Rev. Big Dumb Chimp gets a big thumbs down from me for this one: he posted this video in a comment, and then once I started playing it I wasn’t able to turn it off because I was clinging white-knuckled to my chair and desk, and kind of moaning and gibbering. I managed to make it to the end without throwing up, but I think this would be my nightmare job.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Get out from under those blankets, PZ: as the protagonist of the film, you just know he’s not gonna die.
Haha. First time I’ve slunk a post in under the portcullis.
I have friends who go climbing – I’ll have to send that to them!
Mattir,
Good on you, forty pounds is a big change and if you can maintain why not enjoy yourself?
___
Alethea,
If I trusted my hunger, well, lets just say things have gone poorly in the past. A constant state of being hungry keeps me trim enough to enjoy the activities that define my life.
I don’t eat until I am full either, haven’t in sixteen years. I don’t have that luxury.
That said, there is a lot to be said for not overdoing the being hungry thing. Eat too little, or even just too little of the correct nutrients and your lean body weight goes down. Less muscles means less calories burned by your body, regardless of what you do.
___
Classical Cipher,
Oh! Foot washing too. Another couple of lives ruined by religious understandings.
___
Spunking Coach? Oh, this is getting interesting.
___
Patricai
Well, just that once, and it was just a costume, I swear.
___
SQB,
There are a variety of good reasons to exercise earlier and a variety of other good reasons to exercise later. Early a.m. exercise does not burn fat faster, you still motor on the glycogen stored in your muscles and the close to 2k calories in your liver. What it does do is capitilize on higher testosterone levels, at least in males, and for a lot of people acts as an appetite suppressant and metabolic boost for the duration of the day. So they eat less and make better use of the calories they do eat.
___
Oh yeah. Tall places are tall.
Makes my palms sweat watching it.
And I used to be a fairly big climber.
sweaty
palms
I remember watching a clip, once, of a badbadbad trail that involved narrow goat trails on the sides of cliffs, and ricketty-looking rope bridges. That one was worse than this.
But this is pretty bad.
–
Mommy!
Glen Davidson
OMFG! I had to quit watching after about a minute…my skin is crawling!
Hmmm. That didn’t really bother me at all. And the video of the climb just got better as it went on/up.
Maybe I should switch careers.
Really… now that’s an interesting take on it and one I’d never thought about.
I’d just thought the idea was that in the wonderful cities of the US, driving would liberate us ALL! We would ALL live in suburbs, and the home would be a wonderful little capsule with everything the family unit needed in it… and every family would be the same… and no one would ever move closer for work the way that they have in pretty much every urban area since the dawn of human civilization. Women were encouraged, at least in a lot of instances of media, to learn to drive (though of course they’re bad at it!) so that they could shop and buy stupid things (because they’re stupid) so that the economy would flourish!
I think city planning from this era suffered from a terrible delusion that this era was some how different from any other and people would never be the same after it.
Idiots.
Myself I would stop after the first 20 feet.
— — — — — — —
Cuba releases world’s first lung cancer vaccine http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-cuba-world-lung-cancer-vaccine.html
A mostly unknown fact in the west is that, although Cuba has a poor economy and a repressive system, it also has a first-class health care system and some world-class medical research. I assume a centralised command economy is no impediment to large-scale research initiatives (remember Sputnik).
Cicely,
That trail is in Spain if I recall and is very closed to the public so the video is from a poaching run. Fun stuff.
Oh? But then you slimmed down?
I guess I’m glad I can’t see video at work.
I made it to “no safety line is used,” and had to shut it off.
I feel sick, that would be one of my worst nightmares come true.
Algernon – it’s both! I’m going to have to look up the bibliography of a project I did a couple of years ago for the really excellent book from which I derived that (extremely simplified, as I related it) analysis.
My stomach rebelled every time he abruptly looked down. I think I also might be suffering from a mild case of vertigo now.
Other than that – brilliant. What a view from up there.
I think I’ve seen that – on “Dirty Jobs.” Or if not that, same kind of thing.
I stayed in a borrowed condo in Vancouver for a couple of days last January, on the 34th floor. It has two decks, and I had a hard time setting foot on them – had to hold onto the door handle.
But, when you consider the cost of automobiles, it makes perfect sense that people without automobiles would be the disenfranchised in our society: women, people of color, immigrants, children, etc. No wonder cyclists and pedestrians have gotten short shrift from our transportation planners. The same applies to users of public transportation.
So, how much is that in serious units of measurement?
theophontes @676 in the previous chapter of TET:
Yes. I think most present-day mormons (and Christians for that matter) don’t take a close look at where the idea of Satan, the Devil, or The Adversary came from.
Like their god, they like to imagine their devil as an anthropomorphized force that is very, very interested in the minutia of their daily lives. I blame this concept on Milton’s Paradise Lost, which was far too effective.
In mormonism, I see The Adversary as just the mormon god’s alter ego, or as Jesus’s brother, or whatever other close relative belongs in the mythological family. Satan is an intimate companion. According to my brother’s ex-girlfriend, I am Satan. Me. Personally.
I would say that Satan is God on a bad day were it not for the fact that God doesn’t seem to have good days. He’s an eternal fuck up.
The only significant differences between God and Satan are:
– God feels guilty about sex and wants everyone to join him in that guilt, but Satan revels in sex, including masturbation
– Both God and Satan indulge in the occasional bout of genocide or torture. Sometimes they bet on the outcome. The difference here is that God cloaks his actions in righteousness and pretends that what he does has meaning and purpose. Satan doesn’t bother with that shit, unless you count besting God as a purpose.
– God is a dissembler. Satan is forthright.
– Neither fucker gives a damn about mankind. But God and Satan do like to compare numbers, as in how many human-being-poker-chips they have stacked on their side of the table.
Neither the god concept nor the satan concept would have a lick of power without human perpetration.
gender-related obesity
There recently was a study in Germany about when men and women gain weight.
Women during a marriage, men after one. The explenation was that after a marriage, the main task of household care and in fact the caring for the family still falls on the women. So the former active gym member becomes an active cook, while he still has the time for those activities. Yet when the marriage fails, he suddenly is left without the skills to care for himself in a way that would allow him to keep his weigt.
Yuck
There’s a documentary about child-abuse on the TV. It’s actually the topic of the wek of that channel. A victim of child abuse tells how she got made an accomplice instead of a victim by her rapist.
Makes you want to rage and cry at the same time.
This video didn’t bother me at all.
But I can’t bear to watch spelunking videos where people squeeze their bodies through tiny tunnels in the ground.
Then again, I refuse to get in the back seat of a 2-door car.
Cicely, are you thinking of El Camino Del Rey?
I kept repeating a variant of a very impolite word the entire time I watched that. If such a thing can be constructed, why the hell isn’t it constructed so that someone can access it safely?
Recently yes, Now I’m a relatively small drinker.
With sweaty palms
I believe it is approximately 957 units of “holy fuck”.
I’d love to read it.
Yeah… it’s no accident. Good people drive cars is still deep in the USian conscience too. Two legs good, four wheels better?
At this point though lobbies for existing industries have a lot to do with it.
Here locally it’s actually been the local airlines who fought hard against any attempts to expand the train system between cities.
Dying industries are ugly things.
Oh is that the video of the guy climbing a phone tower? If so… that video is awesome. Scary, but cool too. I imagine you get used to it. The wind though, that’s what seems terrifying to me. Just feeling your whole body and life on that tiny piece of metal.
Actually… that looks awesome.
No no… you’re reading it wrong. It’s because she doesn’t have to attract a man anymore and so she just gets lazy. Women evolved this way. Over the millennia that followed the invention of the electric dishwasher.
noisician #25
So I take it if you join the Navy you will not become a submariner.
I had someone tell me yesterday evening that if my neck continues to hurt (I couldn’t move for most of yesterday) that I should go to a chiropractor. It was all I could do not to rant at them that I wouldn’t do that unless I wanted to die, have a stroke, be paralyzed, etc. Why do people (in this specific instance a trained fucking nurse) not understand how dangerous neck manipulation is?
I’d shit myself, if fear didn’t make me clinch my arse tight enough to make black holes.
I have to make me a quote file, sentences like this one have to be saved and at hand when needed.
Sorry
Blame it on my pink fluffy lady-brain
:(
slignot
Sadly in Germany, conventional medicine is more woo-infected than the general population.
I don’t have a dishwasher.
I think this might make me more acceptable as a poor person in the eyes of Republicans — at least that’s the impression I got from watching Jon Stewart deconstruct the far-right’s view of poor people, https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2011/09/06/world-of-class-warfare/
I am, however, guilty of owning a refrigerator. So, despite the fact that my earnings place me in the bottom 50% of wage earners in the USA, I can’t really call myself poor, at least not according to Republicans. They want me to pay higher taxes while Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, and John Boehner pay less in taxes. Makes sense to me. Those guys don’t have the skills required to live in the bottom 50%. Though they are bottom feeders of a sort.
theophontes,
Who is Satan though? The jeebus bit is understandable. The pre-christian gnostics already had a “Saviour” long before jeebus came along. Much like the jewish “Messiah”. To them the god of the jews was ebil. They speak of “the accursed God of the Jews’ and identify him with Saturn and the Devil”. They identify Satan as yahwe.
The term “gnostic” is a problematic one. While there were certainly “gnosticising” tendencies in forms of Jewish thought not influenced by Christianity, e.g. Philo of Alexandria, I’m not sure it makes sense to speak of “pre-christian gnostics” in the sense of the forms of belief represented in the Nag Hammadi manuscripts.
The type of systems you’re talking about, which regard the “lower world” as created by a demiurge, malevolent or neutral, and not by “the most high god,” could be usefully named “Demiurgism” to differentiate them from “Gnosticism” as a more general spiritual orientation concentrating on secret knowledge (“gnosis”) and the varying levels of initiation into these mysteries, depending on spiritual maturity.
I should note that “Satan”, variously named, is a whole other (though not unrelated) discussion, and the Demiurge was usually not so identified, though some form of adversary figure was often one of the multitude of intermediaries who were believed to exist, like archons and angels. Some of these cosmologies were almost bewilderingly manifold, and it’s possible that many of the texts found in the Nag Hammadi manuscripts were esoteric and idiosyncratic even for their own day, and may not have been widely read or followed.
Demiurgism, as you note, regarding Yahweh as a flawed, tinkering and possibly evil demiurge creator figure, could hardly be a Jewish phenomenon, and appears to me to have no pre-Christian stratum, being an amalgamation of Christian concepts of salvation with an elaborate cosmology having more affinities with traditional pagan polytheism and middle Platonism. A thoroughly gentile affair, and a product of the late second through fourth centuries.
This is my understanding anyway. What more can you say about the pre-Christian gnostic savior figure you refer to, though?
I think I saw this a while back on Ned Gully’s blog, only I don’t remember seeing the other guy with him. Which now has me wondering, couldn’t the two of them tie together, then have one climb while the other rests, attached? Maybe falling isn’t common enough to warrant it…
Well Lynna, those are job creators. It’s because of them that you live in the wealth and luxury you so undeservedly bask in. Now fork over more of your income. You live to die for us!
I *do* have a dishwasher and refrigerator. However this is because the house I’m living in had them. They are the same ones my grandmother used. When they break?
Ugh… hopefully I won’t be around then.
@Giliell
That’s really unfortunate but I wish I could say it surprised me.
The Salt Lake suburb I live in has so many chiropractors that I am genuinely concerned; while my neighborhood specifically is a bit nicer, there are lots of low income and immigrant heavy areas in the city as well and I worry about the frequency with which these populations are being taken advantage of. They may not understand the difference between legitimate treatment and the alternative shit they peddle.
I have the same reaction walking by the natural remedy section of the grocery store and seeing homeopathic treatments for actual infections and shit. It’s scary.
I don’t think so; the one I watched was taken in poor lighting conditions (I got the impression that it was just before and during sunset), and definitely had sections to be traversed over fragile-looking bridges constructed entirely out of gnats’ whiskers and spit.
The bits after about 1:30, where there are huge holes in the walkway over a friggin’ bottomless gorge looked familiar, though, as did the parts about half-way through, where the unsafely-narrow walkway suddenly is wide-open over the endless drop, without handrail or that short kinda wall that was previously on the hiker’s right.
But don’t let me put anyone off it!
And was there any actual necessity to make this alleged path? Or is this just a thrill-ride for the suicidally-inclined?
–
From my cushy office (which protects me from the weather), from this fairly comfortable setting which Republicans are sure I didn’t bloody work for, I send you this Moment of Mormon Madness. This MMM may be a boondoggle or a boon, I’m not sure.
The story is from The Kansas City Star, near the mormon Garden of Eden.
I would feel better about this if I thought the mormons were capable of keeping accurate records. They’ve mad an ahistorical mess of everything else they’ve touched.
I don’t get sweaty palms. I get this nasty, intense ache, in the bottom of the palm, where it meets the wrist.
Also, sometimes fingers, sometimes toes, same sorta ache, feels kinda like it’s in the joints. Like they’re bruising on the inside, in some painfully, physically intense effort just to get the hell away from that ridiculous amount of vertical. Or like they’re just trying to get the CNS’ attention or something: ‘Attention. Brain. We are hereby serving painful notice we really don’t want to be here. So fix it already, dammit.’
Weirdly, it’s worse when I’m not climbing or jumping off something. Never really bothers me boarding or skiing. I figure it’s some weird psychological thing. It’s like: if I know I’m doing it (or already am), fine. If I just have to stand too damned close to it and look, ouch.
This video, actually, is not doing anything too bad. Slight ache in palm area. But then I’d seen it before. Maybe helps.
But on the other hand, I just visited the Grand Canyon. Happened to be in the area (sorta). Very pretty. But geez, that bit where you’re working your way to the edge to get nice pictures, ow.
IRT to photographing in public places:
http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/know-your-rights-photographers
So the mormons knocked at our door last week. Nigel officially resigned awhile ago and there is some weird computer program or something that dispatches missionaries to ex-mormon houses to try and fuck with them. It went something like this:
Nigel: I am not interested in your church
Brainwashed Missionary: It isn’t our church, it is the Church of Jesus Christ
Nigel (pissed off now): There isn’t any evidence that jesus existed. There is no evidence.
Brainwashed Missionary: How has that been revealed to you?
what the fuck kind of cult-speak shit is that last line? I keep trying to work it into regular conversation as a joke but it is too clunky. I wonder if they drill that one into you at the missionary training center or if they really don’t know that truth isn’t revealed by some external being, and can often be found by investigation.
What kind of person can do that job? Every muscle in my body is tense after watching.
I had that too in the beginning of the video. However, it gradually went away.
And that feeling was just from watching the video. I don’t know how those guys do it.
I guess they missed the memo that we are all related if you go back far enough. Too bad god didn’t make an easy ritual to baptize all the dead people at once, its almost as if someone just made up the ritual without thinking about the ramifications. Some poor kid had to stand in for hitler and dead holocaust jews for baptism instead of playing outside because of this bullshit.
The data helped with some genetics projects though, so it wasn’t all bad.
@32 ‘Tis Himself, pour encourager les autres
I can’t see myself joining the Navy for other reasons… but the idea of submarines does seems very interesting. But I don’t know how small they feel in practice.
Basically, if I get to the point where it seems like I don’t have freedom of motion, I’ll freak out. Like I said: no back seats of little cars. And I won’t sleep in a bed with the sheets and blankets tucked-in under the mattress.
cicely,
I would hazard that When it was built it was a little safer and people were a little cheaper.
_
Carlie, that’s not the one I was thinking of.
Strange things with frightening situations like height and what not. I feel the fear growing and it makes me feel a bit dizzy, then something in my mind says “don’t think about that” and it’s like I completely forget everything but the thing I’m doing next.
After a while it’s just the thing, the next thing, etc. That would be why I wouldn’t want to do something like that. Putting aside the fact that I’m probably not fit enough, I think it’d be sad because I’d have access to something other people find stunning and terrifying and all *I’d* ever be allowing myself to see would be the next place to put my hand and the thing I’m working on.
Wow. Heights don’t bother me, so I loved the views. But the idea of all that climbing made my shoulder (previously injured) ache.
My palms didn’t sweat, either.
because no one tells em. Luckily, it can be you who informs them of the risk! My standard line is this:
It is hard not to get mad at people when they say stupid shit, but they have no reason to say something other than what they genuinely believe to be true. Anger is rooted in entitlement, like that you should not have to hear idiotic things. It is hard for me to express any anger at most people after considering those facts (there are some malignant woo people who really know better that I am not nice to but it takes time to figure out who you are dealing with). I just plant the idea in their head that something could be wrong with their idea and move on. It must be much more difficult to deal with when you are in pain, however, so I don’t think anyone would blame you for being less than polite at unwanted advice about the pain.
I used to get the same thing from roller coasters. I didn’t get the point of them. You’re totally passive, and since my mind just focuses narrowly under stress the effect of a roller coaster was pretty much that I just shut down mentally and went into my own little world for a sec and then the coaster stopped. Nothing to do, stress, nothing to think about other than try not to get the neck twisted uncomfortably by the force.
That was until I started taking benzos before getting on one. Now, the medication is honestly needed some times for me… but it does allow me to enjoy that oh-so-human moment on a roller coaster and actually *notice* something around me while I’m up there. First time I ever got the point.
@The Sailor
I’m always amazed by how much shit people put up with from police officers and officials about filming and photographing public spaces and events. After the Good case in Rochester, NY, I was amazed to see the ongoing story of the arrest and prosecution of someone covering marriage protests in Buffalo. I would have thought that police would be wary of another media embarrassment after all the negative blowback from arresting Ms. Good.
What got my blood pressure up the most is that they don’t use safety-lines for the most part of it and it is legal.
I’m not bothered by heights. I am bothered by stairways and ladders. I went down from the top of the Sagrada Familia on my butt.
Algernon,
My only interest in roller coasters was the sense of acceleration. Once I started mountain biking it faded because suddenly the ride lasted longer and I could pitch into those types of situations with no need to wait in line.
My palms are sweating profusely just watching this video. It would be my nightmare job as well, PZ.
How much do they pay them? I doubt it’s enough…
That’s interesting Dhorvath! I never thought of the acceleration as anything but neutral and a consequence. I get no rush out of driving fast either. If I drive fast, it’s because I’m in a hurry.
I always get a bit of a thrill from the acceleration of take-off during a flight.
Hi honey. How was work today?
Oh, same old, same old. But when I got on top of the job, I found I’d left my lunch at the bottom and had to go back down to get it. Hey, what’s with tuna salad twice in two days?
Algernon,
I don’t care how fast I drive, but if I am not vigilant I drive very agressively. It’s all in the sensation of acceleration. (Yes, lift off is something I love as well.)
Some of the little things bothered me. Having no safety lines would bother me a bit, as would having a 30-lb swinging toolset attached to me while I climbed. And the height is rather impressive, though I suppose I could probably do it if I had to.
Spelunking doesn’t bother me at all. I’ve managed to negotiate myself through 315 degree turns where you can feel stone on either side and you have to exhale to fit, in complete darkness, before. That’s fun. Hard to take a vid, though.
As a kid I’d try to turn my swing around as many times as possible so that I would spin really, really fast when the ropes unravelled.
I’d love the sensation when I’d almost pass out, but only almost.
We (my mom’s in-home daycare kids and I) were explicitly forbidden to do that after we broke through several ropes on the tire swing that way :/
I want to hang a single-rope swing for my kids so they can do it, though.
The sustained activity bothered me more than the height.
But I’m a helicopter groupie.
(don’t speak to me of spelunking)
I still play on swings, the longer the pendulum the happier I am. And I still jump off when I get them nice and high so I can drift for a moment.
Totally the reverse with me WRT driving. I don’t care about the sense of acceleration, and even find it annoying. However, I can be aggressive because I can be aggressive. Had to work on that, actually.
@Algernon,
I logged in just to say that I am so going to steal this.
That’s crazy. One slipped grip, missed step, weak soldering job or flaw in the metal on one rung, one gust of wind, one overcompensation for balance, and it’s so long, here’s what it feels like to hit the ground at terminal velocity. So that they can save a few minutes of time (or rather so the company can save a few dollars of pay)? That should not be legal.
Dhorvath, I love swings. They’re great cardio exercise for me because unlike jogging or speed-walking I can reliably keep it up for 20 minutes without getting sick and having to lie down for hours.
I used to love the tire swing for that, but with the regular swing I liked just to get it as high up as I could. I miss that, actually.
I want a adult-sized kid playground.
I used to like a lot of things that are probably not legal now though (like we used to crawl into a barrel and roll down hill in it). I think some kids have gotten hurt badly that way and no one does it any more.
(It was fun.)
Where are you people finding swings big enough for you?
Adult playgrounds would be great. Gimme a tube slide that I don’t bang my head to get out of.
Algernon,
I am not a small person and don’t have trouble at nearly any playground I pass.
I can climb if there’s stuff to hang on to but I can’t bring myself even to jump of a 3m diving board. There’s no way I’m ever rappelling down anything.
I’m enjoying what some of these people say about their work:
http://www.jobshadow.com/interview-with-a-tower-climber-2/
RE: Adult playgrounds
Obligatory XKCD comic.
And associated blog post
I’ve seen the video before. People that know the field commented that these guys should be fired for breaking a whole load of safety regulations.
I’ve seen that video before. If I poke my head out of the window right now I can see the lights of the Winter Hill transmitter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Hill_TV_Mast
If you go walking on the moors and get up close, its scale is breathtaking.
There lies a family legend. Before I was born my older brother and his buddies got hold of a giant cable spool and were taking turns rolling downhill inside it. At the end of each run the guys not inside it would catch the spool and stop it.
What they kind of neglected to think about, though, was that my parents’ house was at the bottom of said hill. Failing to catch the thing once was all it took: it rolled straight into the house and, apparently, through (or mostly through) a big picture window.
My brother assures me that he got his turn in it before the catastrophe.
For my boyfriend’s 30th birthday next week, and at his behest, I’ve bought him a ticket to take a walk around the outside of the CN Tower in Toronto.
http://www.edgewalkcntower.ca/
Alas, due to my high blood pressure, I’m unable to accompany him.
NYC “rape cops” juror tries, and fails, to justify letting a rapist go free.
Your daily dose of rage.
Patrick Kirkland is a terrible human being. I am glad that he’s chosen to expose his awfulness to the world; perhaps we can devise some sort of appropriate public humiliation for him.
I so want to go to one of those tree-top climbing parks. There was one in walking distance from our camping site during our holiday, but daughter #1 would have been allowed to go for the kids’ parcours, #2 would have been eager but not allowed, Mr. and I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy anything with 2 grumpy kids in tow. so it would have meant spending a hell lot of money to frustrate the whole family.
I can have that for free.
But they will grow and we will go. Or dump them with their grandparents.
Each of the climbers had a safety harness and hook. They hooked on to rest. They just didn’t stay continually hooked on, which requires taking a hand off a rung to move the hook. You can feel relatively secure if you’re moving only one limb at a time.
Wasn’t Jahweh just one creator among others? That was why Cain and Abel could go out and find wives.
Oh, I meant the tower. Seriously, if we can build transmission towers that big, we ought to be able to cage them in with something that doesn’t interfere with transmission but allows people to NOT DIE. The side-of-the-cliff path in Spain has an interesting story; it was built as a shortcut for workers. So not only did people walk it a lot, but they did so carrying loads of stuff to transport. Oy!
Those I’m actually ok with. As long as my body is moving (and moving fast), it doesn’t quite process how high up I am. It’s when I’m high up and stationary (or worse, gently swaying in the breeze) that I get the sweaty palms and incapacitating fear.
So I can happily do huge roller coasters, but get me stuck at the top of even a church bazaar-level Ferris wheel and NO THANK YOU.
I in fact realized that I was more-than-normally scared of heights on the observation deck of the Stratosphere in Las Vegas. Got up there, felt the wind whipping around, suddenly realized that for some reason I was unable to peel myself off of the wall I was backed up against and trying to clutch onto. I managed to get out to the edge, but it was awful and only for a few seconds (this was before the coasters up there were built; I think those would have made me pass out). The Empire State Building wasn’t quite as bad because the solid wall is so high, but I couldn’t stand at the cut-out parts where it’s just wrought-iron fence to closer to ground level. And bridges that used to be train bridges so the cars are on the outside with nothing but a little metal fence? GAAAAA. This bridge haunted my childhood. Even the St. Louis arch gives me heart palpitations if I get too close to the windows. Speaking of which, when I was little my dad once held me up to one of those windows and joked about dropping me and I’d fall through. HMMMMMM…
I will admit to always doing a silent “Wheee!” in my head during takeoff.
I would use the doll-stroller inherited from my sister to drive down the hill. Until my mum caught us. Well, we drove full speed into our street and I mean street like the part where the cars drive…
This sentence would make more sense if I hadn’t forgotton to state that daughter #1 would have been allowed but not dared to.
Not a transmitter but this one makes me want to upchuck.
El Camino del Rey
Firt of all, they take an elevator to the 1600′ mark. Then almost all the rest is within the tower, so you can’t fall away from the ladder. The actual climbing part is short, if windy and swaying.
that video made me cringe–and i climbed Devil’s Tower. (it is 1267 ft tall.) having a rope and protection goes a looooong way to helping keep your lunch down.
This is not true. No amount of massaging spasming muscles will put disks back in place. Any doctor can injure you, the good ones usually don’t.
If you go to an MD xe’ll prescribe muscle relaxants. They don’t alleviate the underlying problem, your spine is out of alignment. One can feel ones own spine and notice that some vertebrae are pointing a different direction than the ones above and below them.
In my experience the difference between going to an osteopath and a chiropractor is 10x$. Going to an MD just led to drugs and a recommendation to a back surgeon. It’s been 35 years and I haven’t needed a back surgeon yet, but I do occasionally need an adjustment by a chiro.
++++++++++++++++
chigau – “But I’m a helicopter groupie.”
Howdy! I was a chopper wrench and I could probably still fly one, but I never could afford the $$ for formal lessons. I have about 8 hours on instruction in my logbook and about 100 actually flying them. And a 1000+ riding. If you ever ride one ask the pilot for an auto-rotation.
++++++++++++++++
when I was a kid (getoffamylawn) we had the school swing sets with multiple rows of swings … just within kicking distance of each other. We would ‘dogfight’ by twisting and turning, pumping higher and lower. It got really interesting when your sideways momentum was clashing with your back & forth momentum.
++++++++++++++++
IRT roller coasters; My favorite one was the one at Magic Mountain in LA that did a loop followed by 3 snap rolls.
++++++++++++++++
Heights bother me now a lot more than they did when I was younger, but part of that is a certain feeling I have that I’ve pushed my luck so many times in so many ways that I believe I should err on the side of caution. Also, heights don’t bother me if I’m not connected to the ground.
another basic thing to me; if I’m in control I don’t mind the sudden manuevers of spins or stalls in a plane or the 4 wheel drift and accelerating out of a curve from cars. If I’m a passenger it makes me nauseous.
I’ve never been up a tower that height, but towers are fun to climb (unless you suddenly get vertigo as I did one day – then a 5-minute climb up becomes a 1hr climb down).
First App:
I love that moment when the acceleration tricks your inner ear into feeling like the fuselage is tilting upward before the plane actually rotates. A kind of sensory vector addition.
Algernon:
Heh! I remember using my dad’s cigarette to light Black Cat firecrackers, which I would hold and throw just before they went off. We launched bottle rockets by hand, too.
I also recall, as a little kid, riding in the well behind the backseat of my dad’s (original) VW Beetle… and as an older kid, lounging on the bed-sized foam pad in the back of my parents’ station wagon as we drove all over the country. Seat belts? We don’ need no stinkin’ seat belts!
Then again, I can also remember eating Halloween candy without putting it through a fluoroscope or a metal detector, too (not that those expedients were ever justified by anything other than urban legends). Call me Mr. Danger!
SHIT!
I felt woozy every time he was holding on with one hand.
And I’m a pilot!!
Who made it that late?
I’m off, have fun sharing happy “what fucking stupidly dangerous things we did when we were kids” stories.
The Sailor
I have several hundred hours as a passenger in helicopters.
Mostly in the arctic in the summer.
Stupid presentation…stupid work, cuttin’ into my slackin’ time, grumble, grumble…
Love rollercoasters and rides, but I don’t have the constitution I once did.
West Edmonton Mall used to have a ride called the “Drop of Doom”: basically a freefall tower ride with a gentle incline and horizontal stop (the actual ride was disassembled, moved, and reassembled as the “Hollywood Tower” in Movie Land Park, Italy.
One summer day, friends and I rode it fourteen consecutive times before our senses of balance would no longer permit us to run up the stairs from the exit and back down to the entrance for ride #15. I think we tried to clear our heads with a quick ride on the Mindbender.
Sadly, a good ride leaves my brain spinning for hours these days. I have to get my kicks playing RTC3.
(Except for the Swing of the Century-type rides. I can still ride those forever. When I’m rich, I’m gonna buy one—and one of those Star Wars sit-down arcade game with the vector graphics—and you’re all invited to come to my place and ride it. I’ll even let you twist the swings before take off.)
My girl friend likes to make fun of me because I cannot rock climb as good as her. I freak out when I’m bouldering four feet above the ground. I would probably be paralyzed with fear. I will show her this video, thanks Rev!
It was a typo. Honest. It was not a Freudian slip (I don’t even wear a slip). Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. It was not an attempted double entendre. Honest. Really.
============
In other news, I am not in the flood evacuation zone. I may, however, have riverfront property if the river tops the dike. And it is never good news when you turn on The Weather Channel and Jim Cantori is broadcasting live from your town. Never a good sign. It would be like Angela Lansbury or Dick Van Dyke showing up at a family reunion.
I have no idea what these fellows are getting paid, but it’s not enough.
chigau, as soon as I wrote that I said to meself, ‘I bet chigau’s got lots o’ time in rotary winged aircraft’. I felt condescending and stupid as I hit ‘post’.
But I wouldn’t have expected in the arctic. That adds a whole new level to all the open water flying I did.
and I bet the pilots could be a little cowboy-ish;-)
Brownian
I’ve never gone on any rides at WestEd.
Especially not The Roller Coaster of Death.
I had to chuckle at the part where they mention the lightning, and claim “but there’s no quick way down.” There’s obviously a very quick way down, one that would get them to the bottom in about… *spends some quality time with the calculator* thirteen seconds flat.
Very flat.
Ogvorbis – “And it is never good news when you turn on The Weather Channel and Jim Cantori is broadcasting live from your town.”
OTOH, they pick the hardest hit areas and pick the shots to make it more dramatic.
I’m not meaning to downplay your experience, but I once saw my home town depicted as ‘flooding’ when all it was was a nasty storm and a a couple of drains plugged up from the debris. One car was washed 100 feet as the driver yelled ‘help me.’ They played that over and over but not the part where we waded thru the water and carried her 20 feet to the curb.
The Wx Channel is to storms what CNN is to wars. They’ve both cried ‘wolf!’ too often.
The Sailor
15 years ago some of the pilots were certainly adventurous.
More recently, due to the SuperNanny nature of the mining companies that do work there, it’s pretty tame.
—–
Most of the mining companies now require two engines and two pilots for fixed-wing.
There were rumors that the same rule was in the offing for rotary.
Which would make the helicopter companies happy since it would double the number of machines in the air.
The constant whining by the mining companies about helicopter time would probably quadruple.
Yeah, I kinda jumped into it with some online friends the other day. They were talking about chiropractors and how much better they felt after an “adjustment”. I send them a URL to the series of articles on Quackwatch and begged them to PLEASE pay attention to the part about strokes and damaged spines.
And risk propositioning an undercover cop? No thanks.
Oh, c’mon: that happened in the eighties. What didn’t carry a risk of decapitation in the eighties?
Good to hear you’re okay, Ogvorbis.
chigau, I would expect 2 engines on the helicopters in that environment. Even back in ‘the old days’, (1980s), 2 engines and 2 pilots were required after dark over water. And that’s from oil field flying in the Gulf of Mexico.
Most of my pilots were Vietnam era trained. They liked the challenge of a pinnacle approach when people weren’t shooting at them.
I did fly with a pilot who took v@lium everyday because it just was too boring. Apparently dumbing down was his coping mechanism. Ahh, good times, good times;-)
My daughter’s math homework looks fine today except that she repeatedly wrote “peenis” instead of “pennies” :/
Brownian, I don’t think it’s a crime to ask for AUTO-rotation, but I’m behind (cough, cough) on the laws in my state.
++++++++++++++++++
“They were talking about chiropractors and how much better they felt after an “adjustment”. ”
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/chirochoose.html
Which is just what I wrote above. They can help. The basic procedures help. You act as if an adjustment, (thanks for the scare quotes), is tantamount to voodoo. Read your own links.
Only if rich confirmed bachelor Uncle Ned took a nose dive into the potato salad…
I think you guys would be interested in this little bit from Fred Clark’s blog about the American Center for Law and Justice, which is supposedly a sort of ACLU for evangelical Christians. He says:
He notes that apparently, Jay Sekulow, who runs the place, and his family are rather well-paid for this service. The quote below is from from this article.
Sailor, I did. I was not saying that there are not some chiropractors who can help with a limited number of particular problems. If chiropracty stuck to those things, I would not have an issue and neither would anyone else. And the “adjustment” is in scare quotes because it’s scary to have someone willing to claim that such maneuvers will cure… well, just about anything, doing things to the spines of people.
I just saw the last part of our President’s speech.
I wasn’t going to watch at all but I was channel surfing and it came up and I was entranced. He’s good, he’s very, very good. I’m not going to watch what all the pundits say about what I just watched.
Brownian – I’ve been on the Mindbender! Loved it. My favorite coasters are the ones with loops and curves.
Actually, right now, Wilkes Barrre is one of the least hard hit places. If, however, a panel blows out on the flood gates, or it tops the dike, the flood plain of Wilkes-Barre would be one of the hardest hit area. The levy is doing its job, as designed.
I’m glad someone got the reference.
I always thought it would’ve been fun to have Murder, She Wrote, and Diagnosis Murder to do a combined show. DVD could have investigated AL’s past and decides she is one of the great mass murderers of all time. And vice versa. Could have been really cheesy fun.
thesailor-
your spine and your muscles do not exist independently of each other, nor does spinal adjustment (to my knowledge) put disks back into place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erector_spinae_muscles
I think of chiropractic as something that accidentally gets a few things right for the wrong reasons, the same way a homeopathic prep that includes a shot of brandy will make you feel better.
Well, a third of chiropractors are really just glorified physiotherapists, and get results. But there is also a third that is openly anti-vaxx and adheres to a flawed mechanistic model of the causes of illness and pain (“misalignment”).
otrame, I understand about the woo. My chiro takes X-rays and wouldn’t fuck with someone who has obvious spinal injuries. He would refer them.
There are bad practitioners of medicine at every level. Don’t be hatin’ on the ones who do it right. Your nurse may have been right. She may have been trying to help a patient do it economically. Scaring your friend about one approach is not helpful.
We at Pharyngula Labs, and the Pharygula Saloon and Spanking Parlor (Patricia, Princess of Pulletettes, proprietor), always feel a tankard of grog, or a dirty glass of swill will help you over minor ailments. But then, we don’t feel our cures are anything other than Placebo, the wonder drug, as you sleep for a few days…
Hahahahahahahahaaaa. That’s exactly what I think of any time the old trope “women can get sex just by asking for it” comes up.
Thanks Nerd, Patricia; I needed some decompression and a laugh.
I’m the rooster so why am I still Pulleting?
+++++++++++++++
Rorschach, citation required. You’ve been incredibly wrong today about weight loss and gain today so I’m kinda doubting your medical advice/stats.
I’m so desperately afraid of heights I can’t ride those escalators in malls that hang out in the middle of the air with no walls on either side. Balconies? Forget it.
I realize that’s extreme and it’s a totally irrational phobia. But lord. . . this video is a screaming terror. It provoked a surprisingly vivid reaction in me; the same feeling I get when I find myself in a high open space and go into panic mode. Do. Not. Want.
It’s good to see others found it as stomach-churning as I did! How can anyone do that?
My fantasy page on ‘spinal adjustment’ that gives this to people in the bullets would read something like this:
Spinal adjustments:
. Don’t fix underlying problems, and don’t really ‘realign’ the spine. The claim is in no way supported by decent evidence. It’s just a standard sales technique chiropractors have developed. Diss the MD who also doesn’t (and sure, he hasn’t, if there was such an underlying problem, and if he just prescribes muscle relaxants), claim you do. Hope no one asks, wait, how does popping a joint realign it, exactly? Hope they think, well, it moved, that’s good, right? And that they continue to focus on that.
. Might feel kinda good. So does cracking your knuckles, mind, for some of us. Also, probably, by the time the chiropractor does that, he’s already massaged the hell out of you to get things loose enough to do it. And if you were tight, it’s a nice lil’ concrete-seeming thing that reassures you: I heard a pop, I can move, hallelujah.
. Might offer symptomatic relief, specifically for back pain. Possibly just because of see above, but anyway, sure, it might. But then, so, of course, do lots of other things that don’t carry the same risks.
. (Optional bullet) Came out of a now completely totally discredited layman’s conjecture about ‘subluxations’ being an underlying cause of virtually all illness. So if you meet some quack who still believes that shite, run far away, as you’re now on a whole new level of woo even from the already dodgy ‘may be worth it to help your back pain’ stuff.
Seriously, as per all of this: the huge absurdity here is the claim versus the evidence. Chiropractors just love that ‘fixing underlying problems’ claim. It’s just that, however. A claim. And one for which the evidence is, to put it very gently, sketchy.
I’m therefore seconding all those who say: go to someone who does massage. Same benefits, none of the risks, none of the woo. Oh, and if you really do have chronic problems, odds are pretty damned good that strengthening your back muscles with exercise is your actual solution.
Oh, also, Sailor, just how often does your chiropractor x-ray you? That might need its own page of bullets.
(/Not a doctor, don’t play one on the internet, but geez, do I even need to be one for this, exactly?)
Oooh, I love heights. But then, I also love confined spaces. (That aren’t revolving doors. Seriously, fuck them.). On the other hand, being on the ground and in crowds makes me fidgety and skittish.
My otherwise skeptical parents are getting into medical woo. Mostly at me. being chronically and mysteriously ill for a long-ass time has led them to try and bother me into shit like acupuncture. Sigh. At least the MRI machines don’t scare me.
kristinc:
Regarding today’s strip… what are the odds that Chris was knocking on Melody’s back door, so to speak?
skeptifem, of course they don’t exist independently. That’s why I wrote that they should be combined. One of my greatest gifts from chiros is that they taught me how to adjust myself.
I get a headache and I pop my neck and it goes away. My lower back is screaming and I do ‘wagging the tail’ and I can feel it click, click, click and my pain goes away and I can move normally.
Sometimes I’ve probably done something stupid like trying to raise the mainsail w/o the winch to prove I can keep up with the kids and my back spasms so hard I’m brought to my knees and whimpering. MD drugs help, getting my lumbar in alignment relieves it.
Grr.Link re chiros and x-rays should have been: http://scientopia.org/blogs/whitecoatunderground/2010/08/10/why-do-chiropractors-order-so-many-x-rays/
Also, re Rorschach’s statement: Sailor, I don’t know about the numbers, but chiropractory’s long association with antivax is widely-known. How many are in which camp re manipulations and subluxations,, I don’t precisely know. But the funny thing is: his granting that a third are now merely glorified physiotherapists sounds generous to the practice, in general, to me, on what evidence I do have, there.
For this much I do know: as of 2003, a solid majority were still saying, look, we can help with shit that’s not about your back, and still wanted to keep ‘subluxation’ around as a concept. Never mind that yeah, it’s total BS. See http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=9234 re those numbers.
(/… in contrast, as of 2010, via the Wiki that doth link all, we have this link from a UK chiropractic body which I’d call refreshingly forthright: ‘it is not supported by any clinical research that would allow claims to be made that it is the cause of disease’. But whether in eight years we go from that 77 percent who ‘teach a relationship between spinal subluxations and internal health’ to maybe a third now, even with some of their governing bodies finally coming out and saying stuff like that, well, that’d be nice, anyway.)
I watched this without sound on my iPad while my wife watched tv. I groaned a few times and she asked “Getting excited about something?” I replied “No. I’m trying not to fall down.”
The guy climbing up the antenna didn’t scare me (except maybe some of the transitions), but I find them terrifing looking down from a small aircraft. They’re like fingers of death pointing up at you with invisible cables splayed out for great distances
Um, yeah, I totes believe:
1. The “release” of 911 audio tapes has nothing to do with the approaching date, and it’s not at all a propaganda move by the gov’t to keep us scared ‘n’ jingoistic. Did I misread the NYT article, or did it really never state by whom the tapes and transcripts were released? Um, what? It certainly posed no questions about timing. Good lap dog.
2. The US gov’t has received a “specific and credible intelligence” that al Quaeda wants to blow up cars in US cities on the 10th anniversary of The Most Important Thing Evah That Changed Everything. I’m sure this intelligence is completely on the up and up, and totally different/scarier than any other intelligence they get every day. I’m also 100 percent confident the government didn’t just selectively release this to boost American fear and submission around the August Date, and that they would have made such a statement any time Specific and Credible Intelligence was gathered.
Fuck this country and the idiot
citizensconsumers that will believe every word of this and bend over accordingly.AJ Milne, that’s not exactly what I would call a peer-reviewed paper.
The X-Rays are to determine that there isn’t an obvious injury to the spinal bones. Do you also object when your doctor does blood tests? And X-rays? They do it to rule things out.
I’ve never said it was the route of disease, nor have my chiropractors. You erected a strawman, burned it to the ground, and it didn’t contain a single fact. I’m so sorry for your strawman.
Holy crap. I just spent an hour reading that comic only to remember why I don’t like reading comments like that (same reason I don’t like a lot of TV shows)…
I can’t understand what it’s like to have friends you hang out with IRL often, or a social scene… or parties… or stuff.
The closes approximation for me is work, which is work.
Hmmm… maybe Garfield is more my style. Just a guy and his cat.
Huh. So regular visits to chiropractors also renders you illiterate*?
More seriously: I didn’t say you did make such a claim. Nor that your chiropractor does. Can you actually read**? The point is: Rorscharch is granting a third are now ‘glorified physiotherapists’. I’m saying that seems generous, on the numbers I have re belief in said woo.
So no, pal, no strawman here. Your insinuation that there was, amusingly enough, however, now is one.
And yes, dear, those are facts. Chiropractors reporting what their own members report they believe strikes me as pretty fair evidence, and pretty salient, here.
(/Neener neener.)
(* and **/Honestly, guy, I’m just being cruel to be kind, here. But do please read what I say, not what you think gives you a rejoinder. I’m getting a mite sick of such nonsense, of late.)
O hai! Caught up with subthread 249 and the month of fucking August.
*steal*
Should you feel a need to enlarge your vocabulary, read this. It’s positively lovely, and I think it covers for all situations one might imagine.
Oh, German is actually harder that way. It has 4 cases x 3 genders x 2 numbers, but no less than three declensions for each adjective (at least they’re the same three for each): one for when it appears with a definite article, one for when it appears with an indefinite article, and one for when it appears without an article. And only five different endings in total for these 72 possibilities, so that almost everything looks the same and you have to pay real attention! I’m really glad it’s my mother tongue, so I don’t have to learn it.
Interestingly, German sort of compensates by treating “to be” as a verb, in that it goes with adverbs, not adjectives – and adverbs are marked by the lack of an ending, so they look like English adjectives. But I digress. :-) No, actually, I can’t resist: here‘s a blog post titled “Why German is strange”.
Hm. Caesar did sometimes make very long, artistically convoluted sentences that take 10 or 20 minutes to disentangle. Cicero, IIRC, not so much; he played with word order, for instance to make alliterations: Magno me metu liberabis! “From-a-great me (from-a-)fear will-you-deliver!”
Quelle surprise.
*steal*
Maybe he believes he’s speaking especially clearly. Austria’s most famous TV weatherwoman used to stress Satellitenbilder on the 5th syllable and less so on the 3rd one (normal would be just the 3rd one), and Fünftagesprognose on the 1st and the 5th one and less so on the 4th one (normal would be the 2nd and less so on the 5th). She has recently stopped that.
There will be (except I still haven’t booked any flights, and the € is currently falling faster than the $). The “No, no and no.” was a quote.
*advance hug* ^_^
Ankylosaurs (including ankylosaurids and nodosaurids) are thyreophorans, like stegosaurs. Tianyulong is a heterodontosaurid. Ceratopsians and pachycephalosaurs are marginocephalians. Marginocephalians and ornithopods are sister-groups, together forming the sister-group of Thyreophora, and all three together form the sister-group of Heterodontosauridae (simplifying somewhat). All together form Ornithischia.
Any clarity left? :-)
Tropical rainforests are very bad at dealing with fire, and fire doesn’t naturally occur there (because it’s just too wet). The wetter kinds of temperate forests, as found in western Europe, aren’t good at dealing with fire either (let alone the fact that there are no species that need fire to disperse), and fires are rare there.
Taiga does burn naturally, though AFAIK not as often as a dry North-American-interior forest.
:-)
Week saved.
^_^
Yes. I wrote that without access to my dino textbook which has the cladograms which help me keep things straight.
Personal experience is a single datum, and usually a poor-quality datum because of a number of issues, from placebo effect to cognitive dissonance (which, at some point or other in our lives, makes fools of us all). But, as AJ says, they talk about “fixing the underlying problem” but there is no evidence that they do so.
Still, I’ve had back troubles bad enough to completely cripple me (temporarily), so I do know how devastating the pain from such can be. In my case, the surgery to fix a) a couple of blown disks, at which time a previously undiagnosed scoliosis of my lumbar spine was partially straightened; and three years later b) a sacro-illiac joint that came apart (after 30 years of indications that it was a problem), I am biased in favor of “curing with steel”. In my case–barring a little residual inflammation the sciatic nerve that had been rubbed by and later actually pinched in the S-I joint, which is getting slowly better–the surgeon solved my problems.
This is, of course, an even more obvious case of YMMV than usual, but Sailor, when was the last time you actually saw a real doctor? Simply getting a diagnosis won’t force you to change your opinion of anything, and I can tell you from personal experience (caveats as mentioned above) that new techniques are being developed all the time.
The only scary part for me is just how dry and stilted the narrator’s voice is.
Fuck.
Listening to our teaparty licking governor who hates the federal government and thinks that every government function should be privatized so it’ll be more efficient and the first thing the asshat does is brag about working with the state delegation in Washington to make sure that the federal aid will flow quickly because Pennsylvania deserves the emergency funding, unlike those other states which don’t have it nearly as bad and he’s worried about the rail lines being out as they carry the sand and other materials needed for fracking the shit out of the Marcellus shale to get the gas out and other than that he’s just pointing out closed roads and talking about federal aid.
No. I will not go back and make that a coherent group of sentences. Enjoy my flow of (un)conscious.
I’ve been acrophobic all my life. The 14 foot stepladder at work frequently gets the better of me so yeah…I feel like a complete wuss.
Sailor,
Google is your friend, why should I do your work for you ? Although tbh, I have my doubts that a person who writes
would be convinced by any evidence.
Now here’s an assertion where a citation and evidence to support your claim is really needed. I’m not holding my breath.
I’m heading for bed. When I next converse with y’all, I will be minus 1.5 tooths and one abscess.
My new dentist told me that an abscess can be around for one to four years before pain manifests. Makes me wonder about my headaches over the last two years.
Anyway, g’night, all.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
To prove to the opossum that it really can be done.
otrame, I go to an MD, I’m lucky I have health insurance in the US.
I also know what they can do and what they can’t.
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AJ & Rorschach, you have yet to provide links.
I know that feeling. I’ve been going to bed early to catch up on sleep. But I have been waking up after about 6 hours (instead of 7.5), and not getting back to sleep, ending with a continuing net deficit. At least tomorrow is my Friday, so early in, early out at work.
Rorschach, everyone did my work for me IRT fat & skinny.
They provided you links to all kinds of older papers and new research peer-reviewed papers.
You, however, never responded with a single reference. And never admitted you were wrong.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Yeah, just because you’re a doctor doesn’t mean I’ll take your word for it.
++++++++++++++
IRT chiros; You asserted a fact regarding percentages. You refuse to provide links to back it up. We rely on facts here, don’t we?
Yikes, I hate heights and that video gave me flashbacks to my accident. I fell off of a 60 foot ladder. Was only on the second rung, mind.
Never been the same since.
In any event, someone running for the leadership of the conservative party here in Alberta says she will fund chiropractic :
That’s close to 10% of pop. successfully treated?? Not only that, but WTF?? How does covering under health care put less stress on health care?
Does she fucking forget that everyone here gets free health care, whether you are rich or poor? What does beinjg poor have to do with access to health care, it is the same for everyone – free, too! Massage is covered, as well.
Actually, she seems rather progressive in attitude about education and health care.
Fuck this, I’m gonna go climb a tall tower, and when I panic and fall off, maybe I’ll hit a chiropractor and break my fall.
So, hey, like, I am totally not a doctor, right. Just to be clear on that. I had a roommate in university who regularly had some sort of issue with his back that was easily visible as a misalignment around L5 or L6. He talked me into ‘adjusting it’ with a short sharp compression on either side and the misalignment would disappear. No massage, just a stress to the system and things changed their position enough to settle where they should be. I have no idea if this was safe, but it was effective, he went from hobbling to bicycling in the space of seconds and on numerous occasions.
This is not an endorsement of chiropractors, but it seems pretty plain that there is something other than massage involved in what they do. Or at least there was for this particular individual. The thing that really scares me though is that a complete noob lay person could perform the actions and produce the same effect. That more than anything scares me about chiropracty.
Bugger bugger bugger. Doc still doesn’t know what’s wrong with me. Off for more Xrays now; plus have booked in two different specialist appointments. Argh. At least they’re all “non-urgent”, but that means waiting 2-6 weeks.
So apparently believers are nicer? Its certainly news to me!
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/gods-truth-believers-are-nicer-20110908-1jzrl.html#comments
I’ve never seen a chiropractor, but then I’ve never had anything go wrong that would/should involve one.
If I had money to burn I might get a massage some times for muscles tension. I some times hurt myself because apparently I do not feel any pain at all when damaging tendons (I had a very bad injury in my foot and didn’t realize it at all until the day I got up to get out of bed and fell completely down because my foot had just completely stopped articulating at all). Apparently I had injured it falling down weeks before and continued to run on it until it… just quit.
Some one suggested a chiropractor for my torn hip flexor, which I thought was weird (what will they do with that?) I thought it’d probably be fine if I just gave it time to heal.
Now if a chiro could help this pain in my hands that’d be great… but I’m more swayed by the idea of peppers. Worked for my grandmother…
In a world where proclaiming disbelief at all under any circumstances except as a part of testimonial while praising your newfound belief… I smell confirmation bias.
Here Sailor, since you seem too lazy to look it up yourself :
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7884327?dopt=Abstract
http://www.worldchiropracticalliance.org/Positions/vaccines.htm
Australian Chiropractic Associations statement on how chiropractic is meant to work :
http://chiropractors.asn.au/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Hows_Does_Chiropractic_Work_&Template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=9216
The video was causing me involuntary sphincter contractions. They claim that “free climbing” is OK with OSHA. So much for the strangling effect of regulation so much loved by the TeaPartiers.
I’m surprised to see that no one else has mentioned that at the beginning of the video they first refer to a “gided” tower, then to a “guided” tower. I’m pretty sure they mean “guyed”, as in not freestanding but supported by guy wires.
I just got back from Grand Canyon with my wife and two of our boys, an 8- and an 11-year old. We hiked 6 miles on the Bright Angel Trail, 3 down, 3 up (obviously). the wife and I are fine with heights, but it was a little stressful watching the kids walk on a four-foot-wide trail with no rails and a sheer drop-off on one side.
Uhhhh… that should read:
In a world where proclaiming disbelief at all under any circumstances except as a part of testimonial while praising your newfound belief is considered not nice… I smell confirmation bias.
When the Sears Tower was being built in Chicago while I was in high school, I found a way to sneak up to the top floor, which did not have its windows installed yet. (These were pre-terrorism paranoia days, and we could do stuff like that.) It was quite a thrill to stick my head out and look down….I can’t imagine being the guys who had to build that thing.
Damn, my legs felt weak watching that. And those rods he’s holding on to while climbing up look pretty flimsy from here.
Holy moly! I only have to see the still picture on that video to know that I DO NOT WANT to watch it. :)
Oh man, my little sister is still evacuated, and the river has just peaked. She posted photos of the area, in Binghamton NY, and it’s definitely got to be inside their apartment by now. This sucks: they had this apartment in a beautiful area right by the river, and only about a month ago moved from the 2nd floor apartment to the 1st floor. At least they are staying in a friend’s guest room instead of sleeping on a cot at a shelter, but uprooting your life–and with a tiny new baby in tow!–is super stressful. I can hear it in her voice. They’re just waiting to find out what the damage is, and worrying about whether their absentee landlord (lives in NJ, natch) will do a damn thing about it.
Fuckin’ A… just had to share. Thanks for listening.
I was slightly sucked into the woo when I was pregnant with my daughter and I went to a chiropractor for a while. I had (still have) some sciatic pain and it was giving me a particularly hard time. I don’t believe for a minute in the subluxation crap and I would never go back to that particular chiro — he was a fullashit quack of the finest water– but having those adjustments did wonders for my lower back pain. I’m not ruling out the possibility that it was just the effect of being stretched out 15-20 minutes at a time on a long tilted table with a hole for my giant belly but I would go in hobbling and come out feeling fluid and comfortable.
SallyStrange:
Oh, shit, I’m sorry to hear that! My own sister (Ithaca) was telling me upstate NY was getting more flooding today. Sigh. Does she have renter’s insurance? I never did, and I’d imagine most people don’t.
No, little sister has no renter’s insurance. Like most renters, including myself. Of course, I don’t live in a flood plain.
*sigh*
What is this spelunking couch I have been reading about. That is just silly.
Upstate NY is being hit like CRAZY! Margaretville is “gone,” in my mother’s words. Prattsville also, and Sherburne…
Somebody posted a video illustrating before and after the hurricane in upstate NY on my facebook feed. Since I grew up there, a lot of my friends are being hit hard by this.
Assorted complaints about health care in the US:
1. We are STILL low on critical chemotherapy drugs. A friend of mine is not getting doxil because of the shortage. She’s getting treated at a major institution that should be able to bully drug companies out of anything they have, so they probably really don’t have it. How can this be happening in a first world country?
2. There are massive cuts to spending on health care going on in PA. (Probably in other states, but this is the one I know for sure.) Like 50% cuts. This does not bode well for the future of high quality medical care in the state and probably the US. Despite what conservatives would have you believe, it takes money to run major hospitals. Services will be cut because of this. Which means more people using the ER instead of primary care, spending more money, etc. It’s not going to save any money and mortality will go up.
3. Same with the cuts in medicare reimbursement. Sorry, we can’t just become more efficient or whatever the conservatives claim that everyone except for for profit companies should do. Health care is going to suffer.
Maybe it is time to do the thing that people keep threatening and skip the country. This one really seems to be going down the tubes fast.
I’ll have no truck with chiropractic woo. No, it won’t re-align any “energy.” No, it won’t cure colic, asthma, or cancer. It’s an outrage that chiropractors routinely get away with claiming they can treat atherosclerosis, cancer, and COPD (yes, I’ve seen just such claims here in the US). They should be compelled by federal law to disclose that neck manipulation can lead to stroke or paralysis.
Yet, like several others here, a chiropractor has alleviated intractable and hobbling back pain for me. I’ve only had it done twice, but believe me, I needed something. No, it was definitely not the placebo effect. Both times I went to the chiropractor I was bent over and having to mince (shut up right now:) to stop sharp, shooting pains from traveling around my lower back and down my hips and legs. For all the world it felt like my skeleton had skipped a gear tooth and was grinding against itself.
After a few “cracks” to my lower back and hips, I was able to stand up straight instantly and the pain was gone. Really. No amount of prior hope (in fact, I was pessimistic) about pain alleviation could have done this. I scoff at almost everything, and this was a desperation measure.
Whatever the guy did, obviously, had a physical effect. No idea whether it pushed something into/out of place, whether the harsh manipulation broke up a muscle spasm, or whatever. But it was a real, physical effect, and it was immediate and complete relief. I’m extremely curious to know exactly what was going on, and yes, I’m still very leery of any chiropractors as I’m not sure they even know what they’re doing and what the risks to me are. But this worked.
SallyStrange:
If your sister’s stuff has been ruined, email me to remind me to ask Mom and Sis if they’ve kept the baby clothes from my niece and nephew (likely sitting in a closet). If so, I’m sure they can be put in the mail.
Oh, right, I forgot: Insurance companies. Private insurance companies have a built in conflict of interest. Private companies have an ethical duty to maximize profitability for their investors. To do this, they must minimize payouts. Therefore, in some senses, their ethical duty is to screw their customers and to do it when they are at their most vulnerable. Dump them. Single payor government based health insurance may be unwieldy but at least it isn’t set up to inevitably screw people by its very nature.
Meh. It’s basically just climbing a ladder after an elevator ride.
Face-palm idiocy of the day, collected from a site discussing how to remove rust and organic compounds from old cast-iron pots:
And so’s your brain. Too bad it’s electrically inert.
Aw, that is so sweet, Josh. Thanks, I’ll be sure to ask about baby clothes.
Dianne, I couldn’t agree more. Administering health care via private health care companies is highly illogical.
DDMFM:
Wouldn’t the alliterative content be the same if it were “Magno metu me liberabis!”or “Me magno metu liberabis”?*
Meh. Maybe I just felt personally stumped by Cicero.
*I am very sure that my punctuation is completely fucked up here, somehow.
Post-Irene hint to those affected by flooding: If you lose power, and therefore lose refrigerated/frozen food to spoilage, don’t forget to check your homeowners insurance to see if you’re covered. In fact, in my experience, it’s always good to ask about even stuff you’re pretty sure you’re not covered for: You’d be surprised how often you’ll be surprised.
Seeing Binghamton in the news makes me wistful for my grad school days. IIRC the university campus is reasonably safe from rising water; my condolences to those whose homes and offices are not.
A ladder to outer space.
The survey of chiropractors’ beliefs, Sailor, while I gave you the pop media link discussing it above, is clearly cited at that very link. McDonald W (2003), How Chiropractors Think and Practice: The Survey of North American Chiropractors. Institute for Social Research, Ohio Northern University. Note also that this is cited by RationalWiki, in discussing the prevalence of these beliefs among chiropractors, here. And in SkepticReport, here. It’s hardly obscure.
… granted, however, you could, I guess, argue the author (a chiropractor) had an ax to grind, wanted that result. He discusses it at some length here, for what it’s worth, says, more or less, look, I pulled in a school not associated with chiropractic to help me with the data crunching in order to try to keep it honest. Results also made it into a discontinued Elsevier’CAM’ journal (see here). Dunno if that was peer-reviewed, honestly, tho’, in fairness, I do tend to see those as flaky/suspect unless proved otherwise.
… all of which is to say: this is, at least, a chiropractor himself with what he’d call middle-of-the-road views of this saying, listen, a lot of us agree: I asked, and a whole lot of the profession told me subluxation is alive and well as a belief–specifically, that it’s still one of their beliefs.
And I think it’s safe to say from this even if you have suspicions re these precise results, it’s not an unusual view, at the very least. Nor is the general picture in the skeptical community of this distribution at odds with this at all. Re misalignment, at least, Rorschach was hardly telling you anything wacky. Note that calling it a third would probably be underestimating. Whether that many are still on about vaccines, again, as I very clearly stated: I don’t know.
(/Tho’ I did find a study… holding a sec, as I’m at the link limit in this one…)
For any one that cares… I was talking about the weirdest argument (that I have heard) about a young earth. I posted the wrong link earlier. But alas, ’twas found.
It is the last comment here: (excuse me for my blog whoring. I… I just want validation and someone to love me.)
http://spinozasbicycle.blogspot.com/2011/08/for-my-virtual-friend-gus.html
Very odd stuff. Basically, this person claims that we date the earth according to the geological record, and that RID is flawed because it is somehow based on this. It is the most tangled straw man I have ever seen. It… it is beautiful.
Re vaccines:
CMAJ, 2002. Canadian chiropractic students vary in how many say they oppose vaccination. Rises with years in the college, up to 29.4 of fourth year students in general.
BMJ, 2002. Small phone survey on whether the MMR vaccine is a good idea. Almost half of the homoeopaths and nearly a fifth of the chiropractors advised against it.
And, historically, the antivax thing has long been very much a part of chiropractic. There’s stuff all over on this. No one’s trying to sell you a bill of goods, here. See Pediatrics, here. A full PDF is available free, on this one.
Oh, and Bill, Le Dauphin –
Previously, on TET. . .
You were asking if the narrator (I prefer narratrix) of the audio version of Charlie Stross’s Saturn’s Children looked as luscious as she sounds. I wondered the same thing when I first listened to the book, and lo and behold, Bianca Amato is lovely. Google will doubtless provide many other examples.
I remember being absolutely bowled over with her voice acting on that book. It was only the second audiobook I’d ever listened to (first was Sagan’s Demon-Haunted World). . . I had no idea the power a good voice actor could bring to a text. She transported me. I wrote to Stross after listening to it and after reading scads more of his books to ask him what he thought of the quality of audiobook adaptations of his work. He said he had no opinion as he couldn’t be bothered to listen to them, and someone else in Big Publishing arranged all that.
I gotta go check the comet for anarchists.
Oh and re anecdotes, mine:
I’ve been to chiropractors. It’s how I happen to know what I do of them. Got curious, over the arc of dealing with ’em, over several years. I’ll get to that in a mo…
First one I went to was an old guy my parents took me to when I had back spasms, back in the home town. That’s how I got onto that track in the first place. Just assumed that was what you did for back spasms. There was this chiropractor guy, and that was his job.
And that old guy, he was effective. Thumped the hell out of me for some time, sometimes with this big thing like, I swear, an industrial scale vibrator. At the end of this, he’d do the crunch thing, and I’d stand up, generally mobile again, not necessarily vastly comfortable, but vastly better, anyway. So, generally, good impression. Remember: I don’t exactly have journals at my fingertips. I’m probably 14 or somethin’, in the pre-net age, in a small town. Also, those spasm things can be fucking scary when you don’t know what it is–especially that first time–feels like something back there has spontaneously welded itself to something it shouldn’t have. Scary, and not much fun, and so you’re grateful when you can just move again. Oh, and yes, he did say: try stretching more, work those things out a bit, back there; it’ll forestall such trouble in the future.
Anyway. Second such practitioner, later, on, university years, another city. I go in ‘cos I’ve had another spasm, and before anything happens physically (which is the same deal, by the way: massage like hell then crack) he’s all about how geez, yeah, I can help you with that thing, but your spine is crooked, guy, I have to fix it, it could do all these terrible things to you including asthma and depression and mebbe rickets ‘n scurvy and halitosis and AIDS*–fuck I don’t recall all what else, and it’s gonna take many, many visits–keep coming back for like a dozen times, it’s terribly important.
It already smells fishy. I’m a biology student, now. Also, I’ve had pretty regular medical attention, I’m pretty physically active, and it seems to me if there was something that wacky about my spine, someone else probably would have noticed something by now. And, um, pal, I know what a muscle spasm is; seems to me you’re hearing a whinny and assuming it’s zebras. So I do one more visit, and in the meanwhile, I’m asking around, doing some reading, and now I’ve a good med library at my disposal, and I start hearing about the woo some of these guys sell and buy, and I start putting it together, figuring uh huh, this guy’s full of it; none of this makes much sense. I hear about how there’s branches, get this picture maybe the old guy who helped me before is one of those has tossed the crazier stuff away or just never bothered bringing it up in front of me (I wasn’t paying the bills, then)… Anyway, I break it off, tell him no thanks.
But wait, there’s more…
It’s a decade later. Now I’ve got kids. Spasm out probably lifting a heavy kid out of a car. Now I know what these things are, but they’re not much fun, and I figure, okay, I know some of ’em are nuts, but I’ll still take a chiro if I can get one who’s not so full of it; I remember it working; let’s try that anyway. Even if it’s just the massage, fine, I need a massage. Not really sure what the hell else you do, a massage therapist doesn’t occur to me, and in the pain involved, it’s not like I’m really thinking about it too clearly. Just want this fucking fixed.
So I find another chiro, try him. Aaaaand he’s full of it. Same song and dance, yet again. Hell, maybe even more elaborate, actually. Huge questionnaire, please tease out anything might have gone wrong with your health ever so I can blame it on your spine. Which he then proceeds to do. Subluxation nonsense fucking galore. Videos. The crazy quack machine they attach to work out where the ‘subluxations’ are. Guy was a classic, I kid you not.
I go home, thinking, fuck, you just can’t get good help these days. Then finally think actually to call my MD who says, more or less, geez, kid, did you just fall off the turnip truck or what? There’s drugs, there’s massage therapists, there’s rest. Oh, and exercise, bud. Which I’ve been trying to do, ever since. Oh, and also got a decent physiotherapist to take a look who told me stuff a bit more specific and useful–she figures I’ve got a bit of a vulnerability to sprain on one rib near the spine back there, probably from some old injury, and now it’s all about managing it, keeping limber, keeping strong. Which, by the way, has worked for years.
So I can’t vouch personally that the manipulations–which I’ve had–work on their own. Never experienced it that way. It was always pound then crack. For what it’s worth. And I’m not the least bit surprised about those survey results re the woo. As, in my sample of three, I got two live ones…
Said study ends here, however. As I’m sure as hell conducting no more direct research of this nature on chiros.
(*/I kid. Just on those last few. I think. But it was quite the laundry list, as I recall.)
Now, I don’t like heights, but if a gun were put to my head and I was told I had to choose between climbing that tower and crawling into a darkened cave and wedging myself between walls of immovable rock, I’d choose the tower in a femtosecond.
I had horrible, disgusting, debilitating back spasms for 17 years, starting when I was 35. I tried drugs, I tried acupuncture, I tried chiro. Nothing worked. Until I found out accidentally that I had “atypical osteoporosis”; when X-rayed I measured I found I had lost 2 inches, and that I had the hips of a 75-year-old woman. Fosamax took care of the latter, and my back pain.
Well, almost. There’s just one more thing. . .
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA.
Lulz troll is lulz.
herbert,
Yes. People are afraid of things. That really says nothing more than, they are afraid of what they are afraid of. Nobody is going to ban you. You just aren’t that important.
Wow…and I thought using a stepladder was scary. This makes the dudes who paint the Golden Gate bridge look like pikers.
This reminds me of an old joke, where, in the punchline jesus says to Peter:
“I can see your house from here!”
Tip. Waitress. Veal.
“I had no idea the power a good voice actor could bring to a text. She transported me. I wrote to Stross after listening to it and after reading scads more of his books to ask him what he thought of the quality of audiobook adaptations of his work. He said he had no opinion as he couldn’t be bothered to listen to them, and someone else in Big Publishing arranged all that.”
Very sensible opinion. It’s the power of the argument that matter- or ought to matter, not the power of the voice.
Back to original subject- why are we more scared of a thousand foot fall than a hundred foot, or of a hundred foot than a ten foot? They are all about as lethal in practice.
Because I was looking for American Superheros on that other thread, I found on IMDb the news that Tim Burton is making a movie of Dark Shadows for 2012.
With Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins.
OH.MY.GOD.
Being the guy on top is bad, but the one coming behind him, he’s the one that needs to be most scared.
Either he’ll get pee on him or in the worst case, an entire person falling on top of him.
Man that video got me sweating like a pig, and I’m not afraid of heights at all.
Roger:
So, The Godfather would have been just as good a movie with an actor from local repertory theater as with Marlon Brando?
Every movie or play is just as good as the next, cast doesn’t matter, as long as the words are spoken?
Come on. And piss off.
Sheezis. Is 1 a.m Eastern US time the Magic Trolling Hour?
For the same reason we’re equally horrified by dullards who use 1,000, 500, 100, and 50 words.
Maybe it’s just because I recently saw Best of Tobias Fünke, but I giggled.
Josh re: herbertisawesome @187
What the fuck was that?
coward? ban? Caine?
What thread did I miss?
herbertisawesome has already been banned, for similarly infantile displays. It’s tohellwithyourturtle back again for more idiocy.
chigau:
I don’t think you missed anything, leastwise anything I noticed. It’s probably just another case of starting the engine, hearing it turn over slowly, and only waking up to the way it really sounds after it revs up.
To wit –
Fap.
Fap.
fap (sputter)
fap fap
fap
fap fap (becack!) fap.
Fap. . fap. . .fap fap fap fap fap Frrrrraaaap!
fapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapf.
Yeah, it should be the other way around. The farther you fall, the more time you have to position yourself to land on your feet! I wonder, though, is it better to bend your knees slightly and roll, or keep your legs straight and stiff?
Weird. Most trolls here seem to have an axe to grid or a topic to spout about. That one is just random invective.
I never thought I was afraid of heights until I stood near the edge of one of the huge Yosemite cliffs. At a certain point I could not make myself approach closer while standing up, and took to lying on my stomach to look down over the edge. And then I had this weird physical illusion that I was going to fall anyway – my body would somehow tilt down headfirst & feet up, despite the fact that I was lying full-length on flat, solid rock. Very odd sensation. And to make it stranger, at an official lookout from a similar height with a railing, I was perfectly OK. Brains is weird.
Just watching the video gives me anxiety. I noticed my legs and fist where clenched when he was near the top. You couldn’t pay me enough to even get out of the elevator at 1600 ft.
I first remember tohellwithyourturtle showing up on the Mabus threads to complain at great length about how we were all super evil and OMG JUST AS BAD AS MABUS!!!!11 Maybe xe’s still sore about that and has noticed that xe’s not gaining any ground, so xe’s resorted to incoherently spewing obnoxious crap.
I think that the higher the fall, the longer you have to contemplate your impending doom, which has to add to the scare factor. I don’t know if you can fall from high enough to come to any level of acceptance with your fate before you hit the ground.
At about 5 and a half minutes, “He checks on lightning conditions.” Oh yes, PERFECT time to do that.
Tohellwithyourconceptofawesome, if you do not want to comment on this blog, there is something you can do the is easier than begging to be banned. But it will take some self control. Do not post on this blog.
Simple.
But why does it seem that you are to juvenile do do this?
@ Sally
Hi Sally, thanks for your comments in this regard. I agree with you on the outcome of the mentality that favours private cars so strongly. As regards the causes, they are many and varied and very often there is no ill intention at all.
More a case of unconsidered macho privilege. I work in this field (town and masterplanning), so spend much of my working day in frustration trying to explain the basics (that you so clearly understand).
I get into arguments with a privileged, car driving minority, who get to make the decisions concerning everybody’s built environment. “But we are ALL pedestrians! Only a few drive cars…” I am slowly winning people over. The more astute minds realise where it is all going – even as the obtuse clamour to get bigger cars.
My suggestion to solve the problem… Everyone involved in the design of the built environment, particularly transport systems, should be made to go without a car. Priorities will soon change and we can all get out of the mugs game.
I could go on and on but I’ll stop before I start to rant.
@ CJO
“pre-christian gnostics”
Sorry CJO, I did not cite the quotation in the previous thread. I am not that au fait with the gnostics. (Though they are very high on my to-do list.) The question of a “Saviour” among the pre-christian Pagans would be a lot easier for me to answer. Here is the piece that I specifically refer to:
(The above by Gilbert Murray. You can obtain a free copy of his book here. Linky. Any suggestions for further reading would be appreciated.)
@Dhorvath, you have misunderstood. Dr Sainsbury-Salis’ research is specifically on the neurochemistry involved in weight loss. Her advice to eat whatever you want is strictly limited to a narrowly defined situation. To reiterate – IF you are losing weight deliberately by mild calorie restriction plus exercise, AND you find yourself on a plateau AND you feel very hungry AND you feel lethargic AND you feel cold THEN eat whatever you want for a short time. Just for one meal, or perhaps as much as a day or two. Then go back to your usual plan.
There are indeed other people who advocate eating whatever you want all the time, but that’s not what I was talking about.
ohgoddihatefoodpoisoningsomuchuurrrrgghhh
In re chiropractors and back pain, I’ve kept my sciatic from giving me any major flak for several years now by doing a few yoga poses daily whenever it feels stiff or twingey. So yeah, it’s not like I can even say the chiro was a necessity as such (although it would have been difficult to start doing yoga for the first time in the 3rd trimester, I’m sure).
Hairhead- very good point. I have a similar panic responsr to caves that I do to heights.
@ Lynna
Just so that you do not think that the craziness you speak of is only a USAian phenomenon, consider the following :
Judge “Moegoe” Mogoeng is appointed as top judge in South Africa. He is an apologist for rapists and has a penchant for blaming the victim. At least the menz love him.
(We are not off to a good start.)
Link:Zuma appoints controversial Judge Mogoeng to top post
I’ve seen a crossover between Murder, She Wrote and Magnum, PI. Jessica Fletcher had to help Magnum get out of jail. The Pft! tells me the episode was called “Magnum on Ice”.
On the video: I’ve seen it before. What really made my palms sweaty, were the related videos of those crazy Russian kids.
The thing about the video is, it looks WAY scarier than it is in real life due to the distortion of the video camera. It’s a head-mounted camera with a fisheye lens, so things that are close and in the center (like the tower as he’s climing up) look huge, while things that are even a little further away look tiny. Note that the tool bag looks like it’s 30 feet away, yet comes up with only two pulls of his arms.
Some hikers I know do videos like this. Search on Youtube for “gopro pov” and you’ll find a bunch of examples (the music is awful though). Long shots look fairly normal, but it makes every ridgeline look like a knife-edge with a death cliff on each side :)
Damn, I can never keep up with TET these days.
For some reason, ‘A Bad Case of the Dates’ has held my attention over the last few days. No idea why. I stumbled across this one though:
http://www.abadcaseofthedates.com/2009/11/twilight-twi-not-so-bright.html
I like it.
When I first saw this video (a while back) I (as I tend to do) tried to find out the context for it. It turns out that it was originally posted by the site listed at the beginning (The Online Engineer) but then taken down within a few days after it became unexpectedly popular, and the anonymous friend of the site owner featured in the video feared for his job. The site owner then took down the video, and later took down the post explaining why he’d taken down the video. But during the few days it was up, many people copied it, and it’s been spreading around the net ever since (this was over 5 years ago, I think).
If folks are curious, I (or preferably someone else) can dig up the actual Wayback Machine entries with the old posts on them.
To me, this is much more impressive: Empire State Building Construction Stock Footage
Arghhhh, I can’t believe that the fact that Rick Perry executed 234 as Governor of Texas got applause at the GOP debate. Okay, I can believe it, but sill it’s disgusting.
Me and my friends used to get stoned and climb a comm tower near our hometown. It wasn’t a tall as the one in the video, only about 120m, but it was on top of a small mountain so the view was pretty amazing. I got pretty hairy climbing up a tower with no harness and stoned as a six day camel. I also climbed a 290m tower near Changsha, China. That’s was with a harness and an experienced guide (the father of one of my students), but no elevator to take us most of the way, I had a little puke about 3/4 of the way up.
@ First ~
Sordid. You must remember though that Bush used to crack jokes about the people he had murdered by his state.
Sending up the squidsignal here – need some help from those versed in the global warming debate.
I’ve been head down, bum up finishing my novel, and I’m stuck on one scene, a dinner party where the female protagonist does a takedown of a Jeremy Clarkson type over his GW denial.
The protagonist is an academic in the humanities, so smart, but not science-based. She can be assumed to have done a bit of reading around the subject.
Which studies could she use, summarised in a sentence or two, for the smackdown? I’ve read some websites myself, but have just come away more uncertain over what to use. It’s probably because I don’t count any deniers among my acquaintance, so it’s not an argument I’ve had to have.
You can email me at [my nym]atyahoo.co.uk if you don’t want to clog up the thread. But please help – I’m desperate…this is the final scene standing between me and the end of this damn book!
I think that the influence on Jezza, if any, of quoting studies disproving his point, would just be just more stubbornly persisting in his opinion. As much as I like Top Gear, I disagree with him and his ilk on just about everything.
Good morning
Went with the little one for her check-up and she did fine. It was a nice change to have a kid cooperating with the MD for once. For her sister I got used to tape her at home so I can demonstrate that yes, the kid is indeed able to speak in near-perfect coherent sentences that add up to whole stories.
Well, afterwards we went to the McDonalds that’s next to the medical centre (a very clever move) as it is our “tradition”. They are not very keen on burgers, but they serve sugar-sweet cupcakes. Nothing against an occaisonal treat.
I noticed that they’d put up a big board informing you about the nutrirional value of their products.
But they pulled a clever trick:
They give you the calories per 100g/ml, not per serving. So on that board a coke and a garden salad have the same low calorie amount…
Chiropractics
In Germany they are common under the name of osteopaths. They are very popular with young mother with collicing babies. They “heal” their problems by softly touching the baby. Magic instant cure!
I don’t argue. There’s no way having a rational dicussion with an exhausted person who has just “witnessed” a miracle healing and spent a lot of money on it.
I’m always wondering on how much of the change is really there and whether or not the fact that somebody touches the baby calmly, speaking in a calm voice positively radiating peace and comfort gets the baby to relax.
I find the “main article” on Chirobase pretty balanced:
click
They agree that Spinal Manipulative Therapy is indeed helpful and working and is not only practised by chiropractics but also by physiotherapists and other health care providers. But that especially in the USA, chiropractics are the most accessible for the general public.
This might explain where they get their good reputation from: Just like the occasional part of TCM or household remedies, they get something right.
herbertisawesome
Another piece of evidence for the hypothesis that people who call themselves awesome seldomly are.
Brother Ogvorbis
I hope you’re doing well and have a swift recovery
Stupid Judges
Another set of stupid German Judges has upheld the right of the catholic church to fire employees for “immoral conduct”. The comment on the crime by 99% of the population is “Congratulations, I’m so happy for the both of you, when is the big day?”
Yeeee-es, I’m talking about evil people getting married a second time while somehow working for the catholic church (and in healthcare it is by now almaost impossible not to do so).
And yes, this is after the European Court of Human Rights has struck down such rulings a number of times
tielserrath
No single studies, but there’s always Potholer’s Youtube channel who probably covers every claim about AGW and gives the adequate studies in the information, so you’d have them handily matched
I have a conflict of interest here: I am tired, I need a shower, the flat looks like Pompeii and I want to sew.
Well, I guess I’ll be a good girl.
Erm, this report in “Der Spiegel” seems to suggest that the person in fact got his termination on the grounds of remarrying after divorce reversed by the court ? So, the court didn’t really “uphold” the right of the church to fire employees, did it ? Religious employers still have that power in principle, but as you say, the European courts take a dim view of this, and so did this particular federal court. You know, by declaring the guy’s sacking unlawful. Not exactly “upholding”, is it.
Good morning thread! Damn it feels like forever.
I hope all are well and I’m sending cake and big bear hugs to anyone that needs ’em.
Anyway, work has been pure hell– there hasn’t been a day this week that I haven’t put in over 9.5 hours (with no break). It’s been so stressful that I’m almost glad that my car has broken down this morning, even though I can’t afford to fix it, ‘cos now I have an excuse not to go in.
*sigh*
On a more positive note, my little sister’s wedding is tomorrow. I finally bought my bridesmaid’s dress– it’s moss green and it looks sharp. I’m really excited for her and this should be hella fun. :)
Take a shower, sew, clean up. Cleaning up before sewing is pointless as there will be more mess. But taking a shower is important.
Really? In the US, chiropractic and osteopathic medicine are two entirely different things. For the most part osteopathy is med school with more emphasis on holistic approaches. They are accredited and treated by insurance companies and hospitals the same way that MDs are (there are osteopathic surgeons, for example, and DOs have the same hospital privileges as MDs).
…and I just looked it up, and found that osteopathy took two very divergent branches. The one I just described is the predominant one in the US, and the other branch more like what you described is more common in other countries. Looks like the woo-filled stuff concentrated itself in one branch, and the other turned into more mainstream medicine with tight regulation. I’ve had DOs as my primary care physician for about 10 years, and the only difference I’ve seen from MDs is that the DOs spend more time figuring out my physical problems in context of the rest of my life and give me a little more leeway in getting that taken care of first.
Audley – sorry about the work. And the car- hope it isn’t something fatal for it. Hooray for the wedding, though!
Carlie,
Thanks. :)
Work has been crazy ‘cos of the weather/the flooding* and because we’re severly understaffed and I’ve taken on supervisor duties until we can fill the position that has been recently vacated (which means I’m doing two jobs right now). I’ve been offered the supe job and I’ll prolly take it just so shit can get back to normal.
As for my car: I’m pretty sure that it’s an O2 sensor, so I should be able to have it repaired once I can afford it.
Anyway, yay for my sister!
*I swear, if the Thruway closes down one more time, I’m gonna hurl.
Looks dangerous? Is dangerous:
http://www.dslreports.com/r0/download/1204940~eb3faf2e48685149b51ad2f5d98c7d8c/Wireless.jpg
Anyone read Daylight Atheism?
Ebonmuse put up an interesting post about Terry Prachett today – http://www.daylightatheism.org/2011/09/never-quote-discworld-to-an-atheist.html – apparently some Catholic apologist is trying to tell him he shouldn’t end his life when he wants to do so because his characters wouldn’t agree with it or some such.
beer-bust at the moontower!
I notice “college professor” isn’t on that list of dangerous jobs.
Born to be Viral: Robot octopus shakes your hand
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2011/09/born-to-be-viral-robot-octopus-shakes-your-hand.html
Scour Earth for traces of intelligent aliens http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128294.100-scour-earth-for-traces-of-intelligent-aliens.html
Fleet of hybrid airships to conquer Arctic http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/09/arctic-airships.html
Near-death experiences may be triggered by serotonin http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128294.900-neardeath-experiences-may-be-triggered-by-serotonin.html
Australian Chiropractic Association, as quoted by Rorschach above
Fail.
Double fail.
AJ
Yeah I can handle the heights when actually climbing, or skiing or whatever but watching that = palm sweat.
I guess it’s the added exposure from not having half of your area covered by the rock wall you are climbing.
@66
I haven’t done much spelunking, just a bit on the Idaho side of the Tetons. I’m pretty damn claustrophobic but surprisingly didn’t have any issues even in the tight spaces in the cave. Not sure it’s something I’d make into my primary thing to do, but I’d definitely do it again.
@79 Markita Lynda, healthcare is a damn right
Rappelling off climbs was frequently the thing that scared me the most. You are completely relying on your gear at that point. Jumaring up ropes on aid climbs was another. Couple times in Zion with my ropes grinding on that sandstone still haunt me.
@93 rob
Never Climbed the tower, went there once while driving out to Jackson but I was solo. Those dihedrals look like they’d be a lot of fun. And yes having pro definitively helps with the lunch. Soloed the Grand Teton once and though the Owen Spalding route is pretty easy, the exposure is huge. There were a few moments where I felt the strong urge to puke everything I’d eaten for 3 weeks.
@173 John Morales
A very, very tall ladder with very, very large implications of missing a rung.
@193
Pee. My wall climbing partner for a few years was, um, eccentric to say the least. We were on Prodigal Son in Zion on my first wall climb and protocol is to use a “piss bottle” and a “poop tube” for ecological and “being nice to those climbing below you” reasons”. While we used a “poop tube” he refused to use a piss bottle. For the first day of the climb there was a group below us. He just pissed out in to space every time and that of course meant those below us, well… you get the idea.
They didn’t stay below us for long and rapped off the climb. This continued the next day on the climb with other groups that started below us. On day three we were the only people on the wall. I was terrified there would be people waiting for us when we finally topped out and hiked to the parking lot.
@201
Landing on your feet from these heights is sure to get you a case of anklehipleitis.
My arse just tried to chew through my chair and I can’t find my scrotum. Nice video.
Also know as Pink Smear Syndrome.
KnowN, dammit.
Is it sillier than a steeplejacking couch, I wonder? At least the latter would be more relevant to the video.
SQB
That’s a sensible approach. Now I only have to explain to everybody else why I’m never ever going to clean up again :)
Over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that my flat will always be at approximately the same level of chaos. Only the cleaning intervals change.
Audley
Sorry to hear about the work and the car. Does the other job include perhaps a payrise that could pay for the car.
Pratchett
Wow, apparently you can even quotemine a living author to try to argue against his own position.
It is stupid and the large quote where Granny Weatherwax herself thinks about the times when she has to make those decissions can hardly be understood the way the apologist “interpretes” it.
Another gay man in Utah has been beaten. That makes three bashings in less than two weeks.
From the Readers Comments section of the Salt Lake Tribune:
A friend tried to get me to ride a Ferris wheel with her. She was surprised that I refused because I’ve been skydiving, and isn’t skydiving so much scarier than a Ferris wheel? Answer: No, the Ferris wheel is definitely worse.
I had the same issue with the Stratosphere in Vegas. I was nearly paralyzed with fear standing on the observation deck, but I felt totally fine riding the Big Shot.
That one is actually true. The problem is called homophobic jerks.
Knowing that a person is not a heterosexual counts as have a lifestyle crammed down one’s throat. Amazing how knowledge is violent, so violent one must react with physical violence.
The Salt Lake Tribune posted a story about two sets of bones from Australopithecus Sediba (found in South Africa). The bones show “both apelike and human traits.”
Some Utah readers are not buying the story. From the Readers Comments:
Seems that some mormons have not gotten away from the formerly sanctioned racism of their church.
Shorter Gilliel and Sailor :
*crickets*
Good night.
A technological fix for dangerous climbs! “Base-jumping robot throws itself off buildings” http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20881-basejumping-robot-throws-itself-off-buildings.html
— — — — — — — —
The Antropocene, when assholes ruled the Earth: “Agency forces amputee to prove leg still gone” http://www.thelocal.se/36042/20110909/
Drunken elk rescued from Swede’s apple tree http://www.thelocal.se/36002/20110907/ This elk (moose in `Merican) is just taking after us locals!
Science rears its head in Republican debates http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/09/science-rears-its-head-in-repu.html -Rick Perry is still an idiot.
Geoengineering trials get under way http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128294.000-geoengineering-trials-get-under-way.html Toying with the idea of *regional* geoengineering, or “geoadaptation” as a last-distch measure.
In WTF mormon news, an openly gay mormon man has been “called” to serve as the Bishop’s executive secretary in San Francisco.
From the comments below the story about a gay mormon serving in the bishopric in San Francisco:
Shudder.
Question for Birger Johansson – is that you on Google+? I just hat-tipped you for that hybrid airship link – much obliged!
I’m sorry, thank you just posted a Molly-worthy analogy for evolution.
hotshoe, please check your e-mail. I wrote a few days ago.
I live in the morridor. In my experience, most mormons here still think like that guy. The only think they’ve learned is to keep those attitudes and that “knowledge” to themselves most of the time.
Just yesterday an ex-mormon woman posted that her mormon husband divorced her, in part, because she voted for Obama. Obama is not just representative of the diluted descendants of Cain, but according to this woman’s husband, he is also the anti-christ.
My brother’s ex-girlfriend worked her email contacts hard to convince everyone that Obama is the anti-christ. It’s a common meme here. A black president? Gotta be the anti-christ doncha know.
I just read all of the Tiffany Aching books this summer, and it’s pretty damned clear that Pratchett and his characters are in favor of euthanasia. One of the books has a major plot point about how the witch helps an old man die, and is then accused of murder.
Also, I loved how that letter writer called interracial marriage “INTRAspecies mating”. Sounds like the person is comparing an on going relationship between two people to mating a horse with a donkey. And they call themselves “saints”.
Sadly, my background is not too far removed from that toxic shit.
Er, ok, that didn’t come out right. She’s accused UNJUSTLY of murder, which is cleared up by the end of the book.
Carlie, being accused of committing a crime is not the same as committing a crime. I though you were clear enough with your first post.
What’s really funny is that the person was trying to be an asshole, but was actually proving the opposite point more. Intra- means within the same one, so mating within one species. It’s inter- that is between things that are very unlike each other. Pretty much by definition you can’t have “dilution” in an intra-species mating, because they’re already part of the same gene pool. That’s like saying if you pour some lemonade out of a pitcher into a glass, and then pour the lemonade from the glass right back into the pitcher, you’re somehow diluting what’s in the pitcher.
“That reminds me…have I cut my monthly check to Uganda yet?”
————————————————————-
Looking at a new job to apply but greatly depressed. Going to try to talk to a union rep.
Lynna, OM | 9 September 2011 at 8:39 am :
ah, Mormons … playing the love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin game as hard as they can.
Indeed. And now that you bring that up, it seems to me that as a matter of ethical consistency, we should probably insist, if married, said writer ends it forthwith.
(/Mainly in the interest of their partner’s moral purity. As it just seems reasonable to assume said writer would also be against anyone marrying a horse’s ass.)
Carlie, that person was not trying to prove them self to be an asshole. The act of writing that shit is proof enough.
Set: 2 Mins, 50 Secs
May look like a good time, but felt like an eternity. I swear my brain just refused. I needed a mental cattle prod to keep going. WTF?
@ David Marjanović
I clicked to the link and came away with an analogy for the dangers of a rich/poor divide. Perhaps social stewardship is better than a complete free for all.
tielserrath,
The evidence supporting anthropogenic climate change is so voluminous and so convincing that it is absolutely astounding that denialism is simply a confession that one is not evidence-based.
For an intelligent, liberal arts type there are sevaral studies that are accessible. First, the IPCC reports–especially the executive summaries–are pretty understandable. Second, there is the absolutely stellar work of Naomi Oereskes (Merchants of Doubt and lots more.). There are a lot of websites where the issue is discussed.
http://www.realclimate.org is probably the best source of climate science info for the interested layman, though sometimes a bit technical.,
http://www.tamino.wordpress.com–Tamino is a professional statistician who specializes in ripping brand new and fully functional assholes in pretentious prigs who try to lie with statistics about climate.
DeepClimate–has done several hardhitting exposes of the influence of oil/coal money, plagiarism and general malfeasance and incompetence of climate denialists.
On the other side, there aren’t many good options. Climateaudit (sometimes referred to as Climate Fraudit) is probably the one of the better options for climate denialist claptrap that at least isn’t laughable on its face.
Dr. Roy Spencer is an actual denialist climate scientist who has a blog and isn’t utterly insane. He does at least raise interesting points sometimes. Unfortunately, he’s a creationist and rather loose with some of his facts, especially before lay audiences.
Strictly for comic relief, there’s Anthony Watts’ (aka Tony “Micro”Watts) blog Wattsupwiththat, which will print any denialist argument, no matter how absurd.
Finally, there are the reputations of the denialists themselves. Mark Morano is a former Congressional Aide to Sen. James Inhofe and former swiftboater. Fred Singer is a former National Academy of Sciences president who will deny any science for money–smoking, CFCs and Ozone, climate, you name it. Steve Milloy runs Junkscience.com and is another (well paid) veteran of the pro-tobacco lobby. For laughs there is Viscount Christopher Monckton–a pretentious fool with no grasp of reality.
Finally, there is a wonderful study with poetic overtones–Cherry blossoms are blooming earlier–a study of 1200 years of data
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-study/86472/what-can-cherry-blossoms-tell-us-about-climate-change-japan-study
Cross posted because I want some criticism on this analogy I use.
For me it always seemed like a no brainer from physics and chemistry. You add to the system; you should expect SOME change.
The Copenhagen DIagnosis
Help. Don’t get it
Lynna, OM | 9 September 2011 at 8:22 am:
Darwin hoped evolution would be an antidote to racism. But this racist nitwit thinks racism is an antidote to evolution. They grotesquely imply blacks have “animalistic features”, but they are “diluted” by Cain’s white woman wife and Egyptus’ white man husband. If “modern blacks” have a “diluted” skin color, what skin color did Cain have? Ultraviolet? X-ray? And I guess they believe interracial marriage is bad because that is the only way blacks ever got any human looks. What a monstrous belief.
Er, wait, how was Egyptus both “50% DILUTED FROM CAIN” and “a pure descendant of Cain”? Not only did the descendants of Cain have “animalistic features”, they contradicted all logic!
I guess they were like Wolverine or something …
Who came from where now?
I wonder if there are any black supremacists who look at Caucasians and dismiss them as clearly minimalistic since they lack the identifying facial features of true humans? I mean with their narrow noses, small lips, pale skin, hairsuitness, they look more like monkeys than humans right?
Ing: Od Wet Rust
re landfill analogy
Not bad.
But the deniers I’ve spoken mostly deny because of scale.
The planetary system is simply too BIG for poor little humans to have such a large effect.
A forest here, a river there, sure.
But the planet? No way.
@Chigau
http://thecontaminated.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/earthatnight_america.jpg
One nation. Visual view of electrical use of ONE moment in time. How many tons of oil was lost in the Gulf due to a leak? A fraction of the amount we planed to burn.
You get it, or could, you just don’t want it.
Kind of the definition of ‘denialist’.
Ing,
It may help you to know that Zach admitted in a tweet that his phrasing in the last panel was off. “Attractive” would have worked better than “sexual”.
@ Ing & chigau
Well the earth is very large, that is true – and the atmosphere. But as you mention with the gulf spill, a large part of the pollution is ending up concentrated where it is least wanted. Industrial accidents happen in cities as do more conventional forms of air pollution. It doesn’t even matter if it blows away in a gale from time to time. Generally, on average, we city dwellers are breathing in way too many pollutants.
In terms of global warming itself, it is not a question of “acceptable levels” or conversely analogies to small scale controlled waste intensities. Reality is showing that even if the changes are very small the consequences are very large. 1 degree is not much on the dial of your SUV’s airconditioner. It has shitloads of effect as an average change in temperature over the entire planet.
I was recently at Archie McPhee. They have tentacles!
Want.
Like that makes it better.
SQB:
While the tentacles are cool and all, I thought the Narwhals were cooler.
But that’s just me.
Carlie:
Yeah. The point is entirely missed with either phrasing.
@ing:
Eee! Rhesus monkey so cute :3
Ing:
Good plan.
The Lone Coyote:
There’s much skin crawling horror there.
True. other things he said about it on Twitter:
I still think it was a poorly done comic. It didn’t really seem to make the point he wanted to make, and I’m not even sure what that point is. That there are examples of people on both the left and right that have blind spots in their critical thinking? Sure, that’s not a revelation. I don’t see the humor in it. And I’m starting to think SMBC may have peaked. A lot of the recent ones have not really been that amusing to me.
I’m decidedly freaked out by the upsurge in anti-gay violence in Utah lately, which Lynna cited above. One of those victims is incredibly lucky to be alive, after his attackers curb stomped his head.
Just when it seems like I can be optimistic about more people accepting that gay people are actual people (for instance the first time that a national survey yielded a majority in favor or marriage equality), a wave of violence targeting gay people begins.
@ nigelTheBold
I hope you meant Avenging Narwhals, not the common-or-garden type:
Linky.
Huh. And by “if you assume I’m representing all feminism”, he really means “I wrote it so that it looks exactly like it’s representing all feminism”. Again, if the message is widely misunderstood, it’s probably that it wasn’t communicated well rather than that everyone else suddenly forgot how to understand language.
theophontes:
My wife has Avenging Narwhals in her cubicle at work. She uses them as a warning to everyone who enter.
Back from the
torture chamberdentist. Only one tooth came out. It took about 90 minutes to extract as part of the bone had to go with it. I am currently taking pain pills. And more antibiotics.Kinda gives the lie to the tired and absurd ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’ fucking bullshit of conservative religious asshats.
@slignot:
I chalk it up to the last gasps of a horridly oppressive disease. Homophobes are seeing how their ways are dying out and how more people are against them so their vitriol and hatred is amplifying now in a way to scare the opposition into silence. Cause enough beatings and abuse and try to deny their rights and the LGBT community might think twice about denying them hatred.
Brother Ogvorbis:
Ayiii! My sympathies, and even a bit of empathy: my jaw is aching just from reading that.
@NigelTheBold:
ROFL – you’re so very silly :D
@ slignot
One has to consider that there is possibly a correlation here. As more and more of society reconsider their positions wrt gay marriage etc, the religious could well become more aggressive and extreme. (Why god can’t fight its own battles has always been beyond me.)
Katherine Lorraine:
Thanks! It’s the only way to be.
For me, anyway.
I saw the tentacles. I thought of the horde. Don’t know why, I just did. One of life’s mysteries, I reckon.
@NigelTheBold:
I’m sure there’s some correlation. Not sure, myself – to be honest. Ah well. That’s how it goes sometimes.
@ Kitty # 292
Snap!
Actually, my jaw is fine. It was the #2 molar (upper right medial). Thanks for the sympathy.
My take on Ing’s linked cartoon:
(straw)Feminism is being equated with AGW denialism as a contra-evidential stance, making blonde guy as “brainwashed” as those he criticizes.
Not starting from a position where “everyone knows” that (straw)feminism is bogus, it took me a few minutes.
@theophontes & Kitty,
You’re probably right in that it’s bigots’ panic-filled response to losing political power, but I still find that depressing or at the very least unfathomable. I’m young enough that reading about the violence civil rights activists faced is almost incomprehensible. It’s hard for me to think about today’s open and happy gay people being analogous to the Freedom Riders, and triggering a comparable violent backlash.
Is there any mobilization of the gay community going on in SLC? Any solidarity marches or suchlike planned?
Oh, I see everyone else got there already.
Well, it’s not like there aren’t plenty of other examples of wooly thinking on the “left”* he could have picked – homeopathy, alt-med, conspiracies, take your pick. But nooo, feminism** is the one everyone will recognise and laugh at.
* really, treating women as human beings is a left/right thing?
** OK, generously – maybe bad evopsych. If that was the target, it sure missed that and hit (straw)feminism.
@slignot:
Oh no, I didn’t mean to be dismissive of the entire thing. In fact, that they’re being even more hateful and more violent is reason to worry even more. We just can’t let it make us afraid to still fight.
Rey Fox, here’s what I’ve heard about a planned protest.
Then there are the Oceanic Gyre Garbage Patches.
How’s that for landfill?
Kitty, no worries; I didn’t think you were dismissing it. It’s just a little frustrating at times.
By the way, how big is Snip now?
@slignot:
Still tiny… and still annoying. I ordered a camera off eBay but it hasn’t arrived yet.
Because “scared” is a feeling, and it feels as if a thousand foot fall should be oh, about 10 times more lethal than a hundred foot fall.
Visualisations of larger and larger sqeegees being needed to scrape you off a wider and wider area of pavement may, or may not, also be involved. As may flashbacks to videos of dropped watermelons being dispersed really widely, and in small bits and splashes.
–
*hands drbunsen the Barf Bucket*
Food poisoning entirely fails to be my idea of a good time, too.
–
Okay, space geek time:
hi-res shot of new rings around Saturn (and just fucking awesome to boot)
@Richard Austin:
NOoo! Link borked! Fix it fix it fix it fix it fix it fix it fix it!!
bah. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0901/newrings_cassini_big.jpg
@Richard:
Oooh… pretty! :O
Commiserations to Brother Ogvorbis. I remember getting some quite nice painkillers after getting my very-misleadingly-named wisdom teeth out (I was already unwise before I lost them), so I really hope they’ve prescribed you the good drugs and that you are being nicely looked after if requd.
Thankyou, cicely. I’ve not had to make use of the Bukkit as yet, happily, though I have kept it handy just in case. The other end of my GI tract has been handling the elimination duties, and by the progressive lowering of position of the rumbling and pain, I’d say we’re about four fifths of the way through. I’ve managed to eat today, and the feeling of being poisoned has mostly passed. Just the hourly impressions of a malfunctioning shuttle SRB remain.
Saturn’s rings = pretty+shiny.
–
In my opinion, this one is even worse:
Saturn’s rings and drbunsen’s bum.
I ♥ TET!
Good evening
Brother Ogvorbis
I’m sorry to hear that things didn’t go as intended. I hope the painkillers work fine, I know it’s horror when they don’t.
Oppossiblethumbs and Giliel”
Yah. Good painkillers. Vicodin. Good stuff.
Apparently, sometimes molars do not have tooth sockets but are connected directly to the bone. So I lost a piece of my maxilla along with the tooth. I have an appointment for the 13th to get the old tooth root (#13) removed. Hopefully, that one will have an actual socket.
And I just turned on the tele and discovered that the Susquehanna River at Wilkes Barre crested higher than thought. Apparently, the gauge at WB malfunctioned and the crest was 42.66 feet. Which is a problem, as the levee system is engineered to withstand another Agnes flood, which was 41 feet. The water was still a foot and a half below the top of the dike, but there is still more water behind the levees than they were designed to withstand. There are some places where water is leaking through and the dikes still may fail.
I don’t know about worse, but there are some palm sweat inducing moments for sure.
Rorschach, fuck you and your crickets, some of us have to get a good night’s sleep and work the next day.
IRT to your NIH link: “There is a significant minority of American chiropractors who harbor anti-immunization sentiments”
So what? There’s a significant minority of Americans who feel the same way. I don’t care if my doctors believe in invisible sky fairies or what, as long as the treatment works, and spinal adjustments work.
To all; Many of you have been successfully treated by chiros and yet you say you wouldn’t go back, even tho the treatment was effective. I don’t get the logic in that.
Here’s an article from The Lancet:
Here’s a rather long review from the Archives of Internal Medicine that includes
His parents must be so proud.
The Mystery Man got nervous
An’ he fidget around a bit
He reached in the pocket of his Mystery Robe
An’ he whipped out a shaving kit
Now, I thought it was a razor
An’ a can of foamin’ goo
But he told me right then when the top popped open
There was nothin’ his box won’t do
With the oil of Afro-dytee
An’ the dust of the Grand Wazoo
He said:
“You might not believe this, little fella, but it’ll cure your Asthma too!”
I wouldn’t go back because he LIED to me, Sailor. How is that hard to understand? His clinic’s entire model of business was based on LYING to people. From the “diagnostic process” (which was a drawn-out farce full of woo that naturally found me in dire need of chiropractic “healing”) to the constant push to come in and be adjusted every like 5 minutes to fix my subluxations or I would never feel healthy again, I was lied and lied and lied to.
There is no way in the fucking world I want to get health care of any kind from someone whose LIES I constantly have to combat. I would consider going to *a* chiropractor again because I’ve heard there are some who view themselves practically as a type of physiotherapist, limit themselves to doing back pain relief and don’t lie. But not *that* chiropractor, and since I’ve found out that a simple 5 minutes of yoga in the morning solves my problems, I don’t see the need to filter through a city full of lying predatory chiros to pick out the one who condescends to be honest.
The SMBC cartoon isn’t funny because it’s based on a false assumption. I have not encountered any feminists who would assert that “men don’t naturally find breasts sexual [or attractive]”, or that men’s attraction to breasts is purely a patriarchal socio-cultural construct. That would, indeed, be a strange position to take; but since no one’s actually said that, his attempt at satirizing an unrealistic caricature of feminism rather misses the mark.
Here’s a song for Brother Ogvorbis
Or, if you prefer a cover version
…or the original.
Considering people to represent all feminism as like that and use that as a dismissal of it as a whole this is perhaps the WORST possible representation.
Hell you could have made an even better joke if the last panel was them talking about what they saw on Doctor Oz yesterday.
What Walton said. It would have been funnier if he used an untenable left wing position that some people actually believe such as can sometimes be found in PETA pamphlets.
Cheap shots at straw feminism is just attacking women for a laugh. Fine… but at least go for it and do a rape joke then. Don’t hover in the middle, that’s where the yellow stripes belong.
On Saturn’s rings @ #312: according to the Astronomy Picture of the Day website’s notes (which I highly recommended), that pale blue dot, on the left side just outside the brightest inner rings, happens to be our pale blue dot. It is a small dot.
Since we’re mentioning APOD, I have to link to this time-lapse video of a nebulous jet shooting out from a star. We can see it moving!
Although, not *all* men find breasts sexy. (Those who are not sexually attracted to women, for instance.)
@Chas
I’ve never heard anyone insist that breast==sexual is the result of the patriarchy or that spouted by feminists. The closest I’ve heard is Europeans saying that Americans have an over fetish-tic view of the breast due to the American culture.
What the hell would I be denying anyway? That a cartoon exists?
SQB:
Cute.
I liked the Krauss and Plant version. I am constantly amazed at how well bluegrass and rock meld together into something good.
Yeah… I’m aware that some chiropractors can be helpful, but since I gather that the quality of chiropractic treatment is very variable and that some practitioners are woo-artists, I wouldn’t be inclined to go to a chiropractor (unless I had a personal recommendation from someone I knew to be sensibly sceptical in such matters).
It’s not as useless as homeopathy, though. I was irritated back in Oxford, when I went to the GP surgery for my pre-travel vaccinations, to find a notice in the lobby advertising a homeopathic clinic that claimed (IIRC) to be able to treat a whole range of conditions, from asthma to colic to depression, for adults and children alike. Bleurgh. And I suspect many less-educated members of the lay public have no idea what homeopathy is, don’t know about the implausible mechanism by which it supposedly works, and assume that because its services are advertised in NHS facilities, it must be real medical treatment.
(While I am, of course, loyal to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales as my future King, I can’t help being a little irritated at the fact that his efforts have helped accomplish the mainstreaming of homeopathy in British health care, and its endorsement and funding by the NHS.)
Don’t worry, if he gets too bad you can always vote him out right?
Everyone I work with is *really* into chiros. In fact, they were very much wanting me to see one for an injured tendon.
WTF would they do with that? The thing just needs to heal.
I would say it is “our” obsession with “giant” breasts, in particular. I have no idea of the statistics, but I’m sure a significant number of men and lesbians aren’t (or otherwise wouldn’t be) obsessed with large breasts like you’d find on most actresses, models, porn stars, cartoon characters, etc. No doubt some are simply attracted to large breasts, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But culturally in the U.S. (and elsewhere I have to imagine), people get a lot of reinforcement from various media about what are supposedly the sexy body types, and feel somehow different from the perceived average if they don’t fit the mold. There are a variety of such types which are reinforced for men and women in different contexts, so it’d be hard to say exactly how dominant the large breast factor is — in comparison to, say, the young slender (asian) stereotype — but there’s no denying it’s significant.
True, of course… but the comic was clearly talking about straight men, and seemed to be aimed at a straight male audience (especially since straight men are the demographic category most likely to want to mock straw-feminism, in my experience).
(I guess the unspoken assumption is heterosexist in itself, so that’s another level on which this cartoon fails. But even if he’d specified “straight men” it would still have been bullshit.)
Meh… I know PETA aren’t popular, and I disagree with a lot of their positions, but I think the presence of radical groups like PETA is sometimes necessary to shift the Overton window. Sometimes, while a radical group may not be effective in changing things on its own, it may help groups that are moderate-by-comparison to seem more mainstream and to acquire more influence.
While I’d agree that PETA’s hardline vegan and anti-animal-testing stances are unrealistic in light of the realities of our society, at least they work to keep issues of animal rights and animal cruelty on the agenda, and provoke people to debate and think about these issues. (And things have shifted over the last several decades: support for animal rights in general is no longer a position confined to the fringe, and there’s pretty broad-based opposition today to things like fox-hunting, bullfighting, circus exploitation of animals, and testing of cosmetics and other unnecessary products on animals.)
(Incidentally, I’m increasingly embarrassed that I used to be in favour of legal fox-hunting, which I saw as a cultural tradition that should be preserved. For the record, I’m now fully in favour of outlawing fox-hunting and other bloodsports.)
Look here, Rev. Who you jivin’ with that cosmic debris?
And dead armadillos.
Consciousness Razor:
Your comment reminded me of this”
Holicus Crappus. A caller on a local radio station said that Obama ordered cloud seeding to create this flood so that he can increase federal spending to buy the 2012 election.
I think PETA is involved in too much ecological damage for me to take anything they do seriously.
Yes, I think there’s a place for radicalism. But doing stupid and destructive things in the name of an ideology is the one thing I truly loathe about the humans species. I really don’t care what flag, religion, or cause it wraps itself in.
There’s nothing more noxious and dangerous than the fucker who is sure their doing this for your own good.
And here I was, thinking it had something to do with sub-prime mortgages.
@Walton,
I really can’t find anything salvageable in PETA; their entire philosophy begins and ends with no interaction between humans and animals, including animals so altered by domestication that they can no longer survive without people.
If you want to praise someone for pushing for better treatment of animals, find organizations like humane societies or the ASPCA (not sure of the non-American equivalent).
*snerf*
So there’s a Dutch show, starring Wendy van Dijk. She’s got a few characters she does, exploiting stereotypes for comedic effect. I don’t like that much, however, she did fool Derek Ogilvy, not once, but twice. Does anyone still think he’s psychic?
First, as Ushi, a Japanese journalist.
Then as Dushi, weatherwoman from the Dutch Antilles.
Warning: insulting stereotypes.
We are a Christianian Nation! It is always the wimmenz fault! Always!
(Yes, I am joking.)
Not caught up…
I finally looked for flights. Shortly before, some important person at the European Central Bank stepped back, and the € dropped from 1.405 $ to less than 1.37 $. I won’t book right away… Interestingly, the exact days don’t matter for the price.
Yeah, that, too.
And among those who are, the degree to which they find breasts sexy varies quite a bit. (And that’s before we get to preferences for different shapes and sizes.) The general culture takes a small part of that spectrum for granted and pretends everyone has the same preferences.
…
:-)
Alethea,
I don’t dispute that there is value in taking occasion off from a strict dietary regimen, we call them cheat meals or cheat days, frequently lining up with important social functions for obvious reasons. It is certainly interesting to see it backed up with some some internal mechanisms apart from psychology. However, that is not the idea that I was responding to.
A fuller context of your comment that I quoted from and noted as being insufficient for my maintenance needs. If I am not still hungry, or satisfied as you put it, I have eaten too much and will gain weight. So I have a hard line where I know I have gone too far, and a very fuzzy area where I may have too much or may have too little going into my body, but the signals it gives me are unreliable for distinguishing the difference.
___
Ogvorbis,
Oh, so you need go back for more? Take care of that jaw in the meantime.
Brother Org,
That isn’t the half of it.
There are people…
http://spinozasbicycle.blogspot.com/2011/08/for-my-virtual-friend-gus.html
Who think the government caused the earthquakes. They think they sent the hurricanes. They think that they harness UFOs. And what instrumentation does the government have to do this? HAARP. You heard correctly.
Stimulating the ionosphere = zOMG EARTHQUAKES
Oh, yeah. I still have the roots of a failed root canal on the other side (that’d be the left upper). And, since I can actually afford it now, I will be taking care of no less than 11 cavities, some of which are under old cavities, and most are on multiple faces. It has been a while since I saw a dentist. This shit is expensive.
The dentist was quite surprised that I understood the terms lingual, buccal, proximal, distal, and occlusal. So he assumed that I was involved in the medical community in some way. He was surprised to find out that I was familiar with the terms because of my hobby.
Strange days. Also, has anybody heard about Mississippi voting on women’s rights to abortion?
mikeg:
Does not surprise me in the least.
Watching the flood coverage. They interviewed one man who was very angry that his house had been damaged, another house was sitting in his backyard, and the government needs to fix this. On the back of his pickup truck? Tea party and Ron Paul stickers. He just doesn’t get it, does he?
But, I’d bet dollars to donuts that, were I to ask him about it, he would tell me that he deserves it. Because he’s white and Christian.
You’re missing the CrazyLogic there. What he’s saying is that australopithecines and humans are the same species, so by his reasoning it actually is intraspecific. IRL it makes no sense of course, but if you start off from being batshit insane, it’s perfectly consistent.
Seen this. Now for really dangerous try El Camino del Ray or Mt. Huashan.
Josh OSG:
Yes she is… but still, not what I pictured from the voice. I was expecting something more exotic: Mixed race, perhaps, or tats and piercings, or hair color Not Found In Nature®. No doubt I was projecting the character (or Heinlein’s Friday, to whom Frea is at least in part an homage) onto the (erm, I’ll use your preferred, if gendered, term) narratrix.
I have finally fallen under the sway of slightly inventive ‘nyms. I don’t suppose I’ll be changing this one often, though.
Setar:
to which inventive ‘nyms do you refer?
I have not. What stupid thing are christian conservatives trying to do now?
Sigh. This Moment of Mormon Madness is replete with bad taste, and comes to you courtesy of one Thomas Monson, the Lawd’s Living Prophet, the Head Honcho of the Saints, the mormon Doofus In Charge.
The Washington Post continues to print articles that are pro-mormon. I checked a couple of weeks ago and they had printed more than two dozen this year alone. WTF.
So, now 9/11 provides them with yet one more opportunity to serve mormon pablum to the public.
Profit Monson laid it on thick and goopy. Here’s an excerpt:
Thank you, Tom, for reminding us. I did notice … and was appalled. WTF? I thought more people would get a clue about the unreasonableness religion nurtures.
I’m not cutting out all of the blah, blah, blah. I want to share my suffering with the Threadizens.
Now there’s a thought! Precisely! We owe god precisely as much as he gives to us.
There. That will remind you why you don’t want to spend three hours on a Sunday attending a mormon church.
SQB:
Well, I’ll like it for you. I’m sorry to say I just had to grab a towel and try not to puke because I’m laughing so hard I can’t breathe.
“What stupid thing are christian conservatives trying to do now?”
That either sounds like a new bingo game or a drinking game … or a desert topping and a floor wax.
Do you also think that Al Queda is necessary? What about The Klan?
This is in response to slignot’s and other’s discussion up-thread about the rise in hate crimes against gays.
http://articles.sfgate.com/2001-04-13/news/17595460_1_anti-violence-anti-gay-epithets-transgender-people
@ Sailor
It could be a pretty decent drinking game.
How about this: watch the tea party debate on Monday with your friends (make sure you have lots of alcohol). Take a shot every time someone denies a scientific theory. If you want alcohol poisoning, you could take a shot every time they said they “want the country back” or bash Obama or bring up “jobs/job creators”.
I think my definition of “happy” differs ever so slightly from the self-important prophet and near-god, Mr. Monson.
You see, I really don’t think the religious rules imposed through shame, guilt and pressure lead to anything that can resemble happiness. Accepting oneself and pursuing life satisfaction and goals without being told one is wrong according to the church, that’s happiness.
But what did we expect from a man so enamored of himself that his official biography is called To The Rescue?
What I hear from the ex-mormons is that Tommy Monson has such a hard-on for widows that he can’t hide it. He’s always telling stories in which he helps widows, is moved by widows, and rescues widows.
If he personally is not rescuing the widows, he gets pleasure from watching others rescue widows.
He advises us all to go out and rescue ourselves some widows.
And then please write the event up as a little story for the Ensign so Tommy can read it.
There’s even a rumor (with one woman swearing to its truth) that before Tommy was the Prophet-To-Beat-All, he was a lowly Stake President that stalked widows.
$34.99 for Tommy Monson’s book! And the cover has been defaced with a photo of himself.
@Lynna, the local Costco always seems to have a nice full stack of them. Ugh.
I hadn’t heard that he was so fond of widows, but as I’ve gotten older, it’s been easier for me to avoid having to hear shit about the LDS church. I confess I’ve been apathetic about church leadership unless they really screw up and put their feet in their mouths in public.
I’ll be at my local Barnes & Noble signing books on September 24th, and you can bet money that Tommy Monson’s face will be stacked up, replicating, in the center aisle, next to the main entry doors, and near the cash registers.
There will be no escape.
Ah, well, I only have to be there for three hours. And they do usually give me free coffee from the Starbucks in B&N. I’ll put that coffee cup front and center on my signing table.
A different kind of temple …
In this one, sex was for sale. It’s kind of surprising that this was going on in Maricopa County, which is one of the counties in Arizona with a higher percentage of mormons.
Wow, Lynna, you found an honest church. “Come to my church and you’ll get fucked and we’ll take your money.”
How many other churches does that describe (though the fucking isn’t nearly as much fun, and they’re far less honest about the money).
Er… what? Yes, of course extremist racist and fundamentalist groups shift the Overton window, but they shift it in the wrong direction: racism and religious fundamentalism are harmful to society, and the last thing we need is more of them. I didn’t think this even needed saying. :-/
That’s very different from the animal rights movement. Of course I don’t agree with PETA’s tactics or their hardline ideological principles. But I do think that a more animal-friendly society (including a society with much less meat-eating) is a desirable goal; and shifting the Overton window towards greater animal-rights-protection is a good thing, even though PETA themselves have done some things I strongly oppose (such as their horribly sexist ad campaigns, their total blanket opposition to medical testing on animals, and their support for “direct action” and intimidation of researchers). I should reiterate that I don’t support PETA and would never give them money or material support, because they engage in various unethical practices that I wouldn’t condone or defend. But I don’t think it would be fair to say that everything they’ve done has been uniformly harmful.
Rorschach, I apologize for my “fuck you”, I should have phrased it as “fuck your **crickets** remark.”
I shouldn’t have made it personal, I was having a bad day at work and it was the first time after coming home that I caught up with TET and I let frustration with work dribble into my online remarks.
So… collectively, we owe God a hurricane and a tornado or three, some nasty infectious diseases, intestinal parasites, a volcanic eruption every few years, a few million gallons of rain a year, and lots of earthquakes? After all, we’re often told that God sends us these things, to punish us or to test our faith. :-/
Sorry to hear you’re having a bad day, Sailor :(
Thomas S. Monson (via Lynna):
Shorter Thomas S. Monson:
“It is not enough to hear voices when you are freaked out by the stress of a natural disaster. You must also hear voices when things are going well, and you are calm.”
There’s a lot of truth to that. Insistence on ideological purity at any cost, whatever the ideology being pursued, usually ends in tears.
Unfortunately, I’m someone who naturally tends to see the world in terms of abstract moral ideals, and who very easily falls into the trap of ideological thinking Being a pragmatist doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m trying to train myself out of an ideological-absolutist way of thinking, and I’ve had some success, but I’ve had to fight the way my mind is inclined to work.
Walton | 9 September 2011 at 6:12 pm :
I was thinking of sending him a Smithsonian of faked fossils myself …
I figured we would just aim at a short lifespan and dispense with any other gifts.
Hey, my first drug-induced blockquote fail. I am so pruod!
Good point, Walton.
Though I doubt that’s what Prophet Monson had in mind.
We also owe god Guilt, guilt, and more GUILT.
Going by Tommy Monson’s writing style, we also owe god extensive brain damage.
As for Brother Ogvorbis and the church of getting fucked, at least they were honest about it, as you pointed out. And for mormons it would have been a bargain. Even at $204 per hour for the “sacrament,” it would still be less than tithing 10 percent for some members — assuming said members were satisfied with having sex only on Sundays.
Public service announcement: Tenets. Tenets. TENETS.
So PETA is shifting it in the right direction? Away from needed animal research? Supporting terrorists like Rodney Coronado? And the ELF?
I see. We can ignore part of their extremism because it’s nice and fluffy, but the other part of their extremism we can ignore.
Extremist group do help shift the Overton window, obviously, but there are bad extremist groups (even on “our side”) and there are good extremist groups.
PETA is a bad one IMNSHO.
If your sermon lasts for more than four hours, see a doctor.
Holy shit Bachmann is on CNN right now talking about the “terrorist threat” (ramp up that fear machine).
Easily the Most Fake Smile ever. Ranks up with Tammy Fay.
snicker
sheesh
We can ACCEPT part of their extremism….
Yeah, she’s on my tv too. Ewwww, get her off it! Get her off!
LOLOLOLOL! Now she’s all like “Social security is a safety net that Americans need.” She only says that because public opinion has shown very strongly that they like social security. Rick Perry was made into an example to those crazy republicans.
That is because you’re a monk, studying books and theories behind safe walls. It’s good, but it’s not everything.
You’ll never be worldly that way. You can’t *train* yourself to be experienced :/
You just… get out there and get some experimenting done. That what you’ve done this far has done a world of good for you, no?
HAHAHA
Did you catch it as they were ending her segment?
John King said bye and she responded and then thought the camera was off her.
Fake Smile dropped to a scowl, still on camera.
hilarious
Ahhhh I HATE SWIMMER’S EAR! The itching….the swelling…the itching….and knowing I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to pick up ear drops if I’m to help my ear heal. The only upside is that it’s no longer painful to yawn, burp, or swallow like it was before, when I thought I’d gotten smacked with a middle ear infection. Dear Aleve, thank you for getting me past most of the pain. And thank you, cotton balls, for protecting my ear while it heals. Back to over-the-head headphones for me, and then switching them out with my earbuds once in a while once this is all done with.
Haha, yes. Those republican nut jobs would be so much more funny if they weren’t running the country, though.
True, and I should stress that I absolutely oppose the violent fringe of the animal rights movement. Coronado is an arsonist and a nasty violent character, and the ELF is effectively a terrorist group. That’s just one of the many reasons why I don’t support PETA, aside from my general disagreement with their ideological principles (which I don’t think are realistic or achievable in our society). So I don’t think we disagree that much. My intention was not to promote PETA’s activities, and I’m sorry if it came across that way.
But I’ve been very conflicted lately about animal rights issues and whether our society’s attitude to non-human animals can be justified on any moral ground, and it’s something which I think needs to be discussed and questioned a lot more.
And she is, internally, begging for a terrorist attack on US soil and then she, and every other GOP politician, will ride the fear horse right through the next ten elections — “Amurka elected a Democrat and there was a terrorist attack. If you vote Democrat you vote for another attack” while ignoring the Bush failures.
Wanna trade?
Hey! Don’t you stomp on the little bit of joy I can glean from those people!
I’d say so. :-)
Aw, I’m sorry. Continue with your ridicule and laughter.
Off to bed and to almost 2 days without Internet. hotshoe, as mentioned, please check your e-mail.
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Looks like the Overton Window has hit a wall and is bouncing back!
(What an image.)
“If your sermon lasts for more than four hours, see a doctor.”
snicker & doodle;-)
+++++++++++++
“Ranks up with Tammy Fay.”
Nothing was more ranker than Tammy, except Jimmy.
++++++++++
CC, it wasn’t a good day, but it was challenging. I normally like challenges but I was insulted that my contributions were sidelined. It was a day of meetings and my experience and effort were hijacked by folks I’d shared my conclusions with.
That sobriquet “El Camino del Rey” must be a little bit of worker’s humour, since it means “The King’s Road” IIRC.
Swimmer’s ear: try 50% hydrogen peroxide and 50% isopropyl alcohol — a couple of drops in each side after swimming.
LYNNA, 366:
”
This seems like a tiny number. Are you sure you haven’t misplaced a comma?
The way it is phrased seems to indicate the stat includes everything from verbal abuse and simple assault through to felony assaults and murder.
Again, if this is the actual number of violent incidents targeted to gays in a whole year, in a country of 300M (?) people, then I would say that is a remarkably good indicator.
Have I misunderstood?
Markita:
It is also, with a few extra words, two of the newer pieces of the US National Park system:
Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail
and, even closer,
El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail
Just a monthly moment of National Park Service Awareness.
PSYCHOANALYSIS MOMENT: okay, so you know how some people get to seeing penises in everyday situations (eg: http://www.davidairey.com/is-your-logo-design-phallic/).
Well, I don’t know how this came to my mind (you may have your own suggestions), but take a look at the logo which sits beside the OP. Orangey/red exclamation point on a bluey/black background. Just an innocent little clipart type thing. Now look at it upside down.
Is this where the fightback begins, with cartoons of vulvae and clitori being subversively placed in innocent images?
Your thoughts, and recommendations for a good psych program, are appreciated.
“the ELF is effectively a terrorist group”
So property = people?
The Sailor:
‘Do what we say or we’ll endeavour to destroy your property and livelihood’ ain’t terrorism?
Sailor @409: Terrorism, by definition, is causing mayhem through fear and intimidation that is out of proportion to the scale of actual attacks. [strangelove]Zat is ze whole point, you know?[/strangelove]. ELF does that by damaging labs, forcing researchers to take burdensome security measures, even though their actual attacks are few. That’s exactly the same way airplane hijackers work.
Another characteristic of terrorism that ties in with that is the importance of symbolism and publicity over actual accomplishment. If al Qaeda had slammed each airplane into a football stadium with 80,000 people in it on a Sunday, they would have killed a hell of a lot more people. But would it have the same impact as destroying the WTC and hitting the Pentagon? No way. Much like ELF’s burning of the ski resort in Vail and houses in Seattle. Lots of rich people = lots of attention, even if compared to things like mountaintop mining the actual environmental impact isn’t that big.
Morales, so the history of people fighting for fair wages and better living conditions is terrorism?
MAJeff sighting in the skin crawling thread!!!
Is arson only terrorism when people are in/near the property in question, or does it still cause terror even when it turns out there are no injuries or deaths?
They’ve done things like set fire to buildings on college campuses, without regard to whether there are people inside or not.
Wow.
If some trade unionists set fire to a factory, or, say, the factory owner’s house, then yes that would be terrorism. Even if no one gets hurt.
However, unless I’ve forgotten a whole lot of history, the history of fighting for fair wages and living conditions does not generally consist of terrorism.
Regarding unions, there are some violent cases to be found here. Will you be so honest about the ELF?
So targeting property and making sure no people are injured is exactly the same as targeting innocent people?
Since when are people fighting for those things setting buildings on fire and terrorizing innocent people? And if they do do those things, then yes, it’s terrorism. Just because you have a good cause, doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want to get it.
I’m irritated to the point of headache by Tim Martin’s recent post over on Greta Christina’s policy thread. Can’t handle it.
Gotta go see a movie with my family tonight.
Went to the doctor – she said the moles on my arm looked fine.
Still so stressed out from housing and school worries that I start freaking out every time I think about it. Don’t even know how to break down these tasks, and they seem insurmountable.
It’s not “exactly the same as targeting innocent people” but that doesn’t make it right, or even ok.
The Sailor, it’s not the goal of the activism that defines whether such is a form of terrorism, but the methods employed for attaining that goal.
If such methods involve the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) in order to intimidate, then it is indeed a form of terrorism.
Classical Cipher,
I realize that Greta is capable of deciding how her comments should behave, but I have to admit I am really uncomfortable having an argument about Pharyngula in her comments. If Tim has something to say, he should say it here.
Generally I feel that way too, but my irritation overtook my discomfort. I don’t like to see us lied about, and to see it happening somewhere like Greta’s blog (as opposed to Slimepits and other havens of stupidity) really upsets me. And yeah, I realize that Tim claims not to be saying that we don’t have substantive discussion here, but he totally did say that in one of his posts. Nrrr.
What does your or their perception of innocence have to do with anything?
What Tim said (and which has kind of gotten lost in his own irritatingness) is not that there isn’t substantive discussion, but that it’s “sacrificed” in favor of petty carping and insults, so that pretty often one has to wade through a lot of garbage on the thread to find the substance. As much as I like it here, I don’t think that’s an unfair characterization. There are a number of regular commenters here who have the combination of too much time on their hands and too much poo to fling, and end up simply being the counterpart of the cretinist trolls rather than the antithesis.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how (and who) to ignore someone when they’re on a comment-thread long rant on some stupid issue though. If you don’t like it, just go to the next thread, or read another site for a while. Some people – both the ones flinging the poo and the ones complaining about it – are so deep into SIWOTI syndrome they seem to think it’s the end of the freakin’ world.
I hope you mean 50% of 3% hydrogen peroxide found in drug stores, and 50% isopropanol. Real 50% hydrogen peroxide would burn his ear off.
I really hope so (though I doubt Ron Paul will change his mind since he probably knows he’s going to lose anyway (oh, and also because he’s batshit libertarian)). Or, if Perry does get the nomination *shudders* the statement on social security could prove costly in the general election.
*shock horror*
Midnight Rambler, we seem to have different definitions of “sacrificing,” as well as a different reading of that “goal” line preceding it. Maybe your reading is more what he meant, which would certainly make it more coherent with his later claim.
I do.
In the absence of citation, I think that’s unfair too.
False equivalence. Cretinist trolls are defined by their incorrectness, not by their tone.
And Midnight Rambler, these topics matter to us. If someone thinks I ought to be habitually disrespected because of my gender presentation, it might not be “the end of the freakin’ world,” but it matters to me a hell of a lot. If someone thinks American children ought to be subjected to a substandard education in the service of dogma, it might not be “the end of the freakin’ world,” but the people who are affected by it have every reason to care very passionately.
Midnight Rambler:
What a silly thing to write, on multiple levels.
First, everyone has just as much time on their hands as anyone else; how they use such is up to them.
Second, what exactly does it mean to be a counterpart to a troll?
Third, your poo-flinging is feeble; you got it all over yourself. :)
(I’ll stop here)
Well, that would get rid of the swimmer’s ear….
Meh. Panel 4 sums up my life, it seems.
Waaaay upthread:
I realize Josh has already jumped on this, but the book we were talking about is fiction… which is to say, it’s art, not argument, and the quality of the presentation absolutely does (and absolutely ought to) matter.
That said, even if it were argument, the presentation would still matter. I actually prefer nonfiction audiobooks to fiction: The best of them are like truly wonderful lectures on interesting subjects. It’s true that a great reading can’t redeem bad ideas, but a great reading can make good ideas more interesting. I’m not at all sure what the point of your snotty little comment was supposed to be.
Hmm, I don’t know how long my comment at Greta Christina’s will await in moderation. I suppose farting in Tim’s general direction can wait.
CR, it’s there.
CC:
Then again, it might very well be — may already have been — the end of the freakin’ world if it means the U.S. collectively takes (continues to take?) a denialist approach to climate change.
<sigh>
Amazing news: I have successfully passed for wholesome and have Homeschooled Nice Mormon Boy visiting our home for the weekend. My protective coloration superpowers are amazing!! The Spawn are busily working on implementation of the Corruption Protocol™ and have already provided copies of those scriptures of heathen-ositudinousness, Small Gods and Good Omens. (He already had Hitchhiker’s Guide.)
I love when people complain about Pharyngula’s brutal Commentariat. It’s like they’re reading some totally different blog from me. Or they’ve advanced some dumb-as-fuck argument and been too clueless to apologize and/or agree to disagree, turn off the computer, and come back in 12 hours to a different thread. Even when the original comment/argument is ambiguously worded, or even misinterpreted by the Commentariat, the number of fools who will hang around, become progressively less coherent, and end up getting themselves banned, is astonishing. I’ve gotten better at spotting these fools so as to avoid stepping in to point out that they wrote something ambiguous – not worth my time to rescue such spectacular flameouts.
For crying out loud, if I, a homeschooling, 12-step enthusiast, Boy Scout leader Jew, can participate here without undue difficulty, anyone can.
If it’s done poorly, then it certainly can mangle a text and introduce confusion, but that isn’t necessary or sufficient. I would note that a great listening or reading must happen to make good ideas more interesting. The presentation is there to help one along, how to understand the proper emphasis and meaning. It is still up to the reader/listener/viewer to get value out of his or her own experiences, and no one else. Even a great performance can fall on deaf ears.
(On a personal note, I’m looking forward to a less-than-stellar performance this weekend, and I bet it will also fall on deaf ears, for better or worse.)
The author said he couldn’t be bothered to listen to them, and that makes sense, to which that was a response. It doesn’t matter in the end what they sound like, so long as one is confident they aren’t completely terrible.
For the sake of clarity, by “that” I meant a great reading (for example), which isn’t necessary or sufficient to make a good idea more interesting.
Mattir,
<g>
Beautiful!
(I give you my next turn at the Spanking Couch for that)
Classical Cipher:
Well, obviously I don’t actually know what he meant; and to be fair to you, there have been several times in the past when I’ve presumed good faith on the part of a poster to find out later that they are, in fact, flaming idiots.
It’s a matter of opinion of course, but do you deny that an awful lot of thread turn into overheated shouting matches? Okay, it may be a moderately small proportion of the total, but about half of the total are completely non-controversial (cephalopods, metazoans, etc.). I’m not going to go back and look up exactly which ones, not least because they’re threads I abandoned partway through reading when they got tedious. I know you’ve been here long enough to see them.
That’s not what I was referring to. Those thing should be fought forcefully. It’s the unnecessary flamewars among regulars, the “porcupine for a first offense”, etc.
And FWIW, I consider you one of the most reasonable posters here, so it’s not you personally I was referring to.
Hey, this is what I do for a living! I never thought I’d see it here. When this video came out it caused quite a kerfluffle in the communication tower service industry. It additionally caused me to shake my fists at the internet for the following reasons:
1) The intro calls the tower “gided”, and then in the height comparison graphic it called it “guided”. Both are wrong; it’s a guyed tower.
2) A properly outfitted tower climbing harness costs just over $1,000, and both climbers shown were wearing properly outfitted harnesses. And neither was using it.
3) The narrator claims OSHA allows for free climbing, however it only does so in cases in which there is no means to climb safely. This climber had the means, but it would have made for a tedious climb. The majority of fatalities in the tower climbing industry could be prevented if proper safety practices are followed, even if it’s tiring and inconvenient. For climbers that do put themselves through the inconvenience in order to prevent their own deaths, followed by their inevitable closed casket funerals, this glib delivery of outright misinformation is fairly enraging. I’ve had a few near misses where I would have died had I been climbing like these fools. In the most recent instance I looked down and calculated my body would have been bifurcated by a concertina wire topped fence before meeting a concrete footing at terminal velocity. What a fucking meat mess that would have been. I don’t want to die, and I also don’t want to do that to my loved ones.
So by all means enjoy the thrill this video provides, but please don’t consider it an accurate representation of how professional tower climbers perform their jobs.
Rambler:
You’re too cowardly to name names. Got it.
CR:
I took Roger’s initial comment to mean that Stross’ disinterest was sensible specifically because voice work on audiobooks — something Josh and I had been praising — is trivial and unimportant. That struck me as self-righteous (snotty in the vernacular), and — given that he didn’t seem interested in pursuing the subject, and couldn’t be bothered to realize we were talking about fiction rather than “argument” — gratuitous.
Substantive disagreement is the food of the intellect; the very staff of life. But trivially bagging on other people’s pleasures for no better reason than you enjoy dropping a turd in their punchbowl smells an awful lot like trolling to me.
Mebbe. It seems that Stross feels that way, based on Josh’s anecdote. But audiobook production involves how the text is presented… not dissimilar to movie adaption or (on a more pedestrian level) the choice of binding and cover art. My guess is the percentage of authors who don’t care about these issues of presentation beyond being “confident they aren’t completely terrible” is fairly small.
You serious? Call me chicken, but I’m a bit leery of putting hydrogen peroxide in my ear, never mind isopropyl alcohol.
What is there to deny, if it’s a matter of opinion*? That there is too much heat, that it occurs in an awful lot, or that one or both are unacceptable?
It still isn’t clear to me what you mean. Is there such a thing as a necessary flamewar among regulars; and if there were, would it be acceptable to you then? In which circumstances is an “overheated shouting match” too tedious, too virulent, too emotional, or too much of whatever-you-think-it-is?
Whatever the case, exactly how should these issues be addressed? Should PZ ban people? Should we have some policy among the commenters, ineffective as those often are, to try to prevent it?
*I wouldn’t deny your opinion, and from what I recall of your past comments I think you’re reasonable enough not to deny mine.
Mattiritated, 436:
I always read your comments as coming from an atheist. Question: doesn’t 12-step (christian) program conflict with judaism?
Ruminating a little further on audiobooks, I think it’s important to point out that we’re not talking about old-fashioned “books on tape” for the blind, here: Modern, commercial audiobooks are full-fledged productions, often employing top actors and voice talent, original music, etc.
In fact, in the case of some authors — David Sedaris and Amy Vowell come immediately to mind, but there are others — it’s hard not to think that the spoken-word performance is the “truest” version of the art, and the book is just a transcript (even if the book version technically came first).
To write off the voice work on audiobooks (as long as it’s not completely terrible) is, IMHO, to miss the point.
Driving by, I have no hope of catching up on the last 3 ETs, let alone this one. Hallo Everybody!
I lost 6 days (starting on the 1st) to a second episode of acute pancreatitis, not terribly happy about that. No, it’s not clear why it happened and I don’t have any answers yet. I do have one though – cancer has been ruled out, so yay! for that one. It is possible that my meds may upset the pancreas, so I’ll be seeing doctors for some time to come.
Other than that, I’m working. Just working. The 6 days I lost really put me behind.
That’s about all the boring news there is right now.
John Morales:
No, I think that would be being kind of a jerk myself, and I’m not particularly keen to start more fighting.
PaulG:
Mattir is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. And we love her that way!
****
Caine:
There is never anything boring about “cancer has been ruled out”! Woo-hoo!!!
Hooray for a cancer-free Caine!
*exceedingly careful hug* for Caine. Glad to hear that it’s not cancer, sorry about the repancreatitisation.
–
Hmmm…. That was an HTML FAIL @450, but in retrospect, I don’t regret the extra enthusiasm!
Bill & PTI, thank you. :) That was a good piece of news, and in what’s been a less than stellar couple of months, it was seriously good to hear.
Thanks, Cicely. I hope you’re doing okay – are you?
I meant that CC’s statement (that my assessment was unfair) was a matter of opinion. Whether there’s too much heat is as well, but I think it’s pretty clear that it is heated and occurs a lot. Do you not think so?
No, I think it generally goes okay. Sometimes I wish people could be a little more adult, or ignore the obvious trolls, but that’s their business. My original post was just to say that I thought that the poster in Greta’s thread was somewhat right in his assessment (although his own page-long rant about it kind of undermined himself). The point is, I do like it free-wheeling; if it gets out of hand, it’s not a big deal to change the channel, as it were.
Stross is an author. He may simply be more interested and take more pride in his own work, which involves the written word not recordings of it. In my opinion, the quality of the audiobook shouldn’t concern the author, except insofar as it increases sales and disseminates his or her work more widely. I’m sure it’s always nice to hear it sounds wonderful, but the author isn’t responsible for it, has no control over it and may even object to it on philosophical grounds (which isn’t to say they think it’s trivial or unimportant).
As for Roger’s comment, I didn’t read it that way. I wouldn’t call it self-righteous, snotty or gratuitous, but maybe that’s just me.
(Staff or stuff?) Agreed, but I don’t get the impression that happened.
My guess is most authors don’t want to listen to their audiobooks (for fear they may have some defect, or just due to lack of interest), or else don’t have the time, so they can only hope their publishers find a competent narrator. In other words, they leave that work for others, which is another way of saying they don’t particularly care, unless there’s some reason to think the outcome will reflect badly upon their own work: the book itself.
D’Oh!! I was halfway down the stairs, contemplating a couple fingers of New England Corn Whiskey from the Berkshire Mountain distillery, when it hit me that I’d said Amy Vowell (@447) when I meant Sarah Vowell. Both Sarah Vowell and David Sedaris have sisters named Amy, so I guess the mental crosstalk was understandable.
Now for that whiskey…
Rambler:
<snicker>
You keep telling yourself that, O pusillanimous one.
Just to be clear, I’m not at all writing them off. I can nevertheless understand how an author may not be concerned about it very much. It certainly isn’t something he or she can control, and if much of the attention is given to the recording rather than his or her own work, even a compliment could come off as an insult.
Caine, fantastic news on the cancer front!!!! Hope you’re feeling better soon.
CR:
My (very mild, you’ll have to admit) pique was with Roger, not with Stross. That said…
Nor the quality of the typography or paper or cover art or illustrations? Nor should the quality of the frame or the lighting concern the painter, I suppose, nor the acoustics of the hall the composer, nor the brightness of the projector the movie director?
I’m viewing authors as artists, and in my (admittedly limited) experience, artists tend to take a rather more proprietary approach to their art.
I don’t have any beef with Stross’ attitude; I just suspect he’s the exception rather than the rule.
You’re being a dick this evening. He doesn’t have to name names and probably shouldn’t. And if you think there’s some names that should be given, then you name them.
Thanks, Carlie! I’m definitely feeling better, just on the ‘damn, I’m wiped‘ side a bit. I still have to go on the hunt for a gastroenterologist too. Oh well, next week. I’ll do it then. :D
Caine, the gallbother has been relatively quiet, the most recent reMRSAfication has been thwarted, FAILknees aren’t sucking any worse than usual, Old Shitbox has been replaced with a car with many fewer quirks and outright dangers-to-life-and-limb (to say nothing of the purſuit of happineſs), this month marks the last payment to the anaesthesiologist, Son has acquired a better-paying job, and there are no horses or peas in my house or in my yard. Life is, indeed, a cabaret. Old chum. (But not in a shark-baiting sense.)
Granted, there are other problems lurking just over the horizon, in a Novemberish kinda direction, but for now I’m basking in the knowledge that, should it be necessary, we have capability to go somewhere more than 5 miles from the house, yea, verily, and that I, myself, can feasibly drive there. Bliss!
–
Yaaay! Caine, glad to hear you’re doing well.
——–
Walton, it occurred to me that you’re close enough, geographically, to attend one of the two Pharyngula meetups in October. I vote for the one in Vermont; I’ll be there, and Josh, and there’ll be zero ungulates. Ungulates are smelly.
———-
Ah, college town in early September. Soundtrack outside my window:
WOOOOOO! WOOOOOOOOOOOO!
*singing*
*firecrackers*
WOOOOOOO! DUDE! WOOOOOOO!
*sirens*
WOOOOOO! WOOOOO!
*thumping bass, more sirens*
…You get the idea.
I’m ready to move out.
starstuff91:
1. Without even trying; but am I wrong?
2. No, because if Rambler did, such claims could be addressed. Better to cravenly avoid naming names, so that one need not defend one’s allegations via evidence.
3. First I’d have to know to which “regular commenters here” Rambler refers, no? :)
(Perhaps you’re one such)
Cicely:
That helps out tremendously on the security front! It’s a good thing.
Typographers should take pride in their work. Likewise, paper makers and textile artists, cover designers, illustrators, etc. should all be proud of theirs. The guys and gals at the factory who pour glue into the binding machine should take pride in what they do. Likewise, authors write the books, and they should take pride in that. For what it’s worth, if the books don’t have enough glue, it’s generally the printer and not the author who pays the price.
Those are all different circumstances, and the degree to which each artist is involved in those other factors is up to their discretion, but it also not entirely under their control. Do you think composers all have the resources and inclination of Wagner, to do anything and everything to control every aspect of the performance? Do you think Steven Spielberg pays any attention to whether the projectors in the Bumfuck, AR, 2-plex aren’t quite bright enough and the popcorn is stale?
So am I, but you ought to remember which art it is, and which it isn’t, for which the author has any ability or sensible reason to take a proprietary approach.
——
It’s me. I’ll own up to it. No citations needed. I could be more vague, but that may have to wait for the proper time and place, whenever and wherever those may be, if there are such things.
Sally:
I would be too. That would make me crazy.
If naming names is inappropriate, then so too is the original complaint. Back it up or shut up.
Yeah, well, I was a student myself until 2009. Crazy to think that’s over two years ago now. Anyway, it didn’t use to bother me so much because it was only a few weeks out of the year, and I used to be out late myself a lot more.
I did hear once from a classmate that by calling the cops twice, I cost my neighbors like $1300 in noise ordinance violation tickets.
That made me happy. *evil cackle*
Ing: “God “-SHUT UP YOU NEED ME! YOU NEEEEEEEEEEED ME!!!!””
I want to marry this comment. Is that wrong?
Are you wrong about what in particular?
How would we “address” such claims? Are you saying we should be defending certain people? Or we should try to get them banned?
And honestly, if Rambler thinks those things of me, I really wouldn’t care (no offense to you Rambler, I just try not to take things people say about me on the internet too seriously).
CR:
Word. I’ll be very involved in framing my current piece, but the show I’m planning to enter it in? I’m lucky I can get space for it (due to size) and have no say whatsoever in placement or lighting. That’s how it goes.
Sally:
QFT.
Midnight Rambler & Starstuff91, it would be just dandy if you both could figure out than spending ages complaining and whining is a hundred times more annoying than any argument that goes on in TET, and perhaps you could stop chewing on nothing and talk about something of possible interest.
But think of the poor, poor children.
–
@ Cain
I didn’t complain or whine. I was just saying that Morales was being a jerk. The way he was proceeding with the discussion seemed to be kind of in a bulling fashion. I don’t necessarily agree with what Rambler was saying, but I can under stand why he wouldn’t want to pick someone out specifically. And I’m pretty sure this thread is here so that we can talk about whatever we want to, unless I’ve seriously misunderstood something.
Caine!!!!
Thank fuck you’re cancer-free, and thank you so much for dropping by to tell us. That’s such a relief to me.
I still hold a grudge against your pancreas, and no, it can come up with no excuse that will soften my stance toward it.
Starstuff –
You misunderstand. Of course you can talk about whatever you like. Just be aware that if you say silly shit, you might undergo the horrific consequence of someone calling you “pusillanimous.”
John Morales was correctly pointing out that by being all passive-aggressive and saying some people are too mean and nasty, but not naming names, Midnight Rambler (that’s the right person, correct? I’m starting to lose track, and the wine is taking effect) was being a coward and making a pointless complaint. Even MR admitted that his complaint was really no big deal. If it were a big deal, he’d have a specific person or two in mind who overstepped the boundaries. But he’s not willing to say who those people were, ergo his complaint is worthless. Even he admitted as much.
Your defense of him is equally pointless. If we’re going to do this then let’s just fucking do it! Go on ahead and say, “Nerd of Redhead, you are way too mean and confrontational, even formulaic in your comments! Look, here’s a linky to demonstrate what I’m talking about!” People might disagree, but at least they’d respect you for having the chutzpah to be straightforward about whatever it is that’s bothering you.
Make sense?
On the audiobook discussion:
1. When Stross wrote me that he didn’t listen to the audio versions so had no opinion, I took that to mean he was concerned with more important things. Like writing his books and seeing how they were received by the public. A perfectly reasonable stance. My question to him was idle conversation, and nothing more.
2. I read Roger’s remark to mean that no one should care how an audiobook is read, only what the words are. That would be stupid. But if he didn’t mean that, and instead meant that he thought it was sensible of Stross as an author not to care about such details, that would be entirely reasonable. There’s no reason Stross should care much about such tertiary presentations of his work; I was only thinking of it as a reader/listener, which is a different stance with its own interests.
My, I’ve managed to bore me own self with such trivia!
Caine! Eeee! So glad to see you, so sorry your stupid pancreas was acting up again, so happy you’re cancer-free!
MR, I getcha now. Still don’t agree with you on the substance/crap ratio. I have seen arguments about things I’d consider trivial here, but they sure as hell aren’t to the point where one’s frequently wading through them to pick out infrequent gems of substance.
Hey I found this cool site called Retronaut. Filled with all sorts of weird visual time capsules, like Victorian-era surralism, or NYC subway in the 80s, or any number of strange anachronisms. Pretty cool.
@ Sally
I don’t know if it was your intent to do this in your last post, but it really seemed like you were talking down to me. Please don’t.
You may think that my defense was pointless and maybe I do too, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop talking about something just because it’s pointless. You’re obviously interested enough to have read what was going on, and I’m interested in it too (not very much but it’s more entertaining than this awful documentary that’s on my tv right now). I’m not so sure that Rambler was trying to be passive aggressive. Personally, I think he was just being a bit lazy (he didn’t want to go find specific examples, so he didn’t say anything more).
But this topic is getting pretty boring too. I’ve said all I have to say about it, so I will say no more (which I’m sure you’ll be happy about).
That is pretty cool. Did you see Ghosts of Washington on there?
@ starstuff
You’re right, it is boring. Boring a synonym for pointless? Anyway, no, no ghost of Washington yet for me. Still exploring. Actually I saw it linked on Pandagon. Does that count as “finding” it? Whatevs, it’s still cool.
Josh:
Josh! Thank you. :) It was relief to me too, and I thought Mister was gonna leak a tear or three.
I’m not exactly thrilled with it myself, but I have to live with it. I am starting to get a bit paranoid. Again, the 2nd time – I woke up in pain, fine when I went to sleep. I had been puking damn near constantly for two days before Mister found out, poor man about killed himself getting home. I was lectured half to death because not getting to the hospital right away could end up with me dead. Yep, every time it happens, I have to report to the hospital. *sigh* Damn pancreas. I have a feeling I’ll be holding a grudge the rest of my life. :D
CC:
Hallo Sweet Stuff! How are you?
[meta]
starstuff91:
I’m mildly amused.
Have spent the last few days slogging along in various threads correcting all the misinformation the evangelicals were promulgating about the 9/11 Memorial in New York. Just dropping by to share some humor:
Tony Perkins has now shifted his hateful little gaze to the outrage, OUTRAGE of the Episcopalians planning to have an interfaith service right there in their own cathedral in Washington DC and not invite any Christians! Like the Episcopalians could be the Christians or something — which of course, Perkins explains, isn’t true.
Now that’s all pretty normal Perkins (insofar as Perkins can be described as normal), but he is also demanding that even though he did indeed file a Freedom of Information suit against the Justice Department last week to look for evidence of the ‘participation of homosexual activists’ in letting DOMA slide, even though he did accuse President Obama of “acting like a Middle East dictator”, he now is DEMANDING that President Obama boycott the interfaith service on behalf of Perkins and his hate group.
I was very amused to see this in the Daily Mail. Apparently Perkins’ looniness has reached heights that keep newspaper editors in the USA from taking his calls.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2034553/9-11-anniversary-Furious-evangelical-Christians-excluded-line-interfaith-memorial-service.html
Just because I typed two sentences doesn’t mean I care that much. Like I don’t care too much about you but I still manage to respond to you. Strange how things work when one is bored.
Mellow thread, drifting like maple leaves in autumn.
I remember there was a nother fella who would post random stuff on Pharyngula too. *wistful sigh*
Another advance in the War on Women (via Butterflies and Wheels) – The Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled that the
ignorant misogynist fucktarded authoritarian Jesus freaksgood citizens of the state get to:Grok that. The public gets to “decide” whether “life” begins the minute one microscopic entity punctures the cell membrane of another, thus giving a definitive ruling on a philosophical question while binding real, living people to bodily indentured servitude.
Mississippi citizens now have the right decide that human Sea Monkeys have higher precedence than the
glass bowls</strike. . errrinert receptacleswomen who’d have to bear and rear them.I fucking hate this country. It’s depraved and obscene that such decisions are up for a vote, and by the whim of some group of people whose identity depends on the arbitrary markings on a goddamn map. States’ Rights? May the idea rot in history’s dustbin.
Fuck I’m furious.
I have a fabulous image in my mind of Josh OSG with mouthguard and boxing gloves, gesturing to Caine’s pancreas: “Bring it on, motherfucker.”
It won’t stand a chance!
Caine, wonderful news. Bore us with more of the same at any time!
O..kaaayyy, that was oddly specific.
That’s the second or third time I’ve had a particularly long, vivid, and detailed dream in which I have tardive dyskinesia – specifically: intermittent but progressive; mature onset, not congenital, and not as a side effect of prescription drug use (though without definitively ruling out effects of earlier drug use, prescription or otherwise); loss of control and random movement of my hands, arms, tongue, mouth and face. In the dream, I know what it is, and what it’s called, and I have a medication that can ameliorate the symptom.
The first dream involved the first appearances of the symptom, extensive hospital tests, professional bafflement at the presentation and aetiology, the awareness that the condition was worsening – in that the outbreaks were becoming longer each time – some panic, and the prescription of the medication. Also the awareness that the medication was merely, and unreliably, symptomatic relief, not a cure, and that the outlook was not good – likely to lead to increasing loss of independence, state care, and possible early death.
In this dream, which reads much like a sequel to the previous one, I was at a dance party held in a huge, sort of rococco/baroque Italianate/Indianesque mansion belonging to someone in my extended family. Amongst a fun time being had by all, myself included, I chose to partake of some marijuana, and of dream-unspecified party drugs (knowing me, presumably MDMA or a black-market substitute thereof, and/or acid). some time after that, I had a TD episode.
In amonst the random flailing of my arms, they became entangled in the shoulder straps of the backpack I was wearing, making it impossible for me to reach my medication. Hence ensued the spectacle of wandering (with some difficulty) from ballroom to marble hall to courtyard and explaining my predicament (with some difficulty) to people fucked up on drugs, that I was not myself fucked up on drugs (conceding that, yes, technically, I was also fucked up on drugs, that that however was not the root of the immediate problem, but that yes, I could see how one might think that, what with the gurning and flailing and slurring) and that if someone would be so kind as to help me with my incredibly heavy backpack (did I mention the trio of huge {say, 2x1x1 ft}, deep cycle lead-acid batteries?) I would be most grateful – part of the urgency being that I had lost my party companions (to whit, my nuclear family) and my lift home.
At some point, my father’s brother and his family returned home (as this was in fact their home). I caught sight of him and his wife through a door – immediately recognising him, though I had never met him before, and he does not exist in IRL, because he was my father’s spitting image, though with a black goatee – where he fulminated (justifiably, it seemed to me) at the outrage of his property being thus despoiled without his permission and stormed off in search of culprits before I had a chance to plead for help.
As my struggle to communicate became increasingly desperate and farcical, I found myself in an outdoor paved forecourt off the main building, with a small crowd of curious, compassionate but incomprehending onlookers doing their level, if somewhat impaired, best to become less incomprehending. Just as a breakthrough in understanding seemed imminent, two of my brothers* appeared from an entrance to the main building, one (the IRL acerbic, bitter and grudge-holding one) announcing that he/they had “had enough of this shit” and were leaving with or without me.
Finally, some small contingent got my drift and proceeded to assist me. I had not been previously significantly hampered by the weight of the batteries because a thick roll of paper had at some point been attached to the bottom of the backpack, and between the polished marble floors and some rolling, had allowed me to remain upright and move about. The first, bottom-most battery was extracted without difficulty, being merely strapped on, but some incomprehension of the excessive weight and difficulty remained, as the other two were hidden inside – that and my speaking impediment. I found myself being assisted by chaotic and unseen hands, pitched hither and thither forward towards alarmingly solid-looking stone floors and stairways, amidst much chatter and my own slurred attempts at explaining that there were more batteries to remove (yes yes, lead weights and acid to remove from my “baggage”, paging Dr. Freud) and that if someone could help disentangle my arms that would be lovely, ta.
I found myself being essentially frog-marched along the footpath of a busy highway alongside a park to the right. As we passed a small roadside temple, I managed to explain the extra batteries to my (by then) lone companion, and we climbed the steps looking for a convenient point to remove them. Attempting to communicate my idea of removing them by laying me face down on a step and removing them rearwards, talking over each other, language difficulties, conflicting dance to and fro. Finally he managed to remove them both downwards, stumble with them in his arms for a while and put them down.
We sat on the stone steps of the temple overlooking the river/ocean/lake at the base of the steps (had we stumbled to the opposite side of the temple, or simply dream-relocated to a different temple?) I found my companion to be a muscular, shirtless and admittedly rather gorgeous young man of indeterminate Polynesian/Indian/East Asian appearance, with a simple leather-thong-and-small-trinket necklace. I thanked him; he said (only more eloquently, in perfect, lightly accented English, with cultural nuances matching his appearance) “No problem, you’re welcome”.
The dream ended with my arms free, medication taken, and the two of us sitting in silence taking in the sounds and sights of temple, water, nature and other humans.
* possibly relevant – the two co-executors of my father**’s will
** my IRL, has-terminal-cancer father
Finally, before I freak myself out even further (and I have been observing the movement of my arms and hands like a paranoid hawk since I woke up and began this epistle) by consulting Dr Google and Professor W. Pedia, I haz questions:
– Is tardive dyskinesia with the qualifiers in my first two paragraphs even a thing?
– Do dreams (being neurological phenomena) ever contain early indicators of other, currently sub-clinical, neurological phenomena?
Caine,
Lack of cancer means celebrations time! *Tosses confetti*
starstuff91, I thought you were going to say no more? :)
Your evasion is futile; the fact that you typed two sentences in itself doesn’t; their content does.
Haha, now that’s going to be dancing through my dreams tonight.
@ Josh
How can that even be ok? Shouldn’t the supreme court be all “No you di’en’t!”?
dr. bunsen, your oddly specific dream is EPIC. I bow down. As a connoisseur of the genre (and a prolific producer), yours is one of the best I’ve ever heard.
@Dhorvath – I think we may have talked past each other a bit. The point I was actually advocating (to Mattir) was the highly specific one. The general musing on hunger was more of an aside with no particular resolution, and I don’t have a very strong view on what the right answer is. So I didn’t really expect that to be the part discussed. Sorry for the confusion.
So as to that point? Well, yes, I do seriously think there’s something wrong with us as a society in how we deal with hunger and obesity and exercise and body image. Our current western culture values skinny much too highly. Even with evidence that BMI 25-30 is the lowest health risk, we somehow insist on labelling 20-25 as “normal”.
It’s a large and convoluted issue, and I wouldn’t dare specify how it affects you personally. I’m not even clear how it affects me, let alone anyone else. Some options could easily be taken as insulting. But hey, how about I try anyway – and please take this as not about you personally but as a list of ways that our culture can screw us all over.
So why might someone be constantly a bit hungry?
1. Their body’s “preferred” weight is a lot higher than they want it to be. Weight is more strongly heritable than height (and similarly culturally affected.) Some people naturally pack on the fat, others naturally burn it off, most are probably somewhere in the middle. Maybe this person is the naturally fat kind and has to work really hard to keep to a socially approved level.
2. Their body’s “preferred” weight is a little bit higher than they want it to be. They’re keeping it permanently hungry, not realising that if they ate more food they’d probably only gain a couple of kilos and settle comfortably.
3. Their hunger signals are fucked up by years of ignoring them. They neglect hunger by constant underfeeding or overfeeding – or both, in turn. So they don’t actually know how to interpret the signals. (If you’re NEVER satisfied or hungry, how could you even know what satisfied or hungry feels like?)
4. They have an emotional problem that manifests as an eating disorder, so they are emotionally hungry without actually needing to eat, or physically hungry because they deliberately undereat. They may perceive themself as fat, when they aren’t, and be dieting.
5. The foods that they are eating are not satisfying in terms of bulk, fibre or nutrients. Calories alone don’t cause satisfaction. You can feel starving on 3000 calories of soft drink.
6. Their hunger signals are confused by addictions and cravings to junk food. This is more controversial – does this really exist? Maybe. Carbs seem to be emotionally calming, HFCS just might be addictive.
7. They’re a naturally active person with appetite to match, stuck in a sedentary lifestyle by illness, disability, employment or other factors. (Kind of the same as point 1/2 but from an output rather than input angle.)
Probably plenty more, too.