Profile for Thuryl
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Displayed name | Thuryl |
Member number | 869 |
Title | ...b10010b... |
Postcount | 9973 |
Homepage | http://thuryl.desperance.net/blades.html |
Registered | Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Omaha Mall Shooting in General | |
...b10010b...
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written Monday, December 10 2007 08:02
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quote:See, this is precisely why governments shouldn't get into the business of discriminating on the basis of whether people have "special feelings" for each other in the first place. Any kind of legal status that assumes the existence of a sexual relationship is discriminatory against asexuals, for starters. If a married couple, or a family, or a group of five friends have living arrangements such that they're dependent on each other and have a reasonable capacity to make decisions on each other's behalf in emergencies, why is whether or not they're having sex a relevant issue? Civil unions ought to be a purely legal construct with purely legal consequences; as long as the union is between consenting adults, the nature of the personal relationship between the parties involved is not a proper matter for governments to inquire into. [ Monday, December 10, 2007 08:03: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Omaha Mall Shooting in General | |
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written Monday, December 10 2007 07:13
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quote:What on earth is praiseworthy about using one's organs in obvious and natural ways? Surely it would be far more creative to use them in ways that nobody has ever thought to use them before. That's how humanity progresses. Any fool can put a human penis in a human vagina: it takes a visionary to find ways of deriving pleasure from one person's forearm and another's nose hair. Bending nature to see how far it can stretch is what makes life interesting. [ Monday, December 10, 2007 07:32: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Omaha Mall Shooting in General | |
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written Monday, December 10 2007 06:12
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quote:Given that our positions have more or less the same policy consequences in this case, I think we can safely agree to disagree on whatever we may happen to disagree on (which is, I think, not as much as we're making it sound like). quote:The court system is a machine that turns arguments into decisions. If you can discover what legal arguments will produce the judicial decision you want, in what sense is that lying or cheating the system? Both sides will manipulate the system by whatever legal means are available in order to produce the result they want. It's not the job of the involved parties to decide what is or isn't true, only what will help win their case. This is exactly the way the system is meant to work: in fact, you'd be cheating the system if you found a legal way to win your case and refused to use it, because you'd be depriving the process of valid input. If you have a quarrel with the nature of the adversarial system, then I guess you'll have to push for a constitutional amendment to change it. [ Monday, December 10, 2007 06:19: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Omaha Mall Shooting in General | |
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written Monday, December 10 2007 01:54
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quote:I'm not sure I understand the question. It's impossible to prevent someone from trying to do something, so to say that somebody shouldn't be able to try to get their personal beliefs enshrined in legislation is a patent absurdity. Of course, I'll do everything within my power to prevent people who disagree with me from succeeding in getting their beliefs enshrined in legislation, and I'd expect anybody else to do the same. quote:Did you not even notice Salmon's big list? There are certain benefits which are only available to married couples. Denying the benefits of marriage to unmarried partnerships is, objectively, discrimination, whether you approve of it or not. Some kinds of discrimination are laudable and necessary, as when we discriminate against murderers by imprisoning them. Unnecessary discrimination, however, is harmful. [ Monday, December 10, 2007 02:00: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Omaha Mall Shooting in General | |
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written Monday, December 10 2007 01:08
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quote:I'm not sure what answer you want. My only concern is that people are free to enter into mutually consensual personal relationships if, to whom, and on such terms as they choose, and that governments don't privilege some kinds of relationship above others. As long as all people have that freedom, I don't really care what they do with it. quote:There's no such thing as being apolitical. Have you ever bought any product from a company that's made contributions to a political party? If so, congratulations: you've helped fund a political campaign. [ Monday, December 10, 2007 01:25: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Omaha Mall Shooting in General | |
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written Sunday, December 9 2007 23:39
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quote:Then aren't you angry about the government thinking it has the right to decide what is and isn't a "marriage"? Shouldn't you be campaigning for the word "marriage" to be struck off the law books entirely, and replaced by civil unions for heterosexuals, homosexuals, or any other group of people, whether involved in a sexual relationship or not, who feel that they'd benefit from participating in a civil union? This seems like an eminently reasonable solution that would please almost everybody. quote:The purpose of marriage is whatever the people involved in the marriage want it to be. Again, a marriage is a private contract between the individuals involved in it, and it's not anybody else's business why they choose to make that contract. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Omaha Mall Shooting in General | |
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written Saturday, December 8 2007 21:17
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quote:I'm not convinced that the fact that polygamists will not treat every spouse exactly equally is sufficient grounds to ban polygamy. The classic analogy is to parenthood: most parents do have favourites among their children, and while we may disapprove, we don't institute a one-child policy because of it. Furthermore, the argument proves too much: if it's wrong to treat one spouse better than another spouse, why isn't it wrong to treat your spouse better than people who aren't your spouse? If there's a legitimate public interest in banning polygamy on the grounds of unequal treatment, then there's a legitimate public interest in banning all marriage, since pairs of people who value each other over everyone else can't help but destabilise and fragment society. quote:What I find most amusing is that he hasn't mentioned the possibility of lifelong abstinence even once. I was fully expecting him to just come out and say "well, then, some people will just have to stay single", but no. Shows how seriously fundamentalists take their own rhetoric. [ Saturday, December 08, 2007 21:22: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Omaha Mall Shooting in General | |
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written Saturday, December 8 2007 17:32
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I do find it interesting that whenever anyone talks about polygamy, the implicit assumption is that it's normally going to be polygyny in particular. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Omaha Mall Shooting in General | |
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written Saturday, December 8 2007 16:05
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quote:So you're in favour of polygamy but not same-sex marriage. Good to know. (I don't think that either should be banned, providing that everyone involved is a consenting adult.) -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Omaha Mall Shooting in General | |
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written Saturday, December 8 2007 15:58
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quote:Except that same-sex marriage does discriminate against women. There are more women than men in the United States, so even if every man marries a woman, not every woman will be able to get married unless some of them marry each other. Besides, why does the government have an interest in interfering in the right of consenting individuals to make contracts with each other on terms of their choosing? The right to same-sex marriage is a logical extension of the right to contract. quote:Plants can't sign contracts, you galoot. Oh, and I do think non-unisex restrooms are discriminatory (particularly against transgender and intersex people) and in an ideal world they wouldn't exist, but that would require a rather bigger cultural change than legalising same-sex marriage. Public restrooms are by their nature a public space. The existence of a public space where activities considered private go on is always going to require some awkward compromises. Marriage, by contrast, is a private contract, and no such compromises are necessary. Having said that, I stayed at a dorm with unisex showers and restrooms once. Sure, it was awkward at first, but people got used to it. [ Saturday, December 08, 2007 16:14: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Omaha Mall Shooting in General | |
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written Friday, December 7 2007 19:31
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quote:Most responsible media organisations are reluctant to give broad news coverage to suicides for fairly good reasons: there's strong statistical evidence that every news article on a suicide causes a spike in the number of suicides. I don't think the evidence is as strong for news coverage of spree killings causing more spree killings, because there aren't enough data points to draw any firm conclusions, but they do seem to come in clusters. I don't think a complete blackout on all information about spree killers is the answer, though: psychologists, at least, still need to study what predisposes people to commit such acts. The idea that there's no way to predict who might snap or when, and so we shouldn't even try to study spree killers to see what makes them tick, is both defeatist and factually incorrect: people have been caught while in the planning stages of committing mass murder, and even if not all of them were going to go through with it, you'd have to conclude that at least some lives have been saved. Does the general public have a legitimate interest in hearing all about the personal lives of spree killers? Probably not. But that doesn't mean information shouldn't be available to those who have good reason to seek it out. [ Friday, December 07, 2007 19:38: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Omaha Mall Shooting in General | |
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written Thursday, December 6 2007 05:09
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The Malaysians even invented a word for the act of attacking random people with murderous intent. If you think that spree killing is a new problem, or one confined to America, you don't know much about it. [ Thursday, December 06, 2007 05:10: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Eat It! in General | |
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written Wednesday, November 28 2007 23:32
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Do you even have Red Rooster over in America? If not, you're missing out. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
For all you physics gurus in General | |
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written Monday, November 26 2007 15:23
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You can't just cancel out the mass like that when there's addition on one side of the equation. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Purify enchanted shaped items? in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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written Sunday, November 25 2007 04:53
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In terms of raw damage, the strongest weapon is actually the Puresteel Blade that you get from Guardan Koerner in Poryphra Ruins: it does a whopping 20-100 damage, but has no other special abilities. Viper's Touch is also worth considering as a late-game weapon, with 14-70 damage plus poison. Also, please note that Perfected items DO NOT have a better defensive rating than Shaped items. The ONLY advantage of combining a purification elixir with a Shaped item to make a Perfected item is that Perfected items can be used as artifact ingredients. [ Sunday, November 25, 2007 04:56: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Webcomics in General | |
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written Friday, November 23 2007 18:45
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quote:Are the people making the posts making any money from the sites? No. Let the mods do their job. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
It's that time of year again... in General | |
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written Friday, November 23 2007 08:22
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quote:Eh? Venison can be kosher, it just usually isn't because of the way it's slaughtered. (My favourite meat is rabbit, though, so if I were Jewish I'd be out of luck.) [ Friday, November 23, 2007 08:23: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Stuffing into Small Places? in General | |
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written Friday, November 23 2007 05:25
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quote:Are you some kind of carnivorous reptile, or perhaps a codfish? -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Stuffing into Small Places? in General | |
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written Friday, November 23 2007 01:09
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quote:36 inches in diameter. 24 slices. You could eat one on your own, but you'd regret it later. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Tank Cat! in General | |
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written Wednesday, November 21 2007 22:17
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Shouldn't the past tense of "sig" be "sug"? -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
The Continuing Story of Spiderweb Software in General | |
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written Wednesday, November 21 2007 22:01
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quote:You don't sit in the traffic jam; you are the traffic jam. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Tank Cat! in General | |
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written Wednesday, November 21 2007 16:14
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quote:Well, you just gave saunders a very good reason to insult you, because you misspelled her name and also she's not a he. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Wow!! in General | |
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written Wednesday, November 21 2007 15:39
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I... assume this isn't your original account, then. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
Stuffing into Small Places? in General | |
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written Wednesday, November 21 2007 07:20
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quote:New Caledonia isn't. I think what he was actually trying to say, though, was "Since when are French the only Europeans?" -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
research notes in Avernum 4 | |
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written Tuesday, November 20 2007 01:37
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Also, there's the fact that you have to actually remember where you originally found Lark's scrolls so you can go back there and translate them. That trips up a lot of people. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |