaking for myself there's other topics that occupy my mind, and I literally don't think about guns much at all if I can help it.

No I didn't

I didn't say they didn't, but keep dancing.:banana:

It's too late... massive gun production has created an issue now that has no solution. Too many guns means too many guns get into the wrong hands. We've created this mess and now we have to live/die with it.

So lets continue to dance around the obvious difference between our "civilized" country and other civilized countries who don't seem to have anywhere near the problem that we do.

There are nutjubs in every culture, the difference here is that our country has facilitated an environment where nutjobs can too easily obtain firearms. Over the last 15 years while the arms rights discussion became more beefed up, it became more and more apart of our country's mindset, making more and more people who ordinarily might not had given it much thought take a side, and with taking a side came more folks who might not have purchased weapons begin to become paranoid for various reasons regarding their rights and/or safety, along with gun enthusiasts buying more for fear of stiffer laws, and now we have even more citizens owning guns, and the more citizens you have owning guns, the more chance of some of those citizens to use those guns, and the more some of those citizens use them, the more others decide they too ought to own a gun, and the cancer of a culture with too many guns continues to grow with no cure in sight because we're out of control with our preoccupation with guns, and now have way too many in circulation to the point there's really nothing that we can do about it but live in the mess that we've created, while gun enthusiasts concerned about their rights ignore reality and look for reasons everywhere else while the obvious truth is staring at them right in their faces. If their grasp on their guns and their twisted logic wasn't so sad it would be hilarious.