At the outset, I wish to say that I hold nothing but empathy and love toward my gay brothers and sisters. I wish for little more than that they lead happy, fulfilled lives in the company of the people they love. But this heartfelt caring does not obviate my belief that marriage itself ought to remain solely between a man and a woman.
To answer Wright’s points in order: First, proscribing same-sex marriage does not violate the separation of church and state unless religious belief is the only argument. But it isn’t. Every significant civilization in history has kept marriage strictly between male and female, and not only because of religion.
The main reason, apart from religious belief, for opposing same-sex marriage is the welfare of children. Most people throughout history have understood that children need both types of parents, male and female. One problem with same-sex marriage, which will mean widespread adoption by gays, is that it will involve a radical social experiment on children, who can hardly consent to such adult-focused rearrangements.
All other things being equal, one wonders which parent Wright would willingly have jettisoned in favor of two of the same sex. It should be noted that divorce or death does not deprive a child of an opposite sex parent as does same-sex marriage. Little Jane, having been adopted by John and Steve, will never in her whole life know what it is to have a mother. A baby boy adopted by two women will never have a father—never. Talk about “total deprivation”!
While some do argue that changing the definition of marriage will harm marriage, we can thus see that the larger problem is that it would damage society. It would do this by further breaking down the traditional family—which is the best place in which to raise children—and by fully normalizing homosexual relationships, a trend which is already leading to more same-sex experimentation and sexual confusion in young people.
Changing the definition of marriage will be confusing to all children, who will now be acculturated to ask themselves and each other whether they might like to marry a boy or a girl when they grow up. No preferencing of one situation over the other, either in the classroom or in textbooks or anywhere else, will be allowed once the definition of marriage is changed. Efforts toward this mandated parity are already underway; enacting same-sex marriage would cement them.
Another serious but less recognized concern is that when the definition of marriage is expanded to include same-sex couples, religious liberty is seriously threatened. Laws passed to protect the rights of special interest groups very often interact with religion in ways we don’t expect, as evidenced here and here.
As for enforcing morality through law, we do it all the time, as with current civil rights laws. Some moral principles we enforce through law, some we don’t. On such a massive, unprecedented change, let’s allow the democratic process to decide.
Wright speaks of how marriage benefits both society and couples, whether opposite sex or same-sex. These are fair and powerful points that would be persuasive if the arguments against same-sex marriage were not strong. But the acknowledged benefits of promoting fidelity and monogamy amongst gays must be weighed against the downsides of same-sex marriage, the outgrowth of which may not be fully apparent for some time.
The argument that because we were right to reverse course on slavery, we must be right to change the definition of marriage is a non sequitur. Just because one is wrong doesn’t mean the other is wrong. Slavery was wrong; keeping marriage between a man and a woman may well be right. It does not become wrong simply because a group of people, dwarfed by the judgment of the ages, suddenly decides it is wrong (and it is “suddenly” in the scope of history).
The comparison between proscribing same-sex marriage and proscribing interracial marriage is inapt. There is no essential difference between blacks and whites. There is a world of difference between men and women. Marriage utilizes these differences to bring balance and complementarity both to the relationship itself and the raising of children, who vitally need the unique characteristics male and female bring to their parenting.
As for whether same-sex marriage will be used toward achieving the legalization of polygamy and other creative arrangements, we do not need to wonder. Newsweek has a sobering article on the jump-starting of the polygamy movement, so clearly given impetus, inspiration, and rationale by the successes of the gay rights movement.
Wright wrote, “Same-sex marriage does not pose a threat to me, my choices, or my way of life.”
While it’s not the same, this reminds one of the “divorce-threatens-marriage” canard. “People divorce, people marry their own sex, who cares? MY marriage isn’t affected.”
Wisdom does not only think of oneself or the present; it considers the larger group and the long-range view. This issue of changing the definition of marriage is not simply about me or my way of life. It is about all of us, and it is about the future.
Nothing in the disallowing of same-sex marriage prohibits gays from living as stable, committed couples. But in insisting upon the title of marriage, same-sex partners are demanding that society change what has been true through all of history—that men marry only women, and women only men.
It is an understandable wish, and those making the demand may indeed be accurate in believing they are wiser and more moral than all the religious teachers and all the sages of the past. But at the very least, we should acknowledge the hubris such a belief involves, and we need to be certain the bulk of society is on board with it. Until then, it is patently clear we need a constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. As seen in California, this is the only thing that will prevent a single judge’s dubious moral certainty from becoming the margin needed to overturn the clear will and judgment of the people.
Janine Goffar is a Seventh-day Adventist writer living in Loma Linda, California. She is author of “The C.S. Lewis Index: A Comprehensive Guide to Lewis's Writings and Ideas.”
Marriage is one of the happiest and memorable moments in our lives. It is a union of not only two individuals, but also of two different upbringings and cultures. After a cheerful start of married life, there might be a possibility or beginning of some conflicts. These may be due to some misunderstandings, ego or other personal problems. Sometimes the bitterness in the relation crosses the tolerance level that the couples think of getting separated.
However, a divorce affects the personal and social lives of both the partners. You will be surprised to know that your marriage problems can be resolved. Here are 5 ways to save a marriage that can be effectively implemented in your married life.
The first step to resolve the marriage problems is to agree that they exist. You should be honest with yourself, should be able to identify the differences in your relationships and try to improve them. If your try to go away from the issues, they will never be solved. Accept the situation as it is and be prepared for the challenges which may lie ahead.
It is said that you cannot fight the enemy that you cannot see. This philosophy is absolutely true in case of marriages. If you feel that your husband has changed the way of interaction, then find out the reasons behind it. The best solution is to start the conversation with your spouse and give him several opportunities to ‘open up’. Keep your ears and mind open for the subtle hints from his conversation.
Saving your marriage is not merely solving the problems. Reigniting your love for each other is one of the effective 5 ways to save a marriage. You can express your passion for your partner with special dates or surprises. Remember the most romantic times you spent together and recreate them with an addition of a unique approach.
Give some time for each other to share the feelings. The purpose is to grab the attention of your partner and make your relationships healthy with natural attraction. If you are successful in developing the passion for each other, then other problems can be immediately solved.
There may be many obstacles when you are trying to fix the relationships. It might be difficult for you to communicate with your husband or you may be facing outside pressures from the family which may prevent you to focus on your goals. Even after facing these barriers, you should be persistent on your aims. If one approach fails, you can try another approach that may work. You should be able to handle the conflicts safely.
One of the important steps among 5 ways to save a marriage is to seek the right advice from your friends and family. You should try to get an expert advice from counseling sessions or books before you take any major decision. A wise advice can save your marriage, while bad advice may ruin it.
Knowing about 5 ways to save a marriage, you would be able to resolve the problems if any in your marriage and live a happy married life.
Is there a minimum age limit to apply for the DV 2006 program? There is no minimum age limitation to apply for this program but it is necessary to be at least a high school graduate or to have work experience of two years in a field which requires specialty. Can more than one person from a family apply for the Green Card lottery? Yes. Each of them has the right to apply for individually. However, they cannot sign for each other. Each must sign his/her own application. The applicant should attach his/her own, his/her spouse’s and all children’s ( including those who were adopted by law and step children) newly taken photographs, even though they do not reside with him/her.All applicants must be citizens of the countries which are eligible to apply for the lottery.
I want to go to the States for education. Will the Green Card be useful for me? In the US, yes. Public Universities give discounts for those who have a Green Card. Besides, when you have the Green Card, your possibility to receive a scholarship and/or loan from the American government increases. Also, do not forget that you are allowed to work; you can work wherever you want and make a living.This number varies from year to year but are usually very similar to each other. Last year, about 50,000 people managed to acquire Green Card. After the draw, almost 90,000 people were informed that they won the lottery . However, only 50,000 of them had the right to have their Cards.
How will the winners be selected? All mails received at the Kentucky Consular Center are separated into one of the six geographical regions and are given numbers. At the end of the application period a computer selects randomly from the mails received for each geographical region. Within each regional group, the first mail selected will be registered first and the second mail in the second row. All applications have the same chance.
Is it necessary to appoint a lawyer or a consultant? Appointing a lawyer or a consultant depends merely on the candidate’s decision. The process of applying for the Green Card lottery can be completed by the applicant, following the basic instructions but receiving assistance might also be preferred. There are organizations that provide service with reasonable prices and sometimes it is possible to receive assistance, sometimes for free. On the contrary, there are ones which demand very high prices with unrealistic claims.No, the laws states that candidates have the right to apply for the lottery only once. Applications can be made by themselves or by others. Those who filled more than one application form will be disqualified.
I am an engineer in a technical field. If I mention this, will i have greater chances? No, your job is not important. In this lottery, only the chance factor will have a role in selection. No. There is no such announcement made by INS. Applying for the lottery has no effect on getting a visa for the States.There is no minimum age limitation to apply for this program but it is necessary to be at least a high school graduate or to have work experience of two years in a field which requires specialty.
Labels: green card, marriage, news, USA
Labels: anthiny hopkins, brad pitt, cinema
By Glen Stansberry
Desktop blogging tools can benefit designers-bloggers in a number of ways. They provide extra functionality that can significantly speed up the blogging process for both newbies and professionals.
One of the main benefits of using a desktop client is the ability to comfortably write a post offline, and publish it later. Many clients also have a scheduled post feature, so you can define what time you would like to publish your articles. Some editors provide a spell checker, drafts saver, remote publishing and WYSIWYG-editor with advanced formatting options such as inserting media or structuring the post — they may be hard to deal with using standard online blogging-engines.
Let’s take a look at 15 desktop blogging editors which can speed up the blogging process. Some are free and some cost a few dollars, but in the end all of these editors can significantly improve your workflow, regardless of your skills.
Windows Live Writer is an impressive blog editor, and is probably the cleanest one. It provides the familiar user interface that one would expect from usual Microsoft applications. Writing a blog entry with intuitive features like a rich text editor and spell checker is easy. Users also have the ability to quickly add images and other media.
The distinctive feature that puts Live Writer ahead of the competition is that you can can add plugins to the editor. For instance, there are plugins that seamlessly integrate with Flickr and Facebook photos; word counting as well as many further features are available as well.
Live Writer is useful for people who don’t necessarily want to mess with HTML and just want to quickly write a blog post, but it’s also great for more advanced users with the ability to add specific features with plugins.
The main advantage of MarsEdit lies in its ability to integrate with other text editors. The client integrates cleanly with BBEdit, SubEthaEdit, TextMate, or TextWrangler. It has a simple yet robust user interface. Users can define powerful markup macros to insert commonly used snippets of code. The tool works with WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Movable Type, LiveJournal, Drupal, and Vox. You can also quickly scan your Flickr library, then insert an image into your blog post with the click of a button.
Another nifty feature is the preview functionality. The tool allows you to build a template to match your blog, then let MarsEdit’s live preview show you how your posts will look before you publish them. Extensive AppleScript support makes it possible to add further features. Price: $29.95. A free 30-days-trial-version is available as well.
BlogDesk is a robust, multi-language blog editor that supports all of the popular blogging platforms except Blogger. If that isn’t a problem for you, then you’ll love the unique and intuitive features BlogDesk provides. The Image Wizard allows you to upload and edit pictures, without editing images in image processing applications. You can also define frequently used phrases and keywords to speed up your writing time, much like TextExpander (Mac).
Links can be easily inserted and edited. If you link to local files (such as MP3 or PDF), BlogDesk will automatically upload them. Dictionaries in 14 languages are available for the integrated spell checker. Posts already published can be edited afterwards and deleted directly from the server. In the Notebook you can insert and rearrange text before you actually use it in your weblog entry. For your convenience you can create multiple categories where text can be saved separately.
Zoundry Raven is a free advanced WYSIWYG-blog editor with XHTML editing, drag and drop from browser-functionality. It also provides the Unicode (UTF- 
support, quicklinks and a template-based preview. Users can manage multiple blogs online and offline and use a built-in indexer that allows to see posts by blogs, links, tags and images.
Zoundry Raven supports Blogger, TypePad, MovableType, MetaWeblog and LiveJournal. The tool is available as a portable application which you can use on your flash/thumb drive. Finally, you can use Raven to create and modify your WordPress Pages just like any other blog post and set WordPress tags as well as import tags from all of your posts.
It is worth mentioning that Zoundry Raven also has an integrated HTML validator built into the code view and includes a publish menu to finalize your decisions, tags, trackbacks, etc.
Ecto is one of the most popular blog editors, and has earned the respect of some top bloggers like Darren Rowse. It’s a powerful tool with all typical features (Rich text editor, spell check, draft saving, etc.), but it also allows you to extend the functionality by using plugins, much like Windows Live Writer. Amazon’s affiliate scheme seamlessly integrates in Ecto and makes it easier for you to link to a particular Amazon product page.
Ecto also has support for Flickr and del.icio.us. In addition, ecto also lists the tags you have used with del.icio.us and Flickr, so that you can reuse them for your blog entries. The only drawback is that the software costs $17.95, but you can try it out for free for 21 days.
w.bloggar is a professional blog editor for advanced users who are fairly technologically savvy. It’s snappy and has a lot more advanced features built-in than Live Writer. While the interface isn’t as intuitive or elegant as Live Writer and some of the others, it’s a useful little editor.
With w.bloggar you can save posts locally for further publishing, import text files, post to many blogs and ping to Weblogs.Com, blo.gs, Technorati and ping-o-matic. Also, you can download a portable version that you can take with your anywhere on a USB drive. Perfect for bloggers on the go!
Thingamablog is a hybrid of a blog editor and RSS-feed reader. It’s not quite as polished as other blog editors, but is great for someone needing a cross-platform blog editor. Setting up the blog is a bit cumbersome for the first time, but not unbearable. You’ll need to have Java Virtual Machine downloaded and running on your machine to work.
Thingamablog has a few advanced features that are different from other blog editors. You can import RSS feeds, and you can post to your blog while reading your RSS feeds. It’s a nice program for bloggers who typically write news-related posts. The editor also allows publishing remotely to your blog via email and saving entries as drafts. Thingamablog is released under the terms of the GPL.
Qumana has an interesting feature that isn’t found in other blogging platforms. If you are interested in joining an ad network for your blog, Qumana has a built-in ad network (Qads) that allows you to insert ads into your post.
You can use Qumana when you are offline. Save your blog posts to your hard drive and upload whenever you like. Useful for bloggers on the move. Apart from standard features the editor has a handy little feature called the DropPad, which adds drag-n-drop capability to snag links, pictures and text to a desktop pad. Qumana is very intuitive and is definitely an option worth consdering for both newbies and advanced bloggers.
Scribefire is quite different from the other blog editors as it is a Firefox extension. When you want to blog about the page you are currently viewing, hit “F12″ and the scribefire extension pops up in the lower-half of your browser. You can blog about a specific web page without having to leave the browser. You can also click an icon to move blogging frame into a separate tab, if you’re going to need some more space.
Scribefire isn’t as feature-rich as an editor like Ecto or BlogDesk, but it is fast and easy, and works well for everybody in a hurry.
If you are a power blogger, BlogJet is definitely a solution worth considering. While the application costs around $60, it manages to combine a number of useful tools in one clean, intuitive interface. It supports most blogging services, integrates with RSS-readers and also allows you to use keyword-shortcuts (like BlogDesk).
BlogJet cares about typography: it automatically replaces quotes and dashes with proper ones as you type. If you are on the road and there is no Internet-connection, or if you want to finish your post later, save it as draft. Then you can get back to finishing and publishing it. The tool also has Flickr and YouTube support, Spell Checker, Word Counter and Blog Statistics, Post Management and Searching. And BlogJet can automatically insert the title and the artist of the song playing in iTunes, Winamp or Windows Media Player.
If you are looking for a free alternative, stick with BlogDesk. It has almost the same features and is free. However, if a beautiful, intuitive design is important to you, then give BlogJet a shot. You won’t be disappointed.
Flock is a web-browser that has a built-in blogging tool. The blogging tool allows you to blog directly from the page, similarly to Scribefire, with a keyboard shortcut or a mouse click. However, the interface on Flock is a bit nicer, and has a slightly more seamless integration than in case of Scribefire and Firefox. Also you can use the web clipping tool to save and store clips of information in your browser.
Flock is an optimal tool for simple bloggers who don’t need a lot of bells and whistles that come with other blogging editors.
On the surface, Post2Blog appears to be a very simple blogging tool. If you dig under the hood for a bit, you’ll notice that this lightweight blogging tool has some pretty nifty features. You can quickly add amazon affiliate links to your posts. It even has plugins for Firefox and Internet Explorer for quickly blogging a web page.
The tool also has a “Portable Mode” support, integration with RSS Bandit and Sharp Reader — you can post selected items from these RSS readers using Post2Blog plugin. You can also add Technorati, Del.icio.us, Buzzwords, 43 Things tags to your posts and earn money using “Insert Amazon Link” feature.
The only drawback is that the interface isn’t as elegant or intuitive as other Windows blogging platforms, and the tool isn’t supported by the developers.
Bleezer is a light piece of software that has all standard features as well some advanced functionality which one would expect from robust editors. Spell checking, pinging services, uploading files and FTP capabilities are available. It’s a handy little tool that is quick and efficient. Again, it doesn’t have the beautiful design that BlogJet has, but it’s free and works smoothly. Bleezer is an optimal choice for advanced bloggers who can appreciate the advanced functionality that the software provides.
Using Bleezer you can work with every blogging service (even Blogger). You can also create custom markup by defining your own key strokes for custom HTML markup. As usual, you can also compose posts offline and post them when you want to. Windows and Linux users should extract the .zip file into a directory and double click the .jar file to run. You will need Java Virtual Machine.
Let’s take a look at the brief overview of further desktop blogging tools which may be also useful:
If you have little experience in blogging you might try either Flock, Windows Live Writer or Scribefire. Those three have fairly intuitive interfaces and don’t have all the advanced features that more robust programs have. Also, they are free so you can check out what application better manages to cover your needs.
Advanced bloggers looking for a bit more firepower should try Ecto, BlogJet or BlogDesk. BlogDesk works especially well for bloggers who frequently use photos in their posts (Image Wizard). Windows Live Writer and Ecto have extra functionality built in, as they both allow you to install plugins to add specific features.
Every desktop blog editor is a great benefit to any blogger’s toolkit, as it saves time and has features that traditional blog platforms don’t always have.
Source: http://msonerg.wordpress.com
Labels: blog editor, blogger, Css, editor, free editor, picture, Smashing Magazine, tools, xml
 | ||||||||||||||||
| | ||||||||||||||||
| Average user rating: 97% | ||||||||||||||||
| | ||||||||||||||||
|
Labels: camera, news, Nikon D300, photography, thecnology
Coldplay - The Scientist
Coldplay - We Never Change
The Cure - Boy's Dont Cry
Farid Farjad - Dejad Gity
Farid Farjad - Del-e Divaaneh
Farid Farjad - Golha
Farid Farjad - Pari Kojaie
Farid Farjad - Sang-e Khaaraa
Farid Farjad - Taghtam Deh
Helldorado - A Drinking Song
Julia Stone - Hollywood
Linkin Park - My December
Marilyn Manson-Coma White
Muse - Muscle Museum
Nazareth- Love Hurts
Nickel Creek - Beauty And The Mess
Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Old 97's - Question
Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall
Placebo - Every You Every Me
Prodigy - Breathe
Rachael Yamagata - Reason Why
RHCP - Otherside
RHCP - Californication
Suzanne Vega - Gypsy
The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
