Oh, look what the climate scientists have been saying for the last 30+ years.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Oh, look what the climate scientists have been saying for the last 30+ years.
Christ, what an asshole.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi7WOQde7fI
BBC Horizon “Global Weirding” shown last night
PZ. Math isn’t your strong suit.
1960(ish) to 2010(ish) is 50 years +
Oh well I guess that’s from 1982 – but I saw something about ’58. Also something about the 20s… which is almost 90 years?!
Why thank you PZ. I was just wondering how to make sure my weekend wasn’t going to be all cheery and happy. I’m so grateful you took care of that.
Ogvorbis: Not quite as WTF as this woman walking up to your wife and slugging her, but still. That had to be pretty scary. She’s OK, right?
Josh:
::golf clap::
Lynna: I was reading the thread to that Slate article on Sally Hemings being “sealed” to Thomas Jefferson, and I lost it when someone suggested, “Gay people should start gay-marrying dead Mormons.” And when someone else announced that he’d “baptized Brigham Young as a homosexual and sealed him to Freddie Mercury.”
Jules:
Yeah, that’s kinda… not good for an org that’s supposed to be all about reality and facts.
Aw, Ing, that was so sweet of Chas, to write you a personal goodbye note!
I find it fucking depressing that r/atheism, bastion of misogyny, apparently won the Readers’ Choice award for “Best Atheist Community”.
Walton:
Not surprising, given the amount of assholes who happen to be atheists. On the positive side, I’ve ordered two NPR Calendars and I’m definitely framing Greta Christina’s photo and hanging it in my studio. Cheers me up no end.
Hey, Mano Singham linked to the interview of The Bell Curve‘s Charles Murray on “The Colbert Report”.
Wasn’t this a favourite topic of Chas’? Pointing out how dogmatic we are about this sort of stuff?
Too bad he isn’t going to be around any more. Shame, really.
Newest theory on the Santorum fumble: he meant to say “Governmentnik”.
Do people really still use the -nik suffix like that? Even if they do, “governmentnik” sounds like a stretch to my ears. “Apparatchik” I could accept, but …
For Santorum, ‘nig …’ is the new ‘blah …’.
It’s only a matter of time before we hear ‘nig-CLANG’ from one of these assholes.
++++++++++++++++++
Yet another reason to love Kurt Vonnegut.
++++++++++++++++++
Oggie, how’s the knee?
This is the saddest song I’ve ever heard.
I think Vonnegut knew a few Porco Dios in his time.
Sounds awesome! Except for the swimming part. I don’t swim. I’m afraid of really deep water and don’t like the coldness.
Are there snapping turtles in the river? Because I’d totally love to hunt one (though I dunno whether I’d actually kill it and eat it or just catch and release for the experience).
Unfortunately, I’m very unlikely to ever visit the states, much less Alabama, but I do have another online friend from out there.
You know what’s been warming for a long time? MY SEETHING MISANTHROPY.
^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^
*check*
Too bad I still don’t have Internet at home and there’s no sound on this computer here in the museum. But I’ll visit my parents for Easter :-)
Yeah, she’s fine.
Two different women — one is the woman who lives near the corner and has told other streetcorner workers (crossing guards) that she is going to make sure Wife loses her job; the other is a woman who lives a block away and drops her kid off from a minivan. Wife left a large scrape on the side of her van with her stop sign. And then went down to the police department to report the woman. The PD will send her a citation (not a Chevy).
Not only does Wife work a street corner, but Girl’s boyfriend’s mother is a dealer (at the local casino).
You mean like this??
If I sit down, the pain is about a 1 or 2 out of 10. If I am upright, whether there is weight on the leg or not, the pain is about a 4 to 6 out of 10. Not quite enough to bring tears, but oh, shit! it hurts.
I read that as ‘MY SEETHING LYCANTHROPY.’
Oh, that sucks, Ogvorbis. Sorry to hear that.
Good morning.
Thanks, Jules.
Ing, your blog post is cute, but needs proofreading!
Who the hell put Christ, what an asshole into my brain?
Jules! You’re back!
———————————-
Og – Just where the bloody fuck do you live? What did Wife ever do to that twit who wants her to lose her job?
I live in Pennsylvania.
And Wife went on a trip with me to Maine. Which means she was not at her street corner. That’s what Wife did.
Christ, Og. I’m sorry for both your knee pain and for Wife’s troubles.
Sailor:
Kurt Vonnegut, meet Possum Roadkill.
He told me I needed to look up what sarcasm means. I couldn’t facepalm hard enough. I eventually spelled out for him that for his comment to have been sarcastic, he would’ve had to either intended it to be understating/overstating the stats or maybe reversing them. That’s when the diddy-change came up. Again, I had to explain sarcasm to the communications director.
This does not bode well for our representation, y’all.
Nice to see you, PTI. I’m only sorta around. Phone commenting is shit, and I don’t have internet at home. Also I’m burnt out from overworking myself beyond reason, and I have a huge project due, so I’m just fucking around like an irresponsible shit because ADULT AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME.
I prefer to keep mine at a gentle simmer, so that the vapours saturates my surroundings and seep into everything I touch.
♥ Vonnegut. Thanks for sharing, Sailor.
Ogvorbis, my sympathies on the knee.
Jules, check your USB, the Pullet Patrol™ is sending you some swill.
Well, even I managed to get my application in by 2 am last night.
Good thing, too, since I slept in and would have missed the Noon deadline otherwise …
As it is I ‘only’ missed going in to work to do a kegstand with my colleagues.
Adding to the sympathies for Og and Ogspouse. Internet hugs for all, even John Morales!
John, thanks for the thought last night with the Tim Ferguson vid, even if it was a bit off kilter. I was a bit WTF?, then I remembered it’s you and probably meant to be encouraging. You know, internet hugs are actually quite safe since there’s no actual touching involved.
I don’t have MS, or indeed any nameable disease at this point. Although CFS looks more and more likely as other shit gets ruled out. DO NOT WANT!!!
Alethea:
Oh no. :hugses: I hope you have a good doc who takes you seriously. Here in ‘merica, things like CFS and Fibromyalgia tend to be “treated” as it’s all in your head, dearie diseases.
A serving of potato crisps is 30 g, and that contains 14% of my daily allowance of fat (and 8% of sodium).
Yay!
Of course, I’m almost through a bag of 220 g. And my third Easter beer.
I propose that the Endless Thread and the Zombie Thread should be merged after their respective current incarnations. Thus creating the Zombless Thread, which will be more horrifying than ever.
And *hugs* and best wishes for Alethea.
It’s okay, that particular creek is shallow enough to find a dropped pair of car keys in*. It’s just infested with Alabama Miniature Piranha.
* This also happened.
Hell no. I don’t want Daniel Haven in the lounge.
The Saddest Song
I dunno. I can certainly imagine him in a leisure suit.
Jules:
While, again, there’s no excuse in an organization such as that in question, I have to marvel at all the people I’ve encountered who are in “communications” and whose job performances give no indication that they even know that words mean things. Maybe colleges should engage in some departmental renaming and start offering degrees in Obfuscation.
Alethea, I’m sorry to hear about the CFS. I have several friends who suffer from it… major suckage.
Not the right audience for that. You need to be more specific.
Lumper!!!
Would you prefer we split the Zombie Thread into on with, and one without, danielhaven? One could be the Idiot Zombie Thread and the other the LOLCat Zombie Thread.
Alethea,
At the risk of sounding obtuse, what about the Tim Ferguson video was off kilter? Was it the selection of the video as something that might be comforting? Or the video itself?
That’s why I said “Thus creating the Zombless Thread, which will be more horrifying than ever.”
*cackles madly*
Finding those keys was a miracle*.
*Ok, just highly unlikely
Ms. Daisy Cutter, why you gots to insist that words mean shit? Because postmodernism, amirite?
I, for one, vote for the Zombless thread because it’s already enough keeping track of this and facebook.
But, then, I do love parties, and the more parties the better…
Splitter!
(Plus, then the threads will multiply. And PZ will spend the rest of his life opening and closing threads.)
Hmmmmm. New evidence:
If that has any truth to it, I guess that does give “nigger” a chance to make sense in context.
I still find it hard to believe that a professional politician – even as odious as the assfroth – would have “nigger” in his working vocabulary.
Any Pittsburghers around?
And?
About a decade ago, on one of the park’s excursions (steam train), a family in my car had a 14-month-old who was getting restless. It was a hot day and, after a while, even the rhythm and sounds of a steam-powered train aren’t enough to keep a little bundle of energy either asleep or interested. So dad gave the little boy something to play with.
Yes, you guessed it. He gave him the keys to the rental car. Which, within 30 seconds, were out the window.
Luckily, I knew what mile marker we had just passed so, when we got back to the park, when the family and I told one of the LEOs, he was able to drive up to the area and walk in to the railroad tracks. None of us were holding any hope but, when he got there he looked down, picked up the keys and brought them back.
Yes, the parents did mention that god was looking over them. I bit my tongue and did not ask what god was doing when dad gave the kid the keys next to an open window.
Alethea,
More of a “hey it could be worse” type of comfort, I guess.
Plus I figure you’d remember him (being Australian and all), perhaps it wasn’t news to you as it was to me?
Anyway, yeah, was meant to be sympathetic.
Hm. Still expresses too much intimacy for my liking.
I appreciate you got the gist, though.
Jules:
Well, to be fair, Natalie Reed makes a good case for postmodernism being misunderstood by one side and abused by the other. Most of the people I’ve met who like to detach words from their meanings aren’t academics.
And PZ merely need not close the thread, since it could lurch on page by page on its own.
echidna: living with a permanent disability is NOT a cheery thought. Even if Tim Ferguson can do it.
I am actually still hoping to get better one day. And that it’s not full-on CFS, which has very bad odds of improvement, not to mention the social “yuppie flu” stigma which does happen here, too. I’m seeing the respiratory specialist next week. A six month followup – he thought I should be better by now, and I am, but not well. I can walk up a single flight of stairs, and I only get puffed out and exhausted from showering maybe twice a week now instead of every day. And I walked to the shops once last week. Woohoo, 500m!
Oggie –
It wasn’t luck, it’s because you do your job very well.
It wasn’t luck that I found a person’s contact lens in a dark parking lot, it’s because I know my job well, and I shined a flashlight sideways instead of down.
We do good work. And all of our children are above average. (It’s easy for me to claim that, I have a sample of zero;-)
p.s. My P value =< 1, and the diuretics aren't helping.
Ms. Daisy Cutter you linked to me in your comment #93 in The Future of Republican Health Care thread and I just want to say thank you. It made me so happy! You meant it in a good way and it meant a lot. My little moment of happiness for the day. I don’t want to comment this on that thread for fear of derail.
I have nothing to add there of any real worth but sadness. =(
After telling my mother about Trayvon my mother said to me “I know this is racist and I feel bad about it, but I am glad Little One (my daughter) doesn’t look black or have dark skin. It would make her life so much harder.”
All I could say was “That is racist. We have to be careful Mom, not to say shit like that and alienate her. I will teach her to call us on shit if we are being obtuse or just wrong because we are on her side and she deserves better. Of course, I can’t lie. I’ve had that same thought and feel fucking awful..”
Beware, racism is everywhere even in your own mother’s head.
Fuck.
Now, I’m back to crying.
No, it was pure luck. I am standing the entire time when I am on one of these trains. I cannot see anything outside the train except the edge of the ballast right next to the track and, unlike the train crew (engineer, fireman, conductor, trainmen), I have no idea where the hell I am most of the time. I time my interpretation based on bridges. That’s it. That I knew where we were when it happened was very unusual.
I just read that yesterday. I’ve drank half a bottle of wine and am therefore not up to really discussing it, but I’ll point out that I was mocking asshats who use it as a get-out-of-jail-free card for thinking, not really the philosophy itself.
Ooh, a local chapter of Dr Sketchy’s is starting in Canberra. Cool. What is that? Here – http://www.drsketchy.com/faq
Someone yelled at me once after they blew though a pedestrian crosswalk when I was crossing. That’s because I hit their car with my umbrella without having to lean forward. I was also pushing a stroller at the time.
Ahh. I understand that, even though “cheery” wasn’t the word I would use to describe the video. Tim, however, was. I’m definitely not arguing with you. Thanks for the clarification.
It’s a hard road you’re on. I wish you a speedy recovery.
Anyone else watching TED talks on the science channel? Robin Ince is coming up next.
Brother Og
god let you which mile marker so you could tell the LEO so he could drive to the correct spot to find the keys so you could tell the story here so Someone™ would see the Lite™.
We’ll just never know who.
*haleyula**haleluyaa**halyulea*YAY!
Nerd
looky!
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ner1.htm
Fun with Fundies:
___________
______________
_____________
In case anyone’s interested, my misanthropy was piqued today because I got into a three-car accident coming off the highway, and also went on a date sort of…thing, and it seemed like the guy couldn’t wait to get away from me. Apparently I’m delusional, because when I look in the mirror I see a young, relatively attractive guy, but everyone else sees Cthulu.
RayXephon:
Oy! Please tell us you’re not hurt and your car’s not badly damaged.
There is no contradiction. You’re tentacularly hawt in an immeasurably ancient and unnameable way!
Caine:
When I saw your new ‘nym (Impossible Woman) it came up on the recent comments bar for “An Innovative Legal Strategy.” Because I consistently and perversely misread things, the SpokesVoice in my head said, “Caine, Impossible Woman: An Innovative Leg Strategy.” Whereafter I pictured you contorting yourself, naturally.
RayXephon again:
Other people are a mistake. Especially men.
RahXephon
When you go on a date, do you dress as a Giant Feminist Mecha Robot?
sorry
Want some rum?
re accident: Was anyone hurt?
Also, Kitteh Sophie is back on her insulinz and doing good. After the first shot last night her night time “crying” (piteous mewling and vocalization that nothing—not food, water, or attention—could stop. It would break your heart if you could hear it.) and begging for more food at 5 a.m. stopped cold. Excessive water drinking and pissing also stopped. Back to regular grooming and seeming much calmer. . .full of energy, but not frenetic and freaked out.
Blood sugar is stabilizing along a 12-hour curve nicely, though she’s getting a little impatient with her ears being pricked and turned into temporary hamburger with the blood testing. I give her extra treats and scritches.
No one was hurt, but the reaction of the other drivers is more what cemented my bad day. They both jumped out and immediately claimed that the giant crack in my bumper “was already there” and “couldn’t have been caused by her car”, and the woman that hit me (long story short, part deux: I was coming down an off-ramp from the freeway, had to stop at the yield sign, they were following too close and a car hit me, and a car behind her hit her) kept going “my neck hurts! I think it’s from the accident!” I was expecting her to magically produce a neckbrace and lawyer out of thin air.
@64
My cat’s name is Sophie…*Twilight Zone theme*
Girrrrl, fuck them other drivers. That’s bullshit.
Glad to know you’re OK.
Well, at least fault is pretty clear.
I wonder, what is it about sports that leads people to make dumbass arguments like this?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcdfpua8jyk&feature=BFa&list=UU1yBKRuGpC1tSM73A0ZjYjQ&lf=plcp
Could someone tell if this is possible.
Rather than preventing commenting, Bamnhammering would result in the comment being diverted to a Special Thread (created for the purpose of housing the Bamned).
This could result in a thread occupied only by the likes of matriarchy, sixdays and whatling (three most recent Bamned) who would be forced to talk only to one another.
@chigau
I would love to see what kind of cesspool they form when those people are put together in one thread.
Josh:
Naturally. :D The Impossible Woman came from Janine in the Future of Repub health care. What with me being female, mixed and bi, I’m 100% non-existent on the net, an impossible woman.
Since there are no women on pharyngula (except the Nerd), we’re all impossible! But you do seem to be more impossible than most. Well done, there.
Alethea:
Thank you, sir! ;p We’re even more impossible than we know, according to one alexmartin, apparently the only black man on the internet.
So I went to the pro-choice demo yesterday evening in Bloomsbury Square (the one to counter-protest the “40 days for
lifejeebus” lenten vigil that’s been filming and harassing people going in and out of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service clinic there). Several happy kids and babies and pregnant adult human beings among the crowd on our side of the barrier, with some nice signs (I was rather taken by “Resistance is Foetal”, and of course somebody had the Matthew quote about not praying out in public like hypocrites); also we had a batucada which enlivened the evening.I was very sad to see, though, that there were even a sprinkling of younger people on the other side – though (surprise surprise) I only remember seeing young men; there may well have been some younger women too but I don’t remember noticing any (though it was hard to get a really good look as I was towards the back of the modest crowd while the light was still good).
Good morning horde.
I’m massively threadrupt.
*dumps a huge pile of hugsies and pie in the thread*
Help yourself, I see a few of you can use some.
From skimming, I saw Alethea has health issues.
Alethea, I sure hope there is something wrong with you that can be treated properly. CFS sucks. A whole lot of physicians just don’t get CFS or pain illnesses like fibro and rather think of those patients as frauds.
I have a minor case of fibro and a history of depression and geez, you’d think I was smacking people with baseball bats every time I mention it.
I’ve been treated like shit when I went to hospital with such a massive case of tonsillitis/aphtous stomatitis combined, I could hardly drink. The docs put me on i.v. antibiotics and painkillers and later i.v. aciclovir, but I was still in pain, had issues swallowing and felt like a heap of cow dung. This was due to a humongous aphtous ulceration in my throat, and as everyone can attest who’s ever had aphtous ulcerations, they hurt like a thousand burning suns.
So the senior physician put me on subcutaneous opioids. Every time the nurse came in to give me my shot (that I desperately needed so I could eat) she treated me like a fucking addict who is just pretending to be in pain. The resident was no better. “Do you really need this? You know, it is a opioid. It’s addictive. So, are you taking opioids regularly? Does your psychiatrist know of this?” And don’t get me started on the looks both gave me.
I was actually afraid of meal time because I had to endure this drama every single time, even though I’d told the resident that a) I am an advanced med student and didn’t need lessons in opioid safety (in a hospital setting, ffs), b) I’m considered in full remission by my psychiatrist and c) had only had opioids one single time when I had surgery about 8 years ago.
But being a med student with fibro and depression only made it worse, I guess. See, being a med student probably enables me to be even more of a deceptive little weasel getting prescription medications out of docs or something.
Jeebus fucking christ do I ever hate my fellow humans sometimes.
Sorry, this was probably massively unhelpful to somebody dealing with an impending CFS diagnosis, but I needed to get his out of my system.
Good morning
Jules
((Big hugs))
Hehe, the little one likes making up words. Once she invented one of the slangs meaning dick all by herself, although she didn’t mean penis. It was fun to hear her using that word all the time…
Sometimes she understands a meaning incompletely.
Right now “yesterday” means “any time in the past”, “man” and “woman” mean “males and females I don’t know” which leads to phrases like “no, daddy, you’re not a man, you’re a Mr’s-first-name!”
And I still have no clue what a “Utun” is…
Ogvorbis
Hugs for Mrs. Ogvorbis.
Well, the time Mr. kicked into a car that had actually crashed into our stroller, we got sued.
We ended up 300€ richer for our expenses, but it was hard.
++++
I’m fuming with rage at the moment. I’m discussing this issue about the German transgirl whose mother was denied the healthcare-custody so she could get the girl to the specialized hospitals for starting her on puberty-blockers (if you’ve heard that she’s been institutionalized, she thankfully hasn’t although the CPS is still trying to do that in a hospital that’s run be a fuckweasel who still believes in “conversiontherapy” where she should be “reunited with her birth-gender” and her “gender-nonconforming behaviour will be stopped”.
And there comes this asshole who claims that it’s just PC that we mustn’t call those people deranged and that therapists and doctors just want to sell expensive surgery by supporting those people in their delusion instead of simply telling them that they’re crazy and should get over it.
The response I’d give is “you should discuss your concerns with senior physician, not with me.”
Giliell:
Sometimes, it’s really hard to believe this is the 21st century.
There’s like a dozen folks who need hugs so *dumps basket of hugs and kittehs all over the floor*
Jules wb! What rally in Alabama? It’s 12 hours away and on the same wknd as NNAF bowl-a-thons in Dallas, but I might give it a try.
I can hear Northern Leopard frogs singing outside my window. It’s a nice sound.
Hi all.
Been a long weekend with children, and little time to do anything other than lurk.
Ogvorbis. Sorry to hear about your wife’s trouble with the local troglodytes.
Alethea, I’ve known someone who was diagnosed with CFS in their early 30s & 18 years later, the symptoms seem to have abated. Who knows, there is always hope while there is life.
Further commissurations for Josh, and everyone else who is battling health issues. They’re never fun.
Ing, I hope the traumas causing the out burst are short lived and over come soon.
Apologies for those I’ve not acknowledged. Cutting and pasting reminders as I’ve caught up on 200+ comments on an iThing is not really practical.
ChasC? I’d like to say so long & it’s a pity that I’ll not read your posts any more, but in reality, I’ve not been here long enough (ie years) to know you well enough. sad that someone who has been posting for a long time would grow so far from a community like this that I am just growing into.
Rorschach, echidna et al; I’m not going the GAC this year, (kids needed new school uniform :-(), but I’d love to catch up with people IRL, & as I’m only 20km from the CBD, I’d like to meet up if possible. I just have to schedule around children. I may have missed some comments.
Good to see Walton and Jules around; sorry to see ChasCPeterson go, despite how crass he could be on some topics; commiserations to all with health problems or offspring-getting-mugged aftermaths to deal with. Josh, OfficialSpokesGay, have you asked if you could be put on something other than beta-blockers? I got Reynaud’s when I was on them, which went when I was switched to an ACE inhibitor – but of course there may be sound medical reasons you have to be on beta-blockers.
For a while when I had Reynaud’s, I used Ginkgo biloba extract, which did seem to help – but when I mentioned this to my GP, he said it was indeed countering the effect of the beta-blockers, and please stop taking it!
Caine: That reminds me, the pacific treefrogs have been putting on their little concertos. I’ll have to catch a show one of these nights.
Sounds like a lot of you have been having a shitty time these last few days or so. My commiserations for those suffering from problems both internal and external.
How to drive your spouse crazy
An easy guide for beginners and advanced practitioners alike
Prerequiste: Be functionally iliterate when it comes to finding stuff on the internet.
Step 1: Fancy buying a new GPS
Step 2: Ask other people about theirs.
Step 3: Limit your cadidates to two brands, go looking at stores for offers and types
Step 4: Ask your spouse if you could look together for more information on the web.
When asked what model you want information about, look a bit silly. Tell spouse that you can’t remember the name. Tell spouse that you thought you’d recognize the picture.
When met with a look of sheer disbelief, add helpfully that you remember that the price on sale was about 200 bucks.
Step 5: Watch as spouse’s head connects with table.
OMG kittehs! *picks several up and hugs them*
That’s indeed what I should have said. But to be honest, at that point I was intimidated on top of being violently ill and afraid they’d take the one painkiller away that would actually relieve the pain enough to eat. I had acetaminophen and metamizole i.v. and diclofenac orally already, so there were no further options in the non-opioids department.
I felt pretty much at the mercy of the resident and the nurse. It sucked.
The fuck?? Do you have any links?
Eeeeh! Hugs and kittehs! Is good.
I don’t necessarily have CFS. I’m not feeling doomed, doomed, doomed I tell you! Well, not today anyway. Maybe yesterday. Maybe later I’ll do the “doomed, doomed, doomed I tell you!” thing again.
I have just watched the Muppet movie, and Bloke & I have boggled together at the triviality of the republican objection that was in the news back whenever it was. I mean, the evil rich man with the maniacal laugh? Ancient ancient trope. Maniacal laugh, people. Maniacal laugh. I twirl my mustaches and tie a pretty young lady to the railroad track in their general direction.
Alethea:
Ooooh, you’re Snidely Whiplash?
It seems Vox Day has another blog, this one dedicated to his misogynist rantings.
I skimmed a page or so. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Or both.
Louis
I think Kermit and Miss Piggy did an admirable job of defending themselves, and telling FAUX News to PFO, in their muppety way:
http://youtu.be/Y8YhED4IgQA
May doom kitteh be with you.
http://www.girlswithslingshots.com/comic/gws-1055/
Louis:
Alpha Game. Really? :sigh: Oh, he thinks Heartiste is a wise prophet. Ugh. That definitely confirms he’s brainless (not that there was any sort of doubt before).
I seriously wish there was a way to send all these game/PUA idiots into a Brave New World reality.
Pox Day has been a misogynist for years. The one time I ventured onto his original blog, he and his sycophants argued with me about whether a husband could rape his wife.
Totally bankrupt.
Good morning everyone! How’s everything?
whoops. accidentally bumped into TET.
Don’t mind me as I gingerly tiptoe around the big pile o kitteh, to get at the punch. Sorry to hear of your illness Alethea.
I know what it’s like, going through the mill with the doctors, as they rule out this thing or that, and narrow it down to something that doesn’t look good. Hope it works out for you.
Many doctors don’t like diagnosing CFS, because it’s such a ‘blob of mercury’ disease, and doctors like neat clean illnesses or injuries to treat. Speaking of Injuries, hope the knee improves, Ogvorbis. RahXephon, sorry about the accident.
As for me, I keep myself warm by reading the political news. Just the doings of the GOP candidates for President are enough to keep anyone angry. Oh, that and the seething anger helps me embrace the Dark Side. Force-Lightning for all!
Good, thank you.* How are you? How’s Mr. Darkheart and all the critters?
*Other than it’s raining so sailing is contraindicated.
Oh dear me, I appear to have accidentally stayed up till six am again.
The fuck is wrong with me?
But then it won’t be horrifying :<
I’ve read one or two of Daniel Haven’s rantings.
Enough to conclude that the man is a giant anus who shits everywhere he goes.
Are we allowed to have three guesses?
‘Tis,
Life is good! Except we’ve got snow here, which after a week of temps in the 80s feels like I’ve been cheated, somehow.
Anyway, how’s ‘Tis Herself? Did she have her breast reconstruction yet? If so, how’d that go?
‘Tis himself: As many as you please.
Oh yes, the wife has a new breast which she seems to like. When it’s less tender I might have the opportunity to like it as well.
If only I could remember where I read about this, but … the earliest recorded use of the villain-ties-victim-to-railway-tracks-and-they-get-rescued-just-as-the-train-is-almost-there trope was a woman rescuing her fiancé. This was done on stage in a theatre (an actual theatre, I mean, not a cinema) with the train provided by off-stage lighting and sound effects. It was in the US, possibly in NY, and it was way way back in the … early C20th, I think.
[Michael Caine] not many people know that [/Michael Caine] (although you lot probably all did)
Anyone got good google-fu?
ETA this refers to the same show, I think (though it’s not the same reference I saw earlier; I saw one with more detail about the play):
http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300070583
‘Tis,
Yay for ‘Tis Herself!
:D
‘Tis,
hooray for boobies. :D
On topic of boobies, how’s Katherine? Being threadrupt since before Reason Rally, I hope she’s had a good time with the new boobage.
For those who might not be familiar with Snidely Whiplash and Dudley Do-Right, here’s the intro and a short bit from a cartoon.
Triva question: What’s the name of Dudley Do-Right’s horse?
I’ve given up trying to make sense of it all, and am just going to assume that it’s a random word generator, albeit a somewhat advanced one, until it says something intelligible.
In other news, a cat named Squid just turned 20 years old.
A cat named Squid – Can we consider this a Caturday/anti-Caturday compromise?
Horse.
So, I’m looking for a little advice if anyone has an experience with this:
I’d like to move out of the US to Canada, either after I get my bachelor’s or possibly transfer and finish at a Canadian school. I was wondering how feasible that actually is and which would be the better/cheaper choice. I’m also curious what the better places in Canada are to live in. Not just the absolute cheapest, but as in safe, good neighborhoods, good infrastructure, not boring. I’d prefer somewhere with good public transit.
I love it when they do that. Toddler Charge has started making sentence-like nonsense phrasings when she gets really excited or upset. She does the occasional made-up word as well. This week, the made-up word was fuck. At least, I’m pretty sure it was made-up. Fuck is kinda magical in that there’s almost no way to misuse it.
To this day in my family, when we get really upset, we call each other BOMP, which was my brother’s invention.
Hiya, Pteryxx! It’s the We Are Women march. Twelve hours is quite a haul, but I’ll buy you lunch at my favorite BBQ place in Montgomery if you make it. (Last time, the owner only charged $5 for $14 worth of food. He’s a cool fella. Also, BBQ nachos *drools*)
Me too.
Pretty good, thanks for asking. I’ve got to actually be grown-up for real today and work all damn day, but at least the light is at the end of the tunnel. How are you?
So would I. Unfortunately I’m not terribly marketable at this point. *sigh*
Jules:
Awe, that sucks. I’m in for a lazy Saturday, myself.
Life is pretty good right now. Besides that late-March snow. And I cut myself while sawing apart a bagel this morning. Other than that I can’t complain. :)
Bagels!
I have some!
but no bacon :(
Late-March snow? We saw our first 80 degree day in the first or second week of March. And most have been near that since.
Even for Alabama, this is unusually warm. Today is a bit more springlike (it was ~60 this morning instead of 70). I’m not complaining because I’m a warm-weather kind of person, but it’s worrisome.
You brought a saw to a knife fight?
Heya Jules,
“You must log in (to Facebook) to see this page.” ARGH
Good morning.
Knee throbbing.
Wife threw her back out.
Other than that, every thing here is hunky dory.
won’t someone think of the poor engineers?
Seriously. I know five locomotive engineers who have been involved in fatal locomotive-pedestrian and locomotive-automobile accidents. All of them have nightmares. PTSD is pretty common among locomotive engineers.
And it’s not that easy to tie someone to the railroad tracks so they stay. There is usually very little space between the bottom of the rail and the ballast so your best bet is the cacoon theory of tying someone.
Hugs for the increasingly damaged Og family.
re; tying to the railroad track
maybe they were using magnets.
With the right kind of magnets, and a kilopoop* of electricity, you can get rid of the wheels altogether.
* shitton
Here is a better link, Pteryxx. It’s the national org’s page, not the Alabama-specific one. But it’s probably more useful to you anyway. There might be one happening in Texas. You’re in Dallas? It would be so much easier if I were still in Tulsa :-)
If you get rid of the wheels, howinhell do you run-over your victim?
There’s, like, 2cm between the magnets and the rail. Tops.
Unless your victim is a pancake or a tortilla, no problem.
Og (no Ogg)
They™ used to tell us that if we put pennies on the track, it could derail the train (we never managed that).
What happens to pennies on magnetic tracks?
Well, it will be afterwards.
It is theoretically possible though I don’t know that it has ever actually happened. It was a ‘safety rumour’ which was meant to tell people not to go near railroad tracks, or put any obstructions on the tracks.
No idea. Any physics or chemistry people out there: What happens to a zinc disk with a think coating of copper when it is exposed to a high intensity magnetic field? I’m betting on nothing, but I am also secure in the depth of my ignorance.
Hmm, the Texas We Are Women march is in Austin (4 hours away) and lacks the offer of BBQ. ~;> I’ll see what I can do. I don’t use Facebook or Twitter but my gmail is still my nym.
More like a CMOT Dibbler meat pie.
(rage warning)
Speaking of which, someone in the Texas We Are Women march linked to this:
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/03/gop-preventing-immigrant-rape-ice-holiday
@ Ogg (now with a completely gratuitous “g”)
Wow, you are psychic! (My cat just shat on my towel. *wave of nausea*)
PS: Get well soon.
Ours had a pukefest all over the kitchen floor. Ten inch hairballs and puddles of clear liquid.
*sees red* This calls for bell hooks baby sloth.
There. I almost feel crushing, hopeless sorrow instead of homicidal rage.
*patpat* Well, there IS a new MLP episode airing in less than an hour. Livestreams and discussion ramping up now.
http://www.equestriadaily.com/2012/03/ponyville-confidential.html
Well, if God hadn’t provided the setup, then how would they have known that He was looking over them?
I guess it’s sorta like ‘negging’.
As if we didn’t already know enough bad stuff about Mitt Romney, here’s another negative: he donated $10,000 to the Prop 8 campaign. He put his money behind his anti-gay platform.
And he did it sneakily, hiding behind the thin, double veils of his 2008 PAC, and the National Organization for Marriage.
Link to March 31, 2012 story (today) in the Salt Lake Tribune.
You hover them to death.
++++++++++++++++++
I saw Wind In The Willows last night. I quite enjoyed the movie. It’s been 40 years since I’ve read the book so I’m not quite sure how faithful it was to the book.
Also, how faithful can one be to a book?
Also, too, badgers? We don’t need no stinkin badgers!
++++++++++++++++++
Ogggie, it takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry.
(I’m not being a smartass, I’m evoking the feelings I get when I hear the song.)
@ Oggg (now with more g’s than are absolutely necessary.)
Eeeuw, well played.
{theophontes’s cat throws in the towel}
To be fair to Mitt, it could have been an accident. It’s not like he’d notice if $10k dropped out of his pocket.
And even if he did, wouldn’t he have given more to a cause he really believed in?
@ Pteryxx #128:
Wow, I guess the GOP really wants to earn that “Republicans for Rape” monicker they had so rightfully earned after so many of them argued that it was perfectly ok to do business with companies that rape their employees.
My commiserations to all the injured Threadizens, their injured Spouses and/or Spawn and their Fluid Producing Pets.
Also, re-Hooray for Katherine Lorraine’s boobies. Boobies can never be celebrated enough. Especially when they arrive by post. Postal boobies ftw. Also hooray for Mrs ‘Tis’ booby, which I am sure involved some postal element just so she doesn’t feel left out. I am impressed with the fortitude and courage of all Threadizens experiencing adverse circumstances and Threadizen Spousal Units in similar dire straits.
I am sending the requisite USB compatible bacon and chocolate to all. There may be beer too if it doesn’t conflict with anyone’s medications. I’d hug you too, but I have just got back from the gym and smell like a badger.
Louis
Sili:
So, Mitt “Rmoney” Romney trips and whoops! a couple of grand just flies out of his pockets, cartoon style? :p
Jules:
Damn straight.
RahXephon:
I can give advice on my city: cheap, lots of parts are safe, infrastructure is underfunded, some find it boring, public transit is apparently pretty good compared to other places.
I’m not sure if I want to identify that city here, but if it sounds appealing (yeah, right), I’m sure I could figure out a way to give you the name.
Do people have opinions on the pros/cons of giving your location? It would make discussion of some things easier, but I’m not sure if the risks are larger or smaller than I think.
Me:
What I meant to say was: Willard “Billy” “Mitt” “Mittens” “Rmoney” Romney, of course.
It’s really up to you; personally I tend to the privacy side of things. A common-word pseudonym helps. There’s always email, temporary email, IRC chat (Pharyngula has an IRC), voice chat (tinychat is good) or even old-fashioned telephone for information that you don’t want posted on the Internet forever. Nothing’s absolutely secure but it helps.
Had a great time at the biodiversity potluck last night. I ate: sesame sea jelly, pork-stuffed squid, reindeer pate, haggis, duck, a cricket, some vegan casseroles, gummy animals, and a bunch of desserts.
God’s got game.
Nutmeg, I say where I am. But I’m reckless and self-destructive. I mean, a feminazi atheist in Alabama? Obviously I’ve got a death wish.
Also, re location so y’all know: every once in a while some regular or other mentions where they are, and I save some of those notes if they’re someone I particularly want to keep in mind or contact someday.
Frankly, that’s one of the reasons I want to drive 12 hours to meet you.
People can figure out where I’m at and my name and my job. But they don’t know I have solid diamond counter tops. Ooops.
+++++++++++++++++
Or a job. Jobs are kinda hard to come by these days.
Imma gonna go out and get me some biskits & gravy. & eggs, (2 over medium), and bacon. Unsweet tea and a side of wheat toast with jelly.
Fuck you statins and beta-blockers, I can do this once a month!
(Hi Josh!)
My gladiator matches are even more entertaining in person than online. There may or may not be Southern accents involved.
(Actually, I don’t sound Southern at all. But usually the people I argue with do.)
I keep the Alabama-specific job because I’m all attached to the family. My other job, which is less steady but usually ends up paying enough for me to live on (carefully) will let me go literally anywhere.
When I first talked about moving back to Tulsa, I had a complete breakdown and decided I might just have to wait until Baby gets old enough for school.
Then Toddler hit her terrible twos, and I’ve become a bit more willing to revisit the idea :-)
You win one internets.
Jules: Quite a contrast. You’re sure it’s not just a case of being so used to your accent your ears don’t hear it? I’ve been told I have an accent, but damned if I could tell you what I sound like.
I also agree with comparing god to a PUA. How fitting. He wears many caps, and they all end up soiled and smelling rotten.
Pteryxx: As it happens, I just got back from a screening of the documentary Lost in Detention, which was on exactly that topic. I’m not surprised that Lamar Smith – who has a long history of being a racist shitbag, and was one of the sponsors of the godawful 1996 immigration legislation that has made life hell for many of the undocumented – is now trying to make things even worse.
Among other horrors, there have been hundreds of allegations of sexual assaults, rape, and racist abuse of detainees in immigration detention in the last few years. The filmmakers interviewed some former detainees and the former mental health coordinator at the infamous (privately-run for-profit) Willacy Detention Center in Texas: one detainee (a mother who had been forcibly separated from her young children, after she was pulled over in a traffic stop by local cops and turned over to ICE) described how she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a male guard while she was in detention, and, when she complained, was told by another guard that ICE would retaliate against her if she reported the assault. Another former detainee talked about how he was called “n*****r monkey” by one of the guards, and a third said she witnessed a detainee being beaten by several guards for talking back. It seems that there was a culture of abuse.
Remember, also, that detainees in immigration detention don’t have an automatic right to an attorney, since immigration proceedings are technically civil and not criminal. In fact, 84 percent of those in detention who are in Immigration Court proceedings have no legal representation, and have to make their case against deportation on their own – and have no access to legal redress if they are abused by guards. They can be held in detention for varying lengths of time from a month to several years. These are not necessarily people who have committed any crimes; most are non-criminal detainees who were simply detained by ICE for being present in the country without authorization (which is in itself only a civil wrong, not a crime).
Most of these people are no danger to anyone. Thanks to the “Secure Communities” program promoted aggressively by the Obama administration, which I wrote about yesterday, state and local cops are increasingly involved in enforcing federal immigration laws; often, if someone who happens to be undocumented is stopped for a minor traffic offence, or for no crime at all, they will end up being held on an ICE detainer and handed over to ICE custody. (This also encourages racial profiling, for obvious reasons; almost all of those stopped on suspicion of immigration violations are Latino or Latina, or members of other racial minorities.) People can be separated from their spouses and children, put in detention centers hundreds or thousands of miles from their homes, and shipped back to places where they face further suffering. The Obama administration has given ICE an explicit target of deporting 400,000 people a year.
It makes me so fucking angry. Not just with the Republicans, but with Obama: the number of deportations has increased substantially since Obama took office, reaching 400,000 a year, as a result of deliberate policies of the administration. More families are being torn apart, more people jailed in privately-run detention centers, more women detainees abused and sexually assaulted, more children left to grow up without parents.
Ah, Spring! When I get to sit outside with a beer and a book on philosophy* and listen to birdsong. Too bad it’s absolutely frickin’ freezing.
—
* The Bluffer’s Guide to Philosophy
They won’t teach you that at Harvard.
(#156 landing after Walton was pure fluke, BTW. No connection intended.)
CM, #156,
They will if you join the Skull and Bones. Apparently. I’ve said too much.
{Vanishes}
Louis
PTI, I’m pretty sure I don’t. Most people down here ask where I’m from. Most people who meet me elsewhere are shocked. I lived in the St. Louis area until I was in middle school, and that bland Midwestern accent is what stuck.
But I get kinda drawly and twangy when I’m around really Southern folks. I also switch on the accent when I get super sassy. But it’s definitely an affect.
Something needs to be done about this. About all of it. Argh.
Louis:
*cough*Yale.*cough*
Yes, it should. But I’m depressed and frustrated because it won’t be. Despite Obama originally pledging to support comprehensive immigration reform, there is no prospect of even a moderate reform bill being passed under the present Congress. (Even the DREAM Act, which would provide a route to legal status only for a small minority of the whole undocumented population – those who arrived in the country as children and have graduated from schools in the US – still looks unlikely to be enacted.) And the Obama administration has actively made things worse by “getting tough” on undocumented immigrants, pushing ICE to ramp up the number of arrests and deportations, and aggressively pushing the Secure Communities and 287(g) programs so that state and local cops cooperate with ICE activities. At this point, it doesn’t look good for immigrants irrespective of who wins the 2012 election.
BTW, I emailed you, Pteryxx. So now you have my email addy. And my Real Name™. Use it wisely, friend.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, #160,
Yale? Harvard? What’s the difference. They are all inferior universities. Not like the proper one I went to. ;-)
Louis (Who does not believe this for one minute and is saying it purely to annoy Walton because he went to The Other Place as an undergrad. Some traditions must be maintained for Comedy Purposes.)
Walton: Yeah, I know about immigrant atrocities pretty much solely because of you. It wasn’t you that started this particular story headlining though, and I’m pleased to see it linked from someone in the Texas We Are Women march. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that all these causes have common enemies, and the same bullshit excuses directed against all of us.
Aiee! Kid#1 is in the shower singing Jessie J. Where did I go wrong?
Oh, wait, now it’s Fast Car. That’s better.
Me too. This needs to get far more attention than it is currently getting, within the progressive movement. We need to start holding the Obama administration and Congress to account for the abuses and the sexual and physical assaults suffered by immigrants in detention, for the immigrant families torn apart and the children left to grow up without parents, for the communities under constant threat of police harassment because of their ethnicity, and for the injustice and arbitrariness of the immigration laws. We need to make this a major issue in the 2012 election.
QFT. The same people who want to take away women’s reproductive rights and access to healthcare, the same people who are trying to keep racial minority voters away from the polls, the same people who created the privatized prison-industrial complex and mass incarceration, are the people who are pushing these hardline anti-immigrant policies. And anti-immigrant bigotry intersects with misogyny and violence against women – as with the immigrant women who, having been separated from their partners and children by force, find themselves locked up in ICE detention centres and subjected to sexual abuse by guards. It’s all part of the same political movement: a movement that wants to institutionalize bigotry and white male supremacy through state violence. That’s what we’re up against.
I wrote another blog post about the “Lost in Detention” documentary and some of the most horrific abuses in the detention system. I’d also encourage people to watch the documentary itself. In any event, please talk about this and try to help publicize these abuses in progressive circles: we need to make this a top political issue.
Fresh Step Introduces Organic Bacon Scented Litter
With urine-activated sizzle sound!
Therrin: That’s just gross.
I wonder if it’ll encourage dogs even more to eat kitty litter?
As far as I know there’ve only been two mentions of immigrant detention on FTB so far, besides Walton’s comments.
https://proxy.freethought.online/lousycanuck/2012/03/24/immigration-for-profit-prisons-profitable-racism/
and
https://proxy.freethought.online/dispatches/2012/03/13/the-problem-of-private-prisons/
That’d be the common enemy, where our tax dollars are going, and why we can’t have nice things.
I’m in no position to organize an Immigrant March, but I’m talking and I’ll be ready for one.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
There is an organized immigrants’ rights movement in some places, and I’ve been to a few rallies in Boston against Massachusetts SB 2061. In my experience, a bunch of different organizations are involved: there’s the Student Immigrant Movement, local community organizations like Centro Presente here in the Boston area, and liberal religious groups like Quakers and Unitarian Universalists. I don’t know if there are similar coalitions in other places, particularly outside urban areas.
I’d really like to see the humanist community participating more extensively in this movement. As far as I’m concerned, racial equality and justice for immigrants are central to a humanist worldview, just as feminism and LGBT equality are. Humanist and atheist groups are already involved in other social justice movements, such as the fight for same-sex marriage; why shouldn’t we also be mobilizing for immigrants’ rights?
And thanks: I hadn’t seen that post by Jason Thibeault. I actually emailed him the other day to draw his attention to Bill C-31, the Refugee Exclusion Bill in Canada, in the hope that he’d write a post about it. Maryam Namazie also occasionally writes about immigration issues: she wrote recently about Tanjir Sugar, an asylum-seeker stuck in a British detention centre, for instance. (Unfortunately, the post attracted several idiots, and I got accused of “shilling for Islam” by one commenter merely because I think the likes of Geert Wilders are bigots.)
Louis:
You… you… you… limey!… I… can’t believe… *sputter!*
Nah, you’re right. There’s not really much of a difference.
Interesting fact, though: Yale’s motto is in Hebrew, if you’re into that kind of thing.
אורים ותמים (Light and truth, according to the Pfffft!, although Google translate claims that means “oracle”. *shrugs*)
Thanks for the suggestions, Walton. I heard of a speaker at a local Trayvon rally who’s a Unitarian pastor; that’ll be my first contact to approach.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, #171,
Bolding mine.
{Ahem}
ZOMG TEH RAYCISMZ!!!!!! Excuse me whilst I misappropriate my faeces.
{Ordure misplaced}
After all, isn’t that what we over-PC terrible people do? ;-)
Louis
Now, now, Louis. Wiles needed Mazur to prove Fermat.
(Also, Taylor, who’s a flip-flopper.)
CM, #174,
True, true. I suppose we have to credit the Americans with something.
However, we don’t have to like it and shall therefore do it begrudgingly and with poor grace, as befits a gentleman of our standing. Who is now for some reason referring to ourself in the first person plural.
This is really excellent beer.
Louis
I vaguely recall from my undergrad days Cambridge students were known disparagingly as “Tabs”. I assume that this derives from “Cantabrigian”, but I’m not really sure.
(Not that I’ve ever given a flying fuck about university rivalries and suchlike. I couldn’t even tell you who won the Boat Race last year without looking it up.)
And now I can’t even write coherent sentences. (There was intended to be a “that” in there somewhere.)
Bleh… time for dinner.
Walton,
You and me both.
Well….except during the rugby. But that’s okay because during the rugby it’s perfectly okay to display enormous sexism, homophobia, racism, nationalism and alcoholism. More than okay, encouraged. Damn good thing during the rugby.
Why I remember during the Crimea, there was this Sergeant under me called Strangely Brown, got his head blown clear orf by a fuzzy wuzzy wielding a Welshman…
{Long, rambling, incoherent and extremely upper class anecdote about the deviancies of foreigners and women ensues. Our audience sensibly tunes out and aims for something more edifying on Channel 4.}
Louis
So I’m looking for pictures of historic tomahawks and belt axes, and made the mistake of typing ‘child’s tomahawk’ into google images.
Don’t get me wrong, plenty of legit child-sized tomahawks and axes, but there are definitely WAY too many pictures of sexist and culturally insulting ‘Indian Princess’ costumes. One of them modeled by a girl who appears to be all of 8.
Blah. Depressing.
Also, quite frankly, if I believed hell existed, I imagine there’d be a special circle of it dedicated solely to people who market ‘sexy’ halloween costumes to little kids.
We gave the world Coors Light, Barry Manilow, and the AMC Gremlin. What more cold you want?
Oh. Right. And the Pontiac Aztec. Sorry. I tried to forget that one, but. . . .
Ogvorbis,
Well, if I’m going to be all fair about it (grumble, moan), you have done a few things for us.
{Eric Idle, off stage, “Oh yeah, what have the Americans ever done for us}
There’s the space programme…
Louis
At the moment it looks like I can make it to New York 30% than last year, if I book now. I should write to triskelethecat and ask, if she’ll put up with me again.
Of course, I still need to know if I have a job that far into the future.
*hugs&chocolate* added to the growing heap of comforting stuff in the Thread.
–
It is the 21st century, but many people and organisations are so much more comfortable with re-runs of previous centuries.
–
This being Pharyngula, that should be Squidly Whiplash.
:)
–
Horse.
After all, a horse is a Horse. Of course.
It is telling that Horse was really the brains of the outfit.
–
Or a saw to a bagel fight?
–
Ogvorbis, sorry to hear about your wife and her malfunctioning back. Another clincher for “What “Intelligent” Design?!?”
–
Walton and other interested parties, some net searching netted me this place:
http://www.immigrantjustice.org
These are the front line folks providing pro bono legal services to detainees, and writing about it on their blog (here). They work out of Chicago, and they take both donations and volunteers for tasks such as translating.
Pontiac AzteK with a “k”. You’re extra welcome, world.
Rey Fox,
Well it’s important to get those kind of details right. I made a spelling mistake once and it turned me into a newt.
I got better.
Louis
Or “twelve shiny rocks”.
Urim and Thummim.
I think Lynna (or someone) has mentioned the Mormon appropriation of them described in the above Wiki page.
Plate with [12 shiny rocks] worn by high priest.
Forgot about that. Car was spawned in an ugly tree, fell out of the ugly tree hitting every branch on the way down and then, while it lay on the ground in an ugly heap, a bunch of folk beat it with an ugly stick.
Oh, and Louis? The Space Programme? We’re dismantling that really fast so we can keep giving huge tax breaks to oil companies and billionaires.
TLC:
Yes.
Of course, I’m a grumpy, fun-killing prude, so I’d prefer to do away with sexy Halloween costumes altogether. I might be able to celebrate the holiday if I could do so with more than 20% of my skin covered.
Ogvorbis,
Well to be fair, they need it most. Apparently they create jobs and deserve it by being the best people. Or something.
Louis
Scariest costume I ever wore had almost my entire body covered, including my face. I made it myself though. Still proud of it. :)
Penny’s can’t derail trains. They are too small and soft. What happens is that the penny plasticly deforms & gets elongated into a very thin oval, when the train runs over it.
The copper in the coin won’t react to the magnetic field, but nickel is ferromagnetic at room temperature, so we might find it difficult to remove the coin from the track. When the train runs over it, I’m not sure what would happen. Need to ask an electrical engineer that one.
Actually, pennies may well be non magnetic. It seems different locations and different eras used different materials. Some magnetic and some not.
Sorry. My phrasing was bad. It is theoretically possible for a coin to derail a train though it has, to my knowledge, never happened.
Again, the pennies myth is one of those that I would classify as a ‘safety myth.’
For instance, one theory I ran across in college for the idea of trolls living below bridges in children’s stories was to keep the little ones away from the edge of the bridge. After all, safety railings did not become mandatory on bridges, especially small ones, until quite recently (at least in the US).
My lit prof may have been full of shit, but I liked his assessment of some children’s stories as ‘safety myths’.
For the railroads, the idea that putting anything on the tracks is unsafe is a sound idea.
Some years ago (~1995), some kids put some assorted steel scrap on some railroad tracks. When a locomotive his the debris, one of the pieces of scrap poked a small (1cm) hole in the fuel tank. The locomotive emptied its load of diesel fuel, about 1500 litres, on the railroad tracks, into some creeks, and into at least one drinking water supply area.
The parents were not amused when presented the bill for the cleanup.
Don’t they also need to cut the space programme to pay for all the wars? They are necessary, as they ensure cheap oil, and you know, other good stuff? (like keeping armaments manufacturers obscenely profitable.)
Yes. I know. That’s why we were putting the one cent pieces on the track. I still have some.
40+ years ago the coins were mostlty copper.
pffft says 98%.
You are right about it not being a good idea to put stuff on train tracks, and I did get your point about the safety myth. Apparently it used to be common to press coins using train tracks. Anything larger than a coin (and harder) is certainly dangerous & not to be recommended. Not putting coins on is a good idea, also because the train can sneak up on you whilst you are engrossed in getting the coin properly positioned. Scares the shit out of you.
Oh, and you rarely find the coin again.
And now they have a zinc core.
Interestingly, the US government keeps talking about doing away with pennies. They cost 2.4 cents to make and are pretty damn useless (penny candy is now, minimum, a nickel). There is a large lobbying campaign to keep the penny. Financed by a company that produces the zinc used to make pennies.
Wow. Never saw that coming, did you?
I do not mind the idea of doing away with pennies.
However, on my visit to Washington DC, I learned from a series of billboards on the Metro that there is a proposal to get rid of the dollar bill. Don’t let that happen, Americans. (In Britain we no longer have one-pound notes, and I really wish we did. Having lived in both countries, the American one-dollar bill is ridiculously useful.)
In Oz, the old 1 & 2 cent coins were mostly copper. One reason that they were withdrawn. They had more intrinsic value than face value. The silver coins are a nickel based alloy. I’m too young to know much about the pre decimal pennies
At least, I never found the coins again.
Never tried after the train went “boo!”
Not only that, you would be trespassing on property owned by a company that, by law, has its own police force. They are more concerned with theft (especially with scrap prices as they are) but anyone on the right-of-way is viewed as a potential law suit.
There is, in the United States, only one active railroad yard that is fully open to the public.
Anyone want to guess?
The
CanadianHarper government just announced that they will stop making pennies.@Walton,
In Oz, we did away with the $1 & $2 notes & replaced them with coins. I like them. The paper notes only last about 3 months and cost a significant amount to print (about 30% of face value, if I remember correctly). They were going to do the same with $5 note, but polymer notes were introduced and they last close to 5 years for the high circulation notes. Harder to forge too.
Saw that on the evening news. That’s where I got the tidbit about the zinc mining company lobbying to keep the pennies.
In those days the government owned the railways in Victoria. The company that now owns it doesn’t get to run their own police force. Still, I’d rather be prosecuted for trespassing, than getting the Darwin award.
There’s so many other good uses of zinc too…..
Sorry.
I keep forgetting that some of you don’t live in
hellthe US.My bad.
I apologize with abject grovelinity.
Um, no.
The US’s primary oil imports come from Canada, and I’m not aware of a war going on there. Mexico and Venezuala also chip in: no conflict. (Chavez notwithstanding.)
Want to try that again?
ftp://ftp.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html
Good morning, thanks for the well-wishes. Don’t worry, Ogg, everybody knows the hero always rescues the lady from the train tracks, it’s perfectly safe. It’s the law. Conservation of narrativium, IIRC. No train drivers will be traumatised in this story.
Snidely Whiplash was, of course, a parody of the silent movie villain. So the trope is already that old. And without the railroad track, the villainous rich man trope is already one of the oldest in the book.
Stupidest headline of the day: Dems, GOP woo unmarried women voters
+++++++++++++++++++
Oggie, would that be yours?
Cm, that was sarcasm. Sorry, didn’t use the [/sarcasm] tags properly
Ogvorbis, no problem, you’re forgiven! :-)
The. Fuck. ?
“But Nell, I can’t marry you, I’m in love with my horse!”
(I can say that in a credible Dudley Do-Right voice)
And no, I don’t remember his horse’s name, it’s been nagging me all day.
Sort of off topic: I miss Due South.
And Algernon.
Soooo….what happens to the Dollar Menu at McD’s and such other places, if the dollar is gotten rid of? Making change is going to be even harder (and heavier, with all the coins).
———————————————–
I just finished watching an ep of Inside Nature’s Giants: The Leatherback Turtle, and part of another ep about the finback whale. I never knew leatherbacks could be such a lustrous shade of black, from tail to head, or that yes, a whale’s tongue really can be just that big.
And there are loons who think this world should be given up for an afterlife that might not even exist? And some versions of that afterlife . . . what are they kidding me? They think playing harps, shining God’s silverware and praising him at all hours is better than learning about the amazing creatures who live on Earth, even getting to touch one?
Fuck, maybe I should’ve gone for a degree in science instead of Latin American Studies. Ah well, could be worse.
*reads about space program being dismantled*
Aaand it just did. If Obama gets re-elected, I’m allowed to pester him about this, right?
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/28/137394348/-1-billion-that-nobody-wants
?
As to “pennies”, we got rid of our copper coins about 20 years ago. Some machines have stopped accepting the 5c pieces, now, too. I’m a bit sad because they had nice designs, but practically it makes sense.
Wait a minute, re: my previous post. Forget the part about making change. Dollar coins could come back into circulation.
Diefenbaker!
OMG. SO. HAPPY.
Madonna’s new record rocks. I’m running around my house in my shorts dancing like I did in 1989. If you like melodic electro-dance disco then run, don’t walk, to get it. Best record she’s put out since Ray of Light. A lot of it’s angry and dark (post-divorce catharsis) but it’s almost all fun and clever. It’s not perfect, and she stumbles in a couple of places with really tired lyrics, but that’s our girl Madge.
Highlights:
Turn Up the Radio . If this song doesn’t become the song of summer this year I’ll eat shit. Do turn up the radio while listening. Preferably with quality headphones. Syncopated bass will kick your ass.
Falling Free. When she writes a really good ballad it’s a tearjerker. This one aches.
MUST DANCE NOW.
Note – “Falling Free” is pitched several tones higher on Youtube than the actual piece. I guess they have NewFangled automatic copyright busting melody-finding machines. Or something.
“a whale’s tongue really can be just that big. ”
How else would a whale get lucky?
What’s gray and comes in quarts?
Elephants.
Got out and did some shooting today. Came across a cooperative butterfly getting some sun. http://caine.zenfolio.com/p817863520/slideshow
PTI:
Oooooh, I haven’t seen that one! Must find.
Beautiful shots Caine-you’re good.
Josh, thank you. :) I’m out of practice. I literally need to get out of the house more.
Because there needs to be a bit of good news about the War on Women:
—
Source: DailyKos
Earth Hour tonight.
At the Vatican, the Pope remains in the dark. The dim bulbs there will ensure that the Vatican remains in the dark (ages).
Josh – I’ve forgotten where you live in approximation to Chicago.
Patricia- I live in Vermont. I don’t believe one can get to Chicago from here:)
I will be in Seattle for vaca this fall though. . .how far are you?
It truly does. It actually surpassed my fairly high expectations, and I love it when that happens. “Beautiful Killer” (my favorite) should have been included on the regular album, that’s my only complaint.
Completely off topic (though (surprisingly) this does hark back to the posted video), does anyone else find it rather surprising that, with that video up at the top, and that title for this edition of TET, no warming denialist has shown up?
VERMONSTER! WOOHOOO!
{Passes out}
Louis
Josh – Crap. I’m watching Franklin’s tour schedule to see when he will be in your area, one of the mad horde knitters must introduce you two. OK – I’ll keep Vermont in mind….
I live about 100 miles east of Portland, Oregon. So far the plan is to be in Portland for the FFRF convention in October.
Aratina – right!? I feel like a teenager bopping around to this shit. That’s my girl right there. Remind me how old you are?
Patricia – Oh, yeah, Franklin would be fun to meet. Reminds me I need to pick my knitting up again.
Louis- Here. Have some maple-scented smelling salts. No one else wants them—we’re all fuckin’ sick of maple.
Josh,
Thanks. Maple isn’t ubiquitous here, so this is a refreshing alternative from the usual tramp urine type.
Not that tramp urine is ubiquitous here…
…I’ll come in again.
Louis
Louis, Fake Husband:
Should you come up short contact Oggie. Both his wife and daughter do strumpet solos. They likely consort with other tramps.
Oooooooo. . .a little (OK, very fat) kitteh nugget has just crawled onto my lap and tucked her head under my chin to purr. Luv.
“vaca”
Is that pronounced vay-cay?
(I have dealt with the denizens of the East Coast. They speak funny.)
Aawwwwwwww. This may be the cutest post in the history of the thread.
Josh – You should see the pineapple reticule that saucy little Franklin just got published in Knitty 2012. Squee!
(forgot how to post links. Dammit)
Caine, those are gorgeous. I love the backlit autumn leaves in that series, too.
Thanks for the good news, Pteryxx!
It is. And it’s awful lingo—I can’t believe I typed it and I should be shot. Mea culpa.
That’s because Mink is the cutest cat in the history of the feline line. I’ve had her since she was a stray left in the woods, already pregnant, at 9 months old. Lost again for three weeks in 2001 only to come stumbling home starved nearly to death (she became an indoor cat then). Now she’s getting on 13 and I dread her impending mortality. Not that there’s anything wrong with her, but she’s getting old. I hope for 20 years, but. . ya know.
Do it, Sili. I’m sure triskelethecat will put you up again. Her pussy loved you so much, how could she say no?
We try, we try.
The Alabama protest group is bipartisan and even has pro-lifers. This legislation is so fucking insane that pro-life Republicans in Alabama are showing up to rallies to oppose it.
We had the first pro-choice rally at the statehouse in over a decade. We had 6 senators show up when we expected only 2. There were 1 or 2 counter-protestors. That’s all.
Side note: the counter-protest sign was an over-6-ft-tall cardboard poster color print of a 14-week aborted fetus. I think his point was supposed to be that it totes looks like a baby, but honestly, my reaction was GET IT OUT GET IT OUT. It was not something I’d like to think of having inside me.
cm,
Well, besides being “cow” in Spanish…
Yes, it’s vay-cay. Which I fucking hate. Jesus Christ, people, “vacation” does not need a fucking nickname. It’s not cool or funny or clever, so kindly stop fucking saying it.
/peeve
I think we’re really close in age, Josh, by only a few years IIRC from what you have previously stated.
And in the department of strange coincidences, the day I got MDNA, I was confronted by a disgruntled asshole of a driver (who had parked with her bumper in my driveway so that I could barely get out myself) after I put a note on her illegally parked car telling her not to do it again. After all her ranting at me, I told her I’d have her towed if she does it again, and she retorts, “I don’t give a fuck.” It’s not something I hear every day, and it really stuck out in my mind because of that.
Thanks, Alethea. The trees are actually budding, but I couldn’t resist those old leaves in the sun.
Caine: It’s a great ep. It’s a bit sad how they came across the specimen used for the necropsy, but I have to say, it was a better fate than being used for target practice random idiots with BB guns (or whatever the Floridian equivalent would be). It brought back memories of seeing a turtle lay eggs on the beach at night the first time I visited Costa Rica. But I don’t think that turtle was as big as the leatherback in the video.
Maybe not quite as cute as a kitteh, but I’ve got a 2-year-old human child snuggled up on my lap. She’s also wearing my nose ring.
#bestbabysitterevar #raisingemright
Since people have been showing off some of their nice work, I figure I’ll show you my latest design: http://www.nps.gov/stea/planyourvisit/upload/Railfest-2012-1.pdf
This is my design, though the photos are by the park photographer (not me).
Josh, Oh wondrous virtual spouse who NEEDS TO TAKE CARE OF HIS DAMN SELF {gives significant look, derived from love though} (says the hideously drunk person),
Strumpet SOLOS? No offence intended or meant to Mrs Og and Ogsdaughter, who I am sure are lovely and I am definitely not talking about them when I say this, but in my experience the best strumpet arrangements are for more than one.
This one time, at band camp…
Louis
PTI:
Yes, I’ve read too many accounts of what idiots with guns manage to do to various wildlife. Around here, turtles are most in danger of being run over by yahoos driving waaaay too fast. Of course, most of the dumbfucks around here don’t even try to avoid them (or anything else).
Oh my, Esme is nibbling on my toes…
Use Firefox with bbcodextra, or text formatting toolbar. Or
[a href = “http addresss to link”]description of link[/a], where the square brackets are replaced by the pointy ones (cap comma and period).
<a href = “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect”>Dunning Kruger</a> comes out as
Dunning Kruger.
Louis you realize that in your present condition, if you fall into a strumpet solo you will sponatiously turn into a newt?
That’s some good news, at least. I wish I could have been there. These anti-woman bills are beyond abhorrent. But it’s encouraging that it’s led to mobilizing a significant movement for women’s reproductive rights even in conservative states like Alabama.
Speaking of state legislative politics, right now I’m really worried about SB 2061 here in Massachusetts; no word yet on what the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to do. I’m feeling fearful. (It has to be said, a day spent talking, writing and getting angry about human rights abuses of immigration detainees does not typically end with an optimistic mood.)
Aawwwwwwwwwww.
The Walton, on the other hand, is all alone and sans snuggles. But at least Greta posted some cute kittens
Patricia,
OH NOES! NOT AGAIN!
{Ribbit}*
Louis
*Or, you know, whatever noise newts make.
Well, that didn’t work.
damn, Caine is a good at that photography stuff!
I take pictures, Caine takes art.
http://www.google.com/search?q=knitty+spring+2012&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7HPIC_en
That looks like something…frowns.
Patricia,
Did I done wrong again?
Louis
The Sailor, thank you. ♥ I have a tendency to shoot odd things. :)
OK, if this isn’t Franklins pineapple – it’s Louis’s fault. And he doesn’t get a spanking.
http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEss12/FEATss12SIT.php
Aw. I wish I could give you some snuggles. At this point I’ve got the 3-year-old here now too. We’re “kunkling” (as he calls it) just before bedtime. We could have a kunklepile!
Re: immigration rights, Alabama’s shitty law looks like its getting cut down further. There has been steady opposition to it since it passed, and there’s a lot of crossover between our protest groups (sadly, I missed the immigration protest earlier this month due to work). Apparently tanking the state’s economy just after a recession and uprooting long-established residents who had become thoroughly entrenched in their communities is all it takes to light a fire under folks.
It IS Franklin’s pineapple! And it makes me want to take up knitting. I’ll do it after the spanking…
Louis
P.S. nearly 4am and all beer is gone! Bedtime! Have lovely evenings everyone. I have a moody nearly-three year old to deal with in the morning. I feel I may have planned poorly.
Patricia, I love that pattern. Maybe if I ever pick up my needles again I’ll make it.
Patricia, that is awesome. I also really enjoyed this bit:
He’s absolutely right. I have some 17th century embroidery patterns which I figure will take a seriously long time to execute properly, but when I do have the time, will be stone worth it. I recently finished a 1920s Bucilla pattern (art deco abstract flowers) and I have a bunch more vintage stuff in my “to be done before I drop dead” line.
G’night, Louis.
‘Night, Louis!
If it makes The Walton feel any better, my kittehs are stone cold refusing to snuggle with me tonight. I’m trying to convince myself that the warmth from my laptop is just as good.
(It isn’t.)
Jules & Caine – The cast on 300 sts. did it for me! Then I looked up the silk yarn $47.00. Holy crap. I’d love to try it maybe in a sniny cotton. :)
Caine – I used to do small tatted motifs for a friend that was into Victorian embroidery. I used size 80 tatting thread, and DMC silk carpet thread. Alas, the eyes are no longer young enough to do it.
Indeed. Laptops have many sterling qualities, but the ability to snuggle is, alas, not among them.
Totally, positively threadrupt! Missed a huge chunk of the last Episode, and have only quickly skimmed about 2/3 of this one. Among the crumbs:
Ogvorbis:
^^^THIS^^^ I don’t have any railroad experience or inside knowledge, but this is the first thing I think about whenever I hear of someone getting killed walking on the tracks or trying to beat the train at a crossing, never mind folks who commit suicide by train. You don’t have to have been an A student in HS physics class to understand how utterly helpless the engineer is in a situation like that, and s/he can do nothing but watch the tragedy unfold; it’s not surprising at all to me that engineers suffer long-term ramifications.
Also, I gather Something Wicked® happened to Wife, though I seem to have missed the details. Please accept my all-purpose well wishes for her and your family.
***
Dr. Darkheart:
Hebrew, yes, but also Latin: Lux et veritas. Both appear on the university crest.
I’m currently working on a suitable cocktail to serve our houseguests on the occasion of Lovely Daughter™’s graduation from Yale. I’m leaning toward a variation of the Yale Cocktail, with molecular gastronomy “caviar” in the burgundy color of Davenport (her residential college), made from grenadine and just a skosh of blue Curacao. Lux et ethanol, sez me!
***
Walton:
I’m guessing you don’t know the half of it… but I suppose this would be entirely the wrong venue in which to talk about the incompatibility of coins and G-strings, eh?
‘Night, all!
Walton:
I could send Esme & Rubin to you for toe nibbling.
Skimming TET after a long day of wallpaper steaming and scraping.
Just_A_Lurker, #51: You’re very welcome. :)
Jules, #53: Point.
Caine, #60: OW MY BRAIN.
(Nice butterfly pic, btw.)
RahXephon: I’m sorry you had such a shit day.
Josh: Awwwww, I’m glad Sophie’s doing better.
Keenacat: Sympathies. Attitudes toward people with pain problems are fucking medieval, including in medicine.
Pteryxx, #128: Every time you think they’ve hit the bottom of the barrel, they pull up the staves and start digging. Unbelievable. The Steve Stave story made me do a Nelson Muntz, however.
Dr Audley:
damnit, blockquote fail. Retake:
Dr Audley:
NEVER go to Australia.
When a kindly Aussie offers you a cuppa and a bikkie for arvo tea, or a coldie at the barbie, you might explode.
Just out of interest, how frequently do Australians actually say “barbie”? I would have guessed it was the equivalent of “Och aye” (something I have never heard any of the actual Scots of my acquaintance say).
Althea:
Yes, but when it’s said with a charming accent, I may be able to forgive a transgression like that. Plus, I have no freaking idea what a “bikkie” is.
It’s not nearly as bad as a nasally upstate New Yorker saying that they’re going to “vay-cay* in Boca”. (Trust me, if you know the accent, you know how horrible that statement sounds. If Josh is around, I’m sure he’ll back me up on that.)
*Fun fact: I also hate “vacation” (or obnoxious variants) as a verb. No idea if this is a legitimate dislike or if I’m just being weird about it.
Audley:
Biscuit. In ‘merican, that means cookie.
Wait, is “bikkie” a biscuit? How does that even work…?
G’night, folks.
Tomorrow I get to talk to my boss’s boss. And find out if he will approve light duty until I see the orthopaedic surgeon. Or I might come home and, except for losing Sunday differential, get to stay home for the next four weeks. Should be a fun day.
Caine:
Gracias!
The Google was no help. The first couple of hits I got were for an even slangier use for “bikkie”– apparently it’s also a hit of ecstasy.
vay-cay sounds like something my obnoxious, talk through her nose, valley girl, California cousin would say. But she would mean move. (vacate) But then I live so far into fundie land that no one here even knows what a hoodie is.
‘Night Oggie and good luck (with whichever option you prefer).
“Bikkie” is occasionally used in British English too.
Audley:
:D In Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett uses a variant: bikkit, spoken by the freshly reincarnated head of the monastery, who is teething at the time.
G’night Oggie – Hope all goes well for you tomorrow. Sorry, no prayers. *smirk*
Yeah, I’ve more often seen “bikkie” or “bikkit” used as baby-talk (to refer to a rusk, for instance).
Caine:
Jeez, I can’t even remember if I’ve read Thief of Time. I must have, ‘cos I think the only Discworld book that I haven’t read is The Colour of Magic. And I can clearly picture tha cover, so I must have it around here somewhere.
“Va-ca”? Nope: Vacation!
It features Susan, Lu-Tze, and clocks. (Hopefully that’s enough to jog your memory without spoilers.)
WTF?
Walton:
Yes! Thank you! I have totally read it (and I ♥ Susan).
British English.
And what did I do to get quoted in Comic Sans.
There should have been a question mark in there somewhere. Oh well.
British English…really, you don’t see it?
Josh:
I feel the same way about our elderly golden retriever. In a breed usually wracked with issues and problems, she’s made it to 13-14 (can’t quite remember) and only this winter has she developed a limp in her forelimbs.
I know, 13-14 great, long, happy years. I’m lucky. I have nothing to be sad about. But I still bring myself to the verge of tears if I allow myself to consider the inevitable.
I can’t make a dog live as long as a human, but I can make sure to never take her for granted or let her feel unwanted or forgotten.
In other news, poor Babby. Something was up with her tonight. I’ve heard her fuss, I’ve heard her get mad and throw furious tantrums, but this was flat out sad crying, and she buried her head in my shoulder and just sobbed her little eyes out. I think she had an upset stomach.
pisikiti
or
mbisikiti
If Susan were ever able to visit Roundworld, she would definitely post on Pharyngula. (As would Nanny Ogg, who would feel very much at home with the recipes and the sexual innuendo.)
Perhaps I’m unusually dense, but no.
Walton:
Where there’s a Gytha, there would be an Esme. And trailing along, sniffily, a Magrat.
Speaking of, still no idea of when we’ll get a Gytha & Magrat to join Esme. It looks like Rubin is cryptorchid, so he’ll have to be neutered because of the cancer risk. :(
Patricia:
It’s a nontrivial distinction, actually, especially when it comes to teaching English as a second/foreign language[1]. There are real differences — lexical, syntactical, orthographical, etc. — between British English and American English[2], and which is standard in a given country makes a big difference on things like passing standard English proficiency tests (which, in turn, makes a big difference in things like employment and educational admissions).
When my wife and I were teaching English in Korea, American English was the standard there, and (AFAIK) throughout most of East Asia. British English is standard in former British colonies and Commonwealth nations. I assume it’s also the standard form of English in continental Europe (can anyone confirm that for me?). I don’t know what “flavor” of English is taught in Latin America, or in the parts of Africa that are not former British colonies.
But no, “British English” is not as redundant as it sounds on its face. </pedant>
***
[1] There used to be a distinction between English as a Foreign Language (EFL), which is to say, academic study in the manner in which I studied German or my daughter studies French, and English as a Second Language, which is to say training people to actually speak English on a regular basis in daily life; nowadays, the distinction has mostly been abandoned, and the whole field is referred to as English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL).
[2] Some treat Indian English as yet another separate dialect.
Oh gawd, now I’ve got Sheldon singing Soft Kitty stuck in my head. softkiti, pisikiti…
Bill Dauphin #289
30 fucking years ago
Patricia:
It could be worse…you could be clutching this.
<nationalism>
This is to differentiate it from New Zealand English or as it’s more common known, TEH ONE TRU ENGLISH™
</nationalism>
Chigau:
Yah, and if the video didn’t have a date on it, you could tell anyway by the hair!
I dunno if anyone reads the alt-text on my links, but I noted that I saw the Go Gos live in Binghamton, NY, while in graduate school. That would’ve made it sometime between August 1982 and May 1984… so reasonably contemporary with that clip. I’m trying to remember if they were the headliners or openers, and who else was on the bill. I have a vague notion that they were touring with Flock of Seagulls[1]… but it’s all hazy (and sadly, not for the reason some might guess).
***
[1] Don’t mock me for the Go Gos and Flock of Seagulls: I also saw the Clash and Warren Zevon during the same timeframe!
“When it comes to teaching English”…that may be so, American English is so far gone from the mother tongue spoken in England that we sometimes can’t understand each other, i.e. lift, something put into the shoes of short people – not the same in England.
It sounds ‘funny’ coming out of Waltons mouth. Much like someone from Rhode Island would sound ‘funny’ saying you all .
British English = English English, if that makes it clearer?
And non should be mistaken for strine….
To answer a previous question, barbie is ubiquitous in strine. One would be forgiven for thinking that it was a word in its own right, and not a contraction. As is bikkie. Extending the vocabulary, there is a word “prolly” which means very likely, although some prefer the more formal “probly”.
Caine – Ha! Had no idea someone had done a Soft Kitty doll, that’s great. ;)
Hah! Found the date of that Go Gos show! Teh intertooooooobz is a wonderful thing, no? That listing is incomplete, not giving the name of the venue (the town hockey arena; I think it was called Veterans Memorial, but I’m not sure) or the other band(s) on the bill, but I found listings from the same tour (including the stop in my hometown of Houston) that seem to validate my memory that it was Flock of Seagulls. The Go Gos were the headline act.
Catnip:
Eh, prolly has been around for fucking ages, long used on the ‘net and definitely part of redneck speak (and teenspeak and several otherspeaks) here in the states.
Patricia:
They are cute, aren’t they? Myself, I want the rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock shirt. :D
I ♥ed Warren Zevon.
Lawyers, Guns and Money was genius.
Patricia:
Heh… I live a relative stone’s throw from Rhode Island, and I say (and write) y’all all the time. I supposed I have an excuse, having grown up in Texas, but I don’t “speak Texican” in many other ways. I just think y’all serves admirably well as the distinct second-person plural pronoun standard English (both British and American English, AFAIK) sadly lacks.
***
Hmmm. Does saying “‘Night!” at the end of a post and then hanging around posting for another hour or more count as not sticking the flounce? I really am leaving the keyboard now; sweet dreams to all.
OK, I’ll bite, what is a strine?
As in – I picked up a bull and got a hell of a strine to my back?
Ever time I try to strine that durned spergetti it gets stuck to the bottom of the pot.
Puttin up with my in-laws is such a strine I think I’ll move to Ohmawhaw.
Brought to you by HillbilliesRus
That is a smart alecy bit, but I really don’t know what a strine is.
TLC:
*hugs* from a fellow Golden owner. You have plenty to be sad about. If it’s any consolation, I’m sure that any dog belonging to you has had lots of walks and attention and loads of time outside.
Our old Golden made it to 12 and a half. She spent most of her life walking several miles a day, going fishing in the summer and hunting in the fall, and being queen of the house. In her last few months, she developed some kind of lumbar nerve degeneration, like a canine version of MS, and eventually her mobility issues were too much.
For me, watching the slow deterioration in the last couple of months was worse than putting her to sleep. I try to remind myself of the good times, but unfortunately the last few weeks of her life are what comes to mind. It’s only been a few months, so I’m hopeful that that will change. Watching them grow old and frail is a very tough time.
Australian accent
Thanks Nutmeg. Just so we’re clear… she is still around, and coping admirably with her sore wrists considering her advanced years.
But yeah, a great dog is truly irreplaceable. No matter how much time you get. In a just world, they’d live at least half as long as humans and likely more.
@Caine, is that convergent evolution?
@Patricia, Australian. Sorry, should have included the translation.
Patricia
strine = Australian
– -stra-i-n
Prolly not. ;p
Heh… just after I typed “I really am leaving the keyboard now,” Lovely Daughter™ walked across the hall from her room and said, “Dad, how do you feel about some late-night copyediting?” Her senior thesis is due to the printer tomorrow.
So, yeah, not leaving the keyboard quite yet after all. Except for a minute, to go get some ice cream….
Bill – I have a very dear friend from Rhode Island, and she says the damnest things. Like Glah-stah. No, I speak perfect English (!) it’s Glaw-chester. Horse, haas. Park, Pawh-k.
When I went to Rhode Island with my friend, her family had the most amusing time having me read road signs, the best one was the sign on the fish stick factory – Glah-stah-sheer.
No dammit, it’s Glaw-chester-shire! (Oh Pawt, that’s funny.)
Well, y’all is loveable. When my cousins from Alabammy sang christmas carols they would sing, Oh come all ye, you all faithful, and my brothers & I would just bust out laughing. Naughty us.
@Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
Oh yes, definitely. I was able to track down the background music used in the hotel scene in Robocop 3 to “He’s So Strange” by the Go-Go’s using the intertooooobz. (And that clip of the performance of said song is from 1982, too!)
Coyote:
I know baby, I know.
Strine = strain. Well hell, some danged hillbilly must have made it all the way to Aussie-land and corrupted y’all’s proper English.
Or else – cue shark attack music – you Aussies got homegrown Aussiebillies! *gasp*
I think we grew our own versions!
These dog years are tough going. My breed of choice is the (English) Bulldog. (I’d better watch it, Walton is looking) They cost a premium price here in America, they don’t reproduce easily, and I have never owned one that lived passed the age of six years old.
My only experiance with a Golden was that I took in a retiree from Guide Dogs, he lived with me for two years before he died in his sleep. I don’t think he ever recovered from being forced to leave his blind master.
That’s really sad, Patricia. Sad enough to merit a drink, if I had anything alcoholic.
‘Our’ breed of choice is likely the cattle dog from here on out. Ours is reaching middle age and has consistently been a really smart, courageous, and loyal creature right from before her ears stood up.
I originally got her for myself, but her primarily loyalty is to my dad. She kinda switched it over gradually. I don’t mind too much, it’s not like she loves me any less for it.
I figure the next dog in my life, personally, will likely be a mongrel, the more unidentifiable the better. I’ll know it when I see it. Like I did with the cattle dog.
I’m also actually partial to belgian shepherds. We owned a really good german shepherd when I was just a whelp myself, and he was awesome. Sadly, the german shepherd has been mutated by the show ring into a scraggly low-slung parody of its former self.
The Belgian Shepherds appear to be less influenced by this trend, though it’s probably only a matter of time. I dread seeing it happen to the noble cattle dog.
Laughing Coyote – I don’t know if I am going to get another Bulldog. They are so funny, such great skate boarders, and can snore trains to shame, but the short life is ecstasy/agony. You love them so, and then they drop dead!
I worked at a veterinary hospital for 13 years, and because we took large animals we saw lots of cattle dogs, they are brilliant. The one thing I noticed about them is that if they have problems to solve, they live longer.
I love my Goldens, but pure-breds are so prone to health problems. With the bulldogs, I’ve heard that the short face causes breathing problems, which in turn cause left ventricular problems. Six years is an awfully short life. With Goldens, it’s usually cancer or arthritis. I don’t know much about cattle dogs, although they’re beautiful.
Appearance-wise, I admire Burmese Mountain Dogs and Great Pyrenees(es?), but both breeds have a reputation for aggression. My mom refuses to get another puppy (our current four-year-old Golden was very high-maintenance as a doglet), but she might be persuaded to adopt a rescue Greyhound someday.
I doubt that my lifestyle will allow me to have a dog any time before I retire, but I’d probably go for a large mixed-breed. Hopefully with some Golden somewhere in there. I think that working breeds are so much more interesting.
Patricia: I’ve heard similar from other bulldog owners and breed experts.
My aunt had an amazing pair of bullmastiffs, the male having a head that looked like a split pumpkin… something almost like those ‘hulk dogs’ in the movie that came before the reboot. He was very gentle though and loved cats, which naturally makes me picture those old warner bros cartoons with “Marc Anthony”, the big tough bulldog and the cute nameless kitty.
Argh. *Bernese Mountain Dogs.
I should go to sleep.
Tsk, tsk.
Additional Charge For Unlimited Sexism Plan
Walton, yes, we really do say stuff like bikkie (biscuit), bikie (scary motorcyclist, likely in a gang), barbie (BBQ), pressie (present), firie (fire fighter), smoko (cigarette break), reffo (refugee, mildly derogatory) and many many more. If you want to get technical about it, there’s a linguist called Roland Sussex who’s published on it and has got a dictionary of over 4000 of them in progress. Not saying them sounds stilted and over-formal in many cases – “biscuit” is OK, “university” is formal only (I went to uni), and “postie” is the only way to say postal worker outside of a formal employment context, now that postman is widely seen as sexist.
What we don’t say, or only rarely and as a mannered choice (which would often be ironic), are archaisms like crikey, strewth, stone the crows, cor blimey, sheila, fair dinkum etc. If in doubt, ask. I promise not to lie to you very badly.
Caine, The Impossibly Patient @335:
You are a pillar of disciplined composure. I would have lost my shit and laid into the guy with a full description of the deceased porcupine, including oversize dimensions and where and how far he could put it.
It’s probably why I’m not in customer service.
Oh, sorry, I was blinded to the blockquotes by the such a compelling story. Still, the service rep is a case study in will power.
Good morning
Just skimming, so sorry if I missed important stuff
keenancat
Linky you asked for.
I did a summary of the case on Natalie’s post.
Good thing, the asspimple is getting his shit handed in shiny gift wrapper.
language development
Did I mention that #1 speaks a perfect English without a single word of English? But “accent” and intonation are really good. She’s expressed interest in learning more English, so I’ve got something to keep her occupied until school starts.
BE vs AE
For German teachers the standard is nowadays that you have to be fucking consistent. So you either have cookies in your coloRful apaRtment or you have some biscuits in your colourful flat.
Ow ow ow ow ow.
1) Noisy nearly-3 year old
+
2) Various electronic toys (WHY?????)
+
3) Incipient hangover
=
4) PAIN!
I blame all of you. This cannot be my fault. I especially blame Walton. He told me he doesn’t drink alcohol that much and I had to balance the universe out by drinking his share too. Curses!
I am going to self harm with coffee now. If it isn’t strong enough to speak and invent the wheel, I don’t want to know.
Louis
Hmmph! “Late-night copyediting” turned into overnight copyediting! Did y’all know a Yale senior thesis is ~50 pages… plus another 9 pages of bibliography (including a bibliographical essay that would make for a nontrivial paper in its own right). I never had to write anything like that as an undergraduate: They should give her an MA for this, not just a BA.
But here’s the thing: It’s a great paper, full of insights drawn from primary sources and well corroborated and contextualized using secondary sources. I’m guessing someday this paper will form the core of a book. My “little girl” is an honest-to-FSM historian!
When did that happen?
And why do I feel so old?
(I know why I feel so sleepy.) </ProudDad></TiredDad>
Giliell:
But in any case, not biscuits in your apartment, before taking the lift down to the lobby and heading out for an organised group trip to the theater, eh? ;^)
Ow. Ow ow ow ow ow. ::glares at Bill D:: ::takes aspirin::
Oh, and conga rats to Daughter!
Are you trying to help Louis out by giving the rest of us headaches while maintaining the overall total of headache in the pharyngulaverse?
You know it’s bad when you wake up with a hangover and it’s a different month from the one you started drinking in.
Okay, so it’s not that bad, it’s pretty normal, but I am so hungover I actually though it was meaningful for a moment.
Also, this Christianity thing, it may have some merit…
…WHAT HAVE I DONE! I’VE DRUNK MYSELF RELIGIOUS!
Louis
So yes, as the hungover newt* announced, it is a new month. I like this April 1 post: https://proxy.freethought.online/alethianworldview/2012/04/01/santorum-to-oppose-abstinence/ Well, sort of like. Appreciate, rather.
*Are you still a newt, Louis, or did you get better?
I’m not sure if I am still a newt. I smell funny, my mouth tastes like the bottom of a pond and my skin is oozing….something.* Are these newtish qualities?
Louis
*I think it’s a mixture of Jagermeister and chilli sauce. Which is impressive. I didn’t have any chilli sauce last night. I think. Oh and kids…Jagermeister is not your friend. Uncle Jager is a bad, bad man.
I’m not sure. We don’t have newts in Australia. For all I know, they could be Jagermeister and chilli flavoured. Possibly some kind of defense against predators? Sorry, I’m no Fink-Nottle.
@ Louis
{Dr theophontes starts limping around clinic, verbally abuses assistants and patients alike. downs bottle of V!cod!n.}
No Louis. Those symptoms are diagnostic: You are a tardigrade!
Alethea,
Marvellous Wodehouse reference. I think the world would be a better place if we ran it under Wodehousian lines. Think of the amount of policeman’s helmets we’d collect, sermons we could bet on and fiancées we could avoid like the peril.
Louis
theophontes 777,
ABLIST!!!!!!!! Burn the discriminator! Persecute him!
Mind you, I do get to be practically immortal…I accept.
Louis
Good morning, ladies, gentlemen, and Louis.
It’s a bright, sunny albeit somewhat cold day. As soon as I get some clothes on, go to Big Y* for some split peas and isopropyl alcohol, and start the pea soup**, then I’ll be going sailing. I’ll talk to y’all later.
*The nearest supermarket is called “Big Y”. I have no idea where the name comes from.
**We had ham for supper last night. Making split pea soup the next day with the ham bone is a family tradition.
talked with boss’s boss this morning. I am good for light duty (basically I can do anything that doesn’t involve walking/hobbling/limping. Which is good as I don’t see the specialist until 26APR.
That was the first one I read. I am now reading them in order and have just started Hogfather.
I lived in Rhode Island before I joined the army. Sold cars. Always got a bemused look from a mark when I greeted them with, “Morning, y’all. Welcome to Mutual Isuzu.”
Of course, now I live in NEPA where the local version of y’all is ‘youse guiss’. And they even have ‘haina’ as slang for (approximately) ain’t it. Ya gotta wonder bout a place that has slang for ain’t it, haina?
Congratulations. Has she decided what kind of cars she is going to sell? (Almost every historian I have ever met has spent at least some time selling things, often cars.)
Could be worse. It could be a Piggly Wiggly.
Saddest grocery store I have been in was the Piggly Wiggly in Hot Springs, SD, ca 1988.
‘Tis, #352,
I’ll be the judge of that.
Louis
It’s snowing.
Holy shit!
This is big!
I mean “Hide the decline” big.
Fuck Fortran and the motherboarding CPU it rode in on.
No – if only because your equality isn’t one. British English is spoken and written outside England – in Scotland, for example – so English English is just a sub-type of British English. Scottish English (to be distinguished from both Scots Gaelic, and Scots (or “Lallans”) which is unintelligible to most English speakers), has words and idioms not used in English English (“aye”, “outwith”, “bairn”, “kirk”, “at the back of four” – meaning just after four…).
Interesting. “Bikkie”, “pressie” and “postie” I have heard in England, but not frequently. “Uni” is now very commonly used in England. But I’ve certainly never heard “firie” or “smoko”.
Walton,
I believe gentlemen who have spent time at Her Majesty’s Pleasure are fond of popping into the yard for a “smoko”. Particularly those of a Caledonian bent.
Louis
Sili
There was not one word about pirates in the linked article.
Something that should interest many of you here.
The Direct Download Beer Delivery System
Dang, while I’ve been busy elsewhere, it appears IL considered my Conglomerate Chemical Co. DRIP account to be inactive, and apparently is in the process of scarfing the money in it. Not a problem showing ownership and recovering the money, but the rethuglican state treasurer has a private company in the middle somehow.
Thief of Time was also the first Pratchett I read, and it’s still my favorite.
Hugs to everyone with older pets.
Bill, take a nap! And how could she have a due date on a Sunday? That’s just wrong.
If you use the adjective meaning of English, then British English is as redundant as American American. It’s like the Buffalo sentence.
Good morning, ‘Tis!
We do not have Big Y around here, just Price Chopper*, Hannaford, and Shop Rite. When Mr Darkheart lived in Cleveland, he would shop at Giant Eagle. God, I hate supermarket names.
I will be over in a few hours for the soup. How did you know that split pea is my favorite?
Oggie:
Fun Fact: Piggly Wiggly was the first modern supermarket– you know, warehouse style, where you have to get your own items, instead of having an employee behind the counter fetch everything for you.
Anyway, is anyone else excited for the premier of season two of Game of Thrones tonight?
*No joke, they make best bagels you can buy.
I’m looking forward to it and so is Mrs. Bigdumbchimp though we have friends in town for the next few days so I will probably have to wait to watch it.
Also, I ♥ Yo, Is This Racist?:
Best advice I’ve seen in a while.
Oggie, the Railfest poster is nice work.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Our best dogs were always muts, but I’m a big fan of Australian Shepherds. You gotta keep them busy tho, they really want to work. My friends owned one and we used to take her to a fairly large park in Palm Springs and she would herd the children together. You didn’t notice it at first, she was just running around the park, but after a 1/2 hour or so most of the kids would be grouped in the center.
Funny, The pig or as I call it, the Sqiggly Piggly are actually pretty decent grocery stores here in Charleston.
Their craft beer selection is up there with any place in town outside specific specialty beer stores (of which we have the best rated one in the country, brag brag).
Rev:
Make your friends watch it, too!
American supermarkets have strange names. In England we have Tesco (which is awful), J Sainsbury (which is ok), Waitrose (which is good), Asda (which is owned by Wal-Mart), Lidl (which is German), and Iceland (which specializes in frozen food, hence the name).
Here in Massachusetts they all seem to be Shaw Market or Star Market.
Walton:
I’m a little surprised that you don’t have Stop & Shop or Hannaford. They’re both, uh, “mid tier” markets that are right outside of Boston/Cambridge.
(Hannaford’s not too bad. But around here, their fresh produce whoa sucks.)
Fed up and somewhat frustrated with the blogging, so Im giving it a break for a while. Ive closed the comments so I dont have to go back every day to patrol the place. Thanks to all the Pharyngulites who swung by to read and comment over the last almost 2 years ! You guys kept my comment section alive just like you’re doing it to most FTB blogs now. Cheers.
Hi there
OK, watching the parents of one of #1’s kindergarten friends interact with him in the wild, it’s no wonder the boy spent his first 9 moinths in kindergarten crying.
They micromanage every fucking social interaction of the kid.
They called him back even after he lost the toy to a kid half his age (yay, little one! To be fair, it was hers) and at least twice while was just fucking sitting quietly next to other kids.
Really makes you want to tie the parents to a tree.
Also: wore a hoodie those last two days. Was neither shot nor arrested. Neighbours were absolutely not confused.
Bill Dauphin
Exactly. That’s at the centre of the whole issue.
Well, of course non-native speakers always get judged by a higher standard. Which also leads to the fact that I know much more about the differences between BE and AE, peninsular Spanish, Argentinian Spanish and Cuban Spanish than I know about the differences between German German, Austrian German and Swiss German…
I also like chippie, for carpenter.
And sparkie for electrician.
chigau (違う)
What part of “FortRRRRRRRRRRan” don’t you understand?
I like the fact that a chippie is quite properly and simultaneously a carpenter and a fish ‘n chip shop.
I remember reading a short story once written by a USAnian who mistakenly thought “chippie” meant the food fish ‘n chips, rather than the place where you get it; the result was a bit disturbing.
Can’t chippie/chippy also be a derogatory term for a woman of whose sexual behaviour the speaker presumes to disapprove? (like “tart”) (I think this last may actually be a US import?).
Oh, I’m sure they exist… I just don’t travel far afield to go shopping. (The only grocery store I ever go to is the Shaw’s Market at Porter Square. In this area, most of the supermarkets I see are either Shaw’s or Star.)
I know the feeling. It’s often a struggle to draw attention to the awful stuff that’s going on. I blog mostly so I have a centralized collection of resources on immigration and human rights issues, which I can link when I need it.
FWIW, I read your blog often. I usually comment only when I disagree with something (which is not often), but I appreciated your recent post on asylum-seekers in Australia, for instance.
Thanks. Not bad for someone who’s design skills are based on, “Does that look right?”
===
Grocery stores: Here, we have Wegmans. Great store. Good beer selection. Good produce. Good store brands.
I always feel deprived when I am somewhere with no Wegmans.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/01/first-evidence-for-string-theory-at-the-large-hadron-collider/
It would seem that most of the bloggers at FTB are leaving the collective. It is a strange brew of Chuck Norris, christian rock, Kirk Cameron, hillbillies, Persian hookers, FOX news, Canadians, erotica, atheist temples, Breitbart.com, a Congressional campaign, false identity, being colorless, plugins, fashionable hijibs and burqas, cocooning, lion’s dens, shark jumping, the rejection of feminism, and other forms of madness.
I just want to get through this day.
Oggie,
Goddamnit! I want a Wegman’s soooooo badly. They’re in western NY, but there aren’t any east of Syracuse. :(
Well, I’m on a sabbatical now. Maybe that pribble guy wants to join.
/grumpy
I’ve seen that happen. (Isn’t that the real point of drinking Zombie Jesus’ blood? To keep them in a drunken stupor?) Very sad.
How can you say that? The name alone is iconic. *grumble*BaconH8er*grumble*
Isn’t everyone doing that today? Come on, this has to be another April Fool’s joke. And nice mock-spat with Chrys Stevenson. You really went all out on this!
Always remember the date today…
What the ? I blame the wordpress pingback shit for Chrys picking this up, I didn’t intend to create any drama, just felt like venting a bit. And no April fools joke here, I waited until after midnight and April 2 to post my resignation…
Interestingly I think the number of actual smokers is decreasing, so while people still have ‘smokos’ I don’t know if they actually use it to have a cigarette. I admit that’s a term I don’t actually use.
The ones that confused me most when I initially moved to Australia were ‘docket’ and ‘doona’.
Also, if you are asked to ‘bring a plate’ to a social event, it means to bring some sort of consumable food item. It can even be on a plate, but in a packet will do if you are short on time.
Rorschach:
A break is good, I just hope it isn’t permanent. You’ve got GAC and China coming up, right? Those sound like good breaks to me.
Bill Dauphin, congratz!
squee! I dunno about you, but personally it’s a joy to copyedit a wonderful piece of work. I’d call that a night to remember.
@rorschach
If it’s not a joke (it’s still the first on this blog, for instance), then that was what I’d call going out with a bang. As for my part in promoting Chrys’s post and not yours, she just happened to tweet it while I was on Twitter and I retweeted it since she was trying to outdo a certain Jim Wallace in terms of visitors to her post. It wasn’t meant as a slight against your writing on the same subject.
It would be nice if FTB would pick you up to add to their fine collection of bloggers after your blogging sabbatical is over.
*skips goggie talk because she misses her goggies too much (not dead, just banished due to asshole landlords*
I have a friend who did that. Ok, so it was hallucinogens. But still. He went on a random and fierce Jesus kick that has not subsided. Even when you point out to him that maybe it was the drugs and not actually GOD HIMSELF speaking to him, he just waves it away. *sigh*
rorschach, take the break that you need, but I second Walton and Aratina. I read your blog fairly often despite not commenting, and I’d like to see it become part of FTB.
Of course the bloggers who are leaving ftb …. all, by an amazing coincidence, on the very same day … will have to do it all over again on the 28th of December (and several other days too, probably) :-)
Louis if you cut off your tail and it grows back you’re still a newt.
I think…
waitwut
The most stupid thing I read today:
“Biology has to obey the laws of logic, it cannot bring forth anything illogical”.
In this case, the illogical thing is a transperson…
Yeah, Rey. They threatened to call animal control. Despite the fact that I own the fucking trailer and only lease the land, and despite the fact that I have a (very expensive) underground electric fence to keep them in my yard.
The new property manager was pulling a bunch of weird shit coming to my place every day and taping shit to my door for about a week too.
Sometimes it was complaints (mow yer lawn even though it’s only March 1 and the grass isn’t high yet! power-wash yer trailer! don’t park yer motorcycle on the concrete slab beside the trailer, it goes only in the driveway!). Sometimes it was just shit to let me know he’d been there, like the time he randomly gave me 4 months’ worth of receipts for rent, despite my having never gotten a single receipt in 18 months of living there.
Have I mentioned I hate the new property manager?
Aratina and Jules,
Fear not, it was just a momentary hallucination brought on by metabolising my body weight in Jagermeister.
Louis
P.S. Patricia, haha, with my new found Mental Tuffness™ caused by lack of drunkenness and my hangover being finished I am not so easy to convince of my newthood. Possibly.
Bill:
Awesome.
‘Tis: When I first heard the name of that supermarket, many puerile snickers about “getting something to eat at the Big Y” were had.
Walton, I’m sure you’ve encountered Trader Joe’s, too.
Or, possible, an amphisbaenian.
Jules: You have the property manager from Hades. Scratch that, Bizzaro World is more like it. People like him ruin it for the good managers.
————————————–
I’m still in awe of Inside Nature’s Giants. Three full eps last night, all of them interesting enough that the gross-out factor was diminished. I’m also a tad envious of some of the physical abilities of animals (seriously, ribs that flex so you stay streamlined as you dive? Even with the air being forced out of your lungs in the process, that’s still kinda cool).
Next up, the camel!
—————————————–
Maybe you’re a salamander, Louis. Wait…do those make noises?
Why can’t Louis be a starfish?
“Starfish” has two widely known slang meanings, neither of which is flattering and one of which is simply ridiculous in Louis’ case.
Louis/Louise:
Don’t forget your new found uterus, Dear.
Carlie:
I did take a nap: Slept from ~6:00 am ’til about noon. Also…
Actually, the due date is Monday… but what she has to hand in is printed, bound copies, and to make that happen, she had to get the final PDF to the copy place by this afternoon. She’s on her way there now, after a celebratory luncheon at Outback (speaking of words that are and are not used in ‘strine).
Theoretically, she could’ve gotten the file to the copy place Friday, and had the weekend free as a bird, but she was busy Thursday and Friday making her first visit to GWU as an admitted PhD student. In any case, we all remember being students, right? She would no doubt have pushed it to the last second no matter what; ’twas ever thus.
Caine,
The uterus is what is giving me the Mental Tuffness%trade;. Oh NOES! I have just revealed my secret power that allows me to be a Ball Breaking Man Hating Feminazi Castrating Bitch.
{sigh}
I’m SO proud!
Louis
As for my species, well I do seem to be moving through the phyla!
Can I just go back to being human? The morphological certainty alone will help with sleep and sundry other functions.
Louis
Well, mormon church leaders have erased all doubt as to their creationist/intelligent design beliefs … and as to their ignorance and their delight in being stupid.
I am sorry to subject you to 57 minutes of syrupy music and mind-numbing lectures by LDS leaders, but I couldn’t find an excerpt to post. (Excerpting and posting video clips is a skill I need to learn, and soon.)
LDS Apostle Russell M. Nelson brings his uneducated and logic-deprived self to the podium at about 28:30. See link below.
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch/2012/04?lang=eng&vid=1538843470001
Nelson gives what is almost wholly an Intelligent Design speech. He talks about the divine provenance of every aspect of the human body, including eyes (what a favorite of creationists the eyes are), the ability to reproduce, and healing by virtue of obedience to divine law.
Nelson blithely conflates evolution and Big Bang theory at 35:50. His audience is charmed. There’s lots of laughter. He equates the Big Bang to being “like an explosion in a print shop producing a dictionary.” Yes, this so-called living prophet is that dumb. Nelson is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and they are all considered to be prophets, although one step below The Prophet, Thomas S. Monson.
A couple of years ago, ex-mormon Steve Benson posted a transcript of his interviews with LDS leaders. Benson had access to the top Old White Dudes thanks to his position in the mormon aristocracy. He’s the grandson of a prophet. According to Benson’s transcript, the LDS Church’s official word on evolution, creationism, intelligent design, etc. amounts to something like “we don’t know, and we don’t say one way or the other.” There were hints of personal belief in creationism, but no one was willing to confront science head on.
All the mormon I know are either creationists or intelligent design believers. I have long suspected that this is what they are taught in the LDS Church.
Apostle Nelson’s speech is one long refutation of evolution, and he also dove off the cliff by conflating evolution with the origins of the universe, and then he compounded the error by misunderstanding Big Bang Theory. This speech was approved by the biggest of the LDS Big Wigs, and was given at their General Conference, the venue at which they pronounce what is true and what is not for all the sheeple.
Mormon church leaders are on a par with Ken Ham. They are ignorant when it comes to biology and to physics … and they are proud of their ignorance. We should nail them good for this. It’s an error they can’t take back with post-conference editing of the videos (a nefarious practice they have indulged in before, even including fake audience noises).
Walton and Audley:
I’m surprised you even have Shaw’s or Star markets (same company, BTW; the only diff is branding): Around here, all the Shaw’s stores either closed or got automagically converted to Stop & Shop a couple years ago; I thought the company had gone under.
***
rorschach:
Heh. ‘Round these parts, chippie (or chippy) has a whole ‘nother meaning!
***
Shorter KG re whether “British English” is redundant: Britain ≠ England
I’d been thinking that all along, but figured either KG or Walton would say it, and they have better “standing” than I do.
***
Thanks to all for the responses to my <ProudDad> gushing! I should make it clear that she doesn’t graduate for about 6 more weeks, though turning in this thesis is a major milestone. My comment that she’s a historian was a reflection of my realization that her work is no longer just student exercises: It’s real original scholarship. That’s been true for a while, of course, and I’ve dimly known it… but this extended, detailed work brought it home viscerally.
Well, that and a little sleep deprivation!
Y’all would be interested in the paper, too: It traces the historical role of periodicals for/by/about cross-dressers in building transgender community. The paper focuses primarily on two magazines: Transvestia, founded in the late 50s/early 60s, which sought to project the impression of transvestism as a practice of “normal” heterosexual men and insulate them from association with stigmatized homosexuality and sexual deviancy; and Drag, a magazine for drag queens founded in the wake of Stonewall, and which positioned itself much more clearly as an instrument of cultural liberation, explicitly embracing drag queens, gay transvestites, and transsexuals in contrast to Transvestia‘s attempt to fit within a hetero- and socio-normative context.
Lovely Daughter™ shows that Transvestia actually appeal to a more diversely, and more diversely queer, readership than its founder would admit (perhaps even to herself), while Drag‘s more radical stance still failed to generate full acceptance of transgender folk (not that that term was in wide use at the time) within the larger gay rights and civil rights movements.
It’s full of fascinating cross-currents. There’s a West Coast (Transvestia)/East Coast (Drag) element that had me thinking about the rap wars (though that connection would’ve been outside the scope of the paper, and wasn’t directly addressed), and there’s the tension between normalization and radicalization that made me think of Accommodationists v. Gnus in atheism… and which, I’m beginning to believe, is an inherently common issue in nearly all rights advocacy/cultural liberation movements.
Anyway, I should stop rambling now; I’ve got Shit To Do Today®, and sleeping ’til noon gave me a very late start.
For those who never stick their head out of TET, there’s a Molly thread up: https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/04/01/im-not-fooling-about-this-molly/
*puts on dust mask*
*wallows in heap of hugs & kittehz*
Kat is transitioning? *hands handful of hugs & kittehz*
Zombless thread: thirded.
Less huggy topic: sign this petition.
Skimming through subthread:
That’s in any case what the Latin version, LUX ET VERITAS, means. It’s all over the Yale Conference Service paper bags and napkins and… *turns around to check biro* …yes, even their biros.
But you know where to look it up!!!!!
Or come to Germany first and then fly by airberlin.com. That’s cheap.
Maybe that’s why the railroads over here are electrified…!
I’m out of words.
None.
No idea about the taste, but tardigrades don’t ooze!
Trust me, this is bigger.
That’s “Lowlandish”, right? As opposed to the (formerly) Gaelic-speaking Highlands?
*clenched-tentacle salute*
We should meet sometime. :-)
Yep. However, when he’s a newt, he can just drop his tail like a lizard* in the first place. No need for cutting.
* Not quite. It’s between vertebrae instead of through them.
Do you have a way to quit that place?
Lynna:
You can link to a specific start time in a YouTube clip by adding #t=xxmyys at the end of the YT URL string, where xx and yy are (fairly obviously, I suppose) the two-digit minutes and seconds of the point you want to start at.
I confess I have to look that up all over again every time I need it. This time when I looked it up, I discovered that there’s an online tool to automate the process.
Bill, that sounds like a fascinating paper.
And I would agree that the accommodationist vs. “gnu” tension does exist in all social-justice movements. It’s a basic clash of personality types.
Bill Dauphin @411, thanks for the info. I will let my rage simmer until it, perhaps, overcomes my Sunday laziness.
You underestimate how lazy I can be. I would have to actually sign up for a YouTube channel first. Then I could do the automate, or the scripting thingy. Looks fairly easy.
Sigh… I promise I did a better job of copyediting my daughter’s work than I did with my own:
FTFM!
Curses! Motherboarding Owlmirror beat me to the big news!
Plus on regarde ailleurs, plus on va chez !™
Nope. Also, newts are a small subset of salamanders (pleurodeline salamandrids).
Selling the trailer. And I’m planning to. As soon as I finish fixing it up. Which I’ll get right on as soon as I finish this gawdawful copyediting nightmare. Which I’ll do as soon as Word stops fucking crashing at random. Which will happen when hell freezes. Which would be kinda nice because it’s 85 outside again, and it’s only April 1.
Fook. What a day.
Child the tiny spread chocolate Nesquik all over the carpet, spread raspberry yogurt all over a bunch of other places, emptied a wardrobe of clothes on the floor, and twirled herself so tightly in the curtains that the curtain pole came off the wall.
So that’s filling, painting, drilling, and re-fitting on next weekend’s agenda.
And kid #1 threw a massive tweenage strop because why did you do that [closing the gate] to me? (I didn’t; it closed on its own) and (at the park) it’s like punishment (why did you come, then?), which, coming on the back of the “can you brush your teeth, please?” “I’m too tired because I get to bed late” “Yes, that’s because you won’t brush your teeth and go to bed, but instead, spend all night asking me to do it” wars, has not left me in the best frame of mind.
Deep breath.
Deep breath.
/vent
The weather was nice though. And I saw a woodpecker.
I’m OK with not getting the point of British English.
Er… I’d try Wikipedia, I expect. Or a Google search. (I can’t say I’ve ever actually cared enough about the Boat Race to bother finding out.)
Has this already been posted? Air density 2.7 billion years ago limited to less than twice modern levels by fossil raindrop imprints
I have nothing to add, except that the date is March 28th.
So, it both refers to a woman who is unresponsive as well as a woman how is very active..
Is there no escape the madonna/whore complex?
Have you figured out which part of the file makes it crash? Or is it the total size or something?
Over here it’s back to being cold, with really cold wind. And lots of wind, too.
English of Great Britain, as opposed to the Englishes* of all the other places where English is spoken. :-|
* That’s a term linguists actually use. Don’t believe me, ask Google.
Exactly. Also known as “broad Scots” or just “Scots”, and has a range of dialects. In much of Scotland, Gaelic has never been the majority language – when a Celtic language was last predominant where I live, it was almost certainly Pictish. A set of related dialects developed all down the east coast of Britain as a lingua franca in the 7th-8th centuries, with those in the south becoming English and those further north Scots, but forming a continuous chain of dialects so placing the boundary would be somewhat arbitrary until much later on – but the language used at thre medieval English and Scottish courts was quite distinct. In reality, also, Scots today shades into Scottish English, and many people move easily between the two according to context.
No.
Stuff I learn on linguist blogs…
In Czech, as in so many other languages, kurva – while theoretically retaining the meaning “whore” – is also an all-purpose exclamation like “shit” or “fuck”. So, naturally, an adjective has been formed from it (actually a past participle), zkurvený/-á/-o, which means, well, “motherboarding”.* (Thanks, Sili!)
Logical question: is there a zkurvená kurva, and if so, how does she differ from an attributeless kurva?
The Official Answer™: yes, there is; difference: kurva = does it with everyone; zkurvená kurva = does it with everyone except me.
I wish English-speaking Morally Repugnant Assholes would wear their psychological motivations on their sleeves like that ;-)
* Top Google suggestion: zkurvená prace, “motherfucking work”.
I knew I had misremembered práce! Long vowel!
It’s different parts in different files. I think the problem may be my stupid publisher’s insistence on using rich text format for saving files but their utter disregard for getting authors to start out with it. The authors write it and save it in Word 2010 or whatever, using various templates from whichever newer version of Word, and then it all gets fucked up when I save it in rtf. I end up having to remove all the presaved styles and re-input them manually.
Janine, it looks like the meaning of “anus” isn’t listed in the definitions, though it’s listed in the synonyms above. I was referring to that plus “woman who is unresponsive.”
Ms. Daisy Cutter, it was there. But I had to go with what struck me.
cm, that sounds like quite a day. It’s the kind of day that makes me love working with children and being Awesome Aunt Jules (because it’s funny to witness/read about) but glad I’m not a parent (because it’s way, way less funny to have to live with).
I thought my nephew’s tween rebellion and attitude was hilarious. His moms, not so much.
Here. Have a [drink of your choice].
You can also right-click and choose “Copy video URL at current time”. (This may be Flash version-dependent.)
Thanks, Jules, although I have to confess that yesterday’s taking of libations may have been a factor in today’s stressiness. Oh, well: Sláinte!
85 in April, lovin’ it. Nobody talk to me about glaciers or ice caps today.
PZ, clean up on aisle 7, please! https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/04/01/have-you-ever-noticed-that-real-polymaths-tend-not-to-call-themselves-polymaths/
xxxxxxxx1000 bot. Or person. Whatever.
In reference to comment #407, here is a partial transcript of mormon apostle Russell Nelson’s speechifying:
Made a package of these this morning. Holy shit, are they good. But I can’t have more than one a day — six tablespoons of butter went into eight scones. When I say “can’t have,” I don’t just mean “shouldn’t have” but “can’t have.” Too rich.
After a scone with breakfast and some of these at dinner, I have a renewed craving for udon with mussels, seaweed, garlic, and ginger. Maybe a small amount of ginger oil in which to sauté the garlic.
Let me shuffle that around:
[Despite, apparently, not being able to conform to His law well enough for God to fix them, they have great spiritual strength. Uh-huh.]
I wonder if the heart also beats for a lifetime without en external source of power.
I would like to turn in my perfect body for a newer, less crapped-out model.
Mass Effect returns to the 80s. I’d totally watch it.
Chigau, you say that only because you disobey the laws of god, god is trying to teach a lesson or something like that.
Oh sure, Daisy, post about food just as I’ve finished some soup. I swear if I were able to read TET all day, I’d be hungry all day too. You lot post about some tasty stuff!
——————————————–
Cassowary . . . wooooow. And camels.
——————————————-
I need to start putting more fiction into my literary diet. Last fiction book I read was . . . I think Wyrd Sisters . . . or was it something else? If only I had the first book of Arabat – I had to stop reading the one I have when I realized it was Book 2. And it was an engrossing story so far too, but I might be able to understand and enjoy far more if I’m familiar with the events which led up to Book 2.
——————————————–
Is it odd that watching Inside Nature’s Giants is also making me look at the Na’vi and the other lifeforms on Pandora in a very different light? Not sure what to call this mix of “That’s so weird!” and “That’s . . . incredible and I’m speechless.”
———————————————
Note to self: Salamanders are a subset of newts, and no, they don’t make noise. Consider this when turning fundies into animals :P.
Janine
Probably.
But I do wonder if each arthritic joint is a punishment for some specific sin or if it’s more general.
and then there’s the cold sores.
Wow knows, the way that god punishes population for the sins of people who do not live there, the arthritis and cold sores could be meant for someone else.
Oops!
I hate April Fools day
Which of course shames by contrast the bad people with disabilities who don’t put on a saintly martyr mien that makes the able-bodied people around them feel less threatened. I wonder if any of them have ever threatened to beat Russell Nelson with a cane or run him over with a wheelchair?
Remember Cutter John (no relation) from Bloom County? In one strip, Berke Breathed had a fundie douchebag yell at him to “have some respect for your disability!” You know, instead of have some fun with it and entertain his animal friends.
Speaking of aminalz, some wonderful news: Bangor, Maine animal shelter runs out of adoptable animals.
Can we kill this one right now?
http://www.2think.org/eye.shtml (my emphasis.)
I’m taking applications for a domestic partner. I’ll do the cooking and laundry (and maybe floors) if you’ll handle dishes, the lawn, and general clutter. Half of all bills, your own room, and my undying love*.
Sexin’ is optional, depending on chemistry.
*My undying love requires lots of personal time. So don’t go expecting attention and shit.
Jules
You place or mine?
Whoa…we could use a live-in cook and laundress. Undying love appreciated but completely unnecessary, and we have the sexin’ all taken care of, so we’ll pass, but won’t mind at all if you go looking for that elsewhere.
Move to Morris!
Shit.
How do I compete with the Overlord?
Sorry, chigau, the Squiddly Overlord calleth.
So, PZ, is this cooking in exchange for room and board? I’ll throw in doing the grocery shopping.
I hear Morris gets cold. But I’ll risk it if the sexin’ up there is any good. Oh, and because of my devotion to your poopyheadedness.
chigau:
Seriously, I was all “Woo hoo! Jules can live with me!” But I know I can’t offer as many squids as PZ can. And, trust me, I think I need the help WAY more.
Ah well.
On a completely unrelated note, since “everyone” is “leaving” their various blogs*, I’ve been inspired to start a really real one of my own. Not sure how long it’ll last, but what the hell, right?
http://audleyzdarkheart.blogspot.com/
*Har-dee-har-har. Real funny, guys.
Wait! Upstate NY has slightly better weather than Morris! Take that, PZ!
Well hell, Audley, now I feel all derivative and shit.
http://strangesally.wordpress.com/
I hate to scuttle my own application, but unless you bring your own partner, the sexin’ up here isn’t so hot. It’s a small town, and one of the complaints our single faculty have is that there are very, very few opportunities for romantic partnering with a peer.
Sally:
:)
(I’ve already got you on my blog roll.)
But how’s the sexin’, Audley?
I mean, it’s optional for my domestic partner, but it’s not optional for me. At least in Alabama, the sexin’ is a known quantity, y’know?
*insert obligatory joke about quantity being zero*
Dr. Audley
If Jules thinks Morris at 45°N is cold I don’t think Edmonton at 53°N would suit her at all.
It snowed today.
Oh, Jules, you could come here. Nice weather, right near a sizable university (lots of cool college guys and/or girls for you), and I have kitties! Teh boyfriend would appreciate the help around the house (I’m far to busy and tired to be of much help).
Small town means I could cook up a sex scandal.
The deliciousness of that will perhaps make up for the other limitations.
But I’m curious about this upstate NY business. I hear they have slightly better weather.
Ooo..I forgot chigau was in Canada. I get free healthcare!
StarStuff, Florida is cuh-razy. It’s bayou meets surfer. But it definitely has the best weather so far. Students are cool, but I’m getting old enough now that people look at me askance when I flirt with the early 20-somethings. Damn ageist prudes.
Audley, Sally, I added you to my blogroll. :)
@ Jules
We’ve got grad students and post docs here too :D
chigau:
Yeah, we had snow yesterday. Shhhh! Don’t tell Jules.
Jules:
Well, I’m off the market (as is Mr Darkheart), but the overall sexin’ opportunities are not too shabby. We’ve got a decent sized population without being huge (New York’s Capital District has a population of just under 1 million people) and we’re a diverse bunch. You interested in college students? Check. Need someone a little older? College profs, check. Local musicians, theater people, comedians? Check, check, and check. Artists and artisans? A yup. Farmers? Oh, hells yes. Chefs and/or bakers? Check and/or check. Regular old white collar workers? Got those. Regular old blue collar workers? Got them, too.
Basically, what I’m saying is we’ve got someone to do for everyone. And something to do for everyone.
(I really need someone to do my dishes.)
Caine:
Thanks! Added you back (‘cos I knew I was forgetting someone. Sorry sorry sorry!)
StarStuff, you’re getting warmer…
Audley, I was right there with you until the end. I don’t do the dishes. It’s the one chore I swear off. But I suppose I could be talked into it as long as the yard work was handled and there was a decent chocolate allowance.
I’m thinking of those cheesecakes you make, too.
Decisions decisions.
Dr. Audley and SallyStrange
Nice beginnings!
*chocolate* and *champagne*
Jules:
Well, dishes aren’t a deal breaker. How about a turtle tank? Would you be willing to clean that for me?
Bonus: I have no yard.
Of course cheesecakes, cakes, cookies, and pies will be thrown into the deal. I need help eating all of them anyway. ;)
I’m guessing that human_ape got banned without an announcement? I was trying to post a comment about him, but each time, my comment gets automatically filtered out by the software (and it isn’t because of links, since I tried taking them out).
(Either that, or it’s just a technical glitch. In which case I’ve just accidentally spammed a thread with several identical posts, and PZ is going to be very annoyed. If this is the case, many apologies. My brain is not working this evening.)
Chigau:
Thanks!
*swills champagne!*
Jules, we’d do pretty well on the domestic front! Wouldn’t even have to sex; we could both just find our own.
Supper tonight Chez SpokesFriends’ was fantastic. Whole lobster with drawn butter, seared scallops, green salad, mixed veg. mmmm. mmm. Brandy cordials afterward and. . . . a real live cigarette.
Oh, oh. . big waves to Sally!!!
…is someone offering housing? I do dishes every chance I get, volunteer at things, clean up after animals and sometimes sing loudly while working. <_< …I just hide under things a lot.
Ah, domestic bliss:
Kittehs and Kerosene.
This is my living room. The fabulous Aladdin kerosene mantle lamp with glass shade is on the table. Sophie Kitteh (Ms. Diabetes) is looking at the camera by my SpokesFeet, and Mink is luxuriating in the background on the recliner.
Josh: I am experiencing severe food envy.
@ Josh
For some reason your link only shows a frog…
(I am going to try and make cheese now… will report back soon.)
Do those lamps get smokey?
Josh wins. Oh em gee that sounds so yummy.
Pteryxx, if you do the dishes, I won’t mind at all that you hide under things. I mean, I only have about three pieces of furniture that you even could hide under, so that may be an issue. But I suppose we could build a sheet fort for you to make up for the lack of suitable hiding spots.
I might even have a beach towel to contribute.
‘Night, everyone!
@ Josh
No worries, fixed linky. Your house is looking really cosy (I won’t show my kittehz – they might get jealous.)
Theo: dunno the problem; works for me:(
Rey: No, they don’t. Contrary to popular misconception kerosene is extremely clean-burning. That was the major selling point that led it to displace whale oil and other animal grease in the mid 19th century as the primary lamp fuel. If you use quality kero (NOT “lamp oil”, which in the US is liquid candle fuel. We call it paraffin, but the Brits call kerosene “paraffin,” so it’s all confusing), K-1 clear low-sulfur kero, there’s no odor or smoking at all.
The Aladdin is especially good. The actual flame is blue. . .it’s a clean burner. The light comes from the heat that makes the element-impregnated mantle incandesce. The only time you smell kero is when you blow it out. None of the lamps emits any smoke. Also they don’t ping my carbon monoxide detectors.
theophontes
I really sorry you can’t see Josh’s picture because in addition to the lamps and kittehs, the orgy looks like a lot of fun.
dammit
WTF is this shit??? (NSFW… not safe for life).
Ugh. Even before I scrolled to the bottom of the article, I was thinking “Quaaaaid…start the reactor…”
Jules, much as I would like to see you and share chores with you, my advice is, “Don’t come here. There are too many mormons. They prefer no sex, or guilt-laden sex, or married-only sex, or you’re-better-off-in-a-coffin that losing your virtue.
On another subject, thanks cm @446 for additional info on human eyes. I passed it along to a few gleeful ex-mormons. It’s always fun to contradict a prophet of the lawd so handily.
Cheezits. Two typos in my last post. And it was a short one.
I’m giving up. One glass of whiskey, one haiku read out loud, and I’m for bed.
@ chigau
Hah! I see what you tried to do!
Josh, nice cosy looking lounge. soft cuddly kittehs. Great lamp.
Beats the hell out of my work desk.
*sighs*
Morning.
No good to be seen
#1 decided to come to my bed at 5 am and annoy me.
I kicked her out after a while but she came back and at 6 am I told her that we get up now. At that point she turned around and fell asleep while I was wide awake.
Kicked her out 90 minutes later, she isn’t going to sleep in, be rested and pull that shit again tonight.
Hmmm, I won’t go into the bidding for Jules.
Within a week the two of us would probably have gained 10 lbs but run out of kitchenware…
@ Pharyngufoodies
Wow, the cheesemaking went off really well. Super easy and nyummy. Recipe and picture here. (Yes, that is a slice of sourdough descended from Phoenicia.) I was really happy with the first attempt.
It also cost about 1/3rd of the store bought equivalent to make.
…
Idea for photos: Is there no way we can get little clickable thumbprints of pictures into our comments? That would be really cool.
Theo, that’s excellent!
What method are you using for bread? Kneading, no kneading? How long? That’s a great crumb. I need to get Phoenicia out of the fridge and refreshed.
theophontes
That looks like I must buy lemons today
+++
Now, everybody on FTB wanted to leave because of everybody else but since everybody else is leaving too, they’re going to stay just out of spite.
….
;)
@ Josh
I keep it very simple: Mix one cup white flour (Gold Medal All-Purpose) with two cups of brown flour (Marriage’s Organic Light Brown Plain Flour), just less than 1,5 cups filtered water and a large dollop of Phoeniciatje. Also a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of olive oil. Stir with wooden spoon and put the bowl in the oven at 40 degrees ( on timer on 90 minutes let it cool by itself thereafter) leave there for about 12 hours. It should rise like a giant marshmallow.
Cover surface with white flour and tip onto a kneeding surface. Gently fold and pound dough, dusting with just enough flour to prevent sticking. When you can pick up without sticking too much, put into clean bowl with a handfull of oats (regular uncooked porridge). Toss about in the oats to give a light coating. Leave in warm place for about half an hour as you let the dutch oven heat in the oven to 250 C. Toss about again to ensure dough not sticky and flip into dutch oven. Cut surface with bread lame or sharp knife.
Cook about 35-40 minutes with lid on and the same with the lid off (time will vary with size of batch – err on the longer side).
Remove from pot and leave to rest for at least an hour. Enjoy with fresh homemade cheese and gooseberry jam. Omnomnomnom….
Re: Phoenicia:
Theaphontes ended up throwing Phoeniciatje away! (“It was only yeast …”) Fortunately there was still a little bit of sediment in the bottom of Her jar. I have since managed to revive Her and will try freezing a few batches for just in case.
@ Giliell
Lemon juice works amazingly well. I was completely blown away by the way it curdled the milk so perfectly.
Christing fuck. A correspondent has sent me a long email detailing her recent time with a “medical intuitive” who’s a “cardiologist come [sic] herbalist” who has given her the secret to Super Heart Health™ while allowing her to continue drinking her favorite-can’t-give-it-up morning espresso.
She assures me this regimen is all good and most excellent because:
I am, you see, supposed to applaud her for. .
a. Not taking any Pharma Products™
b. Taking Conscious Control™ of her serious mitral valve prolapse and being Intentional™ about it.
Am I a bad person for sometimes not giving a shit if friends off themselves because they’re too fucking stupid to discern between reasonable treatments and the dumbass “nice” remedies that mark their tribe?
@ Josh
My attempts at some form of verbal chastisement came to nought. (I was loudly reminded of not cleaning up properly after cooking and baking. Somehow the chastiser became the chastised. We are talking some serious rhetorical tai chi here.)
I have long since discovered that total and immediate capitulation is the only way left open. (The same holds true for teh kittehz.)
theophontes
Are we talking about the “if I knock over your stuff it’s because you didn’t clean it up, but if you knock over my stuff it’s because you didn’t pay attention” variety?
Hate that…
Josh
OK, I’m intrigued: what’s so bad about the espresso?
And no, you can lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make it kick Ray Comfort.
I usually tell people the skeptical short-form and offer to give them more information, but it’s not my business if they don’t care.
(OT).Science under fire from ‘merchants of doubt’: US historian http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-science-merchants-historian.html
.
Also, Svante Arrhenius wrote his article about carbon-dioxide induced global warming in 1898, about the time Dubya’s ancestors invaded and annexed Hawa’i, and the last uppity indians were machine-gunned at Wounded Knee.