This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
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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.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
@azkyroth, #493:
argh, comment number 500 got me and I wanted to make sure you noticed the work of Valerie Smith. It might help your friend.
Also, I have lots of ideas for you if your friend wants to go the trans*/intersex route. Raven Kaldera and Quo-Li Driskol are good authors with which to start there.
Crudely Wrott
I’m a bit younger than you but I agree on current movies.
I can’t think of many from the last 20 years that really thrilled me.
(as soon as the cat gets off my lap, I’ll go look at my DVD collection)
A Noyd
The collection is called Let’s Draw Lady Knights. Knight=armored shock troops. That’s what the word means, in a military context (OK, technically the etymology actually means ‘member of an aristocrat’s fighting tail/warband’ but the role of said warbands is heavily armored shock troops, so it amounts to the same thing). If you say you’re drawing knights, that implies that the individuals in question are the most heavily armored members of the local military structure, and that their role is that of heavy shock troops. If that’s not what you’re depicting, than you aren’t depicting knights or any group militarily equivalent to them. So, if the character is a)from an Aztec-like background and b)a knight or equivalent, it implies certain things about their kit, which are not present in that picture, which is not present. Indeed, were the picture not labeled as a warrior, I would have no idea that it was meant to be, rather than a wizard or cleric, which is what the combination of no armor and a fancy staff tends to say to me, along with the skimpy outfit generally. Compare this, this, or this She should, at a flat minimum, be holding a macuahuitl or other weapon of war, rather than a staff so highly decorated as to be useless in a fight. It wouldn’t hurt to have enough muscle mass to credibly wield such a thing, and of course she should also be armored, like the other illustrations.
Most of the fantasy-esque illustrations I have are from some older gaming supplements, which do tend to draw the elite warriors in armor. Even by comparison to the illustrations you linked to, though, she suffers from a serious lack of muscle mass and a total lack of any credible armament, at least one of which is absolutely required for someone who’s supposed to be a warrior.
@ assorted commentators on the evil prairie issue
Thank you for your assistance. I’m leaning towards vibrant purples and electric blues, mixed with some unpleasant shades of yellow, and they glow a sickly green at night.
Dalillama
“glow a sickly green at night”
yup
that creeps me out
Chigau, the last time I went to a movie house for a movie? Heh. Get ready
.
.
.
.
I went and saw the first Ice Age movie! In 2002!
I went for two reasons; first, boredom. It was a nadir of sorts in my life and I wanted a diversion. Second, interest in CGI. The movie was promoted, in part, on the basis of new, cool stuff. In both cases I actually was rewarded.
If I were to be forced to watch a movie from the get go to the end of the trail right now I would choose Connery and Caine in Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King.
Hhhmmm . . . looking at the Wikipedia entry about this movie I discover that Connery and Caine were not the first to be considered for the leading roles:
When I try to imagine Burton and O’Toole as Daniel and Peachy I’m of two minds.
One is, “Wow! Those guys are serious actors!”
Two is, “Woah! Those guys are serious actors!”
Connery and Caine stand out so well in that flick because they could act seriously but they weren’t serious actors.
That is just one of the reasons I like this movie and, just to prove that life is wonderful, I just found out!
Gee. After all this time . . .
All hail the pfft of all knowledge.
;^>
I should mention that since 2002 I have actually sat through an entire movie and for essentially the reasons in my previous post; need for diversion and interest in CGI. I think it was last September or so.
The movie?
Life of Pi.
Came away thinking about how far CGI has come since 2002 and thinking about the inability of movie makers to avoid hokey, feel-good generalizations that squash humanity into a sardine tin.
And I haven’t watched Gravity, either. Probably won’t. There is a better movie already in my head:
Kaleidoscope by Ray Bradbury.
*quick! make a wish!*
Dammit, I just ruined a pair of spouse’s dress pants by having the iron too hot without realizing it. I haven’t done something that stupid since I was in my 20s. Dammit dammit dammit.
Crudely Wrott
The Man Who Would Be King is on my Top 10 list.
re: other casting…
Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart: would have been fabulous.
Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas: I don’t care for either of them.
Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole: the scenery would have been masticated to pulp.
Robert Redford and Paul Newman: No. Just No.
—
What about a remake with … women????
Ruined?
How ’bout a re-wash with fabric softener and low temp dry?
Or did you . . . burn . . . them thoroughly and truly, carlie?
Chigau:
Well, possible. I’ve no idea concerning casting.
The title will need a bit of work . . .
carlie #508
In the last 25 years, I haven’t found an electric iron that isn’t a fucking dangerous, unreliable piece of shit.
It’s probably not your fault.
–
EVERY time I use my iron, I test on a tea-towel.
On reflection, no. No.
Kipling explicitly titled his work The Man Who Would Be King and he wrote the story based upon that assumption. It stands.
Now, there is nothing to argue against another story that follows a similar arc and features women. In fact it might be a smashing success as prose and as moving images.
I wonder, is there anyone currently working on such a story?
Crudely Wrott
re: movie title and casting
Yes, that could be an issue.
Especially since I just clicked to the fact that I’m doing a binary thing.
on another hand, gender and preference could be irrelevant to the story
crosspost
Crudely Wrott
Kipling is dead.
The Person WhoWould Be Monarch
taaadaaa
I’m trying. It’s the freaking dreaded polyester sheen. So far I’ve wet it with vinegar, scrubbed it with a toothbrush, and now have it in the washer, to then do a spot steam inside out with towels on both sides, trying just about everything the internet says. It’s about as bad as it can get- I was pressing like you’re supposed to, dammit, and got a full-on iron with vent holes mark right on the front panel. I don’t think I’ve ever ironed this particular pair before because it doesn’t usually wrinkle, and I was prepping clothes for Child 1 to take to his big school trip tomorrow and mad that the dress pants situation wasn’t worked out when I was assured yesterday that it was all taken care of, and just didn’t notice. I know it’s nothing, but it is his favorite pair. And now I feel bad, when I should be feeling self-righteous and martyrrific and “I told you so” about how we wouldn’t be in this pickle if they had figured out the clothes YESTERDAY when I SAID TO. Ugh.
Plus I now have another hour of messing with clothes to do, when I just want to go to bed and I have to get up at 4:30 am to send Child 1 off on said field trip.
carlie
oh dear
hugs
and best wishes
and rum
Well, that’s one approach . . .
Would you like to be the one to create the promotional posters?
Yeah? Tell that to a youngster who just read The Jungle Book or Gunga Din.
___________
Not arguing, just thinking and trying to apply modern sensibilities to my back culture.
Hey! Cool movie? How about that one starring Alec Guinness as an inventor who developed a thread that needs no cleaning and thus the clothes woven from that thread just stay white as summer clouds? Gender substitution should be no problem there . . . except for administrative foot dragging and lakamagination.
Ah. here!
Oh, carlie, I hope your Mom-skills are up to the test.
If nothing you try works, try this dodge:
“Someday we’ll look back on this and laugh!”
OK, that’s not useful in the now. I hope you have a plan B.
*hugs of smoothing and wrinkle magic and temperate speech via USB right about . . . now!*
Dalillama (#503)
To you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the artist makes that association. But then, from the rest of your comment, I’m not sure you get that it’s a series made using a random generator, which also popped up “staff,” “skinny” and “insectoid” for the Aztec one. Since the artist made the generator, clearly they’re cool with skinny, staff-wielding knights. And if you would prefer a different design with more armor, that’s one thing. I’m not criticizing your taste. I’m trying to point out that this is a representation of a female character that is uncommon in its lack of sexualization. The design is built around many things, but giving dudes boners is not one of them.
To be fair, the site may have started with “knights” but branched out. I mean, “TVTropes” has stuff from movies, video games, books…
It is late and I clicked this tab by accident so
*rumhugs* for everyone!
blf, I reckon the mp3 player could get a quite thorough bath in the sink, or even in a cup of water, while the showering is happening to Someone Else.
That way, it cannot nick your hair products, or use your Special Scented Soap.
–
I know I’ve seen stuff on the subject here. And here. And here.
–
*hugs* for carlie. I’ve ruined many a blouse, that way.
*chocolate*
–
chigau, I can has some kinda fruit in my *rumhug*?
–
Takes a reflective pull on the *rumhug*, crushes out the last cigarette, acknowledges the wonder of it all and says good night dear Horde.
Ya’ll are really sumpin’.
cicely
I have some bananas destined for banana bread.
You can have a banana or you can have banana bread.
YOU CHOOSE.
mwahahaha
—
sleep well Crudely Wrott
I kinda like typing
banana
banananana
nanana
I’m trying to remember which places I comment on and put a quick note on all of them, so – That 5.1 earthquake? That was my neighborhood. The epicenter is a couple of miles north and west of where I live. No major damage or injuries on my block at least, we lost a bunch of glasses and fragile treasures, but nobody here was hurt, and that’s what matters.
Anne D
I don’t know where your ‘here’ is but
yay
Anne D:
I’m quite relieved that nobody was hurt.
****
I can’t believe I just slogged through the ‘Dome.
By Odin, that was tedious.
A Noyd
If the artist is using a nonstandard definition of ‘knight’ it’s on them to make that clear. In the context of fantasy warriors, ‘knight’ is generally accepted to have a meaning equivalent to that used in a military context, which I have mentioned previously. If the artist is using it to mean something else, they are essentially using the term incorrectly, and it is incumbent upon them to explain what, in fact, they mean by the term, and why they are using this term rather than another one which more adequately encompasses the concept, such as ‘warrior’. However, the person depicted in the third picture is simply not credible as a warrior, and she is not credible in ways which are strongly associated with the problematic depictions of female warriors that the picture series is ostensibly meant to fight, to wit: she’s wearing skimpy and impractical clothing, she’s bearing a stylish but useless weapon, and one which isn’t even a caricature of an actual martial weapon like the enormous maul a few pictures later, which, while unrealistically large is entirely in keeping with the sort of weapon carried by warriors of legend and their intellectual progeny of high fantasy heroes. On top of this, she’s drawn ridiculously thin, in a way that is quite reminiscent of the tendency to make female warriors look ‘feminine’ rather than like fucking warriors.
In which case the fault lies with the person who created the generator, although I understood that person to have also been the artist. I could be wrong. I will also note that there’s nothing detectably Aztec about the art, as opposed to ‘generic fantasy tribesperson’, not helped by the fact that there weren’t any spider gods or major spider related symbols in that particular culture. The person who made the generator should not have had staff as one of the options if the idea was that the generator would produce knights; a knight is a professional warrior, and a staff is not a weapon of war. Furthermore, ‘skinny’ has a different meaning when applied to martial practitioners than it has in general; anyone who practices regularly with weapons and armor will develop certain types of musculature, regardless of build, and that will be visible in the arms and shoulders especially.
And I’m trying to point out that she still plays into every last one of the problematic stereotypes involved, except the enormous rack. That’s completely separate from shattering my SOD, for the reasons also enumerated above. I know what people, including women with slender builds, look like when they spend a lot of time with melee weapons in their hands, and that isn’t it, nor anything within light-years of it.
I waited on a family of 3 a few nights ago (mom, dad, and 11 mo. old). While conversing with them, I made the mistake of misgendering their child (based on the clothes, I made the assumption that the baby was a boy). They politely corrected me and I apologized, but I still feel bad for doing that in the first place. Gotta do better.
Tony!
You are fine.
good night
Everybody, sorry, the earthquake was in So California. I live in north Orange county. I’m going to try for some sleep now, I have a lot of things to pick up in the morning.
So, like, uh, never? :)
carlie
*hugs*
I hate it when I do something similar (my most egregious recent error was shrinking Husband’s very favoured sweater, by accident…). Oh, and that bit about ‘getting [stuff] ready in advance when I said to‘? Yeah. With you there.
Anne D
Yay for being safe. I’m glad no one has been hurt.
carlie, ugh. I’m sorry about that – what a pain.
The solution in this household (which unfortunately is of no use to you :-((( ) is never to iron anything ever (except those melty-backed iron-on patches). Exceptions do get made, but the last time the iron was used for anything except iron-on patches was probably some time last decade (possibly even last millennium, though I couldn’t swear to it).
Anne D, glad you and those around you are OK.
Tony, you’re fine. I generally try to remember to go for “nice baby” and gender neutral “they”.
I do, however, have to make a conscious effort not to fall back on praising appearance if I think it’s a girl. I try to remember to make it praise of e.g. alert gaze or inquisitive look or liveliness or something like that for all babies and small children. Eh, you know what I mean.
Thanks, I’m sorry about the rage. It’s a longstanding thing, that we can never find the dress clothes right when we need them, and so I’ve taken to trying to force them to be found and assembled the day before, and then when they (both Child and Spouse) say everything’s done and I’m still left being the one to rush around at the last minute it makes me very cranky. It seems to happen every time.
carlie
Oh damn, another piece of evidence that ironing sucks
Tony
As long as you’re not offended that people dare to put their girl in blue you’re fine. Because that happened to me more than once.
+++
Did you all know that the plural of “Australopiticus” is “Australopitikisses”? The kids say so! (Well, in German the plural of “Kuss” is “Küsse”)
+++
Opposablethumbs
I’m happy for you and your son that there’s something he can do and enjoy.
+++
Talking about stereotyping kids again, my BFF is getting perma-annoyed with people. She’s babysitting her grandson 4 days a week. The youngster is months old, the age whe they first discover that their desires and the world’s don’t necessarily align and are trying to resolve that conflict in their favour. So him getting really angy is a frequent occurence and people constantly excuse his bad behaviour and even praise it becuae “he’s a boy”.
My friend says: Yeah, he’s a boy, but I want him to be a well-behaved boy and not an insufferable brat.
Although it did break me out of the funk for a minute last night when the absurdity really hit – i was running around grousing about everything I had to do now although I should be in bed already, went to the linen closet (directly between the bedrooms, so right in the main traffic area of the hall) to get a washcloth to scrub the pants up with, and when I opened the door a hithertofore unnoticed box of lightbulbs fell perfectly from the top shelf straight to the floor as if they had been carefully rigged to do nothing else in their lives but that very thing. Box. Of. Lightbulbs. I just stared at it and then started laughing, because if someone were scripting it, they couldn’t do better at that moment than “and now let’s throw a million shards of glass on the floor just to make things even more interesting”.
And this has been this week’s installment of “Adventures at Carlie’s Place”. Tune in again Tuesday, when the same child has requested to have his hair straightened as an April Fool’s prank, wherein he will tell everyone at school that his hair is always naturally straight and he just didn’t have time to curl it that morning. Which is funny, but not as hilarious as the fact that I’ve never used a straightening iron and will be borrowing one and I’m sure that hair burning hijinks will ensue.
Just now, getting ready to leave at zero dark thirty:
Me: “Here are extra dress socks. Do you already have dress socks packed?”
Child: “I need to wear dress shoes?”
ARGLEBARGLERAWR
carlie
Does it help that your lightbulb moment made me laugh?
But yeah. I know those moments.
+++
Not-neurotypical kids and school again
Some people, also teachers, have remarked that some alternative schools would be good for #1, that she would strive there, I simply couldn’t do it. Apart from the fact that no kid of mine will ever go to a school based on the teachings of science denying racist Rudolf Steiner, what good would it do her if she strived in a school that would give her no qualifications for anything.
And as much as I’m for accepting all kinds of people, I don’t think that it would be beneficial for her to go to a school where people not only accepted her but also tip-toed around her difficulties instead of one where people not only accepted her but also helped her to navigate the world, because that’s the place she’ll have to live in.
Dalillama (#532)
The artist labeled the drawing as a knight, so they are making it clear. You’re being incredibly tedious with your nitpickings on definitions and choices in cartooning style. Not everyone has to do fanatsy to your tastes, and other characters in the series are just as exaggerated. Even if they’re done in a way that you find more credibly knight-like, they’re still mostly unrealistic.
I went over that already in response to Azkyroth. Really, the only thing that plays into the problematic stereotypes¹ is the degree (but not type—no boob windows or thongs here) of exposure she’s got going, and again, she’s no more exposed than a great many male characters with the same theme.
Women aren’t necessarily served by having female warrior/knight/fighter characters with total coverage or total credibility. The three major issues afflicting the majority of current designs are sexualization, lack of parity with the armor of male characters, and lack of variety in body shape/features. The Aztec knight isn’t sexualized, does display parity with male characters, and contributes to variety not only in comparison to the others in the set but also by being more skinny and elongated than is typical allowed for female characters.² Hell, I’ve seen lady skeletons with more curves. If she was drawn in silhouette, I bet a lot of people would assume she’s male.
…………..
¹ Besides the “‘savage’ characters (of either gender) wear a lot less” stereotype, which I don’t favor. And maybe the “super-skinny evil character” stereotype, but that doesn’t seem to be gender-based either. Consider Jafar, Dr. Facilier, and Yzma from Disney.
² Fashion illustration, on the other hand…
Giliell – it sounds like you’ve made the right decisions for her every step of the way – she’s in good hands with you as a mom.
Anne D – I’m glad you weren’t hurt! I’m sorry for all the cleanup needed. :(
Child made up for it – I tried to give him a kiss on the cheek when we got in the car and he was all NOOOOOO and I jokingly threatened that if I couldn’t give him one now I’d do it at school in front of everyone because what if the bus caught on fire and he died on the field trip and how bad I’d feel that I didn’t even get to kiss him goodbye? Which he thought was funny. But then when he got out of the car at school he gave me a kiss. :)
*snortle*
So, I needed to search for something on my harddrive, and I clicked on the search function, and one of the recent search terms was ‘poo’. I certainly haven’t been looking for poo on my harddrive, and then I realized that Husband had been looking for the location of the Winnie the Pooh movie…
I had a very bizarre dream. I had randomly assigned pronouns, personality traits, and interests to a written description of a group of fictional people working together. Then I had participants read the description believing it to be a non-fictional account and I told them to identify which people were misgendered and explain how they could tell. They mostly went with the binary genders as presented and then twisted whatever random description was given until they could rationalize it into an existing stereotype that matched the given pronoun.
…
I really don’t know where that came from.
MM
Sadly, your inspiration might be reality
Evangelical Christianity just had another big crack in the armor.
Read this by Slacktivist.
I’m not familiar with the players in this, but from the story an organization that does nothing but help poor people said that it wouldn’t discriminate against gay people, and there was such a huge backlash in the form of withholding donations to feed poor people that they rescinded and fired one of the main people involved in getting the accommodation in the first place. As Fred says, that’s a stark, clear example that they value hate over saving lives, and they aren’t even trying to hide it any more.
A Noyd
Because the word has a meaning, and the illustration does not illustrate the thing that the word means. If someone had a collection of pictures of unicorns, and then one of them was a horse with wings but no horn, then that picture isn’t of a unicorn, regardless of what the artist thinks, because the horn is the defining characteristic of a unicorn. The same is true here: Just because the artist claims that it’s a picture of a knight doesn’t make it one.
Aside from the oversized weapons (which have considerable basis in myth, precursor to fantasy), they’re really not. Builds like those aren’t at all incompatible with being very skilled indeed in a melee. Stick-thin arms, however, are a total deal-breaker; someone who looks like that will get dead almost instantly in any kind of serious fight. My complaints are not aesthetic per se; taken without context, as a piece of fantasy art, I don’t have any complaints. Claiming that that is a picture of a warrior of any stripe, though as I said completely breaks any sense of SOD, because in any world where human physiology works even vaguely similarly, to the way is does in ours (i.e. virtually every fantasy world) a warrior not just will not look like that, but cannot look like that.
I disagree, for the reasons I enumerated above; I challenge you to find a picture of a male warrior, anywhere, wielding a weapon like that or with arms and shoulders that small. The closest I’ve ever seen was Orlando Bloom in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie, when he was supposed to be a blacksmith, which also did some pretty serious damage to my SOD, for the same reason: blacksmiths have a stereotyped appearance because that’s how you end up looking when you beat iron for a living.
I thought that the whole point of this discussion was that female fighters should be at least as credible as the male ones and in the same ways. Pretending that you can be a badass and still look like a supermodel (and should try to still look like a supermodel) isn’t a good thing either, and isn’t likely to help with body image issues as I can see.
My point is that a warrior has curves in different places, regardless of their gender. The curves appear in the shoulders and arms, specifically. I’ve seen many illustrations of female characters that skinny, although usually bigger in the bust, but I’ve never yet seen a male warrior drawn or portrayed as a stick figure (outside OOTS, but everyone’s a stick figure in that comic).
Hi, all.
Spent yesterday taking my annual fire training (how to get into a shake-and-bake, lessons learned, etc). We spent about three hours dissecting what we think went wrong on the Yarnell fire — nineteen wildland firefighters killed. We haven’t been inventing new ways to kill firefighters, but we do keep coming up with new ways to make the same mistakes. Depressing as hell.
Giliell, I fear you’re right.
Tony @531:
Thanks for making it sound like something so ridiculous I had to take a peek. I got sucked in, too. My brane hertz. And I still can’t understand what they hope to accomplish, because they don’t actually debate, they just throw words out there to see if anything sticks and it’s clear none of their words stick here.
*****
Frickin’ heck. I’m supposed to be trout fishing today, but my dad said the places we usually fish have very little water in them, so they might not have even been stocked. I think this is only the second opening day I have missed in 35 years.
ajb47 – I’m sorry you missed it. Spouse’s parents used to do opening trout day too, and he has fond memories. I went once and couldn’t understand how everyone didn’t just immediately hook everyone else, it was so crowded!
Oh dear, the little one is standing in front of the mirror and practises crying.
She’s quite good at it, I must say…
carlie
That is an amusing idea for an April Fools indeed. Hope it works out for the sprog.
Ogvorbis 550
A whole lot of situations have extremely stereotyped failure modes; unfortunately here they can kill people. Best hopes that since the errors all lead to the same place, similar procedures can limit them.
Also, I went to one of those schools for two and a half years (Kindergarten, Second Kindergarten, half of first grade) and they did the polar fucking opposite of accepting me, let alone tiptoeing around my difficulties. You’re making the right choice.
Dalillama:
Some of the mistakes there may be no way to prevent. Two of the problems on the Yarnell fire was confusion as to where the hotshots actually were and communications. They were following a two-track road down to the safety area. With narrowed it down to four paths. One of which led through a box canyon that made it impossible to see the fire. And the crew and the division supe had worked together, trusted each other, and assumed understanding — radio communications was excellent, actual communication turned out to be lacking. Both of these are common.
I have been at fires and listened on the radio as a crew, or an engine, try to figure out what road they are on. I have, as a manager, tried to set up a roadblock on a road that turned out not to actually exist. I have placed roadblocks on roads that do not show up on any map but the locals used it as a shortcut. And I have assumed that I am on a particular road only to discover I was on a different road.
Poor communications kills people. Whether it is passing on an upcoming weather event (which was done on the Yarnell fire) or the crew actually understanding that the fire was probable going to make a 90 degree right turn and come down on top of them if they took the direct route to the safety zone, communications failed. Even though they were talking right up to the moment the flame front hit the crew, communications failed. We keep coming up with new ways for communications to fail — not just problems with radios (which were problematic on that fire), but actual understanding.
Plus, it didn’t help that, in 20 hours, they went from a type 4 incident to a type 1 team incident, with all the passing on of information to new people.
The fire community is still digesting the South Ridge fire of twenty years ago. We’ll be digesting this one for a generation.
And on every one of them, in retrospect, we can see, so clearly what went wrong. And why it went wrong. And why those involved did not see it going wrong. It was an accident. There is no one to blame. Each decision made sense at the time, though other decisions would also have made sense.
Was a sobering afternoon.
Ogvorbis
That’s always the way with disasters, isn’t it. In retrospect, it’s so obvious what went wrong, but in the midst of it you can’t tell. And you’re right; those kinds of communications failures amount to intrinsic faults in the way that human brains work, and that makes it damn near inevitable that they’ll still happen sometimes. As with so many things, this is a case where the only real way to limit the problem is to pre-empt it; in this case, ideally there’d be a lot more work done on preventing uncontrolled wildfires in the first place, so we don’t need as many firecrews out there in danger, where some of them will inevitably die due to unavoidable fuckups in a hideously dangerous environment. (I’m not a forestry expert by any means, but it’s my understanding that regular controlled burns are one of the best ways to limit disastrous uncontrolled fires, and I would suppose that deliberate controlled burns are a good bit less hazardous to the crews involved than dealing with randomized fires. I could be wrong, though).
carlie @553
Yeah, for 30 years we never mentioned the name of the stream we go to except amongst ourselves (dad, me, and uncle and cousin). Having seen people fishing elbow-to-elbow, we used to joke about our place being too crowded when we had two other cars parking there. I still feel strange if I say the name of the stream. We also don’t cluster near the bridges where everyone else goes, instead walking up and down the stream, because even stocked trout don’t all stay in the place they were dumped in.
Dalillama:
Controlled burns are, in most environments, very healthy for the forest and reduce the chances of catastrophic fires (though, remember, the 1912 fires were mostly in unlogged old-growth timber that had, up until that catastrophic fire, a healthy fire sequence). Places like southern California and parts of Arizona, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas, though, are a whole different problem. These are drought resistant plants — which means lots and lots of oils — that evolved to grow and reproduce in an environment of periodic catastrophic high temperature wildland fires. The fires raging through manzanita, scrub oak, or other desert/semi-desert biomes are, for the plants, normal and part of what shaped their life cycles. Controlled burns do not work well because, even in wetter weather, the plants have so much flamable oil, creosote and other oils, that keeping a controlled burn controlled is problematic. And they grow back in a few years anyway. Which also means that controlled burns, planned unit fires, are not done near houses and towns because of the danger of losing control of the fire so those areas that need the most defense are the areas least likely to be amenable to reducing fuel loads.
The roses better appreciate my hard work today. It’s the only serious amount of care they’re going to get the rest of this season.
Ogvorbis
In that case, the solution is also a different one, although to me an equally obvious one: maybe, just maybe, we, as a culture, should stop building major settlements in places that are blatantly unsuited for them. I know this is a weird, extreme idea, but it’s just about possible that if you need to pipe your water supply several hundred miles, damaging watersheds across half a continent, and are still threatened by constant shortages, destructive wildfires and killing heat, MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T PUT A FUCKING CITY THERE. Just a thought. (Please note that the anger visible in this comment is not directed at you; I find the existence of places like Phoenix and Las Vegas to be deeply offensive on basically every level).
*refresh is my friend. refresh is my friend. refresh is my friend.*
Hi, all, sorry, just so used to no point in refreshing on Saturdays (or whatever it is today for Ogvorbis). Excuse the random comment. Pretend I was daydreaming in the corner and not listening to anyone (typical).
Dalillama:
But, but, but, but PROPERTY RIGHTS!
Even if the geologists say that the mountain may slump and bury your property, you can still build your house there. Even if major wild fires are normal, you don’t have to build a house that is fire resistant or even clear the greasewood away from your house. Even though this area floods every ten years, you can still build your house there.
WOTI?
OK!
Ogvorbis
Yup. Although even using that conception of FREEDUMB there’s still no need for the government to pay to pipe the water to you (it’s not like the property owners built or maintain the pipelines). I mean, if someone wants to live in the desert with no water because PROPERTY RIGHTS, I suppose they can, but that’s no reason why I should have to pay to pipe water in on account of their stupidity, nor to fly in people to risk their lives to protect it when the inevitable happens. You said it yourself; periodic high temperature wildfires are a part of the cycle there, there’s nothing that can be done to stop them, so if someone feels they absolutely have to live in the burn zone, then I suppose they can bootstrap together their own evacuation procedures, yannow?
I recognize that my previous comment is somewhat unfair to the actual residents of the problematic developments, as they are not typically responsible for the actual location of the houses per se, that being primarily the fault of developers, who buy up land and put houses on it to sell cheaply, and it’s not their problem that the houses are going to burn, be buried, flooded, whatever, because they won’t be living there. Then you’ve got people who go there because of rapaciously high prices in places that are reasonable to live, and they’re underpaid anywhere but there they can be underpaid and housed, etc structural reasons. That said, the people who insist on fucking golf courses and green grass lawns in the middle of the desert are shitheads, and I’ve no respect nor tolerance for them no matter how they came to be living there.
I just got a telegram from rq’s roses:
MISSED SPOT BEHIND SHED NEAR BODIES BURIED STOP CHAINSAW BLADE DULL STOP FLAMETHROWER NOT GOOD FOR SWORDEATER STOP TEMPORAL: ANOMALY NEEDS CHEESE STOP REDO FROM STARTDalillama:
Except that wildland firefighters have, as part of their mission, the responsibility to protect life and property (which can include unharvested timber). So no, we cannot just decide that the people are expendable. Property that is indefensible can be allowed to burn without active protection. Which is why safety zones around a house and a loop driveway, with trees well back from the road, are essential for those living in woodland or chaparral environments.
I’m essentially suggestion that protection of life be achieved by removing said life from the danger zone, and protection of property be downgraded to ‘unless such protection risks a human life’. I’d happily see the government pay out a few billion dollars in disaster claims if it meant that even a single firefigher came home alive, or better yet didn’t have to go.
Dalillama:
It already is. IWCG and NIFC both consider structure protection important but should never create additional risks. The trick is identifying the risks during the incident.
Oggie:
For me, the questions are, in this order: “If we don’t intervene, will human life be endangered?” If the answer is no, no intervention is required or indeed justified, since firefighting intrinsically involves serious danger to human life. If the answer is yes, the next question is “Can we remove the endangered humans from the area, and thereby remove the danger to them?” If the answer is yes, then after the humans have been removed, no further human intervention is required or justified, regardless of how much, or what kind, of property may be at hazard. If the answer to the second question is no for some reason, then it’s worthwhile to risk lives to hold back the flames. In the longer term, since the main reason why the answer to the second question might be no is that there are too many people there to reasonably evacuate, the proper procedure is to discourage people from gathering there in such numbers, thus short-circuiting the entire problem. Basically, as I said initially, if the deserts are going to burn, which they are, and protection the people who live there results in deaths, which it will, the only reasonable and humane thing to do is to move the people who live there somewhere the fuck else before the next time it happens, because their alleged ‘property rights’ should in no wise entitle them to put others at needless and avoidable risk by their idiot decisions.
blf
I’ll get to that next year. The city isn’t developing the spot behind the shed this year anyway, so I’m safe for the while.
Dalillama:
nevermind. sorry.
Oggie:
No apology needed; you’re reporting the standards as they exist. I’m complaining that the standards as they exist unjustifiably privilege property over human life, inasmuch as they actually have an assessment for ‘how much risk of life and limb is justified when protecting this property’, while I’m contending that the correct answer in all cases is ‘none whatsoever’, which would rather obviate any need for the current standards of judgment on the matter.
Bill O’Reilly Isn’t Comparing Himself To Jesus — Oh Wait, Yes He Is
Special report: Taxpayers fund creationism in the classroom
Dalillama:
I’m still stressed out from the lessons learned. We spent three hours discussing how 19 colleagues died. I know that I have been at fires with that hotshot crew. So I know that I have probably talked with at least a few of them.
Oggie:
*hugs*. My sincerest apologies if I’m contributing to your stress; I can absolutely stop. This sort of thing is one of my bugbears for somewhat different reasons than yours. I don’t personally know anyone who’s been one of the casualties, I just hate the way that so many people seem to assume that it’s totally cool to expect someone else to die so that their precious fucking property can be saved. If it’s that important, maybe putting it in an ocean of inflammable scrub wasn’t such a hot idea to begin with, and expecting someone else to die to fix your screwup seems like the height of unconscionable arrogance.
Disney’s movie Frozen not only promotes homosexuality, it also leads children into witchcraft according to pastor Kevin Swanson. This idea got me thinking about costumes for gay witches. Something along the lines of catholic bishop’s robes perhaps?
Remember the catholic bishop of Limburg that David M. spotlighted recently for the bishop’s extravagant spending habits? Well the Pope has accepted Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst’s resignation.
NYT link.
In other news of extravagant spending by Catholic leaders, the Archdiocese of Atlanta triggered criticism when it spent $2.2 million for a new property to house its parish priests. (And that $2.2 million is before the planned renovations.) $2.2 million seems to be the target the Archdiocese wants to hit since it paid the same amount for a new house for Archbishop Wilton Gregory. Atlanta Journal Constitution link.
Some Maryland county officials are going to defy a judge’s order to stop opening their public meetings with a prayer.
Raw Story link.
Follow up to comment #580:
That’s a statement from the stubborn county officials in Maryland who refuse to understand separation of church and state, and who totally believe the rightwing crock-o-bull that the USA was founded on biblical principles.
Well, mormon “General Conference” is almost upon us. At the last GC, news was made when photos of protests in and around Temple Square in Salt Lake City hit the national news. The response of mormon leaders is to ban cameras this year. Sheesh.
I would just like to note that some of the “sacred grounds” used to be public, but the toady city planners sold public property to the LDS church. At the time, the LDS leaders swore that the public thoroughfare they had purchased would be like a Paris sidewalk, open to everyone and a place for people to meet. Then LDS security arrested a couple of gay guys holding hands, and now they are going to ban cameras on all their property, including the former public thoroughfare.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57744687-78/cameras-church-conference-square.html.csp
From the reader comments below the Salt Lake Tribune article (link in #582):
If all those “faithful women” spend time with anti-mormon protestors they might learn something. Unfortunately, some of the anti-mormon protestors are crazy Baptists and new-agers who are as sealed in delusional bubbles as the mormons are. This would be a good opportunity for more intelligent ex-mormons to populate the “Free Speech Zone” and talk to the mormon women.
carlie, I love the hair idea! :-) I love it because it’s clever, and also because it’s a beautiful example of an April Fool’s Day joke which doesn’t harm anyone or get its laughs out of punching at anyone. And I’m very glad you mentioned April Fool’s, because that’s reminded me to remind SonSpawn (remind him to be alert, I mean) as he would otherwise be totally at sea with it. Again. Like every year … :-\
.
wow, PoG is … a sad, sad case, isn’t he? And of course when they all reconvene in Hovindlandia they high-five each other and laugh at how the atheists didn’t have an answer to their questions … and never even realise that the answers they were (quite kindly, considering) given actually demonstrate that their questions are full of self-contradiction aka full of shit. They have to stick to the script, they literally have nothing else. It’s just so … so desperate They don’t dare deviate from the script. To do so would bring the whole edifice and hence their whole lives crashing about their ears (not to mention what they paid Hovind to coach them in reciting the script) (o.o)
Oh, and I completely forgot to mention the happy tidings (which I’m probably the nth person to mention already and which was in the news and on TV anyway):
Oyez oyez oyez, today is the first day same-sex couples can get married in England and Wales! And it was a lovely sunny day :-)
And lots of couples got married. The first ones started at 1 minute after midnight last night :-D
Okay, so some Christian organizations have taken baby steps toward accepting gays and gay marriage, and some have experienced severe backlash for the tiniest of baby steps:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/57744142-80/vision-decision-sex-board.html.csp
Something’s been nibbling at my brain about that movie since I first watched it, which I haven’t seen in other critiques of it yet. It’s all sisterly love and devotion, and how sad Elsa’s life is, but looking at it from the other point of view, the message is “even if that person ignores you and refuses to ever talk to you, keep loving them because they really do secretly love you back and what’s more, they need you to love them that way and eventually your love will make everything better”. That’s… awful.
Hi Horde,
Some good news about the attempt to prevent wildfires: We only recently moved into the So.Cal mountains which indeed are infamous for frequently going up in smoke. But where we live the county and state agencies are VERY STRICT about the homeowner’s responsibility to keep conditions such that fires don’t start. And it is at the homeowner’s expense. We have to do the brush clearing and if it isn’t done by a certain date fines are imposed, hefty fines, enforceable ones. There are all sorts of regulations and I don’t object to them one bit. Seems a good way to run a community to me.
On the other hand, nearly every house in my vicinity sports a huge old American Flag. I think I’m living in the land of the virulent Rethuglicans. I suggested to my hubby that we should put up a flag pole and every month fly the flag of some other country. France comes immediately to mind ;=]
Be well, everyone.
Nice. According to that chart, Beatrice should be richer than me. :)
Oh hai, I was just logging in to whine about the clock change tonight and to mention I just watched Pacific Rim and it was great, I don’t know why people are crapping on it. Anyway, rq, what? Oh, but we seem to have lost some since 2008 so I would have been even richer in 2008.
Or I could move to Slovenia. But I was planning to move there when I retire, live in a little house and have a garden. (Funny, I’m not really imagining anyone but me in that house, and it doesn’t sound bad at all).
I’m babbling. I don’t know why I’m babbling. Sorry. I also just cried while watching Pacific Rim. I’m weird.
Mostly I love this song because it has the lines:
You cannot bind me
In the strongest of binders!
Years before Romney. And not even the right language. But somehow they knew…
Beatrice
I enjoyed Pacific Rim, though I’m not too hot on the giant monsters / robots thing. It was just a fun movie in general.
Also, I’m sure we’ve lost ground since 2008, too, so you’re still richer!
Slovenia sounds nice, though. :) Fairy-tale type cottage, or something more like this?
rq,
Hah, neither. Just a little row house that already exists (the place I go to when I say I was in Slovenia), with the just the right amount of space for a small garden behind it.
A few links for the next round, thanks to other people’s commenters:
Interns are now protected against sexual harassment and discrimination in NYC
—
Paper on sexual aggression and barroom culture
Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought @590
Nah. It’s always sad when Idris Elba dies. Even in The Losers.
Idris Elba should never die.
Dalillama (#549)
When I said this tangent was tedious, I was suggesting you give this a rest. Since you won’t, I will.
Considering the weapon choice was as random as the body type, why require finding a male character with both? But how about this or this? She’s supposed to be “insectoid,”after all. And I can find humanoid male warriors who are extremely skinny, though stylized differently. Also, her body type is similar to that of some Maasai warriors, albeit much more stylized since they’re real and she’s a cartoon. Or what about all the skeleton warriors out there who don’t even have muscles?
The point is the three major issues I mentioned above, of which variety is one. And while there are no male characters in the set for an exact comparison of credibility, there are all sorts of precedents by other artists. But it doesn’t do any good to limit the range of standards to those set by male characters. It can and should go the other way, too. If there arguably aren’t a enough super skinny male characters, the solution isn’t to avoid drawing any female characters that way.
Not cool. First, some people can’t help being that skinny. Second, disconnecting badassery from body type is a good thing. Men already have this to a large extent: there are characters like Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario and Luigi who kick ass while looking like chubby dudes with tube arms. Or then there are things like this. Or how about Woody from Toy Story and Finn from Adventure Time? Also, the Aztec knight looks less like a supermodel than someone with Marfan syndrome, and it’s shitty to tell people with disabilities that characters who look like them can’t be badasses in fantasyland.
Anyway, I’m done. Keep going if you want, but you’re off the mark.
Yes, people in olden times were certainly very prudish. NOT!
I really enjoyed reading this comment from Sastra in the Deep Thinkers thread. In fact, all of the Sastra comments in that thread are worth reading.
Lombard Chicken Pasty bites are done and cooling. Soon, they will be tested on unsuspecting gamers.
*cackling maniacally*
–
chigau, I will nobly forgo the banananana in my *rumhug*, in order that others (who can eat Gluteniferous Objects) may have bananananananana bread.
*adjusting halo*
–
Anne D., I am pleased that no one was hurt.
The loss of things is a sadness, but not in the same ballpark as the loss of people and/or pets.
–
Giliell
Oh dear, indeed!
A friend of mine had a son admitted for psychiatric care (for depression), in the wake of divorce. One day my friend came by to visit his son, and surprised him practicing his “sad face” in the mirror. It was a very expensive attention-getting acting-out.
–
*hugs* for Ogvorbis. Hindsight and post-analysis are so unhelpful, when it comes to the emotional impact of tragic events. The damage is already done.
–
We should create a drink called *rumhug*.
Should be done up in a blender…
.
Rum
banana liqueur
something
something
Skeptic pony fans alert: this morning’s MLP ep covered snake oil scamming and the placebo effect.
Leap of Faith (on youtube)
TVTropes recap (spoilers) (also, TVTropes)
My assumption was that “being sarcastically dismissive of ev-ery-thing makes you cool!” having displaced “smoking makes you cool!” in the popular imagination, had gone on to jump the shark.
via Lilandra, Secular Pro-Life claims Planned Parenthood cheats donors
TruePooka link
Anti-choicers across the board love to slander Planned Parenthood and accuse them of raking in big bucks from abortions, and this particular variant goes back to the Komen Foundation flap last February:
…Why are folks like Silverman and Mehta giving this group so much as the time of day, just because they have ‘Secular’ in the name? There’s nobody for the secular, skeptic or atheist movements to recruit in there. If anything, THEY are trying to recruit from US.
Gah, something else in that RHR article about targeting Planned Parenthood:
And that’d be why Scalia keeps thinking contraception is abortion.
They all survived! *Wheeeee!*
And so did our characters!
–
Chigau:
Rum, banana liqueur, pineapple, and ice in a blender?
chigau
The *rumhug* needs cookies and chocolate, too, and a little something optional for extra pounce. :)
Azkyroth
Naaaaaah, it’s just that atheists, see, just don’t have Fun, because that’s below their level of dignity. Or something. ;)
+++
It’s official, folks, I’m a stick-in-the-mud and not to be taken anywhere socially, as I’m an inhibitor in social situations (despite previous protestations from external parties to the opposite)! Says Husband, who hasn’t taken me anywhere socially for two years, just in case I had thought about wanting to go with him to his high school reunion in May. A sort of pre-emptive and final “I’m going alone and there’s to be no discussion”, even though I was willing to offer him the going of alone to let him have time off. And now he’s just managed to piss me off.
So, who wants to spend May 3rd with me doing something incredibly fun online, like hanging out here???
Good morning!
rq,
Me, me, me!
(The evening part of may 3rd ,that is)
Um, my comment is awaiting moderation? I’m confused.
@Beatrice
The site had a connectivity hiccup just a bit ago. Might have been that.
Beatrice
I’m saving the date on my calendar!
May 3rd does seem a good date to be here.
If I remember correctly, you’re nominally 10 hours ahead of Pacific Time? But does daylight savings mess with that?
It’s 1:17 here – what is it where you are right now?
CD
We just transferred to Daylight Savings, so it should be back to the 10 hours – it’s 11.30 here.
Is there a team game that can be played online, perhaps? Or, you know, movie. :)
That’s easy to fix. Hop on train, come here to Southern France, and have some cheese in a bar overlooking the Mediterranean Sea watching the long pigs sundry on the beach. If yer lucky, you’ll see a few kraken grab some early season sundried long pig and bite them in half, and perhaps even encounter the mildly deranged penguin. And you’ll be far away from the roses and soon-to-be-zombies behind the shed.
There’s neither mud nor you being “taken” anywheres, so problem solved.
rq, is it wrong of me to be, um, a tad annoyed with your husband right now? Because I am. Because I know from “inhibitors in social situations” and I happen to have first-hand evidence that you ain’t it. (Hell, even I ain’t it, and I’m certainly a lot more it than you are).
.
Was catching up on the ‘dome, and I’m exhausted just reading it. It’s both sad to see minds so hermetically sealed – with all the seams and bolts and desperate sellotape showing and looking downright awful – and frightening to think that there are so many people who think like this and that some of them (e.g. in Saudi Arabia) run entire countries. My respects to those who tirelessly take the trouble to answer their drivel here, for the amusement and edification of all.
rq, date of 3 May in the diary (literally. I just made a note; don’t know for sure if I’ll be around, but odds are high)
.
blackjack, go back to the dome. You can post there (unless you’re very repetitious at great length). Not in here. Anyone can read here, obviously, but those who come in covered in slime are to go next door.
opposablethumbs #618
I’d guess that blackjack is another iteration of our morphing troll. He’ll stink up the place for a while and be banned when PZ notices him.
Yup, notice sent.
+++
opposablethumbs
Ah, but see, for some weird reason, when I’m out with Husband, I have this weird thing where I like it when he pays attention to me, and see, at a high school reunion, that’s just socially inhibiting, because they’ll be tossing old jokes back and forth and I won’t understand a thing, and he’ll have to stop and explain or else I’ll sit in the corner and pout, and that’s just socially inhibiting.
Of course, expressing these things in a polite and thoughtful manner to me, rather than spewing pre-emptive assholery, is hypocritical and useless, while my expressions of impoliteness and impulsivity are simply unacceptable.
I’m slowly losing the desire to go to any social gathering with him, lest I inhibit him.
(In previous conversations, he has insisted that I am not socially inhibiting and that it’s fun to go out together. I guess a high school reunion is totally different. The worst part is, I was completely prepared to be understanding and to tell him (first) that he can go alone, without any angst, but now he’s switched the stubborn-and-petty button, and it’s difficult not to start lying and to say that hey, I really really wanted to go, but now I won’t because obviously he doesn’t want me around. It’s alright, though, I have the pruning shears, and I’m pretty sure I can hold back until I calm down.)
blf
South of France, cheese, vin… Sounds tempting. Alas, my trust fund of millions has once again been frozen for undefined reasons (zombies?) and I’m pretty sure the train conductor wouldn’t be too happy to discover I have no ticket. :/
Dunno if it’s been posted before, but this just popped up in my G+ stream.
The Origin of Species with Special Introduction
Place a pillow on your desk before clicking the link or you may suffer a concussion.
Drats! The way around obstructive train conductors is to…— we interrupt this transmission for a message of vital importance…
DIDNT REPEAT NOT WORK STOP IMITATE PLAN B STOP STILL OUT OF CHEESE STOP ERROR GETTING SERIOUS STOP REDO REDO FROM START…and only then return the whistle to conductor.chigau @601:
Shouldn’t ‘Profit’ be in there somewhere?
===========
Completely shitty night. Scoutmares the whole night. Nothing new, but I get tired of reliving hell, y’know?
Wait… there’s a new Thunderdome up already???
rq – me! I want to! And I can’t think of anything worse than going to someone else’s reunion (except maybe going to my own…)
I’m still positively reeling from the news that Television Without Pity is going down and be taken entirely offline. That was THE first place on the internet I ever started commenting, in 2005. And had been reading it for a year or two before that. I don’t know how to watch tv without it. It’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of recaps of shows, all going down the tubes. A common response has been “it’s burning down a library”. It was the first experiment in how to use the internet to interact with and comment on the film/tv medium. There are places working on saving a copy (like the internet archive), but it’s just NBC ditching it to save a paltry few bucks that are probably a rounding error for their budget.
carlie @624 re Television Without Pity:
It may not make up for the loss, but the people who started TWP moved on to Previously.tv after they sold TWP to NBC/Bravo in 2007. They seem to do movies and old shows at previously.tv, too.
Tone deaf corporations and conference organizers continue to display their misogyny:
NY Times link.
rq, I’m sorry. That’s enough to make anyone feel like taking a flamethrower to the rosebeds. Totally off on a tangent, the idea of going to a reunion brings me out in hives. I just got a letter a couple of days ago – an actual paper one – about just such an event coming up (an extra fancy one to boot, as apparently it’s some big anniversary), and I realised after sweating about it for over a day that the decision not to go was occasioning an immense feeling of relief.
Is there anything else around you can take a flamethrower to?
Stiff whisky on its way to you via USB.
rq
Argh. Sorry Husband’s being a jerk.
Awfulness times three or four: a militia leader from Georgia murdered his pregnant wife. He also had laid plans for bombings, kidnappings and political assassinations. Charming. And that was all on the side, since U.S. Army Private Isaac Aguigui had a day job in the military, as did his wife.
Salon link.
Moments of Mormon Madness, sisterhood category.
Prior to the General Conference featuring all the important men, mormon women hold a General Women’s Meeting. The male-dominated conference usually gets some national attention, while the women’s conference gets local or regional attention.
Be sure to check out the photos
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57744898-78/women-general-lds-lake.html.csp
Feeling very sorry for those 8 year old girls who had to sit through this stuff.
From the readers comments section that accompanies the Salt Lake Tribune article:
Did you know that last season’s flu vaccine protects you against turning a zombie in the Zombie Apocalypse?
This is NOT good news if you’re an evil witch who’s planning to bring the Zombie Apocalypse about.
Yes, I had a very weird and totally cool dream. Alrhough my eil plans were foiled I thoroughly enjoyed the moment when the mob thought they’d cornered me on a bridge and I simply jumped and turned into a bird before I hit the ground. It’s amazing how your brain can create a sensation for something you have no experience with, like how it feels to beat your wings and you push yourself up on nothing but thin air.
I read that as “eel plans” and began wondering just how good at swordfighting they are… How does an eel even hold the foil, much less kebab its opponent?
blf
Why, in its teeth, of course!
carlie and opposablethumbs
Yeah, reunions aren’t my favourite thing, I just hate someone making my mind up for me. :)
The roses were already pruned, but all our berry bushes and the little cherry tree are suddenly… smaller.
And I wish there was a way to play Pictionary online with everyone, that would be an awesome evening/day! But then we have to invite Tony and Portia…
Ah, like pirates do when they swing on ropes and board the other ship. Eels probably have an easier time with the swinging, being their own rope. Then they slither around on the deck, twist their head this way and that, and chop you off at the knees. Got it. Eel pirate plans, it wasn’t a bridge but a ship, and it wasn’t a jump so much as walking the plank. Not sure about the bird, that just sounds a bit too fantastical. Eel pirates are perfectly sensible, however.
Interesting techie/computer news from the Macworld expo:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/03/macworld-surveillance-nsa-idrive
Good summary of the politically and religiously motivated anti-abortion campaign in Ohio:
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/03/30/3419979/ohio-abortion-access-attacks/
A gay man’s wish to donate his organs after his death was denied without a good reason.
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/03/28/3420274/gay-organ-donor/
Climate change consensus and climate change facts have little effect on the current Republican caucus in the U.S. House of representatives and in the Senate.
Nice chart at the link.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/27/3419542/climate-science-vs-climate-politics-graphic/
Some religious people are lobbying for blasphemy laws, the better to punish Bill Maher. They have a public whipping in mind for Maher.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bill-maher-should-be-publicly-whipped-his-blasphemy
Yeah, it’s the usual blather, all about defending the honor of God and whatnot. This makes Maher look more powerful than their god.
A whole bunch of other religious people are appalled by a reference Michelle Obama made to “doing God’s work.” You’d think that would make them happy, but no.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/barber-staver-michelle-obama-evil-human-being
Moments of Mormon Madness, indoctrination of teenagers category.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57712580-78/mission-early-missions-graduation.html.csp
From the readers comments section associated with the Salt Lake Tribune article (link in comment #641):
My 10 year reunion will be next year. Agreement with friend: we show up as a united front (as usual) or neither of us shows up. High school wasn’t all that bad, but still.
Re: exclusion of homosexual men from organ donation
I noticed that the same rule is in effect regarding blood donation (and therefore likely all tissue donations) in my country, Denmark. A single instance of male-male sexual intercourse leads to permanent exclusion. I remember wondering about that. Apparently they justify it with the argument that they’re being extra careful, which would make sense, except certain other things are not excluded.
E.g. there’s no question about unprotected sex in general, which leads to the weird case that a homosexual man having safe sex with a committed partner is excluded, while a heterosexual man having unprotected sex with a random woman is not.
Even if the heterosexual man is diagnosed with a VD, as long as it’s not HIV or hepatitis B or C, he’s only under temporary quarantine, while a homosexual man is permanently excluded even if he has a clean bill of health. Always struck me as a bit odd.
Moments of Mormon Madness, hiding practices that upset non-mormons category.
So, yeah, BYU has an “Honor Code” and its a doozy. When high-profile athletes are caught breaking the honor code, national media usually picks up the story. The BYU honor code is bad enough that publicity usually results in lots of “WTF, mormons are insane!” moments. The solution, enforce the honor code, but make sure no one hears about it. Transparency? There is none.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57714167-78/byu-honor-code-jenkins.html.csp
From the readers comments:
BYU officials are billing the new secrecy rules as a way to protect the privacy of students. But if they really wanted to protect the privacy of students they should stop sniffing around in student’s sex lives.
Boy do I ever hear that, rq. Very much agree, that this is not a good move.
I just realized that the clients’ address is impossible to find on google maps. Or rather, the address I was given gets located on a gas station, and another address that I’m finding on the official site is one of those vague addresses that is basically just the Avenue name on a really long avenue.
(no, not a scam, don’t worry. Part of a government ministry)
I’m so tired (been working all day because of this), and I have to get up at some horrible hour tomorrow to get there early and, you know, find there.
Maybe I should take a tram to some point and then get a taxi. Hopefully, the taxi driver would know where to go, or at least it would be easier to search in a car than on foot.
Also, what the hell has google done to google maps!? They keep crashing Mozilla.
I skipped my 20 year high school reunion. I saw pictures later. I’m so glad I didn’t go.
Beatrice
If the taxi wouldn’t be budget-breaking that might help, although IME a lot of cabbies rely on something akin to Google maps themselves these days.
My ten year high school reunion probably happened 4-5 years back. I never heard about it and didn’t go, because I don’t actually really remember any of those people, and the few that I do either were in a different year and wouldn’t be there, or else I never liked them to begin with, so there didn’t seem to be a lot of point.
I do wish that the apologists would go away for a bit in the ‘Dome. I’m trying to have a proper go at the libertarian, but he keeps getting distracted by the jesusers.
Linkies!
Escaping Ethnicity?
The Bitter Tears of the American Christian Supermajority
both by way of Making Light
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rq, please to be delivering this *slap up-side the head* to your Husband, with my compliments.
While I, myself, would rather have all of my remaining teeth pulled without anaesthetic than go to my own high school reunion, being forbidden to go would sit very poorly, indeed.
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*fluffy kittens* for Ogvorbis, with sympathies for the scoutMares.
You can see the Horses, right there in the Damned name.
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Which is weird, seeing as how he’s just as dogmatic as they are.
I tried suggesting to him that he swap out “god” and “the free market” in their scripts and in his own, to see if it suggested anything to him … but it didn’t seem to ring any bells :-\
carlie:
Oh damnit! I heard about that site from you. Huge bummer.
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rq: Harrumph!
*hugs*
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Just got back from a less-then-48 hour trip to Michigan to move my mom. A little sad, her old house was the perfect house. Ah well. She sent some of my great grandmother’s antiques home with me. One got a little damaged. Oh well
Tomorrow I’m working for the morning then heading to Chicago for a dinner that my professor is speaking at. Her talk focuses on one of my personal heroes, who(m?) that professor introduced me to and compared me to. Hero passed away last year. Professor is just as wonderful and has always been great to me. She sent me an email just now instructing me when to laugh during her remarks. It made me laugh really hard. I’m looking forward to another taste of big city life that I haven’t had since I moved out of the city. Fun, flashy evenings :) It’s worth another day of driving. I can sleep …next weekend.
Canada handles this a touch more sensibly. We have a similar ban in Canada, but there’s also a question to the effect of, “Have you ever had sex with someone whose sexual history you don’t know?” Anyone sleeping with random people aren’t allowed to donate, unless you ask that person their sexual history. Still, you can’t expect everyone to be honest about their sexual history (though asking is better than nothing), and the ban for sleeping with someone whose sexual history you don’t know only lasts 6 months, while completely protected monogamous sex with a man will net any man a ban for life.
This made me giggle. “Shut up, y’all, I’m trying to yell at this dude here!” *shoo-ing away the jesus-flies*
Portia
Sounds like a fun talk! I hope it is informative and inspirational, and suitably about you by proxy (due to the comparison, ha). Don’t forget your cues, though. ;)
Beatrice
Good luck in the client hunt, hopefully it’s not as obscure as GoogleMaps says it is!
cicely
In echo of your christians-as-victims article, I offer this (just another look at the same side of the same damn coin, really).
+++
Harpists have magic fingers. Really, they do. Or else they’re aliens. Fingers don’t work like that on so many strings.
Oh, the irony! Another blow struck against homeopathy (as if it needed anymore).
They say it’s a real product, which means it’s true that women are better off not pooing in social situations… But me, I’d like mine to smell of violets.
rq (#656)
First, I have to wonder if it’s easier on the senses for people with asthma and/or sensory processing issues than spraying the air after the fact or keeping an air freshener in the bathroom. Essential oils can be just as irritating as either of those things. Second, who the fuck wants to cart a spray bottle around everywhere? Third, if I have to shit in a public restroom, I’ll often drop a seat cover over the water to prevent splashback. If I have to choose between stinking up the place and getting my ass and ladybits showered with public toilet water, I’m going to go with stink.
I think my dad needs to learn to google.
A. Noyd
For me, the problem was mostly the fact that ‘women don’t stink in social situations’. Or aren’t supposed to, at any rate. So if you do, that’s a Bad Thing!
And public toilet water, ew.
(I agree, it can be awkward, but why isn’t there a similar product for men??)
rq (#658)
Well, they could use that product. It’s just stupid and insulting that the maker has given it such gendered marketing. As if the problem with shit stink from a woman’s perspective is only ever that people might notice her stink and not that she has to smell other people’s. They might be driving men away from using what should be a unisex product.
Anyway, it would be waaaaay smarter if they stuck PooPourri in automatic sprayers you install in the toilet itself and marketed those to individuals of any gender and businesses. (Google tells me I’m not the only one to think this way.)
It actually IS a real product. Here’s the refill for it on Amazon.
Read the comments. The person on the Youtube video is a woman but the product isn’t intended for a single gender.
Years back, I had a colleague who pooped every day at about 2 in the afternoon and stunk up not only the bathroom at work but the whole corridor. I used to hate her for it, couldn’t help myself. If only this product had been around then.
Bicarbonate
If it’s meant for everyone, why is the ad so targeted towards women?
Is it meant as satire?
I don’t doubt its usefulness. I doubt the marketing.
On the other hand, here’s the men’s version.
A. Noyd
Automatic sprayers would be nice. No carrying around a spray bottle!
I’m rediscovering what helped me fall in love with Hip-hop a few years ago; Jesse Dangerously and the rest of Backburner Records.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGfO21uEkqU (“Halifax Rap Legend” Jesse Dangerously and Hip-hop group Toolshed, Backburner Recordings)
rq:
She sent another email saying she plans to introduce me at the dinner, and tell the story of introducing me to the subject of her talk, as “Former Miss Lastname, meet Miss Lastname.” We have the same birth surname, and she never completely dropped hers.
Portia, the whole occasion sounds very, very cool. Hope (and bet!) you have a wonderful time!
(I’d be terrified to the point of physical symptoms (just the mild ones, I think – sweating, mild nausea, shakes ..) which is part of the reason I’m not going to “my” extra-posh reunion do next month)
rq 661
Seeing that there’s a “men’s version” I guess the first one is targeted towards women. I originally took it as just being sarcasm. Using a woman presenter provides the opportunity for the pearl necklace, hair-sprayed hair and the tu-tu net skirt. They could have done something similar to the first add with a guy in a business suit, a stuffy accent and precious mannerisms.
If you read the Amazon comments though, you see that people buy it for the whole family.
NEW THREAD.