This video makes me wonder who taxidermized Chuck Testa.
(Episode CCLIV: The worst song ever recorded)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This video makes me wonder who taxidermized Chuck Testa.
(Episode CCLIV: The worst song ever recorded)
Walton, heh.
FWIW, you probably have no less creative dreams, but you merely don’t recollect them upon waking; the difference between us may be that a couple of decades ago I went on a jig of trying to acquire the skill of lucid dreaming.
(Some of it stuck, mainly recollection upon waking; read up on techniques if you want to experiment for yourself)
This might be a stupid question, but would be glad if someone could comment. Just as cabbages and say, broccoli, have the same genetic makeup, do chihuahuas and rottweilers have the same genome ?
Rorschach, clearly, they can’t have the quite same genome.
But, with a touch of Google-fu: Scientists track down the gene that turns Great Dane into a chihuahua
(Or you could just use Scholar)
@ Lipwig
You will like this too: http://www.mamadancemusic.co.za/
(I’m reposting. Great music streams from the music scene in Cape Town.)
@ Ing
*hugs*
(I can’t remember what it was you studied.)
@ Sailor
Just off the top of my head:
* South African English: “now now” = soon
* Afrikaans: “gou gou” = very quickly
* Zulu: “vuka vuka” = wake up!
* Chinese is completely riddled with repetitive words (to lend emphasis but also change meaning): taitai = wife (slang, “tai” = excessive, too [much]), “bye bye’ = goodbye, “xiexie”= thank you, “hun hun hun….hun” = very very very …. very (used for emphasis, intonation changes on last “hun”)
@ Rawnaeris
Break-ins always come as such a shock. I hope this all gets sorted out soon. Hugs.
Some good news: New Libyan flag is flying outside the UN. (Picture)
I love the way they have incorporated pagan astrological signs into the design.
Rawnaeris – I am so sorry you got burgled. It is the most awful feeling of violation to know your home was intruded upon and your stuff ransacked. Glad to hear your doors are going to be reinforced. You’ll be nervous and reactive for a while; there’s no way to avoid it. Hopefully you can remember that you’re not more likely to have your house broken into again than you ever were (it’s highly unlikely overall), though I know that doesn’t get rid of the understandable heightened anxiety.
@ Lynna
“A Moment of
MormonMugabe Madness”It seems the whole phoney ploy of letting religion infect politics has now spread across the Atlantic. Fail to have any relevant political message? Well then, make it all about jeeebus and the sheeple will follow:
Link: Mail&Gardian
Neoliberalism is evil.
(I have a copy of the full paper that I can send to anyone else without access, but just reading the first few paragraphs has been a nightmare, especially because I keep switching ‘identity theft’ with ‘rape’ and seeing no difference at all)
Good morning
consciousness rauor and Algernon
Well, thank you both for taking a statement out of the middle of a conversation and turning it into something completely different.
Maybe you simply didn’t realize that the already established “facts” in the discussion were having a baby vs. adopting an older child with already existing issues.
Walton made the argument that you can’t be sure that your baby won’t develop them as well and to that I responded.
So, if you can now go back to that point and chastize me on basis of my claim that a 12 year old with severe anger management issues and a history of abuse who is a stranger to you until the point of the adoption process will not be equal to a child (never said it had to be a biological child) whom you have known and loved for 12 years and who develops such issues after a traumatic experience, I’ll be eager to listen.
pelamun
Well, first of all it’s not only members of the PDL who’ll boycott the pope, there are members of the Greens and the SPD as well, so to only jump at the PDL is hypocritical.
I’d also say that no matter what those leaders who invited the pope of said parties did, it is still the right of the individual to decide. I’d actually like representatives to be more independent.
kristinc
Yes, those are skills and tools, too.
Call me old-fashioned, but I value the tools you can use when the battery has gone out and the GPS can’t get a connection more than the other ones.
So I’d like them to learn those skills first.
bank vs bench
IIRC, the institution bank, the place to sit on bench(Bank in German as well) and the river bank all have teir origin in the idea of a board. The insitution took its name from the money lenders who’d have a board before their chest where they’d do their business on. If they were broke (yep, probably the same origin), they’d break their board in two and shout “banka rota” which is weher you get bancrupt from.
They™ broke into my detached garage three times (with increasing levels of “security”).
They stole returnable beverage containers.
(oh well not so bad *smirk*)
(my extra house key was in there)
(the next time…(no actual statement of violence))
Mattir
I heard that! He did a really good job asking the question, too many callers ramble on and on and take up air time.
—
Nerd of Redhead
I try not to let my computer do anything without prior consent. Some of those programs can be as bad as malware themselves.
—
One of the bits that bothers me is when their eyes track separately (also makes me cringe when it happens in movies).
I hate walking through suburbs. Every time I do, I see hidden judgment, people who will look scathingly but say nothing and give no hint as to what the scathing looks are; I see people who want to enforce their moral superiority by complaining about the mere presence of those whose existence makes them feel insecure. When I see inside the window I see a load of pointless theater, a beautiful house set up and cleaned to a sickening spotlessness for an audience that is rarely, if ever, present to enjoy it.
And whenever they look at me I hate them, because while they see nothing I can still feel their judgment, for I am not one of them, I do not dress like one of them, I do not act like one of them, I do not want to be like one of them and whenever I walk through one of their damn mass-cleaned, mass-produced subdivisions smoking a joint I am raising a giant, shit-covered middle finger to the tiny, boring, idiotically regulated, pseudo-individualistic and -intellectual shell that they call life, where conversations over singular issues are unappetizingly short and any attempt at firmness contrary to the underlying party line must be tempered by some sort of nuance.
Fuck fuck fuck fucking fuck. I hate that fucking life, I’ve hated it since I was a kid and I hate it even more now that I’m out of it. And I don’t even know now if I’m still being coherent in this rant, or if I’m being overly generalizing, or what…I just hate the upper middle class with a fucking passion. -.-;
Addendum to #512:
I really hope that those of us here who -are- in that class don’t take my hate as being directed towards them — it’s not, just at the prevailing culture of passive-aggressivity, of thinly-veiled superiority. It’s all just so contrived…clean…spotless…gilded, even?
I hate cold-sores.
Just a quick drop in to share:
Light shed on bisexual and promiscuous deep-sea squid
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14986769
John, while Jim had had “had had”, had had “had”. “Had had” had had a better effect on the teacher.
Don’t know about that buffalo business, though (though I do now, ’cause I just looked it up: seems it’s a USAnian thing (we Brits don’t have that verb (or the city, or the animal, come to that (though at least I’d heard of the city and the animal)))).
Have never experienced a break-in, but I think it would scare the shit out of me. My sympathies – and I’m so glad they didn’t hurt the dog.
From the article in 515:
Talk about an oops moment.
Ack, so much!
Hugs to Rawnaeris.
Lord Setar, I’m middle class, middle aged and suburban, but not upper middle class. I do assure you that you will never, ever, see my house set up and cleaned to a sickening spotlessness. Not while I inhabit it, anyway. Those sorts of places give me the creeps. It’s all Vogue living, with no room for real life. And no books. Especially the books are important, a house with no books is just super-creepy and wrong.
I believe the Buffalo thing is interpreted as: Buffalo-town buffalo, whom Buffalo-town buffalo buffle, in turn buffle Buffalo-town buffalo. Where clearly I have substituted “buffle” for buffalo-as-verb, because I think it’s cute. And probably an aid to understanding.
Now can we all punctuate “bacon and and and and and eggs”? (Not a full sentence. Sensible use in a sentence gives away too much.)
Oh, and one for the Dutch: fix up “toen tomaten tomaten tomaten tovrat”
Huh. Same-sex marriage vote succeeds
Go Tassie! Funny that they have gone from being the most backwards of the states in terms of decriminalising gay sex, to the most advanced.
I know that one, Alethea :)
We need more space between the words on that restaurant sign so that customers can read it easily – a space between “bacon” and “and”, and “and” and “eggs”.
Alethea #518: And it’s like every aspect of their life has to be that clean. Hell, talk to your average person about their philosophical stances and you’ll get a shitton of mental gymnastics meant to justify a ‘personal’ stance carefully tailored to an invisible party line, rife with ‘forbidden’ subjects — most notably religion and politics. All to keep up this image of themselves as an upstanding person, as if that’s an image that has to be actively maintained lest someone look down on them and make their life fall apart.
And seemingly anything that violates that image has to be removed and looked down upon as lesser. That’s not how you want to live your life. That’s not what you want to do.
And it’s bad to take an overt stance on anything…but it’s perfectly fine to passive-aggressively shame people into falling into line. That is, if they’re a fellow member of the middle class.
add to 523: Everything is under a fog.
Everything.
That is the middle-class party line, at least, it seems to be. Put everything under a passive-aggressive, it’s-all-okay fog and run with that. Veil absolutely everything, from facts about reality to motivations and political stances, in a shroud of carefully grown roses whose soil is bullshit. It doesn’t matter how things are, just how you think they are, and if you think they’re okay then they absolutely must be.
And anyone who tells you otherwise is just mean, closed-minded and beneath you.
Further to Walton et als discussion on IVF etc:
Linky.
Ing, I offer my sympathies. As a university drop out, I can imagine a bit how you must feel. Feel free to vent or ask for advice here any time you need.
===
Rawnaeris, I’m sorry to hear about the break in. I’m glad no one was hurt.
===
On alien babies: that really freaked me out when our second† kid was born — suddenly the number of persons in the room had gone up by one. For a second, it really felt as if there was an alien coming out of my wife.
† Our first kid was born by emergency c-section. We had other things to worry about then.
===
Alethea H. Claw, as mentioned before, I get a pleasant tingle down my spine when encountering Dutch unexpectedly. “To en Tom aten tomaten. Tom at en To vrat.”
Also, “bij Deventer ging de venter de brug over. Toen was de vent er.”
One-upping the string of ands: en en en en en en (Dutch) Anyone?
John M,
The question is, does the great dane have the same gene, and it’s just downregulated, or recessive, or turned off ?
Oh, and it’s not quite that simple, from that link :
Hi there
Der, der das gemacht hat. Hard to believe that a woman did it ;)
But of course, none of this is a definete article, they’re pronouns (various kinds of them).
But some weird ones: Wenn hinter Fliegen Fliegen fliegen fliegen Fliegen Fliegen nach.
In my dialect, girls take the article/pronoun “das/es”, because it’s “das Mädchen” (diminutive always has the neutral article)
So, somebody asks the parent:
“Darf das das?” (Is she allowed to do that)
Parent: Das darf das! (she is allowed to do that)
amazed person: “Dass das das darf!” (that she is allowed to do that!)
Ohh FFS!
I’ve tried twice to post, and nothing appeared either time!
I’ll try breaking it down and see which bit is causing trouble.
Looks like the post I submitted a couple of hours ago simply isn’t going to appear. Let’s see if I can re-create it!
Ing,
I sympathise; the current climate is awful for job-hunters. Several of my relations are without full-time work or any work at all. It doesn’t reflect badly on you, it just is.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rawnaeris,
I’m so sorry about your break-in and glad neither your husband or your dog were hurt. I hope you and they soon recover from the stress and that you have a co-operative insurance company. I also hope you didn’t lose any important files with your laptop – your experience has reminded me to back up my photos and documents to disc.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Setár and Alethea,
I would rather gnaw off my leg than have a ‘show house’. The only family I knew who lived in one eventually split up from the stress (both parents became serious alcoholics, too). My current house feels naked to me, as most of our belongings are in storage in Ireland; yet it is full of books, science magazines, toys for visiting kids and pets, musical instruments and computer games. Clean enough to be healthy, untidy enough to be comfortable. Maintaining appearances does not lead to happiness. A house is not a home if it isn’t lived in.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With regard to the IVF conversation: there will always be people who think that something shouldn’t be covered by health care. Usually because they cannot imagine themselves ever needing it and therefore don’t think anyone else should (although they would strenuously deny that they are being prejudiced and instead insist that there are objectively sound fiscal and/or societal reasons). I’ve heard such ‘arguments’ used re. sporting injuries (and, paradoxically, illnesses allegedly caused by insufficient exercise) and motorcycle accidents!
If the NHS really cannot afford IVF then surely they should be cancelling support for SCAM rather than something that creates great happiness?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ok, so it was the last section causing trouble. I’ll leave out the explanatory links and see if that works.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lastly, I promised I would keep those interested up-to-date with my lump. I had FNA on Monday. The pathologist manage to get enough tissue for seven slides on her second attempt. (The first attempt missed the lump altogether using this, so she abandoned the contraption and, using a fresh, narrower needle found it with her fingers. Yes, it hurt.)
The results will be sent to my breast surgeon by the end of this week so I should get the results by the middle of next week.
Brought a tear to my eye, I don’t mind admitting.
Forgotten Japanese War Diary Returns Home (video)
Tigger #533: It’s not just the house, though, it’s the whole mentality; this closeted, restricted view of the world and how it should be, the progressive, egalitarian…really, I have to call it middle-class fog of ‘nice, non-judgmental’ bullshit and woo obscuring — and to those who recognize it for what it is, seemingly magnifying — a bunch of passive-aggressive, self-righteous shaming directed towards anyone who deviates from the so-called norm (which is now strongly implied, rather than explicitly defined), and seemingly directed even harder towards anyone who tries to clear up the fog and establish reality.
The show house is almost symbolic, really.
Good morning, TET. Nice to be working from home so I can try to keep up today.
@Nerd: Glad I could help! I don’t have any antivirus stuff on the iMac so wouldn’t have had a clue about that.
@ Rawnaeris: so sorry to hear about the break-in. How frightening. Glad your dog is OK, and your husband wasn’t there for possible injury. (sends hugs)
@Josh: HI! Had so much fun with you in VT and LOVED meeting Francine. We will have to do it again. Might not be till next spring, though…my weekends are getting full of activities and I usually don’t ride that far in winter. Things are going well; I’m moved, settled in and very happy.
@Giliell: I’m not sure, from your last post, if I *want* to learn German so I can read what you wrote (and others, above), or continue to rely on teh almighty Googles translator because German makes me want to run screaming in the other direction…LOL.
Guess I should go to work…Later.
OK. Just read Tigger-the-Wing’s post: glad they got a sample; needle biopsies suck. Hope the results are benign, Tigger!
@Setar: I love to visit McMansions, but could never imagine living in one. Just keeping it clean would make me miserable. I love my 1000 sq ft apartment. I’d actually be happier in a bit smaller, but I have a lot of stuff I am storing for my girls taking up space.
Setár,
As a life-long alien in my own society, I hear what you are saying. My mother sometimes said to me “But what would the neighbours think?!” which confused me; my attitude was “Who cares what the neighbours are thinking? I’m not a mind-reader!”
This is my life, and I’ll live it my way. I talk to people the same way whoever they may be. I help those who need help, regardless of who they are. I won’t bother with the passive-aggressive people who think I should look down on some people and grovel to others just because of some arbitrary social conventions.
Thank you, triskelethecat, I’m 99.99999999999999999% certain it is benign. If not, it is certainly the least aggressive/slowest growing cancer in history!
Rawnaeris: Sux. Sorry to hear.
Setár, self-appointed Elf-lord of social justice: It seems that you are the one with prejudices.
My anti-vandal program (part of Intego Virus Barrier X6), closed off the URL, and I saw no gravatars, but since it was the only URL was added today, I was able to white list the URL, and now I see gravatars.
Oh hey, Japanese kanji. Awesome stuff. I have a sign outside my cube here at work that has the name of the group I belong to at work on it in Japanese kanji and katakana. Was wondering if this is the right translation here:
ロボット通信網脅威焦点団 – Robotto Tsuushinmou Kyoui Shyoutendan – Botnet Threat Focus Cell
The only part I’m confused about is the 焦点 part of the name, since it could also be 全力を注ぐ as 焦点 is a focus or focal point but 全力を注ぐ means to focus efforts on. I think they would both fit, but 全力を注ぐ団 (zenryokusosogudan) is a bit more unwieldy than 焦点団 (shyoutendan) seems to be.
Any thoughts?
Here’s what I translated out:
ロボット – robotto – robot
通信網 – tsuushinmou – communication network
脅威 – kyoui – threat, danger
(全力を注ぐ – zenryokusosogu – focus attention on
焦点 – shyouten – a focal point)
団 – dan – group
<obligatory>Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.</obligatory>
Did not say that.
Didn’t say that either. To repeat: I’m genuinely mystified by the fact that there are women out there suffering psychological trauma because they can’t have kids.
Its not mystifying that people want children. It’s mystifying that some women torture themselves to such over not being able to give birth to children. To me.
My actual point was: how much of this torturing themselves to such a degree over it coming from outside pressures? I have a hard time believing that such an extreme reaction to a biological coincidence is coming from only the woman herself. Since we all live in a culture were children are assumed to be compulsory, it isn’t at all surprising that some women would internalize the “you’re nothing if you don’t breed” message. I’m still shocked there are women going so overboard. Not shocked in the “those silly girls!” sense, but shocked in the “holy shit this culture is intensely fucked up” sense.
No, Illuminata, it’s innate and if you don’t innately want to slit your wrists if you can’t give birth then you should probably slit your wrists because you’re a terrible excuse for a woman!
Nice,no?
Giliel:
I did what now? I responded to CR’s post with a meta post about the nature of parenting.
All children are strangers.
All this talk about women giving birth just makes me cry because regardless of my gender identity I’ll never be able to ever have that opportunity. I’ll pull through though.
Katherine, there is hope. Good luck.
Fuck.
Good news: I just cleaned out behind the washing machine.
Bad news: I did so because I hauled it forward to see if I could find out why it wasn’t doing anything except smelling funny, and I don’t mean dirty-laundry-funny.
Tigger
Keeping my thumbs crossed for your results.
triskelthecat
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to learn German.
illuminata
I can’t of course speak for anybody else, but when I miscarried I felt let down by my body in a way I had never imagined. Something that was supposed to be working didn’t do so without any sign of warning. It shook my confidence in my body as a whole.
I fortunately didn’t have to find out how far I would go. I think that everybody has a final treshld but where that is is different from person to person.
One of my best friends wants to be a mother. She’s willing to make a lot of sacrifices for that. She’s preparing to go to the Netherlands to get a sperm donation (yeah for fucked up German system). But she’s not willing to go any length for that (risky sex, mail order sperm). Others are willing to run that risk. Just as everybody is “mystified” at the one step further other people are willing to take, they totally understand all the previous steps.
So sorry, Katherine. One of my sisters wasn’t able to give birth either, despite every kind of medical intervention; including IVF twice (with both her own and donated embryos). Sometimes even being born with the appropriate organs doesn’t guarantee anything. She has an adopted son.
@Tigger:
Yea, I know being able to have children is not the be-all-end-all of womanhood, and I know it’s silly of me to think what I do, but (aside from SQB’s link there) I feel sad never being able to say “I’m pregnant” to someone.
Sucks being born with the wrong parts :\
Katherine,
:-(
I’m sorry if I upset you. I didn’t mean to.
Believe it. My wife has never given a damn about what people think of her. Yet, our long-inability* to have a child was very hard on her. Shit. It was kind of hard on both of us.
This fact might be mystifying to you the same way that I find people’s love of “The Beatles” to be mystifying. It would seem like a terrible argument to chalk everything that other people feel and that I don’t to cultural brain-washing, or societal pressure or what have you. It could be true in some instances; however, I think it is safe to believe that there are some people who actually like the Beatles and aren’t kow-towing to some cultural norm.
To me there is no mystery at all in feeling dissatisfaction over not getting what you want despite your best efforts.
*Eventually overcome
Also, eee! Snip pictures on my computer desktop at work now :3
I can see him even when he’s half an hour away by Metro.
Yes. But that is what it is, isn’t it?
@Walton:
No no, don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault. It’s one of my little issues I have to deal with.
Since I never had problems *getting* pregnant, I could not empathize with my patients who did. I could sympathize, offer support and suggestions, but not really understand. Just like I don’t understand many other things because I haven’t personally experienced them (i.e. death of a parent, birth of a child with health issues, etc). I can sympathize with people who have that experience, but not really understand. I CAN empathize with those who have miscarried, having done so myself, and understand the feelings of loss, betrayal by my body, and sadness.
Katherine Lorraine – that has to be very tough. Most women, unless they’ve had a hysterectomy for some reason, can at least hope to become pregnant. You know that you won’t (unless some miracle of science occurs). (hugs)
@Katherine Lorraine
I hope this isn’t too forward of me but you have my sympathies. Going off what I’ve seen of you here, you’re a wonderful woman. And not being able to have children won’t ever make that less true.
@triskelethecat:
*hugs* I can only hope for that science miracle then :) Of course by that time I may be an old woman… unless they’re working swiftly on it. Go go! For science!
@julian:
Thank you. I appreciate the compliment. First time I think someone called me a wonderful woman.
Algernon
Sorry, I misinterpreted your post.
Katherine
I’m sorry. That’s why the whole reproduction business simply sucks: It’s determined by biology and not by parenting ability. There are a lot of idiots out there reproducing who shouldn’t be let anywhere near children while other people who would make great parents are excluded.
That’s why I’m all for reproductive medicine (and changes in the adoption system): It levels the field a bit. People who undergo fertility treatment at least make the conscious decission to become parents.
What’s up with the time?
I’m usually 1 hour off Pharyngula-time.
Now I’m 6 hours off.
Hmmmm…very borked time. It’s 10:22 am at my house, 2:22 pm at FtB? I’m usually just an hour off too.
I think that it is very easy to understand why people experience grief if reality doesn’t match their reasonable expectations. (Conception is apparently easy for most couples, to the point that many do it accidentally.)
For people who choose to have biological offspring I can see nothing wrong with that being a decision made with the fullest emotional investment. Why shouldn’t it be important to those who want to, to be able to have babies? Given that, I think it is very obvious why people who have set their minds to creating babies may feel devastated when they cannot.
Why, beyond the need to provide support, or out of academic curiosity, do we need to explain where the driving force for their desire comes from?
@triskelethecat / chigau:
I’m just trying to figure out where it’s 4 hours from now. Spain?
Nope, Spain is on CET, which is UTC+1. According to the Pft! (can’t be bothered to link), UTC-1 is Cabo Verde.
@SQB:
Well that’s even weirder.
Nah, by that time, seventies will be the new forties so you’ll be in your prime years. ;)
Hugs from me too if you want them. (Fair warning – I have a cold, but intertubes should filter out all the germs)
—-
I didn’t even notice that I’m only two hours ahead of Pharyngula now.
I had my van broken into a couple of weeks ago and everything was ransacked. Good news/bad news: They didn’t think anything was worth stealing.
Time:
Not to worry. It’s five o’clock somewhere, right?
My TET time is normally one hour off and now it is 4.
Writing here is such a pain in the ass… I spend 3 times as much time waiting as reading, typing and scrolling…
Seconded.
Good point. Austria is even the size of Taiwan, just much less densely settled. :-)
The biggest difference is that, till 1938, Austria had been independent (never mind the Holy Roman Emperor) since the 12th century, while Taiwan, ever since the first Chinese settlers arrived, was under foreign (Dutch, Japanese) and Chinese rule till, I suppose, 1949. So, while German-speaking Austrians considered themselves ethnic Germans till WWII, the idea that this should translate to an all-German state was new when it was introduced in the late 19th century and never had many adherents except in 1918/19 and in WWII. In Taiwan, the idea that it’s anything other than the last remnant of the Republic of China is what’s new.
What do you mean by 228?
Of course. :-)
Sorry. It was too late at night for me.
I think she thought you were talking past each other. So she gave up on asking you and asked us instead – because we’ve known you for longer than she has, and because we’ve known her for as long as you have. That strikes me as logical to do, and I can’t see anything evil about it.
That’s indeed bad.
Sister 2 has a T-shirt with it. She doesn’t know how she got the T-shirt. o_O
…by way of reverse-engineering Italian rotta to Latin rupta.
I wonder if this was done – in English and only in English – at the same time when some moron introduced the silent b into debt and doubt, which are from French dette and doute, which are from Latin debitum and dubitum.
I see your flying flies and raise you a tongue twister!
Wenn Rumkugeln um Rumkugeln ‘rumkugeln, kugeln Rumkugeln um Rumkugeln ‘rum.
…aggravated by the fact that dass and das, the two meanings of “that”, are pronounced the same.
(Which is actually strange, because they have different vowels [!] in all dialects I know of.)
It looks like the time displayed is Universal Time. It appears to have started midnightish Central Time.
Watching Obama’s UN speech. He is calling for recognition for gay, lesbian and women’s rights. Generally it has been a very good speech. The only thing I cannot understand is why he is not pushing for Palestinian representation in the UN. Something about Israel is buddiez for-eber. So what? Are they going to keep treating Palestinians as second rate humans in future negotiations?
@ Tigger
Or my aunt’s fridge magnet: “A tidy kitchen is a sign of a sick mind!” (She is a great cook though.)
@ Kitty
Have you put Snip on Teh Infinite Kitteh Project yet? (Link)
It is, in fact, 5:02 pm over here. :-)
My current time is 9:09AM on September 21.
It is 3:09PM in Reykjavik and Casablanca
So, Troy Davis is going to be put to death at 7 tonight. This case has gotten everyone talking about the ethics of the death penalty and, as a pleasant surprise, most people seem to be against it. Well, except the Tea Party (they love themselves some killin’), but everyone hates them anyway.
11h17
crap! That is 11:17 PM = *taps on calculator* 23h17
(Now 23h21)
Posting this here. FYI.
The Tea Party has a really good chance of winning the next presidency. This is the headline this morning.
This was Bush’s fault. But it’s going to be very difficult for Obama to win in 2012. Historically, when the economy is sick, the party in power loses. The economy is sick and not getting better. It may even get worse. Even the polls are showing Obama in big trouble now.
The Fed. Reserve projects the recovery to take until 2018. IMO, one more Tea Party moron president, and the US is over with. You can add another decade to that, recovery in 2028.
It’s not too early to start working on your personal survival plans.
@ starstuff91
I find it totally disgusting that a so-called civilised country like the USA can allow this to go ahead. Even if he did commit the murder. (And it is made worse by 21 years incarceration – justice delayed is justice denied – 21 years for FSM sake!)
The US is in good company. Saudi Arabia and Iran are both proceding with contentious death penalties (“sourcery”* and murder respectively).
* Yeah, I know. Woo that doesn’t even exist.
Are you sure it happened that way? Bear in mind that many French-origin words in English (particularly those used in legal process, as both “debt” and “doubt” are) are derived from Norman French, in which the spelling was quite different from modern French. This is complete guesswork on my part, since the history of language is not my field, but I’d speculate that the silent “b” might conceivably have existed in the equivalent words in Norman French?
(An example: When the Queen grants Royal Assent to a Bill, the Clerk of the Parliaments announces it with the words “La Reyne le veult“. In modern French, of course, this would be spelled “La Reine le veut“, the silent “l” having been apparently dropped.)
Katherine
Earlier we were discussing Chinese, not Japanese. Regarding your Japanese question
ロボット通信網脅威焦点団
Usually you do not mix Wago (lexical items that are from the native Japanese lexicon) and Kango (lexical items from the Sino-Japanese lexicon). It’s like you wouldn’t say lifology in English. Also sosogu is a verb, and the name of that group, whose elements you have correctly broken down, are all nouns. The characteristic of kango is that usually function as nouns per se, but also can be made verbs or adjectives by adding auxiliary elements.
So
焦点
alone means “focus”
焦点する
followed by the light verb suru would be “to focus” (in some languages such as Hindi or Persian, this is how most verbs work, they have an unchangeable root, and make use of a light verb to conjugate).
ロボット is in Katakana because at some point the Japanese stopped calquing technical terms using Kango (which interesting enough the Chinese in turn borrowed back into Chinese, since Japan was the first East Asian country to undergo modernisation), and instead chose to directly borrow them from (mostly) English.
The Chinese, on the other hand, mostly still do calquing, which makes means that all the technical terms have to be learnt anew. I’ve studied Indonesian much less than I have Mandarin, yet listening to the Indonesian news is much easier a many technical terms are the same as in English…
So robot in Chinese would be
機器人 ji1qi4-ren2, literally “machine human”.
David
– Austria/Taiwan: well the first time any foreign elements arrived was in the 17th century, so it’s a different time span. Well back in the day when the Emperor still had real power, Austria might have been under effective Imperial rule as well, but the time span was probably short. Also the idea of Germany was a manufactured one, coming to full bloom only in the 19th century (and that’s not a big surprise, I forgot the name of the American history professor who did some research on Balkan nationalisms, but once a nationalist identity is in place, everything gets “backdated” so to speak). But similar things can be said for China (6000 years? Pleeeaze.), though I think it hasn’t been studied enough, and in the current political climate there is really no room for it.
Well 228 is what represents the collective disappointment of the Taiwanese people, who chafing under Japanese colonial rule, had been looking forward to returning back to the homeland, an then found out that they had merely swapped a foreign ruler for another. 228 is a massacre that started on that date in the 1947 I think, where tens of thousands of the Taiwanese elite were killed by the KMT. After that the saying was 走了狗，來了豬 “the dogs left, and the pigs came” (you can probably guess how people anthropomorphised the animals in question). A very sympathetic account of this by an American diplomat can also be found in the book “Formosa betrayed”, and I think it has also been made into a movie..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/228_Incident
Hugs for Katherine.
Heh. Seconded!
Why?
I don’t know much Norman French, but I think standard histories of French would mention it if it alone would retain consonants others wouldn’t, but I’ve heard several hypotheses:
– printers were paid by the letter and thus interested in smuggling in some mute letters.
– long after certain sounds had been omitted, and were no longer reflected in the spelling (for which there are attestations in Old French), people found it fashionable to bring the spelling more into line with Latin, with no influence on the writing.
This might have played out differently both sides of the Channel, I mean French has dette, but doigt, English debt. In both languages (or rather Norman French probably) the letters were merely ornaments and not pronounced. Bankrupt seems indeed a Medieval latin modfication of the Italian, thus the p is pronounced.
did something happen to the time stamp? It used to show EST, but now it looks like GMT?
@ pelamun
Indeed. (I am GMT +8)
Ow fuck. Earlier on, I overlooked daylight savings. We (CET) are on UTC+2 right now and we’re FtB+2 as well, so FtB is running on UTC. Makes much more sense than Cabo Verde!
OK, we just had parsnips for the first time. As a result, the kids didn’t like them at all and I won’t mind if they disappear from planet earth tomorrow
Rawnaeris,
Oof. That hurts. A lot. The stuff is just that, stuff. Your peace of mind may be more difficult to deal with, please take care. Hugs if you want ’em.
___
David M,
This is not a question of cute. I love the look of newborns, they trigger all sorts of fascination and oh look it’s a cute little thing isn’t it. What didn’t happen was any sense of identification, which is, I think, pretty much a necessity for affection.
___
Setar,
I know eh? It’s like, who the hell do they think they are looking down on people who live a different life?
_
How many average people do you know? You are extending your personal bias to a huge set of people with diverse life situations and histories. Behind some of those doors are feminists, behind others drug legalization advocates, still others hide philosophy majors. You know just shy of nothing about anyone in the area you were walking and yet feel comfortable dismissing them as beneath you. Please.
_
And for the record, I live in a suburb, I have a nicely decorated home, it’s tidy and clean enough to present for sale most of the time, you would have no way of seeing my house and knowing jack shit about me. No amount of saying, ‘this is not about you’ erases that you just dismissed my lifestyle.
_
I like you Setar, and I recognize many of the emotions that you have. I was a lot like you at about your age. Sure, the accessories were different, but a lot of the attitudes are familiar. It took me while to shake them, and I think you can do it too. For me it took people calling me on my arrogance now and then, consider this me paying that favour forwards.
___
Algernon,
This. And it has done well by me, because I get to meet a new person and form a relationship, rather than starting from some assumption of how emotion should flow. I don’t lament the way that parenting has turned out for me, I just find it hard to fathom the way some people speak about being parents.
Spencer Lawton, the district attorney who secured Troy Davis’ conviction in 1991, rubs in the irony:
@pelamun:
Ahh. I see. Chinese and Japanese look too similar to me XD I know they mean slightly different things across the board. I think the hard part of my group’s name is that a botnet is not actually a network of robots, but a network of computers that behave on communications of an outside source. The “bot” part of that is also called “zombie” or “node” or whatnot.
So would ロボット通信網脅威焦点する団 be reasonably accurate? I don’t have a native Japanese speaker here at the office, it’s more or less just an interest of mine :)
I got a serious dressing down from a psychoanalyst friend when I was pregnant for describing the astonishment of realizing that there were small naked strangers living in my abdomen. Apparently I was supposed to view them as extensions of my own self. Although I understand what my friend was trying to say, I find it ironic that now she’s decided that being pregnant is too invasive and that were she ever to spawn, she’d hire a poor woman from India as her surrogate, not from physical inability to carry her own fetus, but only because being pregnant involves having another human living within your body. (No, she doesn’t see any weird privilege problem in this idea.)
Algernon and others: I don’t think there’s anything unwomanlike or less-than about you. Different women desire different things. Some women don’t particularly like penis-in-vagina sex, but they oughtn’t make judgments about women distressed by vaginismus. Nor should they be judged, or judge themselves, as less-than because of their PIV-isn’t-wildly-fun views (this is a real issue, fwiw). I don’t understand Katherine’s desire for a female-shaped body, but I sympathize with her distress. (And really, KL, since I’m done with using my uterus as a baby container, I’d give it to you if we could work out the functional details.)
Human desires are complicated, and the ability to imagine the distress of others, even if one doesn’t share the desires themselves, is a good thing.
Setar, you have absolutely no idea what the inner lives of the people in those houses is like. One of my favorite pieces of advice is not to compare my insides to other people’s outsides. At least some of the time, this helps keep me from thinking either that I would be perfectly content if I had someone else’s stuff, OR that I would be a shallow nightmare if I had better stuff.
Everyone I know who lives in starter castles spends virtually all their time in the kitchen. Those living rooms are clean because they don’t have the dimensions necessary to be congenial hangout spaces (see Sarah Susanka’s Not-So-Big-House book, which grew out of her architecture practice remodeling said homes to make the space more livable), and probably not because the residents are exhibitionist what-would-the-neighbors-say types. And the yards are the way they are because of homeowner covenants more than anything else.
It truly horrifies me that the county I live in kills people, and that half of the population is ok with it.
I was reading out Troy Davis’s case earlier. Apparently he’s been through this game many times before. They keep getting close to killing him and then someone stops it for a while. It sounds like torture. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.
Oh sorry, I didn’t see that you were trying to arrive at a translation… ahem…
ロボット通信網脅威焦点団 – Robotto Tsuushinmou Kyoui Shyoutendan –
Botnet Threat Focus Cell
Alright, A botnet is usually ボットネット
and Threat Focus Cell seems to be a technical term exclusive to the FBI, so as a translator I would need to look up the Japanese govt terminology database, as the “correct” translation could be anything. But as I said don’t mix verbs with nouns, so no する
That said many cyber-crime related divisions of the Bureau seem to be borrowed at least partially from the English, as in
サイバー班
機動サイバー・アクション・チーム
Also I’m not sure what hierarchical status a Focus Threat Cell has, but seeing that a “terrorist cell” is simply
テロリスト・セル
I would just go with
ボットネット脅威フォーカス・セル sounds better to me than 焦点セル
What’s not to like?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14flwvMjyAQ
Katherine, who do you work for? Are you a G-woman?
An aside: again, the Japanese way of just directly borrowing botnet as ボットネット avoids the issue Chinese is faced with. How to translate it? A word-by-word calquing as “robot net” would probably look bizarre to the average Chinese person.
According to the Pfft, the main term is
殭屍網路 jiang1shi1 wang3lu4, which means “corpse network”, or jiang1shi1 can also refer to reanimated corpses, i.e. “zombie network”
The literal translation 機器人網路 ji1qi4ren2 wang3lu4, “robot network” is much less evocative.
@pelamun:
Thanks :D
I totally got my sign wrong, hehe.
Re: Suburbia
This is completely anecdata. But it might be illuminating for some.
—
My mother has a “show house”. She and my stepfather travel a lot on cruises (they each have over 770 days on-board, and they’ve only been doing it for 10 years), so the house has a lot of rare, odd, exotic-looking artifacts around. It’s spotless. The carpets and furniture are in excellent shape. People walk in and think it’s quite literally a model home, with decorative flowers and expensive-looking dishes. The yards are perfectly manicured, with a gazebo and pond (all hand-built by my parents) and 187 trees and shrubs of various types.
This house and everything in it is, in a sense, her monument to accomplishment. This is her “fuck you” to the people who said she couldn’t do it, to the friends of her parents who never thought she’d be able to pull herself out of a lower-class and just shook their heads as she worked through a low-end college education. It’s her “fuck you” to my father, who was always late with child support and never wanted to work or save towards anything. And it’s her “fuck you” to the people she used to work with, who saw her start at the bottom of taxpayer service for pittance and eventually had to call her “ma’am” when she was one of the top specialists and one of the top-paid IRS personnel in the country.
I watched my mother fight for everything her whole life, largely for the benefit of myself and my sister but also simply to prove to everyone who told her “you can’t” that it could be done. When my parents divorced, I explicitly remember catching my mother crying because she couldn’t afford to both buy food and make the house payment, and couldn’t get assistance because the child support my father never paid would have put her over the limits. She’d periodically take us to McDonald’s for happy meals, having saved up all week to do so (she wouldn’t get anything); the logic behind this was that the toys we’d get were worth it, especially when they were Lego sets, because they’d often be the only new toys we’d have between birthdays and christmas. She scrimped and saved and sacrificed and worked her ass off to get out of a lower-class setting and try to make a better life for her kids even when no one else seemed to want to help, and she managed to find a man who believed in her and helped her to do it.
But you’d never know that if you saw her doing her aerobics on an oriental rug in front of a 50″ flat-screen TV every morning, or walking through the neighborhood either listening to her nano or chatting with the neighbors as she passes. You couldn’t tell if you saw the grandfather clock in the living room, or the 11′ christmas tree that looks like it came from a Macy’s store window, or the two great-condition cars (both bought with cash) in the garage. You wouldn’t know that she still has nightmares of everything she’s worked for being taken away, that she still watches her finances and saves pennies and sacrifices even when she doesn’t have to, that it’s only in the last few years she’s been able to hear the phone ring during dinner time and not immediately have a panic attack that it’s a bill collector.
You’d think she was just another upper-middle class house wife. And maybe she is – but maybe that doesn’t mean what you think it means.
@SQB:
Sort of. I’m an analyst, so I’m not technically a G-Woman. But I’m the part that actually does stuff :p Y’know, the brains of the operation.
Gilliel #589 have you tried them roasted? I think they can be quite nice that way (kind of sort of very slightly a bit like roasted sweet potatoes. (You’re not in the US, are you? I think some bits of the US call what I would call sweet potatoes, yams … which are really something else … )). But parsnips can definitely be roasted.
@ Richard
You post almost made me cry. It sounds like what my mother went through (and is still going through). She worked as a waitress until I was in 5th grade. She then went to community college full time, worked full time, and took care of my brother and me. I honestly don’t understand how she did it. She always made sure we had a good christmas or birthday, even when she couldn’t really afford it. My father never paid much child support either and hardly ever even gave me or my brother a call(not that we wanted to talk to him after what he put us and my mother through). But if you looked at my parents’ (my mother and step father, I don’t really consider my father to be a parent) house, you’d never know what they’ve been though and you’d never know that they’ve never owned a house or that my mother is once again in college and working full time or that they’re in debt because it was the only thing that could do to survive and to make sure my brother and I had everything we needed. I really should call my mother, it’s been too long since I called her last.
Well if it were Chinese, most of your elements would be there, it would be something like
殭屍網路威脅焦點小組 / 僵尸网路威胁焦点小组
(no guarantee, no hits for Threat Focus Cell in either Japanese or Chinese)
but nowadays Japanese has just moved away from calquing, and mixes in a lot of English terms too…
She also, presumably, wasn’t raised in a hermetically sealed bubble. “Caring what other people think” has absolutely no bearing on internalized cultural influences. She doesn’t have to care what other people think to have internalized the message that she’s not a real woman if she doesn’t/didn’t have children.
and
I think I’ve failed to articulate myself thus far. I understand that some women are emotionally invested in having children. I understand why some would feel that way. Def not talking about women grieving about not being able to have children.
I *am* shocked re: women torturing themselves to the point of nervous breakdown, psychological trauma over it.
Feeling grief is one thing, “fullest emotional investment” is one thing, being disappointed is one thing. Such extreme and excessive degrees of obsession is quite another.
And, I can’t see how the beatles analogy does anything but trivialize.
I have an update on one of Lynna’s moments of mormon madness. The Salt Lake City police now believe that the attack on a gay man outside of a SLC club in late August may be drug related rather than motivated by hate. From the article in the SL Trib, it seems like they are basing this solely on the fact that the victim was arrested for marijuana possession in July. I’m having a hard time believing the police aren’t just trying to avoid dealing with the hate crime aspects of the attack.
O-P-E,
How many drug related crimes in SLC involve that kind of focused brutality?
Update: I’ve now made it home and seen the damage done myself. They didn’t vandalize the place, they just took stuff. Which sucks, but is deal-with-able.
The door frame is pretty much shattered on the locks side. We have got the door working again, but it’s going to take some serious repair work to get it fully functional (read, tougher to damage in case of a round #2).
My dad’s been with me most of the morning, and while my husband is in class, I’ve arranged for a friend to come over, as it is much more difficult to be here alone than I had expected. My boss is awesome and is going to let me take the next few days as mostly vacation with as we get the door fixed/deal with police/deal with insurance.
opposablethumbs
I did roast them. Last time I boiled them and they developed a smell I couldn’t bear so I threw them away. After that everybody told me that this was really not typical and I should try to roast them.
Well, it’s not like I would mind having them another time, but it’s not what I’d call my most favourite vegetable either. So, since the kids don’t like them at all, I’ll just not bother to make them again.
And no, not in the US. “good” old Germany.
Giliell,
I hate parsnips. Foul bitter nasty almost food. There is nothing good to be done with them.
@Dhorvath:
You take that back you heathen! Parsnips are sweet, delicious, earthy, flavorful delights! If anything’s a bitter almost food, it’s lima beans (bleh.)
Really Dhorvath? The parsnips I’ve had have been sweet, whether cooked in a soup or roasted amongst other tasty root vegetables!
Anyway. Update about the job situation: I’ve been negotiating, and now the private company that was originally talking about a temporary hire with the potential for permanent, and no benefits until then, is now talking about permanent hire, with benefits. As I mentioned before, this is the job with a higher degree of job satisfaction; it involves water quality testing, environmental impact assessments, and generally helping clean up southern VT after Irene. The other job involves quality testing of hot asphalt. Which is important work and all, but I’m happy to let someone else do it, if I can be working with water instead.
I just sent an email asking whether I’d be able to get paid sick leave and holidays as well. If they say no I might say no back, but really I’m leaning towards this one.
Exciting! For me anyway.
Carry on.
Katherine,
You can have mine. I don’t like lima beans either, they are like flattened, hardened peas. Nasty!
SallyStrange,
I keep hearing people describe parsnips as sweet, but it escapes my palate. ‘Course, I have similar issues with carrots, so it is likely a personal reaction, one of those super taster type things.
_
Yay on the job front. Security, benefits and the job you prefer? That would sure be nice, hope this pans out for you.
I treat parsnips as a spice. One little cube of parsnip, roasted, in a potato or squash based soup (puréed) gives it a je ne sais quoi.
The one time we tried a CSA, it was: collards and parsnips for a month, then onions, collards and parsnips, gradually becoming more edible with time as items like carrots and zucchini and other veggies or greens were added.
We prefer to just go to the farmers market, where the same people sell the same stuff for (essentially) the same price, except you get to avoid parsnips and collards.
(BTW, I don’t like collards either)
Just this minute I tasted a just-finished glop made from a marinara I just made from tomatoes we just bought at a roadside stand outside of Ocean City (MD). This is kind of a tradition now: the last summer (or early fall) Family Indolence Interval (aka vacation, but I take it to the extreme), we get seven or eight pounds of big ripe tomatoes from a farm stand, then I make and freeze a bunch of marinara, which we then dole out to ourselves over the fall and winter.
OTOH, I must say that the parsnip is a very satisfying looking vegetable. I rather wish I liked them.
Dhovath,
“How many drug related crimes in SLC involve that kind of focused brutality?”
Not many I would imagine. I lived in the SLC area for most my life and never heard of anybody getting curb-checked. I personally would love to know how a 2 month old drug charge makes this horrible beating “drug related”. The article stated that the cops denied a FOIA request for the reports from the arrest and from the attack.
Lima beans? Pure manna. Fresh or dried, they are the ultimate light coloured soup bean. They are also fantastic for baked beans. Or fresh ones sauted with bacon, garlic, and a little tomato passatta. Or fresh ones sauted in olive oil and then a little really good vinegar and some sugar, served with Italian roast pork. Lima beans rock!*
* Okay, dried, they can be rock-like. But cooked well and with skill they are fantasticalatious!
Super Taster, really? Cool!
Yeah, parsnips have a faintly bitter note to me, but that’s why you’ve gotta cook the snot out of ’em. But then if you think carrots aren’t sweet, then maybe you are a genetic freak or whatever!
Parsnips-a-Plenty, presented in Glorious Sound-O-Vision!
Well, shit.
I’m pretty much a non-taster. I like very strong flavors.
Giliell
If (for some reason) you still want to try more parsnips try:
slice very thin,
deep fry,
salt.
This works for almost anything.
Since I already invoded the “No True Lima Bean” fallacy, I will now follow it up with the “No True Collards” fallacy!
I love collards. Sauted in butter, with some shredded country ham, and then a little cider vinegar drizzled over the top just as it is served. Them’s good eatin’!
Yesterday, Hoppin’ John. Today, lima beans and collards. And I’m missing some teeth. And I wear a cowboy hat. Stick me in a pickup truck and call me BillyBob!
@Brother Oggie:
Blech, ew no. Starchy gross disgusting. Taste like poo.
Benjamin,
Well, they had a good run. Better than most bands.
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
But that was just a dream, try, cry, why try
That was just a dream, just a dream, just a dream, dream…
Ah. Thanks. I didn’t know about that.
I’m not sure what you mean by identification. Maybe I immediately project myself into everyone, so I identify with everyone already? :-) Really, I immediately feel affection to anything looking or behaving marginally cute. I have great trouble imagining a two-way separation between these.
Empathy and affection are the same for me, I should perhaps add.
I hereby invoke the “No True Lima Bean” fallacy. You just haven’t had my baby limas in sweet and sour sauce.
Seems like a fine time for R.E.M. to call it a day, some would say it’s overdue*. I just couldn’t get excited about their newest album and never bought it. And having to play “Losing My Religion” for the 9,000th time probably isn’t the most pleasant prospect for them. And while they’re not my first rock show** like the other people I’ve heard about it from, I did get to see them a few years ago.
* Though that’s really just petty rock critic sniping. No one’s forcing you to listen bands past their prime (unless you really are a professional rock critic, and if that’s the case, then you should count yourself lucky to have that be your life complaint). I figure if I could make a comfortable living playing music to a population of supportive fans at age 50, then I’d be happy to. Not that I have any experience in that regard.
** That “honor” goes to the Beach Boys in 1987.
I like lima beans, a lot. With butter, please; corn kernels and/or carrot shreds have got no business to be in the same dish with ’em.
–
Yay! :)
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Ô.o
Not even.
And you’re not supposed to eat ’em dry, straight out of the bag; you’re supposed to add water and cook ’em. Better yet, get the ones that have ever been dried in the first place.
–
(Incidentally, this one-character-per-second crap blows great, big, wobbly chunks.
With peas.)
–
Hmmmm, carrots
I’d give a lot to be able again to just munch them fresh out of the ground as I used to do when I was a child*, but I’m allergic as hell against them when they’re raw.
When I prepared dinner on Monday (pumpkin-carrot soup with pumpkin-seed pesto with original Steirischem Pumpkin-seed oil), I started sneezing just for peeling them :(
*If the crossword-puzzle had “garden-pest with 5 letters” my grandpa would try my name
illuminata
It’s just guessing, but maybe some people have “being a parent” (or for that matter not being a parent) as hard-wired into their identity as we have our gender identity or our sexual orientation?
I don’t know, honestly.
I don’t know how far I would have gone, it’s not a question I can answer honestly, therefore I don’t think I can “judge” people who go to extremes.
Ben Geiger
Shit indeed
Sally Strange
Yay on the good news.
Looks like being able to chose gives you the opportunity to find out how much they want you exactly.
Rawnaeris
I’m sorry about your flat. I hope you can get the door fixed soon. We had our caravan broken into twice and even that felt strange and uncomfortable, knowing that “bad people” had slept in my bed.
I agree wholeheartedly that they should never be boiled (added to a soup would be all right, but – I mean, never served on their own as a plain boiled vegetable, as people often do with carrots. (come to think of it, the same goes for carrots)). Pity they proved a disappointment when roasted, though.
One of my favourite things is just a giant mixed baking dish of roast vegetables – potatoes, sweet potatoes, sweet peppers, maybe some parsnips, loads of onions, whole cloves of garlic – all sprinkled with salt and pepper and hot paprika and roasted with a fair bit of olive oil …. mmmmm! Loads of the veg, and just a tiny piece of meat. OK, now I’m hungry. Just as well it’s nearly time to eat here.
I should have remembered it was Germany, but all I could remember was Europe and not which country. (internet’s my excuse, but to be honest I’m almost as bad at remembering who goes with what fact even when I can see people’s faces. When I meet people I usually apologise prophylactically for the fact that I will get them mixed up in the near future. It’s so embarassing )
Carrots are *not* sweet unless you put sugar on them (which is gross)
My mom always told me that Succotash was an old Indian (Native American) word for “Hey! How’d that corn get in my beans?”
David, the biggest problem is that many Chinese people do not know about it, they are taught that the Taiwanese people fervently desire reunification and are only kept back from that because of the evil Americans and their cronies in power in Taiwan. Though of course as many Taiwanese people have told me, a standard joke goes “as long as we can make money in China, we tell them whatever they want to hear”, that doesn’t help either…
“Carrots are *not* sweet unless you put sugar on them (which is gross)”
I beg to differ. They’re very sweet.
David M,
I think we must be using the term affection in some differing fashion. Empathy is not the same thing, I have empathy fairly regularly for people I don’t know, based solely on things I have heard about their lives, but I don’t identify with them and don’t feel affection for them either.
___
cicely,
Lima beans may not be a direct analog for peas, but my distaste exists at the same level.
_
If commenting on site is so slow, switch to a text editor. It works wonders for me.
___
An aside on vegetables. If you need to have butter or some kind of sauce in order to consume a vegetable, I question if you like the vegetable. I don’t like butter on any vegetable, (or bread for that matter.)
Collard sounds good (doesn’t seem to be the most popular brassica here). I love all varieties of brassica I have encountered so far.
Did I mention that I love pumpkin? It’s one of the best things in autumn. They magically disappear from the shelves once Halloween is over, so I have to eat lots of them before that.
Algernon you probably never met a Rueblitorte
newborns
I think they’re adorable once somebody cleaned off the goo and they’ve taken a breath.
As for the alien inside me: The whole thing was sci-fi to me up to the moment I held my daughter in my arms. Before that, I couldn’t believe it. I was afraid to invest too much and be disappointed so she only became somewhat real once she was outside.
Butter is more for texture than for taste, IMNSHO.
That’s how I feel about eggplant; they’re pretty, but they’re not food.
–
Benjamin, Losing My Religion is one of my favorites!
:)
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They taste sweet to me when raw; cooking takes the sweet right out, but adds undesirable texture in its place. Ick!
:(
–
:D
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At work I’m limited to 1) what my work computer has on it, 2) that I know about, 3) and that I know how to use. My extra-vocational use of the computer isn’t forbidden, but I don’t go out of my way to draw attention to it, either. It might not be a good day.
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But someone is! Somebody please help! I’ve been strapped into that fucking chair with my eyes propped open in front of the underground stage for fucking weeks while the madman who runs this place parades in Phil Collins, the Stones, Motley Crue… I’m typing this on the smartphone of one of Crue’s roadies–just got this one shot, managed break free and overpower him ‘cos Billy Idol’s hair had happened to partially cut open one of my restraints on his way out of here after his last encore of ‘White Wedding’ last weekend…
Please! Someone help! I’ve no way out! I tried to bludgeon myself to death with the walker Steve Tyler left in here, but it was no good! I’m still conscious, fuck! I can hear everything! Won’t someone please…
Oh fuck. No! They’ve spotted me! And I’m pretty sure that’s the opening synth riff to ‘Leave It’ I hear…
Nooooo!!! Heeeeeeeeeeeelpppppp!!!! (line disconnects…)
Carrots are sweet. Somehow, that doesn’t fit the rest of their taste. That’s why they must be prepared correctly: boiled in salt water with other vegetables, spices and herbs to make a soup.
I bet one reason is not wanting to die out.
I still don’t understand what you mean. Could you explain what you mean by “identify”?
Raw carrots (fresh and young) are wonderful, sweet and crunchy – they’re even healthy, what more could anyone want?!
cooked carrots are an abomination.
I don’t remember what US butter tastes like… 20 years ago, there was no good butter in France (or at least in Paris), and even today good butter is marketed as Breton or Norman (it’s just that the bad butter has disappeared); 15 years ago, Hungarian butter was abominable.
For me, butter is staple food.
I disagree.
Butter is one of the best things humans ever invented.
I make sure I always have either salted Irish butter or salted French butter from Brittany. Butter on veggies makes them simply delicious. And butter on fresh dark bread* makes ham, sausages and cheese utterly superflous.
*it’s the only thing that makes me feel something remotely similar to national pride: German bread
Some losses are just harder to get over than others, and some people have a harder time with grief than others. I don’t quite get why Mr. M still has great difficulty thinking about the deaths of his parents after 14 years – my own grieving stuff has been easier or less intense or something.
Someone who really wants to experience pregnancy has to incorporate the “I will never get to do that” into their identity when they cannot, for whatever reason, get pregnant. That’s tough. It would be almost certainly be easier if our culture were different, but it would still be tough.
Footnote to my footnote on how bands should not be obligated to break up once the music critics decide they’re no good anymore: Weezer should not only break up but publicly apologize for everything they’ve done after “Hash Pipe”.
Richard Austin, that was beautiful about your Mom and Step-dad.
Dr. Oz has an Op-Ed piece in todays Trib about his manufactured apple juice controversy. I don’t think he understands that there is no way to remove ubiquitous elements at ppb levels from food products, or prevent the plants from absorbing them in the first place.
…and I still haven’t told you what I watched on TV today. A nature documentary about Madagascar featured
– frogs where the males become bright yellow just for a few hours during the orgiastic mating season and then return to being drab brown like the females,
– and a parrot species where the females, which look a lot like turkey vultures, each mate with several males, so the young have different fathers, and then live in polyandry – the males all bring food for the chicks.
cicely,
Do you have a word processor program on your work computer? If not, I would wager that it’s Windows and at least features Notepad. You can find that under start button, programs, accessories. It’s three mouse clicks away on any windows computer I have used in the past ten years.
David M,
A person who I don’t know, but about whom I have heard a story of some part of their life, is still a stranger. I can relate to emotions they have had, but I don’t know them; they are still a stranger. The context provided by interacting with someone changes the type and intensity of my relations to them, I characterize this change by saying that I better identify with them. The more personal a relationship becomes the stronger I identify with someone and likewise, the more abstract a relationship the less I identify.
Ah, job creators.
It’s a good thing the poor angels have a party to look out for their interests. They do all they can to keep the economy going, yet everyone is out to get them.
–o–
Butter is set to increase in price here. The Reds intend to tax (saturated?) fats and sugar harder.
I haven’t been paying attention but there’s something going on about fags, too. Presumably the taxes are set to rise, because the latest I saw was a suggestion on a ban on packs of less than 20. Presumably the tobacco industry was set to reduce packet sizes in order to make the price hike less noticeable. There’s also been yammering about smoking in high-schools. Apparently some places sold cigarettes in the cafeterias. Some even one at a time – which is illegal already.
Meh. I tut at the kids when I see them, but I sincerely doubt that any increase in price will stop them. I suspect that the higher price will just make it even more fashionable to smoke – something like the handicap principle.
I know. But I’m not a cunning linguist.
(And Danish has “sværge” even though the <g> is /w/, it’s not hard to assume that it could be a real /g/ in /w/erman.)
Sili:
You have no idea how amusing it is to read that in American slang. And no, I know that isn’t what you meant. Nor is it polite if it were. But I still giggled.
Carrots ARE sweet! And proper cooking should bring the sweetness out more, not take away from it. Carrots sauteed in butter with dill and basil, for example. Sometimes I add carrots to my veggie mix for (totally non-traditional) spaghetti sauce, and it always makes the sauce sweeter, as long as you cook them long enough to soften them up.
It seems as if I won’t have to choose between job satisfaction and job security after all! This is the first time I’ve ever had two companies competing for my services and I must say, I quite like the feeling. :) I’m going to let them all know tomorrow.
Dancing rodents uttering war-cries of triumph, SallyStrange – conga rats ululations!
David Marjanović, OM # 571:
Not true. The question “großdeutsch oder kleindeutsch” (“Greater German or Lesser German”, i. e., with or without Austria) was one of the main problems during the revolution of 1848.
Link to wikipedia (German) here and here.
Later, Prussia and Austria basically competed who could found a German nation-state under its respective domination, and the question was finally resolved by the Prussian victory in the war of 1866.
As a followup to my post @428 about LDS-sponsored Boy Scout troops, I’d like to highlight other problems with mormon troops, problems that have been pointed out, and publicized … by, get this, a True Believing Mormon.
This TBM gives me hope for the morridor.
Now Brother Thomas should add to his Facebook page some statistics about deaths and accidents within LDS-sponsored troops.
It’s typical that instead of improving the program, the LDS Church moved to silence Thomas by removing him from his position as a Boy Scout leader. Link.
Well, what I suspected from the pictures on TV is a sad reality (wouldn’t it be nice to be disappointed once?): The Pirate Party is a sorry bunch of sexists
Linky in German
Women who even dare to raise the subject get harrassed and an “official warning”. They claim to be “post gender”, which means that when a bunch of guys elects another bunch of guys and never a woman if there is a guy to be elected instead it has nothing to do with men and women.
Fuck them. Better said, fuck themselves, women most likely don’t want to be involved in it.
Some Utah insurance companies have decided to pay out small benefits to their clients who use Native American traditional remedies, like sweat lodges.
Link
Whoops, incorrect link given @662. Here’s the correct link:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52613514-78/health-care-traditional-utah.html.csp
Raw carrots, love’em, cooked is OK as long as they’re just hot and still crunchy.
Lima beans, bleeech.
+++++++++++++++
Awhile back I noted that I’m the dumbest person in the room where I work and that I liked it. Today I found out that isn’t quite true.
I had a co-worker ask me to do image registration (translation & rotation) between similar images. I said I would be happy to, but it was unnecessary because she had already plotted a curve on the images and all she had to do was find the difference between the XY values between the images. And if she gave me the coordinates it would save me from redoing the work. She proceeded to re-explain the problem, and I said OK, I can just get the XY values for the curve directly from the instrument.
This went on twice more with her assuming I didn’t understand the problem and me explaining I do understand it but here is a shortcut. I finally said ‘I’m happy to do this the way you want, as I said the 1st time.’
I walked out thinking I must be missing something, she has a PhD in computer programming and I’m a HS dropout.
A 1/2 hour later our boss called me into her office where my co-worker was already present and obviously complained about me.
I explained to my boss that we already had the XY values from 2 different sources and why don’t I just compare those.
My boss instantly got it and agreed. I also mentioned what I thought the next calculation should be, and my boss saw that I had jumped a level and approved that approach too. It will save us a week of calculations.
I don’t know whether my co-worker is not that bright, or she is just so rigid in her thinking that she just couldn’t see the obvious alternatives.
Sorry, thanks for letting me vent/brag.
Okay, this is interesting – wondering how it’ll work out. But it’s very relevant to a lot of people here, as past conversations have shown:
Software Testing Startup’s Autistic Workforce Seeks to Change Business Culture (for clarity, it’s a software testing group).
From the company’s website:
Rigidity. “The book sez it has to be done this way, so by Golly, that’s how you’ll do it.”
“That’s not what my old teacher told me to do.”
Well, that will help them get rid of the weaker of their customers. Plenty of people seem to die in sweat lodges.
Brownian from the cool/lame quotient thread- “the ratio of frame-to-lens in my glasses is so high my prescription simply reads ‘camera obscura’.”
I laughed out loud.
++++++++++++++++++
Sally, that’s great news. It’s nice to be employed, it’s wonderful to be employed at a job you want to do.
As a woman who can’t have children, this. The internalized expectations that it’s what a “real woman” does for a “normal,” “successful” life are there and very real even for women who may not even really want children. Even women who don’t particularly want children can struggle with the idea that the choice has been taken away from them, that they’re incapable of doing something they “should” be able to do, and that they’ll never experience such a universal part of human life as pregnancy.
A few years ago JAMA published this study which found increased levels of not just depression, but shyness and social anxiety, in women with premature ovarian failure. As far as I know, they didn’t control for whether these women actually had any conscious personal desire to have children, and desire for children would not really explain the social symptoms in any case.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/295/12/1374.full
From the paper:
cicely
QFT
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I use Notepad/Wordpad like Post-its. It’s a rare setup that doesn’t at least have Notepad (I think on MacOS there’s Textedit).
Richard, that sounds like a really cool approach. One of support divisions at my Uni seems to hire folks like that.
I have a very hard time communicating with them on a personal level, but if I put down in an email exactly what I need they always come thru. I’ve been in their office and I was amazed at how these folks communicate with each other and get non-trivial problems solved.
It was like they all spoke a different language from each other but still understood each other.
Gilliel, I’ve been told by close friends that are involved in the party that the Pirate Party has a clear “Queer agenda”, while the Greens pursue difference feminism. I haven’t followed the intraparty debate in detail, but the article you linked to is pretty bad. However especially Spiegel Online has been portraying the Pirate Party in a negative light, but if Baum (the main PP candidate in Berlin) really said what it says in the quote, then he is a moron, irrespective of slanted media coverage:
“Die Frauen wollen halt nicht so in der ersten Reihe stehen, da muss man dann ja manchmal vor hundert oder tausend Leuten sprechen” (The women [in our party] don’t like to be in the spotlight, where you have to speak in front of hundred or thousand people sometimes)
A little bit of googling (e.g. http://www.keimform.de/2009/gender-trouble-bei-den-piraten/ ) shows that the debate has been simmering for two years now, and I think this is gonna become a major liability. Claudia Roth was spot-on on Sunday when she even in welcoming the PP to parliament couldn’t help mentioning the fact that it was 14-1. She knew exactly what she was doing.
Ogvorbis @#624, “Stick me in a pickup truck and call me BillyBob!”
Don’t forget to shoot some holes in them roadsigns.
@#367, “in addition to all the other rebates and loan rates, a free shotgun with every purchase.”
I knew there was a reason I read TET backwards.
(Aside: novel (to me) things I remember encountering in VA 20 years ago: alfalfa, microwave burritos, blue corn chips, snakes, weird religious people with guns, not being able to read roadsigns due to holes, Blue Ridge Parkway, heat, humidity, rain, kudzu, Lifesavers Holes.)
—
Parsnips (the new peas) should be crisp outside, fluffy inside (take out any woody bits in the middle). Maple syrup or honey are popular, but once they have sesame seeds, they’re transcendent:
http://www.unicorn-grocery.co.uk/recipes.php?i=36
And Cool Hand Luke.
Actually, yeah I was wondering about that too, but let it slip as I had only brought it up as an analogue to China-Taiwan.
Maybe this is taught differently in Austrian schools? Austria was an integral part of the HRE until its demise, for many century it was home to the Emperor, but there might be some disagreement about when the HRE became an object of national identity (there are flame wars about this issue regarding the Netherlands, with some German editors claiming that the Netherlands used to be German because they were part of the HRE until 1648, but of course this line of reasoning is anachronistic). And the question of Austria in or out was a major one, and what would happen with the non-German speaking parts of Austria-Hungary..
Post 673 by changeable moniker was comment 66666 on FTB. Time to drop the porticullis on this hosting provider and find a new one. Right?
Patricia will be crushed.
Eggplant Parmesan is one of my favorites, I just can’t find a restaurant that serves it anymore.
On a related note: I ate out last night at a pretty good restaurant. The salmon entree, (I forget the title of it, but I’ve had it before and it was good), sucked in a way I couldn’t describe. Old, tired, I don’t know. (I actually considered bringing a snippet home so I could have chef friends of mine tell me what was wrong.)
I couldn’t finish my entree, and I didn’t even take the leftovers home, (which is how I justify spending $20 for a meal, I get lunch the next day!)
I still tipped $5, it wasn’t the server’s fault.
Sailor,
I am extremely leery of fish of late, your comment about tired really rings a bell for me. Is fish showing some reaction to depleted environment? I used to love fish, maybe I have changed, but I fear that it’s not just me.
Richard Austin: “Post 673 by changeable moniker was comment 66666 on FTB.”
Yeah, it was late. It was supposed to be 61616. Sorry.
*looks around shiftily; prepares for action*
Dhorvath, I don’t know. We both live inland so salmon is not a great indicator. (yeah, I know that salmon varies from fresh to salt to farmed. but not within 500 miles of me.)
There is another restaurant in town that gets their seafood flown in fresh daily. It’s a limited menu of what’s available, but always good. and it hurts my wallet.
Related: Dhorvath wrote: “O-P-E,
How many drug related crimes in SLC involve that kind of focused brutality?”
I thought you missed the obvious. i.e. Pot related beatings!? WTF!? ‘Drugs’ in the abstract could mean anything, including the steroids cops take, but pot? The SLC cops should be indicted for hate crimes if they condone them.
I had arctic char yesterday. It was yummy.
True. When is the last time you read the headline, “Fifteen Arrested in Buzzed Brawl”?
moniker undergoing changes, ooh I love that brick site. Especially the disclaimer:
– CONTENT NOTICE –
The Bible contains material some may consider morally objectionable and/or inappropriate for children. These labels identify stories containing:
= nudity = sexual content = violence = cursing
Sailor, I live about three km inland, so fish can be very fresh off of the fishing boat, but that doesn’t tell me how long it stayed on the boat. If it takes longer to catch a paying load, that seems like it would have an impact.
_
Regardless of what interpretation of drug related crime is used, it seems quite clear that the SLC police are jumping at shadows to ignore the fire in their midst.
Eggplant?
One of my most favourite dishes ever is Lomo de cerdo con berenjenas.
(Ratatouille is also damn nice, even if it is vegetarian)
I’m not that fond of blackened fish. Once it has been charred, the flavour is just not there.
BTW, Changeable, since Xians think in binary form (e.g. good v. evil) they should object to 1111000010110000.
******************
Bro Og, when I worked in rock&roll we had a joke about the difference between pot smokers and alcohol drinkers: “Hey asshole! Ya wanna take it outside?”
“No, but when you come back would you bring me a Hershey Bar?”
HuffPo headline says SCOTUS may delay Troy Davis’ execution… is this true?!?!?
Surely, repeatedly bringing a man to the brink of execution and then pulling it back at the last second, for decades, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment!
Brother Og
The best way to eat arctic char is frozen and sliced paper-thin.
They didn’t serve it like that on the plane.
Brother Ogvorbis,
Have you tried charred arctic? I hear it’s kind of peaty!
Chigau:
Is there an emoticon that denots ‘lame joke attempt’?
Dhorvath:
Thank you for having a similarly lame sense of humour.
You should be concerned.
Dhorvath, my apologies, for some reason I thought you lived in Colorado.
You theory IRT to trip time makes sense.
Ah, how could I forget Baba ghanoush — a most excellent (not to mention healthy) dip.
Ogvorbis,
I could have done far worse in life than to end up where you are. Especially the sense of humour.
___
Sailor,
Nah, I am on Vancouver Island, my work is about a minute’s walk from the ocean, my house about half an hour.
Okay, WordPad has been located (thank you, Dhorvath; there’s a reasonable chance that I’m the only Pharygulite who had no idea where to look for it). As long as my computer doesn’t catch fire and explode, I guess I’m set.
:)
–
*confetti/champagne/very-expensive-chocolates*
–
Cooked carrots are permissible if they are in carrot cake, and topped with cream cheese icing.
–
Okay, how do I make WordPad stop compulsively double-spacing?
Hmmm…seems to work out okay when copied-and-pasted. So; annoying to look at, but not crucial. I can deal.
–
cicely, WordPad is a word processor, NotePad is a text editor.
(I recommend the latter if what you want is a replacement for the comment-box)
Dhorvath, my friends go there for sailing vacations. Cool!
+++++++++++++++++
I’m watching BBC-A and Top Gear is on. I don’t understand why they keep talking about Turing cars. I thought they only existed on paper.
(See, I can make a worse joke/reference than Bro Org and Dhorvath.)
Made it ma, top of the world! [/Cagney]
Execution is on hold.
Hopefully the Supreme Court realizes this travesty of justice and stays it.
Well, the drivers are supposed to follow a specific set of rules, so I supposet that makes sense. Perhaps they could make sure the drivers know what they are supposed to do. You could call it a Turing test, right?
I’m glad the execution is on hold and all, but my nonexistent dog, what torture this setting of date and then holding the execution must be. Didn’t there used to be a rule that if you survived an execution attempt you got your sentence commuted? Hasn’t Davis been put through enough?
Bravo!
RHINEBECK: Dear Rhinebeck attendees, if you haven’t signed up for the Google Group, please do so; all current details are there! If you haven’t received an invitation, email me at oniongirlsays at google mail dot com.
Damn. I’m watching the Democracy Now broadcast right now. (There’s live coverage till 9pm, but there’s no guarantee that there will be a decision by then.)
I’m sitting here, silently begging the Supreme Court not to let him die. There is so much doubt. Aside from the fact that seven of the nine eyewitnesses have changed their stories since the trial, the original trial itself was grossly unfair. Al Sharpton was talking earlier about the fact that Davis’ original team of pro bono defence lawyers were defunded half way through the trial. One of the other prosecution witnesses, Sylvester Coles, is himself a possible suspect in the shooting. This isn’t just about the death penalty (though the death penalty is an atrocity in itself); it’s also a race and class issue. It’s about social justice, not just individual justice. It’s deeply emblematic of everything that’s wrong with society.
I’ve been amazed by the broad coalition of people who have come out in opposition to his execution. It’s not just liberals. Bill Sessions, Republican former director of the FBI, spoke out against it today; so have the Pope, Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, Bob Barr, the NAACP, and a while host of judges and lawyers (including plenty of conservatives and Republicans). No one – except apparently the Georgia appellate courts and the state parole board – seriously thinks this is a good idea. No one at all.
I nearly cried when Davis’ sister was talking earlier on. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to see this happening to someone one loves. For twenty years. (And this is the fourth time he’s been almost-but-not-quite executed.)
I’ve got no idea what’s going to happen. His case reached the Supreme Court in 2009 on a writ of certiorari, and they ordered the state district court to examine the new evidence and find out whether new evidence proved Davis’ innocence. (Only Scalia and Thomas dissented.) So there is some hope.
Baba ghanoush? I think I was in his ashram for awhile.
++++++++++++++++
Obama has no power to stop this execution. It’s a different branch of Gov’t and they are supposedly co-equal.
Katherine Lorraine – “Hopefully the Supreme Court realizes this travesty of justice and stays it.”
I admire your naivete (sp?).
She also served as a nurse in the first Gulf War, and has been fighting breast cancer for the last ten years. And she’s spent the last twenty years doing everything in her power to establish his innocence.
It’s incredible. And it’s important for society to remember that the horror and pain of the death penalty isn’t just experienced by the person killed; it destroys the lives of his or her family, too.
John Morales:
Notepad has some quirks with line wrapping and screen refreshing (ie. what you see isn’t what’s actually there). I suppose this might have been corrected by 7, haven’t gotten there yet.
For a phenomenon that you find yourself at a loss to explain, you certainly are freewheeling with applying an explanation to people you don’t even know.
But, fine. Caring what other people think may well have no bearing on internalized cultural influences. However, her reason for grief was not an internalized message from society. It was because she was unable to have something that she very badly wanted, That you don’t see that as proximal and plausible explanation for sadness or even “self-torture” mystifies me.
So it’s the degree of suffering that you find mystifying?
It was a purposely trivial example. Because I can’t understand how anyone could like the Beatles, doesn’t mean that there aren’t good reasons to like the Beatles. Because you don’t understand how a woman could be traumatized by being unable to bear children doesn’t mean that there aren’t good reasons to be traumatized.
The Sailor, naïveté if used as a French loan-word, else naivety as the Anglicised form.
(Hey, you did ask!)
The Sailor:
I can’t stop watching Top Gear. I think that today is the first day since Labor Day weekend that I haven’t watched at least one episode. (I’ve been distracted by Dead Island, so I haven’t watched any tv yesterday or today.)
I popped online for news of the execution– I doubt that SCOTUS will do anything (beyond this delay). I don’t even know how to express how pessimistic and upset I feel about this.
Therrin, as you say. There are some damn good freeware replacements for it, however.
(Notepad++ being a rather good one)
Tom Martin the MRA is at it again.
John, I did ask, and thank you.
++++++++++++++
Walton, every day there are atrocities committed by governments around the world. Every day there are injustices committed by governments around the world.
It fucking sucks, it’s always fucking sucked, it will always in our lifetimes fucking suck.
I tried, you tried, but don’t get bogged down in this case, or any case, until you can actually do something about it.
Be the best goddamn defense lawyer you can be. If this breaks your heart, imagine what being this guy’s lawyer is about.
It’s trite & simplistic, I know, but the thing that scares good defense attorneys is not representing the guilty, but defending someone you know is innocent.
John, while Jim had had “had”, had had “had had”; “had had” had had a better effect on the teacher.
Benjamin, I need an explanation for the 8-buffalo obligation. I can only get to seven myself.
Tpyos, please grant me punctuational correctness!
It’s very hard to tell what the Supreme Court will do. They need a minimum of four justices to grant a stay of execution. The TV rumours say Clarence Thomas is considering it at the moment. (I’m not hopeful for Thomas; he’s very conservative and pro-death-penalty.)
The last time Davis’ case came before the Supreme Court on a writ of certiorari, in 2009, the majority found that there was too much doubt to go ahead with the execution, and directed the Georgia state district court to hold a hearing and determine whether the new evidence was sufficient to exonerate Davis. Thomas and Scalia dissented from that decision; Scalia was convinced that Davis was guilty, and held that his claim of innocence was “a sure loser”. I don’t know what will happen this time, but I’d say it’s a fairly safe bet that Scalia and Thomas will not vote to grant a stay. But that still leaves seven other justices who might do.
NEW THREAD!