I was looking at VLC and I heard you could "carry" your codecs around. I was looking for software at one point to put onto a USB drive that would allow me to play my media anywhere I wanted. Is there any good VLC specific codec packs?
I am happy to see google going to this pay per view system on the web, they look like they might actually pull it off and we can start seeing the real value of some video going on the internet.
Actually you can. Create a filter that sends it to the archive directly. It will still come up when you click the label, but you wont see it on your main file view. And setting up labels for general groups is also easy if not the most straight forward thing.
Essentially just create a filter and during the creation process it will allow you to test the filter. WHile testing you can mark all the conversations that come up and return to the main view and apply the label you want to those conversations and send them to the archive as well.
After a period of setting up filters correctly, all that you would see in the inbox is information that was unlabeled.
You just search for it. THats the point, and if the filesystem goes a bit further it could organize things in some kind of semi logical manner as well. Or you could organize them. The searching isnt tied to the file structure, it is tied to the content. So you could organize however you merry well feel like it from an actual logical filesystem point of view, but you could search for the content instead.
All I can say is the linking of Google Desktop Search and the program called GDSuite which makes GDS work like the "search" function from windows has already changed how I get to things on my machine. If I know a chunk of code from a certain filetype is what I am looking for, it is extremely straightforward to just type that information in and get a response immediately.
The only thing I can hope to see is for Google Desktop Search to add a "label" functionality to GDS so that I can label things that are "games" and "code" etc, to help narrow down searches or even use virtual directories where it brings up a windows like link to all executables labled for games on the hard drive without having to individually organize.
This way you could make folders that consist of multiple labels and or focus them down to less labels etc at a click of a button.
On a related note, the first Rand McNalley books were actually done this way. they would take a camera with them and document intersections where you would have to turn to get to major intersections. Your idea would simply move that first road mapping idea to the modern era.
By stitching and thus changing the images. It is a really neat thing... what would be better is for them to release it as a tool that home users can use for free which would avoid the TOS violation as far as I can tell.
Thats why it has been tested and tested and tested.
Intelligent design does not even have the room for testing, do you see the difference?
Intelligent design is "giving up" and even Einstien was wrong on several things, and those were born out by testing.
Intelligence design is just giving up, saying "no more testing is needed, its an intelligent being"
And since you can have no logical test for some awe inspiring intelligent being, then intelligent design has to be faith based. Being a Christian I understand that God exists, but I do not pretend that he can be tested for, and i do not thus put him into science.
The new design removes testing of the hypothesis and replaces it with logical argument.
This means that philosphy can be substituted for science.
IE, if I can make a LOGICAL argument that God exists, then its as good as a tested argument that something else exists.
It is NOT science.
Science requires an entire scientific method to test things, and come to conclusions. Intelligent design does not fit under that. intelligent design is essentially giving up at some point and throwing your hands in the air and going "too complicated, cant be understood"
It seems that they are trying to get away from a pre-determined conclusion that there is a 'natural explanation' to be sought.
And you have thus described why this is such a frightening thing. Science cannot move forward if someone just goes "well, thats that" the problem is the assumption that scientists are saying that about evolution, they are isntead saying "evolution is closest we have right now" and not just giving up and going "welp it was God."
"...not all stuck together like that they won't!"
Oddly this is the same problem being addressed by the man with the copy of moores law article at this time.
"Why would I do that? Actually, what benefits do childless marriages get?"
IN some states they get benefits and recognition in plans due to plans at companies.
" All the other tax benefits for children actually require children!" - Perfectly fine with me.
">>>I also did not say that cultures were marriages between one man and one woman. Did you forget a word here? This doesn't make sense to me." - No I was more accurate in saying it was between one man and more than one women. I do not restrict myself to a specifically Christian Centric view.
"I find it ironic that you list Canada as a neutral place to go, considering they have already legalized gay marriage. Hey, didn't they also get rid of slavery without a bloody war? Hmm, your relocation idea sounds pretty good." -- Moving to Canada may be a good bet, they have a 5 year wait on citizenship, and the process is not quite as easy as you think.
I was not refering to Canada as an example, I was refering to the United States and how it got rid of Slavery. If you would like to lobby your government to get the laws _changed_ then by all means. This is a country by the people and for the people. Trying to force it as a rights issue begins to shift it into the Judical system, when it is not a rights issue.
Homosexuals are not an ethnic minority. So arguments based on classifying yourself as an ethnic minority seems a bit odd to me.
Homosexuals are a social minority, but there are thousands of those. democrats are a social minority (if the 2004 electon is an example). Pedophiles are a social minority, Gamers are a social minority, slashdot users are a social minority, etc...
They all have something in common, a choice about lifestyle they choose to participate in. Social minorities are fluid and you can move in and out of them at will.
Ethnic minority status is relatively static. I hope I have shown the difference here.
You do have opportunites to change the laws, and this is through lobbying. Homosexuals are, politically, a special interest group, and they get what they want through lobbying and laws. Even the civil rights movement went the law route vs the judicial route. They had a congressional act to work from to work against a set of laws at the state level based on interestate commerce.
No such leg to stand on when arguing the homosexual position.
I did answer your question, I made two posts as you can see in your reply list. It is not my fault or on my concience that you only read one of the posts.
I did indeed address the issue of their being no ammendmant broken.
As to your jab concerning Martin Luther King, there was indeed an ammendmant being broken. Do you claim that not allowing homosexuals to marry violates the congresses right to make laws regulating inter-state commerce? If so, all you have to do is convince the supreme court that this is indeed the case, and then the Congress will then take a look into it and decide if it wants to add a deeper focus on the issue with an ammendmant.
Considering that there are 17 seats held by democrats coming up for re-election soon, and the Republicans do not seem to have any chance of losing any, I would certainly wait to make this argument after the Republican controlled senate has passed.
Your argument also fails, heterosexuals or homosexuals are not a part of an ethnic minority. Blacks are part of an ethnic minority. Homosexuals can be of any race, color, or other metric. So linking yourself with a minority group based on ethnicity instead of choice is indeed an incredibly far reach.
I would like to see how you can support the logical link between ethnic minorities and a choice minority.
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. [/quote]
All laws are being equally applied here. There is no conflict with the constitution.
I proved it by stating that they do not have more rights than heterosexuals?
The constitution does not say that you cannot marry, the laws do. I merely gave you 2 alternatives, you chose to focus on 1 of them.
One, is to change the constitution to give you protected status.
OR (note the OR)
That you can lobby and change the laws of the United States to fundementally alter marriage.
Going through the court system to have them re-define the meaning of the constitution without putting it to a vote of the American people seems terribly... illegitimate.
Also, there are several states that have constitutional ammendmants specifically defining marriage as one man and one woman. Which means that they are excesizing their rights under ammendmant 10 (i beleive) of the constitution to make laws and ammendmants not covered in the constitution.
Black people were able to get a constitutional ammendmant, if you feel your case is strong enough you can get one for homosexuals. There is nothing to stop you other than public support, and I leave that up to you and other homosexuals to drum up.
The civil rights movement, for example, was to get the laws in line with the ammendmant that was passed ensuring that everyone was equal. The problem here is that homosexuals are equal, and have the same rights, they are just angry that those rights are not expanded so that they can what they wish to do.
"if a person is gay they have less rights then if they were straight"
no they dont have less rights. You have not fundementally proved that they have less rights, merely that they do not have other rights that heterosexuals do not have.
Two heterosexual men cannot get married, neither can two heterosexual women.
Your argument is based solely on that you feel that your choice to be homosexual seperates you into a different group with its own needs and rights as everyone else.
I do not.
Pedophiles for example may truly and honestly feel that their sexuality is as obvious to them as you feel your sexuality is obvious to you. Should we give them a wide birth and rights because of the choice or "not choice" as you feel?
No, of course not, I am not saying that you are on the same level of pedophiles, I am saying you are on the same level as heterosexuals and that sexual desire in this case is flat, all on the same level of perceived desire for each other.
The rules apply the same accross this flat landscape. A man can marry a women and vice versa, but a man cannot marry a man and a women cannot marry a women.
This has nothing to do with homophobia, there just seems to be little reason to change the rule other than demands for it to be changed.
In the UNited States (of which I assume you are a citizen) there is a process that can be taken to alter the constitution, or change the laws regarding these things. Those actions have been taken, and they failed utterlly. Most recently they failed in Kansas, which even went a step further in equality and removed heterosexual common law unions from being recognized, which means there is no contradiction now with homosexual common law unions.
The attempt to circumvent the process by trying to create a protected class around choice is heinous. Voting, and laws, are the proper direction for this. If you want homosexuals to be a protected class, all you simply have to do is convince enough people that it is true, and place it on a ballot and get it voted on.
If you feel that this is infeasible, you will note that many things that people want to be law are rejected constantly, and have nothing to do with rights issues either.
To reiterate, there is a process here, and it can be followed. If you are not able to get laws passed to protect based on your choice, then it is a failure of your groups skills at lobbying and not a civil rights failure.
" unless you want to argue against straight marriages for couples who can't or won't have children."
Ok, I would argue that providing incentive before they have children is a bad idea, and only providing the fact that IF they have children then they get the benefits.
I have absolutely no problem with that in heterosexual arguments.
Your argument of "love" is moot, yes you love your fiance, and you may marry him and never have children then, oh well, you get the bennys without meeting the intended goals.
Like I said, this is something that can be fixed, and you can lobby your congress to remove benefits for couples without children, I have absolutely no problem with this and encourage you to do so if you beleive in equality on this situation.
I also did not say that cultures were marriages between one man and one woman.
I would also encourage people to lobby for polygamy as well, but I fear this is not something that will be happening soon.
As to your point on Slavery, individuals worked hard and worked through a very national system of civil war to get it removed. If you feel that you can muster up the required number of combat troops to accomplish the goal in the same way, then by all means do so. Please give warning though so that some of us not invested in either side of the issue can re-locate to Canada during the conflict.
Your argument toward the end of giving the same rights to gay couples as straight is not what would be accomplished through a civil partnership. It would not necessarrilly confer on them rights to logical inherentence or to step children, or incentives currently provided for child rearing such as tax breaks provided to make co-habitation less expensive.
It would be seperate, and could imply all of the things of marriage or it could not, I leave it as an excersize to future lawmakers.
I will quote myself for emphasis
"If you feel that Religion should not have protections on this, then you should move to a different country or lobby to have the 1st ammendmant change, I leave that as an excersize to the reader."
Ok, then I should just take your word on it and move on?
I am sorry, I cannot do that from an objective point of view.
As I said, I leave it as an excersize to the reader to do what you fundementally beleive needs to be done to bring equality.
I would hold that most people do not feel that the choice to be homosexual is in the same realm as an ingrained religious beleif that you learned as a child. Though both may have been something because of how a person was raised. Again, the other way to create equality in choice based situations would be to remove Religion as a protected class.
Your question "How can I prove something that is not there" is a pretty big deal. In fact, it is the entire cusp of the issue. With blacks, women, age, etc... you can easily and fundementally prove an assertion. For me to say "I am white" it is easy to look at my skin and make that judgement. If Colon Powell were to assert that he was white would be obvious that it were not so, etc...
If I were to assert "I am Gay" there would be no way to prove or disprove the claim. You could not take a genetic test and prove it. You could not look at my actions and prove it (unless you use stereotypes of homosexuality and that only works with bigots).
So you have your conundrum, you want your choice to be true to the extent you feel this is a civil rights issue and that your rights are being denied. It simply is not true. I do not know how you came to the choice, and for you it may not have SEEMED like a choice, but whether by environment or finding someone in life that you truly loved who happened to be male, you became a homosexual. Remember, choice does not necessarrilly have to be PERSONAL choice, the choice can be made for you through environment.
I had no choice in being raised as a Christian, for example, though it is unlikely I will ever denounce Christianity at this point, though I consider it a choice of the environment I was raised in.
Some people may feel that they have no choice to commit other acts, or to have attractions for children. If there were genetic markers to determine these things, we could essentially stop pedophilia. There are not genetic markers for sexuality, it is not something you are born with, and I think that that throws it right out of the realm of being a rights issue.
What basis do you have that Marriage revolves solely around love? That you marry someone BECAUSE you love them?
As a social tool, what is the benefit of marriage? And no, "happy people" is not the correct answer. If this were so, marriage has completely failed that goal and should be abolished entirely.
Two men or two women would not fit the social need of marriage. Married couples often violate the social need of marriage, but thats just how it works.
The social need of marriage is completely focused on giving incentives for pro-creation. Note the word incentive. Even non married people are given special benefits and bonuses when a child is born and or under their care. Married couples are also given this incentive, and it also solidifies inheretence rights, a familial consolidation. In every culture though it is most tied to procreation and the support of a child until it can fend for itself, and a line of sucession when it comes to the assets and holdings of the parents. It would make you wonder why nearly every society (with very very few and minor detractions in small communities) ties marriage to a classification of one man and one ore more women.
The law does not bar two non married lovers from living together and sharing assets, and individuals in those groups to give special powers to their life partner to get the equal and shared responsibilities aspect of marriage. The main thing that cannot be achieved through a will, or other current legal means, is the incentive provided to make living together cheaper to promote child rearing.
I think all would be satisified if there was some process in place to make the current legal steps smoother. IE you can make a person your "family" in a sense, etc... Some kind of civil partnership where the individual is framed as sharing resources and being fundementally dependant on one another.
France for example sidestepped the issue of marriage, which has a very definite definition and social role, and allowed civil partnerships between ANY two people, regardless of orientation or relation.
A mother and a daughter could be civil partners for example.
Would that arrangement satisfy homosexuals? I do not know, but perhaps you can ask homosexuals in france for their opinions, perhaps one will read this board and enlighten us.
The idea is to abandon the idea of marriage as being between two people who love each other, since that does not seem to be a standard in ANY culture, and seems extremely romantic to me.
You are mistaking an objective view on the subject as being anti homosexual.
Religion is protected by the constitution, I left it up to the reader to drum up support and remove it from the constitution. You can do something about this to equalize it, the best bet is to remove all choice based rights from the spectrum. This country was based on the fact as Religion being a fundemental choice that everyone would be expected to make, and stick with in some capacity or another. So it is protected. If you would like that protected status removed from religion, let me reiterate, you can drum up support in the United States and get it removed, or if it is also in your country (not US) you can simply drum up support through whatever processes are available to you to get it removed from there.
Until then, I am going to have to work from the premise that this is the only exception to rule that you do not allow a fundemental external choice to be discriminated against.
As to your beleif that homosexuality is not a choice.
1. you need to fundementally prove this. You cannot just state it to be so and then have it be true.
In the sense of skin color, gender, etc... Nothing you fundementally do will change those aspects about you, except through hiding it.
In the aspect of homosexuality you can easily say "I am gay" and then you would be a protected class. The mere assertion of it, places you in the protected class. When it comes to religion, even religions are not protected class when the religious invdividual makes a habitual nuicance of themselves, so it is not completely protected in the way that someone who has say... lost a leg is protected.
If you are asking for Homosexuality, a choice, to be protected the same as Religion, again I leave it as an excersize to the reader to do this, enjoy your uphill battle and know that you leave it open for any choice based activity to become a protected class.
Once you enter the realm of allowing a choice about something to make the determing factor of protection, you really have to worry about where that could possibly head.
NOTE: Also, again the research issue, I do know about the twin studies done, but if you look at the research and how it was conducted, it was not conducted in a manner where the sample sizes were metered very well, and the sample pool was pulled from those pre-disposed to meet the criteria for proof of genetics in homosexuality.
For example, there has been no study where twins were asked to join, and then asked "are you gay" from all twins of a large subset, but were asked for twin pairs from magazines that would likely find groups of homosexuals reading them. Again, I do not say I am against these things, but even in that focused group where there were guarenteed matches (not scientific) the precentage was still relatively low. And to make the percentages higher, you REALLY have to play with the numbers a lot.
If you read the studies and the people that try to prove them, it becomes harder than trying to track the number of times our president has changed his reasons for tracking Iraq.
Homosexuality is not a religion. It is a choice you can make. You can go in and out of the group based on how you feel. You do not have to be able to prove it. Religion is protected because it is religion and there are consequences to the choice. Repression can involve violent uprising by the religion to maintain its ability to be what it is.
Homosexuality is something you could claim to be or not claim to be totally based on how you want to avoid or not avoid something.
If I found that homosexuals could get scholarships that i could not, i could just tell everyone I was a homosexual.
Unlike being a black man. If I am a black man and feel that white people get more benefits, I cannot just go and tell someone I am white and expect them to beleive me. The same goes with age (though you can try to hide it), sexuality (again you can try to hide it), etc...
With homosexuality you can just go and say "I am gay" and there would be no way to prove it, or deny it for either party. You couldnt ask them to prove it with sex, as there are plenty of heterosexuals that have never had sex, or kiss a guy if you say that you find it repulsive to kiss someone you do not love.
It is a choice, no matter how much that choice may fundementally beleive. If you feel that Religion should not have protections on this, then you should move to a different country or lobby to have the 1st ammendmant change, I leave that as an excersize to the reader.
Nexus is a very good game. The problem with it is that it is not an EASY game. Once you get the hang of what you are doing, you can fight multiple ships at once without necessarrilly having to gang up on vessels.
The problem with most players is that they go right for the "bang weapons against shields and armour!!!!" strategy, which generally does not work to well in nexus.
even though it has default fire settings, those are "AI" fire settings, and the ships try to determine what the best course of action for their weapons are based on that generalized AI setting you put it on. If you tell it to attack a HULL of one ship, if it sees a good opportunity to use its weapons against a nearby ship, it may ignore the original ship.
In Nexus you should handle everything in a little but more micromanaged way, and you can start getting kills rather fast.
The main flaw is the lack of emphasis in training on using the manual controls for the ships, and it can make the single player frustrating as battleships tend to be completely and utterally unable to kill ships bigger than a cruiser without help. But, if you use the specialized disabling weapons, all the sudden large ships can actually beat each other to death, but it wont likely be using the AI modes the game comes with.
NExus is probably the best space fighting game I have played in a tactical sense. Wherease homeworld1/2 comes out better in the movement and intuitive sense.
Though your reply seems to be bait of some kind, instead of "Pron" put "COol media you want to show off" and you are getting closer to the target.
For me it was when I was trying to show a friend videos of the Tsunami disaster that were circulating and he did not have the codecs for it. I also have had times where I have found an interesting movie such as _Grau *use google, that I wanted to show friends of mine and I was unable to because I did not have quicktime alternative codec on hand at the moment.
I have also come to points where I have wanted to show people some music videos done to genre specific art forms (such as _grau) and not had the proper codec.
So, having a standalone media player with codecs that are media player centric would be absolutely spectacular.
Is there a media player that can be ported with all of its codecs?
When I move from machine to machine, I usually install the codec packs and then run mplayer off of the USB drive for the media off of it. If there was a media player where I could avoid the hassle of installing the codecs for the media that would be great!
I also found that winamp runs as a good media player to port around on machines as well. Some small ftp programs like ftp explorer work without needing installation, and i always keep a cd cracked version of some of my older games (such as quake 3 and pre-steam half life1) on my USB drive as well.
Slashdot Mirror
I was looking at VLC and I heard you could "carry" your codecs around. I was looking for software at one point to put onto a USB drive that would allow me to play my media anywhere I wanted. Is there any good VLC specific codec packs?
I am happy to see google going to this pay per view system on the web, they look like they might actually pull it off and we can start seeing the real value of some video going on the internet.
This is actually a really intelligent thing to say. I have seen discussions on that kind of thing.
Actually you can. Create a filter that sends it to the archive directly. It will still come up when you click the label, but you wont see it on your main file view. And setting up labels for general groups is also easy if not the most straight forward thing.
Essentially just create a filter and during the creation process it will allow you to test the filter. WHile testing you can mark all the conversations that come up and return to the main view and apply the label you want to those conversations and send them to the archive as well.
After a period of setting up filters correctly, all that you would see in the inbox is information that was unlabeled.
You just search for it. THats the point, and if the filesystem goes a bit further it could organize things in some kind of semi logical manner as well. Or you could organize them. The searching isnt tied to the file structure, it is tied to the content. So you could organize however you merry well feel like it from an actual logical filesystem point of view, but you could search for the content instead.
I think that is what this is trying to get at.
All I can say is the linking of Google Desktop Search and the program called GDSuite which makes GDS work like the "search" function from windows has already changed how I get to things on my machine. If I know a chunk of code from a certain filetype is what I am looking for, it is extremely straightforward to just type that information in and get a response immediately.
The only thing I can hope to see is for Google Desktop Search to add a "label" functionality to GDS so that I can label things that are "games" and "code" etc, to help narrow down searches or even use virtual directories where it brings up a windows like link to all executables labled for games on the hard drive without having to individually organize.
This way you could make folders that consist of multiple labels and or focus them down to less labels etc at a click of a button.
On a related note, the first Rand McNalley books were actually done this way. they would take a camera with them and document intersections where you would have to turn to get to major intersections. Your idea would simply move that first road mapping idea to the modern era.
By stitching and thus changing the images. It is a really neat thing... what would be better is for them to release it as a tool that home users can use for free which would avoid the TOS violation as far as I can tell.
Thats why it has been tested and tested and tested.
Intelligent design does not even have the room for testing, do you see the difference?
Intelligent design is "giving up" and even Einstien was wrong on several things, and those were born out by testing.
Intelligence design is just giving up, saying "no more testing is needed, its an intelligent being"
And since you can have no logical test for some awe inspiring intelligent being, then intelligent design has to be faith based. Being a Christian I understand that God exists, but I do not pretend that he can be tested for, and i do not thus put him into science.
We arent into a Douglas Adams babblefish example.
The new design removes testing of the hypothesis and replaces it with logical argument.
This means that philosphy can be substituted for science.
IE, if I can make a LOGICAL argument that God exists, then its as good as a tested argument that something else exists.
It is NOT science.
Science requires an entire scientific method to test things, and come to conclusions. Intelligent design does not fit under that. intelligent design is essentially giving up at some point and throwing your hands in the air and going "too complicated, cant be understood"
its an antithesis of science.
And you have thus described why this is such a frightening thing. Science cannot move forward if someone just goes "well, thats that" the problem is the assumption that scientists are saying that about evolution, they are isntead saying "evolution is closest we have right now" and not just giving up and going "welp it was God."
"...not all stuck together like that they won't!" Oddly this is the same problem being addressed by the man with the copy of moores law article at this time.
"Why would I do that? Actually, what benefits do childless marriages get?"
IN some states they get benefits and recognition in plans due to plans at companies.
" All the other tax benefits for children actually require children!" - Perfectly fine with me.
">>>I also did not say that cultures were marriages between one man and one woman.
Did you forget a word here? This doesn't make sense to me." - No I was more accurate in saying it was between one man and more than one women. I do not restrict myself to a specifically Christian Centric view.
"I find it ironic that you list Canada as a neutral place to go, considering they have already legalized gay marriage. Hey, didn't they also get rid of slavery without a bloody war? Hmm, your relocation idea sounds pretty good." -- Moving to Canada may be a good bet, they have a 5 year wait on citizenship, and the process is not quite as easy as you think.
I was not refering to Canada as an example, I was refering to the United States and how it got rid of Slavery. If you would like to lobby your government to get the laws _changed_ then by all means. This is a country by the people and for the people. Trying to force it as a rights issue begins to shift it into the Judical system, when it is not a rights issue.
Homosexuals are not an ethnic minority. So arguments based on classifying yourself as an ethnic minority seems a bit odd to me.
Homosexuals are a social minority, but there are thousands of those. democrats are a social minority (if the 2004 electon is an example). Pedophiles are a social minority, Gamers are a social minority, slashdot users are a social minority, etc...
They all have something in common, a choice about lifestyle they choose to participate in. Social minorities are fluid and you can move in and out of them at will.
Ethnic minority status is relatively static. I hope I have shown the difference here.
You do have opportunites to change the laws, and this is through lobbying. Homosexuals are, politically, a special interest group, and they get what they want through lobbying and laws. Even the civil rights movement went the law route vs the judicial route. They had a congressional act to work from to work against a set of laws at the state level based on interestate commerce.
No such leg to stand on when arguing the homosexual position.
I did answer your question, I made two posts as you can see in your reply list. It is not my fault or on my concience that you only read one of the posts.
I did indeed address the issue of their being no ammendmant broken.
As to your jab concerning Martin Luther King, there was indeed an ammendmant being broken. Do you claim that not allowing homosexuals to marry violates the congresses right to make laws regulating inter-state commerce? If so, all you have to do is convince the supreme court that this is indeed the case, and then the Congress will then take a look into it and decide if it wants to add a deeper focus on the issue with an ammendmant.
Considering that there are 17 seats held by democrats coming up for re-election soon, and the Republicans do not seem to have any chance of losing any, I would certainly wait to make this argument after the Republican controlled senate has passed.
Your argument also fails, heterosexuals or homosexuals are not a part of an ethnic minority. Blacks are part of an ethnic minority. Homosexuals can be of any race, color, or other metric. So linking yourself with a minority group based on ethnicity instead of choice is indeed an incredibly far reach.
I would like to see how you can support the logical link between ethnic minorities and a choice minority.
One other note
[quote]
Article XIV.
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
[/quote]
All laws are being equally applied here. There is no conflict with the constitution.
I proved it by stating that they do not have more rights than heterosexuals?
The constitution does not say that you cannot marry, the laws do. I merely gave you 2 alternatives, you chose to focus on 1 of them.
One, is to change the constitution to give you protected status.
OR (note the OR)
That you can lobby and change the laws of the United States to fundementally alter marriage.
Going through the court system to have them re-define the meaning of the constitution without putting it to a vote of the American people seems terribly... illegitimate.
Also, there are several states that have constitutional ammendmants specifically defining marriage as one man and one woman. Which means that they are excesizing their rights under ammendmant 10 (i beleive) of the constitution to make laws and ammendmants not covered in the constitution.
Black people were able to get a constitutional ammendmant, if you feel your case is strong enough you can get one for homosexuals. There is nothing to stop you other than public support, and I leave that up to you and other homosexuals to drum up.
The civil rights movement, for example, was to get the laws in line with the ammendmant that was passed ensuring that everyone was equal. The problem here is that homosexuals are equal, and have the same rights, they are just angry that those rights are not expanded so that they can what they wish to do.
"if a person is gay they have less rights then if they were straight"
no they dont have less rights. You have not fundementally proved that they have less rights, merely that they do not have other rights that heterosexuals do not have.
Two heterosexual men cannot get married, neither can two heterosexual women.
Your argument is based solely on that you feel that your choice to be homosexual seperates you into a different group with its own needs and rights as everyone else.
I do not.
Pedophiles for example may truly and honestly feel that their sexuality is as obvious to them as you feel your sexuality is obvious to you. Should we give them a wide birth and rights because of the choice or "not choice" as you feel?
No, of course not, I am not saying that you are on the same level of pedophiles, I am saying you are on the same level as heterosexuals and that sexual desire in this case is flat, all on the same level of perceived desire for each other.
The rules apply the same accross this flat landscape. A man can marry a women and vice versa, but a man cannot marry a man and a women cannot marry a women.
This has nothing to do with homophobia, there just seems to be little reason to change the rule other than demands for it to be changed.
In the UNited States (of which I assume you are a citizen) there is a process that can be taken to alter the constitution, or change the laws regarding these things. Those actions have been taken, and they failed utterlly. Most recently they failed in Kansas, which even went a step further in equality and removed heterosexual common law unions from being recognized, which means there is no contradiction now with homosexual common law unions.
The attempt to circumvent the process by trying to create a protected class around choice is heinous. Voting, and laws, are the proper direction for this. If you want homosexuals to be a protected class, all you simply have to do is convince enough people that it is true, and place it on a ballot and get it voted on.
If you feel that this is infeasible, you will note that many things that people want to be law are rejected constantly, and have nothing to do with rights issues either.
To reiterate, there is a process here, and it can be followed. If you are not able to get laws passed to protect based on your choice, then it is a failure of your groups skills at lobbying and not a civil rights failure.
" unless you want to argue against straight marriages for couples who can't or won't have children."
Ok, I would argue that providing incentive before they have children is a bad idea, and only providing the fact that IF they have children then they get the benefits.
I have absolutely no problem with that in heterosexual arguments.
Your argument of "love" is moot, yes you love your fiance, and you may marry him and never have children then, oh well, you get the bennys without meeting the intended goals.
Like I said, this is something that can be fixed, and you can lobby your congress to remove benefits for couples without children, I have absolutely no problem with this and encourage you to do so if you beleive in equality on this situation.
I also did not say that cultures were marriages between one man and one woman.
I would also encourage people to lobby for polygamy as well, but I fear this is not something that will be happening soon.
As to your point on Slavery, individuals worked hard and worked through a very national system of civil war to get it removed. If you feel that you can muster up the required number of combat troops to accomplish the goal in the same way, then by all means do so. Please give warning though so that some of us not invested in either side of the issue can re-locate to Canada during the conflict.
Your argument toward the end of giving the same rights to gay couples as straight is not what would be accomplished through a civil partnership. It would not necessarrilly confer on them rights to logical inherentence or to step children, or incentives currently provided for child rearing such as tax breaks provided to make co-habitation less expensive.
It would be seperate, and could imply all of the things of marriage or it could not, I leave it as an excersize to future lawmakers.
I will quote myself for emphasis "If you feel that Religion should not have protections on this, then you should move to a different country or lobby to have the 1st ammendmant change, I leave that as an excersize to the reader."
Ok, then I should just take your word on it and move on?
I am sorry, I cannot do that from an objective point of view.
As I said, I leave it as an excersize to the reader to do what you fundementally beleive needs to be done to bring equality.
I would hold that most people do not feel that the choice to be homosexual is in the same realm as an ingrained religious beleif that you learned as a child. Though both may have been something because of how a person was raised. Again, the other way to create equality in choice based situations would be to remove Religion as a protected class.
Your question "How can I prove something that is not there" is a pretty big deal. In fact, it is the entire cusp of the issue. With blacks, women, age, etc... you can easily and fundementally prove an assertion. For me to say "I am white" it is easy to look at my skin and make that judgement. If Colon Powell were to assert that he was white would be obvious that it were not so, etc...
If I were to assert "I am Gay" there would be no way to prove or disprove the claim. You could not take a genetic test and prove it. You could not look at my actions and prove it (unless you use stereotypes of homosexuality and that only works with bigots).
So you have your conundrum, you want your choice to be true to the extent you feel this is a civil rights issue and that your rights are being denied. It simply is not true. I do not know how you came to the choice, and for you it may not have SEEMED like a choice, but whether by environment or finding someone in life that you truly loved who happened to be male, you became a homosexual. Remember, choice does not necessarrilly have to be PERSONAL choice, the choice can be made for you through environment.
I had no choice in being raised as a Christian, for example, though it is unlikely I will ever denounce Christianity at this point, though I consider it a choice of the environment I was raised in.
Some people may feel that they have no choice to commit other acts, or to have attractions for children. If there were genetic markers to determine these things, we could essentially stop pedophilia. There are not genetic markers for sexuality, it is not something you are born with, and I think that that throws it right out of the realm of being a rights issue.
Here is an interesting contention for you then.
What basis do you have that Marriage revolves solely around love? That you marry someone BECAUSE you love them?
As a social tool, what is the benefit of marriage? And no, "happy people" is not the correct answer. If this were so, marriage has completely failed that goal and should be abolished entirely.
Two men or two women would not fit the social need of marriage. Married couples often violate the social need of marriage, but thats just how it works.
The social need of marriage is completely focused on giving incentives for pro-creation. Note the word incentive. Even non married people are given special benefits and bonuses when a child is born and or under their care. Married couples are also given this incentive, and it also solidifies inheretence rights, a familial consolidation. In every culture though it is most tied to procreation and the support of a child until it can fend for itself, and a line of sucession when it comes to the assets and holdings of the parents. It would make you wonder why nearly every society (with very very few and minor detractions in small communities) ties marriage to a classification of one man and one ore more women.
The law does not bar two non married lovers from living together and sharing assets, and individuals in those groups to give special powers to their life partner to get the equal and shared responsibilities aspect of marriage. The main thing that cannot be achieved through a will, or other current legal means, is the incentive provided to make living together cheaper to promote child rearing.
I think all would be satisified if there was some process in place to make the current legal steps smoother. IE you can make a person your "family" in a sense, etc... Some kind of civil partnership where the individual is framed as sharing resources and being fundementally dependant on one another.
France for example sidestepped the issue of marriage, which has a very definite definition and social role, and allowed civil partnerships between ANY two people, regardless of orientation or relation.
A mother and a daughter could be civil partners for example.
Would that arrangement satisfy homosexuals? I do not know, but perhaps you can ask homosexuals in france for their opinions, perhaps one will read this board and enlighten us.
The idea is to abandon the idea of marriage as being between two people who love each other, since that does not seem to be a standard in ANY culture, and seems extremely romantic to me.
1. I am not a homophobe.
You are mistaking an objective view on the subject as being anti homosexual.
Religion is protected by the constitution, I left it up to the reader to drum up support and remove it from the constitution. You can do something about this to equalize it, the best bet is to remove all choice based rights from the spectrum. This country was based on the fact as Religion being a fundemental choice that everyone would be expected to make, and stick with in some capacity or another. So it is protected. If you would like that protected status removed from religion, let me reiterate, you can drum up support in the United States and get it removed, or if it is also in your country (not US) you can simply drum up support through whatever processes are available to you to get it removed from there.
Until then, I am going to have to work from the premise that this is the only exception to rule that you do not allow a fundemental external choice to be discriminated against.
As to your beleif that homosexuality is not a choice.
1. you need to fundementally prove this. You cannot just state it to be so and then have it be true.
In the sense of skin color, gender, etc... Nothing you fundementally do will change those aspects about you, except through hiding it.
In the aspect of homosexuality you can easily say "I am gay" and then you would be a protected class. The mere assertion of it, places you in the protected class. When it comes to religion, even religions are not protected class when the religious invdividual makes a habitual nuicance of themselves, so it is not completely protected in the way that someone who has say... lost a leg is protected.
If you are asking for Homosexuality, a choice, to be protected the same as Religion, again I leave it as an excersize to the reader to do this, enjoy your uphill battle and know that you leave it open for any choice based activity to become a protected class.
Once you enter the realm of allowing a choice about something to make the determing factor of protection, you really have to worry about where that could possibly head.
NOTE:
Also, again the research issue, I do know about the twin studies done, but if you look at the research and how it was conducted, it was not conducted in a manner where the sample sizes were metered very well, and the sample pool was pulled from those pre-disposed to meet the criteria for proof of genetics in homosexuality.
For example, there has been no study where twins were asked to join, and then asked "are you gay" from all twins of a large subset, but were asked for twin pairs from magazines that would likely find groups of homosexuals reading them. Again, I do not say I am against these things, but even in that focused group where there were guarenteed matches (not scientific) the precentage was still relatively low. And to make the percentages higher, you REALLY have to play with the numbers a lot.
If you read the studies and the people that try to prove them, it becomes harder than trying to track the number of times our president has changed his reasons for tracking Iraq.
Homosexuality is not a religion. It is a choice you can make. You can go in and out of the group based on how you feel. You do not have to be able to prove it. Religion is protected because it is religion and there are consequences to the choice. Repression can involve violent uprising by the religion to maintain its ability to be what it is.
Homosexuality is something you could claim to be or not claim to be totally based on how you want to avoid or not avoid something.
If I found that homosexuals could get scholarships that i could not, i could just tell everyone I was a homosexual.
Unlike being a black man. If I am a black man and feel that white people get more benefits, I cannot just go and tell someone I am white and expect them to beleive me. The same goes with age (though you can try to hide it), sexuality (again you can try to hide it), etc...
With homosexuality you can just go and say "I am gay" and there would be no way to prove it, or deny it for either party. You couldnt ask them to prove it with sex, as there are plenty of heterosexuals that have never had sex, or kiss a guy if you say that you find it repulsive to kiss someone you do not love.
It is a choice, no matter how much that choice may fundementally beleive. If you feel that Religion should not have protections on this, then you should move to a different country or lobby to have the 1st ammendmant change, I leave that as an excersize to the reader.
Nexus is a very good game. The problem with it is that it is not an EASY game. Once you get the hang of what you are doing, you can fight multiple ships at once without necessarrilly having to gang up on vessels.
The problem with most players is that they go right for the "bang weapons against shields and armour!!!!" strategy, which generally does not work to well in nexus.
even though it has default fire settings, those are "AI" fire settings, and the ships try to determine what the best course of action for their weapons are based on that generalized AI setting you put it on. If you tell it to attack a HULL of one ship, if it sees a good opportunity to use its weapons against a nearby ship, it may ignore the original ship.
In Nexus you should handle everything in a little but more micromanaged way, and you can start getting kills rather fast.
The main flaw is the lack of emphasis in training on using the manual controls for the ships, and it can make the single player frustrating as battleships tend to be completely and utterally unable to kill ships bigger than a cruiser without help. But, if you use the specialized disabling weapons, all the sudden large ships can actually beat each other to death, but it wont likely be using the AI modes the game comes with.
NExus is probably the best space fighting game I have played in a tactical sense. Wherease homeworld1/2 comes out better in the movement and intuitive sense.
Though your reply seems to be bait of some kind, instead of "Pron" put "COol media you want to show off" and you are getting closer to the target.
For me it was when I was trying to show a friend videos of the Tsunami disaster that were circulating and he did not have the codecs for it. I also have had times where I have found an interesting movie such as _Grau *use google, that I wanted to show friends of mine and I was unable to because I did not have quicktime alternative codec on hand at the moment.
I have also come to points where I have wanted to show people some music videos done to genre specific art forms (such as _grau) and not had the proper codec.
So, having a standalone media player with codecs that are media player centric would be absolutely spectacular.
Is there a media player that can be ported with all of its codecs?
When I move from machine to machine, I usually install the codec packs and then run mplayer off of the USB drive for the media off of it. If there was a media player where I could avoid the hassle of installing the codecs for the media that would be great!
I also found that winamp runs as a good media player to port around on machines as well. Some small ftp programs like ftp explorer work without needing installation, and i always keep a cd cracked version of some of my older games (such as quake 3 and pre-steam half life1) on my USB drive as well.
(pocket sized 40 gig USB).