Randomness

[Alelou]

Argh. I'm glad the poor guy was distracted by that floozy Miss MapleLeaf!

I'm really glad they put me under when I had my impacted teeth cut out. Or so I thought at the time, anyway. Actually I was sick as a dog for hours throwing up from the sodium pentathol. But I still think I'd choose that over listening to teeth cracking.

My son is lucky -- he has great teeth, no cavities, no need for braces. I just hope it continues into the wisdom teeth stage. I only had two myself. Come on, evolution!!!

[justTripn]

A long time ago a young dentist friend of mine, he was only like 25 at the time and I was even younger, impressed upon me that fact that dentists ARE DOCTORS. He gave a woman an injection, she reacted to it and stopped breathing, and he had to instantly remember the andidote and inject her with that and recussitate her!!! I remember the amazed look on his face as he told us this story. She was just getting a filling!

[Alelou]

I bet a lot of MDs would argue that one.

It's such mysteriousness. One of the pediatricians in the practice we used in in NJ was an D.O., doctor of osteopathy or something like that. Our pediatrician explained that this was not nearly as weird as it sounded. And indeed, I never noticed that his advice or prescriptions were any different from the other guy's.

You gotta be grateful to your pediatricians and your family doctors. Their numbers are shrinking as their colleagues flee into higher paying specialties.

[Alelou]

Op-ed in the NYTimes about increasingly crowded Earth orbits: Space Jam

[Entilzha]

Estonian tennis player Kaia Kanepi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaia_Kanepi advanced to semifinals in Dubai

[Pitseleh]

Congrats! That's a great tournament... We don't have pro tennis players in CR, so I root for Roger Federer.

[enterprikayak]

TRANSIT OF SATURN'S MOONS IN FIVE DAYS!
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009 ... ?list32589

[Asso]

Estonian tennis player Kaia Kanepi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaia_Kanepi advanced to semifinals in Dubai

I'm happy for you!

[TPoptarts]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090221/ap_ ... man_killed

[Entilzha]

That just leaves a person wordless. WTF a shotgun for children

[Elessar]

That just leaves a person wordless. WTF a shotgun for children

It does leave you speechless... I mean, this is just terrible. I don't know why, but I think the worst part of it from my perspective is her 4 yr old daughter finding her. I mean, you know, that if she could see it, that is THE LAST THING a mother would ever want. That little girl could be hurt for life from that.

BUT - this has nothing to do with the responsibility of children having firearms. It's not like they got into it and the kid went off the handle and, due to having access to a shotgun, was able to inflict deadly damage that he couldn't have otherwise. If this kid put a shotgun to her head while she slept and blew her apart, he's obviously got some major issues that have nothing to do with a shotgun. Without a shotgun, this kid would have skewered her skull with a pick axe in the shed.

This is just a tidbit of information for the 'non-gun-culture' people, whom I don't frown upon or anything, I just recognize that you're from a part of the country or the world where this isn't common... but... I can't tell you how many boys I grew up with that had shotguns and .22's and pellet guns from the time they were 7 or 8 or 9 or 10. I did have a friend named Wayne, who actually got his first shotgun when he was 7. Parents don't just hand these over without responsible action. Kids who are around firearms at this young of an age are usually around them because the family hunts (like 99% of the time), and so it's not like they are not appropriated an understanding of what they're for. It's not at all uncommon for 8, 9, 10 yr old boys to take a deer or a quail or a turkey or a pheasant or something. I shot a bluebird with my pellet gun when I was about 9 and I fuckin cried, but I had no male influence for most my young life, , so killing was a totally alien experience to me.

But these kids that have these weapons know what life and death is, they know what killing is. They have probably seen a deer bleed out and have to be shot close up to kill it. This kid wasn't the victim of irresponsibility, he was the victim of his own fucked up brain chemistry.

[Aquarius]

^ I think a lot of people simply forget to consider that guns don't kill people, people kill people. After all, no one blames the car when someone is hit and killed by a drunk driver or an elderly person who should've had their license taken away years ago. I could go crazy at any minute and kill someone with a tack hammer, but you don't see anyone trying to pull those off of store shelves. But, you know, they're potentially dangerous, arent they? Just saying...

Kids who are raised around guns are taught to respect the weapon and what it can do. There is also no mystique or sense of the forbidden, so there's no need to sneak it out of the cabinet and play with it and feel like they're getting away with something. These aren't the kids you have to worry about. Kids who are raised in fear and ignorance who only have an understanding of TV violence and have no sense of the realities of life and death? THOSE are the kids you have to worry about.

[JadziaKathryn]

Oh, she was pregnant... and her poor girls. That's dreadful.

I'm not touching the gun issue, but there is something fundamentally wrong with our society when children are turning into violent criminals younger and younger.

[enterprikayak]

Yeah, the four year old going and getting the tree cutters for help was the part that made me the sickest. Poor poor little girl.

[Aquarius]

They say that there was no indication that the boy had any kind of problem with the woman, but maybe the problem stems from jealousy issues over the impending birth? Either way, there's really something wrong with the kid.