peacefuljeffrey

Why do you type "no" instead of "know"? -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

No, tell me it isn't true! Mild mannered European countries are victims of Islamic terrorism? Maybe they should look deep into their soul and reflect upon what they did to make them mad? We know EXACTLY all that a society, or an individual, has to do to get Islam to wage war against it: Simply have the audacity to consider yourself free to criticize Islam. Islam will not abide anyone speaking out against it, or criticizing any part of it. They consider that a killing offense. It is absurd for us to think that Islam can be dealt with in a rational, reasonable way. It reminds me of a guy in the inner city who will kill because someone "dissed" him, or didn't "give him props." Perceived slights are punishable by death. That is not civilized behavior. It is folly to expect reasonable actions from such a culture. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I'd like to get rid of all the damned mosquitoes and I'd be willing to risk whatever would happen up the food chain just to kill all those friggin' things and end the torment they bring! Shortsighted? Maybe. But wouldn't it be sweet to be packing up your last jump an hour or two after sundown and not be eaten alive the whole time?! I think that what's most interesting is that Agent Smith's conclusions are INCORRECT. He claims that "Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment," but that's utterly false. When a herd of antelope on the plains breed to a certain point, there is not enough grazing land to sustain all of them in normal health. SOME WILL STARVE. That is not "instinct" telling them to stop breeding. They'll breed when able just like any other species. It is the environment which beats back their numbers, just like with deer here, or with fish, or even frogs. THAT is the equilibrium of nature: there will be only as many of a given species as their food supply will support. End of story. Humans are no different. Essentially, we breed and increase our numbers even as circumstances (disease, disaster, hunger) whittle them down. NO different from other mammalian species, unlike what Agent Smith so arrogantly but incorrectly asserts. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

------------------------------------------------------------ Peacefuljeffery, In Oregon it is only the right minded people who are allowed to commit suicide, with the assitance of a doctor. About 40 so far, I would disagree with your statement , Nothing could be further from the truth. The people who have ended their lives have all been pretty well squarded away, or they wouldn't have been helped. blues skies jerry What is it you disagree with? I said that I think it is a mistake to criminalize suicide and assisting suicide. You said that the 40 or so people in Oregon did it and were squared away. How does that disagree with my points? -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

What you are calling "euthanasia," I think is just "assisted suicide." Okay, you finally did it, you finally made go and get my dictionary out...

That's an interesting statement. I think of "pulling the plug" as referring to when a person is kept alive by machines and cannot live on their own. In other words if you pulled the plug and let nature take its course the person would die naturally. Do you consider that euthanasia? I agree with what you said about "pulling the plug" being in regard to a person who will not live without machine assistance. (That's an interesting landscape for a discussion, since technically a diabetic won't live without insulin, for example. Is it all about "machines," or about outside medical assistance in general?) If a person could live without medical intervention, but is incoherent, if other people kill him, that's euthanasia (right or wrong). If that person could live without medical intervention but IS COHERENT, choosing to die is suicide. And I believe that we all have the right to suicide. I am not governed by religious convictions that tell me it's wrong. It's the ultimate personal choice -- beyond which mate to pick, where to live, what job to work... There is nothing more personal than whether to live or die; therefore, it is not up to others to dictate whether a person does one or the other, or is prohibited from doing one or the other. Your question, in my view, is the heart of euthanasia: a person who cannot survive unassisted being allowed to die by virtue of nonassistance. If that person, incoherent, would live without assistance, if something had to be done to end the life, that pushes the border into the hazy area between euthanasia and killing (murder?). There is a big question here for me, though. If a person is incoherent but not on some sort of life support -- just feeding tubes -- what do you call it if you take out the feeding tubes and just let the person die gradually and slowly of malnutrition. The case of a woman here in Florida is still in the courts. The husband wants to let her die, since she is severely brain-damaged. Her parents hope for her recovery (hoping beyond hope is a better description) and are fighting him having the doctors remove her feeding tubes. I believe that apart from feeding, her body continues to live. I think they said she would be kept hydrated but just not fed, if the husband had his way. He claims to know that her wishes, prior to this condition (I forgot what brought her to this, I think it was a botched surgery but I'm not sure) were that she not be kept alive this way. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

If you "couldn't" live longer despite "wanting" to, you wouldn't need to kill yourself, now would you. So your definition of euthanisia appears flawed. You'll live longer, just with pain and poor quality of life. I stand by the notion that suicide is killing one's self, and euthanasia is killing another person, for reasons of pain and suffering or deterioration of quality of life in a medical sense. You can suicide for any reason: depression, illness, boredom, belief in reincarnation or an afterlife... Just because it's done for reasons of pain or illness does not make suicide euthanasia. It's still suicide. Euthanasia was practiced by the Nazis. They killed retarded people and it was termed euthanasia. In that sense, it was really just murder. But if a person is brain-dead or comatose with no hope of recovery (at least not with our medical knowledge), pulling the plug is euthanasia. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Yes, but WHO chooses it? I think of "euthanasia" as being a choice made ABOUT someone by a person who is not that someone, i.e. a family deciding to "pull the plug" on a comatose family member who cannot recover. I do not call a terminally ill patient deciding to kill himself "euthanasia" -- I call that suicide. Deciding to end YOUR OWN life is suicide always, never "euthanasia." You support the killing of an ill patient, for example, by others' choice, but NOT the killing of oneself by one's OWN choice?! That truly IS shocking! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I think they're very different. I see suicide as a choice made by an individual to end his or her life. I see euthanasia as a choice made by person A with regard to ending the life of person B! How can there be any confusion about the fact that those are vastly different concepts? Euthanasia can include ending the life of a suffering medical patient who cannot make the decision himself, and is (forgive me) "better off dead." It can also include putting someone to death regardless of what his wishes would be if he were coherent, or even if he is coherent, i.e. that old guy in Monty Python and The Holy Grail. I think everyone has the right to live, and everyone has the right to choose to die. Criminalizing suicide, or assisting a right-minded person in committing suicide, is a mistake, and in the end accomplishes nothing but harming human dignity and self-determination. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Yes, I think it would be a good idea. I'm not afraid to admit it: I don't have a girlfriend, I want a girlfriend and a "singles forum" would be a nice place to meet people. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

OR... she's thinking, "OMG, I think I just let him think I'm more interested that way than I am! How do I let him down?!" But for your sake, I hope not. But how often is that the case... TOO fucking often! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

If you're an NRA member, and read their magazine each month, you could easily conclude that 4 million people voted against Kerry because he is KNOWN to be a gun-banner, and has been so for 20 years in the senate, and cannot hide from that record simply by not talking about it. I voted for Bush STRICTLY because Kerry is anti-gun, and proud of it, but not proud enough to mention it because he knows the American people do not support that asinine position. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

The only name there I recognize is Giuliani. I do NOT want him to be attorney general. Why? He's as anti-gun as any NY mayor has ever been. We do NOT need him retracting Ashcroft's letter to the U.S. attorneys that the administration's position is that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

That's a good point. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I can't understand why you don't consider it a human life. How far along into it looking like a human being, having a heartbeat, having brain waves, do you still not consider it a human being? Is this just because it can't talk, and hasn't learned the symbology of language yet? Then we're "safe" to say it's not yet a human being? It can't protest its treatment, so it's not a human being? Is this universal? Were people who supported fighting the Axis in WWII hypocrites if they claimed to protect innocent lives? Isn't fighting some wars actually tantamount to protecting innocent lives, even though in war one has to kill? -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Wow. I always find it amazing that so many people can speak out against the death penalty for humans who murder humans, but so many people can advocate slaughter for those who kill animals. Not just execution but "slaughter." I don't know where you personally stand about capital punishment, though. I do know that in a thread where I said I would laugh at the misfortune of someone who tried to rob me but shot himself in the throat by accident -- someone who was trying to do me harm -- that sentiment was called "disgusting." And people here are advocating slaughtering those who killed some seals (my sympathy to the seals, at any rate) and others are going, "Yeah, yeah!" PhillyKev, you were the one who called my vindictive laughter at my hypothetical assailant "disgusting." What do you have to say about "slaughtering" the people who killed these seals? -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Look, there was such a staggeringly huge drive to vote this election, probably huger than all other elections. NO ONE has an excuse for not having voted in this election if they were at all eligible. For over a YEAR now people have been screaming from one remote corner of this country to the opposite, "Get registered, and VOTE!" Anyone who did not vote this time around, with all the controversy, discussion, hoopla, furor surrounding the state of our presidency and our government, you probably don't want voting. So yeah, I'd say that this vote reflected everyone who we'd want to hear from, given that anyone who didn't vote has no excuse for not "getting off their ass" and if they did not, they are probably some reallllly loathesome lazy non-thinkers. Anyone who could not find themselves motivated to vote in 2004, of all years, in the U.S., is hopeless -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

How do you know it wasn't aliens? -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

You won't last 25 years spending the way you are today. t You know, you're right. I have to stop treating myself to so many $5.50 DVDs on those late-night trips to Walmart! I just can't keep on like this! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

There are certain classes of fireworks that are allowed, and certain ones that are not. The ones that are not tend to be more akin to partial sticks of dynamite than "fireworks" in the sense of sparkling rockets and such. Many would argue there is good reason to restrict the bigger boom-booms. I have a hard time arguing against that. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Y'AI 'NG'NGAH [I]YOG-SOTHOTH[/I] H'EE-L'GEB F'AI' THRODOG [I]UAAAH![/I] PH-NGLUI MGLW'NAFH CTHULHU R'LYEH WGAH'NAGL FHTAGN

Hey, Charles Bronson was one baaad motherfucker melon farmer in "Mr. Majestyk," ya know! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Here is a great site I had almost forgotten about. Cat of the Day This takes you right to the September archive, but there are LOADS of archives of cat pics and stories, and there is also "PET of the day" with assorted animals, and even "DOG of the day." Enjoy!

Speaking of "shiiiiiit!" Back in '96, I was out at Skydive Long Island to do my #4 skydive (a static line from 3,000) along with a friend of mine doing his first jump. We all were suited up and sitting under an awning, our one-way radios turned on, waiting for our load... Suddenly, over our radios, which were on the same channel as the guy who'd just jumped, we heard, "Pull your red handle... Pull your red handle!... Pull your red handle!... Pull your red handle!!..." This went on for a bit, scaring the shit out of us. I knew it meant the poor guy had a malfunction (from under 3,000 feet, remember!) I remember thinking, "Shit, I'm gonna be here while some guy dies..." It didn't feel good, let me tell you. A few seconds later we heard a CHEER!! from the staff, as the guy had apparently deployed his (round) reserve. He came down in a small space between the woods and some planes that were tied down on the edge of the field beside the runway at Spadaro Airport. (Skydive Long Island has since relocated to more serious digs.) He was very very close to putting that thing down among a lot of nasty pine trees about fifty feet tall or more. Scare the bejeezus out of a lot of people, including us tourists! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

NO ya don't! Seriously, my first two jumps were static line, #3 was AFF-1, and #4 and #5 were static line too. I'd rather not repeat that. They were done from only 3000 AGL! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"