peacefuljeffrey

Of course not. I would say exactly the same thing if he made a pro-Bush rant. LMFAO!! But in this case, you are NOT opposed to the teacher's actions because it was an anti-Bush rant! You can't see the hypocrisy in that position?? I call bullshit. I don't think you believe it's over his opinion that he could lose his job; it's over his actions. He knew the rules, and his boiling, roiling vitriol against America could not be contained by his puny degree of self-control, and it got him in hot water because he forgot the rule about being FAIR in the delivery of his opinions (which had no place in a geography class in the first place). - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Of course. It is not something I would characterize as "spewing hate". ... If you are going to tell me Fox News would have this on if this was a spirited pro-Bush rant, I call bullshit. So now the issue is not the story but who reported the story. Who is making this an issue of bias, again? You are really good at calling people liars, but piss-poor at proving it. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Wipe all the lipstick you want on that pig. Fact is, you would turn completely around if you agreed with the message. You can keep dancing around it, but not admitting it is less than honest. There you go again, essentially calling him a liar. What is it about a person's words on the screen that you can't take them at face value? I'll bet if he were a left-winger, you would not leap to assume that a statement of his position is a statement of his position. Now who's biased? - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

no, that's incorrect. the difference is that in the setting of being a HS history teacher, one needs to be impartial and needs to discuss issues with the goal of furthering knowledge, fostering rational thought, and instilling excitement about learning. that's not what this teacher did. he used his position to shape his students viewpoint to match his own. i would say that's wrong no matter what the opinion of the teacher is/was. You disagree with the opinion? End of discussion. Nice. You are essentially calling tcnelson a liar, because he quite clearly stated that he would say it's wrong to spew vitriolic bias no matter what the opinion of the teacher is/was. Clearly he said that he would oppose even a conservative using his classroom as a bully pulpit, yet you are again accusing him of bias. I guess he should just give up trying to convince you, since you're already insulting him by calling him a liar, and clearly you won't believe him no matter how hard he protests. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

You have got to be kidding. And if high school kids are this smart, worldly, wise... why is it that when one of them decides to pick up a gun and kill someone, suddenly bleeding hearts come out of the woodwork trying to convince us that he was a virtual retard by virtue of being "so young," and couldn't possibly have formed criminal intent to murder while so innocent and young? Some people clearly want to have it both ways. Is there something wrong with recording a lecture? People do that. Sometimes they use the recording to make notes later on. Some kids don't "get" the lesson the first time around. Are you implying that the kid did something wrong? As I heard it, the class was geography, or at least Bennish is a geography teacher. Why was he talking about the state of the union address? Why? Because like so many other hate- and vitriol-filled liberals, he lacks the self-control to decide when it is appropriate to spew his venom against the United States. Did you listen to any of the recording? What I heard on the Rush Limbaugh radio program was sickening. It was not simply a statement that "some people compare Bush to Hitler." It went far beyond that. Besides, the school policy about fair, balanced viewpoints is likely something the teacher was informed of, and whatever the school policy is for punishing a teacher for breaking that policy is what should guide it. If that's losing his job, so be it. Outside of the school policy, I don't believe that such a teacher belongs in a high school classroom, and I would not mind in the least if his bias cost him his job. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

See? You left out a third possibility, and that is that some people will spend the entire thread trying to convince us that those who feel a geography teacher ought to fuckin' teach geography and get that job done are distracting from the point that the teacher is "trying to get people thinking." If they were in a philosophy class, that might be valid. You yourself are one of those picking only timidly at the meat of the issue. Could you explain to us why parents of this "teacher's" students should not be angry that he is delivering political invective instead of teaching them the subject of geography? He was outside his purview; there are no two ways about that. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I heard a decent chunk of the tape when Rush Limbaugh's standing Roger something played it yesterday. The guy did indeed sound like a shrill, hate-filled whining malcontent liberal looking to bash Bush but more importantly, he sounded like he was as anti-American as they come. Maybe he should be looking for a teaching job in France. Maybe Alec Baldwin can help him out... - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I'd love to see a statistic that bears out the entire U.K. having only 26 total shootings in a year. If gun crime making news is because it's rare and thus "newsworthy," then why does it also get lots of coverage in the U.S., where you are saying it is so common as to be nearly beneath notice? On the one hand you would say that it gets coverage in places where it's rare, but that would not account for why it gets coverage in places where you deem it is not rare. Probably the same idiot who decided that what they do in those "songs" is "rhyme." Something abour "rhyming" words like "gat" and "cap" is just, welll, illiterate. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

And if you believe Homer Simpson, purple is a fruit! I myself seriously need to get back in shape. I'm not noticeably out of shape, but I myself know how not-toned I am compared to how I have been and can be... - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Just curious how many people know how to make closing loops. After I learned how to make them and got myself a loop puller, I went a little crazy with it (this was some months ago): since I have about 12 different colored spools of paracord, I made them in all kinds of colors, like neon pink, neon yellow, neon green, royal blue, imperial red, black, silver, purple... It's kind of a fun pastime that's also productive. Now then, how about Monkey's Fists? - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Well, some would say I'm definitely going to die some time (although I counter with, "How do we know that I'm not immortal?"). I don't suppose I would want to know exactly when it's going to happen, no. I would not want to end up radically preoccupied with the ticking-away of the time I had left. What would happen to a person if they got within four years, two years, one year, two months of "the date"?! Would their behavior become hysterical and erratic? Would they decide that nothing mattered whatsoever, and be criminally selfish and possibly dangerous as a result? Would they become depressed and just wither away in a bed? It's hard to say. For me, definitely not, I would not want to know when it was going to happen. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

If I hadn't spent those three months in England in 1992 I would still be allowed to donate here in the U.S. I had donated a few gallons, and was a regular plateletpheresis donor for years, when suddenly a new question had appeared on the medical survey between one of my donations and another. Suddenly is was not all right that I had lived for 3 months in England, because I could be carrying whatever it is that causes vCJD. So I guess we can start counting how many lives they have NOT been able to save with the blood I would have willingly, enthusiastically, regularly donated to those less fortunate. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I hope he gets well and strong again. **vibes**

Rock on!

Oooh, lookie, it involved a RAP CONCERT. Never saw that coming. It's a good thing that Parliament made the gun ban so that those 300 or so guns a year are no longer trickling into the 3,000,000-gun supply that the criminals already have in England. Otherwise there might have been two black men, aged 18 to 22, 5ft 10in tall, slim, with a moustache and plaited hair, firing into a crowd. Makes me fuckin' sick. Gun violence follows rap music around like stink follows shit (hey, good analogy), and this Kanye West asshole is the same guy who had a party a few months ago where someone shot someone else, and amazingly "no one saw 'nuh-in'!" Good to see that the state of gun control in Britain has made the public safe from being shot in the face, stomach and foot by scumbag criminal rap fans who try to get into concerts without tickets and then get angry that they're for some unfathomable reason told to piss off. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Overall it's a stupid idea, but I like this part. If you shoot an unarmed person, you should be put on trial for manslaughter at a minimum, regardless of whether you were in uniform at the time. But what of the fact that there are instances where shooting an unarmed person IS justified? Something called "disparity of force," such as one person with a gun surrounded by five angry guys who are talking about smashing his skull... Or one woman with a gun surrounded by two or three guys talking about how much fun it's gonna be to rape her... LOL! But but but... cops are so well-trained! (Even though most of them fire about 50 rounds a year or something, just to show that their guns are not plugged with rust...) - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I have before, but you wouldn't believe me anyways. I have an aunt who is an active member of the Dutch police force. So like a flatworm, you somehow are able to access all of her knowledge? That's like saying people should take my advice on automobile insurance matters because my dad spent 38 years in the business. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

So, your colleagues in this case did not even have access to guns? You are talking about British police? Most of whom do not get to carry guns despite facing threats like this all the time? One might go so far as to say that if people had an idea what dangers you faced every day they would not agree to having a mostly-not-armed police force! I mean, really. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I see your reading skills haven't improved yet. Ahh, nice, exactly the kind of comment that would get me banned. Um, you seem to have replied to cristelsabine even though she didn't write that quote. Hmmm. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Makes sense. After all, if you draw and fire a weapon at someone, whatever you later claim to have been aiming at is irrelevant: you will be deemed to have used deadly physical force. Now, if you were justified (i.e. felt a credible and grievous threat to self) when you pulled your gun, you pretty much might as well kill the guy, because being upheld for shooting in the first place is tantamount to being upheld to killing your attacker, since your action in firing at all is considered "deadly." And killing your attacker means he can't make counter-claims when you truly knew he was trying to kill you or cause you grievous bodily harm. Do you really need some scumbag criminal making shit up and trying to turn things around and claim you were the aggressor? - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Now, I might be a little shakey on my history, but didn't the Pilgrims come -well- BEFORE the US Constitution was written? See, that's the issue here, the US Constitution and especially that First Amendment to it that says you can't make laws regarding certain things. The Constitution says that certain laws cannot be made (regarding establishment of religion, freedom of speech, assembly, the press, etc.). But if you come into my house, and start praying, I have the right to tell you that you may not stay in my house. If you're talking about private property, it's a property issue, not a laws issue. It's just like when someone owns a business and says that people may not bring guns into it. (Yeah, for all the good that will do him at preventing criminals from entering and robbing the place, I know.) The owner makes the rules. He can't make rules that attempt to legalize illegal behavior, but he can bar legal behavior that he doesn't want going on at his house. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Comedian David Cross (you know him as Tobias, the balding dude on "Arrested Development") had some funny things to say in his stand-up routine, about American "dialects." He talks about the faggy-sounding "gay voice" (and does examples), and says that while not all gay men sound that way, ONLY gay men sound that way. Then he goes on about the "hick" voice, the "drawl" we all think of when we think of "country folk." He illustrates how you NEVER hear a guy from Texas sound like a guy from Brooklyn, but all over the country, hicks sound like hicks. You really need to hear the routine to get the full effect, so I recommend you avail yourself of his CDs. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

... Whoa whoa whoa. It is? Where's the selector switch on mine?! I got ripped off! - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

All right, who the fuck cloned me and gave the clone a dropzone.com account?! - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

So, bill, no distinction between someone who will kill if he must in order to save other lives from a violent criminal and no other options are viable, and a "trained executioner"? You really have got to be kidding. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"