I definitely get the impression that many countires in Euprope have blown through the wall of “free speech” with a lot of their “Hate Crimes/Speech” legislation and are now moving into the realm of thought control in the sense that they are now attacking (and certainly trying to control) what you think much less what you say.
But then I couldn’t watch hockey.
I’ve always said that anything worth watching is worth watching online commercial free. 
With most major shows available on Hulu and other legit sites, I’ve decided to cut my cable bill in half and just keep the internet access.
-D4
Yeah, hulu is awesome. They’ve picked up a LOT of good shows within the last few months. It took a while for em to get some really good shows, but its worth it now. Hope they can get a few more.
Not especially relevant to the topic but here’s my take on Seung Hui Cho, the madman that perpetrated the Virginia Tech Massacre in April 2007.
While it may be shocking to talk about ‘helping’ someone who has done such evil, perhaps we could work out ways that such a tragedy could have been prevented. Looking at the wiki page on him, I see Cho as the ultimate social outcast: Seung-Hui_Cho
Here’s my take on some of the things that might have helped him, before he just gave up on life and decided to take as many innocents as possible with him, so that his victims might be with us today (God bless them):
4) High dose Fish Oil
Regularly consuming high dose Fish Oil might have taken the edge off Cho’s hostility towards the world.
Below is one study that summarises the benefits of DHA/EPA for aggression/hostility-control…
Prog Lipid Res. 2008 Jul;47(4):221-32. Epub 2008 Mar 4.
Fish oils and aggression or hostility.
Hamazaki T, Hamazaki K.
Department of Clinical Sciences, Institute of Natural Medicine, University of Toyama, 2680 Sugitani, Toyama-city, Toyama 9300194, Japan.
Abstract
Fish oils have long been known to protect the heart from ischemic heart disease and fatal arrhythmia. Recently they have also been suggested to protect the heart in a literal sense! Although not all reports on fish oils and psychiatric disorder support the latter notion, many of them claim that fish oils were effective. The point is that, different from currently prescribed psychiatric medicines, fish oils do not do harm to any part of the body. We have been working on the effects of fish oils on aggressive behavior and hostility. Unfortunately this area of research is not mature yet. The number of related papers is rather limited, so we will take aggression and/or hostility in a broader sense including oppositional behavior, violence etc. in this review. We found fourteen intervention studies checking the effects of fish oils on aggressive behavior. Eleven of them showed the aggression/hostility-controlling effects of fish oils one way or another. We did not try to summarize those effects by meta-analysis, because we thought that the methods of research were too heterogeneous. The mechanisms as to how fish oils affect aggression/hostility is not clear yet, but several possible mechanisms have been postulated. Among them, activation of the serotonergic neuron system is the most promising. The research area of fish oils and aggression/hostility is clearly important from the medical and social points of view.
PMID: 18358242 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
3) A pheromone product like MX105 - ‘a younger man’s A314’ with some of the communication-enhancing pheromones in addition to it.
Cho was bullied at school and clearly had a very hard time being accepted by his peers. Pheromones definitely wouldn’t have solved most of his problems but he might have been treated consistently better by people, even if he still hardly ever spoke, resulting in less hostility ‘to the world’ from him.
In school apparently, “there were just some people who were really cruel to him, and they would push him down and laugh at him. He didn’t speak English really well, and they would really make fun of him.” ‘A younger man’s A314’ product (like the old MX105) might have been appropriate because as MHarris once said, “people rarely take advantage of you when you have A314 on”. The product is able to subdue others to some extent and impart respect for boundaries. The wearer is then able to ‘grow’ without outside interference.
To retain effectiveness on the same people day in day out, a ‘constant core mix, rotating peripheral products’ approach would be ideal.
2) Sarcosine supplementation
Cho was diagnosed with selective mutism and there is some mention that this was possibly one of the negative symptoms of the Schizophrenia that he may have been developing - Alogia i.e. marked poverty of speech. A natural supplement called Sarcosine, though only recently publicly available, seems to be quite useful for providing the ‘push’ needed for negative symptoms of Schizophrenia…
http://www.schizophrenia.com:8080/jiveforums/thread.jspa?threadID=42090
captainforever (May 17, 2011):
"…Sarcosine has given me a new life. A happiness has returned that was missing for 25 plus years. This is not a delusion. Neither am I now deluded.
…So , 20 months down the track & I have had the best 20 months of my adult life. Period. Does this not give a valid reason to believe that I am living proof.
Drug companies are developing new medicines to mimick the action. Hey, who can sell Sarcosine on a script every month ? No money in it.
If you can feel better you can smile. If you can smile you feel you have a life…"
http://www.schizophrenia.com:8080/jiveforums/thread.jspa?messageID=304113񊏹
Poison Pencil aka JALombardo (May 28, 2011):
“[After starting Sarcosine supplementation] First anhedonia and avolition started to abate and correspondingly my mood lifted and productivity increased. I began to enjoy building relationships and recieving pleasure from them. Alogia also began to improve as well. This was during the second week. The third, it’s hard to describe it but here goes, I began to feel smarter. I starting learning much more from experience, which I have since discovered is a by-product of increased NMDA functioning. My mind was much quicker. In short, it began to have a pronounced beneficial effect on cognitive dysfunction.*
I am currently working, and I think that it would give one who can’t because of our illness a very good chance of gaining and sustaining employment.”
bben or any1 who is interested(schizophrenia)
Mukaki (June 28, 2011):
“Haven’t read the whole thread, but I’ve been getting good results from Sarcosine for my negative symptoms. It’s honestly the thing that has worked best on my symptoms…”
http://www.schizophrenia.com:8080/jiveforums/thread.jspa?messageID=324003
YoungSchizo (July 22, 2011):
“…Note: I did not update it recently but a lot of my symptoms improved over months while using Sarcosine (one of the things I did to cope with my symptoms was isolating myself for years, now however I NEED company to get through the day.)”
http://www.schizophrenia.com:8080/jiveforums/thread.jspa?threadID=48496&tstart=-1
brianthelion (August 17, 2011):
“…Test force 2 however has worked. It contains sarcosine which is proven through clinical trials to decrease all forms of symptoms, positive, negative and cognitive byt 20%. It’s like 50 bucks a month though but it’s e best thing I have ever tried. Still taking some vitamins and herbs but the test force 2/sarcosine really helped…”
1) Patakara Lip Trainer or the Facial Flex
Believe it or not, hardcore exercise with either one of these products might have made quite a difference to Cho’s life as well.
Cho looked to have had an expressionless face. Thoroughly exercising the expression muscles might well have drawn more people to him even if he still barely spoke.
Furthermore, the benefits are obvious with regards to Cho’s speech problems. One cannot imagine him taking a whole minute to say a response in class if his mouth muscles were thoroughly toned. Plus there is the potential for synergy with Sarcosine supplementation in this area.
Here is a web page on studies with the Facial Flex for Speech Therapy: Facial-FlexÂŽ Speech Therapy Articles & Reports
And a testimonial from the Patakara Lip Trainer site (:: Lip Trainer Patakara ::):
"…I have actually tried Âfacial flexÂ, Âflex-away and another less known product (made in Japan) called ÂLip Trainer Patakara (this last one helps with snoring as well). â¨Initially I was looking for devices to help people who have problems with lip closure (down syndrome children in particular) - I am a speech therapist. I wanted to test these products on myself before recommending to my clients. I have to say, they all work in different ways, but they do work. In my opinion, even though it may end up being a little more expensive, I believe these 3 products should be used in alternative to get the best results.
- One unexpected result I have obtained is that my voice and articulation have greatly improved. I did not expect that at all! I have much more power and freedom when I sing and speak and I don’t get so sore. I believe the one product that did the trick for my voice may be the Lip Trainer, because I can notice the difference when I sing before and after doing the lip trainer routine."
Yes! It is a proven fact that criminals are more afraid of armed homeowners than they are the police! If you are a criminal and you know that there cannot be a gun used against you in the house you are about to break into, nothing will stop you!
I do not own guns, nor have I ever, but I grew up with them and learned to respect them. We should be able to defend ourselves if need be!
There was an episode of 'All In The Family" where Gloria was telling Archie that such and such a percentage of people were killed with guns and he said, “Would it make you feel any better, little girl, if they’d been pushed outta windows?” If someone wants to commit murder, they won’t let a lack of a gun stop them, they will find something else to use.
I don’t see them trying to legislate baseballs bats out of existence, but they can be pretty deadly!