No amount of science, or coercion will keep your average smoker from trying to kill themselves until they are damn good and ready to do so.
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âDaddy, smoking is going to kill youâ had a powerful effect on me. I quit on my sonâs 6th birthday back in 2007 with the aid of some patches and a shitload of willpower. Up until that point Iâd been a two pack a day smoker my adult life.
I caught my youngest, at three years old playing with my smokes. I was also tired of coughing all the time.
I smoked for 20 years, from two to four packs a day. I used the gum at first but quit using it because I read about people getting addicted to the gum. For some reason it didnât seem all that difficult, but Iâd tried dozens of times before.
Actually, I think in this case it should be âJournalists are stupidâ or âJournalists are so caught up in the sensationalism they have to make up misleading headlinesâ
Gov under fire for failure to pass slave fishing bill
The first line of that article reads:
A parliamentary bill that would have outlawed slave fishing in New Zealand has failed to pass into law raising fears the countryâs international reputation for providing safe food is again at risk.
The obvious conclusion from reading all this is that the bill has been voted down.
Itâs not until you get half way down the article that you find out that the bill hasnât passed yet.
Okay, itâs not a good look that it has taken so long to get to this stage, but not nearly so bad as it is made out to be. Who the heck wrote this sensationalist piece of claptrap? (Thatâs rhetorical - I can see who wrote it 
)
I smoked for almost 30 years. This was my first serious attempt to quit, so I was surprised that I was able to do it. The first year was tough but I was able to slog my way through it and it got easier to deal with as time went on.
My wife tried to quit a couple of years after I did and she still falls off the wagon from time to time. Usually because I did or said something to upset her. 
To clarify your point, you are wondering why the guy with agoraphobia has a problem with living in one of the largest cities in the U.S.?
Yes, I am ignoring the rest of it. And I wasnât able to post before now because I exceeded my data plan.
My parents caught me playing with theirs when I was about 3 or 4. So they made me take a drag. I puked. Never again have I even considered smoking anything. I have a very strong association memory (donât know if thatâs the term, nor do I care). For the same reason I canât eat mini-corn-on-the-cobs. But even the thought of smoking makes me nauseatedâŚ
Ugh. Iâm allergic to tobacco smoke, so when I was eight or so, my brother decided to torture me by taking me into the back yard and forcing me to smoke a cigarette, a cigar, and a pipe, one after the other. The allergy isnât as bad as it used to be, but I really, really hate the smell of tobacco.
Okay, this is New Zealand politics, but Iâm pretty sure the principle is the same 
We are heading in to an election later this year and the stupidity is in full swing. Our current government is centre-right, the main opposition is centre-left and there isnât really a lot to pick and choose from.
We have a left-wing âactivistâ (that translates to âwhiny muck-raking pratâ) who has just released a book called âDirty Politicsâ (well duh! What other sort are there?).
In it he details some of the dirty tricks our current government does to the opposition (again, well duh! does he think the opposition does anything differently?). He got the information from a host of emails that were hacked from a right-wing blogger (that translates to âodious muck-raking pratâ). He hasnât released the emails, just his âinterpretationâ of them.
Apparently one of the things the government has done is fed tips to this blogger, who in turn has done things like read stuff from the oppositionâs web site that shouldnât have been public, but accidentally was when their security fell down. The blogger knew that the information wasnât supposed to be public, but read it anyway (instead of alerting the webmasters).
This intrusion has been justified by saying that the information was public. To which I would say that if I accidentally leave my back door unlocked, that does not give you the right to enter my house and go through all my stuff - thatâs still illegal.
Anyway, the blogger was interviewed last night and came out with one of the most ironic things I have ever heard.
Apparently the person who hacked his emails and the activist should be arrested, because the information in the book was illegally obtained.
Um⌠what? Just a couple of days ago he admitted that he illegally obtained and used information and heâs complaining about someone else doing exactly the same thing?
Itâs not just American politics that is stupid.
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Hah, heâs just pissed because the other dude is making money off it and he wasnât smart enough to publish his, or just got more value using it as a weapon instead of a money source.
9 year old girl is badly shown how to shoot an Uzi. Instructor stands on the wrong side of her and tells her to shoot before he is ready. 9 year old girl stitches bullets across instructor and kills him because she didnât know how to deal with the recoil and the fact that the damn thing shoots 800-1000 rounds per minute.
This is the fault of:
A. The Gun
B. The Girl
C. The instructor
D. Our society.
Iâve seen A, and D a lot out there with the anti gun folks. Thankfully not B at all. But I think personally that the Instructor Darwined himself right out off the gene pool. There are millions of kids who can handle a firearm, there are thousands of them who have fired automatic mini SMGs, this girl was obviously not part of the second group, and maybe not part of the first.
Iâm sick to my stomach for the girl in this case. I canât imagine how she is feeling. From the video I saw, that cut early, I think she ended up with his blood all over her. Thatâs a nightmare a minute for me to see that happen with my daughter. Though frankly, I would hope I would have noticed this guy wasnât teaching her right. The first time my daughter shot a gun she was 5, and I held on to that thing the whole time, after going through all the rules several times.
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I have to admit, my sympathies lie pretty firmly with the girl here.
I feel sorry for the instructor, getting killed is an extremely harsh lesson on the right way to teach, but it was his fault. However, that girl is going to have nightmares for a very long time about this, and she isnât to blame at all.
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Instructor, hands down. But his suffering was at least brief.
Definitely the instructorâs fault. Although I would be leery of handing a 9 year old an SMG in the first place.
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I agree. Iâm not so bummed at the instructorâs demise, unfortunately it wasnât early enough to save the poor child a lot of trauma.
Iâm also not thrilled with him dying so quick. Stupid should hurt⌠as in excruciating pain, unable to move, unable to communicate, unable to hit the red button marked âmorphineâ.
Yeah, yeah. Iâm an insensitive misanthrope. What can I say, I got laid recently.
Instructor, no contest. And that poor girl is going to nightmare for years, Iâd bet.
And so simple to handle: a safety line attached to the front of the Uzi - but it would work for any firearm - that would keep muzzle climb to just | | this much. It would also prevent noobs from pointing the barrel anywhere but downrange, too.
Iâve read a lot by instructors on this. On a girl this size and age the first time she went full auto most people would have had a hand on the gun. Or would have been hovering behind her.
Or, and this is the most popular example, the procedure should have been.
Load one round, shoot on semi auto.
Load two rounds, shoot two rounds semi auto.
Load three rounds, shoot one semi auto and two auto.
Load four rounds, shoot one semi auto and three auto.
Load five or six, shoot all six auto.
Done.
Not, ok shoot one, good job, here is a full magazine have fun! And most people would have a shoulder stock on that thing. The cord or chain is a great idea as well, and is done in many places.
Of all the âfunâ guns, a micro Uzi is the last one I would want my daughter to shoot. Something with a bipod that nice and heavy is where Iâd be starting. That girl didnât even look like she had shot a normal pistol. You want to shoot an SMG, letâs get a full sized HK MP5 with a shoulder stock.
@Clockworkxon, I would agree except thatâs one of the only ways this situation gets worse for the little girl. âIt was an accident, and he didnât sufferâ is the only consolation right now.
You forgot E. The parents. Iâm pretty sure it was not the guns fault, unless it seriously hated the instructor for letting all the weird people fondle it. The girl? Nah, any girls that old should know the âtwo in the chest, one in the headâ by now. The instructor? Yes, Darwin Award candidate by all means by letting a kid use something that is full auto, but Iâm guessing he was either pressured by parents to let her âtryâ that weapon or so (i have no proper words for that level) stupid that he deserved getting killed.
Oh, oh, Iâm feeling confident that the pressure of society reached out and yanked the gun so the bullets hit the instructor.
Beat me to it. The instructor might have positioned himself wrong, but he wouldnât have been standing next to a 9 year old with an Uzi if the 9 year oldâs parents hadnât paid to make it happen. Itâs one thing to want to expose your child to firearms by shooting a small .22 rifleâitâs a whole other crazy ball of wax to drop an automatic weapon into the (small, tiny, unable to control recoil) hands of a young kid.
Itâs a shame the parents didnât think it was a bad idea.
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I put this right up there with the people that teach their kids to ride a 4x4 or dirt bike, ride a horse, or a BMX at 6, or that rock climb with their kids, scuba dive, parasail, whatever. Its a potentially dangerous activity, that if trained properly they can handle. Most can even handle it with poor training, if nothing goes wrong.
Should children be doing those things? I donât think anyone but the parents can make that decision. Would I let my 7 year old shoot an Uzi? No. But neither do I believe that we need a law to protect us from it happening. There are already enough laws trying to legislate parenthood. I think the next person who thinks this is a good idea will take a good look at their kid decide if they can really handle it or not.