That was a review from Amazon which I have to agree. I’d give it a 2 out of 5. Even after rereading, the book has far too many plot holes.

One other thing – what exactly does the ending of the book mean? The four whistle blasts indicate that Bryce was coming into the room again? Its already made clear that Inver Brass is alive and well so does that mean Bryce comes in the room after Kendrick and Khelilah are gone and is giving some sinister advice to the President? Just want some clarification on this issue.

This is an interesting definition of “dangerous”, that only deals with bodily effects excluding the brain. Can you explain why you chose this definition? To me it’s a bit like saying that getting shot in the head isn’t that dangerous, because the body only suffers a small wound in the skull.

I don’t see why it should. A pluralistic society contains everything. Everything is good for something.

Now, what am I getting at?
In my opinion libertarianism ceases to work, when at least one person (lets say one mature person, to avoid any additional problems) loses its free will. And some drugs do that trick…

You’re obviously setting up something here and I can’t really see it yet…

Now, I don’t give a crap about how dangerous drugs are. If a drug would kill you instantly, I’d be fine with it, you know it – it’s your choice.
What I really dislike about drugs is the fact, that most of them are addictive. And it is not like you say, that you take a shot and be done with it until you feel the desire to get a shot again. Not only does their tolerance increase drastically (wikipedia) so they have to consume more and more heroin to achieve the desired effect. And you can actually feel the effects of not having taken a shot after 6-8 hours (wikipedia again), and this sounds drastic to me, nothing like free will at all.
It is quite similar (according to wikipedia) with cocaine, but it is less addictive (and mainly only physiological) and the increase of tolerance is slower.

But yes, I guess it would be better to have them in the open. I just dislike their addictiveness. But in the end I think it comes to one simple question:
Do drug addicts, which can no longer choose for themselves to stop using the drug of their choice deserver a 2nd chance, and how do we know they want it?
As I think of it, this case is actually quite similar to euthanasia on people, that can’t state for themselves they want it, e.g. if your granddad was in a coma, no longer able to live without support, and your dad would decide to stop the machines, should that be allowed?

1) He’s obviously running around to get a gun, to shoot himself with. ^^
2) Things happen… But with the “I’m not allowed to harm anyone physically unless it’s self-defense”-law this would be banned wouldn’t it?

This is an example of what I call “lifeboat questions” – ethical formulations such as “What should a man do if he and another man are in a lifeboat that can hold only one?” First, every code of ethics must be based on a metaphysics – on a view of the world in which man lives. But man does not live in a lifeboat – in a world in which he must kill innocent men to survive.
[...]
Personally, I would say the man is immoral if he takes an innocent life. But formally, as a moral philosopher, I’d say that in such emergency situations, no one could prescribe what action is appropriate. (Ayn Rand Answers, p.113-114)

In other words (mine): I my dick were a unicorn and everytime I came a baby kitten would turn into an angel that smells like butterflies at the first sign of sunlight at the beginning of spring – would you push the button?

I’m pretty sure you get the point by now…

Now, let’s answer those questions of your’s:
1) Depends on whether there is a government – obviously, this is just plain murder, so yes “murder should be illegal” or at least “you have the right to kill that person in self-defense”. The question, though, why’d the person be running around when all he’s in intent on is killing himself?
2) This doesn’t have to be prevented. This is just plain fascism you’re spouting here. It doesn’t come quite as clear-cut as what you’re offering here (again, though, same problem – they’re trying to kill themselves so why have babies?) but it’s essentially the same principle. “There shouldn’t be incest so incest should be outlawed” – it’s classic “there oughta be a law” thinking. A is bad so we should outlaw A.

As to your first comment on “dangerous drugs” – I’ll respond to that in part II.

Let’s say there was a disease called “bad, kill yourself disease” and what that hypothetical disease does, is, it makes you get a gun and shoot yourself in the head with it. There is no way to stop this, because there is no cure, and once you have the “bad, kill yourself disease” your only goal will be to shoot yourself in the head with a gun. But you will also realize, that you have that disease immediately once you have it.

Now, there are two interesting possibilities I want to look at:
1st: The “bad, kill yourself disease” is passed on by body contact, so if someone infected with the “bad, kill yourself disease” comes in contact with you, you will be infected, too. This should be forbidden, shouldn’t it? Because the infected person, knows, that he has the disease and passing it on is a violation of the persons freedom that gets infected. (It is actually quite similar to just sticking a gun to the persons head and pull the trigger yourself) So it should naturally be forbidden, and it is the governments duty to prevent (through legislation) and punish such acts.

2nd: Lets assume, the “bad, kill yourself disease” was genetically passed on, and lets further assume, that the possibility of getting the disease from an infected parent was 100%. This would also be a violation of the child’s freedom and would therefore have to be prevented, but this would effectively be a prohibition for “bad, kill yourself disease”-infected to have children – how does this work with libertarianism?

Making bad choices should be allowed, (making good ones obviously should be allowed, too, but that should naturally go without stating) but with some drugs there is just the one choice and then you’re addicted, and there is no choice left, you’ve ripped yourself of your free will and you no longer have the power to take that decision back. It’s your fault, that’s true, but it’s a little like suicide (or quite much if I think about it more thoroughly)

So let’s talk about legalizing suicide. (Since there are the same principles at the core, so it might give us another view at the subject)
Don’t get me wrong, I think suicide should be legal, but:
There are certain mental illnesses, such as manic depression (or similar) where you don’t exactly have a choice not to commit suicide, so it isn’t exactly your free will, shouldn’t the government intervene there?

For me this is a subject, the longer I think about, the less clear my position on it seems to become…

The whole show is a little too dark for me, so I hope it gets better, therefore I’m going to give it another shot, but not more than 1-2 episodes…
But I’m not that optimistic, because the whole style is dark and cold.

I don’t think the show’s in any great danger currently (even though Mallozzi said he thinks it’s quite likely that it won’t get a sixth season – because it just keeps getting more expensive and there’s no other TV station to pick it up like happened with SG-1) of getting unbearably bad. Then again that’s not really how I pick my shows (remember, I stoppepd watching BSG four eps into season three!).

Just as I said, three reasons I’ll keep watching: the hope of seeing more Larrin (confirmed, two eps minimum IIRC), the hope of seeing more Todd (confirmed, five eps minimum) and the hope of the new all-female team being really good (Vega has the T&A, can’t really judge the character yet).

We’ll see, I guess.

My bottom line is: I’ll keep watching it, until I really have no hope of it getting better again, but I’m not that optimistic, especially because Stargate Atlantis wasn’t that great a show to begin with.

Now, let my explain by example:

[i]“You think segregating the history of an entire group of people to one month is really enough???!! We also have Hispanic History month in the US too, but I think a lot more happened within Hispanic history than what you can fit in one month, not to mention that what they even teach these kids in school about any of this stuff is a watered down version of the truth.”[/i]

All right, let’s be fair then: So, let’s see, what we have here: We surely need American History, I mean it’s the country. And we would also need the History of the native American people.
Then we need all the histories of the immigrants into the U.S., or at least the histories of the more important immigrant groups (wouldn’t that be unfair though?).
So we have Hispanic History, as you suggested, that includes the occupation of south america and we would therefore have to have the histories of the native south-america cultures, Mayan, and Azthekian, just to name a few.
Then Mexican History, European History (Which is probably bigger than all we’ve had so far) and African History…

What I’m saying is, that they can’t teach everything. And when you’re saying, that they should teach more Hispanic history, because you’re of Hispanic origin, that’s all right with me. (As long they don’t make a law saying that everyone has to do that, of course.) But it just doesn’t go well with:

“I’m not just about freedom for women, I’m about freedom for everyone,”

Because freedom for everyone just isn’t more Hispanic history, it’s the history they want taught. It’s the freedom to choose what you (or your children), but only that, want to be taught.

Salaries: just two more points.
1) I don’t really care what people earn. I’ve touched this in the original post, it’s a question of freedom of contract, as far as I’m concerned. The only reason I really picked this is that it was the only thing that came to mind as blatant “discrimination” (btw, I’d love to hear some more – seriously, we’re open-minded here (albeit aggressive, as you might’ve found out;)), check out daniel’s conversion into a homeschooling-fan)
2) The only jobs I care about don’t really discriminate against women. At least not unreasonably. Thoise are, obviously, rather high-end and very professional. Sure, you still hit a wall as a woman when you’ve got a child (because, quite simply, you can’t offer the same dedication that a child-less yuppie can) but that makes sense.

Anyway, on we go.
Education: as mentioned in the first post, I’m for private education. You’re free to teach your children what you’d like to teach them (for example that the US gov invented AIDS to kill African-Americans) – you just aren’t free to force my children to learn the BS you think constitutes history. There’s no female perspective to “Stalin had millions of people killed” – in the end they’re dead and that’s that.

As for womanly men: I don’t give a shit. You’re free to act as you please (usual libertarian qualifier of not interfering with other people’s freedom, obviously) but you aren’t free from the consequences of your actions.

Condoms: the catholic church vehemently disagrees with you. Alas, that’s not the point. I simply find the term rather stupid. As I’ve already said: I’m “pro-choice” (don’t like that phrase either for some reason) – but let’s not kid each other. Rational people won’t really get into a situation where they need one.

Finally, about degrees. You really amuse me here. Now, I obviously don’t have such an in-depth knowledge of US statistics but all the statistics I’ve seen for “’round here” (which isn’t the UK, btw) send a very clear message: social sciences = you’re fucked (something like 7-10% unemployment), engineering = you’re doing great. Same (though not as much) goes for law and business. Obviously, there’ll be exceptions but that doesn’t say anything about things are in general.