This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
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Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
That image looks nothing like the alien corpses they have at Area 51.
Yeah, grey, not green! A little research would be nice.
Nice Alien, have some Grog™ *hands alien a fuming tankard of Grog*
Lounge #500 is rapidly approaching. Can we expect anything special for that milestone?
Hmm.
I wasn’t even thinking about milestones. But you’re right.
I can’t remember the first TET that I saw…but I thought it was under 100. Maybe I’m wrong. I certainly didn’t contribute to TET until it was well past 200, possibly past 300. But that was …I don’t know…3 years ago now? 4? I had been an intermittent reader (with no comments that I remember, though possibly I’m wrong) from 2008 or so to 2010 (I think it was cracker gate that brought me to Pharyngula originally, or maybe I had been here a couple of times before cracker gate and cracker gate pulled me in. I don’t remember precisely.) I’m pretty sure my earliest comments would date to 2010, but they were rare until 3d4k. That went too fast for me to contribute, really. Or at least I felt it did. Since I hadn’t commented much I felt I really had to think about my contributions to make sure that I was contributing something in the spirit of Pharyngula, but then …foosh! the moment had passed.
After that I sprang in more actively, seeing in 3d4k just how important internet discussions can actually be. But I don’t think I was in TET til 2011. Anyone remember where TET was in 2011?
Hmm. I just don’t know. I might have been in TET/the Lounge since it was half as old as now, but maybe it’s a lot less than that. If we do do anything for #500, I’ll have to exercise my google-fu and try to figure out just when I did start contributing here.
CD @5:
How does one go about Googling such a thing? I’m curious about my first comment here.
I *think* it was a tone-trolling comment.
Pardon me while I rant. I am beyond bloody pissed off at my brother right now.
As previously stated, many moons ago, he decided to divorce his wife, who was my friend before they met. He has come to regret that decision, but Cathy is currently dating my boyfriend’s brother though the divorce isn’t truly finalized for another month or two. But whatever, she’s not going back to him, though he’s trying to win her over. It won’t work. He broke her ability to trust him and she’s smart enough to not try again with something that fundamental lost. In response, my brother has been swinging between irrational rage and mature acceptance. And for the last… 4 to 6 weeks, he’s been in the mature acceptance phase, and at the beginning of that asked me and my boyfriend for forgiveness for the stress he has put us through with his irrationality and raging. We accepted it.
Only apparently, now over a month later, that isn’t the response he wanted. He wanted us to be all “oh, no, it’s okay. You don’t have to apologize!”… but he did. He was out of line. He had me so full of anxiety attacks that one night I ended up watching the last Hobbit movie twice in a row and then going to a motel for the rest of the night because I could not face going anywhere near home, because he lives within walking distance. It was awful.
So now he’s angry at me, and says that I am choosing any side other than his (despite me not calling him out on several fucking stupid sexist things he’s said that have not helped his case) and as such he’s avoiding me and is going to continue to do so and that no one from my boyfriend’s family is welcome at any family gathering. Nice of him to unilaterally decide who does, and doesn’t, get to come to a *family* function. And because my life is heading in the direction of my boyfriend, he doesn’t want to see me. Because sure, I’m going to side with my sometimes-sexist and currently raging asshole brother over the man I’ve been dating for 5 years, and have loved for 14 when I’m already 32 years old and not trusting of strange men.
So fuck him. At this point I don’t care if I ever see or hear from him again. I’m just sad for our mom because this is going to hurt her. But still, fuck him. In a few days or weeks, he’s going to realise again that what he did was fucking stupid, and he’s going to try to apologize… and I’m going to tell him no. It’s time for him to live with the consequences. We’re family through blood only, and if I’m willing to avoid my asshole uncle, I’m certainly willing to avoid my asshole sibling. So his wish is granted.
MY first commen(s) were on an abortion topic about how while I would never support legislation for it, I sometimes *wished* I could make ‘irresponsible’ women carry their pregnancies.
And I rightly got piled on. And it made me upset, so I went away and I thought about it, and I read comments for a long time and didn’t say anything and I learned a lot. And now I’m horrified and embarrassed by that old attitude.
I have links to all TZT and Thunderdomes.
The other night I watched the HBO documentary Going Clear, based on Lawrence Wright’s excellent and disturbing book of the same name (Mano Singham’s review is here)…and I thought it was almost as unsettling as the book.
The book is way more detailed, with a long list of sources, but the doc really brings it to a wider audience who may not have even heard of Wright, much less have the time to read his work. That and just watching these celebrity testimonies–both for and against, depending on how they are–along with footage of their Triumph of the Will-esque ceremonies has an impact that you can’t get with a book.
All, of course, done under the legal-for-tax-purposes interpretation of Scientology as a church–a victory from the ’90s that saw the IRS forgive them for an estimated billion dollar back tax bill after they dropped thousands of lawsuits against the government.
Rowan @7:
Damn. It sounds like your brother is being a huge asshole.
My sympathies. And hugs.
Making focaccia from scratch. Dough is all set, formed into loaves. Little extra spice and olive oil on top. Finished a couple minutes before the oven was pre-heated. In those couple minutes + 20 to bake, we’ll find out just how well I did for my first attempt.
Cross your USB ports.
You know, I think I vaguely remember that…
As I recall, I’ve been a regular since either shortly before or shortly after when PZ first signed on with ScienceBlogs….
chigau is the Librarian?
I know I had at least one drive-by comment before I came to the Lounge (something about parents misjudging their daughters’ abilities right from the start, ad under a different ‘nym). Only after I spent some time in the Lounge did I venture out. This is at Pharyngula at least, I’d already been commenting for some time at Dana’s blog.
Oh, and I know the exact date, because it was the night DarkBaby was born.
Also, it can stop raining now.
Azkyroth is my 先輩.
…
I made the term DarkFetus.
…
I really hate chinooks.
Azkyroth:
I’ve been meaning to ask, what’s the story behind your post-nym?
No worries if it’s something you don’t want to discuss.
rq, please send the rain to California, thank you.
I doubt I’ll ever NOT be fascinated and utterly enthralled at the awesomeness of Rube Goldberg machines. Israeli engineering students create a Rube Goldberg machine that tells the story of Passover.
It’s a short video.
Man, the Laughing Squid is becoming a timesink.
Also, Rowan, *hugs* and *higs* because your brother is being an ass. I hope you stay safe and I hope your mother is understanding and manages to deal well, too. I hope the anxiety stays down, too. :( For whatever that’s worth. *hugs*
And I hope your brother swings back to being sensibly mature and stays that way.
*sigh* I’m bad at refreshing today.
Rowan
I’d love to send it down your way. Is FedEx alright? (UPS never really made it here, due to the acronym being the Latvian version of ‘oops’ and therefore untrustworthy, as in ‘Oops, we lost your package!’) -> Actually these parentheses are a lie, UPS does function here, but that language bit is totally true.
It’s fine, but do you mean the pseudomath I presently have as a clever add-on to my pseudonym? Or the pseudonym itself?
Fed-ex is totally fine. I think we should just ship all the excess snow from the east coast over here to California. Takes care of two problems at once.
Oh, a Lounge on the frontpage.
Navigating on the phone is a pain in the ass.
Somehow we are not lucky with the weather. Rain, cold and a real fucking storm. But we are making the best out of it.
See you all after easter
Gilell @23,
Germany? We’re just across the border in Zürich, and got the edge of that storm. It was pretty severe – The trains were, and I kid you not, up to 10 minutes late!
gondwanarama
OH, the horror! To me, my fainting couch and pearls!! :D
Giliell
Stay safe, I heard it was a pretty bad one for Germany (we just got all the leftover drizzle and rain and some hail). Have fun for the weekend!!
rowanvt, I’m sorry your brother has taken being a raging arsehole a step too far. Hope your mum is OK and can understand.
I’m not in a good way right now. Beloved friend with cancer is on morphine already (xe says “I can see why it’s a controlled drug, wheee!”) and – xe’s a huge theatre-lover – xe blew off going to a play a few nights ago because xe wasn’t feeling up to it (xe said, about going to a very long performance you’re not really in the mood for ” … anyway, you know, life’s too short. Oops, sorry!”). Xe keeps making us laugh. Xe is the best person ever, and has so little time.
And Spawn#2 is getting very depressed. No real friends, no social life to speak of, almost at the end of the teenage years which is a hard time anyway, and feeling horribly isolated – and the worst of it is, of course, that at that age all you can see is this same situation going on forever. It seems some classmates were organising a big group outing – while he was standing right in the conversational group (at the end of a class, maybe) – and when he asked if he could maybe tag along they said oh, don’t think so, don’t know if we’ll go after all … and invited some other people and all went. Of course it all shows up on fauxbook. What worries me is of course not any individual incident – it’s the way it keeps on being like this so often. I’m afraid of it one day being too much for xir. Xir birthday (coming up soonish) is the worst day of the year for me, dog only knows how much worse it feels for xir. Xe keeps on trying, is braver than I have ever been – what worries me of course is the fear that eventually xe will give up and stop trying. I don’t know what to do or where to turn for help; we’ve already done the obvious things (like approach student services, who don’t seem to be much help).
Sorry to dump all this here. This is a bad time.
Rowan families can be the worst. Unlike friends who piss you off, you can’t exclude them from your life because of the family ties. I sincerely hope things improve.
opposablethumbs I remember the feeling of isolation in those teenage years. I know that things get better, but trying to prove that to someone in your child’s predicament is tough. All you can do is provide the support that they need. Good luck and i hope things pick up soon.
Tony! I love reading your tales! If only all waiting staff were like you, the world would be a much better place.
I accidentallyy got my eyes crossed looking at the Pharyngula wallpaper. It makes it look 3D. I’m odd!
Gondwanarana
Alsace, so still close.
Although, 10 minutes late is what the Deutsche Bahn managrs when its 15 degrees and sunshine
Giliell @28,
I really can’t complain :) I also lived in Sydney for a long time, where they famously improved the on-time running statistics by redefining on time to match how late the trains usually were.
Georgia florists explain how they’d “respectfully” decline to serve gay customers
Just listen to their words. They don’t hate gay people. They just can’t sell them flowers like they do to everyone else. But it’s not discrimination!
My favorite line though was: “I serve a god who is higher than any Supreme Court judge. It’s called the Judge of the Universe. I don’t care what anybody says.”
For fuck’s sake.
Oops, messed up the link. Here it is.
…also opposablethumbs I should have mentioned that I’m sorry to hear about your friend. It’s good that they can remain so positive under the circumstances, but knowing that such a good person will be gone sooner rather than later is a horrible situation to be in. I guess the name of the game is to make the most of the time that they have.
I wish I was more eloquent and could put into words all the things I’d like to say. Damn my brain.
Thanks, bassmike, I appreciate it. I’m just scared for xir :-(
opposablethumbs
*hugs*
I sincerely hope that things for SonSpawn improve, and that he finds the strength to keep trying (and so do you). His current crop of classmates sound somewhat like jerks and assholes, esp. with regards to their extremely poor and insensitive event planning. :( *hugs-by-proxy* for SonSpawn. I hope he realizes he has value as himself that doesn’t need to be validated by others – and yet I realize that the teens (and the end of teens) is about the worst time in one’s life in self-esteem and wanting to fit in. I’m glad he has you and the Family, for the support and the love (even though, yes, at that age, family doesn’t really count :P).
I’m glad to hear your Friend is keeping xir spirits up – it sounds like everything will be more difficult on you than on xir. And I hope you have the chance to enjoy all the time left that you have with xir, be it theatre or tears or anything in between. (And perhaps a theatre performance that xe would truly enjoy.) Anyway, my words suck, so here’s more *hugs*.
Oh dear. I’ll just add hugs and higs and general supportiveness for everyone in need of same to the pile.
Hi everyone,
I have a request for information, if anyone can help out I’d be much obliged.
I am looking for some good peer-reviewed literature on “gender as a social construct” and “gender as non-binary”. I’d be very grateful if anyone can suggest one or two key articles which examine these concepts form a social science, anthropological or historical perspective.
The reason is that one of my colleagues has recently written a paper on environmental issues and gender, but it takes the narrow focus of how women are affected (based on the assumption that gender is binary and biological). I have been asked to offer advice, and I would like to back it up with good references.
Any help welcome! Thanks folks.
Thank you rq, also much huggishness.
Yes, that’s the damnable, bloody, godsdamn thing – family doesn’t really count, in a way, when it comes to this kind of thing, just when we most wish we did! Racking brains as to how to take a different tack. Thank FSM for Spawn#1, who (although of course they have their own things to deal with) is being very supportive on the occasions that Spawn#2 reaches out. Some things come a bit better from a sibling than from a parent!
Friend is outstanding. Has managed to perturb even the imperturbable oncologists with xir irreverence on several occasions. And is absolutely making the most of everything (considering possibly going in for a never-before-attempted tandem parachute jump some time this year, “apparently it doesn’t matter if your legs have gone wonky”).
I’ll just snag a few of those hugs, Anne, ta!
Cake and hugs all around
Opposablethumbs
I feel with you. I always become aware of how different #1 is when isee her little sister easily navigate the social landscape.
I can only hope that they are going to remain really close in the future
Thank you Giliell. I hope so too!
Hi all.
I ordered an item on Etsy that is shipping from Latvia. Made me think of rq. No association other than geography, but thought of you anyway. Because as a USian, all other earthly realms are of magic, and perhaps only vaguely exist like Brigadoon. So any connection to these fantastical lands, no matter how thin, is worth noting. :/
Rowan
So sorry about your situation. Take care of yourself, and feel free to vent here whenever you need.
Crip Dyke
How did the focaccia turn out?
opposablethumbs
Hugz for you and Spawn.
Evil Mecha Barbara Streisand has been replaced with good Barbara Streisand. And she does not like the reptilians.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbra-streisand/have-you-heard-the-good-n_b_6972394.html
Also, good quote in Streisand’s article: “We all do better when we all do better.”
— — — — —
Senator Denies 280,000 People Health Care, Calls Advocate ‘Asshole’ For Asking Him To Give Up Same http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/01/todd-gardenhire_n_6986582.html?cps=gravity_2425_-1375174207172446721
On Tuesday night, a Tennessee Senate committee voted to deny some 280,000 state residents access to health care, rejecting a plan to expand Medicaid that would have cost the state nothing.
opposablethumbs,
You have my sympathy, for what it’s worth. The end of life is hard – no matter how hard our minds try to make a satisfying or just story up to explain it, it doesn’t work, it’s simply profoundly unfair.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- #28
Got smiling, but actually more to the fact that this is what people would call “being early” where you are now.
It’s much overrated anyway but nevermind.
Thanks, awakeinmo and gondwanarama – hugs and/or sympathies definitely welcome :-s
Hearing things on Twitter about a university massacre by Al-Shabab in Kenya? Nothing in the news yet? Anyone?
rq
Ophelia has a post.
rq #46
Officially belongs to the news here.
Apparently, huge massacre, and currently still student hostages.
Senator Tom Cotton, the rightwing guy that sponsored the letter to the leaders of Iran, (that letter that advised them not to trust President Obama), has continued to say and do stupid stuff.
Most recently, he proffered the opinion that gays in Arkansas should not complain because they are not being arrested or executed like they are in Iran. A christian dude is being imprisoned in Iran, so let’s focus on that.
Cotton thinks the “religious freedom” laws, like the one passed in Indiana, and the one the Governor of Arkansas decided not to sign, those laws are just fine. “In Arkansas, we believe in religious freedom,” Cotton said. And he went on to say more stupid stuff:
Think Progress link
Be grateful, gays of Arkansas, because Tom Cotton is not executing you.
@Tony!, #6:
Have you always used “queer shoop”? Literally since day 1?
Then it would be easier –
"queer shoop" site:http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/or
"queer shoop" "endless thread" site:http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/or, if you didn’t arrive at Pharyngula until post-sciblog era:
"queer shoop" site:https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/or
"queer shoop" "endless thread" site:https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/or
"queer shoop" lounge site:https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/This all depends on 2 things:
1. did you mean your first comment @ Pharyngula, or your first comment in TET/the Lounge?
and
2. were you here in the sciblogs era?
I think you can handle the rest.
If you need to google for “tony” instead of “queer shoop” it gets harder, since there are, I’m sure you’ll be shocked, other tonys out there. There’s a way to get google to recognize punctuation if you always used the !, but I don’t remember it right now.
The owners of the pizzeria in Indiana that thought it would be okay to refuse to cater gay weddings have closed their shop. Temporarily. They still cannot define discrimination correctly. They still cannot distinguish between holding private religious beliefs and acting on those beliefs in a way that discriminates against other people.
MSN link
Tom Cotton quote from Lynna’s #49
Let’s first make it legal for businesses to refuse service to straight white Christian men. Then we can get on with focusing on a nuclear Iran.
Lynna, #51
I think they’ll be back soon
Lynna @51:
A GoFundMe page was set up for the owners of Memories Pizza. With just over 1,000 donors, they received $40,000 in 5 hours.
link: http://www.gofundme.com/memoriespizza
Ooops. Ninja’d by Saad.
I do wonder if that $40K will be helpful in the long run. Sure, it will provide a short term boost, but will the pizzeria be able to maintain a steady (and sufficient) level of business over the next year.
Michele Bachmann no longer has her platform as an elected official, so she took to Facebook to post cray-cray crapola:
Daily Kos link
*hugs* for Rowan and opposablethumbs
Tony, #56
Just posted about that in Thunderdome. It’s over $143,000 right now. Good grief, it was $142,000 when I made the Thunderdome post!
I think it’s safe to say there are enough assholes in our country that they’ll keep it going.
The go fund me is over $140,000.
chigau @60:
Yeah, I just saw that. ::sigh::
Timing is everything.
$144,000
Ooops.
Forgot to say that after you do the search, you want to click on “search tools” just underneath the search-text box and on the right end of the line.
A new set of options will appear. Choose the one for time restrictions and choose custom range. Then start at a date before you commented and advance month-by-month or something if you’re finding your first comment.
I wish that they had a simple sort-by-time feature, but they don’t.
$145,000
Let’s see what the timestamp difference between chigau’s and my post is.
Jesus Christ.
Thank you Beatrice. Hugs. Hope things are better with you!
Re the pizzeria, sounds like being a shitty human being definitely pays.
CD @50, 63:
I can’t remember what my nym was when I first started posting, but I do remember I wasn’t using my current nym. Of course, nym changes are retroactive, no?
As for when I started posting, I don’t recall the exact point, but it was after the move from Science Blogs. I also remember a big brouhahaha between commenters in TET. It seemed to go on for a while. I know I commented early in ’10 because I remember writing a long post in TET about Micah’s death, which occurred in Jan 2010.
I hate the world so much right now.
$153,260…
For those who haven’t clicked on the GoFundMe link:
Who is responsible for GoFundMe? Are they actually going to go through with this?
rq, #68
(Assuming you’re talking about this)
I’m with you. Unbelievable.
Saad @53 and Tony @54. Oh, FFS! That damned GoFundMe site also touts the pizzeria as “Family Owned” and as a “victim.”
Victims of their own stupidity. The owners shot themselves in the foot.
The “Family” adjective is used to dog-whistle “family values” for conservatives.
Saad
I’m talking about everything, but including that, yes.
GoFundMe has had previous issues, as I believe it was they who hosted a fundraiser for Darren Wilson, carrying outright racist comments, back at the end of summer 2014.
Tony
Not any more.
FFS!
Republicans go behind President Obama’s back AGAIN, write letter to United Nations encouraging countries to ignore the President
Of course if you alter your ‘nym, the comment goes into moderation.
$171,879
6079 donations
It is Glenn Beck’s network/website platform, The Blaze, that is behind the GoFundMe site for the pizzeria in Indiana. Beck is a mormon, though an odd one, and lots of mormons will send money to the GoFundMe site on the basis of a Beck connection.
I noticed that the GoFundMe site claims the pizzeria owners answered a hypothetical question with an answer about what they would “prefer.” There was no preference, no wiggle room, in the answer they actually gave.
The Beck-backed campaign is being touted as “helping a Christian business” and as “fighting fascism.”
Lynna @78:
Fascism?
Isn’t the pushback against the pizzeria owners an example of the free market at work?
I’m going to go make a fucking cake.
rq @80:
Any chance you can fit a piece or two in a USB port? Cake sounds good (assuming you’d share with a Shoop).
Could we maybe stop with the running total on how much they’re getting for being assholes, while I’m missing apptsbecause my phone’s been off since January?( I can still dial 911 from it, but that’s all.)
Cause its making me feel like shit, each time another lounge email comes in. :/
The “fix” of the Indiana “religious liberty” law is in. Here’s a summary:
Think Progress link
If the “fix” destroys this law, that would be a good thing.
CaitieCat @82:
I wasn’t planning on updating any further.
rq,
Oh :(
Sorry, CaitieCat. Won’t do it again.
Yeah, this is how we’d like to see our female politicians described … NOT.
Link
It would not surprise me in the least if the crowdfunding for the pizzeracistia is a scam.
rq @46:
The Associated Press has an article about the Kenyan massacre
blf
Doesn’t have to be a scam. Horrible people get huge amounts of financial support on that platform fairly regularly.
Also, Tony, of course I’ll share cake with a shoop – I just can’t guarantee there will be any left by the time I figure out how to configure all these wires for a proper USB transfer…
(Thanks for the article.)
Fuck. I should have included this:
Being run over by Teh Thread Taht TYops, which is being chased by a sniny-bearded Poopyheaded Kracken and some peas — for no describable reason — plus several trolls (stone, cave, and internet, but no Detritus). Sadly, there doesn’t seem to any cheese, albeit there are reports of 40-foot tall killer rats.
Neil deGrasse Tyson noted some Moments of Mormon Madness (though he didn’t call them that):
http://www.businessinsider.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-defends-scientology-2015-4
Some Mormon exotic views:
– there are people on the moon who dress like Quakers (since debunked, but one of their prophets said this). Link
Another link
– Kolob, referred to as both a “star” and a “planet,” is the heavenly body closest to the throne of God.
http://www.i4m.com/think/lists/mormon_science.htm“>Link
– the sun borrows its light from Kolob
– perfected inhabitants live on the sun
– when the earth is perfected, it will become a huge seer stone of glass
– the earth has a spirit which was baptized by the flood
– black holes are “outer darkness”
and on and on.
Sorry, going to go make that cake – got distracted by colours.
Here’s something that may provide some much needed amusement for people.
A few days after I read Gen’s comment about jumping into a conversation here in the Lounge, I was puttering about the house, high as a kite, and I began wondering if and how the Lounge could work in meatspace. As I was high, I wasn’t thinking coherently, but my thoughts were amusing nonetheless.
The following are my rambling thoughts, as I remember them:
I tried imagining the Lounge as a meatspace meeting space, like a conference room or library, which seemed like a good idea. Until I thought a little deeper. Here in the Lounge, people come and go, leaving comments when they choose/have the desire/have the time. Conversations between two people can go on for days, with other people joining in the conversation. Sometimes the chats end abruptly. Sometimes people ask questions that remain unanswered.
I had this idea about each of us having avatars (rather similar to our gravatars) that represented us, allowing us to share our thoughts without revealing personal information. Don’t ask me how. Remember, I was high.
Then I imagined multiple conversations occurring in this room, in a way similar to comic book dialogue balloons. Yes, I even pictured these dialogue balloons floating in the air in a conference room.
At one point I realized that some days the Lounge would be empty for several hours, with one or two people dropping by. Some of those people would be responding to comments made by someone else hours or days prior. In meatspace, that would seem…odd.
I also thought about Gen’s comments about how strange it would be to jump into a conversation between people in meatspace. I imagined people wandering in and out of the room, asking questions, giving their opinions, or sharing their thoughts and then wandering off. And without saying goodbye!
And then the biggie: link dropping. How the heck would that function in meatspace? I imagined Lynna walking into the room and somehow (no clue how…memory is fuzzy) informing everyone of the latest tale of Mormon Madness. Maybe through email alerts? Text Messages? Dry erase board? Overhead projector? I dunno.
There was more, but that’s what stood out.
Hope some of that made sense, bc looking back it looks like gobbledegook.
The Grauniad has a live blog on the massacre in Kenya, Al-Shabaab Kenya attack: death toll rises to 70 — live updates.
If you need to get your mind out* of these depressing news, I juste discovered this song today (it’s not copper sober!):
Les Ogres de Barback [avec la fanfare Eyo’nlé] – “Sadjou Saturne”
And yeah, it’s somewhat promotional, but part of the musicians are celebrating their 20 years front scene.
The song is initially from Georges Brassens, it is about aging gracefully.
Looks at Lynna’s #92, and thinks “those exotic Mormon views sound like something someone would come up with when really, really high. Like higher than I was when I thought about how to transform the Lounge into a meatspace spot.”
rq @ #68,
Agreed. And fuck them all. All the stupid fools and assholes who WANT to do widespread harm. All their shit is just grub for the evil black dog.
Fuck them all.
I’m going to go try to cook, then give away whatever wonderfulness I can come up with. Or maybe I’ll just have a drink and go back to bed.
A baby in Mobile, AL was born without a nose.
Not being a medical professional, I am completely ignorant here. Could this be a problem for the newborn?
Minna-san*, thank you.
Tony, Lynna would direct beam them to our tablets, of course. :). Everyone gets their dream tablet, just the right size and brand and OS for each of us (including none!), and they all interact seamlessly, any two together being able to project holographs of perfect clarity and solidity, just because.
That’s how I see it. Maybe laptops as well, or keyboards scattered about using our heavily encrypted wifi, including (of course) kbs in various languages as needed.
Oh, lost the asterisk.
* Everyone, somewhat respectfully.
are we just more accepting of something that’s older?
I’ve related this incident before… Quite some yonks ago now, a fundie-leaning person I know tried to convince me the so-called good book was true because it was old and, supposedly, numerous attempts have been made to suppress it. My reply was to point out ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics are even older, and we did loose the knowledge of to how read them. Therefore, because they are very old and were lost, the ancient Egyptian gods must be the real and correct and true gods.
Extra hugs for rq. Tony! even if it were as bizarre as in your, um, inventive description I’d like to visit!
Moar bigger hugs all round.
Tony @92: There’s considerable evidence pointing to Joseph Smith having partaken of mushrooms. Lots of subsequent mormon prophets seem to have been high on power. They used to drink alcohol — even sold alcohol in a mormon-run shop in Salt Lake City. Not sure what they’re high on now.
Carry on. You flying around higher than a kite is entertaining.
I envision my Moments of Mormon Madness being delivered by means of disembodied voice, and/or from the center of my polished copper breastplate.
This should cause an uproar in the religious rightwing … and maybe Michele Bachmann’s head will explode (though I hope not, since I don’t really wish Bachmann to experience physical harm, and there’s the contamination problem to consider post-explosion):
http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/2359480-155/muslims-to-overtake-christians-as-worlds
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
CaitieCat @100:
Ah yes. Direct beaming works.
****
After reading opposablethumbs’ #103, it dawned on me that a meatspace version of the Lounge (like the one my weed induced imagination came up with) would also need teleport tubes given that Lounge denizens live all over the globe. Hmmm, who’s our tech person again?
@awakeinmo, #40:
Actually fairly well. Not really what I wanted, precisely, but on the right track. It was my first time making focaccia, so I followed a recipe fairly closely. The big deviation was that I didn’t have fresh basil and fresh chives, so I used dried. The dry basil worked well, but converting amounts of fresh to amounts of dry is tricky at best, and I used a bit too much dry chive. The crust also wasn’t the perfect consistency, but close. Shaving a minute off the baking time will help quite a bit there.
The rosemary I added to the recipe was a good touch. They should have had it in there to begin with. Of course, a lot of people won’t use rosemary in that sort of thing b/c long and pointy and gets caught in the throat, right? So you use it in other cooking contexts where, like soup, it gets broken down more?
Sure, okay. But when you have a mortar and pestle you fear not such mundane issues. No, you grind the rosemary up yourself and throw it in. Worked great.
I tend to cook almost entirely without salt, though some baking requires it. I did use salt in the focaccia dough, but course salt is often sprinkled on top of the finished loaf. I didn’t do that, and now I’m thinking it would have enhanced the bread if I’d done that at the same time as the drizzled olive oil when taking the loaves out of the oven. I have very low blood pressure, but my partner just found out that she’s got high BP, so even though it would enhance it, I’m not sure I’ll actually do it. Or maybe, since the recipe makes enough dough for 2 pans of bread, I’ll do it on one and not the other in the future.
Anyway, that’s the baking report for those like rq and awakeinmo who would rather talk about food than the wages of bigotry.
Rosemary?
My favorite herb of all time is being discussed?! Love the smell. Love the taste.
I once had a delicious cheese called Rosie Gouda. As you can guess, it was gouda cheese filled with rosemary. It tasted absolutely delightful with a mild salami.
I love rosemary as well.
For one thing, I don’t have problems growing the damn bush. Basil, like its close relatives mint and catnip, is a frickin’ weed, but I can’t ever seem to make it grow like it should. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Rosemary, on the other hand, seems to just thrive in the Pacific Northwest, whether I fuck up or not. I’m wondering if my basil just doesn’t get enough sun. Hmm.
But even aside from growing the stuff (and thus having a constant supply of gorgeously fresh, yes-I-just-picked-this-why-do-you-ask? rosemary) the smell and flavor are wonderful as well. Rosemary is one of the primary reasons I even have a mortar and a pestle.
The other, of course, being fennel. Mmmmm, red wine and fennel in marinara is just awesome.
A roundup of some rightwing nastiness:
Colorado state representative Gordon Klingenschmitt predicted that 100 years from now 20% of Americans (USians) will have been recruited into homosexuality.
Ted Nugent said that military veterans are committing suicide because Obama is President of the USA.
Scott Lively, anti-gay pastor and fomenter of kill-the-gays laws in Uganda and Russia, said that gays in the US are organized like a “LGBT Borg” or like “swarms of hornets.”
Mike Farris of Patrick Henry College and the Home School Legal Defense Association said of the people who protest the Indiana “religious liberty” law, “Nazi Germany would be proud.”
Glenn Beck thinks women have a god-given right “to feel pretty.” To help out, Beck wants to sell you a $150 pair of denim pants from his 1791 clothing line.
WorldNet Daily radio host Greg Corombos said that gays are just like Hamas terrorists. Is that a step down from “just like ISIS”?
Rosemary is the herb of the gods. I can grow basil up here on the mountain pretty well, but so far the rosemary has me stumped. I think my plot of dirt does not get enough sun. I am going to plant it in a big pot this year and try to make it thrive. Wish me luck.
Does anyone know if there is a visual symbol for LGBT equality that includes trans people? I’m finishing up an LGBT link round-up for my blog and I’d like to have a pride image (or something similar) that doesn’t exclude trans people. Most of the images I’ve been seeing (I just started searching) focus on the LGB part of the acronym.
IIRC, the rainbow flag is geared towards LGB people, but isn’t inclusive of trans people. Am I correct in that?
I buy a rosemary plant almost every year.
I usually kill one every year, too.
They really, really hate drying out.
.
Basil does better in ‘consistent’ temperatures.
If there is too big a difference between day-time and night-time, basil doesn’t do well.
.
I hardly use my mortar and pestle since I got one of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suribachi_and_surikogi
So, Harry Reid is retiring from the Senate at the end of his present term. In answer to a question about the possibility of him becoming a lobbyist, Reid said, ““I’d rather go to Singapore and have them beat me with whips.”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/03/isis-jihadist-travel-guide-syria
Like the link says, ISIS has issued a travel guide meant to aid wannabe jihadists traveling to Syria. It includes lame attempts at humor, reminders to bring changes of underwear, running shoes, knee pads, etc…. oh, and don’t carry your explosives on the plane.
There’s also a note about good quality knives being hard to come by in the caliphate. I find that odd.
Tony!
Always a good place to start
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_symbols#Gender_symbols
I can give rosemary a break, mom used to make tea that we must drink. Maybe it’ll turn into proustian madeleines, but later.
Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden #109:
A thing to know is that basil can be multiplied via cuttings quite easily, so you’d better start with branching early plants and save a gracious yield without cultivation “effort”.
In my rightwing roundup (comment 110), I should have included Mike Huckabee.
So, there are no gay christians? FFS, there are even gay mormons. But according to Huckabee, gays won’t stop until there are no more churches.
Crip Dyke Re: #50
Wow! My first comment was back in June of 2008 (at least insofar as that search reports, though I am pretty sure that stuff is missing) and it wasn’t even stupid.
I didn’t realize that someone else was going around as Phred for a while. That wasn’t me. Actually, there are now dim bells reminding me that I got called out for something that Phred said and there was a bit of confusion. I was pHred before that though. Weird. I know that I lurked around for goodness only knows how long before saying anything.
Today it got into the 62s and was sunny while I was in class and stuck in meetings. Now, as I am trying to grade some tests (the pile of grading is bottomless) it is gray and raining. The weatherperson used the s word again too.
I WANT SPRING! AND SUNSHINE ! wahhhhhhh
Hugs for the pile. I am trying not to think about chocolate. I wannnnt chocolate – grading stinks. I can’t even believe the errors they are making. How can senior level majors in an upper division STEM course still not be able to determine the area of a circle? Or convert between cm and inches ? And that is all before we even get into the actual content of the course. They were even allowed to use cheat sheets and they had a reference sheet with formula and conversion factors !!!!!!!!!!
ARGH.
chigau @116:
Thanks for that. Sadly nothing there quite fits what I’m looking for.
I’m going to keep looking.
Oh boy, this news comes from an Idaho county not far from where I live.
Becky Prestwich is a mormon, so what you have here is another Moment of Mormon Madness.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bonneville-county-idaho-muslims
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/04/02/3730223_muslims-taken-aback-by-e-idaho.html
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/04/idaho-republicans-bigoted-anti-muslim-mass-email-has-state-party-furiously-backtracking/
Prestwich issued a not-pology and an excuse:
My rosemary plants always die, but I love them. To death. Perhaps that is the answer.
Tony
I dunno, I always picture Lynna with a clipboard and a half-incredulous, half-ragey announcer voice. Like those background announcements in airports and train stations, but less background and more understandable. Like someone constantly reading the news out loud. Dunno. :)
Not sure about other links. That’s a tough one!
Also, I hope you’re not mad – I made a bunch of anthills instead of a real cake. They’re delicious, they just need to set in the fridge for a bit.
rq @122:
I have no idea what anthills are (assuming you’re not talking about venturing out to the backyard with a shovel and scooping up an actual anthill to then be placed in your refrigerator for the future consumption of your pet anteater…wow I’m feeling goofy today).
Rosemary is a delight. I have a wee patch of it that continues to come back every spring, despite being shat upon by the snow gods for six months of the year. When I lived in Nevada, I had a whole hedge of the stuff, a carpet of lemon thyme running alongside it, an arbor with grape vine completely covering it, and a thicket of giant sunflowers shading it all. Bumblebees happily buzzed through there for months. Glorious.
—
I spoke to the ex last night about some necessary divisions. I think that’s the last time I’ll be speaking with him for a while. I also went ahead and blocked him, all of his family, and the friends that are exclusively his on all social media for now.
I’m going to enjoy one last summer here in Wisconsin and then leave. I don’t know where I’ll go. Pretty much anywhere else is a possibility! To focus on getting out of here and starting my new life (wherever it might be), I’ve made a countdown calendar for the next five months. Today is day one-hundred-and-fifty-two.
I lost the path I thought I was on, but that just opened up a thousand possibilities I hadn’t considered before.
MM @124:
My little neck of the woods is lovely this time of year :)
Although there is the mosquito problem.
And hurricane season (which stretches from May through November).
And Pam Bondi.
And Rick Scott.
Plus Kent Hovind.
On second thought…
Tony! The Queer Shoop #123
The thought of eating the anteater blinked in my mind, but I’m feeling foody, not goofy… :)
Azkyroth @21:
Mostly the pseudomath add-on, though I admit to some curiosity about the origins of the nym itself.
Riiight, I was going to photo-link to an example on the ‘net… An anthill, Tony! Except I made little bite-sized ones and I added dried cranberries. So much condensed milk and butter in them, though. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
rq @128:
Hmmm, reminds me of brainzzzzzzzzzz…
This RFRA crap has been so infuriating.
Here’s Natacha Atlas’s beautiful and powerful voice as a distraction.
These happy pandas won’t stop fucking.
7 minutes, 45 seconds.
Saad
That video has not been made available in my country. :( Alas. What’s the title of the song? Perhaps I can find an alternative.
rq @132:
Would it help if I posted the video on my blog?
Tony
I dunno, it’s usually a youtube think, regardless of whether it’s embedded somewhere or just on youtube. You can try?
Here you go rq.
Hope you’re able to watch the video.
rq,
If it doesn’t work on Tony’s blog, try this one. It’s Kidda by Natacha Atlas.
Tony, from the little Arabic I understand, there’s a lot of “why, my lover”. I think that’s enough to at least get the mood of the song. :)
Ah, rq, I do have a clipboard. How did you know?
I use a recycled aluminum clipboard with a cover. The finish is brushed, matte, and is similar to this. The weaponry, including the laser, is cleverly hidden.
This look is a little cold. I am thinking of getting one with a flower motif for spring.
Hahaa! They both work! :D WIN!
Lynna
Dunno, the clipboard just seems like your kind of thing. :) Sounds fancy! Can it double as a breastplate and/or shield? Also, where do the lasers go?
Yes, rq, the clipboard doubles as a shield. The lasers are in the hinge where the cover is attached. It takes some practice to aim them properly.
I shouldn’t have told you that. Now my enemies know.
Well, folks, I’m off to bed and I have to remind myself to force myself up early tomorrow. I have to try and do about 3 days’ worth of work in one tomorrow (it’s all about organization, though, so I suppose it’s not as bad as it sounds?) and then I’m off out to the country for a couple of days.
BUT! The good news here is that the laptop will be travelling with me, as the formerly Country of No Internet is now the Country of Formerly No Internet. The country estate has been brought into the 21st century! *cheers&champagne* Which means the usual sporadic weekend commenting will occur, plus most likely a few updates on the Reagan’s Morning thread, to all of your everlasting joys and excitements. So, bonne nuit à tous mes amis! And buckets de *higs*.
Sleep well, rq.
Lynna
I won’t tell your enemies, your secret is safe with… oh. Well, you did say it’s time for a new clipboard. Might as well look into a new laser attachment, too!
Husband got a pleasant surprise – he gets Good Friday off. His company is open on Presidents Day, but closed on GF? Huh. So anyway, he’ll be underfoot tomorrow. He’s happy.
1. It’s a valid mathematical expression, though it needs definitions to make sense, and
2. Read “==” as “is” and ignore the punctuation. ^.^
->HP Lovecraft Fan -> azathoth at domain was taken -> added a z, used the same handle for IRC and online gaming, did not anticipate the legions of dullards who assumed the first syllable was a pseudoclever misrendering of “ass” and/or a reference to “Azian” ethnicity and didn’t bother to think about whether the rest of the word made any sense at all under that interpretation, but am stubborn and slightly territorial -> was working on a Baldur’s Gate 2 mod and wanted to throw in an obscurely self-referential bit character as a plot device, came up with a similar-sounding, suitably “draconic” variation, wrote the plot device out but liked the name and kept it. That was around the end of 2005, I believe…
opposablethumbs
*hugs*
Re: Spawn, I remember my high school experience being somewhat similar, although not quite as bad. Extend my sympathies if appropriate.
TMM
Like I told Tony!, Portland Oregon is pretty nice for Yankeeland. I keep meaning to put together a proto-Commune here, but A) Black Dog and B) it’s hard to find a wording for a grant request that doesn’t sound like ‘hey, I’d like some money to build my friends and I a cool place to live. ‘
<Whine about my personal life >
L and I recently reconnected with a mutual ex, and the two of them pretty much picked up where they left off. However, she says that she’s just not into cis guys anymore and while she still thinks I am ‘fantastic’, she’s not interested in me that way now. Which is her prerogative and all that but still, it hurts.
And top things off today is L’s birthday, which mostly consists of her coming over for various types of fun. One of which does not include me. During which I plan to do laundry in order to give them some private time. This is not making me less depressed, but it is cheering L up, so that’s something.
</whine>
Dalillama, thank you, I appreciate it. It’s hard to see someone you love hurting and not be able to help – teenage/young adult years are hellish tough at the best of times, and the non NT difficulty communicating just makes it harder :-( I really do appreciate the sympathies, especially knowing that a lot of people here really know what it’s like.
I’m really sorry you’ve got so much to deal with, and the Black Dog gnawing at your heels. I guess it can’t be the easiest of things dealing with situations like today. Fwiw, I think you’re an incredibly cool person. Proto-Commune as soon as I win the lottery, OK? :-)
Tony!, gosh, you make Florida sound so nice… ;)
Dalillama, one of the places I’m looking at is Eugene, OR because I’ve got some family around those parts. I’ve actually pondered Portland as well. I’d also loved Arcata, CA, but that was where I was going to move with the ex, so… Ah well. There are other cities in that region.
I’m so sorry you’ve got that hurt and the Black Dog to deal with at the same time.
*hugs* to opposablethumbs. Sometimes it’s like everything is ok, and then something like this comes along and slams you all right back.
I kill at least one rosemary every year. Rosemary can go fuck right off. I had one that I managed to nurse through the winter, but a few weeks ago I opened the door for literally 45 seconds when it was too close and bam, the entire thing was shriveled and dead 5 minutes later. There are a few new sprouts, but I’m eyeing them suspiciously until they prove themselves.
Depression sucks. That is all.
Dalillama, Schmott Guy #147
But wouldn’t a proto-commune not be built without monney but labour? (Let’s say but acquiring land).
Also, what do you put in “proto”? (the way I intuite it is really that you wouldn’t need any monney for a start). (Unless you’d go for the original Commune, in this case you’d simply have to occupy a preexisting setting).
((Grand-Dad’s great uncle participated in the regional Lille’s Commune and aimed for Paris’ Commune, but he couldn’t make through the loyalty army so he fled back North)).
Hello.
I’ve been semi-deliberately threadrupt– mainly because the last few months have seen my absolutely horrible at getting out and interacting with humans. I’ve drifted out of contact with all but a few of my old friends, and the new friendships I’ve made have been rather weak (for various reasons related to conservativism).
So I’ve tried to replace human interaction with side projects— specifically one huge one; dividing the world into districts of 2 million people with Google Earth. It’s been fun, and I’ve learned several cool things about geography, but now I can’t seem to stop using it as an excuse to avoid getting out of my room. My schoolwork’s okay, but the bureaucratic crap that I can never deal with at the best of times is catching up to me.
I keep trying to be disgusted at the Horde too–mainly because part of me is a tone troll. Also, it seems I have some deep-seated desire to be “respectable”, whatever that means, and any hope of me transitioning soon (do I even want to at this point?) has gone out the window as well.
Am I happy through all this? Yes… and no. In the short term, my life pleases, in the long run it doesn’t fulfill.
thunk
Districts of 2 million? Yay! That means Latvia gets to stay whole! Behind our conservative, pro-religion fences. Sounds exciting. ;)
Glad to ‘see’ you, glad to hear you are more or less well. I hope the Horde-induced nausea passes quickly. :)
I also hope for more and better fulfilment to go your way sometime in the future.
Dalillama
*huuuuuuuuuuugs*
*hugsback* to carlie. Yeah, not going as I hoped it might :-( Hugs much appreciated!
So far so good.
Ugh, moving to another country is a great way to lose track of everything going on online. Especially when your accommodations aren’t quite as accommodating as they ought to be. Had to go buy my own wireless router today because none of my stuff can connect otherwise. Apparently cheap furnished apartments are where ancient electronics go to die because this one also came with a CRT television.
Another thing this apartment lacks is sensible outlets. There are two in the living/bedroom. One is used up entirely by the ancient electronics that came with the place and the other is between the bed platform and the door where it’s 100% required to use an extension cord to plug anything in. There are no outlets anywhere you’d actually want to plug anything in. If I set this place on fire because I overloaded the outlets, it’s totally not my fault.
On the plus side, my window overlooks an open area with someone’s garden that’s gone wild. There are also a bajillion mosquitoes, but that means there are lots of birds and bats to watch.
A Noyd
No, no, no. Japan is supposed to be idyllic cherry trees and high tech toilets that talk to you (a concept that totally freaks me out, btw.)
Well, glad you survived the move. Sounds like lousy apartments are lousy apartment the world around. We found a place that had almost all of rooms covered in mirrors from the floor up to about knee height – don’t know if there were outlets under there or not. We didn’t rent it – just barely avoided running away screaming actually.
A. Noyd
Careful of those mosquitos.
Last fall Japan had a malaria-scare.
Is it possible to eat too much hummus? Because I think I just did.
In other news, I’m promoting myself to Master Scheduler. So far so good.
Hey, thunk!
Welcome back around.
Your project sounds interesting. Be sure to memorize the biggest bodies of fresh water in or bordering each district.
Since there are only 3500-4000 districts at 2 million-a-Pop, should be a breeze.
rq, yes, I think it is possible to eat too much hummus. At least that’s what my innards told me. It’s totally worth it, though.
I am So Tired… Aged Mum has given me a grocery list spanning two stores and so much stuff that I’m having to do it in installments because it needs at least three grocery carts, and more to come this afternoon. Sunday is Aged Mum Day, and in addition to my normal chores up there, I have to force her to fill out the form requesting more funds from her reverse mortgage so I can mail it on Monday so she won’t run out of money to live on. My brain hurts. I just want to curl up in a corner and sob, but I can’t because people need me.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Hugs and tea, Anne. People who provide a support network need a support network :-(
rq If the hummus is the lemon-and-coriander one that has a bit of chilli in it, then no, it is not possible to have too much. Otherwise, maybe.
Um, congratulations on your elevation to Master Scheduler? :-)
opposablethumbs, thanks, much appreciated.
Pharyngula is a bit slow this ‘morning’.
I guess everyone’s in church.
At last! Some Republican politicians are starting to fight back against the heavy hand of the Koch brothers. Tampa Bay Times link.
That’s state Senator Nancy Detert, a Republican, speaking. She proposed that the state set up an incentive program for the film industry to come to Florida. (Utah, a very conservative state, has an active incentive program, so this is not unusual.)
The Koch brothers recently got into an anti-Medicaid-expansion fight in Montana, but some Montana Republicans refused to be pushed around.
Link
The Koch brothers did succeed in killing Medicaid expansion in Tennessee. A Republican asshat actually called one of his constituents who supported Medicaid expansion an “asshole.” So that went well for 280,000 Tennessee residents without health care.
The Tennessean website has the skinny on the Koch brothers defeat of Medicaid expansion in that state.
This is the killing-Jesus weekend, with all kinds of TV specials clogging up the airwaves with gore. Side dishes include righteousness, and smarmy advertisements from Ted Cruz.
Cruz is launching the TV ad campaign portion of his presidential bid.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cruz-ads-killing-jesus-fox
It’s good to see rightwing politicians being shamed for denying equal rights to LGBT individuals. That’s what happened in Indiana and Arkansas.
Now North Dakota’s dunderheads have been outed as the bigots they are.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/the-forum-shames-north-dakota-lawmakers-lgbt-vote
The mildly deranged penguin is busily (well, more busily than usual) stockpiling cheese, chocolate, vin, and so on (no peas or horses, of course) since there might eventually be even more competition for the foods. France votes to ban ultra-thin models in crackdown on anorexia: “Modelling agencies protest as those employing models considered too thin face fines of up to €75,000 and six months in prison”.
On the whole I approve. I don’t have to go out to the shops (just raid the stockpile), and the new law is an attempt to address one aspect of serious and dangerous problem. However, as Hadley Freeman pointed out in The Grauniad a few weeks ago, I had anorexia — but not because I wanted to look like a fashion model:
In France, there are supposedly some voluntary guidelines, but it is painfully obvious they aren’t working — most likely, they are simply being ignored (except as a “reason” to oppose to the new law: “We are dealing with this, we don’t need a law, …”).
Indeed. The law is welcome (except by the
slaversfashion “industry”), but work needs to be done on the causes / “encouragement” more deeply embedded in society.────────────────────────────
One of the waiters at a restaurant where I frequently eat lunch (it’s close to work, inexpensive, …) is amazingly thin, and is a bit of a fashion freak, both of which are Ok. But, together, that has made me wonder at times if she might have, or be close to having (or having had?), an eating disorder. On the other hand, she’s quite active, frequently practically running in the restaurant, and seems quite healthy in all other respects, displaying none of the traits (that I am aware of) of a problem. She could just be a naturally petite young lady.
Another angle on the push to privatize educational systems in the USA, and to involve corporations in every aspect of education. Outside fundraising firms are making big bucks, keeping 48% of what they bring in.
Think Progress link
If we can figure out how to convince the extremely angry mouse to let us borrow it for a second, there is an even better solution in the curiosity cupboard (next to the Entwife): A TARDIS.
Remember Judge Roy Moore, an Alabama Chief Justice that ordered probate judges to disobey federal court rulings related to marriage equality? Well that bigoted doofus is at it again.
Neo-Confederate, Christian Nationalists are using Judge Roy Moore as a spokesperson.
Right Wing Watch link.
This is a fundraising video for Institute on the Constitution (IOC).
chigau
Church on Good Friday is in the afternoon. FYI. Everyone’s just sleeping in to properly prepare for all the genuflecting and giant processions wherein one can kiss the knees of a bleeding effigy on a cross. Fun times were had by all!
Not.
I was at work.
Texas legislators don’t think they’ve done enough to make it difficult-to-impossible for a woman to get an abortion in their state:
Link
Cool sci-fi art!!
And this: lost in translation.
Apropos of nothing much, I also have an AL clipboard with cover (and a storage bin underneath), USA “legal”-sized, that I purchased — geeez! — decades ago and still use. (I vaguely recall using it at University.) The cover is now a bit bent (probably from bashing peas, horses, and consenting marshmallows), but it is otherwise in astonishingly good condition. Nothing fancy decoration-wise, no matte finish or Don’t Panic in friendly letters, not even any stains from squished peas. Industrial.
Although the nuclear disarmament deal with Iran is not complete, the “framework” that is guiding discussion of final details (agreement to be signed some time in June), that framework is not bad. President Obama can count this as a tentative win.
Rightwing extremists are determined to scuttle the whole thing. Lots of vitriol from the right … and some surprising praise as well.
Link
I made coconut mac-a-maroons for my dad’s birthday. I’ll leave the extras here.
rq
When I was a child-catholic, Good Friday Mass was in the AM.
The priest had a circuit of small towns to cover, we got him when it was our turn.
thunk @152:
I can certainly understand why people think tone is important. As I mentioned upthread, my first comment at Pharyngula was a tone-troll comment. I think I was criticizing someone (it might have been Aquaria, not sure) for their use of coarse language. Even though that was years ago, I still remain somewhat sympathetic to tone troll arguments.
But one thing I realized years ago, largely after commenting here for a while, is that there is more at play in a comment than tone. The substance of the comment is incredibly important as well. I had to learn to focus on what people were saying, rather than how they were saying it. Doing that led me to realize that some of the people who were commenting in threads about abortion, racism, or LGBT issues came across as polite inasmuch as they didn’t use coarse language. But when I started paying attention to the substance of their comments, I realized the despicable nature of what they were saying.
For example, take the following statements:
• I think abortion should be legal, but only in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the pregnant woman is endangered.
• Racism is largely over. Black people need to stop pulling the race card and take more responsibility for themselves.
• Wedding cake makers, florists, or photographers should be able to decide for themselves whether or not they will serve a same-sex couple.
(obviously, the offensive nature of the above examples is somewhat context dependent)
Looking at each of the words in the above examples, their tone is not offensive. They don’t use words or phrases that are typically viewed as offensive. But when you aim a critical eye at the substance of their words, the offensive nature of their comments becomes apparent.
In Ex.#1, the message being conveyed is that women should not have full control over their reproductive rights and that they don’t have the right to bodily autonomy. Some might cry that the comment doesn’t actually *say* that, but when you examine the words, and their implications, it becomes clear that if you prevent women from having an abortion except under the aforementioned conditions that they would not have bodily autonomy. Nor would they have full control over their reproductive rights.
That is deeply offensive, and in my book, far worse than when someone else comes along and responds with “Fuck you. I have the right to decide what to do with my body at all times asshole.”
In Ex. #2, we see again that the words being used are not typically considered offensive words. But the substance of the comment is deeply offensive. The comment implies that the problems black people face are of their own doing and that if they would improve themselves, they’d improve their lot in life. One of the problems with this is that a lot of the shit that black people deal with are not of their own doing, but in fact, is the result of racism. Looking at the DOJ’s Ferguson report, it becomes clear that the horrible shit that befell black citizens there was out of their control. Racism does exist. It does affect black people. And it is something blacks don’t have the power to end on their own. It is offensive to tell black people that the systemic racism they experience isn’t real, and that all their problems are really their fault.
Example #3 is something I’ve seen quite a lot of recently (heck, someone argues it over in the Doing the right thing thread). As with the prior examples, the words themselves are not inherently offensive, but when you analyze what they mean as a whole, you see that the substance is disgusting. That comment shows support for discrimination against gay people. That is unethical and immoral, so if I come along and respond to such a comment by saying “You’re a bigoted asshole who supports treating LGBT people as second class citizens. Fuck you”, sure I’m using coarse language. But I don’t think such language is all that bad, bc in this context it is directed at someone punching down.
Does this mean I support a no-holds-barred approach to tone or that I don’t think it can be important?
No.
In point of fact, I think tone can be important. In the right context. Say, for instance, at a junior high school assembly when the principal is addressing students. Or in my line of work (the service industry) when interacting with guests. I’m sure there are other good examples.
So yes, tone has it’s place.
But it shouldn’t be considered superior to the substance of a comment. in the context of a discussion of trans issues, trans women are not women is infinitely more offensive than responding to a statement like that with a hearty fuck you.
I’d also like to mention that arguments about tone are not lost on me. In fact, something Beatrice said over in the ‘Dome a short time ago really struck a chord with me. I don’t remember her exact words, but I *think* it was something along the lines of “sometimes I think the insults used around here go too far”. I didn’t say anything at the time, but I did begin to think about how I communicate with others, the frequency with which I insult others, and how I insult others. It may not be apparent to other commenters, but I’ve tried to tone down the insults I aim at others. Not because I think insulting others is wrong. I still think there is a time and place for that. But I felt for myself that maybe I should strive to find a better balance between tone and substance (when I read Crip Dyke’s comments, for example, they read like she pays a great deal of attention to both and that is one of the many things I greatly admire about her). In no way is this meant to be a criticism of any other commenter, by the way. This is just me working to ensure that I communicate my thoughts, ideas, and views in the best way possible. Part of that means giving some consideration to how and in what way I use coarse language. It’s still an ongoing process.
I hope you, thunk, don’t take this comment as any criticism of you. I initially thought I should post this in the ‘Dome, but I’m not sure you read over there, and wanted to let you know that you’re not the only person that is sympathetic to concerns over tone.
FUCK.
So much for being relaxed about the rent. It’s paid this month but the manager told me that we have to switch units to they can renovate. Sounds great right? Except they want $100 more than the jacked up price now for the new unit. Which is the same exact size and everything.
We move next weekend to the new unit and are on the hook for that. Or we have until the 30th to get out.
We don’t have money for next month let alone a new apartment, not that’d we’d get approved without jobs anyways.
Holy fuck shit. I don’t know what to do.
Another thing is that “tone” isn’t one-dimensional, despite the way it’s usually discussed in the context of “tone-trolling.” One can easily distinguish “assertivenes” from “spitefulness,” for instance: there’s as much difference between “what the actual fuck?! This is the effect you’re having and this is not okay!” and “ARGLE BARGLE WHINY-ASS TITTY BABIES” as there is between it and “errrrm, pretty please could you maybe consider not doing that quite so much, sir/ma’am/*?” even though it seems like any complaint about what is said (aside from slurs) or how tends to be strawmanned as a demand for the latter.
*(has anyone ever come up with a gender-neutral honorific?)
I, too, think that in general, it is valid to concern oneself with tone.
But I’ve come to appreciate this space as one space where I don’t get policed about tone.
I worry about my tone, others worry about their own tones. There are a great deal of very good reasons to make different decisions about what precise tone to use in a response to someone (or even an initiation of a new topic). As a white person, I’m still dramatically affected emotionally by certain expressions of racism…but not all. Not even nearly as many as most or all of the people of color I call my friends. If I want to respond more patiently to RacistFuck, I don’t want that read as an implicit criticism of Caine or TMM or other folk of color who comment here. By avoiding tone comments almost entirely (the exceptions being rare and generalized, such as bringing up in ThunderDome, “I wonder if this was good strategically when we did X” , entirely separately from the thread where X was going on, and best if done significantly after X occurs, not in the middle of X) when my response to RacistFuck is dramatically more generous than someone else’s, the context in which I **don’t** criticize others’ tones allows me as a white person to patiently give a little more education to either RacistFuck (if RacistFuck is even capable of being educated) and/or the lurkers -and even other commenters who just have thought about issue X quite as much. Because when I do that in a space where I’ve been commenting on others’ tones, even when I don’t explicitly comment on others’ tones, they know its something that I’m thinking about and thus it is reasonable to think that I am making an implicit comment – whether I intend such or not.
The lack of tone criticism here makes possible a range of responses without any person feeling a well-justified implicit critique. (We may, of course, carry over fears from other venues and thus infer critiques anyway, but if we’re here long enough, we have an opportunity to get over that.) And I worry less about how I write my own comments, knowing that I don’t always have to say, “Oh, and this isn’t to say that the folk who said (or didn’t say, as the case may be), “Fuck you,” are doing it wrong”.
Of course, there’s also the more commonly cited benefit: very often good anti-oppression work is critiqued for tone no matter how carefully and generously worded. We don’t want people here to feel like those who are doing anti-oppression work have to pay an extra tax in spoons. Since tone is criticized when a statement makes us feel bad, the hardest work, the work that should be most encouraged, is the work that is most discouraged in an environment that concerns itself overtly with tone.
I encourage people to worry about tone. But I encourage people to worry about their own tones in Pharyngula spaces, not others’ tones. First, because that’s work enough. Second, because there simply isn’t a way to encourage or tolerate criticisms of others’ tones that doesn’t make the easier conversations even easier and the hard conversations even harder. For reasons similar to the reasons I oppose structures that make increasing the wealth of those already wealthy easier while making acquiring wealth by those currently in poverty more difficult, I oppose open criticism of tone here.
There are other places (many!) where I would endorse tolerating and/or encouraging public criticism of others’ tones (at least in certain circumstances, or with respect to certain tones). But this is not one of those spaces, and allowing it to remain a space that doesn’t openly criticize tone permits Pharyngula to serve a role that other spaces don’t or can’t.
Of course that has the side effect of exposing us to tones that make us uncomfortable.
But here is where we have the grenade thread. Here is where we have 3d4k.
Uncomfortableland is the only location where the important anti-oppression work is ever done.
Azkyroth @181:
There’s always ‘Mixter’ for a gender neutral honorific :)
I’m following the above conversation above with interest and will try to have something to say later.
I’ll be honest, I think I have discovered that I am innately skilled at social conflict and working with the underlying emotions. I use tone as a tool. Doing that well and correctly is something I think about a lot because I want to be able to do that for myself and people whose issues I want to support.
JAL
Shit. Landlords are such fucking assholes.
thunk
Welcome back, *hugs* and/or other gestures of welcome.
Okidemia
It is to laugh bitterly; money is also needed for materials, expertise, etc. Furthermore, a moneyless economy is simply not feasible in a large, high-tech society, regardless of the principles on which the economy may be structured; some medium of exchange is going to be needed even in a post-scarcity utopia.
The discussion of the Pharyngula Commune began as an offshoot of a thread about survivalists, and was conceived of as a means of building a worthwhile civilization in a post-apocalyptic setting; all of the apocalypses currently on offer are pretty slow-motion ones, though, prompting wistful discussion of doing it now; one principal stumbling block is, of course, where it is to be located.
As noted above, you need money to do anything, to some extent.
Ahh, thanks, Crip Dyke, Azkyroth, and Tony. You’ve been good at explaining the concepts of tone and substance. And I would agree with you mostly–it’s just on an emotional level that I squirm. But such is the cost of critical thinking.
Districts (rq, Crip Dyke):
Yes. Latvia has been kept whole. Estonia was more of a problem.
My rationale was to one-up this person (http://worldofequaldistricts.tumblr.com/) and Alasdair Gunn’s maps of various areas, while still keeping things at a manageable size. 2 million seems to keep mid-sized cities in one piece, making life not too hard for me.
Terry Pratchett receives graffiti tribute on London’s Brick Lane (also in Bristol).
There’s an election soon in limeyland, so all the nutters are coming out, Far-right groups and Islamists face off outside London mosque:
I’ve walked two miles a day each day this month, since the ex left me. It doesn’t feel like enough. I want to go out there and just keep walking and walking, as if I can eventually walk far enough to leave everything behind. Maybe I’ll add an extra mile tomorrow. Maybe I’ll double my distance. Maybe if I walk a hundred miles in a month I’ll feel like I’ve gone far enough.
The fact that it’s clear now he was already moving on months before I had a hint just makes it all so much worse somehow. All my efforts, all my love, all my plans, were just this unwanted crap to him and he couldn’t even tell me. Bah.
offers TMM a hug and a macaroon
A macaroon and a hug? I feel special.
The mildly deranged penguin just pointed out that most tone trolls, despite being quite good at beating rocks together, only form a decent bass section if all pieces have the exactly same bass rhythm. You can adjust it a bit by moving the rocks around (which confuses the trolls, causes them to bash the rocks harder, or all three (impressive, really, as she points out that’s at least seven more than they can count)), but it’s still the same basic beat, beating the same brickwalls.
(Unfortunately, no horses where harmed during the transcription of this comment, albeit some nuts may be contained.)
TMM, here’s a hug, and a cup of tea to go with that macaroon.
Well how else do you get the macaroon back?
Although I suppose it’s better than a macaroni and hig…
(The mildly deranged penguin suggests taking up the noble art of wild gnocchi hunting, in the traditional style: Exhaust the buggers by running after them, backwards and on yer hands. Serve them, still panting(them (and probably you too)), with a rouge vin and cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, and cheese sauce. The exercise and feast and vin puts most everyone to sleep, so you wake up refreshed and care-free, ready for the next day’s hunt, feast, and sleep…)
We’ve been watching the show Battle Creek (a police drama), since we grew up there. One episode showed the historical sign outside of church were the Redhead and I were married, before the camera panned across the street to City Hall. The title of the next episode is groaner. “Cereal Killer”….
Aged Mum piled more onto her (ie, my) shopping list, and she hung up on me because she tried to change the TV channel with the phone (yeah, she’s been doing that lately), I have a sinus headache from the 11° humidity and Santa Ana winds, but – I created another shiny thing. While it did nothing for my allergies, it did help lift my mood a bit.
The last load of wash was in the dryer. I said the hell with housework and worked on a craftsy project instead. I took my collection of vintage butterfly wing charms* and some findings and made them into a charm bracelet. So there, life.
Husband had the day off and was looking for an excuse to go out, err, needed to buy screws in a size he didn’t have. So we went to Home Despot and Staples, and then to Japanese lunch. I’m having my leftovers for dinner.
Now I will attempt to organise Aged Mum’s shopping list into Saturday and Sunday, add what we need (mostly the TJ’s stuff plus peanuts for the jays), and then try to stop worrying about everything for the rest of the evening. The hugs are refilled, there’s fresh tea and chocolate, and the pillow fort is all nice and fluffy.
*the souvenir ones with trees and so forth painted on bits of butterfly wing
I hope no one takes this as anything but extending a difficult subject. I won’t pretend that I have all of the answers, or that your reasons for feeling the way you do are not based on situations that matter. I’m just hoping that my perspective is useful.
I want to respect the general sensitivity to tone, and I try very hard. Respecting it successfully with all the ways that it is important is another matter. I’m saying this as a person with unique characteristics when it comes to social conflict including some excesses and other flaws that directly relate to social information, things I try to keep control of. If I’m good at fighting with text I should learn how to do it best and I can’t do that on my own.
Tone is a field of combat in a social conflict. No matter who has the best moral case both sides try to manipulate it and very often only one side deserves it. Over the last several years I have had to pay attention to an order of magnitude more ways that tone is used and abused as I try to figure out how to be useful and effective. I can tell you exactly what I strategically hoped to see in terms of reactions and effects to the two comments that I posted to the Doing the right thing post. I can definitely describe the effects of the first one as “defining the field of combat”.
I’ve had to try to learn my own list of contexts where I need to shut the fuck up, and I’ve had to try to learn when to choose to increase the intensity of the tone because it has to be done. I’m still not sure how successful I have been, but I don’t see many complaints so I try to be optimistic.
@Tony 179
I agree that substance is important. But tone is how we manipulate substance. I think it is at least as important as content because of how tone is actually used in a social conflict and part of that use is strategic. Strategy is important because of the need to respond to other people’s strategy as well as creating your own (much of it involves unconscious reactions). There should be strategies for deescalation as well, but that is a hard one for me to figure out because it’s someone else besides me that mostly needs to determine that in a place like FTB.
I was lucky enough to get this one in other places, but I still needed more details for how it manifests here when I got more active. Once I got an ability to see the difference between content and tone and how offensiveness related to them both, how those things got used functionally was a real eye-opener. The whole mess seems to be set up to maintain dominance. The pieces fit together too well.
Tone and dominant class versus subordinate class. (I hate using the word subordinate class, but that is how the instincts are arranged)
I’ve watched other people, usually fellow white and male people, try to maintain an environment where they get all of the say in how tone is used. A rude gamer gets to decide that complaining about insults and slurs is unacceptable tone, but somehow those same insults can’t possibly set a bad tone. There are similar versions for all of the members of LGBTQ, race, women and other female people. The double standard seems to be the point. I’ve seen many excuses for why one side gets to yell at the other but the other side can’t, and they all stink.
Tone and white male in-group advantage.
They are still hard to define, but many of the uses of tone don’t really work on me. Since I’m a white male, a fellow aggressive white male at that, using the same arguments on me seems to confuse them. Those filters are only supposed to be tripped at groups perceived to be minorities so that messes with how the emotions work, and I think serves to contaminate those filters with other in-group members and the behavior. If that is true I have an obligation to figure out when I should use a harsh tone.
I’ve think I’ve noticed that if I set the tone right I can give emotional support that makes people feel supported, and even makes the people the post is about a more attractive group of people to talk to. I want that to be useful.
I want to learn when to do this. I’m really good at using harsh tone, and better at knowing when to use it. But I would like to know when to quiet it down.
@Crip Dyke 182
That is one of my primary factors that I think about when it comes to Pharyngula, and FTB to varying extents. The internet (and the real world) needs places where marginalized people can speak freely, and get supported (including strategically) when others try to assert dominance like they are used to doing.
I think I feel similarly. It’s hard to know what will look like implicit support so I try to make sure I always put in why something is offensive, and I apply more rhetoric and intensity if I think it can help. But regardless I like this place as a location where minority groups can express themselves without caring about tone as much as possible.
Any tips on asking for this sort of thing best? I’ve felt really hesitant for some reason. Maybe you can offer something you have learned?
I seem to see that there is a point where the justified critique has been made many times, and the emotional content is primarily important to having the message flow through society as a general human thing. In that respect places like this can be important for creating those effective emotional messages.
Only able to scan the thread/ FtB so apologies if these are repeats:
— http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/04/02/this-hypocritical-christian-georgia-florist-will-serve-adulterers-but-not-gay-people-video/
[Hint: christians… check the 10
guidelinesCOMMANDMENTS… adultery IS in there Teh Gay Sechs IS NOT.]— http://www.onenewspage.co.uk/n/World/754zweo3n/Michele-Bachmann-compares-President-Obama-to-Germanwings-co.htm
[Yes, Michele is still out there… STILL not relevant (or coherent) tho.]
— http://news.yahoo.com/state-lacks-evidence-frees-man-30-years-death-204033511.html
[Haven’t checked the ‘Morning in America’ thread in a couple of days…. obviously… ]
CONGA RATS MR. ANTHONY RAY HINTON !!!
Heh! I hadn’t even seen this;
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/02/1375072/-Michele-Bachmann-takes-to-Facebook-to-write-a-stunningly-spiteful-Obama-rant-Com
…. before commenting above.
Just caught # 172:
Shame on you rq! From a good catlick girl like you ?! *
And then I saw the scary opening words of Lynna‘s #173 post: “Texas legislator’s…..” I’m afraid to read the rest *whimper, whimper*….
—–
* From a (never particularly) good Southern Baptist girl.
So internet here works. It’s kinda slow, though.
Also, just read on twitter (via Bryan Fischer, haha) that there’s a Gay Gestapo. Shouldn’t that be ‘Gaystapo’? People know nothing. :P
Just wanted to leave a few more hugs for TMM
Also, delivery of tea to the pillow fort.
Lynna 169 Ack! Privatize education, that just sounds like a really, really bad idea.
JAL 180, that’s really taking advantage of you! So sorry this is happening.
The Mellow monkey I’m so sorry. Many hugs in your direction.
Tone is kind of a subjective thing to me. I much prefer someone telling it like it as, as blunt and obscenity laced as that might be, than someone smiling and being all “polite” while saying horrible things while making it sound not-so-bad because, gee, aren’t they just so nice about it. No. No they are not. They are manipulating you. The spoon tax point is also a valid one.
Got my first tattoo the day before yesterday and going for my second one today, in just a few minutes, in fact. Yay!
TMM
Eugene is also a pretty cool town; I grew up there.
I find people saying terrible things politely is much worse than people trying to get a good point across with profanity. Because it’s frightening. If you can speak terrible and inhumane things politely, it means you’ve lost touch with your human side – you’re either denying empathy or you have issues with empathy. It means you can detach all the emotional, empathetic bits in favour of trying to make a rational, logical argument, while forgetting that emotions have their own logic and reason.
I dunno, I just find it extremely chilling how people can talk so politely about things like making women into incubators or why black people are less than or why gays don’t deserve to get married or that trans women aren’t women-women. It’s like they don’t even understand that there’s people behind all those labels, like they’ve detached themselves from the part of those labels that they could identify with and understand. The human side, if you will. They argue against the label, not the person. And that is scary to me, because it means they don’t understand the stakes, not really. They’re more worried about making arguments that would make them right, rather than changing their perspective. And this is where sometimes a good, strong, emotional, profane argument can come in handy.
And denying the validity of other people’s emotions – that’s a whole other thing, too. And I don’t mean the emotion of offense caused by someone being angry and emotional in the first place. Dismissing arguments because they’re presented with passion and swearing is also a denial of the other person’s perfectly valid response to a terrible thing. So they can’t respond politely? Question why, instead of dismissing them outright. SO yeah.
If any of that makes any sense. Not really feeling like my brain is up to speed, I can clarify later if needed.
The Mellow Monkey,
*hugs* and sympathy.
JAL,
I’m sorry about your housing situation.
rq,
I agree with your #205
Went to the market this morning. There were so many people, the reason probably being Easter and the long weekend. The thing is, that kind of crowd makes me a bit upset, confused and disoriented so I can’t take proper care choosing what kind of produce I buy and for what price.
Then I saw an old man who looked sad and only had three bags of beans and two dozen eggs for sale. So I bought beans. I really don’t need beans.
I bought dad a couple of nice storage containers since he always complains about not having a proper container to take cooked meals in when he goes to work in the garden. Of course, he managed to find something negative to say. If I could have, just once…
I am tired from work, really really tired. When I feel drained like that the other problems I have don’t make me ragey sad, they just make me sad and disappointed.
Beatrice, your dad was being a total arsehole. If he doesn’t like the lunchbox you got for him, maybe he’d be better without it? Offer to take it back? (back for you/someone else/the charity shop, I mean, NOT back to change it for one he’d like better!) Don’t do it if it means more shitty interactions, though.
I am sorry he did that. I hope you get to take a break.
Thinking about reactions to gifts, though, at this point I feel I should add that I am not a nice person. Somebody with whom I am on rocky terms gave me a book a while ago as a birthday present. I imagine they thought I would like it (????) It was bought with my card, because I am the only person who has a card on that website. Now as it happens, this pressed every damn button I’ve got – because the blurb told me immediately that I didn’t want this book (and I could have said no not this particular author please if I’d been asked) and mainly because this person often – very very fucking often – comments on how I spend “all my time” reading “stupid shit” on the internet. And maybe it was a good book, maybe it wasn’t, but it was not a book I wanted to read and to me all this said was “don’t read stupid shit you choose to read, read something intelligent I’m choosing for you instead”. So I was livid, and I sent it back and got a different book instead.
And part of me would do the same again, and part of me thinks well that was sort of a kind of an olive branch from this person and I threw it back in their face. I tend to think we both fucked up in different ways and on different levels – probably me much more so, in this instance – which of course does not cancel out but simply accumulates into a more fucked-up situation.
pHred (#157)
I can’t even imagine what the hell that was for. Maybe the Red Shoes lived there between possessing women to dance to death.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
chigau (#158)
I’m surprised it hasn’t been more of a problem before this, actually, given how drainage and gutters work in Japan.
Um, they were checking for vampire pets? Like, maybe, bloodhounds? :-))))))
There is a persistent folk-legend that it deters the mildly deranged penguin and protects yer cheeseboard. Apparently, so the legend goes, she gets so confused by the multiple cheeseboards no matter which direction see looks that she gives up before finding the real one. Of course, as experienced vendeurs de fromage can tell you, she (1) Doesn’t give up; (2) Uses smell as well as radiation, the Trilateral Comssion, the Illuminati, and other subservient toadies; and (3) Is perfectly happy to eat the entire building as a first resort.
I suspect some previous occupants either wanted to see a small penguin swallow a large building in one GULP!, or else were trying to build a very big laser (presumably as a defensive measure against a pea).
Huh. Kinda neat, though I wouldn’t sign up for the polishing and regular cleaning of those mirrors. :P Great for checking out your own shoes, though! And socks. If I wore super-pretty socks all the time…
Ugh. My body went on strike. This includes my brain. This morning I thought it would just be a passing thing, together with the deep cough, but it looks like my body understood that ‘going to the country’ means ‘denying all movement’. Honestly, it’s like my body just turned inwards in order to conserve or regenerate energy or something, I don’t even have the motivation to eat anything (though I forced some salad and a bowl of soup into myself). I’m not sure if I’m just sick or on some weird energetic rebound. I thought I was doing pretty good adjusting to our familial schedule of everything, but it looks like I need a break every now and then. Who’da thought.
Beatrice
*hugs*
Also, you can make a lot of awesome things with beans. And I hate crowded markets, too – I don’t mind markets, they’re great, but I hate the holiday crowding, because it seems like there are so many market tourists around, instead of the regular visitors who know what they want and where to find it.
Sounds like you need a bit of a break and a rest, rq! Hope you get some down time.
blf @187, Thanks for that link. I like street art, well, some street art, and that graffiti tribute to Terry Pratchett was good.
rq,
You’re there with husband and/or relatives, correct?
So you have people to take care of the kids, you can take a proper rest on account of not feeling well.
rq, remember to take care of yourself too. I hope you feel better soon.
Er, that wasn’t supposed to sound like an order, really :)
Just take care, rq.
Classic symptom of pea-poisoning. Has also been reported as a defense against indulging in horse-and-celery salad, albeit genetic researchers suspect zucchini-and-horse soup is a more probable cause.
There are, of course, a few unexplained outliers, albeit there does seem to be a correlation with cilantro and Latvia, albeit oddly, not potatoes.
Thank you all for the kind words, but I think my body is rebelling because I have the downtime: my subconscious is realizing that there is no stressful thought that needs to be had, and thus just kind of giving up and letting my entire brain take a break. It’s rather odd. But hopefully better tomorrow.
hugs to rq, and Beatrice, and TMM, and everybody.
Mormon church leaders express opposition to same-sex marriage at biannual conference
Calling Nerd of Redhead
Per your request of a couple of months back, I started commenting again after a 3 year hiatus. WTF? The quality of calling out crappy arguments has gone way downhill. I hardly recognize the place.
I preferred the shark pool.
NoR, read the latest gmrgt thread, lots of unattributed claims made, some passive-aggressive asshole playing the victim, all shit that you, I, Janine, Jadehawk, Chimpy and the rest would never have let go by.
Kamaka
Still here. Still hanging around when I can, but about three years ago the the Redhead had a stroke which left her partially paralyzed. It takes some time caring for her, my job, and the house, so my lurking/posting time has been diminished.
@ Nerd
Yes, friend, I know. I have followed along. Aloha Kākou to you and your ‘Ohana.
Back me when you can, there’s lots of ass-kicking to be done. So many dumb-shits, so little time. You are a better hard-ass than I.
Kamaka, I will do what I can.
@ Nerd
I have been asking for citations of assertions at a few threads and so far…crickets.
Assertions without citation/evidence are bullshit until proven (good luck with that) otherwise.
Brought to you by the Nerd of Redhead and Kamakanui bullshit-detecting services.
We charge reasonable rates.
Who is Kamaka?
Ah, Nerd, our allied arguments:
@ chigau (違う)
C’mon, you found me in the long ago machine. Same guy, long lurk.
Kamaka
I did?
Old friend. Battled Shiloh, et al., IIRC.
This a favorite Shiloh post. But the replies, where Shiloh had to define his deity sufficiently to be falsifiable, or the burden of evidence was upon Shiloh to show positive evidence, was Shiloh’s Achilles heel. Shiloh couldn’t/wouldn’t define their deity, put up the evidence, or shut up. Nothing but a presuppositional prevaricator, who I think lasted for a year or so before the banhammer.
Oh, I dont know if I show up in the thread by name, but I certainly played along.
@ chigau (違う) 130
from the “why is coyn” thread
@Kamaka, @221:
Has it? That’s a reasonable hypothesis, but … is it fair of me to note that you haven’t provided any methodologically sound research to that effect?
I mean, I’m sure you’re right, I’m willing to take your word and all, but I think I might be a bit more …educated, I guess? … if I had all the background you have that allowed you to draw that conclusion.
Really, I suppose a link would suffice.
I mean if you’re inclined.
But if you’re not, that’s okay.
Kamaka’s been around for quite some time.
I don’t know if it’s a problem with quality of calling out arguments have changed so much as that many of us have just moved on. After a couple hundred times of refuting the same bad logical flaws, it gets boring, and it’s been done so many times that the cost/benefit analysis has in a lot of ways shifted. If I have ten minutes to spend commenting, I’d much rather participate in a thread with some manner of crafting a body of information on a topic that is relevant to people’s lives (or defending the same) than in once again telling the latest random commenter exactly how reasoning doesn’t work the way they seem to think it does. I’d love to have a handy page of “most common errors people make” that I could just link to and say “you’re number 45, go read it and think about what you’ve done”, but otherwise I’m likely to just judge it as not worth my time to beat my head against that particular wall again.
@ 234
Just lately you fed me an undeserved lecture about group banning. It’s OK, you did not know. Who might have thought Survivor Pharyngula was true?
How about you and I try to be friends and you keep your snarky shit for those who deserve it. Go back and read the threads of old.
THIS IS THE LOUNGE!
Or we could go round and round, Cryp Dyke.
Honestly, that would be good by me. I’m off the continent soon, let us engage upon my return.
Kamaka
Since you’ve been away and clearly not lurking you should know that
we don’t do this in The Lounge.
…
CD
What are you doing?
Kamaka
jesuswept
Cryp Dyke, do a little research.
Chigau , I defer.
Howdy, y’all!
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I now have a rolling walker (with hand-brakes and a seat), which is allowing me to get in some exercising of the legs without intolerable amounts of pain (and other, associated, unpleasantnesses). Yay!
And I got it for cheap!
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*hugs* for Rowan.
Your brother does not get to call your shots.
Fuck him, sideways.
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*big heap of hugs* for opposablethumbs, to be shared with Spawn#2 as wanted/needed.
I remember the whole few friends and no social life gig, but too well; I’m sometimes surprised I made it past my mid-twenties, when things started to pick up.
D&D, mostly. It was easier for me to find compatible lifeforms from inside Geekworld.
I’m sorry about your friend.
*extra hug*
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Tony!:
The one posting the link is wearing a sandwichboard with the link written on it.
In certain cases (and I’m ostentatiously not looking straight at David M., here), the poster will be walking on stilts, so as to accommodate the additional “planks” dangling below conventional sandwichboard length, which contain the extra links.
Obviously.
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blf, may I nick the substance of your comment at 103? ‘Cause I know somebody who will be (at least temporarily) at a loss for words.
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130
@ carlie
Yeah, what you write is so.
(Bit of a long post)
I am terribly ‘rupt due to having spent two days driving to Orlando, Florida to visit the Mouse, then spending 5 days visiting the Mouse, and then spending two days driving back from visiting the Mouse. I am sorry I haven’t kept up, and I have missed you all popping into my inbox.
I have a story to relate about magic, and I know some of you are going to claim that an anecdote is not data, but I am preemptively saying, “Phooey!” to you.
So, my daughter is now 12 and a half years old. She is fairly well into that age where her default is “Unimpressed” with a side order of “Seriously?”. And we dragged her on a vacation to Disney World that she had asked for a couple times since the last time we went 4 years ago, but never mind that she had asked for it — she was still being imposed upon to some extent.
We went to the Magic Kingdom[1] the first full day there. 10 year old son was almost universally happy. 12.5 year old daughter might give a small smile and a “yeah” or a “that was fun.”
Second day, Epcot. Son was less enthused for, well, most of the day. Seeing the countries of the world is not really an active 10 year old’s idea of fun, though we tried to impress upon him that sometimes you find a way to have fun when others want to do something you don’t. He ended up getting to do more than one thing he found fun, and he got to eat absolutely delicious baked goods from the French bakery and to do some shopping in a couple other countries. We had reservations to eat at the Biergarten in Germany, which my kids enjoyed, then we rode our last FastPass ride on the way out, at which time, son informs my wife that “Epcot wasn’t too bad.” (There’s a little magic right there — but wait, there’s more!)
Third day, Hollywood Studios. FastPass for the motor stunt action car explosion expert driving show. It’s fun. Daughter throws a “I didn’t want to do this even though everyone else did” fit and sat with her head down and her fingers in her ears the whole show. The rest of the day goes better, though.
Fourth day. Here comes the magic. Animal Kingdom. It’s basically a wildlife refuge with minor zoo elements for those who don’t know. Despite the seeming lack of rides, this park may go over best with my children (and all of us, really). I had made reservations for eating, because I like to eat. We had dinner in Germany at Epcot (mentioned above), my wife and I were able to get in a dinner at one of their fine dining restaurants (Artist’s Point – a northwest US lodge-type place in Wilderness Lodge Resort) and I set up a lunch at Tusker House in Animal Kingdom.
Described as African and American Cuisine, buffet and family style, it was new to me yet still had foods listed that my kids would eat. But that’s not the important part. Unless someone wants to know what we ate. I’ll follow up later if that is the case.
What I didn’t know when I made the reservation is that this would be a character dining experience — there were 4 Disney characters circulating the dining area when we entered. As I said before, my kids weren’t interested in getting autographs or pictures with the characters when we started off the week. (My wife was pleased as punch to get a picture with Stitch the first day but had to coax my son into it (though both kids like the movie Lilo and Stitch)). In the middle of the meal, the minder comes by and says, “Mickey will be at your table in a few minutes.” I get my camera out because of course I’m taking a picture or three. I think there will be another warning/announcement.
While I am telling my kids (my wife had gone to get more food — all you can eat buffets with delicious food are the best!) that I will take pictures when (Explorer) Mickey gets here — my daughter suddenly gets the biggest grin on her face and turns in her seat spreading her arms, and Mickey Mouse is giving my daughter a big hug. The only explanation I have for my daughter going from the barely impressed and at times somewhat surly pre-teen into the glowing, grinning person she became is, well, … magic.
Mickey Mouse has magic powers. He, and his friends as it turns out, can turn curmudgeonly teens into happy, enthusiastic people.
My daughter claims she likes Daisy Duck more, and she got Daisy’s autograph first. We didn’t ask Mickey, but Daisy, when she showed up, saw the book my daughter likes to write in, and immediately looked for the pen. Daughter had a pencil at least. She is now the proud owner of Daisy, Donald, and Goofy autographs.
And this made me realize I made a big error at the beginning of our visit. I had wanted to get pictures of our kids with the characters, and gave up when they expressed no interest. What I should have done was get the “official” autograph book and pen for myself and gotten close myself to show that being a little silly, at least a little un-reserved, in Disney World is the way to go.
[1] – For those who don’t know, Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida is broken up into several different amusement parks and resort areas. The major ones are Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center, Disney Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. There are also a couple of parks with a water theme, an ESPN section, and an area with shopping and clubs that is supposed to be more for adults.
Looks at ajb47’s comment and begins to hum “oh oh it’s magic. You know.”
Seriously, I hope you and the family had a good time my friend.
****
So there’s a new wrinkle in the story of the GoFundMe campaign for the Indiana pizzeria:
The Indiana Memories Pizza fundraiser is a conservative media scam:
NoR
the gamergate thread, i’m the only one pounding
cryp dyke, c’mon, help me out
@chigau:
I was trying to give a quite obviously wishy-washy response not as mean snark, but just to be friendly and amusing. This is the lounge after all.
The friendly-amusing tone got lost somewhere along the way, apparently.
@kamaka:
I don’t know what I’ve done to offend you, but this is the lounge, and humor here is generally not acceptable if its at the expense of someone else (at least, someone specific who is not a public figure and emblematic of idiocy: say, Pat Robertson). So it’s at the expense of no one or self-deprecating here.
ThunderDome is quite different, I’ll grant you, in its rules…if not its practices. You’re right that there hasn’t been the kind of feeding frenzies lately there that we experienced on Pharyngula of old.
I do remember saying something about Survivor Pharyngula…and getting it wrong because I’d forgotten that there were 2.
And i quickly admitted that I was wrong when it was pointed out. I don’t know what I can do other than attempt to provide info I think is helpful while being willing to admit error when new info comes along.
Is there something better I’m supposed to do? You’ve got a different idea for best practices?
@Kamaka:
How?
@ cripdyke
OK, I accede and give your writings their better interpretation. Please forgive me for thinking otherwise. It is not easy to get each other’s tone correct when disputing while typing. We are both a bit abrasive, which in time should make us friends after many arguments, aggravations and such.
Aloha nui loa kākou
@ 248
the gamerg*t* thread with bullshitters about 20 comments down
Some of the commenters on that thread would do well with having their hair mussed.
chigau
I say this (THE LOUNGE) is the perfect place for Kamakanui and Cryp Dyke to settle a small disputation.
Never mind, all the claiments have gone silent.
I too will go silent. Off to Hawai’i for me.
Aloha nui, all.
I think I need more than a drink. I need a damn shot or two. Or 5 even.
I’ll check out the thread, Kamaka.
I have kids – I’m on and off at their whim. So, y’know, sometimes I can be on for a while (school and birthday parties and such) and sometimes I can’t.
LOL. Too true.
I’ll cop to abrasive, it’s just that with the Lounge/ThunderDome division that exists now in place of the singular TET, I try to keep my abrasiveness out of this particular space.
Elsewhere on Pharyngula feel free to give me words their worse interpretation. If that means I need to apologize or clarify, well, that’s on me.
Off to check out your link, Kamaka. Have a good time in Hawai’i. I’ve never been.
Kamaka
I say you are mistaken.
Go to the Thunderdome.
Oh, look, it’s lawn appreciation day.
I’ll just shuffle my feet awkwardly over here. Or not.
How’s the weekend going? I actually love Easter. If we discard all the religious bullshit, I get a one day longer weekend. That’s always nice.
Is there anyone else awake out there? It’s nearly 4 am here and I haven’t slept for two nights now.
I was scheduled for spinal surgery on Monday, but I called and cancelled it yesterday because I’m so damned scared and I feel that my hubby is totally unprepared.
Now, I’m having second thoughts. I’m in so much pain tonight that I just want it gone, one way or another.
I haven’t been able to drive for two years, I have foot drop and spasms that just continue to get worse, and I’m worried that I’ll have nerve damage that will never heal.
The hubby is sound asleep and doesn’t realize that I have been up all night in pain.
I hope that there is someone in the lounge willing to talk.
magistramarla @258:
My deepest sympathies. I hope you’ll be able to get the situation resolved as soon as possible so you can have an end to the pain you’re in.
I’m afraid I can’t hang out, as I have to go to sleep. Hopefully others will be around to chat with you.
::hugs::
magistramarla,
hey, it’s past 11 am over here, so it would be a bit strange for me if I wasn’t awake.
You’ll have to excuse me if I wander off for a couple of minutes every now and then to continue fixing lunch, but I’m here.
I’m sorry you’re going through that. Have you rescheduled the surgery or there’s no new date yet?
Anything particular that can usually (as much as it can) take your mind off the pain ?
magistramarla
*hugs* I haven’t any real advice for you, but plenty of sympathy. I’ve got an irrational terror of any type of surgery myself, so I hear you on the last minute cancellation. I hope you’re able to get some relief by whatever means.
The thing is that I’m terribly allergic to opioid and I have a difficult time with any pain meds.
I’ve had three calls from anesthesiology. The first one just brushed it off and seemed that she would use morphine and then just deal with the results. The second one was concerned about my rheumatoid arthritis and said that it could affect the stability of my neck during surgery – scared the poop out of me.
The third call wanted to hear more about my allergies. When I told her that I can’t even eat poppy seeds without my lips swelling and my throat closing off, she said that it really was a true allergy.
No duh, I’ve been telling every doctor I see about that for years.
At this point, If I can go ahead and get it rescheduled, I don’t care if they give me morphine. If it kills me, I’ll at least be out of this horrible pain.
@ Magistramarla #258
Still awake?
I’ve had two surgeries with general and three with local anesthetic in the last year. Not so bad. Doctors really do know what they’re doing. Though not spinal, just cancer stuff. Looks like another one in a couple o months. When you’re there, you’re the center of attention. Everybody’s interested in you. Where else can you find that? And, it gives you stories to tell. A friend of mine had spinal surgery. Had to spend 3 months in a care facility (mostly to make sure they didn’t do anything that would interfere with recovery, they live alone so didn’t have someone to watch over them). Will be driving again by the end of this month.
Here’s a question. When I work on problems, I sometimes forget or overlook the pains. I’ve read that Caesar avoided the use of igitur. My concordance shows only 3 instances so this seems to be true. Why did he do that? I use igitur when the therefore refers back to what I’ve written i.e. like the song gaudeamus igitur… and ergo or itaque when therefore refers forward to what I’m about to write.
I feel a lot more cynical about this line of argument having seen it used to dismiss people’s lived experiences on quite a few occasions. I think one of the things you may be noticing is that the community has become more aware of the effect of privilege on the extent to which one’s experiences and lived reality are likely to be reflected in The [Right Kind Of] Literature.
magistramarla, I’m in Australia so I’ll be up for hours yet. I also have problems with opiates, though nothing as severe as yours. I had two surgeries I the last year and they were pretty rough. I was terrified going into the second, and it turned out that I was right to be. But here’s the thing, without them I would have never walked properly again. I had to risk it, and the suffering I went through was worth the result. It sucks that the single most effective pain treatment available today fucks me up so badly. But there it is. Reality is shitty like that.
Thank you so much for all the hugs, cicely. They are so much appreciated right now!
Sounds like great news about the new rolling walker – but you didn’t mention whether it came with lasers or if you’ll have to get those fitted?
magistramarla,
I have very little experience with doctors, but receiving that second and third call from anesthesiologists, while scary, sounds promising. They are trying to make sure to do everything right (well, the first one isn’t the best example of that).
I see there are people with actual experience writing smarter stuff.
@ magistramarla #262
Yeah, nowadays they tell you everything. My last time under general not only did they ask me about allergies etc., but also I had to tell them where I was and why I was there. About four times I think.
.
What Beatrice said
that’s a good thing to always remember.
magistramarla, I don’t have any useful experience – but a lot of sympathy. I’m sorry you are in so much pain, and of course it must be frightening. Hoping for the right anaesthesia solution for you, and soon.
Thanks for the comments, guys.
vereverum – I seem to remember that Caesar did avoid the use of the word igitur, but I don’t remember any theories of why.
An affectation, perhaps? He grew up in the Subura, surrounded by people from many different lands, so I’m sure that his choices in words were affected by the other languages that he knew. I’ve been retired from teaching due to my medical problems since 2009, and the autoimmune issues have played havoc with my memory.
Yesterday, when I canceled the surgery in a fit of terror, the doc said that he didn’t think that there would be time to put another patient in there. I’m trying desperately to reach admissions this morning, but of course they aren’t having their regular Sunday hours due to the holiday. If I can ever reach someone, I’m begging to get back on the list.
I didn’t sleep at all last night, and the night before it was three hours, so I’m sleep deprived and in pain.
Today is not a nice day.
magistramarla,
[gentle non-contact hugs] and your choice of soothing beverage. I hope you can quickly get things sorted out to your satisfaction.
magistramarla
I hope you get your surgery and everything else you need.
magistramarla. Yup, I know that viscous spiral initmately: pain makes sleep rare to impossible creating fatigue which makes the pain worse. It sucks so hard that it’s a wonder that blackholes aren’t created by it.
Speaking of sleep, it’s 12:30 am here. I really hope you get the help you need and right quick. And for what it’s worth, I think the fear that caused you to cancel was perfectly understandable. Fuck anyone, medical or otherwise, if they give you a hard time about it.
I call that “painsomnia”, the “can’t sleep pain will eat me” problem, and “insomnialgia”, the pain from not sleeping. Pretty sure I blogged about it.
All the gentle higs, magistramarla, from one who gets it.
Islamic State Seizes Palestinian Refugee Camp in Syria
Interstellar’s Original Ending Actually Made Sense—And It Wasn’t Happy. Didn’t Blade Runner used to have a happy ending, too?
@ magistramarla #270
.
Hope you get your appointment back; also that you can get some sleep.
Thanks for the info about Caesar.
I’ve been considering a local issue, and I keep going back and forth. It’s about the building of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea. Mauna Kea is considered sacred by the Hawaiian people, and there have been weeks of protest now that construction on the TMT is beginning. On the one hand I’m very sympathetic to preserving Hawaiian heritage and protecting the land, but on the other hand the TMT is replacing a previous telescope, will bring jobs and research money to the state, and offers new possibilities for understanding our universe. The project went through a long approval process that included public hearings. Mauna Kea is the legendary home of Poliahu and has proven ancient religious sites, but there are also ancient quarries so the mountain was also seen as a resource. Some of these protestors protest every kind of development, as is their right, but its not always about protecting sacred places, as much as it is about protesting the US occupation of Hawaiian lands. These are just some of the points to consider, and I’m not satisfied with either side’s case.
The thing about working nights is that it utterly fucks up my sleep cycle.
Bleargh.
*hugs* for Dalillama.
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Also *hugs* for carlie.
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thunk!
*pouncehug*
Sorry about the conservativism; they grow that stuff in industrial amounts and strength, in OK.
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Also also *hugs* for Anne.
Hurray for Shiny Things!
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Even more also also *hugs* for The Mellow Monkey.
Walking is good—but I’ve heard these rumors that moderation is sometimes a useful concept.
Please, don’t do yourself an injury on ex’s account.
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200
My mother worked 12:00 AM to 6:00 AM shift at Kellogg’s for years, when the women worked only 6 hour shifts. The problem was weekends, when you try to keep to a normal schedule. If you adjust to sleeping after your shift, you must continue it on weekends/holidays no matter what. Otherwise, your body doesn’t know when to sleep.
Everybody survived Aged Mum Day with sanity more or less intact.
I got all her important paperwork done, did the filing, and paid some bills for her. AM didn’t find anything to complain about, the laundry baskets weren’t too big, she liked her Easter socks, and her brother called. AM had called me Saturday night because she kept trying to call my uncle and her calls didn’t go through and she was understandably worried, so I emailed him. Turned out she had his phone number correct, so I have no idea what the problem was. But they had a nice chat.
And then on the way home I got an interesting view of a soaring redtailed hawk. In was nearly parallel to the car, and I could see that the tips of its wings were at right angles to the plane of the wings. Fascinating, and a lovely bird.
I’m really tired and I have errands to run tomorrow morning, but at least today went pretty well. Yay.
[refills hugs supply]
Short Tony Tale:
I had a short discussion with a co-worker (S) today. During a bit of a lull (that’s an understatement-we were sloooooooow all day) I was rolling silverware and S approached me and asked me a question about religion. I don’t recall the specific question, but I responded with ‘Atheist here. I don’t care much for religion of any sort.’ I expected a shocked look on his face, but he wasn’t visibly surprised. He responded by asking what I thought about agnosticism. I told him I don’t like that position and illustrated how silly it is to be agnostic about god. I pointed out that most people aren’t agnostic about the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, or Santa Claus and, like god, there is no evidence to prove they exist. Unlike god, agnostics in general are fine not believing in the EB, TF, or SC, but when it comes to the god question, they’re all like “I don’t and can’t know if he does or doesn’t exist. As such, I can’t answer the question ‘Does god exist’ with anything other than ‘I don’t know’ “(It’s laughable that they think this is an answer to the question ‘Do you believe in god?’). I told him I try to follow the evidence whenever I can and since there is no evidence to support the assertion “God(s) exists”, then there is no reason to think he does. I told him that I’m willing to have my mind changed–if there is sufficient evidence. He remarked that his girlfriend says much the same stuff that I was and like her, he didn’t want to get into a religious conversation with me (which was funny, given that he instigated it).
****
Anne @282:
I’m glad you survived Aged Mum Day. Hope you get some rest.
Oh, and here are some ::HUGS:: for you. Just because :)
Nerd of Redhead
Not just women; at the time, all workers at Kellogg’s were on 6-hour shifts, in order to shift the balance of the day to leisure rather than work. Like so many worker’s benefits, it died in the Reagan years.
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/apr/05/schools-should-teach-positive-portrayal-of-same-sex-relationships-says-nut
NUT = National Union of Teachers, for non-Brit-like Horders :-)
Better than the days of Clause 28 … (under Thatcher; the law forbade teachers to make any reference at all to homosexuality in a positive light)
PS don’t bother reading the comments, though …. :-\
cicely@242, “may I nick the substance of your comment at 103?”
Sure, no problem!
Any citation for that? My stepfather would disagree with that statement, as he worked there for about 30 years.
You both seem to be correct. From c.1930 to c.1947, with a disruption during WW ][, six-hour days for everyone was the practice throughout the company. However, starting in c.1947, individual departments could have their own policy, and is wasn’t until c.1985 that the last department switched to eight-hour days.
This rain can go to hell. It’s keeping me from getting out and exploring my new neighborhood properly, which I’d like to do more before I start work. Also, I want to dry my laundry like a normal person does in Japan—outside instead of in the bathroom (which is designed to dry laundry, but fucking sucks at it). What’s especially annoying is that it’s not even the rainy season yet. It’s just bonus shitty weather.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
magistramarla (#262)
Meanwhile, I’ve had to to correct every goddamn medical establishment that gets my chart because they have me down as allergic to certain opioids when it’s actually that those opioids don’t relieve pain. Maybe they should make up more categories for drug reactions so they don’t have to be confused over what’s an actual allergy and what’s something else.
Virtual hugs and chocolate with a side fluffy bunny.
Spend the weekend cleaning house to have the grandparents over, feeding everyone, and playing games. It was mostly nice. My daughter spend almost the entire day yesterday dressed as a bunny – cute as heck. We had a green Christmas and a white Easter so the egg hunt was in the house. Did you know that if the easter bunny hides eggs on the fan blades of the ceiling fan, kids are likely to turn on the fan in order to get the eggs ? Plastic eggs fortunately. Went kinda all out on a secular easter this year since one kid has a cast and is losing all of her incisors, and the other kid just got top and bottom braces.
That weird apartment with the mirrors – perhaps a tap dancer lived there. Or someone with a foot fetish. All I know is that I had no intention of living in a house where I would be staring at my feet while I made breakfast. Bleck!
Remember when Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas put Republican trickle-down economics into a real-world setting as an experiment? Well, the results have been terrible, no good, horrible. Rich people got tax breaks, public education systems got shafted, and the entire state’s credit rating was downgraded.
Brownback is backed by a Republican-dominated legislature. Like Brownback, the legislators have waded in a deep swamp of denial. They seem to be more or less ignoring the dire economic situation. The one action they are taking is related to squeezing some extra “fees” out of welfare recipients. One thing they are not doing: reconsidering their mad-as-hatters tax schemes.
Considering all of this economic mayhem and injustice, what does Brownback say? Two weeks ago Brownback announced that his “plan is working.”
Maddow blog link
magistramarla, that sounds really rough. Insomnia is no picnic, but having it associated with that kind of pain and the need for a surgery and fear all has to be making it so much worse. Be kind to yourself. I’m sending good thoughts your way.
cicely
I won’t. I’ve decided to limit myself to six miles a week, with two days of yoga. I don’t need to spend every hour I would have spent on my relationship on moving. I’ve got friends and work and books to read and so many good things to take up my time.
And should anyone else have need for it now or in the future, I’ve found Getting Past Your Breakup by Susan J. Elliott to be incredibly helpful. It walks you through making relationship and life inventories, building spreadsheets for getting stuff done, and not just moving on but figuring out why you end up in crappy relationships in the first place. There are a few small things I don’t like about it (some parts verge on victim blaming and she appears to categorically dismiss casual sex as a healthy option at any point in life), but otherwise it’s a pretty solid, helpful book.
Leaving a pile of *HUGS*, jelly beans, chocolate covered sea salt caramels, and love for those in need.
Hello my lovelies
We’Re back home.
Damn, I think this was the coldest holiday I’ve ever been on. And the forecast for the next week is just brilliant *grummelmotzmaul*
Well, you can’t always be lucky, right?
I’ll show you lots of pics once i thawed completely and took a shower.
Lynna
And that tells you pretty much all you need to know about what, in fact, Republicans are planning.
I have eaten all the Peeps.
carlie,
All the peeps, and you’re still alive? You must have a stomach of cast iron.
Anne – well, it wasn’t too huge a flock.
Probably bigger than should have been eaten in one day, though.
No, wait, it was only 2 servings! Dang, there are a lot of peeps in a serving.
This is a followup to Saad’s comment 220. In addition to L. Tom Perry, the mormon apostle that Saad quoted, other speakers at the biannual General Conference harped on anti-gay-marriage themes:
Definitely quite a few Moments of Mormon Madness there.
Salt Lake Tribune link
From the comments by readers of the Salt Lake Tribune article:
I didn’t eat any Peeps, but I did eat some pastel colored M&Ms … because they were pretty. I don’t think they tasted all that great. I think they have downgraded the quality of the chocolate inside. It’s been a long time since I tasted M&Ms. I think it’ll be even longer before I try them again.
opposablethumbs:
Waitwaitwait…are you saying that Rocky gave you a book, which xe bought with your money?
(Later)
As I said, I got it on the cheap; I was doing good to get the extra-wide seat! Why, it didn’t even come with a Horse detector!!! Can you imagine?!?
Perhaps next year, I can get it retro-fitted with the lasers, and maybe dual napalm! grenade launchers, and have a hover conversion done.
In the meantime, my leg muscles are all, “What is this exercise shit?”, since I don’t think I’ve walked more than…hmmm…50′ or so at a time, in the last five-ish years. But When The Revolution Comes, and They are trying to stand me up against the wall, I want to be able to walk briskly enough to get to my cane first, Beating Up Oppressors, For The Purposes Of.
With napalm!.
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So as to spot any in-creeping pea-vines.
Obviously.
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*hugs with chikkensoop and/or chocolate* for rq.
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Beatrice:
This is a thing? Is it mandatory?
*looking worried*
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A deep pile of *gentle, non-intrusive hugs-or-other-acceptable-gestures-of-comfort-and-support* for magistramarla.
I hope you can get back into the schedule for surgery.
–
Until I checked the intertubes a few minutes ago, peeps, as far as I knew, was just a slang term for long pig. So you ate a bunch of babies. Yeah, more than a few at once might be overdoing it, but they sure can be tasty!
However, I now discover “peeps” is actually a form of bullet-proof protection, capable of stopping a .22 in three-and-half peeps.
(FFS,
Previewis not working again, so this may contain more than the usual amount of tyopsan dfermenting erro).rs>cicely,
That lawn thing was badly executed sarcasm regarding whiffs of “who’s trampling all over my beautiful lawn, get off my precious” I was reading from Kamaka.
Well then, Beatrice, I would like to join you in reckless disregard for the health and well-being of said lawn.
:)
–
cicely
Some wheelies and donuts and a bit of drift from your ‘chair should do the trick. ;)
+++
I have et all yer digital chikkensoop and ginger tea and I am better now. I think there’s a causation here somewhere. Still not well, though. Ah, but tomorrow I get to roadtrip back down to that same corner of the country with mum and middle Brother for to do some document stuff regarding property ownership and inheritance (my mum, not me). I think some relaxing time in the car will work extra wonders with the immune system (I am, actually, looking forward to it, bad roads and all – would be best if we had some sunshine!).
This is a true WTF!? moment.
I sat down at the computer and suddenly sneezed. There then appear big drops and splatters of blood all over the screen and the keyboard. WTF!?
I have now staunched the nosebleed from hell. Welcome to spring. Allergies? What allergies?
Now I have to figure out how to get the blood out of the keyboard. So far it is working. I hope it remains so.
Other than that and the tax audit, everything is peachy.
Tehran’s reborn symphony orchestra: an ovation before playing a note: “After a three-year hiatus, orchestra has been revived with an ambitious programme and a world-class conductor, Alexander Rahbari — and he says it’s all thanks to Rouhani’s administration”.
A fish tank of thought leaders
Man accidentally fires handgun during Easter mass at Pennsylvania church:
For feck’s sake, even the fondlers (guns, not kids in this case, despite the location) sensible enough to own a gun with a safety are too fricking stooopid to use them. Nad this nutcase could actually legally carry around a lethal device whose only purpose is to kill people, without apparently having the slightest clew how to use, or in this case, not-use, the terrorist instrument.
Guess who woke up with an abscess this weekend? Guess who still had to clean and do Easter activities? Guess who had to wait for treatment til Monday after running errands? Guess who didn’t get pain meds?
ME! Whoooo!
Blargh.
*hugs* and *higs* for everyone, just watch my swollen golfball cheek.
Now back to mindless surfing because I can’t sleep but I can’t do anything else.
I’m so past fucking done, I damn near stabbed myself with a fork.
Saad
I’d rather a thinktank of fish leaders. but you can’t always get what you want, I suppose.
+++
Also, I forgot to leave this round of squeezy sterilized *hugs* for those most in need, and also a set of nice, fluffy, sterilized *higs*, too.
Hi all!
I’m not doing terribly great today and I’m rupt, so I’ll just leave this jar of hugs by the door. Later!
JAL,
I “borrowed” two codiene pain pills so I could make it though the “Spring Dinner” I cooked. I only took one, (I’m another one with a bunged up back.) If there were any way I could transport this other one to you I surely would do it. Hubby said “save it for the next emergency.” This sounds like one to me. Damn it, where is all the f***ing magic when you need it? Higs and hugs to you.
My stomach has decided to expel it’s contents from both ends tonight. Not sure if it’s something I ate, or just my stomach being weird — I’ve felt a bit off the last four or five days.
It’s my sister’s birthday today, which means it’s also – drum roll please – Paul Nelson Day! This year i’m planning on combining the two celebrations and telling my sister that I’ll give her her birthday present tomorrow.
Last year, of course, Nelson himself showed up to the big procrastination party to a) chide PZ for keeping the joke going, and b) announce that he’d come up with a new problem – or possibly just a new name for the same old problem – called the “Target Problem”. He also claimed he’d be adding a further post – with open comments – on Evolution News and Views “later this week”.
You can guess how that one turned out.
Almost 90% of Ghana’s children are now in school: “Ghana spends proportionally more on education than the UK, but this year’s young ambassadors for global education found that poverty still prevents some of its children from going to school”.
The mildly deranged penguin points out that it you position the nozzles correctly whilst standing, you should be able to spin neatly about a horizontal axis. Lay down on the floor — or perhaps more fun, she suggests, jump into the air during an eruption event — and you too can spin like a child’s top. With a bit of luck, this will add to the dizziness and ensure more exhaust is expelled.
Safety Tip: Cover the cheeseboard first. This prevents the cheese from watching the entertainment. The problem is, if the cheese laughs too hard, it can get the hiccups. Hiccuping cheese — think carbonated cheese — isn’t all that tasty. You have to wait for it to go “flat” again. A hammer helps.
FSM help us
“FSM help us” (different link): Throwing plates of pasta (especially the carnivorous kind) and clams (ditto) with a particularly messy and sticky tomato and garlic sauce at the eejit would be a help, but more is required. Such as a clewstick. I suggest using some of the other thugs in the thugs’s kandidate klown kar, thus knocking some dinosaurs on the head with others.
The Grauniad is already being snarky about the lastest karting eejit in the kandidate klown kar, Rand Paul’s campaign résumé — as seen by the Guardian (in case that link doesn’t work, try this one).
Terry Pratchett’s final Discworld novel due out in September: “The Shepherd’s Crown will be the 41st Discworld novel and the fifth to feature the young witch Tiffany Aching…”.
The scourge of the bronze zombies: how terrible statues are ruining art: “‘Scary Lucy’, a terrifying bust of Lucille Ball, is the latest in a long line of sculptures to offend good taste. We can only hope a young artist somewhere is vowing quietly to restore the craft to its former glory”.
Apparently, zombies have been upgraded, Cybermen-like, and are no longer made of dead flesh and old bone, but of bronze by other zombies. I assume this makes them bullet-proof, if still brainzless.
Hey Horde,
I had my surgery and I’m writing from my hospital bed. The pain and spasms in my legs are gone.
My back is sore, but not bad. I’ll be going for a walk soon.
I actually have hope of driving my car again!
Thanks for the good thoughts!
magistramarla
Yay!
and hugs
magistramarla,
Yay!
Malaysia uses specious terrorism threat to regress on human rights:
Let’s Tanz: Pina Bausch’s Wuppertal dancers on her unearthed 80s creations: “Thirty years after they were first staged, two of the great German choreographer’s shows are getting a UK premiere. Expect mud, sweat, tears and giant cactuses” (also remote-controlled helicopters, glass coffins, and christmas trees, but no mildly deranged penguin).
magistramarla
Wonderful news!
magistramarla, yay! I’m so happy for you!
Teaching science in Kentucky is not easy. There are difficulties even at the University of Kentucky — which is not a christian or religious-based university … supposedly:
https://orionmagazine.org/article/defending-darwin/
Presidential candidates crazier than Rand Paul:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/presidential-candidates-ninja-biker
magitramarly
Yay! and *soft hugs*
++
Well, did I promise you lots of pictures from the holiday?
You’re getting them anyway. It was my first real opportunity to try out the new camera, so I ran wild with it.
Here’s the first picture set: the location
Much trickier than domesticated camera, especially wrestling the lens cap back on after stuffing it with macaroni and cheese.
Never cared much for camera myself, whether it’s wild, domesticated, mock, or pigeon hole.
Morgan!?, I’ve heard tell that you can take a shower sprayer to a keyboard—provided you let it dry thoroughly, afterward.
I don’t know that I’d take my word for it, though. Maybe someone knowledgeable could confirm or deny? I’m interested in the truth or falsehood of this method, myself.
–
blf:
*sniffle*
–
So many *hugs* for JAL, bosons added to taste.
–
*hugs* for awakeinmo.
–
WMDKitty, I feel that your stomach has made a bad choice. I hope it turns out not to be something seriously alarming.
Also, *hugs*, guaranteed fresh, not frozen, certified 100% organic, free-range, gluten- and cholesterol-free.
–
Saad, I think Rand Paul running for Prez was inevitable.
The good news is, his candidacy might peel the Libertarians off from whatever inane corporate kiss-ass the Republicans run.
–
Good news, magistramarla!
I’m glad they were able to work you back in.
:)
–
blf:
There ain’t much meat upon ’em.
And they cook up tough.
–
Satire/humor from The New Yorker regarding Ted Cruz:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/cruzs-constant-references-to-jesus-drive-millions-to-atheism
Wonderful news, magistramarla! It’s great to hear good news like that, thank you :-)
Good news, magistramarla!
Enjoy your lack of pain.
magistramarla, The mildly deranged penguin is so happy for you she’s eating an extra wheel of cheese on your behalf.
I’m very happy to hear the good news, magistramarla!
JAL
*hugs*
magistramarla
Yay!
cicely 334
Do not do this. Use swabs or wipes soaked in 90% (or higher) alcohol.
@ magistramarla
.
Wonderful!
Vivito longe et Fortunato!
Yay, magistramarla! I’m very, very glad for you. As someone who is scared of doctors and surgery, I think you’re very brave (I was a mess for my wisdom teeth operation, a crying, teary, terrified mess, so going in for back surgery puts you on my Hero! list). Hope the recovery is swift and the results painless!
Hooray!
My favorite dino is for real (again)!
Brontosaurus is Brontosaurus!
Not yet: Brontosaurus is back! New analysis suggests genus might be resurrected: “Despite its relegation to a subset of the Apatosaurus family in 1903, new research suggests that the Brontosaurus is distinct enough to be a genus”.
My favorite paragraph from the article: “‘It’s a nice example of how science works. A new finding can overturn more than 100 years of beliefs,’ said Emanuel Tschopp, who led the study at the Nova University in Lisbon.”
And many many hugs for JAL. Really hoping you were able to get treatment?
Well, that put the kebosh on my less-crappy-than-normal mood. I was gonna shower and maybe look out the window, but FTW now.
How to clean a keyboard depends, in part, on what sort of a keyboard you have. Some can be cleaned by water. Some by alcohol. Some by dry Nitrogen (which is perhaps the safest option). Perhaps other techniques as well. Certainly, let it dry throughly (very probably multiple days, if not a few weeks). And avoid additives, such as soap or similar. Some “cleaners”, such as Tri-Flow® or WD-40™ are to be completely avoided. (They are brilliant for some situations, but not for cleaning electronics.)
Without knowing the details, I’d lean towards dry Nitrogen, or if desperate pure water (e.g., distilled). And then let it dry for two or three weeks.
Oh, for the ever-living sake of fuck. I’m an atheist in Ireland, and these people do not speak for me. Fuck politics with a sharp stick. http://atheist.ie/2015/04/atheist-ireland-dissociates-from-pz-myers/
I’m kind of hesitant to post this here.
The video isn’t “bloody,” but certainly disturbing. Shows the cop shooting down the guy…
South Carolina Officer Is Charged With Murder in Black Man’s Death
Happy to be of service!
For the next “downer”, Rand Paul is not a radical candidate. He is conservative to the bone (which should not be a surprise to anyone here). And the eejit is not so much a “conservative” (in the politest sense), but a demagogue, fascist, kleptocrat, and theocrat (in other words, a fairly typical thug).
Richard’s Poor Almanac:
The new, more secure Pennsylvania Avenue http://www.gocomics.com/richards-poor-almanac/2015/04/04
I like that menacing, giant, potentially mobile boulder.
The lab vacuum ovens speeds that up greatly.
Notable for its lack of citations. Ignore them. Wankers and eejits.
badgersdaughter
That’s more like “me, myself and I” speaking for everybody.
“Terry Pratchett’s final Discworld novel due out in September”
Nope. Not Terry. His daughter did most of the writing of “Raising Steam and the one previous. She will be writing in accordance with his outlines, but it will not be a “Terry Pratchett” book.
Giliell @355… for sure, for sure, you should see the comments on their Facebook post. The general tenor of them so far is “get over yourselves”.
New study hints at spontaneous appearance of primordial DNA http://phys.org/news/2015-04-hints-spontaneous-primordial-dna.html
This looks interesting!
GOOD NEWS!!!
America’s Largest Christian Bookstore Chain Files for bankruptcy …
One of the smaller ones did also.
1. To be sure, most of this is due to changing retail patterns i.e. sales over the internet.
2. But not all of it. The local xian newspaper had an article on it. The local churches are all having falling memberships and falling revenues. They don’t have the money they once had to spend in xian supply houses. Oddly enough, they don’t have the slightest idea why their memberships are falling.
It has a lot to do with repetitively calling women, gays, scientists, Democrats, Moslems, Pagans, Obama etc. Nazis, commies, spawns of the devil, demons in human flesh, and so on. The xian terrorism doesn’t help either. Fox NoNews with their constant hate against “nonbelievers”, that 30% nonxians doesn’t do them any good.
3. I’m sure I’ll come up with some way to celebrate all this. It’s definitely worth celebrating. Maybe the summer equinox.
Dalillama:
I Have Learned A Thing.
Thanks, Dalillama!
Also thanks, blf.
–
On cheap keyboards this can remove the lettering on the keys. It won’t hurt the plastic of the keys per se. It can also swell the silicone used as a moisture barrier under the keys.
Re the ill-fated keyboard: The keyboard is attached to a 7 year old HP laptop that was in shaky condition before the insult from my sneeze. I didn’t take a hose to the beast, but I was tempted. Someone once told me I could do that with my sturdy automobile and I didn’t do that either. No, I didn’t sneeze on the auto dashboard, but there was a fine layer of mud.
Per Dalillama (big thanks) I very gingerly used alcohol and a light touch on the beast and it seems to be functioning. I learned how to pry the keys off without breaking them (yay!) There is still a suspicious pink tinge when you look straight down at the keys, but as long as it works, I’ll leave it alone. That is, until the ants invade. Then the thing is toast.
We have various creepy crawlies show up in the strangest places, especially in spring.
And thankfully the offending nose it behaving itself.
magistramarla – congrats on the surgery. I’m facing that one day soon and am not looking forward to it.
magistramarla @323:
I’m so happy for you!
Woo-hoo for no more pain!
Thanks, everyone!
#313 Morgan!?
Aw, thank you. <3
Good news is 3 anti-biotic pills down and it's much smaller. Still no fun to talk or chew (or throw up, but that's never fun), but at least breathing isn't so bad. (It's right on the edge of my nose and top of lips, begining at the cheekbone.)
Hopefully, I'll be good tomorrow because I got a shitload to catch up on. Including calling my loan company since I haven't recieve the defferment paperwork. Oh what fun.
—————
Family Update:
Finally spoke to Mom again. Her phone's been broke and I figured she was just enjoying have a place. Nope. And her fuckface Husband is in jail again. Disorderly conduct or someshit, she wasn't really sure.
She's staying with a friend and asked about sneaking in at night if Husband ends up locked up for more than a couple days but I told her about having to move this weekend to the new apartment. She also said if it comes down to it, she'll pay our rent again. Goddamn do I not want that.
Right now, Roomie and I are just crossing our fingers that his tax refund doesn't get yanked for his studen loans again (he's on the $5 payment plan) and getting jobs.
Here's a question I've been wondering: What would happen if I let Roomie claim Little One? Would that fuck me over somehow? I haven't, I woundn't without beeing sure, but since he's actually worked last year, I'm curious.
—————————
#323 magistramarla
Yay!
——————–
Sorry, that’s all I got for now. I’m still woefully exhausted even though I haven’t done shit but be with Little One this morning and after school.
Hee hee, Husband is watching The Voice. Some contestant is going to do a song by “Billy Vera and the Beaters”. Wasn’t he in Buckaroo Banzai, I say. Husband says pooh pooh, you’re wrong, pooh pooh.
I consulted IMBD and Wikipedia. I was right. Billy Vera played Pinkie Carruthers. I am vindicated and retire triumphant.
Mind like a steel sieve, I got – trivia gets caught, important stuff goes right on through…
I’m going off to listen to the rain on the roof while it lasts (beats the heck out of squirrel races on the roof) and read in bed. ‘night, all, sleep well if it’s sleep time, have a good day if it isn’t.
A dad in Texas reveals the truth of how stay-at-home-mothers are shortchanged and underappreciated in USAmerican society.
Here is the original blog post from the dad. He takes a look at all the work his wife does and reached the conclusion that the bare minimum someone else would be paid for such services is close to $70K annually (a conservative estimate he says).
(excerpt)
Hey there Crudely Wrott!
I now know what recrudescence means.
Cheeks wet.
I knew I had to recrudesce.
Lurking for a [long] while.
Just admiring you wonderful loving kind compassionate people.
I just had to make some noise.
The very fact that you are here gives me a wicked case of the grins.
Hello! Hello!
[see my recent comment on the Christ Not Again Thread]
OK. I’m back.
Lots to say even though I’ll cry because lots is not good. I am good and so are the mancubs. Surviving daughter and SIL, not so much.
All that aside, I want you all ALL to know that you are the greatest group of wonderful people I have ever encountered. Despite the fact that you don’t know it, you have, in your several and clever ways, sustained me for the last five months.
I honestly love you.
Just thanks, that’s all. I don’t think I can say much more right now.
@crudely wrott:
recrudescence – very apt.
You’ve been missed. I’m glad the community has been useful to you. Your love is surely multiply returned.
Tony!
Crip Dyke!
Hi everyone,
I have something I want to throw out there and get your opinion on.
I live in Australia, which is not as overtly religious as the US, but still has enough religious people to occasionally bring about tragedies like this: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/pregnant-jehovahs-witness-decision-to-refuse-treatment-harrowing-for-hospital-staff-after-mother-and-baby-die-20150406-1mf570.html
My issue is that:
1. I fully support a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, including abortion; but
2. I find it repulsive that a parent would deny life-saving medical treatment to their child for any reason, let alone religious grounds.
I know the mother wasn’t aborting the child per se, but could she not defend her actions on the basis of bodily autonomy? I’m just really not sure how to reconcile the two positions, and I’m worried I’m being inconsistent… so would be grateful for some of your thoughts.
Tim
P.S. Apologies if this is not the correct forum!
Crudely Wrott
It’s been a long time since I’ve actually teared-up in the Lounge.
It is sooo good to see you.
Heh.
I just said that I have lots to say and then, in the same post, said that I don’t think I can say much.
I guess that is what can happen when on the one hand life is so full of joy but then, right next door, there is such sorrow.
Will you favor me with your patience while I sort things out and find my voice? Silence has been a balm but I am full to bursting now. This might take a while.
I’m not afraid because I know that I am in a good place here. A place where kindness and respect are paramount. Thank you, dear Hordlings. Your presence and your determination to be nice to one another as well as to me are sustaining and of such coveted value.
Your combined value is orders of magnitude greater than [insert your favoritist thing here].
Don’t ever stop.
Ah, chigau! There you are!
Crudely Wrott
Take your time.
meanwhile, have some Lounge grog and hugs and higs and a spot in the pillow fort and chocolate and whatever
Crudely!
*headbonks*
Oh, dear chigau, thank you for cutting me some slack. Needed and useful slack. My deepest appreciation is yours and is also spread liberally across the whole Hoardedom. You all are marvelous.
Grog guzzled, hugs held, higs lifted and the pillows are ultimately comfy.
Special thanks to Anne who refreshes the stock so reliably. Inestimable comfort. Inestimable.
*sneaks in to add hugs, higs, and extra-comforting cup of bosons*
*sneaks out again*
WMD Kitty Survivor! So nice to see you too!
True story!
The last cat who agreed to live with me would greet me after I got off work with energetic bumping of heads. I would get right down on the floor and greet him as he would greet me. We were so happy then.
Late. Tired. Sleep.
Tomorrow . . .
Timaahy @373:
I understand what you’re saying.
Allow me to approach this from a different perspective.
The goal of the Feminist Movement is full political, social, and economic equality for all who identify as women. A significant part of that is empowering women and supporting their right to make choices regarding their lives, regardless of the opinions of others. Given your revulsion, would you have been less repulsed if the hospital staff had intervened and ignored her wishes? How would the cause of feminism be served by denying the right of women to make their own choices, no matter the situation? Do women have the right to make choices of their own all the time or only some of the time?
I say all the time, and the explanation can be found in the article you linked to:
Rather than diluting the rights of women, or treating them as second class citizens who get to exercise their rights on an inconsistent basis, I say we (all humans) should support the right of everyone who identifies as a woman to make their own choices.
I think a much better idea is to attack bad ideas, eviscerate pseudoscience, and criticize religious beliefs. In essence, we have to shift the culture. Persuading people out of harmful beliefs can lead to fewer decisions being made based on those beliefs. Would you rather live in a society where a pregnant woman is denied the right to make decisions about her body or one in which a pregnant woman makes the choice to undergo the necessary medical treatment bc she no longer holds harmful religious beliefs?
I know which one I would choose.
Timaahy
If you have to put a ‘but’ after this statement? You do not fullysupport a woman’s right to bodily autonomy.
A parent who denies medical treatment to their child is, of course, atrocious.
A 7-month-old fetus is not a child. The article makes no mention at all whether it would have been old enough to be viable on its own, but the fact of the matter is – it was still attached to the woman’s body. Therefore, not a child, and therefore perfectly under the woman’s own medical decisions and not entitled to separate ones. Whether the parents thought of it as their child, the article does not mention, but Jehovah’s Witnesses have been known to refuse life-saving treatment to their teenaged children on the basis of religion (on some occasions, the medical treatment for children has been enforced by court order). So in a sense, there’s nothing unusual in this case.
If you want to further argue or discuss any of the above points, please go to the Thunderdome.
+++
*waves* Allo, Crudely Wrott!!!!!!!!!
Exactly what I was after, thanks Tony.
From a BBC article I read on the motives of women joining ISIS:
In which the bad logic behind Dear Muslima goes full circle (with some help from even more hypocrisy than in the original). Dear Muslima into the abyss, and the abyss Dear Muslimas back at you.
Another “Hello!” for Crudely. I’ve also been in lurker mode these past few months. Too busy, too tired, too little positive to say, too much guilt over not being able to keep up, not being able share in the joys or commiserate in the sorrows, just too everything really. Good to see you back though, and I look forward to reading your eloquence, may the sharing of it all bring you peace.
Crudely!!!!!
*pouncehug*
*pouncehig*
+++
Timaahy
The right to make decisios about your own body also meas the right to make bad decisions.
In this case a decision that killed her. A real existing woman died because of religious mumbo jumbo. I have a hard time worrying about a fetus when a religion (and JW are a sect type of religion, so leaving is extremely hard) murders women by forbidding medical care.
Crudely! Damn good to read you. Take all the time you need.
And FossilFishy, very good to see you emerging from lurk mode.
Both of you have been greatly missed.
*Pouncehugs all around* *And Pouncehigs*
Did you hear they restarted the Large Hadron Collider?
From Think Progress- Has Bill Maher finally gone too far?
Uh, there’s no finally about it. He went too far long ago. He’s in my atheists I want nothing to do with mental file, alongside Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Michael Nugent.
Morgan
Oh, I thought it wasn’t working again, since nobody’s been swallowed by a newly-formed black hole. (Good news, though, that is.)
“America’s Largest Christian Bookstore Chain Files for bankruptc”
You know, if they had published some books about textual criticism they might have gotten some customers from outside the ghetto.
Or published books about the pre-Noah versions of the flood. Utnapishtim rules!
Crudely, it’s good to see you again!
Crudely! I won’t attack-hug you, I’ll just sit right here next to you and hold your hand while everyone else does. :)
Loving these photos, esp. the one of Nina Simone and June Christy. Though the lamp above Sarah Vaughan’s head could have been better-placed.
FossilFishy! Also hugs. :)
I honestly read that as a cup of bosoms and had to do a double-take.
I have a bunch of links to add, mostly happy (or at least, none overtly negative and depressing):
Dude Social Fallacies
And there follows a close look at all the fallacies. It’s a good list to use when making a bingo card. ANd can probably be adjusted to suit a lot of other things, too.
Allowed for Performance: Punk and Rebellion in 1980s Siberia. Not any kind of [prefix]punk, but actual punk. :) As originally intended.
Art! Imagination! Planets! What would Earth’s skies look like with Saturn’s rings?
Beautiful stuff.
I Hate Being Pregnant & I’m Not Apologizing For It. Just putting that there, because I agree, whole-heartedly.
This one’s good until the last two or three paragraphs or so (where the author starts going on about energy, ignoring the cultural aspects of conditioning children within their gender roles, though the general point is still somewhat okay). I think she misses the part where a huge thing about women being (possibly more) indecisive about having kids is because women have other options these days. Used to be kids was how you showed your worth as a uterus-bearing woman, but now women are even allowed jobs and hobbies outside of the home, so having kids is an even bigger decision – esp. if one feels that, once one does have kids, one will be tied down to the home (due to social pressure or spousal arrangement or whatever).
Anyway, here’s the article: Of course men want children more than women do.
And I think my favourite: Memoirs of the Spacewomen, from BBC3:
Hiya, Crudely Wrott! The pillow fort is fluffed up and waiting, and the kettle is about to whistle for tea. Hobbes promises not to pounce unless you feel pouncy.
Misogynist Kansas governor Sam Brownback signs law banning second-term abortion method.
Oh, so it’s not so bad. Turns out women can decide what happens to their bodies….. in cases where men deem their lives to be in danger.
Saad
It’s also pretty clear that the only thing it does and can achieve is to make second trimester abortions more complicated, expensive and dangerous for women. It does not, perse, save any pwecious feeeetusess.
I was going to say, again, that I hate everything, but actually, I can’t be sure that I’m not just hating myself right now. By proxy, as it were.
*sigh*
Could I send you a load of hugs, rq? You are just about the last person to have any grounds for being that pissed off with yourself. My opinion, fwiw, is that rq is exceptionally good people.
Mine as well.
Sorry things aren’t well, rq. :(
rq, you are a good person, and I will remind you of that every time you need reminding. [Hugs]
Thanks for *hugs* opposablethumbs, I htink I’m just in one of those life-is-terrible ruts that are partially caused by my own life choices and how they differ from others around me or the opportunities that remain open to them (or are more easily accessible to them). Or something, if that makes any sense. Like I do things wrong even though I make perfectly valid choices.
And yes, I also realize that everything is fine, and I have my life and there’s really nothing wrong with it, not really. It’s just that everyone else seems to be having such fun in their lives, why is mine so dull and home-based? <- Not up to figuring out the truth of that statement right now, but I think it's just a feeling and not all that accurate.
I dunno. Not sure what to say about it, but thanks for the moral support. :)
*hugsback*
Thanks also, Anne and Saad.
FossilFishy
*hugs* for you, too.
rq
Really, it’s them, not you.
And yes, I know the feeling of “could I yell at 20 yo me and tell myself to do this thing differently?” and of “fuck, I wished I already lived in a world where certain things are cake eaten and not choices you have to make”.
Hugs and Higs.
Here’s a supportive cat for you
rq, #405
I can completely relate to that sentiment. I didn’t take life seriously a few years ago and basically just neglected thinking about what I want for my future. At least once a day, I find myself getting sucked into “what could have been” thinking.
You have my sympathy there (if I read your post correctly and you are talking about that sort of thing).
rq
and *hugs* for you, too.
fun is over-rated. Comfortable is better.
It’s an ugly nasty mean world out there. I’ll be in the pillow fort, hiding.
. . . wakes from not very restful sleep . . . sees greetings from dear ones . . . feels much nicer than I would if not here . . .
Looks at rq . . . (I do, apparently, dearly love ellipses . . .) . . . and I think this thought: In human experience there is such great joy. So many reasons to celebrate existence itself. Our companions are legion and legendary; our good fortune to travel with them gives such powerful impetus that we can be in their company even if miles or years separate our corporate selves.
Among those whose mere existence lifts my heart to higher and brighter climes is one who is called rq. To me this one is glass, is steel, is bright sky and warm sunshine. This one also has a killer avatar pic. Do you know that I do put out my hand and touch your avatar and your nym sometimes? Not only yours, mind you, for you keep company with so many that give me courage and glee.
So much of the wonderfulness you give to me is because your life is home based and full of noisome children and overfull hours and hectic schedules and arts and music and clutter and fuss and oh, exhaustion and resolve. I do so admire you. Thanks for being here with us.
Please attend to your USB as I have just sent you a ridiculously wide smile. Please put it on and never mind how silly you look; no one will notice that while basking in the glow.
Co-signed.
I have the good fortune of knowing some really great people, if not as continual friends, from having come across them at various points in my life. It is a bit of an ego blow, however, when, for instance, I’m sitting in the doctor’s office waiting room, pick up a National Geographic, and find a full-length article on one of my former classmates and the awesome stuff they’re doing now. So I empathize with that feeling. :)
And I think I have just broken my all-time number of commas in a single sentence record.
vereverum, if you should drop by and see this – I just wanted to thank you again for all your excellent advice re Spawn’s job-hunting; the job xe interviewed for went to an internal candidate, sadly for xir, but I remembered what you said about feedback – and when xe wrote a brief follow-up note saying (truthfully) that xe had enjoyed meeting the interviewers and would appreciate any feedback to help xir improve when applying for similar work, they wrote xir a really nice encouraging email saying they liked xir interview very much indeed, xe was the best after the internal candidate and they would contact xir if another position opened up. So that was an important cheerer-upper, which really helps with the tough grind-you-down of hunting – and I’m convinced that just the fact of writing a follow-up note went down well – which is wholly thanks to your advice, as otherwise neither of us would have thought of xir doing that. So, thank you!
This is priceless.
The article has a quote from the New York Daily News about how the NRA wants guns in schools, but not at its convention, then points out that there are going to be some Republican bigwigs at the convention. I have to ask why they think those Republican bigwigs are more deserving of protection from guns than my children are?
Thanks, all. :) It’s moments like these (which happen more often than I post, really) when I think I should maybe go in and talk to someone about it, because I read all your kind words, and all I can think is ‘Naaaah, they don’t know the real me’ even though you’ve all got it more or less right – a combination of just-plain-down with life-envy-and-ego-blows. And a serious case of what-could-have-been. *sigh*
So please know that I have been assured that I am Awesome, and I know this, and I am forcing the brain to feel it, too.
Thanks for the smiles and the *hugs* and the *higs*, I’ll put some back by the end of the evening.
While on the subject of self-appreciation, I think I got a raise at work. o.o It’s all a bit weird because over the past 3 years they’ve gone through about 4 or 5 different payment types (a waffling between a flat monthly salary, flat monthly plus off-hours, hourly rate, and now this, which seems to be a combination of flat monthly salary plus hourly rate, where the combination seems to be greater than the hourly rate I was being paid before – I’ll see tomorrow, when I get paid, as this is a raise that is being implemented pretty much retroactively (as of March 1)). Yeah, the bureaucracy at my job is weird. :/ (I know I’ve mentioned it, but in 8 years of working here, I’ve had 6 different bosses – department bosses, not unit bosses, as all the underlings always stay in place, they just rotate the figureheads so as to avoid collecting dust on them – or something.)
rq,
*hugs*
Republicans in Congress have been slashing IRS budgets over the course of several years. Now the IRS is in abysmal shape. They cannot help you with your taxes. They are supposed to be able to help you.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-standard-dejection-in-the-irs-help-line/2015/04/07/333594d6-d7f0-11e4-8103-fa84725dbf9d_story.html
Furthermore, it is likely that about $2 billion in legitimate revenue will go uncollected by the IRS.
On, FFS.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/29d77fe20531493d9863dc4adbcd3e57/missouri-city-repeals-protection-gays-against-bias
Hi and *hugs* Crudely & Fossilfishy
rq extra *hugs*
The weather is cool and damp this morning, and the sun is shining after yesterday’s rain. The air is clean and clear and rests on the landscape like a soft hand on smooth silk. A very healthy looking grey fox just strolled across my front yard, very poised in spite of my dogs’ racket. A small finch has been tap-tap-tapping at the front door for no other reason than to be amusing, as far as I can tell. There are fresh bear scratches on one of the big cedar pines. The bears usually scratch as high as they can reach, in warning to other bears that the resident one is a big bad-ass. (They aren’t.)
I just put out fresh birdseed. I run an equal opportunity forest welfare program. All the critters eat the birdseed.
I actively try to focus on all of this, instead of the rampant horror that man does to man, and everything else. The black dog lurks, and is the only beast I would ever kick, hard, if I could. I am thankful that not all people are gleefully brutal.
Thank you, Horde.
Thank you for writing out that pretty scene, Morgan. It sounds beautiful and I wish I could be there to see it, I’m pretty sure the picture in my mind does not do it justice.
And thank you, Horde, on my behalf, too. Without you, the world would be a much drearier place.
Tom Cotton says the U.S. should bomb Iran instead of making deal
Does he realize bombing a Iran’s buildings will lead to war?
Oh wait, that’s what he wants.
Water Wars in California: Factory Farms Draining the State Dry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-wells/water-wars-in-california-factory-farms-draining-the-state-dry_b_7021414.html
Over at Perry Street Palace, Iris Vander Pluym has a post about a Time magazine quiz that claims to be able to determine one’s political ideology based on 12 answers to questions about values and lifestyle.
Here is the quiz.
I took it and now I hang my head in shame.
I came out 11% conservative/89% liberal.
7% conservative.
Liking dogs slightly more than cats and liking your desk to be neat is a conservative thing? What.
80% liberal, 20% conservative. Thinking that children should probably respect authority, and being maybe a little wee bit proud of my country’s history apparently gave me conservative cooties.
I don’t see how the state of my workspace determines my political leanings, for that matter. Too silly, too silly.
Hmmm, we may need to add this quiz to the Lounge questionnaire. Anyone who doesn’t get a 100% liberal score cannot comment here.
Oh, wait…
85% liberal
badly worded questions
stupid analysis
You’ve got it all wrong, ajb47: these are callous measures to put the republican bigwigs at risk because the NRA no longer trusts them as political allies. Otherwise they would want as many functioning guns in the same room with our senators and house committee chairs as possible.
Duh!
5% conservative, 95% liberal.
It’s all about the cats.
rq, if it’s worth anything, I like you more than I like eggplant!
MM @433:
I guess so.
Strangely enough, I don’t prefer cats to dogs. I like them equally, but that wasn’t an option, so I went with ‘slightly disagree’. Wonder how many percentage points that cost me?
I also wonder what PZs results would be.
6% conservative, 94% liberal
It’s all about dogs and cats.
8% for me. My “conservative qualities”:
But… I don’t think any of those things, and that isn’t what the questions asked.
It’s sad. Jonathan Haidt will use this for more crappy books, saying the problem is with “both sides” and that conservatives aren’t really bad just different. If not books, then almost certainly op-eds and TED talks.
Crip Dyke 432
I was being serious in my post, but there was a part of me that wanted to (and was unable to do it in a way I liked) work some “good guys with guns beat bad guys with guns” snark.
rq
I wanted to send a hug from my pocket that happens to have your name on it earlier, but it was in my other pants, so I didn’t find it until now. Sorry.
I will place some other hugs in the basket next to the pillow fort. I hear they go really well with tea.
I’m somewhat concerned about my ex partner. He dropped a bunch of his classes at school, has drastically reduced his social life to nearly nothing, ended our relationship, and has now had his cat put to sleep. The cat had a single seizure this morning without any history of seizures before and he decided that he was going to have her euthanized while she was still happy and healthy, to save her any suffering further down the road. I’m giving him space because our relationship ended and I need to take care of myself first, but all of this just seems…worrying.
There’s nothing for me to do when I’ve been pushed out, though.
…fuck me, vets DO that?
Azkyroth, apparently. The whole thing left me really disturbed. And glad we didn’t share custody of any cats.
3% conservative, 97% liberal
Confirmation: too lazzy to try to find out where I got my 3cts…
Whoa . . . big thunderstorm just off to the NW! BIG!!
For the last three quarters of an hour about forty five degrees of the horizon has been near constantly aflicker and aflame. Maybe five seconds max between seeing the anvil clouds that are moving SE. They will skirt by here closely very soon. The National Weather Service is warning of golf ball sized hail and winds in excess of 55mph.
Right now the near wall of the storm is not quite 15 miles away; it’s getting a bit closer though I think it has enough of an easterly vector to slide on past me.
Gust of deliciously cool air blows through open windows . . . scent of ozone . . . hoping those under that rip snorter are safe, well grounded and faradayed . . . this one is a right nasty brute.
Bit of spiritless rain there. The light show is now firmly in the eastern sky and heading south. G’wan, get outa here.
I haven not seen such an intense display of lightning for years! The thunder is low, continuously rumbling near the ground. Horizontal thunder. Like all the jets taking off at once, way over yonder.
I’d never heard of Horizontal thunder. The first hit that came up on a search was for Deviant Art. I’ll take it.
Horizontal Thunder is preferable to the Vertical kind in that is not overhead.
I bet a Crudely Wrott written phone book would be a highly entertaining read.
Or tax documents.
Tony!:
It would only contain the numbers of people I care for as well as people I have no choice but to talk to.
Tony!:
Eh?
Crudely Wrott 448
I think Tony is suggesting that you have a fantabulous vocabulary — great enough that even your description of tax documents would be interesting.
Warning:
For anyone who is thinking about clicking on the ‘Acting Whiter’ thread…the comment that inspired PZ to write that post is likely to cause significant anger and a desire to smash things.
ajb47 @449:
You are correct my friend!
Feeling clueless here. Why would my non surprising tax documents be interesting? Pedestrian, they are, with piddling numbers.
Or, I now imagine, would my cometary on taxation be of interest?
Crudely @452:
My apologies for being vague. I meant that just as a phone book written by you would be an entertaining read, so too would tax documents written by you.
It’s an exaggeration that was meant to highlight how much I adore the way you write.
Oh, fudge. After rereading ajb47 above I see that I have been complimented.
My poorly concealed grin gives me away. I’ve been well had. Thanks, y’all. I must have needed that.
You know what? I think I’m going to stick around. You deserve me.
Aaaaand my apologies to you, Tony!.
Your confidence is deeply appreciated. Admiration is definitely a two way street. I have to remind myself to mind my half.
opposablethumbs:
You’re welcome. I’m glad I was able to be a small help.
And good hunting.
Hail Tpyos!
Crudely Wrott #452
Your commentary is always cometary.
(bright and shiny)
chigau; Maximum grins! I am so had.
I am also so near sleep. Rest well too, dear Hoard. Tomorrow just might be a big day.
Tomorrow is indeed a big day. It’s the first day of the rest of your life :)
Sleep well Crudely Wrott.
Looky!
The timestamp sez it is no longer my 60th birthday!
@ chigau #460
.
Had I known, I’d’ve wished you a happy birthday.
I dint know so I’ll hope you had a happy birthday.
And many presents.
chigau
Happy Bday.
Thank you.
I planned to go stealth but …
chigau
Well, you have forced my hand, in that case – happy belated!
Here’s some *rum*. :) Onwards to 61!
Happy belated birthday chigau!
****
rq:
I’m starting a fan club for you. I plan on being the Treasurer (president of anything sounds like too much work for me). Why? Here are 2 reasons.
Tony
*BLUSH*
Well, don’t go making me President, that club would die before its first meeting. :P
I’ll be Figurehead. :)
Happy belated birthday, chigau!
Belated Happy Birthday Chigau
It’s great to hear you voice again Crudely Wrott
I’m with Tony! in the rq fan club. I’ll just be a member, unless there’s anything else I can do.
I’m back from Easter hols and just caught up. It’s slow in the Lounge and also IRL. We took my daughter to an Aquarium and she really enjoyed herself. Spent some time with my Mum too. She’s causing me some anxiety and I’m not sure that there’s anything I can do about it.
Other than that, the weather is very good and we’ve planted some seeds so daughter has something to watch grow.
How is everyone?
happy birthday, chigau.
— — — — —
Tumour mutations harnessed to build cancer vaccine.
Preliminary attempt in humans generates robust immune response. http://www.nature.com/news/tumour-mutations-harnessed-to-build-cancer-vaccine-1.17250
.
Exoskeleton boots improve on evolution
Unpowered mechanical design lowers the energetic costs of walking. http://www.nature.com/news/exoskeleton-boots-improve-on-evolution-1.17237
I think the tendons of big kangaroos also conserve energy this way.
Putin challenges solar system to a fight http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/putin-challenges-solar-system-to-a-fight-2013021860168 Vladimir Putin has warned that the next rock to enter Russian airspace will get its teeth knocked down its throat.
ISIS punishments a tad lenient, say Mail readers
Readers of the Daily Mail have declared ISIS’s stance on crime and sex to be disappointingly soft. http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/isis-punishments-a-tad-lenient-say-mail-readers-2015040897136
bassmike
Hoping for sunnier weather! We have some planting to do, too. The boys want to grow a salad bar. But it’s been awfully cold and rainy, until today, so hopefully the drier weather will stick around for a bit.
Other than that, blah. :) Not much to say.
Oh, I also realized I forgot to submit my annual state employee income review – you know what the government did? They just sent me an email saying I need to submit one ASAP (which is how I remembered that I forgot). And they wrote it in bold lettering. It’s definitely violent!
The Mellow Monkey@439
I’ve been sorry to read of your recent troubles, and you’re right to give self-care priority. But the situation of your ex-partner does sound worrying. Is there any relative or friend of ex-partner you could alert?
rq “come and see the violence in the system..help help I’m being repressed!” Everything is violence. It’s some sort of Mandelbrot violence I think.
Happy Birthday Chigau.
Today I go into the hospital for “same day”(23 hour admission) surgery to remove a piece of tissue in my bladder. Should make it easier to urinate, once things heal. It’s a dark and stormy day. Hopefully, not an omen.
Morgan, carlie, chigau and Dalillama, thank you.
Happy birthday chigau!
Happy birthday, Chigau!
Nick Gotts, I may try talking to his dad today. From the outside, this just looks way too much like somebody putting their affairs in order for the end. I’d feel better knowing somebody still close to him is keeping an eye on things.
Mandelbrot violence.
I rather like that.
rq
The things you write here are as real as anything else you do. Of course we can’t see all that you are, but the bits and pieces we can see have added up over the years. They paint a picture, and it’s a damn fine one.
I hope you can look into the mirror of these comments and see yourself as we see you. Because the esteem we hold for you is none of our doing. You created it, and it’s as much a part of you as any flaws you might have.
Count me in as a member of the rq fan club. I can’t imagine being anything else.
New coalition forms to end mass US surveillance http://phys.org/news/2015-04-coalition-mass-surveillance.html
.
False Promises: How We Are Failing Our Afghan Allies http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amber-murray/false-promises-how-we-are_b_7025958.html
.
The Big Chill: How Big Money Is Buying Off Criticism of Big Money http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-big-chill-how-big-mon_b_7013730.html
Good luck with the surgery, Nerd.
Hugs or supportive-gesture-of-choice, TMM. I hope you are able to look after yourself and keep OK in all this too.
Astronomy:
Distance measurement of a microlensing event http://phys.org/news/2015-04-distance-microlensing-event.html
.
Faraway moon or faint star? Possible exomoon found http://phys.org/news/2014-04-faraway-moon-faint-star-exomoon.html
Thanks, everyone.
I drank too much rum.
Hang on, hang on, she’s led an invasion of Canada, has a number of buried zombies on standby, is a self-confessed rose massacrer, and, in addition to making people use lots of commas, is also, as I recall, too tolerant of horses, zucchini, or something disgusting like that, and probably also has cooties.
I couldn’t load that Time survey, the Flash browser kept freezing my other tabs and then crashing. I guess that means it saw a mildly deranged penguin lurking in the background and decided to run away before she got a chance to respond…
Drive-by link-dumpage:
Killer Deals
–
Godzilla recruited as tourism ambassador for Tokyo: “Japan’s fire-breathing fictional monster appointed to lure — rather than snare — tourists for Shinjuku area of city … If Godzilla chooses to return, it can now stomp on its own giant head.” Actually, this is a cunning ploy to get more tourist-flavored sushi for the cuddly rubber lizard.
Michele Bachmann continues to say stupid stuff:
Right Wing Watch link
Dinosaur-on-a-Stick! Tyrannosaur combat – new evidence of clashes between titans: “Bitten skull shows damage from both before and after death”.
Police killing videos shock the world. So why do white Americans still trust cops?: “Videos taken by smartphones, dashboard cameras and CCTV are increasingly capturing incidents of police violence. But public trust has remained steady — and starkly divided along racial lines”.
The most recent data dates back to “June 2014 — before some of the most high-profile police killings caught on video”. This is the bit I found interesting:
Unfortunately, no citations for either claim, albeit I have read of studies supporting the body-camera claim. The last claim, that such footage may not matter (to a large segment of the population) surprises me, albeit a reluctance to accept such footage for some time would not, in the same way some people still think “lie detectors” actually work and there are giant invisible magic faeries in the sky looking after selected groups of humans.
Sorry and good luck, JAL. Hope your mouth feels better by this time.
Yay and congrats, magistramarla! Let us know how it’s going with your recovery!
rq, if you need to talk to someone, do it! Finding the right therapist really helped me a lot. Or you could just post here, of course. I agree with the others that you are amazing, but I also know that feeling of not believing people when they tell you that. I’ve found the most useful technique to apply to that is to challenge myself to apply what I preach: find out what the objective truth is and accept that. Do I add more to the world than I take away? Do I do the best I can with what I have? (of course “the best” is a slippery concept and your mind will try to argue that you don’t actually do your best-best, so be sure to remind yourself that spoons and running out of spoons is a valid thing!) Another useful thing I ask is how would I react if it wasn’t me saying/thinking that, but a friend I loved? And why would I treat the friend better than I treat myself?
Happy belated b-day, chigau
So, yeah, Louisiana has decided that the “religious freedom” bills which caused all the ruckus in Indiana and Arkansas were not discriminatory enough. Louisiana legislators are proposing a bill that is worse.
Washington Post link
Yes, Louisiana has reduced the religious freedom sauce down to its essence, anti-gay-marriage.
Happy Day After Your Birthday, chigau!
May you try and fail going stealth for many more birthdays to come.
Second officer in Walter Scott video sued over alleged attack on handcuffed man: “Clarence Habersham, who was with Michael Slager during shooting [sic], is being sued by another black resident who alleges police stomped on his face” — the headline and synopsis is misleading, this has nothing to do with the murder of Mr Scott but relates to a completely different case c.4 years ago involving the second
piggoon on the scene of Mr Scott’s murder. The story does include more details about Mr Scott’s murder, including false claims of a goon administrating CPR (the goon were actually checking where the gunshot holes were in the corpse).No, no, no, this is not how you acquire puppies for the Sunday barbecue, Dog owners warned about toxic sausages found in East Sussex: “Police urge caution after discovery of meat stuffed with slug pellets at popular walking spot in Hailsham [UK]”. Fresh and yipping tastes best, not dead and in need of detoxification.
chigau,
A very merry unbirthday to you!
Texas right-wingers are increasing their anti-gay-marriage efforts. Republican Texas legislators are promoting a bill that would disallow the use of state or local funds “for an activity that includes the licensing or support of same-sex marriage.” They have their reasons.
http://www.texasobserver.org/anti-gay-witnesses-rail-against-same-sex-mirage/
I snipped the part where gay couples are compared to alcoholics and murderers.
Cheers and protests as University of Cape Town removes Cecil Rhodes statue:
rq @471:
Forgive my ignorance, but my only exposure to the phrase ‘salad bar’ is at the local Ruby Tuesday (a restaurant for those who don’t know) with their literal salad bar. I’m pretty sure by the context that that isn’t what you mean, so that leaves me lost. Help?
****
Looks at FossilFishy’s #479 and wonders what a joint paper on ____* with Crudely Wrott would read like.
*pick your own dry subject that you find tedious to read
****
Ummm, maybe its bc I just woke up, but I wanted to comment over at the Guardian link blf provided @487, but I couldn’t find the comment section.
****
Gen @491:
I’ve really, really got to learn how to do this. It sounds like a good mental exercise.
chigau’s gone backwards in time and is going to relive / suffer last orbit again?