Cuttlefish had a relevant poem and song, so I thought I’d echo it here.
(Episode CCCXXIV: I’m surrounded by morons.)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Cuttlefish had a relevant poem and song, so I thought I’d echo it here.
(Episode CCCXXIV: I’m surrounded by morons.)
On wet afternoons during school holidays in the ’50s my mum would say “We’ll go to the pictures” (movies for American readers). Initially this got me excited, but invariably we went to see a musical and I came to loathe them. Somehow I missed out on South Pacific and can’t recall ever having heard this song until now. I can imagine it not going down too well in some parts of the USA.
Fuck you WordPress
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Hello all. I’m getting to that part of the school year where I am inundated with work. It’s completely nuts. Luckily, it’s only another 3 weeks left.
@mrbongo
A personal challenge to mrbongo, who does not have a clue about anything.
Please put your intelligence to the test. I challenge you to shut your stupid mouth and say something intelligent next time. This is a real offer. The best part about my offer is that it is free of all expenses. I doubt I will receive an intelligent response, though, since you are a fuckwit with no brains.
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
Mrbongo, could you please offer me the same sum to fly into, say, JFK, wearing the same t-shirt? Cos I could really use the money, and we are talking about US restrictions after all.
You’ve been carefully taught, I can see.
Oh, and… thanks, PZ.
Oh dear, I can see the conversation in here will be dominated for some time with the wet, tragic sounds of MrBongo being stomped to a pulp.
But I saw a hummingbird this evening, just feet away outside my very own window! \o/
mrbongo:
And your point is?
You know that when you just can’t win an argument, you’ll continue by saying “But what about physical violence” as if that has anything to do with the vaildity of PZ’s beliefs.
However, you should also know that applies to you. I doubt you’ll see that though, given the level of your stupidity. The porcupine bin is around the corner. Take one.
P.S. It’s PZ Myers, with one “e”.
Is everyone else as confused as I am about Mr Bongo?
In fact, I think he stole his challenge from Top Gear where the guys had to pass through the deep south with slogans like “NASCAR sucks” and “I’m gay” on their cars.
Not very inventive, are you, Mr Bongo?
Anyway, completely unrelated: I’ve recruited my dad to help Mr Darkheart* paint the nursery, yay! Now I just have to find a color that I like. :)
*Apparently, room painting is one of those things I’m not allowed to do any more. Harrumph.
What’s it with kooks and misspelling of PZ’s name?!
Call now, now NOW!!! (This offer limited to people dumb enough to call.)
++++++++
Well, that’ll take a while.
++++++++
Physically, yes, around the fumes? eh, not so much.
BTW, “allowed”? I’m fairly certain that it’s more like Tom Sawyer’s fence.
++++++++++++++++++
Thbthlpthblpthbthbthlbp.
Hi kristinc!
So, how were the hummingbirds?
Well, looks like mrbongo has infected at least two blog posts.
More. He’s done the copypasta thing on pretty much every single recent thread in turn.
Settle down and stop spamming, mrbongo.
“Allowed” should have been “shouldn’t”. *shrugs* My brain’s all sleepy…
Besides, it definitely feels like there are certain things that I’m not allowed to do anymore. I feel like a lot of my everyday choices have been taken away and it sucks. There’s a lot of pressure in being pregnant.
Hi, Sailor.
*hands Sailor a wipe-um for his shoes*
It was a very cute hummingbird. Brown. I suspect it’s been eating at my lilac bush.
Also, I bought an intriguing incense from a new Nippon Kodo line, Earth and Herb. It’s supposed to smell like chamomile. It’s … interesting. Almost smokeless, and pleasant, although it doesn’t much resemble chamomile to me.
@amphiox
Well, it shouldn’t be too long before he gets banne.d
kristinc, Eee! That is exciting. I see hummingbirds here a lot – we have a feeder, but I get way more excited about seeing them in trees and stuff. It’s so exciting that I sometimes get happy about being in California for that reason alone.
Sounds like win/win!
Thanks for the wipe-um. and extra thanks for getting the sound effect. I had to sample Mel Blanc, June Foray and Julie Kavner, but I had to pitch shift them and play it backwards.
If this is a real offer, then surely you wouldn’t mind giving me your city of residence. Don’t worry, I won’t report you as a sex offender, I’m just curious as to what they put in the water there.
Oh, and yes you did spell corset wrong. Five seconds and Google could have stopped you from looking stupid, but…never mind, you’re a chucklehead anyway.
I think his point is that we need to ban everyone of a certain range of skin tones from air travel or else America will fall to the Grand Muslim Caliphate, or somesuch.
Imma gonna shut up now.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart@12,
Of course not! Fumes and such.
If you think being pregnant is cramping your style, wait till you have a small baby to deal with! It’s not all bad and there are lots of compensations but it’s a big change. Best of luck!
Seriously fuck conservatives. And fuck atheist conservatives twice as hard for being just smart enough to be able to be double stupid.
@Ing
I share your sentiment.
Ing:
Thirded. I have a personal experience with that, some blithertarian idiot keeps annoying me IRL. Claims he’s an atheist too. Bah. Doesn’t make them not idiots.
P.S. He’s actually good at math, and really should know better than to believe in disproved fantasies all the time.
We’re fixing the garden.
Phase 1 done!
I am very sore.
yay!!
chigau:
Skooray! Have a rest. I’m off to bed as well.
Yo! Bongo!
I’ll take you up on your offer and wear your suggested T-shirt provided you wear a T-shirt bearing the words, “I’m an apostate Muslim and an atheist and I fully support Crudely’s T-shirt.
Respond to me here in this thread if you really mean what you say.
It’s one thing to be able to respond intelligently and effectively to a dangerous situation. That would be courage and resourcefulness and intelligence. It’s another thing altogether to go about tempting danger and mayhem. That would be plain stupid; like stumps or sacks of hammers.
I’ll bet you that twenty grand that you have absolutely no intention, or the sack required, to fulfill the bargain should Dr. Myers or I accept. Which we won’t. We are neither stumps nor hammers. Which are you, again?
mrbongo has met the banhammer. Furthermore, all of his spamming, repetitive bluster has been expunged from the system.
Bongo’s in the Dungeon now.
Jinx! PZ owes me a Coke!
mrbongo banned and deleted
and, once again, everyone who responded looks irrational.
meh. works for me.
Dang! Now I can’t hear Bongo’s measured and reasonable reply. Plus, I was trying to make a buck or two in the deal.
The Tentacled One is patient but when his patience is abused he strikes quicker than the eye can see.
I was driving this morning, along a farm road, and some turkey pulled out of a driveway into the road right in front of me. I’d seen what was going to happen, and got slowed down before I rear-ended the birdbrain.
I’m not insulting the person who was driving, because it was actually the wild fowl, Meleagris galliparvo, either a hen or a young tom. She ran a few steps, then took off flying ahead of me. The problem for her was that the road there was very densely lined with trees, and she had to keep going ahead of me. I kept my distance, and she climbed out over the trees and turned out of sight.
It was lovely to see.
I let this one fly in peace, but the one time before when I’d caught up to a turkey on a tree-lined road, there was a dense canopy overhead, and the poor bugger was forced to stay about windshield level. I couldn’t resist the urge to catch up for a closer look—but not too close.
It was most impressive to watch. Turkeys are big birds, with short but wide wings, built for short bursts of flight, and are quite prettily colored.
I did a bit of research to partially justify annoying that poor bird. In case you care, an Ozarks turkey can fly at 45 miles per hour. And look damned good doing it.
Wild turkeys are clever, too. One morning I was sleeping on the edge of an open field, and woke to see a turkey walking across the field. He passed well behind a small bush, and didn’t come into view on the other side. I lurched to my feet, and could see over the bush. He was running, low and head down, straight away from me, screened by the bush.
When I first saw him, I hadn’t moved much more than my eyes, and the turkey was nowhere close, and the bush was roughly halfway between the two of us. And he hadn’t given the least indication that he’d seen me. He just kept calm, used the available cover and got the heck out.
Very clever.
Menyambal
Try that “turkey on the road” thing with a moose.
chigau, I once looked under the belly of a bull elk, and realized that the first contact we were about to have would be between his body and the windshield of the Opel Kadett that I was a helpless passenger in. His legs and the hood weren’t going to even meet.
He jumped and we slid, and I always go slow through brush country.
Except when a turkey is right there at eye level …
(My brother had a deer jump off a road cut and land on top of his truck.)
Did I just miss out on a fresh troll? Must have been very malodorous if did not just use the banhammer but also used the pressure hose to clean out the mess.
Good morning
Bill Dauphin
I understand that things work differently in the USA than in most parliamentary democracies in Europe but that’s no fucking excuse for Laden, especially not after several people told him so.
Menyabal
Hihi, I had a similar experience like that with cows some years ago. We were driving over the moors in Ireland and all those free-range animals there have kind of gotten it into their head that people in cars are harmless while those out of them are dangerous. So, they wouldn’t move and I needed to get out of the car while Mr. was driving slowly behind me.
Well, they sureley moved out of my way, along the road. I walked faster, flaying my arms, they started to trot, I started to jog, they trotted faster and I ran behind them, madly swinging my arms and shout Booooooh, boooooooh! At that point they decided that this pace wasn’t worth the effort just to stay on the road instead of walking over the moor and quit the game.
When I looked behind me, Mr and the car were quite at some distance. He was crying with laughter and had stopped the car lest he’d end up in the moor.
Audley
Can you see me?
I feel with you. I had smoked salmon waiting for me in the maternity ward each time after delivery.
If you’re comfortable with it, train the dark baby and the dark PIL early to get along with each other so that Mr. Darkheart and you can nip some time together. It’s pretty hard to stay spouses and not just parents the first time with children. Sure, you want to enjoy your new life as a family together, but it’s important to remember that the two of you are the basis of it and that the babby was the result of that, and it’s not that babe that ties you together.
Ms. Daisy Cutter @3:
Thanks for posting that. It made my day. Maybe there is a higher power it just really hates sycophants.
Aaaaand FtB ate my comma. Bastige.
Oooh-hooo, I’ve made it into Greg Laden’s moderation chamber.
Must be doing something right :)
A tool to help those stuck in an abusive relationship
“Screening for intimate partner violence proves beneficial” http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-screening-intimate-partner-violence-beneficial.html
“Psychopathy linked to specific structural abnormalities in the brain” http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-psychopathy-linked-specific-abnormalities-brain.html
In a rational society, children would be screened and those with these abnormalities would get appropriate help, ranging from cognitive behaviour therapy to whatever else is needed. It cannot be cured, but people with it can learn to function better.
Ehm, no please.
The article is about one small study (only 66 participants). They say the psychopaths had “significantly reduced” grey matter, but it doesn’t state what “significant” meant in that context* nor how broad variation in general was.
It also doesn’t tell us anything about how that happened. By scanning violent offenders after the fact it doesn’t tell you whether that difference was there to begin with already when they were children nor how it developed.
It may be that some day research is advanced enough to make a prognosis so accurate that it justifies scanning all children and to treat all who fit crtiteria XYZ, but I think that we’re a loooong way from that.
*Since I read that “significant” in MRIs can be so finely defined that researchers managed to get a significant response from a dead salmon, I’m very carefull when i read that phrase (it’s somewhere in Delusions of Gender, I’ll dig it up if you want further referrence)
I’ve been to (North) India and Pakistan. I politely and gently refused to participate actively in both Sikh and Islamic religious rituals to any extent, other than merely standing there silently enjoying the view so to speak, and was treated with nothing but courtesy and tolerance.
These crazy brown folks with their funny religions seem awfully nice, by and large. I wonder why that is?
It couldn’t be that the vast, overwhelming majority of these people are not well represented by some apparently homogeneous, extremist caricature drummed up for TV by journalists using old fashioned rent-a-mob tactics could it?
Nahhhh.
Brown folks in Foreign™ can’t be real people who just want to feed their families, get on with their day and maybe have the occasional chance at a better life than the one they have. I forgot the first rule of being a Westerner: brown folks are a bit crap.
Racist former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz once said:
“I’ll tell you what the coloreds want. It’s three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit.”
It’s a quote I’ve never understood. Who the fuck doesn’t want that?* When will racists, just like Butz, realise that what separates Arbitrary Group A from Arbitrary Group B is infinitesimally small compared to what they share?
Louis
* Yes, yes, I know, I know. It is what is called An Joke. Anyone who made that quote seriously is beyond a bigoted dullard.
Kudos for that admission of error, ibyea. I made an error in my response too: the Communist Party of Greece is, unfortunately, the KKE, not the KKK. It’s a hardline Stalinist outfit, I understand, while Syriza is a loose coalition covering ecosocialists and Trotskyists among others. The third party to the left of PASOK, the Democratic Left, is what used to be described as “Eurocommunist” – which means strongly pro-EU, and moderate left – not communist. Both the KKE and Democratic Left rejected overtures from Syriza to join a coalition, so it’s very unlikely the latter will succeed in putting one together (even the three together would be way short of a majority – they would need support from at least one of PASOK and the anti-bailout right-wing “Independent Greeks”, and toleration from the other). PASOK won’t be able to form a coalition either (the top 3 parties all get a bite at the cherry), so new elections look inevitable. What happens then is anyone’s guess, but it’s hard to see any pro-bailout-agreement government being formed. Because of the odd rule that gives the party with the most votes a 50-seat bonus, New Democracy and Pasok together were only just short of a majority, but if they had tried to form a government after seeing their joint share of the vote cut from over 77% to 32%, there would quite understandably have been riots. I suppose the public could have scared themselves enough to push the ND and PASOK votes up to something more respectable in a second election, but any government they formed would still be very weak.
Things are beginning to look as if they could line up for a roughly north-south split in the Eurozone: Hollande wants a shift to growth policies, as does Mario Monti, the “technocrat” PM in Italy. While Spain has a right-wing government, it’s obvious that austerity there is having a disastrous effect, so they may well join a Franco-Italo-Greek lineup against Merkel. Interesting times.
Giliell:
I can!
Thankfully, my mom has already offered babysitting services, so Mr Darkheart and I don’t get too overwhelmed.
Honestly, I think I’d be having a much harder time if I didn’t live so close to my family.
Yes, please
The fucking trouble in Germany is that “austerity” seems to be our new national motto. Even if elections would swing government, I don’t see a social democratic one change that much.
I mean, why should you tackle the debt problem by taxing the rich if you can do it by starving the poor.
If you ask me, this is a full-blown attack on the rights, yes, of the 99%.
The top 1% don’t care that much if the economy crashes around our ears. Let’s face it, they have enough fucking money not to care. But taxes and stuff, they care very much about. Being banned from certain areas in most of Europe still because people have some nasty ideas about healthcare and education, that bothers them. Working people having some protections, that’s terrible.
So, drive the continent at the brink of disaster, make sure that social security and rights get pushed over the edge, that all the public property that belongs to everybody now belongs to them afterwards and be happy for the next 100 years until people have recovered and fight back again.
Audley
It definetly is. Don’t know what I’d do without my mum in law at the moment.
It’s only 7:11 am here and I’m already ready for the day to be over.
Was up till midnight dealing with one server issue and wake up to work-out at five and, for the life of me I do not know why, I checked my phone and…
a completely different system down.
SO
No workout, stress, and 50 emails from people telling me the same thing
“Rev. BDC did you know that server X is down?”
/rage
What is your problem man ? I’m going on a 3 week holiday to China, and love interest has just informed me that she will take me for a morning walk each day, as is her habit. Turns out, she goes at 4am. I managed to haggle her down to 6am. 6am ! There goes the holiday….
Hmm, I was just about to comment that elections at some level over the past few days in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Greece have all shown a swing to the left and to anti-austerity parties; but the two clearly don’t coincide neatly. However, until this batch of voting, the right here in the UK were crowing about how it was “centre-right” parties that were benefitting from the crisis because people trusted them in hard times. I think that was partly a kind of optical illusion as supposedly centre-left parties such as Labour in the UK, the PSOE in Spain, PASOK in Greece and the Socialists in Portugal, which had been following right-wing policies anyway, were in government and so getting the blame for the crisis; but it’s also become increasingly clear that the “austerity” answer to the crisis is a disaster for everyone but the rich.
I just found out that President Obama is going to be in Albany this afternoon.
My entire day just got fucked.
It’s entirely possible that South Pacific was not shown in your neighborhood because it was suppressed as being in favor of miscegenation — or Communistic. It was felt in some quarters that it was rude and inappropriate for such light entertainment as a musical to include a song that offended racists by calling them racists.
This quote from Earl Butz was actually good: “At the 1974 World Food Conference in Rome, Butz made fun of Pope Paul VI’s opposition to “population control” by quipping, in a mock Italian accent: “He no playa the game, he no maka the rules.”
Yes; I know Italians may find the mock Italian offensive, but it was the “offense” to the Guy In The Funny Hat that got Butz in trouble.
If you think being pregnant is cramping your style, wait till you have a small baby to deal with!
FWIW, personally I found being pregnant much more of a lifestyle inconvenience than having a small baby. A small baby can be passed off to the partner, mother, mother-in-law, etc. A fetus can’t. Plus the baby didn’t make me constantly nauseous. Especially since I got lucky on the baby chores. (Two basic jobs: input and output. I was breastfeeding. Guess what that left for the partner to do…) Also I actually slept better with a small baby than while pregnant and way better than during residency. It’s all in what you get used to, I suppose.
Maurice Sendak has died
“And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”
Paul Simon, Yo-Yo Ma reel in Polar Music Prize http://www.thelocal.se/40700/20120508/
.
Sweden has a mini-Breivik: “Malmö shooter set to face murder charges” http://www.thelocal.se/40666/20120506/ Fortunately this asshole was less effective.
.
Swedish sperm becomes ‘bestseller’ in China http://www.thelocal.se/40684/20120507/ (bull sperm, that is. It’s not like that Beavis & Butt-head episode)
So clearly what we need is The turn of a friendly card .
Or maybe just an Eye in the Sky.
Dianne,
That’s what’s bothering me– once Darkfetus is out of me, I’ll be able to eat shrimp and have a couple of beers and hopefully sleep (I can’t get comfortable anymore). I’d be able to paint and lift things and do normal people things.
It’s not so much the “lifestyle change” that Ray alluded to, it’s the fact that (even though I want to have a kid) I don’t feel like my body belongs to me anymore.
Agree w dianne that a small baby can be passed off to the partner, parent, parent-in-law, etc. No reason grandfathers should miss out on all the fun ;-)
I forgot to mention; Yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the Hindenburg fire, giving airships an unfairly bad reputation.
Audley, I agree. I don’t even like beer or shrimp and it bothered me that people felt the urge to tell me I couldn’t have them while I was pregnant. Not that that aspect will get much better after the birth: then people will tell you that you should or shouldn’t breast feed (in or out of public), should or shouldn’t have the baby in a sling or stroller, etc. Blow them off. Every baby is different and yours will do best in whatever works for you and him or her.
The problem is that, at least in the US, your body kind of doesn’t belong to you when you’re pregnant. There are all sorts of laws and customs that make it public property. Hard to imagine adults putting up with the sorts of restrictions pregnant women are put under in any other context. It’s like being in middle school again. This is part of the reason why I’ve got one child, not two: I was too scared to get pregnant again knowing that I might end up in a Catholic hospital dying of complications and having people just watch rather than help. Paranoid, maybe, in New York, but not outrageously so as recent cases have shown.
Audley
I know how you feel. I think it becomes better once you can feel them rumage inside of you
Forgot to include this: “What is Obama doing about unemployment” http://cartoonbox.slate.com/tedrall/2012/05/07/
Have been squabbling with the pro-female-enslavement people on Jen’s blog a bit the last few days. One thing that strikes me is that they don’t seem to know anything. One poster seems to think that it’s illegal to back out of a transplant once you’re in the donor pool and doesn’t know that a teratoma is often the product of a fertilized egg. None seem able to explain the difference between an embryo, a fetus, and a baby. And so on. It’s disturbing.
Well if you want to eat shrimp whilst pregnant (prawns in the UK) then you need to come to the UK. The official advice is that the shellfish is OK so long as it is properly cooked.
The advice re drinking is that it should be avoided, but a small beer or wine once a week is not going to be a problem.
Jesus, man, we conceived during the 2006 World Cup, after weeks of intent game watching, he is 5 now and can count to a thousand and find the constellation Emu in the night sky. Anecdotal evidence anyway…
Maurice Sendak has just died.
Dianne:
Yes! This is what I’m frustrated about, exactly.
I think (for me at least) that all of the pressures of being pregnant are magnified because I don’t know how the fetus is doing at any given moment. Sure, all of my check ups have been good and I feel pretty okay, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Whereas with a baby, you have indications if something is wrong or you’re screwing up, you know? In other words, if someone criticizes my choice to breast feed, I can at least say, “look at my baby! Darkbaby is fine! Now toodle along, you nosy ass.”
Seriously, though, if everyone would just stop giving me the stink eye because I haven’t given up coffee, that’d be great.
Thankfully, I live in New York and I have reproductive/abortion services available to me and my state’s not one of the crazy “personhood” states. That doesn’t mean that it could never happen, it just means that for the time being, if I need to have an abortion, I don’t have to jump through all sorts of abusive hoops to get one.
Oops. PZ beat me to it.
Seriously, though, if everyone would just stop giving me the stink eye because I haven’t given up coffee, that’d be great.
Coffee? Seriously? Coffee is now on the no go list for pregnancy? Caffeine isn’t a teratogen until you get to massive doses. I don’t think you could even do that much caffeine in coffee.
Personally, I gave up caffeine after pregnancy because I didn’t want the critter to have even worse sleep patterns than she already did, but that’s a different issue. Not sure it helped either.
I had never heard of Sendak. But I was also told tonight of the Chinese legendary figure of the Monkey King, who seems to be a mixture of Ben 10, Transformers and the Avengers, conceived in the 16th century.
ahem
#58
Matt and rorschach:
Ha! Drinking is strictly forbidden! What, do you want my future child to be rejected from Harvard*?
And shellfish? SHELLFISH?? *faints!*
Seriously, there is no such thing as moderation when you’re a pregnant American woman. It’s either you’re a saint with your diet and activities or you’ve doomed your future child to a life of hardship.
No, it doesn’t make any sense to me, either.
*Nevermind that early on in the pregnancy, there was a bit of whiskey drinking with Josh. Whoops.
Audley,
The drinking thing I can understand sort of, but what is considered to be wrong with shellfish ?
Sadly, they don’t have to.
Dianne,
Yup. I don’t remember the exact amounts, but I believe that my pregnancy book said 16 oz (2 cups) or less of coffee was okay, but anything more than that would increase the chances of miscarriage. But, then again, the authors of the book also mentioned that it has not been confirmed that low amounts of caffeine effect the pregnancy at all. So who the hell knows?
But that’s exactly what I’m talking about. If there’s even the tiniest indication that a food could cause complications, it’s on the forbidden list. And even if your doctor is okay with low levels of caffeine or alcohol or shellfish or whatever, that doesn’t stop strangers from passing judgement on the obviously pregnant woman doing something wrong.
Matt:
Mercury. Shrimp (prawn, whatever) and other bottom feeders can have high levels of mercury from industrial pollution.
It’s a pleasant thought, isn’t it?
mmmmmmmmmmmmmm mercury shrimp and grits
As I understand it mercury accumulates in the body, so surely shellfish with high levels should not be on sale full stop ?
that doesn’t stop strangers from passing judgement on the obviously pregnant woman doing something wrong.
Late in pregnancy, when I was feeling particularly grumpy, I used to respond to people like that with, “Oh my god! I DO look pregnant don’t I?” The results are hilarious if you’re in the mood for some dark mental slapstick.
Matt,
One would think, but this is the US we’re talking about. We don’t have a very good track record of monitoring the food that’s for sale.
FDA? What’s that?
I don’t know about that. High levels for a child or an adult are not necessarily high levels for a fetus. It could be more risky or have worse effects at that stage of development.
rorschach
What, wait, what?
I mean, no “Where the wild Things are”?
I still love that book.
Dianne
Bethany, the woman who thinks that strikes me as young, not sexually active (most likely a virgin) and thinking about babies! cute! romantic!
It’s not my intent to shame virgins, but I hope people get what I mean: she has literally no clue about the meaning of a healthy sexlife with somebody else. Neither first hand nor by listening to somebody else.
In short: incredibly naive and also not very good at logic.
It kind of strikes me that although legally I’m much worse off than women in the USA, it seems like factually I’m in the better position. People seem to be much more tolerant and compassionate for women and their decissions. Especially with late-term abortions, which usually actually mean that women lose a wanted pregnancy.
pregnancy list
I didn’t drink (much. I occasionally sipped at Mr.’s glass and I had a damn glass of crèmant on my wedding day), I abstained from raw milk, meat, fish. After my miscarriage I was pretty paranoid at first but then I quickly noticed that I could either relax or starve to death.
Audley
Call that the “can I move into my OB/Gyn’s for the next 9 months, please”-syndrome.
*hugs* if you want them. You’re neither the only one nor crazy.
mercury in fish:
mercury poisoning:
It almost certainly is more dangerous, but that does not mean there is not a risk to adults as well. Remember, with heavy metals they are not excreted easily, so they build up over time.
Giliell,
:)
Thanks. You guys have helped me realize that my thoughts and feelings are pretty typical for pregnant women and I can’t thank you enough for that. I’m so grateful for the support that everyone here has given me– it’s definitely set my mind at ease about a lot of things.
Cr,
(And I fail at blockquotes. Last paragraph is mine.)
I agree it’s risky for everyone, but I don’t follow this:
Fish/shellfish with high levels is on sale, if you’re talking about high levels for fetuses or young children. It basically wouldn’t be sold at all if those were the standards. And that’s okay (if we’re only looking at it as a health issue, leaving aside environmental and animal rights issues). It should be available commercially, because while the risk is still present for adults, it’s an “acceptable” level of risk for adults, who could presumably be aware of it and moderate their diet accordingly.
Ehm, most shrimp nowadays are farmed somewhere inland (with other problems like antibiotics). Does the mercury problem pertain for them, too?
Dianne
I see you’re being nasty over at Jen’s :)
I agree. It’s better to be safe than sorry, of course, but I don’t see a problem with eating it in moderation (in terms of what the fetus can handle). I don’t know the science behind it, but I guess if you got enough Selenium, that would tend to offset the effects of the Mercury.
Well I know can’t tell how much mercury is in fish just by looking at it, so quite how people are supposed to be able moderate their consumption escapes me.
Given what Rey Fox quotes at #23, I’m somehow not sorry I missed Mr. Bongo. Ew. And I bet he likes to criticize Muslims on women’s rights, too.
Dianne:
Fixed.
The US limit for level of mercury in fish for sale is 1mg per Kg, where as the EU (and thus the UK) the limit is 0.5mg per Kg.
@95: I stand corrected. Bit depressing though. I was hoping the Republicans would lose interest in my vagina once I hit menopause. If they’re going to keep sniffing around after I turn 50 the least they can do is start buying me dinner first.
If food inspectors are doing their jobs, it’s not likely you’ll eat many fish that have high levels of Mercury, so you can get a reasonable estimate of what your intake is without having to rigorously test every meal and compare that to your dietary recommendations. And you could moderate consumption simply by not eating lots of it every day, as well as (apparently) getting enough Selenium to balance things out.
Every woman in America needs to incorporate herself, an then appoint herself as CEO of her uterus (and sole shareholder).
That’s the only way she can get Republicans (corporations are people too) to view and treat her as a human being.
And she’ll get the bonus of corporate tax rates.
How to tell? Well that’s easy. Stick a silver needle into the fish, the darker it turns, the more mercury it’s got! Seriously, anyone who’s ever watched a martial arts movie should know this!
Oh wait, that’s just for arsenic based poisons….
@Audley,
I know what you mean where pregnant women’s bodies don’t belong to them. I’ve watched it happen with so many family and friends and it makes me crazy.
I had a friend who was so afraid of cakes I had made that had included liquor as flavoring that she refused to try any. It was so frustrating.
Looking at the advice for pregnant women given out by the NHS, it seems that the advice regarding diet is pretty much the same as given to the rest of us, the standard low fat, low sugar, high fruit and veg diet.
The only exceptions seem to be not to eat marlin or similar fish (whereas the rest of us can eat one portion a week), limit caffeine intake to the equivalent of two cups of coffee a day (4-5 for the rest of us), limit alcohol to 1-2 units a week (21 for non-pregnant women, and avoid soft cheese, unpasteurised dairy products and pates due to the risk of listeria (fine for the rest of us without impaired immune systems).
Matt,
The problem (in the US, at least) is that the health advice varies doctor to doctor. Now, I’m sure that they would all pretty much agree on the low sugar/fat, high fruit/veg advice, but they’re all over the map on everything else.
Like alcohol. My doctor has said that I should drink absolutely no alcohol, but my SIL’s OB/GYN has said 4 oz of wine a week is perfectly acceptable. Some doctors will tell you that one serving of fish a week is good for fetal development, others will tell you that the mercury is too much of a risk. And so on and so forth. There’s no consistency.
Slignot,
Your poor friend. But I completely understand why she reacted the way she did– you’re not just trying to keep yourself healthy and make the best decisions about fetal deveopment, but you’re trying to keep everyone else happy, too. Plus, as I said above, there’s no reliable way to judge what you should and shouldn’t do.
As for me, I would have eaten your delicious, delicious cake. :)
Still not caught up. And I might actually, for a change, do some work before catching up.
I know that feeling :-)
I suppose that is another problem with having the healthcare system you do, and the total lack of planning for it.
@ many previous:
I never wanted to be pregnant, and never will be, but for some reason I do have a fascination with the whole process. Don’t know why.
But anyway, I reiterate my best wishes for Audley and fetus. Moderation is good; especially in moderation. *hugs*.
@Audley,
I understood too, and tried not to make a big deal about it (beyond assuring her that it was flavoring added to the batter before I baked it, thus making it safe). It wasn’t her fault that she was trying to navigate tangled Mormon & Catholic mommyland where every move she made was scrutinized and judged. She didn’t have a very easy pregnancy, and was nauseated for so long and so much of the time that she needed medication. That got judged too.
I just wish she’d been able to relax a bit and have a slice of cake. Cake makes everything better.
I sometimes think the world would be a better place if grannies were put in charge. Think how the leaders of Iran might be if they were offered some cake and hot chocolate if they behaved themselves.
Slignot,
Cake does make everything better. :)
Thunk,
Awe, thanks. *hugs back!*
Audley: you’re always welcome :)
Rick Warden has some interresting advice for Prof. Myers.
Rick Warden has some interesting sexual fantasies that he projects onto others.
Also the FSTDT comments are hilarious.
What does fucking a sheep have to do with empathy…?
Also, does the bible expressly forbid fucking sheep?
I’m just not up for all of this sofistikated theolololology
Sheep? Pfffff. They run away at the sound of a zip. Now your goat…
….both sexes have horns too.
So I’ve heard. I mean I don’t know. Brownian told me about it. Honest.
Oh Brownian.
Louis
Goat penises resemble pink pencils.
Also I saw a male goat piss on his own beard once.
That is all.
Dano’s infesting Mano’s blog now.
I think bibles written in Welsh specifically allow it.
Matt, do Welsh bibles forbid thee to covet thy neighbour’s sheep?
Yes but you’re supposed to kill the sheep as punishment. I’m not quite sure what the rule is for then if it protects neither man nor sheep. It’s more fiat morality, do this or else.
I think it depends on how pretty they are!
Oh god, I forgot how much I love fstdt.
Evolution is false because there is no such thing as an ape!
(I kind of want to take this person to a zoo.)
Dr Audley: Maybe he thought that people meant sasquatches? Maybe chimps and gorillas are just ‘big monkeys’?
TLC:
That makes perfect (fundy) sense!
It also means that the author of that quote wouldn’t be nearly as fun to take to a zoo as I first thought. Unless you could convince them that gorillas are bigfoots (feet?).
Hmmmmmmm…
*blinkblink*
Okay.
I roll to “Disbelieve”.
–
Rmoney –
Hee.
Staff meeting.
Boss (in a tone I would describe as “not respectful”) referred to “St. Francis of Collins over at the NIH.”
Audley, I’ll be passing through your stomping grounds on either the 17th or 18th of this month. Food, socializing, me giving you blankie for the Darkbaby?
Incidentally, I’ve finished the green one (as I said), and I’ve started a second. :D
rorschach:
Eye in the Sky was the first CD I ever owned.
The only LP I own is Stereotomy, autographed in silver pen by Eric Wolfson.
I have to say, though, that Try Anything Once is probably my favorite album. I don’t think there’s a song on the album I don’t love to turn up as loud as possible, even the instrumentals; I have it on a gold CD. Mr. Time, for example, is just awesome.
Oddly enough, it was only later that I found out that APP’s first album covered Edgar Allan Poe, who was probably my first “favorite author”. Their audio rendition of The Fall of the House of Usher is damned near perfect in my opinion.
Ehehehehehe
My favorite slight against Collins was one of his cohorts for HGP praising him as “a wonderful ADMINISTRATOR”
Oooh, Ing, that’s nasty.
My main problem with Collins isn’t that he’s stupid. I don’t think he’s stupid – he’s produced some decent work and is, in fact, an able administrator.
My problem is that he seems rather set in his ways, which is not good. Flexibility is important, especially in science!
(then there’s the whole goddist thing)
I don’t think anyone says Collins is stupid….except when he tells his waterfall story and expects people to not call him stupid.
Caine! I was at the park today and watched three or four young starlings having Worm Problems(TM)!
I’m pretty sure it was their first time discovering worms because every time someone caught a worm they would be visibly excited and also visibly unsure exactly how to proceed with it. Then the others would all notice that the lucky kid had a goodie and come after her, and she would run away doing a fair impression of MINE MINE THE WORM IS MINE, during which time the worm would wrap itself around her beak in a ball. Every time she would get away from her siblings, unwrap it, and turn it around to try and swallow it, it would ball up again. Then another bird would catch a worm and it would all start again.
We must have pretty smart worms.
Caught up till comment 500 of the previous subthread. And submitted that manuscript review.
(Lefties? In North America? What lefties?)
What, you don’t anymore???
How ignorant. Has Laden never heard of…
Oh. Two-party system. No, he probably has never heard of the concept of a protest vote.
Heh.
OT: I know some people here game, has anyone picked up the DL game Awesomenauts for PS3/Xboxlive?
It’s a very fun pick up and play pvp game I found with art style meant to invoke 80s SAT AM cartoons.
Really? If you want to collapse into a crying ball on the floor, go on Twitter and read #stuffheardatzoos. The Tet Zoo twitter feed has posted a few quotes, and… just… no.
E,
Shoot me an email and we’ll get together for food. :)
Ing,
I read SAT AM cartoons as S & M cartoons and I was starting to wonder what the hell you were doing in the 80s and where I could fine these cartoons. ;)
Anyway, I was gonna take another crack at Red Dead Redemption (I’m out of stuff to play), but I’ll check out Awesomenaughts first.
David,
Of course I still ♥ dinosaurs, just not with the same burning passion as when I was six years old.
Sheesh, I’m stenciling them on the nursery walls, aren’t I?
Your email is @ gmail, right, A? Not yahoo?
They obviously do condone bullying, and they blame the victim.
Yes E. I emailed you back!
Has anyone else posted this yet? “Everything you need to know about Mormonism,” by Alex Pareene.
OK, my brain has failed.
I know that earlier we talked about me meeting someone in Boson next weekend, and now I can’t remember who. I thought it was Mattir, but apparently not.
Halp?
E,
Daisy!
Thanks for linking that, Sailor.
Also, the bullied gay student is black. Co-incidence? *dun dun dunnnnn*
Tee hee hee. I was feeling nostalgic and bought a cheap wristwatch. It’s rather cute, but way smaller than I remember from 20 years ago.
via BB: Long multi-part expose on the ubiquity, health hazards, and history of flame-retardant chemicals.
BB summary:
http://boingboing.net/2012/05/08/lies-damned-lies-and-flame-r.html
Chicago Tribune series (parts 3 and 4 upcoming):
http://media.apps.chicagotribune.com/flames/index.html
Weed Monkey @ 148: I went with the one that had a calculator. I could enter the woman I was chatting up phone number in the memory.
Ahh, memories.
p.s. I deliberately didn’t use a possessive ‘s’
also, too, I couldn’t figure out where it was supposed to go.
Continuing my 150, I went back to that basic design for 20 years. $5 for the most accurate timepiece that has ever existed in history? What a deal!
I’ve never understood why people still think expensive watches are cool, especially if they think watches with hands are cool.
The Sailor,
‘Cos my expensive watch is solar powered. And that’s pretty freaking cool.
Pteryxx: Whoa. Seriously whoa.
What a conspiracy on the sofa i’m sitting on.
Keep finding cool stuff :)
The Sailor:
What, you mean this sentence?
I could enter the woman I was chatting up phone number in the memory.
If so, a simple rephrasing obviates the issue, thus:
I could enter the phone number for the woman I was chatting up in the memory.
The Sailor
Oh yes, the calculator Casios were the hot stuff at the time. As well as Nintendo handhelds. (Mind you, I was quite young)
Hi, Esteleth!
Audley, since you’ve posted your Gmail addy here already, could I possibly email you and ask you to forward my address to Esteleth, please?
Sailor:
Eh… obviously, a lot of it is status jockeying, but some analog watches are really beautiful, and generally speaking those aren’t the $5 ones.
Anyone need some rage fuel, (probably) sans triggers, this evening? I give you one Charles C.W. Cooke, courtesy of Roy Edroso. I like this comment at Edroso’s place:
Interesting and informative interactive graphic summary of Australia’s recent Federal Government budget (2012-13).
Daisy,
No problem!
Lawrence Block slipped in a Mathew Scudder novel when my back was turned. “A Drop of the Hard Stuff”
I’ll be in my bunk.
Daisy, my addy is esteleth AT gmail.
Easy-peasy.
Audley, a question:
I finished the green blankie, and now I’m thinking of making this in this yarn (the color in the top row, far right column, Sea Spray). You like? I have the yarn on hand and my fingers are getting all itchy.
So for help with my homework I head on over to OpenStudy.com. While I wait for people to help with my calculus, I try to answer questions that I know the answer to. This one started out silly but what can you respond to “I’m a Christian…” Is there anything polite to say to this kind of conversation killer?
transcript (names changed…)
Start of Thread:
What came first, the chicken…or the egg?
kantalope: eggs definitely the eggs…chickens were too scared to come out first
P1: the omelet :)
P2: Chicken in the form of birds and then transformed into hen
P3: I think that due to mutations in the DNA of living things, the egg came first. If the “animal” that laid the egg can be considered to not be chicken but almost one, then the final mutation that occurred which resulted in an a chicken hatching from the egg laid by the “almost a chicken animal” would explain why the egg came first.
P4: The chicken, if you’re being serious. There would have to be a chicken to be an egg. @P2 You mean evolution from a bird type thing to a hen? (Not possible, but okay.)
…
kantalope: for your chicken knowledge enjoyment: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/chickens_eggs_this_is_no_way_t.php
there does not need to be a chicken for there to be an egg…dinosaurs laid eggs a mere 64million years before there were chickens
P4: @kantalope And how did the dinosaurs come to lay eggs? How did they appear?
kantalope: Off the top of my head, they had an ancestor that had some mutation that helped protect their reproductive cells – natural selection favored this change by passing it along to more offspring that those that did not have this mutation and souffle!…you get eggs.
more reading for your eggjoyment: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21557469
or if you like reading non-academic science but just as eggciting: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/story/2012-03-24/earliest-mesosaur-embryo/53750010/1
P4: I don’t agree with your view. Sorry.
kantalope: thats ok – but you should read the usatoday article anyway – it is pretty cool.
Are facts and evidence a “view”? I guess, I don’t know. I don’t think so.
P4: See, I’m a Christian, and in the Bible, it says God made all animals and humans. To me, there is no such thing as evolution. I’m not interested in reading that thing, because those are not facts, those are lies.
E,
Oooo, I like!
Amendment One passed in North Carolina. Dammit.
kantalope: good on you, and no there’s no way to be sufficiently polite and still disagree. I mean c’mon, “Those are not facts, those are lies” ? Coupled with refusal to even READ the evidence? Why is this person even reading OpenStudy instead of just reading the Bible over and over and praying for enlightenment? Yeesh. Anyway, rock on.
Jessa:
*headdesk!*
Let me get this straight: it is now enshrined in NC’s state constitution that same sex marriages, civil unions, and domestic partnerships are illegal, right?
They totally did, Audley.
The only Approved™ way to live in North Carolina is in a heterosexual marriage. This includes stripping the right of unmarried cohabitating couples to protection under domestic violence laws.
E,
Holy fucking shit. Just when I thought Amendment 1 couldn’t get any fucking worse, whoop there it is.
Well, the amendment says that only man-woman marriage shall be recognized as a legal union in the state, and that the state shall treat no other type of union as equivalent.
It will probably take a judge ruling so to prove it, but people who study the law say that the domestic-violence thing is pretty clear-cut.
is the wording vague enough to invalidate parent/child relationships too?
Giliell:
Oh, I emphatically did not mean to be making excuses for him; tried to say so right at the beginning of my comment.
It’s just that I often catch myself making false analogies between the U.S. Congress and European parliaments; I suspect it’s a larger cognitive gulf than most of us (on either side of it) realize, most of the time. I imagine Europeans frequently think we USAnians overemphasize the importance of individual seats in the legislature: Y’all no more grok the fact that we don’t have “backbenchers” than we grok the fact that y’all do.
As for Laden, I never read his blog in the first place (so many blogs; so little time…), but based on trusted reports here, I have not the slightest shred of a reason to make excuses for him.
***
birger:
This is a sort of Nobel Prize for music? Well deserved, in both cases, and… holy shit! Paul Simon is 70!?!? Gah, I feel old!
No, because parent/child relationships are not analogous to marriage.
Bill:
You’re totally right about the importance of each individual seat in Congress here.
I only dimly understand the concept of a “backbencher.”
It’s an MP who isn’t famous? Isn’t in the Cabinet?
Uh…
Basically an MP who isn’t in the Cabinet. Traditionally, the cabinet (and opposition shadow cabinet) set on the first row in the House. All the other MPs, therefore, are on the “back benches”.
Depending on what the PM wants to do and how he wants to run things, a back bencher can easily be reduced to a tape recorder that only plays “Yeah” or “Nay” come voting time.
But the amendment does not say marriage it says “Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.”
and apparently whatever a “domestic legal union” might be is undefined.
roomates? I ain’t payin the phone bill and you can’t make me.
certainly child/parent is domestic and a legal combining to use the legal term.
sounds like it could be argued that they invalidated any domestic contract that is not marriage.
Note, however, that backbenchers are not always powerless. Strangely analogous to how any individual senator in the US can nix any legislation he wants by filibustering so long as he can convince 40% of his colleagues (consisting of his own party) not to actively oppose him (they don’t even need to support him), I do recall at least one case where a single provincial backbench MLA in Manitoba succeeded in using a procedural loophole to sink the entire Meech Lake Accord.
Think about that. A single MLA in one province of the country stopped a piece of legislation that was negotiated by the Prime Minister and all the Premiers of all the provinces. One man. (Another province ultimately also sunk Meech, but even if they hadn’t, that one MLA would have been enough. Though this was only because the PM made the rather dubious strategic choice of insisting that Meech Lake must pass by unanimous provincial consent when he didn’t actually have to.)
Right then. Considering that the Cabinet in the US is (1) part of the Executive, not the Legislative and (2) non-elected, the whole paradigm of equivalency collapses.
I guess the closest you could say is that a MoC isn’t on any significant committees. But that’s a reach.
I don’t think so. Same sex unions have always been illegal in NC, AFAIK. This amendment just means that they refuse to recognize those unions when made by other states, (like pinko commie New York and California).
I wonder how that will work for them logistically. A same sex couple married legally in New York visits NC for vacation, and suddenly they’re not married anymore, and are married again after leaving? What happens if such a couple moves to NC after being married in New York, or if they work in NC some of the time so their taxes include some state taxes to NC?
If enough other states legalize same sex marriage, NC will find itself in one significant legalistic and administrative morass, and it’s going to cost them a pretty pretty penny to untangle.
NC already banned same-sex marriage. What this has done is what Amphiox says, AND pre-emptively ban civil unions and recognition of domestic partnerships of ALL kinds.
Remember that most Parliamentary systems evolved out of prior more authoritarian systems rather than through some flamboyant revolution. There are preserved vestiges of the old authoritarian heirarchies. In parliamentary systems, there are distinctive tiers of authority, with the PM on the top, the cabinet following, and the mass of the rest of the MPs on the bottom.
The American system was envisioned from the beginning to be anti-authoritarian. It is a house of cats without any effective leaders, and designed to be so. The one thing the founding fathers feared the most was for some very charismatic individual to win power through elections and then use his charisma to subvert the system and make himself a king. They designed the system to prevent this. The quite consciously made a decision to prefer deadlock over any vestige of authoritarian leadership. Individual congresspeople can actually do pretty much anything they want, if so inclined. The President’s internal power of the government he is supposed to be the head of is actually rather neutered, by design (he’s separated off into an entirely different branch of government, for one thing). And the Speakers of the House and Senate Leaders only marginally more powerful with respect to their individual houses.
Subsequent White Houses have accrued power to themselves over the years, but the basic outline remains the same. Domestically, a US President can do jack squat by himself. In a Parliamentary system, when a PM wants something done, he can get it done, if he is even half-way competent.
I’m sad about Maurice Sendak, even though I haven’t (re)read any of his stuff since my daughter was an early reader.
Less well known than his books were his set designs for opera and ballet. Back when I was an undergraduate and my mother was an arts reviewer in Houston, Sendak designed Houston Grand Opera’s production of The Magic Flute, and I got to see it. Very recognizably Sendak, and very magical.
Also, over the years he gave some very thoughtful and moving interviews to Terry Gross on Fresh Air; I imagine she’ll rebroadcast at least one of them this week (if she didn’t today; as a podcast listener, I’m always one day behind).
***
The electoral news out of NC is a bummer, but I wonder if it will ultimately mean anything: It’s such a radical overreach that I can’t imagine it will stand. State constitutions are trumped by the federal constitution, and I think ultimately the attempt to strip even civil union rights from not only gay couples but cohabiting opposite-sex couples will hasten the federal settlement of this question.
Well, I can dream, can’t I?
There is a tiny bit of good electoral news tonight: Dick Lugar lost the Indiana Republican primary to a tea-party type, which means that seat, which had been seen as safe, is now in play as a possible Dem pickup.
Bill, there is precedent for that – Prop 8 in California – but it is admittedly a reach.
Of course, all of this is going to wind up before the USSC, which is frankly terrifying, considering the Court’s current makeup.
Remember that this is a constitutional amendment: My (admittedly imperfect) understanding is that one of the goals of this was to preempt any attempt to recognize civil unions (or, IIRC, even grant any legal status to unmarried opposite-sex couples) by statute.
Happily, even state constitutions must conform to the federal constitution, and that’s where I think this fight will ultimately be won.
Unless, of course, the next couple Supreme Court vacancies are filled by a Republican president…. <ScaryMusic>
Just sent to my local Arts/Politics/Leftie weekly paper:
Pterryx:
Wait for it, and brace yourself. They were right. Once they were forced to make “fire-safe” cigarettes by state law, they all started tasting nasty. They tended to go out if you left them 30 seconds in an ashtray. But they did not reliably go out when dropped on furniture/carpets. I have burn holes in my Subaru upholstery from “fire-safe” cigarettes.
Total bullshit waste of time.
Constitutions, both state and federal, can also be changed. We must not forget that.
Dammit NC. Screw governing or solving actual problems, it’s all about the oppression! *spits*
—
Unrelated awesome:
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-05/paralyzed-woman-completes-london-marathon-bionic-suit-after-16-days
Omfg, yes. So damn annoying. Goes out in the ashtray, burns through your shirt/pants/blankets etc. Fire safe my ass.
Amphiox, I’m with you on state constitutions, but the federal one is hard to amend. It was designed thusly.
Josh: I’m sure, but the argument is that the flame-retardant chemicals don’t work either, and are toxic to boot. We’d be better off with no chemicals and ordinary fire-causing cigarettes.
(Personally I’m inclined to doubt that the industry honestly attempted to make fire-safe(r) cigarettes instead of just making them nasty so that smokers would hate the concept. But, I’ve never smoked and don’t know much about cigarettes or cigarette technology.)
JAL-
Can’t remember if I brought this up with you, but if you wanna save money and feel like you haven’t actually quit smoking, email me for my electronic cigarette buyer’s guide. You won’t believe how good it is and how much like smoking it is without the nasty health effects. Not to mention it costs 1/5 to maintain vs. a tobacco habit.
No lecture (I loved me some smoking and would do it again if I could get away with it), just a friendly offer.
I looked and looked, but AFAICT this article does not have an Onion byline or a 1 April date! How can it possibly make sense for a sitting member of the U.S. Congress — especially one representing East Rightwingville, MN — to become a Swiss citizen. D’ya suppose she got Switzerland confused with Sweden, and thought she was bonding with her Scandinavian-descended MN neighbors? <HeadScratch>
***
Josh, OSG:
I confess I have a bit of a soft spot for letters to the editor, owing to my political work. I think there’s a place for them, even in an online publication. They are not, however, mutually exclusive with comment threads: The latter is instantaneous and reactive; the former, more like mini/guest editorials. IMHO, a good online news”paper” will have both. In fact, a good online paper will allow comments to the LTTEs!
Agreed. It comes down to human action, and there will always be someone who falls asleep with a lit cigarette.
I don’t know the science of the formulation, but you need to understand they were forced to make such cigarettes in recent years by legislative action. It’s not a question of doubt, it’s a fact. Tobacco companies have no interest in making smokers hate their products—that’s ridiculous when you consider it, especially considering the legal hurdles they face.
What lots of progressives don’t understand is the absolutely venal and depraved exploitation of smokers (not exploitation of tobacco companies, exploitation of smokers) by self-styled health advocates and legislatures. Since it’s acceptable to shun smokers it’s easy to pass taxes on tobacco that are so high they go beyond the deterrent effect and simply punish already low-income people who can’t or won’t stop. It’s morally perverse and obscene, and it has nothing to do with wanting to “help” people. They take the loot and plug the road-building budget gap with nary a thought to fulfilling their promise to fund (ineffective) smoking cessation treatment. And no one calls them on it because, hey, it’s just white trash trailer park smokers, after all.
Liberals are the worst offenders. The absolute worst. I’m not surprised you don’t know about this, but trust me, it’s fucking disgusting.
That’s the problem with this paper, Bill. You can’t comment online. You have to submit a letter (complete with all the boring, outdated bullshit like your day and night phone numbers so they can “confirm” your identity or some dumb shit like that) and wait for it to show up next week in the dead tree version.
Don’t get me wrong: I like Letters to the Editor too. But they shouldn’t be seen as the Only Proper Way to Talk to The Paper. They’re not the same thing as blog comments.
Esteleth:
Yes. State constitutions ought to be hard to amend, too, but too many of them are not. The whole point of a constitution is to provide a stable framework of basic law on which the more fluid statutory and case law can depend.
In too many states, though, it’s relatively easy to amend the constitution (often by public initiative), and you end up with essentially a parallel set of statutes. Back when I was in college in Texas, there were (IIRC) more than 300 amendments to the state constitution, and invariably two or three new ones were on the ballot in every election.
Along with all the other electoral stuff that was going on in 2008, in CT we had a drive to force a state constitutional convention, for the specific purpose of writing initiative and referendum into our constitution. The proponents were hoping to eventually get a Prop 8 style amendment on the ballot here, but that would’ve only been the beginning of the mischief, I’m sure. Thankfully, we were able to defeat the constitutional convention ballot question, and our constitution remains properly difficult to amend.
How Game of Thrones will end:
Daenarys discovers that dragons can travel in time and rides one back to the previous Spring. A bunch of out-of-work dragonriders follow her to the future Winter and defeat the
threadice zombies with blasts of dragonfire. She rescues Westeros and is proclaimed Empress, marries J’onsnow and rules happily ever afterJosh, OSG:
I couldn’t have said it better myself (though I likely would’ve used more italics, and maybe thrown in a ™ for shits and giggles). We are in perfect agreement.
Pteryxx, I saw that story.
Remarkable technology, but the claim is of course bullshit.
(She stayed at a hotel overnight and was transported to her previous location each day, totally negating the whole point of a marathon being a single uninterrupted journey)
dexitroboper, you fucker.
You owe me a new monitor.
No, I agree. I’m not sure what DOES work but taxing the fuck out of addicted people isn’t right.
Well, with the caveat that I’m completely brainstorming here, I don’t find it that incredible. If there’s a way to make fire-safe-ish cigarettes that don’t suck, but they’re more expensive to make and/or less addictive, thus cut into the company’s profits, I’m entirely willing to believe that they’d just use a cheap nasty alternative so that smokers in all the states that *don’t* have such a law will raise an unholy stink (so to speak) and help prevent further laws being passed. Big exploitative companies aren’t known for being nice to their customers even when legally compelled to do so.
Observed on my Facebook news feed: A friend posted a story about a golf fundraiser for a charity benefiting “Survivors of Homicide.”
I know what they mean, by that, of course, but am I a horrible person for momentarily imagining the zombie apocalypse?
And with that, I bid thee good night!
@KG
So, the KKE are left wing authoritarians, is what you are telling me. I don’t know enough about ecosocialism and Trotskyism to know whether they are authoritarian or not, or whether they are completely unrealistic in terms of economics and human nature (like libertarianism, which is authoritarian and unrealistic). Time to wikipedia!
I wouldn’t call that bullshit to the claim “she finished the marathon”. More like a necessary medical accommodation. Or do you really think someone paralyzed from the chest down should not get credit unless she walks for 16 days without stopping? Sheesh.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4304859/Bionic-Claire-Lomas-finishes-marathon-after-16-days.html
Satisfied? Ass.
Against Me! singer Tom Gabel announces plan to transition to Laura Jane Grace. One of the songs from (I think) New Wave mentioned that Tom’s mom would have named him Laura; I haven’t really “followed” the band in awhile but I can remember a few songs that were probably at least partially about gender dysphoria.
The article says she’s the first “major” transgender rock singer, but I feel like there have been others. Am I just imagining that or did Rolling Stone overlook people?
No offense to you, Pterryx, but understand that you’re completely disconnected from the reality of smokers and politics. Smokers have no clout. None. They have negative clout. If they dare to show up at a committee hearing to protest a tax hike they’re laughed at publicly and accused (even in print) of being hired plants for Phillip Morris. Most of us have been so beaten down we won’t even show up anymore (I say “we” even though I don’t smoke anymore out of solidarity).
The shaming and social de-legitimization is so complete most smokers will shame-facedly apologize for being smokers and say they’ve got it coming.
The antismoking literature is filled to the brim with blatant, unapologetic tactics to demoralize smokers. Again, not tobacco companies, smokers. The term used is “spoiled identity.” I’m not kidding, and it’s not just a fringe in the public health community.
Josh: Okay. I didn’t realize it had gotten that bad… I remember helping a local cigar/wine bar in Seattle organize a campaign against tobacco taxes (which failed) so that niche at least tried, back in the day. I still wouldn’t put it past the cigarette companies to produce cheap crap instead of costly quality stuff, but I’m just guessing.
<blockqu I still wouldn’t put it past the cigarette companies to produce cheap crap instead of costly quality stuff, but I’m just guessing.
Oh, neither would I, and doubtless they’re doing it. All soulless corporations do. I’m just pointing out there’s no customer pushback because smokers are completely eliminated from political engagement.
It’s been that bad for years and it’s getting infinitely worse. Respectable medical journals are now publishing opinion pieces from surgeons who recommend denying knee/hip replacements to patients who don’t stop smoking. Because it will “encourage” them to do so. No, I’m not making this up.
Companies and cities in states around the US are refusing to hire smokers or anyone with nicotine in their system, as detected by drug screening, even if they’re chewing nic gum to stay off cigarettes.
This is the new normal. It’s not outrageous; it’s considered perfectly acceptable cocktail party conversation among the progressive “health community” set.
Josh: Have you got some convenient citations or sites to follow this up? It sounds like the same bullshit as fat-shaming by health care personnel.
@Josh
What?! Why is it their business what people do in their own time? ARrrgh!
Pterryx—It is indeed the same. In fact, many of us smokers predicted years ago this would spill over into hiring/firing overweight people. IMPORTANT—smoker shaming came first. Firing smokers came first. This was the template that allowed fat-shaming to be institutionalized.
And we were right. Read Prof Michael Siegel’s blog (MD). He’s a doctor/researcher at the Boston University School of Public Health who was instrumental in testifying against tobacco corporations in the 90s to help the government reach the Master Settlement. He’s utterly horrified to see that his colleagues have turned their guns on the smokers themselves and abandoned science. This guy is NOT a friend of tobacco.
It’s too bad hundreds of us were trying to tell him years ago that this was a moral prohibition campaign, not a scientific or compassionate harm-reduction approach. He didn’t believe us until it got dire.
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/05/in-my-view-smoker-free-workplace.html
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/04/orthopedic-surgeon-recommends-refusing.html
With all due respect, wake the fuck up. This shit has been building for years and the only reason y’all don’t know about it is because you don’t have to think about those dirty smokers. Now it’s coming to you if you’re overweight.
You need to twig to the prohibitionists and lifestyle crusaders. They’re dangerous, and they’re effective.
ibeya,
I think the logic is that a smoker will take breaks to smoke, thus cutting into productivity. Oh, and smoking is unhealthy, so they’ll get sick more often, thus cutting into productivity. And go to the doctor more, thus cost more money to insure, thus driving up the cost of the employee insurance plan. And stale smoke stinks, which is offensive to other workers, thus cutting into productivity, and to customers, thus cutting business/sales.
Of course, none of those statements are necessarily true.
Okay, it’s past midnight and I’m done arguing with idiots. E, if you’re still around, keep fighting the good fight.
Everyone else: Sweet dreams (or godd day, as the case may be)!
And even if they were they wouldn’t justify firing smokers and making their lives a living hell while taxing the living shit out of them. You did mean to mention that, I’m sure.
Although I disapprove of it on moral grounds, I am grimly happy to see this stuff starting to affect people other than smokers (right now it’s fat people). Maybe when the smug non-smoking but still sub-optimal-health middle class fucks start feeling the pinch then they’ll start giving a shit about it. And giving a shit about people other than them. Even dirty trailer park smokers.
Nighty-night, Audley.
I’m trying to explain to the moron the concept of majority groups dominating culture, but I don’t feel like I’m making much progress. :/
…My first impression is that all those arguments could be applied to pregnancy or breastfeeding.
Breaks (for whatever reason) actually tend to increase productivity, that much I know.
and, I do admit that I haven’t had close smoker friends in years, between the fundie upbringing on the one end and being violently sensitive to cigarette smoke on the other. (Which annoys me. I had damn good party friends whose homes I had to stop visiting rather than throw up for two days.)
TLC @116, that’s how male goats (bucks) perfume themselves to advertise their masculinity.
All of those statements can be applied to pregnancy and breastfeeding, Pteryxx.
With minor tweaking, all of them can be applied to fat people, people with disabilities, people with chronic illnesses, women, and people of minority racial or ethnic groups.
Ah, it’s amazing when the light dawns. All of a sudden, once we can see how these restrictions would affect someone we can identify with sympathetically (a pregnant woman), we begin to see. . .just a glimmer of how it might be wrong to enforce them on someone we can’t identify with (a smoker).
See, cuz it’s not bad enough when it happens to a smoker. We have to appeal to the consequences for Sympathetic People™ in order to recognize that it’s a shit way to treat humans.
I know I’m being harsh, but I hope you think about this. It’s important.
@Josh
It’s not that I am entirely naive about this. It happened with other kinds of drugs. But to see this extending is frustrating. I detest moral crusaders with a passion.
Bah. I’m tired of going in circles with that moron in the other thread.
I have a staff meeting in 8 hours.
Night, all.
Josh, I’m not a smoker, but I do get the parallels between crapping on smokers to crapping on others.
Holy shit.
For a long time, I was entirely complicit in the smoker shaming. When I was a child, I was even thinking of the extremes of banning it altogether; and shunning going to a friend’s house. I honestly didn’t realize how deep I was ingrained in this (admittedly I relaxed in recent times) until now.
Holy shit, it’s everywhere.
P.S. I’ve also had quite a few problems with fat-shaming myself over the last 10 or so years; I keep blaming myself for it, and for being a picky eater, and thought it was entirely good to do so. I’m glad you started discussing this BS. Thank you all.
And g’nite everyone. Another day of homework slog for me; you better have fun so I can vicariously enjoy it. :p
Um, I hadn’t HEARD about denying smokers medical care or drug-testing employees for nicotine. I’ll cop to being an ignoramus and short of smoker friends these days. And thanks for the links so I can research it… frankly I’m thinking smoker-shaming in these contexts deserves a full article somewhere, if I were up to it. If you wrote something up, Josh, I’d totally read it.
(I’d ask my one close smoker friend about his thoughts on healthcare, but he’s also a hardcore Libertarian… sigh.)
Thank you Thunk, Ibea, and Esteleth. It’s good to know my soapbox gets listened to once in a while.
I describe myself as a former Professional Smoker™. I inhaled two packs a day for 22 years, and I’d do it all over if I could get away with it without killing myself (which, of course, I can’t having had a heart attack at 36). I like smoking. I like the taste, I like the feel in my hand, I like the throat burn. I like thinking of myself as a capital S smoker. Girl, I look good with a cigarette in my hand. It fits me.
I never had any illusions that what I was doing was somehow not harmful (this is a point antismokers don’t get—we’re not fucking stupid. We just make different cost-benefit analyses.) Somehow, though, that choice, alone among all other “stupid” choices about health, has come to be so universally demonized that it’s perfectly fine for newspapers to print comments such as, ” I can’t wait to watch you hack your lungs out in hell for eternity.” Think I’m joking? Think again.
We’re the new lepers.
Fffff…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2136999/No-treatment-smokers-obese-Doctors-measures-deny-procedures-unhealthier-lifestyles.html
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/05/02/147427/no-smoking-proposal-pits-employers.html
Markita Linda: Yeah I had a feeling it was something like that.
Still. I saw a goat urinate on his own face. That was good for at least an hour of chuckling.
Sometimes I’m easily amused, and I don’t consider it a bad thing.
I also used to snicker whenever the horses would fart on the farrier.
My good friend will die soon if she doesn’t get a kidney transplant. She was not even approved to get on the transplant list because (despite trying so hard she gave herself an eating disorder) she couldn’t lose enough weight.
Good that you see what I mean, Pterryx. I hope everyone does. This vile anti-humanitarian shit has been going on quietly for years, causing outrageous suffering. The only reason it’s getting press now is because people who don’t have “spoiled identities” (read: fat people, but only tenuously. . they’re working on it, don’t worry!) are starting to be affected.
We scum-of-the-earth chav-trash-council-estate-trailer-park tobacco fiends are well used to this.
@Pteryxx
I guess the Hippocratic oath means nothing to those doctors.
Dear god help me, but I wanna murder someone right now. What. . the. . .
I can’t even. . .
kristinc, how sad! Operations are less successful when the subject is very overweight, so her doctors might be trying to get her into the probable success range. I don’t suppose anyone recommended a nutritionist that your friend could work with?
Even if she had succeeded in losing the weight and getting on the list. They wanted someone in kidney failure to go on a drastic diet and lose a huge amount of weight in a short time. Someone in fucking kidney failure. How the fuck does that make the slightest sense?
dianne@57,
Coming to this from the dad side the biggest lifestyle changes came with the birth. My spouse didn’t experience nausea except for a few weeks in her third month and felt well enough to work full time through much of her pregnancy, we were lucky in that regard. After he arrived: the sleepless nights, feedings (nursing & bottle) and diapers (O.M.FSM. the diapers!) plus worrying if we were “doing it right” wore us down. We had limited and occasional help from family, but we were both exhausted for a looooong time. After adjusting over the first 4-5 months we eventually got a handle on it, but it was a more difficult time for us than the pregnancy. At least that’s how spouse and I remember it. Of course, everyone experiences it differently.
Sorry for the long boring post and late response, hearing about others’ experiences brought back memories.
Oh, also, if she had been able to lose the weight, in order to get on the list her family would also have to have passed a financial audit with a certain amount of money in her savings account. I fucking hate the US.
Thanks for the offer, I’d gladly take a copy for future use. Right now I’m rolling my own though so it’s about 20 bucks per month. Cheapest I can go. I dread having to quit cold turkey. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh
YEP! Been there, done that. More than once, actually. Fucking sucks.
Like it’s sooo easy to get a job as it is here…
Pteryxx:
Not in the slightest.
Whatever distance she covered before giving up and going to her hotel is the portion of the full marathon distance that she actually finished.
(What she did was a sixteenth of a marathon)
Josh, I’ve felt the boot of the anti-smoker crusade upon my ass once or twice, but I really had no idea it was this bad. Damn.
… some studies (>survey) show her risk of death would be up to four times greater if she remained obese.
Others are going for the stomach surgery to force weight loss.
I’m all for not breathing second-hand smoke but not for shaming smokers. Inhaled drugs are the most addictive.
Modified transplant technique can work on obese patients.
Just a Lurker:
Then email me to remind me goddammit. You DON’T have to quit cold turkey. E cigs are cheap and unbelievably easy to acclimate to. You won’t feel like you’re quitting at all.
Girl, trust me. I got down to one Marlboro a day 6 months before I even knew I was going to have a heart attack, simply because the e-cig was such a good replacement.
Holy goddamn shit. I’m so sorry. =( I don’t even know what to say.
Fuck I hate this country so fucking much.
——-
Canada needs to grant asylum for people in the US and get a fund set up to help the poor out of this hellhole. Bet you I’d be a productive member of society there
Fuck >.<
I also want to say I have absolutely no words for Kristinc’s story.
Gah – operations aren’t THAT much less successful due to obesity, and when the alternative is y’know, DYING? *growl*…
I’d like to see some citations to back up that ‘should be feasible in most patients’ weaselling, personally. (Thanks for the links, Markita Lynda.)
—-
re smoking: I will say, exhaled and sidestream smoke actually can affect the health of exposed non-smokers, though that still doesn’t justify outright discrimination against smokers. I’m one of those freaks that (some) smokers deny exist, who can get nausea and headaches from even a brief exposure such as from a cigarette left burning outside the door to a building. I still don’t condone worthless measures like campus-wide smoking bans – designate plenty of shelters that aren’t right next to doors and air intakes, for petes sake, instead of expecting people to walk half a mile each way off campus property every time they need a smoke. And, most people who complain about nasty smoke aren’t actually sensitive to it like I am – they just loudly complain because it’s socially sanctioned to call smokers names. (and, in my experience, the loudest complainers wear the most gallons of horrible perfume. <_< )
and, I'm rambling. Oy.
Markita Linda, her risk of death if she doesn’t get a transplant is 100%.
100%.
And that’s an acceptable risk level, apparently, because she’s a grosso fatty mcfatterson. She doesn’t even get a chance.
… Well…. “Fuck” comes to mind.
JAL: As a canadian I’m all for that idea.
Hey Pteryxx, .
(In sixteen sessions of 30 seconds at a time)
Pterryx, I’m with you. There are some people who react horribly to cigarette smoke. Most people are just contemporarily not used to it and make a big dramatic Drama Llama fuss.
Having smoking areas away from buildings and air intakes is a sensible, reasonable solution. I wouldn’t have dreamed of smoking in someone else’s house nor would I have stood upwind of anyone, especially if I could see it was distressing them. Only assholes would do that.
That didn’t stop douchebags from deliberately walking next to me so they could fake-cough ostentatiously, however. You can’t win.
So, yeah. Tell us again why it’s reasonable to suggest a nutritionist? And why it’s OK for her to just fucking die?
Hey John, don’t we generally make concessions for the disabled in sports? Concessions that allow them to compete in their own way, and though it’s obviously not the same as a non-disabled person’s ability, we still generally celebrate it anyways?
Or am I misunderstanding the whole point of the Special Olympics?
My good friend did die while awaiting a heart-lung transplant.
Xe was morbidly obese and had emphysema (and was an ex-smoker).
They wouldn’t operate unless xe lost weight, xe couldn’t exercise ’cause … emphysema (see the O-bottle?)
fat, smoker (and female)
in Canada
oh my
So this is what “triggered” means.
yikes Chigau. *offers fluffy anklehugs*
Man, I loathe that shit so much.
Also, since we were talking about pregnancy and parenting earlier.
It’s a good thing you quit smoking before you got pregnant and god forbid if you start it up again later.
I didn’t start smoking til my child was two and am very conscious about not smoking around her. Doesn’t stop assholes from telling me I’m a horrible, horrible mother who was blessed to have a healthy child, which should go to a good loving family.
I’m in hate everything mode.
Someone, somewhere take a drink for me! A big ass drink. Or a shot. Or several…
TLC:
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. I celebrate it for what it is, not for what it pretends to be.
4. No, you’re not. Basically, it makes those people for whom pretence trumps reality feel good about themselves on a spurious basis.
J_A_L, done.
John Morales
So the Special Olympics are precisely like the “Normal” Olympics?
chigau,
Not in every sense; the regular Olympics feature the best of the entire population, the Special Olympics feature the best of certain subsets of it.
[PS]
I did get your drollishness, chigau.
(It has occurred to me I should note this, and the implication is that your opinion apparently matters to me.
(And you don’t even think you’re Molly-worthy! Bah.)
John Morales
*blush*
And if you think those folks the regular Olympics are in any way representative of the entire population, you have not spent any time in the company of “high performance athletes”.
I was checking out some of the old threads about the New Scientist cover debacle, and someone posted the following “New” “Scientist” cover:
http://i41.tinypic.com/fxvwb8.jpg
The magazine does seem like it’s headed in that direction, all too often.
Recently, they let Feduccia do his “No, no, no birds are not dinosaurs; I don’t know what archosaur they came from, but nope, not dinosaurs nohow. Those feathered dinosaurs found in China? Really totes flightless birds. Yep.” schtick.
Good morning TET! I am moved into my new apartment – I still have some boxes to unpack, but they’re mostly just books to go on my bookshelves. Snip is adjusting fine, despite a couple frantic hours of him being disturbed, but he slept with me all night, so he’s happier now.
The apartments are huge! I have so much extra room now. And most important, I have a door to my bedroom. Still a few more things I need to buy, but aside from that, everything’s perfect.
For non-regular viewers, Colbert showed some extra footage of his interview with Maurice Sendak last night.
Kat:
Yay, new apt.! Double yay for a new, huge apartment!
Josh and JAL:
God, I miss smoking.
Anyway, Lurker, I’m gonna second Josh here. I quit cold turkey, but Mr Darkheart couldn’t quit when I did. He tried, he tried really hard, but with all of the stress and his anxiety, he just couldn’t do it.
On Josh’s req, he bought an e-cigarette and he loves it. He’s not constantly on the verge of running to the store to buy a pack, the vapor doesn’t bother me at all (it has no smell), and he’s been experimenting with all sorts of flavors. It’s a win-win-win. :)
Owlmirror@ 260:
I looked at the cover and thought I might also be looking at a recent Discover magazine. Maybe they’re owned by the same woo pedlars.
@nobody in partickler:
Since I have no outlet for it, FUCK YOU, YAHOO.com! I was in a feisty mood and decided to weigh in on the North Carolina gay rights debacle and someone at the place didn’t like it that I wasn’t pulling punches and messed with my meat-tearing diatribes against bigoted assholes. I didn’t use them librul cuss wurdz, I used what I would call ‘strong language’ to tell these idiots to check into constitutional rights and the purpose of republic style government to avoid tyranny of majority.
Of course, in reality what I really wanted to do was deflate their tires in the wee hours on a work night, and shove garden hoses turned to full blast in their basement windows while they’re away on vacation. And maybe write ‘REDNECK TOSSER’ with Roundup on their lawns. Nothing too deadly.
Katherine, congratz! Yay doors! So glad you sound happy instead of AAAAAA…
—
Wil Wheaton being awesome:
and retweeted:
@Pteryxx:
I was AAAAAAA yesterday after getting moved in and seeing all the boxes. For a short while I had massive anxiety and was completely overwhelmed. Then I just steeled myself and worked on one room at a time, and I managed to make it through the entirety of my bedroom and kitchen boxes, and about half of the boxes for my computer area.
And both of those will most likely be coded as death due to comorbidity with obesity, and used to prop up the idea that obesity costs our healtcare billions!!! a year and kills people. Because it was the obesity that killed them, not the absolute refusal of the medical community to touch them, don’tcha know.
katherine – yay! It sounds atrocious, but the thing I love most about moving is unpacking. It’s a chance to set up a whole new set of rooms in a whole new way without having to move things around the setup you’re already used to. It’s like, I dunno, a new set of Legos or something. But then again, I’m the person who has a carefully-stashed envelope containing to-scale diagrams of each room in the house and tiny to-scale cutouts of all of the furniture to play rearrangement with.
Hi there
Katherine
Welcome home, here’s the bread and salt for you!
re:smoking
Well, I’m kind of torn.
I’m opposed to fireing people, not hireing people, not allowing them to take a smoke, not to allow them some sheltered place near where they don’t disturb anybody who doesn’t poke their nose into it, seriously, it’s not like there can’t be a way for reasonable people to meet everybody’s needs.
But the vocal German smokers are whiny assholes who pissed me off a long time ago with their total unwillingness to have any consideration for non-smokers and who Godwinned the debate long ago by claiming that they were totally the new Jews for not being allowed to smoke in bars and restaurants and having to smoke in smoker’s shelters at train stations and airports.
And I’m thankfull for fire-safe cigarettes. The people living underneath us are smokers, they smoke, by the smell of it mostly on the balcony and in their bedroom and everything I know about them has “irresponsible” written about it. And I don’t meant the fact that they’re smokers.
kristinc:
Oh fuck. Shit like this makes me rage.
*raises wingclaw* I totally did this too! …and I still hate moving. >_>
…
Wait.
Are you telling me that everyone doesn’t do this?
I have moved many, many times.
Every time, it was truck: shovel in: drive: shovel out.
So no, everyone doesn’t do that, you weird people.
carlie:
I’m so with you on this. :) This is why setting up the nursery is so exciting for me right now– I get a room that’s a completely blank slate that I can do anything with, but I don’t have the added aggravation of packing/moving/unpacking boxes*. Yay!
Anyway, I didn’t sleep worth shit last night, so I’m taking today off. Anyone else want some peanut butter toast? *munch munch munch*
*I was using the room for extra storage, but there wasn’t that much in it. Plus, I made Mr Darkheart move everything out.
E,
Ha! No.
Hell, when I move, everyone’s lucky if I bother to label the freaking boxes. :p
Oh, yeah, the other memorable thing about moving back when we had kids: every time, after all the bulk stuff was loaded, we’d discover the floor was swimming in little plastic junk toys, like the crap from McDonald’s happy meals. I think that stuff reproduces somehow.
I spaced on this last night.
…
…knowing what I now know about discrimination, I want an expose of transplant-eligibility decisionmaking. This is bullshit, and even universal health care doesn’t necessarily mean the doctors doing the evaluation aren’t fatphobic, smoker-phobic, racist, sexist, classist or some other form of bigoted that has fuckall to do with best outcomes, much less who “deserves” a chance at not-dying.
Moving: I actually only want to move once more into a house of my own (hey, i can dream, right) and out of that I only want to move with my feet forwards.
Well, we’ll see.
The best thing about this flat was that it’s identical to my in-law’s flat, so I could do all the planning while comfortably sitting at their couch table, sipping a coffee and meassure things there when I needed.
What I recently discovered were that I’d kept the calculations how much we spent on everything.
Ptyrexx,
Remember, Dick Cheney had a heart transplant recently. Prior to that he had, what, half a dozen heart attacks or something?
How is that decided? That just doesn’t seem… right to me.
Well, I’m not good enough to have made the cutouts before moving; it was done while trying to somehow magically create another bedroom in the same space we have to let the kids not sleep in the same room (the solution ended up being child 1 taking matters into his own hands and calling squatter’s rights on the basement). But now they exist, and are carefully guarded for all future use.
When we moved from the apartment where both kids had been born, we found pacifiers in nooks and crannies everywhere. Child 2 had been squirreling them away for safekeeping, which explains how he always managed to pop up with one every time we were sure that we had gotten rid of them all.
Ok, I worded that badly. The kids were NOT born in the apartment, we just happened to be living in that apartment during the time period in which parturition occurred.
Random interesting crap on health and fat-shaming, found from sniffing about via Markita Lynda’s link on safe kidney transplantation:
—
http://red3.blogspot.com/2012/05/results-still-arent-typical.html
—
http://wellroundedmama.blogspot.com/2012/05/fetal-over-testing-in-last-trimester.html
—
http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/punishing-employees-for-their-size-bad-idea/
Complete aside:
The Bag Balm worked! I used it for one night and already my hands look like, well, my hands! Instead of beef jerky.
So far, I’ve had success with natural peppermint soap and the Bag Balm. My skin is starting to feel like it used to, yay!
…Libby Anne is my hero now. Not just for being Ken Ham’s worst nightmare (see PZ’s post) but for this:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/05/sex-ed-for-the-preschooler.html
From comments:
♥♥♥
“Birds not dinosaurs” -it takes a long time for obsolete concepts to die. Here is an analogous example:
.
Austerity challenged:”Waiting for Copernicus” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-feffer/waiting-for-copernicus_b_1501149.html
Went to a presentation at my kid’s school on body consciousness and fat shaming and learned that now not only are girls being shamed about their bodies, boys are too. I’m all for equality and showing men what it means to have people objectify you 24/7 sounds good in theory, but when it means 7 year old boys being called fat and starting on diets…can I have my inequality back?
Yeah, I know, that’s not the right attitude. No one should be shamed about their bodies and all, but we don’t seem to be making any progress on letting girls feel comfortable with their bodies, just making things more equal by making everyone feel like crap about the way they look.
ibyea,
Yes.
Authoritarian: ecosocialism, no, not in general (I sometimes call myself an ecosocialist); Trotskyism yes: Trots can be nice people individually, and useful because they tend to be very dedicated, but at least in my experience, they only ever join a coalition with the intention of taking over, and if they find they can’t, will sooner or later leave again.
Unrealistic? Again, Trotskyism yes, because Trots persist in ignoring the numerous cases in which a “vanguard party” becomes dictatorial and corrupt if it gains power, and the complete lack of counter-examples. Ecosocialism: remains to be seen, I guess, but it’s one of only two possible paths to avoiding environmental catastrophe which don’t involve mass murder or similar horrors. The other is “greening” liberal capitalism, which I would judge to be a forlorn one. However, one of my projects when I finish full-time work at the end of this month is to read the works of those who think otherwise, like Amory Lovins and Jonathon Porritt, with as open a mind as I can manage. Since I’m far from optimistic about the prospects of getting ecosocialism tried, I’d be genuinely pleased to be convinced.
Audley:
Esteleth:
I hate to defend anything Ryan was saying in that thread, even the bits I understand (and I gave up on that thread around #174). But, yeah, there is an ethnic component to Jewishness that is independent of either religion or cultural practices. At least for certain Jews. I’m an atheist, but ethnically I’m Jewish, and this is separate from the bits of Ashkenazi culture I observe.
Kantalope, I agree with Pteryxx: There’s no way to answer a comment like P4’s “politely.” If arguing with them wasn’t a good idea on that forum, I’d ignore them completely.
Regarding Amendment 1, here’s another example of religious privilege. I don’t care so much that some polling places are churches, because sometimes that’s the only place in town with the space; I do care that they’re allowed to flout laws against political advertising in the buffer zone.
Josh:
Agreed so hard. And both you and Pteryxx pre-empted my observation that the moral panic over obesity is mission creep for these assholes. (“Spoiled identity”…. jesus.)
Lifestyle policing, though, encompasses more than smoking and weight. I’d argue that it started ramping up with the War on [Some] Drugs. I’ve had to piss in a cup for just about every job I’ve had in the last decade, even though nothing I do is even remotely related to public safety. A little bit of THC in someone’s body tells an employer absolutely nothing about that person’s competence, reliability, or honesty.
Especially those whom Natalie Reed described the other day as “Whole Foods and NPR liberals.” Phil Ochs had their number more than 50 years ago.
You’re not conflating “fat” with “sub-optimal health,” are you? It varies from person to person. There are fat athletes and other fat people who feel fine and whose labwork comes back negative for any possible problem.
I hadn’t seen that sort of invective before in comment threads, but I have no problem believing it exists.
Esteleth:
Yep. And also to GLBT people.
Kristinc, I am so, so sorry about your friend. {{{hugs}}} I have no words.
Ibyea, lurk on a doctor or medical-resident forum sometime. A white coat does not automatically make someone a decent human being, no matter what oath they may have taken.
Pteryxx/Josh, for large buildings with sufficient numbers of smokers, I don’t see a problem with creating an enclosed room engineered to capture smoke so that it doesn’t drift into the rest of the building.
I don’t like cigarette smoke myself, and it does tend to cling to one’s hair, clothing, etc. long after you’ve departed the company of a smoker. I try to be polite about asking people not to smoke around me, however. I’ve only ever gotten one snotty response, and it was from this old guy with a cigar in an ATM lobby.
Also, Pteryxx, I agree with you about some people’s perfume (or cologne).
Chigau, I am so, so sorry. {{{hugs}}}
J_A_L:
Fixed.
Morales, you were doing so good for a while at not being a douchebag. Sorry for your relapse.
McCthulhu, that’s really typical of a mainstream American media site. Censor swear words; don’t censor hateful comments if they’re “clean.”
Giliell:
FFS.
Pteryxx: BStu (Red No. 3) is pretty awesome. Also, speaking as someone who grew up with Weight Watchers in the house long before it became widely popular, I wouldn’t feed the tasteless plastic shit they make to a dog.
Daisy,
My issue with the whole thing is 1) Jewish people are not some sort of monolith in cultural practices and 2) there’s been a strong denial that any other faith has cultural practices that can transcend the practice of the religion itself.
Oh yeah, Ryan described Jewish people as a race, which um no.
Anyway, I wouldn’t bother to read any more than you have. We’re just going ’round and ’round at this point. And everyone’s ignoring the fact that what I initially said had nothing to do with being culturally or religiously Jewish. The whole argument stems from the fact that Ryan apparently doesn’t understand what antisemitism is.
Audley: Yeah, Jewish people are definitely extremely diverse culturally — and, to the extent that “race” exists, racially. Ryan has obviously never heard of, to name a few examples, Kaifeng Jews, Beta Israel, the Lemba, or Cochin Jews.
Also, no, Judaism isn’t alone in having cultural practices that are not limited to believers.
Ryan doesn’t seem to understand a lot of things, and he sucks at expressing his nonunderstanding.
Also, I got a kick out of someone who non-ironically calls himself “the god of the winds” carping at you for calling yourself “Darkheart.”
Daisy:
Me too!
sorry, SIWOTI:
Cheney had five (5) known heart attacks, the first at age 37.
By all reports he waited his time on the transplant list just like everybody else.
The big difference is that for the last year and a half of his wait he was a cyborg, with an artificial battery-powered centriugal pump doing the job of his left ventricle. My guess is that that’s a treatment option that’s not generally available to the 99%.
Chas:
Okay, I stand corrected about Cheney’s heart transplant. I think it was just my seething hatred of him seeping through.
So… he was an undead cyborg?
Is it The Daily Show that always accompanies footage of Cheney with “O Fortuna”?
Lynna’s health, or lack thereof, update. After multiple diagnostic tests, including a lumbar puncture, we still don’t know what’s wrong with my brain. Anomalies show up on MRI and MRI/contrast, but those anomalies do not definitively match any disease. I still have weakness and lack of coordination on the left side. I am mystery fucked. More consultations with neurologists coming soon.
And now for Moments of Mormon Madness related to the Great Rifts between the LDS’s church’s PR about their missionaries and what really goes on in mission fields, especially foreign ones. Consider the mormon church’s claims to be one of the fastest growing religions, and their claim to more than 14 million members when reading this: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,471186
Excerpts:
Was I to comment on the discussion about fat-shaming above at all, and god knows that I’ve been here long enough to know to avoid that particular snakepit, but just as a thought experiment, was I to comment, I might cynically link to reports like this one, where it is pointed out that crematoriums are increasingly being damaged from the high fat content in corpses, which tends to overload the vents and results in significant damage.
Coroners can’t tell what very obese people died of more and more often, and that’s if they can get the bodies onto autopsy tables in the first place, as for example in South Australia an increasing number of autopsies has to be done on the floor because corpses are too heavy for the tables.
You may accuse health workers of “shaming”, and it may feel that way to you, but what we are seeing is a worsening and frustrating epidemic of obese people, where even our weight-based drug doses for children are increasingly often underestimated, because the 3 year-old weighs 22 kg instead of the 14 kg that would be normal for their age.
As to surgery and smoking, the reason for some surgeons not wanting to operate on smokers is simple : They don’t heal as well. You won’t easily get a skin graft after a burn injury if you smoke, for example, because we know that the graft is more likely not to take. Same with a hip replacement, too many wound healing issues, and surgeons don’t like their reputation tarnished. I think it is not completely unreasonable from a public perspective to ask a smoker who needs a skin graft or other major surgery, to abstain from smoking for the duration of their recovery to ensure the best possible wound healing.
But yeah, I’m so staying out of this.
Lynna, good to see you here. If you want me to look at scan or LP results, or have some of my Neuro collegues here look over them, just send me a mail.
Moving: The last time I moved, I was eight; my parents did everything, never had to worry about the logistics.
Pteryxx: Squeeeee!! You’re way more awesome… More interesting links. Gah, I need to go look for more info. Also, a feathered reptilian? More awesome sauce! *hugs*.
Also, *hugs* to everyone else affected by the fat/smoker shaming. You’re brave and awesome too.
Lynna:
Ouch. That sucks.
I wish I could help you. Hope you figure out what it is and that you get well. *double hugs*
Thank you, rorschach. I will ask for digital copies of tests and scans.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/may/24/how-end-depression/
Paul Krugman has some good ideas, and he spells them out in the article linked to above.
Fuck…the above is why people hate doctors
Lynna, you have mail…:-)
Crap, Lynna. I hope they can at least get you a diagnosis soon.
Rorschach:
Could have fooled me.
Also, is anyone else here really fucking sick of this kind of self-centered whining? “Really, not all of us
Christianslibertarianswhite peoplemenSoutherners are like that!!” Yep, because in the wake of GLBT people being denied legal equality again, acknowledging this the most important thing. (I replied here. Note that this is a pattern with this person.)Kidneys and other stuff not rorschach as an example.
Rorschach is a pretty good example of why plenty of people hate doctors too.
But the only technique being used to treat it, that of fat-shaming people who are fat, doesn’t work. It doesn’t make them less fat, it doesn’t make them more healthy. In fact, every. single. study. that has been done on it shows that fat-shaming makes people less likely to start taking measures to improve their health, makes caregivers less likely to treat them sympathetically, and most dangerously, makes health-care professionals less likely to treat fat people for any health problems whatsoever, thereby making their overall health worse regardless of their weight. It’s analogous to the discussion currently going on about Muslim profiling: it makes you think you’re doing something about the problem, when in reality you’re doing nothing useful and hurting a lot of people in the process. It is absolutely counteractive to the goal.
For a decent bloggy overview, read this letter to Michelle Obama on why it’s problematic that she’s hyping The Biggest Loser. Is her idea of focusing on eating and acting healthy good? Yes! Is her method of focusing on weight loss to do it the right thing to do? No! It’s so frustrating, because there are already known ways to improve people’s health, even fat people. When you test groups against each other and have one focus on the benefits of health and do fun exercise and eat good foods, and make the others carefully count their calories and give them messages about how bad it is to be fat, the first group achieves better health outcomes and loses more weight than the second. It’s simply not true that fat-shaming achieves any of the goals it purports to other than making certain thin people feel better about themselves because they have someone else to put down and blame for our shitty healthcare system.
I must confess I’d never heard of the Mormon ‘Baseball Baptism’ thing before. Following Lynna’s above, I grepped around a bit.
Reaction: that’s pretty slimy, that is. But somehow, I’m not even that surprised.
Also slimy: the suppression/denial of this history. I noticed this in my searches:
(/Denial. It’s not just de river in Egypt.)
Rorschach you don’t get to slither out of it that easily. You moved the goalposts and you should acknowledge that.
No one complained about “asking” smokers to refrain from smoking during recovery. We complain about doctors refusing to treat those who can’t or won’t quit or lose weight. Do you see the difference?
Do you understand how ordinary non-doctor-people are gobsmacked that you’d put the surgeon’s preferences for “good healing” above the needs of the patient? So, the fat man with a bad hip who can’t lose weight fast enough will be better off suffering more than even getting a chance at a new hip? What the fuck is wrong with you?
If a doctor thinks that that because a patient smokes, or is overweight then a particular treatment is not suitable then surely that doctor is under an ethical duty to do everything possible to quit smoking, or lose weight. If needs be, the patient should be referred to another specialist.
er, that should be under and ethical duty to help the patient. Although it would be rather hypocritical of a doctor to insist an patient quit smoking or lose weight when he is on 20 a day and on the tubby side.
Yes yes Doc R we get it. Fat people are disgusting and are a burden to everyone even after death.
Ok say I’m an overweight patient and I read this…how am I supposed to trust you enough to come to you for medicine?
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.
I will not be ashamed to say “I know not”, nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, be respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.
rorschach, I for one never claimed that there aren’t more fat people now than a generation or two ago. The point is, whatever the cause, forcing them to lose weight Does. Not. Work. Shaming, denial of care, and discrimination don’t work either and demonstrably make health outcomes worse. When something doesn’t work *and* causes collateral damage, the only reasonable option is to quit doing it.
And “surgeons don’t want their reputation tarnished” sounds like schools dumping their needy students to keep their average scores up. Yeah, I know smokers’ wounds don’t heal as well, and asking them to abstain during healing is, again, a very different prospect from denial of care or best care. And frankly, after what I’ve read about substandard hospital care for minorities, for instance, I suspect a good deal of the difference in outcome may be due to the attitudes of health care workers producing self-fulfilling prophecies.
yipes… aaaand refreshing has failed me again! What they all said.
Also *anklehugs* Lynna.
This doesn’t happen here to my knowledge, it may be different in the US (as so often is). What doctors may say here in my experience is something like “we will do treatment X, but what we need from you to make this work is to do Y for the duration it takes”, where Y may be the avoidance of anything detrimental to the outcome, for example smoking.
As to organ transplants and obesity, this is an emotional topic, and I understand the emotions involved. But organs are a very rare commodity due to the shitty opt-in organ donor system, and unless you are a politician or celebrity, organs will most often be given to those who have the highest chance of a transplant successfully taking, and that will not be an obese person whose arteriosclerosis, diabetes, hypertension or hypercholesterolemia caused the organ failure in the first place, and whose transplant would be likely to suffer the same fate. It does make sense. Although I can see how those with a loved one waiting for a transplant would feel very differently.
Okay, WTF. The title says it all.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-reasons-commercials-are-sexist-against-men/
I knew that commenting on this would be a raving success, it always is…:-) I might leave you to it, it’s late here….
Real stories of fat prejudice in health care
Rorschach- OK, thanks. What you’re saying is reasonable. It is, however, very much not what I’m talking about in the US and the UK. We’re talking refusal to treat.
And I’m not debating organ transplant criteria (I don’t know enough about that to have a coherent opinion), just FYI.
I’ve made a huge mistake – I decided to clean out one of my desk drawers.
This, of course, led to finding many things that should rightfully be in other desk drawers, none of which currently has the space to accommodate other things.
My office now looks like a tornado hit it and I’m not sure if I could get to the door if I had to.
In the Good Ol’ US of A, there are gynos who charge heavey women more for office visits, treatments, etc. because – I kid not – the doctors claim these women damage their equipment (i.e. tables).
Citations needed. I’ve seen a bit about underdiagnosis of those conditions in thin people, overdiagnosis in fat people, and substandard treatment of them in minorities, enough that I question the presumption of causative strength. Combined with evidence of substandard treatment of smokers and fat people, this makes me suspicious of how the outcomes are influenced.
But carlie they break equipment and have to be cut up on morgue floors! Ewww gross!
Also Doc R, don’t pull the Glenn Beck shit. Its beneath you
And I’d be the first to agree that that is unethical.
Same as I realize (and constantly write about) how obesity is more than lazy people eating too much and refusing to exercise, which those of you who know me a bit should be aware of. I live in the second-largest suburban growth area in Australia, and the culinary choices here are pretty much McD or KFC, and a family bucket from any of these is cheaper than buying fresh food from the supermarket, while the supermarket shelves are stacked with sugared drinks and salty processed foods. It’s a problem that politics need to address but won’t yet, in the US or over here.
Thank you rorshach. I legitly appriciate the last comment.
Re the Cracked thing, I’d call the article itself fair enough comment. Note that it’s not putting those whiny man blogs in particularly kind light. And note especially the conclusion that absolutely acknowledges that men sure as hell are privileged, on balance, and that it’s not about men being the last ‘safe target’ so much as the marketing dynamics in those particular segments.
But to get a bit whiny myself, here: y’know, yeah, I do bristle a bit at the ‘dumb dad’ and ‘clueless at housework’ thing. And I’d like to fucking point out that I changed like 98 percent of my son’s diapers. My wife pretty much abdicated entirely, there.
(And I’m not bitter or nothin’. Just still bringing it up like seven years later ‘cos, y’know, I happen to remember. Yeah. That’s the ticket. But, more seriously, there, my problem there is rather more with a specific person than the PR industry.)
Getting back to it, I dunno. I look at those ads, and it’s just so… It’s just so not my fucking life, y’know? It’s like the writer there says: it’s lazy writing, a lazy stereotype, and har har har but oh my have we seen that one again and again and again and again. Sure, I guess guys who actually do have a clue around the house and might, say, even be the only one present who ever actually cooks with anything other than the microwave or the one who picks up the dishes and the food garbage after his spouse leaves them in on the coffee table because he’s given up on reminding her and eventually he needs those dishes for serving dinner, okay, I guess those aren’t as funny…
And you think about it, it’s kinda sexist toward women in its way, too… It’s like: woman, give up, your man will be hopeless; obviously, you’re just naturally better at this, so you might as well bust out the apron and the scouring pad and the oven mitts; what can ya do… Like the PR industry is doing a ‘convenient incompetence’ dodge on the housework for the male sex in general by proxy. And showing men all, hey, it’s natural; you’ll be a total loser at this anyway, so no harm, no fowl
But then again, it’s the fucking PR industry. They’d still be doing dumb blonde jokes, if we let them. Probably still are, somewhere.
… and I can’t believe I actually wrote ‘no harm, no fowl‘.
(/Obviously, what I’m trying to say here is, actually, I’m also sick to death of cooking poultry. Yeah. That’s the ticket.)
Cleaning out a desk drawer….le sigh ..since I was here last I got picked by a high school class for their year end community action project. Yeah me! They are going to PAINT MY HOUSE!!!!!
Which means they have to be able to get to all the walls outside. You see where this is heading…moved in here in 1976.
Four pickup loads gone, one more to go. (I will not be looking in my desk drawers anytime soon.)
My heart is pounding now. I’m shaking…
I just made a call to the Whitman-Walker Center to set up an appointment with a transgender advocate. He’ll be calling me after work… I’m so freakin’ terrified.
AJ Milne: Ah. I’m bad at interpretation of stuff anyhow.
AJ Milne – I completely agree. A reasonable man should be offended by these stereotypes, as they are insulting.
But you hit upon the real reason for these stereotypes – it makes women responsible for domestic stuff. That is the result of the dumb dad stereotype – he’s too dumb to do household chores, therefore MOM has to do it.
And, better yet, its supposed to make her feel superior for being able to do what he can’t. Nevermind that it still equals her having to take care of him.
Kat, rock on. You’re doing the right thing and the terror is normal.
xxxooo
Kat: Yeah, must be scary. But you can do it; I know :) *hugs*.
AJ:
It’s fine, we all cock up sometimes.
Kitty: Good luck!!!!
Illuminata: Yep. The “manchild” thing insults men, but it contributes to women’s oppression.
Kat Lorraine, {hugses, squeezes and much love} – Breathe! You’re going to be okay.
I am utterly clueless as to what’s been happening, I’ve been doing my routine torture session since Monday, back home this morning. On the not news front, my spine is still fucked up! Never saw that one coming. Still have nerve damage, it’s progressed some. Still hyporeactive. On the news front, my oblique hip muscles aren’t responding properly, haven’t figured out why yet. More tests at a later date. More pain meds, told to use my cane, yada, yada, yada. Stayed over and had spinal shots again, so feeling pretty good right now, just tired.
In nifty news my embroidery stiletto arrived. It’s pretty. And sharp.
Now I’m going to try and catch up a bit and I really have to work on the Duckies.
One of my neighbours nearly lost her leg because of this.
She had a knee-joint replacement and she complained about pain and discomfort. Yes, she is overweight. Not obese but overweight.
About half a dozen doctors looked at her, but not her knee and told her to lose weight. Until she finally managed to get one to look at the knee. Turned out she had an infection which was spreading. Made it necessary for her to be treated by the top-notch specialist who told her clearly that she had a 50/50 chance of keeping the leg. Fortunately she came down at the good side of the 50%.
Funny, around here the kids’ medicine always has the dosage for age and weight and the pediatrician is able to adjust it depending on whether the kid is very tall/short/slim/fat.
Also, the normal range for a 3 yo (and I mean 36 months) is between 11 and 19 kg. That’s a pretty broad range of “normal”.
Kat:
That’s okay!
I’m so glad to hear you contacted the clinic, though. :)
Katherine Lorraine, I felt those symptoms after I called the PTSD counselor (psychologist) for my first appointment. Sitting in her office waiting seemed like hours, and I just about keeled over when my name was called.
Kat, breathe and listen to the advocate. Hope all goes well.
I’ve always been able to lose weight. Then I gain it back and often more.
I’ve lost 25 lbs since the first of the year, due to changes in eating/sleeping habits. The TV dinner diet.
Looks like today’s planned exercise will be cancelled. Wanted to mow the yard after work, but a good rainstorm this afternoon killed that idea. Lots of indoor work to do anyway.
Katherine
You’ll do it. That’s a big step forward, if your heart wasn’t pounding now you’d be dead already!
*big hugs*
Caine and Lynna
I’m sorry to hear your bad health news.
Caine
The stiletto looks great.
Tonight I’ll try something new: free-hand machine embroidery.
Kat:
You can do this. These people are your friends, and they – and we – will help you through this any way possible. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
… and it may be scanners reflecting off of a disco ball, but that’s just my interpretation.
Off topic: Gileill, Heidi has declared your picture human. Shall I tell her or do you want to?
One of my SCA friends died yesterday, of a massive coronary. She was 10 years or so younger than me; we joined at about the same time. I’m having trouble believing it. The last time I saw her, she looked in great shape.
–
kristinc, I’m sorry to hear about your friend. *hug*
–
Kitty, congrats on the finishedness of your move. Time to collaspe into a chair with a big glass of…something or other.
–
I loathe packing/unpacking.
We’ve got boxes in the garage that haven’t been unpacked in 24 years. 6 moves ago.
My furniture had damned well better be happy with where it’s at, too, right up until it dies the Final Death and is hauled away.
–
By fragmentation.
–
*hugs* for Lynna.
–
Deed, slow breaths, Kitty.
*hugs* and *fluffy kittens*
–
I remember something from a Tim Allen bit, years ago; “Sometimes, if you do something badly enough, you don’t get asked to do it again”.
–
Kitty, that’s wonderful! Breathe. And good luck and yay, and go you!!!!!!
I hope the advocate is great and helpful and the right person and everything. Shit, and a move to a new bigger flat which is a big deal in itself, right at the same time – yeah, definitely breathe! :-)
Cicely, I’m so sorry about your friend.
Dianne, is Horrible Heidi still going? Ugh.
Unrelated: WTF? (SFW)
One day you’ll open them up, and it’ll be like a Mystery Tour into the past :-)
Dianne
I’ve seen it.
Go ahead!
It’s nice to see how she can’t even be coherent within her own stories: sure her miscarriages were babies, but she didn’t call them that since they lacked all the features of a baby…
:((( for health issues being evil to Lynna and Caine (and various other Hordelings)
Giliell:
Um, explanation please! Remember, I don’t know a thing about machine embroidery.
Cicely, I am so sorry! Such a shock.
Lynna, my condolences on the mystery fucked, I have one of those going right now. Such fun, aren’t they?
Kristinc, I hardly know what to say. That’s beyond infuriating and wrong.
“Sexual insanity” and other reasons to ask god to intervene to stop health reform. John Boehner takes a very wrong step in the direction of destroying the separation of church and state.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#47347504
One has to wonder what Edwina Rogers would make of this.
*hugs* all around.
—
I just had my teeth cleaned.
I’m sharp and sniny!
What have we got?
Which is the real source of the dumb dad stereotype. It wasn’t created by ad execes or the evil femnazi cabal – just by dudes who realized that they could manipulate their wives into doing all the chores if they acted helpless and dumb (and destroyed something of hers in a feigned mistake).
Which is why MRAs crying about the stereotype makes me laugh. Blaming their invention on women because, of course, everything is mommy’s fault.
*hugs* for Caine. And *chocolate*. And, tonight, *a good night’s sleep*
–
One fine day a couple of years ago, Son and DiL came over to borrow something. Husband opened the garage door, and I put my arm around Son’s shoulders and said, “One day, my son, all this will be yours!” The look of appalled horror in his eyes was something to see.
:)
–
Cicely:
:falls over laughing: Ah, perfect.
My root cellar is the keeper of the packed moving boxes, which shall never be opened, gone through and disposed of in the proper manner.
Caine
Free-hand machine embroidery is done on a normal sewing machine. You lower the feed-dogs and move the fabric freely, like with those sketches. Some of the more spectacular piece you often see on the UT blog are done via that technique.
*nodding*
What I call “strategic stupidity”.
–
I’m supposing that my Miskatonic University School of Necromancy tee shirt would probably not be considered appropriate attire for the funeral….
I mean, I know that I’d appreciate it, if I were the Guest of Honor (and, you know, aware), but I don’t know that her family would appreciate it.
–
Supplementing Lynna’s Moment of Mormon Madness (tho’ she may have already done this one; apologies if so), re ‘beach baptisms’, apparently the Louisiana equivalent of ‘baseball baptisms’:
–From an interview with excommunicated Mormon D. Michael Quinn.
… there’s other stuff in there about how generally total and weird and experience is the ‘missionary’ duty for the people doing it. Reading it, I almost find it quaint if the ‘beach baptisms’ are the worst people forced into such a bizarre bubble have got up to.
Obama endorses Same Sex marrisge.
Better late than never, Rev.
Part of me wonders if the margin in NC would have been narrower if he’d said this last week.
Or wider.
Which would have been a good thing for him to have said YESTERDAY.
Giliell:
Wow! That’s amazing stuff. I look forward to seeing what you do.
Will wonders never cease. Barack finally stopped lying and throwing us under the bus. Only after being forced. Sigh.
But good. Let the wing-rage begin. Better to get it over with. This is going to be fun!!!
Rev. BDC:
Nothing like being a day late and a dollar short. Not helping.
Here’s the thing:
The hard-right mouth breathers weren’t going to vote for him anyway.
The lefties are stuck between voting for him and not voting for him and seeing Romney win.
The middle can be divided between those who would be offended and pushed into either camp.
Given that support for same-sex marriage has crossed the 50% margin, not endorsing it is increasingly politically dangerous.
Great. I’m glad the big O finally opened his yap, but this doesn’t bode well for what it’ll take for him to endorse anything about women.
And the liberal commenters on blogs are creaming their knickers and praising Obama’s “gutsy” move. Oh thank you, thank you Mr. President for saying you think we’re fully human! We totes forgive you for keeping silent to appease shithead bigots who would never vote for you anyway.
Fuck off.
He was pushed into it by people who were sick of him using gay peoples’ civil rights to get elected and then refusing to acknowledge full equality once elected.
Gutsy?
Jesus Christ. Throw folks a stale biscuit and they build a statue of you.
Josh:
Bread and Circuses.
Awesome – for Parks and Rec fans, Ron Swanson does a nature PSA video.
Katherine, big big hugs.
Caine, too, and cicely, and Lynna.
Actual Fox headline: Obama flip-flops, declares war on marriage.
No shit, that’s really the headline.
I love it. Really. It’s going to be insane fun. Even better than dropping John Kwok into a swimming pool of noted best-selling authors who used to teach him.
In other news, I’m only just now catching up on yesterday’s Twitter.
Jeph Jacques, the guy who draws Questionable Content, tweeted: “PS if you voted for that gay marriage amendment in NC please go fuck yourself and die, I mean that in all sincerity” followed up shortly by “The sooner you revolting protohumans die off the better off the rest of our species will be”
I gotta say, I don’t disagree with him.
So:
Step 1 Have Biden speak in favor of gay marriage.
Step 2 Watch public reaction to Step 1.
Step 3 If public reaction to Step 1 seems, among the Independent and Undecided, to be more favorable than unfavorable, then:
Step 4 Have Obama speak in favor of gay marriage.
Step 5 Profit!
</cynicism?>
–
“What exactly is strategic incompetence?”
“Oh, I had it written down somewhere, but I lost it.” *whistles*
*hugs and hugs Caine, chigau, cicely, Kitty, kristinc, and Lynna*
Kitty, you’ll be fine! I’m over here clapping and cheering for you. Yaaay!
Hugs to Caine, Cicely & Lynna!
About the 24 year old boxes…yep, doing that now. I simply cannot find the titles to three old Harleys. The bikes are somewhere in the garage (I think), but the titles have disappeared. cue Twilight Zone theme…
HATE.
Today I have a duck story. I was at the park again (due to a therapy appointment mixup) and spotted a lone, very tiny and new, mallard duckling all by itself in the water circling and peeping most unhappily. There was a mama duck with a brood nearby, but those ducklings were obviously older than the lone baby, so I was worried and walked around looking for where it could have come from. When I reached the bridge I saw that another mom & dad, with a brood the right age, had gone to the opposite side of the bridge and that one baby apparently had a hard time following, but it did catch up and join them. The adult ducks hadn’t even seemed to notice that it was lost and calling.
Those ducks were the most careless duck parents I have ever seen. They let those brand new babies spread out and wander over half the pond, where they “should” have been keeping them obsessively in a tight area and watching them closely (like the other ducks with a brood were doing). I kept doing headcounts and not being able to find one or two (or three!) ducklings and finally spotting them far away on their own. Mom and dad never called to them or anything either. Somebody is going to eat those babies :(
Hello horde,
I have been a lurker since the halcyon days of Alan Clarke battling feebly against Josh the geologist and needed to rage on something so I thought I would leave this here. As I believe was mentioned up thread, Tom Gabel of Against Me! has come out as transgender and another band Fun posted a nice post on facebook in support of her which of course began to attract idiots. https://www.facebook.com/ournameisfun/posts/10150955333435712
I don’t know why people have to be such stupid assholes. One particular winner is trotting out all sort of enormously stupid/homophobic lines. Including the, what happens if everyone is gay an no one has offspring, and of course that he “has gay friends”. GAHHH
Kristin, that could be deliberate.
I have an infected hangnail, was told to use a warm soak with epsom salts. The epsom salts I got smell like lavender… mmm… lavender.
Hey, Obama just came out in support of same-sex marriage!!
Duh, I see that this has already been discussed upthread. Sorry for the old news. Now I have to catch up on TET.
You know, I could get very cynical about what Obama said… But I’m not going to. I’m gonna take it as a positive signal. It should, of course, have happened much sooner, but still, I’m quite happy about it.
Party revelers—pay attention. Cross-posted from Greta’s place:
Sigh.
Aaaand with that, he effectively negated any support whatsoever. What a believer in civil rights, eh? Cowardly jackass.
The 17th is the International Day Against Homophobia, too. Here we are, going backwards.
Daisy: yep, although this is the first time I’ve seen it in a lifetime of watching mallards — usually they’re very solicitous, hovering mothers to their broods, keeping them in a tight group and quacking back and forth constantly with the babies. I just pegged this pair as … not destined to be very successful at reproducing, apparently.
And straight “allies” are already pushing back, telling people like me to stop being cynical and enjoy the moment.
Go lay down in a house fire.
Speaking of gay marriage (and apologies if this has already been covered), North Carolina’s new law violates full faith and credit. How is this not “laugh it out of the court” level unconstitutional?
Katherine, two big moves at once! Yea for Katherine!
Both of the moves were scary, and yet you accomplished one and are working on the other.
Did I mention? Yea Katherine!
++++++++++++
et al: Is it possible that President Obama’s position has actually evolved? He is a xian, maybe he’s acknowledging that his personal beliefs don’t trump his duty to the country.
After Biden spoke last week I almost composed a “what Obama should say now’ comment, and it was almost exactly what Obama did say.
I’m proud of him, I don’t think it’s pandering, and I do think it’s risky. Most of all, I don’t care, it needed to be said, and he said it.
In the face of Prop 8, Amendment 1 and all the independent homophobes, for the first time in the history of the USA, a president came out and said “At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think that same sex couples should be able to get married.”
There are a lot of reasons I disagree with him, and this issue was a big one, but it’s yet another reason I will campaign for him and vote for him again.
I think this is a big fucking deal.
+++++++++++++
Change is scary.
It’s never easy for the snake to shed its skin. But once shed, the snake doesn’t turn around and crawl back in.
Keep on movin’ forward, Katherine.
Josh:
Enjoy what moment? With that state’s rights crap, he stomped up and down on every single GLBT person. Again, it’s a confirmation that we aren’t really human, not really. Again, it’s not really a matter of civil rights, not really.
As for those “straight allies”, they aren’t allies, they’re idiots. *spits on the lot of ’em*
How you feelin’ about that whole “leave it up to the states” thing, Sailor? That make you feel all proud and good?
Josh,
For crying out loud, I wasn’t telling you not to be cynical. I was just saying that I, for once, was going to try and stay optimistic about it. Why? Because I’m doing my goddamn best not be fucking angry at the entire world again today, okay. I’m just hoping that he’s being truthfull and that his opinion has indeed develloped over the past few years. I just really need some optimism right now, before I go berserk. Tomorrow, I’ll probably be back to my angry, cynical self, but today…
Ugh, fuck it. Too late. Back to cynical mode. Yeah Obama’s a coward. It’s not like that’s anything new. Wooptie-fucking-doo
Pent- fine. Be optimistic. I’m not trying to make you have a bad day.
Oh, well sure. Cuz that’s work oh-so-well with Incubator rights, amirite?
Ugh. Politicians are a cowardly species.
Sexual orientation has ‘in between’ groups, study shows http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-sexual-groups.html
The success of Homo sapiens may be due to spatial abilities http://phys.org/news/2012-05-success-homo-sapiens-due-spatial.html -If Neanderthals had the same general intelligece, it would not be unethical to clone one from preserved DNA.
Can testosterone therapy help obese men lose weight? http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-testosterone-therapy-obese-men-weight.html -Maybe something for us who are less than extremely young
@ Josh: With allies like these:
who needs Fred Phelps?
So, the basic “reasoning” is don’t look a gift horse in the mouth? It’s a little hard to not look into its mouth, where that large mess of state’s rights is sitting.
OFFS. State’s rights? Seriously?
For myself, I’m glad that Obama has publicly returned the position he articulated 15+ years ago.
Oh, and that he now agrees with Dick Cheney.
Josh,
I’m sorry. I’ve been acting stupid. Don’t mind me, I’m just having a really crappy day.
Of course, you’re quite correct in being cynical and you’re absolutely correct in being annoyed and angry at those ‘allies’. I don’t want you to think I don’t take the same sex marriage situation in the states seriously and I apologize if I gave that impression. I’m not defending Obama. His record on the matter is shitty and the fact that he keeps repeating the ‘it’s up to the states’ bullshit is the hight of cowardice.
Obama supports marriage equality! Woo hoo!
I knew it was only a matter of time after Ol’ Handsome Joe Biden publicly voiced his support.
…. Aaand I need to read further.
Ah well, I still think this is better news than what came out of NC yesterday.
So now we finally know what Joe Biden is for. Clearly the Biden program runs like this:
Joe Biden says something that the administration wants to know public opinion about.
Branch 1: Public supports Biden’s statement.
Outcome: Obama says same thing a week later.
Branch 2: Public is outraged.
Outcome: White House apologies for statement by local crazy.
No fuss, no muss, no risk to Obama.
That is a common strategy amongst ruling parties in democracies. Here in the UK in tends to be a leading backbencher(1) who gets the job of sticking his(2) head over the parapet.
1. An MP without any ministerial, or shadow ministerial responsibility.
2. Most of the time it is a man. Women tend to be more sensible, unless they are Anne Widdecombe.
Josh, Caine, please provide a link to Obama’s speech.
Here is what I have:
“But I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are incredibly committed, monogamous, same sex relationships who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or Marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and, yet, feel constrained now that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is gone because they’re not able to commit themselves in a marriage. At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think that same sex couples should be able to get married.”
Exactly. It’s not good enough, and it’s cowardly. We expect presidents to lead, not be forced back into line with basic party majorities after 560 days of waffling.
My opinion is here: The Status is NOT Quo, Mr. President. It’s too long to just paste in here, but here is part of it:
@The Sailor, it’s not a speech, it’s an interview and not all of the contents have been aired yet, to my knowledge. However, my post has links that cite the position of a state by state approach to rights. So not only is he supporting what just fucking happened in North Carolina, but there is zero mention so far of DOMA. So the penalties and burdens currently placed on LEGALLY MARRIED couples may be no problem policy wise to POTUS.
So the federal government isn’t going to do shit. Thanks for the update, Obama. Make sure to let us know the next time you fuck people over while making it sound like you support them.
Slignot:
Uh, actually he mentions DOMA in the interview, in this clip. Partial Transcript (it’s towards the start, about 38 seconds in):
Again, pointing it back to the states (DOMA being bad because it should be a state issue rather than a federal one, not because it’s wrong), but he does mention it.
The Sailor:
Are your fucking fingers broken? How about you make an effort to find out the damn facts for yourself for once?
And all y’all that won’t acknowledge how horrible his states’ rights position is can suck me right off. Oh, I’m furious.
In regard to regressive states… http://amultiverse.com/2012/05/09/no-fun-for-anyone/
slignot says:The Sailor, it’s not a speech, it’s an interview and not all of the contents have been aired yet, to my knowledge. However, my post has links that cite the position of a state by state approach to rights.
So no one has a link to Obama saying that it’s a ‘state’s rights’ approach in his most recent interview?
Obama clearly said he supports marriage equality.
Name one president who has ever done that. I think it will cost him votes, I think he did the right thing. I agree, it’s about time, but as far as I can tell, his thinking evolved. A lot of us on this forum have had their thinking evolve.
Obama can keep fucking right off:
Fuck off, Sailor.
The Sailor:
He hints at that in the quote I posted above (again, that DOMA tried to federalize a state issues), but it’s not actually said.
However, the way he couched the phrase in combination with the DOMA quote lead me to assume he probably *did* say something about it being a states’ rights issue and that, while the article doesn’t have a direct quote on it, it’s probably an accurate restatement. I’m reserving judgment until I hear it, but I don’t think it unlikely or inconsistent with anything else he’s said in the same interview that we do have.
@Richard Austin,
Looks like there’s more coverage for me to look up, good. I can’t watch the video so I’ve been relying on transcriptions of his statement. I hope there’s more than trying to get a cookie for not defending an unconstitutional law though. Supporting repeal of DOMA would be a real position. But it sounds like that’s not what is going on here.
Regardless still feels super cowardly and shitty.
Aaauuuggh! Hey Prez, feel free to go fuck yourself with a thousand decaying porcupines heated to the temperature of a blazing sun. Asswipe.
Read my comment 418. This is not in doubt. He said it.
The Sailor: Mr Obama’s thinking may or may not have evolved. I think it looks like it evolved just a little. Good. Great.
It would be nothing BUT good and great if Mr Obama was just your average bigot on the street who ‘sees the light’ and starts slowly changing his thinking.
But he’s not. He’s the president of the united states of america and Josh and Caine are completely correct: NOT FUCKING GOOD ENOUGH.
Josh:
So, he said nothing, essentially. What the fuck was the point, then?
Shorter Obama: “I don’t find gay people that icky any more, but all of you hateful folks are a-okay in my book.”
You’re totally right– he just won’t stop throwing LGBT people under the bus.
Hi, O-P-E! Welcome and get yourself a beverage of your choice.
I don’t give a flying fuck what he personally thinks. I care about what he advocates for and what he uses his clout as the fucking president of the fucking country to shape and help create legal reality.
I’d like to apologize on behalf of all straight and bi-superficially-appearing-to-society-as-straight allies who are being accommodationist assholes. I’d really like to see some goddamned moral leadership in this country for once. If you think something is a matter of basic human rights, then you fucking stand for it; you don’t say that it’s up to other people to decide whether people get those rights or not.
Josh, provide a link. An anonymous source, with or without a link, is not what the President said.
Also, @The Sailor, here is your fucking citation for POTUS support of states rights approach to minority rights.
Good enough?
Since women are under there with abortion rights being chipped away too, we can all cushion each other from the wheels a bit. :(
Apparently it isn’t good enough because it was a spokesperson and not the president.
TLC:
QFMFT. You’d think, maybe, just maybe, someone who benefited from the fight for civil rights, someone who benefited from those who fought tirelessly against the miscegenation laws, someone who benefited from the fight against Jim Crow might have the fucking guts to take a stand for what is right, what is ethical, for fucking civil rights for all human beings, but no. Let’s be a weaselly little coward instead. Christ. Oh yes, he brought up “Christ’s sacrifice” in regard to gay rights too.
Yeah, he’s just a bundle of fail.
Thank you, Carlie, however, it’s not your place to apologize. It’s up to the assholes* to apologize.
*Yeah, I’m looking at you, Sailor. You’re a full court asshole wearing a jester hat.
slignot, nope, not good enough. An anonymous source is never good enough.
Especially since President Obama said:
That is from the horse’s mouth. It can’t be walked back by an anonymous source.
gay rights by state, interesting visual form.
His opinion is worth shit if he’s not going to do anything about it, worse than shit when half the voters think he’s the fucking Antichrist. He can fucking emote after he’s done his job.
The Sailor:
That doesn’t change a goddamn thing. At all. Whatsoever.
It’s like Obama wants a cookie for doing absolutely fuck all.
Dude, it doesn’t matter that he claims to philosophically support gay marriage if he’s saying it’s states rights. It doesn’t have to be ‘walked back’.
FTR, though, with how shitty the gay community has been to PoC, I’d really appreciate not going “HE BENEFITS FROM CIVIL RIGHTS”. So too have women, there’s plenty of female heterosexists. It’s not like people learn how to apply this shit on a regular basis.
CONSUME OTHER PEOPLE’S TIME, YOU LAZY PIECE OF SHIT. FUCK OFF.
Sailor, you’re normally not this obtuse. What he personally feels isn’t an actual issue – it’s exactly like internet menz thinking they’re owed a cookie for grudgingly admitting that maybe women ought to be able to have jobs and stuff. Perhaps, perhaps, this is something that will galvanize some legislators and get them off of their asses to support gay rights. But even more probably, it’s just more fuel for his haters. Hopefully by now he’s realized that the people who hate him will always hate him no matter what, so he’s better off getting the marginal and progressive people on his side. So this isn’t a huge risk for him; any cost-benefit analysis at the moment would come down on the side of him appeasing his own goddamned base and moderates for once instead of chasing after fucking conservatives. And he didn’t even do that much, because even if you refuse to believe the accounts that he called states’ rights, what he didn’t do was say “and this should be law everywhere in the country”.
“Apparently it isn’t good enough because it was a spokesperson and not the president.”
What spokesperson? What is their name? An anonymous person who says they speak for the President? Citation needed.
+++++++
“*Yeah, I’m looking at you, Sailor. You’re a full court asshole wearing a jester hat.”
This is a site devoted to facts. I pointed out what President Obama said.
I seriously don’t understand what your problem is when I point out actual facts and you come back with ‘some person said.’
Let me know when the White House walks it back.
@The Sailor,
Okay, so let’s be clear what you’re asking for. You want us to link to coverage talking about the full remarks made by the president in the interview with exact quotes telling us that he supports a state’s approach of voting on minority rights.
Well, I don’t have that quote. What I keep reading, like here, for example, is that reporters are saying in the remarks the president explicitly says this is his personal feeling, and that states should be left in charge:
Are these reporters lying or mistaken?
How about if you’re going to require access to shit I don’t have (like direct quotes), you shut up until it airs and we have the full thing?
Uhm, I *did* link to a clip of the interview where he says he’s not defending DOMA because it tried to federalize the issue.
That’s almost saying it’s a state issue. And we don’t have the whole interview. And people who did the interview at ABC are saying he said it’s a state issue. So, he probably said it, and we’ll probably see that clip tonight.
I’m all for waiting for that to happen before saying “He said !”, but I can comfortably say, “Saying it’s a state issue isn’t at all inconsistent with anything else he said, and is in fact directly implied by other things he said.”
from ABC, the source of the interview:
But perhaps they’re lying about their own interview, which they’re going to air tonight on the evening news and Nightline. We’ll just have to remain fucking skeptics until then, right Sailor?
From a legal standpoint, ”marriage” involves a bunch of stuff about inheritance, power of attorney, responsibility for children (and much more), right?
In a country that big, with a population that mobile, how is that supposed to work on a state-by-state basis?
Once you’re married you can never leave your home-state?
If your “gay-married” spouse absconds with the kids to a “no-gay-marriage” state, you’re screwed?
What the fuck is wrong with you Sailor? Why are you treating this like it’s extraordinary claim? Why are you so invested in not seeing why this is a huge insult to civil rights for people like me?
Dude—what the hell?
From your Think Progress link:BREAKING: Obama Embraces Marriage Equality
+++++++
CR, you didn’t link to ABC, you linked to yahoo news.
+++++++++++++++
every news outlet is trumpeting ‘President Obama endorse same sex marriage’.
Right or left, that is the headline. It is the optics, and it is true.
++++++++++++++
Go ahead, jump on me for quoting what Obama said. He said it, he hasn’t disavowed it.
++++++++++++++
“Well, I don’t have that quote.”
No shit.
+++++++++++++++
Once again, if you want to argue it was ‘too little too late’, or ‘he’s just pandering to get votes’, that’s an area for discussion, but to deny the facts of what he actually said is beneath our mutual respect, and not reality.
I never would have pegged you for being this kind of a son of a bitch, Sailor. What a shock.
My human rights count for more than Barack Obama’s “personal” comfort level. They’re not a state’s rights issue.
If you can’t see that get the fuck out of the way.
What’s more, the longer I think about this, the more I think the point raised on Rachel Maddow last night is right:
President Obama had no choice but to change on this issue.
Party platforms and nominees have to match on the overall basics. There is no way that the Democratic Party could proceed into the 2012 elections with civil unions only as their official stance without suffering for it, so the President could no longer claim that second class citizenship is all that’s required. In that light, this statement makes complete sense, and is political calculus that leaves a particularly nasty taste in my mouth.
What fucking point do you think you’ve made, dipshit? It is an ABC news blog for Good Morning America, located on the yahoo domain. So the fuck what? Are they lying? What sort of denialist do you have to be to say something so pathetically irrelevant?
Sailor, “advocating for same-sex marriage” DOES NOT EQUAL supporting a federal same-sex marriage law.
He wants to say that he, Barack Obama the person, supports the right of same-sex couples to marry. However, he is unwilling to put the power and authority of the POTUS behind this and openly advocate for a federal law that would establish the right to same-sex marriage nationwide.
CR:
Oh, its obvious they’re lying! Every single reporter, oh my yes. Every single person at the network who did the interview, saw the interview and heard the interview, oh my yes.
And of course, in the whole history of ‘merica, why presidents have never, ever had a spokesperson, oh my no.
So sings the full court asshole in the jester hat.
Josh – “Why are you so invested in not seeing why this is a huge insult to civil rights for people like me?”
I’m not invested in that, I want everyone to have equal rights, but I prefer facts as to what someone actually said v. what some anonymous source said. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.
All I know is what President Obama said “At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think that same sex couples should be able to get married.””
I don’t trust anonymous sources, and I just think we’ll have to see the interview.
What Josh, Caine, and everyone else agreeing with them said.
Also what my dear friend Keori says: One, two, three, four, five.
Sailor, pay attention to that last tweet. And learn how to read a politician’s statements for what they’re not saying as well as for what they’re saying. In what you quote at #433, Obama makes no commitment whatsoever to working toward a change in the law. “Personally.” Who gives a fuck what he “personally” thinks if he’s not going to act on it?
As for Obama being the first president to support same-sex marriage, at this point in history it’s a fucking no-brainer. This isn’t 1974.
Also, because I can’t say it over at Greta’s, because it’s not ***civil***, I’ll say it here: ANYBODY who refers to human rights as “ponies,” as in “Stop crying ‘cuz you didn’t get your pony,” should mix ground glass into their K-Y jelly and go fuck themselves.
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on Sailor. You’re not being “skeptical,” you’re treating an uncontroversial claim as if it were too “too” to be believed. Thanks, at least, for showing your true colors.
Bastard.
I will say this about Obama’s cagyness regarding coming out and saying he supports same sex marriage – actions speak louder than words. Obama’s record of action stands as the most pro-homosexual of any president in history.
And given what Romney has said he will do in this sphere if elected, if coming out and saying he is favor of same sex marriage has a chance of increasing the risk of Obama losing the presidency to Romney, then coming out and saying that he supports same sex marriage would be absolutely the most anti-homosexual and anti-gay marriage act that Obama would have ever done.
And you can drop the “homosexual” Amphiox, please. We prefer “gay,” “lesbian,” or “queer.”
Josh:
He’s shown them for some time now, being no stranger to making a wide range of offensive comments and just can’t cope with discussions dealing with womens’ rights, ’cause that stuff is icky and doesn’t belong in the lounge.
So he gets a fucking cookie! Fucking happy? He’s not a hate mongering asshole. WOO!
Unless he says “I’m for gay marriage and will work to make it a federal law” that statement means jack fucking shit.
The only way you could come back and actually be right in this argument, is if everyone, from the spokesperson to the ABC people are lying, and Obama supports a federal law granting gays the right to marry.
If he really thought gays should be able to get married, he would want a federal fucking law to give them the right they are currently being denied.
If any asshole came up here and said “I support gay marriage but believe it’s a state issue” they would get their ass handed to them. Because they clearly don’t give a shit about other people’s rights.
Caine: Then I’m remiss in not having paid attention. Thanks for schooling me.
I have a feeling a whole lot of librul straight “allies” are gonna schooled in the next few days. They’d be wise to shut the fuck up and listen.
Josh:
I prefer the queer umbrella myself, but it’s a matter of taste.
Y’know what I’m already SICK TO DEATH OF?
Liberal-types “joking” about how Obama just “came out,” or about how the White House is now the Rainbow House, or otherwise joking about how Obama/Democrats are now gay.
Because supporting gay rights makes you gay.
Because the only reason why you would support gay rights is if you are gay.
Because identifying with LGBT people is gay and that is funny.
Josh:
A lot of it gets missed, I think. The last time I noticed one of his ‘little remarks’, I gave a disgusted eyeroll but just ignored it. (Some stupid crack about musicians and how he used to want to be one, but didn’t want brain damage or was too smart or something.) This, in spite of the fact that there are musicians here, all of them considerably more intelligent than him.
Also, his behaviour toward Ibis3 was full on nasty.
One of my facebook friends just posted that quote from Obama. I had to explain the full context to her. It made me sad. Like telling a kid her goldfish had died.
Yeah, Esteleth. We’re just a big old cultural meme. Ha. Ha.
I’m sure it’s all ironic, though.
Fucking hipster/Whole Foods/NPR liberal douchebags.
Oh, Mr. President, could you please clarify? Would you allow me to use your bathroom? I promise to be funny and non-threatening in a sitcom-ish sort of way.
Obama is the most gay friendly president evar!
But has he done a real damn thing?
Honestly. If the biggest compliment you can give is he is so clearly more gay friendly than the Republicans then your bar is too damn low.
He’s done more than any past Democrat too!
Not fucking enough. I’m unimpressed. I’m tired of Democrats accepting this shit as good. No. Hard line to the fucking left, damn it.
My own sister posted a joke like that on FB. I called her out on it, she got all pissy.
Hon, I love ya, but having a dyke for a sister does not give you the right to tell gay jokes. *faceplam*
Liar. The article I gave is by Rick Klein, as it says if you would bother to read it. (Better yet, start caring enough about gay rights to do some research for yourself.) He works for ABC, who did the interview, and would have no reason whatsoever to lie about it.
Get your fucking head out of your ass.
So I see “Obama voices his support for gay marriage” and you see “Obama hates gay marriage.”
Just because you are popular here does not make you right.
I prefer facts to rhetoric, but I do notice a ‘jumping on’ by the cool kids, something I’ve always eschewed.
So, go ahead, cite anonymous sources, and please pardon me while I wait for the President’s own words.
And if you want me to be kicked out of the Kool Kids Klub, complain to PZ.
If it makes you feel better Josh, I’m certainly not fooled.
However I have to admit… without you and Caine here, there’s a very good chance I would have gotten the idea that it’s all sunshine and rainbows. I mean of course it’s positive-looking on the surface, right?
That’s what made me so sad about trying to explain it to my facebook friend. :(
Josh:
Oh, you also have to promise to speak no criticism of the bathroom decor. You must take the stereotypes all the way and then ruthlessly suppress them.
While I could hope for a stronger statement from Obama, I get the feeling there is a plan. Not defending DOMA is part of that plan. He got DADT repealed by asking the JCOS to study the problem. Their recommendations swayed the rethugicans, as its hard to back the military and yet fight the JCOS on major policy. So there might be a low key approach planned to achieve marriage equality unless he gets a majority he can make use of in the next congress.
WTF Sailor.
Obama did not say that he hates gay marriage or gay people.
He did say that while he thinks gay people should totally have rights and all, he’s not going to do anything to help us.
TLC:
Yes, it is and I’m sure he counted on that to mollify part of the masses (as Josh so eloquently stated, Fucking hipster/Whole Foods/NPR liberal douchebags), who are now completely missing the truth of the matter, the point sailing a 100 miles over their heads. Bread and Circuses.
Then you have the moronic privilege swimmers, like The Sailor, who thinks it was terribly nice and it was such a great pat on our little heads, he just doesn’t understand why we’re lying!1!!
I just got an email from my former girlfriend, she’s spitting nails over this.
No. What we are saying is put up or shut up. Actually fucking do something to support gay marriage or shove your “I support them personally” shit up your ass. Mr.President
Oh, but Josh, will you make sure to also be sassy and fabulous?
I’m always sassy and fabulous Kristin.
But I’m perilously close to having physical violence fantasies right now. Some people really need slapped.
No. Try again
As you wish!
Reality isn’t always very impressive. But we have to live in it. Right now, in 2012, Obama is the best available option for gay and lesbian marriage equality.
You can stand on a low bar and install the next bar higher than you could if you didn’t have any bar at all. It’s not necessarily a complement – it is an acknowledgement of the current reality.
I don’t actually see Democrats necessarily accepting this “shit as good”. There are quite a lot of them who, like you are pushing for more.
But none of that is relevant for 2012.
We can (must?) work on that for 2016.
What Obama said was “I personally support them…but I support the rights of people to harm them more”
Amphiox, we don’t need to be told about Realpolitik. We know. We’ve been living with it our whole lives.
What you lot forget (Jeezis, it’s not that hard for anyone who’s followed the confrontational/accommodationist dust-up) is that you NEED US. If we don’t complain about this hypocrisy the Overton window won’t move.
Why the fuck don’t you get this?
Also yes Obama is the best “ally” so far for queer folk.
He’s also really the only democrat in office since the issue has taken square 1 in the public debate.
Keep moving those goal posts Caine, you can’t come up with anything except a joke about musicians? How was that sexist?
I’m not going to flounce; I stated my reasons, I backed them up with facts, i.e. what the president actually said.
Go ahead, everyone who has seen my comments for a couple of years and still thought they had to join the bullies in attacking me personally, until I see the full interview, I won’t back down.
And until PZ kicks me out, I refuse to be cowed. I belong here, as much as anyone does.
Bite my shiny gold-lamé-covered ass, Sailor.
We need fucking better allies then.
The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) (Pub.L. 104-199, 110 Stat. 2419, enacted September 21, 1996, 1 U.S.C. § 7 and 28 U.S.C. § 1738C) is a United States federal law that defines marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman. The law passed both houses of Congress by large majorities and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton (who now, along with many of the law’s former proponents, wishes to see it repealed) on September 21, 1996.
Amphiox:
Uh huh. Would you like my immediate response to that? Here’s a hint: its not polite.
I, along with many others, have been fighting for gay rights for. fucking. decades. now. I cannot even express how fucking sick and tired I am of people just like you saying, “oh, it’s going to take time. More time!” Fuck that noise.
I nominate you for a Benjamin Radford Award for distinguished service in the doubling-down on being Skeptical™ about perfectly believable things that poor diddums doesn’t want to acknowledge.
Great going. Bravo.
And you’ve got a lot of nerve calling us bullies. You fucking dick.
Sailor, I’m saying this not as an attacker, but as someone who actually likes you:
You are missing the point. That’s the only way I can explain it. It’s like carlie said, Sailor. You’re not normally this obtuse.
Josh,
I have been reading.
I get that, but how is this Obama interview not a tiny shift of that very window?
It is a tiny shift of that window, John. But that’s not enough. People gasping about my objections to his “let the states decide” are wholly misguided.
I think I’ve earned the reputation of supporting gay marriage. After all, I still don’t have a cogent answer on how Karen’s gay cousin marrying his long term partner hurts the Redhead’s and my marriage. I just can’t see any damage.
Personally, I would have liked to have seen a stronger statement. But, I do understand the politics of the situation, and also understand not voting for Obama is a vote for the rethuglicans. Your choice folks, and you need to keep your eye on the bigger picture.
Hey Nerd—I can’t believe I’m saying this, but FUCK YOU TOO.
You? You’re gonna lecture us on this shit? You presume to tell me (because I’m too stupid to figure it out on my own) I need to vote for Obama.
Seriously. Shut up.
I’m part of the bigger picture, goddamnit. The bigger picture has to include calling out bullshit bigoted stance like “it’s up to the states.”
Fuck, have you all had a brain tumor for breakfast? I can’t remember being this disgusted with people I like.
Oh, the states rights excuse. Where have I heard that before? *cough*slavery*cough*
Nerd:
Do you really think we don’t know this? Do you understand why that makes me even angrier at Obama’s weaseling out and tossing every single GLBT person firmly under the bus? Hell, he didn’t even toss us under the bus, he threw us on the tracks to get demolished by a train.
How does criticizing him equate to not voting for him?
Seriously?
FFS it’s like your heads are stuck in the window and are admiring the view instead of trying to push.
Exactly.
How goddamned dense do you have to be to not understand that every bigoted organization is going to seize on his “states’ rights” rhetoric? How foolish do you have to be to not understand how he just handed the opposition a glittering talking point for future court battles?
Are you people addled?
Josh, all I was saying is I think it’s a great day when a sitting president uses his bully pulpit to endorse same sex marriage.
That has never happened before.
Obama made a somewhat, slightly positive statement about same-sex marriage. He then negated it by saying it’s up to the states on the day after North Carolina voted for a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage and civil unions.
Come on. He’s the president. He claims to support gay marriage. He claims it’s a state issue. He must know how the states are fucking over people. So he is okay with the states fucking over people. Which mean he doesn’t actually support gay marriage since he’s throwing them to the bigots with a bow on top.
SO, he either supports a federal fucking law to stop with bullshit with states taking away people’s rights or he’s not supporting gay marriage!