Old thread cleansed with flamethrowers and bazookas; a new nest emerges!
(Current totals: 10,075 entries with 973,299 comments)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Old thread cleansed with flamethrowers and bazookas; a new nest emerges!
(Current totals: 10,075 entries with 973,299 comments)
Ol’Greg
..yep ,that was me. Had the thing put in, six weeks later was pregnant.
Good point. I wasn’t intentionally trying to pit them against each other, just guard against the argument that it is entirely hormonal.
I think maybe hormonal fluctuations could be interpreted a lot of different ways psychologically and then responded to accordingly and also vice versa with psychological issues triggering hormonal changes as well.
So I guess that does make sense too.
Bebe de Lait?
Sorry.
Ambook
I don’t know where they get their statistics from. I mean when I had my baby it wasn’t like anyone had to report it to anybody or anything so presumably my “live birth” wouldn’t have been counted. My Obstetrician at the time thought it was unusual but it was the second Mirena birth he’d attended ( and the damn things had been out in Aust only 2 years at that point) so I’m going to hazard a guess here, based on anecdotal evidence only of course, and say the company that manufacturers Mirena are bit fat fucking liars.
It should be also kept in mind that as part of the terms of out of court settlements , strict confidentiality could be employed as a clause so if Mirena HAD been sued for wrongful birth then it could very well be that the statistics do not include these cases. In Australia we do not have suits for wrongful birth so suing here would nnever have been an option but it is a very different proposition in many of the states of the US and it is highly possible that numbers are being fudged. I have some precedent case on that somewhere but it’s 4 am here and finding it would be beyond my capabilities.
On the fashion issue, I think it’s time for blogpimping again.
<headdesk>
<headdesk>
What happens depends on where in the uterus implantation happens. If the embryo happens to, I don’t know, wrap around the coil or something, it’s doomed. If not, see BoSOM.
“Biology aside”? That’s called natural selection! :-)
I had thought you mentioned Minot because Minot, small as it is, offers fewer possibilities to temporarily get out of each other’s way or something. Thanks, anyway, for the information.
Of course I didn’t mean to imply a relationship completely without compromises is likely, just that external factors influence how many compromises will be necessary in any particular relationship.
(And, hey, if I correctly understood every time what you mean, that would be… a bit scary, wouldn’t it. :-) )
Jadehawk @454, if you wish to make a Public Service Announcement you really need these to do it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPeWSpB_7w4
Andrew
ah, ok.
well, it’s more like minot doesn’t give me many opportunities to get out of the house and because of that I get cabin fever.
As long as you don’t cook it in breastmilk it should be kosher.
One of the female lights of the Christian music scene, Jennifer Knapp, recently came out as a lesbian, admitting to a long-term same-sex relationship. The comments that follow the story in Christianity Today will drive you to despair. Samples:
Lynna, you do pick some gems for us, don’t you? :)
So …
LibDem are polling around 29%, and they stand to get 100 seats from that. That’s 15%. That’s democracy?!
Mr Clegg, tear down this wall!
Pity about the nukes, though, but I can be convinced.
I wonder WHAT IT IS that makes PEOPLE type LIEK THIS when THEY ARE TAKKING about the HOLY BIBLE?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Last night we went for a late dinner. Very late, and also in the wrong city (Ft.Worth). I never go there, but only because it’s an inconvenient drive if I’m not at some specific event there.
Being unaccustomed to Ft. Worth we thought plenty of places would be open on a Sunday night at 9 if we went to the Square. Wrong.
We did end up finding a place, and it was great. But while walking around from locked door to locked door there was this preacher kid standing on the corner screaming gospel down the largely empty street while a bunch of kids in what looked like extreme prom gettup were wondering around and having, it appeared, some seriously cheesy pics taken. Sorry I get judgy on annoying portrait positions.
In the meantime a group of younger girls in shoes they didn’t look accustomed to wearing were trying to get an Avedon look. Jumping up repeatedly while their friend tried to capture the exact moment on her point and shoot. It was funny, the people all busy and the preacher kid (he was young) just belting the gospel into the indifferent night.
I kept wanting to start reciting Hamlet or something from the other corner.
In a “pirate accent” whilst waving a cutlass…
Is there another way?
Alas, poor Yorrrrrick. I knew him, matee. A scurvy dog of infinite jest, a most excellent swashbuckler.
Aye, he hath borne me plunder on his back a thousand times, that laddie.
Great science question of the day. Our nature center had a “birthday party” event for our one-winged bald eagle. It was a nice sunny day, and there were eastern box turtles sunning themselves in the woods not to far from the nature center building. “Do the naturalists here put the turtles in the woods for people to find?”
Why, yes, and we also do snakes, poison ivy, assassin bugs, and black widow spiders. While dressed in a pink Easter bunny suit. Why do you ask?
Then there was the fool who called us demanding that we had to come right away – there was a dead platypus in the parking lot of the local liquor store. (I live in Maryland – it was a beaver.) And the person at a federal government Earth Day event a couple years ago who came up to the woman holding the bald eagle and asked, “Is that a bison?” And the person who came up to me while I was brushing our domestic rabbit and asked “What kind of animal is that?” (To which my husband says I should have responded, “It’s a long-eared eastern fur snake, which is, strangely enough, a species of bird.”)
Snark welcome.
Inn Monty Python et Holy Grail French accént, you sons of silly persons !
So, speaking of Christianity and homosexuality, I’ve heard it claimed that “abomination” doesn’t mean what we think it means (or at least the word translated into abomination doesn’t.) Anyway, the claim was that all it actually meant was “probably not the best idea right now”.
Can anyone confirm or debunk this claim?
Ha! One of my sets of great grandparents didn’t speak English well and neither did their children really. We were visiting that group of family way out where they lived and my grandmother and some of her siblings along with my great grandpa were all kvetching about the poor health of the vegetables they had grown that year.
It was those salamanders! Eating up the carrots and cabbages. After several rounds of salamander damning my mother got the nerve up to ask one of them what a salamander looked like.
Salamanders: Blind mammals that dig tunnels underground and eat roots.
Who knew?
the Online Etymology Dictionary disagrees:
@OlGreg – none of these people have poor English skills as an excuse. And we are located in a solidly middle to upper middle class area, so education isn’t really an excuse either. Now off to get into my easter bunny suit. (Although given that it’s Boobquake, perhaps I should do the Playboy thing. Fancy meeting THAT in the woods!)
When I told a doctor I wanted a vasectomy he said “it’s almost impossible to splice the tubes again so you better be sure.” When I told him I was sure he said to see his secretary for an appointment.
BTW, guys, you may have heard that getting a vasectomy is a big pain in the balls (sorry, couldn’t resist). I had no particular problem because I did what the urologist told me to do. The men I’ve talked to who did have problems didn’t follow instructions.
Another nature story, The Hunting of the Snark.
The inevitable fact of my own death makes life no less sweet to me. Or maybe sweeter.
Death is the mother of beauty. (W Stevens)
Well while you’re at it ambook, could you guys lay off the ragweed planting around here? It makes it hard to get to the creek by my house and it makes my nose stuffy too. I’d rather you guys plant geraniums there this year. They’re pretty and they smell nice.
Just about what I was told as well. Plus the asking about “what if you meet a nice girl later? This is really only something married men do.”, but that was it. Oh, and of course I had to stress that this wasn’t just the depression talking.
I think I shoulda worn some firmer underwear – I did have a bit of pain the next coupla days.
Of course, in my case the vas is prolly largely for show, but now it’s done. Only just got around to handing in a sample for testing, though.
My dad decided to save money by skipping the anesthesia. I will not make that mistake when my time comes.
@Jadehawk – I am really really tired of the word abomination being used as a translation in this way. Here’s a brief description I found of the Leviticus verse online (I have read the same description in lots of places – it’s not a subtle or unusual argument.)
So Christians can yammer all they want about Leviticus – it does not mean what they think it means. It had to do with distinguishing ancient Jews from the religions of their neighbors. End of story. Orthodox Jews take the food/beards/mixed fiber stuff just about as seriously as the gay-sex verse, and some interpret the Leviticus verse to mean no anal sex, not necessarily no gay sex. Non-orthodox groups are pretty much ok with homosexuality (not to mention non-theism, but don’t tell Christians that – it makes their heads explode).
And have I mentioned that I think it really sucks to have one’s religion or philosophical/cultural tradition be at the center of someone else’s religion? Especially when that religion is crazy and doesn’t actually figure out what the words actually mean in the original language?
Sili: You’ve reminded me of another thing the Lib Dems are wrong on. They don’t support nuclear power.
I think Britain’s energy industry should follow the same lines as France, and move towards nuclear power for the bulk of our electricity needs: it might not be perfect, but it’s the best option we’ve got.
See? I do have some rational reasons to vote Conservative. :-)
I spare no expense to bring you the worst of the worst.
BTW, I hear through the unofficial grapevine that I will be getting one of the Take Pride in Idaho awards. Confusion surrounds the actual event, and dead links add to the confusion on the website for the Conference on Recreation and Tourism, but it was the guy giving out the awards who contacted Leland, so it could be real … real, while simultaneously iffy, in an Idaho “talk to the man, not the woman” sort of way. If I have to stand around in the Doubletree Hotel in Boise and have awards thrust at me, I will place the blame squarely on your shoulders. :-)
In another interesting aside, it seems the who will be giving out the award thinks it is a “mistake” (his word, in email to Leland) to have only my name on the award and not Leland’s name. I’ll be happy to have Leland’s name on the award, but it’s odd that no one asked me about this proposed change (they asked Leland). They don’t offer an award to photographers, so on the nomination our Publishing Company mentioned Leland within the descriptive text, in much the same way that you did on the nomination form. There’s only room to nominate one person, and that person is the writer. The whole thing may turn into a comedy, which is fine by me.
You might as well vote Labour, then, if that’s the reason.
And you suddenly forget that the LD will be the minor coälition partner – I don’t think nuclear is part of their list of suggestions. They quite wisely haven’t made any demands of future partners.
Of course, I may be naïve, but at least I’d expect LD to do a proper evaluation of the need, safety and rentability of plants before putting them up. (Another reason to get rid of one-person constituencies: NIMBYs.)
It rained today, and now the ground is full of cherry petals, while the wild roses start to blossom. Lots of snails everywhere, too.
Sven, are you still reading? The March issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology has arrived. Turns out that, while I’m fooling around with amphibians, other people work, piece by piece, on turtle origins… or at least on early turtle evolution:
Juliana Sterli & Marcelo S. de la Fuente (2010): Anatomy of Condorchelys antiqua Sterli, 2008, and the origin of the modern jaw closure mechanism in turtles, JVP 30(2), 351 – 366.
Abstract:
I think Rorschach complained we Danes hadn’t planned a Pharyguphest yet.
I’m not much of a planner – nor do I like responsibility – but I guess he has a point.
What did you do in Oz? Are we meant to book a bar or just find a place big enough to hold us informally? Dinner? Drinks? Dance?
that’s only for the particular type of uranium needed for older reactors. Not a problem anymore with the newer reactors, which can use the common isotope of uranium as well; some can even use thorium.
I mean of course Pharynguphest. I musta been thinking of that salad thing: pharygula.
Very cool BBC article about chimp behavior when a troop member dies. I guess awareness of death is not uniquely human after all.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8645283.stm
(Can someone illuminate me about the html commands for links? I can never get them to work)
@ David M
NO NO NO – turtles came from fairies in bunny suits. Really. About 6000 years ago. What kind of infidel are you, reading such stuff?
ambook, it sounds like your husband and mine would get on very well together.
When my boy/girl twins were little, we tried to be sure that each was dressed in a way that reflected their genders – hoping to reduce the number of questions by curious bystanders. That, plus the fact that he was a blue-eyed blond and her eyes were so dark as to look black, with curly dark brown hair, and it was obvious at a glance how different they were (and still are).
Nevertheless, we would inevitably be asked if they were identical. To which my husband would reply, straight-faced, “Why yes, except she seems to be missing a penis.”
60 years may still be what we need to tide us over. I can assure that I don’t think of nuclear as a replacement for renewables.
But it’s still gonna be a long time before we have intercontinental superconducting powerlines – which we’ll need if we’re to cart around direct current from solar.
And of course, having running nukes will allow for the production of more Pu-236, which we fucking need for spaceprobes.
Yay! So I’ve got a whole host of reasons to vote Conservative: better energy policy, as well as their clear plan to reduce the budget deficit, and, of course, the fact that a Conservative vote is the most surefire way of getting rid of Labour. And they are slightly better than Labour (though still not good enough) on civil liberties.
In fact, I just voted Conservative in a postal vote for the local council election. I’m still not 100% decided which constituency to vote in for the parliamentary election, since I’m registered in two places.
Fixed.
I think the US government should find a way to tap Teabagger vitriol for much the same purpose.
Fuck. Only the first paragraph of the blockquote is the abstract.
Absolutely.
Such reactors already exist? I thought they were only planned.
Really?
I used to get this about my little (fraternal twin) brothers all the time. I never understood it – you’re looking right at them, and you’re asking whether or not they’re identical? Can’t you, you know, tell by looking? Which you’re doing right now? Sheesh.
On twins –
I once got asked the “are they identical” question by a stranger at a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop while my 8 week old kids were on the diaper changing table with their diapers off. I guess some people are unclear on what the word identical means.
@Katrina
Please to be sending me one new 19″ monitor and keyboard. I also require new shirt as this one seems to have acquired coffee stains.
No good ones though. Oh, wait, that’s right, we need a change of government! That’ll work!
Quite useless. Hangs around reactor corners, breeds too fact, and very difficult to get rid of. 238 scum.
But only if you believe in the Norse pantheon.
Hmmm. Turns out that the word “tortoise” isn’t used in the US or Australia. But whatever you call them, these reptiles were the first to have testude babies.
The wikipedia article on them is really very pretty.
Very occasionally one of a pair of (initially) male monozygotic twins will lose the Y chromosome and be born identical to the other twin except for being a girl. So it’s not quite impossible to have gender discordant monozygotic (“identical”) twins.
Of course, the pro-lifers claim that they’re one child because they developed from a single egg that will “if not interfered with” develop into one baby. A hermaphrodite, perhaps?
There are also maternal identical twins, where the ovum splits before fertilization and is fertilized by separate sperm. And there are chimeras. Life is a lot weirder than pro-lifers seem to acknowledge.
Sorry, Geoffrey, but – you know – the question gets old after a while.
@ Carlie: at least they were both boys. I mean, sheesh!
Then there were always the people trying NOT to ask if they were twins. So they would ask, “How far apart are they?” Straight answer, “One minute.” Which was generally followed by a double-take.
Sometimes, people would catch themselves as they were asking whether or not the kids were identical. You could see it, that look on their faces as if a wall were approaching and the brakes just wouldn’t work well enough.
Now, in all fairness, I have read that there have been cases where they think they have twins with identical maternal chromosomes and different paternal chromosomes, where the ovum splits prior to fertilization. In that case, I suppose you could have b/g twins who *appear* identical.
Still, by conventional definition, identical twins are monozygotic.
And nowadays, there are digital chimeras.
no, they don’t exist yet. but we were talking about the viability of nuclear in the near-future, after all.
Storage of radioactive waste is the main problem with nuclear.
In the ideal world, it would only be used to bridge us over until we figure out how to harvest solar etc., and then switch over, so that we don’t accumulate too much of the nasty shit.
In reality, a switch to nuclear would become a permanent commitment (success-oriented planning, remember? one solution is enough, alternatives are expensive and not needed!), which would promptly cause a problem larger than the current global warming crisis: an evergrowing mountain of deadly shit leaking left-right-and-center into the environment.
@ Dianne and ambook:
Great minds, eh?
breeder reactors can use it. I know they’re only in the experimental stage right now, but they seem to work.
But again, I really don’t see nuclear as a long-term solution anyway. That’s just a surefire way to cause another massive crisis.
No, they do work. Used to create A-/H-bomb material, and have for a long time. U238 plus a neutron can equal Pu239. Very fissile material…
There’s other problems as well.
* Nuclear reactors are expensive to build, operate and maintain.
* A 767 flown into a containment vessel would create an environmental disaster which would take decades to recover from.
* Mining, refining and enrichment of uranium produce radioactive isotopes which contaminate the surrounding area.
The biggest storage problem is that the most geologically stable place, at least in North America, to store the waste is the Canadian shield (northern Maine for the US) and it’d be politically problematic to declare that Maine should be a nuclear waste repository. Then there’s the transportation problem to get the stuff there.
That’ll do, it’s what we did down here.Sure PZ would put it on the front page when you have a time and place figured out.
Vasectomies are frequently done by GPs in their practice over here.Which has the result that I get to see quite a few painful scrotums.Like, very painful scrotums.
On that note, where’s Owlmirror??
Well, their website states that Mirena “is over 99% effective to prevent pregnancy”.Nice example right out of the book “How to lie with statistics”.
Took one of the little buggers out the other day, was a bit messy in there, what with bleeding and all.
There is voluntary,not mandatory reporting of side effects in the USA and Australia btw, and I guess getting pregnant would count as one.
The studies I can find show a similar or better rate of contraception, while being cheaper with more side effects.
from the study:
my first thought: why?! what the fuck is wrong with all these women? do they like being in pain?!
and then I read the next sentence. Either PP is just THAT good at this, or people just don’t pay attention when doctors talk/don’t read the pamphlets.
ambook, re linky goodness; these used to get me, every time, until our Squidly Overlord added a short cheat sheet underneath the “Leave a comment” box. First, copy in that stuff in brackets about a href=, and backspace over the letters url (leaving the quotes) and copy in the address for what you’re wanting to link. Next, backspace over the word ‘link’ and type in whatever word you’re wanting to be the clickable (frequently ‘here’). Should work.
@ Jadehawk – Yes, that was mega weird. My midwife told me that was a side effect and that it was fine (even desirable), and also told me to use backup methods for a couple of months. Weird.
@cicely – I thought I’d done that, but I couldn’t get it to behave. Next time.
@Rorschach – I responded on the boobquake thread from a couple days ago – I was actually trying to understand what you said.
ambook, now I think about it, my links didn’t wanna behave unless I ended it with /a href. You might want to give that a try.
Totally OT, but I need some help with iTunes, if anyone here knows anything about it. I was running iTunes 9 on a Windows XP box.
Last night, I tried to download a soundtrack for my daughter from the iTunes store. iTunes froze in the middle of the download.
I rebooted. iTunes still freezes upon opening. It tries to connect to the Apple store, and freezes. No matter what I do, I can’t seem to get it to not try to connect to the Apple store.
I tried disconnecting from the internet, thinking maybe the problem was in the iTunes store somehow. iTunes still freezes upon opening.
I reloaded iTunes – it still freezes upon opening.
I totally deleted every Apple ap using Add/Delete Programs from the Control Panel , redownloaded iTunes – it freezes upon opening.
I’ve disconnected all my anti-virus stuff. iTunes still freezes upon opening.
I’m afraid to call Apple Support – they’ll just tell me to create a new user account, and if I do that, I’ll lose all my Windows setup: my Office tool bar, all my Firefox bookmarks.
Does *anyone* have any suggestions for how I can get iTunes to work short of creating a whole new user account in Window (which is Apple Support’s solution for everything)? I’ve backed up my .itl files, so I don’t *think* I’ll lose most of my library if I do have to recreate everything de novo, but I’d really rather not have to do that.
My poor father. When he was driving home after his vasectomy, he had to stop 1/4 mile from the house and help stomp out a small forest fire. The stupid kids across the road from us had let a campfire get out of hand and the flames were heading towards our house.
Me? I would have let the fucker burn.
Becca, the typical advice on an Apple system would be to delete the preferences file, which is probably corrupted.
Becca, maybe something in the iTunes library files is corrupted? Or in one of their other files where they store the stuff that doesn’t get de-installed when you remove it.
If reinstalling iTunes doesn’t help then that may be because deinstalling iTunes doesn’t delete whatever files made to store info and then the new install just uses that corrupted file? That would maybe explain why a new user acct would work because it wouldn’t have that file in its preferences yet. Until you make one, by runing iTunes… thus beginning the whole thing over again.
When you go into any of those files without opening itunes does anything freeze? And I mean the iTunes library file folder, not any other you might have on your drives. I hate iTunes and use it as little as possible, deeply resenting that it forces me to allow it to make a copy of everything. So I’m not the best person to ask as I only deal with it when I need to put something on my phone or iPod. Yes. I have them. Both.
It freaked out my pc once too, but my guess is if they typically ask to make again on the new user then it’s something that gets corrupted as itunes does its usual maintenance stuff.
I guess the next thing would be, what to do if that is the case though?
Maybe go in and (after making sure you’ve got anything backed up that might get lost) deleting those associated library files from iTunes, deinstalling it, restarting the PC, running a search for any windows updates needed, and then re-installing iTunes. That way if there was an update missing maybe you’ll get it back too? Just one more thing I guess I could see causing that. Like I said this isn’t something I know a lot about. It just sounds like something that the computer keeps trying to move or deal with on startup (library files would be one such thing I think) that isn’t working right so causing a hang up.
@497 – re: adoption: we adopted two kids in open adoptions. It doesn’t have to cost the earth. if you want to know more about our experience, please feel free to contact me at becca (at) di (dot) org.
re: having children: I always knew I wanted children in my life. When my current (second) husband and I were courting, I told him that 1) I wanted children and 2) there was a good chance I couldn’t conceive. While Chris pretty much let me drive the whole thing (infertility treatments, when to call a halt, moving into adoption), he was always very supportive of whatever my decision was.
My feeling, and I think his too, was that I didn’t so much want to get pregnant as to have a child (as distinct from having a baby)in the family – with the object that children grow up. Our adoption agency found this refreshing… too many people go into it wanting a baby, and then have problems when that cute little pink and white thing turns two and learns the word NO.
Oh yeah, and just for clarity I’m not talking about whatever file all your music is in. Only the copy of the that music that iTunes makes for itself.
Deleting the installation and config files(in /Program Files) might help, also, you should be able in XP to create another user account and see if Itunes works for a new user.
Becca,
What happens if you move the .itl and the .xml file from the iTunes folder in the My Music folder in your My Documents to somewhere else?
I’ve backed up my itl (itunes library) files, do that every so often, so I won’t lose too much.
where do I find the preference files to try to delete them? I’ve deleted just about everything I can find that relates to iTunes.
Becca,
Preference file is only if you’re on a Mac as Nerd mentioned.
The other option is to drag the entire iTunes folder (usually located somewhere under My Documents) to somewhere else and launch iTunes again. iTunes should then recreate what’s needed.
Becca, on an Apple system, it would be in users/user/library/preferences. Not sure where it would be on a Windows system, but somewhere in the documents and settings folder.
Ha! Geoffrey with a much simpler suggestion to the rescue! That’s a good idea.
Wow Jadehawk, I just finally perused your blog beyond the occasional post you link here.
It’s great!
I always think I want to blog but I can’t seem to find time to write a good post, and by the time I do it’s no longer relevant anyway.
Meh…
I’m content with the frivolous though really.
Katrina:
Sounds like we need to get your husband, Ambook’s, and Mr. Science together. We, too, did the “gender-clue” dressing. So here were two babies, one in pink, one in blue, and because they were quite similar in size and coloring, the inevitable question, are they identical. Irritated the hell out of Mr. Science. So he began replying, in tones of surprise and outrage, “God, I hope not!” I don’t know if the folks asking the question ever got the joke; this usually happened in Walmart, and I almost always immediately explained (the quality of mercy is not strained, and so forth).
I can’t say we ever got the question when the twins were lying in the rude nude, however.
Dianne, Katrina, and Ambook, I was unaware of maternal identical twins and gender discordant identical twins. That is very interesting; our twins are still a matched set in looks, though Boy Twin is 6’1″ and Girl Twin is only 5’9″. I would love to see a DNA profile on them.
thanks! :-)
I really needed someplace to dump my random internal monologues, because they were cluttering my brain and I started having a hard time focusing on things. So in the end, the blog is a bit of a timesaver, because now I can just dump my thoughts there, and stop thinking them long enough to get some actual work done :-p
Becca(#567): Thanks. We haven’t talked about this in a few months, so I’m going to see if my wife’s thoughts about this have changed at all. We sort of left off where we had been for a long time with having our own kid (it would be nice but can we handle it), but then our initial assessment was that we were maybe not in a financial position to do this.
I’ll get back to you via the e-mail that you so kindly provided.
LMAO!
Colbert mentioned both boobquake and the barter-your-doctor-with-a-chicken on his show.
Jadehawk:
Heh. I usually dump mine here, which is probably why I can’t seem to keep my own blog going!
I finally got around to bookmarking yours, and I’ll get started on reading back into the archives ASAP.
In other news… the farce is strong with this one! Texas is trying hard to stay even with Arizona in the crazy sweepstakes.
Arizona hasn’t got a chance, Bill. We’re bigger and have far more idiots than they do. How could they ever hope to catch up to us, when not only do we have so many elected Republican/Tea Party officials, but also the State Board of Education?
Leigh, I fear you’re right about my former home state. BTW, I just tonight was looking at your FB profile and noticed that you graduated from my university just as I was getting ready to enter it! Small world, eh?
I know you’ve already seen this (‘cuz you left a nice comment), but I’m wondering what the rest of the crowd here thinks: Is this art? ;^)
How ’bout this?
We got us some purty places here Noooooo England!
I suppose financial fraud follows quite naturally when you’re “Prince” Charles’s aide at his fraudulent Foundation for Integrated Health.
I don’t endorse his homeopathic lunacy, by any stretch of the imagination, but what do you mean by putting “Prince” in quote-marks? He is, in fact, a real prince: whatever false claims he may be making, his title is not one of them.
That article is deeply worrying, though. I knew he was into quackery, but I didn’t know he was actively campaigning for it to be provided on the NHS. The good thing is that, if and when he becomes King, he will have to shut up about these things, as it would be grossly improper for a reigning monarch to be backing something so controversial. Even so, what he is doing now is undermining the institution of the monarchy.
It means I am a republican, and I am highlighting the absurdity of self-given “royal” titles. If I was referring to Michael Jackson I’d put Prince of Pop in quotes too.
Hooray!
Oh what joy! Getting Walton to clutch his pearls has made my day. :)
Disgusting that Charlie Boy’s fraudulent, bogus, quackery vehicle got around £1 mllion of public money.
Keep up the good work Charlie!
Walton wrote:
Hmm, that’s just silly enough to remind me of this:
King Arthur: I am your king.
Woman: Well I didn’t vote for you.
King Arthur: You don’t vote for kings.
Woman: Well how’d you become king then?
King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your king.
Dennis: [interrupting] Listen, strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Dianne #486,
A version of negative utilitarianism. Some people argue it as a general philosophical position (or as a form of trolling, if there’s a difference), but the ‘oddness’, to me, is that it devalues life by ignoring its every positive quality. There are plenty of reasons for not having kids that seem quite sane to me, but that’s not one of them. YMMV. :)
Given that everything that lives dies (in the long run), there are a couple of ideas that would work in counterarguments; the economic concept of temporal discounting, and renormalization from quantum field theory.
Or “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we… never mind.”
Ambook #516… heh heh.
Ol’Greg #525, geraniums smell nice??! Fuck that stink! Could be one of those genetic things like the smell of asparagus-laden pee, some don’t notice it.
AnthonyK #547,
News to me; ‘tortoise’ is still quote commonly used for chelids in Oz. One reason for discouraging this is that back some decades (up to early 1970s anyway) there was a roaring trade in wild-caught and baby turtles of various native species, all of them aquatic and carnivorous, and the pet shops used to stock British ‘how to look after your pet tortoise’ pamphlets. Tortoises (Testudo spp., Testudinidae) are fully terrestrial and largely or exclusively herbivorous, and the recommended diet was mainly lettuce. Not many survived.
Executives from Goldman Sachs are going up to Capitol Hill today to testify.
This would be the point in an Ayn Rand novel where they launch into a self-justifying speech about how they represent the ideal of Man, how the rules are simply oppressing their brilliance, and how the majority of humankind is worthless.
And then proceed to get acquitted of absolutely everything.
The Asshole Formerly Known as Prince Charles.
A pleasant ring to it, that has.
Perfect.
Methinks if our “representatives” don’t do justice, some people will eventually do it for them, and they won’t put them in prison but use the many available firearms and other easily manufactured molotov cocktails against their kids or families who shop in one of the highend stores around the corner…
I’m not condoning violence against Goldman executives or their families, but our Government’s inaction will most probably lead to this.
Nerd of Redhead:
heard on the radio the other day that none of the wives of the 100 richest men in the UK are redheads. As Miss M is a redhead I think I know why – her shoe habit alone is enough to ensure poverty. Does this strike a chord?
I hope that makes up for the Squeeze link I posted yesterday.
The only people deranged enough to do that are, ironically, probably busy targeting ‘big government’ right now.
negentropyeater, that comment was not OK. You should be ashamed of yourself.
It is not sufficient, having made inflammatory and hateful comments like that, to try and cover yourself by assuring everyone that you “don’t condone violence”. What you just said is no different from the anti-abortionists who say things along the lines of “Well, I don’t condone violence against abortion doctors or their families, but some people will probably attack them if something isn’t done about it.”
In a free society, you’re entitled to disagree with the practice of investment banking, just as other people are entitled to disagree with the practice of abortion. But talking so blithely about violence towards a group of people – including children – is never OK.
And sending Goldman Sachs executives to prison would, incidentally, be completely and utterly ridiculous and profoundly illiberal.
This illustrates perfectly that the authoritarian left is just as bad as the authoritarian right.
Because a common thief committing B&E does so much more damage to people then those executives responsible for wrecking the economy.
As I understand it, yes.
The reason we use high voltage power lines, is that it reduces the resistive loss somewhat (P=½RI2=1RU–2). The benefit of AC is that it is ‘easily’ transformed up and down in potential. No such luck with DC, so either we’d have to first make it AC, which is what we do now, or find a way to reduce loss, which is where superconduction comes in.
Yes, there are hella problems with nuclear waste, but at least it’s fairly localised. Carbondioxide once emitted spreads out into the entire atmosphere. I fear nuclear is the lesser of the two evils here. Someday we’ll have to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere at a rate fare above what plants can do now. But we won’t have the tech for that for a long time I fear, and unlike bloody Freeman Dyson I’m not gonna bet on the synthetic biologists giving us supertrees that bear diamond fruit in the next decade. Friggin’ techno-utopian.
Walton,
I got the impression that negentropyeater was referring to the more extreme breeds of teabagger out there – that is, the individuals who are addicted to their own free-floating anger, and who are looking more for something to rage at than anything else, and are equally and indiscriminately angry at government as much as at Wall St.
With all due respect to negentropyeater, though, I suppose one could read it the way you read it.
Seriously? I thought they were under the gun for quite legitimate and heinous fraud charges:
Jailtime is a distinct possibility – and quite rightly so.
– Wanda Sykes
Considering redheads make up 5% or less of the population, and studies have shown men really prefer brunets, it isn’t surprising.
The Redhead has always lived on a budget. So she shops at outlet stores. Which doesn’t say the quantity hasn’t added up over the years, as almost nothing gets thrown away…
Walton is against prison time for “purely financial” crimes. I mean, it’s not like they mugged someone. They simply deliberately ruined the economy.
OTOH, Walton: I just read your comment on the ‘Right-Wing Foot in Right-Wing Mouth’ thread.
Awesome.
How do you figure?
In fairness, Walton is against using prison as punishment to begin with. That said, I don’t know how one would avoid jail time for the various fraudsters of the US, while also jailing small time thugs, without making Khalil Ghibran’s statement on the law come true; “The law is a net designed to catch small fish, not large ones”.
Maybe they should be forced to work in a fast food restaurant at minimum wage for the rest of their lives. After be stripped of all their existing assets of course.
Who here is afraid of creepy dolls? Well here’s a creepy doll praising Jesus.
Walton, what do you think would be an appropriate punishment insted of incarceration?
Attention pro-choice people!
When the G8 convenes for their meeting this summer Canada will be pushing a “maternal health” initiative for women in developing countries. But the Conservative gov’t only wants to help women if they’re baby-making machines. They “might” aid if family planning is involved, but definitely won’t if access to abortion is supported. In other words, Canadian women have a choice but the poorest women in the world shouldn’t have access to abortion.
Please vote in this poll.
Do you think Canada should fund abortion services as part of a G8 initiative to improve the health of mothers in poor countries?
And if you’re so inclined, please do more. Write to your head of gov’t, the Canadian PM, and the Canadian MP in charge of international aid, Bev Oda.
Grrrr! ‘Instead’.
Have you read what these guys did? Even the stuff they did legally shows a borderline pyschopathic mind at work. Some of these fraudsters seriously need rehabilitation. What’s to stop these people from finding new victims?
Incidently, what about a guy who robs a bank? Does he deserve jail time? I’ve agreed with you in the past that we send WAY too many to prison and that it should be used sparingly. However, in the case of massive fraud it’s justified. Violence isn’t the only way to harm others. There are some people so twisted that the threat of jail is the only thing keeping them from harming others.
I started to type something myself but realized it came down to this point. But I disagree with the quote “The law is a net designed to catch small fish, not large ones” also.
The law, in terms of prison, is a way of punishing and intimidating the lower classes. You lock people up to keep them away from the good people, to help remove them from society, to reduce societies contact with them and to punish and intimidate the masses in the hopes that they will be kept passive by it.
At least that’s how I see it. Now whether that’s good or bad I guess is another question? There may be some merit in that cruelty, but maybe not? Perhaps by not feeding the social environments that cause that relationship that kind of system would be unnecessary?
I really don’t think the same social factors apply, so I think comparing them to local thugs is disingenuous. Not that they are better, but that they are different.
The law, however, is not just about throwing thugs in prisons. It’s also about checking power. In the case of the fraudulent Goldman Sachs types, compare how Martha Stewart was treated publicly for some small corporate indiscretion to how these execs are treated and I think you will see that prison in popular culture is more about what kind of people society wants to hurt than about true justice for societal damage. People wanted her taken down a peg, and were happy again once she was. But the whole thing was a farce.
Here you have people who truly did damage to the economy. Does throwing them in prison Martha Stewart style do anything worthwhile? Will we all be happy if the repent and promise to be real nice when they get out?
At the same time the law is the very thing that could prevent the kind of economy killing fraud that happens at the top tiers, by closing up the loopholes and implementing regulation, and by involving public awareness through this process.
Perhaps a proper punishment for corrupt execs IMO, would be to remove them from power and have them pay long lasting fines or else have some of their property and holdings seized.
Who cares where their bodies sit anyway?
That probably would be fair, but I doubt the law is written to allow such a punishment. Therefore, given due process and various rules about laws in the constitution, the people who did it are free from any retaliatory legislation, only stuff drafted prior to their fucking over of the economy. Which is the essence of Ghibran’s claim really (The folks who do big fuck ups will get away), and honestly I find it a little daunting to try to refute it given some of the particulars of corporate law.
OK. I had originally read it as ‘Goldman Sachs executives have done nothing to merit disapprobation’.
However, if the meaning was that ‘executives should be punished, just by means other than jail’, that is a different matter, and one in which I can make little informed comment. I presume that appropriately punitive financial penalties and a disbarring from working in the given area, on top of foreiture of all ill-gotten gains, is a start of sorts. Of course, minimizing the chances of it occurring in the first place is ideal.
Walton, do you have links to any threads where you have made these points in more detail?
Bringing the mormon pain:
The castration of Thomas Lewis appears in the following:
– MORMONISM UNVEILED, or THE LIFE AND CONFESSIONS of the Late Mormon Bishop JOHN D. LEE
– The Mormon Hierarchy, Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn.
– The Rocky Mountain Saints by T. B. Stenhouse, 1873.
– Vol. 5 of Wilford Woodruff’s Diary, June 2, 1857
Looks like it.
For those who don’t remember, here’s the daily blogpimping. Enjoy!
There was one in France and one in Japan, and they’ve both been switched off.
Am I glad I’ve never even seen an Ayn Rand novel.
Racism.
Heh. I bet that’s true.
Sorry, I thought of this while I was switching the computer off.
Just… what’s the problem with transforming it to AC?
It’s difficult to keep anything localised over 30,000 years. Especially if it’s however slightly soluble in water.
Diamond fruit, LOL!
Look! Progress in the morridor! Four high schools in a mormon stronghold, the St. George area, are being forced to be more tolerant toward gay students:
Walton,
No, it wasn’t inflammatory or hateful. I’ve been an investment banker myself and I don’t hate that profession.
But if you are too naïve to understand why mega rich people deliberately wrecking the economy to gain maximum profits and going unpunished actually tests social cohesion and generates violence, I can’t help it.
And your analogy with abortion clinics is a mindboggingly stupid strawman of what I wrote.
Really? That’s interesting…
what made you do something else? Of course you’ve no obligation to answer that. Just piqued my curiosity.
wtf are you talking about? we already have those! see?
Rachel Maddow presented an interesting story on the racist roots of Arizona’s new immigration law: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#36791568
The story begins with a discussion of the bipartisan (Kerry/Graham) legislation that was scuttled by Lindsey Graham because he was objecting to immigration reform [say what?] — don’t expect logic, but do expect obstructionist propaganda flavored with racism from the backers of the Arizona law.
Homer Simpson: “I only found a Newsweek magazine from 1986″… it’s shown: “Why America Loves Saddam”, with Uncle Sam and Saddam drinking a same cocktail through straws from the same glass.
Cinema: Eating Nemo, The Fashion of the Christ…
Only if you can convince them they’ll actually get caught.
[Cue fanfare of trumpets!!]
Noah’s Ark has been found (again).
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1269165/Noahs-Ark-discovered-4-800-years–4-000m-mountain-Turkey.html?ITO=1708&referrer=yahoo
No pictures of the outside.
No location given (except on Mt Arrarat).
No independent verification.
No Ark.
Beautiful, except there’s no carbon whatsoever in rubies… :o)
More exciting news:
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1269206/Teenager-breaks-neck-3-places-survives-horror-crash–just-days-getting-guardian-angel-tattoo.html#ixzz0mKKMmuXx
The seeds are made of diamonds.
I see I managed to put a factor ½ into the power equations. Stupid me.
I’m honestly not sure what the problem with conversion to AC is.
Yes.
Notice how I don’t invoke our brilliant, genius techno-utopian descendants to take care of the problem for us.
Maybe if he’d gotten a bigger tattoo he wouldn’t have been hurt.
Really? They look like metal. Pity the photo isn’t any bigger.
It really is a day for total stupidity:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1269257/Man-sailing-Britain-small-boat-doing-laps-small-island-Kent.html?ITO=1708&referrer=yahoo
Candidate for a Darwin Award (failed)
Alan B (@624):
There’s so much WIN in that story:
First, I love the fact that his “angel” is a sultry hottie with wings; just barely this side of softcore porn.
Nest, doesn’t the macho motto on the tattoo — Only the Strong Survive — pretty much fly in the face of trusting one’s fate to a guardian angel, or, indeed, in the face of the typical Christian teaching that people are powerless in their own right, and must rely on the Lord for their strength?
Finally, I’m always fascinated by these “guardian angels” who wait ’til after the “horrific car crash” to intervene! In fact, given that the story gives no cause for the car this kid was driving having “swerved into a tree,” I’m tempted to think his guardian angel really looks more like Clarence from It’s a Wonderful Life, and deliberately made the car crash because he was pissed off about the arrogant, sexed-up tat!
;^)
pffft ;-)
Oh and Lynna, back @530:
That’s very promising news – I’m very excited! However, I shall accept no part of the blame. It is fully your fault for being such a good writer. If I hadn’t done it, someone else would have done it in my place, and all that.
Thanks, also, for the heart-warming forced-castration story.
No, he’s a prince only if you believe all one family must be inherently first-above-others. I don’t, and absolutely refuse to refer to him or the rest of them any differently that I refer to others.
Ol’Greg,
working 80 hours per week. It was Ok for a few years, I was younger, eager, and money was excellent. But I realised having a nice bank account but spending the entirity of my time sleeping, at work, in business dinners and hotels, planes and airport lounges wasn’t going to make me happy much longer.
Something about the story Rachel Maddow presented (link in comment #620) pinged my mormon radar. Maybe it was the confluence of white supremacist/patriotic rhetoric with clean-cut white guys with organizational skills … maybe it was the appearance of stories about some of the major players in the Deseret News published in Salt Lake City.
I looked into it a bit more and came up with this:
Ahh, right. There it is. The story is called Mormons for Racial Profiling.
Note that Rachel Maddow tears open Senator Russell Pearce’s racism in her story. Real Nazi’s, with swastikas and all, and not just the Godwin-Nazis, as Rachel notes. Pearce wrote, among other obnoxious screeds, “a world in which every voice proclaims the equality of the races, the inerrant nature of the Jewish ‘Holocaust’ tale, the wickedness of attempting to halt the flood of non-White aliens pouring across our borders…”
Mr. Fire, you are quite welcome. Glad you enjoyed the heart-warming castration story.
Here’s the latest news on the award: Yes, I am to be awarded and feted. Turns out they have decided to give me the award for writing, and to add a separate award for Leland. So, a win-win all around. Of course, the mormon dude-in-charge never did contact me about the change in the award. He has spoken only to Leland. :-) Nevertheless, I intend to have cake, and eat it too.
negentropyeater,
I apologise. I perhaps overreacted to your post and read stuff into it that wasn’t there.
I’ve been having a very bad day IRL and am not totally on top of things right now. :-(
Charging them with specific and plausible offences, and putting them on trial, is a prior step. Only if found guilty would a spell in prison—or other possible punishments—be considered. Prior to any charges being laid, an investigation is needed; prior to any investigation, you generally need a reasonable suspicion.
It’s quite a long process from hearings before Congress to prison. To arbitrarily declare prison is “utterly ridiculous” at the outset is what is profoundly illiberal.
@negentropyeater –
I actually spent most of my 20s as an M&A lawyer at a big NY firm, then got a Ph.D. in psychology, then realized that what I most enjoy is actually hanging out teaching kids about what you find turning over logs and rocks. In middle age, I cannot believe that I spent my precious youth sequestering myself in windowless conference rooms 120 hours a week. Ridiculous.
I had lunch with a friend from Wall Street a couple weeks ago and his wife told me all about how the New York Times is a gossip rag that exists to persecute investment bankers and rating agencies. I didn’t leap out of my chair and strangle them, though it took some silent reminding myself of why I originally liked them (and still do, but think it’s better not to talk about some topics!)
and actually, I’m mildly disappointed that no one bothered to point the far more important issue that strawberries don’t grow on trees…
negentropyeater, I think that’s kind of ideal. To start out with something that pays a lot but is stressful, save some money, and then do other things.
Meh… I have no idea what will make me happy. I should just be glad I have a good job. I’m lucky enough I guess.
#639 Jadehawk, OM
Not even strawberry trees? Arbutus unedo
See Wiki and about 3,690 other links.
But the easter bunny does distribute turtles, right? (I’m going to get someone to dress up in an EB suit with a couple of our captive turtles at our next staff party – maybe I’ll get a strawberry tree as well.)
#639, #641
To say nothing of the strawberry bush: Euonymus americanus
When I refer to Mahmoud Ahmedinejad as “President of Iran”, or to Kim Jong-il as “President of the National Defence Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”, am I expressing any kind of approval of the moral legitimacy of the Iranian or North Korean systems of government? When I refer to the former Archbishop of Westminster as “Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor”, am I expressing any kind of belief in the structures and titles of the Catholic Church? No. In both cases, I’m simply using a title which is correct in the appropriate legal and social context. It’s no more a value-judgment than calling someone “Mr [first name] [surname]”.
This is different from the situation where someone is wrongly using a title to which he or she is not entitled according to the recognised legal and social conventions applicable in his or her country. For example, it’s fine to use scare-quotes for “Dr.” Gillian McKeith or “Dr.” Kent Hovind, considering that both of them received dubious “doctorates” from unaccredited establishments which are not generally recognised as real universities, and are therefore not entitled to call themselves “Doctor” in most jurisdictions. Similarly, it would be appropriate to use scare-quotes for “Prince” Paddy Roy Bates of Sealand, since he is not recognised as a real head of state according to international law, and is not a Prince by any objectively recognised law or custom.
Prince Charles’ claim to be Prince of Wales (and Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Baron Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, &c.) is, of course, entirely a matter of British law and social convention. If Parliament were to legislate tomorrow to abolish all these titles and rename him “Mr. Charles Mountbatten-Windsor”, then the latter would become his legal name. (This has actually been done in some countries which have abolished noble titles by legislation.) Equally, of course, Parliament could legislate tomorrow to rename me “The Most Excellent Squirdleplip K. Buffoon IV” and require me to use that name in all official documents, whether I liked it or not. But until that happens, Prince Charles continues to have a title.
neither of which has strawberries growing on it, Alan B.
#639, #641, #643
Did anyone say, “Climbing strawberry var. Mt Everest”?
(O.K. I admit this is a normal strawberry with extra-long runners that can be trained up a trellis …)
Not to mention Darryl Strawberry.
Beware low-flying pedants!
Did somebody mention Strawberry?
Strawman. With the exception of the fruitcake in N.Korea, all of those earned their positions. Mr Woo-woo did not. I absolutely refuse to grant him or the rest of his—or anyone else’s—loathsome useless family any recognition they did not earn.
Don’t forget about strawberry fields.
I’m sure Walton is perfectly consistent and also addressing the Poop as His Holiness, the Vicar of Christ.
Walton,
no worries :-)
I actually do think investment bankers and more generally bankers serve a useful purpose in a society with a capitalistic or mixed economy. But I also think this needs to be a highly regulated and controlled profession because of the exhorbitant privilege these people have to create money solely based on a promiss to repay it and their immense destructive capacity.
First thing that needs to be done is to separate investment banking from commercial banking and reinstore Glass Steagall. But we also need to make sure some bankers can’t get away with abusing their powers and causing irreparable harm to millions of people.
Otherwise we are going down an extremely dangerous route where bankers in general will become easy scapegoats of a disillusioned folk. Not something we need to see happen again, especially not in a nation with millions of armed teabagging racists.
negentropyeater #653
Hear! Hear!
QFT.
Christopher Hitchens wrote an interesting essay on economics and the Euro. It’s his latest essay in Slate. Here’s an Excerpt:
I’m hoping that NM governor Bill Richardson, who is Hispanic, drops into Arizona wearing a nice guayabera shirt, maybe some huaraches… and hangs out on a corner in an upper-class Anglo neighbourhood. [With, of course, his security people quietly in the background.] I wonder how long it would take for some bozo to demand proof of citizenship. Oh, oops!
Re: Goldman Sachs – I was listening to the hearings earlier today. Amazing how difficult it was for the GS guy to answer ‘Why, after you received an internal memo saying that Timberland was a “shitty investment”, did you go on selling millions of dollars worth to people?’
Con artists go to jail; there’s no reason why this particular brand of fraudsters should be exempt. I’m tired of white collar criminals getting a pass – knowingly helping to wreck our economy? Treason, anyone? Firing squad?
And a perfectly silly one as well from someone who chooses to display his ignorance of such matters.
I didn’t earn the title of “British citizen”, either. I obtained it through the accident of birth, being born on British soil to British parents. Yet it gives me a whole host of rights and privileges which I would not have if I had been born elsewhere. The same is most likely true of you, unless you are a naturalized citizen. So if you don’t believe any unearned titles should be recognised, I’m sure you will surrender your passport forthwith. :-)
Being serious Red Dwarf fans, my kids have both expressed a desire to learn Esperanto, which I have thus far not supported (bad homeschool mom, bad, bad!). I have, however, heard that the international Esperanto community is quite interesting and that because it’s grammatically regular, it can be easier for people to learn. Does anyone here actually speak Esperanto and use it to communicate with Esperanto speakers who don’t speak English?
John Wells is big in Esperanto.
And I recall downloading a “Teach Yourself” programme a coupla years ago, so it should be something your kids could explore on their own. (No, I didn’t teach myself.)
I’m cross posting this from the doing-it-wrong thread on the grounds that I think I might change my signin name from ambook (which is close to my name) to MATTIR, which reminds me that I am not so interested in finding common ground anymore.
In an active subduction zone?
For some clear thinking on the energy issue see here
You win. :-)
(How… polite of them not to mention any prices.)
Esperanto?
There are so many wonderful languages used by people on this planet in their everyday life to communicate with one another and to speak some of them gives one such a rich opportunity to immerse oneself in other cultures that I wonder why one would want to learn Esperanto?
I can communicate fluently in French, English, German and Spanish, I love all of them, and I wish I could learn more. Unfortunately, I think I’m getting a bit old to master several more, or my brain is having sifficulties to cope.
It’s a great pleasure and incredible enrichement to read an article or a book or watch a movie in its original language, or to visit countries and be able to communicate with its inhabitants. I’m not clear what benefit Esperanto brings.
What an incredibly eventful day : David failed his blockquote !
Hello, I’m just testing the hypothesis that my google nickname will be displayed if I submit an actual message, even though the preview function shows the munged identifier.
Son of a Fuckme: Bitch Bitch Bitch!
I will now try again after having randomly fucked with shit at fucking google. If this doesn’t work, I will continue to lurk for the next few months. Neurotically, I cannot comment unless I get my ‘nym correct. Fucking sign-in message still has the fucking google shit. Fuck.
One more fucking try, then it’s back to work. Shitfuckdamn!
Walton:
What a thin, thin straw you clutch there, Mr. Equivocation.
Title.
@667-669:
Starfart? is that you?
@667-669:
Is starfart back?
You think I would know to just ignore the error messages by now. *sigh*
I blame the wine that I have not been drinking.
Well, I can tell you why my son decided he wanted to learn Esperanto. He’s dyslexic. He has trouble breaking spoken language down into phonemes and trouble matching phonemes to the wildly inconsistent spelling system of English. The idea of a language that was designed so that there were fewer ways to spell each phoneme was tremendously appealing. Plus he’s a bit of a crank. Like the ADHD and dyslexia, this may have a basis in genetics (what a shock!)
Speaking of different languages, anybody know anything about finding guitar tablature for Russian songs?
KOPD wrote:
In Soviet Russia, guitar plays you!
Wowbagger:
Not what I was looking for, but I’ll keep it in mind. ;-)
And I guess it wouldn’t hurt to clarify my request. I’m looking for either a good site or two, or the Russian word for tablature (since I can’t seem to find it or my dictionary).
negentropyeater #658
I think the years of alcohol abuse are beginning to effect Hitchens.
The euro isn’t the Esperanto of currencies, it’s closer to the Chinese of currencies. Widely used, stable, it’s one of the four hardest currencies in the world.
Yes, the Greek public debt is causing serious problems in the eurozone. The Spanish, Portuguese and Irish debts are also lurking in the background. However, three G8 countries are in the eurozone. The European Central Bank (ECB) will guarantee loans to Greece plus the European Council has said the EU would bail Greece out if needed.
Actually the Greek crisis has given momentum to calls for a more integrated eurozone. There is discussion about a common finance ministry for the eurozone known as the European Debt Agency which would manage eurozone government debt. Another plan involves creating a European version of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) so IMF style resources and expertise could be used, while solving the problem within Europe.
Neither of these agencies would be operational n time to help Greece. French President Sarkozy said “France is by the side of Greece in the most resolute fashion … The euro is our currency. It implies solidarity. There can be no doubt on the expression of this solidarity”¹ and that if the eurozone let a member fail, there would have been no point in creating the currency. In the long term, Germany wants an EMF to be accompanied by stronger enforcement mechanisms: for example a country that does not rein in its debt can have its EU funds withdrawn or its voting rights suspended. However, such plans have been called unacceptable infringements on the sovereignty of eurozone member states and are opposed by France and Italy.
¹”Plans Emerge for European Monetary Fund”, The Economist, 8 March 2010, p. 37.
The poll I mentioned earlier really needs some pharyngulation. Since I voted this afternoon the ‘Yes’ side has dropped from apx. 70% to just over 50%. No doubt being hit by Christian right-wingers.
If you don’t want a Bush-style aid-only-if-contraception/abortion-are-off-the-table policy to be pushed in the G8, vote yes & then write to the Canadian gov’t.
Tis,
Paul Krugman has put forth the argument that a unified currency without a unified government is a bad idea. According to Krugman, the Euro set-up reduces the ability of individual members of the Eurozone to respond to financial crises. What do you think?
BTW Don’t worry about a quick response or anything. I had to work overtime today, so I’m headed to bed, and it’ll be late tomorrow before I can read what (if) you write.
Wave, wave!
Hi everyone. I’m still alive – just immersed in a slutty love affair. *smirk*
Patricia,
Oooo! I’m glad you’re having a good time. :)
My immensely romantic husband brought me a rock from a California beach with 2 Champion spark plugs embedded in it. Apparently TSA had some concerns – they ran said rock through the x-ray machine several times and called all the other TSA people over to consult about the rock for about 15 minutes before they decided it was safe to fly. I have waited through the 19 years of marriage to receive fossilized spark plugs as an anniversary gift.
@ Patricia – Enjoy, but remember, the wrong kind of sex can lead to fossilized spark plugs.
Late catching up…
Was it an “old school” gymnasium? As in, everything old is nude again?
/weak etymology nerd humour
[Journey of the Sorceror]
Now I am hearing Peter Jones’ soothing voice narrating… something.
[
This is awesome, despite not actually being Peter Jones:
Doctor Who: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Daleks (The Peter Jones-y Edit)
]
Say! Wouldn’t it would be cool to have the Thread narrated by Peter Jones?
“The Interwebbists Guide to Pharyngula”
Jeffty is Five
In Soviet Russia,
guitarbalalaika plays you!Ah, Soviet Russia.
When I was growing up, it seemed that it would outlive me.
Goes to show.
hah, glad to hear you’re having fun!
oh and btw, we had Gołąbki (except made properly with buckwheat groats instead of rice); they were just as good as I remembered them. I shall have make them again sometime :-)
I have to say that this paragraph is misleading at best, and at worst is utterly incorrect.
The word that specifically means “ritually unclean” is “tameh” (טמא).
It’s used for pork as a forbidden food (Lev 11:7). The term used for shellfish/lobster in Lev 11:11 is “sheketz” (שקץ), which doesn’t mean “ritually unclean”; “disgusting” is about right, I think.
In Lev 19:27, trimming the beard is one of many activities that is forbidden, but only seeking out familiar spirits is specifically called “tameh”. In Lev 21:5, trimming the beard is also forbidden, but it’s specifically in the context of mourning and burial rituals; the ritual uncleanness — again, “tameh” — in this instance comes from contact with a corpse (priests are forbidden to become ritually unclean with such contact, with specific exceptions of immediate family members). Trimming the beard is not itself part of what causes the ritual uncleanness.
The prohibition on wearing mixed fibers is in Deut 22:11, and no term of either ritual uncleanness or disgust is mentioned in context with that verse.
And finally, Lev 15:19-33 is all about menstruation and contact with menstruating women, and men who have fluxes or seminal ejaculations, including with a woman who is menstruating, and the only term that is used in both cases is various forms of “tameh”; “ritually unclean”.
Being ritually unclean has no severe penalty; really, all that the one who is unclean needs to do is separate themselves during the time of uncleanness, and/or wash and make ritual sacrifices. There’s also some other rituals meant to remove uncleanness, which I’ll spare you. Clearly, the writers of the bible were obsessive about certain things, and didn’t like bodily functions a whole lot, but having them was recognized as being part of life.
But the term “toevah” (תועבה), and its variants, is used for things that are obviously thought of as being outrageously perverse: men having sex with men (Lev 20:13); crossdressing (Deut 22:5); sacrifices made by wicked people (Prov 15:8); and outright fraud (Prov 11:1) — this last being : “The Lord abhors dishonest scales, but accurate weights are his delight.” / ( מאזני מרמה תועבת יהוה ואבן שלמה רצונו׃ )
Deut 14:3 forbids eating things that are “toevah”, but does not specify what that means (it lists the animals that are OK to eat in the following verses). Deut 7:25-26 refers to idols as being “toevah” (“sheketz” (שקץ) is also used), to be utterly rejected. Deut 24:4 says that a man remarrying his former wife is also “toevah”, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense (maybe there was some subtle wife-swapping going on, that the Deuteronomist became aware of and was unhappy about?),
The things that the word “toevah” is used in context with have nothing to do with ritual impurity or uncleanness.
And it is only things that are “toevah” to Yahweh that actually incur the death penalty — not necessarily, but in certain extreme cases. This in contradistinction with the mild ritual penalties for ritual uncleanness outlined above.
So to sum up: ritual uncleanness, “tameh”, is something completely different from “toevah”, outrageous perversity or abomination.
/SIWOTI
This is sometimes useful:
1) Go to [English] Wikipedia
2) Look for the article on the topic you want translated
3) Look on the bottom left for “languages”
4) “Русский” is (of course) Russian for Russian.
5) Click on the link.
6) Voilà: Табулатура
Bah. It’s a concretion, not a fossil.
Josh the geologist would have a fit. Well, maybe not.
Where the hell is he, anyway?
hehe….
For those who weren’t here in the early days of The Thread we had RogerS trying to prove The Great Flood by saying these were giant clam fossils found on top of the Andes.
Given his Pharynguloid status and presence, I opine Josh (the geologist) is either dead or incommunicado.
I like to think the latter.
blog pimping….
Colbert on boobquake, from the PBC blog
Pygmy Loris,
Krugman, like many (mainly Anglo-American) economists have been pushing this point since even before the introduction of the Euro.
First, it’s a silly discussion because Krugman knows very well that the Euro is irreversible, breaking it would trigger the mother of all financial crisis.
So it’s not an economic discussion but a political one, and that’s exactly what we see happening now with both French and German politicians making reassuring statements about necessary solidarity (it’s not difficult to understand why : the main creditors of Greek debt are French and German banks which account for almost 50% of the Greek debt exposure and it’s clearly not in France’s and Germany’s interest to have Greece default on its debt). Of course there are differences on how to practically express this “solidarity”, but I have no doubt at all that an agreement between Germans, French and other Eurozone members will be found. The real wory is to the baking syst, and Governments all ovr the world have already shown their determination to not let any major bank fail.
Second, and comming back to Krugman’s main point, it’s not at all clear that Greece would have been better off if it still had the Drachma. The old canard of the Euroskeptics like Krugman is that it could have devalued its currency to respond to the fiancial crisis. Certainly wasn’t helpful in the case of Agentina or Mexico, and t’s easy to understand why:
even with the Drachma, most Greek debt would still have been in Euros : no French or German bank would have been willing to finance Greek projects bearing the risk of a weak currency and possible devaluation.
Charles Wyplosz expains it very well here :
Finally, there is no empirical evidence that the EMU institutions have so far not been able to deal with the crisis as adequately as the FED, despite the fact that there is not a political union as strong as in the USA.
Is the Euro perfect? No. Will improvements need to be made to the European Monetary Union, such as an EMF or a capacity for the ECB to issue its own bonds or other proposals currently on the table? Yes. But there is no rational jusification for having the kind of discussions about breaking up the Euro as the ones being pushed by Krugman and the eternal bunch of Euroskeptics.
Aren’t we done yet?