Comments on: Day 96: Oklahoma City (1)…

by: Tropi

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:56:42 +0000

Das mit der Schraube ist ärgerlich und Pech. Hatte auch schon mal das Vergnügen mit einem 10 cm langen Nagel. Da geht einem sehr schnell die Luft aus. Hoffe das Dir die Luft nicht ausgeht und ich noch viel bei Dir zu lesen habe :-)

PS: bezüglich Waffen - die Waffenlobby ist in den USA sehr stark und deshalb keine Chance … leider.

by: Bob Call

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:35:16 +0000

Zach

I hate to do this to you, but, you are wrong. That is a Monarch in the photos. Oklahoma is in the migration path of the Monarch butterfly and each year millions to them pass through the state on they migration from Mexico to Canada and back.

by: Zach Eckert

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:57:59 +0000

Not a Monarch, that is a Viceroy (limenitis archippuipus) which is a member of the admiral & sisters family, and is not in any way related to the Monarch. The Monarch is a member of the milkweed butterfly family. They have very different appearances and behaviors. The Viceroy mimics the Monarch to avoid predators, in this case humans as well.

by: JCD

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:58:01 +0000

“shootings in fast food chains or where ever on the radio. Sometimes every second day. In Germany we don’t have that.”

You probably don’t but I suspect that has much more to do with having a smaller, more communal and homogenized society. American society is more individualist and often alienated and that has a more drastic effect on crime in general, not necessarily gun related crime.
The simple fact is, gun related crime in the US is still a statistical rarity. More than 100 million Americans have at least one gun, a full 1/3 of the population, and yet less than 1 percent of those gun owners, - legal or illegally owned - use a gun to commit a crime in any given year.
You may be surprised to have your blog a bit overrun by so many people being defensive, but this is a sensitive subject in the US and most people are passionate here about their 2nd amendment right.

by: Susan W

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:43:50 +0000

Where were you travelling when you heard about shooting, daily or every 2 days. I pay attention to the new and am not sure what time you are talking about. Or even where.

What I find striking is that the shootings are occuring at schools, ‘gun-free’ zones - why do you never hear about shootings at a police dept or gun range or NRA meeting? By using your logic that everyone who owns a gun uses it to kill daily - you don’t hear about violence at those locations where there are a lot of guns. Strange coincidence there, wouldn’t you say?

Where is the teacher who carries daily, as do her colleagues? I’ve heard of one teacher in the last few years that carries - and it is for self-defense from her ex-husband, who has sworn to kill her. He won’t care about gun laws, he will get a weapon of some sort and go after her. Frankly, if I needed a gun for self-defense in that position, I’d HOPE that a co-worker carried also. What I do not understand is a person that completely gives over all responsibility for their personal defense to the government. That truly boggles my mind. I am responsible for my self-protection and that of my family.

by: Bill

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:00:39 +0000

Greetings from Texas. I agree with Mark, we need to make a reasoned argument without the nationalistic crap and ad hominems. A simple statistical fact is that there is an inverse relationship between gun bans and crime. Less guns more crime, more guns less crime. This is well argued in John Lott’s appropriately titled book “More Guns, Less Crime.” Look for it on Amazon.com, if you would like to read it. I know there are passions in both directions on this issue, and in fact there is a case in front of the US Supreme court deciding on our Second Amendment to the Constitution which guarantees the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. Other posters here have pointed out that the first thing a totalitarian-leaning government does is ban guns. I think our Founding Fathers in their wisdom understood that on balance, weighing the pros and cons, Citizens need to have that right to balance the power of government. Does it seem absurd that the US government would turn totalitarian. Yes.. today, but what about in a hundred years? Two hundred? I apologize for the harsh words against Germany. My Father’s side of the family immigrated to America in the 1880’s. I have never visited Germany, but I would like to. I own a very fine German-made weapon that I carry for personal protection, a Heckler and Koch USP. It is probably the finest pistol I have ever owned, and my life depends on it. I thank your country’s fine engineering and manufacturing for that.

bill

by: Mr. Snerdly1

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:58:06 +0000

After reading this blog, I am ashamed of my German ancestry. Keep out of America with your socialist ideas. The Germans were at one time a proud people but they are nothing more than a bunch of sissy boys today.

by: Christian

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 21:01:33 +0000

Aber zumindest haben sie eure Reise angemessen als “current event” von Interesse für die Allgemeinheit bewertet.

by: Floppy

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 10:30:37 +0000

Wobei: Das mit dem Journalismus ist wohl auch etwas fragwürdig, liest man den Wikipedia-Eintrag zu Michelle Malkin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Malkin

by: Floppy

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 09:47:27 +0000

Christian: Tja, der Ami-Blog nennt sich “Conservative journalist’s analysis of current events and politics”, was will man von dessen Lesern erwarten? Zum Glück trafen wir während der Reise viele andersdenkende Leute. So schlimm wie es hier in den Kommentaren aussieht, ist es glaube ich nicht.

by: Christian

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 02:54:00 +0000

Vier Monate, zehntausende Kilometer, fast 120 Berichte mit Photos, ein wirklich breites Spektrum. Und was davon bewegt die amerikanische Volksseele? Der Vorschlag, man könnte es ja auch mal ohne Knarren versuchen. Wir bösen Nazis.

by: Bob

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 02:18:25 +0000

“While travelling through the U.S.A. we constantly heard about shootings in fast food chains or where ever on the radio. Sometimes every second day.”

I’m sorry, but that is simply not true. There are not shootings like that every single day. It is VERY rare, but sadly some idiot will see a news story and become a copycat.

When you remove the gangs & drug wars, we don’t have a lot of firearm deaths. Swimming pools kill 3 times as many people each year.

by: Harry

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 01:41:44 +0000

Nice job Greg. My own impression is that liberals all exhibit one flaw. They do not seem to understand human nature, so they are always at the mercy of some criminal type that is more determined to do them damage than they are determined to defend themselves. Result: bloodbaths. Unfortunately, liberals with their gun control laws do a pretty good job of getting everybody else killed too.

Mark, you talk about having a discussion. I do not see anything here that is not fact. If you want a well thought out argument, why don’t you start it?

by: Greg Krauth

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:54:12 +0000

As a proud American, proudly of German descent I encourage you to take the time to visit the United States again sometime. Please try to make it to eastern Nebraska this time. You’d be welcome to visit my farm outside of Omaha.
You’ll find Nebraska is a beautiful place, and Omaha a very dymanic city–called the “City of 7,000 hills”.
As an owner of over 150 firearms–mostly historic ones–I am always disappointed by ad hominem attacks on our 2nd Ammendment. Sadly in a nation of over 300 million with decaying
family and social mores, there will be tragic and violent assaults. Decades back when an even higher percentage of homes had firearms
and more frequently unsecured ones at that, these high profile attacks were nonexistent.
Vigilant, law abiding citizenry are about the only hope for minimization of these wretched events. Outside of gang &/or drug related incidents, the US is actually safer than many
other first world societies. My firearm and militaria collecting is really just an extension of my real passion, which is the study of history, particularly the study of the horrors of war and of the Holocaust and the Gulag. I grew up in Omaha in a neighborhood and attended schools with a large Jewish population and at a young age developed an interest in the horrid crimes of anti-semitism. As a devoted Lutheran and proud German-American, I’ve long wrestled with the unanswerable questions of how the Holocaust could’ve occured. As I look back over the previous century with genocides starting in Armenia, proceeding through the massive crimes of the Soviets and Chicoms and Khmer, et al, to the Rwandans and Serbs, one common denominator always appears; disarmed civilians. Why is it so hard for sophisticates to acknowledge this simple, incontravertable fact? Why is it that suddenly the elite and sophisticated believe that humanity has entered a new age of Aquarius and rapidly evolved to the point where our beloved and trusted governing chosen-ones with all the power could never again resort to genocidal violence? Tens of millions of murdered innocents in the last century, dead at the hand of their own governments and occupiers because they lacked any means of self-defense, scream out from the grave for all free peoples
to be always vigilant and never again trust their survival to governing bodies. Yadda, yadda, yadda and so on.

by: Mark

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 21:04:44 +0000

Wow, these recent comments are incredibly tactless and dimwitted. Why not make an intellectual argument or a well intentioned correction and leave out the nationalistic bullshit?