Pastor John Hagee would like all us atheists to get on a plane and leave. I’m hoping he’ll send us all airfare soon. Where would you like to go? I can imagine retiring to Ireland, for instance. I hear New Zealand is nice, and I had a grand time in Iceland.
Or I could just tell ranting idiot to get stuffed.
(Episode CCCXXXV: The Sparlock thread.)
I dunno, Audley, I’d rather do it than talk about it…
<ducks>
[context loss exception raised]
I’ve also heard “I’d give my left tit” which is probably an imitation, but “right arm” or “right leg”. Since the left nut usually hangs lower and is thus more prominent, I think the sayings are the MORE valuable one of the set. (Usually. No offense to left-handed, left-footed, or right-nutted folks out there.)
Thanks, Pteryxx.
I’ve never noticed that about nuts. When Mr. Beach gets home, I will have to check that out.
It’s just the way nut chirality works. I don’t have any further explanation.
Old folk belief was that each testicle generates a different gendered child. Left is responsible for females, thus is of lower value.
Thank you for the group hug, keenacat! Good to see how you’re doing.
.
And congrats to Lynna on being able to drive again, that’s wonderful!
According to the Harvard Encyclopedia of Shit I Made Up
Just goes to show, Phayngula is NOT a waste of my time. I’ve learned something new about nuts and I’ve learned the word “chirality” in just a few short minutes.
TLC:
It may not be the actual science, but I still heartily respect you and want to shake you vigorously by the hand for putting together ‘420’ and ‘compounds.’ I want to use this wryly and with tongue firmly planted in cheek whenever I have conversations regarding ‘the herb.’ I just want to see how many people get it as an intentional joke.
Ms. Daisy Cutter:
That language graph is beautiful, isn’t it? This, along with the evolution map should be used whenever someone starts blustering and bullying with some nationalistic superiority tripe. We’re all Africans, and we’re all speaking highly evolved variances of the same original tongue. I’ll take a page from TLC’s playbook and say that is exactly why saying hello in Italian and Vietnamese sounds so similar.
And extra hugs for Cipher. I just thought I’d rather send them here on TET than in TZT, is all.
Thank you, McThulhu!
It is interesting, about the human species: Correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t think of any other species that ‘evolves’ culturally just as much as, if not more than, it evolves ‘biologically’.
*McCthulhu, rather
Mmyeah. THC consists of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen: C21H30O2
—
There’s a particularly loud and annoying common cuckoo expressing his virility nearby outside my windows. Cuc-fucking-koo to you too, sir!
I have a fucking asshole mockingbird living outside my house. I AM RIGHT THERE WITH YOU.
*hugs back to opposablethumbs* Thanks. :)
Group hug ^_^
Also: Facebook hugs from onion girl for Pteryxx. onion girl is happy about keenacat, too.
Penguins, being modern birds, lack teeth altogether. Keratin spikes (as also found on cat tongues) don’t count.
Mammals and their closer extinct relatives lack teeth on the palate. That’s at least in part because the primary palate is folded away, and the secondary palate is made from areas of bone that simply never bear teeth. As I said on this very Thread a few years ago, I’d love to have “a shagreen of denticles” on my palate, but development genetics seems not to allow it.
BTW, true toads are completely toothless, and all other frogs (all the way back to Triadobatrachus some 247 million years ago) lack teeth in the lower jaw, except for one species of Gastrotheca that secondarily got them back, while retaining teeth in certain locations on the (primary) palate.
I think it’s just because “right” is a homophone, as is “nut” in this case. So “right nut” sounds confusing. Which hard-shelled indehiscent fruit is correct?
Marjanovic, I <3 you so much right now…
I know mammalian development would never allow it, but I can't help but think a second set of Xenomorph jaws would be awesome.
Actual teeth on the tongue (a toothrow on a lengthened basibranchial bone, as opposed to, say, multiple rows of teeth plus extra fangs plus a strip of shagreen on the lower jaw) seem to be limited to the osteoglossomorph fishes. Those teeth work against the ones on the parasphenoid, the bone of the primary palate that lies on the underside of the braincase.
Frankly, no. It’s a representation of not even trying to find the tree-shaped signal in the data.
Several people have tried more recently, BTW, and have found similar results.
BTW, “Old Norse” should be “Old West Norse”. Danish and Swedish are descended from Old East Norse, and the island of Gotland had its own Old Norse dialect.
No, that’s just coincidence.
:-)
Rather try to find a vertebrate palaeontology/anatomy textbook. …Actually, http://palaeos.com might be a good start. It features Bob the Basal Amniote. *nodnod*
Thanks marjanovic, but not only can I not read the language that site’s in, my computer appears unable to even display the characters.
But… most of it’s English :(
(The rest is Greek)
Cipher: That’s weird. I’m just getting a bunch of boxes, black smiley faces, and other weird symbols when I try to read anything on it.
Mr. Beach and I have been married for 15 years (as of next week), and he is still surprised that I was curious why the left nut is always offered. And even more surprised that I asked about it on the internet. And even more surprised yet when I asked him about it.
Although, after 15 years, I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s surprised.
Imaginesabeach:…
Well?
Are you gonna tell us which one was hanging lower or not? This is science, after all.
Offer the middle nut.
What?
TLC-
After 15 years, I know him well enough to know his reaction if I answered that question.
Not even for science.
ImaginesaBeach: I suppose there are some things science just isn’t meant to know.
So JT Eberhard’s BFF Zengage is not only a misogynist but a racist and xenophobe as well. Bigot magnetism, I guess.
David:
Childfree women have always gotten a boatload of crap from healthcare professionals when we ask to be sterilized: “What if you change your mind,” “What if your husband wants children,” etc. etc. CF men, too, but to a lesser extent. The jeebus shit has been on the rise of late, for obvious reasons.
I know that women with children get it, too, if they’re “too young” or they don’t have “enough” children. There was a disgusting article in a major newspaper several years ago, written by an ob/gyn, about a 25-year-old mother of three who sought him out for sterilization. “Patronizing” and “sexist” wouldn’t have done that piece justice.
Keena, I’m glad you’re continuing to shore up your resources.
Lynna, I’m impressed by how much you seem to have recovered since your stroke, and how devoted you remain to exposing LDS fuckery.
Pteryxx:
What Rev. BDC and Audley said.
But does it wobble to and fro? Can you tie it in a knot? Can you tie it in a bow?
Speaking of nuts… (video SFW, lyrics maybe not)
McCthulhu, I’ll buy that we’re all originally Africans, but I dunno about the same original tongue. The popularity of that theory seems to have come and gone among linguists.
I cut my thumb multiple times in the same approximate place while filing the edge profile in on this knife blade.
Contrary to what everyone might think, this is actually a ‘good thing’. A dull knife is as useless as reusing toilet paper.
*reflexively starts to provide links*
…
*thinks better of it*
—
What on earth is that song? I heard it once from kids at jesus-camp, but somehow I dun think they were singing that version.
Pteryxx: The original tune is ‘Turkey in the Straw’.
“I got a girl and she’s real good,
But one of her legs is made of wood!
Her hair is false and her teeth is too,
and there wasn’t much for me to do!
Turkey in the straw!
Turkey in the grass!
Roll ’em and twist ’em a high-tuck-a-haw, and hit me up a tune called turkey in the straw…”
*gets out a Khomus and starts twangin’ along*
Oh yeah, and also the ‘clean’ version that replaces ‘balls’ with ‘ears’. Which makes infinitely less sense.
I like Turkey in the Straw. I find myself whistling it all the time.
I thought the original of that song was about breast i.e. do they hang low etc. Or was the perverted later on?
Google here I come!
The Pffft of all Knowledge is inconclusive but does back up the melody coming from “Turkey in a Straw”.
That was me. But it’s funny how often I see people addressing “Rev” and think it’s “Rey”, nice to see someone else get it mixed up in the other direction.
Hi everyone! I went to see American Idiot last night, and it was great big fun, and I think I may have pretty much recovered from the sensory bombardment.
Before I wade in,
Pt 1:
Keenacat, I’m so happy you’re in better spirits. I’m even more excited for you because of your list. The most important component of that excitement is that you’re looking forward to checking off items on your bucket list. The other important part: the very idea itself. As with many other commenters, I feel inspired *by you* to come up with a goal/accomplishment/bucket list myself.
Pt 2: I wish I was creative enough in the music dept to come up with a catchy tune to convey how badly threadrupt I am right now. I went in to work at 10 am for the “super extra slow, torrential downpour keeping everyone at home” shift and was able to at least follow TET. There are over 50 comments that I wanted to respond to over the last 3 threads. On the positive side, it’s finally stopped raining. Now people can go reclaim any floodswept vehicles (sadly, I think many people will find cars that are never going to function again).
Oh, wait, I need a drink. Or maybe the bottle with a chaser or ten.
Sparlock thread:
Louis:
Only if you produce magic pee. Let us know if you find Satan or Jesus in the toilet.
RahXephon
If I could have laughed any harder, I would have. Full of awesome.
Ichthyic:
Is it a little too quiet in TZT? I noticed a post by Raj last night (how many times does he leave and come back?). Was that not enough to quell the hunger?
Aratina Cage
Dense is that one. Food xe is not. Teeth shall you break. Better as hacky sack xe is. (there’s a trick to Yoda-speak, isn’t there?)
Part Time Insomniac:
Oh yes, please. More of this!
I *hate* being told to do something that seems unreasonable or doesn’t make sense without the why of it. Too many adults in leadership positions do that shit, thinking that “because I said so” is an actual reason. I do recognize that within a job environment, if your boss tells you to do something, he doesn’t *owe* you a reason. If my boss tells me to do something that’s within my power, I will do my best to perform the task, even if he doesn’t explain why. I won’t be *happy*, and my massively overthinking mind will be stuck on “does. not. compute.” I also recognize that extenuating circumstances may delay an explanation.
Giliell:
My head hurts. I can’t fathom how theists believe stoopid crap like that.
If magic is real, and god created the universe, why does he hate it?
If magic is real and operates in ways that suspend the laws of physics but is something YahwAllah hates, what power source did he use when he indulged his genocidal side during Noah’s Flood?
This reminds me of the silly arguments some believers have against the Harry Potter movies. They think magic is real? Do they believe Hogwarts is a real place? Do they think somewhere in the world, people are flying around having fun playing Quidditch?
If magic is real and god hates it, is magic one of Satan’s tools? If so, and atheists are godless heathens who follow Satan…where the hell is my flying broomstick??!! If I can’t have one, can I at least be the long lost Halliwell brother? That would be charming…
Mattir:
Given how many posts I’m wading through, I’m rather curious how many times I’ll be saying this: there. are. no. words. (1)
Arkady:
Lately, I’ve been toying with the idea of not telling people I’m a non believer. Instead, I think maybe responding “Who?” when people refer to Jebus or God would elicit some amusing reactions.
Caine:
THAT [cue dramatic pause] is amazing! Did it take long to train Alfie?
I was going to go for ‘there are no words’, but I’m not going to use that on really cool things that leave me speechless.
Audley:
hmmm, this has me wondering…My wonderful female dog Krystal (1/2 lab, 1/2 uncertain) occasionally likes to hump Sham (male American bulldog one of my roommies has). Is this a dominance thing? Or are there other reasons a female dog would hump a male dog?
Jessa:
Interesting. I’ve spoken with many people that feel the same way you do (*can* cook, but doesn’t). The flip side of that (well it’s probably not a coin toss. I’m sure there are degrees involved here) are individuals like myself, who enjoy cooking; especially for others (I prefer cooking for myself and up to 4 others. My kitchen is too small to prepare meals for too many people and our house doesn’t comfortably fit much more than that. Certainly not enough seats. Plus, while I like cooking, I don’t want to be in the kitchen ALL DAY.) There’s definitely effort involved, but for me, I get tremendous satisfaction watching my friends devour meals in minutes and then ask for seconds. Plus, when I cook, I don’t have to do the dishes. I hate washing dishes. I cook. They clean. Works for all.
@David Marjanović & Ms. Daisy Cutter
LOL. Sorry, that’s why I said I was taking a page from Laughing Coyote’s playbook with the 420 Compounds in THC thingy. I needed a pseudoscientific setup for the Italian ‘Ciao’ and VN ‘Chào’ coment.
Maybe I need a tongue-in-cheek icon: (*)^_^
Heya Tony, I hadn’t answered you yet:
I’d say I got hooked immediately. I’d heard of the show, but never saw it or knew what it was, until I happened to hide somewhere that had cable and saw the episode Puppetmaster. That was my introduction to bending at all (and it IS a good intro) and I saw this was no fluffy vacuous kids’ show. The third season hadn’t ended yet, but I avoided all the high-powered finale stuff and just watched episodes from the beginning, with my mentor, whenever I had good enough internet access to stream them.
Sorry to disappoint you but I’m not doing a formal analysis like you’d expect. I mentioned a page or so back that I don’t have a sense of continuity, so my mind interprets all episodes as stand-alones. I’m basically doing remedial story arc training by watching series with my mentor explaining what’s going on. After several years of this, I can just barely follow Legend of Korra, which we marathon’d yesterday. I still had to ask for help a few times.
Tony:
:D I didn’t train Alfie. Ever. At all. He did this naturally and he knew what I was after when I asked him to find Chas. He was considerably more intelligent than a fair amount of people I’m acquainted with.
When I’d let Alfie have ‘free days’, I’d often amuse myself by telling him something like “there are chicken bones in the kitchen, Alfie” and watch him make a beeline for the kitchen, grab a couple of chicken bones and haul ass back to the studio to stash them.
Even as bright as rats are, Alfie was exceptional.
I’m about to watch the latest episode of “Korra,” so this discussion makes me very happy.
This latest Korra ep made a good place to cap the five-episode marathon yesterday. Damn did it ever escalate quick. Also, my mentor’s beside xerself – hirself? – that we now have to wait a whole week to see what happens next!
…also can I say how awesome it is that Legend of Korra has THREE vastly different, ass-kicking female characters? I don’t remember too many bad-assed middle-aged ladies in the trope books.
Good morning
Had a very weird dream last night. It was so full of harmony *spits*
Friends dropped by and we had a coffee and more friends dropped by and the my parents dropped by and we all sat in a big room that doesn’t exist and then some of the friends decided to stage a show act and then everything had taken so long that I took a quick trip to the supermarket to get stuff for barbecue. Thankfully at that point the little one woke me up.
++++++
Yes
Easy answers for easy questions.
What I would have preferred are more sets of teeth than the two we currently get.
Keenacat
I’m glad you made it to the hospital and I’m glad you talked to your mum.
Hope you had a good night’s sleep.
Aratina @156:
So basically my mouth (along with the mouths of many more atheists) will be open just shy of forever? I may have to cheer everyone else on. There are a few things I like keeping my mouth open for (certain physical activities do require an open mouth) but eventually I do have to close it.
amblebury:
I wonder if his definition of ‘prequel’ is so narrow that it literally means ‘the stuff that happened two hours before Alien’. It take prequel to mean (in this case) ‘a movie whose story precedes an earlier work’
Louis:
I have this image of you at that Christian Union talk (I’m so sorry, btw…the horrors):
Walking up and down aisles holding a sign saying “But”. This, you do over and over again (in “Where’s Waldo” style even), yet are never allowed to express your but (oh boy that was horrible). Finally, as they get annoyed with you and begin to escort you to the rear (ba dum bum), you’re allowed to speak (a generous lot, really), and you ask of them “If God exists and he’s such an Intelligent Designer, why did he put my balls outside my body?”
On a technicality you could have won the bet (just don’t speak).
SQB:
Overwhelming urge to quote Judge Doom. Can’t resist:
“Don’t you know what happens when you
CAN’T.
STOP.
LAUGHING?”
SQB, that’s awesome. I’m praying some cookies your way (and wondering if you’ve seen the movie “TEETH”…)
_______________
Interlude: Scratch me becoming the lost Halliwell brother. Just give me Piper’s powers so I can pause TET. If ya’ll weren’t so darned interesting…
End Interlude
_______________
carlie:
and if you live anywhere in the southern United States, you simply have to go a step further and add ‘…and then deep fry in butter and bacon fat’ there at the end.
TLC:
Thy words bring me the sad.
Erülóra Maikalambe:
Wow. Your project sounds amazing!
Re: “Otherspace”…You said it has some sort of friction. Does it have an atmosphere (if its another realm, I didn’t want to assume an object has to be in an atmosphere to have “some kind of friction”)? I ask because I’m curious if you have any life forms that inhabit Otherspace.
________
Interlude 2:
I’m hoping the Rot13 posts continue a wee bit longer. I’m not going to decode them, b/c I *do* want to see Prometheus (likely on Monday, err today). They do allow one to speed through the thread :)
________
Janine:
re: Obama the Magic Negro.
I’m laughing so damn hard I’m starting to cry!
But wait, IF god exists, then satan exists. We know god hates magic and it’s a product of satan, so that means Obama is doing satan’s work. Does that make him the AntiChrist? Barack Obama, Magic Negro AntiChrist. *Now* I see how fundies and FOX news
reportersmorons get from “black man as president to president black man spawn of satan”{if this twisted version of the President had a toy made in his image, would a Jehovah’s Witness refuse to let their child play with it?]
Tony, I think Ridley Scott was making that very observation about the expectations of others.
Now, I’ve seen the movie. And am keeping my trap shut, because, y’know, spoilers and all that.
Mixed feelings would probably be the best cliché for me to use. Someone said on another thread about being adamant in more than one direction? That would sum it up.
For those disappointed in Prometheus, would you rate it better than, equal to, or worse than the Alien/Predator movies? I have the sad again b/c the combo of those two *should* have made for an amazing movie. Of course were you to remove the SFX, I’m not sure how much of a movie would have been left.
amblebury:
I’ve already prayed to 100 gods, 3 unicorns, 2 Bigfoot(feet?) and Nessie to intervene in Hollywood’s damn obsession with remakes! I’m ever so slightly sick to death of remake after remake. I don’t watch them for the most part and don’t have anything against remaking a movie, but they seem to be everywhere and so many of them are utter crap. Something’s messed up when you have a remake/soft reboot of the Spider-Man franchise and the last movie was a few short years ago.
Oh, and Hollywood: I’m still pissed that you put Will Smith in a movie called (yes, I realize I could have stopped at ‘movie’) I Am Legend and then proceeded to radically reinterpret an excellent short story into a movie even worse than The Omega Man
I would like to say “If JAWS is remade, I’m converting to Christianity”. But given Hollywood’s remake wankfest, it’s entirely possible.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaand that’s it for tonight. Damn, I couldn’t even finish the Sparlock thread (@400)
Oooh, and Cipher? I’m just trying to have a quick catch-up of TZT at the moment and your paper (I’m up to #30 on the page I’m reading) sounds really interesting. I’m sorry you’re having a rough time working on it at the moment, but I for one am looking forward very much to reading more if that’s cool with you when you’re done (::remembers the potential dangers of saying “I for one”::. Hey, I think “I for one” is justified here! I mean “I am definitely looking forward to it and I am pretty sure that others are too (given that other people have also expressed an interest)” Ow! ::dodges flying brickbats::)
Good morning horde.
I slept pretty good considering all circumstances.
I also want to help with the nut dilemma. :D
The left nut does in fact hang lower in most male-bodied people. This is due to the left nut being heavier than the right. So why is that? Gonads descend during fetal development from waaaay up in the kidney region. The blood supply shows this quite clearly, as (relevant to the question) the testicular veins drain into the inferior vena cava (right) and the vena renalis (kidney vein) on the left. While the right testicular vein drains rather undisturbed, the left ends almost in a 90°-angle and thus creates turbulences. Those turbulences are responsible for a sligh blood congestion in the left nut making it heavier and hang lower.
This is also the reason why the left nut is more prove to varicocele (google it, you’re welcome).
http://oted.oxfordmedicine.com/content/vol2/issue1/images/large/graphic941004.jpeg
Aw man, never a bad time to worship Tpyos, is it? “prove” was supposed to be “prone”.
Keenacat: Fascinating! I never knew there was an actual reason it hangs lower, I always thought it was just individual variation.
The Laughing Coyote (Canis Sativa),
Jaws are cool but the in-built seat padding of several great apes are practical. We Dilbert clones would need that DNA to endure hours spent sitting in uncomfortable chairs during eternal-seeming conferences and lectures.
— — — — — — —
“Invisible” features like the near-immunity some bird species have to cancer (except virus-induced cancers) would be nice, too.
— — — — — — — — — — —
Re. Languages. Anatolia had a bunch of indo-european languages too, but apart from the Hittites and the people of Urartu (who had written languages) I don’t think much is known about them. During the hellenistic and roman eras greek became the dominant language, which in turn was displaced by the Turk language.
Today’s Turks are genetically indo-europeans with a smidgeon of Central Asian DNA, a fact Turk nationalists (of the Ataturk fascism* brand) would hate to admit.
* Yes, he borrowed heavily from Mussolini. Also, massacres and ethnic cleansing. He justified it with “modernisation” (you know, making the trains run on time and such).
— — — — —
If some lizards sacrifice a part of the tail to fool predators, could we maybe sacrifice a testicle for the same reason? (To attract attention, it might need to inflate after being ejected. And move around a bit, like Kryten’s cybernetic penis)
Cipher,
The good thing about having a phobia of creepy abyssal fishes is that it’s not much of a problem in day-to-day life.
And some just aren’t that intimidating.
Uff, stocked up the larder with Asian food on sale at the big discounter.
Now I have been on my thyroid medication for about two weeks and have reached my current dosis.
Thyroid underfunction usually goes along with being overweight. Now I won’t blame all that fat on the thyroid, but I was expecting to see some change in my weight and such.
Intrestingly I seem to be hungrier. I could go without breakfast before pretty well, now I become very hungry and even nauseatic. Looks like something is changing.
Pressures http://www.xkcd.com/1067/
Is someone putting something in the water, something designed to target specifically feminists and atheists and rob them of their intelligence?
Yesterday, I found a post advertising tarot readings on Feministe : Tarot! Get your tarot!
It does have a new and interesting spin : it’s not woo, it’s not supernatural, it’s artsy and therapeutic interpretation of symbols. Which might be convincing if readings weren’t being done via email. As in, someone opens cards for you and sends you a story about them. Thanks, I’ll just go back to reading about how little Harry got rescued out of the cupboard, but needed a lot of help to deal with all the emotional and psychological abuse and cry over that. It’s therapeutic and it’s free.
I guess something has been in my water too, because I decided to visit patheos and Friendly Atheist today. A mistake, of course.
In a New Book, a Straight Male Christian Fakes Coming Out as Gay
The post wasn’t written by Mehta, but Lauren Lane who might be the only person I like over there. She questions the author’s method and the whole commentariat ooh’s and aah’s over his bravery and wonders what she could possibly find questionable. Because reading the account of someone pretending to be gay is totally the best way to learn what gay people go through (especially in communities of “loving” Christians). Like, The Best. You wouldn’t want to hear it from someone who is gay and would actually feel the whole impact of Christian hate. Because you gotta hear it from a straight person to believe it. Lovely.
OK, Zinnia Jones has just announced that she’ll come to FtB, Yay.
She also announced that Thunderfoot will also come here. yuck.
But maybe he might learn something here.
Ahh!! Yay!!
I love when I’m writing and I can’t come up with anything for days on end, frustrated and annoyed I just keep trying to figure it all out and then, BAM! My mind finally gives me an idea and I run away with it and I figure out basically the whole entire book after that point.
Katherine, your evident intellectual pleasure spills over, so that I garner some.
(Grats!)
Good afternoon, dear Horde :)
I got back from holiday last night so thought I’d pop in and try playing catch up with TET.
Tony:
Prometheus is waaaaaaaaaaaay better than AvP.
If nothing else, see it because it’s beautiful.
Also, a to your question about “dominance humping”– I think it’s a fairly common thing for mammals to do.
Weird night. Getting ready to go to bed, and I hear three series of three pops, with the lights dimming at each pop, and then power to half the house goes down. Not unknown, typically a main bus fuse, so change them out. No improvement. Finally find my test equipment and discover one of the two lines to house (they are 180 degrees out of phase with each other) has no voltage. Phone dead due to cable modem being on the out half. Run an extension cord for power for the cable modem from a good outlet, worry about connecting the refrigerator to the good side/generator, but can’t move the refrigerator to access the plug. Have trouble adjusting to the temperature (blood pressure meds throw out historical data). Get ready for morning, get the right amount of bed clothes, and finally fall asleep two hours later than normal. Wake up about 1:30 am for what sounds like a heavy truck close by. It’s in my driveway. Go out and talk to the workmen. Turns out my problem is not just me, but the neighborhood, and service is being restored. Go back to bed, and next wake-up full power back up. Lunch meat saved!
Idly noted: Western Burma declares emergency rule after deadly clashes
@John:
I can’t focus on actual work now cause I just want to go WRITE MY BOOK! :D
sometimes quirky,
When you try to play with TET, TET tries to play with you.
(Channeled from The Sphinx, hat-tip to Nietzsche)
Katherine, seems you have the opposite of ‘writer’s block’.
Lucky you!
(Hopefully, work shan’t be your Porlock)
@John:
Nope, likely not. The ideas are right here in my head and now they’re right here on a piece of paper that will be placed into my bag.
Nerd,
It’s kind of weird that only half your house was out, but yay for lunch meats!
After the hurricane last year, we were the only house on the block to have power for two days, which made me feel kind of sorry for my neighbors.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Bombay threatens to get Sanal Edamaruku locked up for a long time because he showed the water seeping out of a Jesus statue was from a leaky pipe, not a miracle. Sign the petition that calls on the Archdiocese to withdraw their incredibly stupid complaints.
Looks like you have no special characters installed at all whatsoever, which is difficult to imagine because they’ve come with all operating systems for many years now, or you’ve set the encoding of the page to something wrong (it should be Unicode (UTF-8), and that should be selected automatically by your browser).
Is it easier if you go straight to the vertebrate page, scroll down to “Part 3: Bones”, and click on links there?
I’d rather say they tend to shrug. There’s no evidence against a common ancestor, but little (some would say none) for it; at the present state of research, most linguists seem to find it no use to make a statement on this question.
Me, I think parsimony is a strong argument for a single origin of language.
Thrice-recrystallized awesome.
::what year is this again?::
It didn’t dawn on the teacher to ask the child his name
Hmm, just noticed something checking out three different sources on this. Perhaps I’m reading too much into this, but the writer of this piece, Isa-Lee Wolf, peppered several terms throughout the article that indicate a degree of doubt regarding the teachers’ statement. Allegedly shows up twice, with purportedly and supposedly being used once each. That she used such uncertain terms could indicate that she’s attempting to be partial. After all, she later adds
Perhaps she’s trying to remain balanced (though it seems skewed in favor of the teacher). *
Steven Yablonski of Eyewitness 3 News
http://www.wfsb.com/story/18727866/waterbury-teacher-allegedly-calls-student-black-boy
refers to her[the teachers’] comments first as accusations and later as “alleged” comments. His article appears to be more certain of the truth of her comments than Isa-Lee’s.**
Then there’s the article by NBC Connecticut News. Not a ‘purportedly’, ‘allegedly’, or ‘supposedly’ in sight. In fact, their article would seem to leave no doubt in the eyes of a reader that Ms. Pyles definitely said that to the child.
http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Teacher-on-Leave-Accused-of-Racist-Remark-157865015.html
*Glancing through the comments, one stood out from the rest (though I’m not sure why, as some of them are every bit as racist as the following):
That sound you just heard? My facepalm just cracked the Internet in half.
I bet this guy idolizes Newt and Rush. Wonder how he’d fare in TZT?
**Ooh, look at this gem:
It’s 2012 and people still don’t realize that not all racists wear white hats?
Oh and the privilege going on there. It hurts.
I wonder if xe has ever referred to non blacks by their race when he’s trying to describe them.
Ah yes, eyes are the windows to the soul. I wish I had xe’s talent for determining Ms. Pyles’ innocence based on her eyes.
David @72:
Happily signed.
How on FSM’s green earth can exposing fradulent claims be a crime?
Perhaps the Catholic Church can go after James Randi for exposing Uri Geller.
Sorry to sound llamay but I’m getting sick to death of this place. Anyone recommend any other place with equivalent or close conversation?
Also everyone check out this weeks Ask an Atheist. You’re all mentioned.
If you are going to ask that question, ing, at least provide a link.
What/where is Ask an Atheist? Searching got a bunch of similarly named sites.
I … I cannot come up with anything snarky enough to comment on this Ron Paul story.
I won’t link the “girls and videogames/comics” stories. They’re just too depressing.
The Catholic Church is backing a North Dakota bill to restore religious liberty in the state. This is the same Catholic Church that wanted to have priests who abuse children be answerable only to Catholic Church leaders, not to the justice system of state governments and of the federal government. What could go wrong?
Link.
More here: http://www.au.org/church-state/march-2012-church-state/featured/deception-in-north-dakota
http://askanatheist.tv/2012/06/07/sexism-it-exists-amongst-and-between-atheists/#more-4231
Rev BDC: Thanks for the link. Content: bleargh.
The adverb misuse alone makes me gag.
Good morning, all. Special greeting to keenacat, who I’m happy to see seems to be doing better!
I also saw Prometheus over the weekend; I think I benefited once again from not paying any attention whatsoever to promotional material for the movie and thus not forming any expectations. I thought it was a pretty fun film, despite the stink of Lindelof being all over it.
I went to a friend’s house Friday night and managed to pick up my first tick buddy since I was a kid. When I was little my parents had to wait until I was asleep to pull ticks off me because I was so freaked out by them; this time I had flicked a tick off my shirt at friend’s house, then happened to feel something on my leg once I went to bed. I remembered the tick from earlier, decided it would be better to pull it off immediately, and did just that. I’m reasonably certain that I didn’t pick up any tick-sickness, but I have the offender in a bag in my freezer just in case. I guess I am still a bit freaked out about ticks, because I’m getting phantom itches out of concern over Lyme disease.
Thank you. Thank you. [takes a bow]
For my next feat I will attempt to mow my own lawn … on a Sunday … with exposed shoulders.
PTI: If you pulled it off within a few hours, there’s basically no risk of Lyme disease. The tick needs to be attached for at least 24 hours to transmit the bacterium.
[tick squickiness warning]
My personal record for ticks is 81 at one time. (I’m pretty proud of this, actually.) I went for a hike in tall-grass prairie and forgot to put bug spray on my shoes and ankles. Only about 20 of the ticks were attached to my skin, though. The rest were just crawling around on my lower legs.
[end squickiness]
I managed to re-injure my surgically repaired shoulder by laying to the couch yesterday.
I’ve been working out 6 days a week for 6 months, lifting weighs, pushups, pullups, and all manner of other ways to injure myself and it took laying on the motherfucking couch.
damn it
Aarrgghhh! NO, and no again. If you flick a tick that tick will not even be ticked off. Said tick will find you, no hard feelings, and become once again your intimate friend.
Saw a reality TV show once in which several tent mates flicked ticks off themselves, inside the tent, and considered the problem solved. Shudder.
To get rid of a tick you must kill the beastie. When I’m camping, I cut them in half with my pocketknife. Place on rock, cut. One of my brothers who smokes cigarettes fries ticks with a cigarette. A burning match will work, but you must make sure the tick is thoroughly fried. You’d be surprised what abuse a tick can survive.
I’ve heard that whiskey will kill a tick, but I wouldn’t waste whiskey on a tick.
Crushing seldom works. The tick gets flatter, and then recovers and goes its merry way. A solid hit with a rock hammer will work if the tick is on a flat, hard surface.
I too have a surgically repaired shoulder. It seems to hold up to hard rock mining by hand, but will get sore after a couple of hours of pulling weeds. [psychological soreness much?] I have not tried laying to a couch, but consider myself warned.
Hope you don’t have to go through more surgery.
Me too. An old skiing accident and it flares up occasionally but I figured with all the exercise I’ve been doing that a simple laying on the couch would be survivable.
Apparently not.
Thankfully I didn’t try something more strenuous like drinking a beer on said couch. I could be in real trouble.
Ok, I did drink a beer. But with my right hand.
re Ask an Atheist: Oh for petes sake.
http://askanatheist.tv/2012/06/10/the-problem-of-dogmatic-feminism/
I threw one on a hot piece of metal over a campfire once. It swelled up like a little balloon with legs, and then exploded with an audible pop.
Ing – the only other places I hang out at are very topic specific (hello, television without pity!), so I don’t know what to suggest. Commenting already takes up too much of my life, so I at least limit it to one community per genre.
Interesting book I’m reading: THe hanging of Angelique: the untold story of Canadian slavery and the burning of Old Montreal, by Afua Cooper.
Rev.
ouch
Is it too early for grog?
Thanks, Nutmeg. I did read that the beasties need to be attached longer to transmit disease, but that knowledge isn’t enough to stop my brain from convincing itself that I’m presenting symptoms. I’m not even in the normal area of Lyme disease transmission but OF COURSE that one tick that isn’t even the right size could be a new supertick that breaks all the rules! I’ve calmly driven myself to the hospital with a chainsaw gash across my shin, but if the slightest idea gets planted that a gross skin bug is on me it’s worst case scenario time in my imagination.
I’d never heard of Ask An Atheist before, and I see I was missing nothing. More clueless d00dz and Chill Girls™, with a healthy dose of slime from the pit.
Beatrice, I didn’t think Feministe could descend any further into self-indulgent po-mo self-parody. You could do a bingo card based on that thread:
– It’s not woo because I say so!
– It’s no different from going to therapy!
– Stop being so closed-minded!
– Well, I’m an atheist and I’m OK with it!
– But Dan Savage answers questions by email, so how is this different?
– How dare you “delegitimize” other people’s experiences!
– We ask people to do “Shameless Self-Promotion” all the time anyway.
– Natalia is a trusted commenter here. (I’d say she’s violating that trust.)
– YOU’RE ALL A BUNCH OF SNOT-NOSED BRATS!!!
To lighten the mood, some lovely pictures of royalty in hats, from the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
Re: AAA
The fact they’re willing to engage the Slimepit at all is beyond me. Recognize them for who they are; vile, misogynistic, transphobic assholes.
Anytime I see “baboon” or “FfTB,” I immediately discount anything else the person says.
Being Born again makes your brain shrink
Well, Katherine, you have just proven that you are just as hateful and spiteful as those you have been battling. Just ask any anti-baboon babbler.
@Walton:
Half of those aren’t even what I’d call a “hat.”
Yes, they sort of frown on the whole drinking at the office here.
And the even worse thing is Mrs. BDC has told me in no uncertain terms that I am not allowed to work out until it feels better or I get it checked out.
Now I know it’s the correct thing to do but I’m in this groove and don’t want to get out of it.
Damn it.
There is beer and whiskey however, and i’m about due for another review on the blog so I think that’s what’s going to happen tonight.
@Janine:
What do you mean?
Through reading their comments, the vast majority of what the Slimepit Denizens say is either strawmen, mean-spirited, or hateful towards me (as a transgender woman, I’m doubly offended by their language.)
Should I expect any different?
Rev
Why were you laying on the couch at work?
Katherine, I thought that you knew that I was snarking.
don’t make me come up there
Rev,
I’ve been there, but with my back and not my shoulder. :(
If you’re ever in my neck of the woods (Capital District of NY), there’s a new Beligian-style beer bar that’s opened up (The Bier Abbey)– I checked it out yesterday and it was pretty awesome, but I might just be saying that ‘cos they had two of my favorites on tap. ;)
Oh, royal millinery comes in all shapes and sizes. In truth, I was a little disappointed to see Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie wearing distinctly sensible hats this time. (As you may recall, Princess Beatrice’s choice of headwear drew some attention last year at Prince William’s wedding. Interestingly, she later sold the Flying Spaghetti Monster hat for £81,100 in a charity auction.)
@Janine:
Bah, sorry :\
Brain is like half here today cause Snip decided he missed me so much over the weekend that he was going to crawl all over my face for two hours this morning.
Did anybody even bother to try to do something like this for that event in London.
Walton, I am not trying to be too hard on you but please, justify the social injustice of having security personnel sleep under bridges and not paying them, all in the service of celebrating a royal system based on social inequities?
So, yeah, I am saying that the hats are bollocks.
Having ESPN’s new WatchESPN app on the iPad is very nice for catching the UEFA Euro 2012 games.
England v. France on now.
The effect reminds me of misshapen gazelle horns, Walton.
@Walton:
Eugenie’s hat was actually really cute.
Also quote-mining, well-poisoning, and deliberate misrepresentation. The hate speech alone doesn’t make their points wrong; they’re wrong AND hateful.
Between the Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics, is anyone going to get any actual work done in Britain this year?
@Janine:
That whole treatment reminds me of an episode of Mai Otome, where the newly crowned princess is celebrating her birthday while half her kingdom is living in the slums without any real food.
Dianne, that is why I was happy that Chicago did not get the 2016 Olympic Games. Is that anything but a white elephant?
Had to look that one up. I am not really up on anime references.
Not necessarily. Depends on how many LymeWire peers are available for the torrent.
Congratulations on the better than expected night’s sleep, keenacat! And I’m now sharing your nutty info with the office. I hope no one has nut allergies.
Sorry.
I am in full-on work-avoidance mode.
Any distraction will do :)
Janine:
Not to mention all the public funds going toward this shit and the Olympics while so many people are hurting economically (according to friends of mine in London and Manchester).
Believe me, I’m the last person who would defend Close Protection UK and its exploitation of unpaid workers.
But that’s the fault of the company, and of our godawful right-wing government and its “workfare” program. (Which, translated into English, means “free labour for corporations”.)
@Janine:
Ah, well, it’s okay… a bit weird on the whole ‘innocent maidens’ thing and there’s a semi-triggering very-close-to-rape scene starring a 16-year old girl.
But it’s still a good example of the decadence of royalty while their people are suffering.
About over now. It’s the fourth day of games and I already had to buy another case of beer.
Beatrice, re the other half of your comment: I forwarded that Friendly Atheist link to a GLBT friend. Their response:
All in the name of celebrating the queen.
I guess some “glamour” of royalty is needed as a distraction from that.
“Workfare” involves making unemployed people work for free as “work experience”, usually for giant corporations like Tesco. Just one of our Tory government’s lovely plans (along with slashing legal aid, slashing services for disabled people and for refugees, and cutting taxes for the super-rich).
It is not, however, the Queen’s fault.
1789 is an even better example.
I guess not. She is just the face.
It’s good to know that I don’t need to listen to this AAA thing, seeing as how I’m already closed-minded and free-from-thought.
I’m behind on Science Weekly and Big Picture Science as it is, so the less new podcasts I have to worry about, the better.
But who is Anne C. Hanna? The nym sounds familiar, but I can place her.
@Janine:
Eheh, yes, that’s true.
My instructor and advisor both told me how most people don’t know that there are tonsssss of scholarships at my school. LOTS of scholarships! Everybody should check out the scholarships! Every quarter, scholarships go unclaimed! So I went to Financial Aid and looked. FOUR scholarships. Only one of which I’m even remotely possibly maybe qualified for, but probably not. The other three were for fulltime students, or students with 30+ credits completed, or students taking certification for “careers locally in demand”, or students in a STEM field. God dammit.
So the queen can’t say that she disapproves of the shitty way the workers are treated (to put it mildly) or refuse to have anything to do with a celebration that treats her own citizens like dirt?
Or she couldn’t refuse to do the whole damned thing ‘cos it’s in EXTREMELY poor taste to celebrate yourself when so many are suffering and the government is all about austerity?
Maybe that’d be divisive, or unprofessional, or some such.
<_<
@Audley:
See the Mai Otome example I mentioned above. The queen realized this by the end of the episode, however, and went into a miserable funk after that for like… three episodes.
Hello.
Seriously threadrupt.
But I have a reason.
On Friday night, as I lay in bed at about 2300, I started feeling a little queasy. Then my chest started to feel tight. Then my chest started to hurt. Then the pain radiated down to the distal end of my humerus. And I had trouble breathing. And felt lightheaded.
I teach CPR courses. I know the warning signs. And I was mentally checking off the boxes. And Boy called 911.
Before midnight, I was in the ER of one of our local hospitals. And was admitted at around 7:00am.
The good news? None of the enzymes associated with a heart attack were there. The did (this morning) a cardio-CAT scan. I did not have a heart attack.
The bad news? Not much. There is some plaque build up, but not in vital places and not too thick. The problem? My total cholesterol was 70. With the good cholesterol (HDL) down around 15. So now I am on an aspirin regimen, I have been told, “YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT”, and I am on something (don’t have the bottle here, but it is something I never heard of) to balance my cholesterol.
Anyway, that is why I was so quiet.
Anything new? Or gnu?
@Oggie:
Ahh! Take care of yourself!!
Oh no, Oggie!
*hugs!*
Ogvorbis:
Far be it to me to contradict medical advice, but…
… since when does losing weight make your cholesterol go up? I mean, if it was too high, I could see that being advice. But too low?
(This may just be total ignorance on my part, but as has often been mentioned, the “lose weight now” message gets used in a lot of inappropriate situations. And I’m really curious.)
My total cholesterol was 70.
Unless you’re using different units than I’m used to, that’s low. How’s your liver? What about your pancreas? Ok, will stop internet diagnosing now. Just get follow up, please?
Shit, Og. I’m glad you’re OK. 0_o
Oggie!
Good news about you not having had a heart attack. Did they prescribe you simvastatin by any chance? For the cholesterol? Statines not only lower the “bad” cholesterol but also help with stabilizing plaques in the arteries. Just watch out for muscle pain.
Pteryxx,
Can the queen be unprofessional, though?
Gah, borkquote.
*searching for coordinates to nuke Brownian from orbit
Hugs, Ogvorbis.
(no bacon)
Bloody hell, Bro Og, that’s frightening. So glad it wasn’t a heart attack!!! And that you’re back and hopefully have Everything (getting to be) Under Control re cholesterol. Sending hugs, if that’s OK, for all of you who had the scare and the 911 fun.
I swear I totally read that as 700.
Maybe it was 700 and a zero got lost in transcription.
AAA basically says “both sides are equally wrong, but one side is MOAR EQUALLY WRONG AND NEEDS TO SHUT UP BECAUSE ITS DESTROYING SECULARIZM!” and then rightfully wrings their hands about being labeled assholes about that.
Keep well, Ogvorbis. Please.
I am, for one.
Oh. Fuck the the Olympics.
Brudda Og, I am glad it wasn’t worse. Good on you for knowing what to do.
Dunno if it’s relevant, but here’s a recipe for a summery salad that my mom makes:
Ingredients:
Cottage cheese
Fresh tomatoes
Red onions
Black pepper
Chop/chunk ingredients as you desire, combine in proportions that you like, and maybe refrigerate a while to let flavors meld and mellow.
Ogvorbis, uh that’s a scare. Take care.
—
That sounds scrumptious, and quite similar to something I have eaten from time to time: mozzarella instead of cottage cheese, plus fresh basil and a drizzle of olive oil. I usually slice ALL the things and lay them on a saucer in alternating layers.
Neither is being the Queen, the kind of person the whole country throws a Silver Jubilee for.
Did I say “fault”? I meant having “earned.”
Maybe plate rather than a saucer?
So if the queen was ordered a banquet in her honor made by cooking some of her subjects that wouldn’t be her fault for not refusing? People can do just about any harm or dickery for her sake and her silence makes her blameless?
That sounds like it would be highly satisfying.
I’ve been told that you can put a tick in a baggie and microwave it to death. Satisfying popping sounds were also promised. I haven’t tried this as I seldom have a microwave with me when camping. Okay, never. I never have a microwave with me when camping.
May actually make the total cholesterol count go down, but, more important, will help the LDL/HDL percentages.
Conventional measuring system. As far as I know, my liver and pancreas are fine. My sister actually takes a cholesterol pill to bring hers up to useful levels (she once had a total cholesterol level of 7 and, with what was happening to her knees and other joints, they were thinking Lupus or some other autoimmune disorder).
Not sure. I’ll know when I pick it up tomorrow.
Thanks. It was a helluva scare.
No, not a tpyo. Every time I have had my cholesterol checked, it has been between 65 and 85 total.
How does it compare to mmol/l?
Current Finnish recommendations seem to be total cholesterol less than 5 mmol/l, LDL < 3, and HDL > 1.
Weed Monkey, I was thinking as I typed that recipe that it was the middle-American version of what you said. I can find the ingredients for mine at my local, and I enjoy your version even more when I can get it (my sister makes it when she can get the fresh mozz). Yum.
Hey everyone.
Sorry I haven’t been around in a couple days in case anyone posted anything directed to me, and I’m also totally threadrupt.
I just wanted to complain a bit about a book I read called Brain Over Brawn. A friend linked it to me and it has lots of diet and exercise advice in it, which I found frustrating. I’m not specifically frustrated at this book, but I’m frustrated at the entire health and wellness, fitness, exercise, diet industrial complex/community, whatever. The sheer glut of contradictory or incompatible information is overwhelming, along with adding in all the scam artists and snake-oil salespeople.
It’s exhausting being on this loop:
1. I decide to exercise and eat more healthily for, well, my health and appearance and all that
2. I don’t actually know what I’m doing, so I do some research and find something to try
3. I start doing it, but then find another plan that tells me the first plan is OMG terrible, so I switch
4. Repeat step 3 forever until I get frustrated and eat a cupcake.
@160: So start with some low impact, fun exercises like walking or biking and enjoyable low fat/low sugar foods. It won’t change your life, but won’t make you feel deprived.
Also, have you considered reduced sugar, whole grain cupcakes? They’re still cupcakes, but have some redeeming nutritional value, especially if dark chocolate is used in their making.
Well…this isn’t working for me. I would have posted this on TZT, except I can’t post a word there without causing a shitstorm, so here it is. Some people have made an effort to make me feel unwelcome here and it’s succeeded.
So I’m gone. I’m sure I’ll be back at some point, but right now, that doesn’t look like anytime soon. I’ll keep up with updating on The Darkheart Duckie Project™ and all that on the blog.
Catch you all later, I’m closing Pharyngula out now.
The Queen does not have any say in government policies. She is, constitutionally, not permitted to involve herself in political matters at all. She can’t make public statements on political issues. The fact that the present government comes up with ridiculous harebrained ideas every five minutes is not the Queen’s fault.
And the fact that Close Protection UK treats its workers like dirt is not the Queen’s fault either; it’s the fault of Close Protection UK. There is, apparently, going to be an investigation by the Security Industry Authority, the government agency which is responsible for regulating private security contractors. The company may lose its licence (and rightly so).
yet she appoints positions. Her status is fundamentally confused and privileged.
@Caine
:( I’d rather you stayed but hope you come back
I’m glad you’re OK, Obvorbis, but Hey – you’ve got low cholesterol…I’ve got low cholesterol! You were taken to the hospital…I was taken in*, three weeks ago! High five!
*In my case, just for a high blood pressure scare. Still, it was my first ever ride in an ambulance.
I already walk every day, which the book I just read told me is wrong, except when it’s not (apparently it’s only good/bad depending on what mental categorization of exercise he sticks in it). He also says to eat lots of protein and it has to be animal protein because he’s too lazy to look for non-animal sources, which screws my newfound vegetarianism all up.
It’s just all this information itself that I find overwhelming. Eat protein, but the right kinds of protein, and there’s good fats and bad fats and morally-ambiguous fats and eat the right portion sizes and meal compositions and eat at the right times while hanging upside down like a bat. It all just makes my brain overload.
The cupcake comment probably needed a tag…
Ing:
Queeney Todd?
Caine, I’m so sorry. I do hope you feel welcome enough to come back eventually.
Og dearest, I have no idea what scale you’re using, because I’m used to seeing cholesterol numbers in the 100s (as per the american heart association tables) – I assume that it’s a matter of deciliters v milliliters, and your 70 might be equivalent to 700? But what you went through sounds a lot like the scares I had with Spouse a couple of months ago – the first was also a lot like a heart attack, and was finally diagnosed as pancreatitis due to high cholesterol. (with accompanying panic attack, because it hurts like hell)
The point of the story being twofold – if it’s your cholesterol then you might have more of these episodes, but they should wane in about a month or so as the medication takes effect. Hugs.
More later – making prune cookies with the last of the raisin bran. :)
But first OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE. Walking is good for you. That guy is an idiot.
It’s also been shown in several experiments that the exercise that does the most good for people is the one they like and do for fun rather than because they’re supposed to, because they stick with it for much longer. Amazing, that.
I’d like to see you pull that off without destroying the Line.
Win
Here, have a little priest
Caine, I hope you come back soon! This place would most definitely not be the same without you.
Formally, yes. The Queen appoints government ministers, judges, Church of England bishops, and the holders of many other public offices. But she doesn’t have any actual choice in who to appoint. The Prime Minister “advises” her, and she is constitutionally bound to follow the Prime Minister’s advice.
Sometimes, events manage to come together in a way that makes perfect sense. I posted about my tick experience over the weekend here earlier; I was perusing facebook and noticed an ex-girlfriend had removed a tick from herself today. I posted a comment commiserating with her about gross skin bugs, and a few comments later some guy came in with that “put soapy water on it, it will suffocate the tick and it comes right out” bullshit. I made a general statement, not directly to the guy, about how it is a Bad Idea to try to suffocate a tick that’s embedded itself into your skin and he managed to take it as a personal attack. I clicked through to his profile and sure enough, he identifies as a libertarian.
Walton, really how good do the aesthetics have to be to justify the dickfuckery of the peasants to support a position so epically useless and wasteful?
@167: FWIW, there was a big study a couple of years ago comparing the various diets out there (low fat, low carb, etc). The results were…it didn’t matter. People lost about the same amount of weight, on average, on all of them. Compliance depended on how much the person involved liked the diet.
Eat food. Not too much. Make sure you like the food you eat or you’ll stop eating it and go on the all bacon sundae diet.
Exercise moderately until you’re in shape to exercise vigorously. Also remember: exercise can be addictive. If you find yourself exercising while actively injured or having chest pain, stop and seek medical and possibly psychiatric help.
No, it’s more important that the European measurement looks at moles – the number of molecules – whereas your system focuses on mass (even it does manage to use SI for that).
I have no idea how cholesterol is commonly measured, but I would guess HPLC, in which case I don’t see any particular need to use mmol/l, but so be it. Actually, scratch that. Good and bad cholesterol needs must have different molecular masses, and then it makes some sense to use the molar concentrations instead since they are more immediately comparable.
There’s a rough conversion table at WP, but the numbers can’t be directly comparable without knowing the composition of the cholesterols.
I LOVE THIS.
I love this.
So much.
In fact, today I’m going to Whole Foods (I really don’t want to but I am getting close to out of food and I have my protective gear!) and I might actually just get stuff to make that.
Caine,
You are one of the people who first made me terrified of the shark tank here, but then made me feel welcome. This place is better with you than without. I hope I’ll read you again (soon).
♥ & *chocolate*
@165: Seconded. I hope caine feels comfortable coming back as well.
I can’t really answer this, because I’m not sure what you mean by “the dickfuckery of the peasants”.
I will, however, point out that the monarchy, overall, costs the taxpayer nothing at all – indeed, it’s a net gain. The Crown Estate – the portfolio of properties belonging to the British Crown – brings in an income of £230 million a year, all of which is paid to the Treasury. This far exceeds the cost of maintaining the Royal Household. So, overall, the Queen pays far more to the government than she receives.
Under the new system of funding, introduced by legislation last year, the Queen will get 15 percent of the Crown Estate revenues to cover the expenses of the Royal Household, which will be known as the “Sovereign Support Grant”. (This is different from the old system, in which the Queen received a fixed annual payment from the Treasury called the “Civil List”.) But the remaining 85 percent of Crown Estate revenues will still go to the Treasury, so, overall, the taxpayer continues to benefit from the monarchy.
:(
I’m sorry. I just saw this. I hope I didn’t contribute to making you feel that way at all. *giant hugs* I’ll miss you here, while you’re gone, and I’ll probably hang around your other blogs looking forlorn a bit (and when I get back to ND in a few days, I’ll be able to get back into moblog). I hope you come back soon. You’re a lot of what makes this place matter so much to me. :/
Caine
I wish you’d stay.
Can I use his entrails to hang some aristos?
Walton @182
I’ve heard (and even made) the “the monarchy makes more money than it costs” argument before, but I think at least some republicans don’t really care about that, they resent the hereditary privilege bestowed on the royal family and their indirect interference in the advancement and promotion of democracy. A monarch in a democracy either negates the functions of democracy itself or is entirely superfluous to the process, and the British monarchy is mostly the latter.
Aww Caine, I’m sorry. You’ll be missed, and I hope you find your way back someday. (*remote-hugs the ratties too*)
This right here tells me the writer doesn’t know shit about nutrition; there aren’t kinds of protein, what there is are different amino acids that make up protein. There are eight amino acids that the human body can’t synthesize and must be included in the diet. And those acids must all be present in the proper proportions in order to be used as protein.
It’s true that animal products (meat, fish, milk, eggs, etc.) do provide the amino acids in the right proportions, but some plant foods do as well (soybeans and peanuts come to mind). And another, very valuable source comes from combining foods that may, as individual components of the diet, be lacking an amino acid or two, but in combination balance out into a complete protein. Corn and beans, rice and sesame seeds are two examples; it’s probably not an accident that some of these combinations are staples of traditional diets in various parts of the world.
I quit eating red meat and birds in 1976 and was forced to learn some basic shit like this.
Katherine,
Indeed it was! I liked the Duchess of Cambridge’s (née Kate Middleton’s) hat, too.
More Jubilee photos can be found on this blog, including Prince William and Prince Harry in full morning dress with top hats. (Something which should be worn far more often.)
Oh, that’s true. (That’s partly why I’m not very interested in arguing the issue any more. I just like talking about hats.)
Now that I wrote it I’m wishing I had some right away, but I’m out of mozzarella, tomatoes and basil. And it’s almost midnight already. Well, maybe tomorrow. :)
Good evening
Walton
I think Camilla’s hat was beautiful. I like hats.
ticks
Caught two of them on #1 this summer already. And the county next to us has been declared FSME infected :( Looks like I need to get us vaccinated.
Caine
I’m sorry that you’re leaving but I understand that you need a break. I’m amongst those who’ll miss you a lot in the meantime.
Ogvorbis
Urgh, I’m glad you dind’t have a heart attack. Get better soon
Lynna
Good to hear you’re making progress
Rev. BDC
Uhm, that’s bad. Good wishes for the shoulder, too
And now I’d need to work something on my machine but I can’t because I still don’t have light in the kitchen. I have a lamp but I need two people to hang it up…
I’m sorry, Caine. Please take all the time you need, but I’ll selfishly say I hope it doesn’t take too long.
That sounds scrumptious, and quite similar to something I have eaten from time to time: mozzarella instead of cottage cheese, plus fresh basil and a drizzle of olive oil.
That is a classic Italian salad. I never liked it until I moved to an Italian-dominant area, and finally got my hands on freshly made mozzerella balls. Make the tomatoes summer-ripe ones, and oh my god. I could live off of it in the summer. I tend to, until the acid eats my stomach lining away. ;)
RahXephon, as much as Michael Pollan can annoy me, I do like his eating advice. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Look up protein and iron charts for vegetables, make sure you’re eating something from those lists, and you should be fine.
The usual monarchist hogwash – actually, I take that back, I wouldn’t wash any hog of mine in that stuff. “The Crown” is not the Queen; it’s far more accurate to say it’s the state; so the state pays the Queen large sums for waving, reading words others have written, and looking bored at pop concerts in her honour.
Caine,
I’ll join the chorus of those hoping you’ll come back soon. Meantime, I hope all goes well for you.
I’m not fond of the monarchy at all (I don’t think that Canada gets any of those sweet Crown Estate revenues,) but I really like the hats.
Caine,
I’m sorry to see you go.
Caine – don’t be gone too long.
Things are still settling, folks are still re-adjusting. Once the handful of ZOMG –RULZS?! for a towering intellect such as MOI?! sorts have vented, I think things will sort themselves out.*
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That. That for me is a very compelling reason for folks to go and see Prometheus.
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Ogvorbis. What Dianne said. Get the comprehensive look at everything. Hugs, (if that’s not too presumptuous of me.)
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* Not even a handful, heck probably not even an individual sees it that way. From a ceiling-cat perspective, it’s just curious to observe people working things through.
Caine, please don’t stay away permanently.
Ogvorbis,
Glad it wasn’t a heart attack! I had a similar pseudo-heart-attack episode last November (described here later), so I know how alarming it is. Take care (and whatever you’re prescribed).
Now a royal hat constructed solely of bollocks – a tasteful arrangement of dogs’ bollocks, rams’ bollocks, bulls’ bollocks and elephants’ bollocks perhaps, or maybe just Tory politicians’ bollocks – that would be something I’d turn on the TV to see!
Maybe with Prince Phillip’s bollocks on top as decoration.
carlie
Thanks. I didn’t know it was a classic, but I certainly didn’t think my parents made it up from scratch either (thousands of kilometres away from where mozzarella is made). :)
It tends to be rather underwhelming with store bought tomatoes, but with ones I occasionally get from my mothers greenhouse it’s heaven.
Or just made out of tory politicians’ brains, that way we can dispose of all of them …. of course then it would be a very small hat …
(oh all right, I know some of them actually do have some brains – all the better to be evil with, for the most part)
If you don’t think that people are actually reacting that way, why say it? It just managed to hurt my feelings, as someone who’s very loudly complained about the rules because I needed them clarified. :(
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Of course, that may be in part a Caine-just-left and a low-blood-sugar thing, now that I think about it.
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I always scratch up my shoes in exactly the same place. I don’t know what to do about it except fill it in with sharpie.
Sorry to see you go, Caine. All the best with journeying away from the land where the wild things are, and if you return some day, your supper will still be hot.
Caine’s off? Damn.
Something is REALLY wrong on the internet now.
Caine
I’m sorry that this has been the case, and I hope that you’ll be back eventually.
In the mean time, be well.
The very important thing about Insalata Caprese is never to make it with Mozzarella di Buffalo which is disgusting.
Be a grammar-nerd and insist on Mozzarella di Bufala
Luv that stuff
:-D
Silly kittehs: http://fi2.eu.apcdn.com/full/75465.gif
Caine, for what it’s worth, I don’t want you to go either.
You do much, much, very good for people here. Even if you piss the odd (and I stress, odd) one off occasionally.
Trigger Warning (not even sure I can finish this post as I’m about to burst into tears; this is very much a baring my soul post):
His bravery??
His fucking bravery??!!
It’s so brave to be patronizing and condescending towards an entire group of marginalized people.
I soooooooo don’t need to go there right now. Especially after reading this:
No single cause.
Understatement is too mild a word.
in October of 2007 I met a guy who I can actually say changed my life (M). We met at a gay bar here in town and hit it off immediately. We both loved comic books. Both of us were atheists. Both of us spent way too much time in our own heads. We both loved movies. He was a manager at a local theater, so we frequently saw movies days before their release to the public (apparently movies need to be pre screened in multiple…houses(?)I think they’re called…to make sure there are no issues). Being able to sit with him (and a handful of others over times) without screaming children, cell phones, and annoying people who want to chat WHILE also being able to chat to one another about the movie without having to worry about disrupting someone else’s experience was great. Initially he had a huge crush on me, which led to some stress in our budding friendship b/c I wasn’t attracted to him in that way. Then he got into a car accident two days after Christmas and was charged with a DUI. He felt he’d hit rock bottom. Around this time he started opening up about his past.
2 tours of duty in Iraq.
Growing up in a household in the deep south and being told by his father “if any of my children tells me they’re gay, I’ll kill them”.
Taking abuse from his father so that his younger brothers didn’t have to face it.
Leaving home at 18 to join the military-not because he wanted to-because he *had* to escape the strife in his house.
Coming back from 2 tours of duty and being dumped back into civilian life without *any* psychological help to deal with things he saw and did in Iraq.
Eating as a way to deal with stress.
He wasn’t in a happy place.
Following the accident (no injuries on his part thankfully), he began to cut back on drinking. He accepted that I wanted him in my life as a dear friend, but not anything more. He joined the same gym I went to. He started eating quite a bit healthier (fresh fruits and veggies, less harmful fats, more water, lean protein).
He also moved in with me and my other roommate. Without a car I would pick him up from work and he’d pick me up from work. I began to let him use my car when I was at work for 13 hours. We took several trips together. We went out partying together so often that people referred to us as husbands (which was irritating initially, but we both got over it in time; it took him a bit longer than I).
Within a few months we had bonded to such a degree that we were finishing each others’ sentences. He had met my parents and sister (all of whom took a very quick liking to him; he mentioned a few times that my parents showed him more kindness than his own).
In December of ’07, he weighed 240 lbs. By summer of ’08, he’d dropped 60 lbs and said he was the healthiest in his life. We started up a Supper Club on Tuesday evenings with a group of friends. Each week we’d meet at a restaurant, eat/drink/be merry. Someone in the group would pick the restaurant for the next week. That lasted about 6 months or so.
::FSM this hurts so much::
On January 7, 2010 @ 330 am, I had a pleasant conversation with him before I went to bed.
That turned out to be the last time I would ever speak to him.
Approximately 11 pm-the same day-I came home from work and found him dead in his bed. The image is seared into my memory.
I have never been so devastated.
Sometimes I still feel like there’s a gaping wound inside me that won’t heal. No matter what.
A close mutual friend of M and I shared with me a few words he once told her:
“He looked up to you. He respected you.”
It is so incredibly humbling to find out that I had an impact on the life of another in such a positive way.
(my hands won’t stop shaking right now; it’s actually hard to type; or see for that matter).
To hear of someone pretending to be gay (it probably was his idea of helping) is massively condescending and patronizing to the memory of THE BEST FUCKING FRIEND I’VE EVER HAD that.
To hear that the military has realized that suicide among troops is “complex” and has “multiple causes” makes me want to cry even more.
Of course it’s complex you morons.
M and I talked about virtually everything. We shared so much with one another. One area, however, he never opened up about: his time in the military. All he ever said was that it was NOT a positive experience and that he hated it. He also said he had nightmares after coming back from both tours in Iraq. He said the military offered him no way of dealing with the trauma he went through.
I love you M and I miss you more than any words could convey.
Tony…wow.
Just, wow.
Thank you for sharing that. I’m moved beyond words.
Tony, I don’t know what to say. Condolences seems so empty. But I feel for you.
Oh Tony.
Just *hugs*. There are no words.
Tony
Wow, and I’m sorry.
That was a wonderful, sad, incredible part of your life. thank you for sharing.
And since I’m here but almost completely threadrupt:
@Ogvorbis, yikes. Stay safe.
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@keenacat, I’m not surprised that the list helped, because the list is made of awesome. (Don’t worry about depletion, awesome’s self-sustaining, like Prana, only real.)
If I were you, I’d type it up in a large font, print it out (maybe on three sheets, one for each section) and stick it on the fridge or other obvious location. Then, keeping a Sharpie on hand, Cross Things Off™.
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What, you’re still reading? Go. Go cross things off! ;)
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Still reading? OK, storytime. TMI WARNING:
Not me. Mine was pretending to be an ovary and had to be coaxed down with anaesthetic and sharp knives. This intrigues me, because I also have odd ears (one shaped like my mother’s, one like my father’s). Hmmm.
Fuck, Tony. I’m so sorry. Thank you for allowing us to read that.
NEW THREAD!