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Bipolar in General
Off With Their Heads
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I was about to say that ADoS is apparently the lesser man that I am not, but then I clicked on the link. ADoS knows more about being less than I ever will.

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Bipolar in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #52
If I were a lesser man, I'd just quote Synergy's last post on the previous page, quote VCH's latest post, and leave it at that. I shall not.

Synergy: Your most recent posts have attempted to stereotype everything, from men and women to science. If you simply tone down the stereotypes, you'll probably be met with less stiff resistance.

Words are as treacherous or reliable as the person using them. Say what you mean, and the words will communicate just fine.

[ Saturday, December 22, 2007 17:07: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
well ok then in The Exile Trilogy
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Further discussion should be directed, uh, here, I think.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Bipolar in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #45
quote:
Originally written by Synergy:

Imagination includes the realm of that which is unseen and unverifiable.
You're mind-bogglingly ignorant if you think that scientists think that science can answer every question that can be asked. Scientists can also — in their spare time — be artists or read philosophy or whatever. Of course, they don't write about it in their scientific articles, because those articles aren't about that, but sometimes — when we are incredibly fortunate — they write about it in their popularizing literature. Read Feynman sometime. (Or Hawking, if you want some sense of the soulful joy of scientific discovery.)
quote:
How's it working for us? Not so well.
Good god, man, do you know how much our standard of living has improved in the past few century, let alone since the dawn of modern science with Copernicus?
quote:
Happy lot we are for adopting that vision of ourselves, aren't we. Since Darwin, we have enjoyed two very lovely world wars wholly unprecedented prior in millennia of history.
WWI and WWII were not the first total wars in the history of the world (see Sherman's March, the Taiping Rebellion, the Thirty Years War, the Punic Wars, the Peloponnesian War, etc.). The difference was that modern technology — as it does in every respect — made us more efficient.
quote:
Well, see, I talk to a lot of would-be scientists here, and people whose god is clearly science, and I can frequently only describe them as virtually soulless.
quote:
You don't see me at all, so I find the comment irrelevant. You have no idea what I do, or what effect on any lives I may have by what I am being or doing.
You claim that we can't know you at all, but you also claim to know about our relationship to our souls. You ass.

Besides, a "lot"? SoT, Thuryl, Stareye... uh....
quote:
Since you are not a woman, have never been a woman, and seem to be pretty much entirely disconnected from how women work, I'd appreciate it if you would stop ignorantly speaking on behalf of what they are experiencing.
Repeat these same words back to yourself.

[ Saturday, December 22, 2007 12:02: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Omaha Mall Shooting in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #448
quote:
Originally written by Stillness:

If you say it makes sense for the government to extend the classification “married” to unions beside hetero pairs (e.g. polygamous marriage; homosexual pairs; group marriage; members of the immediate family that don’t reproduce) for the same reasons, that seems logical to me. What I don’t see is how this has anything to do with rights or the Constitution.
You asked a question; I answered it. Now you're not sure how it's relevant.

quote:
No, the problems here are quite shallow. It’s lack of ability to understand the topic of the discussion, let alone stick to it.
See the previous quote. You, too, are having trouble sticking to the topic and remembering what you're talking about.

(For reference, the reason that this has anything to do with rights or the Constitution is that denying gay marriage fails all of the levels of scrutiny associated with the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment, since its only basis is in prejudice against homosexual people. Same-sex marriage would be useful for the same reasons that opposite-sex marriage is useful, as I said several pages ago, and there is no reason — save prejudice — to deny it. This is Equal Protection Clause territory. I've been making this argument for a while without using the phrase "Equal Protection Clause," but that's the constitutionality at stake here, I think.)

[ Saturday, December 22, 2007 14:03: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Omaha Mall Shooting in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #438
EDIT: Well, no, let me try again.

Marriage exists entirely to facilitate family law. When couples split and have to divide their property or determine custody of their children, or when one partner dies and inheritance has to be figured out, or in any of many other situations, family law gives rules about what should be done. This allows many situations to be handled by precedent and logic instead of emotion and ad hoc improvisation.

(This is, in fact, one of the problems that same-sex couples face, if they've raised kids together but haven't successfully adopted them together: when they split, the custody battles are particularly awful.)

The tax situation is still controversial ("marriage penalty" and such). It is not the case that married couples always have lower taxes together than they would apart, though, so there isn't necessarily taxation-based financial bribery to get married at present. Why there were incentives at one point is not relevant here; there aren't now, at least not in any trivial way. (Sharing insurance benefits is another issue, though, and these are among the "benefits" referred to when people talk about marrying for the benefits.)

[ Thursday, December 20, 2007 23:25: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Omaha Mall Shooting in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #435
quote:
Originally written by Stillness:

They think it’s good for society. That’s it.
That's not an adequate reason in itself, and you know it. "Good for society" without any greater elaboration is not justification. We need to know exactly how and in what way.

quote:
But the city has the right to try if they have calculated it will produce.
And if they haven't, they very much don't. And in this case, they haven't.

quote:
The burden of proof is on you, not me.
You have it backwards. In the development zone, the burden of proof is on the person who proposes sectioning off a particular part of town for development, instead of developing the whole town. In exactly the same way, the burden of proof here is on opponents of same-sex marriage to show that there is a good reason to support one kind of marriage and not another.

The only support that can be offered is based on prejudice.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Editing Geneforge Maps? in Geneforge Series
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #26
quote:
Originally written by Azuma:

Uhm..lock?
Sorry, wasn't paying attention until just now. Yeah.

To the original poster: Not really.

Starman: Try not to be so disparaging. It's irritating. Iffy: Uh, not sure what to say here.

In general to all: Be nice, use good sense, and when you don't have anything worth saying, shut the heck up.
IMAGE(http://www.atomichobbies.com/assets/images/Oils_Glues_Adhesives/paapt42.jpg)

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Omaha Mall Shooting in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #432
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

Matthew 15:11
Fun fact about Matthew 15:11: I just looked it up in Greek, and it's (as is typical of much of the New Testament) pretty conversational and easy-to-translate Greek, except one of the key words: "defile." This word in Greek is "koinow" ("w" for omega), which literally means "to make common" (and is related to the word for the Greek spoken at the time, "koine," referring to the "common" tongue). It seems most normally to mean "communicate" or "impart information" (as in "make commonly known") although "defile" is certainly one of its meanings. The Latin Vulgate has it as a word I'd never seen before, although it apparently is not uncommon: "coinquino," which definitely means "defile."

But anyway, one of the ways that the Greek New Testament calls stuff bad is terming it "common," a very class-based way of thinking (standard at the time, but nonetheless interesting).

[ Thursday, December 20, 2007 16:44: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Omaha Mall Shooting in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #429
While we're at it, let me object yet again to one reason that Stillness has put forward: producing children. If marriage were for that purpose (and as Drew has pointed out, historically it is not), then it should be abolished entirely, because there are far more direct ways of accomplishing that objective. Producing children won't do as a reason.

Providing a stable household for children cuts both ways: that justifies same-sex marriage as much as it does opposite-sex marriage.

Anything relating to intercourse is not sufficient, for a whole variety of reasons, not least of which that the government cannot constitutionally regulate that, beyond a few basic restrictions.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
When bullying goes galactic.. in General
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Well, in any sort of technical sense, you're right. But as a massless particle that carries energy, I think the photon has nearer claim claim to that sci-fi term than anything else does.

More to the point, you can't blow up sunlight.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Omaha Mall Shooting in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #425
Stillness, yet again, the development zone is pure pork (and therefore inappropriate) unless there is some good reason for wanting to develop that area. The government isn't supposed to just favor some people for no reason. You haven't given any reason — ever — for the government to favor same-sex couples that holds up to rigorous scrutiny.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Omaha Mall Shooting in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #421
quote:
Originally written by Stillness:

Delineate your logic please. To me it sounds like:

Since the government can't regulate sex
and Opposite-sex pairs can be subsidized
Same-sex pairs should be subsidized

It has a major logical disconnect. Fix it for me so I can understand.

Stillness, I don't think that you understand the difference between presenting an argument and presenting an objection. There have variously in this thread been efforts to present reasons why not granting same-sex marriages the same rights as opposite-sex marriage is discriminatory, and there have been efforts to show why your arguments that it's not are wrong. This was the latter.

Marriage cannot be legally recognized in order to promote a particular kind of sex. That's unconstitutional. That's what the cited court cases have to do with this.

All this is attempting to do is show that your argument doesn't work, not present an argument for the other side. It's just an objection to your reasoning.

[ Thursday, December 20, 2007 10:25: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Bipolar in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #3
I didn't think that it was all that obscure; I learned about it in middle school, but then, it might be a cultural thing. SF is a different (and more open) place from pretty much anywhere else.

I very briefly had a relationship with a girl who was mildly bipolar (though it wouldn't be diagnosed in her for another few years). Quite frankly, I never knew or even suspected, because she didn't have any sort of serious episode while we were close (which was for several months). Apparently it didn't get really bad until some time later, partly (I think) due to the stress of school, since intense stress — as it does everything else — exacerbates it.

You can't tell if someone has it unless he or she tells you or you actually see an episode (which, from what I understand, can be terrifying). But the good news is that you don't need to know, because you don't have to "be careful around them" or anything like that, except to the extent that you have to be reasonably sensitive around anyone, especially anyone who may have a mental illness. It's not unlike being around someone who has standard-issue clinical depression in how you should respond.

It's been a while since I've read about it, though, so I may be forgetting something important or a little off somewhere.

[ Thursday, December 20, 2007 10:16: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Omaha Mall Shooting in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #419
quote:
Originally written by Stillness:

The case striking legal action against sodomy has no connection that I see unless you explain it more clearly.
I've already told you twice. Legally, same-sex intercourse is equivalent to opposite-sex intercourse, and neither (by the rights to privacy that trace back to Griswold v. Connecticut) can be regulated by the government except in issues of consent and the like.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Omaha Mall Shooting in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #405
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

A thing that one ancestor did way back in the distant past probably won't have any genetic impact on me today. It's only if gazillions of ancestors did it that it matters.
Do watch the way you phrase that: you're confusing cause and effect. I'm sure we both know what you meant to say, but I don't think any of us here are Lamarckians.

Yeah, I meant that loosely. Would you approve more if I said, "If something happened to gazillions of ancestors..."?

Although, come to think of it, I don't think I'm entirely wrong. If a species has some behavior, it can evolve traits because of that behavior, right? (The behavior can also become modified due to the environment, but in principle it seems as though it could happen as I said, too.)
quote:
Originally written by VCH:

quote:
Originally written by Stillness:

Let’s explore this. You may have a point, but I’m not getting it yet. Why can’t the other three people get a job? Children can do productive labor at a fairly young age. Women can do work that doesn’t require heavy lifting like a man can. So why make this allowance? I think a person can claim dependants until they reach age 25. Why?
LOL. Women can do work that doesn't require heavy lifting and the children should go work down in thar coal mine. Man, you have archaic opinions. lol.

Child labor for the win.
quote:
Originally written by Jewelz:

As I said earlier, we can be reconciled, anyone can be reconciled to righteousness but not of any atonement by our hand.
It seems like the Christian God isn't really into personal responsibility. I'd much rather that I deal with what I've done than cast it off on someone else.

And I'm a little weirded out by the notion that God thinks that I've done stuff that's so bad that I deserve to be chained to a lake of molten sulfur and burned for all eternity. I mean, have I really done anything that bad?

[ Wednesday, December 19, 2007 19:39: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Omaha Mall Shooting in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #399
(Found a better use for an otherwise wasted post.)
quote:
Originally written by Frozen Feet:

Technically, in this case meaning "in the context of evolutionary biology and chaos theory", what your ancestors were and what they did are still reflected in your being. Your basic desires and mental workings are quite similar to those humans had tens of thousands of years ago.
This is true, but if my grandmother happened to be a blackjack dealer in a casino (she was), that doesn't mean that I have "blackjack dealer" genes in me necessarily. A thing that one ancestor did way back in the distant past probably won't have any genetic impact on me today. It's only if gazillions of ancestors did it that it matters.

But hey, this is another way in which the Bible can be found to provide interesting metaphorical truth. Adam and Eve are a metaphor for millions of years of evolution, just as the creation story is a metaphor for the Big Bang. I like it.

[ Wednesday, December 19, 2007 12:23: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
When bullying goes galactic.. in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #26
So I looked up what a "solarbonite bomb" is supposed to do. It's supposed to "explode" sunlight. That is, it turns photons into pure energy! OMG!

Except that photons already are pure energy. Drat.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Omaha Mall Shooting in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #397
quote:
Originally written by Stillness:

It doesn’t even have to be substantially different. If you’re one step outside the development zone the government is fair in not giving you the grant.
That a difference in substance. Which neighborhood in the development zone you're in is not. What kind of intercourse is a difference in neighborhood; you're not outside the zone.

quote:
You all will have to explain how you think Lawrence v. Texas relates to this issue, because I’m not seeing the connection.
It put same-sex intercourse on the same legal level as opposite-sex intercourse.

I was going to refute your health claims, but it doesn't really matter. They're on the same legal footing. That's what counts.
quote:
But it [a same-sex couple parenting] is certainly not the ideal.
This statement is based solely on prejudice.

[ Wednesday, December 19, 2007 10:04: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Exurnum in The Avernum Trilogy
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Jeff's statement on the matter. And for Avernum 2. And 3.

Lost Bahssikava is a big difference between Exile 1 and Avernum 1. The Golem Factory is a big difference in E3/A3.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Omaha Mall Shooting in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #384
quote:
Originally written by Stillness:

But we’ll have to agree to disagree that a marriage with a man and a woman is the same as other unions since sex, reproduction, and child-rearing are viewed, by the government, as connected marriage and these are substantially different with heterosexual pairs. Neither of us seems to be budging. We’ll probably have to let it go.
It's the "substantially different" business that we're having a problem with. I say that same-sex intercourse is essentially equivalent to opposite-sex intercourse (which is why the Lawrence v. Texas ruling is the logical descendant of the Griswold v. Connecticut ruling). I say that adoption (or any of the various other means for gays to have children) is not only analogous but in fact sometimes identical to what opposite-sex couples do. And I also say that same-sex parents can raise children in essentially the same way as opposite-sex parents do.

Even if we assume that these things are important for marriage, same-sex couples can do things that are equivalent or identical to what opposite-sex couples do. I think that the only reason to believe otherwise is prejudice. And that's why I think that opposition to same-sex marriage is rooted in prejudice.

[ Tuesday, December 18, 2007 13:25: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00

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