Big Apple Dreaming

I envy you. I really must make a doctor's appointment and start pressing the matter. I'm just scared shitless because the local doctors (including female ones) basically believe women are breeding animals. They will do anything to avoid "compromising your fertility", and they don't mind giving you really painful exams without proper warning (because hey, the pain is worth it to keep your baby making equipment in shape, and it saves the doctor time on administering local anesthesia).

So I've been putting it off forever, but things have been going badly recently, and I guess I must put some sort of an end to it. Hopefully, I'll be able to find a decent doctor.

Oh, and I love the expression "fuck them all with a rusty dildo". :)

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My doctor said he wouldn't do an endometrial ablation on anyone who hadn't had Essure or a tubal. If a pregnancy were to occur, the ~~fetus~~ parasite would attach to and disfigure the abdomenal muscles.

What finally made my mind up was the last time I had my period. I was at work and noticed a "surge" from my uterus. I barely made it to the ladies room to prevent a mess. At the time, I was using a super absorbant tampon and a maxipad. Didn't matter. Major yuckola.

Anyway, I'll feel better about not clogging the planet with offerings of bloody clumps of cotton every month. I'm going to give my special menstrual bottle (used for witchy rituals) away to one who continues to suffer.

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I've had that happen to me twice already - in the past two periods. Luckily I was at home. I suddenly felt the "surge", and when I got up my whole chair/cushion was bloody, and - like you said - I was wearing a maxi pad at the time (I prefer not to use tampons at home, because they are uncomfortable, and the sewage in the building gets clogged by them). I was thinking at the time that I was lucky it didn't happen at home. The cushion's cover was washable, luckily, but the chair, although I did apply a stain remover, will never be what it used to be.

But from what I read about the abelation thingy, it doesn't always prevent menstruation completely. Sometimes it merely reduces the quantities. So hold on to your bottle until you've had a couple of bloodless months.

If I need to get Essure to get an abelation, I'll do it, even if I have to go to a private clinic for the fun. I hope I can convince my doctor that since I don't have sex anyways, the effect is much the same.

My mom, when she was about my age, had her uterus removed (there were medical indications other than just dysmennorea). She felt so free afterwards. But then, she had already "paid her due to society" by having three children, so the doctors didn't mind offering her a "fertility-imparing" treatment. Israel is a very pro-natal country, with one of the highest birth rates in the western world.

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Your average Bubba with a shotgun, hunting rifle and handgun will be no match against the National Guard or the Army if the government sends them against you.

Riiiight. Just like the average farmer armed with a musket would be no match against well-trained British regulars.

I've heard this argument before, and it's a bullshit argument. Here's the deal: military personnel have taken an oath to defend the Constitution against all threats, foreign and domestic. What exactly does this mean? It means that SOME of those people are going to remember that oath, take it seriously, and tell the tyrannical government to go fuck themselves.

Plus, it doesn't MATTER if I'm no match for a platoon of Marines. I would much rather die fighting for my own liberty than live like a cowering sheep. Besides...you get a BUNCH of armed bubbas together, and they can make enough of a mess of the military to actually make a difference. They may be cannon fodder, but they're ARMED cannon fodder, and I'll take every advantage I can get.

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A bunch of armed bubbas are a clusterfuck. Unless you drill together and have some cohesiveness, you're more likely to look like the Three Stooges than anything else. If you want to truly defend our land, get together with your similarly armed neighbors and practice tactics. If the hope of this country is a bunch of weekend warriors with guns, such as "shoot-'em-in-the-face" Dick Cheney and all the soft suburban sons of bitches who go hunting, we're doomed.

Now that the military has a good deal of experience in urban warfare, unless we're willing to act like the insurgents in Iraq, we couldn't defend against them. Besides, there would be a similar number of civilians who would be loathe to fight against "our" guys.

Don't think that taking an oath to defend the Constitution has ever kept anyone from trampling it mightily. The cockstain in the Oval Office took that same oath as did his cabal and look what they've done to it. Every time we vote for idiots who propose curtailing our freedom as opposed to those who wish to expand it, the subsequent loss of freedom is on our hands.

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The clusterfuck resulting from a bunch of armed bubbas attacking a platoon of regular troops suits me just fine. They can keep them busy while I bring my squad into position for an ambush.

Armed cannon fodder serves a purpose. They're like pawns...move them into place and harass the enemy while you set your other pieces up for the real attack. They are expendable, plentiful, and easily replaced. I don't think it's necessary to act like Iraqi insurgents to be effective. They do what they do because they lack any kind of true tactical thinking ability. It's not necessary to hit soft targets and take out civilians to achieve their goals. But their goals are different than what ours would be. They are trying to drive out people they see as foreign invaders...whereas American insurgents would not be trying to drive anyone out. Unlike the Iraqis, *WE* can get to the people at the top of the chain.

I predict a revolution within the next 50 years. The trampling of our rights by those in power and the complacency of the ordinary citizen to allow it to happen is about to reach a critical threshold. If I'm not too old when it happens, I'll probably be on the front lines. If I am, I'll probably lead from cover. The only way to prevent everything from going ass over teakettle will be to get rid of every single career politician and start over by electing those who still have a connection to those they represent. Take the power out of the hands of big businesses who have learned that they can buy votes.

I really like Obama's ideas for putting power back in the hands of the people using modern technology...but I don't think it'll happen anytime soon.

Ron Paul is an asshat who seems to be catering to the Libertarian-minded bubbas...but I won't vote for anyone who supports overturning Roe vs. Wade. Getting rid of income tax? Good luck getting Congress to agree to THAT, dickhead. Too bad the foaming-at-the-mouth Libertarians don't realize how little power the President has, or they would see this moron for what he is.

Clinton just scares me. McCain would have been a great choice about 10 years ago, but too much time in Washington has changed him for the worse.

That pretty much leaves Obama. I really would've voted for Colbert, if only to piss of Bill O'Rly and his ilk.

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kitten-goddess.livejournal.com

"Too bad the foaming-at-the-mouth Libertarians don't realize how little power the President has, or they would see this moron for what he is."

That was true until Bu$h took office and made Congress into his butt-monkeys.

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If you want to truly defend our land, get together with your similarly armed neighbors and practice tactics.

Might want to be careful about that. Pretty easy to get labeled a "terrorist training organization" and earn yourself a government-sponsored vacation these days...

act like the insurgents in Iraq

That's the idea.

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The right to bear arms has nothing to do with conflicts with the reigning tyrants, whoever they are. My country was occupied by the Brits 60 years ago. They didn't give us the right to bear arms, but that didn't mean that we (my grandfather, for example, who was a member of one of the freedom organizations) didn't have them. One of the organizations even had a policy of carrying in public - although if caught it was instant jailing and probably hanging. They had illegal stashes of arms, single round and automatic, grenades and even a canon or two.

And nowadays, we occupy Palestinian territories, and we don't give the Palestinians the right to bear arms. That doesn't prevent them from getting those arms anyway. Either proper military stuff which is smuggled from Egypt to Gaza through underground tunnels, or self-fabricated things like those rockets they use to shell civilians in towns and villages near the border.

If you go against whoever is ruling the land at the time, no constitutional right will help you. Tyrants will ignore constitutions anyway, so even if your constitutional right was kept every day until the tyrants took power, it won't be kept afterwards. So what good is it? And even if they allow you to carry weapons, they'll get you for breaking other laws - such as "disturbing the public peace" or "fighting against lawful soldiers", or simply "breaking the law against terror". So you may carry your gun if you want, but as soon as you point it at a soldier who wears the livery of the ruling government, you're toast.

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Of course it doesn't. What it DOES do is serve as a constant reminder to those in power. "Your rules grant your people the right to keep and bear arms. Better not misbehave, lest they turn their aim from paper targets to YOU."

The original idea was that everyone would be armed so that in times of crisis, they would all be prepared.

I look at it this way: I have guns. In my apartment. Loaded. I also wear my seatbelt when I get in the car. I don't PLAN on getting robbed any more than I PLAN to get in a car wreck, but I still like to be prepared, just in case.

And now we get to the crux of the matter: passing laws to make guns illegal won't do ANYTHING but take them out of the hands of those who are willing to obey the law. Those who do not (either because they believe the law is unjust, OR because they are a criminal) will still get them. Personally, I'd like the playing field to be level. I'd feel a little stupid if I had to bring a knife to a gunfight just because the government says that I'm not allowed to own a gun.

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But here you're switching to a whole different argument. We are switching from "guns are to protect us from tyrannical regime" to "guns are to protect us from criminals". I believe, therefore, that you have conceded the first point to

nolawitch.

I owned a gun myself until recently, when I decided that since I'm not trained, and since keeping them loaded at home is against the law (You can carry them loaded, but keep them separate from the ammunition when they are off you. That's the law here), I'd better get rid of it once and for all.

We now come to the usual argument - you say it protects you against robbers, another will say that the availability of loaded guns in the house raises the likelihood of gun-related accidents (we have, in fact, many more incidents of legal gun owners whose guns have been involved in domestic accidents or were taken from them by criminals, than incidents in which legal gun owners stopped criminals). What one needs is a set of statistics from various countries with various laws, and that the collection of those statistics - about crime rate, success of crime, incidents of death or injury, accidents, and so on - will be done without bias either for or against carrying guns. Otherwise, the argument is worthless. We can shout at each other at the top of our voices, about which makes more sense or makes you feel more comfortable. You need facts for this argument, and I believe the part about getting unbiased statistics is the hard part.

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Agreed. Stats are good and Switzerland has good ones.

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auric-merciless.livejournal.com

Guns are useless against a government, but effective against crooked agents thereof.

One on one, maybe one on two, but not many vs many - that's crap.

I have guns to defend myself from criminals because I don't trust the cops to do it in a timely manner.

And in some cases, the cops are the criminals.

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I see where the confusion lies. Let me clear things up. I was not switching my argument around...I was illuminating another aspect of my reply to you.

Guns are versatile. They can protect us from criminals. They can protect us from the government. They can keep us amused as we use them to shoot holes in things out in the desert.

Making them illegal will not prevent them from being used. Keeping them legal and in the hands of law-abiding citizens serves as a constant reminder to the government that we can overthrow them if they misbehave.

I still hold that "The average American with a gun is no match for trained soldiers" is a bullshit argument against the 2nd Amendment. An armed population is impossible to fight because they far outnumber the soldiers. I don't care HOW well armed you are, if you are outnumbered 200 to 1 by pissed-off rednecks armed with hunting rifles, you WILL lose.

Make guns illegal, and that 200 turns to maybe 100. The soldiers will still lose, but it'll be a lot closer.

Now, in response to your statements, you're right about the stats. However, in MY home, I don't have to worry about gun-related accidents. I have no children, and I'm never visited BY children. I rigidly follow safety protocols when handling guns and have NEVER had an accidental discharge.

One of the things that you are missing is that in various countries there are differing cultures. Canada has more guns per capita than America^* but less gun-related violence. Personally, I think it's because they get all of their aggression out by playing hockey. :D Comparing American and Canadian gun stats is like comparing apples to oranges. Some countries don't NEED guns.

You've made my argument for me. Outlawing guns doesn't get rid of them. All it does it put them in the hands of those who don't respect the law. Guns are outlawed in New York, Detroit, California, and other places that all have astronomical gun violence rates while places like Texas and Arizona have lower gun violence since passing CHL laws. Look at it logically: Guns are illegal. That's not going to stop me, so I get one. I need money, so who am I going to rob? Someone who might be armed, or someone I KNOW won't be? If guns are so horrible, who don't we see more shootings at places where there are lots of guns, like firing ranges and gun stores? Simple: criminals like easy targets.

The problem with all of the gun-related accidents has a fairly simple solution: education. Hey, teen pregnancy and STD transmission is an issue, let's beef up sex-ed to include something OTHER than the ridiculously ineffective "abstinence-only" bullshit. "What's that? Firearm related deaths because people don't know how to safely handle firearms? Education?! Woah, there! Guns are EVIL and BAD and we should just get rid of them!" Funny enough, that attitude is about as effective as teaching teenagers to "just say no to the raging hormones and avoid having sex."

^*I think. I could be wrong. Not enough time to go look it up.

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Guns are not illegal in California. At least, as of 2003, when I left for Switzerland. In L.A., you can still get shot for being a dumbshit on the freeway. :)

Train the kids properly and it's not a problem. That's what I did.

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kitten-goddess.livejournal.com

"The problem with all of the gun-related accidents has a fairly simple solution: education. Hey, teen pregnancy and STD transmission is an issue, let's beef up sex-ed to include something OTHER than the ridiculously ineffective "abstinence-only" bullshit. "What's that? Firearm related deaths because people don't know how to safely handle firearms? Education?! Woah, there! Guns are EVIL and BAD and we should just get rid of them!" Funny enough, that attitude is about as effective as teaching teenagers to "just say no to the raging hormones and avoid having sex.""

Thank you! I don't own a gun and don't know how to fire one. Because of this, I am never around guns unless I am closely supervised by someone who knows what xie is doing. I would never purchase a gun under any circumstances. However, the government has no right to presume that everyone is as ignorant about firearms as I am. Some people have grown up around guns, use them to hunt food, and also use them to protect themselves or loved ones against criminals or against deadly critters.

For instance, my mom lives in Bumfuck Egypt, where there are poisonous snakes and scorpions to be encountered. Said snakes have been killed by guns more than once, which was good for my mom's continued existance. Keeping her from defending herself against vermin because some idiot might get drunk and shoot himself in the foot makes absolutely no sense.

Of course, guns need to be kept out of the hands of the insane and the criminals. The idiots can go kill themselves for all I care.

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Many, if not most, of so-called gun accidents aren't actually accidents. They are usually the result of doing something stupid.

That said, there aren't really that many of them per year. I'm not sure what the adult statistics are, but I have looked it up for children, and gun accidents are very low on the list of causes of death.

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mcnutcase.livejournal.com

How do you think I feel, given that I'm not even allowed a knife?

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I keep waiting for the UK to outlaw frying pans after someone goes around the tube stations whacking people upside the head with one.

Because, you know, a cast iron skillet is basically a giant hunk of metal and can be VERY dangerous in the hands of a bad guy.

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mcnutcase.livejournal.com

Stop giving them ideas.

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Don't worry. If skillets are outlawed, a new epidemic will arise. Screwdriver crime, brick crime, crystal vase crime, spanner crime...

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What second Amendment SCOTUS review?!?!?!

Forget the bubbas for a bit. If you look at the history, that's a true story. It is the main reason for the second amendment. That the possibility was negated in 1936 is another story. Until then, US citizens could buy, sell, and use even full-sized howitzers. Texans regularly did this for Mexico's Cristeros uprising. Ergo, that argument isn't specuous. Not a value-judgement or an argument, only a few historical facts.

I wholly agree with you regarding the current administration, and I'm a Republican! It only proves that any party can be subverted. In this case, by the religious right, as the Socialists/Communists subverted the Democrats in the 30's.

I hope that you're doing well and am looking forward to seeing you in July. You're bringing the husband too, right?

On the anti-gun front, Prachet said it best, in Nightwatch:

There had been that Weapons Law, for a start. Weapons were involved in so many crimes that. Swing reasoned, reducing the number of weapons had to reduce the crime rate.

Vimes wondered if he'd sat up in bed in the middle of the night and hugged himself when he'd dreamed that one up. Confiscate all weapons, and crime would go down. It made sense. It would have worked, too, if only there had been enough coppers - say, three per citizen.

Amazingly, quite a few weapons were handed in. The flaw though, was one that had somehow managed to escape Swing' and it was this: criminals don't obey the law. It's more or less a requirement for the job. They had no particular interest in making the streets safer for anyone except themselves. And they couldn't believe what was happening. It was like Hogswatch every day.

An instance proof of the is the UK, where they have an amazing number of shootings considering that guns are illegal there and have been for decades. Now, if only the criminals would obey the law ...

Edited Date: 2007-11-27 08:33 pm (UTC)

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I do not object to the owning of guns. I object to the unregulated owning of guns as per the first clause of the Second Amendment. Seriously, if you don't keep your skills up, when it comes time to use them, you're rusty. I couldn't program in COBOL right now if you held a gun to my head, but I was pretty good at it twenty years ago. I don't get where people object to proving competence in order to use a weapon. You have to prove competence to drive a car.

Hubby isn't coming with me on the European vacation. He's slated for another vacation week either on a cruise ship or the American Orient Express. He doesn't like to fly. I think a long plane ride would severely irritate him and we don't have time to come over by boat and do anything once we'd get there. Besides, he was in the Navy and he's seen most of the world--or at least the parts with bars and whorehouses. So, I fly alone.

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salegamine.livejournal.com

Shame about hubby. I was looking forward to seing him and my mate meet.

Also this is likely to make for a depleted party as I will most likely be unable to come for most of the time as well.
:(

My only collegue here in Switzerland is actually French and has three kids. Bastille week is a given holiday for him (having school age children he gets preference during school holiday times) and as we are each other's back-up's it very unlikely I will be able to have any time off that week.

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Gunsite recommends firing at least two clips per week, to maintain proficiency. Finances permiting, I did that until the time I sold my weapons and left.

Sorry to hear that hubby isn't going. I would have loved to have met him.

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Hmmm...300 rounds / (12 rounds / magazine) = 25 magazines.

I'm set for the next month and a half!

Until I got proficient, I fired an average of about 150 rounds per week.
I now go shooting about once a month, but shoot an average of about 250-300 rounds.

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I'll give you that. "Well regulated" means properly trained and equipped.

But rather than have training handled by the government, I think it should be handled the same way hunting licenses are handled: in order to get one, you have to have a certificate from a hunter's safety course.

My idea is this: You take a firearms safety course, and they give you a certificate that says "I have completed the safety course on date." When you go to buy a gun, you have to bring the certificate with you. After 3 years, it expires and you need to go take the safety course again.

If you are found to be in possession of a gun and don't have a current safety certificate, you get fined.

The first time I went to the range with my new pistol, I couldn't hit shit with it. After about a month of practice with it, I'm now a fairly decent shot. I haven't fired a rifle in years, but on Friday I discovered that I'm still dead-eye accurate with a .22. Well, after about 5 rounds I was...but that's usually how long it takes me to get used to a rifle that I've never fired before. The stance, the breathing, the focus all came back to me right away. After getting a feel for the rifle's quirks I could place shot after shot in the exact same location. Of course, for me it may be genetic. My dad's one hell of a shot with a rifle as well.

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Yeah, but you're semi-rational. The whack jobs aren't. They don't give a shit whether you can shoot straight or shoot your dog. Why, if they're such experts with weapons, they would object to proving it must be the same reason men lie about the size of their dicks so often. If nobody makes them drop trou and prove it, they can say they've got eight inches down there when they only have three.

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*drops trou*

Ohhhh...that wasn't an invitation.

Sorry.

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Hey, that's no fair anyway. Doesn't a Prince Albert give you an extra inch from the weight of the jewelry?

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kelli217.livejournal.com

Of course, "regulated" in those days meant "prepared" as well as "controlled".

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There's a minor problem with mandating training this way. You are introducing yet another class divide.

I think you would agree that the primary determination of class in US is wealth (as opposed to heredity). Training costs money. Mandating spending an X amount of money excludes a good chunk of people.

Even informal shooting isn't all that cheap. Where I live, there are no free open ranges, like an old gravel pit. Only indoor ranges are within reasonable driving distance. An indoor range costs $20 a session, and a box of 100 rounds of .45 at Wal-Mart is $27. Gas would probably make that an even $50 a go.

We already have some of this in place. Laws against "Saturday Night Specials" are essentially aimed squarely against the poor. An SNS is a cheap pistol, not necessarily of greatest quality, that would not stand up to regular use. They were commonly bought by the urban poor who lived in shitty parts of town to keep "just in case". Now many places outlawed them in the name of fighting crime.

Some of earliest incarnations of carry permit laws were instituted in the South, where they were aimed at the blacks. A person wishing to carry a pistol would have to apply to the sheriff in person so that the sheriff cold determine if they were a citizen in good standing. Wanna guess what "good standing" meant?

In some places it's not much different, just that criteria for worthiness aren't as overtly racial. For instance, New York City has gun permits. You can get one, but only if you are a personal friend of the mayor or a celebrity of some sort. The great unwashed are SOL.

Letting the government have a say in who can and who cannot own a defensive tool is not always a good thing.

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desertrat66.livejournal.com

Since no one answered your question directly... A whole lot of information (http://volokh.com/posts/chain_1195582672.shtml).

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nightwind292.livejournal.com

a beautiful summery,
with the refrance I would have used myself, if I had a copy on hand.

thanks

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loosechanj.livejournal.com

You know Rudy's gonna be the next pres right. :-( My theory is, every one gets worse, and Guiliani's about the only thing I can imagine being worse than Bush.

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I hope you're wrong. That asshat outlies Dumbya.

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I have two words for you: "Nine Eleven!"

If he makes it past the primary, I hope someone keeps count of the number of times he mentions 9/11 so we can all mock him.

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loosechanj.livejournal.com

He out-Dubya's Dubya. But then he's actually *trying*, which is the really REALLY scary part.

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