Comments

  3. rq says

    CaitieCat @801 last thread:
    No, work should be a life of drudgery and misery, none of this ‘fun’ and ‘enjoyment’ and never let a single one of my employees laugh on the job! It’s called ‘work’ for a reason. :P

    Tony
    Whatever will get him the most clicks, obviously.

  7. says

    Lounging, lounging, over the deep blue me…

    New med is mostly adding nausea to my life at this point. Wish they’d make it easier to get medical herb, it’s really the only thing that helps trim the nausea from pain and meds.

    Also slightly foggy, and my ears are ringing worse than usual. Be a few days yet before it has much brain effect. We’ll have to see.

    Giliell, happy birthday, dear lady.
    Beatrice, glad to hear your driving is proceeding in a happymaking way.

    Reading everything, but my memory is even worse than usual, so forgive my not remembering please. Hugs to the hug pile, comforting blankets and a good builder’s Thermos of tea hot and sweet to the pillow fort. :)

  10. says

    Good news:

    Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without evidence that a crime occurred. […]

    Since 2008, thousands of local and state police agencies have made more than 55,000 seizures of cash and property worth $3 billion under a civil asset forfeiture program at the Justice Department called Equitable Sharing.

    Washington Post link.

  13. numerobis says

    My “what is this I don’t even” read of the day:
    https://medium.com/@hardaway/why-women-shouldnt-code-82205165e64a

    Arguing that women shouldn’t be forced to program because the programmers are merely doing syntax, not really anything important.

    That thought was why women *were* programmers back in the 1940s/50s. They got increasingly displaced by men (the reverse tendency from various other professions) later, particularly in the 1980s, as men discovered that actually, programming is quite important. And now we go full circle.

  14. rq says

    cervantes
    It’s obviously the beginnings of a misandrist feminazi plot to eventually hijack all the spermz. The rare earth metals make it obvious – what woman doesn’t like a nice piece of shiny jewellery???

    CaitieCat
    *hugs* and *morehugs*
    Hope the side-effects wear off soon as you adjust, leaving behind only delicious, clear-headed effects!

  18. rq says

    I suppose perhaps entomology was my true calling after all. Latest food insert at work: just found a bee in the new jar of honey I bought. (A bee or a fly, it was covered in honey so was pretty hard to tell, and I don’t feel like rinsing it off to verify.)

  20. HolyPinkUnicorn says

    @Lynna, OM#2

    Here’s more coverage of “The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven” recanting his story:

    And the boy’s name is Malarkey–thank you, that link made my day!

  21. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Also, I’m wondering who first came up with the idea to use salmon semen… and how…

    According to the paper, it was noticed that rate-earth metals were absorbed by bacteria, attaching to phosphate groups in the DNA/RNA. Salmon milt is a waste product that has high amount of phosphates in it. So they ran the experiment, and the rare-earth metals attached to the phosphates as expected. And it could be isolated by typical processing techniques. Making it commercial still has a long development process to go.

  26. says

    From Nerd’s USAToday link (thank you for that btw)-

    The justices will consider two questions — whether the 14th Amendment to the Constitution requires states to license marriages between same-sex couples, and whether it requires states to recognize such marriages when licensed by other states. The Michigan case involves the first question, the Ohio and Tennessee cases involve the second, and the Kentucky case includes both.

  27. numerobis says

    the poor salmon

    The salmon are getting eaten. I doubt they care about their milt in that context.

  30. David Marjanović says

    Yay! A Giliellbirthday! *bounce* *bounce* *bounce* ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ *chocolate* *remaining Christmas cookies*

    Link dump time. All in German – English ones tomorrow.

    The Swiss Franc used to be tied to the € in such way that 1 € had to be worth at least 1.20 Fr. Every time this relation was in danger, the Swiss National Bank bought €, so that the rest of the world (and the EU is of course the largest trade partner) could still afford Swiss exports (meds and machines mostly). Now they’ve stopped. The Fr jumped to 1.02 €. Tourism to Switzerland is going to decrease, shopping tourism from Switzerland to southwestern Germany and elsewhere is going to increase. The idea probably is that buying enough € to maintain the relation is going to become harder because the ECB will probably buy a lot of bonds and thus “pump further billions into the market”, likely weakening the €, next week; the SNB may have decided “rather an end with horror than horror without end”.

    The former politician Jürgen Todenhöfer (a name that implies a dead farm or even a death farm…) wrote to 80 “Jihadists” on Facebook or had other people write to them. One of them was willing to be interviewed and was authorized to speak for the Islamic State. This is an interview with Todenhöfer. He says the guy he interviewed was a German convert from Protestantism who was a “justice fanatic” and was kicked out of school for this, apparently repeatedly. Four years ago he was arrested in London, because instructions for building bombs were found with him – he still thinks that was unjust because such instructions are “everywhere on the Internet”. Hm. He further says that the IS fighters who come back to Europe from there are less likely to perform terrorist assaults than the people who are about to leave Europe to join the IS; the IS is usually in conflict with the former.

    After receiving a comprehensive guarantee from the Caliph that he wouldn’t be harmed, Todenhöfer visited Mosul, recently conquered by the IS. He says life there has changed, but seems almost normal, “like in most totalitarian states”. The city used to be multi-religious, now only Sunnites are left; they “are very careful” about what they say, but support the IS because the Shiite Maliki government oppressed them even more.

    Todenhöfer is very happy (and surprised) about the demonstrations against Pegida*. The IS loves Pegida; Muslims in democratic countries, on the other hand, put human law above God’s Law, so the IS wants to execute them (for apostasy, I’m sure).

    * Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident. Patriotic Europeans is a bit of a contradiction in terms, but Aryans would have been too obvious.

    Bernd Lucke, head of the AfD, has excluded cooperating with Pegida, contradicting one of his own party’s vice heads who called Pegida “natural allies” of AfD. He even wants “to have nothing to do with” Pegida signs that show crossed-through mosques; the AfD stands for freedom of religion, he says. However, he says people carrying such signs are a small minority of Pegida, while others explicitly say they’re not against Muslims who are well integrated, and those people “should be listened to” in order to think about whether they have “justified issues”.

    The average participant in a Pegida protest “comes from the middle class, is well educated and has a job. He further has a net income that is slightly above the Saxon average, is 48 years old and male, according to a study of the Technical University of Dresden.” Further, he “does not belong to a denomination”, which means a lot of atheists are marching there, “has no connection to a political party and comes from Dresden or [more generally] Saxony.” However, 65 % of the people the researchers originally spoke to declined to participate, so the study is based on just 400 people.

    The main motive for participating in the protests is a general unhappiness with politics, followed by criticism of media and the public, and only in the third place resentment of immigrants and asylum seekers (especially Muslims).

    Merkel has a plan against terror! It involves more action against the illegal weapons trade, but also “an immigration law, more money for the police”, and last but not least NSA-style collection and storage of “telephone data”! Applause in parliament from her (conservative) party, hardly any from the Social Democrats (the coalition partner); someone from the Left said “that doesn’t even do anything” because France was already collecting such data; the head of the Green fraction said “when our freedom is attacked, we can’t give up our freedom ourselves”, adding that collecting all communication data of the citizens doesn’t help against Kalashnikovs.

    At the same time, Merkel again cited the former president Christian Wulff: “Christianity belongs to Germany, without any doubt. Judaism belongs to Germany without a doubt. That is our Christian-Jewish history. But Islam meanwhile belongs to Germany, too.” Much applause from Social Democrats and Greens, but not from Merkel’s own party. Further, Merkel spoke out against putting Muslims generally under suspicion, in context clearly alluding to Pegida without mentioning it.

    The article also detects “fine cracks in the coalition”.

    Not that the opposition is a monolith either: Gregor Gysi, long-term head of the Left, made the parliament responsible for having paved the way for terror by deciding to join the war in Afghanistan; someone from the Greens took issue with that, pointing out – although she had never voted for going into Afghanistan – that the terror came first.

    In July, a double agent was found in Germany’s secret service. Now the German Press Agency says that, months ago, he admitted to having given a list with 3500 real names and pseudonyms of German secret agents to the US, there’s no evidence that he might also have sold it to other countries like Russia or China. The minister of the interior neither confirms nor denies, the double agent’s lawyer says “I don’t know that which is claimed here”. The list is supposedly from about 2010, meaning that about a third of the people on it are no longer employed by the German secret service which has a high turnover.

    Can Silva be a man’s name, esp. if there’s a Roman-languages-sounding last name?

    No. However, da Silva (“from the forest”) is a common Portuguese last name, and Portuguese does that double last name thing like Spanish (father’s and mother’s last name), so another last name can come behind it.

    The Supreme Court of the US has agreed to hear arguments for/against gay marriage.

    We’re living in interesting times.

  31. rq says

    No. However, da Silva (“from the forest”) is a common Portuguese last name, and Portuguese does that double last name thing like Spanish (father’s and mother’s last name), so another last name can come behind it.

    Thank you. It seems I have a person missing a first name, then.

  33. David Marjanović says

    And two more for good measure!

    Alexis Tsipras is the head of the Greek left party SYRIZA, which is likely to win the upcoming elections with a few % more than the conservative party. That means it’ll likely become the larger partner in a coalition with other (less) left parties. Allegedly he’s already been talking for weeks to important figures in Germany, France and the ECB about what to do about Greece’s finance problems; the party is of course campaigning for a relief of austerity and a debt cut.

    A 17-year-old from Cologne tweeted on January 10th:

    “I’m almost 18 and have no idea of taxes, rent or insurances.

    But I can write a poem analysis. In 4 languages.”

    Retweeted 11,000 times as of January 14th, read by an estimated half-million of people. (…Half an estimated million?) The author has over 10,000 followers now. The media are all over it now, too.

    The author has said she was looking for an apartment and noticed she didn’t know the difference between… and it’s telling that I don’t know these terms in English. Deposit and provision? What you pay when you begin a rent contract and maybe get back at its end if you haven’t trashed the place too much, vs. probably what you pay to the agent who found it for you? Anyway, neither did she know how to get health insurance or the subsidy for having children. So, she would like a course that would teach her how to become more independent after graduating from let’s-call-it-highschool.

    The same day someone tweeted back at her:

    “I’m almost thirty, still have no idea of tax or insurance
    But am, in compensation, allowed to teach teenagers.”

    Not everyone agrees with the original tweet. The principal of the author’s school called the tweet “stupid and reckless” in a TV interview, and the president of Germany’s teacher union says teaching about life is the parents’ job to the extent that life doesn’t teach it itself, not the school’s job. The minister of education, however, agrees with the original idea – though explicitly without saying anything against “the poem interpretation in four languages”.

  34. David Marjanović says

    Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without evidence that a crime occurred. […]

    Oh wow! Basic rule of law in the US of A! Who’d’a’ thunk it! *shoots champagne all over the place like a victorious skier*

    *reads on*

    *cackles madly at the three billions*

  35. says

    The main motive for participating in the protests is a general unhappiness with politics, followed by criticism of media and the public, and only in the third place resentment of immigrants and asylum seekers (especially Muslims).

    So it’s about ethics in journalism, is it?

  37. rq says

    Last time I was expecting to get home at 3AM, I was a lot more shitfaced than I am now (that is to say, I am not shitfaced at all right now). Yay for long work evening!
    The benefit: don’t have to come in tomorrow.

    Also, not exactly excited for Monday. Husband takes off for his annual work all-expenses ski trip to the Alps. *sigh* Though this year I’m less upset about him going, considering the horrible death-filled autumn we had. Plus I’m planning my revenge by taking a solo trip sometime in the spring/early summer. BECAUSE I DESERVE A TRIP TOO, even if I have to pay for it.

  40. Grewgills says

    @Giliell
    Happy Birthday. I hope you have a great next year of your life.
    @Catie
    I hope you can find better symptom relief and better access to the symptom relief that you should be allowed now. Also sending you best wishes for the best possible outcome to what is causing you to need that relief.

  41. sueboland says

    In South Africa, there is a mandatory subject for all high school kids, called Life Skills, which includes all that daily financial stuff, as well as things like jobhunting, leases, workers’ rights, state benefits etc etc. It’s a good idea, in my opinion.

  43. laurentweppe says

    It involves more action against the illegal weapons trade, but also “an immigration law, more money for the police”, and last but not least NSA-style collection and storage of “telephone data”!

    It worked so well last time…

  46. says

    Days after hosting massive free speech march, France arrests comedian for Facebook comments

    The apparently criminal viewpoint he posted on Facebook declared: “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly.” Investigators concluded that this was intended to mock the “Je Suis Charlie” slogan and express support for the perpetrator of the Paris supermarket killings (whose last name was “Coulibaly”). Expressing that opinion is evidently a crime in the Republic of Liberté, which prides itself on a line of 20th Century intellectuals – from Sartre and Genet to Foucault and Derrida – whose hallmark was leaving no orthodoxy or convention unmolested, no matter how sacred.

    Since that glorious “free speech” march, France has reportedly opened 54 criminal cases for “condoning terrorism.” AP reported this morning that “France ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and glorifying terrorism.”

    As pernicious as this arrest and related “crackdown” on some speech obviously is, it provides a critical value: namely, it underscores the utter scam that was this week’s celebration of free speech in the west. The day before the Charlie Hebdo attack, I coincidentally documented the multiple cases in the west – including in the U.S. – where Muslims have been prosecuted and even imprisoned for their political speech. Vanishingly few of this week’s bold free expression mavens have ever uttered a peep of protest about any of those cases – either before the Charlie Hebdo attack or since. That’s because “free speech,” in the hands of many westerners, actually means: it is vital that the ideas I like be protected, and the right to offend groups I dislike be cherished; anything else is fair game.

    It is certainly true that many of Dieudonné’s views and statements are noxious, although he and his supporters insist that they are “satire” and all in good humor. In that regard, the controversy they provoke is similar to the now-much-beloved Charlie Hebdo cartoons (one French leftist insists the cartoonists were mocking rather than adopting racism and bigotry, but Olivier Cyran, a former writer at the magazine who resigned in 2001, wrote a powerful 2013 letter with ample documentation condemning Charlie Hebdo for descending in the post-9/11 era into full-scale, obsessive anti-Muslim bigotry).

    Here’s that 2013 letter.

  50. Grewgills says

    @Tony 47
    That is a cool article. I remember learning about the extra myoglobin in diving mammals muscles in the 80s, so I’m not sure why they are saying that is new, maybe it is new exactly how much extra is in these species.
    There is a sound speed maxima at ~1000m if memory serves. This has been utilized to do some interesting sound/temp research. A series of implosions are created at one location using electricity to vaporize water, then the sound is detected at a distant location. By calculating the speed the sound traveled, the temp of the water is calculated. There was considerable worry over the effects of this on deep diving marine mammals.

  53. says

    Flavorwire’s Pilot Viruet on the Lifetime (television for women dontchaknow) biopic Whitney (ostensibly a biographical movie about the life of the late Whitney Houston):

    The film ends abruptly — sorry, but this movie doesn’t even deserve spoiler warnings — as Whitney stands on stage singing “I Will Always Love You.” This, if nothing else, should be entirely Whitney Houston’s Moment, but it’s like the camera is struggling to focus on Bobby, often cutting to him standing on the side of the stage watching her. Then it ends with title cards: about her divorce, some record-sales stats, and oh yeah — she died. It’s the first time Whitney makes any reference to her death; it doesn’t show it on screen, it doesn’t explain how or when she died, just that she did. It’s more baffling than anything else.

    It makes total sense that Lifetime made Whitney. The network loves these stories about women, especially famous women, who they can exploit — especially if their man has a strong narrative as well. And this is what is most exasperating about Lifetime: There are already so many — too many — movies, television shows, and entire networks that cater solely to men and aim to tell their stories. There are far fewer that are interested in women’s narratives (and even less that extend that interest to women of color).

    Lifetime, which is for women, has the distinct and rare opportunity to only tell women’s stories. Instead, they choose to obsess over the men: the man who stuck with Whitney, the man who had a quickie marriage to Aaliyah, the man who saved Brittany Murphy (and that’s not even getting into all of its ridiculous original, overwrought movies about scorned women and their male saviors). Whitney is hellbent on keeping Whitney Houston out of the spotlight in her own movie, and it’s depressing that Lifetime sees no problem with this.

    Patriarchy runs so deep that even in death Whitney doesn’t get to be the star of her own movie.

  54. says

    The commetariat might appreciate Katie Coyle’s Vivian Apple At the End of the World, a Young Adult novel set in a post-apocalyptic world:

    Vivian Apple at the End of the World is the smart person’s post-apocalyptic YA novel. Its titular heroine remains a delightfully staunch non-believer and non-practitioner even as America, including her parents, gets swept up in a Doomsday church. But when Vivian wakes up the day of the predicted rapture and finds her parents and a select group of believing citizens gone, she has to decide whether to accept her fate or take a road-trip with her friends to find out the truth. You can guess some of what follows, but not all of it, because the novel — which won a Canadian publishing contest before being published here this month — is truly original.

    Coyle, who is a welcome presence on feminist Tumblr when she’s not writing novels, chatted with Flavorwire about diversity and feminism in YA lit, her complex feelings about religion, and more.

    Flavorwire: What made you want to take your formidable talent and write a book for and about teen girls?

    Katie Coyle: All my favorite media is about teen girls — Buffy, Veronica Mars, Hermione Granger, etc. Those are the stories I’ve always related to most as a viewer/reader, and so naturally once I really started writing I found myself kind of echoing the themes I found in these things. I think there’s a big gap between the sort of cultural/societal understanding of what a teen girl is (hysterical, dramatic, bitchy, backstabbing lunatic) vs. the reality of most teen girls’ lives, which are as complex and interesting as anyone else’s. For me, it’s fun to write inside that gap and play with these accepted notions of what teen girlhood is.

    I’ve always been fascinated by the contrast between those negative portrayals and the fact that teen girls’ taste, in large part, drives the culture.

    Yes! It’s like everyone’s in denial about just how rich teen girls can make them. But look at Stephenie Meyer! One Direction! Those are people rolling around in golden coins paid to them directly by teen girls

    After the “Rapture,” Vivian has to let go of her desire to please the people around her, specifically the adults, which is such an ingrained part of girlhood. With her self-actualization arc, were you consciously trying to send a feminist message, or was it just sort of ingrained in your writerly DNA?

    I knew when I started writing that I wanted it to be a feminist book — most importantly, I wanted Vivian to be a girl character who actually did stuff, rather than let stuff happen to her. But her path to self-actualization, as you put it, was kind of just a reflection of my own. I wasn’t thinking about people-pleasing as being an element of girlhood, but of course it is — sugar and spice and everything nice, and all that. I was thinking about the sorts of things that I had to give up as I got older in order to come into my own, and those were largely these tendencies towards sweetness and compliance that I had felt pretty comfortable in for a while.

    You touch on faith, dogma, and all sorts of intense spiritual and religious issues. Has religion always been a subject you were interested in?

    I was very much not interested in religion when I was a kid actually practicing religion, except for one lone year, the seventh grade, when I had a really cute teacher. I became very religious that year! But in high school I started questioning the things I’d been taught, and realizing that I just didn’t buy most of them, and that was around the time that I became more interested in religion as a cultural force. I don’t want the message of the book to be “religious people are crazy,” because I very much don’t believe that they are. But I do hope the book helps teens ask questions like the ones I came to ask about the power religion still has in our supposedly secular culture.

    The apocalyptic megachurch in your book is also a big corporation, and I appreciate that you expanded your thoughtful critique to include capitalism!

    Oh, I’m so happy to hear that! I am not anti-religion but I’m definitely anti-capitalism. I hate capitalism so much!

    It sounds like something I’d like to read.

  55. says

    The commentariat might like Katie Coyle’s Young Adult novel Vivian Apple at the End of the World:

    Vivian Apple at the End of the World is the smart person’s post-apocalyptic YA novel. Its titular heroine remains a delightfully staunch non-believer and non-practitioner even as America, including her parents, gets swept up in a Doomsday church. But when Vivian wakes up the day of the predicted rapture and finds her parents and a select group of believing citizens gone, she has to decide whether to accept her fate or take a road-trip with her friends to find out the truth. You can guess some of what follows, but not all of it, because the novel — which won a Canadian publishing contest before being published here this month — is truly original.

    Coyle, who is a welcome presence on feminist Tumblr when she’s not writing novels, chatted with Flavorwire about diversity and feminism in YA lit, her complex feelings about religion, and more.

    Flavorwire: What made you want to take your formidable talent and write a book for and about teen girls?

    Katie Coyle: All my favorite media is about teen girls — Buffy, Veronica Mars, Hermione Granger, etc. Those are the stories I’ve always related to most as a viewer/reader, and so naturally once I really started writing I found myself kind of echoing the themes I found in these things. I think there’s a big gap between the sort of cultural/societal understanding of what a teen girl is (hysterical, dramatic, [note: I’ve redacted this word, bc I think it tripped the filter], backstabbing lunatic) vs. the reality of most teen girls’ lives, which are as complex and interesting as anyone else’s. For me, it’s fun to write inside that gap and play with these accepted notions of what teen girlhood is.

    I’ve always been fascinated by the contrast between those negative portrayals and the fact that teen girls’ taste, in large part, drives the culture.

    Yes! It’s like everyone’s in denial about just how rich teen girls can make them. But look at Stephenie Meyer! One Direction! Those are people rolling around in golden coins paid to them directly by teen girls

    After the “Rapture,” Vivian has to let go of her desire to please the people around her, specifically the adults, which is such an ingrained part of girlhood. With her self-actualization arc, were you consciously trying to send a feminist message, or was it just sort of ingrained in your writerly DNA?

    I knew when I started writing that I wanted it to be a feminist book — most importantly, I wanted Vivian to be a girl character who actually did stuff, rather than let stuff happen to her. But her path to self-actualization, as you put it, was kind of just a reflection of my own. I wasn’t thinking about people-pleasing as being an element of girlhood, but of course it is — sugar and spice and everything nice, and all that. I was thinking about the sorts of things that I had to give up as I got older in order to come into my own, and those were largely these tendencies towards sweetness and compliance that I had felt pretty comfortable in for a while.

    You touch on faith, dogma, and all sorts of intense spiritual and religious issues. Has religion always been a subject you were interested in?

    I was very much not interested in religion when I was a kid actually practicing religion, except for one lone year, the seventh grade, when I had a really cute teacher. I became very religious that year! But in high school I started questioning the things I’d been taught, and realizing that I just didn’t buy most of them, and that was around the time that I became more interested in religion as a cultural force. I don’t want the message of the book to be “religious people are crazy,” because I very much don’t believe that they are. But I do hope the book helps teens ask questions like the ones I came to ask about the power religion still has in our supposedly secular culture.

    The apocalyptic megachurch in your book is also a big corporation, and I appreciate that you expanded your thoughtful critique to include capitalism!

    Oh, I’m so happy to hear that! I am not anti-religion but I’m definitely anti-capitalism. I hate capitalism so much!

  57. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    Being single would suck a lot less if people didn’t comment on it, to my face or behind my back. You see, it’s strange and worrying that I wasn’t capable of finding someone yet, especially with a job where I meet so many people. I am nearly thirty after all.

    My mum was absolutely thrilled* to participate in that conversation with a nosy neighbor, answering her questions as vaguely as possible.

    As we discussed later, what the hell is wrong with people who think they can make judgmental statements on lives and choices of people they know next to nothing about?! It would of course be rude of me tell her to mind her own business when I next see that neighbor, but it isn’t rude of her to talk like that to my mother.. standards of behavior are so contradictory and wrong.

    *this might be a tad sarcastic

  59. says

    Hullo!
    Thank you all for the good wishes.
    We had an almost perfect day. Yes, last time I said “perfect”, but within 15 minutes the little one fell sick, so we had to take her to her grandma instead of the restaurant. But she’s better today.

    Two observations from the spa:
    1. Apparently pubic hair on women is becoming a great taboo. Talk of the pornification of everything.
    2. men apparently think they are totally entitled to comment on strange women’s food intake. We were sitting in the fireplace lounge when a woman got her spaghettis served. A large serving, sure (why not, spaghettis are dead cheap), but the guys next to us felt the need to comment “if she wanted to eat all of that alone, wasn’t it a bit much for her?”
    WTF?

    +++

    A 17-year-old from Cologne tweeted on January 10th:

    “I’m almost 18 and have no idea of taxes, rent or insurances.

    But I can write a poem analysis. In 4 languages.”

    Only if “emoticons” counts as a language nowadays…
    (also, does she have prents?)

  60. rq says

    Beatrice
    *hugs* You should co-ordinate a fantastic story with your mum for next time for that neighbour. :P Some people are too nosy for their own good.
    Chocolate?

  61. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    Giliell,

    Maybe she doesn’t have parents. Maybe her parents don’t know/want/can explain these things to her. It’s irrelevant, either way. I agree with her point – that schools should have a class on, well – life. I would include sex education, taxes, cooking, managing money, responsibilities of a citizen (from voting to non-discrimination and tolerance) etc.

  62. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    Thanks for the chocolate, rq.
    I know exactly who that neighbor has been talking to about me to know about my relationship status and work – another neighbor who is also my friend. For certain values of friend which include me being perfectly aware that she thinks I’m not normal and she values normal very very much.
    It’s a weird friendship, but I’ve known her for about as long as I’ve known myself so I don’t hold it (too much) against her. It’s just that now I know for sure she’s been talking shit about me to others, while before I just suspected.

  64. rq says

    Beatrice
    Fuck her, then. :( Screw ‘normal’.
    You should get cut-outs of hot famous men (Idris Elba a MUST) and put them randomly in your window where she can see them. Then when she asks about boyfriends, be all ‘what are you talking about?’ just to confuse her.

  65. says

    beatrice

    I would include sex education, taxes, cooking, managing money, responsibilities of a citizen (from voting to non-discrimination and tolerance) etc.

    You know, the thing is, German curricula cover most of these things. Sex ed starts in 3rd grade and gets “repeated” several times, including having people from what would be the German equivalent of PP come to schools and in many states also from LGBTQ organisations to teach about diversity. There’s policits and social science and all that stuff, but there’s of course also a limited amount of time and some choice. Given that she has 3 foreign languages at that level it means that she chose a language over something else every single time she had a choice. And then she complains about it. Sounds like the school mostly failed at teaching her not to be an entitled brat.

  66. David Marjanović says

    (also, does she have prents?)

    Mine never really explained that stuff either, and there’s still much I don’t know. Now, I was never expected to have a Real Job in the Real World Out There, I first went to a students’ home (and then another, and then back to the first) instead of immediately living in a full-fledged apartment, and finally such things are different in every country, of which I’ve already lived in 3; so I’m a bad example. But the attitude does seem to be widespread that, as the president of the teachers’ union said, “life itself teaches” these things; they’re supposedly either obvious, or you soak up the knowledge by osmosis upon turning 18.

    The main motive for participating in the protests is a general unhappiness with politics, followed by criticism of media and the public, and only in the third place resentment of immigrants and asylum seekers (especially Muslims).

    So it’s about ethics in journalism, is it?

    …Sort of. I’d say most participants don’t hate “foreigners” enough to care, but are perfectly willing to throw them under the bus for another cause.

    Gregor Gysi has weighed in (article in German). He says many East Germans, especially older ones, are scared, because they “lived in an enclosed society, knew the world only from the TV. From one day to the next they became not just Germans, but straight away Europeans and world citizens, too.” They saw everything around them change and simply found it too much to cope with. Politics, he says, has done too little to deconstruct fears of Islam or preventing them from being built up in the first place – and, remarkably, he includes himself and his party (The Left) in this. “Where citizens live together with people of Islamic faith, these fears hardly exist, they are rather abstract and influenced by reports of Islamist violence from other countries.” He calls for a large-scale information campaign.

    Plus I’m planning my revenge by taking a solo trip sometime in the spring/early summer. BECAUSE I DESERVE A TRIP TOO, even if I have to pay for it.

    Ooh! Where to? Berlin is nice that time of the year when it’s not raining. :-)

    In South Africa, there is a mandatory subject for all high school kids, called Life Skills, which includes all that daily financial stuff, as well as things like jobhunting, leases, workers’ rights, state benefits etc etc. It’s a good idea, in my opinion.

    I like that.

    It would of course be rude of me tell her to mind her own business when I next see that neighbor

    What would happen if you asked her why she even cares?

    A response to Mike Buchanan, the leader of the Justice for Men and Boys party: In a woman’s world, we men need Mike.

    Wonderful. :-) And that in the Torygraph!

    Just above the comments there are two quotable shorter articles:

    Boredom used to make our teenagers rock

    Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, is worried about our children. Specifically, she’s worried that they aren’t bored. Some parents, she notes in an interview, arrange endless extracurricular activities to cram every last second of their child’s time with instructive distraction. Mrs Morgan, however, believes that it does children good to be bored, because it teaches them to “amuse themselves”.

    I’m not sure any modern child or teenager can really know what boredom is, thanks to the limitless and ever-present possibilities of the web and social media. I doubt it’s a coincidence that the rise of mass internet use runs in parallel with the decline of rock music. From the Fifties to the Nineties, rock groups (whether rock’n’roll, prog, metal, punk, indie, Britpop) were formed by teenagers who had nothing else to do. Almost all came from drab provincial towns and suburbs, and believed the guitar, if they practised ceaselessly, could be their ticket out. In the US, rock’n’roll was meant to be about sex (its very name was originally a euphemism for it); but in Britain, I think it was more about escape.

    Now that no one young need ever be at a loose end, that drive to escape – at least through guitar music – must be less strong. Look at the shortlists for this year’s Brit Awards, announced two days ago. Britain today produces few rock groups that are original, exciting, outspoken and popular. There may not be many more to come.

    Blair – he’s prime minister for life

    The other day, Tony Blair said something peculiar. MPs were questioning him about IRA fugitives. Here’s one of his answers. “I am the Prime Minister,” he said stoutly, “and I should accept responsibility for everything that happens in a government of which I am Prime Minister.”

    Mr Blair didn’t correct himself. He simply went on talking. I felt troubled. Does he really believe he’s still prime minister? Do security guards at Chequers politely have to turn him away at weekends? Does he angrily call policemen “plebs” if they don’t let him through the gates of Downing Street?

    No wonder he barely has a good word to say about Ed Miliband. He clearly sees him as a rival for his job.

  67. David Marjanović says

    You should get cut-outs of hot famous men (Idris Elba a MUST) and put them randomly in your window where she can see them. Then when she asks about boyfriends, be all ‘what are you talking about?’ just to confuse her.

    Heh. :-)

    including having people from what would be the German equivalent of PP come to schools and in many states also from LGBTQ organisations to teach about diversity

    Mind blown.

    Given that she has 3 foreign languages at that level it means that she chose a language over something else every single time she had a choice. And then she complains about it.

    If she really had to interpret poems in 3 foreign languages, not just in German, that is a waste of limited time. But that’s hard to imagine. Maybe she’s trying to say (in 137 characters) that she learned 3 foreign languages to the level where she could do that? (Which would be impressive.)

  68. says

    If she really had to interpret poems in 3 foreign languages, not just in German, that is a waste of limited time. But that’s hard to imagine. Maybe she’s trying to say (in 137 characters) that she learned 3 foreign languages to the level where she could do that? (Which would be impressive.)

    As somebody who gets a state of the art degree in language teaching atm…
    Well, actually, poetry hardly features anymore beyond a creative approach where you do a little bit about form, like how you do a Limerick and then let the students run wild with it.
    Many of the things that we do in language teaching now are things that aim at creating the so called “intercultural speaker”: People who can communicate well and who are aware of cultural differences and who are open for different perspectives. That goal is, of course, the same for all foreign languages, which means that it’s to a certain degree repetitive. Because students will learn between 1 and 3 foreign languages.
    As for other things, while we sure could do with more life relevant stuff, it’s also true that certain things are really specific. I mean, you can’t teach people how to do their taxes in school. You can teach them the difference between income and consumer taxes.
    But yes, you are supposed to pick up some information during the 16-18 hours a day that you don’t spend in school.

  69. says

    “Where citizens live together with people of Islamic faith, these fears hardly exist, they are rather abstract and influenced by reports of Islamist violence from other countries.”

    Well, given that every single muslim in Saxony manages to intimidate about 3 people to the degree that they feel the need to go to the Pegida march in Dresden, there seems to be a lot of truth to this.
    In Cologne, otoh, where there is a huge muslim population, Pegida is routinely laughed off the streets. Though “Pro-NRW” (another nationalist anti muslim organisation) do exist there…

  70. sff9 says

    Tony! @46, thanks for the Greenwald article, it’s really interesting and I agree with most points.

    To those who have read the Olivier Cyran letter in question (Tony!’s link wasn’t good; here’s a correct one): Ophelia Benson linked to a reply by Zineb El-Rhazoui, religion editor of Charlie. I don’t find it particularly convincing—she attacks Cyran as if he was justifying the Muslim bigots’ awful actions all around the world, whereas he was taking a French perspective and wasn’t justifying anything anyway—but she does point out some inaccuracies.

    (I post this here in the Lounge as a reply to Tony!, sorry if it’s not the right place. Maybe this discussion should stay under the “Satire is not the problem” post?)

  71. David Marjanović says

    Finally the big link dump you’ve been waiting for all week. (You totally have. *nodnod*)

    “Favorite Anti-Feminist Theory Debunked By Purdue Researchers” – men instead deathly afraid of being treated like women. The humiliation! Teh ghey!

    “2014 was the hottest year on record”

    “2014 Warmest year on record while solar cycle weakest in 100 years”

    “Sign the petition by Daily Kos and CREDO, urging Speaker Boehner to remove Rep. Steve Scalise from his Republican leadership position immediately.”

    “Images of Muhammad in Islam” – very informative! It’s also about images of other people in Islam, and images of other people in contemporary Christianity, complete with iconoclasm and stuff.

    “One million adults to lose Food Stamps this year”

    There’s more, of course.

  72. David Marjanović says

    “Dear Obama Hater – You Just Wasted A Decade Of Your Life”

    “Lots of you continue to get unhinged emails from people on Facebook, your drunk uncle, and various Tea Party relatives. Here’s a gentle response to them….

    Pretty soon Obama will be gone and you will have to face up to the fact that you will have lost a whole decade of your life passing around conspiracy theories and whipping yourself into a frenzy of hatred. All of you lost friends, severed relationships with family members, and some of you even lost your job or your marriage due to your unhinged behavior.”

    And so on. :-)

    “Grokking Republicans: Authoritarian Followers, Leaders, and Doubles” – Most interesting quote: “Evangelicals score high on the Religious Fundamentalism scale. On the problem of young Evangelicals falling away, Barna reported recently that 38% of Millennial Evangelicals fact-check sermons on their smart phones.”

    Finally! “The first high speed train in the U.S. breaks ground this week” as of January 5th. Apparently the planning of the track is… a bit weird, though.

    “Ted Cruz’s Dad: “The Average Black Does Not” Understand The Minimum Wage Is Bad” – And then I said, ‘Did you know that every member of the Ku Klux Klan were Democrats from the South?’ ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’ You know, they need to be educated.

    “Introducing: Scorecards for the TV networks” – “We’re making it easier to see how a particular cable channel or network is performing on PunditFact’s Truth-O-Meter.”

    “For instance, 46 percent of the claims made by NBC and MSNBC pundits and on-air personalities have been rated Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire.

    At FOX and Fox News Channel, that same number is 60 percent. At CNN, it’s 18 percent.” Various disclaimers and complications in the article.

    “Obama To Disband the Marine Corps” – “You didn’t know this, did you?”

    “How can, on one hand, we discuss rationally our jobs, our cars, our families, and then BOOM, a switch goes off and FEMA camps, immigrant take-over, birth certificate time-travel, Sandy Hook being a hoax, and the ever present secret army of ‘jack-booted thugs’ (you know, the bad kind who take your guns away, not the good kind who shoot unarmed brown people).” Includes several links.

    But yes, you are supposed to pick up some information during the 16-18 hours a day that you don’t spend in school.

    More like 14 on some days in some years in my case; and during 10 of them I slept.

  74. caseloweraz says

    Headline at Cervantes’ link:

    Researchers find salmon semen can be used to extract rare earth elements from waste

    Let’s hope it works better than pickled peppers…

    (Ducks, runs.)

  75. says

    “Images of Muhammad in Islam” – very informative! It’s also about images of other people in Islam, and images of other people in contemporary Christianity, complete with iconoclasm and stuff.

    I think the discussion would be much more honest if we could all just stop talking about how those carricatures are about depicting Mohamed and just straight up admit that he’s become a stand in for muslims and that it’s about telling our muslim minorities where their place is and that the majority does not give a fuck about them. Because right now it just gives the pope an opportunity to act as if making fun of Jesus and making fun of Mohamed in the context of the western world.
    BTW, the infamous Danish newspaper rejected some lighthearted Jesus carricatures ’cause they would offend readers…

  76. sff9 says

    “Latest FBI Claim of Disrupted Terror Plot Deserves Much Scrutiny and Skepticism”, by Glenn Greenwald

    Consider the truly remarkable (yet not aberrational) 2011 prosecution of James Cromitie, an impoverished African-American Muslim convert who had expressed anti-Semitic views but, at the age of 45, had never evinced any inclination to participate in a violent attack. For eight months, the FBI used an informant – one who was on the hook for another crime and whom the FBI was paying – to try to persuade Cromitie to agree to join a terror plot which the FBI had concocted. And for eight months, he adamantly refused. Only when they dangled a payment of $250,000 in front of him right as he lost his job did he finally assent, causing the FBI to arrest him. The DOJ trumpeted the case as a major terrorism arrest, obtained a prosecution and sent him to prison for 25 years.

    I would like to think that it’s just another “false flag”-style conspiracy theory, but it does not look like it is… How is that even possible? I have no words.

  77. says

    sff9

    I would like to think that it’s just another “false flag”-style conspiracy theory, but it does not look like it is… How is that even possible? I have no words.

    In Germany a young muslim convert made a terror threat*…
    …after he’d been radicalised and talked into doing it by undercover agents of the German security service.
    *He recorded a video. No evidence that he ever had any means to carry it out. Unless they’d have provided him with them

  78. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    It would be really helpful if you quoted people you were responding to, David.

    [rq] Plus I’m planning my revenge by taking a solo trip sometime in the spring/early summer. BECAUSE I DESERVE A TRIP TOO, even if I have to pay for it.

    [David]
    Ooh! Where to? Berlin is nice that time of the year when it’s not raining. :-)

    I can only (try to) match that with Zagreb being cheaper. But then again, with all the connection flights you’d probably have to make, that doesn’t exactly hold true.

  79. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    er, written names of people
    sorry for the brain fart

  80. says

    In Mississippi some Republican politicians want to make the Christian Bible the official state book.

    Rep. Tom Miles of Forest says he and fellow Democratic Rep. Michael Evans of Preston are filing a bill, and they already have received bipartisan promises of support from more than 20 of their colleagues.

    Miles says Mississippi has a state bird, a state flower and even a state toy, so it should have a state book.

    Clarion Ledger link. Lawsuits are predicted. Louisiana tried that before and ran into problems, constitutional problems.

    From Wonkette: Nice Lady Sees Devil Symbol In School Bus Lights, Gets On TV

  81. says

    The CBO refuted the latest Obamacare case 68 times

    The key to the plaintiff’s argument in the King v. Burwell challenge to Obamacare before the U.S. Supreme Court is that Congress really meant to limit federal subsidies just to the states that set up their own health insurance exchanges because they wanted to force all of the states to set up exchanges and were putting in place a way to punish states that didn’t—withholding subsidies from the residents of those states. Their case, they argue, will give Congress and the states the opportunity to “fix” how the law has been implemented to reflect the will of Congress.

    Never mind that the actual members of Congress who wrote the bill have clearly and repeatedly stated their intent was to make sure that no states—or people—would be left out, opponents of the law persist in their argument. To the end of debunking it, and providing more information for the justices to consider, a number of journalists and analysts have been combing the real-time record of the legislation making, all finding that there was no indication ever in the process that Congress was considering punishing states.

    To add to that pile, Theda Skocpol of Harvard University looked at every Congressional Budget Office report from the legislative process. She found 68 reports, and not a single one of them discussed limiting subsidies to just the states with their own exchanges. […]

    Even Paul Ryan took it for granted that taxpayers in the USA would pick up the subsidy tabs. This just theater. Legislation as Circus Acts. High wire stupidity that has the potential to take health care away from millions. Sheesh.

  82. says

    Here’s some good news. It looks like Rush Dimbulb’s career is in ruins.

    […] Conservative ‘hate radio’ talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, is having such a hard time getting and keeping sponsors for his show due the national boycott; he’s airing promo ads of himself. […]

    On January 14, during a normal sponsor break on WJR in Detroit, only one ad (Square Trade) played, followed by PSAs (public service announcements) and promos for other shows on the same network. During that break (where many large prominent sponsors once lived), a monitoring StopRush volunteer noted two unusual promos for The Rush Limbaugh Show. […]

    Of course, before the ad break, Limbaugh was blaming and ranting about how ‘folks’ should be livid with the Democrats and the president, for Obama’s constant abuse of executive powers – and everything bad in the world. (It’s what he does when he’s not bullying, degrading, lying, slandering andprovoking hatred about blacks, LGBT (Lesbians, Gays, BiSexuasl & Transgenders) women, hispanics…) […]

    Daily Kos link.

  83. says

    Some facts about workers in the USA who rely on tips to make a living:

    * Tipped workers’ wages typically fall at the bottom of the income ladder, even after accounting for tips.
    * “Ensuring fair pay for tipped workers is also a women’s issue. Women comprise two out of every three tipped workers; of the food servers and bartenders who make up over half of the tipped workforce, roughly 70 percent are women.”
    * The poverty rate for tipped workers (12.8 percent) is nearly twice that of working people subject to the full minimum wage (6.5 percent).
    * The public subsidizes the incomes of tipped workers twice: directly, when we leave a gratuity, and indirectly, as 46 percent of them rely on public benefits to make ends meet.

    The Minimum Wage For Tipped Workers Hasn’t Increased Since the Fall of the Soviet Union

    Twenty-Three Years and Still Waiting for Change: Why It’s Time to Give Tipped Workers the Regular Minimum Wage

  84. says

    […] the only thing uniting them was their opposition to President Barack Obama […]

    Pretty good summary of the Republican conclave recently held in Hershey, PA.

    Some of ’em want a showdown that will shut down the government. Others, not so much.

    Some of them want to come up with an alternative to Obamacare, others just want to blow stuff up, especially healthcare.

    Boehner tried to put a good spin on the meeting by saying, “We’ve all had an opportunity to get to know each other a little bit.”

  85. says

    sff9 @70:
    Thanks for correcting the link for me.
    Oh, and IMO, the subject is fine for the Lounge. The only rule is that we’re kind to one another here, so we can talk about issues like this so long as we take care in our interactions with one another.

  87. says

    Media Matters has good coverage of the rightwing myth of “No-Go Zones” (related to anti-muslim hysteria).

    A video from the All In (Chris Hayes) show is the centerpiece. Excellent coverage, and an excellent interview from All In. Maybe I should add a trigger warning for head-desking.

    More, related links at the Media Matters link.

  89. sff9 says

    Giliell @77, seriously, I don’t even. And on top of that being stupid, useless, completely unethical and revolting, they use people who are very poor and/or not very social (obviously it would not work otherwise). Plain disgusting.

    Tony! @85, you’re welcome, and thanks for the clarification!

  91. says

    Giliell

    There’s policits and social science and all that stuff, but there’s of course also a limited amount of time and some choice

    That’s not really what people are talking about, though. It used to be called Home Economics in the States, back before that devolved into a sewing and cooking class, then disappeared entirely. Things like balancing a checkbook (not so much anymore, but whatever), putting together a resume, etc.
    sff9

    How is that even possible? I have no words..

    Something very similar happened here; the FBI made a great noise about someone having planned to bomb the holiday display in the square. It turned out they’d found a Muslim teenager, talked him into ‘wanting’ to be a ‘jihadi’, then provided him with the plan, the funds, and that (fake) bomb with which to make the threat, then arrested him with great fanfare. He’s still locked up, as far as I know.
    David Marjanović

    …Sort of. I’d say most participants don’t hate “foreigners” enough to care, but are perfectly willing to throw them under the bus for another cause.

    Bluntly, I don’t buy that for a second, and it wouldn’t cut any ice with me even if I did. Reason being, I’ve heard this shit a lot from conservatives over here, and it boils down to ‘I’m not racist, I’m just sick of all those n-words mooching off of welfare and the damn [ethnic slur]s crossing the border and stealing our jobs and healthcare’. It’s never just about economics or the like (it can’t be; their economic prescriptions are inevitably total crap), and even if it were, that’s no excuse.

  92. rq says

    Beatrice and David
    Either option sounds pretty good!
    Also, I think AirBaltic does a direct to Zagreb (or did), and who knows what cheap flights they’ll come up with by then. I’ll let you know!!

  93. says

    Dalillama

    Things like balancing a checkbook (not so much anymore, but whatever), putting together a resume, etc.

    1. Checkbooks are not a thing here. Never were.
    2. Resume writing gets taught in German (and in English). Believe me, it gets covered, several times.
    3. Really, those things are mostly integrated into the subjects. The parliamentary system gets covered in politics, etc.
    Really, folks, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to explain the German educational system to me, the one this young woman claimed failed her so horribly.

  94. rq says

    Why Some Teams Are Smarter Than Others

    Instead, the smartest teams were distinguished by three characteristics.

    First, their members contributed more equally to the team’s discussions, rather than letting one or two people dominate the group.

    Second, their members scored higher on a test called Reading the Mind in the Eyes, which measures how well people can read complex emotional states from images of faces with only the eyes visible.

    Finally, teams with more women outperformed teams with more men. Indeed, it appeared that it was not “diversity” (having equal numbers of men and women) that mattered for a team’s intelligence, but simply having more women. This last effect, however, was partly explained by the fact that women, on average, were better at “mindreading” than men.

    But of course there’s no cultural pressure that lets women develop their ‘mindreading’ skills more than men, eh? Whew.

  95. Funny Diva says

    Tony! @85

    Neither of these scenarios appeal to me, so I’m just gonna make like Bartleby in this situation and prefer the fuck not to.

    I. am. SO. stealing.

  97. tbtabby says

    The Philippine government has decided to take more ridiculous steps than making traffic controllers wear diapers to make their country all nice-nice for the Pope. Now they’ve also rounded up all the poor children and thrown them in jail. Typical “good Christian” move: always place looking nice over actually being nice, even if it means doing things that make you far worse than the heathens you look down on.

  98. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    This pope actually cares

    Right.
    I know he can’t be aware of everything. But I’m sure there is someone working for him who is making sure to know just about everything happening in the Philippines right now. And I realize they may judge this unworthy of mention to the pope, so maybe he genuinely isn’t aware.
    But there are a lot of maybes there,and for someone so invested in justice for the poor (of at least building such image)… I can’t help thinking he should be making sure that he’s informed about such things. So he should know, and if he does… what’s his answer?

  99. says

    This pope actually does a good job at making it look like he cares

    Fixed it.
    I mean, I remember him talking a lot about rich people and how they should stop being so greedy and stuff. I don’t remember him telling the Cologne (just an example) diocese to stop having mailbox companies in low tax countries so they could avoid paying property tax for their extensive property in Germany…
    Yeah, watching the news last night the headline was “tropical storm cuts the pope’s visit to Tacloban short” and I was like “this is fucked up. News should be “Tacloban hit by a tropical storm. Also affects papal visit.”
    Also, he celebrated a mass in the rebuilt cathedral. I guess they just didn’t have time to build up the housing poor people lost being all busy with the cathedral…

  100. opposablethumbs says

    Also, he celebrated a mass in the rebuilt cathedral. I guess they just didn’t have time to build up the housing poor people lost being all busy with the cathedral

    Didn’t his legendary pal jay-cee set the precedent for that? I’m a bit fuzzy on the details, but wasn’t there some story involving a luxury gift to him where one of the other says “let’s sell it and give the money to the poor” but jesus answers “the poor are always with us” (but I’m only here right now to be pampered) … or something like that???

    “The poor”, of course, being a monolith that doesn’t involve actual individuals. All interchangeable. Not precious unique individuals like Frankie. Poor Frankie – so very keen to help the poor, so very powerless to do anything about street kids being rounded up for his visit.

  101. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    just to make it clear, the quote about pope caring is from the linked reportage.

    I agree that it’s pretense and marketing.

  102. rq says

    opposablethumbs
    As the son of god, he deserved some pampering, don’t you think? Living with the rabble is so hard on the psyche, not like slumming it every now and then. Give the man a break! [/snark]

  104. opposablethumbs says

    And it’s not even as if the mythological j-c never “ought” to have any treats. People caring for others need to take care of themselves too (say, hypothetically, for the sake of argument, that the mythological j-c was caring for others. If there happen to be some priests or whatnot actually giving real help to needy people local to them (and I’m sure some priests/vicars/rabbis/imams do sometimes do something useful for some of their neighbours) there would be absolutely nothing wrong with their enjoying themselves sometimes too. Just like anybody else.)

    No, it’s the fact that the catholic church, just like every other pyramid scheme, always puts the cathedral before the poor. Every time, all the time. (And any liberation theologians who dare speak out against this soon find themselves in big trouble with head office in Rome.)

    There’s a nice bit somewhere in Eco’s Name of the Rose, iirc, where it’s made clear that the theological cage death-match (to the actual death) over whether j-c owned his own clothes or not is of course really about the earthly wealth of the catholic church, dripping with gold amidst poverty.

  105. Tony! The Queer Shoop says

    Soooo, a religious guy said this

    The fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden is the worst thing ever to happen to humanity, says a Christian apologist.

    The religion of Islam, he says, is the second worst.

    “This is reality that Islam has spilled more blood, that Islam has been a greater detriment to progress and civilization,” says Dr. Alex McFarland, who co-hosts “Exploring the Word” on American Family Radio.

    “There is one scripture and it is the Bible,” says McFarland. “There is one God and it is the triune Lord of the Bible, and Allah is not God.”

    Does this count as provoking faith? Should he expect a punch in the face too?

  106. says

    I went to my XXX high school reunion last night. A fun time was had by all. I spent most of the time talking to people I went to elementary school with because in high school itself I spent most of my time with people in the orchestra and surprisingly few of them came to the reunion. And today, my voice is shot from trying to talk while the band was playing.

  107. Christopher DeMars says

    Our second BFF in the mid-east (behind another psudo -theocracy) has just decreed that atheist thoughts = terrorism

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-declares-all-atheists-are-terrorists-in-new-law-to-crack-down-on-political-dissidents-9228389.html

    Article one of the new provisions defines terrorism as “calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based”.

  108. birgerjohansson says

    (Re. 108: Messerchmitt 108 was an ordinary four-seater communications aircraft, which inspired the later SAAB Safir)

    Trans-Neptunian objects suggest that there are more planets in the solar system? http://phys.org/news/2015-01-trans-neptunian-planets-solar.html

    How to Create Inclusive Prosperity — And Save Democracy http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-summers/how-to-save-democracy_b_6484320.html

    — — — —
    “March for Life” Opposes Contraception https://proxy.freethought.online/dispatches/2015/01/15/march-for-life-opposes-contraception/#more-32695
    The blogger Ed Brayton: “The March for Life Education and Defense Fund, which organizes the annual March for Life, has removed the mask and revealed their real goal, which is to get rid of contraception. This is something I’ve been arguing for many years, that the real target is not abortion but birth control itself.”

    — — — —
    Illustration of the crash, from Stanislaw Lem’s book “Eden” https://500px.com/photo/95981193/the-crash-by-vadim-bulitko?from=user_library BTW no misogyny in this novel.

    — — —

  110. birgerjohansson says

    The evil guy in the photo is obviously the shape-shifter from “Who Goes There?”
    — — —

    New evidence for anthropic theory that fundamental physics constants underlie life-enabling universe
    http://phys.org/news/2015-01-evidence-anthropic-theory-fundamental-physics.html

    — — —
    Police officer says 95-year-old World War Two vet he shot to death was a threat http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/police-officer-says-95-year-old-world-war-two-vet-he-shot-to-death-was-threat/

  112. says

    Salon published an interesting article/interview/review featuring University of California-Berkeley biologist Tyrone Hayes. It’s a review because it spends so much time discussing a recent New Yorker article, and it’s an interview because there’s Hayes (and Jonathan Demme) answering questions.

    Seeing a biologist get slammed by a big corporation is scary.

    […] You might find yourself followed, your reputation dismantled, your very well-being threatened — all of which happened to University of California-Berkeley biologist Tyrone Hayes when he discovered that atrazine, one of our most commonly used herbicides, might be causing gender and reproductive deformities in frogs, with potential implications for human health.

    Hayes’ research was enough to provoke a years-long war between him and Syngenta, the company that manufactures atrazine; the saga already got the 8,000-word treatment last year in the New Yorker as well as in a 2011 Mother Jones story. But filmmaker Jonathan Demme told Salon he felt there was even more to add to Hayes’ story, which he produced in mini-documentary form for the first episode of “The New Yorker Presents,” a new series streaming on Amazon Prime. […]

    [Demme speaking] He is not simply the whistleblower who went toe-to-toe with big chemistry. He is a dedicated humanist who is immersed in his science, turns other people on to the impact of that realm of science on the planet and on mankind. […]

    [Hayes speaking] Rachel Aviv [writer of the New Yorker article] wrote the whole side of the Syngenta story based on their own handwritten documents, so the things I could tell you I knew they were doing, like buying my name on the Internet and planning to harass my father and my family and my students… I knew those things were happening. But to see that they would actually write things down like “set a trap” or that their goal was to discredit me, that really bought a lot of peace of mind. I felt like I had persevered. I’ve been with this burden for a long, long time and finally, because of their own handwritten documents it was now publicly available. […]

    Link.

  113. says

    I have completed all the shopping for both households, and sorted it all out so Husband can drop Aged Mum’s off later this afternoon, and put ours away. I have one more pile of miscellanea to pack for AM, and I need to figure out how much she owes us and transfer the funds. I’m already worn out. Is it naptime yet?

    And in two weeks I have to do it all over again but much earlier in the morning, so Husband and I cannot go up there and do chores for her. Gaaaaaaaahhhhhh

  117. says

    *Restocks basket with chocolate covered hugs and hug covered chocolates*

    +++
    And now for the horrible things in life (TW child abuse)
    Friday night there was a real police chase that ended with the car in the river in our little town. Excitement, excitement, people will talk like forever!
    Today at my godson’s birthday I talked with his father who’s a cop and who took part in the chase. the driver was a 21 yo guy who was on drugs. Next to him was his 13 yo “girlfriend”. Who was on drugs, too. He’ll get to complain about how unfair the world is in prison. Because 13 yo cannot consent to sex with 21 yo. And 13 yo on drugs can even less consent to sex with 21 yo.
    One of the guests remarked about “The whole life ruined” and I said “Yes, the poor girl!” He looked, thought and then went for a feeble “yeah but his life, too!” “He had a choice” was all I replied.

  120. David Marjanović says

    Sorry, haven’t had time to catch up yet. Link dump:

    Video: “Adorable baby pygmy hippo born” – that’s the other, cuter species of hippo which probably won’t kill you for trespassing. ^_^

    Ractopamine – read all about it – is banned in 160 countries, including all of the EU and also Russia and China. Yet, in the US, it’s routinely given to pigs to boost their growth rates. Petition to ban it.

    Petition to Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to 12.50 $/h.

    Ellen DeGeneres reveals the gay agenda!!! Or something. :-) Haven’t been able to watch the included video yet.

    From Wednesday – I don’t know what came of it: “Woot!! Bernie Sanders Just Screwed over the Republicans”

    “It seems Senator Sanders knows how to mess royally with the Republicans.

    He’s introduced an amendment to the legislation that would pass the Keystone XL Pipeline. The amendment reads thusly:”

  122. David Marjanović says

    Oops, forgot to close the last link; it works anyway.

    “Are you sick of highly paid teachers?” Drives home how low teachers’ salaries really are in the US.

    “My 2015 confession: conservatives were right about everything” – may contain large amounts of sarcasm.

    “Seattle dog masters public transit, rides bus alone to the dog park”

    Grant Morrison, a police officer in Montana, has shot an unarmed man dead. No charges. Now he shot another unarmed man dead. Still no charges. Also, the penalty for having a “crazed look” on your face is death without trial.

  123. rq says

    Giliell
    *hugs*
    Brings to mind that story currently going in the US, where an 18yo (young) man and his 13yo girlfriend went on a crime spree (since they were white, they were, of course, portrayed as sweethearts and ‘in a spot of trouble’ rather than subjected to gunfire and a massive manhunt, but the age disparity – I haven’t seen that one being remarked on all that much!).
    And well done on your reply, re: “the poor girl”. Very well done.

    +++

    I have now figured out the difference between girls’ pyjamas and boys’ pyjamas (having mistakenly bought a very cute but rather unisex set for Middle Child): girls’ pyjamas have a slight ruffle-like gathering at the top of the shoulder, where boys’ pyjamas get the straight sewing treatment. I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for that next time. :P (Seriously, they’re cute pyjamas and he loves them.)
    Speaking of Middle Child, made him stop and think today. He was leafing through a toy catalogue (the kind that comes with LEGO sets n stuff) and he came upon the ‘for girls’ pages, and he immediately said ‘Oh, look, it’s the stupid girls’ stuff!’ So I asked him if he thought everything I have is stupid, because I’m a girl, and he stopped and looked ashamed and said ‘No’, and then I said boys and girls can play with those toys, to which Eldest replied, ‘Yeah, one of my friends plays with those dolls! So boys can play with that, too!’ Middle Child is barely 5, so there’s hope for him yet.
    Tomorrow Eldest has a speech-poetry competition. Technically it’s about speaking skills but also about acting skills, since he has to memorize a poem and a piece of text and recite them in interesting fashion. If his nerves hold out, he should totally rock the house and make it at least one more level up (these things go right to the national level). And this is the kid about whom I was told that ‘he has weak language skills’ (age 2), ‘he speaks rather well for his age’ (age 3) and ‘he has some problems with pronunciation’ (age 6). And that dialect accent that he sometimes presents, that was considered a potential problem by the speech therapist at his kindergarten? His current teacher says it gives him personality (as in a kind of individuality). So here’s to not fitting into the language boxes. (And yes, he’s nervous, but you can tell he’s also super-proud of having learned the material and being able to recite it so well.)
    Also, Husband leaves for the Alps tomorrow. It’s going to be a long week of y’all listening to me complain. ;)

  124. David Marjanović says

    “French TV Show Laughs At The Credibility Of “The Fox News Clowns””

    “Earlier this week Fox News hosted Steven Emerson, an alleged terrorism expert, who claimed that the entire city of Birmingham, England[,] was occupied by radical Muslims and was inaccessible to anyone else. His remarks were widely ridiculed, including by David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, who called Emerson an ‘idiot.’ Emerson later recanted and apologized for his ‘terrible error.’ But Fox wasn’t done embarrassing itself with false tales of horror.”

    Anti-racist cartoons by Cabu through the ages; Cabu is one of the murdered caricaturists at Charlie Hebdo. The translation of bleu-bites is corrected at the bottom of the article. 384 comments, which I haven’t read.

  127. says

    David M. @124, I’ve had a few good laughs over Faux News embarrassing itself so badly that it has drawn ridicule from the international press and from heads of state. Awesome.

  128. says

    I noticed a long time ago that snow is darker in many places than it is the fairly rural, low-population state in which I live. Now we have some studies showing that “dark snow,” darkened by pollution is affecting the snow pack everywhere. This relative darkness triggers melting feedback loops.

    Back in September, I interviewed Jason Box, a climate scientist whose work focuses on tracking the albedo, or reflectance, of the Greenland ice sheet. According to Box’s measurements (and his stunning photos), something weird is happening—the snow and ice there are increasingly black, […]

    Changes in albedo are responsible for a significant fraction of global warming—about one-fourth as much as greenhouse gases, according to a recent study. If you’ve ever walked barefoot from light-colored concrete to black asphalt on a hot summer day, you’ll know what I mean. The increase in darkness due to dirt or wildfire soot or smokestack pollution literally changes the melt rate of the snow, causing it to disappear more quickly. […] [alarming chart at the link]

    Temperate snow is also nearer its melting point, and the little bit of extra black carbon can act as a tipping point, warming the atmosphere even further, and transporting that extra heat right back to the Arctic. In sensitive areas like the Pacific Northwest that depend upon snowmelt for water supply, an increase in black carbon could have profound impacts on society. […]

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/01/13/greenland_s_dark_snow_is_coming_to_america_photos.html

  129. ledasmom says

    Well, older son just told me he’s gay. I wish he’d told me earlier, but he said he was nervous about saying it even though he knew there was no rational reason to be nervous.
    He’s staying with his grandmother this year – does anyone know of good resources for gay teenagers in Crow Wing County, Minnesota?

  130. says

    Can we have the pope arrested for glorifying terrorism?
    He was just quoted (translated rather) on TV:

    “When somebody insults religion it’s as if they insulted my mother and you can get punched in the face for something like that”

    That’s the biggest condonation of killing journalists for stupid cartoons I’ve heard in a while…

  132. rq says

    ledasmom
    Yay for him getting over the nervousness. Hope the hunt for resources is successful!

  133. carlie says

    ledasmom – I don’t have any advice or information, but congratulations on having the kind of relationship with him that he felt he could tell you.

  134. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    *adding hugs to the hug basket*

    I forgot that sending an email to clients at ten pm on a Sunday isn’t a good idea. There’s dedicated, and then there’s too dedicated or to put it in more practical terms: they’ll demand the whole arm right away next time, instead of getting it because they can’t tell a difference between asking for a finger and asking for an arm.. ok, that got too complicated. But it sounded like a brilliant analogy in my head.

    Also, holy run on sentence

  136. sff9 says

    ledasmom, same as carlie @133!

    rq @131, this poll is really simplistic, or is it just me? I think my answer would depend a lot on the context (the content of the cartoon and my interlocutor). As it is, the question kinda boils down to “are you an authoritarian or an insensitive asshole?” in my opinion.

  139. opposablethumbs says

    Beatrice, I know what you mean. Because I sometimes work at odd times, I also sometimes have to stop and think – and leave a finished piece of work to email the next morning instead or something, otherwise the dear darling agency will assume 24/7 availability (mind you, some agencies seem to assume that anyway).

    Well said, Giliell, and maybe your interlocutor was forced to actually think for a moment. And yes, lucky for her that he had a run-in with the police.

    rq you are totally entitled and invited to gripe. And also yay for your anti-patriarchal parenting skillz! :-)

  140. rq says

    Beatrice
    I had to pare it down to the one dress, because I couldn’t afford the entire Flower collection. And I agree, it’s not like I have any Lounge reunions huge events to wear it to. I just want it. (Though I wish they had the chess-themed one with red – that’s the one with the crowns – because it would totally be mine, as rq.)

  144. opposablethumbs says

    ledasmom, seconded. I’m glad your kid has you. (Being a parent your kids know they can talk to – that’s the parent I’m striving to be, anyway.)

    The chess dress in red would be so perfect for you, rq! :-)

  145. ledasmom says

    I have effed up unbelievably many, many times as a parent, but I am happy to know that this is one area where I haven’t. And I am very happy that both his grandmother and I live in states where my son has a reasonable chance of being accepted as he is, and it is horrifying to me that this is less true elsewhere.
    I think I’ll go look at the “Same-sex marriage in the U.S.” article on wikipedia again – I find it just slightly reassuring how much the map has changed in the past few years. That’s the first thing I’ve done after every positive court decision, looked at that map.

  146. Portia (aka Smokey the Advocate) says

    I want this one

    ledasmom:
    *hugs* Good for your son, having someone he can talk to.

    –

    Had a really great weekend, SO and I spent a lot of it laying around watching TV. :D We are currently binging on The Americans from FX. Pretty entertaining and interesting.

    I’m making an apple crisp, anyone want some when it comes outta the oven?

  149. cicely says

    CatieCat:*hugs*, sympathy, and—if needed—the *barf bucket*
    I’m sorry your meds are misbehaving.
    –
    Belated Happy Birthday to Giliell.
    –
    rq:

    Also, I’m wondering who first came up with the idea to use salmon semen… and how…

    I was wondering the very same thing.
    I’m betting that the salmon didn’t volunteer.
     
    (Later)

    BECAUSE I DESERVE A TRIP TOO, even if I have to pay for it.

    Indeed!
     
    (Much Later)
    Best wishes for your Eldest in his competition!
    :)
     
    (Shortly Thereafter)
    Cute dress.
    Too bad it’s got an Infestation.
    –
    *pouncehug* for David; optional chocolate (with or without mint), or dried okra pods, as accompaniment.
     

    On the problem of young Evangelicals falling away, Barna reported recently that 38% of Millennial Evangelicals fact-check sermons on their smart phones.”

    *immense grin*
     
    (Later)

    Grant Morrison, a police officer in Montana, has shot an unarmed man dead. No charges. Now he shot another unarmed man dead. Still no charges. Also, the penalty for having a “crazed look” on your face is death without trial.

    And I’m betting that he could get away with it again, too.
    :(
    –
    Cannot get the KitKat article to come up.
    :(
    –
    Lynna:

    Here’s some good news. It looks like Rush Dimbulb’s career is in ruins.

    May it be so!
    –
    *hugs&chocolate* for Anne.
    –

  150. Portia (aka Smokey the Advocate) says

    SO just informed me that Westboro plans to protest SO’s parents’ (awful) church.
    I can’t decide how to feel. I think I’ll go with schadenfreude.

  151. rq says

    Casual sexism, part 1:
    So yesterday I watched 4-person bobsleigh on youtube because Kaillie Humphries was sliding, and boy oh boy, is there opposition to her playing with the boys. Mostly along the lines of ‘no business there’ and ‘she’ll never be good enough’. She managed 18th place, which is pretty darned good because that means she beat out 4 teams (‘they have less experience!’ – dude, this is the WC, and they don’t let inexperienced teams on the circuit, they have to prove themselves on the European and Intercontinental circuits, first, so… your point?), but my favourite was “SHE’LL NEVER BE AN ELITE ATHLETE!!!” It’s like… guys, she’s on the World Cup circuit. That seems pretty elite to me. (It was also nice to see that I wasn’t the only one supporting her, though.)

    Casual sexism, part 2:
    I have driving duties all week, so I had the radio on in the car and was listening to the news, and they were talking about Sarah Brightman, who is apparently preparing to undergo training to head out into space (the ISS, from what I understand). And the commentator laughs and says ‘haha, she’s probably wondering where she is right now, hurrr hurrr she probably thought she was going to Star City to meet Andrea Bocelli or something’. Because obviously a woman who also happens to be a world-class singer doesn’t have the guts and determination to go out into space for real and is too stupid to realize where she is. :P

    Anyway.
    Then I bought a ski jacket because winter merchandise is 60% off and there’s no other way I’d buy a semi-high-class ski jacket for myself. It’ll be another 5 – 6 years before I do it again (judging from the last time I bought a ski jacket).

  152. birgerjohansson says

    Portia, re @ 150
    BWAHAHAHA1

    Lynna re. Blush Slimebaugh
    -But without him for comparison, I will no longer seem a genius.

  153. Saad says

    Just found out the first time home buyer tax credit is no longer valid. Because millionaires like me must not need the money. That’s okay, though. I’m sure they’ve gotten rid of all the tax benefits the filthy rich receive too, so it’s a nice, fair level playing field…

  154. says

    Well yes, Saad, but what do peons like us want with a house anyway? Better to just pay for your housing over and over and over. I mean, I’ve lived in this apartment for 8.5 years, at an average rent of $900, which means I’ve been kind enough to pay the rentiers something like 90 grand for the privilege.

    If they made it easy for people to buy houses, how would the idle moochers* be able to keep living for free off the eternal servitude of people like us?

    * Mitt Romney: chief projectionist for the idle moocher class, the ones who don’t pay taxes.

  156. David Marjanović says

    at an average rent of $900

    …That’s like… Paris or something.

    I’m out of words!

  157. Portia (aka Smokey the Advocate) says

    rq:

    Well…she’s a girl therefore she has to be three times as good as the men before anyone will call her minimally competent.

    Harrumph.

  158. says

    @156: that’s a well I never thought would run dry.

    Yes, $900/ no on average. Currently $950 – to be fair, all-inclusive (heat/electric/water). The cheapest I can find in this city would be $650 for a bachelor, not inclusive.

    Now, Paris or London or New York would be triple that, unless you’re going to live way out in the sticks. 10 years ago, a friend living in Camden (in north London) was paying £1200/mo for a ‘bachelor’ that was smaller than my current bedroom.

    And the worst part is, for most of these landlords, it’s basically found money, payable in perpetuity. It’s a fucking disgrace, and thinking about it makes me want to steal a pitchfork and start making richkebabs.

  159. K.R. Syncanna says

    I am not looking forward to apartment shopping with my SO. Anywhere worth living is so expensive. The only plus side – I can likely get disability housing, but we want to have a more permanent location in mind before doing such because it can take a year or two to get the housing and I wouldn’t want to leave too soon after such a hassle. A lot of disability housing in this state appears to be in areas next to “stuff” and transportation, which is also nice.

  160. says

    Hi there
    I think I’m having a good for nothing day.
    Well, as long as I have a kick ass day tomorrow I’m entitled to one of them once in a while.

    rq
    Ach, Lego.
    [rant to follow]
    They make me despair. And feminists and Lego, they make me despair even more.
    You all know I’m pretty critical of the narrowness of the Lego Friends series. Too much pretty, beauty, supermodel, care for others shit. And too many pink bows and ribbons.
    But there’s also things to like about them, like the attention to detail.
    And it’s Legos and Legos are fun.
    But what I’ve seen from the feminist, ehm, community lately is undifferenciated hatred for the Friends series with uncritical hailing of the original-now-boys-series.
    Like this comic or this pic that I saw lots of sensible people hail on twitter.
    Seriously, people drop all critical approach to gender over board and applaud pinkified toxic masculinity.
    Because, I mean, look at that picture. The result is a killer machine. We don’t ask “is building killer machines something we should encourage in our children?” Nooo, we see that a girl did not follow the stupid girl instructions for building stupid girl things but NO, she took the stupid girl things and built a cool thing with it, i.e. a boy thing.
    Instead of being critical, people are just telling little girls that they suck for liking the things that society tells them they should like.
    Because those things are obviously inferior.
    Of course, 150 years ago the horse ranch that is now shallow and stupid and girly would have been the boy thing (and it would still have been pink!).
    Instead of fighting to give all kids all the options (and getting rid of the toxic stuff at the same time), folks who should know better are again uncritically accepting male supremacy.
    [/end of rant]
    Btw, your kid is of course always welcome to join the girls in their Lego sessions. We do have a helicopter.

  161. Tony! The Queer Shoop says

    MTV to air 24 hours of black and white programming to discuss race

    On Monday, MTV will air twelve hours of programming in black and white — and no, this is no accidental glitch.

    The television network will kick off a momentous campaign, identified as #TheTalk, to honor Dr. King’s legacy by using their massive platform to address — and help resolve — racial issues in America.

    #TheTalk is a strong effort attempting to eliminate bias by inviting and encouraging others, especially millennials, to join the discussion and have candid and ‘color brave’ conversations on race.

    Beginning at 9:00 a.m. ET/PT, all programming on MTV will air in black and white, marking the first time this has ever been done in network history.

    To encourage viewers to have #TheTalk, each commercial block will begin with a brief feature from some of today’s greatest cultural and political figures who share their own personal reflections on race relations in America. Some of those names include: Kendrick Lamar, Big Sean, Ava DuVernay, David Oyelowo, Lee Daniels, Rep. John Lewis, Sen. Cory Booker and more.

    “Underlying some of the blindness around bias and prejudice is a lack of understanding of the history – of why we are where we are today,” MTV President Stephen Friedman told The Huffington Post.

    “That’s why Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is so critical. It’s a day when we’re immersed in the history and his great legacy, and we can look back at how far we’ve come and, very importantly, look ahead at how far we still need to go.”

    However, while this campaign is certainly a historic one, it isn’t the network’s first attempt to highlight the importance of diversity with its slot on the silver screen.

    Instead, #TheTalk is an expansion of MTV’s “Look Different” project, a multiyear anti-bias campaign that launched in April and has since aired dozens of specials dedicated to denouncing discrimination across race, gender and sexual orientation.

    “We did a study and found that 73% of 14 to 24-year-olds believe that having more open, constructive conversations about bias will help people become less prejudiced, yet only 10% report having those conversations often,” Friedman said. “That’s just not good enough.”

    Friedman says understanding and uncovering bias is the first step to confronting and addressing it — and #TheTalk is a one solution MTV has proposed to help bridge this divide.

    Especially, Friedman says, when viewers will be encouraged to start these conversations after watching segments of Cory Booker discussing how race has affected his ability to date, Kendrick Lamar talking about his conversations with his father on prejudice or listening to David Oyelowo talking about the bias he confronts every day by being in an interracial marriage.

  162. rq says

    Giliell
    Interestingly, while the pink-and-purple-coded ‘girl’ stuff got labelled ‘stupid’, today we were in the shop looking for a bigger and better Lego box (need one with lower sides and a wider bottom for easier pickings, the high-sided one we have is hell to search through and requires constant spilling out onto the floor). The colour options were: white, purple, green and orange. I asked which colour they wanted. Middle child immediately replied, Purple! So purple it is.
    As for your rant, I think you put your finger on exactly what it was that made me uncomfortable about that example. I really liked it at first, but I bet if she’d have built a different-looking house or a bunch of animals from the same pieces, or a ‘girly’ sportscar type object, she wouldn’t have gotten the attention. But of course, she built a giant killing robot with her dad, so yay I guess?

  164. says

    The more news I read from the US, the more I have this awful Anschlussy feeling in the pit of my stomach. We have twice as many Muslims per capita as the US does, it’s now (a long way behind) in second place among Canadians’ religions (3.2%, just over a million; the US at 1.7%, for approx 5 million, giving an ominous but irrelevant total).

    I really need to do the paperwork to get my UK passport updated.

  166. says

    Well, rq, obviously the greatest support we can give those women is to publish 6 million more Mohamed cartoons.
    We also must lecture those who are apparently wearing some kind of headscarf that this is wrong and not their choice.
    But seriously, from what I’ve heard those women really kick ass. They make Daesh quiver, because all the brave holy warriors also believe that they won’t go to heaven if they’re killed by a lowly woman.

  168. David Marjanović says

    Still not caught up. Only two links this time, both in German:

    Remember how Cpt. Unelected suddenly became mind-blowingly popular after 9/11? Apparently the same is now happening to Hollande on a smaller scale, because he managed the crisis so well or something. His popularity has more than doubled and now stands at… 40 %, ROTFL.

    Last year 1 % of the world population possessed 48 % of the wealth. In 2016 they’ll have more than 50 %, according to a 12-page report by Oxfam.

    In 2013, Oxfam calculated that 92 multibillionaires owned as much as the poorer half of the world population. This year, only 80 people will own as much as the poorer half of the still growing world population.

    In 2010, the 80 richest people owned 1.3 trillion $. Now it’s 1.9 trillion. They that have, unto them hath verily been given another 600 billion.

    “More than a third of the world’s 1645 billionaires on the Forbes List have a US passport or live in the United States.”

    “The unequal distribution of income hinders the struggle against worldwide poverty, said Oxfam’s executive director Winnie Byanyima. One of nine people on Earth [she went on] does not have enough to eat, a billion people have to get by with 1.25 $/day.”

    Some German politician (Social Democrat) calls for the Tobin Tax again “in order to give the people who cause crises a share in their costs”.

    “Oxfam criticizes that in particular many super-rich who earn their money in the pharma and health sector have made considerable gains in wealth while world health is only progressing stepwise.

    Byanyima is going to co-chair the World Economic Forum this year. She has announced that she will use this position to campaign for tougher dealing with tax avoidance by large corporations.”

  171. rq says

    Well, I think day 1 was a victory, esp. considering the kids were in bed and mostly asleep by 10.30PM. That counts as a win.
    Eldest didn’t get picked for the speech thing, but he doesn’t feel too badly about it and he got to hear from his teacher and from me (and Husband) how proud we are of him that he went ahead and did it and learned everything. So it still counts as a win. :)
    So, six more days to go! :P I know, I know, it won’t be that bad.

  172. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    If only I could pack myself to bed by 10:30 pm. It would do wonders for my complexion ;)

  176. rq says

    timgueguen
    Honestly, I appreciate that humour, but it comes at the tail-end of such blatantly casually dismissive sexism that I’m having a hard time actually laughing. :P

  177. rq says

    Ugh. And now I have to go clean up some cat puke. As well as the cat poo that didn’t make it into the litterbox (IT WAS CLEAN SAND!!!). Day’s end. I’m gonna say goodnight because I think I’m ready for bed.

  178. says

    Another example of the way mormon men control and silence mormon women.
    Salt Lake Tribune link.

    April Young Bennett, a member of Ordain Women’s board, was forced to resign from the group’s leadership as a condition of renewing her Mormon temple privileges.

    Local LDS officials issue so-called “recommends” to devout Mormons attesting to members’ “worthiness” to participate in the faith’s most sacred temple rituals, including eternal marriages.

    Through interviews, the lay clergymen confirm that their congregants’ beliefs and actions conform to LDS standards, including the payment of tithing and abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, tea and coffee. They also inquire about the loyalty of members to their ecclesiastical leaders.

    Bennett says her stake president told her that, to keep her recommend, she would have to leave OW’s board. […]

    […] [Bennett] loves her family and wanted to be present for her brother’s temple wedding.

    “I do not believe that temple recommends should be used as leverage to censor ideas or silence advocacy, but if I hadn’t complied, I would have missed my brother’s recent temple wedding,” Bennett wrote […]. “Choosing between following the dictates of my conscience and being present for a family wedding has been heartbreaking. In the end, I concluded that while others may take my place as an author or an advocate, no one can replace me in my role as my brother’s sister.” […]

  179. says

    This is a followup to #178. An ex-mormon sends April Bennett’s Stake President (mormon male in charge of the ward Bennett attends) a blistering note:

    I just sent the following message to Marty Stephens who, I’m told, is April Young Bennett’s SP, the man who made her give up Ordain Women or loose her temple recommend.

    Mr. Stephens,

    “[…] I wanted to let you know how disgusted I am by your treatment of April Young Bennett. I don’t know her, just read about her predicament in my local paper. I think it’s one of the most egregious examples of unrighteous dominion that I’ve ever heard of. I can’t imagine having such a person as my Stake President. That said, I would expect nothing better from you. While attending the University of Utah, I worked at the state capital while you were House Speaker. Among all of the young women, your lecherous ways were well known. Clearly, you think of women as nothing more than objects to be manipulated and silenced. I think that you’ll find that women in the church are tired of men like you thinking they have power over them. Thank you for giving LDS women another example of why we need equality.”

    Note the crossover between politics and the LDS church in Utah. This is typical.

  182. says

    Urgh. My jaw is out again. I have had this weird TMJ thing where my jaw joint can rest semi-happily in two different positions: unfortunately, one of them thrusts the mandible forward a few millimeters, just enough that all my teeth are out of alignment with one another. It’s very annoying, but it’s been a few years since it’s done this.

    Until today.

    Now the left condyle is sore, I can’t chew, and it won’t pop back into place. I’m thinking maybe something like a muscle relaxer would help…

    Also, I can’t bite anyone. This is terrible.

  184. carlie says

    Yikes, PZ. My Spouse has a similar problem, where his jaw will sometimes just pop out of place. Puts his head out of sorts for a couple of days. He suggests a really hot washcloth applied directly to the jaw can sometimes help the muscles relax enough to get it back in.

  186. chigau (違う) says

    PZ
    Try screaming.
    It doesn’t need to involve moving your jaw.
    Go down to the graveyard and howl at the recorded ‘music’.
    —
    I had something like this along time ago.
    When I told my doctor, he allowed that it was because I was an adolecent female and therefore a bit nutty; it would go away.
    It did.
    I sympathise.

  188. rq says

    Good luck with the biting, PZ. Is your ability to speak impeded? Mary might enjoy the quiet break. ;) Be well soon!

    Giliell
    Get well soon, too!! Hope recovery takes half as long this time.

    +++

    My germ avoidance status at the moment is ‘so far, so good’.

  189. opposablethumbs says

    argh, PZ, hope your mandible is restored to full devouring functionality soon and does not cause you pain. Any pain is supposed to be on the part of the impudent (or imprudent) devouree.

  193. Portia (aka Smokey the Advocate) says

    Larry Wilmore’s first night in the former Colbert Show time slot was last night.
    It was like watching a version of the Melissa Harris Perry Show.
    Cory Booker is always fun to listen to.

  194. Brony, Social Justice Cenobite says

    The secret of empathy: Stress from the presence of strangers prevents empathy, in both mice and humans.

    To further test this “social stress” barrier to empathy between strangers, student participants paired with strangers were given the opportunity to play Rock Band® prior to the experiment. After only 15 minutes of playing Rock Band® together, these strangers showed empathy toward one another when they experienced the pain from exposure to ice water. (Playing Rock Band® alone did nothing to increase empathy between strangers.)

    Of course empathy has multiple parts and likely comes in varying intensities, but this is still nice.

  195. bassmike says

    Get well soon Giliell & PZ I hope there will soon be the continued gnashing of teeth.

    Nothing much to report this end at the moment. It’s very cold. My daughter managed a trip to town without any lavatory related accidents. I think we’re done with potty training now. I expect further accidents occasionally, but I think we’re over the very mess bit!

  196. birgerjohansson says

    Chicago Introduces New Citywide Gun-Sharing Stations http://www.theonion.com/articles/chicago-introduces-new-citywide-gunsharing-station,37797/

    — — — —
    Birmingham now 100 percent Klingon http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/birmingham-now-100-percent-klingon-2015011394318

    — — — —
    Fox News’s Broadchurch refresher http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/features/fox-newss-broadchurch-refresher-2015012094603

    — — — —
    Sweden’s Luleå carves spot for giant beaver http://www.thelocal.se/20150120/swedens-lule-carves-spot-for-giant-beaver
    No, not that kind!

  197. birgerjohansson says

    ‘Oh my God, a couscous!’: French comedy show keeps hammering Fox for its Paris paranoia
    http://crooksandliars.com:8080/cltv/2015/01/le-petit-journal-takes-piss-out-fox

    — — — —
    How the ‘ban’ on images of Muhammad came to be http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/how-the-ban-on-images-of-muhammad-came-to-be/

    — — — —
    Probing the deep history of human genes and language http://phys.org/news/2015-01-probing-deep-history-human-genes.html

    — — — —
    Altitude and telescopes http://xkcd.com/1463/

  199. says

    […] Last week, a young woman in El Salvador who goes by the alias name of ‘Guadalupe,’ had very high hopes, and was all but assured she would receive a pardon from her 30-year sentence. She had already served seven years, starting in her teens. Her alleged crime? Fetal homicide. She miscarried, and was charged with murder.

    Her pardon didn’t come. Guadalupe’s freedom was one vote short. Her fate was determined by a Right-Wing congressional majority of 43-42. I can’t write about something like this and not feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach again and again. Guadalupe represents every woman. This is what happens when abortion is illegal. El Salvador is known to be one of the worst countries in the world for women’s reproductive rights. […]

    Daily Kos link.

    All forms of abortion are illegal in El Salvador. And though there was no indication that Guadalupe, a mother of one, intentionally terminated her pregnancy, the doctors snitched her out to save themselves from any criminal liability.
    Guadalupe, who never saw the inside of a fifth grade classroom, was interrogated in her hospital bed without a lawyer. The Kafkaesque trial was brutal and swift. Before Guadalupe knew what was happening, she was sentenced to 30 years in jail and thrown behind bars with convicted murders.

    If Guadalupe’s story sounds crazy, that’s because it is. Not only does El Salvador have one of the most draconian anti-abortion laws in the world, but authorities there apply the tyrannical law with an aggressiveness that borders on obsessive. Dozens of Salvadoran women — mostly young, and all poor — are behind bars for homicide

    Fusion Net link.

    There are now at least 29 young women being held for homicide in El Salvador’s jails. They lived in conditions of poverty, along with lack of education. Do you think rich women get thrown into jail for having a miscarriage?

    Currently, at least 38 states have fetal homicide laws. The states include: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. At least 23 states have fetal homicide laws that apply to the earliest stages of pregnancy (“any state of gestation,” “conception,” “fertilization” or “post-fertilization”).

    National Conference of State Legislatures link. Yes, that’s right, we have fetal homicide laws in the USA, and those laws are aimed, for the most part, at limiting or removing a woman’s right to seek an abortion. Punish the women — that seems to be the message.

    A District of Columbia judge forced a woman to have a caesarian, and the woman died. Daily Kos link.

  200. says

    Justice Ruth Ginsberg issues a concurring opinion that also has the effect of explaining Religious Liberty in two sentences:

    […] Though Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joins Alito’s opinion, she also penned a two sentence concurring opinion explaining why Tuesday’s decision is a proper application of an individual’s religious freedoms — and why she believes that the Court’s birth control decision in Hobby Lobby was erroneous. “Unlike the exemption this Court approved in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.,” Ginsburg explains, “accommodating petitioner’s religious belief in this case would not detrimentally affect others who do not share petitioner’s belief. On that understanding, I join the Court’s opinion.”

    Link.

  201. Saad says

    Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo may sue Fox News

    Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo told CNN Tuesday she intends to sue Fox News in the wake of the channel’s coverage of supposed “no go” zones for non-Muslims.

    Excellent.

  202. says

    Saad @201, Oh, I do so hope that Mayor Hidalgo sues Fox News. Rupert Murdoch and his faux news army needs to be humiliated on the international stage.

    In other news, President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address tonight. Republicans and Tea Partiers and Whatevers will deliver three rebuttals. As part of a sort of silent rebuttal, Republicans will salt the audience with fact-free representatives of their base. For example:

    House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will be bringing Maineville, Ohio businessman Fritz Borke to the Capitol tonight. Borke, who specializes in plastics moulding, supports Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act even though his business is exempt from any changes and is allowed to keep its existing health plan.

    Link.

  203. says

    Mike Huckabee is a terrible presidential candidate. Nevertheless, Huckabee is running again. Why? It’s a business, a business that keeps him and many family members and business associates swimming in money.

    Politics is a family business for potential Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Over the last six years, the Fox News host’s political action committee, which was created to raise money for GOP candidates, has paid nearly $400,000 to members of Huckabee’s extended family, while spending just a fraction of its multimillion-dollar fundraising haul on the Republican contenders.

    Huck PAC, which Huckabee launched in 2008 after dropping out of the Republican presidential race, “is committed to electing conservatives across the nation at all levels of government,” according to a statement on its website. But according to review of Federal Election Commission records, a significant portion of the money the PAC has collected has gone into the salaries of family members or the coffers of direct-mail fundraising firms. […]

    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/mike-huckabee-pac-paid-his-family-almost-400000

  204. rq says

    In commemoration of the 24th anniversary of the barricades, I give you Under Two Flags by Akacis.

    And this song, To My Nation, which is the remix version of a rather pretty acoustic tune written in the late 1980s. It’s still a favourite of mine, and although it does push the religious angle quite a bit, I still like it.
    Sadly, it remains relevant today, though the USSR no longer exists and Latvia is free. Pro: no foreign power fucking things up. Con: only ourselves to blame now.

    Annnyway. Day 2 almost done. Woot!

  206. says

    As someone who participated in the rise of the religious right in the 1970s and 1980s, I can tell you that you can’t understand the modern Republican Party and its hatred of government unless you understand the evangelical home-school movement. Nor can the Democrats hope to defeat the GOP in 2016 unless they grasp what I’ll be explaining here: religious war carried on by other means.

    The Christian home-school movement drove the Evangelical school movement to the ever-harsher world-rejecting far right. The movement saw itself as separating from evil “secular” America. Therein lies the heart of the Tea Party, GOP and religious right’s paranoid view of the rest of us. And since my late father and evangelist Francis Schaeffer and I were instrumental in starting the religious right […] believe me when I tell you that the evangelical schools and home school movement were, by design, founded to undermine a secular and free vision of America and replace it by stealth with a form of theocracy. […]

    Salon link.

    Good article, though it could benefit from editing. I live in a neighborhood where some parents homeschool their children, and raise their kids in the mormon church. Of course they vote Republican, and they negatively affect the public school system in this state. Schaeffer makes some good points.

    […] Evangelical home-schoolers were demanding ever-greater levels of “separation” from what they regarded as the Evil Secular World. It wasn’t enough just to reject the public schools. How could the Christian parent be sure that even the Evangelical schools were sufficiently pure? And so the Christian schools radicalized in order to not appear to be “compromising” with the world […] (My account here of the rise of the home school movement is not aimed at home-schooling, per se, but at parents who want to indoctrinate, rather than educate.) […]

  207. David Marjanović says

    Still no time to catch up, sorry. :-( Links to dump, though:

    Video: Jewelry theft fail.

    “SIGN THE PETITION: Tell Democrats to stand strong on debt-free college
    We support free community college as a first step toward debt-free college at all public institutions of higher learning. This is the kind of big idea that Americans are crying out for and need to see more of from Democrats. If you fight, we will fight alongside you.”
    The accompanying e-mail mentions Germany and Scotland.

    In German: Bear-riding barechested Putin action figure! Allegedly very popular. No photo, but a link where you can apparently order one for 2500 rubles (about 33 €).

    Cartoon: “So that there’s justice in the world, everyone gets exactly one piece of the cake!” (Pies are unknown over here.)

    Now look at that (well, it’s in German again): Pope insists that Catholics need not “multiply like rabbits”! Goes so far as to mention a woman who was pregnant for the eighth time after seven Caesareans and called her irresponsible: “Does she want to leave seven orphans behind?” Says three children per married couple are ideal; I suppose that’s not far from the oft-cited replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. Promotes “responsible parenthood”, says parents can plan the number of their children.

    So where’s the catch? He says there are many contraception methods which the church allows… namely all those that don’t involve, as the article puts it, “artificial means”. Not one jot nor tittle is changed in current doctrine. “Ovulation control” is allowed (whatever that is – presumably the temperature method, which is allowed and has a spectacular failure rate…), but condoms and the pill remain forbidden, explicitly supporting “Pill Paul” VI. In short, the pope talks about things he has no idea about, apparently believing the Holy Spirit will save him from Dunning and Kruger.

    Also, bringing more tolerant attitudes to sexuality (including teh ghey) to Africa is ideological colonization.

    US House Antiscience Committee “continues its demands to see peer reviews of certain NSF grants“.

  208. says

    Racism in the USA!
    A co-worker (D) told me that she’s been looking for a new place to live for herself and her two kids (she’s white, and her kids are biracial). She recently met with an agent who showed her around a neighborhood she had an interest in. It would be a short tour.
    The agent told D that the area was relatively devoid of troublemaking teenagers, which made D irritated, as one of her kids is almost a teenager. But the worst was to come.
    The agent also told D that she wouldn’t have to worry about any ‘coloreds’ in the neighborhood. He then asked her what else she wanted to see. To which she said ‘nothing. I think we’re done here.’
    While expressing my sympathies to her, I could tell that D was frustrated. This wasn’t the first time she’s related stories to me about the racism she encounters. Insidious racism because people see she’s a white woman and assume she shares their opinions of black people.

    Le sigh.

  209. says

    Tony, I’ve had that happen – the assumption I share their racism – quite a number of times.
    Never twice by the same person, though, as I’m not afraid to speak clearly and sharply about the ways in which I do not share their view of racism as a public good.

  210. David Marjanović says

    “Good Bachmann, bad Bachmann” – Lutz Bachmann, organizer of Pegida. The best man at his wedding was a Turk, some of his best friends are Muslims, and he probably lets them use his bathroom. Tries very hard to make people believe Pegida in general and he in particular has nothing against foreigners or Muslims. Too bad that @AnonNewsDE, somehow related to Anonymous, has tweeted alleged Facebook posts by him (with his authentic profile pic) where he rants against various collective nouns like filth and vermin, states that there are NO REAL WAR REFUGEES because those who can afford getting to Europe are thereby PROVED not to belong to the ones who are really in danger, said about the Greens in September 2013: COMPLETE FUCKWITS! Ought to be summarily executed, those eco-terrorists!… First of all Claudia Fatima Roth! (…that’s Claudia Benedikta Roth…), and commented a football game between Germany and Poland by making a joke about the invasion of 1939 – quoting Hitler about shooting back.

    A local newspaper in Dresden has further discovered a photo where he “evidently styles himself as Adolf Hitler”. He promptly (just a few hours ago) locked down his Facebook account.

    Another Pegida organizer has applied random insults to Muslims as a group on Facebook.

    At a press conference on Monday, Bachmann said Pegida had distanced itself several times from islamophobic signs carried at Pegida protests and wondered why “there’s always immediately someone from the media” whenever such a sign is held up. Also, he “can’t understand at all” why foreigners are afraid of Pegida, he told a journalist who asked.

    There are almost no Pegida supporters outside of Dresden, just a few thousand recently came to protests in a country of more than 80 million people. 45,000 came to protest against them, 11,000 in Munich alone.

  211. Saad says

    Tony, have you been really busy lately? Don’t see your posts much anymore.

    Good busy, I hope.

    Assuming the person you’re talking to agrees with your racist views just because they’re white. Wow. I’m glad she ended it right there.

  213. says

    Oooh, I can’t wait to see how this turns out:
    The White House resurrects ‘Big block of cheese’ Day

    Here at the White House, we’re dedicated to making President Obama’s administration the most open and accessible in history. That’s why, for the second year in a row, we thought it’d be a gouda idea to brie-unite a certain cast of characters to help us bring back a tradition that dates back to the days of President Andrew Jackson.

    On February 22, 1837, President Jackson had a 1,400-pound block of cheese hauled into the main foyer of the White House for an open house with thousands of citizens and his staff, where they discussed the issues of the day while carving off slabs of cheddar.

    This year, we aim to do even feta. On Wednesday, January 21, in fromage to President Jackson (and to President Bartlet, if you’re a fan of The West Wing), we’re hosting the second-annual virtual Big Block of Cheese Day, where members of the Obama administration will take to social media to answer your questions about the President’s State of the Union address and the issues that are most important to you.

    Log on to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr, and ask away using the hashtag #AskTheWH. We’ll do our best to answer as many questions as we can.

    So be sure to visit WhiteHouse.gov/SOTU to watch the State of the Union address on January 20, 2015 at 9 p.m. ET and check out the schedule of all the ways you can engage on the following day, January 21. We camembert to think you’d miss it.

    (that’s tomorrow)

    I can think of a few questions to ask-
    When will the war criminals in the Bush administration face accountability for their actions?

    When will the government stop bowing down to pressure from religious organizations?

    The United States is-ostensibly-opposed to terrorism. So what’s up with the drone attacks overseas?

    Oh, I think this is going to go about as well as the meme requests from various celebrities and companies we’ve read about.

  214. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    I saw the “big block of cheese” promo in the news. Also, it is one of my favorite West Wing episodes.

  217. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Ah, life’s little dilemmas. It’s past 6:00pm and the Redhead called her BFF earlier to let her know a package she might be interested in (baklava) is being delivered tomorrow. They’re still talking. Her parents are calling at 7:30. In-between she wants to eat dinner. I was just called. Time to check on why…

  218. Ogg says

    Hi, all.

    Last week, on Tuesday (calender-normative), I finally got in to see a pain specialist for my back. He sent me for an X-ray and told me to schedule an appointment to have a steroid injection. He told me it would most likely take 3 to 8 weeks — right now, it is him and one other doctor. So I walked in to talk with his receptionist. She clickety-clicked for a few moments, looked up at me and asked, “First available, right?”

    “Yes please.”

    “How about tomorrow. 7:30am. Be here at 7:15. Nothing to eat or drink after 7:00pm.”

    I was gobsmacked. Tomorrow? Really?

    Went in the next day for the SI, was in and out in 45 minutes (it hurts to have medicine injected directly into an already inflamed sciatic tendon!). Went home, took a hydrocodone, and went to bed. And slept until about 4:00 in the afternoon when the possible side-effect of ‘flu-like symptoms’ hit like a shit ton (one kilopoop) of dem red rectang’lar t’ings. Which lasted from Wednesday evening until Saturday morning. When I woke up feeling better than I have since I sprained my back back in September. And I have taken no pain pills since Saturday. And got more done in the last two days at work than in the last two months. My back feels great (not perfect, there’s some upper lumbar shit going on, too). And I cannot believe how much the pain pills were affecting me. Even coworkers have noticed that I actually look like myself.

    Anyway, a cortico-steroid to the sciatic tendon has (so far) worked wonders!

    ==============

    I’m tossing a big pile of fluffy hugs on the floor for all who need them.

  219. says

    That’s fabulous news, Ogg, thanks for sharing! I’m so glad you’re able to get out from under.
    I’ve tried the steroid injections epidurally, and found the process was sufficiently painful and stressful that it wasn’t a net positive – it felt like my 100kg doctor was squeezing my SI joint for all he was worth. Did get some minor relief, but not enough to offset.
    Of course, that was epidural – and to make things worse, this was before I’d had any surgery, and I wasn’t out to this doctor. And it had to be done naked. That was…tricky. And stressful. And tricky.
    Anyway, really glad you’ve got some relief, Ogg. :)

  220. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Dang, the Redhead was watching the clock. She’s been fed and changed, and her parents should be ringing up any second now. Now for 2 hours to get the garbage out.

  221. A. Noyd says

    Saad (#201)

    Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo may sue Fox News

    Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo told CNN Tuesday she intends to sue Fox News in the wake of the channel’s coverage of supposed “no go” zones for non-Muslims.

    Excellent.

    She should also have the French media do an exposé on redlining and sundown towns (like Leith, ND) in the US.

  223. toska says

    Did anyone watch the premiere of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore from last night? I watch online, so I just saw it today. Most of the episode was about Ferguson protests, and it was pretty good (although some members of his panel were a bit inane) for a 20 minute, comedy-themed program. He said today’s program will be covering Cosby, and I’m interested to hear what angle he will take in his coverage/comedy (crossing my fingers for no rape jokes).

  224. says

    Tony!
    My cousin was talking on facebook last month about the bullshit she encountered trying to get a picture with the mall Santa for her biracial kids. “Yes, these are my children. No, I’m not babysitting. Yes, they really are my kids. Yes, that’s right, I am the mother of these children. Very good.” Not to mention the people who cut in front of them, and the santa actor being visibly pissed off that anyone dared to bring darker-skinned kids to see him.

    Ogg
    Yay for working pain relief.

    Giliell
    Hope you get over it soon.

     
    Annoyances today: I went to file my taxes, but I need documentation from the Employment division about my unemployment compensation earlier in the year. This documentation was apparently mailed out on Friday, but it won’t be reaching me, because they didn’t have my new address and for some reason government mail isn’t forwarded. I won’t be able to access the data electronically until the first (and no, they won’t resend it before then). Also, no store anywhere nearby has unscented dishwasher soap; the stuff we usually buy has been out of stock for 2 months now, and the corner store has been out of our backup brand for 2 weeks. It’s very annoying.

  225. cicely says

    Andrew Jackson is unworthy of fromages.
    –
    Ogg:

    Anyway, a cortico-steroid to the sciatic tendon has (so far) worked wonders!

    Yay!
    and *hugs*
    –

  226. Portia (aka Smokey the Advocate) says

    Ogg:

    Glad you got some relief. *hugs*
    –
    Biblical bilboards.
    (not rage-inducing, amusing)
    Um, I guess TW for mention of rape and violence, in the form of babble verses.

  227. Morgan!? the Slithy Tove says

    Just winced through the entire State of the Union speech. Obama did not once mention Nigeria. Why?

  229. Portia (aka Smokey the Advocate) says

    Tony:

    With “Well that’s out of context!” of course.
    *eyeroll*

  230. cicely says

    Tony:
    But that was the Old Testament! God changed the rules with the Magical Coming Of Christ!
    –

  232. cicely says

    CaitieCat:
    It is a Theological Mystery—inasmuch as the Lucky Recipient remained (Everlastingly) a Virgin.
    That’s official that is!
    –

  235. rq says

    Day 3, and I think I’ve caught a stomach bug. Though I may just have eaten something unpleasant last night, in which case I only have myself to blame.
    And yet it was inevitable – we always seem to rack up some sort of group illness when Husband is away. Here’s to hoping it’s mostly my imagination.

  236. opposablethumbs says

    Glad to hear the steroid injection has made such a difference, Ogvorbis – does this mean you’ll be having them (annually? biannually? quarterly?)

  238. bassmike says

    rq I hope your bug doesn’t develop into anything nasty.

    Ogg great news about your back. I hope you continue to be pain-free.

    Tony! @208. I ‘m always amazed that quite a few white people seem to think that all white people have the same racist views as they do. Fortunately, I don’t get it from my close friends (Otherwise they wouldn’t be friends!) but I’ve had it from casual acquaintances.

  239. rq says

    Oh! I missed Ogg‘s good news! Excellent for you, Ogg. Hope the recovery continues!

    Thanks, bassmike. I hope so too. :P

    +++

    Ugh, going to hit the pick up road early tonight – it’s started to snow, and with the ice underneath, it’s going to be hell by 5PM, so we’re not going to wait that long to gather up Middle Child (whose daycare is still in the capital, half-hour away). He’ll be excited, too. And the electricity just did a little flicker, which makes me wonder about the heating (that is, the pump that circulates the water for heating), because if the power goes out (say) at night, there’s a good chance that the furnace can overheat (and all associated issues, like too high a pressure in the system, etc.). Decisions, decisions. *sigh* Worst comes to worst it’ll be a fireplace kind of night, which means less heat tomorrow morning but more peace of mind, if the wind picks up.

  240. says

    rq
    Get well soon!

    +++
    Well, I seem to be a bit better, though I admit I caught some extra sleep today since it’s Wednesday.

    +++
    Ogg
    Glad to hear that your treatment is working and very gladd to see you

    +++
    Dalillama
    Well, looks like when the Germans emmigrated to the USA they brought their worship for Saint Burocracy, too
    +++

    There are almost no Pegida supporters outside of Dresden, just a few thousand recently came to protests in a country of more than 80 million people. 45,000 came to protest against them, 11,000 in Munich alone.

    And outside of Dresden they’re also almost exclusively Neonazis. But it unmasks the “we have to listen to the people!” voiced by conservatove politicians as the lie it is. Because if consistently a few times as many people show up at a counter protest than at the original protest, then you should pobably listen to them.
    Ironically, Dresden on Monday nights is a no-go zone for people who look “conceivably muslim” or not white.
    Also, the fun thing about their “criminal foreigners and waste of German taxpayer money, illegal immigrants ” leader Lutz Bachmann is that he:
    -has a criminal record that puts other criminals to shame
    -thereby has cost the German taxpayer probably millions so far
    -fled his last conviction to South Africa
    -lived there as an illegal immigrant under a false name
    He now has the galls to say “see, SA does it right, they kicked me out when they found out!” I mean, sure, SA kicked somebody out who had been rightfully convicted in a country with a working judicial system, but let’s just gloss over this fact, right?

  245. Saad says

    Morgan, #227

    Just winced through the entire State of the Union speech. Obama did not once mention Nigeria. Why?

    I’m sort of glad he didn’t. It would just give the Tea Party another country to accuse him of being from.

    First they would have had to look it up though.

  247. Portia (aka Smokey the Advocate) says

    Had to stop watching the Larry Wilmore episode about Bill Cosby.
    I guess he felt the need to have some rape culture apologists on there in service of “balance.”
    Mild, but still more than I felt like watching.

  248. birgerjohansson says

    “The Squidder” (by Ben Templesmith) http://www.amazon.com/Squidder-Ben-Templesmith/dp/1631402056/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421844375&sr=1-4&keywords=templesmith

    Yum. This will be out in February.

    — — — —
    Let me get something off my chest about boob physics in video games http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/21/boobs-breasts-physics-video-game

    — — — —
    Ethical Trolley Problem http://xkcd.com/1455/ -If a cat was sitting near the lever I can predict its answer…

  249. says

    Portia 244

    rq
    Feel better and be safe. *hugs*

    I’m just going to copy what Portia said, ’cause she said it much more eloquently than I ever could.

    I’m also glad Ogg’s back is better.

  250. opposablethumbs says

    Hope you all keep safe and warm, rq {{hugs}}

    I just lost a project today because I don’t have a certain software programme … a programme that my old and creaky PC can’t cope with … and this is inevitably going to become more and more of an issue more and more often in future … which suggests that I’m going to have to upgrade to a less ancient PC and get and learn to use this programme (ohhhh dear) sooner rather than later …

    :-( there’s no help for it, though, I know I’m going to have to find the money for it or end up losing out more in lost projects (in fact I already am). … but it’s the spoons. The spoons for dealing with a big outlay (when the old PC is still working, after a fashion), the spoons for dealing with being the stupid idiot who wants help transferring stupid old files and programmes to a less old (though still quite old) PC and making sure everything is up and running on the new(ish) machine, the stupid idiot who doesn’t know how to do this stuff without help.

    Not really looking forward to this. I expect it’ll probably happen some time in the next few months or so. This year, anyway.

    Horde, have some hugs – I’ll just add an armful to the pile, and take a couple for myself the while.

  253. birgerjohansson says

    Latvia http://womanitely.com/most-underrated-countries-europe/8/

    — — — —
    X-rays unlock secrets of ancient scrolls buried by volcano http://phys.org/news/2015-01-x-rays-secrets-ancient-scrolls-volcano.html

    — — — —
    Some clever Chinese engineering: “Beijing team proposes effortless phone charging with light beams” http://phys.org/news/2015-01-beijing-team-effortless.html

    — — — —
    Prostate cancer drug slows memory loss in women with Alzheimer’s disease http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-01-prostate-cancer-drug-memory-loss.html

  254. says

    Tony! @ 208
    Along with being inappropriate and assaholic, I thought realtors were barred by law from saying anything of the demographics of a neighborhood. (But maybe that’s not a national thing.) Would be fun to yank that realtor’s license for it.

  255. bassmike says

    opposablethumbs I too am contemplating a PC upgrade. I work in IT and the thought of transferring everything across to a new machine is still daunting! It’s a bit like moving house I think. Good luck.

  257. David Marjanović says

    Lutz Bachmann resigns from all his leadership positions in Pegida, maintains the photo with him as Hitler was some kind of joke. Likely, no such agency will ever know if the leaked Fb posts were genuine.

    Video in German: When the Charlie Hebdo shooters came in, their fellow Muslim Lassana Bathily from Mali saved lives in the Jewish supermarket where he’s employed. He has now been awarded French citizenship, which he’d been trying to get the slow way for a year. And he knows exactly what boilerplate to say in response. :-)

  261. cicely says

    Safe journey, rq, without internal or external distresses.
    :)
    –
    *extra hug ration* for opposablethumbs.
    I’m 100% dead certain that there is nothing that can be done in upgrading a computer—whether hardware or software—that does not lead to cursing, tears, frustration, and musings on the feasibility of jump-starting the Butlerian Jihad, accompanied by detailed visualizations of various Means of Destruction making a serious impact on the whole computer-situation-at-hand.
     
    With *extra napalm!*
    –
    birgerjohansson:

    X-rays unlock secrets of ancient scrolls buried by volcano

    Such incredible awesomeness!
    –
    *massive fluffy hug* for Tony!.
    –

  263. opposablethumbs says

    Thank you bassmike, Tony! and cicely – thoughts very much appreciated. It’ll probably be a little while longer before I manage enough money, bite the bullet and actually plunge in … I just feel a bit pathetic, in this day and age, to find the prospect So. Bloody. Daunting. Eh, it’s partly because this is exactly the thing that is 100% guaranteed to be a Focal point of Family Friction :-\

    I’m 100% dead certain that there is nothing that can be done in upgrading a computer—whether hardware or software—that does not lead to cursing, tears, frustration, and musings on the feasibility of jump-starting the Butlerian Jihad, accompanied by detailed visualizations of various Means of Destruction making a serious impact on the whole computer-situation-at-hand.

    With *extra napalm!*

    Oh yes. This this this.

  264. says

    Cicley-

    ’m 100% dead certain that there is nothing that can be done in upgrading a computer—whether hardware or software—that does not lead to cursing, tears, frustration, and musings on the feasibility of jump-starting the Butlerian Jihad, accompanied by detailed visualizations of various Means of Destruction making a serious impact on the whole computer-situation-at-hand

    I’ve had some first hand experience with that recently.

    I’m getting back into WoW now that I’m not on a satellite connection. Unfortunately, that meant I had to upgrade from Snow Leopard. I go to the App Store, get the Yosemite upgrade, and run it.

    Now, the installer will check your hard drive for problems before installing- don’t want a broken install after all. The problem is, while this check can be run in your original OS, the Yosemite installer waits until after your original OS can no longer be accessed to run said check.

    You see where this is leading, right? My hard drive failed the check. All I could do with my MacBook was what the Yosemite installer let me do. Which wasn’t much. Thankfully, among the few things I could do, was create bootable USB installer. Disk Utility to prep the USB stick, a superuser terminal to run the commands to write the boot image.

    The hard drive issue was too severe to repair, and I had no options for salvaging any of my data(not sure if I could have burned it to DVD, but I couldn’t afford blank DVDs at the time anyways), but thankfully a reformat and a fresh install was something I could do- the hard drive appears to have been fully functional, just some irrecoverable data corruption in an inconvenient spot.

    Lots of cursing at Apple, but I got my system running nicely again.

  266. says

    My sympathies, opposablethumb
    Thankfully my computer is running again, more or less, after I reinstalled Windows. Because january is a really bad time for needing something new…

    BTW, I’m a tech hero. I repaired my neighbour’s phone yesterday. Yep, I put in the plug, you can call me a tech wizzard. German phone plugs are notoriously hard to plug and unplug. Unless your socket is a bazillion years old you need some power and that’s something many 70+ yo people don’t have in their fingers. But I probably saved her some 50 bucks for a technician…

  267. opposablethumbs says

    But I probably saved her some 50 bucks for a technician…

    Good neighbours can make a serious difference between minor misfortune and medium-to-major upheaval. Nice that they have you for a neighbour, Giliell!

  268. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Lots of cursing at Apple, but I got my system running nicely again.

    Those of us who are used to doing back-ups use TimeMachine built into OSX to save to an external disk (I use TimeMachineEditor to schedule the back-up). My iMac backs up the HD every 3:30 am. It can be used to rebuild your HD from any point, including the day before, all the way back (in my case) to Snow Leopard from years ago. If you are paranoid enough, you can back up the TimeMachine disk.

  269. David Marjanović says

    Lutz Bachmann resigns from all his leadership positions in Pegida, maintains the photo with him as Hitler was some kind of joke.

    Found it in English. Photo included.

    “Pegida spokeswoman Kathrin Oertel said the anti-refugee comments went too far. However, she sought to play down the ‘Hitler’ photo as a ‘joke’ and ‘satire, which is every citizen’s right’.

    But the German government condemned it. Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel [a Social Democrat] told Bild [the biggest and worst newspaper by far]: ‘Anyone in politics who poses as Hitler is either a total idiot or a Nazi. Reasonable people do not follow idiots, and decent people don’t follow Nazis.'”

  270. says

    I tend to like my bedroom cool – in winter, I’m content if it’s, say, 10 C. This year, though, with the polar vortex vorting away at the polarity, my room – not the apartment, just my room – has been around 4 C, which is basically refrigerator temp.

    As part of my bid to consume less Coke (my one unwavering addiction, I’m down to 3 tins a day from a high of 6), I’ve been taking a mug of ice cubes to bed every night. I woke up this morning to find that the leftover cubes were still extant.

    Turned out, after I asked the super to check it out, that the fuse for the in-floor radiant electric heating had gone partially bad, allowing some voltage but no current worth the name. Not a visible break, either, so I don’t feel too bad about not spotting it.
    But now my bedroom is much more comfy at 12 C, than it was this morning at less than 4! :)

    Our effect of getting the p in the v* so vigorously this year has been less than that of you lot further west, past the 100th meridian and such – we’ve been at “only” -20 C so far, regularly – but it’s still notably more polar than usual.

    * Polar in the vortex, what did you think I meant?

  271. A. Noyd says

    Giliell (#266)

    BTW, I’m a tech hero. I repaired my neighbour’s phone yesterday.

    I fixed a student’s phone yesterday. He (or maybe one of his kids) had somehow set the OS language to Chinese by accident. I found this out this when he got a phone call as I was helping him with a worksheet. I set it back to English for him, but it wasn’t that easy because the phone used an unfamiliar OS and the settings menu was totally illogical. Oh, and I don’t actually speak Chinese, but I could read a little because there’s some overlap with Japanese.

  272. rq says

    CaitieCat *hugs*
    Glad you’re out of the fridge! Not nice to think of you as just a trope.

    opposablethumbs
    I feel the pain of updating and backupping and… especially when it collides with familial members. I hope you manage to find a solution that (a) keeps you on top of everything and up-to-date and (b) causes least friction in the home and (most importantly) (c) is a solution that is easy, comfortable and fast for you to learn. And as cheap as possible. And may the dividends reap benefits within the next two months. Or however that saying should go. :P

    Thanks for all the well wishes, bassmike, Giliell, Portia, Saad, ajb47, Tony and cicely. So far still coasting but no worse so hopefully by tomorrow all will be well.

    Found out this evening that Husband is returning not on Sunday (as he kept insisting to me) but on MONday (as per the itinerary I checked). *sigh*
    The weather has stilled, though, and the house is warm and will be warm in the morning, and there’s a thin little blanket of fresh snow that was enough to let the boys make use of the sledding ramp we built for about half-an-hour this evening (would have been more, but they got hungry, darn little creatures).
    This is day 3, full of minor injuries but no major upsets. Yay!

  273. says

    Moment of Mormon Madness

    Oh, FFS! Here’s that damned “sincerely held religious beliefs” phrase again. This time it popped up in a court case where Utah mormon polygamists were using child labor to pick pecans — and they may get away with it.

    Two of Warren Jeffs’ brothers took the stand in a Salt Lake City courtroom Wednesday during a hearing to determine if they must provide information about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ role in providing women and children to gather pecans.

    The brothers, Lyle and Nephi Jeffs, won a victory late in the morning when U.S. District Court Judge David Sam found the pair do have “sincerely held religious beliefs.” The ruling could block the U.S. Department of Labor from obtaining the name, age and contact information for everyone who participated in a December 2012 nut harvest in southern Utah. […]

    Labor department investigators, according to court documents, believe that as many as 1,400 school-age children and their parents participated in the harvest.

    For almost two years, the Labor Department, Paragon and the FLDS have been arguing over whether members of the FLDS have to provide information about the church’s role in the harvest and about related church commercial interests.

    Lyle and Nephi Jeffs’ attorney, Jim Bradshaw, has maintained the FLDS church has a tenet forbidding discussion of the church with outsiders and followers should not have to answer questions about the workings of the church.

    The labor department has countered that First Amendment rights do not permit law-breaking and the government has a compelling interest in obtaining the information. […]

    Nephi Jeffs, 45, was asked by Bradshaw, what his beliefs were.

    “I believe that I must live all of the laws Heavenly Father has established,” Nephi Jeffs replied. “I need to earn my eternal salvation.” […]

    http://www.sltrib.com/news/2072546-155/polygamist-leaders-may-have-to-answer

  274. opposablethumbs says

    Thank you rq! Probably won’t actually happen for a little while yet, but I’m getting my anti-IT-trauma-rants in first. Before the inevitable computer catastrophe gets me, you know ;-)

    Hey, you’re nearly half-way done, right? And you still have the same number of offspring that you started the week with, yes? SUCCESS!!!!!!! And my hat off to you, too (I have rarely wrangled even my mere two on my own for any length of time. And now they are over wrangling age).

  275. says

    This is a followup to comment #273. Mormon polygamists in Utah also use underage labor in the construction industry. Here are some comments from readers of the Salt Lake Tribune article that confirm that fact:

    The built a bunch of houses on my street in St George. Many were framed by very young kids, when school was in session. I kept wondering how in the heck do they get away with it?
    —————
    It is true that UT and AZ have sat on their hands over the whole thing. But so have the people. In fact by continuing to use the contractors that have underage employees they encourage it to this very day. I still see kids on jobs. I even talked to some general contractors about it. They all had the same answers. The plygs are cheaper and the contractor doesn’t want to cause problems.

  277. says

    Trigger Warning: Torture, sexual assault
    44-year-old Guantanamo Bay prisoner Mohamedou Ould Slahi describes the horrific treatment he endured in a 460-page book.

    The book describes “physical and psychological suffering … at their highest extremes” and several human rights violations carried out by the guards. Slahi recalls being forced to engage in threesomes, being force-fed during the Muslim tradition of Ramadan, being starved and beaten, forced to drink salt water until he vomited, being deprived of sleep and forced to watch a mock execution.

    More details at the link. Some are graphic.

  278. Funny Diva says

    Hey, Hi!

    Here’s some hugz to replenish the pile. And some virtual cushions and blankies to expand the pillow fort. And some chocolate and some bacon because…chocolate and bacon!

    I need to vent some minor annoyance. My [banking institution] forced me to set up three identity questions from three separate drop-down “menus” of possible questions. 3/4 of which assumed that the user is married or attached enough to have a “Spouse”. And most of the rest of which were details actually fairly easy for a determined/resourceful person to find out from things like public records. Yeah, I’d have to be targeted specifically, not by some random hacker using a shotgun approach, but, y’know, stalkers and disgruntled ex-[relationship] people happen!

    Anyway…it really frikkin’ annoyed me on a couple of levels 1) how dare you assume that ALL of your account holders are married (or would be happy using an ex-spouse’s mother’s maiden name!) and 2) thanks for the Security Theater/Kabuki that I could NOT skip (and couldn’t get my account information until I’d spent time wrassling with…).

    So…how is everybody? (yeah, I’ll go back and catch up sometime…soon I promise!)

  279. Funny Diva says

    PS:
    Heina at the HeinousDealings blog has been ON FIRE this week.

    I’m slightly embarrassed and ashamed that I haven’t been reading her regularly…

  281. cicely says

    CaitieCat:

    Our effect of getting the p in the v* […]
    * Polar in the vortex, what did you think I meant?

    Pressure in the volume…and wondered whether that was going to be a useful way to raise the temperature in your room.
    From a structural-integrity p-o-v.
    –
    *hugs* for Funny Diva.
    Societal Expectations for the FAIL.
    –
    Tony!, you are not wrong.
    *shaking head in amazement*
    –

  282. says

    Oh. Brother.
    Kayta (my orange tabby) has been gradually putting weight back on. With a bit of trial and error, I finally found the food she will eat (perhaps I should say devour)-moist cat food. And not just *any* moist cat food. It can’t be filets, nor can it be chunks of anything. It *has* to be pate.
    Well tonight I found out that she won’t eat just any pate either. I filled her dish with salmon flavored pate from Friskies. She sniffed it, and ate a small amount, but did not eat anything further. An hour or so later, after seeing that she still hadn’t eaten all her food, I gave her Fancy Feasts’ seafood feast, and she proceeded to eat *all* of that.
    Picky. Damn. Cat.
    I love her to pieces, but still!

  283. chigau (違う) says

    Tony!
    That accident is a ringing endorsement of modern car design.
    Yay science and technology!

  285. Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says

    …yeah, maybe I’ll just bookmark that link for the next time someone decides to sneer at engineers….

  287. says

    So… apparently bra-shopping can incite a full-blown existential crisis.

    I have three requirements for a bra:

    NO FIDDLY BITS — I cannot do the fiddly bits that close bras, which means I’m limited to sports bras. (No big, right?)

    No padding or “enhancement”. In fact, I’m looking for one that will minimize my chest-age. (Shouldn’t be a problem, right?)

    And decent coverage of the chest area. (This should be easy!)

    And you know what I found?

    Even the sports bras are padded and contoured and designed to put ALL your feminine assets on display!

    Whatever happened to sports bras that covered, minimize jiggle, and compress?

    No, seriously, what happened to decent sports bras?

  288. says

    And before I went on the bra tangent, I was wanting to note that the first night, I ended up in fetal position wanting nothing more than to cut the girls off, because they’re that much of a hassle and this was such a mindfuck, going out of my way to acquire a feminine article of clothing. (All, somewhat ironically, in an attempt to hide the more feminine bits of my body.)

    I’m having a love/hate relationship with my body, right now. It’s weird, because on the one hand, boobs! My very own pair to play with! Woohoo! And on the other, plz remove these things from my chest…

  290. says

    Whatever happened to sports bras that covered, minimize jiggle, and compress?

    The unicorns ate them.

    +++
    Leaves hugs and chocolate

    +++
    Tony
    From what I hear from owned by cats people is that modern housecats seem to be the pickiest creatures ever. I’m pretty sure they didn’t voluntarily starve themselves to death back in the days when they got leftovers (unless they do actually have health issues)
    It gets really funny when a child-free person with a picky cat tells a parent that their child is a spoiled brat because the child won’t eat their broccoli.

    +++
    Urgh, cold. Not better. Back to bed.

  294. says

    This is an OMG moment for me. Scary and stupid at the same time. Republican politicians often do stupid stuff, but when they combine that with scary stuff it makes me want to pull my hair out.

    One day after the President’s State Of The Union address, Republican House Speaker John Boehner took it upon himself to invite the leader of a foreign nation to speak before Congress. Boehner did not notify the White House before extending an invitation to Israel’s President Benjamin Netanyahu. This is a blatant stab at President Obama’s authority and a dangerous and disrespectful break of U.S. government protocol. Boehner is also stepping onto very sensitive terrain, as Netanyahu’s visit could jeopardize Iranian negotiations over nuclear arms.

    Boehner claims he made the invitation based upon Obama’s SOTU (State Of The Union) address. In his speech, the President warned Congress not to compromise/interfere with current international negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear arms.

    [Obama said] “There are no guarantees that negotiations will succeed, and I keep all options on the table to prevent a nuclear Iran, but new sanctions passed by this Congress, at this moment in time, will all but guarantee that diplomacy fails — alienating America from its allies and ensuring that Iran starts up its nuclear program again. It doesn’t make sense. That is why I will veto any new sanctions bill that threatens to undo this progress.” […]

    “I did not consult with the White House,” Boehner told reporters. “The Congress can make this decision on its own. I don’t believe I’m poking anyone in the eye. There is a serious threat that exists in the world and the president last night kind of papered over it. The fact is there needs to be a more serious conversation in America about how serious the threat is from radical Islamic jihadists and the threat posed by Iran.”

    Apparently, Boehner doesn’t feel nine months of crucial talks between Iran and a six-nation negotiating group over the scale of a future Iranian nuclear program is ‘serious’ enough. […]

    Link.

  295. says

    Well, OMG, in a good way (sort of a good way). Some Republican women actually stood up to the males in their caucus and voiced opposition to an anti-abortion bill.

    […] the “Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” would ban abortions after the 20th week of a pregnancy. Sponsors said that exceptions would be allowed for a woman who is raped, but she could only get the abortion after reporting the rape to law enforcement.

    Reps. Rene Ellmers (R-NC) and Jackie Walorski (R-IN) led the revolt. Ellmers had cautioned that such a vote would send the wrong message to millennial voters and also said the bill showed “a complete disregard for the women who experience sexual assault.”

    GOP leadership was particularly wary of taking a vote that would yield a large number of female defectors among their ranks. Just 22 of the 246 House Republicans are women. Having a healthy portion of those female lawmakers vote against the bill would have been an astonishing embarrassment for a party that just keeps on talking about reaching out to female voters. […]

    I guess we need to elect more women, even if that includes Republican women. Of course, Joni Ernst and Michele Bachmann make one rethink that strategy.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/22/1359397/-Republicans-table-vote-on-abortion-ban-fearing-a-revolt-from-female-lawmakers

  296. says

    This is a followup to comment #295. While Republicans are fighting over their “Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” there seems to be less infighting within their ranks over another anti-abortion bill.

    […] The House will instead take up HR 7, or the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” — another measure that passed that chamber last year. Under the Hyde Amendment, federal funds are already prohibited from financing abortion. But HR 7 would go beyond that existing restriction to impose further barriers for abortion coverage in the private market — banning the plans in Obamacare’s new state-level marketplaces from covering abortion, as well as requiring small businesses to pay additional taxes on their health benefits if they offer their employees a plan that covers abortion. [….]

    http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/01/22/3614167/gop-pulls-20-week-ban/

  297. says

    Florida legislators have decided to be as stupid as Utah legislators when it comes to allowing students on college campuses to carry guns:

    The Criminal Justice Subcommittee of Florida’s House approved a bill that would allow students on college campuses to carry concealed weapons or firearms. HB 4005, authored by Rep. Greg Steube, contends that allowing students to carry firearms can prevent mass shootings, contrary to research that says otherwise. […]

    http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/01/22/3613738/florida-bill-supports-guns-on-college-campuses-ignores-research/

  298. cicely says

    WMDKitty:

    Even the sports bras are padded and contoured and designed to put ALL your feminine assets on display!

    But…but…but…a man might see you jogging! Or sporting!!!
    And he might think you are unfeminine!
    *fainting, hand to forehead*

    Whatever happened to sports bras that covered, minimize jiggle, and compress?

    1) See Above.
    2) The good ones can still be found…at high prices. Mediocre ones (unpadded, and uncontoured) can be found at Walmart, in three-packs, for fairly cheap…but are not available in sizes larger than about 42.
    Ask me how I know this….
    –

  300. rq says

    Tony
    If you click on the ‘Show 199 more cats’, you can eventually get 199 more cat pictures. ;) Maybe more by now! There’s a black one posing against a black tv. And so many others.

    +++

    I love this: a campaign to encourage fathers. Being a father is an art.

  304. rq says

    Miss Universe pageant, National costumes edition. If that’s what national costumes are now, I’m definitely signing on. (Also, re: Miss Australia, I think I want to see what her opera-house-inspired outfit looks like – and that sheer gown Miss Lithuania is wearing. Very… traditional.)

  306. says

    The Miss Universe “national costumes” competition looked like a Vegas showgirl version of national costumes. Some of the costumes looked like they weighed a lot. With the exception of Miss Lithuania, of course.

    In other news Mike Huckabee said some more stupid stuff today:

    Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) said during an appearance Thursday on a Christian television show that he’s thinking about running for President to help the nation know where laws come from: God.

    “We cannot survive as a republic if we do not become, once again, a God-centered nation that understands that our laws do not come from man, they come from God,” he said on the show “Life Today.”

    When Huckabee added that he wasn’t demanding a theocracy, host James Robison said, “We have a theocracy right now. It’s a secular theocracy.”

    “That’s it!” Huckabee said, describing the current political order as “humanistic, secular, atheistic, even antagonistic toward Christian faith.”

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mike-huckabee-secular-theocracy

  307. says

    Mike Huckabee says some more stupid stuff:

    […] In October, the former Fox News host argued that a Supreme Court ruling is only an “opinion,” which has no force of law unless and until policymakers also choose to act. High court rulings, he added, are “not the ‘law of the land’ as is often heralded.”

    In case it’s not obvious, what Huckabee is describing, especially as it relates to the marriage cases at the high court, is a sort of “nullification” plan in which states ignore federal rulings they don’t like.

    Fortunately, the American system of government doesn’t work this way – the debate, such as it was, ended with the Civil War – and there is no such thing as mandatory “enabling legislation” that follows decisions from the judiciary. […]

    Maddow blog link.

  308. says

    So much for concealed carry permits — apparently they apply only to white people.

    The United States continues to be separate and unequal in so many ways. Justice, far too often, is applied in an inequitable fashion and basic privileges often afforded to white men, 2015 be damned, just aren’t given to black men of the same age and background.
    When 62-year-old Clarence Daniels went to shop at his local Florida Walmart, he had no idea that he would soon be assaulted by another shopper and violently restrained by onlookers. Carrying a legally concealed firearm, properly holstered underneath his jacket, which he was licensed to do, Clarence Daniels, a black man, was spotted in the parking lot by Michael Foster, a white man 20 years his junior.

    Foster follows Daniels into the Walmart, chokes him from behind in front of children and bystanders, wrestles him violently to the ground, and is soon joined by other white onlookers who come to help Foster restrain Daniels—in which they take his gun and wait for police to arrive.

    During this entire ordeal, Daniels, according to onlookers and the police report, screamed and pleaded over and over again that he was a licensed gun owner permitted to carry his weapon, but his pleas were ignored.

    Daily Kos link. Video at the link.

  310. says

    Scorpion flies are super attracted to dead bodies, could help solve murders

    Despite their weird appearance, scorpion flies are mostly harmless to humans. I say mostly because according to new research, if you’re a dead one, these flies will will feast on your abandoned body and perform mating rituals with each other all up on it like—well, like flies do, I guess.

    This comes to us by way of a study conducted from the Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, where researcher Natalie K. Lundgreen had the rare opportunity to perform field tests on a human corpse, rather than the pig carcasses that forensic scientists usually use. Her goal was to confirm which animals and insects would be the first to flock to a dead body left outside in the wilderness, so that investigators could know take samples from the guts and larvae of these creatures for evidence in solving crimes.

    Prior to the study, which was released Thursday, blowflies were considered the first to arrive to a corpse, and scorpion flies were only thought to be interested in animal carrion, not that of humans. However, not only were scroption flies there before anything else, they also stayed on the body the longest,

    This new knowledge about the scorpion fly, Lundgreen says, is “expanding our understanding of decomposition ecology,” because the data that might be retrieved from such a fly could allow forensic pathologists to accurately determine the time and cause of death of a dead body.

    Here’s that study: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-01/esoa-nfe012015.php

  312. says

    Clarence Thomas decided to let the world know his position on marriage equality before SCOTUS makes a ruling later this year.
    In a photo released yesterday, Justice Thomas embraces two of the most hateful opponents of LGBT equality

    Good As You founder Jeremy Hooper just published an article with this image he found on Twitter. In the center is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. On the left is Ryan T. Anderson of the very anti-gay Heritage Foundation. On the right is none other than Robert P. George.

    By comparison, Anderson hasn’t had that great an impact on the LGBT community. He’s been the anti-equality voice on CNN, and he’s the co-author of the book What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense, along with Robert George. Anderson believes gay people should forgo sex, does not believe in same-sex marriage – calling it a “lie” – supports harmful ex-gay therapy, and says rights for gay people are “makebelieve.”

    But it’s Robert P. George that the LGBT community and all on the left really should know better.

    Prof. George is a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton, and a visiting professor at Harvard Law School. He’s also the co-founder of NOM, the National Organization For Marriage. George has other notches on his anti-gay belt.

    He is a senior fellow at the Witherspoon Institute, which funded the embarrassingly flawed Regnerus anti-gay parenting study. He’s on an editorial board at the Deseret news, Utah’s largest paper – wholly owned by the Mormon Church. He’s on the boards of the Koch Brothers’ American Enterprise Institute, and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

    George also serves on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom – a federal government commission.

    But one of his greatest claims to fame, aside from NOM, is drafting the Manhattan Declaration, which advocates for anarchy in the face of governmental support for the rights of a woman to choose, and same-sex marriage.

    “Today, these two men managed to hug up against a man who will soon make a key decision on marriage equality,” Hooper writes.

    These three men, standing arm in arm together in the chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court, should greatly concern everyone.

  313. Esteleth, RN's job is to save your ass, not kiss it says

    I’ve been away for a few days.

    Here’s what’s happened:

    (1) I turned 30.
    (2) I discovered Pimm’s, and how tasty it is mixed with lemonade and ginger ale, with a garnish of cucumber.
    (3) I got a job.
    (4) I became an aunt.

    Today I peed in a cup to prove that I’m not on drugs (insert rant on the approrpriateness of this here). Tomorrow: a physical by someone at occupational medicine, where I will probably get lectured about my weight. I start work on February 9.

  314. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    These three men, standing arm in arm together in the chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court, should greatly concern everyone.

    It should, if Thomas had real honesty and integrity expected from a judge, cause him to be recused from any decision involving gay marriage.
    But then, I don’t think he has any integrity.

  315. says

    Esteleth 313

    Congratulations on peeing in a cup! Wait, that’s not what I meant.

    Congratulations on the job and the aunt-ness, and Happy birthday!

  316. says

    Esteleth @313:
    1-Happy belated birthday. I believe the spanking parlor is available at the moment if you’d like your 30 spankings.
    2-Pimm’s…we had a bottle of that when I worked at the Fish House. In my seven years there, the only time I touched the bottle was when I needed to move it out of the way to reach other bottles. I sold more Camparri than Pimm’s (looks around for rq)
    3-Congratu-fucking-lations!
    4-Woo Hoo!

    ****

    Something for PZ, since he posts about Kent Hovind from time to time:
    Kent Hovind claims filing taxes is against his ‘sincerely held religious beliefs’

    ****

    Joni Ernst wore plastic bags over her shoes because she grew up under GOP presidents

    (This article does a better job skewering Ernst than Raw Story’s, which focused on the money her family made during the 90s, which has no bearing on her family financial status when she was growing up)

    ****

    President Obama totally geeks out during a visit to a new product development lab at Boise State University

  317. Esteleth, RN's job is to save your ass, not kiss it says

    Well, the congratulations for the aunt-dom really belong with Sister and Brother-In-Law (but mostly Sister) as they did the work. I am halfway disappointed that Sister did not carry out her threat to name Nephew “Burrito Tumor III.”

  319. says

    Wow.
    Religious freedom activists walk the talk, offer to take lashes for Saudi blogger

    Now, an interesting development has come to light. Princeton Professor Robert P. George — who is also vice chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom — and six of his colleagues have offered to take 100 lashes each in place of Badawi. Prof. George sent an email to “The Christian Post” last week, advising the religious community of the letter he sent to the Saudi government:

    “Together with six colleagues on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, I sent a letter to the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. calling on the Saudi government to stop the horrific torture of Raif Badawi — an advocate of religious freedom and freedom of expression in the Saudi Kingdom. If the Saudi government refuses, we each asked to take 100 of Mr. Badawi’s lashes so that we could suffer with him. The seven of us include Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, Christians, Jews, and a Muslim.”

    The text of the letter followed:

    “Compassion, a virtue honored in Islam as well as in Christianity, Judaism, and other faiths, is defined as ‘suffering with another.’ We are persons of different faiths, yet we are united in a sense of obligation to condemn and resist injustice and to suffer with its victims, if need be. We therefore make the following request. If your government will not remit the punishment of Raif Badawi, we respectfully ask that you permit each of us to take 100 of the lashes that would be given to him. We would rather share in his victimization than stand by and watch him being cruelly tortured. If your government does not see fit to stop this from happening, we are prepared to present ourselves to receive our share of Mr. Badawi’s unjust punishment.”

    Badawi received one set of lashes on January 9th in the public square in front of the prison. He was to have been flogged another 50 times on the 16th but the wounds from the first flogging hadn’t healed. How barbaric is that? Beating the man fifty times and then allowing him to heal before he is flogged again. And again. And again. Until this cruel and painful punishment is completed. That anyone would voluntarily succumb to such a torture to save another from bearing it is beautiful.

    Seven complete strangers have offered to take 100 lashes with a cane in the place of another human being. In this day and age, that is magnificently courageous and loving. I applaud Prof. George and his companions for their true compassion and agape. I hope that this offer will wake the Saudi government up to how the world sees them at this moment — barbarians with thin skins and cruel hearts.

  320. Esteleth, RN's job is to save your ass, not kiss it says

    Y’know, I rarely have tolerance for right-wing religious types like Robert George (google him in the context of LGBT rights, if you want to be horrified), and I recognize that the Saudis are not going to give this posturing even a shred of attention (and I also know that George et al know that), but I have to admit to being a bit impressed by that.

  323. A. Noyd says

    Dalillama (#309)

    I’d have liked to see Miss Australia in something a little less offensively cultural appropriation-y.

    No kidding. What the fuck were they thinking? “Oh, let’s dress up a white woman in a cutesy and sexualized representation of the culture of the people that white Australians tried to wipe out for generations and still treat like shit. What could be distasteful about that?”

  326. Morgan!? the Slithy Tove says

    For we Hordlings of the female persuasion who have problems finding support garments that fit, google “Miss Stevens” in Los Angeles. They can fit anyone, with whatever kind of bra you want. Truly, they are miraculous. And most of the women sales folk have been working there for years and years and years. They have seen every trend from inflatable to flat. I don’t think they have any sort of online sales presence, but if you contact them with your problems I’ll bet big time that they will direct you to the resource you need.

  327. chigau (違う) says

    All of my hardware has decided to *crash*
    *blankethugs* for everyone
    I’ll be back.

  328. says

    Anyone going to be in the Orlando area on May 9? If so, you might be interested in this:
    Join the #NOH8Worldwide movement in ORLANDO and add your face to the fight for equal human rights!

    WHERE: The Abbey
    100 South Eola Drive #100
    Orlando, FL 32801

    DATE: Saturday May 9th, 2015

    TIME: 12:00pm – 3:00pm

    COST:
    Single/Solo Photos: $40
    Couple/Group Photos: $25 per person
    NOH8 accepts cash and credit cards only. Fees paid to participate cover services and costs for one edited digital print only, made available via noh8campaign.com, and do not include physical prints.

    * COME CAMERA-READY *
    * WEAR A WHITE SHIRT *
    * POSE & MAKE A STATEMENT! *

    The NOH8 Campaign will team up with The Wedding Alliance for an open photo shoot at the The Abbey on Saturday, May 9th! Stop by anytime between 12pm-3pm to pose for an official NOH8 photo by photographer Adam Bouska. No reservations needed!

    Photos are first-come, first-served – and we move fast! Please arrive camera-ready with a plain white shirt to match the signature style of the NOH8 photos.

    When is the best time to arrive? Most people tend to arrive before the photo shoot begins, but as long as someone has lined up by the advertised end time for the photo shoot (3:00pm for this photo shoot), they should be guaranteed a chance to pose!

    Once you arrive, the next steps are easy!

    1. Fill-out one numbered model release for each person.
    2. Have a NOH8 temporary tattoo applied for your photo.
    3. Standby for your number to be called.
    4. Process your payment once called.
    5. Trade your processed model release for duct tape!

    NOH8 Co-Founder Adam Bouska will photograph roughly 5-10 frames per person. One frame will be selected/edited by our team and made available within approximately eight weeks (timeline subject to change).

    INTERESTED IN VOLUNTEERING? E-mail [email protected] with your contact information and make sure to note which shoot you’d like to volunteer for!

    Funds raised by the NOH8 Campaign will be used to continue promoting and raising awareness for marriage and human equality as well as anti-discrimination and anti-bullying through NOH8’s interactive social media campaign. This includes bringing the campaign to other cities and countries around the world, creating and compiling images for our ongoing large-scale media campaign, and covering the costs of the daily operations and maintenance necessary to run this rapidly growing campaign out of our Burbank Headquarters.

    The NOH8 Campaign is a tax-exempt charitable organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Click here and scroll down to the ‘Funds & Financing’ portion of our FAQ for more information about how fees are utilized.

    That’s far enough in advance that I might be able to make it. Plus it’s around my mother’s 60th birthday, and I’d kinda like to celebrate that with her. I think it would be so cool if we both went and got our photos taken! My sister alerted me to this (she lives in Orlando) and said she wants to go. I’m not sure if my father would go, but between mom, sis, and I, we could probably persuade him. As I think about it, I think it would be a great family moment. Gotta talk to the folks about it.

  331. opposablethumbs says

    Congratulations, Esteleth, and happy zoomaroundthesun day!

    Sounds like a great idea Tony! – hope it works out for you all to be there :-)

    No Manterrupting link, rq, it are be-borkened :-( (wonder if the 7 ways include any I’d be capable of using … )

  333. says

    Thanks for the Manterrupting link rq. While I was aware of the information, counteracting the social messages received over a lifetime of living in a sexist society is an extraordinary uphill battle, and I know I can benefit from the reminders.
    (btw, I made the mistake of reading the comments…oi vey)

  336. says

    Multiple congratulations to Esteleth
    30? The kids these days, they always get younger! ;)

    +++
    So, Saudi Arabia has a new dictator (I refuse to do that little dance by which a dictator suddenly becomes not a dictator by magic of other family members having been a dictator before them). Wasn’t it custom that they would pardon people to show goodwill? Maybe that’s a chance for Raif Bawadi. No justice, but I doubt that at this point he, his wife and children care.

  339. says

    In my experience, a chest plate/bra should be made of metal that can be polished for evening wear. Some brass, some copper accents, that kind of thing. Matte-finish textures can be used to highlight the polished services (like Apple does with some computer cases), so keep that in mind during the design phase.

    Also, if you live in a place where the seasons vary, and some of those seasons are quite cold, I recommend lining at least one of your breast-covering doodads with fur.

  341. says

    In reference to some Pharyngulites being drug-tested, it’s worse in some states. You could be drug-tested on the job or for your job, and you can also be drug-tested if you receive any government benefits. I’m just waiting for Republicans to suggest drug-testing senior citizens who receive social security payments.

    The Wall Street Journal recently noted that when it comes to welfare recipients, “few” applicants have been caught up in the “drug-screening net.” How few? The piece noted that in Arizona, for example, between 2011 and 2014, over 108,000 people seeking benefits were subjected to drug screen. A grand total of 2 applicants were disqualified due to testing positive. […]

    In recent years, the idea of imposing drug tests on welfare beneficiaries — which is to say, poor people receiving aid; those who receive corporate welfare benefits are exempt — has become exceedingly popular among many Republicans. The problem for proponents is that the programs keep failing — in practice, in the courts, or both. […]

    Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is pushing forward with a plan to make food stamp recipients pass drug tests — a requirement that the Obama administration says violates federal law. […]

    Maddow blog link.

    In addition to Wisconsin, we’ve seen drug testing tried in Georgia, in Florida, etc. New testing proposals come from Republican governors in Michigan (Rick Snyder) and in Maine (Paul LePage).

    You would think that these Republican Governors would, at the very least, be concerned about the wasted money.

  342. says

    Given that they’re usually in with the drug test makers, I suspect the governors don’t think the money’s being wasted.
    Far better to give that money to donating businessmen for their third moon yacht, than some moocher who only wants it for trivialities like food and shelter.

  343. says

    CaitieCat @342 makes a good point. Money for rightwing cronies, and damn the poor people. I also think that many borderline poor people who are Republicans can be fed the lie that welfare recipients are taking food out of their mouths, and that a significant percentage of the recipients abuse drugs.

  344. Jack-booted Verbalist says

    Help.
    Earnest young man exposing to me on Facebook how Christina Hoff Sommers speaks the truth, how feminism has been hijacked, how “gender” feminism is out to put men down, and how this is what is taught in gender studies.
    There was an article in the National post about a conference at Dalhousie, where s prof fro SMU said women should speak first in all classrooms. I can’t find anything but the article to check on what actually was said. I have no Google fu today, only a phone and a desire to smash it in this young man’s face. I already linked to one short simple feminism 101 page, and a freaking dictionary definition fer cryin out loud. But no. I’m just avoiding the truth. Feminism is sexist.
    Help.

  345. cicely says

    Esteleth:

    (1) I turned 30.
    (2) I discovered Pimm’s, and how tasty it is mixed with lemonade and ginger ale, with a garnish of cucumber.
    (3) I got a job.
    (4) I became an aunt.

    1) Congratulations!
    2) Unfamiliar territory, but doesn’t seem to involve either Horses or peas, so a qualified hurrah.
    3) Unqualified Hurrah!
    4) Congratulations to All Parties Involved.
    –
    Tony!:

    President Obama totally geeks out during a visit to a new product development lab at Boise State University

    One of us! One of us!
    –
    chigau:

    All of my hardware has decided to *crash*

    My sympathies, in this time of sorrow.
    *proferring a tasteful floral arrangement*
    –

  346. says

    Moment of Mormon Madness, slavery category. Present-day mormons like to say that their first prophet, Joseph Smith, was anti-slavery. He was not. They are trying to rewrite history.

    Mormons have a suite of books that make up their sacred literature, the Book of Mormon is one, the Doctrine & Covenants (D&C) is another, ditto for The Book of Abraham. D&C 134:9 mentions slavery:

    We believe it just to preach the gospel to the nations of the earth, and warn the righteous to save themselves from the corruption of the world; but we do not believe it right to interfere with bond-servants, neither preach the gospel to, nor baptize them contrary to the will and wish of their masters, nor to meddle with or influence them in the least to cause them to be dissatisfied with their situations in this life, thereby jeopardizing the lives of men; such interference we believe to be unlawful and unjust, and dangerous to the peace of every government allowing human beings to be held in servitude.

    Copyright on that edition of the D&C is 1982, and it is currently in use.

  347. says

    Jack-Booted Verbalist @344:
    Christina Hoff Sommers as an authority on feminism???!!!

    I’m sorry, I’ve got to go laugh my ass off for the next few hours.

    Have you asked your FB friend to provide evidence that support their (and Hoff Sommers’) opinions? It’s not your job to rebut their claims (though if that’s what you choose to do, that’s completely your decision). It’s their responsibility to back up their assertions.

  348. says

    Sooo, have ya’ll heard about this bullshit from Wikipedia?

    Wikipedia’s arbitration committee, the highest user-run body on on the site, has banned five editors from making corrections to articles about feminism, in an attempt to stop a long-running edit war over the entry on the “Gamergate controversy”.

    The editors, who were all actively attempting to prevent the article from being rewritten with a pro-gamergate slant, were sanctioned by “arbcom” in its preliminary decision. While that may change as it is finalised, the body, known as Wikipedia’s supreme court, rarely reverses its decisions.

    The sanction bars the five editors from having anything to do with any articles covering Gamergate, but also from any other article about “gender or sexuality, broadly construed”.

    Editors who had been pushing for the Wikipedia article to be fairer to gamergate have also been sanctioned by the committee, but one observer warns that those sanctions have only hit “throwaway” accounts.

    “No sanctions at all were proposed against any of Gamergate’s warriors, save for a few disposable accounts created specifically for the purpose of being sanctioned,” says Mark Bernstein, a writer and Wikipedia editor.

    In contrast, he says, “by my informal count, every feminist active in the area is to be sanctioned. This takes care of social justice warriors with a vengeance — not only do the Gamergaters get to rewrite their own page (and Zoe Quinn’s, Brianna Wu’s, Anita Sarkeesian’s, etc); feminists are to be purged en bloc from the encyclopedia.”

    Let’s be more fair to GamerGaters and screw over the feminists? That’s what they went with?

  349. A. Noyd says

    I’d really like it if more sports bras had front or back openings. If they’re doing their job right by compressing your boobies, then they’re a massive pain to pull down over your head and shoulders. I always feel like a confused snake trying to un-molt.

  350. says

    Republicans in Oklahoma are not giving up, they are still fighting against same-sex marriage even though those marriages are now legal in their state.

    They’ve decided to punish any state employees that issue a license for a same-sex marriage, and any state employees that participate in ceremonies for gay couples.

    So, yeah, this rightwing revenge adds up to stripping pensions from employees, ditto for salaries and other benefits. There’s a separate bill that sort of puts a seal of approval on reparative therapy for gay minors. The right-wingers also plan to kick judges who don’t obey off the bench (that’s gotta be illegal, right?)

    House Bill 1599 is being called the “Preservation and Sovereignty of Marriage Act.” It says taxpayer dollars or governmental salaries cannot be used for “the licensing or support of same-sex marriage.”

    Under this bill no local or state employee would be allowed to quote “officially recognize, grant or enforce a same-sex marriage license and continue to receive a salary, pension or other employee benefit.”

    It goes on to say any judge who violates this act could also be removed from office.

    House Bill 1598 “Freedom to Obtain Conversion Therapy Act” says parents would be allowed to seek counseling and therapy to help change a child’s sexual orientation, without interference from the state

    The other, House Bill 1597, would allow any business in Oklahoma to refuse service to any gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person or group.

    Sally Kerns is also racist and, despite being a woman herself, misogynist.

    We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that’s tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don’t want to study as hard in school? I’ve taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them. […]

    Women usually don’t want to work as hard as a man… women tend to think a little bit more about their family, wanting to be at home more time, wanting to have a little more leisure time.

    Oklahoma News 9 link.

  351. Jack-booted Verbalist says

    I’m just out.
    Now he’s talikng about how no feminists have lobbied for women to work in mines or as “garbage men.” And how we don’t libby for women to be treated as unfairly by the courts as men are, and and and.
    I told him he was uninformed, wished him luck, and I hope I stick the flounce.

  352. Jack-booted Verbalist says

    Pardon me. Previous should have been:
    Tony! The Queer Shoop:

    And lobby. Not libby.
    Thanks

  354. says

    Instead of admitting that he was wrong to provide big tax cuts to corporations and to wealthier individuals, the governor of Kansas, Sam Brownback, has decided to cut school funding to make up for budget shortfalls.

    School kids in Kansas will get $127 million less and Brownback will screw pension funds in his state as well. This is criminal … and does not make sense economically.

    […] economic research shows that under-investing in education raises longer-term costs in other areas. Future public assistance spending will be higher, (because education funding cuts produce higher poverty among the students affected, and the state will likely spend more medicating and jailing a sicker and more delinquent future adult population.

    Brownback is also cutting transportation department funds. I guess he doesn’t like functional bridges and roads.

    The road repair cuts will save a little bit of money now, but “all you’re going to do is create bigger problems for yourself later,” the head of a trade group for heavy construction firms in Kansas City told the Star.

    This is all short-term thinking. Every thing the governor is proposing will mean larger costs in the future. For example:

    the executive director of the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System says Brownback’s proposed tweaks will ultimately cost the state more than 8 times what they save in the short term.

  355. says

    More rightwing stupidity from Kansas: this time it concerns gun safety.

    Obtaining a concealed-carry permit in Kansas isn’t exactly a difficult task. A 2006 law made Kansas a “shall-issue” state, meaning that law enforcement does not have discretion to deny permits to people who meet certain qualifications, though people who want to carry concealed firearms also are required to complete a gun-safety class. A majority of the state’s senators, however, believe that it should be even easier to pack heat if you live in the Sunflower State. Twenty-six of the state’s 40 senators co-sponsored a bill eliminating the requirements to take the class and to obtain the a permit. […]

    Think Progress link.

  356. says

    This is a followup to #350. Texas legislators and activists are also trying to put a stop to gay marriage by punishing clerks that facilitate the process.

    […] calling on members of Conservative Republicans of Texas to back a Texas bill that would prohibit clerks from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples […]

    […] legislation, authored by GOP state representative Cecil Bell Jr., as a way to engage in “spiritual warfare” against “the homosexuals and the politicians who support their agenda.” […]

    “Texas is the last bastion of Christian and conservative thought, power and action in the nation,” Hotze writes. “If Texas were to fall, then America would be lost to the socialists and the secular humanists. We must shift the momentum in the battle for the heart of America and lead a Christian and conservative offensive that will spread across America and defeat Obama and his pro-homosexual, socialist allies.” […]

    Right Wing Watch link.

  357. says

    Jack-Booted Verbalist @351:
    Flouncing can be difficult. Especially if you have a case of SIWOTI*
    Also, it’s just really stupid for him to argue that feminists don’t seek unfair treatment for women in the courtrooms. The goal of feminism is gender equality in all areas of society. Why the hell would feminists push for women to be treated more unfairly by the courts than they already are?

    Re: women working in mines-
    http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/gender-equality-mining-industry

    A report released by WINvest in October 2013 showed that investing in women’s employment and improved working conditions can deliver significant benefits to both women and businesses, leading to enhanced productivity, improved staff retention and increased access to talent. Anglo American helped to inform the report by sharing lessons, knowledge and best practice from the traditionally male-dominated mining industry across the globe. Anglo American has a global workforce of 150,000 employees and contractors, with women representing 15% of permanent employees and 22% of managers.

    In Chile, where Anglo American is one of the largest mining companies in the copper mining sector, an industry critical to the economy, women have historically had a very weak presence in mining – representing only 6% of all Chilean mining workers. Until 1996, legislation prohibited women from working in underground mines, which reinforced gender stereotypes in the industry.

    But in El Soldado, a mine north of Santiago, considerable progress has been made to increase gender diversity in the workforce – the number of women supervisors has increased from 4% to 15%, while 10% of the truck drivers are female. In 2012, 23 out of 38 apprentices were female.

    Roberto Martinez, general manager, El Soldado, explains: “We started by actively advertising our positions to both men and women, and it wasn’t long before the word spread. Our first three female recruits on the truck driver training programme were instrumental in spreading the word among local women about the benefits of working for Anglo American, and dispelling any preconceived ideas about women’s ability to work on the site.”

    Working for Anglo American means a real increase in living standards for women in the local community; better salaries, and a high value placed on the educational and health benefits offered for their children. While the work is physically demanding and the hours are long, women have said they feel empowered by learning new skills and breaking into a male-dominated industry.

    Can’t find anything at the moment on gender equality among sanitation workers, but I’m quite certain that feminists (and those who don’t label themselves feminists, but nonetheless advocate for gender equality) have worked to break down barriers to women working in that industry.

    Your FB friend is deeply, deeply wrong and misinformed and ignorant and sexist.

    *an acronym for Someone Is Wrong On The Internet

    ****

    I just made my first fritatta! Not too complicated. Some onions, leftover chicken, lots of cheese, an egg or three, and some salsa. It’s currently cooling, but I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to wait, bc I’m quite hungry.

  358. Funny Diva says

    WMD Kitteh,
    have you ever tried Title Nine’s Frog Bra?
    I had one back in ’01 when I was in The Mikado and it flattened everything right out (had to have an appropriate no-bust line in that kimono, ya know?)

    Though it might have the issue that A Noyd mentions of being hard to wriggle into…
    Yeah…even after a significant weight loss, I’m still in high-end, 4-panel not-wire-free bras, though I confess I don’t do a lot of, um, bouncy types of exercise. Good solid support works for me better than compression alone…

  359. says

    Some guy posing as a Washington Post journalist is actually a Wall Street lobbyist. This dishonest guy, Ed Rogers, is attacking Elizabeth Warren. Why is the Washington Post giving him a platform?

    […] The Washington Post is allowing opinion writer Ed Rogers to defend Wall Street from attacks without disclosing his firm “offers services” to Wall Street interests. The Post also doesn’t disclose that Rogers’ firm “provides investment banking services” for American and foreign clients.

    Rogers is a “Republican mega-lobbyist” [for] one of the top Washington D.C. lobbying firms, [the firm] having banked more than $15 million in 2014. […]

    The Post has defended the practice, telling Media Matters via email, “His full-time lobbying job is in his bio on every single piece he writes.” But such a standard requires readers to actively search federal lobbying records to ascertain if Rogers has clients that might benefit from his writing. Media ethicists have slammed the Post for this “troubling” and “dishonest” standard.

    Rogers’ undisclosed and conflict-laden commentary extends into other areas beyond the environment, including financial regulations. […]

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/01/23/wash-posts-disclosure-fiasco-continues-writer-d/202249

  362. rq says

    Jack-booted Verbalist
    You have caught me one day too late – re: the garbagemen etc. argument, JUST YESTERDAY I had a brilliant thing. I shall see if I can dig it up for you (it was via twitter). It was an awesome slingback at all the MRAs who insist feminists hate men. Don’t worry if it takes me a moment, have to put the chirrun into bed first, but I won’t forget! (Me-time is all about that quality time with a glass of wine and google.)
    As for the rest, well… All I can recommend is extended reading via feminist authors who are NOT CHS. Because ew. Seriously. :P

    re: sports bras
    Haven’t worn one in ages, but I distinctly remember feeling trapped in one – at that point where it’s over your face and your arms are in the air and you’re having trouble reaching any pullable edges. But in the interests of re-starting some sorts of sportsperson-like activity, I’m going to keep up with the sports-bra discussion for my own benefit, too. (And anything that reduces jiggle and the all-important ogle-factor? GREAT!)

  363. says

    A petition to implore Judge James Daniels to free Marissa Alexander

    Right now we have a real chance to free Marissa Alexander, the mother who faced 60 years in prison for firing a warning shot to fend off her violent partner–but we need to act now.

    On January 27, the presiding judge will choose whether to add five more years to her sentence–that means going back to prison, instead of home to her family. We can’t let that happen.

    If thousands of us demand Marissa’s release, we can pressure the judge to finally grant her her freedom–and by doing so, fight back against the criminalization of all domestic abuse survivors.

    FFS, she didn’t even shoot anyone. She fired a warning shot. Cops get to kill people of color with impunity and overwhelmingly, they face no punishment and when they do, it’s a slap on the wrist. But a black woman who stands up to her abuser and fires a warning shot to deter him? She goes to fucking jail.

  364. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    I have a sports bra that opens on the back. It’s great and I don’t have to wrestle my way out of it.

    Esteleth, congrats on your accomplishments, as well as your sister’s.

  365. says

    Further to the bra convoy, some of my teammates who were (ahem) more gifted in that region* swore by using two or more sports bras. One used four; she later had reduction surgery, and was able to get away with two. More support and more compression.

    * I’m perfectly happy with what I have, and started early enough that it didn’t need surgery to achieve. Lucky me. Well, truly lucky would have been doing it at six, not twenty six, but you work with what you’re given.

  367. rq says

    … If you google ‘bra convoy’, like I did in search of a good image, you get results for BRA fighters, BRA being short for Baluch Republican Army. Probably not quite what we’re looking for. :D
    (Four sports bras?? Wow… I can’t imagine the multiple entanglements to get out of THAT!)

  369. says

    We used to all help one another. Much easier.

    In fact, coincidentally I once got a play credit as “sea captain, maid, priest, boob wrangler”, because it was my job to help bandage and bind our Viola. I was the subject of many entreaties during that show. Also got be a priest whose first word was “Marriage…”. I only did it funny at first dress, and the director said she was glad I’d got it out of my system before lights up for realz. :D

  372. rq says

    Jack-Booted Verbalist
    So. this is what I saw on twitter (in slightly different format), but turns out it’s part of a longer thing here: If I Admit That ‘Hating Men’ Is a Thing, Will You Stop Turning It Into a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? It’s Part 4 of that. Don’t know if that helps at all, but hope it at least gives you some peace of mind!
    And then I found this: The 8 Biggest Lies Men’s Rights Activists Spread About Women, which might answer to some of the bullshit MRAs and CHS tend to spew.

  373. says

    Some d00d sent a question to the Buzzfeed Tumblr

    Hey Buzzfeed. I like a lot of the stuff you guys do, but I’ve noticed something lately that makes me (and I assume a lot of other people) question whether or not to read your website. It seems like a disproportionate number of your articles and videos cater to women and so-called “feminists”. This very blog recently posted a picture that mocked the new and popular #Meninist activist movement. Do you REALLY want your readers to think you support so-called “feminist” ideology?

    I won’t spoil their response, but it’s quite lovely.

  374. Funny Diva says

    Giliell…
    “only” F?! I should be so lucky. Just happy I’m smaller than I used to be.
    (And, yes, I’m used to thinking in Euro/UK sizing rather than US because my bras are made by Elomi, and ebay sellers just read off the label instead of converting to stoopid US conventions. Very worth the money to finally have found nice looking ones that really fit and do what they’re supposed to do–support teh grrlz so my waist looks small by comparison…)

    …still snickering over “bra convoy”.

  376. rq says

    CaitieCat
    I think you should add ‘boob wrangler’ to your ‘nym there. That’s a skill level not everyone can achieve!

  378. Funny Diva says

    Giliell
    I remember double-H…
    As for nursing bras…I’ll take your word for it, mmm’K?!

  381. Esteleth, RN's job is to save your ass, not kiss it says

    My hand is sore.

    Went by the hospital today.

    I got my physical (no lecture about my weight – I gave the NP a “how-to-be-a-good-friend” lecture re: her friend who is currently being treated for thyroid cancer instead). I got a PPD placed, measured for an N95 mask, an ID and a parking pass. I then signed literally 30 forms.

    Start date is February 9.

  382. rq says

    From pole to pole.
    Scientists Make Surprising Discovery Deep Beneath Antarctic Ice Sheet

    A National Science Foundation-funded team of researchers has made a surprising discovery 2400 feet beneath the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica…fish, invertebrates living and thriving in the brutally cold and perpetually dark waters beneath the ice so far away from the open ocean. The team says the discovery opens new questions about the ability of life to thrive in extreme environments.

    The Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling or WISSARD Team for the first time ever, drilled down to the “grounding zone”, 530 miles from the edge of the Ross Sea…where Antarctic ice, land and sea all converge. The team used a specially designed hot water drill to bore through a half mile of ice, working around the clock to collect sediment samples. While the borehole remained open, the team deployed a remotely operated vehicle or ROV called Deep SCINI into the hole. Developed at Northern Illinois University, the ROV was fitted with a number of oceanographic instruments, including a downward looking camera to record data.

    The grounding zone is extremely important for the stability of the ice shelf and studying core samples from this remote area will provide scientists with clues about the mechanics of ice sheets, future changes in climate, and sea-level rise.

  383. rq says

    Wooo, Esteleth! Well done!

    +++

    Kurzeme (Western Latvia). For the scenery. And for a warning against the pastries they show. Called ‘sklandrauši’. HINT: NOT PASTRIES. An abomination of rye crust filled with a layer of mashed potatoes and a layer of mashed carrots, sometimes with something resembling icing on top. DO NOT TOUCH, WORSE THAN PEAS! Only the Courlanders will call it ‘food’, in the deep dark months of winter when they can’t catch any fish. Says me! And my word is authoriteh.

  384. Funny Diva says

    Kermit arms for Esteleth!

    YAAAAAAAAAYYYY!!!

    Boo for Pastries-in-Name-Only which are Worse Than Peas! *shudder*

    Want some of my citrus compote? red grapefruit, regular orange and blood orange sections…good for what ails ya!
    (oops, forgot, haven’t you recently had gastric unhappiness, rq? Perhaps you’d prefer some nice, milky tea?)

  386. Funny Diva says

    I really loved “Tacky”, his parody video of “Happy”. And the one with the marching band…those were also from the Mandatory Fun release…

    Weird Al went to my university…about a decade before I got there, but still! Much better claim-to-fame than any dumb sportsball team!

  387. rq says

    Funny Diva
    The citrus compote actually sounds pretty good.
    The gastric unhappiness faded away, though not completely – residual general nausea every now and then, which makes me vaguely worried about the emptiness of my uterus, but since two of the boys are also feeling slight nausea (and Husband says he still is too), my mind is mostly reassured.
    Also, Weird Al went to your university? *jealous* ;D Did you know him well?

  388. Funny Diva says

    Nope, never met the man…
    he’s a good decade older than I am, so long gone by the time I got there.
    But like I say, I still claim his Alumnus Lustre…he beats the heck outta any sportsball star any day in my songbook!

  389. Saad says

    I really like Gillian Anderson’s character in The Fall.

    The show is also quite a departure in how women are portrayed in serial killer/crime shows. Quite refreshing to see that.

  390. Rob Grigjanis says

    rq @383: My mum’s from Kurzeme. You’re not one o’ them Latgale yokels, are you?

  392. rq says

    Rob
    That would be ‘čangals’, not ‘yokel’. And no, I’m only half (Varakļāni pīci pīci, kas tai ūtrā trubas golā?). :) The other half is half-half Vidzeme (up near Cēsis) and Zemgale (Sēlija – near Ilūkste).

  394. Rob Grigjanis says

    rq: Oh dear, another mixed marriage. My dad was from Zemgale – the Sēlija part, near Skrudaliena.

    Mum’s BFF was from Latgale. That’s why they only communicated in English.

  395. Rob Grigjanis says

    rq: It occurs to me that I may be exhibiting ignorance. Is čangals a derogatory term? My parents never transmitted to me any negative connotations about Latgale, unless you count mutual non-intelligibility. Is this a problem in Latvia today?

  396. ck, the Irate Lump says

    i don’t know if anyone else has shared this, but there is an opinion piece that tries to unravel that newly popular RW term “cultural marxism”: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/19/cultural-marxism-a-uniting-theory-for-rightwingers-who-love-to-play-the-victim

    i suppose if you squint at it in exactly the right way, their logic kinda makes sense given the base assumptions they’re working from. however, since those base assumptions are often not based in reality, it’s still completely ridiculous.

  397. says

    Glances at rq’s #382…I’m glad I checked the thread before posting the same link :)

    ****

    rq @391:
    Sicker than Hawkeye Jeremy Renner’s skills in the Avengers movie?
    Pardon my swooning (though I really get my swoon on when I think of Chris’ Hemsworth and Evans. Can I be in the center of THAT sandwich?)

  398. chigau (違う) says

    I offer rum-tea-blanket-hugs.
    for everyone
    (despite what my current keyboard is offering)

  399. rq says

    Rob
    Yes, ‘čangals’ is a somewhat derogatory term, unless used by Latgallians themselves. Not too clear on the meaning, although it does mostly reference catholicism – while the Latgallians themselves call everyone else ‘čuiļi’ (possibly spelled ‘čiuļi’), meaning ‘the blistered ones’ and referencing lutheranism.
    I’m curious about the mutual unintelligibility – is this a Latvian vs. Russian thing, or Latvian vs. Latgallian? Because that dialect is experiencing a sort of renaissance movement (a small one) and seeking official recognition after nearly dying out. Last inauguration (?) of the Saeima, one of the deputies even said his oath in Latgallian, and caused a couple-week media ruckus a la “is that even legal???”

  400. says

    Good morning
    I’ll take some hugs out of the basket, you know why.

    rq
    Unfortunately, the only times I get to do some archery is when somebody puts up a range on some kind of event. Because going out in the evening is still a major pain in the ass with this Mr. not living with us thingy. That’s why I want a garden big enough for a shooting range if we ever get a house.

  402. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    *hugs*

    Has anyone been following FTBCon? I have a cold so I didn’t feel like staying up last night. Today I think I’ll moan and complain all day, and watch the videos in between.

  403. Rob Grigjanis says

    rq @399: A Latvian-Latgalian thing. When Grandma and mum got to a DP camp in Germany after WWII, they were told they’d be in a Latvian barracks. When they went in, they found a family conversing in a ‘foreign’ language. Turned out to be Latgalian. That’s where mum met her friend.

  404. rq says

    It’s been a rather positive day today.
    Went to see a local figure skating show (the local kids’ skating school) which was rather better than I expected. It’s wonderful to see some new talents skating well and also feeling the music. The whole show was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, good musical selections and a nice mix of skill levels (as opposed to watching all the less-practised skaters in the beginning and saving the ostensibly best for last). Eldest expressed an interest, they all enjoyed the whole show.
    Going out for burgers in a moment.
    Also, I think we might hit the zoo tomorrow. I keep forgetting there’s baby tigers there.

  405. rq says

    Rob
    Oh that is hilarious!
    Although I find it weird, I’ve never found Latgallian to be incomprehensible, but then, I’ve only ever heard it in smatterings, not full-on conversation all around me. It’s always easier to read (comes up in choir songs every now and then), though.

  406. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    FTBCon:
    The first session today is on! Soon ending, in fact, but I forgot to check the time it was starting so I just started listening.

  407. says

    If anyone is a Tangerine Dream fan there’s very sad news to report. Edgar Froese died earlier this week of a pulmonary embolism. He was 70.

  408. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    FtBCon3: The Psychology of Trolls
    starting just now

  412. says

    Speaking of great videos, here’s Molly Ivans talking about abortion rights. Scroll down for video. Transcript also provided.

    Excerpt:

    And I just want to say, that perhaps, I almost get the impression that somebody thinks women don’t have no moral sense at all. No woman who is seven months pregnant, ever waddles past an abortion clinic and says,

    ‘Darn, I knew there was something I’ve been meaning to get around to.’

  413. says

    Oh, dear, gawds forbid that we should have a presidential campaign without the addlepated Donald Trump getting into the mix.

    […] “I was leading in every poll. … I regret that I didn’t stay in,” Trump told the Register. “I would’ve won the race against (President Barack) Obama. He would’ve been easy. Hillary (Clinton) is tougher to beat than Obama, but Hillary is very beatable.”

    He in turn criticized Romney for not triumpihng over a vulnerable Obama.

    “He failed. He choked. He’s like a deal-maker that didn’t close the deal. He shouldn’t be running again. He had a great opportunity to win against a president that was absolutely lame, and he didn’t do it,” Trump said. “The 47 percent statement, which was a disaster, is not going away. Romneycare is not going away. All of his problems are not going away. He should get out and get out quickly.”

    On Bush, he added: “Frankly we’ve had enough of the Bushes. We’re bushed out.”

    But fear not, ardent Trump watchers: A decision could come by the summer.

    “It’s too early for me to say,” he said. “I may make a decision to run before June. But I’m strongly inclined to do so.”

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-2016-might-run-beat-obama

  415. says

    Donald Trump and Sarah Palin?

    Former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin told ABC News on Thursday that “of course” she is interested in running for president in 2016.

    “Of course, when you have a servant’s heart, when you know that there is opportunity to do all you can to put yourself forward in the name of offering service, anybody would be interested,” the former Alaska governor said during an appearance at a Las Vegas Salvation Army.

    Palin stepped back when the reporter asked directly if she was going to run, saying that the Republican candidate “doesn’t necessarily have to be me.” But, she added, she would be “happy to drive that competition.” […]

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sarah-palin-interested-president-2016

    And then there’s Bobby Jindal who is kicking off his 2016 campaign with a “Prayer Rally” which features a posse of some of the worst rabid far-right religious whackos. The whackos include David Lane, the guy who wants to recruit 1,000 pastors to run for office. Lane has also:

    […] warned that LGBT rights are creating an unparalleled “crisis” leading to “our utter destruction” as a nation;

    forecasted America’s destruction as a result of “the pagan onslaught imposing homosexual marriage” and “homosexual scouts”;

    declared that “our long-term strategy must be to place the Bible in Public Schools as the principle [sic] textbook of American education”;

    and predicted that “homosexuals praying at the Inauguration” in 2013 would lead to divine punishment in the form of “car bombs in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Des Moines, Iowa.”

    Jindal’s prayer rally is featuring Cindy Jacobs, a self-proclaimed “Prophet.” Here are some Cindy highlights:

    [she] suggested that legal victories for marriage equality advocates led to Hurricane Sandy and other natural disasters;

    took credit for preventing several terrorist attacks and coups, and bringing the dead back to life;

    proclaimed that Rick Perry’s “The Response” prayer rally “broke the curses on the land” of Texas brought on by “the Native American people [who] were cannibals and they ate people”;

    and blamed the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for freak bird deaths in Arkansas.

    More at the link.
    Right Wing Watch link.

    Rachel Maddow also covered the Jindal prayer rally. Maddox delivered the facts with a straight face, a considerable accomplishment. This is amazing coverage. I watched it twice.

  418. says

    Moment of Mormon Madness, disrespecting Native Americans category.

    […] a state lawmaker used a racial slur to describe Native Americans while making a case against expanding Medicaid.

    The Rock Springs Rocket-Miner reported on Wednesday that during Tuesday testimony in the Wyoming legislature about expanding the Medicaid program, state Rep. Allan Jaggi (R) was one of the few lawmakers to speak against the idea.

    “They (tribal members) are covered under a federal deal,” Jaggi said, according to the paper. “The Injuns are going to be taken care of.” […]

    Arrogant mormons once took children out of Native American homes and placed them in good LDS, two-parent homes in order to convert the kids to mormonism. Native Americans (Lamanites in mormon-speak) supposedly become “white and delightsome” after they convert. Or after they spend less time outdoors?

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/wyoming-lawmaker-uses-injuns-slur-to-oppose-medicaid-expansion-for-tribes-report/

  419. says

    Some 2015 Sundance films are taking religious doofuses to task.

    Jesus in an epic battle with the devil, who coincidentally looks like the Christian Savior’s identical twin. A former gay activist turned pastor who condemns his earlier self. A biblical archaeologist caught up in a comedic scam for lost artifacts. The Church of Scientology as seen by those who have left it.

    These are among the figures, stories and institutions on display at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, several of which should resonate with Mormons and other religious folk. The films tap spiritual feelings, explore dogma and analyze the abuse of power familiar to a variety of believers. […]

    […] pokes fun at those believers who seek ancient items to buoy up and support their Christian faith. […] “about the power of belief and the desire to belong.”[…]

    http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/2085743-155/from-an-ex-gay-pastor-to-bible

  420. says

    More stupid stuff being done by Republican legislators:

    Language quietly tucked into a Republican border-security bill advancing in Congress would allow the border patrol to ignore environmental laws within 100 miles of the U.S.-Mexico line.

    The measure is pushed by Utah Rep. Rob Bishop, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, who has argued for years that restrictions on public lands along the border hamper federal agents from stopping border crossers and drug traffickers. Democrats and other critics say the effort is a ruse to gut environmental laws in a large swath of America.

    The bill, which the House is likely to vote on next week, would allow the Border Patrol to waive federal rules to build roads or surveillance towers and allow motorized vehicles in protected national parks or wilderness areas. A companion bill was introduced in the Senate this week. […]

    http://www.sltrib.com/home/2093507-155/utahs-rep-bishop-pushes-gop-bill

    Oh, yeah, this also counts as a Moment of Mormon Madness since Rob Bishop is a mormon, even a “Returned Missionary,” and a guy who combines rightwing politics with mormon theology.

  421. says

    I agree with putting more pressure on the Boy Scouts of America organization to change its anti-gay attitudes.

    California’s Supreme Court voted Friday to prohibit state judges from belonging to the Boy Scouts on grounds that the group discriminates against gays.

    The court said its seven justices unanimously voted to heed a recommendation by its ethics advisory committee barring judges’ affiliation with the organization.

    In 1996 the state Supreme Court banned judges from belonging to groups that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, but made an exception for nonprofit youth organizations.

    The Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on the Code of Judicial Ethics in February recommended eliminating the exception to enhance public confidence in the judiciary. […]

    http://www.sltrib.com/news/2096496-155/california-bars-judges-from-boy-scouts

  422. rq says

    A Transgender Woman Is Murdered—Media Refuses to Honor Her Gender Identity

    So far, the three media outlets that have covered Beard’s death (News Channel 3, Fox affiliate WAVY-TV, and The Virginia-Pilot) have misgendered her as a man. It is not clear if any of the outlets knew that Beard identified as a transgender woman. NCAVP worked with the Virginia Anti-Violence Project, in Richmond, Va., to confirm that Beard identified herself as a transgender woman.

    Lourdes Ashley Hunter, executive director of the Trans Women of Color Collective, told AlterNet that media coverage of Beard’s death is making the mourning process even more challenging for many in the transgender community.

    “Another one of our sisters has been misgendered in the media,” Hunter said. “Her life has been sensationalized with allegations of prostitution. They are already coloring this murder. They’re framing that our lives don’t matter when they do that. It’s no surprise that this is happening with this narrative because this is how they discredit trans people.”

    Officer Hudson told AlterNet that Norfolk police are aware that Beard identified as a transgender woman but the department must identify all victims by the names stored in their system and the FBI database. “If we discover any other name that has been legally changed, we will definitely update that,” Hudson said. “But as for right now, we have not.”

    But if media outlets are aware that a victim identifies as a transgender woman, Hunter says it is their responsibility to honor that.

    “The media’s obligation is not to the police but to report accurate news,” Hunter said. “If a person identifies as transgender, you would report that. It’s important that media accurately report the lives of trans people because, a lot of times, it’s where the discrediting happens.The police can say whatever they want. If the media does not print accurately, then the narrative has been shifted.”

    *sigh*

  423. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    We’ve had a couple of phone calls from anti-choice groups in the last few weeks. They do not enjoy talking to me, as I am less than polite with them (we are also on the DO NOT CALL LIST, and since we don’t give them money, they shouldn’t be cold calling us). Today they had to talk to man of the house like that mattered. Helps to keep my fang sharp and coat sniny.

    I had a diagnostic procedure just after squidmas, and in spite of some prophylactic antibitotics, developed a minor infection which sapped my get-up-and-go. When other symptoms appeared, it was properly diagnosed, and treated. The symptoms are gone, and my energy is back up. So I finally got back to my computer desk project. So far, so good, as the end panels have been attached and reenforced. Tomorrow I get the top on. Then disassemble and give it a couple of coats of varnish (acrylic).

  425. chigau (違う) says

    Nerd
    I’m glad you’re feeling better.
    When you are done with your desk, could you come to my place and do something about my “office”?

  426. Saad says

    Anti-abortion people calling to speak to the [i]man[/i] of the house.

    Sometimes comedy just writes itself.

  427. Saad says

    It’s not easy going back and forth between a BBCode forum and an HTML forum.

    It’s like when I accidentally use an Urdu word with my English-only speaking friends.

  428. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Anti-abortion people calling to speak to the [i]man[/i] of the house.
    Sometimes comedy just writes itself.

    Yeah, like the woman doesn’t exist. The Redhead’s attitude makes me look like a milk toast, but she is much politer while removing their hearts and brains and showing them to the poor callers….

  429. chigau (違う) says

    When I was much younger, in one of the places I lived, the only “man” was four years old. And a terror.
    We really should have put him on the phone.

  434. says

    Good morning
    I love my children, but they are way too cheerful in the morning, especially after I spent the night coughing.

    Nerd
    Yay for improved health.

    The Redhead’s attitude makes me look like a milk toast, but she is much politer while removing their hearts and brains and showing them to the poor callers….

    Well, that shouldn’t be too much work since the existence of both organs is greatly in doubt in said group, but I imagine that removing the gall bladder would be the work of Hercules.

    Saad
    Luthor is how I discovered Idris Elba. And you cannot help but love Alice

  436. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    Well, at least I can give the rest a translation of the title, so that you would have a (vague) idea what it’s about:

    I’m afraid of the rebirth of patriotism. Why? Who wouldn’t be afraid of our nationalism!

  437. says

    @436 Beatrice: I used a TTS reader from Google, and found I could understand maybe half or so orally, but the orthography difference from Russian was harder to overcome, giving me maybe 20% of it.

    Either way, I thought it was beautiful too. A few years ago, as is common with expat communities, we had some problems with violence in games between the Serbian and Croatian sides in our top local soccer/football league. The league decided, with I will say pretty successful results, to use all women in the referee crews in future games between the sides. I got the chance to do four of them in the time I refereed in that league.
    Someone in FIFA somewhere had experimented with it, and found that the sexism and the nationalism of the men could be used to our advantage as peacekeepers on the field: the men were very reluctant to assault women referees in front of one another, especially hated rivals, so they tended to shut up and play.
    This happens a lot in local leagues like this around the world, the ‘ethnic’ teams of expats and their descendants tending to be more devoted to the Auld Cause than the ones who lived through the wars. They get all chesty with each other, and start shouting insults about whose greatgrandfathers had fought for whom when, and then every tackle has to be the refighting of some mediaeval battle or other – Culloden for the English and Scots, or with all the Germans around here, some very unpleasant imprecations from any of a dozen Old Countries’ teams.
    This is not to say the Serbs and Croats were notably worse than any of these other foolish nationalistic spats, merely that this was the one we had at the time I was refereeing.
    Anyway, yeah, women train all our lives to be peacekeepers, why we’re not all the refs in all the conflict sports I don’t know (really I do).

  438. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    CaitieCat,

    I really appreciate that you went through the effort to try and understand the article.

    Hah! That is a good way to use their own sexism (and nationalism) against them. Too bad the only time my not-interested-in-sports* self reads about women refs in the papers, it’s mostly judgement of her hotness and whether a woman would be able to that job (without distracting men).

    * I mention that because the issue is probably discussed more in sports papers, which I don’t read

  439. says

    Caitie
    You probably need to be at some safe distance from the actual conflict in order to enjoy such rows.
    One of my instructors once told us about the preparatory German class he taught at the during the various wars in former Yugoslavia. So the class was a mixed batch of war refugees from all sides and everybody was expecting the whole class to blow up three times a day. What happened was that the kids, teenagers, didn’t give a shit. They were just glad to be away from the war. They didn’t care about who was who and on whose side, they simply wanted to live in peace and start a new life.

  441. David Marjanović says

    This article is in Croatian, but it brought a couple of tears to my eyes I could identify with it so much, so I wanted to share it. Maybe David will be around to read it:

    http://www.jutarnji.hr/bojim-se-obnavljanja-domoljublja–zasto–pa–kako-se-ne-bojati-nacionalizma-u-nas-/1280604/

    I just read it all, and I’m not sure if I had that headache before. :-) My handicap is the vocabulary. I understand about half of the text, which unfortunately means I’m still not sure why everybody would be afraid of Croatian nationalism. There are very few sentences I understand in full – one is the very first: “It was very popular to be a Croatian in the time when I grew up.”

    Near the end: “‘There is nothing, mother, higher [greater?] than our Sarajevo…’ Why ‘our’?” I’d understand why if I understood jer.

    I do get that she talks about her mixed ancestry (Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian), which isn’t a rare phenomenon. Final sentences: “That’s what I am. How is such a mixture called? A human, they say […]. In ours [our what?], call me a citizen of the Republic of Croatia which I love a lot, thanks.” The part I left out confuses me.

  442. David Marjanović says

    Someone in FIFA somewhere had experimented with it, and found that the sexism and the nationalism of the men could be used to our advantage as peacekeepers on the field: the men were very reluctant to assault women referees in front of one another, especially hated rivals, so they tended to shut up and play.

    Ha! Awesome! :-)

    German TV spot from the 60’s

    That link leads to “Game Of Thrones Season 4 – White Walkers and The Long Night Explained”.

  444. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    David,

    Near the end: “‘There is nothing, mother, higher [greater?] than our Sarajevo…’ Why ‘our’?” I’d understand why if I understood jer.

    jer = because
    You got that quoted bit wrong because in this case više doesn’t mean great but more. It’s “‘Our Sarajevo is no more, mother…’ Why ‘our’? Because they are Sarajevo, as it once was, as well as Trešnjevka* where my father learned to say ‘kaj’ [= što (what) in kajkavski dialect], and Zagreb, and….”

    *a quarter in Zagreb

    To sam. Kako se ta mješavina zove? Čovjek, kažu u nekim drugim društvima. U našem, zovite me građankom Republike Hrvatske koju silno volim, hvala.

    translation:

    That’s who I am. How do you call that mixed person? Human, some societies say. In ours, you can call me a citizen of Croatia which I sincerely love, thank you

  445. says

    I got the impression “our Sarajevo” was rather like a touching mother/child version of “we’ll always have Paris” – a sentimental reference to a city (community, in the social sense?) that has been badly scarred from its former renowned beauty. Thus “Our Sarajevo is not there anymore.” No?

  448. Ogvorbis says

    Just finished an excellent science fiction novel by Jo Walton. Since there have been multiple conversations about women in sci-fi, I have been consciously looking for books by women, especially for the different perspective. Her book, The Just City is both an interesting treatment of what the world would be like if gods existed, but is also an excellent feminist book that hits hard in a couple of different directions. I’ll warn you in advance that there are a couple of scenes in which a man or god rapes a woman or girl — nothing graphic, but still hard hitting.

  450. rq says

    So. Tired. Of the bobsleigh announcers being all ‘oh look it’s a woman driving I wonder if she’ll even beat anyone at all’ when FOR THE SECOND WEEK IN A ROW she has finished AT LEAST 2 SPOTS above ‘last’, beating out all those who didn’t even make the cut for the second run, and then some. SERIOUSLY, dudes, that’s getting to be a pretty tired spiel. You cut all the other rookies enough slack for not even finishing top 20, and she’s been finishing nicely within that bracket. Like I said, not even 20th in the top 20, but 17th and 18th. Always (OKAY FINE mostly) driving nice clean lines, even if she doesn’t have the fastest start ever. She’s a fucking GOOD pilot. So. Fuck off with your ‘women drivers’ assholery.

  451. rq says

    (Sorry, 18th and 19th. Also, second time in a row but third time this season, as she didn’t place in the two World Cup legs where she didn’t participate at all.)

  453. rq says

    Giliell
    Not to mention the years of training in 4-person bobsleigh, since until recently she’s only been working (seriously) with 2-person (as there is no 4-women bobsleigh currently in existence).

  455. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    Wow. There was a round table, open for public, initiated by a couple of doctors fighting for women’s right to abortion. They are arguing against conscientious objection, mostly when it comes to abortion but they also mention general problems in gynecology, palliative medicine etc. There’s no place for doctors who don’t want to perform abortions in public hospitals, and if they must stay these doctors’ suggestion is objectors get pay cuts every time they refuse to do their job, that could be used to bring in contract doctors to perform abortions.
    They are also asking for a ban of prayer circles in front of hospitals, or at least buffer zones.
    Unfortunately, the rest of the article isn’t online…

    But they are awesome.

    The round table started with a minute of silence for Savita Halappanavar.

  460. rq says

    Dalillama
    Huh. I knew I’d seen that before! (Excuse the late-night laziness.) Is it still in clinical trials or is it commercially available now? It still sounds awesome.

  461. rq says

    Also, just… ugh.
    At least tomorrow my one-man support team returns. And I can work on suppressing the raging jealousy while trying to be genuinely happy for him.
    This should be fun. :)
    (In all honesty, it shouldn’t be too bad this time.)

  462. says

    rq
    Clinical trials still, although one variant has been in trials in India for quite a while now; AFAICT, everything looks good, and I’m not certain why it’s not on the market yet.

  463. says

    rq @457, Thanks for that link. That is one beautiful iceberg. Would love to see that face-to-face so to speak.

    Beatrice @455, I like the idea of a pay cut for doctors who refuse to do part of their job on the basis of religious objections.

    rq @454, I was mostly ignorant about street art until I toured NYC with my daughter. We photographed a lot of street art. The creativity, humor, cultural references — it reminded my of Ai Weiwei’s art sometimes. Mostly, it was just a pleasant shock to see all this art, much of it great, making use of public spaces in unexpected ways. Since that tour, I have started to follow some street artists on Instagram. Very enjoyable.

  464. Brony, Social Justice Cenobite says

    This might sound a little weird, but does anyone know anything about a “reverse-schism”? Or if there is anything to read about that or some similar concept? I’m doing some looking around but I’m wondering if I just don’t have the right terminology or something.

    The community I’m rejoining is interestingly enough trying to reverse a huge social split that it had a couple of years ago. I’s nothing so specified as what is happening in skepticism/atheism. Political and social differences like that are in there, but only part of a bigger problem that centers around people from image board communities having a general problem with community IMO. Ironically there may be some rediscovering of social values going on. I’m trying to be optimistic.

  465. Saad says

    Heisenberg, Schrodinger and Ohm are in a car. They get pulled over. Heisenberg is driving and the cop asks him “Do you know how fast you were going?”

    “No, but I know exactly where I am” Heisenberg replies.

    The cop says “You were doing 55 in a 35.” Heisenberg throws up his hands and shouts “Great! Now I’m lost!”

    The cop thinks this is suspicious and orders him to pop open the trunk. He checks it out and says “Do you know you have a dead cat back here?”

    “We do now, you jerk!” shouts Schrodinger.

    The cop moves to arrest them. Ohm resists.

  466. cicely says

    De Herinacio. On the Hedgehog
    “The first nature video based on medieval bestiary. In Latin with English Subs.”
    hat tip: Burgeoning Lads of Science
    –
    Idris Elba is, indeed, hot stuff.
    No *napalm!* needed.
    –
    Anybody have opinions, or better yet, facts on bleached vs. unbleached wheat flour? I am not finding Google helpful—all links seem obviously biased, one way or another.
    –
    That iceberg is such a beautiful blue!
    –

  467. Ichthyic says

    someone tell me what I’m missing…

    to me, this looks like the singular most important discovery in biology since the discovery of chemoautotrophs around the vent systems in the 1980s:

    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25894-meet-the-electric-life-forms-that-live-on-pure-energy.html#.VMXMJi6zkQl

    ATP PRODUCTION WITHOUT SUGAR

    fuck you, Krebs!

    seriously, this is more efficient than photosynthesis.

    I see this become an near limitless source of food, as it acts as a base organic system for an entire little food chain that we could use to feed ourselves.

    -does not need organic input
    -does not need sun even!

    just basic chemicals, these guys, and a form of electricity (even geomagnetic!)

    also obvious implications for potential food chains on many, many other types of planets now.

    so, again… I have to check myself. what am I missing???

    this seems MONUMENTALLY important. like, INSTANT Nobel doesn’t even cover it kind of important.

  468. says

    cicely @466:
    ::shooptastic pouncehug::
    No reason in particular.

    ****

    Saad @465:
    I wish I could say I understood the joke, but I don’t. Ah well. I hope it amused others.

    ****

    Beatrice @455:
    That’s great news to hear about. I hope the doctors are successful.

    ****

    Sorry, Brony, but I know nothing about a “reverse-schism”. Hopefully someone else does.

    ****

    Question:
    Is there any truth to the claim that “pit bulls are an inherently violent and/or aggressive breed of dog?” My thinking is that pit bulls are no more violent and/or aggressive than any other dog, it’s just that many people breed them to be violent. Which means it’s how they are trained. But then I came across this article which has me wondering if there is any truth the ‘pit bulls are violent’ claim.

  469. Ichthyic says

    “pit bulls are an inherently violent and/or aggressive breed of dog?” My thinking is that pit bulls are no more violent and/or aggressive than any other do

    pit bulls have that name for a reason. they were bred for generations for aggressive tendencies, like sheepdogs were bred to, well, herd sheep.

    that said, pit bulls have also been bred and crossbred OUTSIDE of the fighting arenas for many, many generations, and likely any inherent aggression has been diluted by other traits.

    I certainly know lots of people who have owned them and never seen a single sign of aggression.

    OTOH, collies are supposed to be one of the friendliest breeds on earth, and mine certainly was… except for ONE little girl, who lived with a family two blocks away, who he literally hated with all his might as soon as she was born.

    something about her simply must have smelled all wrong to him, and we had to keep him physically restrained any time that little girl was anywhere within 20 feet of him. Never saw him react that way to ANYONE else, ever, in all his ten years.

    I’d say the takeaway point is that animals are inherently unpredictable, and if you own one that is large enough to cause serious injury, you best be always cautious with it and NOT assume it’s never going to get aggressive.

  470. says

    cicely
    This seems pretty evenhanded.
    Apparently the bleaching process removes some of the vitamin E, but there’s not any other nutritional difference. Bleached flour is finer textured, though, and that will affect the consistency of the foods made with it.

    Tony!
    Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle states that you can know the position or the momentum of a quantum particle, but not both at once. Schroedinger’s cat is the famous thought experiment, in which a cat is put in a box with something that may or may not kill it, but the cat’s state is indeterminate until someone opens the box to see if it is, in fact, alive or dead. Ohm lent his name to the measurement of electrical resistance.

    Is there any truth to the claim that “pit bulls are an inherently violent and/or aggressive breed of dog?”

    The short answer is ‘no, not really’. The problem is that certain breeds have a reputation, and are sought out by macho idiots for that reason. Said macho idiots then treat the dogs in a way that’s guaranteed to make them temperamentally unstable, or outright violent. Before pit bulls were that breed, it was Rottweilers, and Dobermans before that. The problem was, and remains, asshole humans who either don’t know what the fuck they’re doing or are doing it deliberately.

  471. says

    This story about genetically modified mosquitoes reminds me of those B-movies of the 50s, where animals were mutated as a result of atomic tests.

    [Mi]llions of genetically modified mosquitoes could be released in the Florida Keys if British researchers win approval to use the bugs against two extremely painful viral diseases.

    Never before have insects with modified DNA come so close to being set loose in a residential U.S. neighborhood.

    “This is essentially using a mosquito as a drug to cure disease,” said Michael Doyle, executive director of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, which is waiting to hear if the Food and Drug Administration will allow the experiment.

    Dengue and chikungunya are growing threats in the U.S., but some people are more frightened at the thought of being bitten by a genetically modified organism. More than 130,000 people signed a Change.org petition against the experiment.

    Even potential boosters say those responsible must do more to show that benefits outweigh the risks of breeding modified insects that could bite people.

    “I think the science is fine, they definitely can kill mosquitoes, but the GMO issue still sticks as something of a thorny issue for the general public,” said Phil Lounibos, who studies mosquito control at the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory.

    Mosquito controllers say they’re running out of options. With climate change and globalization spreading tropical diseases farther from the equator, storm winds, cargo ships and humans carry these viruses to places like Key West, the southernmost U.S. city.

    There are no vaccines or cures for dengue, known as “break-bone fever,” or chikungunya, so painful it causes contortions. U.S. cases remain rare.

    Insecticides are sprayed year-round in the Keys’ charming and crowded neighborhoods. But Aedes aegypti, whose biting females spread these diseases, have evolved to resist four of the six insecticides used to kill them.

  474. A. Noyd says

    So I was reading all the snarky negative reviews of the new animated movie Strange Magic over dinner last night. The movie apparently centers around the ideal of loving someone for what’s on the inside rather than how they look on the outside. It’s a common enough trope, but it seems like it always plays out with an ugly dude getting together with a conventionally attractive woman. Has there ever been an animated movie that expresses this with an ugly woman pairing up with a conventionally attractive dude?

  475. says

    Morning
    Fuck the cold

    A.Noyd
    That horrible movie with Gwyneth Paltrow in the fat suit kind of takes on that way, though I wouldn’t put him down as “conventionally attractive” in teh first place, which shows again how fucked up those standards are anyway: If you exchanged roles the whole movie wouldn’t work because nobody would ever buy that an only mildly attractive woman would even try her luck with the hot dudes.

    rq
    One of my sandbox friends trained with one of the German women’s bobsleigh teams for a while. She was a really good but not world class sprinter (like national junior level top ten, which means no chance in the international arena) and apparently that premise from Cool Runnings holds true.

    dogs
    Pitbulls and other breeds also have an enormous biting power, which probably means that while they may not be responsible for more accidents, they probably get into the news more. They’re also not posh dogs, so there’s a class issue with how they’re perceived, too. I personally wouldn’t trust German shepherds any more, but they are solid good middle class dogs, so when one of them maims somebody, it was just an unrelated incidence.
    Also, lots of people simply have no clue and cannot reliably tell what breed a dog is. I used to walk our neighbours’ boxer and many people would make stupid remarks about walking a Staffordshire terrier (or whatever breed was in the news) without a muzzle or something like that.
    But only from the other side of the road.

  476. says

    Giliell

    Pitbulls and other breeds also have an enormous biting power, which probably means that while they may not be responsible for more accidents, they probably get into the news more.

    In fact, the great majority of dog attacks are committed by small dogs; IIRC Pomeranians bite more people than any other breed. The thing is, they’re small enough that they don’t usually do serious harm to a human when they do.

    Also, lots of people simply have no clue and cannot reliably tell what breed a dog is. I used to walk our neighbours’ boxer and many people would make stupid remarks about walking a Staffordshire terrier (.

    That’s another thing in these discussions: The term ‘pit bull’ is applied indiscriminately to American Bull Terriers, Staffordshire Terriers, and often other breeds that happen to look somewhat like them, as well as crosses. The ‘fighting dog’ thing is significant, but it has little or nothing to do with breeding and a lot to do with the fact that people who want to engage in dogfighting like to get pit bulls, and then train them to be violent, and then… well, they’re violent, aren’t they?

  477. rq says

    Giliell
    There’s a running joke between me and a friend of mine, that we’d both be champion skeletonists and/or bobsledders, because we happen to be failed track stars. :D It’s a common thing, being a bit too slow for the track, you’re just right for the sleds. I have a suspicion it’s about body mass, but… I haven’t actually looked into it.

    Dalillama
    re: commercially available
    Probably because it’s contraception for men, I mean, how do you market that? Everyone knows not getting pregnant is the woman’s responsibility.

    A. Noyd
    Wasn’t there that terrible comedy about a fat girl and a conventionally stupid guy? Except in the movie, to show that she is beautiful on the inside, Cameron Diaz plays her in skinny form. But that’s the only one I can think of.

    cicely
    It is my belief that Idris Elba is napalm. The incarnation thereof. Because he just burns up everyone who challenges him.

  478. says

    Dalillama

    In fact, the great majority of dog attacks are committed by small dogs; IIRC Pomeranians bite more people than any other breed. The thing is, they’re small enough that they don’t usually do serious harm to a human when they do.

    That’s because their owners often don’t bother to fucking train them. Seriously, the amount of aggressive behaviour that goes completely unchallenged in small dogs is unbelievable. I mean, I can understand it from the perspective of the doggie, they live in a world that consists mostly of feet with lots of threats, but instead of training them and helping them to make sense and feel safe many owners of small dogs simply laugh, pick them up and then they are shocked when their little “baby” bites one day when they weren’t quick enough to defuse the situation…

  480. says

    rq @477: I don’t think it’s a marketing issue, but one of consequences and who bears them. Imagine: you, a person with a uterus, meet a person with a penis, who says they’re on the manPill. You’re not on a medical contraceptive. Will you take their word for it? I doubt whether most uteriferous people would, because the consequences are asymmetrically borne. :(

  483. opposablethumbs says

    Seconding Ichthyic, Dalillama and Giliell about dogs. It is (almost) all in the training and handling – and sadly some people like having an aggressive dog. Or don’t care.

    Basket ‘o hugs for the pile.

  484. rq says

    Giliell
    Those blonde women, I always get them mixed up! The rest of my point still stands. ;)

    CaitieCat
    hmm, that’s actually a good point, I did not think that far ahead.
    But at the same time, still doesn’t really explain why a male contraceptive isn’t more widely available, if it works – sure, it won’t make me trust that cute guy at the club, but as an option in a long-term relationship that is currently in a voluntary childless state (but which could change), it would definitely be at the top of the list.

  486. says

    Caitie, rq

    Imagine: you, a person with a uterus, meet a person with a penis, who says they’re on the manPill. You’re not on a medical contraceptive. Will you take their word for it?

    For people who just met, it would be a safety rope. Or should be. Because STIs. And well, consequences exist for sperm-producing (SP) people, too, though of course not on the same level as for uterus havers (UH). So a SP shouldn’t trust trust a UH they just met who assures them they’re healthy and taking the Pill, and a UH shouldn’t trust a SP who assures them that they’Re healthy and on the manPill. But it could be a way for SP to take more responsibility for their fertility, independently of UH and in addition to other things. Because even careful smart users occasionally end up with two halves of a condom…
    Maybe it’s time we change the conversation about contraception from “trust” to “each part is responsible for themselves” and with more equal options for all types of reproductive systems that would be easier.
    But it would of course break the MRAs’ poor shrivelled hearts. They’d sure find a reason why the manPill is misandry.

  488. says

    Some dresses for ogling! Haven’t yet checked to see the female-to-male ratio.

    1. Again, why do they hate necklaces?
    2. Dear Keira Knightly. I am pretty sure they’re making dresses for pregnant women. I am very sure that somebody would make a gorgeous dress only for pregnant you. There’s really no need to steal all the curtains and tablecloths in the house.

  489. rq says

    Giliell
    She’s been inspired by Maria Von Trapp, what can I say!
    Some real winners in that line-up, and a few that were just a bit… no. But I LOVE Lupita’s dress. And Camila Alves, and Felicity Jones. And Claire Danes, though at first glance I was a bit ‘what?’. I think Rosamund Pike’s been at the curtains, too.

  490. says

    Ah, my sweet feminist life.
    First I let Mr carry up ALL the grocery shopping* and now he’s quietly doing the laundry while I do the thinky work. I can haz cakes and eat it.

    *He’s on sick leave but much better while I’m still wrestling my lungs back into my torso each time after I cough.
    *I carry 75% of our grocery shopping during an average week.

  491. says

    This is going to be an interesting morning… I couldn’t log in, the buttons on the login page are all dead. I finally tried to register with WordPress and it told me that my email was already registered. Which helped, because I hadn’t been able to remember my user name or which email I’d used to sign up, or even if I had signed up. So I asked for a password reset, and here I am.

    Hugs for all and sundry, I have Kona coffee cookies from TJ’s and nice hot tea.

    We have quite the smell this morning. There’s a giant mulch pile burning way east of here in Ontario, and the Santa Anas are pushing the smoke and the… aroma this way.

  492. birgerjohansson says

    I have been reading “The Ark Before Noah”. Lots of interesting detective work around cuneiform tablets.

    The Mesopotamians worked out the specifications for a (hypothetical) ark, really a very big coracle, and came up with the area 1440 cubits squared.

    The OT ark has an area of 1500 cubits squared, which pretty much shows they were ripping off the Mesopotamian version durimng the Babylonian captivity.
    In regard to cuneiform texts, Sargon of Akkad also claimed to have been put in a reed basket as an infant and put in the river, after which he was rescued and rose to greatness. Sounds a lot like Moses, except Sargon was around a millennium earlier :)
    — — —
    The Sumerian “Noah” was a guy called Ziusudr…Zisu…goddamit!
    The Assyrian one was named Atra-Hasis.
    The Babylonian was named Utnapishtim.
    — — — —
    The islamic Ark tradition was/is much shorter and simpler. Later commenters added that Noah’s Ark travelled down to Mecca where it circled the Kaba seven times… which is strange, since the terrain is much lower than the mountain where the ark is supposed to have landed. Noah must have felt bored, watching the Ark circling around in an open sea without any land in sight. Or maybe he did a “Waterworld” and dived deep underneath the craft…
    — — — —
    Also, the islamic Ark saved one last giant, Og, son of Arak. So we have a hidden tribe of giants somewhere in the Zagros mountains.

  493. Saad says

    Thanks for that info, birgerjohansson. I find it fascinating to read about mythological similarities.

  494. says

    rq
    Yes on Lupita and Camila Alves. Clare Danes not so much, but this is due to me having a self-eating thyroid so anything that looks like that dress makes me uncomfortable.
    Felicity Jones, nah, too light a colour.
    I really liked Julianne Moore’s, what can I say, I like sparkle, and it’s a wonderful colour to go with her hair.
    Also, Laverne Cox stunning as usually (hey, sparkle!)

    +++
    Sigh, white feminists. They really make me despair. Reading another book for my final thesis about “Feminist Voices in Children’s Literature”. Pretty good as long as gender is the only factor. The author is perfectly well able to see and understand colonization in high fantasy worlds. First encounter with race in this world and she fails spectacularly.

  495. A. Noyd says

    @Giliell & rq
    Well, I was asking about animated movies specifically because I’m wondering about how the “what counts is what’s on the inside” message is delivered to kids, but it’s funny that you both thought of the same horrible live-action one. Anyway, it seems like it’s a message that we try to pass on to kids, but never allow it to be true for female characters because looking good is mandatory for women.

    Maybe someone should adapt The Ordinary Princess.

    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~

    birgerjohansson (#492)

    Also, the islamic Ark saved one last giant, Og, son of Arak. So we have a hidden tribe of giants somewhere in the Zagros mountains.

    Giants reproduce asexually, I guess?

  497. says

    A. Noyd
    Sloppy reading on my part. I thought of animated series and they often have a story like that, but it’s always some version of Frankenstein’s Creature or Hunchback of Notre Dame or Beauty and the Beast. So, yes, always beautiful woman, ugly guy.

  498. cicely says

    Tony! @468:
    *toffee-peanutty pouncehug*
    ‘Cause what goes around comes around, dude…only with Extra Toffeeness.
    :D
    –
    Dalillama, your link at 470, doesn’t.
    –
    Gilliel:

    They’d sure find a reason why the manPill is misandry.

    It’d sure blow their narrative about sneaky, underhanded women who want to steal their precious bodily fluids to feloniously make them fathers against their will (so they can collect those sweet, sweet child-support monies and live like queens at teh menz expense (*snortle*)), right outta the water.
    –

  499. blf says

    [T]he islamic Ark saved one last giant, Og, son of Arak. So we have a hidden tribe of giants somewhere in the Zagros mountains.

    A tribe? From one giant? What did he do, fission?

  500. Saad says

    Is there a non-sexist term for words like marksmanship and sportsmanship? Sportspersonship looks and sound so awkward, which is far better than sounding sexist, but I wonder if there’s a short word.