Comments

  3. opposablethumbs says

    Azkyroth :-D I’m very glad for you.
    .
    Ogvorbis, I have a package of {{{hugs}}} here with your nym on it. Going into the USB port … now.

  5. says

    Ogvorbis
    (((hugs)))

    Azkyroth
    Yay!

    +++
    My college must have the worst computer system ever. Tried to sign up for a class. Could only place the “remember time-slot” marker, not book it. Wrote to a friend if she’d heard when it is. She said she’d booked it. I was puzzled. Tried again, no use. Accidentially stumbled along a different path, could book it…

  6. says

    ogvorbis
    *hugs*

    Longtime readers may remember my mention of a previous roommate who absconded with a great deal of our data. I have just discovered that this includes 13 of the 15 years of archives of a gaming magazine I downloaded when I was a subscriber, which cannot now be reacquired at any price.

  7. says

    Any other Aspies out there?

    The last month has been one long misunderstanding for me, even more so than normal. There’ve been several moments this month where I’ve been asked to read an article, or to explain some subject, and it has been as if I was reading an entirely different book/article/subtext than everyone around me. I’m used to some of this, but the last two weeks in particular have been just awful. I’m starting to feel like I need a translator to follow me about instead of just painstakingly reassembling the idea in different ways.

    Normally, I laugh these things off, but since my (recent) Aspergers diagnosis, I seem more and more likely to just run smack into that wall and stand there stunned. I can’t figure out whether I’m just processing that yes, indeed, these problems have a basis in biology, or if some part of me has just decided “to hell with it” and stopped trying.

    I feel like I’m getting further and further from other people the more I try to understand some of the ways my brain works. I suppose I just used to think of all my Aspergers symptoms as some defect to be covered, and now I don’t feel that way any more. Aspergers is a part of me, and maybe this is me, struggling to accept myself, but hell if I know.

    I’m legitimately disabled–or at least officially so–though I’d have a damn hard time claiming disability because I can hold a job and I can do interactions on a limited basis. I just have to bend eye-watering amounts of effort into having the ‘right’ kind of interactions with people who don’t function like I do (including, at the WIS conference this summer, having to sit in the hall and/or go hide because there were too many people and too much happening.)

  15. says

    In comment #393 on the previous page of this thread, I started a discussion of the “Not Even Once” book written by the wife of a mormon apostle.

    This piece ‘o crap book is still being hotly debated by mormons and non-mormons alike, but most of the people in both groups identify the book as cultish and as a danger to children.

    Here are some of the recent comments associated with the article in the Salt Lake Tribune:

    My problem with the book is that it promotes the lie. The lie that mormon’s do not sin and that a child will then tend to lie (about having commit a sin) in order to stay in “The Club”. Over the 40+ years I have been a member, I have found this to be so true amongst members… from reporting on visiting teaching to worthiness to hold a recommend. So sad to see it starting so young.

    As a very active LDS member who disagrees with most criticism levied against the Church, I believe this book is very, very inappropriate. Sister Nelson should be ashamed for writing it. This book sound like something the Pharisees would have promoted back in Jesus’s day. The Church would do itself and its members a favor by putting much greater emphasis on love, tolerance, and forgiveness.

    Exclusion for non conformism, exclusion for religious or philosophical differences illustrate perfectly why religion is divisive and damaging to the dignity of the human condition. Sunni versus Shia versus Alawite versus Sufi versus Amadaya in Islam, Mormon versus Mormon fundamentalist versus non Mormon Christians, Catholics versus Protestants versus Copts versus Orthodox versus Plymouth Brethren versus Exclusive Plymouth Brethren versus Seventh Day Adventists versus Jehovah’s Witness versus Mandeists Versus Yashidists… you cannot all be right….

    You just need to abide by a few conditions. So what if the conditions seem tough. Toughness is in the eye of the beholder just as beauty is. I haven’t found it so tough to be in the club.

    So according to this book Joseph Smith and Brigham Young would have violated all the elements required to get into the tree house. Every last requirement. All of them.

    Lied– Check
    Stole– Check
    Smoked–Check
    Drank Coffee — Check
    Drank Alcohol –Check
    Chastity —- A whole lotta Checks.

    No tree house for you!

    At least some mormons seem to realize that the official church approach to brainwashing children is bunkum. Other mormons seem completely clueless regarding how fucked up the book is, and how fucked up are the lessons they teach children.

  16. says

    AlJazeera America recently posted an article and video featuring Moments of Mormon Madness, polygamy category.
    Link.

    Excerpt below:

    The first person we spoke with was Lenora Allred. We met her at a small satellite office set up by the area’s community college. Allred, 39, is taking classes, hoping she can get a job, support her children and eventually move out of Colorado City.

    I was struck by the traditional pastel prairie dress she still wears even though she is no longer in good standing with the FLDS. Her hair was neatly braided and she wore no makeup. And even though it was nearly 100 degrees outside, she still had on special, full-body undergarments – a requirement for members of the church.

    Allred agreed to speak to us on camera after consulting with a counselor who is helping her adjust to the possibility of life outside Colorado City. Within moments of our conversation, you cannot help but feel sympathy for this woman. Growing up here, she was strictly raised under church rules, with very limited knowledge of what life is like outside of FLDS.

  17. says

    Anonymous has decided to out various congress critters who receive big donations from various surveillance agencies in the USA. These congress critters are known for restricting the rights of the people by passing laws that benefit Northrop Grumman, Booz Allen Hamilton, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and others.

    The video produced by Anonymous can be viewed in this Salon article.

  19. says

    Ogvorbis:

    I’m gonna check out ofr a while. Have I mentioned that I hate triggers?

    There was absolutely no excuse whatsoever for the things that colossal asshole said. Triggered me too. Holding you tight, Ogvorbis. Take care of yourself.

  20. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Tried an experiment tonight cooking bacon in the oven. Preheated to 350 degrees F. for a few minutes, then turned off the preheat. Restarted heating with the bacon on the small broiler pan that almost fills the upper oven, but had the oven set to broil, but the temperature at 350 degrees F. Cooked for 20 minutes. The bacon came out crisp, but not burnt. Just the way the Redhead likes it….

  21. chigau (カオス) says

    Nerd
    My method of ovening bacon:
    carefully lay bacon on heavy cookie sheet
    place in oven at about 275°F
    go about my business
    say “what’s that smell”
    remove bacon prior to ignition
    —
    Your way sounds better ;)

  23. chigau (カオス) says

    So, I’m on my patio having a wee dram and an adolescent squirrel ran across my foot.

  25. says

    Dalillama @493 on the previous page of this thread:

    Government budget cuts during a recession are the opposite of smart.

    Quite. And as Chris Hayes so ably covered in “All In” tonight. When you don’t have government funding designed to pull the 99% out of recession, the 1% does just fine and the 99% rots in the economic doldrums.

    As the American economy dragged itself out of recession, the country’s wealthiest 1% absorbed nearly all the benefits, according to a recently updated paper [PDF] from UC Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez.

    The top 10% assumed control over more than half of all income in the United States in 2012, “even [surpassing] 1928, the peak of [the] stock market bubble in the ‘roaring’ 1920s,” writes Saez. The country’s biggest earners brought in 95% of all income gains between 2009 and 2012; in terms of income, the other 99% have barely recovered from the recession at all. In the same time period, incomes for the top 1% grew by 31.4%, incomes for the 99% grew by only 0.4%. Half a decade after the 2008 financial collapse, few but the very richest are anything but worse off….

    In the right hand menu/column on the All In site, scroll down to the video “The rich nab the biggest share of income recovered” to watch the presentation, which includes economists stating that the Republican cuts in funding were killing recovery for the 99%.

    What are Republicans planning to do? John Boehner floated the following plan: keep the sequestration cuts that are hurting the country, avoid a shutdown, give the right a symbolic vote on defunding the Affordable Care Act. This was not stupid enough for his fellow congress critters, so he had to pull back, taking his proposal off the voting schedule. His fellow doofuses want to vote to shut down the government unless Obama defunds Obamacare. Fucking bonkers.

  26. says

    In the same time period, incomes for the top 1% grew by 31.4%, incomes for the 99% grew by only 0.4%

    It’s actually even worse than that; the top quintile’s gains are the only reason that number is positive at all. The remaining 80% of the country has actually lost income.

  28. Portia says

    Excellent news about the new workplace (I start on Monday)
    I stopped by again there to check out the office furniture situation, and bring a client chair. Bossman said “Honey, those chairs are probably not big enough.” Paralegal said “What did you call her?” BM: “Honey?” PL: “Don’t do that, that’s not okay.”

    *happydance* I think she and I will get on just fine.

  30. Tony! The Immorally Inferior Queer Shoop! says

    Mogan:
    The description you gave for your old lounge sound wonderful.

  31. Tony! The Immorally Inferior Queer Shoop! says

    Portia:
    Next time you find yourself giving a hug to your PL, please make it a double, bc she rocks.

  32. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Nice paralegal, Portia!

    Seriously rocking.

  34. sonderval says

    Hey folks,

    I need some help if someone would be so kind. I’m in a discussion on rape culture etc. on the German scienceblogs and I have cited Rebecca Watson as an example of someone getting many rape and death threats for saying “guys, don’t do that”. Unfortunately I cannot find a site that summarises the case and the threats. Does anyone have a link (a collection of all the nasty twitters or whatever)?

  37. sonderval says

    PS:
    Someone (but I forgot who) did collect all the links Caine always provides to those in need of education – I forgot who it was, where it was announced and what the name of the site was which makes finding it a bit hard. Again, I’d be grateful for a link.

  42. says

    Ogvorbis, be well. I don’t attend the Thunderdome because it’s not my kind of hangout, but you have all my support here.

    Whoa, my rat Verne is seriously pissed that I’m cleaning the sofa. I’ve never seen him so upset. I think the final straw was me spraying Fabreeze, which I’ve never used before and didn’t know how strong it is. I also used rubber gloves to clean some of the foam padding, and when I went to pet him he bit me. And he’s the mellow one. Sorry Verne for making you feel so scared and vulnerable.

  44. jefrir says

    All the hugs, Ogvorbis.

    —————————-

    All the descriptions of the lounge are making me wish it was a real place – it sounds so cosy and comfortable. And, hey, if we’re going with the volcanic-island-lair style thing, that would mean there’d be an ocean to swim in, right? We’d have to make sure the sharks were well trained, but I’m sure that could be arranged.

    —————————-

    Are there any other boardgamers in the Lounge? If so, you might like to check out a game called“404: Law not found” on kickstarter. I’ve been involved in playtesting, and it’s a really good game – a decent mix of madcap humour and deep gameplay. The designer is also a lovely guy who occasionally posts awesome rants like this on his blog:

    I started reading the boardgamegeek forums seriously 23 days ago and the most common piece of advice I see for selling games on kickstarter is one word: “boobies”. It’s often said with great bitterness, which I find encouraging. We’re better than that, or at least we should be. Many contemporary depictions are insulting to women and an artifact of a culture we’ve collectively been trying to move away from. It’s insulting to us too. You know what, this deserves a rant.

    *inhale*
    In a hobby where you might mentally simulate the progress of an entire world through hundreds of possible outcomes based on a dozens of memorised physical rules, just to decide whether to move one of your guys one space to the left, aren’t you at least a little bit offended by the notion that someone is ignoring a full half of your friends while trying to sell the other half a game on the grounds that one of the inanimate lumps of plastic is shaped vaguely like a tiny version of someone they might want to have sex with?
    *exhale*

  46. says

    Hi there
    Oh dear. I got a call from the autism centre that somebody cancelled an appointment and we could have it.
    Tomorrow at 8:30. My intestines and stomach are quitting their service, I think.
    Also, I told my sister (I’d been granny sitting for her) and she’s not, shall we say, supportive. She’s of the opinion that things like Autism, AD(H)S etc are overdiagnosed, there are only a few real cases, it’s just that society and parents don’t let the kids be themselves and she knows that #1 is totes not on the spectrum or anything. Cause she’s a paediatric nurse who worked in neuropaediatrics.
    OK, I’m not a doctor on these matters either, but from what all of you have told me and from what she said I can tell that no, she doesn’t know that much.
    Did you know that “real autists” don’t want any social contact, neither with kids their age nor with adults?
    Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.
    I guess she’s kind of the neurotypical pendant of colourblind white people.
    I hate to think that this could drive a wedge between us, after all she’s all the family I still like apart from my grans (and people family via marriage).

  47. carlie says

    Giliell – you could try the sidestep: most of the accommodations made for autistic kids in school are the kinds of things that benefit neurotypical kids too, so ask her what harm would it do? Having that diagnosis gives her a route for accommodations that will make her life easier, and would do so regardless of if autism is a real thing or is applicable to her or not. Force her into articulating why she thinks that helping your daughter is a problem rather than sticking to defending whether her needs are due to autism.

  48. birgerjohansson says

    “What will humans look like in 100,000 years?” http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/what-will-humans-look-like-in-100000-years

    Naah. That was a VERY conservative guess. We are talking about genetic engineering. Where are the organs for echolocation in the dark? The antennae for direct radio communication? The setae for climbing vertical walls?

    If fyou want really radical posthuman designs, read Charles Stross`”Neptune’s Children”

  50. Portia says

    cicely, Tony, CD, chigau: Thanks! :D

    chigau: I asked her permission to hug her the other day when she gave me some great news, and she consented. So I feel like I might have to ask again sometime ^_^

    And if it were in my power, she would totally get a raise.

    The sad thing is that working with her directly is somewhat temporary: when I start billing more and get up to full capacity with workload, the firm is going to hire a new person to handle my caseload. Hopefully I get some input and NewPerson is equally awesome. Of course, PL will still be around to help keep the casual sexism in line.

  51. Pteryxx says

    for consideration…

    http://www.salon.com/2013/09/12/yes_weird_christian_beliefs_do_influence_america_partner/

    It’s an understandable urge: people spouting crazy nonsense are better ignored. Their numbers are small and they really can’t build an audience for their wacky theories without relying on the mainstream media’s interest in covering weird, marginal characters spouting random, nonsensical ideas. People who think cassettes are the best music medium, cults built around the belief that space aliens are coming for us, people involved in Peter Thiel’s island project are all people whose wackiness comes in small enough numbers that ignoring them really robs them of power.

    The problem with that theory is that right-wing, apocalypse-obsessed Christians are not marginal characters who have little power in the world. They constitute a huge percentage of Americans, and just as disturbingly, they have influence over another huge number of Americans. They actually don’t want attention drawn to their wacky beliefs a good deal of the time. On the contrary, the preferred fundamentalist right-wing communication strategy is to use their own spaces—spaces that are often far from the prying eyes of the larger world—to talk about their lurid fantasies, and they prefer to show a more sensible, moderate face to the larger world.

    Let’s be clear: Pat Robertson does not want liberals watching the 700 Club. Mike Huckabee is careful to curtail some of his more extreme views when he’s on national television. Rick Santorum has openly claimed that asking right-wing politicians about their hard-right views on things like contraception in the mainstream media is dirty pool. There’s a widespread and concentrated effort on the right to keep the crazy talk as far out of sight of the opposition as possible, while simultaneously disseminating their ideas among the true believers. This reality doesn’t comport with the claim that they benefit from mainstream media attention, but the opposite.

  52. says

    The Freedom From Religion Foundation has been granted standing to bring to court a case that demands financial transparency from churches. This lawsuit against the IRS claims that the IRS supports religion by allowing churches to keep their finances secret while requiring other non-profit organizations to file and make public detailed financial information.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterjreilly/2013/09/07/freedom-from-religion-foundation-demands-financial-transparency-by-churches/

    http://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/18643-ffrf-wins-standing-to-sue-irs-over-form-990
    Excerpt:

    August 26, 2013
    The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which has three historic lawsuits in federal district court over preferential treatment of churches and ministers by the Internal Revenue Service, says it now has “three bases loaded.”

    For the second time within three days, a federal judge has ruled in favor of allowing FFRF to pursue IRS inequities favoring churches over FFRF.

    On Aug. 19, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman ruled that FFRF’s case against church electioneering may proceed.

    U.S. District Barbara Crabb, in the Western District of Wisconsin, ruled Aug. 22 that the national state/church watchdog, based in Madison, Wis., has standing to pursue its lawsuit against the IRS for exempting churches from annual accountability requirements.

    FFRF was previously given standing and is awaiting a decision over its challenge of the 1954 federal “parish exemption” law — uniquely gifting “ministers of the gospel” with the right to deduct church “housing allowances” from taxable income. This case is also before Judge Crabb.

    In her Form 990 ruling, Crabb wrote that the plaintiffs — FFRF and Triangle FFRF, its chapter in Raleigh, N.C. — have been injured because “the government is relieving an ongoing burden from some taxpayers on the basis of religious affiliation.”

    She added, “it is not plaintiffs’ ‘belief’ that gives them standing. Rather, it is their status as organizations that are burdened with requirements not imposed on churches.”…

  55. David Marjanović says

    Ogvorbis – *hugs, chocolate, and support* Take care.

    Sixthed.

    Did you know that “real autists” don’t want any social contact, neither with kids their age nor with adults?

    One word: spectrum.

    No two people are identical.

  56. yazikus says

    I fucking love Muse.

    Kevin,
    This made me think of my totally irrelevant Muse anecdote. Certain times of the year I work lots of hours. I also make use of Pandora internet radio to help me through the day.
    –
    (I feel like this whole story should start with “Well, there I was…”)I was on a kick of listening to my radio that I seeded off of The Strokes. There was this one song that cracked me up, (Heart in a Cage), it was just so over the top dramatic. I described it to a friend as sounding like a vampire lounging on black satin sheets (round bed & mirrors all around), and leather pants of course.
    –
    One day, Muse starts showing up on this pandora channel. I do some research, and discover that many people didn’t like that Strokes album because it sounded too much like Muse.
    –
    Later I learned that Muse did the soundtrack for the Twilight movies. Vampire music! I’ve been tickled by the connection since.
    /irrelevant Muse anecdote

  57. Portia says

    Kevin:

    High five for awesome time :D

    —

    Paralegal update: Just now, I told her I was struggling through my trust accounting to figure out what’s what before I close them. She said: “Oh, bring that over here and we’ll do it together. [serious, compassionate face] You’re not alone in this anymore.” I literally teared up, and she hugged me. She’s batting a thousand in the awesome column.

  58. says

    David
    That’s what I said, too
    *sigh*

    carlie
    Another point I made. I mean, right now I don’t know whether that’s the right place for us, if she’s on the spectrum, or has some form of ADS, or is just plain too smart for her own good or whatever. But since there’s no place where you can sign up for having your “weird kid” examined I’ll start there and see where we get. I trust them to be competent enough to send us to the right people at least.

  59. says

    Giliell: When we needed to get my daughter assessed (she has a whole raft of learning disabilities, most likely from her prematureness and her brain infection when she was an infant), we went to a psychologist who specialized in “psycho-educational assessments”, which purported to be an assessment of the child’s abilities and competencies in skills perceived as being related to education, like working memory, reasoning, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, and so on. The reports, both verbal and written, were of great use to us when interacting with her teachers, so that they could be aware of the extent and severity of her different abilities, and I think made a difference in her being able to finish school, where she would probably have dropped out otherwise.

    I wonder if such an entity might be found near you? I apologize if you’ve already been down this route, it sounds like something you’ve been discussing a while, just hoped maybe someone else’s experience with their kid might help? Good luck and the offer of hugs, in any case.

  60. hotshoe, now with more boltcutters says

    Lynna, OM –

    The Freedom From Religion Foundation has been granted standing to bring to court a case that demands financial transparency from churches. This lawsuit against the IRS claims that the IRS supports religion by allowing churches to keep their finances secret while requiring other non-profit organizations to file and make public detailed financial information.

    I click on your comments when I see your nym in the sidebar, knowing you will post something interesting, but often something horrid the ReThugs/Mormons are up to․

    What a treat to see that the good guys have a chance of winning one for a change․
    Thanks for sharing the news!

  61. says

    Texas. Almost don’t need to say anything else. You know it’s gonna be bad. This bad news is related to the Texas killing machine that loves to execute people. This time they are executing someone for being in the same gang as a guy who killed someone. Say, what? Talk about guilt by association.

    Robert Garza is scheduled to die on September 19. The state of Texas has not attempted to prove that he killed anyone. When a young Latino male in the Rio Grande Valley — the long-impoverished, southernmost tip of the state — is accused of gang involvement, the question of who actually pulled the trigger does not give pause to Texas’ well-oiled killing machine.

    Garza was convicted of involvement in the shooting of four immigrant women in a car in Donna, Texas, 11 years ago. The killings were carried out by members of the gang to which Garza belonged, allegedly to protect the gang from criminal charges from a witness to a previous crime. He was convicted under a controversial law in the state known as the Law of Parties, which does not require the prosecution to prove that the defendant killed anyone, or even intended to kill, but only that she or he had a certain level of involvement in a felony that led to a murder. Under this law, for example, someone who drives a culprit to a convenience store and waits outside, intending to drive the get-away car after an armed robbery, can be charged with murder if the other person kills someone inside the store….

    http://www.salon.com/2013/09/12/in_texas_execution_for_association_partner/

  62. says

    Bigoted gangs of anti-gay young men are throwing rocks at patrons of gay bars in Cleveland, and causing harm in other ways, such as beating up patrons as they leave the bar.. So what does the city of Cleveland do? It sends a letter to the owner of the Cocktails Lounge gay bar telling him that when he calls the police he is placing an undue burden on taxpayers.

    TowelRoad link.

    Furthermore, the letter contained a threat to the bar owner.

    Failure to address these issues, resulting in future calls for police service, will be scrutinized for appropriate administrative or law enforcement action.

  63. cicely says

    And, hey, if we’re going with the volcanic-island-lair style thing, that would mean there’d be an ocean to swim in, right? We’d have to make sure the sharks were well trained, but I’m sure that could be arranged.

    They’d better be well-trained, what with the lasers and all!
    –

  65. says

    http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56857838-78/edge-kissing-uvu-com.html.csp

    Clueless Dude Bros add a layer of clueless mormonism to a “prank” that involves massive amounts of male privilege.

    … Andrew Hales and Stuart Edge sweep unsuspecting people — most of them women — off their feet as they walk through UVU’s [Utah Valley University] hallways. Paired with that is a video in which, without asking, the two attempt to plant kisses on 13 women and two men. …

    “Mainstream media may not be receiving it well, but the community is,” responds Edge, a 24-year-old who points to the ratio of thumbs up (more than 12,000 as of Wednesday evening) to thumbs down (fewer than 300) as evidence that there is only a problem if you go looking for an “edge.”

    Holly Mullen, executive director of the Rape Recovery Center, says she enjoys comedy and “youthful irony,” but these videos illustrate the faulty socializations of the men and women portrayed.

    Hales and Edge exhibit an all-too-common sense of entitlement, Mullen says, with an attitude of “It doesn’t matter whether she wants to do it or not, I’m a man.” Also troubling to Mullen is the lack of assertiveness of the women, who have “almost a universal reaction. First there’s a startle — a surprise reflex — then a nervous giggle and a recoil.” One woman objects that she’s married, insinuating that it’s inappropriate not because she doesn’t want her personal space intruded upon, but because she belongs to somebody else, Mullen said. …

    … Edge, who was also behind the “Mistletoe Kissing Prank” at BYU [yep, mormon, mormon, mormon] in December that garnered 22 million views. He feels that after his past videos, he can judge by participants’ body language whether they will take issue. …

    Shannon Mussett, chair of the department of the UVU Philosophy Department, says that while she doesn’t think Edge and Hales are “bad guys,” they may not be as perceptive as they think.

    “Anyone can watch that and see that when a woman backs up and puts her hands up, that’s a nonverbal cue to get out of my space,” Mussett said. …
    …

  66. says

    Yes, the situation in Syria is worse than you thought it was. Trigger warning for depravity, sexual violence, and sheer unmitigated awfulness.

    A new report from the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria illuminates the increasingly brutal tactics that the country’s government—and, to a lesser degree, rebels—are deploying against civilians, from electrocution and rape to enlisting medical professionals to help torture hospitalized detainees.

    http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/chemical-weapons-war-crimes-syria-un

    … A former Syrian intelligence officer who defected to Turkey described similarly cruel techniques in an interview with CNN last year saying, “We took their fingernails out with pliers and we made them eat them. We made them suck their own blood off the floor.” …

    One female detainee interviewed by the UN commission was forced to perform oral sex during interrogations, while another was told her children would be killed if she didn’t have sex with her captors. The threat of rape is also used in intelligence gathering. According to the UN report, two women held in separate Damascus prisons “were told by their interrogators that their daughters would be raped if they did not confess. A nurse held at a police station in Damascus was threatened with gang rape if she failed to reveal whom she was treating.” …

    Contrary to claims from the Assad regime, which has blamed rebels for many of the atrocities, the UN commission found that pro-Assad forces were responsible for at least 8 massacres. Among the bloodiest was the assault on the Damascus suburb of Jdeidat Al-Fadel. In April, government forces shelled the area relentlessly, while snipers stationed along the roads out of town mowed down civilians trying to escape. The following month, the government staged its infamous raid on the Sunni villages of al-Bayda and Baniyas and slaughtered hundreds more civilians. Anti-regime activists captured video of the aftermath, which according to the BBC showed “bloodied and tangled bodies of women and children, some of them mutilated or partly incinerated.” In other cases, government forces deliberately shelled hospitals, killing medical staff, along with sick and wounded civilians….

    In the meantime, we cannot tell for sure that assistance that the USA is sending to Syria does not fall into the wrong hands.

    … The United States has been sending millions of dollars in nonlethal aid to the rebels since February, and in June President Obama authorized secretly supplying weapons to opposition fighters. But with hundreds of Syrian rebel groups battling the regime—ranging from the relatively moderate Free Syrian Army (FSA) to the Al Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front—can the administration ensure that US aid is not winding up in the wrong hands? A system designed to monitor the disbursement of nonlethal supplies to the rebels is supposed to make sure assistance goes only to vetted fighters—but, according to government oversight experts, it relies on too much good faith. …

    The “system” is basically a pile of hand-written receipts signed by commanders or their troops when they pick up supplies. The receipts exist, but no one verifies them.
    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/syrian-rebel-aid-handwritten-receipts

  67. says

    More details regarding the concentration of income for the top 1% of earners in the USA.
    http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/09/12/20458133-welcome-to-the-new-gilded-age

    Of the gains made by the top 10 percent, almost none went to the 90-95 group; in fact, the great bulk went to the top 1 percent. The bulk of the gains of the top 1, in turn, went to the top 0.1; and the bulk of those gains went to the top 0.01. We really are talking about the flourishing of a tiny elite. — Paul Krugman.

  68. says

    Bad news from Pennsylvania, gay marriage category.

    A Pennsylvania judge on Thursday ordered a suburban Philadelphia clerk to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

    Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini said Montgomery County Register of Wills D. Bruce Hanes did not have the power to decide on his own whether Pennsylvania’s same-sex marriage ban violates the state constitution.

    “Unless and until either the General Assembly repeals or suspends the Marriage Law provisions or a court of competent jurisdiction orders that the law is not to be obeyed or enforced, the Marriage Law in its entirety is to be obeyed and enforced by all commonwealth public officials,” Pellegrini wrote.

    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/09/12/us/ap-us-gay-marriage-pennsylvania.html

  69. says

    CaitieCat
    Thanks for your input. I’ve already “poked” at different routes and this one is the first one that opens. There are long waiting lists for those services and we’re extremely lucky to get this appointment tomorrow.
    As I said before, I have no clue what is actually up with #1. I know she’s different. She’s different in a “mild” way so we just let her be since she wasn’t unhappy, but then we ran into difficulties when we wanted her to start school “early” (she’s been born 5 days after the cutt-off date and you have to jump some hoops to let them start early) because she’s small and skinny and not your average 6yo.
    Let’s see what tomorrow brings.

  72. says

    Did you know that “real autists” don’t want any social contact, neither with kids their age nor with adults?

    Hey, wow, that sounds like me as a kid. (Note: I am not on the autism spectrum; I’m not very sociable and don’t like most people very much).

  73. says

    Dutchgirl:

    Whoa, my rat Verne is seriously pissed that I’m cleaning the sofa.

    Some rats get their territorial hackles up when you clean. Two boys I had once, Arlo and Nash, would puff up, looking like mean hedgehogs whenever they saw me coming with a sponge to clean their habitat and surrounding areas. They would chase me as I cleaned up pee puddles and the like, trying to bite me and the sponge. What I did with them was put them in safe, secure place while I did most of the cleaning, then open up where I had them, and let them come out on their own, keeping my hands away. They would sullenly grundle off, and finally start peeing like mad over all the clean spaces, which gave me time to clean up the rest of the stuff. They’d be in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

    My current crew is good about cleaning, but they were born in house, and have been accustomed to it. I still have a few who will chase my hand when I’m cleaning, though. Males are more likely to have a fit over cleaning than females.

  74. says

    Giliell, hugs and best wishes. The struggle you’re having because of your daughter sounds sadly familiar to me, and I’m glad she’s got good parents in her corner.

  79. says

    Caine @573: Yeah, I feel bad because the Fabreeze is soooo strong, and I used it kinda near the cage. Poor guys didn’t know what hit their noses. Today I’m moving them to a different room to finish the project.

  83. says

    Dutchgirl:

    Caine @573: Yeah, I feel bad because the Fabreeze is soooo strong, and I used it kinda near the cage. Poor guys didn’t know what hit their noses. Today I’m moving them to a different room to finish the project.

    Rats aren’t exactly fans of things changing, and that’s an understatement! I use Lysol on the drawers in Playstation East, given the amount they pee in them, but not while the rats are near. They don’t like it, but only because the drawers are then clean and dry. I get a great deal on packages of 50 puppy pee pads at Big Lots – those things are great liners for rat spaces.

  85. says

    A rat’s first reaction to a clean space (or body after a bath): Get the clean off, get the clean off!
    Artemis is too cute, and who doesn’t enjoy breakfast in drawer? Speaking of… time to make some banana pancakes.

  86. says

    Dutchgirl:

    A rat’s first reaction to a clean space (or body after a bath): Get the clean off, get the clean off!

    Oh yes. I’ll admit, I love watching them form a massive pee knot, peeing all over each other, after a bath.

  87. morgan the interabang !? says

    Caine,
    I would LUV to see a pic of the ratties getting a bath. Is this a possible thing? No pressure.

  88. says

    teejaykay:

    (Also, ratty hilarity today. Who knew that a rat can climb up a metal pole meant for pole dancing, get up to six feet up and teach the same trick to six others in the span of fifteen minutes? Nobody taught the first one, but the rest soon figured out food was forthcoming if they climbed.)

    I’ve seen the pole shinny! Rats below, my crew excelled at it, drove me up a wall.

  90. teejaykay says

    Oh, but they drive me nuts quite often. Never a dull moment when they’re out of the cage. As in, some is always on my lap, or trying to get there.

    So! It was just that I was staring at the monitor, looked around (yeah, that thing you learn when you have supercharged rodents around) and suddenly saw one of them climb up my wife’s dancing pole.

    My expression? Mostly: O_o

    My thoughts and words: “…what the –!”

    Wifey was making some pastries and stopped to see what was going on.

    …aaaand then she spent many a minute encouraging the pack to go gung-ho with the pole.

  91. says

    Morgan, I’ll try next time around. I generally get a few inches of water in the tub, and do a mass rat dump, letting them swim about for awhile, and I’m generally busy trying to keep them in the tub, as they excel at getting out. :D

    Tub Rats.

    Tinkerbell has a bath.

    Note: not my rats. Yootube is abundant with pet rat vids.

  92. morgan the interabang !? says

    Know what I want? This is in the realm of “maybe, might be illegal, get more property and a good fence,” a Capybara, the world’s largest rodent.

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/after-looking-at-these-photos-you-will-want-a-capybara

    Raise it from a baby of course, but first learn a hell of a lot about them, then figure out if my two big Cardigan Welsh Corgis would be amenable. This is starting to sound less and less like something I should pursue.

  93. Tony! The Immorally Inferior Queer Shoop! says

    Caine:
    From the sound of it, you have to clean up after them regularly. Daily? Twice daily? Monthly? (J/k about the last one. Methinks you would have a lake o’piss by that point.).

  94. says

    Tony:

    From the sound of it, you have to clean up after them regularly. Daily? Twice daily? Monthly? (J/k about the last one. Methinks you would have a lake o’piss by that point.).

    Yes, I do, daily. It’s easier if you keep them in a cage environment, which I don’t, so I have a lot more clean up than is usually necessary.

    I just got done cooking up two boxes of chicken rice & vermicelli. Got it plated up for them just a few minutes ago, they are going crazy. It’s been a while since they’ve had a Rice Day!, so they’re happy, fat rats.

  95. Tony! The Immorally Inferior Queer Shoop! says

    Just decided to read the Post-modern thread.
    I got ten comments in and decided to leave.
    Not from the commenters,
    Some topics I find I cannot grasp. Turns out this is one of them. Caine, I agree with your comment about needing Post Modernism for Dumies

  96. says

    Tony:

    Caine, I agree with your comment about needing Post Modernism for Dumies

    I get it, albeit on a simple level. The way that Berubé explained helped, about brute truth and social truth, and the intersectionality of the two. Also, Jadehawk wrote this in the Angry Dome, which is helpful:

    for practical purposes (as opposed to e.g. social theory or philosophy of knowledge), if you understand intersectionality, you understand post-modernism well enough to work with it: it’s a form of de-centralization and de-generalization, and a way to question the universality and validity of dominant narratives. And for the most part, it’s a process more than anything: what answers you come up with is less important than that you listen to the questions and take them into account.

  97. says

    Tony, if you check within the thread for Jadehawk’s comments, you’ll find the best, most cogent explanations you’d need to follow the ideas of po-mo. Personally, I find the post-modern critique to be a useful way to organize my thinking around privilege and social justice: it encourages identification of cultural biases, which are a big part of privilege. Your km/L may vary, of course, but I found her explanations by far the most useful and still comprehensible. She also did a great job of taking apart the more facile objections.

  98. says

    Crap. Been a long time since I drove. I mean L/km, of course. If I’m going to be an SI snob, I should at least be consistent about it. :)

  100. says

    I didn’t last too long reading the PoMo thread either, and I used to read the stuff on a regular basis. While there are useful applications and brought the idea of process in the forefront (in opposition to objective end result) I had to read it in the context of theatre studies, and that is just a giant pile of steaming nothing. Theatrical theory has been concerned with process, culture, and expectations since G.E. Lessing, and the addition of PoMo jargon doesn’t contribute anything in this particular area. Have I judged too harshly? Maybe, but it was very frustrating material to read.

  101. Tony! The Immorally Inferior Queer Shoop! says

    No comments since Dutchgirl’s at 8:53 pm.
    Is it Sunday?

    ****
    American maker of porn shows support for those seeking to leave Russia as a result of their anti-gay laws:

    LOS ANGELES – Monarchy Distribution has announced the upcoming launch of Boys Town Studios, an all-male studio with a charitable twist —all profits will go towards supporting gay rights.
    […]
    100 percent of the profits from all these movies, including DVD sales, video-on-demand, cable and broadcast will be donated to our newly-created non-profit” Kulich said. “Anyone will be able to write Boys Town Studios and tell their stories about how bigotry and homophobia has affected their lives, and we will step into help those victims as much as we can.”

    The profits from the first movie will be directed towards gay Russian refugees, to help pay for their relocation as they seek asylum in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere.

  103. says

    Kevin
    You’re allowed to do so in the Lounge.

    +++
    So, back from first session with psychologist, lots of questions, follow up appointments and when we’Re done we’ll know more. First tentative statement is that it looks not like a form of autism, but we’ll see whether anything else shows up.

  104. says

    Anyone have an over/under on how many comments in the thread about Karen Stollznow’s new book before someone comes in to say that now they know why she made her accusations? :/ I’ve already passed mine, as I figured it wouldn’t take five comments before some obsessed slymer showed up to make the latest apologia attempt. How cruddy is it that this is what I expect now?

    Sigh. Anyway, good sleep last night, got some work I’m getting done this morning, always nice when work comes in. :)

    (minor sexual contact below, one paragraph only)
    Nice to have my partner here too. She kissed me yesterday, just before I lay down for the afternoon horizontal time, and my knees went weak with the totally amazing sexxehness of the kiss, which is really an amazingly good sign. One of the worst casualties of my depression has been my libido, which was never huge to start with, so being able to feel such intense response to the kiss is, I hope, a big signpost on the road to Lessdepressedville, and it’s been a while since I’ve been there. Maybe I’ll stop and have a milkshake.

    I know I don’t need to note things as above, but it costs me little and might make someone’s day easier, so I’m good with it. By no means insisting or even suggesting anyone else has to.

    Hope you’re having a good AROTE, Lounging Cephalo-Ilk.

  105. Esteleth, statistically significant to p ≤ 0.001 says

    Cephalo-Ilk

    Hey! The ilk are over at Greta’s and Jen’s. We here are the Horde.

    Get it right. :p

    I hope you keep seeing signs to Lessdepressedville, and the distance to there shrinks.

    As for slymers in that thread, many of them have been banned already, so they’d have to make a sockpuppet. Give them another 15 comments.

  106. says

    I thought that there was someone in here who had recently had problems with a sewing machine jamming, but I can’t seem to find their posts or the solutions that were offered. I could use them, as L’s new sewing machine has also started to jam constantly, and this is a problem.

  107. says

    … With so many crisis pregnancy centers and so few licensed abortion providers, future abortion-seeking Texans could easily be misled by religious-driven centers offering pregnancy tests and counseling, but no scientifically sound medical advice or services.

    From the Whole Woman’s Health blog:

    If you or someone you know is seeking an abortion, always make sure and check that the clinic you are going to is an abortion facility and not a CPC. Even if you search for abortion on Google, you are likely going to see ads for ‘free pregnancy tests’ that are coming from CPCs right next to the ads for actual licensed abortion clinics. …

    Link.

    New laws passed by Texas legislators go into effect November 1, and these “trap” laws will immediately close most clinics that provide abortion. Meanwhile “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” are multiplying like zebra fish.

  108. opposablethumbs says

    I think it might have been Parrowing??? And that advice was forthcoming from Giliell, among others … ? Not sure, have rubbish memory. But maybe a search for Parrowing might be worth a try.

  110. says

    Mormons and ex-mormons in Africa are pushing back against the mormon church’s attempt to hide, whitewash, or sneak past their racist past.

    http://thyblackman.com/2013/09/12/blacks-ridiculed-again-by-the-mormon-church/

    Excerpt:

    … Over the past few months the question of racist teachings in the Book of Mormon and from the past Leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been on the minds of the Liberian converts to Mormonism and the many Christians who struggle to understand how such a Church can be growing in Africa.

    I believe the answer is relatively simple; it has been the perfect merging of a sincere lack of knowledge on the part of the Mormon converts and a disturbing lack of accountability on the part of the Mormon leaders.

    A near total lack of knowledge across Africa specific to some of the more explicit teachings found within the Mormon Scriptures, principally that Black Skin is a representation of wickedness and even less information concerning the racism and bigotry openly and officially taught by the early Leadership of the Mormon Church. This combined with the current Church Leadership’s inability to clearly and specifically reject its own racist teachings both in print and from its past Senior Leadership, has left the Black Race with only a short irresponsible and offensively juvenile Official Statement that claims the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints knows very little about its own race-based policy that had lasted for well over 100 years:

    “It is not known precisely why, how or when this restriction began in the Church, but it has ended.” …

  111. Esteleth, statistically significant to p ≤ 0.001 says

    Lunch today is spinach tortellini in a blanc sauce containing bacon, with feta on top.

    So much win.

  113. Esteleth, statistically significant to p ≤ 0.001 says

    I had mushroom gnocchi with a gorgonzola pesto.

    Oooh shiny.

    Except for those mushrooms.

    Nasty, nasty mushrooms, we hates them, precious, yes we do.

  115. Esteleth, statistically significant to p ≤ 0.001 says

    @Kevin:

    The mushrooms were part of the gnocchi dough (similar to, say, how a spinach pasta is green. These gnocchi were slightly grey)

    *narrow eyes*

    But mushrooms, precious!

  117. says

    Republicans are taking Crazy pills, the kind that make them utterly unable to evaluate any legislative agenda.

    … the government will run out of money in 17 days. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his leadership team thought they’d come up with a credible solution, but House Republicans and their allied activist groups promptly killed it, less than a day after GOP leaders unveiled it. Because Boehner is really only the Speaker In Name Only, he has no real influence or control what happens next, and he has no idea how to get out of the mess his own members created.

    Indeed, the arithmetic is brutal. There are currently 233 House Republicans, which means Boehner can pass a conservative spending bill that keeps the government’s lights on if he loses no more than 15 of his own members (that number goes up slightly if some Blue Dog Democrats break ranks). How many House GOP lawmakers oppose Boehner’s plan because it doesn’t fully defund “Obamacare”? As of last night, 43.

    I emphasize this because we’re not just talking about party leaders twisting a few arms to get something done. Dozens of House Republicans are ready to shut down the government unless Democrats agree to take health care benefits away from millions of Americans — and these lawmakers’ position is inflexible. …

    http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/09/13/20477384-congress-on-crazy-pills

  118. Esteleth, statistically significant to p ≤ 0.001 says

    @Kevin:

    I’m sure it was. Sorry, I don’t like mushrooms. *shrug*

  119. says

    Esteleth, I’ll take any mushrooms you don’t want. :) Elder Daughter and I are practically hobbitses when it comes to ‘shrooms.

  121. says

    Have you been thinking that the USA is post-racial, and that most of our politicians, even those from the South are no longer racists? (Well, probably not if you are a Pharyngulite, but many people think this way.)

    Rachel Maddow put racism in politics in perspective. As usual, she uses the details of actual history to back up her story. It’s incredible how recent some of this blatant racism is (1996, for example).

    http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26315908/#52997516

    “I’m going to sing Dixie until she cries.” [Jesse Helms in an elevator with the only African-American woman senator, Carol Moseley Braun.]

    This is the story of the Republican party becoming the party of white racists in the South by promising to protect the white people from the black people. This is not a myth. This is what happened. Not subtle. Not made up. Still ongoing.

    Ted Cruz loves Jesse Helms and wants 100 more Jesse Helms in the Senate. Cruz is the new Jesse Helms, proud of being “that guy who says all those crazy things.”

  122. blf says

    Nasty, nasty mushrooms, we hates them, precious, yes we do.

    There is one advantage to these foolish knaves who kneel over at the thought of fungi — It leaves MOAR MUSHROOMS! for the sane of mind to munch and savor. Unless, of course, the knaves block the rampaging fanatics from getting to the MUSHROOMS! (not wise if the fool cares about keeping her, his, its, or theirs constituent atoms intact), or tries to poison them with peas, horses, celery, or insufficient grog.

  123. Esteleth, statistically significant to p ≤ 0.001 says

    So, the NYTimes reviewed a new film that is about a young couple’s struggle with infertility. The end indicates the rating and carries this warning:

    Vigorous attempted procreation.

    Well, okay then.

  125. cicely says

    Nasty, nasty mushrooms, we hates them, precious, yes we do.

    I love ’em! I’ll have yours!
    *omnomnomnomnom!*
    –

  130. says

    CaitieCat: They’re also good in the traditional vinegary greens recipes from the South (butter or olive oil, broth, garlic, sauteed onions, greens, crushed red pepper and dash of booze and vinegar.)

    …. It’s definitely lunch time here. I forgot to eat again and am reminded. To the stove!

  131. blf says

    The mildly deranged penguin is looking forward to the opening of Wild MUSHROOMS! Season. She’s being cleaning her kit and ordering some new traps, weaponry, and reservoirs of grog in anticipation of the first MUSHROOMS! hunt of the season.

    One of the main difficulties with MUSHROOMS! hunting in this area — other than all the other MUSHROOMS! huntresses and hunters and fanatics and mathematicians and horses — is the pasta. It’s also pasta migration season, when the pastas swarm out of the trees and roll, bounce, wiggle, and somersault across the landscape in search of nests. Getting caught between a momma Grizzly bear and her clubs is a pleasant picnic in the forest compared getting caught between two migrating pastas. A can of peas you can quickly open and spray about is the classic defense, albeit it does attract horses.

    This year she wants to try a new technique: The MUSHROOMS! spring. Sprinkle springs on the forest floor and wait. The migrating MUSHROOMS! charge into the springfield and start bouncing around, out of control. Easy then to scoop up from am orbiting spaceship (and she happens to have some Orbital Cheese Vaults…). That should solve the problem with the classic fungi-fall (herding the MUSHROOMS! over the edge of high cliff, lemming-style, by throwing peas at them) — The general lack of suitable high cliffs. It’s always very crowded, and collisions between the waiting spaceships are common.

    Unfortunately, springs don’t work on pasta, so she probably have to use the tried-and-tested technique of convincing the British to come and help with the “spaghetti harvest”, then picking the sated pastas off of their remains. Weirdly, the taste isn’t really a problem, perhaps because the “spaghetti harvest helpers” aren’t too soaked in religion. That stuff poisons everything!

  133. says

    Moments of Fundamentalist Mormon Madness:

    http://www.today.com/video/today/52999777/#52999777
    Excerpt from the transcript:

    she was the 19th wife of the prophet which to her was no honor at all.

    [Rebecca Musser speaking] i didn’t want to marry him. he was 85 and i was 19.

    >> there was another one in her life, his son warren. and when word got out she refused to cater to his sexual demands a war was threatened. he said don’t you ever, ever, ever tell your husband no again. if you do, you will be destroyed in the flesh.

    >> and when the profit died and warren jeffs took over the church, rebellious rebecca was in deep trouble .

    >> [Rebecca Musser speaking] he pointed his finger and me and he said i will break you.

    >> reporter: she fled from the community and the church then, but really, the war had just begun. as rebecca adjusted to life on the outside, many members of her huge polygamist family remained loyal to warren jeffs and they and hundreds of members moved to texas where they built a brand new community called the yearning for zion ranch . one day in march 2008 , rangers raided the ranch on a strength of a calling claiming to be an abused 16-year-old. not an easy assignment.

    >> it was a very confusing situation. most of these ladies dressed a like. they sounded alike. their hair was fixed the same and there was only about four or five very common names on the ranch. so it was very difficult, as you might imagine to differentiate who belongs to who and who is who.

    >> reporter: so they recruited rebecca to help make sense of it all. they took her inside the sacred flds temple where they found something strange. two beds. from her time in the flds rebecca knew immediately these must have been used to perform holy ordinances….

  134. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    So I’m in Norfolk, VA until tomorrow (Zwanze day!) and have been here since Tuesday night. Here working but also just happened to time with one of my favorite beer bar’s Sour Beer festival, 43 Hours of Sour.

    SO much good beer it’s ridiculous.

    Anywho… on the way to the bar I was admiring the diversity of scenery when all of a sudden I see, a big giant fucking building with PeTA on the top.

    I had no idea those people had their HQ here.

    I don’t know why but that just seems strange.

    /ramble

  135. says

    I’ve written before on the ubiquitous nature of polygamists in Utah. They’re not just in Short Creek on the Utah/Arizona border. They are everywhere.

    Here’s some coverage of yet another TV show featuring a fundamentalist mormon polygamist family, this one located in central Utah.
    http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment2/56857103-223/wives-brady-family-williamses.html.csp

    Brady was raised mainstream LDS until he converted to fundamentalist Mormon when he was 16. All five wives grew up in polygamous families, and all of the adults say they hope the TV show will make growing up easier on their children than it was on them.

    http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/my-five-wives/about-the-show.htm

    Yes, this guy Brady married five women who grew up in polygamous families. Five women, that tells you something right there.

    Rebecca Musser lived in a polygamist colony not far from the Utah Capitol building in Salt Lake City, in the foothills of the Wasatch Range. Book excerpt link.

    … Mom drove us from our home on Cascade Way, in the Salt Lake City neighborhood of Mount Olympus, straight up into the green foothills of the awe‑inspiring Wasatch Mountains.

  137. says

    … Without exception, this phrase [“Smile, baby.”] means a man is entirely comfortable telling a woman, probably one he doesn’t even know, what he wants her to do with her body to please him. This suggests a lack of respect for other people’s bodily integrity and autonomy. …

  138. says

    I swear to Bob, this is the eleventh time in a class I’ve been told to calculate all stats by hand, instead of in a nice stats program. I get it. We should know how to do this by hand.

    Can we possibly go back to using those nice programs now, instead of spending an hour with a calculator for the necessary coefficients? : /

    I mean, FFS, we had to PROVE these methods mathematically. I did. And I can do them by hand.

    Can I please use technology now?

  139. says

    Good evening
    Setting hotfix crystals is much more work and time consuming than I thought it would be. I hope it becomes easier with the transfer foil I ordered. If not I have about 3 lifetimes worth of hotfix crystals.
    It’s also an experiment: Will #1 accept one pair of trousers as “girly” because the skull and crossbones is set in pink?

    Caitie
    Yay for getting out of deprivalley.

  140. cicely says

    Getting caught between a momma Grizzly bear and her clubs[…[

    A bear, armed!
    :D
     

    The migrating MUSHROOMS! charge into the sSpringfield and start bouncing around, out of control.

    (Slight alteration mine.)
     
    *pausing to read this bit of good news a second time*
    Let me just go get my net….
    And the garlic butter.
    –

  142. Ogvorbis says

    mouthyb:

    In your 71st calculation, you forgot to carry the 4. Which is why you should be getting an +++ out of cheese error +++ about now.

  144. chigau (違う) says

    mouthyb

    …do this by hand…with a calculator…

    Bleeding luxury!
    In my day we used pencil and paper.
    (or was it a stick and dirt?)

  145. says

    chigau: Oh, I’ve had to do with the paper and pencil, as well. I just wonder why they bother to teach us those purty stats programs if we keep being forbidden to use them on things.

    Or maybe they just want us to REALLY appreciate the programs.

  146. blf says

    Getting caught between a momma Grizzly bear and her clubs…

    A bear, armed!

    Nah, one moving from one nightspot to another. Get in her way, after she’s had a long day of eating rangers, accompanying tourists, and lost MUSHROOMS! hunting parties, and she has not got a lot of patience. The choices are through you, through you even faster, and wipe that greasy ex-obstacle off her paws.

  147. Ogvorbis says

    after she’s had a long day of eating rangers,

    As long as there is informed consent on behalf of both parties.

  151. dianne says

    Weirdness of the day: As hordlings in medicine already know, there’s this thing called the ICD, which is basically a way of coding a person’s medical problems in a standard way. There’s a new version of it, called the ICD10 coming out soon. So there was this joke going around that the coding was so ludicrously detailed that it had 10 different codes for “contact with a turtle”.

    Except that it’s no joke.

    There are, honest to FSM, 10 different codes for contact with a turtle. Depending on whether you’re bitten by a turtle, struck by a turtle, have some other contact with a turtle, whether it was the first time you were seen for the problem or not, whether there were any sequelae or not, etc.

    There’s room for improvement though. There is, as of yet, no codes for penguin, deranged, mild, pea related incident.

  154. NightShadeQueen, resident nutcase says

    Heh

    1:53 shows only white guys as well. I’ve basically just thrown my hands up at the tech industry’s advertising.

  155. NightShadeQueen, resident nutcase says

    And borkquote!

    Sadly, it seems to be one of those “guys only” ideas again. Except for grannies.

    Heh

    1:53 shows only white guys as well. I’ve basically just thrown my hands up at the tech industry’s advertising.

  156. dianne says

    Caine, I’m tempted to stand in the way of a turtle some day just so I can see if I can get that diagnosis. Maybe while swimming?

    I’m deeply, deeply disappointed to find that while there are a number of codes for contact of various sorts with spiders, there is no code, bitten by spider, radioactive.

  158. says

    Dianne:

    Caine, I’m tempted to stand in the way of a turtle some day just so I can see if I can get that diagnosis. Maybe while swimming?

    I suppose that’s a possibility, however, I have to say that was never a concern in all my years of scuba diving.

    My first thought was of someone deciding to use a turtle as a missile, and hurl the poor thing at someone. If such a thing happens, I really, really don’t want to know, because I’d be looking to hurt an idiot.

  159. says

    PSA AHEAD.

    Okay, after a discussion in Thunderdome, and a monitor discussion, it has been decided that certain forms of creative cussing are off the table, such as “they can fuck a toaster in a pool”. The warning attached to such phrases in the future will be:

    Monitor note: Please avoid anything that could even sound like a threat of violence or an invitation to self-harm.

  161. dianne says

    My first thought was of someone deciding to use a turtle as a missile, and hurl the poor thing at someone.

    Yeck! I was imagining someone running into a turtle or vice versa, analogous to “struck by car”. I find it hard to believe that there are enough people out there using turtles as missiles to justify it as a separate code, but then again, how often are people run over by turtles? Then again, bitten by a turtle is a thing, so maybe there are wild turtles out there attacking people.

    If such a thing happens, I really, really don’t want to know, because I’d be looking to hurt an idiot.

    People who abuse harmless wildlife should be beaten senseless with a cluebat.

  162. says

    Dianne:

    I find it hard to believe that there are enough people out there using turtles as missiles to justify it as a separate code

    There’s been more than one idiot who has robbed a store by wielding a snapping turtle. No kidding. People do very stupid shit.

  163. Portia says

    Holy crap. I spent so many hours in courthouses today, it was unreal. Three of them, four different appearances. I…am…so…tired. Didn’t help that I got condescended to, scoffed at, ignored (from the bench), and scolded (…appropriately…I screwed up). TFSMIF.

    …I didn’t see any turtles.

    dianne:

    I wish there was a radioactive spider code, too. :)

  165. says

    Today is L and my 5th wedding anniversary (8 years since we’ve been together); planning to celebrate with a roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli, and blueberry cobbler w/icecream for dessert. Had a heck of a day so far, L
    s sewing machine broke (the one that our friend loaned us $for after his old one died.) turns out it would cost more to fix than to buy a new one (same problem as before), but fortunately my mom was able to front us some money to get a better one (no one buy any Singer sewing machines; they’re a waste of money. The repair person at the shop said they’ve stopped even carrying them because they take so much servicing that even a 6 month warranty is a money loser for them, and still don’t work very well.).

  167. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    I’m pretty sure the person that designed this hotel, especially the bathrooms, was a sadist.

  168. Portia says

    Dalillama
    Happy Anniversary! Dinner sounds yummy, really sorry bout the sewing machine troubles :(

    ==

    chigau:
    It was 49° when I walked to my car this morning. I am not pleased.

  170. says

    Dalillama, Happy Anniversary! Man, I remember our 5th anniversary, we were both boggling over how *long* we’d been married! Hee. It’s 34 years now. I wish you & L many, many more.

  171. chigau (違う) says

    NightShadeQueen
    Boston?
    pffftt
    You are no where near the North.
    but I agree, the Weather should just be it’s supposed to be
    not this new-fangled
    ‘holy shit we are fucked’ stuff
    that is happening in the real world

  172. Ogvorbis says

    Wife’s birthday is this Thursday.

    Looks like I’ll be getting her a new refrigerator.

    How romantic.

  173. chigau (違う) says

    NightShadeQueen
    Boston?
    pffftt
    You are no where near the North.
    but I agree, the Weather should just be it’s supposed to be
    not this new-fangled ‘holy shit we are fucked’ stuff that is happening in the real world

  174. says

    Ogvorbis:

    Looks like I’ll be getting her a new refrigerator.

    How romantic.

    Hey, sometimes you gotta go for the necessary stuff. Besides, if she wants one, well, it’s a good giftie. You can always surprise her once it’s in the house, by sneaking a nice basket full of decadent stuff you both enjoy. You can haz a picnic. In the bedroom.

  175. Ogvorbis says

    You can always surprise her once it’s in the house, by sneaking a nice basket full of decadent stuff you both enjoy. You can haz a picnic. In the bedroom.

    I like that. Some whipped cream, some maraschino cherries, some chaps and a cowboy hat . . . .

  176. cicely says

    My first thought was of someone deciding to use a turtle as a missile, and hurl the poor thing at someone.

    Mine was of an unfortunate turtle substituted for the rocket-propelled frog. And a subsequent unfortunate landing.
    –
    *hugs* and *booze* for Portia.
     
    I could threaten to sing you a lullaby….
    :)
    –
    Happy Anniversary, Dalillama!
    *confetti&champagne&hugs* for both you and L.
    –
    Ogvorbis: You can always put a little something extra inside the fridge.
    :)
    –