but still what?

but still gay couples should be allowed to adopt?

But still as in even though nobody died, the situation is/was still horrible.

MMORPGs FTL

Geez, people still play D&D? Online? I thought World of Warcraft was the new standard. D&D is so 80s, man.

I think you just described about a million American parents, sadly. There are a lot of people with kids who spend all their time on the internet and playing MMORPGs.

@4

Dude, people still play Ultima Online. Every great game sustains a fair amount of devoted players. I still occasionally play around in Diablo 2.

The best example is Starcraft.

Video games have a profound hypnotic effect, but it's a voluntary one. These people should be held accountable in full, of course. But it's interesting to see the similarity between people neglecting babies to death over drugs and video games... pretty much the same. I knew a guy who quit crack cocaine by staying at a friend's house and playing video games all day. Think it was "Heroes of Might & Magic" or something similar. Video games offer a level of escapism that a lot of other activities don't.

It wasn't a really question. I was trying to make the point (again) that I am disgusted with these posts, which are voyeuristic and exploitive. I was appreciating the reprieve from them, but apparently put too much faith in the staff of The Stranger.

Gays should be allowed to adopt - everyone knows they hate video games, these sorts of tragedies could never occur in a gay household.

@ #8. Greetings fellow citizen of the Glorious Imperium Americana! Praise to the Emperor Bushius II! Can you explain how these posts are both voyeuristic and exploitive? It is reporting the news on a particular subject which the Stranger Staff simply has subjectively placed in a particular catagory?

I agree with you Ian, although the gays can be a little weight-conscious and I'm concerned that it might be raised as a counter-argument.

How are articles posted as examples of how hetros abuse and sometimes kill their kids voyeuristic and exploitive, is that a rhetorical question?

Is there a news value to reading stories where all you can do is say "that's awful"? Are you, Cato, going to read that story and go out and do something to help prevent it from happening again. If not and all you're doing is revelling in how awful it is or making comments about video games, how is it a news posting.?

mmmmm vegetable lasagna

No nibbling.

8. Voyeuristic? It's A FUCKING NEWS STORY. IT'S PUBLIC DOMAIN.

@ VL : So, if you personally find it offensive you think it should not be covered? Given your stance you seem to favor some form of censorship on the part of either the Stranger (but they can post whatever the hell they want to, YOU choose to comment on it or skip over it) or perhaps the originating media source should not write about it. It seems you are ignoring your portion of the equation in this matter Veggie.

But the reason the homos at the Stranger post these (at least in part) is to demonstrate how our culture is hypocritical to claim only hetros should be parents and that a child is better off with a mother and father. Dan (and in this case Christopher) are evening the play field by keeping that hypocracy in our minds. And even Dan has posted an item on a lesbian couple who screwed up a couple of weeks ago.

There is a bigger issue at stake than your comfort zone and frankly no one has a constitutional right to have a comfort zone.

I hope that these are still posted until our society no longer has leaders and judges who claim only hetros should have kids.

Gomez, I disagree that everything in the public domain meets the definition of news.

Cato, you are confused about the definition of censorship. Second, I understand the end, and you've done a good job of explaining the means. I just don't agree that these posts have changed even one mind. The point should be that gay couple make loving parents. Waiting for the opportunity to post stories about abuse and the death of children, just strikes me as callous and uncaring.

The means are at least ineffective, and I think creating a negative connotation about the Stranger and the proponents.

@5,

I'm sure, but I bet that most of those parents are only casually neglectful. They'll ignore their kids almost all day and don't fulfill any of the less essential aspects of parenting: checking homework, sitting down to dinner, tucking them into bed. But even the most hard-core gamers still manage to feed their kids (and wash the cat urine from their hair).

Hey Poe, did you see that they reset the Diablo 2 ladder a few weeks back.

For everyone who doesn't like these posts, Dan clearly labels them they same way every time. You can just skip em, or maybe you get a thrill out of responding.

@19

I did not. It's been a few months since I've logged on to battle.net Diablo 2. After taking breaks that continually would reset my characters, I've just been goofing off in single player mode. I've lost many high chars because I forgot to log on within 3 months. Though, resetting the ladder does not surprise me. They've done that many times now. Hell, they did it immediately after they released the update for ladder. They have reasons for resetting, of course. It's usually for all of the players who run their bots 24/7 without ever touching their mouse. Even though it wipes those players out, I can only imagine how that makes the honest day-to-day dedicated players feel.

You can never have a true ranking system. Ever. Cheating players who use bot exe's and external cracks will always exist...and they will always fuck up everything for everyone else. XBOX makes a sad attempt at fixing this. You can file complaints against gamertags, but it will never do anything. Engadget had a report on these dudes who tried every possible way to get their XBOX Live account banned for any term violation. You're more likely to lose your Live account for saying racist/sexual remarks excessively than you are for tampering/modding your XBOX. That isn't saying much seeing how they never lost their Live account for either. The option to file a complaint is merely there to make you feel better about the situation when dealing with little pricks.

What dumbasses. Haven't they learned from Jack Chick that you have to keep the baby alive so you can sacrifice it and gain all the power of your D&D character?

I agree with Vegetable Lasagna that the Stranger's obsession with child abuse is disconcerting. I would add that it has gone from boring into the realm of creepy. Now every writer has to imitate Dan and post whatever freakshow bile they can find on the AP.

People like that shouldn't be allowed to breed. Plain and simple.