Opinion of opebo

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What would this forum be without him? Seriously.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

A fighter of freedom.

Uh, he's probably the most freedom-loving Atlasian. He fled The Bad Place over repression.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

He is the epitome of this: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CoolOldGuy

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

A fighter of freedom.

Uh, he's probably the most freedom-loving Atlasian. He fled The Bad Place over repression.

Eh? He moved to Thailand to allow him to oppress people! The reason he likes Thailand is that it isn't a democracy and has a sufficient supply of poor people for him to exploit. He obviously doesn't like America because it was founded by people running away from societies like Thailand.

Uh, Thailand has had free elections and certainly did when he started going there.

Let's imagine he went to the Netherlands instead. Then would he be oppressing people?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Gustaf I don't get why you think I should be horrified that opebo has *gasp* hired hookers. I've even technically hired a prostitute before myself, though they never did anything except with their hands (erotic massage you know), and they never appeared to be impoverished, drug addicted and were clearly not immigrants, clearly just some massage students looking for some extra money. So why do you expect that I think that just because someone has hired a hooker before that I will instantly hate them and consider them irreedemable trash and consider every single person who has ever hired a prostitute a far right poor hater?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

He doesn't like Muslims.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

A couple years ago he said something like "I wish Saddam was still in power so he could put those nasty Shi'ites in their place." so it's clear what his views on Muslims and religion are.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's not like he has any real power does he? He posts on the internet. He proposed feeding Christians to lions before, and I am a Christian. Who cares. And he is quite hilarious.

I love the time he said he wears a "Death Cab For Cutey" shirt that he found in Thailand for a buck even though he's never heard their music. The way he mispelled the band name makes it even better. I laugh my ass off at the thought of this guy in a Death Cab For Cutie shirt visiting a Thai brothel. It was the main thing I thought about in my thread about which actor should play him in a movie.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Gustaf I don't get why you think I should be horrified that opebo has *gasp* hired hookers. I've even technically hired a prostitute before myself, though they never did anything except with their hands (erotic massage you know), and they never appeared to be impoverished, drug addicted and were clearly not immigrants, clearly just some massage students looking for some extra money. So why do you expect that I think that just because someone has hired a hooker before that I will instantly hate them and consider them irreedemable trash and consider every single person who has ever hired a prostitute a far right poor hater?

If you're this thick, I'm not sure what to say. I'm not horrified that he's hired hookers. I'm not your 90-year old grandma. And I'm sure you get white thrash prostitutes instead of Russian or Thai ones in North Dakota.

And, as I said, those exploiting the poor always delude themselves that the people they exploit are enjoying it and doing it as their free choice. This is, amusingly, Opebo's favourite point to make - except when it comes to his own behaviour.

If you are unaware of the link between prostitution and poverty, prostitution and being abused as a child, prostitution and drug addiction and so on, well, good for you. But next time someone says all poor people are just lazy and want to cheat off on welfare, I won't expect you to complain. After all, I've met a poor lazy person once so I clearly know what I'm talking about.

I know a girl who worked briefly as a stripper. I know there are exceptions to all the rules. But I'm also well aware that even sexually very liberal people (of whom there are a lot in Sweden) tend not to work as prostitutes, as long as they're sufficiently rich and educated. I'd like to see you explain why prostitutes tend to be poor, abused drug addicts from Eastern Europe if it really is such a great line of work? Is it because poor people from Eastern Europe are so much more liberal than educated people in Sweden? Because I'd like to see the statistics backing that up.

I'm not horrified that he wants to hire hookers. I'm horrified that he has actively sought out the closest place to the nineteenth century (his stated ideal society) that he could find so that he could enjoy living as an aristocrat, abusing the poor. I'm horrified that he actively wants to shoot down who oppose oppressive rule, whether in Thailand or Egypt. He's a cold-blooded fascist who wants to kill people who wish for freedom of expression or economic redistribution to alleviate their poverty. He is a white man exploiting coloured people and wanting to kill them if they protest. He wants to return to the white imperialism of the 1800s. You apparently think white colonialism is fun (the African women first exposed to the missionary position probably loved it too, don't you think?) but I don't.

LOL, I've never been to a "massage parlor" in North Dakota. The girls at the parlors in Minneapolis (you know, where I live now) aren't white trash or Eastern European immigrants either, they're not much different from your typical urban young. I don't think trafficked Eastern Europeans tend to wear Modest Mouse shirts or talk about Call of Duty games or the Uptown bars they're going to once they finish their shift but meh whatever. BTW whoever writes this blog doesn't strike me as some abused, impoverished girl, she strikes me as rather intelligent: http://happyendingz.blogspot.com

Anyone who has ever bought food at the supermarket in the US (and probably Sweden too), has bought the product of people working degrading work that affluent educated people don't. It's not just California, even here way up north most of the giant corporate farms are staffed by uneducated and often illegal Mexicans, I can point out tons of spots of high levels of Hispanics and poverty in rural Minnesota. I suppose everyone should just go to being a subsistence farmer then.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Hamilton was a completely useless and unamusing troll with clear signs of sociopathic tendencies (seriously I have no doubt this guy was a bully in middle school, something I am sure someone as polite and well-mannered as opebo would never be.) who had some extremely creepy obsessions and if he remained could've actually done some real damage or even ended up breaking the law.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BTW I recommend that anyone read that blog, it's very very interesting even if you have no desire to ever visit a massage parlor anyway. And if you do there's a lot of great tips. Just an all around interesting read.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's not like he has any real power does he? He posts on the internet. He proposed feeding Christians to lions before, and I am a Christian. Who cares. And he is quite hilarious.

I love the time he said he wears a "Death Cab For Cutey" shirt that he found in Thailand for a buck even though he's never heard their music. The way he mispelled the band name makes it even better. I laugh my ass off at the thought of this guy in a Death Cab For Cutie shirt visiting a Thai brothel. It was the main thing I thought about in my thread about which actor should play him in a movie.

ahhh, the old "he's just a powerless bigot and a clown", now I'm starting to get it.

dance little opebo dance!

Uh, not exactly. He's really intelligent. Read this for example and then ask yourself if BushOklahoma would be better or worse off if he took opebo's advice.

No, no, no.  If you are a poor, and you have a job at the Electric Company, you stay there, and say 'yes sir' and 'no sir, and just batten down the hatches and wait.  It will all be over soon enough.  No need to rush it by getting conned up the a**s by some Kiwi b******s and ending up living under a bridge.

Seriously, I know poors who work at the Power Company (true they're from the previous unionized generations so they made $70,000/year, but still), and they survived.  Every one of them - and they will get to die in hospitals with medical treatments.  Yes, Public Utilities are not government jobs, but they're the next best thing.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If opebo hates poors why is he so against welfare reform? Note this (thread: Re: what is your biggest problem with the welfare reform law?)

That it reduced welfare, of course.  There was soooooooo little even before!

That vicious Darwinian poor-hater also said this:

It is absurd to pay for childcare so persons can go be exploited at some minimum wage job.  Just give these women a generous dole and leave them alone.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Has Gustaf read the profile on that girl Eliot Spitzer spent thousands on?

I find it rather silly to be accused of doing a "reverse opebo" and supposedly changing ideologies just because I dislike the government interfering with actions between consenting adults, regardless if money is involved or not. So every single person who thinks prostitution should be legal is some libertarian extremist?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

My issue is more attacking him for prostitution, since I don't think it's wrong and think it should be legal. I'm not so concerned with people attacking him for other things, and if you've noticed I haven't really defended him on such.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Has Gustaf read the profile on that girl Eliot Spitzer spent thousands on?

I find it rather silly to be accused of doing a "reverse opebo" and supposedly changing ideologies just because I dislike the government interfering with actions between consenting adults, regardless if money is involved or not. So every single person who thinks prostitution should be legal is some libertarian extremist?

I have a hard time getting angry at people over the internet but your stupidity is so frustrating it really comes close. One single observation means nothing. How is it that you think that you can use one observation to prove anything? I didn't even say that every prostitute was a certain way. I said that most are.

OK but as someone with clearly more personal experience with them than you (though granted neither of us has much), I've never noticed that. Though I have noticed from prostitution review sites I've browsed before (btw you can find some very interesting things about your hometown if you read the forums you find by Googling "opebo") that most escorts tend to be independent practitioners and often have their own sites and whatnot, so I have a tough time seeing them as exploited. So we should both probably drop the generalities about whether they are exploited and admit that many are, many aren't, and ideally prostitution that does do so would be shut down while the non-exploited left alone. Does that sound reasonable?

BTW I read about the Netherlands shutting down a big human trafficking ring a few weeks ago, so you can't say they aren't doing anything about exploitation or anything.

Something else I've noticed btw is that the people on the other prostitution forums aren't misogynistic at all, most are very respectful of who they hire, are disgusted by pimping and exploitive prostitution and have rules about posting real names or personal info about people in the business. Now on the other hand I have a feeling many prudes so strongly against it probably think all the women are useless dirty whores who need to be locked up and show a hell of a lot less empathy.

And you didn't say that you were just in favour of prostitution. You said you were fine with any kind of labour being done by anyone on a free market, regardless of whether they were poor or whether it was degrading. I'm assuming this means you're in favour of abolishing all trade regulations, child labour laws, regulations on trade with organs and so on as well? After all, you wouldn't want to prevent consenting adults from making free choices, would you?

Please point to me where I said it. No I do not support abolishing all trade regulations (if you've read my posts you'd see I am against free trade too), child labor laws or regulations on organ trade. I think comparing just having sex with money involved to those is pretty asinine. Can you please explain to me the huge difference between the two following scenarios?

1-Guy meets girl at bar, buys her a drink. They end up going to his place and having a one-nighter.
2-Guy meets girl at bar, buys her a drink. He wants to have a one-nighter but she's reluctant, so he offers her $50. She agrees.

(or should I understand that you disagree with Opebo and want to make an arbitrary distinction as regards child prostitution?

Arbitrary? No more arbitrary than child labor laws in any other business. But anyway you are correct here, I don't think child prostitution should be legal or allowed.

Because that would actually destroy a lot of the prostitution industry if you wanted to go there, and we wouldn't want that would we?

Wow, you are really jumping to conclusions here. Yes I think the part of the prostitution industry that involves anyone underage should be destroyed. I never said it was good under all circumstances. I don't see how this is hypocritical. The Netherlands has shut down child prostitution rings and arrested people for engaging in it so it's clear they draw the line at that.

Speaking of which I read about an incident here where a guy who was a frequent client of an escort service called in requesting someone around 15. The actual owner of the escort service was so disgusted that she put in an anonymous tip to the police and agreed to anonymously cooperate with them to get him arrested, which did happen. Even the owner of an escort service doesn't tolerate child prostitution.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Has Gustaf read the profile on that girl Eliot Spitzer spent thousands on?

I find it rather silly to be accused of doing a "reverse opebo" and supposedly changing ideologies just because I dislike the government interfering with actions between consenting adults, regardless if money is involved or not. So every single person who thinks prostitution should be legal is some libertarian extremist?

I have a hard time getting angry at people over the internet but your stupidity is so frustrating it really comes close. One single observation means nothing. How is it that you think that you can use one observation to prove anything? I didn't even say that every prostitute was a certain way. I said that most are.

OK but as someone with clearly more personal experience with them than you (though granted neither of us has much), I've never noticed that. Though I have noticed from prostitution review sites I've browsed before (btw you can find some very interesting things about your hometown if you read the forums you find by Googling "opebo") that most escorts tend to be independent practitioners and often have their own sites and whatnot, so I have a tough time seeing them as exploited. So we should both probably drop the generalities about whether they are exploited and admit that many are, many aren't, and ideally prostitution that does do so would be shut down while the non-exploited left alone. Does that sound reasonable?

BTW I read about the Netherlands shutting down a big human trafficking ring a few weeks ago, so you can't say they aren't doing anything about exploitation or anything.

Something else I've noticed btw is that the people on the other prostitution forums aren't misogynistic at all, most are very respectful of who they hire, are disgusted by pimping and exploitive prostitution and have rules about posting real names or personal info about people in the business. Now on the other hand I have a feeling many prudes so strongly against it probably think all the women are useless dirty whores who need to be locked up and show a hell of a lot less empathy.

And you didn't say that you were just in favour of prostitution. You said you were fine with any kind of labour being done by anyone on a free market, regardless of whether they were poor or whether it was degrading. I'm assuming this means you're in favour of abolishing all trade regulations, child labour laws, regulations on trade with organs and so on as well? After all, you wouldn't want to prevent consenting adults from making free choices, would you?

Please point to me where I said it. No I do not support abolishing all trade regulations (if you've read my posts you'd see I am against free trade too), child labor laws or regulations on organ trade. I think comparing just having sex with money involved to those is pretty asinine. Can you please explain to me the huge difference between the two following scenarios?

1-Guy meets girl at bar, buys her a drink. They end up going to his place and having a one-nighter.
2-Guy meets girl at bar, buys her a drink. He wants to have a one-nighter but she's reluctant, so he offers her $50. She agrees.

(or should I understand that you disagree with Opebo and want to make an arbitrary distinction as regards child prostitution?

Arbitrary? No more arbitrary than child labor laws in any other business. But anyway you are correct here, I don't think child prostitution should be legal or allowed.

Because that would actually destroy a lot of the prostitution industry if you wanted to go there, and we wouldn't want that would we?

Wow, you are really jumping to conclusions here. Yes I think the part of the prostitution industry that involves anyone underage should be destroyed. I never said it was good under all circumstances. I don't see how this is hypocritical. The Netherlands has shut down child prostitution rings and arrested people for engaging in it so it's clear they draw the line at that.

Speaking of which I read about an incident here where a guy who was a frequent client of an escort service called in requesting someone around 15. The actual owner of the escort service was so disgusted that she put in an anonymous tip to the police and agreed to anonymously cooperate with them to get him arrested, which did happen. Even the owner of an escort service doesn't tolerate child prostitution.

You gave an example of people working in factories and seemed to imply that prostitution was degrading but it was fine since all other degrading jobs are fine. You seemed to be saying that using poor Mexicans in sweatshops was the same as prostitution, as implied by your support of the latter I took it that you defended the former.

My point was simply that if you want to complain about degrading work there is a lot worse. And there are tons of prostitutes for whom it's not degrading at all. Now I know you're just going to retort that not all prostitutes are high class call girls. But I have admitted this. Ironically you are basically violating your own defense of Moderate Heroism, which is that the truth is almost always somewhere in the middle. I have admitted the flaws. I merely do not believe that should result in full criminalization of it. You completely ignored my guy picking up the girl at the bar example by the way.

This is pretty funny. Svensson called me a troll awhile back for bashing libertarians. Now I'm being accused of being one.

Do you consider the Netherlands a horrible, vile, evil country by the way? Or the state of Nevada?

But I'm eager to hear your rationale here. Why is it wrong to buy cheap t-shirts made by workers in Pakistan but right to buy cheap hookers? And before you say anything, I once met a poor worker in China and he seemed to be fine, so I think the story of horrible working conditions in the third world probably isn't true.

If you've noticed, I'm not defending buying "cheap" hookers per se. I don't think there's anything wrong with hiring independent escorts or high class call girls, and I don't think you can get anyone I'm referring to for less than $100/hour. My point is that it's ridiculous to condemn ALL prostitution and take the position every single person who has ever hired one is a misogynistic, awful person. Funny, you once condemned me for saying every single person in South Africa who supported apartheid was an awful, evil person.

Most of the rest of your post I can't really see as relevant. I'm still waiting for you to explain why prostitution is so correlated with poverty, being abused as a child or using drugs if it is such a great, free choice. How many friends do you have who are prostitutes for instance?

You are basically strawmanning here with the "great, free choice". I should also ask how criminalization of prostitution benefits these people. Of course you've just stated yourself earlier that you don't think prostitution should be illegal, so I'm not even sure what you're arguing.

(P.S. I think I have more empathy than someone who thinks prostitutes are just having a fine time without problems)

Good thing I never claimed that then.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

OK Gustaf let's ignore everything up until here and I'll just break my down my overall view of prostitution. What do you disagree with?

1-I don't think prostitution is fantastic for everyone involved or that everyone is happy, just like every other job. I also don't think that is a negative experience for every single person involved and that there aren't any who enjoy their job or feel it's worth the money it brings. I don't think such women should be legally prohibited from doing so.
2-I don't think the state should be interfering with actions between consensual adults, especially if they are legal if done with no money involved.
3-I think regulated and organized prostitution is something that every state should at least consider, but am open to that it is not ideal in all places and can lead to to trouble. However I don't believe the best solution to that is to ban something that is fundamentally at its core harmless (by that I'm referring to paying for sex, once again how is the pickup situation any different with money involved?), but rather simply regulate away the harmful elements. I don't think the current law in Canada for example, where it is not illegal to buy or sell sex, but almost all associate activities are illegal is all that bad.* The way almost all US states enforce prostitution laws besides Rhode Island until recently and part of Nevada on the other hand really doesn't help anyone involved in prostitution, including the abused and exploited women, and really is mostly to make moralistic prudes feel superior. Did you read the story about the woman who was arrested for offering sex for World Series tickets?
4-As a market for prostitution will always exist and full criminalization removes any type of legal alternative, it merely provides a windfall for the illegal market which is obviously going to be far more exploitive, dangerous and abusive. Similar to the War on Drugs deal. Some US cities have adopted unofficial policies of turning a blind eye to some escort agencies and brothels as long as they avoid the bad stuff. (Minneapolis for example has zoning laws actually put "massage parlors" zoned into the same category as strip clubs and other sex businesses, but makes a distinction between simply therapeutic massage businesses which are exempted and simple "massage parlors". Even some places that violate those laws are tolerated, there's at least two very obvious brothels in town very close to police stations. Some cities require licenses for escort agencies and who they employee, including STD testing.)
5-I don't believe human trafficking is harmless and should be cracked down on vigorously, like it is in basically all developed countries whether prostitution is legal or not. And in undeveloped countries where it proliferates whether or not sex for money is legal or not has little effect.
6-I don't believe child prostitution should be legal or tolerated.

*Though granted there are some silly bits in the law in Canada**, if someone hires an escort and meets her in the hotel lobby and they start discussing sexual acts for money, they can be arrested, and apparently this has happened before. However if not discussion occurs before they are in the hotel room, there is technically no law broken. I think the law in the UK and France is of the same general situation but not quite as rigid or technical, but I'm also not too familiar with either one.
**Though granted not quite as silly or overtly technical as the laws in some states, Minnesota's is almost comical for how technical and bureaucratic it is as to whether or not certain actions are legal or not even if there is little difference between them. Of course the result of this is that Minnesota's law is just full of loopholes and more permissive than most states, so it's not something I'll complain about...though it does show just how silly trying to regulate consensual sex is.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

You know, it's no so much opebo that I have a problem with...it's the fact that the majority of the Left on this site worships the sick, arrogant chickenhawk. Even if he is just a persona, it doesn't change the fact that he has a cult of his very own.

That, to me, is terrifying.

LOL. This is someone from the Libertas/Hamilton clique! The fact that anyone whatsoever liked Hamilton is something I actually find rather disturbing but not worth getting into here.

Let me begin by saying that you seem to take a very Moderate Hero position on this issue. I thought you would have to either argue that all prostitution is bad or that all of it is good, to avoid falling into the middle ground fallacy that you so abhor?

Having a position in the middle is not that fallacy, rather it's arguing that it's correct DUE to being in the middle. Moderate Heroism is like where one group wants to spend $X on a project and another group doesn't want to fund it at all, so someone proposes spending $X/2 on it which is not enough to properly fund it and will just waste money. But benconstine and Gabu used to take such positions all the time.

I agree with most of that, except for one point. You basically seem to be running the argument that prostitution is mostly fine, and then there are some people being abused and that needs to be regulated. Sort of like with oranges being sold in a super market - some may have been produced under bad working conditions, but it is mostly fine. I take the opposite view. I think prostitution is by and large not a free choice in a real sense. I do this in the exact same way I don't consider alcoholism or heroin abuse to be a "free" choice. I don't think anyone deep down wants to be a heroin addict. People still become it for a variety of reasons and that warrants society intervening to help them.

I wouldn't consider arresting someone "intervening to help them."

I'm sure a lot of prostitutes claim to be happy and content with their lives. BushOK claims to be extremely happy with his life too. That's called denial. When it is to an actual client, it's not even denial it's just sales practice. If you ask any person trying to sell something to you whether they think you're being an asshole exploiting them or whether they love doing it, they're likely to reply the latter. I don't think sex is in the fundamental sense supposed to be bought and sold and I think it is psychologically damaging to most people to engage in it (I actually think this of people who are repeatedly buying as well). Even those women who aren't say drug addicts or trying to escape extreme poverty often had issues growing up, such as being abused as kids by their fathers, lacking father figures and stuff like that.

Even if this is true, I don't see how the intervention of the law helps improve manners. Do you think having cheap casual sex for free is not psychologically damaging? I really don't see a difference between some girl who goes to the bar and goes home with a different guy every night and a prostitute, the prostitute is just making money off it.  Even if a person has "psychological issues", that's not always the place where the state can intervene best, especially if the intervention is just with the law. Is putting a prostitution arrest on a woman's record going to help her adjust to society more and get a "normal" job? Is fining and giving a criminal record to some depressed guy going to help improve matters much?

For the record I think a lot of people who hire hookers are pretty scummy, think David Vitter, there are ones who are married and just do it for the thrill and all. But there's plenty of cases where I don't see anything wrong. You told opebo earlier that there are guys over 40 who do get beautiful women. Well maybe but not every guy is Brad Pitt. Not every guy over 40 can. Plenty of other scenarios. What about someone with Asperger's? What about a guy who makes a lot but does so in a very demanding and stressful job that doesn't give him much time for dating and all that? I suspect that type is a pretty frequent profile for johns. What about a recently divorced or broken up guy in severe depression? I know at least one who admitted to hiring an escort from an "alternative" newspaper here after his divorce?

Sure, I will grant you not all prostitutes have a horrible life, at least not at first. And I'm sure there is the odd one here and there who actually enjoys that lifestyle. There are people who enjoy all sorts of weird stuff, after all. Some people get turned on by being eaten by others too. But I do not for a second buy that the millions and millions of prostitutes we have in the world are making a great choice for themselves. You're picking out your examples of high-end escorts running blogs. In the world of prostitution I think those cases pale in comparison to the millions of poor prostitutes in third world countries. Third world countries like a particular one that begins with T and ends with hailand.

I'm referring more to simply developed countries here. Though I will note that as I stated before legal status has little effect in the third world. Prostitution is illegal in Thailand after all. The South American countries where it's legal have less of a problem.

On legalization I've actually used your point with the drink myself in prostitution debates. That is why I find illegalizing it to be dubious. On the other hand, I really don't think it has any place in society either. So I end up not really caring much about whether it should be illegal or not. But there are a lot of legal activities I find deeply, deeply immoral and using prostitutes is one of them. Again, I don't think it's particularly immoral to be a prostitute. I understand they're often being forced to make tough choices.

In that case you should be against a system that threatens them with legal blackmarking if caught and drives the trade underground and causes fear in reporting abusive clients or pimps. I really don't see anyone who is benefited by criminalization besides self-righteous prudes who consider themselves oh so superior to "whores and perverts". Well that and the organized crime who are filling the void.

Finally, none of this is what Opebo argues, mind you. He has never admitted to anything negative as regards prostitution and thinks child prostitution should be legal and that all opposition to it is just prudery.

I've never said I'll defend every opebo position. I just find it amusing for being called a libertarian extremist and all that for a rather common view.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Because opebo is funny, witty and clever, and really brightens and contributes a lot to this forum. Hamilton was an absolute cancer on the forum.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I also bet that even if opebo were ever banned he wouldn't plague this forum with five million socks afterwards.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

And I say again, those two excuse the fact that he cheerleads rape and pedophilia how, now?

I reported this false and slanderous post for defamation and lies. opebo has condemned religion for cases when it promoted and excused those things.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I thought he was more popular than this.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Is there seriously anyone here who thinks the forum would be a better place without him?