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iOS FAP requests -
Posts: 30
Joined: 7/5/2004
From: United States
Two requests regarding the iOS Fill-a-Pix app:
1) Please make more Advanced Logic Puzzle Packs. I finish the Basic Puzzles far too quickly. I enjoy them, but those puzzle packs just don't last me very long. The current ratio (not counting the iPad-only packs) is five Basic Puzzle Packs to two Advanced. (If you include the iPad-only packs, it's even worse, nine Basic to three Advanced.) I estimate it takes me roughly ten times as long to complete an Advanced Logic Puzzle Pack as it does a Basic Logic Pack, so an Advanced Logic Pack provides ten times the entertainment value for me. I'd like to see the ratio come closer to that on the website, which is almost perfectly half Basic, half Advanced. I'd even be willing to pay a bit more for the Advanced Packs than I already do, given their significantly greater value to me.
2) Please allow iPhone/iTouch users to access and play the Extra Large Puzzles that are currently set as iPad-only. I understand some potential reasons why those puzzles are marked as iPad-only, but it was dismaying to discover that I could not even purchase those packs on my iPhone to see for myself if working them on the smaller screen was suitable for me. Yes, they are significantly larger than the puzzles in the other packs, but about half of the puzzles in each of the regular packs are too small on the iPhone screen to work comfortably without using the pinch-zoom anyway—what makes this situation significantly different for the larger puzzles? Add in the unique offset method you have devised for moving the focus cursor in the grid, and the issues of the larger grid on a small screen seem, to me, to be non-issues.
Sure, some people would likely not enjoy the experience of working those puzzles on the small screen, but if you set up the app so that when a user tries to purchase one of those packs on an iPhone, they get a warning regarding the size and its potential unsuitability on that screen, and they are required to unambiguously acknowledge that they understand this issue and would like to try them anyway, knowing that they cannot get a refund if they don't find them suitable, you would deter the bulk of people who might make complaints and demand refunds from spending the money, while still allowing those of us who genuinely want to take our chances with the larger puzzles to purchase and try them. You might even provide a single free sample puzzle in the largest size that iPhone users could download to determine whether they would find the large puzzles workable on the small screen.
I have games from other vendors, games that are, like your puzzles, visual/spatial logic puzzles on a grid, though with different objectives and gameplay methods, that also have in-app purchasable puzzle packs designated as meant for the iPad only. Those games do not prevent iPhone users from purchasing those puzzle packs, nor do they even give any warnings like I suggested above. They also have neither a zoom feature nor offset cursor control. And yet those puzzles they recommend for iPad only are, for the most part, just perfectly playable for me on the iPhone (I occasionally have cursor-control issues on the largest grids, but I can usually overcome that by working more slowly and carefully, or switching from my fat fingertip to a narrower stylus). With zoom and offset cursor, I expect that I would find the Extra Large Puzzles at least equally as workable, if not more so, as the large grids in those other games.
If there is some other overriding technical reason for blocking those Puzzle Packs on the iPhone, please explain it. Thanks.
Post #: 1
RE: iOS FAP requests -
Posts: 1244
Joined: 4/28/2002
From: Israel
Hi quantumpanda
Thank you for the feedback and extensive explanations. We're new to the iOS market and still learning which games, variants, sizes, colors, difficulty levels and so on to provide. We are already working on more Advanced Logic volumes and volumes with puzzles larger than 40x60 for the iPhone. You can expect to see them on App Store in a few weeks. I'm sure as we get more experience and feedback from our community we'll be able to provide a better mix of content.
Thanks again, Dave
(in reply to
Post #: 2
RE: iOS FAP requests -
Posts: 30
Joined: 7/5/2004
From: United States
Awesome! I'm looking forward to the new puzzles!
(in reply to
Post #: 3
RE: iOS FAP requests -
Posts: 30
Joined: 7/5/2004
From: United States
Well, I guess it's time to bring this topic back to the fore. Two things about iOS Fill-a-Pix that could use some work...and it's not exactly the same two that I began this thread with.
1) The complaint I had when I opened this thread a year ago is still present: iPad-only packs. While I appreciate the great increase in number of puzzle packs available overall, I just don't understand why there even are packs that con be purchased and solved only on an iPad. The only technical reason I can come up with is that the iPad-size puzzles may need more memory than an iPhone has, but I don't know the relative memory capacities of iPhones vs iPads.
At any rate, what bugs me here is that there are all these iPad-only packs that I cannot purchase and cannot hide from view. They're cluttering up my Library screen and I have to scroll through them every time new packs are added to see if I can buy the new packs or not. Please update the app to allow iPhone users to buy and play those packs, or let us hide them from the Library screen so they're not cluttering things up.
2) New issue: Over time, I'm finding the Fill-a-Pix app to be getting slower and slower at certain tasks. Specifically, navigating between the Library, Puzzle List, and Solving screens is taking an increasingly lengthy amount of time—currently, it's sometimes as long as ten seconds. Also, turning on or off the Smart-Fill Cursor is taking longer, sometimes as long as five seconds (during which time the timer is still counting). And in the case of the Smart-Fill Cursor, the app gives no indication that it registered you tapping that button during that time, except that you cannot move the cursor during that period. Until I figured out what was going on, I found myself tapping, seeing no change, and so tapping again, only to find that I'd just turned the cursor on and off again, or off and on again, instead of just on or just off.
I'm not sure if these slowdowns are a function of time, or number of puzzles in my Library, or number of puzzles I've solved, or something else. All I know for certain is that the slowness has come on gradually over the past year since the app was first released. Any help in figuring this out would be appreciated.
Other than those two things, I love this and all your other iOS apps! I have all of them installed, and they are among my most frequently played games on my iPhone. I can't wait for the rest of the puzzle types to make it to iOS (I'm particularly eager for Sym-a-Pix to come across). (Except Kakuro and Calcudoku, that is...I never work those puzzles because they require more mental math than just counting, and my poor working memory makes that a struggle and not very enjoyable.)
(in reply to
Post #: 4
RE: iOS FAP requests -
Posts: 1244
Joined: 4/28/2002
From: Israel
1) The reasons for having iPad-only puzzle volumes is both technical and marketing. We wanted the content and price to be in proportion to the size of the device, look aesthetic when opening a new puzzle (if we have larger puzzles they will become smudged), and several other reasons. To compensate, we doubled the number of new volumes from bi-weekly to weekly.
2) Which device are you using, and with which iOS? Anyway, it is unlikely this problem is a matter of accumulated solved/unsolved puzzles. We would have had many complaints if this were the case and so far yours is the only one. The reason might be applications running in a background (especially related to navigation/communication), available memory and upgrading iOS (the later versions run slower). BTW, is this performance decline occurring only in Fill-a-Pix or in the other Conceptis apps as well? Also, is there any improvement after the device is reset?
Thanks, Dave
(in reply to
Post #: 5
RE: iOS FAP requests -
Posts: 30
Joined: 7/5/2004
From: United States
1) I can accept that, but can you at least give the iPhone users the option of hiding the iPad-only packs? As I said before, they're cluttering up my Library, and with the increased rate of release for new packs (for which I thank you greatly, btw), it's getting cumbersome to work around them. Fill-a-Pix is the only Conceptis iOS app where I'm dealing with this, because it's the only one which both is one I play frequently and has a large number of available puzzle packs.
In fact, it would be really nice if you could add a set of options for Library viewing: show only packs available for this device, show only unpurchased packs, show only purchased packs, show only purchased packs containing unsolved puzzles. This would benefit all of the iOS apps as time goes on and the number of released puzzle packs increases. The sorting options help, but they're not enough for these games with large numbers of released packs. I can't speak for anyone else, but I pretty much never go back and look at puzzles I've already completed, so being able to hide puzzle packs with no unsolved puzzles would simplify things greatly for me.
2) I'm using a CDMA (Verizon) iPhone 4 16GB, currently running iOS 6.1.3 (I'm still undecided about whether I'll bother upgrading to iOS 7). The reason I suggested that the number of puzzles might be a possible cause is that this is the only Conceptis app that is exhibiting this kind of slowdown. The others that I play most often (Slitherlink and Tic-Tac-Logic) don't have anywhere near as many puzzles available or purchased as does Fill-a-Pix, and they also don't have any noticeable delay in moving between Library, Puzzle List, and Solving screens. Similarly, the ones I play infrequently that have amounts of available puzzles similar to what Fill-a-Pix does (Sudoku, Link-a-Pix, and Pic-a-Pix) do not exhibit any noticeable delay either.
When you ask about after "reset", are you asking about rebooting the device, or wiping the device's memory and reloading from backup? Rebooting does not appear to improve the slowdown. And I have not tried doing a wipe-and-reload reset—it's kind of an annoying procedure to go through, and I avoid doing it unnecessarily.
Tangentially related question: Are the difficulty ratings for iOS puzzles comparable to those on the same puzzle type on the web site? I ask because I've found the "Hard" Tic-Tac-Logic puzzles on iOS to be substantially easier than the "Hard" TTLs on the web site. I'm trying to figure out if they actually are easier, or if it's a side effect from the iPhone puzzles being limited in size—most of the "Hard" TTL puzzles on the web site are larger grids than what you've made available on the iPhone.
At any rate, keep 'em coming! I criticize only because I love you guys and your work, and want this stuff to be even better!
(in reply to
Post #: 6
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Kane and Lynch Movie Might Still Be Happening For Some Reason
"Oh good, that film adaptation of Kane and Lynch might still be happening," said no one ever. Looks like nobody is about to get the movie they always wanted.
Way back in 2007, which seems like millennia ago, Bruce Willis and Jaime Foxx were eying the roles of all-around bad dudes Kane and Lynch for a film based on the mildly successful video game, Kane and Lynch. Thankfully, the movie languished in development hell for a few years, and was all but forgotten. That is, until this week when the Hollywood Reporter broke news the project might be revived.
Now, F. Gary Gray is supposedly attached to direct, and Gerard Butler is in negotiations to star as Kane. It's also rumored an offer is out to Vin Diesel to co-star as Lynch, but there's no word on whether or not he'll have time or the interest. Though there have been two Kane and Lynch games, neither will be fondly remembered, and the audience waiting in the wings for this movie to finally get made is minute at best. What's more, there have been dozens of buddy bad guy movies with better concepts made, and the only thing that remotely makes Kane and Lynch stand out are its video game ties.
Maybe we'll all get lucky and this second go 'round will meet the same fate as the first, and 'Kane and Lynch' will remain in limbo.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Cedar Rapids Xavier Saints staked their claim as the Dan Gable wrestling Hawkeyes of Class 1A girls' soccer with their fourth consecutive state title last weekend in Muscatine. Kathryn Mettenberg, seen here in the interview portion, scored the Saints' goal in a 1-0 victory over Dallas Center-Grimes.
On the other side, the Cedar Rapids Kennedy Cougars finally broke through in Class 2A. Senior and Iowa recruit Jade Grimm, also interviewed here, scored a pair of goals in the Cougars' 3-1 victory over fellow Mississippi Valley Conference school Iowa City West.
After three straight runner-up finishes — all 1-0 losses to West Des Moines Valley — the Cougars overcame a 1-0 first-half deficit and claimed the title. Shauna Happel tied the game early in the second half.
This video is from Gazette reporter Marc Morehouse, who covered Saturday's title games.


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Itsy Bitty, Teeny Weeny Solar-Powered Bikini
It's curious that people are still squeamish about the cost of going solar (seriously people, it pays for itself!), but when it comes to tiny swimsuits with solar panels, we're all in.
The awkward-looking solar bikini created by Andrew Schneider (seen at right) hit the gadget world earlier this year and received all kinds of praise for its ability to charge your gadgets while you soak up some rays. Now, swimming champion Gemma Mengual was photographed walking down the runway in a solar powered one-piece by Triumph, leading me to believe we will be seeing more of these bad boys.
I won't deny the chicness of solar power, but I will deny any requests to wear a swimsuit with any extra gadget holsters, mini solar panels or wires. I can charge my phone or iPod on my solar powered portable charger without getting hot, sweaty and looking painfully uncomfortable. Thank you very much.


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The Crystal Palace collection is reminiscent of one of the most famous buildings in London, Crystal Palace, built in the late 1800's. The beautiful and grand structure was designed to be unconventional. It was startling geometric and easily allowed light to shine through the hundres of panes of glass. Jewellery in this collection is also stunningly symmetrical, to reflect the fantastic architecture.
1.74ct D SI1 Cushion Cut White Diamond


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Rays' Garvin aiming for rebound season
Left-hander primed for breakout after 2012 Tommy John surgery
By Jake Seiner | March 11, 2014 3:21 PM
There's plenty for baseball people to say about Grayson Garvin. That they always rave first about his makeup is a testament to the left-hander's personality.
The qualities that draw those reviews -- the work ethic, enthusiasm, positivity and intelligence -- have been useful tools over the past year and a half.
"If anybody can overcome Tommy John [surgery], Grayson Garvin can," Tampa Bay director of Minor League operations Mitch Lukevics said. "No doubt in my mind."
That theory is being put to the test this season, as Garvin -- the 59th overall pick in the 2011 Draft -- attempts to come back from an elbow surgery that was actually years in the making.
A 45th-round pick by Houston in 2008, Garvin passed on signing a pro contract and instead took a roster spot at Vanderbilt. In 2009, the Suwanee, Ga., native began having pain in his throwing elbow, prompting a visit to Dr. James Andrews.
What Andrews found was unusual, and the surgeon was faced with a quandary. The pain in Garvin's elbow was being caused by a stress fracture in an abnormal bone growth, and the growth happened to be right near Garvin's ulnar collateral ligament -- the same ligament fixed when doctors perform Tommy John surgery.
It was possible that time would heal the stress fracture, but the growth was not going to disappear on its own. Andrews gave Garvin the option to either have Tommy John and remove the bone growth at the same time or spend six weeks resting the stress fracture and risk letting the growth cause further damage to his UCL.
"[Andrews] said I may be able to throw the rest of my career with it, or I may not be able to," Garvin said. "At that point, I was willing to sit out and take that little extra rest and see if that would be the way it would go."
Early returns on Garvin's decision to rest and rehab were promising. The 6-foot-6 left-hander earned the BFC Whitehouse Top Pitcher Award in the Cape Cod League in 2010, going 5-0 with a league-leading 0.74 ERA. The next summer, the Rays selected him in the first round of the Draft and signed him for a reported 70,000 -- a below-slot deal penned after the Rays' reportedly expressed concerned over Garvin's medical records.
The left-hander made his pro debut in 2012 with Class A Advanced Charlotte, and it didn't take long for the elbow issues to resurface. Garvin said the elbow bothered him on and off from 2009-12, but around his third start with the Stone Crabs, a pain developed in his elbow and never went away.
He tried to pitch through the discomfort, as he had in the past, but as his ERA ballooned and the pain never dissipated, it became clear Garvin would have to have Tommy John.
Garvin's elbow received a full cleanup in that surgery -- doctors repaired his UCL and also removed the bone growth believed to have caused the UCL damage. Taking advice from offseason workout buddies and Tommy John survivors Kris Medlen and Jonny Venters, as well as Rays' pitching coordinator Kyle Snyder, Garvin felt confident in the rehab process.
"Going through it the first time, you don't know what to expect," Garvin said. "Being able to talk through the process and the throwing program was helpful on the front end to have realistic expectations of what it would be like when you go through it yourself.
"It's definitely been valuable for me, for nothing else, to have the peace of mind to know and see guys healthy on the back end."
Garvin returned to game action late in 2013, splitting 11 starts between the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League and Charlotte. He managed a 1.08 ERA in five starts in the Florida State League, posting a 12-to-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 16 2/3 innings.
Tampa Bay sent the then-23-year-old to the Arizona Fall League to get some more innings. He logged 26 frames, posting a 3.76 ERA with a 25-to-8 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Baseball America reported the left-hander's velocity was back in the 91-to-93 mph range, even touching 95.
"It was definitely a tough process getting back," Garvin said. "I think going out there at the beginning, you want to be back in midseason form like when you felt healthy before the surgery. That's not a realistic expectation.
"Once I got to the FSL and once I got to Arizona, I really started to feel more like myself. I wasn't fully back at all, but there were signs of the things I wanted to see. It was rewarding to go back out there and have success and see the fruits of the labor that I'd put in through 12, 13, 14 months of rehab."
Garvin said his body feels good this spring. Minor League Spring Training games begin Wednesday, so he's yet to see action beyond intrasquad scrimmages, but he's encouraged by the throwing he's done.
The left-hander will start the season with Double-A Montgomery, where he'll attempt to recapture the stuff that, in combination with his makeup, made him a first-round Draft choice almost three years ago.
The Rays, like Garvin, are bullish about the results.
"Grayson's the epitome of a professional," Lukevics said. "[Tommy John] set him back, but no one has better intangibles than Grayson Garvin.
"If he had to be injured, we're happy it's Tommy John. There's a pretty good success rate with pitchers coming back from Tommy John and having the same stuff. Maybe they get a little stronger, a little better. We're encouraged by the way he's throwing the baseball."
Jake Seiner is a contributor to MiLB.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Jake_Seiner. This story was not subject to the approval of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues or its clubs.View More


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Home >Fabric>Sewing Fabric>All Fabric>Amy Butler Violette-Town Center-Azure Fabric Fat Quarter
The Violette fabric collection by Amy Butler is a wonderful range of French inspired deco graphics mixed with modern flora and fauna.
Amy describes how 'the bright, fresh colours are inspired by farmer's market visits and the inherent natural beauty of the French countryside. The name Violette or Violet comes from the region I visited where they harvest the beautiful violets to craft handmade soaps, pastilles and fragrance.'
Standard UK delivery: From £1.00 per order
Express UK delivery: From £5.99 per order
Various delivery options available at checkout. International Delivery Available on every item.
Further info on delivery times and charges.
Not happy with an item? We have a simple no quibble return policy.


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My netbook is 1.5 years old and it only happens when Safari is opened. Why it happens? I think that the sounds are coming from my HDD. Should I remove Safari completely? Does it harm my netbook?
Latest Safari (5.0.5) on Windows 7 Starter
Netbook with Intel Atom 1.6 Ghz 1.6 GHz processor and 1 GB ram, 160 GB HDD
Brand: Casper


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With the objective of promoting sustainable management of the páramos, the project "Communities of the Páramo: Strengthening Capacities and Coordination for Climate-Change Adaptation" will be implemented by the Mountain Institute (Peru), Fundación Tropenbos (Colombia) and Ecociencia (Ecuador) under the coordination of IUCN South America (IUCN-Sur) and with the support of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The páramos are a neo-tropical, high-altitude eco-region located along the Andean mountain range in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. They extend from above the tree line to the permanent snow line (between 3,200 and 5,000 meters above sea level) and show a distribution similar to an archipelago. They cover an estimated area of 35,770 km2.
The páramo ecosystem is of critical importance to millions of rural and urban people and serves a multitude of purposes and values: It offers habitat for endemic species, provides essential ecosystem services (primarily water supply), and is the location of important cultural sites and a symbol of social identity.
The direct beneficiaries of the project will be the local communities that live in and around the páramos in selected sites in the three countries. These local communities are mostly composed of indigenous people and peasants.
Planned activities include improvement of capacities and knowledge for local actors and planners; implementation and diffusion of local practices for sustainable management of the páramo; promotion of policies to support climate-change adaptation at the local, national and regional levels; and support for páramo conservation and management through effective land use and ecosystem-based planning.
Aracely Pazmiño, IUCN-Sur Senior Officer for Social Equity and Governance, assures that this initiative seeks to advance regional coordination of páramo management; to include actions of past experiences but also to innovate processes that offer options for sustainable management; and to contribute to livelihoods of the populations of the páramo.
Contacto: firstname.lastname@example.com


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So, after much pressure from social media, activists, oped writers and blogs as well as the odd well-deserved editorial in mainstream papers, it seems the message did finally get through to Samaa TV's management. Maya Khan and her team have been fired by Samaa and her programme stopped. The following is the letter from Samaa CEO Zafar Siddiqi which was shared with the media:
Dear All
Your feedback is appreciated. As a responsible corporate citizen, Samaa TV did what was required under the circumstances. We do not and have not in the past or intend to in the future to take our viewership or reporting requirements without the seriousness that they deserve.
You would appreciate that as an organisation with a functioning management team, we had to conduct certain legal requirements over the past week and internal review processes (which are operational in nature) before procedding further.
As a result of which I can inform you:
We asked Maya to apologise unconditionally which she did not.
The CEO asked her to do that on Friday which she refused.
As a result of which the following will be put in place on Monday, Jan 30th:
Maya and her team will receive termination notices.
Her show is being stopped from Monday morning.
Our deeds and actions taken since this episode occured are there for the record and hope this will settle issues as far as the station is concerned.
A lot has been written about the race for ratings. Well, we do [not] absolve such behaviour irrespective of ratings that the show was getting.
With best regards and thank you for your understanding.
Zafar Siddiqi
Chairman CNBC Arabiya
Chairman CNBC Africa
President CNBC Pakistan
There are a couple of things to gather from this unfortunate episode:
1. Social pressure works! While Mr Siddiqi must be fully appreciated for being willing to listen to and understand the voices of outrage and for taking swift action, none of this would have been possible without the pressure that built up over the issue. What made the pressure effective was the multi-pronged strategy which involved not just raising the issue with PEMRA, but also writing directly to the Samaa TV management, the petitions and threats of protest as well as the momentum that organizing a consensus provided via Twitter and Facebook and various oped pieces in mainstream papers. It was this momentum that forced the mainstream to raise the issue even in editorials. Let no one doubt the power of a group of people to change things.
2. The importance of thoughtful media management. Even as Samaa quickly issued a clear apology once the matter achieved notoriety, the issue might have been 'handled' with less drastic results had Ms Maya Khan not issued a half-hearted mea culpa (while grinning) at the same time which only made people question Samaa's seemingly sincere apology. On top of it all, her programme's producer, one Sohail Zaidi, was quoted by the BBC defiantly stating that he was "not responsible to anyone but himself." Ms Khan and Mr Zaidi ended up being responsible for making their own cases worse.
3. The importance of perspective and proportion. Some activists and social media types did get carried away in their anger. To be sure, Maya Khan and her unashamed cohorts did infringe on other peoples' privacy and harrass them. But posting details and pictures of Maya Khan's personal life or the personal cell phone numbers of Samaa TV management on public forums was certainly not the way to go. Thankfully, there were calmer heads within activists who immediately called out their fellow activists on the irony of responding to someone's egregious actions by acting in the same coin.
4. Need for ongoing media monitoring. One of the main reasons this blog was set up was because we felt the need for such monitoring at a time when media was booming in Pakistan and there were precious few willing to raise a voice against well-funded media houses. Obviously, however, we neither have the resources to monitor all of the media nor any official mandate to take action on issues we come across. All we can do is play a part in publicising issues as we see them. But what is really needed is for an independent body - hopefully comprising of civil society experts in the media - to oversee public complaints. PEMRA has the official authority to take action but is often criticised variously for being either overly bureaucratic, under the government's thumb (and thus partial), or too beholden to the large corporate media houses. It would be in PEMRA's interests to help set up an independent body, along the lines of the UK's Offcom, to help it monitor content and handle public complaints. This would not only reduce pressure on PEMRA but provide its decisions with the stamp of fairness and consensus it needs.
Hopefully, some of these lessons will be learnt.


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TALLAHASSEE – Gov. Rick Scott and the Cabinet are taking umbrage with President Barack Obama's "navigators" program intended to guide people through the requirements of the new Affordable Care Act, saying it lacks privacy protections.
But with the start of enrollment in health plans fast approaching, federal officials and Democrats shot back Tuesday that Florida's top leadership was hyping the issue for political gain.
Specifically, Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi criticized the federal government for inadequate safeguards to ensure that the personal information being gathered by the hundreds of people to be hired as "navigators" wouldn't increase the chances of identity theft.
Last week, U.S. Heath and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Florida would get $7.8 million for the personnel, who will help uninsured people sign up for federally subsidized health insurance plans that begin Jan. 1. But training hours for those hired have been cut from 30 to 20 hours in the rush to have the program running by Oct. 1.
"Federal safeguards that should be in place to protect our privacy are behind schedule and inadequate," Scott said during a Cabinet meeting in Miami. "It is unclear how the federal government will protect personal information from being stolen or otherwise misused."
But Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz blasted the "hypocrisy" of Scott and Bondi as another example of the Republican-dominated state government attempting to delay or impede implementation of the federal health law.
"He has been hell-bent on obstructing the smooth implementation of ObamaCare," said Wasserman Schultz, a Weston congresswoman, in an interview. "He's done everything he can to block it and impede its implementation."
Florida lawmakers this year passed a law (SB 1842) that requires navigators hired in Florida to be registered with the state, be U.S. citizens or legal aliens and undergo background checks.
But Scott and lawmakers also opted to let the federal government develop the health-care "exchange" that citizens could use to find plans, a move that also forfeited the state's ability to hire, train and certify the navigators.
"They had the ability to control all of those issues themselves if they had chosen to set up a state exchange," she said.
"Because of their political obstinance, they forfeited their right to express those concerns."
Scott's criticism is another example of his pivoting for re-election on a divisive political issue. While he had been a critic of the health-care law, last spring he spurned his conservative GOP base by embracing a $50-billion federal expansion of the Medicaid program that would have covered one million low-income people who are now uninsured.
Six months later, after the Legislature rejected the expansion, he's reverted to opposing the law.
Bondi, who led the unsuccessful multi-state legal challenge to the law, along with 12 other Republican attorneys general asked Sebelius to require standardized background screenings of navigator applicants, and called the reduction in training requirements from 30 hours to 20 hours a product of "running out of time."
"This has nothing to do with anything but protecting our citizens from identity theft," Bondi said. "We have a lot of questions we need to have answers to. They're going to have access to your tax information, your personal information, your Social Security information."
But Wasserman Schultz called that claim "rediculous."
"Gov. Scott's hypocrisy as well as the attorney general's hypocrisy in complaining about the training and screening of navigators and suggesting privacy is going to be in jeopardy is really outrageous," she said.
"He has no interest or concern about the health-care of Floridians."
Federal officials countered that no one would be asked to provide personal health information and people who chose to use navigators will have their eligibility verified in the same manner as applicants for other government programs.
"HHS has run in-person assistance programs for years to help Americans enroll in Medicare and Medicaid," HHS press secretary Fabien Levy said in an e-mail.
"The Navigators will be one more resource for Americans to learn about their health insurance options, enroll in the Marketplaces, and find the plan that is best for themselves and their families. All navigators will be required to comply with privacy and security standards, and they will never obtain information without the consumers consent."


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AIDS Treatment News
ICAAC 1995: by John S. James
Most AIDS conferences leave a sense of disappointment, of how little new or significant work has been done. But ICAAC 1995 -- the 35th annual Inter-Science Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, in San Francisco September 17-20 -- was clearly different -- and important. ICAAC focuses on new antibiotics for all infectious diseases -- perhaps a fifth of the 1800 presentations were relevant to AIDS -- but the 1995 meeting was especially necessary since the International Conference on AIDS has begun a two-year schedule and, for he first time, will not occur this year. ICAAC was pivotal not so much for the meeting itself (and certainly not for how the meeting was administered), but as a marker of far-reaching changes which were already happening. The conference included important new information, and it brought key people together, allowing new thinking and new controversies to be more readily grasped.
Treatment information is changing rapidly, and experts often disagree on what it means. Anything we say may soon be obsolete -- even as soon as next week (after the Fifth European Conference on Clinical Aspects and Treatment of HIV Infection, September 27-29 in Copenhagen). Readers should note that what we report is not established truth, but rather a collection of theories or views which may -- or may not -- prove helpful for understanding AIDS treatment developments. Remember that this article was written in late September 1995; next month or next year the picture will be different.
Since we must be selective in reporting hundreds of research presentations and what people are saying about them, readers should know what our emphases and/or biases are:
Several of the following articles focus on the single most important session of ICAAC 1995, the "late breaker" meeting on September 18. Late breakers are research reports which arrived too late for the regular program, but were important enough to be included anyway; in recent years some conferences have set aside a special session for this purpose. Of 80 papers submitted for this late-breaker section, only 10 were accepted, because of limited time in the program; the others are unlikely to see the light of day at least until the Human Retroviruses conference in early 1996 (journal publication would usually take even longer than that).
Major Study Shows by John S. James
A major government study has found that AZT alone was inferior to AZT plus ddC or AZT plus ddI combination therapy, or to ddI alone, in patients starting with a CD4 (T-helper) count between 200 and 500. This finding, first reported in the press on September 14 and later described in more detail in a preliminary analysis at the ICAAC conference in San Francisco, is expected to change the common practice of putting people on AZT alone as their first treatment for HIV infection.
[Note: As this issue went to press, we learned that the results of another major AIDS trial, the Delta study in Europe and Australia, strongly confirmed the ACTG 175 results, showing that AZT plus ddC or AZT plus ddI had a substantial survival benefit over AZT alone. The Delta study did not have a ddI-only treatment arm. The Delta researchers strongly recommended that when people first start anti-HIV therapy, they use one of these combinations instead of AZT alone.]
The U.S. study, called ACTG 175, enrolled over 2,000 volunteers and lasted for two years. It randomly assigned patients to receive one of four treatments:
It looked primarily for three different outcomes:
If somebody did poorly (either because they developed an AIDS-related condition, or because their CD4 count fell by 50% or more) they were switched to a different study regimen which might be more beneficial -- those on single-drug therapy being switched to the combination, and those on one of the combinations being switched to the other one. In addition, several substudies were "nested" in ACTG 175, to test some of the volunteers more thoroughly in order to answer specific questions. A virology substudy measured viral load from over 300 of the volunteers, at intervals of 8, 20, 56, 80, and 104 weeks; these data have just begun to be analyzed (see "ACTG 175 Viral Load Substudy," below).
Overall Results of ACTG 175
The most important results were found by separate analysis of the "antiretroviral-naive" and "antiretroviral-experienced" volunteers. The antiretroviral-naive group had never received AZT, ddI, ddC, or other antiretrovirals -- or had taken such treatment for less than a week. The "antiretroviral- experienced" volunteers had been heavily treated with AZT before the study began; 42% had already taken antiretrovirals (almost always AZT) for two years or more, and another 24% had been treated for more than one but less than two years.
Results for Those Starting Antiretrovirals
For those who had not taken antiretrovirals before, the death rate during the trial was 7% for those who started AZT alone -- compared to 4% for ddI alone, 4% for AZT plus ddI, and 3% for AZT plus ddC. (This difference is not statistically significant, however, meaning that it could well have happened by chance alone -- since not many people died.) For the same patients, the rate of either progressing to AIDS or dying during the trial was 12% for those starting on AZT alone, vs. 9% for ddI alone, 8% for AZT plus ddI, and 6% for AZT plus ddC. (Only the difference between AZT alone and AZT plus ddC is statistically significant here.) And for these patients, the rate of progressing to either a 50% or greater CD4 count decline or AIDS or death, was 23% for AZT alone, vs. 17% for ddI alone, 14% for AZT plus ddI, and 10% for AZT plus ddC. (Here, all the comparisons between AZT and the other three treatments are statistically significant, as is the comparison between ddI and AZT plus ddC.)
Results for Those Previously Treated with AZT
For the antiretroviral experienced group, the comparable results are as follows: The death rate during the trial was 10% for those taking AZT alone -- compared to 5% for ddI alone, 6% for AZT plus ddI, and 9% for AZT plus ddC. (The differences between AZT vs. ddI, and AZT vs. AZT plus ddI, are statistically significant; the other comparisons are not.) The rate of either progressing to AIDS or dying during the trial was 18% for those using AZT alone, vs. 14% for ddI alone, 13% for AZT plus ddI, and 17% for AZT plus ddC. (Only the difference between AZT alone and AZT plus ddI is statistically significant.) And the rate of progressing to either a 50% or greater CD4 count decline or AIDS or death, was 38% for AZT alone, vs. 26% for ddI alone, 22% for AZT plus ddI, and 27% for AZT plus ddC. (Here, all the comparisons between AZT and the other three treatments are statistically significant.) So AZT alone was also worse than the other three regimens for those who had already taken AZT. AZT plus ddC did relatively poorly for those who had already taken AZT (especially in the clinical endpoints, AIDS and death), although it did not do as badly as AZT alone.
The ACTG 175 Virology Substudy
Viral-load results of ACTG 175 were not included in the executive summary. Instead, a preliminary analysis was quickly put together for the ICAAC late-breaker session. Viral load was not measured on everybody in ACTG 175, but on a selection of the volunteers; 196 of them were antiretroviral naive, and 152 were experienced. Viral-load samples were taken twice at baseline, and at 8, 20, 56, 80, and 104 weeks. The amount of virus will be measured by several different methods, but only plasma HIV RNA has been analyzed so far, and is described here. Overall, viral load showed a much smaller decline from the AZT-only treatment than from the other three treatment regimens. By eight weeks, the viral load had already predicted the main conclusion of the two-year study -- that treatment with AZT alone was inferior to the other regimens. The viral load averages at 80 and especially at 104 weeks were less reliable than at earlier times because of drop-outs from the trial, and also because changes of study medication.
(Viral load samples were included in the analysis presented at the late-breaker session only if patients were still on the treatment to which they were assigned; this is different from the "intent to treat" analysis used for the clinical outcomes of ACTG 175, described above). Therefore, the descriptions below apply to the baseline and the first three time points unless otherwise noted.
Abbott Protease Inhibitor
A clinical trial in France with about 25 volunteers combined ritonavir (the Abbott protease inhibitor) with AZT plus ddC, in patients who previously were untreated. The combination achieved a 2.5 log (more than 300-fold) average drop in HIV viral load, as measured both by HIV RNA and by infectious virus; this drop has been sustained for 20 weeks so far and is still continuing. This result was submitted by Jacques Leibowitch, M.D., a clinical immunologist at the Raymond- Poincare Hospital/University Rene-Descartes, Paris Ouest; it was apparently too late even for the late-breaker session, but a couple of Dr. Leibowitch's slides were shown in a late breaker presentation from Abbott Laboratories. And Dr. Leibowitch showed us some of his other slides when we met in the aisle during the conference.
The proportion of patients with at least a 99.9% drop in viral load has kept increasing over the five months of this trial, and has now reached over 50%. We need to learn more details of this study. The continuing increase in the proportion of patients who respond very well to this treatment suggests that immune-system recovery may be helping the drugs to control the virus. If so, effective viral suppression might be sustained for a long time.
At the ICAAC conference, there was much discussion and interest in combining a protease inhibitor (either ritonavir or one of the others) with combinations of other antiretrovirals, especially AZT plus 3TC, or AZT plus ddC. There is nothing magic about these particular combinations, however; the goal is to get good viral suppression in addition to the suppression due to the protease inhibitors. For persons who have already used AZT for a long time, effective combinations of other drugs which they have not used might work better. This strategy needs more attention and research.
[Note: A larger trial, ACTG 229, combined a different protease inhibitor (saquinavir, developed by Hoffmann-La Roche) with AZT plus ddC. Viral suppression with the triple combination was better than in the other arms of that trial, but not nearly as good as in the new French study. The difference in results may be because patients in ACTG 229 had extensive prior use of AZT; all the volunteers had used it for at least four months, and most for more than a year. Also, ACTG 229 used a dose of saquinavir which many now suspect is less than the optimum dose.
[An Italian study found a 1.7 log (50-fold) viral load drop with the current dose and formulation of saquinavir, combined with AZT only. Hoffmann-La Roche is now conducting a major international study, which has already enrolled 2000 patients and will enroll 1000 more, which includes a treatment arm combining saquinavir, AZT, and ddC in AZT-naive patients.]
[Safety note: Ritonavir MUST NOT be combined with any of a number of other drugs, both common prescription medications and certain experimental treatments. Anyone using ritonavir -- which is not widely available -- must follow all instructions carefully.]
Agouron Protease Inhibitor
Agouron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. of La Jolla, California, is developing a protease inhibitor called AG 1343, trade name Viracept(TM). Two small studies, each checking the tolerability and antiviral activity of different doses of the drug, in slightly different formulations, were presented at the late breaker session at ICAAC. The first study, with 22 volunteers, was conducted in the UK; the second study, in the U.S., with 30 volunteers, tested higher doses.
The main results (from the two studies together) were:
Saquinavir (Roche Protease Inhibitor)
Saquinavir, a protease inhibitor developed by Hoffmann-La Roche, is currently in large-scale clinical trials at a dose of 1800 mg per day (600 mg three times a day).
[Recently a new formulation of the same drug has been developed to increase the low bioavailability of saquinavir (the low absorption into the bloodstream after the drug is taken orally); see the notice about the new saquinavir trial in this issue of AIDS Treatment News].
Meanwhile, a small (40- patient) study at Stanford University has tested higher doses of the original formulation, with intensive patient monitoring, to make sure that higher blood levels are safe, and do increase antiviral activity. Results of that study, which compared doses of 3600 and 7200 per day (twice and four times the dose used in other trials), were reported in the late-breaker session at ICAAC. Twenty patients with CD4 counts from 200 to 500 were given each of the doses. This trial lasted for 24 weeks. Both doses significantly decreased viral load and increased CD4 count. But the high dose resulted in greater and more sustained responses. This study also looked for two mutations in the virus which are critical in the development of resistance to this drug -- mutations at positions 48 and 90 of the HIV protease gene. These mutations developed more slowly in the high-dose arm, with four out of 19 patients having one of them when the study ended on week 24, compared to 9 patients out of 20 having a mutation with the low dose. No patient developed both mutations.
Some adverse effects were found, somewhat more at the higher dose; all resolved when the drug was discontinued. Only one patient, at the high dose, chose to discontinue the study, due to transient diarrhea and confusion. Three others (also on the higher dose) needed a brief drug holiday due to abnormalities in various blood tests (one for modest elevation of liver-function tests, one for increased CPK, and one for neutropenia); but these three were able to re-start and continue drug at the full dose. There were also some milder side effects, mostly at the high dose, but most patients finished the study without dose modification. The low-dose group had a maximum average CD4 increase of 72 at week 4; this increase declined and was only 31 at week 24. In the high-dose group, the CD4 count continued to rise until it reached an average increase of 121 at week 20; it was still 82 above baseline at week 24. The high-dose group had a maximum viral-load drop of 1.34 logs (22-fold), vs. 1.06 logs (11-fold) maximum drop for the low dose. At week 24, the high-dose group had an average reduction of 0.85 logs (7- fold) vs. 0.48 logs (3-fold) at week 24.
Some patients were also tested for the amount of drug in their blood (using the AUC, or area under the curve, measurement of blood levels). There was a clear relationship between higher AUC and greater drop in the viral load, with the higher dose clearly showing the greater drug levels. But there was considerable patient-to-patient variation in AUC within each dose level.
Ritonavir, Saquinavir Combination -- & Warning
Laboratory evidence suggests that two protease inhibitors, Abbott's ritonavir and Roche's saquinavir, might work particularly well together. (But caution: this combination will be very dangerous unless the dose of saquinavir is drastically reduced; since no one yet knows how much to reduce the dose, this must be tested in a carefully controlled study.) The possibility of combining the drugs was discussed by researchers from Abbott at the ICAAC late- breaker session.
The laboratory tests suggest two different rationales for research on this drug combination:
In tests in rat, combining saquinavir with ritonavir greatly helps to overcome this problem. The reason is that ritonavir blocks an enzyme which the liver uses to metabolize and eliminate saquinavir. (The same enzyme also metabolizes ritonavir itself; ritonavir has an unusually long half life in the body because it blocks this enzyme.) In tests in rats, combining the drugs increased the maximum blood concentration of saquinavir by 18-fold, and also greatly extended the time the drug was in the blood -- increasing total exposure to saquinavir by 290 times. Some researchers believe that the difference in humans, while still large, may not be that extreme.
Symptom-Reduction Trials by John S. James
At the FDA workshop on clinical trials (September 6 and 7, with associated meetings on September 8; see discussion in AIDS Treatment News #228 and #229), our major goal was to put our proposal for symptom-reduction trials onto the table for discussion. We were impressed with the openness of people to considering this kind of trial design -- not as something they necessarily agreed with, but as a possibility worth serious examination.
(For an earlier draft of our proposal, see AIDS Treatment News #229.) "Symptom reduction" trials is a name we used for a kind of trial in which everyone entering must have a certain, carefully chosen, "indicator symptom" -- a symptom or condition which is believed to be caused by immune deficiency or otherwise by HIV disease, and which is unlikely to resolve quickly on its own, or with conventional treatment. The trial then tests an antiviral drug (or an immune modulator, or other treatment for HIV disease) to see how well it works to make the symptom go away.
The major advantage of this kind of trial is that it tests for a CLINICAL BENEFIT of the proposed treatment (a concrete benefit to patients, not only a blood- test number), and yet it produces results RAPIDLY, since anecdotal reports suggest that many HIV-related symptoms can respond in days or weeks to effective treatment for HIV -- almost as fast as viral load responds.
Conventional AIDS/HIV clinical-benefit trials take the other approach, of measuring disease progression by waiting for new symptoms or conditions to appear. Since HIV disease develops slowly, and most patients will never contribute to the study result, this approach requires large, expensive trials that usually take years to organize and run.
Recently we learned that Abbott Laboratories has been exploring a symptom-reduction kind of trial design, independently of us, in an effort to find a faster way to get its protease inhibitor approved. And at the clinical-trials workshop we learned that the idea of using symptom reduction to tests antivirals has occurred to AIDS researchers over they years. But we do not know of any AIDS trial yet which screens for a specific symptom as an entry criterion -- a symptom NOT directly responsive to the drug being tested -- so that the symptom can indirectly indicate whether or not there is immune-system recovery due to the experimental treatment.
At the clinical-trials workshop, others suggested three important improvements to our proposal:
Medicaid in Congress:
Both houses of Congress are developing legislation which would greatly reduce Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California) coverage over the next seven years, and at the same time remove Federal standards for health care for the poor by converting the remaining Medicaid money into medical block grants that each state can spend as it likes. President Clinton might or might not veto these plans. Whether or not these proposals become law will depend on how much the public mobilizes against them.
These Medicaid changes are extremely serious for persons with HIV and other major illnesses. Medicaid is the only source of medical care for at least 40 percent of adults with AIDS; and 90 percent of children with AIDS also use Medicaid. According to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Medicaid provides approximately $3.5 billion in HIV/AIDS care -- six times the amount funded by the Ryan White CARE program. The National Association of People with AIDS, in a September 26 fax, called these Congressional Medicaid proposals "a train wreck that doesn't have to happen." AIDS Action Council, also on September 26, suggested that organizations approach their Congressional representatives, and also reach out to the press -- both the mainstream press, and also the community press, such as lesbian and gay, people of color, and women's weeklies, to document the human impact of these cuts and so-called "reforms." Also, an organization sign-on letter is available from any of the groups below.
How to Help
For more information about how you can help, contact the Coalition for Emergency Action on Medicaid Funding, through any of the people below:


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Israel News - Stay Informed, Pray Informed
In an apparent about-face, the Bush Administration announced on Friday that it has decided to approve the sale of 1,000 advanced bunker-buster bombs to Israel.
The US Department of Defense announced the planned sale, which will significantly improve Israel's strike capability, despite reservations that Jerusalem is planning to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
The particular bomb approved for the sale is the Guided Bomb Unit-39 (GBU-39), which despite weighing only 250 pounds carries the destructive power of a one-ton bomb.
Earlier in the month, Washington reportedly denied a request by Israel for bunker-buster bombs and a flight corridor through Iraqi airspace.
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text:
'Mancession' causing problems-- but less divorce
The great recession has dramatically hit men without college degrees, thus resulting in a "mancession," according to UVA researcher W. Bradford Wilcox, who has released a new "State of Our Unions" report. In it, Wilcox finds that the divorce rate is actually falling, something the recession may actually be responsible for, due to the expense of setting up two households. (file photo by Erika Maguire)
77 comments
I knew a gay guy once. He always smelled like he just cracked open a fresh butt hole
quote: "I think that gay marriage will become much more acceptable to the mainstream...."
I don't. I don't think it will ever become acceptable to the majority of the population.
I was asking a serious question. Does the child grow up thinking it's normal to introduce two males as his parents? Or introducing two females as his parents? Do most children raised by gay people also grow up gay? I've never been exposed to this lifestyle and I have no idea.
My entire life I was the under the impression that men were suppose to chase women, and women were suppose to chase men.
ci, for your information, Jesus did not simply accept or condone the homosexual lifestyle. He was not down with it. He called it sin, and yes, in fact, He did separate the sheep from the goats - those who will receive eternal life from those who won't. Jesus was not a mild milquetoast man. He spoke the truth with boldness. Yes, He was loving, kind and gentle, but He was also a warrior. You can't portray half a Saviour, attempting to bring His love to the world, without also illuminating His love with His truth. As He said in Matthew 9:12, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." In John 5:14 He said, "Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." Unemployed, it's not possible for us all to get along. Jesus said in Matthew 10:34, "I have not come to bring peace but division." The aim of the Prince of Peace is not peace with unbelief and disobedience. Those are the enemies that must be destroyed, lest they destroy. When the amnesty of Jesus is despised, division is inevitable. What we meet in the biting language of Christ is a form of love that corresponds with the real world of corruption, the dullness of our hearts and the magnitude of what is at stake in our choices. If there were no great evils, no deaf hearts and no eternal consequences, perhaps the only fitting forms of love would be a ... soft touch and tender words. But such a world does not kill the Son of God and hate his disciples.
They are not lively and vivacious!
They are in the Castro. And Boys Town. You must be hanging out with the wrong gay people.
Please don't refer to homosexuals as gay. Gay they are not! For that once lovely word to be attributed to them is laughable! They are not lively and vivacious!
Very correct WestBerkeleyFlats
This too will be another David and Goliath where the HUGE religious majority of HATE is slaughtered by the MINORITY !
GOD BLESS our founding Fathers for a secular nation ! Amazing how they clearly land intentionally left the word GOD out of the single most important document known to this great nation .
That my friends I THANK GOD for :)
Ginny, if your Jesus would say things like you're saying here, that's all I need to know about you.
Why don't you put that to the test and answer my question with a knowledge of Scripture?
Or, wait...as a Christian, you believe that you shouldn't share Scripture with someone WHO IS SPECIFICALLY ASKING FOR IT, because you don't think they'll listen? Is that what Jesus would do?
Or is it your own fear and arrogance standing in the way?
Research shows gay parents are no better or worse than straight parents.
My "jesus" rakes the leaves...
but he is not from Bethleham..he is from Guadalahara meheeco....
and it's pronounced "heyzeus"
I like gay men.... they take two guys out of the race and the odds get a little better for me actually ever getting a girlfriend....
Just speaking personally, the only guys I've ever heard complaining about stalking as an overly stringent criminal category are annoying guys who can't take no for an answer. I've never known a female to cry "stalking" on a guy whose attention she welcomed OR on a guy who understood that her lack of interest was indeed a lack of interest. I would be interested in seeing links to actual cases in which a guy asked a girl out (once) on a date, took her "no" for an answer graciously, and then found himself charged with stalking.
Got the specs? I'm looking for cases of one (1) request for a date, one (1) accepted refusal, and one (1) charge of stalking.
Gasbag Expert, Patrick Fagan, Ph.D. just concluded with his study entitled THE EFFECTS OF PORNOGRAPHY ON INDIVIDUALS, MARRIAGE, FAMILY AND COMMUNITY. Pornography is a visual representation of sexuality which distorts an individual's concept of the nature of conjugal relations. This, in turn, alters both sexual attitudes and behaviour. It is a major threat to marriage, to family, to children and to individual happiness. In undermining marriage it is one of the factors in undermining social stability. Social scientists, clinical psychologists, and biologists have begun to clarify some of the social and psychological effects, and neurologists are beginning to delineate the biological mechanisms through which pornography produces its powerful negative effects. The main defenses against pornography are close family life, a good marriage and good relations between parents and children, coupled with deliberate parental monitoring of Internet use. Traditionally, government has kept a tight lid on sexual traffic and businesses, but in matters of pornography that has waned almost completely, except where child pornography is concerned. Given the massive, deleterious individual, marital, family, and social effects of pornography, it is time for citizens, communities, and government to reconsider their laissez-faire approach.
Not the Jesus I know, but I respect your views. Peace
Ginny, I believe that you have a right to believe but I also think that whatever god is out there has more important things to do than to pass judgment on what someone does with another consenting adult in the privacy of a gas station bathroom.
If you want to save yourself go ahead, but I hope you realize that you are just aleinating people with all of your bible quotations.
Your handpicked quotes about disobedience and destruction make jesus appear as radical as the nutjobs that bombed the world trade center. You do your cause no good and challenge those who disagree with you to destroy or be destroyed themselves.
Do you think that if you continue to spouse the way you do that there will be more christians at the end of the day? Doubtful.
Gasbag Self Ordained Expert
"I was asking a serious question. Does the child grow up thinking it's normal to introduce two males as his parents?"
Did you think it was normal to introduce your parents as Mother and Father ?
From your previous comment, referring to homosexuality as a "lifestyle" ,I am compelled to assume you feel being gay is a choice ?
When some 150 years ago Stephen Douglas argued that states should choose whether or not they would have slaves, Abraham Lincoln replied, "God did not place good and evil before man, telling him to make his choice...he did tell him there was one tree, of the fruit of which he should not eat, upon pain of certain death."
You could be right, Hoolarious. I hope I gone by the time it becomes normal for Mrs & Mrs J to gover to the home of Mrs & Mrs Q for a Tupperware party. While Mr & Mr T run down to the local bar and grille to watch football with Mr & Mr W.
My retirement plans include building a log cabin on top of a small mountain and only coming down once a month to buy groceries. Let the entire world self destruct. But relax folks, I will still have high speed Internet access! We'll still chat once in a while! :)
I think that in perhaps another decade all of the legal bugs will be worked through and gay couples will just be a normal part of society.
It will be helped along if the gay community stops trying to get the rest of us to come to them and starts coming towards the accepted mainstream. I think that the couples that raise families as gay couples are generally good examples for how to do it.
I support gay families, but I have a hard time with "in your face" gay proponents. I think it hurts the cause not helps it.
It is time for all of us to just get along.
Gasbag: that's what I thought.
Ok, so there are sins and there are SINS.
So my question is... if a Catholic priest molests a little boy. and the boy enjoys it (physically) has he commiteed a sin?
If he does not think it is a sin because he was molested is he still a sinner?
If he does not repent does he burn in hell?
Who determines whether or not a sin is a sin?
I mean really, if I think stealing my dads bullets is the right thing to do so he doesn't shoot the barking dog do I really need to repent? Isn't god smart enough to know the difference? Suppose I stole the bullets so he wouldn't shoot the dog, but the dog needed to be shot because it was dying anyway and he wanted to put it out if its misery and I disagreed. Supppose it turns out I was right but had no way of knowing.
This heaven/hell thing is so complicated. No wonder I just watch porn all day.
I don't think it is very fair to a child to have to be raised like that at all!!!!!!
What they are, WestBerkeleyFlats, is tearing each other up!
Wow, Ginny, you must be into the rough stuff!
Homosexual marriage is wrong because God says so! That's all that matters!
What they are, WestBerkeleyFlats, is tearing each other up!
WestBerk, the anti-gay comments on this thread ("how on earth would a child introduce his gay parents? my mind reels at the condundrum"; "I wouldn't want to have a gay father") strike me as essentially similar to the comments of Keith Bardwell, the Louisiana Justice of the Peace who refused to marry interracial couples. He said, "There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage...I think those children suffer and I won't help put them through it."
In other words, his small mind reels at the possibility of something different from his own narrow set of experiences, and so therefore it must be wrong. Same with gay parents: "freaky! odd! they didn't have this in my neighborhood when I was a kid, so therefore it is wrong!"
If you look at the age 19-29 group, their response is absolutely terrifying to me.
Ummm, don't people in Virginia remember when miscegenation was considered to be terrifying? You know, before the civil rights movement and Loving v. Virginia? It's the same thing here.
Gasbag Self Ordained Expert
One thing I appreciate about you is your brutal honesty . I didn't expect you to take the bait on my second question , but since you did I must ask :) .
I questioned if you thought being gay was a choice ? You stated YES .
With your answer considering making a decision so great as your sexuality and if we all made a choice can you tell me about that day you made the HUGE life decision to be straight ? A decision as big as your sexuality would would be HUGE and certainly memorable .
If it is a choice , we all hade to make it; correct ? Could you share that great day you made your decision GSOE :)
Peace bro :)
I love your honesty I have seen . GSOE you have gave me the impression you deal with FACTS ! As it stands , I cannot accept from what I have learned of you that your naive enough to think ANYBODY would choose to be gay !
quote: "...can you tell me about that day you made the HUGE life decision to be straight?"
I'm not sure it was really a choice that I had to make. It was simply what was normal at the time I grew up. There was nothing appealing to me at all at the time to go park somewhere after the home football game with a guy in the back seat of the car as opposed to a girl.
I just don't don't see anything normal about a man loving a man, or a woman loving a woman.
Remember the movie "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?" I just can't imagine how my parents would have reacted if I had brought home a male lover on Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Yes, I try to be honest. This is why I get so much grief in cop shoppe related threads. And these are things I couldn't have said a decade ago while wearing a uniform and badge. The politically correct would have been on my case like flies on... Well, you know the phrase. :)
comment deleted by moderator
This from the US Supreme Court's unanimous decision overturning Virginia's "Racial Integrity" Act of 1924:
"Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."
Just substitute sexual orientation for race and you have the current situation.
Jack Robertson, you will continue believing what you want to believe, no matter what truth is before you.
I think there's a lot of truth in this. With rent, mortgage and utilites so high now, I don't know how any couple could enter into a divorce nowadays. Especially if they have 2 or 3 children!
Who could ever have imagined people would be paying $100 a month or more for water in 2009? Even worse, $500, $600, $700 a month, or more, for gas, electricity and cable TV.
The only reasonable bill left is the phone bill. And most people have defeated this with $200 to $300 a month in cell phones for the family. This punishment is self inflicted though of course.
quote: "Many gay couples are now raising children together."
I wonder how said child introduces the couple to his friends?
"This is my dad, Tom! And this is my dad, Robert!"??
Jesus is THE only one infallible. He, like me, hates the sin of homosexuality, while at the same time loves the homosexuals!
My Jesus looks like a hippy at a phish show. Whats yours look like
Travel lite
Bro, I just read where you are living in fear in C-ville over a couple queers here and there . I fully understand now , why didn't you just say you were scared . Nothing queer scares me bro and I am on the downtown mall frequently, if you need protection from all things queer I will gladly stand up for you . Don't live in fear .
OH and for the record , I too once feared things queer . I am a recovering BIGOT . I have only stated that once online in my life because it messes up my battle for HUMANS .
We can start out slow to help you overcome your fear and realize all things queer are not going to beat you up or hurt you , being in the general vicinity of things queer will not rub off on you . I know its really scary for guys like you, but we can get you through this .
It took me awhile to warm up to the idea if I got near something queer I wouldn't wake up one morning with a burning desire to wear a dress or suddenly loose function of my wrist .
Travel Lite we will have to go slow but we will get you through your fear .
Sue, I suggest you read the Bible! Then you will know Jesus as He truly is!
There are lots of people who choose to live a gay lifestyle. They are different than people who are born gay. THey do it for cultural reasons (for lack of a better definition). they do it to be different. Just like mohawks or EMO folks.
They exist. Not everyone who lives a gay lifestyle is a natural born homosexual.
Just like not everyone who lives a straight lifestyle is straight. It is a choice they made because it works for them (no matter how well or not)
As far as gay sex is concerned. It is always a choice,it it was not then by definition it would be rape.
Work with me here . I cannot argue your point, most certanly there are exceptions to every rule .
quote: "...if you were sitting in your cabin on top of the mountain and your Daughter showed up to dinner with her lesbian partner, and told you she was ââ?¬Å?GAY" could you tell me how much less you would love her and want to protect her if you were faced with this?"
No, I honestly could not tell you how I would feel or the range of emotions I would feel.
But I will also say that I am almost 99.9% certain that this will never happen. She's boy crazy! :)
In reference to her illness, it wasn't anything long lasting or permanent. She simply swallowed a penny and it became lodged horizontally in her throat cutting off her supply of oxygen. Thankfully, I was able to immediately get it turned a little so she could breathe. But she was still rushed into emergency surgery to have it removed though. We have no idea where the penny came from, and not one person ever saw her placing it in her mouth.
Between my home and the hospital, I probably set some local land speed records for the city. But I did have sense enough not to go 85 mph through residential zones. :)
@Gasbag...looking back I was overly snarky about you being a dinosaur. That wasn't necessary and I apologize. I still think you're playing at cluelessness when you ask "how would a child of gay parents introduce his parents" as if you really didn't know the answer, and I think that kind of disingenuousness is a lazy form of argumentation.
@Ginny Bain, prattle on about Adam and (St)Eve all you want: you've already shown yourself to be deceitful and self-serving in your use of Scripture. Anyone who comes to the Bible with a preconceived hatred of homosexuals will love what're you selling; anyone who wants to have a serious conversation about Christianity, the Bible, and sexuality knows better than to bother with you.
@Gasbag (again): you're being glib in your pronouncements about your own "choice" to pursue women. It wasn't a choice for you: it's just what felt right to you. It's what you wanted. Well, for many gay people, wanting someone of the same sex is what feels right. Try to imagine talking yourself into feeling desire for another man; it's not going to happen, is it? That's what a lot of gay people feel when they try to talk themselves into being straight. It just doesn't work. That's what people mean when they say it's not a choice or a lifestyle decision.
I don't. I don't think it will ever become acceptable to the majority of the population.
Gay marriage is already acceptable to a majority of those under 30.
Gasbag Self Ordained Expert
SCARY , OMG I am happy to hear the happy ending . I hope you saved the penny :) , oh heck I know you did .
I will leave your Daughter out of the "gay" debate from here forward .
With all due respect , I will answer for you :)
You will love that little girl off yours unconditionally, until your last breath !
as you should !
I'm under 30 and I don't see it being acceptable. I see it being more of a well just let them so they will stop all of there high pitched back stabing crying and wining.
After all none of them chose to be gay but I wish they would all meet somewhere and stay there and not in Charlottesville.
There are rather secritive, kinda sketchy and druged out.
I would probilly kill myself if I was raised by two gay men. Holly crap that would be so awfull.
WestBerkeleyFlats, I don't for one minute believe those statistics are accurate. When taking a survey like that, I think most people are inclined to give the best and most politically correct answer they think is expected of them. And I think this most certainly defines the people in the age 30 group who answered. They were raised in the time period where they think it's perfectly normal and acceptable.
If you look at the age 19-29 group, their response is absolutely terrifying to me.
quote: "I hope you saved the penny :) , oh heck I know you did."
Yes. Penny and x-ray. :)
How would you feel to be raised by two gay men?
the above is so silly
action of "love" are the "introduction"
but that would take an unlimited heart , like Christ
who did not separate "them from us"
I think that gay marriage will become more acceptable to the majority as people meet more and more gay people and realize that They are just like Us in terms of the things that really matter (looking out for fellow human beings, working hard, loving their families, etc.).
People who WANT to continue to hate gays will continue to find the most extreme members of the community and assert that they constitute gayness, but those haters have an agenda and can't be bothered by facts.
If the gasbag is really so deeply puzzled about how a child of gay parents might introduce said parents, that tells us more about the gasbag than it does about the increasingly widespread reality of children being raised by gay parents.
Perhaps the greatest boost for the concept of marriage, as a form of social contract, of value to society, has come from the gay community. Their desire, to enter into the relationship of marriage, has brought new attention to how couples, whether straight or gay, value this form of social union. Many gay couples are now raising children together. Any institute, that professes to care about families, children and the stability of American values, would do well to support the initiatives underway, in many places, to make the choice of marriage open to all committed couples. Is this institute doing that ?
We all have our opinions as to who we think would make a good parent. I think it's really unfair for a child to be raised by a bigot, even one slowly going that way.
Travel lite, my Jesus bled and died for my sins.
Folks, if you look at Ginny Bain Allen's Facebook page, you'll see that, among other things, she believes Obama is the Antichrist.
Actually, Hoolarious, perhaps George Soros is the anti-Christ, and Obama is simply his pawn. Who knows? We'll probably know soon! Of course, anyone who rejects Jesus Christ is an anti-Christ.
OH Ginny! yuk yuk...you have such a sense of humor. clearly you're the life of the party around the "seriously, Obama might be the actual Anti-Christ spoken of in Revelations" circle. and that's good -- it's good to have a little laugh once in a while. but then quickly get back to the business of destroying God's enemies.
quote: "I just watch porn all day."
Another issue that's just as complicated as it can be. What exactly is porn? If you go on the Internet and view naked females (or naked males for the ladies of course :) ), is that porn? If it is porn, how come we can buy Playboy Or Playgirl on the news stands?
Or is porn any image that sexually excites one? Well, Playbody does that too. So we're back to square one.
If I want to watch "Debbie Does The Dallas Cowboys", is that porn? If so, why? It was filmed with all actors consenting, and it is purchased and viewed by consenting adults who wish to view it. (Stauton recently ruled this is porn, and not welcome in their community??)
What about magazines, videos and images of naked resort areas? Some of these often include naked persons under the age of 18. Is this child pornography?
A while back stalking became one of the most overused and abused criminal codes in the entire USA. It still is! Anything that just doesn't seem right is now classified as stalking. Something as simple as some guy seeing a girl at the gym, talking to her several times, and then asking her out on a date. She feels he has noticed her, talked to her, and asked her out on a date.... "OMG!! He's stalking me!!! I'm scared!!" And presto, the magistrate will issue a criminal warrant over something we did routinely 25 years ago.... see a girl, talk to her, ask her out on a date.
I think for the last decade pornography criminal codes have also become one of the most overused and abused by the criminal justice system. And there is no uniformity in community standards anywhere. Does anyone really ever know what they are allowed to view and what they may not view?
I've never had a problem seeing a girl, talking to her and asking her out on a date. Never been accused of stalking because of that and I would be very interested to see an example of someone who has.
Ginny, you've been asked several times to refer to the verse of Scripture in which Jesus himself calls homosexuality a sin. Would you care to put up or shut up?
I think that gay marriage will become much more acceptable to the mainstrea once the gay community acknowedges that there should be a distintion between those who wish to be more traditional and those who wish to frequent bath houses and shout out their gayness in falsetto. Sort of like country folk seperating themselves from rednecks. Rednecks are not relly "bad" people, their behavior is jusy not something a country gentlman would want to be associated with or assumed to be.
In slang it is the difference between being gay and being a fag.
Yeah since the kid would be in school the kids at school would already know he had some gay parents and so would the teachers. By that time you are ten or twelve, i would imagine you just get over it somehow and you are able to talk about it. Now if the kid is home schooled, god help him!
Ginny, where in the Scripture does Jesus himself refer specifically to homosexuality as a sin?
You should be ashamed ! How dare you arm yourself with the the bible when debating a radical christian .
But if you really want to see one squirm , have them document with reference what a bible based marriage is .
But in all fairness if "they" are going to use the bible to justify hate, I am going to use the most powerful weapon in the world against a Creationists........THE BIBLE !
Yes, I thought it was quite normal to introduce my parents as Mr & Mrs, as opposed to Mr & Mr or Mrs & Mrs.
And you assumed correctly. I've always felt being gay or not is an individual choice. It's certainly a choice in my life. As a male, my choice is to continue chasing females. :)
Ginny, earlier you wrote that Jesus "called it sin." I asked you where he called it sin. You're conceding that he didn't call homosexuality sin. You're conceding that the interpretations of certain OT scriptures as condemning homosexuality, interpretations that come to us not from Jesus's mouth but from regular non-divine humans are the basis for you and people like you to condemn homosexuality. I'm guessing, though, that you pick and choose which OT condemnations to live by (and demand that others live by) these days, and that there are a lot of things from Leviticus, for example, that you ignore as irrelevant to modern Christians or as rules that were based more on the cultural needs and expectations of the times rather than as real rules from God (which tended to come in the form of Commandments, which do not mention homosexuality, or in the form of Jesus's teachings, which do not mention homosexuality). Am I right?
Gassy, normal is what you're used to. You're used to a Mr. and a Mrs. You can't help it; you're old and out of touch. Lots of people are. The generation that is coming up these days is a lot less puzzled by nontraditional living arrangements. That's where things are trending. Dinosaurs will die out.
God didn't create Adam and Steve in the Garden of Eden. Of course homosexuality is a choice. All sin is. Thankfully, I serve a God who is bigger than sin, and He is there to help anyone, who calls on His name, and gives all authority to Him, to come out of their sin, and live in victory!
Gasbag Self Ordained Expert
I am so short on time so I have to be sloppy with this post .
Coming straight from Memory I recall you speaking about your daughter . I don't have time to research it but she was either ill or had been injured ...........anyway without knowing anything about you other that a screen name I clearly recall your written words , your words clearly spoke volumes about how you care for your Daughter .You also somewhere talked about protecting her and all those other things very important and necessary of a good quality Father .
Ok my questions that follows is referring back to your "look who's coming to dinner " I pose a question . Now I am not asking if you would be shocked , confused ,angry , understood or even ready to accept what I am about to ask you .
My Question is hypothetical ,a difficult question too many , easy to side step and many times most will refuse to answer , but i don't see you as one affriad to face even what you don't understand .
I respectfully ask you , if you were sitting in your cabin on top of the mountain and your Daughter showed up to dinner with her lesbian partner, and told you she was "GAY" could you tell me how much less you would love her and want to protect her if you were faced with this .
You know before you type , I already know the answer :) . I have to know the answer bro , or my profile of you is off ;I am too damn good to be off :) . snickers
Ginny Bain Allen
"God didn't create Adam and Steve in the Garden of Eden. Of course homosexuality is a choice. All sin is. Thankfully, I serve a God who is bigger than sin, and He is there to help anyone, who calls on His name, and gives all authority to Him, to come out of their sin, and live in victory!"
According to the bible you are very correct !
God created Adam and Eve and then realized he made a mistake ! Strange how an omnipotent GOD would make mistakes but we will overlook them for now ,as most Christians do .
Now lets tell the rest of the story as it's told in the bible , about Adam and Eve . Adam and Eve had two children ( Cane & Abel ) whom both had a PENIS , correct ? Now ask any 5th grader to tell you where the grandchildren came from :) . That's right according to the bible EVE would have had to had sex with Cain , whom lets not forget murdered his Brother and Eve's son making all the children of GOD a product of INCEST !
SO it's safe to say , a family that both SLAYS together and LAYS together, STAYS together ! But somehow a marriage between and MAN and a MAN would be immoral LMMFAO !
Thos are the HARD FCATS of the bible !
Scratches head !
quote: "... I see it being more of a well just let them so they will stop all of there high pitched back stabing, crying and whining...."
And IMHO, that's the attitude the politicians nationwide have finally accepted. And the city, county, state and federal governments have pretty much given up too.
Ginny, lies make the baby Jesus cry, and you're lying: you do not love homosexuals. You really don't, and you know it. Jesus knows what's in your heart: fake concern for the souls of people you loathe.
Ginny Bain Allen
QUOTE: When some 150 years ago Stephen Douglas argued that states should choose whether or not they would have slaves, Abraham Lincoln replied, ââ?¬Å?God did not place good and evil before man, telling him to make his choice"Šhe did tell him there was one tree, of the fruit of which he should not eat, upon pain of certain death."
Am I correct in assuming you were on Stephen Douglass side of the argument ? I make that assumption because the GOD & JESUS of the bible adored SLAVERY ! Its clearly written , non disputable if we accept the bible as written fact and the word of God .
"However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)
Leviticus 25:44-46 (King James Version)
44Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.
45Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.
46And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.
For the record Ginny , I will and have stood up for your rights to believe in GOD , I understand the importance to you and it's my job to make sure you freely, with liberty enjoy what is so important to you . Also for the record I have done something 97% of Christians haven't . I have read the bible WORD for WORD . If you would be interested to read this far , I will add some of the most beautiful & inspirational quotes in the world come from the bible .
Hands down my favorite 1 Cor 13:4-8
With that said , Imma go easy on ya now because I see the masses are forming and I hate to have to come over there on your side and show them how I can argue both sides of the bible with ya he he he
Fight the good fight girl . :)
Hey Bro, did you go to school to learn to come up with that conclusion. sounds like you like the tube, dude.
I was once an openminded guy. I changed or closed my mind becouse of life experiences being out and around Charlottesville.
I slowly go the way of the bigot.
It's something there born with and have to deal with, and I don't mean to bash them or to put them down. But I think it is really unfair to an adopted child to be raised by two gay men. They have enough to deal with already.
There not all bad but there are some that are rather flamboyent and make the rest look bad.
Well, Roscoe, children are not considered to be capable of giving consent so it woulod be a crime.
I had my say. You've now had yours.
To debate and argue the issue will simply invite somebody to use 15 different user names, AGAIN, to disrupt this thread. Just like in the taser thread.
I see i have to attack people sarcastically not to have my comments deleted. All the real Hookers know what's up. Was that passive enough or do i need to sugar coat is with smilies? ;) ;) ;)... Hookers
quote: "...deliberate parental monitoring of Internet use...."
Louisa county parents don't have to monitor their children's use of the Internet. It seems the Louisa County Sheriff's Office is doing it for them, and doing a dayum good job too! I think they make more arrests than all the other cop shoppes combined!
My father in law has lived in the same small northwestern wisconsin town his whole life.
One day I asked him if he had ever gone to the friday night fish fry at a new local tavern. He replied that he had not and then told me in hushed tone that, "he heard the owners were lesbians". To this I replied, "no Marvin, they are Lebanese" He looked at me and said "really"?
How's that for handling small town coffee shop homophobia!!!!