At 4:42 PM -0700 10/13/97, bureau42 Anonymous Remailer wrote:

Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com> wrote:

...

Thought some of you might care to know that James A. Michner the Pulitzer prize winning author who lives here in Austin, Tx. has decided to take himself off the kidney dialysis machine that has been keeping him alive.

The same organizations who seek to banish the Suicide Doctor Kevorkian are probably up in arms over this announcement.

"This should be illegal!"

"Keep him alive!"

Suicide is illegal in most "democracies" for one reason - so that the State can confiscate the material goods of the deceased.

This would be a nice example if it were true. But it isn't true in the U.S., for example. I don't know the situation in France, the U.K., Germany, etc., but at least in the U.S. this is generally not so. In California, and in other states I suspect, suicide has nothing to do with probate. Were I to kill myself tonight, my heirs would inherit as if I had died of some disease, or been murdered by the Thought Police. (ObAproposOfNothing, I was out working in my yard last night, with Monterey and Pacific Grove gloriously visible in the distance. Had I been looking with my telescope or binoculars, I could've seen John Denver's plane go down.) --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."