I thought they went extinct. But here’s one from the debate on gay marriage in the Washington state legislature.
(Episode CCXCIX: Secular America).
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I thought they went extinct. But here’s one from the debate on gay marriage in the Washington state legislature.
(Episode CCXCIX: Secular America).
Significantly, she’s got a gay daughter.
I knew a republican couldn’t talk about gay marriage without lying.
She said she wasn’t going to wax eloquent.
Seriously, that’s the best thing I’ve ever heard a politician say on the matter. How any person with a heart can hear that speech and still vote against same sex marriage is beyond me.
Perhaps the bigger mystery is how she can consider herself a republican.
Fresh Thread, yay! Reposting:
Kristinc, ooh, I love Orioles! We get them here in the Spring. They’re fond of oranges. I cut them in half and impale them on a nail in the deck railing. (The oranges, not the birds.)
It’s frustrating how many people need a personal connection to an issue before they generate any compassion for those who are directly affected. Still, better than ignoring it or worse fighting it while they have that personal reason to be concerned.
Rachel Maddow showcased that speech on her show. Well done.
Not is this refreshing coming from a Republican, the evident sincerity is a welcome contrast to the speeches given by the candidates for President.
ginmar, perhaps my cynicism isn’t as strong as it should be, but it really seemed to me that it was her recognizing the parallel between her relationship with her husband and that of any two other people who loved each other that was the main motivating factor.
@Caine:
He was drunk and pissing me off, and I guess I kind of goaded him. I didn’t expect him to start choking me, but I broke his hold and ploughed him in the face. He fell back, and bonked his head on the counter on the way down. I still get sick to my stomach just thinking about him going down like that.
Of course, he retreated to his home office and called the cops. My mom tried to cover for me, but they took one look at the half-empty bottle of swish and me wailing about what a terrible person I was and decided no charges need be pressed and took him to the hospital. (If he had pressed charges, it would have been the irony of ironies considering at the very least he owed me for saving his ass from another asshole he started a game of road rage chicken with from beating his head in, not to mention how many domestic assaults he’d gotten away with.)
Part of me still feels terrible about it, and part of me feels great. I do recall the dynamic of the house changing after that—bullies are all about using words to solve problems once they realise they can’t wield violence with impunity.
It’s a terrible thing, but that’s what happens when you raise children in an atmosphere of violence and authoritarian repression. It’s always there in me, bubbling under the surface, even though I think that was probably the third punch I’d ever thrown, counting minor altercations in junior high. (The count is still three. The last fight I was in, I took the punch and told the kid (he was six years younger and half my weight) that he could have that one for free provided he settled down and think really hard about how he wanted the next few minutes to go. He took my advice.)
Orioles? I sorta do the same thing, licking the insides out of a bunch of them and then eating the cooky outsides all at once.
Not an oriole, but we’ve been looking at a property in the interior that has part of it set aside as habitat for the endangered Yellow Breasted Chat.
Having my own little nature preserve would be so cool! Looking at it from google earth, it appears to be a bit of a forested patch in a mostly flat and dry area. A little wildlife oasis.
Caine: I suspect we’ve had them for a while, because I’ve been seeing the yellowish females for a couple years but misidentifying them as some kind of goldfinch. What I don’t understand is how I missed the dudes for this long, they sure stand out.
I don’t normally feed birds because I worry about spreading diseases in the population but I don’t think I’ll be able to resist giving these guys some oranges in the spring.
How strident! What a dreadfully partisan attack on all Christians!
Pelamun, previous thread: I’m not talking about immigration policy in the U.S., which is racist and hypocritical. I’m talking about a comment he made at some point, which unfortunately I have no idea how to go looking for because I don’t recall specifically how he worded it, about the inherent wrongness of U.S. politicians fighting to retain or gain jobs for American workers.
I’m certainly aware that First World wealth is based a great deal on Third World resources obtained via colonialism and imperialism. That said? What, precisely, does Walton expect politicians of a certain country to do? They are elected to agitate for the welfare of their electorate.
To the extent that they do not, as is commonly the case in the U.S., they are certainly not motivated by universal altruism. They’re in the pockets of megacorporations that in most cases were nurtured on “business-friendly” American soil, where they enjoyed tax breaks, public infrastructure, etc. that were paid for by ordinary U.S. citizens, then which turn around and move jobs overseas where regulations are sparse to nonexistent.
In fact, “Why do you not want poor people in India or China to have jobs?” is a common refrain from libertarians. I know, because I used to be one. The basic message is, “Shut up about your deteriorating standard of living, the fact that you have no reliable health care, etc. etc., because people elsewhere are living in the dirt and eating shit.” It’s a silencing tactic.
As for the whole concept of open borders, I don’t even know how the hell that would be workable in this day and age. Leaving aside tinfoil hat conspiracy theories about the “new world order,” a centralized world government seems inherently unworkable and prone to political abuses, in my eyes. Yet what other sort of political entity could keep track of the governmental benefits, health status, criminal record, etc. of every single human being on earth?
If Walton went to Oxford and is now at Harvard, he does not need to be from a wealthy background; he still has an immense amount of class privilege.
I would agree with TLC that I don’t hate Walton; I find some of his contributions interesting, if long-winded. That said, he does need to temper his highly intellectual and academic POV with the sorts of experiences he can’t get in a classroom. And he needs to listen more.
Antiochus:
Versus, of course, people who make countless comments sneering at other people’s choices of entertainment. Elitism is drawn to elitism, I guess.
subbie (#2) – I know a number of republicans that stay with their party because they believe in the ambiguous ideals that they don’t actually follow. Then, when a subject hits home (like this republican with a gay child), they can see how the republican philosophy is wrong for this one aspect…but are still unable to see that the rest of the republican philosophy is equally flawed.
Portcullised!
—
Today’s earworm was
Iraq Lobster, but
ten hours long is inhumane.
Brownian:
Same here. I used to wait for it to go away. For some reason, I thought it would just *poof* at some point. Never did. One result of my childhood is control. I have excellent control of myself. Of course, that’s seriously fucked up in a lot of ways, but it’s better than sitting in prison.
Oh, me too. Delicious, aren’t they?
AE,
just to clarify: if an atheist started saying things like “Christians need to be reeducated or be executed” or “all Christians are idiots” could potentially be liable, however in order for “incitement to hatred” to stand, it needs to “disrupt public order”. If you say stuff like that in your pub, it won’t be liable (it might be defamation, but that’s another topic), if you say it at a party rally in fronts of 10k people, it will be.
But criticising religious doctrine will never fall under the incitement to hatred law. (It might be blasphemy, but the hurdles set by the courts for this have become extremely high).
But: at the EU level, there is some disagreement. The UK govt has asked to exclude religious group from the European incitement to hatred guideline, because of the North Ireland conflict (ironically enough, the law under which the Derby men were convicted is only valid in England and Wales). There is also no agreement to ban symbols of National Socialism across Europe, because Lithuania insisted on banning Stalinist symbols too.
So there is some disagreement among member states about what limits should be placed on freedom of speech. But if one state should go overboard, the EU bodies and probably the ECHR will set that member state straight, just like the Supreme Court would a state that went too far.
Ms. Daisy Cutter:
I’d go so far as to say I actually like walton. He has gotten me to rethink a few things. This is why I wish he’d realize that lots of us are actually trying to help him be better at that thing he wants to do.
Well, my marriage is officially ruined.
Fucking homosexuals, ruining everything.
Especially rainbows. I can never look at a rainbow again without thinking of the ghey sehks.
Rev. BDC:
So…you’re giving up your place in line to have teh ghey secks with Brownian?
Dibs!
Just read a BBC article detailing the Argentinians newest hissyfit about the Falklands. When is it going to get through to them that the Islanders want to stay British, and that their claim is over two centuries out of date? The Falklanders even have a holiday commemorating the British Armed forces kicking the Argentinian military off the island. blech.
This gave me chills. I would not call my mother physically abusive (emotionally abusive on the other hand . . .), but she did on a few occasions grab me by the throat and wind up to punch me when she got mad enough at me. It happened maybe three or four times in my life, but the very last time it happened I was a teenager.
And, instead of my eyes getting wide with fear, they narrowed and I do believe the expression on my face was basically daring her to hit me, so that I’d finally have a reason to unload on her.
She never did it again.
And, I have to admit, there have been times when I wished she did punch me then, so i could have kicked her ass. She deserved it, on behalf of me and my brothers.
But, seeing your regret over a situation with a much worse parent makes me glad I didn’t. She was merely doing what her father had taught her to do, but he always did hit. It was a step in the right direction that she didn’t.
And, clearly, you’re a “step in the right direction” too, as you have grown into someone very different from him. Being a good man, despite him, is a big win.
Oh I like Walton. I just can’t stomach the Royal threads.
I was so touched by this clip; first saw it on Rachel Maddow, like Lynna. If only I could be so happy with my own state legislature *grumbles about HB363*
So my mom is trying to convince me to get a pedicure with her tomorrow. (She’s having some problems and I’m making more efforts to help her even if only by providing an out sometimes.) But there’s a problem, and I feel sheepish about it. I’m afraid of getting a pedicure. I don’t like the idea or feel comfortable with it at all, even though I have no good reason for it.
Feeling especially childish since my mom’s reaction when I told her I didn’t want to felt like any time a kid was told to try a new food just once.
For Janine and other folks worried about me: this is the first night in an month I won’t see the Redhead (with her agreement) for dinner. Both snow and time/distance are in the way. So I’m home early, imbibing grog, and seriously considering a turkey pasty for dinner. So the question becomes, gravy or ketchup??? Pasties need a little extra liquid.
Ms. Daisy Cutter,
I have discussed the issue several times with him, and while I agree with him in principle, I do agree that it is not politically feasible, especially since outside of the EU, most nations are not willing to give up their sovereignty (though open borders wouldn’t necessarily mean a world government).
But I would be utterly surprised if he had ever implied to you that if you couldn’t find a job, you should just move. To me that would be completely out of character for him, it’s not the Walton “we all know and like” (in quotation marks because not everyone is part of this we).
So yes, politicians do it because immigrants and would-be immigrants don’t have the vote. But there’s this type of leftist who gets into a fit if it’s pointed out to them that the immigration control regime is racist (and we’ve had people like that before).
I do understand that this can be used as a silencing tactic, but the European Left would certainly not, as they largely support maintaining and expanding the welfare state, and I don’t think Walton would. But then I don’t know what he said.
Hey, ya’ll, I don’t want to have to explain. Please for *my* sanity and for the janitorial staff at Harvard can we just kind of shut up about Walton a little? If anyone really cares PM me. But I really mean it. Like, how about you rant at me for trying to “shut down discussion” or something. There’s a point where nothing good is going to happen. It has been reached. Really reached.
Ya’ll know I wouldn’t post this if I didn’t mean it, right?
So hey… let’s talk about what a cunt I am or something. Seriously.
Nerd:
Gravy, man, gravy!
Given the wording of the law, it’s unlikely they would have been charged, or if they were charged, convicted. It includes the following (Section 29A of the Public Order Act 1986, as amended in 2008):
I would say the sentences seemed severe, but without having heard all the evidence, I couldn’t say definitely they were too severe. It’s likely a deterrent effect was intended, particularly as this is the first prosecution for incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation since the law came into force in 2010. Fines or probation could well have led to fellow-bigots copying them, courting a martyr status which wouldn’t cost them too much. A substantial prison sentence will make anyone tempted to do so think twice.
Algernon, I’ve shut up about it, figure I said enough already.
Nerd: take it from someone who lives in Michigan, gravy. Accept no substitutes.
KG,
ah I see. Yeah, that shows that LGBT rights still has a way to go in Europe. So both the UK and German laws do protect LGBT people less than other minorities.
I’m watching youtube videos of people exploding wasp and hornet nests with firecrackers.
None of the results have been what I was hoping for. :/
Caine, here’s a pic of the cigarette pack with tooth marks:
https://www.facebook.com/ajax/sharer/?s=2&appid=2305272732&p%5B0%5D=100000052841813&p%5B1%5D=1541936
I did see some minor indentations in the cellophane on the side of the pack but they don’t come out in photos. They looked like this:
” ”
Whatever the animal is I think it got in last week when my furnace managed to blow the pilot light out. I left the front cover off for a day or so after relighting. My furnace is in my bedroom closet (it’s a very small apt) and I think something could invade thru the crawl space under the cold air return.
I have put pistachio nuts in a cooler w/ the lid off. I’m hoping the racket will be enough to wake me but not let him escape so I can quietly escort the critter outside where his family may be missing him.
++++++++++++++++++++
Just for fun, while I was eating a smoked turkey sandwich just now I got out the clicker and spent 5 minutes teaching my cat to jump onto the bed and back off it for his turkey. Completely pointless trick, but I love watching his little brain churn as he starts figuring out what I want. He had to jump up close to the turkey, then jump back away from it in order to get it, oh the torture.
Gravy or ketchup? Is that even a choice? Gravy, man, gravy. Ketchup is for hamburgers and french fries, gravy is for pasties and meat pies.
The Sailor:
Nothing shows up for me, I’m not on FB. The pistachios in the cooler are a good idea. FWIW, rats do like pistachios, I keep a bag just for my rats.
A. R., if the gravy is Michigan-style gravy, then yes, absolutely.
If it is shitty-ass gravy, then ketchup might be better.
I lived in Dah YooPee for 15 years, and grew up in LP. Ketchup was used by the miners…but I’m leaning toward gravy. Now, can I find some without calling the Redhead???
Of course, the Argentinians won that war, in terms of results: they got rid of Galtieri, while we got 8 more years of Thatcher, and possibly irreparable damage to British economy and society.
This is not the Falklanders’ fault, but it’s worth noting that the same series of British governments who have brayed about their inalienable rights to self-determination, have been utterly determined to keep the Chagossians from returning to the islands they were deported from so they could be leased to the USA as a military base. Worst of all was Bliar, who used “Royal Prerogative” to overrule the courts’ order that they be allowed to return. Scum.
Incidentally, the Falklands were claimed by the UK in 1833 – so not quite two centuries.
The Laughing Coyote @ #31: I like the cut of your jib.
Nerd – “gravy or ketchup?”
Yes.
Woohoo! I got home from work today to find a big-ass package in my mailbox. It contained two items: my motherfuckin’ diploma and a bound copy of my dissertation.
It feels official now. :D :D
Well…
My new neighbors just put one of those big ass fake rocks in their front yard, on our property line, at the street. It might as well be our rock now. And being how Charleston SC has such a rocky landscape it fits right in. Sure I understand it’s to block a piece of utility equipment and I fully understand how one would want a big ass obviously fake rock instead of say a bush or a plant of some sort.
I look forward to the pink flamingos.
Algernon:
No, how about you goddamn scroll, instead of trying to manipulate people emotionally into not talking about things that bother you?
Seriously, who the fuck made you the thread police?
Rev. BDC:
Big ass fake rocks are a thing? As in lawn ornament thing?
Okaaaay.
Pelamun:
He did not imply or say that, and I did not imply or say that he did.
That said, having experienced numerous bouts of unemployment over the last several years, I’m none too thrilled with a law student implying there’s something inherently wrong with U.S. citizens trying to pressure U.S.-based corporations that reap the benefits of the U.S. infrastructure and tax base to employ U.S. workers.
HappiestSadist: check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFxGZ8PStOQ&feature=related
Like a little kitty! That can sting you!
You need to put up some fake utility boxes to hide the bushes and shrubs, Rev.
Hmmm… gravy is also pretty awesome on French fries, but I have no idea if gravy on a burger would be good or not. Gravy on a hot dog might be weird.
In virtually all other scenarios though, gravy >> ketchup.
Ms. Daisy Cutter:
She’s not playing thread cop, she has perfectly valid reasons for making the request.
Sorry. But it’s so much easier and cheaper to hide the lasers, guns and deathtraps in fake rocks, than the real stuff.
Caine, I thought everybody could see it, I made the link public.
++++++++++++++++
I have no real opinion about those Falkin’ Islands except to note they’re a helluva lot closer to Argentina than Britain.
+++++++++++++++++
Sweet home Alabama
++++++++++++++++
Algernon: What does the janitorial staff have to do with it?
Caine, she pulled the same goddamn shit when I was arguing with Alukonis. It had fuck and all to do with her, and she started wailing because OMG I CAN’T TAAAAAKE THIS ANYMORE!!!
I’d go home and visit my fucking family if I wanted any of that guilt trip.
Lesson taught. I weep here atop my golden commode for the proletariat that I have wronged.
Or maybe I’m am drawn to walton’s writing because it has been thoughtful and thought-provoking.
Or maybe he has a golden commode too.
The point is that your “I guess” is entirely accurate.
pelamun:
That second one is surprising to me. The line between “incitement to hatred” and “insulting” seems context dependent. Although maybe it should be.
I suppose that we USanians have yet to test this often enough as yet to have some kind of clear idea of what is “too far”.
Yum. Both.
Quit oppressing me, Algernon ;)
TLC:
How about lettin’ it go? Or, if you have to know, contact Algernon privately, as she stated in her post.
Mine too. That and the ability to do almost everything (walking, eating, sneezing, fucking) practically silently. (The sneezing thing is from getting screamed at for coughing when I had a cold.)
That’s a nice thing to say, Illuminata. Thanks.
I’m currently kicking myself in the shin for not thinking of this little bit of genius first.
Oh yes they are
Caine (and Algernon)
OK, I’ll let it go.
Ms. Daisy Cutter:
This isn’t the same thing at all, I know that for a fact. Okay? I’m not Algernon and I’m not comfortable discussing the situation, so this is the best I can do right now.
They are from Ohio….
[Threadcop]Daisy, stop being an asshole to Algernon.[/Threadcop]
No, really though. People can request that other people lay off an upsetting conversation without it being deliberate emotional manipulation. It’s shitty and underhanded to suggest otherwise. I get that you’ve apparently decided you don’t give a shit about how this conversation might be affecting your interlocutors, but just cop to that, don’t sling unfounded accusations.
Falklands and right of self-determination:
now if only the UK government would support in other cases as well, like Taiwan’s for instance…
’nuff said…
Rev. BDC:
Ohhhhhh.
You have my profound sympathies.
I consider it a “step in the right direction” victory for myself that I’ve grown into a woman that is nothing like my own mother. Everyone should be proud of not becoming THEM, when THEM is abusive.
The Laughing Coyote: That is awesome. Though I prefer bees when it comes to the flying stinging critters, I think hornets are neat. They also seem to find me neat, and I don’t know why. They like to sit on me, and occasionally lick me if I’m sweating. But they don’t care if I shoo them away, so we’re cool.
Coyote:
♥ ♥ ♥
HappiestSadist: I’m not very cool with hornets at all, generally. But that particular species I kinda like. They watch and only attack when something comes too close.
I know it’s just the hormones flooding my system, but the tacos I ate for dinner seemed to taste so much better after I watched that video. Now if only those like Rep. Walsh would part ways with the Republicans and start their own party. Give the Repubs a little more competition – that’s a good thing, right? Ah well, baby steps…
AE,
for the second sentence, “all Christians are stupid”, it would be much more difficult to meet the requirement of “disturbing public order”. (But IANAL)
I’m more critical of defamation statutes. In Germany, insults are criminally liable, and I know that the UK has also quite strict defamation laws.
There is a famous quote by the writer Kurt Tucholsky, “soldiers are murderers”. Many lawsuits have been brought over this. Usually incitement to hatred did not stand, because it is controversial if soldiers are a protectable class, and also if just having this on a bumper sticker meets the criterion of “disturbing public order”.
However many courts agreed to hear the cases on defamation charges, but usually these cases were finally (sometimes after appeals) acquitted because all soldiers are potential killers in war, and thus the statement was one of truth.
Ms. Daisy Cutter:
oh sorry, I did misread what you said there. It was all relating to the would-be immigrants. I’ll refrain from discussing the objections I’d still have. (Though might I suggest if Algernon says one should contact her, she should provide a means of doing so. Not that I intend to do it though).
That is a pretty civil sort of hornet. I am only cool with them because they seem to like me. I know someday I will anger them and it will all be over.
This is why I want bees instead. Also, bees are awesome.
Ms Daisy Cutter et al.
Consider this my vote with Caine. I understand the upset, I do. But there are, and can be, valid reasons to lay off Walton for a bit.
Hmm. That could be read two wildly different ways. ;)
We’re enjoying an influx of Redwings. Thrushes with eyebrows are cool.
changeable moniker:
I’m aware, I’m aware. :D
D’oh. #3 should teach me to read newthread before posting. Sorry, Caine!
cm, no problem, I know how it sounded, decided I better stick the standard disclaimer in the 2nd time around. Heh.
Moniker and other birdwatchers: Speaking of thrushes, ya’ll can fangasm out about your flashy colorful eye-catching birds, but I’ll always have a soft spot for these little guys right here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermit_thrush
Hopping through the undergrowth in summer or winter, practically invisible to the unobservant.
A lilliputian therapod in a knee-high jungle. And sometimes it seems like they follow alongside me in the forest, as curious as I am.
We had a hornets’ nest in the backyard years ago, in our pear tree, the size of a basketball. Given that I only found it after I had climbed around in that same tree all day, with no ill results, I let it be till they moved out for the winter. I heard from a neighbor that they were supposed to be bullnose hornets or something? apparently highly aggressive, but we didn’t bother each other one bit.
Kristinc: According to most people, EVERY identifiable species of hornet is apparently highly aggressive.
Those skinny ones attacking the laser pointer aren’t aggressive though. They don’t really build big nests either, and the largest swarm of them I’ve seen yet appeared to be about 10-20.
The most scary, if not most aggressive, wasps we get out here are the dreaded Baldfaced Hornets. Huge, ugly, and mean.
Listen you stupid shitface, I don’t give a flying fuck about the thread. I haven’t even been reading. I posted that because of the shit I got IRL. Do you understand? Something happened. In real life.
Now fuck off you fucking idiotic shitass. I really don’t give a damn what you think of me. You’re shit to me. I don’t even know you.
Also I don’t know who the fuck alkunis is anyway. You don’t know me. You don’t know my history. And you don’t know my motivations. My relationship with Walton is primarily offline. I don’t read TET much anymore, I did for a couple days about a week ago and remembered why I don’t.
Get over yourself.
TLC: Hermit thrushes are adorable.
I don’t care about you. I don’t care about TET. I care about Walton.
Get the fucking picture?
TLC: I would have evicted yellowjackets in a heartbeat but that’s about it, at least out of the species I’m familiar with around here. Now those fuckers are aggressive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e0bKxSkfA8
Cause I’m the bitchy, the bitchy bitchy, the bitchy bitchy bitchy you love to hate!
Now suck my pussy for a porkchop.
TLC, where I live, there’s a wide variety of birds, from plain and tiny to ultra flashy and everywhere in between. They are well fed all year round at Chez Caine, as photos of them make up a considerable part of my income. I love ’em all.
Still, given all the shots I’ve taken and how many I like, these remain a favourite: Storm Tossed. (Slideshow link)
Kristinc: Yellowjackets. When nesting in the ground, I’ve had great luck plugging the nest entrance with a rock.
Just driving by real quick. I discovered that the Popeye’s in a nearby town is open again. Ilove their red beans and rice. Matter of fact, had that, along with baked brussel’s sprouts with onions, garlic and sweet peppers, for dinner.
Easy. Will voting against it get one re-elected?
er, if you are referring to deep-fried potatoes, give me malt vinegar and salt.
Is that a ‘big ass-fake’ rock, or a big-ass fake’ rock? One (and I will not tell which one) creates a delightful image. Gives a whole new level of meaning to the geologic term ‘cleavage.’
And their stings hurt like hell and it feels like you have been hit with a hammer.
====
G’night, all. Be safe.
Hey Caine, nice pics. What’s the purply-black one with the yellow eye called? I think we might have those out here.
Same with the one with the red head and speckled breast. We get them out here for sure, but I don’t know what they’re called.
My favorite not-showy birds are bushtits (hee. I know). Such hyperactive little acrobatic things, their antics are good for a lot of entertainment. And their nests are cool; the year my younger kid was born there was one hanging right outside the bedroom window, ad I would lay on the bed and nurse my baby and watch the bushtits flying in and out to take care of their babies.
Yes Ma’am…
And for Kristinc, Orioles on Oranges:
http://caine.zenfolio.com/img/s9/v0/p696436534.jpg
http://caine.zenfolio.com/img/s9/v0/p730503117.jpg
Yes Ma’am…
Oh, and I found a can of chicken gravy.
I want some fake rocks to cover up those unsightly fire hydrants.
And the neighbour’s yappy punt-dog.
And naybe the neighbour.
Delightfully color-coordinated!
That woman in the video is not a real Republican. Not only did she not mention God, she cast him completely aside and actually boasted that,
She’ll have to run as an independent at the next election because the GOP won’t want her. Making decisions with her mind instead of taking instructions from god! It’s just not acceptable.
TLC:
You mean the grackles? Quiscalus quiscula. The little red guy is a male House Finch.
Good then! Sorry to be so hard. I take people I care about seriously. Sorry for any bad blood. I used to really like it here and feel like I fit in, but that whole dust up with a certain some one who crops up here like a buttrash left me angry and I never could get over it. Over time… I just started to feel like I didn’t really fit in so well. It hurt at first, but now that I’m on the other side of it the liberating thing is that I don’t care. When I don’t like something *I* leave. That means you can go on talking about it, if that’s hard to figure out. In this case though, I’m fiiiiiine. Just a little stressed and concerned, but that’s not surprising.
…And I hope your wife is doing ok too.
Kristinc: Hey, apparently we have bushtits out where I am! I’ll keep my eyes open for them.
The dipper is another favorite of mine, but I’ve already talked about them.
Another favorite is the black capped chickadee. Now I KNOW I’ve been the object of their curiosity. There’s no other explanation for why they swarmed the tree right in front of me.
I don’t mean to insult the more colorful birds of course, because I love red winged blackbirds and adore the steller’s jay, but the hermit thrushes deserve their due too.
coincidentally, they have two very small yappy dogs. My two huskys and 105 lbs lab look at them like I look at a porkchop.
Also, chicken gravy comes in a can? WTF?
I never knew.
I’m on that raw food diet. Decided to give it a shot. Crazy. It’s actually working great. I figure I must be more lactose intolerant than I thought or have some other intolerance I didn’t know about because I didn’t even feel bad the first few days. Better, actually.
Nothing more satisfying privilege flaunting than a fucking raw food diet though. It ought to be called the fucking expensive diet, instead.
Fruit and veggies cost a lot, and it’s not like I live in any kind of food desert. Well technically my house is in one (no grocery at all for miles) but in general this is a food rich state and a food rich city.
TLC:
My yard is always full of them. Nuthatches, too. I have a *lot* of shots of Black-capped Chickadees in flight and full wing spread. Fearless little things.
I wish I had more birds in my back yard. Just a few little sparrows and whatnot. The squirrels eat well though.
Bushtits are amazingly tiny and nondescript, you want to watch out mainly for whirls of activity in shrubs that look like the branches bouncing almost by themselves. When they have to cross an open space, the flock cooperates to sort of leapfrog across in shifts.
And I love how conversational black-capped chickadees are. Also how they hang upside down on my sunflower heads to pig out.
Nerd: Ketchup and miners: Yeah, true, but gravy is soooo much better. Also nice to hear from someone else from Michigan! I live in the LP, but I got to the UP for a month or so a year.
Falklands: Regarding Taiwan, absolutely, the Taiwanese have quite clearly expressed their wishes, just like the Falklanders. And I have a very special disdain for Tony Blair.
Algernon:
Mister buys chicken gravy in a jar. I’ve never tasted it.
Algernon: We’re quite lucky, in this shitty neighborhood, in that our yard is a bit of a tree and berry filled oasis for wild birds. I see lots of species here.
Another one I have lots of affection for is the oregon junco.
A can of GRAVY? A CAN of gravy? Gravy doesn’t come in cans. Gravy is home made, not processed in the Dark Satanic Gravy Mills of Secaucus, New Jersey.
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups chicken stock (1 10 oz can undiluted chicken broth can be substituted)
1/2 cup milk $
2 teaspoons minced onion
2 grinds black pepper
Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Whisk in flour, and cook, stirring constantly, for one minute. Whisk in stock and remaining ingredients. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for two minutes or until mixture thickens.
You know… this sounds remarkably like behavior I observed in a group of small, gray, nondescript birds beside a dirt road while I was hunting in the interior with my brother, off the Coquihalla.
Bees are also awesome evidence for evolution. How do bees evolve worker and drone behaviour, when only the queen reproduces?
I am loving UC Berkeley on iTunesU.
Algernon:
A lot depends on how many trees you have and what kind. We have a fuckton of trees, so lots and lots of birds.
Yes, so do mine. Very well.
Tis: Sounds like a nice recipe. I’ll have to write it down.
Gah! Better link to follow …
Walton, I hope you know that I respect and like you and that I snapped at you out of frustration.
Oh yeah, being in the city doesn’t mean birds won’t show up. In one of the places I lived we got birds all the time. Even these really beautiful waxwings in winter.
I guess they stop where ever they find what they like to eat. I spend almost no time at home these days at all. When I’m home I’m usually asleep. So I don’t grow anything to attract them.
Birds: Saw a Pileated Woodpecker last week. Took some photos, but the camera f’d up.
You have them in the US of A? Dark brown with a white bib, walk about on the river bed? I see them in the Don (local river) from time to time.
KG: Yep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dipper
If I may take a moment, the check that Josh mailed to me arrived today and I wanted to say thank you to everyone who was so generous. It really truly bowled me over, and it’s going to make a big difference in our grocery shopping for months and months. Thank you so much — Mr Kristinc and I are both very, very touched.
Oh, waxwings are gorgeous! I rarely sight them here.
Chicken stock comes in cans?
Kristinc, I haven’t sent my check yet, have to wait for payday, sorry to be so late.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/anthropology-1-001-spring/id496111308
Lecture 3.
(It’s head-shakingly distressing to me that (in lecture 2) he had to take apart creationism and ID … at Berkely.)
Besides local birds here have a big wooded area to play in and good things to eat.
I had a longer response in mind explaining my frustration but I want to continue my record of not contributing much. Seriously AE, I thought you were cooler than that.
Wait, a CAN of gravy? I’ve seen jars, but . . . cans?
Yes. They walk on on the riverbed and swim under the water, but I think our species is different. It’s more of an all over dark steely gray-black color. Also this is western canada, not the US.
I see them all the time along the vedder river.
Do the dippers where you are seem incapable of standing still? The ones out here dip and bob constantly.
Don’t look now, but I’ve robbed the rainbow to make you gay.
slignot, can you opt for a manicure instead, and would that be any more acceptable to you? (I wouldn’t want a pedicure either) You’d be at the same place and time and basically same activity, just not exactly.
Yay!
Obviously, you must now take a picture of you hoisting that huge boulder over your head. Preferably wearing a leopard-skin short toga.
A. R,
while Taiwan is de facto independent, they haven’t been able to express their wishes explicitly. The US, the EU and Japan would not support a formal declaration of independence, upon which China would probably invade (which is another factor in holding them back).
Jan 14 they had an election, the incumbent in favour of even closer Cross-Strait ties won reelection, and his party while losing some seats, retained its majority. It looks like Taiwanese have resigned themselves to the eventual Hongkongisation of their country.
(Side note: there is a great debate going on in HK right now, with this ultra-nationalist uber-communist professor from Peking University, who also happens to be a descendant of Confucius (my brain explodes) who called Hongkongers “running dogs of British Imperialism” and “traitors to the fatherland”.)
A.R.,
Ours is the European, or white-throated dipper, Cinclus cinclus; closely related to the American dipper Cinclus mexicanus apparently.
Algernon:
That’s really nice. There’s something comforting about having birds about.
(and where you find a leopard-print toga big enough to fit a boulder, I’ll never know)
I have a couple mature fruitless mulberries in the back, and some pretty thick hedges. There are better trees around (those things are a nightmare)
Carlie:
Well, I’m not about to search to find out.
Well truth is, the HOA will probably deal with the situation soon. They’re freaking bust bodies.
Might be the first time I’ll be happy for their busy bodiness
Had a big job interview today. Did my best and think it went well but it’s heavy competition. Won’t hear for a while about it either. Hope it works out though, nice big operation with shiny toys.
Yeah, I find this to really be true. I always gravitated to birds as a kid even, though I don’t really care to have any as pets. I love seeing them around in the wild though.
Even the pest birds kind of make me happy just to see.
Good luck on that. I hope it works out. Last I recall your job was causing you a lot of stress and pain.
busy not bust
I had to look those up, I’ve never seen one of those, only the regular fruiting mulberries. I take it that a lot of people are allergic to the fruitless ones.
pelamun: I certainly hope Taiwan is able to remain independent. I wonder how well the elected officials represent the will of the people though. When I was there, there was significant anti-PRC sentiment. (Granted, that was three years ago)
Best of luck, Ing. Tentacles crossed for you.
Ah, that makes me nostalgic for my youth: we Brits haven’t been attributed any running dogs since the Cultural Revolution!
Good luck, Ing!
I think I’m about to be offered a job I don’t really want, but will likely have to take because my car bit the dust and I couldn’t take the job I wanted because of it.
I hate being an adult sometimes.
Yes. Basically the lab seems to be dying.
Well AFAIK, the elections are honest, and the electorate have a choice of parties more or less chummy with the PRC. Why make a fuss about the shadow, if you have the substance? Especially since the PRC is a big trading partner.
Definitely. Honestly I hate them. I don’t think they were planted, the original trees are all dead now. It’s sad, nicer trees don’t spring up because of them.
Dang ‘Tis, I was drooling reading your recipe. The can of gravy did have the name of well known soup company on it, but it did the job of adding liquid to the dry pasty. *burp*
I was more worried about calling the Redhead after dinner. A problem earlier in the day has cleared up, and she sounds more confident. I give her two more days, and she will know everybody’s name, job, and history. A social animal when she wants to be.
My workplace went insane about a year ago.
Unfortunately since I’m not really that anonymous I prefer not to talk about work too much. But all this is to say, I feel you. When workplaces get negative it really sucks.
I grew up in “Kelloggville”. Now I live almost due west on the other side of Lake Michigan.
The local supermarket ran out of bird peanuts last week. I had to get a block of suet and mealworms instead.
The tits are perfectly happy.
The squirrels are not.
I count this a win.
Nerd: Near Grand Rapids?
Algernon:
Any chance of you getting out of there, or moving to a different position these days? Or have you dropped that?
KG,
was “running dog” a term from Chinese? CCP propaganda loves to use that word 走狗 zou3gou3, I don’t know where it comes from Chinese, or from English.
Here’s “the video (background: incident in a HK subway between mainland tourists and Hongkongers pissed at their behaviour)
As a linguist, I’m also incensed at this guy’s linguistic chauvinism!
A.R,
the elected officials did win the majority of the votes (though the system is stacked in favour of the KMT, it wasn’t a dictatorship for nothing). Of course Ma’s platform was not official unification, in fact he had his three Noes, “no unification, no independence, no use of force”. He was basically running on an “it’s the economy, stupid” platform promising to keep the economy running by intensifying ties to China, which will eventually make the country so dependent on China that one day China will be able to pressure them into agreeing to some kind of union. My friends are basically resigned over the issue.
cm:
That’s not nice. I buy very large bags of peanuts in the shell for the squirrels and the Blue Jays. They often have spectacular fights over them. By the way, did you know that a Blue Jay can store up to 9 acorns in its gullet and 100 sunseeds? You ought to see how many peanuts in the shell they can pack away.
Actually there seems to be some, which is why I’m hanging in there.
pelamun: That’s unfortunate. Hopefully by that time China will have fully Democratized.
Algernon:
That’s good to hear, gotta have a light at the end of the tunnel.
the link got borked
The sad thing is that even if the DPP had won, Tsai Ing-wen would have run a much less confrontational course compared with the last DPP president, Chen Shui-bian.
The CCP has gotten much smarter about influencing Taiwanese elections too. They no longer issue open threats which turned out to be counterproductive. Instead, they told their Taishang (Taiwanese businesspeople) buddies to get their butts on the plane and fly home for the vote. Even though the election was week before Chinese New Year, the busiest time for airplane flights, the airline tickets were mysteriously cheap. (There’s no absentee ballot, you have to vote in person).
There’s this joke in Taiwan, that Taishang will tell Chinese people anything they want to hear as long as it helps them make money. So Chinese people probably have a wrong impression about how much the Taiwanese people want to “come home”.
Battle Creek, cornflake city.
Nerd: Ok, that explains the lack of Google hits. I live about an hour away for Battle Creek.
Kristinc: My contribution was modest, but I hope I can still say that you’re very welcome.
Ing: I hope you get the job. It’s a frustrating economy, where you can give a knockout performance in the interview yet still get beaten out. Been there, done that… more times than I care to think of. I’m fortunate to have a job right now, even without bennies.
here’s a fun tidbit about the job I lost. One week before I was let go the boss was telling me how awesome I was. One day before I was let go, he gave me an xmas gift – a nice one.
Two days after I was let go, a friend of mine there let me know that my now-ex-boss hired back the woman he fired from the position months before I got there. A woman who was fired because of disciplinary issues with the office manager – who herself was spontaneously fired last October. Who just happens to be his current mistress.
Yeah. The office manager (who’d been there 27 years) and I got canned so my boss could hire the woman he’s cheating on his wife with.
LOL its like soap-opera insane.
Only a year? Ever since a nice family business was bought out by a multinational conglomerate a decade or so ago things have been insane where I work. Welcome to the club.
Bizarre minor example of privilege:
Two friends spent an afternoon together, making ice cream.
Friend one left her antique ice cream mold at friend two’s house. The next day friend 2 was on her way to return the mold when she saw friend 1 across the concourse in Grand Central Station.
Friend 2 ran towards friend one waving her bag and yelling, “I’ve got your bombe.”
Because both were white women, they received only bemused looks. If one or the other had been wearing a hijab I hesitate to think what might have happened.
Yes, this is a true story. No, neither person in it is me.
Oh, that is low. Seriously crappy. I’m so sorry, Illuminata.
Dianne:
Oh my. I guess it’s a good thing they weren’t in an airport.
If GR area, about an hour up M-37 from BC. I left BC in the late ’60s for university, etc., and never returned except for brief visits. The Redhead is also from BC.
All this talk about tits makes me want to watch boobies.
Nerd: I’m in Van Buren county actually. My school is closer to the center of the State, but I kinda know where you’re talking about.
Thx, Caine! I fucking hated the fucking job so fucking much that I’m actually happy not to be there anymore.
I also seriously fucking hate being at home all the time, so I need to get a job soon because I’m going stir crazy.
LOL OMG, Sailor, I totally fell for that.
Sailor: YES! My second favorite seabird!
Dianne: Wonder what would have happened if they had been white men…
I await the day when we can look at a woman yelling that at her friend and have a chuckle, without worrying about it being a real bomb just because the woman isn’t white.
—————————————-
My co-worker’s daughter had a very special science class today. That may have just been a polite way of saying sex ed. Her reaction was basically, “TMI! Mom, I’m scarred for life, TMI!” Didn’t get the full story, but I wonder if they happened to show a video of a woman giving birth. Either way, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about her becoming a teen mom.
—————————————
Snow is on the menu again, so I might just spend my weekend digging and trying not to stress my knee much. Have an Ace bandage on it and am trying to rest it as much as possible.
Illuminata: If you’ve got UI benefits/severance pay, can you do volunteer work while you’re interviewing or trying to get interviews? It gets you out, and it’s something to put on your resume.
I do get UI benes (its not even close to enough money to cover basic necessities). I really like the volunteering idea!! I’ve been so caught up in other issues for the last month, I haven’t had the chance to sit down and think. I’m going to have to search around the net for something I can get into.
@Caine, your squirrels are over here and out-competing our native species:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_gray_squirrel
Shades of 1945 and what? ;)
That’s what I’m mostly worried about. Well, not that my boss will hire his mistress because (well actually I just got *another* new boss from within the company and also we’ve had so many flame outs that he could hire three mistresses now if he wanted)
But I’m more afraid that because I keep getting moved around laterally, and things are so disorganized, that I’m going to start seeming like some one the “don’t know what to do with” which is stupid. All I want is to have some upward mobility, but right now there is so much chaos that I sincerely don’t know what my job is at all right now. Every time I turn around I have a new boss, a new CIO, we are implementing some new governance system, I’m functional, I’m technical, I’m admin, I’m handling the intern. Hell, I actually just found out I was handling the intern because some one kindly cc’d me on a thread where they were talking about how I was handling the intern (no one bothered to tell me at all, and I had no clue this was even happening because I’m totally not in the loop) Then from a QA perspective, trying to put any testing practices into this is way crazy.
I have people walk up to me saying “are you the portal admin?” all the time because she quit. And now I *am* because no one else will. Then two weeks later people forget what you do. I was on an implementation team a few months ago, some one just asked me how well I know Oracle…
Ummmmmmmm….
and now I have yet another new director. Never worked in this area before, he’s getting experience to become a CIO. How nice. Must be nice.
I’m getting experience in zen sand painting.
changeable moniker: I love Eurasian Red Squirrels!
I await the day when we can look at a woman yelling that at her friend and have a chuckle, without worrying about it being a real bomb just because the woman isn’t white.
The original story was told for a chuckle…but quickly resulted into questions about whether it was being posted from jail and how many cops jumped on the teller. The answers being no and none: just a few bemused looks. That’s when I started to reflect on the privilege being shown.
Wonder what would have happened if they had been white men…
I don’t know, of course, but my guess is that a cop would ask them, very politely and without drawing a weapon, what the crap they were doing.
In the news: Secret documents lift lid on WWII mutiny by US troops in north Queensland
I’ll not track you down (respect for privacy), but if you are at a college I may have applied there when looking for a job more than twenty years ago.
Algernon, love the line and will probably steal it.
Nerd: Small liberal arts with a disturbing number of uniquely colored squirrels on campus?
Illuminata: Yeah, what went down at your workplace sounds like a big headache, among other things. Not surprised you were preoccupied.
But, yeah, I’m the same way as you: Being stuck in the house and having no money to go out and do anything can really fuck with your mind, especially in the winter. Not that it’s great in the summer, either, but it’s not as rough in my experience.
Algernon: Sorry I snapped at you. I hope things pan out for you at your workplace. You sound like you’re an asset there, but that doesn’t protect any of us anymore.
Dianne: Last thread I posted this anecdote about a friend’s high school science experiment. I was acutely aware when I first heard it, and when I shared it on TET, that if she and her friends had not been white, I highly doubt the cop would have just laughed at them and driven off.
(And, truth be told, even though I’m glad they didn’t get into any criminal trouble, I think a cop should be a little concerned with kids who could be on the verge of setting a devastating fire.)
cm:
Those aren’t my squirrels, mine are fox squirrels.
Algernon, that sounds like a grade A clusterfuck.
I saw a uniquely colored gray squirrel the other day, hopping along a power-line. It was totally normal looking, except for two bright white ears.
Ing: that comment was only intended for the person who was blockquoted.
TLC: We have those here!
Apropos of nothing, and with apologies to Cicely, I will be planting peas this weekend. Burpee Dark-Seeded Early Perfection. I’m going to try growing them strictly indoors this year, using my full-spectrum lamp as a grow light. They were doing so well in their planter until I put them outside last April… and we had heavy rains.
Wait, are we talking about workplace insanity?
I am 13.5 hours into my 16 hour work day.
There had better be a pint glass of booze waiting for me when I get home.
Never had an on-site interview, but may have had a phone interview when I had a cold. Doesn’t make a good impression, as it’s hard to be enthusiastic when your snuffling and honking.
Oh, and the Kellogg brothers imported black squirrels from Germany. Needless to say they got loose, and expanded their territory. When we arrived on this side of the lake, the black squirrels were in the minority. Now about half and half.
I like growing peas, nothing like fresh peas. Let the haters hate. ;D
I discovered in adulthood that I liked a lot more vegetables than I thought because they came in other forms than “in a can and squishy and oversalted” or “frozen into a cube and then boiled into insipidity.”
Daisy Cutter: imagine how revolted I was when, as an adult, I opened a can of asparagus for the first time in my life.
Who would put Asparagus in a can? It’s almost sadistic.
Sorry too Ms. Daisy Cutter, for going apeshit on you. I was *really* stressed by it all. If my family didn’t give me enough stress this week. Damn. Anyway, yeah… I apologize.
I bought the kitty a new scratching post today. It came packaged with a baggie of catnip. WTH? Is loose catnip in a baggie a thing? I put it in a drawer. Morgan is frentic enough without chemical help.
It is interesting, but I haven’t noticed any squirrels here in western NY. Maybe I’m just not looking?
I got my bike back from the fixer today! New tires, new inner tubes, new chain, new brake cables, and a whole lotta lube. The lady is nice and sniny.
Snow is in the forecast. They said “lake effect,” so I got worried. So I looked at the forecast more closely, and saw that it says accumulation up to 2 inches.
Bah.
Audley, Carlie, I’m driving (eastward) through both of your stomping grounds tomorrow morning. Drop me a line if you want to share coffee, etc.
kristinc:
The look, smell and taste of canned asparagus is *radically* different from that of fresh.
How is it that a teeny, tiny rat who hardly weighs a thing, goes by the name of Esme, can get in one of the ratboxes and turn the critter litter into ballistic missiles which travel half the length of my very large studio? Eeeeesh.
Take some WonderBread
cut off the crust
rolling pin the “bread” very thin
slather with cheesewhiz
put a tinned asparagus spear on one edge
roll it into a cylinder
cut into 1” pieces
serve
(from memory of a childhood trauma)
I found frozen rhubarb chunks at the grocery store today. I hesitated for a second, then kept walking, because the probability of yuck is higher than otherwise.
Chigau, that sounds horrid.
I have an idea for a recipe I’m trying tomorrow. it’ll either be awesome or horrendous
chiagu: That may violate the UN convention on the Rights of the Child!
Chigau, that sounds pretty good except for the last bit–“serve.”
Maybe I’m wrong, but that seems to imply that someone is going to eat the thing.
The look, smell and taste of canned asparagus is radically different from any Terran life form.
The Sailor, maybe this is what’s been swiping your Camels.
Esteleth
We freeze some of our garden rhubarb every year.
It’s actually OK stewed with sugar and used in pies.
Or on yoghurt.
——-
A. R
I still kinda like cheezwhiz.
Jeffrey:
This is true.
Katrina:
Hahahahahahaha. Okaaay.
Okay, Chigau, I’ll remember that for next time.
In my opinion, the best thing to do with rhubarb is to make pie (preferably with strawberries, blackberries and raspberries) out of it.
I can’t believe this… she may have actually gotten my vote!Talk about a diamond in the (R)ough, that was an exellent speech.
Esteleth: No comment on commercial products, but we have some rhubarb we froze up ourselves, and I assure you there’s no ‘yuck factor’.
Apple cyser/mead:
Chop up some apples.
Add a bit of powdered apple cider
dump a bunch of honey in there
top up with warm water
bread yeast!
Leave it in a jug on a dirty floor next to a space heater until it smells ‘just right’.
I’m going to sample and finish my finished product one way or the other (and it smells pretty good, actually), but someone tell me quick: How horrible is it gonna be?
TLC: I actually know someone who makes semi-dry mead. Quite good.
E,
Yes.
Next question!
Gerbil news: Syd and Chuck are doing fabulously. Syd likes to climb out of his cage onto my sleeve and nibble on my shirt. Chuck comes out occasionally, but he’s not nearly as adventurous.
I’ve been trying to get a pic of them snuggled up together– Syd sleeps on his tummy with Chuck draped across him like a gerbil blanket. *head asplode!*
I don’t want to distract the serious discussion on the wild jewelry thread, but I found this nifty guillotine charm:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/45766084/guillotine-sterling-silver-charm-off
A.R: My fig wine was more than passable, and I used my delicious blackberry wine to bless the deer we killed in autumn (and then bless myself and my brother immediately after) (he kept telling me it was a dumb and pointless idea, until he actually killed one, and then the ritual seemed to make perfect sense to him.)
However, those were both made with nature’s yeast, found on the fruits themselves, and good ol’ sunlight.
This is being done with bread yeast.
Yes, you put on scratchers so the cat knows to scratch it. It’s generally low grade, and a lot of cats sleep after a healthy dose of drugs.
Caine: Not sure what to say to that particular item’s existence. But then again, the Xtains wear a torture/execution device, whereas that is only an execution device.
Audley:
Aaaaw. Sounds like Chas & Alfie – Chas the cuddlebug and Alfie the Adventurer. :D
TLC: Fig wine sounds quite good.
Oh, okay. Morgan does not need to be told to use her scratcher. I put in the drawer, maybe I’ll figure out a way to refill her catnip mouse someday.
That is, if she ever touches the thing. Her favorite toy is a little ball with a bell inside it.
A lot of kittens don’t grok catmint and don’t show any interest or get stoned until they get older.
“Apropos of nothing, and with apologies to Cicely, I will be planting peas this weekend.”
Why apologize to Cicely? blf is first in line for peas in our time.
Morgan is three, so she’s hardly a kitten. Whatever.
Her favorite toys, so far as I can tell:
1) Aformentioned ball-with-bell
2) Her litterbox
3) My jewelry box (now carefully packed up)
4) The carpet
Things she shows zero interest in:
1) Catnip mice
2) Feathers and fingers dangled in her face
3) Yarn.
Cicely is here, blf is not. Cicely will be warding off evil peas and evil horses all over the place now. Sorry, Cicely.
Ah, missed that. I think back to all the cats we’ve had over the years and we exactly one who liked catnip mice. Loose catmint, crushed in your hand before sprinkling is pretty much a cat hit all around.
We have catnip growing in a pot in the window, kitteh goes for a daily chaw then sleeps. She’s 14 years old, I expect she’d sleep anyway.
——-
This guy is amazing!
http://www.julianbeever.net/threeworlds.html
Hmmm, I’ve been thinking about making my own wine since I drink enough of it that doing it more cheaply appeals to my frugal Yankee nature. From those of you who have, can you recommend a type to get started on that tastes decent and is a good value? I know Caine talked about dandelion wine a while ago, but that’ll have to wait ’til spring.
Josh, that depends on your goal: Alcohol content, or quality wine.
For Alcohol content, fruit or concord wines are best, quality wines should be based on Vitis grapes from my experience.
oops, meant Vinifera, not Vitis.
A.R:
it was, and it will be better this year. There was just a tiny something ‘off’ about it, to me, and I think I know what it was: I shoulda skinned the figs before fermenting. Or let them stay on the tree longer until they got all squishy and started turning brown. But I was impatient. I should have also sun-dried a bit, to enhance the figginess.
What I did was take an ice cream bucket, and put a layer of brown sugar on the bottom. Then, I picked the squishiest figs and squished them a bit before layering them on the sugar. Then more brown sugar. Then another layer of figs. sugar, figs, etc. Then some freshly ripened purple plums for variety.
left the bucket in the sun for a few days before adding some water to top it all off (but barely any), and then put some minute holes in the lid (to let off carbon dioxide while hopefully still excluding wasps and fruit flies. It seemed to work)
Anyways, I should have skinned them, but then again I think the yeast was in the ‘bloom’ on the skin, so maybe I’d have to not skin them all. Or, be more patient and wait for all of them to get real squishy?
Josh, wine making can very involved and expensive, depending on where you want to go with it. It can be done cheaply if you aren’t worried about contamination and such (in this house, the Brewer is extremely fussy about possible contamination, proper cleaning, all that).
Most any fruit makes a nice, cheap wine. My first try at it decades ago was apricot wine, used a cheap ass kit and it turned out okay, but it was a lot of work for cheap wine.
Josh: I took a 2 liter pop bottle, and I went around picking blackberries and squishing them into the bottle while adding sugar. I have no idea what the exact mix was, I do everything until it ‘seems right’. Left it in the sun for a few weeks, until it ‘smelled right’.
It was excellent, the color of arterial blood and very flavorful, and a pretty good alcohol content too.
Warning: Don’t fill the 2 liter to the top. Remember to always unscrew the lid a bit and let off the pressure every day. Otherwise, you will have to explain a very huge red-black explosion to anyone you live with.
These have been my experimental findings in primitive winemaking.
Perhaps next year I’ll try actually buying proper yeast from a brewer!
My friend who makes mead also makes wine, in fact he even matures in oak, which gives a very interesting fruit wine.
Josh
For a first attempt, I recommend going to a brew-store and buying a kit and some expert advice from the staff.
I second Caine on the lot of work.
I should also add, going from what Caine said, I wasn’t like, surgical about it but I did my best to keep everything as clean as possible.
@Caine
Absolutely, I can see that. A friend of mine brews his own, and it must be perfect! Surgically clean and proportioned, and with good reason as infected product tastes terrible.
Agree on perfectly clean, even sterile. Same goes for cheesemaking.
So, fun story: I broke my hip the other day (Slid on some icy steps, hit at the worst possible angle), and am currently in the hospital recovering after surgery to fix it. It seems like everything will be alright because Gamma Nails are awesome and have an awesome name.
Seriously, I feel like a cyborg. A cyborg who’s high on morphine.
Thanks for the advice guys. I’m aiming for an acceptable compromise between quality and alcohol content. Mainly decent “table wine”, if you know what I mean. As far as the work goes, I don’t mind that as I enjoy doing all things culinary and if I weren’t working with that I’d be making sourdough or something. So I might be one of those people for whom it turns out to be a good time/money value. We shall see.
Oh, noez, Shplane! I’m sorry to hear that. How long until you’re on your feet?
I must have been fairly lucky then. I washed everything with hot water before letting either fruit or wine touch it, but otherwise I wasn’t all TOO careful.
Is it possible that the sunlight helped keep it all sterile? Surely the ancient greeks and romans couldn’t have been experts at sterilization?
I guess I’ll learn more firsthand this summer.
Josh, you should try cheesemaking, it’s great fun.
Yep, Mister is meticulous in that respect, when it comes to brewing. Same with all the Heart River Brewers and other local brewers. Lots of brewers ’round here.
Sir Shplane
jeeeeez
very gentle *hugs*
Want some wine to go with the morph… never mind.
TLC:
No. That can actually cause, aid and abet unpleasant organisms. People do get ill even from sun tea. People usually do get lucky, but when it goes bad and you ingest it, you won’t want to be livin’ in your body anymore.
My dandelion wine recipe is from the 18th century and I have the ancient equipment to concoct it in and all, but I don’t share the recipe unless someone is a very serious brewer or wine maker, because it would just be too easy to kill yourself.
Mead intrigues me. I think I will try to do my best to do a professional ‘proper’ batch next time I’m in the money. I just need a big enough container to do it in. Fuck 2 liters and ice cream buckets, I wonder how much a brand new clean garbage can costs?
Shplane: Would you like some bacon? I’m sure Esteleth can figure out a way to get it through your USB.
Sorry to hear, Shplane. Hope you’re much better soon.
They also lose flavor if you put them in the refigerator.
AR:
that was something I was planning on when early-onset heart disease popped up. Cheese, sadly, is something I have to severely restrict and limit to small, occasional portions. I’m afraid I wouldn’t get much joy out of making it. It’s a tragedy of SpokesGay-House-Wide proportions, believe me.
TLC: Get a carboy and fermentation lock, your quality will improve immediately.
That’s awful, Sir Shplane!
Don’t worry about it, if we’re still talking when I am, then I might bug you for it, but I’m most certainly not there yet by far.
Interesting about the sunlight. But I have eaten some crazy potentially dangerous stuff with no ill effect and still regularly do sometimes, so maybe I’m ‘special’. Or not.
I just went by smell. Rack it when it smelled right. Drink it when it smelled right for that. take samples here and there to make sure the taste matches my smell.
Mead. Ugh. Hate that shit. I know a lot of people who make it, though. Check out Northern Brewer. We’ve bought from them quite a bit, they have equipment for beer brewing and wine and mead making. Lots of informative articles and I think they even have videos.
I actually clicked on a ad.
Looky!!!
http://www.loveandpride.com/?gclid=CInPnLCDla4CFUHCKgodpRIjJw
Is this real?
SC: My figs never even saw the outside of a refrigerator in their little epemeral lives.
The inspiration to make fig wine came from my frustration at not knowing wtf to do with my crop, but not wanting it to go to waste… all sorts of ‘wrong’ to do that.
Oh, and Josh? Even Bismarck has a wine store (as in a wine-making store, which sells supplies and has a set up where you can make wine on their premises.) You might want to check around and see if there’s something like that in your area.
Caine, yes, in fact, there’s a homebrew store within walking distance. I keep meaning to go.
I’m terribly sorry Josh, I couldn’t imagine a life without cheese.
Also, yeah, I think I should A.R. I proved I can do it by the skin of my ass, now I should try to do it better.
Rainbows are God Come.
Yeah, I know. I grew up eating fresh and frozen vegetables, and naively assumed that canned would be similar. You can imagine the look on my face when I made that particular discovery.
Holy shit Shplane, that’s awful. I hope you make a full recovery soon.
I suppose I can imagine how Mister feels about it, after all, bad product reflects on him (as it does any other brewer or artisan). It’s also a wasted investment with added injury to insult. Fortunately for my buddy, his girlfriend very much supports him in his endeavors. In fact she grows their hops, and is looking to have a truly gourmet variety. I swear they were meant for eachother.
Algernon: No worries. Hope you can unwind this weekend.
Kristinc: {{{shudder}}} And then there’s canned salmon. I never knew I liked seafood, either, until I realized it came in other forms besides canned stuff and fish sticks. It’s kind of funny that the same parents who tried alternately to cajole and threaten me to “EAT YOUR FISH!!” now recoil when I order mussels on the shell as an appetizer and offer them some.
Chigau: That sounds nasty, but then again it’s probably no worse than all the Chef Boyardee products I ate as a kid. (For non-North Americans: cheap, fatty, sodium-laden imitations of pasta dishes, with orangey-red sauce, in cans/tins.)
Caine: All I can think of is, imagine the TSA finding that pendant in your carry-on.
My middle-aged cat will eat catnip, but she never seems to get stoned on it. I figure it provides her with a little roughage, so as to help prevent, uh, certain unpleasant glandular excretions.
Esteleth: Yeah, the catnip that comes with scratching posts and pads tends to be the cheap stuff, not “Cosmic Catnip” or any other feline equivalent of Winnipeg Wheelchair Weed.
TLC: I saw a small herd of deer today in a suburban-ish neighborhood of my city. They were crossing a street and, I think, heading down to one of the rivers. I had a squeeful moment.
Sailor: And if I put them into a food processor, I could visualize whirled peas.
Ow, Shplane. I’m just cringing thinking about that. I hope you’re not laid up for long and that you continue to get decent pain relief.
Silly pun fail. :(
Josh
Your cheese-limited state makes me sad.
Stick to occasional treat of high-quality cheese.
Do NOT try “lo-fat” cheese.
Really.
Don’t.
And NEVER try to cook with it.
TLC:
That’s the exact reason I got the cheap ass kit and made apricot wine all those decades ago.
Hell yeah, suburban deer. In a herd. What species?
I love how wild animals are starting to recolonize, even while hating the inevitable conflict it causes with people.
SC: :( If it helps, I just got some weed after going without for TOO long… it’s maybe hitting me a bit harder than usual right now.
Josh, you might be better with parmigiano reggiano, it’s made with part-skim milk, so it’s rather low fat.
I’m interested in simple cheesemaking too, actually. Especially if we ever get that dream property and I start that goat herd… gotta do something with the milk. Can’t chug it all.
I already know what to do with the meat. And I’m figuring out the hides thing.
Anyways, I think I got most of the basic concepts down, but I’m nowhere near ready to try yet.
I don’t mind canned salmon. It makes an okay salad or fried patty with some mayo and stuff. I’d rather have real salmon, of course, mayo or no.
Now I’m craving real-salmon salad with dill, on grainy crackers, piled with chopped cucumber.
Oh sure, let the curds have their whey.
Then my post should be hilarious. :)
Any good brewer feels that way. Cleanliness is supremely important. We’ve been growing our own hops for over a decade. Multiple varieties, but we found wild hops by Muddy Creek, so we’re developing our own at the moment. All the other hop vines are monstrous and happily grow on their frames without assistance.
kristine: I’m actually thinking about smoked salmon on water biscuits with a lightly poached egg yolk.
TLC
Whatever your fermenting container is should be food grade. You could probably get an empty 5 gallon bucket from a local restaurant and outfit it with a carboy for very little money.
I failed at making raspberry wine. The final result smells more like vodka. A pale pink, very smooth vodka. I would happily trade it for some quality weed.
I’ve never actually been a beer person, more of a wine person.
TLC: I am astigmatic and I didn’t get terribly close, but this is New England, so… white-tail deer.
I bought a big package of smoked salmon on sale last week and froze most of it. Salmon and asparagus go really well on pasta. I don’t think I’ll use a cream sauce next time, however. It was delicious, but a little heavy.
TLC:
I love cheese, but that one is out. There’s enough going on in this house as is, and Mister and his brew partner in New Salem are going to start beekeeping this year. He was just at a Barley seminar last Tuesday. (Yep, we do the milling, grinding, toasting and malting. Oast our hops too. It’s bloody time consuming.)
Caine
If you’re having bees, can mead be far behind?
—-
Someone on TeT was keeping bes last summer…
I believe you’re supposed to rub the catnip on the scratching post.
***
I was trying to point these two deer right outside the front window out to the cats this afternoon. Forgot that cats don’t do pointing.
wild hops, hmmm… you’ll have to tell me how it turns out.
No.
Fucking amazing!
http://www.julianbeever.net/snail.html
http://www.julianbeever.net/snail-wrongview.html
Chigau:
No, it won’t be following at all. We’ve had the mead discussion. It’s out.
It was Rev. BDC who was beekeeping.
Speaking of which…
Cat woo 1
Cat woo 2
I’ve never seen my cats scratch anything that smelled of catnip. They roll on it or chew it, depending on its rollability or chewability.
The cuttings we took, after carefully sexing the plants, took off beautifully last Spring, they should get to a fair height this year. They’re hoppy, strongly scented with a bitter edge. We’re growing the Muddy Creeks at our place and the wild hops we found at Sweetbriar are growing in New Salem at the brew partner’s place. The Sweetbriars are milder with a slight spice. Made good brews last year.
ohmygoodness! Get Well Soon, Sir Shplane!!
To the cheesemakers in the house: where the FUCK do you find the milk not ultra-pasteurized out of usefulness? I have a cheesemaking kit that i’ve tried using multiple times now and it always fails because of the damn milk.
My neighbors make their own wine. They purchase the juice from a local wine-supply store. We’re growing wine grapes in the front yard, but I don’t know if we’ll still be living here when there is an actual harvest.
We still have a plentiful supply of wine from our time in Italy.
RE: Kittehs and catnip.
I remember reading that 1/3 (?) of all cats are indifferent to catnip. We had one who was, and one who wasn’t. Our ElderKitteh likes the occasional “nip” but it mostly just makes her roll around in it, lick the spot where the nip was spread, and then go to sleep.
Good enough time for an ElderKitteh update. She’s still going strong. I had to get a different brand of prescription cat food today and had you seen her reaction to it, you would have thought we hadn’t fed her in months. Poor thing. She’s the only cat I’ve ever had to prefers variety.
SC: hahaha, Cat-woo. Now there’s a joke I get. Reiki. LOL
I think we may have wild hops growing along the train tracks and other places here, how do I identify?
I put it on a horizontal scratching board. Some is eaten, some is rubbed against, and there’s scratching. My friend’s been putting it on the scratching post and they’re using it more.
and then there’s this guy
http://illusionworks.com/mod/fukuda.htm#
Illuminata: I have a friend with Jersey cows. But a local co-op, or organic farmer could be a source.
Thanks for all the support, guys. I’m mostly taking it all in stride, and apparently due to me being young and modern medical science kicking ass I’ll make a fairly swift recovery. I’ve actually already been moving around with the assistance of a walker, and the accident only happened like Tuesday. I’ve been properly medicated, and my paperwork proclaims me an atheist loudly and proudly. Which hopefully isn’t why some members of the nursing staff seem to have taken an inordinate amount of time to come see me.
@A.R.
Fun story about bacon: I was brought bacon and pancakes for breakfast this morning. Didn’t even ask. They just KNEW.
(I’d respond to everyone else individually as well, but, y’know, high.)
Katrina:
We have eating grapes growing. They’ve taken over the cat kennel.
I’m glad to hear ElderKitteh is still doing well.
Caine: What grape variety?
TLC:
You can’t until they flower. Male and female flowers are on different plants. You want only female plants*, which yield what people know as a hop: pale green conelike structures that are 1 to 4 in. long and papery. Photo here.
*You want seedless hops, so you don’t want pollination. No males.
Oh, that’s about sexing. Identifying? Ummmm, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humulus and http://www.gardenguides.com/91073-identify-hop-plants.html
I thought so and I checked:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_milk#Canada.
I drank a lot of “raw milk” as a child …
Caine @91
That second Oriole picture is now my laptop wallpaper. That beautiful pic made my day.
As to the cats and catnip discussion. I have three cats, two of them adore catnip, but one of them showed absolutely no interest in catnip until I had a friend bring over a dryed sprig she’d grown at home. Apparently the picky witch only likes whole leaf catnip crushed in front of her.
Bluebell. They’re hardy to -40F. From here:
They produce well and are pretty tasty.
axewaquestion:
How nice, thank you. I’m glad you’re enjoying it.
Caine: Ok, sounds like a Concord cross. We have an insane amount of vineyards where I live, so getting table grapes is no issue!
I initially got them because I wanted some sort of vine to grow around and over the cat kennel. I went for grapes because I like to eat them and I didn’t want yet more hop plants in the yard. They’re (all the hops) pretty much taking over as it is. :D
Caine: I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a hop plant (images excepted of course).
They are bloody huge for a start, they grow 18 to 25 feet. They superficially resemble cannabis (especially to moronic, bored cops) and have a distinct texture (leaves and vines are furry, slightly barbed and sticky) and when they flower, they have a distinct smell.
Unless they are wild, the way you’ll see them growing is on frames – you train them to grow on twine.
ick, I said “amount” instead of “number” blech.
Once they are established, hops (like mint and lovage and goutweed) are very hard to kill.
(Although, I think DrDavidM eats goutweed)
OK. I am incandescent with rage over a bill that one of my state representatives introduced today here in Vermont. This bill would criminalize selling e-cigarettes or supplies by mail or Internet ($5,000 per violation) by reclassifying e-cigarettes as “tobacco substitutes.” Meanwhile, it would still remain just fine to send cigars by mail. Cuz, you know, white menz haz to get theirz. They’re gonna have one raging, fightin’ faggot on their hands. I am totes not afraid to provoke publicity and rain down a shit storm on uncaring lawmakers, and I know how to do it.
My letter sent to the committee should speak for itself:
You have to love moronic cops.
Chigau:
That’s a fact. I have to do the “no more hops!” talk with Mister every freaking year. Right now, it takes over two weeks, every day, all day, to harvest the majority of our hop flowers. We have way more than we can use, we started to sell the excess last year.
And still, Mister tries to talk me into growing this variety or that variety every year.
Josh, outstanding letter, give ’em hell!
A.R:
No. No, you don’t.
Caine: Ours are moronic in the sense of extreme ineptitude, I assume yours are somewhat worse?
…
I’m off to bed, I have to get up fairly early for a conference call. Fun. But before I go, I shall repeat a line I saw earlier today: “Santorum storm sweeps Romney out of Midwest.” That is all.
Caine
We are down to “one” (non-culinary) hop plant.
It’s against the garage and bounded by a driveway and a sidewalk.
Every year I pull 1 or 2 runners out of the garden (3 feet away, on the other side of the sidewalk).
Unkillable.
(well … the other hops we had died of two summers of drought and
benignmalevolent neglect)Nice letter, Josh. Even if I did take way longer to read it than would usually be reasonable.
Hmm. “SC, Yankee Anti-Government Loon”…
Due to, y’know, passing out for thirty second or so at a time every couple of minutes.
and as I head for bed, I would like to propose digging up these guys and spitting in their empty skulls.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Acclimatization_Society#Shakespeare.27s_birds
@ Brownian [previous v.TET]
Yuck. That was really awful on so many levels. Shooting his daughter’s computer is like shooting her in effigy. What next, terrorist parenting?
Thank goodness for the video in the OP. She sure nailed it. (And has gone a long way to restoring my faith in humanity after watching the previous vid.)
@ pelamun
I bought that book you recommended. “The Cleanest Race”, by BR Myers (no relation as far as I know, he is a specialist on North Korea.)
@ Josh
For making wine, I was fortunate in that I last made wine right bang slam in the middle of a major wine growing region in South Africa. We used merlot grapes and crushed them by hand and foot. Came out brilliantly (unfortunately I stored my bottles at my dad’s so he ended up drinking the lot. Aah well.)
I made cherry wine in Holland in a small batch with a friend. We used glass everything and it did not tale up that much space. We underestimated the cherries and ended up having to top up with red wine. It still tasted delicious.
An easy way to get into the whole story is by home brewing, starting with beer. Also consider cider or perry (home made can be exceptionally delicious) as you might have better access to fruit than wine grapes in your part of the world. (I am guessing a bit here but would imagine grapes there would lack sugar.)
Hee-hee. Well, one does have to temper/compromise some of what one really thinks to talk to politicians, you know? Yeah, I feel oily “crafting” letters to lawmakers, but I’ve dealt with so many of them who are so egotistical that the mere suggestion that they may not be fully informed is taken as some egregious affront for which they’re entitled to slap me across the face with a dueling glove. They’re remarkably petty.
I don’t know a good answer to it, I just stumble through and try to do my best.
A.R:
The cops nearest to us are in New Salem and the majority of them (there aren’t many, either) could be classed as assholes. That’s about the nicest thing I could say. I assume there are cops in Glen Ullin, but I’ve never met one. Or seen one, for that matter.
New Salem got a new sheriff last year, and the asshat followed me, in his cop suv all over Almont, while I was out on a photowalk with the monster dogs. Then he sat in front of our property, staring at the hop vines for about 30 minutes. Then he cruised all around Almont (takes 5 minutes, ferchrissakes) for about an hour, then planted his ass back in front of our place. For two fucking hours. Idiot.
Haven’t seen him or any other cop since, which is a good thing.
Chigau:
That’s all? Oh, you so lucky.
Chigau:
Yeah, every year, my friends in the UK mourn the continued loss of native birds and the lack of avian diversity. The songbird population is devastated.
Well – and I’m not trying to pick a fight here – I think that paragraph was a bit gratuitous and possibly slightly counterproductive in VT, home to many proud anti-government loons. I can’t speak to the science, knowing virtually nothing about it, but other than that I thought it was a very good letter.
SC:
As someone else with an e-cig and state pols who want to outlaw them, I think it was necessary. There’s an incredibly overblown knee-jerk reaction to e-cigs and a lot of states are copping out by using the “what about the children!!1!” rationale to rush to outlaw, when they don’t actually know the first thing about e-cigs.
Well, you might be right, I’m not sure. Taking the temperature of Vermont’s legislature and the temperament of lawmakers, it seemed the best call to me at the time. But I’m certainly not confident that it was. While we have a wonderful, accessible, and easy-to-contact legislature, the members are not immune to egotism and defensiveness (I speak from personal lobbying experience both as a citizen and for my job).
If it ended up being the wrong tack, at least I can learn from it.
Caine
Only “one” plant, not so many runners :)
If I lived rural and had a stalker-cop in front of my place, I don’t think I could resist building a bonfire and dancing around it naked.
Also, SC — I’m completely and totally ignorant of the history of and modern incarnations of anarchy as a political stance, something I’ve been meaning to remedy. Much of what you refer to I don’t get because I haven’t done any reading. Can you recommend a reading list or a place to start?
I don’t see what any of that has to do with the non-“loon”-credentials remarks. It’s one thing to make clear that you don’t oppose all regulations, and quite another to say what that paragraph said. I’m serious when I say that many people in New England, including state lawmakers, don’t see anything loony in being “anti-government.” Moreover, it sounds pre-emptively defensive, so even if what follows is honest it doesn’t necessarily read that way. I just don’t think it was necessary, even setting aside my reaction to having been called a loon, for political reasons or not.
Yes! It made me think of the saying “first objects get broken, then people get broken”. Property damage is a warning sign for dangerous abuse and breaking a victim’s belongings is a common abuse tactic. He wasn’t disciplining her, he was threatening her.
He strikes me as one step away from being the kind of dude who kills pets to “warn” his victim to shape up.
I wonder what would happen if the South Carolina child protective services or its equivalent were deluged with requests to look into him?
Mind, what I was trying to convey to Vermont legislators was that I wasn’t a teabagger or reactionary Guvmint iz Bad bigot. We have a vocal pocket of those here, and when someone objects to a “health” initiative in this state it’s very common that it comes from a lunatic teabagger who actually has no compassion. So, it’s very easy (knee-jerkingly so) for lefty-type lawmakers to write off someone who objects to an allegedly “health”-related measure as a right-winger. I was only trying to distinguish myself from them.
SC:
Ah, I see what you mean now. Yes, I can see where that might backfire. Sorry, it’s been ages since I slept, brain’s underwhelming right now.
Chigau:
Heh. I sat out on my front deck with the monster dogs the whole time. I had my camera gear and I was blatantly smokin’ and drinkin’. I’m such an outlaw.
Oh, if anyone’s curious, I’m fairly certain that this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqVzvvyVlH8 is the procedure that was done to me. Warning: Blood & whatnot.
shorter, non tl;dr me: I didn’t mean to slur anyone with my “anti-government loon” phrase, and if I did I regret it. It was out of ignorance and not malice. I’m happy to be educated out of my ignorance.
OK. Sorry – crossposts.
Part of what I’m suggesting is that New England culture generally mitigates against regarding yourself as “government” even when you’re part of it. So if you say “I’m opposing your doing this, but I’m not anti-government,” it can be read as “You’re big government,” which they don’t want to think of themselves as (to some extent correctly) and even oppose. I’m not saying you should say the opposite; I just don’t think going out of your way to remind them of their status as Government is necessary. Does that make sense?
I’ll put together a short list of suggestions! If I don’t do it soon, please remind me.
Kristinc:
QFT. A used that little tactic often with me. When I lived with her, I had a typed (single space), two page list of all the chores I had to do every day, at home and at my grandparent’s, whenever I was there. Every now and then, one got missed. Whenever something like that happened, or A was pissed at me for some other reason, she would go get something of mine which was extremely precious to me and throw it out.
I still vividly remember the day she marched into my bedroom with me in tow and took down my model of the starship Enterprise (yes, I was geeky from the get go), which I was insanely attached to, I had put that model together with great love. She then took it, and dragging me by the wrist, through the house, outdoors to the trash can, where she placed it carefully.
I was not allowed to say anything, I would have been punished more severely if I cried and I was not allowed to go near it or attempt to retrieve it. It sat in the trashcan all week, then, as it was one of my chores, had to take the can out to the curb for collection. I also had to wait for the trash truck, in order to see it being dumped and taken away.
That happened to a lot of the things I cared about. When I managed to really piss A off, she’d cut off all my hair and fingernails. Obviously, she was unable to resort to that one all the time.
A was hardly an example of a typical or average parent, but I suspect the “destroy or take away kid’s property” is a tactic that is used more widely than people suspect.
Yeah, it does make sense. It’s just awfully hard to know which identity is more operative:
a. I’m an Elected Lawmaker and you owe me deference
or
b. I live in your town and the only reason I ran for office is because I want to accomplish the same good shit you do
I’ve seen both. And while New England political culture is more down to earth than in some places, our officials are not immune to the sense of entitlement that comes with elected office.
So, yeah, I feel like it’s a crap shoot. I guess I’ll find out soon enough, won’t I?
Jegus, Caine. That’s horrible. My family did some shitty things, but rarely do I remember anything that sounds so much like drawn-out psychological torture.
It really is stories like this that have convinced me that 80% of ideas justified with “parent’s rights” are bullshit. Parents have no right to fuck up their children.
Of course, now if I ever end up knowing you offline I’ll have to get you an Enterprise model for your birthday or Purportedly Magical Baby Jew Day.
Here’s a possibility (which I’m totally reluctant to talk about given that, as I said, I don’t know the facts of the matter, so if you’re wrong about e-cigs, pretend I never said this :)):
I think this
and a focus on VT’s long tradition of making reasoned decisions for itself based on the evidence (which you emphasize so well) would be a good future tack. I’m not being cynical: I honestly think this is an appeal to a real tradition. It’s not about pro- vs. anti-government, but about a sound basis for local people making policy.
Shplane:
That was A’s specialty, she excelled at it.
That’s an incredibly sweet thought and it made me smile. Thank you.
My turn to say QFT.
“Parent’s rights” are pretty much on exactly the same level as “men’s rights”.
It fucking enrages me that this South Carolina jackass can commit a violent and threatening act against his daughter and she has not only no recourse but crowds of asschapeaus gloating about how she deserved it for, essentially, not being
respectfulcompliant and meek enough.YES! WE HAVE WILD HOPS.
Though I have yet to see one in flower
And when I use the train tracks to move or hunt, I move fast. Not much time for harvesting stuff. Gotta keep moving. Don’t want people looking too much. Especially cops. Nosy pigs justifying their bullshit with ‘safety’ crap as if I can’t hear a train coming well in advance or something.
Anyways, yes. Those are the ones. I will research further.
@kristinc
It fucking enrages me that this South Carolina jackass can commit a violent and threatening act against his daughter and she has not only no recourse but crowds of asschapeaus gloating about how she deserved it for, essentially, not being respectful compliant and meek enough.
Yes, exactly. Thank you.
The sooner that our society starts treating the position of “Parent” like any other position that entails power and strictly limiting the actions it can take on those it holds power over, the better.
@Me
Or, well, as soon as it starts treating all such positions the way it should, anyways.
Help! I keep reading atheist and feminist blogs, and I have two Greek midterms on Monday! Two!
Classical Cipher, perhaps read Greek atheist and feminist blogs?
Ah, cigar culture.
Here in Quebec there’s a special license to run cigar lounges where it’s legal to smoke cigars and pipe tobacco, but emphatically not cigarettes. According to cancer.gov, the “amount of secondhand smoke emitted by smoking one large cigar is similar to that emitted by smoking an entire pack of cigarettes.”
If cigarette smoke really isn’t any more hazardous to bystanders than the smoke from cigars and pipes, what am I missing? It just seems like an exemption from the law based on some connotation of class that comes attached to cigars and pipes, as opposed to cigarettes.
—
I have to confess to a certain fondness for the taste and texture of canned asparagus, to my shame.
Just out of curiosity, what are the laws with regards to religious charities endorsing political parties in the US or UK ? Here in Oz, any such relation must be “ancillary or incidental”, as I understand it. Can anyone elaborate ?
CC, less EG and Cohen might help with study efforts too…:-) Although that last link is truly awesome.
So once again guys and girls I need your help. This time I’m in a debate with a Christian called Sandra, centred around the recent 9th Circuit Court ruling in California that agreed the gay marriage ban was unconstitutional. So here we go:
So first they were inane enough to ask exactly how Prop 8 was discriminatory, and what marriage offers that domestic partnerships can’t. I replied:
Took me all of 5 seconds to find the answer to this. Google is your friend, embrace it:
advocates of same-sex marriage contend that anything less than full marriage rights extended to same-sex partners is analogous to the “separate but equal” racial laws of the Jim Crow era.
…
While domestic partners receive all of the benefits of marriage under California state law, federal law does not recognize domestic partnerships. In addition, some countries that recognize same-sex marriages performed in California as valid in their own country, (e.g., Israel ), do not recognize same-sex domestic partnerships contracted in California.
Many supporters of same-sex marriage also argue that the use of the word marriage itself constitutes a significant social difference, and in the majority opinion of In Re Marriage Cases, the California Supreme Court agreed, suggesting an analogy with a hypothetical that branded interracial marriages “transracial unions”.
A 2010 UCLA study published in the journal Health Affairs suggests various inequities (including “Inequities in marriage laws”) might have “implications for who bears the burden of health care costs.” That study finds that men in same-sex domestic partnerships in California only 42% as likely to receive dependent coverage for their partners as their married peers, and that women in same-sex domestic partnerships in California are only 28% as likely to receive that coverage.
So there’s your answer, in a nutshell. Personally, I don’t see why you’re so keen for gays not to have the right to have the “marriage” label, especially since I’m sure I’ve seen you describe yourself as “progressive” in your views. You do realise that your cult has no ownership on the term “marriage” right? I mean, you can have the most glamorous awe-inspiring wedding ceremony in a Church all you want, but without all the legal documents to be signed that is supposed to come with it, that wedding ceremony becomes completely fucking meaningless.
They responded:
They also previously made a distinction between prejudice and discrimination, saying “Prejudice is believing someone is a second class citizen. Discrimination is acting on it.”
I responded:
Which leads us right fucking back to the law that was passed which has eventually lead to Perry vs Schwarzenegger and the 9th Circuit Court Case. Because if your definitions stand (and I actually believe there is a fairly good case for those definitions to stand), then you’ve completely torpedoed your own argument. With Prop 8, there were people showing a prejudice (ie: believing that it wasn’t right for gay couples to have the right of marriage in California) and then showing discrimination (ie: acting on their beliefs to draft Prop 8, and then all the 70% of voters who voted YES to making Prop 8 law). In addition, there’s still states in America where the right of gay couples to adopt children is either illegal or completely unknown/ambiguous. That’s a problem too.
They responded:
They also said that “It is illegal for prejudices affect their choices and decisions in relation to certain areas of life.”
I said:
And yet it’s still done anyway. Try and raise the gay marriage issue in some of the really religious Conservative areas of the US and see how far you get. Also look at the “Teach the controversy” nutjobs advocating creationism and intelligent design be taught in the science classroom as opposed to evolution.
They responded:
I’d also like to share their utter staggering stance on bullies, especially those who will cause teens to commit suicide as detailed in this article: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/one-towns-war-on-gay-teens-20120202?print=true . After they said “If a teenager commits suicide its the teenager’s fault. Suicide should never be an acceptable option. EVER. So no, they dont get a pass. School is about victimization infidelity and bad lunches”, I pointed out that:
If we employ your ridiculous literalist philosophy then yes, it is solely the teenager’s fault. But the people who engage in bullying know EXACTLY what they’re doing when they torment these people. They want to harass these people so badly that they can make their victims ultra-depressed. Schools are the one environment where people can get away with doing all sorts of harassment and physical abuse and get nothing more than maybe a suspension for a few days, after which the bully gets right back to bullying their target. I came from a school where people actually got pushed down flights of stairs and had their arms broken on purpose and where racist abuse of Pakistani students was really fucking common, and these would often astoundingly be accompanied by what amounted to nothing more than a shrug by the teachers and maybe a bit of a telling off. And those aren’t even the worst horror stories I’ve heard about bullying in schools.
I consider myself a political moderate, for the most part, but I’m really fucking hard-line on bullies, especially those who influence someone into doing a suicide because of the harassment they subject that person to. My personal attitude is that we need to stop excusing the poor bully and stop making excuses for them, and stop pretending it wasn’t really their fault, because it’s that attitude that gives bullies such free reign in the first place.
The issue here about any kind of bullying is that bullies learn from the beginning that their actions are not a big deal. And this needs to stop. Bullies bully because they can get away with it, and they do it on their own free will, fully knowing that most people will jump to their excuse. Dismissals like yours of their direct guilt in causing teens to kill themselves is what creates this culture in the first place. Oh, and I wouldn’t call them parasites. That’d be insulting to parasites.
And their staggering response was:
So yeah, I really need help tackling this homophobe. As much help as possible really.
Much thanks,
James
John Morales, funny, but I don’t think they have that many feminist and atheist blogs written in ancient Greek :( also, I don’t think they’d help too much with the Aeschylean vocabulary, which is a major sticking point, or Plato’s ridiculous sentence structures.
Rorschach, ha, don’t I know it! And yeah, I’ve gotta thank Tethys for causing me to find The Civil Wars and thereby THIS.
(P.S. Re: the link, I didn’t mean to be all like “Rorschach approves? MUST ELIMINATE!” I meant to edit it to add more lyrics, and occasionally I get unduly fuzzy on how the interface works.)
was “running dog” a term from Chinese? – pelamun
It’s certainly not English, and I remeber hearing about the “running dogs of western imperialism” back in the 1960s and ’70s. Thanks for the info about Taiwan. I’ve only been there once (and never to the PRC), as one of a team giving an invited course of lectures at Taiwan National University. The people I met certainly wanted independence, and were scared of the PRC; I didn’t get any clear sense of whether this would change if the latter democratised.
Yup, “over-sized, over-sexed and over here”!
Some idiots introduced them in the late 19th century. They are actually better adapted to deciduous woods than the red, which prefer pine forest, so may hang on in northern Scotland; but the greys also carry squirrel pox, which doesn’t harm them, but kills the reds. Reds are apparently still around in my area, but I’ve only seen greys here. Interestingly, a melanistic phase of the greys is supposedly spreading.
This very same non-issue is the one single thing that has shown us in the past that Dick Cheney has something that could pass as a heart, somewhere in that body of his.
Even going as far as openly stating on The View:
“I Certainly Don’t Have Any Problem With It”
And he is the “I shoot you in the face” uber warmongering, corporate whoring republican.
And then there’s these new republicans that would submit their children to psychological torture (by themselves or trough a “gay rehab program”) and even go as far as kicking them out of the house or in the extremes, like that paster a few weeks back, having their own chilren murdered in front of a church.
I really don’t get how these people are in any way electable, and somehow, yet, they have been, are and will be elected to positions of power and policy making.
All the way trough all these republican primary debates and tv appearances, my brain simply keeps screaming HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW the FUCK
disclaimer: on dial-up at 3 AM so haven’t read jack, and this is largely reposted from my comment at Natalie’s. That said:
If anyone’s interested in the Hub’s My Little Pony mare-a-thon (not Natalie’s, which will be tomorrow) MLP fan sites do livestreams of every new episode, and they’re going to be livestreaming the HUB marathon starting in a couple of hours:
Link to Equestria Daily
Hi there
Bancrupt on this subthread
Like always at the weekends when your free time goes up and mine down (well, better said I have something more interesting to play with, i.e. a husband ;))
Ain’t it funny when your kids tell you that you’re stupid?
#1 brought me a crocodile-doll and asked if I liked it. Yes of course I did, and she told me that crocodiles are “bad” (danderous). I said that this isn’t, she looked at me quite dissapointed and said with a sigh: Yes, that’s because it’s made out of fabric!
kristinc
I wouldn’t have anything against heroic female charcaters. But I hate, hate, hate those excuse-for-a-male-hero-to-go-on-an-adventure-useless-heaps-of-pink-fabric-princesses.
As said before, there have been more known female pirates in history that in all toy sets of this world together.
Further to The Amazing Atheist, here is the fawning on Urban Dictionary that is going on:
Eeeeuw. Sounds almost like he is sockpuppeting the entry. (This can be Pharyngulated.)
@ James
Is she in England? Or in Bumfuck, USA? Also, is the anti-gay-marriage stance on behalf of GAWD or herself? Remember that marriage is a basic human right for any and every adult on the planet. In many countries this is just taken for granted and in no way impinges on “straight” marriages. More… it is a complete non-issue, even in religious circles. Perhaps the whole Prop 8 debacle is more a reflection on what a moral and cultural backwater many ‘Merkins are trying to turn their country into.
Try turning the question around. Ask them: “How the fuck do countries as diverse as South Africa, Canada and Holland thrive in the presence of legally recognised and completely uncontentious gay marriage?”
(The Dutch have even allowed a “three-way” marriage between a man and a woman and a woman. That is a hetero-gay-hetero-marriage , or more accurately hetero-hetero-hetero-gay-hetero-gay-marriage.) If GAWD is everywhere, why is she so concerned only about USA? Surely GAWD would be equally offended wherever such things occur.
@James:
Why is this person saying suicide’s always 100% the victim’s fault and responsibility, but the bullies don’t know any better because they’re just kids? How’s a kid supposed to figure out that “suicide should never be an acceptable option” but not that BULLYING should never be an acceptable option?
@James:
http://civilunions.aclu-il.org/?page_id=48
From Yahoo of all places:
Source
Also this:
PDF at site
I know I read a moving editorial once from a gay man about all the rights he and his partner could NOT have, or could only have if they lawyered up, or technically have but won’t be believed, that a married couple has automatically and with full legal protection; but I can’t find it now…
And chiming in on the most recent walton-episode
Walton, please stop.
Please stop the immature “I’m no longer welcomed in this community and I’ll leave” bullshit.
First of all, the fact that people disagree with you doesn’t mean you’re no longer welcomed.
People here disagree passionately all the time, FFS
Secondly, since this isn’t the first time, you’re not being taken serious.
Thirdly, it’s fucking manipulative. You’re trying to shut down people because they have to decide between pleasing you and losing you.
And yes, you’ve been losing perspective. We all know that criminal law and the fucked up justice-system especially in the USA are the centre of your studies and of much of your life.
But we’ve been here before, you’re losing the other side out of focus, the victims of the actual crimes.
And yes, if you chose to talk only about one side of the story, you’re inevitably giving off the impression that the other side doesn’t matter much.
That might not be what you mean, but it’s what you’re coming off as.
Frankly, there’s a difference between having your life ruined because somebody decided you shouldn’t live and having your life ruined because you decided that somebody shouldn’t live.
I’m going to steal this advice and run with it.
There is an organization where I wanted to volunteer for a while – tutoring children with some learning disabilities. I was always scared of not being competent enough, so I kept putting it off. I have been tutoring (in math) before, but only children whose worst disability was being spoiled and lazy. Actually, I’m going back to that now that I have so much time on my hands.
I think I’m going to gather some courage and apply for that volunteering position. Their page says that they provide some initial education and check if one is capable of doing the job well, so I can at least try. It’s close to home, I would do something good and it would help me not go crazy sitting at home all day.
@ Pterryx
This was the whole basis of Apartheid, one of the ugliest stains on recent humanity. The truth of the matter is that “seperate” will always unravel into inequality.
“Equal” was put in there to mollify consciences, but the intended consequences where always about separation and inequality. The “but they are equal” crowd are willfully blind (or more likely outright liars.)
I could still do with further help on debunking those points that Sandra has made, but she’s also sent me another email recently expanding on her homophobic stance:
The first thing she did in her new email was compare gay marriage to polygamy (yes, seriously):
In addition, she also responded to some earlier discussion where she had asked for an example of gay discrimination in the workplace. I responded again with the “Google is your friend” reply and pointed out this handy link: http://www.americanprogress.org/issu…imination.html
She responded:
She made one more addendum to her stance on bullying as well.
So yeah, as well as the stuff they said from Post #353, I also need help with this.
Cheers guys, you’re awesome :)
James
@ James
I suggest you don’t let this all get to broad and spread out. Choose your main points of contention and move in. (Goddists often rattle off endless shit and then run. This is called the Gish Gallop. Force them to remain on topic and honest in their replies and you will win any argument against a goddist. (If you can, I don’t pretend that would be easy.))
Is she against gay sex per se, or against marriage as an institution being extended to gays? If there is anything that generally cramps a frivolous and licentious sex life with multiple partners, it is getting married.
If GAWD really hates teh geyh seks, then HE should be promoting gay-marriage. I wish the OLD FART would make his mind up.
Great video. Wow.
Oh, I see I missed some more drama. Who made Ms Daisy Cutter strange gods in absentia, I must have missed that. I’ll have 100 Waltons for one Geiger, or 0.01 Cutters, anytime.
Also known as “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. The key point being if it doesn’t kill you.
My mom has difficulties hearing. She has been bullied during her whole life for that. She got used to being called stupid, a retard, mocked in a low voice so that she can’t hear it but sees some bastard’s laughing mug… You know what she still says was the worst fear when she gave birth to me? That I wouldn’t hear. Yeah, it built her character. She wouldn’t wish that kind of character building on anyone. All those things that supposedly build character can also break it, which scum like the one quoted love to ignore. Even if one ends up an all around great person after years of bullying, do you really think it’s always or even a couple of times because of bullying and not in spite of it?
I think that bullies are those that lack social tools. Fists don’t count.
I didn’t need to be stabbed to death to learn that knives are sharp.
And if you can’t find friends, I guess you can just drop dead, I guess. Cliques are more about “othering” and excluding others than feeling welcoming and maintaining friendships. I think it comes to the point where being in is not as important as not being out, because that means you have no one. Those who are in may not even be friendly, but they have one thing in common : they managed to get into a ridiculous, artificial wannabe social circle that means nothing but a front against “losers” who didn’t jump through enough hoops.
Which is a justification for being a little shithead? Been there, done that, I still feel ashamed of myself.
Let’s teach them how to hate others for totally arbitrary reasons while they’re still young, they might grow up to be independent, thinking people otherwise.
You are one of those who advocate for parents beating their children because it makes them tougher, aren’t you?
Before this, I was giving you a benefit of the doubt that maybe you are not scum of the Earth. Now, I metaphorically spit on you.
I can’t even comment on this any more, I’m so mad.
SO WHAT? Seriously, if your kid killed him(her)self because of bullying you would say so what, they apparently weren’t strong enough?!
Seriously, go fuck yourself.
jamesmichaels1,
You are welcome to show this to the person who sent you this email. I probably wasn’t very articulate, but the whole thing pissed me off too much.
@theophontes #368
It’s gay marriage she opposes.
Also, while I appreciate the point about the “Gish Gallop”, for now I’d prefer to address all the points she’s made so far at present. Afterwards though, I will force her to remain on one topic, or at least split the topics into separate emails.
By the way, my bad on the American Progress link where I was talking about workplace discrimination against gay people, here’s the actual one: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/06/workplace_discrimination.html
Also the stuff that Sandra linked to that didn’t come out right. Damn links. http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/01/12/abuse-of-power.html and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1302016/90-women-sexually-harassed-workplace.html . My bad. :(
James, ask her what does she think it teaches the bullies when they get away with it? If she has no compassion for the cictims, think about the bullies. They learn it’s acceptable to treat people badly, and end up being adults who treat other people badly. At best they wind up social outcasts, at worst in jail for abuse.
@james, you’re up against a *trained* discriminatin’ victim-blamin’ warrior? And maybe HER posse? This has got way beyond the Prop 8 decision – I’m kinda hoping this person isn’t a friend.
It’s great to see a decent politician in the US. I think you need a few more of them to help sort out all the painful issues that need resolving.
We have one terrific guy in Australia : Nick Xenophon.
And unfortunately, we don’t have too many really good ones either after that.
Cheers!
RINO! RINO! RINO!
Why does she hate America?
Why is she trying to destroy marriage?
Why does she pee on the Sacred Blood of Jesus?
Sorry, just channeling my inner Fox News Commissar.
Sir Shplane – Ick! Sorry, hope it gets better soon and you back tearing up the lists at the jousts.
sounds strange
Sir Shplane, sorry to hear about your difficulties. Hang in there with good humor.
Josh at 313 – Good for you. May I copy the appropriate/non personal parts of your letter to use as needed with wooly thinkers I run into on this issue?
Caine –
Yes, I suspect it is more common that most people realize. I would have things broken as enforcement and like your hair and nail, it would escalate to physical things over time, usually fingers.
Back to catching up.
Yes, he’s alright. Independent MP. Went after scientology too. Need more of his calibre.
So… mentally ill people should die? I assume you feel the same way about physical disabilities and illness right? I mean I hope you don’t take antibiotics or anything because infection is also a way to weed out the weak.
Fuck I hate logically inconsistent people who think they are being logically consistent.
And god knows a weakened immune system is no reason to wash your hands around a person. I mean fuuuuck… weeding out the weak.
You know there was a case in the news where this 3 year old in England died from physical abuse at the hands of his mom’s BF. You know what the guy was trying to do? Toughen him up.
Yeah… that’s what Sandra sounds like.
Oh hell yeah, and then it leaves the out “I never hurt *you* so you have no right to be hurt” excuse.
that’s enough. scumbag asshole.
Also, what really pisses me off about those kinds of arguments is that they all assume that we are all one single entity against the whole world. That’s not how society works. Basically it is a person who fits in with a group pretending that having social support is irrelevant because they aren’t going through not having it… yep, the P word.
If you don’t *have* the social support, you DON’T HAVE IT.
And no, actually, we do not all go through that. In fact, not that many people do. And the ones who do don’t emerge “stronger” from it. They survive it. There’s a key difference there.
We-ell, I’ve done it.
Temporarily confiscation happens when they start fighting violently over something, or when they don’t clean up. The Playmobil that remains on the floor is in my cupboard until the next weekend.
And I recently destroyed two items: A stick and a pencil.
She playfully hit me with it. I told her to please stop it because it hurt. She grinned at me and hit me again. Same with the pencil: She pricked me in the faith, I told her that this hurts and is dangerous, she did it again. I’m rather fond of my eyes, thank you.
ehm, face, not faith. Hail Tpyos
Good morning, everyone. My work day from hell (7 hours of actual work, plus several hours of meetings, with travel in between) is over! *dance dance dance!*
Catching up:
Illuminata:
I’ve no idea where you are, but around here (upstate NY), there are small dairy farmers that sell raw milk– you have to go to their farm and buy it directly. I’m not sure that it’s entirely legal*, but no one really seems to care.
*There are some nasty parasites that can lurk in non-pasteurized milk.
I argue that promoting a political party on a charity’s website is against the law :
Pastor Nalliah is pushing his luck
The Walton has indeed been on a rather amazing journey here over the last 4 years. He has come full circle from a monarchist reactionary assclam to a likeable knowledgeable witty friendly commenter with an open mind and a few quirks that we have kept working on…
But that’s trivial. I was a totally ignorant dimbulb when I first came to Pharyngula, it took me a year to post my first comment, and while I have tried my best to read up on stuff and catch up on the knowledge many of the commenters here hold, I still haven’t come close.
What will not stand is the attempt of some of the recent additions to Pharyngula and TET to fuck over Walton and go on some weird hate trip against the guy. People here have sensibilities and vulnerabilities, and they must be respected, it’s not all about winning some petty debate. A lot of regulars have stopped posting regularly in TET over the last year, including me, but what we must maintain here is respect for out fellow commenters, and that includes acknowledging and taking into account their vulnerabilities.
Over and out.
Sir Shplane!
Holy shit, that sucks. Enjoy the morphine while you can and I hope your recovery goes smoothly.
Me @ 394:
After a quick go ’round wih the Goog, it seems that raw (cow) milk can be sold legally in NY, but it can’t be distributed– meaning that the farmers can sell the non-pasteurized milk directly from their own farm and not anywhere else. There’s a movement to allow farmers to sell other “raw” dairy products as well.
The whole business stinks strongly of woo to me. Raw milk is supposed to be better for you*, but there’s parasites, man. Parasites!
*I’ll give that it probably tastes different than pasteurized milk and is useful in cheese making or whatnot, but isn’t the point of pasteurization to remove the shit that’ll make you sick while leaving the health benefits intact?
jamesmichaels1
In your discussions of same-sex marriage with Sandra, have you touched on gender?
Are the people insisting on one-man-one-woman planning on chromosome testing?
Has she even heard of transgender?
—-
re bullying and toughening
Remember when They™ used to tell us that “scar tissue is stronger than normal tissue”?
Turns out that was a load of crap, too.
Sure, its not easy but the best things never are. So yeah the kid committed suicide … well who is to say that the kid wouldnt have done so in the next big hardship? if its not standing up to a bully then its the first major breakup, or job rejection or failure.
FWIW, I’ve been through breakups. I’ve been been rejected by employers, journals, and granting agencies. Among others. None of that made me suicidal. Grade school bullying did.
Morning everyone. Anyone here know where I can get replacement syringes for an older model Nichiryo syringe dispenser?
Hmm… I always feel a little strange when I’ve just caught up on two or three days worth of TET full of Important Shit™ (not to mention Infuriating Crap®), and then I chime in on some random bit of flotsam that happened to catch my eye… but here I go:
I’ve never tried proper cheesemaking, but lately I’ve been making Indian paneer, and it’s dead simple: Bring a potfull of whole milk (generic supermarket milk seems to work fine) to a gentle boil; dump in a little acid (lemon juice, according to the recipe I use); hey, presto, the milk separates; strain off the whey; rinse, form, and press the curds.
NOM NOM NOM!
Off to do my Saturday errands, now….
Bill: Kinda sounds a bit like Ricotta to me.
In Utah, where about 60% of the population is mormon, but about 90% of the state legislators are mormon, a new bill has been approved that would further reduce sex education in the state (sex ed in Utah is already inadequate in most schools).
Link to story in the Salt Lake Tribune.
And the theocracy in Utah continues to chip away at reason-based education …
The situation was already bad. The godbot are making it worse.
Bill, A. R,
I’ve seen recipes like that called “farmhouse cheese”.
You can add anything, and it’s excellent as a spread. OM NOM NOM.
Audely, Bill: I think I’m going to make some today!
Readers commenting below the Salt Lake Tribune article about sex education in Utah schools are pointing out that :
Maybe she didn’t tell them to just say “No” to drugs.
It is harsh to remind Gayle “Eagle Forum” Ruzicka that one of her own children died from a drug overdose while she was fighting against the teaching of critical thinking skills in Utah schools.
Teens in Utah as so uninformed that many of them get pregnant because they mistakenly believe they or their partner are sterile. This is from a January 30th, 2012 article:
Link.
Same sex marriage card – link to scan of photo:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y60ewWu_CfQ/TzVHEc2380I/AAAAAAABQcI/KvLKl0oNaR4/s1600/weddingCard.jpg
Cute. And a nice dig at Mormons.
Rorschach @ #370 It does certainly say a lot about you that you prefer the guy making rape jokes and driving off other regulars.
Also, I don’t have a “weird hate trip” for Walton. I think he’s basically a decent guy, who is getting incredible amounts of assistance from the good folks here to be a better guy. He’s also very smart, if not someone whose conclusions I think follow 100% of the time. (So, then, human.)
theophontes,
That book sounds interesting, I haven’t read it. I got it now too, and put it on “the list”.
KG,
the feeling I get from my friends is that the country is de facto independent, especially after democratisation. But that hard-won independence and democracy is now perceived to be under threat due to the continued precariousness of its international position, and the ever growing ties across the strait.
Happiestsadist: Maybe have another read of comment 370. Rorshach isn’t saying what you think.
Antiochus Epiphanes: Ahh, I see. Still a shit thing to say, and still valuing Geiger over her. Also, somehow likening her to SGBM for… something something.
I find both Walton and Rorschach amusing, good company, and writers of comments worth reading most of the time. Nobody really needs my imprimatur, but it makes me feel good to give it.
Change of subject …
In Moments of Mormon Madness, we find a rich vein in the fallout from the arrest and jailing of FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saint) “prophet” Warren Jeffs. The latest news is that thugs loyal to Jeffs have been breaking, entering, and destroying the property of men they have excommunicated from the polygamist sect.
These guys are poster boys for the lawlessness (or the we-are-above-the-law) attitudes that a theocracy fosters.
The excommunicated guy, Willie Jessop, has been under 24-hour surveillance and 24-hour harassment by the FLDS goons. His kids have been kicked out of the local schools.
Of course, it’s likely that Willie Jessop is (or was?) a bit of thug himself. Males in Colorado City/Hilldale and in Yearning for Zion are brought up to be thugs. However, it does look like Willie decided Warren Jeffs is not a prophet, and that’s one small step in the right direction.
With local law officers also being members of the cult, one gets the full force of an Orwellian society.
The story in the Salt Lake Tribune is accompanied by a photo in which we see a bottle of Ranch dressing that was not stolen.
That is really interesting (and terrifying), Lynna.
Mormon justice in Utah: a mormon doctor, Dewey C. MacKay, a man who has ties to mormon aristocracy for many generations, is arrested for prescribing more than 1.9 million hits of hydrocodone and about 1.6 million hits of oxydodone between June 2005 and October 2009. MacKay was seeing about 80-120 patients per day, and not physically examining any of them.
Inevitably, one of the addicts he was serving died of an overdose, a 55-year-old rocket scientist at Alliant Techsystems. Relatives filed suit, and MacKay was exposed.
Because MacKay is a good mormon, and the judge, Benson, is a good mormon, MacKay did not go directly to jail. Here’s a quote from the supposedly objective judge:
The mormon judge’s stay-out-prison card may be overturned because the U.S. Attorney ‘s Office asked the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in denver to overturn the ruling.
This whole thing is a mess. Dewey C. MacKay needs to be extradited from the theocracy of Utah and tried in the United States.
MacKay was supposed to self-report to prison on February 1, but is still free while his lawyers appeal.
SlutWalk is today! I’m excited. There’s supposed to be a lot of people showing up.
Although I’ll be interested to see if the misogynistic trolls from the facebook wall will show up like they’ve been saying (seriously, there have been a few that post on the facebook page for the event almost constantly; how pathetic do you have to be to spend that much time and effort trying to put down people protesting sexual assault and victim blaming?). But, my guess is that they won’t show: they’re all big and bad when they don’t actually have to face a crowd of over 300 feminists.
My 18 yr old daughter came out last month. I almost think she was a little disappointed by our casual acceptance of it…I think she expected a little more drama than “Oh, ok…what do you want for dinner?”. Thankfully we’re Canadian so she already has equal rights here.
It’s the unrefrigerated ranch dressing that is truly scary.
Actually, one detail I left out is über Owellian: employees of Willie Jessop were told they would be excommunicated and would go to hell if they continued working for Jessop. The dude lost most of his employees before he was robbed.
There is one bit of good news … finally. Someone got a clue about the so-called police force in the polygamist colony being used to enforce the whims of the so-called prophet. The State of Utah isn’t doing anything about this situation, as usual, but the State of Arizona is acting.
Link.
More details regarding the actions of the so-called police force in fundamentalist mormon colonies on the Utah/Arizona border:
There are a lot of comments from readers noting that Utah seldom prosecutes crimes committed in polygamist colonies. Mainstream mormons talk a tough game when it comes to being anti-polygamy, but their actions (or lack of action) tells a different tale.
Going to be off thread for a while, my sister just called, and she probably has food poisoning from potato salad, so I’ll have to go over there and take care of her.
Josh, OSG,
I just wanted to pop in and say a thousand thank yous for the ecig info. It’s been about 2 weeks now, and, while I haven’t been perfect, I have been close and it has been a far more painless process than any previous attempt to quit. even with my wife still smoking, I have been having maybe one real cig per day, and they are becoming not enjoyable.
Thank you, thank you!
Also, if VT does go through with that ill-informed law, drop me an email if you need help with a work-around.
Unnecessary word removed.
Hey guys,
Is everyone here up on their classics/counter-apologetics?
What’s the pagan precursor to Saul/Paul’s conversion story? Isn’t there some Greek myth/novel about a persecutor-blinding-light-conversion-yada yada yada?
Thank you Rev BDC for the correction in comment #421.
There’s a mormon “salad” recipe that calls for jello (of course), shredded carrots, red cabbage, and Ranch dressing.
I think I need a bacon antidote. With a real salad on the side.
@ Lynna
… jello? With carrots, cabbage, and ranch dressing? Oh… that’s the worst thing I’ve heard all week.
Being from the south, I am very familiar with this soul crushing food items.
I ask because I’m amusing myself by writing a bit of satirical bullshit at (Bad Taste Warning):
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/User:Armando/Epistle_to_the_Ephebophiliacs
Any suggestions for the stupid story are welcome. Of course, since it’s a wiki, once I put it up you can just edit and rewrite the shit out of it anyway =)
these types of….
The blog Camels with Hammers has an interesting take on the Catholic response to insurance that covers the cost of contraception.
Rev, you didn’t really need to issue a correction. I am used to approaching your posts with an improvisatory, jazz-like attitude.
One can either auto-correct as one goes, or one can improvise. Either way, it’s all good.
I’ve just been at Libby Anne’s Love Joy Feminism blog. She has a thread entitled “How I Run My Blog” having to do with tone:
I have a post on the thread “awaiting moderation.” This is my second post on the thread, the first one was unmoderated. My “awaiting moderation” post reads:
I suspect I won’t be posting much on Libby Anne’s blog. She’s going to have to prove to me she isn’t an accommodationist.
Hmmm… actually that was in bad taste. I think I’ve thought better of it. Read twice, delete once.
Lynna:
Is it possible that the Mormons have just have never let go of some of the weirder American culinary traditions? I ask because I’m attending a 1950’s style potluck next week and I’m bringing a Jello salad consisting of plain gelatin, Vienna sausages, and mini-marshmallows*, which I found in one of my Mom’s old cookbooks.
(Also, I’ve got one of my grandmama’s cookbooks from 1939 which has a couple of Jell-o salad recipes. I wonder if that was the beginning of the “let’s float whatever shit we can in gelatin!” age.)
*There’s something else in there too, but damned if I can remember what it is.
Dr.Audley
My guess on the unremembered ingredient is MiracleWhip.
(shades of 1960s Kraft commercials)
It’s generally true that mormons have not let go of any 1950s era traditions.
‘Tis Himself, I read that please-be-nice plea on Libby Anne’s blog. Then I turned on my virtual heel and left.
Ridicule backed up with facts is effective. Intelligent ridicule gives me that burning-in-the-bosom happy feeling. So Libby Anne’s blog is not for me.
It’s nice that you tried, ‘Tis.
Libby Anne, I would suggest that you immerse yourself in Pharyngula for a year or more. You might develop a taste for top-o-the-line ridicule. Ridicule can be shocking at first, but it breaks boundaries that need to be broken.
chigau:
Brilliant! I think my mom still has the cookbook, so I’ll get a chance to double check when I see her later today.
If I can’t find the recipe for the the Jello-o/Vienna sausages nightmare*, then I’m making chicken mousse.
*I’m going for authentic, so I want to get it just right.
Some discussions of Miracle Whip and Jello here: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/766652
Discussion includes salads that mormons will not eat.
For those not used to mormon acronyms, “DH” stands for “Dear Husband.”
A self-identified Molly Mormon has provided a plethora of jello recipes:
http://molly-mormon.com/recipes-every-jello-recipe-you-could-imagine/
Some of these include cottage cheese, which is right up there with Miracle Whip and Ranch dressing as an ingredient sure to make your jello salad authentic.
merciful heaven
Lynna:
I saw “Molly Mormon”* when searching for the Vienna sausage recipe. It’s not included on her site (so far as I can tell), so she definitely doesn’t have ever Jell-o recipe imaginable.
*”We’ve all got a little Molly in us!” just sounds fucking creepy.
Oh, Idaho. [sigh] Just like Utah, or worse, when it comes to protecting the rights of gay and lesbian citizens.
Link.
There’s a poll at the link provided in comment #440:
Poll
Do you think the Idaho bill to protect gay, lesbian and transgendered citixnes should have been approved by lawmakers?
Yes – The bill should have been passed
No – The bill never should have been introduced
Maybe – The bill should have at least passed the committee to be heard by House and Senate lawmakers
Well! That is just unacceptable. Somebody take that woman’s “Molly Mormon” claim to fame away from her.
What’s the world coming to?
I’d ask around among mormon friends for the jello-with-vienna-sausage recipe but I’m afraid I’d be love-bombed with jello casseroles. There’s no stopping them once they get started.
Two evils for the price (in time wasted) of one: Pat Robertson (evil #1) discusses the Twilight series (evil sin against literature).
Maybe it’s even three evils for the price of one since Pat details the mormonish evilness of the Twilight series from his peculiarly evil perspective.
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201202090006
Lynna:
XD
I wouldn’t want to put you through that torture. If I can’t find the recipe, I’ve got a backup plan. :)
Including semi-institutional racism.
Although I’m not really sure that “citixnes” have rights :/
Whhyyyyyyyyy would anyone perpetrate an atrocity like that upon perfectly good cottage cheese?
Jello “salads” remind me a lot of Victorian and Edwardian era cuisine — you would stylize some things as much as you could. For example you might serve a salad of lettuce leaves but you would then proceed to cover each portion with a smooth, even, sculpted coating of mayonnaise so no one could tell there were leaves underneath it and also because everyone knew white foods were more pure and good for you anyway. I remember that vegetables got served in aspic a lot, too. This was how you made them “dainty”. Those folks would have fucking loved jell-o “salad”.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, there’s a recipe for sweet and sour spam in the book No Man Knows My Pastries, so perhaps there’s a backup you could use should your search for the perfect meat-in-jello recipe fail.
http://www.amazon.com/No-Man-Knows-Pastries-Christensen/dp/1560850280
Well. I got rather worried when I saw that nearly 400 comments had been posted since yesterday evening. Turns out that everyone’s just really talkative.
Audley: I’m a bit hung over from last night. Please do not talk about that jello casserole anymore.
Tis Himself: I love you. Biscuits with chicken gravy is one of my favorite things in the world, and I haven’t had them since Mom stopped frying chicken.
An ex-mormon has offered a lemon and shrimp jello salad recipe as a substitute. Interested?
Rey Fox, I apologize. Didn’t see your request before I posted the suggestion for shrimp in lemon jello. [evil, I am evil]
MikeG:
Thank you. It makes me feel so good when someone has success with these; most just don’t believe how easy it is. I certainly wouldn’t have!
Thanks also for the work-around offer—if it comes to it I’ll take you up on it big time.
I just got an email from the committee chair saying it didn’t seem likely they’d have time this session to consider the bill but she’d be discussing it with the other members. Didn’t take a position on the substance of what I said, but it’s semi-hopeful at least. Will be watching like a hawk.
Girl, you do realize I read this blog, right? I can’t decide whether to bar you from Chez SpokesGay next weekend or welcome you as a mad, but sadistic genius.
Josh: My Dad quit using ecigs, and he had been trying to quit as long as I can remember (technically a little further than that, actually). Mom’s almost a month without smoking, and IIRC, she’s using them too. Considering Mom ended up in the hospital five times last year for lung-related badness, I’m so happy for her now.
Lynna:
Oh hell yes.
Do you mind emailing it to me? ourdeadselves (swirly at) gmail.
Rey Fox:
Okay, okay, okay. This is the last gross post for the day, I promise. :)
Dr.Audley
This is for Josh’s shindig?
see sandwich recipe @200.
I won’t be needing “Yankee Anti-Government Loon” after all.
– SC, Freak and Animal
:)
Josh:
Awe, come on, Josh! I thought you’d appreciate eating the most disgusting (authentic) recipe that I can find. This has become a personal challenge for me. :D
Who is doing that? I don’t think anyone hates Walton.
I read Libby Anne’s post before there were any comments, but I didn’t respond. Wasn’t too happy with it: the assumption that FtB readers/commenters are ignorant of religion or the Right, the suggestion that what worked for her is the only effective or correct way to act, and especially that she posted the anecdote from her reader without linking to the thread(s) in question so people could verify the story’s accuracy.
I’m going to go check to see if she’s posted it since.
As a side note about vintage recipes:
Lately when I’ve been baking, I’ve been using recipes from 1960’s and god damn there’s a lot of good shit out there. I’ve found that older recipes aren’t as sweet as what I’m used to, but often have a more complex flavor and better texture.
So, I could bring something mouth watering, but I’d rather subject your guests to the horrors lurking in vintage cookbooks. MWAH HA HA HA!
Josh, I’m emailing you about ecigs :)
Josh
skip this
.
.
.
.
.
.
Dr.Audley
http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/ritz-mock-apple-pie-53709.aspx
I’m going to go check to see if she’s posted it since.
She hasn’t. I’m glad I didn’t respond to her post or some of the comments. I think ‘Tis and Classical Cipher have said it better than I would have.
and after I voted, it’s running 38% yes, 52% no, and 11% should’ve passed committee. Screw Idaho’s legislators, and cheers to all those brave people who attended to stare them in the face.
Chigau:
I’ve got that in several cookbooks. Apparently, it was a Depression-era recipe.
(I do like the tagline of “No time to peel apples?”, though. If you don’t have time to peel apples, what the ever-lovin’ fuck are you doing making an apple pie??)
“Mock” foods can be delightfully weird– I have a recipe for mock- pork chops that are made out of (wait for it) peanut butter.
Okay, Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, I emailed the recipe to you.
Are we certain that no one else wants this wonderful, anti-elitist, mormon shrimp-and-jello recipe? It has peas as well.
Prepare yourself, Josh.
I really don’t mind that Libby Anne is doing what she’s doing. My main problem with accomodationists is that they insist that theirs is the only way, and that confrontational gnu atheists should STFU with their mockery. ‘Tis’ and Classical Cipher’s posts appear to be up on that post. Unless there are more yet to come.
I’m thinking of a mayonnaise, carrot, and raisin salad that used to be a favorite of my grandmother’s for Josh’s 50s party. :)
And ketchup. The mormon lemon jello and shrimp recipe calls for 1/2 cup ketchup.
Lynna:
Thanks, again.
I was just trying to save Rey Fox’s delicate tummy from the trauma that is that salad. ‘Cos, whoa.
Whoa.
Poll: Santorum now leads GOP primary race
I’m waiting for the ‘Santorum Comes From Behind’ headline.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Rapunzel number helps scientists quantify ponytails
So there, Josh! ;-)
Whoa.
My mother, who grew up during the Depression, refused to make that ritz thing. Even though us kids thought it sounded kinda neat.
I wonder how you would make mockporkchops for someone with a peanut alergy, substitute peas?
The Sailor@471,
Your own link includes:
.
It won’t last though – it’s just froth. Romney will lay down a barrage of attack ads and the surge of Santorum will tail off to a dribble.
@445
Too true.
Those mormon patriarchal leaders were racist from the start, and then they doubled down. Here’s a fairly good summary: http://www.i4m.com/think/comments/mormon-racism.htm
Right.
And besides that, we should not give Josh any more information. We don’t want him to be too prepared.
Surprise is an essential ingredient.
Let me know when the party is over, and I will post the recipe then.
The Sailor
re Rapunzel
http://improbable.com/projects/hair/
Is there a connection, I wonder?
chigau:
What I’ve found is that peanut butter was used instead of a meat-based protein in a lot of recipes from that era. Which makes sense: peanut butter was cheaper than meat and you could store it easily without a refrigerator or icebox.
(It’s a little weird looking through cookbooks that assume that you can’t necessarily refrigerate your food. Tips on how to use sour milk kind of threw me for a loop.)
My conclusion: Either peanut allergies weren’t as common or people really just didn’t give a fuck if you did have a nut allergy.
The upper class stopped entombing things in aspic the minute Jello was invented and the masses could partake of it. IIRC, celery was one of the first Jello flavors to be sold. As always when talking about weird old US foods, Lileks has a lot of Jello at the Gallery of Regrettable Food. Just last week at a diner I got served a carrot-raisin-unidentified white sauce salad as a side- it was quite tasty.
Netflix now has the extended edition of the Swedish Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. Apparently there are two hours of additional footage. I have no idea how good it is.
Here in the morridor every grocery store offers a dazzling array of Jello products. Problem is that in 20-30 feet of shelf space lined with jello it is quite difficult to find something unsweetened.
Fake sweet, yes. Non-sweet, mais non.
Bottom row, one slot. That’s were the unsweetened stuff that might actually be useful can be found.
My mother taught me to make a salad that I think was from the late 60’s — it consisted simply of grated carrots, crushed pineapple, and raisins and it’s really very nice (especially as I don’t care for many forms of raw carrot).
Makes sense; it’s like sharks-fin soup, you don’t serve it because it tastes good, you serve it to show you can. In this case to show you have a cook, or somebody, who can spend a bizillion hours boiling bones, straining it and clarifying it to make gelatin.
Chigau, thanks for the link! They aren’t affiliated with U of Warwick, but UofW might be members. From your link:
Tee hee, I’m sending this to some of my hair-challenged colleagues.
The article I linked to sucked, but it’s actually pretty good research. Modeling stranded flows has applications to many fields due to fibers being increasingly substituted for solid metals.
The Sailor
The Rapunzel study is also just the kind of thing that could earn an IgNobel.
It must be done.
Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part One
Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part Two
Dear cops,
You are not the 1%. Start protecting and serving the 99%.
Regards,
Sailor
+++++++++++++++++++
IRT Jello, yep, it became passe when the commoners could have it.
IRT jello type food: I had many a gelatin* based foods growing up. My favorite was bananas. And we had the carrot-raisin-mayonnaise stuff too.
* when I typed gellatin my spellczech offered fellatio as a substitute. Woo hoo!!!
Yep and they all got wiped out. But being who I am that’s not going to stop me. I’ve already ordered another colony for this summer. Though being how warm it has been I’m thinking I might try and get one earlier than the pick up date in early April. I’m also getting a “Nuc” which is a a couple frames of an established colony with their queen instead of a package of bees with a separate queen you have to introduce. I had a lot of issues with queens last summer.
Green Jello
Sexual assault prevention tips.
For you people who need it. You know who you are. Stop pretending like this isn’t good advice. We’re just trying to help.
I chose to ignore everything else that follows and just imagine a nightmarish apiary with you tending to rotting hives full of decaying colonies whistling cheerfully and slipping deeper an deeper into the madness of denial.
Well, there might have been some of that last fall.
But I will never admit it.
Ing @ #491: If it’s okay with you, I think I may have to steal that for a short story.
Voices Green And Purple-The Bees
BTW, I had biscuits & gravy, 2 eggs medium, bacon and toast for breakfast today. Every couple of weeks you just have to treat yourself. I didn’t cook it, I went to a hometown restaurant.
Jello
Heh, I was debating if I wanted that song or I Am The Owl.
is another sentence that’s way better if you ignore the context.
I think what might be annoying me most about Valentine’s Day is the commercials for those giant teddy bears. At least flowers are biodegradable.
I changed my mind.
Full Metal Jack-OffJello Biafra & DOA