I sometimes like to entertain sort of a radically modified 2 state solution.

Both sides get their own state, the catch is neither state is in Israel/Palestine.

We carve out 2 Israel-sized chunks of land that are nowhere near each other from the emptiest space we can find in large developed nations, maybe the American southwest, siberia, australian outback, Canadian wilderness, etc. The world throws money at the problem for them to set up any schools, government , infrastructure, etc. they need to run a country in that space, then we draw straws or flip a coin to determine which gets to be the Israeli state and which gets to be the Palestinian state.

Then all of the residents get 2 options. They can go set up shop in their new country, or they get a one-time free pass to pick any other country in the world and be granted instant citizenship.

No one gets to stay in Palestine/Israel. It gets overseen directly by the UN or something as a giant world heritage site, people are free to visit, play tourist, make pilgrimages, etc. but no one gets to live there full-time, anyone who works there to facilitate tourism, conduct research, maintain facilities and infrastructure, etc. must be kept on a strict schedule where they’re cycling in and out of the area so that they don’t spend more than half the year there without special permission. Anyone caught attempting to live there gets departed to their home country immediately.

The new countries’ borders are strictly enforced, no trying to expand the borders, settlements, etc. and it’s up to them to negotiate what the border situation with their surrounding country.

If they can’t play nice, we’re taking their toys away from them and sending them to stand in opposite corners of the room to think about what they did.

If any verifiable God/Messiah/prophet, etc. should happen to show up, we’ll defer to their judgement on the matter.

There are, of course, a million different reasons why this can’t/won’t happen, and hopefully they’re obvious enough that I won’t have to explain why it’s a crazy fantasy.

Little context on that, we obviously camp and hike and such a lot, so trees are pretty much what we have available in the woods. And one of my friends has a pretty messed up septic system at his house that he’s reluctant to put too much money into servicing because he’s allegedly on the list to be hooked up to the city sewer at some point, so we go outside when we can to avoid stressing the septic system too hard.

We don’t normally expect women to use the trees at his house (they of course don’t have many other options when we’re in the woods) but a couple have risen to the challenge over the years and more power to them. I don’t think anyone has come prepared with a go girl, sheewee or other such device, they just pull down their pants and pop a squat behind a tree, but we’re a bunch of old boy scouts so we’d certainly applaud anyone who did for being prepared.

Just pointing out a straw man doesn’t do much good if you don’t also point out why it’s a straw man. Please add to the discussion, debate me’ try to light my straw on fire.

I personally go a step further.

Everything in the universe is following the laws of physics. We don’t know all of the laws, and we’re limited in what we’re actually able to perceive and measure, so some of it seems like random chance. But at the end of the day, everything is playing out according to those laws.

Your thoughts, feelings, etc. are all just physical and chemical reactions happening in your brain, no different than iron rusting, water evaporating, unstable atoms decaying, etc. you don’t get any more say in what you think, feel, say, or do than you do over whether vinegar and baking soda are going to react with each other.

The only thing special about us is that we’re aware that things are happening, even if we can’t fully perceive the causes. We don’t really get any say in what the meat we inhabit does, even if it something feels like we do, we’re just along for the ride, but the fact that we’re aware it’s happening is pretty cool. There’s a quote, I forget by who and the exact wording, that we are “the universe experiencing itself” and I think that’s all we’re doing, experiencing. We don’t genuinely have any agency, not even about what we think about the experience, because thinking is a part of what we’re experiencing.

If somehow you knew the exact state of every elementary particle that existed the moment the big bang happened, and had a complete rulebook of all of the unknown laws of physics we have yet to discover, you could theoretically trace out the paths those particles would take from there, what other particles they would eventually collide and interact with, how those interactions would play out as they come together to form nebulas, stars, planets, and eventually yourself and everything else around you, and you could keep going tracing out the paths of those particles into the future and see what becomes of everything in the universe and how it all ends (if in fact it does eventually come to an end)

I could be wrong, and if it ever turns out we do have an actual say in what we think, feel, and do, that would be even more amazing. If not though, I’m satisfied to just be along for the ride to see where I end up and what I can experience along the way.

I overall agree that for some things it can make sense to have separate gendered spaces, shelters make sense, I can see gyms, etc. places where people are feeling particularly vulnerable, self conscious, dealing with trauma, etc. and being around the opposite gender could be a part of that.

But in other cases, I think the right move is to get over ourselves and be rid of pointless gendering in some activities.

A lot of my friends and myself are traditionally “manly” in a lot of ways, outdoorsy, cigar smokers, whiskey drinkers, a lot of us work with our hands, like guns, etc. That said, we’re a pretty enlightened group, we’re not out shit-talking our wives and engaging in demeaning “locker room” talk and such when we get together to have what could be loosely called our “boys nights out.” It’s happened from time to time that a female friend ends up tagging along and absolutely nothing changes about our behavior, the fact that there is a woman in the room in no way takes away from the experience, and if anything adds to it in a “the more the merrier” sort of way. Any woman who is willing to put up with the cigar smoke, fart jokes, peeing on trees in the woods, etc. is more than welcome to come along, it just happens that most don’t enjoy that.

Now of course you also run into a whole lot of complicated situations, the way men tend to interact with other men, and the way women interact with other women are different. I’m not going to go into all of the nature vs nurture, societal expectations, toxic masculinity, etc. involved but all of that certainly plays a big part. I’m no sociologist, but my overall impression (and I may be wrong)is that women can kind of mesh into the male social structure without making too many waves provided that the men aren’t assholes (which is far from guaranteed,) but it’s very hard for a lot of men to get themselves into the right kind of headspace to participate in the sort of socializing women want and need from their social groups without disrupting things to the point that the women aren’t able to get what they need out of it.

And circling around to shelters, men may need more shelters by sheer numbers, but on average each individual homeless woman is probably in a more vulnerable position than the average homeless man. Really more shelter space is needed across the board.

And the horse people will try to retort that dog poop takes longer to break down, smells worse, and is more likely to spread disease

Which is true, still doesn’t justify not cleaning up after your horse. Just because the horse manure is “less bad” doesn’t make it ok.

Another thought that crossed my mind, since most of these people don’t live with their horses within horseback -riding distance of most of these trails, so these people usually have to go hitch up a horse trailer to a gas guzzler of a pickup truck and drive sometimes a pretty considerable distance to take their horses out. Often the parking areas at the trail heads aren’t particularly well suited to accommodating a truck and horse trailer, and they end up being kind of a parking nuisance on top of that.

If they do where you live, I’m happy for you, but I’ve spent a lot of time hiking in my area hiking on shared use trails and have never seen any rider clean up after their horses or who even looked like they were prepared to, and there is always horse manure along the trails.

Cops should too, I make no exception for them.

They absolutely are, and if there were any ATV trails in my area I’d feel just ash strongly about that. As it is though, a lot of these trails aren’t even open to pedaled mountain bikes (partially because they spook some of the horses) and with the ones that are, there’s some significant debate on whether e bikes should be allowed.

Horse riders should have to clean up after their horses on trails.

I’m a big believer in leave no trace in the outdoors. To the best of your ability, everything should be as you found it when you leave the woods.

Wild horses have been extinct in north America for many thousands of years, in my local area as far as fossil and archeological records can show any native horses that might have existed here were long gone before the first native Americans set foot here. They are not a part of the ecosystem.

I don’t care if it’s biodegradable, I wouldn’t leave apple cores and banana peels behind either.

The environment in my local parks isn’t so delicate that a few entitled rich assholes leaving behind horse shit probably isn’t going to make a significant impact, but there are other places where it absolutely could, throwing off the chemical composition of the soil, contaminating ground water, causing algal blooms, introducing non-native parasites, bacteria, and pathogens, etc. and you should be following best practices across the board. Treat every inch of the outdoors as if it were potentially vulnerable and don’t try to bend the rules just because you think you can get away with it.

And it’s just an eyesore and detracts from the natural beauty.

The horse people fire back about how they can’t carry a shovel with them, or how they may not be able to safely get on or off the horse. This is the shit horses were bred for- to carry people and stuff, I can find you an avalanche shovel and a small folding step stools that will break down plenty small and light enough to fit in a backpack or lash to the saddle with some rope to pull the stool up after you get on, and it’s all gonna weigh a lot less than the armor, and rifles, bedrooms, etc. that people used to ride horses with for a lot longer and harder than the couple house you’re spending plodding along the trail. If you can afford to go horseback riding you can afford the hundred bucks or so for a shovel and a step stool. If that’s not enough for you to get on and off your horse safely on the trail, maybe you should take that as a sign that you shouldn’t be riding a horse there, stick to a dude ranch where some big strong cowboy will help you get on and off of the horsey.

I’m just curious what your interpretation of yellow laces is. I’m not a punk but am vaguely aware of lace codes, and every list I see online has yellow as anti-racist, but I know it varied a bit from place to place.

I don’t know. I’m pretty sure every high school had at least one student who would shit in a litter box just because and then brag about it

I remember maybe a year or so ago, overhearing some of my coworkers who seemed to genuinely believe that schools were installing litter boxes for alleged students that identify as cats.

These idiots will believe absolutely anything, and it doesn’t need to be even remotely anchored to reality.

Has there ever been a repeat mass shooter?

I don’t have hard data, but probably not. Most probably don’t get the chance. If they don’t kill themselves and aren’t killed by police, most of them are probably facing decades if not life in prison or even execution.

At least if we’re talking about the sort of “classic” mass shooting scenario where a lone wolf type walks into a soft target like a school and opens fire indiscriminately.

If you open up the definition a bit, you might find some examples, though I don’t really like doing that because they really seem like different kinds of scenarios to me.

You could probably find a couple gang or mafia types who have taken part in more than one incident where multiple people were shot. Same for certain terrorist/guerilla groups and such.

The beltway sniper attacks took place over about 6 months, though most of their attacks individually wouldn’t count as mass shootings

After the Boston Marathon bombing the bombers shot an MIT police officer and then later had a shootout with police. Not mass shootings, and you could probably argue that everything that followed the bombing was just an extension of the original incident.

The shootings in Maine last year might count, since they took place at 2 different locations, but again you could probably argue that it was all part of the same incident.

That’s what I can think of off the top of my head. Nothing that I’d personally feel comfortable labeling as “repeat mass shooter” but they are incidents that kind of lean in that direction that show that they may not be just one-off events and that the perpetrators may try to continue if not stopped immediately.

I feel like I’ve also seen a few cases where it was discovered that the shooters had plans to commit other attacks. We’ll probably never be able to say conclusively if they actually would have followed through with those plans if given the opportunity.

That is usually what I go with, because I normally only keep one bottle of wood glue around and it covers pretty much any use case I could ever have for wood glue being waterproof, safe for indirect food contact, etc.

But honestly, for general gluing furniture together and such, even the cheapest no-name brands of wood glue have always done just fine. Pretty much any wood glue out there is stronger than any wood you’re likely getting the be gluing (inb4 some carpentry nerd chimes in with some rare wood that only grows in New Zealand or something that is stronger than steel or something)

For some reason I have a thought in my head that I don’t like Elmer’s wood glue. I don’t know why, I don’t remember it ever letting me down.

Wood glue, no particular brand recommendations, is one of the pew products I trust to do exactly what it claims to - glue wood.

We have 2 major incidents

First one:

Dude A lends Dude B some money, relatively small amount, pretty sure it was less than $50. Dude B decides he’s not going to pay it back, so like mature, reasonable teenagers they decide they’re going to go to the park after school to fight about it.

Dude A is not a big guy, he asks Dude C who is a giant of a human being to come along just to make sure he doesn’t get killed, sort of a referee to pull dude B off of him if things get out of hand, not expecting him to step in or lend a hand or anything.

Dude B apparently has a different idea about how this is going to go down, and has a few friends come along with him with screwdrivers and baseball bats and other such improvised weapons.

Dude C sees this as they’re about to walk off the school property to fight, and does his job, takes these weapons, throws them in his bag, throws his jacket over the protruding bat, and they’re about to continue on their way.

The school, however, got word of this fight about to go down, and a bunch of cops show up.

Dude A lucks the fuck out and a passing senior he kind of knew pulls him into her car and assures the police that he wasn’t involved in this clusterfuck. None of the other kids give him up and he gets off scott-free and cops never figured out who the last unnamed party to this was.

The rest of them are all taken in, questioned, and receive their various punishments. Dude C gets the worst of it since he’s the guy who’s now holding all the weapons. He goes and spends a year or so at an alternative school, and is allowed to come back partially on the condition that he joins the football team. Our senior year we proceeded to win 0 football games, so fat lot of good having a giant on the team did.

Apparently dude C had misled his friends about how much money this was over, when informed by the cops that it was over like $40 he flew into a small rage, threw some things around, then calmly sat down and said “I have been misinformed”

Rumors of course start swirling and the truth gets very lost to the point I heard a version of the story where Dude C attacked the cops with a samurai sword and tried to flee on a motorcycle.

I’m pretty confident that this is a pretty accurate version of events though, a couple of the involved parties have all told me pretty much the exact same story, and it’s relatively unspectacular compared to some of the embellished versions I’ve heard. It’s also pretty much in line with what I know of their personalities.

For the most part, these kids weren’t dangerous, I don’t think any of them really had any other significant problems for the rest of their school career, and I’d describe most of them as nerds and generally decent people, some of them have some mental/emotional baggage, and couple that with some hormones and being stupid teenagers the stars just kind of aligned in the wrong way, and for the most part none of them held any significant grudges against each other and could probably have been considered friends to some extent afterwards.

Second incident:

I’m home sick one day, my mom worked at a school in our district, my sister was in school this day.

The phone rings, it’s an automated message from the district. Something about the district being made aware of a threat to the high school, but that everything is under control, there’s no danger, etc. not a lot of details.

Call my mom, she doesn’t have much more info than I do, she’s, not particularly worried, but of course a lot of parents panic and go to pick up their kids. She texts my sister to see if she wants to be picked up, she declines, she’s having a good time, it’s her and like 3 other people left in her class, they’re chilling and watching movies and such, there’s a news crew and some cop cars outside of the school.

Having nothing better to do, I’m going through all the news I can to figure out what’s up.

Eventually, it took a few days for all of the details to emerge, what we managed to piece together was

There was a kid who was planning a shooting, tried to recruit another kid who turned him in. Cops raided his house, found a bunch of airsoft guns, flea market swords, a half-built pipe bomb, and one gun (that his parents bought him) with no ammo.

This kid had been pulled out of school and was being homeschooled because of bullying. I didn’t know him, he was a few years younger than me, but from what I understand from people who knew him he was mostly bullied because he was an unlikeable racist asshole. The short bit of attention the media gave it tried to make it out like he was bullied for being fat (and let’s make no mistake, this dude was fat he may have been almost as wide as he was tall) but from the stories I’ve heard of him from before this happened, if any kid ever deserved bullying it was him for being such a major asshole.

I wouldn’t really mention his fatness, except that at some point during the trial and such, his mom (herself a very large lady) got in trouble for trying to smuggle him food, which was just icing on the proverbial cake.

The kid who turned him then went and broke into his house a little while later and tried to steal his Xbox or something.