Drak

Amor fati, or the death of desire, is a common goal sought after by those that pursue the spiritual path. Desire dissipates the overwhelming, ruthless Will, which should be paramount. The Will of one that serves the Light would achieve what is right and best and good. Desire surrenders control to external entities, transitory and of limited value. This is why desire should die in one who seeks more than the obvious from this life. And so mystics since time began have sought amor fati. For desire does lead us astray and chain us to the wheel of karma. So it has been written in the holy texts and not without reason. From the airy, cold mountain side, isolated and alone and beyond reason, cross-legged in the lotus position, peering through the expanse of space, through stone, and metal, and wood, and flesh; I note the beloved ones of long ago and recall the golden palaces that I built for them in my heart. I set these palaces afire, one by one, and watch them reduced to ashes, and rejoice. The irrelevant strangers will never know nor care, and I am far past caring, and free, finally, of desire.

Informative post, West. Remember, I use and like Windows too. I am not anti-Windows. However, the situation has always been that no-one even considers Linux. To them, it does not even exist. My argument is simple. Consider it. It's a player, a valid option in the marketplace, and perfect for someone who just wants to surf the Internet, read email, watch movies, or use a word processor--in other words, most home users. For the business user, most of them are going to go with Windows for business reasons--various applications that are Windows-only. In summary, my argument is not "Linux is better," but "Linux is a valid option that should be considered by anyone that wants a secure, low-cost operating system."

I have five computers. Two run Windows 7 and 8, respectively, in order to access certain programs that only work on Windows. The other three run Linux. I love Linux, and I'll tell you why. It's easy, for one thing. Over the years, Linux distributions have gotten smarter and made more of their operating system GUI, which means the times a user needs to drop to the command line to type anything in are few and far between. It's free. That matters in a world where Microsoft charges $100 a pop for an OS install. The spyware situation is a lot better than in Windows 10, too. Linux is not designed from the ground up to spy on its users, unlike Windows 10, which notifies Microsoft anytime you do something on your computer. Finally, Linux will run on anything. That old computer that ran Window XP until Windows XP finally died? It will run Linux fine. No problem. All the software we know and love--Firefox, Chrome, LibreOffice, qbittorrent, and SMplayer--are all on Linux. I recommend keeping one or two Windows boxes around just to access those occasional Windows-only applications. There's seldom a good excuse to make an application Windows-only nowadays, because software languages can compile for many operating systems, including Mac, Linux, and PC, but some developers just don't get it or don't want to spend any extra effort toward supporting operating systems used by a small subset. Qbittorrent is an excellent torrenting program that runs on all three operating systems. Torrenting, by the way, is how we download Linux. The Linux distributors deliver their work to you via fast, efficient torrents to ensure a valid download and minimize consumption of web server resources. Why do people bother making Linux distributions (distros)? Much of the motive I think centers around enthusiasm for knowledge, but having a Linux distro on one's resume certainly will lead to job offers, if one is in the market for one of the great-paying Linux jobs in corporate America. A large chunk of the Internet runs on Linux, incidentally, so Linux isn't going anywhere except continuing to improve, and will be around several generations from now. One area where Linux has low adoption rates is the desktop/laptop market. Probably 1% of desktop users use Linux. This is mainly due to lack of awareness of what Linux is and what it offers and scarcity of knowledge resources. If your family uses Windows, then more than likely, you are going to go straight to Windows and not think twice about it. Microsoft has been great at marketing, and it does make a fairly good operating system, as well. I like Windows and use it. I just believe that Linux is a valid option that should be considered, especially by people who have been or may be victimized by malware. The one thing about Linux that people don't know about is that Linux is secure. Your operating system is not going to go to hell because you clicked on a web site. It is not impossible, but it just does not happen, and why? Partly because the bad guys don't see a margin in targetting a 1% minority with generally higher levels of tech knowledge. Also, Linux is designed for security from the ground up. Goal number one was security. For Microsoft, goal number one was pleasing the business customer and making things as easy as possible all the time. Different philosophies, both laudable, but those who know less about computers ironically have a horrible experience with Windows once their computers become infected, which over time, they will. Firefox is my favorite browser, when I don't have to use Internet Explorer or Chrome in order to access a specific web site for work-related reasons. I like Firefox because I like their philosophy, emphasizing security and efficiency. I do not know what Internet Explorer emphasizes. I trust Mozilla, the makers of Firefox, and I also like their mail reader, Thunderbird, another seldom-used and seldom-appreciated gem out there that makes reading email a lot safer and faster. Why people use a web browser to read their email, I do not know. It seems like a lot of trouble to me. No-Script is my favorite add-on for Firefox, because it gives control back to the user as to what a web site can and cannot do. I can surf the worst malware site on the planet and yawn. Because the malware site cannot touch me. No-Script blocks everything they try to do. The most a malware site can do is annoy me with their tackiness. Meanwhile, the sites I love and trust, like gayauthors, work fine, and I let them do whatever they want. No-Script is a bouncer. You train it for a couple days, and it keeps the troublemakers out of your bar. My advice to the desktop or laptop computer user is simple. I've said it before and I will say it again. Install a distro of Linux, any distro, and if you don't like it for some reason, fine, install another one. I am partial to Xubuntu and Linux Mint XFCE, but there are hundreds of distros to pick from, each with different philosophies and styles. Next, use Firefox as your browser. Install No-Script as an add-on within Firefox. Open your mind and learn as much as you can about Linux, Firefox, and NoScript, the golden triad of secure computing. From that point on, malware is something you do not worry about. You are more secure than 99.9% of all computer users out there. Period. It is as easy that.

I am always on the lookout for ways to silence these media web sites that automatically activate my speakers and stream video into my computer without my permission. To read CNN rather than hear it, Firefox users can install NoScript, then forbid scripts running from turner.com. This simple solution transforms CNN.com into an online newspaper.

One afternoon, with nothing better to do, I wandered into Books-a-Million or some such pulp peddler and, after glancing at the mainstream, GLBT, and Christian sections (a lot of guides on the mystical or magical power of prayer, how to pray away the pains of modern living, and why it is OK to spank your child), drifted over to the Occult section, by no means the smallest, either. There I evaluated Tarot decks and other means of divination, guides, spellbooks Wiccan and otherwise, and other little wonders that beguile the gullible. They are at least interesting, written for true believers, and I like to imagine the believers, some of whom I have encountered in my many years on this planet. I also found the "Necronomicon" by Donald Tyson, not the Donald J. Tyson, deceased, of Tyson Foods, but apparently an experienced occult writer and, one might presume, one of the true believers. Now the Necronomicon is a mythical grimoire invented or perhaps, revealed, by H. P. Lovecraft. Now it is reinvented or perhaps, revealed, by Tyson. I liked the parts I read and found myself intrigued against my will, but the price of the book was $21, a bit too dear for my stingy old heart that grieves every penny. So I memorized the name of the author and the title. At home, I found the book on Amazon and ordered a cheap used copy from Amazon for $6. I don't know how sellers make a profit selling books at that rate, with shipping costs what they are, but they do it, so I will buy. When the Necronomicon arrived, it was in perfect condition, save for one strange thing, it was greasy. I mean the cover, front and back, felt greasy, almost like it had been buttered. I attributed that to either the wax used to laminate the cover or else the former owner's personal habits or hygiene. I have some problems with the plot. If the gods of humans are thralls, then how can Bast, the cat-god, be of any help? I don't even know why the chapter on Bast is included, other than to nod to the popular Internet obsession with felines. Also, why is Abdul heedless of Mohammed and Allah, never mentioning them once, when he was a devout worshiper in his youth? He should at least have some solitary reflections on the bogeymen of his past. Finally, if the Old Ones can be deterred by a written symbol, then why could they not be deterred from the entire planet by symbols written large on the landscape in stone? That would seem an obvious means to keep them from Earth altogether. And why do the Old Ones covet Earth in the first place? They seem sadistic, loving destruction for destruction's sake, and lacking any goals other than destroying whatever came before. Once the old order is destroyed, what do they propose, if anything? This is left ambiguous. Logical inconsistencies aside, the Necronimicon by Donald Tyson enthralled me from day one, and I'm reading it again.

Streets should be named after good people, not evil-doers. If you think evil is on a par with good, and that good people are just silly, then you're evil. If you're evil, no problem, move on with your life, do evil, and karma will take its course. On the other hand, if you think good is good, and evil is bad, then you might think it's a good idea to name a street after a good person, rather than an evil scumbag that raped black women, beat the hell out of blacks, sold human beings into bondage, et cetera. The controversy over whether good or evil matters at all in this world is the major philosophical question of our time. Now that people feel like God is dead, and Hell doesn't exist, many think it doesn't matter whether they are good or evil, because what the hell, they are not going to be punished for doing evil. Then there are others who think that good is really the right thing, and it doesn't matter whether there is punishment at the end of days or not, but we should do the right thing "Just Because." Ultimately the decision to favor good or evil boils down to aesthetics. What kind of world do you prefer?

Tourism is the backbone of Charleston's economy and doesn't hurt South Carolina as a whole, either. One of that little coastal state's trump cards has always been its controversial role in igniting the bloodiest war in U.S. history, the rebellion against the nation in defense of slavery. So a lot of people are making money off the Confederate flag and off of the Civil War history angle, because it brings people to travel to S.C. and buy knick-knacks, such as the pewter 4" replica of Robert E. Lee that I bought at Fort Sumter's gift shop in 1980. All I knew then about Robert E. Lee was what my grandmother had told me, which was he was a fine gentleman, and what our history books had told me, which was he was a good general. And that is what a lot of people think they know. So any attempt to scale back on the Confederate porn industry meets with resistance not only from the "true-believers" who don't understand history but the people who do understand, but want to keep the cash-cow intact, because they are busy fleecing the know-nothings who think the Civil War was about Southern pride or chitlins or deer-hunting or chewing tobacco or the song "Dixie". The reason the South seceded is they wanted slavery extended to the new territories out West, and Lincoln and his Republican party opposed that. The hotheads down South thought that intolerable, so they turned traitor. Today we continue to venerate these traitors with monuments, dedications and whatnot, which is very confusing to some people who think history begins and ends with dates and names. I think that many streets in Charleston should be renamed, beginning with Calhoun Street, because Calhoun was no sort of a good person. Rename Calhoun Street "Rosa Parks Street," and I think that would be a better reflection of history and of who really mattered. I don't know that Germany has any streets named after Goebbels, Roehm or Hitler, and we shouldn't have anything named after slavery-evangelists that wanted to spread slavery all over the Western Hemisphere. The statues of worthless scumbags like Calhoun need to be placed in the furnace and recycled just like Saddam Hussein's statues. Eventually all these things will come to pass, too.

I read about the three young British women that left the UK, married into ISIS in Syria today and was reminded of a quote from an old friend. He had taken the old saw, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink," and transformed it into "You can lead a whore to knowledge, but you can't make her think." I bet they will be regretting their decision right about now. Wow, just to imagine renouncing the UK for ISIS boggles the mind. It does not compute. But for sure, the U.K. is better off without them. Anyone who thinks ISIS is better is doing the West a favor by joining them and getting the hell out of our society.

Those are nice quotes, but he whipped a black husband and wife, and then after lacerating their bare flesh, ordered their bleeding wounds washed in brine. Now you sit down and digest the image of the helpless prisoner/slave screaming in agony for the duration of 50 lashes with a bullwhip, which is ten feet long, waved in a circle and then lashed as hard as can be to rip out chunks of flesh from the bare back. Lee personally instructed the constable to "lay it on thick" as hard as he possibly could and he supervised to ensure this was done. Fifty lashes. Then the bloody fleshless back was washed in brine for good measure, again on the personal instruction of the devil Robert E. Lee. You think about that, and then think about the victim then watching his wife subjected to the same treatment, her bare breasts ogled by the salivating Robert E. Lee as he lashes her himself, because even the local constable refused to do it, but Lee was such a monster that he did it. If torture is okay, anything is okay. Those who venerate Lee today are evil, and there are no two ways about it, and they are in the same camp with the worst lot of racists. We have named roads, colleges and schools after a devil. That Lee made lots of nice noises after the war shows cunning. Lee was a cunning man. Maybe that is why he caught his runaway slaves that had been promised their freedom by their former master, his father-in-law. One should look beyond what people say and explore their actions prior to judging them. Actions speak louder than words. If quotes were all that were needed, then we could select some choice quotes from everyone from Caligula on down and make them into saints.

I do like how Downton Abbey humanized Thomas and made the audience understand better what made him tick. There was a reason for his villainy and it had to do with his alienation.

As a boy, I was asked by our social studies teacher which famous person I admired most. I answered Robert E. Lee. Lindsey Graham reminded me of my boyhood choice in a recent news article, in which he said Yea to removing the Confederate Flag from public buildings, but Nay to renaming all the roads and schools that are named after Robert E. Lee. Curious, I looked up the Wikipedia article on Robert E. Lee. My education on history is not all-encompassing. I know the general outline of Western history, but the details about specific individuals tends to be murky. Prior to reading the Wikipedia article, I had a negative view of Lee, although I despised him for the side he chose. His decision to serve the South is morally equivalent to Ernst Rommel's decision to serve the Nazi state. At least Rommel got what he deserved in the end. Turns out Robert E. Lee was a right devil, about as evil as they come, and a racist through and through. Anyone who defends him today is either ignorant of history or a racist, one of the two, with no exceptions. The way Lee treated his slaves was inexcusable, and his defiance of his dead father-in-law's will is also inexcusable. Lee was a liar, a torturer, a kidnapper, and a murderer, all told, and those who defend him would defend anything and anybody, and their words can be disregarded in all cases. The only reason I liked Lee as a boy was because the history books I read were full of lies and omissions, written by liars with no concern for the truth. Such books should be located in all libraries and destroyed before they get into the hands of impressionable young minds. Their paper can be recycled to make books that tell a more balanced and truthful version of history. My grandmother used to tell me "The War of Northern Aggression" was started by the invading Northern armies because they were against states' rights. She was wrong, told wrong by the wrong-headed men in her life. The real reason the South started the Civil War by firing on Fort Sumter is because the rich slaveowners insisted, not merely on keeping their slaves, but extending slavery into new territories out West, in order to improve their representation in Congress and open up new opportunities for slave-based agriculture in those territories. They were not simply defending slavery, but wanting to expand it all over the Western Hemisphere, to eventually include Cuba, Mexico, and Central and South America. The Civil War was about States' Rights only in the sense of the right to secede from the Union. If you believe slavery is morally right, only then can you sympathize with the Confederacy, but if you do, then you would believe absolutely anything is right, and that there is no right or wrong at all. Lincoln pointed this out in his speeches and letters many times. Someone I admire is Abraham Lincoln. He was amazing, and his speeches and letters are still worth reading today as an example of what politicians can be if they try hard enough and resist the temptation to go into service for the rich. I think Lincoln had his heart in the right place and had a brilliant mind for politics. He probably had some gay experiences in his early life, based on the letters he wrote to an old buddy. Unfortunately, his predecessor, slavery-loving Buchanan, certainly was exclusively gay, and set a rather bad example. Fortunately, there are a couple of other gay Presidents to offset that stain on history. I get mad as hell when I read about people defending Robert E. Lee or anything about the old Confederacy. It was a bad time, a very great evil, and they want to enshrine a stinking turd as though it were a sacred cross. Drop that rag in the wastebasket and forget about the ignorant fools that died for it. The rebels deserved to die, a thousand times over, and each of us would be duty-bound to kill them now, if they were still warring against the Union.

And, strangely, I tend to dislike a lot of critically acclaimed movies, usually the "chick flicks," but maybe because they tend to be so heterosexual, and I've become jaded from watching so many heterosexual-themed television shows.

I probably shouldn't use the word "dope," but yes, it was reinterpreted by rap artists to mean satisfactory, acceptable. I started using the word once I became aware that so many rap artists have a favorable opinion of cannabis. The original meaning of the word "dope" meant, specifically, cannabis. I am for the legalization of cannabis and find that it is a useful food and medicine.

Me too. But would we want to *be* Oscar Wilde? I don't think so... Nice and dull for me, anonymity and forgotten after death. That's a-OK. In exchange, a long, pleasurable life, friends, lovers, and being thought well of in the present.

I object to the gay critics of Vicious, the Brit sitcom starring Ian McKellan and Derek Jacobi. The oh-so-vicious critics declare in reviews printed in the Daily Mail and the Telegraph that this is an old-fashioned show, a throwback to the worst shows of the 1970s, and that the characters are ugly and mean, and that they are gay stereotypes from the bad old days, and finally, the Coup de grâce, they don't Represent. That's right, McKellan and Jacobi do not serve as flattering ambassadors from the gay community to the straight. In short, they make us gays look bad. I object! I call Lie upon the critics! Firstly on the grounds that Ian McKellan is one of the greatest living actors and that anything he does has got to be dope. It has just got to be. He earned the gay sainthood as wonderful Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, that sweet dear man who has championed gay rights at every turn since he came out. His creds as an out gay man are impeccable, and the notion the show is homophobic in any way is preposterous on the face of it. If you like Ian McKellan and think he's dope then you will like the show, Period, end of discussion. If on the other hand you suffer from a chronic case of Lookism and see just two old queens and yearn for eye candy then okay, pass, like the jaded critics aforementioned, who apparently aren't very accepting of the elderly. If I need eye candy, I've got pr0n. When I watch a comedy, I just want laughs. If the vehicle of those laughs has gray hair, so what? Second, the show is funny, yes Sirs, it is, if one only suspends, just for thirty minutes, the compulsion to evaluate every gay as an ambassador to the str8 community and insist they must Represent a cookie-cutter, politically correct, squeaky-clean version of the Gay Man to the rest of the world. Well look, chaps, this a comedy, all right? I allow a bit of literary license to the writers. There are plenty of shows about str8 people that depict them in less than admirable terms. Why should gays be saints all the time? It is not necessary. Not today. Not with so many other shows around. These stuffy critics that demand every comedy be just like the latest favorite are killing television with their compulsion to conformity. I say Viva la Difference! Give me more Vicious!

I like people who style themselves as witty, letting fly with the snappy comeback like Oscar Wilde was said to have done back in the gay 1890's. Bless them, because they entertain. Wit is not exclusively a gay talent, although I suppose being gay might nurture the wit in some way, in some cultures. I put a cork on the bottle of wit a long time ago and put the bottle on the shelf. I don't trust wit and don't wish to use it, anymore than I do liquor. Wit requires speed in execution, and speed leads to mistakes. I've seen what the rush to mirth can do... harm relations, damage reputations, make new and unexpected enemies. WIt is born of Boredom, the child of an active intellect annoyed by the humdrum pace of social interactions that the Norms call Society. Ask Oscar Wilde what wit did for him, against the legal mechanizations of Bosie's Papa and the harsh realities of Victorian England. Two years in prison at hard labour, financial ruin and separation from his wife and children forever. Besides that, no more plays. The sweet Nightingale was silenced Forever. Like jailing Shakespeare because he compared his boy to a summer's day. It is better to keep witticisms to one's self or for private utterance with intimate friends. Nice and dull wins more friends than witty and harsh by about a thousand to one, every day of the week and in every kind of weather. However, perceiving this truth requires a different variety of intelligence than the kind that fuels wit.

The people that never think twice make all the trouble in the world. People who doubt themselves, who are never completely sure about anything, these folk have gained a deeper understanding of reality. "For in this world of veils, we see as through a glass darkly."

I read with interest today about the brouhaha between Kubuntu's lead developer and some factions in the Ubuntu community. Now, most people don't know what Ubuntu is, let alone Kubuntu, and even fewer know who Jonathan Riddell is, but in a nutshell, some sort of "council" of self-appointed volunteers wants to be rid of Riddell for rather vague reasons that point to either a personality conflict or a conflict of interests or maybe both. A lot of issues boil down to money and power, and maybe this is another one of them. On the other hand, it's entirely possible people just rub each other the wrong way, although they must be spending a lot of time writing emails for that to happen, since they don't actually see one another from what I understand. It's just a cyber-community. Oh, the drama. I am interested only to the extent that I have installed and used Kubuntu as well as other flavors of Ubuntu for a couple of years. I have never installed Ubuntu. Ubuntu's desktop, Unity, had the same concept as Windows 8, wanting the same look and feel for every device from a phone to a desktop computer. Thus the name, Unity. Well, guess what, Ubuntu, desktops are here to stay and will be around long after Unity and Windows 8 are footnotes in history. Phones are nifty toys, but human beings like big screens that fit our field of vision, a big keyboard that fit our hands, big sound that pleases our ears, and a big mouse that fits our hand. That ain't gonna change no matter how many I-phones fly off the shelves. Desktops now, desktops tomorrow, desktops forever, and those betting against the desktop are just dead wrong. I use Linux Mint Xfce or Xubuntu on my Linux boxes simply because it gives me the desktop options I need, uses the minimum in system resources, and just freaking works all the time. I don't need an experimental OS to test my nerves. Work out the bugs first, then release an OS, but don't ask me to beta something. Now on to Kubuntu. Kubuntu is ambitious, because the KDE desktop is ambitious, aiming to be beautiful and flexible and give the user everything but the kitchen sink. I have felt Kubuntu has not been ready for prime time, with the glitchy Muon software manager the worst thing of all, but maybe the ultimate cause was the rapid pace of releases to keep time with Ubuntu releases. The strange decision to pursue development of Muon seemed to consume a lot of development resources. Kubuntu only had one main dev for a long time, and that's a huge problem when releases are generated faster than once a year. Microsoft has thousands of devs and takes years off between releases, spending most of that time apologizing for Windows 8. Ultimately, if this fracas results in the final divorce of Kubuntu from Ubuntu, well, then... good. Release according to when the product is ready, not to the beat of Ubuntu's drum. In the end, there needs to be more dev, less drama. Instead of sending nastygrams back and forth, the principals need to get back to coding. One of the problems with Linux is everybody wants to reinvent the wheel. Merge with Linux Mint, join with other devs, make new friends, whatever it takes to cooperate and work together in a logical fashion. This game of being a nomad developer alone in the wilderness is for the birds. Just solve all the problems and release something out that really works all the time.

Surely she deserves the Emmy. A-mazing. Mind-blowing. So take the golden trophy to Canada and give the Saskatchewans something to yak about.

Why do we see gay rights ascendant in our modern world? Through hard work. Because gays work hard and support the society in which they live. Because gays are not only okay, but positively good and do good works. When people are unencumbered of prejudice, in the final analysis, when str8 is teamed with gay in the trenches, and by the Goddess they are in modern America, it becomes crystal clear that the Queers carry just as much weight as the straights. Be proud! Any gay that is OUT feels the weight of the responsibility to REPRESENT not only their humble self but the millions declared and undeclared--or at least I do--and I woujld not be a poor ambassador--and you should not be either--so REPRESENT! and in this way and only this way we will overcome! If you cannot count twenty straights you have befriended, then what are you doing with your life?

Yes, I am blogging about a TV show from our brothers up North. Call me random. I love Orphan Black, although at first I hated it, but it grew on me episode by episode until I realized, and it struck me like a train, that Tatiana Maslany of freaking Saskatchewan of all places is going to take over the freaking World, and the Emmy Awards are a travesty against Justice.

It's hard to love any of the countries in the Middle East. I guess the one I like most is Israel, because they have gay rights and gays serve in their military. But then, Israel is a bribed ally. My taxpayer dollars go to Israel. Is that right? Not really. Also, Israel, arguably, is racist against the Palestinians, but then the Palestinians brought it upon themselves through incessant terrorism, but then the Israelis inspired terrorism by taking land, and so on, ad nauseum, until I just shake my head and don't want to hear about it anymore. I think both those knucklehead tribes need to get a grip. Maybe the Palestinians just need to take a chill pill and accept that Israel is not going to give them their land back. Admitting defeat and moving on would be a better outcome then proceeding with generation after generation of ghetto life, which has profound consequences. Maybe Iran's money to Hezbollah keeps the conflict stirring year after year. Stupid Iran, still obsessed with the U.S., the great Satan and so on. Khomeini could not reason his way out of a paper bag.

I don't often have a reaction to the incessant Sunni vs. Shi'ite warfare now raging in the Middle East, but make an exception following the bombing of a mosque in Saudi Arabia. Saudis learn from grade one that Shi'ites aren't real Muslims. And Muslims think it is fine and dandy to kill non-Muslims.So, basically Saudis are programmed from grade one to kill Shi'ites and anyone else that is not Sunni. The Shi'ites and Sunnis are almost as bad as the Protestant vs. Catholic rivalry than plagued Christians hundreds of years ago. It is like the Muslims are hundreds of years behind the Christians and working their way through the same growing pains that Christianity went through. It seems to me that Saudi Arabia overall is just as evil as Iran. Both countries are fanatical, torturing tyrannies. The best that can be said about the Saudis is they are intelligent enough to manipulate the U.S. government in advancement of their own interests, whereas Iran is pigheaded to their own detriment. Iran goes out of its way to oppose U.S. interests. In reality, if politics were removed from the equations, I suspect Americans have more in common with Iranians, culturally and intellectually, than we do with the Sauds, whose Wahhabi brand of Islam has fueled the rise of the Islamic State and sponsored terrorism around the globe. The Saudis need to recognize that their religion is a bunch of Shi'ite, and Allah is a mirage like the kind you get in the desert when you haven't found water. They need to visit the oasis of knowledge. Billions of dollars and thousands of fanatic imams have not improved their ethics one iota. Maybe we should let Iran take over their country and teach them a lesson or two, that is, after oil has been replaced as the world's main energy source. Those two barbarian tribes can fight it out in the desert sands and figure out the right version of their cult, just before it gets erased from history. As for ISIS destroying world heritage sites in the Middle East, that's fine, clever Westerners have already recovered most of the knowledge available from those places. No civilized person will have any reason to visit that area ever, and once oil is done with as a commodity, those people will not even be able to make a living through tourism. Their stupid vandalism now impoverishes their children just a little bit more a thousand years from now. "Gee thanks a lot, Grand Dad, now we have to go harvest salt from the sea all day long in order to buy a crust of bread."

There are not a lot of cases where I favor the death penalty. But damn it, this was one of them. I have a lot of friends opposed to the death penalty, and they make good arguments, and I accept a lot of those arguments. But in this case, guilt has been established beyond a shadow of a doubt. There is NO chance of innocence. And the crime is beyond the pale. Death is actually required by the gods and I believe it may even be a mercy, for someone so depraved cannot appreciate this world or those that dwell in it.

I think you covered the matter well. The only thing I'd add is my guesstimation for the victims' just and ethical compensation. I'd say cost of tuition-paid-to-date + living expenses for that time period + legal expenses. I'm opposed to a huge settlement is all. It's a huge scandal sure to get plenty of press--international coverage at that--and I'm 100% sure the college is not going to be doing that sort of thing going forward, so why beat up the taxpayers (i.e., me and you)? I bet there are millions of people that never even heard of that college before, and this will be their first introduction. To say the faculty and administration have been chastened would be an understatement. But ultimately this seems a bit of a brouhaha. The takeaway for most people will be an education as to the meaning of the word "transvaginal."