If you decide consciously that you are not going to play by the rules that the rest of us play by, don't be surprised when the rest of us look at you as though you're an idiot.
You should reconsider your overuse of the word 'that'. Your first sentence would be more readable as follows: "If you decide consciously you are not going to play by the rules the rest of us play by,..."
Removing the unnecessary 'thats' results in a cleaner, more natural sentence. Also, you really aren't supposed to start sentences with the word 'and'.;)
Signed,
FCM, who still struggles in removing 'thats' from typed correspondence and understands your failure in this area.
So... to extrapolate, you don't think homosexuals deserve love or to have satisfying relationships with people they love?
What? I have no idea where you came up with that. I don't believe that at all.
At this point all I'm getting out of this conversation is that you are predisposed to being against me. You're going to twist my words to suit your opinion of me regardless of what I say. So, this will be my last response to you.
And I'm sorry, but someone being disgusted by who I or you or anyone else sleeps with or is in love with is NOT a valid reason for firing someone.
Agreed. Again, I don't care what people do in the privacy of their own homes. I care how they behave while on the job. See below for more on this:
And who the hell cares if it puts people off? Someone who doesn't hew to rigid gender stereotypes deserves to be fired or evicted?
Fired? Yes, absolutely, if circumstances warrant. If I run a business and an employee is flaming gay, trying desperately to tell everyone just how gay he is with over-the-top behavior, I have every right to get rid of him. Why, because it is disruptive to the other employees, it's disruptive to customers, and a lot of people are simply bothered by it - including me.
Yes, that's reason enough - many people being bothered by something a person can control - to fire. If an employee uses foul language, he gets fired. If he makes unwanted sexual advances to people, he gets fired. Likewise, if an employee cannot control his flaming behavior while on the job and it is disruptive - guess what, he gets fired.
Evicted? Well, that depends. I wouldn't evict someone just for being gay. I don't think that's right. This is a very different situation from employment; I can't think of a reasonable justification where even flaming gay behavior could be grounds for an eviction. Behavior in even a rented home is a lot different from behavior at work.
But 9 of 10 gay people do not behave "like little girls" in any way (in fact, you probably are around a lot of gay people you have no clue are gay).
I know that. And you know what? Those people don't need laws to protect them - if they behave normally, nobody knows they're gay, so there's no problem here. Bill Clinton got a lot of shit for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", but quite frankly I think that's an appropriate response. Why? (1) It's none of my damn business who you sleep with; (2) I don't want to know, so please don't make it so obvious; (3) If I don't know, you don't have to worry about my opinion of it.
By the way - I am significantly more supportive of gay people who behave normally. I'm sorry, but it's the flamers who have ruined it for your community. The people who shove their gayness in everyone's face with their flaming behavior are the reason for these backlashes. I don't have any problem with the 9 out of 10 gay people who behave normally in public.
Yes, you're a bigot.
According to the dictionary, a bigot is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from their own. For you to call me a bigot is horse shit. I am perfectly tolerant of your opinion, and I am perfectly tolerant of normal gay people. But I don't have to be tolerant of flaming behavior, and refusing to tolerate that does not make me a bigot any more than refusing to tolerate a loud-mouthed asshole does.
Further, there is a huge difference between tolerance and acceptance, which is something the gay community needs to learn. Tolerance is, "I understand you are this way. I don't like it and I don't agree with it, but it is your decision and I will leave well enough alone." I have infinite tolerance for homosexuals.
Acceptance, on the other hand, is something I do not have. Acceptance says, "I agree with your behavior, I think it's acceptable." Sorry, but I don't agree with it. I don't think it's acceptable. And I'm not a bigot for not accepting it.
I can refuse to fully embrace your lifestyle while simultaneously tolerating it. Keep pushing for acceptance and you'll get more and more backlash. Learn to live with tolerance and you'll be just fine.
They like watching commercial free HD broadcasts on a larger screen vs crowding around a small computer monitor.
You seem to equate computer displayed/downloaded content with a small monitor.
You do understand, don't you, that you can quickly configure a computer to display content on your 46" HDTV natively? I used to have a 65" widescreen HD display. My computer fed DVDs and AVIs and video games and anything else I wanted right to it. Nobody seemed to have a problem "crowding around" that "small" computer monitor.
I replaced that little monitor with a 12 foot display driven by an HD projector. Again, virtually all of the content I watch on it is fed by a computer. So I can watch these ABC downloads on an entire wall. Again, people don't seem to mind crowding around it.
I don't know anyone who actually watches downloaded movies and TV shows on a regular computer monitor. I do, however, know a lot of people who use an HTPC to display virtually all of their content on big RPTVs like yours.
Yes, I would fully expect that should someone find a way to beat the DRM and make commercial free copies available that the long arm of the law will come after them.
As would I, as this is already happening now with people who record OTA and redistribute.
However, I was thinking more along the lines of someone distributing a small program that does this for you, not the content itself. In that manner, I would be breaking the mandatory commercial scheme on my own download of the show. It seems perfectly acceptable to me - afterall, this tool would be no different than a Tivo in terms of the end result.
Before we jump all over ABC here - "What?! Only 4 shows?! And they all suck!" - this is a huge step forward. I hope this program is successful, as it would mean people like myself without a clear OTA signal will be able to legally download broadcast television.
The bigger concern here is what will the laws say about my ripping the forced commercials out? Given the industry's history in developing copy protection schemes, this will likely be a trivial matter. Now, it's perfectly legal for me to do this with the OTA signal - will the DMCA be invoked against people who do this with the downloads?
Anyway, let's congratulate ABC on this leap of faith. I am appreciative of it, and may sit through a few of those awful shows just to support their new distribution model.
I'm not going to address most of your points because it's obvious we will never come to an agreement on this subject. Regardless of what I say, you will continue to claim I am an "ignorant bigot", so it' s pointless. However, I do want to address a few issues:
WRONG WRONG WRONG. You think homosexuals can't be virgins?
I wasn't talking about sex. I was talking about two people of the same sex loving one another in an intimate manner. Of course homosexual people can be virgins.
it's perfectly legal to fire someone just for being gay, evict someone just because they're gay (and that does happen a lot), and beat the shit out of people because they're gay.
With regards to hiring, homosexuals are discriminated against for perfectly valid reasons. Many people find their behavior disgusting. Quite frankly, grown men behaving like little girls, displaying the stereotypical homosexual traits, really puts people off. I won't hire someone who can't act normal. What a person does in his bedroom is none of my business, but how he interfaces with my customers and how he behaves while on the job is.
Therefore, if homosexual people find they are being discriminated against in employment, the solution is to simply stop behaving so flagrantly. Take my boss, for example: If you didn't know him, you wouldn't know he was gay. He's not hiding in the closet; he's just not going out of his way to attract attention to his sexual orientation. I respect him for that. More importantly, I can stand to be around him, and so can everyone else who works with him.
As for "beating the shit out of people", this is still perfectly illegal everywhere, as it should be. No sane person believes this is acceptable and I've never heard of anyone calling for it's legalization.
TONS of people hate gay people "just for being gay", and virtually all of them quite and cite the Bible in the justification of their treatment of gay people.
These people are hypocrites. It is true, the Bible does not have good things to say about gay people. However, the Bible also does not have good things to say about any of us - it is quite clear that we are all sinners, all equally bad (and good) in God's eyes. Yes, Christians believe homosexuality is a sin. But we also believe lust is a sin, one I am guilty of every time I see an attractive woman in a nice pair of jeans. Not to mention the countless other sins we are all guilty of.
My point is: Treating people badly and justifying it by quoting the Bible is clearly wrong. The so-called "Christians" who do this are conveniently ignoring the parts of the Bible they don't like, and as such, are not behaving as Christians at all.
Matthew 7:3: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
I will not condemn homosexuals because (a) I am every bit the sinner as they are, and (b) they are my brothers in Christ. Therefore I shall treat them like a brother. Jesus told us to love one another and since I (attempt to) follow his teachings, I will oblige. Not because I am "forced" to, but because it's the right thing to do.
So you can call me an ignorant bigot, closed minded, or whatever you wish. You can add me to your list of foes and write me off as an awful person. Still, at the end of the day, I will treat you better than the majority of people on this planet would and I will fight from within to teach others who call themselves Christians to start behaving as such.
It's like saying "I don't agree with blue eyes". It's an assinine statement. And thinking it's a "choice" is equally ignorant. It proves you haven't thought about it one whit, nor have you looked at any studies, or anything else.
Horse shit. Blue eyes are something you can't control. Homosexual behavior is. Sorry, but the "facts" of homosexuals being "born that way" are very much in dispute.
See, I find it ridiculous you can stand up and compare a behavior with something a person "is". A black person is black because he was born with black skin. A disabled person is disabled because he has a physical problem. A homosexual is only a homosexual because he engages in homosexual behavior. Surely you can understand the difference between behavior - something you can control - and something you simply are whether you like it or not.
I realize you will come back with a statement such as, "Homosexuals just ARE, too." I disagree. Homosexuality is a learned behavior.
gay people are whole, loving, caring, and worthwhile people who deserve equal treatment and protection under the law
If you have homosexual friends and a homosexual boss, you obviously don't KNOW them, or you'd know damn well it wasn't a choice. How can you even say that? Have you listened to their struggles, their stories of coming to terms with themselves, coming out to families and friends, fear of rejection, etc?
Yes, I have. I watched as my friend, a heterosexual who'd had sex with women, "discovered" he liked men, too. "Now I know why I've always been so sensitive", he said - as if straight men can't be sensitive? At first, he'd get angry if you said he was gay: "No, I'm BI. I like women, too." However, having found acceptance by other men - something he was never very good at getting from women - he eventually dropped the "bi". Now, women are "gross" and people who are attracted to them are "breeders".
I love the guy. He's my buddy. He always will be. But his homosexual behavior was learned, a result of finding it easier to bond with gay men. I believe, had he not found friendship - and, eventually, comfort - in the company of several gay men he met as a teenager, he would have eventually found what he was looking for in a woman.
Who would ever CHOOSE to be so universally hated and oppressed?
Homosexuality is in vogue right now. It's been quite popular for a long time. In fact, the general idea of being an outcast became extremely popular in the early nineties. Before about 15 years ago, people tried to fit in. Now, they try to "fit out", finding comfort in dressing like vampires, using legal or illegal drugs, wearing extra-baggy clothes, or - yes - going gay.
So, why would someone choose to be "universally hated and oppressed?" Simple - it's popular. Oh, and the hatred and oppression is not universal. People who engage in behaviors that make them social outcasts find comfort and friends in other social outcasts. Why do you think raves are so popular?
It's the hatred and oppression from many of Jesus's followers that Liberals and Gays can do without.
See, you people blow everything out of proportion. You know what - other than a few fucked up individuals, such as those sickos who killed Matthew Sheppard (may they forever rot in hell for their actions) - virtually nobody hates gay people. Especially Jesus's followers. Anybody who is following Jesus by definition should not hate anyone. Now, are there people who claim to follow Jesus, but hate anyway? Sure there are. But they aren't really following Jesus. Anyone who tells you he is a Christian and that he hates you is lying about one or the other.
Virtually everyone I know will accept you as you are, regardless of sexual orientation. And I hang out with a lot of Christians.
Yeah, it doesn't surprise me that one ignorant bigot would rush to agree with another ignorant bigot, and bond in friendship over their hatered of "the other". Very typical.
And you're a typical liberal jackass. It's much easier for you to label me a hateful bigot than it is to try to understand my point of view.
You know what? Coming out and saying, "Hey, I disagree with homosexuality and I think it is a choice" has nothing to do with hatred. I don't hate homosexuals. I have homosexual friends. My boss is homosexual. I love them just as I'd love anyone else in the world, why, because we're all people. Black, white, gay, straight, male, female, or anywhere in between, it doesn't matter. We're all people, and there's no place for hatred in this world.
That doesn't mean I approve of homosexuality. But I'm perfectly capable of loving and accepting a person regardless of other factors, unlike most of you liberals who hate Christians with all your heart and soul.
First, burning takes forever. Secondly, the DVDs don't play very well.
Then you're doing it wrong.
I can perform a full rip & burn of a DVD in 30 minutes. Place disc in, open software, hit copy, read/. and it's done. Burning a downloaded movie is slightly different in that you'll need to recompress into mpeg2 format first, but there should be tools to do this for you. My guess is the recompression is what's taking the time - there's no way you're spending hours on the actual burn.
As for playback, you're probably burning too fast. Don't burn faster than 4x. If you still have problems, drop to 2x.
I no longer have the right to skip the minute's worth of anti-piracy warnings on DVDs I buy. I can't even fast forward it.
I can. I rip a copy of every DVD I want to watch with software that, during the ripping process, discards these "features". I then skip them to my heart's content.
Oh, and since I already have to rip a copy to enjoy my movies the way I want to, I don't bother to buy them anymore. Rent/Rip/Burn. Sorry Hollywood. There was a time when I owned several hundred movies, all purchased legitimately. During that time I had quit buying music due to the industry's antics. Now you're going down the same road so I quit buying DVDs.
I have nothing to add to this other than to say, "I agree", and I've added you as a friend for having the guts to speak your mind on this matter in this forum.
I don't know why people are always saying garbage like this. The people who are saying must be not married , real jerks to their wives , or just plain smell bad.
Married 10 years, I'm a caring and compassionate husband and father, and I shower regularly. Oh, and I don't seem to have any problems attracting female attention around town, though I don't act on any of it because I am married and faithful to my wife.
My marriage and doesn't suffer from this problem , and I have never once heard one of my friends complain about their wives being unresponsive.
Maybe you haven't been married long enough. Or maybe your circle of friends aren't religious.
This seems to be a real problem in Christian households, of which ours is one. Nevermind that the Bible gives great freedom and encouragement for a husband and wife to fully enjoy one another's bodies, it seems many Christian women are frigid. In fact, the sexual frequency of my marriage went through the floor when my wife got saved.
And yes, I'm complaining about it because it pisses me off, because it's wrong, and because it's decidedly un-Christian.
Never mind rape, how about all the women who are faithful to their husband and end up contracting AIDS from him, because he's been having sex with prostitutes on the side?
I guess she should be putting out more often, then.
That's right, I said it. Married women stop putting out, then they act all shocked that their husbands look at porn or cheat on them. Gee, lady, when you give me the cold shoulder every night what the hell do you expect me to do?
When I was dating, we had sex multiple times per day. After marriage, I'm lucky to get it multiple times in a month. And the more excuses she comes up with, the more willing I am to look at porn and/or cheat on her.
Good point;) I must admit that I didn't really get that impression the one time I visited the US, but I guess I might have just been "lucky" and/or filtered it out.
I don't see the pricks everywhere I go so I'd guess you got lucky. To be perfectly honest, though, they are a minority. In any given movie theater, you might have 80 great people and 2 or 3 pricks.
Unfortunately that's still a huge percentage of the population as compared to many other nations.
Frankly, Even at $25 for two tickets and popcorn, and seeing a movie approxamitely once every other week, if I decided to save that money, I'd still not have enough money for the minimum payment on a $5000 entertainment center, complete with surround sound and super sized TV.
Yeah, but I can watch a movie as often as I want with as many friends as I like for the same low cost - usually free because someone always has a good DVD handy.
And nothing beats an action movie on a huge screen. Sense and sensibility doesn't lose anything being watched on your TV, but you had to see... and I mean SEE... episode 3 on a big screen at least once to get the beauty of the visuals... if you are into that sort of thing.
I find this funny, because I've had several people say the same thing about the size of the screen even after I tell them how big my screen is.
I have a 12 foot 16:9 screen hit by a high def, high lumen projector. It is just as immersive than any theater I've ever been to. In fact it's more so because I always have a front row seat - no heads getting in my way to draw my senses away from the experience.
And the comment I've heard routinely is, "But it's not 40 feet wide." No, but I'm not sitting 40 feet away from it, either. The experience is the same because in my living room, the entire front wall is filled with imagery, exactly like in the theater. This is the key to truly replacing the theater - don't put a box in front of you, fill the entire wall.
I'm really curious why this is such a problem "over there". I've yet to go to a movie here in Oslo, Norway where there's anything like that (not counting movies for kids).
I'm surprised you have to ask this question. As most of the international community seems to know, there are a large amount of people in the United States who are pompous, arrogant assholes. execu The catch is, they're not just arrogant assholes when they come to visit your lovely communities; they're also arrogant assholes here at home. And the rest of us, who aren't assholes, have to put up with them because for some unknown reason laws allowing us to beat the shit out of them for being assholes have yet to be drafted.
Really, if it were legal to beat the shit out of an asshole, there'd be a lot less assholes around.
Hey, thanks for the link. This Philip Anschutz sounds like my kind of guy. Maybe I'll reconsider my position on not giving money to theaters if they're owned by this guy.
Why why WHY do you have to charge us 6 bucks for about 80 cents worth of pop?
80 cents? You're giving them way too much credit. Your local McDonalds will sell you that pop for a buck fifty and they're making a thousand percent profit. The theaters are bending you over and raping you. This is why people walk funny when they have their hands full of theater concessions. Hell, you can feel the violation of your backside just walking PAST the concession counters whether you buy anything or not!
Let me give you a tip: I used to work in the french fry business. McDonalds pays about 12 bucks, give or take, for a case of fries. That same case retails for $120-$150 once the fries are cooked and placed in little boxes.
In the restaurant industry, there is only one product that has higher margins than french fries: Soda pop. And their margins are significantly higher. You do the math.
Heck, simultaneous release might even provide motivation for the studios to put out better movies. If they do such a release, and it bombs, the loss will be much greater than if they just did a theatrical release, so the motivation will be "Do a better job!"
All of your points are wholly accurate. I don't go to the movies anymore, except for the rare social occasion where I'm invited and go primarily for the company of friends. Typically, we watch movies at home.
My 12 foot 16:9 screen, high def projector, and 7.1 channel surround simply kick the shit out of the "theater experience." The picture quality in my living room is better by far and my audio kicks the shit out of the crackling garbage downtown. Oh, and I've only got about five grand invested.
The theaters are threatened because a lot of people DO prefer watching movies at home, and they're losing their major advantage. If they don't like it, they should try to make their experience better, not bitch and moan about quick DVD releases.
Damn straight. Replace those shitty aging projectors and actually hire employees who know how to operate them. I can't count how many times entire movies have been misframed. And the audio - I don't know about the rest of you, but the audio at my local theaters is awful.
Then they could try cleaning the floors and throwing out unruly people who think it's OK to talk excessively, use cellular phones, throw popcorn and generally behave like cretins.
But they won't, so people like me invest in personal theaters that, for a few thousand bucks, provide a wholly better experience.
Slashdot Mirror
If you decide consciously that you are not going to play by the rules that the rest of us play by, don't be surprised when the rest of us look at you as though you're an idiot.
..."
;)
You should reconsider your overuse of the word 'that'. Your first sentence would be more readable as follows: "If you decide consciously you are not going to play by the rules the rest of us play by,
Removing the unnecessary 'thats' results in a cleaner, more natural sentence. Also, you really aren't supposed to start sentences with the word 'and'.
Signed,
FCM, who still struggles in removing 'thats' from typed correspondence and understands your failure in this area.
So... to extrapolate, you don't think homosexuals deserve love or to have satisfying relationships with people they love?
What? I have no idea where you came up with that. I don't believe that at all.
At this point all I'm getting out of this conversation is that you are predisposed to being against me. You're going to twist my words to suit your opinion of me regardless of what I say. So, this will be my last response to you.
And I'm sorry, but someone being disgusted by who I or you or anyone else sleeps with or is in love with is NOT a valid reason for firing someone.
Agreed. Again, I don't care what people do in the privacy of their own homes. I care how they behave while on the job. See below for more on this:
And who the hell cares if it puts people off? Someone who doesn't hew to rigid gender stereotypes deserves to be fired or evicted?
Fired? Yes, absolutely, if circumstances warrant. If I run a business and an employee is flaming gay, trying desperately to tell everyone just how gay he is with over-the-top behavior, I have every right to get rid of him. Why, because it is disruptive to the other employees, it's disruptive to customers, and a lot of people are simply bothered by it - including me.
Yes, that's reason enough - many people being bothered by something a person can control - to fire. If an employee uses foul language, he gets fired. If he makes unwanted sexual advances to people, he gets fired. Likewise, if an employee cannot control his flaming behavior while on the job and it is disruptive - guess what, he gets fired.
Evicted? Well, that depends. I wouldn't evict someone just for being gay. I don't think that's right. This is a very different situation from employment; I can't think of a reasonable justification where even flaming gay behavior could be grounds for an eviction. Behavior in even a rented home is a lot different from behavior at work.
But 9 of 10 gay people do not behave "like little girls" in any way (in fact, you probably are around a lot of gay people you have no clue are gay).
I know that. And you know what? Those people don't need laws to protect them - if they behave normally, nobody knows they're gay, so there's no problem here. Bill Clinton got a lot of shit for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", but quite frankly I think that's an appropriate response. Why? (1) It's none of my damn business who you sleep with; (2) I don't want to know, so please don't make it so obvious; (3) If I don't know, you don't have to worry about my opinion of it.
By the way - I am significantly more supportive of gay people who behave normally. I'm sorry, but it's the flamers who have ruined it for your community. The people who shove their gayness in everyone's face with their flaming behavior are the reason for these backlashes. I don't have any problem with the 9 out of 10 gay people who behave normally in public.
Yes, you're a bigot.
According to the dictionary, a bigot is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from their own. For you to call me a bigot is horse shit. I am perfectly tolerant of your opinion, and I am perfectly tolerant of normal gay people. But I don't have to be tolerant of flaming behavior, and refusing to tolerate that does not make me a bigot any more than refusing to tolerate a loud-mouthed asshole does.
Further, there is a huge difference between tolerance and acceptance, which is something the gay community needs to learn. Tolerance is, "I understand you are this way. I don't like it and I don't agree with it, but it is your decision and I will leave well enough alone." I have infinite tolerance for homosexuals.
Acceptance, on the other hand, is something I do not have. Acceptance says, "I agree with your behavior, I think it's acceptable." Sorry, but I don't agree with it. I don't think it's acceptable. And I'm not a bigot for not accepting it.
I can refuse to fully embrace your lifestyle while simultaneously tolerating it. Keep pushing for acceptance and you'll get more and more backlash. Learn to live with tolerance and you'll be just fine.
They like watching commercial free HD broadcasts on a larger screen vs crowding around a small computer monitor.
You seem to equate computer displayed/downloaded content with a small monitor.
You do understand, don't you, that you can quickly configure a computer to display content on your 46" HDTV natively? I used to have a 65" widescreen HD display. My computer fed DVDs and AVIs and video games and anything else I wanted right to it. Nobody seemed to have a problem "crowding around" that "small" computer monitor.
I replaced that little monitor with a 12 foot display driven by an HD projector. Again, virtually all of the content I watch on it is fed by a computer. So I can watch these ABC downloads on an entire wall. Again, people don't seem to mind crowding around it.
I don't know anyone who actually watches downloaded movies and TV shows on a regular computer monitor. I do, however, know a lot of people who use an HTPC to display virtually all of their content on big RPTVs like yours.
Yes, I would fully expect that should someone find a way to beat the DRM and make commercial free copies available that the long arm of the law will come after them.
As would I, as this is already happening now with people who record OTA and redistribute.
However, I was thinking more along the lines of someone distributing a small program that does this for you, not the content itself. In that manner, I would be breaking the mandatory commercial scheme on my own download of the show. It seems perfectly acceptable to me - afterall, this tool would be no different than a Tivo in terms of the end result.
Before we jump all over ABC here - "What?! Only 4 shows?! And they all suck!" - this is a huge step forward. I hope this program is successful, as it would mean people like myself without a clear OTA signal will be able to legally download broadcast television.
The bigger concern here is what will the laws say about my ripping the forced commercials out? Given the industry's history in developing copy protection schemes, this will likely be a trivial matter. Now, it's perfectly legal for me to do this with the OTA signal - will the DMCA be invoked against people who do this with the downloads?
Anyway, let's congratulate ABC on this leap of faith. I am appreciative of it, and may sit through a few of those awful shows just to support their new distribution model.
I'm not going to address most of your points because it's obvious we will never come to an agreement on this subject. Regardless of what I say, you will continue to claim I am an "ignorant bigot", so it' s pointless. However, I do want to address a few issues:
WRONG WRONG WRONG. You think homosexuals can't be virgins?
I wasn't talking about sex. I was talking about two people of the same sex loving one another in an intimate manner. Of course homosexual people can be virgins.
it's perfectly legal to fire someone just for being gay, evict someone just because they're gay (and that does happen a lot), and beat the shit out of people because they're gay.
With regards to hiring, homosexuals are discriminated against for perfectly valid reasons. Many people find their behavior disgusting. Quite frankly, grown men behaving like little girls, displaying the stereotypical homosexual traits, really puts people off. I won't hire someone who can't act normal. What a person does in his bedroom is none of my business, but how he interfaces with my customers and how he behaves while on the job is.
Therefore, if homosexual people find they are being discriminated against in employment, the solution is to simply stop behaving so flagrantly. Take my boss, for example: If you didn't know him, you wouldn't know he was gay. He's not hiding in the closet; he's just not going out of his way to attract attention to his sexual orientation. I respect him for that. More importantly, I can stand to be around him, and so can everyone else who works with him.
As for "beating the shit out of people", this is still perfectly illegal everywhere, as it should be. No sane person believes this is acceptable and I've never heard of anyone calling for it's legalization.
TONS of people hate gay people "just for being gay", and virtually all of them quite and cite the Bible in the justification of their treatment of gay people.
These people are hypocrites. It is true, the Bible does not have good things to say about gay people. However, the Bible also does not have good things to say about any of us - it is quite clear that we are all sinners, all equally bad (and good) in God's eyes. Yes, Christians believe homosexuality is a sin. But we also believe lust is a sin, one I am guilty of every time I see an attractive woman in a nice pair of jeans. Not to mention the countless other sins we are all guilty of.
My point is: Treating people badly and justifying it by quoting the Bible is clearly wrong. The so-called "Christians" who do this are conveniently ignoring the parts of the Bible they don't like, and as such, are not behaving as Christians at all.
Matthew 7:3: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
I will not condemn homosexuals because (a) I am every bit the sinner as they are, and (b) they are my brothers in Christ. Therefore I shall treat them like a brother. Jesus told us to love one another and since I (attempt to) follow his teachings, I will oblige. Not because I am "forced" to, but because it's the right thing to do.
So you can call me an ignorant bigot, closed minded, or whatever you wish. You can add me to your list of foes and write me off as an awful person. Still, at the end of the day, I will treat you better than the majority of people on this planet would and I will fight from within to teach others who call themselves Christians to start behaving as such.
It's like saying "I don't agree with blue eyes". It's an assinine statement. And thinking it's a "choice" is equally ignorant. It proves you haven't thought about it one whit, nor have you looked at any studies, or anything else.
Horse shit. Blue eyes are something you can't control. Homosexual behavior is. Sorry, but the "facts" of homosexuals being "born that way" are very much in dispute.
See, I find it ridiculous you can stand up and compare a behavior with something a person "is". A black person is black because he was born with black skin. A disabled person is disabled because he has a physical problem. A homosexual is only a homosexual because he engages in homosexual behavior. Surely you can understand the difference between behavior - something you can control - and something you simply are whether you like it or not.
I realize you will come back with a statement such as, "Homosexuals just ARE, too." I disagree. Homosexuality is a learned behavior.
gay people are whole, loving, caring, and worthwhile people who deserve equal treatment and protection under the law
If you have homosexual friends and a homosexual boss, you obviously don't KNOW them, or you'd know damn well it wasn't a choice. How can you even say that? Have you listened to their struggles, their stories of coming to terms with themselves, coming out to families and friends, fear of rejection, etc?
Yes, I have. I watched as my friend, a heterosexual who'd had sex with women, "discovered" he liked men, too. "Now I know why I've always been so sensitive", he said - as if straight men can't be sensitive? At first, he'd get angry if you said he was gay: "No, I'm BI. I like women, too." However, having found acceptance by other men - something he was never very good at getting from women - he eventually dropped the "bi". Now, women are "gross" and people who are attracted to them are "breeders".
I love the guy. He's my buddy. He always will be. But his homosexual behavior was learned, a result of finding it easier to bond with gay men. I believe, had he not found friendship - and, eventually, comfort - in the company of several gay men he met as a teenager, he would have eventually found what he was looking for in a woman.
Who would ever CHOOSE to be so universally hated and oppressed?
Homosexuality is in vogue right now. It's been quite popular for a long time. In fact, the general idea of being an outcast became extremely popular in the early nineties. Before about 15 years ago, people tried to fit in. Now, they try to "fit out", finding comfort in dressing like vampires, using legal or illegal drugs, wearing extra-baggy clothes, or - yes - going gay.
So, why would someone choose to be "universally hated and oppressed?" Simple - it's popular. Oh, and the hatred and oppression is not universal. People who engage in behaviors that make them social outcasts find comfort and friends in other social outcasts. Why do you think raves are so popular?
It's the hatred and oppression from many of Jesus's followers that Liberals and Gays can do without.
See, you people blow everything out of proportion. You know what - other than a few fucked up individuals, such as those sickos who killed Matthew Sheppard (may they forever rot in hell for their actions) - virtually nobody hates gay people. Especially Jesus's followers. Anybody who is following Jesus by definition should not hate anyone. Now, are there people who claim to follow Jesus, but hate anyway? Sure there are. But they aren't really following Jesus. Anyone who tells you he is a Christian and that he hates you is lying about one or the other.
Virtually everyone I know will accept you as you are, regardless of sexual orientation. And I hang out with a lot of Christians.
Yeah, it doesn't surprise me that one ignorant bigot would rush to agree with another ignorant bigot, and bond in friendship over their hatered of "the other". Very typical.
And you're a typical liberal jackass. It's much easier for you to label me a hateful bigot than it is to try to understand my point of view.
You know what? Coming out and saying, "Hey, I disagree with homosexuality and I think it is a choice" has nothing to do with hatred. I don't hate homosexuals. I have homosexual friends. My boss is homosexual. I love them just as I'd love anyone else in the world, why, because we're all people. Black, white, gay, straight, male, female, or anywhere in between, it doesn't matter. We're all people, and there's no place for hatred in this world.
That doesn't mean I approve of homosexuality. But I'm perfectly capable of loving and accepting a person regardless of other factors, unlike most of you liberals who hate Christians with all your heart and soul.
First, burning takes forever. Secondly, the DVDs don't play very well.
/. and it's done. Burning a downloaded movie is slightly different in that you'll need to recompress into mpeg2 format first, but there should be tools to do this for you. My guess is the recompression is what's taking the time - there's no way you're spending hours on the actual burn.
Then you're doing it wrong.
I can perform a full rip & burn of a DVD in 30 minutes. Place disc in, open software, hit copy, read
As for playback, you're probably burning too fast. Don't burn faster than 4x. If you still have problems, drop to 2x.
I no longer have the right to skip the minute's worth of anti-piracy warnings on DVDs I buy. I can't even fast forward it.
I can. I rip a copy of every DVD I want to watch with software that, during the ripping process, discards these "features". I then skip them to my heart's content.
Oh, and since I already have to rip a copy to enjoy my movies the way I want to, I don't bother to buy them anymore. Rent/Rip/Burn. Sorry Hollywood. There was a time when I owned several hundred movies, all purchased legitimately. During that time I had quit buying music due to the industry's antics. Now you're going down the same road so I quit buying DVDs.
I have nothing to add to this other than to say, "I agree", and I've added you as a friend for having the guts to speak your mind on this matter in this forum.
I don't know why people are always saying garbage like this. The people who are saying must be not married , real jerks to their wives , or just plain smell bad.
Married 10 years, I'm a caring and compassionate husband and father, and I shower regularly. Oh, and I don't seem to have any problems attracting female attention around town, though I don't act on any of it because I am married and faithful to my wife.
My marriage and doesn't suffer from this problem , and I have never once heard one of my friends complain about their wives being unresponsive.
Maybe you haven't been married long enough. Or maybe your circle of friends aren't religious.
This seems to be a real problem in Christian households, of which ours is one. Nevermind that the Bible gives great freedom and encouragement for a husband and wife to fully enjoy one another's bodies, it seems many Christian women are frigid. In fact, the sexual frequency of my marriage went through the floor when my wife got saved.
And yes, I'm complaining about it because it pisses me off, because it's wrong, and because it's decidedly un-Christian.
kids, pets, traffic, in laws, etc. - who has the time?
Wow. I didn't know it was possible for one person to be into all four of those. I guess you really DO learn something new every day!
+1, Added you to my friends list. Well said.
but the problem is that I find foreplay very mentally stimulating, but not the slightest bit physically stimulating.
Right, so, you're a normal man. Welcome to the club.
Never mind rape, how about all the women who are faithful to their husband and end up contracting AIDS from him, because he's been having sex with prostitutes on the side?
I guess she should be putting out more often, then.
That's right, I said it. Married women stop putting out, then they act all shocked that their husbands look at porn or cheat on them. Gee, lady, when you give me the cold shoulder every night what the hell do you expect me to do?
When I was dating, we had sex multiple times per day. After marriage, I'm lucky to get it multiple times in a month. And the more excuses she comes up with, the more willing I am to look at porn and/or cheat on her.
Good point ;) I must admit that I didn't really get that impression the one time I visited the US, but I guess I might have just been "lucky" and/or filtered it out.
I don't see the pricks everywhere I go so I'd guess you got lucky. To be perfectly honest, though, they are a minority. In any given movie theater, you might have 80 great people and 2 or 3 pricks.
Unfortunately that's still a huge percentage of the population as compared to many other nations.
Frankly, Even at $25 for two tickets and popcorn, and seeing a movie approxamitely once every other week, if I decided to save that money, I'd still not have enough money for the minimum payment on a $5000 entertainment center, complete with surround sound and super sized TV.
Yeah, but I can watch a movie as often as I want with as many friends as I like for the same low cost - usually free because someone always has a good DVD handy.
And nothing beats an action movie on a huge screen. Sense and sensibility doesn't lose anything being watched on your TV, but you had to see... and I mean SEE... episode 3 on a big screen at least once to get the beauty of the visuals... if you are into that sort of thing.
I find this funny, because I've had several people say the same thing about the size of the screen even after I tell them how big my screen is.
I have a 12 foot 16:9 screen hit by a high def, high lumen projector. It is just as immersive than any theater I've ever been to. In fact it's more so because I always have a front row seat - no heads getting in my way to draw my senses away from the experience.
And the comment I've heard routinely is, "But it's not 40 feet wide." No, but I'm not sitting 40 feet away from it, either. The experience is the same because in my living room, the entire front wall is filled with imagery, exactly like in the theater. This is the key to truly replacing the theater - don't put a box in front of you, fill the entire wall.
Once you've done that, you'll never go back.
I'm really curious why this is such a problem "over there". I've yet to go to a movie here in Oslo, Norway where there's anything like that (not counting movies for kids).
I'm surprised you have to ask this question. As most of the international community seems to know, there are a large amount of people in the United States who are pompous, arrogant assholes.
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The catch is, they're not just arrogant assholes when they come to visit your lovely communities; they're also arrogant assholes here at home. And the rest of us, who aren't assholes, have to put up with them because for some unknown reason laws allowing us to beat the shit out of them for being assholes have yet to be drafted.
Really, if it were legal to beat the shit out of an asshole, there'd be a lot less assholes around.
Hey, thanks for the link. This Philip Anschutz sounds like my kind of guy. Maybe I'll reconsider my position on not giving money to theaters if they're owned by this guy.
Why why WHY do you have to charge us 6 bucks for about 80 cents worth of pop?
80 cents? You're giving them way too much credit. Your local McDonalds will sell you that pop for a buck fifty and they're making a thousand percent profit. The theaters are bending you over and raping you. This is why people walk funny when they have their hands full of theater concessions. Hell, you can feel the violation of your backside just walking PAST the concession counters whether you buy anything or not!
Let me give you a tip: I used to work in the french fry business. McDonalds pays about 12 bucks, give or take, for a case of fries. That same case retails for $120-$150 once the fries are cooked and placed in little boxes.
In the restaurant industry, there is only one product that has higher margins than french fries: Soda pop. And their margins are significantly higher. You do the math.
P.S. I know, I know ... I must be new here.
No, you don't belong here and must be lost. What's this "girl" creature you speak of?
Heck, simultaneous release might even provide motivation for the studios to put out better movies. If they do such a release, and it bombs, the loss will be much greater than if they just did a theatrical release, so the motivation will be "Do a better job!"
And that's exactly why it will never happen.
HTPC & a little daemon running in the background, all "blocked user functions" are disabled.
That's just not the case, though.
All of your points are wholly accurate. I don't go to the movies anymore, except for the rare social occasion where I'm invited and go primarily for the company of friends. Typically, we watch movies at home.
My 12 foot 16:9 screen, high def projector, and 7.1 channel surround simply kick the shit out of the "theater experience." The picture quality in my living room is better by far and my audio kicks the shit out of the crackling garbage downtown. Oh, and I've only got about five grand invested.
The theaters are threatened because a lot of people DO prefer watching movies at home, and they're losing their major advantage. If they don't like it, they should try to make their experience better, not bitch and moan about quick DVD releases.
Damn straight. Replace those shitty aging projectors and actually hire employees who know how to operate them. I can't count how many times entire movies have been misframed. And the audio - I don't know about the rest of you, but the audio at my local theaters is awful.
Then they could try cleaning the floors and throwing out unruly people who think it's OK to talk excessively, use cellular phones, throw popcorn and generally behave like cretins.
But they won't, so people like me invest in personal theaters that, for a few thousand bucks, provide a wholly better experience.