anonemouse

No one is saying that you can't. Of course, that means other people can also say things to you. And your outrage is a little suspect, IMO, especially since you recently deleted a post to me that was more than a little rude and attacking.

IMO, and in the opinions of many others, is that it's disingenuous to claim that life begins anywhere but the moment a fetus can sustain itself without help from the mother's body (in terms of circulation, heart beat, breathing on it's own, etc.).

Actually, I was referring to the fact that the only rule against bashing someone refers to LBT members. I wasn't aware of any rule that says we can't call a assish non-member an ass.

I didn't realize Bush was a member of LBT. Wow, it's surprising how many people have had this surgery!

Yes, he does, but honestly, would you choose to stay in a neighborhood that you never, ever felt safe in? Especially if you have a choice? A lot of us say that to have lap-band surgery, we'd do whatever it takes, get loans, sell property, etc. Would we not feel the same way about living in an extremely unsafe neighborhood? Isn't our personal safety and the safety of our loved ones and our personal belongings more important than our weight? When it gets to the point where you KNOW you aren't safe, you should be willing to do whatever it takes to get out of there.

That's great, Kyethra! I bet you're just counting the days until it's gone!

But the problem is that you have to go back to the main page, refresh it, and then go back to the new posts page to get any new threads. If you just keep refreshing the new posts page, all it does is update the threads that were already shown, not add new threads to it. It's not a huge deal, but it makes it more inconvenient.

I think he shot himself in the head, so I don't know if a pathologist would be able to determine brain damage (other than bullet brain damage).

I don't know if that would be enough to strip him of his right to own guns, but it should have been enough to require him to undergo a psychiatric exam. The results of that may have been enough.

No, but we should be able to say, "you can't buy a gun". And I think there's a difference between someone "acting weird" and someone that was obviously fantasizing about killing people.

Well, be glad you don't live in Memphis, where there is a crime rate that is a little over 3 times the national average. Heck, I go visit my brother there regularly, yet I don't consider getting a gun just for that purpose.

And it really seems odd to me that your community has such a high crime rate, yet apparently won't bother to hire more police officers. Doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense to me.

Jack, you live in an area with about twice the national crime rate. To me, that is more of a signal that either your community needs to harass its leaders to hire more police or you need to move to a safer locale than a signal that you need a gun.

Has anyone taken Byetta? My mom was just put on it, and she thought I might be interested in asking my doctor to put me on it. I'm not diabetic, though, just insulin resistant.

My old surgeon didn't allow carbs (not even fruit or fruit juice!) until the patient reached goal weight.

And a baseball bat seems to be fairly threatening to a burglar. Unless he's got a gun, in which case, you'd be screwed anyway, even if you did have a gun. Because, well, heck, if I'm robbing your home and I have a gun and you confront me with your gun, I've got just as much of a chance of shooting you as you do of shooting me. More so, I'd imagine, since I'd have it at the ready when I was breaking in, and you'd have to find yours, load it or get it out of your gun safe, take off the safety, cock it, and fire.

No, maybe the alarm company calls the police in the area, like they are supposed to. And if the police don't respond to a home invasion, then you've got crappy police.

Your police officers have radios and cars, do they not?

But the loud, unexpected noise will probably scare off a burglar because they generally rely on the occupant being asleep when they enter. And I don't know about you, but I generally check to make sure things are all right if my neighbor's alarm starts going off and isn't shut off immediately. Alarms draw attention, even if it is just people glancing, like you said, to make sure that nothing is suspicious. If a car alarm is going off somewhere around me, I do look to see if something is going on. That, I feel, is why most burglers would run from a building if an alarm starts going off. They do draw attention, and in the case of building alarms, the cops (if they aren't shut off). If you are wanting to do something that takes a little time, like ransacking and robbing a home or raping the occupants, I would imagine that you would have second thoughts about it if a very loud, attention-drawing, cop-magnet alarm was going off.

I am a firm believer in alarm systems. I think that in many of the situations that are cited by gun-rights enthusiasts, the home invaders would have been as easily scared off by an alarm as a gun. I mean, are invaders likely to continue doing something that generally requires stealthiness and silence if a shrieking alarm is likely waking the neighbors up and bringing the cops down on their heads? And if someone attacks you while you are by yourself, are you going to tell him, "wait while I rummage through my purse to get my gun" or "stop dragging me from my car by my hair long enough for me to get my gun out of the glove compartment, get the safety off, and shoot you"? I would imagine that both those cases hinge on surprise. And if you are surprised, are you really likely to be able to get out your gun in time to defend yourself?

Well, I'm not going to Virginia for the internship. I talked to my advisor yesterday, and he wants me to do some more fieldwork this summer, to try and increase my sample size. So far, he's had people taping shrikes for three summers (I did it this past summer), but we've only got data on 6 nests. With numbers that low, any little bit helps, even if we can only get data on a couple of nests this summer.

Kyethra, I hope they find out what's wrong soon. In the mean time, try to stay strong! Just think, only a couple of weeks until your classes are out!

I love the new look, but I do miss having the newly updated posts at the top of the main page. Now, I have to go to "New Posts" and then go back to the main page, refresh it, and then go back to "New Posts" to get that page to show the newest posts.

I definitely agree. Kids that are at risk of becoming violent are identifiable, if people care enough to open their eyes and look. It may require mandatory yearly psychological evaluations by school counsellors, and identification of targets of harassing and bullying behavior, but it is possible.

That's why I qualified my statement by saying "romantic love". I'm just guessing here, but I doubt you love your kids romantically.