W_L

If I want nude males, I know where to go Actually, the gay cruise line ads on here have really skimpy dressed guys in speedos from time to time too However, I also would like to point to the banned German Sprite commercial with the woman suggestively giving a man fellatio. Europe has limits too on how suggestive something can be.

Not really, everything has a cost towards it. Food products are usually bought with ignorance to what you actually need to maintain a natural calorie balance to exertion, along with excess fats and sodium. Most people buy things based on value, not nutritional content, unless you can afford it and are not living under economic pressure. While you can argue that it is free to learn and free to acquire if given enough "time" and "incentive", both concepts are part of our productive limits as humans. Should a person learn how to eat better to prevent diabetes? Yes Does a lower income person who works in excess of 10 hours a day have the time and incentive? Probably not "Time = Money" is a very simple concept used by many people in business, but I would also apply it to why health care professionals exist. A person working 8-10 hours does not usually have the time to study in meaningful ways on a subject that has no actual bearing on their productivity, i.e. their jobs. Thus, they seek assistance with doctors, nutritionists, or fitness instructors at gyms. Remember your Econ 101 class, comparative advantage and game theory would dictate that you would trade a portion of you income for such goods. However, the cost of gym membership or out of pocket medical costs like these would not be equivalent to other things you need in life, i.e. shelter, clothing, and food. While traditionally, it was believed that higher income nations usually contained the greatest rates of obesity, recent studies have shown that poverty is intrinsically linked to obesity and diabetes. Lower income earners would hold higher rates of obesity and diabetes as studies from NIH have shown: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3198075/ Industrialized nations have less manual labor; more service sector jobs that reduces exertion and increases obesity. With the rise of low wage service sector jobs, you have a very ugly picture: sedimentary workplace and low income that does not give access to things that could aid healthy lifestyles. That concept shows why lower income people would need such professionals, but can't afford them. It's a vicious cycle of poverty and chronic disease. On the other hand, employers and corporations like mine, who want to maintain their stall of capable professionals (salaried slaves ) would be willing to buy into insurance plans to maintain their staff's productivity level. Sure, I have time to go jog with my dog and run on my treadmill, unlike production staff. However, they are still pushing for me to lose weight and maintain my health to its fullest potential. Why is that done versus a minimal approach to production staff? In the eyes of senior management, Corporate staff are intrinsically more valuable than production staff; even in service sector work. It's a basis of our economic model that favors skilled labor versus unskilled labor. For instance, at my company, unskilled labor makes about 10.50/hr at the high end with minimal benefits; while skilled staff makes 30-50/hr with loads of benefits. I hate to say it this way, but production staff in the eyes of large companies are short term expenses for production, while skilled staff are long term investments. That is not about personal responsibility, but a matter of economic perspective and how we manage our resources as a company and society. Ghostboy, it is not merely about personal responsibility; economics play a major part in health care issues. If you only made 10.50/hr can you afford to have decent exercise and food, while paying rent, utilities, and other necessary things. Remember that is only $21,840.00 in annual earnings, split out across 26 bi-weekly pay cycles with 840.00 before income tax and average rent goes from 750.00-1,500.00. in the area near your job. @zombie: I know, evil American society (By the way, the US is not alone with this ugly trend of poverty and vicious health cycles, a lot of European countries havie begun to have higher poverty from low income "temp" jobs that last less than minimum hours rules)

Only to brits, for the rest of the world, I will still hand it to the french Still, we agree on the most important part, Jenner was unethical in how he conducted himself. By the way, how does nhs handle experimental treatments. Do you guys make special exceptions like the Us? Or do you guys let people live or die without the option?

Zombie i dont see benjamin jesty mentioned Also i never acknowledge his ethics prior to my last post

Ghostboy, it's called preventive medicine Insurance has been pushing people to do it for the last few years now; certain plans like mine even offer free gym benefits (I need to get into that, but I am worried I will be too busy checking guys out) and even nutritionists. Biggest issue with this model now is that it is only available to middle income earners; the poor and lower wage earners don't have these benefits readily available in most plans. There are community programs for it, but those are usually grant sponsored or are privately funded with eligibility requirements and wait list. Health care has two main hurdles, cost issues and regulatory/legal issues. For example, Is gym membership considered a fringe benefit that can be taxable? (That's a loaded question) Is it feasible for insurers to put out 100.00 per month per beneficiary versus not paying anything and collecting 150.00 per month from employee/employers? The Devil's advocate point is not much value can be generated from lower cost plans if these benefits were offered. However, the highest cost of medicine is from lower income people with chronic illnesses like Diabetes, which requires constant maintenance. Been reading on the back burner and watching you all argue, so might as well add a few points of interests.

Fine, remember to tell the French that yourself We can disagree, but I still think the two should be separate as Jenner's method was not original and could occur naturally, which Benjamin Jesty would attest as he was the first performer of cowpox inoculation in 1770's, two decades before Jenner (he didn't invent it, he just got famous for writing about it). Pasteur at least developed an artificial process to weaken viruses before transplanting, so he actually grew the virus, weakened it, and passed it on with a doctor (since he was not a physician he couldn't give little joey his shot). By the way, prior to Pasteur actually offering the term of "vaccine" as a nod to Jenner, Vaccine was defined merely as inoculations with cowpox to prevent smallpox. In a way, without Pasteur defining it that way, Jenner would have been relegated to a one hit wonder The fun of medical history..... However, back to topic, yes Jenner was extremely unethical. He infected his gardener's son with cowpox, then infected him with smallpox. I don't know about you, but that sounds like attempted murder without proven research or trials. Medicine in those days allowed for Frankenstein type such situations to occur; unethical and committed researchers could do as they will without a regard to human life as long as they were successful. Nowadays, we have placed limits on those extremes, but we face a different issue of inaction in times of need and a goal oriented medical research.

Not sure if I should post this up or not, but I will with the comment that the bioethics debate should stay on my blog: 7 year old gets needed drug as part of FDA/Pharmaceutical deal

Jenner used cowpox infections to prevent or lessen future smallpox. There's a difference between "First Vaccine" and "First man made vaccine". Louis Pasteur transplanted the rabies virus from rabbits and dried it out afterward prior to inoculation to weaken it. The difference between Jenner and Pasteur is that Pasteur's methods were artificial, not natural substitute. Without Pasteur modern medicine would not exist, but his methods were very unethical and potentially mortal. ---------------------------- @crazyfish As for potential lawsuit: That's another problem and it would cost the company money along with potential lives saved from a successful run of this drug. We're not that different in views for the cost of regulation, if you just hold back your libertarianism a little, we should to be friends

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/10/health/cohen-josh/index.html?hpt=hp_c2 This is one of those really sad cases that on the surface, the evil company is holding drugs from dying kids to use, but on a deeper level, it is an issue with how our economic, social, and regulatory model is structured in a way that makes it a no-win scenario. If this is a problem, I would also say Americans are not alone in the world: Here's a recent article from the telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10628703/Children-denied-life-saving-cancer-drugs.html British and European nations hold just as much blood in these issues as Americans. There is no moral superiority, when it comes to medical application. I love bioethics as a concept with medicine and health care; I've gone to a few assemblies of doctors, hospital management, and health care finance groups with this as the central theme. Patients and their families think if you have treatment that can save lives, why not give it out? There's a lot of good reasons why: 1. Regulations: the FDA is a complicated web of researchers and bureaucrats in drug approval, who have certain rules and limits on anything that even smells like it could harm human beings during testing. On a cursory level, I agree with this concept of being better safe than sorry later, but it is also this kind of mindset that limits scientific advance. Louis Pasteur in his testing of the Rabies' vaccine, the first human made vaccine in history, was done without extensive prior testing and worse had unmentioned failures in the past that Louis Pasteur had hidden from the medical community. His journals have shown that prior to his successful vaccination of Joseph Meister, he had failed several times prior and had not fine tuned the process. If modern regulatory standards were held, if these facts were known the field of microbiology, pharmacology, and immunology would not have been created. Everyone in health care loves to debate Pasteur, because as unethical as he was, his goals were right and his techniques were onto something much larger, the creation of new medical science. 2. Financially: Drug companies are not non-profits and do not create cures for free. They have investors from the usual wall street billionaire to the average office worker with a 401k plan. Our society is founded on the "profit motive", we live by the rule that by investing our resources, then the majority of us can reap the rewards later either from the product or from its sales. If drugs are given away for free or its value comes into question (drug valuation is another area), then how can investors get their investment back. While drugs may seem cheap from the standpoint of base chemicals and mass production once it hits the hospitals, the true cost is research and time in its development. The investment is a cost of time and resources diverted. If people no longer think it is "worth" investing in such areas, then investment disappears from a pharma company, which in turns means fewer life-saving treatments can be produced. Capitalism is a sticky point in this area, the alternative is either we pay higher taxes and have the government direct pharmaceutical research "directly" (which is based on public desire versus need, i.e you can find a cure for AIDS or Cancer with all the money thrown into those two big topic diseases, but what about resurgent smallpox, avian flu, or other retroviruses that researchers are working on now with private investment). There's also another possibility from the individualist, we stop investing altogether since it does not benefit us individually (the Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged dream, or for me the nightmare of civilization). By the way, there's a hidden danger in Objectivist Libertarianism from this, if taken to the extreme end of individualism, there would be no incentive to pooling resources for non-relevant drugs to individuals, it would reduce overall investment potential and drug production even without government regulations. 3. The Good of the Many versus the Few: CNN does not tell you why this is good for the many versus the few. It only repeats one line from the pharma executives, but the truth is there is a majority good versus minority salvation. American Society, despite how much is claimed and championed of minority positions, is a society that supports what benefits most people. In this case, you have only one group of interest in the drugs immediate use: Dying children versus the needs of investors, the needs of researchers, and the need for regulatory approval in order to release the drug for wide use. While you may be able to save a few hundred now, you could be saving a few hundred thousand in a year from now. In medicine, there's a concept that this decision correlates to: Triage. Resources are not infinite, you can't save everyone, but you must do what you can for the majority. Sometimes people think "Many vs. Few" arguments are relegated to socialist vs free market health care debate in the US, but in fact, it is a reality of civilization itself. Even in a single payer system, you can't avoid it. Is this a problem with how society is structured that we would throw dying kids under the bus for progress? or Is it merely how we as human beings have adapted to our way of life, in a way showcasing darwinian principles in how our societies are constructed? Those are bigger questions that people have to answer on their own. Update: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/11/health/josh-hardy-drug-study/index.html?hpt=hp_c2 A deal was struck between the FDA and the Pharma company; 7 year old Josh will get his medicine However, this was done not by compassion, but a business deal between the government and private sector. It further adds to the question of ethical practice and morality: Is medicine moving beyond the old Compassionate care model to something based on motives and profits?

He could have jerked the deer meat to make it last longer Certain meats are good when it is jerked

On this point we are in total agreement !

Nah ashi, zen is easy to get if you read a little buddhist commentary A chinese philosopher in the 17th century claimed," it is hard to live with truth. " He believed that knowlwdge is limited, so evil is done by partial understanding. We are bound by limited understanding. One must always seek new truth

Interesting, I've elicited a negative vote It's a legitimate question about morality and ethics. It's easy to write a gay fiction story, where you turn straight guys guy just so you have a perfect world made according to rules that give you safety and comfort. On the other side of the spectrum, anti-gay advocates believe that using extreme psychological and physiological "treatments", you can create a "perfect" world, where they feel safe and comfortable. Among gay writers, few people ask these tough questions about how different we are from our opponents and how easy we can turn into them if given the wrong incentives. By the way Ashi, one of the reasons I like writing realism in stories, even in my sci-fi fantasy stories, is that I want readers to deal with their issues, not escape into an ideal (that is what a lot of folks do when reading fiction) and continue a cycle of denial in a perfect "gay oriented fiction story" where villains are one dimensional preachers and gay people are victims that can rise above all odds to find love and comfort. However, my warning to you is that few people like to read those kinds of stories; they'd rather enjoy a safe story with easy to understand characters, no ambiguity, and stock villains from the evil girlfriend to the sadistic preacher.

Still like the "Best Song Ever" for being pretentious, but good

When did you guys turn into size queens? Boston has a few sky scrapers, but mostly under 30 stories.

Been a while since I created a topic and not since the site got converted to its new format, so I thought why not ask a question that almost every gay kid has thought about, since they first had a crush on that perfect guy (who just so happens to have a girlfriend ). I think a while back in the old Q&A forum we had a question about "How you would turn a straight guy gay?", most people, including me, thought that was kind of impossible and probably a troll. However, after reading stories for so many years on here and other sites, I just recently had an interesting epiphany on the issue. The process is not what is important, but the reasoning behind should we do it and why we would do it? While, the idea is not possible right now in most circumstances, "what if" it was a counter to push a bi-curious straight or female leaning bisexual guy over to the other side of the Kinsey spectrum. The clearer question then is it right to do so? The argument against Ex-gay and Christian conversion therapy has been about how unrealistic and improbable such methods are to remove homosexuality from people's basic instincts. Though, you can suppress your sexuality, it does not remove it. In gay fiction, it is not removal, but an addition to a personality that overrides their current social situations. However, it is assumed that once you are hit with it, you lose the traces of heterosexual norms. Some gay authors have written about it like flipping a switch, but they never question whether it was right or wrong to do it in the first place, because it was just a "perfect change" to what readers want. I hate to say this, but there is something quite scary about this duality: in reality, gay guys are victims of these grotesque treatments, but in some of our fiction, we are aspiring to become like them ourselves without even noticing it. I realized that there was a parallelism within real world idealized conversion from Gay to Straight and gay fiction's perfect conversions from straight to gay.

Wonder what this mean for Hurricane season

Porn is merely a tool for pleasure, not the pleasure itself. It focuses our imagination and our active minds, but most of us won't be dating gay porn stars To deny or decry porn as evil is like denying fantasy fiction; heck, I'd go as far as to say that sexual images and media can be as imaginative and stimulating as Tolkien or Rowling to your imagination (without slashing or mixing the too, then it gets messy ). You want to imagine yourself in those situation in porn, like picking up a hot guy and having sex on the beach, going to his dungeon for some "special fun", or whatever floats your boat. I know, it's strange, but I think porn, if done well and not cheesy can be a genuine art form as it is provocative and stimulates your imagination and thought. Some good porn can be remembered and enjoyed endlessly.

I was addicted to several stories on nifty as a teenager...there I said it (Now I need a shower) Anyway, one of the factors that helped me discover my sexuality: when I accidentally found gay hentai online; I found the images of muscular male cartoon characters in erotic positions during the 56K days of the internet. I didn't know what to make of it, I wasn't even horny at 12 years old, but I just like the pictures. Graeme, exploring your sexuality is something every boy does around that age. It's normal and if he does enjoy boys slightly more than girls; we'll welcome him to GA However, the only thing is that you should warn him about the dangers of certain things; i.e. computer viruses from porn sites, negative aspects of idealizing sex (Porn is an ideal, I doubt many people can hold out that long during sex ), and predators online. The modern world requires a combination of loosening and warnings about new dangers. The only other advice that I can add to the normal list of experiences and warnings: be supportive and love him unconditionally, no matter what he is into as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else.

I won't lie, I don't feel self assured compared to other gay guys. My body is on the chubbier side, i look sort of like lloyd from Entourage with my new haircut. On the flip side, i also am trying out a fwb thing with a fem guy. In the past, I worry a lot about associating with the stereotypical gay guys, but i am giving it a chance and i have grown from it.

Two words: Clothing Optional, if I had to ogle, why not go all the way

Naming a kid is sort of like claiming him/her as your own, human beings have been doing that for centuries before we tried to analyze power dynamics between mother and father or Mother and mother or father and father or....you get the drill. Until they are old enough, they are going to be under their parents' influence. However, even past 21 years old, not many choose to rename themselves or split off from their parents; it is easier to follow your parent's example rather strike out a path on your own.

First, a new concept in my story is the ambiguous morality of need in human existence. One groups needs in order to exist may conflict with anothers group's needs. In modern fiction, we often read about good over evil, when it comes to needs. However, Eastern storytelling usually make the case that needs are essentially ambiguous where good and evil come from perspective. Remember that as you read my chapter. Now here is my thoughts to continue on kansas, since Arizona is starting the same route and have been passed by both state legislature. This is not the work of just an isolated group. It appears to be a well oiled campaign to allow religious groups to deny srrvices and products to lgbt individuals. I have already said why it is bad for us, but let me reiterate. It is a barrier to economic operations. Costs for lgbt people would be prohibitive to even start new businesses and thus less likely to be created. It enforces a social hierarchy akin to segregation, since lgbt people amount to less than 5-10% of population. It is far from equal opportunity or equal services, if this campaign wins, economic opportunity and social segregation will destroy any gains that we have made. I am a conservative and free market guy at heart, but my line in the sand has been crossed with these laws. It is not about civil rights or civil liberties, it is about basic freedoms of opportunity that is being denied. God does not run my business, he does not pay my bills, and he is not there making sales. If i need faith to make a tough decision I will seek his guidance, but if i am just on day to day operations, it is my choice and free will.

The state could go the spartan route:take the kids, raise him as a warrior with a group of other boys, and create the most discliplined military in the world. Wait wasn't that a movie... Beyond women's right issue, I imagine custody of same sex couples in surrogate cases will also be affected by the judgments. It is complicated.

Zombies have dreams ! Your dreams are extrapolations of your life, so what is it that scare you so much that you need to run away from it? An act of nature is probably an extrapolation of an outside force acting on your life beyond normal circumstances. Has something unexpected happened recently?