This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
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Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
@ azhael:
Well, Diby is on record as thinking that Fat Tony is “an intellectual giant”. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Italian Fascism gets a bad rap by being the general term of abuse for the whole phenomenon, and Nazism is too specific and ethnically-based. Fat Tony is a Falangist, pure and simple, and that IMO should be the general term of abuse for right-wing authoritarian assholes like him.
@ Ichthyic
{scratchy scuttling sounds from off stage left.}
{scritchy, scuttling sounds get louder. a small and rotund tardigrade wizzes across the stage on a unicycle, snatching the word “Frowsty”, from under the noses of the assembled horde}
SHINY!!!
{it leaves at high speed, exit stage right, followed by loud crashing sounds down the timber stairs behind the stage. There is a loud crunch as the new word is smashed to smithereens on the concrete floor of the basement…}
Killing in the name of YHWH. What a dreadful mob that was.
Word is not going into the pile marked “shiny”.
@501
Oh, i agree these people are falangists, but aren’s falangists ideologically fascist? Here both terms are understood as so closely and intrinsically related that they are usually used as synonimous.
@ Giliell
I should start stealing entire phrases. Your:
(Though I have quite changed the context) … so perfectly describes the cat-lick priesthood. Removed from their protected positions in the church and incarcerated for their crimes. Removed from civil society to where they cannot do harm.
.
Is this the reason diby feels hir institution is under attack? Is this “persecution”?
azhael @ 504:
Oh, they are synonymous. No argument there. It’s a losing battle, I guess the terminology is carved in stone now, but I wish it had been chosen differently.
I’m certainly no Mussolini apologist—I’m opposed to every principle of Italian Fascism just like all the rest. However, from the establishment of the one-party state in Italy in 1928 to its downfall in 1943, the number of people executed for political “crimes” was…17.
Now certainly, that’s 17 too many, but I think it compares quite favorably with Hitler’s Germany from 1933 to 1945 or Franco’s Spain from 1935 to 1975(?) (How long has he been lying seriously dead now?) It just seems strange that Italian Fascism has become the type case for regimes that were much more murderous.
azhael
Goddist fascists.
They are not quite the same. In Italy the difference between the goddist fascists and Mussolini’s fascists were far clearer. The pope wanted to get his filthy paws on Italian children. But Mussolini wanted to run the schools. A deal was struck and a shit-ton of money changed hands (he essentially bought off the church, with land (Vatican and the papal holiday cottage), and cash that was directly invested in catholic missions … such as in Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Allies perhaps, but their agendas were not fully congruent.
Antony Beevor has written an excellent book on the different factions in the spanish civil war. You could do worse than read: The Battle for Spain.
When you have two factions that both think they ought to be in complete totalitarian control, you tend to get a few disagreements.
Even Hitler said after his one meeting with Franco that he’d rather have several teeth pulled without novocaine than go through that again.
@ Lykex
Luckily for Mussolini, the papacy was more than happy to prostitute its principles for a few baubles.
(I don’t recall there being any horses heads in beds, but Mussolini was not beyond killing even his own family. God is not as powerful as a loaded revolver.)
It seems just seems strange….hahahaha. Gee, could it be for the reason Belloc mentioned? A prejudice against Catholics and Daegos?
[delusional fools who believe in imaginary deities are authoritarian fuckwits]?Fixed that for you Diby. I don’t care what religion you claim to be, if you can’t prove with solid and conclusive physical evidence your deity exists, it can and is dismissed, along with holy books and theology. That is your problem here. Until you evidence your imaginary deity, dismissed.
Hmmm. diby sursch seems to love fascists (as long as they are Catholic fascists). diby sursch also seems to really like the new pope. Who actively supported the fascist regime in Argentina. And even pointed out which priests were doing evil things — like helping the poor — and needed to disappear.
Any else noticing a pattern here?
Why are you using a bigoted and derogatory slur to describe Italians?
The paranoia is strong in this one….
I’m Italian.
Er, no diby. A revulsion at people who molest children, and the institution that protects such people as a matter of course. My arguments are against your sordid church, that enables rapists, and protects them from the law.
By supporting such iniquitous organisations, you make yourself directly a part of the problem. Don’t tell me The Devil ™ makes you tell the lies that you do. Or that He makes you an apologist for child rapists. That is all your own doing.
First, this is interesting, as you have intimated that your are Polish or USAnian.
Second, daego is still a bigoted and derogatory term for an Italian immigrant. Why would an Italian use that term?
Third, you claim that Catholics in your country are persecuted. Yet you claim to be Italian. You sure you want to go with that one?
I’m also English and Irish. I’m American.
@ diby
… and a fibber.
Paranoia is boring.
Will this one change again as lies necessitate?
So why are you, who claim to be an Italian American, using a bigoted and derogatory anti-Italian slur which has its roots in 19th century prejudice?
Then again, why are you, who claim to be American, claiming that the Catholic Church is persecuted in your country? Why are you so quick to support fascists? Why do you support the violent and bloody overthrow of a government elected by the people? Why do you support the torture of people who are descended from practicing Jews? Why are you against human rights for all human beings? Why do you support an organization that has deliberately put child rapists into positions where they can rape again? Why do you support an organization that has had an active hand in the death of thousands of women just this century?
Being boring is a cardinal sin here.
(Nerd, I think the squeaky has gone out of this one.)
When did you stop beating your wife?
I didn’t lie. Those are my ethnicities. You must have missed the Wells quote from the previous page where he used the word Daego – I believe he was quoting Belloc who was pointing out the prejudices of the English speaking world at the time.
@ Ogvorbis
The answer is not pretty. Police and justice departments have been persecuting pervert priests with impunity. But, diby is standing up to protect his little church though, with his courageous apologetics!
Does that not sound like persecution to you!?? And this frenzy of law enforcement was triggered by a mere 5,6% of all priests being accused of abuse. Yup, diby is in a persecuted minority in the US of A.
(source: Sex-abuse crisis is a watershed in the Roman Catholic Church’s history in America … though it is trivial to find many other articles documenting the same “persecution”.)
Still waiting for your evidence your chuch and you are persecuted in whatever country you are in. Given your lies, I will need third party evidence of said persecution.
@dildo: 525
When she gave up trying to play chess with me. I was beating her every time.
Ooooh, try another one!
Jebus, the church being sued by *gasp* fellow Catholics whose children were raped by priests? *shock*
I call all that bullshit an internal matter, not persecution by outside authorities. In fact, the Church, being a moral authority, should be acting morally in the matter. Acknowledging fault, seeing that the criminal priests are prosecuted, and that the victims receive significant compensation. The evidence for that is where Diby?
Just to make sure everyone can link to the above mentioned site: http://bishopaccountability.org/
It has a large database of documents pertaining to the institutionalised child rape and the covering up thereof, that has been going on in the cat-lick church. Perhaps diby should go through some of the cases to see what a sordid set-up it is that he is lying for.
(I enjoyed the part about all the bankruptcies. The evil empire is coming apart at the seems. And were it hurts the most … their wallets. The more churches are closed, the less people will suffer. )
@dildo:
Here’s the short answer about the Church being under attack. The attack is, the Church’s privilege is no longer assumed. It has to answer to the same social norms (Thou shalt not rape!) as the rest of society.
That is the attack. For most Americans, the RCC is no longer on a pedestal. You are not special any more. You have to answer logical questions, religious pronouncements are no longer considered fact.
You assume the RCC has a rightful place on that pedestal. Just as slave owners thought they were in their rightful place. Just as the Nazis thought they were ascending to their rightful place. The world always looks proper to those looking down on others, never the other way around.
1) The Church is being forced to pay for contraception against our religious obligations – a clear violation of the 1st amendment.
2) Various states in America have forced Catholic adoption agencies to adopt to gay children, even knowing that when the law was passed they would shut down. All of the Catholic adoption agencies were forced to shut down due to this, and now children won’t have a home.
3) We aren’t even allowed to have our traditional st. Patrick’s day parade anymore, unless we make the parade all about gays and their lifestyle. No gays were banned from the parade but they were barred from having lgbt signs like everyone else. Due to this sponsorships pulled out and boycotted and made the false claim that gays were discriminated against. They were not. They were simply crashing the parade to advance a political agenda. Now the future of the parade is in jeopardy.
Nope, medical is not moral. Your stand against contraception, not only by your church employees, but society, is IMMORAL and presumptuous.
Since those agencies work with public monies for said purpose, they disobey the law when they impose your IMMORALITY AND BIGOTRY on society.
Parades require public permits, with secular rules about how they are done. They apply to everybody. CLAIMING YOU DON’T HAVE TO OBEY THE RULES ISN’T BEING DISCRIMIATED AGAINST, IT IS CLAIMING SPECIAL PRIVILEGE.
@dildo:533
Right. Because the RCC has the privilege of determining how women should deal with their health issues. It has the privilege of determining who is a fit parent, based on an iron age morality. It has the privilege of excluding people from public events, because their lifestyle doesn’t fit said morality.
The pedestal is gone, dildo. Deal with it.
“Being forced to complying with secular law is discrimination” is crap.
Otherwise I could claim that, for example, _not_ being able to kill you and devour your heart in honour of Chnorthvok the Worldslayer is a violation of the first amendment.
(Also, you’re from the USA then. Noted.)
@ diby
Fucking kiddies is fine, but don’t use condoms!
No-one is forcing the cat-licks to be such outrageous bigots. And, at least, no-one is forcing you to place white kids with black families, or vice versa. Now that would be a moral outrage!!!!!
Oh …wait a minute, diby,… when did you start caring about the welfare of children?
You do realise that around one in ten leprechauns is gay? They are fully entitled to celebrate their heritage.
People like you are just fascists. Our parade, our rules. We don’t tell you how to run your atheist events, why do you think you have the right to tell us how to run ours?
I know, right? Wanting to make sure that the law of the land applies equally to all organisations and individuals! It’s fucking outrageous.
Why, next you’ll be telling me that ritually burning down your house to celebrate the return of Chvorthq the Worldeater and the imminent annihilation of all things will be stopped by the police!
(Care to actually provide some evidence of these parades actually, y’know, being rained on? Because I’ll bet you fifty Internet Dollars [which is 0.00000000000002 of a bitcoin!] that they’re ones receiving public funding and public assistance, which means they’re required to obey state and federal antidiscrimination law. And trust me, you do not want to see what happens when those things get repealed.)
@dildo: 538
If it uses public funds, it is subject to public laws. There is no
spoonpedestal.You can’t get it. Gays have always participated in the event, everyone is welcomed. No one, atheist, gay, whatever is turned away. All that was asked is that they didn’t hold light signs, since it’s a parade about our saint. Pro-life people are also prohibited from holding pro-life signs. It’s our parade. Our religious parade honoring a saint, not a time for politics.
Why can’t you fascists respect that?
Don’t and lgbt. Damn auto correct.
Well, if it’s your (Catholic) parade about your (Catholic) saint, you won’t mind paying for it with your (Catholic) money then.
Where did you say this happened again?
WHO exactly owns the St. Patrick’s Day parade, again? I believe you mentioned that this horror of horrors, of gay people wanting to be included in “your” parade, happened in New York and Boston, yes? Parts of the country where gays tend to be accepted, yes? And where gays might also happen to be Catholic and/or Irish?
Go fuck yourself diby.
Pro-tip, Catholic supremacist: St. Patrick’s Day, in most sectors of society outside of the most rearguard, conservative factions of Catholicism, isn’t really considered a religious holiday in the U.S. It is a celebration of Irish American heritage, for the most part. I mean, seriously, the fucking St. is the the patron saint of Ireland. Even if you do incorporate religious elements into it, it is basically just Irish Nationalism Day. And yet you want to get your sticky fingers all over it, because you are a religious dogmatist and want to have control over everything.
@dildo
Right. You can be gay, as long as you do it quietly. As long as you don’t try to do things like get married, or adopt children. Because Jesus loves you, even though you are not quite human….
Gotta love the irony of diby saying this
Yes, we are fascists, because you want absolute authority over what does and does not happen to a fucking parade. Riiiiiight.
http://www.catholicleague.org/persecution-stories/
The Catholic League? Why is a good Catholic like you relying on sources controlled by Puritan fascists like Bill Donohue?!
Yeah, already called that diby was a mini-Bill Donahue. Surprised it took them this long to link to the Grandmaster’s blatherings.
Bill Donohue is only a puritan fascist when Diby needs him to be. And when Diby needs him to be a good little catholic, then Bill is one.
@dildo
The RCC is a moral authority, in the same way that the Koch brothers are authorities on global warming. It’s all about power over others, and money.
No, you are the fascist, imposing your will where it don’t belong, and ignoring the human rights of fellow celebrants and paraders. Nobody can legitimately use religion to be show themselves to be a raging bigot.
Falange Española
(Above quotes are from Antony Beevor.)
Diby, if you want to parade without gays, do some laps around the local high schools football field that allows that. Meanwhile, stay off public streets unless you agree to behave yourself as the public laws demands….
The Catholics adoption agencies were not forced to let gay men and lesbians to adopt children – they just couldn’t continue receiving government money if they didn’t. It had nothing to do with religious persecution and everything to do with sucking at the government teat.
diby
FIFY.
The question was clearly what country you’re from.
Liar, again.
They were banned from discriminating against people. Here’s the thing: If you want to operate a business that provides a kind of official service then you need to operate within the rules of the country.
Also: what kind of assholes would (if it were actually true) jeopardize the wellfare of innocent children in need of a loving home just because they can’t make up the rules as they go along but have to obey the laws of the land like everybody else?
So, you wanted to regulate the use of public space, banning gays from their right to free speech.
As a result provate business decided that they would no longer support your parade. Why do you think you’re entitled to their money? You are totally free to have your march any way you want as long as you pay for it yourself. How is that discrimination?
Then hold it in your own fucking country, i.e. the Vatican. Public space is for all of the public.
Yeah, drinking green beer, totally religious devotion
Oh my! Check out the first image in the gallery for the South Boston St. Patrick’s Parade. I guess it is a Catholic Event after all!
I assume Palpatine was only able to appear in the marches closer to the Vatican. Can’t stray too far from the seat of power, even on the Most Catholic of Days, after all.
Actually, you do, sorta. A public atheist event has to follow all the same rules as a Catholic one. E.g. If I organize a public lecture, I can’t then say that Catholics aren’t allowed to attend. If it’s public, it’s public.
Clearly, the problem you have here isn’t that Catholics are being discriminated against, but that you’re no longer getting the special benefits you used to. What you’re upset about is that you’re treated the same as everyone else. Well, boo hoo.
Hmmm…
Sources: http://crooksandliars.com/2014/03/catholic-school-wont-march-st-patricks-day
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/01/gay-rights-group-okayed-to-march-in-boston-st-patricks-day-parade/
My cherry tree is blooming!
chigau
A bit late, there…
rq
It’s Victoria Day.
Right on time.
diby, this is a serious question: Why are you here? What is it that you hope to accomplish? Please answer this, and please answer it honestly.
Hey, diby, there’s a lot you still haven’t replied to.
Do you know how it began?
With the translation of Aristotle’s works from Arabic into Latin.
Science isn’t a synonym for philosophy…
Wrong. The oldest university is that of Bologna, which began when students who wanted to study law (mostly this law, not so much church law!) got their bargaining power together, looked for a good teacher, and found one in 1087 or 1088. Here, look it up.
Oh, read this, too, at least the beginning of it.
Oh, really.
Yeah, they’re disproved, and only one survives: the theory of evolution by mutation, selection and drift. This happened several decades ago. :-|
See, that’s the difference between science and religion, the difference between a field of study where there are external means of determining whether an idea is wrong and a field where that’s not the case. Voltaire wrote “there are no sects in geometry”. In science, much like in mathematics, if an idea is wrong, it’s possible to find out, and then people stop promoting it; in religion, that’s not the case, and all* ideas continue to exist alongside each other so that, for example, there are about 43,000 Christian denominations now.
* Except, of course, for those whose followers are killed or otherwise silenced by the followers of another such idea.
First, our friend was quoting Chesterton here, he’s just too stupid to press the ” button. Second, linguists call it “the thrice-accursed Strunk’n’White” – because they did nothing else than trying to sell their personal tastes as objective facts by sprinkling some remarkably ignorant, sciency-sounding arguments over them.
…I’m not going to calculate quantitative evilness, but…
What on the planet makes you believe we don’t already condemn the oppression and mass murder ordered by Lenin, Stalin, Máo Zédōng, Pol Pot, Ceauşescu and the like?
They’re just not the topic, so nobody mentioned them in this discussion before you did.
*headshake*
They were completely irrational.
Who is “we”?
I’ve never been nearly swamped by a Mohammedan struggle…
Roflcopter. The Mongol hordes massacred a whole army of knights at Legnica in what is now Poland, and then they suddenly turned around and rode home because Ögödey Khaan had died and their presence was needed for the choosing of a successor.
Quite similarly, the first Ottoman siege of Vienna (1589) was aborted because the sultan had died (I forgot his name). The second (a hundred years later) was defeated, but the first ended with the Ottoman army simply standing up and going home.
loves him.
Interesting. Why?
*steal*
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
What. Is the class=”creationist” attribute suddenly no longer allowed!?!
It’s gone. ~:-|
Damn.
I shall send a memo to The Management.
David Marjanović @ 565:
Here’s a brief précis of the meeting at Hendaye—basically Franco wanted French Morocco and Oran in return for entering the war, Hitler didn’t want to aggravate Pétain by giving them to him. The quote was supposedly to Mussolini afterwards.
In the process, I found this (warning: PDF), which is a very interesting article on the meeting. I love that Franco was expecting German Wunderwaffen to win the war up until the last minute—he thought they were going to harness the power of Cosmic Rays!
diby sursch – I asked you a question earlier: If the First Nations people were to ever become capable of rounding up and torturing non-natives, until they swore to leave and murdering them if not, would you find such a course of action moral and ethical?
Perhaps I missed the answer since you don’t address who it is you’re talking to (hint, hint.) Anyway, I’d love your input as to whether the above is acceptable to you and your imaginary god.
throwaway:
May I riff on your question a bit? Mr. Sursch or Pilty, whatever the case may be, if the Indigenous peoples of the U.S. and Canada all of a sudden had all the power, and rounded up all the non-indigenous people, subjected them to long, forced marches, then corralled them all into existing reservations, would that be okey dokey with you and that psycho god of yours?
That’s not an accurate analogy at all. It would make sense, sure, if during those times of war, the Indians won. Catholics stopped the Muslims at France and then pushed back for the next 700 years. It was continual. It wasn’t as if they just decided one day to take back Spain. It happened gradually.
Spain is a whole different country from France. When you say the Catholics stopped the Muslims at France you’re really admitting that the Muslims took and held Spain for centuries.
Inaji
Why, only if they were catholic, of course! Because Catholics Are Always Right!
myeck waters
Unless the Muslims were coming through Germany, or Italy. Because they could have, you know.
I notice as well that diby gave a complete non-answer to the questions throwaway and inaji asked in 571 and 572. It’s understandable though, to answer the questions concretely would invite the accurate parallels diby wishes to avoid. The choices then are hypocrisy or providing proof positive of being absolutely vile, and diby refuses to let their ONE TRUE ATTRIBUTE be their vileness lest they taint all Catholics absolutely everywhere with the dibyverse’s rules of homogeneity.
diby sursch @573:
Of course, it was much more complicated than that. Local Muslim rulers enlisted aid from Christians against other Muslims, Christians sought Muslim allies against Christian rivals, and mercenaries of each faith fought for ‘the other side’. In other words, politics and war as usual. The mythologizing of the Reconquista began long after the Battle of Covadonga.
I’ll just take this chance to recommend this blog post; Coming Out as Feminist. A brief taste:
It’s a lot longer and it’s quite good.
Diby:
Each time you comment, I expect a certain level of historical ignorance, bigotry, disdain for the rights of others, whining about catholics being treated like others (rather than given special treatment) or severe assholishness. You continue to meet, nay EXCEED my expectations.
That you continually fail to condemn the institutionalized child sex abuse perpetrated by the RCC while being such a hateful smugnoramus is disgusting.
That you would condemn me to a lifetime of subhuman status bc I am a man who sucks dick, but priests who rape children get a pass is vile.
Tony:
If diby is yet another nym for pilty (Piltdown Man), that’s par for the course. The last time I remember him showing up here, he was “Mari O’Nette”, and ranting about how the only catholic priests molesting children were gay, and that yes, gay men needed to be routed from the church, because all gay men are pedophiles.
LykeX @ 579:
Bookmarked, thanks.
Diby, you hopefully have read about today’s human rights gain with gay marriage being legalized in Oregon. You are obviously a delusional homophobe.
Your test, is to explain why gays getting married in Oregon hurts the Redhead’s and my 40+ years as a married couple, since we no evidence of any hurt since her gay cousin married his long-time partner. And when I first mentioned at a family reunion, that they sounded like an old married couple (het), the lights in some of the more religious folks eyes attending appeared to blink and open to real possibilities.
people like you, RWAs, just can’t help utilizing projection as a defense mechanism.
@ Inaji
Did the (Dungeon) amnesty extend to pilty?
Here are some anagrams of diby sursch: cushy birds, his buds cry, by his cruds ….
Ichthyic
Yup, they are pretty desperate. Here is an analogy:
If cognitive dissonance made a sound … Well, imagine living with the roar of a jet engine in your head 24/7/365.
is that who this is?
does not really seem like him; too subtle… (yes, that’s a joke).
Oh my is this THE Piltdown man? They were before my time, so I’ve only ever heard pilty referred to in reverential tones as a platonic ideal of a boring, stupid, insipid troll. If this is indeed the legendary Piltdown Man I can now truly understand why they would be held in such honorably low regard, diby is a boring, stupid, insipid troll with few peers.
@ omnicrom
The Falange americana is a rare bird in these parts. So it could just be the same specimen. Perhaps one of the more experienced Pharyngulitic ornithologists could identify it in more detail.
Temporal might does not make right, dibsy.
Shame on you. As a CATHOLIC you should have known that. It is only, oh, one of the foundational moral tenets of your so-called faith.
In that case, why do you accept the Jewish claim on Israel? They didn’t win. They lost one fight after another, losing more and more of their sovereignty until there wasn’t hardly an Israel left. Their state was occupied and finally annihilated, with the Jews spread to the wind.
Israel hadn’t been under Jewish control for over a thousand years, so how do you defend their claim, while also denying the claim of the Native Americans?
Because the Jews gave us God. The Jews are good. There’s a romance to the Jews having Israel. Plus, it’s better that the Muslims have turned their attention to Jews, so as to distract them in our time of spiritual bankruptcy. We won’t have to worry about more invasions.
It’s like playing chess, isn’t it? Everybody else is pawns, or maybe a rook, but you don’t mind sacrificing them because it’s not like they’re actual human beings.
There’s obviously no crime you aren’t willing to defend for the greater good of being catholic.
No mass-murder, genocide, rape, paedophelia, war. All good because god. Complete moral bacruptcy and yet you complain about other people.
God doesn’t exist until you provide conclusive physical evidence for it. Presupposition is dismissed as fuckwittery. And why any moral based on a phantasm can be dismissed to.
It’s so nice of you to acknowledge that god is human-made and that your mythology is derived from jewish mythology.. Seriously, i couldn’t have put it better. The jews invented your god.
diby:
Bzzzt! Wrong answer.
So sorry.
If you weren’t such a bigoted assclam, I’d offer a consolation prize. As it stands, you’re getting coal in your stocking.
The correct answer is “Human beings created the god of the bible. As with all other gods, there is insufficient evidence to support the belief that it exists.”
Still waiting on you to provide evidence that any god exists–and NO, the bible does not count as evidence. Until you do so, your claims will be dismissed.
Also still waiting on the evidence to back up pretty much every other claim you’ve made. Your smugness is misplaced, bc your assertions do not match reality.
Oh, and feel free to apologize for your homophobia and misogyny too. I’ll even help you out. Your apology should look very similar to this:
“I am sorry for making homophobic and misogynistic comments.”
There’s a romance to the Muslims occupying Spain.
diby:
That sure would be nice, but various wingnuts in the US would love to invade another country.
PZ gave Diby the banhammer over on the Oregon thread.
I hope everyone notices the racism in this statement. ‘The Jews are good.’ Which, I guess, in
Pilty’sdiby’s mind, means that American Indians are not.The level of racism and bigotry, coupled with the expectation that Catholics should be allowed to use public streets, be served by public safety organizations for their parades, and ignore the laws of the land, coupled with the idea that despite accepting state and federal money, the RCC can ignore the law, all adds up to one large heaping pile of bullshit (not the useful stuff — his bullshit is infested with things you do not want growing in your garden).
I wonder if specduckular is an old troll with a new nym…
Tony!
specduckular’s particular schtick doesn’t seem familar to me.
I think it’s MRA script #25, one of the more subtle ones.
[Diby was banned for being a bigoted asshole. The person named Diby, not the pseudonym. You don’t get to come back under a different name. Stay away, don’t come back, all of your comments will be deleted. YOU ARE BANNED, JERK. Why is it so hard for trolls to comprehend that? –pzm]
Too late.
Thunderdome puts the lotion on its skin, or it gets the Diby again.
FWIW. . .
Having argued with Pilt for many years, my take is that dilby does not seem to have the same style as Pilt. I suspect that dilby is a morph of a different troll, but I am not sure which one.
Pilt has been going by “jonathangray” on the rest of FTB, where, so far as I know, he is not banned.
An exhibit of his more recent bizarre eructations is here. I didn’t continue arguing with him (or mocking him) because I didn’t have the time, and because he’s rather sickening. Plus I consider it a victory that I got him to blaspheme the church.
@ Mr.Diby StillObjects
Nope.
@ Mr Diby
Then you are between The Devil ™ and a hard place. Being boring is a crime here.
Entertain us, GAWDdamnit!
Oh teh sin of not refreshin’ afor postin’..! Mr Diby gone snuf’t hi’self.
This doesn’t have anything to do with the previous discussion here, but I thought it went well with the previous threads about the use of the word cunt and that silly idea that it is not sexist language in Britain. I have been watching a documentary presented by Lucy Worsley and stumbled across this page when trying to find some more information:
http://is-a-cunt.com/2013/10/lucy-worsley/
for a word that apparently does not have sexists and sexual connotations in Britain there is an awful lot of focus on how she looks, and the question, “But is it fuckable?”. In addition, the comments are all about whether the commenters would have sex with her.
Diby has entered the post-banning, frequent re-registration under a different pseudonym phase of trolldom. Four pseudonyms so far, all squashed, and will continue to be deleted for as long as he persists.
I really can’t stand bigots.
“The Jews gave us God”?
I’m LOLLing at an instant mental image of Jon Stewart as “Jewish Gramma,” going, “Honey, I got you a present…”
“Oh Gramma, you shouldn’t have!”
Since Diby’s been banned from the Oregon thread (well, not just there), I’ll just dump this here. I’m sure he’s still lurking.
Your support of a “vote of the people” to limit someone else’s rights, as long as you agree with that limitation, is very short-sighted. You do realize that for at least the first 3/4 of the history of Anglo-America, if Catholicism could have been outlawed by “a vote of the people”, it would have been, right?
That’s why I wanted your take on the Gunpowder Plot. When Jamestown was founded, it hadn’t even been two years since a plot by Catholics, led by a Papal agent sent directly from Rome to blow up the King and both Houses of Parliament had been foiled at the last minute. You say it was perfectly reasonable for Ferdinand and Isabella to set up the Spanish Inquisition because of fear of a Muslim revanche in Spain? Why shouldn’t English colonists have been terrified of Catholicism?
Then for most of the next two centuries, Indian raiding parties from Canada, frequently lead by Catholic priests, murdered and kidnapped English settlers. It’s really a miracle Catholicism wasn’t outlawed specifically in the Constitution. Fortunately the Founders™ lived in a more enlightened age and enshrined religious freedom in the Bill of Rights.
Most important of all, the Bill of Rights guarantees that your rights, my rights, everybody’s rights, are not determined by a “vote of the people”. What do you think “votes of the people” would have done after 9/11? The same thing they would have done after the Gunpowder Plot. If votes of the people could take away religious freedom, you and your co-religionists would have been in deep shit for most of American history. Instead, you get to spread your toxic swill anywhere you want. If you annoy one blog owner, you can switch to another.
Since when can any person or group of people “give” the creator of the Universe?
And he called himself a catholic??!!
I just noticed that the sidebar list of ‘Recent Posts’ appears to be smaller than usual. I wonder if this is a new and permanent change or if it’s a glitch in the system.
Is it wrong of me to want to send diby over to Dispatches, to get into a kook fight with heddle?
It was an early form of “re-gifting”
Sarah: “Abe, what’s this tatty old thing in the back of the closet?”
Abraham: “Oh, that. Says it’s ‘I am what I am.’ Cryptic bloke. Grandiose. Full of half-assed promises.”
“Do you want to keep it?” (holds it away from self, looks dubious)
“No, I don’t really have any use for it, to be honest. Felt bad about throwing it away. Seemed sincere, if a little… out of touch.”
“Well, maybe the Horowitzes would like it….”
Popeye the Sailor Man is God? <boggles>
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
To the best of my memory, I’ve only interacted with heddle a handful of times-and that was years ago-so I don’t remember anything other than him being a theist. What would they fight over?
btw, is it ok to shorten your ‘nym?
Ah, the Popeye movie. I saw the movie when I was a child, and although I have fond memories, I don’t know how well the movie would hold up today (I like to think I’m a bit more critical at 38 than I was at 6).
Tony! Please feel free to call me anything you like. I’m tired of the ‘nym now, but I’m too lazy to change it. (Most people don’t remember the Unitarian Jihad now anyway.)
I didn’t want to get into the discussion on the fatties thread about whether their choice for the new Wonder Woman is physically right for the part, but some people were just born to play certain parts—and Shelly Duvall was born to play Olive Oyl! (Just as John Goodman was born to play Fred Flintstone.)
He and old Pilty shared quite a few personality traits.
Heddle jumps on every thread on Dispatches that retails an atrocity committed in the name of Christianity with a continuous barrage of No True Scotsman arguments (and when someone calls him on that: “Nuh-uh!” arguments) followed by theological arguments from an extreme Calvinist POV*. Once he starts up, there’s no stopping him. I look at the comment count on posts…17, 23, 14, 125…uh, oh, heddle’s loose!
*Although I don’t know if his position that the Second Person of the Trinity (Jesus Christ, that is) created the universe 4,000-13,800,000,000 years before he was born is standard Calvinist theology or not. If he believes the Universe was created by a demiurge, that makes him a Cathar or Gnostic, but then he denies he said what he just said! I thought he and diby might have some interesting discussions.
He is on record that if he thought his God ordered him to commit genocide, he would—he’s said it more than once, but as usual denies it when called on it.
always good to see the religious realizing that their god was nothing more than an invention; even less than the standard primary plot device of a modern fiction novel.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge @621:
Some of us remember well.
/Blessed Thompson Submachine of Compassion
Boy, diby’s morpha-palooza is leaning heavily on “Mr. Diby StillObjects” and “Mr. Diby StillCertainlyObjects”. My quoting of H. G. Wells’ takedown of Belloc must really have gotten under his skin! Good.
I’ve argued with heddle a lot, too, and that doesn’t look like something he’s ever said even once, or would say at all.
x posted to the Lounge-
I’m at home being completely unproductive (I need to get *something* done today). I have the radio playing in the background and suddenly I hear the radio host mention a new product: drinkable sunscreen.
This was quite jarring, so I figured I’d check it out.
The Guardian has something to say about The Mail’s reporting on this product.
From The Mail (www.dailymail.co.uk/ *):
*The Mail’s site contains something called donotlink.com. I’ve never seen this before. The link says:
Interesting.
I didn’t say ‘thank you’ for that, and I should have. So, thank you. It’s sharp, witty, and often hilarious, e.g.:
I think this might have been what medic0506 was after. ;-)
—
Also, apparently, I’m “Father Smith & Wesson of Mercy”, which, interpreted literally, would be illegal where I live. (The firearms part, not the mercy.) So, erm, keep that schtum, kay?
Tony:
Jesus Effin’ Christ. Hello, skin cancer!
Inaji:
Yep.
More reporting on this:
Even HuffPo was critical of this pseudoscience product:
Checking out Dr. Ben Johnson’s website where he sells this (and other skin care products), I found that I cannot access the published research on their products unless I register (and even then I’m not guaranteed access).
I guess potential customers are supposed to accept the anecdotes as evidence of the efficacy of his products. Yeahbutno.
Tony quoth:
Oh for pity’s sake, why mince words? It’s water, nothing more, and it’s damned obvious it wouldn’t work.
ugh.
there is so much wrong my brain refuses to even TRY to parse a response beyond…
ugh.
Re “drinkable sunscreen” — I bet it all boils down to the priming effect of homeopathy. Water is magic! It can absorb “energy” from substances and that “energy” can cure illness!
If you already believe that, it’s not much of a leap to believing that something in water that’s drunk can magically block UV.
Bah.
It’s likely the government here in NZ would file suit against them for public endangerment for this “product”.
not kidding.
UV is nothing to fuck around with down here.
you really can’t stay out in the direct sun in the summer for more than about 30 mins without some kind of protection here.
I’m already noticing I have 50% more skin lesions related to UV exposure, and I’ve only been here 5 years!
pretty much the only significant downside I have experienced to living here. I grew up practically on the beach in SoCal; spending 4 or 5 hours at a time playing volleyball or just laying out.
not here, at least, not without either full sunscreen or a shirt on.
which is why I am still glad he no longer posts here.
I seem him on Ed’s blog from time to time, where he does the same exact thing you describe.
it matters not how many times you walk him through, step by step, pointing out to him why his arguments are nothing but projections on his part.
like you said…. NUH UH!! is his primary, and only, defense any more.
it’s too bad really, as most blogs could use more input from people with serious backgrounds in physics.
…but not Heddle. He just can’t help himself.
Using donotlink.com to cite a website hides the original http referrer, so that anyone looking at the logs at that site can’t easily tell where traffic has come from – which would easily allow a reverse attack. Secondarily, a donotlink URL on a reputable site that is used to conceal the link to a disreputable site means there won’t be a benefit in Google rankings from that site being linked. As an example, David Futrelle at
Manboobzwehuntedthemammoth.com cites the worst of the MRA websites using donotlink. It won’t necessarily stop a determined attempt to analyse traffic but it makes it far less easy for the bad sites to identify it.…that sounds more like Vox Day.
Heddle is more along the lines of:
Xians can’t be doing “X” because I don’t do “X” and I’m a xian.
In fact, he probably has indeed come into a thread on Vox Day and made the Scottsman’s argument… against Vox Day!
or after Pearl Harbor….
Xanthe @637:
Thanks for the information!
Since the current chewtoy has met their inevitable end, a recent thought:
I’ve seen it argued (usually by apologists for killing) that the biblical injunction “Thou shalt not kill” should better be translated as “Thou shalt not murder”. They then go on to define “murder” as “unlawful killing”.
Is it me, or does this completely remove any meaning from the commandment? If something is unlawful, it’s already forbidden. This basically reduces the commandment to “thou shalt not do that thing you’re already forbidden from doing”. With those definitions, it’s not an law or commandment at all, it’s merely a reminder that other laws already exist.
(“Thou shalt not kill” may have problems as a moral stricture, but at least it actually suggests/proscribes a course of action.)
Hi Tony!
Predictably, I saw the parallel discussion about this on the Lounge after I’d posted my response here. And there’s one other thing I have to say about donotlink links – when you visit a site your web browser exchanges all sorts of information you may not want to disclose, so if presented with a donotlink that I want to examine myself, I know to use the ‘stealth’ or ‘incognito’ mode of my web browser, which won’t accept cookies, won’t be able to use the login status of my WordPress, Google, or Twitter accounts, and so on.
Snoof @ 641: These people must have seen the signs on all public housing complexes around here: “Loitering and illegal activity prohibited in this area”. I always think to myself: “Isn’t the essence of illegal activity that it’s prohibited in every area?” They would just derive a new meaning of the word “prohibited”.
I want my friends to stop dying.
Don’t they understand how inconvenient it is?
‘course it’s just the old, decrepit ones
stroke on Monday, dead by Thursday
pancreatic cancer diagnosed on the 1st, dead by the 19th
しかたがない。
?
Why is that? It’s a generally higher latiitude than Southern California.
Ozone hole?
Chigau @ 644:
Wow! I’m really sorry. That sucks!
There’s no such thing as “luck”, but it sounds like statistics have fluctuated you upside the head for some little while. Here’s hoping they fluctuate the other way for longer.
?
Of course there is. What does it even mean to claim otherwise?
ChasCPeterson @ 645:
I wondered about that too. Here’s “Ask an Expert” from A(ustralian)BC Science:
I suspect this is because the Southern Hemisphere is higher than the Northern—everybody knows the Earth bulges at the equator, but also it doesn’t go back down quite all the way south of the equator. It’s as if the Earth were a globe made out of two halves that were slightly different sizes.
Chas @ 647:
“Luck” is when the laws of probability don’t operate. If you believe in “luck” you must also believe there are ways to “change” your “luck”. Wearing the right sweater, praying to YHWH, whatever.
“Luck” means the game is rigged.
Chigau, I am so sorry for your losses. Hugs & Rum to you.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
Ináji
Thanks.
I’m going to bed.
chigau, I’m so sorry.
chigau
Big hugs
+++
How on earth is that even supposed to be possible?
How long does it need for the water to get to my skin from my belly? And how does it get onto my skin anyway? Do I need to do a run to get sweaty? And if I get sweaty, does it wear off (or go for a swim). Seriously, anybody who buys this should not count legally as an adult
big time.
UV radiation here has increased by about 15% over the last 20 years (on average, some days worse than others), though it seems to be stabilizing a bit recently.
odd, but just that apparently small increase is VERY noticeable on your skin.
like I said… you burn inside of 20 mins here if you are fair skinned. I have friends from India who even complain about it; they’re shocked that the sun actually bothers them here, and they can’t stay outside for very long.
actually, it’s not directly “the hole” so much as the influence of it over Antarctica, but in the end, it ends up being the same thing.
@ 641 Snoof
Re: “thou shalt not kill”
You’re in your cubicle. The phone keeps ringing. People come by and talk to you about assorted nonsense. Email is a swamp. You go to lunch and become more distracted than you already were. As a result, you forget stuff. In order to remember important points, you put post-it notes up on your wall.
There weren’t any office supply stores in the desert, so the post-it stone was created. It stuck to stuff.
(Also, lunch fell out of the ceiling.)
Solved.
Australia has the highest skin cancer incidence in the world, with NZ not far behind. It’s a deadly combination of a population consisting of lots of anglo-saxon whities with type 1-2 skin, and a relentless sun beaming down through a weak ozone layer.
My transition to skin cancer specialist will be complete within a year or two, it’s a nice job, wielding a handheld microscope some days, cutting out moles on others.
The science of it is quite fascinating, actually, and high-magnification pics of skin cancers are just as beautiful as space images from Hubble, if in a morbid way.
And I say that as someone who used to get a thrill only out of resuscitating people.
@ chigau
{chocolate covered rum hugs proffered }
good luck with that, it’s surely needed!
hell, I may come for a visit once you set up your practice.
The holdup is that besides getting a university degree in skin cancer medicine while working full time in general practice, you need to acquire fellowship of the GP college first, which involves another exam.
And right now I neither have the time or money to do both(while working as apprentice in general practice, 35-40% of your earnings is decucted from your pre-tax pay to remain with the clinic, not dissimilar to hookers working in a brothel).
But yeah, the goal is somewhat in my sight. I never thought I would ever be able to actually do a job that I enjoy. Might actually happen after all.
@ rorschach
And there I was, thinking Architecture was the second oldest profession.
In a trivial sense, all sunblock is drinkable.
knownknot @ 656
That’s kind of my point. It turns “thou shalt not kill” from a commandment against a specific course of action (killing) to a mere reminder that other laws exist, somewhere. As such, it can’t possibly be the basis of any sort of system of morality or law, since it doesn’t actually have any moral meaning in itself.
Antiochus Epiphanes @ 662
But not all sunblock is drinkable more than once.
PZ is going to close this one in a minute anyway, so I’m a going to get a nice song in before close of play, in the tradition of the endless thread…
Day Dream Believer
To embed, or not embed?? I’m curious myself.
Purple jellyfish
[Capt. Obvious here]: but once drank, does it still block the sun? That a sunblock is safe to drink does not make it a drinkable sunblock. The “drinkable sunblock” is the homeopathic version; of course you can drink water, but the homeopathy nature of it will block the UV before it even hits your skin. How the water in your blood produces a StarTrek energy shield is the homeopathy/mystery part. How could anyone ever accept this as real?
opposablethumbs
Giliell
theophontes
Thanks.
chigau: So sorry about all the bad things. *shoulder chuck*
Antiochus Epiphanes
Thank you.
I remember once I was sitting in a library in VT, in a sunny reading alcove, and my skin started to tingle. I thought, Wow, my skin feels just like it did when I got off the plane in NZ.
That night and the following night was the biggest display of aurora borealis I’ve ever seen in the northeast.
chigau
So sorry. :(
*hugs with rum* are on offer, and *chocolate covered sour cherries*
Thanks, rq.
Trace Amounts: Documentary film explores science behind autism epidemic
Just a warning, that’s a link to Natural News, so you can guess where it is going.
Battleaxe:
Diby has shown up on Ed’s blog:
chigau:
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Chigau:
Understood, at least to some degree.
May some form of beauty overtake everything else, and may the wake of those lives be part of it.
Tony!
knowknot
Thankyou.
Diby’s in more than one thread at Ed’s.
PZ, you should apologise.
@chigau:
Death sucks eggs.
Have some baby cephalopods
chigau,
I’m so sorry to hear your sad news. Hugs and comfort.
chigau,
Hard news. I will raise a rum for you at my earliest convenience.
CD
morgan
Dhorvath
Thank you.
Hm. I thought was much stupider than . But comment 591 is so far over the top it could actually be parodizing himself to troll us. But the morphing is not so much like him (in the last 5 years).
Last time he was here, he commented simply as “Alex” and was logged in via Facebook. He’s *shudder* married and has two daughters.
Ah, that makes sense.
LOL! Now I’m imagining Hitler facepalming that Franco actually believed the propaganda!
…No. Not Hitler. Hitler believed it, too.
+ 1
(And an entertaining read that is, too!)
I can tell that Dr Johnson doesn’t know that UVC exists. What did he get his doctorate in…?
That meaneth he sayeth, not he quoteth.
chigau,
My condolences.
Thank you, Beatrice.
chigau
*hugs* and condolences.
Thanks, Dalillama.
O.o
I thought Steersman was banned from B&W
Hugs and brownies to Chigau.
Thanks, Oggie.
Nice to see you.
Tony! This was noticed on Facebook also, where Ophelia gave an explanation. He is banned, or rather his comments automatically go to moderation, where they exist at Ophelia’s plaisir. Ophelia let that comment through because it was such a witless, foolish mistake of a comment – it serves as a negative example of the quality of his posts. Apparently Steerstroll was emboldened to post a much longer comment as is his wont, and this did not please Ophelia nearly so much – he is a tedious ass.
Chigau, my condolences, losing friends so suddenly like that is horrible.
NEW THREAD.