Graeme

*sigh* I don't think there is any doubt that it was premeditated, so I'm not sure what the destroyed hard disk is supposed to be evidence for. The earlier article you posted mentioned "Mixed State Bipolar Aspergers". This appears to be short hand for saying that he had bipolar as well as Aspergers (I'm not sure what the "Mixed State" means). As such, why is there any attempt to point the finger at Aspergers in preference to the Bipolar? As has been explained, Aspergers does not lead itself to pre-meditated violence. Spontaneous violence, yes, as that's true for most people on the autism spectrum, but there is no reason to say that Asperger's leads to pre-meditated violence. Having said that, as people with Aspergers tend to be average to above average in intelligence, and also tend to have a very methodical mindset, if someone with Aspergers decided to conduct pre-meditated violence, you can be fairly confident that they would do it in a methodical way. It makes no more sense to blame Aspergers for his actions as it would be to blame being left-handed as the reason why someone who was left-handed hurt someone with a weapon in thelr left hand. The handedness plays no part in the decision to hurt someone - it only comes into play after the decision has been made. Similarly, Aspergers plays no part in the decision to commit mass murder - it only comes into play after the decision to commit mass murder has been made.

hh5, the confusion lies in that we often use the word "empathy" to both represent sensing the emotions of others, and also sharing the emotions of others. NotNoNever split these into Empathy (sensing) and Sympathy (sharing). People with an ASD tend to have a deficiency in the former, but are generally 'average' with the latter. Also, a deficiency doesn't necessarily mean that they can't sense other's emotions - they can, instead, have trouble identifying the correct emotion. eg. They may misinterpret grief for anger, because there's an overlap in how people express those two emotions, and they don't pick up enough of the non-visual clues to isolate one from the other. I'm not explaining things well, but hopefully it's enough to make it clear that if you're talking pre-meditated violence, Asperger's is highly unlikely to be the reason.

Thanks for that. I read the report recently about the changes, but I wasn't sure if they had been confirmed. I do know that there were proposed changes to bring the various items into a single ASD category from a diagnostic point of view. Absolutely! The best description I've heard is that the brain is wired differently. Not wrongly - just differently. Thanks for the clarification - you've explained it better than I did

Politics will NOT be discussed in this thread or any other thread at GA. Please keep politics off site or on your own personal blog. Gun control is a political topic.

I just came across an article in the local newspaper, here in Melbourne, about The ute that jump-started Christmas. I know i had a number of people ask "what's a ute?" when I referred to one in one of my novels, so here's a picture (from the article) of Santa's Ute. Santa's Ute on Victoria Road, Northcote. Photo: Rebecca Hallas Anyone else have unusual Christmas decoration pictures they'd like to share?

I've had some experience with Aspergers after getting involved in an online project with someone with the condition. As a result, I did a fair amount of research into the topic. James pretty much summarised the main points. However, it should be emphasised that while someone with Asperger's can have trouble with inter-personal skills, that does not mean that they lack empathy. Indeed, they can be quite empathetic - they just lack the ability to accurately read the emotions of others (NOTE: That's a generalisation - Aspergers is part of the Autism Spectrum Disorder, and that means there's a spectrum. Some people with Asperger's are quite capable of reading the emotions of others). From a neurological point of view, it has been suggested (and partially confirmed via brain scans) that Autism Spectrum Disorders (including Aspergers) involves an impaired flight-or-fight mechanism. As it was explained to me, most people realise that they're getting aggravated, and will take action to remove the irritant that is annoying them. People with ASD don't always realise what's going on, which result the in the classic "off-on" situation where they go straight from apparently calm to extremely angry (and potentially violent, just like the rest of us would do if we are pushed too far). So people with ASD can certainly be violent, but if you want to blame the condition, you can only do so for spontaneous violence, not pre-planned. Pre-planned violence is the same for someone with ASD as for someone who isn't (colloquially, those without ASD are known as neurotypical, or NT for short, again emphasising that ASD is a neurological condition). I hope this helps.

The most memorable Christmas song for me is Santa Never Made It Into Darwin. It was written, recorded and distributed in record time, with money raised going to the Darwin relief appeal. I can't even think of the song without tearing up. The original Miracle on 34th Street is my favourite Christmas movie, but we watched Arthur Christmas and Rise of the Guardians yesterday and both were very enjoyable. I just don't think they'll keep the magic that was in the original Miracle on 34th Street.

Just to clarify the situation with Australian VCRs, new model VCRs can read NTSC or PAL format tapes - some use a switch and some auto-detect. Older models, though, can have trouble reading NTSC format. I know from personal experience. We have one NTSC tape at home (came from a toy for the boys) that we can play on our newest VCR, but won't play on the old VCR that we put in the boy's play room. This is how Trevor got to watch the tape earlier in the story - the VCR used was a relatively new one and hence could play the tape. If he had tried to use an old model VCR (and by old, it doesn't have to be THAT old - ten years old would suffice), it would have failed. Please note that in this chapter Trevor tells Julie he couldn't play the tape because it's not in the right format. That's a plausible statement to make as explained above - we just know it's a lie because he HAS read the tape. The key thing is that Julie believed him, and that Bridget believed Julie.

It's always been the people for me, too.

Sounds extremely interesting Best of luck with your research!

My understanding is that if you're looking to have something published, the publisher is generally not too happy if the story is already published online. That's obviously not true if you're self-publishing (at least I hope it's not true), but I would still recommend that if someone needs to read the story to get cover ideas, you should email it to them privately. Otherwise, good luck! It's always great to hear of another author getting published

A lot depends on how you count things. I've been in the airport for a couple of countries but that was as far as it goes. Now I have to test my memory to see how many places I can recall... Airports only: Mexico (though I had to go through customs there, even though I immediately went back in to get on another flight) and Thailand (Bangkok is one of the possible stopover points on flights from Australia to Europe). Otherwise: Asia/Pacific: Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Singapore Americas: USA, Costa Rica Europe: England, Wales, Northern Ireland (since people seem to insist on treating the various parts of the UK as different countries ), France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Vatican City, Liechtenstein, Greece, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Monaco, Netherlands (I did a 13 country bus tour after working in the UK for a year)

Please, please, can I count as a youngster? Next year I'll be 25 (for the second time) Seriously, though, I read the initial post and thought that what was stated was pretty normal for communities in general. Indeed, my gut reaction was why this thread was titled "Gays dissing other gays". I think it would be more accurate as "People dissing other people". The fact that the majority of people here are gay doesn't seem relevant.... In any community, there are always groups. Groups, by their nature, include and exclude - you're either in a group or not in a group. Sometimes the selection of who is in a group is clear (young or old... though what do you do about the people in the middle?) and sometimes it's not (am I gay? I say I am, but I'm happily married with two wonderful kids. How many people believe I'm a closeted bi-sexual in denial? ) Now, having created groups, we then have interactions within and between groups. Interactions range from affectionate through to hostile. A common form of interaction is through humour, but the electronic medium we're using online is very, very prone to humour being misinterpreted as being hostile, especially when the humour is sarcasm. Is that what happened here (as some have implied). I've got no idea, but it's a possibility. I've seen this happen way too often to discount it. I am rarely in chat, but from the forums, and from the reports to moderators (of which I am one, and have been for quite some time now... gee I'm feeling old again ) I will say that the vast majority of members are considerate and not hostile. Even with some of the apparently hostile members, when you dig deeper you can find that the hostility isn't always what you think it is - it may appear to be directed at another member, but it's often not the case. For the exceptions to that, there's the report function so the moderation team and investigate The community here is not without it's tensions and rough edges, but it's an active, interesting and generally very positive community, and I'm very proud to be part of it, even if I've been keeping a lower-than-normal profile for the last few months. James, you're not old And you're neither a sweet old geezer, or my worst nightmare. You're just a complex person that I happen to deeply respect and love... even when we disagree

While it can be argued that a beta-reader is an editor by a different name, that's arguing semantics. From my perspective, there's a continuum ranging from spelling, through grammar, to sentence construction, and on up to story flow and plot. I tend to give those people at the technical end of the spectrum the title "editor" and those that give advice on the creative end the title "beta-reader", though I could call them "editor", too, because they're editing - just editing at a different level to someone looking at the technical detail. If you can find someone who is skilled at the full spectrum, do whatever you can to keep them happy - they're worth a pile of gold to an author! I do beta-reading from time to time, but I don't edit because my grammar, spelling and punctuation skills are not to what I consider to be an acceptable standard. I offer advice and comments on characterisations, story flow, and sometimes verbosity (did we really need a half page describing the sunset?). These are largely stylistic areas where it's legitimate to disagree with each other and my input is that of suggestions and review, rather than "editing". That's the way I view what I do.

As stated above, the Australian Labour Day is celebrated at different times in different states. As for the first weekend in September, we have a different celebration. It's not a long weekend, but this coming Sunday is Father's Day I'm looking forward to it

Melbourne is wet I'm not complaining too loudly, though, because that's better than the 13 year drought we had before it.

Congratulations, Benji! I still haven't told my family... but I just don't see that I need to tell them. Everyone's situation is different - I'm just really happy that everything has worked out for you.

Sorry, guys. but southeast Australia has just come out of a 13 year drought - you can't have any of our rain. Seriously, though, all the best for those being affect - it's not nice, especially for people like farmers who are dependent on the rain for crops and stockfeed. Here's another look, using the Palmer Drought Severity index at NCDC for the most recently available month (June): The current drought helps us understand what things must have been like back in 1934 when it was much worse for the same month: The data for July isn't online yet (since the month hasn't finished) and I can't find a historical graph for the weekly data, but the most recent weekly data for the Palmer Index is below: It looks like the current drought is approaching the June 1934 conditions, though it's not there yet. Hopefully it doesn't make it...

:music: Happy Birthday, Joe! :music:

Just a personal opinion but, based on past Olympics, I believe the USA picks their gymnasts based on their good looks as much as their talent (gymnastic talent that is... er... I mean gymnastic skills in competition... at least I think that's what I mean )

An Australian get-together would be difficult to organise because of how spreadout the country is (as Canuk indicated). I'm not sure of my availability, but I probably wouldn't be able to make one, even if it were in Melbourne. Way too many family commitments. But if there's enough interest, I think it'd be a good idea!

Happy Birthday! Only if you want to be A person's real age is how they feel....

While I agree with the general consensus so far, that one should not help someone cheat, W.L's comment struck a nerve with me. I know personally what it's like to be gay but married to a woman, and the pressure that can place on the male. I'm lucky in that when I came out to my wife we managed to work through the issues, which relieved that pressure on me, but I still remember the temptation. I'm not going to condemn those that sleep with someone in a relationship, because every case is unique, but I can't say I condone it, either. Put me on the fence for this issue I know that too many people are human....

Taking the analogue of the non-white character (I'm saying non-white, rather than black, because my Australian example has an Italian aka a "wog"), sometimes the character is there to point out and poke fun at bigotry. The classic example in American comedy is "All in the Family", where the black neighbours are there to show how stupid Archie Bunker's bigotry really was. As a bonus, there was equal bigotry by some of the black neighbours, too, showing that bigotry can go both ways (an important lesson). The Australian example, which I dearly loved, was "Kingswood Country" where the bigotted white male lead character had a great deal of trouble with the fact that his daighter was married to an Italian. So a lot depends on why the characters are gay. If it's because it's just part of their character, or if it's because it brings out something in the people around them, then I think it's good. If it's just there to poke fun at that aspect of the character, then generally that's not okay in my opinion. Taking a modern example, I find the gay characters in "Modern Family" to be very stereotyped BUT the situation they're in is something that's exceptional on TV at the moment, and they're not portrayed as gay to poke fun at them, but to explore the humour in a situation most people would know nothing about (gay parenting). It also becomes quickly obvious that a lot of their problems are because they're new parents, not because they're gay. Some of the humour is at the over-the-top flamboyant reactions... but even there, any parent would recognise that the reactions are reasonable (I'm thinking of the scene with the baby accidentally locked in the car in particular - panic can produce some strange reactions at times).

There are a lot of gay characters on TV so picking a favourite is difficult. However, going back in time... Jodie Dallas in Soap (played by Billy Crystal) He was a realy early gay character in a mainstream TV soap opera (or rather, a soap opera send-up) and while he was over-the-top, I still remember how confident he was in himself. He was an early indication that it was okay to be gay, even if I was too young at the time to really understand myself. And, slightly more recently Tony Hills in Eastenders Unfortunately, I was travelling a lot while Tony was a significant part of Eastenders, but I did catch a number of episodes, including the one where he picked up a guy at a gay bar, but chickened out before they got back to that guy's home. I'm really upset, though, because I missed a lot of the story where he became boyfriends with Simon -- the brother of Tony's ex-girl friend AND the mother of his baby.... Simon was cute, but Tony was the confused young guy I identified with.