Some days, you just have to listen to the whales singing.
(Episode CCLXX: Just like heaven.)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Some days, you just have to listen to the whales singing.
(Episode CCLXX: Just like heaven.)
I liked the waves, but the whale songs always bring up the Star Trek movie with the whales.
Of course, after listening to the whales, now I have to pee.
I could’ve used a little more cowbell.
All I remember from that movie was that Spock had to wear a headband. Spouse says that he remembers transparent aluminum.
I remember this saying that even-numbered Star Trek movies were better than odd-numbered ones. So this one would be one of the good ones right?
Best line of the movie was Kirk explaining Spock’s weird behaviour by saying that he did a lot of LDS back in the sixties. I was the only one in the theater who laughed.
Gojira – Flying Whales
pelamun:
IMNSHO, either the reboot is an exception to that rule or the rule no longer applies to the rebooted universe.
Ben Geiger:
I haven’t seen that one (actually the only Star Trek movies I’ve seen are the Voyage Home and Insurrection). I heard that many Star Trek fans hated it, but it was received well by the general film critiquing public.
After last episode, I thought PZ was going to post that song about the spider-man.
Og, I have a 3k PSI (flunked) SCUBA tank and an Allison 250-C20B 40k RPM rated dented inlet rotor. I’m thinking of creating a steam turbine.
Now all I need is some tubing, a PTO, a valve, a pressure gauge, and a pop-off valve. And some money. (I don’t intend to go beyond 100 psi on the tank and 5k RPMs on the rotor.)
You can’t write ‘aluminum’, it’s aluminium! Now bring me a shrubbery.
+++++++++++++++++++++
—> “I thought PZ was going to post that song about the spider-man.”
You mean “Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can”?
WhY? Do you like whining? Or things that sound like dentist drills?*
* I got my last two fillings done this morning. I use noise-cancelling ear buds (Sharper Image (I had to get new headphones as I walked through an airport, so . . . .)) and listened to some Bob Dylan, some Grateful Dead, some Village People and some Kingston Trio (yes, my mp3 has an eclectic mix on it). Two teeth removed and 13 fillings in two months. Aaaaargh!
I worked with cetacean acoustic data from Antarctica (determining diel and seasonal abundance) – which involved listening to many, many whales. Needless to say there were a few sleepy days at work! Iceberg movement and collisions always brought me abruptly back to reality though. They really are magnificent creatures.
OT: I’d really appreciate some backup on this thread at Dispatches, since I am exhausted and need to go to bed now. Someone called harold, while claiming to be a “progressive”, is defending immigration controls and deportation, and my SIWOTI syndrome has been triggered.
Well after yet another round of ‘get Ing behind a closed door with no Union rep and call Ing a useless idiot*’ at work I have gotten in contact with a Union rep at am at least somewhat brightened by them seeming to take my concerns seriously and don’t think I’m just whining.
*Sadly not exaggeration, the criticisms get disturbingly personal and range from me being a brain dead zombie, to insinuating I have mental issues, to insulting my personal life and family.
I like the second song better.
___
I liked tVH. It’s a fun movie, even if it does have transparent aluminum.
I like my dentist, but I’m still avoiding some work he says I”l have to have done. “OK, but not yet.”
I think this turbine, (given the speed and my skills), will howl at best.
Damn. That’s really shitty. I’m glad you’re getting help from the union. No one should have to put up with that kind of harassment at work, whatever hir occupation.
Ing:
Something similar happened to a man where I work. Even with the union reps (I was one at the time) helping with the grievances (which were ultimately successful), the agency did not take the supervisor abuse seriously until a lawyer got involved. The settlement included the agency paying for the lawyer. It might be worth it to talk with an outside labour lawyer. Or see if the union will cover a consultation with a lawyer.
Ing, that sounds pretty shitty. I hope you can get the help you deserve from the union.
Ing, that is just wrong. I wish I could help.
++++++++++++++++++
I used to work in a lab that sputtered transparent nickel. Aluminium can’t be that much harder.
Are Our Children Learning Enough About Whales?
I got so burned out on this kind of thing when I worked at The Nature Company years ago. Ruined Ottmar Liebert, The Gypsy Kings and that Gregorian chant thing for years for me too. Although, it is where I discovered Michael Hedges and Michael Manring thanks to a Windham Hill sampler that we had.
Sailor: Hecks no, I meant this one.
“He’s making it up as he goes along.”
Why, yes, I am watching The Life of Brian, why do you ask?
But Walton,
we’ve had the discussion before. Many on the left are in favour of border controls, mostly because they’re afraid for domestic jobs. I’ve asked before, do you have links to studies countering these fears? Instead of arguing from a moral standpoint, I think pointing to studies would actually be more effective.
I’ve also made the argument repeatedly that in certain areas of the world, especially those newly independent countries (by new I mean post WWII) they do value national sovereignty to a great extent that you will not get them to give up border and immigration controls.
“Now fuck off!”
Why, yes, I am watching The Life of Brian, why do you ask?
I have to pick an episode of Cosmos to play during my Freethinkers meeting on Carl Sagan Day. I’m stuck between four:
“The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean”, “The Harmony of the Worlds”, “The Edge of Forever”, or “Encyclopaedia Galactica”
Any opinions?
One that’s not too expensive?
To those of you who say that transparent aluminium is fake, I say: BEHOLD SCIENCE: http://dornob.com/transparent-aluminum-glass-like-see-through-metal/ :)
StarStuff!, I recommend The Life of Brian. It was Sagan’s best episode.
Install some sort of international communism.
AHS,
you can also see that reflected in the foreign policy of former communist countries, like Poland in the EU, reluctant to give up more sovereignty rights etc.
Full frontal male nudity. Have I mentioned I’m watching The Life of Brian?
++++++++++++
Jessa, we’re all individuals!
Sailor, are you feeling ok or are you just really that excited about watching The Life of Brian?
Of course, the UK also refuses to give up its sovereignty rights, which is why they didn’t adopt the euro (smart choice if you ask me), and opt out of several EU provisions. I find it to be rather similar to what Sir Humphrey Appleby once said: “Britain wants to be a part of Europe without actually being a part of Europe”
StarStuff!, I’m feeling much better now. [/Astin]
Mainly because I’m watching The Life of Brian.
One of the women who accused Herman Cain of sexual harassment gave details today. Sounds more like assault to me. Which makes me ask the question: where does sexual harassment end and assault begin?
Try shooting more priests next time I dunno.
StarStuff: It depends on the situation and the action quite a bit, but aggressive physical contact in a sexual manner is generally required.
The Sailor:
Are you watching Monty Pythong and the Holy Grail by chance?
@ A. R
Sounds like what happened to that woman.
Og, that was drier than superheated steam.
StarStuff: Oh, that’s not good for him then. Especially due to his race (what with the various stereotypes etc.)
Assault is the crime she described even if she doesn’t use that word.
While it’s true many Republicans don’t like black men touching white women, I really think they’d still have a pretty big problem with this if he was white. In any case it is Obama vs Romney or Perry now, though the media will want to get what they can out of this story.
A. R,
you can’t eat the cake and have it.
I don’t know if you remember the years where weaker currencies in the EU like the pound and the lira were under attack and most of the currency policies were controlled by the Bundesbank. Partaking in the Euro has restored some say over currency policy to many countries.
Staying outside of some core policy areas has isolated the UK in the EU. While exact figures are hard to come by, it is estimated that 60% of British trade are with the EU. Deliberately choosing to stay outside of the decision making process is stupid. The Swiss have also been complaining, but they’re trying to reap EU benefits without even being formal members…
I think Perry has pretty much destroyed his candidacy all by his goddamn Texan self..
Paul Winter ???!!!??
boy howdy, you are OLD!!!!! PZ
For more quotes per minute it would be, (IMHO), a tie between The Life of Brian, Quest and The Princess Bride. Blazing Saddles comes in a very close second. Oh, and A Fish Called Wanda.
“And that’s the only thing I need is *this*. I don’t need this or this. Just this ashtray… And this paddle game. – The ashtray and the paddle game and that’s all I need… And this remote control. – The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that’s all I need… And these matches. – The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control, and the paddle ball… And this lamp. – The ashtray, this paddle game, and the remote control, and the lamp, and that’s all *I* need. And that’s *all* I need too. I don’t need one other thing, not one… I need this. – The paddle game and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches for sure. Well what are you looking at? What do you think I’m some kind of a jerk or something! – And this. That’s all I need. “
That argument, whether it’s empirically-substantiated or not, is missing the point. In general, when we argue against other forms of white Western privilege, we don’t do so by trying to convince white Western privileged people that moving towards equality is in their economic interests. (Because, for one thing, it often isn’t.) Rather, we point out that it is unfair to give artificial privilege to one arbitrarily-defined group of people at the expense of everyone else, and that it should be ended for this reason alone. Why should we suspend this approach in the case of immigration controls, which are one of the most egregious forms of institutionalized white-Western-privilege in our society?
As I’ve pointed out before, the argument “we need to exclude immigrants from our country in order to protect jobs for our people” sounds awfully like the argument “we need to exclude women from the labour force in order to protect jobs for men”. (An argument which people were making not very long ago.) We don’t ordinarily expect, in arguing against inequality, to have to prove that ending inequality would be in the interests of the currently-privileged.
Yes. And I’ve repeatedly said that this is why Western countries should, unilaterally, abolish their own immigration caps, quotas, etc., before we start talking about any other countries’ controls. Western countries’ immigration controls are particularly harmful, because they reinforce the existing pattern of global socio-economic inequality. (See the “walled world” graphic for a visual illustration of this.) We live in a world where capital can move across borders freely, benefiting Western corporations, but where workers – especially workers from the developing world – are denied the right to do the same.
But Walton, it’s you who’s missing the point.
Immigrants don’t have voting rights, you can’t win this as a political issues by arguing like you do. You have to understand the voters’ sentiments and concerns about the immigration issue, especially since the right keeps stoking their fears. Find a way to counter these fears and economic studies would help a great deal.
I’m also not sure if you can call it white privilege. I look at many countries across the world, industrialised or not, and you find this kind of parochial attitude all across the board. And in the US, if I recall, there are efforts to “pin black against brown”, though I don’t know how much this is actually reflected by reality.
I should add that it is clearly true in the case of the United States that the economy is heavily reliant upon temporary and undocumented migrant labour – the chronic shortage of agricultural labour in Alabama this year being a graphic illustration of this – and that the Congress’ continued refusal to liberalize the immigration laws achieves only one thing, the continued economic exploitation of migrant labourers who are deprived of civil rights. But the same economic conditions don’t necessarily obtain in every Western country; hence why I’m not comfortable with relying on this argument alone.
Immigrant equality is a social justice issue. It is a racial justice issue. It is a feminist issue; women who are undocumented or temporary migrants often face an added layer of abuses in the home and in the workplace – rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment and assault, and labour exploitation in low-paid domestic work or sex work – being unable to seek the protection of the state against their abusers because of the fear of deportation, and may face deportation to countries where violence against women is rife and unchecked. They are an LGBT justice issue; many migrants come from countries where LGBT people are horrifically persecuted and have to live in fear, and, in the US context, DOMA adds an extra hurdle for same-sex families.
“The voter file was set up by the Kochs 18 months ago with $2.5m of their seed money, and is being developed by a hand-picked team of the brothers’ advisers. It has been given the name Themis, after the Greek goddess who imposes divine order on human affairs.”
—————————
“The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen
Our common treasury in the last 30 years has been captured by industrial psychopaths. That’s why we’re nearly bankrupt“
Walton,
Whether or not that is a JUSTIFIED fear, it is a fear that people ACTUALLY HAVE. Therefore it must be addressed with something more substantive than, “Well that’s not true, let’s talk about X instead.”
Esteleth, exactly.
For the US, it would help to argue
– how many jobs immigrants have created, how many taxes they have paid
– how many US Nobel prizes have been won by immigrants
– how dependent the US economy has become on immigrants in certain sectors
pelamun: Yeah, I remember. Unfortunately, the prediction I made at the time of the creation of the eurozone was correct: a nation with a weak economy would drag the rest down i a crisis (I had picked Italy at the time). The UK did well by itself to stay out of the euro, and some of the latest polls suggest that the citizenry agree. On the matter of Europe in general, that is more a matter of traditional English narcissism than anything. Remember, Britain has never gotten along well with the continent in the past (Billy the Conqueror, 100 years war, etc etc WWI, WWII…) Not saying I agree with it, but that would seem to be the trend.
I don’t expect to win it single-handedly as a political issue. Like I said, when it comes to political activism, I expect to shift the Overton window.
Right now, there are many very vocal and highly-funded xenophobes on the right – FAIR, MigrationWatch, and so on – demonizing immigrants and spreading lies about immigration. Many of these groups are considered respectable and mainstream within the American and European political right. On the left, by contrast, we have timid liberals who are unwilling to speak up about the issue for fear of being demonized. And so we get terrible policies, because the anti-immigration lobby dominates the public agenda. It’s necessary to have a counterbalance, to have people speaking up who are unequivocally pro-immigration and who point out loudly that immigrants are human beings who are entitled to equal treatment.
There’s also a value to moral arguments, to talking about the actual harrowing human stories of migrants’ lives. I can point to cases like that of Sofia Campos-Guardado, who was denied asylum (on a very technical and narrow point) and deported to El Salvador, despite the fact that in her home country she had been repeatedly raped by an armed gang and forced to watch her male relatives being hacked to death with machetes as retribution for political dissent. (And there are plenty more similar cases, which I could spend the whole evening talking about at length, but I won’t because I need to sleep.) And one can talk about the thousands of undocumented migrants who are exploited as domestic workers, farm workers or sex workers and held in de facto debt-slavery by their employers, under threat of being reported to ICE if they don’t obey.* Or the families torn apart by deportation. When one shows people the real, individual human stories of immigrants and the real human cost of immigration enforcement, it’s hard for decent human beings, whatever their political convictions, to defend the situation.
(*The U-visa and T-visa introduced in 2000 were meant to deal with this situation, but it was like putting a band-aid on a gaping head wound.)
I don’t know what’s going on
but I like this, it’s Stan Rogers:
link
A.R,
these things are hard to say. Right now it’s all about psychology. Germany and the Benelux countries have been doing well, but they’re also selling stuff to the rest of the Euro zone, would be bad if the crisis persisted.
The UK is already part of an enormous framework of EU legislation and regulations. So this has already been a major departure from the historical pattern you’re citing.
Even though the EU leadership has been less than stellar, I’m cautiously optimistic that the Eurozone will get over this crisis (some of the PIIGS countries might be forced to leave though), and learn from it. The UK, Sweden and Denmark will continue to be under pressure to join.
pelamun: Yeah, the UK has been participating at a greater level than in the past. I do expect that at least Greece will be out by the end of the crisis. With regards to the UK joining the eurozone, I don’t expect to see it within this decade, given the relative stability and investor popularity of the pound sterling and the euro’s current woes. They might partially link though.
Walton,
you won’t get any disagreement by me on your last post. Just think that you go sometimes overboard with your rhetoric, but that just might be part of your Overton window.
A.R,
it’s not just that. By not joining the Euro, the UK has excluded itself from a wide range of decision making within the EU. But we have to wait for the crisis to end first.
Pelamun,
Anecdotal evidence suggests that reminding people that their own ancestors were immigrants helps as well.
Given how celebrated many of the immigrants of yore were, this has potential as a strategy.
pelamun: I personally think that that’s quite the point, the government wants to minimize their fiscal involvement with Europe. Never know what might happen after the crisis though. Personally, I think that the closest we will see in the next two or so decades is a partial or total linkage, but not total adoption.
Esteleth,
oh yes that’s an excellent one.
or that groups that are now fully integrated, were at first maligned.
it starts with Jefferson badmouthing the Germans, then the successive waves of immigrants, first the Irish, then the Italians etc.
Linguistic research indicates that Hispanics too conform with the three generation rule, the impression that Hispanics don’t speak English is only due to the fact that the immigration wave is still ongoing and there are many first-generation immigrants among the current Hispanic population.
A. R,
given the economic involvement and interdependence I think that’d be hard to maintain.
Especially when the French idea of making the Euro group a kind of economic government should take off. Remember the idea of a two-speed Europe got also started due to the anger over the British position regarding the EU.
A discussion of STIV:TVH and transparent aluminum and no Hello Computer?
I’m taking my disappointment to bed, though I want to stay up and read Walton and Ragutis’ links.
I still don’t know what’s going on but I can assure Walton that there is MAJOR injustice happening to non-immigrants in the western hemisphere.
(read: Natives. Indians in the USA. First Nations in Canada.
and Iniut, Aliut, and etc. (I don’t know everything.))
I am so sick of the 6th generation city-people telling me what is normal.
Definitely. It was hilarious to see him ahead in the polls before he announced he was running and then see his numbers drop steadily the more people saw of him. Actually, while on the topic of immigration, the fact that he wasn’t mean to the children of immigrants that one time is a big reason many Republicans stopped supporting him. It’s pretty sad that the man who executed 200+ people was just too compassionate for them.
pelamun: I think you may (or indeed may not) be surprised at the level of stubbornness a government can maintain. You’ve watched Yes (Prime)Minister, right? Anyway, I’m off to bed.
I would like to submit that “Why do you know that?” is the most useless question EVER. “How do you know that?”, can, as PZ demonstrated in his “Letter to Emma B.”, stimulate discussion and impart knowledge, where the answer to “Why do you know that?”, in my most recent experience, is:
Because I actually learn shit instead of sitting around smoking pot all day, or, more recently, drinking to insensibility while complaining that you can’t smoke pot until your probation is up.
Sigh
I am drunk and I must take a cough-suppressant.
I hope to be here in
themy morning.Good night and good luck, chigau.
The Hovind Logic Zombie Trolls continuing to ask ‘Why?” reminds me of something I read from Luboš Motl :
Congratulations to Audley and Brownian, living proof that sometimes, winners do quit and quitters do win.
This would be good for my pension fund :
Berlusconi to quit ‘within hours’
I guess I’ll believe it when I see it.
Contrary to anywhere else I’ve ever worked, over here your pension fund contributions get invested, read : the fund you pay into puts your money into shares and bonds and stuff like that. If all goes well, you make 12% a year, if you happen to run into a GFC, you wipe 30 grand (or more) off your pension in a day, which is what happened to me in 2009. I think the whole idea of not having what you pay in guaranteed to come out once you retire, is madness.
First Approximation,
are you sure that the in-state tuition issue was the deal breaker for many Republicans? I mean Perry is much more conservative in so many issues than Romney is, I thought they’d overlook one issue. I had the impression that it was more about his dismal debate performance.
A.R,
I know and love Yes, (Prime) Minister, though I like In the thick of it more. Especially the movie version where Malcolm meets with the wunderkind in the White House, that was one of the most hilarious scenes in any kind of political movie I’ve ever seen…
rorschach,
yeah, I’m with you. Many times Berlusconi was said to be finished… just heard a BBC journalist say that he thinks he’ll be gone by the end of the year, but he wouldn’t be sure if he’d be gone within 48 h..
Even the Greek PM was said to resign last weekend, and then not, and now he’s probably leaving his post after a govt of national unity is established…
So Walton,
you’d support freedom of movement anywhere in the world, domestically, internationally?
What about lands traditionally held by a specific ethnic group? The influx of outsiders can often lead to unrest.
Was just reminded of that by this news
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-07/png-riots-kill-two/3638516/?site=newcastle
Indonesia and Nigeria are other cases where this often becomes an issue, frequently resulting in deadly riots..
To think that guy MKG used to comment here and on my blog once upon a time :
Addendum: Am I the only one who cannot stand the Digital Cuttlefish excrescent doggerel?
Actually, I think it’s a good sign that Abbie Smith hasn’t renewed her monument thread in 3 months. It’s even bringing my machine half to its knees with its 4450 comments so far. One can hope…
rorschach,
he just made an appearance on Stephanie Zvan’s blog, inspiring me to go back and post on the thread again..
what thread ?
the Elevatorgate thread
http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2011/11/02/elevatorgate-challenge-4/
Actually, hoggle’s obsession with PZ and Ophelia has reached a limit where I have to say that I would out him too, if it was me on the receiving end of this madness. I’d be happy to out him tomorrow, looking at the evidence of what the guy has been up to. But as I said elsewhere, up to those most affected. Do I want this guy at the GAC next year ? No way in hell. No MRA terrorist should be allowed to make anybody feel like they are some Muslim female rights activist requiring bodyguards. Fuck that shit. Give his name to the organisers, ban him from attending, scrutinize his affiliates. My “best of” hoggle collection might come in handy after all.
Spiderman, spiderman, doing whatever spiders do…
“Creepy 3D-printed robot spider is here to help” http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/11/the-day-has-come-when.html
So now I just have to hack into your printers to create my robot army BWHAHAHAHA!!!!
— — — — — — — —
It is very hard to address higly emotional issues with facts, and immigration is an emotional issue in just about every country. I see othervise nice and enlightened people give in to xenophobia despite facts that should calm them… It actually helps having a batshit-crazy xenophobe party in the parliament, since they give the issue a bad name.
Good morning
Just handed in our tax return. I’m still amazed by the fact that I’m legally obliged to hand in documents by the 1st of September that other people are obliged to provide me with by the first of January the following year…
on imigration and the “left” (or better said, the anti-imigration stance held by parts of the left)
Well, the EU and the national leaders aren’t, of course, helping to reduce fears and prejudices.
The EU system and national regulations are set up in a way that, while technically giving workers the freedom to move, once again sets workers in competition against each others without much protection, because the social security and rights are nowhere alike.
It is, for example, “discriminatory” if a local government prefers local companies that pay standard wage and decides against a nominally cheaper, foreign company.
There are very good reasons for a city council to do so: The money stays within the region, you get taxes back, those companies have a track record of 20 years of providing quality work, and if there are problems later on, they can fix it.
For private consumers, those are acceptable reasons, but not for cities.
The workers don’t benefit much from this. They are paid shitty wages and of those they are often denied a great share for bad housing.
On top of this, you have the demagogy of the conservatives, like Merkel claiming that the current crisis is the fault of the Greek population who’s lazy and greedy (not in so many words, but in essence), while, of course, keeping still on the problems of the banks, or the fact that the Greek military budget is hugely inflated because of their obligations from EU treaties.
The failure of the middle-left, especially of the social democrats is that they put the national interests, i.e. that of the national banks and companies before those of the workers. You could say they haven’t learned shit since 1914.
Congrats Audley on yesterday!
We have some handheld GPS units at work that are a little on the older side. A few months ago a colleague and I were getting them out and programmed for a class activity, and at one point near the beginning I laughed and pointed out that I had just tried to use it as a touch screen, which of course it wasn’t… at which point we both simultaneously brought the units up to our mouths and said “Computer? Hello, computer!” in fake Scottish accents. Much laughing followed.
Birger,
do the Sverigedemokraterna, or the Dansk Folkeparti actually want to deport foreigners that are legal residents out of the country? Because that’s what German neo-Nazi parties want to do. They haven’t been in parliament on the federal level since the 60s, but they have seats in some state parliaments.
Those right-wing populist parties that enjoy broader support are more insidious in my view because they make xenophobic views appear more acceptable, because they don’t espouse obviously extremist positions like the Nazi parties. They argue for a tightening of immigration controls and make this more acceptable overall, also by assuring that other parties are reluctant to raise the issue in an opposite direction to the effect that even most leftist parties end up supporting immigration controls or at least not changing the status quo.
Until now Germany has been fortunate that there hasn’t been some kind of populist who has been able to get more widespread support for such positions. The neo-Nazi politicians are just incompetent and a joke, and usually hover between 3 and 7% (with 5% being the minimum amount needed). However, the conservative parties are doing a good enough job of exploiting the anti-foreigner segment.
Giliell,
I’ve noticed that you seem to have a very unfavourable view of the SPD. That’s unfortunate, but saying things like You could say they haven’t learned shit since 1914 is highly offensive. It disparages the stand the Social Democrats made against the Nazis (like the Prussian state government as the last bastion of democracy until the Preußenschlag, their unanimous and heroic opposition against the Ermächtigungsgesetz, and their opposition both in exile and domestically), and their suffering later in the East with the forced union with the Communists in the so-called Socialist Unity Party. It also ignores the fact that the party has been constantly evolving, especially after the war, it’s disingenuous to suggest that it’s still the same party as it was in 1914.
That said, I was disappointed in 1998/9 that the SPD was constantly holding back the Greens from implementing a more progressive immigration policy, and that they both stopped completely after this Hessian politician I-hate-so-much-I-will-not-write-his-name won state elections on a blatantly xenophobic agenda. There was a time when I was adamant about not dating anyone who’d even think of voting for a conservative party, and that time was then.
So both the dual citizenship law and the red green card thing fell far short of what could have been, but at least they got something done. That might be a very Social Democratic position, but a little bit of change is still better in my book than no change at all.
Re Herman Cain
I find it highly amusing he is still trotting out the line that Rick Perry is somehow orchestrating all of this.
I mean, Gloria Allred wouldn’t be caught dead with working with Rick Perry in any fashion, right?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/us/politics/herman-cain-accuses-rick-perry-of-smear-campaign.html
oops, ignore my last post. For some reason I thought an article from Nov 3 had just been posted on the NY Times website.
Watching TRMS right now from yesterday. Of course, it’s all about Herman Cain…. Heh…
pelamun
That’s obvious, isn’t it? ;)
But the remark about 1914 refers explicitely to the question of workers’ interests vs. national interests.
They are not holding a strong pro-working class, regardless of origin position. To put it in currently fashionable terms: They seem to think the local 1% to be much more important than the foreign 99% (and probably the local 99%, too).
Thing is, whenever I put hopes in the SPD, I was disappointed, safe the Atomausstieg.
First war to engage in after ’45? SPD. Lying and deceiving, engaging it what has been deemed an illegal agression since.
Demolition of social security with all the negative effects it has on unemployed and employed alike (without really saving money).
Increase in penion age.
No minimum wage although they had the power to do it.
Sell out of public property and privatization*
First step in the destruction of the public healthcare system and its finances, putting the burden solely on the people.
Deregulation of the financial market before the crisis.
No real double-citizenship.
The inhumane conditions in deportation-prisons and inhuman edeportation practises.
I could keep writing.
So, with that track record, yes, I have a very negative view of them. Does it help that my view on the other big parties isn’t much better? It hurts more with the SPD because I never expected any good from the CDU or FDP. So, yes, I’d say that they have historically a tendency to decide for the wrong side (safe the Nazi era). That’s not to say that they’re the same as in 1914. I’d probably like them better if they were.
*It’s for example one thing I hold the local SPD in high esteem for: They never engaged in it, so we still have some important pillars of community life in “our” hands.
I think it played a big part. Not only did he extend in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants, but he also called those who disagreed ‘heartless’. Although, as you mention, his “dismal debate performance” probably had a lot to do with it as well.
Romney’s numbers have been fairly steady. I think people who left Perry went on to support Cain. It seems like a good portion of the Republican party just don’t want Mitt Romney to be their nominee.
So we have an election today. I’ve spent an hour trying to find what’s actually going to be on the ballot, so I can actually look stuff up and have an informed opinion before I go. The information appears to be precisely nowhere, including the local newspaper, the local tv station, and the county and state board of elections websites. Go democracy!
I know we are not really supposed to bring up the adverts that appear here, but ….
{ducks metal clad tentacle} *wooooSH*
…but I thought the write-up to this one was ….
{ducks rusty porcupine quill} *wizzzzzzzzz*
… was rather droll: Encountering Light*Within: A Post-Christian Religion (the asterisk thingy really is there.):
He must surely be talking about Science. I don’t have the money to waste in finding out, but even in the worst case, we seem to be winning – inch by precious inch.
……………
[A moment of Architectural Madness]
The Apocotecture Awards: 10 zombie-proof safe-house designs. (Linky)
Don’t show that stuff in Denmark’s face if it can’t get him drunk!! http://satwcomic.com/
The important field: http://www.xkcd.com/970/
— — — — — — — — — — —
Pelamun:
We have had two right-wing populist parties in Sweden.
The Ny Demokrati of the 1990s imploded because of internal quarrels and generally irresponsible behaviuour of their MPs. Our current Sverigedemokraterna are trying to show a polished face to the public but alredy there is one member who had to quit parliament because of ethical issues*.
Neither party has suggested deporting immigrants, but the idea of removing citisenship from immigrants commiting crimes has been floated, gaining no support among mainstream parties.
*He had to leave the party but it is uncertain whether he will actually resign from parliament. He might stay as an independent after getting out of rehab. I love the openly crazy nutters!
That was weird… I posted something and it never showed up o.o
WTF? What’s Bishop Gene Robinson doing on TRMS? Who cares what a bishop has to say? Argh. Or did he indeed play any kind of meaningful role at OWS?
Birger,
my Swedish relatives are all politically active,*) and I’ve been hearing all this disturbing news from them.. Just hope the party can disqualify itself. This is what has happened many times in German state parliaments with Neo-Nazi parties. Incompetence, mismanagement of funds, internal divisions, and next election they were gone. Voters often vote for them to express their dissatisfaction with the established parties, not because they necessarily support the Nazi parties.
*) actually when she was younger, my cousin used to be Vänsterpartiet, and one time she was handing out pamphlets against her father, who was a professional politician for the Socialdemokraterna until his retirement (and an immigrant no less! ). “These politicians are destroying the future of [big Swedish city]’s youth!” But now she’s mellowed and actually joined her dad’s party ;).
Giliell,
I share your disappointment about some issues, but not about others. But instead of going into detail, I’ll just talk about what I see as two types of “leftism”, which have always been in a struggle with each other, a more idealistic one and a more realistic one.
The idealistic one is suffering from the problem that they can’t win elections because the country is structurally conservative.
The realistic one is open to political compromises to the extent that they can get compromised in the eyes of their supporters as well.
But I’ll take a party that has its roots in the idea of social justice over any other party any day. I’ve accepted that if a party wants to rule, it will take positions that are less than ideal at times. Many of the issues you’ve raised are issues that any type of mainstream government would have resolved in a similar manner, but I still think that the red-green government handled things better than a black-yellow one would have done. And to quote one of the biggest thinkers of the SPD (just joking),
“Opposition ist Mist.” (Being in the opposition sucks)
theophontes,
great linky.
By the by, can you recommend a good architectural magazine for the non-architect? Preferably one that can be subscribed to via iPad ;)..
Hmmm, I have an election to vote in today also. My local gubmint unit always sends out a flyer with the location of my polling place, hours, and a reproduction of the voting machine panel.
Our kids went to an “alternate” elementary school and several of the families there were Libertarians, so ever since I’ve been in the habit of checking to see which kids’ parents were running for stuff. I was surprised to not see any Libertarian candidates on the ballot at all, but my wife pointed out that thanks to the Tea Party, they’d prolly be Republicans these days.
In addition to candidates, we have one referendum, which sounds very important. It would authorize the State government to change the Constitution to allow gambling on sporting events at casinos and horse tracks.
So I take it the hateful Missisippi Amendment 26 is up for voting today? If you can, vote early, and vote often. The amendment is clearly yet another piece of “let’s kill women” legislation.
Thanks to Sally Strange for her GAC button design…
A note to the Poopyhead, the link to the endless thread is still pointing to the last episode. And kohldawanker morphed to avoid the Banhammer and re-appeared in the same thread as nelsonsomething. Baaaaad troll.
Same with the Labour Party in the UK. Conditions for asylum-seekers got dramatically worse under the Blair and Brown governments, with private contractors G4S and Serco being employed to detain migrants at detention centres like Campsfield House and Yarl’s Wood, in worse conditions than prisons. (The latter, where children as well as adults are detained, was the scene of a hunger strike by migrant families to protest the abusive conditions.)
That’s why I don’t support any political party any more. I used to think that the Tory-Lib Dem coalition would be stronger on civil liberties (hence why I supported it at first), but I was naive; in the end, it was all just talk. There isn’t much difference between our major political parties.
===
Gene Robinson – a progressive LGBT rights activist, and the first openly gay man to become a bishop in the Episcopal Church – is someone for whom I have great respect, personally.
What makes you think I would disagree with that?
The fact that immigrants are discriminated against doesn’t detract from the (incontrovertible) fact that non-immigrant minorities are also discriminated against. We don’t need to play Oppression Olympics; it’s perfectly possible to oppose all forms of bigotry and racism equally at the same time.
Huh? Who was doing that? :-/
In theory, yes. In practice, I prefer to concentrate on campaigning for equal treatment of immigrants within my own societies (the UK and the US), both because I’m not in a position to influence policy anywhere else, and because I think the rich Western countries’ immigration controls are the most destructive, since the “walled world” reinforces inequality and white-Western-privilege.
Now let’s not go overboard here. I don’t think the SPD became the German version of New Labour. The left wing of the SPD always stayed strong, for many of the controversial government policies they only acquiesced in the name of party discipline (and I say this as someone who doesn’t like them)
I think re the UK coalition, the Lib Dems have been the great disappointment, I mean you pretty much expected that sh*t from the Tories.. Too bad the UK isn’t gonna change its voting system any time soon…
Ah, thx for reminding me, now I remember the man over whom the Anglican Church split in two, and for this and his activism he has my respect. Nonetheless, I think the progressive media shouldn’t give any clergymen a podium, unless they’re directly connected to the relevant issue the media are reporting on. And the only thing TRMS said was that he just met with the OWS protesters, a little bit too strenuous for my taste… (What I mean is the idea that clergymen are moral authorities to speak on any issue they see fit)
Yes, I understand that, but you’ve completely avoided addressing the problem I raised that can happen from an indiscriminate application of your principle.
Down goes Frazier
tenuous, not strenuous..
No, I’d acknowledge that that problem exists. And if we were actually anywhere close to achieving the objective of unfettered free movement everywhere, including from one developing country to another, we’d have to contend with that. However, that’s a long way off from reality; and this potential hypothetical future problem is not a justification for not fighting now against the unjust system of immigrant detention and deportation in Western countries, which comes at an enormous humanitarian cost.
Yeah. Just saw that on ESPN. Another icon of my youth dies.
it’s not a potential problem, people are dying right now because of it.
All I’m saying is that you need a case-by-case approach. Sometimes unfettered freedom of movement hurts minorities and benefits the privileged. Clearer cases might be Indonesia and China here, about the PNG case I don’t know enough about the respective socio-economic situations… Though the highland valleys are the most fertile areas in PNG..
it’s not a potential problem, people are dying right now because of it.
In the case of the PNG riots you cited, it’s evidently because of internal migration between PNG from the Highlands to the cities. It’s hard to see what that has to do with the issue of Western countries’ immigration controls, other than the fact that they both involve “freedom of movement” in a broad sense. (And if PNG were to try to stop internal population migration, this would also likely have a harmful impact on the poor, given that there are obvious economic reasons why poor people in the developing world migrate from rural areas to cities.)
Explain, please? In the case of China, as I understand it, the hukou system historically placed limits on internal migration within China – creating an underclass of unlawful migrants, and reinforcing economic inequality between those from different areas, much as the West’s immigration controls have been doing on a global scale. I’m not an expert on China, and I’m aware that the hukou system is no longer as rigid as it once was, but I’d say that, if anything, it supports my argument.
To derail a bit and not to derail the thread where it came up:
I love the word “Wunderschwanz”.
Totally German, only that it isn’t. But, well, after Germans inventing words like “dressman” it is time for retaliation ;).
Like pelamun, I’d interprete it as a dick with lots of stamina and ability, because that fits the “Wunder…” pattern.
But on different notions it is telling how many positive words and descriptions are out there for the penis, but how little for the vagina/vulva.
Oh, and pelamun: thanks for the backup on the Dispatches thread, btw. (I just checked it and also realized that I borked the link at #14 above; not sure how I managed to do that.)
Wunderfotze?
I wasn’t advocating a wholesale prohibition of domestic migration. Are you even reading what I’m writing? I’m mostly talking about the ancestral lands of certain ethnic groups, usually economically disadvantaged ones. Often their lands are exploited by the privileged for raw materials, or for settling members of the dominant ethnic group in a less densely populated area. For instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmigration_program (the Javanese are the most privileged group within Indonesia)
Again, as I said, I wasn’t advocating prohibition of domestic migration, thus I’m certainly no supporter of the wretched hukou system. I was talking about Tibet and Xinjiang. (with the Han settlers as in a similar role as the transmigrated Javanese in Indonesia)
Re the hukou system:
it still exists. It’s not a problem if you’re privileged, i.e. middle class with a university education. It’s a problem if you’re a impoverished farmer coming to the cities looking for work.
Your kids can’t go to school, you don’t get govt health care, the local authorities don’t care about your work conditions etc.
China is trying to manage 120 million migrant workers. One can only hope that with the rising salary levels conditions will improve and that system will finally be abolished.
Oh, ok. That makes more sense. (Sorry I didn’t understand what you were referring to.) But those instances of deliberate state-sponsored migration of a privileged group to take over the lands of a non-privileged group – other examples I can think of would be European colonialism generally in Africa and the Americas, or, going even further back, the Plantation of Ulster and the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland – are instances of state-sponsored oppression, just as the West’s immigration controls are instances of state-sponsored oppression. I don’t think that’s an argument against individual freedom of movement; rather, it’s an argument against state policies which are aimed at giving artificial advantages to a privileged class.
No.
No problem. While I’m an accommodationist in the immigration question, progressives should not become too complacent and lose sight of what the ultimate goal should be.
Exactly! And there’s an enormous parallel between China’s internal migration controls and the West’s external migration controls. In both cases, the people they hurt are the poor and marginalized.
I really think we’re mostly in agreement here.
Nope. Fotze=cunt
The most positive ones would be Muschi=pussy and Bär = beaver. But nothing that really praises it.
Sometimes it does, but that doesn’t imply a case-by-case approach is needed. One could say immigration ought to be free if specific criteria are met, but that’s not the same as saying there ought to be different criteria in different cases or that we can only rationalize our application of them after the fact. There could be general rules which should apply in every case, but they could be designed to avoid or mitigate the kind of problems you’re talking about. Obviously, immigration would not then be absolutely “free” in every sense; but as compromises go, that sort of approach would seem more fair to me, since a myriad of case-by-case rules looks like they are more likely to conflict with one another.
Other than immigration-specific laws, there also ought to be all sorts of laws protecting the economically disadvantaged. Sure, those sorts of laws may not encourage the privileged to move to a particular area (because they wouldn’t get the benefits of exploiting people and resources as they do now), but they’d still be free to do so. There seems to be no real conflict there, though I admit I haven’t thought about this issue enough.
Well, although I feel differently, I can’t really criticize you for that. It’s perfectly coherent to say “Morally and intellectually, X is clearly the right goal; but right now it’s necessary to compromise X in order to conform to political realities and make some progress in the present.” Indeed, everyone who is involved in mainstream party politics inevitably does this at some point or another. (Hence why I’ve never been very good at party politics.)
consciousness razor,
Well, I think the problem is that the privileged are better educated, and better connected. In impoverished areas, the only source of income outside of subsistence farming is usually in the government sector, and to a very limited extent, some retail. So if you have members of the privileged group competing for those resources, it can create resentment with the disadvantaged group.
But I won’t deny that certain affirmative action policies could help here, which the countries in question usually don’t do really (China has a policy that the governor of a so-called autonomous province (“autonomous” being a code word for “ethnic minority”) have to be from the autonomous minority in question, but in reality the party chairman is more powerful and usually Han Chinese. Also autonomous provinces are less autonomous than normal provinces in reality because due to their special status all kinds of actions have to be confirmed by the National People’s Congress, while normal provinces can solve things at the provincial level.)
Investors will also look for opportunities without govt input. I witnessed such an attempt at my field site. I was talking with local businesspeople (local in the sense of from the same province, not from the same district) about it, and they said they couldn’t understand while the locals would be so stubborn about it and protest against the opening of a mine, yet at the same time use the cell phones and other technologies that depended on the whatever was to be extracted from those mines.
Fortunately the country in question had localised its decision making process after democratisation (on the flip side, it has increased the level of corruption enormously). In earlier times the central govt would sell a licence to the investor, and they would get their mine, whatever the local residents said. Nowadays, the local level has to agree (it was even more complicated but I don’t want to bore you with the details).
I guess I wanted to say we should start from a case-by-case approach because I’d like to see what works at the local level, so that the local residents are not disenfranchised. If it’s possible to come up with a coherent framework that works on a global scale, I’d definitely support it. Some of what has been said by Walton and you goes into that direction.
I’m sorry, my vulgar German isn’t up to par. I figured Fotze to be somewhere around the Schwanz-level.
So Wundermuschi then?
WunderBär!? Srsly?
nah. Bär can also just be a nickname used by lovers, usually for men.
German magazines like to report that the fact that Germans use animal nick names for each other is regarded as bizarre in other countries.
Dammit. Listening to Neurosis does not brighten my mood.
[immigrants] While there are so many Germanic Pharyngulites about: In the nineties the German Turks where being blamed for everything from taking jobs to costing the social services money. I recall a study (via the media?) that showed that this was very far from the truth. They were, rather, a huge boon to the German economy. Does anyone know of these studies or how to link to them?
@ Pelamun
I don’t subscribe to any magazines, but you could perhaps look at “Architectural Digest” or “Domus” or “L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui”
Also consider “Wallpaper Magazine“, which is more about design in general (though with a lot of interior design and architecture).
(If those last three are not in your local library, you should complain bitterly.)
Is it really so difficult for my county government to run a decent website for their office of elections?! I cannot find a sample ballot anywhere. I have no idea who’s running locally and I’d like to research this a bit before I vote tonight.
does dispatches have a rule against insulting people?
@ pelamun
That question made me smile. Are you about to get into trouble over there?
well I don’t like to insult people in general, but this harold guy Walton’s been debating with now went into a self-righteous tirade..
Is that the one about illegal immigration? Or is this a different guy?
From the BBC:
Is this official White house confirmation that anyone claiming to have been contacted or engaged by “God” is talking through their nether orifice?
yep that’s the one, here’s the link
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2011/11/07/farahs-mythical-history/#comment-27509
You can get an improved flag of the United States for only fifty dollars.
*haaaawwwrrrk!*
Stoopid sinuses. “Intelligently designed”! Do these damned things serve any useful purpose?
*snifflecough*
No, really. Are sinuses good for anything? Apart from providing a steady revenue stream for sellers of remedies and “remedies”?
–
Janine- that’s not for real, right? Please?
ELECTION DAY!
wheeee!
StarStuff and Carlie, do you not have a League of Women Voters in your area?
Their websites often have a pamphlet of interviews with local candidates or a link to some other nonpartisan org’s voting guide.
Ha! Well, if a god is not supposed to be “an extraterrestrial presence,” then I guess they haven’t confirmed the lack of evidence for its existence. Though if a god is supposed to be either terrestrial or a non-presence, or both, then the lack of evidence should be relatively easy to confirm.
I know people who own those. F’real.
Many tend to be Dominionists and love to sing “Onward, Christian Soldiers” with ZERO irony.
*shudder*
Also you can try telephoning your county board of elections to at least get them to read you a list of candidates over the phone.
There are municipal elections today here in Cambridge. Of course I can’t vote, being an eeeeeebil furriner.
Thanks for the League link – I’ll try it for next time. Still irked – shouldn’t that be one of the easiest things to find???
I went and voted ticket for my preferred party, which annoys me, but at least it’s something. The weird thing is that for one race, the democrat was endorsed by the conservative party, and the republican was endorsed by the working families party. That’s… odd.
*cries*
Walton,
I think the correct question should be: which states in the US do NOT hold municipial elections on Election Day in odd-numbered years?
Carlie.
Sorry.
*hands Carlie a tissue*
Hon, the biggest landmark in my hometown is a fucking cross so big that the town got in a fight with the FAA when it got built.
Nothing Christianists do anymore surprises me.
Back from voting. I’ll say this for the Tea Party and GOP – they’ve made selecting candidates much easier.
It’s just… they have their own flag, even! Leave the stars alone!
ad hominum salvator, thanks for the link. But the site that’s supposed to have all of the candidate information for everyone can’t seem to find anything for my district! Stupid middle of nowhere city. I hate this place.
It’s called Dominionism (LGT Wikipedia) and it is fucking depressing and rage-inducing.
They want a theocracy. They see The Handmaid’s Tale as a useful guidebook. They see Taliban-era Afghanistan and modern Saudi Arabia as a template to be de-Islamized and applied in the US.
But, but, but…stars are evil. Look at all of those ungodly countries that uses stars in their flags.
Stars are an atheist plot to deny god’s involvement in the righteous American Revolution.
A flag that is stripes and a blue field of crosses.
Remove the xian context and tell me that’s not a horrific death cult flag?
What time is it?
Is anyone else sweating bullets over the depressingly high chance of a fiasco in Mississippi today?
I think it’ll fail but…damn. I thought the mandatory sonogram would fail here in Texas, too.
chigau (無), it is 10:45 am central USA time
Rawnaeris: Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
@ Rawnaeris
Looks like it’s going to be a close one.
A. R, you are right. According to this article here the Democrat candidate for Governor is endorsing it too!
Excuse me while I go curl up in a corner and cry.
Back in my private school days, we had to do THREE pledges every time we had chapel-I can’t remember now if it was once a week or every day. One to the American flag, one to the Christian flag, and one to the Bible. For some reason it was considered, or meant to be considered, a great honor to hold the Bible for the pledge. I can’t remember a word of the religious pledges, though I do remember that I and my fellow troublemaker had alternate versions of each that we would say.
@Predator
You know I was a demon, Christians would be the easiest marks imaginable. Just some superficial glamor and they eat out of your hand. It would be beautiful. A group who knows your race exists, is aware of your evil plan, yet will still fall for it because they’re hilariously unreflective.
Well, not everyone would fall for it. There will always be a couple of middle school boys who replace “heart” with “fart” and don’t take the glamour seriously. It gives me hope for the future.
Gross. Theist slobber, all over your hand.
Ing, please promise you won’t be one of those Christian-owners who takes her Christian for an off-leash walk, lets it jump all over strangers, all the while laughing “Don’t worry; he’s friendly!”
Brownian, you owe me a new keyboard for that.
Oh, and a cup of fresh tea.
?
Janine,
!
Brownina: I second Esteleth. Make it Ceylon Black please.
All I mean is that this is referencing something I do not know. Or that I do not understand what is being said.
Janine, who/what are you referring to?
And the rest of you can get your own damn tea. Kids today: looking for nothing but trouble, asking nefarious strangers to bring them beverages. You don’t know me. What if I was a psycho? Or at least a different kind of psycho, the kind who’d put something in your tea?
Brownian: Looks like I mangled your ‘nym as a sacrifice to Tpyos.
I thought it what obvious. What preceded my question mark. All I meant is that I did not understand.
Oh, okay. My interpretation is that Esteleth (and later A. R) found my comment 165 spit-take funny (“Brownian, you owe me a new keyboard for that. Oh, and a cup of fresh tea.”). It of course, was a riff on Ing’s comment 163, which I quoted.
Ing was talking about how easy it would be to charm Christians, if s/he were a demon, given certain Christians’ propensity to fall for obvious and simplistic jingoism. I took the “eat out of your hand” part and interpreted it literally as an owner/pet relationship, probably influenced by the recent WLC thread. Running with that, I warned Ing against becoming one of those obnoxious pet owners who forces their pet on strangers whether welcome or not.
Does that clear up what was confusing? Or is it something else?
Any graphic artists around? I’m looking for a few graphics for part of the Rebecca Watson project. If you’re interested in helping out, email me at oniongirlsays at gmail dot com.
(Side note: it’s possible my crazy hours and working on weekends will end sometime in December, if we can hire someone by then. Until then, I will likely be in and out intermittently, both here & on PET. Have fun
storming the castlestomping the trolls!)I am afraid I am too theologically naive to get that.
Sorry, nothing personal was meant. Just socially awkward situation of being the only one not laughing.
Was it my casual positioning of Christians as less than human?
I just didn’t get it. ‘Tis all. Comedy is subjective.
You’re not a dog owner, are you?
:D :D :D
Srsly, dude. Stand-up. With material like that, you could do all the atheist venues.
–
Janine, he was equating Ing’s tamed (’cause they don’t domesticate well) Christian to a poorly-trained/poorly-controlled dog, one that jumps up on people when you take it out for walkies, and probably pees on the rug (as well as dropping turds on other peoples’
blogslawns).–
Yeah… if I were an American, choosing which way to vote would be a much easier exercise than it is in the UK. The American right has become so ridiculous as to make the choice easy; any candidate who identifies with the Tea Party can be written off as a wingnut, as can any candidate who uses wingnut buzzwords like “this is a Christian nation”, “secure our borders”, “protect the traditional family”, “creeping socialism” and so on. As annoying as the Dems often are, the alternative is far worse.
As it is, I have no idea how I’m going to vote in the next British general election. I’m thoroughly disgusted with all three major British parties, and because of our electoral system, voting for a minor party is usually a wasted vote.
You got me. I am a crazy cat lady.
I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag,
and to God’s kingdom for which it stands,
one brotherhood,
uniting all Christians in service and in love.
I pledge allegiance to the Bible,
God’s holy word,
and will make it a lamp unto my feet,
a light unto my path,
and will hide its words in my heart,
that I might not sin against God.
12+ years of Vacation Bible School, babyzz.
Oh COME ON.
Michelle and Jim-Bob Duggar expecting 20th child
I can immediately remember “God’s holy turd” and “and will hide its words in my fart” from the Bible pledge, but I can’t think of anything we changed in the Christian flag one. We may have just said it in death metal voices; I remember getting in trouble for that at some point.
Carlie, why do you think that god gave the US medical sciences, so the Duggars could have a small village of children and reflect the glory of god. After all, in an other time, many of those children would have died as babies and Michelle, well , we all know the a woman’s main job is to have children. And there is nothing more glorious than to die doing what one was meant to do.
One to the American flag, one to the Christian flag, and one to the Bible.
There’s a Christian flag?
Dianne, check Carlie’s link at #151.
BBC News:
Who wants to play graphic design?
http://freethoughtblogs.com/crommunist/2011/11/08/banner-insecurity/
The Christian flag is not unknown in these parts. It’s most commonly seen flying outside churches.
It takes hard work to design a flag uglier than the US flag.
Honestly, there are people who pledge allegiance to flags, and here I am, washing my own goddamn dishes and cooking my own goddamn meals?
It’s time we rethink our position on slavery. The way we were doing it before was totally stupid, basing it on race and ethnicity instead of merit. Here’s what we do: at a certain age we show you some motivational posters. If you respond with anything other than “Is that the kind of bullshit they teach a person in an MBA program?”, they shunt you to a special school where you learn butlery and how to say “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know anything about that; I’m just the help.”
It doesn’t seem to me that anyone worked hard on that design at all.
There was a whole ceremony around it, too. For the Southern Baptist convention Vacation Bible School materials, there was a set order of things that had to be followed at the beginning of every day. There was a song with processional, with one person carrying each of the Bible and flags, then the person with one would stand front and center, and the emcee would say “attention” and everyone would stand, then “salute” and the flag would be tipped or the Bible would be held out and everyone would put their hands over their heart, then the emcee would say “pledge” and everyone would recite it, then another song after. Repeat with each of the others. Very pseudomilitary.
Brownian,
Isn’t that the kind of shit they teach you in an MBA program?
Argh. CBC’s internet poll about the City of Vancouver ordering the eviction of Occupy Vancouver is currently tied.
I’ve already voted ><; help.
[Brownian promptly disappears in a puff of logic.]
There is a wide variety of “religious flags” available: Christian, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian (wait), Buddhist, um…The Vatican…and, uh, Israel!?
couple of these things are not like the others.
wow
This poll needs to be Pharyangulated: http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2011/11/do-you-agree-with-vancouvers-decision-to-clear-the-occupy-camp.html
A.R.,
Look up!
oops! Double post.
Dear Tet,
I am not trying to moralize, but I find that today I am a bit of an emotional basket case due to some rather cavalier mocking I received in a previous TET on the discussion of legalizing drugs.
I do not want to reopen the discussion, but I do need to share a personal story as this is really bothering me.
Today is my brothers birthday. He should be turning 43. I say should because we had to bury him 8 years ago after he killed himself with the help of methamphetamine.
The anniversary of my favorite Aunt’s death due to heroin will be next month. The wasted lives of her four children, and all of their myriad children, are collateral damage. They are poster children for the real harm that some drugs cause.
My sister is still alive, but the psychosis and physical damage to her body due to meth are permanent.
In short, it’s a deeply personal issue because even though I have rarely used hard drugs, my life and family have been severely affected in many harmful ways.
Meth and heroin are toxic poisons by any rational measure, and being mocked for pointing that out is deeply unappreciated.
In Chas’s link am I the only one weirded out by the fact that it keeps saying Israel flag instead of Israeli flag?
For Sailor: “Rolling Down to Old Maui” by Stan Rogers.
Damn, Tethys.
*hugs*, if acceptable.
–
Good evening
The real question about Berlusconi isn’t so much if or when he will resign, the real question is whether the Italians will vote for him again or not. Really, it must be one of those cognitive dissonance things.
Why elect a prime minister again whose sole ambition as prime minister is to stop the criminal investigations against him?
And here’s a sickening story from the real world which I read in the newspaper today.
A man cold propositioned to a young woman on her way with her baby. When she declined he followed her out of the train station and demanded that she had sex with him, becoming verbally abusive. When she said no again he kicked the stroller, hurting the baby and started groping her. When she still resisted he started beating and kicking her in head and chest until people came to her help.
But when women suggest that men who cold-proposition make them uncomfortable and afraid, all hell breaks lose.
Tethys,
Shit. Hugs are available, no response necessary.
Giliell,
What is with people? How is that even a situation that anyone wants to pursue, let alone one they think that they should? And it’s sad that anyone would need to be shown that kind of example before they would feel solidarity with women’s right to be free of unwelcome attention, let alone that some will just discount it.
Tethys,
While I’m fortunate to have not lost permanently anyone to drugs, I too have seen way too many people that I care for be hurt by them. And not just addicts themselves – their families also suffer.
I sympathize with many of the arguments for decriminalization (especially for drugs like pot), but I am continually infuriated by people who say that meth, heroin, crack, etc should be legalized because their negative effects are overstated and its not like anyone is really hurt and “freedom.”
Tell that to children orphaned by the drugs, to families left destitute because their savings were blown on the addict’s need for another hit, to random people mugged and robbed so that their valuables could be pawned to pay for another hit, to farmers who have to hire armed guards to protect their fertilizer from people running meth labs, to the addicts themselves struggling to kick the habit and get their lives back together.
Harmless freedom my ass. “Poison” is exactly accurate to describe this shit.
Tethys, I am sorry for your losses, and I would not have been so cavalierly mocking had I known I was causing you such pain.
re drugs:
I smoke pot. I only smoke pot, though I may or may not experiment with hallucinogenics at some point.
And I think that pot should be legal on the same level as tobacco, though with -incentives- for home growing in the name of sustainability. Subsidize the price of growing equipment and such, really. Do the same for magic mushrooms, even.
But in no case should punishment be used for possession, or even low-level trafficking. The underlying problems of addiction and poverty need to be addressed at those levels — those criminals have merely been created by the law, as they are no different from an honest citizen trying to get by working 9-5 except that the honest citizen doesn’t have to worry about being shot on the job because they were privileged enough to not have to turn to illicit means for income.
Janine@137, Is that traitorous, sacrilegious or both? Maybe blasphemous? Certainly disrespectful of the American flag. The 50 stars represent the 50 states so maybe the star is a completely arbitrary symbol, but it beats the shit out of 50 little Roman torture devices.
We should probably go hunting for Occupy-related polls and Pharyngulate them…that would be fun…
Setár, I agree with your comment @212, with a single exception: traffickers, even low-level ones, do deserve to be punished if they hurt someone else.
If a guy is arrested carrying some crack, yes absolutely help him find a better line of work. Don’t toss him in jail for that. But – if he has a gun and shoots someone – then he shot someone. He doesn’t get off for that.
[Looks around.]
Who the fuck is making that argument?
No one here, to my knowledge. But it (and variants) is one that I’ve run into enough that I wanted to pre-empt it.
In case you ever find yourself in an urgent need to airlift a Rhino and wonder how to do it correctly:
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/technik/bild-796626-280921.html
Esteleth, I only pre-empt arguments when I’m not among skeptics, because I give skeptics credit for critical thinking.
Of course, non-skeptical arguments also have this repetitive, content-free quality to them…
Hey does anyone know of a really good White Tea? I’ve been drinking Twinnings for awhile, and I like it, but I’d like to try something else.
Also, while I’m talking about off-topic things, would anyone be able to quickly edit/review a review paper I’m working on? (The topic is current trends in the treatment of ebolavirus infection)
A. R, I don’t see why you put up with that. I’m trying to find loose tea, personally.
There are rules, after all.
I should mention that it is being prepared for publishing in the Journal of Virology, if that helps.
Setar: Yeah, that’s why I’m looking to switch. I’m a fan of loose as well (all I use if it’s available) A good loose white can be harder to find sometimes though.
I’m going to go make some tea…
A.R.,
Ever use flowering teas? In addition to the pretty visual, they also give a nice flavor. Plus, you get the ease of use of bags and the added flavor boost of loose leaf.
For whites, Teavana is good in my opinion.
Oh, okay. Everybody, for future reference: Esteleth disagrees that people who shoot people should get off scot-free.
Just so we don’t have to deal with this kind of fucking bullshit in the future in the context of whether X should or should not be considered a crime, where X is not shooting someone.
Esteleth: I’ve never tried flowering tea, but I’ll have to. As for White tea, I shall try one of Teavana’s Whites.
Setar: I only disagree with Orwell on his assertion that sugar should not be used. I personally use one or two depending on the type.
The link to the Endless Thread still goes to the Nov. 6 iteration.
Alarming news: 3,500 Syrians have been killed by their own government, including about 60 since they said they would stop. Let’s not let this fall out of public consciousness. The people can’t stop protesting now or they will be hunted down and killed.
Oh. Oh! Good to know.
Thanks, Brownian!
I take it you haven’t seen that argument seriously advanced before.
I don’t typically offer pre-emptive arguments and only did in this case because (1) I’ve seen that utterly bullshit argument before and (2) to offer an exception to my view that addicts and low-level drug traffickers not be penalized for being addicts and low-level traffickers.
____
Tea: some teas call for sugar. Some do not. Some black teas really need sugar to counter the bitterness, for example, but adding sugar to a green tea is just silly.
A.R., you could also try tea pearls (not to be confused with pearl tea, aka bubble tea).
Esteleth: Another excellent suggestion that I’m going to have to try. With regards to sugar, I only use it for Black teas (including Oolong), and some whites. I don’t drink much green tea, as I find it too planty, but I do sometimes drink yellow tea, and adding sugar to that is rather gauche.
It isn’t that hard drugs do no harm. It’s that illegal hard drugs they do harm plus cause criminal behaviour. If someone could go to their doctor to get the drugs, it might be less harmful. Their name would be on a file of drug users, which could be considered if they wanted to become an airplane pilot or surgeon. They would have some degree of medical supervision. What they received would be clean, unadulterated, and of known strength. They wouldn’t be sharing needles. They wouldn’t be stealing to pay the exorbitant prices that contraband commands. They would have access to help quitting.
It’s by no means an ideal situation, but it might be better than what we have now.
Monado,
I have a stupid question – what would the price of Heroine be per gram roughly be if it were legal?
Someone took down one of the Carl Sagan Day posters that I’d put up on campus to advertise for my Freethinker group’s event :( Stupid people.
Monado,
Those are excellent points.
Many drugs that are routinely given by reputable doctors to their patients are spectacularly dangerous if used unsafely. Many are addictive. Many have street value. These facts do not negate their value as pharmaceuticals, but point to how illegal drugs can be regulated.
Give it another few decades and we should be rid of the bloody noisemakers.
–o–
Re Cain (I won’t get around to watch Maddow tonight), I seriously doubt this’ll be enough to break him. Not least since this victim didn’t come forward till the story broke, so people are gonna write her off as a golddigger.
Rather, take it that I don’t like strawmen arguments, like the “harmless freedom” one you advanced to rekindle this fucking discussion.
That’s not an exception to your view that addicts and low-level drug traffickers not be penalized for being addicts and low-level traffickers, that’s an assertion that addicts and low-level drug traffickers be penalized for shooting people if they happen to shoot people.
Brownian,
I didn’t rekindle this. My post @215 was in response to Setar @212, who appears to have been responding to either Tethys’s post @207 or my reply to Tethys @210.
That said, unless someone else brings it up again, I’m perfectly willing to discuss tea.
Specifically: I’m a fan of rooibos red teas. They’ve really got a nice flavor.
Tea: I’ve never tried rooibos red before, is it anything like a normal black?
Not really. Rooibos has a low tannin level (as opposed to black teas, which have high tannin), and lots of phenolics, which gives it a flavor somewhere between black and green.
It’s prepared like blacks, with a bit of milk and sugar/honey to taste.
I’m a very big fan of Teavana’s Black Dragon Pearls for Black. I’m also a fan of their Lavendar white, but it’s deadly easy to overbrew that one, and it likes a tiny bit of honey.
Y’all know an asteroid is about to
destroy the Earthpass harmlessley between us and the Moon in about 10 mins., right?Muse,
That is the problem with whites. They’re very delicate. An oversteeped white is undrinkable, and the line between “enough steeping” and “too much” is pretty fine.
Hey, if the Brits can stick extra u’s everywhere, I can toss about the occasional superfluous e.
Hey now, it’s not just those Brits who throw around the odd u for flavour, alright?
Well, I guess that means I don’t have to prepare my thesis defense talk then.
*deletes file*
Now, how to celebrate the last few minutes of my life?
I know!
*makes tea*
Ugh. Make that about 30 mins.
Tea:
Rooibos red: I’ll need to try that!
White Tea: I go about 6 or 7 minutes with just-under-boiling water. Works quite well for me
Has anyone tried brick teas? (most of them are post-fermented, and all need sugar and milk)
Asteroid: I’m actively tracking its path using celestia!
Thanks for the tune, Monado!
Thetys
I’m sorry about your family members.
Hugs are coming your way, if you want them.
It reads like you thought Setár did, since you said it was an exception, implying there was some indication of disagreement about that.
*cue a rant from Walton about punishment* (I don’t have the time right now)
Rooibos teas taste like twigs, to me.
I don’t know what the price of heroin would be. I hope it would be less than the illegal stuff but still expensive enough to deter casual users.
Even the governor of Mississippi is dubious about the potential for fiasco with Measure 26.
Conception is, medically, not fertilization of the egg but implantation of the blastula(?) in the mother’s tissue, preferably in the uterus.
Gov. Barbour says
Once again, if the fetus is an ectopic person, it’s threatening to kill the woman whom it inhabits and it has to go.
Some supporters of the bill are hoping it would block not only methods of birth control that prevent implantation but also the Pill, which prevents ovulation. I’m not sure of their logic, if they have any or if they just hate birth control.
Thetys,
sorry for your loss.
AHS:
from the “Being a woman on the internet” thread:
yeah genitive plural that’s right, but why the “ad”? Shouldn’t it be
ad hominum salvatorem
?
A. R:
I think planty is part of the appeal. But have you tried genmai? The rice adds a pleasant nuttiness to overlay the grassy flavour of the tea.
Moggie: I’ve not, but I shall add it to my list of teas I need to try.
Sorry to interupt here but all this talk about tea is making me break out into a sweat. See, this is where you are going wrong. Try wine, wine’s good or coñac or coffee. Coffee’s good especially with a few drops of coñac in it. Carry on now (bloody tea grumble grumble).
My favorite variety of tea (in terms of how frequently I pick it if I am presented with a variety to choose from) is masala chai.
It’s sugary, caffeinated like no other, and spicy. Just my cup of tea!
I only drink it before noon, though. Otherwise, I can’t sleep.
I also like a good jasmine or white. Rooibos is an occasional indulgence.
Tea: I personally prefer a strong English Earl Grey, but a silver tips pekoe or oolong is always good.
Don Quijote,
Arguing against tea consumption is almost like fighting windmills…
Ew. Not a coffee fan. I’m probably biased. My first encounter with coffee was over-brewed convenience store percolator shit. I don’t touch the stuff.
Like a good wine though. I prefer whites and blushes. I’m not a fan of reds, generally. I like more subtle flavors than reds generally have.
Meads are also nice. Ever have a good mead?
I don’t drink tea that much anymore, but I used to. In the summer I always had sun teas, (they don’t seem to over-steep), and my fav was good old Luzianne. In winter I went thru a lot of teas and settled on Constant Comment. It’s difficult to find a good green tea.
These days I’m watching my caffeine intake so much after the cup o’ coffee/hot chocolate blend in the morning I try not to drink anything else with caffeine. I still have insomnia, but fewer things to blame it on.
++++++++++++++++++
I dropped the drug comments when the new thread started. I’ll continue to do so because it obviously causes pain to people I consider my friends.
Wine: I rather like a nice Claret or Napa Chardonnay
Mead: Mead is rather hard to classify, as the levels of sweetness vary widely, but I did have a rather good semi-dry one once.
I’m picky about meads. My first encounter with mead was a truly excellent one that was quite dry and tangy.
An English professor when I was an undergraduate passed it out in class the first day we started reading Beowulf. Adds to the whole ambiance of the thing when you’re listening to someone solemnly intone “Hwæt!”
As a German, I am partial to complex dry white wines. The California whites suffer too much sun in my opinion, while the reds are splendid.
Esteleth: oooh! I’ll have to get some mead the next time I read Beowulf!
Alex, Tyrant of Skepsis @ 218: It looks like a Bell 205 (AKA a UH1E AKA a ‘Huey’), and they’re doing it wrong. It should be supported from spansets under the chest and belly.
(I could be wrong about the chopper, it’s a might fuzzy in the photo
+++++++++++++
Alex again: “I have a stupid question – what would the price of Heroine be per gram roughly be if it were legal?”
What is the price of Oxyc*ntin? Morphine? &c.
A.R.:
We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Ert þú skilur?
Alex: I have a bit of difficulty with some of the lighter Californian wines as well, they tend to be far too harsh. Riesling needs to be grown in a cool, northern location.
@The Sailor
I was wondering about that – I would guess that suspending it like that would be the most obvious option. Either they couldn’t affix it to the ropes in any other way after it was darted and on the ground, or, what I could also imagine, is that they worry about its internal organs and lungs being put under too much pressure if they put a strap around the belly?
A. R.
yeah you guessed right, I am a Riesling fan.
Hmph. Not sure I like my whale song with ambient.
I like it with comedy, poignancy, and some dubious physiology.
Alex, Tyrant of Skepsis
Windmills. what windmills? They’re giants I tell you!
I’ve tried coffee in the US and for the most part, I can’t understand how it can be made so weak and yet so bitter. Good coffee doesn’t even need sugar.
I don’t suppose that many wines from Spain make it to the US except maybe Rioja, but there are many other fine ones such as;
Red; Cariñea, Mencia and Valdepeñas
White; Albariño and most from Valencia.
I also noticed that wine or any drinks in the US and the UK are unbelievably expensive
OK, so a link without a CR/LF doesn’t link …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYoUkGRFmR0
Double hmph.
Oh Alex, I miss-read your comment. Heroines can’t be bought, but you can rent a costume.
Esteleth: Ne oferspreca, hit sy ómian
I don’t remember Riesling as dry. Can’t drink most whites I meet anyways, they assault my esophagus. It’s Pinot Grigio that gets my fancy when I do want to fight that battle. Far happier with most hearty reds thanks, (no tea, no coffee.)
Dhorvath: A good Riesling is bone dry to dry. For some reason, most Americans don’t get that.
Dhorvath, OM says:
That’s exactly the problem I have with Californian Riesling. All the rewarding nuance that you get from a dry one is drowned in sugar.
Tea: Earl Grey, Lady Grey, mint, peach, English or Irish Breakfast. Chai. Jasmine. What can I say, my palate seems determined to enjoy a wide range of tastes.
I don’t use sugar in my tea unless I’m in a restaurant or a cafe. Honey works just as well. I don’t tend to take the fruity teas with milk or half and half. I admit to being guilty of rather liking creamy tea – something about the mouth-feel, I guess.
Coffee…I rarely drink it. And when I do, it’s with sugar and milk/H&H.
———————————
Gah, what a disappointment the ballots for mayor, city clerk, and alderman were this year. Only two candidates for the first, and the last two were the same damn people as last time. And since it’s New Haven, well, fuck DeStefano. I don’t know just how well Kerekes would do in the job, but I may never find out. We just can’t seem to boot DeStefano. I keep waiting to hear that he got assassinated by someone who just snapped and went postal.
Maybe I’ll put the names of our Mini Schnauzers in the write-in area next time. One can be mayor and the other can be the alderman/woman (critter?). Hell, I don’t think either could do much worse as mayor.
———————————–
Not looking forward to tomorrow. From 12:30 to dismissal I’ll be covering for the 3rd grade teacher. There isn’t enough booze in the world to numb me after such a day. If I didn’t need this job so damn much…..
Ah, maybe that’s why I don’t really have any memorable dry Rieslings. I don’t think I have ever really chased that grape, but as I say my white days are curtailed now. Maybe next time…
All this tea and wine talk is making me thirsty.
When I want to unwind after a long day, I frequently make myself a drink that I’d like to think I invented myself, but probably didn’t: a small tumbler of milk with a shot of Rumple Minze.
Utterly amazing.
Tumbler is such a great term, so many meanings.
Tea people: my Chinese coworker brought me back a tin of Oolong tea when he went to renew his work visa a few months ago and I still haven’t tried any. Anyone got any tips for a tea newbie to make the stuff? I’d look something up on the internet but I have no context to distinguish good methods from bad and am worried I’d pick a bad one and turn myself off from it forever.
Re wine chat: I’ll readily admit that I know basically nothing about wine, other than that I prefer a nice dry red. If I’m having company I’ll get an Italian because I seem to have more luck picking them, and it’s the only foreign language I can pronounce correctly.
Don Quijote: I’m right with you on not adding sugar to coffee (I take mine black; you didn’t mention cream) but if you look around you can find some good stuff in the US. One of the PI’s in my department makes coffee VERY strong, which is perfect for me. If I see someone take a sip of a fresh cup and pour some out to add water to it, I know that my morning is about to start out right.
Ever had Rumple Minze? I got a bottle for my birthday a few years back and I’ve been savoring it, shot by shot.
Predator, is it in loose leaf or bag? A lot depends on that.
Alex, I’m NARE (not a rhino expert) but I would hate to be hauled by my wrists and ankles with all that weight swinging from a helicopter. Once you’ve darted it you should be able to get some wide spansets under it so the weight is more evenly distributed …
…. but on further research it is apparently the lesser of 2 evils when moving rhinos w/o much budget. Nets are bad and the xport cages are very expensive. (It was a US surplus Huey. The maintenance must have cost them a fuckton.)
Predator: Use near boiling water and steep the leaves for about 5-6 minutes in a teapot. Then pour through a tea strainer into a tall cup.
Estheleth: I think he has loose, since most Chinese tea is loose. (btw, how was my old English? I haven’t used it for a few years)
Esteleth, it’s loose leaf.
Part of my trepidation comes from my initial attempt to make it. What I had thought at first glance were bags turned out to be vacuum sealed pouches; I prepared the water and realized my mistake when I actually took one out to put in a cup, but by that point I was so embarrassed for myself that I decided to just put it off until another day.
That long, A.R.? Depending on the Oolong, steeping for longer than 3 can be pushing it.
Predator, the most important thing is the temperature of the water. Do not use boiling water. Use water that’s about 195 degrees F (90 degrees C). This will be steaming, but will not be roiling.
Sailor,
Interesting… I guess it works. Let’s just hope they make it in their new home.
I lied, I do drink coffee about once every six months, but nothing that anyone else makes, and I have it cool, dark, strong, and thick. No milk, no cream, no sugar, no honey, no steam, nada. I suspect that if I could get tea to play the same game I might drink it once or twice a year too.
Aww, I need a tea strainer now? Do you think it would work if I got creative with a fine-meshed French press?
Esteleth: I tend to go long with many of my teas, but most people would like a Chinese blended oolong at about 3-5.
Predator: Nope, tried that once when my strainer went missing. Turned out badly.
Do you have a tea ball or strainer spoon, Predator? If not, invest in a good one. That’s key for loose leaf tea.
My advice for a loose oolong is to put about 1.5 tsp leaf into your tea ball or strainer (don’t pack it) and steep in steaming water for 3 minutes or so. You can steep longer, but be careful with this.
An important thing to remember is that oolong leaves are very potent. After you’re done steeping, you can set the tea leaves aside, let them dry, and later brew another cup from them.
For a good source on all things tea, check out Teavana. They’re pretty good (and they sell tea too).
It’s tea time in the US now, eh? Here, it’s time to call it a day. g’night
I’ve never made loose tea in any way other than in the pot. Does using a ball work very well?
Alex, it’s 7:30 pm where I am (Eastern seaboard). Does that count?
A.R., my Old English is rusty as hell to nonexistent.
*sigh* No one “deserves to be punished”, because humans have no free will, and the idea that there are “deserving” and “undeserving” people is just invented bullshit. There are people with problems, and people with worse problems, and people with problems that cause them to hurt others. That’s it. And if we want to change society, we could try solving the problems, instead of “punishing” people because you think they “deserve” it.
It is sort of almost tea time here. Or it was recently. Something about 4:20 and a leafy substance anyways.
Esteleth: It’s always tea time! Unless you need to sleep :) I feel better about my mangled Old English now.
Dhorvath: Nice one.
Dhorvath,
*golf clap*
Just discovered something new: When you accidentally put both Earl Grey and Oolong leaves in your teapot (lapse of memory), you get something absolutely wonderful.
#267,
Saw the viideo on the local news; according to the reporter they did it that way because the rhino was calmer than the way you recommended.
I’ve been experimenting with pierogis.
All the data point to delicious as the result.
*chomp chomp*
Esteleth: Haven’t had pierogis in awhile. Might have to make some this weekend.
My preferred source of caffeine in Coca Cola followed by Mt. Dew. Can’t stand coffee or tea, and the tea mostly because I got tired of the taste.
Where Coke is concerned I prefer Mexicoke (the stuff produced for the Mexican market) because it’s most like the Coke I remember from my childhood.
As for the war on some drugs, I take the position that adults are responsible for their own behavior, not the government.
Coke: Can’t stand the stuff.
About that “Heads or Tails” ad.
The impression I get is that it’s a pro creationism ad. All I’ve got to say about its question is, given sufficient time small changes can grow into large ones.
Let me further point out that when you’re talking about a lot of opportunities for change, you’re going to get a lot of changes. Changes which could build on previous changes, producing in the long run changes which may see the appearance of new species, genera, families, even phyla and kingdoms if the accumulative changes go far enough.
So yes, I would bet my stay in forever on the truth of evolution.
How do you make pierogis, A.R.?
I like to start with pierogis that have been stuffed with potato and cheese and them cook them with a bit of oil with chopped scallions, onions, garlic, and sun-dried tomatoes.
It produces yummy.
#310,
Knew a fellow who tried snorting Coke once. The bubbles messed with his sinuses.
Esteleth: I tend to make and stuff my own pierogis. I’m quite variable on the stuffings, but they usually include potatoes, sometimes Swedes, cheese, turnips. I normally saute them in olive oil and/or butter with mushrooms, onions, and shallots.
And another sacrifice to Tpyos.
mythusmage: nice one. What’s with today and dry humor?
It’s apple pealing time! I’m making apple pie (almost) from scratch for tomorrow.
You monster! Do you eat Danes as well in your pierogis?
Or do you save them for your breakfast pastries?
StarStuff: Good luck on that, it usually takes me an hour to peel all of the apples I need when I make pies (granted I make several at once)
Esteleth: I only eat Danish at breakfast! :) Swedes (rutabagas) are rather nice in pierogis though
Just back home from the torture session with my neurologist, stopped at the bookstore (naturally) and brought home Carl Zimmer’s Science Ink. Ooooooh.
Caine: Nice choice. That book is on my reading list. Though that doesn’t say much, considering that my current list has over 200 titles on it!
By the way, if anyone feels like beating the [expletive] out of a creationist’s arguments, there is one over on the ZOMBIE INVASION! thread.
8 apples peeled in 20 minutes. Aw yeahhh.
2.5 minutes per apple!
I gave up coke for lent. But the lent kept getting caught in my nostrils. Maybe the bubbles in the coke will trap teh lent. [/snort]
Pie 1 is in the oven and I’m covered in flour.
Good news, everyone! Ohio’s awful union-busting law has been repealed!
Setár, good news indeed!
Yay, Ohio!
Still nothing about freaking Mississippi though.
Setar: Some good news for today!
Yay! Ohio isn’t full of idiots!
Finally found a live update site; took me fuckin’ long enough.
Trending at 59% for NO and at 41% Yes. Roughly 166K votes to 116K votes.
Sitting here with fingers crossed. ;-)
My pies are both in the oven and my kitchen is a mess. But they look pretty.
Rawnaeris: Looks good so far.
The AP is projecting that the Personhood amendment has been defeated!
But don’t get too excited. We’ll be having this fight again next year. My own state is going to have a personhood amendment on the ballot next year. It’s very poorly worded.
Yes! The redefinition of personhood has failed in Mississippi.
198K votes No
146K votes Yes
Is there anything stopping the Ohio legislature from re-passing that bill? Over here in Missouri, the leg is notorious for overturning voter initiatives (such as last year’s puppy mill law).
Also, only 54% of precincts have reported in Mississippi. I think this one bears more watching. The “No” side lost a whole percentage point in the last few minutes.
@StarStuff!
You are right, but Personhood USA even managed to alienate “Pro-Life” supporters who should have been their natural allies.
They won’t give up, but I have hope that they won’t be able to fool the whole nation now.
And…maybe I’m just being too optimistic.
Oh, and the pies sound fantastic!
The personhood amendment in my state is this:
Does someone want to try to guess what that will actually mean?
I have to guess which of my sperms is going to become a baby one day? HEY! No apoptosis down there…I’m watching you!
Esteleth@261, I”m not much for coffee either. I like a nice white Merlot Though. Tonight it’s a kiwi/strawberry rum mix, woohoo!
A. R@266,
Me too, Me too!
To the denizens of The Endless Thread: It’s been fun. Unfortunately between both my jobs and domestic obligations, something has to give. I can no longer keep up with 800+ comments every few days. I know no one will miss my few comments, but I will miss all yours. I will hopefully be able to keep up with the rest of the posts and comments on Pharyngula.
Good night and good luck!
Well, that proposal could mean that even eggs and sperm are considered legal persons. Otherwise, it has the same implications as the Missouri law.
Aw, I’ll miss you Ray. Good night. Have sweet dreams of women’s rights being protected.
@ A. R
That’s what I was thinking too. So every month I’m killing a “person”. Apparently I’ve been committing genocide for years.
StarStuff: The proposal is very poorly written. It would essentially mean the a woman would have to be constantly pregnant, and a man could never masturbate, or experience nocturnal emission without committing murder!
Gotta love the Florida government. Their unofficial motto is “we fuck everything up”.
AP is now reporting NO on personhood, 55-45. Thank dog. But misogynist assholes in a number of states are already planning similar measures for next year.
I read today that last year, in Alaska, a man sponsored a ballot petition specifically stating that the rights of the embryo superseded the rights of the woman. Even Alaskans showed enough sanity to reject that.
Ava: If it failed in Mississippi, it is likely to fail elsewhere. We still need to educate the public and fight these idiots though.
StarStuff, #335: That poor wording is no accident. They make it confusing or broad on purpose so people won’t realize what the bill will really do. Luckily this sometimes comes back to bite pro-lifers in the ass, because the measures get struck down in court as impermissibly vague.
@ Ava
Read my post at #340 if you haven’t already. That’s what I’m facing on my state ballot next year.
Ah, never mind. I see that you have.
I know that they do it on purpose (that is, the poor wording). But I’m going to try my best to use it against them. I’ll make sure everyone I know understands it.
Heck if I know. I just took Iesus Hominum Salvator and mangled it crudely.
I wouldn’t know the difference. If it’s broken Latin but has no more plausible translation than “against the savior of men”, then I’m happy.
AHS:
“ad” means “to”, so it’s more something like “for the saviour of men”. “Against the saviour of men” should be
Contra Hominum Salvatorem
or along the lines of Cicero’s In Catalinam (“Against Catalina”) or Ira Dei in Homines (“Wrath of God against men”), you could probably also say
In Hominum Salvatorem
(but I mostly learnt to translate FROM Latin, not INTO Latin)
I sure am glad all the people whose loved ones died by way of drugs have ended up on the pro-incarceration side.
That makes it really easy to tell who’s morally right.
Ha! Completely backwards, then.
It still sounds good to my ears because I don’t know shit.
I’ll just take this as a sign from God.
“Personhood” measure defeated 58 – 42 percent.
http://www.wapt.com/election-results/29442790/detail.html
^ Good. It’s nice to see that Mississippi has some sense left.
Poland has elected its first trans member of parliament, Anna Grodzka.
Ray, drop by once in a while!
#316,
Sometimes I have my moments. :)
Factually incorrect. Do you also make rape jokes to rape survivors? It’s sooo fucking funny!
TET has really slowed down today. Perhaps the various conflicts with trolls, hogglers, creobots, and MRAs/misigynists is what’s doing it.
Some of the proponents of the Personhood measure in Mississippi were all set to ban IUDs, morning-after pills, and even the birth control pill because it might not always prevent ovulation (although that’s how it works). They hate women. I can only imagine that they see women as sexual beings as infinitely disgusting and women as independent moral operators as infinitely threatening.
Tethys, I’m very sorry about the things that happened to your family.
Maybe the fact that it’s after midnight in most of the U.S. and Canada?
News flash: Jen McCreight will be speaking in Saanich, B.C. on Sunday!
I just watched “Agora.” It mostly left me feeling angry. Christianity and misogyny, two horrible tastes that have been fucking things up since a long long time ago.
I did appreciate that the movie lived up to its title. Kind of took the sting off the grimness of the story arc.
Sally: I’ve not seen that movie, but it from what I’ve read and heard sounds like something that would do little else but make Pharyngulites angry. :) (And Hoggle very, very happy)
Hahahaha! Good one!
Fuck it. I tried being nice about it already:
“My point is I wish that all participants in this discussion could all be granted the very reasonable assumption that we’ve been close at one time or another to the effects of drug addiction in someone’s life: friends, family, or our own. It’s very common. It’s not something known only on one side of the debate.”
+++++
But thus far I’d seen absolutely no acknowledgement from the pro-prison side that anyone else might also have some personal experience.
If I have to be the bad guy to get that much acknowledged, very well, I’m already comfortable in the role.
Good morning
Can I have all that straw when you don’t need it anymore?
beverages
Coffee: absolutely necessary for propper functioning. I don’t have one of those space-ship-freshly-ground-beans things, but Senseao akes a good cup. Drink it with lots of real milk
Tea: Not so much. I usually brew some Rooibos, herbal or fruit tea for the kids
Mead: Yes, please. Hopefully I can catch my favourite provider before christmas to stuff up for our medievalish-themed New Years Eve. There are some delicious dry ones that have all the flavour but nine of the sweetness of honey.
Wine: Bordeaux is my favourite. Dry, dark, heavy reds. There are some wonderful Spanish ones (Rioja, mostly) and I was pleasantly surprised by a Greek one. As other people here have mentioned, I find the US-American wines too sweet, too pleasant. I don’t care for white wine, but do love Sherry. Oh, and don’t forget champaign, or better said Crèmant, which is exactly like champaign, only with better quality for a lower price.
Walton
If people don’t have free will not to commit crimes, people who throw them in jail also don’t have free will not to do it.
I’m not arguing for jailing them, you know that, but your argument goes both ways.
It was just depressing, the way the men in Hypatia’s life betrayed her, one after another. Because defending her would have cost them too much.
That, on top of the realistic portrayals of religiously-motivated violence, made it almost too much to take it. Being stoned to death is a particularly horrible way to die. It just highlights the inherent immorality of any belief system that doesn’t just condemn that behavior outright.
Listening to Veruca Salt to take the edge off.
War as a moral imperative (not just practical politics by other means)
doi: 10.1098/rspb.2010.2384
download link in next comment
download link for “War as a moral imperative (not just practical politics by other means)”
http://www.zshare.net/download/9587230038477e6e/
Thanks, I do appreciate that.
———
Also, thank you to all who gave hugs and moral support.
It’s a very complex issue, but I find it very galling to have people suggest that I’m being vindictive, or close-minded because I will not support the legalization of such addictive substances.
It is not a theoretical discussion from my point of view.
It does go both ways, but it’s not clear what you find noteworthy about this.
The argument is that because they do not have free will to choose otherwise than they did, it is irrational to enact retribution against them.
Pointing out that it goes both ways would mean: “people who have favored or enacted imprisonment did not have the free will to choose otherwise, therefore it is irrational to enact retribution against them.”
Right. But I don’t see anyone here who’s suggesting retribution against those who favor imprisonment.
Did someone say that? I’d be glad to if no one else did, but as of the moment you spoke, it looks like another strawman.
Start naming names, Tethys. For whom here do you believe it’s a theoretical discussion?
SallyStrange, this might seem a stupid question, but why did you watch it ? Did you know what it was about ? Because I mainly avoid movies that I know will make me angry, or upset me, or pull certain emotional triggers. If I want to experience those things, I can read blogs on the internet.
So for quite some time, for me it’s been easy-watching. Love “The Walking Dead”, I hope they do 30 seasons.
That the onus and responsibility is solely put on one side. You know, there’s a lot of sympathy and understanding for one offending side, but the other side has to fucking do something or they are despictable and irrational and such.
You see, if one side cannot be blamed for doing X, the other side can’t be blamed for doing Y, oh, and like being accused of wanting to hurt people and such.
You mean like vilifying them, ridiculing them, shunning and shaming them, strawmanning them? Retribution comes in many forms. Silencing tactics come in many forms.
The thing is, Tethys, that most people who take the decriminalisation side do so exactly because they want to keep people like your relatives alive. And if you’d been Portuguese, perhaps they still would be. There’s a local group here advocating reform policies from that perspective: http://www.ffdlr.org.au/
SBS report on the “Obedient Wifes Club”
I do not think you are the bad guy. I try to read between the lines but not to assume. I apologize for missing your previous post, I did find your assessment of my opinion to be incorrect. Nowhere did I advocate jailing people for using drugs.
I advocate legalizing most drugs based on their actual harmfulness. I advocate treatment for minor drug related offenses. I favor jail and criminal proceedings (and treatment) for the addicts who are so far gone into their addiction that they endanger entire neighborhoods.
Education and prevention are preferred to criminal punishment.
However, some portion of addicts are not amenable to treatment. In these cases I think it is more important to protect the innocent than to allow the addict to create more damage.
Blockquote fail. Sorry. Preview took its sweet time so I gave up.
I’m up to S2, Ep4. Haven’t found religion to be a big feature there at all. What preacher are you talking about, the guy who operated on the kid ? He was babbling about god a bit in the last episode, I guess.
No. They are not here right now and I do not think that detailing my offenses is helpful to the discussion.
It was not directed towards you personally.
I also am not buying the “They have no free will” Nobody forced them to start taking dangerous drugs, it was their choice.
Alethea
Only that people like me, who do take the decriminalisation side, but not the legalizing side, have been attacked just like I wanted to throw everybody in jail and wanted to enact revenge and that I was giving shit about people suffering.
You are right, with decriminalisation, help offers, public healthcare and all those things, Thetys’ relatives might be still alive.
They might very well be at about in the same state my cousin is, who is able to care for himself and live his life, but not able to fullfill any potential he once had. He’s practically barred from ever earning his own living or doing much else*. It’s good that welfare and healthcare keep him alive and fed and cared for, but it’s depressing for everybody involved an mostly for him. He’s looking forward to 50 more years of not doing anything with his life.
That’s better than being dead, but much worse than being a healthy person with an actual life.
I perfectly agree that decriminalisation helps a lot, that safe rooms with clean needles help a lot, that substitution programs help a lot in mitigating harmful side effects, reduce criminality and problems caused by cut stuff, but none of this solves the problem of the harm those substances cause a such and the problem of how to keep people from consuming them in the first place and becoming addicts.
* I don’t want to put the focus on the idea of a 9-5 job, but he can’t do other things that would count as fullfilling either. His body is too ruined for manual labour, his brain too ruined for doing anything else.
Somehow I see something else: lots of personal support for those who’ve been turned to being pro-prison because of their losses, no acknowledgement of anyone else’s losses.
If one predicates moral blameworthiness on being able to have chosen otherwise, then it’s true that no one can be held morally blameworthy for anything.
It does not follow that they should not be accused of wanting to hurt people. People without free will do in fact frequently want to hurt people. What follows from the free will argument is that they should not be held morally blameworthy for wanting to hurt people.
If such accusations are going to be made, preferably they should come out in some form like “I understand why you want vengeance, but…”
No, I mean retribution, not a laundry list of things you don’t like.
Vilifying, ridiculing, shunning, shaming, strawmanning: none of these things are retribution unless they come in some form like “this person did a bad thing and therefore deserves this harsh response.” If no such motive is present, and these are employed as tactics of influencing future behavior, then they are not retribution.
To keep going with your point, if there have been retributive motives at play from the anti-imprisonment side here—I’ve been feeling some pretty ugly motivations myself—those who have acted retributively did not have the free will to choose otherwise. And on, and on.
We can bypass this recursion by considering what it will take to reduce retributivism in the future, if we’re up to it.
I was thinking about the praying and the sheriff asking for God’s sign (that turned out well for the kid). I’m not sure if the old guy is a preacher, but he has that “God’s will” air about him.
I think it’s “I am legend” ‘s fault I’m vary of religion in this kind of movies/series. I’ve only watched it last week and got majorly disapointed with the ending, even with the knowledge there is going to be a touching conversion in the end.
I didn’t say you did. I recall who you advocated jailing. You are thus pro-incarceration, pro-prison.
This is truly outrageous. People should be imprisoned for being addicts even if they have not committed any other crime? Really?
How do you determine who’s “too far gone”?
And how long do you have to lock up the addict before prison transforms them into someone who’s safe to release?
Althea
One can support decriminalizing drugs without supporting legalizing all drugs,
The irony being that it is due to local law enforcement threatening criminal proceedings that my sister is still among the living.
I don’t think either of the people who killed themselves with drugs gave a rats ass about possible criminal records. My brother was not a meth addict. He deliberately used it for its depressive “crash” but it was not the cause of death.
Yeah, you just want to throw some people in jail, not everybody. And I’ve been attacked for supposedly making the equivalent of a rape joke. Feh.
It’s not an easy discussion for anyone to have; I think we can agree on that much.
Okay, so the world you imagined is not one that can actually exist. I should have stipulated that I’m interested in the realm of the possible here. What do you believe could actually be accomplished that would result in a better world, or a better Germany at least?
In other words,
Is there a solution?
ad hom
No, no, 1000 times no. I clearly stated that I do not support criminal methods for addicts for are only guilty of drug use.
Endangering the entire neighborhood with manufacturing, and guns, is a clear disregard for completely innocent people. He got several warnings and chances to not break the law. He got several rounds of treatment at taxpayer expense.
At what point do the rights of people to not put up with addictive damaging behavior take precedence over the addicts freedom?
To be clear, I’m totally for decriminalising.
The Portuguese experience has been very successful – not just in keeping people alive, but even in reducing the number of addicts. Seeing people queue up for their daily heroin at the pharmacy is apparently very unglamorous. Or perhaps it’s the dissociation from the criminal element. You want some weed? Too bad, we’re all out, how about a nice shot of smack? Heroin addiction rates skyrocketed here several years ago, during a marijuana shortage.
I think marijuana should be regulated like alcohol and tobacco, with age limits. I don’t have firm opinions on where other drugs should sit on the list – and there’s a huge range of options from backyard producers, supermarkets, pharmacy counters, prescription only, hospital only… I’m fine with it being a science and medically based decision.
ad hominum salvator
Yes, you are right, we can do the “nobody is to blame” until we’re blue in the face, not going to solve any problem. That’s why I don’t think it’s a very good argument in the first place.
I take that your definition of “pro-prison” is somewhere on the Walton’s side of “nobody should ever be put there”.
But since that is not the most common understanding of the term, and you’re too intelligent to not see it, I think it’s deliberately trying to smear the opposite position as supporting the war on drugs.
Yes, I am sorry for your losses, too. I am sorry for everybody’s losses. I’m a compassionate person.
Understanding how somebody can then take a hard stance is not the same as thinking it’s a valid position. Personal is not the same as important.
You’re right, I don’t understand your position from an emotional, emphatic perspective as I am able to understand the “lock the dealers away” from that position. That I think neither position to be valid has nothing to do with my emphatic understanding.
Oh, you mean just like addicts do?
The problem is that you are the one who is very keen on attributing people’s positions on a desire to hurt and seek vengance, which is, in most cases, a strawman.
I don’t want vengance on my cousin for the hurt and the pain he caused, or on my mum whose alcoholism is still hurting and dmaging me. I don’t want vengance on my cousin’s dealer and friends who gave him that shit. Or on my father who enables my mother’s alcoholism. I don’t even seek vengance on the people who mixed up the stuff, knowing that they would hurt, maim and kill people with it.
I want them to stop with as little colateral damage as possible. And I want to find ways to stop future generations from ending up like them, be it as addicts of chemical drugs*, be it as alcoholics. So far, the arguments in favour of legalisation as opposed to those of decriminalisation haven’t convinced me. That doesn’t mean I want people to hurt more, I’m just not convinced that your approach will lead to less hurt.
*Yeeees, I know, all drugs are chemical. You understand which ones I mean.
You’re strawmanning again, because that’s not what Thetys said. Because “endangering other people” is a crime, or offense, depending on how willingly you do it.
The utility of pressing you for wanting to lock up addicts is that you keep saying “addicts” but when pressed you mention other crimes, such as keeping (presumably) unlicensed guns.
Deal with gun crimes as gun crimes. This is not something any pro-legalization commenter has disputed! Treating drugs from a public health perspective need not mean ignoring gun offenses.
I don’t know that anyone’s advocated allowing drug manufacturers to operate without licences, or in residential areas either.
That question depends on circumstances, like any other question, and so requires details.
addicts
forwho are only guilty of drug use.Ad hom.
Are prisons where you live really draconian?
In my state they are pretty progressive on drug offenders.
Rarely would someone be sent to prison for drug use except as a last resort, or they violate federal law like my former neighbor.
By minor drug related offenses I mean things like robbery or child-endangerment due to drug use. These offenders are sent to secure treatment facilities, and sentences are typically less than one year. Criminal records are wiped clean with successful completion of treatment and staying clean during probation.
Even flagrant behavior is given several benefits of the doubt before criminal proceedings are used as a last resort.
Unless you’re referring to the old discussion that I think that people shouldn’t be allowed to set buildings on fire, please bring up a quote in the discussion about drugs where I actually advocate imprisonment.
Or just stop lying about me.
Well, apart from me disagreeing with your statement that such a world cannot exist (well, why not just give up then?), you actually want to know what I think would work:
-Well, for a starter, legalize Marihuana. That’s definetly not in the category of “abuse is a feature, not a bug”. Let people buy their pot in regulated stores, so they won’t take heroine because there’s no pot avaible. That might work for a range of other substances, too.
-Good, actual education about drugs, about use and abuse, because the current one is more like abstinence only education. Yes, bring the addicts into school, let them tell their stories so the kids won’t believe any stupid their dealer tells them.
-Well, the big actual changes in society that mean that getting high is a week-end treat and not a necessity to face Monday.
-A shift in public image. The fact that smoking isn’t longer cool has helped in reducing the numbers of smokers, there’s less peer pressure. That’s still a huge problem with alcohol and is harmful to alcoholics, whether they’re still “active” or dry.
That’s a delicate balance to find between not approving and supporting and at the same time not shaming and condemming.
Eh. I think it can be sometimes. It is at least demonstrated that belief or disbelief in free will does influence some behaviors, so it’s not categorically a waste of time.
I happen to know that’s not Walton’s stance. You happen to know that as well. Should I note that you’re strawmanning? That is, are you amenable to charges of hypocrisy, or should I save my time?
My definition of pro-prison is being in favor of prison for whatever the topic at hand. I am pro-prison when I cannot find a plausibly better option, for instance in the case of rape.
I draw a distinction between drug use and drug addiction.
I’m fine with responsible safe use, including the health risks to the user.
Addiction is another matter entirely.
Addicts care more about having the drug than they care about anything or anyone, even to the point of death.
I don’t care if the guns are licensed or not. I do care that armed people who have drug induced psychotic episodes due to drug addiction were having fights in my neighborhood full of children.
I was bothered that I felt in danger WITHIN my own home. Its less than 100 feet away.
Meth labs are also notorious for toxic fume fires. The houses are over 100 years old, close together, and they burn fast.
One error on his part could have had severe health consequences both for him and the 4 year old who lives in the house next door.
You are opposed to legalization; you indicate you support the current German system of “decriminalization”.
Said “decriminalization” can result in up to 15 years for drug trafficking.
Are you just not aware of this? People do go to prison in Germany for drug crimes. You have indicated some level of support for Germany’s system. If you have a problem with that, I would have expected you to say so.
Honestly, do you think this is productive? If I were wrong about your stance must it be because I’m lying?
I never liked Vodka. Amy Winehouse – You know I’m no good. Live in London 2007
Fuck. The new regime in Libya is not only fundamentalist, it is performing an ethnic cleansing of black immigrants!
“U.S. Can’t Stand by While Racism Ravages Libya” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/us-cant-stand-by-while-ra_b_1081973.html
I’m not sure what this means? I don’t think you mean to say that addicts want to hurt people, but it’s not obvious to me what else this could mean.
Well fuck. Now Virginia is fucked. House and Senate both now controlled by the Republicans, and it’s almost assured that Bob McAsshole is going to try to force some of his conservative goals through. Say “hello” to the next Misssissippi, people.
Yep, said decriminalisation only applies to drug use (and low scal Marihuana possesion). If you’d bothered to read the link you gave me you would have noticed that the up to 15 years apply when people have harmed and endangered other people, including minors. You know, selling drugs on a schoolyard and organized crime, gang activity and such.
Well, since I’m used to you doing that again and again, it was an assumption based on my experience with you.
This is of course not accusing me of lying, totally isn’t. But for clarification, as I understand Walton’s position, he thinks it is unethical to imprison people in general.
I also not the “if I were” above, indicating that you are still claiming that you got it correctly.
And yes, you are constantly strawmanning and misrepresenting people’s positions, accuse them of thing they clearly never said and you do it with such a consistency that it is really hard to assume an honest mistake.
All three of us are obviously passionate about the subject.
I try to assume good intentions, and arguing in good faith.
Getting upset means you can lose clarity. I was quite upset in the other TET for exactly the reason Gilielle stated. I felt I was being mocked for an opinion, rather than on the factual merits of my argument.
I was triggered enough that I have not gone back and read any more of the last thread.
——–
I want all people to be healthy and happy. Drug addiction is not compatible with happy and healthy.
Heroin and Meth are very toxic, and many addicts ignore safe dosages.
Meth has the added disadvantage of altering your brain with long term use. I have never been so terrified as witnessing someone I love swing between incoherent violent ranting, and having weird paranoid conversations with herself.
Yes, but I’ve also seen alcohol abusers destroy their families and homes and violently attack their children and wives, and drink themselves to death. We don’t put them in prison for being addicts; we put them in prison for committing acts of violence. If you wanted to gaol addicts for just being addicts, you’d have to have locked up about half my family tree.
If they commit crimes, then you lock them up for the crimes, that’s fair. Waving guns around and keeping dangerous explosive chemicals in your house without proper safety precautions are bad, whether you’re hooked on meth, alcohol, heroin or Jebus.
I really don’t see any relevant distinction between alcoholism and drug addiction. Rehab is the best place for addicts, and if they don’t want to change, then they won’t. But failing rehab, the homeless drunks hostel and a methodone script is still ever so much better than pushing them into the arms of criminal gangs.
Though anecdotally, back when I worked in one of those hostels, the heroin users were no problem. Quiet as lambs. The blokes picking fights in the cafeteria and rampaging up the halls with axes were alcoholics. Admittedly this was in the days before meth and crack.
I love my commenters, very, very proud of them. Now to bed, to listen to the Cricket from South Africa.
And now for something cheerful:
http://www.knitthecity.com/why/
Re. “The Walking Dead”
I was irritated by the ending of the first season. The “this facility will self-destruct” trope was old when Crichton used it a generation ago. Plus, no attempt to explain why necrosis and organ liquefaction does not set in, nor any explanation where the energy for movement comes from sans ordinary metabolism.
@Birger Johannson:
So basically it ended with a Load-Bearing Boss?
(TVTropes, warning, warning)
Please, I read the link. It also says there are up to 5 year penalties for not doing any of that, as a “basic penalty” only for trafficking.
Are you in favor of that, or should it be changed?
Furthermore, the harm and endangerment you cite are some of the offenses which can result in 15 years. Here’s the section we’re discussing, if anyone else cares:
So here are some other “crimes” which can result in the full 15 years: “actions on a commercial basis … trade in significant quantities … import of significant quantities.”
It appears that “trade in significant quantities” would carry a minimum sentence of 1 year. Are you in favor of that, or should it be changed?
Well this is new. It comes as a surprise since you’ve never made this allegation before.
I’m going to assume that you’re angry and trying to say something hurtful here. Shit happens. I’m not happy about it but I think I know where you’re coming from.
If you seriously mean to say that you have experience with me lying, then you should muster the decency to provide a citation for that.
It appears to be something like that. Though it was my intention to give you an out by acknowledging hyperbole, or simple self-contradiction. Do I think it was productive, is the hint at hypocrisy you ought to aim for.
I quote him from just last thread: “I am not suggesting that imprisonment is never appropriate; for murderers, rapists, serial domestic abusers and the like, it’s probably the only means available to society of protecting potential victims from them. But criminalization is an extremely crude tool, and it is not a good way of changing people’s behaviour with regard to something like drug use.”
Somehow you missed this. Very well. Please keep your own well-intentioned failure of reading comprehension in mind while you construct your next accusation against me.
Let’s see what your answers to the above questions (“Are you in favor of that, or should it be changed?”) are before we determine who never said what. I think it’s perfectly obvious that you are pro-prison in this regard; you’ve indicated a support for the German system, and the German laws do in fact prescribe prison mere trafficking.
A.R and StarStuff, I went to bed about the time of #350-355 so didn’t see your later replies. I totally agree that the voters need to know just what these deeply anti-woman ballot initiatives would really do if passed.
I worry, however, that the lesson the rabid anti-choicers will take from Mississippi is to hide their true intent even deeper through even fudgier wording. So we have to be alert and expose it.
This is just the strangest thing. I really don’t get it. What does it even mean? Addicts definitionally want to hurt people, because they are addicts? Or just because they are human and everybody wants to hurt somebody sometimes (in this case I don’t see the point of singling out addicts)? What exactly is the connection here between being an addict and wanting to hurt people? It’s just a very odd thing to say. And how on earth is it relevant to the line of discussion that apparently spawned it?
First, you’re switching from usage and addiction to trafficking. That’s a goalpost you’re moving over ther. Trafficking wasn’t the topic before, consumption and being an addict was the topic before.
You’ll also notice that the basic penalty also says “or fine”. To go more into depth a bit, German law (which is not the best and needs change, so I’m just elaborating on how the situation is) has a lot of means apart from fine and prison, the focus generally is on rehabilitation and prevention of further crime. Up to means exactly that and it doesn’t mean “for first offenders who deal ot to their friends”. So, looking at the maximum penalty isn’t a good way of assesing the actual application of the law.
So, to break it down a bit:
Should people who sell pot to their friends get 5 years? No.
And they’re not getting it. A quick Google-search for “5 years for drug trafficking” gave me a case of a repeat offender who tried to trade 2kg of cocaine.
The next case was 4 years for a major drug dealer convicted in over 600 cases, amongst them giving drugs to minors.
So, you could argue that it makes no sense having a penalty of up to 5 years that is never dealt out anyway. So, yes, it should be changed, for several reasons.
It depends on what “a significant quantity” is. It depends on the individual case. The law is pretty flexible (yes, even though there is a minimum sentence, it can be less). Also 1 year usually gets you on probation, plus all the offers of help, of treatment, of rehabilitation. So, let’s look at the actual application of the law and discuss whether that is done in a way that needs changing. I don’t even get any google results for “1 year sentence” on the first page.
I think they’re doing several things right. I’ve also given you things I think they’re doing wrong.
Also, of course, it’s not true, since the basic penalty is up to five years or fine it doesn’t prescribe prison for mere trafficking.
You mean that thread where I had to drop out and then explained that I couldn’t catch up?
So, yes, I missed that. I stated so in that very thread.
For all you fellow nerds, craftspeople and artists i give you
My Wicked Armor.
It’s a comment on the moral responsibility of addicts, the moral responsibility you are so graciously handing out to other people. Yes, just like everybody else, addicts want to hurt people, often for reasons connected to their addiction. If they hurt you enough you’ll hopefully shut up about this nasty little addiction thing because you don’t want to get that hurt again.
Oh, and btw, I’d appreciate if you stopped attributing my responses to my emotions. It makes you sound as if you didn’t have to take them for their content but could discard them as being emotional.
This is simply false. There are so many prejudices here it’s hard to know where to begin unpacking it.
But a trivial mention of the existence of high-functioning addicts is sufficient to counter it.
Yes. And this is not an intractable problem for legalization: “I don’t know that anyone’s advocated allowing drug manufacturers to operate without licences, or in residential areas either.”
Are you comfortable disclosing which state this is, so we can see what really happens there, and what human rights abuses you categorize as not-draconian?
Huh? I’m going to have to agree with ad hom to some extent.
The addicts I’ve known (andecdata alert), and I’ve known quite a few, including a grandmother, a step-grandfather, a good friend and a long time girlfriend, didn’t want to hurt me. They, depending on how deep into their addiction they were, were completely incapable of understanding the hurt or caring about the hurt they caused because their addiction was all about them. It was complete selfishness. Did they intentionally hurt me at points? Of course but so have people I know and love who have no addiction.
No, you are wrong. Drug trafficking was the beginning of this entire conversation.
And I was never aware of any goalpost in your mind about imprisonment re drug use. You imagined that shit. It is a fantasy existing in your mind. Sorry, but I was not informed of it.
I have from the beginning been accusing you of being pro-prison for nonviolent drug crimes besides use. How could it be otherwise, when you explained from the beginning that you’re pro-decriminalization but anti-legalization? The whole difference of such a dispute, between decriminalization and legalization, is how the dealers and traffickers are treated. That has always been the essence of my disagreement with you.
I challenge you to back your statements up for once, and quote where I ever accused you of being pro-prison for mere drug use. Anything. Anything at all.
Now, please tell me how this:
equals that:
I still challenge you to provide a quote where I actually said that dealers in general should be imprisoned.
I fully admit to being largely undecided as to what is the best solution here (talking about dealers). That’s why I word my position on this carefully.
Besides, I think the use of non-violent is not a good argument if the result of the deed is a dead or severely hurt person nevertheless.
So, I’ll turn the table around:
What do you think we should do with somebody who is not an addict but who just has been caught handing out drugs to minors as free samples in order to create customers?
What should we do with a dealer who cuts the heroin with rat poison to have a larger margin of profit?
Now wait, why am I only expected to care about “first offenders who deal to their friends”?
But this is deeply interesting insight into your methods of system justification. Obviously the bad shit is only ending up happening to people who deserve it, right? Right.
Are you ok with this? You don’t say you’re against it. It sounds like you’re ok with it. If you’re ok with this, then you’re pro-prison.
Well, what reasons?
That’s an interesting meaning of “prescribe” you have there. Do you contend that no one gets prison for mere trafficking? Or is this just a completely useless quibble of language?
I submit that this is one of those points where you would probably be calling me a liar if I had said the same thing.
Your dropping out was at #614. Your initial entry into the discussion was at #493; you followed with #498 and #510. When was Walton’s comment? After #510 perhaps? No, it was way back at #417, before you got into it. So your oversight did not come from not being able to keep up with the discussion, and (from my perspective, this is the important part) I could not have predicted from your comment at #614 that you never read #417. That is not an understanding that you can reasonably expect me to have had.
What the fuck.
Okay, so ostensibly like everybody else. Then why did you decide to single out addicts? Probably something to do with this:
Some people do behave that way, yes.
Ha! Really. There’s a lot that I would appreciate from you, Giliell, but I think we’re past the point of mutual respect.
But I’ll state categorically that all arguments which insist upon a tension between reason and emotion are bullshit arguments. There is no necessary tension. I believe sincerely that “reason is, and ought to be, only the slave of the passions.” I have argued this at length and it applies to my opponents’ emotions just as well as it applies to my own.
So to the extent that I focus on your emotions, it is because 1) I need to understand the range of motivations which produce your sorts of arguments, and 2) the emotions are more interesting to me.
Ok TET, time for another pharyngulation.
But this time it is Charles Darwin’s very own poll. We may be a mere 150 years late, but what the heck.
Linky: Darwin’s emotion experiment.
{now to catch up with the thread}
Gladly. You stated from the beginning that you were against legalization, but in favor of decriminalization. This necessarily means one of two things. Either:
A) you want dealing or trafficking at some level to be punishable, or
B) you are terribly confused about what decriminalization even means.
I thought the charitable interpretation was A.
I haven’t thought that you think that, nor have I implied it. Decriminalization frequently entails a light handling of small dealers and user-dealers. So I wouldn’t assume that you want all dealers in general to be imprisoned.
But the difference between decriminalization and legalization necessarily does mean charges for dealers at one or more of the highest levels.
This is the latest evidence of what I had reason to suspect:
followed by no condemnation of that sentence.
This is easy. Charge them with distribution to minors. Same shit we do with people who sell alcohol to minors.
Note, again it was necessary to imagine a secondary crime above and beyond mere trafficking.
This is easy. Charge them with selling rat poison for human consumption. Same shit we do with people who sell impure foods, drinks, supplements, etc.
Note, again it was necessary to imagine a secondary crime above and beyond mere trafficking.
A Yin and Yang if you will?
Yes, you’re right there. Since I didn’t remember reading that statement from Walton, I assumed it was in the part I knew I hadn’t read.
That’s an interesting definition of “or” that you have. I never said that nobody gets prison for mere trafficking, I only challenged the notion that you necesarrily get prison since it’s prescribed.
As said before, I’m careful on those things. I only have the information given in newspapers, not the whole court case nor the legal expertise.
I don’t reject prison on general terms, and also not for drug trafficking, like, say, somebody who does their best to turn kids into addicts. In that sense, I’, pro-prison, because I don’t have a better idea and think that the right of the kids is greater than the right of the dealer.
Only, of course, that you’re constantly getting them wrong. Unless, of course, you’re claiming to know better what I’m feeling than I do myself.
NEVER TRUST A JUNKIE
Oh, and yes, I’m generally not OK with people making a living and becoming rich by kowingly inflicting pain and suffering on other people.
Oh, and I’m gone now
I won’t. :)
In short: reason has no way of choosing what to value, without having some preferences supplied by the emotions.
+++++
So, given that I had a valid reason for expecting that you were in fact aware of it, what else would have been more reasonable to do than ask you the following: “I happen to know that’s not Walton’s stance. You happen to know that as well. Should I note that you’re strawmanning? That is, are you amenable to charges of hypocrisy, or should I save my time?”
If it’s in the law as one punishment, it’s not unreasonable to assume that at least one person has gotten that punishment. It is prescribed.
Really, are you constitutionally incapable of understanding the question I’m getting at?
Do you reject prison for repeat nonviolent drug trafficking which does not involve children or whatever other red herrings you can dream up?
Honestly, I don’t recall that anyone asked “won’t someone please think of the children?”
Constantly what now? Really, just quote me where I’m supposedly wrong.
And the solution is?
Good morning thread! Brewing tea right now, and getting ready to celebrate Carl Sagan Day!
Wait and your line in the sand is drug dealers? Small fish.
Alethea,
Sorry I let this slip. I think it’s googleapis.com. Lots of sites which use this domain really rely on it, so you might whitelist it globally instead of conditionally for freethoughtblogs.
@ AR
I hope it is rooibos. Going back to some comments by those a-tea-ists upthread. Whatever you do, just drink your rooibos straight up ( Will they be adding milk and sugar to green tea and pu’er next? Sacrilegious!)
You should also look out for two other South African teas: heuningbos (honey-bush tea – naturally sweet, honey flavour) and boegoe ( It needs to be boiled in a kettle on a camp fire – rather particular taste. I used to chew the leaves for a natural chewing gum).
……………..
@ [drugs]
I would keep a very pragmatic approach to drug policy – look at what really works. Having a “reefer madness” mindset and flinging people into jail appears to me about as far from a workable solution as one can dream up.
I would cast my lot with a policy a little more to the left of Dutch legislation (it has moved to the right in recent months). It goes beyond (“doog”) tolerance. There must be active assistance given to help addicts and to be open and transparent in public discussion. And deal with every form of alcohol and drug (how many people are not addicted to “over-the-counter” remedies?)
In terms of dealing with “trafficking”, I think AHS/SG has raised some good points. (eg If people sell poison for consumption, bust them for that.)
How does one stop an adult from ingesting anything they bloody want to? In South Africa, there is a thing called “die blou trein” (The Blue Train is a luxury train service for tourists.) – this consists of soaking and draining methylated spirits into a paper cup to drink (prevents vomitting). Then eating the bread. It is a sad, tragic story of addiction that has never (as far as I know) ended happily. Who are the “traffickers” here? Every corner store…
Jackbooted thugs of the State!?
no?
shit, I always get these political-science questions wrong.
This quote by Joe Paterno really angers me:
“It’s hard for me to tell you how much this means to me. I’ve lived for this place, and I’ve lived for people like you guys and girls, and I’m just so happy to see that you could feel so strongly about us and about your school. The kids that were victims or whatever they want to say, I think we all ought to say a prayer for them. Tough life, when people do certain things to you. Anyway, you’ve been great. Everything’s great, all right.”
What the fucking hell does “whatever they want to say” mean? And pray for them, why because you think they’re all lies or something. Right pray for them asshole.
Some years ago, I was at a forest fire in Northern California. Actually, I’ve been to quite a few up there, usually around Happy Camp, Orleans, Willow Creek and Forks of Salmon. Beautiful country. And odd.
In the town of Orleans, there is a marijuana plantation (at least there was last time I was there). They produce oils for cosmetics, hemp fibre for fabric, buds for medical marijuana clubs, and the leaves are sold to a local farmer who uses it in his cows silage. Additionally, in at least one of the counties up there, the county sheriff had actually requested that all those with a permit to grow please plant the marijuana in the front yard — that way they know that the grower isn’t trying to hide it, they, and the neighbors, can keep an eye on it, and the deputies can remind them to water it when it starts to get dry. This was some years ago, and I have no idea if it still works that way, but that is the explanation given to me by a sheriff’s deputy.
I asked him about other drugs. His reaction was surprising to me. He said, legalize them all. License companies to process or synthesize the product, just as for alcohol and tobacco. Sell through outlets which are spot-checked for compliance. Tax the hell out of it, with a mandated minimum tax, and with the proviso that 1/2 of revenue from the sale of drugs go to free treatment for anyone who asks.
I asked about drugs like meth, pcp, heroin, and he said the same applies. Professional manufacturing will reduce overdose deaths and getting rid of garage labs will also mean that safer processes can be used and an effort can be made to reduce unwanted side-effects.
I asked, what about the people in jail now for drug offenses? He said to release all non-violent offenders, whether for possession or distribution, and only hold the ones who committed violent crimes, either to feed the habit or eliminate competition. Reduce the sentence by whatever the mitigating circumstance of the drugs created an increase.
And I tend to agree with him. People will pursue escapes through drugs or alcohol whether or not they are legal. Might as well take the organized crime part of it out of the equation and make some money off of it, right?
@ Chas
You can haz a: ‽
Your reproductive choices are your reproductive choices but…
I think 20 children is a bit aggressive.
Rev
It’s survival of the fecund.
@ Rev
Is that a “quiver-full ™ ” you refer to? (Link?)
The environmental impact of the “quiver-full” movement might actually be positive. When they take over, the US will revert to the Middle Ages, with a huge reduction in “energy slave” consumption and impact. In environmental terms, the relative population (ie in terms of impact) will actually “decrease”. Screw away xtians!
Yep, the Duggars.
I’m assuming that the owwies from too much hard coughing are just strained muscles, and there’s nothing to be done but wait it out?
–
Hurrah! *confetti and champagne*
–
He’s got my vote.
One of the reasons that people take drugs, drink, smoke or have sex is because it’s fun.
Criminalising people’s fun is never going to be a winning strategy.
That reminds me of my favourite crossword clue:
‘Plan for the return of big prostitutes. (9 letters)’
@Katherine Lorraine:
I hadn’t heard that. Just one more reason for me to never move there…
Sunshine day! Everybody’s smiling!
Waiting For The Sun-The Jayhawks
Everyday Sunshine-Fishbone
Big Red Sun Blues-Lucinda Williams
Janine: Great timing! I just received news that I got the raise/promotion that I’ve been waiting on for two months now (university guidelines tied it up for quite awhile). It’s an almost 30% increase from my previous (admittedly low) salary, but I figure if I’ve been getting by on that much for the past two years I’ll be living the fabled high life of a research scientist from now on.
Four Banana Splits under a big blue sun.
Invisible Sun-The Police
Night Comes In-Richard & Linda Thompson
So ‘sun’ is not in the title. Listen to the lyrics. Besides, it is one of my all time favorite songs. It can only break my heart.
Sun God-Squirrel Bait
Joe Paterno can eat sh*t. He did nothing. He had all the power and he did nothing. He is guilty by reason of silence. The parallels between Penn State and the Roman Catholic Church are striking.
Interrobang!
(Gesundheit!)
Better Biology Department at Penn State.
Mmm, pirogies are an excellent medium for sour cream delivery.
___
Mythusmage,
Yeah, coke and I go way back too. I haven’t snorted it on purpose, but I have had it in my sinuses more than once…
___
The Sailor ,
Snort, eh?
___
Ray,
It’s okay, you can still stop in to say hi, no one expects comprehensive participation.
___
StarStuff,
I am feeling kinda great old one then.
___
Birger,
Oh shit!
___
Ad hominum,
(Still getting used to that) Ministry was cool.
___
Algernon,
From the Paterno quote. Who the hell says that about a situation like this?
___
cicely,
I have been waiting ten years now. Take good care of yourself, internal scarring and chronic inflamed joints from too much coughing is no manner of fun.
___
Janine,
Fishbone! Everybodys a star
Apologies for the cheeseball video.
Predatory Handshake,
Yay! Sounds like a good day.
The sun is not yellow, it’s chicken.
Sunshine Of Your Love-Cream
I love some so called classic rock. Shut up. (Please, ignore the moniker who put up that clip.)
Third Stone From The Sun-The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Up On The Sun-Meat Puppets
Win, win, win, win, win.
Janine, no Here Comes the Sun? It would be quite appropriate for today as Sagan wanted it to be on the Golden Record but EMI wouldn’t release it.
*confetti* for your promotion, Predatory Handshake. +30% sounds awesome!
–
:( :( :(
Internal scarring? Chronic inflamed joints???
:( :( :( :( :(
So…how probable are these outcomes?
–
Dhorvath, I rarely watch the videos. The last fifty seconds is pure Fishbone.
Speaking of cheese, Jamaica Ska.
Congratulations, Predator Handshake. You have moved up to lower middle class!
On a different note, what the fuck is wrong with these people who are defending Joe Pa? Penn State’s football program should be burned to the ground.
cicely,
I didn’t mean to alarm, (well, maybe just a little, but I see now it was in poor taste,) so my apologies. I do have some experience with post cough discomfort, take care of yourself, if you are anything like me the worst of it will pass about two days after you have basically stopped coughing.
Janine,
That is one of my favourite minutes of music anywhere by anyone. It is manic.
_
I did get a warning recently about another video so I have been watching before I post just in case.
Hello, fellow Pharyngulites. It’s been so long since I commented that I had to look up my login information.
I took the opportunity to dig myself out of a financial hole by working for a non-profit that promotes healthcare equity. Money plus social good. Probably a Republican nightmare.
I’m prompted to sign on today despite being busy because a particularly rich and powerful mormon, a woman for a change, has effectively banned a book. I don’t like censorship.
Our Moment of Mormon Madness is connected to a Moment of Multi-level Marketing Madness (not an unusual combination). The summary: billionaire mormon uses her personal murder of lawyers to get an unflattering book pulled from Barnes & Noble and from Amazon.
The San Francisco Examiner picked up the story and covered it well.
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-san-francisco/book-burning-america-a-tale-of-nu-skin
Excerpts:
Ever-helpful ex-mormons have noted that Adam Baker’s interview on 97.1 radio in Utah was pulled from the radio’s website.
Also from exmormon sources:
Ex-mormons are discussing the book here: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,328324 Some of them note that Adam Baker seems like a diva in same mold and the billionaire cougar, which may be true, but is not a good reason to ban a book. The discussion between exmormons also notes that Adam Baker has a website from which one can download the book — however, that website has also been nuked. Press releases previously available online are now somewhere in the black void. The blog site now reads “This blog has been archived or suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service.
For questions or concerns, contact WordPress.com Support.”
Here’s the blog of one of Adam’s friends, which is, for now, still available for reading:
http://formerlyfilthyrich.blogspot.com/2011/11/this-is-adam-baker-story.html
Excerpt:
I can get behind the sunshine theme.
The Exploited – Holiday in the Sun
Acid King – Sunshine and Sorrow
Bongzilla – Sunnshine Green
Because it was requested. I thought it would be too obvious.
This also seemed to be too obvious. But I fucking love it. In the early and mid seventies, he was god.
onetwothreefour
Here’s the way to get around the book banned by the Nu Skin mormon moguls:
Email Adam Baker at the address formerlyfilthyrich@yahoo.com. This is the only way to get a PDF download of the book since Nu Skin’s lawyers have pressured Barnes & Noble and Amazon into taking it off their websites.
Dhorvath, I accept your apologies; it’s not your fault that at present, I am so very alarmable where my health is concerned. If next time you’ll include something obviously over-the-top like “hideous disfigurement” or “tendency to explode” to the “possible side-effects” list, I’ll be sure to take it with a block of salt.
;)
–
John Denver interviews Carl Sagan
Lynna, have them post it to Pirates Bay. Then it will be out of reach.
Only the sherriff is elected; the deputies are professional (or hopefully professional, anyway) law enforcement officers.
He went to Occupy to look for God (apparently that’s part of his job).
Not surprisingly he found Him.
How odd. I only see people doing good.
Fucktard.
The one triskelethecat plied me with was very nice and fruity.
NSFPWDLTGD:
Here comes sunshine
@cicely
Muscle pain should be the most likely source of such discomfort but it definitely is possible to fracture a rib bone by hard coughing :(
Cough is a beast. Give me high fever any time.
Nerd @472: Thanks. I passed along your advice.
mate chai (mate as in ma-té, i.e. Ilex paraguensis, not your mate who you meet down the pub. I never have found a sensible way of making that unambiguous in written English) is the bees’ knees. I drink gallons of the stuff, ‘s loverly.
Shit, I forgot to refresh and didn’t see that the whole tea discussion is somewhere way upthread now … ‘scuse me iz embarrassed.
Been there, done that. A couple of years ago, I broke two ribs coughing. I had pneumonia (actually, Acute Reactive Lung Disorder, which used to be bronchial pneumonia), courtesy of having two flus at the same time.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavellian@444
A surprising number of of senior British police (or more usually, ex-police) say much the same. Even for drugs which are seriously nasty in themselves (barbiturates, the stronger amphetamines, cocaine, but not heroin*), much of the harm comes from illegality: nasty impurities, great variation in purity (one of the biggest dangers in injecting heroin is OD’ing on an unusually “good” batch), criminal violence over debts and turf wars, lives wasted in prison, corrupt police).
*In the good old days, a large proportion of British heroin addicts were medics – due to availability of course. Often they continued to practice effectively and lived normal lives for many years until their use was somehow discovered. Of course, they had clean needles, supplies of known purity, and adequate nutrition, shelter, etc..
Oh jeebus. That Eugene Delgaudio douchenugget is losing his shit about the DOMA repeal.
Ever notice that when a conservative slides something in at the last second, sometimes even after the bill has been voted on, it is ignored, but, let a progressive, or a liberal, or even a moderate, use normal rules to bring a bill up for a vote, or even to ask that a vote be considered, they are ‘sneaking’ it in, abusing the rules, pulling a legislative end-run, or destroying democracy?
Or am I just getting more cynical?
Moments of Mormon of Madness, news update. As we all know, polygamist leader and dunderhead Warren Jeffs is in jail, in part for “marrying” a 12 year old girl.
One of his accomplices was Frederick Merrill Jessop. Jessop has now been given his very own jail sentence and fine.
Jessop presided over the “marriage” of 11 of his own daughters and 2 of his granddaughters to Warren Jeffs.
“Stop digging”, lesson 82,127
Yes, they’re all out to get you!!!
Of course. Father knows best. They’re only doing it for our own good after all. Like when daddy hides his daughters loveletters from the boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
Ing
Who said they were my line in the sand, at least the small scale dealers? I’ve made clear time after time again that I’m undecided as to where to draw the line, but that I haven’t been convinced that the legalisation of every shit on earth is doing any good.
I’ve written stuff as to what I would actually consider to be good moves. That includes the legalisation of quite a lot of stuff.
At the beginning of the discussion people have brought up various studies on the inherent dangers of certain substances.
Why, as a society, should we tolerate and enable the manufacturing, promotion and distribution of inherently unsafe products that are pretty much guaranteed to do serious harm and have no save-use level?
ad hominum
Oh, sorry, I could have sworn I had quoted the relevant sentences, my fault.
My feelings. Since you’re so interested in assesing them: you’re doing it wrong.
For the umpeth time: It depends. You know, drug in question, level of trafficking, individual circumstances.
What I do reject is making “nonviolent” to be the one and only thing that matters. Just because you’re not punching people in the face doesn’t mean you’re not seriously harming them.
But I’ll stop the discussion here. I’ve made my points, you have made yours and you have so far not offered me any arguments I find convincing, so I don’t suppose you are going to bring them up now.
Nous sommes du soleil
Niagara – Soleil d’Hivers
Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash – You Are My Sunshine (is that really Bob Dylan?)
Rammstein – Sonne
A-ha – The Sun Always Shines On TV
Kraftwerk – Radioaktivität
ad hominum salvator, thanks. I think that was it. I’m really liking requestpolicy. It’s very interesting, clicking on that little red flag and seeing where a page is drawing its content and function from. My whitelist is growing steadily.
*hugs* for cicely. Coughing sucks. There are some very not-fun things you can do to yourself that way. (BTW, for those following my health saga, my respiratory specialist says that the small part of my lung that collapsed should just re-inflate with time. I have a 6-month followup appointment to be sure.)
Lynna! Great to see you back. Fascinating stuff.
Rose, Meer und Sonne – Schumann (Fischer-Dieskau)
O Sole Mio – (Pavarotti & some orchestra)
Sunday Morning – Britten (Bernstein, Boston Phil.)
Good news, everyone! I’m still smoke-free. :) I think I’m beyond the nicotine withdrawal stage (thank goodness!), but now I’m in the “coughing up chunks of black stuff” stage. So, yeah. Kind of gross.
I’ve been chewing gum to help with the “mouthy” part of the habit. Anyway, I found out that Hubba Bubba gum is still on the market. Total childhood flashback this morning.
Sun Tan Lotion
*sorry TET…compelled to answer a few points*
Here is the study
As Althea? pointed out upthread, alcohol ranks at the top of the list.
Ad hominum
How can you classify using prison as a last resort as draconian?
What less draconian solution would you suggest for people who are actively causing harm to themselves and others for any reason?
I live in Minnesota. IIRC one of the pioneers in the idea that addiction/abuse is a social disease rather than a criminal moral failure.
The entire concept is predicated on the well-proven idea that through education and treatment, people who are making harmful choices can learn to make healthy choices.
“Sagan wanted it to be on the Golden Record but EMI wouldn’t release it.”
WTF!? on so many levels.
++++++++++++++++++
The temp here has dropped 18 deg (F) since Noon. Tomorrow night will be sub-freezing. Aaaaaaarrrrrrgggggh!
++++++++++++++++++
Lynna, nice to see you back. ’10 years and a 10k fine’ max. The fine should have a higher limit.
“A murder of lawyers”? I think it should be a ‘pleading of lawyers’. I was going to write ‘a brief of lawyers’ but they’re rarely brief and there just too many of them.
Subject to discussion: I think if we’d spent the same effort on the rotary engine as we did on the piston engine or the steam engine it would have been a viable engine. Discuss.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
I have a language/culture question. I have a colleague/employee I assume is from India. I didn’t have his email address and when he was in my lab going over results he asked me to send them to him. I asked him to spell out his email moniker.
His pronunciation of the letters had near zero correlation to to the sounds English speakers associate with them. (e.g. a ‘w’ sound for ‘s’.)
He finally did it by a phonetic alphabet saying the sound and a word that started with that letter. (e.g. “‘w’ as in ‘silence’)
He writes and speaks English fairly well. My question is: How does someone learn a language without knowing what the basic letter sounds are?