
Precisely that.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 19:17, Reply)

( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 19:30, Reply)


( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 19:43, Reply)

came across this on wikipedia. However on closer perusal it appears less likely a list of lists of lists than a list of lists with less lists of lists listed on its list
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 18:41, Reply)

There is a list of websites. I thought that was just the internet.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 19:09, Reply)

Lister listed listless listeria
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 19:23, Reply)

I saw him talk unenthusiastically about a certain classical pianists techniques for ensuring he didn't miss out a task or item of shopping - on board a cruise ship during some mildly stormy weather.
I listened to Lister listlessly listing Liszts lists while listing.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 20:00, Reply)

so many other lists that went unlisted. here's a short list.
-lists of famous lists in history
-lists of lists that haven't been listed
-lists of people with lisps
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 19:52, Reply)

www.amazon.com/Bibliography-Bibliographies-Bibliographical-Catalogues-Calendars/dp/0874712947
a list of books that provide a list of books
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 20:05, Reply)

...my brain hurts.
(also- didn't Borge write of this?)
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 20:06, Reply)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_Emporium_of_Benevolent_Knowledge%27s_Taxonomy
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 20:29, Reply)

It's a theme he's touched on in a couple of pieces.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 21:38, Reply)

A VIDEO of a ROBOT landing on ANOTHER PLANET. In HD. Fuck yeah, science!
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 18:22, Reply)

It's an interplanetary nuclear robot with frickin lasers!
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 18:32, Reply)

He protested that it wasn't his fault but you know how these things happen when you have a racist mate.
Last I heard he was selling himself to cash converters 1 servo at a time.
He's alive but wishes he wasn't
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 20:11, Reply)

( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 19:41, Reply)

was this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCsfHVM5x_I&feature=player_detailpage#t=68s
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 20:27, Reply)

lots of adverts to fight past
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 17:17, Reply)

I think I'll start with Mark E Smith- after I've watched Sigue Sigue Sputnik, obviously.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 19:13, Reply)

Ron-seal
GC detector was.... odd.
[edit] It appears to be GC so I will make amends by this link.
www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/03/belarus-assange-lukashenko
Yeah, yeah another Assange thing but I was genuinely shocked at this one.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 17:15, Reply)

In all fairness i couldn't care less, pissed up tomfoolery being turned into something more than it is due to his status.
Don't know why you called them scrubbers though.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 17:18, Reply)

I just like the word scrubbers.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYDlX49yUSI
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 17:23, Reply)

Spent too many nights drunk back from the pub watching Withnail.
Little tarts they love it...
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 17:40, Reply)

You know how the BBC is when it comes to the royals.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 20:20, Reply)

Sad though that some cunt eventually published the pics considering that a hotel room should reasonably be considered a private place.
Oh well, 'merkins!
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 18:00, Reply)

When they're cooked by rapist and murderers
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 21:23, Reply)

can make you a lot of money if you sell the photos.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 18:22, Reply)

This sounds like charity at gunpoint. Amazing.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 17:04, Reply)

you fackin' mappet! Gertcha, stitch that you cahnt!
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 17:59, Reply)

Is this big news? Or not really? It sounds like it should be big news, but I'm not really clued-up on these things.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:34, Reply)

and everyone will gloss over Russia human rights abuses same as they do China.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:44, Reply)

look up "Dollar Hegemony"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_hegemony
and
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Reserve_Currencies.png
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 17:35, Reply)

Russia is more likely to switch to the Euro as its reserve currency and do trade directly in Euros. They've already negotiated an agreement with China that means they no longer have to trade with each other in dollars. It might save the Euro. The Dollar is in the shit though, if there is a run on it at this sensitive point in time.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 17:50, Reply)

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/00da6b1a-80a6-11e0-85a4-00144feabdc0.html#axzz24IV792K1
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 18:36, Reply)

part of the treatie is to let other countrys flood your home market with goods and you cant do any thing to help your own factorys and mills etc to compete against them .
Russia is market that the west has been trying to get in to big time for a number of years and this is the flood gates being blown wide open.
watch the results over the next year or so and see the unemployment start to rocket and company closeures speeding up. every one wins except the russian
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 19:08, Reply)

worse than you imagined. Highlight clearly being the frozen duplicate frame at 0:38 nice work edit team
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:17, Reply)

( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:19, Reply)

A bit like this?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2BdNVczgWE
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 17:15, Reply)

it seems to me that /links has ways of shutting these things down.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 17:50, Reply)

it really bloody hurt...
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 22:28, Reply)

I'm not watching this trailer, ever.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:21, Reply)

even tho van outen looks fake as fuck, fucks sake that girl needs a slap
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 17:04, Reply)

the. worst.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:50, Reply)

and agreed even more after reading the rest.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:53, Reply)

Proper laugh out loud moment. Even that little cuntfart Dyer looks embarrassed.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:54, Reply)

I'm guessing some disgruntled graphic designer mulling over the prospect of anyone actually wanting to go and see this rubbish giving a pre-emptive sweary reply to their decision.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:56, Reply)

Look at the list of cameos they're having to advertise to bulk out the blurb.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:06, Reply)

Fucking hell. I might go and see it now.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:20, Reply)

whether it might be an ISIHAC spin-off...
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:24, Reply)

Actually, it is Cliff Richards according to the poster. Somebody completely different.
( , Fri 24 Aug 2012, 17:02, Reply)

is really quite high on my list of favorite all time comedy club heckles.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 18:38, Reply)

Now wonder cinema prices are so high, churning out mingerot films like this...
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:08, Reply)

Is that when a girl's glued to her seat for too long?
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 17:05, Reply)

A few years ago I took my brother to Comicon in London, we saw Dyer sat a table with that fat tanned bloke that he acted with once, I don't know his name. No one was asking them for an autograph or cared that they were there. He looked quite upset by the fact that there was a huge crowd around an R2D2 replica just a few feet away from him.
My brother and I stood a few feet away from and him and just stared for a few minutes, I motioned as if I was going to walk towards him, he sat up then I walked away towards R2D2 and took a picture.
True story.
(The primary reason I hate him is because I despise his mockney accent and attitude, I grew up in East London and II DOON' TOOOORK LIIII' DAAAT, fucking doss cunt)
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:12, Reply)

on the fake approach and swerve.
I did that to Justin Lee Cuntins once. He was sat outside starbucks at Clifton Down in Bristol - with a "go on, someone recognise me" expression on his face.
I looked at him, went all wide eyed and open mouthed and started towards him... he sat up straighter... and I walked past him and went in to WH Smiths.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 18:43, Reply)

( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:17, Reply)

Student invents little game to entertain himself and the public on their commute.
Pretty sweet really.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:16, Reply)

And way over my head/iq
But Vimeo have such better vid quality than anyone else
So you have a sympathy click
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:44, Reply)

( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:57, Reply)

( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:42, Reply)

Got super angry at the level of smugness / oh-I'm-so-sensitive bullshit music. Have some Corpsegrinder and friends.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTpQOZcNASw
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:54, Reply)

if that was over your head, it is you that needs a sympathy click. ;)
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 19:43, Reply)

( , Thu 23 Aug 2012, 12:54, Reply)

I did. But then they did have pictures of my penis on them.
( , Thu 23 Aug 2012, 13:21, Reply)

By the end of the run there were 5,000 of them on trains in Melbourne and surrounds. Some of them made it overseas so there had to be a large source of them.
( , Sat 25 Aug 2012, 8:28, Reply)

It's a tram in my home city of The Hague. It's one of the odler trams, so that'll be alright then.
( , Sat 25 Aug 2012, 12:19, Reply)

Puppy Bot is cute in a gruesome kind of way.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:47, Reply)

Not funny, sorry, in fact it's fucking shite. He has refused food since his right-to-die request was denied, and has now succeeded in starving himself to death. I can not believe that this has happened, and can only hope that this serves as a watershed moment.
Edit: I understand that any law allowing assisted suicide will need to be extremely thoroughly set out, and will take time to implement etc, but the idea that there isn't even a formal debate taking place is astounding.
Edit edit: it would appear that there *is* a formal debate taking place, thankfully (see Amadeus & Enzyme's posts below). I'm still astounded anyone would ever argue against it though.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:09, Reply)

( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:14, Reply)

It must be terrible to be smothered with a duck-down pillow, if you're allergic to feathers.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:51, Reply)

it's no vote winner and leaves them vulnerable to attack by churchy group
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:21, Reply)

( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:24, Reply)

and in parliament.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:29, Reply)

Good on him, fucking inspiring. I can't begin to imagine how horrifying it would be to starve to death.
The prospect that he did this willingly is mind boggling. If this doesn't change our government's fucked up views on Eurhanasia it'll be a very sad day indeed.
Let's just hope his efforts make a change.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:15, Reply)

when you are physically incapable of feeding yourself.
The family agreeing not to feed him is the real clincher here. I don't think I'd have the strength to do that.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:27, Reply)

Good point, in a rather unfortunate way, being locked in would have been at his advantage.
That being said, considering he was a fully concious individual, the psychological struggle with starvation would have been no different to anyone else. Plus, with it being his choice and all, I'm sure that if he broke, his family would have been on hand to give him a meal in a fraction of a second.
However you look at it, it's a sad but utterly admirable undertaking. Plus a lovely "fuck you" to the knobs that decided he couldn't die in a less painful manner.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:34, Reply)

Can't imagine the pain and turmoil he went through to starve himself, I hope this re sparks the debate and makes the courts think twice, at least he can rest in peace now.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:17, Reply)

if proof was ever needed that you are not the owner of your own body this is it. The State dictates, for what it believes is the most morally correct reasons but in fact they have acted in the most debase way by denying him what should be his right. Instead he died in a horrible way - starvation is not a nice way to die.
We should never allow the abuse of assisted suicide especially for vulnerable people, but when it is obvious that this is the choice of the person and not others then there should be no authority greater than that person's right to choose!
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:17, Reply)

The fact that he was refused denial to go to another country where it is legal too for fear his wife and accomplices would be jailed just adds to the courts ( no other way of putting it ) cuntish behaviour.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:23, Reply)

While there is such a thing as judge-made law, it doesn't follow that the judges could do whatever the hell they liked: they're still bound by statute and precedent, and can only create law where statute or precedent are unclear or in internal conflict.
The Suicide Act says what it says, and their Lordships can't change that. If you read the ruling, they're sypathetic to the plight of the plaintiffs - but there's nothing they could have done.
As to whether there would be a prosecution: the chances are that there wouldn't be, because it wouldn't be in the public interest.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:42, Reply)

Other than as a media showcase to raise awareness the lawyers must have known it wasn't going to come to anything, unless there is far greater flexibility than you give credit for. Judges have been known to set precedent often to the dismay of the public, surely a judge can take a stand and set precedent with his/her ruling? If not then the whole thing is a nonsense of bureaucracy.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:14, Reply)

I'm not wholly convinced that the case should have come to court.
I mean: Nicklinson's legal team was trying to show that the law could accommodate what they were after via the doctrine of necessity and Article 8 rights - but I think that their case was incredibly flimsy, especially after the Pretty ruling dismissed her Art. 8 claims (correctly, in my view).
EDIT FOR CLARIFICATION, 16:30: By this, I mean that the role of the judge in cases like this is to adjudicate when there's an ambiguity in the law (as determined by statute and precedent). But I don't see that there was any real ambiguity here. I think that the Nicklinson case was more about pushing the boundaries - which is why their Lordships ruled as they did: cf paras 150 and 151 of the ruling.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:26, Reply)

It's true that you're not the owner of your body: it's an established legal principle that there is no property in the body, which means that noone owns it, and it's impossible to own it. That's generally taken to be a principle defensible on the grounds that it (usually) protects people.
As for the right to choose... well, it's one thing to choose to kill yourself, but quite another for another to be entitled to help. Like it or not, the situation is morally and legally a lot trickier than it's sometimes thought to be.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:46, Reply)

Formal, informal, telly progs.
5 seconds googling found this
www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/backbench-business-committee/news/debate-on-assisted-suicide/
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:18, Reply)

I hadn't heard about the debate you've linked there, but thanks for posting it. I guess what I mean is that the debate doesn't seem to be in a mature state. Again, though, I might be wrong.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:24, Reply)

But for his sake, I'm glad he's dead now.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:23, Reply)

and the only way to do that without assistance, for a man in his condition, is to starve yourself.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:28, Reply)

Only last month I got an invitation from the House of Commons to submit evidence about yet another draft assisted dying bill. (Note to self: Do something about that, instead of twatting about on b3ta.)
Open any edition of a bioethics or medical law journal, and there's a chance that there'll be a paper on euthanasia or assisted dying in there somewhere (I've published four or five, I think, in the past few years myself). If there's a problem with the academic debate, it's that it's so rare for something new to be said. But that hasn't stopped people saying it.
As for the rulings on Nicklinson and "Martin": well, they could hardly have been otherwise. See my predictions here and here, and my initial response to last week's ruling
here.
Roger Crisp (Oxford) takes a different view from me - see this post on the Practical Ethics blog - but I think he's wrong, and I churned out 1500 words yesterday for either that blog or the BMJ one explaining why, before realising that there was plenty in what I was preparing to sustain a(nother) full-length paper.
For the record, I can't see any particular reason why assisted dying should not be legal - and I'd probably go further than most lawmakers, because I see no reason why it should be restricted to the terminally ill and/ or suffering. (I think that to restrict it to the suffering is indefensible, and possibly self-defeating anyway, since the greater the suffering, the more problematic it becomes: see the argument here (.pdf format) if you have institutional access.)
/shameless self-promotion
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:29, Reply)

I thought that was quite well known.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:30, Reply)

It is well known; but it's also bollocks for the most part. (Oh, dear: I'm about to re-engage the self-promotion... See this. Such are the wonders of academic publishing that even I can't access that - but I'll happily send a .doc version to anyone who gazzes me their email.)
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:33, Reply)

I was a little perturbed by how certain people's opinions apparently count as "evidence".
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:39, Reply)

( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:42, Reply)

It's more or less on the index within the profession.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:47, Reply)

once passed, who is to say a vulnerable, elderly patient who has no family could be coerced into it?
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:51, Reply)

or aren't necessarily elderly. What happens when it becomes completely socially acceptable to ask your doctor to end it all when you've got nothing more to live for? Is that the sort of world we want?
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:56, Reply)

suicide rescues would be a thing of the past.
(may catch them for organ harvesting)
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:58, Reply)

as well as every other sort of benefit, being disabled or otherwise unemployable being "undignified".
The baby boom generation is just coming into pensionable age, as well as the economic crisis with all its austerity measures, the timing of the sudden interest in the euthanasia issue concerns me.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:02, Reply)

There's no tension between legalised assisted dying and suicide rescue - and the organ harvesting canard is utterly baseless.
(On this note, incidentally, the law in Belgium allows euthanasia, but not assisted suicide: that is, there are circumstances in which it's legal to kill someone, but not to provide the means for them to kill themselves. This is because they have a good samaritan law - and to provide the means to commit suicide is incompatible with the duty to attempt to rescue someone whose life is in danger. I think. That's how someone explained it to me. It's odd, I'll admit.)
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:03, Reply)

even if it's the opposite end of the slippery wedge we are currently trying to grasp by the horns at the moment.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:06, Reply)

but I would say that yes that is the world I want. Not the world where vulnerable people are taken advantage of, but one where you can take your life in as controlled (I hope that's not too robotic a word: I mean it emotionally as well as physically) a fashion as possible, after exhausting all other options.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:59, Reply)

There's no particular reason to think that the vulnerable would be more at risk under a legalised assisted dying system.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:00, Reply)

Once it becomes 'de rigueur',a few slip under the radar, one less pension, one less costly, long-term, medically assisted bed free.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:15, Reply)

There's no evidence of people being quietly bumped off in any of the countries in which any form of assisted dying is currently legal. Under any plausible system, it would not even be available with consent - only on request. That is: the idea would have to be generated by the would-be dead person. Even then, there'd almost certainly have to be repeated requests, and certification from a psychiatrist or someone in a similar role.
Bumping someone off contrary to their wishes would still attract a murder charge, just as it does now. And if you're determined to bump someone off contrary to their wishes, it isn't obvious to me that the small matter of the law is going to stop you (which is why I think the argumentum ad Shipmanum against legalisation doesn't work: if the illegality of killing didn't stop him, then the idea that having illegal assisted dying is going to stop anyone also takes a battering).
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:23, Reply)

presumably as social acceptance builds. There is a group now arguing that anyone over 70 who is "tired of life" should be eligible. That worries me, frankly.
We're not controlled by other people so much as by our ideas, which we get from our social environment.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:26, Reply)

And so what if the number is rising?
By contrast, the evidence from Oregon is that making assisted death available has meant that lots of people get the drugs, but never use them: they do, however, seem to be less likely to be depressed, possibly because they know they have an out in the future if they want it.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:39, Reply)

It is a turn in social values that this idea can become accepted. Obviously people are only saying what they are feeling, but I'm concerned that people are starting to feel this way, and to pander too it seems like the wrong way to go. What is wrong with modern society? Why are suicide rates continuing to rise?
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:52, Reply)

And, even if they are, does that necessarily tell us much of moral importance? I mean: we're getting quite good at curing illnesses that would have killed us a little while ago; and yet we're still mortal, and everyone still dies. This means that, by dint of mere statistics, the rate of suicide is likely to rise, simply because people haven't been killed by cholera before they get the chance.
As to the being tired of life bit: isn't it a bit strange to think that life is worth having simply for its own sake? Why isn't it possible for someone to decide that they've done everything they wanted? (Have a look at Bernard Williams' "The Makropoulos Case" - he claims there that dying is a bad thing for the one who dies, but that not dying is really no better.)
Suppose someone does say that they no longer derive any satisfaction from life, or consider it a burden. On what grounds would you be able to say that they'd made a mistake? And if you can't say that, why not take them at their word?
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:00, Reply)

historically that could be down to the effects you suggest but not in recent times.
Is it strange that, as Kant put it, "a man is an end in himself"? No, it's not. But here we reach the crux of the matter, where all arguments kind of grind to a halt. Because all of this really is the ultimate logical conclusion of western value-based morality, rights-based ethics and individualism, all of which I have suspected of being dubious for quite some time. From my point of view this conclusion of things is irony both Socratic as well as dramatic. But there is little more I can say, other than simply to restate that I don't believe that the purpose of life is to get what you want.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:10, Reply)

His claim is more along the lines that the humanity in a person is an end in itself. By "humanity", he has in mind something like the capacity for practical reason. It's certainly not a claim about individual humans as biologically understood. (On Joss Walker's reading of Kant (here), it might not even be about individuals at all...)
Sorry: as well as assisted dying, Kantian moral philosophy is another of my pet subjects. I've even published a paper linking the two, but I'm not going to spam any more of my stuff.
As for the historical alterations - and, again, I'd want to see the graphs in question - that might be explicable. If suicide was thought of as shameful (as it frequently was), and the family of a suicide stood to be disinherited (as was frequently the case), then there'd be a very good reason to cover up suicide and call it something else.
I genuinely don't understand what you mean by the rest of your post, though.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:21, Reply)

I can't find any good data right now but I've definitely read that suicide rates are rising, as well as the diagnosis of depression and prescription of anti-depressants. But it seems like you're trying to worm out of it even before seeing the data...
What I mean is, the whole secular utilitarian ethos, taken to its logical conclusion, is that suicide should be available on demand to anyone who wants it, life itself becomes nothing more than a commodity of no intrinsic value*. You even preempted me on that last point. This is at odds with other theories of goodness and the purpose of life, notably religion so nobody should be surprised that the Church is opposed to this sort of thing. Rights-based ethics is evidenced in statements about people's "right to die", that's a right I never heard of a few years ago, we always used to talk about the right to life to criticise the death penalty &c, where does the "right to die" come from? Well it comes from the ideas of individualism and dignity (ugh!) in which the sole purpose of government is to facilitate people getting what they want. Or as you put it "satisfaction". In the modern mindset, we all have the right to satisfaction, in accordance with our individual values.
edit: very expensive book btw
* i.e. only the means to something else, such as pleasure or happiness
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:40, Reply)

You made a claim about suicide rates, for which you've offered no evidence. All I've done is suggest that things might be more complicated than the bare statistics would suggest, even if - on the face of it - numbers have risen.
"Religion" is much too vague a concept to introduce here - it's not as if all religions are of a voice, or even that all adherents to any particular one agree. (I know of at least one clergyman who's a member of Dignity in Dying, for example, and there're plenty more who're sympathetic without being members.)
But suppose there is a "religious" viewpoint: so what? I've never been at all convinced that religious ethics has anything much to say: strip away the apologetics, and it becomes regular moral philosophy done more or less well. (Usually less well, in my experience.)
And while I agree that there's a lot to unpick in appeals to a "right to die", I think that you're rather simplistic about things. Not the least of the reason is that a serious rights claim is not necessarily a utilitarian claim: inasmuch as utilitarianism is a consequentialist line of thought, and rights theory properly so-called is non-consequentialist, it's more likely that there'll be a tension between rights claims and utilitarianism. Admittedly, they often amount to the same in practice - but this doesn't mean that they're compatible.
It's a horribly expensive book - academic volumes invariably are. I'm trying to wangle a free copy, but no joy so far.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 16:56, Reply)

alas I can only find graphs for a few specific countries: Japan, Australia and India; and Scotland which shows the opposite.
I mention religion, in fact I wrote "Christianity" first but then I thought Islam and Judaism don't approve of it either. The point is that other ethical systems come to different conclusions, and religion was a much bigger social force in this country historically, now it's on the wane society is going a different way. (Individual clergy, however, sometimes don't even believe in God, but there you go.) I don't think the secular world has some special claim on being right about this.
True enough, rights claims are essentially moral absolutism, but it rather seems more a case of rule utilitarianism since this new right cropped up, it seems like rule utilitarianism based on Peter Singer's Preference Utilitarianism. The primary idea is that of the satisfaction of the will, the rights come along to facilitate that, or to post-justify it more likely. Call this an oversimplification if you will. I rather call it a distillation. Obviously social forces are in reality far more complex than that.
But to make a point, personally I don't believe that the satisfaction of the will is of primary importance, and that we have not just rights but duties.
I'm glad to discuss this with you anyway because you seem like someone who knows what they are talking about.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 17:18, Reply)

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check/2012/aug/01/black-wednesday-new-nhs-hospital-doctors
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2090332/Four-patients-die-thirsty-starving-EVERY-DAY-hospital-wards-damning-new-statistics.html
www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/11/nhs-care-elderly-starved
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:36, Reply)

But none of your stories has the slightest thing to do with assisted dying.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:40, Reply)

but pretty much negligence that lead to death. So with the caveat of 'the laws behind us' the only way is down. IMHO
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 17:19, Reply)

davidalton.net/2012/02/03/baby-steps-towards-euthanasia-why-the-council-of-europe-is-right/
Attributed to one Joyce Robins by the Daily Mail and others, who is also quoted in the Falconer report thus:
Joyce Robins, Co-Director of Patient Concern, agreed with Christine Kalus that the impact of assisted dying on the doctor–patient relationship ‘would depend a lot on the people involved’. She said the trust between older people and doctors is already at a low ebb:
I don’t put any credence in this thing that people will then be scared, they will then be frightened, because my goodness people are frightened now, terrified of going into care homes, hospitals, so on and so forth, because they’ve seen on television before their eyes what actually happens to you there. [In] my elderly community down on the south coast, people are terrified.
Instead of assisted dying adding to people’s fears about how they die, she suggested that ‘it could take that away’.
Curiously, she seems to suggest that the right way to address the problem that our care homes are seen as a fate worse than death, is to offer death as an alternative option.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:47, Reply)

We should have fantasy suicide centres all across the country. End it all however you please.
Sliced to death and urinated on by Japanese schoolgirls etc.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:19, Reply)

'Kin' hell, I thought I'd been forwarded to Mumsnet.
#Knobs
#2 girls 1 cup, etc.
#goatse
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 18:55, Reply)

Utterly glorious, and a complete nostalgiagasm :)
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:05, Reply)

You may know him from such TV programmes as Lost and Deadwood as he tells funny Chris Walken story and generally seems like a bit of a dude
*Contains swearies*
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:46, Reply)

Trigger warning for repeated mentions of rapists.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:30, Reply)

Also, you're really attracting some mentals these days aren't you!
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:34, Reply)

Gets worse with every video. And they always seem to be libertarians.
Which means now I have to make a video about libertarianism.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:38, Reply)

I've spent the morning battling them and their defences of Galloway. Sooner or later, they all seem to fall back on the idea that having a moral and legal obligation not to have sex without consent is only a small step away from having to sign a written disclaimer before sex, and having to have that approved by the State.
Libertarians are a strange bunch.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:15, Reply)

how convenient for you
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:53, Reply)

' Ttthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....'
click from me.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:34, Reply)

i get the feeling this might cause another lengthly discussion on youtube. just out of curiosity, do you spend more time responding to mentalists or making the videos?
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:37, Reply)

to cut down on responding. And what I need is a Delete'n'Block plugin that automatically searches for all the right-wing buzzwords.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:41, Reply)

I prefer the term 'struggle snuggle'
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:37, Reply)

not surprised by some of the comments you get when there are people dumb enough to see my Google Glasses video was a joke.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:39, Reply)

Very nice! See what you mean about the comments
"ITS SO FUCKING WRONG OIT ONLY TAKES 1 EYE AWAY YOU HAVE 2 EYES DUDE"
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:46, Reply)

Well said. Good luck with the loons who try and persuade you that actually sex with a sleeping or unconscious woman is no problem. I'm still astonished that in this day and age it needs to be said. Also astonished I used the phrase "in this day and age" Cheesus I sound like my Nan.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:44, Reply)

I've said what I wanted to say before. It didn't make any difference to any of the same people posting here again on this thread. Ive had my pointless internet argument and I should be satisfied
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:12, Reply)

It's not rape if you've got lots of rich friends in the media
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:48, Reply)

( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:58, Reply)

put on trial for making "The GhostWriter".
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:00, Reply)

I tend to only interact with people on youtube in the comments who are capable of at least some level of coherency and not mashing the keyboard in fury. I don't get in to many conversations on there.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 22:26, Reply)

Not this time. I know it's all tongue in cheek but this isn't a line to cross, imo.
( , Fri 24 Aug 2012, 0:58, Reply)

But it's ok, because its not a fully automatic one.
America, wtf?
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:21, Reply)

I can't watch them because of this.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:27, Reply)

if you carry a gun you don't get shot by police 46 times.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:30, Reply)

why did 6 police with guns drawn surround the guy with the knife
but only one police officer approach the 2 guys carrying a semi automatic rifle
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:40, Reply)

Is such a cool bastard. After telling them that they can even come along and get a fully auto issued to them "do you have any further questions, comments or concerns?".... "uh duh no"
The students however are fucking fuckwhits setting out to antagonise
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:25, Reply)

id not heard of this at all, i was looking up info on the new dredd film... i love how the internet takes you to random places....
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:19, Reply)

You could also change the .cbr to .rar and unrar the pages to jpgs and use an image viewer.
CBRs are just rar files with a different extension.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:38, Reply)

i think thats what i did with the red star many moons ago, thanks for the reminder
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:53, Reply)

I thought Lapham had the market in violent / undead / horror porn cornered.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:48, Reply)

"Prosecutors in Belarus accuse the 30-year-old Barankov of fraud and extortion.
He calls the charges bogus, retribution for having exposed a petroleum-smuggling
ring involving senior officials of president Alexander Lukashenko's government, including
relatives of the leader."
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 12:50, Reply)

Just felt sorry for the poor bugger.
I know people from that part of the world and very reliably informed of his future being very bleak.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:01, Reply)

it's also bleak
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/20/us-drones-strikes-target-rescuers-pakistan
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:02, Reply)

I gather they have Belarus on their baddies list.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:09, Reply)

( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 13:22, Reply)

( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 14:47, Reply)

It's almost like i'm displaying a double standard isn't it?
If only he was being to a country that didn't execute people and was bound by EU and ECHR law not to extradite in circumstances where there is any risk of the death penalty or torture.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:08, Reply)

( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:27, Reply)

but at this stage i'm more concerned about this guy.
Maybe there's some stuff on wikileaks about Lukashenko he can use as a defense?
*googles*
Well that's a surprise.
( , Wed 22 Aug 2012, 15:37, Reply)
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