Comments

  1. Beatrice says

    cicely,

    Unseen Academicals is my favorite, at least for now. I loved Nutt. (and Glenda and Trevor and Juliet and that dwarf that employed Juliet and Ponder and, and… everyone, but especially Mister Nutt)

    Death’s books (at least those that I have read) are serious competition, because Death is brilliant.

    The quilt is beautiful, Caine. The amount of effort and love that has gone into it makes it especially precious.

  2. says

    Audley,

    Jeez, just sounds ugly. Although it could be worse, because my first thought was that you were talking about peers or superiors, rather than subordinates. There’s not much worse in the world of working than being bossed by someone who is several orders of magnitude dumber than you, and insists on taking the lead all the time. I could tell stories all night about just ONE of those bosses. Drove me into the arms of anti-depressants, that one did… :(

  3. dianne says

    I had to give them all a basic math test a few months ago

    Oh. Dear. Perhaps I should put you in touch with my sister. She’s an administrative assistant at an aerospace company. She deals with engineers a lot-people who are highly competent in their field but have…odd…ideas about how the rest of the world works. For example, I understand that she’s achieved job security by being the only one in the department who can figure out how to label items for shipping in a way that won’t get the package rejected, the company fined, or risk the package exploding in midair. She’s been known to be sarcastic about people who can work partial differential equations but not put a battery on a scale to see if it’s the right weight for a given package and shipping method or not…

  4. says

    Joe:
    I’ve had bosses like that, too. Stupid subordinates I can handle, stupid people giving me direction… not so much.

    Dianne:
    Yeah, I’ve got a lot of engineers in my family and I know there’s a considerable number that just don’t grasp day to day tasks.

  5. dianne says

    @Audley, Though to confess the horrid truth, there are times when insurance companies send me forms, I look at them, my brain goes on strike, and say, “I just have no idea what to do with this.” At which point I run to an administrator and ask him or her to save me. I’m sure there is much eye rolling when I leave.

  6. cm's changeable moniker says

    Setar:

    No one, not even on MSNBC, has the sense to ask why we’re paying so much goddamn interest in the first place if the government controls the Federal Reserve

    The government doesn’t (and shouldn’t) control the Fed.

    I explained this already. (Lightly edited.)

    This isn’t really how the Treasury and Fed work. If it helps, think of the Fed not as an agency of government, but as the interface between government and the private sector. So the government can’t get loans from the Fed—it borrows from the private sector via the Fed. […]

    If the private sector either doesn’t believe that the government will pay the money back (i.e., default) or believes that that due to inflation, that the “future money” they get back won’t be worth as much in terms of purchasing power, then the it will demand interest on the loan. (30 years ago, in the teeth of the late-70s-early-80s inflation era, 30-year UST bonds were issued at 14% interest.)

    Also:

    […] why we need to be paying so much interest on debt from a bank we supposedly control, there’s some mumbling about inflation or something like that.

    I already explained “monetising the debt” on the A+ thread. You should also look at the experimental evidence.

    I love DeLong and Krugman to death but for the love of fucking FSM it would be a godsend for ONE OF THEM to post an Anti-Austerity 101 primer/meta-post taking apart the common neoliberal myths about why we need to cut everything (except of course the war budget and corporate subsidies)

    This is weird: What they do write is about how the US doesn’t need to cut everything (yet). They just can’t write the 101 you want because they’re constrained by reality.

    (P.S. Did you know DeLong is a neoliberal?)

  7. says

    The Romney War on Math continues:

    …Republican wants voters to believe he can slash taxes on the wealthy, increase defense spending, increase entitlement spending, and balance the budget, all at the same time.

    Romney will pay for this, he claims, by closing loopholes and eliminating deductions. Which ones? That’s a secret, though he’s said the home-mortgage-interest deduction, the health care deduction, and the charitable-contribution deduction are all off the table, which only makes the idea more absurd….

    …the Romney campaign told TPM overnight that Hassett has it wrong and that all of the contradictory goals “are achievable.”

    Matt Yglesias summarized the problem nicely.

    Basically they’re saying that 2+2=5. It is simply not possible to cut tax rates across the board, eliminate deductions to maintain revenue neutrality, and leave the distributive structure of the tax code unchanged. Call it “Romney’s Trilemma.” … A big 20 percent across the board cut isn’t going to work.

    This is basically a test to see whether voters still care about arithmetic at all.

  8. says

    Ah yes, Todd Akin, the gift that keeps on giving. That guy is what he is and he just can’t hide it.
    Link to National Journal story.

    Since Missouri GOP Senate nominee Todd Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape” rarely causing pregnancy, he has attempted to do damage control with women voters. He noted, in an apology ad, that he has two daughters and wants “tough justice for predators.” He trumpeted his women for Akin coalition.

    But a new comment isn’t likely to help his efforts to appeal to women voters: Akin noted that his opponent, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, was more “ladylike” during the 2006 campaign.

    “I think we have a very clear path to victory, and apparently Claire McCaskill thinks we do, too, because she was very aggressive at the debate, which was quite different than it was when she ran against Jim Talent,” Akin told the Kansas City Star. “She had a confidence and was much more ladylike (in 2006), but in the debate on Friday she came out swinging, and I think that’s because she feels threatened.”

    Lady. Fucking. Like?!

  9. says

    Karl Rove’s dark money group, Crossroads GPS, is paying for robocalls against Democratic Senate candidate for Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren. The script for the calls is full of lies:

    Today, you can change your future by voting against Elizabeth Warren. A vote for Warren is a vote for the same type of government failures that got us into the situation we are currently in. Warren supports President Obama’s health-care takeover that will cut over $700 billion from Medicare spending. The health-care law backed by Warren could limit the availability of care seniors depend on from the Medicare program they paid for. Vote no on Elizabeth Warren for Senate this November. Paid for by Crossroads GPS.

  10. says

    Impending Global Bacon Shortage?!?!?!

    No. My mind cannot process. Must buy pigs. Must breed my own pigs, and build a giant smoking pit. Must. Must. Cannot compute. Caaaaa. Daisy Daisy, give me your answer do. I’m haaaalf craaaazeeeee…aaalll foooor the loooove of youuuuu… please, Dave.

  11. says

    The Darkheart Duckie blanket is just gorgeous. I think I’d be afraid to put a kid on it, as strongly as I feel that baby gifts are meant to be used for babies!

    On the subject of embroidery, can any of the artists here recommend a cute, retro-feel bee embroidery/patch/applique pattern? I have a sweater I’d like to decorate with multiple small bees based on a famous sweater design of the 40’s.

  12. dianne says

    @Lynne: My interpretation of Akin’s remark is that it means, “She beat the crap out of me and I looked like a fool in the debate. It must be her fault somehow.”

  13. says

    Beatrice & Kristinc, thank you. ♥

    Kristinc, there are tons of vintage patterns on the net, it depends on what you’re looking for – there are comical bees (mostly in kitchen towel patterns called Bee Smart) and regular bees drawn every which way.

    I’d check flickr’s vast pools of vintage embroidery patterns/ transfers – a quick glance brought up this ordinary bee from a 1912 transfer.

  14. broboxley OT says

    Lynna, OM
    Basically they’re saying that 2+2=5. It is simply not possible to keep tax rates the same for those making under 250k per year, raise taxes on those making more than 250k per year to 38%, and leave the distributive structure of the tax code unchanged. Call it “Obama’s Dilemma.” … An 8% percent across the board raise isn’t going to work.

    that’s why this election is a bitter joke on the american people.

    If the CPUSA isnt on the ballot will be voting green

  15. Ogvorbis: broken and cynical says

    Sigh.

    Over the past two weeks, four local teenagers have committed suicide. In all four cases, bullying appears to have been a major factor. I overheard two older (mid-50s? (old to me, anyway. for now.)) discussing the idea that bullying was a problem. Then both thought, loudly, that the bullying was just a way for bad parents to ignore being bad parents. After all, said one (approximate transcript), “I was bullies all the way through school and it taught me to be strong. These kids today are crybabies and their parents need to knock some sense into them.”

    Assholes.

    Being bullied does not make one stronger. Being bullied can make suicide look like a solution.

    The newspapers are taking this very seriously. One of them (the Citizen’s Voice) published a front page editorial telling children that suicide is not a viable option and that bullying needs to be taken seriously and eliminated. Or reduced.

  16. dianne says

    @23: Warren is claiming ancestry through her maternal line. A simple mitochondrial genetic test should solve the issue. If it matters.

  17. strange gods before me ॐ says

    broboxley, CPUSA hasn’t run a presidential campaign since Gus Hall versus Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale.

    CPUSA wants Obama to win this election. This is part of the current popular front strategy outlined in section 4b (unity against the ultra-right) of the party platform.

    So if your plan was to vote CPUSA, they’re asking you to go ahead and vote Obama.

  18. dianne says

    Brown or whoever put up the signs is still a hopeless racist or at least incredibly deliberately “naive” about race. Compare and contrast. Race seems to be, um, not coming up quite a lot in this campaign.

  19. dianne says

    Setar: That’s what I mean by “not coming up”: I’m sure Brown would argue that he’s not really bringing up race, he’s just bringing up Warren’s “dishonesty” or something. Just like all the talk about Obama’s birthplace are ostensibly about whether he’s technically qualified to be president and nothing at all to do with his Kenyan ancestry.

  20. says

    Kristinc:

    I should have been more specific though, I probably need to look for commercial patterns or something similar so I have a transfer to stitch directly over. I suck at freehanding.

    No problem – print out what you want and trace it. You have several options from there – you can use a transfer pencil or pen, which will make your pattern an iron on transfer. If your fabric is light enough, you can tape your pattern to a light box (or a bright, sunlit window), then place your fabric over and draw directly on it, using a fabric pen. You can trace your pattern on tracing paper or a tear-away embroidery stabilizer. Fix the paper on your fabric, stitch, then tear away the tracing paper or stabilizer.

  21. broboxley OT says

    SGBM since cpusa will not be on the ballot, green party it is. I refuse to vote for someone who is in charge of
    http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/09/tsa_freeze_drill_videod_at_sky.php
    and the total stupidity of trying to tell the american public that the 911 attack against our embassy in benghazi was the result of a spontaneous attack due to a video that had been floating on youtube for months. That is strategic reaganesque incompetence at the highest level.

  22. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    Setár: Your link is borked. I found something about it here.

    Yeah, I’ve got a lot of engineers in my family and I know there’s a considerable number that just don’t grasp day to day tasks.

    Hey now, Mrs. Fishy is an engineer. There might be a few folks in engineering who are good at technical tasks and bad at everyday things because of how their minds are wired, but I think that more often than not this is learned helplessness.

    I also suspect that there’s a heaping of confirmation bias involved in this stereotype. Mrs. Fishy is on the board of an engineer’s social/networking group. I’ve been to any number of functions and they are full of sociable, reasonable, fully functional adults. But of course at the end of the night we end up talking about the one or two, er, unique, individuals rather than forty to a hundred neurotypical folks.

  23. strange gods before me ॐ says

    I refuse to vote for someone who

    as the CPUSA points out, “pushed through:

    * Affordable Health Care Act extends coverage to 35 million uninsured people, outlaws denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions and extends until age 26 coverage of children under their parents plans.
    * Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act for equal pay for women.
    * Stabilized the economy with $789 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that saved or created 3 million jobs. Invested billions in clean energy jobs, saved the auto industry.
    * Unemployment benefits for millions of workers despite Republican threats to shut down the government. Obama was forced to yield on Bush-era tax cuts for the rich that he wanted to terminate.
    * Appointed two women to the U.S. Supreme Court, including the first Latina woman, who support the rights of working people.
    * Established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and used a recess-appointment to name the director over Republican opposition.
    * Created a new food safety agency to protect people from food-borne illness.
    * Ended profit-grab by private banks on students loans, reestablishing Federal control on these loans and used the savings to extend loans to more students.
    * Doubled the funding for Pell Grants to $32 billion, increasing size of the grant $819 to a maximum of $5,500.”

    But go on, stamp your feet and refuse to use your vote to help anything but your feelings of personal purity.

  24. says

    You have several options from there – you can use a transfer pencil or pen, which will make your pattern an iron on transfer. If your fabric is light enough, you can tape your pattern to a light box (or a bright, sunlit window), then place your fabric over and draw directly on it, using a fabric pen. You can trace your pattern on tracing paper or a tear-away embroidery stabilizer. Fix the paper on your fabric, stitch, then tear away the tracing paper or stabilizer.

    Ooh, thanks! Sounds like I can use any image of a bee at all, which is fab.

  25. cicely says

    I should have been more specific though, I probably need to look for commercial patterns or something similar so I have a transfer to stitch directly over. I suck at freehanding.

    Graph paper, pencil, lotsa eraser…and carbon paper.

    You know, I’ve noticed something: everyone making a fuss about Elizabeth Warren’s ancestry is decidedly white.

    Not so:
    Massachusetts Senatorial Race: Identity Standards, Not Identity Politics
    and
    Senator Scott Brown’s Racist and Anti-Indian Campaign Rallies: Why Progressive People Should Give Money to Elizabeth Warren’s Campaign in Order to Get this Bigot Out of Office
    and there were earlier articles on the same American Indian news site as well.

  26. broboxley OT says

    #35 SGBM shouldnt there be chapter and verse notations on some of that woo?
    Maddow 3:16
    Stamping away here

  27. strange gods before me ॐ says

    shouldnt there be chapter and verse notations on some of that woo?

    It’s common knowledge, broboxley. I’m citing it from the CPUSA because you expressed interest in them. If you dispute something in particular, say so.

    Stamping away here

    Nothing to be proud of. You are refusing to use your vote to help make real people’s lives better. It is functionally equivalent to not voting at all.

  28. says

    Augh, how did that happen to my link…

    Stephen Harper has been awarded the first ever Richard Nixon Prize.

    sgbm #40:

    Nothing to be proud of. You are refusing to use your vote to help make real people’s lives better. It is functionally equivalent to not voting at all.

    What if you live in a district that is guaranteed to go to the wrong side? I almost voted Green in the 2009 provincial election because regardless of whether I voted Green or NDP the incumbent BC Liberal candidate, who is now the Deputy Premier, was going to win.

  29. broboxley OT says

    well SGBM I could move to Canada and vote NDP to my hearts content and no one would begrudge me that right. Too lazy and pissed off to go to thunderdome and argue so have a nice night.

    Got REALLY depressed at work today. 4 female work mates late 20’s to mid 40’s discussing how absolutely shitting all men were and their particular long time SO’s describing in detail how much they loathed them. I was with them, listening, keeping my mouth shut. If I ever end up single I am so screwed….

  30. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    Oh joy. Ocular migraine. It’s pretty. It’s annoying. It’s pretty annoying. Ah well, it could be a real migraine.

  31. strange gods before me ॐ says

    What if you live in a district that is guaranteed to go to the wrong side? I almost voted Green in the 2009 provincial election because regardless of whether I voted Green or NDP the incumbent BC Liberal candidate, who is now the Deputy Premier, was going to win.

    That sounds like calculating, instead of relying on gut reactions about moral disgust and personal purity. And as long as you calculate carefully, that can make sense, as long as each federal, state and local vote is calculated on its own merits.

    +++++

    well SGBM I could move to Canada and vote NDP to my hearts content and no one would begrudge me that right.

    I’m not begrudging you any right to make any choice; I am critiquing the consequences of your choice.

  32. says

    Setár,

    Only problem, Nixon IIRC had some good social programs.

    That’s something that is rarely discussed in the mainstream of the political media. Nixon, and Reagan, and most of the Republican party from 30-50 years ago, were pretty goddamned terrible by liberal standards. They were also fortunately interested in governing a working democracy within a functioning country. For all of their flaws, Nixon and Reagan could look at a disaster like factories poisoning tens or hundreds of thousands of people, or workplaces crippling the same number of citizens, and say “You know, maybe it is OK if we try to not kill/poison/maim our own population.” Even if the thinking was just “we need healthy people to fight communism and build more nukes” at least they were capable of thinking past the next 12 weeks.

    The current crop of Republicans look at the same situation and if they recognize that there’s a problem at all, they seem to think “if you get poisoned, you must be marked by God to die. Profits come first. If God wanted profits to go down, he would make the pollution back up into the factories.”

  33. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    35 SGBM shouldnt there be chapter and verse notations on some of that woo?

    Woo?

    Refutations please.

    Citations a bonus.

  34. Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven says

    I’ve been to any number of functions and they are full of sociable, reasonable, fully functional adults. But of course at the end of the night we end up talking about the one or two, er, unique, individuals rather than forty to a hundred neurotypical folks.

    Are you intending to draw the contrast I think you are here? :/

  35. Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven says

    I’m not begrudging you any right to make any choice; I am critiquing the consequences of your choice.

    I’m stealing this phrasing.

  36. Ogvorbis: broken and cynical says

    Nixon, and Reagan, and most of the Republican party from 30-50 years ago, were pretty goddamned terrible by liberal standards.

    Clean Water Act and strengthening of the Clean Air Act (amendments including federal enforcement) just for starters. Nixon’d be drummed out of the modern GOP. And he’d be to the left of many Democrats, too.

  37. broboxley OT says

    SGBM

    I’m not begrudging you any right to make any choice; I am critiquing the consequences of your choice.

    Ah, thank you

    #50 Rev BDC didnt, but I live in BCF Georgia and I wanted the locals looking over their shoulders

    Stalin was a libertarian with the freedom of choices

    besides Communism isn’t bad if you have Beria in your back pocket

  38. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    Shit, now that you mention it Azkyroth I can see a blindingly obvious interpretation of what I wrote that implies non-neurotypical cannot be reasonable, fully functional adults. I’m sincerely sorry, that is obviously not true.

    I’m not unaware of these issues and yet I keep fucking up like this. I really have to think more carefully when posting on this stuff.

  39. broboxley OT says

    #53 Rev BDC
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism

    The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines libertarianism as the moral view that agents initially fully own themselves and have certain moral powers to acquire property rights in external things.[1] Libertarian historian George Woodcock defines libertarianism as the philosophy that fundamentally doubts authority and advocates transforming society by reform or revolution

    First description fits the man of Steel all right. The second sentence also describes Stalin prior to his takeover of the Soviet
    After he took over he had the liberty to do what he wished without government interference. You really didn’t think he was a communist did you? :-)

  40. broboxley OT says

    #54 SGBM I am a believer in freedom. Can a green party in charge provide me with the wiggle room to allow my freedom as much as a republican or democratic government? I believe the greens would not allow waterboarding except in the cases of strip mining or clearcut logging. Political beliefs? Maybe I am naive but I dont think so.

  41. strange gods before me ॐ says

    a green party in charge

    I don’t understand the meaning of this phrase.

    Anyway the question was did you indeed give up libertarianism and go green?

    Or are you straddling the libertarian and green parties right now? You’re sort of making it sound this way, but you’re anything but clear.

    Maybe I am naive but I dont think so.

    Ah, but naive people never think they’re naive.

  42. broboxley OT says

    SGBM #58 a green part president, a green party majority in either house would be the definition of in charge.
    not straddling any fences, Democans or Repocrats have done nothing useful in many years except line their own pockets and set better income traps to move cash from their base to their owners.

    blows white makeup encrusted kisses Ing’s way

  43. strange gods before me ॐ says

    not straddling any fences

    So you’re Green now, and not Libertarian or Tea Party anymore?

    Bear with me, please. I’m going my best to read Oxlish here.

  44. Hekuni Cat, MQG says

    Caine:

    I received an invite to be the featured project on the Urban Threads blog today

    Congratulations on being featured and finishing Darkheart Duckie Project. I think Velma is my favorite duckie, but I love them all. You are amazing! ♥

  45. ibyea says

    Broboxley
    You think the Green Party actually has a chance under the winners take all electoral system?

  46. strange gods before me ॐ says

    Also, he did used to be a neoliberal economist. Here is him admitting he was wrong:

    About some things. There’s a variety of neoliberal nuances. Your link goes to January 2011 — and by my reading amounts to saying “I am a neoliberal and here’s some things I was wrong about.”

    But anyway six months later he is still calling himself a neoliberal.

  47. StevoR says

    Reckon some folks may find this :

    http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4284048.html

    news article interesting –

    Misogyny is alive and kicking

    The Ernie awards began as a joke almost two decades ago but sexist insults made against women are no such thing, writes Meredith Burgmann.

    Last night 300 women came to NSW Parliament to have dinner and take part in the Twentieth Annual Ernie Awards.

  48. Socio-gen, something something... says

    Late to the Pratchett discussion — and heck, I should be in bed anyway, since I have to be up in 6 hours — but I’m going to toss my favorites out anyway: Witches Abroad and Hogfather, though all my Watch or Death books are much-beloved and frequently re-read.

    Ogvorbis
    One of my friends lives in the same area. Her daughter attends PAHS and was close to the boy who killed himself. (And she’s now quite distraught and blames herself because she had no idea he was even thinking about suicide.) When my friend first posted about it on Facebook — literally a single line, “How many more?” and a link to WNEP’s story — she and I were both horrified by the number of people who commented more more or less the same way as those you overheard.

    They were eventually drowned out (and shut up) by the great number of people who commented on what assholes they were (those condoning bullying), and/or shared their own experiences with bullying and how much it affected them. Still, that kind of empathy-deficit is disheartening, though not at all surprising.

    Caine
    Adding my adoration of the Darkheart Duckie project. I haven’t picked a favorite yet because they’re all amazing.

    I am so envious of people with needle skills. I can sew a button, if forced, but only if someone threads the needle for me…and stands by to knot it when I’m done.

  49. says

    Good morning
    In for another day of Soccer-moming.
    Hate it, but it’ll get better once the little one stays at the daycare for longer.

    kristinc

    Thanks, Caine! I should have been more specific though, I probably need to look for commercial patterns or something similar so I have a transfer to stitch directly over. I suck at freehanding.

    Here’s a mean old trick o’ mine.
    Get yourself some of the water soluable stabilizer. You want a pretty soft and light one, because it doesn’t really have to stabilize much. Also get yourself temorary spray adhesive.
    You can trace the pattern onto the stabilizer by just putting it on top of the pattern in a good light. Now spray the back of the stabilizer generously with spray adhesive and place on your fabric. When you’ve finished you can just wash the stuff and the stabilizer is gone.

    Fuck for sewing machine.
    That IS an emergency.

    Ogvorbis
    Oh shit.
    And yeah, those people you hear just realized that (apart from it being totally untrue) the flipside of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is that it might kill you. And they decided it was OK.

    dianne
    Would it? I mean, my maternal line includes as many men as women, so if my maternal grandfather was X, my mitochondrial DNA wouldn’t tell you anything…
    I’ve said this already over at Almost Diamonds:
    Catch 22: Now they’re making a fuss because she ticked the box. If she hadn’t they’d surely have found out that she has Indian ancestry and would be calling her a racist wh’s ashamed of it.
    It’s complicated, I think. It’s at least problematic to claim an identity of a minority when you’Re neither rooted in that culture nor getting any shit for it. I neither claim Hungarian Gypsie nor Russian German.

    Caine

    I received an invite to be the featured project on the Urban Threads blog today

    Absolutely no surprise here. You really should be.

  50. Tony •Prom King of Sunnydale High• says

    Those with cats:
    Does anyone else have a cat drips mucus (from the nose) when he/she is pet? Kayta is the only cat I’ve had that does this. Even then, it’s only when she’s been pet for a period of time. It’s kinda gross on the one hand, but on the other, it seems like she’s extremely happy/content, and I can’t begrudge her that.

  51. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines libertarianism as the moral view that agents initially fully own themselves and have certain moral powers to acquire property rights in external things.[1] Libertarian historian George Woodcock defines libertarianism as the philosophy that fundamentally doubts authority and advocates transforming society by reform or revolution

    First description fits the man of Steel all right. The second sentence also describes Stalin prior to his takeover of the Soviet
    After he took over he had the liberty to do what he wished without government interference.

    Again, wut?

    I’m no fan of libertarians but I’m pretty sure that going by definitions like your’s above, the campaigns of repression and the great purges kinda sorta go against that.

    You really didn’t think he was a communist did you? :-)

    Well he was, he was just a lot more.

    Libertarian is a gigantic stretch and leap.

  52. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    So I spent about 1 1/2 hours under my house yesterday replacing insulation that some sort of rodent type varmint had torn down.

    I mean all under the house, the whole floor plan.

    I got about maybe 1/4 of the way through and…

    found the nest. No live critters, but

    uh

    that was unpleasant.

    Had to punt and reassess my tactics.

    I stopped and went to the bar. Have to go back today to deal with it.

    Not

    Looking

    forward

    to

    it

  53. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    Desperation

    If it wasn’t already clear that Mitt Romney and his allies are trying to lower expectations heading into next Wednesday’s debate against President Obama in Denver, the campaign is now making it official.

    In a memo about the debates distributed to campaign surrogates and provided to CNN on Thursday, longtime Romney adviser Beth Myers outlines a series of reasons why the president is likely to emerge as the winner of the first debate.

  54. says

    BDC
    Urgh, comiserations

    +++
    Ah, yeah, I’m a good girl.
    I just apologized to somebody whose job it is to answer students’ questions for having a question. And it turns out that she had made a mistake*…
    But, well, 6 months ago I wouldn’t have asked, so I guess this counts as a success. And 7 credit points…

    *Can happen. But yeah, to have scruples asking somebody about that problem is really a sign of good girl conditioning. Better getting those 7 Credit points again instead of wasting 5 minutes of somebody’s time…

  55. Beatrice says

    Giliell,

    Good for you that you asked.
    Being assertive is difficult when it goes against one’s upbringing or personality.

    Do you also apologize when someone steps on your foot (as just one example)? I do that.

  56. broboxley OT says

    SGBM

    So you’re Green now, and not Libertarian or Tea Party anymore?
    Bear with me, please. I’m going my best to read Oxlish here.

    the correct term is boxlish. What on earth ever gave you the idea I was a teapartier? I have spent enough time fishing hunting and hiking in various backwaters of the world that I am very aware of how man intersects nature.

  57. says

    …Not / Looking / forward / to / it

    I always find with jobs like that, it’s the smell.

    I have a high-quality face mask I keep loaded with fine particle cartridges for working around the ancient/nasty mineral wool I still have in some of my cathedral ceilings, but I doubt it would cut the smell much… Maybe if you got such a thing and loaded it with the cartridges rated for harmful vapours? Can’t say I’ve ever tried it, mind.

    So I have no great suggestions. Apart from obviously, I guess: while doing it, try to keep in mind going back to the bar after.

  58. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    RevBDC: There’s a possible alternative to putting insulation on the floor. If you have a sealed crawl space you insulate down the walls and out across the ground for meter or so. The idea is the heat from the house warms the exposed earth which acts as thermal storage keeping the house at steadier temp. You don’t have to crawl under so much of the house and as a bonus you get warmer floors.. You should check with an expert, this all from memory of a discussion with the bloke who did the energy audit on a former home.

  59. dianne says

    Would it? I mean, my maternal line includes as many men as women, so if my maternal grandfather was X, my mitochondrial DNA wouldn’t tell you anything…

    I thought the claim was for her mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother. You’re right, if it were anyone else, the mitochondria are lost and no conclusion can be drawn.

  60. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    RevBDC: There’s a possible alternative to putting insulation on the floor. If you have a sealed crawl space you insulate down the walls and out across the ground for meter or so. The idea is the heat from the house warms the exposed earth which acts as thermal storage keeping the house at steadier temp. You don’t have to crawl under so much of the house and as a bonus you get warmer floors.. You should check with an expert, this all from memory of a discussion with the bloke who did the energy audit on a former home.

    I’ll still need to removed the insulation that was wrecked along with the remnants of the critters (said to include all possible definitions of remnants).

    So either way I’m going to be crawling under the house a bunch.

    Plus I’m putting up some tougher wire fabric on the inside of the vents so they can’t get back in as easily.

    Little fuckers chewed through a metal grate to get in the first time.

  61. trinioler says

    The problem with assertiveness is that it can end up looking like “aggression” to anyone who has a bone to pick with you.

    Like Anna Johnstone and myself.

  62. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    Yeah, it doesn’t work if unless the floor is uninsulated. I’ve done enough of that sort of work to feel that the best renovation is completed with a can of petrol and a match. Best of luck.

  63. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    Yeah it’s not really a renovation. It’s a repair, of sorts.

    House is only 6 years old. I should know. I spent a long hot Charleston year building it with my chimpy hands. Those fucking rodents had one hell of a party down there.

    At least my father in law is going to help.

    I’ll expect lots of grunting and pointing from him.

  64. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    For shit’s sake, I feel old.≤/blockquote>Heh. I used to amuse myself by figuring out how old the youngn’ was the first time I had sex. I stopped doing that when the numbers started being negative more often than not.

  65. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    Mmmm, bork, bork, bork…

    Very cool Rev.

    Sometime in the next week or so the builders will start on our new home. The 2 acre block we bought is zoned for two dwellings. The plan is to live in this first, small, very energy efficient home for a couple of years and then start building a straw bale, er, dream home for lack of better term. Paging Kevin McCloud….

  66. broboxley OT says

    ibyea
    #64

    You think the Green Party actually has a chance under the winners take all electoral system?

    here is how
    http://www.greenpartywatch.org/2012/09/21/jill-stein-85-can-vote-green-next-question-is-how-many-will/comment-page-1/#comment-67500

    But now, in our eleventh month, we can say with pride that 85% of voters will see my name on the ballot. And now –right now– is the time to this opportunity we’ve all created and to run an all out campaign to raise the spirits and win the voters of Americans.

    We are already showing up in the polls, rising 2.1% in the last couple weeks – that’s 2.5 million voters! Imagine how these numbers will rise when we are in full swing, reaching out to the tens of millions of students, workers, occupiers, unemployed, uninsured, immigrants, and advocates for peace, climate, civil liberties and racial justice who are looking for a real choice in this election that’s not bought and paid for by Wall Street.

    Nearly half of eligible voters are predicted to sit out the election this year because they don’t support either Obama or Romney. That’s because they haven’t heard about us yet

    only 50% of eligable voters turn out and split their votes pretty evenly between democratic and republican parties. If all of the rest would show up and vote green it would be a sweep. Its not going to happen in one election cycle. It took decades to get the whigs out of power but it can happen. If you accept the fud and fear of “dont vote third party, vote for the less suckage candidate” then it wont happen. That will be your fault, not mine. :-)

  67. says

    Audley
    A very good friend of mine plays in a theatre group. They’re having a new play and they usually put out promotional postcards. I found one of them yesterday and sent him a message who the young lady next to him was. I usually know the whole troup, but since they were wearing joker-like make-up I didn’t recognize her. She was dressed in an orange turban, a blue glittering shirt and some wide frilly trousers.
    He said “young lady? Do you mean Iason?”
    And I looked again and thought “shit, shit, shit”. The skinny young lady is a skinny teenage lad, only that I remember the skinny teenage lad as a cute primary school kid…

  68. dianne says

    vote NDP to my hearts content and no one would begrudge me that right.

    Damn dyslexia. I initially read this as “vote NPD to my heart’s content” and was…concerned.

  69. Ogvorbis: broken and cynical says

    … He was born in 1990.
    1990.
    1990.

    For shit’s sake, I feel old.

    No, that can’t be. Boy was born in 1990 and he’s . . . .

    Damn.

    He’s 22.

    What the hell?

  70. says

    Hekuni Cat:

    Congratulations on being featured and finishing Darkheart Duckie Project. I think Velma is my favorite duckie, but I love them all. You are amazing! ♥

    Thank you! ♥

    Socio-gen:

    Adding my adoration of the Darkheart Duckie project. I haven’t picked a favorite yet because they’re all amazing.

    Thank you.

    I am so envious of people with needle skills.

    I feel the same exact way when it comes to people who have sewing machine skills and I have needle envy when it comes to what other people can do embroidery-wise. I’m routinely stunned when I see the work students at the Royal School of Needlework can do!

    Giliell:

    Absolutely no surprise here. You really should be.

    I’m pretty excited to be included in such talented company. It’s not like I make my own personally embroidered shoes!

  71. chigau (違わない) says

    I don’t understand houses without basements.
    I know they are the majority, I’ve just had no first-hand experience.

  72. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    Caine, let me join in the needlework lovin’ pile-on. That quilt rocks, and the fact that you hand stitched the whole thing does my head in. I’ve sewn on buttons and occasionally trussed up a failing pack and the like, and if I had to do that much work with a needle I’m pretty sure I’d end up accidentally stitching myself to the cat, even though we don’t have a cat.

  73. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    I don’t understand houses without basements.

    I feel the same way. And it still weirds me out to see people’s hot water heaters sitting outside. Tain’t right that, it’s like me sitting around with my liver sticking out for all to see.

  74. dianne says

    I don’t understand houses without basements.

    When the water table’s 2 feet under the surface, houses without basements make sense.

  75. opposablethumbs says

    Second-third-fifth-sixthing the congrats, Caine – glad to see that your creation is getting the appreciation it deserves!

    I’m pretty sure I’d end up accidentally stitching myself to the cat, even though we don’t have a cat.

    Um, well, I totally never was sitting trying to mend something and ::cough:: sewed it onto my jeans. That I was wearing. Nope, never ever happened. At all.

  76. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    Indeed Audley, very proper that. If you could perhaps persuade your abode to correspond with the local accommodations, get them to see the error of the exhibitionist way as it were, I’d be much obliged.

  77. says

    Trinioler:
    *counts on fingers*

    Oh my word. Maybe it’s because I feel so young (and, to be fair, I’ll be 31 in two weeks, so I am still kind of young), but it still astounds me that there are young adults who have never known life before the (popular use of the) internet. Not in a bad way– I know some awesome teens and 20 somethings– it’s just a reminder that I’m not a kid anymore. :)

    FossilFishy:
    My neighbors keep all of their internal housing bits all covered up, never fear. We can’t have our waterheaters outside ‘cos the neighborhood regularly floods (hence keeping that stuff in the attic).

  78. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    This year’s college freshmen were born in 1994.

    Yikes. I gradumatated in ’95.

    Confarnit!

  79. Beatrice says

    Um, well, I totally never was sitting trying to mend something and ::cough:: sewed it onto my jeans. That I was wearing. Nope, never ever happened. At all.

    Of course not! It never happened to me either. Seriously. What a ridiculous notion. *shifty eyes*

  80. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    I don’t understand houses without basements.

    When the water table’s 2 feet under the surface, houses without basements make sense.

    Yep, living on the coast of South Carolina sort of makes that difficult.

    Our hot water heater is the in the garage for downstairs and in the attic for upstairs.

    Trust me, I’d kill for a basement. Think of all the beer fermentation I could have going on down there in a cool basement.

    100° F Charleston summers make that a bit difficult in the garage, and I’m pretty sure Mrs. BDC isn’t going to go for a couple carboys fermenting away in one of the extra bathrooms. She’s already dealing with sour dough starter and sauerkraut and little does she know while she’s away this weekend I’ll be starting some hotsauces a’fermenting.

  81. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    I’ve got more than a decade on you Audley and I don’t feel old either. Well, emotionally I don’t, but my eyes (no, I’m not going to the optometrist because xi’s going to tell me I need bifocals), my knees (No, darling daughter of mine, I can’t spend another hour on the trampoline with you) and my, my, er, what was I saying….

  82. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    Happy birthday Joe! May your pickhand never slow, your capos never slip and your distortion never dim, and may your next year be so much better than your last that you’ll wonder if it all ’twas but a dream.

    And with that I bid you creatures of the North a good day, us oldies need to be abed at a decent hour and for the love of pete stay offa my lawn!

  83. Socio-gen, something something... says

    Audley:
    Since I’m mostly in classes or surrounded by kids the same ages as my own, “old” is a feeling I’ve come to know so well…

    opposablethumbs:

    Um, well, I totally never was sitting trying to mend something and ::cough:: sewed it onto my jeans. That I was wearing. Nope, never ever happened. At all.

    And I never, ever sewed my finger to the fabric of the pillow sham I was making in home ec class. Or made it worse when the pain of the first stitch caused my foot to slam the pedal and send the machine into turbo drive.

    Improbable Joe:
    Felicitations!

  84. says

    In the older comments section of this chapter of [Louge #370] I mentioned an article on the Drudge Report that featured a video of a black woman fulminating over the “free phone” Obama had given her.

    Of course right-wing radio, TV, and blogs have really gone to town with this video. As is usual, reality does not quite fit their take on this issue.

    …Strictly speaking, it’s not a government-funded program: the telephone companies make payments to a fund administered by a non-profit called the Universal Service Administrative Company, but anyone with a phone bill chips in through a surcharge on their service.

    Though the origins of the universal service program date back at least to 1934, the Lifeline program in particular was instituted by a well-known redistributionist by the name of President Ronald Reagan in 1984. A related effort, expanding affordable access to cell phones for low-income Americans, was created by another radical liberal by the name of George W. Bush.

    As for the larger context, Dave Weigel’s point bears repeating: “Shockingly, despite the bipartisan origins of the service, the idea of an ‘Obama Phone’ for the undeserving has existed for a long time. You know what else has existed for a long time? The Drudge Report hyping up tabloid news that makes black people look like violent dopes who’ll do anything for more goodies from Obama.”

    Text excerpt above is from The Maddow Blog.

    The Atlantic Wire posted a more detailed analysis of the video and of the issue.

  85. Richard Austin says

    Basements also don’t work really well (or at least cheaply) when the ground likes to periodically stretch its legs and go for a jog.

    There are safe ways to build subsurface structures in earthquake zones, but they aren’t cheap enough to be used for the average house.

  86. says

    On Romney and torture:

    New York Times article excerpt:

    In one of his first acts, President Obama issued an executive order restricting interrogators to a list of nonabusive tactics approved in the Army Field Manual. Even as he embraced a hawkish approach to other counterterrorism issues — like drone strikes, military commissions, indefinite detention and the Patriot Act — Mr. Obama has stuck to that strict no-torture policy.

    By contrast, Mr. Romney’s advisers have privately urged him to “rescind and replace President Obama’s executive order” and permit secret “enhanced interrogation techniques against high-value detainees that are safe, legal and effective in generating intelligence to save American lives,” according to an internal Romney campaign memorandum.

    It’s worth emphasizing that the policy memo was drafted by Romney’s advisers a year ago, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it reflects Team Romney’s judgment…

    Adam Serwer added that the Romney advisers’ memo “contains a number of factual errors and misleading statements,” and presents an option of two competing courses: end Obama’s torture ban immediately, or go through the motions of a perfunctory “review” process — to appear “open-minded and empirically driven” — and then end Obama’s torture ban.

    Excerpt above is from The Maddow Blog.

    Nice to see that Romney’s advisors are feeding him “a number of factual errors and misleading statements.” Yeah, as if Romney needed any help in the dishonesty area.

  87. broboxley OT says

    Lynna #125 yes the lifeline program has been around for a long time. The idea that all telco users should chip in to allow basic services for the elderly and others. Good idea but something happened in 2008, where the cost for cellular service (great idea bcause homeless means no land line) was $772 million. Now the cost has ballooned to $1.6 billion in 2011.

    Why the change? Aggressive marketing and lax oversight. Folks are drummed up outside of grocery stores, mass mailings and door to door hawkers. Fill out a form, swear that you qualify and you get a free phone with free minutes. So folks have multiple free phones with multiple carriers.

    As far as calling it the obamaphone? Why not check the source and sign up if you really need one
    http://obamaphone.net/

    cant blame the right wing for calling that out, its how it is marketed

  88. Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven says

    I’m no fan of libertarians but I’m pretty sure that going by definitions like your’s above, the campaigns of repression and the great purges kinda sorta go against that.

    Stalin did what HE wanted and other people had to live (or not) with the consequences.

    Broboxley’s on to something here.

  89. Socio-gen, something something... says

    broboxley:
    You really fall for anything, don’t ya?

    Okay, one: to receive the cell phone (in PA, at least) through a local company you usually have to provide verification of your status with a particular program (usually your SSI, TANF, or food stamp case number) or income verification.

    What documentation do I need to provide at enrollment? Program Eligibility Verification – Acceptable documentation includes: Current or prior year’s statement of benefits from a qualifying program; notice letter of participation in qualifying program; program participation documents (or copy); or another official document of a qualifying program. Income Eligibility Verification – Acceptable documentation includes: The prior year’s state, federal or Tribal tax return; current income statement from an employer or paycheck stub; Social Security statement of benefits; Veterans Administration statement of benefits; Retirement or pension statement of benefits; Unemployment or Workers’ Compensation statement of benefits; Federal or Tribal notice letter of participation in General Assistance; or divorce decree, child support award, or other official document containing income information. The consumer must present the same type of documentation covering 3 consecutive months within the previous 12 months, if the documentation does not cover a full year of income. Lifeline/LinkUp program

    Second: “Obamaphone.net” — not actually connected to the government or the Obama administration. Actual government services and agencies use “.gov” addresses.

  90. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Why the change? Aggressive marketing and lax oversight. Folks are drummed up outside of grocery stores, mass mailings and door to door hawkers. Fill out a form, swear that you qualify and you get a free phone with free minutes. So folks have multiple free phones with multiple carriers.

    Citation fucking needed that people are gaming the system and doing so in a meaningful number.

    I have a safelink phone because I can’t afford a phone otherwise. It’s used for Little One’s school emergencies and looking for a job. It was easy to get because I was able to submit proof online showing I’m on foodstamps. It’s the kind of application that’s needed and not needlessly difficult or anything. I qualify and I got one. My parents qualify and have one.

    Prove this statement or you are no better than those complaining about welfare fraud.

  91. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    *smash*

    Y’know, when I do a monster experiment where I’m collecting samples every six hours for three days (please, do the math and try to determine what my sleep cycle has been), I would like it to fucking work.

    >:(

  92. Ogvorbis: broken and cynical says

    Yikes. I gradumatated in ’95.

    So did I. Of course, I spent five years in a four year high school, so I cheated a little bit.

    ===

    Happy Birthday, Joe!

    ===

    When bedrock is a foot below the surface, basements also have little to offer.

    There is dynamite. And C4. And other things that go usefully boom.

    (please, do the math and try to determine what my sleep cycle has been)

    Neonatalish?

  93. says

    I see my fellow Pharygulites have answered the inaccurate “Obama-phone” claims for the most part. Well done.

    I will point out that cell phone charges in the USA do often contain ever-escalating little add-on fees that often add to up big bucks for the companies. Lax oversight and gaming of the system do occur. That’s no reason to kill the phones-for-poor-people program.

    US cell phone plans are among the world’s most expensive, for a variety of reasons. tech.slashdot link.

    Average US plans cost $52.99 per month compared to an average of $10.95 in Finland.

    The cost in the US is mostly a result of policy mistakes. EU countries make an effort to correct policy errors. Link.

    On another subject, the Republican National Committee has been caught … again. Real voter fraud does exist, and the Republicans are masters of hidden fraud.

    Why is it that when legitimate examples of election fraud come to light, they always seem to come from one party?

    Link.
    The Republican National Committee has fired a controversial consulting firm it was paying millions of dollars to conduct voter registration in five battleground states, NBC News has learned.

    The move came after the Palm Beach County, Fla., elections supervisor discovered 108 potentially fraudulent registration forms submitted by the GOP consulting firm, including suspected phony signatures and home addresses that matched those of a gas station, a medical building and a Land Rover dealership.

    NBC News has learned that two other Florida counties, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa, have also reported possible fraudulent registration forms submitted by the firm, including apparent dead people being registered as new voters.

    As NBC News’ Michael Isikoff reported, at issue is a firm called Strategic Allied Consulting, but by long-time consultant Nathan Sproul, which had been hired by the Republican National Committee’s Sean Spicer to register voters in Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Colorado, and Virginia — five key battleground states in 2012.

    So far in 2012, the RNC has paid Strategic Allied Consulting $2.9 million for its services to the national party, as well as state affiliates. The relationship, however, has been severed in light of the firm’s alleged crimes….

    More, and yet worse details available here.

  94. Richard Austin says

    Businessweek article on the Lifeline fraud

    Lifeline took off in the last decade, as prepaid cell phones became popular. In 2008 there were 7.1 million accounts nationwide. Today there are 12.5 million, about half of which are mobiles sold by Miami-based TracFone (AMX), Sprint (S), and hundreds of small regional companies. The government pays the carriers up to $10 a month for each Lifeline subscriber. Customers get free phones and 250 minutes of monthly airtime. It’s a good deal for them and a potential moneymaker for the mobile-phone providers, who can sell extra minutes once customers max out on their free ones. Both TracFone, which had 3.8 million Lifeline subscribers as of late last year, and Sprint, which declines to release figures, say revenue from selling consumers additional minutes is low.

    The rapid growth means the government is paying out a lot more money—$1.6 billion in 2011, compared with $772 million in 2008. An audit last year found that 269,000 wireless Lifeline subscribers were receiving free phones and monthly service from two or more carriers. In December, McCaskill asked the FCC to examine Lifeline, writing, “I am troubled by the expansive potential for the program to be abused.”

    So, the jump is because they started covering cell phones and basically doubled the number of accounts they were serving (probably also impacted by the recession).

    The “fraud” was 269k out of 12.5 million – that’s roughly 2%. Not exactly a huge amount here.

  95. says

    There is dynamite. And C4. And other things that go usefully boom.

    Also, big-ass highway-standard pneumatic drills…

    That’s what they use around here. Which, yes, does get noisy. The bedrock is like maybe a foot and a half below the surface, in places, but it’s also mostly limestone, so, y’know: heavy to move, but soft…

    … with, okay, bits of broken glacial gneiss, too, of course, in places. Which is heavy to move and not soft.

    Anyway: and we all have basements.

    It kind of pleases me. There’s this appealing bullheadedness about it. Rock? Like we care: one has a basement, them’s the rules. Who’s whining about a little rock?

    (/Granted, it can get inconvenient. Anyway, hand me the that C4… I have to go weed the lawn.)

  96. says

    Follow up to my comment @138

    … In his new book, The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use “Plain English” to Rob You Blind, Johnston examines the fees that companies — such as cellphone and cable — have added over the years that have made bills incrementally larger.

    Johnston says that telephone and cable companies worked the regulatory process and the legislatures and Congress to get the rules written for their benefit.

    “Over the last 20 years, we’ve paid at least $360 billion in higher rates to the traditional telephone companies, and well north of $100 billion more to the cable companies, who all testified before Congress, made filings with regulatory agencies, bought ads on TV that told us we were going to have this information superhighway and it was going to be everywhere,” he says. “Instead, what they built was a system in very limited locations.” …

    Link.

    As Richard Austin noted above, “The “fraud” was 269k out of 12.5 million – that’s roughly 2%. Not exactly a huge amount here.” Now, I don’t like 2% fraud, and would prefer to see fraud addressed. But I don’t think we can administer any large-scale program to help poor and lower middle class persons without exposing taxpayers to a certain amount of fraud. Let’s be practical and take steps to keep fraud to a minimum. This idea that we should scrap programs with a 1% or 2% fraud rate is the stuff of right-wing hysteria.

    The really big frauds are perpetrated by industry lobbyists and their congressional lackeys who pass laws that allow industries to rip off consumers and taxpayers.

  97. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    The “fraud” was 269k out of 12.5 million – that’s roughly 2%. Not exactly a huge amount here.

    Oooooooh. Better start drug testing them all to make sure they aren’t using government money to make drug deals! And searches too, I’m sure that’s next. Let’s stop a little fraud by spending more money on stopping it than what’s being defrauded! After all, who needs more minutes? What you mean they had phone interviews that go on for half an hour or have to wait an hour on hold to get a hold of DES? Pfffft, lying thieves!

    Goddamn, I wish I was kidding.

  98. Socio-gen, something something... says

    Esteleth:
    Ugh! That stinks!

    Lynna:

    Real voter fraud does exist, and the Republicans are masters of hidden fraud.

    Oh, gee….what a surprise.

    Richard Austin:

    The “fraud” was 269k out of 12.5 million – that’s roughly 2%. Not exactly a huge amount here.

    Same as Florida — instituted drug testing of welfare applicants, only to discover that less that 3% tested positive, and that testing cost the state more than paying benefits would have. Source

  99. says

    Also, big-ass highway-standard pneumatic drills…

    Ah, yes indeed. You should see the equipment that road crews use to work on the highway that crosses The Craters of the Moon. I want some of that.

  100. broboxley OT says

    sounds like abuse to me
    http://mccaskill.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1428

    In a recent investigative report by KMOV, St. Louis’ CBS affiliate, individuals were caught on camera enrolling people for multiple phones, not requiring proof of eligibility, and distributing phones to people who were talking on a phone at the time of application.

    please note the senator in question is not exactly a right wing nutjob

    Same thing happens outside of food depot in acworth GA. They wanted to give me one. I pay for 4 cell phones now, didnt matter as (according to the signer) if I lost my job and couldnt pay the bill I would still have the free one.

  101. Ogvorbis: broken and cynical says

    The “fraud” was 269k out of 12.5 million – that’s roughly 2%. Not exactly a huge amount here.

    Isn’t it odd that, for a private company, a fraud or theft rate of 2% would be a dream come true? The store in which my son is an assistant manager does very well controlling loss and their theft and fraud rate is around 3.5%. But, for a government run, or government affiliated, program, any fraud at all is completely and totally unnacceptable. Guess what? No government programme, or affiliated programme, can eliminate fraud. The fraud rates are, as this case shows, pretty low. And, compared to private groups? Really low.

    How much would it cost the programme to eliminate the fraud? If eliminating a 2% fraud rate means an increase of 10% per unit, what’s the point of pursuing the fraud?

  102. Socio-gen, something something... says

    chigau:
    I started kindergarten in 1973. :)

    broboxley:
    No one is saying fraud doesn’t exist; we’re saying it doesn’t exist in the massive amounts that the right-wing (and you) claim it does.

    And, yet again, you’ve made the mistake of assuming your personal experience is the universal. Stop doing that.

  103. says

    You should see the equipment that road crews use to work on the highway that crosses The Craters of the Moon. I want some of that.

    Hee hee. Big toys, yes…

    They recently redid the water and sewer stuff, here. Explosives where they had room, but in my neighbourhood, the house fronts were too close. So they mostly used big Cat excavators–first the big drill to pound the rock down enough to move, then the scoops to lift it out. So the big machines tended to be parked in the mostly closed street, in front of us, for some weeks, evenings and weekends.

    I think it was one of you mentioned you had a key for one of those, and they’re mostly all the same.

    Anyway: it sounded like fun, all right.

  104. cicely says

    Does anyone here have personal experience of selling tee shirts or such over the Web? I’m…considering giving it a try, and would appreciate informed opinions on whether this is a good and viable idea. You know, before jumping off into the potentially shark-infested waters.

    Now to read the Thread.

  105. broboxley OT says

    145# No one is saying fraud doesn’t exist; we’re saying it doesn’t exist in the massive amounts that the right-wing (and you) claim it does.

    Show me the post where I claim there is massive fraud. I did point out that a democratic senator pointed out that the oversight of the program as it applies to her state is negligent. Supplied the link. Now my presumption is that paying people to get folks signed up for a free government phone on a piecework basis is a bad idea.

  106. Ogvorbis: broken and cynical says

    Amelia has figured out how to open drawers and is firmly of the opinion that since she can open them, she has ownership of anything within.

    That works for small children, cats, dogs, me, er, no, not me. But if the drawer is stuck (I didn’t know we had that spatula (thank you, Annoya)) and I get it open, I’m sure gonna look at what is there and see if anything useful . . . er, valuable? er, um.

    Nevermind.

  107. Socio-gen, something something... says

    broboxley @ 129:

    Folks are drummed up outside of grocery stores, mass mailings and door to door hawkers. Fill out a form, swear that you qualify and you get a free phone with free minutes. So folks have multiple free phones with multiple carriers.

    That, to me, reads as if you are implying fraud on a large scale.

    Now my presumption is that paying people to get folks signed up for a free government phone on a piecework basis is a bad idea.

    Except, as has been shown above at 139, that turns out not to be the case.

  108. chigau (違わない) says

    Caine

    Amelia has figured out how to open drawers and is firmly of the opinion that since she can open them, she has ownership of anything within.

    Yes.
    Makes sense to me.
    Does this explain the black paint episode?

  109. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Show me the post where I claim there is massive fraud. I did point out that a democratic senator pointed out that the oversight of the program as it applies to her state is negligent. Supplied the link. Now my presumption is that paying people to get folks signed up for a free government phone on a piecework basis is a bad idea.

    But the way you linked the massive increase in the expense was with fraud. Aggressive marketing and lax oversight lead to fraud which is why it’s so much more expensive. It jump was massive you only bring up the fraud and go on about the fraud as an excuse. You completely came off all wrong.

    Good idea but something happened in 2008, where the cost for cellular service (great idea bcause homeless means no land line) was $772 million. Now the cost has ballooned to $1.6 billion in 2011.

    Why the change? Aggressive marketing and lax oversight. Folks are drummed up outside of grocery stores, mass mailings and door to door hawkers. Fill out a form, swear that you qualify and you get a free phone with free minutes. So folks have multiple free phones with multiple carriers.

  110. cicely says

    Um, well, I totally never was sitting trying to mend something and ::cough:: sewed it onto my jeans. That I was wearing. Nope, never ever happened. At all.

    In my case it was my shirt that I totally never sewed a chemise onto.

    The sewing machine and I are not friends.

    I wish we had a basement.

    Tornadoes aren’t allowed in basements.

    Happy birdsday, Joe.
    I recommend the penguins.

    I graduated from high school in 1976.

    […]and I get it open, I’m sure gonna look at what is there and see if anything useful . . . er, valuable? er, um.

    *raised eyebrows*
    Of course. Always Loot The Room.
    Also, monsters sometimes swallow stuff; it pays to see if you can get them open, as well.

    In fact, it’s probably best to disassemble them thoroughly; some parts are salable.

  111. dianne says

    I don’t approve of ’95. Bad year.

    In 1995 I was an intern working 100-120 hours per week. I don’t remember 1995 much at all.

    Happy birthday, Joe!

  112. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    Finished the experiment last night at about 5 pm, went home, had a bite to eat, fell over into bed.

    Slept 13 hours. Woke up still feeling tired.

    Ugh.

    Worse, am coming down with something.

    Also, had truly batshit dream, where I was still dating the ex and she had been arrested by ICE and threatened with deportation back to her home country, which in dream-land is now viciously homophobic and kills LGBT people (Ex is from Norway, for the record). So vivid that I woke up, grabbed my phone, and dialed 5 digits of her number before I realized how wrong this was. My subconscious is fired.

  113. says

    Good evening

    I’ve stitched stuff to myself…it happens. :D

    I remember somebody on the UT blog mentioning that she stiched something to the baby who was sleeping in her lap.

    ++++
    Kids, don’t do this at home.
    I just had the news that my second cousin is pregnant. NOw, here’s the fun: The kid will be uncle or aunt of an already 2 year old. I guess their son is just laughing his ass off as he surely got some lectures on safe sex and such when he got his girlfriend pregnant…

  114. says

    Chigau:

    Does this explain the black paint episode?

    No. That was a case of climbing. I’ve never seen climbing skills like these guys have, they are downright amazing. They simply grab any edge and shimmy up. There’s nothing they haven’t been able to climb so far, especially as they view electrical cords as handy dandy bridges to whatever is proving difficult to climb otherwise.

  115. broboxley OT says

    Socio-gen #156

    In a recent investigative report by KMOV, St. Louis’ CBS affiliate, individuals were caught on camera enrolling people for multiple phones, not requiring proof of eligibility, and distributing phones to people who were talking on a phone at the time of application.

    so your assertion is that the above incidents are an outlier? Your reference is a business week article describing an older audit

    In December, McCaskill asked the FCC to examine Lifeline, writing, “I am troubled by the expansive potential for the program to be abused.”

    note that this request was made after the initial audit
    and what was the audit actually saying?

    An audit last year found that 269,000 wireless Lifeline subscribers were receiving free phones and monthly service from two or more carriers.

    that audit only found folks with multiple phones, there has been zero audit of who is qualified to have a lifeline phone versus who is not and from the description they havnt even built the system which can actually track that data. Simple safeguards need to be put in place. It appears from JAL’s remarks that they are in place in some areas, lets expand that requirement to other areas. Georgia in particular.

  116. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Also, had truly batshit dream, where I was still dating the ex and she had been arrested by ICE and threatened with deportation back to her home country, which in dream-land is now viciously homophobic and kills LGBT people (Ex is from Norway, for the record). So vivid that I woke up, grabbed my phone, and dialed 5 digits of her number before I realized how wrong this was. My subconscious is fired.

    Oh fuck that sucks. I’m sorry. =(

    How do I fire mine? Can I set it on fire?

    Dreams fucking suck. I hate them. Even those that don’t drag up my past leave me crying and terrified. The other night I had the weirdest vivid dream where Roomie and I were riding on his bicycle (how that’s possible, I don’t know) and I was in control. I caused us to get hit by a car. I woke up freaking out and was running to call him. My brain caught up with me though before I made the call. The thought that stopped me wasn’t “It was just a dream!”, it was “What if you call him and that’s what causes his terrible accident? You’re going to kill him! Why are you trying to kill him?”. Fucking panic attack kicked in. Then he came home and he was fine. I freaked him out badly, then he chuckled and shook his head when I told him why. I wanted to hit him for that part. If I never have another dream again, I’ll die happy.

  117. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    I am trying to think of how the Ex would have reacted to a call at ass o’clock of me thinking that (1) she and I were still together (it has been five and a half years) and that (2) she’d been arrested by ICE and that (3) Norway is we-hate-LGBT-people-land.

    Probably not terribly well, I think.

  118. cicely says

    Esteleth, *hugs*, for tiredness and for incompetent subconsciousness.

    Does anybody else have a truncated main page for Pharyngula?

  119. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    I think I know what set off the one part of it. She has been griping (in very carefully private locales) about how she and her partner cannot marry (even though they live in a state with marriage equality), because DOMA prevents her partner from sponsoring her for a spouse visa, and because to ICE, marrying a US citizen would look like intent to stay in the country. For someone here on a visa with an explicit end-date, this is a major no-no. So they aren’t marrying, which frustrates the both of them.

  120. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    It appears from JAL’s remarks that they are in place in some areas, lets expand that requirement to other areas. Georgia in particular.

    Do your research.
    Safelink, Assuance Wireless and Reach Out Wireless all have applications online that require your SSN and case number and you submit the documents online.

    Unless you were talking about the drug testing, then you can just fuck yourself.

  121. Socio-gen, something something... says

    Esteleth:
    I always have the same nightmare when I’m stressed and coming off sleep-deprivation (luckily, not a frequent occurrence): that nuclear war has devastated the US and I’m trying to get my kids and myself to safety while scrounging for food and shooting looters. *shudder* I blame the movie The Day After and the book Alas, Babylon which I saw/read in the same year when I was 14.

    The last time, a couple years ago, I screamed so loud (and repeatedly) that my neighbor called 911 thinking I was being attacked and/or murdered. Eight cops with guns, two fire trucks, an ambulance….and me in Hello Kitty jammies with a cup of tea, trying to explain it was just a nightmare.

    broboxley:

    Quoting Richard Austin at 139: The “fraud” was 269k out of 12.5 million – that’s roughly 2%. Not exactly a huge amount here.

    Again, I repeat myself: most states (I have no idea about GA) require PROOF of eligibility. This is usually one’s case number for benefits which are usually verified through the agency handling those benefits. And which is often alerted to multiple requests from a single case number OR requests from multiple beneficiaries of a single case number. In other circumstances, eligibility is verified through tax returns, court documents, etc. — which are trickier.

    These safeguards you want put in place already exist. No, they cannot catch every act of fraud but nothing — I repeat: nothing — can catch them all. However, fraud is not occurring in numbers significant enough to eliminate or restrict the program.

    And I want to point out that you’re talking about Missouri. Missouri — a state which ranks at the bottom of nearly every indicator of human well-being and still votes Republican. Yes, I’d consider them an outlier.

  122. chigau (違わない) says

    Socio-gen
    You are the only other person I’ve ever ‘met’ who read Alas Babylon.
    (well, two. I found my old paperback in my mother’s basement and made my SO read it. He thought it was crap. So do I, but I read it many times when I was 14 or so.)

  123. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Clarity in my #171, Georgia is included in those states. Put in a zip code and you can see the application for yourself. I put in the Alamo zip code (I got it off list online) and was able to verify what’s needed on the application. And your information does get checked and if you don’t pass, you don’t get a phone. Not all three carriers are in all states yet, but there’s coverage everywhere and the applications are basically the same.

    Simple as that.

  124. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Nicely done Caine! And congrats on being featured.

    And Happy B-Day Joe.

    Sorry, I got all caught up with the argument.

  125. dianne says

    nuclear war has devastated the US and I’m trying to get my kids and myself to safety while scrounging for food and shooting looters. *shudder* I blame the movie The Day After and the book Alas, Babylon which I saw/read in the same year when I was 14.

    I’ve had those. They’re fun, aren’t they? Somehow my subconscious always seems determined to make sure I get all the minor inconveniences of living in a post-nuclear war world as well as the great horrors so I’ll have moments in the dream where I’ll realize that I have permanently missed my opportunity to see a movie I’d wanted to see but put off going to because there’s always something else going on or that I can no longer tell people in the Pharyngula lounge about some political silliness I heard about (yes, you’ve invaded my dreams…congratulations) or that birth control is impossible and so sex is right out from now until menopause, if I get that far. All intermixed with scrounging for food and avoiding being shot as a looter, trying to find my partner and kid to get them to safety, etc. Also, the injuries and deaths in my dreams tend to be graphic. I’ve seen burn injury and trauma so can come up with some realistic images of what a post-bomb site would look like…well, at least, they’re probably toned down from what the reality would be still, but more realistic than what you’d see in a movie.

  126. dianne says

    You are the only other person I’ve ever ‘met’ who read Alas Babylon.

    Make it 3. I also read Alas Babylon.I read it in high school as part of a recent US history class (does the Cold War still count as “recent history”?). As I remember, it was the most optimistic of the three books we read about nuclear war. A Canticle for Leibowitz was one of the others, can’t remember the third any longer. Maybe Fail-Safe.

  127. Socio-gen, something something... says

    chigau:
    We had to read it in 9th-grade English. It definitely appeals to the 14yo mind, the idea of the people rebuilding their society. I loved it so much that I bought a copy off the teacher at the end of the year.

    Many years later, of course, I realized how utterly stupid and “American can-do” nonsensical the entire thing was. But I still have my copy.

    Congrats, Caine!

    dianne:

    They’re fun, aren’t they?

    Oh yes. Much fun. Fun for the whole neighborhood when done properly. :)

    It’s funny how real life sneaks in. As I got older, one of the constants of my dream became breaking into a pharmacy to get my medication — because the dream isn’t as much fun if you die early because you couldn’t get your refills. And realizing I can’t ever have sex again because no birth control (glad I’m not the only one dreaming that!) And trying to figure out how to contact family because Facebook isn’t working and I don’t know anyone’s actual numbers because they’re listed by name in my phone’s contact list which is dead because I forgot my charger. (No idea how I think I would charge it — I guess I’d go MacGyver and hook something up from a car battery?)

  128. broboxley OT says

    JAL of course I believe in drug testing, should be mandatory for legislators in session otherwise no need for it
    and if I could fuck myself I would never have to leave the house

  129. says

    JAL, thank you! ♥

    Sorry, I got all caught up with the argument.

    Don’t apologize – you’re in a prime position to counter that river of bullshit.

    Audley:

    Woo hoo! ♥!

    :D Working on the sleep pillows now. Yes, Mum & Dad are going to get one, too. I figure you guys will need all the help you can get in the “oh gods, I need sleep!” department.

  130. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    JAL of course I believe in drug testing, should be mandatory for legislators in session otherwise no need for it
    and if I could fuck myself I would never have to leave the house

    Well, I made several comments about several things. It’s not like you were clear about it. It’s not like you couldn’t have looked it up yourself.

    So yeah, I made a snappy passing remark since I don’t know where the fuck you stand on it and I’m irritated with always having this fraud discussion regarding poor people.

    I apologize to the Lounge for that, since it’s not in the spirit of the safe space here and will drop it.

  131. dianne says

    I don’t know anyone’s actual numbers because they’re listed by name in my phone’s contact list which is dead because I forgot my charger.

    I have, in real life, this little hand crank charger thing that claims to give you 2 minutes of air time for 30 minutes of turning the handle. So I could get as far as having power…but the cell towers would all be down and the land lines probably also.

    Ah, what am I worried about? I live on the eastern seaboard. I’ll be ozone if there’s a nuclear war.

  132. chigau (違わない) says

    I, too, still have my copy of Alas Babylon.
    I notice that the (recently written) article in Pfft doesn’t mention the (normal at the time) racism and sexism.
    (Which, of course, I didn’t notice when I first read it.)

  133. says

    JAL,

    I don’t blame you for getting pissed off. It is ALWAYS the poor who get scapegoated for everything, even when there’s no legitimate problem. It is genius in a way isn’t it? You get everyone to punch down at the people even slightly below them, while the folks at the top commit crimes on a scale that we can’t even begin to comprehend. And won’t address because “Oh noes, somebody who has next to nothing managed to get some little something that they don’t ‘deserve'”

  134. says

    Dianne:

    Ah, what am I worried about? I live on the eastern seaboard. I’ll be ozone if there’s a nuclear war.

    Living in ND, I’ll be among the first to be vaporized, so not much point worrying.

    I never got that movie, The Day After, out of my head. It actually made me feel better about being vaporized, however.

  135. broboxley OT says

    JAL no apology needed. My comments were not about fraud by the poor, they need all the help they can get. What I was pointing out that while I am broke I am not poor and was offered one of these phones in exchange for a signature on a paper. I would have had the phone in my hands that minute.

    I have been homeless for long periods of time in my life, living with the clothes I was wearing and nothing else. I dont forget those days.

  136. Socio-gen, something something... says

    Caine:
    I remember figuring out blast radii for various potential targets in and around PA and discovering my little part of PA was out of direct range — unless Scranton and/or the Tobyhanna Army Depot was a target. That comforted me somewhat…until I saw The Day After and realized being vaporized was the better option.

  137. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Alright, now I’m going to exercise some of the privilege I have. I’m going to whine about extra things like games and books that make my life enjoyable and better, and complain about the things ruining it, like slow as mail and lack of money. Obviously, you guys have been great and are helping me with books. I thoroughly appreciate it all. I just have to get this out since I don’t have your nice things yet.

    I can’t vent to my Roomie because he’s the only one working and supporting us and it makes me too ashamed and guilty for words to complain about anything.

    Feel free to scroll past this terrible post.
    [whine]

    I hate the slow as mail. I have books that could be good that I won for free that has been over a month in shipping. Then there’s books I know are good and want to read. I’m stuck winning and reading these terrible Christian fiction books trying so hard to be like Twilight. It’s awful. They maybe well written but it’s worse. It’s less creative, more teenage angst and blaming demons on teenagers wanting to have sex. I mean UGHHHHHHHHHHHH. At least a little part of me likes being the only one to put up a review about how terrible shit it is and how they need to fucking label it correctly as Christian fiction so they don’t get people like me giving truthful nasty reviews. I feel Twilight should totally have a warning label as well.

    Then I hate Steam. Seriously, makes me want to whore myself out for games, be a gaming wife to get games gifted to me. I have some games but I miss my games. I have Skyrim and Oblivion but there’s no ps3. And Roomie has a ton of games like Borderlands we used to play together. His ps3 is gone and it’s all my fault. I miss my games, he misses his games and whineeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

    Life sucks. I hate myself and hate this shit.
    [/whine]

    I actually feel a bit better now. Thanks.

  138. says

    I don’t know anyone’s actual numbers because they’re listed by name in my phone’s contact list which is dead because I forgot my charger.

    One afternoon many years ago I was on my way to our trading card night. And that very thing happened to me: I came to the place and time and nobody was there so I took out my phone and saw that it had gone dark. And although there was a public phone it was no use because I didn’t know any numbers.
    Well, I decided that it was not worth the trouble driving from home to home finding out where my friends were, but went home, charged the phone, read the message that they were at location X, excused myself and then I sat down and wrote down all those numbers.
    I also keep a good old paper calendar in my purse.

    Caine
    Wow, even that is art.

  139. says

    Socio-gen:

    That comforted me somewhat…until I saw The Day After and realized being vaporized was the better option.

    Yeah. In such an event, I wouldn’t want to survive only to die of radiation sickness and nuclear winter and all that. Much better to *poof* you’re gone. Humans…we’re troublesome apes, I wish nukes had never been developed in the first place.

    Giliell:

    Wow, even that is art.

    Thank you! Gotta live up to my profession in life. :D

  140. says

    Lynna! I have a question from the gay marriage thread: Does the Mormon church teach that sex for pleasure within the confines of a church sanctioned marriage is permissible?

    They teach all kinds of shit, and then they deny they ever taught such shit. So, it’s hard to tell.

    Here are some links to info that paints the picture of mormon sexuality as clearly s it can be painted:

    http://www.i4m.com/think/sexuality/mormon_oral_sex.htm “No Oral Sex for Faithful Married Mormons”

    http://www.i4m.com/think/sexuality/mormon-depression.htm “Sexual Repression and Depression in Mormon Marriages”

    http://www.i4m.com/think/sexuality/mormon_sex_war.htm Mormons are sexually repressed due to their religion

    http://www.i4m.com/think/sexuality/mormon_sex.htm Great moments in mormon sexual history, Sex and Marriage in LDS Church History

    Excerpt:

    4 Mar, 1983 – Salt Lake Tribune reports lawsuit filed in February against LDS church for $28 million. A father blames LDS bishop for contributing to his sixteen-year-old son’s suicide for counseling his son “that masturbation is a terrible sin.. and being a normal adolescent in the puberty state, KIP ELIASON became increasingly less able to reconcile his sexual desires with the strict doctrines of the said LDS Church. He became filled with self-hate.”

    17 June, 1978 – Church News headline “Interracial Marriage Discouraged” in same issue which announces authorization of priesthood for those of black African descent. Sources at church headquarters indicate that Apostle Mark E. Petersen requires this emphasis.

    “We believe that those who practice birth control will reap disappointment by and by,” and repeated earlier letter’s emphasis on “self control as a dominant factor” in marriage. –14 April, 1969, official statement from the First Presidency

  141. Hekuni Cat, MQG says

    Happy Birthday, Joe

    cicely – *pouncehug*

    Caine, I love the turtle in your signature tag! (I am very fond of turtles.)

  142. broboxley OT says

    I dont think this 419er is taking me seriously he hast replied to my last message

    I am required to wank in your general direction again while pointing out that you are using a very useless algorithm for maintaining your contact list. You really need to hire professional help. For a mere two thousand US dollars I can ensure that you are using the latest 419Gamster design program with bells, whistles, and translators from poor colonial english into efficient official sounding American

  143. trinioler says

    JAL: What’s your steam name? I still have some game gifts to give away on Steam I think, when I bought a bunch of xmas bundles a few years back. :)

    And do you like anime?

  144. says

    Bill Marriott, chairman of the international hotel conglomerate, and a fellow mormon, has added his voice to those trying to humanize Mitt Romney. At a fundraiser, Marriott told a story that involved both he and Mitt’s summer houses on Lake Winnipesaukee, and both of them having big boats they can use to haul their many grandchildren around. This is taking-the-kids-into-town-for-ice-cream story:

    And we got into the docks and they were all full and I looked around, there was no place to park, so we stopped at the end of a dock. They all jumped off and ran up the dock. And I realized there was nobody in the boat to help me dock the boat, handle the ropes, do anything – they just left me out there at sea. So I finally found a place to park after about 20 minutes, and I pulled in, I said, ‘Who’s going to grab the rope?,’ and I looked up and there was Mitt Romney. So he pulled me in, he tied up the boat for me. He rescued me just as he’s going to rescue this great country.

    Warms my heart.

  145. says

    Hekuni Cat:

    I love the turtle in your signature tag! (I am very fond of turtles.)

    So am I! I have a turtle ring and a turtle tattoo. There’s a turtle on the quilt because the turtle is very important in Lakota culture, particularly for women. There’s a tradition, when a woman finds out she is going to have a daughter, to make a beaded amulet pouch in the shape of a turtle. The dried umbilical cord is stored in it. Keya (turtle) protects, oversees health and long life.

    I would have made one, but I seriously suck at beading.

  146. broboxley OT says

    #205 Lynna, OM
    I wonder what kind of tip he gave him
    Keep those stories coming, they are extremely amusing

  147. says

    … And we got into the docks and they were all full and I looked around, there was no place to park, so we stopped at the end of a dock. They all jumped off and ran up the dock. And I realized there was nobody in the boat to help me dock the boat, handle the ropes, do anything…

    (Lawls…)

    You put that into the thread right after JAL’s ‘first world problems’ post totally on purpose, didn’t you?

    (/… also, can I get some sympathy, here? My Dom Pérignon is improperly chilled.)

  148. says

    Oh good, another gem from Todd “legitimate rape” Akin, this time on the issue of fair pay for women. There’s a lot of blather in Akin’s response to a question from an audience member at a town hall meeting, but it basically boils down to him thinking that employers should be free to pay less to women.

    AUDIENCE MEMBER: You voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Why do you think it is okay for a woman to be paid less for doing the same work as a man?

    AKIN: Well, first of all, the premise of your question is that I’m making that particular distinction. I believe in free enterprise. I don’t think the government should be telling people what you pay and what you don’t pay. I think it’s about freedom. If someone wants to hire somebody and they agree on a salary, that’s fine, however it wants to work. So, the government sticking its nose into all kinds of things has gotten us into huge trouble.

  149. says

    Uh… whut? Akin is actually paying a consultant to help him out in the Missouri Senate Race, and this is what the consultant comes up with?

    “I’ve expressed this to Todd as my client for a while now, I’ve expressed it to him directly,” conservative consultant Kellyanne Conway said today on a radio show with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. “The first day or two where it was like the Waco with the David Koresh situation where they’re trying to smoke him out with the SWAT teams and the helicopters and the bad Nancy Sinatra records. Then here comes day two and you realize the guy’s not coming out of the bunker. Listen, Todd has shown his principle to the voters.”

  150. says

    … oh, but re JAL’s rant:

    Then there’s books I know are good and want to read. I’m stuck winning and reading these terrible Christian fiction books trying so hard to be like Twilight. It’s awful…

    I’m sorry. But wait… You’re actually reading them?

    I dunno. It’s not just that this is a first world problem…

    It’s that I feel like giving you sympathy would be enabling you or somethin’. This does not sound healthy.

  151. Ogvorbis: broken and cynical says

    In fact, it’s probably best to disassemble them thoroughly; some parts are salable.

    Of course. A fang from a Red Dragon can sell for a couple of hundred gold pieces in the right milieu. And weighs far less.

    Worse, am coming down with something.

    Sympathy. I started getting shivers and aches about four hours ago.

    Dreams fucking suck.

    Agreed. Agreed to the nth power.

    You are the only other person I’ve ever ‘met’ who read Alas Babylon.

    I, too, have read that book. Enjoyed it as a teenager. Read it again a few years ago and it was good, but not as good as I remembered.

    (does the Cold War still count as “recent history”?)

    Yes. If I remember it, it is recent.

    (Which, of course, I didn’t notice when I first read it.)

    That struck me, too, when I reread as an adult.

    unless Scranton and/or the Tobyhanna Army Depot was a target.

    Tobyhanna Army Depot would definately be a target. Major electronics depot. And Scranton has an ammunition plant (in an old railroad locomotive shop) so it would definately be a tertiary target (those are the targets they hit when there is nothing else useful to hit).

    . . . also, can I get some sympathy, here? My Dom Pérignon is improperly chilled.

    Cold brie and warm champagne. What could be betterererer?

  152. UnknownEric says

    Alas, Babylon and Morrissey’s “Everyday is Like Sunday” are linked in my brain for some reason. I can’t hear the song without thinking of the book.

  153. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    I’m sorry. But wait… You’re actually reading them?

    I dunno. It’s not just that this is a first world problem…

    It’s that I feel like giving you sympathy would be enabling you or somethin’. This does not sound healthy.

    Well, if I say they suck without having read them all people say is “But you didn’t read it!”. Same shit happened with Twilight. How else can point out how terrible the book is?

    Also, I won them and felt obligated to read it. I wouldn’t have entered to win the book, if it had been correctly labeled. Seriously, label and categorize your books properly, otherwise you get uppity atheists like me give you one star. =)

  154. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Well, that was weird. My comment got posted prematurely and I was logged out at the same time.

    Anyways, trinioler email me at jals(dot)snark(dot)tentacles(at)google’s mail and I’ll let you know my Steam name. I just don’t want to connect the dots between all my accounts by posting it publicly.

    Also, next time can I write trin for short? I put so many extra letters in all the wrong places when I try to type your name for some reason. If not, I can learn it, it’s just going to take me awhile.

  155. says

    216/JAL:

    Fair enough. Guess that’s a problem.

    I think I’d actually feel slightly icky if I got partway through a book and then realized it were Jesus-y pablum, delivered via such deception.

    Like, ick, people…

    It’s kinda like that inviting the vampire in problem, come to think of it, oddly enough, tho’, I guess. They obviously figure, they mention it, it’s gonna be forget it…

    So, rules to live by:

    1) Before inviting anyone in, check to see if their body is room temperature.

    2) Before accepting a paperback from anyone, check to see if there’s a fish on their car (or profile page).

  156. says

    Taking a little stroll through the minds of Romney supporters:

    Retired Air Force Major Joseph Smith said Romney’s “47 percent” remark held a kernel of truth, and the truth was that President Obama “wants to buy” poor people. And Smith should know, since he says he used to run an unemployment office:

    Romney was simply saying that there are a good number of people in the country on the one hand that don’t pay taxes. They really don’t. But they get most of the welfare and those types of handouts. Most of them would rather actually be working. And the current administration wants to buy them so they can make them dependent on the government rather than working on their own. Which is totally the antithesis of anything that this country stands for…I used to work in unemployment, run an unemployment office, I saw it everyday. I used to run the office in Virginia for almost 30 years.

    Smith added off-camera that he was currently a government contractor.

    Outside, a former Legion post commander took issue with the idea that Mitt Romney is behind Obama the polls: “No, he’s not. He’s down in the liberal polls, but he’s not down in the ones that count. He’s not down in the polls at all. Matter of fact, he’s gonna carry Virginia in a landslide. And you can print that.”

    He was applauded by another woman, a Vietnam-era Air Force vet who identified herself as Jo Watts, president of the Barbara Bush Republican Women’s Club. Romney’s 47 percent video, Watts said, was misrepresented:

    He doesn’t feel that way except for…I take that back. He probably does feel that way. But he told the truth, and people don’t want to hear the truth…People on the dole. It’s like, how do people go off unemployment and go on disability? Where is that coming from? How did that happen? You’re not disabled just because you don’t have a job. We should be out there finding people jobs instead of scooting people from one dole to the other.

    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/romney-supporters-47-percent

  157. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Exaclty, AJ. I didn’t properly vet the author or book before jumping on it because it could have been good. It could have been a worth while young adult fiction, instead it was Twilight minus any thin veil. I mean really can Christian think beyond angels and demons? Apparently not, since it’s all their books to sway and persuade young readers are all the same shit. Of course, all their beliefs are stolen anyways so it fits a pattern.

    Twilight might have ruined vampires and oh my god the Mythical Native American shape shifter and well, everything. But can’t deny that at least it pretended to be different.

    Wait. No. We want it obvious so kids don’t get roped into it. So it’s good that it’s bad, but not in the enjoying “so bad it’s good kind of way”.

    I think.
    I just confused myself.

  158. says

    Chronicling Mitt’s Mendacity, Vol. XXXVI
    Video, lots of text, and additional links available at the link given above. The video is awesome.

    Excerpt:

    1. Romney argued just yesterday that the crisis of military suicides would be made worse by looming cuts to the defense budget.

    That’s plainly untrue.

    2. In same speech, Romney said, “You realize we have fewer ships in the Navy than any time since 1917.”

    This one again? Romney dropped this lie a while ago, but it’s apparently back.

    3. Romney went on to say, in reference to the president, “[H]is plan also calls for trillion dollar deficits.”

    Obama’s plan calls for trillions in deficit reduction….

  159. Ogvorbis: broken and cynical says

    Romney was simply saying that there are a good number of people in the country on the one hand that don’t pay taxes. They really don’t.

    Bull-fucking shit!

    Sales tax, gasoline tax, taxes on telephones, cable, electricity, gas, heating oil, property tax (indirectly through the rents). They may not pay federal income tax, but they sure as hell pay taxes.

    And how many of those listed as not paying federal income tax are children? These assholes have been lying for so long they think their lies define reality.

  160. Socio-gen, something something... says

    JAL:
    Slow mail!! On the 8th, I ordered three used books via Amazon sellers, standard shipping which usually means media mail, which is usually never slower than two weeks. Fine, I thought, because they’re used paperbacks and I’m not paying near full-price just to get used books.

    The two from one place in Maine arrived in six days but I’m still waiting on the third! Which is coming from….Iowa! Apparently it’s being walked to Minnesota? I have to wait until the 1st before I can start complaining and harassing the seller. *sigh*

    What’s even worse is that these are part of a series, so I can’t read the two that are here because the missing one comes before them. So they sit on the bookshelf….taunting me.

    Ogvorbis:

    And Scranton has an ammunition plant (in an old railroad locomotive shop) so it would definately be a tertiary target (those are the targets they hit when there is nothing else useful to hit).

    The Russians would have looked at Scranton in the ’80s and said, “There’s no point wasting good ammunition. Dropping a bomb there can only improve it.” :-D

  161. Ogvorbis: broken and cynical says

    Sorry. Didn’t mean to go off like that but I just had the same conversation with my resident right-winger in my office (though, to be fair, he is far more liberal than most of the current GOP).

  162. Ogvorbis: broken and cynical says

    The Russians would have looked at Scranton in the ’80s and said, “There’s no point wasting good ammunition. Dropping a bomb there can only improve it.” :-D

    Parts of it (much of it) is still like that.

  163. says

    Sales tax, gasoline tax, taxes on telephones, cable, electricity, gas, heating oil, property tax (indirectly through the rents). They may not pay federal income tax, but they sure as hell pay taxes.

    About 66% of the 47% who do not pay federal income taxes are employed. They are the working poor. As such, they pay more that 15% of their income in payroll taxes. That’s a higher rate of tax payment than Romney pays.

    Forbes.

  164. Ogvorbis: broken and cynical says

    As such, they pay more that 15% of their income in payroll taxes. That’s a higher rate of tax payment than Romney pays.

    Yup. And there are no loopholes to allow one to wriggle out of these incredibly regressive taxes. Yet another example of it costing more to be poor than to be rich.

    (Don’t have it with me, but Pratchett, vice Commander Vimes, has an excellent description of this as it pertains to boots (not taxes, but rather the high cost of being poor)).

  165. Socio-gen, something something... says

    Ogvorbis:

    Parts of it (much of it) is still like that.

    Sadly true…but at least they have Dunder-Mifflin.

    Caine:

    So much cuteness!!

  166. says

    Oh, for the love of pete. Not content to question Obama’s birthplace, not happy with claiming he has the anti-colonial world view of a Luo tribesman, the right wing sludge-for-brains set has decided to go after Obama’s mother. Bondage and fetish porn, yeah that’s the way Stanley Ann Dunham made the money she used to raise little Barry.

    Daily Beast link.

    After four years of invective, four years during which the right has called President Obama a traitor, a communist, a fraud, an affirmative-action case, a terrorist-sympathizer, and a tyrant, its shrillest voices have been reduced to the most primal insult of all. They are calling Obama’s mother a whore….

    It’s tempting to ignore Dreams From My Real Father [pseudo documentary] because it’s so preposterous. The movie claims that Obama’s actual father was the poet and left-wing activist Frank Marshall Davis, who Dunham met through her father, who was a CIA agent merely posing as a furniture salesman. “My election was not a sudden political phenomenon,” says the narrator, speaking as if he were Obama reading his autobiography. “It was the culmination of an American socialist movement that my real father, Frank Marshall Davis, nurtured in Chicago and Hawaii, and has been quietly infiltrating the U.S. economy, universities, and media for decades.”

    Davis enjoyed taking nude photos of women, and the images said to be of Dunham, to which the director pays lascivious attention, are presented as evidence of their intimate relationship. “These photos were taken a few weeks before 1960, when Mom was about five weeks pregnant with me,” the narrator says. “Frank then sold the photos to men’s mail-order catalogs.”…

  167. says

    …Gilbert claims that more than a million copies of Dreams From My Real Father have been mailed to voters in Ohio, as well between 80,000 and 100,000 to voters in Nevada and 100,000 to voters in New Hampshire. “We’re putting plans in place, as of next week, to send out another 2 [million] or 3 million, just state by state,” he told me.

    Too outraged to comment.

  168. trinioler says

    JAL, yeah sure you can use a dimunitive if you want.

    I’ll be sending you an email after work. :)

    And do you like Anime because I have some(a lot!) of guest passes to a legal anime streaming site?

  169. says

    Regarding the Obama’s-mother-is-a-whore and Obama’s-real-father-was-not-a-Kenyan movie, well it is all factual.

    Alabama GOP Chairman Bill Armistead recently recommended it during a speech, saying, “I’ve seen it. I verified that it is factual, all of it. People can determine.”

  170. says

    JAL:

    Oh and lavender. I love that smell for sleeping and relaxing.

    I’ll most likely have fabric left over and I have a fucktonne of lavender and hops, so I’ll make one for you too.

    Socio-gen, thank you!

  171. says

    D’Souza argues that part of the reason Ann Dunham sent Obama to live with her parents in Hawaii was so she could pursue affairs with Indonesian men. “Ann’s sexual adventuring may seem a little surprising in view of the fact that she was a large woman who kept getting larger,” he writes. On the next page, he continues, “Learning about Ann’s sexual adventures in Indonesia, I realized how wrong I had been to consider Barack Obama Sr. the playboy … Ann … was the real playgirl, and despite all her reservations about power, she was using her American background and economic and social power to purchase the romantic attention of third-world men.”

    Evidence? None. We don’t need no stinkin’ evidence.

    This “yo mama” tactic against the President should backfire. Please let it backfire.

  172. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Oh! See what happens why my comment gets cut off? I forget things!

    I do like Anime. Well, what I’ve seen anyways. This comes off really noobish but it’s only been FLCL, Full Metal Alchemist, Bleach, Cowboy Bebop and Dragonball Z.

    I think it’s more fun to drink and crack jokes, especially dirty ones while watching. My Roomie is hardcore into it though and puts up with me. I’d like to explore more and if I don’t like it, he’ll fucking love it for sure.

  173. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    I’ll most likely have fabric left over and I have a fucktonne of lavender and hops, so I’ll make one for you too.

    Ohhhhhh! Thank you so much! That would be so awesome. I think I’m going to cry.

  174. Socio-gen, something something... says

    Caine: A question — what does hops smell like?

    I have a lavender neck pillow for traveling and I’ve had other scents over the years (the favorite was a citrus-ish one), but nothing with hops. (I suppose it might have been there and I just didn’t know it.)

  175. says

    On reflection, I feel that my explication of “The Flea” was hasty and not reflective enough. My revised explication:

    Hey, baby, how come you won’t do it with me? This flea sucked on you and then on me, so that’s totally like sex, and you didn’t mind it at all. And now it’s, like, pregnant with our little flea-baby, and you don’t mind that either, so why won’t you let me stick it in just a little, to see what it feels like? I know your parents don’t like me, and *you* don’t like me, but hey, adorable flea-baby, amirite?

    … whadda ya mean, you squashed our flea-baby? BITCHES BE CRAZY.

    .
    .
    .

    Don’t worry, I will totally double space and one inch margin that shit before I turn it in.

  176. says

    Socio-gen:

    A question — what does hops smell like?

    It kind of depends on what kind of hops (I’m using Brewer’s Choice and Cascade, both of which are strongly scented), but for the most part, they smell quite lime-y, with an undertone of malt. They smell good, but it’s hard to describe the smell.

    JAL, don’t be crying. Either you get the excess fabric or the rats do, and believe me, the rats wouldn’t appreciate it near as much! ;D

  177. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    what does hops smell like?

    Vaguely citrus-y, in a way that is utterly unlike any actual citrus fruit.

  178. Socio-gen, something something... says

    kristinc:
    *gigglesnort* I’d give you an A.

    Caine:
    Okay, thanks! My brain was trying to convince me it would smell like sour beer and I knew that couldn’t be right. :) Then I wondered if perhaps it didn’t really have a smell — kind of like the rice used in one of my pillows.

  179. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Thanks Trin and Caine! Don’t worry it was happy tears. Though the thought of rats playing with the fabric does make me smile too.

  180. says

    Socio-gen: so, it’s not ironic? Because after I wrote that I worried that maybe it was Sophistimicated Poemology and I was missing something, but no, dude was completely serious wasn’t he.

    I have to find one of these poems that I can stand to explicate for class without needing to take fifty showers afterward.

    William Wordsworth isn’t a lot better! It’s a beautiful evening, the sunset is so pretty, awww, and we’re by the sea, how nice, can you hear it? And then out of nowhere: Hey baby, even though you’re probably too dumb to think about, like, deep shit, you’re still pretty hot. ARGH!

  181. Socio-gen, something something... says

    kristinc:
    Well, you have to take into consideration the fact that I know nothing about poetry, nothing about explicating poetry, and graded solely on how much tea I snorted into my nose. :)

  182. says

    Well, you have to take into consideration the fact that I know nothing about poetry, nothing about explicating poetry, and graded solely on how much tea I snorted into my nose. :)

    Hmmmm, better come up with something else for class then, just in case. :P

  183. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    D’awwwwww the ratties!

    I read “offender” wrong in that stupid article and completely blundered in the MRA thread. *mutters* figures.

    Also, kristnc you are just on fire today with the funny! Laughing so much Roomie woke up and asked me what the hell was wrong with me.

    The wheelbarrow comment still makes me chuckle when I read it.

  184. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Also, my brain just finished the math regarding trin’s age. I was like wait, you’re working already? You’re 15 right? My first thought was 10, because I still like the 90’s were 10 years ago. I was born in 1990 so why I think this way, I have no fucking clue but there it is.

    I feel so old for 22 with a 5 year old and all my issues. Hanging out here with people older than me doesn’t make me feel younger, just makes me realize how ignorant I am – though that as the upside of learning a lot.

    I am so weird. And talkative today. I think the isolation is getting to me finally.

  185. trinioler says

    Hah, I’m 25. thunk is the teen around here. I graduated a year and a half ago with a BS in Comp Sci ;P

  186. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Oh and to clarify Audley,

    JAL:
    *hugs* Rant all you need to– it sucks to be gameless.

    I do have some games on Steams. Games I love and enjoy. I was actually just given Torchlight and Torchlight 2 when Roomie’s friend pre-ordered and bought to gift to his gf but they broke up. So I got them for free. But I can’t play my ps3 games. They are just sitting there on the shelf taunting me. NAH NAH YOU CAN’T PLAY YOUR 100 HOURS CHARACTER IN SKYRIM! OH LOOK THE DLC IS FINALLY OUT! NAH NAH YOU NEVER GOT TO PLAY OBLIVION AFTER YOU BOUGHT IT. NAH NAH YOU CAN’T EVEN PLAY THE FIRST BORDERLANDS ANYMORE!

    That just sucks and those games are so expensive! That’s what my whining was about for games anyways.

  187. trinioler says

    Gah. I retract that. I was born in 1987, not 1997… gah. Sorry Chigau. Should have checked first before firing back.

  188. Walton says

    I was born in 1989. I can remember when I was the youngest person on Pharyngula… those days are long gone.

    And John Donne, oddly enough, went to my old college. (Though apparently he did not graduate, because he was then a Roman Catholic and thus prohibited by law, at the time, from taking a degree.) Alas, I’m not at all familiar with his poetry.

  189. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Hah, I’m 25. thunk is the teen around here. I graduated a year and a half ago with a BS in Comp Sci ;P

    Wait, you said 1997 though, right? In your comment 103? Or did you mean to put 1987?

    Oh please tell me you wrote the year wrong, otherwise I think I broke math! Or my brain. Or both.

  190. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    Walton, I cannot name-drop John Donne as a fellow-alumna of my alma mater, but I can name-drop Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Margaret Mitchell, Julia Child, and *sigh* Nancy Reagan.

    Technically, also Barbara Bush, but she failed to graduate.

  191. Walton says

    Lynna:

    fter four years of invective, four years during which the right has called President Obama a traitor, a communist, a fraud, an affirmative-action case, a terrorist-sympathizer, and a tyrant, its shrillest voices have been reduced to the most primal insult of all. They are calling Obama’s mother a whore….

    It’s tempting to ignore Dreams From My Real Father [pseudo documentary] because it’s so preposterous. The movie claims that Obama’s actual father was the poet and left-wing activist Frank Marshall Davis, who Dunham met through her father, who was a CIA agent merely posing as a furniture salesman. “My election was not a sudden political phenomenon,” says the narrator, speaking as if he were Obama reading his autobiography. “It was the culmination of an American socialist movement that my real father, Frank Marshall Davis, nurtured in Chicago and Hawaii, and has been quietly infiltrating the U.S. economy, universities, and media for decades.”

    Indeed… just when I thought the political discourse couldn’t sink any lower, it did. That’s an impressively bizarre mess of misogyny, racism and implausible conspiracy theories.

  192. Walton says

    Walton, I cannot name-drop John Donne as a fellow-alumna of my alma mater, but I can name-drop Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Margaret Mitchell, Julia Child, and *sigh* Nancy Reagan.

    Yeah, you win. (Except for the Nancy Reagan part.)

  193. carlie says

    Whoa Caine, that pillow is beautiful! I can’t imagine how long that took.

    Holy shit you guys.

    My kid just went out with his friend.
    To the mall.
    To hang out.

    MY KID IS HANGING OUT AT THE MALL.

    And so it begins.

  194. says

    Carlie:

    Whoa Caine, that pillow is beautiful! I can’t imagine how long that took.

    Thank you! Takes about 30 to 40 minutes from start to finish, depending on the amount of interruptions due to rattiness. :)

  195. Socio-gen, something something... says

    JAL: Being 22 with a 5yo is 35 in parent years.

    It’s like dog years, but your age increases more quickly as they proceed through the teenage years. So when LittleOne is 18, you’ll be 110 in parent years.

    However! you’ll start getting younger after they reach 18 and beginning hitting some adult milestones like jobs, college graduation, paying the car insurance on time for a year, not overdrawing their checking account every single month, etc.

    Thus, by the time you’re 60 chronologically, you’ll also be 60 in parent years.

    Walton, Esteleth:
    Hmmm…well, my school has a very short list of notable alumni on the Pfft! page, but the only names I recognize are Ed Schultz and Kevin Sorbo.

    carlie:
    Oh boy!

  196. Tony •Prom King of Sunnydale High• says

    Happy birthday Joe.
    Here’s hoping you get a good meal with that money.

  197. Patricia, OM says

    Caine – I don’t have any pictures of the socks I sent to Darkkiddy, but the orange cloth your using is going to make a very cute set.

  198. says

    Patricia:

    I don’t have any pictures of the socks I sent to Darkkiddy, but the orange cloth your using is going to make a very cute set.

    Oh, cool! I just could not resist sneaking something Halloween into The Darkheart Duckie Project. I *love* Halloween fabrics.

    Audley! Can you post a pic of the socks Patricia made? Pleeeaase.

  199. says

    Mythbri:

    Vasco’s a beauty! Never seen a rat like him before.

    Thanks! Yes, he is a cutie. Takes after his daddy, Havelock. Vasco is the only solid black one, though. Rubin had a solid black in her litter, but he was the victim of over-zealous nesting behaviour on Rubin’s part.

    Vasco is also a sweetheart, he’s very affectionate.

  200. broboxley OT says

    help with fancy rattie doctoring
    one of my 3 is feeling sick, heavy breathing listless not coming for a treat, eyes look like she is suffering a cold. Got the top goody ginger snap sopped in milk, no interest. So suggestions? 1cc tea and cognac?

    other two are fine

  201. Portia says

    I think I’m caught up. Hello again everybody.

    Happy Birthday Joe! Hope you get some more buffet food with your birthday money. Or something equally happy-making : )

    Caine – late to the party, but that quilt is stunning. I am getting more crafty all the time and I’m inspired by your lovely work.

    Esteleth 170

    So they aren’t marrying, which frustrates the both of them.

    No kidding! I hate DOMA more than I can say. I hate that I have one more major thing to be ashamed of about my country. (Yeah, country music fans, I said it).

    Socio-gen 172

    The last time, a couple years ago, I screamed so loud (and repeatedly) that my neighbor called 911 thinking I was being attacked and/or murdered. Eight cops with guns, two fire trucks, an ambulance….and me in Hello Kitty jammies with a cup of tea, trying to explain it was just a nightmare.

    If I showed up to that call, the sight of you comfy and sipping tea would be much preferred to what we expected to find.

    I used to have those wrenching dreams more as a kid. Once I was about 8, and Mom had run an errand and left me home with 12 and 16 year old siblings. I had dreamed she died horribly, and wouldn’t stop sobbing til she came home because I was convinced it was true. Those sorts still happen nowadays but they are usually less vivid.

    I made pumpkin oatmeal and pumpkin cinnamon rolls and pumpkin roll out cookies. My kitchen smells of pumpkin.

    I get a new washer tomorrow, happy dance!

    My mom is coming to visit me this weekend! I miss her so much, we’ve never lived this far apart and I’m so haaaaaaaaaaappyyyyyyyyyyy

    I got a “new” frame at goodwill that I think will fit my newest law license : )

    I’m in moderation at Crommunist too…I think I’ve commented there once or twice before. Is that his default?


    If anyone is still reading, I need a little Hordevice. I have an offer to start subcontracting for an older attorney. Which is great for building my business up. It’s just…he can’t remember my name for more than one consecutive conversation and insists on orienting me in the world via my SO, who is also an area attorney. He has literally introduced to other attorneys as “[SO’s dad’s] son’s girlfriend” …after acknowledging that that is terrible and rude. Then he does it anyway. I feel very …disrespected by him but I could really use the stepping-stone to bigger things. Do you all have experience holding your own against people like this? I feel like I need to find a way be polite and firm and to deflect his ways of being demeaning without seeming defensive or touchy. (I suppose this whole thing is trying to justify to myself that it’s ok to work for someone I dislike so thoroughly…sigh…stoopid crushing student loans).

  202. says

    Broboxley:

    help with fancy rattie doctoring
    one of my 3 is feeling sick, heavy breathing listless not coming for a treat, eyes look like she is suffering a cold.

    FFS, take her to the vet. She most likely has mycoplasma, which requires heavy antibiotics and regular medical intervention. It’s also fucking contagious (to other rats) and with those symptoms, the infection is advanced considerably – get her to a doctor.

  203. Portia says

    Speaking of ratties…I haven’t asked for an Angua update in quite a while. How’s the sweet girl?

  204. Socio-gen, something something... says

    Portia:

    If I showed up to that call, the sight of you comfy and sipping tea would be much preferred to what we expected to find.

    They were quite relieved. One thing about living in a small town is that you know almost everyone in the police dept and the fire company, so they were worried on many levels.

    Luckily for me, they managed to fix my door enough to close and pitched in the next day to put in a new one because they damaged it and the frame smashing it open.

    YAY for a new washer!

    No advice, unfortunately. If it were me, I’d probably put my hand out and offer my name in a passive-aggressive, “I can’t believe he forgot my name” way.

  205. Portia says

    One thing about living in a small town is that you know almost everyone in the police dept and the fire company, so they were worried on many levels.

    Yes a thousand times. When I hear a familiar address, my stomach drops like a stone. Just this week, I had a call where a lady passed away and it turns out she was a dear friend of many of my family members. And it explained why the local accountant couldn’t get to my stuff this week. It’s such a small little world in small towns.


    Did I mention free new washer? I offered to make the friend his baked good of choice so tomorrow morning I’m baking up more cinnamon rolls.

    Your idea made me guffaw pretty loudly. And, I think this guy might take the jab good-naturedly, so I might actually do it. Our second conversation started out “So is your first or last name Tracy?” “Uh…neither…” I’m positively giddy now to reintroduce myself to him next time I go to his office.

  206. says

    Portia:

    How’s the sweet girl?

    Oh, she’s fine, getting into trouble on a regular basis and indulging in many a girl fight*. I see her when she ventures on to my desk in pursuit of Nutella.

    *A regular feature every day. The girls fight more than the boys.

  207. Portia says

    Oh! I’m glad they’re fixing your door, too. That’s another thing about small towns, sometimes people are pretty chummy. Nice that they were so fervent about getting to you, as well, I suppose : )

  208. Portia says

    I see her when she ventures on to my desk in pursuit of Nutella.

    Girl after my own heart. Any risk is worth Nutella. (At least one of us gets to indulge in sweets). Thanks for the update!

  209. Socio-gen, something something... says

    That’s another thing about small towns, sometimes people are pretty chummy.

    They are — as long as you’re one of the life-long residents or have the right family connections. I went to school with most of them or their siblings or their cousins.

    That’s also the downside to a small town — everyone knows you. The night of the nightmare/door-busting, my firefighter friend-with-benefits outed us both because I mentioned getting a hammer and he said, “I’ll grab it” then went to my spare room’s closet and got my toolbag.

    That was the end of keeping that quiet. By 8am even my mother knew that he knew where I kept my tools, which could only mean one thing. Within a week, people were asking if we were going to set a date soon.

    It’s one of the reasons I’m glad to be in Minnesota now, although I miss my family (most of them) and my friends. It’s a lot easier to have a life of your own when people aren’t calling your mother, cousins, and aunts up to gossip about whose truck they saw parked out front all night.

  210. Portia says

    Ah yes. Can I ever relate to that. Even though I don’t like my grandpa very much, lots of other people around here do so when I’m making a new business contact I heartily confirm when they inevitably (and pretty quickly) ask if I’m his granddaughter.

    I bartend now and then at the corner bar and several times have had people ask “Do you know So and So? I went to high school with her and you are her spitting image” I say “Yep, that’s my mom.”

    Otherwise I would be an interloper, One Who Does Not Belong. It’s bad enough that I went away to law school in Chicago! I have to bale some hay now and then to remind folks I’m just a downhome gal after all.

    What bad fortune to have circumstances conspire so to out your well-kept secret! I’m impressed you had kept it quiet that long. Too bad he spoke without thinking. Though, could have been worse…they could have shown up to find him already there. : p When I told SO that we were going to start a rumor mill the first time his car parked at my new house overnight, he was incredulous. City boys, they’re so naive.

    The busybodies do get old, I feel you on that. Seems other people knew that my roommate was breaking the lease before I even knew.

  211. Tony •Prom King of Sunnydale High• says

    broboxley:

    Keep those stories coming, they are extremely amusing

    Why do I think Lynna has no shortage of those stories…?

  212. Patricia, OM says

    Supposedly (!) my nephew is coming down Monday & Tuesday to help us rubberize our flat roofed house. The roof decided that since my husband died it doesn’t have to behave it’s self anymore. We’ll see what happens when a young hillbilly fixes it. That’ll show it! :D

  213. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Ah, the pumpkin socks. It seems pumpkin flavors may be expanding. McD has a pumpkin shake, which the Redhead sampled last night, and a bread at the grocery store was pumpkin swirl. I blame Harry Potter.

  214. says

    Ooh, one for the linguists and general language nerd: some people have created a wiki of “Anglish” – English as imagined without the Norman influences. Whole wiki here: http://anglish.wikia.com/wiki/Headside – it includes lots of general history, geography, science etc under lovely headings like “Earthfrod”, “Heavenlore”, and “Speechlore”.

    Highlights include:
    Australia is New Holland, a folkdom lying between the Indish and Frithful Great Seas.
    The US is the Banded Folkdoms of Americksland.

    Among the underfields of Earthfrod are:
    Oldenlifelore (E. Paleontology) is the lore of olden breeds and forms of life that lived in the forthwist, learned from the reading of duglife (E. fossils) and the siltborn rocks that witnessed olden life.
    (etc…)

    And someone has translated a big chunk of Origin of the Species – titled “On the Fromth of Lifekin”. (Sadly, formatting is hideous, lacks paragraphs.)

  215. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    The Redhead’s pumpkin policy up to this year, has been to buy a pumpkin, have grandiose plans for its use, which is only followed through on once every five years or so, and then have me throw it out in the spring when it starts to mold.

  216. Tony •Prom King of Sunnydale High• says

    Ah Veronica Mars, I’d forgotten you. So why not start with Season 1, episode 1. Sure, why not?

  217. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Ah Veronica Mars, I’d forgotten you. So why not start with Season 1, episode 1. Sure, why not?

    Ooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh.

    I’d forgotten her too. I swear I need to keep lists of everything. I forget even the stuff I liked.

    Veronica Mars – now written down.

  218. cicely says

    Nobody on the selling-of-tee-shirts inquiry?

    Hekuni Cat: *pouncehugback*

    Good lookin’ sleep pillow, Caine; and I’ll bet it smells great, too.

    Walton: You are 4 years younger than Son.
    :)

    Portia! *hug*

    I feel like I need to find a way be polite and firm and to deflect his ways of being demeaning without seeming defensive or touchy.

    After the intro, smile politely and shake hands, while saying, “But that’s just my Secret Identity. Actually, I’m really (Name), Attorney At Law” and strike a heroic pose?

    Look at what Patricia made for DarkFetus!

    Cuteness!

  219. Nutmeg says

    Regulars here will remember that this summer, I managed to survive the marriage of my Mennonite friend to her Catholic fiance-now-husband. I came out to them a few weeks after the wedding, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how supportive my friend has been.

    Her husband is another story. He’s not blatantly homophobic, but he seems to think that because he accepts his gay uncle, nothing he says or does could be homophobic. The last two times I’ve seen him, he has said that same-sex partners will naturally take on “male” and “female” roles, because Modern Family. Yes, that is his argument.

    I’m working on a subtle campaign to educate him, and hopefully I’ll see improvement over time. If not, my methods will get less subtle. (Thank you, Horde, for teaching me these methods, subtle and un-subtle.) In the meantime, though, I decided to download a few episodes of Modern Family so I could see the full extent of his brilliant argument for myself.

    Umm, maybe I’m not the most skilled at interpreting things, so I could be wrong here. But it seems pretty blatantly obvious to me that the gay couple in the show is so stereotyped that they are making fun of the stereotypes. Unless a great deal more nuance is introduced as the show progresses, I don’t see how anyone can fail to perceive that this is not meant as a realistic portrayal.

    We had a creationist a while back who made some kind of argument from Star Trek, right? I listen to my friend’s husband’s argument from Modern Family, and I can’t help but think of that. I am bemused.

  220. says

    Nutmeg:

    I don’t see how anyone can fail to perceive that this is not meant as a realistic portrayal.

    Friend’s husband deserves a big, fat, sarcastic DUH. It’s a television show, ffs. Such shows always pander to the lowest denominator. So, there he is, proud of his inability to think.