Yes, they too are victims of a belief system that has made them substitute the love for their son for a master-slave relationship with an abusive father-god. If we shout loud enough they might start to dismantle their self constructed prison. No matter how long, or loudly you and your fellow cultists bellow, this young man will still be gay.

But ok. We are basically the same as the bigots because we are intolerant of their bigotry. Certainly no brain will have a problem parsing that sentence!

It will only be a choice of one international criminal over another unless thoughtful citizens ditch both parties provided for anyone to vote for, and perform the voter's coup d'etat.....The naivete that you have a choice in the matter without taking a real choice, is a systemic disease.You are not alone in your inebriation on the political-Koolaid beverage.

Try smashing a few televisions and encourage others to do so. It's cathartic and will free your mind, Neo.

Anti-Obama people aren't trolls by the way @ChaosEngine-They're either seriously deluded into thinking that they are not in some sort of state of willful denial that the prescribed systems of electoral chicanery actually functions as they blindly assume as is spelled-out since they were kids in elementary school, or they can see through the ruse that is, a government by and for her peoples.

Lump me in such a simplistic and obtuse category as 'Obama-for-or-anti' and you may or not, recognize yourself in the former category.

If there's a 'guy' with his finger on the nuclear missile (otherwise known as a false-flag event), it's the same guy or guys who called-in the drone-strike. Who is the 'imaginary' guy you speak of?? Ask yourself, is the insane scenario your offered-up, even possible? Bad guys, good guys? Gimme a break, you're smarter than that.

I believe that "ignore" is the operative and self-delusional tag word here. Keep ignoring the obvious. Seems to work well for some to quell fear of the unknown.

'Republicans bad, democrats good', a broken-record and at least 10 other peep's in any room of folks' discussing politics-as-usual, comforting "safety phrase."

All it sounds like to me is apes in a cage, bellowing for a nutritive meal and the freedom to roam to find it for themselves.

It's 2014 lantern-five-three, nothings a fucking toss-up anymore....It's an insidious program.

Choice and chance are illusory in the political realm.

The wikipedia article on magnets is a good place to start. Magnets can lose their magnetism, but that's not the same as saying they have energy in them that's being used up like a battery.

If you stand next to a large lump of clay and then step onto the clay you've gained some potential energy. The taller the lump of clay the more potential energy you've gained. However, this energy hasn't come from the clay, you've had to use energy to gain it. It took you more energy to step onto the clay than you gained in potential energy so this couldn't be the basis for a perpetual motor.

Next to the lump of clay is a large bellows attached to a balloon. You step off the clay onto the bellows. You drop down to ground level and pump up the balloon a bit. You can repeat this process over and over until the balloon is pumped up. However, each time you step onto the clay it sags a bit and you're not so high up. After a while if you do this for long enough the clay will be well trodden down and each time you step off the clay onto the bellows it will have hardly any effect. The clay has lost it's ability to help you pump up the balloon. It's lost it's height. But at no point did it give you any energy to pump up the balloon. You used your own energy to step up onto the clay to give yourself the potential energy, which you then converted to kinetic energy by stepping onto the bellows and pumping up the balloon.

This is exactly the same as a magnet losing it's magnetism. It's not like a battery losing power by powering something else. There's no energy in a magnet. It never gives energy to anything else. Like a drive shaft doesn't power a car, it just helps move the energy from the engine to the wheels.

Magnets fool everyone by working at a distance. Everything else we deal with in a physical way has to touch something else to affect it. You can't get a nail into wood without physically hitting it with a hammer. Magnets confuse us and that makes it easy for scammers with their perpetual motion devices to make us believe things that aren't true. We don't have the right wiring to easily figure out what's going on intuitively.

Magnets simply don't work how you think they do, or how the maker of this video wants you to believe they do.

Argumentum ad populum. A logical fallacy. It doesn't matter if billions of people believe a thing, it does NOT make it truth. Examples: people thought that the sun was a/the god, or people thought that rats spontaneously spawned from grain silos.

Did I ever say that because over 2 billion people are Christians, that makes it true? Though you could make a logical argument that, if God has revealed Himself to the world, and people are more inclined to follow truth than lies, that His religion would be the largest on Earth at any given time.


The definition for "evidence" that you used for your argument is only the definition as it relates to law (thus where it says "law"). Testimony is useful to us in order to piece together what happens for the purposes of trial law, but even then is highly faulty and is subject to the whims, mental health and capacity, subjective or erroneous observations, and other such mistakes or lies by those giving testimony. That is how people end up wrongfully jailed, and is also why you need much more evidence than just testimony in order to make a solid case against a defendant. Such testimonial evidence in a scientific context, or in a logical argument context, is immediately dismissible.

Are you really going to try to argue that personal testimony isn't evidence, or couldn't convince you of something? If you were in a building, and someone came running in screaming that there was a bomb in the basement and everyone needs to evacuate immediately, would you demand that he take you to the location of the bomb so you could empirically verify his claim before you would leave? No, you would consider his personal testimony to be sufficient and leave the area.

The definition you're looking for is anecdotal evidence, and believe it or not, it can qualify as scientific evidence. Read any medical journal and you will find anecdotal evidence printed very routinely. Anecdotal evidence doesn't qualify as proof, but I never said my personal testimony would prove anything to you. What I did say is that it qualifies as evidence, which it does, both in a legal and scientific sense. In the scientific sense, weakly, but that doesn't diminish its veracity, except perhaps in the eyes of those whose worldview is married to the idea that empirical verification is the only means of acquiring truth, a claim in itself which, ironically, cannot be empirically verified.

Similarly, the fact that our laws state that a person is innocent until proven guilty (ideally, in the U.S., at least) is an example of how the burden of proof MUST lie with the parties making the claim for guilt. Much in the same way that you MUST provide real, tangible evidence for the claims that you, and the Bible make. Your personal experiences, or the fact that a billion people agree with you is NOT evidence of anything. Example: The entire country was certain of the guilt of Casey Anthony, but lawyers were not able to build a case solid enough to convince a jury. Likewise for the Duke Lacrosse team rape trial. Thankfully, we require more than the incessant bellowing of Nancy Grace to convict a person.

What would you consider to be real, tangible evidence? I've never heard an atheist actually define what this would be. I assume it would be a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. Well, that is what I am telling you in the first place, that you can know Him personally. That Jesus will reveal Himself to you if you seek Him out and give your life to Him. A simple question: If Jesus is God, would you serve Him?

I, frankly, am not interested in arguing anything that the Bible says that God/Jesus supposedly said, unless you can first prove to me that it is the definite, infallible word of a god, and not a bunch of stories written and compiled by men who knew nothing of the universe beyond what they could misinterpret from their eyes and imagination, or who wanted to be able to control a populace by introducing divine rules. Which, of course, is something you cannot do without using circular arguments to refer back to how the Bible tells us that the Bible is true, or by referring to emotional pleas, personal experiences, offshoots of Pascal's Wager, or many other logical fallacies which fall apart as relevant proof of anything at their very inception. This, I believe, is what we are trying to get across to you.

The main point scripture makes about non-believers is this:

That you already know there is a God, and who He is, but you're suppressing the truth in wickedness. That God has made it plain to you, to the extent that when you are standing before Him on judgment day, you won't have any excuse. It's not my responsibility to prove anything to you, because you already know. My job is to tell you the gospel and pray that God would have mercy on you and open your eyes.

There is one thing I can prove to you, which is that without God you can't prove anything. I'll demonstrate this to you if you can answer a few questions:

1. Is it impossible that God exists?
2. Could God reveal Himself to someone so that they could know it for certain?
3. Could you be wrong about everything you know?

>> ^Sketch:

A short post for @shinyblurry:

Argumentum ad populum. A logical fallacy. It doesn't matter if billions of people believe a thing, it does NOT make it truth. Examples: people thought that the sun was a/the god, or people thought that rats spontaneously spawned from grain silos.

The definition for "evidence" that you used for your argument is only the definition as it relates to law (thus where it says "law"). Testimony is useful to us in order to piece together what happens for the purposes of trial law, but even then is highly faulty and is subject to the whims, mental health and capacity, subjective or erroneous observations, and other such mistakes or lies by those giving testimony. That is how people end up wrongfully jailed, and is also why you need much more evidence than just testimony in order to make a solid case against a defendant. Such testimonial evidence in a scientific context, or in a logical argument context, is immediately dismissible.

Similarly, the fact that our laws state that a person is innocent until proven guilty (ideally, in the U.S., at least) is an example of how the burden of proof MUST lie with the parties making the claim for guilt. Much in the same way that you MUST provide real, tangible evidence for the claims that you, and the Bible make. Your personal experiences, or the fact that a billion people agree with you is NOT evidence of anything. Example: The entire country was certain of the guilt of Casey Anthony, but lawyers were not able to build a case solid enough to convince a jury. Likewise for the Duke Lacrosse team rape trial. Thankfully, we require more than the incessant bellowing of Nancy Grace to convict a person.

I, frankly, am not interested in arguing anything that the Bible says that God/Jesus supposedly said, unless you can first prove to me that it is the definite, infallible word of a god, and not a bunch of stories written and compiled by men who knew nothing of the universe beyond what they could misinterpret from their eyes and imagination, or who wanted to be able to control a populace by introducing divine rules. Which, of course, is something you cannot do without using circular arguments to refer back to how the Bible tells us that the Bible is true, or by referring to emotional pleas, personal experiences, offshoots of Pascal's Wager, or many other logical fallacies which fall apart as relevant proof of anything at their very inception. This, I believe, is what we are trying to get across to you.

http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/home

I swear the funniest bit in all of these videos is the guy shouting 'epic rap battles of history'. This one was funny, but there's something about his almost incoherent bellowing that just makes me giggle.

Wait, I am confused... Obama is black, and usually presumed guilty before innocent as a black man first. We agree on that 100% I assume...but the proper way to word your argument would have been, "when a black man is shot and killed by a Hispanic, you are here insisting the Hispanic guy is innocent until proven guilty."

If we say Zimmerman is for the most part white, then Obama is white too, and that's just retarded... We know society goes by racial clumping and that shit is not going to change any time soon. In fact, this is the first time I have ever heard "White Hispanic" in my life--when the Media wants to stir up shit for dollar's sake.

If it had been Zimmerman shot by a KKK member, who thinks the fucking paper would label it a white-on-white crime? Who on the sift would label it as such?

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
coming from one of the most politically biased individuals to ever puke up worthless polarized talking points on the sift
I understand your fear and anger. When leftists encounter a conservative that puts forth simple, logical arguements that conflict with liberal ideology, your response is the default. Lash out. Attack. Insult. That's all the left has really got. We see it in the blogosphere right now with the Obamacare SCOTUS case. Liberals are literally gobsmacked at how Barry-boy's law has been so utterly and easily turned into swiss cheese - even though the arguments have been there for decades. Not having any intelligent, logical response to the simple, common-sense arguments, what do they do? Visit the leftist blog of your choice to see netizens stomping and bellowing like elephants - much like yourself. You suffer from the same malady, but on a smaller scale when you encounter me here on the Sift. I understand, and you have my pity.
But of course the truth is that I've never done any of the things you accuse me of. Like far too many on the left, you appear to confuse your hatred and anger towards an intellectual idea that contrasts your own with the persons present them. There is so much bologna flying around the internet about this Trevon case in particular that I have refused to take any stance whatsoever. I am not the guy tweeting the address of retirees to lynch mobs. I am not the guy putting out 'dead or alive' bounties. I'm not the guy making wild accusations based on 3rd hand internet stories, facebook comments, and media talking points which are based on rumors, innuendo, and theory. I'm just a guy saying, "chillax".
What I find loathsome is the tone of the discussion. It reminds me very much of the Duke Lacrosse case where the media latched on to a sensational story and ran with it, kicked out a narrative they liked, and pretended it was true. The whole nation tried, convicted, and demanded the execution of the Lacrosse team. The "evidence" was equally conclusive. How could a bunch of rich white boys NOT be guilty? Aaaaand then when the actual investigation happened the whole thing fell apart. I'm not saying that's the case here. I'm saying it is too early to say anything at all, and that there's a ton of agenda-based, race-inspired hype rush to jugement that is causing a lot of people on the indeological left to forget the first rule in US jurisprudence...
Innocent until proven guilty.
But you've all tried Zimmerman, convicted him, and are demanding his head on a platter based on jack-squat except a bunch of what can only be described as OPINION PIECES. The media doesn't know anything, and there are a ton of race-baiters down there in Florida that are very desperately churning up everything they can in order to advance the agenda that this was a hate crime. Frankly, I'm not buying it. I'll wait for the actual investigation. All this stuff flying around right now is obviously designed to establish a narrative before the trial - and I'm not listening to a word of it.
Why? Adam Corrola of all people nails it in his podcast...
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/03/29/Adam-Carolla-Media% 20Bias
The entire story about that "poor persecuted gay student driven to suicide by his bigoted roommate"? Yeah - it was all bullcrap. So was the Duke Lacrosse case. Again - I'm not saying that's the case here. I'm saying let's wait for some REAL data as opposed to all this clearly agenda-driven bullcrap that is designed to establish a narrative. You all think you're smart, right? Prove it for a change and stop being parrots. There's a ton of people down there throwing gas bombs so you'll react the way they want. Stop being thier tools. Shut off the news. Ignore everyone who is shouting for your attention - because they're probably a charlatan or demagogue. Just go about your business and wait for the courts to take care of this.

And yet when it comes to Obama he's guilty until proven innocent.
Your ignoring the biggest accusation leveled against you. When a black man is shot and killed by a white guy, you are here insisting the white guy is innocent until proven guilty, which is fine and nobody is even really arguing against it. The trouble is at the exact same time you go around insisting that a black man who has been accepted as president forged his birth records and was in fact born in Kenya, guilty until proven innocent, and not even a certified birth certificate accepted by the highest authority in the state is in your mind enough evidence to prove his innocence.
That contradiction of positions that paints you in a horrific light and you might want to address it rather than ignoring it.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

coming from one of the most politically biased individuals to ever puke up worthless polarized talking points on the sift
I understand your fear and anger. When leftists encounter a conservative that puts forth simple, logical arguements that conflict with liberal ideology, your response is the default. Lash out. Attack. Insult. That's all the left has really got. We see it in the blogosphere right now with the Obamacare SCOTUS case. Liberals are literally gobsmacked at how Barry-boy's law has been so utterly and easily turned into swiss cheese - even though the arguments have been there for decades. Not having any intelligent, logical response to the simple, common-sense arguments, what do they do? Visit the leftist blog of your choice to see netizens stomping and bellowing like elephants - much like yourself. You suffer from the same malady, but on a smaller scale when you encounter me here on the Sift. I understand, and you have my pity.
But of course the truth is that I've never done any of the things you accuse me of. Like far too many on the left, you appear to confuse your hatred and anger towards an intellectual idea that contrasts your own with the persons present them. There is so much bologna flying around the internet about this Trevon case in particular that I have refused to take any stance whatsoever. I am not the guy tweeting the address of retirees to lynch mobs. I am not the guy putting out 'dead or alive' bounties. I'm not the guy making wild accusations based on 3rd hand internet stories, facebook comments, and media talking points which are based on rumors, innuendo, and theory. I'm just a guy saying, "chillax".
What I find loathsome is the tone of the discussion. It reminds me very much of the Duke Lacrosse case where the media latched on to a sensational story and ran with it, kicked out a narrative they liked, and pretended it was true. The whole nation tried, convicted, and demanded the execution of the Lacrosse team. The "evidence" was equally conclusive. How could a bunch of rich white boys NOT be guilty? Aaaaand then when the actual investigation happened the whole thing fell apart. I'm not saying that's the case here. I'm saying it is too early to say anything at all, and that there's a ton of agenda-based, race-inspired hype rush to jugement that is causing a lot of people on the indeological left to forget the first rule in US jurisprudence...
Innocent until proven guilty.
But you've all tried Zimmerman, convicted him, and are demanding his head on a platter based on jack-squat except a bunch of what can only be described as OPINION PIECES. The media doesn't know anything, and there are a ton of race-baiters down there in Florida that are very desperately churning up everything they can in order to advance the agenda that this was a hate crime. Frankly, I'm not buying it. I'll wait for the actual investigation. All this stuff flying around right now is obviously designed to establish a narrative before the trial - and I'm not listening to a word of it.
Why? Adam Corrola of all people nails it in his podcast...
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/03/29/Adam-Carolla-Media%
20Bias
The entire story about that "poor persecuted gay student driven to suicide by his bigoted roommate"? Yeah - it was all bullcrap. So was the Duke Lacrosse case. Again - I'm not saying that's the case here. I'm saying let's wait for some REAL data as opposed to all this clearly agenda-driven bullcrap that is designed to establish a narrative. You all think you're smart, right? Prove it for a change and stop being parrots. There's a ton of people down there throwing gas bombs so you'll react the way they want. Stop being thier tools. Shut off the news. Ignore everyone who is shouting for your attention - because they're probably a charlatan or demagogue. Just go about your business and wait for the courts to take care of this.


And yet when it comes to Obama he's guilty until proven innocent.

Your ignoring the biggest accusation leveled against you. When a black man is shot and killed by a white guy, you are here insisting the white guy is innocent until proven guilty, which is fine and nobody is even really arguing against it. The trouble is at the exact same time you go around insisting that a black man who has been accepted as president forged his birth records and was in fact born in Kenya, guilty until proven innocent, and not even a certified birth certificate accepted by the highest authority in the state is in your mind enough evidence to prove his innocence.

That contradiction of positions that paints you in a horrific light and you might want to address it rather than ignoring it.

coming from one of the most politically biased individuals to ever puke up worthless polarized talking points on the sift

I understand your fear and anger. When leftists encounter a conservative that puts forth simple, logical arguements that conflict with liberal ideology, your response is the default. Lash out. Attack. Insult. That's all the left has really got. We see it in the blogosphere right now with the Obamacare SCOTUS case. Liberals are literally gobsmacked at how Barry-boy's law has been so utterly and easily turned into swiss cheese - even though the arguments have been there for decades. Not having any intelligent, logical response to the simple, common-sense arguments, what do they do? Visit the leftist blog of your choice to see netizens stomping and bellowing like elephants - much like yourself. You suffer from the same malady, but on a smaller scale when you encounter me here on the Sift. I understand, and you have my pity.

But of course the truth is that I've never done any of the things you accuse me of. Like far too many on the left, you appear to confuse your hatred and anger towards an intellectual idea that contrasts your own with the persons present them. There is so much bologna flying around the internet about this Trevon case in particular that I have refused to take any stance whatsoever. I am not the guy tweeting the address of retirees to lynch mobs. I am not the guy putting out 'dead or alive' bounties. I'm not the guy making wild accusations based on 3rd hand internet stories, facebook comments, and media talking points which are based on rumors, innuendo, and theory. I'm just a guy saying, "chillax".

What I find loathsome is the tone of the discussion. It reminds me very much of the Duke Lacrosse case where the media latched on to a sensational story and ran with it, kicked out a narrative they liked, and pretended it was true. The whole nation tried, convicted, and demanded the execution of the Lacrosse team. The "evidence" was equally conclusive. How could a bunch of rich white boys NOT be guilty? Aaaaand then when the actual investigation happened the whole thing fell apart. I'm not saying that's the case here. I'm saying it is too early to say anything at all, and that there's a ton of agenda-based, race-inspired hype rush to jugement that is causing a lot of people on the indeological left to forget the first rule in US jurisprudence...

Innocent until proven guilty.

But you've all tried Zimmerman, convicted him, and are demanding his head on a platter based on jack-squat except a bunch of what can only be described as OPINION PIECES. The media doesn't know anything, and there are a ton of race-baiters down there in Florida that are very desperately churning up everything they can in order to advance the agenda that this was a hate crime. Frankly, I'm not buying it. I'll wait for the actual investigation. All this stuff flying around right now is obviously designed to establish a narrative before the trial - and I'm not listening to a word of it.

Why? Adam Corrola of all people nails it in his podcast...

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/03/29/Adam-Carolla-Media%20Bias

The entire story about that "poor persecuted gay student driven to suicide by his bigoted roommate"? Yeah - it was all bullcrap. So was the Duke Lacrosse case. Again - I'm not saying that's the case here. I'm saying let's wait for some REAL data as opposed to all this clearly agenda-driven bullcrap that is designed to establish a narrative. You all think you're smart, right? Prove it for a change and stop being parrots. There's a ton of people down there throwing gas bombs so you'll react the way they want. Stop being thier tools. Shut off the news. Ignore everyone who is shouting for your attention - because they're probably a charlatan or demagogue. Just go about your business and wait for the courts to take care of this.

There's no point in getting into it, because it's tiresome, long-winded and probably futile. But sometimes when I see people wanking on about how shit Obama and the state of affairs in the US is, I want to bellow from the rooftops, "YOU THINK YOU'VE GOT IT BAD??????" I despair danny, half the time I don't know what to think. I'm thinking about retreating back into my bubble...

Having said that, I'm so glad you're up for using your vote this time, too. This is what needs to be pushed forward now, people using their votes to bolster the other parties, bring them into the spotlight so that people at least consider other options. The Labour/Cons/Dems need some competition, they need to be put in a position where they have to TRY HARDER! We simply cannot survive with the choices we've got now. Well we can, but I'd rather fucking not!
In reply to this comment by dannym3141:
>> ^alien_concept:

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^alien_concept:
>> ^Yogi:
WOW...still regret that I voted for him, but he's a knowledgeable guy.

Hey mate, don't worry about it, you did the right thing, something had to keep the republicans out. I urge you to do it again.

No I didn't. You don't choose the lesser of two evils, you make the system work and produce better results. Obama is a war criminal.

I agree, so I guess a non-vote would have been in order, considering your two-party system. However, I like to look at the silver linings and in my opinion, your vote ensured that things didn't get as bad as they probably would have had McCain/Palin gotten in to power. And, all leaders are war criminals, or just criminals...

I've never voted in my life, because I refuse to pick the best of a bad bunch... but I will be using my vote next election tactically, because until other parties have a chance in hell, we're all doomed.


One day we're gonna find out we're long lost twins or something @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/alien_concept" title="member since February 14th, 2008" class="profilelink"><strong style="color:#00ffa2">alien_concept..

I've not voted either, ever. I detest the system, i think the voting system and potentially democracy is flawed or limited and we'll end up in a species-rut because of it, working against each other until we run out of resources and die.

But i know i can't sit here complaining about the rich fucking manor-born tories stealing our country from under us if i didn't help to keep them out. I know me and everyone like me is responsible for them getting in.

I should have at least spoiled my paper or been more active in my protest if i wanted to protest the system in that way.

I was hoping the riots were the start of something. Change has to come from the youth and i suppose soon i won't be in that category anymore!

This stuff could be useful for self defense! What criminal wouldn't flee from a bellowing voice like that coming from around the next corner?

>> ^Mikus_Aurelius:

Try going up to someone who actually does math for a living and suggesting that "you can't do math with infinite (sets of) numbers". There is a well established, consistent, and applicable theory for dealing with infinite sums. It's called a limit. We've only been using them for 400 years.
Demarcations between the abstract and concrete are useless. Every mathematical theory is abstract. Numbers don't exist, but they can be applied in millions of useful ways. So can infinite sums.


The physical universe has a range from planck to ~ 15B lightyears, or < 100 orders of magnitude. Once you get bellow 10^-100 you are just blowing smoke, we treat limits as equivalences, and within the context of our strictly bounded universe, they might as well be, but there is no reason in a non-bounded universe that they must, or would be, we simply have no way to check.

While math is useful it is not TRUE, and it is not only one set of rules, but many within different domains. When we need to set new rules to model something new, we do, to treat any of these conventions as necessarily or real, is to ignore the basic ad-hoc nature of the tool.

Guys, if you know anything about fire, it's simple. The elevator shafts caused an updraft of air which turned the fire into a blast furnace. Really it's the same method they've been using to melt steel since the dark ages, but instead of pumping a bellows the air was sucked through the shaft by the heat of the fire.

This is stupidly simple. Stop making up idiotic explanations for what can be explained simply and rationally.

Okay, maybe I shouldn't have said Wrroonngg so quickly--but you presume that your readings about Rome are more extensive than mine.

Nero, Caligula and many later Emperors are examples of the human psyche let loose. Psychopaths with no restrictions on their behavior.

The Roman Republic lasted for almost 500 years--during which time--homosexuality was looked on as a vice and shameful behavior. Emperor Augustus imposed strict modesty and morality edicts--including homosexual activities--which didn't apply to him. So even in the later, Empire Era, Rome was hardly be considered, "one big, gay death machine."

"Marcus Aurelius was straight at least..." This one gave me a laugh.


The Love Letters of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and Marcus Cornelius Fronto
Excerpts from My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries (1998), Edited by Rictor Norton

From Marcus Cornelliius Fronto to Marcus Aurelius

Your lover, too, as they say, composes some amatory writings about you in the hope of enticing you with this bait, if with no other, and attracting you to himself and catching you; but such things are a disgrace and an insult and a sort of licentious cry, the outcome of stinging lust, such as those of wild beasts and fed cattle, that from sexual desire bellow or neigh or low or howl. Like to these are the lyrics of lovers. If, therefore, you submit yourself to your lover to enjoy where and when he pleases, awaiting neither time that is fitting nor leisure nor privacy, then, like a beast in the frenzy of desire, will he make straight for you and be eager to go to it not the least ashamed. . . .

"But then they went through the phase where prostitutes could fuck any man they wanted, even while wed and in plain sight, and the Christian empress would have the man executed if he said something..."

The role of prostitution in other societies varies--ours is not the only moral way. And the actions of the Christian church are--during most of it's history--atrocious. I thought you were talking about early Rome with it's outright destruction and pillage.

"You get the point. Rome was confused but definitely bi with a leaning more towards homosexuality--despite their 'laws.'"

A whole country was BI? Wow--just wow.


>> ^Lawdeedaw:

@Boise_Lib
Now now, don't say I am wrong quiet yet. I just read up on Rome and have the advantage here (I read like fucking two days’ worth...)
Nero was more than gay (He married a man as his husband and a man as his wife...see slit in lieu of vagina,) and Caligula (Who was fucking a man while in the arena in front of everyone, then had that man beheaded during climax) was bi and Tiberius (Who was fucking Caligula after murdering his family) was bi and the typical soldier, and...wait, yeah, there were many more. Basically, 14 out of 15 were gay or gay-ish at least. By that I mean some were open, some closed. Commodus? Yeah, gay...
(Most were simply bi just to have a son btw. Otherwise it would have been just man on man.)
The whole conflict with homosexuality came in later--after the Roman Catholic Church gained power... Now, that's not saying it wasn't against the law in the early days--but that's the same as adultery, yet then orgies were common even though they were illegal... let's pretend the law doesn't matter here---because it didn't...
Marcus Aurelius was straight at least...
And yes, this was the early Rome, when it was brutal, but then that's what I was talking about when I said the world hated them. Later, yes, later they began to hate homosexual behavior. But then they went through the phase where prostitutes could fuck any man they wanted, even while wed and in plain sight, and the Christian empress would have the man executed if he said something...
You get the point. Rome was confused but definitely bi with a leaning more towards homosexuality--despite their "laws."
@shuac I meant the crimes of Rome itself, not homosexuals. It's kind of hard to forgive a nation that captured and enslaved your city and then raped your male children with abandon.
@hpqp
I don't think homosexuality is girly, but that's their reasoning... Sad, so sad because it is not true.

>> ^marinara:

Exactly how does some office furniture burn for 7 hours, and then raise (fireproofed) steel to over 1000 degrees? What we know from other videos of WT7, is many of the fires extinguished themselves (burned themselves out).

I really doubt that a failure of a steel beam, which supports the floor (and nothing else), could take down an entire building.
Otherwise the facts in this video are generally correct, but misleading. (because office fires don't burn over 1000 degrees)


Actually, cinder blocks will ignite and burn if hot enough and they make up most people's chimneys in their house. Different materials burn at higher and higher temperatures. The heat from the fire pulls in more air, which causes higher temp things to burn, which pulls in more air, etc. etc.

ANY large fire can burn over 1000 degrees. It just needs oxygen in quantity. If some sweaty bastard with a set of bellows can melt iron and steel in a forge, then air sucked in by a huge, uncontrolled fire can do the same. The whole structure doesn't need to bend, just parts of the bottom.

You can't equate a single-room fire test of material combustion with a fully involved structure fire.

...and yes, you are quite right, most fires, if not brought under control, make highrises into death traps.