Current Affairs

Babies Mean Prizes:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090916/twl-russians-get-prizes-for-producing-ba-3fd0ae9.html

I think they should line all the pregnant ladies in a row on Conception Day and have a TV game show: 'First to Birth', a race where the value and quality of prizes diminish after each birth. Hey, it's better than The Cube.

So, that fat baby touching sasquatch not telling the parents which kids she abused has been pissing me off recently.

bitch, i say legalise torture for this case.

Didn't manage to watch the Nick Griffin interview but I think the people protesting his outside and thus the right to free speech were cunts and from the soundbites playing ont he radio it sounds like he was bombasted by "dur hurr BNP are racialists" shit instead of having an actual debate. He's quite capable of making an idiot of himself without assistance. Anyway, I'll give my full opinion when I've watched it.

The clips I saw made it look like they were all just talking over him and stuff but I just watched the program and it seemed fair enough. He did make a fool out of himself but you got to admire the guy for not just crumbling into the fetal position after all that criticism

I was telling every censorfag that he'd piss himself and fall over in a heap. He knew exactly what he was letting himself in for and looked like such a massive wanker.

I agree with him that hardline fundamentalist Islam Theocracies (Iran, basically) are repressive and fucking abhorrent, but that's the extent of it.

I agreed quite strongly with Nick on that one. Then he defended Christianity and I could swiftly jump out of the unbecoming position of "Agreeing With Griffin".

Bonnie did very well.

He came across as a dick, even if he anged to not come across as quite so racist as i believe. But yeh, prick.

We had this on in out local, ona HUGE tv that is usually reserved for footy. We had afew, and even went donw the the BBC centre where there had been demonstrations, looking for a fight. There was NOTHING.No raivists. No police, hugely dissapointing tbh.

But yeah,BNP, what a load of cunts.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Shark-Mauls-Great-White-Fears-In-Australia-After-Shark-Bitten-Off-Stradbroke-Island-Near-Brisbane/Article/200910415419981?lpos=World_News_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_9&lid=ARTICLE_15419981_Shark_Mauls_Great_White:_Fears_In_Australia_After_Shark_Bitten_Off_Stradbroke_Island,_Near_Brisbane

They're going to need a bigger boat.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/18/assisted-suicide-dignitas-house

Not really current affairs, but a fascinating article and great insight into the nature of this place that I've heard mentioned often but knew little about. I was already a major proponent of the right to die, and this is as good evidence as I've seen to support it.

Why the fuck shouldn't someone die if they don't feel like living? Surely ending your own life is the ultimate freedom, deciding your fate, total control. Overpopulation is a very real issue and we are ina recession. If one wishes to end their own life I think they should be offered a medical service by the NHS where they can have their life ended in an organized and hygienic way rather than getting blood all over their landlords carpet as they slit their wrists in their shitty little apartment.
I bet there's a lot of people who want to die but wont because their methods don't guarantee death (how embarrassing must it be to fail at killing yourself), people deserve the option to have a hospital assisted death (apparently the NHS are giving those away for free ba-dum-tsh).

Seany C wrote:Why the fuck shouldn't someone die if they don't feel like living? Surely ending your own life is the ultimate freedom, deciding your fate, total control. Overpopulation is a very real issue and we are ina recession. If one wishes to end their own life I think they should be offered a medical service by the NHS where they can have their life ended in an organized and hygienic way rather than getting blood all over their landlords carpet as they slit their wrists in their shitty little apartment.
I bet there's a lot of people who want to die but wont because their methods don't guarantee death (how embarrassing must it be to fail at killing yourself), people deserve the option to have a hospital assisted death (apparently the NHS are giving those away for free ba-dum-tsh).

Nice.
I'm also pro-die-if-you-fancy-it, but when I rose the issue with my Mum she made the very good point that most people in that situation aren't thinking at all clearly. How many people, she continued, do you hear talking about how they used to want to die but are now in a much happier place? To let them die at their least happy is to ignore them at their most happy.
Since she gave me that perspective on the issue, I've been far less sure than I used to be.
When I look up to people and respect them, there usually comes some point where I realise that the points they make aren't that clever, and by applying my own logic to situations I can come up with answers which satisfy me far more than my former role models ever could. My Mum might be the only person I know for whom that has never happened.

Read that article Paul, it's not about killing someone immediately just because they are in a suicidal frame of mind. If conducted properly, like Dignitas, it could work anywhere in the world.

Feel a little ignorant for not reading the article before weighing in with my thoughts. However:

"He hopes that she will reconsider, and happily recounts stories of other applicants who have been persuaded to change their minds. When the depressed young German man arrived on his doorstep some years ago, demanding to die immediately, Minelli felt sorry for him, took him in, and spent a day or so explaining why suicide was not the answer. On the third morning, when the young man said once again that he wanted to die, Minelli took a new approach, telling him: 'If you really want to die, there are three options. There is hanging, but it is very risky: if you are found too early you will live on, but as an idiot because the blood will have stopped flowing to your brain. You can go to the Swiss glacier, wearing light clothes, and you will die of cold, but if you are found too early you will lose your legs. Or you can stop eating and just drink tea and water.'

'He said 'Yahoo! I will die by starvation.' He was completely happy. It was a 180-degree change,' Minelli says. They drove together to a bathing resort 30km away, and they spent the afternoon swimming together.

'We came back here at midnight and looked through my telescope up at Jupiter with its four Gallilean moons and Saturn. He was delighted. We discussed cosmology and astronomy and I sent him to bed.' The man went home to Germany, where Minelli put him in touch with a psychiatrist. His crisis passed and the two remain in occasional contact."

His crisis passed, but the founder of Dignitas had already suggested some means of suicide. What if his crisis had passed just slightly after enough time had elapsed for him to die of starvation?

Then he would of died and the Earth would of continued to spin.

Seany C wrote:Overpopulation is a very real issue and we are ina recession.

That should never, ever be a de facto reason for allowing assisted suicide. The decision to do so is a personal one unique to each individual and should never have the welfare of the state attributed to it. It's like some Russian lolcat satire I once saw; "That I may be a burden on the state, that thought alone keeps me awake at night"

Suicide laws are mostly absurd anyway, especially the ones that make it illegal to kill yourself. If you succeed, there's very little they can do, if you don't succeed, they can't exactly charge you for killing yourself as you haven't actually done it.

I think Dignitas have a very good system in place to make absolutely it's what the person wants. Whenever the topic comes up in this country there's plenty of people whose argument boils down to "People will just push off their relatives in order to get some inheritance", whereas the Dignitas system makes sure to completely remove this element. In fact, having a figure of 80% of people changing their minds if anything should strike another blow to the people against it, as it seems that under proper consultation and consideration most people do find a reason for living.

Fundamentally, I agree that the decision to do what one wants with their own body should be unobtrusive when it comes to legal intervention, but there is definitely a need for a good solid framework for determining if it is the right decision for the individual and to protect it from abuse and exploitation.

Even having a decent place to go with the intention of dying could cut suicide rates here massively. If people phoned Samaritans before they killed themselves a few could change their mind, but by going somewhere to die quietly and having people there in front of you try to help you out of it, more would actually receive help because they wanted to kill themselves.

But there's something of a difference between people are suicidal and people who want to kill themselves. If that makes sense.

The people who would attend these clinics do so with rational thought and a sound mind. It's been planned, discussed and debated.

People who are suicidal usually live in the moment. It can come and it can go. There's no time or space for planning and discussion. It's a quick action that occurs out of no rationality or sound mindedness whatsoever.

Offering suicidal people an option that requires medical history and counselling won't help them at all. It's not enough of a quick fix, so to speak.

If they kill themselves when they still have plenty of potentially good life to live why should it be anyone elses problem? If I cut off my toe because I think it's ugly will I get any sympathy for wanting it back? If they want to make a rash unconsidered decision then fine, die.

It's that sort of uncaring attitude we should really have hoped to shed in the earliest stages of our evolution.

Depends. If everyone was in perpetual agreement with each other humanity as a progressive race would just stop (See also: the film Equilibrium)
You can't really have a proper exchange of ideas without an antithesis to your argument.

I'm not opposed to argument. I'm opposed to indifference towards the suffering of others and the catastrophic mistakes which can take place as a result of such suffering.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/22/tory-lead-falls-mori-poll

Labour are on the climb again, polling their best for a year. If they can keep fuck-ups to a minimum, focus on their role in economic recovery and highlight just what a politicking Eton tosspot Cameron is, we could be on for a very interesting election.

Don't get me wrong, I still think a hung parliament is best case scenario, but it at least gives me some hope that this government aren't done yet.

Yup. Also, your dog's only sleeping.

Don't let me leave my denial blanket. Seriously, we're in with a fighting chance.

Then again, if the Tories win, at least a referendum (if the other parties stop blocking the SNP and actually let the country, you know, decide for themselves) is far more likely to succeed.

'Mon the Gogzer for May, though. Gonna be fight of the century for Labour.