peacefuljeffrey

I agree with much of what you say, particularly that theory about the bible not having been meant to be taken seriously. There is NOTHING to prove that the bible is actual "word of god." When was the last time anyone you know handled a bible that dates from around the time god supposedly dictated it? No, you have bibles printed in this decade, this century, but nothing that hasn't been filtered through a thousand different minds, mouths, and pens. The chances of that being the real word of god are astronomically against. Shit, you ever try to play that game "Telephone," where one person says something and then on down the line it gets repeated person-to-person, and then they compare what the last guy "heard" with what the first guy actually said? That's the bible, I'm sure of it. You say you don't hate religion, but I DO. I see it as a cause of harm, of hatred, of divisiveness. People can be good people, and live lives that are free of strife and evil, even if they don't have a "god" who supposedly told them to act that way. I don't believe in god. I DO treat people nicely, I don't steal, I don't like, etc. I think it is more noble of a person to behave the way I do simply because it is GOOD to be GOOD to other people, than because he has been threatened with agony and punishment for all eternity by a god. An intrinsic part of most religions is the mandate to turn other people to that religion, and to insist that theirs is the only true outlook of how god created the machinery of the universe. But since the adherents of NO religion can possibly prove their beliefs are correct and true, it's asinine for any of them to belittle any other religion. For instance, some primitive peoples believe that god formed humans out of earth/clay, and baked them and gave them life. We say pish-posh, that's ridiculous. How silly. But is it much less silly than saying god made two humans and two humans alone, and from them we are all descended. Or that they were punished for eating fruit they were told not to eat? Or that all the animals in the world were rounded up onto a single boat to protect them from a rainstorm that completely covered up all land? Maybe the "we were baked from clay" people think that's ridiculous. I think that the only way human kind is going to pull itself out of this sewer of mutual destruction is to give up the silly pathetic crutch that is religion. If I've offended anyone, too bad. I'm offended that religions and the strife between them, at this point, are the MAIN REASON we're fucking at war at this moment. I'm offended that MILLIONS of people have been killed because they didn't belong to the right religion. I'm offended that people tell me that just because I don't believe as they do, I'm going to suffer for eternity while they'll be in "heaven." (That's balls: if you're so fucking loyal to your religion, where is the part that says you should denigrate others who don't believe, or taunt them with the idea that they're going to hell?) [/rant] - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Yes. I already said that innocent-ish actions that did not have the potential to cause actual harm should not be punished based upon the degree or severity of the IRRATIONAL reaction that some may have to them. We need to separate the truth of the action from the hysterical REaction that some of these hand-wringing, paranoid, fearful parents have. If I were really weird and every time someone said the word "mattress" in my presence I put a bag over my head and refused to take it off, you would not tell a person who said the word mattress that he had done something wrong. The fault lies in MY unreasonable reaction, not in the reasonable action that brought it out of me. It has been established that the cop involved clearly stated that there could be no confusion between this rubber band gun and a real gun. That's the basis I use to judge that the adults went overboard in their school lockdown, etc. I think that blame for the school evacuation/lockdown/whatever should be pinned on the first person who went to an authority figure claiming to have seen a real gun in a student's possession. THAT'S who started a panic. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Yes, Kallend, everyone must be homogenized, and perish the thought of anyone being an individual and doing things despite the fact that others laugh. In fact, we must stamp out the notion of anyone doing anything that any other person might find odd or hard to understand. We'll be that much closer to your Utopia. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Did you ever cause the entire office to be evacuated? So let's sum it up - do any of you besides Kallend think that his acts should result in punishment? I didn't say he should be punished. I said he should see a psychiatrist, as should any 15 year old who still takes toys to school. You are all uptight because of the "gun" symbolism, but I see it as no different than taking a GI Joe Doll or a Barbie to school at age 15 - there's something wrong with this kid. No, what I'm "uptight" about is your elitist attitude that says if you don't understand something or have those feelings yourself, anyone who does ought to be dragged to a shrink to find out what's "wrong" with them. This is the fallacy of the elitist. Just because YOU think that a 15-year-old who likes toys (and this was hardly a little G.I. Joe figure, anyway) needs to have a psychological evaluation doesn't mean he does, or that there's something mentally wrong or otherwise retarded about him. When did YOU become the judge of "the norm" and the arbiter of what needs to be done with those who fall outside of it? - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Did you ever cause the entire office to be evacuated? So let's sum it up - do any of you besides Kallend think that his acts should result in punishment? He broke a rule of the school, so yes, of course I do. And I think that the WORST punishment he should possibly stand to suffer is staying after school each day for a week -- what we used to call "after-school detention." It meant you had to sit in a room bored, doing nothing and not speaking, for an hour or so, and you had to take the late bus home or arrange for your parents to pick you up. This kid's transgression does NOT rise to the level of involving police or any other non-school authorities. This is ridiculous. I can't believe we're even discussing what should happen to a kid who brought something that shoots fuckin' rubber bands to school. Clearly, if you have a fuckin' brain in your head (school administrators, I'm talkin' to YOU), you realize that a rubber band gun that does not bear any resemblance to any kind of real gun is brought to school (albeit in a judgment error) for the purpose of HIJINKS -- NOT to do actual harm or crime. If we want to create a generation of truly fucked up kids who will later become troublesome adults, let's keep branding kids as some sort of pariahs because they do things that kids do -- including fuck up, make mistakes, use bad judgment -- particularly when we're not talking about actual criminal acts. What will we do when we have tremendous numbers of kids whose lives and records are ruined because they were EXPELLED from school for innocent and petty errors or transgressions? Is this the world that you damned liberals really want? These same shrieking liberals who scream and clamor for "zero tolerance for weapons" are the same stupid bastards who argue that it's too harsh to put 15-year-olds who shoot and kill people through adult legal channels and into the adult penal system when they reach 18. But bring a fucking RUBBER BAND GUN to school, and everyone freaks out and wants to expel the kid. Someone mentioned that the parents freak out about any mention of a gun in school, and many of the freakers are those who know little about guns. I think it is a problem when everyone must jump and say "how high?" whenever the most hysterical and hypersensitive people in the population get freaked by tiny things. We should not have to tailor all our responses to events in order to placate the most timid, weak, frightened or irrational among us. Those who can stand forth and take control of a situation rationally and calmly are the ones who should decide what actions are to be taken. But just because some frightened hysterical people get really shrill whenever some shit goes down, it seems that the pressure gets put on the reasonable people to appease the unreasonable ones. That just isn't right. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Exactly! The argument "if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't mind being open to the government's constant scrutiny" is specious and abusive. It puts innocent people in the unfair position of having to defend their right to not be treated as suspect without probable cause. Every intrusion into our privacy -- EVERY one -- is introduced with the promise that it will help solve crime, help make people safer, help save the children, blah blah blah. Of COURSE they will couch these "requests" (which in time tend to become demands) in ways that plead for help in maintaining safety and order. Do you think they would ever come out and admit their intent to eventually abuse the information that they get on people? I am sick and angry of the way people give up THEIR rights flippantly as though they are not something to be guarded closely. Why? Because when my neighbor gives up HER rights, the people who took them from her can then look at me and say, "Gee, you're a suspicious character; after all, SHE gave up HER rights no problem. What are YOU hiding?" And even if I'm hiding nothing, and am simply a person who doesn't want to live under constant suspicion (like the English do with their cameras and their government's spoken desire to have ALL subjects' DNA on file!), they can try to make me look unreasonable and clandestine just because I want to keep my rights. So fuck NO, I will not assent to having my DNA on file. I don't give a shit if it supposedly helps them solve crimes. The only crime it would help them solve if they had MY DNA would be a crime committed by ME, right? And in that case, I would have provided them evidence against me -- which it is my 5th amendment right to NOT provide. But since I know I am not a criminal and I have no desire to commit crimes, there is no reason for me to feel that the police investigation people will be hampered in solving crimes if they don't have MY DNA. And ohh, don't even get me started on having MICROCHIPS implanted under the skin. If it ever comes to being required to agree to that, there will be a war such as has never been seen before, and I will be fighting in it. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Oh, that's just great. Disaster will hit California, and we thought the prices of broccoli and artichokes were high already?! Damn! - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Isn't that your approach to gun control? LOMFL!!! - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I haven't seen a preview or trailer for it, but I saw the poster and the cardboard thingie at the theater lobby. Um, Will Smith?? I haven't read the book, so I don't know the full story, but WTF is Will Smith doing in the movie?! I'm sofa king sick and tired of seeing him in everyfa king thing. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I've read most of her stuff. I agree that Earthsea was among her best. Oddly, I liked Atuan the best, mostly because I liked the protaganist (not the main character of the other books) better. My favorite was the first, A Wizard of Earthsea. The others got kind of iffy for me. I remember dissatisfaction about various aspects. In The Tombs of Atuan, I didn't like how WEAK Ged seemed to be in that underground labyrinth. In fact, the effectiveness of magic issue bothered me in the whole series. In the first book, when Ged traveled far enough around Earthsea, there were islands or continents far enough away that his magic didn't have good effect at all! I thought, "How weird is that? Especially when the magic is based on the 'true names' of things, I found it odd that something like the true name of something could not be used magically just because one was in a distant land. Also, the idea that Ged had spent his magic fixing things in the third book (The Farthest Shore) bothered me. And by the time he was in Tehanu, if I recall correctly, he had no magic left at all. (Or did that turn out to be a bluff. I no longer remember.) That series went downhill like the Alvin series by Card did. But A Wizard of Earthsea was masterful, beautiful, poetic. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I met him a couple of months ago when he was visiting SoBe. (Yeah, that SoBe.) Um, you'll excuse me if I recuse myself from the "Is he Hot or Not?" question. He has one too few X chromosomes for me... - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

People smacking their lips makes me disgusted and irate. I can't imagine not realizing all the disgusting slaps and squelches that come out of one's mouth when one chews with it open. There's a really sweet lady at work who does this, and it tears me up how much it makes me loathe eating in the break room when she's there. She's Thai, so I don't know if this is a cultural thing. (You know, like those places where it's polite to belch.) I also can't stand people who aren't courteous to cover their damned faces (FULLY!) when they sneeze. You know that they're spewing millions of droplets of possibly-infected snot into the air for everyone else to breathe. There are several such people where I work (including the Thai woman, actually.) Makes me want to break noses... - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I guess I'd better read TEfL, then. I loved "Moon" and "Starship" and I have read enough of his quotes to know that his philosophy resonates a lot with me, too. If you haven't read any Ursula K. LeGuin, I recommend that. Of her, I've read only the Earthsea series (4 books) beginning with A Wizard of Earthsea. It's really great, very poetically done. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Mmmmm... "STEAKly..." Arrghghllghlgll... I read Ender's Game a few years ago and yeah, I did like it quite a bit. I didn't really like the kinda confusing stuff toward the end about that game that showed him where the egg was, and all that "through the looking-glass" kinda weirdness. I started to read Speaker for the Dead and didn't get far into it. Card's other really good series is the Tales of Alvin Maker. The first book, "Seventh Son," is phenomenally good. The second and third books are really good, too (Red Prophet, and Prentice Alvin). Alvin Journeyman was not that good, in my view. I'm not sure if that was the last one I've gotten my hands on, or if there was a fifth one also. The last one I read, be it 4th or 5th, was a big disappointment, and it also did not wrap things up. I feel the series should have been finished in the third or fourth book, even if they had to be a little longer. The way Card wraps actual history, geography and historical figures into his magical-inclined frontier America is just captivating. The first book is like poetry. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

There are other types of charges available to level at him besides a FELONY *WEAPON* charge. This was not a weapon. And by your standards, throwing a blackboard eraser could do harm to the eye, and so could POKING someone's eye. That should not be the measure of whether this rises to a FELONY or not. Do you know what's entailed by a felony? Felonies carry OVER a YEAR in JAIL. That's part of the definition that sets them apart from misdemeanors (which carry UP TO a year in jail). Given your second-to-last statement, I don't understand why you said the kid did NOT get a raw deal. It doesn't sound like you support the notion of what they charged him with any more than the rest of us do. (Except maybe for Kallend, who I imagine is laughing at the boy's misfortune.) - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

What's the big deal? Just because your kids outgrew toy guns by 15, it should be expected or demanded that everyone's kids should have, or it's fair to assume they're "special"? That's what I infer from your post. And it sounds like more of the same elitist anti-gun leftist garbage. A kid who still likes rubberband guns at 15, it is fair to assume, is retarded? Does that make it fair to assume that any black guy wearing Sean John clothes is carrying an illegal handgun and dealing drugs? How about Jews? Is it fair to say that if someone's Jewish, he'll leave a shitty tip at a restaurant? Or a 16 year old hispanic girl -- do you just assume she has two kids already? Your post smacks of bigotry. And by the way, I bought a rubber band gun (fires up to 12 bands per load) at a local gun show a few years ago. I was about 27 at the time. I guess I must be "special." I also bought an "AirZooka" and brought it to the DZ at SoBe a month back. It was ragingly popular and everyone wanted to use it for a while. I guess we're all "special," since we're past 15 and still like toys -- specifically "projectile" toys. Maybe you missed this part of the article: This is my major objection: everyone in this case has overreacted -- from the idiots who couldn't tell right off the bat that this was a harmless rubber band gun, right down to the moron school police people who are charging this kid with a life-ruining FELONY for having a "gun" that couldn't have hurt anybody. Just because it has a trigger mechanism and can fire a projectile, that makes it a weapon? Better get the fucking staplers out of the schools, then. They meet that standard too. Common sense is fucking dead in the world today, and this is the proof. Kallend, why don't you comment on the pith of the issue, which is the reaction to this kid's monumental "crime"? Why must you so often dismiss the real issue and instead obfuscate with minutiae like whether it's normal to be 15 and like toy guns. Those rubber band guns are a hell of a lot of fun. - - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Does this imply that we skydive because if we had more money we'd do something apart from skydiving that costs more? I don't understand the question. If I had scads of millions of dollars, I'd probably buy a DZ, a few planes, and run the place at a loss, charging maybe $5 to 14,000ft. Okay, I'll go one better: I hereby promise that IF I ever win $20 million or more in a lotter, I WILL operate a dropzone and charge only $5 per jump. Hold me to it. If I win such money, I'll be glad to make good on that promise. - P.S. This DZ will probably have chef-catered food, full bathing facilities, movie theater, hot tubs, gear store, rigging loft, and just about every other luxury that you'd want there. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

If you ever played the game "Virtua Fighter," you'd know that there is a character/fighter on it called "Jeffry." He uses some sort of Aborigine fighting style or something. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I sometimes get mystic and ritualistic and sorta superstitious even though I eschew any semblance of organized religion or superstition. (For example, when I go home to Long Island on vacations from Florida, I try to make it a point to drive up to the north shore, past my old girlfriend's house, and if circumstances permit, I put my hands into Long Island Sound.) Why? I don't really know. I guess I believe in some sort of mystic powers of the mind, in connection with actions, that act as a kind of charm. I'm a "lifestyle barefooter" -- I've come to enjoy being barefoot (over being shod) so much that I virtually never wear shoes, and when I do, they're usually just flip-flops. Can't stand having my feet un-bare anymore. Society for Barefoot Living - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

It's been a sucky MONTH. How else would you describe a month in which Skydive SoBe shuts down and leaves you with a choice of Clewiston (1.5 hours away), Sebastian (2+ hours away) or Lake Wales (3+ hours away) when the place was shaping up to be KICKASS and had a great crowd of regulars?! TALK ABOUT YOUR FUCKIN' SHITTY TIMES. On the personal front, things have been pretty good, though. But inability to go skydiving due to lack of DZs is a big overall damper. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Ohhh, okay. Don't you think it might have a "chilling effect" on even the justifiable and righteous lawsuits when the plaintiff knows that if he sues, say, Phillip Morris, and loses, he will have to pay the MILLIONS of dollars that P.M. paid its lawyers to win the case? There are no guarantees of victory when you bring a lawsuit. When Joe Nobody has reason to sue a huge corporation, whose "legal costs" will consist of millions of dollars to a huge team of high-priced corporate lawyers, that means, in your "loser pays" system, that bringing suit at all exposes Joe to having to pay P.M.'s bill to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. Remember how much it cost Bill Clinton to defend against whatsername with the big nose? (Of course, his political cronies got supporters to pony up donations to the "Clinton Legal Defense Fund" and Billy didn't have to shell out a cent, I'm sure. It's not hard to imagine a corporation that gets sued, but wins the judgment, presenting a bill of $15,000,000 to the "loser." Is that the system you recommend? How would you alter it so that this doesn't happen? - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Yep, since I started eating better food my grocery bill has dropped ASTOUNDINGLY. . . You both must be joking. Broccoli here lately has not been below $1.19 a head at my local grocery store, and typically they've been getting TWO FREAKIN' DOLLARS OR MORE for a meager, chintzy little wilty head of it. And forget about cauliflower. In fact, there was a time last year when my local Publix supermarket was selling broccoli for $3.99 a head and cauliflower for $4.99 a head -- I shit you not. It's still almost that bad. How about green, orange, yellow or red peppers? Lately Publix gets about $2.50 a pound for green and THREE FORTY-NINE a pound for the other colors! THAT'S INSANE!!! I have to drive 20 minutes each way to get to the nearest produce stand that has decent prices -- and even there prices have risen a lot lately, and of course the quality of the produce is not as good as at the supermarket. Don't tell me that healthy foods are affordable, much less cheap. I'll laugh in your face. It's a lie. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

In that case he is guilty as sin, throw the book at him, and he deserves worse than the POS who sold the guns on the street. (the law agrees with me, if he knew) And what if the plaintiff believes that they can indeed prove to a jury that this is the case? Is the lawsuit then frivolous? Do they have a right to a hearing? That possibility is the reason why in my first reply I said that I don't know enough details to be able to tell if this dealer was selling to a guy he could reasonably suspect was a straw-purchaser. MOST, if not all of the other lawsuits against various gun makers and dealers do not involve any such malfeasance on the part of the defendants. They simply have the bad luck to be at the root of the gun's origins, and the gun was used in a crime. That is not enough of a reason to sue the companies or dealers. And the reason we need tort reform and lawsuit "bans" to deal with this is the fact that those bringing these suits are doing so KNOWING they will lose -- but they're sponsored by George Soros, the multibillionaire anti-gun crusader, with infinitely-deep pockets, and their goal is not actually to win judgments but to force the gun companies to pay their lawyers OVER and OVER again to KEEP winning judgments for defendants OVER and OVER again. Doesn't matter if they keep winning, if it costs them a few million every time they're forced to win again. And then Soros gets his "victory" over gun companies by forcing them to go bankrupt defending against baseless lawsuits. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I agree that Syria and Iran would not invade. If they did, perhaps that would spur the pussy countries like France and Germany, which wouldn't help the U.S. depose Saddam, into HAVING to lend help to get things stable over there. There was a huge coalition when Iraq invaded Kuwait. If Syria or Iran invaded Iraq, there would HAVE to be a U.N. mandate to go in and push them out, possibly decimating their armed forces in the process. So maybe what's needed for the U.S. to do IS to pull the hell out. LET the surrounding countries start eyeing Iraqi oil fields. Then what excuse could France give for not supporting a military effort in Iraq? - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Well at least it would force those who say they don't want the U.S. to do what it has done or is doing to admit that yes, they're glad we did it all; glad we deposed Saddam, glad we got rid of many of his supporters, his torturers, his sadistic motherfucker sons... If we said, "Here, you can have him back," I imagine it would be hard for them to not say, "Waitaminute, no, no, keep him, you were right, we're better off that the U.S. removed him from power, and the U.S. HAS helped us through its actions." - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"