Posts made by cystic crypt

quote: Ah, I see now. Thanks for noticing the screw up on the typing. Being an insomniac sucks on educational forums like this. - Disclaimer
Actually D/c, i was just enjoying the pun - playing on the word “con” (as in pro’s and con’s versus convict) - i’m not such a tight ass that i had any problems with your typing . . . i knew what you meant.

and you think that being allowed to carry concealed weapons will protect you against tyranny?
this isn’t 1775 British Colonies. If a gov’t tries to erode your freedoms, whether you carrry something capable of spitting pieces of lead or not isn’t going to help you at all. Unless you just need to kill people to feel better about it.
It’s true that criminals will not consider seriously legislation against firearms, but it will make it more difficult for them to acquire them. (I feel you Americans laughing at me . . . poor naive Canadian)

against. Actually for stricter gun control legislation - especially in cities (i don’t mind farmers needing to kill off predators owning a gun, and although i disagree with hunting, i can see them being permitted guns). At the same time, i think firearms should (ultimately) be restricted/banned inside cities (yes yes, i know this is nearly impossible and quite unpopular in America - less unpopular in Canada unless you live in Alberta or Saskatchewan - yes, that really is the name of a province - or rural Manitoba).
Also, given that i am a pacifist i would not carry a concealed weapon - i’d be afraid that i’d use it, or else it would be used against me.

well, you all missed the most important answer to the question “to bomb or not to bomb?” The fact is SBR’s are an important feature that add to the game’s playability. For example, let’s say that I’m Britain, and i strategically bomb my good friend playing Germany. First we both hold our breath as he rolls for the AA gun. Then he either laughs hysterically, shouting some profanity (i.e. he rolls a one), or i get to rub my hands in glee at determining how much cash i get to soak the poor bastard for (of course rolling less than a 4 is like kissing your ex-girlfriend on the cheek . . .so close and yet . . . ).
just try to tell me that these are not important elements to A+A, except these are not emotions and advantages to SBR’s that can’t be calculated and measured.
Especially the joy of the “F-You” of a couple of bombers rolling in for $12 worth of damage to his factories . . . MWA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
sorry, i’m done now.

to quote:
For everyone here who is religous, I want to ask you a few questions.

Why are you the religion you are?
What Religion?
What do you think of other religions?

• Yanny

• just 'cuz it’s a post that should stand on its own.
  (don’t hate me, just 'cuz i’m a jerk)

quote: think of what the potential cons of are this

no pun intended?
(sorry - i couldn’t resist)

I don’t know if this is really related, but i did play a game (as Russia), and just to be cute i took Scandanavia, moved some forces east for the Japanese threat, and pulled many of my forces out of Karelia, pulling my AA gun with it (not all forces). the Americans and Brits were to bomb Karelia, and then we were to launch a full scale offensive against Germany. Unfortunately my allied players lacked balls and although the “gambit” was effective in the short run, the German offensive was week and late (i.e. after Russia got sacked). Obviously this post demonstrates that i’m an idiot, but i think that a ploy related to this with the right Allied players can work, and at the least piss off Germany. I know how important Karelia is, but thought that a reinforced Russia would hold off longer. I was wrong.
sad.

note: DNA evidence just shows that someone has been at a crime scene. It does not actually demonstrate that someone shot/knifed/bashed-a-head-into someone. A forensics expert gave us an interesting talk on this, and although DNA evidence is VERY handy (small amounts may be amplified etc.) it is not a photograph of a murder scene.

(i know i promised no more posts - this is strictly informative) . . .
an interim report demonstrated that the Canadians “played it by the book” in the friendly fire incident in Afghanistan.

don’t forget about “Ebola” - different author, but nasty bug. So’s Lhassa fever. Killing people to prevent bug spread is an impossible epidemiological reality. This is a bizaare argument.
At any rate, although i doubt i could ever practice PAS as a physician, i could not say that “suicide is not a way out”. Not after the cases of MS, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, etc. nevermind various cancers, stroke victims, the list goes on. These are people in agonizing, debilitating pain, with no control over their life. Some of them don’t want to die, but some of them see death as being the one thing that they have control of. Is is reasonable to give these people that control? (as indicated earlier, i am a firm believer in improved paliation, but one should keep their minds open to the “if you’ve never walked a mile in a (wo)man’s shoes” argument . . .)

yanny - please reread what i wrote. My first sentance was just a quote by Moses VII in order to refute.
regards.

“The slippery slope argument is valid when a clear procession of descent is apparent: (first, those who wish to die are Euthanised, then those who are non-coherent [coma] are Euthanised, and then those who the doctors believe should die, but want to live, are euthanised, and so on.” - yourbuttocks

Again i must disagree. For a physician there is a world of difference between a pt whose lungs are filled with metastatic CA wanting to be extubated and killed softly vs. a person in a metabolic/non-brainstem coma with a real chance of surviving who hasn’t expressed their wishes yet. The slippery slope argument can’t apply when two things are not on the same continuum.
If you WANT it to apply, try something like - First 89 y/o with mets to the lungs wants to be extubated. Then 68 y/o with ms wants the easy way out. Then blah blah blah. Then a 22 y/o with no clinical signs of depression or any other disease tells me that he’s done living and would i prescribe something for him/help him die. Now this is a philosophical doozy.
(note: not wishing to be antagonistic, but i’ve seen the “slippery slope” argument misapplied too often, and it appears that the philosophy communittee is distancing themselves from it as a valid arguement)

you know yanny, i think that happens more than you know. Usually the person wants to die or is brain dead (clinically dead). Of course the family can’t accept that the personhood does not exist anymore - it’s just a biological machine. Ultimately someone gives the order to pull the plug irrespective of the poor widow(er) who can’t live without the dead old guy/girl

i have a friend who yells the moment after taking something “have you moved it? move the chip down two spaces. let’s go!” (referring to the handy “IPC tracker”). His Macho Man immitations after winning a dice roll also have to go
(“oh yeah - take that . . . yeah!”)

with regards to the comment about the dutch, yourbuttocks is not far off. I’ve heard and read a little too much about the elderly being “euthanized” against their will.

re: The point I’m trying to make, is if you start letting doctors kill those who want to die, you start yourself down a slippery slope of human life devaluation.

The “slippery slope” argument, although obviously valid in your mind, is not a good philosophical argument as one can apply it to any circumstance (“what? you’re increasing the size of the police force? are you going to execute jaywalkers next?” - is a bizaare example of the ss arguement gone awry - all one has to do is demonstrate that the slope may be easily interrupted, and it vanishes altogether).

As a student, i mercifully have not been put in a situation of being asked to euthanize a patient, and my stomach recoils violently at the idea. Although “heroic measures” are too often employed unnecessarily, even pulling the plug is a painful consideration for many doctors.
I think that medical society needs to look at improved palliation methods before it seeks to start killing patients “legally and ethically”.
Having said all that, I do plan to get my hands on a syringe and a vial of KCl just in case . . . :smile:

. . . if figures that i wouldn’t be able to let this one go by without a reply . . .
Although there are so many times when my sense of vengence and justice kicks in and i think one should be killed by society (see my “perfect gov’t”) for certain crimes, there are too many solid reasons against capital punishment. There have been several examples in my own city of people convicted of a murder (where a Texan would get the chair) that were later (several years later) found innocent. There was a recent study that found something like 1 in 6 people on death row in Illinois were found not guilty and given full pardons as well (sorry if i messed up the details - i heard the stat a long time ago). Finally one also might wonder if a death sentance might make jurors less likely to convict than a life in prison? I know that in a perfect world only criminals are caught, witnesses are always honest, and juries always do the right thing, but we don’t live in a perfect world yet - obviously, as we still have people doing horrible things to each other.

But what waraxis said is true. Americans never purposely tried to kill innocent British or their Tories. Or at least I hope not.

• sorry Moses - Canada was founded by loyalists displaced by American revolutionaries. Their descendents are currently owed nearly a trillion dollars by the American gov’t (a point brought up during Helm’s-Burton law days).
  Also w.r.t. the revolutionary war - you can consider it born of capitalistic motives, but one might wonder if it would ever have begun without the annihilation of the French armies and their native allies following the 7 years, war as well as defense against the Pontiac rebellion of 1763 (as well as the establishment of colonial forts along the border) by the British (sorry about the run-on). The British had the audacity to make the appalachian watershed a legal boundary to expansion by the pre-Americans, as well as increase taxes to retrospectively pay for the costs incurred by removing the French menace from [Canada].
• facts lifted from John Keegan’s Warpaths

My first act would be to divide Quebec into culturally/language appropriate districts, and have each vote on the question: Do you wish to remain a part of Canada? If >45% said “non” then they would be granted succession from the rest of the country, with the rest able to stay. I would finish Trudeau’s job and see a national energy program come together so that ALL Canadians could enjoy lower energy costs. I would strengthen European ties as to not be so reliant on US imports/exports. A “life sentance” would actually be a “life sentance”. Morally dicey questions would be addressed at their roots (rather than slathering legislation downstream, assess socio-political reasons and methods for preventing the questions from needing to arise in the first place). Form a council of Natives (with or without the chiefs - preferably without) to address native concerns in a way to reduce waste and corruption and increase health and education on reserves. Develop a non-American form of 2-tier health care. Not worry so much about the state of the currency as much as the economy - get as many people working as possible. Finally ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK the federal debt.
(note: some of these were in a different post - sorry for some of the regurgitation)

w.r.t. original post . . . this is just for fun, right?
I’d shoot for “benevolent dictator” with a capitalistic market, low/no income taxes, with nationalized banking, energy, and communications to bring in gov’t income. Health care would be a more rational 2-tiered health system the that one currently in Canada (don’t fool yourselves - we already have a 2-tiered health care system, it just doesn’t work as well as it might). As far as other social programs go, NPO’s would receive some public funding, with “encouraged” volunteerism in order to look after the truly destitute. Welfare would become workfare, and we would stop paying people to make babies. Enough people want to come here - why pay for people to stay at home to make the little germ-vehicles? Child molesters, rapists and killers would be shot (at dawn), marijuana would be decriminalized and it and smoking would be fined. Gov’t itself would be more streamlined, smaller, and more reliant on already established provincial and civic legislatures. The military would receive increased funding drawn from oil-revenues and hiring out of our superiour JTF-2’s and other personal. Certain parts of Quebec would be asked to leave the country in order to provide more stability for the rest of the country, and native treaties would be reconcilled for once and for all with all discussions finallized for the last time.
(but that’s not all necessary . . . )

(i hope this doesn’t count as spam . . . ).
I think that it’s obvious that we don’t all share “Annonymous’” point of view, and using 9/11 this way is tasteless and brings no dignity to anyone. Although American foreign policy has many obvious flaws, we’re all on the same side, and Canadians, Germans etc. all lost loved ones in that trageday (not “incident”!). Saying “f**k you” is not going to do anything to awaken American sensibilities, but rather denegrades Canadian ones. We have a place in this world as peacekeepers and influence brokers, not anti-american propaganda machines. Although i am not American, we do need to build bridges with them, and if we truly are “enlightened”, then that will be noted.
(ok, no more posts from me on this. i promise)
p.s. America does need to drop its tariffs on softwood lumber, but that’s only the “free trade/NAFTA guy” in me.