Feb 23 2012

Episode CCCV: Don’t do it, Carrie!

Categories:

Look! She actually videorecorded herself taking a massive overdose of a cold remedy!

She survived. Calling poison control was a smart move — they had very good advice for her. And now she’s trying to return the favor and help everyone.

(Episode CCCIV: All about Randi.)

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501

Lynna, OM

26 February 2012 at 6:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

For passwords I use a sort of language algorithm. Take the name of the site or personal account you want to link to, do this to it. Then do that to it. Then do that to it.

Even if I forget a password, I can always work it out by following the rules.

This system may not be foolproof, but it’s fairly good.
502

Lynna, OM

26 February 2012 at 6:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Lynna, your story about anointing a building with oil made me enter the Pharyngula Time Machine, back to a time when Congressman Paul Broun of Georgia and the Reverends Rob Schenck and Patrick J. Mahoney anointed a doorway with oil, a doorway that Barack Obama would pass through on his way to his Inauguration.

Janine, I remember that. The godaddled dunderheads were so proud of themselves. Photos and everything.

So that’s what prevented anti-Christ Obama from sinking the country into even worse chaos?

I’ll bet the cleaning staff tried to come up with a plan that would have those doofuses properly oiling all the wood in the building. Of course, a holy anointing might not work if the surface was buffed afterward with a clean cloth.
503

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart: mad, but sadistic genius

26 February 2012 at 6:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Yo, is anyone watching the Oscars tonight? (I’m not ‘cos I could not give two flying fucks about any of the movies that were nommed this year.) I just want to know if Gary Oldman takes Best Actor (he most likely won’t, but I’m still holding out some hope), but I don’t want to sit through the whole damned thing.
504

The Sailor

26 February 2012 at 7:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

An update on my unwanted house guest, it is a rat. It woke me up this morning around 7, for the second time. (The first was around 4 am.)

I knew a noise had woken me up and for some odd reason I thought it was in my room. My bedside table is an old cheap footlocker that I used to use to hold an audio snake so it has a hole in the end to deploy the cable and I thought the rat might be inside.

I lightly thumped the top, tap, tap, tap … tap, tap, tap, and the rat came running in from the living room like I had announced supper. He stopped about 10 feet from my bed and we just stared at each other for a second, then I kinda freaked out and yelled at him and he streaked out. Wow, is he fast!

I felt kinda bad about it, but I doubt if you can train wild rats (?) and so far all my Rube Goldberg contraptions to catch him have had me looking like Wile E. Coyote.
505

pelamun

26 February 2012 at 7:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Lynna,

in the US all the major Lutheran churches have undergone a series of splits and reunitings etc. The Wikipedia tab for Lutherans explicitly has columns for “separated from”, “merge of”, “separations”. Here’s a list of current (!) Lutheran bodies in North America

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutheran_church_bodies_in_North_America

So ELCA has 2.5m active members, the LCMS 2.4m active ones, no 3, the Wisconsin Evangelical-Lutheran Synod (WELS) only has 390k, but they’re especially miosogynistic. Not only do they not ordain women, but they also believe that women should not have any authority over men, and accordingly even bar them from voting on church matters…

Interesting enough, they strictly follow Luther’s Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, which is why you never here many pronouncements even by conservative Lutheran leaders on government policy (in contrast the RCC teaches that the spiritual sword is higher than the temporal sword).

In Germany, Luther’s stance towards government was seen as authoritarian and preaching obedience (see also his stance re peasant wars in 16th century Germany), but it’s interesting how this can turn out centuries later in a different country under different political circumstances.

BTW, in Germany the Lutherans are far from being homogeneous either. In my college days I knew a Lutheran from Bavaria (especially in Franconia, it’s a patchwork of RCC and Lutheranism due to the “compromise” at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 that the feudal lord could decide the religion of his subjects, who were, however, free to leave if they did not agree) who always argued arch-conservative positions on any topic that came up. He was constantly complaining about how liberal the Lutheran Church was in the North (or maybe outside of Bavaria).

And I do know that Northern Germany has some fundamentalist Lutherans who nonetheless still keep their association with the Lutheran Church (there’s also the New Apostolic Church as “a third church”). What they do is to form a parish with the permission of the respective state church (or take one over, by getting a majority in the parish church council, which works better in rural parishes of course) and then ignore what’s going on at the synodal level…

Back when I was an agnostic, all these things mattered to me…
506

Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform

26 February 2012 at 7:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The squirrel is dead. Long may it rot.

CC, I’m so sorry about the dog.

Kristin:

I made latkes for the first time tonight (I cooked them in bacon fat, ha)

I LOL’ed. It reminds me of an anecdote I heard about an “observant” Jew who made sandwiches with matzoh for Passover. Ham sandwiches.

(Actually, latkes fried in bacon fat sound amazing.)

Lynna:

well [Frothymixture] is “winning more support from Republican women.”

Right-wing women have a deep, deep streak of self-hatred that they project onto other women.

TomeWyrm, I have, or had, a dictionary of slang and euphemism (I think it’s an older edition of this one) that had something like three pages of synonyms for “penis.”

Also, in the intro to her Dictionary of Italian Slang and Colloquial Expressions, Daniela Gobetti states that, collectively, all dialects of Italian have something like 1,200 such synonyms.
507

Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform

26 February 2012 at 7:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

GAH.

A controversy that began with the arrests of two Boston University ice hockey players on sexual assault charges has mushroomed into a broader debate about women’s safety after a recent graduate called the school’s behavioral health hot line late at night and found only what she called “a useless loop of automated menus.’’

The school, roiled by the assault charges, is forming a task force to investigate its hockey culture. Administrators said the hot line issue stemmed from a misunderstanding and they immediately took steps to remedy it.

…women’s advocates at BU said bigger changes would be needed to address a pervasive “rape culture’’ at the school, one they said was exemplified by recent comments by longtime hockey coach Jack Parker.

In an interview with the Globe Thursday, Parker said he would cooperate with the task force but he doubted campus culture could be changed dramatically.

“It’s certainly different than it was in the ’70s. Sexual mores have changed,’’ he said. “There’s girls on every floor; there’s no men’s and women’s dorms. The idea that hooking up is OK – I don’t think that term was even used in the 1970s. . . . Ninety-nine percent of these problems start with alcohol and sex. That’s a bad combination.’’

…Parker’s comments enraged undergraduate volunteers at BU’s Center for Gender, Sexuality, and Activism.

“Let me try not to use expletives,’’ said Ariana Katz, a senior who co-directs the center. “He’s saying that boys will be boys, and it’s alcohol’s fault, and rape is happening because there are women everywhere? No. These assaults and his response tarnish every single hockey trophy BU has ever won.’’

…The statement coincided with a storm on Facebook after a note written by Allison Francis, who graduated last year, went viral.

Francis said she was unsatisfied with the announcement of the hockey task force and wanted to broaden the debate. Late Wednesday night, she called a behavioral medicine hot line listed on BU’s website and asked “what resources are available in terms of rape and sexual assault?’’

The emergency operator, she said, failed to inquire about her well-being, told her “we don’t have anything like that here,’’ and advised her to call a different medical hot line, which referred her back to the first number.

Francis described the call in a note on Facebook.

Shortly after the posting hit the Internet, BU administrators began investigating.

There’s an excellent blogpost here about Boston-area feminists and allies fighting rape culture.
508

pelamun

26 February 2012 at 7:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Though I might add in Germany it’s more homogeneous in the sense that all Lutheran churches are under the umbrella of the Lutheran state church system, though of course Lutherans being Lutherans, there are split-offs, but the biggest of them has a mere 36k members. But within this state church system, the synods are more or less autonomous, which is why the Bavarian synod can pursue a more conservative policy than say the North Albingian synod. Though all synods have allowed the ordination of women now, but I do note the distinct lack of female bishops in the south.
509

Beatrice, anormalement indécente

26 February 2012 at 7:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Pope decries artifical procreation; fertility treatments as ‘arrogant

Speaking at the end of three-day convention on diagnosing and treating infertility at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI slammed artificial procreation and fertility treatments. Marriage was the only place to create a human being, he said.

The comments reaffirm the decision Catholic leadership has held on artifical reproduction since 2008.

“The human and Christian dignity of procreation, in fact, doesn’t consist in a ‘product,’” he said, “ but in its link to the conjugal act, an expression of the love of the spouses of their union, not only biological but also spiritual.”

The pope is pressing for a ban on artificial procreation and called on science and fertility experts to resist “easy income, or even worse the arrogance of taking the place of the Creator.”

While we’re on the topic of women’s rights, on the other thread.
510

pelamun

26 February 2012 at 7:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ms. Daisy Cutter,

the correct translation of cazzo into other languages was the topic of a Language Log entry on the Costa Concordia incident recently http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3713

Also, regarding Doctrine of Two Kingdoms: The pfft claims that Madison explicitly credited Luther and Calvin for it. So the US can thank those guys for the separation of church and state? Really?

(Note: back as an agnostic, I used to be an admirer of Luther, stridently trying to ignore his uglier side. Though standing up to the RCC the 16th century is still a feat, I guess)
511

Beatrice, anormalement indécente

26 February 2012 at 7:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Also:

On Saturday, the Pope did offer hope for couples who are struggling to become parents: He said the church encourages medical research on infertility.

That’s not messing with God’s will and taking the role of Creator because…
512

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart: mad, but sadistic genius

26 February 2012 at 7:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Apropos of the Knitting thread:
I just found a cocktail recipe in a new cookbook called “Derailer”. Not surprisingly, it’s FULL of booze.
513

Josh, Official SpokesGay

26 February 2012 at 8:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ms. Daisy Cutter came up and spent the night at SpokesGay’s Tiny Hobbit House and we ate roast chicken. Girl, we ate roast chicken. And stuffing. And garlic mashed potatoes. And gravy. And parmesan spinach. And pizelles with Nutella. And local bakery bread crusted with poppy, sesame, and fennel.

On my way to the cardiac lab, I thought . .not really:)

That brings the number of Pharyngulites who’ve crossed my threshold wearing their Ambulatory Meat Suits to three. Four if you count Mr. Darkheart, but I don’t. He’s more Spouse of Pharyngulite.

Oh, and we talked about Ghey Secks with Brownian. Both of us want to have it. But only one can.
514

Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform

26 February 2012 at 8:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Pelamun, I must need new glasses. I thought for a moment you had typed cozzo, meaning “mussel” — both literally and, er, symbolically — and I was about to tell you you’d gotten the gender wrong.

Thanks for the link. I don’t know if you’ve read the comments, but more interesting to me than the discourse on cazzo is the contrast between the OP’s perception and that of the first commenter, a native speaker of Italian:

I don’t think any Italian would ever come up with agitato (in the sense of “disturbed” or “nervous”) as their first choice to describe De Falco’s speech. He might have been esasperato or infuriato, but in Italy he was perceived as very much under control, assertive and authoritative, and far less emotional than it might sound to non-native speakers.

It’s a classic Anglo misunderstanding of Italians as overly excitable and emotional when, actually, it’s just that Italian culture permits more emotional expression than Anglo culture does, even in formal and professional situations. (I worked in Italy for a few months, years ago, and while that hardly makes me any sort of expert, the commenter’s observations ring true to me.)

Another native speaker writes in Italian (being far from fluent, I ran it through Google Translate) that De Falco was not shaken or nervous at all, simply extremely angry — and convinced by Schettino’s tone that the latter was lying, which made De Falco even angrier.
515

Pteryxx

26 February 2012 at 8:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

“the dignity of human procreation”? Has this guy SEEN human procreation? It’s only slightly more dignified than having a sneezing fit during one’s thesis defense.
516

cicely (Insert Clever Appellation Here)

26 February 2012 at 8:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Maybe part of our Pharyngulite gesture to repel Baptists, mormons and other godaddled people could include a sprinkling with beer?

I once went, as an observer, to an Asatru worship service/party; it involved the sprinkling of the celebrants with beer, from a carved horn. I wondered at the time if/to what degree this was incorporated with Christian baptism in mind.

-
517

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart: mad, but sadistic genius

26 February 2012 at 8:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Josh:

Ambulatory Meat Suits

Is now the name of my Men At Work tribute band.

Four if you count Mr. Darkheart, but I don’t. He’s more Spouse of Pharyngulite.

Nah, he doesn’t hang out here, so you don’t need to count him. He won’t even know! ;)
518

Ichthyic

26 February 2012 at 8:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

for fans of 27b/6, there’s a new chapter out:

http://www.27bslash6.com/timesheets.html
519

Lynna, OM

26 February 2012 at 8:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Right-wing women have a deep, deep streak of self-hatred that they project onto other women.

I know. I know.

But isn’t that just the most pathetic and tragic truth?

This repellent replication of patriarchal nonsense in female form is … uncivilized.

If ever we were to label something as “sin,” this would be it. A sin against humanity.
520

changeable moniker

26 February 2012 at 8:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

“a dictionary of slang and euphemism”?

Roger’s Profanisaurus: Das Krapital (ISBN-13: 978-1907232909)

“Viz’s invaluable lexicon of rudeness”

*ducks*
*covers*
*runs off to bed*
521

pelamun

26 February 2012 at 8:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ms. Daisy Cutter,

on Language Log, Geoff Pullum is famous for usually not allowing comments, but the other contributors do, and their posts are the richer for it..

I noticed the agitated-agitato issue, but the OP apparently claims there is a distinction between English and Italian here:

@Paolo: I think we agree about the basic analysis, namely that De Falco was in control. However, your comment draws attention to another problem in studying emotional speech, namely the difficulty of deciding what emotional descriptors actually mean and (in particular) how hard it can be to translate them from one language to another. In this case the problem is that there’s a difference between English agitated and Italian agitato, the latter being much more agitated than the former. To me, at any rate, English agitated implies exactly the sort of self-control you refer to – clearly under some sort of stress, but keeping things under control.

I remember being surprised when I learned how agitato is used to describe the condition of the sea: I knew mare mosso (‘rough sea’), and I assumed that agitato would refer to a state in between calm and mosso, but in fact it is rougher than mosso.

Bob Ladd is a phonetician, and I can’t tell how fluent his Italian would be, or even if his claim for the English word would be correct. It doesn’t appear that he has worked on Italian, though. But usually the posts on Language Log are written by established linguists who know what they’re talking about, but then Ladd’s post is explicitly marked as a guest post.
522

Jules

26 February 2012 at 8:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Hey, all. I don’t want to post and run, but I have a request for help. Alabama is trying to pass a forced ultrasound bill, and after talking it through, the opposition group has decided to open up our petition to anyone willing to participate. We want as many votes as we can get.

This bill is horrifying. It will force any woman seeking a D&C for any reason to be subjected to an ultrasound and detailed description of the embryo/fetus’s development. This is uncalled for in the case of a woman seeking abortion, but it is downright cruel to women who lost wanted pregnancies. It punishes any woman who loses a pregnancy for any reason.

The chairman of the state health committee is VP of a medical equipment company (which supplies ultrasound equipment). So there is a conflict of interest issue as well.

Anyone out there who is willing, please sign the petition.

Oppose Alabama SB12
523

pelamun

26 February 2012 at 8:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Addendum: Ladd has worked a lot on prosody analysis of emotional speech, this is probably why he was asked to guest blog. Also apparently he has studied Italian. I haven’t read his work so I couldn’t tell you to what extent he’s looked at Italian emotional speech in his work.
524

Josh, Official SpokesGay

26 February 2012 at 8:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Signed, Jules. Goddamn these fuckers.

Good to see you round though.
525

Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform

26 February 2012 at 8:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Josh:

Oh, and we talked about Ghey Secks with Brownian. Both of us want to have it. But only one can.

{{draws sword}} There can be only one.

(You are a wonderful host, btw, and I look forward to reciprocating.)

Pteryxx: If it’s dignified, you’re doin’ it wrong.

Lynna: That’s the hallmark of an oppressive system. The oppressors themselves can’t be everywhere at every moment, so they set up outposts in their victims’ minds.

Pelamun: Thanks for the info on Bob Ladd. I don’t have any sort of credentials in that area, just ordinary observation.
526

Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform

26 February 2012 at 8:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Before I go to bed: A handful of songs that go well with driving through the mountains.

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings – Tear My Stillhouse Down

Steve Earle – Copperhead Road

Mary Black – Turning Away

The Decembrists – Rox in the Box

Patty Loveless – You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive

The last line of the second bridge of that last song never, ever fails to hit me right in the heart.
527

Josh, Official SpokesGay

26 February 2012 at 8:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

(You are a wonderful host, btw, and I look forward to reciprocating.)

Thanks babe, can’t wait! Hope I didn’t scare you too bad stumbling up the stairs nearly starkers in my boxers for a wee-hours bathroom trip:)
528

pelamun

26 February 2012 at 8:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ms. Daisy Cutter,

well do you agree with his analysis of the English word “agitated”?
529

Josh, Official SpokesGay

26 February 2012 at 8:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Oh, and Ms. Daisy, since you couldn’t see Francine all covered up for the winter, here she is:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/818/francinefront.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/836/francineass.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/39/francinewheel.jpg/
530

Jules

26 February 2012 at 9:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Thank you so much, Josh!

I hope I get to hang out more. I miss y’all.

This bill has me all worked up. Here’s the full text if anyone feels like throwing up a little.

Here’s the website for the state Senate Health Committee’s company.
531

StarStuff! Because f**k you, that's why

26 February 2012 at 9:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

So, I’m helping someone gather some information about feminism and atheism (not for Freethinkers, but for the feminist group on campus). I need information that would be a good introduction to someone who’s already a feminist, but may not know much about the atheist/skeptic communities (I’m not sure the blogs I read would be a very good introduction). Does anyone have any ideas?
532

StarStuff! Because f**k you, that's why

26 February 2012 at 9:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Jules, I signed it too. I’m getting more worried about this stuff as the months go by. They just keep pushing and pushing it. How long can we keep people focused on fighting against it?
533

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart: mad, but sadistic genius

26 February 2012 at 9:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Maybe I’m the only one who cares right now, but Brett MacKenzie just won the Oscar for best original song.

Go Muppets!

(Okay, yes, I am actually watching.)
534

Part-Time Insomniac, Zombie Porcupine Nox Arcana Fan

26 February 2012 at 9:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Signed, Jules. If this goes down in flames, maybe it will give other states pause. How ya been otherwise?
535

Jules

26 February 2012 at 9:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Here’s how this bill is defining abortion:

The intentional use or prescription of any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance or devise or method to terminate the life of an unborn child, to terminate the pregnancy of a woman known to be pregnant with an intention other than to produce a live birth and preserve the life and health of the child after live birth, to remove an ectopic pregnancy, or to remove a dead unborn child who died as the result of natural causes, accidental trauma, or a criminal assault on the pregnant woman or her unborn child.

Emphasis fucking mine.
536

ChasCPeterson

26 February 2012 at 9:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I could not give two flying fucks about any of the movies that were nommed this year.

then you didn’t see The Artist?

so well done.
537

ChasCPeterson

26 February 2012 at 9:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Hi Jules.
I signed. As an ex-Alabaman. (Vestavia Hills, summers of, I think, ’78, ’79, and ’80).
538

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart: mad, but sadistic genius

26 February 2012 at 9:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Chas:

then you didn’t see The Artist?

Nope.

Nothing this past year has really grabbed me– I’m only watching to see if Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy wins anything. Still holding out for an Oscar for Gary Oldman.
539

Jules

26 February 2012 at 9:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Thanks, Chas.

I really wanted to see The Artist. I just never seem to remember to go to a movie theater in time :-/
540

Pteryxx

26 February 2012 at 9:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

to remove an ectopic pregnancy, or to remove a dead unborn child who died as the result of natural causes, accidental trauma, or a criminal assault on the pregnant woman or her unborn child.

Holy crap. They won’t be satisfied until they have betting pools and gladiatorial pregnancy arenas.
541

Jules

26 February 2012 at 9:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Holy crap. They won’t be satisfied until they have betting pools and gladiatorial pregnancy arenas.

What, are they supposed to not punish a woman for not being a successful procreator? You let them off when it’s an accident, and they’ll just come back and do it on purpose.
542

Rey Fox

26 February 2012 at 9:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Brett MacKenzie just won the Oscar for best original song.

Britt?
543

ChasCPeterson

26 February 2012 at 10:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I’m not watching teh Oscars and don’t give a shit, but any Academy member who cares about film as an art, with a history, is going to have to vote for The Artist.
srsly.
544

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart: mad, but sadistic genius

26 February 2012 at 10:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

And fuck The Academy.

:( Gary Oldman.
545

Esteleth, Ph.D. of Mischief, Mayhem and Hilarity

26 February 2012 at 10:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Delurk:
I am totally not looking forward to tomorrow. I was told on Friday that my stupid-ass mistake would be brought up (explicitly, with big honkin’ DON’T DO THIS all over it) at staff meeting tomorrow. I’m new at this job, just barely getting to know people, and now this.

Oh, and got an email from a boss-type person about an hour ago that he’d found a list of therapists (!) who are LGBT-friendly, he’ll be sending it to me. !!!!!

W.T.F.

I’m going to bed. I may be on tomorrow, after the meeting is over.
546

A. R

26 February 2012 at 10:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

People just need to be more careful when they use the word santorum in a sentence: http://weldbham.com/secondfront/2012/02/24/poll-santorum-comes-from-behind-in-alabama-three-way/ That is all.
547

kristinc, ~bitter and resigned~

26 February 2012 at 10:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Spotted a lady oriole today, so I’d guess we have a pair either going through or in residence.
548

Rey Fox

26 February 2012 at 11:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Pretty amazing. All the action right now is on the “FtB Diversity” thread, but it’s not about sexism or racism.
549

theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen

26 February 2012 at 11:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@ Dr Audley

CAEK! = too sweet

Oh noze! I will be making the farmers cheese first before I tackle that one. I definitely need a less sweet version. Perhaps I’ll reduce sugar and add more spices and some lemon or orange zest.

@ TomeWyrm

Running separate screens of one PC. Have you tried Linux? You will need a separate video card for each monitor. Build a Six-Headed, Six-User Linux System (Perhaps not quite what you intended, but it might steer you in the right direction.)

@ cicely

See? “Civil Union” is just the same as “Marriage”!

Where is James’s Sandra now? I really want to rub her nose in that article.

@ pelamun

Mein Deutsch ist verruckt schlecht.

@ changeable

Spring, eh?

LURV! :DDD

(Though owls will also fall in love with recordings of other owls … if you ever want to carry your speakers outside…)

@ Beatrice

The pope is pressing for a ban on artificial procreation and called on science and fertility experts to resist “easy income, or even worse the arrogance of taking the place of the Creator.

Fuck the pope!

@ Jules

Here’s how this bill is defining abortion: … to remove a dead unborn child …

I had to read that three times as I couldn’t believe what I read. Shit, those guys are barbaric! Worse than the fucking Taliban in their fucking heyday.
550

Hekuni Cat

26 February 2012 at 11:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Signed, Jules. We’ve been fighting similar bills in Virginia.
551

A. R

26 February 2012 at 11:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@ Beatrice: I wonder if my friend would be considered a non-person by the RCC. She was conceived via IVF and a surrogate (one of the first such cases IIRC). Then again it isn’t terribly difficult to take the place of a non-existent entity.
552

Lynna, OM

27 February 2012 at 12:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Jules, glad to see you fighting that bill.

Yeah, forced medical procedures by order of the state government. That’s Republican “small government” for you.

But as long as it just impacts the rights of women, it must be okay.
553

Lynna, OM

27 February 2012 at 12:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Signed the petition Jules linked to.

Still can’t believe what I read in the proposed bill.

I’d had my fill of all the anti-woman stuff that state legislators are focusing on.

And by the way, I decry the Pope and all his pope-ishness.
554

janine

27 February 2012 at 12:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Small governments are for corporations. The rest of us need a government large enough to ensure that we act in the proper christian way because we cannot be trusted.
555

Lynna, OM

27 February 2012 at 12:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I would rather have real hands up my skirt than the government’s mandated probes.

Those Republicans on vagina patrol are obsessed.
556

SallyStrange: bottom-feeding, work-shy peasant

27 February 2012 at 12:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The reason Republicans want a small government is because only big government can do a damn thing to restrain the real power players of the world. Only big government can do a damn thing to stop banks ripping individuals off, stop companies from polluting, prevent large corporations from stifling competition, etc. Small government is just big enough to keep ordinary non-wealthy individuals in line, without affecting the operations of the truly wealthy. Which is exactly what they want.
557

janine

27 February 2012 at 12:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

SallyStrange, you are mistaken. They do not desire a small government, it needs to be big and ruthless in order to make sure that LGBT people stop demanding rights and go back in the closet, for women to give up the rights that generations of women fought for and for men to go back to being “real men”.
558

Rey Fox

27 February 2012 at 1:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Sally, could I quote that comment somewhere? Like on my Facebook, or on hundred-foot-high letters of fire for all voters to see?
559

John Morales

27 February 2012 at 1:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

SallyStrange,

The reason Republicans want a small government is because only big government can do a damn thing to restrain the real power players of the world. Only big government can do a damn thing to stop banks ripping individuals off, stop companies from polluting, prevent large corporations from stifling competition, etc. Small government is just big enough to keep ordinary non-wealthy individuals in line, without affecting the operations of the truly wealthy. Which is exactly what they want.

(I liked that so much, I thought I’d shout it)
560

TomeWyrm

27 February 2012 at 1:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Totally thread bankrupt at the moment, just wanted to say I don’t ever wanna work in closed captioning live TV… I just transcribed Natalie’s “Getting Skeptics To Think Skeptically About Their Skepticism” talk… That was a test of my comprehension skills and my typing speed like none I’ve ever had! It took me 10 hours to transcribe a 13 minute video… admittedly with distractions.

Now I’m going to sleep, and hoping I don’t dream about Natalie berating me for being a crappy transcriptionist. Stupid perfectionist internal editor is making me feel miserable right now.
561

SallyStrange: bottom-feeding, work-shy peasant

27 February 2012 at 2:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Quote it all you want, y’all! Anything I write in these forums, I consider to be for public use anyway.
562

hotshoe

27 February 2012 at 2:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Patty Loveless – You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive

The last line of the second bridge of that last song never, ever fails to hit me right in the heart.

Nice. I prefer a version by Darrell Scott (who wrote the song). Such as this one from the Transatlantic Sessions particularly moving to me with the dobro by Jerry Douglas.

Another song for listening to while driving through the backcountry:

River Take Me Darrell Scott, solo with guitar.
563

theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen

27 February 2012 at 3:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@ janine

SallyStrange, you are mistaken.

Some truth in both POV’s:

Government must be extensive and shallow – it must drown the little people and gently lap the islands of privilege.
564

birgerjohansson

27 February 2012 at 3:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Rey Fox:

“Unfortunately for Bruce, assholes are everywhere. Next headline: “Whitney Houston ‘chose death’: Swedish politician”

-Yeah, that politician is the mayor of my home town and infamous for saying unwise things.
565

pelamun

27 February 2012 at 3:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Thinking about the libertarian worldview. What I’ve learnt from reading comics depicting a libertarian wonderland, I understand (though of course disagree completely) that in case of abortion, iff you accept the premise that it is murder that they could have a trial suing for damages (I imagine that in cases of murder, any member of the community could sue on behalf of the victim, don’t really know how that libertarian private justice thing would work in these cases, as the trials usually depicted in these comics usually don’t are that kind of trial, wonder why), but what about same-sex marriage? I still don’t get who would get damaged, financially or physically, by that…

(Of course I know most libertarians are just disingenuous, but this is what I never got about the small government type of right-wingers still wanting to legislate the bedroom)
566

Giliell, not to be confused with The Borg

27 February 2012 at 3:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Good morning

“the dignity of human procreation”? Has this guy SEEN human procreation? It’s only slightly more dignified than having a sneezing fit during one’s thesis defense.

I assume you’re just talking about the sex.
Actually getting them out there again while you’re uncontrollably shitting and peeing all over the place is about as much down at the bottom as I can imagine for any thing you’re not forced to do with the explicit point of humilation.

This is uncalled for in the case of a woman seeking abortion, but it is downright cruel to women who lost wanted pregnancies. It punishes any woman who loses a pregnancy for any reason.

Ah yes, I would have loved that:
“And here you see where two weeks ago we saw the heart form. It probably stopped beating about three or four days ago. See this little dot here? That’s where the head has already started to dissolve. Why am I telling you? Because you need to know in order to make an informed decission as to whether you want us to perform a D&E on your baby.”
Can people please supply US ZIP codes? Thank you
BTW, “abortion” is a much broader term than most people realize and it is not very clear cut.
So, for all that medicine cares I had an abortion. The technical term is “missed abortion”, that’s when you misscarry and your body somehow fails to realize it. Afterwards I had a D&E. Thankfully people were really caring and nice (except for one asshole) and I was done and over less than 6 hours after the OB/Gyn diagnosed the misscarriage.
But it would not qualify as “abortion” in colloquial speech, since the fetus was already dead. Same problem goes with Frothy Mixture’s wife’s abortion: I doubt that it would be filed under abortion in the medical sense, but much more in a colloquial sense.
567

opposablethumbs, que le pouce enragé mette les pouces

27 February 2012 at 3:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Pteryxx, thank you for the links. I’d guess that in broad terms these least anti-women states on the list(Oregon, New Hampshire et al) are probably also more politically progressive generally, have higher average educational attainment and less fundy religion.

I often get the impression (probably wildly unrealistic) that people in the US are more prepared to contemplate moving long distances than people in Europe are (not having to change country or language must make a difference) though I realise that this is obviously going to be more feasible for those with more marketable skills and qualifications plus start-up money, and next to impossible for the poor and unqualified. Is there a known or noticeable drift of left-leaning and/or less religious people away from the more fundagelical states and into states like these? That is, what I suppose I’m really asking is whether people think there’s a widening/self-reinforcing divide between the more progressive and more regressive states, and if there is, what would that mean for the US and beyond in the long term?

Almost-entirely-but-not-quite changing the subject, DaughterSpawn vaguely dreams of visiting the US some day (she has a penpal in California), maybe after she graduates from university (so not for about another 3 years yet!). I should probably tell her to make sure she has a sufficient supply of her preferred method of contraception to last the whole trip …
568

carlie

27 February 2012 at 5:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Oh Esteleth, good luck today. If you can stay calm during the meeting, it will be obvious that your boss is a jerk who is overreacting. And SAVE THAT EMAIL. Even if you already deleted it, IT probably still has a copy for a few days they could retrieve. Unsolicited comments on your sexual orientation and mental state are things that should be documented just in case.

I cannot believe that bill. I cannot believe that would pass, if given publicity. It criminalizes removal of ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages? That’s certain death of women, right there.
569

carlie

27 February 2012 at 5:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Oh, requires the ultrasound, not eliminates. Traumatizing beyond belief.
570

pelamun

27 February 2012 at 6:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

opposablethumbs,

until only a couple years ago, this story would have been true for Japan. A friend of mine went to Japan and took one year worth of contraceptive pills to Japan. She didn’t realise the pill was outlawed in Japan at the time,and she could have gotten into serious trouble if customs had caught er.

(Notes

- until the end of the war, contraception and abortion were illegal. Japanese women were expected to provide the Japanese military with as many future soldiers as possible.
- after the war, abortion was legalised, but not contraceptive pills. The main contraceptive method was condoms. Besides the expected patriarchaic reasons for not legalising the pill, one interesting excuse was the concern for the fish in the rivers that would be damaged due to the substances in the pills.
- when Viagra was legalised almost as soon as it came out, Japanese feminists got so angry about the double standard that the parliament finally agreed on legalising the pill. Until now, however, it hasn’t gained widespread acceptance.

)
571

pelamun

27 February 2012 at 6:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

(Japan also has a sex-positive culture, though with a taboo of discussing/displaying it in public. It had a widespread acceptance of homosexual relationships until modernisation, when like in many Asian nations Western taboos took hold. I believe in the case of Japan it was Christian missionaries who condemned homosexuality and sexual depravity)
572

Just_A_Lurker

27 February 2012 at 6:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ok, I hate to pop in like this but I have a huge problem. I know you this place has great advice and I’m hoping to get help here.
I’ve searched online and all that jazz but perhaps someone here knows something that will help.

I have bed bugs =(

I do not have money for an exterminator. I’ve heard the bug bombs for it make it worse. I got some random spray for it because I’m at the end of my rope and had to do something. I’ve done the washing/drying of everything, steaming the stupid carpets, one person even suggested spraying everything from the walls down with alcohol once a week to kill them. I’m out of my mind and can’t fucking sleep. I have scars from itching the bites so damn bad.

I seriously don’t know what else to do. I’ve read where people have been invested for years and sleep in the bathtub.
573

SQB

27 February 2012 at 6:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The reason Republicans want a small government is because only big government can do a damn thing to restrain the real power players of the world. Only big government can do a damn thing to stop banks ripping individuals off, stop companies from polluting, prevent large corporations from stifling competition, etc. Small government is just big enough to keep ordinary non-wealthy individuals in line, without affecting the operations of the truly wealthy. Which is exactly what they want.

Instant Molly, that. True as well.
574

julian

27 February 2012 at 6:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I have bed bugs =(

I do not have money for an exterminator.

Having been in your situation until I was able to move I can tell you there’s going to be no easy fix. Even an exterminator would need several visits before you could declare your home bed bug free.

What I ended up doing was periodically spray the contours of my mattress and bed as well as the insides of my drawers and, when I had spray to spare, the far edges of the floor. The first night after was the best night of sleep I’d had in a while but it took a couple months (spraying at the end of each week) for the bed bug population to whittle down to manageable levels. (And even then you could occasionally find them crawling around on the odd piece of clothing)

For bed bug killer I used Bedlam. Everything else worked but not nearly fast enough and only after a heavy coat. A drop of Bedlam killed them on contact.

Anyway, sorry, mate. I know how bad this sucks.
575

McCthulhu, now with Techroline and Retsyn

27 February 2012 at 6:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

OpposableThumbs @566: Some sociology major or statistician might call ‘BULLSHIT’ on me, but I always had the impression that the situation in the US was built around the metropolitan coastal areas having a higher influx of immigrants and therefore a higher necessity of accepting and meshing new ideas and cultures. Likely due to the introduction of new religious ideas, it required people to look at their own beliefs and more liberal interpretations had to have ensued.

There’s also that completely different culture in the Southern areas where anyone with even a good base tan became somebody’s servant, sometimes forced-gratis with the only health benefits being they might stop beating you before you died. The history of the psychology created surrounding the slave days has to have had an enormous impact on worldview and relationship with different races and cultures. There’s still people burning crosses on black people’s lawns in those places. It’s obvious the effects on racism are ridiculously long and lingering.

Whether or not the situation has actually created a noticeable migration of people within the country is something only the census people would be able to tell you. My guess is not so much. I would HOPE that a lot of the fundy weirdness going on right now is a result of a lot of those ridiculous, unchallenged ideas of the South and central parts of the country finally being challenged by people with dissenting opinion staying, or moving IN. There’s a backlash because of fear of losing the white, religious privelege to anyone who is slightly browner than the Cliffs Of Dover and to someone who doesn’t agree that Jeebus will fly everyone who dies all-expenses-paid to some opulent (and probably ridiculously gaudy) meeting hall for a teary-eyed reunion with granny.

Given the amount of absolute batshit crazy that is popping up, if the country is actually springing up this amount of sheer blown-out IQ stupidity on its own, without the fear catalyst? Holy fuck, that is too frightening to contemplate.
576

Giliell, not to be confused with The Borg

27 February 2012 at 7:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

pelamun

Japan also has a sex-positive culture, though with a taboo of discussing/displaying it in public. It had a widespread acceptance of homosexual relationships until modernisation, when like in many Asian nations Western taboos took hold. I believe in the case of Japan it was Christian missionaries who condemned homosexuality and sexual depravity

You’re clearly more the expert on Asia than me, but IIRC from some background studies on Kurosawa’s “Castle of Spiderweb Forest”, wasn’t the acceptance of homosexuality more along the patriarchal Greek lines?
A young man being the lover of a rich nobleman, where he’d get education and connections, and whom he’d have to leave upon becoming a man in order to start his own heterosexual family.
I remember that there were cases where the wives handed of their cooking gear as a sign that if the young men took their place in one aspect of the marriage, they could well take over in others as well.
The book (don’t ask me the title, it’s been years since I read it, it’s only that my brain routinely gets clustred up with such interesting details) also mentioned that those things made christianity pretty appealing for Japanese women: their sex ethics were more equally bad on both sexes.
577

Ogvorbis: Now With 98% Less Intellectual Curiousity!

27 February 2012 at 7:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I felt kinda bad about it, but I doubt if you can train wild rats (?) and so far all my Rube Goldberg contraptions to catch him have had me looking like Wile E. Coyote

Well, Wife has been able to train wild squirrels (to a point) in our backyard. So it may be possible.

It reminds me of an anecdote I heard about an “observant” Jew who made sandwiches with matzoh for Passover. Ham sandwiches

When I was a whitewater raft guide, there were two summer camps which came down once or twice a week with a busload of kids. They were Jewish camps, fully kosher, and quite strict. On one trip, we screwed up and the sandwiches, which were supposed to be all turkey and cheese, were about 40% ham and cheese, 40% roast beef and cheese, and 20% what we ordered. Many of the kids, and the counselors, were deliriously happy to get to eat some ham and some beef with cheese. And the summer camp never complained, so I guess no one reported it.

One counselor said that if we had some bacon, he would be in heaven.

Pope decries artifical procreation; fertility treatments as ‘arrogant

But an old guy who has never been married, never had sex, and never tried to raise a family telling everyone what they can and cannot do sexually, and that they should have more and more children, is not arrogant? Am I missing something? Or is he?

“the dignity of human procreation”? Has this guy SEEN human procreation?

Good question. I guess he views it through a biblical lense in which the only important (and thus dignified) part is who begat whom.

Oh, and we talked about Ghey Secks with Brownian. Both of us want to have it. But only one can.

I’m confused. Does this mean that the damned queue is now useless? Or is this simply a statement of fact that Brownian only has one can (arse)?

Here’s how this bill is defining abortion:

That is sick. They have now come right out and declared that a woman’s life is worth less than the tissue of a dead foetus. Words fail me.

but what about same-sex marriage? I still don’t get who would get damaged, financially or physically, by that…

Well, obviously, the marriages of every real Christian would be damaged. Just look at Newt Gingrich. If those mean old gays hadn’t brought up the subject of gay marriage, he would never have cheated on any of his wives and would stil be happily married to his first wife. So Newt’s wives would be the first ones to sue for damages over gay marriage in a libertopia. After all, they’d have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for those meddlesome gays.
578

McCthulhu, now with Techroline and Retsyn

27 February 2012 at 7:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

“The book (don’t ask me the title, it’s been years since I read it, it’s only that my brain routinely gets clustred up with such interesting details) also mentioned that those things made christianity pretty appealing for Japanese women: their sex ethics were more equally bad on both sexes.” – Giliell, not to be confused with The Borg

That might explain that weird occurrence of nun (or nun-influenced) costumes at cosplay genre cons. It totally ruins the geekiness.
579

theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen

27 February 2012 at 7:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@ Just-a-Lurker

I have bed bugs =(

You could try diatomaceous earth. It was very cheap last time I bought some (ok, decades ago).

It works by stabbing the little fuckers to death and sucking out their life juices. (Just that thought should cheer you.)
580

carlie

27 February 2012 at 8:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Be careful with the diatomaceous earth, though – it will treat your corneas just as badly as it does the bedbugs.
581

pelamun

27 February 2012 at 8:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Giliell,

probably. I didn’t mean to imply that homosexual relationships were equal to heterosexual ones (probably historically speaking that would be rare, although some Asian societies, especially in SE Asia, have accorded special status to transgendered people).

Historically, the first mention is probably that of the Jingû Emperor of 140 C.E., who had been in love with his priest, and had died of sorrow days after him, and was buried with him together. However, the Nihon Shoki paints this in a negative light, as it is written that the day went dark for days until they separated the two lovers and put them in different coffins.

However, centuries later, with the advent of Buddhism in Japan, homosexual practices became common in Buddhist temples. Somehow the Buddhist precept to abstain from sex was interpreted as a prohibition of sexual intercourse with women. Thus, for these monks, homosexual relationships were the only legitimate way of having carnal relations.

With the rise of the warrior culture, largely displacing the formerly ruling nobility, the practice you described became common.
A heterosexual marriage (which in Japan was usually arranged and had nothing to do with love) was still expected for the continuation of the family name, to have relationships with younger men, usually in their service. Probably like the Kurosawa thing. By the end of the Edo Period, in the 19th century, this acceptance had spread to the urban populations as well. It’s true that to a certain extent homosexual relationships gained acceptance because women were not valued as full partners.
But who knows what might have happened if the western missionaries had not come… Another thing that is absent from the descriptions of Japanese homosexuality is that of lesbian relationships.

I don’t deny that there was some appeal from Christianity for women, for instance opening up higher education (Christianity to this day is also more common in the upper classes, up to 10% of them are Christian). I need to find out more about the sexual aspect of it though, the point you’re raising is interesting.

But I do think, as long as there weren’t any safe contraceptive methods available, a pregnancy out of wedlock would bring disgrace upon a woman’s family, because that could no longer be kept secret (and it still does, students leave university over pregnancy, often both parties involved, and politicians lose their posts over affairs etc). In a sense things might have become more equal than they used to be only once contraception (here I mean excluding the pill) and abortion became more widely available.

And the taboo regarding homosexuality remains. People can still lose their jobs after being outed. Those who are out are often relegated to the fringes of society.
582

pelamun

27 February 2012 at 8:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

After some digging, some info on lesbian relationships in Japan:

- prior to the Edo period (17c.-19c.) hard to pinpoint, unlike male homosexuality, hardly any records
- during the Edo period, there are records for lesbian relationships in female prisons, and among artists, prostitutes and courtesans, thus more or less at the fringe of society. Also common in the Shôgun’s palace harem. And behind restaurants, whatever that means exactly (while merchants weren’t that high in the official societal totem pole, they had more standing than artists and prostitutes)

- after the Meiji restoration, while education and employment were open to women, they were often segregated, and there lesbian relationships can be attested as well. It seems that discrimination against lesbians is less severe, but then of course women in general are discriminated against heavily at the work place to this day (after marriage, a woman is usually expected to quit).
583

Giliell, not to be confused with The Borg

27 February 2012 at 8:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Probably like the Kurosawa thing.

I should mention that the movie isn’t about a homosexual relationship. It’s a Macbeth adaptation using the imagery and masks of classical No theatre.
Brilliant.
My task was to present the cultural background on the marriage between Macbeth/Lady Macbeth, so I read the whole book…
584

pelamun

27 February 2012 at 8:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I have to admit I have only watched a few Kurosawa movies, not even the one that became the inspiration for Star Wars..
585

pelamun

27 February 2012 at 8:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Breaking news: School shooting in Colorado, 4 wounded, gunman in custody
586

Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform

27 February 2012 at 8:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

So I got an email from a social-action org with a subject header of “Beat [Eric] Cantor with the STOCK Act.”

I’m tired as fuck today and I misread that as “Beat Cantor with a stick.” And I was totally game.

Josh:

Hope I didn’t scare you too bad stumbling up the stairs nearly starkers in my boxers for a wee-hours bathroom trip:)

Heh, no, I was half-asleep and in “gotta pee” mode. Also, Francine is lovely.

Pelamun, I apologize for not answering in more depth… I was skimming things to get to bed early last night, which didn’t help me much, because I didn’t sleep well. Anyway, I don’t know that I agree with Ladd that “agitated” implies self-control. I associate it especially with restless behaviors such as pacing and tapping. “Irritated” sounds like a better term for De Falco’s mood in the recording.

Jules: Signed. I’ll pass it along. Goddamn. /snarl

Pteryxx: “Gladiatorial pregnancy arenas”? My imagination fails me.

Esteleth, good luck today.

A.R., there is no way in hell that headline wasn’t deliberate. Media people live to stick double entendres into headlines etc. and get away with it. Here’s a classic from 2004.

Hotshoe: Thanks. I’ll have to listen later; the nanny filter is pretty tough here.

Giliell and other non-Yanks who wish to sign Jules’ petition: Use ZIPMap or another ZIP code map to grab codes from anywhere in the U.S. you want.

Opposable Thumbs: New Hampshire is not progressive. It’s libertarian. There are numerous anti-choice bills pending here. Oregon is progressive on the coast, conservative/libertarian in the rural east. As for DaughterSpawn, I fear to think how much worse it can get here in three years, and between the TSA and the possibility of lost luggage, who the hell knows if she’d retain her contraceptives after her flight.

McCthulhu: The psychology you are speaking of was based not only on slavery but on the worldviews of both the plantation-owning Cavalier class and the Scots-Irish borderer class that populated the backcountry. Both were very hierarchical societies.
587

David Marjanović

27 February 2012 at 9:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I second the call for a US zip code. I haven’t seen such blatant evil since… oh, since the photo of the pro-Assad demonstration I posted just yesterday. *sigh*
588

David Marjanović

27 February 2012 at 9:02 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Better news: Elsevier has abandoned support of the RWA (the right-wing authoritarian Research Works Act). Qapla’!
589

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart: mad, but sadistic genius

27 February 2012 at 9:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Oggie:

On one trip, we screwed up and the sandwiches, which were supposed to be all turkey and cheese…

Turkey and cheese sandwiches? Like, turkey layered with cheese? Or some turkey sandwiches and some cheese sandwiches?

I only ask ‘cos a turkey and cheese sandwich isn’t kosher– can’t mix meat and dairy in the same meal.

To all looking for US zip codes: 12206 (Albany, NY), 12065 (Clifton Park, NY) and my favorite 12345 (the GE plant in Schenectady, NY).

Have at it!
590

Ogvorbis: Now With 98% Less Intellectual Curiousity!

27 February 2012 at 9:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Apropos of absolutely nothing to do with the reast of the Thread, but, as I sit here mapping the entire railroad yard as it existed in 1937, I have to say that I FUCKING HATE WORKING WITH BEZIER CURVES!!!!!11!!!!!!111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And now, back to our regularly scheduled conversations.
591

Ogvorbis: Now With 98% Less Intellectual Curiousity!

27 February 2012 at 9:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Turkey and cheese sandwiches? Like, turkey layered with cheese? Or some turkey sandwiches and some cheese sandwiches?

I only ask ‘cos a turkey and cheese sandwich isn’t kosher– can’t mix meat and dairy in the same meal.

Yes, turkey and cheese sandwiches. I thought the prohibition was against eating the meat of the calf with the mild of the dam. In other words, no cheeseburgers. I didn’t realize that it was against any meat with a mild product, even poultry or fowl.
592

Ogvorbis: Now With 98% Less Intellectual Curiousity!

27 February 2012 at 9:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

And ZIP codes? 86023 is Grand Canyon, Arizona. 18702 is Sharpsburg, Maryland (deep in the bible belt and also where the Battle of Antietam took place during the US Civil War).
593

David Marjanović

27 February 2012 at 9:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

my favorite 12345 (the GE plant in Schenectady, NY).

Seems to have been accepted, thank you!
594

Muse

27 February 2012 at 9:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ogvorbis – Turkey and cheese? That’s still not kosher. Turkey counts as meat (due to hedges round the Torah)
595

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart: mad, but sadistic genius

27 February 2012 at 9:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Oggie:

I didn’t realize that it was against any meat with a mild product, even poultry or fowl.

On to jewfaqs*!

On three separate occasions, the Torah tells us not to “boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” (Ex. 23:19; Ex. 34:26; Deut. 14:21). The Oral Torah explains that this passage prohibits eating meat and dairy together. The rabbis extended this prohibition to include not eating milk and poultry together. In addition, the Talmud prohibits cooking meat and fish together or serving them on the same plates, because it is considered to be unhealthy. It is, however, permissible to eat fish and dairy together, and it is quite common (lox and cream cheese, for example). It is also permissible to eat dairy and eggs together.

But, hell, it’s not even entirely clear whether or not turkey itself is kosher. And, like everything else in Judaism, it’s a matter of degree and how strict the kids (and their families) were.

*That looks so wrong to me.
596

Muse

27 February 2012 at 9:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Or what Audley said.

Ogvorbis – the initial prohibition was “thou shalt not cook a kid in its mother’s milk”. Due to weird Jewish conventions called hedges round the Torah (ie making it so that you can possibly, even accidentally, do the wrong thing) it got expanded to no milk and meat at the same meal. Turkey, like other poultry counts, as meat, since if someone walked by and saw the bones, they might think that you were eating milk and meat together.
597

Muse

27 February 2012 at 9:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I give up. Audley is just faster than me ::grin::
598

opposablethumbs, que le pouce enragé mette les pouces

27 February 2012 at 9:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I would HOPE that a lot of the fundy weirdness going on right now is a result of a lot of those ridiculous, unchallenged ideas of the South and central parts of the country finally being challenged by people with dissenting opinion staying, or moving IN.

Hope so too, as that would suggest progress in the right direction with fundydom being seen as more challengeable – but I don’t know enough to hazard a guess.

Does this mean that the damned queue is now useless?

Presumably only a person who is the same sex as Brownian can have teh ghey secks with him by definition. Oh, double damn.

She didn’t realise the pill was outlawed in Japan at the time,and she could have gotten into serious trouble if customs had caught er.

bloody hell. I had no idea. Hey, would that (technically or in practice) be true in parts of the US now? I mean, don’t some states outlaw methods that prevent implantation (or have I misunderstood that, and are they “just” heading in that direction) – and if so, would a visitor using them be (technically or in practice) liable to get arrested?
599

Ogvorbis: Now With 98% Less Intellectual Curiousity!

27 February 2012 at 9:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Muse and Audley:

I stand corrected (or, rather, sit corrected).

Maybe they were just turkey. It’s been almost thirty years and, well, the memory just ain’t what it seems that I actually do get slightly better mileage at 60 than at 55 in my car. And 55mph gets me almost exactly the same mpgs that 65 does. Weird.
600

Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform

27 February 2012 at 9:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I Googled for more info on Alabama SB12. This Alabama pediatrician has more analysis. It’s even worse than you think.

And if your blood pressure still isn’t high enough, here’s another blogpost with a rage-inducing FB screencap.
601

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart: mad, but sadistic genius

27 February 2012 at 9:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I should add that I don’t know anyone who keeps kosher– Mr Darkheart’s family (for all of their weird eating habits) has never followed Jewish dietary law and my Jewish friends are either totally lapsed or they’re vegitarians. So, I don’t have any idea how common it is for people to “slip” or just ignore the laws when it suits them*.

Although it sounds like your group of campers were appreciative of the meat screw up. :)

*Like the thing with turkey. Giraffe has been established to be kosher, but they can’t agree on turkey?
602

opposablethumbs, que le pouce enragé mette les pouces

27 February 2012 at 9:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

As for DaughterSpawn, I fear to think how much worse it can get here in three years,

I will seriously ask for the Horde’s advice if she ever does eventually get around to putting this into action. I bet there are loads of things a not-particularly-worldly UKian would simply never dream of.

Off to run errands; backson.
603

Ogvorbis: Now With 98% Less Intellectual Curiousity!

27 February 2012 at 9:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Although it sounds like your group of campers were appreciative of the meat screw up. :)

The summer camps (Camp Arie and Camp Louise (and my Catholic-convert sister spent a summer as a counselor at Camp Louise)) were explicitly set up to give the campers the full Jewish experience — all the rules. Apparently there were many culturally-Jewish and semi-observent-Jewish families in the DC, Philadelphia and Baltimore areas who, though not fully observant themselves, wanted their children to get the full monty of Judaism at the camps. Lack of bacon, and lack of cheeseburgers, was a major complaint — one Israeli counselor said that if he could just invent a kosher bacon double cheeseburger, he would become the wealthiest man in the the world. The campers in my boat agreed.
604

Muse

27 February 2012 at 9:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ogvorbis – I’m not surprised that it was an Israeli who said that – most of them are secularists.
605

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart: mad, but sadistic genius

27 February 2012 at 9:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Oggie:

The summer camps (Camp Arie and Camp Louise (and my Catholic-convert sister spent a summer as a counselor at Camp Louise)) were explicitly set up to give the campers the full Jewish experience — all the rules.

That sounds… thrilling. :-/

No poly-cotton blends for you, young man!
606

Ogvorbis: Now With 98% Less Intellectual Curiousity!

27 February 2012 at 9:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

No poly-cotton blends for you, young man!

Hmm. If it was a cold (well, chilly) summer morning, my normal river shirt was an LLBean River Driver’s Shirt — cotton and wool. Very warm and light.

Wow. If they’d known (and done Leviticus right), I coulda gotten stoned on the job.*

I have no idea if they went that far at the camps. Never would have crossed my mind at the time.

It was, with a few of the campers, a view into what real privilege was: one boy said that his big sister was very upset as, for her sixteenth birthday, she was given a Ferrari 328 when all the cool kids were driving a Volkswagen Cabriolet. As someone who had sold my comic book collection so I could buy a VW Microbus, I was gobsmacked. Most of the kids, boys and girls, were really cool, but there was always 1% or 2%, and the sycophants who licked their toes, who were really annoying as hell.

* Rather than waiting for after work to smoke some farm weed with the other guides.
607

Rev. BigDumbChimp

27 February 2012 at 9:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ah Santorum

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Former senator Rick Santorum defended his comment that President John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech about the importance of the separation of religion from government “makes him throw up.”

“To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case?” Santorum said Sunday at a campaign event here in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Santorum is locked in a tight race with Mitt Romney in Michigan, whose GOP presidential primary is being held Tuesday.

He made his initial comments about the Kennedy speech during an appearance earlier Sunday on ABC’s This Week. “I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” he said on the talk-show program.

Kennedy, the first Catholic president, gave his speech to a group of Protestant ministers during his bid for president in order to put to rest concerns about his faith.

The Kennedy quote referenced by Santorum is as follows:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

Santorum, who is also Catholic, said the Kennedy speech was part of an effort to begin to “force God out of the public square.”

After referencing his appearance on the Sunday show, Santorum told the crowd here that the news media was shocked he would make such a statement.

“How dare you say that John F. Kennedy speech in Houston was something that makes you sick,” he said. “Why? Because he said this. ‘I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.’ That is France, not America.”
608

Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform

27 February 2012 at 10:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

HappiestSadist forwarded me a short story this weekend: “ILU-486,” by Amanda Ching. Really worth reading.
609

Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls

27 February 2012 at 10:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich.

Santorum said Sunday at a campaign event here in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

WTF???
610

Lynna, OM

27 February 2012 at 10:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I have to comment on this blasphemous idea that only males can have teh ghey sex with Brownian.

This is Pharyngula Fantasy Land, after all.

I’ve been in line forEVAH waiting for my turn. I don’t care how he does it, but I expect to thoroughly enjoy ghey sex with Brownian.

Mattir thinks like me. She also assumes she can have ghey sex with Brownian: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/09/episode_cix_i_just_watched_it.php#comment-2814767

And if I remember correctly, Dania also assumed ghey sex with Brownian was available for all comers.
611

Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform

27 February 2012 at 10:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

And if I remember correctly, Dania also assumed ghey sex with Brownian was available for all comers.

What about anorgasmic people? Don’t they have a right to dream about having ghey sex with Brownian, too?
612

Ogvorbis: Now With 98% Less Intellectual Curiousity!

27 February 2012 at 10:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

“To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case?”

Yet more proof that Santorum has no idea what the fuck he is talking about. Has he even read the Constitution of the United States of America? Or does his right-wing Christianist dominionist theocratic anti-human authoritarianism trump the law of the land?
613

We Are Ing

27 February 2012 at 10:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Around my parts at least it seems the ultra Orthodox Kosher is strictly interpreted partially if not entirely for the amazing mark up butchers and rabbis get to put on the food.
614

McCthulhu, now with Techroline and Retsyn

27 February 2012 at 10:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Around my parts at least

HEY! It’s definitely NOT kosher to put anything from the butcher’s around your parts!

I’m guessing that rabbis got the idea for circumcision by someone putting cold-cuts too close to their parts. So, don’t do it!
615

Ogvorbis: Now With 98% Less Intellectual Curiousity!

27 February 2012 at 10:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

McCthulhu:

You mean like this?
616

opposablethumbs, que le pouce enragé mette les pouces

27 February 2012 at 10:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

This is Pharyngula Fantasy Land, after all.

In that case I am totally keeping my place in line.
617

McCthulhu, now with Techroline and Retsyn

27 February 2012 at 10:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ogvorbis: I shouldn’t comment on detachable hotdog segments lest some sort of MRA discussion breaks out (again).
618

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart: mad, but sadistic genius

27 February 2012 at 11:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Lynna:

I’ve been in line forEVAH waiting for my turn. I don’t care how he does it, but I expect to thoroughly enjoy ghey sex with Brownian.

Jesus, me too.

I think that at one point, I was actually bumped back ‘cos Brownian wields his power like a petty dictator.
619

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies

27 February 2012 at 11:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Also, I know no one here cares but me*, but I just placed my order for Mass Effect 3. Boo yeah!

*Unless Ing, Shala, or possibly Kat are kicking around.
620

Pteryxx

27 February 2012 at 11:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

“I understand that we have this thing called “freedom of religion” in our country, but I also believe that children have a right to an education, and teaching children one side of everything becomes indoctrination rather than education.”

- Libby Anne

http://freethoughtblogs.com/lovejoyfeminism/2012/02/25/carefully-scripted-lives-my-concerns-about-the-duggars/
621

Giliell, not to be confused with The Borg

27 February 2012 at 11:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Argh fuck, I have a flat tyre.
I just don’t know yet which tyre.
It’s one of the front tyres, I can hear the air escape, but I still can’t figure out which one it is.
Whcih means that I have to get either my dad or my father in law to help me tomorrow morning.

Even more fuck, one of my best friends is waiting for news from her mum who was scheduled for surgery today. They weren’t sure if she has gall-stones or pancreatic cancer.
:(
622

Erulóra Maikalambe

27 February 2012 at 11:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

What about anorgasmic people? Don’t they have a right to dream about having ghey sex with Brownian, too?

Not if they want to stay anorgasmic.
623

Moggie

27 February 2012 at 11:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Audley:

Also, I know no one here cares but me*, but I just placed my order for Mass Effect 3. Boo yeah!

Will you play as Shep, or FemShep?

I recently started playing Mass Effect 1 (yeah, I know), and I flipped a coin and chose FemShep. I was quite impressed by the voice actor (Jennifer Hale); from what I’ve heard of the male character, I think she does a better job.
624

Ogvorbis: Now With 98% Less Intellectual Curiousity!

27 February 2012 at 11:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

They weren’t sure if she has gall-stones or pancreatic cancer.

Considering the pain and misery Wife went through with her gall bother, I feel really wrong saying this, but I hope it is the gall bother.

======

A few years ago, when Wife worked at a daycare, she walked out to leave and discovered her tyre was flat. Her boss was walking out at the same time and said, “Well, look on the bright side. It’s only flat on one side, right?”

Sometimes it is a real shame that, with most bosses, and in most situations, you cannot give your boss the finger.

I had a tyre going flat when I was at a fire. Never found out which tyre it was as, on my way to a checkpoint (I was escorting private vehicles past the active fire area), my truck was hit, just over the driver-side front wheel, by a BFR (a Big Rock) and almost pushed off the road into the Salmon River. Still not sure which tyre was going down, but I could sure hear it.
625

Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform

27 February 2012 at 11:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I’m catching up on the “Kitting souls with an approved wanton” thread. For fuck’s sake… I swear, some asexuals are the worst special snowflakes on the internet, outdone only by “otherkin.” (See here for more examples.)

In other news, got a call from the veterinary hospital. Kitteh went in for a dental cleaning. I was afraid she would need two teeth pulled, which together could have run over $300, but she only needs the one pulled and it’s about $100. And they say she’s doing well.

She was so upset this morning that I wouldn’t let her have any food or water. It’s because she had to get anesthesia, but you can’t explain it to them, just croon “I know, I’m sorry, sweetie” when they cry at you. I’m going to pick her up after work, then snuggle her for an hour or so. ♥

Giliell: It’s an odd thing to write, but I hope your friend has gallstones.

Erulora: Snap. (BTW, I remember when you changed to the current nym, but I can’t remember what the old one was… please tell me? It’s driving me up a wall.)
626

Erulóra Maikalambe

27 February 2012 at 11:51 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Daisy,

It was KOPD. Just don’t tell anybody. ;-)
627

Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform

27 February 2012 at 11:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

AHHHHH. Thank you. :D

(Tell them what?)
628

We Are Ing

27 February 2012 at 11:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Also, I know no one here cares but me*, but I just placed my order for Mass Effect 3. Boo yeah!

SQUEE need to do that. Where did you pre-order?

Will you play as Shep, or FemShep?

I recently started playing Mass Effect 1 (yeah, I know), and I flipped a coin and chose FemShep. I was quite impressed by the voice actor (Jennifer Hale); from what I’ve heard of the male character, I think she does a better job.

Nonononononononono NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO WRONG!

It’s Shep or ManShep not Shep or Femshep :-p
629

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies

27 February 2012 at 11:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Moggie,
I didn’t know you played video games. :)

I’ll be carrying over my femShep from ME2. Whenever possible, I play (and have always played) female characters.

Mr Darkheart played through the first two games as a male Shepard and you’re totally right– Jennifer Hale did a much better job than the dude voice actor*.

*I would look up his name, but I am trying to avoid ANY AND ALL news about ME3, which is proving to be pretty fucking difficult. Of course, it doesn’t help that most of my friends and my husband are gamers. Sometimes I think that they start talking about Mass Effect just to see me stick my fingers in my ears, shout “LA LA LA LA LA!” and book it out of the room.
630

We Are Ing

27 February 2012 at 11:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I’m catching up on the “Kitting souls with an approved wanton” thread. For fuck’s sake… I swear, some asexuals are the worst special snowflakes on the internet, outdone only by “otherkin.” (See here for more examples.)

I don’t want to be bigoted and comment too much because i know it’s a perspective I don’t get too much. But it annoys me how I hear asexuals talk about things like how they shouldn’t have to be upfront about not wanting sex…while dating or other stuff like that and acting like it’s like homophobia to request that you not be a dick and insist everyone politely accommodate you in a realm that is sexual.
631

We Are Ing

27 February 2012 at 12:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

*I would look up his name, but I am trying to avoid ANY AND ALL news about ME3, which is proving to be pretty fucking difficult. Of course, it doesn’t help that most of my friends and my husband are gamers. Sometimes I think that they start talking about Mass Effect just to see me stick my fingers in my ears, shout “LA LA LA LA LA!” and book it out of the room.

All I know so far is that Modin returns but not as a squad member…I hope he gets a big role thought I loved his actor and character.
632

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies

27 February 2012 at 12:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ing:

SQUEE need to do that. Where did you pre-order?

SQUEE! Amazon ‘cos 1) $10 gift card (boo yeah) and 2) $0.99 release day shipping. Plus the bonus DLC is some sort of fancy-pants assault rifle. I can live with that.

I always preferred dudeShep and femShep, myself.
633

We Are Ing

27 February 2012 at 12:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I played the game as badass Paradigm mostly Shep. Hoping we get a good pay off with all the bridge building she did between the races.
634

We Are Ing

27 February 2012 at 12:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

paragon not paradigm…duh.
635

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies

27 February 2012 at 12:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ing:

All I know so far is that Modin returns but not as a squad member…I hope he gets a big role thought I loved his actor and character.

Oh, Ing. Really? Really? You’re gonna do that to me after I totally said “no spoilers”? >:(

Not that it matters anyway… he got killed in the Collector base. Whoops!

Ms Daisy Cutter:

For fuck’s sake… I swear, some asexuals are the worst special snowflakes on the internet, outdone only by “otherkin.”

Okay, I’m not clicking on that link.

What I don’t get is showing up on a thread about enjoying sex and whining that they’re being ignored. Gah!
636

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies

27 February 2012 at 12:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ing,

I played the game as badass Paradigm mostly Shep. Hoping we get a good pay off with all the bridge building she did between the races.

Seriously. If everyone’s still all like “Reapers? Pah! Just a rumor! By the way, aren’t you supposed to be dead?” I’m gonna go full-court renegade.
637

We Are Ing

27 February 2012 at 12:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Oh, Ing. Really? Really? You’re gonna do that to me after I totally said “no spoilers”? >:(

Sorry figured that one wasn’t spoiler since they said how they were cutting the squad size down.

Not that it matters anyway… he got killed in the Collector base. Whoops!

IngSHep: “No one gets left behind”~~lame proud. Got everyone out with full loyalty and crew rescued. It was very satisfying learning how the squad worked, picking up the hints at who was good at what and organizing the strike to turn the suicide mission into a curb stomp.

play Infiltrator Shep so the fact that Harbringer could barely get a taunt out before taking an anti-tank shell made the big damn heroes moment all the better.
638

We Are Ing

27 February 2012 at 12:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Incidentally if anyone is looking at DLC they haven’t done to warm back up for ME3, Shadowbroker is entirely worth it just for the added fluff info it gives on the squad.

Seriously. If everyone’s still all like “Reapers? Pah! Just a rumor! By the way, aren’t you supposed to be dead?” I’m gonna go full-court renegade.

Yeah for me it’s if they make me drive the Hammerhead again. Can we please just use the shuttle? The vehicle we have that doesn’t handle like a brick made out of glass?
639

Moggie

27 February 2012 at 12:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Mr Darkheart played through the first two games as a male Shepard and you’re totally right– Jennifer Hale did a much better job than the dude voice actor*.

Seriously. He just sounds like Generic Military Badass. There is good male voice acting in the game, but not from him.

Yeah, me and the vidyagames go way back (does Pong count?), though I don’t play as much as I used to. And almost never multiplayer, owing to the difficulty of finding servers which aren’t overrun with jerks.

I always preferred dudeShep and femShep, myself.

*Hangs head in shame*
I totally did it, didn’t I? I treated the guy as the default. I ought to have learnt by now.
640

We Are Ing

27 February 2012 at 12:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Side note: The ME movie idea is perhaps the worst idea ever. The fact that they did so well with plot branching and character moments means that everyone is going to have profound disappointment and dissonance because Shep’s character will be off. My Shep is the citizen of the galaxy who speaks to people on their level in their language and will go to war against the gods themselves to ensure that people remain safe and happy. Other people may have a conflicted xenophile racist who keeps finding themselves surrounded by alien friends. It’s not going to work.
641

Moggie

27 February 2012 at 12:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

So, you’re suggesting that a game-derived movie will suck? Whoa, my mind it is blown!
642

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies

27 February 2012 at 12:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ing:

Sorry figured that one wasn’t spoiler since they said how they were cutting the squad size down.

ARRRRGHFLARGHFLARG!

Seriously, are you trying to make me cry? :(

“No one gets left behind”~~lame proud. Got everyone out with full loyalty and crew rescued. It was very satisfying learning how the squad worked, picking up the hints at who was good at what and organizing the strike to turn the suicide mission into a curb stomp.

I didn’t have full loyalty– it was possible to lose loyalty, at least with Miranda. I haven’t had the time to go back and play, so I’m not sure how the hell I screwed up with Mordin.

Yeah for me it’s if they make me drive the Hammerhead again. Can we please just use the shuttle? The vehicle we have that doesn’t handle like a brick made out of glass?

That and they can kindly stop making us fucking probe planets. There was one day that Mr Darkheart had plans or some shit and when he left the apartment, I was probing planets. When he got back almost 8 hours later, I was still probing planets.

Moggie:

Yeah, me and the vidyagames go way back (does Pong count?), though I don’t play as much as I used to.

Pong most definitely counts.

My video gaming only goes back to NES.

I totally did it, didn’t I? I treated the guy as the default. I ought to have learnt by now.

Hey, it’s okay. :D
643

Predator Handshake

27 February 2012 at 12:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I’m kind of conflicted about when I plan to buy ME3. On one hand, I was a bit disappointed with what I felt was an oversimplification of loot in the second game and would rather wait to buy the game used (although I’m not sure if this is a viable option with all the account linking they’re making people go through these days); on the other hand, the multiplayer seems really fun and I’d hate to wait so long that it becomes a desert and also I’m really excited about the game.

Clarification regarding ME loot: I liked the system a bit more in the first game, though I do feel that there was an awful lot of redundant or extraneous stuff to sort through and scrap, but I think they stripped too much of that away in ME2. If ME3 finds a middle ground I’ll be very happy with it. The demo was encouraging; I don’t necessarily want loot all over the place, but I enjoy scrounging an area for upgrades and there was enough of that to make me hopeful for the end product.

Character preferences: I played most of the way through ME1 as a male Shepard before realizing how much better Jennifer Hale is as a voice actor. Played through ME2 as femShep and am now going back through ME1 as femShep again. I tend toward Renegade Vanguards these days and plan to do same for ME3.
644

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies

27 February 2012 at 12:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Moggie:

So, you’re suggesting that a game-derived movie will suck? Whoa, my mind it is blown!

Mine, too.

There was only one video game movie that I’ve liked and that was Silent Hill. Solely because I ♥ Sean Bean.
645

Pteryxx

27 February 2012 at 12:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

re asexuals:

But it annoys me how I hear asexuals talk about things like how they shouldn’t have to be upfront about not wanting sex…while dating or other stuff like that and acting like it’s like homophobia to request that you not be a dick and insist everyone politely accommodate you in a realm that is sexual.

Well, since they make a distinction between romance/lifelong companionship/intimacy and *sex*, they do have a really good point about the conflation of dating with sex and the “friend zone” problem – and confirmed asexuals aren’t the only ones. What do we sexytypes do when we, or our lifepartners, lose ability or desire for sex due to medical conditions, trauma, stress, or simply age?

But I do agree that the thread about allowing women to be sexual beings was reeeeallly not a good place for more than one comment expressing the asexual viewpoint.
646

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies

27 February 2012 at 12:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Predator Handshake:
Oh see, I really liked the simplified loot system. It was tedious in the first ME and I felt that the streamlining really helped keep the pace of the second game.
647

cicely (Insert Clever Appellation Here)

27 February 2012 at 12:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Oh, MRSA…I wish I knew how to quit you.

No, really. This abusive relationship we’ve got going…it…it just isn’t good for me.
.
.
(Damn, but I itch.)
-

A nice little bit on science and pseudoscience, and the difference between them, here.
-
Vatican told to pay taxes as Italy tackles budget crisis
-

Fuck the pope!

Ewwwwww!!!
If this thing has got to be done, it will not be done by me. Someone else can fling themselves on that shit grenade.
-
648

Jules

27 February 2012 at 12:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Thanks to everyone who signed the petition. The sponsor has deleted his facebook account because of all the negative feedback he was getting. There is a fairly large (for Alabama) public outcry, so I hope we can get it pulled.
649

Predator Handshake

27 February 2012 at 12:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Audley: I know I’m in the minority there. I definitely think the system in the first game was far from perfect, but Diablo was one of the first modern RPG’s that I played through so it sort of trained me to love micromanaging my inventory.
650

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies

27 February 2012 at 1:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

PH:
Ah, I gotcha. Personally, I hate that micro-managing shit. :D
651

Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform

27 February 2012 at 1:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ongoing Battles with Rape Culture. Trigger warning for rape and sexual assault.
652

The Sailor

27 February 2012 at 1:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Update on the Rat-Who-Won’t-Leave; When I woke up at 4 this morning, (bladder alert, not something going bump in the night), there was a gift laying just outside my bedroom.

No, not that kinda gift, he’d taken a wrapped fortune cookie off my desk in the living room and left it there in the middle of the floor, unwrapped, whole, with no discernible tooth or claw marks.

that section of floor is about as far as you can get from a hiding or food or interesting place in my apt. I cleaned it up and when back to bed.

When I woke up to go to work there was a paper napkin, still folded, in the exact same spot. Which just happened to be the spot where he was standing when we had our staring contest.

Either he’s leaving me offerings to appease the giant monster living in his apartment, or he’s trying to lull me into a false sense of security before biting my face off in the middle of the night.
653

We Are Ing

27 February 2012 at 1:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I didn’t have full loyalty– it was possible to lose loyalty, at least with Miranda. I haven’t had the time to go back and play, so I’m not sure how the hell I screwed up with Mordin.

Because it’s not just about loyalty but also about what they’re good at. Mordin isn’t a combatant so putting him in an area that requires holding the line or defending a position puts him at risk of death (though he’ll be fine seemingly if others can compensate for him). He’s actually a good choice to either take with you in the final battle IMHO (that keeps him safe if loyal I think) because of his wide area attacks on organics or to escort the survivors back.

From what I did, not consulting a walk through. or anything so sorry if it doesn’t work.

Infiltrating for hacking: Legion, though I believe Tali or Kasumi can also do it well all are revealed to be hacking experts

Leading B squadron: Jacob, Garrus or Miranda. Miranda is pretty good at leading. Zaed is actually awful at it (which if you listen to him you can figure out since he’s had multiple squads under him killed off), Miranda is explicitly leadership and tactician and Garrus had a small squad survive in Omega against disproportionate odds until one betrayed them

Bionic barrier: Jack or Samara. Miranda is not as good at bionics as she thinks.

Holding the line: Miranda, Garrus, Jacob or Grunt. Keeping Grunt or Garrus or Thane in this team seems to be good for keeping weaker ones alive.

Clarification regarding ME loot: I liked the system a bit more in the first game, though I do feel that there was an awful lot of redundant or extraneous stuff to sort through and scrap, but I think they stripped too much of that away in ME2. If ME3 finds a middle ground I’ll be very happy with it. The demo was encouraging; I don’t necessarily want loot all over the place, but I enjoy scrounging an area for upgrades and there was enough of that to make me hopeful for the end product.

From what I heard they got complaints that ME2 was too much of a shooter and are bringing back elements of 1…while varying enemy types and tactics to make it a better shooter. They also said that mining will be addressed…do I ever hope so. It was one of those artificial obstacles, not hard but just tedious.
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We Are Ing

27 February 2012 at 1:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I also know that with ME they’ve done something interesting and offering 3 modes of play. One that simplifies the combat down for those who just want the story, a normal mode, and one that abridged the story but extends combat. I call that last one the loser mode.

I only know because there were seriously people whining about how they’re destroying gaming by pandering down to the womenyz and gayz and wussies.
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TomeWyrm

27 February 2012 at 2:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Still playing catch-up, but I figured this one could jump ahead of the herd of replies. Bed bugs suck ass, I had a friend who had an infestation… that was some rash of bites!

Just_A_Lurker
Bed Bugs
Unfortunately, it’s probably going to be expensive no matter what you do. But I would rather use steam, heat treatment, or dry ice. I’m averse to chemical treatment, though.
I found http://bedbugger.com/
more specifically http://bedbugger.com/faqs/pestcontrol/ might be useful. It looks to be a useful site, but I have no idea about the efficacy of the information provided. It’s the internet, take all of it with a grain of salt, eh?

One of the treatments that caught my eye was steam treatment. Bed bugs are fairly surface-centric, steam cleaning is fairly inexpensive (hell you can RENT steam cleaners), and it’s a WAY quicker method than pesticide treatments.

But if you’re swimming in the things, the only recourse appears to be calling a Pest Control Operator. Sorry for the bad news if that’s the case!
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Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies

27 February 2012 at 2:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

… And since Ing seems incapable of SHUTTING UP ABOUT SPOILERS!!, I’m off to play the DLC for Saints Row.

:P
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SQB

27 February 2012 at 2:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Argh fuck, I have a flat tyre.
I just don’t know yet which tyre.

Go to the petrol station and inflate them back to their full pressure. Usually the machine shows the current pressure, but if not, the one needing the most air is the one going flat.
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SQB

27 February 2012 at 2:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Either he’s leaving me offerings to appease the giant monster living in his apartment (…)

You’re now hir god. With great power comes great responsibility.
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SQB

27 February 2012 at 2:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Night-Night, Sleep Tight.
Hope the bed bugs do not bite.
If they do, do a poo.
Put it in a Cornish Stew.
Into the ambulance, dring-dring-dring!
Fish trousers elephant in Peking.
Saw a busy bee; Diddle-diddle-dee.
Daddy’s an accountant just like me.
Night-Night, God Bless.
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Predator Handshake

27 February 2012 at 2:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

While the video game chat is still relatively recent:

Is anybody else around here into pinball? I’m really excited about Pinball Arcade for Xbox being released…soon, maybe. I like the Pinball FX games but the tables on there are a bit on the unrealistic side, so I’m looking forward to playing actual Williams tables without worrying about whether anyone has ever opened them up for maintenance.

And if anyone happens to play Pinball FX on Xbox let me know and we can add each other there.
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Esteleth, Ph.D. of Mischief, Mayhem and Hilarity

27 February 2012 at 2:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Well, my ingesting this morning and last night has proved to be for naught. Staff meeting came and went, with nada said about my fuckup of of last week.
I almost kinda sorta wanted to ask about it, but then I’m not a masochist.

…go me?

____

Honestly, the thing that gets me about all of this is that a group of smart, highly-educated, driven scientists are (rightfully!) afraid to mention offhand what it is they do, because they live in the community, have families and children, etc., etc., etc. And so they must drop the heavy end of the hammer on someone who posts a comment on FB that would be utterly innocuous in any right, sane world. And that is all I am going to say on that topic, because even though my real name isn’t here on this blog, I’ve put at various places around TET and elsewhere enough information to allow someone to identify me if they really wanted to. Those who have me friended on FB may have seen the offending (and now scrubbed) post, but the like will not get posted there again, or anywhere.

Because there are people who would want to kill me, and my co-workers, and our families and loved ones because of what we do.

*shiver*

WTF is wrong with this world?
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Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies

27 February 2012 at 2:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

ARG! Never mind, fucking Microsoft has fucking suspended my gold account.

Fuck fuck fuck.
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We Are Ing

27 February 2012 at 3:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

… And since Ing seems incapable of SHUTTING UP ABOUT SPOILERS!!, I’m off to play the DLC for Saints Row.

:P

I’M TRYING! Gameplay mechanics shouldn’t count as spoiler! *runs away sobbing*
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slignot

27 February 2012 at 3:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I spent most of this weekend playing the first Mass Effect. Spouse finished up some DLC for ME2 he’d never played and it made me realize how much I’d forgotten about the first two games. So I’ve been playing through with a renegade FemShep character.

It’s funny how it seems rougher than I remember, and I totally forgot how fucking frustrating the damn mako is to control sometimes. Still love the game, though. My affection for Wrex was solidified when he declared someone useless and told me to eat them.
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David Marjanović

27 February 2012 at 3:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I LOLed in meatspace at this.

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People have been wondering where the slightly deranged penguin has been staying. Well, here is the latest giant penguin.

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Soups I made the last 2 weekends, the 2nd and 3rd times in my life that I made soup from scratch!

My parents had left me 1 celeriac, 3 onions, and some ginger.

Celeriac cream soup

About 4 portions if you eat soup as a course of a two-course meal; more if you eat it in tiny bowls as a mere appetizer.

1 onion; chop finely, roast in oil
1/8 l white wine… or not; I didn’t have any, so I just left it out
1 celeriac, diced
1 potato, not too small (mine was), diced
vegetable broth powder or 1/2 cube
water
boil in pressure cooker
blend
add milk, pepper, nutmeg; optionally salt, parsley, celery (didn’t have any parsley or celery, didn’t need more salt)

Worked, though the celeriac was a bit woody, and the whole thing was a bit bitter because the potato wasn’t big enough to compensate the taste.

Carrot/ginger soup

2 big portions… let’s say 3. The recipe claims 6, evidently under the assumption that soups are some kind of garnish*.

700 g carrots (means: 8 not to small ones); chop
1 onion; chop finely, roast in oil or clarified butter
1 piece ginger root, around 70 g; chop
1 teaspoon curry powder (I took maybe twice that, because mine isn’t hot at all)
1 knife-tip** chicken broth powder
salt, pepper
1 shot lemon juice (didn’t have any, didn’t matter)
water (not too much)
boil in pressure cooker
blend

Tasted pretty great.

Next saturday: carrot-onion soup. Recipe as above, just without the ginger, with half as many carrots (I had bought a kg = 12 carrots), and without the chicken broth.

* In the cafeteria here, tiny bowls are provided for soup. I almost always take 2 – everything’s allowed as long as you pay for it.
** Common measurement in German-language recipes. Half a teaspoon? I think I actually took more.

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Catching up with last subthread (because why not).

Jules is back! :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) And I didn’t notice!

Watching the video, I’m always amazed at how tiny James Randi is.
If you see him alone he’s just such a presence that h seems too stand 2m tall.

Must be his beard.

much of Europe has had an unusually cold winter

Much of Europe has had no winter at all, except for the 3 weeks or so when it was unusually cold.

Since then, here in Berlin temperatures have gone up to +12 °C, though they’ve dropped again to more normal levels (it froze last night).

On another subject, I’m using somebody else’s computer and I can’t believe the ads that are displayed here if you don’t do AdBlock. I know it’s a longstanding problem–Coyne occasionally posts disparaging screenshots–but that just makes me wonder why nobody’s done anything about it. Christian T-shirts and pastor-by-mail schemes are one thing but now it’s ‘Protect the Unborn: sign the petition to bypass Roe v. Wade’. Gratuitous pic of a baby clearly born a couple months ago.

This is a fucking insult to the people that read these blogs. It’s unconscionable. Seriously.

Do advertizers pay per view or per click here?

Leeesten werry carefully. I zhall zay zis only wunce.

Northern German turns /s/ into [z] at the beginnings of words, but /ʃ/ does not change. There is no [ʒ] in any kind of German, except perhaps in French loans for people who know French well.

I recieved my refurbished copmuter

I’ll just let this stand here and bask in its shine. :-)

Utah liquor stores received a last-minute edict from the Governor’s Office that their “closed” signs at the stores on Monday specify the closure is for Washington and Lincoln Day, and not Presidents Day. The official name for that national holiday was changed by the Utah Legislature, and officials don’t want the mistaken impression that we Utahns are honoring just any old president.

I was wondering! Right next to me hangs the Geology of Utah calendar that I bought at the auction at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting last year. It says “Washington & Lincoln Day”.

(Februry: “The Muley Canyon Sandstone Member of the Cretaceous-age Macos Shale forms a protective cap at the top of Factory Butte, allowing it to tower 1,500 feet above badlands of the easily erodible Blue Gate Shale Member. These rocks record the existence of an inland sea covering much of Utah around 90 million years ago.” “Factory Butte, Wayne County” “Photographer”: alas, not Lynna)

Stress is funny stuff, I put on twenty five pounds over two years while trying to make things work and have dropped fifteen of that since I realized in November that I couldn’t. I wonder what that says?

It says that different people change their weight in different ways as a response to completely different situations.

My weight changes extremely little no matter what I do or fail to do, and no matter how I feel. When I turn couch potato, I simply stop being hungry… Maybe that’s connected to the fact that exposure to disturbing/digusting information doesn’t make me lose any appetite. Maybe the general psychosomatic connection to appetite is just missing.

I remember that I once had a BIG fight with my grandpa about a mole trap. But that was one of those things: He grew up in a society where humans were cheap, so there was hardly a moment to spare to think about animals. And whatever you told him about moles actually being a bit messy but ultimatively good for your garden, he would just file them under “pest” and try to kill them.

Did he perhaps confuse moles and voles? Wühlmäuse?

“What is this, bunny week?“.

A week that consists only of fucking, eating and being incredibly cute?
Where do I sign up?

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

In my experience, those are also the same people who are very unforgiving on a kid who dislikes salad

Kill such people. Kill them with ~~fire~~ acetic acid.

No, as a matter of fact it’s not. Bartenders do not ‘bartend’, they tend bar. Fundraisers do not ‘fundraise’, they raise funds. etc. All these compound verbs are lazy back-formations from the nouns. It’s gratingly subliterate, and it’s bugged me for years. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to coffeedrink.

Coffeedrinking (like woodchopping) isn’t lazy or subliterate, it’s German.

Or Lakhota.

Oh, Ogvorbis. There aren’t enough hugs.

Seconded.

It might take quite some time until I feel ready to take the test. I haven’t actually spoken more than a couple of words of English in years and I think I’ve forgotten a lot of grammar.

I’ve never noticed.

Success! Grignard reaction successful and I didn’t get ether poisoning!

Awesome!

@David Marjanović, I had a (belated) realisation. The “Pearson” in Benson & Pearson, 2001, tutored me at university!

:-)

It’s a feeling I never get from fire, even though it’s also a warm orangey-red radiant light source.

Look directly into the sun through your closed eyelids.

You’ll literally see the difference to a fire.

It’s about sexual freedom. That’s what it’s about. Homosexuality. It’s about sexual freedom.”

WELL NO SHIT MISTER FUCKING SANTORUM.

This makes me fucking rage. Of COURSE it’s about sexual fucking freedom. Why does he talk about the concept of ‘sexual freedom’ like it’s so goddamn horrible?

Easy: if every man had sexual freedom, they’d only fuck each other anymore, no more children would be conceived, and *scary music* we’d die out within a generation. (And I want Comic Sans.)

That’s immediately obvious to Santorum because Santorum, exactly like Alan Keyes and probably Fred Phelps, is gay and simply cannot imagine that anybody (or any man, same thing to him) is not gay.

It’s all one long argument from profound ignorance and personal incredulity. A sheltered upbringing combined with continued fundamentalism can do such things to people.

Santorum has said out loud that sex with his wife isn’t fun. He clearly believes that every husband agrees.

Personally I think he’s turned on by fertilization in factory farms and would just like to see us move in that direction.

No idea if he’s turned on by that, but he’d definitely like to see us move in that direction – assuming he can convince himself it’s a valid interpretation of “go forth and multiply”.

Also, the French Prime Minister’s Office demands the abolition of “Mademoiselle” in official forms. I’m glad this day has finally come. And it’s a right-wing government no less!

Interesting.

There are (pers. obs.) women who enjoy being called Mademoiselle because it means they still look young.

I think I underestimated the CO2 production capabilities of Bread Yeast.

One glucose unit of starch gives six molecules of CO2 when oxygen is available, and still two (plus two of ethanol) when it’s not. Now, starch is solid, and CO2 is a gas…

I recall vaguely: “The many tears of the beautiful girl.”

Multae lacrimae puellae pulchrae.

The first two -ae are nominative plural, the second two are genitive singular. Happen to be identical all over Indo-European, especially in the feminine as is the case here both times.

Warning: self-centered complaintfest ahead

*hug*
*rooibos tea*
*chocolate*

Kalam is the Kalam Cosmological Argument. It states:

1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2) The universe began to exist.
3) Therefore the universe has a cause.
4) This cause is God.

It’s intellectually dishonest.

Oh, the intellectual dishonesty is only in the conclusion. You simply don’t need to go that far. The very first premise is plain wrong, and that has been quite clear since 1927.

It’s TomeWyrm. Common typo, though at least you have the pronunciation correct :)

Technically, she hasn’t, it’s just that English has undergone a lot of sound shifts in the last 1000 years.

Ok, seriously.

I got up an hour early today because I set my clock wrong. Realized it fairly quickly, but instead of swearing and going back to bed, I went “Eh, I can stop by the store before I go to work!”
I then proceeded to make udon noodle and soybean soup for breakfast, went shopping, and am now in my office early enough that sunrise is coming in the windows. What the hell is wrong with me?

Somehow you’ve managed to sleep enough lately :-)

(…Soup? For breakfast? OK, something is wrong with you. ;-) )

Maybe even to a complete absence of anything it’s just so boring that it has to pop something into existence.

“Boring” isn’t quite the right term; “symmetric” is the one physicists use. When something pops into existence, the number of symmetry axes (and planes) you can put through space-or-whatever decreases… and entropy increases.

Probably there is something rather than nothing because nothing is unstable.

How did you get jobs? I can’t for the life of me manage to write a decent motivation letter.

My brother only manages it when my sister relentlessly pounds him verbally. He routinely gets very loud in the process and is sometimes at risk of pounding physically. His reasons are exactly the ones you give.

Oh, and, everyone is looking for a 20-year-old with at least 5 years of experience in the job.

To get my Humboldt scholarship, I didn’t need to make myself look all that good – only my research. That is feasible.

Beatrice @471: Have I been that long out of the work force? I have no idea WTF a ‘motivation’ letter is.

A cover letter that proves you want the job more badly than anyone else and are three times as well qualified as anyone else. Required everywhere except in science.

Unfortunately, I had a misogynist HS biology teacher who liked to say to girls after he had grilled them about the subject matter: “I don’t want to penetrate you any longer”. I wish I could say it sounded better in the original German, but it didn’t…

Deliberately careless pun on penetrant, which has the more metaphorical meaning “annoyingly insistent”.

Petition: Freedom for Hamza Kashgari

Hamza is the young reporter who was deported from Malaysia and put on a private plane to Saudi Arabia. There he faces the death penalty for tweeting an imaginary conversation with imaginary mohammad.

The petition is still up. I just signed.

I’m from the pope’s own country, and I have never ever seen anybody with an ash-cross on ash Wednesday.

I have, and I used to get the cross myself when I was little, but ash falls off fairly quickly.

BTW, not being familiar with Catholic practices and all, but how important is this foot-washing practice?

That’s the passage the priest reads in church that day. (…which is the last Thursday of Lent, not the first, in case anyone is confused.)

Kluge says “origin unclear” and suggests calque from Latin dies viridium “Day of the Greens” (Luke 23,31)

I’ve been told the Jewish tradition is to eat bitter herbs sometime around Pessach, and this was adapted to spinach north of the Alps where nothing but “cabbage and turnips” grows more-or-less natively.

I literally *read* “jamesmichaels” as “jamesvssandra” now.

Wow. :-)

Now if only I could find a wise old bear and a soft-spoken puma to mentor me.

Forget about that. Bears, at least, aren’t social enough for it.

Why do rabbits appear incapable of ‘walking’, and only seem to move by different speeds of hopping?

I suppose with such long feet it’s easier…

also why do kangaroos appear to be built the same way and is this an example of convergence?

Yes. Climbing mammals, like squirrels, often move in a “bounding gait” when they’re on the ground; and placentals + marsupials are all climbers unless secondarily terrestrial.

And both rabbits and roos appear to only be able to move their back legs as one unit and be incapable of ‘walking’.

Except when they swim. (Kangaroos at least.)

David M., the YouTube link about the new caecilian doesn’t work.

Oops.

Just got back from a talk on the bioethics of PGD (preimplantation genetic screening), which is used to ensure that parents with family histories of genetic disease have healthy children. I found out that the fucking RCC is fucking opposed to it. Apparently, the RCC is even more fucking heartless that I thought before.

Oh yes, it is. Remember the 9-year-old that needed an abortion to survive and got one? She’s the only one who wasn’t excommunicated for not letting her and the twin fetuses die. The Catholic Church is about principles, divine principles, not about morals.

One of Mother Teresa’s biographers – almost all the books written about her are by completely uncritical devotees – says, with a sense of absolute wonderment, that when Mother Teresa first met the pope in the Vatican, she arrived by bus dressed only in a sari that cost one rupee. Now that would be my definition of behaving ostentatiously. A normal person would put on at least her best scarf and take a taxi.

~:-| Why a taxi? What for? That wouldn’t even bring you any closer than the bus.

What has got 100 balls and fucks rabbits?

50 more rabbits?

They waste energy for keeping up the formation by flying in that pattern

*
–*
—–*
——-*
—–*
–*
*

whilst moving downwards (on your screen).

Well, as myeck waters said, they don’t waste energy. You’re showing us the right half a V followed by the left half of another V.

Why should the formation have two sides? There’s no aerodynamic reason for that that I know of. Such formations can and do, however, branch at any point.

It’s always fun to see 5 or 6 posts by David wherein he complains thatthey don’t show up *lol*

That happens on the rare occasions when PZ does have time that night and approves every one of my attempts.

His stupidity is our gain in the sack (yeah, that was intentional). So much fun to both have played with and play with yourself.

Really? Mine are remarkably insensitive – even to water temperature, stupidly enough. And why should an internal organ be well innervated?

I know that some men (me included) who actually do wear underwear, sometimes the scrotal sack will get pinched between, say, a leg band and a part of the body.

O horror. Don’t wear underpants that don’t actually fit.

I know that a dislocated ball can cause pain.

…Yeah.

Bareback Mounting

:-D

Comparing The Hobbit to Tolkien’s book is like seeing the sweet little geek girl from high school on a porn site. “Everything you loved about her is gone”…

I guess he’s one of those guys who gropes strange women but makes sure his girlfriend is modestly covered up.
Creepy how he still sees the imaginary girl as his personal property, existing only to please him.

Seconded.

More like a 6-year-old who is faking being a teenager who is faking being an adult. I still play “airplane” when I’m walking.

What is that?

I still do this. Though, for me, I am immediately suspicious of anyone who acts in a friendly manner towards me as I still think they are setting me up to embarrass me. As was done in elementary and middle school. So 35 years later . . . .

PZ and I have something similar, though less extreme. (Except it hasn’t been 35 years for me yet, and TET has been helping.)
666

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies

27 February 2012 at 3:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ing:

I’M TRYING! Gameplay mechanics shouldn’t count as spoiler! *runs away sobbing*

Awe, it’s okay. I still ♥s you, anyway!

Anyway, my ire is now directed at Xbox Live– they suspended my account for having a cancelled credit card as a payment option*. Since 1) I can’t change it through Xbox Live and 2) I forgot my password to my account, so I can’t access xbox.com/support and 3) I can’t recover my password ‘cos the email address linked to my account was hacked so I cancelled it and 4) I tried calling, but Xbox support is “experiencing unusually long wait times”, I’m pretty much screwed right now. FUCK FUCK FUCK.

*Never mind that there are 2 cards listed on my account and one of them is totally valid.
667

The Sailor

27 February 2012 at 3:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

INAL, but this seems like a bad decision to exclude evidence:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-27/rutgers-trial-evidence-roommate/53272994/1?csp=34news
668

David Marjanović

27 February 2012 at 3:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

…Wow. That was a 13-screener on a big screen.

Is this comment 666…?
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Esteleth, Ph.D. of Mischief, Mayhem and Hilarity

27 February 2012 at 3:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Sorry David, you missed it. Audley gets the trophy.
670

Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies

27 February 2012 at 3:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Audley gets the trophy.

Boo yeah!
671

The Laughing Coyote (Canis Sativa)

27 February 2012 at 3:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

David Marjanovic: Ha, I was hoping you would notice my questions about kangaroo and rabbit mechanics.
672

changeable moniker

27 February 2012 at 3:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Yet more proof that Santorum has no idea what the fuck he is talking about.

I don’t think this was linked yet (apologies if so):

Dutch Puzzled by Santorum’s False Claim of Forced Euthanasia

When will this end? Please tell me it will end …
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Richard Austin

27 February 2012 at 3:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

David Marjanović :

More like a 6-year-old who is faking being a teenager who is faking being an adult. I still play “airplane” when I’m walking.

What is that?

While walking down a sidewalk, street, beach, path, or even across a field of wildflowers:
1) Stick arms straight out.
2) Lean forward slightly.
3) By slightly bending the knees, tilt your arms back and forth as you move forward, taking deviations from a straight path and occasionally doing circles for no reason at all.
4) (Optional) Make engine or “diving” noises with the mouth.

(Basically, pretending to be an airplane.)
(Doing this with a baby is slightly different, but this is how I always played as a kid.)
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kristinc, ~bitter and resigned~

27 February 2012 at 3:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Sailor, my experience suggests that if you see one rat it’s highly unlikely that you have just the one rat. Sorry.
675

PZ Myers

27 February 2012 at 3:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

NEW THREAD! In which Sean Bean faces forced euthanasia.
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Therrin

27 February 2012 at 3:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

one Israeli counselor said that if he could just invent a kosher bacon double cheeseburger

I recall trying a “milk”shake at a Burger King in Israel. It was quite unpleasant.