This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Raif Badawi will be receiving 50 of his sentenced 1000 public lashes tomorrow in Saudi Arabia. The crime? Insulting Islam on the internet, of course.
Public flogging for expressing your opinion about a religion in the year 2015. I think I saw something similar on The Tudors the other day.
Where are the sanctions and cessation of military aid from the U.S.?
Blogger Soheil Arabi is sentenced to hang for insulting Muhammad.
Mohsen Amir-Aslani was hanged in September for saying the story of Jonah in the Quran is symbolic and not literal. That’s how far behind they are. To say reformation is desperately needed in the Muslim world is an understatement. The government denied they hanged him for blasphemy though. They said it’s because he had sex with other people in the Quran reading sessions. Because that makes it totally justified.
I emailed the Saudi embassy an hour ago & told them that I’m disgusted with their backward country. I don’t expect them to immediately commute or even cancel the sentence, or institute reforms, however. But I did feel a need to let them know that they are regarded with disgust.
What is the thing I need most right before I move into a new apartment?
674USD of car repairs, that’s what! Brakes went to the floor on my way out of work, I go straight to firestone, both rear calipers are failed, one rear rotor is rusted through and in two pieces, one of the calipers blew out leaking all my brake fluid. It was a mess.
Dad was able to loan the money so moving otu is still happening, but still, that’s a lot of money I didn’t want to have to spend even if I get to spread it out over a couple months.
Checking in.
We’re in the approval process for a new power chair — The Behemoth is, sadly, beyond repair. It’s not a damage issue, well… it is, but haven’t wrecked her; she’s just old, obsolete, and worn down. You can’t even find parts for this particular model any more!
With any luck, the state won’t have it’s head up it’s ass…
More tentacles and other appendages crossing for WMDKitty and gworroll. Success in your respective endeavors.
Rupt again
Congrats, gworroll, on the lease approval. Sorry bout the car though :(
–
Portia
C’mon, Portia. We expect better than “rupt” from you. Obviously you should be sitting in front of your computer ceaselessly hitting refresh and taking in every little bit of FtB. The heck with knitting and fighting fires and work. We have standards here.
Giliell
Lad, boy, man, dude with the pair of L’s in the wrong place — thank you for what you did/are doing on those two other posts. This goes for all the others, too, but it seemed in this case, Giliell took the worst of it.
ajb47
You made me smile ^_^ I’ve got some tea to share as penance for my shameful condition of ruptitude.
gworroll
Ugh. My sympathies.
WMDKitty
Best wishes.
What’s the name of that cable that delivers power from the alternator to the rest of the car? I need to get it replace on my 96 Tercel.
Supposedly the repair manual can be found here:
http://board.tercelonline.com/viewthread.php?tid=38963
@2 dick
If you don’t already, and if you can afford to, I’d strongly recommend donating to Amnesty International. They frequently put their efforts to stopping atrocities like that, and have had numerous successes.
Portia
Tea? You think tea is adequate penance by itself? Maybe if there were biscuits…
I find myself about lose my wife to Orlando and her firm’s partner’s retreat for the weekend. I have no complaint, really, except that I’ll miss my wife while she’s away.
CBC News reports that the surviving staff members of Charlie Hebdo say they will publish the next issue of the magazine on schedule.
So I am taking an art class (currently a beginner at drawing), and what better way to get the hang of drawing than some nice, wholesome blasphemy? Therefore I bring you:
Muhammad Sketchbook Log:
Currently Drawn:
Brohammad {Sunglasses and smoking a joint}
Slowhammad (Pikachu be upon him) {Slowpoke with beard and turban (though its hat already kind of looks like one)}
Snowhammad {Snowman with extra sphere on head and twig beard}
Crowhammad (Peep be upon him) {Crow with a turban with a feather in it because I find the idea of a bird wearing a feathered hat hilarious}
Showhammad {Muhammad on a TV screen}
Knowhammad {Muhammad as a nerd, saying X = 0 in reference to algebra and the number 0}
Nohammad {A dotted outline of Muhammad}
Glowhammad {Muhammad with a lightbulb for a turban, wearing a suit like Edison}
Moohammad (Cheese be upon him) {Minotaur Muhammad with a wheel of cheese on his head}
Planned:
MuHammad {Muhammad eating deliciously haram bacon}
Muhammead (Bees be upon him) {Muhammad with a keg of mead, a beekeeper’s hat, and a beehive on his head}
Muhammered {Drunk Muhammad; Muhammead is pouring him another drink}
Muhammerhead (Seas be upon him) {But who would win in a fight between Muhammerhead SBUH and Raptor Jesus?}
I plan to scan the page and upload it somewhere once it is full.
Any more suggestions for visual Muhammad puns?
Giliell,
That song got me into listening traditional Sephardic music
“Wait, I’m Not #Charlie. I’m #Ahmed.”
Cross-posting from both the Charlie Hebdo massacre thread, because good article: 9 Points to Ponder on the Paris Shooting and Charlie Hebdo.
Le sigh
I think today it’s really less internet, more final thesis
rq,
That’s a great article
Anyone have any good suggestions for interesting, colourful documentaries on insects/spiders/other creepy-crawlies that would captivate children?
Giliell
Good luck with that. :)
@rq: “Life in the Undergrowth”, BBC + Attenborough = awesome.
Er, the one in 17, haven’t read 18 yet
@rq “Microcosmos” has some stunning insect visuals. There is no narration, however, just music, so you don’t learn as much as you might from other nature docs.
Chris
That’s okay, too – the explanatory bits aren’t currently as meaningful as the visuals. Thanks!
F.O.
Thank you for that suggestion, too.
(BBC + Attenborough seems to be a pretty good standby in general.)
I’ve already contacted a monitor through the sidebar link, but I’d like to let everyone else know Azuma Hazuki called for consciousness razor to die.
Hi all. Here’s another drop off of *hugs*. As long as Giliell doesn’t take them all there should be plenty to go round!
rq : I’m sorry to bring this up, but if my memory serves you mentioned a good friend of yours whose grandmother died on New Year’s Day. Coincidentally a colleague of my wife has had to return to Canada as their grandmother passed on New Year’s Day too. I didn’t like to bring it up, but I thought it was quite a coincidence!
I haven’t had the spoons this week to join in with the Paris shooting comments.
Bill Cosby is a vile asshole. He made a rape joke to a woman in the audience of his most recent stand up gig.
And that audience? A bunch of fucking assholes.
bassmike
Condolences to the colleague of your wife.
Interesting coincidence, indeed, though I doubt it was the same grandmother. :) (Friend was an only child, and all of her cousins have remained in Canada, as far as I know.)
Don’t worry about not having the spoons, it’s been another horrifying week. And here’s to 2015 being a better year.
Tony
IMO, anyone who still buys tickets to a Cosby show is an asshole.
And you got the death-wish treatment too, I see. :( *hugs*
rq
Careful, or you’ll be told you support rape jokes.
Tony
Hey, why don’t we spend eternity together?
rq @31:
::sigh:: I just saw Azuma’s comment to me. Damn, they’re just waaaaaaaay far gone.
Giliell @32:
I’m game.
What are we going to do after the first 1,000 years though?
Giliell
Wait, what?
rq I figures that it was just coincidence. I’m with you in hoping that 2015 is better. Both on a global scale and a personal one!
Well, I had some links to add to the ‘Later this morning in America’ thread, but the page won’t load for me. I’ve tried 6 times now. Guess I’ll wait til the morning. Err, later in the morning (i.e. in the afternoon when I wake).
If you need assistance, Tony, I can post them up with reference to you, if it won’t load for you later either!
Legumes of the world, unite!!! We’re all peas at heart, it turns out.
All legumes-save peas-are welcome in my home (and lima beans).
rq
You’re invited, too
Tony
Play scrabble?
+++
Maybe I’m at least as smart as the people who write these books. But it’s a bit disappointing when you read a page, think “I gotta idea! I gotta idea! Original! Original!” and on the next page they have the exact same idea. So unfair!
No, Giliell, I was wondering about the rape joke bit.
Monitor note
Tony!@27,
PZ will see your email about Azuma Hazuki I think, but I’ll resend anyway.
rq
Oh, I was making a reference. You know, you seem to be simultaneously saying that tellinh a rape joke is bad (especially when you’re accused of many of them and that giving money to an accused rapist for his show is also bad.
You cannot do both, I’m afraid.
Oh. Really?
Are we having issues with the simultaneity effect again?
rq
Only one thought at one time, please.
@21 rq
Another Attenborough’s treasure: Micro Monsters 3D
You might also want to check out Empire of the Desert Ants, Planet Ant-Life Inside the Colony and Spider House. Even if they don’t follow the content, the images are wonderful.
KatieKat, I found another example of “Plotz” in an old collection volume of MAD magazine.
A literature hack explains the business of literature to a reporter. He points out an example of milking past successes; an author stands beside copies of his best sellers: “In Cold Blood”, In Colder Blood” and “Blood So Cold That You Will Plotz”!
Ok. I think that’s enough for me. I’ve exhausted any patience I have for Azuma. Think it’s time for bed. Hopefully when I wake up, I’ll see the red letters o’ doom from teh Poopyhead (not directed my way; I’d hate to deprive you all of my dazzling wit and sparkling personality)
I like “Raptor Jesus”
B eatrice, In regard to “Retu rn F rom The Stars” I did not read the whole novel. I did not knowt it contaned a rape.
So did Kurt Vonnegut’s “Welcome To the Monkey House”. What is it with authors born in the 1920s and rape??
— — — —
Saad.
The arbitrary laws about heresy serve as rubber paragraphs to execute people who dare question the system. Like the Third Reich “schutzhaft” it can be used on anyone for anthing.
But don’t you see? Raif Badawi is going to be flogged for the crime of displeasing the clerical aristocracy which lord over Saudi Arabia, therefore expressing murderous intent toward people who feel disgusted by the notion of treating like shit french commoners who happen to belong to the muslim laity is to-ta-lly ra-tio-nal
/sarcasm
Thanks for the recommendation, cicely!
Anne, thanks for that link! Those are better than the other info I’ve seen.
It’s 20 degrees outside now – after yesterday, it’s like going to the beach!
Howdy. I’m Eric and I’m an atheist. I’ve made random comments here & there, but am far & away NOT a regular here (or outside the lounge, truth be told). It’s too… exuberant for me.
Anyway, hey guys! I didn’t mean to interrupt.
I have a horrible case of SIWOTI. HELP!
****
Eric @54:
Welcome to the Lounge.
Don’t worry about the exuberance outside the Lounge. Many a commenter has preferred to limit their participation to the Lounge and that is absolutely fine. We’re a friendly crowd around here.
Oh, and you’re not interrupting anything. We tend to have multiple conversations going on at any time. Feel free to jump in or chat about something you like.
As the resident mixologist, can I offer you a tasty adult beverage (or a N/A version)?
@#55: Tony: I already have vodka & Sprite going IRL, so no virtual drink is necessary.
Thanks for the welcome. I just read PZ’s articles and read some of the comments, so I “technically” know some of you via comments I’ve read. I recognize a number of names here (how do you find the time??).
I’m gonna just watch for now & respond to what I can. Not used to this..
Though, if we’re talking virtual cocktails, I’d like a proper Manhattan. :-)
Hallo, Eric. Before you settle in, please complete this paperwork.
Or just write a comment expressing your thoughts on (a) cheese (b) horses (c) peas (BONUS) Miracle Whip. Sorry for the sloppy formatting. Answers due LAST WEEK or else no comfy chair!
(Hi.) :)
Tony
Get thee off to bed.
::A queer shoop saunters up to the bar. First he fills a martini glass with ice and water to chill it. From the huge bourbon inventory PZ kindly keeps stocked up for the Lounge, he grabs a bottle of Maker’s Mark. Then he grabs a bottle of Sweet Vermouth. Then a shaker tin with ice. After a 3-count of Vermouth and a 9-count of bourbon is added to the shaker tin, the mixture is shaken vigorously. It is then strained into the no-longer-contains-ice & water-martini glass and a cherry is dropped in to garnish. Hands drink to Eric.::
Of course only after I’ve made the drink do I think to ask if you wanted it straight up or on the rocks (and, for that matter, if by proper Manhattan, you meant one with Angostura Bitters, which some people prefer in their Manhattans ((but not others)) ).
****
rq:
Yeah, it’s about time to become one with my 7 pillows as I drift off into the land of Morpheus (I’ve only been saying that for like an hour).
I need to practice my HTML:
@rq:
a) Fontina
b) Arabian
c) as nasal weapons
d) Gross. Miracle Whip is an abomination before mayonnaise.
@59Tony: Yes, proper as in bitters. Glad you chose Maker’s; it is a fine Bourbon. Thank you. I can only wish it were real.
Good morning Lounge!
Welcome in, Eric. We are prone to non sequiturs and whatnot, and there are people are varying levels of participation and exuberance. Join in at your leisure.
–
The wind has covered the roads with the snow that fell three days ago, and now the temp is diving again after a short respite yesterday. Gonna go nowhere as much as possible. After work, that is.
Tony, #29
Geez, you weren’t kidding:
Source
Hello and welcome, Eric!
Welcome, Eric!
rq, Giliell, Tony!, Daz, Rowan, and all the rest of you who have been working so hard on the Charlie Hebdo threads, thank you. The basket of hugs is overflowing, the tea is hot and fresh, and the pillow fort is always open.
Anne
I haven’t been working as hard as the others, I just like to stick my foot in every now and then.
Hello and welcome, eric
The frustrating part for me is how completely derailed that thread is now. People like Azuma make our point for us. What would have otherwise been a serious discussion with updates on the situation like the Good Morning, America thread is now all about vile anti-Muslim bigotry. What a shame.
@68 Saad
Yep, but shit like that needs to be addressed. She won’t stop being a violent bigot and as long as she continues to contaminate that thread with her disgusting violent bigotry, it can’t be ignored.
Saad
Agreed.
I would say it should have gone to the Thunderdome earlier than this, but I doubt Azuma would have listened. It might be a good time to re-rail the thread, though, with more focus on updates, because frankly, I’d much rather talk about that than Azuma’s hatefulness.
+++
Not a good time to get involved in a ‘diet can prevent cancer’ conversation on FB.
Especially since Person just fell all over themselves by first saying that of course diet prevents (not reduces chances of, but prevents) cancer, but then two comments later, it is impossible to prevent cancer through diet because it is not possible to eat perfectly enough. *sigh* Not a good day for this.
azhael,
I didn’t mean to imply ignore her. I meant ban her from the thread after a few posts. She made it very clear what her position was despite facing criticism from nearly everyone. I haven’t seen this much double down since I was last in KFC. Or was it Dawkins’ Twitter?
Ugh. A friend of mine from Austria and I talked about the recent attacks. Of course he blames Islam as a whole and excuses everything the west did to those Islamic states. And then got all pissy with me for saying we have to look at why things happen to prevent them, which includes looking at the context of which things occur. He believed this last claim means I think what happened to those cartoonists is okay. He claimed that there is plenty of empirical evidence of muslims causing the greatest harm – in spite of the massacres, political manipulation, and arbitrary borders prescribed by western nations. He also said the Koran leaves no room for interpretation, and I therefore have to wonder why then there are sects of muslims that disagree with each others’ interpretations. I think I set him straight on what I think, but holy shit why do islamophobes think they are being rational and empirical?
Oh, i know Saad, I was just adding to your comment. I know you weren’t implying that. I too wish she had been prevented from continuing to post her hatred all over that thread, over and over, but she wasn’t….
Saad, azhael:
PZ doesn’t ban commenters all that often. He usually leaves the commentariat to eviscerate trolls, bigots, and the assorted n’er do wells who show up here. And even when an alert is sent by a monitor, all that does is flag a particular comment. PZ might decide to ban the commenter from Pharyngula (or just a particular thread), quarantine them to the Thunderdome, or disemvowel their comments (although I’m thinking that takes a bit more work than kicking them out of a thread).
I don’t know for sure, but at a guess, I figure PZ knows that the commentariat won’t let shit stand. Plus, the process of shredding poor arguments or calling out bigotry can be educational for others.
rq:
I was totes gonna go to bed, but in my defense, I laid down to rest last night around 9 pm and awoke at 2, so my sleep pattern is off. I still haven’t given up on visiting the Sandman, though. I don’t have to work until 3, so I can get a little bit of shut-eye. Of course, there’s the lil’ problem of me not currently being all that tired (but just tired enough to not be much good for anything).
Tony
*tsk tsk*
A tired Tony is a useless Tony! And you should post up those two articles you have on FB. :)
Also, I think Azuma’s comments on that thread were ban-worthy, especially after the porcupine trope was brought out.
I think PZ is busy, though, which is why he hasn’t got around to the thread yet.
I’m so proud of myself. I got accused of being part of the Illuminati yesterday. :D
I spent several hours last night chatting online with a muslim man from Algiers. His English wasn’t very good, and I don’t speak Arabic or French, but he still managed to express that he thought one of the eyewitness videos from the attack on the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists was faked. (So there must be one less dead, or something? He agreed that those killed inside the building were actually killed, but insisted this one outside wasn’t.) And 9/11 was an inside job (because you can totes see the blasting caps falling in the videos). And we didn’t actually go to the moon (check the shadows!). And his god created the universe (because a ship needs a captain to make it from the US to Algiers).
He accused me of being a man and part of the Illuminati after I said I didn’t buy into his conspiracy theories. I laughed so hard.
Yellow Thursday @77:
Wait, you’re not part of the Illuminati? Then who’s the Yellow Thursday that sits next to me in our weekly world domination meetings?
One of you is a pod person!
The CDC reports that USAmericans are more likely to die from getting shot than in car accidents. Heeeey PZ, isn’t it about time for a gun related post? We always have fun with those…
I think she has been so surreally over the top and ticked so many different boxes that a ban is probably warranted, but of course that’s for PZ to decide. In that last comment of mine i was refering to banning her from that thread, at least…I agree that such spectacles can be very educational and i’m all for leaving that kind of stuff out in the open for everybody to see whether it’s me or someone else who fucks up, but after several of her posts i don’t think there was any point to it anymore…it was just vile for the sake of vile…
Can anyone tell me how to change my avatar? I assumed it populated from my facebook but that’s not my facebook picture anymore.
Ooh, this is big.
New chief of Discovery Channel wants to get rid of mermaids, megalodons, and all the other fake shit
French news reporting hostage saved (Dammartin), several hostages saved (Paris).
Local news has it that all suspects have been killed. Can’t confirm, though.
Tony @78
Shhhh! You’re not supposed to tell anyone about the meetings! The shoop’s out of the bag, now! We’ll have to move the meetings to the undersea dome.
… that is, I mean…. <..> *ahem* I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Oops, NVM!
There is footage of several people apparently (five or six) fleeing the supermarket after the police raid, including (I think) a child being carried. The question is how many people haven’t escaped with their life.
AFP suggests that the Dammartin suspects came out firing on the security forces – well isn’t that just so fucking Butch and Sundance? Fucking ridiculous murdering arseholes who think they know what glory and martyrdom is.
Off to work. The question is, do I stop in the bookstore on the way, or nah?
*pops in, swipes the shaker with the Manhattan*
*pops out*
Portia @89:
That’s fine. It was freshly washed 20 minutes ago :)
Saad, my admiration to you, too for your hard work on the Charlie Hebdo threads. Anyone else I missed naming specifically, I apologize profusely.
rq
I think you know the right, moral, and upright answer to your question.
Given the choice, always choose to shop for books.
–
I’m reading Azuma’s flameout.
It reads like someone worn down to the breaking point. I sort of feel sorry for her, even with all her reprehensible comments.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/alabama-shooting-range-promotes-gun-safety-with-photographs-of-armed-infants-and-children/
The article is yet another Tale of Gundamentalist Idiocy, but the accompanying image kills me. It’s not that it’s bad. It’s that it’s accurate. White person. Football. Guns. All that’s needed is a cross or bible (and a sign reading “this is what America is all about”).
Portia
I’m psychic because I totally took your advice before I even read it. :)
Final literary count: 4 new reading victims, two of which are mystery reads in that I don’t know who the authors are and I chose them on the basis of (a) cover illustration and (b) blurb on the back and (c) the ring of the title.
The other two are Margaret Atwood’s rather-less-than-newest The Year of the Flood (I read Oryx and Crake in both languages and then sort of stopped having the opportunity to buy many books and I want to finish the trilogy) and a Dick Francis book by the son of Dick Francis whose name escapes me at the moment and I left the bag of books in the car so as to be less distracted. Anyhoo, yay me! That’s pretty much the year’s quota right there. *sigh*
Speaking of books, one of the christmas books was Ursula K LeGuin’s Left Hand of Darkness, as translated into Latvian. I must say, they didn’t mangle it too much, with a few problematic issues with the pronouns that are more pronounced in Latvian than in English. But altogether, well done. I still prefer the English, as it is a more solid language – Latvian can get too colourfully flighty and poetic, even when it doesn’t need to be, and that sort of ruined the gravitas towards the end, but still, enjoyable and worth the 5 euros I paid for it (yay discounts).
Annnyway.
It’s raining and tomorrow evening is the Second Largest Storm of This Century, so I best get some work done tonight. :P
FFS – two hostages being held by a gunman in Montpellier.
It may just be a botched robbery, in which case the robber needs to start talking, because there isn’t going to be an under-reaction.
Bernard
I like how the reporting is so low-key and matter-of-fact, right down to mentioning that there is no reason to connect this to the other incidents. Hello, less fear-mongering!
rq @96:
Just wait until mainstream news agencies in the States pick up the story. I’m sure there will be plenty of fear-mongering.
****
I’m eating edamame. It is good.
Je suis Charlie!
Basically, yes. They’ve said next week’s edition will come out (on Wednesday (the usual day), 14-January), and they are planning a one million copy print run (the usual is c.60,000 copies). Funding, equipment, office space, etc., is being donated through a number of sources (it is, unsurprisingly, all a bit uncoordinated at the moment), and the distributors have said they won’t charge for next week’s issue.
Sources: Al Jazeera English, The Grauniad, and others. (The Grauniad’s parent organization has pledged £100,000.)
From the ‘Later on this morning in America’ thread, rq asked:
I just checked, and yeah, the ‘Jr’ is on my birth certificate. It’s part of my actual name.
Yeah, sorry, that was totally off-topic. :P
Interesting. I wonder if that applies in all cases – do you think it is important to put in that Jr., or is it okay to leave it out, just like it’s okay to say Mike Brown instead of Michael Brown Jr all the time?
Je suis Charlie!
I used to live in Montpellier and recognize the area. Which isn’t hard, actually, that is very much in the central area.
Thanks, Anne (#91) :)
Good evening
K.R. Syncanna
You’re always welcome in the pillow-fort.
Yellow Thursday, you too
Well, some people are equal opportunity offenders, we’re equal opportunity hated…
We’re gonna need a bigger pillow fort. :D
Just beware of the tiger – Hobbes gets pouncy sometimes.
feministhomemaker in the Russia thread brings up a question that’s also been on my mind lately: Where do we go to complain about advertisements again? They’re complaining of a noisy popup for a game called League of Angels, while I’m having a problem that periodically when I try to go to ‘Recent Comments’ on my phone, my browser is highjacked to open Google Play and try to make me install new apps. This, incidentally, is why I categorically refuse to turn off my adblocker or whitelist any website whatsoever under any circumstances; despite promises to the contrary, no one is ever able to meet my very simple requirements regarding ads: No popups, no movement, no noise, no javascript that crashes my browser, and above all, no hijacking my clicks and taking me somewhere else entirely.
Je suis Charlie !
What color is the sky on your planet?
And how many swallows does it take to carry an unshelled potatoe?
Nevermind, found chigau’s advice in that thread.
Giliell, thanks for the invite to the pillow fort. :)
Is there still a line for the ghey secks with Brownian (yeah, I know he changed his ‘nym), or has everybody who hasn’t been sated wandered off? ;)
Yellow Thursday @108:
I think when he changed his nym he closed down the queue. Just as well, there were too many people ahead of me anyways.
****
Does anyone need a short squee inducing video to lift their spirits up?
It’s got a cat, a human, and a baby’s bottle and lasts 1:22.
Ergh.
This just also happened
Hundreds (if not thousands) of people killed in a mass murder by Boko Haram. Sadly, the victims’ skins are too dark and they don’t have much connection to global politics so let’s keep an eye out for around the clock news coverage, pundits having panel discussions, and memes flooding social media.
and now for something completely different:
Czechs Reach For Kebabs After Firebrand Politician Slams ‘Radical’ Muslims
well, that was completely inappropriate after Saad’s comment
10-year-old shames Boston Globe
Beatrice
Also I saw on twitter a version of #illridewithyou popped up in France. Don’t know if it took off, though.
I like Okamura’s assumption that women eat their food through the veil. Mm-mmm, I always thought I needed more fibre in my diet.
Saad
Posted about it yesterday.
the best those people can hope for is become some white people’s punchline, I guess…
beatrice
the Czechs have an awesome sense of humour.
BTW, that word in English, it’s a mess…
Giliell,
Yes it is! I’ll forget (again) how to spell it in about 5 minutes.
Beatrice,
Hah, I understand. Happens all the time.
There must be some number which would serves as a threshold. How many black people from Nigerian villages and towns have to die for it to be THE main news on news websites. Would a million do it?
Suggestion to PZ
A thread about events in Nigeria.
on completely unrelated to anything note…
ARCHER IS BACK!
*squee*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV_QT9wUVwA
It works. Consider: What do all cancer victims have in common? Being alive. And is a necessary part of being alive? Eating. Therefore, if you never eat, you will never get cancer. I rest my case.
EveryZig
You outtgha change your ‘nym to ‘EveryZing’. ;)
In other news, I have to go to court on Monday. As an expert witness, boo-yah!
The only problem here is that we don’t actually get any lessons in how to present evidence in a court, so I’ll just have to wing it, but I’ll have More Experienced In Court Colleague with me, so it should go well. What could possibly go wrong?
How many Muslims do you think are in your country? Randy McDonald has a post up at Demography Matters that includes a graphic noting that people in various countries greatly overestimate the number of Muslims in their country. People in France apparently think 31 percent of the population are Muslim when it’s actually 8 percent. Canadians think 20 percent are Muslim, 10 times the actual figure of 2 percent. Even the Japanese overestimate the number of Muslims in Japan.
http://demographymatters.blogspot.ca/2015/01/on-systematically-overestimating.html
A few loungers might appreciate this, I think. :3
Did anyone else catch PZ on Radio 4’s ‘more or less’ programme this Afternoon ( Britain 4.30pm) ? It relates to a post PZ made a few days ago regarding the role of bad luck in getting cancer.
I’ve had a look on the internet and there does seem to be an indication that the ‘listen again’ service is available in other countries but to be honest i’m not sure.
Here’s the link if anyone outside the UK wants to give it a try.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04xf1d5
timgueguen
I know that every muslim in Saxony manages to frighten 3 people who need to huddle together at the Pegida demo to find strength in numbers.
I think it’s 4-5 million in Germany. It’s hard to tell because yes, culture and religion are interwoven, so even those who don’t give a fuck about the religious stuff will identify as “muslim”
my face right now
I’m sorry, Saad.
Same numbers and same problem in France: many Christians and Atheists who happen to have Muslim ancestors are nonetheless identified as Muslim by people who swear that they’d never confuse Islam with an ethnicity.
Of course, the irony is that if France was 31% Muslim, as people polled claim to believe, the Muslim community would simply be way too powerful through sheer numbers to remain a viable target for the far-right, who most probably would fall back to its old antisemitic habits.
PZ, this may already have been mentioned, but you once expressed dismay that no one told you about the Greenwald piece on Harris until a year or 2 later. Well, here is Greenwald’s masterwork. I hope it finds a way into Pharyngula: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/09/solidarity-charlie-hebdo-cartoons/
laurentweppe
Now, of course, since those terrorists are also virulently anti-semitic, jewish people are their best buddies. Thankfully most of them are too smart to fall for it. If there was one good thing it was the usually insufferable Michel Friedmann* closing ranks with representatives of muslim communities on TV
*Member of the German Jewish Council
Saad, *hugs*
Signed the lease, got the key, and holy crap I have an apartment. The closet is huge.
WOOHOO! :D
gworroll,
YAY!! Congrats!
You mean like this, Nigeria: 2,000 feared killed in Boko Haram’s ‘deadliest massacre’, which has been on the front page of The Grauniad for multiple hours now (since before your insulting comment quoted above). Your USAlienstani “lamestram media” bias can feck off.
gworroll
WOO HOO!!! *confetti&blackbread&salt*
It’s traditional Latvian housewarming (though I added the confetti just for fun). Enjoy the new residence, I hope it works out well for you!!
Yay gworroll
Ehm, actually? that’s the apartment. ;)
That’s a staggeringly huge number. If true, and Muslims were anywhere near as consistently aggressive and united as islamaphobic assholes think, France would be *done*. That was roughly the portion of the population that supported the American Revolution, though to be fair, we did need a lot of outside help.
from blf’s link
TW violence
.
.
.
.
what do you want to bet that women were included in that “slowed down” group because they were the ones socialized to care for the other two groups? Just horrific on so many levels.
blf #137
I could be wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure Saad is Dutch, and not a Yank. Nor does a single headline in a single news outlet in any way defy Saad’s point, which is that this isn’t headline news in every news outlet in the Western world, and will almost certainly not continue to be headline news for days after the fact, with multiple articles analyzing every detail about the victims, the killers, their motivations, etc. etc. etc.
blf,
WtF?
Sure, Saad is biased, not all the papers posting article after article after article about attacks in France and at most a single article buried somewhere about Boko Haram massacre. (fine, in that one example it’s on the front page)
Since one example is enough to proclaim QED, here’s mine: bbc.com doesn’t even have Boko Haram mentioned on the front page.
ta-dam!
blf,
I do live in the U.S., but I’m spot on with my comment. Coverage of this is and will be taking a very distant back seat to Charlie Hebdo and the Boston marathon bombing. You’re wrong if you think the Guardian or any major British publication will be covering the Baga massacre with anything like the depth and detail and probing that they’re covering the Charlie Hebdo killings with.
My comment also wasn’t insulting. Well, it was insulting to the media culture (and I suppose people outside of the affected area in general) for treating Nigerian lives with disregard because they won’t get them ratings.
my siwoti has been triggered
the independent
How satellite imagery may finally uncover the tomb of Genghis Khan is above the article about the massacre, for fuck sake.
By the time I scrolled down there, I already half-decided to give up the search.
Saad
And entirely deservedly so.
Because as it stands, even the oh-so-in-depth coverage of Charlie Hebdo downplays the non-white deaths in the massacre.
And then there’s the attempted NAACP bombing in Denver a couple of days ago, still only minor mentions.
+++
And boogers. Now I can’t decide if I’d rather live on Salad Street, or Ozone Street. Or Concrete Lane. *wiggles eyebrows* (No, we’re not moving, I just come into contact with a lot of interesting street names via work.)
Saad
My bad, then. Sorry about that.
rq,
In Slovenia, I pass through a village called Village.
Well, I watched the German news extensively today. The Boko Haram massacre was mentioned, each time, like 20 seconds, right before the weather. You’ve got to go looking for it on the Tagesschau website.
Also, mentioning of attacks against mosques etc.: zero
Asked Mr. today if he heard of them. Of course no.t
Dalillama, #147
Not a problem.
Beatrice, #148
“Where do you live?” must be such a frustrating question for them to answer. It sounds like it could be a Fry and Laurie skit.
beatrice
We have one of these, too. It’s “Village in the Warndt*”
*Warndt being the broader region
Still, my all times favourite placename is “Newtwopothouse” in Ireland
Personally, I enjoy that Illinois has Cairo (pronounced KAY-ro) and Milan (MY-lin)…and some others that I can’t remember, which also have charmingly Mid-western pronunciations. And googling has informed me that mentalfloss has a whole list of this phenomenon. I might have confirmation bias, but Illinois looks overrepresented on the list!
Newt OW pot house. :D (Well, excyuuuze me, that’s how I read it first!)
Well, I live next to a town called Ogre, and there’s a town called Ape, and there’s a town called Ragana (means ‘witch’) here in Latvia.
I wish I could go back to school.
I want to take Geology courses.
… The funny story about Ogre and Ape being that, back in the good old glory days of the USSR, they used to have communist meetings where representatives would wear pins with a portrait of Lenin on them, and the town name written underneath.
No, English wasn’t a popular language back then.
Anyone else reading Butterflies and Wheels? It’s getting very strange, seems to be a lot of “intent is magic” posts regarding the CH cartoons.
We have a town called Rijeka (means river, but no one ever translates the name in English).
It’s situated on the river Rječina (which means big river…. but it’s actually a really small river)
haha Beatrice That’s like the local ditch-river being named ‘the tumultuous one’. Hmmm…
K.R. Syncanna@156
I see what you mean.
: /
There better not be any trains on the way home. I swear my body is already asleep and my brain is not long in following.
Portia
There also is “California” in Germany…
rq
Well, Bitche and Condom in France are not as close to each other as they could be…
Which reminds me of a “kids are assholes” story from my school days.
We had this guy in class who was horribly old-fashioned and not really gifted in social things. When we read “Cat on a hot tin roof” he spent the whole time being perma-embarassed about the ghey secks. one day, with a few of us in a car we drove behind a car with the number plate BIT – CH 655*
Mind you, we all had English as our main subject so we giggled, except for him cause he didn’t know that word. We told him to look it up.
It really was not our fault that he chose to ask the teacher instead…
*randomn numbers
Portia,
Yeah, I was kinda hoping that it was just me. That blog had been quite enjoyable up to this point.
K.R. Syncanna
Ophelia went off the rails for me …when was that trans-hate storm? A few months ago? A few weeks? I don’t know. Long story short: I wasn’t a regular reader, but she convinced me of her not-worth-reading-ness a while back.
Beatrice@157, rq@158,
Himmelbjerget in Denmark is a hill, the summit of which is 147m above sea level. The name translates as “Sky Mountain”.
Freethought blogs is randomly routing to a whole new site, which is an ad, and no “back” option, like freethought was never there. WTF. Have I gotten a virus on my work computer? : /
There’s a Jot ‘Em Down Road in Georgia (the U.S. state).
There’s a very popular road in Karachi, Pakistan which translates to Monkey Road. Never saw a single one.
Did she say something ridiculous in response to all of that? I definitely missed it, did she make an offputting blog post or was it one of her comments or both?
K.R. Syncanna@156,
Ophelia Benson’s long been that way. Did you realise that “Muslim” is not a race, so you can say whatever you like about Muslims and not be racist?
Portia (and others):
Not to mention Tampico, Athens, New Athens, Marseilles, Versailles, Vienna, Eldorado, Des Plaines, and San Jose, Illinois, none of which are pronounced in the European manner. My favorite, though, is Benld.
Now that I go to university in Oklahoma, it has also contributed a few more– most importantly Miami (ends in a schwa), Okemah (begins with the vowel in “cut”), and Chickasha (rhymes with Chick-fil-A) (the name is Choctaw for “Chickasaw”).
Wikipedia has a whole list of lists of these names: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_names_in_English_with_counterintuitive_pronunciations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unusual_place_names
From Clevehicks’ #131:
Didnt someone or several someones in that headache of a thread claim that CH was an equal opportunity offender?
****
rq@146:
I have noticed that several media outlets dont even mention Elsa Cayat, the lone woman killed in the CH attacks.
K. R. Syncanna
I intentionally didn’t read there atm, because I knew what would be posted. Yeah, the amount of people who whitesplained this whole thing is amazing…
Yeah, I just saw that in one of her recent posts. Good god. Welp, so much for that blog.
K. R. Syncanna
I used to read B&W very regularly, but then there was the transphobic disrespect (she had a post about women and men, and a minor, respectful correction in inclusivity was mentioned in the comments, and things went downhill from there, with a lot of doubling down and… yeah, wasn’t pretty), and now I only go there when utterly bored at work and all else has been read. And I have, actually, been purposely staying away during discussions of Charlie Hebdo.
thunk:
Tampico! I didn’t even know Tampico was a copy-cat name. TAM-peh-ko. :D
–
All of the above. I don’t have links (anymore, or rather, don’t feel like digging right now). I made what I thought were fairly moderate comments disagreeing with her analysis, and she actually banned me from commenting.
*yawn*
Bed. Now
You know what’s really ironic with all the discussions? The muslim person I probably know best is one of #1’s friends: blonde curls, blue eyes. Her mother is an incredibly attractive woman whose skirts are much shorter than anything I ever wore *gg*
Ha, seriously? Banning Portia?!
You are fierce, don’t get me wrong, but not in a way I would expect anyone to want to ban you.
Beatrice:
Yeah, I usually feel pretty timid, especially here where so many smart, informed people are fact-and-logic-checking ^_^
*obligatory remark about it being her blog and whatnot*
But then, Ophelia showed that she has very different values and priorities than the general culture in the Lounge or Pharyngula more broadly.
Yeah, it’s really ridiculous :/
She actually got upset about someone wanting her to include trans people in a post? Yeah, I’m so done with her now.
I’ll do digging if I feel like head-desking a lot, no worries. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
good night, Giliell
I should probably head to bed as well, I’m driving again tomorrow morning. An early morning on a Saturday *sigh*. Oh well, I did just spend a couple of days on vacation (technically 2 days, with the weekend in between).
Our CaitieCat was the one who oh-so-kindly pointed out that she was being a bit cis-centric, and then yeah, she got mad. And my support for Cait was the ban-offense. (Just so I’m clear that I wasn’t the one to spot the original ciscentrism).
K.R. Syncanna
(Can I shorten that to just K.R. when addressing you?)
It wasn’t even to specifically include, in words, something about trans people, but to alter I think two words that would automatically make the idea as such more inclusive. Something about pregnancy, I think the topic was. And then there was a follow-up post about how terrible people were being in comments and all that. :P
If you do go searching for it, you have been warned. :)
Beatrice and Giliell
Good night! I’ll be nodding off soon, too. Though hopefully not while behind the wheel. Here’s to unicy roads tonight!! I’m off.
Does anyone have tips on maintaining an unfinished basement (it’s above grade if that makes a difference). I’m saving money for other stuff so probably won’t be finishing it for five or more years. The one consistent advice I’ve found online is to maintain a humidity not higher than 50% which I can manage with a dehumidifier. Are there any other things? Is there some sort of treatment or cleaning process that I should have done to the 2×4’s and the concrete floor?
I couldn’t help it. I had a case of sWwoti (Someone WAS Wrong On The Internet)
Here’s the thread.
I’m a little confused – the comments where she says ‘I guess Portia won’t mind not commenting here anymore’ or whatever snide shit she said, are gone. It was that thread right? Anyone else remember? I’m not imagining things, right? : p
I found this (it’s pretty bad):
https://proxy.freethought.online/butterfliesandwheels/2014/07/oh-dear-did-you-hurt-your-hand/ .. but I can’t find where you were banned. Maybe it was another one (more posts like that? uh)
Our basement is currently a haven for spiders, wine and the furnace. I have no useful advice to offer, sorry.
It started in https://proxy.freethought.online/butterfliesandwheels/2014/07/oh-dear-did-you-hurt-your-hand/
Portia was banned in https://proxy.freethought.online/butterfliesandwheels/2014/07/balance-baaaaaalance/
Good grief
If I recall correctly from my A+ days, there was also an incident, probably a year or so before the others mentioned, where Benson posted some squicky/possibly triggering images on the front page (the subject matter of which I don’t exactly remember), was asked to provide trigger warnings (or put them under the fold, i’m not sure), and refused to do so. Doubling down followed in earnest.
Aside from that, g’nite rq, Beatrice, and Giliell. May those travelling have safe trips.
@Portia, sounds like a lot of bullshit went down :/
@Rq, yes you may call me KR, and I may just go searching right now!
Portia,
I’m sure you’ll be happy to know you’re not imagining things, just misremembering them:
https://proxy.freethought.online/butterfliesandwheels/2014/07/balance-baaaaaalance/comment-page-1/#comment-2429764
Oops – sorry for the repeat. I managed to miss that – I only visited B&W occasionally. Still – good grief.
gaaad, too slow again
Thanks pHred and Beatrice :) That does help.
rq,
My nightmare. I’d block arachnid immigration.
And actually, I think I have a poor understanding of what is meant by “grade”. I don’t know for sure if the basement is below or above grade. It’s above ground of course, but the driveway in the front is on a higher level than the floor of the basement.
K.R.
After that incident at B&W I stopped following Ophelia and defriended her on FB. Her reaction to CaitieCats gentle request was ridiculous.
There were also a few regular FtB commenters who sided with Ophelia who earned a bit of my disdain too.
Remember the Thunderdome.
Damn :(
Link
Great. Now I have Tina Turner singing in my head.
you’re right
sorry
I’ll also remember what I said about going to bed. My brain is all muddled.
Grade simply means ground level. So if the floor of you basement is above ground level then it is above grade. If the floor of your basement is lower than ground level that is below grade. If the driveway is at a higher level then the floor it sounds like your basement is below grade, at least for portions of it. Would water flow down into the space from the outside or not?
After watching home improvement shows for a while, a basement at “grade” is one where most of the basement on level ground would be underground, with only 1-2 feet of concrete/windows, often in window wells, showing around the house. If a house is built on a hill, the uphill side may be at “grade”, but you might be able to step out of a door onto the ground on the downhill side, or you have a large window you could easily climb out of instead.
I know what you mean. That’d rock.
Good night.
A present: 13 Cats Born With Perfect Mustaches.
If you have a sump pump, make sure it is working properly, checking it yearly, so it can handle spring thaw and heavy spring/summer rains.
dehumidifier
Now there’s an interesting concept.
I wish I could go back to school.
I want to take Philosophy courses.
….
Azkyroth
Your ‘That’d rock.’ Was most excellent.
got one for philosophy?
I’ll think on it.
re: Place Names
How about Boring, Oregon?
Azkyroth
:) :) :)
Cleaning out my current bedroom at my parents place, I move something and this awful smell erupts. Had I been eating, I would have been throwing up. It was a smell like death itself. Which, well…
It was a dead mouse. A dead mouse that had clearly, at some point, been stepped on. Unclear if it was covered by anything when this happened, though it’s been covered since.
I frequently walk barefoot in this room.
I really hope it was covered when I stepped on it.
Boring, Oregon doesn’t have anything on either Normal, Illinois, or Oblong, Illinois.
I’ve been to both places, BTW.
And supposedly there was once a headline that said, “Oblong Girl Marries Normal Boy.”
I am so buggar all tired of my brothers divorce drama. Yes he had reason to be upset with some of the actions my sil has taken, but he’s making utterly irrational demands that is putting a strain on my relationship with everyone, including my boyfriend. I so don’t want to be around any of my family that I’m watching the newest hobbit movie for the second time *tonight * and hitying up a motel for the rest of the night. I just want to be a hermit.
Rowan
*hugs*
This is how every Saturday should start: with skeleton competition and an abundance of men in tight sports clothing. Bobsleigh coming up in the afternoon.
I read the ingredients, but I doubt I will try it, never mind that the lymph nodes in my jaw are tag-teaming in misbehaviour, and today both ears are fuzzy. :(
rq,
that sounds like something that could work.
By work I mean make you let out steam cartoon-like out of every orifice. That sure cleans one up.
Good morning
rq
My right tonsil has been giving me troubles for days. That usually means “Hi Giliell, here’s your immune system. I’m working hard on something, I’ll let you know if it works”
+++
Well, I hope OB never complains about “murder the troublesome ex wife” jokes and misogynist slurs again. Free speech, right?
+++
Yay, I get to put up some furniture. I really like that
+++
The kids are playing superheroes. They’re saving the animals from the humans who throw their rubbish into nature.
Good kids.
Justified misantrophy.
Or porn, for that matter. (Not specific industry practices, the entire concept). Because THOSE women obviously can’t make their own sexual decisions and need The Right Women to manage their lives…
Giliell
Once Eldest said that he would save the entire world, everyone except hunters, because hunters kill animals, and that is bad.
(We didn’t tell him that Husband’s uncle is a hunter.)
*happy dances*
A little general suggestion:
Ignore Azuma. It takes two or more to make a thread all about Azuma.
Well, you can call that Hivemind, but, you know, when I make a statement that gets flack, I sort of do look at who’s the origin of both, flack and support. I am admittedly more inclined to reexamine my ideas when I get praise by people who are known to be horrible…
rq
My kids are currently not quite sure what they think about vegetarianism. Well see how this family develops…
+++
Conversations among atheist couples…
I have this nice pic of disapproving Idris elba with “shouldn’t you be writing” on the wall.
Mr: Who’s that
Me: Idris Elba
Mr: You find him attractive?
Me: Yep, totally!
Mr, mocked offense: Why????!!!
Me: Because he is!
Mr: But your my wife! You must not find other dudes attractive! That’s already in the Bible!
Me: Nonono. The Bible says that you must not lust after other people’s wives. I get to lust after as many dudes as I want to!
Also, I’m 12
I always giggle when I read “screw control” on my power drill…
Hehe
power drill
;)
Yeah, I read the exchanges. How can anyone react that way to Caitie? She’s always so tactfully informative.
Giliell
I giggled all through that. ;)
I’ve had a similar conversation with Husband, except it’s about reversing global paradigms – instead of the man being the lustful one, in our relationship, the woman is!
And power tools have their own certain… je sais exactement quoi, mais je ne veux pas dire? (transl.: I know exactly what but I don’t want to say.)
+++
Bobsleigh’s on now and the track is terrible, so results are all over the place. Waiting for smart remarks from the kids – last year, they (the elder two) wanted to be boblots*, but Middle Child said he didn’t want to change his name to Oskars (the two top bobtains in Latvia are both Oskars at the moment).
* bobsleight + pilots, I just made it up and it is now an official term.
I’m not so sure about those ćevapi I had for lunch.
Ugh
beatrice
Well, I learned about Ćevapčići (that’s the same, right?) that you need the right sauce to go with them. It’s equal parts tomatoes, bell pepper and garlic.
Giliell,
Well, I don’t think the “proper” way of eating ćevap(č)i(ći) includes sauce, but I sometimes eat them with ajvar which is made of tomatoes, bell pepper, onions, garlic and eggplant.
I think the problem with mine was that there was pig in them. I like Bosnian ones, which are made only from beef.
#RejectedRapperNames
Worth a laugh or two, I love Jay-K.
beatrice
Ajvar is a stock in my kitchen. I think those my parents’ friend used to make were mixed beef/pork, which is more or less standard mince meat.
Hmmm, I’ll have to make them some time again…
Aivars is a common Latvian name. :D
(Just like ‘Loki’ means spring onions in Latvian.)
Giliell,
Yeah, we usually buy mixed for other purposes, but for ćevapi, just beef tastes much better- to me at least.
I like to make them myself, so that I put exactly as much spice as I want (usually just salt and pepper). This time mum bought pre-made. Which is another possible issue. You never know what they put in those. Running theory is: everything that was bad enough they couldn’t sell it but good enough they probably won’t give you food poisoning, with added lots of paprika to kill other tastes.
mmm
Loki
well, Tom Hiddleston
rq @ 214: When the sinuses are a little stuffy, my go-to is a cup of hot water with a few grinds of black pepper, some ginger and a pinch of cayenne, with lemon. It works, but you don’t really want to drink the last bit in the bottom of the mug.
Giliell @ 221: There’s a company somewhere around here called something like “Braman Screw Machine”.
There’s a bar in town called The Venue. We think The Band should play there.
Massachusetts has a lack of funny town names, except for Athol, which is the punchline to the joke about Governor Peabody having three towns named for him.
Rowan:
*hugshugshugs*That’s so hard, I’m so sorry he’s putting you in that position. Big congrats on doing self-care.
–
rq and Giliell
SO and I were watching a TV show the other night and he says “I don’t know why I think so, but that actor is a very good looking man. Like, really really good looking” (It wasn’t Idris…he calls Idris my boyfriend because i drool so emphatically over him).
—
Aaaaah it’s the weekend. And it might get a bit warmer today.
–
KR:
Based on Cait’s discussions here, she works really hard at being so unoffensive when she informs/educates. So, yeah. : p Sometimes it’s impossible to be “civil” enough for some people.
How can people believe in evolution when they’ve never seen Darwin appear in a piece of burnt toast?
Hello Lounge!
Half past midnight watching reruns of Countdown on ABC Rage…
Anyone outside of Austalia have a clue what I am talking about? :)
Austalia = Australia
Clearly I should be asleep by now…
Hi gobi! Good to seeya.
If you need to stay awake, I just brewed a fresh potta coffee.
Husband just came home from work, and was all ‘That Jennifer Lawrence, she’s pretty awesome, and good-looking, too!’ I was tempted to reply, ‘No no nonono, that’s not how this works!’
Hello Portia! Long time no type!
Is it real coffee or that powdered stuff?
Yes… I am a coffee snob.
Oh, my, I don’t think I’d call the powdered stuff “coffee.” Coffee snobbery is accepted in my corner of the Lounge ^_^ It’s fresh brewed, but in a regular drip, not a fresh press or anything ;0)
The day I met a creationist at the science conference
Hmmmm…
Just now realising how much I have filtered early 80’s music videos in my memory.
Having a traumatic big hair flashback episode.
Report: Charlize Theron negotiated pay equal to male co-star after leaked Sony Hack emails.
Hi, gobi! What’s keeping you up?
Hi rq!
Wife has not given the ‘go to bed’ command yet. :)
Also: morbid fascination for eighties music video shows – it’s like watching an accident happen but you can’t stop looking.
Gobi
Wife? Oh you mean the puppetmaster. ;)
Good luck surviving the 80’s yet again.
Oh. Dear. Dog.
David Lee Roth singing ‘Just a gigolo’.
The horror…
The horror…
People just keep putting this guy in situations where he has to stand his ground. Must be so exhausting for the poor innocent man!
Was always uncomfortable about puppet master/mistress name.
It had… uncomfortable… connotations for a sockpuppet lol.
Ah, sorry. :)
Hello Saad.
I was lurking in the CH thread but didn’t have the emotional energy to comment.
Was very impressed with your comments.
@rq
No need for sorry – she is sitting here grinning at what I typed :)
Evil sense of humour.
Bad lady! Bad, bad lady!
‘morning. Hot tea is available.
Rowan, [hugs].
Welp, thanks Horde* for reminding me, I finally got around to dropping Ophelia’s blog from my feedly, too. She’s entitled to her opinions, but not to my eyes and brain reading them. I expect someone will be along shortly to decry our unprovoked evil hivemindy attacks on Freeze Peach. Pfui.
*spelled it right this time, so there.
Thanks, gobi. :)
Eight people have just been killed in terrorist attack on an imambargah (Shia place of worship) in north Pakistan.
The mullahs win again. They have a horde of stupid fanatics ready to do their bidding and kill and be killed while they enjoy the gains. They’re basically gangs which fight over religious influence over the uneducated. It’s quite easy to see: if killing the other sect gets you instant heaven, why aren’t the mullahs lining up to do it themselves?
Good night Lounge!
The good music / bad music ratio just tipped in favour of sleep.
gobi
Hopefully she’s at least grinning with you, not at you.
Saad
Not only that, but this, too. Don’t know if there’s anything new in there, but WHOA those numbers. :((((
Saad, damn. The pillow fort is always open, if you need a place to hide from the world for a while.
I’m off to TJ’s shortly, as soon as they open. I think I need away from the internets for a bit.
Yay, we have a new bathroom cupboard
Please remind me NOT to hand Mr the saw ever again (all fingers still attached)
Saad
Chickenhawks?
And good night, gobi1
On that note:
More death in Nigeria, no one claimed it yet but Boko Haram are the main suspects. A girl (maybe as young ad 10) acting as a suicide bomber
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30761963
News about the ~2000 dead in Nigeria is finally on the front page of our papers.
Well, I just checked, it completely dropped off the main page of the German Tagesschau
And I really, really, really need to slam my head into the desk now.
35 k people are marching in Dresden for tolerance and liberty and unicorn farts (come on, everybody is for unicorn farts)
Which is good.
But, you know, for weeks, Pegida dominated the city, free to terrorize the small migrant population, with just a few thousand people standing up to them.
You know, if it takes dead people for you to realize that maybe people shouldn’t have to live in fear and that maybe tolerance is a value worth fighting for, you’re too fucking late.
Because I know that shit. When the tears are dried they will go back home and ignore the beginnings once again and then get out again and cry their eyes out when people are dead.
Yeah, I’m not a professional cynic for nothing…
Filmed inside the new National Library of Latvia: Dance choreography ”Book of experience” . The camera moves a bit much for my taste, but at least you get a glimpse of the inside – mostly the floor, but it’s a nice floor!
rq
Yep, camera is bad. IMO it moved way too much, taking the slowness out of the sow motions and also taking the energy out of the fast ones. Probably a true equal opportunity offender
@Giliell:
Phew!
In high school chemistry our teacher gave us the safety lecture on the first day. Many of us hadn’t met him before. I certainly hadn’t.
We were quite confounded to see his 9 fingered gestures, wondering whether he was the best or worst person to give us such a lecture…
[relevant to your story, it later turned out to have been a home-carpentry accident]
CD
Oh, Mr works very safe, much safer than me. After all he works in the chemical industry, a place where you don’t get to make a second mistake. But he’s not really good at thinking things through. So he misstreated the poor furniture and the poor saw in order to get a rectangle out of a board instead of drilling holes at the corners so he could simply turn the saw. I only noticed when he was done.
Asterix and Obelix pays tribute to Charlie Hebdo
https://twitter.com/asterixofficiel/status/553149107888738304/photo/1
At age 87, the illustrator came out of retiirement to participate in the tributes to the dead cartoonists.
More rightwing religious nonsense in reaction to the Paris attacks, from dunderheads in the USA:
Right Wing Watch link.
*hugs* for the Lounge. I’m awake far too early after being up far too late, and I have work again tonight. I hate my body sometimes.
Another Republican U.S. Senator signals that he lives in 1950.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/09/1356674/-New-Committee-Chair-Ron-Johnson-A-Working-Single-Mom-Should-Find-Someone-to-Support-Her
But Boko Haram only killed two thirds the number of people killed at 9/11 so tooootally irrelevant (sarcasm).
Beatrice, wasn’t the town near Rijeca mostly Italian before WWII but subjected to communist ethnic cleansing? sad.
Also, if you read Lem’s “His Master’s voice” (about SETI), as I recall there is no misogynist stuff in there.
I have been head-desking ever since Republican doofus, Mitch McConnell (majority leader), decided to take credit for the economic upturn in the USA. Luckily, Jon Stewart slapped Mitch McConnell, mostly with McConnell’s own words. Well done, Mr. Stewart.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/09/1356647/-Jon-Stewart-slams-Mitch-McConnell-for-taking-credit-for-economic-recovery#
Video at the link.
(but there may be plenty of misogynist stuff in other stories I have not yet read)
I have just been reding “Best SF 24”. Lots and lots of women authors.
Hmm….I wonder if the Senator is aware that often why a single mother is on assistance is that the man responsible for the children walked out on his responsibilities…It appears he fooled folks into thinking he can think through an idea, when he obviously can’t, and must resort to sloganism.
Oh, FFS, conspiracy theorists have already created a Charlie Hebdo Truther category of nonsense.
For example:
– It’s all Israel’s fault. Mossad was involved.
– It’s President Obama’s fault. He emboldened the terrorist.
– U.S. Intelligence services are to blame. They want to wreak havoc in Europe.
– France itself is to blame because the county allowed Muslim immigration.
The summary above was culled from a Mother Jones article.
Sri Lankan president suffers shock defeat despite astrologers giving favourable prdictions https://proxy.freethought.online/singham/2015/01/08/sri-lankan-president-suffers-shock-defeat/
Isn’ this the asshole who presided over civil war, ethnic cleansing and the final massacre that crushed the tamils?
— — — — —
The Daily Mash guide to satire for jihadists http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/the-daily-mash-guide-to-satire-for-jihadists-2015010994260
Nerd @277, good point.
Speaking of Republican politicians who can’t think straight, Texas offers up a prime example today:
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/01/09/3609858/texas-marriage-license-bill/
More details of the nonsense in which Representative Bell engages are available at the link. There’s a photo of the dunderhead as well.
More news on that dumb TLC reality show in which gay mormon men marry women, supposedly happily. Link.
TLC producers lied about the guys featured in “My Husband’s Not Gay.” TLC issued this statement: “The individuals featured in this one-hour special reveal the decisions they have made, and speak only for themselves.”
Not true. Three of the gay guys from Utah support discredited “conversion therapy” organizations. There’s a former chairman of Evergreen International, for example. Other connections include North Star and People Can Change.
GLAAD was right to condemn the TV show.
From the comments below the Salt Lake Tribune article about the TLC show (link to article in #281):
Some brave satire about islamists
Kudos to those who have been busy in the Charlie Hebdo thread. I feel too miserable about the subject to participate.
Is this how the Nazca lines were created? http://phys.org/news/2015-01-zurich-team-beach-robot-art.html
— — — —
SpaceX launches for NASA, no luck with rocket landing at sea (Update) http://phys.org/news/2015-01-spacex-nasa-luck-rocket-sea.html
Make me look like this.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- @264
FTFY. And you’ve been rocking so hard btw, Giliell. Thank you for sticking to your guns. The amount of point-missing and “how DARE you criticize [my privileged self/group]” has been stunning.
And I’ll just leave this Big Pile ‘o Hugz here, shall I? Since I ate all the Fererro Rocher…sorry.
rq @285
Oh…that’s a good one.
Also, ledasmom @233, when my sinuses stuff up (as they inevitably will, eventually at some point this winter) I’ll have to get the recipe from you! When it comes to my sinuses, I’m willing to try anything.
Once.
Aw, thanks you folks
I did buy some Lindt chocolate today. I’m even willing to share. I seriously dig the “Nice to Sweet You” line.
Giliell,
mm chocolate
I have some banana and coffee chocolate to share.
@FunnyDiva:
a) Hihi.
b) You (and many others) have been right-on to notice and celebrate a lot of great work on Giliell’s part. That’s some serious Yeowork being done by Giliell. More power to her.
Hammering away, the upstairs neighbors. My hand would hurt by now.
Some mormon commenters weigh in on the TLC show (link in #281, follow up in #282):
Ah, my daily dose of stupidity has been met.
I recall going through puberty and I’ve never tried to pretend it didn’t happen. That would be a patently ridiculous thing to assert.
@ Crip Dyke
Hi, Hi! *pouncehug*
How’s bayou?
And your able back-up in that discussion was also a significant contribution. I liked that you were able to write from what was clearly a charitable interpretation of [what’stheirface, can’t remember] potential confusion. Who says Teh Horde always defaults to reflexive Troll Stomping?
And Saad, and everyone else in that thread who’s provided perspective and reinforcement: hugz and thanks to you, too.
For some reason I can’t open any of the articles at The Salt Lake Tribune. I have to left-click and open the article in a new tab. This is the second site this has happened on and it’s getting annoying.
Apologies if anyone’s posted this already- George Zimmerman arrested for aggravated assault with a weapon
I am coming to love Arthur Chu like I love my teddy bear. That Daily Beast article of his was brilliant, as always.
Conservatives freak out over New Black Panthers carrying guns
But not the gundamentalists patrolling the border between the US and Mexico.
White woman attacks cop and is still alive
Today’s example of White Privilege.
And to be clear, I mean this one:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/09/trolls-and-martyrdom-je-ne-suis-pas-charlie.html
CaitieCat-
Thanks for that shout-out, you’re right about the “I’m not Charlie” piece, and I’ll have to take a serious look at Mr Chu’s other stuff based on your recommendation.
Caitie
Come to love about everything he writes
muslim satire
Tony, #299
I don’t know why so many people don’t get it.
It’s completely Black and White.
Gabrielle Union on diversity on tv: “We are painfully behind.”
If you live in Boston, you too can have a Vampire Facelift, just like Kim Kardashian.
Great. They’ve made this claim. Now what does the evidence say? There’s nothing in the article about the science behind the procedure.
More rightwing nonsense blaming Obama for attacks in Paris, or as good as blaming him:
So says Pamela Geller, a BarbWire contributor
http://barbwire.com/2015/01/09/0620-obama-refuses-call-charlie-hebro-terror-attack-islamic-allegiances/
[with love to Giliell @#303]
Muslim officials denounce Bieber Fever:
==> supported by 799,249 iCondemns!
Finally! A argument for conversion that has actual appeal to me!
Giliel (in #303)
that’s brilliant satire
Pastor says Taylor Swift is turning girls into lesbians
Who knew sexuality was so fluid that merely watching a pop/country performer could turn you gay? It’s so funny that they think this line of reasoning bolsters their opposition to homosexuality.
Bill Donahue finally comes out and says that, yes, everyone should convert to Catholicism:
http://www.catholicleague.org/muslims-artists-must-change/
On another subject, Tony’s comment 305: I think that’s just another way for the Kardashian’s to make money. They seem to be able to turn anything into a money-making scheme.
Bill Donahue:
Donoahue would never use rhetoric so gauche and so thoroughly ridiculed as, “Freedom is slavery.”
Nonono. He just wants you to believe, “Slavery is freedom.”
I can’t comment anywhere on FTB but Pharyngula. It only bothers me when I itch to comment on some particular post or another.
After reading one of Ophelia’s posts about CH, I itch itch itch.
My mom wants to know how to fix things between us. It’d be easier to tell her if I knew.
Or if she had a time machine.
Ugh.
*hands beatrice a telescoping back-scratcher*
Here, dear. Might this help you save some of your well-crafted pixels from ultimate futility?
I could see where OB was going with the CH thing a couple of days ago, and so have stayed away. The sh*tstorm here at Pharyngula in response to Giliell’s comment about don’t glorify “satire” that causes significant splash-damage has been quite enough for me.
Beatrice, me too. I’m sure I’m better off not commenting anywhere but Pharyngula, but there are times when I’d really like to put in my two-cents’-worth.
Before anyone suggests it, yes I have contacted tech support. Twice. I’ve heard nothing back.
Thank you, Funny Diva.
*scratch scratch*
Portia
hugs if you’d like some.
Do you have the spoons to turn the tables on her and ask what those “fix[ed] things” would look like/mean to her?
Not necessarily recommending it, mind. It’s entirely possible the result would be elevated blood pressure and other stress indicators. It was just something I wondered…
Anne,
I got a message back once, the suggestion was to sign out here and then sign in directly on the dashboard. (https://proxy.freethought.online/wp-admin)
It didn’t help, I got no further answers to that
Beatrice, when I sign in via the login on the main page of FTB, that dashboard is exactly where I end up. Doesn’t make any difference that I’ve seen, but maybe I’ll try it again sometime, just in case something has changed lately.
CaitieCat – I am quite impressed with Arthur Chu. Every time I read something he’s written, I admire him more. And his dance video he put out right after he lost Jeopardy should have catapulted him to instant recognition everywhere. :)
beatrice
Clearly, FTB is doing you a favour. I’m becoming more and more convinced of this small scale goddess who likes the Horde. After all, today in the shop on the way to the checkout I dropped the chocolate and then noticed it was the wrong one!
Portia
*hugs*
Oh goodness that’s an impressive minefield
+++
Good night my loves.
hehe
You were spared of a horrible fate there
good night,Giliell
Rupert Murdoch Thinks All The World’s Muslims Should Be Held Responsible For Paris Attacks. And white people and Australians have been apologizing for him. As a white person and technically an Australian citizen, too, I apologize, as well.
Portia
Ugh, good luck with that.
Giliell
Oh thank goodness it wasn’t the broccoli, imagine buying the wrong broccoli!!! ;)
Beatrice
I actually went over to see some of her articles this morning, and I wanted to, but I couldn’t make myself…
Giliell:
Thanks. Minefield is a good word. I mean, my first thought is “Maybe you could get some boundaries.”
: P
Funny Diva:
Yeah, I dunno if I even want to open the can of worms.
On the bright side, she has twice corrected herself by asking direct questions instead making oblique statements about her wishes (e.g. “I lost X’s number” was replaced with “What I mean is, could you please give me X’s number, I lost it.”)
I think I’m just gonna sleep on it.
Damn damn double damn.
I have two sets of four matching surlyramic buttons.
I just made five button holes in this sweater.
Harrumph.
Morning Lounge…
Sniff, sniff…
Aahh, the smell of morning coffee!
@rq 323:
Murdoch’s ego/evil spread so much Australia’s entire landmass couldn’t contain it.
Hello Portia!
Looks like you might have a ‘feature button’
:)
I like the way you think ^_^
Portia 326
Clearly you need one more non-matching button for the center button hole.
ajb47:
After commenting, it occurred to me to use
blue-gray-blue-gray-blue
@Portia
Turn tragedy into triumph!
Nice contrasting button at top?
If you choose a shiny red, one everyone will want to push it so be careful! *
Also…
Things I have learnt about coffee that may even be true:
The ‘Flat White’ is relatively unknown in the US – at least at Starbucks
And:
the reason Starbucks coffee tastes over roasted to us over here is that it is. Overroasting increases shelf life for storage and transport. ( according to a source with a coffee roasting history in thier family)
* spaaaace madnesssssssss reference :)
gobi:
I always thought that about the taste of Starbucks. Explains a lot.
Duh. I read your post as 2 *pairs* of matching buttons. Something something 2 something 4 — obviously that means 2 pairs makes 4 buttons.
I blame it on (1) my wife being on a partner’s retreat in Orlando while the kids and I stay here in the freezing temperatures and (2) tired eyes from reading a book all afternoon without looking through the reading part of my progressive lenses. It may be more the second one than the first, but I wanted to whine.
gobi
I always thought Starbucks was over-roasted because of all the crap people put in it. Maybe they put so much crap in it to make it drinkable.
We in the Antipodes also tend to use raw cane sugar in coffee rather than sugar syrup.
… And milk, not cream.
Some people even use slim/trim/light/etc milk which is actually just just thinned white acrylic paint.
Okay, maybe that was a lie…
Can I have a medium skinny mugamochamallowchino on soy with a double shot of hazelnut please?
my name is Spartacus
I’ve heard Starbucks called “Charbucks” because their coffee tastes burnt. Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf all the way, if I’m going to drink coffee.
Just want to make it clear: I am not anti Starbucks – some people think it is the best coffee in the world. It is the coffee for them, just not me. :)
Today I reorganised the big walk-in closet off our den, aka The Cave*. I threw away a lot of junk. I am tired. Now it’s raining.
Coincidence? I think so.
*Husband wanted to make it into his man cave, but his recliner wouldn’t fit and he couldn’t watch TV, so he took over the whole northeast quantrant of the livingroom instead.
quadrant. The one time autocorrect doesn’t notice, argh.
I didn’t start drinking coffee until a few years ago, and I actually started with cappuccinos. I am not a connoisseur, but I am a bit picky. What Starbucks does to the coffee is pretty much why I never drank it. I’ve had it once, and I it took a lot of half&half and sugar for me to be able to drink it. In the end, I don’t know enough to rant against Starbucks, but it’s not for me, either.
Unlike “California Champagne” of which there is no such thing.
@ajb47 (#342)
” Unlike “California Champagne” of which there is no such thing. ”
Things I have learnt about wine that may even be true:
Australia was the first country to start naming wines after the grape variety to avoid the whole wine/region/name conflict thing.
Giliell,
Thank you for all your comments on the CH threads. I’ve started comments a dozen times and deleted them all (including versions of this one), but that really needs to be said. I do agree without and am thankful you brought it up so well and am sorry so many are handling it so stupidly.
Nearly got run over 20 minutes ago by someone who doesn’t think that the bright red and blue lights mean ‘SLOW DOWN’. I don’t get what is so hard about that for some people…
Went to a dinner party, theme was dumplings. Everyone had to bring something that fit the category of “dumpling” in some way. There were pamesan-crusted gnocchi, steamed pork buns, shrimp/scallop won ton dumplings, chicken’n’dumplings, kolache, plum buchty, and buffalo chicken filled pirogi. I am now stuffed full of carbohydrate.
carlie:
That sounds wonnnnnnnderful.
carlie, I’m pretty sure that would kill me, but yum!
—
For the benefit of the Lounge, I bring you… Squirrel Revolution:
Sadly, it’s only a 22 page short story instead of the novel-length adventure I was hoping for.
Ok, when I’m on an ftb page it keeps rerouting me to random spam pages. I’m confused.
Dumplings, yumm….
Hope they weren’t belly bombs, making you logy for two days.
I’m back from the New Year’s potluck at the community centre.
*burp*
I had a date tonight.
We had ribs and beer and discussed the phenomenon whereby penises play hide-and-seek.
Esteleth,
Good for you ^_^
Sounds like it went well?
Hide-and-seek….because of the foreskin? Or…um…coitus? wut?
Carlie:
every one of those dishes sounds tasty!
****
Esteleth:
I hope you enjoyed your date!
We made mochi.
Someone needs to draw a literal interpretation of this, stat!
WMDKitty, I hope the acquisition process for Behemoth Mark II goes smoothly.
–
Hi, Eric; Welcome In!
We’re pretty casual, here; feel free to come and go as you please…even if you do appear to condone the existence of Horses, and are hopelessly wrong-headed about Miracle Whip™.
:D
I prefer to launch my peas from spoon catapults—there is virtually no danger of inadvertently aspirating the load, even on a roll of 1.
–
gworroll:
Hurrah!
(Later)
Once upon a time, The Husband moved the little area rug in front of our front door, to find a mouse that had been there…a while. It was only wah-fer thin….
And never, at any time, had we smelled anything to suggest there was a dead house mouse.
Our theory is that one of the Junior Carnivores—we had 3 teen-aged cats, at the time—had caught it elsewhere and “buried” it there. For later.
–
*hugs* and sympathy for Rowan.
–
Because, of course, when “Christendom” was All The Rage in (Western) Europe, the individual countries never went to war against each other!
</sarcasm>
–
320
cicely
pouncehug
Haven’t given you one in a while ^_^
*twitch*
*twitch*
*slump*
Portia, maybe your random spam pages are similar to what I am getting on my iPad. An ftb link opens in a new tab and the old tab redirects to an ad site.
Hello other People of the Lounge!
::waves at gobi’s::
Long time, no see! Hope all is well with you and yours.
****
::wonders why Azkyroth is twitching::
****
gworroll @209:
Just the thought of how awful the stench was makes my stomach queasy.
Rough week.
Wound up being pretty much the only person in the area who had the resources, energy, mobility, and not-the-proximate-cause-of-the-breakdown-osity to help a friend from out of town handle a serious mental health crisis. After some missteps, I wound up using pretty much the last of my spoons to get her home and to friends who are more familiar with A) her and B) her condition. They helped her get checked into a hospital and her prognosis is reported to be good.
And I’m tired on both a physical and deeper level, missing probably 3 or 4 entire nights worth of sleep, still processing, and self-caring. Around dealing with my family’s petty bullshit in the mean time. >.>
Work’s picking up, at least, and work-related travel should facilitate a visit with her in a couple weeks.
Also, met another (former?) Pharyngulite recently, in the second most startling small-fucking-world moment of my life. Feel a little conflicted because it’s someone I had the impression didn’t really like me, so I mentioned my appreciation of their comments and what I’d learned but not my screen name. >.>
Hello Tony! (!)
All is well here, I hope all is good in ShoopWorld.
Been busy: actually had a good stint of work lately so it was nice to bring some money in.
Take care of yourself Azkyroth.
Hmmm… ShoopWorld. You need an amusement park just so you can use that name !
ajb47
You’ll survive the freezing cold with the kids! If it gets really bad, you can stick them outside for a few minutes. The Second LARGEST Storm OF THE CENTURY blew through last night, and let me just say, it was a lot less than anticlimactic, but apparently the worst is yet to come. Dunno, but that’s a lot of snow, though.
Azkyroth
Damn, that’s exhausting.
Well done!
ajb47
Mr didn’t drink coffee until a few years ago and now he’s more of a coffeeholic than me, who’s been drinking since I was 13
JAL
Thanks.
I woke up to somebody on Twitter telling me sneeringly that I should just stay in my “cuddlehole*” so I wouldn’t see different opinions. Actually made me grin in a bitter sort of way
*something like that. I don’t remember exactly and I blocked him.
Portia
My mother doesn’t understand to this day why I broke with her because not only doesn’t see why things she did were wrong, but also because she’s in deep denial over things she has done.
Really, I remember a phone conversation where I was like “You used to simply ignore me when we had a fight and not talk to me until I apologized”.
She said “that’S not true!” and hung up…
Hello Giliell, cudos to you too for comments elsewhere.
Rest here for a while. Put your feet up. :)
Kudos… Autocorrect has some weird cujo interpretation of kudos
Inventory at work, that’s done. Since my primary job is finding stuff in the store to ship out to customers, and secondary is finding stuff in the store for buy online, pickup in store… I’m pretty much entirely screwed if our inventory gets very far out of whack. All our fulfillment stats would look horrible and there’d be literally nothing I could do to improve them(not on my own- if I figured out the cause I could recommend a recount). And I’m not sure at what point it would obviously be inventory numbers being wrong, if it didn’t get to that point I’d be the first in the line of fire because, well, I’m actually in charge of it(at least I work somewhere that doesn’t just scapegoat the junior people). So hopefully the contractors we pulled in did a decent job, if we had any silliness like double scans of the same item there might be a problem.
I wonder how long it will still be weird that when I go home, I go to MY APARTMENT. Not my parents place they let me stay at, but MY APARTMENT.
Really hating some of the crap flying across my Twitter feed lately. Been tempted to try to annoy GamerGate to pull some of the pressure off their longer term targets, but I don’t want to wake up to a tear gas grenade as a SWAT team rolls in. I’m not sure how far I could push it before that would become an actual risk, and I really don’t want to give 8chan the traffic when monitoring them for signs I should back off.
Movie Kill The Messenger.
Worth watching? Not worth watching? Worth watching just for Renner?
oh, and The Imitation Game … insult to Turing’s memory or a movie I would actually want to pay for?
@Beatrice
I am wary of the The Imitation Game for the same reasons …
I cast my vote. I’m not really looking forward to anything good coming out of this presidency, but as long as the conservatives don’t get in, I’ll take what I can get.
Jourdan Dunn Becomes Second Black Model to Grace Cover of British Vogue . Diversity? I’m having mixed feelings about the forward-thinkingness of the magazine… While feeling very happy for Jourdan Dunn. Go, two contrasting simultaneous thoughts!
Azkyroth:
Seconding Giliell. I’ve been there with mental health crisis. It’s so hard.
Take care of yourself.
–
Giliell:
Yeah. It’s so hard. Usually it goes:
She does something that demonstrates lack of boundaries.
I respond in a kind of asshole way.
She gets upset, asks what’s wrong.
I tell her what she did.
She tells me I hurt her feelings, ignoring the answer to her question.
She cries.
I leave the room.
repeat
–
It’s above 20°F already! Woo!
Portia
Oh god, that sounds familiar.
A world in which every behaviour is excused by your reaction. I will admit I’m glad I’m mostly beyond that. With my mum, the ship has sailed. By now I’m not sure she has the mental capacities left to engage in any kind of serious dialogue. I know this sounds bad, but she cannot tell you for sure which year it is without looking at a calendar, but is at the same time totally convinced of her infallible memory…
rq
We got the leftovers of your storm plus lots of rain. When I drove the little one to a birthday party today I looked out the window and thought “how pretty the sun is being reflected on the lake”.
Next thought was “wait, there is no lake here, what’s this???” The teeny tinsy creek flooded the meadows*. Judging from what I could still see of the fences, about 1m high….
*yay for meadows next to creeks and rivers.
rq 365
Nah, my kids aren’t the problem. My 10 year old son plays video games all day (well, sometimes he watches cartoons). My 12 year old daughter is at the point where spending all day in her room is her preferred activity. I do have to take them to visit their cousins later, so I’ll have to get the crowbar out to pry them from their rooms.
Giliell
Part 2 of the storm is happening tonight, so be prepared for more!
The town without wi-fi
“Electrosensitives”? Mmmm-hmmm…
This is pretty much just “cell phones cause cancer” dressed up differently, no?
****
On systematically overestimating population sizes
I was informed that I passed the nursing license exam this morning.
*kermit arms*
Esteleth:
That.
Is.
Awesome!
Esteleth!!
Woohoo!
So happy for you.
Esteleth, woot!
CongaRats.
ajb47
Ooooh, good luck with that!!! ;)
And congratulations to Esteleth!!!!
Esteleth, je suis Groot!
Esteleth
tornadomäßig hammer!
Muslim employee took shoppers to safety during the kosher market attack
High winds, flooding, and more snow.
In vaguely connected news, our basement is leaking (there go the spiders…).
In even other news, I completely lost respect for the head trainer of the Latvian bobsleigh team (former bobsleigh champion Sandis Prūsis) today. I was in rather good opinion of him, until I saw the interview he gave to Spotra Studija, which I will link to later with English transcript… The man is a misogynistic fool. And I am so, so, so sad and disappointed about that.
Basically, he crushed all my hopes of Latvia ever having a women’s bobsleigh team while he’s at the helm, and this is terrible because he’s an awesome trainer with so much experience under his belt. Unfortunately, he seems to think more under his belt, too. And I’m SUPERglad that the skeleton team has a different trainer, and that Latvia’s skeleton champions currently see more future prospects in the up-and-coming women’s athletes.
But seriously. Wow. That man, so blind to himself. *sigh*
@Giliell previous thread 133
I’m sorry if my previous reply was confusing. My head has been a bit of a mess and I had a little trouble interpreting your frustration. It’s an old subject by now but I at least wanted to respond.
In his tweet following up the one comparing atheism to race Dawkins continues to display no awareness of the fact that in order for people to understand what he is talking about, he must provide context. His habit of just dropping strange or offensive comparisons and expecting people to just understand is not very effective and just plain rude. I can think of nothing that I could have used to understand his first tweet given what he said in the second one. Either he’s deliberately reasserting behavior that bothers other people, or defiantly using “it’s obvious” to defend items when he screws up. He seems so ignorant of his privilege and used to praise that I’m not sure which one is true.
I’m that society is so screwed up with respect to figuring out how deal with tragedies like this. They forget just how easy it is for anyone to paint a group as awful by selectively picking examples and pretending that it means something for the whole. If it helps I’ve been doing what I can to point out the ridiculousness of this sort of racist conclusion jumping in other places. I hope the pillow fort has been good.
Tony @389, that link leads to Glenn Beck’s “The Blaze” site, which is fine, but as expected, some commenters are saying the guy deserves credit for saving lives, but that the fact that he is Muslim is irrelevant. Maybe he saved lives because he hasn’t read the Koran, etc.
Strange how relevance shifts when Muslims do a good deed.
Congrats to Esteleth for passing the exam. And commiseration to rq for enduring floods and high winds … and dashed hopes for female bobsleigh teams.
@Esteleth, #380:
I am utterly delighted for you. I had this whole speech prepared that went something like,
but CaitieCat said all that and more. (Though you didn’t have to be so long-winded about it, CaitieCat.)
I wish you & yours nothing but the best on this auspicious occasion.
Here’s a Daily Kos link to the story of the Muslim man who saved some of shoppers in the Paris grocery store.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/10/1356934/-Anonymous-Makes-Revenge-and-Death-Threats-Against-ISIS-Al-Queida-For-Paris-Attack#
@rq:
Glad Latvia has a good trainer for the men.
Too bad about that isolated incident regarding women’s bobsleigh, though, right? I mean, we know it’s an isolated incident since women are kicking ass at skeleton, right? That’s how it works, right? Until women compete and kick ass, we can’t do it, after we compete and kick ass in one area, the fact that we’ve already kicked ass means the rest of the bullshit can’t possibly be discrimination since, hey, isolated incident, right? If there really were qualified women for bobsleigh they would have already smashed the white, racist, homophobic, patriarchal bobsleigh paradigm too, right?
In totally unrelated thoughts, it’s true that I’m not turning into a sovereign citizen, isn’t it?
Congratulations, Esteleth!
Lynna @396:
I dont mind Anonymous tracking ISIS’ activities, but the rhetoric they use is a bit incendiary.
Congratulations, Esteleth!!!!
Hugs to Giliell, Portia, Azkyroth, and anyone else who needs one.
That’s an excerpt from Atul Gawande’s book “Being Mortal”.
Book review here.
Thanks to Giliell for tweeting this post on ancient water horses. Love it!
rq
I told you, hippos are awesome!
beatrice
I’m sorry about your election. People, how do they work?
+++
I’m wondering, do you think that the ex-town of Baga was ever mentioned anywhere in Paris today?
But what about Hungry Hungry Hippos? Are they awesome?
I don’t know how I keep missing these. I really do review I swear!
In my 391 it should have said,
“I’m sorry that society is so screwed up with respect to figuring out how deal with tragedies like this.”
Congratulations, Esteleth!!!!!
Tony
#Yesallhippos
#wellMOSThippos :P
(Had to do it.)
WARNING: somewhat ranty comment to follow about bobsleigh, spec. women’s bobsleigh in Latvia, so feel free to skip for anyone not inclined to the sport.
So I promised the offending video, and here it is (that’s the interview, it should starta t about 10.10 with the offending question). English transcript below, and I’m going to TW it with misogyny and transphobia. If given the chance, I’m sure homophobia and racism would be in there, too, to complete the Big 4. So this is what was said:
Q: We’ll show you in a moment, something new this world cup is that women are starting together with The Menz*. Should women be in bobsleigh together with The Menz? In such a… a brutal type of sport?
SP: Women are trying to sneak in everywhere where they have no business sneaking, and this is also the case here, unfortunately.
Q: Why [do you think] did the WC organizers come to this decision, how do you…
SP: For show.
Q: For show? It’s just a show? They can’t be maybe… faster, maybe a lighter slide? A little easier?
SP: It is just a show and I… I… for those two women. I also don’t see anyone else who could keep up. I also knew it would be those two and that this rule would be accepted. It’s no surprise to me, but what’s next? What did they achieve? I don’t know…
Q: Speaking of a women’s team, a separate one, in Latvian bobsleight, have you been approached, have you seen anyone interested, who would want to participate in bobsleight? Since Nellija Šlegelmilha we’ve had a sort of hole in Latvian bobsleigh.
Q2: There was also Aiva Aparjode after that.
SP: I haven’t changed my mind since that time, seeing the women… according to their passport, they are women, yes, but visually they are much closer to men, yes, as much as I can see from those piloting in leading positions in other countries. I don’t want to offend anyone but that is the real situation. In my time I said what we want with those our women – to waste money, time, energy and to maximally achieve some 12th place? I don’t see much point in that.
* The official term ‘The Menz’ is here used, as he uses a slangish term directly translated as ‘old fellows’ to refer to men, and I just thought ‘The Menz’ was so much more appropriate.
[rant part]
I have since looked into women’s bobsleigh in Latvia, and dammit, we had several teams. And the women’s teams were sacrificed in favour of the men’s teams, because ‘they are a priority’, meaning Teh Menz Rule, Teh Wimminz Drool. THEY EVEN ORGANIZED A FUCKING WORLD CUP LEG RIGHT HERE IN SIGULDA FOR WOMEN, and it’s not bloody worth the sacrifice. FUCK YOU, Latvian bobsleigh federation. Which also governs the skeleton. Wow, that’s going to be a fight to keep, if things ever start going downhill. And I vaguely recall reading about this years ago (the cut due to the financial situation) and being mildly pissed off, but oh kee-rist, I’m more than mildly pissed off now (hello, heightened awareness). And from what I’ve read, it looks like they scratched the women’s teams after giving them ONE SEASON on the World Cup circuit (as opposed to the European or Intercontinental circuit). And back when they cut the women’s teams, the then-president of the Latvian bobsleigh (and skeleton) federation expressed disappointment that they hadn’t done so the previous year – but ‘the girls wanted to race’ (and internationally from the FIBT there was talk of a team event, for a combined women’s and men’s event in bobsleigh, where Latvia would have had a decent chance of placing well). THE FUCK.
Now I know for most of you this is like… not important, but I’m pissed off, and now I’m conflicted about being so 100% supportive of the men’s teams. It’s not really THEIR fault, but it’s the fault of their trainer, and… Seriously? 12th place isn’t good enough as a start? To keep the team, considering we have promising men and perhaps promising women would come along, if they were equally included in the benefits of expert training? I’m so totally flabbergasted, and I have suspicions about the ‘lack of progress’ also cited in the cancellation of the women’s teams. But whatever.
I’m at a loss right now, because I really love the sport and I’m trying to make it a point to myself at least to watch all the women’s competitions on youtube this season (they don’t get televized here, even though we have a pretty decent women’s skeletonist on the WC circuit). I just… what do I do?? :( I’m so sad.
And yes, I know it’s a small petty thing. But I’m sad. And disappointed. And while not particularly illusioned, I expected better. And was being naive, esp. after last year’s conversation with said Latvian best women’s skeletonist about women going into bobsleigh and/or skeleton (who had some very tactfully unkind things to say about trainers believing in psychological differences in men and women athletes). I FEEL JILTED. That’s right, Latvian bobsleigh team (athletes, trainers, and all support staff – past and present), you have STABBED ME IN THE HEART. From now on, this is a love/hate relationship, and my love is no longer unconditional. Well, it is. But not. It jsut has hate added onto it. A benign and passive hate, but hate nevertheless. Ugh. Wine.
*harrumph*
[/rant]
Seems ‘bobsleigh’ got somehow corrected to ‘bobsleight’ (miss of the fingers?), and the two women (‘those two’) mentioned by Sandis Prusis are Kaillie Humphries, top women’s bobsledder for Canada, and Elana Meyers Taylor, top women’s bobsledder for the USA, both of whom piloted 4-person bobsleds in the WC portion at the Calgary track end of last year (2014).
Also, the Big 4 should be expanded to the Big 5 because I missed ableism on that list (though it doesn’t appear in the interview). Sorry about that.
Congratulations, Esteleth!
I have a question for the atheists whose native language is English. I assumed there would be a few around here.
When you read the wentence below, by H. L. Mencken
I assume that, unlike me, you understand right away the sentence. Now, what would you say according to the author lies at the heart of every evangelist?
Thank you in advance.
Congratulations, Esteleth! What type of nursing are you interested in?
I just found out there’s a Taken 3. Why do people keep messing with him? Have they not seen the first two?
Kind of ‘rupt *hugs* all around.
Esteleth
Congratulations!
Tony!
‘Electrosensitives’ are people who claim that they suffer a wide variety of symptoms in the presence of, variously, wi fi signals, cell phone towers, windmills and power lines.(They are, of course, full of shit, as testing reveals that they can’t actually tell other than visually when such things are present) It’s a peculiar intersection of NIMBYism, alt-med, and hypochondria.
damien75
In American English, car salesmen ( particularly used car salesmen) are a byword for deceitful high-pressure sales tactics full of grandiose claims and promises.
damien75, I’d say the idea is just that behind the façade of piety evangelists are (of course) essentially salesmen* – and dishonest salesmen at that, who routinely lie about and fake their product.
At least, in my corner of the anglophone world (I’m a Brit) car salesmen are generally regarded as the epitome of dishonest salesmanship and afaik this is also a cliché in a lot of other places.
I think the “wreck” bit implies that evangelists are failures as car salesmen, so they turn to something that requires even less integrity.
* (sic, and the biggest earners are all men of course)
to Dalillama, Schmott Guy, #414
First thank you very much for answering.
Actually, I knew that. I did not want to be too specific in asking my question, for fear of inducing the answer.
When you read that sentence, do you understand that what Mencken means is that in the heart of every evangelist lies a wreck, very much like the wreck of a car, of the type an unscrupulous used car salesman would sell?
Or do you understand that deep inside the evangelist is a used car salesman (not a machine but a person), an unscrupulous third rate con artist always using “deceitful high-pressure sales tactics full of grandiose claims and promises” (I wouldn’t be able to say it in a better way than yours) but in a very bad shape: the wreck of such a man, maybe a failed used car salesman who went into religion because the field was easier than used cars trade?
I’m so glad I voted, otherwise I would be feeling guilty now that the fucking HDZ candidate has won.
Fuck.
First woman president for this country. I’m not exactly celebrating.
damien75,
I think by “wreck of a car salesman”, he meant what you mean above and not a “bad car”.
Even though both make sense, I think Mencken was describing the evangelist and not the product (religion) xe is selling. I could be wrong, using the phrase “wreck of a car salesman” to mean a car seems like sloppy writing for someone like Mencken.
damien75
As Saad says, the latter one.
Thank you opposablethumbs and thank you Saad.
That is what I understood when I first read the sentence, years ago.
Then upon reading a translation of that sentence, I started to doubt.
Again thank you for making things clearer for me. It is a true relief.
Saad
After Husband explained the premise of Taken, I refused to even watch that one. Why is there a part 3? I have no idea. :(
Beatrice
Ugh, *hugs*. At least you did your civic duty, even though the results are painful. :( Here’s to the future, bright and shiny!
Thank you very much Dalillama, Schmott Guy.
and also opposablethumbs, whose comment I missed earlier
damien75
If it’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that translators don’t always get it right, and the mistakes are often in the silliest of places. :)
For me, damien75, the problem with your interpretation that the wreck is the car is the use of “of”. If it’s to refer to a car, we would want more: wreck sold by, bought from, something like that. Otherwise there is the further ambiguity: is it a car sold by someone unscrupulous, or is it their own vehicle?
If Mencken had used the word “wreckage”, the ambiguity would be lessened, as “wreckage” can’t describe a crappy car.
For explanatory purposes, I’m a linguist and translator, though most of my work anymore is editing/proofing for academics. This kind of nuance is one of the ways I make my living. :)
beatrice
Well, we got Merkel as a first…
Saad
I heard a synopsis on the radio and it was like the original Tropes vs. Women series in 30 seconds…
to rq, #424
I know… However, when I do not agree with a translator, which one of us two is probably right? The trained professional or the amateur?
Feeling really dumb. I could not figure out what Damien75 was asking. Had to read everyone elses responses before I grasped it.
to CaitieCat, Harridan of Social Justice, #425:
Thank you for your explanation. As I said, when I read that sentence in English, it was clear to me. Than I read it translated into French, and i didn’t know how to take it.
Then you are a very precious person.
damien75
You’d be surprised at how often the amateur can be correct, because the translator translating isn’t always a trained professional.
I also speak from experience as an untrained translator who still strives to translate the correct nuance, often correcting the work of supposedly-trained professionals (I translate into English, though, and correct English, as that sort of nuance is something I can still miss quite often when going the other way into my other favourite language).
Uh, by ‘correct English’ I meant ‘I correct English’, not that I always translate into particularly correct English. :P Though I do try.
That’s a nice way to put it. The Italians have a saying that “the translator is a traitor” (I don’t speak it, so I’ll defer to someone else on the exact saying in Italian). I like yours better. :)
rq, #430
Well… Thank you, publishing house.
CaitieCat
traduttore, tradittore ?
nice word play, if that’s the saying
#432
Traduttore, traditore.
Litterally: translator traitor.
No verb. Compact, efficient.
Very nice, thank you both. Colour me utterly unsurprised that our marvellous Beatrice would also understand Italian. :)
ups, got an extra t up there
My Italian isn’t all that good any more
Beatrice
Better than mine! ;)
Good night, all. Have to be in court tomorrow and the nerves won’t settle, but I have to at least pretend to sleep, so here goes.
Good night rq.
What did you do this time?
LOL, no, she’ll be testifying as an expert. :)
:)
rq,
good night. You’ll do great tomorrow!
I have never been to a trial but I think I can promise you that they are much tamer than Jack Nicholson would have you believe.
… expert cat burglar
You should change your nym to that
shhh, not so loud
I was doing so well framing rq
I am so digging this NSFW
rq
You’ll kick ass, I’m sure.
Getting ready to go to a party put on by my boss; as usual, all kinds of twitchy about big social grouping.
Dalillama,
I’m terrible at this too. You have my sympathy.
Simply awesome
I thought only insects exhibit this level of plant camo. That’s a gecko!
Wait, Anonymous just now thinks ISIS is worthy of…whatever they’re planning to do?
Just now?
-_-
The Redhead will join RQ in not getting any sleep tonight. Tomorrow, a home-health-care doctor will visit, to determine what to do next. The Redhead’s paranoia about doctors always makes her think that the worst will happen. I keep telling her to get a good night’s sleep. Which often means I get a good night’s sleep too. ;)
Nerd:
Sorry if I missed it earlier, but have you mentioned what’s new with the Redhead? Hope everything will indeed be alright.
And taht you get a good night’s sleep! You more than deserve it.
–
Beef stew is simmering on the stove. I didn’t have a lot of the flavoring ingredients (bay leaves, worchestshire sauce) so I’m gonna have to tweak it, I’m sure. Never made beef stew before but looking through the many, many packages of frozen cow I’ve got, one was labeled “stew beef” so I went with it.
Too bad we can’t get something like that camo for obligatory parties.
Dalillama:
Hope it’s not too painful
*hugs*
Portia:
*pouncehugback*
:)
–
A *hug*, and a wish for your re-spoonment, Azkyroth.
–
Esteleth:
*champagne&confetti*
I never doubted you for an instant!
:)
–
rq, I’m sorry to hear about your weather woes.
Do spiders swim?
(Later)
There is a Part Three, for the sole reason that Parts One And Two made money.
When the box office receipts drop below whatever the critical level is, they’ll stop making sequels…
…and reboot the franchise.
–
damien75:
Stereotypically, car salesmen—especially used car salesmen—are deceitful and dishonest, stooping to any required low tactic if it gets them a sale.
I read this as evangelists being essentially “salesmen” of their religion, and probably none-too-scrupulous in “selling” that religion to others.
(Slightly Later)
This one.
Around our house, the punchline is that preaching is “Easy work, with no heavy lifting”. Plus—a bonus!—the position frequently comes bundled with a gob of unearned Authoriteh and Respect.
(Later Yet, and in response to CaitieCat’s
Perhaps, instead of “wreck”, the “remnants” of a car salesman? As in, the evangelist metaphorically used to be a car salesman, but in going for selling religion, has fallen to new depths?
Evangelists as car salesmen, reanimated by Unholy Arts? Zombie preachers for Zombie Jesus?
–
*hugs* for Beatrice.
Having to “hold your nose and vote” is bad enough, without it not even doing any good.
–
*hugs* and sympathy and encouragement for Dalillama.
–
Actually nothing new as far as her health is concerned. Just that the insurance finally approved a home-health-care doctor (one who makes house calls, which her primary care physician doesn’t make) to verify she is healed and ready for physical therapy. Which I could have told them three months ago, but I don’t have an MD in my post name initials.
Nerd:
Gotcha. Hope the HHCD is a good egg, so to speak.
–
Stew update: I am not great at stew, so far. Sigh.
Portia
It’s pretty easy, actually. Here are my steps, which are probably coming too late to help you this time, but, maybe you can work it in.
– Season some flour and dredge the stew cubes in it.
– Brown the cubes in a big pot/dutch oven. If you want, you can saute onions and such before browning the beef.
– Cover the cubes with beef stock (or water, but you’ll get more flavor with stock), bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat to simmer for 45 minutes to an hour.
– Add chunks of potato, carrot, onion. Cover with red wine and or beef stock. Season with whatever other seasonings you want. Return to a boil, cover, reduce heat to simmer for another 45 minutes to an hour or until the vegetables are done to your liking.
That’s my basic recipe. It’s really good with bison instead of beef. I tend to use salt, pepper, thyme as seasonings and let the beef and veggies (and wine) stand for themselves.
In typical fashion here at Casa la Pelirroja, I made some progress, but got bitten by the unexpected.
I was able to get the undersized spare tire onto the rear axle, and get the tire moved to the front so both tires are the same size on the front-wheeled drive Probe, allowing the flat tire to be tossed in the hatch to be taken to the tire shop. (I expect having to buy two new tires, they are a bit old.) When I have to stand on the wrench to get the lug nuts to move, they are using too high a torque setting.
I also changed the license plates, since the old rear plate had some corrosion, and the state replaced them for free. But in removing the rear plate, to replace it with the one with the latest sticker, the clips holding the screws for the plate disintegrated, making me unable to attach the back plate. A trip to the auto parts will solve the issue, but the delay is aggravating. The old “for the want of a nail…”.
ajb47:
I will definitely note that for the future. Maybe next time I won’t cook the beef til it’s big chunks of chalk. : p
I did add some red wine, just out of instinct, ha. And of course I had to have a glass…
Nerd:
Sheesh, that’s annoying.
Lest anybody think anything but age of the car had to do with my license plate issues, I was replacing the original plates from 1998. The problem is salting of the roads did the rest, corroding the clips, which held until some fat fool (me) took the original plate off.
Portia
Also, it’s really good when you make it in an cast iron dutch oven over the coals from a campfire.
And with a slight tweaking — substitute beer for the wine and beans (black or pinto) and chopped tomatoes (I use canned) and dumping in some jalapeno pepper slices and using cumin, coriander, garlic powder, chili powder, and cayenne (all to taste), you get a good chili. You may have to be careful who you call it chili around, though. It has meat *and* beans in it. Also, if you don’t want meat, just cut out the first part and make it with just beans and tomatoes.
In either case, don’t forget the good, crusty bread. You need something to swipe up what clings to the sides of the bowl.
Hello all. Delurking to ask if anyone has links to particularly good (funny) images/memes/cartoons involving a platypus that also take the side of evolution, rather than all the creationist dross out there). I have done a Google search, but just want to ask an informed pool of people in case of missed a good one. This is for a work presentation where I know someone will be presenting a variation on the “Go home evolution, you’re drunk”.
Thanks in advance, back to lurking mode.
And now it’s time for me to go to bed.
Rob,
Have you seen WTF, Evolution?!
:)
That’s the closest I’ve got.
–
Night, ajb47, sleep well.
Called the hospital.
My friend. Is. SLEEPING. *dances*
(Yeah, it was a rough week. O.O)
Sleep is good.
wooo, back from home.
DOOOM is right, what with classes beginning. But at least I’m more motivated to better myself after the excesses of the new year.
I have returned, somewhat drunk. Things went well, which is nice. hi Thunk!
Azkyroth, good news about your friend there.
Yes, I burgle cats and then go to court to defend myself. :D There, damien75, happy now? :)
Thanks, all, for the thoughts and sorry for not responding – I actually did go directly to bed right after typing that comment, which says more about my state of mind than the comment.
Now it’s morning and I’m at work and we’re waiting for the chauffeur and yeah, it will be fine.
Beatrice
Actually, Latvian court is a lot like an old-time gun duel: it’s the defendant against everyone else, including us experts. If I hit the defendant, then I win the argument; if the defendant hits me, then my argument (no matter how scientific) is invalid. Points awarded also for degree of life-threatening injury sustained – that is, positive points for the one doing the injuring, while negative points go to the person receiving the injury.
I was actually thinking about this during the morning, and sometimes it seems like that’s exactly how the law works.
Dalillama
Yay for it going well! It’s always an extra bonus when the anticipated social situations turn out well. :) *hugs*
(How’s the new place?)
Nerd
Good to hear about the Redhead! Hope you did end up getting some sleep, and the Redhead, too (ugh, fears of doctors… I know that one, too!). And yay for insurance!
Portia and ajb47
Can I have some of that stew for breakfast? Please?
Good morning
Dalillama
Glad you had a good time
Azkyroth
Yay for friend!
+++
Told the kids we’re going to the anti-Pegida demonstration today. Explained to them that there are people who don’t want folks who believe in Allah or who come from another country to live here. What do they think about it?
“That’s bullshit!”
Yes, my kids, smarter than 18k people in Dresden…
I’ll bring a “Je suis Baga” sign and see how obnoxious things get…
Stay safe, Giliell! And may the kids have fun and learn something, too.
rq
New place is working out great, they came and fixed all the things that we had problems with.
Giliell
Go Giliell-family. Hopefully everything stays peaceful tomorrow.
My head is more stuffed up than before. I can barely breathe, and my right nostril feels as though hedgehogs are nesting in it.
Na, no worries, I’m not expecting any troubles tonight. Good cuddly German don’t we all love each other demonstration.
+++
Opening of the Golden Globes
I didn’t find the Cosby joke that brilliant, but the Clooney one, that’s weapons grade genius
Now I’m well and truly conflicted: do I or do I not want to become a police officer (while keeping my current work position)? It’s mostly a status thing with several benefits and a few drawbacks, and training/certification would occur over three months in the summer. Theoretically, this is possible.
But I feel conflicted. Thoughts?
Also, court went well. As well as can be, that is, considering they asked questions I am not qualified to answer and I told them so. I couldn’t figure out if the judge thought I was making fun of them or not.
Portia:
“looking through the many, many packages of frozen cow I’ve got”
I always stick to microwawe food these days. Don’t want the content of the larder to do a “Who Goes There?” film reference when I thaw it up.
— — —
Moar hostile life? “kill it with fire” ; http://xkcd.com/1469/
.
Gut Fauna http://xkcd.com/1471/
— — — —
Infestation of boring, “sensitive” people in London to be eliminated by Kate Bush.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts-entertainment/kate-bush-to-lead-audience-away-like-a-pied-piper-2014082689884
For Amy and Tina, it’s a nine year old joke.
Let me put on my surprised face that it took a white dude comedian to make Cosby jokes in 2014 for anyone to pay attention.
birgerjohannsen:
Ha, yes, they’ve been in there quite a while. (And to add to the drama, this was a cow I bottle fed once or twice).
rq:
Glad it went well. I’ve asked a lab expert questions she didn’t feel qualified to answer. The poor thing, she looked like she wanted to hide under her chair.
–
happy dance and flailing I figured out double knitting, so I can have two-sided knitting with color variation! Omg!
–
Dalillama:
feel better soon, glad the party was fun!
Sorry if repost, but teachers and students returned to school at the school that was attacked in Pakistan in December.
Portia
How many leaders of state are showing up for the inauguration?
+++
rq
Hmmm, how bad are your police?
Giliell:
At the Peshawar school? I’m not sure what inauguration you mean..
Giliell
I’m not sure. I mean, not so violent, but otherwise? There’s a lot of nepotism (to wit, just this past week, three youngesters (two 16 year olds and a 20-something year old) murdered a woman to rob her. The one guy is the son of the local police officer (this is out in the country). Possibly during the body disposal, they were stopped by the local traffic cop, who identified the driver as underage and without a license – but he didn’t write any protocols, he took him back home, handed the car keys to the dad, and that was that. Later they discovered the murdered woman, etc., and there’s no (not yet, at least) way to know if she could have been saved if the law had actually been followed.
At the moment, the two road cops (and their immediate superior) are on leave (probably unpaid, though I can’t be sure – and this isn’t because they’re getting more punished but because if you can afford to not pay a police officer, why not?), as is the local cop (the father). So… there are definitely issues. But do they apply to me, directly? Heck I wouldn’t be removed from my safe coccoon of a laboratory, I’d just get an official uniform to wear. With epaulettes.
So do they apply to me indirectly, esp. considering that Latvian cops are well-known for taking bribes (though this has improved over the last few years, quite dramatically, since they made it illegal :P).
So I don’t know. :P
Portia 465
Not so well, unfortunately. Don’t know why, though it’s probably because we have an old mattress and need a new one.
rq 470
As soon as someone invents the transporter so I can get it to you, I’ll get you some beef stew for breakfast. But really, beef stew for breakfast? If you just want the wine, just have the wine.
Dalillama 473
Glad the new place is working out well.
Portia
Yep, I mean, if everything is about fighting terror and honouring the victims…
Sorry, my cynisms ‘s been turned to 11
+++
rq
Life’s complicated, isn’t it?
Maybe make a pro and con list?
I like those, because they force me to think. And if everything else fails, throw a coin. Seriously. Not because you should determine your life by the way gravity affected a metal disk, but your gut reaction to the result can tell you a lot about what you actually want (I swear on my gut. It’s a much more sensible creature than my brain)
‘rupt-ish, due to Stuff to do with offspring … (no illnesses, though) – just wanted to say yay for Dalillama and for Azkyroth(‘s friend) and rq-in-court and general well-wishes all round.
ajb47
I was actually looking forward to the beef stew, but if you’re offering red wine for breakfast, I’ll take that, too.
Giliell
First I have to propose the idea to Husband, because the biggest hurdle will be scheduling, seeing as how he can’t take a 3 month vacation (even in the summer) and I have to find out if I receive something approaching a salary during that time (because technically I have to leave my current job, join the force, then get re-hired with my new status – thereby losing all the work time already accumulated, I’m pretty sure). And there are only so many hours in the day and not too many people we can convince to take a hiatus in their own lives just to watch our children for 8 or 9 hours a day, 5 days a week.
Plus there’s the first three-month trial period, where I will also have a lower salary, which will kind of suck if they take me (back) on with my years-of-experience counter re-set to 0. I was hoping to talk to my boss about these things today, but she’s not in, so I’ll have to call her tomorrow.
But yeah, the scheduling will still be hardest, esp. since there is no school or kindergarten in the summer.
Anyone want to baby-sit for three months? I swear it will be worth it, Latvian summers are amazing!!!
On the other hand, I’ve always been told I’d look good in a uniform. So there’s that.
Glad the court thingy went well rq . As to working for the police: I suppose you could work to improve things from within. Then the horde would have pretty much all the emergency services covered!
Glad the new place is working out for you Daliama . The neighbours have to be better!
It’s raining here. Sorry I mean it’s RAINING here…there’s a lot of it.
bassmike
Cats and dogs?
Good article about the Baga massacre I saw today in a South African publication
Saad
Have you seen this one?
rq if you listen to the patter of the rain drops you can hear the odd miaow and bark in there too.
Giliell,
I had not. Thanks. That was informative.
OK, I got:
-my Surly (no gods, no masters)
-warm tea
-my “Je suis Baga” sign *runs off for tape so I can stick it to my coat*
-raisin buns
-my camera
Now off to get the kids
See you tonight!
So, a question for the hivemind: how despicable must a person be, in order for everything that person did to be shunned, forever? Is it possible to take what we like and leave the rest?
Examples:
– George W. Bush and his paintings. He’s a war criminal, but can we enjoy his paintings (lack of artistic talent aside)?
– Roman Polanski, a child rapist, also directed some of my favorite films, including Chinatown, The Pianist, etc. Should I not watch these any more?
– Bill Cosby and his comedy. He appears (to me) to be a rapist. How much (if any) of his comedy and shows can be enjoyed?
– Hitler and Mein Kampf. Never read it, but out of curiosity it is on the bucket list.
Is it worse or better if we spend no money on the work products?
Does it cause harm by discussing and promoting them, as in, “I really liked the Pianist; I think you would too”?
The Quietest Terrorist Attack Ever
–
rq @409, I enjoyed that rant. You are spot on.
Note that the women are “sneaky.” The Menz are paranoid.
Not only can I not watch Polanski productions, I’ve gone off Whoopi “Not ‘rape’ rape” Goldberg and Terry Gilliam for their outspoken defence of him. It’s not the rape, it’s the utter lack of remorse, for me – that the man drugged and raped a 13yo, and insists that it wasn’t wrong.
Cosby, Bush, Orson Scott Card, Woody Allen, Gary Glitter, I can’t get past the evil to just enjoy anything they’ve done. And anyone saying that we should be nice because it’s been so long goes into the same evil basket, for me.
Now, to put that in perspective, I’ve been sexually assaulted by four different people over a period of twenty years or so, so I admit my point of view is not a neutral one. But for me, anyone who rapes and shows no remorse is someone I don’t want in my life in any sense. Y(L/100km)MV.
Cait:
I like to toss Sean Penn onto those lists, too.
Vile.
–
Usernames! (ᵔᴥᵔ)
If you’re asking whether it’s immoral to watch or enjoy media that is produced by a person who has remorselessly caused great harm, I don’t think so. I would say it’s not a good idea to spend money to do so, money that would get back to that person. This question feels a bit like a trap, though. It’s a false dichotomy. You can hate what someone did and enjoy what they produced. Their art should never remotely excuse what they did, which is sadly the case in our culture.
@rq409
That is a damn disgusting interview.
It seems to me that so much of the resistance to women in sports is a general resistance to any competition with women. Chess, video games, whatever. At best men don’t know how to compete with women professionally because society has not really allowed it, and at worst there are people who actively want to prevent women from being able to compete with men. You see it’s all that much easier to control women everywhere else when the very thing that would give you social control is considered socially distasteful.
*Spits*
The excuses are just “lovely”
You are too delicate for sports. (Except for all of the ones who are not)
You are sneaky creatures for trying it. (Because openly asking for equal treatment in sports is “sneaky”).
It’s all “just for show” and meaningless. (It’s funny but I actually feel this way about sports in general)
Women who play sports are ugly and manly. (And no one likes tomboys and strong women! Except people like me and more importantly the women themselves.)
They didn’t achieve anything (except 12th place. Apparently 12=0).
“Our women” (because that is the whole point of the bullshit)
@ Portia 450
Anonymous is a funny beast. It is significantly defined by the people who have and currently claim the role of “Anonymous”, so current shitty behavior matters. But what it is on a level that matters as time goes on is more like people that wrote politically controversial things under pseudonyms in the past and today. Anyone can claim it and what it does will always be controversial.
@Rob 463
When I google [platypus and evolution and infographic] and look at images I see a lot of possibilities like this one. Feel free to ask if any in particular are decent.
Good point, Portia. I find it easier to watch media in which problematic things are happening, than media with major involvement of people who are unrepentant rapists and bigots.
I’m refilling the basket of hugs right now. Looks like it’s going to be needed today.