iNow

Notice a pattern in what I've bolded? It reminds me a bit of people with high religiosity trying to convince others that god exists because they have experienced the connection first hand. Not that your suggestion above is the same as that, but there are clearly parallels which must be addressed before you should expect anyone to take this too seriously.

The deaths of those 66 people had zero to do with type of dog, and everything to do with the negligence of the person in their charge. Now, are you able to please support your claim about the bans effectiveness in the UK, or perhaps will you retract that statement if you are unable?

<For the layperson, and otherwise interested specialist> Want to know more about what is driving this research? Check out this special from NOVA called "Origins," which originally aired July 2004: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/program-3114.html

Lol. Don't feed the trolls.

Having read several of your posts, I get the very real sense that you would not be able to even if you tried.

Actually, other means have been put forward. Most recently, this was done back in post #288. Now, can you support your contention that the ban in the UK has been effective? How many deaths by dog were there annually prior to the ban, and how many after the ban? Now that the ban is in place, what is the "most dangerous" dog out there? Numbers, John... numbers. If you have no such data, perhaps you'll be so kind as to retract your unsupported assertion. Now, for a quick tutorial on how to use quotes. On the bottom right corner of the post to which you are responding is a button called "Quote." You just push that, and viola! Or, while responding, you can manually wrap the quote tags around the quoted materials like this: Then... Your response. I know it's really tough, and difficult to figure out, but hopefully my long thought out tutorial here will help!

Through time, those organisms which acted on behalf of the greater good performed better than those organisms which acted solely on self interest. The logic is clear to me, but I'm not your average bear.

Ermm... Whoa. You are a very strange duck, indeed.

It wasn't my intent to turn this into a political discussion. My apologies. I just had never seen that music video until you posted it here, and when I got done watching it, I was like, "wow." It struck a chord, that's all. So, if you want to keep this relatively lighter, has anyone seen Obama Girl? She's smokin' hot, and put this video out last June before most people even really knew his name. Check her out: There's also new footage available that Hillary wasn't lying about the sniper fire thing:

Shhh!! Be quiet, you fool! He'll see the Big Board! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSKkZCxbNdw

Not in terms of convincing each other, I agree. However, there may be others out there struggling to decide for themselves on which side of the fence they wish to land regarding this issue, so in that respect, this thread is quite a useful tool. It appears communication is still part of the problem here, as that's NOT what's being said. What is being said is that the risk is minimal, and does not warrant a ban. What is being said is that your identification of type is questionable. What is being said is that there are several more effective ways to achieve the goals for which you are arguing (safety of others), and that the ban will not achieve that end. What is being said is that it takes a very narrow and biased view to see this type of dog as nothing more than a killer which should be exterminated. What is being said is that your argument is weak and rests on appeals to emotion. What is being said is that it's fine if you don't choose this type of dog for yourself, but the numbers don't warrant your blanket removal of that same ability to choose from others.

Yep. A troll.

Lol. I dunno, chief. How about wikipedia? You are being very vague, sir.

Nice. I'll give that a whirl after the weekend. Thanks, moo!

Challenge it how? You sure are being unecessarily abrasive for a guy with only 7 posts under his belt...

It's been challenged since it's generation ~150 years ago, and has not only survived those challenges, but become stronger by them. I suppose I don't understand the thrust of your point. It's not as if some guys wrote a book and said god wrote it and this book said "let evolution be true." A guy came up with an idea which has made testable predictions, and every challenge we could think of for a century and half has failed to overturn it. Again, you don't seem yet to understand the history of what's been done in the field, and I'm somewhat curious about what's your point?

Cool. I sort of figured that, and it makes sense. I can pull the data myself from the database on the backend, but I will need to get a new end-user report created to do what I described above. Thanks guys.

Mooey: I just stumbled across this today. Have you seen it yet? http://code.google.com/

I've got a report function in our local training system, where we enter the manager ID of a group, then the course code. This will pull who in that managers group has completed that course code and who has not. I'm trying to find a way to replace putting a (or multiple) specific course code (or codes) with a "begins with" logic that will pull all course codes beginning with a certain term. However, I've messed around a bit with wildcards (like * and %), but either the wildcards don't work, or my syntax is wrong. An example of an actual report url for a specific manager and a specific course is as follows: http: //OurTrainingSite/reports/mgr_drill_multi.php?mgrid=IDgoesHere&QS_crse_codes=ExactCourseCode What I want is a way to do something similar, but with "QS_crse_codes" begins with "CodePrefix." Any ideas of syntax to try? If I can't get it to work this way, I'll just ask our DEV team to create a new report type with this logic, but my hope is that I can leverage existing functionality without the need for a production change request. My skills are limited, and this may not even be possible, but I figured it could not hurt to ask. Any and all ideas are welcome. Cheers.

<belly laughing and squirting cognac out my nose>

I agree, and appreciate your public recognition of my attempts. I've offered multiple arguments, none of which have been refuted.

I have to admit to being quite moved by that video. The depth of the pain in the United States has caused a great majority of people to become disheartened and disillusioned, frustrated and flummoxed, saddened and shamed. The people of the United States are tired of being torn apart, tired of being lied to, tired of being treated like immature children, tired of making more enemies in the world than partners and friends. The issues we face as a people are shared collectively. The challenges we must confront require us to stand together. The changes we must make require hope and belief to achieve. I have to admit to being quite moved by that video. I was so moved that I watched the speech which inspired it, and I am now inspired also to hope and believe that, yes, we can. Yes. We can. Here's the speech which inspired that video. I wonder what it inspires in you.

This is helpful... How, exactly?

It has not been proven that banning this type of dog will result in fewer deaths. It has been shown that the problem is with the owners and not the dog type. It has been shown that the appropriate measure is within breed violence, not percentage of death by breed. It has been shown that the breed identification is in question. It has been shown that there are more good qualities than bad. It has been shown that approaches other than outright ban would be more effective, and other approaches have been proposed. Faults in the ban logic have been demonstrated both by posters in this thread and the links shared within. For all this talk of arguing on science, Lance, I wonder if you realize how little you've shared and how much you seem to be ignoring. Also, actions speak louder than words, and I'm having a very hard time accepting your comments that you are neutral on the idea of ban. My arguments have been very logical, very rational, and non-emotional, yet you continue posting as if the only arguments against banning are emotional. That is a misrepresentation of this thread, and specifically my posts, and I humbly request that (if you truly believe only emotional arguments against ban have been raised) that you review this thread in it's entirety before replying again.

Just to make it clear to people who are only paying minimal attention, I apologized for being wrong about your position, where I suggested you were pro ban... A suggestion which seems warranted based on your posts. I did not, however, suggest I was wrong regarding the main subject of this thread, and I stand by my contention that a ban is not only silly, but ineffective, and a faux solution to a real problem. It's the people, not the breed. Again, my problem is with the way you're framing the issue. Here's a great article I found while researching the topic. I have shared one quote below from that article which will direct you to some real numbers on the issue. They are quite illuminating. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/02/06/060206fa_fact And there is also more here regarding the ineffectiveness and misguidedness of breed specific legislation, as well as potentially more effective alternatives: http://www.pbrc.net/breedspecific.html Once you've banned this type of dog, there will be a precedent for banning another type of dog, and sooner before later the doberman will be gone... the german shepherd.... the rotweiller... all because people thought it was the dog that was the problem and focussed their efforts there... instead of on the people in their charge.