mad4u689

I got 50 on the male side, even though I'm a girl. I think it's interesting, though, that I'm a mathematics major and also am interested in females romantically as well as males - so I am maybe a more "masculine" girl than many. The things I scored the most "masculine" for involved my math skillz, so, that probably affected it :D Angles - Your score: 19 out of 20 (more masculine) Spot the Difference - 43% (right in the middle) Hands - Left thumb on top (more masculine) Your empathy score is: 17 out of 20 (very high, more feminine) Your systemising score is: 12 out of 20 (closer to masculine, but not as good as my empathy score) Eyes - Your score: 8 out of 10 (more feminine) Fingers - Right Hand: 0.97, Left Hand: 0.96 (more masculine) Faces - Your choices suggest you prefer more feminine faces (though I generally am more attracted to men, I guess I like more androgynous people, and can't stand big muscley men with square jaws) 3d Shapes - Your score: 11 out of 12 (more masculine) Words - more female Ultimatum - more male (35 pounds)

Ahh, I have a tough time with that. In high school, it would change a lot every year, depending on which teachers were great and which ones weren't - still, consistently, I really enjoyed math (which is good, since I'm now majoring in it!) and English (once we moved beyond summarizing and started really analyzing literature and looking at historical context) and biology and history. I also found that subjects tended to get more and more interesting as I got older and teachers trusted us with more interesting and challenging analysis :D

There are copies that have been uploaded online - check digg to find a link to a torrent. It's a bit annoying to read, as they're photographs of the book, but they seem legit. I only let myself read the first two pages - I'm going to wait til Friday at midnight for the real thing. :D

I'm working at my college library for barely more than minimum wage for the summer. It's kind of giving me hope - I'm buying my own food and paying my own rent, and I'm still making more money than I'm spending, so... that's good... right? :D Now I just need to keep that up for the rest of my life... :P I don't know what I want to do. Sometimes I really want to be a housewife, and really invest time in my family, cook dinner for them every night, be there for my kids, help them with their schoolwork. However, that puts a lot of pressure on my husband for income. So I'll probably wind up being a high school math teacher (I'm a math major in college). I really think the education system needs to be improved, and the first place to start is with good teachers, which I think I would be. :D

I've kept kosher my whole life, so I've never tried bacon. However, Fakin' (a vegetarian bacon impersonator :P ) is pretty good, so I can guess that real bacon would hold some deliciousness appeal too :D

Moral of the story, kids: don't be daft, cover your shaft. dont no many girls that like the taste of laytex... They make flavoured condoms precisely for this purpose (be safe when having any kind of sex, including oral sex!) The vanilla ones, I find, actually taste pretty good.

First of all, as someone else already pointed out, "towel heads" is an extremely offensive term, and if you complain that "this country is too racist" then you better start re-examining yourself. Now, ignoring how offensive the term is temporarily, the "towel heads" who smashed our towers are NOT the same "towel heads" that we are fighting over in Iraq. Suddam Hussein had no connection whatsoever to the 9/11 attack. He was fairly secular and didn't even get along with Bin Laden and Al Queda. He committed atrocities of his own, to be sure, against the Iraqi people, and it's probably a good thing he's no longer in power - but if you think for one minute that the War in Iraq is about 9/11, you're completely deluding yourself. What is popular is not always good. The original reason we went over there IS because we had intelligence that there were weapons of mass destruction in Hussein's possession. This could have been very dangerous- don't underestimate it. This is the reason that Bush gave for going into Iraq. Like I said earlier, you are completely ignorant if you believe 9/11 is directly connected to the war in Iraq. Neither the Hussein regime nor the Iraqi people were responsible for those terrorist attacks. Thus, in our decision to send troops to Iraq, we were not in any sense "attacking those who attacked us." Additionally, Bush never said back then that this would be a long war. Also, people didn't "cheer", but accepted that it seemed like a necessary move to make, given the evidence they were given (such as the FALSE intelligence about weapons of mass destruction). I have said this many times, but I feel it bears repeating so it can sink in. 9/11 is not the reason we went into Iraq. If it were the reason we went into Iraq, it would have been a stupid and terrible reason, because the terrorists who were responsible for 9/11 are not in any way connected to the Hussein regime, other than that they are both Arab Muslims - and if you group all Arab Muslims together, despite these being two very different groups, then you are just being ridiculously racist. Additionally, I find your resulting to violence in that situation (with a friend!) absolutely repulsive, and I can see where you might get your eagerness for violence in general, including a war against innocent people. Oh my god. I just... ugh. I'm sorry, I don't lose my temper easily, but reading this paragraph just makes my stomach turn. After 9/11, we were united in grief. We were united by how saddened we were at this terrible tragedy. I live close to New York City, and yet I never EVER wanted to simply blow the middle east off the map. I don't think most people ever did, and it sickens me that you would use that line. We were united in wanting to blow the middle east off the map?! Do you realize how terrible that is? If the thing that unites us is wanting to murder other people, don't you think that's worse than most anything else? I didn't like Bush when 9/11 happened, and I admit that I like him even less now, because his decisions have turned the world's sympathy for us after 9/11 into the world's anger at our stubborn refusal to cooperate with the rest of the world, and our blindly thrusting a sword forward at the enemy without really considering the consequences (such as that our enemy might not actually be our enemy). I didn't at the time think that Bush did the right thing in going to war, and I still don't. The country should be united in its love of some core American values: freedom (not the BS term often thrown around, but real freedom - the ability to choose what kind of career you want, to make your own life, to practice whatever religion you like or no religion at all, to have sex if you want or not to if you want, to get married to the love of your life if you want or not to if you want, to write what you want in the newspaper), privacy (what goes on in the bedroom is no business of the government... nor should be your library records), democracy (we vote for people to represent us, and powers are carefully balanced, and no one branch *cough executive* grows too strong). You're right - that is a strange note. All current intelligence (which is better documented and prepared than before the war) suggests that neither Iraq nor Al Queda have any nucs. If they did have these weapons, yes, it would be the fault of the current intelligence agencies (the CIA) under the Bush Administration for not finding out. However, it's extremely unlikely that they do, and if they did and then do use them, I think our minds will be on other things (relief operations, I hope) than the blame game. This is a huge problem after Katrina - we spent so much time blaming and not enough fixing up New Orleans, especially the areas were poverty abounded, and the city still isn't rebuilt, and certainly not in a fair or equitable way. I hope the nation will surprise us and turn out not to be too racist to elect someone like Obama. Overall, I find this post one of the least patriotic things I've ever read. You swallow up garbage propoganda, and haven't thought for yourself - one of the core values that makes America great, that people rise up and make great lives for themselves when opportunity is available.

What exactly does "your own research" include? I hope it doesn't refer to that ridiculous e-mail forward that's been going around about how Osama's father was a fundamentalist and Osama went to a radical Muslim school, because it's so blatantly untrue and also racist that it's painful to read. I just finished Obama's second book, "The Audacity of Hope," which explained a lot about his views on the country as it is and where he'd like to see it going - and also a bit about his own personal life. He was raised in a fairly secular household; his mother did not believe in organized religion. While in Indonesia, he attended an officially Muslim school for two years and an officially catholic school for two years, but neither emphasized religion very much, and his mother sent him to them because they were decent schools where he could learn such things as *gasp* biology. So he was raised outside of organized religion, but later, he found spiritual comfort with the historically black churches in Chicago, realizing that religion could fit in with social progressiveness and community. He was later baptized into such a church. So, he's not a Muslim. However, even if he were, what would be wrong with that? Since our current conflicts and "war on terror" has much to do with Arab Muslim extremists, wouldn't it be good to have someone who understood Islam a little better, but was still patriotic and committed to the American way? Wouldn't it be helpful? As it is, I think the fact that Obama spent some of his childhood in Indonesia is a good quality to have in a President, just because it offers some firsthand understanding of the roots of radical Islam. Some Americans are under the impression that obliterating Islam entirely would be a good thing. Even Bush seems to regard it as something of an "evil empire" and his entire foreign policy is founded on racism and religionism. Obama hopefully would represent a change from that - someone who believes in America and wants to stop terrorism, but who would do it in a sensitive, legitimate and nonracist way.

After reading this post, I remembered one more thing I'd like to add, an addendum to my not-pulling-out-the-troops: if we stay in Iraq, we also need to make a HUGE commitment to not killing civilians "accidentally" like we currently keep doing. Civilian casualties are not an "oops." Civilian casualties are something to be actively avoided.

Have a good life, striker :) Enjoy RL!

I'd prefer to date someone who is Jewish, because I'd really like to raise my kids Jewish, and it can get complicated otherwise - but of course, I've dated people of other religions. Also, in general, people prefer to date those who have similar values and world views. As such, it seems likely that the type of person I would fall for would be less spiritual than more. Again, it's not a hard rule, but just is true of people I've dated in the past :)

By the way, I'd like to thank you for providing an interesting and intelligent debate. I'm not 100% confident at all that I don't agree with you. Unfortunately, like with the Israel & Palestine situation, I don't see any ideal route to take. Innocent people will die no matter what we do, and ethnic and national tensions will be high for at least a while, no matter what we do. So it's really hard for me to say what the best thing to do is, and I think there's a good chance you could be right - that staying in Iraq at all will just cause more problems, get in the way, and make Iraqis (justified-ly) dislike America more. Still, a little more than half of me thinks that we should avoid major conflict if it's at all possible, and that it may still be possible. Looking at the situation in Israel and Palestine, we see that a single binational state might have worked, but at this point in time, tensions have risen so that it's almost impossible, and a two-state solution is really the only one possible. Similarly, I think any one-state solution in Iraq would result in a brutal government that would oppress "the other," whoever winds up "winning." And I think that after Hussein's regime was defeated (and this was probably a good thing, considering the atrocities he committed), it would be so sad if after all that, another similarly brutal regime took power. And we should prevent that if we can. To be honest, I really don't know enough about the conflicts between the different groups in Iraq. This lack of knowledge is pretty inexcusable, and means that my opinion really shouldn't have that much value (though also to be honest, I doubt many tip.it'ers do know more - most of the Western world is woefully ignorant, of course, including myself). So I don't know. Maybe (I hope) I'm wrong and it doesn't turn out in a disaster scenario. I don't like using the military, of which I'm pretty distrustful, when it's not necessary. I also don't like spending all this money on the military when the government is so far in debt, and domestic concerns (education, health care) should be getting more funding.

I don't see why diplomacy and peace talks couldn't bring about an agreement for a three-state solution or some such thing. Well, schools and hospitals are improved, except for the fact that innocent students and sick people and doctors are being killed and all... So we've helped built up some infrastructure, but I don't know what we think it's going to do. When a country is undergoing revolution by itself, it's a revolution. When some other country who has already gone through such a revolution is there and can guide you through it, you don't NEED a revolution to get to that point. I think it's a good idea to use history as an example, but you also have to factor in technological change and extreme globalization and how things are DIFFERENT now than in other revolutions. I'll agree. Civil War would be a inevitable. However, what gives you the right to stay inside the country as an occupying force, just because an Islamist extreme group might get into power? Also, what evidence is there to say that terrorism would be worse? If there is such evidence, then I for one would certainly dismiss it straight away, saying it's actually your actions which have alienated many young muslims into terrorism, not the work of al-Queda or other extremist groups. Yes, American actions have alienated many young Muslims into terrorism. This is largely because most American citizens and soldiers and probably the President are completely culturally insensitive and ignorant. However, that being said, we already have done a lot of damage in terms of alienating many young Muslims into terrorism. There are people there who are angry and have a lot of weapons and are powerful, and we've made them that way, by acting like [wagon] and thus giving them followers. But we're already entrenched in this situation, and to leave now would make these people in power in a position to take more. Plus, the main reason is for the Iraqi people, themselves. I'll continue after your next quote. I am against war in general. I doubt many Iraqi citizens want all out civil war. Rather, they would like to have peace and stability, and the ability to worship how they like, and live in communities where they feel comfortable - Shiite not at the hands of the Sunni, Sunni not at the hands of the Shiite. Or Kurds. First of all, the first obligation of the American government IS to its own people and their safety. However, the American government also has an extreme obligation to Iraq itself, because it already came in and took away its existing government and is declaring "success!! democracy!!" about a fledgling American puppet government kind of deal that can't last. So while America can't fix things, it can help things along the right track. If all out civil war can be avoided, then I very well think it should be. And I feel like it could, and the troops need to stay a little longer to help guide the process and peace talks. Of course, that's not what's going to happen, and the troops will stay there with no definite plan, and things will get worse and worse until it's too late, because our government is full of fools, but oh, well.

That's true, but ironic part is that Afghanistan isn't even in the middle east. The occupation of Iraq should end as soon as possible. Iraq had done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to us prior to Bush going in there. We had NO REASON to go ther and no reason to STAY there. Except that if we pull out now, civil war erupts, and the people who will come into power may well be terrorists who hate America even more now that we've put their country under occupation, and would likely lead as corrupt a regime as Hussein did, and kill plenty of their enemies (Shiite or Sunni, depending on who comes out on top). Then terrorism is still a problem, and even worse (I hope others agree), a nonstable and likely brutal government would take over. Civil war is about to happen, and you might consider to already be happening. We are in no state to leave that country, for their sake OR for our own. P.S. das, long time no talk :D

My great-grandmother (Grandma Lucy) lived in Romania, in a small Jewish ghetto kind of town, around the turn of the century. She was just a little girl - about six or so. But things were getting worse for the Jews at this time, and the Russians were coming in and "pogroms" started happening. One day, they came into the town, and shot Lucy's brother (he was much older - almost 20) in some not-vital part of his body. However, they dragged him into the village square, bleeding. They announced that anybody who tried to touch him or help him would be shot to death. My great-grandmother Lucy was forced to watch over the next 24 hours as he bled to death, and nobody dared do anything, with the Cossacks right there. Very soon after, she and the rest of her family moved to America, to New York - to Jamaica, Queens. The next couple of generations of the family grew up there :D On the other side of my maternal family, my great-grandfather in the late nineteenth century was already living in America, and was kind of an adventurer and traveled around a lot, mainly on the West Coast - Nevada and California. He had a small jeans shop for a while that he did pretty good business on. However, the most exciting part of his life was the time he spend as the last free tribes of Native Americans were dying out - he fought with them. Not against them - he fought WITH the Native Americans against the American troops that were being so unjust. I think we still have a belt they gave him somewhere :D On my dad's side of the family, no really exciting stories. Typical Jewish ghettos in Austria-Hungary and Romania and Poland, and moved to America a bit after the turn of the century. My dad grew up in a small apartment in Brooklyn, where his parents thought him the star of the neighbourhood and hoped he might go to Queens College, but an English teacher in his high school encouraged him to aim for higher since he was 2nd in his class of 500, and suggested he apply to some Ivy League schools. He figured, sure, why not - and wound up going to Yale University for undergrad, then Harvard med school :D So he's something of a success story, I think :D

This is a complicated question, and contrary to what people might think of my probable opinion, I am not in the "just pull out now" camp. So right now, the country is on the verge of a civil war. If we pull out the troops entirely now, civil war will erupt entirely. If we keep the troops there, we will maintain some semblance of order, but the underlying tensions won't go away, and civil war will be probable eventually. So what we need is some major diplomacy. We need to possibly get leaders together from different sides to bring up the question of peacefully creating three states - one Kurd, one Sunni, one Shiite. Or maybe that's not the answer - I don't know enough, really - but some sort of diplomacy is vital. We should keep troops there while we're working on this, to prevent the loss of just more Iraqi lives - however, the troops should be viewed as a temporary peacekeeping effort, NOT a permanent solution, which is how it's currently being treated. The troops alone will not help Iraq. If anything, it's hurting the situation without good diplomacy as well - it's creating an entire generation of Iraqis that hate America and can't stand to be under its occupation. Unless we have a specific goal, we're being idiots. So, US government: find some direction, and actually strive for peace, not oil. Yes, it might seem risky to allow 3 democratic governments that might be comprised of some Muslim extremists, but if you give them the freedom now, you're going to avoid a lot of future trouble.

My AIM is madjoyish. :)

I really don't think he is a Muslim though. :? Why would you say that?

I would not kill 1000 people for any sum of money. I realize this may not be the logical choice (for example, if I were given 3 billion dollars, I could probably save more than 1000 lives; however, I do distinguish between active and passive murder.) However, there are other things I'd do for that kind of money. For a million dollars, I would definitely have sex with a stranger, for example. I would also probably cut off my foot for 25 million dollars.

A defense of the "You've gotta test drive a car before you buy it" line: (First, I note that the following is my personal opinion - that is, I respect other people who make other decisions, but I would like to defend the decisions I have made as being valid and not immoral.) Marriage is a serious commitment. I honestly believe that, and I think divorce should be entered very seriously - I would only get divorced if I or my children were being physically or seriously emotionally abused. If my partner cheated on me, we would make it work, etc. Since marriage is such a serious commitment, I don't believe one should enter into it lightly. When one gets married, ze should realize they're going to be spending the rest of their lives together. So I would like to have sex with my partner and even also live together for a while before getting married and making that ultimate commitment. That said, I'd also like to defend more casual sex - that is, not just premarital sex, but amarital sex; sex where there is never any pretense of ever getting married. I think that as long as such sexual situations are entered into safely and with the consent of all involved (yes, I see sexual situations with more than two people as fine, too), there is no problem. Even further, I think it can be a good decision, if someone recognizes that they should not get emotionally attached, and enjoys the physical pleasure that accompanies it. That said, while I do think such casual sex is perfectly fine and have even engaged in such activity myself, I also think that it clearly doesn't compare to sex that has the added emotional factor, as well. They are different types of activities. One is just fun and feels good; the other is intimate and meaningful. Both are OK in my opinion.

I've tried it before, but have never been able to get much into it. I think it isn't for me - a little bit too new age, maybe. However, I respect those who do.

I'm another person from the "It's a personal choice" camp. As long as there's consent on both sides, it's fine. And personally, I see no reason why one shouldn't have sex before marriage. While in my experience, sex that has had emotion behind it has been much more satisfying than sex which has not, I think people can enjoy sex in whatever capacity they choose - from casual sex, to sex with a longtime partner, to waiting til marriage and having sex with their spouse. As for protection - people need to be smart about these things. When something is 98% effective (as the pill is), that doesn't mean you have a 2% chance of getting pregnant each time you have sex; rather, someone who uses that method of protection regularly for a year, while having regular sex, only has a 2% chance of getting pregnant. So using 99.9% birth control patch/pills (which I am on) along with 98% condoms (which I also use) means you are extremely well protected in terms of birth control. However, you should always use a condom to protect against STDs, unless both you and your partner have been tested for STDs quite recently. Either way, once you are sexually active, you (and your partners) should also test yourself for STDs regularly.

Mmm, like someone else said, halachic Jewish law says that one is Jewish if either (a) ze is born to a Jewish mother or (B) ze converts. So I am technically Jewish, and any kids I would have would be, as well. i don't think I'm doing these rituals and ceremonies for no reason. They're important to me and to my identity. It's hard to say exactly why, but I don't think they are just "meaningless" rituals.

That's very weird and also an oxymoron :P Not really, Judaism is more of a culture/lifestyle nowadays. I've got quite a few Jewish friends who don't believe in God but would still call themselves Jewish. In fact my parents have got some good friends, they're both atheist but still observe all the rites and rituals of Judaism. It's quite curious really, I suppose it's a cultural heritage which some people want to honour. It wouldn't be for me, but meh. :) Yeah but this thread is about what religion you are, not what culture/lifestyle you are. So when I saw Judaism, I assumed it was the religion. Hmm, that's an interesting point. I suppose the word religion is fairly loosely defined and not as specific as a science would like it to be: on the one hand, it can refer to personal spiritual beliefs. However, just as often, it refers specifically to an organized religion - one with rituals, especially, and often with a hierarchy of authority. I belong to a synagogue and attend regular services on Shabbat (the Sabbath). I follow rituals (halachic law - i.e. keep kosher) and "celebrate" holidays (which means fasting on Yom Kippur, having a seder and keeping "kosher l'Pesach" on Passover, asking for forgiveness on Rosh Hashana). In addition, there is a purely cultural/heritage aspect to it. It's part of my identity and even ethnicity, and I can't really change that. I've been struggling to understand my Jewish identity more and more lately, particularly as I've realized that I don't support a large number of active jewish lobbyist groups, nor the state of Israel as it currently exists. It's confusing - and yet I still can't help but think of it as my religion. I don't believe in God, but I follow many other aspects of Judaism. I think I would count it as a religion. Other religions like Buddhism are even less centered around a "God" and are largely even more philosophy and tradition - and I would still count them as religions, as well.

Morals, and everything else, are all relative. (haha... get it? :D see? :D yeah... anyway :x) Oh, sigh. Where that line is drawn - between allowing for personal preference and creating legislation to disallow such personal preference - has been the source of most of my disagreement with you. I argue that personal preference should be allowed when it doesn't directly or significantly indirectly harm anyone other than those who are doing the preferring. (Yes, yes, get into fine details about what would be significant indirect harm, and the debate continues... but you get my general idea). In this case, that would be people choosing to have or not to have sex. Hmm, isn't that exactly it? Not just that you "have the option of ditching your SO whenever you feel like it," but you realize that you aren't mature enough in the relationship to create a lifetime commitment. I think it's much better to wait and not get married right away, then rush it and have a significant chance of just getting divorced later. I think this is an entirely separate issue from sex, now that improved birth control means that you can have have sex without a significant risk of getting pregnant and having kids and being "forced" into commitment and starting a life together, and testing methods available and other barrier methods mean you'll have very low risks of getting an STD. I think that in the modern day, someone can choose whether or not to have sexual activity before marriage, and that's fine. Someone who wants to wait til marriage - power to them. Someone who wants to have sex with someone they love and are in a serious relationship with, but aren't ready to marry - power to them. Someone who wants to have sex casually without thinking twice about it - well, power to them, too, I guess, if they're actually having fun and enjoying it and not screwing up their lives. I do think chastity is a very rational decision. However, I think sex before marriage is just as rational a decision. That's why personal preference should rule, and it's not really our place to judge someone negatively, either way. Personally, I don't see any real negatives to having sex before marriage in today's age, as long as you are careful about it.