This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly. The puppy would like a snuggle.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly. The puppy would like a snuggle.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
BOOM Portcullised!
Hey Needles, care to go show off your A+ in Jen’s comments? (and/or link a bigger version? Neat…)
* tumbles under the crashing gate *
Lyn: Thanks!
Pteryxx: Gladly!
Click for big A+ logo.
Don’t forget your hat!
Also, congrats Pteryxx for suggesting the A+, which has really taken off!
Good morning. Happy Friday!!
Boy has just accepted a job as an assistant manager at a Turkey Hill. The manager (of a different store) specifically recruited him. So he will be going to school full time and being an assistant manager full time.
* runs back for the hat *
One Thousand Needles, would it be possible for you to link to the new A+ logo in a different format? It may just be my technical incompetence but when I follow the link I just reach a google drive website and I would rather not sign up. If possible, thanks very much.
No intention of spamming, but I hope to make it a little easier to send something to Love FtB. Got portcullised.
Here is a link to the website.
http://quequoi.tumblr.com/
It only takes a second to send an email to quequoi at gmail.com. quequoi takes it from there.
Thanks for reading again. Now please go send an email.
Secular humanism doesn’t really have a requirement of critical thinking or using the scientific method, though, does it? This is more an unholy trinity (heh) of atheism, skepticism, and humanism.
lexie: My bad, here’s a link to the raw image.
—–
Made my morning: the twitter account of the first rock to be laser’d by Curiosity.
One Thousand Needles, thanks. It looks great, I just wish it weren’t necessary (as when I first became an atheist/skeptic I thought that the need for equality was self-evident).
Needles, that’s a nice logo. My only issue is with the colour scheme: The blue cross looks a bit like something from a medical or pharmaceutical logo.
Ok, I am using IE9 and imbedded videos only work sometimes despite my doing every god damned thing I could look up to help the situation. I’m done, I’ve never liked IE I just haven’t installed something else since my computer crashed a few months ago. I am up for a new browser. What do pharyngulites generally use?
I use Firefox but I’ve been having issues with flash player recently (and have been too lazy to track them down since they are quickly rectifiable).
Louis
Jen’s comment thread has become too long to follow all the new answers on various subthreads.
/whinge
Oggie,
Yay for your boy! It’ll be tough doing both at once, but so worth it.
Happy Sunday/Friday, all.
I bought a salt bagel for Mr Darkhesrts breakfast, but it got salt all over my spinach bagel. Ick. :(
obviously, a tenet of New Inclusive Progressive Atheism MUST be to ban nested comments. Nesters cannot be tolerated in our movement! Deep Rifts!
Am I seeing things, or does PZ already have an A+ logo in the lower right of the page, as the link to the Out Campaign? Has that always been there?
I was just about to ask that. Nothing ON the linked page has an A+ … and wasn’t the campaign that Dawkins Foundation used it for, something else entirely?
Hey, folks. Technical question: I log in to WordPress blogs using my Google account. I changed my Google avatar 2 weeks ago, but the old image is still being used when I log in here. I have tried deleting cookies and logging out/in of both accounts, but no luck. Any suggestions?
Good to have someone else with the ‘so worth it’ take. He wants to (eventually) get into museum work and will be going for his MBA or MPA (and hopefully getting TH to pay for some of it) with an eye towards getting involved in the management of museums. Being in management at TH will give him some very useful (and quite a bit not so useful) experience for the future. Tough part is, the new manager is taking over a failing store and specifically tapped Boy to help him out and try to rescue the store so if he can help get the store back on its feet that’ll be a feather in his cap (as well as the manager).
We don’t expect to see him much this fall — between a full-time job and a 12-credit semester (and 9 of those credits are 300 and 400 level history courses with shitloads of writing), he’ll be rather scarce.
I use Firefox without much problem. Chrome was faster and less greedy of RAM and CPU for me, but I am addicted to the custom search engines available for Firefox.
/me stares at empty coffee cup
Gotta fix that. brb.
jackal: FTB isn’t a WordPress-linked site, it’s just using WordPress tools. The login’s completely separate here. Avatars on FTB come from Gravatar, which should be linked to your login email here. You can manually change your Gravatar logo at their site:
https://en.gravatar.com/
I thought that the A+ logo was used by the Richard Dawkins foundation for their non-believers giving aid charity and wasn’t a part of the out campaign. Am I wrong on this?
Oggie,
I worked full time while going to school full time, too, and I don’t regret it one bit. At the time I was pulling my hair out (12 credits/semester, asst. manager of a video rental place, and involved with the school’s theater department) but I’m glad that I got all of that experience and I’m glad I did it when I was resilient enough to be productive with very little sleep. ;)
Anonymous Atheist just answered that:
https://proxy.freethought.online/blaghag/2012/08/how-i-unwittingly-infiltrated-the-boys-club-why-its-time-for-a-new-wave-of-atheism/#comment-96972
Woohoo!
intermittent internet sucks
but hugs for all as needs ’em
—
oh no Zoe
Okay…
I’m evidently not caught up.
Audley:
*jealous*.
Also from Anonymous Atheist:
https://proxy.freethought.online/blaghag/2012/08/how-i-unwittingly-infiltrated-the-boys-club-why-its-time-for-a-new-wave-of-atheism/#comment-96977
Also, that red zapfino A first appeared as an atheist symbol on — you guessed it — Pharyngula, back in the distant days before 2005 when it was hosted on my lab computer. It really is an atheist thing, not just a Dawkins thing.
While we’re at it, via Stephanie Zvan’s latest, a research-filled article debunking the supposedly research-based claim that discrimination doesn’t play a role in the gender wage gap.
Just one counterpoint of many:
Another, in response to rebuttal:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/169400/yes-virginia-there-gender-wage-gap#
Is it possible to copyright a letter from a typeface designed by somebody else? I wonder if RDF pays a royalty to Linotype for its use.
really? I remember pirate mode, but I don’t remember that. In fact, I remember at least one–maybe 2?–contests to design such a logo, and didn’t that happen on SB? Going to see if g**gle knows.
We had two contests to design a symbol, and there was no consensus at all. The zapfino A was one of the popular choices, but not the only one. I think a lot of people really favored Godfrey Temple’s “Affinity” symbol (an A with an infinity symbol for the crossbar).
It was most definitely on pre-Sb Pharyngula.
Congratulations to Boy, Og – sounds tough, but he should be able to handle a hell of a lot with everything he will learn! I’m very impressed, too – my DaughterSpawn is only working part-time while studying and I know she feels pretty busy so I really take my hat off to Boy!
Hey, I didn’t know that the Women in Secularism conference concept may have originated with PZ in the Woman Problem thread!
(No, the comments still aren’t up yet…)
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/06/29/the-woman-problem/
PZ, you’ve been doing more for The Cause than I realized. Thank you. (and you’re only just now getting rape threats for it! Congratz. *blech*)
Josh Timonen (hey, ‘member him?) claims to have created the scarlet A symbol in 2007.
The friendly atheist was still concerned about it in July 2007.
People were still arguing about it on Pharyngula in August 2008.
ah-HA!!
Here’s one of the contests. SB, Oct. 2006. No red A.
I rest my case.
Thanks Pteryxx.
{snuggles}
Also, belated hugs to thunk, if you still need them.
This is my first foray into “The Lounge” since it has been formed as such. Good morning.
Congrats, Ogvorbis! Hope the boy likes his new job.
Thanks for that link, One Thousand Needles. It’s fun to read the updates.
I almost wish I had a twitter account so that I could send the poor little thing a hug.
So, I hear (read?) my virtual rat Zoe appears to be in the family way. Two weeks ago, when I told GirlChild that condoms should be used “the first time and every time until you are an adult wanting children”, her response was “I’m only 13. I don’t need to know that yet.” I will be pointing out to her that Zoe is only 5 weeks old and apparently didn’t listen when she got the talk.
Good point!
@Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven – re fruited goat cheese: if you have a sweet tooth, maybe something with filo pastry & vanilla sugar?
I’m not a goat cheese fan, so couldn’t say how well it’d work, but I’ve certainly seen sweet goat cheese pastries.
Hope so too. And it’s not like it’ll be a new job. Boy is, effectively, an assistant manager at his current store (same company) — keeping up the planograms, ordering, etc. — but without the extra pay or a place in the command structure.
I was using Firefox, with AdBlocker and Pharyngula killfile, but after my last-but-one update videos stopped working. After my last update they still don’t work but I get an error message. So I’m using Chrome when I want to see movies.
When we can’t work due to weather, the satellite reception is also crappy.
Right, I remember the contest to choose a symbol.
PZ, the resolution on your Lounge pictures is bigger than you need for the size you’re showing. The full-size picture still loads, slowing down page loads for all. If you don’t re-size them to be small, you might as well leave them full-size on the page so we can enjoy their details.
Why a blue cross? (Aside from that being the title of a teetotalling group.) I’d much prefer an all red version, I’m sure.
ImaginesABeach:
Ha! I’m glad she can provide a valuable teaching moment.
I have not yet killed any of my family members. I just have to make it until bedtime tonight, and then I should be all right.
I feel like I need some puppies, so I’ll share some here.
An affecting reunion.
Beatrice, ratlets wean at 5 weeks and males/females must be separated by 6 weeks old. I was pretty sure I got them all separated quickly enough, but wasn’t early enough for Zoe, it seems.
Opposablethumbs, yes, rats can have false pregnancies.
*nod* Rodents are such a time bomb because optimal weaning time *overlaps with* the onset of fertility. The only way I could manage my colony was by weaning strictly on the young side of optimal weaning age, even if that meant giving supplemental food, or stunts like weaning only the males. Even then, every so often genotyping would reveal that a mom had gotten bred by a not-yet-weaned son. Oops pups are just a fact of life with rodents.
Markita Lynda – #50:
I had the same issue. Uninstalling and reinstalling Adobe Flash fixed it.
Imaginesabeach:
This reminds me of a story.
I spent a day with some friends a while back, and my parents say to me “Don’t ever do *various euphemisms*”.
I respond, “What? You mean sex?”
They reacted somewhat strangely.
Also, feeling much better. Thanks everyone.
I know people have various privacy issues, and I prefer not to name my study species here in the Lounge. But when I read the little snippets that people write here about their research, I’m sad that we can’t all nerd out about these things together.
It would be pretty awesome to have a conference with all the sciency types here, and to hear everyone give talks about their research. It would be such an interesting mix of fields.
A Moment of Mega Mormon Madness that is mostly hidden from public discourse. American Petroleum Institute President, Jack N. Gerard is one of Mitt Romney’s fellow mormons. Gerard is powerful and half-crazed with arrogance.
He seems to think that the U.S. Government should be a lackey of the oil industry.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/jack-gerard-the-force-majeure-behind-big-oil/2012/04/06/gIQA1hjC0S_story.html
Gerard runs API like a political campaign, with lots of campaign propaganda. He greatly inflates President Obama’s power over oil prices in order to make it look like Obama is manipulating prices for political gain. If that were true, Obama is manipulating them in the wrong direction, so that makes no sense.
On the other hand, Gerard is a believer in one of the oft-told Romney lies that Obama is responsible all on his own for the price at the pump.
Gerard also routinely inflates the number of jobs created by the oil industry. He advertises “the right facts,” which means, the facts he makes up. Reminds one of the “faith-promoting history” that the mormon church leaders tout.
Beyonce’s performance for U.N.’s World Humanitarian Day.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/videos/2012/08/19/beyonce-un-world-humanitarian-day.html
She looks really clean. Spotless white dress, especially when compared to the refugees and first responders in the photos used as background.
Thunk –
Just in case you missed the instructions I gave my GirlChild above, I’m repeating them as instructions for you.
Condoms. The first time and every time. Unless you are trying to reproduce.
/PSA
Excuse me. There’s something in my eye.
That woman can sing.
Needle @2 – Thanks! Now I have a brand new pendant.
Like?
ImaginesABeach:
Also: never, ever keep condoms in a wallet. Unless you are trying to reproduce.
Don’t allow anyone else access to your condoms. Unless you are trying to reproduce.
…Good lord, do you have your own 3-d printer?? Cool.
Expanded.
But condoms ARE great. Although I imagine them to be difficult to handle with paws.
Beach:
Noted.
Caine:
Also noted.
Josh, please check your e-mail. It’s about the Horde Hoard.
*hugs for cicely and thunk*
Yup, that’s what made me suspect that there were showers, as I was later told there indeed are. I’ve seen very few penes, and, uh, I have no plans to change that, not even FOR SCIENCE!.
Ooh. We fit together pretty well. ♥
*jaw dropping*
Were you trolling him or what? Where on the planet is he supposed to pull happiness from?
“And out of the chaos a voice spake unto me, and said: ‘Smile and be happy, it could get worse!’ And I smiled and was happy, and it got worse.”
:-) :-) :-)
*chamomile tea*
The point of this, of course, , I’m pretty sure.
It wasn’t long ago that I told people here to visit Sb Pharyngula. Back then, there was an antivaxxer (should be on the 2nd page now; the thread is probably dead).
It’s just two bulbs. :-]
And the recipe is from chefkoch.de, and the Germans used to complain about how much garlic the Turks used…
There’s a yummy southern French recipe called “chicken with 45 cloves of garlic”.
Good idea. :-)
Pull her aside sometime and give her that ten-minute rant. She’ll never learn on her own.
I have no idea if I have a problem with it, because I don’t even try. The mouthfeel is horrible.
…Wow.
X-D X-D :-D :-D :-D
Under some circumstances, yes: my mom. When she can convince herself it’s an end to suffering after a long, fulfilled life, she has little or no further trouble with it.
However, she’s the most adult person I’ve ever encountered: no need to play, no need for body contact, walks fast but practically never runs, wants everything done as soon as possible, that kind of thing. Imagine our issues with each other… or, rather, don’t.
No. In this generation, there’s also my brother and me (but not my sisters).
That’s probably it, though.
At least some of them have a coelom fold around the ovaries and oviducts to prevent ectopic pregnancies. Don’t try to imagine the selection pressure that leads to that.
Her very name means “life”… I’ll pour the gin Jules left here into the USB port. Want some tonic, too?
It’s not silly at all.
(Except ;-) that once you mention “type” as used in biological nomenclature, “subtype” doesn’t make sense anymore.)
~:-| So you’re trolling Chas? Seriously?
Heh. Over here, red hair is so rare that I’ve always noticed it immediately.
…Wow. Congratulations.
Is everyone prepared for my results?
I’m scarily similar to a saint, only godless. I suppose I’m good without God :-)
First Level of Hell – Limbo
Charon ushers you across the river Acheron, and you find yourself upon the brink of grief’s abysmal valley. You are in Limbo, a place of sorrow without torment. You encounter a seven-walled castle, and within those walls you find rolling fresh meadows illuminated by the light of reason, whereabout many shades [ = dead people] dwell. These are the virtuous pagans, the great philosophers and authors, unbaptised children, and others unfit to enter the kingdom of heaven. You share company with Caesar, Homer, Virgil, Socrates, and Aristotle. There is no punishment here, and the atmosphere is peaceful, yet sad.
That sounds a lot like life, actually. Only with more babies. ♥
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Level Who are sent there? Score
Purgatory Repending [sic!] Believers Very Low
Level 1 – Limbo Virtuous Non-Believers Very High
Level 2 Lustful Low […hey, that’s from the way the questions were chosen…]
Level 3 Gluttonous Moderate
Level 4 Prodigal and Avaricious Very Low
Level 5 Wrathful and Gloomy Low
Level 6 – The City of Dis Heretics High
Level 7 Violent Low
Level 8 – The Malebolge Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers Moderate
Level 9 – Cocytus Treacherous Low
Best of all: it’s actually a dating site.
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Trigger warning!
Why do people laugh at creationists?
Only creationists don’t understand why!
Heh. In German, “blue” means “drunk”.
…They must grow insanely fast.
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Oh, definitely. Maybe we can work that into Rhinebeck next year.
Also, next year, the meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology will be in LA. That’s at least on the same coast as you, right?
carlie @70 – Yes, I have a Makerbot Replicator 3D printer.
Oh, and don’t save at the wrong end: If putting it on doesn’t work perfectly the first time, use a new one unless you want to reproduce.
Also, still know where to get Plan B. Because condoms break (the arrival of my godson was announced with the setence “the damn condom broke”). Happens to smart people who do everything right. And finding out where to get it when you’re just threatened with a pregnancy is really stressfull.
*headdesk* Josh replied to my e-mail while I was still writing that comment. I forgot to take that part out before submitting!!!
Also, if you or your partner are an intact male, realize that condoms are considerably less miserable if you:
1) pull the foreskin back
2) unroll them over the penis and about 2/3 of the way down the shaft
3) pull the foreskin up over the glans so the side of the condom gets folded up into it
4) unroll the rest of the way.
I found this tip on a sex information site about 3 years ago. Why isn’t it on every fucking single one? :(
Giliell:
Noted. Now just to do the latter without freaking myself or family out…
It does.
http://www.americanhumanist.org/Humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_II
http://www.americanhumanist.org/Humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_III
Azkyroth:
Noted, again.
Also…I’m gonna have to say this was right the first time. At least for men. :/
Moar music news:
Link to full story in Salon.
Hallo folken! Just popping in to say hey before popping back over to my wife.This is the last Taco Sunday for awhile… if all goes well shes off to herThursady or Friday.w job Fr
I really like the Think Progress response to Mitt Romney’s dumbed down, inaccurate and generally off-putting White Board presentation.
Scroll down to see the Think Progress White Board Face Off.
Excerpt from text that accompanies the video:
In case you have not yet suffered through Romney’s awkward presentation, here it is:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505267_162-57495179/romney-uses-white-board-in-attempt-to-clarify-medicare-stance/
Hey, I can’t stop them from having it. But that particular road leads to failure, and if I can convince more people to not go down that way, I’m going to try.
I think the emotional need is more generalized. There isn’t a specific need for [adjective] atheism or atheism[modifier].
There is a general desire to say “we are the future of change atheism and you can’t stop us!” And there are other ways to achieve this without isolating ourselves.
We can become the mainstream, instead of setting ourselves apart.
+++++
rorschach,
That’s exactly the kind of rhetoric we should avoid. I’m not surprised that years later you’re still parroting dictionary atheist talking points. (Though I can see that the whole “new wave” phrasing encourages you to do that, rather than discouraging it.)
You’re setting up Dawkins as symbolizing pure atheism. There is no necessary reason to fall into this trap. Let’s avoid it.
+++++
I’ve now linked it from the front page at http://pharyngula.wikia.com/
Azkyroth, not all women are assholes, you know?
My son was a condom baby. So, yeah. Doubling up on your contraceptive methods is a GOOD THING.
Also, hi everyone! I’ve been at my inlaws’ painting their house in full sun on the hottest day(s) of the year. (Yes, they paid me. I put it away for a truly amazing 15th anniversary celebration for me and Misterc next summer.)
I’m almost completely threadrupt but holy omfg, Caine, MOAR BABIES. Wut. I honestly wish I could take some off your hands.
Also also, while in the car with my very religious inlaws, my son exclaimed “Oh your God!” and made me spit my drink out and choke :D :D :D
Of course not all women are assholes – and even the vast majority of women who are assholes aren’t likely to take this particular route, but the ones who are tend not to walk around with neon signs on their heads that say “asshole.”
This sounds familiar, somehow.
….okay, let me rephrase that:
Of the subset of women who ARE assholes, the majority OF them are not likely to be assholes in the sabotaging-birth-control way.
Well, the end of that sentence was with a trusted and tested partner, so Giliell didn’t exclude the possibility of someone lying.
I’ll back Azkyroth here – there are a whole lot of asshole women out there when it comes to contraception and ‘accidentally’ getting pregnant or passing off a pregnancy by someone else. No, it doesn’t happen all the time, but it pays to be careful, at least until you’re at point you feel you can completely trust your partner.
I should probably be embarrassed (being 26 and all), but I guess I should bookmark this thread for good advice on protection for any sex I might have in the future. Eventually. Maybe. :/
Even people you trust and feel are tested can lie (and rationalize), and it’s very easy, especially when you’re young, to extend trust where you shouldn’t, for a variety of reasons.
Azkyroth,
I see, I didn’t take into account that possibility. I should have.
Azkyroth
Yes, but that doesn’t make it somewhat equal, especially in terms of numbers. And, well, if I turned the argument around it would be: don’t get alone with a man, ever. Not even the one you trust. At some point taking no risks means that you’re also ruining all chances.
…I never said it was equal in terms of numbers. And…
…..oh, fuck it.
(Content notice: trivializing rape):
Legitimate Rape
@ Josh
Thanks for the link. I’ve been seeing mentions of that on twitter all day, but I didn’t know what it was about.
Well, that was exceedingly ignorant and misogynistic. How can someone who thinks what Todd Akin said even exist? He must have known he was being a dumbass as soon as he said it.
It’s not just trust – no type of birth control is 100% at preventing conception, so multiple forms at once are a good idea if you really, really don’t want a pregnancy to happen. I wouldn’t ever rely on just a condom, and I wouldn’t expect any man to rely entirely on me taking my birth control pills properly.
Nope. It has that gut feeling of truthiness to it, so it must be true.
Josh, yeah, he’s a piece of work alright.
I’ll just betcha this moron thinks women can absorb an unwanted pregnancy. He’s all against marital rape laws, ’cause someone could use those to be all mean to a man in a divorce case.
@ Sili
No particular reason for the blue except contrast.
@ a3kr0n
That’s amazing!!!
Just saw an AT&T commercial showing a guy using his cell phone will all kinds of backgrounds changing behind him, trying to show that AT&T has the best coverage no matter where you are. What I saw was an idiot who kept playing with his phone and not even noticing all the cool places he was because he was so addicted to his phone service. Ah, unintended advertising messages.
There was an editing error:
I suppose that’s also true, but the reliability jump in that case is smaller.
Yes, multiple forms of birth control are more effective than only one. Condoms alone are sadly rather unsafe. Personally I really like condoms, I really dislike the pill (what’s the use of having a birth control that makes you lose your interest in sex?). But I find stating that men should always wear condoms because there are evil women out there more than problematic.
Like many couples, we just used the pill for many years. Believe me, had Mr. always worn an additional condom because he couldn’t trust me to take the pill correctly or not to lie to him, there wouldn’t be an “us” today.
Y’know, it’s a good thing that Pteryxx came up with the A+, because Atheism, Skepticism, and Social justice makes an otherwise poor acronym.
I guess I don’t get that interpretation – doing so isn’t an accusation, it’s saying “I’m doing my part to take responsibility for not causing a pregnancy, too”.
carlie
I’m not talking about interpretations, I’m talking about reasons. Saying “let’s do this really safe ’cause the pill can fail” is a different thing than saying “I’m going to wear this condom because I can’t trust you”, which was given as a reason above
Eh, just change the order and you have Sas. Actually, SASJ. Skepticism, Atheism & Social Justice. I don’t think you get to leave the justice out.
As for the A+ I still don’t care for it. It’s already been used for something else and I prefer the Gnu A and I’ll stick with Jadehawk’s Feminist Gnu A.
Giliell:
Ya know, there’s no need to say “I can’t/don’t trust you, therefor…”. It can simply be framed in “I’m more comfortable taking extra precautions” or “I like wearing a condom” or a dozen other things. Azkyroth was simply making the point that it pays to be careful and it does.
I have a very hard time understanding straight peoples’ anxieties over condom use and the “message” they believe it sends to their partner. I came of sexual age in the AIDS era and condoms were culturally mandatory among all but a small subset of gay men. One didn’t even question it. No one wanted to take the risk and no one (in my experience) thought they were being insulted when their partner insisted on a condom.
Treating it any other way—when the potential risks of pregnancy and disease are so high—is deeply weird to me.
O_O
Oh my god… so… so many puns.
Is it to late to change?
I’ll back Azkyroth on this, too. He doesn’t need to apologize for a sensible and reasonable sense of caution. Again, this baffles me as a gay guy.
Josh:
A lot of hetro men will start pressuring a woman right away to agree to no condoms and women who might be looking to get pregnant will exert a similar pressure on men to go with no condoms.
Uhm, not saying it but actually meaning it still doesn’t change the fact that he really distrusts the woman in the realtionship and thinks he has to protect himself against her unreliability or evil. That’s not a really good basis for a respectful relationship.
Yes, contraception is something two people should care about. But to have my ability to handle something or my trustworthieness questioned by somebody I love and trust doesn’t say “equal relationship” to me but “stoopid bitches lie”
Thanks Caine. I just find the idea that one needs to in some way apologize for insisting on condom use for fear of censure so fucking outrageous. You wanna argue with me? Go fuck someone else. (Yes, I know I’m assuming consensual situations with equal power balance).
Gileill, I don’t mean this to sound like an attack but your perspective on this is seriously warped. It’s not all about you.
Josh
I have no problem with condom use. We use condoms. And actually, why does nobody suggest that I take the pill, too, because he could manipulate them?
I have no problems using condoms. I have a problem using condoms because women can’t be trusted not to steal some poor lads sperm and get rich on child-support. Or just to be too stupid to take a pill every day, because of their fluffy pink ladybrains.
Gileill—OK, but where are you getting all that? Whom are you imputing these motives to?
Giliell:
I think you are completely misreading what Azkyroth said and are being very unfair to him based on that misreading. He has every right in the universe to handle contraception as he sees fit. As I said earlier, there are a whole hell of a lot of untrustworthy people out there – I’ve known my fair share of them. You might not believe what some people get up to, but whether you believe it or not doesn’t matter.
Some of us are extremely unwilling to end up with a pregnancy or other unwanted problem and as always, the person best responsible for such matters is yourself. If a partner is all of a sudden upset by my handling of contraception, I’d immediately be wondering why.
Oh, I absolutely agree. Yet that was not what I was talking about. This isn’t about condoms. It’s about condoms because women can’t be trusted.
Sigh. I don’t trust anyone enough to risk a serious health problem. Things break. Pills get forgotten. Pills may not work. What is so hard to understand about this?
Ok, that’s the 2nd time recently that I have been responsible for the start of a condom conversation. Which is really weird, because I rarely talk about condoms.
Also, I’d like to note that my original comments was based on the fact that thunk has identified as male.
Truly, what I should have said is “protect yourself and your partner. First time and every time.”
I get what Gilliel means, but now I have dissonance in my own brain. Because my point was the same as Josh’s, but it just popped into my mind that it’s in some ways analagous to making a prenuptual agreement, and I’ve always thought if you need a prenup (for anyone who isn’t filthy rich with oddly family entangled holdings that are complicated), then you aren’t quite ready to marry a person. And… that’s saying the same thing, kind of? Now I has a confused.
Somehow I’m wondering whether there’s a general missunderstanding.
But let me get something clear first:
Azkyroth said that men should always wear condoms even in a relationship with a trusted and tested partner especially because asshole women will get themselves pregnant without the men’s consent. That’s a general statement about all men and all women, one that I find mightily unfair and treating all women, no matter who, no matter what’s the relationship as “potential spermjackers”. To pull the comparision with rape again: Should I still treat my husband like the stranger in the bar after all these years?
Absolutely. Yet he didn’t make a single statement about himself, but about all women.
Well, you’re older than me, but I’m not a little girl. I was lucky in my partner-choice, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have friends and family who ran into truely shitty people. And yes, getting intentionally pregnant while claiming to be on birth control to keep the guy is not alien to me. There are assholes out there. I just don’t think it’s fair to treat all women like one of them even after years and years of trust.
I 100% agree.
Ehm, yes. Like I would be wondering why he thinks that he needs an additional condom after we talked about using the pill and came to that conclusion together. And I’d be very worried if he felt it necessary not because safety was paramount for him but because he thought I was that potential spermjacking moral-free asshole.
Again, I’m not talking about using 7+ contraceptives to meet your need of safety from accidential pregnancies. I’m talking about somebody not trusting women per se.
Yay condoms!
As rough as things can get, my life has the silver lining of a complete lack of human children sponging off of me like leech creatures in a libertarian’s nightmare. And no diseases isn’t a bad thing either.
Giliell:
No it’s not – you’re the one making it into that. Azkyroth noted that many (actually most) young people, when first engaging in sex, very often trust people they shouldn’t. Azkyroth is absolutely fucking right about that – and that applies to both sexes.
I’ve known women who have attempted to sabotage condoms, I’ve known men who have done the same. I’ve known men and women who happily and blithely lie about intimate matters. Look, this is not about you. It’s not about your relationship. It’s also not “oh, women stoopid!” or “bitches lie!” (although you could say it’s more “people often lie and are sometimes stupid”.) It’s about being damn cautious.
Giliell:
You seem to keep projecting your own relationship into this – it’s not about your relationship.
Straight World Problems:))
I should probably disclose that I am speaking kind of out of my ass, because my spouse and I waited until we got married to have sex (like the cute little fundies we were), and I was on the pill for a couple of months ahead of time to be sure, so my experience with condoms is pretty much nonexistent (except for a short time after birth before the new hormonal control could kick in).
I think it’s true that “I don’t trust anyone” is something of the flip side of “I trust myself most”, but the offense is all in how strongly a specific person in question is the target of accusation rather than it being a general principle.
Beach:
More or less so, yeah.
Meanwhile, I DID trust my ex to take the pill correctly and not lie to me, and that’s why there not being an “us” today is so complicated.
Yay for anecdotes!
Josh:
Compleat with Drama. :D
I will say too, that there are two different perspectives clashing – those of the ‘in a committed, trusting, long term relationship’ and those of the ‘hey, I have sex whenever I can, but not in a long term relationship’ / ‘casual sex’ / ‘dates now and then’ and so forth.
A great deal of a person’s attitude depends on the type of relationship[s] they have going at any one time. And like everything else, contraception is personal and how it should be handled tends to be very subjective.
For kitten-cam obsessives, Spooky is leaving for her new home right now: http://static-cdn1.ustream.tv/swf/live/viewer:64.swf?vrsl=c%3A234&cid=11327176&v3=1&bgcolor=000000&campaign=facebook&rmalang=en_US
Bye bye Spooky!
No, he actually didn’t.
He said:
No qualifier
Still talking about “women”. And intentionally getting pregnant. Not even being too absent-minded to take the pill.
This is where young people appear for the first time. Yes, especially when you’re young. Not exclusively when you’re young.
His statement wasn’t about young people and the mistakes they make, that’s what you are making it about.
I understand that Azkyroth had a very bad experience and I understand his bitterness in some regards. I am actually impressed about the level of usual rational clear-headedness he keeps on those issues. That still doesn’t change his statements.
(In anticipation of the inevitable response, the fact that she lied about it came from a drunken confession on her part to a formerly mutual friend, not an assumption on my part.)
Azkyroth
Yes, and it’s shitty. Don’t believe that I defend that action for a second. But I think to say that therefore men should never trust women about birth control is way over the top.
Again, saying “I want to do my best to make this safe sex, therefore I always wear a condom” is really fine.
The only reason I singled women out is because, to my eternal frustration, male contraceptive pills or the like do not exist.
In fact, insofar as one is invariably “just around the corner,” I probably erred in not including a preemptive cautionary note for young women not to assume that male partners’ contraception will be used reliably, once that situation arises.
I suppose that’s fair – my initial concern with your statement, now that I stop and think about it, wasn’t that trust would never be justified but how easy it is to jump to the conclusion that you can and should trust someone.
shameless promotion http://www.etsy.com/listing/107216617/photo-print-anhinga-suwanee-cooter
Question for all of the MRAs, would I be declaring my hatred for all men if I said that Todd Akin is a horrid example of humanity?
Yes, I think that we can absolutely agree on that. Especially when you’re young and madly in love (hey, how many pregnancies started with the sentence: “trust me”).
Unless they’ve invented anything better by then I would probably advice and help the girls to get the pill when sexual activity might be somewhere on the horizon. Just to avoid any heat of the moment 2 beers too much mistakes. And still give them condoms and instructions because there are more deadly things out there than pregnancies.
That’s excessively generous.
Azkyroth, I could get more accurate about what I think of that shitstain on the panties of life but some upstanding people would start whining about my language. And swearing is so much worse than what Todd Akin had to say.
*sits down*
Let er rip Janine. I can’t use enough expletives to describe my absolute loathing for the lifeform known as Todd Akin.
I would also enjoy and heartily endorse any and all streams of obscenities and/or profanities directed at Todd Akin.
People like Todd Akin make me reconsider the freespeech axiom
The perfect rape testing device, pregnancy. A woman’s body will not allow a rape to produce a pregnancy. So if a woman become prenant, she really wanted and is a slut. And should have a baby to raise in order to kept her from her sluttish tendency.
And a true woman would not want to bother others with her tale of woe that is her “legitimate rape”.
So there is no need to ever talk about rape again. It is not a concern for the true human being.
(Todd Akin World sounds like the lowest depths of Hell to me. Oh, wait, he is only reflecting what he thinks his big sky daddy wants for us. Oh, this sophisticated theology, it shatters the brain.)
Ah, Tony…apparently you missed the most recent Official Position Paper. The ratties are already on our side, working overtime to convert Evil Peas to Cute. Theirs is a holding action, destroying the peas already in play, while it is up to the rest of us to deny them the opportunity to fester and spread.
Herbivores, Herbicides and Napalm. Words to live by.
Wishful thinking with a heapin’ helpin’ of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger, I think; notwithstanding the flip-side, What Does Kill You Makes You Dead. But that’s okay; all those people who found themselves on that flip-side were weak. Not Worth Saving. Unlike Us.
</cynicism>
–
It worked for me, when I was in charge of the cooking&cleaning. Cook, washing each pan and utensil as I finished with it, then eat (usually The Husband was already well into the eating while I was doing clean-up because I was going to have to wait for the food to cool anyway, no reason for him to abstain). I instituted this in reaction to my deep, deep loathing of dealing with a sink-full of dirty dishes stuck on a negative feedback loop: aversion to dishes->neglect of dishes->nastier dirty dishes->stronger aversion to dishes->…..until, finally, the dishpile was unbelievably nasty and deep, and we had nothing left clean to cook with, or eat off of. The only way I could avoid the loop was to not let it get started in the first place.
Now, however, I am no longer in charge of the cooking&cleaning, because I can’t stand there long enough. I can help with the chopping and other prep (we’ve got a little folding table and chair I use for that), but The Husband has to take it from there…and cleans to suit himself. Generally there’s a dishpile, but it’s his dishpile, and he accepts responsibility for it.
Tetris FTW!!!
Indeed. “All for one and one for all! Damn the torpedos! Full speed ahead!”
–
See you there! We’ll all have a hell of a good time.
:) :) :)
–
Yeah. I don’t know what the people here listen to, but I’ve never met someone who was “metal” enough to actually strain-harden. ;/
I like the comment over there that obviously if murder kills you, you must have really wanted to die, deep down inside.
Janine, that was more or less what I was inferring from Akin’s statements as well. The “If it’s a legitimate rape” clause gives away his rhetorical intent. And his lack of kinship with anything human.
Drat, I’ll try try to get some sleep, but it’s too fucking hot
The scariest thing about the Akin story is that he’s still polling ahead of Claire McCaskill. WTF is wrong with people?
Eriktrips, please do not do this, it is a very human thing to do and to say. I would suggest you say this instead.
Todd Akin is fully human but he is in no way humane. His ideal is an inhumane monster that he calls love.
(Now where the fuck did George Orwell come up with the idea of Doublespeak?)
And yet we are the mean bullies and the fascists for not showing his idea any respect. If we truly respected people, we would respect his belief.
Has anyone told PZ we’ve got a serious italics problem in Thunderdome? I’m posting here on the off-chance it’s more likely he’ll see it here than there.
Yeah I’m not even sure why I decided to put it that way. Certainly inhumane. Distressingly human.
I get it. eriktrips, some of us would rather believe that someone acting human was a good thing. (I am one of those.) Which is why I felt the need to point that out
I like the A+ idea.
I’m not keen on the Zapfino font – apart from the generally spindly and unaesthetic shape, it does seem a little doubtful to use the RDF’s version. I do like Jadehawk’s gnu very much, but I’m not sure we could sell it more widely. Sastra’s capital A in a loop (like an @ symbol) is quite nice, too.
I do see SG’s point, but also I doubt that atheism is really a strong enough concept to hang a movement on. Social justice, now that’s powerful. Secularism is also wider and much more important than just atheism. I’m willing to concede atheism to the dictionary atheists, as long as that concession goes along with a strong recognition that “mere atheism is inadequate”. We need more than atheism: we need Atheism Plus, A+.
Ogvorbis: *applause* for Boy. School full time plus assistant managering full time will certainly…build character.
:D
–
Psych-Oh! *hug*
–
*hugback* for DDMFM.
:)
–
kristinc! *hug*
–
Or lying and claiming to be pregnant, long enough to achieve a quicky registry-marriage. I know a guy this happened to in Real Life. Then, when it was obvious that she wasn’t, in fact, pregnant, she “must have skipped a period”, *teehee*. I’m guessing that the actual Plan involved her getting knocked up while the ink was still wet on the license, then claiming to be into overtime on the pregnancy, or that the baby would actually be early (enough to fudge the timing); but she didn’t end up pregnant. Bad timing.
It made for a useful Teachable Moment for Son.
–
I plan to vote against Todd Akin so hard.
–
Wishful thinking. They’d like to think that “real” rape seldom results in pregnancy, because that removes a major stumbling block to solidarity with more compassionate Xians who don’t think the mother should be forced to bear a rapist’s child. And that spells VOTES.
–
Josh, I think the difference may be that the men in the gay community were not wanting to risk a disease that, at that time, was considered tantamount to a death sentence; where as a hetero man is risking mostly diseases for which there is treatment (especially back in pre-every-damn-thing-is-drug-resistent days), or an unwanted pregnacy that an unfortunate number of men still see as Somebody Else’s Problem. She shoulda been on the Pill, she shoulda backed it up with a diaphragm or something. The Patriarchy strikes again.
–
Me too, but undoubtedly some of my reservation is due to sour grapes. For some asinine reason, I’m jealous of Pt’xx/Jen/Needles/Jadehawk/etc coming up with this whole idea while I have little to offer.
But that’s nonconstructive and bullshit.
I like the idea of there not being an “official” logo of any sort, but any font/color variant of A+ being recognized as referring to the same thing. Diversity being good and whatnot. And also taking over all instances of A+ in the world. Heh.
And if she doesn’t drown, but instead floats, she’s made of wood, and therefore a witch. Burn her!
I wish acting human were always a good thing, but I have come not to expect it, necessarily. Which puzzles me all the more about why I said what I did. I actually feel quite strongly that trying to “other” those who do especially contemptible things is dangerous. Evil is so mundane we should regard our mirrors with suspicion.
Well, that’s how I feel in my more pessimistic moments.
On the plus side, NYTimes pollster Nate Silver believes Akin may have just torpedoed his own campaign. I hope he is as astute as all that.
(My addition.)
I prefer to think of him as being literally a god-bot.
–
And yet, we’ve been winning already. As Jen says:
«But the reason I’m not throwing my hands up in the air and screaming “I quit” is because we’re already winning. It’s an uphill battle, for sure – in case you’ve forgotten, scroll up and reread this post. But change is coming. Some national organizations accepted anti-harassment policies with no fuss at all. A lot of local or student groups are fabulous when it comes to issues of diversity and social justice. A number of prominent male leaders have begun speaking out against this surge of hate directed at women. I’m working with others to hopefully start an atheist/skeptical organization specifically focused on issues of equality. And although the response from the haters is getting louder and viler, they’re now vastly outnumbered by supportive comments (which wasn’t always true). This surge of hate is nothing more than the last gasp of a faction that has reached its end.»
And we’ve been advocating all those things already. With measureable success already.
I’m not saying don’t involve these things in our movement, of course. (Wouldn’t that be a bizarre turnabout from me?)
I’m only saying it’s a rhetorical mistake to start calling ourselves [adjective] atheists or atheist[modifier].
But there’s no reason to. It’s a totally unnecessary ceding of ground. Atheism is already correlated with progressivism in both fact and connotation. We can push the regressives out of the tent, if we keep up what we’ve already been doing, instead of setting up a new tent.
David M:
No. I haz a sad. I live in Manitoba, which is right in the middle of Canada. In general, people don’t come here. I’m going to try to do some traveling after I graduate.
Josh:
Yes. The question is still academic for me, but that’s always been my attitude. If someone can’t understand that when I ask them to get tested, etc., it’s not about them, that’s a red flag.
Of course, I am a giant control freak, hugely risk-averse, and I have some trust issues, so take that with a grain of salt.
Wow! I missed a lot the last couple days while out farewell partying, being touristy and changing my train reservation. Started a new & better movement, complete with symbol(s)? Awesome!
Went to the Harriet Tubman house in Auburn NY with my daughter, mom, and brother, plus the brother’s girlfriend and the girlfriend’s mom, then paid our respects at her gravesite. Enjoyable and educational — and almost worth having to spend the 2 hrs each way in a car with my mother.
—
Caine:
Zoe, too? Oh dearz…..
On a more positive note, all the adorable ratlet photos have begun curing my embarrassing scream and “ohgodohgodohgod” hand-flapping and levitation reaction to rats and mice. (Which, my children assure me, is quite fun to watch.) I’m down to mostly just mumbling the ohgod part and quickly closing the browser tab.
I’m not anywhere near to wanting one of my own, even virtually, but this is progress of a sort.
—
thunk:
*hugs* and good luck for a successful year!
—
Ogvorbis:
Congrats to your son on his new job! I’m always impressed by those who can do work and school full-time. (Even more so by the ones who combine those two with parenting young children.) My first semester, I found out the hard way that more than 20 hrs/week plus school will end badly for me. I guess I’m just too old now to run on very little sleep.
—
Nutmeg:
I haven’t yet killed any family yet. But there are 72 hours or so until they’re completely safe.
My mom was almost human yesterday (mostly a good show for the brother’s girlfriend’s mom) but couldn’t resist getting in a few digs at me throughout the day.
I very much regret not taking my original train.
Just to pile on the condom train – I heard on NPR (National Public Radio for you non-USAians) that we are pretty close to having drug resistant gonorrhea available worldwide.
Is it wrong I read that and wondered WTF NPR was developing new gonorrhea?
@Janine:
Quite so. It’s not like we’re showing any respect for humanity when we call out hateful dumbasses on their dangerously stupid ideas.
RESPECT for hateful dumbasses and their dangerously stupid ideas!
It’s what’s for breakfast.
Also: I’m with carlie on the “any font/color variant of A+.” Working it into my blog header as we speak.
I’m hoping the new NPR gonorrhea is better than the old gonorrhea.
ing et al.:
I thought it was Scientific American gonorrhea.
@Irisvanderplayum
Well regular gonorrhea causes gross discharges…NPR gonorrhea causes Terry Gross discharges.
I don’t know who exactly holds the patent on the new gonorrhea, but they are welcome to ALL the gonorrhea so USE A DAMN CONDOM!
(addendum to my 178) or other appropriate barrier…
My apologies to those among us for whom a condom would be as useful as a church.
I’m sure it will be, all things considered.
@Ing “Terry Gross discharges” GROAN…!
:D
Though I did nearly aspirate the bite of food I was eating when I read this.
Janine:
Between his whole “legitimate” rape and his dislike (and disbelief) of marital rape, I’d say he’s a person who refuses to believe that rape can actually happen. He’s old school bitches be property.
Cicely:
This too. I knew a woman who did this, which shocked the hell out of me because I knew for a fact she’d had a hysterectomy some years before. I told her brand new husband, because I simply had no idea of how far she might try to take this nonsense. A rapid divorce was the result and she actually tried to sue me for telling her husband!
I wonder if there are other symptoms to NPR gonorrhea…WAIT WAIT DON’T TELL ME!
Socio-gen:
There’s no obligation to gaze upon rattiness, but I’m glad for your, um, desensitisation.
SG:
It’s this part that I disagree with. Most people I know, including many actual atheists, think of people who call themselves atheists as tedious socially-incompetent possibly-libertarian up-themselves self-important smug white male gits. We’re shifting that, but atheism-plus still allows the shift, while asserting immediately that there is more.
I don’t think that your point is stupid; but I think that reasonable people can disagree on this. It may be location-dependent.
Wow, that’s industrial grade asshole behavior. I can’t imagine
what she thought her legal rights were when her lie was exposed.
Caine:
Peer pressure gets me every time. LOL Everyone else thinks they’re adorable and cuddly, so I talk myself into looking.
They are winning me over, ever so slowly.
Now now, don’t go making any snap judgments.
Tethys:
It was industrial grade scary as hell behaviour if you ask me.
carlie:
That’s exactly what I first thought.
Ing:
I just snorted. NPR puns are a breath of fresh air.
Caine:
For what?! Defamation? I hope someone quickly told her truth is an absolute defense… (in the U.S., anyway).
Tony: (belatedly)
…I can quit anytime I wa–oooooh moose tracks… /brb.
I fucking love moose tracks. The closest thing to it I’ve found in AZ is the Blue Bunny Bunny Tracks version. I still miss real moose tracks from MI. Goddamn that shit is good.
its interesting that the dems in missouri worked hard to ensure akins would appear on the ballot to ensure the senate seat. I really dont want McCaskill to win but to replace her with someone that ignorant would be wrong.
(dont want her to win because of her hate of native americans)
Portia:
For destroying her marriage. She went to a bunch of lawyers, who all, from what I heard, tried to explain to her that she couldn’t do that.
JAL:
Huh, I’m so Midwest-insulated that I didn’t even know that was a local Michigan thing. It is good, but then, I’m obviously not terribly picky about flavor. Consistency, though, that’s where I get finicky. Another great Midwestern creamery has the unfortunate joke-prone name of “Whitey’s” but dang it’s delicious.
Caine:
See, not all of us are that bad :-| but jeez that’s ridiculous. Some people will go to preposterous lengths to blame other people for their totally self-inflicted wounds.
Broboxley:
No, Akin isn’t ignorant. He knows damn well that it’s perfectly possible for rapes to take place, he knows they do take place, and he knows they can result in pregnancy. He just prefers to take a biblical view of such things, which makes him more despicable in my eyes. He’s dangerous and he shouldn’t be excused on the grounds of ignorance.
Caine, ignorant was the wrong adjective. Willfully indoctrinated with stupid may be better.
I’ve stopped trying to differentiate for a while now. I’m not sure if that’s fair to people who are quite as vile, but I don’t have the patience to ferret it out anymore. And, for certain sets of people, I don’t understand how they could be ignorant of such basic facts. But then, I don’t understand a lot of things.
Akin is not ignorant, and is playing to the fundies in their often-deliberate ignorance and carefully-cultivated stupidity.
–
Portia:
People can be honestly ignorant. Growing up old school catholic, I saw kids who were so sheltered their ignorance on many matters was nothing short of stunning.
That said, I do think it’s important to differentiate between actual ignorance and willful ignorance. I don’t want to see Akin characterized as stupid a/o ignorant. He reminds me of Huckabee, who is very intelligent. I imagine Akin is intelligent enough and is well aware of the actual reality of things, it simply doesn’t conveniently fit his preferred world view, so he sets out to distort and create his own ‘facts’. It’s deliberate dishonesty and I do think it makes these particular politicians much more dangerous than one who was honestly ignorant about a subject.
We wound up using the blueberry goat cheese in omelets. My parents liked them, but I thought it was too rich. O.o
ex-wife #2 actually has Carl Kasel’s voice on her answering machine.
No shit.
She was 3 for 3.
Yeah, there’s sheltered dumb, there’s I-don’t-want-to-know-about-stuff dumb, but the prize-winner in my books, is the I-don’t-want-to-know-because-it-will-totally-upset-my-cozy-little-world dumb. And THAT is impervious to any known education.
At least as long as it’s illegal to beat them with a dead laptop.
And no, I don’t know if that would work, but there are entire weeks when I long to find out.
Kasell
Bah.
Room geometry annoys me.
Bed next to ac does not work.
Chas:
I love that show.
Caine:
I grew up with those kids. I was one of those kids. I’m still recovering (Not Catholic school, like my SO, but Christian homeschooling for me). And I’m still figuring out how much leeway to give people who grew up like me but never tried to figure things out after they “grew up.” (Which is why I added the qualifier “certain sets”).
Lyn M:
But how do you tell the difference, sometimes?
I’m off to bed, have a good night, all. (Or whatever your time of day is about to be). Will catch up tomorrow.
portia
The ones with a lot of privilege, about which they profess total ignorance, tend to fall into the last category. I do not accept that if you have a trust fund so large that you need not work, that you truly do not know that it is unusual. I feel the same about people who announce, “The poor want to be that way because they are too lazy to work. So I don’t give to charity.”
THAT kind of person.
But truly, some are just dumb. Usually takes time and observation to separate them. Also, the middle ones will change an opinion if you give them facts. Sometimes. A bit.
I mentioned this on Jen’s A+ thread, but it’s rather buried in the nested comments. Another thing occurred to me about the + sign. It’s the symbol for an intersection. How cool is that?
Shall we say the light has changed?
…oh. I stumbled across the term “jorts” in an image macro and googled it. Apparently there is now a vocal segment of culture which decrees that denim shorts – I mean, fucking denim fucking shorts are simply unacceptable to wear all of a sudden.
Has anyone else encountered this? Is this some sort of tasteless internet prank? Is there actually a sizable segment of the population that thinks this way? And if so, what future does a species capable of such idiocy have?
[A+ Logo]
If anyone is looking for an A+ logo to use as a gravatar, you can download here: Linky. You will need to download to see properly as it is a transparent GIF. Good for gravataring, but poorly presented on the skydrive.
With regard to not adding to our “Atheist” title with adjectives, I fully agree. But we can also use the plus (without ever saying “plus”) as an online emphasis that it’s the whole deal. And the more the merrier.
Good morning
Little sleep, still too hot
She could marry Vacula next, they’d suit each other.
Hey, after we were sued for the damage to a car that drove backwards into our baby stroller, I believe everything. And my BFF is a lawyer. I know stories (you wouldn’t believe how many people think it a good idea not to pay a lawyer’s bill
Ibis3
And a fertility symbol, and a xtian cross…. ;)
Warblgarbl! ;)
I sure can’t. I’m subvocalizing it right now. It might as well be a word.
i wrote a blogpost (with pictures) of how my summer went, in case you were wondering what I’ve been up to. and even if you’ve not been wondering, there arekitteh pictures to look at ;-)
http://jadehawks.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/my-summer-vacation-a-visual-essay/
@ SG
Damn! And there I was, patting myself on the back for coming up with a new A+ variant!
well then I guess I’m not capable of a “respectful relationship”. because fuck if I’ll ever rely on a man to protect me from a pregnancy I don’t want. I am always going to insist on being able to control that. And, sure, it’s less visceral a problem for guys, but why shouldn’t they also have the right to be/feel in control of their reproduction?
I give up.
Since apparently I’m so bad at communicating my argument that everybody needs to argue against something I didn’t say, I should simply stop.
O.o
getting married with the idea that of course you’re not going to get divorced is dangerously naive. it’s garbage left over from religion. as such, making sure that you and your spouse agree on what would happen if you split up seems kinda essential, before signing a legally binding contract.
Little sleep, still too hot
I think it hit 40 here yesterday. The little one and I snapped and snarled at each other until we finally said heck with it, went to the Hbf and bought some diet coke and mentos. We made like juvenile delinquents for the rest of the afternoon. Fortunately there’s a bit of grass without obvious owner not far from our apartment to spray diet coke all over. Sprayed it down with water afterwards in case there’s something toxic to grass in the soda. Plus the water fight got us cooled off as well.
actually, Giliell, it was me who wasn’t communicating clearly. I was trying to get the point across that as a general rule, women shouldn’t ever give up control of BC. And therefore, I think men shouldn’t, either. Even with people you think you can trust.
Men are sort of fucked in this situation, because a pill for them doesn’t exist, and this isn’t sufficiently widespread, so they’re stuck with insisting on condoms. And I have to say, if I were a dude, I would. Always. I cannot understand dudes who ever agree to give up their reproductive rights, to anyone, no matter how trusted.
therefore, I cannot get behind the idea that saying all men should retain control over their own reproduction is somehow equivalent to “all women are liars”
that came out wrong. I meant control over their own fertility.
Somehow, I don’t think Paul Ryan’s mother will be needing Medicare.
So he brought his mother as an appeal to emotion, and then didn’t discuss anything substantial about his health care plans?
That was his way of “going on the offensive”?
well, I personally consider his lies about the AHA offensive. does that count?
Ah, privatizing Medicare. uch a wonderful idea! We already have a version of that in place. It’s called Medicare part C and basically is an HMO version of Medicare. And most people on it do surprisingly well. Many plans say their enrollees’ survival is higher than average for the age group. And, of course, they don’t discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. That would be illegal. If their offices always seem to be on the fifth or sixth floor of buildings without elevators and they require a yearly in person renewal of enrollment, that’s totally coincidental. Nothing at all to do with making sure that people with their insurance don’t have CHF or severe anemia or conditions that confine them to a wheelchair or drop their insurance if they develop such conditions…Nothing at all.
Does Atkin’s statement remind anyone else of Newt’s statement about how women shouldn’t be in combat because men are naturally made to “roll in mud” but women would get “infections”? Same sort of biology fail and sexism.
You misread. I said he was the face of the current atheism movement, not that of all atheism ever, or of nothing but atheism.
I will say this again, sharing the lack of a belief in something is not enough social glue to build a cohesive movement. A lot of atheists do not automatically apply the skepticism and critical thinking which they apply to the supernatural also to issues of social justice, just as skeptics too often are only skeptical about their personal pet peeve and nothing else. What’s needed is a movement that is a “best of”, where atheism is but one part.
Dawkins is still receiving criticism from religious bigots for agreeing to attend a Highlands book festival, but not to debate the local fundies, apparently called the “Wee Frees”. Article here
Love one of the comments under that article in response to a commenter accusing secularists of attempting to rewrite history:
First evidence for photosynthesis in insects http://www.nature.com/news/first-evidence-for-photosynthesis-in-insects-1.11214
Not quite triffids, which is why I need a bigger lab.
— — — — — — — —
Charles Stross is soon heading to USA for a Sf con, I forgot where.
— — — — — — — —
Not commenting on the definition of rape. Reading the stuff makes me go HULK SMASH!!!!!
When reading about a Baywatch actor loking for the Ark at Mt Ararat (wich is not necessarily the same meountain mentioned in the bibble) I came up with an ehvil(TM) idea.
Let’s get some really old logs that have been preserved in peat bogs. Carve out some crude planks and plant them on Mt Ararat.
.
When the fundies do C14 tests they will go crazy with the “proof” of some ancient ship remains.
.
Wait a bit…then publish the video of how the planks were made. Isotope analysis will confirm they came from Not-Middle East (they can pinpoint the place where a tree grew these days).
.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!*
We can name the operation after the asshole who smeared ACORN with edited recordings.
@ Tony
Amirite?: “a snowbird” – This means his mom flies around the country chasing the sun? Not really representative of those people Obama is trying to provide with basic medical services anyhow. (Does her private nurse fly with her on these little jaunts?) They are positively quivering with blind privilege.
@ birger
Woah Safari! If you really want to take the piss, plant the planks in Kurdistan – on Mount Judi. (Proving Mohammad was right… ;)
Oh FFS, Ryan cites his Mom’s having the resources to take annual flights to a warmer climate as being, y’know, just what folks do? As an appeal to the common folk?
Bleargh.
Make sure someone carves an inverted pentagram somewhere on the timber. Just fer the lulz.
Not much happening here tonight. I just realised I’ve never watched “Inherit the Wind”, so I’ll do that now. The 1960 one, with Gene Kelly as Mencken. Anyone seen that?
birgerjohansson @231:
Been done already.
@ rorschach
Definitely worth watching. IIRC it is in the public domain and so anyone can download it for free. (Also, more IIRC, it is not quite 100% historical but gives a good sense of what was happening back then.)
Dianne
We just stayed inside. House is well insulated and if you close the windows at the right time it limitis the heat. But yur idea sounds fun, too.
Jadehawk
No, I simply disagree with the absolute statement that men/women should never ever do that.
Your personal risk-management is yours and fine. It just doesn’t mean that other people who run different risks for different benefits are stupid or careless.
I don’t know if I’ve said something wrong for Ophelia to ban me :(.
I tried to post a comment and it didn’t appear, but when I wanted to repost it I get the duplicate warning.
Then I added a bit at the front and tried to post that, but again nothing.
@Beatrice – I had posts swallowed when they had lots of links in… Dunno about Ophelia but here it is up to 5. Tried posting a simple textual comment with no tags?
beatrice
If you’d been banned she’d have said so.
Did you write her a mail?
I can post a comment for you asking if there’s a problem
There were no links, the most it had were quotes and italics which I see in other posts.
I hesitate to try again, in case three almost identical comments eventually make it out of moderation.
Giliell,
Don’t bother. I hope it’s just some technical glitch. I think I had a problem like that on some other FTB blog a couple of weeks ago and then later posted again with no problem.
Yes, that happened to me, too.
Sometimes there are just weird combinations of words that trigger spam-filters
Oh, of course divorce is a possibility. I’m talking about the idea that you don’t trust that the person isn’t going to turn into a selfish irresponsible person who can’t be reasoned with.
If you think the person you’re marrying might be like that, why are you marrying them?
Sure, because everyone can afford to have a second home for the winter.
I wish I knew how to do all that mind-over-matter stuff. Right now, by merely thinking about the fact that in a few hours we’re dispatching Spawn#2 to travel on his own for the first time in his life, I am causing my pulse to race wildly and my stomach to clench unpleasantly with that adrenaline-rush feeling. Even though he’s being met at the other end by a lovely family who will be looking after him for a few days.
Now if only I knew how to control my pulse and tension levels in the opposite direction …
To be fairish to Ryan, a fair number of upper middle class and even middle class people do the snowbird thing and I doubt his understanding of the world includes people of less than middle class so he’s probably being as inclusive as he possibly can be. Which is to say, not very.
Do you know that problem when you’re sure you have a recipe of the dinner you want to cook and can’t find it for the love of dog?
Yay for the internet
opposablethumbs
Want a sweetie to suck on?
He’ll do it just fine
opposablethumbs – I empathize. He knows how to call home if something gets messed up though, yes? He’ll never be in the middle of nowhere, and he’ll always be able to contact you. Anybody would loan a traveling kid a phone.
Thunk:
???
Opposablethumbs:
Best of luck for the spawn.
Audley:
Its that you did lots of activities during your time in school, yet I can’t be arsed to. I need to work on that.
I shouldn’t argue with entitled sexist assholes when I’m already angry.
Urgh. I know I can be a bit too needy and boring, but my own father could probably stand to listen to me for fucking two minutes without saying that I “don’t need to talk about this any more” and changing the topic into something he can blather about for half an hour. Without needing my input, of course. It’s not like I would have anything intelligent to say.
Argh. And if I show that I’m insulted, then I’m the one who can’t be lived with. I’m the reason we can never talk normally. I’m the one ruining his every day.
Because talking normally is talking about things he is interested in and me shutting up or agreeing with him enthusiastically.
Beatrice:
Sounds awfully familiar. Maybe not quite to that extent though.
thunk:
Aaah, okay. :)
Carlie:
I’m baffled that the thought of being sensible and cautious is taken to be an automatic negation of trust. I think this is why so many marriages/relationships end up in the trash, suffering from over-romanticizing and not enough sense.
Simply accepting the reality that things may, at some point, go haywire (or simply be a matter of growing apart) doesn’t mean you don’t trust your partner. It does mean you recognize the fact that people can and do change.
Beatrice:
Oy. I’m surprised you can breathe, with an ego like that sucking all the air out of the room.
*chortle*
WOW! “PayPal founder bankrolls 3-D printed meat” http://phys.org/news/2012-08-paypal-founder-bankrolls-d-meat.html
The raw material is lab-grown meat.
So you could eat synthetic panda beef without a bad conscience.
And the phrase “body of Christ” might get a new meaning.
— — — — —
So, instead of cattle, we use labs. And the remaining farm animals would get a photosynthesis app, to save on fodder. (see @ 30)
Being somewhat north of twenty-five of the forty-foot high killers, I’d have thought you be more like to out of house, home, yard, neighbourhood, and come to that, neighbours.
Very similar to what happens when attacked by peas.
opposable thumbs:
Even with three, I never managed to figure how not to worry myself sick when they traveled solo the first time. Heck, I still go through it when they fly or make long road trips. My brain knows they’ll be fine, but the rest of me is a wreck until they arrive safely.
It never really worked for me, but some folks claim box-breathing helps calm the heart rate. (inhale to a count of 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4.)
—
carlie:
Because divorce is often a highly charged, very emotional process. People can do things during one that you would never imagine them capable of. Rather than wait until you are dealing with someone you never knew existed, it is better to spell things out when you are both in a rational (and generous) frame of mind. Particularly if there are, or will be, children involved.
I see it as no different than making out a will and having advanced directives in place in the event of incapacity.
—
Beatrice:
That perfectly describes my mother. My sole job in conversation with her is to say, “Yes, okay, right” while she expounds. Even if (or especially if) the topic is me and my fucked up life.
Giliell
Yes please! Can I take three?
Hope so!
carlie
But we’ll be so far awaaaaaaayyyyyy ::wibbles::
We’ve gone over it a bit, what to do if X or if Y happens … and the other family sent their Spawn to us last month (also first time travelling alone!) and it went just fine. I’ll be happier when I get a text saying the eaglet has landed, though :)
thunk
Thank you, thunk!
Beatrice
Fuck but those symptoms sound familiar … I really hope there’s a cure. But until the time when (or if) a cure is found, you take care of your own blood pressure and sanity and tension levels (and tooth-grinding). One day it will eventually stop being a problem that he imposes on you, and will just be his problem. I really feel for you on this.
Socio-gen,
Exactly. We set out in about half an hour to see him off, and I am definitely wibbly just now (though I know I’ll be fine tonight once he’s safely there). Thank you for the breathing advice, I may just try that when we wave him out of sight!
blf:
I have no neighbours to either side and the rest are a fair distance away. :D
I know I can be a bit too needy and boring
Can’t say I’ve seen much in the way of needy and boring out of you. Try harder. Or don’t. We like you as you are. (If the horde will excuse me for speaking for it.)
beatrice
My comiserations. It must be horrible to be stuck there at the moment. I know what makes life bearable for me is having my own flat.
And others fail from too much control and too little trust. There’s sensible precautions and there’s paranoia. No average person in Germany needs a prenuptial (unless there’s some property that should go a certain way, say to a first-marriage child or something like that). So, somebody insisting on a prenuptial who’s you know, just the ordinary person with an oridnary job and ordinary property is probably a paranoic control-freak. If your ex wants to split up with you peacefully they’ll do, if they want to hurt you they will.
As someone abused for over a decade by the person I thought would be my partner for life, do you REALLY want an answer to that?
That fecking laser on Mars has fired: Curiosity rover analyses first Martian rock with laser gun. Best (and first) comment from a reader:
Sharing the pain feels somewhat better, but I’m sorry to hear so many other parents are also terribly self-centered/domineering.
The person I feel even more bad for is my mum. When I move out and they both retire, he’s going to drive her out of her mind. She already had a domineering mother of her own and now my father… and I’m afraid I sometimes take after them both, even though I try not to and try to make it up by defending mum when he’s an asshole to her.
Family drama
@260: I wonder if it uses FCS in the culture medium. Also, ew! to the “Body of Christ” thing.
Giliell:
How do you know this? You can speak for every single person in Germany now? Don’t quote “laws”, either. Laws don’t cover everything and relationships are not fucking static – they change, just like the people in them. Money changes, circumstances change, amount of children changes, and so forth.
No. You have this overly romantic view that you don’t want challenged. For you, it’s all or nothing. The fact that other people are capable of having a more pragmatic view does not mean they don’t trust or love their partners, Giliell.
As for “peacefully splitting up”, again, you make no allowance whatsoever for people changing.
{Sigh}
I fear this Hunstoddard person is a self obsessed fool. I know, I know, meanness in the lounge, someone threadcop me (and if anyone does, here is a prearranged “fuck off!”, I am expressing moderate frustration, not character assassination). Why, why do I try to treat people vaguely sensibly on occasion? WHY!!!!?!!?!!?!?!?!? I might as well fart reason into a hurricane of stupid for all it’s worth.
Don’t mind me. I think I may have to start drinking early this week.*
Louis
* Actual frustration may be being exaggerated for comedy benefit.
Louis:
I might join you, pancreas be damned.
Hooboy am I threadrupt.
I am also angry at myself.
Protip: if you intend to do an assay where you ask the question, “How many of these are alive?” try not to dump paraformaldehyde all over them. This will guarantee that your answer will be NONE.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Caine,
Pancreases and livers are hugely overrated. Both are evil and deserve to be punished.
What’s your poison?
Louis
Time for me to whine some more…
My wife is really freaking out about our money situation. Like really bad, and apologizing for “screwing up” because she got fired from the job that caused us to move here in the first place and then not being able to keep a job since then. I don’t know what to say other than to be reassuring and stuff, but then I don’t get to panic or freak out or show any negative emotions because one of us has to keep their shit together… fuck.
Also in sadly shameless plugging, over on my blog I’ve started the Great Guitar Selection Thingy 2012! Help me pick a new guitar, which will forever be know as… Something-something, SpokesGuitar?
Louis:
A nice Cabernet Sauvignon, please.
Anyway! I posted about this on FB (i.e. my FB), meaning some who are on FB know of this, but I’m saying it again:
Saturday, September 22. My place.
I am celebrating 5 years of being cancer free.
Hordelings who are in the Northeast of the US (or in the Southeast of Canada, I guess) are invited to come by. Those who are too far away are invited to raise a glass to me.
Improbable Joe,
Ahhhhh yes, I know THAT feeling.
My answer to the guitar thing, without even going to your blog, is “custom Les Paul”. It always will be “Custom Les Paul”, it always has been “Custom Les Paul”. Unless you are feeling like a ridiculous Steve Vai Flying V or Ibanez.
Yes I favour a certain era of metal, what of it? ;-)
Anyway, dude, I sympathise with your money worries, we have to find a month’s overlap for two mortgages + bills etc as we are moving house (fingers crossed) in the next month. I know it’s a bit of a “#firstworldmiddleclassproblem”, so I am not comparing levels of stress and hardship. Just that I get it. I hope you get through it all unscathed and I wish I could be of more use than a virtual shoulder punch to cheer you up.
Louis
Caine
Legal advice.
Really, if all the legal experts (who’d profit from drawing them up) agree that no, really, they’re not necessary, that’s good enough for me.
That’s evidentially true, only that you can’t provide for that in a prenuptial either. Because, yes, things change. So, either you change your contract with every single thing that changes, or you’re no better off than people with normal legal regulations.
Interesting. Killfile doesn’t work on nested threads. It appears on the top comment of each sub-thread, but not on replies.
Yeah, I’m back. /waves tentacles. What problem? I can quit anytime.
Raising a cup of coffee right now, but I’ll remember you on the 22nd too.
Drbunsen,
Welcome back! Good to see you.
Me too! What a coinkydink!
;-)
Louis
Not sure this is the right place for this, but. A friend of mine became a Mormon in the last year or so and we’ve been having a bit of an e-mail joust.
Now however he’s called in some big gun from church, who sent me a letter “Atheist challenge”.
I’m not up to taking this appart yet, so would anyone like to have some fun. I would greatly appreciate it.
@285: Linky, linky?
OH THE HORROR! THE CAFFEINE!!! IT JUST ISN’T WORKING!!!! ADMINISTER THE DIRECT INJECTION OF ADRENALINE TO THE HEART!
Louis
Whew! I was getting some bad errors across all of FTB for awhile there. Glad it’s back.
I guess I assume too much faith in the divorce court system, that in general things would end up being distributed fairly even if the players were being nasty. That is a definite environmental bias on my part, which I see I need to work on.
Esteleth, fucking congrats!
Louis, it would be “Les Paul” except I’m expecting to get my Les Paul back from the pawn shop, and two Les Pauls feels like overkill. There are Ibanez guitars in the list although no Steve Vai guitar (I want the PINK ONE!), I’ve got a similar 80s affection/affliction. And except for the fact that my financial cliff is really really steep, I’m still in the first-world problems category. My wife’s first full paycheck will have us caught up completely, the second one goes in the bank, and the third one buys me a new guitar and still leaves enough for to pay the bills.
My guess is the “atheist challenge” is this boiler-plate crap, which has dazzling insightful questions such as:
The remainder is just as inane.
@285
Let us know what the challenge is. I’m sure we could quickly crowd source a take down.
Sorry for the wall of text guys, my computer foo ain’t that good. Have fun.
“The concept of a beginning or end of matter and energy, space and time is preposterous as a before and after are inescapable and ipso facto all energy and matter(which appears to be organised energy) have obviously always existed.
The magnitude of the range of complexity of living organisms does not prove a beginning but rather suggests an evolutionary procession which, given infinity, would be one of an infinite sequence of such processions. It seems rather puerile for science to deduce and teach an ultimate beginning or life by chance as fact or even the predominant theory.
Man has repeatedly fallen into this same trap in the sequence of scientific discovery, from an earth centred universe to a solar universe to a galaxy filled universe to a multidimensional multi-verse, always teaching new ideas as fact. As with the ever-expanding cosmological vision, so with the ever-expanding microscopy of our view into the components of existence. Man keeps on making his bold deductions about atomic structure, quantum mechanics, string theory, etc.
Evolution is just another of man’s interpretations derived from glimpses of the greater complexity of existence, which glimpses he has managed by virtue of his latest technologies which are backward by contrast with those he has set his mind to.
Man’s need for a beginning drives him to conjure such ideas as life by chance or a beginning of the primary dimensions. If eternal existence, which seems the only plausible theory, is embraced, man can stop expending himself on his obsession with origin.
A race which has mastered the science and forces of the Universe (where universe is used in its original context, everything) or at least of a cosmos(the area of our visible universe), could certainly be regarded as Godly to the likes of humanity as we know it.
Such a race claims to have put us here by means which are not clearly defined. This race claims to have organised existing building blocks to provide an environment suitable for our existence. This race claims to be our parent race.
Modern science most certainly covets these powers, believing them attainable. Why then do so many seemingly intelligent scientists decry the idea of God?
The closer we come to understanding how life and the universe work, the more plausible the idea that we might some day be capable of most of what God claims and hence the more plausible the idea that God is who he says he is, so long as we can accept that the information provided us is limited and progressive for reasons beyond our grasp.
Despite the obvious, so many see most every scientific advance as supporting atheism.
The most intriguing of the rejections by so large a sector of scientific thought is that of spirit. Spirit is rejected as nonsensical while dark matter, dark-energy, antimatter, anti-energy, the uncertainty-principle, time-travel, black holes, god-particles and a universe for every thought option for every situation for every mind on the planet seem plausible to these same individuals. Its as though they’re all tripping.
If matter and energy, space and time, spirit and intelligence have always existed, which is what makes sense, then we can obviate the God problem, evolution and the origin problem along with our identity crisis and develop an eternal perspective and focus on real progress.
If God and his requirements are real then rejecting them is the biggest mistake possible”.
All-CAPITALS and seven exclamation points suggests it is working. Rather too well.
Another hint of nominal caffeine functioning: Most people don’t type whilst jumping up-and-down. (Unless there is an invasion of peas swarming across the floor.)
Carlie:
:snort: Um, did you grow up watching those cheesy eps of Divorce Court? Unless a divorce is completely no contest, no fault with both people signing, divorces go through both party’s attorneys, to be battled out as to how things get distributed. Child custody is a separate pursuit. It’s all terribly costly and all too often, highly acrimonious. A lot depends on what state you’re in, when it comes to the U.S., too. Laws vary.
From my point of view, it’s people who tend to have a harlequin romance take on relationships/marriage who end up being the least able to cope if things go south. I have nothing against a bit of romance, however, when the stars in your eyes blind your ass, it helps no one, least of all yourself.
I don’t care for people (in general) assuming I could not possibly trust my partner or that I’m a control freak who can never know the full joy of a relationship simply because I’m pragmatic and reality based when it comes to relationships. My marriage has seen a lot of…interesting times over 33 years and not being all swallowed up by a romantic view has worked well for me. (Mister is the romantic, not me, and he had two very fucked up relationships prior to us becoming an item – he’s too romantic and trusting for his own good.)
If a seriously romantic view works for someone, great. When it comes to relationships, whatever works for you works and I’m good with that. I simply don’t care for the notion that relationships must or should be this way or else the people in them are all fucked up.
1. You fail spelling.
2. You fail grammar.
3. There are transitional fossils and species, fuckwit.
Esteleth – Congrats! I will toast to your health!
Cicely – *hugs* back at ya!
Zulu – I am guessing that the challenge would be a giant waste of your time and the biggest facepalm ever recorded in history.
Caine – yeah, like I said, environmental bias. Plus maybe a little class bias – I’ve always thought of prenups as a way to deal with large sums of money and property (not kids or specifics like who gets the one family heirloom in existence), rather than being a matter of course for everybody.
Giliell:
Hardly. In many states in the US, including mine, there is no common property in marriage. You get a percentage of the marital assets based on what you are considered to have contributed to acquiring it, and often, your share is decided at the whim of the judge.
When I divorced in 1996, my share of our assets (a $38K house& everything in it, plus two vehicles) was determined to be 5% — because I was a stay-at-home mom. His income (~$26k/yr at the time) was the “sole contribution” to our net wealth, but I got brownie points for having raised our children.
I got to keep my kids’ furniture and toys, our clothing/shoes, and gifts received, and that was it. I got to keep my vehicle because I agreed to waive payment of my share of the house in return for his signing over the title to me. I was required to be escorted by a sheriff’s deputy to retrieve my stuff to make sure I didn’t take anything not explicitly listed in the settlement. Not so much as a freakin’ spatula from the kitchen.
And this is not unusual at all. Women are particularly affected in divorce and asset splits, usually because they work lower-paying jobs or are the stay-at-home parent.
—
Esteleth: Hooray and congratulations!!
Following up on Tony’s comment @224:
Carefully crafted deception, backed up by Paul Ryan’s mother, and apple pie.
Think Progress bothered to go throught Ryan’s Florida speech to right-wing elders. They presented Ryan’s claims, and the opposing facts.
Excerpts:
Fucking Death Panel argument? Really? Paul Ryan just threw any shreds of integrity he may have had out the window in order to run on the Romney ticket.
More here.
Lynna, I do not give a flying fuck about Paul Ryan’s integrity. What he espouses when he is not bending to the narrative of the lacking in integrity Mittbot 3000 is awful enough.
So what that he is selling out his principles. I have no sympathy for the zombie eyed granny starver.
For any cat lovers out there:
What is the deal with cats and canned food?
I’ve had cats much of my life (from the age of 16 when I snuck out and brought a little black cat-Cleo-home from the Human Society through today, when I have two wonderful cats, Kayta and Cassie), so I’m aware that many cats like moist cat food.
Cassie has rarely liked canned cat food, and Kayta only likes it sometimes. T’s two cats (Ike and Woo) don’t like moist cat food *at all*. Yet all four of them will line up at the edge of the kitchen whenever I’m opening a can. Of anything. A few minutes ago, I was opening a can of kidney beans and there they were with those dastardly feline eyes. It’s like they think it’s canned tuna. While I can certainly understand cats loving that, I’ve rarely given my girls tuna. It’s just so odd to have them drop what they’re doing (lounging around in the sun, napping, running around high on catnip, playing with each other) and rush to the sound of a can being opened.
****
rorschach:
I didn’t realize this until Elevatorgate. That’s [social glue] why I find A+ to be so appealing.
****
theophontes:
Yep. Their privilege is dripping from their buttocks. Exactly where Ryan pulls his facts!
It’s surreal that people like Romney and Ryan think they represent the American people.
****
Joe @277:
Hopefully-very soon-this stress you and your wife are feeling will be a thing of the past
****
Esteleth:
Can we start congratulations now on you being cancer free?
Yippee!
Caine, my little one is making a nest for our virtual rat, complete with shredded newspaper to sleep on, a waterproof roof, and a mat for when he wants to lay on something other than paper. I think there may be lobbying for adoption in person coming up…
Janine is right about Paul Ryan. (Comment #300.) I don’t know why, but I am still astounded by the disconnect between the portrayals of Ryan as really smart, really serious, an intellectual heavyweight for the right, etc. — between that portrayal and the real Paul Ryan there are great rifts indeed. He’s a fucking airhead, only with Catholic flavor instead of mormon.
There’s news on the voter suppression front. Another Republican accidentally said what he really thinks:
He’s talking about Ohio’s plan to delete early voting the weekend before the election. Early voting worked really well in 2008. Obama won. And in urban areas people didn’t have to wait in line for nine hours before voting.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/20/13375605-accidental-candor-in-ohio
That pretty much sums up my thoughts on prenups, or at least what they were before reading this thread.
Now I feel like I was terribly naive, especially after reading Socio-gen’s account.
Regarding divorce…
At its essence, marriage is a contract. Well-written contracts *always* include terms and descriptions of how the contract will be dissolved, amicably or otherwise. Why should marriage be any different?
Most people either think it’ll never happen or rely on the government to provide the terms for dissolution, but neither option is really going to protect the interests of the parties involved.
Dianne:
Oh my. It does sound like there will be serious lobbying going on. That’s freaking adorable!
Open My Eyes-The Nazz
S.F. Sorrow Is Born-The Pretty Things
Time Will Show The Wiser-Fairport Convention
Alone Again Or-Love
@zulu
This sounds like he’s saying that because he personally can’t imagine a beginning, there couldn’t possibly have been one. I’d stop him right there, deliberately ignore everything else he said and drill on this. If his very first statement is suspect, then why listen to anything else?
Honestly, this seems like a guy who’s more interested in sounding smart than he is in actually making a point. This entire load of crap is designed not to form a coherent argument, but simply to intimidate.
I mean, this whole bit
Can basically be summed up as “science has been wrong before, so clearly it must be wrong now.” Obviously that’s bullshit and phrasing it nicely doesn’t change that.
This isn’t an argument. It’s a sermon. Tell him to shove his preaching where it belongs and start talking sense.
@ birger
This is intriguing. What will happen to the farm animals if the 3D meat comes up to scratch? They are very expensive in the upkeep. If the new source of protein is maggots (for printer ink), I don’t see them lasting long and doubt they will do well as feral animals.
@ blf
Surely you exaggerate. I for one would like to welcome peas into my diet.
@ Caine(Louis)
Joined you, already I have. (Here a litre of Tsingtao costs a mere 80 pence.)
PS: Please give scritches to virtual rodent.
@ zulu
ZEF ‘k se? Welcome anyway! (And what Psych-Oh said.)
Theophontes:
I shall do so. Theo is currently in the rat pile napping, after a long night of heavy wrestling and a nice breakfast of steamed peas, salad and Ensure.
Tony,
I don’t know what the deal is with your cats. I’ve avoided feeding wet food to three out of the four so they don’t care about cans. The fourth one eats a combination of wet and dry, which keeps her weight up and the cost down. My cats like to eat the dog’s food though, don’t ask me why.
Lynna,
It is for the same reason that people keep portraying Obama as an extreme liberal: there’s a predetermined narrative and people are slotted into their character roles regardless of their actual behavior in order to preserve the narrative. Michele fucking Bachmann would have been painted as a serious, bold thinker with important ideas, because that’s a role that the media narrative desires. Obama has to be liberal to balance the extreme right-wingers, and Ryan has to be a serious thinker to balance Obama’s academic credentials. Then of course the “ideal” solutions to all problems is to split the difference between two “extremes” that are really Obama’s moderate Republican policies and batshit regressive Romney/Ryan.
non, no. The source of cultured meat, when it exists, which it doesn’t yet, and for a long time after that, will be animal muscle cells grown from muscle cells taken from actual animals. The trick
>iswill be to get cultured cells to join together (goosed with the proper nutrients and probably growth factors) in just the right way to form the tissue we call ‘meat’. That’s the role envisioned for 3-D printing.But it’s like the Woody Allen line: “Right now it’s only a notion, but I think I can get the money to make it into a concept, and later turn it into an idea.”
@ Caine
[whisper] It can wait, if rodents are sleeping already… Save up all teh scritches for the morrow.[/whisper]
We have also sorta adopted an alley cat in the alley outside our building (in an alley no less). The cat has endeared itself to a lot of the neighbours too. The local chef puts out a big bowl of boiled beef and noodles for him a couple of times a week. A big Lexus ™ arrives every now and again and sets out a kitteh buffet. The cat’s name (to us at least) is Patches. And it enjoys scratches.
@ Chas
I must be a little old fashioned. (I was already creeped out by reading “The Island of Doctor Moreau”.)
The Sinking Belle(Blue Sheep)-Sunn O)))/Boris
Electric Machine-Acid King
Funeralopolis-Electric Wizard
Cosmic Bozo-Orange Goblin
I need some fucking Maggot Brain right fucking now!
@ Janine
Hooooeeeeeh. I see your vids and raise you can: Linky:CAN CAN
Stare at the dot (“fullscreen” required). what do they put in this shit? {drinks more beer}
Excuse me,
If I might interrupt for a moment,
Oi,PZ, What’s happened to your book?
Amazon UK have just told me it is delayed and they have no release date.
Andrew
Beatrice – same here.
My previous cat hated wet food, and wouldn’t touch it. Late in life she had a desire for fresh meat come and go; for a month or so she’d beg at the table (!), then suddenly wouldn’t have anything to do with it, then would be back on. But wet food we only got her to eat by force with a syringe when she was in really bad shape.
Tony:
The two cats we had were only given dry food, but they still came running every time someone opened a can.
—
Beatrice:
I think it’s one of those things that we only hear of when it’s celebrities and the like, so we think it’s not really something the average person needs to consider. I certainly didn’t before my own experience with divorce court. I just assumed there were systems in place for fair and equitable distributions.
—
dianne:
That’s so cute! And yes, I predict there will be some serious lobbying going on.
—
Chas:
*shudder* Even though I can see the benefits, particularly in reducing food scarcity, I would seriously consider vegetarianism before eating cultured meat. Even though I know it would (eventually, when it exists, and mass-production is possible) be indistinguishable from “real,” it squicks me out.
Which, come to think of it, is just strange. I’m perfectly comfortable with an actual animal dying to provide my steaks and chops (and yummy bacon) but not with culturing those things.
So I finally went to write a syllabus for next week. I’ve been putting it off for weeks.
Went to pull material from an old syllabus, opened the folder, and found one called “fall12”. Eh? Opened it, stared awhile, finally remembered that I had written it in May right after classes were done so I wouldn’t have to now.
I can’t decide if I’m happy to have a surprise present for myself, or gravely worried about the state of my brain. Sigh.
Carlie, at least you found it.
I find that I have a tendency to forget thing. So I try to leave reminder to myself. Or set up packages beforehand.
carlie,
This is one of those situations where I think it can be safely said : Don’t worry, be happy.
Has anyone ever had the desire to do a nonlethal version of the St Vitus Dance?
Or is that just me?
*glares at Beatrice*
26-year-old here and I regularly store things in a safe place where I won’t forget them… Only to completely forget about them, let alone where they are.
And it wasn’t any different when my age started with 1. It’s just one of those things you can’t avoid, but they occasionally amount to a nice surprise.
Oh, my kitty-boy comes running every time there’s a sandwich handy, he loves sliced meat including salami of all things. My office kitty hooks chicken nuggets off my plate when I’m not looking… and sometimes she eats her wet food with her paw, catching one piece at a time on a claw.
*gulp*
What did I do?
You had to mention THAT song.
Socio-gen:
I’m just the opposite. I think carniculture is a great idea and I’d probably eat more meat if it was cultured. I eat very little meat now.
Ooooh. Sorry.
I’m repenting with a random video from my music bookmarks :
JESSICA SAYS World Without Men
(It was possibly bookmarked from your link here anyway.)
Because I quoted from The Ruling Class in an other thread, I now present to you a lecture about fear and Dem Bones.
AndrewD:
I’ve been getting those same notifications from Amazon for months now. If you hang tight, maybe they’ll refund your shipping (like they did for me). :)
And just because, here is Dem Bones from The Prisoner.
rorschach,
No, I understood the implications of your arguments. More than you typically do, my friend. ;)
And the current atheism movement, to you, is nothing but atheism. Your Venn diagram shows your understanding.
I’ve been telling you this for years.
You’re the one who’s wanted a big atheist tent that includes racists, misogynists, Islamophobes, and heaps of other irrational morons, because “The more atheists, the better. We don’t have to put every one of them through the inquisition, to check them for rationality and moral values.”
Now you’ll be able to defend the integrity of the MRAs and misogynists by saying “but they’re not atheist+! And they don’t claim to be! Why don’t you give them the chance to learn and adapt?”
Atheism+ gets them all off the hook.
And we should require them to do so. Not cede them their comfortable zone.
We already have that movement, right here — we’ve had it for years without making up a new word for it. Nobody can fail to notice that we’ve been quite successful; that’s what the misogynists mean when they say we’ve already “usurped” the atheist movement.
A lot of atheists are failures at being atheists. There’s a lot of implications which should follow from being an atheist. For instance, since there is no god to impose inequality upon women, and no other empirical justification for inequality of women has been shown, the only rational thing left to do is support women’s equality. This isn’t something added to atheism — it’s a logical and empirical consequence of the lack of gods. Atheism per se therefore includes women’s equality. Saying that we’re adding it means that women’s equality does not actually follow from the lack of gods, that it’s something we’re choosing to mix in and other people therefore could coherently choose not to add women’s equality to atheism.
And that’s wrong. Atheism per se requires women’s equality. It’s not value added.
This whole atheism+ thing is an acquiescence to the false claim that we’ve been adding unempirical, unskeptical values to atheism, which we could not have derived from atheism. It’s an acquiescence to their insistence that it’s perfectly coherent to be a sexist racist atheist.
*sigh*
Louis, it doesn’t matter. “Self obsessed fool” is a personal attack. There are no personal attacks against other Pharyngula commenters allowed here. At all. There isn’t an exception for “no personal attacks unless you are expressing moderate frustration”.
If huntstoddard reads this and wants to defend himself, where’s that argument going to happen? It’s going to happen here, because you started it here.
There is a place for you to express all the frustration you want. Please use it.
I am really hoping I’ve just been paranoid and Zoe isn’t pregnant. She and Carrot are the same teeny size, less than half of the other ratlets and both have been stuffing themselves silly. If you look at Carrot, (and ignore his balls), he looks pregnant too. They are both ultra tiny everywhere except their bellies. Oh I hope, I hope, I hope…
I would like a virtual ratlet, too; I’m not going to have a real one. Any one would be fine but I think the brown ones are prettiest.
uh.
It is.
People have (and I suspect have never had) any problem being racist with or without god or gods.
I also doubt that god-concepts are the root of sexism.
preview
always preview
People have (and I suspect have always had) no problem being…
If anyone in the Toronto to Niagara Falls corridor would like a cat, I might be able to offer a full tom with Himalayan sealpoint markings.
Markita Lynda:
I am so sorry, I’m actually out of ratlets. They’ve all been virtually adopted.
SGBM,
I cordially refer you to the aforementioned response, very much in the manner of the reply given in Arkell vs Pressdram.
Louis
OK, just thought I’d ask.
I hope Zoe’s not pregnant–is she five weeks old, already?
That they do it doesn’t make it perfectly coherent.
Chas, there are atheists who believe in reincarnation. There are lots of incoherent atheists.
I agree, and haven’t indicated otherwise.
Louis, instead of getting personally defensive, please think about what I said. This isn’t the place for personally attacking other Pharyngula commenters, and there’s a reason for that — it tends to drag contentious arguments from other threads into this one.
Louis:
Heh. I wouldn’t worry, last time I looked, no one died and appointed SG moderator of the lounge. ;)
As for huntstoddard, that one is a piece of work.
Indeed, I am only making the same request others have made numerous times — don’t drag arguments in here from other threads.
That is not an unreasonable request, and I am not out of bounds to note this.
Theophontes, scritches and kisses duly delivered to Theo. They were happily accepted and now the wrestling trio of Vasco, Giles & Theo is in full swing.
Strange gods, a polite question:
Since the establishment of the new rules, have you posted in the [Lounge] anything other than reminding others what the rules are?
The only one I’ve seen is #335 in this thread, but I’ve not been following all that close lately.
Caine:
*fingers crossed* that Zoe is not preggers.
Audley, you know, you could have answered your own polite question by clicking on past Lounges.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/08/13/lounge-357/comment-page-2/#comment-432804
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/08/13/lounge-357/comment-page-2/#comment-433744
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/08/13/lounge-357/comment-page-1/#comment-431300
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/08/16/lounge-358/comment-page-2/#comment-435193
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/08/16/lounge-358/comment-page-2/#comment-435424
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/08/16/lounge-358/comment-page-2/#comment-435430
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/08/09/lounge-356/comment-page-2/#comment-429914
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/08/09/lounge-356/comment-page-2/#comment-430276
What’s fascinating, SG, is that my phone won’t recognize your ‘nym (or any part of your ‘nym) when I use the quick search option. Seeing as though I do not have the time to wade through thousands of comments at the moment, I guess my curiosity will just have to wait.
Audley:
Thank you, thank you! Oh, if only prayer actually did anything…
Your curiosity isn’t already sated by the eight links I just gave?
How about #79, #85, #106, #169, #180, #215, #345, in this current thread?
Markita Lynda:
She’s six weeks tomorrow. I dearly hope she isn’t pregnant. I really, really hope. It’s not just that we don’t need more ratlets, but Zoe is extremely small and I don’t think she’s up to birthing a litter. Zoe and her sisters aren’t eligible to be spayed until Sept. 4th, when they are 8 weeks. Even then, our vet might be unwilling to work on Zoe unless she does some serious growing.
SG,
I like said, it’s my phone– specifically the mobile Chrome browser. I cannot for whatever reason search your ‘nym and it will not direct to a particular comment, only the top of the linked page. I can always look later when I’m at a real computer.
I think it’s worth noting that SG’s pointing out “personal attacks” in the lounge is an active attempt to subvert the problem that precipitated PZ’s recent strike. That is, the lounge getting contaminated with fights because of insulting comments directed at people who didn’t normally participate in the lounge, which dragged the fights into the lounge itself (unsurprisingly, since that was where they were being started).
Whatever you may think of him personally, if you value this space as a lounge you really should treat it as such. I don’t understand the hesitation to take insults and issues to the Thunderdome, treating the suggestion as an attack when it’s what our host has asked us to do.
SGBM,
Go here. For my final comment on the matter.
Louis
Chas, here’s another way of putting it.
If, for instance, refusing to extend equal rights to gay people is prima facie irrational, not coherent with reality,
and if the only justifications for doing so are appeals to a reality we can’t verify — the moral commandments of a deity which is only alleged to exist —
then if that god isn’t believed to exist, then because the homophobic value isn’t coherent with observed reality and no god can be called upon to supply the value from a super-reality,
there’s no coherent way to be an atheist who wants to deny equal rights to gay people.
(And it’s trivial to extend this to racism and sexism.)
+++++
Louis, thank you for your reply. I’ll go read it in a moment.
I’m keeping my fingers x’d for you.
Joe, hope you manage to scrape by until your wife gets paid. Fingers are x’d for you also!
SonSpawn is in transit to Nice Family on his first solo trip … should be with them in maybe about another hour or so … bet he’ll have a great time. Meanwhile I’m stuck at home. Jammy sod. Well we’re having home-made pizza tonight, so there.
Happy times in Casa Improbable… wife is off to fax her signed contract with new employer. It would have been done over the weekend, but the original contract was a little “light” in the compensation department by about $400 a week. One step closer to solvency, and we couldn’t have done it without the Horde, so thanks a million!!
A boon to fusion: Scientist finds new way to predict heat layer troublemaker http://phys.org/news/2012-08-boon-fusion-scientist-layer-troublemaker.html
…and…
Experiment would test cloud geoengineering as way to slow warming http://phys.org/news/2012-08-cloud-geoengineering.html
Zuzka: Pinkification: Robbing Girls of Self Worth http://scientopia.org/blogs/thusspakezuska/
*blink*
No comment.
That’s even better than Watergategate!
:-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
No, StarStuff. No. He actually believes in magic.
That’s because he doesn’t know any better.
He also has six children. I have no idea how many of them were planned.
I’m pretty sure Azkyroth is talking in the abstract, about the general case, while you are talking specifically about your experience and extrapolating from it. I don’t know if he’d actually be so cautious with a specific, real-life, known and trusted partner.
After all, that’s something I’m prone to, and he’s further along the autism spectrum than I am.
Conversely, the fear that a woman might have forgotten to take her pill isn’t necessarily about fluffy pink ladybrains at all. In my case, it would be simple projection: I’m pretty sure I’m capable of forgetting about such things, so I’d start from the assumption that other people are, too. Therefore, I suppose, I’d ask twice (“are you sure?”)*, and if the other person got upset, I’d sigh and try to explain the above two sentences. I see no evidence that Azkyroth is any different.
* Unless, of course, I forgot about that. It drives my mom crazy, but how important something is has a low correlation to how likely I am to forget about it.
^_^
<condescend>
Kid, life advice: get used to being jealous of some or all of those.
</condescend>
In French, A+ is short for à plus, which basically means “see you later” (more literally “to more”). It’s a very common way to end e-mails.
:-(
Intelligence is orthogonal to knowledge. There are know-nothings that are very good at drawing logical conclusions from the nonexistent contents of their heads.
Sometimes I read a quote by an ancient or medieval philosopher and almost cringe because it’s so obvious they drew their conclusions from way too little data, even though they drew them in brilliant ways.
The person I always think of in this context is this one (very short article in English, long one in German) – everybody said he was so intelligent and so well educated, and yet he kept saying seriously and obviously wrong things. (…Though I do think it was not at all intelligent of him to argue “but we must pick something as absolute truth and then proceed from there”.)
Also this, which I recently read about in everyone’s favorite German science news service.
:-o
HULK SMASH
*pretending to be able to raise one eyebrow*
Fascinating. However, read the comments. Do any cells other than the epidermis profit from this? ATP doesn’t get out of cells (well, apart from necrosis).
:-o
*hug*
Next comment.
Grammar?
However, there’s a failure on the meanings of words here: “ancestor” and “descendant” are opposites.
I guess he must be portrayed as smart and serious because he’s less female and less blond than .
Seconded.
There do seem to be other such people, but I’m not one of them.
and exocytosis. Weirdly, it’s used as a CNS neurotransmitter.
Argh. I’m already too tired to go back and edit what I wrote instead of just clicking “submit” when I’ve reached the end of the page.
Though actually, so was he.
He wasn’t last time, which is his point… I don’t know if he’d do it again, but obviously he’d be a lot more careful about letting that much trust build up.
Apologies all around.
Really, this time.
:-o
Wow. That’s the stupidest design I’ve ever heard of.
…No, wait, actually it isn’t. It probably costs more than 1 molecule of ATP to make 1 molecule of another neurotransmitter… well, unlike it’s a ready-made one like glutamate…
OK. If those aphids also have a way of getting ATP into cells, and I suppose its use as a neurotransmitter implies that, photoheterotrophy works just fine!
Why the :-o for paraformaldehyde? I use it all the time. Usually, though, not on stuff I want to keep alive.
I’ve been too lazy to try to figure out just how carotenoids are being linked to ATP synthesis, i.e. the biochemistry. AFAIK plants just use carotenoids as ‘sntenna pigments’ and the captured energy has to be passed on to chlorophyll to get the light reactions going. carlie?
Apparently the receptors (there are a couple of different ones) are membrane-surface receptors and the ATP never enters the target cell. Unless it’s somehow scavenged. I guess all cells must have inward adenosine transporters but I don’t know about ATP.
Heh. I was wondering if I have a sunburn. Nope, my unexposed belly confirms I’m whole-body blushing because it’s so damp!
Now for the wall of text. I’ve addressed everything to its author, so you can simply forward it if you think that would help.
If reality is preposterous, too bad for you. Deal with it. :-|
Yes, except I wouldn’t use “procession”, because that sounds too much like it implies progress.
…what?
Wrong, see above.
“Science has been wrong before” is a logical fallacy. Plus, if it’s been taught “as fact” to you, you’ve had bad teachers that failed to explain how science works – probably they didn’t know it in the first place.
Again the “science has been wrong before” fallacy. Google for “the relativity of wrong”.
Bullshit. If that were “Man’s need”, why have things like the steady-state theory ever been proposed?
Show me the claim.
A book written by humans obviously does not count. And I wouldn’t even know how you’d choose one of the many options.
What?
I think you’ve overlooked Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
Evidence that God 1) exists and 2) says anything?
Again: a book written by humans obviously does not count – not even if you’ve somehow resolved the contradictions between the books that claim to be divinely inspired or dictated (…let alone the contradictions within those books…).
Well, every scientific advance is compatible with atheism. That makes religion a useless hypothesis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
nope
Uh, the evidence for evolution and the Big Bang won’t just go away.
You have an identity crisis? Speak for yourself, then. ~:-|
Oh? Then what are his requirements?
That’s what I mean. It’s very effective for that kind of mistake.
Yeah, that’s plants – as opposed to halobacteria, IIRC.
I think it must be, because otherwise it’d just stay there and occupy all receptors forever.
Interesting that I completely failed to address the assumption of a single and male god.
What I was thinking of when I wrote that specific line was this; my much longer, more carefully put-together version of that is somewhere on Sb Pharyngula and may not be up yet.
…which is especially bizarre when the claim is of a whole “race” of Q-like superbeings.
i guess I’ll reply in the dome; that puppy makes my stomach hurt.
David:
I was very pissed about that. I had this plate of cells, carefully treated with a library of compounds, and then I wanted to assay (1) how much they grew in n days, and (2) how many of them were still alive.
So, I set up two wells per sample: one to stain with Ki-67 and DAPI, one to stain with calcein and ethidium homodimer.
And then went and fixed the whole damn plate. I realized what I’d done after 10 minutes, but 10 minutes in 4% paraformaldehyde is plenty long enough to make a viability assay pointless.
*facepalm*
Caine
No, I’m not taking a romantic view on things. I’m very aware of the fact that marriages can end by divorce rather than dead, that’s why I’m trying to work my relationship every day of the week.
I’m also not naive. But I looked into the laws and the legal advice and found that for our situation (and in most situations of people like us) a prenup is actually just a waste of money.
Yes, people sue each other to ruin over a piece of furniture that was 100$ when it was new. They sue each other to ruin over custody (something you couldn’t even arrange in a prenup).
Please remember that I’m living in a very different country. What happened to Socio-gen couldn’t happen to me under normal divorce laws (ironically, it could happen with a prenup). There’s a reason why German celebrities practise divorce tourism to the USA. That’s why I explicitly said “in Germany”, where shared property is the default. Minus the stuff you owned when you entered the marriage or personal gifts and inheritance. So, we didn’t need a prenup to say that I couldn’t just walk away with half of Mr.’s hard earned penion-savings and we didn’t one to make sure that I wouldn’t be treated like Socio-gen while I was still at home with the kids.
I think that prenups are handy things when you have something where the current law would hurt you disproportionally or just mean that things don’t pass on as intended (as in cases of inheritance). BUt my ideas about them being unnecessary here when this is not the case doesn’t stem from the romantic idea that divorces never happen or that you’re going to be BFFs forever. I just don’t think that they can prevent your ex from hurting you as much as they can, especially not when there are kids
yeah. I’d bet there’s an extracellularly active ATPase of some kind and then adenosine transport.
gah the puppy
Gah! That’s likely, and it’d be really stupid design.
well, I agree with that absolute statement, and I do think that people who hand over control of their fertility to someone else are literally not careful, AKA careless.
schroedinger’s asshole. besides, a prenup would guarantee that it won’t matter whether they turn into one or not, I still won’t end up homeless and penniless.
mind you, I do’t think everyone needs them. If I ever end up in a situation in which I’ll need to marry again, I probably won’t bother with a prenup either; because I’m never going to own much of anything anyway, and won’t ever be the stay at home or even part-time spouse. So, marriage and divorce carry little risk to me. But for middle-class people? People who want children and want one spouse to stay at home for at least part of that, or work only parttime? And for the sake of the partner who gains residence via marriage? Yeah, I’d totally suggest a prenup. Relying on the government to get your situation right is naive. Even in civilized countries.
because all German divorces of course end amiably.
but with a prenup, they lose a lot of means to make me destitute.
Up-thread we discussed the reputation of Paul Ryan on the right — that he is almost scarily smart and serious and beyond reproach.
Here’s another right-wing nutter faking intelligence, and doing so in a nifty British accent, Niall Ferguson. From the Republican perspective, I think the accent guarantees the assumption of 20 more IQ points. Dude is a tenured professor of history at Harvard, which brings up the question, “WTF, Harvard?”
James Fallows, a Harvard alum, finds Ferguson so embarrassing that he apologized in general to everyone for Ferguson’s existence, and for his preaching from a position that should be reserved for persons of more than a little brain.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/08/as-a-harvard-alum-i-apologize/261308/
More put-downs of Ferguson to come.
Oh yeah, that’s what I wanted to mention but forgot at the last second. :-)
though granted: if I can avoid it, I won’t get married again at all. and if I have to anyway, I’ll divorce again the moment that’s possible (so: the moment my partner can stay with me in whichever country we end up in without the need to be married to me). So any advice on marriage from me comes from that perspective: marriage is a legal contract, and an unfortunately designed one, too.
…what have I done… x.x
Noah Smith nails Niall:
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/niall-british-empire-is-over-accept-it.html
Excerpt:
Matt O’Brian fact-checks Ferguson:
There’s much more at the link. It’s hard to represent O’Brian’s thoroughness without creating a wall of text.
I forgot… via Jadehawk’s Twitter feed: the owl that makes the ultimate “mwhaha” face. Newly discovered species from Mindanao (Philippines).
David Marjanovic-please check your email. It’s somewhat time-sensitive.
Ezra Klein not only takes down Niall Ferguson, he takes down Niall’s defense/excuse in response to Paul Krugman.
Paul Krugman fries Niall Ferguson’s ass:
I have such an intellectual crush on Paul Krugman.
Just a reminder for those who live in the Baltimore-Washington DC area that there’s a Baltimore-Washington Pharyngula Fan Group.
“Doing fun, godless stuff since January 2010.”
Steve Benen puts Niall Ferguson’s lies and deceptions in perspective. Benen points out that political journalism has been allowed to sink to Fox News entertainment levels (my comparison, not Benen’s).
Dylan Byers presents a pithy assessment of Ferguson’s right-wing assholery:
Deceptive editing by right-wing idealogues? Oh, say it ain’t so.
How is the run-of-the-mill voter supposed to sort this shit out? Newsweek is supposed to be a semi-responsible source for information. Fucking propaganda machine is more like it. Print tripe for the right. I despair.
Also algae, cyanobacteria, purple bacteria, and green bacteria. (Except it’s bacteriochlorophyll in the last two.)
Yeah, halobacteria use retinal, which is a carotenoid derivative.
So, um, I dunno, but now I’m curious enough to go read the whole paper and try to figure out what, if any, kind of light harvesting mechanism the authors are proposing. I’ll report back if I find anything interesting.
Tree Lobsters!
Also:
National GOP pulls funding from Todd Akin’s Missouri race
–
Jadehawk, your bouncy twerp looks very much like a kitteh named Arioch that I had years ago.
–
drbunsen! *waves tentacles in response; changes pattern of chromatophores*
–
And that’s what the flamethrower is for. Otherwise, you just get ichor all over your shoes. (Unshod stomping of peas is particularly contra-indicated. Those things have a nasty sting to ’em. Don’t risk it; there is, as yet, no reliable pea antivenom.)
–
Oh, Newsweek, shame, shame, shame on you. The publication did not fact-check Niall Ferguson’s propaganda piece:
Yeah Newsweek, wouldn’t want your editors to strain themselves by fact-checking or knowing things or whatever. Just sit still and collect your paychecks for proof-reading and leave it to your readers to figure out if you’re publishing factual stuff or not. Here’s the million-dollar question though: if I have to read a bunch of other sources to know if Newsweek is lying to me or not, why bother reading Newsweek?
Um, intrepid lone traveller Spawn2 arrived safe and sound – thanks for the kindness during my moment of Unreasonable Wibbling :-)
(didn’t even lose his wheelie-bag or anything)
Socio-gen:
Interesting.
There’s this part of me thinking “it’s in their genes”. Then the rest of my brain smacks me around.
Esteleth, I raise my foam cup of Diet Rite™ preemptively, in your honor.
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My sister walked away from her second divorce with her clothes and books, her daughter’s clothes and books, and a junker car. That was all. He got the other car, the cats, the house and all furnishings. And she thought that, with a firm eye on the mistakes she’d made the first time, she had vetted him very thoroughly. Turns out that under the stress of constant legal nonsense with the ex, in regards to the daughter, he flipped to an alternate mindset. “Callous, self-righteous, controlling bastard” was not what it had said on the label.
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They are not only venomous, but virulently toxic. Leave the peas to the rats; they know what they’re doing.
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The response to the sound of the can opener is an instinct fast-tracked in for their modern role as Domestic Hunters. You’ll never catch the gooooshy food by waiting for it to come to the watering hole in the evening to drink, and listening for a rustling sound in the undergrowth of the kitchen is only useful if the prey is dry kibble in a bag.
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If’n it ain’t broke….
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Fifty-*pauses to do math*-four, here (as of last week), and I do the same thing. It is the ultimate in “putting it somewhere safe“.
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Here’s hoping that Zoe is merely pleasantly plump.
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zulu, question for your friend “damn thats a good looking monkey” and progeny ensues, is that evolution or design?
Shiiiit.
Woohoo! I sneezed hard enough to pull/tear something in my back… fucking awesome!!!
Looks like there’s an Atheism+ twitter account now: https://twitter.com/atheismplus
A facebook page too (not sure if it’s the same person as the twitter): https://www.facebook.com/pages/Atheism/304393882992588?ref=hl
So, what separates Newsweek from being a printed out collection of random blog posts? Nothing, it seems.
Professional typesetting?
It annoys me that there is no Recent Comments side bar anymore (at least I can’t see it). It’s bad enough there isn’t one on Tet Zoo, but on Pharyngula? How I’m supposed to know when an interesting discussion pops up in an old thread I’m no longer checking? Gah.
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Chas, re aphids:
So they’re saying light excites these pigments and as a result they transfer their higher energy electrons along to the mitochondrial electron transport chain, thereby helping with the production of ATP. OK. I get how the excited carotenoids can reduce NAD+ to NADH, but I was wondering how they get reduced back. As far as I can see they don’t say what the electron donor is supposed to be, and I’m not sure the oxidised carotenoids/aphins can have a high enough redox potential to get reduced by water. Hm.
Interesting stuff, though.
@Improbable Joe: Ouch! Sympathy and *booze* are on their way.
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Since we have so many cooks here… does anyone have a recipe for yellow (straightneck) squash? I usually just slice, baste with olive oil, sprinkle with herbs and a dash of salt, and grill or bake. I’ve done that a little too often lately, so something new (and quick) to do with the last two would be much appreciated.
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opposablethumbs:
Glad to hear he and his bag arrived safely!
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Tony:
They were odd little guys who had no notion of normal feline behavior. One actually liked going in the tub with DaughterPerson. Not in the water, mind you, but he’d perch on her shoulder.
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Improbable Joe:
Ouch!! *ibuprofen* *heating pad* *ice pack* and *booze*
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Starstuff:
I like the tag line on the FB page!
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carlie:
High advertising rates?
I need to talk to at least one organizer of the Rhinebeck thingy, because I need to finally buy the train tickets and therefore need to arrange some things. Like which station I’m supposed to get off at, and whether there will be volunteers to drive boyfriend & me to and from the train station, and on which days. but I forgot your e-mail addresses. e-mail me plz?
This is intended to be information about how pre-nups, etc should work. I always told folks who asked me to get advice specific to them.
Here is the general rule:
If you have no agreement before you marry, and you divorce, then you end up with the “agreement” the state wrote for you. This “agreement” is called the law governing separation and/or divorce. I urge anyone getting married, and particularly those thinking of moving with spouse to a new country, to get some advice. You may be completely satisfied with what happens on separation and/or divorce. You may not. If you are not, a marriage contract or pre-nuptual contract, may help you.
The state also writes you a Will. If you don’t like what it says, you need your own Will. I urge everyone to research their own state’s Will and decide if it fits you.
One other benefit to the advice and, I hope, discussion of it with your potential spouse is that you get this stuff into the open. You may be surprised to find that you two do not agree at all. On the other hand, you may completely agree.
Further note, it is no longer necessary to marry to experience financial entanglement arising out of cohabitation. One of you may be responsible for spousal support, even if you did not marry the other. There may be other obligations. Once again, doing research on this will give you an idea, but the idea may not be accurate. To get advice that fits you personally, you need to talk to a lawyer. Many jurisdictions provide a phone number where you can get the names of lawyers who have volunteered for the program and who will give you good clear information for free. For details of that in Ontario, as an example, try http://www.lsuc.on.ca/faq.aspx?id=2147486372
Note: they do have an online request form, but you have to be in Ontario for this to help you.
.
.
.
tl;dr Can’t hurt to know stuff, then you decide.
California family courts have a “family law facilitator’s office” where you can wait for 8-9 hours to be not helped with your questions by a pompous, rude, and dumb-as-nails clerk. You can also get a list of attorneys…possibly online, but definitely at the counter after waiting 8-9 hours.
I saw a family of wolves yesterday.
The services usually come from a bar association, the legal body that governs lawyers.
In California, http://www.calbar.ca.gov/Public/LawyerReferralServicesLRS.aspx
Which I did not think to put in, because as a fairly old lawyer, I didn’t remember that point might not be obvious.
Thank you, Azkyroth
Ah, even better. I was thinking of the list the family court had.
Which often blows. That list is usually a list of lawyers who will take clients who have legal aid. If they told you it was of lawyers who will give free advice, etc, it was probably wrong.
where
And another whoops. A bar association may not be the place that licences and governs lawyers. In Ontario, there is the Law Society and also a bar association. Not the same thing.
I’m sorry for being nit-picky here, but usually contact with a bar association OR the licencing body will steer you to an appropriate referral agency. I think a simple google of [state name] [bar association or licencing body] referral service, should get you there.
The courts themselves avoid referrals because you can end up favouring some lawyers and not others. That isn’t something lawyers want to see coming out of the court system. It could be oppressive.
Well, I had forgotten just how lucky I am. Family stuff on my side of the family is my godless liberal parents and my liberal-almost-to-the-point-of-excommunication Catholic brother and sister-in-law. Family stuff at my mother- and father-in-law’s home rarely veers near anything approaching politics, and when it does, it’s mostly moderate.
Had dinner at my sister-in-law’s home. Her mother-in-law said she was voting against Obama because the country can’t survive another 4 years of him, and ObamaCare is evil and destroying Medicare and what we really need is a good Christian man as president. I left the room.
The wolves are in Nunavut.
Nice. What are you doing up there? Mrs. BDC and I have been thinking of going to Baffin island for a few years but things keep coming up.
Poll to possibly Pharyngulate here :
http://ninemsn.com.au/?ocid=iefvrt
***
VOTE
Do you believe in the Big Bang theory?
Yes = 649
No = 1114
***
Via Nine MSN. These polls tend toonly be up for a day or so, so vote quick or risk missing out.
Of course its matter of accepting the science based on evidence more than “belief but I think we can guess what is implied.
Based on this article :
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/technology/8519215/aussie-researchers-rewrite-big-bang-theory
apparently. “Quantum graphity?” Wonders if they mean quantum gravity instead?
Does anyone have a favorite place for estate or vintage jewelry? After 14 years of marriage this month, I’m on Misterc to give me a long-term ring.
I don’t want diamonds or anything expensive, I’m thinking under $100, and I would be happy with a modest little silver antique or vintage ring with a semiprecious stone or two just to have a twinkle above my self-bought stainless steel wedding band. I’m checking eBay and etsy but I figure more sources cannot possibly hurt.
I was going to suggest you cook it down with herbs and mash in some soft cheese and salt, then stuff ravioli. But you said you wanted quick. Two ideas:
1. Treat it as taco/sandwich filling. Julienne the squash then sautee it in a very hot skillet with oil, garlic, onion, cilantro, cumin. .that sort of thing. Roll up in a tortilla and slather on your favorite sauces.
2. Grate it roughly along with some potato and any other veggies you have on hand. Add lots of grated onion. An egg, salt, pepper, and enough flour to thicken it up a bit. Fry in oil in a cast iron skillet and serve as vegetable fritters. This really is quick, even if it doesn’t sound like it.
Esteleth, lifting my cup of tea to you.
ImprobableJoe, ouch, wheat bags and analgesia to you.
Caine, firstly virtual tea and hugs to Chester. Secondly, could I please print a photo of him? Also when will you know if Zoe is pregnant or not (fingers crossed that she isn’t)?
Also,does anyone know if a ring like, say, this can usually be resized larger, or to avoid heartbreak should I only pick a multiple-stone ring if it’s the right size for me already?
Point of clarification on legal bodies in the US:
1. Bar associations are never officially regulatory bodies. They are trade associations for lawyers. They may sometimes have referral services.
2. State-based regulatory boards for lawyers usually never make referrals.
In practice, the two can be difficult to tell apart. As in most industries, the state regulatory boards are largely captured by the trade and its associations, turning the regulatory apparatus into a protectionist whitewashing arm for the profession. But it’s good to know the formal distinction between the two.
Rule of thumb: Anything called an association, regardless of the trade/occupation, is never a government regulatory body in the US.
Best to call a jeweler, Kristin. I’m guessing softer metals (high gold content) are easier to resize, but stone settings probably play a role too. That is a charming ring.
First day of classes was today. That was fun.
Then played some games. Also fun.
Day well spent. Just 9 more months of this.
Lexie:
Yes, of course you can. :)
If she is pregnant, I’ll know right quick. Rats gestate for 3 weeks and they don’t show until their 3rd week.
Clarification 2:
1. Regulatory/standards-setting bodies for lawyers are usually called the [State] Bar. The difference is the lack of the word association
Example:
California State Bar—a government arm of the California Supreme Court
Bar Association of San Francisico—a non-government, local, voluntary association.
Caine, since there’s a limit to how many ratlets a body can handle at once, is it possible for you (if there’s another pregnancy right now) to give the newborn ratlets a quick euthenasia, or delegate this to someone who’s willing?
Josh, yes, I can do it if necessary. I’m starting to think I’ve been paranoid though – Carrot looks just as pregnant as Zoe. Wait and see and all that.
I know it’s a tender thing, Caine, don’t get me wrong. But a quick dispatch before their eyes are open might be the best thing of all, and minimally cruel/stressful.
Are there any rat abortifacients?
Well, if it had been a legitimate rape this wouldn’t be a problem, would it?
Lynna, that’s hard to believe! He’s always been such a scrupulous, objective historian.
ImaginesABeach:
I’m pretty sure that anything which would act as an abortifacient would also kill the mother.
Cicely, thanks for the reminder about treelobsters. It’s been a while since I read them. And this one is even better, IMO!
Oh, and I have thought of another reason (or possibly the same one phrased differently) for liking Atheism+. It’s the social glue factor. It’s not quite a guaranteed creep-free space, not much can be, but at least it would be a creep-not-encouraged space.
I was looking at meetup groups just recently. And I found that I would feel quite wary of going to an atheist meetup, but I would be extremely happy to see an atheist+ meetup.
Hey everyone, I am dropping in for advice yet again.
I’m thinking of auditing quantum chemistry this fall, but I am unfamiliar with bra-ket notation. The quantum chemistry I’ve seen before was in a physical chemistry class, and we just did everything with PDE’s.
Can anyone recommend a good math textbook to teach myself this stuff? I did take linear algebra in undergrad but it was just kind of a general “look, matrices!” and didn’t use the words “bra” and “ket.” Probably, anyway, I sort of stopped going to lecture after the first exam because it clearly wasn’t necessary in order to pass the course. (Younger me was kind of a slacker.) I just want something a bit more basic-explanation-style since quantum books tend to be more on the application part rather than the “how to figure this notation out” part.
I haven’t posted here in a long time, and I think I used a different name, but here goes:
I recently shared a link on facebook, http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/08/19/debunking-anti-abortion-arguments/, which I though was pretty clear and straight forward. However, I have a facebook friend that’s a hardcore, ultra-right, fundamentalist christian that always responds to slightly liberal posts with many of the bad arguments you would expect. I will henceforth call him The Ruiner for the effect he has on most conversations.
Unfortunately I’m generally too busy (or lazy) to properly respond to every logical fallacy and falsehood thrown out by The Ruiner, so could those of you in community that are better at this help me out? I’m tired of his BS and I just want something incontrovertible to get him to shut up (though I doubt he would). His response to the article is below. Can you help me with solid responses?
On #1, the author fallaciously jumps from “the mother and child’s life have different value” (true) to “the child’s life is less valuable than the mother’s suffering” (false).
On #2, I agree it is not a government plot, but it remains that the effect of our current abortion policies is that they systematically harm those in poverty, blacks, and the disabled more than any other social group. The article’s claim that this can be explained merely by other factors such as birth control access and income level is unsupported and false in practice – the rate of abortion among blacks has been higher than the birth rate 2-to-1, so high that the birth rate is lower than the death rate. We don’t see this among the white demographic in comparable socio-economic circumstances. On the disabled, several studies have shown that the rate of abortion for those with Down syndrome diagnosed prenatally is 75-85% – far far higher than most other demographics. Finally, if we jump around the world and look in Asia, we see that abortion is being used to commit “gendercide” – the abortion of girls based on prenatal identification in China is extremely high. All of this shows one important fact: That abortion in practice is a tool for enforcing society’s prejudices by preemptively eliminating or reducing social groups who are disfavored. This shouldn’t be surprising, but it certainly does carry significant moral value and can’t be ignored as a mere incidental side-effect. Just like gun abuse can be curbed by good gun control policies, abortion abuse can be curbed by good abortion regulation, on the premise that unborn life should be treated with dignity rather than as a tool for eugenics.
On #3, there are multiple points to be made. Firstly, because the cells the fetus is composed of are of a completely different DNA than the parent’s, there seems to be little argument for inherent “ownership” of them like one owns one’s own body parts. Secondly, the argument for why to treat the fetus as a developing human is the same argument as to why to treat children as such: because maturity doesn’t define humanity, our biology does. Thirdly, because in prenatal screening we already identify human social constructs as applying to the fetus: it is a “boy” or “girl”, it is “black” or “white” or whatnot, it is “special needs”, “healthy”, etc. It is incoherent to say we can apply social labels to the unborn and yet we cannot consider them to have the dignity and value that comes with those social labels.
I don’t see #4 as relevant so I don’t have a problem with it, and I don’t have any objections to #5.
On #6, while we’re at debunking myths, let’s debunk the myth that abortion is a more healthy option than carrying a baby to term and adopting. While women who carry a child to term and adopt are known to deal with grief comparable to a loved one dying, women who have abortions have psychological damage more comparable to that of combat veterans, including a high rate of PTSD, suicide attempts, long-term substance abuse, etc. (http://afterabortion.org/2011/abortion-risks-a-list-of-major-psychological-complications-related-to-abortion/)
We don’t see comparable mental health problems among mothers at large or mothers who give their children up for adoption. There’s no evidence to support the notion that the correlation is due to another cause, this is psuedo-scientific hand-waving. Surely correlation doesn’t imply causation, but the psychological issues are explicitly linked to the act of abortion and the trauma experienced therein in the studies conducted.
On #7 and #8, again I don’t really see any reason to disagree.
On #9, the fact that “many women have gone on…” does not invalidate the research. There’s plenty of research on this topic, some of what this article says is true, some is false, see: http://www.deveber.org/text/chapters/Chap5.pdf. The conclusion from research is that “…women who have abortions, especially single young women who have never carried a baby to term, risk experiencing greater difficulty in conceiving and carrying future pregnancies to term.”
Alukonis: I think bra-ket notation is specific to quantum stuff.
My (horrible) Modern Physics professor used it quite a bit, but I never really understood it. The book didn’t explain it at all. I’d be interested in seeing a good explanation as well, though a combination of that course and financial aid intransigence has already put me off of the BS/research-track physics program.
@ Caine
Video!!! (Lawdy, the virtual parents are more work than the ratties themselves.)
@ Alethea
Ionised atheism?
Alethea wrote:
And if the large number of people who’ve shown up to tell Jen they support it – when before they wouldn’t even consider getting involved – is anything to go by, this is a really important factor.
That alone is probably driving the slimepitters into previously unmatched levels of desperation – knowing that they’re even more outnumbered and recognised for what they are (and despised for it) than they had previously realised.
Caine, thanks so much. Now there will be another cute photo on my fridge (other photo is of my dog). Re Zoe I hope she’s just pot bellied or has a pseudo-pregnancy.
Alethea, I totally get where you are coming from re A+ meet up groups. I looked into some local atheist groups recently but without knowing anything about them I’m too scared to go, I know that I shouldn’t be but the fact that I am young and female does impact my decision not to go. A group that identified as A+ I would feel safer at.
By the way on atheist meetup groups does anyone know if the ones in Adelaide are good?
Alukonis,
I don’t know what quantum mechanics textbooks you’ve tried, but if you get one that’s sufficiently introductory, you might not be as badly-off as with more advanced ones. The one I used in my intro quantum mechanics was, I believe, an earlier version of this one by Liboff, and I seem to remember it not being too bad, if you do the problems at the ends of the chapters (look for the section on Dirac notation — that’s when they start in on bras and kets). I believe the most commonly used one is Griffiths, which I’ve never personally been subjected to, but which as far as I’ve seen tends to be used in slightly gentler intro to quantum classes than the one I took. So it might be either more or less useful to you than Liboff, depending on your disposition. In my experience, those slightly gentler classes tend to be more targeted towards people who just want applications, rather than explanations, so you may actually prefer Liboff for your purposes.
I *would* recommend actually looking at the specific applications they use the bra and ket notation in, because many of those will probably be relevant as the elementary building blocks of what you do in quantum chemistry. If they’re assuming knowledge of the bra-ket notation, they may also assume knowledge of some of those elementary examples, so it’s worth having at least skimmed through them in the past.
lexie wrote:
I’m a bit embarrassed to say I’ve never actually been to one in Adelaide. I couldn’t even tell you which atheist groups we have here.
Wowbagger, why embarrassed?
Me too. I’m not a lady, but it would be awfully nice to join an atheist and be reasonably sure it wouldn’t have a bunch of Dwight Schrutes in it.
lexie wrote:
I’ve gone all the way to Melbourne for two GACs and yet I’ve not managed to seek out any atheist gatherings in my own city. I admit that that’s a bit slack on my part…
spag squash is good diced thin raw in salads
cook until soupy then add tomatoes, onions garlic and make an awesome spag sauce
cook until soupy add oxtails and lentils
cook until soupy (see a pattern here) add navy beans and salted pork
The bra-ket thing, brings me back bad memories of Linear Algebra class. Don’t get me wrong, I passed it with flying colors, but for the first time in my life, I didn’t get it. I knew the process and everything, but I felt like the mathematicians were making things up as I went along the subject. I felt like there were no logic at all as to why the matrices worked that way, or what was the point of determinants and finding the basis of the matrix.
This is not so much a recipe as an attitude, but I often micro-wave squash, then scoop out the insides, leaving the rind. I use the insides as a soup base, by mashing or blending the squash, then adding either a bit of water or milk or butter, depending on the diet of the soup eaters. You can then add to this quite a bit, such as putting in finely diced other vegetables including raw or cooked ones. I like to add diced and sautéed yellow peppers because orangey squash with yellow squares or shreds added looks nice. Some put in a dollop of sour cream or similar, which also looks nice with a swirl. Sometimes I just sprinkle on some nutmeg. Salt and pepper to taste.
It is really fast and works with pumpkin and other squash types. I have eaten it cold, which is refreshing on very hot days.
Sorry if this is too late.
Josh,
Thanks about the association points.
In Canada, the Law Society is the regulatory body and will make referrals if you contact the lawyer referral section. This is actually a service to the public in that it nearly never pays off for the lawyer. I was on the list for 20 years, and got one file, I think out of many calls. The file was legal aid, and represented a net loss under the payment regulations of the day. But hey, poor people deserve decent lawyers, too.
My housemates are squabbling for the goofiest of reasons–they are both wrong in the same way–and one of them is having a crafty smoke, not realizing the smoke is coming out under the door, so I’m up late running a fan to drag the smoke out, partly because I hate it, and partly to keep the quarrel from flaring up again.
I stayed quiet as a mouse through all of it, then got snarled at to not try to patch things up, even though I feel I should, and that I have every right and duty to. Neither of them can communicate with the other coherently—that’s what the earlier mess was. Not that my record with either is the best, but at least I set them off more slowly than the other one does.
I think I go into discussions with the goal of avoiding trouble, they both go in with the intention of winning. And since neither has anything but a giant chip on the shoulder, it goes to hell fast.
And I’d done favors for both of them today. And they both had for each other.
I hope they both get some sleep.
At least I can play some music I like, quite-like. I had an idea today to make a mountain dulcimer that was played by a bow, and Googled it. Sure enough, somebody has already done it, and it sounds nice.
Bass Bowed Dulcimer playing Amazing Grace http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG-b65SDgIA
My design would be easier to make, I think, than a regular dulcimer. It might not sound as good, though.
ibyea, I can’t speak to why mathematicians developed matrix math in the first place, but it’s unbelievably useful across pretty much every area of engineering and science.
Anything that does data mining uses linear algebra, which means Google, bioinformatics, voice/facial recognition algorithms, probably stock market predictions, and who knows what else. Of course it’s all over quantum physics, which means modern electronics requires it. Hell, even if you’re just solving a classical electrical circuit with more than a handful of components, you’ll be doing linear algebra. Controls uses it (e.g. robotics applications, swarm intelligence). Mechanical and civil engineers use it to solve complex mechanical problems — if you’ve ever seen a finite element model, that’s full of linear algebra. Computer graphics (CAD software, all those cutesy 3-D movies, videogames, etc.) uses linear algebra like crazy. In fact, a ridiculously large fraction of anything anybody does with a computer these days has ginormous amounts of linear algebra at the bottom of it.
Basically, if you can’t do linear algebra, you’re cut out of understanding or contributing to a vast swath of the coolest modern creative endeavors. So it really sucks that you had such a lousy experience with it. I hope you’ll get a better opportunity someday.
Anne-
Thanks for the book suggestions! I’ve requested Liboff and the other should be returned to the library in a couple days, or I’ll look at the reserve copy.
There’s so many books on quantum at the library that it’s pretty daunting to find a decent one, hence my quest for recommendations. Once you find a good one it’s hard to let it go. I’m pretty terrible, I can check out books for six months at a time and renew indefinitely – I’ve had the same inorganic electrochemistry book for like two years straight now. (It’s the one by Zanello and it’s awesome, btw, if anyone in interested in that topic)
Worse, it’s a CATion.
There goes PZ’s support ;(
GYAH.
I just had a fairly hard cardio workout and I feel a little weird (I think I strained my lungs slightly) so I’m keeping my heart rate monitor on and an eye on it, just in case.
It just jumped from 105 to 200 more or less randomly, in steps of about 40. I didn’t feel any different, and it settled down once I put the watch closer to the transmitter, so I think it was just interference or something, but that was scary.
And, oh, great, apparently I really should go back and take Introduction to Linear Algebra at some point. >.>
SGBM:
Aren’t you confusing is and ought here? What you say would be desirable, but it is hardly what we are observing. That’s the same problem that I have when PZ argues that atheism implies all these other values. Yes, it would really be great if it did, but if you look around that’s not what’s happening. Btw, I’ve had quite a change of thought about this issue in the last few years(since you linked to an old blog post).
Good luck with that in Australia, at least through official channels. I’d love to see the faces of the clowns from the Atheist Foundation here if someone was to suggest that.
Alukonis, I hope one or the other of those helps. There’s a lot of lousy, confusing crap out there about quantum mechanics, much of it written by people whose job it supposedly is to know better. I can’t promise those two books will be perfect, but they’re at least in sufficiently heavy usage that the authors and publishers have smoothed out many of the worst flaws.
By the by, if you *do* happen to grok linear algebra, it’s sometimes helpful when looking at Dirac notation to keep in mind the analogy of bra = row vector, ket = column vector, operator = square matrix. In addition, when you deal with things like position basis vs. momentum basis, it can help to think of it as analogous to a Fourier transform (assuming that’s something you’re familiar with), because it basically *is*. Bra-ket notation looks funny, but if you’re careful to keep track of what the things you do actually mean it will start to make more sense over time.
As for library books, I too am a serial offender on that front. I have about five books out from my school’s library that I’ve been renewing every four weeks for more than a year. But *shrug*. If somebody else wanted them, they’d put a hold on them. The reality is, these books are sufficiently obscure that probably I and the people I’m working with are the only ones who will have any interest in them for a good long while yet.
What does it matter whether “atheism” (for whatever values of ‘atheism’ you decide) “requires” women’s equality? We get to decide that any coalition or movement we back requires certain things. Who cares if the faces of the Atheist Foundation in Australia (or the US, or Canada, or Germany, or wherever) don’t want to show up for that?
Who cares?
Fuck them then. Bye.
Azkyroth,
Heh, sorry. I will try to froth at the mouth slightly less the next time I evangelize for my favorite bits of math and science. :-P
Wow…where the fuck were you back in April? ;/
Eh, I was already thinking about it, but I was kinda thrilled at getting an A in the last math course I took (Advanced Mathematics for Science and Engineering II) and had some LA exposure in a couple engineering classes as well as the first semester of the above. I’m pessimistic about the chances of that at the community college level, just based on history.
On the other hand, the last time I took a math course at the community college level I was married to a raging alcoholic…so it might make a difference. >.>
Rorschach, that attitude you refer to is one of the reasons why I don’t go to any local meet ups because I don’t feel like it would necessarily be a friendly environment. I think if anyone was going to set up an A+ group perhaps bypassing official channels would be a good idea, we don’t need their approval.
Very. The largest atheist group in the Sacramento area was started by a couple of friends basically on a bet, via meetup.com. Which might be a really good tool; I’m not actually sure if it’s US-only. O.o
And we get to construct our own “official channels”, or unofficial channels, or affiliations of whatever sort we deem necessary and expedient. I’m no longer impressed with the “weight” of large, name-brand atheist or skeptic organizations. If they want to get on board with pro-feminist, pro-humanist goals, that’s awesome, and they’ll get my volunteer labor and my money.
If they don’t, then I don’t care. I’ll abandon them and move on to something more productive and welcoming.
Skeptics Incorporated (TM)—as a generalization—need to understand this. We don’t feel beholden to you. We’re not afraid not to have you backing us. Really. You’re not thatimportant.
I haven’t done Fourier transforms since that class on that thing, what was it, some crap about systems… I didn’t really pay attention. We actually didn’t do transforms. I think. It was some kind of sensor feedback and control class? I don’t know.
I think it’s safer to say I know nothing about Fourier transforms except that I do FTIR a lot.
The vector thing is useful though! Most of the matrices I use are for group theory (symmetry operators FTW!) so I’m mostly used to spatial transformations. That might not be the right term for it, but hopefully you know what I mean.
@Alukonis
Fourier transform is a really cool piece of math. It is pretty much adding a gazillion waves to make an approximate shape of any graphs you want.
Josh, exactly. Sometimes I feel that skeptics incorporated think they are the new church. Even though I’m an Australian atheist I do not belong to the AFA. I will support them if I agree with what they are doing but I do not need their approval. When I was religious I would have needed the approval of a priest to set up a group or do anything but when I became an atheist I lost my rulers and am not going to acquire new ones.
@Anne
What’s the advantage of the matrix version of QM over the PDE version of QM?
Umm, Josh, we care because we specifically *don’t* want some of them to show up? Which I’m sure you know, so I must be missing your point.
rorschach,
That Y follows from X does not mean everyone will notice Y follows from X.
Chasrorschach, there are atheists who believe in reincarnation. There are lots of incoherent atheists.And no, I’m not confusing ought and is here. But maybe you are. You’re recognizing that some idiots don’t notice (that’s an is, their lack of noticing) that equality follows and you’re taking that to imply that it doesn’t follow.
I doubt it’s the same problem, since my stance is quite similar to PZ’s, but probably not identical.
It would be really great if there were no atheists who believe in reincarnation, but if you look around that’s not what’s happening.
Nevertheless, reincarnation is incoherent.
You cannot be a coherent atheist who believes in reincarnation.
You also cannot be a coherent atheist who wants to deny equal rights to gay people, for instance.
Great. Your “MRAs and misogynists can learn and adapt, and they should be given the chance to do so” line in your post two days ago is still total hogwash.
They may indeed be able to learn and adapt, but don’t tell anyone that we should be giving them a chance to do so (your “should” means at least some action we’re not now doing, or else it doesn’t mean anything).
+++++
Josh,
Since I’m saying women’s equality does follow logically and empirically from atheism, do you want me to answer this? Thing is, the answer would not be related to the rest of your comment, which of course I agree with. So I’m not sure if it’d be relevant to what you’re really getting at.
SG, I believe that you’re arguing an abstract point, which (whether I agree or not) is not very relevant to many of us.
I don’t care to be involved in the effort to stage coups to take over existing organisations run by idiot libertarians*. I don’t care to spend my time educating those who have, by now, proven themselves ineducable. I don’t care to spend my time trying to work out which people in my organisation are going to assault or insult me or my friends, and setting up defenses against that. I want people in my organisation to be my allies. If there’s a flag they can wear to distinguish themselves from my enemies, I’m all for them wearing the flag.
But by all means go preach “atheism implies equality” to the slymepit if you wish. Personally, I’m not setting
footeyeball there.* oops tautology
Alethea, I think SG is arguing for a particular…um, there’s no better way to put it than “framing,” is there? rather than a substantive difference in approach.
Only 3 more days of this midnight shift. Lots of work, and 2 overtime with night differential hours a night!
For the people not on PET, my sister is pregnant. I’m fairly unenthused about it, given that she’s living with our parents, she and her husband can’t afford a kid, and my parents really can’t, either. So I figure it’s a huge mistake. And I can’t say anything about it cause of the fact I don’t want to be THAT person.
*sigh* I can’t bring myself to be all ‘yaaay, squeee, baby’ with her, cause I just want to shout at her about how big an idiot she was.
I’ve put forward my argument and now I’m responding to people who’ve responded to me. I will continue replying to people who reply to me. You can ignore me if you like.
I definitely haven’t said that anyone should.
I definitely haven’t said that anyone should. (rorschach is apparently saying this; I’m clearly arguing against him.)
I definitely haven’t said that anyone should.
I definitely haven’t said otherwise.
I definitely have said that visual indicators (as opposed to verbal) are awesome for this. I specifically mentioned that same icon that Caine uses.
I preach it when they show up here. I haven’t said that anyone here should go do that work — I’ve always argued against people who say that crap — and I don’t appreciate your absurd implications.
Azkyroth grokked me well enough. I refer you to this comment — please don’t misrepresent me again without reading it.
Hahahaha! Awesome.
Plus another poll here :
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/20/1121963/-Why-Climate-Literacy-Matters
***
Poll
An initiative to substantially increase society’s climate and energy literacy should be a national priority
Absolutely! Should be major priority
82% 47 votes
Couldn’t hurt, but not top of my list
10% 6 votes
Meh- lukewarm at best on the idea
0% 0 votes
Not sure it would make any difference, so why bother?
0% 0 votes
A real waste of time
7% 4 votes
| 57 votes | Vote | Results | Vote
***
With a good article there too.
On a related topic via NineMSN online news site :
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8518792
Whuilst for something totally different :
Source :
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8519643
Again Ninemsn.
I’m afraid Russell Blackford or Hoggle or any atheist believing in reincarenation don’t give a damn whether you think they are coherent in their atheism or not.
This coherence you keep mentioning implies an active intellectual or mental process on the part of those who are meant to be coherent, it’s not included in the atheism starter pack.
The bit you quote above from my post(MRAs and misogynists…) refers to those who may be amenable to changing their views. I think they exist.
PZ, a question for (mainly) you as a biology educator:
I am a not-even-remotely-biology major, but I am finding myself wanting to have a good grounding in and more comprehensive understanding of exercise physiology and related health concepts, mainly for my own benefit. Due to a combination of time, money, majors-only statuses, and enrollment priority issues, there’s no reasonable way for me to take actual courses in these subjects that I’m aware of, so I’m thinking about, when I have a bit more money, picking up textbooks for my school’s Exercise Physiology class and the prerequisites (a general physiology class, whose prerequisite is any of the introductroy bio courses) and studying on my own time.
Do you have an opinion, as a biology educator who’s taught physiology courses before, on how much I’m likely to miss/lose if I get the cheap out-of-date editions of those books?
Why should our self-definition be subject to a heckler’s veto?
Cover in concrete and toss into the deepest part of the ocean. Then prepare something edible.
Self-definition is fine and necessary, that’s what we’re doing right now with Jen’s post or PZ’s article. It’s the existence of all these implied values that are alleged to be part of the one true and coherent atheism that I disagree with. They differ with who you ask, too.
Azkyroth: when I took anatomy/physiology, they let us get whichever of the last several versions of the text we could find, because 99% of it hasn’t changed. (Mostly they want to sell new interactive tools.) I’d say go for it.
NOOOOOO! Not Phyllis Diller! She was only 95, dammit!
It’s a shame when time takes away someone who made me laugh.
Couldn’t the reaper have come for Mark Russell instead?
Azkyroth, in my experience of biology textbooks it depends how old they are. If they were produced in this century I haven’t had too many problem but I’ve had friends who’ve bought really old books and they have had problems.
I’m afraid you think you’re saying something clever here.
Any Christian believing in Jesus may not give a damn whether or not Christianity is coherent — but the fact remains that it’s not coherent and I will therefore argue against Christianity (when I have the energy to do so).
Well, it doesn’t apply to dead bodies. Living people do have mental processes, though.
Where can I buy the atheism starter pack? I never got one. :(
Does it include a cracker and a nail?
«They may indeed be able to learn and adapt, but don’t tell anyone that we should be giving them a chance to do so (your “should” means at least some action we’re not now doing, or else it doesn’t mean anything).»
You might benefit from quoting the person you’re disagreeing with more often, rorschach. Seriously. It might help you clarify your thoughts. I know it helps me.
There is a coherent way of understanding reality. That’s my claim.
I’m not surprised that you would disagree.
Which isn’t actually the nearest planet to Earth – Venus.
It just depends on who you ask.
Anyway, enough nitpicking with you for one day I think…:-)
Hey Lounge parents, does anyone have any bright ideas of how to discourage a 5-year old from using swear words? Anything from “fucking” to “son of a bitch” can be found in my son’s(and apparently any other kindergarden kid’s) vernacular, and I’m not amused. Ex has chosen the strategy of threatening him with calling Santa, which is not very successful, to put it mildly. I was thinking of explaining to him what those words mean and why they are rude language, but not sure how to go about explaining to a 5-yo what a bitch is, or what fucking entails. Any tips?
The martian rock that was fried by Curiosity’s laser is a bit nonplussed:
@493. strange gods before me ॐ wrote :
Although some of us living people are more *coherent* than others!
(Must admit I’m often fairly incoherent myself!)
@ noahhopson-walker #445, there have been a lot of threads on the issue of restricting women’s bodily (and specifically reproductive) autonomy here on Pharyngula, in which people have eviscerated probably all of these “arguments”. I’m enough of a klutz I don’t know how to search the site really effectively, but you’re probably more online-sussed than I am! Still, I just typed “abortion” into the search box at the top of the page for a start – probably worth trying with “autonomy” and “reproductive” etc. etc.
You could try this one:
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/08/01/the-only-abortion-argument-that-counts/
Strange gods, please do not suggest that I’m misrepresenting you. If you want to pick fights, don’t do it here. If you think that I have mistaken something, please explain how politely.
I argue that whether it is true or not that “atheism implies equality” does not matter. It may be true. I’m not arguing. However, its truth is not relevant to the argument that A+ is a valuable concept. That is what I take the actual topic of the discussion to be.
In my discussion, A+ acts as the flag. If the flag is absent, then all those things that I DO NOT WANT become requirements for me to join an “atheism” group. So I probably won’t. Nor will very many women or minorities. (Also I didn’t say that you wanted me to. I present this as a logical consequence of your position, whether you want it or not.)
If you wish to appropriate plain vanilla unflagged atheism to become the default for people who care about social justice, then you need to go and have that fight in the places where it isn’t. You have to wrest it away from them. Unfortunately for you, that fight is located in the slymepit and among their fans and fellow travellers. It’s also a consequence, not a personal dismissal.
I think that A+ does a nice run around them, leaving them behind to sputter futilely in their own obsolescence.
Say about Piers Morgan what you want, but this one is quite funny, wrt Todd Akin not showing up for his scheduled interview: