Graeme

Surely you know by now -- shadowgod is to blame for everything! CJ even admitted as much above: This is how shadowgod gets around the restriction on only having one entry per anthology -- he uses CJ to submit another story for him

I agree with CJ that Bob is confusing "gay" and "friendship". After all, my youngest son once told me that when he grows up he wants to marry his big brother....

A short chapter, and there are still too many things outstanding for Chris's parting comment to ring true to me. It was also a bit glib. From a legal point of view, I wonder if the evidence will be ruled inadmissible since it was found as result of an illegal search by Steve and Chris. Possibly not, since they are not law enforcement offices, but they have certainly tainted the evidence to a degree. The Piedmont sheriff is, to the best of my knowledge, not under arrest, and the case against him could falter if something happens to Chris, so I'm expecting some sort of attempt to be made on Chris's life -- after Eric goes to the sheriff and tells him the bad news. I'll wait for a few more people to read the story before I say anything more.

Happy Birthday, Jimmy! :wub: :wub: I know you've said your stated birthday isn't exactly your birthday, but this is close enough. I hope you have a great day and a happy and prosperous year ahead.

According to The Australian Wonder Book of Knowledge, echidna's make interesting pets. I'm unable to track down the legalities of keeping an echidna as a pet, though. I strongly suspect there are strict export controls in place on shipping live echidnas overseas.

Hi, Kevin, I was considering quoting specific parts of your post relating to marriage to respond to, but I decided it wasn't necessary. Firstly, I'll repeat I was playing Devil's Advocate. The comments were not necessarily my own opinion, but arguments that could be put forward as a consequence of the statements that had been made. I happen to like playing Devil's Advocate because it encourages people (including myself) to think outside of their narrow view of the world. Next, I happen to agree with practically everything you said. Where the confusion lies (and I believe where it has always lied in this debate within society) is what you highlighted -- there are different views of marriage. If I could restate it in a different way, marriage means several different things and unless all parties in the debate agree on which meaning they are arguing about, the debate isn't going to go anywhere. To me, marriage is four distinct things: 1. A public declaration of love between two people. 2. A legal state that provides certain benefits and obligations. 3. A social institution. 4. A religious ceremony. Most of the debate on same-sex marriage has been focused on point 2, but points 3 and 4 keeps getting mixed up in it. Your definition seems to focus on point 1 -- well, you have that now. There is no point debating it in the USA (or Australia). Any same-sex couple can make a public declaration of love if they want to. What the debate is about is gaining the legal benefits that come with marriage. My arguments above are to do with why those legal benefits exist in the first place, and whether they should be granted to same-sex couples. Personally, I think they should, even though I was presenting arguments why they shouldn't. Point 3 is a lot harder to debate because the social institution of marriage is a construct of the way society views marriage, and it is hard to see what impact (if any) same-sex marriage will have on those views. Will it weaken/cheapen it, as some opponents suggest? That is a legitimate question that can't be easily answered. It is why the accusations of "social engineering" are reasonable. My personal view is that it shouldn't, because the number of such relationships is still only going to be a very small minority. It shouldn't have a significant impact in the wider communities view of marriage -- any more than arranged marriages do, or "trivial" marriages (eg. marriages of convenience, or the infamous 24-hour marriage of some celebrities). Point 4 should be taken out of the debate completely. It has no bearing on point 2 (which is where the focus should be when it comes to making same-sex marriages legal), other than to maintain a church/state separation. I know we've gone off topic, but I think this topic (while it has been debated many, many times) is still important enough to continue to discuss. If we're not clear on what we are asking for, or what we are arguing about, we're not going to get what we want.

It isn't going to be one thing. Different things will touch me in different ways. For example, I remember one story where one particular scene touched me very deeply. It was a character relating what had happened to him over the summer break. Now, this was a character who hadn't appeared before, so it wasn't the relationship I had with the character that touched me (though that has happened in other stories). It wasn't that the events were something I had personally experienced (though that has happened in other stories). It wasn't an overly emotional recitation, either (though that can affect me when it's written well). It was just the painful, almost dry, recitation of a tragedy -- one that I hope I never have to experience. I suppose you could call it a literary trick in that the recitation was not filled with emotion, but that allowed me to fill in the gaps with my own emotions. A reader can be touched in many different ways. Trying to find one sure-fire way isn't going to work because every reader is different, coming from a different background and with a different personality. When I described the example above, I've given different ways that I've been touched by stories -- any or all of them could affect me with the next story I read. I won't know what it will be until I read it. One thing I will say that is consistent. The story has to be written well, because nothing stops the emotion faster than to be jolted out of the story by a sentence that doesn't appear to make sense or a glaring typo.

Yep! After all, do you really believe an echidna can use a computer?

And I missed it! Wish Jacob a belated Happy Birthday from me, please

Do you expect sympathy? I remember my 25th birthday -- I was on vacation and sitting at a table by myself because all the other people who were supposed to be sitting with me never showed up.... At least you have a boyfriend 25 is not old. It's easier when you get to 30 -- that seems old now, but once you get there you realise it's just another year. Just enjoy life and you'll be fine.

A good percentage of them would've been bots of some sort. Unfortunately, you can't easily tell the difference between a real person and a robot program -- both issue HTML requests to view a page. I've noticed over the last few months that there seem to be a vast expansion of bots on the internet. Some are legitimate (eg. the search engine spiders) and some are not-so-legitimate (spam-bots looking for a place to make a spam registration or an open forum to make a spam post). The later seem to be expanding in volume

CJ's already announced his next story -- Let the Music Play. He's said he'll post the prologue and first two chapters soon.

My turn to disagree The primary benefit of marriage is economics, but the reason for that is that the government wants to encourage a stable environment for bringing up the next generation. Since the government has limited abilities in providing for that environment, they provide economic incentives for couples to create that environment. So, I view the economics to be a benefit and not a reason for marriage to exist. Having said that, I agree that there are some (many?) couples only get married for the economic benefits, but I don't believe that justifies saying that the reason for a marriage contract is the economic benefits.

Wow! I thought the nominee had to be a Cardinal, too, but that may be a tradition, rather than a requirement. I do know that you have to be a Cardinal to make a nomination, so thank you, Cardinal Conner.

The question is not the same in each country, but many countries have a question whose purpose to is to stop practising homosexuals from donating. The USA is extreme in that any male-male sexual experience in the last 30 is enough to ban you. The Australian Red Cross Blood Service only asks about the last 12 months. Here's the FAQ for the Australian Red Cross: http://www.donateblood.com.au/page.aspx?ID...8&parent=30 I'll quote the section on sexual activity: Sexual activity - Is there any kind of sexual activity that will affect my ability to donate blood? If you have any reason to believe you may have acquired an infection through unprotected sex, you should not donate. Safe sex practices are vital to the prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. However, 'protected sex' is not 100% effective and therefore the Australian Red Cross Blood Service's guidelines relating to sexual activity are based on the prevalence of infection in certain population groups. The following questions are asked in regard to sexual activity: * Have you ever thought you could be infected with HIV or have AIDS? * In the last 12 months have you engaged in sexual activity with someone who you think might answer yes to any of the questions on the use of drugs, partner with HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HTLV, or treatment with clotting factors? * Since your last donation or in the last 12 months have you had sexual activity with a new partner who currently lives or has previously lived overseas? Within the past twelve months have you: * Had male to male sex? * Had sexual activity with a male who you think might be bisexual? * Been a male or female sex worker (e.g. received payment for sex in money, gifts or drugs?) * Engaged in sex with a male or female sex worker? If the answer is 'yes' to any of the above questions, then a 12 month deferral is applied. If you scan through the list, you'll notice that there is a similar ban on people who have been in prison, and for similar reasons.

Incest is typically banned because the majority of such relationships are male/female and the risk of genetically damaged offspring is high (I met one many years ago -- a nine-year-old that was wheelchair bound and had the mental age of a one-year-old. He was the child of first cousins). As such, I support the taboo. The issue of same-sex incest is more difficult to challenge as there is no chance of genetically damaged offspring arising. As such, it has to be argued on social grounds. The best argument I can come up on the spur of the moment is that it would discriminatory to allow same-sex incest but disallow mixed-sex incest. However, even I'm not really convinced by that argument. I think cross generational incest is wrong on principle, but, while I'm uncomfortable with same generational same-sex incest, I can't think of a strong reason to prohibit it.

Definitely incest. Incest is defined by the biological relationship -- essentially by the DNA. Since they have the same father DNA, they would be half-brothers, and hence any sexual relationship would be incest. Even without that, they have, by definition, the same grandparents on their fathers' side, and so you get incest from that, too. Incest is not just the immediate family -- it's incest between cousins as well as siblings.

That's not quite the basis of my next story, but... what have you been doing reading my harddrive? Seriously, there are a number of reasons for the kid to have left home. Mum's a druggie and couldn't care less. Mum's new boyfriend is abusive, at least to the kid. Sickness/injury that makes the mother incapacitated (assumes no other close relations -- or the courts order that the kid goes to the parent as the closest living relation), or the mother dies/is dying. Mum ends up in prison. Have a look at Dom's Desert Dropping which has a similar basis. In that case the Mum dies, and she never told either the son or the father about each other (Dad moved away before the mum learnt she was pregnant). Dom handles the situation and explanation extremely well.

Happy Birthday! :music: :music: I hope you have a great day and a fantastic year ahead.

Happy Birthday, TR! :king: May this year be better than the last. I hope you're feeling better soon and I look forward to seeing you writing again. Tragic Rabbit is a prolific and very talented author. You can read his stories and poems at Down the Rabbithole

Congratulations, everyone! 2000 topics is 2000 times that someone has contributed to GA with something new, and doesn't even start to indicate the amount of interaction that those posts have produced. Well done and here's to 2000 more topics

This topic has been covered in great detail in the A homosexual giving blood? thread. Essentially, because several people became HIV positive as a result of blood transfusions, they are paranoid about that being repeated. They are playing a numbers game -- looking at the number of donors they are losing vs the increase in probability of safety of the blood supply. The main problem is that they haven't significantly updated the rules since they were put in place. The demographics for HIV have changed considerably since then, and it would be better to ask about sexual practise (eg. safe sex, monogamous relationships, etc), rather than the broad-brush approach they are using at the moment. Oh, and I'm also banned from donating, but that's because I'm considered to be a vCJD risk since I lived in the UK at the time of the mad cow disease panic. The odds of me having vCJD is miniscule, but the Australian Red Cross decided that losing 5% of their donors was worth it to decrease the chance of a contaminated blood supply (because the mechanism of transmission for vCJD is still unknown -- it may be via blood so they have decided to be paranoid).

I'm a long way from 2000 and getting further with every post. I, for one, am happy to let CJ continue his delusion that he's a lurker. After all, would we really want him to post less frequently? And to make Bondwriter happy, I think CJ has a very high percentage of top quality posts. He tries to make good comments on other stories (especially the anthology entries) as well as having a playful attitude in the threads for his own stories Happy lurking, CJ!

Nope. It would have been discussed when the boys were telling their story, but why would the FBI mention it to them afterwards unless it was necessary? To start off with, they risk the investigation by supplying excessive information to two people that may be required to testify. A defense lawyer could call it tampering with the witnesses. So, no, I didn't find it odd at all. I'm more interesting in the church picnic where four deputies got sick. Which church was that and is there reason to be suspicious? (And CJ, that's a rhetorical question, as I know you won't answer it in this thread. If there's an answer, it'll be in a subsequent chapter).