The Official Nonsense Thread

[Minty]

"Greatest country in the world"? Arms 5 year olds, & wonders why they're full of homicidal nutters? They even have a company that makes guns specifically for children!

Uhhhhh, my head hurts!

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world...830756.cms

(The original version of this story was in the Washington Post, but it was edited to death because the NRA filed objections to it. Luckily newspapers abroad aren't so easily intimidated)

In Kentucky, where some children get their first guns even before they start first grade, Stephanie Sparks was cleaning the kitchen as her 5-year-old son played with the small rifle he was given last year. Then, as she stepped onto the front porch, "she heard the gun go off," a coroner said.

In a horrific accident on Tuesday that shocked a rural area far removed from the US debate over gun control, her son, Kristian, had fatally shot his 2-year-old sister, Caroline, in the chest, authorities said.

Kristian's rifle was kept in a corner of the mobile home, and the family didn't realize a bullet had been left in it, Cumberland County Coroner Gary White said.

"Down in Kentucky where we're from, you know, guns are passed down from generation to generation," White said. "You start at a young age with guns for hunting and everything."

What is more unusual than a child having a gun, he said, is "that a kid would get shot with it." [WTF?]

In this case, the rifle was made by a company that sells guns specifically for children - "My first rifle" is the slogan - in colors ranging from plain brown to hot pink to orange to royal blue to multi-color swirls.

Later -

The company that makes the rifle, Pennsylvania-based Keystone Sporting Arms, has a "Kids Corner" on its website with pictures of young boys and girls at shooting ranges and on bird and deer hunts. It says the company produced 60,000 Crickett and Chipmunk rifles for kids in 2008. The smaller rifles are sold with a mount to use at a shooting range.

Keystone also makes guns for adults, but most of its products are geared toward children, including books and bright orange vests and hats.

"The goal of KSA is to instill gun safety in the minds of youth shooters and encourage them to gain the knowledge and respect that hunting and shooting activities require and deserve," the website said.

No one at the company answered the phone Wednesday.

According to the website, company founders Bill McNeal and his son Steve McNeal decided to make guns for young shooters in the mid-1990s and opened Keystone in 1996 with just four employees, producing 4,000 rifles that year. It now employs about 70 people.

It also has a long list of testimonials from parents who talk about how grateful they are to be able to go shooting with their children.

Sharon Rengers, a longtime child advocate at Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, said making and marketing weapons specifically for children was "mind-boggling."
"It's like, oh, my God," she said, "we're having a big national debate whether we want to check somebody's background, but we're going to offer a 4-year-old a gun and expect something good from that?"

[Caspin]

Jeez, most five year olds can barely tie their shoelaces, never mind be trusted to handle firearms.

And then the mother isn't even watching them? A two year old is being supervised by a five year old with a rifle?!

I think you win for finding the most depressing news story of the week. I've certainly got over the withdrawal of mislabeled peanuts now.

[Caspin]

I have just realised that today most of the things I've consumed have been yellow. This morning I had a cheese toastie - yellow cheese and bread is sort of yellow too. For dinner I had split pea curry (yellow) with beer (also yellow). This evening I am going to drink a bottle of liquore strega, given to me as a birthday present. That really couldn't be more yellow because of all the saffron in it.

Weird, so much yellowness.

:mw_hmmm:

[Minty]

OK, WTF? Have we swapped hemispheres? It's May, & it's BLOODY FREEZING! Not amused.

However, Hearts 3 - St Midden 0 = very amusing! Three weeks now they've been chasing a point to ensure they instead of Dundee get relegated - Dundee ever since have won all their games & the Midden have lost theirs. Is their luck like Barnet's finally going to run out this year?

Oh yeah, & for any of you into Star Wars, May the Fourth be with you!

[Caspin]

And also with you.

I'll have what Minty's having!

[bobert26]

Hmm, looks like Israels begun a missile attack on Syria.

[Minty]

Wondered how long it would be before they came out in the open. There's been rumours about them getting old East German MP43s/Stg44 (forerunner of the famous Russian AK47, & some argue better) to the non-Islamicist rebels in the same way they armed the Christian militias in the Lebanon back in the bad old days.

Now Israel has a more secularist coalition in charge, they may have forced the government to do something to help those trying to overthrow Assad & also stop any Al Quida front group seizing power.

The Israelis also have a strange sort of relationship with the Druze in thick with the rebels, & possibly want to get the message over that they won't stand by & let Assad's thugs butcher them with nerve gas.

It's all looking like events are coming to a head out there. Weren't the Turks threatening to invade Syria at some stage over refugees being slaughtered?

[Caspin]

Re: Syria. Certainly looks like the rebels are getting some big firepower from somewhere, judging from some of the pictures in the news. Must be hell on earth over there. Two years of fighting and the people waiting to see if their rulers will use the chemical weapons that it seems very likely the government have stockpiled (Syria didn't sign any of the anti-CW conventions). Assad's not going to have a country or a people left at this rate. I feel very lucky to have been born somewhere relatively safe.

Re: fun tweets if you like history. From a current war to a previous war: I really like this "Real Time WWII" Twitter thingy. I don't use Twitter myself, but friends sometimes email me tweets that they think I'd like. This service sends "live" WW2 tweets - mapping the whole course of the war as though it were happening today in the twittering age. It's fascinating!

https://twitter.com/RealTimeWWII

Re: knobs. After all the depressing news stories we've talked about, I was kind of pleased to see this headline. "Competitors aim for prize knob". Whoever got away with writing that headline should get a prize. It's a story about an annual biscuit-throwing competition in Dorset. The biscuit is called a knob and the competitors throw them as far as they can. Some people can apparently throw their knob really far - 96ft! The prize is one of the biscuits and your name on a plaque in the village hall. What a claim to fame - I won a knob for being the best tosser!




Time for tea. (Wish we had a tea-drinking smilie).

Edit: found one!

[Ollie]

Wouldn't it just be easier, if your going to have a revolution, just have as many people as possible leave the country. With no people the country would be useless. Soon the head of the country would just give up, so you and your fellow revolutions go back in to the country and take over.

[Minty]

(06-05-2013 08:05 AM)Caspin Wrote:  Re: knobs. After all the depressing news stories we've talked about, I was kind of pleased to see this headline. "Competitors aim for prize knob". Whoever got away with writing that headline should get a prize. It's a story about an annual biscuit-throwing competition in Dorset. The biscuit is called a knob and the competitors throw them as far as they can. Some people can apparently throw their knob really far - 96ft! The prize is one of the biscuits and your name on a plaque in the village hall. What a claim to fame - I won a knob for being the best tosser!

Uh, let me get this straight - they put a plaque in a Dorset village hall to whoever's best at tossing their knob, with some managing to discharge theirs so vigorously it lands 96 feet away?

Can't they just dance round a maypole at this time of year like everyone else?