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I googled it and quickly found references to several books. Most theorize that the bombs were dropped to impress Russia rather than Japan. Whether those books would be mainstream and reliable ones is hard to say. At this point it's probably for individuals to decide based on all the info available. The same could be said for estimates of losses from an invasion of Japan.

What message they got when is factually debatable, as discussed. Are you saying there were no attempts to surrender beforehand? It isn't like we're pulling that from thin air. Japan certainly had a better defensive position than Germany. But they were also a 3rd world country by comparison at that time. Their equipment reflected that. So I have trouble believing it would have been so much harder to finish them off than Germany.

I thought it relatively well-known that Japan had attempted to surrender before getting nuked. Our doing it anyway served a much broader global agenda, one that required generalized intimidation. Bottom line, isn't it possible that we could have demonstrated our new weapon just as effectively on a herd of goats?

Cross-posted: Dan, thanks for posting that, I'll give it a closer look tonight. The number seems arbitrary even in its original context. It appears to be a hi-range accumulation of several hi-range estimates. More importantly-- to the extent it's valid, the same line of reasoning could be used to justify nuking us too. There's no way we'd go down easy to an invasion.

Where did you get that 1 million number-- the Bureau of Hypothetical Timelines? And if we can stop anyone from doing anything, we too can be stopped. The "we're better than you" posturing works great as long as it's our foot on their throats.

It ain't an action-hero movie! Everyday life is a tough survival-training camp for some people, and the coursework is based on Darwinian concepts. True that, but I do think the 70% number sounds crazy. If that were true, it would suggest that the muggers these people are encountering are usually unarmed. Why go to the trouble of getting their gun (risky even for Bruce Willis) if you already have one?

70%? I don't have anything to counter that, but what kind of ninja training are these muggers getting?

Listen to any 90s rap album and they explain the illicit drug business in great detail. Drug laws are the worst thing to happen to public safety since they started dropping pianos and anvils out of downtown windows in the 1930s.

Some drug deals are more likely to go bad than others. This one, for instance. Most of us here, if were were with those guys that night, would have told them to forget about the damn pot. Sounds too much like a setup.

Note to pot buyers-- don't buy it there at 3am. Just deal with your hangover.

I once tried to design a samurai sword with integral stun gun. That would have been sweet.

You can't have people target shooting in the city. That doesn't work at all. People get hit by stray bullets from this in rural areas; it would be chaos here. You can't have people shooting into the air either. It could be argued that in neither case is the shooter "bearing arms," they're just messing around. Actually carrying a weapon for defense purposes is different. Presumably those are only fired in emergencies. Most of the places that are inclined to pass a gun ban (big cities) are the places where the most guns are carried, the most crime takes place, and the need to have your own gun is most pressing. These places also tend to be short on police. You can't claim a monopoly on using guns to defend the innocent and then not be around.

I don't know how to make a poll. I just noticed more gun discussions recently and thought there should be a place for the core issue debate. Otherwise every other gun thread would turn into that eventually.

Catch-all gun debate thread to keep 2nd amendment type discussions out of other threads... Apart from the US 2nd amendment, there is a similar clause in Ohio's constitution. Starter question: should cities be able to control firearms more strictly than the states? States more than feds?

Try going to court with one! That's a really good point, the fact that individual businesses can ban guns means that CC is only of value if you're literally out walking around.

I don't have one now, but I plan to soon and I plan to get a carrying permit.

In another few years this whole stretch of Euclid will have been made over. If they actually do the art building across that big space where the Corlett building is now, the street will look pretty darn solid, better than any time since before CSU first opened.

Yes. And it's different for Cleveland, which doesn't already have one off its outerbelt. If nothing else, casinos would add at least one new or renovated building apiece. And if the deal is done right, the state could get a lot of money out of it. Gambling is too pervasive for Ohioans so inclined to not be doing it, just because we don't have it in state. It is time to get with the program. Just think, what if they earmarked all the state's casino revenue to public transit or historic building preservation?

If every casino opponent would hurry up and get done, maybe the rest of us could have something nice. Sorry-- couldn't resist. I do think someone would put a deal together with finger-snapping speed, as soon as they were allowed to go forward with it. Several deals may already be done.

Those people aren't on the streets now. Nobody wins, under the current arrangement. It's not like casino patrons would be stolen away from downtown's boistrous outdoor shopping scene... But those gambling here would at least be indoors in downtown Cleveland, rather than indoors in Detroit or Canada or PA. They aren't going to be walking the streets a whole lot no matter where they are, if they're in this region at this time of year. But they have proven that they will gamble, with money earned in Ohio, whether we let them do it here or not. Take the revenue or don't, that's really the only question. Eliminating the lottery would shut Ohio down, fiscally. It really is that simple. And this will sound awful, but here we go: the people you're talking about vote very consistently, in a bloc, against school levies. They vote so strongly in this direction and with such immaculate turnout that they've shut down entire schools by themselves... partially so they can have more gambling money, all of which leaves the state.

I was once in the gaming field-- I've done plenty of that math. Casinos' main market is the old folks who take buses every weekend away from Ohio to spend money. Of course the casinos would love to get people my age, and they advertise to them, but that's not their bread & butter at all. Yes there are people in my age group who enjoy gambling, and every weekend they leave Ohio to pursue their expensive hobby. The revenues casinos produce for government are quite substantial, and could allow Ohio to rewrite its tax code. The Cleveland angle is not that having them here will be a draw in itself... it's that if people are even considering a Cleveland-type city for their shindig, we have the worst possible gambling scene within that set of choices. If we plan on having this MM/CC work at all, we can't be the only cold dirty city with no gambling options. During the winter, a casino would make our downtown 10x more appealing to a lot of people. It's something to do that's indoors, and goes all night, and operates on the visitor's schedule.

Yes we do, right now. We need one because we're the only city in our "bracket" that doesn't at least have one nearby.

I hope not.

We're very deep at TE so it's not a huge loss. Heiden would start on most teams, and that guy we drafted last year deserves a look.

Shovel ready as soon as they move the Port of Cleveland! LOL Ah yes, that too.