hoohaa

Did you take more pictures of your progress? I would love to see an in-depth how-to article on this!

I haven't gone anywhere guys, just on vacation. I think I will probably retire from posting in this thread though. It's just silly to enter into a debate where people either don't understand how to form an argument using facts or deliberately ignore facts in order to push an agenda. It's also tiring dealing with the emotion in many of these posts. Not conceding defeat at all, just deciding that my pearls of wisdom are probably better off cast elsewhere. I believe that a person with a good knowledge of logic and statistics will understand my main points and will see through the arguments of the opposite side. Unfortunately it's often easy to mislead those not familiar with statistical fallacy and errors in logic.

No, I didn't miss it. I'm not sure why you thought I would even respond to it. Here, I will lay out the issues: 1. You are listing whole numbers rather than percentages. The population of the USA is quite a bit larger than Switzerland. This is a good example of how statistics can be used to mislead. 2. The countries listed have RADICALLY different levels of handgun ownership, again making the statistics misleading. You are comparing countries which are completely saturated with handguns with countries, like England, with very very low handgun ownership. 3. The assumption seems to be that since America's death stats are so much higher than everyone else's (see point #1) that gun control in the USA must be too lax. This is also misleading because the countries listed have varying levels of strictness of gun control. 4. I would tend to distrust the figures themselves even, coming from a group like Handgun Control Inc. Not exactly an unbiased source. 5. There are very different social, economic, and political factors at work in those different countries, making any such "correlations" with gun control and crime levels very doubtful at best.

That snopes article explains pretty clearly what I attempted to explain above about the difference between causality and correlation and skewing variables. Jumping in to a debate armed with a couple sets of percentages showing an "increase" or "decrease" in "crime" is a recipe for disaster if one does not understand (or chooses to mislead using) cause and effect relationships.

If cheap gears were made available for the H233b I would say that more folks (nissan and non-nissan) would use this axle in general. It's a super tough axle, but since gears are so steep for it no one can afford to use it when there are Dana 60s out there with cheap gears and lockers. I would have purchased a set of gears without a second thought at $200 for the H233b. I know at least five people in my club (TNT) would have purchased gears as well. It would take time for the word to get out, but once it did I bet the H233b would start to appear in more non-nissan vehicles.

Call it what you want. I think they make a good point. I'd rather be called paranoid every now and then than end up not being able to defend my family when the time came.

Because that's not true. Please, read up on the notion of "causality" in statistics and rethink your statement. Can you prove that new gun control laws caused the drops in murder rates? Absolutely not. Again, who is being "factual" and who is not? Just think about the skewing variables in this case. South Africa has been in tremendous turmoil politically, with LOADS of change over the last thirty years. There are economic, social, political, and religious changes happening fast enough to make your head spin. An even more important factor is that of ethnicity. And in the midst of all this you are actually claiming that you know that the decrease in murder rates was directly caused by new legislation. Seems you have oversimplified an incredibly complex correlation. And BTW, I don't care about murder rates "with a gun" as opposed to with something else. I have always argued that humans kill people, not guns. Take a gun away from a person with murder in their heart and they will use a knife, baseball bat, shoelace, etc. This is why gun control doesn't work. It takes away one killing tool that is substituted by another. And since you are so fond of my pro-gun propaganda, here's some more: I figure there is enough anti-gun propaganda in the media that I can toss in a little of my own pro-gun propaganda here.

Why don't you start here by responding to this post. You have said I've not contributed anything "factual" to this debate... Something I would accuse you of as well. Since you are the one who started this thread in all of its biased glory, why don't you start by reading over the post I just quoted and lay your arguments out there. PLEASE, no more nytimes new stories or BBC links. They are every bit as biased and non-objective as you are and they contribute nothing. The burden of proof is on your shoulders, IMO, since you started this thread as an American gun law bashing festival. Tell us why we should take your side. Back your claims up with some facts (again, not BBC links!!!). And I really don't appreciate the tone of your last post. I have tried to be as respectful as possible, but you still seem to find it necessary to make things personal. Let's be objective and not so emotional, ok? If you're not sure what I'm referring to, read this part of your post: "Pro kill everyone"? Now who is it that is pushing an agenda? You could more appropriately label my agenda as "guns save lives" than what you called it (BTW I can back that up with all the "factual" data you want. HINT: take a look at the decline in crime related death rates in the states that adopted "right to carry" concealed weapon permits. Please, Vee Sicks, stop it with the emotional outbursts. It's very hard to participate in a debate with someone who makes things so emotional and personal. I've asked you to answer a number of questions without making any cutting personal comments about you, please see if you can answer them in an objective way without all the drama and emotion.

So the poor are criminals? That type of thinking is deeply disturbing.

The forum and club website have been backed up to This site for now. You can log in and read messages normally there.

This is hoohaa, the current elected VP. We've had technical difficulties with the site, www.texasnissantrucks.com, and it's been down for all of today and will probably stay down into the future.

A heatshield would be necessary. It could be something pretty simple though, just to block radiant heat from the back of the headlight. A watercooled turbo would also be ideal to keep temps down as well.

I'd think mild steel manifolds would be around $100 less than stainless, maybe even less than that. I'm still planning and rebuilding a VG30 for the project, so the manifolds are a way off still. I'm thinking there probably wouldn't be a market for anything like this for the Pathfinder unless I offered a complete kit, but that's way more work than I have the time to do.

Not sure why you would say that. If you read my post you will notice that I mentioned South Africa being at the top of the list for firearm related crime. As I mentioned, South Africa has very strict gun control laws. What are you claiming that these statistics prove?

Why don't you demonstrate for us how our gun laws are not "reasonable or responsible" in their current form? And no, I absolutely do not agree that "not a single measure has been put in place to try and curb gun trauma either". I have no idea where you got this from, but there are and have been MANY laws which attempt to "curb gun trauma". You must not be at all familiar with American gun laws. If you want to criticize our country, our Constitution, and our laws, PLEASE make yourself familiar with them! I've seen more than one comment that illustrate how ignorant you and other Australians are of our legal system and our Bill of Rights. The VT thread did not include a shred of "factual evidence supporting gun control and the positive outcomes that follow implementation". There were plenty of news stories about "poor little johnny who got shot accidentally by a big mean gun", but there were actually several links which called to attention the faulty logic and statistics often used to support gun control. Perhaps we read different "VT threads", but the one I read contained link after link to CREDIBLE internet sites which disproved or seriously called into question the claim that strict gun control leads to fewer deaths. I don't know if you missed it, but there was one link to a very well written, neutral, and well referenced comparison of the gun laws of Japan, Canada, and the United States which concluded that strict gun laws did not correlate to fewer deaths. Please, Vee Sicks, lay out your arguments in a clear and concise way. Please don't just post a list of links to news stories about people accidentally shooting themselves or others. Let's talk about the claim that positive outcomes follow the implementation of gun control. I'd love to hear your explanations of how the citizens of Israel and Switzerland have such free access and even compulsory ownership of firearms, yet they have low crime rates, while countries like South Africa have extremely strict gun control laws, yet they lead the world in murders per capita. I also want to respond to your claim that "children" are dying by the hordes due to gun accidents. You have not provided evidence for this claim. Please lay it out there. And no, citing a number of news stories about gun accidents is not providing evidence. **HINT** Before you even link to some anti-gun site, please be sure to disclose what they mean by "children". Anti-gun advocates often include youths up to 20 years old in the "children" category, so gang shootings are included in the statistics, skewing the data beyond all recognition. Unfortunately there is much of this sort of meddling with data when debating gun control, so we will need to carefully review the statistics that I hope you can share with us proving your points . I'm sorry to do this, but I really think the burden of proof should fall on your shoulders, since you initiated this debate with very open criticisms of the anti-gun control position. Don't expect me to spend hours laying out my responses and citing references when you have not done the same. Your arguments have not been well supported with credible evidence. You have cited lots of anecdotal evidence, but anecdotal evidence only gets you so far in a debate.