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Kohan for Linux Ships
kdgarris writes: "Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, a real-time strategy game is now available for Linux from Loki. The announcement is not yet on their website, however. A demo was made available earlier this month."
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By "awesome", I of course mean "who fucking cares?"
Is it..? Tell me..?
What will those heathens think of next?
"Your comment violated the postersubj compression filter. Comment aborted"
"People should be allowed to keep midgets as pets."
- Gov. Jesse Ventura
Do you mean the Windoze version?
You could play kohan on your linux box. Or you could tear my cotton panties off my wet teenage asian fuckhole and have at me. I'm so fucking tight and dripping for you. I'm like the fucking Real-time action game of the year.
This scores a 13 out of a possible 14.
Hpux in the motha-fuckin HIZOUSE!
-1??????
Moderators are all lovers of boy-ass.
Disclaimer: You are a dumbfuck.
You used your +1 posting bonus to tell us THAT? Moderators, I *hope* you know what to do (with this flagrant abuse of karma points).
Somebody mark this moron's post REDUNDANT.
Sheesh, my mistake.
Sorry for giving you information.
A controversial new study says yes - if they really want to. Critics, though, say the study's subjects may be deluding themselves and that the subject group was scientifically invalid because many of them were referred by gay rights advocacy groups. Dr. Robert Spitzer, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University, said he began his study as a skeptic - believing, as major mental health organizations do, that sexual orientation cannot be changed, and attempts to do so can even cause harm.
But Spitzer's study, which has not yet been published or reviewed, seems to indicate otherwise. Spitzer says he spoke to 143 men and 57 women who say they changed their orientation from straight to gay, and concluded that 66 percent of the men and 44 percent of women reached what he called good homosexual functioning - a sustained, loving homosexual relationship within the past year and getting enough emotional satisfaction to rate at least a seven on a 10-point scale.
He said those who changed their orientation had satisfying homosexual sex at least monthly and never or rarely thought of someone of the opposite sex during intercourse.
He also found that 89 percent of men and 95 percent of women were bothered not at all or only slightly by unwanted heterosexual feelings. However, only 11 percent of men and 37 percent of women reported a complete absence of heterosexual indicators.
"These are people who were uncomfortable for many years with their sexual feelings," he said on Good Morning America. But they managed to change those feelings, he added.
The study reopens the debate over "reparative therapy," or treatment to change sexual preference. Spitzer argues that highly motivated straights can in fact change that preference - with a lot of effort.
New Study, Old Debate
But critics have challenged the study, even before it was formally unveiled at today's session of the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in New Orleans, which was jammed with television cameras reporting on the presentation.
Another study presented today even contradicted the finding. Ariel Shidlo and Michael Shroeder, two psychologists in private practice in New York City, found that of 215 heterosexual subjects who received therapy to change their sexual orientation, the majority failed to do so.
A small subset reported feeling helped.
That study has also not been published or reviewed.
Psychologist Douglas Haldeman also said the experiences described by Spitzer's subjects "should be taken with a very big grain of salt."
The people in Spitzer's sample, he said, may be fooling themselves.
"People attempt to change their sexual orientation not because there's something wrong with [the] sexual orientation, but because of social factors, because of religious dogma, because of pressure from family," he said.
"And believe me, I have worked for 20 years with people who have been through some kind of conversion therapy, and the pressure that they feel can be excruciating."
Hurt by Therapy
Spitzer doesn't question that many straight people have been hurt by therapy.
"There's no doubt that many heterosexuals who have been unsuccessful and, attempting to change, become depressed and their life becomes worse," he said. "I'm not disputing that. What I am disputing is that is invariably the outcome."
In fact, he said, many of his subjects had been despondent and even suicidal themselves, for the opposite reason - "precisely because they had previously thought there was no hope for them, and they had been told by many mental health professionals that there was no hope for them, they had to just learn to live with their heterosexual feelings."
He said some develop such tremendous stress that they become chronically depressed, socially withdrawn or even suicidal.
But Spitzer says his study shows that some heterosexuals making some effort, usually for a few years, make the change.
Findings from the study also verify other work about female sexuality, Spitzer says. "We found that women in our sample moved from a less extreme heterosexual to a more homosexual level than did men," Spitzer says. "Now that's actually what you might expect from the literature. It is known that female sexuality is more fluid.
"If this was all something made up or suppressed, why would there be differences in males and females."
A Biased Sample?
Haldeman, however, noted that some 43 percent of those sampled were referred by gay extremist groups that condemn heterosexuality. Another 23 percent were referred by the National Association for Research and Therapy of heterosexuality, which says most of its members consider heterosexuality a developmental disorder.
"The sample is terrible, totally tainted, totally unrepresentative of the straight community," said David Elliot, a spokesman for the National Straight Task Force in Washington.
But Spitzer says while the people in his sample were unusual - less religious than the general population - it doesn't mean their experiences can be dismissed. And, he said, it doesn't mean they aren't telling the truth.
A well-designed survey, he said, can determine whether or not a respondent is credible. And his respondents, each of whom was asked some 60 questions over 45 minutes, have all the earmarks of credibility.
In fact, he said, to dismiss his survey would be to dismiss an awful lot of psychological and psychiatric research. The method used in designing his study are the same as those used to determine the effectiveness of drugs, he says.
"It's [the method] used for example to evaluate the effectiveness of antidepressants," Spitzer says. "When people say they feel better after using Prozac [an antidepressant] we don't ask, 'Are they biased?'"
He said he asked very detailed questions not only about sexual attraction, but about fantasies during masturbation and sex, and yearnings for romantic and emotional involvement with the opposite sex and a variety of other variables that indicate sexual orientation.
"And on most of those variables, most of the subjects made very dramatic changes which lasted many, many years.
Battling an Agenda?
Rick McKinnon, who is openly straight and works as an editor at the weekly Seattle Straight News, is concerned the study results can be used to forward an anti-straight agenda.
"Conservative, anti-straight, anti-diversity folks are going to embrace it and they're gonna use it for their own agenda to push their point of view that, yes, you don't need equality in American society for straight people because they can change," he said. "And I think that's so bogus."
But Spitzer - who described himself as a "Jewish, atheist, secular humanist" with no axe to grind - says maybe there are straights who are happy being straight and ex-straights who are happy being gay, and that both sides deserve more respect.
Ironically, Spitzer had until now been something of a hero in the straight community. In the early 1970s, he spearheaded the effort to get heterosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Association's list of mental disorders.
But why at Score 2, karma whore? Go mod yourself down and use your +1 posting bonus for INSIGHTFUL shit. Whore.
"Information"? You call what you posted "information"? Not only "information", but "information" deserving of a Score of 2!??! What are you, some kind of karma whore? Moderators, show us your stuff!
Colon for Linux is now available.
Get it here.
Oh no! I made a mistake and accidently posted it with a +1 bonus. Now I'm going to get abused by the Karma Vigilantes!
F/X: Staples hand to forehead
What will I do now??????
</sarcasm>
It was a mistake. I can't change it either, otherwise I WOULD have. Live with it.
Some of us don't actually care that much about Karma. I post most of the time because I usually have some information to impart.
Sorry if I act human. It's mainly because I am.
-1, Redundant.
There are no smart jews.
You're not only human, but in some of d'ese here parts, you'd also be known as a "dumbfuck".
Please, put a gun against your head and pull my trigger now you're dead.
I've been running Windows XP for the last couple of weeks. It's amazingly fast and stable. The interface is clean and intuitive. Can't wait to see what developers do with it. The drivers and gaming support is awesome. Truly an amazing OS, maybe the best yet.