Eh, whatever. My points were valid, whether you liked them or not. That's your problem. You never really refuted any of my points, you merely dismissed them as 'propaganda' (which they weren't, they were mostly living experience which you seem to think doesn't count, and only your ivory-tower pontificating counts). Besides, how can you know of my points sucked if you never bothered to read them?? Hrm?
And Eddie Izzard is a transvestite. Are you sure you want to expose your kids (or yourself!)to such a deviant perverse cult like him? He accepts gay people too! The horrors! Dear god, it might be CATCHING! Aren't you affraid he'll try and RECRUIT you??
Look, if you sit a Nazi in front of a jew and have them discuss, the Nazi can calmly express how dirty and sub-human jews are, causing the jew to get indignant at the ignorance and hatred being displayed, and that doesn't make the Nazi cooly rational or the Jew "ranting".
Ranting against ignorant bigotry and hatred isn't a bad thing. You inspired it with your ignorant bigotry and hated. My "ranting" isn't unbalanced or ignorant, but is based on a frustration with you and your ignorantly bigoted point of view that you not only cannot seem to defend at all, but that has no basis in reality.
I am a far more credible "witness" than you are, and your dismissal of me (again, with no grounds or identifiable justification) is mind-boggling.
You drop the most offensively bigoted remarks and then never ever defend them... and when called on them simply accuse the other of "ranting". Your argument, such as it is, is full of strawmen and is completely disingeneous and intellectually dishonest.
I'd love for you even once to give specifics. But of course, your mind is made up, closed, and locked into its ignorant bigotry, and no amount of real life experience, real life facts, or logcal reasoning seem to be able to budge you one inch.
I guess I'll have to be satisfied knowing that you're on the wrong side of history, are or soon will be in an increasingly irrelevent minority, and leave you to stew in your own hatred and intolerance.
I am not repeating dogma, I am repeating fact. YOU are repeating dogma, straight from the religious right anti-gay talking points, that has no basis in fact.
I'd love to see you actually justify any of your statments, but I doubt you will (because they're not justifiable). Oh ye of closed mind and bigoted heart, I'd love to hear you detail just what has gone "too far", exactly how and when gay's "recruit", and in what way it is a "choice".
And for the record, yes, I did get to what I consider to be new stuff at the end, and you should read it all.
I'm not the one ranting here. If you look back over this thread and see notice just who it is that keeps shouting in capitals I think you'll see what I mean
There is more than one kind of 'ranting'.
It's clear that you know far less about this than you think you do.
No, what's clear is that YOU know far less about this than you think you do.
Every actual point you made (in between shouting and spewing insults) is nothing but quotes from the book of gay propaganda - either fundamentally misunderstood or just plain wrong
Bullshit. That's just bullshit and you know it. An assertion, not a fact. I'm not speaking from any propaganda book (no such book exists). I'm talking about facts as I've lived them. As I KNOW them. In my every day experience. You have not refuted even one of them, yet. Certainly not successfully. The only think you've refuted is that homosexuality is purely genetically determined, which I never asserted anyway.
With regard to "fighting against the inevitable", that's just wishful thinking.
I'm sure the whites of separatist Alabama thought the same thing back in the 1950's.
Just as blacks have progressed over time, so to will gays. Setbacks will be occasional but temporary speed bumps, just as for blacks. Over time, humanity is moving towards accepting diversity and granting more and more rights to more people, rather than reserving rights for just a few elite by birthright. It's been the progress of history for a long time now. Gay people, who have always existed, and always will exist, will continue to benefit from more and more equal rights. As more people know gay people personally, it makes any violent or draconian backlash less and less likely. It can happen, certainly (as it did in Berlin in the 1930's), but outside the puritanical US, gays already are moving quickly into being considered equal citizens with equal rights. The majority of NATO allows gays to serve in the military without having to be closeted or lie about who they are or who their partners are. The majority of EU nations and Canada provide some form of domestic partnership that confers most of the civil rights, benefits, and responsibiltiies of marriage, with several nations granting out-right equal marriage rights.
It will happen here, eventually, as well. Progress marches on. And this is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing. It is nothing to fear, and I can't imagine why you fear it.
Just as opression of blacks gave rise to the militant "Black Panthers", so too has opression of gays given rise to the like of "Act-Up". The agressive in-your-face reaction is a response to bigoted opression. If you don't like it, don't oppress. The agressive response disappears when there is no oppression, or bigotry, for it to fight against.
Stop thinking of gay people as some monolithic community. They are not. They are anything but. There are gay people at all points of the political and intellectual spectrums, on all sides of every issue. The assertion that there is some unified set of 'gay propaganda' is laughable. That there is somehow "recruitment" is laughable. Gay people don't create gay people... straight people do. Think about that for a while.
Homosexuality is not a choice, period. This is experienced, lived, and KNOWN by me. How arrogant of you to sit out there, clueless as to anything about homosexuality, what a homosexual person goes through, making high-and-mighty ivory tower pronunciations of what you think about the origins of homosexuality. Sorry, but my experience puts your assertion that homosexuality is a CHOICE to shame, and exposes it for the ignorant ranting that it is.
It's not pathological. It's not a disease. No reputable scientist, psychologist, or psychiatrist believes homosexuality is either an illness or a choice. It just is. Like left-handedness. Nobody is SURE what "causes" homosexaulity, but it seems to be a mixture of biology and very early developmental environment.
Gays do NOT recruit. Never have and never will, and I have no idea why you keep blithely asserting this as if it were a fact, or even a remote possibility. Nobody who is not gay can "become" gay, just as no gay person can "become" straight. You are what you are.
I hope to god your kids AREN'T gay, because I've seen first hand what kind of damage parents like you, why try to 'guide' their kids like that, can do to a gay child. You know those promiscuous gays you rant on about? Almost all of them had parents who rejected them or taught them to hate gays (thus themselves)... knowingly or unknowingly. Self-loathing is a real problem among homosexuals, drilled into them by their parents and society as a whole. And it's more proof that people do NOT choose to be gay... why would anyone want to? Who is it that wakes up one day and says "Hey, I want to turn into a homosexual so I can be ostracised, denied employment, denied equal rights, be thought of as a sick pervert, be rejected by friends and family, be denied marriage, and have all of society bent on destroying my happiness and relationships!"... are you kidding me??
And you're not being 'balanced', regardless of thinking you are. Sorry, but I have no tolerance for prejudice or for bigotry, and you've shown both. Not to mention ignorance. You think you know a lot more than you do. Trust me, I'm way more knowledgable and experience on this topic than you ever will be.
I don't have patience or tolerance for people who think blacks are inferior and who sit and calmly try to talk and 'reason' that this is true. It's not. Ditto people who try to paint homosexuals as diseased, perverted, or people who recruit young children into their evil lifestyle. Your bigotry is stamped all over your message, exposed by your very word choices.
I never said that homosexuality was determined solely by genetics (that's your strawman, you putting words in my mouth). I said it's not a CHOICE. Like being left-handed, it's not a choice.
I don't understand your homophobia here, other than it stems from almost pure ignorance. But it's a very literal homphobia... you're afraid. Why? I have no idea. But why you think you have the right to oppress people, prevent them from expressing themselves, I have no idea. Why you think gay people all lead the same "lifestyle", I have no idea. Why you cannot see that gay people are every bit as diverse as straight people, I have no idea. There is almost NOTHING you can say about all homosexuals that is true, other than "homosexuals are sexually and emotionally attracted to members of the same sex". Beyond that, homosexuals come in all sizes, shapes, intellects, personalities, classes, colors, and creeds.
If you truely want to live in peace, you'll stop advocating the oppression of people like me and my friends. You too would get hot under the collar if a whole group of people who were obviously clueless about you, judging you based on superficial ideas of a small minority of "people like you", and people who wish you would just disappear so they wouldn't have to acknowledge your existence. I don't LIKE agressive confrontation. Ignorant and arrogant bigotry and prejudice makes aggressive confrontation necessary.
Worried parents don't want laws that make it easier for predatory gays to recruit their sons and daughters.
More homophobia. Gays do not "recruit". Gays are not "predatory". Gays are not PEDOPHILES. You've got your wires crossed. Your ignorance here is almost painful. Please get help.
Homosexuality isn't a choice, period. That isn't propaganda, that's fact. Propaganda is what you get from right-wing pundits and religious leaders.
I just don't like my society's culture being hijacked and perverted to serve the social agenda of a deviant minority cult.
Aren't you grossly over-reacting? Are you even remotely being rational here? Excuse me?
Can you even remotely defend such an absurd statement?
You don't want to see your "culture" hijacked? I wonder if you're ranting against all blacks because of Rap/Hip-hop/Gansta culture being forced down your throat?? Or do you not get that not all gays (not even a majority) partake in what you must feel is the 'stereotypical gay lifestyle'.
Take my friends Steve and Victor. They've been together ten years. They work, take care of their pets, and live in a nice home. Or my other gay friends who are, among other things, architects, software developers, ER nurses, and military officers. What is it about these people's "culture" that you find so offensive, pray tell??
Sorry, but it's exactly bigotry, because you ASSume that a few traits or habits of a small minority of gay people is all being gay is about. You're ignorant and hateful. That's bigotry to a tee. Even your statement that you had some "openly gay" friends sounded an awful lot like "some of my best friends are black" to my ears. There is no single "gay subculture" any more than there's a single "straight culture". Get that through your thick head.
What, pray-tell, do you ASSume "my sort of lifestyle" is, exactly? I'd love to hear this.
Over-representation in the media? I'd love to see your statistics on this. Gay people represent anywhere between 4 and 10 percent of the population (depending on how the question is phrased in the survey), which is a significant portion of the population. Yet I doubt one in ten characters on TV is gay, by any stretch. In fact, I know for a fact the "representation" on TV and in other media is not only well below real life percentages, but is also more of the "Amos and Andy" type of representation, rather than reality. You probabably, in your ignorant bigotry, mistake Will & Grace for fact. Am I right?
You don't have a right to a 'gay free' existence. I'm sorry, you just don't. Your posts actually drip with the most literal form of homophobia I can imagine. The problem is yours, not mine. Not gay people's. Yours. Stop being so terrified of nothing. Educate yourself a bit. You obviously need it.
Back on topic, my point was that being gay is hardly the WORST thing that could happen to Dr. WHO. After all, how would you know? Dr. WHO isn't much of a sexual creature. He might make a side comment about an attrative man or be oblivious to an attractive woman... what were you thinking? That he'd be a mincing fairy in pink chiffon?? Yup, you're a bigot.
If you or anyone else is straight, I don't see why I should have to be informed about it. I'm just plain sick to death of everything straight. It's just so "in your face" now, every day, all the time, from *all* the media. I'm sick to death of the incessant preaching, brainwashing, social engineering or whatever you want to call it. Enough already.
Tell you what. You get every straight person to keep their sexual orientation to themselves, and I'll get very gay person to do the same.
Or are you starting to realize how utterly ridiculous and unrealistic your inane and bigoted request is?? Or not... most people that promote gross double-standards seem to be utterly inable to comprehend the problem.
You seem to forget all the unfunded mandates that the President has forced down onto the states, localities, and schools. No Child Left Behind alone is breaking the backs of underfunded schools. Local schools here are combining grades (second and third graders together) and they say the Plege of Allegence to a construction paper drawing of a flag because they can't afford replacement flags. Only half the students have books. And this is in one of the 'better' school districts.
domestically he's turned out to be as free-spending as Clinton or any other Democrat
I would argue far more so. I think the Clinton administration busted the myth of the 'tax and spend liberal Democrat' pretty well, what with the restraint shown in the growth of government spending, and the ultimate surplus that was used to start paying down the debt.
And I think Bush is busting the myth of the 'fiscally responsible Republican' pretty well. He has squandered the surplus and driven us to the largest deficits in history in just two years, and the government -- in size and power -- has grown enormously in that time. It's all borrow and spend, borrow and spend, while his corporate buddies are stuffing fistfuls of money into their pockets, while the average American gets laid off, has their property taxes jacked up to cover local and state short-falls, and is basically getting bupkiss back from the cuts.
Over the next ten years, the deficits the Bush Administration are racking up will come to over $33,000 for each and every tax-payer. That's scary.
There hasn't been any "official" blog entry, but it's been discussed in the blog comments on the open thread.
Not the same thing, but people are aware of the issue, and I'm sure it'll be addressed eventually.
One of the biggest problems the Dean Campaign has right now is "growing pains". So much is happening so fast, they're scrambling to staff up, and I'm sure some things are bound to fall through the cracks here and there. I'm not making excuses for them, just acknowledging the reality of the situation.
I've had one of the TW boxes too, and I have no idea what you're talking about. I just went to it and tried, and I cannot find any hint of any "Series Manager" or anything that allowes me to say "record this program every week on this channel at this time, even though it's one half a dozen times during the week". I get ALL of them, or I can do ONE of them at a time.
Where do you see this option? How do you access it? Can you walk me through how to do this and where the option is? The only instructions I received with the box are a tiny, thin, slick color photo quick guide from TW. There were no details or manuals anywhere. I've found most everything else to be intuitive enough I didn't need more, but now I wonder if this option is even avialable to me, and if so, what else might I be missing??
For one thing, there is no "Season Pass". You can record "All Episodes" of a show, but it really means ALL of them. Try that with The Simpsons, and it'll be recording almost non-stop. It doesn't distinguish the new shows from repeats. And there's no way to set it to record just one time a week (i.e. "every monday at 10pm, this channel") to only get the originals for shows like Six Feet Under.
There is no ability to tell it to record things based on movie stars or subjects or anything like that.
It's basically a suped-up VCR with a very easy way of telling it to record. And if you decide to record something half-way through watching it, it will record the whole thing (from the moment you tuned into it, not the moment you pressed the record button).
It has some "silent" limitations on the number of things that can be queued up for recording, so if you tell it to record lots of things, some of the first things you mentioned might 'disappear' without any warning. Which sucks.
But over-all, I love it. The monthly fee is very reasonable ($4.95), and otherwise there's no extra box, no extra connections, no extra remote, so it's very convenient.
It's no TiVo, but it costs less (nothing to buy!) and is vastly superior to VCR.
We want to stay out of the lives of individuals as much as possible
Uh, then why the support of sodomy laws? I think you have the right ideal here, but from all I've seen, the Republicans (especially those currently in power) have no such intentions. They want to enforce what people believe and how people behave. And don't forget Santorum's very strong remarks that not only is there no right to privacy (thank god the Supreme Court disagrees!) but that the government has an OBLIGATION to regulate what goes on in the privacy of people's bedrooms.
We believe that some people do in fact have a bad lot in life, but that it is beyond the ability of the government to improve an individual's circumstances beyond temporarily keeping them from starving to death.
That's a demonstrably false statement of course. I find most Republicans utterly fail to acknowledge the simple fact that many people are born or develop severe mental illnesses or physical disabilities, and that many times these people do not have families to fall back on. A social safety net is required in any sort of civilized society. Republicans seem to just want to put anyone who isn't perfect out on an ice-floe to die of neglect and starvation. How compassionate.
Corporations are, at the root of it, owned by people.
But alas the reality of history seems to show that huge corporations have no desire to take into account local populations or the 'little people' (even their own workers) when it comes to their chasing of the all mighty dollar. I'd rather there be some protections in there for the individual. Most Republicans seem to want corporations to be completely unfettered in their ability to destroy the lives of locals and workers in order to return the maximum profit to shareholders (which are by definition people already of wealthy means). It seems very, very regressive to me. A form of class warfare.
Despite the media's cries, noone wants government to establish a state religion.
Again, I think the evidence proves you wrong here. The right wing Christians are fully in control of this administration. You again but need to look to Santorum's statements that his particular religious dogma (against homosexuality and sodomy) be enshrined in federal law. Ditto Ridge's desire to enshrine his particular religion's idea about marraige (i.e. the anti-gay marraige constitutional amendment proposal). And look at all the right-wing christian judges Bush is trying to pack the court with... the ones that make the "ten commandments" judge in Alabama look like a pluralistic liberal.
"Destroy public schooling?"
Yes. The "No Child Left Behind" unfunded mandate is irreversably destroying Public Schooling in this country. And I feel it is by design, because examining the bill, no other outcome would be possible. And it dove-tails quite nicely with the Bush administration wanting vouchers to try and get tax-supoprted religious education going in this country. Or corporate-sponsored private schools. Either one scares the hell out of me, and should scare you as well.
Republicans don't want to take from anybody else
Another assertion unsupported by actual facts. And that was the basis of my entire previous message: that the IDEAL of "Republican" has been lost and is virtually nowhere to be seen in this current "Republican" administration. The libertarian, fiscal conseravtive, smaller-government sort of Republicanism doesn't seem to exist in the GOP right now. At all. Thought they're still trying to pretend it does to keep all the GOP faithful in line.
And do NOT suggest that idiot Rush Limbaugh. He's "for entertainment value only", IMHO. Any time he discusses a topic I have personal knowledge of, I hear him spewing completely twisted half-truths and outright lies. He is NOT one to get any information from, and I find him utterly and completely vile. I think you should pick up "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot" before you ever recommend that guy to anyone else. Because he's just plain *wrong*.
Most of the time, when I ask why, people go on about smaller government or something. Yet under the last three Republican administrations, not only has government expanded grossly, but the deficit has balooned out of control. Under the last Democratic administration, the government actually shrank (in size and influence) and the budget was not only balanced, but a surplus was generated so that the massive debt could start to be paid down (thus relieving the cost of interest payments, thus eventually allowing the government to get to a place where taxes could be even lower).
So it seems that a libertairian-ish fiscal conservative shouldn't be voting Republican, because Republicans obviously cannot be trusted with this country's finances, and are obviously going completely power-hungry. I mean, just look at the Patriot Act and Patriot II, and imagine that kind of power being in, oh, say, Hilary Clinton's hands (or whatever other 'liberal' you despise and consider an enemy).
The funny thing is, Bush and his administration reprepresent almost exactly the opposite of what most of my Republican friends say they value. So why do they support him so blindly? I have no idea.
I personally don't understand how anyone with a brain can be a "Staunch Republican" myself, because I look at their platform, and all I see is a bunch of greedy power-hungry people trying to maintain their power while keeping everyone else down. The Republican motto seems to be "I've got mine! Fuck you!" It seems to demand maximum meddling in the life of the individual, while demanding almost no oversight or regulation of powerful corporations. It seems to want to destroy the separation of church and state, destroy public schooling, enforce arbitrary Christian doctrine in the courts and in law, and seems to be just generally very short-sighted and arrogant in its outlook and philosophy.
This is why I'm voting for Dean in 2004, and why I'm encouraging everyone I know. What's amazing to me is how many Republicans I know are considerign Dean. The fiscally responsible, moderate social policies and his position of putting the power into the hands of THE PEOPLE rather than the government or the corporations, really resonates with a lot of folks across the Political Spectrum.
That's not a problem. It would be one way to encourage higher voter turnout. The people who DO vote will want others to vote as well, so their individual vote isn't too obvious. They'll be more likely to remind friends and family members, as well as people they know won't vote exactly like them (for, after all, a unanimous vote would make it pretty obvious, right?)
Well, higher density means the same storage in a smaller form-factor, which means the read/write heads have to travel a smaller distance (both radially and logitudinally), which should yield a measurable boost in potential performance... no?
A plug-in "intentions" API that allows you to add your own "intentions".
A plug-in "inspections" API that allows you to add your own "inspections".
Much better CVS support, if you use that (I don't).
Better "Smart Enter" that will auto-complete lines for you (so you don't have to hit end to add that semicolon at the end). This is really cool, and reduces a lot of my typing.
Better syntax highlighting (it gets better with each release). Lots of fit-and-finish and polishes to the UI, keyboard, and features. For example: new 'gutter' icons for "overrides, is over-ridden by" that allow you to easily go up and down the chain (instead of just up) of inheretence.
It's the little improvements that I appreciate the most in this new version. I don't care much about AspectJ or GUI stuff.
Since I first used IntelliJ IDEA, I cannot go back to any other editor. And with each version, it keeps getting better and better. (I'm on the Early Access Program for the next version... just wait to you see what it has in store! Wow!)
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Eh, whatever. My points were valid, whether you liked them or not. That's your problem. You never really refuted any of my points, you merely dismissed them as 'propaganda' (which they weren't, they were mostly living experience which you seem to think doesn't count, and only your ivory-tower pontificating counts). Besides, how can you know of my points sucked if you never bothered to read them?? Hrm?
And Eddie Izzard is a transvestite. Are you sure you want to expose your kids (or yourself!)to such a deviant perverse cult like him? He accepts gay people too! The horrors! Dear god, it might be CATCHING! Aren't you affraid he'll try and RECRUIT you??
Very funny. I made valid points, and you admited you didn't even read them. Whatever.
:-)
I hope you enjoy Eddie Izzard as Dr. Who!
Look, if you sit a Nazi in front of a jew and have them discuss, the Nazi can calmly express how dirty and sub-human jews are, causing the jew to get indignant at the ignorance and hatred being displayed, and that doesn't make the Nazi cooly rational or the Jew "ranting".
Ranting against ignorant bigotry and hatred isn't a bad thing. You inspired it with your ignorant bigotry and hated. My "ranting" isn't unbalanced or ignorant, but is based on a frustration with you and your ignorantly bigoted point of view that you not only cannot seem to defend at all, but that has no basis in reality.
I am a far more credible "witness" than you are, and your dismissal of me (again, with no grounds or identifiable justification) is mind-boggling.
You drop the most offensively bigoted remarks and then never ever defend them... and when called on them simply accuse the other of "ranting". Your argument, such as it is, is full of strawmen and is completely disingeneous and intellectually dishonest.
I'd love for you even once to give specifics. But of course, your mind is made up, closed, and locked into its ignorant bigotry, and no amount of real life experience, real life facts, or logcal reasoning seem to be able to budge you one inch.
I guess I'll have to be satisfied knowing that you're on the wrong side of history, are or soon will be in an increasingly irrelevent minority, and leave you to stew in your own hatred and intolerance.
I am not repeating dogma, I am repeating fact. YOU are repeating dogma, straight from the religious right anti-gay talking points, that has no basis in fact.
I'd love to see you actually justify any of your statments, but I doubt you will (because they're not justifiable). Oh ye of closed mind and bigoted heart, I'd love to hear you detail just what has gone "too far", exactly how and when gay's "recruit", and in what way it is a "choice".
And for the record, yes, I did get to what I consider to be new stuff at the end, and you should read it all.
I'm not the one ranting here. If you look back over this thread and see notice just who it is that keeps shouting in capitals I think you'll see what I mean
There is more than one kind of 'ranting'.
It's clear that you know far less about this than you think you do.
No, what's clear is that YOU know far less about this than you think you do.
Every actual point you made (in between shouting and spewing insults) is nothing but quotes from the book of gay propaganda - either fundamentally misunderstood or just plain wrong
Bullshit. That's just bullshit and you know it. An assertion, not a fact. I'm not speaking from any propaganda book (no such book exists). I'm talking about facts as I've lived them. As I KNOW them. In my every day experience. You have not refuted even one of them, yet. Certainly not successfully. The only think you've refuted is that homosexuality is purely genetically determined, which I never asserted anyway.
With regard to "fighting against the inevitable", that's just wishful thinking.
I'm sure the whites of separatist Alabama thought the same thing back in the 1950's.
Just as blacks have progressed over time, so to will gays. Setbacks will be occasional but temporary speed bumps, just as for blacks. Over time, humanity is moving towards accepting diversity and granting more and more rights to more people, rather than reserving rights for just a few elite by birthright. It's been the progress of history for a long time now. Gay people, who have always existed, and always will exist, will continue to benefit from more and more equal rights. As more people know gay people personally, it makes any violent or draconian backlash less and less likely. It can happen, certainly (as it did in Berlin in the 1930's), but outside the puritanical US, gays already are moving quickly into being considered equal citizens with equal rights. The majority of NATO allows gays to serve in the military without having to be closeted or lie about who they are or who their partners are. The majority of EU nations and Canada provide some form of domestic partnership that confers most of the civil rights, benefits, and responsibiltiies of marriage, with several nations granting out-right equal marriage rights.
It will happen here, eventually, as well. Progress marches on. And this is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing. It is nothing to fear, and I can't imagine why you fear it.
Just as opression of blacks gave rise to the militant "Black Panthers", so too has opression of gays given rise to the like of "Act-Up". The agressive in-your-face reaction is a response to bigoted opression. If you don't like it, don't oppress. The agressive response disappears when there is no oppression, or bigotry, for it to fight against.
Stop thinking of gay people as some monolithic community. They are not. They are anything but. There are gay people at all points of the political and intellectual spectrums, on all sides of every issue. The assertion that there is some unified set of 'gay propaganda' is laughable. That there is somehow "recruitment" is laughable. Gay people don't create gay people... straight people do. Think about that for a while.
Homosexuality is not a choice, period. This is experienced, lived, and KNOWN by me. How arrogant of you to sit out there, clueless as to anything about homosexuality, what a homosexual person goes through, making high-and-mighty ivory tower pronunciations of what you think about the origins of homosexuality. Sorry, but my experience puts your assertion that homosexuality is a CHOICE to shame, and exposes it for the ignorant ranting that it is.
It's not pathological. It's not a disease. No reputable scientist, psychologist, or psychiatrist believes homosexuality is either an illness or a choice. It just is. Like left-handedness. Nobody is SURE what "causes" homosexaulity, but it seems to be a mixture of biology and very early developmental environment.
Gays do NOT recruit. Never have and never will, and I have no idea why you keep blithely asserting this as if it were a fact, or even a remote possibility. Nobody who is not gay can "become" gay, just as no gay person can "become" straight. You are what you are.
I hope to god your kids AREN'T gay, because I've seen first hand what kind of damage parents like you, why try to 'guide' their kids like that, can do to a gay child. You know those promiscuous gays you rant on about? Almost all of them had parents who rejected them or taught them to hate gays (thus themselves)... knowingly or unknowingly. Self-loathing is a real problem among homosexuals, drilled into them by their parents and society as a whole. And it's more proof that people do NOT choose to be gay... why would anyone want to? Who is it that wakes up one day and says "Hey, I want to turn into a homosexual so I can be ostracised, denied employment, denied equal rights, be thought of as a sick pervert, be rejected by friends and family, be denied marriage, and have all of society bent on destroying my happiness and relationships!"... are you kidding me??
And you're not being 'balanced', regardless of thinking you are. Sorry, but I have no tolerance for prejudice or for bigotry, and you've shown both. Not to mention ignorance. You think you know a lot more than you do. Trust me, I'm way more knowledgable and experience on this topic than you ever will be.
I don't have patience or tolerance for people who think blacks are inferior and who sit and calmly try to talk and 'reason' that this is true. It's not. Ditto people who try to paint homosexuals as diseased, perverted, or people who recruit young children into their evil lifestyle. Your bigotry is stamped all over your message, exposed by your very word choices.
I never said that homosexuality was determined solely by genetics (that's your strawman, you putting words in my mouth). I said it's not a CHOICE. Like being left-handed, it's not a choice.
I don't understand your homophobia here, other than it stems from almost pure ignorance. But it's a very literal homphobia... you're afraid. Why? I have no idea. But why you think you have the right to oppress people, prevent them from expressing themselves, I have no idea. Why you think gay people all lead the same "lifestyle", I have no idea. Why you cannot see that gay people are every bit as diverse as straight people, I have no idea. There is almost NOTHING you can say about all homosexuals that is true, other than "homosexuals are sexually and emotionally attracted to members of the same sex". Beyond that, homosexuals come in all sizes, shapes, intellects, personalities, classes, colors, and creeds.
If you truely want to live in peace, you'll stop advocating the oppression of people like me and my friends. You too would get hot under the collar if a whole group of people who were obviously clueless about you, judging you based on superficial ideas of a small minority of "people like you", and people who wish you would just disappear so they wouldn't have to acknowledge your existence. I don't LIKE agressive confrontation. Ignorant and arrogant bigotry and prejudice makes aggressive confrontation necessary.
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Worried parents don't want laws that make it easier for predatory gays to recruit their sons and daughters.
More homophobia. Gays do not "recruit". Gays are not "predatory". Gays are not PEDOPHILES. You've got your wires crossed. Your ignorance here is almost painful. Please get help.
Homosexuality isn't a choice, period. That isn't propaganda, that's fact. Propaganda is what you get from right-wing pundits and religious leaders.
I just don't like my society's culture being hijacked and perverted to serve the social agenda of a deviant minority cult.
Aren't you grossly over-reacting? Are you even remotely being rational here? Excuse me?
Can you even remotely defend such an absurd statement?
You don't want to see your "culture" hijacked? I wonder if you're ranting against all blacks because of Rap/Hip-hop/Gansta culture being forced down your throat?? Or do you not get that not all gays (not even a majority) partake in what you must feel is the 'stereotypical gay lifestyle'.
Take my friends Steve and Victor. They've been together ten years. They work, take care of their pets, and live in a nice home. Or my other gay friends who are, among other things, architects, software developers, ER nurses, and military officers. What is it about these people's "culture" that you find so offensive, pray tell??
Sorry, but it's exactly bigotry, because you ASSume that a few traits or habits of a small minority of gay people is all being gay is about. You're ignorant and hateful. That's bigotry to a tee. Even your statement that you had some "openly gay" friends sounded an awful lot like "some of my best friends are black" to my ears. There is no single "gay subculture" any more than there's a single "straight culture". Get that through your thick head.
What, pray-tell, do you ASSume "my sort of lifestyle" is, exactly? I'd love to hear this.
Over-representation in the media? I'd love to see your statistics on this. Gay people represent anywhere between 4 and 10 percent of the population (depending on how the question is phrased in the survey), which is a significant portion of the population. Yet I doubt one in ten characters on TV is gay, by any stretch. In fact, I know for a fact the "representation" on TV and in other media is not only well below real life percentages, but is also more of the "Amos and Andy" type of representation, rather than reality. You probabably, in your ignorant bigotry, mistake Will & Grace for fact. Am I right?
You don't have a right to a 'gay free' existence. I'm sorry, you just don't. Your posts actually drip with the most literal form of homophobia I can imagine. The problem is yours, not mine. Not gay people's. Yours. Stop being so terrified of nothing. Educate yourself a bit. You obviously need it.
Back on topic, my point was that being gay is hardly the WORST thing that could happen to Dr. WHO. After all, how would you know? Dr. WHO isn't much of a sexual creature. He might make a side comment about an attrative man or be oblivious to an attractive woman... what were you thinking? That he'd be a mincing fairy in pink chiffon?? Yup, you're a bigot.
If you or anyone else is straight, I don't see why I should have to be informed about it. I'm just plain sick to death of everything straight. It's just so "in your face" now, every day, all the time, from *all* the media. I'm sick to death of the incessant preaching, brainwashing, social engineering or whatever you want to call it. Enough already.
Tell you what. You get every straight person to keep their sexual orientation to themselves, and I'll get very gay person to do the same.
Or are you starting to realize how utterly ridiculous and unrealistic your inane and bigoted request is?? Or not... most people that promote gross double-standards seem to be utterly inable to comprehend the problem.
On the other hand...so long as they don't make the Doctor gay. Anything but that.
Why ANYTHING but that? Would this be the most horrible thing possible?!? Homophobic much?
You seem to forget all the unfunded mandates that the President has forced down onto the states, localities, and schools. No Child Left Behind alone is breaking the backs of underfunded schools. Local schools here are combining grades (second and third graders together) and they say the Plege of Allegence to a construction paper drawing of a flag because they can't afford replacement flags. Only half the students have books. And this is in one of the 'better' school districts.
domestically he's turned out to be as free-spending as Clinton or any other Democrat
I would argue far more so. I think the Clinton administration busted the myth of the 'tax and spend liberal Democrat' pretty well, what with the restraint shown in the growth of government spending, and the ultimate surplus that was used to start paying down the debt.
And I think Bush is busting the myth of the 'fiscally responsible Republican' pretty well. He has squandered the surplus and driven us to the largest deficits in history in just two years, and the government -- in size and power -- has grown enormously in that time. It's all borrow and spend, borrow and spend, while his corporate buddies are stuffing fistfuls of money into their pockets, while the average American gets laid off, has their property taxes jacked up to cover local and state short-falls, and is basically getting bupkiss back from the cuts.
Over the next ten years, the deficits the Bush Administration are racking up will come to over $33,000 for each and every tax-payer. That's scary.
There hasn't been any "official" blog entry, but it's been discussed in the blog comments on the open thread.
Not the same thing, but people are aware of the issue, and I'm sure it'll be addressed eventually.
One of the biggest problems the Dean Campaign has right now is "growing pains". So much is happening so fast, they're scrambling to staff up, and I'm sure some things are bound to fall through the cracks here and there. I'm not making excuses for them, just acknowledging the reality of the situation.
Of course you realize I had no intention of offending.
How about this instead:
"The North Eastern Power grid went down faster than Ben Affleck at a strip club!"
Didn't anyone notice the time the blackout happened? 4:11pm! That's 4-11! OH MY GOD! THE TERRORISTS WANT INFORMATION!
I've had one of the TW boxes too, and I have no idea what you're talking about. I just went to it and tried, and I cannot find any hint of any "Series Manager" or anything that allowes me to say "record this program every week on this channel at this time, even though it's one half a dozen times during the week". I get ALL of them, or I can do ONE of them at a time.
Where do you see this option? How do you access it? Can you walk me through how to do this and where the option is? The only instructions I received with the box are a tiny, thin, slick color photo quick guide from TW. There were no details or manuals anywhere. I've found most everything else to be intuitive enough I didn't need more, but now I wonder if this option is even avialable to me, and if so, what else might I be missing??
It's only $4.95 more a month, and the convenience and savings in video tapes more than compensates for that.
The differences from TiVo are many.
For one thing, there is no "Season Pass". You can record "All Episodes" of a show, but it really means ALL of them. Try that with The Simpsons, and it'll be recording almost non-stop. It doesn't distinguish the new shows from repeats. And there's no way to set it to record just one time a week (i.e. "every monday at 10pm, this channel") to only get the originals for shows like Six Feet Under.
There is no ability to tell it to record things based on movie stars or subjects or anything like that.
It's basically a suped-up VCR with a very easy way of telling it to record. And if you decide to record something half-way through watching it, it will record the whole thing (from the moment you tuned into it, not the moment you pressed the record button).
It has some "silent" limitations on the number of things that can be queued up for recording, so if you tell it to record lots of things, some of the first things you mentioned might 'disappear' without any warning. Which sucks.
But over-all, I love it. The monthly fee is very reasonable ($4.95), and otherwise there's no extra box, no extra connections, no extra remote, so it's very convenient.
It's no TiVo, but it costs less (nothing to buy!) and is vastly superior to VCR.
We want to stay out of the lives of individuals as much as possible
Uh, then why the support of sodomy laws? I think you have the right ideal here, but from all I've seen, the Republicans (especially those currently in power) have no such intentions. They want to enforce what people believe and how people behave. And don't forget Santorum's very strong remarks that not only is there no right to privacy (thank god the Supreme Court disagrees!) but that the government has an OBLIGATION to regulate what goes on in the privacy of people's bedrooms.
We believe that some people do in fact have a bad lot in life, but that it is beyond the ability of the government to improve an individual's circumstances beyond temporarily keeping them from starving to death.
That's a demonstrably false statement of course. I find most Republicans utterly fail to acknowledge the simple fact that many people are born or develop severe mental illnesses or physical disabilities, and that many times these people do not have families to fall back on. A social safety net is required in any sort of civilized society. Republicans seem to just want to put anyone who isn't perfect out on an ice-floe to die of neglect and starvation. How compassionate.
Corporations are, at the root of it, owned by people.
But alas the reality of history seems to show that huge corporations have no desire to take into account local populations or the 'little people' (even their own workers) when it comes to their chasing of the all mighty dollar. I'd rather there be some protections in there for the individual. Most Republicans seem to want corporations to be completely unfettered in their ability to destroy the lives of locals and workers in order to return the maximum profit to shareholders (which are by definition people already of wealthy means). It seems very, very regressive to me. A form of class warfare.
Despite the media's cries, noone wants government to establish a state religion.
Again, I think the evidence proves you wrong here. The right wing Christians are fully in control of this administration. You again but need to look to Santorum's statements that his particular religious dogma (against homosexuality and sodomy) be enshrined in federal law. Ditto Ridge's desire to enshrine his particular religion's idea about marraige (i.e. the anti-gay marraige constitutional amendment proposal). And look at all the right-wing christian judges Bush is trying to pack the court with... the ones that make the "ten commandments" judge in Alabama look like a pluralistic liberal.
"Destroy public schooling?"
Yes. The "No Child Left Behind" unfunded mandate is irreversably destroying Public Schooling in this country. And I feel it is by design, because examining the bill, no other outcome would be possible. And it dove-tails quite nicely with the Bush administration wanting vouchers to try and get tax-supoprted religious education going in this country. Or corporate-sponsored private schools. Either one scares the hell out of me, and should scare you as well.
Republicans don't want to take from anybody else
Another assertion unsupported by actual facts. And that was the basis of my entire previous message: that the IDEAL of "Republican" has been lost and is virtually nowhere to be seen in this current "Republican" administration. The libertarian, fiscal conseravtive, smaller-government sort of Republicanism doesn't seem to exist in the GOP right now. At all. Thought they're still trying to pretend it does to keep all the GOP faithful in line.
And do NOT suggest that idiot Rush Limbaugh. He's "for entertainment value only", IMHO. Any time he discusses a topic I have personal knowledge of, I hear him spewing completely twisted half-truths and outright lies. He is NOT one to get any information from, and I find him utterly and completely vile. I think you should pick up "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot" before you ever recommend that guy to anyone else. Because he's just plain *wrong*.
I'm a pretty staunch Republican
I have to ask why?
Most of the time, when I ask why, people go on about smaller government or something. Yet under the last three Republican administrations, not only has government expanded grossly, but the deficit has balooned out of control. Under the last Democratic administration, the government actually shrank (in size and influence) and the budget was not only balanced, but a surplus was generated so that the massive debt could start to be paid down (thus relieving the cost of interest payments, thus eventually allowing the government to get to a place where taxes could be even lower).
So it seems that a libertairian-ish fiscal conservative shouldn't be voting Republican, because Republicans obviously cannot be trusted with this country's finances, and are obviously going completely power-hungry. I mean, just look at the Patriot Act and Patriot II, and imagine that kind of power being in, oh, say, Hilary Clinton's hands (or whatever other 'liberal' you despise and consider an enemy).
The funny thing is, Bush and his administration reprepresent almost exactly the opposite of what most of my Republican friends say they value. So why do they support him so blindly? I have no idea.
I personally don't understand how anyone with a brain can be a "Staunch Republican" myself, because I look at their platform, and all I see is a bunch of greedy power-hungry people trying to maintain their power while keeping everyone else down. The Republican motto seems to be "I've got mine! Fuck you!" It seems to demand maximum meddling in the life of the individual, while demanding almost no oversight or regulation of powerful corporations. It seems to want to destroy the separation of church and state, destroy public schooling, enforce arbitrary Christian doctrine in the courts and in law, and seems to be just generally very short-sighted and arrogant in its outlook and philosophy.
This is why I'm voting for Dean in 2004, and why I'm encouraging everyone I know. What's amazing to me is how many Republicans I know are considerign Dean. The fiscally responsible, moderate social policies and his position of putting the power into the hands of THE PEOPLE rather than the government or the corporations, really resonates with a lot of folks across the Political Spectrum.
That's not a problem. It would be one way to encourage higher voter turnout. The people who DO vote will want others to vote as well, so their individual vote isn't too obvious. They'll be more likely to remind friends and family members, as well as people they know won't vote exactly like them (for, after all, a unanimous vote would make it pretty obvious, right?)
Well, higher density means the same storage in a smaller form-factor, which means the read/write heads have to travel a smaller distance (both radially and logitudinally), which should yield a measurable boost in potential performance... no?
Beyond those items already listed:
A plug-in "intentions" API that allows you to add your own "intentions".
A plug-in "inspections" API that allows you to add your own "inspections".
Much better CVS support, if you use that (I don't).
Better "Smart Enter" that will auto-complete lines for you (so you don't have to hit end to add that semicolon at the end). This is really cool, and reduces a lot of my typing.
Better syntax highlighting (it gets better with each release). Lots of fit-and-finish and polishes to the UI, keyboard, and features. For example: new 'gutter' icons for "overrides, is over-ridden by" that allow you to easily go up and down the chain (instead of just up) of inheretence.
It's the little improvements that I appreciate the most in this new version. I don't care much about AspectJ or GUI stuff.
I completely agree.
Since I first used IntelliJ IDEA, I cannot go back to any other editor. And with each version, it keeps getting better and better. (I'm on the Early Access Program for the next version... just wait to you see what it has in store! Wow!)
My favorite quote from the Architect is how Neo is the integral sum of a set of remainders that accumulated over time.
Thus, not only is "Neo" an anagram of "One", he really IS "The One"... the integral sum of remainders. The number one.
I loved that. I dunno why, but I just thought it was cool.