Orogun01

Finished my tortilla, and washing my mouth with a glass of whiskey. Now I have to finish my notes on Gustave Dore's Antaeus.

Nah, it kind of seems more like an offshoot of Godwin's law. Whenever we argue about legal matters long enough there is rape and murder bound to come up.

I'm sure there were lots of people who had similar arguments about letting blacks into the military. The organization will adapt and be no worse off for it. ^ He shoots, he scores. Precisely. Yes that was EXACTLY the argument that was used, and at the time it was correct. During WWI all American military units were segregated but the valor dispayed by the 10th Cavlary & 92nd & 93rd Infantry Divisions of the 1st AEF broke down a lot of the barriers and led to full integration during an following WW2. It was an idea whose time had come and for the most part it was accepted easily. Now, what do you think would have happened had Lincoln tried that during the Civil War? Or McKinley during the war with Spain? Change comes on it's own and usually it comes without complaint and leaves people wondering why it hadn't happened earlier. But if you try to force it before everyone is ready, it is messy. Gay soldiers are not going to have an easy time of it at first. Just as black soldiers didn't. But not far down the road, no one will think a thing about it. However, had this been rammed down everyones throats 20 years ago, it would have been much more difficult. African-Americans in the service during the years of the war with Spain, the Civil War, hell even the War of Independence, displayed acts of great courage. I'm not sure of how the consensus was among enlisted men to whether or not blacks deserved to serve alongside whites. But i'm sure that no white complained when his life was saved by a black man. Point is; military on those times may have been more open to the idea of a desegregated military. The problem; as usual, came from back home where a precedent like this may have caused pause. Not to say that it would had been completely rejected by some, even hidden. Whilst homosexuality carries a different connotation than race; it's not a fair comparison after all, it may have been that closeted gays serving during these 20 years may have changed the views within the military. Because sometimes it's don't have to ask, don't tell, we know.

Yeah but this crowd had devolved since BG2, the price of making games popular I guess.

This argument sounds familiar. Didn't someone said the same thing on a previous thread? I think it was LoF

Chin up guys and gals we are going to have a fabulous military, fierce. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20026108-503544.html

The Oxford murders, just a reminder of why I love John Hurt.

While I won't presume to guess at Orogun's own motivations, I think in general this kind of thing is quite interesting and possibly worrisome, in that so often, a media controversy or scandal really encourages us to take the position of the derisive bystander. If the public punishments of earlier times were situations that called on you to come and watch, be reminded of how despicable some people (i.e. not you) can be, and rail in righteous anger for self-satisfaction, it's the same thing here with what is, to be honest, a petty and contemptible party of bile and vitriol. Predictably, the rape accusations against Assange (which is far far away from being proven either way) have helped do what the condemnations of politicians and commentators could not alone - reduce him into a caricature which can then be demonised, Othered and laughed at in various ways. While this excessive media limelight was brought on by Assange's own behaviour (and is one of the reasons I can't see him as a hero in any way), the predictable trajectory this story as a whole has taken is quietly depressing - from debates of transparency, democracy and governance we now have Julian the Nerd and the Secret Memos of Who-Called-Who-A-Pimply-Potato. Edit; you can see this most clearly if you read the post, but skip over Assange's actual emails, then start on the comments; this stops you from being drawn into how sordid they might be, and look at the public tomato-chucking going on. Sure let's go with that. I don't know where you live but here in the US the only debate was the juicy gossip about the world's leaders. That's basically all that the media got from the leak, us name calling world leaders. Transparency doesn't get the job done when the people don't care. Asange made himself a public figure with this whole scandal, either he has a Messiah complex or he really had no idea that the whole weight would fall on him. He is simply asking to be put on the spotlight by linking his face to this whole thing. Should I feel guilty that he got what he wanted?

You listen to Fox news?

This. However, given how difficult it has been to legalize relatively harmless marijuana in "liberal, blue state" of California, I suspect the USA will end up being the last bastion of criminalized drug use on the planet... and still enriching delighted criminal cartels. It's much too sensible to empty out our prisons and court rooms, saving billions upon billions of dollars to ever get by the average cowaring, fear-mongered voter, let alone a government filled with ranting ideologues. The one thing needs to be understood about america is that it's a country of opposing extremes. Half the country is for legalization and half is for prohibition, and considering the many drug epidemics that have plagued the US i'm not sure it's a good idea. But then again 2 of those epidemic happened during prohibition so it might not matter. The big problem is the lack of responsibility, DUI are over the roof and that's mostly with alcohol. If drugs were to be legalized I fear for a spike in traffic accident.

That's part of growing up, just look to the present, go out with some friends. Any kind of human contact should probably help lift your spirits, these things kind of get easier with time.

Depends on your politics Yup, i would be actually interested in how the media would report it, and how leaders of different countries would comment it. //EDIT For the record i see the irony of the champion of free information and transparancy doesn't like having his personal whereabouts made public. But i do think that there's a major difference between a guy's geographical position and the transparancy of governments and corporations. Just saying. Yeah but that stopped when he opened WikiLeaks, which kind of counts as an organization. So he should be transparent....er

Better than have her suffer, sorry to hear

I take offense at that. We only do the freshest cocaine down here.

Asange is not Wikileaks and he is certainly fair game by his own philosophy.

First, homosexuality in ancient Greece was very different from what we have now. Some of their social practices promoted homosexual behavior; pedastry and as you lightly refer to, their armies. The Greeks however did not see sexual orientation as part of their identity; to explain further, sexual identity was independent of social status. There was however a formalization of sorts, that whomever took the passive role was seen as someone of a lower social standing and the active was dominant in the relationship. Both roles had characteristics associated with it, someone in a passive role would had been regarded as the "woman" of the relationship and was shunned. So the Greeks had a whole social system for this kind of behavior; that they actually encouraged as a passing rite into adulthood. It's not a natural thing since social pressure factors heavily into it, and a lot of them went on to have families of their own even if they occasionally engaged in same sex relations for recreation they continued live with their families.

Ok, since most of us agree that Albino Blondie doesn't deserve any privacy Here you go: http://gawker.com/5714043/the-creepy-loves...ne=true&s=i

And what did you do? Open the door. Sorry, just having a laugh at your expense. Good job!

This is just a reference to those particular cases, like I said before the complexity of human behavior is not a single viewpoint. There may be some other social factors that weight into becoming gay, not necessarily traumatic.

You really think so? Suddenly he's no longer heterosexual and no longer finds women attractive? Hard to tell, usually people go with the excuse that he was repressing it even if he was married and had a child. That's actually another case, one of my friend's father. Why not? They are quick to assume that one can become gay, so the opposite must be true. If a person can go from having a relatively normal sexual life and suddenly develops other interests then a person who was born gay can feel attracted to a woman. Slip of the tongue, didn't mean anything by it. English is my second language after all He had a girlfriend, he wasn't one of those guys who you wonder whether they are or not and was accepted by everyone as a straight man; this was in Cuba, who stills held the old chauvinistic views and wasn't as open minded about it as it is now. So yeah pretty sure that he wasn't gay before the event, sometimes the only way to overcome trauma is to constantly relive it. Most extroverted types of personalities use this as a defense mechanism, makes them think that they are in control so they can continue to function.

I been going back to reread some of his old post. Will miss they guy

Fenris= Zevran v0.1 But more XTREEEEEEME! So he's a power top?

Ok, common example: guy is awkward and has trouble relating and talking to girls, he has some homosexual friends to whom he relates better. Eventually one his friends makes a "push" and he responds to the advances and starts his homosexual life. Or in a RL case I recall: a dude from my high school gets drugged and his male cousin takes advantage of him and he comes out of the whole affair as gay. Or like one of my friends who was molested by a neighbor when he was a child and it's now gay. The problem with the opposite is that people don't usually accept the fact that someone can be a "reformed" gay

Fenris= Zevran v0.1

You are boiling down the complexity of human behavior to a very simple view. There is such a thing as learned behavior, conditioning is a powerful thing and a lot of the times an unconscious choice. It's is not just do you look at a list of requirements to decide are you attracted or not, it's more of unconsciously are you attracted to one particular trait above the rest? There is all manner of fetishists who display their sexuality through their learned behavior (fetish) the same is possible for homosexuality.