I should add, Kevorkian did not kill anyone. It was always in the hands of the patient him or herself to activate the mechanism. His view was that no one but the patient could make the determination as to whether Kevorkian could be engaged. Kevorkian did not rely on the patients' relatives in this regard.

As to the right to die, I strongly believe in the individual's right to make that choice, assuming a sound mind. What right do any you who object have to tell someone that they must continue endure what is for them unendurable at the end of their lives when they have the ability to make an alternative choice. It is far easier to discount someone else's suffering than your own. No one need make the choice or have the choice made for them. No one should demand that another suffer unendurable pain at the end of their life. What "value" is there in the complete loss of dignity prior to death?

 I have been interested in the topic of euthanasia for more than 40 years. I recently watched a film, You Don't Know Jack, which caused me to look more closely into Kevorkian, if for no other reason than to check the facts.

Claire, I think your take on Kevorkian is wrong. He was a doctor who did openly what many doctors do covertly. He helped his patients die with what dignity they had left. Suggesting that he enjoyed watching someone dying sounds like projecting. There is nothing I have read which indicates that at all. He assisted people whose lives were ending in unendurable pain and suffering. To fully understand those circumstances I would suggest Sherwin Nuland's book How We Die. Nuland is no advocate of assisted suicide or euthanasia, but his descriptions of deaths from cancer or Aids alone are sufficient to sensitize you to the real world that Kevorkian dealt with on a daily basis. Those he assisted wished their own deaths, craved them. He did not kill them. He simply helped them bring a peaceful end to suffering that was leading inevitably to death.

I read this this morning. It will, obviously, require further confirmation, but it does seem to fit the pattern of Obama's political career and indecisiveness far more than the one currently being touted following the events of May 1st.

http://socyberty.com/issues/white-house-insider-obama-hesitated-panetta-issued-order-to-kill-osama-bin-laden/

If there is any validity in it, making it more generally available may stimulate further confirmation.

 Foxman, he may have been a Naval officer, I was too. He doesn't know how to handle a gun, as anyone  familiar firearm safety would tell you. No one puts their finger inside of the trigger guard until they are ready to shoot. You will note that he has he finger on the trigger and is looking stupidly away from down range. There is a similar picture of Barbara Boxer holding an AK-47 in congress with her finger on the trigger. These people are not only incompetent, they are dangerous.

Anyone who has ever experienced combat knows that there are a certain percentage of human beings who will fight and even kill if pushed to an extreme, and that there are certain percentage who merely need the license to act in that manner. Fortunately, the latter group are a small minority, but they do, on occasion, find their way into the media, witness My Lai, Colombine, and other rare but highly publicized events. Savages have always existed among us. They serve their Darwinian function or they would have been eliminated from the gene pool long ago. They also make up a major portion of the players in apocalyptic literature and theater as the major tormentors of the protagonists. They are not, by any definition, the true representatives of any race or nation of people. We forget that when we talk of our enemies or they talk of us. The savages among us do not define us.

 Oh, yeah, Dave, your opening lines were pure poetry, some of the best prose writing I have seen in a long time.

 Frankly, I can stand either one of those guys. It is very easy to bluster when you have no responsibility. I think we saw enough of that with Obama preelection. The assumption of the reins of power has a very sobering effect. Trump has never been in a position where his choices were a matter of life and death. He hasn't a clue. He is a demagogue, and we have seen far too many of them. We need someone far less inclined to posture and more used to actual action. I would put Col. Allen West well ahead of Trump. West is a proven leader and a man of integrity. It is for sure that if he chose to run it wouldn't be simply an ego trip.

I am sorry to say this, but these people sound like prototypical Liberals to me. Were they waiting for someone else to come in and throw him out? Did they want to government to do it for them? Amazing!

 Quite simply, he is a serial liar. His entire career has been one attempt after another to ban guns. He can say whatever he wants. We know what his agenda is.

 I am old enough to remember the initial issues of Playboy and the Playboy Philosophy that Hefner wrote. Most of the stuff I am reading above speaks to a limited knowledge of Hef and his early days. He began his career with Esquire when it was a fairly avant gard magazine. Hefner was a major player in the growing sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s. Much of what he started went far over the edge, but that is often the case with revolutions. Denying his contribution to that cultural event is purely ignorant. Bill Buckley was too acute an observer of the culture to consider Hefner below his radar and unworthy of consideration. What happened to Hefner and Playboy in later years was a predictable outcome of the incredible success that his enterprise achieved. I am reminded of a quote I saw years ago under a photo of an obese and slovenly woman: I am not now that which I have been. The dissipated mess that Hef is now could easily be saying the same.

My closest friend lives on the lower slopes of Pike's Peak in Colorado Springs. We have hiked to the top a number of times when I have visited, even though you can drive to the top on a well paved road. There are a number of lovely, well-maintained trails on the mountain. From a climbing standpoint, though, its greatest interest would be during the winter.

My concern now is for Steven Kruiser who has made Obermann, the Obernometer, so much a part of his schtick. I suppose he still has Chris Matthews who, though completely irrational and inarticulate, is amusing to watch with Kruiser's commentary on the side.

In the first few words of his first sentence he betrays his ignorance. It wasn't the Zionists who attempted to empty the world of Jews, it was the NAZIs and before that a host of other murderers beginning with the diaspora. The "professor" is an ignorant, bigoted moron.

One more consideration in terms of the Mac. Mac OS has a thing called Time Machine. It is a back-up system that protects your stuff like none I have yet found. It is built into the OS, so all you need to make it work is an external drive on which to back up your stuff. I have a 750GB external hard drive that I got at Costco for under $100. I run Time Machine once a week which is sufficient for my needs. When I bought my new iMac earlier this year. I simply connected my Time Machine back up to my new machine and it put everything from my previous machine on to the new one. The process took about an hour. Rebuilding a Windows operating system which I do about 3 times a week takes most of a day, sometimes longer. I can fully restore a Mac to the condition it was in prior to a break down in two hours. Just something to consider.

contn. with the 64 Bit OS are more difficult to find. The Tether program for the Droid is free, BTW. 

Toshiba makes a very solid unit. My first was a Techra which cost about $3000. That was quite some time ago. I had it a month and the hard drive died. Toshiba replaced the drive but didn't provide backup software for the drivers. I had to pay someone a good deal of money to get things back to factory specs. I wrote a very long and bitter note to Toshiba which I think they must have taken seriously because when I got my second Toshiba laptop a few years later their warranty and customer service was the best I have ever experienced. Their computers are solid, well built, and consistent (unlike Dell for which there is no model consistency, drivers for the same model are listed on their webpage showing as many as a dozen variation in the same model). Windows 7 is the best OS that MS has come up with. It is solid and stable. Ultimately, whatever you buy, you will be happy with. But a Toshiba or a Mac will make you happier.

Dave, since you have decided on a Windows based unit, I strongly support the choice of Toshiba. I owned a couple of them prior to purchasing my MacBook. I am very happy with the plain 13" Macbook. I tether my Droid X to it when needed. It is simple and straight forward. However, no question you pay a premium for a Mac. Consider that your Mac comes pretty much complete. You don't have to buy any additional software, and you don't have clean off all of the gratuitous crap that comes attached to the Windows operating system. There are very few viruses that affect Macs, so virus software is unneeded. If you want it, and I do, it can be gotten free on the web. Of course, there is excellent free virus software and antispyware, etc. available for Windows as well. If you buy a Toshiba which I would recommend, I would try to get a 32 Bit OS rather than the 64. Even though the 64 is a touch faster and allows you to use about twice the RAM, there is a serious question as to overkill, and free programs compatible  contn.